not unknown to your Majesty how restless the Endeavours and how bold the Attempts of the Popish Party for many years last past have been not only within this but other your Majesties Kingdoms to introduce the Romish and utterly to extirpate the true Protestant Religion The several Approaches they have made towards the compassing this their Design assisted by the Treachery of perfidious Protestants have been so strangely successful that 't is matter of Admiration to Us and which we can only ascribe to an Over-ruling Providence that your Majesties Reign is still continued over Us and that We are yet assembled to consult the means of our preservation This bloody and restless Party not content with the great Liberty they had a long time enjoyed to excercise their own Religion privately amongst themselves to pertake of an equal Freedom of their persons and Estates with your Majesties Protestant Subjects and of an Advantage above them in being excused from chargeable Offices and Employments hath so far prevailed as to find countenance for an open and avowed practice of their Superstition and Idolatry without controul in several parts of this Kingdom Great swarms of Priests and Jesuits have resorted hither and have here exercised their Jurisdiction and been daily tampering to pervert the Consciences of your Majesties Subjects Their Opposers they have found means to disgrace and if they were Judges Justices of the Peace or other Magistrates to have them turned out of Commission and in contempt of the known Laws of the Land they have practised upon people of all Ranks and qualities and gained over divers to their Religion some openly to profess it others secretly to espouse it as most conduced to the service thereof After some time they became able to influence matters of State and Government and thereby to destroy those they cannot corrupt The continuance or Prorogation of Parliaments has been accommodated to serve the purposes of that Party Money raised upon the People to supply your Majesties extraordinary Occasions was by the prevalence of Popish Councils imployed to make War upon a Protestant State and to advance and augment the dreadful Power of the French King though to the apparent hazard of this and all other Protestant Countries Great numbers of your Majesties Subjects were sent into and continued in the service of that King notwithstanding the apparent Interest of your Majesties Kingdoms the Addresses of the Parliament and your Majesties gracious Proclamations to the contrary Nor can We forbear to mention how that at the beginning of the same War even the Ministers of England were made Instruments to press upon that State the acceptance of one demand among others from the French King for procuring their peace with him that they should admit the publick exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion in the United Provinces the Churches there to be divided and the Romish Priests maintained out of the publick Revenue At home if Your Majesty did at any time by the Advice of Your Privy-Council or of Your two Houses of Parliament Command the Laws to be put in Execution against Papists even from thence they gained advantage to their Party while the edge of those Laws was turned against Protestant Dissenters and the Papists escaped in a manner untoucht The Act of Parliament enjoining a Test to be taken by all Persons admitted into any Publick Office and intended for a security against Papists coming into Employment had so little effect that either by Dispensations obtained from Rome they submitted to those Tests and held their Offices themselves or those put in their places were so favourable to the same Interests that Popery it self has rather gained than lost ground since that Act. But that their business in hand might yet more speedily and strongly proceed at length a Popish Secretary since Executed for his Treasons takes upon him to set afoot and maintain correspondencies at Rome particularly with a Native Subject of Your Majesties promoted to be a Cardinal and in the Courts of other Forreign Princes to use their own form of Speech for the subduing that Pestilent Heresie which has so long domineered over this Northern World that is to root the Protestant religion out of England and thereby to make way the more easily to do the same in other Protestant Countries Towards the doing this great Work as Mr. Coleman was pleased to call it Jesuits the most dangerous of all Popish Orders to the Lives and Estates of Princes were distributed to their several Precincts within this Kingdom and held joint Councils with those of the same Order in all Neighbour Popish Countries Out of these Councils and Correspondencies was hatcht that damnable and hellish Plot by the good Providence of Almighty God brought to light above two Years since but still threatning us wherein the Traitors impatient of longer delay reckoning the prolonging of Your Sacred Majesties Life which God long Preserve as the Great Obstacle in the way to the Consummation of their hopes and having in their prospect a Proselyted Prince immediately to succeed in the Throne of these Kingdoms resolved to begin their Work with the Assassination of Your Majesty to carry it on with Armed Force to destroy Your Protestant Subjects in England to Execute a second Massacre in Ireland and so with ease to arrive at the suppression of our Religion and the subversion of the Government When this Accursed Conspiracy began to be discovered they began the smothering it with the Barbarous Murther of a Justice of the Peace within one of Your Majesties own Palaces who had taken some Examinations concerning it Amidst these distractions and fears Popish Officers for the Command of Forces were allowed upon the Musters by special Orders surreptitionsly obtained from Your Majesty but Counter-Signed by a Secretary of State without ever passing under the Tests prescribed by the aforementioned Act of Parliament In like manner above fifty new Commissions were granted about the same time to known Papists besides a great number of desperate Popish Officers though out of Command yet entertain'd at half pay When in the next Parliament the House of Commons were prepared to bring to a legal Tryal the principal Conspirators in this Plot that Parliament was first Prorogued and then Dissolved The Interval between the Calling and Sitting of this Parliament was so long that now they conceive Hopes of covering all their past Crimes and gaining a seasonable time and advantages of practising them more effectually Witnesses are attempted to be corrupted and not only promises of Reward but of the Favour of your Majesty's Brother made the Motives to their Compliance Divers of the most considerable of your Majesty's Protestant Subjects have Crimes of the highest nature forged against them the Charge to be supported by Subornation and Perjury that they may be destroyed by Forms of Law and Justice A Presentment being prepared for a Grand Jury of Middlesex against your Majesty's said Brother the Duke of York under whose Countenance all the
unlawful manner among others Henry Carr George Broome Edw. Berry Benj. Harris Francis Smith Sen. Francis Smith Jun. and Jane Curtis Citizens of London Which Proceedings of the said Sir Will. Scroggs are a high Breach of the Liberty of the Subject destructive to the Fundamental Laws of this Realm contrary to the Petition of Right and other Statutes and do manifestly tend to the introducing of Arbitrary Power VI. That he the said Sir Will. Scroggs in further Oppression of his Majesty's Liege People hath since his being made Chief Justice of the said Court of Kings Bench in an Arbitrary manner granted divers general Warrants for Attaching the Persons and Seizing the Goods of his Majesty's Subjects not named or described particularly in the said Warrants By means whereof many of his Majesty's Subjects have been vexed their Houses entered into and they themselves grievously oppressed contrary to Law VII Whereas there hath been a Horrid and Damnable Plot contrived and carried on by the Papists for the Murthering the King the Subversion of the Laws and Government of this Kingdom and for the Destruction of the Protestant Religion in the same All which the said Sir William Scroggs well knew having himself not only Tried but given Judgment against several of the Offenders nevertheless the said Sir Will. Scroggs did at divers times and places as well sitting in Court as otherwise openly Defame and Scandalize several of the Witnesses who had proved the said Treasons against divers of the Conspirators and had given Evidence against divers other Persons who were then untried and did endeavour to disparage their Evidence and take off their Credit whereby as much as in him lay he did traiterously and wickedly suppress and stifle the Discovery of the said Popish Plot and Encourage the Conspirators to proceed in the same to the great and apparent Danger of his Majesty's Sacred Life and of the well-established Government and Religion of this Realm of England VIII Whereas the said Sir William Scroggs being advanced to be Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench ought by a sober grave and vertuous Conversation to have given a good Example to the King's Liege People and to demean himself answerable to the Dignity of so Eminent a Station yet he the said Sir William Scroggs on the contrary by his frequent and notorious Excesses and Debaucheries and his Prophane and Atheistical Discourses doth daily affront Almighty God dishonour his Majesty give countenance and incouragement to all manner of Vice and Wickedness and bring the highest scandal on the publick Justice of the Kingdom All which Words Opinions and Actions of the said Sir William Scroggs were by him spoken and done traiterously wickedly falsly and maliciously to alienate the Hearts of the King's Subjects from his Majesty and to set a Division between him and them and to subvert the Fundamental Laws and the Establisht Religion and Government of this Kingdom and to Introduce Popery and an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government and contrary to his own knowledge and the known Laws of the Realm of England and thereby he the said Sir William Scroggs hath not only broken his own Oath but also as far as in him lay hath broken the King Oath to his People whereof he the said Sir William Scroggs representing his Majesty in so high an Office of Justice had the Custody for which the said Commons do Impeach him the said Sir William Scroggs of the High-Treason against our Sovereign Lord the King and his Crown and Dignity and other the High Crimes and Misdemeanours aforesaid And the said Commons by Protestation saving to themselves the Liberty of Exhibiting at any time hereafter any other Accusation or Impeachment against the said Sir William Scroggs and also of Replying to the Answer that he shall make thereunto and of Offering proofs of the Premises or of any other Impeachments or Accusations that shall be by them exhibited against him as the Case shall according to the Course of Parliament require Do pray that the said Sir Will. Scroggs Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench may be put to Answer to all and every the Premises and may be committed to safe Custody and that such Proceedings Examinations Tryals and Judgments may be upon him had and used as is agreeable to Law and Justice and the Course of Parliaments Resolved That the said Sir William Scroggs be Impeached upon the said Articles The Humble Petition of the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common-Council Assembled on the Thirteenth of January 1680. To the King 's most Excellent Majesty for the Sitting of this present Parliament Prorogu'd to the Twentieth Instant Together with the Resolutions Orders and Debates of the said Court Commune Concil ' tent ' in Camera Guildhall Civitatis London Die Jovis decimo tertio die Januarii Anno Domini 1680. Annoque Regni Domini nostri Carol ' Secundi nunc Regis Angl ' c. Tricesimo secundo coram Patient ' Ward Mil ' Major ' Civitatis London Thoma Aleyn Mil ' Bar ' Johanne Frederick Mil ' Johanne Lawrence Mil ' Georgio Waterman Mil ' Josepho Sheldon Mil ' Jacobo Edwards Mil ' Roberto Clayton Mil ' Aldermannis Georgio Treby Ar ' Recordatore dictae Civit ' Johanne Moore Mil ' Willielmo Pritchard Mil ' Henrico Tulse Mil ' Jacobo Smith Mil ' Roberto Jeffery Mil Johanne Shorter Mil ' Thoma Gould Mil ' Willielmo Rawsterne Mil ' Thoma Beckford Mil ' Johanne Chapman Mil ' Simone Lewis Mil ' Thoma Pilkington Ar ' Ald'ris Henrico Cornish Ar ' Ald'ro ac unum vicecom ' dictae Civitatis necnon Major ' parte Comminarior ' dictae Civitatis in Communi Concil ' tunc ibidem Assemblat ' THis Day the Members that serve for this City in Parliament having communicated unto this Court a Vote or Resolution of the Honourable House of Commons whereby that House was pleased to give Thanks unto this City for their manifest Loyalty to the King their Care Charge and Vigilance for the Preservation of his Majesty's Person and of the Protestant Religion This Court is greatly sensible of the Honour thereby given to this City and do declare That it is the fixt and uniform Resolution of this City to persevere in what they have done and to contribute their utmost Assistance for the Defence of the Protestant Religion His Majesty's Person and the Government Established It was now unanimously Agreed and Ordered by this Court That the Thanks of this Court be given to the Members that serve for this City in Parliament for their good Service done this City and their Faithfulness in discharging their Duties in that Honourable and great Assembly Upon a Petition now Presented by divers Citizens and Inhabitants of this City representing their Fears from the Designs of the Papists and their Adherents and praying this Court to acquaint his Majesty therewith and to desire That the Parliament may sit from the Day
to which it stands Prorogued until they have sufficiently provided against Popery and Arbitrary Power This Court after some Debate and Consideration had thereupon did return the Petitioners Thanks for their Care and good Intention herein And did thereupon nominate and appoint Sir John Lawrence Sir Robert Clayton Knights and Aldermen Mr. Recorder Sir Thomas Player Kt. Mr. John Du Bois John Ellis Esq and Mr. Michael Godfrey Commoners to withdraw and immediately to prepare a Petition to his Majesty upon the Subject matter of the said Petition who accordingly withdrawing after some time returned again to this Court and then presented the Draught of such a Petition to his Majesty The Tenor whereof followeth Viz. To the King 's most Excellent Majesty c. After reading whereof It is agreed and ordered by this Court Nemine Contradicente That the said Petition shall be presented to his Majesty this Evening or as soon as conveniently may be And the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor is desired to present the same accompanied with Sir John Lawrence Sir Joseph Sheldon Sir James Edwards Knights and Aldermen Mr. Recorder Deputy Hawes Deputy Daâ—â—l John Nichols John Ellis Esquires Mr. Godfrey and Capt. Griffith Commoners who are now nominated and appointed to attend upon his Lordship at the Presenting thereof Ward Mayor Commune Concil ' tent ' 13 Januarii 1680. Annoque Regis Car. II. 32. IT is Agreed and Ordered by this Court Nemine Contradicente That the Humble Petition to His Majesty from this Court now read and agreed upon shall be presented to His Majesty this Evening or as soon as conveniently may be And the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor is desired to Present the same accompanied with Sir John Lawrence Sir Joseph Sheldon and Sir James Edwards Knights and Aldermen Mr. Recorder Deputy Hawes Deputy Daniel John Nichols John Ellis Esquires Mr. Godfrey and Capt. Griffith Commoners who are now nominated and appointed to attend upon his Lordship at the Presenting thereof Wagstaffe To the KING 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common-Council Assembled Most Humbly sheweth THat Your Majesty's great Council in Parliament having in their late Session in pursuance of Your Majesty's Direction entred upon a strict and impartial Inquiry into the horrid and execrable Popish Plot which hath been for several years last past and still is carried on for destruction of Your Majesty's Sacred Person and Government and extirpation of the Protestant Religion and the utter Ruine of Your Majesty's Protestant Subjects and having so far proceeded therein as justly to attaint upon full Evidence one of the five Lords impeached for the same and were in further Prosecution of the remaining Four Lords and other Conspirators therein And as well the Lords Spiritual and Temporal as the Commons in Your said Parliament assembled having Declared That they are fully satisfied that there now is and for divers years last past hath been a horrid and Treasonable Plot and Conspiracy contrived and carried on by those of the Pupish Religion in Ireland for Massacring the English and subverting the Protestant Religion and the Ancient established Government of that Kingdom And Your said Commons having Impeached the Earl of Tyrone in order to the bringing him to Justice for the same And having under Examination other Conspirators in the said Irish Plot. And Your said Commons having likewise impeached Sir William Scroggs Chief Justice of Your Majesty's Court of Kings Bench for Treason and other great Crimes and Misdemeanors in endeavouring to subvert the Laws of this Kingdom by his Arbitrary and Illegal proceedings And having voted Impeachments against several other Judges for the like Misdemeanors Your Petitioners considering the continual Hazards to which Your Sacred Life and the Protestant Religion and the Peace of this Kingdom are exposed while the Hopes of a Popish Successor gives Countenance and Encouragement to the Conspiratours in their wicked Designs And considering also the Disquiet and Dreadful Apprehensions of Your good Subjects by reason of the Miseries and Mischiefs which threaten them on all parts as well from Foreign Powers as from the Conspiracies within Your several Kingdoms against which no sufficient Remedy can be provided but by Your Majesty and Your Parliament were extreamly surprized at the late Prorogation whereby the Prosecution of the Publick Justice of the Kingdom and the making the Provisions necessary for the Preservation of Your Majesty and Your Protestant Subjects hath received an interruption And they are the more affected herewith by reason of the Experience they have had of the great Progress which the emboldned Conspirators have formerly made in their Designs during the late frequent Recesses of Parliament But that which supports them against Dispair is the Hopes they derive from Your Majesty's Goodness That Your Intention was and does continue by this Prorogation to make way for Your better Concurrence with the Counsels of Your Parliament And Your Petitioners humbly hope That Your Majesty will not take Offence that your Subjects are thus Zealous and even impatient of the least Delay of the long hoped for Security whilst they see your precious Life invaded the true Religion undermined their Families and innocent Posterity likely to be subjected to Blood Confusion and Ruine and all these Dangers encreased by reason of the late Endeavours of Your Majesty and Your Parliament which have added Provocation to the Conspirators but have had little or no Effect towards securing against them And they trust Your Majesty will graciously accept this Discovery and Desire of their Loyal Hearts to preserve Your Majesty and whatever else is dear to them and to strengthen Your Majesty against all Popish and Pernicious Counsels which any ill affected Persons may persume to offer They do therefore most humbly Pray That Your Majesty will be graciously pleased as the only means to quiet the Minds and extinguish the Fears of Your Protestant People and prevent the imminent Dangers which threaten Your Majesty's Kingdoms and particularly this Your Great City which hath already so deeply suffered for the same to permit Your said Parliament to Sit from the Day to which they are Prorogued untill by their Counsels and Endeavours those good Remedies shall be provided and those just Ends attained upon which the Safety of Your Majesty's Person the preservation of the Protestant Religion the Peace and Settlement of Your Kingdoms and the Welfare of this Your Ancient City do so absolutely depend For the pursuing and obtaining of which good Effects Your Petitioners unanimously do offer their Lives and Estates And shall ever Pray c. Vox Patriae Or the Resentments and Indignation of the Free-born Subjects of England against Popery Arbitrary Government the Duke of York or any Popish Successor being a true Collection of the Petitions and Addresses lately made from divers Counties Cities and Boroughs of this Realm to their respective Representatives chosen to serve in the Parliament
Zeal for the Protestant Religion of your Loyalty to his Majesty's Person and Government and of your faithful Endeavours for the Preservation of the Laws our Rights and Properties we now return you our most hearty Thanks and have unanimously chosen you to represent this County at the Parliament to be holden at Oxford the 21st of March next And though we have not the least distrust of your Wisdom to understand or of your Integrity and Resolution to maintain and promote our common Interests now in so great hazard yet we think it meet at this time of imminent Danger to the King and Kingdom to recommend some things to your Care And particularly we do desire 1. That as hitherto you have so you will vigorously prosecute the Execrable Popish Plot now more fully discovered and proved by the Trial of William late Viscount Stafford 2. That you will promote a Bill for excluding James D. of York and all Popish Successors from the Imperial Crown of this Realm as that which under God may probably be a present and effectual means for the preservation of his Majesty's Life which God preserve the Protestant Religion and the well-established Government of this Kingdom 3. That you will endeavour the frequent meetings of Parliaments and their sitting so long as it shall be requisite for the dispatch of those great Affairs for which they are convened as that which is our only Bulwark against Arbitrary Power 4. That you will endeavour an happy and necessary Union amongst all his Majesty's Protestant Subjects by promoting those several good Bills which were to that end before the last Parliament And that till these things be obtained which we conceive necessary even to the Being of this Nation you will not consent to bring any Charge upon our Estates And we do assure you that we will stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes in Prosecution of the good ends before recited The Address of the Town of Hertford February 21. 1680 1. To the Right Worshipful Sir William Cooper Baronet and Sir Thomas Byde Knight WE the Free-men and Inhabitants of the Burrough of Hertford in the County of Hertford having unanimously Chosen You our Representatives to Sit in the next ensuing Parliament to be holden at Oxford the 21st of March next cannot but with all Thankfulness acknowledge your most faithful Endeavours and unwearied Pains in serving us in the last Parliament searching into and discovering the late damnable Hellish Popish Plot The preservation of His Majesty's Person the Protestant Religion and the well established Government of the Realm To secure the Meeting and Sitting of frequent Parliaments to assert our undoubted Right of Petitioning and to punish such who would have betrayed those Rights To promote a happy Union amongst all His Majesty's Protestant Subjects to Repeal the Act of the 35th of Queen Elizabeth and the Corporation Act and particularly for what Progress hath been made in the Bill of Exclusion of all Popish Successors the principal Cause of all the Miseries and Ruine impending these Kingdoms in general beseeching You as now our Representatives to prosecute the same good Ends and Purposes until the Nation shall be throughly secured against Popery and Arbitrary Power both in Church and State And further in imitation of the ever Renowned City of London We Request You in our behalf to present our humble Acknowledgements to the Right Honorable the Earl of Essex and by him to all the rest of those Right Honorable Peers for their late Excellent Petition and Advice to His Majesty and for all the rest of all their Faithfull Services and Endeavours they have performed for the Protestant Interest of the Nation The Address of the Gentry and Free-holders of the County of Essex To Sir Henry Mildmay and John Lemot Honeywood Esquire Unanimously Re elected Knights for the Shire Feb. 22. 1680 1. Gentlemen THe Faithful Discharge of that Trust we formerly gave You is the true Inducement of our Chusing You again to be our Representatives being abundantly satisfied not only in Your Care and Prudence in General but also in Your Particular Care and Unwearied Diligence in Your Conscientious Endeavours to secure His Majesty's Royal Person the Protestant Religion and Government of the Realm To Unite all His Majesty's Protestant Subjects To Repeal the Act of the 35th of Elizabeth To Assert our just and ancient Rights and Priviledges and particularly that of Petitioning and to punish those who were studious to betray them For Your two excellent Addresses and Publishing Your Votes Endeavouring to secure the Meeting and Sitting of Frequent Parliaments To destroy and root out Popery by securing us against all Popish Successors and particularly by passing a Bill against James Duke of York without which we are highly sensible that all other means will be ineffectual and the Peace and Safety of the Kingdom and government it self left in great danger it being inconsistent with our Oath by which we swear against the Pope's Supremacy whil'st a Popish King himself owns it and it being against the Essence of Government that People should obey him who by his Principles as a Papist is bound to destroy them And as we do heartily thank You for Your past worthy Behaviour herein so we have chosen You to Act on our behalf in the next Parliament to be holden at Oxford in full trust and considence that with Courage and Integrity You will persevere in the same good Endeavours pursuing all things that shall be found for our Publick Good and Safety And in full Assurance that You will not consent to the disposal of any of our Moneys till we are effectually secured against Popery and Arbitrary Power And untill the Fleet and Garisons are settled in the hands of such as are Persons of known Loyalty and Fidelity to the King and Kingdom and true Zeal and Affection for the Protestant Religion and we do resolve by Divine Assistance to stand by You therein with our Lives and Fortunes 'T is observable That this Address being openly read to their Representatives and confirm'd by the Unanimous and loud Acclamations of the Free-holders for further demonstration that it was the Sense of each individual person of that Numerous Assembly it was offered that so many as agreed to it should say Ay upon which they all cried out Ay Ay. And if any were otherwise minded they were desired to express their Dissent by saying No At which there was Altum Silentium not one to be heard saying No. The Address of the Gentry and other Free-holders of the County of Surrey being in number about 2000 Feb. 23. 1680 1. To Arthur Onslow and George Evelin Esquires elected Knights for this County in the ensuing Parliament whose Session is appointed at Oxon the 21st of the following Month. WE the Free-holders of the County of Surrey having in the two former Parliaments chosen you to be our Representatives and being fully satisfied in your Faithfullness and Care to preserve the Protestant Religion
presented them upon their being elected Knights for the County at Lewis March the 3d. Gentlemen HAd we not heard well of Your Fidelity in discharging former Publick Trusts we had not this day called You to the same Imploy for they that betray or neglect our service once shall never receive our Trust again And though we have no intention to limit or circumscribe the Power we have laid in You yet we must desire and with that earnestness as becometh those that beg for no less than the life of their King Government Religion Laws Liberties and Properties yea the very Lives and beings of all the Protestants in the World That You would please as our Representatives to have an especial regard to these particulars following 1. That you would effectually secure His Majesty's Royal Life and the Lives of all His Majesty's Protestant Subjects by a firm and Legal Association 2. That You would repeat the Endeavours of the Two former Worthy Parliaments in barring the Door against all Popish Successors to the Crown and in particular against James Duke of York and Arbitrary Government 3. That You would be incessant in Your Endeavours for uniting His Majesty's Protestant Subjects 4. That You would further search into the bottom of those Damnable and Hellish Plots of the Papists that have been laid against His Majesty's Life the Protestant Religion and Government and to bring those Horrid Criminals to Justice 5. That You would not forget those Execrable Villains that by receiving Pension betrayed our Trusts and our Liberties in the late Long Parliament but do such Exemplary Justice on them that all others for the future may fear and do no more so wickedly And in doing these Great things and all others that You shall judge necessary for the Peace Safety and Prosperity of the Nation we shall not only stand by you as Thankful Acknowledgers of Your Service but reckon it our Duty if any hazard threaten you to defend You as Worthy Patriots with our Lives and Fortunes The Cheshire Address To the Honourable Henry Booth Esq and Sir Robert Cotton Kt. and Bar. being chosen Knights for that County March the 7th Immediately after their Election the Right Honourable the Lord Colchester and the Lord Brandon presented then a Paper containing the Sentiments and Desires of the Gentry and Free-holders in these words WE the Gentry and Free-holders of the County Palatine of Chester who have by a free and unanimous Consent Re-elected You to be our Representatives in Parliament do thankfully acknowledge Your joynt Integrity and concurrence with the Worthy and Eminent Members of the Last who in so Signal and never to be forgotten a manner of Petitioning promoted the Union Support and Growth of the True Protestant Religion Established by Law And the only Expedient we think to perpetuate these to our Posterity is to adhere to what the late Parliament designed relating to the Duke of York and all Popish Successors to provide for the Defence and Safety of His Majesty's Person vigorously to pursue the Discovery of the horrid Popish Plot and to punish all Sham-plotters whom we esteem the worst of Villains without which His Majesty can neither be easie nor secure These with those great and Excellent things then under their Considerations make us confident of Your Sincerity and Proceedings which that they may be successful is our prayer and will be the support of all those who wish the happiness of His Majesty and these distressed Kingdoms We likewise desire the Votes may continue to be Printed that till the effects of your endeavours on which depends the happiness both of Church and State are accomplished we may be truly acquainted with your proceedings The Northamptonshire Address March the 8th To John Parkhurst and Miles Fleetwood Esquires then elected Knights for that County Gentlemen THat we are extreamly satisfied of Your faithful and honest discharge of the great Trust reposed in You by this County of Northampton in the last Parliament is most evident by our Hearty Thanks we now return You and by our Unanimous Electing of You again to serve for us in the next Parliament to be holden at Oxford Gentlemen We find by Experience you so well judge of the sense of our Countrey that we need not tender You our Thoughts in many Particulars Only as the Preservation of His Majesty's Sacred Person the Protestant Religion and our Properties are of the greatest Concern and most dear unto us So more especially we recommend them unto you desiring You to use Your utmost Endeavours 1. That there may be a more full and perfect Discovery of that most Hellish Popish Plot and all other Sham-Plots 2. That we may be secured against a Popish Successor 3. That there may be found means of Uniting His Majesty's Protestant Subjects against the Common Enemy Gentlemen In pursuance of these good Ends and such others as You shall think conducing to the happiness of the King and Kingdom We shall stand by You with our Lives and Fortunes The Address of the Town of Taunton March 11th To Edmund Prideaux and John Trenchard Esquires Worthy Sirs WE do most Heartily acknowledge Your great Wisdom Courage and Faithfulness in the Discharge of the Trust by Us Reposed in You as Members of the late Dissolved Parliament whose Worthy Endeavours for the Happiness of the King and Kingdom exceedingly Rejoyced the hearts of True English and Protestant Spirits and will make them Famous to Posterity And now Sirs having a full assurance of Your Perseverance in the same good Works we have persumed again to make Choice of You as Our Representatives in the Ensuing Parliament desiring Your Acceptance of that great Trust And begging You as that wherein the Glory of God the Interest of the Protestant Religion the Safety and Welfare of the King and Kingdom is highly concerned to Prosecute as shall be Guided by the Wisdom of that Honourable House these following Particulars viz. 1. That some effectual course may be taken for the Safety of His Majesty's Sacred Person and Government which have been and still are in extreme danger by the abominable Plots and Atempts of Papists 2. That further Search be made into the Horrid Popish Plot and the Plotters and Abettors thereof brought to condign Punishment 3. That You will joyn with the rest of that Honourable House whereof You are now Chosen to be Members in repeating the Endeavours of the Two last Worthy Parliaments to bar all Papists and especially James Duke of York from the exercise of the Royal Authority of this Kingdom 4. That You will with all diligence endeavour the Uniting of His Majesty's Protestant Subjects and the Repealing those severe Laws that are obstructive thereof 5. That all good Endeavours be used for the securing of our Religion and Property and the just Rights and Priviledges of the Subject 6. That some Law may be made for the preventing of the Excesses and Exorbitances in the Elections of Members of Parliament and of undue
upon the King and the Government For the writing an answer is no allowance but a condemning Nor can the Council allow any more than they can remit And tho it may justly be denied that the Council heard even the Earls own Explanation yet the hearing or allowing him to sit is no Relevant Plea because they might very justly have taken a time to consider how far it was fit to accuse upon that Head And it is both just and fit for the Council to take time and by express Act of Parliament the negligence of the King Officers does not bind them For if this were allowed Leading men in the Council might commit what Crimes they pleased in the Council which certainly the King may quarrel many years after And tho all the Council had allowed him that day any one Officer of State might have quarrelled it the next day As to the Opinion of Bellarmine Sanderson and others it is ever contended that the principles of the Covenant agree very well with those of the Jesuites and both do still allow Equivocations and Evasions But no solid Orthodox Divine ever allowed That a man who was to swear without any Evasion should swear so as he is bound to nothing as it is contended the Earl is not for the Reasons represented And as they still recommend That when men are not clear they might abstain as the Earl might have done in this case so they still conclude That men should tell in clear terms what the sense is by which they are to be bound to the State Whereas the Earl here tells only in the general and in most ambigious terms That he takes it as far as he can obey and as far as it is consistent with the Protestant Religion and that he takes it in his own sense and that he is not bound by it from making alterations but as far as he thinks it for the advantage of Church or State which sense is a thousand times more doubtful than the Test and is in effect nothing but what the taker pleases himself As to the Treason founded on His Majesties Advocate founds it first upon the Fundamental and Common Laws of this and all Nations whereby it is Treason for any man to make any alteration he shall think for the advantage of Church or State which he hopes is a principle cannot be denied in the general And whereas it is pretended That this cannot be understood of mean alterations and of alterations to be made in a lawful way It is answered That as the thing it self is Treason so this Treason is not taken off by any of these qualifications because he declares he will wish and endeavour any alteration he thinks fit and any alteration comprehends all alterations that he thinks fit Nam propositio indefinita aequipollet universali And the word any is general in its own nature and is in plain terms a reserving to himself to make alterations both great and small And the restriction is not all alterations that the King shall think fit or are consistent with the Laws and Acts of Parliament but he is still to be Judge of this and his Loyalty is to be the Standard Nor did the Covenanters in the last Age nor do these who are daily executed decline that they are bound to obey the King simply but only that they are bound to obey him no otherwise than as far as his Commands are consistent with the Law of God of Nature and of this Kingdom and with the Covenant And their Treason lies in this And when it is asked them Who shall be judge in this they still make themselves Judges And the reason of all Treason being that the Government is not secure it is desired to be known what way the Government can be secured after this paper since the Earl is still Judge how far he is obliged and what is his Loyalty And if this had been sufficient the Covenant had been a very excellent paper for they are there bound to endeavour in their several stations to defend the Kings person but when the King challenged them how they came to make War against him their great Refuge was That they were themselves still Judges as to that And for illustrating this power the Lords of Justitiary are desired to consider Quid Juris if the Earl or any man else should have reserved to himself in this Oath a liberty to rise in Arms or to oppose the lineal Succession tho he had added In a lawful manner for the thing being in it self unlawful this is but sham and Protestatio contraria facto And if these be unlawful notwithstanding of such additions so much more must this general reservation of making any alterations likewise be unlawful notwithstanding of these additions For he that reserves the general power of making any alteration does a fortiori reserve power to make any alteration tho never so fundamental For all particulars are included in the General and whatever may be said against the particulars may much more strongly be said against the general 2. The 130. Act Par. 8. James VI is expressly founded on because nothing can be a greater diminution of the power of the Parliament than to introduce a way or means whereby all their Acts and Oaths shall be made insignificant and ineffectual as this paper does make them for the Reasons represented Nor are any of the Estates of Parliament secure at this rate but that they who reserved a general power to make all alterations may under that â—eneral come to alter any of them 3. What can be a greater impugning of the Dignity and Authority of Parliaments than to say That the Parliament has made Acts for the security of the Kingdom which are in themselves ridiculous inconsistent with themselves and the Protestant Religion And as to what is answered against invading the Kings Prerogative and the Legislative power in Parliaments in adding a part to an Oath or Act is not relevantly inferred since the sense of these words And this I understand as a part of my Oath is not to be understood as if any thing were to be added to the Law but â—â—ly to the Oath and to be an interpretation of the Oath It is replied That after this no man needs to add a Caution to the Oath in Parliament But when he comes to take the Oath do the Parliament what they please he will add his own part Nor can this part be looked upon as a sense for if this were the sense before this paper he needed not understand it as a part of it for it wanted not that part And in general as every man may add his own part so the King can be secure of no part But your Lordships of Justitiary are desired to consider how dangerous it would be in this Kingdom and how ill it would sound in any other Kingdom That men should be allowed to reserve to themselves liberty to make any alteration they thought fit in Church or
Good and Faithful Subjects to Us and our Royal Predecessors by hazarding and many of them actually losing their Lives and Fortunes in their Defence though of another Religion and the Maintenance of their Authority against the Violences and Treasons of the most violent Abettors of these Laws Do therefore with Advice and Consent of Our Privy Council by Our Soveraign Authority Prerogative Royal and Absolute Power aforesaid Suspend Stop and disable all Laws or Acts of Parliament Customs or Constitutions made or executed against any of our Roman Catholick Subjects in any time past to all intents and purposes making void all Prohibitions therein mentioned pains or penalties therein ordain'd to be Inflicted so that they shall in all things be as free in all Respects whatsoever not only to Exercise their Religion but to enjoy all Offices Benefices and others which We shall think fit to bestow upon them in all time coming Nevertheless it is our Will and Pleasure and we do hereby command all Catholicks at their highest Pains only to Exercise their Religious Worship in Houses or Chappels and that they presume not to Preach in the open Fields or to invade the Protestant Churches by force under the pains aforesaid to be inflicted upon the Offenders respectively nor shall they presume to make Publick Processions in the High-Streets of any of Our Royal Burghs under the Pains above mentioned And whereas the Obedience and Service of our good Subjects is due to Us by their Allegiance and Our Soveraignty and that no Law Custom or Constitution Difference in Religion or other Impediment whatsoever can exempt or discharge the Subjects from their Native Obligations and Duty to the Crown or hinder us from Protecting and Employing them according to their several Capacities and Our Royal Pleasure nor Restrain Us from Conferring Heretable Rights and Priviledges upon them or vacate or annul these Rights Heretable when they are made or conferred And likewise considering that some Oaths are capable of being wrested by men of sinistrous Intentions a practice in that Kingdom fatal to Religion as it was to Loyalty Do therefore with Advice and Consent aforesaid Cass Annul and Discharge all Oaths whatsoever by which any of Our Subjects are incapacitated or disabled from holding Places or Offices in our said Kingdom or enjoy their Hereditary Right and Priviledges discharging the same to be taken or given in any time coming without Our special Warrant and Consent under the pains due to the Contempt of Our Royal Commands and Authority And to this effect We do by Our Royal Authority aforesaid Stop Disable and Dispense with all Laws enjoyning the said Oaths Tests or any of them particularly the first Act of the first Session of the first Parliament of King Charles the Second the Eleventh Act of the foresaid Session of the foresaid Parliament the sixth Act of the third Parliament of the said King Charles the twenty first and twenty fifth Acts of that Parliament and the thirteenth Act of the first Session of * Our late Parliament in so far allanerly as concerns the taking the Oaths or Tests therein prescrib'd and all others as well not mentioned as mentioned and that in place of them all our good Subjects or such of them as We or our Privy Council shall require so to do shall take and swear the following Oath allanerly I A. B. do acknowledge testifie and declare that JAMES the Seventh by the Grace of God King of Scotland England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. is rightful King and Supream Governour of these Realms and over all persons therein and that it is unlawful for Subjects on any pretence or for any cause whatsoever to rise in Arms against Him or any Commissionated by Him and that I shall never so rise in Arms nor assist any who shall so do and that I shall never resist His Power or Authority nor ever oppose His Authority to His Person as I shall answer to God but shall to the utmost of my power Assist Defend and Maintain Him His Heirs and Lawful Successors in the Exercise of their Absolute Power and Authority against all Deadly So help me God And seeing many of Our good Subjects have before Our pleasure in these Matters was made publick incurred the Guilt appointed by the Acts of Parliament above-mentioned or others We by Our Authority and Absolute Power and Prerogative Royal above-mentioned of Our certain Knowledge and innate Mercy give Our ample and full Indemnity to all those of the Roman Catholick or Popish Religion for all things by them done contrary to Our Laws or Acts of Parliament made in any time past relating to their Religion the Worship and Exercise thereof or for being Papists Jesuits or Traffickers for hearing or saying of Mass concealing of Priests or Jesuits breeding their Children Catholicks at home or abroad or any other thing Rite or Doctrine said performed or maintained by them or any of them And likewise for holding or taking of Places Employments or Offices contrary to any Law or Constitution Advices given to Us or our Council Actions done or generally any thing perform'd or said against the known Laws of that Our Ancient Kingdom Excepting always from this Our Royal Indemnity all Murthers Assassinations Thefts and such like other Crimes which never used to be comprehended in Our General Acts of Indemnity And We command and require all Our Judges or others concerned to explain this in the most ample Sense and Meaning Acts of Indemnity at any time have contained Declaring this shall be as good to every one concerned as if they had Our Royal Pardon and Remission under Our Great Seal of that Kingdom And likewise indemnifying Our Protestant Subjects from all pains and penalties due for hearing or preaching in Houses providing there be no Treasonable Speeches uttered in the said Conventicles by them in which case the Law is only to take place against the Guilty and none other present providing also that they Reveal to any of Our Council the Guilt so committed As also excepting all Fines or Effects of Sentences already given And likewise Indemnifying fully and freely all Quakers for their Meetings and Worship in all time past preceeding the publication of these presents And we doubt not but Our Protestant Subjects will give their Assistance and Concourse hereunto on all Occasions in their Respective Capacities In consideration whereof and the ease those of Our Religion and others may have hereby and for the Encouragement of Our Protestant Bishops and the Regular Clergy and such as have hitherto lived orderly We think fit to declare that it never was Our Principle nor will We ever suffer Violence to be offered to any Man's Conscience nor will We use Force or Invincible Necessity against any Man on the account of his Perswasion nor the Protestant Religion but will protect Our Bishops and other Minsters in their Functions Rights and Properties and all Our Protestant Subjects in the free Exercise of their
Protestant Religion in the Churches And that We will and hereby promise on Our Royal Word to maintain the possessors of Church Lands formerly belonging to Abbeys or other Churches of the Catholick Religion in their full and free possession and right according to Our Laws and Acts of Parliament in that behalf in all time coming And We will imploy indifferently all our Subjects of all Perswasions so as none shall meet with any Discouragement on the account of his Religion but be advanced and esteemed by Us according to their several Capacities and Qualifications so long as We find Charity and Unity maintained And if any Animosities shall arise as We hope in God there will not We will shew the severest Effects of Our Royal Displeasure against the Beginners or Fomenters thereof seeing thereby Our Subjects may de deprived of this general Ease and Satisfaction We intend to all of them whose Happiness Prosperity Wealth and Safety is so much Our Royal Care that We will leave nothing undone which may procure these Blessings for them And lastly to the End all our good Subjects may have Notice of this Our Royal Will and Pleasure We do hereby command Our Lyon King at Arms and his Brethren Heraulds Macers Pursevants and Messengers at Arms to make timous Proclamation thereof at the Marcat-Cross of Edinburgh And besides the printing and Publishing of this Our Royal Proclamation it is Our express Will and Pleasure that the same be past under the great Seal of that Our Kingdom per saltum * without passing any other Seal or Register In Order whereunto this shall be to the Directors of Our Chancelary and their Deputies for writing the same and to Our Chancellor for causing our Great Seal aforesaid to be appended thereunto a sufficient Warrand Given at Our Court at Whitehall the twelfth day of Febr. 1686. and of Our Reign the Third Year By His Majesties Command MELFORT God save the King His Majesties Gracious DECLARATION to all His Loving Subjects for Liberty of Conscience JAMES R. IT having pleased Almighty God not only to bring Us to the Imperial Crown of these Kingdoms through the greatest difficulties but to preserve Us by a more than ordinary Providence upon the Throne of Our Royal Ancestors there is nothing now that we so earnestly desire as to Establish our Government on such a Foundation as may make Our Subjects happy and unite them to Us by Inclination as well as by Duty Which We think can be done by no Means so effectually as by granting to them the free Exercise of their Religion for the time to come and add that to the perfect Enjoyment of their Property which has never been in any case Invaded by Us since Our coming to the Crown Which being the two things Men value most shall ever be preserved in these Kingdoms during Our Reign over them as the truest Methods of their Peace and Our Glory We cannot but heartily wish as it will easily be believed That all the People of Our Dominions were Members of the Catholick Church yet We humbly thank Almighty God it is and hath of long time been Our constant Sense and Opinion which upon diverse Occasions We have Declared That Conscience ought not to be constrained nor People forced in Matters of meer Religion It has ever been directly contrary to Our Inclination as We think it is to the Interest of Government which it destroys by Spoiling Trade Depopulating Countries and Discouraging Strangers and finally that it never obtained the End for which it was employed And in this We are the more confirmed by the Reflections We have made upon the Conduct of the Four last Reigns For after all the frequent and pressing Endeavours that were used in each of them to reduce this Kingdom to an exact Conformity in Religion it is visible the Success has not answered the Design and that the Difficulty is invincible We therefore out of Our Princely Care and Affection unto all Our Loving Subjects that they may live at Ease and Quiet and for the increase of Trade and encouragement of Strangers have thought fit by virtue of Our Royal Prerogative to Issue forth this Our Royal Declaration of Indulgence making no doubt of the Concurrence of Our Two Houses of Parliament when We shall think it convenient for them to Meet In the first place We do Declare That We will Protect and Maintain Our Arch-Bishops Bishops and Clergy and all other our Subjects of the Church of England in the free Exercise of their Religion as by Law Established and in the quiet and full Enjoyment of all their Possessions without any Molestation or Disturbance whatsoever We do likewise Declare That it is Our Royal Will and Pleasure That from henceforth the Execution of all and all manner of Penal Laws in Matters Ecclesiastical for not coming to Church or not Receiving the Sacrament or for any other Non-conformity to the Religion Established or for or by reason of the Exercise of Religion in any manner whatsoever be immediately Suspended And the further Execution of the said Penal Laws and every of them is hereby Suspended And to the end that by the Liberty hereby Granted the Peace and Security of Our Government in the Practice thereof may not be endangered We have thought fit and do hereby straitly Charge and Command all Our Loving Subjects That as We do freely give them Leave to Meet and Serve God after their own Way and Manner be it in private Houses or Places purposely Hired or Built for that use So that they take especial care that nothing be Preached or Taught amongst them which may any ways tend to Alienate the Hearts of Our people from Us or Our Government and that their Meetings and Assemblies be peaceably openly and publickly held and all Persons freely admitted to them And that they do signifie and make known to some one or more of the next Justices of the Peace what place or places they set apart for those uses And that all Our Subjects may enjoy such their Religious Assemblies with greater Assurance and Protection We have thought it Requisite and do hereby Command That no Disturbance of any kind be made or given unto them under pain of our Displeasure and to be further proceeded against with the uttermost Severity And forasmuch as We are desirous to have the Benefit of the Service of all Our Loving Subjects which by the Law of Nature is inseparably annexed to and inherent in Our Royal Person And that none of Our Subjects may for the future be under any Discouragement or Disability who are otherwise well inclined and fit to serve Us by reason of some Oaths or Tests that have been usually Administred on such Occasions We do hereby further Declare That it is Our Royal Will and Pleasure That the Oaths commonly called The Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and also the several Tests and Declarations mentioned in the Acts of Parliament made in the 25th and 30th Years of
then first of all assure you very positively that their Highnesses have often declared as they did it more particularly to the Marquiss of Albeville His Majesties Envoy Extraordinary to the States that it is Their Opinion That no Christian ought to be persecuted for his conscience or be ill used because he differs from the publick and Established Religion And therefore They can consent that the Papists in England Scotland and Ireland be suffered to continue in their Religion with as much Liberty as is allowed them by the States in these Provinces in which it cannot be denied that they enjoy a full Liberty of conscience And as for the Dissenters Their Highnesses do not only consent but do heartily approve of their having an entire Liberty for the full exercise of their Religion without any trouble or hindrance so that none may be able to give them the least disturbance upon that account And their Highnesses are very ready in case his Majesty shall think fit to desire it to declare their willingness to concur in the setling and confirming this Liberty and as far as it lies in them they will protect and defend it and according to the Language of Treaties They will confirm it with their Guaranty of which you made mention in yours And if his Majesty shall think fit further to desire their concurrence in the repealing of the Penal Laws they are ready to give it provided always that those Laws remain still in their full vigour by which the Roman Catholicks are shut out of both Houses of Parliament and out of all publick Employments Ecclesiastical Civil and Military As likewise all those other Laws which confirm the Protestant Religion and which secures it against all the attempts of the Roman Catholicks But their Highnesses cannot agree to the repeal of the Test or of those other Penal Laws last mentioned that tend to the security of the Protestant Religion since the Roman Catholicks receive no other prejudice from these then the being excluded from Parliaments or from publick Employments And that by them the Protestant Religion is covered from all the Designs of the Roman Catholicks against it or against the publick safety and neither the Test nor these other Laws can be said to carry in them any severity against the Roman Catholicks upon account of their Consciences They are only provisions qualifying men to be Members of Parliament or to be capable of bearing Office by which they must declare before God and Men that they are for the Protestant Religion So that indeed all this amounts to no more than a securing the Protestant Religion from any prejudices that it may receive from the Roman Catholicks Their Highnesses have thought and do still think that more than this ought not to be ask'd or expected from them since by this means the Roman Catholicks and their posterity will be for ever secured from all trouble in their Persons or Estates or in the Exercise of their Religion and that the Roman Catholicks ought to be satisfied with this and not to disquiet the Kingdom because they cannot be admitted to sit in Parliament or to be in Employments or because those Laws in which the Security of the Protestant Religion does chiefly consist are not repealed by which they may be put in a condition to overturn it Their Highnesses do also believe that the Dissenters will be fully satisfied when they shall be for ever covered from all danger of being disturbed or punished for the free Exercise of their Religion upon any sort of pretence whatsoever Their Highnesses having declared themselves so positively in these matters it seems very plain to me that They are far from being any hindrance to the Freeing Dissenters from the Severity of Penal Laws since they are ready to use their utmost endeavours for the Establishing of it Nor do They at all press the denying to the Roman Catholicks the Exercise of their Religion provided it be managed modestly and without Pomp or Ostentation As for my own part I ever was and still am very much against all those who would persecute any Christian because he differs from the publick and established Religion And I hope by the Grace of God to continue still in the same mind for since that Light with which Religion illuminates our minds is according to my sense of things purely an effect of the Mercy of God to us we ought then as I think to render to God all possible Thanks for his Goodness to us and to have pity for those who are still shut up in Error even as God has pitied us and to put up most earnest prayers to God for bringing those into the way of Truth who stray from it and to use all gentle and friendly methods for reducing them to it But I confess I could never comprehend how any that profess themselves Christians and that may enjoy their Religion freely and without any disturbance can judge it lawful for them to go about to disturb the Quiet of any Kingdom or State or to overturn Constitutions that so they themselves may be admitted to Employments and that those Laws in which the Security and Quiet of the established Religion consists should be shaken It is plain that the Reformed Religion is by the Grace of God and by the Laws of the Land enacted both by King and Parliament the publick and established Religion both in England Scotland and Ireland and that it is provided by those Laws that none can be admitted either to a place in Parliament or to any publick Employment except those that do openly declare that they are of the Protestant Religion and not Roman Catholicks and it is also provided by those Laws that the Protestant Religion shall be in all time coming secured from the Designs of the Roman Catholicks against it In all which I do not see that these Laws contain any Severity either against the Persons or Estates of those who cannot take those Tests that are contrary to the Roman Catholick Religion all the inconveniences that can redound to them from thence is that their Persons their Estates and even the Exercise of their Religion being assured to them only they can have no share in the Government nor in Offices of Trust as long as their Consciences do not allow them to take these Tests and they are not suffered to do any thing that is to the prejudice of the Reformed Religion Since as I have already told you Their Highnesses are ready to concur with his Majesty for the Repeal of those Penal Laws by which Men are made liable to fines or other Punishments So I see there remains no difficulty concerning the Repealing the Penal Laws but only this that some would have the Roman Catholicks render'd capable of all publick Trusts and Employments and that by consequence all those should be repealed that have secured the Protestant Religion against the designs of the Roman Catholicks where others at the same time are not less
prove effectual to give them the slenderest ground of confidence of their obtaining a Parliament of that mould and constitution And the second is that all the Members must take the Tests before they can be a Legal Parliament and then there is little probability that they who can make the Declaration required in these Laws will be inclinable to Repeal them especially at a season when their own safety as well as that of the Protestant Religion renders it so necessary to have them maintained Whatsoever any Body of men by what name soever they be called or within what walls soever they assemble shall attempt to do without first having taken the Tests is ipso facto null and void in Law and will serve to no Legal purpose but to make themselves obnoxious to the severest punishments which the Justice of a provoked and betrayed Nation can be able to inflict upon them So that we do not doubt what the King would do for the re-establishing Popery and banishing the Protestant Religion could he get a Parliament to his mind but our hope is that he will not and the better to prevent it we will endeavour to keep our Test Laws But to go on with our Author who with his accustomed ignorance but personating here the wisdom of a Solon or a Lycurgus takes upon him to instruct us that as nothing can be called the fundamental Law of a Kingdom or a Republick but what was enacted at the commencement of that State or Society before any alterations could fall out in it with reference to Religion so nothing deserves the name of such a Law save that which is to the advantage and benefit of all the Subjects It were not amiss here to enquire by what Authority our Author fastens on Mijn Heer Fagel this Term of Fundamental Law in reference to the Tests seeing he never used it in his Letter much less applyed it to such a purpose But falsifying is so natural to this Gentleman that he could not avoid it even when he might have been sensible that he would not escape the being challenged for it There is a Countrey in the world that is said to bear no poysonous animal nor had it need seeing if any number of the Natives be of the mould and frame that some are there are brutal and venemous Creatures enough in it tho there be neither Toad nor Serpent there But may not the Test Laws answer the end they were designed unto of being a Fence about Religion tho they be none of the Fundamental Laws of the Government It is not the name that alone gives value to a Law but the Sanction of the Legislative Authority and the usefulness of it to the publick good A Statute that was occasioned by a necessity arising in reference to the publick Safety ought as much to be stood by and upheld while that necessity continues as if it were an original Law and Coaeval with the Constitution And if it was the indispensable dependance of the Welfare and Safety of the Community upon such and such Provisions at first that gave them the Name of Fundamental Laws I am sure that under our present Circumstances we may call the Test Laws absolutely needful if we assume not the vanity to stile them Fundamental Besides I would fain know of our Author that if all Laws lye exposed to an easie Abrogation that are not coaeval with the Kingdom what will then become of the Magna Charta for Liberty of Conscience which his Majesty not only promiseth but undertakes to make irrepealable And withal may not some Laws be as necessary to the being and preservation of a State under the notion of Protestant as others are to its being and subsistence under the consideration of an embodied and formed Society Every Society is bound to use all necessary means to preserve it self and while it maketh no provisions in order thereunto that derive inconvenience upon others unless it be only to keep them from being able to do hurt it would be a wickedness as well as a folly to neglect them In a word as the making no Laws necessary for the Safety of a people under any knowledge of God they may be grown up into but what were coaeval with their first formation into a Kingdom or Republick were the weakning and undermining the Security of the Christian Religion in all parts of the world where it hath obtained to be embraced and setled so by the same reason that it is lawful to make provisions for the preservation of Christianity in a State professing the Gospel of Jesus Christ it is also lawful to make the like provisions for the Security of the Reformed Religion in these Kingdoms and Common-wealths which have judged it to be their duty to God and their Souls to receive and establish it And for our Author 's saying that no Law deserves to be called Fundamental save that which is to the benefit and advantage of all the Subjects it is wholly impertinent to the case for which it is alledged and does no way's attack or weaken what the Pensionary had said For as the Laws contended for to be maintained were never stiled Fundamental so many thousands may have benefit by a Law whom nevertheless all persons of sense and wisdom will account unfit to be advanced to publick Trusts As no man will judge it unreasonable to require that all who are held capable of publick employments should have some degree of wit and understanding so I think it is very reasonable that they should be qualified with so much honesty as to be well affected to the Government as it is by Law established And to speak properly it is not the Law that makes the Papists uncapable of Offices and Employments it only declares they shall not be admitted because they were incapable before and had made themselves unfit to be trusted partly through their dependance upon a forraign power that is at enmity with the State and seeks to subvert it and partly by reason of that principle which they are possessed with of its being their duty to destroy us whensoever they can And as it 's a great favour vouchsafed by the Government to suffer such to live under it as stand so ill affected to it and want only means to overthrow it so if the Roman Catholicks will not be content with the first without the latter it will be a great temptation upon the Kingdom to deprive them of the Priviledge they have because they would not be content with it unless they might obtain that which the Nation could not grant without being Felo de se and without abandoning the means both of our safety here and Happiness hereafter And whereas our Author takes the confidence to tell us That there are many States and Cities in Germany where without the giving occasion to any disturbance the Government is shared between Papists and Protestants and where both those of the Roman Catholick and Reformed Religion do
Means for preserving themselves 't is become a necessary Duty and an indispensible Service to Mankind to deal plainly and above-board that so by describing Kings as they are and setting them in a true and just Light we may prevent the Peoples being further imposed upon or if through suffering themselves to be still deceived they come to fall under Miseries and Persecutions they may lay all their Distresses and Desolations at the Door of their own Folly in not having taken care how to avoid what they were not only threatned with but whereof they were warned and advertised History of the Times For as I am not of Sir Roger l'Estrange's mind That if we cannot avoid being distrustful of our Safety yet it is extremely Vain foolish and extravagant to talk of it so I am very sensible how many of the French Ministers by painting forth their King more like a God than a Man and by possessing their People with a belief of Wisdom Justice Grace and Mercy in Him of which they knew him destitute they both emboldned Him to attempt what he hath perpetrated and laid them under Snares which they knew not how to disentangle themselves from in order to escape it Nor would the King of England have acted with that neglect of the future Safety of the Papists nor have exposed them to the Resentment and hereafter Revenge of three Nations by the Arbitrary and Illegal Steps he hath made in their Favor if he intended any thing less than the putting Protestants for ever out of Capacity and Condition of calling them to a Reckoning and exacting an Account of them which neither He nor they about him can have the weakness to think they have sufficiently provided against without compelling us by an Order of à la mode France Missionaries to turn Catholicks or by adjudging us to Mines and Galleys according to the Versailles President for our Heretical Stubbornness or which is the more expeditious way of Converting three Kingdoms to cause Murther the Protestant Inhabitants according to the Pattern which his Loyal Irish Catholicks endeavored to have set anno 1641. for the Conversion of that Nation Had his Majesty been contented with the bare avowing and publishing himself to be of the Communion of the Church of Rome and of challenging a Liberty though against Law for the Exercise of his Religion it might have awakened our Pity and Compassion to see him embrace a Religion where there are so many Impediments of Salvation and in doing whereof he was become obnoxious unto the Imprecation of his Grandfather who wished the Curse of God to fall upon such of his Posterity as should at any time turn Papists but it would have raised no intemperate Heats in the Minds of any against him much less have alienated them from the Subjection and Obedience which are due unto their Sovereign by the Laws of the several Kingdoms and the Fundamental Rules of the respective Constitutions Or could He have been contented with waving the rigorous Execution of the Laws against Papists of whatsoever Quality Rank or Order they were and with the bestowing personal and private Favors upon those of his Religion it would have been so far from begetting Rancor or Discontent in his Protestant Subjects that they would not only have connived at and approved such a Procedure and those little Benignities and Kindnesses but had the Papists quietly acquiesced in them and modestly improved them it might have been a means of reconciling the Nation to more Lenity towards them for the future and might have influenced our Legislators when God shall vouchsafe us a Protestant on the Throne to moderate the Severities to which by the Laws in being they are obnoxious and to render their Condition as easie and safe as that of other Subjects and only to take care for precluding them such Places of Power and Trust as should prevent their being able to hurt us but could bring no damage or inconvenience upon themselves But the King instead of terminating here and allowing only such Graces and Immunities to the Papists as would have been enough for the placing them in the private Exercise of their Religion with Security to them and without any threatning Danger to us He hath not only suspended all the penal Laws against Roman Catholicks but He hath by an usurped Prerogative that is paramount to the Rules of the Constitution and to all Acts of Parliament dispensed with and disabled the Laws that enjoin the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy and which appoint and prescribe the Tests that were the Fences which the Wisdom of the Nation had erected for preserving the Legislative Authority securing the Government and keeping Places of Power Magistracy and Office in the hands of Protestants and thereby of continuing the Protestant Religion and English Liberties to our selves and the Generations that shall come after us And as if this were not sufficient to awaken us to a Consideration of the danger we are in of having our Religion supplanted and overthrown He hath not only advanced the most violent Papists unto all Places of Military Command by Sea and Land but hath establish'd many of them in the chief Trusts and Offices of Magistracy and Civil Judicature so that there are scarce any continued in Power and Employment save they who have either promised to turn Roman Catholicks or who have engaged to concur and assist to the Subverting our Liberties and Religion under the Mask and Disguise of Protestants 'T is already evident that it is beyond the help and relief of all Peaceable and Civil means to preserve and uphold the Protestant Religion in Ireland and that nothing but Force and an intestine War can retrieve it unto and re-establish it there in any degree of Safety Nor is it less apparent from the Arbitrary and Tyrannous Oath ordained to be required of His Majesties Protestant Subjects in Scotland whereby they are to swear Obedience to Him without Reserve that our Religion is held only precariously in that Kingdom and that whensoever He shall please to command the Establishment of Popery and to enjoin the People to enter into the Communion of the Church of Rome he expects to have his Will immediately conformed unto and not to be disputed or controlled But lest what we are to expect from the King as to the Extirpation of the Reformed Religion and the inflicting the utmost Severities upon his Protestant Subjects that Papal Rage armed with Power can inable him unto may not so fully appear from what hath been already intimated as either to awaken the Dissenters out of the Lethargy into which the late Declaration hath cast them or to quicken those of the Church of England to that zealous care vigilancy and use of all Lawful means for preserving themselves and the Protestant Religion that the impendent Danger wherewith they are threatned requires at their hands I shall give that farther Confirmation of it from Topicks and Motives of Credibility Moral Political
administred by any of them shall ever tempt me to say they deserve it or cause me to ravel into their former and past carriages so as to fasten a blot or imputation upon the party or body of them whatsoever I may be forced to do as to particular persons among them For as to the generality I do believe them to be as honest industrious useful and vertuous a people tho many of them be none of the wisest nor of the greatest prospect as any party of men in the Kingdom and that wherein soever their carriage even abstracting from their differences with their Fellow Protestants in matters of Religion hath varied from that of other Subjects they have been in the Right and have acted most agreeably to the interest and safety of the Kingdom But it can be no reflection upon them to recall into their memories that the whole tenor of the King's actings towards them both when Duke of York and since he came to the Crown hath been such as might render it beyond dispute that they are so far from having any singular room in his favour that he bears them neither pity nor compassion but that they are the objects of his unchangeable indignation For not to mention how the Persecutions that were observed always to relent both upon his being at any distance from the late King and upon the abatement of his influence at any time into Counsels were constantly revived upon his return to Court and were carried on in degrees of severity proportionable to the figure he made at Whitehall and his Brothers disposedness and inclination to hearken to him surely their memories cannot be so weak and untenacious but they must remember how their sufferings were never greater nor the Laws executed with more severity upon them than since his Majesty came to ascend the Throne As it is not many years since he said publickly in Scotland that it were well if all that part of the Kingdom which is above half of the Nation where the Dissenters were known to be most numerous were turned into a hunting field so none were favoured and promoted either there or in England but such as were taken to be the most fierce and violent of all others against Fanaticks Nor were men preferred either in Church or State for their learning vertue or merit but for their passionate heats and brutal rigours to Dissenters And whereas the Papists from the very first day of his arrival at the Government had beside many other marks of his Grace this special Testimony of it of not having the penal Statutes to which they stood liable put in execution against them all the Laws to which the Dissenters were obnoxious were by his Majesty's Orders to the Judges Justices of the Peace and all other Officers Civil and Ecclesiastical most unmercifully executed Nor was there the least talk of lenity to Dissenters till the King found that he could not compass his Ends by the Church of England and prevail upon the Parliament for repealing the Tests and cancelling the other Laws in force against Papists which if they could have been wrought over unto the Fanaticks would not only have been left Pitiless and continued in the Hands of the furious Church men to exercise their Spleen upon but would have been surrendred as a Sacrifice to new Flames of Wrath if they of the Prelatical Communion had retained their wonted Animosity and thought it for their Interest to exert it either in the old or in fresh Methods But that Project not succeeding his Majesty is forced to shift Hands and to use the Pretence of extending Compassion to Dissenting Protestants that he may the more plausibly and with the less Hazard suspend and disable the Laws against Papists and make way for their Admission into all Offices Civil and Military which is the first Step and all that he is yet in a Condition to take for the Subversion of our Religion And all the celebrated Kindness to Fanaticks is only to use them as the Cat 's Paw for pulling the Chesunt out of the Fire to the Monkey and to make them stales under whose Shroud and Covert the Church of Rome may undermine and subvert all the legal Foundations of our Religion which to suffer themselves to be Instrumental in will not in the Issue turn to the Commendation of the Dissenters Wisdom or their Honesty Nor is there more Truth in the King 's declaring it to have been his constant Opinion that Conscience ought not to be constrained nor People forced in Matters of mere Religion than there is of Justice in that malicious Insiuuation in his Letter to Mr. Alsop against the Church of England That should he see cause to change his Religion he should never be of that Party of Protestants who think their only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller Matters Forasmuch as he is in the mean time a Member of the most Persecuting and Bloody Society that ever was cloathed with the name of a Church and whose Cruelty towards Protestants he is careful not to Arraign by fastning his Offence at Severity upon Differences in smaller Matters which he knows that those between Rome and us are not nor so accounted of by any of the Papal Fellowship It were to be wished that the Dissenters would reflect and consider how when the late King had emitted a Declaration of Indulgence Anno 1672. upon pretended Motives of Tenderness and Compassion to his Protestant Subjects but in truth to keep all quiet at home when in Conjunction with France he was engaging in an unjust War against a Reformed State abroad and in order to steal a Liberty for the Papists to Practise their Idolatries without incurring a Suspition himself of being of the Romish Religion and in hope to wind up the Prerogative to a Paramount Power over the Law and how when the Parliament condemned the Illegality of it and would have the Declaration recalled all his Kindness to Dissenters not only immediately vanished but turned into that Rage and Fury that tho both that Parliament addressed for some Favor to be shew'd them and another voted it a Betraying of the Protestant Religion to continue the Execution of the Penal Laws upon them yet instead of their having any Mercy or Moderation exercised towards them they were thrown into a Furnace made seven times hotter than that wherein they had been scorched before And without pretending to be a Prophet I dare prognosticate and foretell that whensoever the present King hath compassed the Ends unto which this Declaration is designed to be subservient namely the placing the Papists both in the open Exercise of their Religion and in all publick Offices and Trusts and the getting a Power to be acknowledged vested in him over the Laws that then instead of the still Voice calmly whispered from Whitehall they will both hear and feel the Blasts of a mighty rushing Wind and
