of it for an Enformation Why who says there 's any sin in 't And then there 's Guard and Guard People are said one way to be upon their Guard with their Swords in their hands and another way with their eies in their heads But I presume he speaks to the multitude and he speaks too in the Stile of Authority Let them stand upon their Guard says he as if he were giving Orders He might as well have said Let them stand to their Arms and his expression of all expedients expounds it so even allowing him to be his own Interpreter for the business is to keep out Popery and Tyranny And he makes it one expedient fol. 2. and an essential one too to act the Offensive part as well as the Defensive Provided still says he that we preserve the Sacred Succession in its right Line for that we are TOLD both King and People are oblig'd in Conscience to defend and uphold That same little word TOLD is a most Emphatical Mockery and then provided that the Succession be secur'd all other expedients are pronounced lawful Methinks he might have thought of a Proviso too for the securing of the Kings Honour Dignity Person Government and the Peace of his Dominions which are at the rate of his latitude of allowance all of them equally concerned in the danger with the Succession He proceeds now to debate the matter of Conscience And if we find him as Tender as he is Zealous as good a Christian on the Subjects side as on the Patriots as careful to uphold the Sacred Character of Majesty as to prevent the Excesses of Tyranny and finally as clear a Casuist as he is a powerful Orator there will be no contesting any further with him Char. First then saith he let us fancy we see this Popish Heir on his Throne and by all the most illegal and Arbitrary Means contrary to the whole Frame and Hinges of the English Government introducing Popery with that Zeal and Vigour till his inâ—atuatedâ— Conscience has perverted the King into a Tyrant What a phancy of a phancy is here that for want of fact and argument is fain to have recourse to Imaginations and Dreams And to what end is all this but by disgusting of the People at the ways of Providence set them a hankering after State-Wizzards again and Strange-Gods for the knowledge of things to come wherefore let me once again inculcate that of 27 Jer. Hearken not ye to your Prophets nor to your Diviners nor to your Dreamers which is the same with phansiers nor to your Inchanters nor to your Sorcerers which speak to you saying you shall not serve the King of Babylon Foâ— they Prophesie a Ly unto you to remove you far from your Land Let us for the Honour of our kind either live and act and reason like Men or else down upon all four and away into the Woods and Rocks and hunt and growl'd and tear one another to pieces like Beasts But we 'll discourse the matter a little Well! The English are certainly the Freest and the Happiest People upon the Face of the Earth Ay but we shall be all Slaves e're 't be long When 's that When the Popish Heir comes to the Crown Ay but when 's that again When the King is dead Well but when is the King to Dy Nay I cannot tell that How long has the Popish Heir to live I cannot tell that neither Will the Queen have any Children Nor that neither How long will the Queen live How should I know that Will the King survive her or not I cannot tell Will he Marry again if he does I cannot tell that neither Will he have any Children if he Marrys again Who knows But what if the Heir should not live to come to the Crown but it may be he may though And it may be he may not Ay but I PHANSY that he will Well! But suppose he should come to the Crown What then Why then he will set up Popery and Tyranny Not whether he can or no. Why how did Queen Mary She had the odds on her side for the Papists were then in a manner as the Protestants are now And yet coming in betwixt two Protestants Popery ye see went off as it came on But still there was a Persecution 'T is true there was but all Princes are not alike Q. Mary Persecuted the Protestants Henry the Fourth of France did not so And it is as good an inference from the instance of Henry IV. that the Popish Heir will not be a Persecutor as from that of Queen Mary that he will But where the Popes Authority intervenes both King and People are bound to obey And yet you see that for all the Power of the Pope and the Covenant of the Holy League to boot the People of France though Roman Catholiques would not submit to the Dis-possessing of a Protestant Successor neither did that generous Prince upon the Reconciling of himself afterward to the Church of Rome exercise any one act of Tyranny over his Protestant Subjects which is enough said upon this point Well but I PHANSY it will be Popery and Tyranny yet for all this Well! but to go a little further with you now suppose it should come to a down right Persecution Aye but we must stand upon our Guards to prevent it That would be more than ever the Primitive Christians did under the Ten Persecutions And we have not only their Example but their Express Doctrine against it And we are never the better Protestants for being the worse Christians So that here 's only Phansy set up in opposition to Religion Reason and Experience And That 's enough in all Conscience too For there needs no more then the Flames of a distemper'd Spleen to cause an Earth-quake in the Government What are Fears but Phansies What are Jealousies but Phansies What Original had they Phansies again And what was the Consequence of them Sum up the Sins and the Calamities of the worst of People and of Times Those Crimes and Those Miseries were the effect of Those Phansies They were Hag-ridden and Night-mar'd with Goblins and Apparitions and haunted in their Beds with the Images of those Visions and illusions which they had taken down from the Press and Pulpit waking The brave Strafford was a Sacrifice to the Phansy of Arbitrary Power and the Venerable Laud a Victim to the Phansy of Popery They Phansy'd AntiChrist in the Hierarchy the Rags of the Whore of Babylon in a Surplice Popery in the Common-Prayer the Sacrament of Baptism they phansy'd little better than an Exorcism the Lords Prayer well enough for a Christian Primer a School-boy Form that might do so so till People came to be better gifted When they had Phansy'd the Heads of these great men off their Shoulders the Bishops out of the House of Peers they went on Phansying still They Phansy'd Episcopacy out of the Nation and their Scotish Presbytery into it the Clergy out of
more gross than to talk of fighting for Religion or to pretend to the maintaining of that by Arms that is not liable to Violence Did ever any Man hear of a Religion that was either shot or cut Nor can there be any Confederacy or Association purely upon the score of Religion for how shall People agree to defend they know not what which is the very case when one Man undertakes for the Religion of another If our Religion be assaulted by Argument we may assert it by Redargution But when the Opposition advances into any over act the case is no longer Religion but Political Safety Beside that Government is Gods Ordinance for the common benefit of Human Society and of Pagans as well as of Christians without any regard to this or that Religion for Bedies Politique have no Consciences but every particular indeed stands or falls to his own Master I cannot but observe through what degrees the Character has advanced the Popish Successor First From the possibility of a good Man and then from bad to worse till he has made him fol. 14. a Corrupted Leprous Branch of Royalty and at next word a downright Traitor upon the Statutes of 23 and 13 of Queen Eliz. and another of Hen. 8. Fol. 15. This matter being as I am informed at present coram Judice I shall say no more to it than this that there are two Provisoes in the 5th of the Queen that make the Case somewhat different from what he has stated it As for Instance Provided alway that forasmuch as the Queens Majesty is otherwise sufficiently assured of the Faith and Loyalty of the Temporal Lords of Her High Court of Parliament Therefore this Act nor any thing therein contained shall not extend to compel any Temporal Person of or above the degree of a Baron of this Realm to take or pronounce the Oath abovesaid viz. of Supremacy nor to incur any Penalty limited by this Act for not taking or refusing the same c. II. Provided also that if any Peer of this Realm shall hereafter offend contrary to this Act or any Branch or Article thereof that in that and all such Case and Cases they shall be try'd by their Péers in such manner and form as in other Cases of Treasons they have used to be Tryed and by no other means It would be well if every Man that presses with this un-precedented rigour upon the Person here in question would lay his hand upon his heart and say if the King has pardoned me Teâ— Thousand times more than this comes to with what Reason or Conscience can I importune His Majesty thus bitterly against His Brother After all these Clamours about a Popish Successor I would fain know how it is possible for any Man to be other than a Papist in our present condition of Affairs A Church-of England-Man is a Papist to the Dissenters a Presbyterian and an Independent so one to another a Quaker to both and among the Eight Score several Sects of Heretiques and Schismatiques that Paget and others have reckoned up since Liberty of Conscience came in Fashion there are just so many sorts of Papists among them in the Opinion of one Sect or another He has a Paragraph fol. 15. where under the People of England he expounds himself to mean their Representatives which is a point I am not to touch upon Only I must confess he has drawn the Arrow to the Head in one expression in it Why should not they saith he the House of Commons be as active and vigorous for their own Royal Inheritance and Sacred Succession of Power as a King for His. What he means by this Royal inheritance and Sacred