sending away his Royal Highness the Duke of York to discern whether Protestant Religion and the peace of the Kingdom be as truly aimed at by others as they are really intended by me c. By which it appears the Union his Majesty here meant was not that Union that was afterwards set on foot in Parliament and I cannot but suspect these words were misrecited of purpose And did not he comand my Lord Chancellour to tell them That it was necessary to distinguish between Popish and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole flock and them that only wander from it These words are indeed in the Lord Chancellors Speech but with this Preface Neither is there nor hath been these fifteen hundred years a purer Church than ours so 't is for the sake of this poor Church alone that the State hath been so much disturbed It is her Truth and Peace her Decency and Order which they the Plotters and Papists labour to undermine and pursue with so restless a malice and since they do so it will be necessary for us to distinguish between Popish and other Recusants between them that would destroy the whole Flock and them that only wander from it So that whatever distinction his Majesty intended to allow between the Popish and Protestant Recusants it must be such as was consistent with the Truth Peace Decency and Order of the Religion by Law established which I suspect the Project of Union set on foot was not much less the Vote of the tenth of January for the suspending the execution of all Penal Laws made against them as a weakening of the Protestant Interest an encouragement to Popery and dangerous to the Peace of the Kingdom These things considered we should not think the Parliament went too far but rather that they did not follow his Majesties Zeal with an equal pace At this rate of concluding a man may draw any Conclusion from any premises if he hath a mind to it His Majesty would joyn with them in any course that might tend to the security of the Protestant Religion for the future so as the same extend not to the diminution of his own Prerogative nor to alter the descent of the Crown in the right Line nor to defeat the Succession Therefore when they brought in a Bill to disinherit his Majesties Brother against his expresly declared resolution they did not go too far but rather they did not follow his Majesties Zeal with an equal pace When his Majesty thought it necessary to distinguish betwixt Popish Recusants and Protestant Dissenters that is to favour the latter more than the former they were for taking away all those Laws at once that have distinguished betwixt the Dissenters and the Religion established and giving up this Pure Church into the hands of her bitter Enemies that had but just before bid fair for her ruine as if the only care had been that the Papists might not have had the honour of destroying her and yet we are not to believe they went too far in this neither The truth is if we observe the daily provocations of the Popish Faction whose rage and insolence were only increased by the discovery of the Plot so that they seemed to defie Parliaments as well as inferiour Courts of Justice under the Protection of the Duke their Publickly Avowed Head who still carried on their designs by new and more detestable methods than ever and were continually busie by Perjuries and Subornations to charge the best and most considerable Protestants in the Kingdom with Treasons as black as those of which themselves were guilty If we observe what vile Arts were used to hinder the further discovery what liberty was given to reproach the Discoverers what means used to destroy or corrupt them how the very Criminals were incouraged and allowed to be good Witnesses against their Accusers We should easily excuse an English Parliament thus beset if they had been carried to some little Excesses not justifiable by the Laws of Parliament or unbecoming the wisdom and gravity of an English Senate Now other men may possibly be of another mind and think that if the state of things had been but half so deplorable as they are here described the least Excess had been then inexcusable for there is never more need of gravity than in great and eminent dangers but what I shall say will it is like not be much regarded hear then what the Chancellour of England said The Considerations which are now to be laid before you are as Vrgent and as Weighty as were ever yet offered to any Parliament or indeed ever can be so great and so surprizing have been our Dangers at home so formidable are the appearances of danger from abroad that the most Vnited Counsels the most Sedate and the calmest Temper together with the most dutiful and zealous affections that a Parliament can shew are all become absolutely and indispensably necessary for our preservation So that little excesses are great crimes when men are beset with dangers tho they may be excused in times of Peace and Security if I rightly understand this wise and honourable person But if we come to search into the particulars here enumerated there may possibly arise better Arguments to excuse their Excesses The Popish Faction about that time having tried all other ways to clear themselves of the Plot without any good success fell at last upon another Project which was to start a New Plot. They knew there were in London some Clubbs and Coffee-house-Sets of Presbyterians Old Army Officers discontented Gentlemen and Republicans which had close Cabals and private Meetings and that the Court had a jealous eye upon them as indeed there was good cause for it and out of these materials they thought they might easily raise the structure of a Presbyterian Plot against the State but all the chief men of the Popish Faction being fled imprisoned or executed this grand Design fell into the hands of people of no great either parts or reputation to carry on so difficult an Undertaking and it was not likely neither to be easily believed if it had no other Witnesses but Papists to attest it And it was not possible for them to bring over any other of any reputation in the low estate their affairs then were so that the Contrivance miscarried and only tended to make the Papists more hated than they were before and this is called the Meal-Tub Plot which I should rather have ascribed to the rage and desperation of the Papists than to their Insolence which was then very well abated by the Execution of Coleman Staley the Murtherers of Sir Edmundbury Godfry and the Jesuits which had reduced them to too low a condition to defie the meanest Courts of Justice in the Nation and put them upon those mean and base thoughts of Perjuries and Subornations to avoid that ruine which they saw ready to overwhelm and destroy them But that which
