you will allow agreeable to the man I believe immodesty is the unhappy Vice and Fate of his Nature for no man ever arrived to the like Degree in it before him you must not ask what he means by a point without example or president or why he puts us a point that is not in our Case and still will be talking of deposing a Prince for this man oweth no account of his matters But thou False Considerer So Loyal I am That I would not have that point in the Case for half I am worth But pray why thus impertinent Why dost thou send us to Asa and Maachah Jeroboam Rehoboam Jehu and Joram Asa and his Mother and Azaria we know little of the Constitution of the Jewish Monarchy save that God after the Jews had rejected his Government and desired a King kept some remains of his Theocracy over them which he administred by his Prophets whom he commissioned to Exauctorate and Anoint Kings Their Histories are short but besides every Nation is to be governed by their own Laws and there are as many kinds almost of Governments as there are Governments we are not warranted by their Presidents nor to be Justified or Condemned by them but we must Stand or Fall to our own Laws But let this Patriot know that our case will never be Cromwels as he reproaches us we will not neither can we stand in need of any Apology that would serve either for the Rump or him for we are preserving that Government and Church which they destroyed Neither will we O man of small Consideration make use in our defence of the Papists excluding the King of Navarr a Protestant King in France No more than we will allow the French to murder a Protestant Minister because we execute a Seditious Traiterous Roman Priest No more than we can allow in others or justifie in our selves to prosecute dissenting Protestants whose Principles are peaceable and obedient to Governours Because we duly sharpen our Laws and exact the Severity of them against the Papists the sworn enemy to all Religions but their own and to all mankind upon the score thereof How grosly therefore is that of the Apostle misapplyed Whosoever thou art O man that judgest another c. For doth a publick Executioner incur the Judgment of shedding mans Blood for executing a Sentence against a Murderer Thou man of Observation mayst possibly know what kind of Beasts we muzzle and tye up He observes for our Imitation That the Orthodox did not Depose the Arrian Emperours we ought undoubtedly to imitate them therein for that no man much less a Prince ought to lose any right for a Speculative Error or meer mis-belief But onely for wicked practices and opinions that promote excite and encourage them But it is also very observable which the Considerer by his mention of Julian the Emperour in this place gives me occasion to offer That the Behaviour of the Church towards the Pagan Roman Emperours was much different from that which they bore to Julian who succeeded to Christian Emperours was educated a Christian and sometimes bore a place in the Church for whereas the Apostles had enjoyned the Christians to pray for the Pagan Emperours though actual Persecutors of the Church yet the whole Church did Curse and Anathematize Julian with an Anathema quo Deus rogatur ut aliquem è medio tollat In Julianum cum defectioni adderet machinationes evertendi Christianismi usa est Ecclesia isto extremae necessitatis telo à Deo est exaudita Grotius in Luc. Cap. 6. Vers 12. I will not trouble the Reader with more Quotations to this purpose the Authority of this Great man is more than ten Witnesses And for what he lays down generally that the Orthodox did not Depose the Arrian Emperours I must remember him out of Socrates the Ecclesiastical Historian lib. 2. cap. 38. Gr. when the Souldiers of Constantius the Arrian Emperour were by his command sent to enforce them to become Arrians they took Arms in defence of their profession of Religion how justifiable therein I will not now discourse But this may be said that the Christian Religion with indifferency to all Sects was made the Religion of the Empire by Imperial Rescripts and all Christians had thereby a Civil Right to a free and undisturbed profession of their Religion in their several Perswasions For Constantine the Great carried so indifferent an hand between the Contending Parties that he endeavoured to make Peace rather by silencing the Disputes than by determining the Controversie Worthy of the imitation of the Guides of Christendom and the onely means of freeing the Reformed Religion from being depraved by the Jargon and Gibberish of the Sectaries If the Crown should devolve upon the Roman Successor it would require consideration whether we could justifie the Dethroning of him though the French Papist could not be justified in rejecting the King of Navar. But this untrue Patriot shifts his Cause from what it is to what it is not that he may have some colour to inveigh against the true Patriots far more excellent and righteous than himself and have some umbrage to betray the best Religion and the best Government while he pretends with false Hypocrisie to support them But I am glad to find in him at least one grain of Sense and Honesty he saith well to do him right that is the best Religion that gives every one his due But he must consider farther to the confusion of the Cause he Advocates That to give every one his due is to administer Defence to the Innocent and by Authority of Law to subdue the aggressors of Mankind how great and mighty soever they be for they that are mighty Offenders ought in proportion to be mightily punished Fiat Justitia therefore as he saith Ruat Coelum for to punish much less to lay a restraint upon evil Persons is not to do evil that good may come of it which he would impute to the proceedings in Parliament against the Duke for which he must be self-condemned for I cannot take him for a German Anabaptist And now we find this Considerer complaining of some Pamphleteers that write ridiculously Sophistical