did not we tell you it would be as you see it is The Authors Observation THe Observation upon all this is not hard to make tho it be very trist to do it viz. that a Protestant Party in the very exercise of Reformation through their Fears of Popery should give such occasion to Papists to Expose them and Triumph over them and their Religion all the World over by falling into the very Errors they charge upon the Papists as that Intollerable part of their Religion and Pollicy that they pretend to have done all This to be safe from and think it a sufficient excuse and defence for the Irregular and violent Methods they have taken for their security that it was to avoid such pernicious Principles as yet they are unhappily fallen themselves into certainly it is one of the greatest of Judgments that can come upon mankind For example We say they are for Deposing of Kings and therefore not to be endured by Kings however never to be trusted by them and we do the same thing our selves We say they hold that Popes can Absolve Subjests of their Allegiance to Excommunicated or Heretical Kings in abhorrance of which doctrine the Oath of Allegience and Supremacy were made at least the latter in the time of King James the first by the Stile of damnable Positions and yet we do worss for instead of waiting the Popes Excommunication and Absolution without any civil Process or legal Censure against our own King we undertake to Absolve our selves of our Allegience to him which indeed is a much shorter and easier way of being rid of Kings when ever it comes in our heads not to like them So that the question between us and the Papists upon the present Fact is not whether it be lawful to Depose Kings and Absolve Subjects of their Allegiance but whether the Pope or we are to do it We challenge them with daring to do any thing that advances the Interest of mother Church while we show our selves as bold to break all order and obligation for the preservation of the Protestant Religion We lay to the Jesuites charge and morals the doing of certain ills to prevent suspected ones and what have not we actually done to secure our selves against our own Fears and Jealousies of what would become of us if King James had continued to reign over us We think them not fit to be trusted if yet fit to live in Society because we say they hold that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks and yet at the same time we have broke ours after the worst manner with our own King upon that very Principle We charge them with the Absurdity of Transubstantiation in Religion and practise it our selves in an higher nature in Government where Misteries are less allowable for with an HOC EST PARLIAMENTUM The Convention is a Parliament and the conversion is at least as soon as it is at hoc est corpus meum in their Sacrament and as truly too but with this difference that in our Conversion the thing changes it self but in theirs it cannot be done without the help of a Priest which makes ours the greater Mystery of the two Let us remember who it was called theirs an Hocus pocus I would not be so prophain with our Politicks In short we accuse them of putting the King upon the Dispensing Power and we dispense with Oathes here and all the Laws in Scotland against Dissenters from the Church in a late Declaration that are as severe as ours and as indispensible We say they would have taken away the Test or had a Parliament without taking it and we have taken away the King and made an Other without taking it our selves We feared they would by such a Parliament Repeal our Habeas Corpus Act and get Martial Law established upon English Men and alas we have prevented them for we have Suspended the one and Voted the other already After this what can we say for our selves O but it is a Parliament has done it and that a Protestant Parliament too but that makes it the worse that a Parliament and a Protestant Parliament too should do that which a Popish King was put by his Right for fear he should do That such things are done does our business with reproach and makes dangerous Presidents for ill-times to come Holes once made in Government seldom grow less They that follow will-make them wider Parliaments are but the Atturneys of the People their members are called so and no Man imploys his Atturny to give away his natural and essential Priviledges such these are thought to be by knowing Men with which they have been so free Nor can we tell where they will stop for if the circumstances of their present King grow more and more desperate they that have dipt so deep with him and for him will stick at nothing for their own sakes They give largely and may well do so for they give to themselves Since it is to save themselves from the condition of answering for what they have done Upon this foot they stand and they would have the disposal of all our Estates to suport it and who can blame them for it or will excuse us if we shall pay it They to be safe as well as powerful must do any thing that he would have them the most miserable state doubtless any poor Countrey can be reduced to when a number of Men that have the credit of a Representative are through fear or advantage obliged at any rate to uphold the personal and indirect Interest of the Possessor of that Crown We complained that Father Peters was against Law taken into the Council tho doing it could only hurt the