or pinching be spoken they are as deaf as a Beetle But farther it is not fair to make the true cause of the Breach to be only danger for it is not meer danger for which we break either with you or Rome it is not because there is danger in the Communion for that possibly might be avoided but because the sin is unavoidable in it And still it is less ingenuous to call it a Secession on our part for we are the very same persons we were we stick to the same Principles we own the same Ecclesiastical Authority but you have forsaken both and I think such make the Secession Nor can I imagine why you who have renounced both the Doctrines and Authority of the Church of England should charge us with a Secession unless it be that you have driven us from our Churches and robb'd us of our Livelihoods But in this case we have the most Eminent Fathers of God's Church for our Precedents who never thought their Cause the worse because others were more than ordinary unmercifull and maliciously bent against them When you had thus unfairly stated the case you bring in your Champion Eucheres making such an answer as is enough to pull off the Visor and lay open all your Hypocrisie For saith he Though our Church and I desire to know what Church that is justly and absolutely rejects the Roman Monarchy yet she will not refuse any lawfull Communion or Correspondence with it in any good Ecclesiastwal Negotiations consistent with Integrity saving still a publick remonstrance to all her Pollutions p. 3. What can be the meaning of this but that your Church is ready and willing to join in Communion with the Church of Rome as many of your Brethren take the Oaths i. e. with a Declaration Sir Though this may be a kind of surprize to some of your squeamish Disciples yet I tell you plainly that though you endeavour to entangle and make intricate the sense with superfluous words this and no other can be your meaning for your Argument and Parallel is insignificant and senseless if this be not your purpose For thus it follows so you should communicate with us in all that is lawfull Now it is an actual Communion in all publick Worship and Offices which you require from us and the reason you give why we should pay it is in the words before cited the sense of which must be that your Church is ready with a Remonstrance to afford the same Communion to the Church of Rome and therefore we ought not to deny it to you who take your selves to be a Church much less liable to exceptions If therefore your Argument be of any force you must mean that your Church is ready to afford the same Communion which you require of us and that is actual Communion in publick Worship Now I desire all sincere Christians to take notice of this here are a parcel of Men who for their Preaching and Praying and seeming Zeal and Mortification have been idolized by many good People who have bellowed against Popery till they have frighted People out of their wits till they had prepared them to rob any Man's House or cut his Throat whom they gave out to be a Papist or Popishly affected nay till they had persuaded them to drive away the lawfull King for being a Papist and yet here in effect they tell you that all this was trick an Art to lead People by the Nose and meer damn'd Hypocrisie For Popery is no such dreadfull thing to them but that with an insignificant Remonstrance they can go to Mass and are as willing to do it as they are desirous we should come to Prayers with them nay it is their Argument to persuade us that we may and ought to communicate with them because they think it lawfull to communicate with the Roman i. e. as they think a more polluted Church and this is laid down not as the single Opinion of the Author but as the sense of their Church Good People these are your Zealous against Popery Pray who betrays the Reformation now If we should be in danger of Popery do not you think these your Idols would stand like Bullwarks and Mountains against it who you see declare even when they have no temptation that they are now ready to meet it more than half way It is an unlucky thing Sir that you should make this discovery not only for your self but in the Name of your Church it is enough to take off the confidence the Saints have had in you and to make all persons who are not resolved to blind themselves that they may be deluded to look on you as a parcel of deep and demure yet fulsome and pernicious Hypocrites What you add That if you do amiss it is through simplicity and want of understanding which we might easilier heal by accommodation c. is such a condescending strain of Dissimulation that I am afraid you are unwilling to be taken at your word for if another should tell you which is the same thing that you are a parcel of silly weak fellows who are not to be trusted with the management of Affairs but ought to be governed by wiser Heads I am confident you would spit in his Face if you did not incense the enraged Mob to knock out his Brains But though this be a particular fetch to make easie People believe you to be a sort of most humble mortified Men yet some Men's actions have long since convinced me that they had rather be real Knaves than so much as mistaken for Fools and it is clear as noon day that those persons who you say want Understanding have for many years either palm'd curb'd and kept under or deluded and abused and now at last have undone all that would not submit to their Understandings and trukle under them and indeed all the Knavery of the Rump and Oliverian days is meer indigested stuff compared with those most Artificial Cheats which some of your Masters of Hypocrisie those humble simple Creatures as you would persuade us have shewn in our days When you please to call on me and procure me liberty to answer I will give you instances But when Dyscheres had reliped to your desires of Accommodation that there was now no more hope because you have broken the essential bonds of Ecclesiastical Communion and begun the Schism in admitting Intruders c Your Friend Eucheres makes answer by way of concession that if their i e. our Bishops and Clergy ejection was only for adhering to the Doctrines of this Church or to the Laws of God then they are persecuted by the Church as well as the State p. 3. But Sir What if neither the Laws of God nor the Church had been concerned and they had had only occasion to stand the Laws and Constitutions of the Land which under no pretence whatsoever allows the Subject to use any force against the lawfull Sovereign much less to Depose him and in