and unreasonable Reasons that tell stories he saith of Edgar Athelin William the Conquerour Arthur Plantagenet and King John that write Antichristian and Fanatical Logick never heard of until the Spirit of Belial revealed it to Oliver and the Rump I believe if there be any such Pamphlet this Pamphleteer is the Author of it or some of his Complices to the purpose that there might seem some one worse than his own and that he might be able to quarrel with and confute and do advantage to his bad Cause by some worse Reasonings than he would seem to be Master of or than his Cause is capable of which is not capable of a good one But what he says cannot possibly be true of any Pamphlet but rather than he will not be slandering he will slander himself and belie the Devil For observe he saith they use Fanatical Logick and Antichristian Logick The true Fanaticks being impatient of the restraints of Reason and
that to make Experiments and try Conclusions upon There is little reason to charge the Guilt of the unexpiable Murder of our late Excellent King for which at this day we are doing most severe penances upon Presbytery which was not thought of here in England till the War was begun The heats that produced that unhappy War were from other Causes and Reasons as every body may know But when that War was once begun as no War can be managed by fore-established Rules and Measures it did not stand within the reasons and first designs thereof but was prosecuted and managed by such means and measures as were necessary and possible This will always happen more especially in a Civil War wherein though both parties share in the Causes yet the Guilt to be sure belongs to the Rebels side The Parliament in the Course of the War in their distress prayed Aid of the Scotch Nation who was shortly before entered into the Covenant They refused them any Assistance except they would enter into that Covenant which they had passed upon their own people By this accident that part of the Nation that was engaged in that unnatural War of the Parliaments side were imposed upon by the Scotch Presbytery But after the Covenant was thus imposed they still retained the English Loyalty filled the Town with Protestations and Remonstrances against the Kings feared Murther declared out of their Pulpits against the Actors of that detestable Tragedy were continually contriving to restore our present King to the Government of his Kingdoms and of their instrumentality in his Restoration the King himself is very sensible I wish the Church too were made sensible of the extinction of that prejudice the Scotch Covenant created against her for though God be thanked she hath survived almost all of those deluded Covenanters yet the apprehension of the danger or the remembrance of the evil at least will return with the mention of that name and render it very displeasing I wish I say that prejudice was removed by their frank Declaration of their good liking of her Order in general and by their humble desires to be spared in the matters whereof they yet remain in doubt by the indulgence of the Church That we may not incur the danger of loosing our Religion and Government by the scandal that is given to the Church-men at the old remembrance of what hath been done here by some that were of the Presbyterian Name For this matter of Offence they of the Popish Faction do with mighty advantage to their Villainous design cultivate and improve They stigmatize all that oppose the Popish Plot with the Name of Presbyterians and thereby would denote them Enemies of our Church-Order By this means they have brought many too many Eminent men of our Church to at least a dead Neutrality as if things were come to this pass that they must perish either by that or the Popish Faction and had nothing left them to do but to chuse which way our Church shall be destroyed A cold comfort this would be that whatever way they should take they must assist to the destruction of their Order Upon this rock we are like to be split this makes our deliverance to stick in the birth and upon this hinge the fate of our Religion and Nation will turn Lord what a prodigious thing is this that is come to pass in our age Religion it self must be the devoted thing to the rage and folly of the Priests of that Religion Let them in the Name of God consider what iniquity it is to declame against the faults of others and not endure to hear of their own Crimes To hate one-another for those very proceedings that their own faults occasion where the fault is in both sides the fault is in neither so as they may justly accuse one another and yet they will both fall under a most severe Condemnation to be sure in the next world if they do not both miss their aims and be confounded with guilt and disappointment in this I wish it were considered that scarce any Nation ever yet perished that was so blinded in her own concerns that she had not discerning men enough to have preserved her from the destroying Evil if many good and wise men did not perswade themselves it was better to suffer it than to endeavour to prevent it and from the fears of one Party and the dislike they have conceived against the other determine with themselves to stand Neuters whilst they want Resolution to oppose the dangers that one side threatens and think the disorders of the discontents incorrigible It was a wise Law of Solon That if the Common-wealth at any time should be divided into Factions that the Neuters should be noted with infamy by which every man was obliged to take a side or Party and all the virtuous peaceable and modest were engaged to appear openly in the concernments of the Government he concluded assuredly that by this means Peace would be more easily restored and terms of an accommodation more readily invented and entertained the Factious Knaves of both sides turned out of Office their Evil Designs disappointed and the ruine of the Nation by the Extremities of wicked men prevented