glorious an Enterprise it will be rowsing his slow and unresolved Thoughts with the Consideration what a perpetual renown it ever will be to King Henry the VII that he united the Houses of York and Lancaster and how glorious the memory of King James the I. ever must be who united the Kingdoms And how transcendent a Jubile it would cause over all the Roman World That his Grandson should reunite his Subjects to the Roman Catholick Church which will be so irresistable a Charm they say that it cannot be in his power to escape the Enchantment Nor could he want the Charity to wish it or neglect the essaying all means to effect it being prepossessed with a firm Perswasion that the undertaking of it would be an acceptable Service to God Almighty It is not my design to write any thing that may lessen the esteem and due regard Men have for the Church of England of which I own my self an unworty Member Neither shall I meddle with any Points in controversie but only offer my Reasons why I cannot conceive by the Proceedings of the King hitherto nor the consequences flowing from those steps he makes That the Protestant Religion is either in danger or designed to be rooted out or so eclipsed as we are invited to believe SECT VI. That the Church of England hath been in a disturbed condition under Protestant Princes BEfore I consider the present State of the Church of England which I think in many respects is as flourishing as it hath been since the Reformation I must shew its former condition During the Reign of Q. Elizabeth and the three succeeding Kings it hath been continually disquieted with Dissenters Fanaticks and other Sects who never gave over their Clamours for a more refined Reformation from Rome Every Year almost producing some bitter Invective or other grudging murmuring and calumniating the English Hierarchy to the great disquiet of the Secular Government Hence the necessity of severe Laws against Non-conformists ever and anon being made or reinforced Those that lived in the beginning of the late Wars cannot forget what Tumults were in some places about placing the Communion Table Altar-wise How many were scandalized at the Bishop's dignifyed Clergy and Priests Habit at the kneeling at the Sacrament at the use of the Cross in Baptism about bowing to the Altar and the Name of Jesus And tho' in Cathedrals a Solemn Order was observed yet it was much murmured at and was branded both in the manner of the Celebration of Divine Offices and the use of the Choristers and Organs with the name of down-right Popery and Superstition Who hath a mind to know the particulars of the disquieting of the Church of England by her Protestant Adversaries may peruse Bishop Bancroft's Dangerous Positions and Dr. Heylin's History of Presbyterianism Mr. Fowlis History of the Plots Conspiracies c. and such as relate the Church History of those times and they will find sufficient to convince them what Jars Conflicts Heart-burnings and Disquiets were amongst Protestants How the Clergy and the Liturgy were despised which grew every Year worse and worse till it was judged requisite by a strict execution of the Laws to master the Nonconformists and bend or break them to a complyance or silence But the success answered not the design for on the contrary the peoples minds grew strongly alienated from the Discipline of the Church and as soon as they had chosen a House of Commons to their mind the use of the Common Prayer Book Surplices and Habits of the Clergy and all things in use formerly and established by Law were voted down and the Souldiery and Rabble were encouraged to tear the Service-Book and Surplices to transplace the Communion-Table level the Steps pull up Fonts break down all the painted Glass-Windows especially where any representation of our Saviour or any Saints or Bishops or other in Religious Habits were The Copes Vestments and Chalices were all swept out of the Church by Order of Committies or the Rapine of Parishioners or Soldiers The Monuments and monumental Inscriptions were most of them defaced especially where a Religious Habit was represented an Ora pro Animâ annexed or the worth of the Brass tempted the Sacriledge none of the zealous Observers of the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church were permitted to enjoy any Benefice or teach a School Bishops and Deans and Chapters Lands were sold and they were about resolving which of the Cathedrals should be demolished So that in conclusion there was no publick appearance of the Discipline of the Church of England tho' all the Pulpits were supplyed with Preachers who conformed to their new Directory and new Ordination by Presbyters This might indeed be called a Protestant Church but I am sure it was very different from the Church of England as established by Law which was so far from then being a flourishing Church that it had neither Vola nor Vestigium of one but such as was under as dismal a Persecution as a Church well could be It is true after the late King of immortal memory's Restauration It was restored again to a competency of Power and Order Yet the Dissenters Meeting-places were as much frequented as the Churches Everywhere Non-conformable Ministers had their Conventicles till a new Act of Uniformity was made yet the number of Dissenters then were so many that the King who loved ease and to have his Subjects minds composed that he might more freely have the Service of their Bodies and Purses was willing to grant them Indulgence till that was disliked by the Parliament and the Bishops and zealous Members of the Church of England whereby the King was prevailed with to revoke it Thus was the Church of England harrassed under Protestant Princes SECT VII That it is in a more flourishing condition now LET us now take a view of its present State and make a just paralel and we shall I think find it in no worse but in a better state than before Now our Clergy-men go publickly in their decent Habits are reverenced and respected no affronts put upon them All the Ceremonies appointed by the Canons and Rubricks are more exactly observed and more universally confirmed too than in any Age before we hear little of their Conventicles the greater number of former Dissenters flocking to our Churches conforming in all things answering to the Responses standing up at the Creed bowing at the Name of Jesus kneeling at the Prayers and with great attention and zeal hearing the learned Sermons delivered almost from every Pulpit the Ministers redoubling their pains in emulation to the Catholick Fathers that they may retain their Flocks firm to the Protestant Religion and we may judge by the crowding of the Churches That for one Dissenter that was won to the Church of England in the late Kings Reign there are now ten which is one of the Miracles the King has done to unite these at so great odds formerly So that to me it is a
which they would have grounded an Indictment of Treason And whoever considers all the Arguments of the Exclusionists will find they were bottom'd upon the severe Laws against Papists So that if his Royal Brother had been wrought upon to have consented it had been easie by the force of the penal Laws against Roman Catholics not only to have deprived our Sovereign of his Right of Succession but of his life also Since therefore it is so evident that the penal Laws against Roman Catholics as they now stand in force are not only destructive to the Subjects property but endanger as much the Rights of Hereditary Princes In my Judgment the King hath sufficient reason to require their repeal and all Lovers of our Monarchy reflecting upon the hazard his Majesty was in from them have reason to use their utmost endeavours to have such abrogated Surely we cannot but reflect how things were pushed on after the credit given to that perjur'd Man's Plot. How a traiterous party designed the late Kings Murther the overthrow of the Monarchy or at least the utter secluding of our Gracious Sovereign and never rested till they had formed the Rebellion in England and Scotland So that when we consider how these Laws were obtained in a time when the Affrights Heats and Ferments of the Nation were so great and the drift of the Enemies to Monarchy and the Kings person were not sufficiently discovered and when we consider that those so fair-blown Blossoms so delicately striped with the beautiful Colours of Religion and Property and Priviledges were succeeded by the most poisonous Fruits And that those men who pretended