case he die or relinquinish yet suffer no injury to be to the next Heir but proclaim him to be without the help of any Ceremony or Formality immediately King in the very first moment of the vacancy as admitting no Interregnum I think this had been no ill cause But then farther suppose none of these consented and that the matter only was coram non judice and they were ejected by those who had nothing to do with them with your leave Sir I do not think my self bound to ratifie the iniqulty of such proceedings But since you have assumed the Authority to assign what Causes you please I will stick to those you have named i. e. The adhering to the Doctrines of the Church and the Laws of God And what then Sir Why then you say this will require a very clear proof But pray Sir Who are they that ought to bring this clear proof I have heard some say that it is an Axiome in Law That they who expect the benefit ought to make the proof Now you get all into your hands and would you give no reason for it The Meridian Sun is not more clear than that King James possessed His Crown by an undoubted Right and the ejected Clergy held their Sees and other Charges by an unquestionable Title whether you have respect to the Laws of the Church or the Land when therefore you dispossess them of such manifest acknowledged Right you ought to bring if possible more clear and demonstrable proofs for your proceedings otherwise all reasonable Men ought to condemn you for your bold and barbarous injustice so that this clear proof you call for ought to be on your side If a Thief rob me of my Goods it were very unreasonable to leave me no other remedy than the producing such reasons to him as should prevail with him to restore them again For perhaps he would not hear me or if he did it would be but to mock me for though my proofs were never so clear yet 't is ten thousand to one that he would never own them to be so yet much at this rate you deal with us and which is worse you make our Plea for us and suffer us not to speak but as you please But since it must be so I 'll follow you in the course you take though a very unreasonable task You seem to grant That our Church teacheth us to preserve an untainted Loyalty to our Lawfull Sovereigns which with us come in by Inheritance and that accordingly our Oath of Allegiance binds us to the King his Heirs and Lawfull Successors And you might have told us several other things which this Church teacheth us viz. Canonical Obedience to our Spiritual Fathers the indispensable Duty of Children to Parents whenever they command it or their condition requires it the not running with a multitude to do evil nor the encouraging other Men in their wickedness In short whatever the sacred word of God or the reverend Constitutions of his Church requires from us But to omit these things which are so apt to gather the Tares of Schismaticks and Rebels I shall examin what you say to your own Proposals An untainted Loyalty you approve while the Obligation lasts and we desire no more But then you think this Obligation may cease not only by Death or Resignation but also by Cession nor do I think it worth while to dispute this with you provided it be real not forced nor falsly imputed For so any Man that is driven out of his House or takes a journey from home may be interpreted to have quitted his Estate by Cession But when Cession is real which is very rare it can effect only the Party who makes it and ought to be no injury to the next Heir and in our particular case our Constitutions will not suffer it But after all the main assertion is such an impudent falshood as nothing but a person bewitch'd with Rebellion would offer For has that person made a Cession who though to perserve his life he fly from Fraud and irresistable Force yet all the while claims his Right calls on all persons to do him justice and useth all honest means that may be to recover his Right At this rate every Man would have made a Cession who suffers wrong though he bestir himself all he can to do himself Right But say you This was such a Cession as the States in Convention judged a virtual Abdication of the Sovereignty and of this you add they were the most Competent Authentick and Final Judges and this you tell us we are to submit to because the Kingdom hath ratified those proceedings in a second Parliament Now not to complain of unrighteous Judgment though there was never more cause the Answer I shall return is That they were neither Competent Authentick nor Final Judges Competent they could not be who for the prevailing part of them were either actually in the Conspiracy against him or joined with the Conspirators and refused so much as to read his Letters or hear any Message from him Nor could they be Authentick Judges who had no Law to authorize either them or their Proceedings nor did I ever hear that the natural