For the worst men are most forward in Factions and the greatest beautefeus most honoured by their respective contending Parties before the wise and good interpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Causes of the Differences would be better understood be rendred clear and conspicuous when the honest men such as can have no interest but the publick good whose Authority is more prevalent with the people than the clearest Reason do declare them and those that are mis-led and abused into Extreams would then unite and conspire against those who gave the first occasion to the Divisions and promote them As did the Factions of the Colonnois and the Vrsins who having discovered that Pope Alexander the Sixth set them still at discord and variance amongst themselves so by their Calamities and Falls to encrease the strength and power of his Son Borgia they fell to agreement among themselves and made head against him their common Enemy If all that are true Protestants and true lovers of our Government would declare themselves on the behalf of our Religion and Government in such terms as befit honest men and as the Exigency of our present state shall require we shall find the numbers of Addressers reduced to the Dukes Pensioners Creatures The number of Phanaticks made so few that the Papists would again become the Fautors and Defenders of Fanaticism as they were about ten years since lest the numbers of Fanaticks should not be big enough to make a Scare-crow for the Church of England or the Schism not considerable enough to disgrace her All discerning men see that the late Addresses have been obtain'd by application That the design therein was to make Voices for the discontinuance of Parliaments and for a Popish Succession If the people
understanding to appear and come forth for the undeceiving and rectifying the Judgments of the most deceivable part of Mankind and with just ignominy and scorn to beat down the assumings and presumptions of such Pretenders and Smatterers in Letters especially in such a Weighty Matter as this when the poor people if mistaken must be mistaken to their Ruine and perish by the Deceit if deceived which I hope is scarce possible for very many to be by this frivolous Pretender and Offerer of Considerations which none but he that deserves our pity could think of but for that he dares to offer them publickly to the World and under the stile of Great and Weighty Considerations he most justly deserves our Indignation a private Scorn a publick Censure For that purpose we will now produce him HE begins his Considerations with a Consideration and Recommendation of himself and would fain prove his Honestly for he was with reason conscious that this undertaking would render him more than probably suspected He proves as well as any thing he undertakes and as well as it can be proved That he is an honest man This he would have the World believe because there is such a thing as sincerity in the World and for that there have been some men that have owned an afflictive Righteous Cause against self-interest and the displeasure of a prevailing Faction but we know the Cause that he Patronizes is the most unrighteous Cause that ever any man of Front espoused but that should not trouble us But that which afflicts us and is the heart-aking of all good men is That this Scribler with too much reason we know presumes that the Brave men whom he reviles for adhering to the only means of the saving of three Kingdoms with the Gross of the Nation are designed to be subdued by a party of men whose strength the King in his profound Knowledg and Wisdom best knows how to Calculate but certainly this Addresser imagines very great whatever he pretends and that he is well backed by force Otherwise he could not adventure publickly to despise the Interest of a House of Commons If this Considerer and his Fellow-Conspirators had not some secret reserves of Strength he would not advise the King as he doth to Adhere to and Govern with the House of Lords and his Privy-Council and to lop off the House of Commons from the Government as an unprofitable Branch In the next Paragraph he tells us The Chiefest Principle and Maxim of the true reformed Religion in this Kingdom is fully Epitomized in this excellent Precept Give to every one his due If there can be more nonsense spoken in so many words It is this Patriot must do it and you shall find him often performing what I have undertaken for him And sure after such demonstrations of his Honesty and proof of his Understanding you must take him for a True Patriot and a fit Addresser of GREAT and WEIGHTY Considerations In the next Paragraph he undertakes to commend and allow chide and disapprove our leading Men I believe he means of the House of Commons but we want his Name it 's fit he should discover himself before we can admit him to sit Judge of the Actions of the most excellent Persons of the late House of Commons I perswade my self he would blush however immodest he appears in his Address if he were drawn out and exposed to publick view under such a Character we might spare him the Pillory rotten Eggs and Turnep-tops which is due to infamous Libellers against Governours for he is a man of such fashion I believe that he would suffer too much of Shame and Confusion of Face if he were but known well enough to be pointed at after we have done with him In the fourth Paragraph he allows it is a glorious thing to establish the True Protestant Religion but he would not have it established upon Quick-sands neither would we because it is impossible it should be so established we would not have it depend upon loose accidents expos'd to Chance and Contingencies and expect it should be supported by rare events and morally impossible nor to be left at Six and Sevens a chance that is not upon the Die and hope that things should out of their Course and Nature unite and combine together for its support That which is Glorious is so because