so much care of the Protestant Religion manifestly designed the Eclipsing at least if not the overthrow of the Church of England by their Bill of Comprehension whoever I say considers these things deliberately cannot think the King hath any reason to be in Love with these Acts which were made so Diametrically opposite to his Regality and which would so manacle his hands that he might have no power to bestow Places or Offices upon his Catholic Subjects Having premised these things in Gross I shall now proceed to give you some of the many reasons why I think the King hath just cause to insist upon the Repeal of these Acts and all other Sanguinary Laws Reasons why the Test ought to be repeal'd 1. That it chargeth the King and all Catholics with the detestable sin of Idolatry First If there were no other reason why he should earnestly endeavour the abolishing of them This one thing seems to me sufficient in that all his Subjects who are capacitated to serve Him must solemnly declare the King or the Church he is in Communion with Idolaters than which sin I think no Christian can be guilty of a greater except that of the so inexplicable sin against the Holy Ghost If I were a Military man I should be very diffident of success or that God would prosper my Arms while I fought a Princes quarrel whom I judged an Idolater And if I did not believe it as their whole Church so solemnly denying any properly Divine Worship to be given by them to any but God methinks should hinder me and yet were obliged so solemnly to declare it I should think I scandalized my Prince in the highest degree mocked God and gave a lye to my Conscience So that however useful it might be to deter persons of the Roman Faith from taking it and so to incapacitate them yet I cannot see how a Catholic Prince can countenance or need it And how either the King himself or his Catholic Subjects can digest such publick avowing them Idolaters I leave to any rational man to judge And especially the King being I doubt not throughly convinced in his own Conscience that he is no Idolater for I think gestures only without some kind of intention of paying Divine Honour to something that is not God will not make a person guilty of that damnable sin It cannot but concern him in Conscience to prevent as much as in him lies his Subjects averring so scandalous an untruth in his Majesties own belief at least and which assertion carries with it another ill consequence that every one is not aware of For the Ordination of our Bishops coming from the Church of Rome if that be Idolatrous it is no more a Church of Christ but a Synagogue of Satan And if it be no Damage I am sure it is no Credit to derive a succession from it Secondly 2 That one great end of the Test now ceaseth Another reason against the Test may be that now there is no use of the direct intendment of the Act because the end for which in great part it was made is now obsolete and totally ceaseth which I hope will be clear to them that consider that the power of the Militia and the disposing either directly or indirectly of all the places of Service and Trust are in the King So that though it was but rational that those persons to whom Protestant Kings committed Arms and Offices should be assured of them in fidelity which the being of the same Religion induceth a Prince to confide more in lest their Persons or Government might be in danger from any armed with power that were Catholics So that it was but consentaneous to the Sovereign Power in disposal of the Militia and Offices that a Protestant Prince might refuse to be served by Catholics and lest any such might get into Imployments he might be willing to consent to the most effectual discriminating Test that could be invented to debar them But now the King is secure from any apprehensions of the least danger to his Person and Government from Catholics and can have no more doubt of the Allegiance of Catholics without such Oaths or Declarations than a Protestant Prince could have of his Protestant Subjects under the engagement of those Oaths Here we may en passant observe a considerable difference betwixt the method of our King and those of former times Now we repine and are greatly alarum'd as if all were lost because here and there a Catholic Officer is Commissionated whereas the King imploys treble the number yea some say Ten Officers that are Protestants for one Catholic and the Soldiers are generally Protestants whereas before not one Known Catholic was capable of any Imployment We might have indeed some reason to murmur and repine if the King should commissionate none but Catholics yet that would be but Lex Talionis turning the Tables Therefore since he hath the power of dispencing with that Law as appears by the Sentence in the King's Bench we have reason to be thankful to the King for the distribution of his favours so liberally to Protestants which hath been so long denied to Unfortunate Catholics who if their Religion did not incapacitate them as Englishmen Fellow-Subjects and Gentlemen are as fit for all sorts of Imployment as Protestants And I doubt not but now that
HOW THE MEMBERS OF THE Church of ENGLAND Ought to behave themselves under A ROMAN CATHOLIC KING With reference to the TEST and PENAL LAWS In a Letter to a Friend by a Member of the same Church LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1687. THE TITLES OF THE SECTIONS SECT I. THe Character of an old Loyalist of the Church of England Page 1. SECT II. How such behaved themselves during the Transaction of the Bill of Seclusion Page 4. SECT III. How the Bishops and Clergy behaved themselves in those times Page 14. SECT IV. The Calumnies against the Loyal Members of the Church of England in the foregoing times Page 18. SECT V. The Affrightments and Arts now used to make Subjects believe that the Protestant Religion is to be extirpated here Page 22. SECT VI. That the Church of England hath been in a disturbed condition under Protestant Princes Page 27. SECT VII That it is in a more flourishing condition now Page 33. SECT VIII The self-denial of the King in the Exercise of his own Religion Page 36. SECT IX The difficulty of effecting a change of Religion Page 40. SECT X. Two Objections answered Page 56. SECT XI That the Kings dispensing with the Test is no Argument of his design to Extirpate the Protestant Religion Page 62. SECT XII That it is not the Kings Interest to extirpate the Protestant Religion Page 72. SECT XIII Concerning the Test Page 78. SECT XIV Concerning Sanguinary and Penal Laws against Roman Catholics Page 143. SECT XV. The Inconveniencies that will attend the not Repealing of Penal Laws and particularly the Test Page 165. SECT XVI The Practicableness of Roman Catholics and Protestants living under one Secular Government Page 180. SECT XVII The Character of his Majesty Page 191. SECT XVIII The Conclusion Page 205. ERRATA PAge 15. Line 7. for assured read afraid P. 22. the last line but one for These r. There P. 31. l. 17. for confirmed too r. conformed to P. 40. The Title of the Section should have ended at the word Religion and the rest be placed in the Margent P. 79. l. ult for it r. them P. 94. l. 7. for naturally r. natural P. 113. l. 12. for But r. yet P. 117. l. 1. after we put in may P. 178. l. 7. for preached r. practised P. 182. l. 3. for attemps r. attempts P. 183. l. 11. for Budifir r. Budifin P. 185. l. 7. for Abby r. Abbot HOW THE MEMBERS OF THE Church of England Ought to behave themselves under A ROMAN CATHOLICK KING In a Letter to a Friend SECT I. The Character of an old Loyalist of the Church of England SIR SINCE our first acquaintance we have seen the Revolution of almost fifty years In all which time your unshaken Loyalty and steady Adherence to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England have been most conspicuous You equally hated the Flatterer who by stretching the Length of the Scepter made it unweildy and the Factious who by continual filing made it too slender and of no more force than a Reed or so shortned it that from a Sovereign Battoon it scarce equalled a Serjeants Mace. You valued him most who paid a just Deference to the Regal Prerogative and was infinitely thankful for all the gracious Enfranchisements of the Subject You knew too well the Injustice and Illegality of taking Arms against King Charles the First setled your Judgment so firmly then that none of the Designers Arts to cajole the Multitude made any impression on you And however great your