Late Majesty commanded that it should when even we are govern'd at present by some of the very Laws that it made if only the passing an Act assented to by the King made it a Legal Session and which did determine but by express proviso against it sure then the Parliament must be reputed Legal too in which it was Past so that necessity which might occasion a defect did not make an Essential Nullity as he is pleas'd to name it more by Metaphysical Phraseology than any term of Law for then all its Acts must have been Null'd too which by the next we saw were only Confirm'd But besides if among my many Slips which the Dr. leaves to others to find out I mistake not now too the Continuance of the Parliament the Dissolving it self the Calling Another without the King's Writ was assented to by special Act of Car 1. which could not be Repeal'd till C. the Second was assembled amongst them to Repeal it and there to give it His Fiat Royal to make it more forceable or if it could 't is somewhat improbable from the unhappy Junctures of those Affairs that it could be expected before and therefore by the very first Act of the Session as if made to silence such Drs. it was declared That the Lords and Commons then Sitting were the Two Houses of Parliament and that notwithstanding the King 's Writ of Summons as much as if His Majesty had been Present at its Commencement and Call'd It and tho' by the next of the same Reign it was made Praemunire to defend what was done without the Royal Assent yet the Act for perpetuating the Parliament was past by the King Himself they continued till Military force pull'd them out of the House they met again after Secluded dissolved themselves and therefore 't was made Criminal too by the foresaid Act to say they were still in Being and if the bare Confirmation of former Acts shall imply an essential Nullity to the foregoing Parliaments the Dr. has ruin'd all his Reformation of King Edward by the Confirmations of Queen Eliz. and therefore the very Act that Confirm'd what was enacted by this convention before never questions it for a Parliament and calls it one but only dissipates all doubts from the difficulties that occasion'd the manner of its assembling I have met with heretofore some Lawyers that would not allow it to be such a formal Parliament but none ever yet went so far to continue his Metaphysicks as to question it for an Actual one I wish the Dr. would labour a little more in his own Province and prove to the World the Series of Our Protestant Ordination instead of the Succession of Parliaments not that I so much doubt it or that we may be asham'd to be oblig'd for it to the Church of Rome but because some people of late have taken so much pains to Impeach it and that I think from the faculty of the Dr. he would do better at the Naggs-head than in Westminster-hall But their is no need of any further defence to an Objection that is so needless and ill offer'd to baffle Dr. B. by imitation would be in a manner but abusing of my self 't is plain that the designs which some people had for power and Oppressing the Innocent even from his own confession more than the desires and distrust of some that were Guilty or the necessity that was for it hasten'd this dissolution of that peaceful Assembly and for his inconsiderate suggestion that the setting it for an example was a design of placing the Soveraignty in the people and courting a Common-wealth hee 'll see now we make it solely depend upon a sanction of the Kings and would he visit the Author he should see his error in a refutation of his of that pernicious Principle of perfect confusion by which he is bound to defend the very foundation of his state and 't is strange we must be reproacht for Courting a Common-wealth at the same time we are so vainly menac'd for having exprest against one too much of resentment SECT III. IT is no wonder to see the Dr. make His Late Majesty so Ill a Man when he had long before made Him so Bad a Christian were it not his Peculiar to Libel KINGS his Church might be mistrusted for that Loyal Deportment she ever paid him but as she had ever better thoughts of him in his Life time so she cannot be brought to entertain such Bad ones after his Death common Morality even with a Proverbial Authority commands us to speak well of the Dead t is hard if a King too and the Sacred Dust of Princes cannot put in for the priviledges of common Clay and Mortality to make him a man of Treachery and Design is too grosly invidious for a Prince that was Fam'd for good Nature even to a Fault it looks so much like one of the Meddals of the Dutch upon His Late MAJESTY and they you know alway have their Reverse that 't is among them I believe he learnt to value his Memory I much fancy these his Mysterious Designs were never so clear to the Dr till this transport and passion had enlightned his Eyes for Cholerick people are apt to see with Fire and Indignation and so fancy all Things in Flames that are about them this makes him fly so much to Smithfield Arguments and the Conversion of Dragoons under the easy Reign of a Merciful Monarch manifested in his inclinations to Mildness and Indulgence The late Celebrated Loyalist of the Long Parliament whose Meritorious Services he would magnify yet at the same time libels and defames them They will live and last in our Annals without his writing their History nor be much blemisht by his defamations those honourable Representatives that had sate so long at the Helm and steer'd so well that we still owe to them about Twenty Years quiet and tranquility who had they concur'd with what was their only defection their KING's Inclination to Indulgence and for which obstinacy by his own Maxims he must condemn them too had continu'd the repose they enjoy'd and perhaps prevented all the Distempers that have since disturb'd us these Gentlemen are so little oblig'd to this Dr. at Amsterdam as they were formerly to that of Salamanca and indeed the Obligation is just the same Oates accus'd them long agoe long before Dr. B. who it seems now begins to see with his Spectacles Designs more clearly that they were all Pensioners Creatures meerly Depending on the Crown tho' it appear'd even from the very List that was printed that it was only a malitious Libel and a Ly that not Ten of the Two Hundred had really receiv'd the least Allowance and even some of that was known to be for publick Services which then forsooth must most politickly be call'd secret only to countenance the scandalous Imposture of the Plot of the Papists this Design was then also clear to