it is Excellent in it self and difficult to be atchieved and whatever is difficult is to be obtained by unusual and extraordinary means to deny or condemn the use of them when lawful is to deny us the end and is so far in truth from allowing it to be Glorious that he doth not allow it at all That it is made difficult to support the Protestant Religion we owe to the Popish Conspiracy and the design of this man is to make it impossible to that purpose he requires you to lay aside Humane Policy which is the same as true Prudence which is the onely Guide God hath given us and the onely Oracle he hath left us to consult in our Affairs and is never repugnant as he would have it but always conformable to the Laws of God and Nature lest we should be furnished with a Remedy against the designed mischiefs to us and our Religion To this commendable sort of Policy the design of the Bill will be made agreeable in the following Discourse That we may admit the absurd Doctrins of the Church of Rome we are required to abandon our Reason and that we may more easily again fall unto her we must if we will be ruled by the Considerer renounce our Prudence and those that will not must endure his slanderous Reproaches with which he goes on to revile the Promoters of the Bill of Exclusion whom he calls Hypocrites Factious Spirits of the Fanatical Leven that they make a Cloak of Religion to palliate black Designs fierce Zealots acting like the Rump-Parliament Guilty of Antichristian attempts repugnant to the Ordinance of God and to the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom a few turbulent Zealots assuming to themselves a Soveraign and despotical Power of Deposing the DVKE of YORK and says That they impudently affirm That this hath been the Ancient Custom of Parliaments to Depose Princes and dispose of Kingdoms whereas the Crown hath been always Haereditary and never depended upon the Suffrages of the Subject Since this bad man presumes to say so many bad words falsely of the Excellent Members of the late House of Commons reproches their Zeal for the publick Safety most Heroically exerted in the time of the greatest Need and most threatning Dangers calls their appearance for the support of the Protestant Religion established by Law Hypocrisie And the prosecuting the Discovery of the Hellish Plot and the best means of preventing the Plot from taking effect black Designs Since I say his Immodesty hath given him so much Licence I wonder he had no more Scurrilities especially since he is so impertinent as to call
Reipublicae Sponsiones If we do not form our actions in agreeableness thereto and comport with them in our judgments we do not onely disobey the Authority of Laws but are also false Traytors to the Government by violating our publick Faith And now O ye people foolish and unwise ye stupid and perverse generation will you still persevere to call that which is lawful nay necessary nay commendable and heroical to which we are urged by necessity to which we are obliged by the virtues of Religion to God Loyalty to our King the Faith that we owe to the Community A doing Evil that Good may come thereof Your own Condemnation must be just if you be detruded amongst the number of stupid Sots reckoned amongst those that have lost their Reason extinguished their Faculties suppressed their virtue and have no other use of their Reason left them but what is to betray them to greater Evils as a just punishment for their former abusing it You perversely and absurdly mis-apply words without sense To the purpose that you may give countenance to your impieties your utter neglect of Gods true Religion the safety of your Prince and the publick peace and become Traytors to God your King and Countrey without any sense or remorse I have but one Observation to make and one word of my self and I shall conclude The Observation is this Scarce any Government hath been intestinely destroyed but its destruction was from it self which could never have hapned if the great men had not been guilty of connivance at and sufferance of Evils that might have been timely prevented And for that after the long continued stupidity of the upper and lower vulgus which are moved by nothing but what they feel they have grown impatient of the smart of those Evils they could not or would not foresee To this Histories do give ample testimony as they do also testifie that Concussions in Governments and Convulsions in State proceed mostly from Flatterers incroachments of power attempts upon the Government and decay of Faith and Trust in our Governours and secondly from Factious Demagogues But these never appear until the Flatterers and Projectors upon Government have first played their tricks they wait as Owls for the twi-light and Woodcocks for the winter they are onely useful as revulsive remedies against the Evils of the other but are without all manner of Grace where the Government is uprightly and duely Administred And thirdly and principally from the frailty of Humane Virtue When some of better place for the preservation of the Ancient Government and Gods true Religion amongst us will not endure to forego or loose some accommodations or advantages of life which they may be well without and perhaps do not deserve how can it be expected that the generality of Mankind should suffer Martyrdoms in meer Loyalty that is be contented to become miserable and and calamitous and have no other payment for their miseries and Calamities they suffer but that their Prince receives therein an imaginary pleasure and a false satisfaction When all is said men will never govern themselves by the Doctrine of the severe Casuists But their virtue of Loyalty will bear the same proportion as their other virtues do to the Canon of Morality The best service that can be done to any Government is to keep it true to its own Constitution good and tolerarable to the People To this all wise and good men should in their several places apply