Sufferings were then and thereby by your Disability to aid the Banished Prince yet you were as forward as any to assist him in all things serviceable to his Interest not only in confirming your Neighbours and Acquaintance in their Allegiance when their Enemies success made them dispond but in making Converts of those who had been deluded by the specious pretence of Liberty and Reformation So that you helped much to prepare Mens minds earnestly to wish and effectually to promote the late Merciful King's Restauration and when in his later time he was so Embarrassed with some of his Parliaments you were an eminent Abhorrer and as strenuous an Opposer of the Bill of Seclusion and though you were branded with the name of Papist in Masquerade and a Janizary for Arbitrary Power yet you kept your Post and assured those that conversed with you that Loyalty which you had been taught in the Church of England was so firm a Basis to you that the attacks of Slander and Obloquy should never remove you one hair's breadth from your Duty It was the very Polar Star to which you directed all your Actions without trepidation the Axis on which you designed to move SECT II. How such behaved themselves during the Transaction of the Bill of Seclusion GIVE me leave to remind you of some of those Answers you used to make to those Speeches were sent you from one of the Clerks of the Commons House when the debate was hottest about the Bill of Seclusion for it was at that critical Time the truest Sons of the English Church were discriminated from the Latitudinarian Protestants Non-Conformists and Common-wealth's Men. S. W. J. Collection of Speeches When that overgrown Lawyer said He took it for granted that it was impossible that a Papist should come to the Possession and quiet enjoyment of the Crown without wading through a Sea of Blood and without occasioning such a War as for ought he knew might shake the Monarchical Government You then reply'd This was more like the Bellowing of a Bull than a Responce from an Oracle of the Laws and that who ever lived to see the Duke Succeed as in course of Nature it was likely would find the True Sons of the Church of England so far from listing up an hand against him that if his Right were opposed they would with as much Zeal and Concern as any fight under his Royal Standard and if any such Bouteseu's as he raised a Rebellion they would only afford Trophies to his Victorious Sword and fall as Sacrifices to the Justice of his Cause When that bitter mans Speech was urged That a Popish Head on a Protestant Body would be such a Monster in Nature as would neither be fit to preserve or be preserved and it as naturally followed as the Night did Day that the Head would Change the Body or the Body the Head You answered That we ought to consider the Royal Headship abstractedly from the Subject-Body as we do the sublimed Animal and vital Spirits from the gross Blood and the grosser composition of the Body The Sovereignty being as a Presiding Coelestial Power fitted to govern Members of various Temperaments and Constitutions and that it was as easie to conceive how a Popish King might benignly govern his Protestant Subjects as it was for a Father to govern with Paternal Care and Indulgence his Children of different Humors and Inclinations and
that whatsoever Latitude other Church-men might take to obey Princes only so far as they were Nursing Fathers to their Church yet the Principles and Doctrine of the Church of England contained in its Homilies obliged all the Subjects to be dutiful bear Faith and Allegiance to their Sovereign and support his Crown and Dignity though he were of a different Religion and it taught absolute and unconditionate Obedience for Conscience sake When some thought to touch you more closely in your Private Col. B. Concerns as knowing you had some Church Lands and shewed you the Colonels Speech who said He took it for granted that we have nothing of our own if Popery come in not only the Church Lands but all the Lands we have will be little enough for them for they will never want an Holy Sanctified Religious pretence to take them from us To this you answered That the unpractitableness of restoring Church Lands is apparent in the possession of those in Germany got into by Hostilities and established by Treaties and seeing that in Queen Mary's days when the Romish Government and the Popes Supremacy was re-established and the individual Parcels disseiz'd from the Church easily known in the Reign of a Princess so zealous to remove the Guilt of Sacriledge that she actually restored what was in her Possession and proceeded to the Rebuilding of some Religious Houses seeing you said that she thus earnest upon the Work and who had the Interest of the Pope and the Zeal of a much vaster number of Catholicks then are now to assist her was yet so far from being able to obtain an Act of Parliament for that purpose that the Pope himself by Bull confirmed them Certainly if this then was unpracticable when Protestantism was at so low an Ebb what could be expected after almost 150 years quiet possession So that if there were no other obstacle but the inextricable confusion it would be impossible that any Court of Claims could adjust the Title of any Religious to them by any colour of Law or Equity and no Catholick Prince whatsoever would disquiet and disoblige the whole Body almost of his Subjects both Catholicks and Protestants for the advantage of three or four of his English Subjects in every Monastery for if he should recall all the Religious of his Subjects out of all the Foreign Convents they would not supply them to a greater number S. H. C. When you read another Splenetick Gentlemans Harangue That Misery and Slavery were the Concomitants of Popery And when in answer to a Gentleman that urged against the Bill That it would lay the foundation of a miserable Civil War The aforesaid zealous Knight reply'd That the Barbarousness exercised in Queen Mary 's Reign by Fire and Fagot might be put in the Ballance with all the inconveniences that ever happened by any Exclusion-Act I remember you pitied the Contlemans short Memory or want of perusing our Histories where he might have found in many of the Skirmishes besides the sixteen pitch'd Battels fought betwixt the Houses of York and Lancaster upon the Usurpation of King Henry the Fourth against Richard the Second that more were slain in one day and more Families ruined in one year than in the whole Reign of Queen Mary And however the matter should fall out as we had no shadow of Reason to suspect it were better to die as Sufferers guilty of no other Crime than the Adhearing to our Religion then to die by the Sword Bullet Ax or Halter for Rebellion You farther said That we ought to consider the difference betwixt a lawful Hereditary Prince and an Usuper The one being obliged by Interest so to govern that he may have a peaceable and comfortable Reign and have willing and wealthy Subjects Whereas the other having the establishing his Usurpation his sole scope enslaves all he can studying only to aw all into Obedience by force and strong hand But it would be otherwise in the Succession here where the Princesses his R. H. only Daughters who or their Issues were in the course of Nature if he had no Son to succeed him were married to Protestants so that he would have as great regard to their peaceable Possession as his own And let the Motives be what they could he would content himself with the Publick Exercise of his own Religion and affording Liberty Countenance and Protection to all Catholicks and imploying some of them and suspending the execution of such Laws as were heavy upon them And if this were not opposed you doubted not but his Reign would much increase the Wealth Glory and Military Discipline of the Nation How scrupulous now Yet after all this since you have lived to see so much of the Prognosticks verified of late you have expressed apprehensions of the danger of your Religion and the concern for that hath made you hearken to the suggestions of some Church-men and others who really believe all which the Seclusionists then without crediting a Tittle of it most artificially spread abroad I think my self therefore bound to offer you my Reason why you ought not to fear this and in the first place think fit to remind you how the Clergy of England that surely considered consequences behaved themselves then and after shall answer the best Arguments I have met with to the contrary SECT III. How