circulating at Home in such Englishmens hands who may buy the Lands that are to be sold without naturalizing Strangers To our Author's Question what it is that hath brought us to this Condition That Landed Men are necessitated to sell and that none are left able to buy except Foreigners be naturaliz'd It may be answered in short That the base Surrender or rather betraying of our Civil and Religious Liberties in the late Reigns by those of his Party brought us to a necessity of inviting over our present Soveraign and joining him with our Arms to recover what we had so lost and the Treachery of those of his Party whom His Majesty has been forc'd to imploy or the Curse of Heav'n upon such Instruments hath many times broken his Measures prolong'd the War increas'd our Taxes and ruin'd our Trade but that none are left able to buy except Foreigners be naturaliz'd is I suppose what no body ever said There may be and are many who are able to buy that are not willing so long as they see the Government liable to the Treachery of such Men as himself who would inhance the whole Administration of Affairs into their own hands and not only exclude Foreigners but their own Native Brethren and a hundred times better Englishmen than themselves because their Consciences will not suffer them to take the Sacrament for the obtaining of a Place or Commission which they think contrary to our Saviour's Design and Institution or are not so superlatively Proud as to pretend to a posture of greater Humility in receiving the same than was practis'd by the Holy Apostles and not only for this reason but also because the Faction represent the honest and moderate Churchmen as not fit to be imployed putting them almost in the same Category with Dissenters And therefore I would very fain know of our Author what encouragement either of those sorts of Men have to lay out their Money in buying Land when they must bear equal Burden with others to support the Government while their Enemies enjoy all the profitable Imployments under it and only watch for an opportunity not only to deprive them of their Estates as in the days of Yore but of their Lives and all the Comforts of 'em For we see so little of the effects of the Faction's Repentance for their having formerly persecuted their Brethren that on the contrary in is evident that they are ready to burst with their Venom which is now kept in by the Restraint of Law And as to the Naturalizing of Foreigners though we don't say that none are left able to buy except that be granted yet such a Law would very much conduce to procure Chapman For there are not only some French Protestants who are able to purchase but many rich Merchants and others in Holland and Germany who would be thereby incourag'd to come and plant themselves here where they might have all Necessaries in Plenty and the Freedom of their Religion under a Government which they love and in a Country where they might live without any fear either from the French King or any other Oppressor and if this should be the Case as it probably would considering the horrible Devastations of the Palatinat the continual Danger of other Protestants upon the Rhine and elsewhere and the little Ground that there is to be purchas'd in Holland where I pray would be England's Disadvantage by an Act of Naturalization And would it not rather be infinitely to her Advantage to have their Estates spent here upon her own Product and her Strength increas'd by such a considerable accession of Zealous Protestants who know the Principles and Practices of the Papists so well that they would be in no hazard according to the practice of too too many of our English Protestants either of espousing the Interest of Lewis XIV the late King and his pretended Son or of undermining the Government of Their present Majesties but this our Author and his Party know too well and that makes 'em redouble their Clamour against the Act of Naturalization though under the specious pretences of an Exuberant Zeal for our English Liberties In the next part of the Paragraph the Gentleman charges the House with ruining themselves and their Posterity by Taxes as if no other of the Members had either Estates to be tax'd or Posterity to be ruin'd but himself Our Author 's Good Book for that 's the highest Epithet which he can vouchsafe to the Holy Scriptures says He that provides not for his Family is worse than an Infidel an Epithet which the Moderns appropriate to the Turk but certainly he that ruins his Family must be worse and I can't tell how to explain that better than by saying that he must be as bad as the French King and so the Commons are obliged to this Gentleman for his Complement Then he tells us That our Forefathers would not expend the Money of the Kingdom upon such Allies as ours who are not in our Interest and will spare us none of their Men for our Pay without great Pensions likewise for themselves Here our Author runs high indeed and brings in Privy-Counsellors to accuse the King as if he had made an Alliance with those who are not in our Interest which must be a very strange kind of Allies indeed I think by the Gentleman's leave that in such a cafe as this He that is not against us is for us and it 's much better to have a Defensive Alliance with the Northern Crowns than none at all that keeps them from doing us hurt if they can do us no good and as for their not letting us