narrow power and intereâ—â— would extend It ought therefore to lay uâ— under a conviction what we are to expecâ— from His Majesty on the Throne when wâ— find the whole thread and series of his conduct while a Subject to have been a continued design against our Religion and an uninterrupted plot for the subversion of our Laws and Liberties 'T is sufficiently known how active he alway's was to keep up and inflame the differences among Protestants and how he was both a great Promoter of all the severe Laws made against Dissenters and a continual instigator to the rigorouâ— Execution of them So that his affirming it to have been ever his judgment that none ought to be oppressed and persecuted for matters of Religion nor to be hindred in Worshipping God according to their several perswasions serves only to inform us either with what little Honesty Honor and Conscience Hâ— acted in concurring to the making of the foresaid Laws or what small faith and credit is now to be given to his Declaration and to what he hath since the Emission of it repeated both in his Speech to Mr. Penn and in his Letter to Mr. Alsop And to omit many other Instances of his kindness and Benignity to the Fanaticks whom he now so much huggs and caresseth it may not be amiss to remember them and all other Protestants of that Barbarous and illegal Commission issued forth by the Council of Scotland while He as the late Kings High Commissioner had the management of the affaires of that Kingdom by which every Military Officer that had command over twelve men was impower'd to impannel Juries try condemn and cause to be put to death not only those who should be found to disclaim the Kings Authority but such as should refuse to acknowledg the Kings new modelled Supremacy over that Church in the pursuance and execution of which Commission some were shot to death others were hang'd or drowned and this not only during the conti 〈…〉 〈◊〉 oâ— the Reign of his late Majesty â—ut 〈◊〉 〈…〉 e a year and a half after the preâ—â—nt King came to the Crown But what â—eed is there of insisting upon such little parâ—â—culars wherein he was at all times ready 〈◊〉 express his malice to Protestants seeing 〈…〉 e have not only Dr. Oates's Testimony 〈…〉 d that of divers others but most authen 〈…〉 ck proofs from Mr. Coleman's Letters of 〈…〉 s having been in a Conspiracy several years 〈…〉 r the subversion of our Religion upon the 〈…〉 eritorious and sanctified Motive of extir 〈…〉 ating the Northern Heresie Of which be 〈…〉 de all the Evidence that four Successive â—arliaments arrived at I know several who 〈…〉 nce the Duke of York ascended the Throne have had it confirmed unto them by â—ivers forraign Papists that were less reâ—â—rved or more ingenuous than many of 〈…〉 hat Communion use to be To question 〈…〉 he Existence of that Plot and his present Majesties having been accessory unto and in 〈…〉 he head of it argues a strange effrontery and 〈…〉 mpudence thro casting an aspersion of weakness folly and injustice not only upon those three Parliaments that seem'd to have reâ—ained some zeal for English Liberties but by fastning the same imputations upon the 〈…〉 ong Parliament which had shew'd it self at all times more obsequious to the will of the Court than was either for their own Honor or the safety and Interest of the Kingdom and who had expressed a Veneration for the Royal Family that approached too much unto a degree of Idolatry Whosoever considers that Train of Councels wherein the King was many years engaged and whereof we felt the woful effects in the burning of London the frequent Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments the widening and exasperating Differences among Protestants the â—â—irring up and provoking Civil Magistrates and Ecclesiastical Courts to persecute Dissenters and the maintaining Correspondencies with the Pope and Catholick Princes abroad to the dishonor of the Nation and danger of our Laws and Religion cannot avoid being apprehensive what we are now to look for at his hands nor can he escape thinking that he esteems his Advancement to the Crown both a reward from heaven for what he hath done and plotted against these three Kingdoms and an opportunity and advantage administred unto him for the perfecting and accomplishment of all those Designes with which he hath been so long bigg and in travel for the destruction of our Religion the subversion of our Laws and the reestablishment of Popery in these Dominions The conduct and guidance under which His Majesty hath put himself and the fiery temper of that Order to whose Government he hath resigned his Conscience may greatly add to our fears and give us all the jealousie and dread that we are capable of being impressed with in reference to matters to come that there is nothing which can be fatal to our Religion or persons that we may not expect the being called to conflict with and suffer For tho most of the Popish Ecclesiasticks especially the Regulars bear an inveterate malice to Protestants and hold themselves under indispensable Obligations of eradicating whatsoever their Church stiles Heresie and have accordingly been alway's forward to stirr up and provoke Rulers to the use and application of force for the destruction of Protestants as a Company of perverse and obstinate Hereticks adjuged and condemned to the Stake and Gibbet by the infallible