Subjects of a Sovereign Monarch could be his Authentick Judges unless from President Bradshaw the Regicides and their Adherents And if upon this score you will have the proceedings valid against the Son you must also justisie the barbarous Murder of the Father And then they could not be sinal Judges because being neither Competent nor Authentick Judges they were no proper Judges at all Nor doth it all help the matter that you call these your Judges the Estates and farther to countenance the matter place them in Convention For how are they Estates but with respect to the King and Constitution Which if they overthrow pray what becomes of their Estateships It is the King made them such and they are so with Subordination to him nor is their Convention any thing without him they cannot convene without his Writ You might have remembred that your Oracle Dr. B tells you that single defect makes an essential Nullity if they do convene they can only act by and under the King's Authority and when they are come to a resolution and have concluded upon any thing still all sinks again into nothing unless it be ratified with the Royal Assent Thus without the King your Estates are insignificant but against him our Law condemns them as Rebels and those of all others are the most unfit persons to make the only Competent Authentick and Final Judges of the most Fundamental part of our Constitutions Did ever Men make them Judges of the Law who are condemned by the Law This is to pull the Judge from the Bench and set up the Offender from the Bar. Nor will it afford you any relief that these proceedings were ratified by a second Parliament which had never a first For as for your Transubstantiating Convention which would
have persuaded us that by a certain Hocus Pocus trick they were Metamorphis'd into a Parliament you see plainly that they were no better than a Riotous Assembly whose transactions were in themselves null and void as being contrary to Law and censurable by Law And therefore your second-first-no Parliament which your Riotous Convention laid could have no more Authority than that was able to give and that was none at all for nil dat quod non habet nor can the Effect be greater than the Cause What signifies their Ratification who had no Authority but from those whom they ratisie and those whom they ratifie had none to give Your Second therefore Sir is as good as your First and both good for nothing at all and if you should go and put ten thousand nothings together still all will amount to just nothing But to secure this your weak or rather wicked Plea against a just Objection obvious to every Eye you add That though King JAMES abroad condemns them yet that is no argument either that they were unjust or inauthoritative No! But pray Sir why not Can you thus easily puff away the Right of Kings with a breath Is your bare assertion without reason sufficient to overthrow him Was he not their King Were they not his Subjects Did he complain of any thing but wrong done him Did he demand any thing but his own Might not he call upon his Subjects in whose power it was and whose duty it was to restore him Can such a modest moderate tender-hearted Man as your self thus slight and insult over a distressed Prince Or when all other Men are allowed to keep or claim or recover their right was he poor Man alone born odd that whatever he does or says must signify nothing This is cold comfort for a banished Prince but I hope others will not prove so hard hearted to him But you proceed thus When a King is fled from his Throne into Foreign Dominions or doth not exert any Royal Power or Presence to his People the Estates of this Land are the Supreme Domestick Judges upon the Tenure of the Sovereignty At this rate it will be good for Kings to keep exerting their Power for if they should but chance to sleep or fall so sick as for a time to incapacitate them for business the Estates if they please may alter the Tenure or dispose of it to another But pray Sir Answer me two Questions First Who made your Estates Judges Secondly Whether I am bound to follow their Judgment against manifest right and my known duty But after all this is a most malicious insinuation against your suffering King as if he ran away through wantonness and would have nothing to do with us but had quite forsaken his People whenas you very well know that he exerts all the Power he can that he doth not more is not his fault but yours You may have both his Power and his Presence too among you if you please But will you contrary to your Duty and Oaths keep him out by force of Arms and then plead your own wickedness in your defence I did hope for more Ingenuity from such a Pretender to Modesty But you will not allow us to deny the Authority by which they i e. your Estates sate for by what Authority say you was that Free Parliament called or sate that voted in King Charles the Second Sir if you please let another be called and Vote in King JAMES the Second when things are out of order and Good Men set them to rights again I do not think any honest Man will oppose it upon the score of some small niceties but when Subjects rebel against their Prince and drive him away and make that the ground of their going on and doing farther wickedness I cannot understand the Authority of this There is certainly in every Man an innate natural Power and Authority to wish well to and vote for Right by virtue of this when things were in confusion the Subjects of King Charles the Second returning to their Wits and Allegiance send a convenient number to act for the whole who recal their rightful King and if you should do so likewise I should not be very quarre some with you but whatever Name