could not hurt the Church of England therefore the Dissenters were to be caressed and cherished that they in a small time might be in a capacity to do it And now if these were not good reasons for the Vote let any impartial man that is any but a Church of England man judge In the midst of such Circumstances was there not cause to think an Union of all Protestants necessary and could they have any just grounds to believe that the Dissenters whilst they lay under the pressures of severe Laws should with such Alacrity and Courage as was requisite undertake the defence of a Country where they were so ill treated Whether this question relates to the French King and the Papists or the Duke and the Civil and Military Officers may be a question and therefore it must be so answered As to the first there was all the reason in the world that they should joyn heartily with the Government against the Papists and French for they could not hope to mend their condition by falling into their hands who they knew would treat them with other manner of severities than those they met with from the Laws if they did not know this any of the French Protestants that fled over 〈◊〉 England might have informed them sufficiently Nâ—w of evils the least is to be chosen and tho their conâ—â—tion had not been equal to their desires yet it had been a madness to have made it worse by delivering up themselves and their Country into the hands of the French and Papists But if it relates to the Duke and the Civil and Military Officers then I hope he will excuse me if I do not think it fit to have another Union of Protestants of that sort again A long and sad Experience had shewed how vain the endeavours of former Parliaments had been to force us to be all of one Opinion and therefore the House of Commons resolved to take a sure way to make us all of one Affection This was the very reason of the Declaration of Liberty of Conscience But how unlike that course was to prevail the Nation had sufficient experience in a few years And Sir I can assure you it is above the power of a House of Commons to unite those men in Affection who differ not only in Opinion but Practice too in matters of Religion For these reasons my Author saith this Vote was made in order to a repeal of them by a Bill to be brought in and presently he grows Pettish and tells us None but a Frenchman could have the confidence to declaim against a proceeding so regular and Parliamentary as this Your humble Servant Sir I pray be a little pacified you may possibly be mistaken as well as another man but would I believe take it a little unkindly to be called Monsieur presently They very first Vote they made that day was this Resolved That whosoever advised his Majesty to Prorogue this Parliament to any other purpose than in order to the passing of a Bill for the Exclusion of James Duke of York is a betrayer of the King the Protestant Religion and of the Kingdom of England a promoter of the French interest and a Pensioner to France So they knew they were to be Prorogued that very day and as the Story goes made more than ordinary haste to pass these Votes Now it was impossible that a Bill should be brought in much less passed in that Session which was to end before night and therefore this was not nor could not be the cause of that Vote and all your little Queries founded upon this supposition are silly and impertinent There was not the least direction or signification to the judges which might give any occasion for the reflection which follows in the Declaration The due and impartial execution of the Laws is the unquestionable duty of the Judges and we hope they will always remember that duty so well as not to necessitate a House of Commons to do theirs by calling them to account for making private instructions the Rule of their judgments and acting as men who have more regard to their Places than their Oaths So the Dissenters may see they are mistaken when they think the Judges or Justices may forbear executing the Laws against them upon the score of this Vote But tho the Judges are sworn to execute all Laws yet there is no obligation upon any man to inform against another No Sir Is not every Grand-Jury man every Constable and Churchwarden sworn to Present the breakers of our Laws as well as the Judges are to punish them And as for the next Conundrams of yours the comparing a parcel of Laws made within twenty years to those Antiquated ones about Caps and Bows and Arrows and killing of Lambs and Calves and your business of Empson and Dudley they are such stuff as a man of half your understanding would have been ashamed to have mensioned in a good cause In the next place my Author acquaints us what are the causes usually of disusing Laws alterations of the Circumstances whereupon a Law was made or if it be against the genious of a People or have effects contrary to the intents of the Maker none of which can be said in this case Nor is that true which follows that the quiet safety or trade of our Nation hath been promoted by the not executing of these Laws as any man may know that can remember but ten years backward And therefore notwithstanding the Vote of the Commons the Judges may act wisely and honestly if they should encourage Informers or quicken Juries by strict and severe Charges For the due and impartial execution of the Laws is the unquestionable duty of the Judges according to my Author and therefore I will hope they shall not be accounted Knaves or Fools for doing their unquestionable duty But then my Author hath another quarrel with the Ministers and that was for numbring this Vote amongst the causes of the Dissolution of that Parliament when the Black Rod was at the door of the House to require them to attend his Majesty at the very time when it was made Well suppose we should grant that this was not one of those Votes that occasioned the Prerogation it not being then made when that was resolved on yet it might occasion their Dissolution which hapned some time after And was not this an excellent time to make Votes for the bringing in of Bills for the Repeal of Laws when the Black Rod was at the door to call the House to a Prorogation After a little anger against the Ministers for arraigning one of the Three Estates in the face of the World for usurping power over the Laws imprisoning their fellow Subjects Arbitrarily exposing the Kingdom to the greatest dangers and indeavouring to deprive the King of all possibility of supporting the Government the man hath forgot how often he hath arraigned the Long Loyal Parliament for a
REFLECTIONS ON A PAMPHLET STILED A Just and Modest Vindication of the Proceedings of the Two last PARLIAMENTS OR A Defence of His Majesties Late Declaration BY The Author of the Address to the Freemen and Free-holders of the Nation Ut imperium evertant libertatem praeferunt Si perverterint libertatem ipsam aggredientur Tacitus Ann. lib. 4. Rumoribus atque auditionibus permoti de summis saepe rebus consilia ineunt quorum eos è vestigio poenitere necesse est quum incertis rumoribus serviant plerique ad voluntatem eorum ficta respondeant Caesar de Bello Gal. lib. 4. LONDON Printed by M. Clark for George Wells at the Sun in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1683. The Author to the Reader THE Pamphlet on which these Reflections are written hath so long since received its doom for it was designed to put a stop to the many Loyal Addresses which then came in every day And so every one that succeeded it gave it a moral wound by declaring to the World its weakness and folly that it may seem a piece of impertinence in me to drag it into the light again tho with an intent to expose it the more to the just Recentments of all good Subjects wherefore for my own justification I think my self bound to assign the Causes why so late and why at all Know then Reader that this same Libel entituled A just and modest Vindication c. was Printed near Six months before ever I heard there was any such thing in the World and it was near Six more before I could get a sight of it tho I used all the interest I could make to borrow or buy it When I had it and had read it over once or twice I then resolved to make some short