Chaire yet of all men in the Communion of the Romish Church and of their Religious Orders the Jesuites are they who do most hate us and whose Councels have been most sanguinary and alway's tending to influence those Monarchs whose Consciences they have had the guiding and conducting of to the utmost Cruelties and Barbarities towards us What our Brethern have had measured out to them in France thro Father de la Chaise's influence upon that King ' and thro the bewitching power and domination he hath over him in the quality of his Confessor and as having the direction of his Conscience may very well allarm and inform us what we ought to expect from His Majesty of Great Brittain who hath surrendred his Conscience to the guidance of Father Peters a person of the same Order and of the like mischievous and bloody disposition that the former is 'T is well observed by the Author of the Reasons against repealing the Acts of Parliament concerning the Test that Cardinal Howard's being of such a meek and gentle temper that is able to withstand the Malignity of his Religion and to preserve him from concurring in those mischievous Councels which his purple might seem to oblige him unto is the reason of his being shut out from acquaintance with and interest in the English affaires transacted at Rome and that whatsoever his Majesty hath to do in that Court is managed by his Ambassador under the sole direction of the Jesuites So that it is not without cause that the Jesuite of Leige in his
are aware of and that having proceeded so far they have nothing left for their security from punishments because of crimes committed but to put us out of all capacity of doing our selves Right and them justice and he must be 〈…〉 ll who do's not know into what that must necessarily hurry them It being then as evident as a matter of this nature is capable of what we are to expect and dread from the King both as to our Religion and Laws we may do more than presume that the late Declaration for liberty of conscience and the Proclamation for a Toleration are not intended and designed for the benefit and advantage of the Reformed Religion and that whatsoever motives have influenced to the granting and emitting of them they do not in the least flow or proceed from any kindness and goodwill to Protestant Dissenters And tho many of those weak and easie people may flatter themselves with a belief of an interest in the Kings favour and suffer others to delude them into a perswasion of his bearing a gracious respect towards them yet it is certain that they are people in the world whom he most hates and who when things are ripe for it and that he hath abused their credulity into a serving his Ends as far as they can be prevailed upon and as long as the present Juggle can be of any advantage for promoting the papal cause will be sure not only to have an equal share in his displeasure with their Brethren of the Church of England but will be made to drink deepest in the cup of fury and wrath that is mingling and preparing for all Protestants No provocation from their present behaviour tho it is such as might warm a person of very cool temper much less offences of another complexion administred by any of them shall ever tempt me to say they deserve it or cause me to ravel into their former and past carriages so as to fasten a blott or imputation upon the party or body of them whatsoever I may be forced to do as to particular persons among them For as to the generality I do believe them to be as honest industrious useful and vertuous a people tho many of them be none of the wisest nor of the greatest pr 〈…〉 spect as any party of men in the Kingdo 〈…〉 and that wherein soever their carriage eve 〈…〉 abstracting from their differences with thei 〈…〉 fellow Protestants in matters of Religion hath varied from that of other Subjects they have been in the Right and have acte 〈…〉 most agreeably to the interest safety of th 〈…〉 Kingdom But it can be no reflection upo 〈…〉 them to recall into their memories tha 〈…〉 the whole tenor of the Kings actings towards them both when Duke of York and since he came to the Crown hath been such 〈◊〉 might render it beyond dispute that the 〈…〉 are so far from having any singular room i 〈…〉 his favour that he bears them neither pit 〈…〉 nor compassion but that they are the objects of his unchangeable indignation Fo 〈…〉 not to mention how the persecutions tha 〈…〉 were observed alway's to relent both upon his being at any distance from the late Kingâ— and upon the abatement of his influence 〈◊〉 any time into Counsels were constantl 〈…〉 revived upon his return to Court and wer 〈…〉 carried on in degrees of severity proportionable to the figure he made at Whitehall an 〈…〉 his Brothers disposedness and inclination t 〈…〉 hearken to him surely their memories can not be so weak and untenacious but the 〈…〉 must remember how their sufferings wer 〈…〉 never greater nor the Laws executed wit 〈…〉 more severity upon them than since hi 〈…〉 Majesty came to ascend the Throne As it is no 〈…〉 many years since he said publickly in Scotland that it were well if all that part of th 〈…〉 Kingdom which is above half of the Nation where the Dissenters were known t 〈…〉 be most numerous were turned into a hunti 〈…〉 field so none were favoured and promote 〈…〉 either there or in England but such as wer 〈…〉 taken to be the