Succession of Power I shall remit to the Consideration of the Learned Bradshaw indeed pass'd a Sentence upon the Late King as a Traytor to the ROYALTY of the People But the strongest Argument for himself that I find in the whole Book is five or six Lines lower If ever a Papist mâ—unts this Throne says he then all their Murmurs their Petitions Protesting and Associating-Votes will be remembered to the purpose Now what can be a greater indignity to the Justice and Resolution of that Illustrious Body than to imagine that so narrow a thought could any way influence the Candour and Solemnity of their Debates He spends his sixteenth Page upon Instances out of Hen. VIII to prove the Succession of the English Crown to be wholly subjected to the Disposal Determinations and Limitations of Parliament How far his Assertion is right or wrong I shall not concern my self But however as he has ordered the matter it makes nothing at all for his purpose The Parliament he says 25 Hen. 8. settled the Crown upon the Heirs of that Kings body by Queen Ann and in the 28th Repealed that Act and Entailed the Succession upon the Heirs of his body by Queen Jane Mary and Elizabeth being declared Illegitimate And in Case he Died without Issue then the Parliament empowered him by the same Act to dispose of the Succession by his own Letters Patents or his Last Will. In the 35th Year of his Reign the Parliament granted the Succession to Edward and for want of Heirs of his Body to the Lady Mary and the Heirs of her body and for want of such Heirs to the Lady Elizabeth under certain Limitations and Conditions contained in that Act. From hence he infers that a Parliament may order and dispose of the Succession But whether they may or not here 's little or nothing prov'd from these Citations First under the ambiguity of the Word Parliament he would have this thought to be the single Act of the Lords and Commons when the Enacting Authority of it was solely in the King And yet he says expresly that Henry 8. was so far from submitting to Parliaments that he would never have complemented them with a power that was not their due If that power did belong to the Parliament what needed they the King's authority for the making of it good or to divest themselves of that power by transferring it to the King to dispose of the Reversion or Remainder of the Crown by his Will or Letters Patents to such person as he pleas'd Secondly These Statutes do not so properly transfer a Right as declare and notifie the persons for the prevention of disputes and competitions as appears by the Preamble to that of the 28th Wherefore We your most humble and obedient Subjects in this present Parliament Assembled calling to Our Remembrance the great Divisions which in Times past have been in this Realm by reason of several Titles pretended to the Imperial Crown of this Realm which some times and for the most part ensued by occasion of ambiguity and doubts then not so perfectly declared but that men might upon froward intents expound them to every mans sinister appetite and affection and posterity of the Lawful kings and Emperours of this Realm whereof hath ensued great effusion and destruction of Mans
God and the Gospel to be Subject to Him to Fear Honour pay him Tribute and Legally obey him Nay the same reverend Prelate Pag. 54 in confirmation of this Doctrine cites the Precept of our blessed Saviour himself as well as St. Paul Our blessed Saviour Says he whose Vicar the Pope pretends to be does himself pay Tribute to Caesar Tho' a Pagan and Idolatâ—r leaving us an Admirable and most Pious Example of that obedience and Loyalty due even to Impious and Pagan Princes Nâ—r is this all for he further gives express Command that all should render to Cesar the things which are Cesars He acknowledgeth the Imperial rights of Câ—sar of which his Impiety and Idolatry did not deprive him Our Author said but just now that Passive Obedience was no more then a Bug-bear and a Doctrine groundless and only slipt into the world as by the By. But he tells us now Fol. 20. toward the bottom that in case of a Vow'd Allegiance to an Absolute and Arbitrary King a Passive Obedience was due But what 's this says he to a King of England With his leave I take it to be the same thing as to the Peoples Obedieâ—ce or Submission tho' in respect of the assuming and Exercising that Power the Case on the Kings side is greatly differing for the question is not whether the King does Well or Ill in forcing his Authority beyond the due hounds but whether the Tyranny on the one side will justify an undutiful behaviour on the other And the Law it self will easily determine This Controversy If the Subject be ty'd up by the Law to an Allegiance unconditional as aforesaid and without any Exception or qualification to discharge him of that Duty in any Cace whatsoever the Cause is clear against him And this is enough said to shew that under the Masque of a zeal to crush one Sort of Popery there is a design Carryed on for the introducing of another See now what he says of Monarchy Monarchy says he fol. 21. can be acquir'd but by two ways First By the Choice of the People who frequently in the beginning of the World out of a natural desire of Safety for the securing of a Peaceful Community and Conversation chose a Single Person to be their Head as a Proper Supream Moderator in all Differences that might arise to disquiet that Community Thus were Kings made for the People and not the People for Kings This Principle of Popular Liberty and placing the Original of Government in the People is highly derogatory to the Providence of God contrary to the express Letter of the Text and destructive of the very Being of Human Society First By implying Mankind to be cast into the World unprovided for Secondly It makes Magistracy which the Apostle tells us Rom. 13. 2. is the Ordinance of God to be of Human Institution or at best Nature's second Thought but in truth an effect either of Tumult or Chance according as Men were led to 't either by Choice or Necessity Thirdly in supposing Power to be radically in the People and the grant of it to be only an act of conveyance by common Consent and with a power of Revocation upon certain equitable Conditions either express'd or imply'd there goes no more than the Peoples recalling of their Power to the dissolving of all Commuâ—ities and Humane Society at this rate lyes at the Mercy of the Multitude But how this Revocation shall be notify'd unless by way of Advertisement in one of the True Protestant-Anabaptist-Mercurys I cannot imagine But then consider again That this Grant and Revocation must Pass with a Nemine Contradicente nay and a Nemine Absente too for one single Dissâ—â—â— or the want of one single Vote spoils all and makes void both the Original Grant and all that was done subsequent upon it for by reason of that defect it is no longer the act of the People It may put a Man in admiration to see what Credit this Phantastique and Impracticable Conceit has got in the World if he does not observe the Address in the Application of it and the use that is made of it All violent Motions of State we see are wrought and brought about by the Favour and Assistance of the People And there can be no readier way in the World to make them sure then either to calumniate or otherwise to lay open the Nakedness of the Government and to tell them that Princes are only Trustees for the Peoples good the Sovereignty in themselves and that if Governours break their Trust the People may resume their Power When the Multitude has once imbib'd this Doctrine the next work will be to set up for the recovery of their inheritance and when it comes to that once we need but look behind us to see the end on 't Our Author has already admitted upon this mistake of the Fountain of Power that the People may yet pass away their Original Right without power of Revocation Here indeed says he speaking of a Concession of Absolute Power a passive Obedience was due but what 's this to a King of England Now though the Doctrine of this Passage fol. 20. seems to clash with an Equity of Resumption reserved to the People in the last Paragraph above-recited fol. 21. I shall yet lay no hold of that implication but turn the force of his own allowance against himself If the Peoples alienation of their Power to a Prince without conditions shall stand good against them so shall the alienation of their Power also to a Prince under conditions stand every jote as good within the limits of those conditions And where shall we find those conditions but in the Establish'd Law which marks out the bounds both of King and People Now if the Law Pronounces the King to be Supream in all Causes and over all Persons c. and yet with some Limitations and Restraints upon his Prerogative Suppose he passes those Terms who shall judge him but God if he be Supream and has no other Power above him Or if the People have reserved in such a case any controuling Power to themselves how comes it that the Law takes no notice of it but on the contrary makes the Subjects accountable for any act of Disobedience or Violence to or upon the Person or Authority of the King upon what pretence soever So that under the colour of opposing or preventing an Arbitrary Power the Law is subverted here at a bâ—ow and a Foundation laid of the most pernicious and shameful sort of Tyranny He says that Kings were made for the People and not People for the Kings which is well enough if he means that Kings were made for the Government of the People which is the great Blessing of Mankind and not People for the Government of the King which turns Society into Confusion But after all these words to shew that Government Originally was not Popular I shall add a few more to prove the Institution of it to
