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B21136
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The advantages of the present settlement, and the great danger of a relapse
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Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing D827B
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28,552
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40
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a Pestilent Heresie To this end tended the Erecting of Chappels for Popish Devotion and Publick Schools for Popish Education Was it for nothing that an Ambassador was resident at Rome And a Nuncio publickly entertained here for a constant Correspondence between England and Rome Why were all the Protestant Nobility and Gentry turned out of all places either of Honour Profit or Trust and Papists put in their Rooms What could be the design of that ducoy of Liberty of Conscience at a time when since the first beginnings of those unhappy divisions of Protestants here at home there was never less need of it When not any Protestant Party amongst us did so much as Petition for it when the Generality of Dissenters were so well satisfied with the Church of England that there were never fairer hopes of perfect Unity amongst us But this was the matter the division of Protestants amongst themselves would weaken the whole Body of them and render them the more capable of an easie overthrow a design which the wiser sort of Dissenters quickly saw and even the generality of them in a short time were satisfied in For since it 's as easie for the Arctick and Antarctick Poles to meet together or for the East and West to be in Conjunction as to reconcile Infallibility of one Religion with a Toleration of all the necessity of Extirpating all Hereticks with a Connivance at all Heresies all were easily convinced what such a Toleration tended to and none were entrapped in the Snare or trepanned with the Cheat but a few hot-headed Zealots ready to Sacrifice all to Ambition and Revenge What could be the design of putting Papists in for Heads of Houses Masters and Fellows of Colleges in our famous Universities What could be the design of Erecting a High Commission Court for Ecclefiastical Causes for the suspending and depriving of Bishops and Clergy which was justly termed the New Inquisition of England Why was that ensnaring Declaration so violently and yet so unnecessarily prest upon the Clergy to be read in Churches and Seven Bishops imprisoned and the whole Clergy of the Kingdom threatned with Deprivation for Non-Compliance If these things and a great many more will not satisfie men That there was a real Design of subverting our Religion I know not what will. Yet to demonstrate this matter to the full consider only the mighty endeavours that were used to abrogate the Penal Laws and Test in which the King used so much industry that he truly took methods too much below Royal Dignity to effect it What a mean office for a King to become an earnest Sollicitor of his Subjects to that which they could not in Conscience nor Honour yield to and then a disobliger of all his Kingdom for removing them from all places upon so necessary a refusal The design must be mighty great when Arts both so mean and so harsh were used to accomplish it But this was it The Papists had then stood upon even ground with all other Subjects and the great advantage of Authority on their side would quickly have raised their Ground above us the doors of both Houses of Parliament had been set wide open to them whence the House of Peers might quickly have been filled with new Creations and the House of Commons as quickly made Popish by Force or Fraud in Elections Corporations being framed and regulated agreeable to the design and what could be then expected but a sudden Establishment of Popery The whole Nation did see this Project so clearly that the greatest part of the Dissenters were so sensible of the mischief that though they had smarted somewhat hardly under the Lash of the Penal Laws but a little while before yet they would rather venture the Continuance of them than run the hazard of ruining the substance and being of the Protestant Religion amongst us nor could all the virulent Pamphlets thrown about to exasperate them by a Tragical Commemoration of their former Suffering by the Penal Laws ever perswade them so far out of their Senses as not to be fully assured that the Little Finger of the Popish Inquisition would be heavier upon them than the Loins of all the Penal Laws made since the Reformation against them And indeed to the Fidelity of that Party at that Critical time are we to ascribe a great share of the disappointment the Popish Party met with being much chafed that the Grand Cheat of the Toleration had no better success And as all these plain matters of fact are more than sufficient to convince us of the Mischievous Design of subverting the Established Religion in these Kingdoms so are they a plain and evident proof that there was certainly a Private League between the Late King James and the French King for bringing this to pass tho there were nothing else to evince is For it could never be hoped that the Popish Party here in England could do it their Strength and Interest were not sufficient to accomplish such a Design There was a fine Army indeed but most of them Protestants who would hardly be commanded by Popish Officers to ruine their Religion for men must certainly fight very faintly when the edge of their Swords is turned against themselves and their success is certain desolation to their Country From whence one of these two things must follow either that King James had no Resolution to change the Religion of this Nation the contrary of which appears by what hath been said and besides to say so is to put the greatest affront and dishonour upon the Late King that can be and calls his Wisdom and Discretion highly in question in the conduct of his Affairs that he should do all these mean harsh and suspitious things before alledged for no other end but to bring an obloquy upon himself to render his Government uneasie fearful and suspected and to disoblige all the three Kingdoms But if it cannot be admitted that a person of any common seuse or reason should be guilty of so much Indiscretion that might in the end prove so fatal to himself then we must acknowledge that some Foreign Power was certainly to be made use of since no reasonable man proposeth to himself any end but withall he proposeth means proportionate to that end in order to the acquiring of it and now we would fain learn what other Force can so much as come under the Probability of being made use of but the French And now that which makes this Design abundantly the more inexcusable in it self and the more insupportable to us is this That this Church and the Religion professed in it run such a great hazard from a Prince from whom the Members of that Church and Professors of that Religion had all the reason in the world to expect much kinder usage For I am sure never any Prince could be more highly obliged by Subjects than King James was by the Members of the Church of England both before and after he was King. Not