they might give it to put a better gloss upon the thing they were no Parliament till King Charles made them so for he their lawful King by an Act in a legal Parliament might stamp on them that Character and give then that Authority and Force which they had not before and thus several of their Acts might become Laws by virtue of that after-ratisication not by any force of their own but as for calling back the King that was not making any new Law but enforcing the old and was not so much an Act of Authority as Obedience and Duty and if you could find out the same way you would be the best Friends both to your Country and your selves You tell us That it is prodigious peevishness to require a King's Presence or Commission when he is gone and hath left all in Anarchy I hope Sir you do not think that I require a King to be present when he is absent and then with your good leave I think it no such peevishness to act by his Commission in his absence but that it is rather a thing which if it can be had ought to be done and in all regular times was done Richard the First was ingaged in the Holy War when his Father died so that he was far enough from his Throne and unable to exert any Royal Power or Presence to his People and to make the matter worse in his return he was taken prisoner and detained in Germany In this case had you been one of the Estates you would have been for setting up another King that would exert his Royal Power or Presence to his People but they had another sense of their duty they mourned under the common Calamity caused all proceedings to pass under his Name and Authority and stretch'd their purses to the purpose to redeem him and bring him home But you drive your King from home when you have him and when he would return to exert his Royal Power and Presence you will not suffer it but keep him out with your Swords in your Hands and these rebellious Actions you make Precedents to warrant all the Mischief you have or would do and after all you would perswade us that you are a parcel of guiltless humble modest consciencious Creatures Clamat Melicerta periisse frontem de rebus At last to help a lame dog over a style you say The Estates of any Nation being invited by a victorious and unresisted Power may come together and treat with him that thus calls them though he hath not antecedent Authority strictly taken to call them Here is a pretty fetch in the word unresisted Power for irresistable he knew it was not and if it was unresisted whose fault was that
about if they be not sensible already I doubt not but they will in a little time And now Sir if you will give me the same liberty to put together which you take I cannot learn from all this how our old Laws and Oaths binds us to your new Allegiance but that rather our Constitutions and Oaths binds us to King JAMES and not to William though the contrary hereto is your shameless conclusion from your wild Premises All along you make Dyscheres by whom you represent us to give up the cause as far as you go which disingenuous dealing we have too much cause to complain of but the better to detect it I must follow your steps and now comes such a tremendous Objection that I wonder your Joynts did not tremble and your Hand shake when you set Pen to Paper it is to this effect That when the violence is essentially unjust unnatural and contrary to the moral and eternal Laws of God and Righteousness no Human compacts can ratifie such wrong or justifie and confirm what is essentially injurious nor ought the Priests of the most High God to consecrate and confirm such Rapes by Oaths and Religious Sponsions If there be any such thing as this and such I fear we shall find there is if there be any such thing as God's Commandments we had need have a care what we do That Man's wit is ill bestowed on him who argues himself out of his own Soul But here you think to slip your Neck out of the Collar by telling us That the internal Immorality of all actions must be carefully distinguished from the civil Consequences of them Well be it so we will do this for you too as fairly and carefully as we can and what then Why then suppose say you p. 6. A Son by fraudulent Arts gets Judgment in Law and seizes his Father's Estate and Body by Execution and starves his Father in Prison this Man's Immorality is damnable Is it so I think this is a bone for some body to pick which may hold him tug tho' his Teeth were as long as his NOSE But Sir what if a Daughter should do thus Will not this Womans Immorality be damnable If not pray next time you write give us a reason of the difference But it seems if they should be both damned Yet the Judges Sheriffs and other Officers are innocent It may be so whilst they act as Officers of Law and according to the directions of Law but if your Judges Sheriffs or other Officers make themselves Parties and join with and assist such a wicked Son or Daughter to effect such an evil act or do applaud and approve it when they know it be done by such wicked and unlawfull Arts then their being Officers of Law will rather encrease than deminish their guilt And so for your Robbers and Pirates a Man may lawfully suffer by them tho' it were better if he could escape it but if you will plead that their Robberies and Piracies are lawfull if you say they require a just right to what they get by such wicked means or if you actually join with them and rob and share in their Booties you will be as very a Rogue as they and which is most like the Case I leave others to judge Much such another instance is your Lord of a Mannor let him look how he came to be so I may treat with him as Lord of the Mannor whom the Law declares to be so But if the Lord's Tenants