THE Character OF A PAPIST in MASQUERADE Supported By Authority and Experience In Answer to the CHARACTER OF A POPISH SUCCESSOR By Roger L'Estrange LONDON Printed for H. Brome at the Signe of the Gun in S. Pauls Church-yard 1681. The CHARACTER of a Papist in Masquerade THe Character of a Popish Successor were an excellent Piece in the kinde if it had not too much Sublimate in it For I have heard of some people that with only holding their Noses over it but one quarter of an hour have run stark mad upon 't And when This Fume has once taken the Brain there 's nothing in the world but the Powder of Experience the Remembrance of things past to set a man Right again The Truth of it is the Authour has made the Figure of his Successour too Frightful and enormous Sawcer-ey'd and Cloven â—ooted and when he has painted the Monster as black on the One side as Ink and Words can make him he finishes his Master-Piece with a Paradox on the Other Fol. 4. by the Supposal of a most Excellent Person and yet making him the greater Devil for his Virtues His Fortitude he says makes him only the more Daring in the Cause of Rome his Justice makes it a Point of Conscience to deliver us up to the Pope his Temperance in the Government of his Passions makes him the more close and steady and his Prudence crowns the Work by the assistance it gives him in the Menage of his Policies and Conduct And so he goes on Wbat booss it says he in a Popish Heir to say he 's the Truest Friend the Greatest of Hero s the best of Masters the Justest Judge or the Honestest of Men All meer treacherous Quicksands for a people to repose the least glimpse of Safety in or build the least hopes upon This is fairly push'd I must confess but 't is only a cast of his Rhetorique For every body knows that all Christian Princes thus Qualify'd and under Articles of Treaty and Agreement keep touch even with Infidels nay and Infidels with Christians Before I go any further let me recommend to the Reader one Remarque as a thing worthy of his Attention He cuts all the way upon the Successor as presupposing him to be a Papist and consequently ` Dangerous and Insufferable by reason of That Perswasion And very magisterialy he gives us his own bare word for the dangers of that Perswasion Why does he not rather tell us in express and particular Terms These and These are the Principles of the Church of Rome and then make his Inference from those Principles to the Dangers that attend them and so leave the unbyass'd part of the world to judge of the Congruity and Proportion betwixt such Causes and such Effects For His dilating himself thus at random upon his Character and striking so point-blank at the Rescinding of the Succession makes men apt to imagine that his Pique may be rather to the Person then the Religion It will behove me in this place to inform the Reader that I do not charge him for not producing the dangerous Principles of the Papists as if I thought there were no Instances of that Quality to be given For I am better acquainted with their Ecclesiastical Politiques then so But the true Intent of my Quaere upon that Objection was to shew the Authours Prudence in reserving himself upon those Particulars For if he had said Behold Thâ—se are the Positions of the Church of Rome and they are not to be endur'd in any Government I should have ask'd him presently How comes it then that you your self under the Colour of Rooting out Popery One way are Planting it Another and Erecting the very same Pestilent Positions that you condemn Insomuch that while you would be thought zealous to Abolish the Name of Popery you are no lesse zealous to Establish the Doctrine of it Whereof at leisure The suddain bolting out of this Phantôme from behinde the Hanging may so far serve a present turn as to startle and surprise the undiscerning Vulgar Yet when upon Second and Recollected thoughts this Mormo shall come to be examin'd and taken to pieces the very multitude themselves that were affrighted at the Apparition will be asham'd of the Imposture The thing that I would say is this that the Truth is somewhat too much Hyperboliz'd in a Declamatory Torrent of Words and Exuberance of Phansy without any one Concluding and Convincing Period If Apollo had been of Counsell with the Authour he would have advis'd him to the Moderating of his Character as he does Olaus Magnus in Boccalini to moderate the Greatness of his Northern Eagles that prey'd upon Elephants as being a very Extraordinary thing for a Bird to trusse an Elephant and fly away with him which is perhaps the more Venial Excess of the two It is one of the greatest Indignities that can be put upon the simplicity of a Just Truth the dawbing of it with Embrodery and Flourish and the over-doing of it If Little Epictetus had been at his Elbow he would have minded him that some things are in our our own Power and others are not so and that the subject matter of his Discourse being wholly out of His Cognizance he might have done well to have left the business of the Succession to the Ordering of Gods Providence This is a Subject I know that whoever touches upon it treads upon Burning Coals and there must be great Caution as well as Innocence to carry a man through this Ordeal For who shall dare to Dispute the danger of a Popish Successor But so far am I from undertaking that Province that I 'le compound the matter with him beforehand and take all his suppositions of Difficulties and Hazzards in the Case for Granted But then I must distinguish betwixt the unhappy circumstance of being under the Allegeance of a Prince of that Perswasion who is actually in the Possession and Exercise of his Power and the remote Possibility only of that Danger and a Possibility too of such a condition as a thousand things may intervene to prevent it As the Contingences of Issue Survivorship c. and at the Worst this dismal apprehension amounts at last but to the Contemplation of a Prince of That Communion in a Parenthesis betwixt a Predecessor and a Successor of the Reformed Religion Not but that I am as much against the Principles and Practises of the Church of Rome wherein the Church of England hath depâ—rted from that Communion as any man living that keeps himself within the compass of Christian Charity Humanity and good Manners And so far I shall heartily joyn with the Compiler of the Character by a previous Concession of the Inconveniences as I have said already that may arrive by reason of that Religion But then I must take this Consideration along with me That First there are many Dreadfull Dangers which we cannot avoid but by incurring Greater As the Leaping of a Garret-window when the Fire
the Nation Char. As First Says my Authour why should we stand in fear of Popery when in the present Temper of England 't is impossible for any Successour whatever to introduce it And First say I too what fear of Phanaticism and a Common-wealth under the present Settlement of Episcopacy and Kingly Government Char. And next amids our groundless Fears says the Anthor of the Character by way of supposal let us consider what that Prince is that appears so dreadful a Gorgon to England A Prince that upon all Accounts has so Signally ventur'd his Life for his King and Country a Heroe of that faithfull and matchless Courage and Loyalty A Prince of that Vnshaken Honour and Resolution that his Word has ever been known to be his Oracle and his Friendship a Buâ—wark whereever he vouchsafes â—o place it with such an infinite Mass of all the Bravery and Gallantry that can adorn a Prince Why must the Change of his Religion destroy his Humanity or the advance to a Crown render his Word or Honour lesse Sacred or make him a Tyrant to that very people whom he hath so often and so chearfully Defended Why may there not be a Popish King with all these Accomplishments that whatever his own Private Devotions shall be yet shall Publiquely maintain the Protestant Worship with all the Present Constitution of Government Vnalter'd And next say I let us consider those Covenanting and Republican Spirits that appear so dreadfull to us a Party that so signally ventur'd their Lives â—or the Kingâ— Authority in the Two Houses against his Person in the Field nay of that matchlesse Courage and Loyalty that they hazzarded their Souls as well as their Bodyes to make him a Glorious Prince by sending him to Heaven before his time A Party of that unshaken Honour and Resolution that their words were Oracles their Protestations Oaths and Covenants ever bearing a double and an equivocal meaning their Friendship a Bulwark only the Guns were turn'd upon all that ever Trusted them And of so great Bravery that they charged thorough Heaven and Hell without Fear either of God or Devil and trampled under foot all Laws both Divine and Humane for the Accomplishing of their Ends. 