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 an desended the Doctrine of the Reformation should either tamely relinquish or be wanting in all due and legal ways to uphold and maintain it And tho one or two Fanaticks have with sufficient strength and applause brandished their pens against Arbitrariness and in detecting the Designs of the Royal Brothers yet they who have generally and with greatest honor 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 united 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 Libertles 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 jealousie 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 tho actually Regnant having seen and felt what before they only apprehended and feared For if the Law that entalleth 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 through 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 Stature 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 not we owe our Conversion to God and our practical holiness to the Opinions about Discipline Forms of Worship and Ceremonies wherein we differ but to the Doctrines of Faith and Christian Obedience wherein we agree 'T is not their being for a Liturgy a Surprize 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 discovered 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 Virtue 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 many of her Ecclesiasticls 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 Englishmen 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 equaâ—ly under with Dissenters for hindering the introduction of Popery there are several inducements from Interest which sway them to prevent its establishment wherein the Fanaticks are but little concerned For tho Popery would be alike afflictive to the Consciences of Protestants of all Perswasions yet they are Gentlemen and Ministers of the Church of England whose Livings Revenues and Estates are threatened in eâ—se it come to be established Nor wou'd the most Loyal and Obsequious Levites provided they resolve to continue Protestants be willing that their Parsonages and Incumbencies to which they 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 Dispotical Power and of unlimited Prerogative And for the Gentlemen as I think sew of them would hold themselves obliged to part with their Purses to High-way Padders tâ—ough such should have a Patent from the King to rob whomsoever they encountred upon the Read so there will not be many inclined to suffer their Mannors and Abbey-Lands to which they have so good a Title to be ravished from them either by Monks or Janizaries tho authorized thereunto by the Prince's Commission Even they who had formerly suffered themselves to be seduced to prove in a manner Betrayers of the Rights and Religion of their Country will now being undeceived not only in conjunction with others withstand the Court in its prosecution of Popish and Arbitrary Designs but through a generous exasperation for having been deluded and abused will judg themselves obliged in vindication of their actings before to appear for the Protestant Religion and the Laws of England with a Zeal equal to that wherewith they contributed to the undermining and supplanting of them For they are not only become more sensible than they were of the Mischiefs of Absolute Government so as for the future to prize and assert the Priviledges reserved unto the People by the Rules of the Constitution and chalkt out for them in the Laws of the Land but they have such a fresh view of Popery both in its Heresies Blasphemies Superstitions and Idolatries and in the Treachery Sanguinariness Violence and Cruelty which the Papal Principles mould
glory through an enlargement of the Terms of her Communion and what would have been to the praise of her Moderation and Charity through her being perswaded to bear with such as differed from her in little things and could not prevail with themselves to partake with her in all Ordinances Upon the whole it is both the prudence and safety of Dissenters as they would escape Extirpation themselves and have Religion conveyed down to Posterity to unite their strength and endeavours to those of the Church of England for the upholding her against the Assaults of Popish Enemies who pursue her Subversion As matters are now circumstanced and stated in England there is not an Affront or Injury offered or done unto her by the Court which do not at the same time reach and wound the Fanaticks 'T is not her being for Episcopacy Cerimonies and imposed set Forms of Worship the things about which she and the Nonconformists differ that she is maligned and struck at by the Man in power and his Popish Juncto but it is for being Protestant Reformed and Orthodox Crimes under the guilt whereof Dissenters are equally concerned and involved Being therefore in opposition to the common Cause of Religion that the late Court of Inquisition is erected over her Ecclesiasticks all Protestants ought jointly to resent the Wrongs which she sustains and not only to sympathise with those Dignified and lower Clergy which are called to suffer but to espouse their Quarrel with the same warmth that we would our own And as we are to look upon those of the Episcopal Communion to be the great Bulwark of the Protestant Religion and Reformed Interest in England so it is farther incumbent upon Dissenters towards them and a duty which they owe to God the Nation and themselves not to be accessary to any thing through which the legal Establishment of the Church of England may by any Act of pretended Regal Prerogative be weakned and supplanted I am not counselling the Fanaticks to renounce their Principles nor to participate with the Prelatical Church in all Ordinances on the Terms to which they have straitned and narrowed their Communion For while they remain unsatisfied of the lawfulness of those Terms and Conditions they cannot do it without offending God and contracting guilt upon their Souls nor will they of the Church of England in Charity Justice and Honesty expect it from them for whatsoever any man believeth to be in it is so to him and will by God be impured as such till he be otherwise englightned and convinced nor are the Fanaticks to be falie and cruel to themselves in order to be kind and friendly to them But that which I would advice them unto is that after the maintaining the highest measure of love to the consormable Congregations as Churches of Christ and the esteeming their Members as Christian Protestant Brethren notwithstanding the several things wherein they judge them to err and to be