conspire against their lawfull Landlord and dispossess him of his Mannor and invite a Stranger and say and swear he shall be Lord of the Mannor and accordingly pay Homage and Fealty to him you Sir may determine for their swearing and lying too if you please but I shall have nothing the better opinion of your Honesty for it But now let the Fifth Commandment look to it self for it was never so hardly beset There are a sort of Protestants who I think are resolved by making away the Fifth Commandment to be even with the Papists for suppressing the Second and indeed according as some Men act and write unless it be to furnish pretence and to shew our fine Cloaths and eat roast Meat on Sundays I see not what occasion they have for any Commandments and so they might make Religion a Law of Liberty or a Liberty from all Law and I do not perceive Sir that you much mend the matter you say That from the Fifth Commandment we cannot charge K. W. with Subjection to King JAMES c. p. 7. If by this you mean that we cannot thence prove him to have been his Subject I do not know that ever any Man attempted such a thing but does a Nephew and a Son-in-Law owe no Duty if he owe not that which is properly called Subjection Or may a Man because he is not his Subject spoil another of all he has And must all persons applaud and approve the Act and swear he is in the right The Case of an own Daughter is still more severe but for that you say That she is in Duty bound to follow her Husband's Fortune Order and Authority even against the Will of her Father and this with a more plenary consent if she judged her Husbands Cause to be just I do not think either her or your judgment worth a farthing unless the Cause be just in it self Sorry Arguments will serve to persuade Ambitious persons that they have right to a Crown though unconcerned persons at the same time plainly see the fallaciousness of them But Sir I am not satisfied with your bare word that a Woman is bound thus to follow her Husband through thick and thin I grant that she ought to be the Partner both of his Joys and Sorrows but let her have a care how she becomes Partner in his Sins nor doth the relation of a Wife take away the relation of a Child as you seem to intimate tho' you are ashamed plainly to say it they may indeed limit each other so that the Father may not command the Daughter any thing inconsistent with the Duty of a Wife nor the Husband the Wife any thing inconsistent with the Duty of a Child to a Parent but yet the great end of these relations is to strengthen and support not to destroy each other as you closely insinuate Besides your reason is a mistake in it self as to this Case for could you with all your tricks of Legerdemain remove both King James and the Prince of Wales out of the way then there would rise another relation and then he in these Dominions must follow her Fortunes not she his for according to our Constitutions she would be his Queen and here he must be her Subject It is true the Name of King would be allowed but the Power by our Constitutions would be lodged in her and he would be liable to offend against her Laws to Treason against her Person and to be tried by her Authority
well to answer these and the like reasons before you so peremptorily assert any inferiour Courts to be authentick Interpreters of publick Oaths You had best have a care that you be not followed with a cry of Priviledge of Parliament and indeed that legislative Power is little better than ridiculous which may be authentically evaded or made quite another thing by the inferior Ministers of it and after all the Interpretations of those Courts will not excuse you from Insincerity and prevaricating with the State as you seem to fear p. 10. For if those Courts did give a lower and more easie sense of the Oaths than could reasonably be thought was intended by the Imposers you ought not to catch at that for an advantage which they had no Power to give nor ought you to joyn with them in eluding the Oath but to take care of your selves that they neither cosen you nor you others for an Oath ought to be taken in Judgment Truth and Righteousness in all which points you will fail if you take this course But have a care you do not gull your self at the last for what is that innocent sense which the most tender Recusant might have sworn to Truly I think the secret is worth Money and poor as I am I would have given something to know it but that we may not trisle with our Consciences I desire you and all your innocent Brethren to give me any one innocent sense wherein an Oath may be taken to an Usurper in order to the maintaining his Usurpation against the lawfull King and though I do not believe that either you or they though Men of admirable invention can ever do it yet if you could it would not do your work for it is not what sense you give or take but what they impose But Sir whilst you plead for others Sincerity you render your own very suspicious for why are you so scrupulous about the sense of the Oath Do not you insolently charge King James with a Cession Do not you thence ground a Vacancy Do not you assert William to be admitted according to the Laws and Constitutions and by the proper Judges Now though these things be never so false yet if you believe them true you believe him to be your Lawful King and therefore according to your declared Judgment may without scruple take the Oath in as severe a sense as ever any Oath of Allegiance has been given in amongst us and therefore for you to make such a pother about Senses and to look about so sharp for an innocent Sense is enough to make a Man suspect that you do not deal bona side but that there is something still gauls you