'T is true that of Papal they are become Phanatical Jesuits and why should the Change of their Profession now destroy their Nature Or their word and Honour be lesse Sacred if they get the Power into their Hands once again then we have formerly found it They eas'd us of our Laws Lives Liberties and Estates and why should they become Tyrants Now that were so Mercyfull to us before Why may they not be such Covenanters and Common-wealths-men as whatever they be in Private will yet in Publique maintain the Monarchy and Episcopacy unalter'd Especially after that famous Instance of their Indulgence to his Majesty at Holdenby when they kept him a Prisoner without Allowing him the Benefit so much as of a Chaplain or a Common-Prayer-Book And now he proceeds Char. But alas what signifie all the great past Actions of a Princes Life when Popery has at last got the Ascendent All Virtues must truckle to Religion and how little an Impression will all his Recorded â—lorys leave behind them when Rome has once Stampt him Her Proselyte But since unlikely things may come to passe let us seriously examine how far the Notion of such a Popish Successour consists with Reason Fol. 2. Alas Alas What are the Good-Old-Cause-men the better for their Crown and Church-Lands Sequestrations Plunders Decimations Directories Classical Congregational Presbyterys when Monarchy and Episcopacy have at last got the Ascendent All Virtues must Truckle to Religion as they did when Rebellion Sacriledge Oppression and Murther were hallow'd and Authorized in the Pulpit for the Propagation of the Gospel But since unlikely things may come to pass â—â—t us see how far the Notion of a Phanatical Popery consists with the Discipline and Government by Law establish'd Char. Fol. 2. If to maintain and defend our Religion 〈◊〉 any more then a Name it is in possible for any man to act the true Defensive Part without the Offensive too And he that would effectually uphold the Protestant Worship Peace and Interest is bound to suppress all those potent and dangerous Enemies that would destroy them for all other Defense is but Disguise and Counterfeit The States-men of Forty One that defended the Protestant Religion with Sword and Cannon and our Liberties Properties and Persons at the same rate were extreamly well read in this Offensive way of Defence And our Authour is much in the Right that the way to uphold it is to suppress those that would destroy it That is to say to suppresse those that enter into Protestations Oaths and Covenants against Episcopacy Root and Branch All other Defence as he says is but Disguise and Counterfeit The Remonstrants of Forty Two declar'd it to be far from Their purpose to let loose the golden Reins of Discipline and Government in the Church which was only a Political Cheat as it is here expounded for our Churches were turn'd into Stables our Clergy hunted like Partridges in the Mountains our Pulpits Stuff'd with Blasphemy and Blew Aprons and in the Conclusion a hundred Heresyes let loose among us for one Orthodox Religion Char. Fol. 2. If then the Wisdom of several Successive Monarchs with the whole Nations Vnanimous Prudence and indefatigable Care for the Protestant Preservation has determin'd that those Papist Priests who have sworn Fealty to the See of Rome and taken Orders in Foreign Seminarys are the greatest Seducers of the Kings liege People and the most notorious Incendiaries and subverters of the Protestant Christianity and Loyalty and for that Cause their several Laws declare them Traytors by Consequence these are the Potent and dangerous Enemies which in defense of the Protestant Cause this Popish King is oblig'd to suppress and Punish and these the very Laws he is bound to Execute Fol. 2. As the Wisdom of Successive Monarchs has provided for the Protestant Preservation by necessary Severitys against known Priests and Jesuits on the One hand so have they likewise on the Other hand against Separatists of another Denomination where we find the same Principles couch'd under other Names And these are a kind of Protestant Jesuit The Pope Deposes Heretical Princes the Fanatique Deposes Popish And as Ill manners produce Good Laws the Lewd Practises on Both hands put the State upon Provisions that look both Ways The Schism here among us brake loose but once since the Reformation And what a Deluge of Hypocrisy Bloodshed Oppression Athiesm and Prophaneness flow'd in upon it But that we may not Cavil upon the Word Protestant let the Law expound it which does expressly provide for the securing of Conforming Protestants against the danger of Dissenters So that we have Potent Enemies it seems on both sides Now if a Phanatique Interest should get Head it is as improbable on this side as it is
Jealousy of Religion into the publick Rupture of a National Quarrel to the almost inevitable and irreparable Loss of his Reputation his Friends and his Dominions together Now the other way in case of his being injuriously excluded it would be forty times more easy for Him to recover his Pretensions from abroad by a Foreign Assistance in concurrence with such an English Interest as a generons Compassion to his Wrong a Respect for his Person and the Justice of his Title would certainly create him than to erect an absolute Power against the Wills and Hearts of his People and contrary to all the measures of Equity and Prudence And to do all this too while he might live and reign easily and comfortably to himself and his Subjects within the limits of a Legal Administration And if he can never expect to gain this point by calling in Auxillaries from beyond the Seas much less will he be able to do it upon the bottom of his own Interest and within himself For there must go a great many more hands than his own to such a work And to say that he may do it by his Officers or Ministers by the force of Gratifications Pensions or the Promises and Hopes of Preferment and Advantage That Objection may be easily obviated For it is a thing of clear and easy prospect the Forming of such a Scheme of Laws for securing the Bounds of the Government as no man that has either a Neck or a Fortune to lose will dare to violate But the bare Power if he had it would signify nothing neither unless the VVill as he says goes along with it Now if he may WILL he may NILL too So that he is left at Liberty to make his Election either of the One or of the Other which has in a great measure discharg'd him of the pretended Impulse of Religion and translated the Exception from the Papist to the Person Founding the apprehension upon a pretended Foresight of Tyranny and double Dealing in That Princes Character which being a thing that is only to be seen with His Spectacles and a Prognostick Peculiar to His way of Calculation wee 'l go to the next I will not deny says he ibid. but a Popish King may be totally restrein'd from all Power of Introducing Popery by the Force of such Laws as may be made to tye up his hands but then they must be such as must ruine his Prerogative and put the Executive Power of the Laws into the hands of the People This shift does not at all either weaken or avoid my Assertion for the Kings hands are sufficiently ty'd in holding the hands of his Ministers And This may be done so far as is necessary for This purpose without any Diminution to his Royal Dignity If the transferring of the Executive Power to the People that is to say Deposing of him would do the Job the Character will shew us by and by how That may be done without need of New Laws and in spite of Old Ones But what Monarch says he will be so unnatural to his bloud So ill a Defender and so weak a Champion for the Royal Dignity he wears as to sign and ratify such Laws as shall entail That Effeminancy and that Servility on a Crown as shall render the Imperial Majesty of England but a Pageant a meer Puppet upon a wire He does well to presume that a Prince will not Unking himself but he would do better yet to keep himself clear from such Propositions and Principles as lead to that Dâ—posing End For whatsoever strikes at the Crown in a Papist falls upon the Rebound on the Royal Authority in a Protestant But says he ib. If no King will assent to make Laws to do it this way and no Laws can do it t'other all Laws against Popery in case of a Popish Successor are as I told you before but building the Hedge c This Author seems to scrupulize more then needs upon the fear 〈◊〉 Cramping the Prerogative For he himself will shew us by and by how to do that without a Law which he despairs of ever seeing done by one If he had thought of what the King has lately parted with out of his Prerogative for the begeting of a Plenary Trust and Confidence in his People he would not have despair'd of any Condescension from his Majesty for the securing of his Subjects in their Properties and Religion after so much more done for them already than that which is here propounded amounts to He tells us fol. 14. of the danger of the Popâ—s Supremacy and I must tell him that within the Kings Dominions the Supremacy of the Kirk is every jote as dangerous Wherefore let us look to our selves both ways as well against those Papists that did murther the Last King as those other Papists that are in the Plot to destroy This. No doubt Says he but the Fire that burns the Heretique Law-makers shall give their Laws the same Martyrdom If they have power 't is probable enough that they will But their 's a great difference in the case betwixt a Prince and his own Subjects and the Pope and Stranger Hetiques The one destroyes his Enemies the other his Friends The Pope is in One Barque the Heaetiques in â—onother and the one may Sink and the other Swim now the King being in the same bottom with his People if he runs the Vessel upon a Rock they are all cast away together Châ—r With this certain prospect both of the ruine of their Estates Lives and Liberties where lies the Sin in the Commons of England to stand upon their Guard against a Popish Successor Aye a Gods name let them stand upon their Gaurds and use all expedients to keep out Popery and Tyranny provided still that we preserve the sacred Succession in its right line for that we are told both King and People aâ—e obliged in conscience to defeâ—d and uphold This clause has both more and less in it than a body would imagine and a man hardly knows either how to meddle with it or how to let it alone He begins with the assumption of a thing certainly prov'd though without any colour that I can find of makeing it out to be so much as probable and barely possible is the mosâ— that I can make on 't Nay and it is not that neither without imputing more of Rancâ—ur and Implacable Virulency of Nature to his Popish Successor than ever any Man yet discovered either before â—r beside the Author of this Character But however upon that substratum he takes up the Quarrel as he would have it understood of the Commons of England Where lies the sin says he in the Commons of England to stand upon their Guard against a Popish Successor This is only a Gin set for a Woodcock under the Equivoque of the Commons of England so that if a Man speaks only to the Multitude and he applys it to the Representative there may be matter pickt out