most fierce and violent of a 〈…〉 others against Fanaticks Nor were me preferred either in Church or State for the learning vertu ' or merit but for the passionate heats and brutal rigours to Dissenters And whereas the Papists from the ve 〈…〉 first day of his arrival at the Governmen 〈…〉 had beside many other marks of his Grac 〈…〉 〈…〉 s special Testimony of it of not having 〈…〉 e penal Statutes to which they stood liable 〈…〉 t in execution against them all the Laws 〈◊〉 which the Dissenters were obnoxious â—ere by his Majesties Orders to the Judges 〈…〉 stices of the peace and all other Officers 〈…〉 vil and Ecclesiastical most unmercifully exe 〈…〉 ted Nor was there the least talk of lenity Dissenters till the King found that he 〈…〉 uld not compass his Ends by the Church of 〈…〉 gland and prevail upon the Parliament 〈…〉 r Repealing the Tests and cancelling the 〈…〉 her Laws in force against Papists which if 〈…〉 ey could have been wrought over unto 〈…〉 e Fanaticks would not only have been left 〈…〉 ttiless and continued in the hands of the 〈…〉 rious Church-men to exercise their spleen 〈…〉 pon but would have been surrendred as a 〈…〉 crifice to new flames of wrath if they of 〈…〉 e prelatical Communion had retained 〈…〉 eir wonted animosity and thought it for 〈…〉 eir interest to exert it either in the old or 〈◊〉 fresh method's But that project not sucâ—eeding his Majesty is forced to shift hands 〈…〉 d to use the pretence of extending comâ—assion to Dissenting Protestants that he may â—he more plausibly and with the less hazard â—â—spend and disable the Laws against Papists â—nd make way for their admission into all â—ffices Civil and Military which is the first 〈…〉 ep and all that he is yet in a condition to 〈…〉 ke for the subversion of our Religion And â—ll the celebrated kindness to Fanaticks is â—nly to use them as the Catt's paw for â—ulling the Chesnut out of the fire to the Monkey and to make them stales under whose â—hroud and covert the Church of Rome may undermine and subvert all the legal foundations of our Religion which to suffer themselves to be instrumental in will not in the issue turn to the commendation of the Dissenters wisdom or their honesty Nor is there more truth in the Kings declaring it to have been his constant opinion that conscience ought not to be constrained nor people forced in matters of meer Religion than there is of justice in that malicious insinuation in his Letter to Mr. Alsop against the Church of England that should he see cause to change his Religion he should never be of that party of Protestants who think the only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller matters forasmuch as he
peo 〈…〉 It will not be amiss to call over some 〈◊〉 his Majesties proceedings towards the 〈…〉 urch of England that from what hath 〈…〉 en already seen and felt both they and all 〈…〉 glish Protestants may the better know what they are to expect and look for hereafter Tho it be a method very unbecoming a Prince yet it shews a great deal of spleen to turn the former persecution of Dissenters so maliciously upon the Prelatical and conforming Clergy as his Majesty doth in his letter to Mr. Atsop in stiling them a party of Protestants who think the only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller matters Whereas the severity that the Fanaticks met with had much of its Original at Court where it was formed and designed upon motives of Popery and Arbitrariness and the resentment and revengful humour of some of the old Prelates and other Church men that had suffered in the late times was only laid hold of the better to justify and improve it And tho it be too true that many of the dignified Rank as well as of the little Levites were both extreamly fond of it and contentiously pleaded for it yet it is as true that most of them did it not upon principles of judgment and conscience but upon inducements of retaliation for conceived injuries and upon a belief of its being the most compendious method to the next preferment and benefice and the fairest way of standing recommended to the favour of the two Royal Brothers Nor is it unworthy of observation that some of the most virulent writers against liberty of conscience and others of the most fierce Instigators to the persecuting Dissenters among whom we may reckon Parker Bishop of Oxford and Cartwright Bishop of Chester are since Adressing for the Declaration of Indulgence became the means of being gracioully lookt upon at Whitthall turned foreward promoters of it tho their success in their Diocesses with their Clergy hath not answered their expectations and endeavoures For as these two Mytred Gentlemen will fall in with and justify whatsoever the King hath a mind to do if they may but keep their Seas and enjoy their Revenues which I dare say that rather than lose they will subscribe not only to the Tridentine Faith but to the Alcoran so it is most certain that they two as well as the Bishop of Durham have promised to turn Roman Catholicks and that as Crew hath been several times seen assisting at the celebration of the Mass and that as Cartwright payd a particular respect to the Nuncio at his solemn Entrance at Windsor which some Temporal Lords had so much conscience and honor as to scorn to do so the Author of the leige Letter tells us that Parker not only extreamly favours Popery but that he brands