and that your Conscience lies snarling within whilst you make such fair weather abroad The Impiety of the Revolution hath been already considered and your Question about Settlement answered your pitty we scorn and whether we or you be the Men whose Minds are intangled with wrong Notions that they can act well no way you ought to have considered that such Men's Infirmities have less right to overthrow than to obstruct publick Constitutions you shall have free leave to object the latter to us when you have cleared your selves of the former Whereas you think those tame Persons who submit to be one sort of the meek who shall inherit the Earth though I do not take such easie Submitters to wickedness to be any of God's meek yet I believe you have hit the true reason of most Men's submission and upon the Principles many have proceeded we may have as occasion serves meek Forswearers meek Rebels meek Traytors yea meek Jews meek Turks meek Renegadoes and all to inherit the Earth yet after this slender return as if our Mouths were quite stop'd and we had nothing to say you make us as it were to threaten a better Plea for our Cause if ever King James return The Scoff is not worth Thanks but Sir may King James return assoon as God pleases we need not stay till then but can make our Plea now and need not your help who take so much pains to spoil it and this your Godly Brethren are too well aware of which makes them so strictly guard the Press and be so very cruel to all on whom they can fasten any thing in the least tending that way witness the barbarous Usage of a poor Boy whose Mother a Widdow is not able to find him Bread who by the sly arts of your never-forgiving High-Priest hath in spite of all honest endeavours been kept in New-gate near a year and half and there lies still and like to lie to rot or starve meerly for going on an Errand and carrying he knew not what As justly in a manner might an illiterate Man be hanged for carrying the Greek Testament as a poor Boy thus used for delivering a Paper not knowing what was in it Surely he hath forgot that there is a God who hath both promised to hear the Cry and revenge the Wrongs of the Widdow and Fatherless It is a material Question By what Authority you transferred your Allegiance without his i. e. King James will And it is no trifling Objection That you were sworn to him not to the Estates of this Realm But the Answer is amazing That you had his authentick Grant for so doing p. 11. If this could be produced it would go a great way though it would not fully do the business but see what a cunning Man can do that which no body else thought on he hath found in King James 's Declaration of Indulgence where you say he does dispense with the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to all his Subjects I am not bound to defend every act either of him or you however that act is far from destroying his right for the dispensing with a thing is not the giving an Order and Grant to transfer it to another And farther you ought to consider that it is one thing to dispense with an Oath of Allegiance another thing to dispense with the Allegiance it self an Oath may give a farther enforcement to Allegiance but the Allegiance it self is antecedent to it and arises from the natural relation betwixt Subject and Prince he might be unwilling that every disloyal act of a fickle rash People should seem to be aggravated with the horrid crime of Perjury but he never discharged them of the Allegiance it self for that had been to un-king himself which certainly never entred into his thoughts for after that he reigned as King and required and used the Allegiance of his Subjects as before But if he had done more than you say and not only dispensed with but acquitted and absolved all his Subjects not only from the Oath but the Allegiance it self it would not help your Cause for though he might de-throne himself yet immediately thereupon our Constitutions which admit no interregnum had transplanted our Allegiance and given it to the next Heir For if a King die or
resign we are not left to our selves to pay our Allegiance to whom we will but under the penalty of Treason are confined to the Lawful Successor And thus you see we are no way obliged to plead that That act was ineffectual and null in it self as being contrary to Law which is that you say for us with the design to draw on us the odium of censuring the Actions of an afflicted Prince But I find you are a Man tam Marte quam Mercurio otherwise called an Ambodexter for if you cannot perswade us you will affrigt us into the Oath or any thing else for you endeavour to possess us with an Opinion that King James if ever he return will hang all that do not Swear and pay Allegiance to K. William a hard case that a Man can be no way honest without hanging But why this extream severity Why Because the lineal Heir may hang a Man as a Traytor for breach of Allegiance to an extralineal King p. 12. Well! but if King James should hang up all that did not pay Allegiance to William one would think he should not spare those who would not pay Allegiance to himself and this would make clear work When Edward the Fourth first joyned Battle against Henry the Sixth do not you think this would have made a powerful Speech for him to his Souldiers Gentlemen go on couragiously your Cause is good the Crown is evidently my right and if I can recover it by your assistance I will certainly hang you up every Man for fighting against the extralineal King Henry the Sixth who here appears in the Field against us and keeps me from it Such perswasions could not fail to prevail with Men to fight to the last drop of Blood But Sir though I do think that a