out of it For first as supposing it to be the peoples Act There must be an illegal and popular violence to accomplish it and there 's the peace of the Government broken already Beside that the Authours of that Violence can never be secure but by following it with more and greater And this comes presently to be a natural transition from a murmur against the Successour to a Tumult in the State In which Case the King has only this Choice before him either to part with every thing for the asking or to stand the shock or a Rebellion Now take it either way here 's much a greater mischief incurr'd than that we feared beside a Sanding-Army Taxes and Oaths that follow in course and a new Set of Liberty-keepers and Major-Generals to preserve the peace I speak this in the contemplation of a violence without a lawful Authority to back it which is the thing that some people have in prospect This is the Scene of things at home and abroad we shall undoubtedly see the Successours Interest and Reputation eâ—creasing daily in regard of his Sufferings his Title and his Religion having Scotland to friend over and above and probably as it is at present the place of his Residence But these are as yet all dormant Interests and not to be employ'd till either his duty to his Majesty or Justice to his own pretensions shall require their Aid Take it the other way now In the case of a Popâ—sh King who is either kept out as I said before or dâ—iven out from the exercise of his right by the tumultuary licence of the Rabble an Oath of Abjuration in case of any fair opportunity for him to assert his Claim with his Sword in his hand will be so far from engaging any man against him that yielded contrary to his conscience to swallow it for the saving of his stake that he will find no firmer Friends to his Cause and Interest than those men that are stimulated both by Honour and Revenge to the execution of their Duties For there is no hatred so fell and deadly as that which has for the object of it the Authors or Contrivers of our damnation and the hazard is so much the greater in regard of the difficulty to discover either the persons or the strength of their Enemies And whether that King makes any attempt or no the Nation must be at the charge at least of a defensive war and of Impositions to maintain it And this will be the inconvenience even in the bare prospect of the state of the Nation without a blow striking But from Scotland at least if not from Ireland too they must expect to be ply'd with continual Alarms till the insupportable expence of guarding the Borders and the Coasts shall make them as sick of their new Patriots as ever they were of their old ones and force them at last or perhaps sooner than they are aware to render themselves and their Spoil to their irresistible conjunction of so many Powers as will be then Confederate to their destruction And then comes in the Popery in earnest that was dreaded but in fancy before When this new King shall by the proper act and forfeiture of a seduc'd and unforeseeing people be deliver'd from the Fetters of both Honour and Laws who brings in Popery then but they that discharg'd him from those sacred Bonds by the solly and conâ—umacy of their own inconsiderate Undertakings Compare now the dangers of a Popish King bounded by Protestant Laws and ruling over a Protestant People where he may be as happy as an Imperial Crown and the Affections of his Subjects can make him Compare I say a Popish King under these gracious and obliging Circumstances in the quiet administration of his Government with a Prince that is forc'd to make his way with his Sword for the recovery of his own and is not onely prick'd on by the impulses of justice and vengeance but animated by the Pope himself and provok'd by indignation to take the utmost advantage of that foolish forfeiture the people themselves having cancell'd the Bonds of Authority and Obedience Let any man compare these two cases and then speak his opinion There is one pâ—int yet behind that goes further I think than any of the rest If it be reasonable to believe as we are often told and no Mortal can deny it that our Religion is an Eye sore to the Church of Rome and that this Island would make a considerable addition to our victorious Neighbours late Conquests what way in the world could be propounded more to the advantage both of the Crown of France and the Court of Rome than the bringing of matters to the issue here in question when in the powerful and liberal Assistances to this supposed King for the regaining of his own the one and the other are but doing of their own business This Prince in the mean while being led to the one by inclination and overborn upon the other by Necessity Here 's enough said to lay open the miserable effects of popular motions in matters of this high importance and so I shall pass forward submitting what I have said upon this occasion to the judgment and determination of my Superiours The remainder of the last Paragraph above cited is fully answered already bate onely the Clause that I am now about to proceed upon Char. Whilest we are thus enslaved says he by a medly Government betwixt Tyranny and Usurpation by establishing a Papist on a Throne we are so far from preserving the Crown that is the Imperial Dignity in a right Line of Succession that we do not preserve it at all but on the contrary extirpate and destroy it whilst by Enthroning a Papist we totally Subvert and Depose the very Monarchy it self And can it be the Duty of either Englishmen or Christians to have that Zeal for a Corrupted Leprous Branch of Royalty that we must ruine both Religion Government and Majesty it self to support him It is a strange way this of shewing a Mans Honour for his Prince by blasting the very Bloud of his Brother or of expressing his love to Monarchy by treating Majesty tho but in reversion at so course a rate But it is upon a Principle that may be supported by Imperiousness and Heat in regard that it will not bear the Test of a modest Debate and a corrupted Leprous Branch of Royalty is the dint of the Argument But what does he mean to confound Civil Power and Religion thus and impose upon the World a Paradox that for want of rightly dividing endangers both Government is matter of Publique and External Order and a Divine Provision for the Peace Comfort and Security of Mankind wherein all the several parts are bound up in one Community to attend the Interest and Conservation of the whole Whereas Religion is the business of every individual apart and only so far cognizable in a State as it affects the Civil Power What can be
a Mental Reservation First We swear in this Oath as in all others to the Sense of the Authority that imposes it And can any body imagine that the Government impos'd this Test of Allegeance upon the People to leave them still at Liberty to play fast and loose with Reserves and Qualifications of their own And so to frustrate the main intent of the Oath by accommodating the Exposition of it for the serving of a Turn or a Faction The Oath binds them to Subjection and they absolve themselves of That Subjection by giving it the Name of Slavery And so every man is left at pleasure to take off his own Shackles But what if it were Slavery it self The Prince were to blame for straining his Authority but the Subjects nevertheless Criminal on the other side for withdrawing their Duty He has found a Loop-hole to evade This Oath by turning SVBIECTS into SLAVES But That will not do his business without turning a Lawful Successor to a Protestant Establisht and bounded Government into an arbitrary absolute Popish Tyrant In which supposition he holds forth This Doctrine to the People that in This Case there is a Forfeiture of the Government and that this is the very Case which we have now before us wherein contrary to Law Reason and the Fundamental Essentials of all Government he does as much as in him lyes authorize and incite the Multitude to a Sedition I answer that the Law is clearly against him for tho the Prerogative is bounded the Duty of the Subject is yet left unconditional there being no Law nor so much as the colour of any incase of the Kings passing his legal Limits to absolve the People of their Allegeance And it is not the Plea of Provocation or the exercise of a Tyrannical Power that will save the Subject from the Sentence oâ— the Law in case of any disloyal act of Assault or Resistance It is against Reason likewise that the Inferiour shall overrule the Superiour and invert the last Resort of Decision and Judgment from the Prince to the Subject It is lastly destructive of Government it self to suppose such a Reserve in a Political Constitution as carries the last Appreal to the People which is the case in this Proposition The King as a Trustee that abuses his power incurrs a Forfeiture as our Author will have it of that Trust and so all subordinate Trustees may incurr the like Forfeiture till all Communities are melted down again into the ridiculous conceit of the Original Soveraignty of the Multitude which is onely a Chaos of Anarchy and Confusion He is over again here with the Royal Constitution of the three free States of England which must be understood either of the Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons or of the King Lords and Commons reckoning His Majesty to be one of the three Estates Take it the former way and instead of Your Majesty's Loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament which was the style even of the last Rebellion it self the Petition should run t'other way and say The humble Petition of Charles the second to your Majesties the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons â—ssembled in Parliament Now take it as accounting the King to be one of the three Estates that Imaginary Câ—ordination leaves him at the mercy of the other two whensoever they please The Learned and the Right Reverened Bishop of Lincoln in his Discourse of Popery pag. 4. England says he is a Monarchy the Crown Impâ—rial