have their Men for Pay without Pensions to themselves if they furnish their Quota's for their Concerns in the Empire we have the less reason to be angry I don't known that any Prince or State have reason to part with their Men which are their Strength for bare Pay without any other Consideration and if His Majesty think fit to grant it I know no reason why this Gentleman should cast such an Unmannerly Reflection upon it a Provocation as small as this brought Charles I. with an Armed Force to demand five Members from the House of Commons but let the King do what he can our Author will never be pleas'd if he sends Englishmen abroad to fight then he cries out that they are sent to be knock's on the head without their Pay and if he hire Foreigners then he expends his Money upon such Allies as our Forefathers would not have done though at the same time His Majesty has very few or no Allies but what at some time or other have been in Alliance with our Forefathers and had of their Money too when they had not so much to spare As to the bringing of Foreign Souldiers into England and Naturalizing them while at the same time he sends English Souldiers abroad c. it 's very hard that a Foreign Prince who riskt his All to save
Houses of them and their Egyptian Faction as ever the Jewish Sect called Ranelites thought themselves bound to reverence those Frogs which plagu'd Pharaoh and his court and that which shall heighten my Reverence is that from amongst these Froglanders as he calls them we have now not only an Hereditary King but one whom God and the good People of England have chosen though I doubt not but to our Worthy Knight and Men of his stamp the noise of the Locusts or the Priests and Jesuits which were formerly hatch'd in the Chambers of our Kings was a much more Melodious Musick than that which he calls the Croaking of the Dutch Frogs and thus I chastise our Author's Contempt because the basest are always ready to despise the best and as our Author's Sirname would denote him of Dutch Original and his Extract to be from the meanest of their People it 's no wonder that he should thus despise a Nation where his Predecessors were never above the sphere of an Ordinary Servant and so much his Name will tell him let him search for the Etymology when he pleases Our Author in the next place goes on thus Mr. Speaker This Nation is a Religious Just and Zealous Nation who in some of their Fits and Zeal have not only quarrelled and fought for the same but have murder'd and depos'd Kings Nobles Bishops and Priests for the sake of their Religion and Liberty which they pretend to prove from the Bible We are the Religious Representatives of this Religious People Let us therefore learn Instruction in this case before us from that Good Book where we may be inform'd that St. Paul by being born Free of Heathen Rome escap'd a Whipping and valued and pleaded that Privilege and the Chief Captain of the Romans prides himself that he with a great Sum obtain'd that Freedom and fear'd greatly when he violated St. Paul's Liberty only by binding of him and shall we set at nought the Freedom of the English Nation who are a Religious Christian Kingdom and part with the same to Strangers for nothing unless the undoing of our own Country-men who sent us here but not on this Errand Certainly we should follow the Example of the Roman Captain and fear and tremble when we consider the just Provocation we give to the Kingdom who will expect that we preserve and not destroy every Englishman's private Birth-right Now the worthy Knight begins to pull off his Mask and declare himself openly and if it had not been altogether a Layman's Harangue we might justly have reckon'd it the Second Part of Dr. Birch's Sermon for which it's probable he expected Thanks Our Author shows himself to have a mighty Veneration for our Religion when he charges it with the murdering and deposing of Kings This looks indeed like somewhat of the Resentments of a Roman Spirit to be reveng'd on our Religion because we justly charge such Practices upon the Romanists as the natural result of theirs and this Spirit of his is further incens'd that we pretend to prove our Religion from the Bible but if he pleases to peruse the Debates Pro and Con about the deposing of the late King for he 's all that has been depos'd since we durst be so bold as to bring Arguments from the Bible he will find the lawfulness of that Practice to be sufficiently proved from thence but perhaps that may lessen his esteem of the Bible which now I perceive he thinks may be call'd a Good Book tho it had been no Hyperbole in one who reckons himself a Protestant to have call'd it the best of Books Then as to the Instructions which we may have from this Good Book of his to value our English Liberties as much as the Romans did theirs we heartily agree to them and especially seeing he must needs allow from his own Argument that this Just and Religious Nation was not Vnjust and Irreligious in proving their Liberties from the Bible And now that he has drawn one Instruction thence we hope that he will give us liberty to draw another and that is that those Romans whom he proposes to us as a Pattern did not only allow Strangers such as St. Paul who was a Jew to have a share of their Privileges but did also fell them on occasion as here to this Captain whom our Author mentions and I hope as he proposes the wise