the Bishops and Clergy behaved themselves in those times THe Deportment of the Bishops and the Loyal Clergy may be best known by their adhearing to the Crown-side and the endeavours that were used to render them less credited by the People It is very well known how strenuously they opposed the Bill of Seclusion both in the City and Country and how few if any of the Bishops in the House of Peers countenanced that Bill which occasioned such bitter and biting Speeches or such sly insinuating Girds against them as if they were ready to enroll themselves under the Banner of St. Peter and betray the Protestant Interest rather than be deprived of the warming Beams of the Rising Sun. Sr. F. W. Hence one of the Active Members said They might be assur'd of their Religion if the Fathers of the Church joyn in being against the only means to preserve it and he desired the Church might not be scandaliz'd for they did not disinherit the Prince for his Religion but to save their own And further said That he thought it a kindness to the Church above all other Acts whatsoever And lest in this he might not be understood aright he added that he meant the Protestant Church which shewed that these men considered the conformable Clergy of England as a different Body from the Protestants at large And so the kindness of that Act would operate to them though not to the present Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England who defired no such indirect proceedings to secure them W. H. Another said He was unwilling to detract from the Merits of Church-men for whom
he had a great Veneration yet he could not but observe however since the Presbiterian Plot they preached up the danger of Phanaticks to be more than of Papists and that to disinherit the Duke was against the Law of God Which said oppinions said he If they should be Imbibed by the People what would the Associating Bill signifie or any other Law against Popery J. B. Another said That People were come to know that the Clergy may be good Divines but not so good Politicians And that the Clergy-men might be in a possibility of being advanced by Popery if they submitted but the Laity under a probability of loosing all notwithstanding all Submission And added That he doubted not but that many of the Beshops and Clergy would as soon die for the Protestant Religion as any Person in the Nation but he was jealous there was some over-ruling Power yet amongst them something answerable to that of a Popish Successor This Gentleman seemed kinder than the rest in that he charged them mostly with want of foresight and inadvertency that some Leading Men of their Order were decoying them to overlook their Interest But surely in this they Acted like good Politicians as well as Divines in that thereby they saved a great effusion of Blood which necessarily must have followed such an unjust Bill And I hope they will retain the same Integrity and Wisdom with a good Conscience as to afford no occasion to their Enemies to censure their defect of Religion or Policy or allay the King-Affection and Grace to them for that Service then done to him SECT IV. The Calumnies against the Loyal Members of the Church of England in the foregoing times I Think it not unfeasonable here to refresh your Memory with a Summary of the Calumnies laid upon the Loyal Members of the Church of England in the Reign of the two late Kings of Glorious Memory In King Charles the First 's Reign the People being wrought upon to repine at some ways of levying Money not usual and some Rules of Uniformity either disused or not so Universally practised before chose in most places such Members of Parliament as they thought would be most ready to redress those Grievances who no sooner were met but the Designers amongst them set the People upon petitioning against Innovations Then the Bishops and most of the dignified Clergy were accused of an intention to bring in Popery and to make some approaches to a Conformity to the Church of Rome Every where hideous Crys were heard of the apprehensions of the Inundation and Inflowing of Popery when the thousandth Man scarce knew what it was or who were the Preservers of the Banks which most powerfully kept it out and having got Power by those Suggestions and gained an Aversion in so many against them before they had over powered the Monarchy voted down and in the effectualest way they could totally overthrew the English Hierarchy And all that asserted the Government then exercised in Church and State were branded as Betrayers of the Subjects Birthright Priviledges and Liberties and Favourers of Popery and Arbitrary Government Which Epithets they never failed to interweave and on whomsoever they fastned such of their Petars they were sure to have their Reputation blasted and all their subsequent Actions rendred odious to the Commonalty who the soonest of any Mortals are blear-cy'd and distorted with the suspitious squint In the late Kings time all Loyal Men who profest most strict conformity to the Church of England and were not for the Bill of Seclusion or Comprehension were stigmatiz'd with the names of Papists in Masquerade How efficacious these Calumnies were to Arm so great a part of the Subjects against the blessed Martyr of his People and bring him to that tragical end is too fresh in our Memories to need a recital And when we found the powerfulness of those Fictions and Imaginary Goblins in both Kings Reigns to endanger the Subversion of the Monarchy and Episcopacy Have we not reason to believe that there are a great number of Republican Spirits yet at work who subtily mingle themselves with all Male-Contents and dissatisfied Parties and by their sly insinuations inflame every small Scratch and rancle it into a venomous Boil by their pestilent and contagious Breath Those are continually raking into the Ashes of every of these by-past Designs keeping some Brands always in the Embers ready upon every light occasion to be blown into a Flame Can we believe those to be now at rest and quiet to have hushed or mortified their eager Concupiscence of advancing the Good Old Cause No no let us not believe the Fox hath forgot his Shifts and Wiles or the Crocodile his Tears or the Asp his venemous Bite Let us fear the gilded Snake in the Grass yea rather lurking in every Thicket where repining murmurs sears jealousie or discontent can lodge SECT V. The Affrightments and Arts now used to make the Subjects believe that the Protestant Religion is to be extirpated here THese are a set of Men who by their whispering dissatisfaction and suspitions of the danger of the Protestant Religion are but fitting their Mouths and preparing their Lungs to blow the Bag-pipe of Sedition And when they have allured the Crowd will endeavour to decoy them into the same Designs with themselves and excite us to follow the Methods they used in our Fathers days That new Japan doth much resemble the old Varnish only they have found out new Exotick affrighting Figures And whereas before the Emblem of Venient Romani was placed at so great a distance from the Sight that it was but faintly delineated as in a remote Prospect Now they think they may be bold to place it in a nearer Light and hope to allure the Tender-sighted and well Affected to the Church of England to believe the reality of the Representation which is no other but that the Roman Altars are to be placed where Communion Tables now stand That the great Fabrick of St. Pauls is to have a Cupula with the Sword of that Saint and the Keys of St. Peter upon it That our Common Prayer is to he changed for a Mass-Book And in fine that the Protestant Religion is designed to be extirpated The Plausible Inducements they pretend to have to believe this are the Liberty the King grants to all his Catholic Subjects to Exercise their Religious Worship the suspending the execution of all the penal Laws against them and the placing of Catholics contrary to the Provision made by Act of Parliament to exclude them These Proceedings of the King they would make us believe are manifest Demonstrations of his intentions to recede from his Royal Promise of protecting the Church of England and consequently that it will crumble to nothing by his withdrawing it This they endeavour to infer by the consideration of the influence the Pope and the Catholick Fathers may have upon his Majesty who will be continually instilling into his Royal Mind how