and our Kings Supreme Governours and sole Supreme Governours of this Realm and all other their Dominions c. In our Oath of Supremacy we sweaâ— That the King is the Only Supreme Governour Supreme so none not the Pope above him and Only Supreme so none Coordinate or equal to him The Character brings in the Subjects Petition of Right for a further countenance to his pretension but what noise soever it makes in the cars of the people there is not one syllable in it that appears in his favour And yet once again upon the presumptions ascresaid he grounds this Assertion That in such a case neither is he the same King that we swore to nor we the same Subjects that took the Oath If this be not Rome against Rome and Popery against Popery I know not what is But at the worst it is but paraphrazing upon the Oath of Allegiance as they did upon the Covenant Give me leave now to retort the Argument His Popish Successâ—r will be a Tyrant he says for it is a Tyrannical Religion But after all the stress of â—rreverent Language upon his R. H. he cannot charge any thing in the worldupon him that looks that way in his inclination But yet here 's enough says he to conclude the Reason and the Necessity of his Seclusion The Compiler of this Character would take it ill now on the other side if a man should say that his very argument against the Duke holds as true against the Author of the Character For that Dominion is founded in Grace is the Principle both for which and by which he pretends to Supplant the Successor Now why may we not apprehend Sedition from the one as well as Tyranny from the other Nay and with more Justice too considering that there is but a bare Contemplation the One way and the Practice of an enflaming Discourse over and above that Contemplation the other Char. But alas says he that Bug-bear Passive obedeience is a Notion crept into the world and most Zealously and perhaps as ignorantly defended Fol. 20. This Period brings him well nigh to his Journeys end For till now he contented himself with only opposing the primitive Practices and the Common Principles of Christianity in justifying a Violence upon an Impulse of Religion But the making of Passive Obedience only a Bug-bear and the Defence of it an effect of Ignorance brings it home to the very person of our Saviour and to the Doctrine that was delivered by those Holy Lips So far says the Learned Prelate above mentioned Pag. 55. was St. Paul from believing those Popish Rebellious Principles Denying the Superiority of the Civil power and from Dissoyalty or Disobedience to that Imperial tho' Pagan Power under which he Lived that he publickly acknowledged and humbly submitted to it Nor was he only in his own Person Obedient and a Loyal Subject to the Emperor but writing to the Romans he did as an Apostle of Jesus Chrâ—st command them also to be Loyal and Obedient Let every Soul every man be Subject to the Higher the Supreme Powers c. And then he adds that they should render to them Tribute Custom Fear Honour and all their Duties By Supreme Power there he means men possessing Supreme power and the Supreme power under which He and the Romans then were was Nero a most Impious Pagan and Persecutor of Christ and Christians and yet every Soulq within his Empire even Peter as well as Paul was by the Law of
be purely Divine which opinion in truth needs not any other Support than the Authority of the Holy Scriptures By me Kings Reign c. I have made the Earth the Man and the Beasts that are upon the Ground by my great Power and my Outstretched arm and have given it to whom it seemed meet unto me Jer. 27. 5. That which we now call Kingly Government was at first called Paternel and after that Patriarchal c. And we find by the Powers they exercised as Life and Death War and Peace c. that their Paternal Power did Then extend to all the Acts of our Regal Power The Objection is could there be a King without a People Which is all one with the Supposal of a Father without a Son But This does not at all conclude that Adam had not both a Regal and a Paternal Power before he had either People or Children actually to govern and exercise it upon It being a thing so consonant also to the Methods of the Divine Wisdom to supply him previously with all needful Abilities and Authorities for the Discharge of his Fatherly and Governing Office The whole Race of his Posterity lying open even before they had any Existency in Nature to the Omniscience of God with whom there is no PAST or FUTVRE but all things always PRESENT Again if Adam did not bring his Authority into the World with him when did he receive his Commission Or if he had none at all how could he justifie the Arbitrary Rule he exercis'd over those People that were only his Fellow Subjects under the same God and without any Subordinate Ruler over them Or if Adam was vested with a Right of exerting the Power he exercis'd how came our Authors Imaginary Multitude to chuse a Governor of their own in opposition to the appointment of Providence Or who absolved them from the Bonds of their filial and primary Duty and Obedience What he says afterward of Conquest which he calls his Other Acquisition of Monarchy serves only for an occasion to tell us that our Last Norman Conquest was little more than a Composition which is an error and nothing at all to the point here in hand which refers only to the constitution and Settlement of the Government as now it stands without any respect to the manner of acquiring it But he is now drawing to a conclusion Char. If now at last says he Popery must and shall come in as by law it cannot and consequently must be restored by Arbitrary Power If a new Monarchy then a new Conquest and if a Conquest Heaven forbid we should be subdu'd like less than English-men or be debar'd the Common Right of all Nations which is to Resist and Repel an Invader if we can fol. 21. This is spoken upon the supposition of a Popish Successors coming to the Crown whom he calls an Invader though qualifyed with a Legal Title and he incourages Violence against him tho' in this case the Law pronounces him a King and this Resistance to be made like English-men too that is to say English-men of the late stamp So that there goes no more I perceive to the destruction of a Lawful Prince but to say that he either is or will be this or thaâ— And the King himself stands in as much danger upon the admittance of this Principle as his Royal Brother But before Subjects proceed to these terms which without a legal Authority are criminal in any case whatsoever Malice it selâ— will not deny but that there ought to be an infallible certainty of the Inconvenience whereas as I have said before this is a case lyable to many disappointments the prospect of it remote the expedient unwarrantable and the danger it self at last not so mortal as it is represented He supports his presumption upon this ground for granted that a Popish King must do whatsoever the Pope will have him do and subject his people to the Tyranny as well as the Religion of the Church of Rome What does he say to the French Kings Pyramid then and the vindication of himself and his people in divers other cases from the Insults of Rome and to several other instances already given in this particular Char. But to summ up all this says he I must say the most vehement Disputants against the Peoples right of defending themselves must at length acâ—nowledge thus much that whenever a Papist King shall by Tyranny establish the Popes Jurisdiction in England undoubtedly in the eye of God he is guilty of a greater sin than that People can be that with open Arms oppose that Tyranny Fol. 22. This is a clause of double consolation First to the Author that this Popish King shall be damn'd the deeper of the two And Secondly to the People that they shall go to the Devil in good company Char. The very Essence he says of a Popish Successor is the greatest Plot upon England since the Creation a Plot of God himself to scourge a Nation and make three Kingdoms miserable This must be a very great Plot if it be the greatest Plot that we have seen even in our days a Plot upon our Laws and it subverted them upon the Church and it destroyed it root and branch upon our Estates and it took them away by violence upon our Liberties and it enslav'd us upon our Lives and it was made death to do our Duties It was a Plot that left us no other choice in many cases but Death or Damnation If I had ask'd my revenues says the late King 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sect 24. my power of the Militia or any one of my Kingdoms it had been no wonder to have been denied in those things where the evil policy of men forbids all Restitution lest they should confess an injurious Usurpation But to deny me the Ghostly comfort of Chaplains seems a greater rigour and barbarity then is ever used by Christians to the meanest Prisoners and greatest Malefactors whom tho' the Justice of the Law deprives of worldly Comforts yet the Mercy of Religion allows them the benefit of their Clergy as not aiming at once to destroy their Bodyâ— and to Damn their Souls But My Agony must not be Reliev'd with the Presence of any one Good Angel for such â—account a Learned Godly and Discreet Divineâ— such I would have all Mine to be They that envy my being a King are loth I should be a Christian while they Seck to deprive Me of all things else they are aâ—â—aâ—d I should save my soul. Has the Author of the Character heard of this Un-Christian Barbarity toward a Prince of the most Exemplary Goodness and Piety one of them that ever liv'd And how he was yet after all this Murther'd on a Scaffold in the Name and under the pretended Sovereignty of the People of England How has he then the hardness of Heart to set up that Regicidal Principle afresh and to pronounce the Government of a Popish Successor to be a