Reflections upon it and put them as a Preface to the third Part of the Address to the Freemen and Freeholders of the Nation which was then going to the Press but being pressed at the same time with an earnest desire to leave no material passage in the Libel unexamined and wanting still to bring a just Answer to it within the compass of a Preface to that Book it swelled to such a bulk that it was totally unfit for that purpose so I thought it was better either to Print it alone or to suppress it To which purpose I sent it up about Michaelmas last to London to a Person of great worth and judgment to peruse it and pass a final Sentence on it but his greater business prevented him from so doing till almost six months after And by that time I cannot deny but that notwithstanding the favourable opinion my worthy Friend was pleased to pass upon it it seemed to me almost Antiquated and upon that account I would certainly have hushed it up in everlasting silence if I had not at the same time considered that the ill Principles this Libel hath sown in the minds of men are like Seeds which lie buried in the Earth during the Winter but if the Soil happen to be stirred again and then the Rain and Sun give their assistance they will certainly spring up and produce a plentiful Crop of pernicious Weeds to annoy and disquiet the Nation And I am not without all hopes that these Reflections may by Gods blessing prevent some part of this mischief and although I should be mistaken in the Event yet I am satisfied the Design is good How well or ill I have performed what I undertook belongs not to me of all men to determine for we are 〈◊〉 to be too fond of the Children of our Brains as well 〈◊〉 of our Bodies but they who have no such relation to 〈◊〉 will easily observe their defects and faults and to 〈◊〉 I leave it to pass what judgment they please upon it 〈◊〉 I have ordered his Majesties Speech at the opening of the Parliament at Oxon and his Gracious Declaration c. to be Printed with it because there are such frequent occasions to have recourse to them that the Reader will have too much trouble if he have them not in the same Piece and it is probable many of them may not have them neither I shall add no more but my earnest Prayers that God would so bless the Work that it may bring forth the blessed fruits of Peace Righteousness and Loyalty in the minds of all those that peruse it and that he would deliver me and all his Majesties Loyal Subjects out of the hands of unreasonable and factious men and if the Reader please to put his AMEN to this he shall infinitely oblige me March 10. 1682-3 REFLECTIONS ON A PAMPHLET STILED A Just and Modest Vindication of the Proceedings of the Two last PARLIAMENTS BEING A defence of his Majesties Declaration THis Author who by his stile and the manner in which he treats all those that have the misfortune to fall under his Censure appears to be no mean person seems every where throughout the whole Discourse to be transported with so much Anger and Rage that he was neither master of his own Reason nor able to use that Learning he had to any good purpose From whence we may suppose it hapned that putting the Title of his Book in the first lines of it he never more thought of the Justice or Modesty pretended but a Vindicative Spirit took such possession of him as he never became his own man after My Reader therefore I hope will pardon me if his Passion happens to move one in me in any part of these Reflections because is is difficult to converse patiently with a man of this temper He begins thus The Amazement which seized every good man upon the unlooked-for dissolution of two Parliaments within three Months was not greater than at the sight of a Declaration pretending to justifie and give Reasons for such extraordinary proceedings Thus my Author comes staring upon the Stage as one newly recovered out of one Amazement and just then taken with another he fansies all the good men of the Nation under the same distraction of mind And what was it that wrought so powerfully on him that every man that was not so affected deserved not the Title of a Good Man Nothing in the world but the Dissolution of the two last Parliaments and the sight of the before-mentioned Declaration A frightful ominous sight He tells us afterwards there never appeared such a Prodigy before but in 1628. and that was one of the first sad Causes though he does not prove it to be so much as an Occasion of the ensuing unhappy War a soft name for a Rebellion which as good men never had Cause so ill men never wanted a Pretence to stir up I can assure him that there were many good men who observed all this as well as he who did not instantly fall into fits upon it Good men can trust God and their King and rest quietly and free from Amazement in greater Accidents than these Having a little recovered himself out
acknowledge it thankfully to him My Author goes on thus But it is not only of the Dissolution it self that we complain the manner of doing it is unwarranted by the precedents of former times and full of dangerous Consequents We are taught by the Writ of Summons that Parliaments are never called without the advice of the Council and the usage of all Ages has been never to send them away without the same advice To forsake this safe method is to expose the King personally to the reflections and Censures of the whole Nation for so ungrateful an Action We may grant it the most usual and the best and safest way to consult the Council in both these Cases But yet that will not presently make the Act Arbitrary or Illegal if it be omitted and in this Case if it were otherwise it may possibly in the end appear to have been matter of necessity rather than choice We may very well remember that a great number of the Gentlemen of the Lower House went to Oxford with armed men to guard them from the Papists and some of them told the people at parting They did never expect to see them again The meaning of which is possible to be understood And besides these there were some other zealous men went so that if his Majesty did not think it fit or safe to consult his Council and spend time in deliberating in the midst of such dangers they must bear the blame who gave the occasion and made it necessary So that these are the men next such as my Author who are to be charged tho not with advising yet with necessitating the last dissolution to be made in the manner it was for the security of his Majesties Life and Liberty which yet I would never have said but to justifie his Majesty But yet we must know all this Concern for the Council is not out of kindness or respect to them he saith They are punishable for such Orders as are irregular nor can the Ministers justifie any unlawful Action under colour of the Kings Commands since all his Commands that are contrary to law are void which is the true reason of that well known Maxim that the King can do no wrong a Maxim just in it self and alike safe for the Prince and for the Subject there being nothing more absurd than that a Favourite should excuse his enormous Actings by a pretended Command which we may reasonably suppose he first procured to be laid upon himself But we know not whom to charge with advising this last Dissolution it was a work of darkness and if we are not misinformed the Privy Council was as much surprized at it as the Nation The sorrow was that in the next Parliament this great Patriot would be at a loss in his hunting for