come command their Votes or else certainly such an Assembly suppos'd of the Wisest as well as the greatest Men in the Nation could never have been prevail'd on for passing such Absurdities and Contradictions into Law for the making lawful Heirs illegitimate and then to legitimate again the self same unlawful Heirs to make one Daughter spurious and then another and at last to make them both to be legal Issue with the single Charm of Be it Enacted It is said of that Assembly that it can do every thing but make a Man a Woman but here I think they went pretty near that too and made Women what they pleas'd In the First Ann's Case Incontinency was made the Cause to divorce Her In the Second the Defect of natural Inclination and only upon sending down some Lords to the Lower House what Marriage he pleas'd was declar'd unlawful It was not the Roman Consistory that was Lords of the Articles then or else they had hardly parted so soon with the Supremacy though that invidious Reflection on that Honourable Constitution in Scotland must come a little unkindly from Protestants since if we believe the Bishop to those Lords they are much oblig'd for the helping on the Reformation in short since the Dr. lays such a mighty Weight upon his getting all warranted or confirm'd by Parliament it is but a weak Support for the Confirmation of his Cause for it will give some People the more occasion to observe that such was once our KING's Authority over Parliaments that they could obtain from the Civil Sanctions of the State to sacrifice the Sacred Authority of the Church Wives and Children Women and Men to his Lust and Anger His Parliamentary Warrant will do him but little Service in such Excesses since His present Majesty's Proposals I think are much more reasonable which he desires only so to be Warranted and if these Excesses are so ordinary in great Revolutions some Persons may think this unexpected Indulgence and Toleration as great a Turn The Dr. very wisely passes by without any Consideration all the Proceedings of Edw. the Sixths Reign in which some may think that some Excesses were Committed too and that even in the very two Points that His Majesty has solemnly declar'd to Defend us in Property and Religion In the very First Year of that Reign which the Dr. cannot be unacquainted with it being so of the Reformation too Did the Protector only by his Proclamation order all Enclosures to be laid open which for some time had been enjoy'd by the Lords and Gentry and was partly possess'd by them by Vertue of those Abby-Lands they had from the Crown The Duke knew this would gratify the Common People and being desirous to be popular he issues out this Commission of Absolute Power for all the Lords and Gentry look'd upon it as an Invasion of Property especially when they were in such a Tumultuous manner thrown down were Abby Lands to be thus invaded now by a Proclamation we might well complain of Excess In the same Year were Injunctions sent forth only the Order of the Council Board over all the Kingdom for altering all the Old Ceremonies and way of Worship in the Church of Rome several for opposing these Commissions and Injunctions as something like Excesses were punish'd or sent to Prison The Bishop of London was clap'd up in the Fleet only for scrupling an Obedience and that though he made most solemn submission which is more some People will say than what has been done by some Successor since upon a milder Test of Obedience and a Process less severe Gardiner was Committed to the Tower only for wishing these Proceedings might be delay'd till the King was more capable of the Government Durham Rochester and Chichester for the same Disobedience were so serv'd all of them dispossess'd of their Bishopricks and what was worse the Bishopricks Sees themselves dispossess'd reform'd from their Revenues These Excesses could not but create great Disorders in the State when they saw that what was call'd the King's Proceedings was allow'd to be Law for the regulating of the Church the several Rebellions of the West and North that follow'd meerly upon these Excesses of Reformation had too Tragical Conclusions to relate and so the Dr. took care lest they should be mentioned the suppression of which did not end without a Western and a Northern Campaign and a great deal of Blood and Severity Sir Will. Kingston's pleasant Cruelty in the West his Landlords the Millers Tragedy do declare Northumberland in the North is so well known that I 'le engage the Doctor confesses it a thing which help'd to facilitate Q. Mary to the Throne In short it appears plain from the History that the Protector saw that Reformotion could not be carryed on without Arms that therefore he made the War in Scotland a Pretence to take them up and for this he brought in Germans and Walloons though the coming over of our own Irish now is made a Terror and Astonishment the Elections of the Bishops was then given to the KING for the Ends of Reformation of which 't is now too late to repent In the next President we are reflected on again because Q. Elizabeth's Power in Ecclesiastical Matters was founded on an Act of Parliament which the Dr. says was in a great