which the Prince filleth in that Government so that he dare neither venture to Disinherit Them nor impose upon them such Terms and Conditions as their Consciences will not suffer them to comply with while either these States remain Free or while such English and Scots as retain a Zeal for Religion and the Ancient Laws and Rights of their respective Countries can retreat thither under hopes of Admission and Protection And so closely are the Interests of all Protestants in England and Scotland woven and inlaid with the Interest of the United Netherlands and such is the singular regard that both the one and the other bear to the Reformed Religion the Liberty of Mankind and their several Civil Rights that it is impossible for his Majesty to embark in a Design against the One without resolving at the same time upon the Ruin of the Other Neither will the One be able to subsist when once the Other is Subdued and Enslaved As Philip the Second of Spain saw no way so compendious for the restoring himself to the Sovereignty and Tyrannous Rule over the Dutch as the Subjugating of England that help'd to support and assist them which was the ground of Rigging out his Formidable Armado and of his design against England in 1588 so his British Majesty thinks no Method so Expeditious for the Enslaving his own People as the endeavoring first to subdue the Dutch And as upon the one hand it would be of a threatning Consequence to Holland could the King subjugate his own People extirpate the Protestant Religion out of his Dominions and advance himself to a Despotical Power so upon the other hand could he conquer the Dutch we might with the greatest certainty Date the woful Fate of Great Britain and the loss of all that is valuable to them as Men and Christians from the same Moment and Period of time They are like the Twins we read of whose Destiny was to live and die together and which soever of the two is destroyed first all the Hope and Comfort that the other can pretend unto is to be last devoured Now after the Advances which his Majesty had made towards the Enslaving his Subjects and the Subverting the Reformed Religion in his Kingdoms he finds it necessary before he venture to give the last and fatal Stroke at home and to enter upon the plenary Exercise of his Absolute Power in laying Parliaments wholly aside in cancelling all Laws to make way for Royal Edicts or Declarations of the Complexion of the former and in commanding us to turn Roman Catholicks or to be Dragoon'd I say he thinks it needful before he proceeds to these to try whether he can Subdue and Conquer the Dutch and thereby remove all hopes of Shelter Relief Comfort and Assistance from his own People when he shall afterwards fall upon them And how much soever the Court endeavors to conceal its Design and strives to complement the States General into a Confidence that all Alliances between them and the Crown of England shall be maintained and preserved yet they not only speak their Intentions by several open and visible Actions but some of them cannot forbear to tell it when their Blood is heated and their Heads warm'd with a liberal Glass and a lusty Proportion of Wine Thence it was that a Governing Papist lately told a Gentleman after they two had drank hard together That they had some Work in England that would employ them a little time but when that was over they would make the Dutch fly to the end of the World to find a resting place Delenda est Carthago is engraven upon their Hearts as being that without which Rome cannot arrive at the Universal Monarchy that it aspires after It was upon a formed Design of a War against the United Provinces that the King hath for these two Years stirred up and incited as well as countenanced and protected the Algerines in their Piracies that through their weakning and spoiling the Dutch before-hand it may be the more easie a matter for him to Subdue them when he shall think fit to begin his Hostilities 'T is in order to thiâ— that he hath entred into new and secret Alliances with other Princes the purpott of which is boldly talk'd of in London but whether believ'd at the Hague I cannot tell For as Monsieur Barrillion and Monsieur Bonrepos present Transactions at Whitehall relate to something else than merely to the affair of Hudson's Bay so Prince George's errand to Denmark is of more importance than a bare Visit or a naked Compelment to his Brother 'T is upon this design that all that great Marine Preparation hath been so long making in the several Ports of England but to the hindering the execution whereof some unexpected and not foreseen accidents have interposed And it is in subserviency not to be disquieted at Home while he is carrying on this holy War Abroad that the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland are granted and published 'T is well enough known how that after the French King had among many other severities exercised against Protestants made them uncapable of Employments and Commands yet to avoid the consequences that might have ensued thereupon while he was engaged in a War against the Emperor the King of Spain and the States of Holland and to have the aid of his Reformed Subjects he not only intermitted and abated in many other rigours towards them but in Anno 1674 restored them to a capacity of being employed and preferred And that this did not flow from any compassion tenderness or good will towards them his carriage since the issue of that War and the miserable condition he hath reduced them to does sufficiently testifie and declare Nor can we forget how that the late King after a rigorous execution of the penal laws for several years against Dissenters yet being to enter into an unjust War against the United Provinces Anno 1672. not only forbore all proceedings of that kind but published a Declaration for suspending the Execution of all those Laws and for the allowing them liberty of Assembling to worship God in their separate Meetings without being hindred or disturbed What Principle that proceeded from and to what End it was calculated appeared in his behaviour to them afterwards when neither the danger the Nation was in from the Papists nor the application of several Parliaments could prevail for lonity towards them much less for a legal Repeal of those implitick and unreasonable Statutes Nor does the present Indulgence flow from any kindness to Fanaticks but it is only an artifice to stifle their Discontents and to procure their assistance for the destroying of a Foreign Protestant State And it may not be unworthy of observation that as the Declaration of Indulgence Anno 1672 bore date much about the same time with the Declaration of War against the Dutch so at the very Season that his present Majesty
Orange designs the King's safety and preservation and hope all things may be composed without more Blood-shed by the calling a Parliament God grant a happy End to these Troubles that the King's Reign may be prosperous and that I may shortly meet You in perfect peace and safety till when let me beg You to continue the same favourable Opinion that You have hitherto had of Your most Obedient Daughter and Servant ANNE A Memorial of the Protestants of the Church of England Presented to their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Orange YOur Royal Highnesses cannot be ignorant that the Protestants of England who continue true to their Religion and the Government Established by Law have been many ways troubled and vexed by restless contrivances and designs of the Papists under pretence of the Royal Authority and things required of them unaccountable before God and Man Ecclesiastical Benefices and Preferments taken from them without any other Reason but the King's Pleasure that they have been summoned and sentenced by Ecclesiastical Commissioners contrary to Law deprived of their Birth-Right in the free Choice of their Magistrates and Representatives divers Corporations dissolved the Legal Security of our Religion and Liberty established and ratified by King and Parliament annull'd and overthrown by a pretended Dispensing Power new and unheard of Maxims have been preached as if Subjects had no Right but what depends on the King's Will and Pleasure The Militia put into the Hands of persons not qualified by Law and a Popish Mercenary Army maintained in the Kingdom in time of Peace absolutely contrary to Law The Execution of the Law against several high Crimes and Misdemeanours superseded and prohibited the Statutes against Correspondence with the Court of Rome Papal Jurisdiction and Popish Priests suspended that in Courts of Justice those Judges are displaced who dare acquit them whom the King would have Condemned as happened to Judg Powel and Holloway for acquitting the Seven Bishops Liberty of chusing Members of Parliament notwithstanding all the Care taken and Provision made by Law on that behalf wholly taken away by Quo Warranto's served against Corporations and the three known Questions All things carried on in open view for the Propagation and Growth of Popery for which the Courts of England and France have so long joyntly laboured with so much Application and Earnestness Endeavours used to perswade your Royal Highnesses to consent to Liberty of Conscience and abrogating the Penal Laws and Tests wherein they fell short of their aim That they most humbly implore the Protection of your Royal Highnesses as to the 〈◊〉 ending and incroachments made upon the Law for maintenance of the Protestant Religion our Civil and Fundamental Rights and Priviledg and that Your Royal Highness would be pleased to insist that the Free Parliament of England according to Law may be restored the Laws against Papists Priests Papal Jurisdiction c. put in Execution and the Suspending and Dispensing Power declared null and void the Rights and Priviledges of the City of London the free Choice of their Magistrates and the Liâ—â—â—ties as well of that as other Corporations restored and all things returned to their 〈◊〉 Channel c. Admiral Herbert 's Letter to all Commanders of Ships and Seamen in His Majesties Fleet. Gentlemen I Have little to add to what his Highness has express'd in general Terms besides laying before you the dangerous way you are at present in where Ruin or Infamy must inevitably attend you if you don't joyn with the Prince in the Common Cause for the Defence of your Religion and Liberties for should it please God for the sins of the English Nation to suffer your Arms to prevail to what can your Victory serve you but to enslave you deeper and overthrow the true Religion in which you have liv'd and your Fathers dy'd Of which I beg you as a Friend to consider the Consequences and to reflect on the Blot and Infamy it will bring on you not only now but in all After-Ages That by Your means the Protestant Religion was destroy'd and your Country depriv'd of its Ancient Liberties And if it pleases God to bless the Prince's Endeavours with success as I don't doubt but he will consider then what their Condition will be that oppose him in this so good a Design where the greatest Favour they can hope for is their being suffer'd to end their Days in Misery and Want detested and despised by all good Men. It is therefore and for many more Reasons too long to insert here that I as a true English-man and your Friend exhort you to joyn your Arms to the Prince for the Defence of the Common Cause the Protestant Religion and the Liberties of your Country It is what I am well assured the major and best part of the Army as well as the Nation will do so soon as convenience is offered Prevent them in so good an Action whilst it is in your power and may it appear That as the Kingdom hath always depended on the Navy for its Defence so you will yet go further by making it as much as in you lies the Protection of her Religion and Liberties and then you may assure your selves of all Marks of Favour and Honour suitable to the Merits of so great and glorious an Action After this I ought not to add so inconsiderable a thing as that it will for ever engage me to be in a most particular manner Your faithful Friend and humble Servant AR. HERBERT Aboard the Leyden in the Gooree Lord Delamear 's Speech THE occasion of this is to give you my Thoughts upon the present Conjuncture which concerns not only you but every Protestant and Free-born Man of England I am confident that wishes well to the Protestant Religion and his Country and I am perswaded that every Man of you thinks both in danger and now to lie at stake I am also perswaded that every Man of you will rejoyce to see Religion and Property settled if so then I am not mistaken in my Conjectures concerning you Can you ever hope for a better Occasion to root out POPERY and SLAVERY than by joining with the P. of O. whose Proposals contain and speak the Desires of every Man that loves his Religion and Liberty And in saying this I will invite you to nothing but what I will do my self and I will not desire any of you to go any further than I will move my self neither will I put you upon any Danger where I will not take share in it I propose this to you not as you are my Tenants but as my Friends and as you are Englishmen No Man can love Fighting for its own sake nor find any pleasure in danger And you may imagine I would be very glad to spend the rest of my days in peace I having had so great a share in Troubles but I see all lies at stake I am to chuse whether I will be a Slave and a Papist or a
for we assure our selves that no rational and unbyassed Person will judge it Rebellion to defend our Laws and Religion which all our Princes have sworn at their Coronations Which Oath how well it hath been observed of late we desire a Free Parliament may have the Consideration of We own it Rebellion to resist a King that governs by Law but he was always accounted a Tyrant that made his Will his Law and to resist such an one we justly esteem no Rebellion but a necessary Defence And in this Consideration we doubt not of all Honest Mens Assistance and humbly hope for and implore the great Gods Protection that turneth the Hearts of People as pleaseth him best it having been observed That People can never be of one Mind without his Inspiration which hath in all Ages confirmed that Observation Vox Populi est Vox Dei The present restoring of Charters and reversing the oppressing and unjust Judgment given on Magdalen Colledg Fellows is plain are but to still the People like Plums to Children by deceiving them for a while but if they shall by this Stratagem be fooled till this present Storm that threatens the Papists be past as soon as they shall be resetled the former Oppression will be put on with greater vigour But we hope in vain is the Net spread in the sight of the Birds For 1. the Papists old Rule is That Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks as they term Protestants tho the Popish Religion is the greatest Heresie And 2. Queen Mary's so ill observing her Promises to the Suffolk-men that help'd her to the Throne And above all 3. the Popes dispensing with the breach of Oaths Treaties or Promises at his pleasure when it makes for the service of Holy Church as they term it These we say are such convincing Reasons to hinder us from giving Credit to the aforesaid Mock-Shews of Redress that we think our selves bound in Conscience to rest on no Security that shall not be approved by a Freely Elected Parliament to whom under God we refer our Cause His Grace the Duke of Norfolk 's Speech to the Mayor of Norwich on the First of December in the Market-place of Norwich Mr. Mayor NOT doubting but you and the rest of your Body as well as the whole City and Country may be Alarmed by the great Concourse of Gentry with the numerous Appearance of their Friends and Servants as well as of your own Militia here this Morning I have thought this the most proper place as being the most publick one to give you an Account of our Intentions Out of the deep sense we had that in the present unhappy Juncture of Affairs nothing we could think of was possible to secure the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion but a Free Parliament WE ARE HERE MET TO DECLARE That we will do our utmost to defend the same by declaring for such a Free Parliament And since His Majesty hath been pleased by the News we hear this day to order Writs for a Parliament to sit the Fifteenth of January next I can only add in the name of my Self and all these Gentlemen and others here met That we will ever be ready to support and defend the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion And so GOD SAVE THE KING To this the Mayor Aldermen and the rest of the Corporation and a numerous Assembly did concur with his Grace and the rest of the Gentry His Grace at his lighting from his Horse perceiving great numbers of Common People gathering together called them to him and told them He desired they would not take any occasion to commit any Disorder or Outrage but go quietly to their Homes and acquainted them that the King had ordered a Free Parliament to be called The Speech of the Prince of Orange to some Principal Gentlemen of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire on their coming to joyn his Highness at Exeter the 15th of Nov. 1688. THO we know not all your Persons yet we have a Catalogue of your Names and remember the Character of your Worth and Interest in your Country You see we are come according to your Invitation and our Promise Our Duty to God obliges us to protect the Protestant Religion and our Love to Mankind your Liberties and Properties We expected you that dwelt so near the place of our Landing would have joyn'd us sooner not that it is now too late nor that we want your Military Assistance so much as your Countenance and Presence to justifie our declar'd Pretensions rather than accomplish our good and gracious Designs Tho we have brought both a good Fleet and a good Army to render these Kingdoms happy by rescuing all Protestants from Popery Slavery and Arbitrary Power by restoring them to their Rights and Properties established by Law and by promoting of Peace and Trade which is the Soul of Government and the very Life-Blood of a Nation yet we rely more on the goodness of God and the Justice of our Cause than on any Humane Force and Power whatever Yet since God is pleased we shall make use of Human Means and not expect Miracles for our Preservation and Happiness let us not neglect making use of this gracious Opportunity but with Prudence and Courage put in Execution our so honourable Purposes Therefore Gentlemen Friends and Fellow-Protestants we bid you and all your Followers most heartily Welcom to our Court and Camp Let the whole World now judg if our Pretensions are not Just Generous Sincere and above Price since we might have even a Bridge of Gold to return back But it is our Principle and Resolution rather to die in a good Cause than live in a bad One well knowing that Vertue and True Honour is its own Reward and the Happiness of Mankind Our Great and Only Design The true Copy of a Paper delivered by the Lord Devonshire to the Mayor of Darby where he quarter'd the one and twentieth of November 1688. WE the Nobility and Gentry of the Northern parts of England being deeply sensible of the Calamities that threaten these Kingdoms do think it our Duty as Christians and good Subjects to endeavour what in us lies the Healing of our present Distractions and preventing greater And as with grief we apprehend the said Consequences that may arise from the Landing of an Army in this Kingdom from Foreign parts So we cannot but deplore the Occasion given for it by so many Invasions made of late Years on our Religion and Laws And whereas we cannot think of any other Expedient to compose our Differences and prevent Effusion of Blood than that which procured a Settlement in these Kingdoms after the late Civil Wars the Meeting and Sitting of a Parliament freely and duly Chosen we think our selves obliged as far as in us lies to promote it And the rather because the Prince of Orange as appears by his Declaration is willing to submit his own Pretensions and all other Matters to their Determination We heartily Wish and
humbly Pray That His Majesty would Consent to this Expedient in order to a future Settlement And hope that such a Temperament may be thought of as that the Army now on Foot may not give any Interruption to the proceeding of a Parliament But if to the great Misfortune and Ruin of these Kingdoms it should prove otherwise we further declare That we will to our utmost defend the Protestant Religion the Laws of the Kingdom and the Rights and Liberties of the Subject A Letter from a Gentleman at King's-Lynn December 7. 1688. To his Friend in London Sir THE Duke of Norfolk came to Town on Wednesday Night with many of the chiefest of the County and yesterday in the Market-place received the Address following which was presented by the Mayor attended by the Body and many hundreds of the Inhabitants To his Grace the most Noble Henry Duke of Norfolk Lord Marshal of England My Lord THE daily Allarms we receive as well from Foreign as Domestick Enemies give us just Apprehensions of the approaching Danger which we conceive we are in and to apply with all earnestness to your Grace as your great Patron in all humble Confidence to succeed in our Expectations That we may be put into such a posture by your Grace's Directions and Conduct as may make us appear as zealous as any in the Defence of the Protestant Religion the Laws and Ancient Government of this Kingdom Being the desire of many hundreds who must humbly callenge a Right of your Grace's Protection His Grace's Answer Mr. Mayor I Am very much obliged to you and the rest of your Body and those here present for your good Opinion of me and the Confidence you have that I will do what in me lies to support and defend the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion in which I will never deceive you And since the coming of the Prince of Orange hath given us an opportunity to declare for the defence of them I can only assure you that no Man will venture his Life and Fortune more freely for the Defence of the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion than I will do and with all these Gentlemen here present and many more will unanimously concur therein and you shall see that all possible Care shall be taken that such a Defence shall be made as you require AFter which the Duke was with his Retinue received at the Mayor's House at Dinner with great Acclamations and his Proceedings therein have put our County into a Condition of Defence of which you shall hear further in a little time our Militia being ordered to be raised throughout the County Our Tradesmen Seamen and Mobile have this morning generally put Orange Ribbon on their Hats Ecchoing Huzza's to the Prince of Orange and Duke of Norfolk All are in a hot Ferment God send us a good Issue of it Lynn-Regis Decemb. 10. 1688. Sir BY mine of the 7th Instant I gave you an Account of the Address of this Corporation to his Grace the Duke of Norfolk and of his Grace's Answer thereto Since which his Grace has sent for the Militia Troops and put them in a posture of Defence as appears by the ensuing Speech The Duke of Norfolk's second Speech at Lynn I Hope you see I have endeavoured to put you in the posture you desired by sending both for Horse and Foot of the Militia and am very glad to see such an Appearance of this Town in so good a Condition And I do again renew my former Assurances to you that I will ever stand by you to Defend the Laws Liberties and the Protestant Religion and to procure a Settlement in Church and State in concurrence with the Lords and Gentlemen in the North and pursuant to the Declaration of the Prince of Orange And so God save the King The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in and about the Cities of London and Westminster Assembled at Guild-hall Dec. 1688. WE doubt not but the World believes that in this great and dangerous Conjuncture we are heartily and zealously concerned for the Protestant Religion the Laws of the Land and the Liberties and Properties of the Subject And we did reasonably Hope that the King having Issued His Proclamation and Writs for a Free Parliament we might have rested Secure under the Expectation of that Meeting But His Majesty having withdrawn Himself and as we apprehend in order to His Departure out of this Kingdom by the pernicious Counsels of Persons ill-affected to our Nation and Religion we cannot without being wanting to our Duty be silent under those Calamities wherein the Popish Counsels which so long prevailed have miserably Involved these Realms We do therefore Unanimously resolve to apply our Selves to His Highness the Prince of Orange who with so great Kindness to these Kingdoms so vast Expence and so much Hazard to his own Person hath Undertaken by endeavouring to procure a Free Parliament to rescue Us with as little Effusion as possible of Christian Blood from the Imminent Dangers of Popery and Slavery And we do hereby Declare That we will with our utmost Endeavours assist his Highness in the obtaining such a Parliament with all speed wherein our Laws our Liberties and Properties may be Secured the Church of England in particular with a due Liberty to Protestant Dissenters and in general the Protestant Religion and Interest over the whole World may be Supported and Encouraged to the glory of God the Happiness of the Established Government in these Kingdoms and the Advantage of all Princes and States in Christendom that may be herein concerned In the mean time we will endeavour to preserve as much as in us lies the Peace and Security of these great and populous Cities of London and Westminster and the Parts adjacent by taking care to Disarm all Papists and secure all Jesuits and Romish Priests who are in our about the same And if there be any thing more to be performed by us for promoting his Highness's generous Intentions for the Publick good we shall be ready to do it as occasion shall require W. Cant. Tho. Ebor. Pembroke Dorset Mulgrave Thanet Carlisle Craven Ailesbury Burlington Sussex Barkelay Rochester Newport Waymouth P. Winchester W. Asaph Fran. Ely Tho. Roffen Tho. Petriberg P. Wharton North and Grey Chandos Montague T. Jermyn Vaughan Carbery Culpeper Crewe Osulston WHereas His Majesty hath privately this Morning withdrawn Himself we the Lords Spiritual and Temporal whose Names are subscribed being assembled at Guild-hall in London having Agreed upon and Signed a Declaration Entituled The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in and about the Cities of London and Westminster Assembled at Guild-hall 11. Decemb. 1688. Do desire the Right Honourable the Earl of Pembroke the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Weymouth the Right Reverend Father in God the Lord Bishop of Ely and the Right Honourable the Lord Culpeper forthwith to attend his Highness the Prince of Orange with the said Declaration and at the same
in your Kingdoms as here in the Roman Empire But now we refer it even to your Majesty to judg what condition we can be in to afford you any Assistance we being not only Engaged in a War with the Turks but finding our selves at the same time unjustly and barbarously Attacked by the French contrary to and against the Faith of Treaties they then reckoning themselves secure of England And this ought not to be concealed that the greatest Injuries which have been done to our Religion have flowed from no other than the French themselves who not only esteem it lawful for them to make perfidious Leagues with the sworn Enemies of the Holy Cross tending to the destruction both of us and of the whole Christian World in order to the checking our Endeavours which were undertaken for the glory of God and to stop those Successes which it hath pleased Almighty God to give us hitherto but further have heaped one Treuchery upon another even within the Empire it self The Cities of the Empire which were Surrendred upon Articles signed by the Dauphin himself have been exhausted by excessive Impositions and after their being exhausted have been Plundred and after Plundring have been Burned and Razed The Palaces of Princes which in all times and even in the most destructive Wars have been preserved are now burnt down to the ground The Churches are Robbed and such as submitted themselves to them are in a most Barbarous manner carried away as Slaves In short It is become a Diversion to them to commit all manner of Insolences and Cruelties in many places but chiefly in Catholick Countries exceeding the Cruelties of the Turks themselves which having imposed an absolute necessity upon us to secure our selves and the holy Roman Empire by the best means we can think on and that no less against them than against the Turks we promise our selves from your Justice ready assent to this That it ought not to be imputed to us if we endeavour to procure by a just War that security to our selves which we could not hitherto obtain by so many Treaties and that in order to the obtaining thereof we take measures for our mutual Defence of Preservation with all those who are equally concerned in the same Design with us It remains that we beg of God that he would Direct all things to his glory and that he would grant your Majesty true and solid Comforts under this your great Calamity we embrace you with tender Affections of a Brother At Vienna the 9th of April 1689. The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons Assembled at Westminster concerning the Misgovernment of King James and filling up the Throne Presented to King William and Queen Mary by the right Honourable the Marquess of Hallifax Speaker to the House of Lords With His Majesties most gracious Answer thereunto WHereas the late King James the Second by the Assistance of divers Evil Counsellors Judges and Ministers Imploy'd by Him did endeavour to Subvert and Extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom By Assuming and Exercising a Power of Dispensing with and Suspending of Laws and the Execution of Laws without consent of Parliament By Committing and Prosecuting divers Worthy Prelates for humbly Petitioning to be Excused from concurring to the said assumed Power By 〈◊〉 and causing to be executed a Commission under the great Seal for erecting a Court called The Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes By Levying Mony for and to the Use of the Crown by pretence of Prerogative for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by Parliament By raising and keeping a standing Army within this Kingdom in the time of Peace whithout consent of Parliament and Quartering Soldiers contrary to Law By causing several good Subjects being Protestants to be Disarmed at the same time when Papists were both Armed and Imployed contrary to Law By violating the Freedom of Election of Members to serve in Parliament By Prosecutions in the Court of King's-Bench for Matters and Causes cognizable only in Parliament and by divers other Arbitrary and Illegal Courses And whereas of late Years Partial Corrupt and Unqualified Persons have been returned and served on Juries in Tryals and particularly divers Jurors in Tryals for High-Treason which were not Free-holders And Excessive Bail hath been required of Persons committed in Criminal Cases to elude the Benefit of the Laws made for the Liberty of the Subjects And Excessive Fines have been Imposed And Illegal and Cruel Punishments inflicted And several Grants and Promises made of Fines and Forfeitures before any Convictions or Judgment against the Persons upon whom the same were to be Levied All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known Laws and Statutes and Freedom of this Realm And whereas the said late K. James the Second having abdicated the Government and the Throne being thereby vacant His Highness the Prince of Orange whom it hath pleased Almighty God to make the glorious Instrument of Delivering this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power did by the Advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and divers principal Persons of the Commons cause Letters to be written to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal being Protestants and other Letters to the several Counties Cities Universities Burroughs and Cinque-Ports for the Chusing of such Persons to represent them as were of Right to be sent to Parliament to Meet and Sit at Westminster upon the 22d Day of January in this Year 1688 in order to such an Establishment as that their Religion Laws and Liberties might not again be in danger of being Subverted Upon which Letters Elections having been accordingly made And thereupon the said Lord's Spiritual and Temporal and Commons pursuant to their respective Letters and Elections being now Assembled in a Full and Free Representative of this Nation taking into their most serious Consideration the best Means for attaining the Ends aforesaid do in the first place as their Ancestors in like Case have usually done for the Vindicating and Asserting their Ancient Rights and Liberties Declare That the pretended Power of Suspending of Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regal Authority without Consent of Parliament is Illegal That the pretended Power of Dispensing with Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regal Authority as it hath been assumed and exercised of late is Illegal That the Commission for erecting the late Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes and all other Commissions and Courts of the like Nature are Illegal and Pernicious That levying of Mony for or to the Use of the Crown by pretence of Prerogative without grant of Parliament for longer time or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted is Illegal That it is the Right of the Subjects to Petition the King and all Commitments and Prosecutions for such Petitioning are Illegal That the Raising or Keeping a standing Army within the Kingdom in time of Peace unless it be with
given to such Papists as inhabit in Corporations there 5. That your Majesties Letters of the 28th of September 1672. and the Order of Council thereupon whereby your Subjects are required not to prosecute any Actions against the Irish for any Wrongs or Injuries committed during the late Rebellion may likewise be recalled 6. That Colonel Talbot who hath notoriously assumed to himself the Title of Agent of the Roman Catholicks in Ireland be immediately dismissed out of all Command Military and Civil and forbidden Access to your Majesties Court. 7. That your Majesty would be pleased from time to time out of your Princely Wisdom to give such further Order and Directions to the Lord Lieutenant or other Governour of Ireland for the time being as may best conduce to the Encouragement of the English Planters and Protestants Interest there and the Suppression of the Insolencles and Disorders of the Irish Papists there These our humble Desires we present to your Majesty as the best means to preserve the Peace and Safety of that your Kingdom which hath been so much of late in Danger by the Practices of the said Irish Papists particularly Richard and Peter Talbot and we doubt not but your Majesty will find the happy Effects thereof to the great Satisfaction and Security of your Majesties Person and Government which of all earthly things is most dear to your Majesties most Loyal Subjects Ordered October 20. 1673. THat an Address be made to his Majesty by such Members of this House as are of his Majesties Privy-Council to acquaint his Majesty that it is the humble desire of this House that the intended Marriage of his Royal Highness with the Dutchess of Modena be not consummated and that he may not be Married to any Person but of the Protestant Religion And the same Day the Parliament was Prorogued till Monday next The Address of the Parliament to his Majesty WE your Majesties most Humble and Loyal Subjects the Commons in this present Parliament assembled being full of Assurance of your Majesties gracious Intentions to provide for the Establishment of Religion and the Preservation of your People in Peace and Security and foreseeing the dangerous Consequences which â—ay follow the Marriage of his Royal Highness the Duke of York with the Princess of â—â—â—dena or any other of the Popish Religion we hold our selves bound in Conscience â—â—d Duty to represent the same to your Sacred Majesty not doubting but these constant Testimonies which we have given your Majesty of our true and loyal Affections to your Sacred Person will easily gain a Belief that these our humble Desires proceed from Hearts still full of the same Affections toward your sacred Majesty and with intentions to establish your Royal Government upon those true Supports of the Protestant Religion and the Hearts of your People with all Humility desiring your Majesty to take the same into your Princely Consideration and to relieve your Subjects from those Fears and Apprehensions which at present they lie under from the Progress hath been made in that Treaty We do therefore humbly intreat your Majesty to consider that if this Match do proceed it will be a means to disquiet the Minds of your Protestant Subjects at home and to fill them with endless Jealousies and Discontents and will bring your Majesty into such Alliances abroad as will prove highly prejudicial if not destructive to the Interest of the very Protestant Religion it self And we find by sad Experience that such Marriages have encreased and encouraged Popery in this Kingdom and given opportunity to Priests and Jesuits to propagate their Opinions and seduce great Numbers of your Majesties Subjects And we do already observe how much the Party is animated with the hopes of this Match which were lately discouraged by your gracious Concessions in the last Meeting in this Parliament That we greatly fear this may be an Occasion to lessen the Affections of the People to his Royal Highness who is so nearly related to the Crown and whose Honour and Esteem we desire may always be intirely preserved That for another Age more at the least this Kingdom will be under the continual Apprehensions of the Growth of Popery and the Danger of the Protestant Religion Lastly We consider that this Princess having so near a Relation and Kindred to many Eminent Persons of the Court of Rome may give them great Opportunities to promote their Designs and carry on their Practices among us and by the same means penetrate into your Majesties most Secret Counsels and more easily discover the State of the whole Kingdom And finding that by the Opinions of very Learned Men it is generally admitted that such Treaties and Contracts by Proxies are dissolvable of which there are several Instances to be produced We do in all humbleness beseech your Majesty to put a stop to the Consummation of this intended Marriage And this we do the more importunately desire because we have not yet the Happiness to see any Issue of your Majesty's that may succeed in the Government of these Kingdoms which Blessings we most heartily pray Almighty God in his due time to bestow upon your Majesty and these Kingdoms to the unspeakable Joy and Comfort of all your Majesty's Subjects who desire nothing more than to continue under the Reigns of your Majesty and your Royal Posterity for ever October 30. 1673. Mr. Secretary Coventry brought from his Majesty an Answer to the Address presented to him touching the Duke of York as followeth C. R. HIS Majesty having received an Address from the House of Commons presenting their humble Desire that the intended Marriage betwixt his Royal Highness and the Princess of Modena may not be Consummated Commanded this Answer to be returned That he perceived the House of Commons have wanted a full Information of this Matter the Marriage not being barely intended but Compleated according to the Forms used amongst Princes and by His Royal Consent and Authority Nor could He in the least suppose it disagreeable to His House of Commons His Royal Highness having been in the view of the World for several Months engaged in a Treaty of Marriage with another Catholick Princess and yet a Parliament held during the time and not the least Exception taken at it An Address ordered to be presented to His Majesty concerning a Marriage between his Royal Highness and the Princess of Modena and a Committee appointed to that purpose A Committee appointed for preparing a Bill for a general Test to distinguish between Protestants and Papists and those that shall refuse to take it be incapable to enjoy any Office Military or Civil or to sit in either Houses of Parliament or to come within five miles of the Court. The House adjourned till Monday October 31. 1673. Resolved That the House considering the present Condition of the Nation will not take into any further Debate the Consideration of any Aid or Supplies or Charge upon the Subjects before the time of Payment of
Gentleman answered Mr. Speaker I wonder that Noble Lord should thus interrupt me for I have not positively affirmed any thing at all of the Duke though I have said nothing but what in my Judgment I thought might be truth and I shall not change my mind for his being displeased at it but however I am very well satisfied to say no more but only that I remember that Honourable Person by the Bar told us he would not speak to the prudential part against the Bill and truly Sir I think he has kept his Word very exactly and that whereas another Member before him objected That it was possible the Duke might turn Protestant I would only answer that I do not think it possible that any Person that has been bred up in the Protestant Religion and hath been weak enough for so I must call it to turn Papist should ever after in that respect be wise enough to turn Protestant and therefore Sir upon the whole matter my humble Motion is That the Bill may pass Debates in the House of Commons Jan. 7. 1680. upon His Majesties Message The First Speech by an Honourable Gentleman HIS Majesties relies not only on the Dictates of his own Judgment but is confirmed by the Judgment of the House of Lords but many of them have gained their Honour by Interest rather than Merit His Majesty hath given no Answer to several of your Addresses when you say nothing can secure you but this Bill that he should propose other means but if we have not the Bill we are deprived of the means to preserve His Majesties Life Person and Government I never knew that Tangier was more considerable than all the Three Kingdoms Is it time to be silent or not Why is all this stir for a Man that desires the Throne before His Majesty is dead He is in all the Plot either at one end or other who took evidence of London Fire Arbitrary Power was at the end and no Religion like Popery to set up That I will pay the Duty and Allegiance of an English-man to an English Prince But Popery and Arbitrary Power must be rooted out Can you hope for any Good while this Man is Heir an Apostate from his Religion his Government is the most dangerous Our Ministers of State give us little hopes from Whitehall I hope they will be Named First set a Brand on all them that framed the Answer and all them that shall lend Money by way of Anticipation desire him to take Advice of His Parliament rather then private Men or to let us go home and attend His Service when he shall again call for us The Second Speech by another Person of Hour I am afraid we are lost we have done our Parts shewed our selves good Subjects but some stand between the King and us to promote the Duke of York's Interest Those that advised the King not to pass the Bill deserve to be Branded The Third Speech by an Honourable Gentleman We have made the modestest Request that ever People did in such a time of Danger we have neither passed a Bill nor obtained a kind Answer our Trust must be in our Votes When the King bid us look into the Plot like well-meaning Countrey-Gentlemen we looked into the Tower we should have looked into Whitehall There the Plot is hatched cherished and brought up It would be well if all against the Bill were put out of Councel and all of this House were put out of Commission that were for it I had rather the Moors had Tangier the French King Flanders than the Pope had Eugland The Fourth Speech by a Person of Honour I think the Debate is upon a Message from the King and the most especial part is about the Bill I concur with that Noble Person rather than with all the rest But begin with the first his Majesty hath suffered us twice to address upon the Bill yet the Lords have not admitted one Conference I believe every man came unwillingly into this Bill have any that were against it proposed any thing for our Security if they will let them stand up and I will sit down I have advised with Men that know the Laws Religion and Government they say if you will preserve this Government this Law this Bill must pass We have received no expedient from the Lords the State of the Nation lies at their Door they sit to hear Causes they mind you of Mr. Seymour but say nothing of the Bills In Richard the Second his Time some Lords were said to be Lords in the King's Pocket but had no shoulders to support him It 's plain our evil comes from evil Ministers There are some that will have a Prince of one Religion on the Throne to rule the People of another a Popish Prince and a Protestant Kingdom will any Ministers of parts unless they have an indifferency of Religion think this consistent I dedicate my Allegiance to the King they to another Person so the Kingdom must be destroy'd either this limited Monarchy must stand or come to Blood on the other side Water-Monarchy is absolutely supported by little men of no Fortune and he that takes mean and low men to make Ministers of sets up for Popery and Arbitrary Government The King hath Counsels born if you have a Popish Prince and a Protestant Parliament will the King ever concur with them in matters of Religion and Property are not your Estates sprinkled with Abbey-Lands If he asks Money will you trust him must Foreigners comply with a Prince that in effect hath no People We must be overcome with France and Popery or the Body will get a new Head or the Head a new Body The Fifth Speech by a Person of Honour The House was unwilling at first to enter into a Debate about Expedients and I am not prepared to propound them any thing you have heard proposed by the King in Print if you had them they will do you no harm One day you say the King had been a good Prince if he had good Company and good Councils no great Complement to the King he offers you any thing but the Bill I humbly make my motion to try it The Sixth Speech by an Honourable Gentleman I think it becomes that Gentleman very well to be of the Opinion he is though no man else in this House I wish the D. was of that Opinion his Father desired him The Lords rejected the Bill but I am afraid the King solicited or else they would not it 's some mens interest to be for the D. but while they are at Court we shall never have it Foreign Persons have given Influence at Court the French Ministers access to Court inclines me to believe some body is paid for it The Court is a Nurcery of Vice they transmit them into the Countrey and none but such men are imployed The Seventh Speech by an Honourable Gentleman The Question now before you is Whether any other means be effectual
besides the Bill I have heard none proposed in this Parliament the last Parliament thought not fit to debate them they were so weak but hath this Plot been no longer than 1678. We gave 250000 l. to fight the Dutch and assist them that had a Design to subdue us and the Protestant Religion which is not well settled Have all the Laws been put in Execution against the Papists But a few Apprentices going to pull down a Bawdy-house with a Red Cloth on a Pole was made Treason but what hath been done with the Plot in the intervals of Parliament The Lords have confirmed the King in his Opinion but did not the Proviso for the D. come from the Lords House I believe the Lords do not fear him but I believe the Plot is more dangerous than ever To rely upon any Remedy but this Bill will expose your Selves and your Religion The Eighth Speech by an Honourable Gentleman You have heard several Propositions but first make an end of one It is long since we thought in this House we were not secure without the Bill some have not yet considered of it and I think we never shall To make an Act of Association against the D. is to say Let him be lawful King and then fight against him Another way is Banishment if it be during the Kings life truly you run into more dangers rather then remove them if you talk of Banishment during the D. Life that is Exclusion if the D. be a Papist exclude all Papists from inheriting Some talk of an Act pass they would not satisfie their Consciences I am sure a Vote to Exclude him will not Popery encreases upon hopes the D. may come to the Crown we ought to take care of this Presumption Will not Papists expect to have their Religion established when the D. is next I wonder men will pretend to plead for Loyalty to one that they may never come to use it some say Cannot the D. change his Religion Must not the Two Houses joyn Did not Queen Mary do it Regis ad Exemplum most will conform To make Arguments of this Bill is to lessen it the King bids you go on to other things let 's declare all other things are ineffectual without this Bill We cannot think our selves safe to rely on any thing else is not only insufficient but dangerous The Ninth Speech by an Honourable Gentleman Now I see the House is full so considerate I am bound to give my Thoughts The Reason the Verity of the Bill hath formerly been debated and Precedents are Printed to shew it hath been done It will be a Reproach to us when dead in our Graves if we do not whatever any Parliament did to preserve Religion When we received the Kings Message I was perswaded he was over-ruled by other men for he saith What shall come in a Parliamentary Way how comes the King to know what 's done in Parliament When Clifford set up bare-fac'd for Popery he brought the King to come frequently to the House of Lords Cranmer saith That King Henry the Eighth passed the Act of 6 Articles in an Un-Parliamentary way by the Kings coming and solliciting Henry the Fourth in a Record called The Indempnity of the Peers and Commons the King being in haste for Money sends a Message desires he may debate the matter with them they return Answer Parliaments ought to debate free It 's entred into the Rolls That the King shall neither come to one House or other Danby's solliciting could not move them the King comes and he prevails Some Lords have little Estates some little Consciences some less Religion The King calls it an Opinion and tells you he is confirmed in it by the House of Lords he may come to take up other Resolutions if the Parliament go away and leave this work undone The King is in the highest Danger though some men think they shall be accounted Loyal for opposing an Act of Parliament it is but a Nick-name King James in his Speech 1603 thought it his Security to comply with his Parliament Nay He would betray his Country and Posterity in not doing it Remember what care the last King took to have his Posterity maintain the Protestant Religion Remember Queen Mary broke her Word for Conscience sake every day a Security would draw me from the Bill Queen Elizabeths Association against the Queen of Scots in the Act of Parliament was an Exclusion she was but a Woman but had wise Counsellors Prelates then did not fear the frown of a Prince Surely when the King sees so many Gentlemen of this House so firm he will take their Advise and Prorogue them and then pass the Bill I find not a Man that hath understanding but saith We are undone without it We have not Compounded yet for our Throats as some at Whitehall have done there is no next best the only way to preserve the Protestant Religion is to pass the Bill what is as secure as this must be amounting to Exclusion We can't save his Personal Dignity but with the loss of our Laws and Lives too I would to God the King knew how well this House doth love him The Tenth Speech by an Honourable Gentleman Consider whether the Dis-inheriting of a lawful Prince be Injustice or not or whether we ought not rather to trust to the Providence of Almighty God The Eleventh Speech by an Honourable Gentleman I should be glad the last Gentleman would make it good that we are to trust to the Providence of Almighty God rather than do as he supposes an unlawful Act but can he prove it unlawful can the King Lords and Commons do an unlawful Act must we not have a Supream Power But to hint it to something is to say it is not Supream was there not Machinations every year against Queen Elizabeth but she took away the Scotch Queen I wonder we have this Answer till I consider who is at the Kings Ear and have had an Interest carried on so long The denial of this is the denial of every thing you see where there are divers Medicines yet but one conducing to the end you shall have a Popish King if that be allowed with Power to compel and corrupt you you shall have what you will to protect you but you shall be under the power of one to destroy you The Frogs must have a Government but they must have a Stork for their King Samson's Locks will be grown again by that time he comes in There is a Lion in the Lobby keep him out say I no says some open the Door we will chain him when he 's come in Would you have a King that would neither court you nor protect you you would have a Parliament to make Judges and Bishops then sure the Long-House will be Jure divino you can have no Security under the Copes of Heaven without this Bill A Copy of the Duke of YORK 's Bill WHereas James Duke of York is notoriously known
held at Oxford March 21 1680. HE was certainly no Fool that first said Parliaments were the Pulse of the People 'T is from thence Wise State-Physitians take their Diagnosticks What Sentiments our late Parliament had of our Modern Affairs is obvious in their Printed Votes and Addresses Nor will it be less plain what is the Common Sense of the Body of the People in this Juncture of iminent Danger if the Unanimous Addresses from so many considerable parts of England be regarded No sooner was the late Parliament surprizingly Prorogued Jan. 10. 1680 1 in the very Crisis of Business and when they had so many excellent Bills before them and had made so hopful a Progress in unvailing the horrid Popish Plot which still like an Ill Spright haunts and Night-mares us and in bringing Criminals to Justice but presently the whole Nation was startled and forthwith as Convulsions are first perceived in the Head the same Day a considerable Number of Eminent Citizens of London Presented the following Address to their Major To the Right Honourable Sir Patience Ward Knight Lord Mayor of the City of London WE the Citizens of the said City on behalf of our selves and others our Fellow Citizens being very apprehensive of the great and iminent Dangers that this Metropolis and the whole Protestant Intrest are expos'd to by the Horrid and Devilish Designs of the Papists and their Adherents And being sensible that they are increas'd and heightned by the Surprizing Prorogation of this present Parliament do most humbly recommend to your Lordship the Particulars hereunder mentioned I. That your Lordship will be pleased to cause the several Watches of this City to be doubled this Night and so to continue and cause some House-keepers to watch in person and a sufficient Ward to be kept by Day II. To cause the several Chains in the several Streets of this City to be put up this Night and so to continue III. That your Lordship will be pleas'd to keep the Keys of the several Gates of this City this Night and so to continue IV. To cause the several Gates of this City to be kept Lock'd up every Lord's Day and permit the several Wicket-Doors only to be opened V. That your Lordship will not permit any Body of Armed Souldiers greater or less other than the Trained Bands of this City to march through any part of the same VI. That your Lordship will forthwith Order a Meeting of the Common Council of this City Which his Lordship was pleased favourably to receive and read and then gave the Gentlemen answer That he was very apprehensive of the Danger of this City and had done something already to have full Watches and intended to go out himself to see that they were kept and assured them that he would seriously consider their Desires and take all the care that lay in him to prevent the Danger that so threatned them The very same day and before it was possible the news or thoughts of any Prorogation could reach so far the Grand Jury of Shropshire in the name and behalf of themselves and that whole County thought fit to express their hearty Concurrence with and thanks to the then House of Commons for their Zealous Proceedings against the most Dangerous Popish Interest in the Termes following To the Honourable Ric. Newport Esq and Sir Vincent Corbet Bar. Knights of the Shire in this present Parliament for the County of Salop Jan. 10. 1680. WHereas the Honorable the Commons in this Parliament assembled have to the great satisfaction of the Nation caused their Votes to be published thereby letting the Kingdom know the Candour and Integrity of their Proceeding which they desire may be examined in the face of the Sun but fully satisfying us with what Wisdom Constancy and Courage in this time of iminent danger they have endeavoured to secure our King our Religion the Government and our Liberties We the Grand-Jury Impannelled for the Body of this County of Salop being extreamly sensible how worthily you have discharged the Trust reposed in you and finding our Opinions therein seconded by the Unanimous Resolution of the rest of our County do believe our selves in all Justice obliged humbly to testify unto you how much we rejoyce in the Proceeding you have made how heartily we concur with your wise Resolutions and how earnestly we desire they may be brought to perfection and in particular the Bill to Exclude the D. of York That so we and our Posterity may be delivered from the apparent Danger of Popery and the necessary Consequences thereof Tyranny and Oppression and remain Free Protestant Subjects to acknowledge evermore the Service and Obligation we owe to Patriots that have serv'd us so faithfully Signed by all the Members of the Grand-Jury being 17 of the most considerable Gentlemen of the County January 13. 1680 1. A Common Council being held at Guild-Hall several Eminent Citizens Presented the following Petition To the Right Honourable Sir Patience Ward Kt. Lord Mayor of the City of London and the Right Worshipful the Aldermen and Commons in Common-Council Assembled The humble Petition of the Citizens and Inhabitants of the said City Sheweth THat we being deeply sensible of evils and mischiefs hanging over this Nation in general and this City in particular in respect of the danger of the Kings Person the Protestant Religion and our well establish'd Goverment by the continued hellish and damnable designs of the Papists and others their adherents And knowing no way under heaven so effectual to preserve His Royal Majesty and us from the utter ruin and destruction threatned as by the speedy sitting of this present Parliament the surprising Prorogation of which greatly adds to and increases the just fears and jealousies of your Petitioners minds We your Petitioners do therefore beseech your Lordship and this Honorable Court to acquaint His Majesty with these our fears and apprehensions and that it is our humble and earnest desire as well as yours that His Majesty would be pleased for the utter defeating the wicked and bloudy purposes of our Enemies to permit this present Parliament which stands Prorogued to the 20th of this instant January then to Assemble and continue to sit until they have effectually secured us against Popery and Arbitrary Power and Redressed the manifold Grievances which at present we groan under and for our immediate security that you will be pleased to order whatsoever else shall be thought necessary and expedient by your Lordship and this Honourable Court in this time of imminent danger for the safety of this great City And your Petitioners shall ever Pray c. The Address of the Free-holders of the County of Middlesex to Sir William Roberts Knight and Nicholas Raynton Esq Knights of the Shire WE the Freeholders of this County have in great Confidence of your Integrity Wisdom and Courage now chosen You to Represent Us in the next Parliament to be holden at Oxford on the 21st Day of this present March. And
although we do not in the least question your Faithfulness to the true Interest of this Nation nor your Prudence in the Management thereof yet esteeming it greatly our Duty in this unhappy Juncture wherein our Religion Lives Liberties Properties and all that is dear unto us are in such iminent danger to signifie our pressing Dangers unto You. And accordingly we do request That in the next Parliament wherein we have chose You to Sit and Act That You will with the greatest Integrity and most undaunted Resolution joyn with and assist the other Worthy Representatives and Patriots of this Nation in the searching into and preventing the Horrid and Hellish Villâ—nies Plots and Designs of that wicked and restless sort of People the Papists both in this and the Neighbouring Kingdoms And making some honourable Provision for the Discovery thereof In securing to us the Enjoyment of the True Protestant Religion and the well established Government of this Kingdom In Promoting the happy and long prayed for Union among all His Majesties Protestant Subjects In Repealing the 35th of Elizabeth the Corporation-Act and all other Acts which upon experience have proved injurious to the true Protestant Interest In Asserting the Peoples unquestionable Rights of Petitioning In removing our just Fears by reason of the great Forces in this Kingdom under the Name of Guards which the Law hath no knowledge of In preventing the Misery Ruine and utter Destruction which unavoidably must come upon this and the neighbouring Nations if James Duke of York or any other Papist shall ascend the Royal Throne of this Kingdom And lastly in securing to us our Legal Right of Annual Parliaments which under God will unquestionably prove the highest security of all that is good and desirable to us and our Posterity after us Always assuring our selves that you will not in any wise consent unto any Money-Supply until we are effectually secured against Popery and Arbitrary Power And particularly we desire you to give the most hearty Thanks of this County to that Noble Peer the Earl of Essex and by him to the rest of those Noble and Renowned Peers who were pleased lately and so seasonably to offer their Petition and Advice to His Majesty In the pursuance of all which Needful Worthy and Excellent Ends we shall as in duty bound stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes A Letter of Thanks from the Grand-Jury of the County of Worcester to the Knights of this Shire Dated Jan. 12. 1680. Honoured Sirs WE the Grand-Jury of the County of Worcester at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace held for the said County the 11th day of Jan. in the 32d year of the King's Majesties Reign do hereby in the behalf of our selves and the County for which we serve return you our most hearty Thanks for your constant and unwearied Attendance upon the Service of His Majesty and your Country in this present Parliament in a Time of such iminent danger And especially of your concurrence in those Methods that have been taken for the Security of His Majesties Sacred Person the Protestant Religion and the Properties of His Majesties Subjects against the Hellish Plots of the Papists and their Adherents And we do humbly request your continuance therein and shall ever pray for the preservation of the Person of our most Gracious Sovereign and that God will direct and unite his Councils and upon all occasions testifie that we are Honoured Sirs Your very Humble Obliged and Thankful Servants This was signed by all the said Grand-Jury and directed to the Honourable Colonel Samuel Sandys and Thomas Foley Esquires Members of this present Parliament A Letter from the Ancient and Loyal Borough of North-Allerton in Yorkshire Dated Jan. 14. 1680. to their Burgesses in Parliament Honoured Sirs THe unexpected and sudden News of this Day 's Post preventing us from sending those due Acknowledgments which the greatness of your Services for Publick Good have merited from us we have no better way now left us to express our Gratitude and the highest Resentments of your Actions before and in your last Sessions of Parliament than to manifest our Approbation thereof by an Assurance that if a Dissolution of this present Parliament happen since you have evidenced so sufficiently your Affections to His Majesties Royal Person and Endeavours for the preserving the Protestant Religion our Laws and Liberties we are now resolved if you are pleas'd to continue with us to continue you as our Representatives And do therefore beg your Acceptance thereof and farther that you will continue your Station during this Prorogation faithfully assuring you that none of us desire to give or occasion you the Expence or Trouble of a Journey in order to your Election if such happen being so sensible of the too great expence you have been at already in so carefully discharging the Trust and Confidence reposed in you by Gentlemen Your Obliged and Faithful Friends and Servants Signed by the Burgesses and Electors of North-Allerton and directed to Sir Gilbert Gerrard and Sir Henry Calverly Burgesses for the Borough of North-Allerton in Yorkshire The same day the Grand-Jury of Reading Presented the following Paper to the Mayor of that Town Berkshire ss The Petition of the Grand-Jury of the Borough of Reading at the Sessions holden at the said Borough Jan. 14. 1680. To the Right Worshipful the Mayor and Aldermen of the Town and Borough of Reading The Humble Petition of the Grand-Jury of the said Town in behalf of themselves and others the Inhabitants of the same Sheweth THat your Petitioners are deeply sensible of the Great and Iminent Dangers and Mischiefs that threaten Us as well as the whole Nation by the implacable Malice and Endeavour of our Enemies to introduce Popery and Arbitrary Government to Subvert the Protestant Religion and our well-establisht Laws and to deprive us of our undoubted Rights and Liberties We therefore humbly entreat you that you would take it into your consideration that no Person whatsoever may be imployed encouraged or empowered to act in any wise in this Corporation that hath been Voted and Deemed in Parliament a Betrayer of the Rights of the People of England And your Petitioners shall Pray c. Soon after the Amazing Dissolution happened and His Majesty having then Declared his pleasure to Summon and Hold the next Parliament not at Westminster which in all Ages has been generally the usual place of Convening those Assemblies as being most conveniently situate near the Metropolis of the Kingdom where all Persons may be much better accommodated than elsewhere but at the City of Oxford several Noble Lords thought it their Duty humbly to Represent the Inconveniencies which in their apprehensions would attend such chargeable Removal and submissively to offer their Advice to His Majesty to alter that Resolution in the following Petition which being presented to His Majesty by that Noble Peer of approved Loyalty and Prudence the Right Honourable the Earl of Essex His Lordship
against the Incroachments of Arbitrary Power In pursuance of which Great and Good Ends we shall always be ready as we are obliged to adhere to you our Honoured Representatives with the utmost hazard of our Persons and Estates City of Chichester the same Day After the Unanimous Choice of John Braman and Richard Farington Esquires who serv'd for that City in the late Parliament they had the Sence of that Eminent City delivered to them by a Worthy Person in the Name and by the Consent of the rest in the following Speech Gentlemen THe Faithful discharge of the like high Trust we formerly gave you is the true Inducement of our chusing you again And as we heartily thank you for your past worthy Behaviour in Parliament and in a particular manner for your being for the Bill of Exclusion for the Bill of Uniting all His Majesty's Subjects for Vindicating our almost lost Right of Petitioning for frequent Parliaments and for your endeavour to call those wretched Pensioners to an Account that betray'd the Nation in the late Long Parliament So we pray you to persevere in your faithful Service of us until the Nation be throughly secured against Popery and Arbitrary Power And since that Famous and Renowned Bulwark of the Protestant Religion the ever-to-be-honoured City of London have commanded their Sheriffs to present their Thanks to the true English and Noble Earl of Essex and by him to the rest of those Right Honourable Peers for their late Excellent Petition and Advice to His Majesty so we being willing to imitate so Good and Great an Example do desire you in our names to present in like manner our humble and hearty Thanks to the said Earl and those Noble Lords Borough of Colchester February 15. 1680 1. After the Election made a great Number of the Free-Burgesses of this Corporation agreed upon the following Address to be presented to their Representatives To the Honourable Sir Harbottle Grimston Baronet and Samuel Reynolds Esq now chosen Burgesses for our Corporation of Cochester in the County of Essex WE the Free-Burgesses of the said Corporation being deeply sensible of the unspeakable danger threatning His Majesty's Life and the Protestant Religion and the well established Government of this Kingdom from the Hellish Designs of the Papists and their wicked Adherents And that our Religion and Liberties can only under God be secured to us and our Posterity by wholsome Advice in Parliament Have now chosen you to represent us there in confidence of your Integrity and Courage to discharge so great a Trust in this time of Imminent Danger And we do desire you to allow us to speak our stedfast Resolution with utmost hazard of our Lives and Fortunes to shew our Approbation of what shall be resolved in Parliament for maintaining the Protestant Religion and our Liberties against Popery and Arbitrary Government And we hope you will endeavour to the utmost of your Power to disable James Duke of York and all other Popish Pretenders from Inheriting the Imperial Crown of this Realm And we shall pray for your good success Here we cannot but inform the Reader That the Notorious Thompson in his Popish Intelligence of the 15th of March would insinuate as if there were no such Address by Printing a Story That the Mayor Aldermen and some others of this Town being Assembled on February 28. 1680 1. A Printed Paper purporting to be the manner of the Election and containing also an Address made to the Members c. was read amongst them and that none of the Assembly would own his Consenting to or making that Paper or Address Touching which it must be Noted 1. That the Mayor and several of these Gentlemen were disobliged by being Out-Voted and much offended because they could not carry it for their Friend Sir Walter Clarges and so had no Reason to Address to the Members duly and fairly Elected because they had vigorously appeared for a contrary Party 2. That there are in that Pamphlet in relating the manner of the Election some galling Truths or if you please Reflections which possibly had better been spared and therefore no wise man would own the making it But for the Address it self 't is certain That it was agreed upon consented unto and will be Justified by the far greater part of the Electors of this Antient and Eminently Loyal Borough of which 't was thought fit here to give this brief Account for obviating any slanderous Objection that might be made on that occasion The Address of the Gentlemen and Free-holders of Bedford To the Right Honourable the Lord Russel and Sir Humphrey Munnox Elected Knights for that Shire on the 14th of February 1680 1. WHen it pleased His Majesty to summon His Peers and Commons of this His Realm to meet Him at Westminster in the last Parliament we accordingly then Chose You to Act on our behalf And being abundantly satisfied not only in Your Courage Integrity and Prudence in general but also in Your particular Care and faithful conscientious Endeavours 1. To assert our Right of Legal Petitioning for Redress of our just Grievances and to punish those who were studious to betray it 2. To secure the Meeting and Sitting of frequent Parliaments already by Law provided for for the preservation of our Lives Liberties and Estates and for the support of His Sacred Majesty and even of the Government it self 3. To Repeal the Act of the 35th of Elizabeth whereby all true Protestants might possibly in case of a Popish Successor from which God of his infinite Mercy defend us be liable to utter Ruine Abjuration and perpetual Banishment .4 To secure his Majesty's Royal Person the Protestant Religion and well Established Government of this Realm 5. To destroy and root out Popery 6. To use the most effectual means conducing to so good an End viz. The Exclusion of a a Popish Successor both by name and otherwise We have therefore now chosen you again to represent us in like manner in this Parliament called to be held at Oxford in full Trust and Confidence that with the same Courage and Integrity you will persevere in the same good Endeavours pursuing all things that by joynt consent of your Fellow-Members shall be found for our publick Good and Safety And in full assurance that you will not consent to the disposal of any of our Moneys till we are effectually secured against Popery and Arbitrary Power do resolve by Divine Assistance to stand by you therein The Address of the Gentry and Free-holders of the County of Suffolk to their Representatives Chosen the 14th of February 1680 1. presented to them by Sir Philip Skippon in the name and by consent of the rest of the Electors To the Honourable Sir Sam. Barnardiston and Sir Will. Spring Baronets Knights of the Shire for the County of Suffolk Gentlemen WE the Free-holders of this County having chosen you our Representatives in the last Parliament in which we had satisfactory Demonstration of your
His Majesty's Royal Person the good Government of the Nation by Law and in securing our Rights and Liberties for your real Endeavours herein we joyntly return our hearty Thanks and have now chosen you again to be our Representatives in this Parliament And though we have not the least Suspicion or Doubt of your Wisdom and Integrity in Acting for our Common Good now as we apprehend in great danger yet we judge it expedient to discover our Minds and hearty Desires in the Particulars following viz. I. That you 'll continue vigorously to prosecute the horrid Popish Plotters and endeavour thay may be brought to condign punishment especially all Sham-Plotters which we esteem the worst of Villains II. That you will insist on a Bill for excluding all Popish Successors to the Crown which we believe an effectual Means under God for preserving the Protestant Religion His Majesty's Life and Tranquillity with the well established Government of the Kingdom and securing it to our Posterity III. That you endeavour passing a Bill for Regulating Elections and the Frequency of Parliaments for dispatch of those weighty Affairs of the Nation that shall from time to time be before them which we judge the best prevention of an Arbitrary Power IV. That you perservere in Asserting our Right of Legal Petitioning for removing our just Grievances and pass a Bill if there be no Law to punish such that shall obstruct it V. That you will use your utmost Endeavours to bring in a Bill against Pluralities of Church-Livings Non-residency and Scandalous Ministers of which there are too many in most Counties VI. That you will endeavour to preserve His Majesty's Person to root out Popery and prevent Arbitrary Government and use your utmost Endeavours to unite His Majesty's Protestant Subjects VII Lastly That you will not consent to any Money-Bill till the foresaid Particulars be effected and in so doing we hereby promise to stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes The Address of the Free-holders of the County of Leicester To the Right Honourable Benet Lord Sherrard and Sir John Hartopp Baronet as it was audibly read in Court by the Sheriff and unanimously approved of by the said Free-holders immediately after their Election 24 Febr. 1680 1. WE the Free-holders of the County of Leicester having chosen you to be our Representatives in the Two last Parliaments being highly sensible of the care you have taken to secure his Majesty's Royal person the Protestant Religion our Liberties and Properties as also your Endeavours further to discover and prosecute the horrid Popish Plot spread over the Realm of England and others of His Majesty's Dominions with your zealous promoting an happy Union of all good Protestants in this Land not only by good and wholesome Laws for that End but by Repealing those which were destructive to it and especially for your persisting in the Exclusion of James Duke of York and all other Popish Successors from inheriting the Imperial Crown of England which we esteem the only Security under God of His Majesty's Person and Dominions Likewise your Vindicating our fundamentally Right of Petitioning His Majesty for frequent Sitting of Parliaments by your particular Marks of Displeasure laid upon the Opposers of it For all which and other good Laws you were about to make we give you most hearty Thanks And having now again Unanimously chosen you for the ensuing Parliament if you shall continue the prosecution of the aforementioned absolutely necessary Things we shall stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes The Address of the Gentry and Free-holders of the County of York publickly read in Court and fully consented to by the whole Assembly by a general Acclamation at their Election March 2. To the Right Honourable Charles Lord Clifford and Henry Lord Fairfax May it please your Lordships THe Assurance we had of your Fidelity and Activity for the Service of our King and Country in the Parliament which began at Westminster the 6th of March 1678. Was the only Reason of our Choice of you to Represent us in the last Parliament and our experience of your Faithfulness and Diligence in the same Service the last Parliament is the only Ground of our uncontradicted Choice of you again this Day into the same Trust for the ensuing Parliament appointed to meet at Oxford the 21th instant And we judge it our Duty as good Protestants Loyal Subjects and True Englishmen not only to express our hearty Concurrence with you in but also to return you our real and publick Thanks for the many good Things you did and were about to do in both the last Parliaments and more especially for your seasonable Addresses to His Majesty your Necessary Votes Resolutions Orders and Bills whereby you have endeavoured 1. To preserve the Protestant Religion His Majesty's Person and the Kingdoms of England and Ireland from the many Dangers which threaten them 2. To Exclude a Popish Successor 3. To Unite all His Majesty's Protestant-Subjects 4. To purge out the Corruptions which abound in Elections of Members to serve in Parliament And 5. To secure us for the future against Popery and Arbitrary Power And we intreat you to proceed in a Parliamentary way to the Accomplishment of these Excellent Things and we assure you that these things being done we shall with great chearfullness be willing to supply His Majesty to the utmost of our Ability with Money for the securing of His Interest and Honour both at home and abroad A Letter agreed upon by the Mayor and Inhabitants of the Borough of Bridgwater to be sent to their Burgesses chosen on the 26th of February Sir Halswel Tynt and Sir John Malet WE greet you both with our most humble and hearty Service and by these inform you that on Saturday the 26th past with all becoming Calmness and Fairness we Elected you to be our Burgesses and Representatives in the ensuing Parliament We do also Unanimously approve of that great Care and indefatigable Industry which the last Parliament took in and toward the securing of the Protestant Religion than which nothing is more dear to us His Majesty's Sacred Person and Government together with the Vindication and Preservation of our Native Rights Liberties and Priviledges For their utmost Endeavour to bring the Betrayers of the same together with all the principal Conspirators in that most damnable and hellish Popish Plot to condign punishment not omitting our grateful Acknowledgments of those many Good Bills which they had prepared And moreover for all those worthy Votes Resolutions and orders made and past in that most Loyal and never-to-be-forgotten Parliament whereof one of you in the last and both of you in former Parliaments to our great comfort and encouragment approved your selves faithful Members We do also humbly and heartily Desire and Petition you to follow their good Precedent and Example in this ensuing Parliament to do your utmost to secure the King's Person with the Protestant Religion which we apprehend with deep sense