Man may do that under an Usurpation for which he may deserve to be hanged afterwards and that an exil'd Prince at his return may justly punish wickedness done in his absence yet I do not believe there is any Law to hang a Man for Loyalty and of all Men living I least fear it from King James But in truth all this hanging stuff seems to have another design and not to tell what King James may do but what you would have others to do as if they were excuseable for any severity towards those who deny them that for which as you say even King James himself may punish them It is a pious hint to your Government and your Mobb We are a living shame and reproach to you you cannot see speak or hear of us but bitterness of Spirit and pangs of Conscience seize you the Devil tempts you to think your Sin unpardonable and that your only security is in making all others as bad as your selves and therefore you would have none find Mercy who will not cast in their Lot among you I know not how Lucifer might hug such a Privy Counsellor but I must tell you that this ill becomes your Coat especially being a Man that pretends to so much compassion and tenderness of Conscience Whereas it is alledged that this would make Subjection due to O. C. you produce several arguments to prove the disparity betwixt him and the P. of O. whereas there is scarce any arguments of them that is not equally valid against the one as the other nay I am sure some are more valid against the P. of O. then O. C. but this hath been clearly done by so many Hands already that I am ashamed to repeat them but they ought to be a stark shame to you who pretend to be a Seeker of Satisfaction and will take no notice of them which looks as if you were rather resolved to deceive both your self and others and to cloak it over with sham pretences Hitherto the Arguments have been generally drawn from the Power of the Civil Magistrate or rather from the pretended power of those who are no Magistrates to us and you would perswade Dyscheres to admit these for true and consequently your inferences but you will find that you have reckoned without your Host and by that time you have read their Answers you may easily perceive that I am as ready to conclude the quite contrary That the Church remains with us with whom is the true Authority that in erecting Altar against Altar you are become formal Schismaticks having cut off your selves from the Church in forsaking the true Ecclesiastical Authority and adhering to and supporting the false against it and that as you are Schismaticks we ought not to frequent your Publick Assemblies nor have any Ecclesiastical Communion with you other than to convince you of your Sin and perswade you to Repentance Now I beseech you as you have any tenderness for your own and others Souls that you will seriously consider these things This must be the case on the one side or the other and though Interest Plenty and Ease may put a specious gloss upon weak Arguments yet at the great Day of Accompts all false glosses will be taken off and things will appear as they are and therefore what temptations soever we may otherwise have it is our highest concern to take them so now Having thus as you vainly think made sure of your inferences you take leave of Civil and enter upon Ecclesiastical Arguments Now it is a sad thing that a Man should have two Strings to his Bow and both rotten for here you make more woful work than before the most specious of all your Arguments being either manifest Mistakes or notorious Slanders The First Objection is concerning the Prayers which might have been put much more fully and strongly but being a thing so well known I shall only take notice of your Answers And First you say The Prayers were consented to by all the Recusant-Bishops and by them for their Officers without any prohibition sent to the Clergy of every Diocess and by them generally received the Bishops were present at them directed their Clergy upon Consultation to use them and thus things stood till the day of their Suspension and no blowing the Trumpet against Perjury c. p. 14. Now if this were true yet if the Prayers are truly chargeable with something unlawful and wicked that is such a daring affront to God Almighty that neither any act or neglect of theirs can justifie either yours or my concurrence in them and therefore I wonder why you should make such a Lye when it will not serve you for a Reason for it is well known to all who frequented their Communion that they never read or used those Prayers and that is no improbable argument that they neither consented to them nor sent them abroad But the truth is that they were so far from either consenting to them or sending them to their Clergy that they had no certainty of the thing till it was done and past and whether some-body told you this Lye or you made it your self if you please to consult the Printer in