some body to blame for an Action so ungrateful as he represents it to the whole Nation which in my judgment is a pretty way of spending his Reflections and Censures on the King And this is not all his vexation neither for in the next Paragraph he tells us Nor will a future Parliament be able to charge any body as the Author or Adviser of the late Printed Paper which bears the Title of his Majesties Declaration tho every good Subject ought to be careful how he calls it so for his Majesty never speaks to his People as a King but either personally in his Parliament or at other times under his Seal for which the Chancellour or other Officers are responsible if what passes them be not warranted by Law Nor can the direction of the Privy Council enforce any thing upon the People unless that Royal and legal Stamp give it an Authority but this Declaration comes abroad without any such Sanction and there is no other ground to ascribe it to his Majesty than the uncertain credit of the Printer whom we will easily suspect of an imposture rather than think the King would deviate from the approved course of his Illustrious Ancestors to pursue a new and unsuccessful method So here is all the Credit of the Declaration gone and the poor Printer left in the lurch to answer it to the next Parliament for putting this imposture on the Nation But what comfort is there in such small game A Lord Chancellour or other great Officer is a Royal Game and worth the pursuit of a House of Commons to pull him down but a pitiful Printer who can find in his heart to imploy his Oratory against such mean Mechanicks and as for the Privy Council they can enforce nothing upon the People without the Seal so that for time to come all Proclamations and other publick Papers may be securely slighted except they come Sealed with the great Seal or some body be sent with them to assure us he saw it to the Original Thus far the Historian went but then the Prophet comes forth and assures us as this Method is new so it will be unsuccessful How truly the World is not now to be told From the Effect of the first Declaration of this kind which he saith was published in 1628. and filled the whole Kingdom with Jealousies and was one of the first Causes of the ensuing unhappy War he proceeds to tell us That Declarations to justifie what Princes do must always be either needless or ineffectual their Actions ought to be such as may recommend themselves to the World and carry their own Evidence along with them of their usefulness to the publick and then no Arts to justifie them will be necessary Were all Mankind wise and honest this Argument would be unanswerable but as long as some men out of Dulness and others out of Obstinacy and Interest shut their Eyes to the plainest and most evident demonstrations of Reason it must of necessity be sometimes necessary and fit for Princes to Inform their Subjects of the reasonableness of their Actions and accordingly the same course hath ever been taken and though it might fail of that end in 1628. yet it hath often heretofore and doubtless will often again succeed and the Jealousies which then arose were not the effect of the Declaration but of those ill Arts by which such a sort of men as we have now to deal with wheedled the Populace into an ill opinion of the best of Princes for Ends that are now too well known to be again imbraced When a Prince descends so low as to give his Subjects Reasons for what he has done he not only makes them Judges whether there be any weight in those reasons but by so unusual a submission gives cause to suspect that he is conscious to himself that his Actions want an Apology I never thought before that the French Kings Logick was the only Argument that became a Prince Car tel est nostre plaisir For so our will and pleasure is And those Subjects must be very ill natured that grow jealous upon the Condescentions of a Prince and judge the
retain we have found our selves not so Candidly dealt with as we have deserved and that there are unquiet and restless spirits who without abating any of their own distemper in recompence of the Moderation they find in us continue their bitterness against the Church and endeavour to raise Jealousies of us and to lessen our reputation by their reproaches as if we were not true to the Professions we have made and in order thereunto they have very unseasonably caused to be printed published and dispersed throughout the Kingdom a Declaration heretofore printed in our Name during the time of our being in Scotland of which we shall say no more than that the Circumstances by which we were enforced to sign that Declaration are enough known to the World that the worthiest greatest part of that Nation did even then detest and abhor the ill usage of us in that particular when the same Tyranny was exercised there by the power of a few ill men which at that time had spread it self over this Kingdom and therefore we had no reason to expect that we should at this Season when we are doing all we can to wipe out the memory of all that hath been done amiss by other men and we thank God have wiped it out of our own remembrance have been our self assaulted with these Reproaches which we will likewise forget Since the Printing that Declaration several seditious Pamphlets and Queries have been published and scattered abroad to infuse dislike and Jealousies into the hearts of the People and of the ARMY and some who ought rather to have repented the former mischief they have wrought than to have endeavoured to improve it have had the hardiness to publish that the Doctrine of the Church against which no man with whom we have conferred hath excepted ought to be reformed as well as the Discipline This over-passionate and turbulent way of proceeding and the impatience we find in many for some speedy determination in these matters whereby the minds of men may be composed and the peace of the Church established hath prevailed with us to invert the Method we had proposed to our Self and even in order to the better calling and composing of a Synod which the present Jealousies will hardly agree upon by the Assistance of Gods blessed Spirit which we daily invoke and supplicate to give some determination Our self to the matters in difference untill such a Synod may be called as may without prejudice or passion give us such further assistance towards a perfect union of Affections as well as submission to Authority as is necessary And we are the rather induced to take this upon us by finding upon the full Conferences we have had with Learned men of several Persuasions that the mischiefs under which both Church and State do at present suffer do not result from any formed Doctrine or Conclusion which either Party maintains or avows but from the Passion and Appetite and Interest of particular persons who contract greater prejudices to each other from those Affections than would naturally rise from their Opinions and those distempers must be in some degree allayed before the meeting in a Synod can be attended with better success than their meeting in other places and their discourses in Pulpits have hitherto been and till all thoughts of victory are laid aside the humble and necessary thoughts for the vindication of Truth cannot be enough entertained We must for the honour of all those of either persuasion with whom we have conferred declare that the profession and desires of all for the advancement of Piety and true Godliness are