themselves with Heroical zeal a busie care manly and firm resolutions and thereby prevent if possible those Evils that Mankind will not endure and sustain If all that were dis-interested from any Faction would interpose with wise applications to such purposes Governments would not be so easily dissolv'd and Nations rendred miserable or ruin'd If all that are illightned and truly honest would thus dutifully behave themselves at all times to their King and Countrey both Demagogues and Flatterers would soon be ashamed confounded and forsaken both by Prince and People and Governments be of everlasting continuance But that no man may wonder at my boldness and the freedom I have used in these Discourses I have only this true account to give of my self That Loyalty and Religion and the Prosperity and Peace of my Countrey have therein entirely conducted my thoughts and guided my hand I have therein affirmed nothing but what is publickly known for truth and which the Cause I defend requires to be said It is the Cause of our Government Religion and Nation that I advocate The Cause is pleaded in its proper Court before God and the King Angels and Men no other forum can take Cognizance of the Cause To this the Writers of the other side hath invited us by appealing thereto with their Reasons I am free from any just imputation of malice and contumely against the person who is most concerned in the right disputed I have consulted therein his true Interest which cannot be divided from the Peace and Happiness of Three Kingdoms Justice her self will acquit me from having done any thing amiss and I cannot suffer in the Censures of honest and reasonable men In these Considerations I am encircled as in a brazen wall safe and secure for as for the fears of Rage and Injustice they shall never affect me The POSTSCRIPT SIR I Now render you my hearty thanks for your free advice you gave me concerning the publishing of the Argument for the Bishops Right of Judging in Capital Causes in Parliament and for asserting their civil Honours and Rights in the Government Because it hath given me an occasion both of vindicating the most of the Inferiour Clergy from those Imputations which you have remembred to me and are commonly discoursed to their disadvantage whereby they have lost their Esteem with the People and also of rectifying the mistakes of some for their number is not great who have given too much cause therein of publick complaints You disswade me from giving any assistance to the Rights of the present Bishops for that the Clergy out of whom the Bishops must be made have entertained Principles that are destructive to the Government They affirm you say That it is in the Power of a Prince by Divine Right to govern as he pleaseth that the power of the Laws is solely in him that he may if he please use the consent of Parliaments to assist the reason of his Laws when he shall give any but it is great condescention in Kings to give a reason for what they do and a diminution to their most unaccountable Prerogative You say That they are for a Popish Successor and no Parliament and do as much as in them lies give up our Ancient Government and the Protestant Religion the true Christian Faith to the absolute will of a Popish Successor giving him a Divine Right to extirpate Gods true Religion established amongst us by Law and to evacuate our Government by his absolute pleasure Our Government by a
make their Reigns worse than War and Plague and Famine to boot The Panick fear of a change of the Government that this Doctrine occasioned and the Divisions it made among us was the principal cause of the late War It is not without reason that together with these new principles revived since the Discovery of the Popish Plot we have a perpetual din and noise of Forty one Then that fatal War began which proceeded to the destruction of the Prince and ruin of the Church and State The remembrance of it is the principal matter that stuffs our weekly Pamphlets and it is brought into common discourse and grown so trival that it is mentioned and heard without abhorrence and regret And what Service this can be to His Majesty I do not understand much better it were that the memory of it were utterly extinct and abolished for ever except onely in the Anniversary of that great Prince that so fell Then I say and then onely is it fit to be remembred when we are on our Knees to God Almighty and in his presence affecting our selves with sorrow and remorse deprecating the like Judgments and bewailing the National Sins that occasioned those For notwithstanding the Glories of that Great Prince his unhappy death and the admired Devotions of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The story of the Calamities of his people all his three Kingdoms involved in War during his Reign and the remembrance of them will be with some Men not very Loyal a stain and diminution to the Glories of the Royal Family In Princes their Calamities are reckoned amongst the abatements of their Honor and meer misfortunes are disgraces and have the same influence upon the minds of the common people as real faults and male administrations How then can this tend to the peace of the Nation or the Honor of the King what satisfaction is it to have our almost-healed wounds thus perpetually rub'd and kept green Quis sua vulnera victus commemorare velit Why should any of our Nation insult over the miseries of his own and neighbour Kingdoms when he must be the most barbarous villain and have devested himself of all humanity that is not deeply empassioned at the remembrance of them If a Thuanus or a Philip de Comines were to pass a Judgment of the condition of our late times upon the consideration of our late Tragedies and the Preludium's to it in the Reigns of King James and the late King it would be formed and pronounced in these words of Tully upon another occasion Mihi quidem si proprium verum nomen vestri mali quoeratur fatalis quoedam