measure repeal'd in King Charles the First 's time and that Repeal again in Charles the Second's ratify'd this Authors Argument of a Parliamentary power was little to his advantage in his Reign of Hen. 8. not at all for his purpose in the First of Edward the Sixth for there those great Alterations in Church and State were made before the Parliament was call'd meerly by Injunctions Orders of the Protector or the Council Table and that absolute power authorised by the specious Name of the King's Proceedings This was the Original of that Arbitrary Law and Queen Mary might well write after such a Copy but the Dr. does most designedly misapply to our Presidents in Queen Elizabeth's time this Parliamentary power as well as he designedly and wisely omits it in K. Edw. Reign because he knew he could not apply it for if he 'll but examin one of the Cases I put him in the Queens Reign about Her dispensing with the Latin Service to be read in Collegiate Chappels and the Vniversities contrary to an express proviso of an Act of Parliament for the sake of Reformation and the applauded Opinion of Moor that the Queens power of Non Obstante was good even against the Non Obstante of an Act of Parliament to that Her Power he 'll find that some of Her Affairs and Proceedings were so far from being founded on Acts of Parliaments that She acted without them and upon Resolutions that were given to illude and invalidate their power so that in short the Dr. would apply the Case of the Court of Commission founded by the First of
Her Reign to justify the Legality of all that She did even to those things that She confesses She dispens'd withal contrary to Law were we to play like Children at Cross-purposes the greatest non-sence and most insipid Answers would serve pass for the more Ingenious Diversion I told the Dr. what She dispens'd with contrary to the very Parliaments Act. It is Answered of something She did that was rounded upon an Act of Parliament but now because we 'll keep to the purpose we 'll examin this Her power in Ecclesiasticals founded on the First of Her Reign and see how far it makes for our Authors Apology he says this was in a great measure Repeal'd in the Year 1641. the Dr's Excellencies lying more in Chronology than the Statute-book It is a known Act of 17 th Charles the First that does in some measure as he says and I am glad he keeps to any repeal it I will not insist on the occasion of such a Repeal and the juncture of Affairs that forc'd it though I must confess the Reasons of Laws can never be recollected but by Reflection on the State of those Times in which they were made and that makes a sound Historian somewhat of the necessary part of a good Lawyer and from History 't is most deplorably known that this Repeal was procur'd in the Year that this Rebellion commenc'd by a Parliament the defence of which has been made Proemunire and High-Treason by that which enforced the Triennial Parl. into a perpetual one and which was afterward with so much abhorrence and such an ignominious Character repeal'd But all that appears of this Repeal of the 1 st of Elizabeth from the Opinion of the Lawyers and the examining the Act is the power of the Commissioners fining and imprisoning which was look'd upon as oppressive and therefore my Lord Cook in his Argument upon that case who for a time was no great Prerogative Lawyer or would not be so says that this Act was only a restoring to the King His antient Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction which the Commissioners extended so far as injuriously to fine Offenders upon it beyond their Power this usurped Power some people are of opinion is only by that Act repeal'd though I do not doubt but that Parliament would have willingly comprehended in it all the Inherent Antient Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction that ever appertain'd to the King and Crown and even by special Act here under Catholick Princes has been declar'd so so that indeed as the Dr. says it is but in a measure repeal'd and by express Words in the Repeal of Abuses of the Power only prevented so that it could not take away or deprive the Royal Authority from that unquestionable Prerogative of Commissionating any number of Persons in Ecclesiastical Matters that do not exercise such an extensive Iurisdiction and therefore to reflect upon the present Court that is of another nature and a new Creation as put down and repeal'd with that of Queen Elizabeths is no more an Argument than that Queen Elizabeths Commission was reviv'd when but so lately King Charles the Second delegated His Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction and Disposal of Preserments to some Persons that are most now living though perhaps some of them the readiest to Dislike their present Proceedings It is plain that the King's Power in Ecclesiastical Matters was never meant should be infring'd from that Repeal by this Ratification of it in the Late King's Time whatever the First Factious Legislators in it might intend for as you see this Late King did in a sort make use of it so in this very Ratification as the Dr. calls it is Provided that as it shall not extend to the Iurisdiction of Archbishops Bishops so neither to Vicar-Generals or Persons exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction by the King's Commission If the Dr. will cavil only because the Word Court of Commission is not expres'd his Cause will hardly be the better for such a peevish Exception since the Constitution of a Vicar-general would be as little Kindness to the Church as it was in the Excesses of its first Establishment under Henry the Eighth which we see His Majesty as excessive as the Dr. would make Him has not hitherto reviv'd but should a Parliament restore the very Court of Queen Elizabeth it would be reckon'd among such men as illegal and only the King's Excesses