the same their professions of zeal for the peace of the Church the same of affection and duty for us the same They all approve Episcopacy they all approve a set Form of Liturgy they all disapprove and dislike the sin of Sacriledge and the Alienation of the Revenue of the Church and if upon these excellent foundations in submission to which there is such a harmony of affections any superstructures should be raised to the shaking those foundations and to the contracting and lessening the blessed gift of Charity which is a vital part of Religion we shall think Our Self very unfortunate and even suspect that we are defective in that Administration of Government with which God hath entrusted us Page 18. of this Declaration His Majesty did again renew what he had formerly said in his Declaration from Breda for the liberty of tender Consciences c. and declared if any have been disturbed in that kind since Our Arrival here it hath not proceeded from any Direon of ours His Majecty saith in the fifth page of this Declaration The Presbyterians did only desire modestly such alterations in Episcopacy and the Liturgy as without shaking foundations might best allay the present distempers which the indisposition of the time and the tenderness of some mens Consciences had contracted for the better doing whereof we did intend upon our first Arrival in this Kingdom to call a Synod of Divines as the most proper Expedient to provide a proper Remedy for all those differences and dissatisfactions which had or should arise c. In the next Spring a Commission was Issued out under the Great Seal to several Episcopal and dissenting Divines to review and correct if they should see cause the Book of Prayer and to make such alterations in it as should be thought fit instead of which the Dissenting Divines rejected the whole Book and published a new one So that this meeting which was designed chiefly in favour of the Dissenters discovered the falshood of all their Oyly pretences and shewed they were neither for Liturgies or Episcopacy They had also made a strong Party in the Army of which an account hath been given already So that the Parliament seeing there was no peace to be had as long as these men might do what they listed and pervert the People and incence them against the Government passed the Act of Uniformity to Commence from St. Bartholomew 1662. During all this time his Majesty notwithstanding their ill usage of him mentioned in the last Declaration I cited continued so courteous to these firy men as to excuse it to the Parliament March 1. 1661. in these words Gentlemen I hear you are very zealous for the Church and very solicitous and even jealous that there is not Expedition enough used in that Affair and I thank you for it since I presume it proceeds from a good root of Piety and Devotion but I must tell you I have the worst luck in the world if after all the reproaches of being a Papist whilst I was abroad I am suspected of being a Presbyterian now I am come home I know you will not take it unkindly if I tell you I am as zealous for the Church of England as any of you can be and am enough acquainted with the Enemies of it on all sides that I am as much
had been but for half an hour he would not have consented to it because of the ill consequences it might have hereafter the Militia being wholly in the Crown c. Now I believe it would be difficult for my Author to make and prove the like instance in any of our former Princes And in the first of the short Westminster Parliaments his Majesty passed the Act for the better securing of the Liberty of the Subject and for preventing imprisonment beyond Seas to which an honourable Person adds The Act against quartering of Souldiers upon the Subject and saith his Majesty might have had many Millions for these Acts if he had insisted on a bargain or known how to distinguish between his own private Interest and that of the Subject or the truckling way of Bartering when the good of his People was concerned And in the last short-lived Westminster Parliament his Majesty passed the Act against Importation of Irish Cattel for no other visible cause but because both Houses had passed it tho it tended to the Diminution of his Revenue And now let us see how gratefully our Author treats him for all these Royal and Prince-like Favours Therefore the Favorites did little consult his Majesties Honour when they bring him in solemnly declaring to his Subjects that his intentions were as far as would have consisted with the very Being of the Government to have complied with any thing that could have been proposed to him to accomplish those Ends he had mentioned which were the satisfying the desires of his Subjects and securing them against all their just fears when they are not able to produce an instance wherein they suffered him to comply in any one thing Whatever the House of Commons Addressed for was certainly denied tho it was only for that reason and there was no surer way of Intituling ones self to the favour of the Court than to receive a Censure from the representative body of the People As to the Addresses made by the House of Commons alone they were many of them such as his Majesty could not comply with without great mischief to himself or them that had exprest the greatest Zeal for his Service and when for that case only they seemed to be persecuted it would have been very impolitick in his Majesty tho he had been his own man and not under the dominion of the Favorites as it seems he was to have yielded to the Commons against them But cannot the Favorites instance wherein they suffered his Majesty to comply in any one thing with the House of Commons Did not his Majesty at their single request Pardon a great many Informers against the Plotters Did he not pardon B. Harris too his 500 l. Fine and Imprisonment which he had incurred by Printing disloyal and seditious Pamphlets Did not his Majesty upon their Address discharge all the Protestant Dissenters who were then under prosecution upon several Penal Statutes without paying Fees as far as it could be done according to Law and promise also to recommend them to the Judges There might many other instances be given of moneys issued out of persons taken care for and the like upon the single request of the Commons so that I cannot but wonder where my Authors modesty was when he pressed the Favorites to give one instance of his Majesties compliance with the House of Commons But his Majesty and the Court were kind to all that received any Censure from the representative body of the People They might thank themselves for that who bestowed their Censures so freely on men that had deserved very well of his Majesty and the Government and yet I believe there may be some instances given of men whom they Censured or imprisoned that have not been mightily advanced since by the Court but let us examine those few particular Examples my Author hath marked out Let it for the present be admitted saith my Author that some of the things desired by that Parliament were exorbitant and because we will put the objection as strong as is possible inconsistent with the very being of the Government yet at least some of their Petitions were more reasonable Doubtless there was some such which therefore were freely granted by his Majesty as I have proved The Government might have subsisted though the Gentlemen put out of the Commission of the Peace for their zealous acting against the Papists had been