of mind to be in imminent Danger from all Popish Attempts and Conspiracies whatsoever As also to take Care for the Exclusion and Prevention of any Popish Successor from inheriting the Imperial Crown of this Realm In the firm and faithful Discharge of that great Trust we have reposed in you whereof we do not in the least doubt withal confidently believing That you will not charge our Estates till we are effectually secured from Popery and Arbitrary Government We do assure you That we will stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes And we shall ever pray for your good Success The Sense of the Gentry and Free-holders of the County of Nottingham to Sir Scroop How and John White elected Knights of the Shire there Febr. 22. as it was delivered in the following Speech made by a worthy Gentleman in the Name and by and with the Consent and Approbation of the whole Company of Electors Gentlemen WE give you hearty Thanks for your good Service in the late Parliaments and for accepting the same Trust again And we desire you to persevere in the same steps you have before made for the Preservation of His Majesty's Royal Person against the wicked Attempts of the Hellish Plotters And for the Defence of Religion and Property against Popery and Arbitrary Power and that you would be sparing of our Money until those things are effectually secured and a sure Foundation laid of an happy Union between the King and his People by the removal of those Evil Instruments who through private Interest and Ambition make it their business to divide their Affections The Barkshire Address to the Gentlemen Unanimously Elected to serve for that County Feb. 28. 1680 1. To the Worshipful William Barker and Richard Southby Esquires now Chosen to be the Representatives of the County of Berks. WE the Free-holders of this County being abundantly satisfied of your Faithful Discharge of the great Trust we reposed in you in the last Parliament in your Care and constant Attendance is the true Inducement of our Chusing you again this Day to be our Representatives in this Parliament to be holden at Oxford and do return you our hearty Thanks 1. That you have asserted our Right of the Legal Petitioning for Redress of our just Grievances and punishing those who labour to betray it 2. For endeavouring to preserve his Majesty's Royal Person the Protestant Religion and the Established Government of this Realm 3. In using the most effectual Means conducing to so good an End viz. the Excluding of James Duke of York or any Popish Successor from ever Inheriting this Crown being the only way as we imagine under God to destroy and root Popery out of this Realm 4. For endeavouring the frequent Meeting and Sitting of Parliaments already by Law provided for the preservation of our Lives Liberties and Estates for the support of his Majesty and the Government it self 5. For Repealing the 35th of Queen Elizabeth whereby all true Protestants might not be liable to utter Ruine and perpetual Banishment 6. For your Inspection into the Illegal and Arbitrary Proceedings of the Courts in Westminster-Hall as destructive to publick Justice and violating the Rights of the Subjects and in effect to subvert the Ancient Constitution of Parliaments and the Government of this Kingdom 7. That you laboured for an Happy and Necessary Union amongst all his Majesty's Protestant Subjects as being the surest way to defend the true Religion from all the evil Attempts of our Popish Adversaries 8. For Repealing the Corporation Act. And now our Request is That you will not consent to any Money-Bill till the aforesaid particulars be throughly effected and in so doing we do hereby engage to stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes The Address of the Town of Dover To Thomas Papillon and William Stokes Esquires the late and now new elected Members to serve in Parliament for the Town and Port of Dover in the County of Kent WE the Mayor Jurats and Commonalty of the said Town of Dover having duly considered the good Abilities and great Faithfulness of you who have been our Representatives in the two preceeding Parliaments and have therein given demonstration of your Loyalty to his Majesty and for the Security of his Majesty's Kingdoms do with all gratefulness return you our hearty thanks and do pray that in pursuance of the Trust we have now again reposed in you you will with the same Candor and Faithfulness endeavour the Security of his Majesty's Person the Protestant Religion and his Majesty's Protestant Subjects by your utmost endeavours for the perfecting of those good Bills that were before you in the last Parliament in prosecution of which we will stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes The Address of the Borough of New-Castle under Line as it was read in the Town-Hall by the Recorder and fully consented to by the Inhabitants March the 3d. To the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Bellot Bar. and William Loveson Gower Esq now Chosen Burgesses for the Borough of New-Castle under Line WE the Mayor Aldermen and Free-Burgesses Inhabitants of the aforesaid Borough being deeply sensible of your faithful Discharge of the great Trust reposed in you the two last Parliaments and of the unspeakable Danger threatning his Majesty's Life the Protestant Religion and the well-established Government of this Kingdom from the Hellish Designs of the Papists and their Adherents And that our Religion and Liberties can only under God be secured to us and our Posterities by the wholesome Advice of Parliaments have now chosen you again to represent us in the next ensuing Parliament to be held at Oxford March 21st instant in confidence of your continued Faithfulness Integrity and Courage still to Discharge so great a Trust especially in this time of so imminent Danger And we do hereby declare That to our utmost power though with the hazard of our Lives and Fortunes we will maintain and approve of what shall be resolved in Parliament for the maintaining the Protestant Religion against Popery and Arbitrary Government And we also having already had such Experience of your Affections to the Kingdoms Interest hope that you will not consent to the Disposal of any of our Moneys till we are effectually setured against Popery and then a Charge upon us to the half of what we enjoy will be chearfully accepted by us And we hope that you will also endeavour to the utmost of your Power to disable James Duke of York and all other Popish Pretenders from Inheriting the Imperial Crown of this Realm And thereby you will lay a firm Obligation upon us who will heartily and unfeignedly pray for your good Success in so weighty an undertaking Signed Ralph Wood Mayor Nath. Beard and Will. Middleton Justices and by the Aldermen and Capital Burgesses and above 200 more of the Chief Inhabitants with their own hands The Address of the Gentry and other Free-holders of the County of Sussex To Sir Will. Thomas and Sir John Fagg
next morning the draught being so much changed and interlined that many even of the most engaged in the Debate did not sufficiently understand it and though they took notes knew not precisely how it stood And this was indeed the Earls case in particular and the cause why in Voting he did forbear either to approve or disapprove His part in the debate was that in the entry of it he said that he thought as few Oaths should be required as could be and these as short and clear as possible That it was his humble opinion that a very small alteration in these Acts which had been used these twenty years might serve for it was manifest and he attested the whole Parliament upon it That the Oath of Allegiance and Declaration had effectually debarred all Fanaticks from getting into places of trust all that time It was true some Papists had swallowed the Oath of Allegiance and therefore a word or two only of addition to guard against them was all he judged necessary And there after where in the close of the Act The Kings Sons and Brothers were intended to be dispensed with from taking the Test he opposed the exception and said it was our happiness that King and People were of one Religion and that they were so by Law That he hoped the Parliament would do nothing to loose what was fast nor open a gap for the Royal Family to differ in Religion their example was of great consequence one of them was as a thousand and would draw the more followers if once it appeared to the people that it were honourable and a priviledge to be of another Religion And therefore he wished if any exception were it might be particular for his Royal Highness but his Highness himself opposing this the Earl concluded with his fear that if this exception did pass it would do more hurt to the Protestant Religion than all the rest of that Act and many other Acts could do good Whilst these Acts about Religion were in agitation his Highness told the Earl one day in private to beware of himself for the Earl of Errol and others were to give in a Bill to the Parliament to get him made liable to some debts they pretended to be Cautioners in for his Father and that those that were most forward in His Majesties service must be had a care of The Earl â—aid he knew there was no ground for any such Bill and he hoped neither the Earl of Errol nor any other should have any advantage of him upon any head relating to His Majesties service His Highness told others likewise he had given the Earl good advice But shortly after the above-mentioned debates there were two Bills given into the meeting of the Articles against the Earl one by the Earl of Errol the other by His Majesties Advocate who alledged he did it by command for otherwise he acknowledged it was without his line The Earl of Errol's claim was that the Earl of Argyle might be declared liable to relieve him and others of a debt wherein they alledged they stood bound as Cautioners for the late Marquess of Argyle the Earl's Father To which the Earl answered that he had not got his Fathers whole Estate but only a part of it and that expressly burdened with all the debts he was liable to pay whereof this pretended debt was none and that the Marquess of Huntly who at that time was owing to the Marquess of Argyle 35000 l. Sterl had got 4000 l. Sterl of yearly Rent out of the Marquess of Argyle's forfaulture without the burden of any debt so that both by Law and Equity the Earl could not be liable the Marquess of Huntly and not he having got that which should bear this relief and which should indeed have payed the far greatest part of the Marquess of Argyle's debt the same having been undertaken for Huntly by Argyle either as Cautioner for Huntly or to raise money to pay his debt Besides that the Earl of Errol can never make it appear that he or his Predecessors were bound for the Marquess of Argyle in the third part of the sums he acclaims yet some were much inclined to believe Errol on his bare assertion His Majesties Advocates claim was to take from the Earl his heritable Offices of Sheriff c. especially that of Justice-General of Argyle-Shire the isles and other places which last is nevertheless only a part of the general Justitiary of all Scotland granted to his Predecessors some hundred of years ago for honourable and onerous causes and constantly enjoyed by them until expressly surrendered in his late Majesties hands for a new Grant of the above-mentioned Justitiary of Argyle c. And this new Grant was also confirmed by many Acts of Parliament and particularly by His Majesties Royal Father of Blessed Memory in the Parliament holden by him Anno 1633. As likewise by His Majesty that now is whom God long preserve his new Gift and Charter after several Debates before him in Anno 1663. and 1672. Which new Gifts and Charters were again ratified by a special instruction from His Majesty in the Parliament 1672. So that albeit several late Gifts of Regality granted to the Marquess of Athol Marquess of Queensberry and others may be questioned because granted since the Acts of Parliament discharging all such Gifts in time coming yet the Earl of Argyl's rights are good as being both of a far different nature and granted long before the said Acts of Parliament and in effect the Earl his rights are rather confirmed by these prohibitive Acts because both anterior to and excepted from them as appears by the Act Salvo Jure 1633. Wherein the Earls rights are particularly and fully excepted in the body of the printed Act. When these things appeared so plain as not to be answered It was alledged that upon the forfaulture of the late Marquess of Argyl his Estate was annexed to the Crown and so could not be gifted to the Earl by His Majesty wherein they soon discovered a design to forfault him if any pretence could be found But the Act of Forfaulture being read and containing no such thing but on the contrary a clear power left to His Majesty to dispose of the whole and the Earl telling them plainly that these that were most active to have his Father forfaulted were very far from desiring his Estate to be annexed to the Crown seeing it was in expectation of Gifts out of it they were so diligent that pretence of the annexation was past from but yet the design was no wise given over for there was a proposition made and a Vote carried in the Articles that a Committee should be appointed with Parliamentary power to meet in the intervals of Parliament to determine all controversies could be moved against any of the Earls rights Which was a very extraordinary device and plainly carried by extraordinary influences Upon this the Earl applyed to the Parliament where this Vote was to be
any thing a greater reproach on the Parliament or a greater ground of mislike to the people And whereas it is pretended That all Laws and Subsumptions should be clear and these are only inferences It is answered That there are some things which the Law can only forbid in general and there are many inferences which are as strong and natural and reproach as soon or sooner than the plainest defamations in the world do for what is openly said of reproach to the King does not wound him so much as many seditious insinuations have done in this Age and the last So that whatever was the Earls design albeit it is always conceived to be unkind to the Act against which himself debated in Parliament yet certainly the Law in such cases is only to consider what effect this may have amongst the people and therefore the Acts of Parliament that were to guard against the misconstruing of His Majesties Government do not only speak of what was designed but where a disliking may be caused and so judgeth ab effectu And consequentially to the same emergent reason it makes all things tending to the raising of dislike to be punishable by the Act 60. Parl. 6. Q. Mary and the 9. Act Parl. 20. James VI. So that the Law designed to deter all men by these indefinite and comprehensive expressions And both in this and all the Laws of Leasing-making the Judges are to consider what falls under these general and comprehensive words Nor could the Law be more special here since the makers of Reproach and Slander are so various that they could not be bound up or exprest in any Law But as it evidently appears that no man can hear the words exprest if he believe this paper but he must think the Parliament has made a very ridiculous Oath inconsistent with it self and the Protestant Religion the words allowing no other sense and having that natural tendency even as if a man would say I love such a man only in so far as he is an honest man he behooved certainly to conclude that the man was not every way honest So if your Lordships will take measures by other Parliaments or your Predecessors ye will clearly see That they thought less than this a defaming of the Government and misconstruing His Majesties proceedings For in Balmerino's Case the Justices find an humble Supplication made to the King himself to fall under these Acts now cited Albeit as that was a Supplication so it contained the greatest expressions of Loyalty and offers of Life and Fortune that could be exprest yet because it insinuates darkly That the King in the precedeing Parliament had not favoured the Protestant Religion and they were sorry he should have taken Notes with his own hands of what they said which seems to be most innocent yet he was found guilty upon those same very Acts And the Parliament 1661. found his Lordship himself guilty of Leasing-making tho he had only written a Letter to a private Friend which requires no great care nor observation but this paper which was to be a part of his own Oath does because after he had spoken of the Parliament in the first part of this Letter he thereafter added That the King would know their Tricks which words might be much more applicable to the private persons therein designed than that the words now insisted on can be capable of any such Interpretation And if either Interpretations upon pretext of exonering of Conscience or otherwise be allowed a man may easily defame as much as he pleases And have we not seen the King most defamed by Covenants entered into upon pretence to make him great and glorious by Remonstrances made to take away his Brother and best Friend upon pretence of preserving the Protestant Religion and his Sacred person And did not all who rebelled against him in the last Age declare That they thought themselves bound in duty to obey him but still as far as that could consist with their respect to the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties which made all the rest ineffectual And whereas it is pretended That by these words I take the same in as far as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion nothing more is meant but that he takes it as a true Protestant His Majesties Advocate appeals to your Lordships and all the Hearers if upon hearing this expression they should take it in this sense and not rather think that there is an inconsistency For if that were possible to be the sense what need he say at all As far as it is consistent with it self Nor had the other part As far as it is consistent with the Protestant Religion been necessary for it is either consistent with the Protestant Religion or otherwise they were Enemies to the Protestant Religion that made it Nor are any Lawyers or others in danger by pleading or writing for these are very different from and may be very easily pleaded without defaming a Law and an Oath when they go to take it But if any Lawyer should say in pleading or writing That the Test was inconsistent or which is all one that it were not to be taken by any man but so far as it was consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion no doubt this would be a crime even in pleading tho pleading has a greater allowance than deliberate swearing has And as there is nothing wherein there is not some inconveniency so the inconveniency of defaming the Government is much greater than that of any private mans hazard who needs not err except he please Whereas it is pretended That before the Earl gave in this Explication there were other Explications spread abroad and Answers read to them in Council and that the Council it self gave an Explication It is answered That if this paper be Leasing-making or misconstruing His Majesties proceedings and Treasonable as is contended then a thousand of the like offences cannot excuse it And when the King accused Noblemen Ministers and others in the year 1661. for going on in the Rebellions of that Age first with the Covenanters and then with the Usurpers it was found no Defence That the Nation was over-grown with those Crimes and that they were thought to be duties in those days Yea this were to invite men to offend in multitudes And albeit sometimes these who follow the examples of multitudes may thereby pretend this as an excuse to many yet this was never a formal defence against Guilt nor was ever the chief of the Offenders favourable on that Head And it is to be presumed That the Earl of Argyle would rather be followed by others than that he would follow any example But His Majesties Advocate does absolutely decline to debate a point that may defame a constant and standing Act of Parliament by leaving upon record a memory of its being opposed Nor were this Relevant except it could be said the Council had allowed such Explications which reflected
nothing in the Test consistent with either And 3dly If the Protestant Religion and the Earl his reference to it be nothing then is not only the Council sadly reproached who in their Explanation declare this to be the only thing sworn to in the first part of the Test but our Religion quite subverted as far as this Test can do it But next for the Treason the Advocate says That the Earl expresly declares he means not by the Test to bind up himself from wishing or endeavouring in his station and in a lawful way any alteration he shall think for the advantage of Church or State whereby says he the Earl declares himself and others loosed from any obligation to the Government and from the duty of all good Subjects and that they may make what alterations they please A direct contrariety instead of a just consequence as if to be tied to Law Religion and Loyalty were to be loosed from all three Can there be a flatter and more ridiculous contradiction Next the Advocate pretends to found upon the fundamental Laws of this and all Nations Whereby it is Treason for any Man to make any alterations he thinks fit for the advantage of Church or State But first The Earl is not nor cannot be accused of so much as wishing much less endeavouring or making any alteration either in Church or State only he reserves to himself the same freedom for wishing which he had before his Oath and that all that have taken it do in effect say they still retain 2dly For a man to endeavour in his station and in a lawful way such alterations in Church or State as he conceives to their advantage not repugnant to Religion and Loyalty is so far from being Treason that it is the duty of every Subject and the sworn Duty of all His Majesty's Councellors and of all Members of Parliament But the Advocate by fancying and misapplying Laws of Nations wresting Acts of Parliaments adding taking away chopping and changing words thinks to conclude what he pleases And thus he proceeds That the Treason of making Alterations is not taken off by such qualifications of making them in a lawful way in ones station to the advantage of Church or State and not repugnant to Religion or Loyalty But how then Here is a strange matter Hundreds of Alterations have been made within these few years in our Government and in very material Points and the King 's best Subjects and greatest Favourites have both endeavoured and effectuate them And yet because the things were done according to the Earl's qualifications instead of being accounted Treason they have been highly commended and rewarded The Treasury hath been sometimes in the hands of a Treasurer sometimes put into a Commission backward and forward And the Senators of the College of Justice the right of whose places was thought to be founded on an Act of Parliament giving His Majesty the prerogative only of presenting are now commissioned by a Patent under the great Seal both which are considerable alterations in the Government which some have opposed others have wished and endeavoured and yet without all fear of Treason on either hand only because they acted according to these qualifications in a lawful way and not repugnant to Religion and Loyalty But that which the Advocate wilfully mistakes for it is impossible he could do it ignorantly is that he will have the endeavouring of alterations in general not to be of it self a thing indifferent and only determinable to be good or evil by its qualifications as all men see it plainly to be but to be forsooth in this very generality intrinsically evil a Notion never to be admitted on Earth in the frail and fallible condition of humane Affairs And then he would establish this wise Position by an example he adduces That rising in Arms against the King for so sure he means it being otherwise certain that rising in Arms in general is also a thing indifferent and plainly determinable to be either good or evil as done with or against the King's Authority is Treason and says If the Earl had reserved to himself a liberty to rise in Arms against the King tho he had added in a lawful manner yet it would not have availed because and he says well This being in it self unlawful the qualification had been but shams and contrariae facto But why then doth not his own reason convince him where the difference lies viz. That rising in Arms against the King is in it self unlawful whereas endeavouring alterations is only lawful or unlawful as it is qualified and if qualified in the Earl's Terms can never be unlawful But says the Advocate The Earl declares himself free to make all alterations and so he would make Men believe that the Earl is for making All or Any without any reserve whereas the Earl's words are most express that he is Neither for making all or any but only for wishing and endeavouring for such as are good and lawful and in a lawful way which no Man can disown without denying common reason nor no sworn Councellor disclaim without manifest Perjury But the Advocate 's last conceit is That the Earl's restriction is not as the King shall think fit or as is consistent with the Law but that himself is still to be judge of this and his Loyalty to be the standard But first The Earl's restriction is expresly according to Loyalty which in good sense is the same with according to Law and the very thing that the King is ever supposed to think Secondly As neither the Advocate nor any other hitherto have had reason to distinguish the exercise and actings of the Earlâ—s Loyalty from those of His Majesty's best Subjects so Is it not a marvellous thing that the Advocate should profess to think for in reality he cannot think it the Earl's words His Loyalty which all men see to be the same with his Duty and Fidelity or what else can bind him to his Prince capable of any quibble far more to be a ground of so horrid an accusation And whereas the Advocate says The Earl is still to be judge of this It is but an insipid calumny it being as plain as any thing can be That the Earl doth nowise design His thinking to be the rule of Right and Wrong but only mentions it as the necessary application of these excellent and unerring Rules of Religion Law and Reason to which he plainly refers and subjects both his thinking and himself to be judged accordingly By which it is evident that the Earl's restriction is rather better and more dutiful than that which the Advocate seems to desiderate And if the Earl's restrictions had not been full enough it was the Advocate 's part before administrating the Oath to have craved what more he thought necessary which the Earl in the Case would not have refused But it is believed the Advocate can yet hardly propose restrictions more full and suitable to Duty
of the Traytors it was comfortably hoped before thirty Months should have past over after the detection thereof some effectual Remedies might have been applied to prevent the further Attempts of the Papists upon us and better to have secured the Protestants in their Religion Lives and Properties But by sad experience we have found that notwithstanding the vigorous Endeavours of three of our Parliaments to provide proper and wholsome Laws to answer both ends Yet so prevalent has this Interest been under so potent a Head the D. of Y. as to stifle in the birth all those hopeful Parliament-Endeavours by those many surprizing and astonishing Prorogations and Dissolutions which they have procured whereby our Fears and Dangers have manifestly increased and their Spirits heightned and incouraged to renew and multiply fresh Plottings and Designs upon us But that our approaching Parliament may be more successful for our Relief before it be too late by being permitted to sit to Redress our Grievances and to perfect those Good Bills which have been prepared by the former Parliaments to this purpose these following Common-Law Maxims respecting King and Parliament and the Common and Statute-Laws themselves to prevent such unnatural Disappointments and Mischiefs providing for the fitting of Parliaments till Grievances be redress'd and publick Safety secured and provided for are tendered to consideration Some known Maxims taken out of the Law-Books 1. Respecting the King That the Kings of England can do nothing as Kings but what of right they ought to do That the King can do no wrong nor can he dye That the King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined by Law That the King hath no Power but what the Law gives him That the King is so called from Ruling well Rex à bene Regendo viz. according to Law Because be is a King whilst be Rules well but a Tyrant when he Oppresses That Kings of England never appear more in their glory splendor and Majestick Sovereignty than in Parliaments That the Prerogative of the King cannot do wrong nor be a Warrant to do wrong to any Plowd Comment fol. 246. 2. Respecting the Parliament That Parliaments constitute and are laid in the Essence of the Government That a Parliament is that to the Common-Wealth which the Soul is to the Body which is only able 〈…〉 and understand the symptoms of all Diseafes which threaten the Body-politick That a Parliament is the Bulwark of our Liberty the boundary which keeps us from the Inundation of Tyrannical Power Arbitrary and unbounded Will-Government That Parliaments do make new and abrogate old Laws Reform Grievances in the Commonwealth settle the Succession grant Subsidies And in sum may be called the great Physician of the Kingdom From whence it appears and is self-evident if Parliaments are so absolutely necessary in this our Constitution That they must then have their certain stationary times of Session and continuance for providing Laws essentially necessary for the being as well as the well-being of the People and redressing all publick Grievances either by the want of Laws or of the undue Execution of them in being or otherwise And suitable hereunto are those Provisions made by the Wisdom of our Ancestors as recorded by them both in the Common and Statute-Law First Coke lib. 7. Rep. p. 12 13. What we find hereof in the Common-Law The Common-Law saith my Lord Coke is that which is founded in the immutable Law and light of Nature agreeable to the Law of God requiring Order Government Subjection and Protection c. Containing ancient Vsages warranted by Holy Scripture and because it is generally given to all it is therefore called Common Lib. 9. Preface And further saith That in the book called The Mirror of Justice appeareth the whole frame of the ancient Common-Laws of this Realm from the time of K. Arthur 5 6. till near the Conquest which treats also of the Officers as well as the diversity and dictinction of the Courts of Justice which are Officinae Legis and particularly of the High Court of Parliament by the name of Council-General or Parliament so called from Parler-la-ment speaking judicially his mind And amongst others gives us the following Law of King Alfred who reigned about 880. Le Roy Alfred Ordeigna pur usage perpetuel que a deux foits per lan ou plus sovene pur mistier in temps de peace so Assembler a Londres Mirror of Justice Ch. 1. Sect. 3. pur Parliamenter surle guidement del people de dieu corneâ—t gents soy garderent de pechers viverent in quiet receiverent droit per certain usages saints Judgments King Alfred ordaineth for a usage perpetual That twice a year or oftner if need be in time of peace they shall assemble themselves at London to treat in Parliament of the Government of the People of God how they should keep themselves from Offences should live in quiet and should receive right by certain Laws and holy Judgments And thus saith my Lord Coke you have a Statute of K. Alfred Lord Coke's Comment upon it as well concerning the holding of this Court of Parliament twice every year at the City of London as to manifest the threefold end of this great and honourable Assembly of Estates As First That the Subject might be kept from offending that is that Offences might be prevented both by good and provident Laws and by the due Execution thereof Secondly That men might live safely and in quiet Thirdly That all men might receive Justice by certain Laws and holy Judgments that is to the end that Justice might be the better administred that Questions and Defects in Laws might be by the High Court of Parliament planed reduced to certainty and adjudged And further tells us That this Court being the most Supream Court of this Realm is a part of the frame of the Common-Laws and in some cases doth proceed Legally according to the ordinary course of the Common-Law as it appeareth 39 E. 3. f. Coke Inst ch 29. fol. 5. To be short of this Court it is truly said Si vetestatem specter est antiquissima si dignitatem est honoratissima si jurisdictionem est capacissima If you regard Antiquity it is the most Ancient if Dignity the most Honourable if Jurisdiction the most Sovereign And where question hath been made whether this Court continued during the Heptarchy let the Records themselves make answer of which he gives divers Instances in the times of King Ine Offa Ethelbert After the Heptarchy King Edward Son of Alfred King Ethelston Edgar Ethelred Edmond Canutus All which he saith and many more are extant and publickly known proving by divers Arguments that there were Parliaments unto which the Knights and Burgesses were summoned both before in and after the Reign of the Conqueror till Hen. 3d's time and for your further satisfaction herein see 4 E. 3.25 49 Ed. 3.22 23. 11 H. 4.2 Littl. lib. 2. cap. 20. Whereby we may understand 1.
shall Act not only contrary to but to the Destruction of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom And how Harmonious such Justice will be the Text tells us Deut. 27.17 Cursed be he that removeth his Neighbours Land mark and all the People shall say Amen That this present Session may have a happy Issue to answer the great ends of Parliaments and therein our present Exigencies and Necessities is the incessant Cry and longing Expectation of all the Protestants in the Land The Security of English-mens Lives or the Trust Power and Duty of the Grand Juries of England Explained according to the Fundamentals of the English Government and the Declarations of the same made in Parliament by many Statutes THE Principal Ends of all Civil Government and of Humane Society were the Security of Mens Lives Liberties and Properties mutual assistance and help each unto other and provision for their common benefit and advantage and where the Fundamental Laws and Constitution of any Government have been wisely adapted unto those Ends such Countries and Kingdoms have increased in Vertue Prowess Wealth and Happiness whilst others through the want of such excellent Constitutions or negect of preserving them have been a Prey to the Pride Lust and Cruelty of the most Potent and the People have had no assurance of Estates Liberties or Lives but from their Grace and Pleasure They have been many times forced to welter in each other's Blood in their Master's quarrel for Dominion and at best they have served like Beasts of burthen and by continual base subserviency to their Master's Vices have lost all sense of true Religion Virtue and Manhood Our Ancestors have been famous in their Generations for Wisdom Piety and Courage in forming and preserving a Body of Laws to secure themselves and their Posterities from Slavery and Oppression and to maintain their Native Freedoms to be subject only to the Laws made by their own Consent in their general Assemblies and to be put in execution chiefly by themselves their Officers and Assistants to be guarded and defended from all Violence and Force by their own Arms kept in their own hands and used at their own charge under their Prince's Conduct entrusting nevertheless an ample Power to their Kings and other Magistrates that they may do all the good and enjoy all the happiness that the largest Soul of man can honestly wish and carefully providing such means of correcting and punishing their Ministers and Councellors if they transgressed the Laws that they might not dare to abuse or oppress the People or design against their freedom or welfare This Body of Laws our Ancestors always esteemed the best Inheritance they could leave to their Posterities well knowing that these were the sacred Fence of their Lives Liberties and Estates and an unquestionable Title whereby they might call what they had their own or say they were their own Men The inestimable value of this Inheritance moved our Progenitors with great resolution bravely from Age to Age to defend it and it now falls to our lot to preserve it against the Dark Contrivances of a Popish Faction who would by Frauds Sham-Plots and Infamous Perjuries deprive us of our Birth-rights and turn the points of our Swords our Laws into our own Bowels they have impudently scandalized our Parliaments with Designs to overturn the Monarchy because they would have excluded a Popish Successor and provided â—or the Security of the Religion and Lives of all Protestants They have caused Lords and Commoners to be for a long time kept in Prisons and suborned Witnesses to swear matters of Treason against them endeavouring thereby not only to cut off some who had eminently appeared in Parliament for our ancient Laws but through them to blast the Repute of Parliaments themselves and to lessen the Peoples Confidence in those great Bulwarks of their Religion and Government The present purpose is to shew how well our Worthy Fore-fathers have provided in our Law for the safety of our Lives not only against all attemps of open Violence by the severe punishment of Robbers Murtherers and the like but the secret poisonous Arrows that fly in the dark to destroy the Innocent by false Accusation and Perjuries Our Law-makers foresaw both their dangers from the Malice and Passion that might cause some of private condition to accuse others falsly in the Courts of Justice and the great hazards of Worthy and Eminent Mens Lives from the Malice Emulation and Ill Designs of Corrupt Ministers of State or otherwise potent who might commit the most odious of Murthers in the form and course of Justice either by corrupting of Judges as dependant upon them for their Honour and great Revenue or by bribing and hiring men of depraved Principles and desperate Fortunes to swear falsly against them doubtless they had heard the Scriptures and observed that the great men of the Jews sought out many to swear Treason and Blasphemy against Jesus Christ They had heard of Ahab's Courtiers and Judges who in the Course and Form of Justice by false Witnesses murthered Naboth because he would not submit his Property to an A bitrary Power Neither were they ignorant of the Ancient Roman Histories and the pestilent false Accusers that abounded in the Reign of some of those Emperors under whom the greatest of Crimes was to be virtuous Therefore as became good Legislators they made as prudent Provinon as perhaps any Country in the World enjoys for equal and impartial Administration of Justice in all the concerns of the Peoples Lives that every man whether Lord or Commoner might be in safety whilst they lived in due obedience to the Laws For this purpose it is made a Fundamental in our Government that unless it be by Parliament See Lâ— Cook 's Instit 3d part p. 40. See Mag. Chart. Cooke's â—d part of Insâ—â—t p. 50 51. no man's Life should be touched for any Crime whatsoever save by the Judgment of at least 24 Men that is 12 or more to find the Bill of Indictment whether he be Peer of the Realm or Commoner and 12 Peers or above if a Lord if not 12 Commoners to give the Judgment upon the general Issue of not guilty joined of these 24 the first 12 are called the Grand Inquest or the Grand Jury for the extent of their power and in regard that their number must be no more than 12 sometimes 23 or 25 never were less than 13. Twelve whereof at least must agree to every Indictment or else 't is no legal Verdict If 11 of 21 or of 13 should agree to find a Bill of Indictment it were no Verdict The other Twelve in Commoners Cases are called the Petit-Jury and their number is ever Twelve but the Jury for a Peer of the Realm may be more in number though of like Authority The Office and Power of these Juries is Judicial they only are the Judges from whose Sentence the Indicted are to expect Life or Death upon their Integrity and Understanding
when he came of Age was to swear in Person with all his Family and afterwards with all his People of Scotland a Covenant containing an Enumeration of all the points of Popery and a most solemn Renunciation of them somewhat like our Parliament Test his first Speech to the Parliament of England was Copious on this Subject and he left a Legacy of a Wish on such of his Posterity as should go over to that Religion which in good manners is suppressed It is known K. James was no Conquerour and that he made more use of his Pen than his Sword so the Glory that is peculiar to his Memory must fall chiefly on his Learned and Immortal Writings and since there is such a Veneration expressed for him it agrees not ill with this to wish that his Works were more studied by those who offer such Incense to his Glorious Memory IX His Majesty assures his People of Scotland upon a certain Knowledge and long Experience that the Catholicks as they are good Christians so they are likewise dutiful Subjects but if we must believe both these equally then we must conclude severely against their being Good Christians for we are sure they can never be good Subjects not only to a Heretical Prince if he does not extirpate Hereticks for their beloved Council of the Lateran that decreed Transubstantiation has likewise decreed that if a Prince does not extirpate Hereticks out of his Dominions the Pope must depose him and declare his Subjects absolved from their Allegiance and give his Dominions to another so that even his Majesty how much soever he may be a Zealous Catholick yet he cannot be assured of their fidelity to him unless he has given them secret assurances that he is resolved to extirpate Hereticks out of his Dominions and that all the Promises which he now makes to these poor wretches are no other way to be kept than the Assurances which the Great Lewis gave to his Protestant Subjects of his observing still the Edict of Nantes even after he had resolved to break it and also his last promise made in the Edict that repealed the Edict of Nantes by which he gave Assurances that no violence should be used to any for their Religion in the very time that he was ordering all possible Violences to be put in execution against them X. His Majesty assures us that on all Occasions the Papists have shewed themselves good and faithful Subjects to him and his Royal Predecessors but how Absolute soever the King's Power may be it seems his Knowledge of History is not so Absolute but it may be capable of some Improvement It will be hard to find out what Loyalty they shewed on the Gunpowder Plot or during the whole progress of the Rebellion of Ireland if the King will either take the words of King James of Glorious Memory or K. Charles the first that was indeed of pious and blessed Memory rather than the penners of this Proclamation it will not be hard to find Occasions where they were a little wanting in this their so much boasted Loyalty and we are sure that by the Principles of that Religion the King can never be assured of the Fidelity of those he calls his Catholick Subjects but by engaging to them to make his Heretical Subjects Sacrifices to their Rage XI The King declares them capable of all the Offices and Benefices which he shall think fit to bestow on them and only restrains them from invading the Protestant Churches by force so that here a door is plainly opened for admitting them to the Exercise of their Religion in Protestant Churches so they do not break into them by force and whatsoever may be the Sense of the term Benefice in its antient and first signification now it stands only for Church Preferments so that when any Churches that are at the King's Gift fall vacant here is a plain intimation that they are to be provided to them and then it is very probable that all the Laws made against such as go not to their parish Churches will be severely turned upon those that will not come to Mass XII His Majesty does in the next place in the vertue of his Absolute Power Annul a great many Laws as well those that Established the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy as the late Test enacted by himself in person while he represented his Brother upon which he gave as strange an Essay to the World of his absolute Justice in the Attainder of the late Earl of Argile as he does now of his Absolute Power in condemning the Test it self he also repeals his own Confirmation of the Test since he came to the Crown which he offered as the clearest Evidence that he could give of his Resolution to maintain the Protestant Religion and by which he gained so much upon that Parliament that he obtained every thing from them that he desired of them till he came to try them in the Matters of Religion This is no Extraordinary Evidence to assure his People that his Promises will be like the Laws of the Medes and Persians which alter not nor will the disgrace of the Commissioner that Enacted that Law lay this matter wholly on him for the Letter that he brought the Speech that he made and the Instructions which he got are all too well known to be so soon forgotten and if Princes will give their Subjects reason to think that they forget their Promises as soon as the turn is served for which they were made this will be too prevailing a Temptation on the Subjects to mind the Princes promise as little as it seems he himself does and will force them to conclude that the Truth of the Prince is not so absolute as it seems he fancies his Power to be XIII Here is not only a repealing of a great many Laws and established Oaths and Tests but by the Exercise of the Absolute Power a new Oath is imposed which was never pretended to by the Crown in any former time and as the Oath is Created by this Absolute Power so it seems the Absolute Power must be supported by this Oath since one branch of it is an Obligation to maintain his Majesty and his Lawful Successors in the Exercise of this their Absolute Power and Authority against all deadly which I suppose is Scotch for Mortals now to impose so hard a yoke as this Absolute Power on the Subject seems no small stretch but it is a wonderful exercise of it to oblige the Subjects to defend this it had been more modest if they had been only bound to bear it and submit to it but it is a terrible thing so far to extinguish all the remnants of natural Liberty or of a Legal Government as to oblige the Subjects by Oath to maintain the Exercise of this which plainly must destroy themselves for the short execution by the Bow-strings of Turkey or by sending Orders to Men to return in their Heads being an Exercise of
meet for the meaning of this seems plain that His Majesty is resolved that they shall never meet till he receives such Assurances in a new round of Closetting that he shall be put out of doubt concerning it VII I will not enter into the Dispute concerning Liberty of Conscience and the Reasons that may be offered for it to a Session of Parliament for there is scarce any one point that either with relation to Religion or Politicks affords a greater variety of matter for Reflection and I make no doubt to say that there is abundance of Reason to oblige Parliaments to review all the Penal Laws either with relation to Papists or to Dissenters but I will take the boldness to add one thing that the King 's Suspending of Laws strikes at the root of this whole Government and subverts it quite for if there is any thing certain with relation to English Government it is this that the Executive Power of the Law is entirely in the King and the Law to fortifie him in the Management of it has cloathed him with a vast Prerogative and made it unlawful on any pretence whatsoever to resist him whereas on the other hand the Legislative Power is not so entirely in the King but that the Lords and Commons have such a share in it that no Law can either be made repealed or which is all one suspended but by their consent so that the placing this Legislative Power singly in the King is a subversion of this whole Government since the Essence of all Governments consists in the Subjects of the Legislative Authority Acts of Violence or Injustice committed in the Executive part are such things that all Princes being subject to them the peace of mankind were very ill secured if it were not unlawful to resist upon any pretence taken from any ill Administrations in which as the Law may be doubtful so the Facts may be uncertain and at worst the publick Peace must always be more valued than any private Oppressions or Injuries whatsoever But the total Subversion of a Government being so contrary to the Trust that is given to the Prince who ought to execute it will put men upon uneasie and dangerous Inquiries which will turn little to the Advantage of those who are driving matters to such a doubtful and desperate Issue VIII If there is any thing in which the Exercise of the Legislative Power seems indispensable it is in those Oaths of Allegiance and Tests that are thought necessary to Qualifie men either to be admitted to enjoy the protection of the Law or to bear a share in the Government for in these the Security of the Government is chiefly concerned and therefore the total Extinction of these as it is not only a Suspension of of them but a plain repealing of them so it is a Subverting of the whole Foundation of our Government For the Regulation that King and Parliament had set both for the Subjects having the protection of the State by the Oath of Allegiance and for a share in the places of Trust by the Tests is now pluckt up by the roots when it is declared That these shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken or subscribed by any persons whatsoever for it is plain that this is no Suspension of the Law but a formal repeal of it in as plain words as can be conceived IX His Majesty says that the Benefit of the Service of all his Subjects is by the Law of Nature inseparably annexed to and inherent in his Sacred Person It is somewhat strange that when so many Laws that we all know are suspended the Law of Nature which is so hard to be found out should be cited but the Penners of this Declaration had best let that Law lie forgotten among the rest and there is a scurvy Paragraph in it concerning self-Preservation that is capable of very unacceptable Glosses It is hard to tell what Section of the Law of Nature has markt either such a Form of Government or such a Family for it And if his Majesty renounces his Pretensions to our Allegiance as founded on the Laws of England and betakes himself to this Law of Nature he will perhaps find the Counsel was a little too rash but to make the most that can be the Law of Nations or Nature does indeed allow the Governours of all Societies a Power to serve themselves of every Member of it in the cases of Extream Danger but no Law of Nature that has been yet heard of will conclude that if by special Laws a sort of men have been disabled from all Imployments that a Prince who at his Coronation Swore to maintain those Laws may at his pleasure extinguish all these Disabilities X. At the end of the Declaration as in a Poscript His Majesty assures his Subjects that he will maintain them in their Properties as well in Church and Abbey Lands as other Lands but the chief of all their Properties being the share that they have by their Representatives in the Legislative Power this Declaration which breaks thro' that is no great Evidence that the rest will be maintained and to speak plainly when a Coronation Oath is so little remembred other Promises must have a proportioned degree of Credit given to them as for the Abbey Lands the keeping them from the Church is according to the Principles of that Religion Sacriledge and that is a mortal Sin and there can no Absolution be given to any who continue in it and so this Promise being an Obligation to maintain men in a mortal Sin is nul and void of it self Church-Lands are also according to the Doctrine of their Canonists so immediately God's Right that the the Pope himself is the only Administrator and Dispencer but is not the master of them he can indeed make a truck for God or let them so low that God shall be an easie Landlord but he cannot alter God's Property nor translate the Right that is in him to Sacrilegious Laymen and Hereticks XI One of the Effects of this Declaration will be the setting on foot a new run of Addresses over the Nation for there is nothing how impudent and base soever of which the abject flattery of a slavish Spirit is not capable It must be confest to the Reproach of the Age that all those strains of flattery among the Romans that Tacitus sets forth with so much just scorn are modest things compared to what this Nation has produced within these seven Years only if our Flattery has come short of the Refinedness of the Romans it has exceeded theirs as much in its loathed Fulsomeness The late King set out a Declaration in which he gave the most solemn Assurances possible of his adhering to the Church of England and to the Religion established by Law and of his Resolution to have frequent Parliaments upon which the whole Nation fell as it were into Raptures of Joy and Flattery but though he lived four
Years after that he called no Parliament notwithstanding the Law for Triennial Parliaments and the manner of his Death and the Papers printed after his Death in his Name having sufficiently shewed that he was equally sincere in both those Assurances that he gave as well in that relating to Religion as in that other relating to frequent Parliaments yet upon his Death a new set of Addresses appeared in which all that Flattery couldinvent was brought forth in the Commendations of a Prince to whose Memory the greatest kindness can be done is to forget him and because his present Majesty upon his coming to the Throne gave some very general Promise of maintaining the Church of England this was magnified in so extravagant a strain as if it had been a Security greater than any that the Law could give tho' by the regard that the King has both to it and to the Laws it appears that he is resolved to maintain both equally since then the Nation has already made it self sufficiently ridiculous both to the present and to all succeeding Ages it is time that at last men should grow weary and become ashamed of their Folly XII The Nonconformists are now invited to set an Example to the rest and they who have valued themselves hitherto upon their Opposition to Popery and that have quarrelled with the Church of England for some small Approaches to it in a few Ceremonies are now solicited to rejoyce because the Laws that secure us against it are all plucked up since they enjoy at present and during pleasure leave to meet together It is natural for all men to love to be set at ease especially in the matter of their Consciences but it is visible that those who allow them this favour do it with no other design but that under a pretence of a General Toleration they may Introduce a Religion which must persecute all equally It is likewise apparent how much they are hated and how much they have been persecuted by the Instigation of those who now Court them and who have now no game that is more promising than the engaging them and the Church of England into new Quarrels and as for the Promises now made to them it cannot be supposed that they will be more lasting than those that were made some time ago to the Church of England who had both a better Title in Law and greater Merit upon the Crown to assure them that they should be well used than these can pretend to The Nation has scarce forgiven some of the Church of England the Persecution into which they have suffered themselves to be cosened tho' now that they see Popery barefaced the Stand that they have made and the vigorous Opposition that they have given to it is that which makes all men willing to forget what is past and raises again the Glory of a Church that was not a little stained by the Indiscretion and Weakness of those that were too apt to believe and hope and so suffered themselves to be made a Property to those who would make them a Sacrifice The Sufferings of the Nonconformists and the Fury that the Popish party expressed against them had recommended them so much to the Compassions of the Nation and had given them so just a pretension to favour in a better time that it will look like a Curse of God upon them if a few men whom the Court has gained to betray them can have such an ill Influence upon them as to make them throw away all that Merit and those Compassions which their Sufferings have procured them and to go and court those who are only seemingly kind to them that they may destroy both them and us They must remember that as the Church of England is the only Establishment that our Religion has by Law so it is the main body of the Nation and all the Sects are but small and stragling parties and if the Legal Settlement of the Church is dissolved and that body is once broken these lesser bodies will be all at Mercy and it is an easie thing to define what the Mercies of those of the Church of Rome are XIII But tho' it must be confessed that the Nonconformists are still under some Temptations to receive every thing that gives them present ease with a little too much kindness since they lie exposed to many severe Laws for which they have of late felt the weight very heavily and as they are men and some of them as ill Natured men as other people so it is no wonder if upon the first surprises of the Declaration they are a little delighted to see the Church of England after all its Services and Submissions to the Court so much mortified by it so that taking all together it will not be strange if they commit some Follies upon this occasion Yet on the other hand it passes all imagination to see some of the Church of England especially those whose Natures we know are so particularly sharpned in the point of Persecution chiefly when it is levelled against the Dissenters rejoice at this Declaration and make Addresses upon it It it hard to think that they have attained to so high a pitch of Christian Charity as to thank those who do now Despitefully use them and that as an earnest that within a little while they will Persecute them This will be an Original and a Master-piece in Flattery which must needs draw the last degrees of Contempt on such as are capable of so abject and sordid a Compliance and that not only from all the true Members of the Church of England but likewise from those of the Church Rome it self for every man is apt to esteem an Enemy that is brave even in his Misfortunes as much as he despises those whose minds sink with their Condition for what is it that these men would Address the King Is it because he breaks those Laws that are made in their Favour and for their Protection and is now striking at the Root of all Legal Settlement that they have for their Religion Or is it because that at the same time that the King professes a Religion that condemns his Supremacy yet he is not contented with the Exercise of it as it is warranted by Law but carries it so far as to erect a Court contrary to the express words of a Law so lately made That Court takes care to maintain a due proportion between their Constitution and all their Procedings that so all may be of a piece and all equally contrary to Law They have suspended one Bishop only because he would not do that which was not in his power to do for since there is no Extrajudiciary Authority in England a Bishop can no more proceed to the Sentence of Suspension against a Clergy-man without a Tryal and the hearing of Parties than a Judge can give a Sentence in his Chamber without an Indictment a Tryal or a Jury and because one of the greatest bodies of
earnest to have those Laws maintained in their full and due vigour and think that the chief Security of the established Religion consists in the preserving of them Sacred and unshaken It is certain that there is no Kingdom Common-Wealth or any constituted Body or Assembly whatsoever in which there are not Laws made for the Safety thereof and that provide against all Attempts whatsoever that disturb their peace and that prescribe the Conditions and Qualities that they judge necessary for all that shall bear Employments in that Kingdom State or Corporation And no man can pretend that there is any Injury done him that he is not admitted to Imployments when he doth not satisfie the Conditions and Qualities required Nor can it be denied that there is a great difference to be observed in the conduct of those of the Reformed Religion and of the Roman Catholicks towards one another The Roman Catholicks not being satisfied to exclude the Reformed from all places of Profit or of Trust they do absolutely suppress the whole Exercise of that Religion and persecute all that profess it and this they do in all those places where it is safe and without danger to carry on that rigour And I am sorry that we have at this present so many deplorable Instances of this severity before our Eyes that is at the same time put in practice in so many different places I would therefore gladly see one single good reason to move a Protestant that fears God and that is concerned for his Religion to consent to the Repealing of those Laws that have been enacted by the Authority of King and Parliament which have no other tendency but to the security of the Reformed Religion and to the restraining of the Roman Catholicks from a capacity of overturning it these Laws inflict neither Fines nor Punishments and do only exclude the Roman Catholicks from a share in the Government who by being in Employments must needs study to encrease their party and to gain to it more Credit and Power which by what we see every day we must conclude will be extreamly dangerous to the Reformed Religion and must turn to its great prejudice Since in all places those that are in publick Employments do naturally Favour that Religion of which they are either more or less And who would go about to perswade me or any man else to endeavour to move Their Highnesses whom God hath honoured so far as to make them the Protectors of his Church to approve of or to consent to things so hurtful both to the Reformed Religion and to the publick Safety Nor can I Sir with your good leave in any way grant what you apprehend That no prejudice will thereby redound to the Reformed Religion I know it is commonly said that the number of the Roman Catholicks in England and Scotland is very inconsiderable and that they are possessed only of a very small number of the places of Trust Tho even as to this the case is quite different in Ireland Yet this you must of necessity grant me that if their numbers are small then it is not reasonable that the publick Peace should be disturbed on the account of so few persons especially when so great a favour may be offered to them such as the free Exercise of their Religion would be And if their numbers are greater then there is so much the more reason to be afraid of them I do indeed believe that Roman Catholicks as things at present stand will not be very desirous to be in publick Offices and Imployments nor that they will make any attempts upon the Reformed Religion both because this is contrary to Law and because of the great inconveniencies that this may bring at some other time both on their Persons and their Estates yet if the Restraints of the Law were once taken off you would see them brought into the Government and the chief Offices and Places of Trust would be put in their hands nor will it be easie to his Majesty to resist them in this how stedfast soever he may be for they will certainly press his hard in it and they will represent this to the King as a matter in which his Conscience will be concerned and when they are possessed of the publick Offices what will be left for the Protestants to do who will find no more the support of the Law and can expect little Encouragement from such Magistrates And on the other hand the advantages that the Roman Catholicks would find in being thus set loose from all restraints are so plain that it were a loss of time to go about the proving it I neither can nor will doubt of the sincerity of his Majesties intentions and that he has no other design before him in this matter but that all his Subjects may enjoy in all things the same Rights and Freedom But plain Reason as well as the Experience of all Ages the present as well as the past shews that it will be impossible for Roman Catholicks and Protestants when they are mixed together in places of Trust and publick Employments to live together peaceably or to maintain a good Correspondence together They will be certainly always jealous of one another For the Principles and the Maxims of both Religions are so opposite to one another that in my opinion I do not see how it will be in the power of any Prince or King whatsoever to keep down those Suspitions and Animosities which will be apt to arise upon all occasions As for that which you apprehend that the Dissenters shall not be delivered from the Penal Laws that are made against them unless at the same time the Test be likewise repealed This will be indeed a great unhappiness to them but the Roman Catholicks are only to blame for it who will rather be content that they and their Posterity should lie still under the weight of the Penal Laws and exposed to the hatred of the whole Nation than he still restrained from a capacity of attempting any thing against the Peace and the Security of the Protestant Religion And be deprived of that small advantage if it is at all to be reckoned one of having a share in the Government and publick Enjoyments since in all places of the World this has been always the priviledge of the Religion that is established by Laws and indeed these Attempts of the Roman Catholicks ought to be so much the more suspected and guarded against by Protestants in that they see that Roman Catholicks even when liable to that Severity of Penal Laws do yet endeavour to perswade his Majesty to make the Protestants whether they will or not dissolve the Security which they have for their Religion And to clear a way for bringing in the Roman Caâ—â—â—licks to the Government and to publick Employments In which case there would remain no relief for them but what were to be expected from a Roman Catholick Government Such then will be very unjust to
persons to sit in Parliament and to exercise Offices in Church and State is only to declare that they do believe there is not any Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or in the Elements of Bread and Wine at or after the Consecration by any persons whatsoever and that the Invocation of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are Superstitious and Idolatrous And this Declaration the Non-conformists are of all people the most inclinable and forward to make and therefore very far by vertue of those Statutes from standing incapable of any Trust Office and Employment that other Subjects are admitted unto Nor hath there been a Protestant Dissenter since the first hour that these Laws were enacted that ever scrupled to take the Tests or that was precluded from Office and Employment for refusing them But on the contrary several of the most famous Dissenters such as Sir John Hartop Alderman Love and Mr. Eyles persons who at all times have kept at the greatest distance from Communion with the Church of England by reason of her Forms and Ceremonies are known to have chearfully made the Declaration contained in the Test Laws and thereupon to have sit as Members in divers Parliaments And as a further demonstration of the impudence and dishonesty of our Author in this particular it is not unworthy of remark that tho' the King hath taken upon him to dispense with the Tests and to prohibit the requiring them yet the Dissenters who have since that time been preferred to publick Trusts continue still to take them and go to the respective Courts where by Law the Declaration is enjoined to be exacted and there demand the being admitted to make it Tho' in the mean season they cannot be unsensible that it is the thing in the World whereby they most highly offend his Majesty it being both a proclaiming the Illegality of that Authority which he challengeth of dispensing with Laws and a defeating so far as lieth in them his great design as well as artifice for the introducing of Popery which his Soul is so much in travel with And were not this Author both a person of a most depraved Conscience and destitute of all common sense he would never have slandered Monsieur Fagel and so egregiously perverted his plain meaning as to tell us that tho' he be a Hollander and a Non-conformist yet he thanks God for the Test Laws by which his Non-conforming Brethren in England of what degree and quality soever they be stand excluded from Publick Employments For every one that will be so kind to himself and so just to the Pensionary as to read his Letter will immediately discern that there is not one word in it upon which to superstruct this calumny and accusation seeing he therein affirms in repeated and emphatical Terms that all contained in and designed by the Test Laws is the securing the Reformed Religion thro' the having provided that none be allowed to sit in Parliament nor admitted to Publick Offices except they declare that they are of the Reformed and not of the Roman Catholick Religion So that how Monsieur Fagel's Non-conformity Brethren in England should come to be affected by these Laws so as to receive any prejudice by them is that which none but a person of our Author's wit integrity and candor could have had the faculty either to conceive or alledge But that we may come to the second particular there is the less reason to wonder at this Gentleman's calumniating Mijn Heer Fagel and affixing dull tho' malicious Forgeries of his own unto him if we do but consider-with what petulancy and injustice he treats Their Serene Highnesses and at the gate of their own Court assumeth the confidence to misrepresent lessen and asperse them The nearness which those Princes stand in to the ascending the English Throne and the joyful prospect which all Protestants have of it exciteth a discontent and rage in our Author which he knows not how either to suppress or govern For not to mention what we learn of the kindness of Roman Catholicks to an Heir professing the Reformed Religion from the proceedings of Sixtus Quintus and the Papists in France towards Henry 4. we are sufficiently instructed what good will they bear to a Protestant Successor by the Bull which Clement 8. published about the End of Queen Elizabeth's Reign For the Supream and Infallible Head does therein ordain That when it should happen to that miserable Woman to die they should admit none to the Crown quantumque propinquitate sanguinis niterentur nisi ejusmodi essent qui fidem Catholicam non modo tolerarent sed omni ope ac studio promoverent more majorum jurejurando se id praestituros susciperent whatsoever Right and Title they should have thereunto by vertue of their next affinity in blood unless they should first swear not only to tolerate but to advance and establish the Romish Religion Nor can I avoid being filled with fear and reverence to the safety of some certain persons when I remember how Cardinal Baronius commends Irene for murdering the Emperor her Son because he was against the Worship of Images and not only calls it Justitiae zelum a righteous zeal but adds Christum docuisse summum pietatis genus esse in hoc adversus filium esse fidelem That Christ hath taught the perfiction of Religion in such a case to consist in fidelity to the Church tho' by destroying one that was both her Son and her Soveraign 'T is a high piece of injustice in our Author towards Their Highnesses and calculated for no other end but to alienate his Majesties affections from them when he tells us that the thing aimed at in the writing of the Pensionary's Letter as well as that pursued in the manner of publishing it was to obstruct the King's righteous pious designs and to render them unpracticable For the Letter being written in obedience to the Command of Their Highnesses to declare their Opinion in reference to the several matters about which it treateth it plainly follows that tho' Mijn Heer Fagel be accountable for the manner of cloathing and delivering their thoughts and for the Order and Method in which things are digested and possibly for the ratiocinations by which they are supported and enforced yet that the Prince and Princess are the persons who are alone responsible for the End unto which it was intended And it appears to have been so far from their intentions thereby to obstruct and defeat any pious and just designs of his Majesty that nothing can be more visible than that as it is admirably adapted to the giving ease and security to all his Protestant Subjects so it offereth means for relieving the Papists from the severe Laws to which they are liable and for the granting them a Warranty in a legal way for the exercise of their Religion Nor doth it
there that injustice in it which our Author does imagine For not being satisfied to remain disobedient and refractory to an Edict and Decree of the Arch-Duke Matthias and the Council of State who Anno 1578. had appointed that wheresoever there were a hundred Families of those professing the Reformed Religion that they should there be allowed a Church or Chappel for the exercise of their Worship they not only broke all their capitulations made with the Protestants thro oppressing them in various severe unjust method's and in denying them a decent and convenient place in which they might bury their dead but they were found to be still inclining to the Spanish Interest and ready to espouse it upon the first convenient opportunity And therefore the Protestants who were by much the majority partly to relieve themselves from the sufferings which were daily inflicted upon them contrary to stipulations and Articles and partly to prevent the mischiefs which would have ensued to the whole Country should that City have been betrayed again into the power and hands of the Spaniards assumed the Government to themselves and eased the other party of the Trust which they had so unwisely and unrighteously managed Nor can our Author deny but that since they took on them the Ruling Authority they have exercised it with all the moderation that can be expressed And have been so far from returning to the Roman Catholicks the like measures which themselves had met with that they have in no one thing given them cause to complain unless they should quarrel that they are kept out of capacity of doing the mischief their priests would otherway's be ready to excite them unto and which their Religion would countenance them in But it is now time that I should proceed to the fourth thing for which I promised to call our Anonymous Answerer to an account And were he not of a singular Forehead and of a peculiar complexion from all others he could not have had the impudence to endeavour to deceive the world into a belief that the Protestant Dissenters in England stand listed by their Highnesses into the same rank with the Papists and that they are hereafter to expect to be shut up into the same state and condition Certainly he must either have an Antipathy woven into his nature against all truth and sincerity or else thro having long accustomed himself to the misreporting of persons and to the giving false representations of things he must at last have acquired an incurable Habit otherwise it were impossible to prevaricate to that degree from truth in every thing he medleth with and which he undertaketh to say For Mijn Heer Fagel having declared that the reason why their Highnesses can not agree to the Repeal of the Test Laws is because they are of no other tendency than to secure the Reformed Religion from the designs of the Roman Catholicks and that they contain only conditions and provisions whereby men may be qualified to be Members of Parliament and to bear publick Offices Our Author hereupon tells us That the Nonconformists as well as the Roman Catholicks do apprehend that they receive a great deal of damage by those Laws and do account them extremely prejudicial to their Persons and Families And where as Monsieur Fagel had said that he would be glad to hear one good Reason whereby a Protestant fearing God and concerned for his Religion could be prevailed upon to consent to the Repealing of these Laws which have been enacted by the Authority of King and Parliament and that have no other tendency save the providing for the safety of the Reformed Religion and the hindring Roman Catholicks from being in a capacity to subvert it Our Author in way of reflection upon this tells us that it is not only a Childish demand but that it is to be hop'd that the pensionary will from hence be brought to acknowledg how trifling and weak all those Reasons are by which he would preclude the Nonconformists as well as the Roman Catholicks from publick Employments So that by these and many other passages equally false and disingenuous in our Author 's pretended Answer which for brevity's sake I forbear to mention it is apparent that he endeavours to perswade the world into a belief that the Dissenters are staed by their Highnesses in the same rank and condition with the Papists and are to expect to be treated in the same manner in case it please the Almighty God to bring Their Highnesses to the Throne One would wonder at this sudden and strange change in the opinion and conduct of the Papists towards the Nonconformists that they who were represented by them a while ago ' as unfit to live in His Majesties Dominions should now come to be accounted the Kings best and most Faithful Subjects and worthy to be advanced to the chief Trusts and Employ's 'T is but a few years since that all the Laws enacted against them were judged to be too few and gentle and therefore they had Laws executed upon them to which the Legislators had never made them obnoxious but now the Roman Catholicks are become so tender of their ease and safety that out of pure kindness unto them if any will be so foolish as to believe it they must have Laws abrogated which in the worst times and during the most illegal and barbarous procedures against them they were never affected with nor suffered the least prejudice by And whereas it was the only way for persons heretofore to make their Court at St. James's by declaiming against the Dissenters as Rebels and Traitors and by putting them into a salvage Dress to be run upon as beasts of prey it is now grown the only method of becoming gracious at Whitehall to proclaim their Loyalty and to cry them up for the only people in whom his Majesty with safety to his Person and Crown can repose a confidence But under all the Shapes which the Papists do assume they may be easily discovered to retain the same malice to the Reformed Religion and only to act those various and opposite parts in order the better to subvert it And the Dissenters being harassed and oppressed before and indulged and caressed now was upon the same motive of hatred unto it and in subserviency to its extirpation The method's are altered but the design is one and tho they have changed their Tools yet they remain constant in the pursuance of the same End While they of the Church of England were found compliant with the ways which the Factors for Rome thought serviceable thereunto they were not only the Favourites of the Court and of the whole Popish party but were gratified at least as was pretended with a rigorous execution of the Penal Laws upon Dissenters But there remaining several steps to be taken for the introduction of Popery and the extirpation of the Reformed Religion which they of the National Communion would not go along with them in they are forced to
from the publick and established Religion As to the first it is sufficiently known that according to the judgment of the Church of Rome we are Hereticks and that Heresie being Crimen laesae Majestatis Divinae we are therefore the worst of Traitors and liable to the Penalties of the greatest High Treason And thereupon we are not only declared to be infamous and sentenced to be deprived of all Honor and Dignity and to be incapable of all Offices and have our Estates confiscated and seised but we are condemned to be burnt and if that cannot conveniently be effected it is both made lawful and meritorious to extirpate us by War or Massacre as shall be best and most safe for the Church of Rome In order whereunto not only all Laws made for our Security are declared to be null and that no promises made unto us ought to be kept but all Princes that neglect to destory and extirpate us are proclaimed to be deposed And sutable hereunto has their carriage been for many ages to such as differ from them in Articles of Faith and will not joyn in their Superstitions and Idolatries In proof where of I neither need to insist upon the infinite Murders committed by the Inquisition the most Devilish Engine of Cruelty that ever the World was acquainted with nor to reflect so far backward as the Parisian and Irish Massacres or the infinite Slaughters perpetrated heretofore in France Germany and the Low Countreys c. seeing we have such fresh and doleful evidences of the mercy and gentleness of the Papal Church in the ungrateful inhumane perjurious and salvage persecutions executed so lately in France and Piedmont If it be the effect of Royal and Paternal affection in the King of England to his Subjects that all he endeavoureth is to treat them as becomes a common Father without making any distinction between one and another as our Author is pleased to call it in his Testimony concerning him what cruel Parents must many Princes of the Roman Communion be who act with that difference towards their people that while they cherish and embrace some they tear out the Bowels and suck the blood of others And if no Society destitute of such tender and Christian affections can merit the name of a Church we hence learn where to fasten the character of being the Mother of Harlots In that we not only know whose Doctrine it is that whom She cannot convert She ought to destroy but that we have observed her to have been in all Ages drunk with the Blood of Saints All the commendations our Author bestows upon the King of England are not only either so many accusations of His Majesties insincerity in the Papal Faith or infallible indications that both the King pardon the expression and his Minister are Hypocritical Dissemblers but they are stabbing and twinging Satyr's against Mother Church and the Holy Father and against his Brittanick Majesties dear Brother and Ally the French King Nor can we be guilty either of Crime or Indecency in the worst we can say of the Church of Rome and the Most Christian King seeing we have in equivalent Terms a President for it both from so good a Catholick and so wise a Minister of a great Monarch as our honourable Author is And tho I begin to grow weary of conversing with so impertinent a man yet I am bound to wait upon him a little longer and while the Reader can reap no advantage by any thing he says to see whether it be not possible to lay hold of an occasion from his Ignorance and Folly to communicate things that may be more solid and instructive The sixth thing therefore whereof I accused him and for which I promised to call him to an account is his egregious ignorance in relation to Government Laws Customs and matters of Fact Mijn Heer Fagel tells us that the Test Laws being enacted by King and Parliament for the Security of the Reformed Religion and the Roman Catholicks receiving no prejudice by them but being meerly restrained from getting into a condition to subvert it therefore Their Highnesses could not consent to their Repeal And he further adds that there is no Kingdom Common-wealth or any constituted Body and Society in which there are not Laws made for the safety thereof which not only provide against all attempts that may disturb their peace but which prescribe such conditions as they judge necessary for the discerning who are qualified to bear Employments To which he again subjoins that there is a great difference between the conduct of these of the Reformed Religion towards Roman Catholicks which is moderate and only to prevent their getting into a capacity to do hurt and that of those of the Roman Catholick Religion towards the Reformed who not being satisfied to exclude them from places of Trust do both suppress the whole Exercise of their Religion and severely persecute all that profess it And he finally adds that both Reason and the Experience of the present as well as past Ages do shew that it is impossible for Roman Catholicks and those of the Reformed Religion when joyned together in places of Trust and publick Employment to maintain a good Correspondence live in mutual peace and to discharge their Offices quietly and to the publick Good Now from these several passages which carry their own evidence along with them our Author takes occasion both to vent his foolish and ridiculous Politicks and to proclaim his ignorance in History and of the most obvious matters of Fact However we shall have the patience to hearken to what he hath been pleased to say and shall examine it piece by piece as we go along And the first thing he does is to acquaint us with a mighty Mystery of State and which none but so great a Minister could have been able to have revealed namely that tho the King and Parliament upon the first Revolution with respect to Religion and the introducing and setting up the Reformed Religion thought fit to make those Laws which they judged necessary for its preservation yet that it does not follow that his present Majesty and a Parliament would be of the same mind but that they might enact Laws of a differing Nature from the former and re-establish Religion into the same State in which it was before the Reformed Doctrine and Worship was set up We are much obliged to our Author for this discovery though I must add that this it is to trust a Fool with secrets for he will be sure to be blabbing For tho he subjoin that he will not say that matters would be pushed so far yet he hath already told us enough to make us understand both what his own hopes are and what is designed by the Papal party if they could compass a Parliament of a Complexion and Temper to their mind But there are two fatal things which lye in their way One is that neither progressing nor closeting bribing nor threatning can