in the Government I here shall help him to another Set of Excesses since such Prince's Proceedings must be call'd so when they do not quadrate with our Authors Subject and Design which at another time must pass for good Law when they make but the least for His purpose some People perhaps are of opinion That the Two Tests were past after a sort of Excess in the Government the World now knows one of them was made when the Parliament was exceedingly impos'd upon with Falsehoods and Perjuries and as exceedingly transported with a Zeal that look'd too so much like Fury so that if a man consider their origination and the Circumstances of Affairs when these Laws were made instead of keeping them upon the File after the rest are repeal'd there will appear more Reason even from the Doctor 's Excesses for repealing them the First The Conquest of the Kingdom gave a great Latitude to the 1 st William in point of Government which his Arms having acquir'd he found himself the less limited by the Laws though he profess'd to Rule by it and few of his Successors since that by their own Acts have oblig'd themselves but afford us Instances in greater Excesses of Government than any we can now complain of He is said to have invaded the Jurisdictions of the Prelates and seiz'd their Treasures not sparing his own dear Brother Odo William the Second tax'd his Subjects at pleasure by the Power of his Prerogative was as severe upon the Clergy and Westminster-Hall since the Seat of Iustice was look'd upon by the People as built on purpose to countenance his unjust Taxations The Ne exeat Regnum was repin'd at as a Grievance and in that Reign might be said to Commence The making Mutilation and Corporal Punishment Pecuniary in Hen. the First 's Reign the Confiscations and Bishop of Salisbury's Case in King Stephen's were made matter of Excesses in such Authors too Henry the Second resum'd by his own Act Lands that had been sold or given from the Crown by his Predecessors and against this Excess I think His present Majesty has given us good assurance in His last Declaration since the Dr. labours so much upon the absolute Power of the Former Of Richard the First it is Reported That he feign'd his Signet lost and so put out a Proclamation That those who would enjoy the Grants by the former old one must come and have it confirm'd by the New he pawn'd some of his Lands for the Ierusalem Journey and upon his Return would have resum'd them without Pay. The Exactions of King
some and I think now is so to all My self knew and still do many of those Members most falsly to suffer under that malitious Imputation whom the Dr. has no reason to reproach for the Selling of their Country and betraying their Trust when they truly serv'd both that and the King but sure it is but a bad Return he makes them when I am sure it was all the same Peers if not the same Parliament that Complemented Him for His Mighty Performances which perhaps they might have omitted had they known what Amends He would have made them or thought him so good at Commending of Himself but this is a Kindness He kept in Reserve and a Sublime acquir'd since his Travels and Accomplishments I can't call this a Controversy with the Dr. when he gives up the Cause when he seems to take pains to appear on my side He shews us how the Late King was continually inclin'd to a Liberty of Conscience he declares the Act of Vniformity a severe Thing the Terms of Conforming Rigidity and those that required it Angry Men Was the Dr. alway of this mind Why then it seems he only Conform'd fell in with the Church for the sake of her Benefices for officiating at the Rolls just as he fell out with the State because he lost it but this cannot credit much the Reputation and Integrity of such a Celebrated Writer and the Church of Englands Chief Men are just as much oblig'd to him for his Characters as the Loyal Members of the long Parliament he has sufficiently attainted their honesty and so most modestly taxes the Indiscretion of all his Clergy that so the State both Civil and Ecclesiastical may more handsomely make up that excellent Composition of Knave and Fool 'T is strange that no party can escape the Fury of his enraged Pen this doughty Wight may make a good Champion for the Truth but will a much better in the Rehearsal The Character of that Hero as high as it is may be more naturally applyed to Dr. B than it is by him to the Late Bishop of Oxford If you consider him elevated to such an Hogen or naturaliz'd for hectoring of KINGS invading of Kingdoms fighting of France combating England defying of Papists Presbyterians Dissenters Church-men and almost all Mankind but if the Loyal Parliament as he calls it in derision were such arrant Knaves for if he is in earnest then their Compliance with their KING is the best Test of their Loyalty and it would be well His Present Majesty had more proof of it and the Chief Men of the Church were such infatuated Fools as he makes them to be wrought upon by the Roman Catholicks for introducing their Religion why here then was a perfect Conspiracy for four and twenty Year of the whole Kingdome some poor supprest Dissenters excepted for bringing us back into Popery and what is more strange could never bring it to pass All our Power Civil and Ecclesiastical was concern'd all our Forces by Sea and Land King and Successor on their side and in his own dreadful Description A Parliament of chosen Creatures all depending upon Himself and this for near Twenty Years together and yet not one step toward Popery unless what appear'd in Andrew Marvels Growth of it but on the contrary in this very Interval of Time the Two severe Tests set up to prevent it and that by this Parliament of Creatures and this Treacherous designing King of his that he makes alwaies to the very last contriving to betray the Protestant Religion from his own meer Motion Marrying