in a manner all such for Atheists who continue to plead for the Protestant Religion 'T is an Act of the same candor and good nature in the King with the former and another Royal effect of his Princely breeding as well as of his Gratitude when he endeavours to cast a farther odium upon the Church of England and to exasperate the Dissenters against her by saying in the forementioned letter to Mr. Alsop that the reason why the Dissenters enjoyed not liberty sooner is wholly owing to the sollicitation of the Conforming Clergy whereas many of the learned and sober men of the Church of England could have been contented that the Nonconforming Protestants should have had liberty long ago provided it had been granted in a legal way and the chief executioners of severity upon them were such of all ranks orders and stations as the Court both set on and rewarded for it 'T is not their Brethrens having liberty that displeaseth modest good men of the Church of England but 't is the having it in the virtu ' of an usurped prerogative over the Laws of the Land and to the shaking all the legal foundations of the Protestant Religion it self in the Kingdom And had the Declaration of Indulgence imported only an exemption of Dissenters and Papists from rigours and penalties I know very few that would have been displeased at it but the extending it to the removing all the Fences about the Reformed Doctrine and worship and laying us open both to the tyranny of papists and the being overflowed with a deluge of their superstitions and Idolatries as well as the designing it for a means to overthrow the established Chur 〈…〉 is that which no wise Dissenter no more t 〈…〉 a conformable man knows how to digest 〈◊〉 I am not of Sr. Roger l'Estranges mind w 〈…〉 after he hath been writing for many yea 〈…〉 against Dissenters with all the venom and m 〈…〉 lice imaginable and to disprove the wisdo 〈…〉 justice and convenience of granting th 〈…〉 liberty hath now the impudence 〈◊〉 publi 〈…〉 that whatsoever he formerly wrote bears an exact conformity to the present Resolutions of State in that the liberty now vouchsased is an Act of Grace issuing from the supream Magistrate an 〈…〉 not a claim of Right in the people And as to r 〈…〉 cited expressions of the King they are onl 〈…〉 a papal trick whereby to keep up heats an 〈…〉 animosities among Protestants when both th 〈…〉 inward heats of men are much allay'd and th 〈…〉 external Provocations to them are wholly removed and they are meerly Iesuitick method's by which our hatred of one another may b 〈…〉 maintained tho the Laws inabling one part 〈…〉 to persecure the other which was the chie 〈…〉 spring of all our mutual rancour and bitterness be suspended It would be the sport and glory of the Ignatian Order to be able to make the disabling of penal Laws as effectual to the supporting differences among Protestants a◠the Enacting and rigorous execution of them was to the first raising and the continuing them afterwards for many years And if the foregoing Topicks can furnish the King arguments whereby to reproach the Church of England when he thinks it seasonable and for the interest of Rome to be angry with them I dare affirm he will never want pretences of being discontented with of aspersing Fanaticks when he finds the doing so to be for the service of the papal cause And if the forementioned instances of his Majesties behaviour to the Church of England to which he stands so superlatively obliged be neither Testimonies of his ingenuity evidences of his Gratitude nor effects of common much less Royal justice yet what remains to be intimated do's carry more visible marks of 〈…〉 malice and design both against the le 〈…〉 established Church and our Religion For 〈…〉 ing satisfied with the suspension of all 〈◊〉 Laws by which Protestants and they 〈◊〉 the national Communion might seem to be 〈…〉 urious to Papists in their persons and E 〈…〉 tes such as the Laws which make those 〈…〉 ho shall be
carrying on the fire is but earnest in respect of what is designed farther to be payd them for the having been the great supporters of that war both by continued Recruites of men and repeated Supplies of treasure Tho it was Queen Mary's misfortune and proved the misery of Protestants that she was under the influence of popish Bishops and of Religious of several Orders by whom she was whetted on and provoked to those barbarities where-with her Reign is stained and reproached yet she had no Iesuites about her to whom all the other Orders are but punies in the arts of wheedling and frighting Princes forward to cruelty The Society being then but in its infancy and the distance between its Institution which wasin the year 1540. and the time of her coming to the Crown which was anno 1553. not affording season enough for their spreading so far abroad as they have since done nor for the perfecting themselves to that degree in the methods of butchery and in the Topicks whereby to delude Monarchs to serve and promote their sanguinary passions as they have in process of time attained unto Nor have the Protestants now any security for their Religion whereby it or themselves may be preserved from the attempts of his Majesty for the extirpation of both but what our Predecessors in the same faith had in the like kind tho not to the same measure and degree when Queen Mary arrived at the Throne For tho