equally partake in publick Trusts and Employments He must pardon me if I not only say he is mistaken but that it is a down-right Falsehood and that herein he betrays his wonted ignorance or at least gives us a new discovery of the insincerity that is natural to him Nor would he have vented this in so general Terms but that he did foresee if he should have condescended to particulars how easy it would have been for persons of very ordinary acquaintance either with History or the World to have both contradicted and refuted him And if there were some one or other small City where by reason of the Fewness of those of one Religion to exercise the Government and to take care of the Welfare of the Society those of the other Religion are sometimes received into Employments in order to prevent the inconveniencies which the want of a competent number of Magistrates would be attended with and where the Jealousie and Fear of being swallowed up by some envious and potent Neighbour may lay them under a necessity of agreeing better together than otherwise they would or than the principles of some of them incline them unto must we thence conclude that it ought to be so in a great Kingdom where there is so vast a number of Protestants admirably qualified with Wisdom Interest and Estates to discharge all the Offices of the Government and to manage the universal care of the Society without running the hazard of the many mischiefs that would accompany the taking the Papists into partnership with them Nor could Mijn Heer Fagel in representing what is safe or unsafe to so great and noble a Nation take notice of what is practised upon necessity in some mean Town or Corporation supposing that it were there as our Author alledgeth without transgressing against all the Rules both of prudence and decency But as the Pensionary had no where in his Letter affirmed that there were not any States or Cities in which the Protestants and Papists bear Office in Government together but had only said that Reason and Experience do shew us how impossible it will be for them when joyned together in places of Trust and publick Employments to maintain a good Correspondence and to live peaceably with one another so this is found to be so just a truth and so pertinently observed that in all the places where it hath been practised tho not in Germany as our Author ignorantly suggests they have not only lived in continual heats and dissentions but have often come to open Hostility against each other Nor hath it meerly fallen out thus in private and particular States within themselves but the like evils have often followed and ensued where more States have associated into Union for the common preservation of the Generality and where the Government hath been in some in the hands of Protestants and in others executed by Roman Catholicks Of this we have diverse Examples in the Cantons of Switzerland where thro the Magistrates being in some Cantons of the Reformed and in others of the Roman Catholick Religion they have not only been often hindred from joyning and acting vigorously as they ought to have done for the interest of all and the benefit of the common Confederation and Union but they have sometimes come to open ruptures and have been embarqued in War against one another And forasmuch as our Author makes bold to say That there was never any Christian Kingdom where the Religion that the Prince professeth and which had in former ages been Dominant was so far laid aside and banished that his Subjects professing the same with himself were shut out and precluded from Trusts and Employments I will take the freedom to tell him that it is so gross and palpable a Falsehood that none but a person of his ignorance and impudence would have had the face to have asserted it For there are Christian Kingdoms that have done more than this amounts unto and who to prevent the danger of having Papists preferred to Trusts and Employments in case a Prince of their Religion should come to the Throne have been so wise as to declare Roman Catholicks incapable either of obtaining or keeping the Soveraignty And it was in the vertue of such a Law and by reason of the dread of it that Christina Queen of Sweden upon the having taken up a resolution to turn Papist chose to demit her Crown before she declared her self as knowing that immediately after such a Declaration she would have been deposed from the Throne and possibly not have had so liberal an allowance assigned her afterwards as by that conduct she did obtain Nor is it unknown to any except it be to such as our Author is for natural and acquired accomplishments that there were not only Laws in Scotland for precluding a Popish Prince from coming to the Government but that the same thing was imployed in the English Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy as being Oaths of such a frame and nature that it had been most incongruous to impose them upon Subjects to a King of the Roman Catholick Religion And tho these two Nations did not improve the advantage which they had by means of their legal provisions to hinder the present King from inheriting the Crowns of the respective Realms yet those Laws serve to inform us how far some Christian Kingdoms thought it lawful to go and to what heighth to Act not only against Popish Subjects but against Catholick Princes themselves Yea the time was that the very Papists were so far from condemning the having men of their Religion debarred from Trusts and Employments in Protestant Kingdoms under a Popish Prince that they made the Test Laws by which they are shut out from Offices and Declared incapable of them the great Argument against the necessity of having the Bill passed for excluding the Duke of York from the Crown and improved them as the main Engine for allaying the fears of the Nation under the apprehensions they had of his being a Roman Catholick and coming to the Throne But by their different Language now from what it was then all Englishmen understand how far they are to be believed in other cases and whether the many promises which they do make at this time in order to a further design and the putting a new Trick upon the Nation ought to be depended on by them whom they have already deceived And whereas upon Mijn Heer Fagel's having observed that the conduct of Roman Catholicks is much more severe towards Protestants than that of those of the Reformed Religion towards Papists our Author is pleased to reply that in order to judge as we should of that different procedure we are to consider whether it be not less just to banish a Religion that had been so long dominant as the Roman Catholick had been than to withstand the introduction of a new Religion that would depress and supplant the old All I shall say in reference to this is
who had lived and died a cordial and zealous Protestant and whosoever had muttered any thing to the contrary would have been branded for a Villain and an execrable person But with what a scent and odor must it recommend his Memory to them to consider his having not onely lived and died in the Communion of the Church of Rome in contradiction to all his publick Speeches solemn Declarations and highest Asseverations to his People in Parliament but his participating from time to time of the Sacrament as Administred in the Church of England while in the interim he had Abjured our Religion stood reconciled to the Church of Rome and had obliged himself by most sacred Vows and was endeavouring by all the Frauds and Arts imaginable to subvert the established Doctrin and Worship and set up Heresy and Idolatry in their room And it must needs give them an abhorrent Idea and Character of Popery and a loathsom representation of those trusted with the Conduct and Guidance of the Consciences of Men in the Roman Communion that they should not onely dispense with and indulge such Crimes and Villanies but proclaim them Sanctified and Meritorious from the end which they are calculated for and levelled at And for his dear Brother and renowned Successor who possessed the Throne after him I suppose his most partial Admirers who took him for a Prince not onely merciful in his Temper and imbued with all gracious Inclinations to our Laws and the Rights of the Subject but for one Orthodox in his Religion and who would prove a zealous Defender of the Doctrine Worship and Discipline of the Church established by Law are before this time both undeceived and filled with Resentments for his having abused their Credulity deceived their Expectations and reproached all their Gloryings and Boastings of him For as it would have been the greatest Affront they could have put upon the King to question his being of the Roman Communion or to detract from his Zeal for the introduction of Popery notwithstanding his own antecedent Protestations as well as the many Statutes in force for the preservation of the Reformed Religion so I must take the liberty to tell them that his Apostacy is not of so late Date as the World is made commonly to believe For though it was many Years concealed and the contrary pretended and dissembled yet it is most certain that he Abjured the Protestant Religion soon after the Exilement of the Royal Family and was reconciled to the Romish Church at St. Germains in France Nor were several of the then suffering Bishops and Clergy ignorant of this though they had neither the Integrity nor Courage to give the Nation and Church warning of it And within these five Years there was in the custody of a very worthy and honest Gentleman a Letter written to the late Bishop of D. by a Doctor of Divinity then attending upon the Royal Brothers wherein the Apostacy of the then Duke of York to the See of Rome is particularly related and an Account given how much the Dutchess of Tremoville though without being her self observed had heard the Queen Mother glorying of it bewailed it as a dishonour unto the Royal Family and as that which might prove of pernicious consequence to the Protestant Interest But though the old Queen privately rejoyced and triumphed in it yet she knew too well what disadvantage it might be both to her Son and to the Papal Cause in Great Brittain to have it at that Season communicated and divulged Thereupon it remained a Secret for many Years and by virtue of a Dispensation he sometimes joined in all Ordinances with those of the Protestant Communion But for all the Art Hypocrisy and Sacrilege by which it was endeavoured to be concealed it might have been easily discerned as manifesting it self in the whole Course of his Actions And at last his own Zeal the Importunity of the Priests and the Cunning of the late King prevailing over Reasons of State he withdrew from all Acts of Fellowship with the Church of England But neither that nor his refusing the Test enjoyned by Law for distinguishing Papists from Protestants though thereupon he was forced both to resign his Office of Lord High Admiral c. nor his declining the Oath which the Laws of Scotland for the securing a Protestant Governour enjoyn to be taken by the High Commissioner nor yet so many Parliaments having endeavoured to get him Excluded from Succession to the Crown upon the account of having revolted to the See of Rome and thereby become dangerous to the Established Religion could make impression upon a wilfully deluded and obstinate sort of Protestants but in defiance of all means of Conviction they would perswade themselves that he was still a Zealot for our Religion and a grand Patriot of the Church of England Nor could any thing undeceive them till upon his Brother's Death he had openly declared himself a Roman Catholick and afterwards in the fumes and raptures of his Victory over the late Duke of Monmouth had discovered and proclaimed his Intentions of overthrowing both our Religion and Laws Yea so closely had some sealed up their Eyes against all beams of Light and hardned themselves against all Evidences from Reason and Fact that had it pleased the Almighty God to have prospered the Duke of Monmouth's Arms in the Summer 85. the present King would have gone off the Stage with the Reputation among them of a Prince tender of the Laws of the Kingdom and who notwithstanding his own being a Papist would have preserved the Reformed Religion and have maintained the Church of England in all her Grandure and Rights And though his whole Life had been but one continued Conspiracy against our Civil Liberties and Priviledges he had left the Throne with the Character and under the Esteem of a Gentleman that in the whole course of his Government would have regulated himself by the Rules of the Constitution and the Statutes of the Realm Now among all the Methods fallen upon by the Royal Brothers for the undermining and subverting our Religion and Laws there is none that they have pursued with more Ardor and wherein they have been more successful to the compassing of their Designs than in their dividing Protestants and alienating their Affections and embittering their Minds from and against one another And had not this lain under their prospect and the means of effecting it appeared easie they might have been Papists themselves while in the mean time they had been dispensed with to protest and swear their being of the Reformed Religion and they might have envied our Liberties and bewailed their Restriction from Arbitrary and Despotical Power but they never durst have entertained a Thought of subverting the Established Religion or of altering the Civil Government nor would they ever have had the boldness to have attempted the introducing and erecting Popery and Tyranny in their room And whosoever should have put them upon reducing the Nation
and lull those into a tameness of admitting his Return into his Dominions whom a jealousie of being afterwards persecuted for their Consciences might have awakened to withstand and dispute it And to give him his due he never judged himself longer bound to the observation of Promises and Oaths made to his People than until without hazard to his Person and Government he could violate and break them Accordingly he was no sooner seated in the Throne of his Ancestors and those whom he had been apprehensive of Resistance and Disturbance from put out of Capacity and Condition of attempting any thing against him but he thought himself discharged from every thing that the Royal Word and Faith of a Prince had been pledged and 〈◊〉 to stake for in that Declaration and from that day forward acted in direct opposition to all the Parts and Branches of it For having soon after his Return obtained a Parliament moulded and adapted both to his Arbitrary and Popish Ends he immediately set all his Instruments at work for the procuring of such Laws to be Enacted as might divide and weaken Protestants and thereby make us not onely the more easie Prey to the Papists but afford them an advantage through our Scuffles of undermining our Religion with the less notice and observation How such persons came to be chosen and to constitute the Majority of the House of Commons who by their Actings have made themselves Infamous and Execrable to all Ages were a matter too large to penetrate at present into the Reasons of but that which my Theme conducts me to observe is That as they sacrificed the Treasure of the Nation to the profuseness and prodigality of the Prince and our Rights and Liberties to his Ambition and Arbitrary Will so they both introduced and established those Things which have been a means of dividing us and by many severe and repeated Laws they subjected a great number of industrious English-men and true Protestants to Excommunications Imprisonments rigorous and multiplied Fines and all this for Matters onely relating to their Consciences and for their Obedience to God in the Ordinances of his Worship and House And notwithstanding the late King 's often pretended compassion to the Dissenters it will be hard to discern them unless in Effects which proceed from very different and opposite Principles The distance which he kept them from his Person and Favour the influencing these Members of both Houses that depended upon him to be the Authors and Promoters of Severities against them the enjoyning so often the Judges and Justices of Peace to execute the Laws upon them in their utmost rigour the instigating the Bishops and Ecclesiastical Courts if at any time they relented in their Prosecutions to pursue them with fresh Citations and Censures the arraigning them not onely upon the Statutes made intentionally against Dissenters but upon those that were originally and solely enacted against the Papists these and other Procedures of that Nature are the onely Proofs and Evidences which I can find of the late King's Bowels Pity and Tenderness to them And whereas the weak Church-men were imposed upon to believe that all the Severity against the Nonconformists was the Fruit of his Zeal for the Protestant Religion and for the security of the Worship and Discipline established by Law they might have easily discovered if Passion Prejudice Wealth and Honour had not blinded them that all this was calculated for Ends perfectly destructive to the Church and inconsistent with the Safety and Happiness of all Protestants For as his seeking oftner than once to have wriggled himself into a Power of superseding and dispensing with those Laws and suspending their Execution plainly shews that he never intended the support and preservation of the Church by them so his non-execution of the Laws against Papists his conniving at their encrease his perswading those nearest unto him to reconcile themselves to the See of Rome as he did among others the late D. of Monmouth his countenancing the Roman Catholicks in their open and intollerable Insolencies and his advancing them to the most gainful and Important Places and trusts sufficiently declare that he never had any love to Protestants or care of the Reformed Religion but that all his designs were of a contrary tendency and his fairest Pretences for the Protection and Grandure of the Church of England adapted to other ends Thus the Royal Brothers having obtained such Laws to be enacted whereby one Party of Protestants was armed with means of oppressing and persecuting all others neither the necessity of their Affairs at any time since nor the Application and Interposure of several Parliaments for removing the Grounds of our Differences and Animosities by an Indulgence to be past into a Law could prevail either upon his late Majesty or the present King to forgoe the Advantage they had gotten of keeping us in mutual Enmity and thereby of ministring to their projection of supplanting our Religion and re-establishing the Faith and Worship of the Church of Rome Hereupon the last King not onely refused to consent to such Bills as diverse late Parliaments had prepared for indulging Dissenters and for bringing them into an union of Counsels and Conjunction of Interest with those of the Church of England for resisting the Conspiracies of the Papists against our Legal Government and Established Religion but he rejected an Address for suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws against Dissenters which was offered and presented unto him by that very Parliament which had framed and enacted those cruel and hard Laws And as the Royal Brothers have made it their constant Business to cherish a Division and Rancour among Protestants and to provoke one Party to persecute and ruine another so nothing could more naturally fall in with the Design of Arbitrariness or be more subservient to the betraying the Nationâ—â— Papal Idolatry and Jurisdiction For several Penal Laws against a considerable Body of People do either expose them against whom they are enacted to be destroyed by the Prince with whom the executive Power of the Law is trusted and deposited or they prove a Temptation to such as are obnoxious of resigning themselves in such a manner to the Will and Pleasure of the Monarch for the obtaining his connivancy at their violation of the Laws as is unsafe and dangerous for the common Liberty and Good of the Kingdom For in case the Supreme Magistrate pursue an Interest distinct from and destructive to that of his People they who the Law hath made liable to be oppressed are brought under Inducements of becoming so many Parisans for abetting him in his Designs in hopes of being thereupon protected from the Penal Statutes the execution whereof is committed to him And as it is not agreeable to the Wisdom and Prudence which ought to be among Men nor to the Mercy and Compassion which should be among Christians for one party to surrender another into the Hands and Power of the Soveraign to be
there being sincere Christians and true Englishmen among those of all Judgments and Societies of Protestants and among none more than those of the Communion of the Church of England It were the height of Wickedness as well as the most prodigious Folly to imagine that the Conformists have abandoned all Fidelity to God and cast off all care of themselves and their Country upon a mistaken Judgment of being Loyal and Obedient to the King The contrary is plain enough they knew as well as any that the giving to Caesar the Things that are Caesar's lay them under no Obligation of surrendring unto him the Things that are God's nor of sacrificing unto the Will of the Sovereign the Priviledges reserved unto the People by the Fundamental Rules of the Constitution and by the Statutes of the Realm And they understand as well as others that the Laws of the Land are the only measures of the Prince's Authority and of the Subjects Fealty and where they give him no Right to Command they lay them under no tye to Obey And though here and there a Dissenter has written against Popery with good Success yet they have been mostly Conformable Divines who have triumphed over it in elaborate Discourses and who have beaten the Romish Scriblers off the Stage Nor can it be thought that they who have so accurately related and vindicated the History and asserted and defended the Doctrine of the Reformation should either tamely relinquish or be wanting in all due and legal Ways to uphold and maintain it And though some few of the Nonconformists have with sufficient strength and applause used their Pens against Arbitrariness in detecting the Designs of the Royal Brothers yet they who have generally and with greatest Honour appeared for our Laws and Legal Government against the Invasions and Usurpations of the Court have been Theologues and Gentlemen of the Church of England Nor in case of further Attempts for altering the Constitution and enslaving the Nation will they shew themselves unworthy the having descended from Ancestors whose Motto in the high Places of the Field was nolumus Leges Angliae mutari They who have so often justified the Arms of the Vnited Netherlands against their Rightful Princes the Kings of Spain and so unanswerably vindicated their casting off Obedience to those Monarchs when they had invaded their Priviledges and attempted to establish the Inquisition over them cannot be ignorant what their own Right and Duty is in behalf of the Protestant Religion and English Liberties for the Security whereof we have not only so many Laws but the Coronation Oaths and Stipulations of our Kings And those Gentlemen of the Church of England who appeared so vigorously in three Parliaments for excluding the Duke of York from the Succession to the Crown by reason of a Jealousy of what through being a Papist he would attempt against our Religion and Priviledges in case he were suffered to ascend the Throne cannot be now to seek what becomes them towards him having seen and felt what before they only apprehended and feared For if the Law that entaileth the Succession upon the next of Kin and obligeth the Subjects to admit and receive him not only may but ought to be dispensed with in case the Heir thro' having imbib'd Principles which threaten the Safety and are inconsistent with the Happiness of the People hath made himself incapable to inherit we know by a short Ratiocination how far we stand bound to a Prince on the Throne who by Transgressing against the Laws of the Constitution hath abdicated himself from the Government and stands virtually Deposed For whosoever shall offer to Rule Arbitrarily does immediately cease to be King de jure seeing by the Fundamental Common and Statute Laws of the Realm we know none for Supream Magistrate and Governor but a limited Prince and one who stands circumscribed and bounded in his Power and Prerogative And should the Dissenters entertain a belief that the Conformists are less concerned and zealous than themselves for the Protestant Religion and Laws of the Kingdom they would not only Sin and offend against the Rules of Charity but against the Measures of Justice and daily Evidences from Matters of Fact For neither they nor we owe our Conversion to God and our practical Holiness to the Opinions about Discipline Forms of Worship and Ceremonies wherein we differ but the Doctrines of Faith and Christian Obedience wherein we agree 'T is not their being for a Liturgy a Surpliss or a Bishop that hath heretofore influenced them to subserve the Court in Designs tending to Absoluteness but they were seduced unto it upon Motives whereof they are now ashamed and the ridiculousness and folly of which they have at last discever'd Nor is the multitude of profligate and scandalous persons with which the Church of England is crowded any just impeachment of the Purity of her Doctrine in the Vitals and Essentials of Religion or of the Vertue and Piety of many of her Members For as it is her being the only Society established by Law that attracts those Vermin to her Bosom so it is her being restrained by Law from debarring them that keeps them there to her reproach and to the grief of many of her Ecclesiasticks Neither is it the fault of the Church of England that the Agents and Factors for Popery and Arbitrary Power have chosen to pass under the name of her Sons but it proceeds partly from their Malice as hoping by that means to disgrace her with all true English-men as well as with Dissenters and partly from their Craft in order thereby the better to conceal their Design and to shrowd themselves from the Censure and Punishment which had it not been for that Mask they would have been exposed unto and have undergone And I dare affirm that besides the Obligations from Religion which the Conformists are equally under with Dissenters for hindring the introduction of Popery there are several Inducements from interest which sway them to prevent its establishment wherein the Dissenters are but little concerned For though Popery would be alike afflictive to the Consciences of Protestants of all Persuasions yet they are Gentlemen and Ministers of the Church of England whole Livings Revenues and Estates have been threatned in case it had come to be established Nor would the most Loyal and obsequious Levites provided they resolve to continue Protestants be willing that their Personages and Incumbencies to which they have have no less Right by Law than the King hath to the Excise and Customs should be taken from them and bestowed upon Romish Priests by an Act of Despotical Power and of unlimited Prerogative And for the Gentlemen as I think few of them would hold themselves obliged to part with their purses to High-way-Padders though such should have a pattent from the King to rob whomsoever they met upon the Road so there will not be many inclined to suffer their Mannours and Abbey-Lands to which they have so
given to his Declaration and to what he hath since the Emission of it repeated both in his Speech to Mr. Penn and in his Letter to Mr. Alsop And to omit many other Instances of his kindness and Benignity to the Fanaticks whom he now so much hugs and caresseth it may not be amiss to remember them and all other Protestants of that barbarous and illegal Commission issued forth by the Council of Scotland while he as the late King 's High Commissioner had the Management of the Affairs of that Kingdom by which every Military Officer that had command over twelve Men was impower'd to impannel Juries Try Condemn and cause to be put to Death not only those who should be found to disclaim the King's Authority but such as should refuse to acknowledge the King 's new modelled Supremacy over that Church in the pursuance and Execution of which Commission some were Shot to Death others were Hang'd or Drowned and this not only during the Continuance of the Reign of his late Majesty but for above a Year and a half after the present King came to the Crown But what need is there of insisting upon such little Particulars wherein he was at all times ready to express his Malice to Protestants seeing we have not only Dr. Oates's Testimony and that of divers others but most Authentick Proofs from Mr. Coleman's Letters of his having been in a Conspiracy several Years for the Subversion of our Religion upon the meritorious and sanctified Motive of extirpating the Northern Heresie Of which beside all the Evidence that four Successive Parliaments arrived at I know several who since the Duke of York ascended the Throne have had it confirmed unto them by divers Foreign Papists that were less reserved or more ingenuous than many of that Communion use to be To question the Existence of that Plot and his present Majesties having been Accessary unto and in the Head of it argues a strange Effrontery and Impudence through casting an Aspersion of Weakness Folly and Injustice not only upon those Three Parliaments that seem'd to have retained some Zeal for English Liberties but by fastening the same Imputations upon the Long Parliament which had shewed it self at all times more Obsequious to the Will of the Court than was either for their own Honor or the Safety and Interest of the Kingdom and who had expressed a Veneration for the Royal Family that approached too much upon a degree of Idolatry Whosoever considers that Train of Counsels wherein the King was many Years engaged and whereof we felt the woful Effects in the Burning of London the frequent Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments the widening and exasperating Differences among Protestants the stirring up and provoking Civil Magistrates and Ecclesiastical Courts to persecute Dissenters and the maintaining Correspondencies with the Pope and Catholick Princes abroad to the dishonor of the Nation and danger of our Laws and Religion cannot avoid being apprehensive what we are now to look for at his Hands nor can be escape thinking that he esteems his Advancement to the Crown both a Reward from Heaven for what he hath done and plotted against these three Kingdoms and an Opportunity and Advantage administred to him for the Perfecting and Accomplishment of all those Designs with which he hath been so long Bigg and in Travel for the Destruction of our Religion the Subversion of our Laws and the Re-establishment of Popery in these Dominions The Conduct and Guidance under which His Majesty hath put himself and the fiery Temper of that Order to whose Government he hath resigned his Conscience may greatly add to our Fears and give us all the Jealousie and Dread that we are capable of being impressed with in reference to Matters to come that there is nothing which can be Fatal to our Religion or Persons that we may not expect the being called to conflict with and suffer For tho most of the Popish Ecclesiasticks especially the Regulars bear an inveterate Malice to Protestants and hold themselves under indispensible Obligations of eradicating whatsoever their Church stiles Heresie and have accordingly been always forward to stir up and provoke Rulers to the use and Application of Force for the Destruction of Protestants as a Company of perverse and obstinate Hereticks adjudged and condemned to the Stake and Gibbet by the infallible Chair yet of all Men in the Communion of the Romish Church and of their Religious Orders the Jesuits are they who do most hate us and whose Counsels have been most Sanguinary and always tending to influence those Monarchs whose Consciences they have had the guiding and conducting of to the utmost Cruelties and Barbarities towards us What our Brethren have had measured out to them in France through Father de la Chaise's Influence upon that King and through the bewitching Power and Domination he hath over him in the quality of his Confessor and as having the Direction of his Conscience may very well alarm and inform us what we ought to expect from His Majesty of Great Britain who hath surrendered his Conscience to the Guidance of Father Peters a Person of the same Order and of the like mischievous and bloody Disposition that the former is 'T is well observed by the Author of the Reasons against Repealing the Acts of Parliament concerning the Test that Cardinal Howard's being of such a meek and gentle Temper that is able to withstand the Malignity of his Religion and to preserve him from concurring in those mischievous Counsels which his Purple might seem to oblige him unto is the reason of his being shut out from Acquaintance with and Interest in the English Affairs transacted at Rome and that whatsoever his Majesty hath to do in that Court is managed by his Ambassador under the sole Direction of the Jesuits So that it is not without cause that the Jesuit of Liege in his intercepted and lately printed Letter tells a Brother of the Order what a wonderful Veneration the King hath for the Society and with what profound Submission he receives those Reverend Fathers and hearkens to whatsoever they represent Nor is His Majesty's being under the Influence of the Jesuits through having one of them for his Confessor and several of them for his Chief Counsellors and principal Confidents the only thing in this Matter that awakens our Fear in what we are to expect from his armed Power excited and stir'd up by that fiery Tribe but there is another Ground why we ought more especially to dread him and that is his being entred and enrolled into the Order and become a Member of the Society whereby he is brought into a greater Subjection and Dependence upon them and stands bound by Ties and Engagements of being obedient to the Commands of the General of the Jesuits and that not only in Spirituals but in whatsoever they shall pretend to be subservient to the Exaltation of the Church and for upholding the Glory of the Tripple Crown This
emitted his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience there were Commissions of Reprisal prepared and ready to be granted to the English East-India Company against the Hollanders but which were suppressed upon the Court 's finding that they whom the suspending the Execution of so many Laws and the granting such Liberties Rights and Immunities to the Papists had disgusted and provoked were far more numerous and their resentments more to be apprehended than they were whose murmurings and discontents they had silenced and allay'd by the liberty that was granted Now as it will be at this juncture when the Protestant Interest is so low in the World and the Reformed Religion in so great danger of being Destroyed a most wicked as well as an imprudent Act to contribute help and aid to the Subjugating a People that are the chief Protectors of the Protestant Religion that are left and almost the only Asserters of the Rights and Liberties of Mankind so it may fill the Addressers with confusion and shame that they should have not only justified an Act of His Majesty's that is plainly designed to such a mischievous End but that they should by the Promises and Vows that they have made Him have emboldned His Majesty to continue his purposes and resolutions of a War against the Dutch Which as it must be funestous and fatal to the Protestant Cause in case he should prosper and succeed so howsoever it should issue yet the Addressers who have done what in them lyes to give encouragement unto it will be held betrayers of the Protestant Religion both abroad and at home and judged guilty of all the Blood of those of the same Faith with them that shall be shed in this Quarrel That Liberty ought to be allowed to men in matters of Religion is no Plea whereby the King 's giving it in an illegal and Arbitrary manner can be maintained and justified Since ever I was capable of exercising any distinct and coherent acts of Reason I have been always of that mind that none ought to be persecuted for their Consciences towards God in matters of Faith and Worship Nor is it one of those things that lye under the power of the Sovereign and Legislative Authority to grant or not to grant but it is a Right setled upon Mankind antecedent to all Civil Constitutions and Humane Laws having its foundation in the Law of Nature which no Prince or State can legitimately violate and Infringe The Magistrate as a Civil Officer can pretend or claim no Power over a People but what he either derives from the Divine Charter wherein God the Supreme Institutor of Magistracy has chalk'd out the Duty of Rulers in general or what the People upon the first and original Stipulation are supposed to have given him in order to the Protection Peace and Prosperity of the Society But as it does no where appear that God hath given any such Power to Governors seeing all the Revelations in the Scripture as well as all the Dictates of Nature speak a contrary Language so neither can the People upon their chusing such a one to be their Ruler be imagined to transfer and vest such a Power in him forasmuch as they cannot divest themselves of a Power no more than of a Right of believing things as they arrive with a Credibility to their several and respective Understandings As it is in no Man's Power to believe as he will but only as he sees cause so it is the most irrational Imagination in the World to think they should transfer a Right to him whom they have chosen to govern them of punishing them for what it is not in their power to help Nor can any thing be plainer than that God has reserved the Empire over Conscience to himself and that he hath circumscribed the Power of all Humane Governors to things of a civil and inferior Nature And had God convey'd a Right unto Magistrates of commanding Men to be of this or that Religion and that because they are so and will have others to be of their mind it would follow that the People may conform to whatsoever they require tho by all the Lights of Sense Reason and Revelation they are convinced of the Falshood of it Seeing whatsoever the Sovereign rightfully Commands the Subjects may lawfully obey But tho the persecuting People for Matters of mere Religion be repugnant to the Light of Nature inconsistent with the Fundamental Maxims of Reason directly contrary to the Temper and Genious as well as to the Rules of the Gospel and not only against the Safety and Interest of Civil Societies but of a Tendency to fill them with Confusion and to arm Subjects to the cutting of one anothers Throats yet Governors may both deny Liberty to those whose Principles oblige them to destroy those that are not of their mind and may in some measure Regulate the Liberty which they vouchsafe to others whose Opinions tho they do not think dangerous to the Peace of the Community yet through judging them Erroneous and False they conceive them dangerous to the Souls of Men. As there is a vast difference betwixt Tolerating a Religion and approving the Religion that is Tolerated so what a Government doth not approve but barely permits and suffers may be brought under Restrictions as to time place and number of those professing it that shall assemble in one Meeting which it were an Undecency to extend to those of the justified and established way Now whatsoever Restrictions or Regulations are enacted and ordained by the Legislative Authority in reference to Religions or Religious Assemblies they are not to be stop'd disabled or suspended but by the same Authority that enacted and ordained them The King says very truly That Conscience ought not to be constrained nor People forced in matters of mere Religion But it does not from thence follow unless by the Logick of Whitehall that without the concurrence of a Parliament he should suspend and dispense with the Laws and by a pretended Prerogative relieve any from what they are Obnoxious unto by the Statutes of the Realm His saying that the forcing People in matters of Religion spoils Trade depopulates Countries discourageth Strangers and answers not the End of bringing all to an Uniformity for which it is employ'd would do well in a Speech to the Houses of Parliament to perswade them to Repeal some certain Laws or might do well to determine his Majesty to assent to such Bills as a Parliament may prepare and offer for relieving Persons in matters of Conscience but does not serve for what it is alledged nor can it warrant his suspending the Laws by his single Authority And by the way I know when these very Arguments were not only despised by his Majesty and rediculed by those who took their Cue from Court and had Wit to do it as by the present Bishop of Oxford in a very ill-natur'd Book called Ecclesiastical Polity but when the daring to have mentioned them would
Exercise of his Absolute Power against all deadly Nor is it difficult to assign the reason of the Deformity that appears in his Majesty's present Actings towards his Dissenting Protestant Subjects in those two Kingdoms For should there be no Restriction upon the Toleration in Scotland to hinder the greatest part of the Presbyterians from taking the Advantage of it the Bishops and Conforming Clergy would be immediately forsaken by the generality if not all the People and so an issue would not only be put to the Division among Protestants in that Kingdom but they would become an united and thereupon a formidable Body against Popery which it is not for the Interest of the Roman Catholicks to suffer or give way unto Whereas the more unbounded the Liberty is that is granted to Dissenters in England the more are our Divisions not only kept up but increased and promoted especially through this Freedom's arriving with them in an illegal way without both the Authority of the Legislative Power and the Approbation of a great part of the People it being infallibly certain that there is a vast number of all Ranks and Conditions who do prefer the abiding in the Communion of the Church of England before the joyning in Fellowship with those of the Separate and Dissenting Societies Upon the whole this different Method of proceeding towards Dissenting Protestants in Matters mere Religious shews that all this Indulgence and Toleration is a Trick to serve a present juncture of Affairs and to advance a Popish and Arbitrary Design and that the Dissenters have no Security for the continuance of their Liberty but that when the Court and Jesuitick end is compassed and obtained there is another course to be steered towards them and instead of their hearing any longer of Liberty and Toleration they are to be told that it is the Interest of the Government and the Safety and Honor of his Majesty to have but one Religion in his Dominions and that all must be Members of the Catholick Church and this because the King will have it so which is the Argument that hath been made use of in the making so many Converts in France They who now suffer themselves to be deluded into a Confidence in the Royal Word will not only come to understand what Mr. Coleman meant in his telling Pere de la Chaise that the Catholicks in England had a great work upon their hand being about the Extirpation of that Heresie which hath borne sway so long in this Northern part of the World but they will also see and feel how much of the Designs of Rome was represented in that passage of the Pope's Nuncio's Letter dated at Brussels Aug. 9. 1674. wherein upon the Confidence which they placed in the Duke of York which is not lessened since he came to the Crown he takes the confidence to write That they hoped speedily to see the total and final Ruin of the Protestant Party And as Protestant Dissenters have no Security by the Declaration and Proclamation for the continuance of their Liberty so they that have by way of Thanksgiving Addressed to the King for those Royal Papers have not only acted very ill in reference both to the Laws and Rights of the Kingdoms and of Religion in general but they have carried very unwisely in relation to their own Interest and the avoiding the Effects of that Resentment which most Men are justly possessed with upon the illegal Emission of these Arbitrary and Prerogative Papers I shall not enter upon any long Discourse concerning this new Practice of Addressing in general it having been done elsewhere some years ago but I shall only briefly intimate that it was never in fashion unless either under a weak and precarious Government or under one that took illegal Courses and pursued a different Interest from that of the People and Community As he who Ruleth according to the standing Laws of a Country over which he is set needs not seek for an Approbation of his Actions from a part of his Subjects the Legality of his Proceedings being the best Justification of him that Governs and giving the truest Satisfaction to them that are Ruled so he who enjoys the love of all his People needs not look for Promises of being assisted stood by and defended by any one Party or Faction among them there being none from whom he can have the least Apprehension of Opposition and Danger It was the want of a legal Title in Oliver Cromwel and his Son Richard to the Government that first begot this Device of Addressing and brought it upon the Stage in these British Nations and it was the Arbitrary Procedures of the late King as it is of his present Majesty and their acting upon a distinct Bottom from that of the Three Kingdoms that hath revived and does continue it Nor is there any thing that hath rendered those two Princes more contemptible abroad and proclaimed them Weaker at home than their recurring unto and solliciting the Flatteries and Aid of the Mercenary Timorous Servile and for low and personal Ends byass'd part of their Subjects and thereby telling the World that neither the Generality nor the most Honorable of their People have been united in their Interest nor Approvers of the Counsels that have been taken and pursued And if any thing did ever cast a Dishonor upon the English Nation it hath been that loathsome Flattery and slavish Sycophancy wherewith the Addressers both now and for some years past have stuffed their Applications to the two Royal Brothers The Throne that is sustained and upheld by the Pillars of Law and Justice needs not to hew out unto its self other Supporters nor lean upon the crooked and weak Stilts of the insignificant and for the most part deceitful as well as brib'd Vows of a sort of Men who will be as ready upon the least disgust to cry Crucifie to morrow as they were for being gratified may be in their Lusts Humors and Revenges and at the best in some separate Concern to cry Hosanna to day I shall decline prosecuting what concerns the Honor or Dishonor of him to whom the Addresses are made or how Politick or Impolitick the Countenancing and Encouraging them is and shall apply my self to this new Sett of Addressers and endeavor to shew how Foolish as well as Criminally they have acted Nor is it an Argument either of their Prudence or Honesty or of their acting with any Consistency to themselves that having so severely inveighed against the Addresses that were in fashion a few years ago and having fastened all the Imputations and Reproaches upon those that were Accessary to them which that Rank of Addressers could be supposed to have deserved they now espouse the Practice which they had condemned and in reference to as Arbitrary and unjustifiable an Act of His present Majesty as the most illegal one the late King was guilty of or the worst Exercise or Prerogative for which any heretofore either
we were Sworn and stood bound to be hereby subverted and changed and that thereupon we are not only Absolved and Acquitted from the Allegiance and Fealty we were formerly under to his Majesty but are indispensably obliged by the Ties and Engagements that are upon us of maintaining and defending the Constitution and Government to apply our selves to the use of all Means and Endeavors against him as an Enemy of the People and a Subverter of the legal Government wherein all the Interest he had or could lawfully claim was an Official Trust and not an Absolute Power or a Despâ—tical Dominion the first whereof he hath deposed and abdicated himself from by challenging and usurping the latter And should any Scots Dissenter either in his entrance upon the Liberty granted by this Proclamation or in Addressing by way of Thankfulness for it take the least notice of this Freedoms flowing from the King which cannot be done without Recognising this Absolute Power in his Majesty as the Fountain of it he is to be look'd upon as the worst of Traitors and deserves to be proceeded against both for his Accession unto and justifying the Subversion of the Laws Liberties and Government of his Country and for betraying the Rights of all Free-born Men. For those few Reflections in the foregoing Sheets which this new Proclamation may not only seem to render useless and frustrate the end whereunto they were intended but may make the publishing any Animadversions upon that which the King by departing from does himself Censure and Condemn be esteemed both a failure in Ingenuity and Candor and a want of regard to those Measures of Justice which ought to be observed towards all Men and more especially towards Crowned Heads I shall only say that as the Proclamation arrived with me too late to hinder and prevent the Communication of them to the Publick so I have this farther to add in Justification of their being published that it will thereby appear that what his Majesty stiles Sinistruous Interpretations made of some Restrictions mentioned in his former are no other than the just natural genuine and obvious Constructions which they lye open unto and are capable of and which a Man cannot avoid fastning upon them without renouncing all Sense and Reason And while the King continues to disparage and asperse all sober and judicious Reflections upon that Royal Paper by charging upon them the unjust and reproachful Character of Sinistruous Interpretations it is necessary as well as equal that the whole matter should be plainly and impartially represented to the World and that the Dection be remitted and left to the understanding and unbyass'd part of Mankind who are the Calumniators and Slanderers they who accuse the Proclamation of importing such Principles Consequences and Tendencies or he and his Ministers who think they have avoided and answered the Imputations fastened upon it when they have loaded them with hard and uncivil Terms For tho he be pleased to assume to himself an Absolute Power which all are bound to obey without reserve and in the virtue of which he Suspends Stops and Disables what Laws he pleaseth yet I do not know but that his Intellectuals being of the Size of other Mens and that seeing neither his Sovereignty nor Catholicalness have vested in him an Inerrability why we may not enter our Plea and Demur to the Dictates of his Judgment tho we know not how to withstand the Efforts of his Power Nor shall I subjoyn any more save that whereas his Majesty declares so many Laws to be disabled to all Intents and Purposes he ought to have remembred that beside other Intents and Purposes that several of them may hereafter serve unto as the Papists may possibly come to have Experience there is one thing in reference to which he cannot even at present hinder and prevent their Usefulness and Efficacy and that is not only their raising and exciting all just Resentments in the minds of free-born and generous Men for his challenging a Power to Suspend and Cassate them but their remaining and continuing Monuments of his Infidelity to the Trust reposed in him of his departure from all Promises made at and since his entering upon the Government and of his Invading and Subverting all the Rules of the Constitution The Declaration of His Highness William Henry by the Grace of God Prince of Orange c. Of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England for Preserving of the Protestant Religion and for Restoring the Laws and Liberties of England Scotland and Ireland IT is both certain and evident to all Men that the Publick Peace and Happiness of any State or Kingdom cannot be preserved where the Laws Liberties and Customs established by the Lawful Authority in it are openly Transgressed and Annulled More especially where the Alteration of Religion is endeavored and that a Religion which is contrary to Law is endeavored to be introduced Upon which those who are most immediately concerned in it are Indispensably bound to endeavor to preserve and maintain the established Laws Liberties and Customs and above all the Religion and Worship of God that is established among them And to take such an effectual Care that the Inhabitants of the said State or Kingdom may neither be deprived of their Religion nor of their Civil Rights Which is so much the more Necessary because the Greatness and Security both of Kings Royal Families and of all such as are in Authority as well as the Happiness of their Subjects and People depend in a most especial manner upon the exact Observation and Maintenance of these their Laws Liberties and Customs Upon these grounds it is that we cannot any longer forbear to Declare That to our great Regret we see that those Counsellors who have now the chief Credit with the King have overturned the Religion Laws and Liberties of those Realms and subjected them in all things relating to their Consciences Liberties and Properties to Arbitrary Government and that not only by Secret and Indirect ways but in an open and undisguised manner Those Evil Counsellors for the advancing and colouring this with some plausible Pretexts did invent and set on foot the King 's Dispensing Power by virtue of which they pretend that according to Law he can Suspend and Dispence with the Execution of the Laws that have been enacted by the Authority of the King and Parliament for the Security and Happiness of the Subject and so have rendered those Laws of no Effect Tho there is nothing more certain than that as no Laws can be made but by the joynt Concurrence of King and Parliament so likewise Laws so enacted which secure the Publick Peace and Safety of the Nation and the Lives and Liberties of every Subject in it cannot be Repealed or Suspended but by the same Authority For tho the King may pardon the Punishment that a Transgressor has incurred and to which he is condemned as in the cases of
appeared both during the Queens Pretended Biggness and in the manner in which the Birth was managed so many just and visible Grounds of Suspition that not only we our selves but all the good Subjects of those Kingdoms do vehemently suspect that the Pretended Prince of Wales was not born by the Queen And it is notoriously known to all the World that many both doubted of the Queens Biggness and of the Birth of the Child and yet there was not any one thing done to satisfie them or to put an end to their Doubts And since our Dearest and most Entirely Beloved Consort the Princess and likewise we our selves have so great an Interest in this Matter and such a Right as all the World knows to the Succession to the Crown since also the English did in the Year 1672. when the States General of the United Provinces were Invaded in a most unjust War use their utmost Endeavors to put an end to that War and that in Opposition to those who were then in the Government and by their so doing they run the Hazard of losing both the Favor of the Court and their Imployments And since the English Nation has ever testified a most particular Affection and Esteem both to our Dearest Consort the Princess and to our selves We cannot excuse our selves from espousing their Interests in a matter of such high Consequence and from Contributing all that lies in us for the Maintaining both of the Protestant Religion and of the Laws and Liberties of those Kingdoms and for the Securing to them the continual Enjoyment of all their just Rights To the doing of which we are most earnestly solicited by a great many Lords both Spiritual and Temporal and by many Gentlemen and other Subjects of all Ranks Therefore it is that we have thought fit to go over to England and to carry over with us a Force sufficient by the Blessing of God to defend us from the Violence of those Evil Counsellors And we being desirous that our Intentions in this may be rightly understood have for this end prepared this Declaration in which as we have hitherto given a true Account of the Reasons inducing us to it So we now think fit to Declare that this our Expedition is intended for no other Design but to have a free and lawful Parliament assembled as soon as is possible and that in order to this all the late Charters by which the Elections of Burgesses are limited contrary to the Ancient Custom shall be considered as null and of no force And likewise all Magistrates who have been Injustly turned out shall forthwith resume their former Imployments as well as all the Boroughs of England shall return again to their Ancient Prescriptions and Charters And more particularly that the Ancient Charter of the Great and Famous City of London shall again be in Force And that the Writs for the Members of Parliament shall be addressed to the proper Officers according to Law and Custom That also none be suffered to choose or to be chosen Members of Parliament but such as are qualified by Law And that the Members of Parliament being thus lawfully chosen they shall meet and sit in full Freedom that so the Two Houses may concur in the preparing of such Laws as they upon full and free Debate shall judge necessary and convenient both for the confirming and executing the Law concerning the Test and such other Laws as are necessary for the Security and Maintenance of the Protestant Religion as likewise for making such Laws as may establish a good Agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters as also for the covering and securing of all such who will live Peaceable under the Government as becomes good Subjects from all Persecution upon the account of their Religion even Papists themselves not excepted and for the doing of all other things which the Two Houses of Parliament shall find necessary for the Peace Honor and Safety of the Nation so that there may be no more danger of the Nations falling at any time hereafter under Arbitrary Government To this Parliament we will also refer the Enquiry into the Birth of the Pretended Prince of Wales and of all things relating to it and to the Right of Succession And we for our part will concur in every thing that may procure the Peace and Happiness of the Nation which a Free and Lawful Parliament shall determine Since we have nothing before our Eyes in this our Undertaking but the Preservation of the Protestant Religion the covering of all Men from Persecution for their Consciences and the Securing to the whole Nation the free Enjoyment of all their Laws Rights and Liberties under a Just and Legal Government This is the design that we have proposed to our selves in appearing upon this occasion in Arms In the Conduct of which we will keep the Forces under our Command under all the Strictness of Martial Discipline and take a special Care that the People of the Countries through which we must march shall not suffer by their means And as soon as the State of the Nation will admit of it we promise that we will send back all those Foreign Forces that we have brought along with us We do therefore hope that all People will judge rightly of us and approve of these our Proceedings But we chiefly rely on the Blessing of God for the Success of this our Undertaking in which we place our whole and only Confidence We do in the last place invite and require all Persons whatsoever all the Peers of the Realm both Spiritual and Temporal all Lords-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and all Gentlemen Citizens and other Commons of all Ranks to come and assist us in order to the Executing of this our Design against all such as shall endeavor to oppose us that so we may prevent all those Miseries which must needs follow upon the Nations being kept under Arbitrary Government and Slavery And that all the Violences and Disorders which have overturned the whole Constitution of the English Government may be fully redressed in a Free and Legal Parliament And we do likewise resolve that as soon as the Nations are brought to a State of Quiet we will take care that a Parliament shall be called in Scotland for the restoring the Ancient Constitution of that Kingdom and for bringing the Matters of Religion to such a Settlement that the People may live Easie and Happy and for putting an end to all the Injust Violences that have been in a course of so many Years committed there We will also study to bring the Kingdom of Ireland to such a State that the Settlement there may be Religiously observed and that the Protestant and British Interest there may be secured And we will endeavor by all possible means to procure such an Establishment in all the Three Kingdoms that they may all live in a Happy Union and Correspondence together and that the Protestant Religion and the Peace
by Hundreds of Thousands at once 4. Because the Dragooners have made more Converts than all the Bishops and Clergy of France 5. The Parliament ought to establish one standing Army at the least because indeed there will be need of Two that one of them may defend the People from the other 6. Because it is a thousand pities that a brave Popish Army should be a Riot 7. Unless it be Established by Act of Parliament The Justices of Peace will be forced to suppress it in their own Defence for they will be loth to forfeit an hundred Pounds every day they rise out of Complement to a Popish Rout. 13 H. 4. c. 7. 2 H. 5. c. 8. 8. Because a Popish Army is a Nullity For all Papists are utterly disabled and punishable besides from bearing any Office in Camp Troop Band or Company of Soldiers and are so far disarmed by Law that they cannot wear a Sword so much as in their Defence without the allowance of four Justices of the Peace of the County And then upon a March they will be perfectly Inchanted for they are not able to stir above five Miles from their own Dwelling-house 3. Jac. 5. Sect. 8.27 28 29.35 Eliz. 2.3 Jac. 5. Sect. 7. 9. Because Persons utterly disabled by Law are utterly Unauthorized and therefore the void Commissions of Killing and Slaying in the Hands of Papists can only enable them to Massacre and Murder To the King 's Most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of William Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and divers of the Suffragan Bishops of that Province now present with him in behalf of themselves and others of their absent Brethren and of the Clergy of their respective Diocesses Humbly sheweth THAT the great averseness they find in themselves to the distributing and publishing in all their Churches your Majesty's late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience proceeds neither from any want of Duty and Obedience to your Majesty our Holy Mother the Church of England being both in her Principles and in her constant Practice unquestionably Loyal and having to her great Honour been more than once publickly acknowledg'd to be so by your Gracious Majesty Nor yet from any want of due tenderness to Dissenters in relation to whom they are willing to come to such a Temper as shall be thought fit when that Matter shall be considered and settled in Parliament and Convocation But among many other Considerations from this especially because that Declaration is founded upon such a Dispensing Power as has been often declared Illegal in Parliament and particularly in the years 1662 and 1672. and in the beginning of your Majesty's Reign and is a matter of so great Moment and Consequence to the whole Nation both in Church and State that your Petitioners cannot in Prudence Honour or Conscience so far make themselves Parties to it as the distribution of it all over the Nation and the solemn Publication of it once and again even in God's House and in the Time of his Divine Service must amount to in common and reasonable Construction Your Petitioners therefore most Humbly and Earnestly beseech your Majesty that you will be ciously pleased not to insist upon their Distributing and Reading your Majesty's said Declaration And Your Petitioners as in Duty bound shall ever Pray Will. Cant. Will. Asaph Fr Ely Jo. Cicestr Tho. Bathon Wellen. Tho. Peterburgen Jonath Bristol His Majesties Answer was to this effect I Have heard of this before but did not believe it I did not expect this from the Church of England especially from some of you If I change my Mind you shall hear from me if not I expect my Command shall be obeyed The PETITION of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for the Calling of a Free Parliament Together with his Majesty's Gracious Answer to their Lordships To the KING 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal whose Names are subscribed May it please your Majesty WE your Majesty's most loyal Subjects in a deep sense of the Miseries of a War now breaking forth in the Bowels of this your Kingdom and of the Danger to which your Majesty's Sacred Person is thereby like to be exposed and also of the Distractions of your People by reason of their present Grievances do think our selves bound in Conscience of the duty we owe to God and our holy Religion to your Majesty and our Country most humbly offer to your Majesty That in our Opinion the only visible Way to preserve your Majesty and this your Kingdom would be the Calling of a Parliament Regular and Free in all its Circumstances We therefore do most earnestly beseech your Majesty That you would be graciously pleased with all speed to call such a Parliament wherein we shall be most ready to promote such Counsels and Resolutions of Peace and Settlement in Church and State as may conduce to your Majesty's Honour and Safety and to the quieting the Minds of your People We do likewise humbly beseech your Majesty in the mean time to use such means for the preventing the Effusion of Christian Blood as to your Majesty shall seem most meet And your Petitioners shall ever pray c. W. Cant. Grafton Ormond Dorset Clare Clarendon Burlington Anglesey Rochester Newport Nom. Ebor. W. Asaph Fran. Ely Tho. Roffen Tho. Petriburg Tho. Oxon. Paget Chandois Osulston Presented by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Arch-Bishop of York Elect the Bishop of Ely and the Bishop of Rochester the 17th of November 1688. His Majesty's most Gracious Answer My LORDS What You ask of Me I most passionately desire And I promise You upon the Faith of a King That I will have a Parliament and such an One as You ask for as soon as ever the Prince of Orange has quitted this Realm For How is it possible a Parliament should be Free in all its Circumstances as You Petition for whil'st an Enemy is in the Kingdom and can make a Return of near an Hundred Voices The Lords Petition with the King's Answer may be printed Novemb. 29. 1688. The P. O.'s Letter to the English Army Gentlemen and Friends WE have given you so full and so true an Account of Our Intentions in this Expedition in Our Declaration that as We can add nothing to it so We are sure you can desire nothing more of us We are come to preserve your Religion and to restore and establish your Liberties and Properties and therefore We cannot suffer Our selves to doubt but that all true English men will come and concur with Us in Our desire to secure these Nations from POPERY and SLAVERY You must all plainly see that you are only made use of as Instruments to enslave the Nation and ruin the Protestant Religion and when that is done you may judge what ye your selves ought to expect both from the cashiering of all the Protestant and English Officers and Soldiers in Ireland and by the Irish Soldiers being brought over to be put in your places
Protestant and a Free man and therefore the Case being thus I shall think my self false to my Country if I sit still at this time I am of Opinion that when the Nation is Deliver'd it must be by Force or by Miracle It would be too great a presumption to expect the latter and therefore our Deliverance must be by Force and I hope this is the Time for it a Price is now put into our Hands and if it miscarry for want of Assistance our Blood is upon our own Heads and he that is passive at this Time may very well expect that God will mock when the Fear of Affliction comes upon him which he thought to avoid by being indifferent If the King prevails farewel Liberty of Conscience which has hitherto been allowed not for the sake of the Protestants but in order to settle Popery You may see what to expect if he get the better and he hath lately given you of this Town a taste of the Method whereby he will maintain his Army And you may see of what sort of People he intends his Army to consist and if you have not a mind to serve such Masters then stand not by and see your Country-men perish when they are endeavouring to defend you I promise this on my Word and Honour to every Tenant that goes along with me That if he fall I will make his Lease 〈◊〉 good to his Family as it was when he went from home The thing then which â—â—se â—esire and your Country does expect from you is this That every Man that hath a toâ—rable Horse or can procure one will meet me on Boden-Downs to morrow where I Rendezvouz But if any of you is rendred unable by reason of Age or any other just Excuse then that he would mount a fitter person and put five Pounds in his Pocket Those that have not nor cannot procure Horse let them stay at home and assist with their Purses and send it to me with a particular of every Mans Contribution I impose on no Man but let him lay his Hand on his Heart and consider what he is willing to give to recover his Religion and Liberty and to such I promise and to all that go along with 〈…〉 if we prevail I will be as industrious to have him recompensed for his Charge and â—â—azard as I will be to seek it for my self This Advice I give to all that stay behind That when you hear the Papists have committed any Out-rage or any Rising that you will get together for it is better to meet your danger than expect it I have no more to say but that I am willing to lose my Life in the Cause if God see it good for I was never unwilling to die for my Religion and Country An Engagement of the Noblemen Knights and Gentlemen at Exeter to Assist the Prince of Orange in the Defence of the Protestant Religion Laws and Liberties of the People of England Scotland and Ireland WE do engage to Almighty God and to his Highness the Prince of Orange and with one another to stick firm to this Cause and to one another in the Defence of it and never to depart from it until our Religion Laws and Liberties are so far secured to us in a free-Free-Parliament that we shall be no more in danger of falling under Popery and Slavery And whereas we are engaged in the Common Cause under the Protection of the Prince of Orange by which means his Person may be exposed to Danger and to the desperate and cursed Designs of Papists and other bloody Men we do therefore solemnly engage to God and to one another That if any such Attempts be made upon him we will pursue not only those that made them but all their Adherents and all we find in Arms against us with the utmost Severity of just Revenge in their Ruin and Destruction and that the executing any such Attempt which God of his Infinite Mercy forbid shall not deprive us from pursuing this Cause which we do now undertake but that it shall encourage us to carry it on with all the Vigour that so Barbarous Approach shall deserve The Declaration of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty at the Rendezvouz at Nottingham Nov. 22. 1688. WE the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of these Northern Counties assembled together at Nottingham for the Defence of the Laws Religion and Properties according to those free-born Liberties and Priviledges descended to us from our Ancestors as the undoubted Birth-right of the Subjects of this Kingdom of England not doubting but the Infringers and Invaders of our Rights will represent us to the rest of the Nation in the most malicious dress they can put upon us do here unanimously think it our Duty to declare to the rest of our Protestant Fellow-Subjects the Grounds of our present Undertaking We are by innumerable Grievances made sensible that the very Fundamentals of our Religion Liberties and Properties are about to be rooted out by our late Jesuitical Privy Council as hath been of late too apparent 1. By the King's dispensing with all the Establish'd Laws at his pleasure 2. By displacing all Officers out of all Offices of Trust and Advantage and placing others in their room that are known Papists deservedly made incapable by the Establish'd Laws of our Land 3. By destroying the Charters of most Corporations in the Land 4. By discouraging all Persons that are not Papists preferring such as turn to Popery 5. By displacing all honest and conscientious Judges unless they would â—â—ntrary to their Consciences declare that to be Law which was meerly arbitrary 〈…〉 By branding all Men with the name of Rebels that but offered to justifie the Law 〈…〉 a legal course against the arbitrary proceedings of the King or any of his corrupt Ministers 7. By burthening the Nation with an Army to maintain the Violation of the Rights of the Subjects 8. By discountenancing the Establish'd Reformed Religion 9. By forbidding the Subjects the benefit of Petitioning and constâ—â—ing them Libellers so rendring the Laws a Nose of Wax to serve their Arbitrary 〈…〉 And many more such-like too long here to enumerate We being thus made sadly sensible oâ— he Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government that is by the Influence of Jesuitical Counsels coming upon us do unanimously declare That not being willing to deliver our Posterity over to such a Condition of Popery and Slavery as the aforesaid Oppressions inevitably threaten we will to the utmost of our power oppose the same by joining with the Prince of Orange whom we hope God Almighty hath sent to rescue us from the Oppressions aforesaid will use our utmost Endeavours for the recovery of our almost ruin'd Laws Liberties and Religion And herein we hope all good Protestant Subjects will with their Lives and Fortunes be assistant to us and not be bugbear'd with the opprobrious Terms of Rebels by which they would fright us to become perfect Slaves to their Tyrannical Insolences and Usurpations
our just and due Acknowledgments for the happy Relief You have brought to us and that we may not be wanting in this present Conjuncture we have put our selves into such a Posture that by the Blessing of God we may be capable to prevent all ill Designs and to preserve this City in Peace and Safety till your Highness's Happy Arrival We therefore humbly desire that your Highness will please to repair to this City with what convenient speed you can for the perfecting the great Work which Your Highness has so happily begun to the general Joy and Satisfaction of us all December the 17th 1688. THE said Committee this day made Report to the Lieutenancy that they had presented the said Address to the Prince of Orange and that His Highness received them very kindly December the 17th 1688. By the Lieutenancy Ordered That the said Order and Address be forwith Printed Geo. Evans To his Highness the Prince of Orange The Humble Address of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common Council assembled May it please Your Highness WE taking into Consideration your Highness's fervent Zeal for the Protestant Religion manifested to the World in your many and hazardous Enterprizes which it hath pleased Almighty God to bless You with miraculous Success We render our deepest Thanks to the Divine Majesty for the same And beg leave to present our most humble Thanks to your Highness particularly for your appearing in Arms in this Kingdom to carry on and perfect your glorious Design to rescue England Scotland and Ireland from Slavery and Popery and in a Free Parliament to establish the Religion the Laws and the Liberties of these Kingdoms upon a sure and lasting Foundation We have hitherto look'd for some Remedy for these Oppressions and Imminent Dangers We together with our Protestant Fellow-Subjects laboured under from His Majesty's Concessions and Concurrences with Your Highness's Just and Pious purposes expressed in Your gracious Declaration But herein finding Our Selves finally disappointed by his Majesty's withdrawing Himself We presume to make Your Highness Our Refuge And do in the Name of this Capital CITY implore Your Highness's Protection and most humbly beseech Your Highness to vouchsafe to repair to this CITY where Your Highness will be received with Universal Joy and Satisfaction The Speech of Sir George Treby Kt. Recorder of the Honourable City of London to his Highness the Prince of Orange Dec. 20. 1688. May it please your Highness THE Lord Mayor being disabled by Sickness your Highness is attended by the Aldermen and Commons of the Capital City of this Kingdom deputed to Congratulate your Highness upon this great and glorious Occasion In which labouring for Words we cannot but come short in Expression Reviewing our late Danger we remember our Church and State over-run by Popery and Arbitrary Power and brought to the Point of Destruction by the Conduct of Men that were our true Invaders that brake the Sacred Fences of our Laws and which was worst the very Constitution of our Legislature So that there was no Remedy left but the Last The only Person under Heaven that could apply this Remedy was Your Highness You are of a Nation whose Alliances in all Times has been agreeable and prosperous to us You are of a Family most Illustrious Benefactors to Mankind To have the Title of Soveraign Prince Stadtholder and to have worn the Imperial Crown are among their lesser Dignities They have long enjoyed a Dignity singular and transcendent viz. To be Champions of Almighty God sent forth in several Ages to vindicate his Cause against the greatest Oppressions To this Divine Commission our Nobles our Gentry and among them our brave English Soldiers rendred themselves and their Arms upon your appearing GREAT SIR When we look back to the last Month and contemplate the Swiftness and Fulness of our present Deliverance astonish'd we think it miraculous Your Highness led by the Hand of Heaven and called by the Voice of the People has preserved our dearest Interests The Protestant Religion which is Primitive Christianity restor'd Our Laws which are our ancient Title to our Lives Liberties and Estates and without which this World were a Wilderness But what Retribution can We make to your Highness Our Thoughts are full-charged with Gratitude Your Highness has a lasting Monument in the Hearts in the Prayers in the Praises of all good Men among us And late Posterity will celebrate your ever-glorious Name till Time shall be no more Chapman Mayor Cur ' special ' tent ' die Jovis xx die Decemb ' 1688. Annoque RR. Jacobi Secundi Angl ' c. quarto THIS Court doth desire Mr. Recorder to print his Speech this day made to the Prince of Orange at the time of this Court 's attending his Highness with the Deputies of the several Wards and other Members of the Common Council Wagstaffe His Highness the Prince of Orange's Speech to the Scots Lords and Gentlemen With their Advice and his Highness's Answer With a true Account of what past at their Meeting in the Council-Chamber at Whitehall January 7th 168â— His Highness the Prince of Orange having caused Advertise such of the Scots Lords and Gentlemen as were in Town met them in a Room at St. James's upon Monday the Seventh of January at Three of the Clock in the Afternoon and had this Speech to them My Lords and Gentlemen THE only Reason that induced me to undergo so great an Vndertaking was That I saw the Laws and Liberties of these Kingdoms overturned and the Protestant Religion in Imminent Danger And seeing you are here so many Noblemen and Gentlemen I have called you together that I may have your Advice what is to be done for Securing the Protestant Religion and Restoring your Laws and Liberties according to my Declaration As soon as his Highness had retired the Lords and Gentlemen went to the Council-Chamber at Whitehall and having chosen the Duke of Hamilton their President they fell a consulting what Advice was fit to be given to his Highness in this Conjuncture And after some hours Reasoning they agreed upon the Materials of it and appointed the Clerks with such as were to assist them to draw up in Writing what the Meeting thought expedient to advise his Highness and to bring it in to the Meeting the next in the Afternoon Tuesday the Eighth Instant the Writing was presented in the Meeting And some time being spent in Reasoning about the fittest way of Coveening a General Meeting of the Estates of Scotland At last the Meeting came to agree in their Opinion and appointed the Advice to be writ clean over according to the Amendments But as they were about to part for that Dyet the Earl of Arran proposed to them as his Lordship's Advice that they should move the Prince of Orange to desire the King to return and call a Free Parliament which would be the best way to secure the Protestant Religion and Property and to