that he may see I can use the Word his two Neeces to two Renowned Princes of the Reformed Religion the greatest Security they could desire of his Sincerity to preserve and protect it and if I might add one thing more which I wish as well as the Dr. might be forgotten prevail'd upon from the tumultuous Proceedings of a Parliamentary Power to part with a Brother that had done nothing but to be more dear a palliated Exile that even the necessity of State could not so well excuse and if neither Councells Force Interest Time nor Religion it self could hitherto bring about all this Formidable Revolution I must confess notwithstanding the Discoveries of Dr. B to sober Men and honest this Late King cannot be suspected so false or any Catholicks so designing The Reformations in Henry 8 th Time King Edward Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth were certainly Four as great Changes and Revolutions as any we now fear and as I think somewhat like the same and yet we find they were not working for it under-ground for above Four and Twenty Year together to confine it only to his Reflections on the Late King and if we must credit all such Historians Plot we must add above an Hundred more marching their Invisible Army and Ammunition in the Air on the Sea under Earth PLOTS That Our Selves have blusht at and even judicially baffl'd their Belief But we still saw then that assoon as there was any new Succession to the Throne or any Prince of a different Sentiment that design'd to make any Alterations in the Church or State they were sooner compast with Ease and Expedition certainly these plotting Papists have been a long time very unlucky or very innocent when our happier Protestants had ever better Fortune and could Reform here more easily and openly in some few Years in the face and in the sight of the Sun and this I think is as clear too as some Peoples Designs which even at a season when they need not fly the Light the Dr. says we must still suppose in the dark His secret of the Dissenters having been encourag'd to stand out against Nonconformity even by the Court that pursu'd them with such Rigidity for not Conforming I am perswaded is another peculiar among the many Mysterious Intelligences of the Dr and not much inferiour to his wonderful Discoveries of the Conference at Dover his forreign Negotiations and His Majesty's being so nearly ally'd to the Society when he might so well prove him from the same Evidence A Priest in Orders for the Authority of his Liege Letter lies only at that Authors door who fram'd the other from Father Petre to Pere le Chaise both which will appear to those that have not abandon'd themselves to folly as entire Fictions he ought to discover him for once a Prophet too that having been essential of old to the Kingly Office and then he 'l have the better security for his Religion and may take his Word for an Oracle but the Dissenters will not thank him for thus making out their secret Correspondence with the Court and Iesuites but rather believe that he searcht no other Records for it than the Original Manuscripts of Dr. Oates his Evidence If this Advice to their standing out was only in order to introduce a Toleration how came it to pass that when they had one actually granted that those who
now the last Instance of his famous List which he concludes with a Remark taken from the Revolt of the Low-Countries which if the Terms of their own Historians may be allow'd us we must still call so and what with our Adversaries own Authority we shall ex Confesso conclude that those Severities were the more excusable because these Reformations were look'd on as indeed they were a Revolt then made from establish'd Laws the Doctor 's Allegiance may be so far transferr'd as in true Fidelity to falsify for them Matter of Fact and in an History of his own assure us they were never Subjects to Spain but it is more than METERAN or GROTIVS have done yet The kindness that I have for that Kind Country of the Dr's I confess is no more than what I have ever had to most Republicks and Common-Wealths that is to think the Constitution of their State to be the result of some Revolt and Defection from their Ancient Prince and their Lawful Lord and that though we could not trace in History their Beginnings and date the Epoche of their usurped Government and Authority an Imperfection from which perhaps that compleat and celebrated and most antient Aristocracy of Venice will hardly be defended though it retains still the shadow of that more Imperial Sway from which their Aborigines might be said to Revolt or by expulsion from their Country fall into but the Defence of this so criminal Expression we shall refer to it's proper place The Dr. at present is in his own Province and affords us what is still his Kindness to Crown'd Heads a better Subject to defend and that is King Philip the Second from the Calumnies of an injurious Character that would defame him for the Foundation of which Reproach or the unreasonableness of it there can be no more fair and candid Procedure then to refer you as in the former Essays to to the rest before to some short Representation of Matter of Fact. It is known then and beyond Dispute that the Belgick Provinces in former times were first united under the Dominions of the Dukes of Burgundy and from them by lineal or lawful Descent devolv'd to the Kings of Spain after they came into their Power they were all priviledg'd so far that there was no great need to fear they should fall under Oppression and the miserable Condition as the Dr. makes it of absolute Slaves so long as by their Obedience they only continu'd good Subjects To tell us of their Priviledges under the Goths Vandals and Gauls their barbarous and confus'd Constitution even before their Counts so long before the Emperor Lewis the Second had regulated and civiliz'd them with such a Title