restored And so might the Protestant Religion by Law established be preserved without the assistance of these zealous Gentlemen and therefore his Majesty was not to be instructed by these Representatives whom he should imploy as Justices of the Peace especially after they had discovered so much kindness for the Dissenters who have something an odd Notion of Papists and Popery Nor would a final Dissolution of all things have ensued tho Sir George Jefferies had been removed out of all Publick Offices or my Lord Hallifax himself from his Majesties Presence and Councils The first of these Sir George Jefferies was then Recorder of London and was prosecuted by a part of the City for that he by traducing and obstructing Petitioning for the sitting of that Parliament had betrayed the Rights of the Subject Now that Gentleman opposed them as many others did in obedience to his Majesties Proclamation and the Laws of the Land and it was a little unreasonable that his Majesty should joyn with the Commons to ruine him though it could be made out that his Majesties Proclamation was illegal and that there were a mistake also in the point of Law My Lord Hallifax was prosecuted only for opposing the Bill for disinheriting the Duke of York in the House of Lords and no fault whatsoever laid to his charge Now he being a Member of that House it had been very unreasonable for his Majesty to have punished him for using his own just and legal freedom in a case especially wherein his Majesty had declared his own resolution so very often before Now Sir tho these two Persons are not essentially necessary to the preservation of the Government yet it is absolutely so that his Majesty do not give up those that have faithfully and legally served him in their proper Stations either to please the People or their Representatives without a legal trial and a just defence We may all remember what the Consequences of his Majesties Fathers giving up the Earl of Strafford in the beginning of the late troubles were and I hope I shall never live to see that sort of compliance reacted again Had the Statute of 35. Eliz. which had justly slept for Eighty years and of late unreasonably revived been repealed surely the Government might still have been safe And though the Fanaticks perhaps had not deserved so well as that in favour to them his Majesty should have passed that Bill yet since the Repeal might hereafter be of great use to those of the Church of England in case of a Popish
voted against the Bill should no longer preside in His Councils no longer possess all the great Trusts and Offices in the Kingdom 3. That our Ports our Garrisons and our Fleets should be no longer governed by such as are at his devotion 4. That Characters of Honour and Favour should be no longer placed on men that the Wisdom of the Nation the House of Commons without the Lords for they have it seems lately got a Patent to Monopolize all the Wisdom of the Nation hath judged to be favourers of Popery or Pensioners of France These are great and important Changes but such as it becomes Englishmen to believe were designed by that Parliament and such as will be designed and prest by every Parliament and such as the People will ever pray may find success with the King without these Changes and the Association forgotten by my Author the Bill of Exclusion would only provoke not disarm our Enemies Nay the very money which we must have paid for it would have been made use of to secure and hasten the Duke's return upon us Now this was all perhaps was meant by that passage in the Declaration and the Consequences of these things are such that no beseeching will ever obtain them till his Majesty is weary of all he hath and therefore it well becomes all English men that do not design another Rebellion for time to come to design and pray and our Parliaments to press for some other things that may be fitter for them to ask and his Majesty to grant I conclude with the Wisemans Advice My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change Especially to such important changes We are now come to the consideration of that only fault which was peculiar to the Parliament at Oxford and that was their behaviour in relation to the business of Fitz-Harris the Declaration says He was impeached of High Treason by the Commons and they had cause to think his Treasons to be of such an extraordinary nature that they well deserved an examination in Parliament We shall by and by come to examine the reasons that made them think so and in the interim it is worth the while to recite the very words of the Declaration which are these The business of Fitz-Harris who was impeached by the House of Commons of High Treason and by the House of Lords referred to the ordinary course of Law was on the sudden carried on to that extremity by the Votes which the Commons passed on March 26. last that there was no possibility left of a Reconciliation The Votes are these Rosolved That it is the undoubted Right of the Commons in Parliament assembled to impeach before the Lords in Parliament any Peer or Commoner for Treason or any other Crime or Misdemeanor And that the refusal to proceed in Parliament upon such impeachment is a denial of Justice and a Violation of the Constitutions of Parliaments Resolved That in the case of Edward Fitz-Harris who by the Commons hath been impeached of High Treason before the Lords with a Declaration that in convenient time they would bring up the Articles against him for the Lords to Resolve that the said Fitz-Harris should be proceeded with according to the course of Common Law and not by way of impeachment at this time is a denial of Justice and a violation of the Constitutions of Parliaments and an Obstruction to the further discovery of the Popish Plot and of great danger to his Majesties Person and the Protestant Religion Resolved That for any inferiour Court to proceed against Edward Fitz-Harris or any other person lying under an impeachment in Parliament for the same Crimes he or they stand impeached is a high breach of the Priviledge of Parliament And now let us follow my Authors account of Fitz-Harris his business who he says truly was a known Irish Papist and it appeared by the Informations given in the House he was made use of by some very great persons to set up a Counterfeit Protestant Conspiracy and thereby not only to drown the noise of the Popish Plot but to take off the Heads of the most eminent of those who refused to bow their knees to Baal c. That this might look as unlike a Popish Design and be the better received by the people as was possible they framed a libel full of the most bitter invectives against Popery and the Duke of York it carried as much seeming zeal for the Protestant Religion as Colemans Declaration and as much care and concern for our Laws as the penners of this Declaration would seem to have But it was also filled with the most subtile insinuations and the sharpest expressions against his Majesty that could be invented and with direct and passionate incitements to Rebellion This Paper as it appears by the account of it which was given at Fitz-Harris his Trial was penn'd in the stile and just like the Libels the sober Protestants daily Print and perhaps not much unlike our modest Vindicator in the main but had some things in it which they whisper for the present because it is dangerous Printing of them And some other things plainly spoken which the other Party have a way to