3. By taking the Children of Protestant Noblemen and Gentlemen sending them abroad to be bred Papists making great Funds and Donations to Popish Schools and Colleges abroad bestowing Pensions on Priests and perverting Protestants from their Religion by Offers of Places Preferments and Pensions 4. By disarming Protestants while at the same time he employed Papists in the Places of greatest Trust Civil and Military such as Chancellor Secretaries Privy Councellors and Lords of Session thrusting out Protestants to make room for Papists and intrusting the Forts and Magazines of the Kingdom in their hands 5. By Imposing Oaths contrary to Law 6. By giving Gifts and Grants for exacting of Mony without Consent of Parliament or Convention of Estates 7. By Levying and keeping on foot a standing Army in time of Peace without consent of Parliament which Army did exact Locality free and day Quarters 8. By Employing the Officers of the Army as Judges through the Kingdom and imposing them where there were held Offices and Jurisdictions by whom many of the Leiges were put to Death summarily without legal Tryal Jury or Record 9. By imposing exorbitant Fines to the Value of the Parties Estates exacting extravagant Bail and disposing Fines and Forfaulture before any Process or Conviction 10. By Imprisoning Persons without expressing the Reason and delaying to put them to Tryal 11. By causing pursue and forfault several Persons upon stretches of old and obsolete Laws upon frivolous and weak pretences upon lame and defective Probations as particularly the late Earl of Argyle to the scandal and reproach of the Justice of the Nation 12. By Subverting the Right of the Royal Boroughs the Third Estate of Parliament imposing upon them not only Magistrates but also the whole Town Council and Clerks contrary to the Liberties and express Charters without the pretence either of Sentence Surrender or Consent So that the Commissioners to Parliaments being chosen by the Magistrates and Councils the King might in effect as well nominate that entire Estate of Parliament many of the said Magistrates put in by him were avowed Papists and the Burghs were forced to pay Mony for the Letters imposing these Illegal Magistrates and Council upon them 13. By sending Letters to the chief Courts of Justice not only ordering the Judges to stop and desist sine die to determine Causes but also ordering and commanding them how to proceed in Cases depending before them contrary to the express Laws And by changing the Nature of the Judges Gifts ad vitam aut culpam and giving them Commissions ad bene placitum to dispose them to compliance by Arbitrary Courses turning them out of their Offices when they did not comply 14. By granting Personal Protections for Civil Debts contrary to Law All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known Laws Freedoms and Statutes of this Realm Therefore the Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland find and declare That King James the Seventh being a profest papist did assume the Regal Power and acted as a King without ever taking the Oath required by Law and have by advice of Evil and Wicked Counsellors invaded the Fundamental Constitution of the Kingdom and altered it from a Legal limited Monarchy to an Arbitrary and Despotick Power and hath exercised the same to the subversion of the Protestant Religion and the violation of the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom Inverting all the Ends of Government whereby he hath forfaulted the Right to the Crown and the Throne is become vacant And whereas his Royal Highness William then Prince of Orange now King of England whom it hath pleased the Almighty God to make the glorious Instrument of delivering these Kingdoms from Popery and Arbitrary Power did by advice of several Lords and Gentlemen of this Nation at London for the time call the Estates of this Kingdom to meet the Fourteenth of March last in order to such an Establishment as that their Religion Laws and Liberties might not be again in danger of being subverted And the said Estates being now assembled in a full and free Representative of this Nation taking to their most serious consideration the best means for attaining the Ends aforesaid Do in the first place as their Ancestors in the like cases have usually done for the vindicating and asserting their Ancient Rights and Liberties declare That by the Law of this Kingdom no Papist can be King or Queen of the Realm nor bear any Office whatsoever therein nor can any Protestant Successor exercise the Regal Power until he or she swear the Coronation Oath That all Proclamations asserting an Absolute Power to cass annul and disable Laws the erecting Schools and Colleges for Jesuits the inverting Protestant Chapels and Churches to publick Mass-houses and the allowing Mass to be said are contrary to Law That the allowing Popish Books to be printed and dispersed is contrary to Law That the taking the Children of Noblemen Gentlemen and others sending and keeping them abroad to be bred Papists The making Funds and Donations to Popish Schools and Colleges the bestowing Pensions on Priests and the perverting Protestants from their Religion by offers of Places Preferments and Pensions are contrary to Law That the disarming of Protestants and imploying Papists in the Places of greatest Trust both Civil and Military the thrusting out Protestants to make room for Papists and the entrusting Papists with the Forts and Magazines of the Kingdom are contrary to Law That the Imposing Oaths without Authority of Parliament is contrary to Law That the giving Gifts or Grants for raising of Mony without the Consent of Parliament or Convention of Estates is contrary to Law That the employing Officers of the Army as Judges through the Kingdom or imposing them where there were several Offices and Jurisdictions and the putting the Lieges to death summarily and without legal Tryal Jury or Record are contrary to Law That the imposing extraordinary Fines the exacting of exorbitant Bail and the disposing of Fines and Forfaultures before Sentence are contrary to Law That the Imprisoning Persons without expressing the reason thereof and delaying to put them to Tryal are contrary to Law That the causing pursue and forfault Persons upon Stretches of old and obsolete Laws upon frivolous and weak Pretences upon lame and defective Probation as particularly the late Earl of Argyle are contrary to Law That the nominating and imposing Magistrates Councils and Clerks upon Burghs contrary to the Liberties and express Charters is contrary to Law That the sending Letters to the Courts of Justice ordaining the Judges to stop or desist from determining Causes or ordaining them how to proceed in Causes depending before them and the changing the Nature of the Judges Gifts ad vitam aut culpam unto Commissions Durante bene placito are contrary to Law That the granting Personal Protections for Civil Debts is contrary to Law That the forcing the Lieges to depone against themselves in Capital Crimes however the Punishment be restricted is contrary to Law
read to their Majesties the King returned to the Commissioners the following Answer WHen I engaged in this Vndertaking I had particular Regard and Consideration for Scotland and therefore I did emit a Declaration in relation to That as well as to this Kingdom which I intend to make good and effectual to them I take it very kindly that Scotland hath expressed so much Confidence in and Affection to Me They shall find Me willing to assist them in every thing that concerns the Weal and Interest of that Kingdom by making what Laws shall be necessary for the Security of their Religion Property and Liberty and to ease them of what may be justly grievous to them After which the Coronation-Oath was tendred to Their Majesties which the Earl of Argyle spoke word by word directly and the King and Queen repeated it after him holding Their Right Hands up after the manner of taking Oaths in Scotland The Meeting of the Estates of Scotland did Authorize their Commissioners to represent to His Majesty That that Clause in the Oath in relation to the rooting out of Hereticks did not import the destroying of Hereticks And that by the Law of Scotland no Man was to be persecuted for his private Opinion And even Obstinate and Convicted Hereticks were only to be denounced Rebels or Outlawed whereby their Moveable Estates are Confiscated His Majesty at the repeating that Clause in the Oath Did declare that He did not mean by these words That He was under any Obligation to become a Persecutor To which the Commissioners made Answer That neither the meaning of the Oath or the Law of Scotland did import it Then the King replyed That He took the Oath in that Sense and called for Witnesses the Commissioners and others present And then both Their Majesties Signed the said Coronation-Oath After which the Commissioners and several of the Scotish Nobility kissed Their Majesties Hands The Coronation OATH of England The Arch-bishop or Bishop shall say WIll You solemnly Promise and Swear to govern the People of this Kingdom of England and the Dominions thereto belonging according to the Statues in Parliament agreed on and the Laws and Customs of the same The King and Queen shall say I solemnly Promise so to do Arch-bishop or Bishop Will You to Your Power cause Law and Justice in Mercy to be Executed in all Your Judgments King and Queen I Will. Arch-bishop or Bishop Will You to the utmost of Your Power Maintain the Laws of God the true Profession of the Gospel and the Protestant Reformed Religion Established by Law And will You Preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of this Realm and to the Churches committed to their Charge all such Rights and Priviledges as by Law do or shall appertain unto them or any of them King and Queen All this I Promise to do After this the King and Qeen laying His and Her Hand upon the Holy Gospels shall say King and Queen The Things which I have here before Promised I will Perform and Keep So help me God Then the King and Queen shall kiss the Book The Coronation OATH of Scotland WE William and Mary King and Queen of Scotland faithfully Promise and Swear by this Our solemn Oath in presence of the Eternal God that during the whole course of Our Life we will serve the same Eternal God to the uttermost of Our Power according as he has required in his most holy Word reveal'd and contain'd in the New and Old Testament and according to the same Word shall maintain the True Religion of Christ Jesus the Preaching of his holy Word and the due and right Ministration of the Sacraments now Received and Preached within the Realm of Scotland and shall abolish and gainstand all false Religion contrary to the same and shall Rule the People committed to our Charge according to the Will and Command of God revealed in his aforesaid Word and according to the laudable Laws and Constitutions received in this Realm no ways repugnant to the said Word of the Eternal God and shall procure to the utmost of Our Power to the Kirk of God and whole Christian People true and perfect Peace in all time coming That we shall preserve and keep inviolated the Rights and Rents with all just Privileges of the Crown of Scotland neither shall we transfer nor alienate the same That we shall forbid and repress in all Estates and Degrees Reif Oppression and all kind of wrong And we shall Command and Procure that Justice and Equity in all Judgments be keeped to all persons without exception as the Lord and Father of all Mercies shall be merciful to us And we shall be careful to root out all Hereticks and Enemies to the true Worship of God that shall be Convicted by the true Kirk of God of the aforesaid Crimes out of Our Lands and Empire of Scotland And we faithfully affirm the things above written by Our Solemn Oath God save King WILLIAM and Queen MARY Proposals humbly offered to the Lords and Commons in the present Convention for settling of the Government c. My Lords and Gentlemen YOV are Assembled upon Matters of the highest Importance to England and all Christendom and the result of your Thoughts in this Convention will make a numerous Posterity Happy or Miserable If therefore I have met with any Thing that I think worthy of your Consideration I should think my self wanting in that duty which I owe to my Country and Mankind if I should not lay it before You. If there be as some say certain Lineaments in the Face of Truth with which one cannot be deceiv'd because they are not to be counterfeited I hope the Considerations which I presume to offer You will meet with your Approbation That bringing back our Constitution to its first and purest Original refining it from some gross Abuses and supplying its Defects You may be the Joy of the present Age and the Glory of Posterity FIrst 'T is necessary to distinguish between Power it self the Designation of the Persons Governing and the Form of Government For 1. All Power is from God as the Fountain and Original 2. The Designation of the Persons and the Form of Government is either First immediately from God as in the Case of Saul and David and the Government of the Jews or Secondly from the Community chusing some Form of Government and subjecting themselves to it But it must be noted that though Saul and David had a Divine Designation yet the People assembled and in a General Assembly by their Votes freely chose them Which proves that there can be no orderly or lasting Government without Consent of the People Tacit or Express'd and God himself would not put Men under a Government without their Consent And in case of a Conquest the People may be called Prisoners or Slaves which is a state contrary to the Nature of Man but they cannot be properly Subjects till their Wills be brought to submit to the Government
43. A Brief Account of particulars occurring at the happy death of our late Soveraign Lord K. Ch. 2d in regard to Religion faithfully related by his then Assistant Mr. Jo. Huddleston 280 44. Some Reflections on His Majesty's Proclamation of the Twelfth of Feb. 1686 7. for a Toleration in Scotland together with the said Proclamation 281 45. His Majesty's Gracious Declaration to all his Loving Subjects for Liberty of Conscience 287 46. A Letter containing some Reflections on His Majesty's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience Dated April 4. 1687. 289 47. A Letter to a Dissenter upon Occasion of His Majesty's Late Gracious Declaration of Indulgence 294 48. The Anatomy of an Equivalent 300 49. A Letter from a Gentleman in the City to his Friend in the Countrey containing his Reasons for not reading the Declaration 309 50. An Answer to the City Minister's Letter from his Countrey Friend 314 51. A Letter from a Gentleman in Ireland to his Friend in London upon ocasion of a Pamphlet entituled A Vindication of the Present Government of Ireland under his Excellency Richard Earl of Tyrconnel 316 52. A Plain Account of the Persecution laid to the Charge of the Church of England 322 53. Abby and other Church Lands not yet assured to such possessors as are Roman-Catholicks dedicated to the Nobility and Gentry of that Religion 326 54. The King's Power in Ecclesiastical matters truly stated 331 55. A Letter writ by Mijn Heer Fagel Pensioner of Holland to Mr. James Stewart Advocate giving an Account of the Prince and Princess of Orange's thoughts concerning the Repeal of the Test and the Penal Laws 334 56. Reflections on Monsieur Fagel's Letter 338 57. Animadversions upon a pretended Answer to Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter 343 58. Some Reflections on a Discourse called Good Advice to the Church of England c. 363 59. The ill effects of Animosities 371 60. A Representation of the Threatning Dangers impending over Protestants in Great-Britain With an Account of the Arbitrary and Popish ends unto which the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland are designed 380 61. The Declaration of his Highness William Henry by the Grace of God Prince of Orange c. of the Reasons inducing him to appear in Arms in the Kingdom of England for preserving of the Protestant Religion and for restoring the Laws and Liberties of England Scotland and Ireland 420 62. His Highnesses Additional Declaration 426 63. The then supposed Third Declaration of his Royal Highness pretended to be signed at his head Quarters at Sherborn-Castle November 28. 1688. but was written by another Person tho yet unknown 427 64. The Reverend Mr. Samuel Johnson's Paper in the year 1686. for which he was sentenc'd by the Court of Kings-Bench Sir Edward Herbert being Lord Chief Justice and Sir Francis Wythens pronouncing the Sentence to stand Three times on the Pillory and to be whipp'd from Newgate to Tyburn which barbarous Sentence was Executed 428 65. Several Reasons for the establishment of a standing Army and Dissolving the Militia by the said Mr. Johnson 429 66. To the King 's Most Excellent Majesty the Humble Petition of William Archbishop of Canterbury and divers of the suffragan Bishops of that Province then present with him in behalf of themselves and others of their absent Brethren and of the Clergy of their respective Diocesses with His Majesty's Answer 430 67. The Petition of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for the calling of a free Parliament together with His Majesty's Gracious Answer to their Lordships Ib. 68. The Prince of Orange's Letter to the English Army 431 69. Prince George his Letter to the King 432 70. The Lord Churchill's Letter to the King 432 71. The Princess Ann of Denmark's Letter to the Queen 433 72. A Memorial of the Protestants of the Church of England presented to their Royal Hignesses the Prince and Princess of Orange 433 73. Admiral Herbert's Letter to all Commanders of Ships and Seamen in His Majesty's Fleet. 434 74. The Lord Delamere's Speech 434 75. An Engagement of the Noblemen Knights and Gentlemen at Exeter to assist the Prince of Orange in the defence of the Protestant Religion Laws and Liberties of the People of England Scotland and Ireland 435 76. The Declaration of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty at the Rendezvouz at Nottingham November 22. 1688. 436 77. His Grace the Duke of Norfolk's Speech to the Mayor of Norwich on the 1st of December in the Market-place of Norwich 437 78. The Speech of the Prince of Orange to some principal Gentlemen of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire on their coming to join his Highness at Exeter Novemb. 15. 1688. 437 79. The True Copy of a Paper delivered by the Lord Devonshire to the Mayor of Darby where he Quartered Novemb. 21. 1688. 438 80. A Letter from a Gentleman at Kings-Lynn Decemb. 7. 1688. to his Friend in London With an Address to his Grace the most Noble Henry Duke of Norfolk Lord Marshall of England Ibid. 81. His Grace's Answer with another Letter from Lynn-Regis giving the D. of Norfolk's 2d Speech there Decemb. 10. 1688. 439 82. The Declaration of the Lord 's Spiritual and Temporal in and about the Cities of London and Westminster Assembled at Guild-Hall Decemb. 11. 1688. Ibid. 83. A Paper delivered to his Highness the Prince of Orange by the Commissioners sent by His Majesty to treat with him and his Highness's Answer 1688. 440 84. The Recorder of Bristoll's Speech to his Highness the Prince of Orange Monday Jan. 7. 1688. 441. 85. The Humble Address of the Lieutenancy of the City of London to his Highness the Prince of Orange Decemb. 12. 1688. 442 86. The Humble Address of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common-Council Assembled to his Highness the Prince of Orange 443 87. The Speech of Sir Geo. Treby Knight Recorder of the Honourable City of London to his Highness the Prince of Orange Decemb. 20. 1688. Ibid. 88. His Highness the Prince of Orange's Speech to the Scotch Lords and Gentlemen with their Advice and his Highness's Answer with a true Account of what past at their meeting in the Council Chamber at White-Hall Jan. 7. 1688 9. 444 89. The Emperor of Germany's Account of K. James's Misgovernment in joining with the K. of France the Common Enemy of Christendom in his Letter to K. James 446 90. The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons Assembled at Westminster concerning the Misgovernment of K. James and filling up the Throne Presented to K. William and Q. Mary by the Right Honourable the Marquess of Hallifax Speaker to the House of Lords with His Majesty's Most Gracious Answer thereunto 447 91. A Proclamation Declaring William and Mary Prince and Princess of Orange to be King and Queen of England France and Ireland c. 449 92. The Declaration of the Estates of Scotland concerning the Misgovernment of K. James the 7th
Confessor was in private with him and said this Harvy used frequently to come to the Prison after Condemnation and that where one Prisoner died a Protestant many died Papists Mr. Wootten said that after some stay he saw Mr. Harvy come out from Mr. Hubert and then he was admitted to have Speech with him Mr. Cawdry Keeper of Newgate did Inform That Mr. Harvy the Jesuit did frequent the Prison at Newgate about the times of the Execution upon the pretence of the Queens Charity and did spend much time with the Prisoners in private and particularly did so before the last Execution night after night Mr. Cawdry said likewise of the nine that suffered eight died Papists whereof some he knew were Protestants when they came into the Prison It appeared upon several Informations that Mr. Harvy and other Priests did not only resort to Newgate at times of Execution but likewise to the White-Lion in Southwark and other places in the Country and used their endeavours to pervert dying Prisoners Thomas Barnet late a Papist Informed That when he was a Papist and resorted to Gentlemens Houses in Barkshire that were Papists there was almost in every Gentlemans House a Priest and instanced in divers private Gentlemen in that County Others inform the like in Sarrey Mr. Cottman did inform That one Mr. Carpenter late a Preacher at Colledge-hill did in Discourse tell Cottman That the Judgments of God upon this Kingdom by the Plague last year and lately by the Fire in London were come upon this Land and People for their forsaking the true Roman Catholick Religion and shaking off Obedience to the Pope and that if they would return to the Church of Rome the Pope would rebuild the City at his own Charge Carpenter said likewise to Cottman That if he would come and hear him Preach the next Sunday at his House in Queen-street he would give twenty Reasons to prove that the Roman Catholick was the true Religion and his the false and that our Bible had a thousand falsities in it and that there was no true Scripture but at Rome and their Church Carpenter at the Committee confessed that he had formerly taken Orders from the Church of Rome to be a Priest but said he had renounced that Church and taken Orders in England The next thing is the Information of their Insolency and I shall begin with their Scorning and Despising the Bible One Thomas Williams an Officer in Sir William Bowyer 's Regiment Informed That one Ashley a Papist seeing a Woman read in a Bible asked her why she read in that Damnable Presbiterian Bible and said A Play-book was as good Thomas Barnet of Bingfield in Barkshire Informed That being at one Mr. Young's House in Bingfield at Bartholomew-tide last Mr. Young said to the Brother of this Thomas in his hearing That within two Years there should not be a Protestant in England Thomas Barnet Informed further That being at Mr. Doncaster's House in Bingfield one Mr. Thural Son-in-Law to Mr. Doncaster and both Papists said to this Informer who was then likewise a Papist The People take me for a poor fellow but I shall find a thousand or two thousand pounds to raise a party of Horse to make Mr. Hathorns and Mr. Bullocks fat guts lie on the ground for it is no more to kill an Heretick than to kill a Grashopper and that it was happy for him that he was a Catholick for by that means he shall be one that shall be mounted Mr. Linwood Scrivenner in White-Chappel Informed That about the Twentieth of October last meeting with one Mr. Binks a Papist and discoursing with him Binks told him That there was amongst the Papists as a great Design aâ— ever was in England and he thought it would be executed suddenly Being asked how many Papists there were about London He answered About seven thousand and in England an hundred thousand were Armed Mr. Oaks a Physician dwelling in Shadwel Informed That a little after the burning of London one Mr. Carpenter a Minister came to his House in Tower-wharf and spake to him to this purpose I will not say that I am a Papist but this I will say that I had rather die the death of the Papists and that my Soul should be raised with their Resurrection than either to be Presbiterian Independant or Anabaptist and I tell you the Papists have hitherto been his Majesty's best Fortification for when Presbiterians Independants and Anabaptists forsook and opposed him then they stood by him and helped him and he is now resolved to commit himself into their hands And take it upon my word in a short time the Papists will lay you as low as that house pointing to an house that was demolished for they are able to raise Forty thousand men and I believe the next work will be cutting of Throats This was Sworn by Mr. Oaks before Sir John Frederick a Member of the House Mirian Pilkington being present when the Words were spoken doth affirm them all save only those That the King is resolved to commit himself into the Papists hands Those she doth not remember Henry Young a Distiller of Hot-waters informed That about April 1661. being in the Jesuites Colledge in Antwerp one Powel an English Jesuite perswaded him to turn a Roman Catholick and said That if he intended to save his Life and Estate he had best turn so for within seven Years he should see all England of that Religion Young replied That the City of London would never endure it Powel answered That within five or six Years they would break the Power and Strength of London in pieces and that they had been contriving it these twenty Years and that if Young did live he should see it done The said Young did likewise Inform That shortly after his coming into England one Thomson and Copervel both Papists did several times say to him That within five or six Years at the farthest the Roman Catholick Religion should be all over in this Kingdom Jasper Goodwin of Darking in the County of Surrey Informed That about a Month since one Edward Complin a Papist said to him You must all be Papists shortly and that now he was not ashamed to own himself a Roman Catholick and to own his Priest naming two that were in Darkin in the houses of two Papists and likewise said That in twenty four hours warning the Roman Catholicks could raise thirty thousand Men as well armed as any Men in Christendom William Warner of Darking Informed That the said Edward Complin did tell him That the Roman Catholicks in England could in twenty four hours raise thirty thousand Horse and Arms And upon saying so pulled out his Crucifix and Beads and said He was not ashamed of his Religion John Grawnger of Darking Informed that about a Year since being in his House reading the Bible one Thomas Collins a Papist said to him Are you still a Church-goer Had you not better turn Roman Catholick If you stay till you
are forced none will abide you And said further That there was a Man beyond sea had prophesied That in sixty six if the King did not settle the Romish Religion in England he would be banished out of the Kingdom and all his Posterity And Collins further said That he being lately turned a Roman Catholick he would not be a Protestant for all the World He wished Graunger again in the hearing of his Wife which he affirmed to the Committee to turn his Religion for all the said Prophesie would come to pass in Sixty six Robert Holloway of Darking aforesaid informed That one Stephen Griffin a Papist said to him That all the bloud that had been shed in the late civil War was nothing to that which would be shed this year in England Holloway demanded a reason for these words in regard the Kingdom was in peace and no likelihood of trouble and said Do you Papists intend to rise and cut our throats when we are asleep Griffin answered That 's no matter if you live you shall see it Ferdinand de Massido a Portuguese and some Years since a Romish Priest but turning Protestant Informed That one Father Taff a Jesuite did the last year tell him at Paris That if all England did not return to the Church of Rome they should all be destroyed the next Year Mr. Samuel Cottman of the Middle-Temple Barister Informed That about two Years since one Mr. Jeviston a Popish Priest and called by the Name of Father Garret did perswade him to turn Papist and he should want neither Profit nor Preferment Mr. Cottman objected that he intended to practise the Law which he could not do if he turned Papist because he must take the Oath of Supremacy at his being called to the Bar and if he were a Papist he must not take it Mr. Jeviston replied Why not take the Oath It is an unlawful Oath and void ipso facto And after some pause said further First take the Oath and then I will convert you He said further The King will not own ' himself to be Head of the Church And said further You in England that set up the Dutch to destroy our Religion shall find that they shall be the Men to PULL DOWN YOURS Mr. Stanley an Officer to the Duke of Ormond in Ireland Informed That coming out of Ireland with one Oriel who owned himself of the Order of the Jesuites and commissioned from the Pope to be Lord Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of Armah and falling into some Discourse with him he told him That there had been a Difference between him and some other of the Jesuites in Ireland and that part of the Occasion was that one Father Walsh and some other of the Jesuites there did dispense with the Papists in Ireland to take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy by virtue of a standing Commission from the Pope which he had to do it during this King's Life and Oriel thought they ought not to do it by virtue of the standing Commission but should take a new Commission from the Pope every Year to do it And likewise That he brought eight Boys out of Ireland whom he intended to carry to Flanders to breed up in some of the Colledges there And at his taking Shipping to go for Flanders he shaked his Foot towards England terming it Egypt and said He would not return into England till he came with 50 thousand Men at his heels A French Merchant being a Papist living in St. Michael's Lane London writes in a Letter to his Friend That a great number of Men and Arms were ready here if those he wrote to were ready there He being upon the Intercepting of this Letter searched forty Fire-locks were found in his House ready loaden which were carried to Fishmongers-Hall a Month or more before the Fire and he committed to Prison but since released A Poor Woman retaining to one Belson's House a Papist about Darking in Surrey was follicited that she and her husband would turn Roman Catholicks which if they did voluntarily Now they would be accepted of but if they staid a little longer they would be forced whether they would or no and then they would not be esteemed This was deposed before Sir Adam Brown a Member of Parliament A Complaint being made against a Sugar-Baker at Fox-hall his House was searched by Lieutenant Collonel Luntly who found there several Guns with such Locks as no English-man who was at the taking of them could discharge together with Brass Blunderbusses and Fire-works of a furious and burning nature Trial being made of a small part of them the Materials were discerned to be Sulphur Aquavitae and Gun-powder whatever else In a Letter to Sir John Frederick and Mr. Nathanail Heron from Horsham in Sussex the 8th of September 1666. Subscibed Henry Chowne Wherein is mentioned that the said Henry Chowne had thoughts to come to London that week but that they were in Distraction there concerning the Papists fearing they would shew themselves all that day And that he had been to search a Papist's House within six miles of that place He with another Justice of Peace met the Gentleman's Brother who is a Priest going to London whom they searched and found a Letter about him which he had received that Morning from his Sister twenty miles off from him wherein is expressed That a great Business is in hand not to be committed to Paper as the times be Your Committee have thought fit to give no Opinion upon these Informations but leave the matter of Fact to your Judgments I am commanded to tell you That your Committee have several other things of this nature under their Inquiry AS a further Instance of the audacious and insolent Behaviour of these Popish Recusants take the following Copy of Verses made and then scattered abroad by some of their Party in Westminster-Hall and several other places about the City and elsewhere in the Kingdom COvre la feu ye Hugonots That have so branded us with Plots And henceforth no more Bonfires make Till ye arrive the Stygian Lakeâ— For down ye must ye Hereticks For all your hopes in sixty six The hand against you is so steady Your Babylon is faln already And if you will avoid that hap Return into your Mothers lap The Devil a Mercy is for those That Holy Mother-Church oppose Let not your Clergy you betray Great Eyes are ope and see the way Return in time if you will save Your Souls your Lives or ought you have And if you live till sixty seven Confess you had fair Warning given Then see in time or ay be blind Short time will shew you what 's behind Dated the 5th Day of November in the Year 1666. and the First Year of the Restoration of the Church of Rome in England NOt long after the Burning of London Mr. Brook Bridges a young gentleman of the Temple as he was going to attend Divine Service in the Temple-Church in a Pew there
houses in Holborn at the same time That he was at the Fire in the Temple but was not engaged to do any thing in it And said that Gyfford told him that there were English French and Irish Roman Catholicks enough in London to make a very good Army and that the King of France was coming with 60000 Men under pretence to shew the Dauphin his Dominions but it was to lay his Men at Deep Bulloign Callis and Dunkirk to be in an hours Warning to be Landed in England and he doubted not but it would be by the middle of June and by that time all the Catholicks here will be in readiness all were to rise in order to bring him in That the Papists here were to be distinguished by Marks in their Hatts that the said Father Gyfford doubted not but he should be an Abbot or a Bishop when the work was over for the good service he hath done That at their Meeting Father Gyfford used to tell them it was no more sin to kill a Heretick then a Dog and that they did God good Service in doing what Mischiefs they could by firing their houses That it was well Sir Edmondbury Godfrey was Murdered for he was their Devilish Enemy That Coleman was a Saint in Heaven for what he had done And saith he is fearful he shall be Murthered for this Confession Father Gyfford having sworn him to Secresie and told him he should be Damned if he made any Discovery and should be sure to be killed and that he should take the Oaths because he was a House-keeper and that it was no sin And saith That Gyfford and Roger _____ told him when their Forces meet about the middle of June then have at the VOTES and ADDRESSES Of the Honourable House of Commons ASSEMBLED IN PARLIAMENT Made this present Year 1673 Concerning Popery and other Grievances March 29. 1673. The Parliaments Address to his Majesty for the Removal of Grievances in England and Ireland WE your Majesties most Loyal Subjects the Commons in this present Parliament assembled conceiving our selves bound in necessary Duty to your Majesty and in Discharge of the Trust reposed in us truly to inform your Majesty of the Estate of your Kingdom And though we are abundantly satisfied that it hath been your Royal Will and Pleasure that your Subjects should be governed according to the Laws and Customs of this Realm yet finding that contrary to your Majesties gracious Intention some Grievances and Abuses are crept in We crave Leave humbly to represent them to your Majesties Knowledge and Desire 1. That the Imposition of 12 d. per Chaldron upon Coals for the providing of Convoys by Vertue of an Order from Council dated the 15th of May 1672 may be recalled and all Bonds taken by Virtue thereof cancelled 2. That your Majesties Proclamation of the 24th of December 1672 for preventing of Disorders which may be committed by Soldiers and whereby the Soldiers now in your Majesties Service are in a manner exempted from the ordinary Course of Justice may likewise be recalled 3. And whereas great Complaints have been made out of several parts of this Kingdom of divers Abuses committed in Quartering of Soldiers That your Majesty would be pleased to give Order to redress those Abuses and in particular that no Soldiers be hereafter Quartered in any private Houses and that due Satisfaction may be given to the Inn-keepers or Victuallers where they lye before they remove 4. And since the continuance of Soldiers in this Nation will necessarily produce many Inconveniences to your Majesties Subjects We do humbly present it as our Petition and Advice That when this present War is ended all your Souldiers which have been raised since the last Session of Parliament may be Disbanded 5. That your Majesty would be likewise pleased to consider of the Irregularities and Abuses in pressing Soldiers and to give Order for the Prevention thereof for the future 6. And although it hath been the Course of former Parliaments to desire Redress in their Grievances before they proceeded to give a Supply yet we have so full Assurance of your Majesties Tenderness and Compassion towards your People that we humbly prostrate our selves at your Majesties feet with these our Petitions desiring your Majesty to take them into your Princely Consideration and to give such Orders for the Relief of your Subjects and the Removing these Pressures as shall seem lest to your Roâ—al Wisdâ—m Address touching Ireland WE your Majesties most Loyal Subjects the Commons in this present Parliament assembled taking into Consideration the great Calamities which have formerly befallen your Majesties Subjects of the Kingdom of Ireland from the Popish Recusants there who for the most part are profest Enemies to the Protestant Religion and the English Interest and how they make use of your Majesties gracious Disposition and Clemency are at this time grown more insolent and presumptuous than formerly to the apparent Danger of that Kingdom and your Majesties Protestant Subjects there the Consequence whereof may likewise prove very fatal to this your Majesties Kingdom of England if not timely prevented And having seriously weighed what Remedies may be most properly applied to those growing Distempers do in all Humility present your Majesty with these our Petitions 1. That for the Establishment and Quieting the Possessions of your Majesties Subjects in that Kingdom your Majesty would be pleased to maintain the Act of Settlement and Explanatory Act thereupon and to recall the Commission of Enquiry into Irish Affairs bearing Date the 17th of January last as containing many new and extraordinary Powers not only to the Frejudice of particular Persons whose Estates and Titles are thereby made liable to be questioned but in a manner to the Overthrow of the Acts of Settlement And if pursâ—â—d may be the Occasion of great Charge and Attendance to many of your Subjects in Ireland and shake the Peace and Security of the whole 2. That your Majesty would give Order that no Papist be either continued or hereafter admitted to be Judges Justices of the Peace Sheriffs Coroners or Mayors Sovereigns or Portrieves in that Kingdom 3. That the Titular Popish Archbishops Bishops Vicars-General Ablâ—â—s and all other exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction by the Popes Authority and in particular Peter Talbot pretended Archbishop of Dublin for his notorious Disloyalty to your Majesty and Disobedience and Contempt of your Laws may be commanded by Proclamation forthwith to depart out of Ireland and all other your Majesties Dominions or otherwise to be prosecuted according to Law And that all Convents Seminaties and Publick Popish Scholes may be dissolved and suppressed and the Secular Priests commanded to depart under the Penalty 4 That no Irish Papist be admitted to inhabit in any part of that Kingdom unless duly licensed according to the aforesaid Acts of Settlemenâ— and that your Majesty would be pleased to recall your Letters of the 26th of February 1671. And the Proclamation thereupon whereby general Licence is
but Christianity itself that lies at stake For in the Ruine of the Empire the Turks work is done to his hand by breaking down the only Fence that has preserv'd us all this while from the Incursions of the Ottoman Power Now as nothing can be more glorious than at all hazards to hinder the effusion of more Christian Blood and to save Christendom itself from Bondage it is so much our Interest too that we our selves are lost without it And as the Obligation is reciprocal so the Resolution is necessary The choice we have before us being only this Either to unite with our Neighbours for a Common Safety or to stand still and look on the tame Spectators of their Ruine till we fall alone This is so demonstrative that if we do not by a powerful Alliance and Diversion prevent the Conquest of Flanders which lies already a gasping we are cut off from all Communication with the rest of Europe and coop'd up at home to the irrecoverable loss of our Reputation and Commerce for Holland must inevitably follow the Fate of Flanders and then the French are Masters of the Sea Ravage our Plantations and infallibly possess themselves of the Spanish Indies and leave us answerable for all those Calamities that shall ensue upon it which as yet by God's Providence may be timely prevented But he that stills the raging of the Sea will undoubtedly set Bounds to this overflowing Greatness having now as an Earnest of that Mercy put it into the Hearts of our Superiours to provide seasonably for the Common Safety and in proportion also to the Exigence of the Affair knowing very well that things of this Nature are not to be done by halves We have to do with a Nation of a large Territory abounding in Men and Money their Dominion is grown absolute that no Man there can call any thing his own if the Court says Nay to 't So that the sober and industrious part are only Slaves to the Lusts and Ambition of the Military In this Condition of Servitude they feel already what their Neighbours fear and wish as well to any Opportunity either of avoiding or of casting off the Yoke which will easily be given by a Conjunction of England and Holland at Sea and almost infallibly produce these effects First It will draw off the Naval Force of France from Sicily America and else-where to attend this Expedition Secondly The Diversion will be an Ease to the Empire and the Confederates from whence more Troops must be drawn to encounter this Difficulty than the French can well spare Thirdly It will not only encourage those Princes and States that are already engag'd but likewise keep in awe those that are disaffected and confirm those that waver 'T is true this War must needs be prodigiously expensive but then in probability it will be short And in Cases of this Quality People must do as in a Storm at Sea rather throw part of the Lading over-board than founder the Vessel I do not speak this as supposing any difficulty in the Case for the very contemplation of it has put fire into the Veins of every true English-man and they are moved as by a sacred impulse to the necessary and the only means of their Preservation And that which Crowns our hopes is that these generous Inclinations are only ready to execute what the Wisdom of their Superiours shall find reasonable to Command I need not tell you how jealous the People of England are of their Religion and Liberties to what degree they have contended even for the shadow of these Interests nor how much Blood and Treasure they have spent upon the Quarrel Could any Imposture work so much and can any Man imagine that they will be now less sensible when they see before their eyes a manifest Plot upon their Religion their Liberties invaded their Traffick interrupted the Honour and the very Being of their Country at stake their Wives and Children expos'd to Beggary and Scorn and in Conclusion The Priviledge of a Free-born English-man exchanged for the Vassalage of France An ANSWER to a LETTER written by a Member of Parliament in the Country upon the occasion of his Reading of the Gazette of the 11th of December 1679 wherein is the Proclamation for further Proroguing the Parliament till the 11th of November next ensuing SIR I Received your Letter when I was ingaged in much other business which will excuse me that I have not returned an Answer sooner and that is done no better now You desire me to let you know what that Judgment is which my Lord Chancellor acquainted my Lord Mayor and his Brethren with and what my thoughts are upon it And that I may obey you in both I will first Transcribe that Case as it is reported by Justice Crook that being already put into English whereas the Case in Moor is in French MEmorandum That by Command from the King all the Justices of England Cro. Ja. f. 37. Nov. 100. Moor 755. with divers of the Nobility viz. The Lord Ellesmere Lord-Chancellor the Earl of Dorset Lord-Treasurer Viscount Cranbourn Principal Secretary the Earl of Nottingham Lord Admiral the Earls of Northumberland Worcester Devon and Northampton the Lords Zouch Burghley and Knowles the Chancellor of the Dutchy the Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Bishop of London Popham Chief Justice Bruce Masters of the Rolls Anderson Gawdy Walmesley Fenner Kingsmil Warburton Savel Daniel Yelverton and Snigg were assembled in the Star-Chamber where the Lord Chancellor after a long Speech made by him concerning Justices of the Peace and his Exhortation to the Justices of Assize and a Discourse concerning Papists and Puritans declaring how they both were Disturbers of the State and that the King intending to suppress them and to have the Laws put in execution against them demanded of the Justices their Resolutions in three things First Whether the Deprivation of Puritan-Ministers by the High Commissioners for refusing to conform themselves to the Ceremonies appointed by the last Canons was lawful Whereto all the Justices answered That they had conferred thereof before and held it to be lawful because the King hath the Supreme Ecclesiastical Power which he hath delegated to the Commissioners whereby they had the Power of Deprivation by the Canon-Law of the Realm And the Statute of 1 Eliz. which appoints Commissioners to be made by the Queen doth not confer any new Power but explain and declare the Ancient Power And therefore they held it clear That the King without Parliament might make Orders and Constitutions for the Government of the Clergy and might deprive them if they obeyed not And so the Commissioners might deprive them But they could not make any Constitutions without the King And the divulging of such Ordinances by Proclamation is a most gracious Admonition And forasmuch as they have refused to obey they are lawfully deprived by the Commissioners ex Officio without Libel Et ore tenus convocati Secondly Whether a Prohibition
out of the Hands of the Possessor than purely those of his own Conscience which is worthy Mr. Considerer's highest Consideration I shall only take notice of one Objection more and then conclude fearing I have too much trespass'd on your Patience already It 's very hard says he that a man should lose his Inheritance because he is of this or that Perswasion in Matters of Religion And truly Gentlemen were the Case only so I should be intirely of his mind But alass Popery whatever Mr. Considerer is pleas'd to insinuate in not an harmless innocent Perswasion of a Number of Men differing from others in matters relating to Christian Religion but is really and truly a different Religion from Christianity it self Nor is the Inheritance he there mentions an Inheritance only of Black-Acre and White Acre without any Office annexed which requires him to be par Officio But the Government and Protection of several Nations the Making War and Peace for them the Preservation of their Religion the Disposal of Publick Places and Revenues the Execution of all Laws together with many other things of the greatest Importance are in this Case claimed by the Word Inheritance which if you consider and at the same time reflect upon the Enslaving and Bloody Tenents of the Church of Rome more particularly the Hellish and Damnable Conspiracy those of that Communion are now carrying on against our Lives our Religion and our Government I am confident you will think it as proper for a Wolf to be a Shepherd as it is for a Papist to be the Defender of our Faith c. The Old Gentleman had no sooner ended his Discourse but I returned him my hearty Thanks for the Trouble he had been pleased to give himself on this Occasion and I could not but acknowledge he had given me great Satisfaction in that Affair what it will give thee Charles I know not I am sure I parted from him very Melancholy for having been a Fool so long Adieu I am thy Affectionate I. D. A Collection of Speeches IN THE House of Commons In the Year 1680. The Lord L. Speech My Lords MAny have been the Designs of the Papists to subvert this poor Nation from the Protestant Religion to that of the See of Rome and that by all the undermining Policies possibly could be invented during the Recess of Parliament even to the casting the Odium of their most Damnable Designs on the Innocency of his Majesties most Loyal Subjects We have already had a taste of their Plottings in Ireland and find how many unaccountable Irish Papists dally arrive which we have now under Consideration My Lord Dunbarton a great Romanist has Petitioned for his stay here alledging several Reasons therein which in my Opinion make all for his speedy Departure for I can never think his Majesty and this Kingdom sufficiently secure till we are rid of those Irish Cattel and all others besides for I durst be bold to say that whatsoever they may pretend there is not one of them but have a destructive Tenet only they want Power not Will to put it in force I would not have so much as a Popish Man nor a Popish Woman to remain here nor so much as a Popish Dog or a Popish Bitch no not so much as a Popish Cat that should pur or mew about the King We are in a Labyrinth of Evils and must carefully endeavour to get out of them and the greatest danger of all amongst us are our conniving Protestants who notwithstanding the many Evidences of the Plot have been industrious to revile the Kings Witnesses and such an one is R L'E who now disappears being one of the greatest Villains upon the Earth a Rogue beyond my Skill to delineate has been the Bugbear to the Protestant Religion and traduced the King and Kingdoms Evidences by his notorious scribling Writings and hath endeavoured as much as in him lay to eclipse the Glory of the English Nation he is a dangerous rank Papist proved by good and substantial Evidence for which since he has walked under another disguise he deserves of all Men to be hanged and I believe I shall live to see that to be his State He has scandalized several of the Nobility and detracted from the Rights of his Majesty's great Council the Parliament and is now fled from Justice by which he confesses the Charge against him and that shows him to be guilty My humble Motion is that this House Address to his Majesty to put him out of the Commission of Peace and all other Publick Employments for ever Speeches in the Honourable House of Commons Mr. Speaker IN the Front of Magna Charta it is said Nulli negabimus nulli differimus Justitiam we will defer or deny Justice to no Man to this the King is Sworn and with this the Judges are intrusted by their Oaths I admire what they can say for themselves if they have not read this Law they are not fit to sit upon the Bench and if they have I had almost said they deserve to lose their Heads Mr. Speaker The State of the poor Nation is to be deplored that in almost all ages the Judges who ought to be Preservers of the Laws have endeavoured to destroy them and that to please a Court-Faction they have by Treachery attempted to break the Bonds asunder of Magna Charta the great Treasury of our Peace it was no sooner passed but a Chief Justice in that day perswades the King he was not bound by it because he was under Age when it was passed But this sort of Insolence the next Parliament resented to the ruine of the pernicious Chief Justice In the time of Richard the Second an unthinking dissolute Prince there were Judges that did insinuate into the King that the Parliament were only his Creatures and depended on his Will and not on the Fundamental Constitutions of the Land which Treacherous Advice proved the Ruine of the King and for which all those evil Instruments were brought to Justice In his late Majesties Time his Misfortunes were occasioned chiesly by the Corruptions of the Long Robe his Judges by an Extrajudicial Opinion give the King Power to raise Money upon an extraordinary Occasion without Parliament and made the King Judge of such Occasions Charity prompts me to think they thought this a Service to the King but the sad Consequences of it may convince all Mankind that every illegal Act weakens the Royal Interest and to endeavour to introduce Absolute Dominion in these Realms is the worst of Treasons because whilst it bears the Face of Friendship to the King and Designs to be for his Service it never fails of the contrary effect The two great Pillars of the Government are Parliaments and Juries it is this gives us the Title of Free-born English-men for my Notion of Free-English-men is this that they are ruled by Laws of their own making and tried by Men of the same Condition with themselves The Two great
keeping Watch since the Plot hath cost the City above 100000 l. The City of London is the Bulwark of our Religion And is it not said the Duke is at the head of 30 or 40000 men The Lieutenancy and Justices how are they molded for his turn And if you do nothing now in this House we must all without any more ado try to make a Peace with him as well as we can I 'll never do it And will you for the sake of one man destroy three Kingdoms An Highth He moved that the Representation might declare That we see no Security but removing the Duke of York A Ninth We discoursing of Tangier at this time is like Nero's Fiddling whilst Rome was consuming by Fire If it be in a good condition we cannot help it if in a bad one we are not in a posture to do it Pray consider the condition by what 's past when King Henry the Eighth was for Supremacy the Kingdom was for it when King Henry the Eighth was against it the Kingdom was against it When King Edward the Sixth was a Protestant the Kingdom was so when Queen Mary was a Papist the Kingdom was so when Queen Elizabeth was a Protestant the Kingdom so again Regis ad exemplum c. And I believe even in King Edward the Sixth's time the Bishops themselves would not have been for throwing out such a Bill as this And if King Edward had promised any thing for the preservation of the Protestant Religion so that Mary might succeed the Pope would no way have contrived so great a Favour The bidding us prevent Popery and the letting alone a Popish Successor is as if a Physician should come to a man in a Pleurisie and tell him he may make use of any Remedies but letting of Blood the Party must perish that being the only Cure I am not at present for giving of Money that being to the State as Food to the Stomach if that be clean meat turns to good Nourishment but if it be out of order it breeds Diseases And so it is in the State if that be not in order too We have been often deceived and by the same men again Was not 200000 l. given for the Fleet in 74 and was any of it employed that way Money given for an actual War with France employed for a dishonourable Peace Never so many Admirals and so few Ships to guard us never more Commissioners of the Treasury and so little Money never so many Counsellors and so little Safety Let us address His Majesty A Tenth I 'll never be for giving of Money for promoting Popery and a Successor a publick Enemy to the Kingdom and a Slave to the Pope Whilst he hath 11 to 7 in the Council and 63 to 31 in the House of Lords we are not secure And if my own Father had been one of the 63 I should have voted him an Enemy to the King and Kingdoms and if we cannot live Protestants I hope we shall dye so The Eleventh Redress our Grievances first and then and not till then Money Tangier never was nor will be a place of Trade Tituan and Sally so near they will never trade with us to destroy themselves and can never be for our Advantage And I have many years wonder'd at the Council that have been for the keeping of it and am of opinion that Popery may be aimed at by it and that our Councils are managed at Rome from whence I saw a Letter from a Friend dated the 21th of October with the Heads of the King's Speech in it to this effect That His Majesty would command them not to meddle with the Succession That he would ask no Money That he would stand upon the Confirmation of the Lord Danby's Pardon and That the keeping of Tangier was to draw on Expences and was it not would be for the blowing of it up Twelfth I am for a Representation Thirteenth I remember before the last Session of Parliament there was a Council held at Lambeth and there hatched a Bill against Popery It was for the breeding of Children of a Popish Successor which admitted the thing and it was called a Bill against Popery but we called it the Popish Bill I am for the Church of England but not for the Church-men of the late Bishop of St. Asaph on his Death-bed good man could hardly forbear declaring himself which his Epitaph did Ora pro Anima ordered to be written upon his Tomb. We are told the other day we ought to make the Duke a Substantive to stand by himself That there was less danger of a General without an Army than an Army without a General And I have read in Pliny which was most to be feared an Army of Lyons with an Hare to their General or an Army of Hares with a Lyon to their General and it was concluded that an Army of Hares with a Lyon to their General was most to be feared of the two His Majesty is inclosed by a sort of Monsters who endeavour to destroy and I hope to move against them before we rise and though we have lost our last Bill we have not lost our Courage and Hearts Fourteenth His Majesty desires your Advice and Assistance it is seldom which is very kind and though you shall think fit not to give the latter it 's but mannerly to give the first And I hope you will not resent any Injury if any there were done by the House of Lords on the King who though he cannot cure all ill in one day he can ruine all And I acquaint you there is a very great Weight laid upon this Session of Parliament and upon the agreeing of the King with the People on which depends the Welfare of the Protestants abroad and hope you will not go about to Remonstrate now Fifteenth If you had sent the Duke's Lord Craven's and Mulgrave's Regiment to Tangier it would supply the Place with Men and Disband the Lord Oxford's Regiment and the Money on those imployed would bear much of the share of this Then the House Resolved to appoint a Committee to draw up an Address upon the Debate of this House to represent His Majesty the State and Condition of the Kingdom in Answer to His Majesties Message about Tangier The SPEECHES of several Learned and Worthy Members of the Honourable House of Commons for Passing the Bill against the Duke of York Mr. Speaker THE Gentleman that spoke last seems to intimate that we ought to have a due regard to the Kings Brother and consider what infinite disadvantages will accrew to us if we are too hasty in our Resolutions as before the Duke is found guilty to proceed to pass a Bill for Exclusion for that nothing but War and Bloodshed can be expected from it therefore he says we ought to be moderate and find out a Medium to secure the Protestant Religion notwithstanding the Duke may be a Papist Now Gentlemen I give you the Dictates of my
Heart without either Passion or Prejudice and should be as willing as any Person to agree with what that Gentleman hath proposed if any such Reason can be brought to enforce it For my part I think it absolutely impossible that this Kingdom can be safe or the Protestant Religion succeed under a Popish Successor for do but Review the Ancient and Modern Histories and you shall find how Protestants have lived under a Popish King have they not been Massacred Butchered and Enslaved in Germany France and in our own Countries notwithstanding all the Laws Vows and Promises to the contrary Are not the Tenets of the Papists destructive to the Protestant Religion which is Heresie and that Faith is not to be kept with such See the barbarous Usage of the Protestants in Piedmont and in Queen Maries Time How then can we expect any better success for by how much a Popish Prince seems to be Religious by so much ought he to be looked upon desperately dangerous for since the Papists make such Plotting and Designing to subvert our Religion under a Protestant Prince how much more will they act against us under a Popish Successor For to think to Restrain a Prince under the Power of a penal Law thereby to secure Religion is no more than to tye Sampson with Cords for will not the Courteors be flattered by their Prince to imitate the same Religion with him and then will not we Protestants be discountenanced and none but Priests and Jesuites have Dominion over us For my part if you pass not this Bill we shall all agree to have our Throats cut and I have no patience at all for that you see how the Duke of York being a Papist they have all the dependency on him and hope to perfect their Villanies Therefore take away this General and this Army may be secured and then being united at home we need not fear what all the Papists in the World can do unto us when we fight for the maintenance of our Laws and Religion by Exclusion of a Popish Prince and rather withstand any Violence that shall be brought against us than be in Danger every day to have our Throats cut by those that are amongst us One Gentleman was pleased to say that it was a Papist Jesuits Bill and that which they brand the Papists withall viz Deposing of Princes I do say as to that That we do not Depose James D. of Y. but as being a Papist considering the sad Consequence that will ensue for should we admit a Papist we should give away the Crown for he would only have the Title the Pope would be our Sovereign And we ought to prevent any such Usurpers who no doubt would make havock of our Estates if he spares us our Lives To tell us that Exclusion will cause a Civil War I am of the contrary Opinion for it will be more conducing to the Preservation of the Kings Person and Government our Laws Lives and Religion to be Unanimous Whereas Oppression Fire and Faggot might cause People to Rebel and be Mutunous when the other would be a means to unite us As I will give you a reason why we cannot restrain him otherwise or use moderation towards him for suppose I were riding a full speed on the Road on a secure Horse a Gentleman passing by desired me to be moderate for that I would kill my Horse when at the same time he knows that if I slacken my pace I shall have my throat cut by thieves that are swiftly pursuing me therefore I cannot be moderate in this case unless I will fling away my Life And I will lay down another Similitude that is if I were Sayling to the East-Indies and passing the Equinoctial Line most of the Sea-men were distempered through Heat and on their sick Beds but it being told them that the Ship is in danger of sinking for there springs a Leak upon which they all arise and instantly fall to Pump but the Chyrurgeon acquaints them that if they do not work more moderately they will get the Calenture and so destroy themselves but they give him only the Hearing knowing that if they cease never so little they are all drowned in the Deep therefore in this case there can be no Moderation And to give an Instance in Holy Writ Moses was a meek and mild Man and a moderate Man but seeing an Egyptian and an Israelite fighting he immediately slew the Egyptian for he knew it was to no purpose to be moderate with him and afterwards seeing two Israelites fighting endeavoured to part them telling them they were Brethren and ought to be moderate so we must place it upon the right Object and not suffer our selves and Posterity to be irrecoverably undone Another Speech by a Worthy Gentleman Mr. Speaker NO Man hath a greater Veneration for the Royal Family than my self to which I am obliged both in gratitude and Duty I am bold to say that I have a great esteem and honour for the D. of Y. Yet I must before the passing of this Bill to dissent from that worthy Gentleman that thinked it a Bill of Rigour for it is as I conceive a Bill of Grace and Mercy Vote for it as a Favour for the D. I am sure it is so to the Royal Family they cannot be safe till the Bill be passed in tenderness to one Branch we must endanger the whole That worthy Gentleman that moved last seems to intimate that the passing this Bill is against our Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy I admire his Mistake and it is the first time I ever heard the Protestant Oaths cited to justifie a Popish Successor it is urged we are sworn to the King his Heirs and lawful Successors it is true we are so but not obliged to any in the Kings life time but himself for that were Treason He has no Heirs or Successors by Law during his own Life Non est Heres viventis We are likewise told we are designing a Bill to UNITE the Protestant Interest but will divide it because many true Protestants are for the true Heir and for the D. of Y. if he be so which may occasion the Effusion of much Blood amongst us Mr. Speaker UNITY is desired by all yet let us be glad to divide from such Men for when this Bill is passed their false Loyalty will be a Crime and we know not what Character to give it and what Punishment to assign them LOYALTY is a Correspondency and Submission to the Law it is that surrounds the King and makes his Person Sacred It is hinted that we must Impeach the Duke I should be for that if he did not withdraw I will not say fly from Justice if we Impeach him being absent we can only Attaint him and should he survive the King and be then Lawful Heir the Descent of the Crown takes off all Attainders and such Proceedings were only an Illusion and would indeed involve us in Blood Let us disable
to have been perverted from the Protestant to the Popish Religion whereby not only great Encouragement hath been given to the Popish Party to enter into and carry on most Devilish and Horrid Plots and Conspiracies for the Destruction of His Majesties Sacred Person and Government and for the Extirpation of the True Protestant Religon But also if the said Duke should succeed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm nothing is more manifest than that a Total Change of Religion within these Kingdoms would ensue For the Preservation whereof Be it Enacted by the King 's Most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled and by the Authority of the same That the said James Duke of York shall be and is by the Authority of this present Parliament Excluded and made for ever uncapable to Inherit Possess or Enjoy the Imperial Crown of this Realm and of the Kingdoms of Ireland and the Dominions and Territories to them or either of them belonging or to have exercise or enjoy any Dominion Power Jurisdiction or Authority in the same Kingdoms Dominions or any of them And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That if the said James Duke of York shall at any time hereafter challenge claim or attempt to possess or enjoy or shall take upon him to use or exercise any Dominion Power or Authority or Jurisdiction within the said Kingdoms or Dominions or any of them as King or Chief Magistrate of the same That then he the said James Duke of York for every such Offence shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and shall suffer the Pains Penalties and Forfeitures as in case of High Treason And further That if any Person or Persons whatever shall assist or maintain abett or willingly adhere unto the said James Duke of York in such challenge claim or attempt or shall of themselves attempt or endeavour to put or bring the said James Duke of York into the Possession or Exercise of any Regal Power Jurisdiction or Authority within the Kingdoms and Dominions aforesaid or shall by Writing or Preaching advisedly publish maintain or declare That he hath any Right Title or Authority to the Office of King or Chief Magistrate of the Kingdoms and Dominions aforesaid that then every such Person shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and that he suffer and undergo the Pains Penalties and Forfeitures aforesaid And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That he the said James Duke of York shall not at any time from and after the Fifth of November 1680 return or come into or within any of the Kingdoms or Dominions aforesaid And then he the said James Duke of York shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and shall suffer the Pains Penalties and Forfeitures as in case of High Treason And further That if any Person or Persons whatsoever shall be aiding or assisting unto such Return of the said James Duke of York That then every such Person shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of High Treason and shall suffer as in Cases of High Treason And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That he the said James Duke of York or any other Person being guilty of any of the Treasons aforesaid shall not be capable of or receive Benefit by any Pardon otherwise than by Act of Parliament wherein they shall be particularly named and that no Nole prosequi or Order for stay of Proceedings shall be received or allowed in or upon any Indictment for any of the Offences mentioned in this Act. And be it further Enacted and Declared And it is hereby Enacted and Declared That it shall and may be lawful to and for any Magistrates Officers and other Subjects whatsoever of these Kingdoms and Dominions aforesaid and they are hereby enjoyned and required to apprehend and secure the said James Duke of York and every other Person offending in any of the Premisses and with him or them in case of Resistance to fight and him or them by Force to subdue For all which Actings and for so doing they are and shall be by virtue of this Act saved harmless and indemnified Provided and it is hereby Declared That nothing in this Act contained shall be construed deemed or adjudged to disenable any other Person from inheriting and enjoying the Imperial Crown of the Realms and Dominions aforesaid other than the said James Duke of York But that in case the said James Duke of York should survive his now Majesty and the Heirs of his Majesty's Body The said Imperial Crown shall descend to and be enjoyed by such Person or Person successarily during the Life of the said James Duke of York as should have inherited and enjoyed the same in case the said James Duke of York were naturally dead any thing contained in this Act to the contrary notwithstanding And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That during the Life of the said James Duke of York this Act shall be given in charge at every Assizes and General Sessions of the Peace within the Kingdoms Dominions and Territories aforesaid and also shall be openly Read in every Cathedral Church and Parish Church and Chappels within the aforesaid Kingdoms Dominions and Territories by the several respective Parsons Vicars Curates and Readers thereof who are hereby required immediately after Divine Service in the Fore-noon to read the same twice in every year that is to say on the 25th of December and upon Easter-day during the Life of the said James Duke of York This BILL was Read Three Times and Passed and sent up to the Lords for their Concurrence Some particular Matters of Fact relating to the Administration of Affairs in Scotland under the Duke of LAUDERDALE Humbly offered to Your Majesty's Consideration in Obedience to Your Royal Commands 1. THE Duke of Lauderdale did grosly misrepresent to your Majesty the Condition of the Western Countries as if they had been in a state of Rebellion though there had never been any opposition made to your Majesty's Authority nor any Resistance offered to your Forces nor to the execution of the Laws But he purposing to abuse your Majesty that so he might carry on his sinistrous Designs by your Authority advised your Majesty to raise an Army against your peaceable Subjects at least did frame a Letter which he sent to your Majesty to be signed by your Royal Hand to that effect which being sent down to your Council Orders was thereupon given out for raising an Army of Eight or Nine thousand men the greatest part whereof were Highblanders and notwithstanding that to avert threatning the Nobility and Gentry of that Country did send to Edenburgh and for the security of the Peace did offer to engage that whatsoever should be sent to put the Laws in execution should meet with no affront and that they would become Hostages for their safety yet
and does hereby Dissolve it and from this time excuses your farther attendance here but with his repeated Thanks for your Service hitherto and with the assurance of his Satisfaction in you so far that he should not have parted with you but to make way for this new Constitution which he takes to be as to the Number and Choice the most proper and necessary for the uses he intends them And as most of you have Offices in his Service and all of you particular Shares in his Favour and good Opinion so he desires you will continue to exercise and deserve them with the same Diligence and good Affections that you have hitherto done and with confidence of his Majesty's Kindness to you and of those Testimonies you shall receive of it upon other occasions Therefore upon the present Dissolution of this Council his Majesty appoints and commands all those Officers he hath named to attend him here to morrow at Nine in the Morning as his Privy-Council together with those other Persons he designs to make up the number and to each of whom he has already signed particular Letters to that purpose and commands the Lord Chancellor to see them issued out accordingly which is the Form he intends to use and that hereafter they shall be signed in Council so that nothing may be done unadvisedly in the Choice of any Person to a Charge of so great Dignity and Importance to the Kingdom Names of the Lords of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council HIS Highness Prince Rupert William Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Heneage Lord Finch Lord Chancellor of England Anthony Earl of Shaftsbury Lord President of the Council Arthur Earl of Anglesey Lord Privy-Seal Christopher Duke of Albemarle James Duke of Monmouth Master of the Horse Henry Duke of Newcastle John Duke of Lauderdale Secretary of State for Scotland James Duke of Ormond Lord Steward of the Houshold Charles Lord Marquess of Winchester Henry Lord Marquess of Worcester Henry Earl of Arlington Lord Chamberlain of the Houshold James Earl of Salisbury John Earl of Bridgewater Robert Earl of Sunderland one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State Arthur Earl of Essex first Lord Commissioner of the Treasury John Earl of Bath Groom of the Stole Thomas Lord Viscount Falconberg George Lord Viscount Hallifax Henry Lord Bishop of London John Lord Roberts Denzil Lord Holles William Lord Russel William Lord Cavendish Henry Coventry Esq one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State Sir Francis North Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Sir Henry Capell Knight of the Bath first Commissioner of the Admiralty Sir John Ernle Knight Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Thomas Chicheley Knight Master of the Ordnance Sir William Temple Baronet Edward Seymour Esquire Henry Powle Esquire Whitehall April 11. 1679. HIS Majesty being this day in Council did cause such of the aforementioned Lords and others who were then present to be Sworn Privy-Counsellors which being done they took their places accordingly His Majesty was also pleased to declare that he intended to make Sir Henry Capell Knight of the Bath Daniel Finch Esquire Baronets Sir Thomas Lee Sir Humphrey Winch Sir Thomas Meers Edward Vaughan and Edward Hales Esquires Commmissioners for the Execution of the Office of Lord High Admiral of England And his Majesty being afterwards come into the House of Peers in his Royal Robes and the House of Commons attending his Majesty was pleased to make this Speech My Lords and Gentlemen I Thought it requisite to acquaint you with what I have done now this day which is That I have Established a new Privy-Council the Constant number of which shall never exceed Thirty I have made choice of such Persons as are Worthy and able to Advise Me and am Resolved in all My Weighty and Important Affairs next to the Advice of my Great Council in Parliament which I shall very often Consult with to be Advised by this Privy-Council I could not make so great a Change without acquainting both Houses of Parliament And I desire you all to apply your selves heartily as I shall do to those things which are necessary for the good and safety of the Kingdom and that no time may be lost in it The Message from the King by Mr. Secretary Jenkins to the Commons on the 9th of November 1680. CHARLES R. HIs Majesty desires this House as well for the satisfaction of His People as of Himself to expedite such Matters as are depending before them relating to Popery and the Plot and would have them rest assured That all Remedies they can tender to his Majesty conducing to those Ends shall be very acceptable to him Provided they be such as may consist with preserving the Succession of the Crown in its due and legal course of Descent The Address to his Majesty from the Commons Saturday November 13. 1680. May it please your most Excellent Majesty WE Your Majesty's most Loyal and Obedient Subjects the Commons in this Present Parliament assembled having taken into our most serious Consideration Your Majesty's Gracious Message brought unto us the ninth day of this instant November by Mr. Secretary Jenkins do with all thankfulness acknowledge Your Majesty's Care and Goodness in inviting us to expedite such Matters as are depending before us relating to Popery and the Plot. And we do in all Humility represent to Your Majesty that we are fully convinced that it is highly incumbent upon us in discharge both of our Duty to Your Majesty and of that great Trust reposed in us by those whom we represent to endeavour by the most speedy and effectual ways the Suppression of Popery within this Your Kingdom and the bringing to publick Justice all such as shall be found Guilty of the Horrid and Damnable Popish Plot. And though the Time of our Sitting abating what must necessarily be spent in the choosing and presenting a Speaker appointing Grand Committees and in taking the Oaths and Tests enjoyned by Act of Parliament hath not much exceeded a Fortnight yet we have in this Time not only made a considerable Progress in some things which to us seem and when presented to Your Majesty in a Parliamentary way will we trust appear to Your Majesty to be absolutely necessary for the Safety of Your Majesties Person the effectual Suppression of Popery and the Security of the Religion Lives and Estates of Your Majesties Protestant Subjects But even in relation to the Tryals of the Five Lords impeached in Parliament for the Execrable Popish Plot we have so far proceeded as we doubt not but in a short time we shall be ready for the same But we cannot without being unfaithful to Your Majesty and to our Country by whom we are entrusted omit upon this occasion humbly to inform Your Majesty that our Difficulties even as to these Tryals are much encreased by the evil and destructive Councels of those Persons who advised Your Majesty first to the Prorogation and then to the Dissolution of the last