calamitas incidisse videtur improvidas hominum mentes occupavisse ut nemo mirari debeat humana consilia divina necessitate esse superata But this is not all Nec Dum finitur Orestes We are affrighted by the weekly Pamphlets with the expectation of another Parliamentary War and this is the true reason of the mention of the late War that we may forgo our Parliaments for fear of another So it is written in our publick Prints which are published under permission as if Parliaments are designed to be rendered hateful and to be feared as Plagues Famines or Inundations of the Sea But who is to begin who designs this War the Pamphleteers or those that set them on work best know We had never heard of any such thing if the Mercenary writers of the Popish Faction had not told us of it as they do weekly and hitherto we cannot find any Colour for this affrightful Lye they are impudent so to talk of it as if they believed it and have brought some as weak men as they are false Knaves to a belief of it But to do them no wrong those may best know what is to come to pass who have the power of contriving and designing Qui pavet vanos metus veros fatetur The vilest Traitors cannot contrive a greater prejudice to the King and his Family than by advancing such a dismal thing into credit and belief for fears though but upon imaginary and false grounds produce real effects as well as they are in themselves really afflictive and that almost equally if of continuance to the evils feared Do these men speak like true Loyalists that are mentioning perpetually the Calamitous War in the time of our Kings Father and fright us with another now ensuing after those Universal Solemn and hearty Joys of the whole Nation for his Restauration after so many Millions of Money most dutifully issued out of the affections of his people from time to time at His Majesties Royal pleasure and nothing complain'd of but that they have not opportunities of issuing ten times more to the service of His Majesties Glory Nay they speak of this ensuing War as if the Royal Standard was already displayed and the Rebels had made their Musters which must certainly affect the Royal Family with the greatest danger If there were twenty Trajans derived from one stock that had Reigned in an uninterrupted Succession Two immediate Successours that should have their Reigns successively attended with civil Wars were enough to efface their own and the glories and merits of such Ancestors But base Caitiffs you can no more truly believe the last Parliaments designed upon his Majesties Crown and Dignity to make War and change the Government than you can believe that every Mothers Child of them before they came up to the last Parliaments set his House on fire and burnt his Wife and Children But these impudent Forgeries against the House of Commons are contrived to make the people afraid of Parliaments that this new model of Government in process of time when we have an enterprising Successor may take place for the service of the Popish Religion For upon the strength of Dr. B s performance who hath with great labour found out which is hard for any man acquainted with our English History to be ignorant of that our Parliaments were not always such as now constituted This blessed change of our Government will never be atchieved The Nation will never be perswaded by any thing that he hath found out in his diligent research that the House of Commons is an overgrown Wen an unnatural Accrescency to the Government and fit to be cut off if that which is offered in the Argument to consideration be duly weighed Neither can the most insolent Paradox of Sir Robert Filmers Patriarcha contribute much to this purpose But for that I have in my Argument too forwardly despised it considering that many have conceived a favourable opinion of it that it may be able to deceive but a very few for the time to come for the sake of such Gentlemen who have not chosen their side are glad of the least Colour or dream of a Shadow a single opinion of any body it matters not whom to relieve their modesty in their notorious defections from Truth Justice and the Government I shall here consider his
Act of Parliament in Scotland for the Recognition of the unalterableness of the Descent of the Crown and his Book accounted unanswerable and the whole Cause by the Asserters of this Doctrine put upon the force and consequence of his Reasonings And indeed I have seen nothing so considerable made publick and offered to the World for the defence of the unalterable Right of the Descent of the Crown as are the reasons of these two Books which we have considered in these following Discourses To the end that the reasons against the Bill of Exclusion as well as the reasons for it being duly examined together no honest man may from a doubtful Conscience be any longer under a necessity of suffering the Mischiefs of a Popish Successour which will be more intolerable when they come to be felt than any imagination can suggest or any words can express True it is the Most cannot consider duly of a Matter and determine upon it by their own proper Reasonings and Discoursings and yet they have so much reason as to think That where Doctors differ they have respectively their reasons for their different opinions though they themselves do not apprehend them and consequently at least doubt and of what they doubt they conclude unlawful Yet even the Most may judge what weight and moment the reasons and arguments upon which each party ground their Conclusions are of if they are truly clearly and nakedly propounded reflected upon and made fit for their Judgment and Capacity and they may thereby be brought to discharge their doubt and determine with clear satisfaction in any matter so discussed if they will honestly and duly consider I perswade my self I have by the reflections I have made upon the Discourses of these two renowned Authors prepared their Reasonings for the judgment of the ordinary sort