mistaken that they would not by any Act and Transaction of theirs betray them into the Despotical Power of this Popish King nor directly nor indirectly acknowledge his being vested with an Authority paramount unto and superceding the Laws by which the Church of England is established in its present form order and mode of Jurisdiction Discipline and external Worship Whatsoever ease arriveth to the Dissenters through the King 's suspending the execution of the Penal Laws without their Address and Application they may receive it with joy and humility in themselves and with thankfulness to God nor is there hereby any prejudice offered on their part to the Authority of the Law or offence or injury given or done to the Conformable Clergy Nor is without grief and regret that the Church-men are forced to behold the harassing spoiling and imprisonment of the Nonconformists while in the mean time the Papists are suffered to assemble to the celebration of their Idolatrous Worship without censure and controul And were it in their power to remedy it and give relief to their Protestant Brethren they would with delight and readiness embrace the occasion and opportunity of doing it But alas instead of having an advantage put into their hand of contributing to the relief of the Fanaticks which I dare say many of them ardently wish and desire they are compelled contrary to their Inclination as well as their Interest to become instrumental in persecuting and oppressing them Nor does the King covet a better and a more legal Advantage against the Conformists than that they would refuse to pursue Dissenters and decline molesting them with Ecclesiastical Censures and Civil Punishments so that their Condition is to be pitied and bewailed in that they are hindred from Acting against the Papists though both enjoined by Law and influenced thereunto by motives of Self-preservation as well as by ties of Conscience while in the mean time they are forced to prosecute their Fellow Protestants or else to be suspended and deposed and put out of their Offices and Employs And though I do believe that they would at last have more Peace in themselves and be better accepted with God in the great day of their account should they refuse to disturb and prosecute their Protestant Brethren and scorn to be any longer Court Tools for weakning and undermining the Reformed Cause and Interest yet I shall leave them to act in this as they shall be persuaded in themselves and as they shall judge most agreeable to Principles of Wisdom and Conscience In the interim the Fanaticks have all the reason in the World to believe that the Proceedings of the Clergy and Members of the Church of England at this season and juncture against them are not the Results of their Election and Choice but the effects of moral compulsion and necessity Not will any Dissenter that is prudent and discreet blame them for a matter which they cannot help but bear his misfortune and lot with patience in himself and with compassion and charity towards them and have his Indignation raised only against the Court which forceth them to be instrumental in their oppression and trouble And instead of being thereby provoked to petition the King to suspend the execution of the Penal Laws or that he would by an Act of his Prerogative dispense with their Meetings for religious Worship in defiance of them they ought to consider that is what the Court aims at by commanding their conformable Brethren to molest and pursue them For a power paramount and transcendent to the Law is what the King is usurping and which he would fain work his Subjects one way or another to acknowledge The Fanaticks cannot be so far void of sense as to think that the person now in the Throne bears them any good will but his drift is to screw himself into a Supremacy and Absoluteness over the Law and to get such an Authority confessed to be vested in him as when he pleaseth he may subvert the established Religion and set up
Popery for by the same power that he can dispense with the Penal Statutes against the Nonconformists he may also dispense with those against the Roman Catholicks and whosoever owneth that he hath a Right to do the first doth in effect own that he hath a Right to do the last for if he be allowed a Power for the superceding some Laws made in reference to matters of Religion he may challenge the like Power for the superceding others of the same kind and then by the same Authority that he can suspend the Laws against Popery he may also suspend those for Protestancy and by the same Power that he can in defiance of Law indulge the Papists the exercise of their Religion in Houses he may establish them in the publick celebration of their Idolatry in Churches and Cathedrals Yea whereas the Laws that relate to Religion are enacted by no less Authority than those that are made for the preservation of our Civil Rights should the King be admitted to have an Arbitrary Power over the one it is very like that by the Logick of Whitehall he will challenge the same absoluteness over the other Nor do I doubt but that the eleven Iudges who have gratified him with a Despoticalness over the former will when required grant him the same over the latter I know the Dissenters are under no small Temptations both by reason of being hindred from enjoying the Ordinances of the Gospel and because of many grievous Calamities which they daily suffer for their Nonconformity of making Applications to the King for some relief by his suspending the execution of the Laws but they must give me leave to add that they ought not for the obtaining of a little ease to betray the Kingdom and sacrifice the legal Constitution of the Government to the Lust and Pleasure of a Popish Prince whom nothing less will serve than being Absolute and Despotical And were he once in the quiet Possession of an Authority to dispense with the Penal Laws the Fanaticks would not long enjoy the benefit of it Nor can they deny him a Power of reviving the execution of the Law which is part of the Trust deposited with him as supreme Magistrate who have granted him a Power of suspending the Laws which the Rules of the Government preclude him from And as he may whensoever he pleaseth cause the Laws to which they are obnoxious to be executed upon them so by virtue of having an Authority acknowledged in him of superceding the Laws he may deprive them of the Liberty of meeting together to the number of Five a Grace which the Parliament thought fit to allow them under all the other Severities to which they were subjected Nor needs there any further evidence that the