plain proof that some people believe the Promise of protecting the Church of England Which makes them shelter themselves under it but I suppose it will be no longer than the Storm is impending In fine unless it be that we want his Majesties presence at the Royal Chappel we find no alteration from what was in King Charles the Second's time and the generality of the people finding the Clergy so boldly to stand to the Protestant Religion respect and reverence them more than ever So that if the flourishing state of a Church be to be known by the number of Communicants by the populous Auditories conformableness to the Ecclesiastical Doctrine and Discipline If by the decency of the Churches the full free and solemn Exercise of the Rites of our Religion by the eloquent learned and painful preaching of the Ministers by the full and free enjoyment of their Revenues the uninterrupted Exercise of the Ecclesiastical Laws and Discipline The present state of the Church of England is as flourishing as we can desire and may so continue if we can be content to yield Roman Catholics a favour next to a Tolleration SECT VIII The Self-denial of the King in the Exercise of his own Religion SINCE I am discoursing of the paralel of the flourishing state of the Church of England formerly and now I think we ought seriously to reflect how gracious our King is to us and how little a share of liberty to his Catholics he is content with None sure could have counted it injustice if our Sovereign had chosen his own Royal Chappel in his own Palace to have performed his Devotions in whereas he quits that to the Prince and Princess to the Archbishops great Ministers of State the Nobility Bishops and Protestants of all ranks and contents himself with the Queens Chappel at St. James's hath only one Bishop his Confessarius and a small number of Chaplains and circumscribes his Processions within the Cloyster of that small Convent And at Windsor his Summer-Palace leaves the Collegiate Church to Protestants and only keeps to himself the small new Chappel adjoyning to St. Georges Hall which if he had not taken though some unquiet Spirits made such a noise at it he must have had no place there for his Devotion The King graciously allows us the Cathedrals Parish-Churches and Chappels and the free and unrestrained exercise of our Religion have we reason then to grudge him two or three small Chappels and the Subjects of his Faith their Private Oratories We have had a further Instance of his Majesties tenderness in protecting the Church of England in the Letter sent to the two Arch-bishops at such time when it was generally bruited abroad we may judge by whose Artifice and Malice that the King intended to prohibite preaching of Controversies betwixt the Church of Rome and us and to take away Lectures and Afternoon Preaching whereas we find by the Instructions annexed to the Letter That it was no more than had been done in King James's and in King Charles the First 's time and was verbatim what had been published by King Charles the Second And in stead of restraining our Ministers from preaching in defence of the Church of England it is allowed yea appointed them so it be done according to the Instructions Let us therefore receive these largesses of Princely Favours with dutiful and thankful Hearts and by no petulancy or unnecessary eagerness for more indanger the loss of what we enjoy And I doubt not but Roman Catholics will allow something to a people devoted to their Religion and distinguish betwixt those that are and ever will be truly Loyal even under Sufferings and a party that seek all opportunities to repine SECT IX The difficulty of effecting a Change of Religion First from the Peoples general Prejudice against it TO proceed more particularly to the further Reasons why I think the Protestant Religion is in no such danger as some labour with all their Arts to make us believe I shall desire it may be considered How averse the body of the People are to it Protestantism here has taken deep Root and the prejudice against and even abhorrence of Popery hath been instilled into us with our first Rudiments So that the generality may as well be prevailed upon to embrace Turcism or Heathenism as the Religion which hath been represented to them as Idolatrous and so contrary to Scripture Education and a long Series of contrary Usage are great Impediments in the minds of all Men to admit of any change in Customs much more in Religion The great Obstacle that hinder the common people from complying with the Roman Catholic Religion are That the Publick Service is celebrated in an Unknown Tongue in which they know not how to joyn as they do in our Liturgies and the multitude of mysterious Ceremonies do no less amaze them who will be rather contented to be accounted thick-skulls than they will be at the pains to learn them The Clergy and those who are able to consider the matters in dispute betwixt the two Churches cannot after that vast number of Books that have been writ on both sides satisfie themselves in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Invocation of Saints worship of Images Purgatory Merit and several other matters in which difference they unite with other Reformed Churches And there is something peculiar which will be a constant Remora to the Clergy especially viz. That First the Reformation was here more regular than in any other Country Secondly That Episcopal Government is maintained in good order and such a Liturgy and Ceremonies used as come nearest to the Primitive usage as they think themselves very able to maintain Thirdly They are unwilling to yield the Roman Catholic Church to be the Judge of Controversies betwixt them And as to the Supremacy of the Pope The English Clergy will most unwillingly yield it after so long a renouncing it Lastly The Indispensible Celebacy of the Catholic Clergy is an insuparable hinderance of English Ministers submission to that Religion since the married here will be incapable of preferment and on the contrary must suffer degradation and beggery Who seriously considers those things will not only judge it an attempt unseazable especially when the prospect of a Protestant Successor is an Ensuring-Office to our Religion but may satisfie any of the groundlesness of those Fears some people are too prone to suggest more I think out of design than that they believe it themselves That the Protestant Religion is designed to be overthrown There are but four ways by which this can be effected Either First by the freedom of preaching of the Fathers Secondly Their Writings Thirdly Their Conversation Or Fourthly by Force which I shall now consider As to their Preaching 1 That it will not be effected by the preaching of the Fathers First It is observeable That it is a most rare thing to hear any discourse of Controversies in the King 's or either Queen's Chappels or
I think in that of the Popes Nuncio or chappels of Embassadours Those Protestants which have heard them can universally testifie That the Text mostly is out of the Epistle or Gospel of the day and the scope of the Discourse is generally incitements to the duty of Holy Living disswasives from all kind of sin and true motives to penitence for them When they commemorate any Saint in celebrating the Festival the application is to imitate their Sanctity and praise God for the Grace conferred on them and affording such Examples of Devotion and holy living Which Heads when they are most powerfully treated upon may be effectual to make a Man a good Christian but avails not much to make him a Roman Catholic It is well known to most that hear them that if it were not for the habit the Ave Maria the want of Notes the devision of the Discourse and some small difference in the way of delivery they could not distinguish their Sermons from those in Protestant Churches So that they gain only by that a little mitigation of peoples Censures who have had them represented either as ridiculous or absurd Since therefore the Preachers of both Churches agree in the points of Moral Piety and the Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity It may prevail with Lay Auditors to judge those are the necessary things knowable and that the skill in nice and subtil Controversies are nothing so needful to salvation as the decrying and shunning Vice and Debauchery When therefore we consider the advantage the Ministers of the Church of England have over the Fathers we surely must yield That they may much more easily keep their own Flock from straying than the other can win them over to the Romish