of men if honest To such their Arguments must appear so frivolous as they will conclude these Authors downright Advocates for the Popish Superstition and Cruelty under the thin pretences of defending That a Successour to the Crown by an ordinary and common right cannot be Excluded by an Act of State Such a Successour who if he be not a Papist yet hath openly departed from our Church in which he was born and for which his Father suffered Martyrdome and for the preserving the Peace of Three Kingdoms disdains to tell us he is a Protestant and neglects the direful Imprecations of his Grand-Father though no Curses are so operative as those of Parents upon their Children upon weighty causes solemnly pronounced These can kill at the Root the most flourishing and prolifical Families make their Root rottenness and their Blossom to go up as dust Omnem vastant stirpemque domumque 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore I have caused these reflections to be Reprinted if happily they may conduce any thing towards a full information of my doubting honest Countrymen in a matter so weighty and consequently towards the prevention of the effusions of English Blood in Wars Massacres and Martyrdomes and of the lawless violent and bloody attempts to be made for the Extirpation of the Reformed Religion Establisht amongst us by Law by the Romanists And lastly towards the re-establishment of our Government and Nation in Peace and Tranquillity again which are now most miserably distracted by the fears of a Popish Successour and by the Doubts about Excluding him If we did not doubt without reason of the lawfulness of Excluding a Popish Successour we should have no reason to fear him The Great and Weighty CONSIDERATIONS c. CONSIDERED WHatever is the subject matter upon which we exercise our thoughts or whereupon we make our Enquities doth not make the Considerations of slight and vain Men GREAT and WEIGHTY A man of slender Endowments doth not commence to be Wise as soon as matters of great Moment take up his Thoughts But if he be of such a make as renders him capable of being in any degree wise he is affected with an ingenuous Shame finding the matters too hard for his Capacity and above his reach He is displeased and dissatisfied with his own dark indistinct and confused Conceptions in which he himself can receive no satisfaction he suspends and determines nothing but that he doth not understand the matter and resorts with deference to those who are wiser than himself But there is a sort of Arrogant Fools who trouble the World make it difficult to understand plain Truth confound the Notions of things blend things of remote distances in their nature together or put one thing for another that have no affinity to each other puzzle and perplex the minds of the Weak These deserve the Indignation of the better sort of Judgments who cannot but be empassioned while they see a great part of mankind abused to their hurt By the villanous practices of some designed to the endurance of the greatest mischiefs and by a sort of silly Knaves attempted upon for deceiving them into a permission of all the pretended evils to come upon them who presumptuously use their little Wit to ensnare the Consciences to perplex the Minds of the Multitude by Objections puzzling to the weak by such Reasonings as none but fools could think of and none but bold Knaves would offer to the World Such I take to be every immodest man who will adventure not from his Understanding and therefore from his Will and consequently his Interest to speak things that have no consequence and are not induc'd by the Laws of Reasoning and Discourse that have a tendency to dispose men to scruple of Conscience and make them doubtful and unactive against the evils of the greatest size that are design'd against them and to neglect or resist the Counsels of God against themselves and fatally fall under the designed evils notwithstanding they are provided of a just and allowable Remedy against them There are and ever was and ever will be to the trouble of Mankind a sort of literate Fools who will always obtain some reputation with the stupid admiring Vulgar made by Nature to little Understanding and who have lost that little for want of using it who by Books good of bad it matters not much become greater Fools than they could have been if left to simple Nature who by imperfect remembrances and undue joyning of things more imperfectly understood make most perverse Judgments in all things they are conversant about And if it happen that by their Complexion they prove forward and are opinionated of their false Learning they obtrude upon the World their unnatural monstrous and incoherent Conceptions And if they chance to mix their Discourses with passages of Holy Scriptures and thereby entitled Religion to their Absurdities they more powerfully amuse distract and abuse the Consciences of the common People and perplex them with Scruples and Prejudices and that sometimes against the only means of their preservation And this calls upon and urgeth the Charity of such to whom God hath given a better