the Savoy if he dare speak Truth and by the way I must tell you that he is a bold Man who dare speak such a Truth at this time and he can tell you how they were sent and who sent them and that those whom you call Recusant Bishops were purposely kept ignorant that they might not be able to give any obstructions to the business And now Sir do not you think that you have acted a very mannerly part to our Reverend Fathers in exclaiming against them and comparing them to winking Watchmen and dumb Dogs because they do not get up o' th' top o' th' Monument and baul out against a thing which they knew nothing of It could not be done before and since it hath been cried out against sufficiently have they not suffered enough already unless you may persecute them with calumnies But you are not alone in this case for they are seldom mentioned in any Papers referring to this Revolution but they are fouly abused and charged with things which they were never guilty of by which means they are falsly represented even to good Men and suffer in their good Names as well as their Persons and Estates this in a great measure I my self could prove But Sir I will no farther concern my self with you than as you wrongfully charge them and that only in the proper places you seem to be offended that there has not been cry enough against Perjury others if we mention it say we are Uncharitable Censorious Proud Peevish Rash and all the ill-natured Titles their Schismatical Candor can afford us Thus it is impossible to please you whether we speak or hold our Tongues but for your own part since you are for such loud crying out against the fin I hope you will not be offended if hereafter you hear of Perjury more often Your Plea that you do not sine ratione insanire had been better let alone it being generally a rul'd case that those are incurable who do cum ratione insanire Another reason though you shusfle both together why we may lawfully join in those Prayers is because as you would persuade us King James and your King William are very good Friends truly this is the first time I have heard of it and I could wish it were true on good terms But let us see how you prove it why 't is certain the Prayers express him not very true and it is very rare because odious that Enemies are particularly named but if general Prayers do not mean something for or against particular persons though not particularly named the greatest part not only of the Liturgy but of all Prayers whatsoever are to no purpose but though they were not arrived to that unheard of impudence as to name him as an Enemy in their Prayers yet he is revil'd bely'd defam'd and bitterly cursed in Coffee-houses and even in the open streets that is not only suffered but encouraged or if any Man should chance to drink the Health of this good Friend of yours and your King it perhaps might cost him a Fine of 200 Marks beside other ill usage Sir if you use your Friends thus I desire to be none of them but you are resolved they must and shall be Friends for you flatly say That you do not rank him among the number of your K. William 's Enemies for an Enemy is one that desireth to injure a Man and we are not sure that King JAMES doth so design against King William And do you think King James to be that Good and rigorously Just Person who would do no wrong even to that Man who by Treachery defrauded him of two Kingdoms and then by sorce drove him from the third and with the utmost malice still prosecutes him and all that adhere to him and can you at the same time justifie the Wrongs and Barbarities he hath received Must a Man be abused for his Goodness Methinks this makes but a scurvy Plea for the late proceedings But if you do not believe this of King James I do but still it will do you no service for supposing he will do no wrong yet sure he may demand and endeavour to recover his Right and I am apt to think that your little ambitious Dutch Saviour would think no Man in the World so much his Enemy as he that demands three Kingdoms from him Nor do we call only those Enemies who design Injuries but even all who actually oppose each other or between whom there is any contest let their designs be what they will or their Cause right or wrong and after all your daubing he certainly is accounted the greatest Enemy for whose sake all others are judged Enemies Now though the King of France be such an abominable Enemy he should soon be esteemed the best Friend in the World if he would but renounce the Interest of King James and support the Usurpation of the Prince of Orange I did expect something concerning the Ammunition Prayers but you leave them to shift for themselves and yet you think there is a Prayer on the 29th of May so dangerous that you graciously give us leave to forbear to be present at it But Sir who gave you authority to dispense with terms of Communion Or did you ever know any sober Society that gave their Members liberty at pleasure to take and refuse of their terms of Communion You have done more I fear than you will receive any thanks for none you are like to have from us who have no need of your License and you ought not to expect it from those who will think their Authority hereby invaded But yet you think we need not be so very coy as to the Prayer for you say That you have been assured by a Good Father that the Recusant Bishops did not at first stick at that but that some gave directions and consent to the use of it and also before their Suspension deputed Persons to administer the Oath in the execution of the Authorities and Offices Episcopal thus deputed Sir if I should say your Good Father was an arrant lying Knave and prove him so I hope you would not only pardon my bluntness but also be more careful for the future how you gave any credit to such Persons As for any of their consenting or sending it is only the former falshood repeated which I have answered already and as for this pretended deputation I will set before you the true story and then you and all Men may judge how candidly our suffering Fathers are dealt with On the 28th of Jan. the Bishop of London and St. Asaph and some others presented themselves before your mighty King William with a mournful Address in behalf of our Reverend Fathers then drawing near to a Civil Suspension and since more than uncivilly deprived This was the pretence but it is reasonable to think that it was a complotted thing and that the real design was to get their Authorities deputed in such sure Hands as might effectually