Prince's challenging such a Power is an Usurpation and that the Subjects making any Application by which it seems allowed to him is a betraying of the ancient Legal Government of the Kingdom than to consider that the most obsequious and servile Parliament to the Court that ever England knew not only denied this Prerogative to the late King but made him renounce it by revoking his Declaration of Indulgence which he had emitted Anno 1672. And as it will be to the perpetual Honor of the Dissenters to have chosen rather to suffer the Severities which the Laws make them liable unto than by any Act and Transaction of theirs to undermine and weaken either the Church or the State so it will be a means both of endearing them to future Parliaments and of bringing them and the Conformists into an union of Counsels and endeavours against Popery and Tyranny which is at this season a thing so indispensably necessary for their common preservation especially when though a new and more threatning Alliance and Confederacy with France than that in 72 the King hath not only engaged to act by and observe the same measures towards Protestants in England which that Monarch hath vouchsafed the World a Pattern and Copy of in his carriage towards those of the Reformed Religion in France but hath promised to disturb the Peace and Repose of his Neighbors and to commence a War in conjunction with that Prince against Foreign Protestants For as the Kings giving Liberty and Protection to the Algerines to frequent his Havens and sell the Prizes which they take from the Dutch is both a most infamous Action for a Prince pretending to be a Christian and a direct violation of his Alliance with the States General so nothing can be more evident than that he thereby seeks to render them the weaker for him to assault and that he is resolved if some unforeseen and extraordinary Providence doth not interpose and prevent to declare War against them the next Summer in order whereunto great Remises of Mony are already ordered him from the French Court. So that the Indulgence which he pretends to be inclinable to afford the Dissenters is not an effect of kindness and good Will but an Artifice whereby to oblige their Assistance in destroying those abroad of the same Religion with themselves Which if he can compass it is easie to foresee what Fate both the Fanaticks and they of the Communion of the Church of England are to expect Who as they will not then know whither to retreat for shelter so they will be destitute of Comfort in themselves and deprived of Pity from others not only for having through their Divisions made themselves a Prey to the Papists at home but for having been accessary to the ruine of a Reformed State abroad and which was the Asilum and Sanctuary of all those that were elsewhere oppressed and persecuted for Religion FINIS
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 as Established by Law are by this time both undeceived and filled with resentments for his having abused their credulity deceived their exspectations and reproached all their gloryings and boastings of him For as it would be now the greatest affront they could 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 a 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 Dâ—â—by a Dr. of Divinity then attending upon the Royal Brothers wherein the Apostacy of the then Duke of York to the Sea of Rome is particularly related and an account given how much the Duchess of Tremoville who without being her self observed had heard the Queen Mother glorying of it bewailed it as a dishonor to the Royal Family and as that which might prove of pernicious consequence to the Protestant Interest But tho the old Queen privately rejoiced 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 Britain to have it at that season communicated and divulged Thereupon it remained a Secret for many years and by vertue of a Dispensation he sometimes joyned in all Ordinances with those of the Protestant Communion But for allthe art hypocrisie 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 tho thereupon he was forced both to resign his Office of Lord High Admiral and to stand excluded from the House of Lords nor his declining the Oath which the Laws of Scotland for the securing a Protestant Governor 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 Sea of Rome and thereby become dangerous to the established Religion could make impression upon a willfully deluded and obstinate sort of Protestants but in defiance of all means of Conviction they would persuade 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 Brothers 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 our Laws Yea so closely had some sealed up their Eyes against all Beams of Light and hardened 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 State 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 Grandeur and Rights And tho his whole life had been but one continued Conspiracy against our Civil Liberties and Privileges 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 succesful to the compassing of their designs than in their dividing Protestants and alienating their Affections and imbittering 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 to the Church of Rome or upon rendring the Monarchy unlimited and iudependent on the Law would have been thought to have laid a snare for exposing the Papists to greater severities than they were obnoxious unto before and to have projected the robbing the Crown of the Prerogatives which belong unto it by the Rules of the Constitution and to which it was so lately restored And the despair of succeeding would have rendred the Royal Brothers deaf to all importunities from Romish Emissaries and Court Minions Neither the promises and Oaths which they had made and taken beyond Sea to introduce Popery nor their ambition to advance themselves beyond the restraint of Laws and the Controll of Parliaments would have prevailed upon them to have encountred the hazards and difficulties which in case of the Union of English Protestants must have attended and ensued upon attempts and endeavours of the one kind and of the other Or should their beloved Popery and their own be biggottedness in the Romish Superstition have so far transported them beyond the bounds of wisdom and discretion as to have appeared possessed with an intention of Subverting the Protestant Religion and of enslaving the Nation to the Superstition and Idolatry of Rome they would have been made soon to understand That the Laws which make it Treason to own the jurisdiction of the Pope or to