and that this Philip the Second forfeited his Right for not maintaining them is no more than if His Majesty were now to forgo His Three Kingdoms for not observing the Rites and Rules of our old Druids and the obsolete Customs of our antiquated Britains The Notion is so extravagantly wild that with sober men it will pass only for the fancy of some of their First Governours and Legislators who had no other Name but that of Forresters Yet this Notion was entertain'd so far and mixt with several other pernicious Principles truly Democratical that it serv'd to dress up that Oration which was afterward made in their Famous Senate by themselves assembled for the renouncing their Allegiance and deposing of the King of Spain which whether an Act of Iustice or popular Outrage from the subsequent Discourses will appear Under the Dukes of Burgundy we do not find them tumultuous tho' perhaps discontented when under any great or more frequent Contributions Charles the Fifth was too fortunate and powerful to fear them and no forreign Forces were then the Grievance though most of all by him maintain'd he knew his absolute Power as well as Philip that follow'd after In matters of Religion and Reformation though he was a little more moderate it must be remembred the Reformers were then also more few yet finding some Disturbance he publish'd an Edict against Innovation there about the time that Luther's was condemn'd in Germany he finding according to his old Aphorism and Opinion That those who had no Reverence for the Church would think they ow'd as little Obedience to himself their KING this put him indeed upon some Execution of the Laws as Grotius observes but with such ill success that many times when some of Note were brought to suffer such Multitudes would meet as with open Sedition to hinder and oppose it but the Progress of such seditious Insurrections by his presence and residing with them was soon interrupted but when Philip the Second succeeded his Father and the Fugitives from Forreign Parts began to fill those of Flanders the Reform'd began to be very powerful there and could never be thought good Neighbours if ever there were any Insurrections to the Church-Government that there was then Establish'd and to which they had expres'd so great an Aversion Philip the Second foresaw this and fearful of what follow'd was forc'd to leave those Forreign Souldiers as he told them for their Defence but indeed for his own but for all this suppos'd strength they finding he had left too the Government in the hands of a Woman they soon discovered an apparent Weakness and one of their Nobility then the greatest Subject and without any Detraction from his mighty Deeds as greatly discontented too whom out of Reverence to his Royal Dust and respect to his Noble Line we will leave without a Name thinking himself as injuriously disappointed of the Government of those Provinces which upon the King 's returning into Spain he had promis'd to himself and indeed from his Merit and Desert might very well expect was animated so far as to think upon an expedient for the heightening of his Power to make himself Head of the Protestant Party which upon the absence of their King began to multiply apace for this purpose he Consults with the Counts of Egmont and Horn about redressing some Grievances that were necessary for them to be eas'd of and that was first the three thousand Spanish Souldiers though so far from being any thing dangerous to the People that they themselves had the Command of them They petition for their Removal the King grants graciously their Request but withal thought fit to detain them there until the new Number of Bishops that he had instituted were settled for fear of any further Insurrection but they influence the People so that no Contribution could be got to pay them and the Dutchess of Parma now empowr'd by the King transports them all away for Spain This one would think should have been sufficient to pacifie them but no sooner was this Grievance redrest but Discontent like an Hydra from her Amputation rises with another Head Granvel then the greatest Minister of State was then as great a Grievance too and from his
Iohn and his exercising such a severe Authority over the Church Fining severely for suppos'd Crimes I suppose our Author thinks should be least mentioned because it produc'd the Barons Wars but no one will say they were the better Subjects whatever were the King's Excesses Henry the Third some say was so like his Father that he succeeded him if they must be call'd so in his Excesses too in resuming alien'd Lands in Fines in making advantage of the Vacancies of the Church The Proceedings of Edward the First against his Clergy putting them out of his Protection seising upon their Goods and Edward the Second's Confiscations after the Defeat of the Earl of Lancaster this Author will call Excesses too though I cannot see why they may not all have the more moderate Names of the King's Proceedings as well as when all things were so warranted in the Reign of Edw. 6 th As we had begun with these Observations on our King 's antiently Exercising of an Vnlimited Power which in other Treatises I have shewn and which our Author if he will shall call Absolute from the Reign of Edward 3 d. So here the Dr. may observe these Presidents deduc'd down to that Time too and so cannot but see that such Excesses are inseparable from the Government and perhaps a Prerogative that Soveraignty cannot well or will not be without and if Subjects must be allow'd to Censure and Reflect on their Princes Proceedings it is morally impossible that they can provide against all their Clamours and Complaints the Necessities of State will many times force them to some Excesses and Diversities of Opions and Parties and now the too much to be lamented Divisions in Religion will ever make those Proceedings seem