Papists and we can admit Mounsieur Benting into it that is a Forraigner and Vnnaturalized and such a Superiour Favorite that the Other could not more disturb the Clergy then this Gentleman has the misfortune by a Behaviour that looks like Insolent to disgust the English Nobility and Gentry His bespeaking Qualities I am a Stranger to I hear he does as he is bid as other Favorites use to do but Englishmen naturally don 't love Gavestons But we were very angry with Will Chifinch's Cabinet as believing it had the direction of all our Affairs tho recommended under the Authority of more visible and allowed Councils but we can securely suffer the Dutch Cabinet consisting of Mons Benting and the Five Commissioners from Holland that are the present Court Springs that move all our Councils both in and out of Parliament who alas have only the honour of putting off their Ware and do in effect but stand Gossips to their measures It is indeed pretended they are come upon an Errand of Congratulation of the happy success of the Prince and Princess against their Father which is the second exploit and pledg of their morality of late in that kind but in reality they are shut in upon the Secret and thither it is this King so often DIVES out of sight of the English Nobility and Gentry that he makes to wait his return without as humbly as the Footmen can do at White-Hall the rising of the Council Nor is it to be thought but Dutch Men must be Dutch Men in business They are made with a contrary Byass to England and always move with advantage to Holland that has quite an other Interest then ours for both seek the same thing for differing ends That Countrey whatever we are miserably couzoned to believe is more our Riâ—al then France it self who can have no end upon us but not to help her Enemies whereas Holland has a direct natural and essential reason of State to lessen us and this Interest that will not lie will quickly teach us notwithstanding the pretty notions of Vnion that at present govern us When I see either Countrey leave off Trade or love Religion more then Trade I will believe the Vnion possible till then we that see Towns and Provinces under the same Government pinching and envying one another must have more Speculation then Judgment to think that Holland and England can meet in an Interest and consequently that a Dutch Cabinet will never govern us to our advantage But by all these Steps we are to learn this that the Publick is still to be submitted to private Ends by which means the People are put off from their common Interest and our natural Antidote is turned into a National Poyson A condition our Sins have brought us into and God alone upon the deepest and sincerest Repentance can deliver us from And I beseech him upon my bended Knees to give us the one and save us O Lord save us from the other for Jesus Christ's sake thy Son and our blessed Saviour Amen FINES
Law be made how a King can be chosen is a question hard to be answered XVIII That They did not proceed to Act as a Convention still but hastily Metamorphized themselves into a Parliament since if publick necessity justifies the greater the lesser matters cannot be Criminal If they may put out one King and put in an other they may doubtless give Money to support him as a Convention So that there could be no reason to make that change in point of necessity because necessity gives Sanction to all they do as a Convention and that a Parliament so made cannot rise higher then a Convention Some therefore look upon it as the effect of fear in the present predominant Party that they dare not trust the People already with an other Choice after making them hope they should have a Parliament in April which is a weakness that should not have been shown and a Dipposaintment that ought not to have been given to so many Countrey Gentlemen that had reserved themselvâ—s for a Parliament Moreover it is hotly argued by divers persons that a Convention is an exterordinary thing but a Parliament a legal and customary Thing The one an effect of necessity and makes bold with Forms for Essential safety the Other a regular part of the Constitution but that a Convention has no more power to make it self a Parliament then the King has to make himself a Cons table or the Spanish Fryer had to turn a couple of Capons into a couple of Charps that he might not break Lent at an English mans Table Others think this such a strain and violence upon the Constitution that the Laws made by it will hardly be obeyed especially about Money They say the Parliament or Legislative Capacity is as much invaded as the Throne and that it looks like a Confederacy of the present Possessors of both upon the Nation to keep out with the King the Gentlemen of it from their Priviledge and Birth-right least on a new Choice They should take new measures and change the present Politicks XIX That They should begin their Session with giving this new King an Arbitrary Power of Imprisoning of the Subjects persons against the Reason of the Law of Habeas Corpus which evidently was That no pretence of State Emergency should make that inrode upon the fundamental right of the Subject in that it was not a benefit granted by Law but by Law only Declared and Confirmed against the Encroachments of ill times upon the Original Contract But this Law plainly admits that that Law for Habeas Corpus may be against the safety