Parliament at a time when the Commons had taken great pains about and were prepared for those Tryals And by the like pernicious Councels of those who advised the many and long Prorogations of the present Parliament before the same was permitted to sit whereby some of the Evidence which was prepared in the last Parliament may possibly during so long an Interval be forgotten or lost and some Persons who might probably have come in as Witnesses are either dead have been taken off or may have been discouraged from giving their Evidence But of one mischievous Consequence of those dangerous and unhappy Councels we are certainly and sadly sensible namely That the Testimony of a material Witness against every of those Five Lords and who could probably have discovered and brought in much other Evidence about the Plot in general and those Lords in particular cannot now be given vivâ voce Forasmuch as that Witness is unfortunately dead between the Calling and the Sitting of this Parliament To prevent the like or greater Inconveniences for the future We make it our most humble Request to Your Excellent Majesty that as You tender the Safety of Your Royal Person the Security of Your Loyal Subjects and the Preservation of the True Protestant Religion You will not suffer your Self to be prevailed upon by the like Councels to do any thing which may occasion in consequence though we are assured never with Your Majesties Intention either the deferring of a full and perfect Discovery and Examination of this most wicked and detestable Plot or the preventing the Conspirators therein from being brought to speedy and exemplary Justice and Punishment And we humbly beseech your Majesty to rest assured notwithstanding any Suggestions which may be made by persons who for their own wicked purposes contrive to create a distrust in your Majesty of Your People That nothing is more in the Desires and shall be more the Endeavours of us Your faithful and loyal Commons than the promoting and advancing of your Majesties true Happiness and Greatness The Address of the Commons in Parliament to his Majesty to remove Sir George Jeffreys out of all Publick Offices WE your Majesties most Dutiful and Loyal Subjects the Commons in Parliament assembled having received a Complaint against Sir George Jeffreys Knight your Majesties Chief Justice of Chester and heard the Evidence concerning the same and also what he did alledge and prove in his Defence And being thereupon fully satisfied that the said Sir George Jeffreys well knowing that many of your Loyal Protestant Subjects and particularly those of your Great and Famous City of London out of Zeal for the Preservation of the Protestant Religion your Majesties Royal Person and Government and in hopes to bring the Popish Conspirators to speedy Justice were about to Petition to your Majesty in an Humble Dutiful and Legal way for the Sitting of this Parliament the said Sir George Jeffreys not regarding his Duty to your Majesty or the welfare of your People did on purpose to serve his own private Ends and to create a Mis-understanding between your Majesty and your Good Subjects though disguised with pretence of Service to your Majesty maliciously declared such Petitioning sometimes to be Tumultuous Seditious and Illegal and at other times did presume publickly to insinuate and assert as if your Majesty would deprive your Citizens of London of their Charters and divers other Priviledges Immunities and Advantages and also of your Royal Favour in case they should so Petition and also did publickly declare that in case they should so Petition there should not be any Meeting or Sitting of Parliament thereby traducing your Majesty as if you would not pursue your Gracious Intentions the rather because they were grateful to your good Subjects do in most humble manner beseech your Majesty to remove the said Sir George Jeffreys out of the said Place of Cheif Justice of Chester and out of all other Publick Offices and Employments under your Majesty His Majesty by Mr. Secretary Jenkins was pleased to return Answer to this Address That he would consider of it His Majesties Message to the Commons in Parliament Relating to Tangier CHARLES REX HIs Majesty did in His Speech at the opening of this Session desire the Advice and Assistance of His Parliament in relation to Tangier The Condition and Importance of the Place obliges His Majesty to put this House in mind again that He relies upon them for the support of it without which it cannot be much longer Preserved His Majesty does therefore very earnestly Recommend Tangier again to the due and speedy Consideration and Care of this House The Humble Address of the Commons in Parliament assembled Presented to His Majesty Monday 29th day of November 1680. in Answer to that Message May it please your Most Excellent Majesty WE Your Majesties most Obedient and Loyal Subjects The Commons in Parliament Assembled having with all Duty and Regard taken into our serious Consideration Your Majesties late Massage relation to Tangier cannot but account the present Condition of it as Your Majesty is Pleased to represent in Your said Message after so vast a Treasure expended to make it Useful not only as one Infelicity more added to the afflicted Estate of Your Majesties Faithful and Loyal Subjects but as one result also of the same Councels and Designs which have brought Your Majesties Person Crown and Kingdoms into those great and imminent Dangers with which at this day they are surrounded And we are the less surprised to hear of the Exigencies of Tangier when we remember that since it became a part of Your Majesties Dominions it hath several times been under the Command of Popish Governours particularly for some time under the Command of a Lord Impeached and now Prisoner in the Tower for the Execrable and Horrid Popish Plot That the Supplies sent thither have been in great part made up of Popish Officers and Soldiers and that the Irish Papists amongst the Soldiers of that Garrison have been the Persons most Countenanced and Encouraged To that part of your Majesties Message which expresses a reliance upon this House for the support of Tangier and a recommendation of it to our speedy care We do with all humility and reverence give this Answer That although in due Time and Order we shall omit nothing incumbent on Us for the preservation of every part of your Majesties Dominions and advancing the prosperity and flourishing Estate of this your Kingdom yet at this time when a Cloud which has long threatned this Land is ready to break upon our heads in a storm of Ruine and Confusion to enter into any further consideration of this matter especially to come to any resolutions in it before we are effectually secured from the imminent and apparent Dangers arising from the Power of Popish Persons and Councils We humbly conceive will not consist either with our Duty to your Majesty or the Trust reposed in Us by those we represent It is
rest shelter themselves the Grand Jury were in an unheard of and unpresidented and illegal manner discharged and that with so much haste and fear lest they should finish that Presentment that they were prevented from delivering many other Indictments by them at that time found against other Popish Recusants Because a Pamphlet came forth Weekly called The Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome which exposes Popery as it deserves as ridiculous to the People a new and arbitrary Rule of Court was made in your Majesty's Court of King's Bench rather like a Star-Chamber than a Court of Law That the same should not for the future be Printed by any Person whatsoever We acknowledge your Majesty's Grace and Care in issuing forth divers Proclamations since the Discovery of the Plot for the banishing Papists from about this great City and Residence of your Majesty's Court and the Parliament but with trouble of Mind we do humbly inform your Majesty That notwithstanding all these Prohibitions great Numbers of them and of the most dangerous Sort to the Terrour of your Majesty's Protestant Subjects do daily resort hither and abide here Under these and other sad Effects and Evidences of the Prevalency of Popery and its Adherents We Your Majesty's Faithful Commons found this your Majesty's distressed Kingdom and other parts of your Dominions labouring when we assembled And therefore from our Allegiance to your Majesty our Zeal to our Religion our Faithfulness to our Country and our Care of Posterity We have lately upon mature deliberation proposed one Remedy of these Great Evils without which in our Judgments all others will prove vain and fruitless and like all deceitful Securities against certain Dangers will rather expose your Majesty's Person to the greatest hazard and the people together with all that 's valuable to them as Men or Christians to utter Ruine and Destruction We have taken this Occasion of an Access to your Majesty's Royal Presence humbly to lay before your Majesty's great Judgment and Gracious Consideration this most dreadful design of introducing Popery and as necessary consequences of it all other Calamities into your Majesty's Kingdoms And if after all this the private Suggestions of the subtle Accomplices of that Party and Design should yet prevail either to elude or totally obstruct the faithful Endeavours of Us your Commons for an Happy Settlement of this Kingdom We shall have this remaining Comfort That we have freed our selves from the Guilt of that Blood and Desolation which is like to ensue But our only Hope next under God is in your Sacred Majesty That by your Great Wisdom and Goodness we may be effectually secured from Popery and all the Evils that attend it and that none but persons of known Fidelity to your Majesty and Sincere Affections to the Protestant Religion may be put into any Employment Civil or Military that whilst we shall give a Supply to Tangier we may be assured we do not augment the Strength of our Popish Adversaries nor encrease our own Dangers Which Desires of your faithful Commons if your Majesty shall graciously vouchsafe to grant We shall not only be ready to assist your Majesty in Defence of Tangier but do whatsoever else shall be in our Power to enable your Majesty to protect the Protestant Religion and Interest at Home and abroad and to Resist and Repel the Attempts of your Majesty's and the Kingdoms Enemies The Humble Address of the House of Commons presented to His Majesty upon Tuesday the 21. Day of December 1680. In Answer to His Majesty's Gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament upon the 15th Day of the same December May it please Your most Excellent Majesty WE your Majesty's most Dutiful and Loyal Subjects the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled have taken into our serious Consideration your Majesty's Gracious Speech to both your Houses of Parliament on the 15th of this instant December and do with all the grateful Sense of Faithful Subjects and sincere Protestants acknowledge your Majesty's great Goodness to us in renewing the Assurances you have been pleased to give us of your readiness to concur with us in any means for the Security of the Protestant Religion and your Gracious Invitation of us to make our Desires known to your Majesty But with grief of Heart we cannot but observe that to these Princely Offers your Majesty has been advised by what Secret Enemies to Your Majesty and your People we know not to annex a Reservation which if insisted on in the instance to which alone it is applicable will render all your Majesty 's other Gracious Inclinations of no effect or advantage to us Your Majesty is pleased thus to limit your promise of concurrence in the Remedies which shall be proposed that they may consist with preserving the Succession of the Crown in its due and legal course of Descent And we do humbly inform your Majesty that no Interruption of that Descent has been endeavoured by us except only the Descent upon the Person of the Duke of York who by the wicked Instruments of the Church of Rome has been manifestly perverted to their Religion And we do humbly represent to your Majesty as the Issue of our most deliberate Thoughts and Consultations that for the Papists to have their hopes continued that a Prince of that Religion shall succeed in the Throne of these Kingdoms is utterly inconsistent with the Safety of your Majesty's Person the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Prosperity Peace and Welfare of your Protestant Subjects That your Majesty's Sacred Life is in continual danger under the prospect of a Popish Successor is evident not only from the Principles of those devoted to the Church of Rome which allow that an Heretical Prince and such they term all Protestant Princes Excommunicated and deposed by the Pope may be destroyed and murther'd but also from the Testimonies given in the prosecution of the Horrid Popish Plot against divers Traitors Attainted for designing to put those accursed Principles into practice against your Majesty From the expectation of this Succession has the number of Papists in your Majesty's Dominions so much encreased within these few years and so many been prevailed with to desert the true Protestant Religion that they might be prepared for the Favours of a Popish Prince assoon as he should come to the possession of the Crown and while the same Expectation lasts many more will be in the same danger of being perverted This it is that has hardned the Papists of this Kingdom animated and confedederated by their Priests and Jesuits to make a common Purse provide Arms make application to Foreign Princes and sollicite their Aid for imposing Popery upon us And all this even during your Majesty's Reign and while your Majesty's Government and the Laws were our protection It is your Majesty's Glory and true Interest to be the Head and Protector of all Protestants as well abroad as at home But if these Hopes remain what
Alliances can be made for the advantage of the Protestant Religion and Interest which shall give confidence to your Majesty's Allies to joyn so vigorously with your Majesty as the State of that Interest in the World now requires while they see this Protestant Kingdom in so much danger of a Popish Successor by whom at the present all their Councils and Actions may be eluded as hitherto they have been and by whom if he should succeed they are sure to be destroyed We have thus humbly laid before your Majesty some of those great Dangers and Mischiefs which evidently accompany the expectation of a Popish Successor The certain and unspeakable Evils which will come upon your Majesty's Protestant Subjects and their posterity if such a Prince should inherit are more also than we can well enumerate Our Religion which is now so dangerously shaken will then be totally overthrown Nothing will be left or can be found to protect or defend it The execution of old Laws must cease and it will be vain to expect new ones The most sacred Obligations of Contracts and Promises if any should be given that shall be judged to be against the interest of the Romish Religion will be violated as is undeniable not only from Argument and Experience elsewhere but from the sad experience this Nation once had on the like occasion In the Reign of such a Prince the Pope will be acknowledged Supream though the Subjects of this Kingdom have sworn the contrary and all Causes either as Spiritual or in order to Spiritual Things will be brought under his Jurisdiction The Lives Liberties and Estates of all such Protestants as value their Souls and their Religion more than their secular Concernments will be adjudged forfeited To all this we might add That it appears in the discovery of the Plot that Forreign Princes were invited to assist in securing the Crown to the Duke of York with Arguments from his great Zeal to establish Popery and to extirpate Protestants whom they call Hereticks out of his Dominions and such will expect performance accordingly We further humbly beseech Your Majesty in Your great Wisdom to consider Whether in case the Imperial Crown of this Protestant Kingdom should descend to the Duke of York the opposition which may possibly be made to his possessing it may not only endanger the farther descent in the Royal Line but even Monarchy it self For these Reasons we are most humble Petitioners to your most Sacred Majesty That in tender commiseration of your poor Protestant people Your Majesty will be gratiously pleased to depart from the Reservation in Your said Speech and when a Bill shall be tendred to your Majesty in a Parliamentary way to disable the Duke of York from inheriting the Crown Your Majesty will give your Royal Assent thereto and as necessary to fortify and defend the same that your Majesty will likewise be gratiously pleased to Assent to an Act whereby your Majesty's Protestant Subjects may be enabled to Associate themselves for the defence of your Majesty's Person the Protestant Religion and the Security of your Kingdoms These Requests we are constrained Humbly to make to your Majesty as of absolute Necessity for the safe and peaceable Enjoyment of our Religion Without these things the Alliances of England will not be valuable nor the People encouraged to contribute to your Majesties Service As some farther means for the Preservation both of our Religion and Propriety We are Humble Suiters to your Majesty that from henceforth such Persons onely may be Judges within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales as are Men of Ability Integrity and known Affection to the Protestant Religion And that they may hold both their Offices and Sallaries Quam diu se bene gesserint That several Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace fitly qualified for those Imployments having been of late displaced and others put in their room who are Men of Arbitrary Principles and Countenancers of Papists and Popery such only may bear the Office of a Lord-Lieutenant as are Persons of integrity and known Affection to the Protestant Religion That Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace may be also so qualified and may be moreover Men of Ability of Estates and interest in their Countrey That none may be Imployed as Military Officers or Officers in your Majesties Fleet but Men of known Experience Courage and Affection to the Protestant Religion These our Humble Requests being obtained we shall on our part be ready to Assist your Majesty for the Preservation of Tangier and for putting your Majesties Fleet into such a Condition as it may preserve your Majesties Soveraignty of the Seas and be for the Defence of the Nation If your Majesty hath or shall make any necessary Allyances for defence of the Protestant Religion and Interest and Security of this Kingdom this House will be ready to Assist and stand by your Majesty in the support of the same After this our humble Answer to your Majesties Gracious Speech we Hope no evil Instruments whatsoever shall be able to lessen your Majesties Esteem of that Fidelity and Affection we bear to your Majesties Service but that your Majesty will always retain in your Royal Breast that Favourable Opinion of us your Loyal Commons that those other Good Bills which we have now under Consideration Conducing to the Great Ends we have before mentioned as also all Laws for the Benefit and Comfort of your People which shall from time to time be tendred for your Majesties Royal Assent shall find acceptance with your Majesty The Report of the Committee of the Commons appointed to Examine the Proceedings of the Judges c. THis Committee being Inform'd that in Trinity-Term last the Court of Kings-Bench discharg'd the Grand Jury that serv'd for the Hundred of Ossulston in the County of Middlesex in a very unusual manner proceeded to enquire into the same and found by the Information of Charles Umfrevil Esq Foreman of the said Jury Edward Proby Henry Gerard and John Smith Centlemen also of the said Jury That on the 21st of June last the Constables attending the said Jury were found Defective in not presenting the Papists as they ought and thereupon were ordered by the said Jury to make further Presentments of them on the 26. following on which Day the Jury met for that purpose when several Peers of this Realm and other Persons of Honour and Quality brought them a Bill against James Duke of York for not coming to Church But some exceptions being taken to that Bill in that it did not set forth the said Duke to be a Papist some of the Jury Attended the said persons of Quality to receive satisfaction therein In the mean time and about an Hour after they had received the said Bill some of the Jury attended the Court of Kings-Bench with a Petition which they desired the Court to present in their Name unto His Majesty for the Sitting of this Parliament Upon which the Lord
and Corporations throughout England were generally so well satisfied with the Proceedings of the Honourable House of Commons in the last Parliament That as soon as they heard of the Dissolution they Resolved to chuse the very same respective Persons again and contriv'd to make their Elections without putting the Gentlemen chosen to any Charge Thereby to crush that Pernicious Custom of over-ruling Debauchery at Choice of Members which had not only scandaliz'd the Nation but almost impoyson'd and destroyed the very Constitution of our Parliaments A Letter from the famous Town of Kingston upon Hull to Sir Michael Wharton Kt. and William Gee Esq Burgesses for that Town in the late Parliament Worthy Gentlemen WE understand you have signified to us our Magistrates your willingness to represent in the ensuing Parliament and that they have gratefully accepted of your generous Offer which if they had communicated to us our joynt compliance would have been readily manifested for we are so sensible of your integrity in the late Parliament by your indefatigable care and pains in endeavouring the security of His Majesties Sacred Person as also our Religion and Property that we cannot but rejoyce that you are pleased again to offer us that kindness which your former good Service hath engaged us to become Suitors for We do therefore return you our hearty thanks and you may be confident without your appearance or the least charge to have all our Suffrages Nemine contradicente and will as our Obligations bind us stand by your Proceedings as becomes Loyal Subjects and true Englishmen subscribing our selves Your obliged and affectionate Friends and Servants c. Which was subscribed by Matthew Johnson Esq Sheriff of the said Town and 122 more of the most Eminent Burgesses and Electors Another Letter from Lewis in Sussex on the like Occasion To their late Worthy Representatives Richard Bridger and Thomas Pellam Esquires Gentlemen WE are sensible of the great Trouble and Charge you have been at as our Representatives and of your great Care and Constancy for which we return you our hearty Thanks with our earnest Request that you would be pleased once more to favour us in the same capacity And you will thereby much Oblige Your Faithful Friends and Servants This was Subscribed by near 150 of the Inhabitants of Lewis aforesaid On the 4th of February The City of London Assembled in Common-Hall consisting of several Thousand Livery-Men having by an Unanimous Voice Elected their Old Representatives Returned them their Thanks in a Paper there Publickly Read and Approved of with a General Consent The Address of the City of London To the Honoured Sir Robert Clayton Knight Thomas Pilkington Alderman Sir Thomas Player Knight and William Love Esq late and now chosen Members of Parliament for this Honourable City of London WE the Citizens of this City in Common-Hall Assembled having Experienced the great and manifold Services of you our Representatives in the Two last Parliaments by your most faithful and unwearied Endeavours to Search into and discover the depth of the horrid and hellish Popish Plots to preserve His Majesty's Royal Person the Protestant Religion and the well established Government of this Realm to secure the Meeting and Sitting of frequent Parliaments to Assert our undoubted Rights of Petitioning and to punish such who would have Betrayed those Rights to promote the happy and long-wished for Union amongst all His Majesty's Protestant Subjects to Repeal the 35th of Elizabeth and the Corporation-Act and especially for what Progress hath been made towards the Exclusion of all Popish Successors and particularly of James Duke of York whom the Commons of England in the two last Parliaments have Declar'd and we are greatly sensible is the Principal Cause of all the Ruine and Misery impending these Kingdoms in general and this City in particular For all which and other your constant and faithful Management of our Affairs in Parliament we offer and return to you our most hearty Thanks being confidently assur'd that you will not consent to the granting any Money-Sudply until you have effectually Secur'd us against Popery and Arbitrary Power Resolving by Divine Assistance in pursuance of the same Ends to stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes And likewise there was offered another Paper directed to the Sheriffs purporting their Thanks to the several Noble Peers for their late Petition and Advice to His Majesty which was as followeth To the Worshipful Slingsby Bethel and Henry Cornish Esquires Sheriffs of the City of London and Westminster WE the Citizens of the said City in Common-Hall Assembled having read and diligently perus'd the late Petition and Advice of several Noble Peers of this Realm to His Majesty whose Counsels we humbly conceive are in this unhappy Juncture highly seasonable and greatly tending to the Safety of these Kingdoms We do therefore make it our most hearty Request that you in the Name of this Common-Hall will return to the Right Honourable the Earl of Essex and by him to the rest of those Noble Peers the Grateful Acknowledgment of this Assembly Which being Read and Approved of by a General Acclamation the Sheriffs promised to give their Lordships the Thanks of the Common-Hall in pursuance of their Request The Address of the City of Westminster Febr. 10. 1680 1. To the Honoured Sir William Poultney and Sir William Waller Knights Unanimously Elected Members of the ensuing Parliament for the Ancient City of Westminster WE the Inhabitants of this City and the Liberties thereof Assembled retaining a most grateful and indelible Sence of your prudent Zeal in the late Parliament in searching into the depth of the horrid and hellish Plots of the Papists against His Majesty's Royal Person the Protestant Religion and the Government of the Realm and in endeavouring to bring the Authors of Wicked Counsels to condign punishment And remembring also your faithful discharge of that great Trust reposed in you in vindicating our undoubted Right of Petitioning His Majesty That Parliaments may Sit for the Redress of our Grievances which Hereditary Priviledge some Bad Men would have wrested out of our Hands upon whom you have set such a just Brand of Ignominy as may deter them from the like Attempts for the time to come And further reflecting upon your vigorous Endeavours to secure to us and our Posterity the Profession of the True Religion by those Just Legal and Necessary Expedients which the great Wisdom of the Two last Parliaments fixed upon and adhered to Do find our selves obliged to make our open Acknowledgement of and to return our hearty Thanks for your eminent Integrity and Faithfulness your indefatigable Labour and Pains in the Premises not once questioning but you will maintain the same good Spirit and Zeal to secure His Majesty's Royal Person and to preserve to us the Protestant Religion wherein all good Subjects have an Interest against the secret and subtil Contrivances and open Assaults of the Common Enemy as also our Civil Rights and Properties
Returns And that some effectual Provision may be made for the meeting of frequent Parliaments and for their sitting to redress Grievances and to make such wholsome Laws as shall be necessary for the welfare of this Nation 7. That some effectual course be taken to give a check to Prophaneness and Debauchery which threaten Ruine or at least exceeding great Prejudice to the Kingdom In prosecuting of all which worthy Acts we shall endeavour your Defence with our Lives and Fortunes The Humble Address of the Young Men of the Borough of Taunton To Edmund Prideaux and John Trenchard Esquires who were Unanimously chosen by the Inhabitants to be Representatives of the said Borough to serve in this Parliament which is to Sit at Oxford March 21 1680 1. SIRS THough we are not immediately Concern'd in the Electing Members to Serve in Parliament yet being deeply sensible that we shall bear an equal share with others in the same Common Danger and Universal Slavery which Hell and Rome have been and still are with joint and unwearied Endeavours attempting to involve these Protestant Nations in we cannot without charging our selves with unparallell'd Ingratitude omit the returning you our hearty Thanks for that good and eminent Service you did both us and the Nation in the late Dissolved Parliament That you did with such inflamed Zeal with such undaunted Courage and Resolution endeavour the Security of our Religion Liberty and Property against that cursed Popish Faction who were the Invaders of them particularly we deem our selves infinitely obliged for the great Care you manifested in the preservation of His Majesty's Sacred Person in your strenuous prosecution of the Horrid and Damnable Popish Plot and in that your Attempts were so Brisk and Vigorous from the preventing of an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Power which we cannot but Unanimously abhor Liberty and Property being an Inheritance which as Englishmen we are born unto And above all we commend your Courage and Prudence in prosecuting that happy Expedient of Excluding a Popish Successor from Inheriting the Imperial Crown of this Realm without which we judge it utterly impossible that the Protestant Religion can be secured to us or that our necks can be long free from that Romish Yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear And now sith it hath pleased our Gracious King to Issue forth His Royal Proclamation signifying His pleasure to meet His People again in Parliament We cannot but Address our selves to you the Representatives of this Borough Humbly Requesting That you would according to the Trust Reposed in you Vigorously prosecute those Counsels that have a Tendency to an happy Settlement of Affairs both in Church and State particularly our Unanimous Request to you is 1. That forasmuch as the late Horrid and Hellish Plot hath according to the Votes of the preceeding Parliaments received Life and Countenance from James Duke of York you would expedite a Bill for the utter Incapacitating him ever to sway the Scepter of these Kingdoms and that the Bill of Association may be annexed whereby all His Majesty's Subjects may be enabled to oppose him or any of his Accomplices in case he should attempt to possess himself of the same 2. To take such Measures as your Wisdom shall agree upon for the Uniting of the Protestant Interest in these Nations 3. That the Artillery and Militia of the Nation be setled in the Hands of Men of known Integrity Courage and Conduct and that all Papists and Popishly affected Persons now in places of Publick Trust be Discharged which if effected may be ameans to prevent those great Fears and Jealousies which are apt otherwise to be nourished amongst us 4. That you proceed to the Tryal of the Popish Lords together with all other Criminal Offenders and go on sifting to the bottom that Execrable Plot which hath been and we must fear still is carried on to take away His Majesty's Life whom God long preserve to root out the Fundamental Laws of this Realm as also to introduce Popery into the Church and Tyranny into the State 5. That you take Cognizance of the Illegal and Arbitrary Proceedings of Courts as well Ecclesiastical as Civil as you have begun that so the Laws may not be wrested against the Protestant Dissenters nor stretched in favour of Popish Recusants As also to consider the unpresidented Finings and Imprisonings whereby many of His Majesty's truly Loyal Subjects have been grievously oppressed 6. That you would speedily think of some good Expedient for the Regulating of Elections as also for Removing of those Oaths and Tests which have proved no small hinderance to divers Worthy Protestants from being Useful Instruments in Serving their King and Country in Church and State These things worthy Sirs we humbly offer to your Considerations not as Directors but Remembrancers out of a Principle of Loyal Zeal for his Majesty's Security and our Countries Tranquility And assure your selves in the Prosecution of these truly Noble Designs we will defend you with our Lives and Fortunes accounting our dearest Blood a Tribute due to the Safety of our King and Country when called for in their Defence The Address of the Ancient Town of Winchelsea a Branch of the Cinque-Ports To their Barons Sir Steven Lenord and Creswel Draper Esquire elected in their absence March 4. and ordered by the Mayor and Jurates to be presented to them the said Mr. Draper serving for them in the last Parliament Mr. Draper YOu may assure your self That we are very highly satisfied with your unwearied Pains as also of your honest Discharge of the great Trust we reposed in you in the last Parliament by our hearty Thanks we now return you and by our Unanimous Electing you again to serve for us in the next Parliament to be holden at Oxford And Gentlemen as for you both WE know you are so sensible of our Condition that we need not tender you our Thoughts in many particulars only the Preservation of his Sacred Majesty's Person our Religion and Properties which are of the greatest Concern and most dear unto us And especially in order thereunto we commend unto you and desire you to use your utmost Endeavours 1. That there may be a full and perfect Discovery of that most Hellish and Damnable Popish Plot in England and Ireland and all other Sham-Plots which have been wickedly Contriving and Acting for many years past 2. That effectual Means be used for Uniting all his Majesty's Protestant Subjects against the common Enemy both at home and abroad 3. That all effectual Means and Ways may be provided to secure us against a Popish Successor and particularly against James Duke of York 4. That you will endeavour as far as in you lies That a Law may be made for putting our Free-Lands and Houses under a Voluntary Register that thereby this Kingdom may be a just and honourable Fund whereby Moneys may be taken up upon all urgent Occasions and so prevent the great Ruines we now
Is he a wise man who if his house be falling by reason of too much weight upon the roof will lay more upon it rather than propt it up and take off some of the weight So they who take the Church to consist of Ceremonies must pardon me that I am not of their opinion since the word of God warrants no such thing and my reason tells me that they are too much interested in the cause to be fit judges for with them he is accounted a good Son of the Church who keeps a great stir about Ceremonies though he live never so ill a life and perhaps is drunk when he performs his Devotion but if a man seem to be indifferent as to Ceremonies and make them no more than indeed they be yet in Practice Conforms more than he that makes a great noise about them though he live never so godly a life and as near as he can to the rule of God's word yet he is a Fanatick and an enemy to the Church but God Almighty tells us he will have mercy and not Sacrifice Gentlemen They who accuse me for an enemy to the King and Church have left you out of the story but I hope I shall not forget you but remember on whose errand I am sent and as I have hitherto stuck to your interest I hope nothing will draw me aside from it and if I know my own heart I am perswaded that neither rewards threats hopes nor fears will prevail upon me I desire nothing but to promote God's glory and the interest of the King and people and if it shall please God to let me see the Protestant Religion and Government established I shall think I have lived long enough and I shall be willing at that instant to resign my breath Gentlemen I thought good to say this to you and I thank you for your patience and hope I shall so behave my self in your Service that I shall make it appear I am sensible of the honour you have done me I humbly thank you all An Account of the Proceedings at the Sessions for the City of Westminster against Thomas Whitfield Scrivener John Smallbones Woodmonger and William Laud Painter for Tearing a Petition prepared to be presented to the King's Majesty for the Sitting of the Parliament With an Account of the said Petition presented on the 13th instant and His Majesty's Gracious Answer IT being the undoubted Right of the Subjects of England Vide the Resolutions of the Law Cook Jurisdict of Courts 79. Hobart 220. Vel. Magna Chart. Exl. Spencer 51. Vide the Proclamations of K. Charles I. and warranted by the Law of the Land and the general Practice of all former Times in an humble manner to apply themselves to His Majesty in the Absence of Parliaments by Petition for the Redress of their Grievances and for the obtaining such things as they apprehend necessary or beneficial to the safety and well being of the Nation And it being their Duty to which they are bound by the expres words of the Oath of Allegiance * I do Swear from my Heart That I will hear Faith and true Allegiance to His Majesty His Heirs and Successors and Him and Them will Defend to the uttermost of my power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever which shall be made against His or Their Persons Their Crown and Dignity And will do my best endeavour to disclose and make known unto His Majesty His Heirs and Successors all Treasons and Trayterous Conspiracies which I shall know or hear of to be against him or any of them to represent to Him any danger which they apprehend Threatning His Royal Person or His Government divers Persons in and about the City of Westminster considering the too apparent and unspeakable Danger His Majesty and His Kingdoms are in from the Hellish Plots and Villainous Conspiracies of the Bloody Papists and their Adherents and conceiving no sufficient or at least so fit Remedy could be provided against it but by the Parliament by whom alone several Persons accused of these accursed Designs can be brought to Tryal did prepare and sign a Petition humbly representing to His Majesty the imminent danger His Royal Person the Protestant Religion and the Government of this Nation were in from that most damnable and hellish Popish Plot branched forth into several the most Horrid Villainies For which several of the principal Conspirators stand impeached by Parliament and thereby humbly praying that the Parliament might Sit upon the 26th of January to try the Offenders and to Redress the important Crievances no otherways to be redressed of which Thomas Whitfield John Smallbenes and William Laud Inhabitants in Westminster taking notice upon the 20th day of December last they sent to Mr. William Horsley who had signed and promoted the Petition and in whose custody it was to bring or send it to them for that they desired to sign it And thereupon Mr. Horsley attended them and producing the Petition in which many Persons had joyned he delivered it at their request to be by them read and signed but Mr. Whitfield immediately tore it in pieces and threw it towards the Fire and Smallbones catching it up said That he would not take 10 s. for the Names and then they declared that they sent for it for that very purpose and owned themselves all concerned in the design Upon Mr. Horsley's complaint hereof to a Justice of the Peace a Warrant was granted against them and they being taken thereupon after examination of the matter were bound to appear and answer it at the next quarter Sessions of the Peace for the City of Westminster and upon Friday the 9th of January instant the Sessions being holden and there being present several Justices of the Peace that are eminent Lawyers the matter was brought before them and the Grand Jury Indicted the said Whitfield Smallbones and Laud as followeth viz. The City Borough and Town of Westminster in the County of Middlesex THe Jurors for our Soveraign Lord the King upon their Oath do present that whereas the Subjects and Liege People of the Kings and Queens of this Realm of England by the Laws and Customs of the Realm have used and been accustomed to represent their Publick Grievances by Petition or by any other submissive way And that the 20th day of December in the one and Thirtieth Year of the Reign of our Soveraign Lord Charles the Second by the Grace of God of England Scotland France and Ireland King Defender of the Faith c. at the Parish of St. Martin's in the Fields within the Liberty of the Dean and Chapter of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter of the City Borough and Town of Westminster in the County of Middlesex a Petition written in paper was prepared and Subscribed with the hands of divers the said King's Subjects and Liege People to the Jury unknown and to our said Soveraign Lord King Charles the Second Directed and to our said Soveraign Lord
the King to be Presented and Delivered by which Petition it was shown that whereas there had been and was a most damnable Plot against the Royal Person of our said Soveraign Lord the King the Protestant Religion and well Established Government of this Realm for which Plot several of the Principal Conspirators were impeached by Parliament and whereby it was humbly prayed that the Parliament which was prorogued to the 26th day of January next ensuing in the said Year might then sit to Try the Offenders and to redress the pressing Grievances not otherwise to be Redressed And that Thomas Whitfield late of the said Parish of St. Martin's in the Fields in the Liberty aforesaid and the County aforesaid Yeoman John Smallbones late of the said Parish within the Liberty aforesaid in the County aforesaid Woodmonger and William Laud late of the Parish aforesaid in the County aforesaid Yeoman being persons ill-affected and Contriving Devising and Intending as much as in them lay to hinder the sitting of the said Parliament as was prayed by the said Petition and also to hinder the Trial of the said Offenders and Redressing the said Grievances the said 20th day of December in the said one and Thirtieth Year of the Reign of our said Soveraign Lord the King as Rioters and Disturbers of the Peace of our Soveraign â—ord the King for the Disturbing of the Peace of our said Soveraign Lord the King with Force and Arms at the said Parish within the Liberty aforesaid in the County aforesaid Unlawfully and Riotously did Assemble themselves and being so then and there assembled with Force and Arms then and there Unlawfully Riotously and Injuriously the said Petition being delivered by one William Horsley to them the said Thomas Whitfield John Smallbones and William Laud at their Request and for the subscribing their Names thereunto if they should think fit did Tear in pieces in contempt of our said Sovereign Lord the King and of his Laws to the evil Example of all others in the like Cases offending and against the Peace of our said Soveraign Lord the King his Crown and Dignity The Names of the Grand-Jury that found the Bill are these William Jacob Thomas Trevor Erasmus Browne Henry Dugley Richard Streete John Henly John Weston Martin Frogg John Pierce Robert Pinke Nathanael Wilkinson Edward Whitefoot John Gentle Thomas Harris William Fortune Roger Higdon James Harrold Cornelius Rickfield ☞ George Wright Apothecary ☞ Walter Wright Apothecary ☞ Adam Langley Apothecary Upon Wednesday the 7th of this instant January many Gentlemen and eminent Citizens who had been concerned for managing the Petition for the Sitting of the Parliament upon the 26th instant met together and agreed upon the method of finishing the same and of nominating fit Persons for the Presenting it to His Majesty which being accordingly done these Gentlemen following viz. Sir Gilbert Gerrard Baronet Son-in-Law to the late Bishop of Durham Francis Charlton Esq John Ellis Esq John Smith Esq Johnson of Stepney Esq Ellis Crispe Esq Anthony Selby Esq Henry Ashurst Esq Tho. Smith Esq Gentlemen of good Worth and Estates and several of whom have been eminent Sufferers for His Majesty did this 13th of January attend His Majesty with it at Whitehall when being introduced to His Royal Presence Sir Gilbert Gerrard kneeling presented this Petition To the King 's most Excellent Majesty The humble Petition of Your Majesty's most Dutiful and Loyal Subjects Inhabitants in and about the City of London whose Names are here-under subscribed Sheweth THat whereas there has been and still is a most Damnable and Hellish Popish Plot branched forth into the most Horrid Villianies against Your Majesty's most Sacred Person the Protestant Religion and the well Established Government of this Your Realm for which several of the principal Conspirators stand now impeached by Parliament Therefore in such a time when Your Majesty's Royal person as also the Protestant Religion and the Government of this Nation are thus in most imminent Danger We Your Majesty's most Dutiful and Obebient Subjects in the deepest sense of our Duty and Allegiance to Your Majesty Do most humbly and earnestly pray That the Parliament which is prorogued until the 26th day of January may then sit to Try the Offenders and to redress all our most important Grievances no otherwise to be redressed And Your Petitioners shall ever pray for Your Majesty's long and prosperous Reign 〈◊〉 expressed himself to this effect Sir I have a Petition from many thousands of your Majesty's Dutiful and Loyal Subjects in and about Your City of London which I 〈…〉 in their Names and desire Your Majesty would be pleased to read it To which His Majesty gave this Gracious answer I know the substance of it already I am Head of the Government and will take care of it and then received the Petition it being a great Roll of above 100 Yards in length and carried it away in His Hand The Judgment and Decree of the University of Oxford pass'd in their Convocation July 21. 1683. against certain Pernicious Books and Damnable Doctrines destructive to the Sacred Persons of Princes their State and Government and of all Human Society Published by Command ALtho' the barbarous Assassination lately enterprized against the person of his Sacred Majesty and his Royal Brother engage all our thoughts to reflect with utmost detestation and abhorrence of that execrable Villainy hateful to God and Man and pay our due acknowledgements to the Divine Providence which by extraordinary methods brought it to pass that the breath of our Nostrils the anointed of the Lord is not taken in the pit which was prepared for him and that under his shadow we continue to live and enjoy the Blessings of his Government Yet notwithstanding we find it to be a necessary duty at this time to search into and lay open those impious Doctrines which having of late been studiously disseminated gave rise and growth to those nefarious attempts and pass upon them our solemn publick Censure and Decree of Condemnation Therefore to the honour of the holy and undivided Trinity the preservation of Catholick truth in the Church and that the King's Majesty may be secur'd from the attempts of open and bloudy enemies and the machinations of Traiterous Hereticks and Schismaticks We the Vice Chancellor Doctors Proctors and Masters Regent and not Regent met in Convocation in the accustom'd manner time and place on Saturday the 21 of July in the Year 1683. concerning certain Propositions contained in divers Books and Writings published in English and also in the Latin tongue repugnant to the holy Scriptures Decrees of Councils Writings of the Fathers the Faith and Profession of the Primitive Church and also destructive of the Kingly Government the safety of his Majesty's Person the Publick Peace the Laws of Nature and bonds of humane Society By our Unanimous assent and consent have Decreed and Determin'd in manner and form following Proposition 1. All Civil Authority is derived originally from
in the Statutes exprest We also order the before-recited Books to be publickly burnt by the hand of our Marshal in the Court of our Schools Likewise we order that in perpetual memory hereof these our Decrees shall be entered into the Registry of our Convocation and that Copies of them being communicated to the several Colleges and Halls within this University they be there publickly affixt in the Libraries Refectories or other fit Places where they may be seen and read of all Lastly We command and strictly enjoyn all and singular Readers Tutors Catechists and others to whom the care and trust of Institution of Youth is committed that they diligently instruct and ground their Scholars in that most necessary Doctrine which in a manner is the Badge and Character of the Church of England of submitting to every Ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake whether it be to the King as Supreme or unto Governors as unto them that are sent by him for the Punishment of evil doers and for the Praise of them that do well Teaching that this Submission and Obedience is to be clear absolute and without exception of any state or order of Men Also that all Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of Thanks be made for all Men for the King and all that are in Authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour And in especial manner that they press and oblige them humbly to offer their most ardent and daily Prayers at the Throne of Grace for the preservation of our Soveraign Lord King Charles from the attempts of open Violence and secret Machinations of perfidious Traitors That he the Defender of the Faith being safe under the defence of the most High may continue his Reign on Earth till he exchange it for that of a late and happy Immortality The Case of the Earl of Argyle Or an exact and full Account of his Trial Escape and Sentence As likewise a Relation of several Matter of Fact for better clearing of the said Case Edinburgh 30. May 1682. SIR THE Case of the late Earl of Argyle which even before the Process led against him you was earnest to know was at first I thought so plain that I needed not and grew afterwards so exceedingly mysterious that I could not for some time give you so perfect an account of it as I wished But this time being still no less proper the exactness of my Narrative will I hope excuse all delays The design against him being now so clear and the grounds founded on so slender that to satisfie all unbyass'd Persons of his Integrity there needs no more but barely to represent matter of Fact I should think shame to spend so many words either on arguments or relation were it not lest to strangers some mystery might still be suspected to remain concealed And therefore to make plain what they can hardly believe though we we clearly see it At His Royal Highness arrival in Scotland the Earl was one of the first to wait upon him and until the meeting of our last Parliament the World believed the Earl was as much in his Highness favour as any intrusted in His Majesties affairs in this Kingdom When it was resolved and His Majesty moved to call the Parliament the Earl was in the Country and at the opening of it he appeared as forward as any in His Majesties and his Highness service but it had not sat many days when a change was noticed in his Highness and the Earl observed to decline in his Highness favour In the beginning of the Parliament the Earl was appointed one of the Lords of the Articles to prepare matters for the Parliament and named by his Highness to be one of a Committee of the Articles for Religion which by the custom of all Scots Parliaments and His Majesties instructions to his Commissioner at this time was the first thing treated of In this Committee there was an Act prepared for securing the Protestant Religion which Act did ratifie the Act approving the Confession of Faith and also the Act containing the Coronation Oath appointed by several standing Acts of Parliament to be taken by all our Kings and Regents before their entry to the exercise of the Government This Act was drawn somewhat less binding upon the Successor as to his own profession but full as strictly tying him to maintain the Protestant Religion in the publick profession thereof and to put the Laws concerning it in execution and also appointing a further Test beside the former to exclude Papists from places of publick trust and because the fines of such as should act without taking the Test appeared no better then discharged if falling in the hands of a Popish Successor and some accounting any limitation worse than an exclusion and all being content to put no limitation on the Crown so it might consist with the safety and security of the Protestant Religion it was ordained that all such fines and forfaultures should appertain the one half to the informers and the other half should be bestowed on pious uses according to certain Rules expressed in the Act. But this Act being no wise pleasing to some it was laid aside and the Committee discharged any more to meet and instead of this Act there was brought in to the Parliament at the same time with the Act of Succession a short Act ratifying all former Acts made for the security of the Protestant Religion which is the first of the printed Acts of this Parliament At the passing of this Act the Earl proposed that these words And all Acts against Popery might be added which was opposed by the Advocate and some of the Clergy as unnecessary but the motion being seconded by Sir George Lockhart and the then President of the Session now turned out it was yielded to and added without a Vote and this Act being still not thought sufficient and several Members desiring other additions and other Acts a promise was made by his Royal Highness in open Parliament that time and opportunity should be given to bring in any other Act which should be thought necessary for further securing the Protestant Religion But though several persons both before and after passing the Act for the Test here subjoyned did give in memorials and overtures yet they were never suffered to be read either in Articles 〈◊〉 Parliament but in place of all this Act for the Test was still obtruded and nothing of that nature suffered to be heard after once that Act past though even at passing it the promise was renewed As for the Test it was first brought into the Parliament without mentioning the Confession of Faith and after several hours debate for adding the Confession of Faith and many other additions and alterations it was past at the first presenting albeit it was earnestly prest by near half the Parliament that it might be delayed till
if he were judged a Refuser he submitted but could conceive no greater danger in the matter for he had served His Majesty faithfully within doors and was resolved to do so without doors and so he made his obeisance and went out Next morning being Saturday November 5. The Earl waited on his Royal Highness and mongst other things told his Highness he was strangely surprised that the saying He could not bind up himself in his station and in a lawful way c. as was contained in that Paper was lookt on as a Crime seeing he had said the same words to his Highness formerly in private without any offence to which His Highness gave no answer hut held his peace which made the Earl make bold to put him to remember his own words and to ask him what he had said when the Earl formerly spoke to him Then His Highness was pleased to say he had forgot what he had said To which the Earl answered the worse indeed for me But Sir here are the same words I formerly said without offence what says Your Highness now What ill is in them Let me know and I will vindicate my self And all his Highness at this Second time said was what hath been above remarked That they were unnecessary words that the Earl scrupled needlesly that he was not tyed up by that Oath as he imagined And after a pause added As I have already told you Well you have cheated your self you have taken the Test To which the Earl replyed he hoped then his Highness was satisfied as above his Highness then began to complain that the Earl the little while he sat in Council after he had taken the Oath had not gone along to approve the Councils explanation The Earl said he had not heard the debate And therefore it was reasonable to excuse him from Voting His Highness returned a little warmly that the Earl knew the Case well enough which indeed was not unlike and yet not at all strange that the Earl could not Vote for that explanation seeing he could not but know the Parliament did intend the Confession should be Sworn And that he himself had taken it in that sense as all others had done before that explanation past in Council but the Earl replying nothing his Highness continued That the Earl and others bad designed to bring trouble upon an handful of poor Catholicks that would live peaceably however they were used but it should light upon others A little after His Highness commanded the Earl not to go out of Town till he waited on him which the Earl said he should obey But notwithstanding thereof one of the Clerks of the Council was sent to the Earl that same night late to intimate to him not to go out of Town till the Council should sit upon the Tuesday thereafter Upon Monday the Seventh of November the Earl waited on His Highness again and told him he was surprised to get such a message from the Council after His Highness had laid his own Commands upon him and asked what the Councils meaning could be His Highness was pleased to say he knew nothing but referred all to themselves at their meeting Upon Tuesday the Eight of November when the Council met without ever calling the Earl an Order was sent to him by one of their Clerks to enter himself Prisoner in the Castle of Edinburgh before Twelve of the Clock the next day with a warrant to the Deputy Governour to keep him Prisoner wherein the word Sure-firmance was struck out which appeared to have been fairly writ This Order the Earl received and obeyed it with great submission entering all alone in an Hackney-Coach And when some of his Relations and Persons of quality offered to go along with him he refused saying that if he were pursued at the instance of any other he would accept of their civility but seeing he was pursued at the instance of His Majesties Advocate he would go in the most humble way that he could think on and have no body concerned but himself But all this did not hinder the Council to write to his Majesty the Letter hereafter insert giving Judgment before Tryal without any hearing and seeking leave to proceed to a process which they likewise proceeded in before any return came as likewise about the very Date of this Letter they emitted their explanation of the Test Albeit in their Letter they assert That they had been very careful not to suffer any to take the Test with glosses and explanations The Earl some days after his entering Prisoner into the Castle of Edinburgh did write a Letter to his Royal Highness telling him that he had obeyed his Highness and the Councils Order in entering Prisoner in that place that he had not written sooner least he might be thought too impatient of his punishment which appeared to be the effects of an high displeasure which he hoped he no wise deserved that he was resolved to continue in all duty and obedience to His Majesty and his Royal Highness and never to fail in any profession thereof he had made and begged to know what satisfaction was expected and where and how he might live with his Highness favour This Letter at First seemed to please and the Earl heard it did but the only answer directly returned was Summonds charging the Earl with leasing making and depraving of Laws before any return from His Majesty And after a return came another Summonds with sound of Trumpet containing Perjury and Treason added to the former crimes Notwithstanding all which fair weather was made and it was given out and likewise intimated to the Earl by a particular message from one of the Club that no more was designed but to humble the Earl and to take his heritable and other Offices from him and his Family and when his Highness was told it was hard measure by such a process and on such pretensions to threaten Life and Fortune his Highness said Life and Fortune God forbid What happened after these things and how the process was carried on follows now in order And for your more clear and distinct information I have sent you several very necessary and useful Papers with Indexes on the Margin pointing at such Passages as more remarkably concern this affair The TEST Containing the Oath to be taken by all Persons in publick Trust I Solemnly Swear in the presence of the Eternal God whom I invoke as Judge and Witness of the sincere intention of this my Oath That I own and sincerely profess the true Protestant Religion contained in the Confession of Faith Recorded in the first Parliament of King James the VI and that I believe the same to be founded on and agreeable to the written Word of God And I promise and swear That I shall adhere thereunto ☞ during all the days of my Life time and shall endeavour to Educate my Children therein And shall never consent to any change or alteration contrary thereto and
Highness c. Montrose Errol Marshall Marr Glencarne Winton Linlithgow Perth Strathmore Roxburgh Queensberry Airley Kintore Breadalbane Lorne Levingston Bishop of Edinburgh Elphinston Rosse Dalziel Treasurer Deputy Praeses Advocate Justice Clerk Collinâ—oun Tarbet Haddo Lundie This day the Test was subscribed by the above-written Privy-Councellors and by the Earl of Queensberry who coming in after the rest had taken it declared that he took it with the Explication following The Earl of Queensberries Explanation of the Test when he took it HIS Lordship declared that by that part of the Test That there lies no obligation to endeavour any change or alteration in the Government c. He did not understand himself to be obliged against Alterations in case it should please His Majesty to make alterations of the Government of Church or State HALYRVDEHOVSE Sederunt vigesimo primo Die Octobris 1681. His Royal Highness c. Winton Perth Strathmore Queensberry Ancram Airley Lorne Levingston Bishop of Edinburgh Treasurer Deputy Praeses Register Advocate Collintoun This day the Bishop of Edinburgh having drawn up a long Explication of the Test to satisfie the many Objections and Scruples moved against it especially by the conformed Clergy presented it to the Council for their Lordships Approbation which was ordered to be read but the Paper proving prolix and tedious his Highness after reading of a few Leaves interrupted saying very wittily and pertinently That the first Chapter of John with a Stone will chase away a Dog and so break it off Yet the Bishop was afterward allowed to print it if he pleased Sederunt quarto Die Novembris 1681. His Royal Highness c. Montrose Praeses Perth Ancram Levingston President of Session Advocate Winton Strathmore Airley Bishop of Edinburgh Treasurer Deputy Lundie Linlithgow Roxburgh Balcaras Esphynstoun Register This day the Eari of Argyle being about to take the Test as a Commissioner of the Treasury and having upon Command produced a Paper bearing the sense in which he took the Test the precedeing day and in which he would take the same as a Commissioner of the Treasury Upon consideration thereof it was resolved that he cannot sit in Council not having taken the Test in the sense and meaning of the Act of Parliament and therefore was removed The Earl of Argyle's Explication of the Test when he took it I Have considered the Test and I am very desirous to give obedience as far as I can I 'm confident the Parliament never intended to impose contradictory Oaths Therefore I think no Man can explain it but for himself Accordingly I take it as far as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion And I do declare That I mean not to bind up my self in my station and in a lawful way to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion and my Loyalty And this I understand as a part of my Oath But the Earl finding as hath been narrated this his Explication though accepted and approven by his Highness and Council the day before to be this day carped and offended at and advantages thereupon soughtand designed against him did immediately draw up the following Explanation of his Explication and for his own vindication did first communicate it to some privately and thereafter intended to have offered it at his Trial for clearing of his defences The Explanation of his Explication I Have delayed hitherto to take the Oath appointed by the Parliament to be taken by the first of January next But now being required near two Months sooner to take it this day peremptorily or to refuse I have considered the Test and have seen several Objections moved against it especially by many of the Orthodox Clergy notwithstand whereof I have endeavoured to satisfie my self with a just Explanation which I here offer that I may both satisfie my conscience and obey Your Highness and Your Lordships commands in taking the Test though the Act of Parliament do not simply command the thing but only under a Certification which I could easily submit to if it were with Your Highness favour and might be without offence but I love not to be singular and I am very desirous to give obedience in this and every thing as far as I can and that which clears me is that I am confident what ever any Man may think or say to the prejudice of this Oath the Parliament never intended to impose contradictory Oaths and because their sense they being the framers and imposers is the true sense and that this Test injoyned is of no private interpretation nor are the Kings Statutes to be interpreted but as they bear and to the intent they are made Therefore I think no Man that is no private Person can explain it for another to amuse or trouble him with it may be mistaken glosses But every Man as he is to take it so is to explain it for himself and to endeavour to understand it notwithstanding all these exceptions in the Parliament which is its true and genuine sense I take it therefore notwithstanding any scruple made by any as far as it is consistant with it self and the Protestant Religion which is wholly in the Parliaments sense and their true meaning which being present I am sure was owned by all to be the securing of the Protestant Religion founded on the Word of God and contained in the Confession of Faith Recorded J. 6 p. 1. c. 4. And not out of scruple as if any thing in the Test did import the contrary but to clear my self from all cavils as if thereby I were hand up further then the true meaning of the Oath I do declare that by that part of the Test that there lies no obligation on me c. I mean not to bind up my self in my station and in a lawful way still disclaiming all unlawful endeavours to wish and endeavour any alteration I think according to my conscience to the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion and my Loyalty and by my Loyalty I understand no other thing then the words plainly bear to wit the duty and allegiance of all Loyal Subjects and this explanation I understand as a part not of the Test or Act of Parliament but as a qualifying part of my Oath that I am to Swear and with it I am willing to take the Test 〈◊〉 Your Royal Highness and Your Lordships allow me or otherwise in submission to Your High 〈◊〉 and the Councils pleasure I am content to be held as a refuser at present The Councils Letter to His Majesty Concerning their having committed the Earl of Argyle May it please your Sacred Majesty THE last Parliament having made so many and so advantageous Acts for securing the Protestant Religion the Imperial Crown of this Kingdom and Your Majesties Sacred Person whom God Almighty long preserve and having for the last and as the best way
those vast Lands Jurisdictions and Superiorities justly forfaulted to His Majesty by the Crimes of your deceased Father preferring your Family to those who had served His Majesty against it in the late Rebellion but also pardoned and remitted to you the Crimes of Leasing-making and misconstruing His Majesties and his Parliaments proceedings against the very Laws above-written whereof you were found guilty and condemned to die therefore by the High Court of Parliament the 25th of August 1662. and raised you to the Title and Dignity of an Earl and being a Member of all His Majesties Judicatures Notwithstanding of all these and many other favours you the said Archibald Earl of Argyle being put by the Lords of His Majesties Privy-Council to take the Test appointed by the Act of the last Parliament to be taken by all persons in publick Trust you instead of taking the said Test and swearing the same in the plain genuine sense and meaning of the words without any equivocation mental reservation or evasion whatsoever you did declare against and defame the said Act and having to the end you might corrupt others by your pernicious sense drawn the same in a Libel of which Libel you dispersed and gave abroad Copies whereby ill impressions were given of the King and Parliaments proceedings at a time especially when His Majesties Subjects were expecting what submission should be given to the said Test and being desired the next day to take the same as one of the Commissioners of His Majesties Treasury you did give into the Lords of His Majesties Privy-Council and owned twice in plain judgment before them the said defamatory Libel against the said Test and Act of Parliament declaring That you had considered the said Test and was desirous to give obedience as far as you could whereby you clearly insinuated that you was not able to give full obedience In the second Article of which Libel you declare That you were confident the Parliament never intended to impose contradictory Oaths thereby to abuse the people with a belief that the Parliament had been so impious as really and actually to have imposed contradictory Oaths and so ridiculous as to have made an Act of Parliament which should be most deliberate of all humane actions quite contrary to their own intentions after which you subsumed contrary to the nature of all Oaths and to the Acts of Parliament above cited that every man must explain it for himself and take it in his own sense by which not only that excellent Law and the Oath therein specified which is intended to be a Fence to the Government both of Church and State but all other Oaths and Laws shall be rendered altogether useless to the Government If every man take the Oaths imposed by Law in his own sense then the Oath imposed is to no purpose for the Legislator cannot be sure that the Oath imposed by him will bind the takers according to the design and intent for which he appointed it and the Legislative Power is taken from the Imposers and settled in the taker of the Oath and so he is allowed to be the Legislator which is not only an open and violent depraving of His Majesties Laws and Acts of Parliament but is likewise a settling of the Legislative Power on private Subjects who are to take such Oaths In the third Article of that Paper you declare That you take the Test in so far only as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion by which you maliciously intimate to the people That the said Oath is inconsistent with it self and with the Protestant Religion which is not only a down right depraving of the said Act of Parliament but is likewise a misconstruing of His Majesties and the Parliaments proceedings and misrepresenting them to the people in the highest degree and in the tenderest points they can be concerned and implying that the King and Parliament have done things inconsistent with the Protestant Religion for securing of which that Test was particularly intended In the Fourth Article you do expresly declare that you mean not by taking the said Test to bind up your self from wishing and endeavouring any alteration in a lawful way that you shall think fit for advancing of Church and State whereby also it was designed by the said Act of Parliament and Oath That no man should make any alteration in the Government of Church and State as it is now established and that it is the Duty of all good Subjects in humble and quiet manner to obey the present Government Yet you not only declare your self but by your example you invite others to think themselves loosed from that Obligation and that it is free for them to make any alteration in either as they shall think fit concluding your whole Paper with these words And this I understand as a part of my Oath which is a treasonable invasion upon the Royal Legislative Power as if it were lawful for you to make to your self an Act of Parliament since he who can make any part of an Act may make the whole the Power and Authority in both being the same Of the which Crimes above mentioned you the said Archibald Earl of Argyle are Actor Art and Part which being found by the Assize you ought to be punished with the pains of Death fortâ—ulture and escheat of Lands and Goods to the terror of others to commit the like hereafter An Abstract of the several Acts of Parliament upon which the Indictment against the Earl of Argyle was grounded Concerning raisers of Rumours betwixt the King and his people Chap. 20.1 Statutes of King Robert 1. IT is defended and forbidden That no man be a Conspirator or Inventer of Narrations or Rumours by the which occasion of discord may arise betwixt the King and his people And if any such man shall be found and attainted thereof incontinent be shall be taken and put in Prison and there shall be surely keeped up ay and while the King declare his will anent him Act 43. of Par. 2. King James 1. March 11. 1424. Leasing-makers forfault Life and Goods ITem It is ordained by the King and whole Parliament that all Leasingmakers and tellers of them which may engender discord betwixt the King and his people wherever they may be gotten shall be challenged by them that power has and ryne Lâ—â—e and Goods to the King Act 83. Par. 6. James 5. Dec. 10. 1540. Of Leasing-makers ITem Touching the Article of Leasing-makers to the Kings Grace of his Barons great men and Leiges and for punishment to be put to them therefore the Kings Grace with advice of his three Estates ratifies and approves the Acts and Statutes made thereupon before and ordains the same to be put in execution in all points and also Statutes and ordains That if any manner of person makes any evil Information of his Highness to his Barons and Leiges that they shall be punished in such manner and by the same punishment as
depraving His Majesties Laws For if such Foundations were laid Judges and Lawyers had a dangerous employment there being nothing more ordinary than to fall into differences and mistakes of the sense and meaning of the Laws and Acts of Parliament But such Crimes cannot be inferred but with and under the qualifications above mentioned of malicious and perverse designs joyned with licentious wicked and reproachful speeches spread abroad to move Sedition and dislike of the Government And the said Laws were never otherwise interpreted nor extended in any case And therefore the Explication libelled neither as taken complexly nor in the several expressions thereof nor in the design of the ingiver of the same can in Law import against him all or any of the Crimes libelled In like manner the Pannel conjoyns with the grounds above-mentioned the Proclamation issued forth by His Majesties privy Council which acknowledges and proceeds upon a Narrative that scruples and jealousies were raised and spread abroad against the Act of Parliament enjoyning the Test For clearing and satisfaction whereof the said Proclamation was issued forth and is since approved by His Sacred Majesty The Kings Advocates Argument and Plea against the Earl of Argyle HIS Majesties Advocate for the foundation of his Debate does represent That His Majesty to secure the Government from the Rebellious Principles of the last Age and the unjust Pretexts made use of in this from Popery and other Jealousies as also to secure the Protestant Religion and the Crown called a Parliament and that the great security resolved on by the Parliament was this excellent Test in which that the old jugling Principles of the Covenant might not be renewed wherein they still swore to serve the King in their own way the Parliament did positively ordain That this Oath should be taken in the plain genuine meaning of the words without any evasion whatsoever Notwithstanding whereof the Earl of Argyle by this Paper does invent a new way whereby no man is at all bound to it For how can any person be bound if every man will only obey it as far as he can and as far as he conceives it consistent with the Protestant Religion and with it self and reserve to himself notwithstanding thereof to make any alteration that he thinks consistent with his Loyalty And therefore His Majesties Advocate desires to know to what the Earl of Argyle or any man else can be bound by this Test what the Magistrate can expect or what way he can punish his Perjury For if he be bound no farther than he himself can obey or so far as this Oath is consistent with the Protestant Religion or it self quomodo constat to whom or what is he bound And who can determine that Or against what alteration is the Government secured since he is Judg of his own alteration So that that Oath that was to be taken without any evasion is evaded in every single word or Letter and the Government as insecure as before the Act was made because the taker is no farther bound than he pleases From which it cannot be denied but his Interpretation destroys not only this Act but all Government since it takes away the security of all Government and makes every mans Conscience under which Name there goes ordinarily in this Age Humour and Interest to be the rule of the takers obedience Nor can it be conceived to what purpose Laws but especially Oaths needed to be made if this were allowed or how this cannot fall under the 197th Act Par. 7. James 6. whereby it is statuted That no man interpret the Statutes otherwise than the maker understood For what can be more contrary to the taking of them in the makers sense than that every man should obey as far as they can and be allowed to take them in a general sense so far as they are consistent with themselves and the Protestant Religion without condescending wherein they do not agree with the Protestant Religion and that they are not bound not to make any alteration which they think good for the States For all these make the rule of obedience in the taker whereas the positive Law makes it to be in the maker Or how could they be punished for Perjury after this Oath For when he were quarrelled for making alterations against this Oath and so to be perjured he might easily answer That he took this Oath only in so far as it was consistent with the Protestant Religion and with a Salvo that he might make any alteration that he thought consistent with his Loyalty And as to these Points upon which he were to be quarrelled he might say he did not think them to be inconsistent with his Loyalty think we what we pleased and so needed not to be perjured except he pleased to decide against himself for in these Generals he reserves to himself to be still Judge And this were indeed a fine security for any Government And by the same rule that it looses this Oath it shews a way of loosing all Oaths and Obedience and consequently strikes at the root of all Laws as well as this whereas to shun all this not only this excellent Statute 107. has secured all the rest but this is common Reason And in the opinion of all Divines as well as Lawyers in all Nations Verba juramenti intelliguntur secundum mentem intentionem ejus cui fit juramentum Which is set down as the grand position by Sanderson whom they cite pag. 137. and is sounded upon that Mother-Law Leg. 10. Cui interrogatus f.f. de interrogationibus in Jure faciendis and without which no man can have sense of Government in his head or practise it in any Nation Whereas on the other hand there is no danger to any tender Conscience since there was no force upon the Earl to take the Oath but he took it for his own advantage and might have abstained 2. It is inferred from the above-written matter of Fact That the Earl is clearly guilty of contravention of the 10. Act Parl. 10 James VI. whereby the Leiges are commanded not to write any purpose of Reproach of His Majesties Government or misconstrue his proceedings whereby any misliking may be raised betwixt his Highness his Nobility or his people And who can read this paper without seeing the King and Parliament reproached openly in it For who can hear that the Oath is only taken as far as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion but must necessarily conclude that in several things it is inconsistent with it self and the Protestant Religion For if it were not inconsistent with it self and the Protestant Religion why this Clause at all but it might have been simply taken For the only reason of hindering it to be taken simply was because of the inconsistency ergo there behooved necessarily to be an inconsistency And if there be any inconsistency with the Protestant Religion or any contradiction in the Oath it self can there be