which if he had accomplish'd he might easily have done And to do his Memory Justice he told me this Story with very great Inâ—â—ignation the Substance of which as I shall answer for it to God at the day of Judgment I have faithfully related to the best of my memory upon the Faith of a Christian man Now to 〈◊〉 his Point will not the very Name of a Republican Râ—formation which is at Present become the Theme of every Pamphlet warm Our Mud into Monsters again and raise Coblers and Tinkers to Colonels Draymen and Thimble-makers to be Kings Judges Wherefore Now or Never is his Majesty oblig'd if his Word Honour or Coronation-Oath be more then a Name if I may be pardon'd for speaking my Authours words after him to uphold the Protestant Interest which now lyes a bleeding in this Cause of the Church One Branch of the Coronation Oath being as follows I will preserve and maintain to You the Bishops and the Churches committed to your charge all Canonical Priviledges and due Law and Justice and I will be your Protector and Defender to my Power by the Assistance of God as every good King in his Kingdom â—n right ought to protect and defend the Bishops and Churches under theâ—r Government Then the King ariseth and is led to the Communion Table where he makes a Solemn Oath in sight of all the People to observe the Premises and laying his hand upon the Book saith The Oath The things which I have before promised I shall perform and keep So help me God and the Contents of this Book Char. But let us suppose we may have such a Roman Catholique King as shall discountenance Pope and Popery Cherish Protestantism and effectually deterr and punish all those that shall endeavour to undermine and supplant it And then let us examine what This King thus qualify'd must do Fol. 2. Here is a Supposition fairly propounded in appearance but yet without Expounding himself upon the Worâ—d Protestantism there 's no coming to an Issue upon 't If he means by Protestantism the Opions of the Outlyers that have leapt the pale and which are rather Phansies then Perswasions the Law it self animadverts upon those people as the Underminers of our Ecclesiastical Establishment And his Discountenancing of Separatists will amount to no more then a Legal Discharge of his Office But if by Protestantism he intends a practical Conformity to the Orders of the Church the Law provides as well for the upholding of the One as the suppressing of the Other And it would be a strange Oversight for any Prince that should mount the English Throne under the disadvantages of that Perswasion to put his Perogative upon the stretch of Enacting or Abrogating Laws without the Consent of his Parliament Char. First then In continuing the Ecclesiastique Jurisdiction Honours and Preferments in the hands of the Protestant Clergy he must confer his Favours and Smiles on those very men whom by the Fundamentals of his own Vncharitable Perswasion which dooms all that dy out of the Bosom of the Romish Church to a certain State of Damnation he cordially believes do preach and teach and lead his Subjects in the direct way to Hell And next at the same time he must not only punish and persecute but perhaps emprison and hang those very only Righteous men whom from the bottom of his Soul he believes can only open them the Gates of Paradice whilest in so doing he cannot but accuse himself of coppying the Old Jewish Cruelty Nay in One respect he outgoes their Crime for he acts that Knowingly which they committed Ignorantly For by the Dictates of Religion he must be Convinc'd that in effect he does little lesse then save a Barabbas and Crucify a Jesus Fol. 3. Here is First presented a dismal Prospect of a Popish Successour in the Life of a Protestant Prince and the present Government of that Protestant Prince troubled and distracted with Clamours and Jealousies for fear of a Popish one to come If Religion were really the business they would rather blesse God for the Peace and Happiness they enjoy and wait his further Pleasure with Thankfullness and Resignation then with Murmuring and Distrust to anticipate Future Evills and Prejudge Providences to come Or if Religion were All what 's the meaning of their hammering so much of late upon the Subject of Arbitrary Power and so many Models and Projects of a Common Wealth which were the very Method of our late Usurpers as to matter of Arbitrary Power the King has pass'd away so many Concessions already for the gratifying of his Subjects that if he had it in his Will his Majesty has not left it in his Power to be guilty of that which is so ungratefully Charg'd upon him Which makes it look liker a mockery then an Accusation And then for the New-fangled Device of a Free Common Wealth our Republican Agitators should do well to mind the People of England of the blessed condition they were in under the pretended Keepers of an Liberties The Sound of Freedom and Liberty brings the Multitude like Larks to the Glasse but not a word of the Net They say nothing of the Standing Army that must be kept afoot to support it nor of the bloudy Taxes that must be rais'd to maintain those Troops and Martial Law to make good all those Violences Why do they not tell them of their Charters Franchises Priviledges and Tenures which are all swallow'd up in that Gulph of Popular Tyranny And so are all other advantageous Dependences upon the Crown The Body of the Law must be new garbled and a Civil War with all the Miseries and Contingences of it must be the Prologue to the Opening of this Tragical Scene And if the Sedition fails of successe they bring themselves into the state again of a Conquer'd Nation And upon these Terms it is at best that they are to exchange a Condition of Peace Freedom and plenty for â—eggery Bondage and Confusion It was very well sayd of Grotius upon the NetherLanders delivering themselves from the 〈◊〉 of Spain We Fought says he to save the Tenth part of our Estates and now that we have got the day we have Compounded 〈◊〉 th' other Nine Here is a Criminal and a Dangerous but I hope an Impracticable Proposal set afoot But brought in God knows by Head and shoulders under the Countenance of Religion and Succession It is possible there may be no more in it then a Well-meaning mistake But there must be an Infinite Tenderness of Conscience and a most untainted Loyalty to justify the Authour But to return to my Character As to the Influence which a Popish Successour may have upon Ecclesiastical matters as in the Character there needs no more to be sayd in 't then this that the King hath been gratiously pleased to offer the Passing of any Bill for securing the Protestant Religion without barring or diverting the Succession And such Expedients have been also fram'd to that
effect as have been by great Authority judg'd Competent for the Obviating of that Difficulty As to the Rest I will not deny but that it is a hard thing for a Prince to â—eize and persecute a People of his own Religion purely eo nomine for their being so And it is very Probable too that he will connive at men of that Perswasion in many Cases where the Law directs a Punishment And what is there more in this theâ— what has been done already more or less from the Date of the Statutes themselves to This very day and what is done by the Government it self toward the Non-Conformists at this Instant where is the great hurt now upon this Admittance in not punishing the Papists so long as the Protestants are not Persecuted Whereas the Fanatical Papists did not only in defiance both of Law and Gospel engross all Offices Benefits and Priviledges to themselves but without Mercy or Distinction destroy'd the rest of their Brethren Char. A very pretty Chimaera Which is as much as to make this Popish King the greatest Barbarian in the Creation a Barbarian that shall cherish and maintain the Dissenters from Truth and punish and condemn the Pillars of Christianity and Proselites of Heaven Which is no other then to speak him the basest of Men and little lesse then a Monster Beside at the same time that we suppose that King that dares not uphold nor encourage his own Religion we render him the most deplorable of Cowards a Coward so abject that he dares not be a Champion even for his God And how consistent this is with the Glory of a Crowned Head and what hope England has of such a Successour I leave all men of sense to judge Fol. 3. Behold here 's the upshot of this high-flown Paragraph A Popish Prince that puts the Laws in Execution for the punishing of Papists and for the protecting and countenancing of Protestants is little less then the basest of Monsters How comes it then that the Crown of France has not treated the Protestant Subjects there as this Picture-drawer pronounces that a Popish Successour would treat his Protestant Subjects here The Protestants have now and then been severely handled I know in France as the Papists upon some Junctures have been in England And now of late worse then usual All which has been Influenc'd well by Reasons of State as by Impulse of Religion But shall we Pronounce the most Christian King the greater Monster for his better usage of us If a potent Aversion to us in matter of Religion had transported the French King 's into so mortal a Detestation of us to all other purposes they would never have committed so many Eminent Charges both in Councells and in Arms to the Honour and Trust of Protestant Officers and Commanders But the Convenience and Utility of the State preponderated against Disagreements in Religion The Barbarisms of the Holy League were the Results of a Sanguinary Faction as well in Civil Government as Religion And one Egg is not Liker another then the League of these Dissenting Papists to the Covenant of our Jesuitical and Dissenting Pseudo-Protestants To come now to the Reason and Conscience of this Elaborate Padox Taking His Position for granted that a Popish Prince is bound by his Religion contrary to Oaths and Promises Honour and Justice the Dictates of Nature the Laws of Nations and the Bonds of Humane Society contrary to all This I say and