of the Government which is granting the Point to those that oppose the passing of it and to such as have wisht it Repealed upon the same pretence That which follows upon this must be that either a Parliament be always sitting or the Prince have power in Intervals or that the Government be exposed if such a breach as is hereby made be allowed to be at any time necessary But that which agrivates the attempt our Fears made it one of the greatest of the Crimes that the King was to have been guilty of that he would for the same reason endeavour to shake such a Priviledge and Jewel of the People XX. That in reviving the Revenue that dropt with the Abdication of the King they did not Apropriate what they continued as well as let fall the Chimny-Money and additional Customs on Sugar and Tobacco since there cannot be a better security to the Peoples Freedoms then assigning the uses to which they give their Money and making it very penal to misapply it XXI That They committed Sr James Smith for Bailing the Popish Lawyer that was not committed by Parliament nor for Treason nor upon any Suggestion or Charge upon Oath which in the opinion of some able Lawyers is expresly against the Right of the Subject and Law of the Land Even a just Punishment may be unjustly executed XXII That They should have no more Regard to the Princes Publick Faith in his Declaration of Indulging Papists themselves that will live quietly than to make a Law to Banish them out of Town which is the way to provoke Mischief if they are capable of doing any and to be sure the Severest of all Injuries in that it deprives so many Hundred People of the lower sort of the means of getting Bread for their poor Families and which makes the whole Undertaking a Jest we are all at the same time to be Guarded by Papists of almost all other Nations XXIII That they should force him to take a Coronation Oath against his Declaration to the Kingdom for if by this Oath he is not obliged to Persecute Dissenters which I much question it is certain they are left out of his Oath for he Swears only to the Church and by the late Principles of government there is no Tye where there is no Contract XXIV Lastly That such Men are Chiefly in the present Ministry that have been the Tools of the Monarchy in the worst of Times and Practices which as the ingenious Author of the Equivolent says must disrelish the best of things that are done Liquor naturally tasts of an impure Cask and that Water cannot be clear that comes through a foul Chanel It is boldly affirmed by divers Persons that some of them were in the Black-Heath Project and promoted a French League soon after Corrupted Parliaments and Desolved such as would not be Corrupted as the two last at Westminister and that at Oxford That They turned the Scale against the Protestant Interest in the time of the Popish Plot and prevented the Exclusion which they seem now so Fond of in an after Game That they Violated Elections and Invented the Dissolution of Charters and that it was this conduct that adjourned the Deliverance of the Nation and laid the Foundation of the Protestant Plot that succeeded presently upon it which cost the pious Lord Russel the brave Sidney and the rest their Lives and the Nation all the Confusion and Misery that followed it They further say that Pol. was a employed in the Bloody Expedition in the West That Tre. Sentenced the aforesaid noble Lord against his Conscience to Death That Pow. gave his opinion for the dispensing Power fineing that Gallant Peer my Lord Devonshire That Hol. and Lev. were always high Tory Lawyers and Kings Council against those that Suffered upon the Protestant Plot and the first of them always Council to the absent King And after so large a Profession of having only to do with clean Men to take as foul as they have left stumbles those that were very zealous for the present work who begin already to say It is all a personal business and the time of our Deliverance is not yet come And for the Sons of the Church that are truly so they see their error and will touch no more while Others that foresaw all this Laugh in their Sleeves and cry did not we tell you so
opinion for Abdication upon a constrained absence of the King and after that for his Deposition and the Electiveness of the Crown that They all know and ever have asserted for Law cannot be legally done by the Government of England which Contradiction over-throws all the Proceedings of their Learned Predecessors and sets the Law with its heels upwards VIII That the Prince should send his Secretary to the Judges upon the opinion of private Lawyers that the Kings absence was an Abdication peremtorily to forbid the Term which gives Judgement anticedent to the Resolution of the Convention that the Kings Retreat was an Abdication tho at the same time the rest of the Government went on in the Kings Name IX That the Convention did not in the first place assert all Power was in the People of England that They where the people of England and what they did was the Agreement of the people of England and upon that assert their power to Make Limit Alter Depose and Punish Kings when they see Cause and that in persuance of this power they made the present Alteration and that it was both lawful and a duty to do what they had now done else whatever good may be got to the publick by the present Change They that make it are obnoxious