Faith. For First the Ministers are infinitely more numerous and settled in their several Parishes as so many Shepherds to secure their charge Secondly They have willing and unprejudiced Auditors to hear them whereas most Protestants that go to hear the Fathers generally do it out of curiosity or to censure them Thirdly The Ministers of England have a good Art of Address to enforce their Doctrines and having been longer used to preaching than the Fathers and using a different method from them to which people have been more accustomed I see no reason to fear that they can so prevail as to commit a rape upon their Auditors Affections and Judgments whereby they should be converted by thousands as those were at S. Peters Sermons and without such Miracles I think by preaching the Protestants will not be changed As to their Writings 2 Nor by their Writings the scope of those seem to be primarily to explain those Articles of Faith wherein Protestants most differ from them in such a manner as may conciliate a better understanding between the two Churches and by a sweetening and favourable representation of the Catholic Doctrine endeavour to remove the Prejudices Protestants have entertained against it as irroconcileable to Scripture and the exposition of the Primitive Fathers This seems the most Christian and Charitable method they have or possibly can take to render their Religion intelligible to us or at least incline us to less censoriousness of theirs which province the Bishop of Meaux hath undertaken with greatest applause and it hath been followed by some of our Country Yet when we consider how little hither to hath been gained by this expedient we need neithe be waspish and angry or abandon our selves to such sinking sears as if the Church of England would be overset by so smooth a Sea. The Church of England hath in it many learned and dextrous men who have good Libraries and are well skilled in History and the Antient Fathers and are well pleased they have the opportunity of shewing their Talents and are confident they can manage their cause more advantagiously than the Catholics and think this way of their Adversaries Writings effects not what is aimed at but on the contrary confirms the people That they have been taught by their Pastors the more antient and true Doctrine as it was believed in the Ages nearest the Apostles times So when the Pope yielded to the Bohemians the use of the Wine in the Sacrament It being received by them as a confirmation That the Eucharist ought to be administred in both species and that it was as reasonable that other Points in difference should be allowed them the Pope recalled the Tolleration When we further consider That the dubious expressions of the Fathers afford subtil men on both sides sufficient matter for arguing pro and con and that the Writers in both Churches agree not upon a Judg betwixt them It is not easie to conceive how by this way a National Conversion can be effected For though the number of Writers were never so much multiplied Yet since the Arguments are the same and neither part can put the principal differences to Umpirage or fix upon an Umpire they may both write till Dooms-day 3 Nor by their freedom of conversation and endeavours to proselite the people ere they accord As to Conversation It must be owned that in this as well as the foregoing particulars the R. Catholick Church-Men have that advantage now that they never had since the Reformation both publickly to preach and publish their Books of Controversie and be as industrious as they please to prevail with people in their conversation which is like a single combate betwixt a Man skilled at his Weapon and a Novice It must be granted also That several persons may be reconciled to the Church of Rome especially such as are curious after Novelties and not well grounded in the Protestant Religion or such as fall into solicitous thoughts about the state of their Salvation and come to think the failures they have committed have been occasioned by their want of due Instruction Or once conceive that Salvation is not to be had out of the most Catholic Church or that a perfect absolution upon Confession and Contrition is to be had no where out of the Church of Rome and some may be won by an affectation of the modishness of being of the Religion of their Prince or in hopes of the more propitious royal Smiles and such in my judgment as change their Religion for this sole end neither deserve the countenance of their Prince nor of any worthy Man for such will vary with the next Wind and neither God nor Man will find stability in them But we experimentally find that the progress of these kinds of conversion is very slow and it must be a work of many Ages to effect any great matter this way where so thick-set prejudices and prepossessions of a different perswasion are so firmly retained that to change a Religion this way is but like the demolishing a Fabrick of immense firmness and size by picking out here and there a single Stone even while others are as diligent and industrious to secure it If lastly any be won over to the Church
of Rome by any of these or any other method of more force the act being personal seeing every Mans Salvation toucheth himself most why should any so much be concerned about it seeing it is their own voluntary act and no injury is done to the willing yielder and it would be a strange obstinacy in any not to yield to conviction Having shewn the groundlesness of those peoples fears that dread the overthrow of the Church of England by any of the three forementioned ways I come now to the last that is Force It was a Master-piece in the Seclusionists 4 That it is morally impossible to effect it by force to represent Popery and Slavery as Twin-Monsters and inseparable Fiends which they described in the most terrible shape with Jaws of Lions Talons of Vultures and Harpyes Eyes of Basilisks and fierceness of Tygers surrounding them with Fire and Brimstone horrible Flame and the equipage of Chains Racks and Wheels and all the Torments of the Ten Persecutions or what ever else inventive Mischief hath since found out Yet we now live to see them all but terrible Bugbears and the Affrightments of Hypocondriac Dreams By a natural instinct we English of what perswasion soever are very careful to preserve our properties which in all times have been dear to us and those most antient Laws that secure them were made before the name of Protestant was known in the World. We must also consider that with what ever daring courage religious zeal may inspire Men yet common policy and interest will certainly discourage all Catholics from attempting any change of Religion by force and enslaving lest they or their posterity in the next Age might undergo a Retaliation as heavy upon them when it would be more easie to extirpate the whole Roman Religion here than now it would be to change that of one City When therefore the founding of Religion will be the ruine of Estates and the Story of Perrillus's Bull is not worn out of Mens Memories or Men are like to be the Sacrifices upon the Altars they too precipitately raise we are not to expect such venterous Heroes as will have the hardiness of Sampson especially since if they had they would want the Power and force to effect it SECT X. Two Objections answered I Know it is urged That we had a sad Experiment of the change made by a standing Army here which was able to overthrow the Monarchy And the French Kings late proceedings against the Hugonots prove That by force great alterations otherwise looked upon as next to impossible may be effected But the Cases are very different from ours 1 That the case of the Usurpers over throwing the monarchy and episcopacy is very different from ours for in our late Civil Wars the people were only wrought up to the height of power to dispose of the fate of Monarchy by the belief the Designers impressed upon them That Popery and arbitrary Government were making great approaches and fully designed to be introduced by the King and Bishops And a Parliament was by a fatal oversight perpetuated which was of the same perswasion and had the Hearts Purses and Heads of infinite multitudes to assist them in the work of Reformation in the Church and redressing of Grievances as they were called in the State Which being such specious pretensions and having a Parliament to patronize it and the Scotch Nation to abett them it was the less to be wondred at that such a Revolution was made