to his Interest also to break Faith with Protestants and those Protestants his Subjects too He must be unman'd as well as Unchristian'd an Excomunicate to Humane Nature and excluded from all the Benefits and Offices of Mankind And yet we are not without many Instances in the French League and the Scottish Covenant of an abandon'd Perfidy even to this degree It must be a strange Digestion sure that can put over all other Impieties and turn the violation of all that is Sacred in Nature into a meritorious Virtue Char. Besides what mismatch'd incongruous Ingredients must go to make up this Composition a King His Hand and Heart must be of no Kin to one another He must be so Inhumane to those very darling Jesuites that like Mahomets Pidgeon infus'd and whisper'd all his Heavenly Dreams into his Ears that he must not only clip their wings but fairly Cage 'em too even for the Charming Oracles they breath'd him And at the same Minute he must leave the wide and open Ayr to those very Ravens that daily croak Abhorrence and Confusion to them and all their Holy Dreams and their false Oracles Thus whilest he acts quite contrary to all his Inclinations against the whole Bent of his Soul what does he but publikely put in force those Laws for the Protestant Service till in fine for his Nations Peace he ruines his own and is a whole Scene of War within himself Whilst his Conscience accusing his sloth on one side the Pope on the other Rome's continuall Bulls bellowing against him as an undutifull Son of Holy Mother-Church a Scandal to her Glory a Traytor to her Interest and a Deserter of her Cause one day accusing the Lukewarmnesse of his Religion another the Pusillanimity of his Nature all Roman-Catholick Princes deriding the Feeblenesse of his Spirit and the Tamenesse of his Arm till at long run to spare a Fagot in Smithfield he does little lesse then walk on hot Irons himself Thus all the pleasure he relishes on a Throne is but a kinde of Good-Fryday-Entertainment Instead of Royall Festival his Rioting in all the Luxury of his Heart to see Rome's Dagon worshipp'd Rome's Altars smoke Rome's Standard set up Rome's Enemies defeated and his victorious Mother-Church Triumphant his abject and poor-spirited Submission denyes himself the only thing he thirsts for and whilst the Principles he suck from Rome do in effect in the Prophets Words bid him Rise Slay and Eat his fear his unkingly nay unmanly fear makes him fast and starve Fol. 3. This Passage is only the same thing over again in a diversity of Words and Phrase But it is well enough to answer the Ends it was intended for the tickling of the Phansy and the moving of a Popular Passion without one syllable of weight to strike the Judgement My Reply upon the Last Paragraph shall serve for This too which I have not here Recited as requiring any Answer but to shew what pains he has taken with the Ornaments of his Rhetorique to supply the Defect of Argument I cannot liken it to any thing better then the Gaudy Glittering Vapour that Children are used to Phansy in a Cloud They 'l Phansy Lions Peacocks in it or what other Figures they Please but the first Breath of Ayre scatters the Phantastique Images and resolves the whole into its original Nothing And just so it is with this Character There are many things in it finely enough sayd to work upon a partial and an Easy Imagination and to mislead a body at first
against Popery Yes As the Fellow united his Ratts he put them all into a Tub together and then they eat up one another View them well and you shall not find above three of four of them that have any consistence one with another And which are they nay that 's a Secret But if Popery be so dreadful because it is a Persecuting Religion why is not the Writer of this Character as sensible of 150 Persecuting Religions on the one side as of One Persecuting Religion on the other God preserve the Church of England I say from both Or if that bitter Cup be our Lot the Lord in his Mercy grant that we may not add Sedition to Persecution It were no Ill Embleme of the Original of our Late Troubles to phancy a Man in a Fright and leaping from a painted Lion upon a Wall into a Bed of Vipers And no better are the pragmatical part of the Revolters from our Communion while in the mean time Thousands and Thousands of the Credulous and Well meaning Multitude are by them inveigled to their destruction About the middle of the 17th Page the Character-Man is either laid down to take a Nap while some other less skilful hand supplys his place or else he writes on in his Sleep And it would have been well if all the rest too had been no more than a Dream There is a Finical Marchpane Spark here about the Town that takes a huge deal of pains to get himself suspected for the Author of this Book he makes me think of a little Gentleman in a Yellow Coat that would still be talking how rarely he plaid o' th' Organ and this poor Wretch phancied that he made all the Musique when it was his part only to draw the Bellows He has done some very pretty things they say upon Touzer But for this Character I dare venture to be his Compurgator at least to the middle of the 17th Page But further I dare not undertake for the next two rages and a half a Man may trace them upon the Hoof to the very Ink-pot His Story of Paris's Mother some body should have told him that it was Hecuba that dream'd she was deliver'd of a Fire-brand His Debate upon the Parallel betwixt the dis-inheriting a Private Popish Heir and a Popish Successor His Proposal of the Successors following Curtius into the Gulf the Third-bare Story of Damocles's Sword And then his Argumentum à fortiori These fragments might possibly be the Fruit of his own Minerva But now toward the bottom of the 19th Page we have the First Hand again Char. But to Sum up all says he if no reason must or shall prevail and that right or wrong a Papist must succeed when all the inseparable Cruelties of Pope and Popery shall surround us suppose the worst that may be that the dreadful approach of certain Slavery so opposite to the Free-Born Genius of England has exasperated them into a Spirit of Rebellion What is it but the Pestilential Ayer of Reigning Popery that bloats and swells them into that Contagion And if this Popish King Summons all his Thunder to punish them for 't what can the greatest Favourer of Rome make more on 't than that he warps them crooked and then breaks them to pieces because they are not streight Just as he serves his Popish Successor he draws ye the Picture of a Tyrant and then Deposes him And what 's the whole Sum of a Revolting Nation under a Popish Tyrant but using a violent Cure to expel an Universal Poyson Fol. 19. This Clause is only Buchanan Janius Brutus c. Translated into English and for brevity sake a fair hint toward a Rebellion and an Apology for it both in one As who should say If it must come to a Popish Successor the English Genius would never brook it and there 's no remedy but one that is to say a Revolt which they may e'en thank themselves for And then up goes Forty One again â— the Factions dismount the Government set up for themselves and so go on plucking down him still that is uppermost till they come from Reforming to Levelling and there is an end on 't I would he had not been so positive upon the Free born Genius of England for we have been inveigled actually into a slavery under Cobblers and Tinkers We that with so much Indignation at present oppose ourselves to the bare Possibility of a Royal Successor And that have Sacrificed three Kingdoms already to those degenerate fears Char. But here says he will some pretended Pious Objector say How shall we dare to Revolt Remember we are Christians and we must Obey or at least yield a Passive Obedience to our King be his Religion Principles or Government never so Tyrannique He is still the Lords Anointed and our Native Sovereign I would ask says he what this Lords Anointed is And who t is is our Native Sovereign When instead of being free-Subjects Pope and Tyranny shall rule Over us and we are made slaves and Papists That Person is the Lords Anointed who by Gods Providence and a Legal Succession of right to the Crown is the Supreme Magistrate whom if we may cast off for Popery and Tyranny we may depose at any time by saying That 's the Case For 't is but saying so to make it so Nay and he goes further yet For here 's a Prince Depos'd for fear he should be so without any allowance for intervening Contingences Or any Limits to the Extent of the Prospect So that 't is but the carrying on of our Jealousies to future times and without any more to do dissolve the Monarchy upon the self-same Contemplation It would be as pertinent a question now what are those Free Subjects as what is This Lords anointed If by this Freedom he would intimate an Exemption from the Law His Free-Subject is a palpable contradiction For in This Case he makes the Lords Anointed the Subject and his Free Subject the Lords Anointed Char. We are bound indeed says he by our Oaths of Allegiance to a constant Loyalty to the King and his lawful Successors Very Right By that Oath we are bound to be his lawful Successors Loyal Subjects but why his Loyal Slaves Or how is an Arbitrary Absolute Popish Tyrant any longer a Lawful Successor to a Protestant Established and bounded Government When lawfuly Succeeding to this limited Monarchy he afterwards violently unlawfully and Tyrannically overruns the due bâ—unds of Power dissolves the whole Royal Constitution of the Three Free-States of England and the Subjects Petition of Right whilst wholly abandoning those Reins of Government which were his Lawful Birth-Right and making New ones of his own Illegal Creation he makes us neither those Free-born Subjects we were when we took that Oath nor himself That King we swore to be Loyal to What have we here but a Jesuitical Dispensation for the breaking of an Oath and slipping our Necks out of the Collar of our Allegiance by