and publish their Proclamation explaining the Oath and declaring the genuine sense and meaning thereof namely That it did not tye to the whole Articles of the Confession of Faith ratified by Act of Parliament James 6. and which as to several Articles thereof had occasioned the scruples and difficulties and alledged inconsistency and contradiction betwixt the last part of the Oath and the said Confession and betwixt some of these Articles and the Currant of the Protestant Doctrine received and contained in the Syntagma of the Protestant Confessions And therefore if the Pannel at that time did think fit for the clearing and exoneration of his own Conscience to use the expressions in the Explication libelled and yet with so much duty and confidence of the Parliaments Justice as to their meaning and intention That the Parliament never intended to impose contradictory Oaths and that he did take it so far as it was consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion not knowing then whether the whole Confession was to be reputed a part of the Oath and doubting there-anent and which the Lords of His Majesties Privy-Council and his Sacred Majesty by his approbation since have thought a difficulty of so great moment as it was fit to clear the same by a publick Proclamation How now is it possible that any Judicatory under Heaven which proceeds upon the solid grounds of Law and Reason and who it cannot be doubted will have a just regard to the intrinsick Principles of Justice and to all mens security that they can now believe all or any of the Crimes libelled should be in the least inferred from all or any of the expressions contained in the said Explication But that on the contrary it was a warrantable allowance and Christian practice condemned by the Law and Custom of no Nation That having scruples in the matter of an Oath which should be taken in Truth Judgment and Righteousness and upon full deliberation and with a full assurance and sincerity of mind That he did plainly openly and clearly declare the sense in which he was willing to take it and if Authority did allow it as the genuine sense of the Oath the Pannel to be holden as a Taker of the Oath And if upon farther consideration Authority think not that habetur pro Recusante and a Refuser of the Oath but no ways to be looked upon as a criminal or guilty person And the Pannel repeats and conjoyns with this point of the Reply that point in his Defence whereby he positively offers to prove 1. That his Explication and the sense wherein he took the Oath was heard and publickly given and received in Council and the Pannel thereafter allowed to take his place and sit and vote in that Sederunt 2. The Pannel also offers positively to prove That the tenor and terms of his Sense and Explication wherein he did take the Oath is contained in that Solid Learned and Pious Vindication written by the Bishop of Edenburgh in answer to the Objections and alledged inconsistencies and contradictions in the Oath and which Vindication was publickly read in Council and so far approved that it was allowed to be printed and published and was accordingly dispersed and spread abroad And it is not of the least import that the Proclamation of the Lords of Privy-Council altho it does oft allow the same to be taken by the Clergy yet at the same time they expresly declare the genuine sense and meaning of the Parliament not to comprehend the whole Articles of the Confession which was not cleared before the Pannel's taking his Oath And whereas it is pretended That the Acts of Parliament libelled upon against Leasing-makers depravers of His Majesties Laws do obtain and take place where-ever there are any words or expressions that have a tendency in themselves or by a natural consequence and rational inferences to reflect upon the Government or misconstrue His Majesties Proceedings and that the Explication libelled is such and that it was found so in the Case of Balmerino albeit it was drawn up by way of humble Petition and Address to His Majesty and with great Protestations and Expressions of Loyalty It is answered The Acts of Parliament libelled upon are oponed and the 43d Act Par. 8. James 6. and the other Acts making the depraving of His Majesties Laws to be Crimes do expresly require that Speeches so judged be perverse licentious Speeches ex natura sua probrosa and reproachful and spoke animo defamandi and which could not receive any other rational Construction which cannot in the least be applied to or subsumed upon the words or Explication given in by the Pannel And Law and Reason never infers or presumes a Crime where the thing is capable of a fair and rational Construction and where it was done palam and publickly and in presence of His Majesties High Commissioner and Lords of His Majesties Privy-Council whereof the Pannel had the honour to be a Member Persons committing and designing to commit Crimes making use of Times and Places and Companies of another nature on whom their suggestions and insinuations may prevail But it is a violence to the common Reason of mankind to pretend that a person of the Pannel's Quality having the honour to serve His Majesty in most eminent Capacities and devoted to His Majesties Interest and Service beyond the strictest ties of Duty and Allegiance by the transcendent Favours he had received that the Pannel in those Circumstances and in presence of his Royal Highness and Lords of Privy Council should design to declame and defacto declame against and defame His Majesties Government To suppose this is absolutely contradictory to the common Principles and Practices of Law and common Topicks of Reason And as to Balmerino's Case it is answered That the Lords of Justitiary are humbly desired to call for and peruse the said Petition and Books of Adjournal which was certainly a defamatory Libel of His Majesties Father of blessed Memory and of the States of Parliament in the highest degree being expresly that there was nothing designed but an innovation of the Protestant Religion and the subversion and over-turning the Liberties and Priviledges of the Parliament and the Constitutions of the Articles and other things of that kind which made certainly of it self a most villanous and execrable Libel containing the highest Crimes of Treason and Perduellion and was not capable of any good sense or interpretation but was absolutely pernicious and destructive So that it is in vain to pretend that the said Libel did contain Prefaces and Protestations of Loyalty which no Law regards even in simplici injuria maledicto tho committed by a private person cum praefatione salvo honore or the like and which were certainly ridiculous to sustain in a Libel concerning Crimesof Treason And whereas it is pretended That tho others were guilty of these Crimes it does not excuse the Earl that the Lords of Privy-Council cannot remit Crimes and the neligence
Justice is exactly kept VII And lastly Never to ingage themselves in the beginning of a Cause but reserve themselves unprejudged till the whole business be heard Then the Earl goes on and makes notes for Additional Defences reducible to these Heads I. The absolute innocence af his Explication in its true and genuine meaning from all crime or offence far more from the horrible Crimes libelled II. The impertinency and absurdity of His Majesty's Advocate 's Arguings for inferring the Crimes libelled from the Earl's words III. The reasonableness of the Exculpation IV. The Earl's Answers to the Advocate 's groundless Pretences for aggravating of his Case As to the first The Earl waving what hath been said from common Reason and Humanity it self and from the whole tenour and circumstances of his Life comes close to the point by offering that just and genuine Explanation of his Explication which you have above Num. 21. I have delayed hitherto to take the Oath appointed by the Parliament to be taken betwixt and the first of January next But now being required near two months sooner to take it this day peremptorily or to refuse I have considered the Test and have seen several Objections moved against it especially by many of the Orthodox Clergy notwithstanding whereof I have endeavoured to satisfy my self with a just Explication which I here offer that I may both satisfy my Conscience and obey Your Highness and your Lordships Commands in taking the Test though the Act of Parliament do not simply command the thing but only under a certification which I could easily submit to if it were with Your Highness's favour and might be without offence But I love not to be singular and I am very desirous to give obedience in this and every thing as far as I can and that which clears me is that I am confident whatever any man may think or say to the prejudice of this Oath the Parliament never intended to impose contradictory Oaths and because their sense they being the Framers and Imposers is the true sense and this Test enjoined is of no private interpretation nor are the King's Statutes to be interpreted but as they bear and to the intent they are made therefore I think no man that is no private Person can explain it for another to amuse or trouble him with it may be mistaken glosses But every man as he is to take it so is to explain it for himself and to endeavour to understand it notwithstanding all these Exceptions in the Parliament's which is its true and genuine sense I take it therefore notwithstanding any scruple made by any as far as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion which is wholly in the Parliament's sense and their true meaning Which being present I am sure was owned by all to be the securing of the Protestant Religion founded on the Word of God and contained in the Confession of Faith recorded J. 6. p. 1. c. 4. And not out of Scruple as if any thing in the Test did import the contrair But to clear my self from Cavils as if thereby I were bound up further than the true meaning of the Oath I do declare That by that part of the Test that there lies lies no obligation on me c. I mean not to bind up my self in my station and in a lawful way still disclaiming all unlawful endeavours To wish and endeavour any alteration I think According to my Conscience to the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion and my Loyalty And by my Loyalty I understand no other thing than the words plainly bear to wit the duty and allegiance of all Loyal Subjects and this Explanation I understand as a part not of the Test or Act of Parliament but as a qualifying part of my Oath that I am to swear and with it I am willing to take the Test if your Royal Highness and your Lordships allow me Or otherwise in submission to your Highness and the Councils pleasure I am content to be held as a Refuser at present Which Explanation doth manifestly appear to be so just and true without violence or straining so clear and full without the least impertinency so notore and obvious to common sense without any Commentary so loyal and honest without ambiguity and lastly so far from all or any of the Crimes libelled that it most evidently evinceth that the words thereby explained are altogether innocent And therefore it were lost time to use any Arguments to enforce it Yet seeing this is no trial of wit but to find out common sense let us examine the Advocate 's fantastical Paraphrase upon which he bottoms all the alledged Crimes and see whether it agrees in one jot with the true and right meaning of the Earl's words and as you may gather from the Indictment it is plainly thus I have considered the Test which ought not to be done and am very desirous to give obedience as far as I can but am not willing to give full obedience I am confident the Parliament never intended to impose contradictory Oaths that is I am confident they did intend to impose contradictory Oaths and therefore I think no man can explain it but for himself that is to say every man may take it in any sense he pleases to devise and thereby render this Law and also all other Laws tho not at all concerned in this Affair useless and so make himself a Legislator and usurp the Supreme Authority And I take it in so far as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion whereby I suppose that it is not at all consistent with either nor was ever intended by the Parliament it should be consistent And I declare that by taking this Test I mean not to bind up my self in my station and in a lawful way to wish or endeavour any alteration I think to the advantage of Church or State not repugnant to the Protestant Religion and my Loyalty Whereby I declare my self and all others free from all obligation to the Government either of Church or State as by Law established and from the duty and Loyalty of good Subjects Resolving of my self to alter all the Fundamentals both of Law and Religion as I shall think fit And this I understand as a part of my Oath that is as a part of the Act of Parliament by which I take upon me and usurp the Royal Legislative Power Which sense and Explanation as it consists of the Advocate 's own words and was indeed every word necessar to infer these horrible Crimes contained in the Indictment so to speak with all the modesty that truth will allow I am sure it is so violent false and absurd that the greatest difficulty must be to believe that any such thing was alledged far more received and sustained in judgment by Men professing only reason far less Religion But thirdly If neither the Earl's true genuine and honest sense nor this
man's sense which he thinks agrees less with the words albeit they may be thought by others to be reconcileable another way III. All this looks like designed Mistakes and Traps for should any man swear unless he understand And where an Oath is granted to be ambiguous can any man understand unless in want of the Imposers help he explain it for himself IV. Was ever a Man's explaining an Oath for himself before taking it far less his bare saying that he must explain it before he take it alledged to be The overturning of all Laws and Oaths and the usurping of the Legislative power and making of new Laws Certainly to offer to answer such things were to disparage common Reason And lastly this is strange Doctrine from the Advocate who himself in Council did allow not only the Earl his Explanation but that Explanation to the Clergy contrary as appears by their Scruples to what they that took it thought either the Parliaments design or the plain words of the Test could bear and certainly different from the sense many had already taken it in and wherein others were commanded to take it And whatever the Advocate may cavil to insnare the Earl sure he will not allow that by his explaining this Oath he himself hath taken on him the Legislative power of the Parliament far less though he should acknowledg it will any believe that he hath or could thereby make all Laws or Oaths useless By this you see what strange stuff he pleads which deserves no answer But says the Advocate the Earl affirms He takes the Test only as far as it consists with it self and with the Protestant Religion by which he most maliciously insinuates that it is inconsistent with both But first this only is not the Earl's but the Advocates addition Secondly I would soberly ask the Advocate or any Man Whether the Test as it includes the Confession in general and consequently all contained in it was not either really or at least might not have been apprehended to be inconsistent with it self Else what was the use or sense of the Councils explanation wherein it is declared That men do not swear to every proposition of the Confession but only to the Protestant Religion therein contained And if it was either inconsistent or apprehended to be so how could the Earl or any honest Man swear it in other terms with a safe Conscience But Thirdly If Parliaments be fallible and this Oath as being ambiguous needed the Councils explanation to clear it from inconsistencies must the Earl's words when he was to swear That he took it in so far as it was consistent be in this Case understood as spoken maliciously and with a criminal intent when all Sense Reason and Religion made this caution his duty And if it be so criminal for one going to swear to suppose a possibility of inconsistencies in it Is it not manifestly more criminal in others plainly to confess and grant that there are inconsistencies in it after they have swallowed it in gross without any explanation whatsoever But says the Advocate The Earl hath invented a new way whereby no Man is at all bound to the Test For how can any Man be bound if he will obey only as far as he can And yet it will be hard even for the Advocate tho he sometimes attempts indeed more than he and all the World with him can do To tell how a Man can obey farther And I am sure that in a matter of this kind viz. The free tender of an Oath all discreet men will judge the Earl's offer both frank and obliging Then he asks To what the Earl is bound if he be bound no further than he himself can obey Manifest confusion and never either spoke by the Earl nor at all pertinent to his case besides he freely acknowledges that all men are bound to more than they can do or so far as the Test is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion a strange doubting or yet I dare say imports as much as His Majesty expects of any and more than the Advocate will ever perform But says the Advocate who can determine to what the Earl is bound Which says plainly That either the Test agrees with it self and the Protestant Religion in nothing or that the Protestant Religion is nothing both which the Earl thinks far from truth But the Advocate 's reasoning reflects far more on the Councils Explanation where it is plainly said That the Confession is not sworn to in the Test but only the Protestant Religion contained in the Confession so that the Protestant Religion indefinitely is that which is said to be sworn to Now pray is it not much worse for a Man to say That by taking the Test he swears only to the Confession as it contains or agrees with the Protestant Religion which is in effect to set the Protestant Religion at variance with its own Confession and so to reproach and ranverse the standard and make void the very security that the Parliament intended than to say That he swears the Test as it agrees with it self and the Protestant Religion which imports no such insinuation But from these pleasant Principles he jumps into this Fantastick Conclusion That therefore it cannot be denied but the Earl's interpretation destroys not only this Act but all Government and makes every Man's Conscience or Humour the Rule of his obedience But first as to the whole of his arguing the Earl neither invents says nor does any thing except that he offered his Explanation to the Council which they likewise accepted Secondly What mad inferences are these You say you will explain this Oath for your self therefore you overturn all Government and what not Whereas it is manifest on the other hand That if the Earl apprehending as he had reason the Oath to be ambiguous and in some things inconsistent had taken it without explaining it for himself or respect to its inconsistency it might have been most rationally concluded that in so doing he was both impious and perjured Thirdly It is false that the Earl doth make his Conscience any other way the rule of his obedience than as all honest men ought to do That is as they say To be Regula regulata in conformity to the undoubted Regula regulans the eternal rules of truth and righteousness as is manifest by his plain words As for what the Advocate insinuates of Humour instead of Conscience it is very well known to be the Ordinary reproach whereby men that have no Conscience endeavour to defame it in others But the Advocate is again at it and having run himself out of all consequences he insists and inculcates that the Earl had sworn nothing But it is plain that to swear nothing is none of the crimes libelled Secondly The Earl swears positively to the Test as it is consistent with it self and the Protestant Religion which certainly is something unless the Advocate prove as he insinuates that there is
Religion swears nothing 5thly That he that declares himself not tied up by the Test from endeavouring in a lawful way such alterations as he thinks to the advantage of Church and State consistent with Religion and Loyalty declares himself and all others loosed from the Government and all duty to it and free to make any and all alterations that be pleases And 6thly That he that takes the Test with an explanation and holds it to be a part of his Oath invades the Legislative Power and makes Acts of Parliament Upon which rare and excellent Propositions I dare say The Earl is content according to the best Judgment that you and all unbiassed Men can make either of their Truth or of my ingenuity in excerping them to be adjudged Guilty or not Guilty without the least fear or apprehension of the issue And in the third and last place I shall only intreat you to try how the Advocate 's reasoning will proceed in other Cases and what brave work may be wrought by so useful a Tool Suppose then a Man refuse the Test simply or falls into any other kind of Non-conformity either Civil or Ecclesiastick or pays not the King's Custom or other dues or lastly understands an Act otherwise than the Advocate thinks he should Is not his Indictment already formed and his Process as good as made viz. That he regards not the Law That he thinks it is unjustly or foolishly Enacted That he will only obey as far as he can and as he pleases and thereby renders all Laws useless and so reproaches the King and Parliament and impugns their Authority and assumes to himself the Legislative Power and therefore is guilty of Leasing-making Depraving His Majesty's Laws and of Treason of which crimes above-mentioned or one or other of them he is Actor Art and Part Which being found by an Assize he ought to be punished with the pains of Death Forfaulture and Escheat of Lands and Goods to the terror of others to do or commit the like hereafter And if there be found a convenient Judge the poor Man is undoubtedly lost But Sir having drawn this Parallel rather to retrieve the Earl's Case than to make it a precedent which I hope it shall never be and chusing rather to leave the Advocate than follow him in his follies I forbear to urge it further These things considered must it not appear strange beyond expression how the Earl's Explanation such as it is did fall under such enormous and grievous misconstructions For setting aside the Councils allowance and approbation which comes to be considered under the next Head suppose the Earl or any other person called before the Council and there required to take the Test had in all due humility said either that he could not at all take it or at least not without an Explanation because the Test did contain such things as not noly he but many other and those the best of the Loyal and Orthodox Clergy did apprehend to be Contradictions and Inconsistencies And thereupon had proponed one or two such as the Papers above set down do plainly enough hold out and the Bishop in his Explanation rather evades than answers would it not be hard beyond all the measures of Equity and Charity to look upon this as a designed Reflection far more a malicious and wicked Slander and the blackest Treason We see the Act of Parliament doth not absolutely injoin the taking of the Test but only proposeth it to such as are intrusted in the Government with the ordinary certification either of losing or holding their Trusts at their option We know also that in Cases of this nature it is far more suitable both to our Christian Liberty and the respect we owe to a Christian Magistrate to give a reason of our conscientious non-compliance with meekness and fear than by a mute compearance to fall under the censure of a stubborn obstinacy And Iustly It is certain and may safely be affirmed without the least reproach that Parliaments are not infallible as witness the frequent changes and abrogations of their own Acts and their altering of Oaths imposed by themselves and even of this Oath after it was presented which the Earl was not for altering so much as it was done as I told you before How then can it be that the Earl appearing before a Christian Council and there declaring in terms at the worst a little obscure because too tender and modest his Scruples at an Oath presented to him either to be freely taken or refused should fall under any Censure If the Earl had in this occasion said he could not take the Test unless liberty were given him first to explain himself as to some Contradictions and Inconsistencies which he conceived to be in it tho he had said far more than is contained in his contraverted Explanation yet he had said nothing but what Christian Liberty hath often freely allowed and Christian Charity would readily construe for an honest expression of a commendable tenderness without any imputation of reproach against either King or Parliament How much more then is his part clear and innocent when albeit so many thought the Contradictions to be undeniable yet such was his well-tempered respect both to God and Man to his own Conscience and His Majesty's Authority that before and not after the taking of this Oath to clear himself in the midst of the many Exceptions and Scruples raised of all ambiguitles in swearing he first applies himself for a satisfying Explanation to the Parliament the prime Imposers their true intentions and genuine meaning and then gathering it very rationally from the Oath 's consistency with it self and with the Protestant Religion the Parliament's aim and scope and so asserting the King and Parliament's truth and honour he places the relief and quiet of his own Conscience in his taking the Test with this Explanation and in declaring its congruity with his Oath and duty of Allegiance The third Head of the Earl's additional Defences is the further clearing and improving of his grounds of Exculpation above adduced and repelled Which were first that before the Earl did offer his Explanation to the Council a great many Papers were spread abroad by some of the Orthodox Clergy charging the Test with Contradictions and Inconsistencies 2dly That there was a Paper penned by a Reverend Bishop and presented and read in Council and by them allowed to be printed which did contain the same and far more important things than any can be found in the Earl's Explanation And consequently far more obnoxious to all His Majesty's Advocate 's Accusations 3dly That the Explanation upon which he was indicted was publickly by himself declared in Council and by the Council allowed so that the Oath was administrat to him and he received to sit in Council and vote by his Highness and the rest of the Members with and under this express qualification But to all urged for the Earl's Exculpation the Advocate makes
Praerogativas Ejusdem Et quod non intendo per hujusmodi juramentum vel juramenta quovis modo me obligare qui minus libere loqui consulere aut consentire valeam in omnibus singulis Reformationem Religionis Christianae Gubernationem Ecclesiae Anglicanae Praerogativam Coronae ejusdem Reipublicae vel commoditatem earundem quoquo modo concernentibus ea ubique exequi reformare quae mihi in Ecclesia Anglicana reformanda videbuntur Et secundum hanc interpretationem intellectum hunc non aliter nequa alia modo dictum juramentum me praestiturum protestor profiteor That is to say In the name of God Amen Before you c. It neither is nor shall be my will or meaning by this kind of Oath or Oaths and however the words of themselves shall seem to sound or signify to bind up my self by vertue hereof to say do or endeavour any thing which shall really be or appear to be against the Law of God or against our most Illustrious King of England or against his Laws and Prerogatives And that I mean not by this my Oath or Oaths any ways to bind up my self from speaking consulting and consenting freely in all and every thing in any sort concerning the Reformation of the Christian Religion the Government of the Church of England and the Prerogative of the Crown of the Commonwealth thereof or their advantage and from executing and reforming such things as I shall think need to be reformed in the Church of England And according to this Explanation and sense and not otherwise nor in any other manner do I protest and profess that I am to take and perform this Oath Nor did that excellent Person says Mr. Fuller smother this privately in a corner but publickly interposed it three several times once in the Charter-house before authentick Witnesses again upon his bended knees before the high Altar in view and hearing of many People and Bishops beholding him when he was consecrated and the third time when he received the Pall in the same place Now would it not be very strange if the like liberty should not be allowed to the Earl under His Majesty in reference to the Test which Henry the VIIIth a Prince that stood as much on his Prerogative as ever any did vouchsafe to this Thomas Cranmer who as another Historian observes acted fairly and above-board But there wanted then the high and excellent Designs of the great Ministers the rare fidelity of Councellors sound Religion and tender piety of Bishops solid Law and Learning of Advocates incorruptible Integrity of Judges and upright honesty of Assizers that now we have to get Archbishop Cranmer accused and condemned for Leasing-making depraving Laws Perjury and Treason to which Accusation his Explanation was certainly no less obnoxious than the Earl's But I hasten to the fourth and last Head of the Earl's Additional Defences viz. The removing certain groundless Pretences alledged by the Advocate for aggravating the Earl's Offence As 1. That the Earl being a Peer and Member of Parliament should have known the sense of the Parliament and that neither the Scruples of the Clergy nor the Council's Proclamation designed for meer Ignorants could any way excuse the Earl for offering such an Explanation But first the Advocate might have remembred that in another Passage he taxes the Earl as having debated in Parliament against the Test whereby it is easie to gather that the Earl having been in the matter of the Test a dissenter this quality doth rather justify than aggravate the Earl's Scrupling 2dly If the Proclamation was designed for the meer Ignorants of the Clergy as the Advocate calls them who knew nothing of what had past in Parliament an Explanation was far more necessary for the Earl who knows so little of what the Advocate alledges to have past in Parliament viz. That the Confession of Faith was not to be sworn to as a part of the Test that of necessity as I think he must know the contrary Inasmuch as first this is obvious from the express tenor of the Test which binds to own and profess the true Protestant Religion contained in the Confession of Faith and to believe the same to be agreeable to the Word of God as also to adhere thereto and never to consent to any change contrary to or inconsistent with the said Protestant Religion and Confession of Faith Which to common sense appears as plain and evident as can be contrived or desired But 2dly It is very well known that it was expresly endeavoured and carried in Parliament that the Confession of Faith should be a part of the Test and Oath For the Confession of Faith being designed to be sworn to by an Act for securing the Protestant Religion which you have heard was prepared in the Articles but afterwards thrown out when this Act for the Test was brought into the Parliament some days after by the Bishop of Edinburgh and others the Confession was designedly left out of it But it being again debated that the bare naming of the Protestant Religion without condescending on a Standard for it was not sufficient the Confession of Faith was of new added And after the affirmative Clause for owning it and adhering to it was insert upon a new motion the negative never to consent to any alteration contrary to or inconsistent with the said Protestant Religion and Confession of Faith was also subjoined But not without a new debate and opposition made against the words And Confession of Faith by the Bishop of Edinburgh until at length he also yielded All which it is hoped was done for some purpose And if at that time any had doubted of the thing he had certainly been judged most ridiculous For it was by that addition concluded by all That the Confession was to be sworn And further it appears plainly by the Bishop of Edinburgh his Vindication that when he wrote it he believed the Confession was to be sworn to for he takes pains to justify it though calumniously enough alledging That it was hastily compiled in the short space of four days by some Barons and Ministers in the infancy of our Reformation Where by the by you see that he makes no reckoning of what the Act of Parliament to which the Test refers expresly bears viz. That that second Ratification 1567. which we only have recorded was no less then seven years after this Confession was first exhibited and approven Anno 1560. But moreover he tells us That the Doctors of Aberdeen who refused the Covenant were yet willing not only to subscribe but to swear this Confession of Faith Which again to answer the Bishops Critick of Four days was more than 70. years after it was universally received It 's true that when the Bishop finds himself straitned how to answer Objections he is forced to make use of the new Gloss I shall not call it of Orleans whereby the Protestant Religion is made to be
sworn to only as far as every Man pleases to interpret and as far as may be consistent with any new principles of State But the Parliament certainly I do not speak Ironically did intend by this Test to swear and assert the True Protestant Religion and the said Confession of Faith whatever may be now pretended The Earl could not also but very well remember what his Highness had said to himself about the inserting of the Confession and no doubt the Advocate if ingenuous knows all this For the thing was at that time matter of common talk and indeed till Papers objecting contradictions and inconsistencies betwixt the Confession and the rest of the Test began to be so numerous which was about the end of October that there was no possibility left to answer them but by alledging That in the Test men do not swear to every article and proposition of the Confession but only to the Protestant Religion therein contained this point was never doubted And whether this answer be true and a solid Vindication consonant to the words of the Test or a circulating evasion enervating all its force let others judge But the Advocate says When it was moved in Parliament to read the Confession it was waved Most true and the reason given by the Bishops for it was That it was notour they knew it and it was already insert in the Acts of Parliament And the truth was the reading of it would have spent more time than was allowed on examining the whole Test It was likâ— wise late after a long Sederunt and it was resolved to have the Act passed that night and so it went on But it was likewise moved to read the Covenant seeing it was to be disclaimed and this was flatly refused And will the Advocate thence infer That by the Test the Covenant is not abjured albeit it be most certain that many in the Parliament at that time had never read the one or the other But to follow the Advocate 's excursions and answer them more particularly The motion for reading the Confession being made on this very occasion Because it was to be insert in the Test and sworn to concludes enough against him For no body can be so effronted as to say it was used in Parliament as an argument not to read it because it was not to be sworn to but though it cost a debate it was plainly agreed to be sworn to and therefore insert 2dly Can any man doubt the Confession was to be sworn to when it is notour that severals who were members of Parliament and by reason of offices they enjoyed were called to swear the Test pretending with reason tenderness of an Oath did before swearing make a fashion at least of reading and studying the Confession to satisfy themselves how far they might swear it And that this was done by an Hundred I can attest themselves Lastly It is certain that when in the end of October the Bishop of Edenburgh did quarrel Sir George Lockhart for causing the Confession to be insert in the Test and he answered that without it a Turk might sign the Test it was not then pretended by the Bishop that the Confession was not to be sworn to and therefore he at that time had no reply But this is a debate I confess not altogether necessary for my present task only thereby you may see ground enough for the Earl to believe the Confession was sworn to And all that did swear before the Councils Explanation having sworn in that sense and for ought I know all except the Clergy being by the Councils Act still bound to do so It was not strange the Earl might be of this Opinion And seeing that many of the Contradictions were alledged to arise hence and the Earl being a Dissenter it was yet less strange that the Earl did scruple nor is it unreasonable that his modest Explanation should have a most benign acceptance This second pretence of aggravation is That His Majesty did not only bestow on the Earl his Lands and Jurisdictions fallen into His Majesty's hands by the forfaulture of his Father but also pardon him the crimes of Leasing-making and Misconstruing whereof he was found guilty by the Parliament 1662. And raised him to the title and dignity of an Earl and to be a member of all His Majesty's Judicatories All which the Earl as he hath ever doth still most thankfully acknowledg But seeing the Advocate hath no warrand to upbraid him with His Majesty's favours and that these things are now remembred with a manifest design to raise dust and blind strangers and to add a very ill thing Ingratitude to the heap of groundless calumnies cast upon him I must crave leave to answer a little more particularly and refute this new Tout as the Scots Proverb is in an old Horn. This old Leasing making is then now brought in seriously after it hath been treated in ridicule for Eighteen years by the very Actors who did never pretend to defend it in cold blood And were it not to digress too much I could name the persons and make them if capable think shame of their falshood and prevarications in that point and of their abusing His Majesty and prostrating Justice but I forbear The Advocate in his Book of Pleadings makes this a Stretch and says His Majesty rescinded it And His Majesty himself hath several times exprest his sense of the stretches made by some against the Earl at that time It is well known the Family of Argyle is both Ancient and Honourable and hath been Loyal and Serviceable to the Crown for several Hundreds of years but they must now be destroyed for having done and being able as they say to do too much which others neither can nor will do Neither is the Advocate ignorant that the only failing that Family hath been charged with in all that long tract of time was a compliance of the late Marquess of Argyle the Earl's Father in the time of the late Usurpation by sitting in the then Parliament of England some years after all the standing Forces of the Kingdom were broken His Majesty beyond Sea the whole Countrey over-run the Usurpers universally acknowledged and neither probability of resistance nor possibility of shelter left to any that were most willing to serve His Majesty as the Advocate himself hath published in his Printed Pleadings in which he likewise lays out the special and extraordinary Circumstances whereby the Marquess was necessitate to do what he did And the compliance charged on him was so epidemick that all others were pardoned for the same except he alone though none had such favourable Arguments to plead and though he pleaded the same Indemnity that saved others And seeing he submitted and delivered up himself and lost his Life and seeing at the same time of the Compliance that he suffered for the Earl his Son was actually serving and suffering for His Majesty as you find in the former part of this Letter
time coming and to have forfaulted amitted and tint all and sundry his Lands Tenements annual-rents Offices Titles Dignities Tacks Steedings Rowmes Possessions Goods and Geere whatsumever pertaining to him to our Sovereign Lord to remain perpetually with his Highness in property Which was pronounced for Doom 23 Dec. 1681. After the reading and publshing whereof The Earl's Coat of Arms by order of the Court was also torn and ranversed both in the Court and at the Mercat-Cross Albeit some thought that this was rather a part of the Execution which His Majesty's Letter discharges than a necessary Solemnity in the Publication and the Advocate himself says p. 61. of his printed Criminals That it should only be practised in the Crime of Perduellion but not in other Treasons The Reasons and Motives of the Earl's Escape with the Conclusion of the whole Narrative THE Earl's Escape was at first a great surprise both to his Friends and Unfriends for as it is known that his Process in the beginning did appear to the less concerned more like a piece of pageantry than any reality and even by the more concerned was accounted but a politick Design to take away his Offices and lessen his Power and Interest So neither did any of his Friends fear any greater hazard nor did most of his Unfriends imagine them to be more apprehensive Whereby it fell out that upon report of his Escape many and some of his Well-wishers thought he had too lightly abandoned a fair Estate and the probable expectation he might have had of His Majesty's favour As also some that were judged his greatest Adversaries did appear very angry as if the Earl had taken that course on purpose to load them with the odium of a design against his life And truly I am apt to think it was not only hard and uneasie for others to believe that a Person of the Earl's quality and character should upon so slender a pretence be destroyed both as to life and fortune but also that he himself was slow enough to receive the impressions necessary to ripen his Resolution and that if a few Accidents as he says himself happening a little before his escape had not as it were opened his eyes and brought back and presented to him several things past in a new light and so made all to operate to his final determination he had stayed it out to the last Which that you may the better understand you may here consider the several Particulars that together with what he himself hath since told some Friends apparently occurred to him in these his second thoughts in their following order And first you have heard in the beginning of this Narrative what was the first occasion of the Earl his declining in his Highness's favour You may also remember that his Majesty's Advocate takes notice that he debated against the Act enjoining the Test in the Parliament And as I have told you he was indeed the Person that spoke against excepting the King's Brothers and Sons from the Oath then intended for securing the Protestant Religion and the Subjects Loyalty not thinking it fit to complement with a Privilege where all possible caution appears rather to be necessary And this a Reverend Bishop told the Earl afterwards had downright fired the kiln What thereafter happened in Parliament and how the Earl was always ready to have laid all his Offices at his Majesty's feet And how he was content in Council to be held a Refuser of the Test and thereby incur an intire deprivation of all publick Trust is above fully declared and only here remembred to shew what Reason the Earl had from his first coming to Edinburgh in the end of October to think that something else was intended against him than the simple devesting him of his Employments and Jurisdictions And yet such was his assurance of his Innocence that when ordered by the Council to enter his Person in Prison under the pain of Treason he entered freely in an Hackney Coach without either hesitation or noise as you have heard 2dly The same day of the Earl's Commitment the Council met and wrote as I have told you their Letter to his Majesty above set down Num. 22. Wherein they expresly charge him with Reproaching and depraving but yet neither with Perjury nor Treason and a few days after the Earl wrote a Letter to his Highness wherein he did endeavour to remove his Offence in terms that it was said at first had given satisfaction But yet the only return the Earl had was a Criminal Summons containing an Indictment and that before any Answer was come from His Majesty And then so soon as his Majesty's Answer came there was a new Summons sent him with a new Indictment adding the Crimes of Treason and Perjury to those of Reproaching and Depraving which were in the first Libel as you have heard above whereby you may perceive how early the Design against the Earl began to grow and how easily it took encrease from the least encouragement 3dly When the Earl petitioned the Council for Advocates to plead for him Albeit he petitioned twice and upon clear Acts of Parliament yet he had no better Answer than what you have above set down And when the Earl's Petition naming Sir George Lockhart as his ordinary Advocate was read in Council his Highness openly threatned that in case Sir George should undertake for the Earl he should never more plead for the King nor him But the Earl taking Instruments upon Sir George his refusal and giving out that he would not answer a word at the Bar seeing the benefit of Lawyers according to Law was denied him Sir George and other Lawyers were allowed to assist him but still with a grudge Likewise afterwards they were questioned and convened before the Council for having at the Earl's desire signed their positive Opinion of the Case At which time it was also said in Council by his Highness That their fault was greater than the Earl's However we see that as he was the occasion of the anger so he hath only found the smart of it 4thly The whole Process with the Judgment of the Lords of Justitiary and Verdict of the Assize whereby the Earl was found guilty as you have seen notwithstanding of what hath so plainly appeared and was so strongly pleaded in his behalf of Leasing-making Depraving and Treason Is of it self a clear demonstration that either the highest punishment was intended for so high a guilt or that at least it was no small humiliation that some designed for him It being equally against reason and prudence setting aside the Interest of Justice to strain things of this nature beyond the ends truly purposed and which in effect are only the more to be suspected the more they are concealed 5thly The Process being carried on to the Verdict of the Assize and the Council being tied up by His Majesty's Letter before pronouncing Sentence to send a particular account to His Majesty of what
this Absolute Power it is a little too hard to make men swear to maintain the King in it and if that Kingdom has suffered so much by the many Oaths that have been in use among them as is marked in his Proclamation I am afraid this new Oath will not much mend the matter XIV Yet after all there is some Comfort his Majesty assures them he will use no Violence nor Force nor any Invincible Necessity to any man on the account of his perswasion It were too great a want of respect to fancy that a time may come in which even this may be remembred full as well as the promises that were made to the Parliament after his Majesty came to the Crown I do not I confess apprehend that for I see here so great a Caution used in the choice of these words that it is plain very great Severities may very well consist with them It is clear that the general words of Violence and Force are to be determined by the last Invincible Necessity so that the King does only promise to lay no Invincible Necessity on his Subjects but for all Necessities that are not Invincible it seems they must bear a large share of them Disgraces want of imployments Fines and Imprisonments and even Death it self are all vincible things to a man of a firmness of mind so that the Violences of Torture the Furies of Dragoons and some of the Methods now practised in France perhaps may be included within this Promise since these seem almost Invincible to Humane Nature if it is not fortified with an Extraordinary measure of Grace but as to all other things his Majesty binds himself up from no part of the Exercise of his Absolute Power by this Promise XV. His Majesty Orders this to go Immediatly to the Great Seal without passing through the other Seals now since this is Counter-signed by the Secretary in whose hands the Signet is there was no other step to be made but through the Privy Seal so I must own I have a great Curiosity of knowing his Character in whose hands the Privy Seal is at present for it seems his Conscience is not so very supple as the Chancellors and the Secretaries are but it is very likely if he does not quickly change his Mind the Privy Seal at least will quickly change his Keeper and I am sorry to hear that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary have not another Brother to fill this post that so the guilt of the ruine of that Nation may lie on one single Family and that there may be no others involved in it XVI Upon the whole matter many smaller things being waved it being extream unpleasant to find fault where one has all possible dispositions to pay all respect we here in England see what we must look for A Parliament in Scotland was try'd but it proved a little stubborn and now Absolute Power comes to set all right so when the Closetting has gone round so that Noses are counted we may perhaps see a Parliament here but if it chances to be untoward and not to Obey without Reserve then our Reverend Judges will copy from Scotland and will not only tell us of the King 's Imperial Power but will discover to us this new Mystery of Absolute Power to which we are all bound to Obey without Reserve These Reflections refer in so many places to some words in the Proclamation that it was thought necessary to set them near one another that the Reader may be able to Judge whether he is deceived by any false Quotations or not By the King A PROCLAMATION JAMES R. JAMES the Seventh by the Grace of God King of Scotland England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. To all and sundry our good Subjects whom these presents do or may concern Greeting We have taken into our Royal Consideration the many and great inconveniencies which have happened to that our Ancient Kingdom of Scotland of late years through the different perswasions in the Christian Religion through the great Heats and Animosities amongst the several Professors thereof to the ruin and decay of Trade wasting of Lands extinguishing of Charity contempt of the Royal Power and converting of true Religion and the Fear of God into Animosities Names Fractions and sometimes into Sacrilege and Treason And being resolved as much as in us lies to Unite the Hearts and Affections of Our Subjects to GOD in Religion to Us in Loyalty and to their Neighbours in Christian Love and Charity Have therefore thoughe fit to Grant and by our Soveraign Authority Prerogative Royal and Absolute Power which all our Subjects are to Obey without Reserve Do hereby give and grant Our Royal Toleration to the several Professors of the Christian Religion after named with and under the several Conditions Restrictions and Limitations after-mentioned In the first place We Allow and Tolerate the Moderate Presbyterians to Meet in their Private Houses and there to hear all such Ministers as either have or are willing to accept of Our Indulgence allanerly and none other and that there be not any thing said or done contrary to the Well and Peace of Our Reign Seditious or Treasonable under the highest Pains these Crimes will import nor are they to presume to Build Meeting-Houses or to use Out-Houses or Barns but only to Exercise in their Private Houses as said is In the mean time it is our Royal Will and Pleasure that Field-Conventicles and such as Preach or Exercise at them or who shall any ways assist or connive at them shall be prosecuted according to the utmost Severity of our Laws made against them seeing from these Rendezvouzes of Rebellion so much Disorder hath proceeded and so much Disturbance to the Government and for which after this Our Royal Indulgence for tender Consciences there is no Excuse left In like manner we do hereby tolerate Quakers to meet and Exercise in their Form in any place or places appointed for their Worship And considering the Severe and Cruel Laws made against Roman Catholicks therein called Papists in the Minority of Our Royal Grand-Father of * Glorious Memory without His Consent and contrary to the Duty of good Subjects by His Regents and other Enemies to their Lawful Soveraigns Our Royal Great Grand-Mother Queen Mary of Blessed and Pious Memory wherein under the pretence of Religion they cloathed the worst of Treasons Factions and Usurpations and made these Laws not as against the Enemies of GOD but their own which Laws have still been continued of course without design of executing them or any of them ad terrorem only on Supposition that the Papists relying on an External Power were incapable of Duty and true Allegiance to their Natural Soveraign and Rightful Monarchs We of Our certain Knowledge and long Experience knowing that the Catholicks as it is their Principle to be good Christians so it is to be dutiful Subjects and that they have likewise on all Occasions shewn themselves
and it seems they intend to make us know that part of their Doctrine even before we come to feel it since tho' some of that Communion would take away the horror which the Fourth Council of the Lateran gives us in which these things were decreed by denying it to be a General Council and rejecting the Authority of those Canons yet the most learned of all the Apostates that has fallen to them from our Church has so lately given up this Plea and has so formally acknowledged the Authority of that Council and of its Canons that it seems they think they are bound to this piece of fair dealing of warning us before hand of our Danger It is true Bellarmin says The Church does not always execute the Power of Deposing Heretical Princes tho' she always retains it one Reason that he assigns is Because she is not at all times able to put it in Execution so the same reason may perhaps make it appear unadviseable to Extirpate Hereticks because that at present it cannot be done but the Right remains intire and is put in execution in such an unrelenting manner in all places where that Religion prevails that it has a very ill Grace to see any Member of that Church speak in this strain and when neither the Policy of France nor the Greatness of their Monarch nor yet the Interests of the Emperour joyned to the Gentleness of his own temper could withstand these Bloody Councils that are indeed parts of that Religion we can see no reason to induce us to believe that a Toleration of Religion is proposed with any other design but either to divide us or to lay us asleep till it is time to give the Alarm for destroying us IV. If all the Endeavours that have been used in the last four Reigns for bringing the Subjects of this Kingdom to an Unity in Religion have been ineffectual as His Majesty says we know to whom we owe both the first beginnings and the progress of the Divisions among our selves the gentleness of Queen Elizabeth's Government and the numbers of those that adhered to the Church of Rome made it scarce possible to put an end to that Party during her Reign which has been ever since restless and has had Credit enough at Court during the three last Reigns not only to support it self but to distract us and to divert us from apprehending the danger of being swallowed up by them by fomenting our own Differences and by setting on either a Toleration or a Persecution as it has happened to serve their Interests It is not so very long since that nothing was to be heard at Court but the supporting the Church of England and the Extirpating all the Nonconformists and it were easie to name the persons if it were decent that had this in their mouths but now all is turned round again the Church of England is in Disgrace and now the Encouragement of Trade the Quiet of the Nation and the Freedom of Conscience are again in Vogue that were such odious things but a few Years ago that the very mentioning them was enough to load any Man with Suspicions as backward in the King's Service while such Methods are used and the Government as if in an Ague divided between hot and cold fits no wonder if Laws so unsteadily executed have failed of their effect V. There is a good reserve here left for Severity when the proper Opportunity to set it on presents it self for his Majesty declares himself only against the forcing of men in matters of meer Religion so that whensoever Religion and Policy come to be so interwoven that meer Religion is not the Case and that publick Safety may be pretended then this Declaration is to be no more claimed so that the fastning any thing upon the Protestant Religion that is inconsistent with the publick Peace will be pretended to shew that they are not persecuted for meer Religion In France when it was resolved to extirpate the Protestants all the Discourses that were written on that Subject were full of the Wars occasioned by those of the Religion in the last Age tho' as these was the happy occasions of bringing the House of Bourbon to the Crown they had been ended above 80 Years ago and there had not been so much as the least Tumult raised by them these 50 Years past so that the French who have smarted under this Severity could not be charged with the least Infraction of the Law yet Stories of a hundred years old were raised up to inspire into the King those Apprehensions of them which have produced the terrible effects that are visible to all the World There is another Expression in this Declaration which lets us likewise see with what Caution the Offers of favour are now worded that so there may be an Occasion given when the time and Conjuncture shall be favourable to break through them all it is in these words So that they take especial Care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the hearts of our People from Us or Our Government This in it self is very reasonable and could admit of no Exception if we had not to do with a set of men who to our great Misfortune have so much Credit with His Majesty and who will be no sooner lodged in the Power to which they pretend then they will make every thing that is preached against Popery pass for that which may in some manner alienate the Subjects from the King VI. His Majesty makes no doubt of the Concurrence of his Two Houses of Parliament when he shall think it convenient for them to meet The hearts of Kings are unsearchable so that it is a little too presumptuous to look into his Majesties secret thoughts but according to the Judgments that we would make of other mens thoughts by their Actions one would be tempted to think that his Majesty made some doubt of it since his Affairs both at home and abroad could not go the worse if it appeared that there was a perfect understanding between him and His Parliament and that his people were supporting him with fresh Supplies and this House of Commons is so much at his Devotion that all the World saw how ready they were to grant every thing that he could desire of them till he began to lay off the Mask with relation to the Test and since that time the frequent Prorogations the Closetting and the pains that has been taken to gain Members by Promises made to some and the Disgraces of others would make one a little inclined to think that some doubt was made of their Concurrence But we must confess that the depth of his Majesties Judgment is such that we cannot fathom it and therefore we cannot guess what his Doubts or his Assurances are It is true the words that come after unriddle the Mistery a little which are when his Majesty shall think it convenient for them to
dangerous a Vertue to be commended If then for these and a thousand other Reasons there is cause to suspect sure your new Friends are not to dictate to you or advise you for instance the Addresses that fly abroad every Week and Murther us with another to the same the first Draughts are made by those who are not very proper to be Secretaries to the Protestant Religion and it is your Part only to write them out fairer again Strange that you who have been formerly so much against Set Forms should now be content the Priests should Indite for you The Nature of Thanks is an unavoidable Consequence of being Pleased or Obliged they grow in the Heart and from thence shew themselves either in Looks Speeches Writing or Action No Man was ever Thankful because he was bid to be so but because he had or thought he had some Reason for it If then there is cause in this Case to pay such extravagant Acknowledgments they will flow naturally without taking such pains to procure them and it is unkindly done to tire all the Post-Horses with Carrying Circular Letters to sollicit that which would be done without any Trouble or Constraint If it is really in it self such a Favour what needeth so much pressing Men to be Thankful and with such eager Circumstances that where Perswasions cannot delude Threatnings are employed to fright them into a Compliance Thanks must be voluntary not only unconstrained but unsolicited else they are either Trifles or Snares they either signifie nothing or a great deal more than is intended by those that give them If an inference should be made that whosoever thanketh the King for his Declaration is by that engaged to justifie it in point of Law it is a greater stride than I presume all those care to make who are perswaded to Address If it shall be supposod that all the Thankers will be Repealers of the TEST when ever a Parliament shall Meet Such an Expectation is better prevented before than disappointed afterwards and the surest way to avoid the lying under such a scandal is not to do any thing that may give a colour to the Mistake These Bespoken Thanks are little less improper than Love Letters that were solicited by the Lady to whom they are to be Directed So that besides the little ground there is to give them the manner of getting them doth extreamly lessen their Value It might be wished that you would have suppressed your impatience and have been content for the sake of Religion to enjoy it within your selves without the Liberty of a publick Exercise till a Parliament had allowed it but since that could not be and that the Artificers of some amongst you have made use of the Well-meant Zeal of the Generality to draw them into this Mistake I am so far from blaming you with that sharpness which perhaps the Matter in strictness would bear that I am ready to err on the side of the more gentle construction There is a great difference between enjoying quietly the advantages of an Act irregularly done by others and the going about to support it against the Laws in being The Law is so Sacred that no Trespass against it is to be Defended yet Frailties may in some measure be Excused when they cannot be justified The desire of enjoying a Liberty from which men have been so long restrained may be a Temptation that their Reason is not at all times able to resist If in such a case some Objections are leapt over indifferent men will be more inclined to lament the Occasion than to fall too hard upon the Fault whilst it is covered with the Apology of a good intention but where to rescue your selves from the severity of one Law you give a blow to all the Laws by which your Religion and Liberty are to be protected and instead of silently receiving the benefit of this Indulgence you set up for Advocates to support it you become voluntary Aggressors and look like Counsel retained by the Prerogative against your old Friend Magna Charta who hath done nothing to deserve her falling thus under your Displeasure If the case then should be that the Price expected from you for this Liberty is giving up your Right in the Laws sure you will think twice before you go any further in such a losing Bargain After giving Thanks for the breach of one Law you lose the Right of Complaining of the breach of all the rest you will not very well know how to defend your selves when you are pressed and having given up the Question when it was for your advantage you cannot recall it when it shall be to your Prejudice If you will set up at one time a Power to help you which at another time by Parity of Reason shall be made use of to destroy you you will neither be pitied nor relieved against a Mischief you draw upon your selves by being so unreasonably thankful It is like calling in Auxiliaries to help who are strong enough to subdue you In such a case your Complaints will come too late to be heard and your sufferings will raise Mirth instead of Compassion If you think for your excuse to expound your thanks so as to restrain them to this particular case others for their ends will extend them further and in these differing Interpretations that which is back'd by Authority will be the most likely to prevail especially when by the advantage you have given them they have in truth the better of the Argument and that the Inferences from your own Concessions are very strong and express against you This is so far from being a groundless Supposition that there was a late instance of it the last Session of Parliament in the House of Lords where the first Thanks though things of course were laterpreted to be the Approbation of the King 's whole Speech and a Restraint from the further Examination of any part of it though never so much disliked and it was with difficulty obtained not to be excluded from the Liberty of objecting to this mighty Prerogative of Dispensing meerly by this innocent and usual piece of good Manners by which no such thing could possibly be intended This sheweth that some bounds are to be put to your good Breeding and that the Constitution of England is too valuable a thing to be ventured upon a Complement Now that you have for some time enjoyed the benefit of the End it is time for you to look into the Danger of the Means The same Reason that made you desirous to get Liberty must make you solicite us to preserve it so that the next thought will naturally be not to engage your self beyond Retreat and to agree so far with the Principles of all Religions as not to rely upon a Death bed Repentance There are certain Periods of time which being once past make all cautions ineffectual and all Remedies desperate Our Understandings are apt to be hurried on by the first heats
the Pamphlet whereof I have here given you my thoughts was more than a Fortnight on the way or else you had received this sooner I am Dubâ—â— 1688. SIR Your most Humble Servant A PLAIN ACCOUNT OF THE PERSECUTION Laid to the CHARGE of the Church of England THE Desire of Liberty to serve God in that Way and Manner which Men judge to be most acceptable to him is so Natural and Reasonable that they cannot but be extreamly provoked against those who would force them to serve him in any other But the Conceit withal which most Men have that their Way of Serving God is the only acceptable Way naturally inclines them when they have Power to use all Means to constrain all other to serve him in that way only So that Liberty is not more desired by all at one time than it is denied by the very same Persons at another Put them into different Conditions and they are not of the same Mind but have different Inclinations in one State from what they have in another As will be apparent by a short View of what hath passed in these Churches and Kingdoms within our Memory II. Before the late Civil Wars there were very grievous Complaints made of the Bishops that they pressed the Ceremonies so strictly as to inflict heavy Censures upon those called Puritans who could not in Conscience conform to them Now no sooner had those very Persons who thus complaned got their Liberty to do as they pleased but they took it quite away from the other and suquestred all those who would not enter into their Holy League and Covenant for the reforming all things according to the Model which they propounded Nay they were not willing to bear with Five Dissenting Brethren among themselves who could not conform to the Presbyterial Government And when these Dissenting Brethren commonly known by the Name of Independants had got a Party strong enough which carried all before them they would not allow the use of the Common Prayer in any Parish no not to the King himself in his own Chappel not grant to one of the old Clergy so much Liberty as to teach a School c. Which things I do not mention God knows to reproach those who were guilty of them but only to put them in mind of their own Failings that they may be humbled for them and not insult over the Church of England nor severely upbraid them with that which when time was they acted with a higher Hand themselves If I should report all that the Presbyterians did here and in Scotland and all that the Independants did here and in New England it would not be thought that I exceed the Truth when I say they have been more Guilty of this Fault than those whom they now charge with it Which doth not excuse the Church of England it must be confessed but doth in some Measure mitigate her Fault For the Conformable Clergy having met with such very hard Usage in that disinal Time wherein many of them were oppressed above Measure no wonder if the Smart of it then fresh in their Minds something imbittered their Spirits when God was preased by a wonderful Revolution to put them into Power again III. Then a stricter Act of Vnifamity was made and several Laws pursuant to it for the enforeing that Uniformity by severe Penalties But let it be remembred that none were by those Laws constrained to come to Church but had Liberty left them to serve God at Home and some Company with them in their own Way And let it be farther remembred that the Reâ—ion why they were denied their Liberty of meeting in greater Assemblies was because such Assemblies were represented as greatly endangering the publick Peace and Safety as the Words are in the very first Act of this Nature against â—uakers in the Year 1662. Let any one read the Oxford Act as it is commonly called made in the Year 1665. and that at Westminster in the Year 16â—â— and he will find them intended against Sedâ—â—ous Conventicles That is they wâ—â—â— made them were perswâ—dâ—d by the Jâ—suâ— Iâ—terest at first to look upon such Meetings as Nurseries of Sedition where bad Principles were infused into Mens Minds destructive to the Civil Government If it had not been for this it doth not appear that the Contrivers of these Laws were inclined to such Severities as were thereby enacted but the Nâ—nconformists might have enjoyed a larger Liberty in Religion It was not Religion alone which was considered and prerended but the publick Peace and Settlement with respect to which they were tyed up so straitly in the Exercise of their Religion Which to deal clearly I do not believe would have raught Rebellion but this was constantly insinuated by the Court Agents and it is no wonder if the Parliament who remembred how the Ministers of that Perswasion though indeed from the then Appearance of Popery had been the Principal Incouragers of that Defensive War against the King were easily made to believe that they still retained the same Principles and would propagate them if they were suffered among the People Certainly it is also that the Court made it their Care to have those Acts passed though at the same time they hindred their Execution that they might keep up both Parties in the height of their Animosities and especially that they might make the Church of England be both hated and despised by the Dissenters IV. Thus things continued for some time till wise Men began to see into the Secret and think of a Reconciliation But it was always hindred by the Court who never thought of giving Liberty by a Law but only by the Prerogative which could as casâ—ly take it away There was a time for instance when a Comprehension c. was projected by several great Men both in Church and State for the taking as many as possible into Union with us and providing Ease for the rest Which so netled the late King that meeting with the then Arch-bishop of Canterbury he said to him as I perfectly remember What my Lord you are for a Comprehension To which he making such a Reply as signified he heard some were about it No said the King I will keep the Church of England pure and unmixed that is never suffer a Reconciliation with the Dissenters And when the Lords and Commons also had not many years ago passed a Bill for the Repealing of the most heavy of all the Penal Laws against Dissenters viz. the Statute of 35 Eliz. 1. which by the Parliament is made against the Wicked and dangerous Practices of Seditiâ—â—â— Sectaries and disloyal Persons his late Majesty so dealt with the Clerk of the Parliament that it was shuffled away and could not be found when it was to have been presented to him among other Bills for his Royal Consent unto it A notable Token of the Abhorrence the Court then had of all Penal Laws and of their great Kindness to Dissenters V. Who may
The Pope published a Bull in print against the restoring of Abby-Lands which Dr. Burnet affirms also Ap. Fol. 403. It is notoriously false they both asserting the contrary Dr. Burnet's Words in that very place are these The Pope in plain terms refused to ratifie what the Cardinal had done and soon after set out a severe Bull cursing and condemning all that held any Church Lands Seventhly and lastly The succeeding Popes have been clearly of this opinion Pope Pius the Fourth who immediately succeeded this Paul confirm'd the Counoil of Trent and therein damned all the detainers of Church-Lands and tho he was much importuned to confirm some Alienations made by the King of France to pay the debts of the Crown yet he absolutely refused it F. Pauls H. C. Trent 713. Pope Innocent the Tenth first protested against the Alienations of Church Lands in Germany that were made at the great Treaty of Munster and Osnaburg A. D. 1648. and when that would not do by his Bull Nov. 26. in the very same Year damns all those that should dare to retain the Church-Lands and declares the Treaty void Infirmnentum pacis c. Innocentii 10 me declaratio nullitatis Artic. c. and all their late Popes in the Bulla caenae do very solemnly Damn and Excommunicate all who usurp any Jurisdiction Fruits Revenues and Emoluments belonging to any Ecclesiastical person upon account of any Churches Monasteries or other Ecclesiastical Benefices or who upon any occasion or cause Sequester the said Revenues without the Express leave of the Bishop of Rome or others having lawful power to do it c. And tho upon Geod-Friday there is published a general Absolution yet out of that are expresly excluded all those who possess any Church Lands or Goods who are still left under the sentence of Excommunication Toleti Instr Sacerd. and his Explicatio casuum in Bulla caenae Dni reserva From which consideration it 's evident that it never was the design of the Pope to confirm the English Church Lands to the Lay-possessors but that he always urg'd the necessity of restoring of them to religious uses in order to which the papists prevailed to have the statute of Mortmain repealed for 20 Years In Queen Elizabeth's Reign the factious party that was manag'd wholy by Romish â—missaries demanded to have Abbtes and such Religious Houses restored for their Vse and A. D. 1585. in their petition to the Faâ—hament they set it down as a 〈◊〉 Doctrine that things once dedicated to Sacred Vses ought so to remain by the Word of God for ever and ought not to be converted to any private Vse Bishop Bancrofts Sermon at p. c. A. D. 1588. p. 25. And that the Church of Rome is still gaping after these Lands is evident from many of their late Books as the Religion of M. Luther lately printed at Oxford p. 15. The Monks wrote Anathema upon the Registers and Donations belonging to Monasteries the weight and essect of which curses are both felt and dreaded to this day To this End the Monastiâ—â—â— Anglicanum is so diligently preserved in the Vatican and other Libraries in the popish Countries and especially this appears from the obstinate refusal of this present Pope to confirm these Alienations tho it be a matter so much controverted and which would be of that vast Use towards promoting their Religion in this Kingdom If therefore the Bishops of Rome did never confirm these Alienations of Church-Lands but earnestly and strictly required their Restitution if they have declared in their Authentick Canons that they have no power to do it and both they and the last general Council pronounce an heavy Curse and Anathema against all such as detain them Then let every one that possesseth these Lands and yet own either of these Foreign Jurisdictions consider that here is nothing left to excuse him from Sacriledge and therefore with his Estate he must derive a curse to his posterity There is scarcely any Papist but that is forward to accuse King Henry the 8th of Sacriledge and yet never reflects upon himself who quietly possesseth the Fruits of it without Restitution either let them not accuse him or else restore themselves Now whatever opinions the papists may have of these things in the time of health yet I must desire to remember what the Jesuits proposed to Cardinal Pool in Doctor Pary's Days Viz. That if he would encourage them in England they did not doubt but that by dealing with the Consciences of those who were dying they should soon recover the greatest part of the Goods of the Church Dr. Burnet's Hist Vol. 2. p. 328. Not to mention that whensoever the Regulars shall grow numerous in England and by consequence burthensome to the few Nobility and Gentry of that perswasion they will find it necessary for them to consent to a Restitution of their Lands that they may share the burthen among others For so vast are the Burthens and Payments that that Religion brings with it that it will be found at length an advantagious Bargain to part with all the Church Lands to indemnifie the rest And I am confident that the Gentry of England that are Papists have found greater Burthens and Payments since their Religion hath been allow'd than ever they did for the many years it was forbid and this charge must daily encrease so long as their Clergy daily grows more numerous and their few Converts are most of them of the meanest Rank and such as want to be provided for And that 's no easie matter to force Converts may appear from that Excellent Observation of the great Emperour Charles the Fifth who told Queen Mary That by endeavouring to compel others to his own Relegion he had tired and spent himself in vain and purchas'd nothing by it but his own dishonour Card. Pool in Heylin's Hist Ref. p. 217. And to conclude this Discourse had the Act of Pope Julius the Third by his Legate Cardinal Pool in confirming of the Alienation of Church Lands in England been as valid as is by some pretended yet what shall secure us from an Act of Resumption That very Pope after that pretended Grant to Cardinal Pool published a Bull in which he Excommunicated all that kept Abby-Lands or Church Lands Burnet's Hist Vol. 2. p. 3â—9 by which all former Grants had there been any were cancell'd His Successor Pope Paul the Fourth retrieved all the Goods and Ecclesiastical Revenues that had been alienated from the Church since the time of Julius the Second and the chief Reasons that are given why the Popes may not still proceed to an Act of Resumption of these Lands in England amount only to this That they may stay for a fair opportunity when it may be done without disturbing the peace of the Kingdom From all which it 's evident that the detaining of Abby-Lands and other Church-Lands from the Monks and Friars is altogether inconsistent with the Doctrine and Principles of the Romish Religion The King's
have applied himself to any other Employment rather than have betaken himself to writing being a thing which Nature never intended him for and especially upon a Subject so far above the reach of his understanding and against a discourse of that solid and well-digested strength that even the Reverend Fathers whose Letter-carrier he used to be if we be not strangely mistaken in the Gentleman had so much wit as not to attack it As knowing that notwithstanding all their Art in Sophistry they must have come off baffled and that their false colours would have been easily detected by the beams of that light which dart themselves forth in all the parts of that excellent Paper And I dare farther say that as Mr. Stewart will never much value himself upon the being esteemed by one either of this Gentleman 's Religious Principles or of his intellectual Accomplishments so I can never think that he can be so much degenerated from what he formerly was as to obtain the approbation of his mind to return any considerable degree of honour to a person who upon all accounts does so little merit it unless it be that he may possibly challenge it by vertue of an undeserved Title and of a Character that he is exceeding ill qualified for However seeing Fools will be medling tho' they are sure to come by the worst I shall reduce all I have to say in Castigation of this vain and presumptuous man to the seven following heads 1. His Falsifications in reference to several parts of Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter 2. His Injustice to Their Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Orange and the hidden spleen he every where ventureth to express against them 3. His slanderous Calumnies against the States of these Provinces and how he studies to excite their Roman Catholick Subjects to disturb the Peace and Tranquillity of this Country 4 His Shameless Impudence in endeavouring to impose upon the World as if the Protestant Dissenters in England were concluded by Their Highnesses to stand hereafter involved in the same rank and condition with the Papists 4. His Publishing the Villany of the Romish Church and proclaiming the Injustice and Dishonour of the most Eminent Papal Monarchs while he pretends to commend and justifie the proceeding of his Majesty of Great Brittain 6. His egregious Ignorance in relation to Government Laws Customs and matters of Fact Lastly The signal Ingratitude of the Papists towards Their Royal Highnesses for all that Grace Favour and Ease which they were willing to have allowed unto them As to the first 'T is known to be a received Principle among the Casuists of the Society that it is at most but a venial sin to detract from misrepresent and calumniate those whom they either take to be their Enemies or do conceive to have done them any ways a prejudice And tho' the Opinion authorising such a practice be condemned by a Bull of the present Pope bearing date Anno 1679 yet our Author is more a Vassal to the Ignatian Order than upon the Authority of one whom the Jesuites do so little value to forbear putting a Doctrine into exercise which he hath been so well instructed in by these Reverend Fathers and especially when he finds it so conduceable to his design and interest What can be remoter from Truth as well as Ingenuity than to charge Monsieur Fagel with confining the name of Protestants in England only to those of the Conformable Communion and with excluding the Dissenters from the glorious priviledge of that appellation For tho' it be true that thro' the hatred and violence of the late King and his present Majesty to the Fanaticks and by vertue of their Commands to a Company of Mercenary timorous and servile Justiciaries and Officers it hath some time come to pass that the Laws which were originally enacted and only intended against Papists have been executed upon Dissenters yet all men know that to have been a perversion of Justice seeing in all the Statutes to the Penalties whereof they were made obnoxious they are still considered and acknowledged for Protestants and made liable to sufferings by no other Title than that of persons differing from the Church of England in matter of Discipline and about Forms and Rites of External Worship Nor is there one word in Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter whereby they are precluded from that stile or any ways represented as unworthy of it While they stand obnoxious to several Laws in which the Members of the Church of England have no concernment nor are in any danger from it was impossible to avoid the giving them a name by which they might be distinguished from those of the Legal and National Communion And so tender hath the Pensionary been of charactering them by any offensive or harsh denomination that he hath not so much as once in his whole Letter called them Fanaticks tho' it be an appellation that hath been vulgarly affixed to them but he hath chosen always to denominate them by the name of Dissenters which is not only the softest Term they can be described by but that which themselves have elected as the stile by which they are willing to be discriminated from their fellow Protestants with whom they differ in some few and little particulars And many of them being people whose Principles are coincident and agreeable with theirs of the Legal Establishment in Holland in whose Fellowship Monsieur Fagel is known to be it could not have entred into the thoughts of any save one of our Authors Intellectuals and Integrity either to charge upon him or so much as to imagine that he should be so injurious to himself and to the Dutch Churches as to preclude those from the list of Protestants But whether this calumnious charge and falsification be the fruit of an Irish Understanding or of Papal Sincerity or the effect of both I shall leave others to judge who may possibly know this Author better than I pretend to do Only this I shall add that he proceeds with the same wit and honesty as he hath begun For from Their Highnesses declaring that they cannot agree to the Repeal of the Tests and Monsieur Fagel's thereupon saying that these Laws inflict not any mulct or penalty upon the Roman Catholicks but that they are only means of securing the Reformed Religion thro' containing provisions by which men are to be accounted qualified for Members of Parliament and to bear publick Offices our Author does by a strange kind of falsification and calumny fasten upon him his having affirmed That the Non-conformists are to be accounted dangerous Enemies of the State and not to be admitted into any Publick Employments He must either be of a very unusual and perverse frame of mind or extreamly ignorant of the nature of those Laws and the Terms wherein they are enacted otherways it is impossible he should imagine how the Dissenters are capable of receiving prejudice by them Seeing all required by those Laws toward the qualifying