insinuate craftily so that it may be understood and yet not hazard their sweet lives This saith my Author was to be conveyed by unknown Messengers Oates says by the Penny Post to their hands who were to be betrayed and then they were to be seized upon and those Libels sound about them were to be a Confirmation of the truth of a Rebellion which they had provided Witnesses to swear was designed by the Protestants and had before prepared men to believe by Private Whispers And the credit of this Plot should no doubt have been soon confirmed by speedy Justice done upon the pretended Criminals And now it is time to give a little better account of this Libel than perhaps the Author has given it was penned by one Mr. Everard by the direction of Fitz-Harris he fearing he might be shamm'd and that it was designed so called in one Mr. Smith and Sir William Waller into the business that so he might clear himself of it and trappan Fitz-Harris These two Gentlemen heard Fitz-Harris dictate the heads of it to Everard and one of them heard him approve of it when it was delivered to him Mr. Everard was promised his reward for all this by the French Embassadour as Sir William Waller swears in the Trial he heard Fitz-Harris say and upon Sir William Wallers giving the King an account of it Fitz-Harris was taken with the Libel about him Being taken and committed to Newgate he was examined the tenth day of March by Sir Robert Clayton and Sir George Treby There he speaks not one word of the Author of the Libel But being thus imprisoned he found there was no way to save his life but to curry favour with those
eminent men that had never bowed the knee to Baal So that Story was set up which he was not able to prove one Syllable of at his Trial but however it was easily enough believed by them who love to make the King and Court as odious as they can as well as the Papists My Author goes on The heinous nature of the Crime and the greatness of the Persons supposed to be concerned deserved an extraordinary Examination which a Jury who were only to enquire whether Fitz-Harris was guilty of framing that Libel could never make and the Commons believed none but the Parliament was big enough to go through with it The Trial of this Person being extant I must for brevity refer my Reader to it and I see not how it had been possible for the Parliament to have sifted that business of Fitz-Harris his being put upon this by the Court to ruine the eminent men more narrowly than it was at the Trial and there was not one syllable proved by any of the Witnesses he produced which were many and persons of great worth only Mr. Oates said he heard Everard say some such thing which Everard again denied upon his Oath And Sir William Waller owned he had heard the King was discontented at his troubling him with this business but Sir William Waller Mr. Smith and Mr. Everard proved it positively upon him that he had ordered the drawing of that Libel had approved of it when it was drawn and amended some words in it with his own hands And now after all this to lay the Crime upon the Court upon the suggestion of the Malefactor was such a piece of Justice as never was attempted Nor did they the Commons only fear the perversion of Justice but the misapplication of Mercy too c. because when Fitz-Harris was inclined to Repentance and had begun a Confession to the surprize of the whole Nation without any visible cause he was taken out of the lawful custody of the Sheriffs and shut up a close prisoner in the Tower That he had not only begun but gone through with a Confession appears by a Printed Narrative taken by two which I think were both of the House of Commons one I am sure was And when notwithstanding this some eminent men began to tamper with him to turn all this upon the Court then and not before was he taken out of the custody of the Sheriffs and put into the Tower that they might not make an ill use of him to the Damage of the King and the Government The Commons had therefore no other way to be secure that the prosecution should be effectual the Judgment indifferent and the Criminal out of all hopes of Pardon unless by an ingenuous Confession be could engage both Houses in a powerful mediation to his Majesty in his behalf But by impeaching him they were sure no pardon could stop their suit tho the King might release his own Prosecution by his Pardon What need there was here of any further or more ingenuous Confession that he should make than what he had made I cannot imagine but we may guess it was meant that if Fitz-Harris should lay the blame of this Libel on the Court and say it was designed to Trappan the eminent men then they would try to get him pardoned but if he did not do this then he should have been hanged without mercy Well But what if the King would not have consented to the Pardon which was to have been purchased with his dishonour Then the Commons would not have proceeded with their impeachment and the Consequence would have been if the Lords had not rejected the Impeachment that then no inferiour Court could have tried him and so he should never have been tried So that it is plain that if the Lords had not rejected this Impeachment it would as the King saith in the Declaration have been made use of to delay a Trial that We had directed against a profess'd Papist charged with Treasons against Vs of an extraordinary nature And certainly the House of Peers did themselves Right in refusing to give countenance to such a proceeding Part of the 36 and all the 37 38 39 Pages are spent by my Author to prove that a Commoner may be tried by the Peers in Parliament upon an Impeachment of the Commons in which matter I will have no Controversie with him because he may be in the right for ought I know And I have as little to say to him whether such Commoners as are tried there ought to have any Juries or whether the Lords rejecting the Impeachment was or only looked like a denial of Justice For it is plain that as good justice might be had and in this case was had in the Kings Bench as could have been had before the Lords and if Fitz-Harris had been acquitted there then the Commons might afterwards have impeached him of any branch of Treason that was not or could not have been tried in the Kings Bench so that the pretence he makes that part of his Treasons were thought such as could only be adjudged in Parliament is impertinent for the remainder were apparently such as he ought to be hanged for in an inferiour Court and he could suffer but once and the taking notice of the rest would have been impertinent I think I may modestly say this that the impeachment of Commoners before the Lords is so extraordinary a way that it would be used as little as is possible but these Gentlemen were for nothing else and Thompson Sheridon Verdon and the Lord knows how many more were to have been thus proceeded against tho they were not persons of such extraordinary degree or quality but they might full as well have been tried in any other Court and the Consequence of this would have been that neither the Lords nor Commons would have had any leisure for any thing else but this Might it not be well retorted by the People that it had been long a matter extremely sensible to them that so many Prorogations so many Dissolutions so many other Arts had been used to delay the Trials which his Majesty had often desired and the Parliament prepared for against the five professed Popish Lords charged with Treasons of an extraordinary nature The King might if he had pleased have charged this upon the Commons too that notwithstanding the long time they had been imprisoned yet the Commons would not go on with their Trials that they might legally and regularly be discharged The Impeachment of the Earl of Danby before they had tried these five Lords occasioned the dissolution of the Long Loyal Parliament A Controversie betwixt the Lords and the Commons about the Trial of the said Earl of Danby broke the next Parliament Then comes the second short Westminster Parliament and having tried only one of them the Earl of Stafford when all the World were in expectation they would have gone on and have tried the other