especially when we consider the Churches alteration was nothing so great as it would be betwixt the exchange of Protestant Episcopacy for R. Catholic Hierarchy and the Popes Supremacy which is here so much antiquated Then the Doctrine of the Church was little altered except in that they rejected the Order of Bishops for the Service being in the known Language without any Ceremonies only consisting of Prayers reading of Scriptures Preaching and Administring the Sacraments according to the use of Scotland Geneva Holland and the Hugonots of France the transition was more easie after the Army was victorious Yet we have seen how short liv'd even that Usurpation was In our present case a Religion is to be brought in against the most earnest endeavours the firmest perswasions and Resolutions and the utmost detestation and abhorrence of the people So that while we see only a mixture of Catholic Officers with a far greater number of Protestants and a Body almost intire of Protestant Soldiers We may as well have credited That Oliver Cromwel's Army could have pulled the Pope out of his Palace and introduced Protestantism in all Catholic Countries as I have heard some of the Officers and Chaplains of that Army confidently enough hope as that we can expect an extirpation of our Religion here by so small a number of R. Catholics as are in the Court Camp or Country As to the instance of the French Kings proceeding 2 That the proceedings of the French King ought nor to affright us surely they that urge it never give themselves liberty to reflect upon the discrepancy of the case In France the King and the whole Body of his Kingdom are R. Catholics and the Religion is established by Law and it is easie to obtain further Laws for the support of it and the destroying of all others by a King so victorious and reverenced since how numerous soever Protestants were there yet comparatively to the Catholics they were very inconsiderable If indeed the King of France were an Hugonot and with the assistance of his Protestant Subjects had been able to have brought all Catholics to his Religion then there might have been some ground for such an instance If the advancers of this affrightment would have been so candid as to have subjoyned how our gracious King hath granted not only the French Exiles a safe retreat into his Kingdom but hath likewise promised them a Protection in the exercise of Religion conformable to the practice of the Church of England And to all such hath granted his Gragracious Letters Patents for the collecting the Charity of his Subjects for their Relief which is accordingly with a superlative Liberality afforded them They would rather have made it as an Argument of the Kings inviolable observing his Gracious promise in protecting the Church of England than have produced it as an incitement to our fears of the contrary But these kind of men know how to boil up Sugar to the bitterness of Aloes and extract Poison out of Cordials SECT XI That the King 's dispensing with the Test is no Argument of his Design to extirpate the Protestant Religion I Know it is urged that if his Majesty did not design some alteration in Religion what need is there of his so great solicitude and earnest endeavours for the taking away of the Test and how comes it to pass that the Law against it is dispensed with and so many Catholics are Commissioned in the Army and may be in
withstanding by those Laws this invincible perswasion without any other Crime is interpreted High Treason and punished as such and Sir Thomas More Lord Chancellor the Bishop of Rochester and others suffered death upon that account In others of them not only Priests for receiving Orders according to the Rites of the Church of Rome and coming over to Exercise the Office of their Function but such as were converted to the Romish Faith or Reconciled were involved in the Crime of Felony or Treason without lifting an hand uttering a Word or imagining the least disloyal thought against the peace of the Nation where they were Subjects First consideration how the grounds of those severities now cease Therefore first it must be considered that since some of these Laws were made in the tender Age of the Reformation when our Princes were very careful that it might not be overlaid in its Swathing Cloaths but now it is at a manly and masterly growth and back-set with so numerous a Progeny and powerful Abettors that it can plead a prescription and possession sufficient to maintain it self by Argument and Vote Therefore we cannot now judge such severe Laws so necessary there being no such danger of the Popes exercising any other Supremacy here than what is purely spiritual over those of that Communion in the Divine Offices of their Religion without having any power to dispose of any Benefices endow Religious Houses or establish any Religious Polity over the Protestant Subjects And as to any Temporal Jurisdiction it is impossible he should receive any thing of that which hath been so strenuously opposed even while the whole Nation in Spirituals submitted to the Doctrine and Discipline of that Church and I think all may be well satisfied that our King is no ways disposed to quit any of his Royal Prerogatives or subject his Crown to any other Potentate upon Earth The second Reason Secondly It ought to be remembred that in Queen Elizabeth's time there grew a strong Faction in the State by reason of the doubtful legitimacy of that Queen as being by the Pope and all Roman Catholics looked upon as born out of lawful Wedlock her Fathers Wife Queen Catherine being then alive and her Mother married to the King before a legal Divorce according to the Ecclesiastical Laws then in force which occasioned the Roman Catholics here to be great Favourers and Abetters of Mary Queen of Scots so that there was a political necessity in Queen Elizabeth and those that adhered to her and upon that account were desirous to preserve the Protestant Religion she embraced with all the Art and Industry they could by the severest Laws to secure the one and the other and by reason of several Attempts Insurrections and Forreign oppositions the unfortunate Queen of Scots was put to death for the safety of that Queen which the Politicians of that Age thought could never be as long as her Ryval lived Therefore we must look upon those Laws as made mostly for the security of the Sovereignty against Roman Catholics who as such were adjudged the greatest Enemies to it So that if we consider the times when and the persons upon whom the bloodiest Laws were executed we shall find that they were principally if not only when the State was either in real or imaginary danger from such Whence it was that the great States-man the Lord Burleigh published that Discourse That Papists were not put to death here for their Religion but for their Treasons Tho whoever considers how the security of the State and of the Religion was interwoven will find it requires a subtil head to separate them The grounds of them now cease However the Case is now wholly altered the Succession of our King is not in the least disputable by Roman Catholics or Protestants so that there can be no ground to keep up those in force for any other end than the securing the Protestant Religion only So that we must invalidate all my Lord Burleighs Arguments and bottom all our reasoning upon Religion if we plead for those Laws which cannot fully be justified but by avowing of that position so much exploded by the Church of England that Dominion is founded in Grace which dangerous Doctrine if it were once yielded no Prince could be safe from those that would alledge and were powerful enough to prove it that a Prince was not as holy as they or of their Society and where punishments of the severer kinds are inflicted for different modes of Worship where neither Immorality Sedition or Treason deserve it or it is not done with due reference to the peace and tranquility of the State we must ground them on the same Principle that because such and such are not Believers of the true Faith which the present Rulers would infer they only had must be cut off or punished as Malefactors Whereas it seems much more agreeable to Christian Moderation and the Rules of true Policy that where any Church is legally settled the care of preventing mischiefs should be left to the Government which no doubt would provide redress by suppressing Sedition whereby none but such as were Factious Turbulent and endanger the peace of the Government