some of the material Doctrines of the Roman Church may notwithstanding the Charity which we retain towards the Bulk of them make us justly apprehensive that one or more of their Leaders are intirely in the Interest of the Church of Rome For as the Popish Emissaries know how to put themselves into all shapes for the increasing and heightning divisions among Protestants and for the exposing as well as supplanting of our Religion so the design promoted in the foresaid Papers of destroying all the Legal Fences against Popery and of letting the Papists into the Legislative and whole Executive Power of the Government gives the World too much ground to suspect out of whose mint and forge writings of this stamp and mettle do proceed Secondly It should not a little contribute to augment our Jealousie that they who without being false to their Religious Tenets cannot joyn to assist Protestants in case the Papists should attempt to cut our Throats or endeavour to impose their Religion upon the Nation by Military force should of all men study to overthrow that Security which we have by the Test Laws whose whole tendency is onely to prevent the Papists from getting into a condition to extirpate our Religion and destroy us Is it not enough that they have rob'd the Kingdom of the Aid of so many as they have leavened with their Doctrine in case the King upon despairing to establish Popery by a Parliament should imploy his Janizaries to compel us to receive it and should set upon the converting Protestants in England in the way that the French Monarch hath converted the Huguenots but that over and above this they should be doing all they can to deprive us of all the Legal Security whereby we may be preserved from the Power of the Papists Surely 'twere not Charity and good Nature but stupidity and folly not to suspect the tendency of such a design when we find it pursued and carried on by a person that stiles himself a Quaker But then when besides this we find that 't is Mr. William Pen who is the Author of those Papers and the great Instrument in advancing this projection we have the more cause to suspect some sinistrous thing at the bottom of it For first he is under those Obligations to His Majesty which as they may put a biass upon his Understanding so they afford ground enough to Protestants to look upon him no otherways than as one Retained against them 'T was through his present Majesties Intercession with the late King that he obtained the Proprietorship of Pensilvania and from his Bounty that he had the Propriety of Three whole Counties bordering upon it superadded thereunto And as this cannot be but a strong Obligation upon so grateful a person as Mr. Pen why he should effectually serve the King and make his Will in a very great degree the measure of his actings so it ought to be an Inducement to others to be the more jealous of all he say's and not to surrender themselves too easily either to his Magisterial Dictates upon the one hand or to his smooth Flatteries upon the other He must have either laid a mighty merit upon the two Royal Brothers of both whose Religion we are at last convinced or he must have come under Obligations of doing them very considerable service in reference to that which they were most fond of compassing otherways we have little cause to think that he would have been singled out from all the rest of the Kingdom to be made the object of so special favour and of so eminent liberality For though there might be a debt owing to his Father Sir William Pen yet they must be extreamly weak who conceive there was no other motive to the forementioned Donation save Honour and Justice in the two Royal Brothers for having it discharged Seeing many of the noblest Families in England who had spent their Blood and wasted their Estates in fighting for the Crown while Sir William Pen was all along ingaged against it were not only left without all kind of Compensation for what they had eminently acted and as eminently suffered in behalf of the Monarchy but could never get to be reimbursed one farthing of the vast Sums which they had lent the late King and his Father upon the security of the Royal Faith Secondly Mr. Pen hath too far detected himself in these very Discourses not to give us ground to suspect what they are calculated for and whereunto they are subservient For besides his justifying the King's turning so many Gentlemen of the Church of England out of all Office and Imploy by saying they are not fit to be trusted who are out of the King's Interest he further tells us that the King being mortal it is not good sense that he should leave the power in those hands that to his face shew their aversion to the Friends of his Communion Letter first For as this implies no less than that they ought to have the whole Legal and Military Power of the three Kingdoms put into their hands that they may be in a condition to preclude the right Heir from Succession to the Crown or prescribe such Laws to her as they please in case they should think fit to admit her so a very small measure of Understanding will serve to instruct us what the Papists esteem to be an aversion to them and in what manner had they the power in their hands they think themselves obliged to treat us upon that account And as we have had occasion to know too much of his Majesties Temper and Design as well as to whose Guidance he hath implicitely resigned himself not to be sensible what he esteems his Interest so we need no other evidence what it amounts unto to be in it than the seeing so many displaced from all share in the administration whose Quality gives them a Right and their Abilities a fitness for the chiefest and most honourable Trusts and whom as the King by reason of their services to himself as well as the Crown cannot lay aside without the highest ingratitude so their known Loyalty to his person and zeal for the grandure of the Monarchy is such that nothing could take them off from concurring in his Councils and promoting his Designs but the conviction they are under of their tendency to the subversion of Religion and the altering of the Legal Government And as we have reason to suspect what the foresaid Papers are intended to promote both upon the account of the Author's being Quaker and because not onely of the many Obligations he is under to His Majesty but his being so intirely in his Interest as appears by his influence into Councils the great stroke he hath in all Affairs and from his being one of the King 's principal Confidents so upon looking into those Discourses we find several things obtruded on us for truth and proposed in order to wheedle and insnare us into an abrogation of the Laws
enacted for our security which to every ones knowledge are so palpably false that we have all the ground that may be both to question and suspect his sincerity and to conclude that his Masters do not purpose to confine themselves within the bounds that he is pleased to chalk out for them and which he undertakes they shall be contented with for their allotment For what can be remoter from Truth than that the Test Laws were designed as a preamble to the Bill of Exclusion as he phrases it Letter first and that they were contrived to exclude the Duke of York from the Crown as he expresseth it p. 15. of his Good Advice c. when it is most certain that as the Test in 73. was made long before there were or could be any thoughts of it and was enacted by a Parliament against whose Loyalty there can be no exception so there was a clause in the last Test Act by which it was provided that he should not be obliged to take it Again what can be more repugnant to experience than that the King onely desires ease for those of his Religion Good Adv. p. 44. and that the Papists desire no more than a Toleration and are willing upon those Terms to make a perpetual peace with the Church of England Good Advice p. 17. For do we not daily see Protestants turned out of all Places of Trust Authority and Command and Papists advanced into all Offices Military and Civil Could the King have been contented with a Non-execution of the Laws against those of his Communion and could they have been satisfied with such an Indulgence and have modestly improved it 'T is not improbable but that such a behaviour would have so far prevailed upon the ingenuity and good nature of the generality of Protestants that without needing to have been importuned they would have repealed all the Penal Laws against Roman Catholicks But the methods which have been pursued by his Majesty and them shews both that they aim at no less than the Domination and that we must be very willing to be deceived if we either credit Mr. Pen or suffer our selves to be influenced by him after his obtruding upon us for truths matters which our very senses inable us to refute It may justly make us question his sincerity and beget a suspition in all thinking people of the sinistrous design these Papers are adapted unto when we find him endeavouring to cajole the Nation to an abrogation of the Laws by which our Religion and Safety are secured by telling us That the King's word is enough for us to rely upon if they were gone Good Advice p. 49. and that he could easily pack a Parliament for Repealing them if he did not seek a more lasting and more agreeable security to his Friends Letter third p. 12. and that if they were abolished 't is below the Glory of our King to use ways so unlike the rest of his open and generous principles as to endeavour to get a Parliament afterwards returned that is not duly chosen Letter second p. 15. and that he is a Prince of that Honour Conscience and generoas nature as not by invading the Rights of the Church of England to become guilty of an injustice and irreligion he hath so often so solemnly and earnestly spoken against Letter second p. 11. He must needs take us to be strangely unacquainted with the whole Tenor of the King's Actings in England as well as in Scotland and Ireland and to be persons of very weak understandings and of an easie belief if he think we are to be imposed upon and decoy'd by such Topicks as these to absolish the Tests or that after what we have seen and felt contradictory to those Panegyricks and inconsistent with those beautiful and lofty Characters fastned upon his Majesty we should believe Mr. Pen to mean nothing but well and honestly towards the Protestant Interest in what he so earnestly solliciteth the Church of England and the Dissenters in the forementioned Papers to concurr and consent unto I do acknowledge that what he hath said about Liberty due to men in matters of meer Religion and by way of rebuke unto and reflection upon the Wisdom and Justice of those that either are or have been for persecution is very strong and convincing but I must withall add that it is all at this time very needless and impertinent For the Church of England is so sensible of the Iniquity as well as folly of that Method that there is no ground to suspect She will ever be guilty of it for the future They whom no Arguments could heretofore convert the Court whose Tools they were in that mischievous and Unchristian work and by whom they were instigated to all the severities which they are now blamed for by objecting it to them as their Reproach and Disgrace and by seeking to improve the resentments of those who had suffered by Penal Laws to become an united party with the Papists for their subversion hath brought them at once to be asham'd of what they did and to Resolutions of promoting all Christian Liberty for the time to come And should there be any peevish and ill-natur'd Ecclesiasticks who upon a turn of Affairs would be ready to reassume their former principles and pursue their wonted course we may be secure against all fear of their being successful in it not only by finding the Majority as well as the more learned both of the dignified and inferior Clergy unchangeably fixed and determined against it but by having the whole Nobility and Gentry and those Noble Princes whose right it will be next to ascend the Throne fully possessed with all the generous and Christian purposes we can desire of making provision for Liberty of Conscience by a Law Nor can I forbear to subjoyn how surprizing it ought to be to all Protestants that while Mr. Pen expresseth so much charity for the Papists he entertaineth so little for the Church of England He would perswade us that if the Penal and Test Laws were abrogated the Papists would be so far afterward from seeking to shake the Constitution of the Church of England or from breaking in upon the Liberty that is now vouchsafed unto Dissenters or from endeavouring to make their Religion National that they would not onely be contented with a bare Toleration but that upon their enjoyment of ease by Law they would turn good Countrymen and come in to the Interest of the Kingdom Letter first Whereas at the same time he would have us believe that all the Protestations of those in the Communion of the Church of England for exercising Moderation in time to come are but the Language of their fear that their promises are not to be trusted Good Advice p. 54. and that the Dissenters deserve to be begged for Fools should they be satisfied with any less assurance than the abolition of the Penal and Test Laws ibid. p. 55. 'T is enough not onely to excite
impoverished and ruined by him at his pleasure especially when those whom they give up to be thus treated and entertained are at agreement with them in all the Essentials of Religion equally zealous as themselves for the Liberties of their Country and who for Sobriety in their Lives Industry in their Callings and Usefulness in the Common-Wealth are inferior to none of their Fellow-Subjects So it is obvious to any who give themselves leave to think that the King would long ere this have been stated in the Absoluteness that is aspired after and both Church and State reduced to lie at the discretion of the Monarch provided the Nonconformists for procuring his Favour in non-execution of the Laws had suffered themselves to be prevailed upon and drawn over to stand by and assist him in his Popish and Despotical Designs But that honest people though hated and maligned by their Brethren rather than be found aiding the King in his Usurpations over the Kingdom have chosen to undergoe the utmost Calamities they could be made subject unto either through the Execution of those Laws which had been made against them or through our Princes and their Ministers wrecking their Malice upon them in Arbitrary and Illegal Methods But what the Royal Brothers could not work the afflicted and persecuted Side unto they found the Art to engage the other Side in though not onely excepted from all Obnoxiousness to those Laws but strengthened and supported by them For as soon as the Court begun to despair of prevailing upon Dissenters to become their Tools and Instruments of enslaving the Nation and of exalting the Monarchy to a Despotical Absoluteness they applied to the Bigots of the Church of England whom by gratifying with a vigorous Execution of the Laws upon Dissenters they brought to abett applaud and justifie them in all those Counsels and Ways which have reduced us into that miserable condition wherein we not long since were The Clergy being advanced to Grandure and Opulency things which many of them are fonder of and lother to foregoe than Religion and the Rights of the Nation the Court made it their business to possess them with a Belief that unless the Fanaticks were suppressed and ruined they could not enjoy with Security their Dignities and Wealth Whereupon not onely the lesser Levites but the Superior Clergy having their Lesson and Cue given them from White-hall and St. James's fell upon pursuing the Nonconformists with Ecclesiastical Punishments and upon exciting and animating the Civil Officers against them And under pretence of preserving and defending the Church they gave themselves over to an implicit serving of the Court and became not onely Advocates but Instruments for the robbing of Corporations of their Charters for imposing Sheriffs upon the City of London who had not been legally elected and of fining and punishing Men arbitrarily for no Crime save the having asserted their own and the Nations Rights in modest and lawful ways Posterity will hardly believe that so many of the Prelatical Clergy and so great a number of Members of the Church of England should from an Enmity unto and pretended Jealousie of the Dissenters have become Tools under the late King for justifying the Dissolution of so many Parliaments the Invasion made upon their Priviledges the ridiculing and stifling of the Popish Plot the shamming of forged Conspiracies upon Protestants the condemning several to Death for High-Treason who could be rendred guilty by the Transgression of no known Law and finally for advancing a Gentleman to the Throne who had been engaged in a Conjuration against Religion and the Legal Government and whom three several Parliaments would have therefore Excluded from the Right of Succession And being seduced into an espousal of the Interests of the Court against Religion Parliaments and the Nation it is doleful to consider what Doctrines both from Pulpit and Press were thereupon brought forth and divulged Such as Monarchy's being a Government by Divine Right That it is in the Prince's Power to Rule as he pleaseth That it is a Grace and Condescention in the King to give an Account of what he does That for Parliaments to direct or regulate the Succession borders upon Treason and is an Offence against the Law of Nature And that the onely thing left to Subjects in case the King will Tyrannize over their Consciences Persons and Estates is tamely to suffer and as some of them did absurdly express it to exercise Passive Obedience So that by corrupting the Minds and Consciences of men with those pestilent and slavish Notions they betrayed the Nation both to the Mischiefs which have alrerdy overtaken us and to what further we were threatned with Nor did these Doctrines tend meerly to the fettering and enfeebling the Spirits of Men but they were a Temptation to the Royal Brothers to put in Execution what they had been so long contriving and travelling with and were a kind of reprimanding them for being ignorant of their own Right and Power and for not exerting it with that Vigour and Expedition which they might I do acknowledge that there were many both of the Sacred Order and of the Laick Communion of the Church of England who were far from being infected with those brutish Sentiments and Opinions and who were as zealous as any for having the Monarchy kept within its ancient limits Parliaments maintained in their wonted Reverence and Authority the Subjects preserved in the enjoyment of their immemorial Priviledges and who were far from sacrificing our Religion and Laws to Popery and Arbitrariness and from lulling us into a Tameness and Lethargy in case the Court should attempt the abolishing the established Doctrine and Worship and the subverting and changing the Civil Government But alass besides their being immediately branded with the Name of Trimmer and conformable Fanaticks and registred in the Kalender with those that stood precluded the King's Favour and merited his Animadversion their Modesty was soon drowned and silenced in the loud Noise of their clamorous Brethren and their retiredness from Conversation while the others frequented all places of Society and publick Concourse deprived the Nation of the benefit of their Example and the happiness of their Instructions Nor have I mentioned the Extravagancies of any of the Ecclesiasticks and Members of the Church of England with a design either of reproaching and upbraiding them or of provoking and exasperating the Dissenters to Resentments but onely to shew how fatal our Divisions have been unto us what excesses they have occasioned our being hurried and transported into and what mischievous Improvement our Enemies have made of them to the supplanting and almost subverting of all that is valuable unto us as we are English-men Christians and Protestants And as our Animosities through our Divisions gave the Courrt an advantage of suborning that Party which they pretended to befriend and uphold into a Ministration to all their Counsels and Projections against our Religion and Laws so by reason of the
going to Heaven upon their confessing their Sins to a Priest and their receiving Absolution the Eucharist and Extream Unction need not look after Repentance towards God Conversion to Holiness nor a Life of Faith Love Mortification and Obedience which the Protestant Religion upon the Authority of the Gospel obligeth them unto in order to the obtaining of Eternal Happiness And as the late Apostates to Popery in England are chiefly such who were notorious for Looseness Prophaneness and Immorality and were the Scandal of our Religion while they professed it and while in our Church were not properly of it So it is from among Men of this stamp and character that their late Majesties have found Persons assisting and subservient to their Despotical and Arbitrary Designs For whosoever takes a Survey of the Court-Faction and considereth who have been the Advocates for Encroachments upon our Liberties and Abetters of Vsurpations over our Rights they will find them to have been principally the profligate and debauched among the Nobility and Gentry the mercenary ignorant and scandalous among the Clergy the Off-scouring and such as are an Ignominy to Human Nature among the Yeomanry and Peasants And it was in order to this villanous End that the Royal Brothers have endeavoured so industriously to debauch the Nation and have made Sensuality and Profaneness the Qualifications for Preferment and the Badges of Loyalty And if among those that appear for the Preservation of the Liberties of their Country there be any that deserve to be stiled Enemies to Religion and Vertue as I dare affirm that they owe their Immoralities to Court-Education Converse and Example so I hope that though they have not hitherto been all of them so happy as to have left their Vices where they learned them yet that they will not continue to disparage the good Cause which they have espoused with an unsutable Life nor give their Adversaries reason to say that while they pretend to seek the Reformation of the State they are both the Deriders of Sobriety and Vertue without which no Constitution can long subsist and guilty of such horrid Oaths Cursing Imprecations Blasphemies and uncleannesses which naturally as well as morally and meritoriously dispose Nations to Subversion and Extirpation Finally Being through the bitter Effects which have ensued upon our Divisions made apprehensive and jealous one of another it hath from thence come to pass that while the Care of the Conformists hath been to watch against the growth of the Dissenters and the sollicitude of the Nonconformists hath been how to prevent the Rage of the bigotted Church-men the Papists in the mean time without being heeded or observed have both incredibly multiplied and made considerable Advances in their designs of ruining us For whensoever the Court was to take a signal step towards Popery and Arbitrary Power there was a clamour raised of some menacing Boldness of the Dissenters And if the Nation grew at any time alarmed by reason of the Favour shewn to the Roman Catholicks and of some visible Progress made towards the Kings becoming Despotical all was immediately hush'd with a shout and cry of the Government and Church's being in imminent hazard from the Dissenters Yea whensoever the Papists and their Royal Patrons stood detected of having been conspiring against our Religion and Civil Liberties all was diverted and stifled by putting the Kingdom upon a false Scent and by hounding out their Beagles upon the Nonconformists So that the Eyes and Minds of Protestants being imployed in reference to what was to be apprehended and feared from one another the working of our Popish Enemies either escaped our Observation or were heeded by most only with a superficial and unaffective Glance And while our Church-men stood prepossessed by the Court with a dread and jealousy of the Dissenters all that was said and written of a Conspiracy carryed on by the Papists against our Laws and Religion was entertained and represented by the prejudiced Clergy as an Artifice only of the Dissenters for compassing an Indulgence from the Parliament which in case such a Plot had obtained the belief that a Matter of so great Danger and Consequence required would have been easily granted being the only rational Expedient for the preservation of the established Religion and the Legal Government Nor did our Enemies question but that having enflamed our Divisions and raised our Animosities to so great a height rather than the one party would lay aside their Severities and the other let fall their Resentments we would even be contented to lye at their Mercy and submit our selves to the Pleasure and Discretion of the Court and Papists And there have not wanted some peevish foolish and ill Men of both Parties who rather than sacrifice their Spleen and Passion and abandon their particular Quarrels for the Interest and Safety of the whole have been inclined to expose the Protestant Religion and English Liberties to the Hazards wherewith they were apparently threatned and to suffer all Extremities meerly to have the satisfaction of seeing those whom they respectively hate involved with them under the same miseries But as this was such a degree of Madness and Infatuation as could proceed from nothing but brutish Rage and argues no less than a Divine Nemesis so I hope they are but few that now stand infected with these passionate Sentiments and Inclinations and remain thus hardned in their mutual Prejudices And to those I have nothing to say nor the least Advice to administer but shall leave them to their own Follies as Persons to whose Conviction no Discourse though never so rational can be adapted and whom only Stripes can work upon 'T is to such therefore as are capable of hearkning to Reason and who are ready to embrace any Counsel that shall be found adjusted to the Common Interest that I am to address what remains to be represented and said in the following Leaves For all Parties of Protestants having seen how far our Enemies have improved our Divisions and Rancours to the compassing their wicked and ambitious Designs and the robbing us of all that good and generous Men account valuable they are at last convinced of the necessity we have been and are reduced unto of altering the measures of our acting towards one another and both of laying aside our Persecutions and of exchanging our Wranglings among our selves into a joint contending for the Faith of the Gospel and the Rights of the Nation For what the Gentleman so lately in the Throne intends and aims at is not any longer matter of meer Suspicion and Jealousy but of demonstrable Evidence and unquestionable Certainty His Mask and Vizor of Zeal for the preservation of the Church of England and of tender regard for the Laws of the Land were laid by and put off and his Resolutions of governing Arbitrarily and of introducing Popery were become obvious to all Men whom Reason and Sense have not forsaken and left The Papists whom it was thought much a
where it hath obtained and prevailed For beside the innumerable Executions and Murthers committed by means of the Inquisition to crush and stifle the Reformed Religion in its Rise and Birth and to prevent its Succeeding and Settlement in Spain Italy and many other Territories there is no Kingdom or State where it hath so far prevailed as to come to be universally received and legally established but it hath been through strange and wonderful Conflicts with the Rage and Malice of the Church of Rome The Persecutions which the Primitive Christians underwent by vertue of the Edicts of the Pagan Emperors were not more Sanguinary and Cruel than what through the Laws and Ordinances of Popish Princes have been inflicted upon those who have testified against the Heresies Superstitions and Idolatries and have withdrawn from the Communion of the Papal Church Nor were the Martyrs that suffered for the Testimony of Jesus against Heathenism either more numerous or worthier of esteem for Virtue Justice and Piety than they who have been slaughtered upon no other Pretence but for Endeavouring to restore the Christian Religion to the Simplicity and Purity of its Divine and first Institution and to recover it from the Corruptions wherewith it was become universally Tainted in Doctrine Worship and Discipline How have all the Nations in Europe been soak'd with the Blood of Saints through the Barbarous Rage of Popish Rulers whom the Roman Bishops and Clergy stirred up and instigated in order to support themselves in their secular Grandeur and in their Tyranny over the Consciences of Men and to keep the World in Slavery under Ignorance Errors Superstition and Idolatry which the reducing Christianity again to the Rule of the Gospel would have redeemed Mankind from and been an effectual Means to have Dissipated and Subverted They of the Roman Communion having strangely corrupted the Christian Religion in its Faith Worship and Discipline and having prodigiously altered it from what it was in the Doctrines and Institutions of our Saviour and his Apostles they found no otherway whereby to sustain their Errors and Corruptions and to preserve themselves in the Possession of that Empire which they had usurped over Conscience and in the Enjoyment of the Wealth and secular Greatness which by working upon the Ignorance Superstition Lusts and Prophaneness of People they had skrewed and wound themselves into but by adjudging all who durst detect or oppose them to Fire and Sword or to Miseries to which Death in its worst shape were preferrable Nor have they for the better obstructing the Growth and compassing the Extirpation of the Reformed Religion omitted either the Arts and Subtleties of Julian or the Fury and Violence of Galerius and Dioclesian Whosoever hath not observed the Craft and Rage that have been employed and exerted against Protestants for these 170 Years must have been very little Conversant in Histories and strangely overlook'd the Conduct of Affairs in the World and the Transactions in Churches and States during their own time And tho the Papists do not think it fit to put their Maxims for preserving the Catholick Religion and converting Hereticks in Execution at all times and in every place yet some of their Writers are so Ingenuous as to tell us the reason of it and that they do not forbear it upon Principles of Christianity or good Nature but upon Motives of Policy and Fear lest the cutting one of our Throats might endanger two of their own However they have been careful not to suffer a period of twenty Years to clapse since the beginning of the Reformation without affording us in some place or another renewed Evidences of Papal Charity and of the Roman Method of hindering the Growth of Heresie either by a Massacre War or Persecution begun and executed upon no other Account or Provocation but merely that of our Religion and because we cannot believe and practise in the Matters of God as they do And having obtained of late great Advantages for the pursuing their Malice against us more boldly and avowedly than at another Season and that not only through a strange Concurrence and Conjunction of Princes in the Papal Communion who are more intoxicated with their Superstitions and Idolatries or less wise merciful and humane than some of their Predecessors of that Fellowship were but through having obtained a Prince intirely devoted unto them and under the implicit guidance of their Priests to be advanced unto a Throne where such sometime used to sit as were the Terror of Rome the Safeguard of the Reformed Religion and the Sanctuary of oppressed Protestants they have thereupon both assumed a Courage of stirring up new and unpresidented Persecutions in divers places against the most useful best and loyallest of Subjects upon no other Charge or Allegation but for dissenting for the Tridentine Faith and denying Subjection to the Tripple Crown and are raised into a Confidence of wholly Extirpating Protestancy and of re-establishing the Papal Tyrannies and Superstition in the several Countries whence they had been expelled or stood so depressed and discountenanced as that the Votaries and Partizans of their Church had not the Sway and Domination Nor need we any other Conviction both of their Design and of their Confidence of Succeeding in it than what they have already done and continue to pursue in France Hungary and Piedmont where their prospering to such a degree in their Cruel and Barbarous Attempts not only gives them boldness of entertaining thoughts of taking the like Methods and Acting by the same Measures in all Places where they find Rulers at their beck and under their Influence but to unite and provoke all Popish Monarchs to enter into a holy War against Protestants every where that by Conquering and Subduing those States and Kingdoms where the Reformed Religion is received and established they may extirpate it out of the World under the Notion of the Northern Heresie If Principles of Humanity Maxims of Interest Rules of Policy Obligations of Gratitude Ties of Royal and Princely Faith or the repeated Promises Oaths Edicts and Declarations of Sovereigns could have been a Security to Protestants for the Profession of their Faith and Exercise of their Worship in the forementioned Territories and Dominions they had all that could be rationally desired for their Safety and Protection in the free and open Profession and Practice of their Religion whereas by a Violation of all that is Sacred among Men of a binding Virtue unto Princes except Chains and Fetters or that confer a Right Claim and Security unto Subjects the poor Protestants in those Places have been and still are Persecuted with a Rage and Barbarity which no Age can parallel and for which it is difficult to find words proper and severe enough whereby to stamp a Character of Infamy upon the treacherous cruel and savage Authors Promoters and Instruments of it Nor does it proceed from a Malignancy of Nature peculiar to the Emperor the French King and the Duke of Savoy above what
is in other Princes of the same Communion or that they are more regardless of Fame and less concerned how future Generations will brand their Memories than other Papal Monarchs seem to be that they have suffered themselves to be prevailed upon to violate the Promises and Oaths they were bound by to their Protestant Subjects seeing the Emperor is character'd for a Person of a meek and gentle Temper and of the goodness of whose Nature there remain some shadows interwoven with the bloody streaks of the Hungarian Persecution And the French King though he stand not much commended for Sweetness and Benignity of Disposition is known to be unmeasurably Ambitious of having his name transmitted to Posterity in Letters of Greatness and Honor which his behaviour towards his Subjects of the Reformed Religion is no ways adapted unto but calculated to make him hereafter listed with Nero and Julian As to the Duke of Savoy there seems by the whole course of his other Actions to be a certain Greatness of Mind in him not easily consisting with that savage and brutal Temper which the Cruelties he hath exercised upon the Protestants in Piedmont would intimate and denote But it ariseth from the Mischievousness and Pestilency of their Religion their Bigottry in it and their having put themselves so entirely under the conduct of the Clergy particularly of the Jesuits who are for the most part a Sett of Men especially the latter that through acting in the Prospect of no other Ends but the Grandeur Wealth and Domination of the Church of Rome do with an unlimited Rage and a peculiar kind of Malice persecute all that have renounced Fellowship with it and care not if they Sacrifice the Honor Glory and Safety of Monarchs and bring their Kingdoms into Contempt and Desolation by rending them weak poor and dispeopled provided they may wreek their Spleen and Revenge upon those whose Religion is not only dissonant from theirs but should it prevail to be the Religion of the Legislators and Rulers of Nations those Springs of Wealth would be immediately dried up by which their Superior Clergy and all their Religious Orders are enriched and fed up in Idleness And should the People come to be generally imbued with Principles of Gospel Light and Liberty they would immediately shake off a blind and slavish Dependence upon Pope and Priests and thereby subvert the Foundation upon which the Monarchick Grandeur of the Romish Church and their whole Religion is superstructed and destroy the Engine by which they are inabled to Lord it over the Bodies Estates and Consciences of Men. And if Protestants every where especially under Popish Rulers were not under a strange Infatuation they would look for no fairer Quarter from Papists than what their Brethren have met with in France and Piedmont nor would they rely upon the Faith of any King that stiles himself a Roman Catholick seeing Sacred Promises tremendous Oaths and the most Authentick Declarations are but Papal Arts and Tricks sanctified at Rome whereby to lull Subjects into a Security and delude them into a neglect of all means for preserving themselves and their Religion till their Rulers can be in a condition of obeying the Decrees of the fourth Lateran Council that enjoyns Kings to destroy and extirpate Hereticks under pain of Excommunication and of having both their Subjects absolved from Allegiance to them and their Territories given away to others and till without running any Hazard they may comply with the Ordinance of the Council of Constance which not only releaseth them from all Obligation of keeping Faith to Hereticks but requires them to violate it and accordingly made Sigismond break his Faith to John Hus whom in defiance of the Security given him by that King they caused to be condemned and Burn'd Nor is the Practice and late Example of the Great Louis designed for less than a Pattern by which all Popish Princes are to act and his Proceedings are to be the Copy and Moddel which they who would merit the name of Zealous Catholicks and be esteemed dutiful Sons of the Church are to transcribe and limn out in Lines of Force Violence and Blood and for the better corresponding with the Original to imploy Dragoons for Missionaries And tho I will not say but that there may be some Popish Princes who through an extraordinary Measure of good Nature and from Principles of Compassion woven into their Constitution previously to all notices of Revelation whether real or pretended and who through Sentiments imbib'd from a generous Education and their coming afterwards to be under the Influence and Management of wise and discreet Counsellors may be able to resist the malignant Impressions of their Religion and so be preserved from the Inhumanities towards those of different Perswasions from them in the things of God which their Priests would lay them under Obligations unto by the Doctrines of the Romish Faith yet there appears no reason why an understanding Man should be induced to believe that the King of England is likely to prove a Prince of that great and noble Temper there being more than enough both to raise a Jealousie and beget a Perswasion that there is not a Monarch among all those who are commonly stiled Catholicks from whom Protestants may justly dread greater Severities than from Him or look for worse and more Barbarous Treatments I am not ignorant with what Candor we ought by the Rules of Charity and good Manners to speak of all Men whatsoever their Religion is nor am I unacquainted with what Veneration and Deference we are to discourse of Crowned Heads but as I dare not give those flattering Titles unto any of which there are not a few in some of the late Addresses presented to the King by an inconsiderable and foolish sort of Dissenting Preachers so I should not know how to be accountable to God my own Conscience or the World should I not in my Station as a Protestant and as a Lover of the Laws and Liberties of my Country offer something whereby both to undeceive that weak and short-sighted People whom their own being accommodated for a Season by the Declaration of Indulgence hath deluded into an Opinion that His Majesty cherisheth no thoughts of subverting our Religion and also further to enlighten and confirm others in the just Apprehensions they are possessed with of the Design carrying on in Great Britain and Ireland for the Extirpation of Protestancy and that the late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience is emitted in Subserviency thereunto and calculated by the Court toward the paving and preparing the way for the more facile Accomplishment of it And while Mercenary Sycophants by their Flatteries infect and corrupt Princes and by their representing them to the World in Colours disagreeable from their Tempers and Dispositions and in milder and fairer Characters than any thing observable in them either deserveth or correspondeth with do delude Subjects into such Opinions of them as beget a neglect of
him and that 't is no wonder he should exact an Obedience without reserve from his Subjects in Scotland seeing he himself yields an Obedience without reserve to the Jesuits 'T is known how that by the Rules of their Institution no Jesuit is capable of the Mitre and that if the Ambition of any of them should tempt him to seek or accept the Dignity of a Prelate he must for being capacitated thereunto renounce his Membership in the Order Yet so great is His Majesties Passion for the Honor and Grandeur of the Society and such is their Domination and absolute Power over him that no less will serve him neither would they allow him to insist upon less than that the Pope should dispense with Father Peters being made a Bishop without his ceasing to be a Jesuit or the being transplanted into another Order And this the old Gentleman at Rome hath been forced at last to comply with and to grant a Dispensation whereby Father Peters shall be capable of the Prelature notwithstanding his remaining in the Ignatian Order the Jesuits through their Authority over the King not suffering him to recede from his Demand and His Majesty's Zeal for the Society not permitting him to comply either with the Prayers or the Conscience and Honor of the Supreme Pontiff Not only the King's Unthankfulness unto but his illegal Proceedings against and his Arbitrary invading the Rights of those who stood by him in all his Dangers and Difficulties and who were the Instruments of preventing his Exclusion from the Crown and the chief means both of his Advancement to the Throne and his being kept in it are so many new Evidences of the ill will he bears to all Protestants and what they are to dread from him as Occasions are Administred of Injuring and Oppressing them and may serve to convince all impartial and thinking People that his Popish Malice to our Religion is too strong for all Principles of Honor and Gratitude and able to cancel the Obligations which Friendship for his Person and Service to his Interest may be supposed to have laid him under to any heretofore Had it not been for many of the Church of England who stood up with a Zeal and Vigor for preserving the Succession in the right Line beyond what Religion Conscience Reason or Interest could conduct them unto he had never been able to have out-wrestled the Endeavors of Three Parliaments for ex-excluding him from the Imperial Crown of England And had it not been for their Abetting and standing by him with their Swords in their Hands upon the Duke of Monmouth's Descent into the Kingdom Anno 1685 he could not have avoided the being driven from the Throne and the having the Scepter wrested out of his Hand Whosoever had the Advantage of knowing the Temper and Genius of the late King and how afraid he was of embarking into any thing that might import a visible Hazard to the Peace of his Government and draw after it a general Disgust of his Person will be soon satisfied that if all his Protestant Subjects had united in their Desires and concurred in their Endeavors to have had the Duke of York debarred from the Crown that his late Majesty would not have once scrupled the complying with it and that his Love to his Dear Brother would have given way to the Apprehension and Fear of forfeiting a Love for himself in the Hearts of his People especially when what was required of him was not an Invasion upon the Fundamentals of the Constitution of the English Monarchy nor dissonant from the Practice of the Nation in many repeated Instances Nor can there be a greater Evidence of the present King 's ill Nature Romish Bigottry and prodigious Ingratitude as well as of the Design he is carrying on against our Religion and Laws than his Carriage and Behavior towards the Church of England tho I cannot but acknowledge it a righteous Judgment upon them from God and a just Punishment for their being not only so unconcerned for the Preservation of our Religion and Liberties in avoiding to close with the only Methods that were adapted thereunto but for being so Passionate and Industrious to hasten the Loss of them through putting the Government into ones hands who as they might have foreseen would be sure to make a Sacrifice of them to his beloved Popery and to his inordinate Lust after despotical and Arbitrary Power And as the only Example bearing any Affinity to it is that of Louis XIV who in recompence to his Protestant Subjects for maintaining him on the Throne when the late Prince of Conde assisted by Papists would have wrested the Crown from him hath treated them with a Barbarity whereof that of Antiochus towards the Jews and that of Diocletian and Maximian towards the Primitive Christians were but scanty and imperfect Draughts so there wants nothing for compleating the Parallel between England and France but a little more time and a fortunate Opportunity and then the deluded Church-men will find that Father Peters is no less skillful at Whitehall for transforming their Acts of Loyalty and Merit towards the King into Crimes and Motives of their Ruin than Pere de la Chaise hath shewn himself at Versailles where by an Art peculiar to the Jesuits he hath improved the Loyalty and Zeal of the Reformed in France for the House of Bourbon into a reason of alienating that Monarch from them and into a ground of his destroying that dutiful and obedient People It will not be amiss to call over some of his Majesty's Proceedings towards the Church of England that from what hath been already seen and felt both they and all English Protestants may the better know what they are to expect and look for hereafter Tho it be a Method very unbecoming a Prince yet it shews a great deal of Spleen to turn the former Persecution of Dissenters so maliciously upon the Prelatical and Conforming Clergy as his Majesty doth in his Letter to Mr. Alsop in stiling them a Party of Protestants who think the only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller Matters Whereas the Severity that the Fanaticks met with had much of its Original at Court where it was formed and designed upon Motives of Popery and Arbitrariness and the Resentment and revengeful Humor of some of the old Prelates and other Church-men that had suffered in the late times was only laid hold of the better to justifie and improve it And tho it be too true that many of the dignified Rank as well as of the little Levites were both extremely fond of it and contentiously pleaded for it yet it is as true that most of them did it not upon Principles of Judgment and Conscience but upon Inducements of Retaliation for conceived Injuries and upon a belief of its being the most compendious Method to the next Preferment and Benefice and the fairest way of standing
thro a sentence inflicted upon them by no legal Court of Judicature but by 5 or 6 mercenary persons supported by a tyrannous and arbitrary Commission his Majesty in his Proclamation for Toleration in Scotland bearing date Febr. 12. doth among many other Laws cass disable and dispense with the Law enjoining the Scots Test tho it was not only enacted by himself while he represented his Brother as his high Commissioner but hath been confirmed by him in Parliament since he came to the Crown Surely it is as easie to depart from a promise made in a Declaration as 't is to absolve and discharge himself from the obligation of a Law which he first concurred to the enacting of and gave the creating Fiat unto as the late King's Commissioner and hath since ratified in Parliament after he was come to the Throne As there is no more infidelity dishonor and injustice so there is less of absolute power and illegality in doing the one than the other Nor is it possible for a rational man to place a confidence in his Majesty's Royal word for the protection of our Religion and the Ch. of England mens enjoying their possessions seeing he hath not only departed from his Promise made to the Council immediately after his Brother's death but hath violated his Faith given to the Parliament of England at their first Session which we might have thought would have been the more sacred and binding by reason of the Grandeur State and Quality of the Assembly to which it was pledged If we consider how much Protestants suffered what number of them was burnt at the Stake as well as Murdered in Goals beside the vast Multitudes who to avoid the Rage and Power of their Enemies were forced to abandon their Country and seek for shelter in foreign Parts and what Endeavors of all kinds were used for the Extirpation of our Religion under Q. Mary we may gather and learn from thence what is to be dreaded from James II. who is the next Popish Prince to her that since the Reformation hath sat on the Throne of England For though there be many things that administer grounds of Hope that the Papists will not find it so easie a matter to bring us in shoals to the stake nor of that quick and easie dispatch to suppress the Protestant Religion and set up Popery at this time as they found it then yet every thing that occurs to our Thoughts or that can affect our Understandings serves not only to perswade us into a belief that they will set upon and endeavor it but to work us up to an Assurance that his Majesty would take it for a diminution of his Glory as well as reflection upon his Zeal for the Church of Rome not to attempt what a Woman had both the Courage to undertake and the Fortune to go through with And there is withal a Concurrence of so many things both abroad and at home at this Juncture which if laid in the ballance with the Motives to our hope of the Papists miscarrying may justly raise our Fears of their prospering to a very sad and uncomfortable height Whosoever shall compare these two Princes together will find that there was less danger to be apprehended from Mary and that not only upon the score of her Sex but by reason of a certain gentleness and goodness of Nature which all Historians of Judgment and Credit ascribe unto her than is to be expected from the present King in whom a Sourness of Temper Fierceness of Disposition and Pride joined with a peevishness of humor not to bear the having his will disputed or controlled are the principal Ingredients into his Constitution and which are all strangely heightned and enflamed by contracted distempers of Body and thro' furious Principles of Mind which he hath imbib'd from the Jesuits who of all Men carry the Obligations arising from the Doctrines of the Popish Religion to the most outragious and inhuman Excesses Nor can I forbear to add that whereas the Cruelty which that Princess was hurried into even to the making her Cities common Shambles and her Streets Theatres of Murder for Innocent Persons for which she became hated while she lived and her Memory is rendred infamous to all Generations that come after was wholly and entirely owing to her Religion which not only proclaims it lawful but a necessary duty of Christianity and an Act meriting a peculiar Crown of Glory in Heaven to destroy Hereticks 't is to be feared there will be found in the present King a spice of revenge against us as we are Englishmen as well as a measure heapt up and running over of furious Papal Zeal against us as we are Protestants Beside the Wrath he bears unto us for our departure from the Communion of the Romish Church and our Rebellion against the Triple Crown the War wherein many of the Kingdom were engag'd against his Father and the issue of it in the Execution of that Monarch is what he hath been heard to say That he hopes to revenge upon the Nation And all that the City of London underwent thro' that dreadful Conflagration 1666. of which he was the great Author and Promoter as well as the Rescuer and Protector of the Varlets that were apprehended in their spreading and carrying on the fire is but earnest in respect of what is design'd farther to be paid them for the having been the great Supporters of that War both by continu'd Recruits of Men and repeated Supplies of Treasure Tho' it was Qu. Marys misfortune and proved the misery of Protestants that she was under the Influence of Popish Bishops and of Religious of several Orders by whom she was whetted on and provoked to those Barbarities wherewith her Reign is stain'd and reproach'd yet she had no Jesuits about her to whom all the other Orders are but punies in the arts of wheedling and frighting Princes forward to Cruelty The Society being then but in its Infancy and the distance between its Institution which was in 1540. and the time of her coming to the Crown which was A. 1553. not affording season enough for their spreading so far abroad as they have since done nor for the perfecting themselves to that degree in the methods of Butchery and in the Topicks whereby to delude Monarchs to serve and promote their sanguinary Passions as they have in process of time attain'd unto Nor have the Protestants now any security for their Religion whereby it or themselves may be preserv'd from the attempts of his Majesty for the Extirpation of both but what our Predecessors in the same Faith had in the like kind tho' not to the same measure and degree when Qu. Mary arrived at the Throne For tho' our Religion was of late fenced about with more Laws and we had Royal Promises oftner repeated for the having it preserv'd and our selves protected in the Profession of it yet it is certain that it had not only receiv'd a legal Establishment under K.
were prepared for in case it had succeeded and the foreign aid they had been solliciting and were promised and all for the extirpation of English Hereticks are things so modern and which we have had so many times related to us by our Fathers that it is enough barely to intimate them The Irish Massacre in which above 200000 were murder'd in cold blood and to which there was no provocation but that of hatred to our Religion and furious zeal to extirpate Hereticks ought at this time to be more particularly reflected upon as that which gives us a true scheme of the manner of the Church of Rome's converting Protestant Kingdoms and being the Copy they have a mind to write after and that in such Characters and lines of blood as may be sure to answer the Original At the season when they both entred upon and executed that hellish conjuration they were in a quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the private exercise of their Religion yea had many publick meeting-places thro the means of the Queen and many great friends which they had at Court and were neither disturbed for not coming to Church nor suffered any severities upon the account of their Profession but that would not satisfie nor will any thing else unless they may be allowed to cut the throats or make bonefires of all that will not join with them in a blind obedience to the Sea of Rome and of worshipping S. Patrick The little harsh usages which the Papists at any time met with there or in England they derived them upon themselves by their Crimes against the State and for their Conspiracies against our Princes and their Protestant Subjects For till the Pope had taken upon him to depose Queen Elizabeth and absolve her Subjects from their Allegiance and till the Papists had so far approved that Act of his Holiness as to raise Rebellions at home and enter into treasonable confederacies abroad there were no Laws that could be stiled severe enacted in England against Papists and the making of them was the result of necessity in order to preserve our selves and not from an inclination to hurt any for matters of mere Religion Such hath always been the moderation of our Rulers and so powerful are the incitements to lenity which the generality of Protestants through the influence and impression of their Religion especially they of a more generous education have been under towards those of the Roman Communion that nothing but their unwearied restlesness to disturb the Government and destroy Protestants hath been the cause either of enacting those Laws against them that are stiled rigorous or of their having been at any time put into execution And notwithstanding that some such Laws were enacted as might appear to savour of severity yet could they have but submitted to have dwelt peaceably in the Land they would have found that their mere belief and the private practice of their Worship would not have much prejudiced or endangered them and that tho the Laws had been continued unrepealed yet it was only as a Hedge about us for our protection and as Bonds of obligation upon them to their good behaviour To which may be added that more Protestants have suffered in one year by the Laws made against Dissenters and to the utmost height of the penalties which the violation of them imported and that by the instigation of Papists and their influence over the late King and his present Majesty than there have Papists from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign to this very day tho there was a difference in the punishments they underwent However we may from their many and repeated attempts against us while we had Princes that both would and could chasten their insolencies and inflict upon them what the Law made them obnoxious unto for their outrages gather and conclude what we are now to expect upon their having obtained a King imbu'd with all the persecuting and bloody principles of Popery and perfectly baptised into all the Doctrines of the Councils of Lateran and Constance And it may strengthen our faith as well as increase our fear of what is purposed against and impends over us in that they cannot but think that the suffering our Religion to remain in a condition to be at any time hereafter the Religion of the State and of the universality of the People may not only prove a means of retrieving Protestancy in France and of assisting to revenge the barbarities perpetrated there upon a great and innocent people but may leave the Roman Catholicks in England exposed to the resentment of the Kingdom for what they have so foolishly and impudently acted both against our Civil Rights and Established Religion since James II. came to the Crown and may also upon the Government 's falling into good hands and Magistrates coming to understand their true Interest which is for an English Prince to make himself the Head of the Protestant cause and to espouse their quarrel in all places give such a Revolution in Europe as will not only check the present Career of Rome but cause them repent the methods in which they have been engaged These things we may be sure the Papists are aware of and that having proceeded so far they have nothing left for their security from punishments because of crimes committed but to put us out of all capacity of doing our selves Right and them Justice and he must be dull who does not know into what that must necessarily hurry them It being then as evident as a matter of this nature is capable of what we are to expect and dread from the King both as to our Religion and Laws we may do more than presume that the late Declaration for liberty of Conscience and the Proclamation for a Toleration are not intended and designed for the benefit and advantage of the Reformed Religion and that whatsoever motives have influenced to the granting and emitting of them they do not in the least flow or proceed from any kindness and good will to Protestant Dissenters And though many of those weak and easie People may flatter themselves with a belief of an interest in the Kings favour and suffer others to delude them into a persuasion of his bearing a gracious respect towards them yet it is certain that they are People in the world whom he most hates and who when things are ripe for it and that he hath abused their credulity into a serving his Ends as far as they can be prevailed upon and as long as the present Juggle can be of any advantage for promoting the Papal Cause will be sure not only to have an equal share in his displeasure with their Brethren of the Church of England but will be made to drink deepest in the cup of fury and wrath that is mingling and preparing for all Protestants No provocation from their present behaviour tho it is such as might warm a person of very cool temper much less offences of another complexion
Proclamation dated at Windsor the 28th of June 1687 for granting further Liberty in Scotland and which was published there by an Order of the Privy Council of that Kingdom bearing date at Edinburgh the 5. of July This Superfoetation of one Proclamation after another in reference to the same thing is so apportioned and parallel to the late French method of emitting Edicts in relation to those of the Reformed Religion in that Kingdom that they seem to proceed out of one mint to be calculated for the same end and to be designed for the compassing and obtaining the like effects For assoon as an Alarm was taken at the publishing of some unreasonable and rigorous Edict there used often to follow another of a milder strain which was pretended to be either for the moderating the severities of the former or to remove and rectifie what they were pleased to call misconstructions unduly put upon it but the true end whereof was only to stifle and extinguish the Jealousies and Apprehensions that the other had begotten and excited and which had they not been calmed and allay'd might have awakened the Protestants there to provide for their safety by a timely withdrawing into other Countries if they had not been provoked to generous endeavours of preventing the final suppression of their Religion and for obviating the ruin which that Court had projected against them and was hastning to involve them under Nor does my suspicion of his Majesties pursuing the same design against Protestants which the great Louis glories to have accomplished proceed merely from that conjunction of Counsels that all the world observes between Whitehall and Versailles nor merely from the Kings abandoning his Nephew and Son-in-law the Prince of Orange and not so much as interposing to obtain satisfaction to be given him for the many Injuries Damages Spoiles and Robberies as well as Affronts done him by that haughty Monarch when one vigorous Application could not fail to effect it nor yet merely from that agreeableness in their proceedures through the King of England's imitating that Foreign Potentate and making the whole course that hath been taken in France the Pattern of all his actings in Great Britain but I am much confirmed in my fears and jealousies by remembring a passage in one of Mr. Coleman's Letters who as he very well knew what the then Duke of York had been for many years engaged in against our Religion and Civil Lberties and under what Vows and Promises he was not to desist from prosecuting what had been resolved upon and undertaken so he had the confidence to say that his Master's design and that of the King of France was one and the same and that this was no less as he farther informs us than the extirpating the Northern Heresie Had the King of England acted with sincerity from that noble Principle that Conscience ought not to be constrained nor People forced in matters of mere Religion as he would delude weak and easie People to believe and had not all his Arbitrary and illegal proceedings in granting Liberty to Dissenting Protestants been to subserve and promote other Designs which it is not yet seasonable and convenient to discover and avow he would have then acted with that conformity to the Principle he professeth to be under the Influence and Government of and with that consonancy and harmonious agreeableness in all the degrees of Indulgence vouchsafed to those of the Reformed Religion in England and Scotland that differ from them of the Established way that there would have needed no second Proclamation apporting new measures of Liberty and favour to Scots Dissenters seeing they would have had it granted them at first in the same latitude and illimitedness that it was bestowed upon the English Nonconformists But when Princes carry on and pursue mischievous designs under the palliations of Religion publick good and the Right of Mankind it comes often to pass through adapting their methods to what they mean and intend and not to what they pretend and give out that their crafty projections by being not sufficiently accommodated to their purposes prove ineffectual to the compassing what was aim'd at and this forceth them to a new Game of Falshood and Subtilety but still under the old varnish and gloss and obligeth them to have recourse to means that may be more proportioned than the former were for their reaching the End that they ubtimately drive at Thence it is that those Rulers who are engaged in the Prosecution of wicked and unjustifiable Designs are necessitated not only to apply themselves to opposite Methods towards different Parties and those such as must be suited and apportioned to their discrepant Interest without the accommodating of which they can neither hope to mould them to that tame and servile Compliance nor work them up to that active and vigorous abetting of their malicious and crafty Projections as is necessary for the rendring them Successful but they are forced to vary their Proceedings towards one and the same Party and that as well when the ways they have acted in towards them are found inadequate to the end unto which they were calculated as when the mischief hid under them comes to be too soon discovered This weak and short-sighted People fancy to arise from an uncertainty in Princes Counsels and from their being at no Consistency with themselves but they who can penetrate into Affairs and that do consider things more narrowly can easily discern that all this Variation Diversity and shifting of Methods in Rulers Actings proceed from other Causes and that it is their Stability and Perseverance in an illegal and wicked Design that compels them to those crooked and contrary Courses either for the gaining the unwary and ill-applied Concurrence of their Subject to the hastning Distress and Desolation upon themselves or for the throwing them into that Lethargy and under that Supineness as may hinder them from all Endeavors of obstructing and diverting the Evils that their Governours are seeking to bring upon them Nor is there a more certain Indication of a Princes being engaged in a Design contrary to the good and happiness of the Society over which he is set than his betaking himself to illegal ways upon pretence of promoting the ease and benefit of his People or according as he finds his Subjects to differ in their particular Interests his applying himself to them in Methods whereof the contrariety of the one to the other renders them the more proper and adapted to ensnare the divided Factions through accosting each of them with something that they are severally fond of Legal means are always sufficient to the pursuing and compassing legal Ends and whatsoever is for the general good of the Community may either be obtained by Courses wherein the Generality find their united Interest and common Felicity or else by Application to a Parliament freely and duly chosen which as it represents the whole Politick Society so there may be expected most Compassion and
heal all Breaches This Proposal seemed to dissatisfie the whole Meeting and the Duke of Hamilton their President Father to the Earl but they presently parted Wednesday the Ninth of January they met at three of the Clock in the same Room and Sir Patrick Hume took notice of the Proposal made by the Earl of Arran and desired to know if there was any there that would second it But none appearing to do it he said That what the Earl had proposed was evidently opposite and inimicous to his Highness the Prince of Orange's Undertaking his Declaration and the good Intentions of preserving the Protestant Religion and of Restoring their Laws and Liberties exprest in it and further desired that the Meeting should declare this to be their Opinion of it The Lord Cardross seconded Sir Patrick's Motion It was answered by the Duke of Hamilton President of the Meeting That their Business was to prepare an Advice to be offered to the Prince and the Advice being now ready to go to the Vote there was no need that the Meeting should give their Sense of the Earl's Proposal which neither before nor after Sir Patrick's Motion any had pretended to own or second so that it was fallen and out of doors and that the Vote of the Meeting upon the Advice brought in by their Order would sufficiently declare their Opinion This being seconded by the Earl of Sutherland the Lord Cardross and Sir Patrick did acquiesce in it and the Meeting Voted unanimously the Advice following To His Highness the Prince of Orange WE the Lords and Gentlemen of the Kingdom of Scotland Assembled at your Highness's desire in this Extraordinary Conjunction do give your Highness our Humble and Hearty Thanks for your Pious and Generous Undertaking for Preserving of the Protestant Religion and Restoring the Laws and Liberties of these Kingdoms In order to the Attaining these Ends our humble Advice and Desire is That your Highness take upon You the Administration of all Affairs both Civil and Military the Disposal of the Publick Revenues and Fortresses of the Kingdom of Scotland and the doing every Thing that is necessary for the Preservation of the Peace of the Kingdom until a general Meeting of the States of the Nation which we humbly desire your Highness to Call to be holden at Edinburgh the Fourteenth day of March next by your Letters or Proclamation to be published at the Market-Cross of Edingburgh and other Head-Boroughs of the several Shires and Stewartries as sufficient Intimation to All concerned and according to the Custom of the Kingdom And that the Publication of these your Letters or Proclamation be by the Sheriffs or Stewart Clerks for the Free-holders who have the value of Lands holden according to Law for making Elections and by the Town-Clerks of the several Burroughs for the meeting of the whole Burgesses of the respective Royal Burroughs to make their Elections at least Fifteen Days before the Meeting of the Estates at Edingburgh and the Respective Clerks to make Intimation thereof at least Ten Days before the Meetings for Elections And that the whole Electors and Members of the said Meeting at Edingburgh qualified as above Exprest be Protestants without any other Exception or Limitation whatsoever to Deliberate and Resolve what is to be done for securing the Protestant Religion and Restoring the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom according to your Highness's Declaration Dated at the Council-Chamber in White hall the Tenth Day of January 1689. This Address being Subscribed by Thirty Lords and about Eighty Gentlemen was presented in their presence at St. James's by the Duke of Hamilton their President to his Highness the Prince of Orange who thanked them for the Trust they reposed in him and desired time to consider upon so weighty an Affair Upon the Fourteenth of January his Highness the Prince of Orange met again with the Scots Lords and Gentlemen at St. James's And spoke to them as follows My Lords and Gentlemen IN persuance of your Advice I will until the Meeting of the States in March next give such Orders concerning the Affairs of Scotland as are necessary for the Calling of the said Meeting for the preserving of the peace the applying of the publick Revenue to the most pressing Vses and putting the Fortresses in the Hands of persons in whom the Nation can have a just Confidence And I do further assure you That you will always find me ready to concur with you in every Thing that may be found necessary for Securing the Protestant Religion and Restoring the Laws and Liberties of the Nation The Earl of Crawfourd desired of his Highness That himself the Earl of Louthian and others come to Town since the Address was presented might have an opportunity to Subscribe it which was accordingly done His Highness Retired and all shewed great Satisfaction with his Answer The Emperor of Germany 's Account of K. James 's Misgovernment in joyning with the King of France the Common Enemy of Christendom in his Letter to King James viz. LEOPOLD c. WE have received your Majesties Letters dated from St. Germans the sixth of February last by the Earl of Carlingford your Envoy in our Court By them we have understood the Condition your Majesty is reduced to and that you being deserted after the Landing of the Prince of Orange by your Army and even by your Domestick Servants and by those you most consided in and almost by all your Subjects you have been forced by a sudden Flight to provide for your own Safety and to seek Shelter and Protection in France Lastly that you desire Assistance from us for the recovering your Kingdoms We do assure your Majesty that as soon as we heard of this severe turn of Affairs we were moved at it not only with the common sense of Humanity but with much deeper Impressions suitable to the sincere Affection which we have always born to you And we were heartily sorry that at last that was come to pass which tho we hoped for better things yet our own sad thoughts had suggested to us would ensue If your Majesty had rather given Credit to the Friendly Remonstrances that were made you by our late Envoy the Count de Kaunitz in our Name than the deceitful Insinuations of the French whose chief aim was by fomenting continual Divisions between you and your People to gain thereby an Opportunity to insult the more securely over the rest of Christendom And if your Majesty had put a stop by your Force and Authority to their many Infractions of the Peace of which by the Treaty at Nimegen you are made the Guarantee and to that end entred into Consultations with us and such others as have the like just Sentiments in this matter We are verily persuaded that by this means you should have in a great measure quieted the Minds of your People which were so much exasperated through their aversion to our Religion and the publick Peace had been preserved as well
and of which you have seen so fresh an instance that we need not put you in mind of it You know how many of your Fellow-Officers have been used for their standing firm to the Protestant Religion and to the Laws of England and you cannot flatter your selves so far as to expect to be better used if those who have broke their word so often should by your means be brought out of those Straits to which they are reduced at present We hope likewise that you will not suffer your selves to be abused by a false Notion of Honour but that you will in the first place consider what you owe to Almighty God and your Religion to your Country to your Selves and to your Posterity which you as Men of Honour ought to prefer to all private Considerations and Engagements whatsoever We do therefore expect that you will consider the Honour that is now set before you of being the Instruments of serving your Country and securing your Religion and We will ever remember the Service you shall do Us upon this Occasion and will promise unto you that We shall place such particular Marks of our Favour on every one of you as your Behaviour at this time shall deserve of Us and the Nation in which we will make a great Distinction of those that shall come seasonably to join their Arms with ours and you shall find us to be Your Well-wishing and Assured Friend W. H. P. O. Prince George 's Letter to the King SIR WITH a Heart full of Grief am I forced to Write what Prudence will not permit me to say to your Face And may I e'er find Credit with your Majesty and protection from Heaven as what I now do is free from Passion Vanity or Design with which Actions of this Nature are too often accompanied I am not ignorant of the frequent Mischiefs wrought in the World by factious pretences of Religion but were not Religion the most justifiable Cause it would not be made the most specious pretence And your Majesty has always shewn too uninterested a Sense of Religion to doubt the just Effects of it in one whose Practices have I hope never given the World cause to censure his real conviction of it or his backwardness to perform what his Honour and Conscience prompt him to How then can I longer disguise my just Concern for that Religion in which I have been so happily Educated which my Judgment throughly convinces me to be best and for the Support of which I am so highly interested in my Native Country And is not England now by the most endearing Tie become so Whilst the restless Spirits of the Enemies of the REFORMED RELIGION back'd by the cruel Zeal and prevailing Power of France justly alarm and unite all the Protestant Princes of Christendom and engage them in so vast an Expence for the support of it can I act so degenerous and mean a part as to deny my Concurrence to such worthy Endeavours for disabusing of your Majesty by the Reinforcement of those Laws and Establishment of that Government on which alone depends the well-being of your Majesty and of the PROTESTANT RELIGION in Europe This Sir is that irresistible and only Cause that cou'd come in Competition with my Duty and Obligations to your Majesty and be able to tear me from You whilst the same Affectionate Desire of serving You continues in me Could I secure your Person by the Hazard of my Life I should think it could not be better Employed And wou'd to God these Your distracted Kingdoms might yet receive that satisfactory Compliance from your Majesty in all their justifiable pretensions as might upon the only sure Foundation that of the Love and Interest of your Subjects establish your Government and as strongly Unite the Hearts of all your Subjects to You as is that of SIR Your Majesty's most Humble and most Obedient Son and Servant The Lord Churchill 's Letter to the King SIR SInce Men are seldom suspected of Sincerity when they act contrary to their Interests and though my dutiful Behaviour to your Majesty in the worst of Times for which I acknowledge my poor Services much over paid may not be sufficient to incline You to a charitable Interpretation of my Actions yet I hope the great Advantage I enjoy under Your Majesty which I can never expect in any other change of Government may reasonably convince Your Majesty and the World that I am acted by a higher Principle when I offer that violence to my inclination and interest as to desert Your Majesty at a time when your Affairs seem to challenge the strictest Obedience from all your Subjects much more from one who lies under the greatest personal Obligations imaginable to Your Majesty This Sir could proceed from nothing but the inviolable Dictates of my CONSCIENCE and a necessary concern for my RELIGION which no good man can oppose and with which I am instructed nothing ought to come in Competition Heaven knows with what partiality my dutiful Opinion of Your Majesty hath hitherto represented those unhappy Designs which inconsiderate and self-interested men have framed against Your Majesty's true Interest and the Protestant Religion But as I can no longer joyn with such to give a pretence by Conquest to bring them to effect so will I always with the hazard of my Life and Fortune so much your Majesty's due endeavour to preserve Your Royal Person and Lawful Rights with all the tender Concern and dutiful Respect that becomes SIR Your Majesty's most Dutiful and most Obliged Subject and Servant The Princess Ann of Denmark 's Letter to the Queen Madam I Beg your pardon if I am so deeply affected with the surprising News of the Princes being gon as not to be able to see You but to leave this Paper to Express my humble Duty to the King and your Self and to let You know that I am 〈◊〉 to absent my self to avoid the King's Displeasure which I am not able to bear â—ur ther against the Prince or my Self And I shall stay at so great a distance as not to return before I hear the happy News of a Reconcilement And as I am confident the Prince did not leave the King with any other design than to use all possible means for His Preservation so I hope You will do me the Justice to believe that I am uncapable of following Him for any other End Never was any one in such an unhappy Condition so divided between Duty and Affection to a Father and a Husband and therefore I know not what to do but to follow one to preserve the other I see the general falling off of the Nobility and Gentry who avow to have no other end than to prevail with the King to secure their Religion which they saw so much in danger by the Violent Counsels of the Priests who to promote their own Religion did not care to what dangers they exposed the King I am fully perswaded that the Prince of