Senate of Rome for a Pattern to us in the one he will also allow us the liberty to imitate them in the other And thus our Author hath condemned himself out of his own Mouth and given a very good Argument for Naturalizing of Foreign Protestants and hence we perceive the Kindness of honest Dame Nature which hath ordered it so that many times the most Venomous Animals carry their own Antidote with them And I would fain know of our Author why we may not as well make an Act for a General Naturalization as naturalize Foreigners by Fifty at a time And whether it were not more generous for the true English Spirit to exceed the old Roman Spirit of selling their Privileges by granting them to Foreign Protestants freely But I am afraid that Sir J's making mention of the Captain 's having bought this Freedom will be interpreted by some as if he in particular expected a Bribe from Foreign Protestants for we know the best way of stopping the Mouths of some is to give offam Cerbero Before I absolve this Paragraph I must take notice that this pretended Atlas of our English Liberties founds the Alarm once more to a Rebellion by insinuating such Causes of Terror as had the Commons been faint-hearted might have made them all run out of the House and then Sir J. might have had the Ball at his Foot and kick'd the Bill our after them But for all his Clamour we find that his Counrymen whom he courts so much to a Tumult cannot see those frightful Consequences that attend this Bill except our Author will be pleas'd to lend them his J ite Spectacles the one of which I suppose to be a Magnifying and the other a Multiplying-Glass But our kind Author gives us another Lesson thus Sir we may further learn from that Book the Fate of the Egyptians who experimented on the score of Charity what it is People may expect from admitting Strangers into their Country and Councils Joseph was a Stranger sold a Slave into Egypt yet being taken into Pharaoh's Council he by Taxes and other fine Projects brought the seven Years Plenty that God had blessed Egypt with into the Granaries of Pharaoh but when a Dearth came on the Land and the People cried to their King for Relief they were sent to the Stranger Joseph who getteth from them for that which was once all their own their Money their Cattle their Lands and last of all their Persons into Slavery though at the same time he did far otherwise by his own Countrymen for he plac'd them in the best of the Land
the Land of Goshen and nourish'd them from the King's Stores This Example should teach us to be wise in time seeing all this was done by the Advice of one Foreigner in Privy Council and what may that Country expect where the Head and many of the Council are Foreigners You may perceive that our Author is now drawing near a Conclusion because he reserv'd the sharpest Sting for the Tail But it 's a Question whether he be more prophane in playing thus with Scripture than false in misapplying it for it 's plain that it was no Charity to Joseph which made Pharaoh and the Egyptians advance him but Charity to themselves because they could not find a Man so fit as himself Gen. 41.38 in whom the Spirit of God was to find out Means to prevent the ill Consequences of the Famine which the Spirit of God had foretold him of And if this do not border on Blasphemy to call the Suggestions of the Holy Spirit to prevent the Ruine not only of the Egyptians but the peculiar People of God Taxes and other fine Projects to bring the Plenty of Egypt into Pharaoh's Granaries I submit it to the Judgment not only of Divines but of all Men who have any true Sense of Religion And if this Odious Character which he gives of Joseph as having trick'd the Egyptians into Slavery be not contrary to that Character given of him by the Holy Ghost when he is reckon'd in the Catalogue of the most famous Old-Testament Saints Heb. 12. let any Man judg Or whether it be reasonable to suppose that Joseph who durst not sin against God in complying with the lustful Desires of his Mistress would have so little Conscience as to cheat a whole Nation into Slavery let common Sense determine But if our Author had been so good as to have had more frequent Converse with this good Book he might have found that Pharaoh was as Absolute before Joseph was of his Council as after for Gen. 41.40 he told him That according to his Word should all his People be ruled And ver 44. That without him No Man should lift up Hand nor Foot in all the Land of Egypt which Pharaoh could never have promised had it not been in his Power Neither was it the whole seven Years Plenty that he brought into Pharaoh's Granaries but only the fifth part of it as appears from ver 34. Nay so far was Joseph from enslaving them that though he had actually bought themselves and all that they had for Pharaoh that he not only sav'd their Lives as they themselves did acknowledg and kept Bread in the Land of Egypt when there was none elsewhere but left them in as good a Condition after the Famine as they were in during the Plenty as may be seen from Chap. 47.26 by giving them four parts of the Land to themselves and taking only a. Fifth for Pharaoh as he had in the Years of Plenty and though Joseph brought this into an Establish'd Law yet it 's more than our Author can prove that it was not a Custom before seeing he directed Pharaoh to lay up the fifth Part Chap. 41.34 And that we hear of no