and those that shall imitate it in after time do it at their own peril X. That They did not mend the Constitution as well as seem to Restore it from its abuses at least as to the Choice Session and Power of Parliaments such opportunities as this seldom coming into the Peoples hands Had we had our Annual Parliaments Setled the Negative Voice Restrained a Commitee of Lords and Commons to be the Privy-Council no Officers of the King to serve in Parliament the Revenue Appropriated all Eminent Offices had upon good Behavour and Election of Members to Parliament secured the Work might have deserved a better Character XI That They did not first determine the Disputable Elections before they went upon any thing of moment there being near one Hundred and some say by very soul play and that at no other time of day things were carried more grosly Debauching the Electors Adjourning the Poles suffering false Poles Lords appearing to Influence the Elections all which former Parliaments thought Intolerable But that which encreases the error they Chose a Speaker out of those that had the Disputable Elections and of the worst sort too being against the Choice of the People and that Charter that they pretend to Restore And they that know how much the Chaire guides that House and who it is that is in it and his Circumstances and by what Interest he came there are ready to render it a Capital Blemish in the Convention it self XII That They proceeded to chuse a new King before they had proved the Crimes laid to the Charge of the old King or without so much as giving him the Refusal upon the terms of Restoring or Amending of the ancient Constitution of the Realm in Case he were not found guilty of those vile imputations of which as it makes People think him now clear because he would not have been spared if he had been guilty so they begin to esteem it the least piece of Justice to him that he should not loose his Kingdoms because he has been accused falsly XIII That They Voted he had broke Faith with his People and did not prove in what which leaves all in the dark If his Breach of Faith be Violating his Corronation Oath that Breach cannot un-King him unleass that Oath made him a King and that it did not because he was King the very Minute his Brother dyed He was so reputed in Scotland where he was never Crowned and his Brother acted as such from the Death of his Father and it was almost a Year after his Restoration before he took the Oath This is obvious to all and but the natural consequence of an Hereditary Monarchy where the King never dies XIV That They should make the Prince of Orange King without either Oath or Corronation which in an Elected King are the Seals and Sacraments of Kingship to the People and without which some question if there can be any Allegience due from them XV. That the Prince considering his respectful terms to the King in his Declaration would accept of such a Choice without so much as inspecting the Right of the pretended Prince of Wales because the aforesaid Declaration allows him to be such till he be disproved and since he is not so every body will conclude him too young to be guilty of faults to the Nation that can make him deserve to be Excluded as now he is XVI That admitting there was no true Prince of Wales he could let the flattery of the Convention carry him to overthrow the order of the Line in setting his Wife and Sisters Right aside after what he had said in his Declaration of the Title of his Princess being the great reason of his medling so publickly in our English affairs The danger of such a latitude is that we teach the Instruments of our Ambition what to do to our prejudice when it is for their Interest or Revenge by the same morrals that we use them to our advantage But this is not all XVII That He would think of taking upon him the Kingship here before he had Reduced or Secured the three Kingdoms from a Division of Interest is as extraordinary for by looking after that personal Dignity in England he has left Scotland and Ireland naked so that King James is before-hand with him in one if not in both Kingdoms by which neglect he has put the Labour Oar upon himself and delay'd his Affares to a dangerous after-Game And this will in all probability quickly have its Effects here and hath already now the News of his Arrival in Ierland may be relied upon For many that would have followed him all the World over as Prince of Orange their Protector from the danger of Popery relish his affecting his Fathers Crown very unpleasantly and those that consider the Civil-Wars it will immediately involve these Nations in and the Desolation and Misery that must follow as the Price of a new King think they have an hard Bargain without the Six Hundred and odd Thousand Pounds that they are to give the Dutch for helping them to it to save themselves yet it might have been a tollerable Rate for saving of three Kingdom but too much of all conscience to hire any Man to take them away for himself XVII That the Convention should offer to sit without taking the Test when that was the Jealoufie that was had of the King as the fatalest thing that could befal the Government in his time For it is reasonably argued if the Convention had Power to make a King they must have had Power enough to Constitute some Body to administer the Test without which if no legal Parliament could be held nor no one