Words which he useth but doth not understand of what Import and value they are in this place for the Rights of Property are of positive and civil Appointment and Institution No man can have or is entitled to any thing but what and as the Law allots it to him They design what is Right what Wrong and what is Injury and Theft and the Law of God both in the Reason and Nature of man as well as by express Revelation forbids it Nec natura potest justum secernere iniquo Men make Governments and God Commands us to obey them yea God Commands us in our Nature to form our selves into Governments For that Mankind cannot tolerably subsist without them What is greatly convenient and promotes the happiness of men therefore seems to be Commanded and thereby a positive and affirmative Law of God in Nature is declared What is or would be greatly mischievous to mankind if generally permitted is therefore understood by us prohibited The Mischief declares the thing forbidden and is the indication of a Negative Precept or prohibitory Law The pleasure and satisfaction of mind that men take in being beneficent and agreeable to and deserving well of their own kind The remorses shame fear and regret that men necessarily suffer from the sense of their own actions when they are offensive unequal and unreasonable are the Sanctions of the Laws of Nature and are truly the Rewards and Punishments of God in Nature So that Anarchy which is the most intolerable state of Mankind a state of War and Violence unreasonable Passion and unbounded Appetite seems to be the most forbidden thing by God in Nature But Government because it makes men equal and reasonable just and peaceable kind and beneficent or finds them so encourageth them to be so and protects them in being so seems to be the most principal Institution and Appointment of God in Nature for that it is recommended to us by all that which conduces to our happiness And thus and for this reason are Kings and Governours said to have their Authority from God and therefore Government is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 13.2 Gods Ordinance But the forms of Governments the Persons of the Governours the Order of Succession their respective Powers and Ministries are of Mans appointment and agreeable hereunto Government is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a Humane Creature 1 Peter 2.13 24. to which the Apostle enjoyns us to be Obedient for the Lords sake and in Conscience of our Duty to God Agreeable hereto is that Noble Tradition amongst the Jews of the seven Precepts given by God to the Sons of Noah that is to all Mankind for from him we all secondarily derive in which the great Titles of the Law of Nature are declared and to which all the Nations of the World were obliged one of which is De Judiciis The words of the Precept which is the Seventh are no more signifying that the Law of Nature or the Will of God in Nature doth command us to live in Politys and under Governments This Law was given or declared to all Mankind when they were in a State of Nature before Governments were constituted and by that Law of Nature obliged to form themselves into Societies to enter into mutual Obligations to stand to and abide the common measures of Law and to assist and submit to the Sentences and Decrees of common Judicatures These were the first Oaths of Allegiance that were taken in the world but when a single person was entrusted with the executive power of Laws they swore this Allegiance to him For in all regular Governments as it is in this of ours the King commands nothing but according to the Prescript and Formula's of Law And the whole business of Government as between those that are to be Governed is making Laws and executing them in a due Administration of Justice As Corollaries to what is said I shall add first That Mercenary Guards are very unnatural to Governments as they seem upon the foregoing Reasons to be instituted and appointed by God in Nature which receive conformation from the Tradition and Doctrine of the Jews the best instructed Nation in the world in the Mind of God for that the whole body and power of the Government or Polity are bound to see the Law and Results of their common Judicatures obey'd and are amply sufficient for that purpose So that the head of the Polity by the posse populi being most powerfully instructed to execute the Laws Mercenary Guards seem intended and designed by those that imploy them to execute matters illegal and extrajudicial or at best they make a very hard case upon the people that they must support a great charge and pay a great price for jealousies and fears Secondly That by the natural obligation of the ancient Oath of Allegiance every Member of the Polity is bound to resist and subdue all extrajudicial Forces riotous and routous Assemblies But the nature of Government and its true original hath been prejudiced by an unhappy mistake that hath long since invaded the World men that understand nothing but Words and Grammar-Divines that without contemplating Gods Attributes or the nature of man or the reasonableness of moral Precepts have undertaken to declare the sense of Scriptures and infer that the Soveraign Power is not of Humane Institution but of Divine Appointment because they find it there written that by him Kings Reign imagining that when the Scripture saith God commands or doth this that God commanded it by express Words or doth it by an immediate position of the thing done Whereas in Nature his Commands are nothing but the natural Light God hath bestowed upon Mankind Likewise God's doing a thing is only the course of natural and second Causes to which because God gives the Direction or Motion he doth both and is said to do all that is done Besides all the Precepts that God gives us that are agreeable to the Law of Nature must be understood as Nature and Reason doth direct Videtur Lex Dei idem dictans quod natura ita accipi quomodo ipsa natura accipiendum monstrat nisi addatur aliquid Expressius Grotius Comment fol. 121. The Laws of God that confirm the Laws of men innovate nothing but a new obligation to observe them but only as commanded and intended by those that made them All humane Constitutions and Governments must be subservient and obsequious to their own intentions Omnes res conditoe famulantur vitoe humanoe Every Form of Government is of our creation and not Gods and must comply with the safety of the People in all that it can without its own dissolution and was never intended unalterable or at least inflexible but was intended and made under reservations reasonable exceptions of unforeseen accidents and rare contingencies in humane Affairs And the Law of God that comes in confirmation and establishment of humane Institutions and Laws binds only according to their natures and