our Religion was of late Fenced about with more Laws and we had Royal promises oftner repeated for the having 〈◊〉 preserved and our selves protected in the Profession of it yet it is certain that it had not only received a legal establishment under King Edward the VI but had the Royal Faith of Queen Mary laid to pledg in a promise made to the men of Suffolk that nothing should be done towards its subversion or whereby they might be hindred in the free exercise of it But as neither Law nor promise could prove restraints upon Mary to hinder her from subverting Religion and burning Protestants so the obligation of gratitude that she was under to the men of Suffolk for their coming in so seasonably to her assistance against the Duke of Northumberland who was in the field with an Army in the name of the lady Jean Gray whom the Council had proclaimed Queen could not excuse them from sharing in the severity that others met with it being observed that more of that County were burnt for Religion than of any other Shire in England And 't is greatly to be feared that this piece of her example will not escape being conformed unto by the King in his carriage towards those that eminently served him as well as all the rest of it in his behaviour towards Protestants in general Nor is it possible to conceive that the Papists living at that ease and quietness which they did under his late Majesty of whose being of their Religion they were not ignorant as appears by the proofs they have wouchsav'd the world of it since his death would have been in so many plots for destroying him and at last have hastned him to his Fathers as can be demonstrated whensoever it is seasonable had they not been assured of more to be attempted by his Successor for the extirpation of Protestants than Charles could be wrought up unto or prevailed upon to expose his person and Crown to the danger and hazard of For as 't is not meerly a Princes being a Papist and mild gentle and favorable to Catholicks that will content the fiery zealots of the Roman Clergy and the Regular Orders but he must both gratify their ambition in exalting them to a condition above all others and serve their inhuman lusts and brutal passions in not suffering any to live in his Dominions that will not renounce the Northern Heresie so it is not more i 〈…〉 edible that they should dispatch a Prince by an infusion in a cup of Tea or Chocolate whom tho they knew to be a Papist yet they found too cold slow in promoting their designs than that they should have murder'd another by a consecrated dagger in the hand of Ravailac the one being both more easie to be detected and likelier to derive an universal hatred and revenge upon them than the other And as the Kings being conscious of that parriciâ—â— committed upon his Brother plainly tells us that there is nothing so abominable and Barbarous which he hath not a conscience that will swallow and digest so the promotion of the Catholick cause being the motive to that horrid crime we may be sure that what is hitherto done in favour of Papists falls much short of what is intended there being something more meritorious than all this amounts unto needful to attone for so barbarous a villany which can be nothing else but the extripating the protestant Religion out of the three Kingdoms Nor is it probable that the present King who is represented for a person ambitious of Glory would lose the opportunities wherewith the present posture of affaires in the world presents him of being the Umpire and Arbiter of Christendom and of giving check to the grandure and usurpations of a neighbouring Monarch to whom all Europe is in danger of becoming enslaved if he were not swallowed up in the thoughts of a conquest over the Consciences Laws and liberties of his own people and of subjugating his Dominions to the Sea of Rome and had he not hopes and assurances of aid and assistance therein from that Monarch as he is emboldned and encouraged thereunto by his pattern and example What the Papists have all along been endeavouring for the subversion of our Religion during and under the Reigns of Protestans Princes may yet farther inform and confirm us what they will infallibly attempt upon their having gotten one into the Throne who is not only in all things of theâ—â—â—n faith but of an humour agreeable unto their desires and of a temper every way suited and adapted to their designes Tho the protestant Religion had obtained some entrance into several States and Kingdoms and had made some considerable spread in Europe before it came to be generally received and established upon foundations of Law in England yet they of other Countries were little able to defend themselves from the power and malice of the Church of Rome and of Popish Princes and many of them were very unsucceful in endeavours of that nature till England in Queen Elizabeths time by espousing their cause and undertaking their Quarrel not only wrought out their safety but made them flourish This the Court of Rome and the Priests grew immediately sensible of and have therefore moulded all their Counsels ever since against England as being both the Bulwark of the protestant Religion and the Ballance of Europe All the late attempts for the extirpation of the protestant Religion in France and elsewhere are much to be ascribed to the confidence the Papists had