might be under any pressure or forced to withdraw their effects and forsake their Country or to live in obscurity and reservedness as people under the hatches all which do manifestly impoverish a Country However in our case it seems an unbecoming distrust of the intrinsick goodness of our Religion or the strength of our Arguments for it when it must be defended by Club-law And since we are out of all danger of Roman Priests Trafficking for Forreign Invasions as when the severe Laws were made the State was apprehensive of or of plotting and contriving against the King and Government It is too great an Argument that the refusing to take off the penal Laws and that we do not acquiesce and yield to the moderate desire of so gracious a King is more out of an inclination to gratifie Humor and Contention than for any other Cause It being sufficient that if ever such a time should occurr wherein the State should be indangered by Roman Catholics the severities might be reinforced When therefore we consider that the sanguinary and penal Laws now in being are severe to the utmost extremity When a Turk or a Jew not to mention other professions more turbulent in a State are not under any such impending Lash And consider what an after reckoning they may undergo so that the Laws standing not only Priests and new Converts but most of the old hereditary Roman Catholics must be forced to flee or abscond themselves And as to the Test however the King may for his time dispence with the taking of it and grant Pardons to and Indempnifie the not-takers of it toties quoties yet who ever shall act after the very last Pardon may be informed against under the next Protestant Successor and then it may be
the principal place of his residence not to name other Towns Lutherans and Calvinists have their Churches as well as Roman Catholics and I suppose he allows the like liberty in the Palatinate as the Count Palatine did to whom he lately succeeded as his heir male The Duke of Brandenburg is himself a Calvinist yet his Subjects are for the most part Lutherans and in some parts of his Dominions Roman Catholics freely enjoy their Religion The Bishop of Mentz tho a Roman Catholic admits the Lutherans in his City of Erford to exercise their way of worship So the Duke of Saxony a Lutheran hath establisht such an accord in his City of Budifin that the Roman Catholics and Lutherans celebrate their Divine Offices in the very same Church separated only by a Grate The Bishop of Osnaburgh of the House of Zell is himself a Lutheran yet in his Town from whence he hath his Title both Roman Catholics and Lutherans have their Churches and the next Bishop must be a Catholic and so Alternately And the Lutheran Canons say their Offices with the Catholics in the Cathedral In the City of Ausburgh they have two chief Magistrates whereof one must always be a Roman Catholic and the other a Lutheran The Prince of Sulzback is a Roman Catholic by profession yet in some parts of his Territories not only Roman Catholics and Lutherans enjoy their different worship but interchangeably the same day in the same place The Roman Catholics using a portable Altar which they place upon the Lutheran Altar when they officiate The Abbot of Curvey is a Prince of the Empire and a Roman Catholic and hath seventeen Villages in his Jurisdiction whereof sixteen are Roman Catholics only Ansted hath Lutheran Inhabitants who enjoy their Religion and in their Annual Procession not only those Lutherans but the Envoys from the Lutheran Princes of Brunswick Lunenburgh and Hannover attend it some carrying the Abbot's Mitre others the Crosier c. At Lambspring under the Rule of the Bishop of Hildershem the Abbot and Convent are principal Lords yet they permit the Lutherans to have a Church Thus the Germans live in neighbourly Love and Amity and busie not themselves in conspiring one anothers ruin There is one great instance in this part of Germany that comes home to our Case The late Duke of Hannover being converted to the Roman Faith during his Father the Duke of Zell's Life lived out of his Country and was a Canon at Paris and tho he lived in a low Station with few Servants yet he kept such a correspondence with persons of Quality in his Fathers Jurisdiction that tho his Father designed to disinherit him yet upon the news of his last Sickness he posted into the Confines and upon notice of his Death at Hannover where his Elder Brother was he posted to Zell and was so well received there that he was soon in the Head of a considerable Army and by mediation betwixt the two Brothers he made an exchange of Zell the nobler Dukedom for that of Hannover the richer where being setled he governed his Country very peaceably for fourteen years and contented himself with a Chappel for his own Devotion and a Convent of Capuchins near it and promiscuously employed Roman Catholics and Lutherans in his Military and Civil Imployments giving to his Roman Catholic Subjects free liberty of the Exercise of their Religion and wrought so good an accord among his Subjects of both Perswasions that there were no animosities among them none repining at anothers preferment but in point of Duty and Allegiance they all respected honoured and served him and lived happily under his Government and he was in as good esteem among his Lutheran Subjects as any Prince had been long before He dying without Issue Hannover fell to his younger Brother the Bishop of Osnabourgh who is a Temporal Prince not in holy Orders but married and hath several Princes and Princesses his Children and is himself a Lutheran Upon his entrance to his Principality he did not prosecute the Roman Catholics only the Capuchins who lived upon Alms could not stay as in a Convent tho he profered them protection for their persons and Roman Catholics enjoy the liberty I have before mentioned as others do in several Principalities in Germany Whether this Harmony happen by reason the people are not such Zealots in Religion as in other places to be cutting of Throats for it I cannot tell but I am sure it is a great ease to Prince and People By this Example I hope it will appear how practicable it is that Roman Catholics and Protestants may live under the protection of Magistrates of either Belief without swallowing up one another and if it were not for the violent prejudices which some have there is no need of endeavours to extirpate Roman Catholics who being few in number yet are considerable in quality and interest Nor of oversetting the Church of England whose true Members ever have been Loyal and in the worst of times have joyned with Roman Catholics for the support of the Crown and have been fellow-sufferers Surely we cannot forget the time when so great a Credit was given to a Plot which even as it was published in Narratives was as dark and confused as the Chaos as monstrous as any Figment of the Poets or in the Alcharon full of impossibilities and contradictions So that it is now our wonder and astonishment how greedily it was swallowed Yet this served the turn to exasperate the people yea the Parliament it self to that degree that not only the Catholics were branded as the most trayterous barbarous cruel bloody-minded Men in the World but they suffered the severities of the Laws And much innocent blood was shed upon the Testimony of a few perjur'd Villans who got the Character of the Kings Evidence yet we cannot but remember who They were that while they were fixing our Eyes so intently upon the defence of the Kings Person and the Church of England against the Plots of Papists were in the mean time providing their Blunderbusses and designing a most horrid Regicide I recal this to mind only to evince that we are not to look upon Papists through the perspectives have been hitherto afforded us but to believe our own Eyes and other Organs of Sence and consider whether a Popish Successor be such a Creature yea a Fiend as he was represented SECT XVII The Character of his Majesty IF I were able to furnish my self with as much Celestial Illumination and Spirit from above as the Author of that Character fetched from the Mines of Fire and Brimstone below I should not be able to describe as I ought any tolerable similitude of our great Sovereign whose Portraicture the pannick fears luxurious spite and hellish designs of some then exposed Yet with humble Submission and Reverence due to the Majesty of so great a King I think it necessary to give some faint touches of those out-lines which ought to strike