just to one side that are look'd upon as injurious by the other Our Author will oblige the Roman Catholicks very much if he will justify for Law all the Proceedings of Queen Eliz. and I 'le engage he shall have the Thanks of the Society as heartily as he had that of the House for in the First Year before any Act of Parliament had past for Alterations Images were defac'd and Altars demolish'd by Her Proclamations She put down all publick Preachers but such as were Licens'd by Her Authority the business of the Reformation and Altering of Religion if we believe Baker was Carryed in Parliament but by Six Voices and will give Catholicks occasion to say That notwithstanding the present Clamours about Regulating Elections great Artifices were us'd then too to bring it about and but by Six Votes at last the Weighty Cause of Religion was over-ballanc'd 'T is certain that Excesses were then Complain'd of too and it was murmurred about even in the Lower House it self that the Parliament was pack'd that the Duke of Norfolk Earl of Arundel and Sir William Cecil for their own Ends had sollicited Votes and made a Party These Irregularities may serve to silence some Peoples unreasonable and indiscreet Clamors at present since they can be so soon retorted and which I urge only to shew the Consequence of such ill-manag'd Objections and not to justify and defend them SECT X. ANd now that I may be grateful in my Acknowledgments as I shall ever be for any Favours I must confess this Author has assisted me with one President more and the Dr. would do well to be so fair in some of his Writings as to own his Authorities It is the Case in the Late King's Time where he repeals an Act about the size of Carts and Waggons To Answer this our Author Appeals to the Lawyers and the Gentlemen of the Long Robe though he will not stand by the Judgment of the Twelve Men in Scarlet that to their knowledge some Laws are understood to be Abrogated without a special Repeal when some visible Inconvenience enforces it when this comes to be impartially considered it will be a granting of all that he contends against and the Tests and Poenal Laws will expire of their own Accord by this Authors inconsiderate Resolution It is one of the very Arguments of a late Catholick Lawyer upon the Dispensing Power and so as the Dr. wisely appeals to them they as civilly answer him that he is in the right The Dr. did not foresee the Dangerous Consequence amongst Lawyers of his visible Inconvenience for the Law has such an Aversion to this Inconvenience that it maintains as a Maxim that a Mischief is better suffered than an Inconvenience now putting the Case thus That a Legislative Power may possibly pass into Law what may prove a visible Inconvenience to the whole Kingdom or a great Part of it that a great part of the Kingdom and the King himself do judge the Test and Poenal Laws very inconvenient that they have been really found so to the Subject that the KING has in this Case too declared Himself satisfy'd of this Inconvenience and the People address'd against it as intolerable then from his own President and Concession it must be concluded that either these Laws must expire of themselves that there must be some Soveraign Power such as the KING 's to dispense with them and that it is very fit for a Parliament to repeal them for certainly it must conclude a Fortiori that the Inconvenience that is found in forcing of a Conscience is of a greater Consideration than an inconvenience in a Cart Wheel neither does that abrogating of his without a special Repeal make any difference for their expiring by disusance is indeed the self same thing as the Royal Disspensation for in Laws once made the Soveraign Authority is solely entrusted with their Execution and where the KING does not command the Iudges to execute or expresly forbid it no man of sense but will say that this is a perfect Dispensation Our Author is very unlucky in touching upon some Instances that do him some Disservice and in this more especially since I cannot but observe that when these Poenal Laws about Carriages and Encouragement of Navigation were so erroneously made and People solicitous about the repealing them one of the designs of the greatest Ministers of State that they then had in Holland was for embroyling us at home upon the same Account that they might appear the more formidable abroad as well as we weaken'd by those Severities that occasion'd our Divisions which visible Inconvenience was then too in the same manner upon the same Maxims dispenss'd with and prevented only 't is somewhat strange that this darling Liberty of theirs by which they were so gloriously founded and for so long time have so finely Flourish'd should seem so dangerous in our Country and from the goodness of the Soyl could only prosper in theirs but where Trade seems a sort of Religion 't is time to be jealous of such Neighbours that would also learn this Ecclesiastical Policy to make of their Godliness a Gain too Our Author says it is our saying that the KING 's Dispensing Power