since they would never be suffered to do us good and in all probability could not fail in doing us much harm The Case is quite altered now as is obvious at first sight our Religion hath the greatest Security our Bishops and Clergy the greatest Protection our Vacant Bishopricks are filled with the most wise and learned of the Clergy Colledges are restored to their proper Owners the Idolatry of Popery dare not shew it self any where the Wind hath blown these Locusts of Priests Jesuits c. beyond the Seas to their former Lurking-Places every one sits safe under his own Vine enjoying securely the Liberty of an Englishman the Property he is possest of our Councils Navies Armies Magistrates are Protestants and a Security to our Religion dearer to us than our Lives our Judges are as at the first and our Counsellors as at the beginning Pray Gentlemen recount with your Selves What was our greatest Hope our only Comfort on Earth in those Days of our Dustress What was it that sustained our Spirits and delivered us from utter Dispair What did we discourse of every-where to one another as the sole Foundation of our Hopes of Freedom and Relief Was it not that the King was a Mortal Man and after him we had a Reserve of the Prince and Princess of Orange for our Security How often then did we cast our Eyes and Hearts upon the Belgick Shore trusting that at last the Providence of God would whaft over that blessed Pair to the lasting Joy of this British Island The Papists knew this very well and could never think themselves safe till these Princes Interests were defeated and thereby as they thought all our Hopes frustrate But God that brings Good out of the greatest Evil by his infinite Wisdom and Power converted that Project by which they intended to perpetuate the Slavery of these Nations to an accelerating or hastening our Deliverance sooner than ever we hoped for it for never was there a juster Cause given any Prince to quarrel with a Possessor than was given the Prince of Orange when he saw not only all our Laws violated and the People of England enslaved but likewise his just Interest in the Crown in Right of his Princess the immediate Heir so violently invaded without any Satisfaction given usual in such Cases of the Sincerity of that Affair of the pretended Prince of Wales in which not only this whole Nation was violently suspicious upon very great Grounds but likewise the intended Fraud was the Discourse of Europe This Matter hath been sufficiently written of and for my part if there were no more to create a Diffidence in me not possible of receiving any Satisfaction this would be more than sufficient that I never heard of any Satisfaction given to the Great and Vertuous Lady the Princess Ann of Denmark in this whole Affair and yet it was highly just she should have received it in respect of her Proximity to the Crown and likewise in regard of that Fruitful Womb God hath been pleased to bless her Highness with whose Children have a very fair Prospect to the Royal Inheritance it had been likewise very easy to have done it because her Highness was perpetually upon the very place where the Scene was acting just till the time of its finishing and then it was most necessary she should have been there and it 's impossible to imagine had it been a real Thing care would have been taken that she should have been present but on the other Hand if it was not real then it was altogether necessary that of all Persons she should be out of the way and such care was accordingly taken And as her Satisfaction was both just and easy so it would have been of mighty advantage to the convincing of the Nation of the Truth of it her Highnesse's Evidence would have been of more weight than all those at Council-Board in respect none will bear witness against their own Interest especially in a matter of so great Moment unless it be very true All the answer ever I could hear to this most material ground of Suspicion is either that there was no Obligation to give any such Satisfaction or that the Princess did not desire it and was not curious of being satisfied To which this is only fit to be said by way of Reply that the first is a desperate and the second a senseless Answer Is it not then a great Favour of God to us that the Deliverance we so earnestly wished and the Persons on whom our Eyes were fixed are thus come to our Deliverance our very Enemies hastening it sooner than ever we looked for it Is it not the Joy of all good Men who love the Prosperity of our Sion and pray for her Peace to see a Protestant King and Queen in England a Happiness Britain hath not been favoured with since the Death of Queen Ann the Wife of King James the First We have no Dalilah in the Bosom of our Sampson to allure him to betray his own and the Nations Strength that we may be the easier Prey to the Philistines The Marriage of our Kings to Ladies of the Popish Persuasion hath been so plain a Cause of the Nations Misery that we have great cause to rejoice in so happy a sight as both King and Queen to be of the same Religion and that which is the professed and established Religion of their Kingdoms and it s greatly to be hoped the Wisdom of our Parliament will make it no small part of their Care to prevent the Mischiefs that have so constantly attended our Kings being so unequally yoked Our King and Queen draw not now several Ways their Principles are the same as they are in Bed and at Board one so it 's our great Comfort to see them repair to the same Churches exercised in the same Devotions addressing to the same Altar in a word of the same Faith and Religion to the great encouragement of their Subjects to follow so pious so great an Example So that there are no hopes now of the Philistines plowing with Sampson's Heifer The Royal Interest is now absolutely the same with that of the People for their Majesties and their People are more surely tyed together by the Bonds of that Religion for which both have an equal Zeal than by any Political Obligations whatsoever so that now both rejoice in the mutual Prosperity of each other their Majesties rejoicing in their Peoples Security and they again in the Royal Protection as in all Things so chiefly in that which is the best of all Things Religion Neither are we to neglect the Consideration of that which deservedly makes his present Majesty the Darling of these three Kingdoms nay like another Titus the Delight of Mankind viz. that the King the Prince of Orange had no such great matters to look for as to his own Interest to move him to encounter so great Dangers to undergo so much Trouble He was considerably great in the Low-Countries