Opposition made thereunto nor unto any thing else that Joseph did in the Government but on the contrary the People did thankfully acknowledg him as the Author of their Preservation and willingly obeyed him even when he transplanted them from one City to another Which it 's probable they would never have consented to had they look'd upon it as a bringing of them into Slavery for our Author may remember that though a great many of his Party surrendred their Charters in the late Reigns and became voluntary Slaves yet the Nation in general could never be brought to it And as for Joseph's planting his own Country-men in the best of the Land it was by Pharaoh's Command and because it best suited their way of living and was a Place where they were likely to be least offensive to the Egyptians as appears from Chap. 46. ver 34. because every Shepherd and such were the Israelites were an Abomination to the Egyptians And in the last place we have reason to conclude that all this was done by the special Direction of that God who sent him into Egypt to preserve his People Chap. 45. v. 7. and not according to our Author to cheat the Egyptians into Slavery And thus having discovered how falsly and impiously our Author hath wrested this History of Joseph I shall now consider his Application than which nothing can be more Treasonable and Malicious for having ascrib'd all the Mischiefs which came upon the Egyptians to their entertaining of one Foreigner as a Privy Counsellor What says he may that Nation expect where the Head and many of the Council are Foreigners which is directly aim'd at His Majesty the Earl of Portland and others whom God has to the Confusion of our Author and his Faction made use of to deliver us from their Egyptian Thraldom But our Author that he may discover all his Design at once does in the former part of his Speech endeavour to stir up the Country against the Parliament and now he attempts the like against His Majesty but is he so foolish as to think that his Parallel holds as to Joseph's Management in Egypt Is all our Corn brought into His Majesty's Granaries Is there not Plenty enough in the Kingdom though some narrow-soul'd Men like our Author keep it at an Excessive rate in and about London Has His Majesty either made a purchase of our Lands our Cattle or our Persons any otherwise than by a Conquest of our Hearts What Colony of Dutch has he planted in the best of our Land or how can he be reckon'd a Foreigner who abstracted from his being King by God and the Peoples Choice is Son to an English Princess Husband to an English Queen governs by English Laws and fights with English Armies for the Preservation of our English Liberties But if our Author will needs be making Comparisons we hope that he will allow us the same Liberty and then we shall agree that he resembles Joseph in being sent hither by God for his Peoples Deliverance and keeping England in Peace while all our Neighbours are or have been involv'd in Blood But if those other Practices of Joseph's be culpable in buying the Lands Cattel and Persons of the Egyptians for Pharaoh's Use we know of a Copy which outdoes the Original and that is the God of his Faction Lewis XIV who hath not bought but plundered from his Subjects and Neighbours all that could render their Lives comfortable But further we have no reason to fear any Incouragement to the Invasion of our Liberties or being made Slaves by the Concurrence of the Naturaliz'd Dutch They who have been accustomed to live in Liberty and Freedom at Home which they purchas'd with the best of their Treasure and Blood are not like to be fond of concurring with such Measures as may render them Slaves Abroad But though there is less hazard in this Point from the Dutch than the French yet all along our Author is severer upon the former than the latter and makes a terrible Outcry against the sending of Corn to Holland but speaks not one word of the great Stores which his Brethren the J it es transport by stealth into France But now for our Author's Conclusion Sir says he I perceive some Gentlemen are uneasy perhaps I have offended them in supposing they are Religious Representatives or concluding that their Religion is to be prov'd from the Bible If that be it which displeaseth I beg their Pardon and promise not to offend again on that score and will conclude all with this Motion that the Serjeant be commanded to open the Doors and let us first kick the Bill out of the House and then the Foreigners out of the Kingdom In truth these Gentlemen might well be uneasy to hear a Fool triumph in his Folly but why they should be offended to be told that their Religion was to be prov'd from the bible whence our Author can never prove his own is not so easy to be imagin'd though they had reason enough indeed to be displeas'd to see an Ass strutting in a Lion's Skin and yet I cannot tell how they could refrain from Laughter to hear the dull Creature discovered by its braying And thus seeing our Author began with one Fable I hope that I may be allow'd to end with another and shall only add that let him Caw and Bray and Kiek and do what he pleases it signifies nothing so long as he kicks against the Pricks whereof I hope that by this time he himself may be perswaded especially if he consider the disgraceful Exit which the Commons have given to his Speech and he may thank his Stars for having escap'd so well FINIS