Memoirs must not omit any thing that will afford as he thinks matter to deface the Memory of a Prince to whom the Church of England had the greatest Obligation the Life of the late Lord Rochester was not so severely Examin'd as this King's Actions are by this most faithful Historian 'T is a compendious way to Libel with a Reflection and Abuses may be easily fasten'd when the Authors Credit must pass muster for an Accusation One would have thought the Dutch might have been contented with their own Advocates and that the Considerer of their State had in these matters made as much of Apology for them as the Case could bear but it is with an ill Grace indeed and somewhat unnatural to see a sort of human Vipers work their Wits and their Way thorough the Bowels of their own Mother Country Englands Appeal and Marvel's Popery were the first and only Reflections that Libell'd these Actions till our Author came in with another Supplement but those being all such discontented Creatures Creatures depending on the Little Lord that then lost the greatest Place in the Law the Credit of such Authors is as much to be believ'd as the Conspiracy of the Court But this Attempt upon the Fleet when it comes to be examin'd has so much Colour for the Justice of that Encounter that there was first broke several Articles of Peace before that ever we could be said to begin the War those very Ships refus'd us in our own Channel the Right of the Flagg by which it was lawful for ours to seize or destroy them and the Captains that then Commanded had it for Express Commission to stand upon that Antient Regality and besides it is known that the Dutch had defended Van Ghent in the like obstinate denyal before so that now it could not be excus'd as a private Persons inconsiderate Default since whole Fleets were resolv'd to maintain it and their Masters had given them incouragement so to do this was I think an Heroical Breach too upon one of the Articles of Breda and all Leagues and Vnions if I am not out in my Reason and Law are such Acts as are Aggregate in themselves though the constituent Clauses that compose them have a great deal of individual Variety and Texture to the twisting them together of which if but one Twigg is taken out it presently loosens the whole Band We had been upon a long Accommodation and all fruitless Embassyes and Applications could not prevail so that even declaring of a War had it been actually design'd was never requir'd by the Laws of it in such a Case as previous and I 'le engage I 'le get their own Country-man Grotius himself to tell us so that the denouncing of it is many times conditional and then a Violation of Articles on one side is a sufficient Indiction without any necessity of declaring it on both we had demanded the Right of the Flagg and it was deny'd us This was by the Antients call'd a Clarigation and superseded ever rhat pure and absolute Denuntiation which himself confesses needless too when satisfaction is demanded from those that are resolv'd to offend and Servius his Exposition on the Leges Foeciales appears to be the same But since he desires Instances too the Romans in the Third Punick War without denouncing it surpriz'd the Carthaginians for some of their Violations so Cyrus did the Armenians David for Indignities the Ammonites and for more modern Examples the Great War of Sweden was carryed into Germany before it was heard of on the Continent that an Army was Landed on the Isle of Rugen because contrary to Articles the Emperour had oppos'd him in his War with the KING of Poland The reviving of old Differences was far from my Design but since the Dr. will not have such Actions to be forgotten it is a Duty I owe to the pious Memory of our deceased Prince to the Reputation and Honour of the Present to that Native Country that he so injuriously reproaches to defend them from those Calumnies that such a Deserter has cast upon them The Revolt and Defection of some States for which he so furiously pursues me I am afraid from the foregoing Relations of the Fact that he has forc'd me to will appear in spight of History to disguise it when even their own Authors do not pretend to excuse them from it but this Dr. thought he must do somewhat extraordinary for his new Masters to merit such a generous Protection and yet in this very Passage that he so pursues we only put it in the case words of a Common-wealth in general without specifying the particular Country to which we would apply it which for decency's sake and deference to that Allyance and Authority we did designedly forbear but since our Author is so unquiet I am afraid it was from the Result of the Application being so easy which himself perhaps made the sooner when he saw that somewhere it must needs touch but as Subjects are oblig'd to a real Friendship to all that are ally'd to their Lord and Soveraign so the necessity of such Obligation is somewhat superseded where such Authors are suffer'd to defame and defy him What other Authors have observ'd as we are neither oblig'd in Justice to Answer or defend so does it argue a defect of Matter fit for a Reflection in our own Treatise when he forces in Anothers to fill up the measure of his Animadversion But this I hope will appear too from the History of the States That if there were Roman Catholicks concern'd in the First Formation of their Government it was only so far as that they fought with them once for what was call'd their Antient Priviledges which as soon as they were confirm'd to them they were satisfy'd and return'd peaceably to their former Obedience In the Pacification at Gaunt tho' there was was omitted that Reservation of the deference that was due to the KING's Authority yet it was afterward by Explication annex'd and for that Don Iohn of Austria then the Governour confirm'd it under the Names and Title of the Perpetual Edict and that with the King's Consent and Approbration who after so many Troubles and Revolutions was glad to see his subjects tender their Obedience and by that their own Act thought it sufficiently secur'd But it seems there were those that design'd further some of the Eminent among the Calvinist's refus'd to subscribe that Article of Obedience to the KING's Authority which was afterward annex'd and so spoyl'd all the good Effects of this hopeful Pacification created such Jealousies and Disturbance that the Governour was forc'd to fly for his preservation to the strong Castle of Namur they chuse their Ruar model the Government anew frame an Oath to renounce all Obedience to Don Iohn the Governour and so zealous were the Reformers that the Iesuites of Antwerp for refusing it were plunder'd whose Loyalty then was the only Crime of this