regard to the Laws established This the Author could not deny nor defend and therefore he changeth the terms into a power of Repealing Laws with which the Commons were never charged Now a power of Suspending and a power of Recpealing are vastly different Every Pardon is a suspension of the Execution of the Law in relation to the Party pardoned and so is every Dispensation and when the King put forth the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience there was no design of repealing but only of suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws pro tempore so that if the Commons designed this Vote or Declaration of theirs should have any other effect than to shew their good will to the Dissenters it must extend tho not to a Repeal yet to a suspension of the Execution of the Penal Laws against them which is all the Declaration charged the Commons with and so the Dissenters understood it and have since pleaded this Vote in Bar to the Execution of those Laws against them tho they acknowledge they are not Repealed thereby Every impartial man will own that the Commons had reason for this opinion of theirs Suppose they had reason for it this will not give them a legal Power The King hath good reason to do many things which yet if he should offer at they would clamour against him as an Usurper of an Arbtrary Power for reason gives no man any Author to act except he hath a lawful power to back his reason with There may be great reason to repeat an Act of Parliament and yet in all the Judges in Westminster should thereupon declare it to be either suspended or repealed I know what we should hear of it quickly Well but let us hear their Reasons They had with great anxiety observed that the present design of the Papists was not against any one sort of Pretestants but Vniversal and 〈◊〉 extirpating the Reformed Religion That this might be the ultimate design of the Plot is not much to be doubted but it was immediately bent only against the Religion established and accodingly therwere Successors appointed to all the Bishops and 〈◊〉 Clergy but none to Mr. Baxter Dr. Owen and the rest of that Fry that ever I heard of So that this reason concludes not in favour of the Dissenters but of the Regular Clergy who as they were in most danger ought to have been most taken care of But this Vote left them in the same danger it found them of being destroyed by the Papists and let loose the Dissenters upon them too to encrease that danger 2. They saw what advantages these Enemies made of our Divisions and how cunningly they diverted us from persecuting them by fomenting our Jealousies of one another Did they not Sir observe too how the Dissenters took the occasion of the Plot and of the general hatred against Popery to ruine the Loyal and Conformable Clergy How they presently engrossed the Title of Protestant and endeavoured to make the Rabble believe that all but the Bobtail Holders forth and their Followers were Papists in Masquerade Tories Tantivimen c. If they did not observe these things others did And also that all of a sudden all the Jesuits assumed the shapes of Nonconformists and railed stoutly against Bishops Ceremonies Humane Impositions and Arbitrary Government They knew there was no Possibility of escaping the vengeance of the Church of England men but by setting the Dissenters upon them and they needed no Spur. So this was a good Argument to have taught the Dissenters more modesty but since they had not that it was a strong Argument to have suppress'd them vigorously as the only Auxiliaries of the Papists against the Church and the great hinderers of the prosecution of the Plot. 3. They saw the strength and nearness of the King of France and judged of his inclinations by his usage of his own Protestant Subjects 4. They considered the number and the bloudy Principles of the Irish And 5. That Scotland was already delivered into the hands of a Prince the known head of the Papists in these Kingdoms and the occasion of their Plots and Insolencies as more than one Parliament had declared It should have been worded thus as they had declared in more than one Parliament for these were the same men in several Parliaments who made these several Declarations Now I cannot conceive wherein the force of these three Arguments lies the French King was powerful and hated Protestants therefore the Church of England must be prepared for ruine by giving as many as pleased a free liberty to separate from her and procure her destruction The Irish Papists had ill designs just ripe for execution therefore the English Nonconformists were to be tolerated that they might get strength and be able to rise at the same time to ascertain the destruction of the Church But the fifth Reason is much better Scotland was in the hands of the Duke How came he by it What did he invade it by force and violence against his Majesties Will If he did then let us make a mighty Combination against him But if it were delivered to him by the proper Owner who may govern it by whom he please what occasion is there for the Dissenters service here 6. They could not but take notice into what hands the most considerable Trusts both Civil and Military were put 7. And that notwithstanding all Addresses and all Proclamations for a strict execution of the Penal Laws against Papists yet their Faction so far prevailed that they were eluded and only the Dissenting Protestants smarted under the rage of them That they took very good notice who were imployed in Civil and Military Trusts appears by the Address of December 21. 1680. not many days before this Vote where they tell the King That several Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace fitly qualified for those imployments have been of late displaced and others put in their room who are men of Arbitrary Principles and Countenancers of Papists and Popery These they would have had turned out and others put in who are men of Integrity and known affection to the Protestant Religion and may be moreover men of Ability of Estates and Interest in their Country His Majesty knew what they meant but did not think fit to change his choice and the truth is they gave him no great encouragement by their own carriage to have any more to do with these able wealthy popular men And therefore it seems this was one reason that moved them to Vote the Protestant Dissenters free from Penal Laws either to keep them out of the hands of these evil Trustees both Civil and Military or else to make a Party out of them not only against the Duke of York but also against these Countenancers of Papists and Popery that is against his Majesties Officers both Civil and Military As if because the French King notwithstanding his great Power and Aversion to the Protestant Religion