intendments How unreasonable therefore are the Tragical Exaggerations of the considerer making it the most heinous wickedness and the most crying Injustice to alter that which in its own nature is alterable and by an Act of the Government to exclude the D. from the Succession as a person unfit and unsafe to be entrusted with the Government though in the general order thereof he was thereto designed besides that he hath forfeited that kind of right that he had by that general appointment Is this saith he the way of establishing the Protestant Religion he saith this is exactly to follow the footsteps of that Monster of Ingratitude the wicked Jeroboam who after God of his infinite goodness had raised him from nothing and established him Monarch of the ten Tribes of Israel yet was he so mistrustful of Gods Power in preserving his Kingdom for the future that he thought nothing could secure it but his own accursed Policy Our Considerer seems to have a high value for Rule and Domination otherwise he would not have called the advancement of Jeroboam to rule by Usurpation an effect of the infinite goodness of God But these words were put in to make that story of Jeroboam parallel to our case and he intends thereby to remember us of the little power that the reformed Religion sometimes had perhaps in the time of Queen Mary and to charge upon the Protestant Religion and reproach it with a Revolt and unjustifiable Schismatical departure from the Church of Rome in the time of Queen Elizabeth and the acquiring and possessing it self of the Government And now behold the man now you know him and his Religion and how fit he is to offer Considerations for the D. against the Bill But shortly to destroy his parallel he may know that the Reformation did only assert and reassume the Rights of the Crown usurp'd by the Bishop of Rome We did reform the Religion of our Church to primitive Christianity from which the Church of Rome had seduced us but therein we used no other Power than what belongs to every Church to reform it self we were never of right and duty subject to the Church of Rome she never rightfully had any Authority over us and therefore we could not Schismatically revolt from her nor are parallel at all in this to Jeroboam though this man will compare us to him and thereby slily charge us with monstrous Ingratitude to God and accursed Policies because we will not again give up our Civil Rights to the Tyranny of Rome nor lose again the true Christian Religion in the Superstitions and corrupt Doctrines of that Church and because we will not forbear to use that power which is lawful to every Government Except this be his meaning and he himself a Papist he might with as much pertinency have told any other story of Jeroboam or of any other of the Kings of Israel and Judah in the Books of the Kings or Chronicles or of Belteshazzar or Nebuchadonozor Zenacherib Ahasuerus or Holofernes or Antiochus or any other King or Name in story Sacred or Prophane Of all these he could not have found out any thing more unlike to have compared with us to have remarked himself for a man of great Considerations For Jeroboam corrupted the true Worship of God to support an Usurped Crown but the design of the Bill against which he declaims is to support a Lawful Government and the best Religion by a legal Act of that Government So that we will invert that Wo which he pronounceth against us out of the Prophet Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong into a Wo against himself Wo unto him that putteth evil for good and darkness for light and casteth a stumbling-block before his neighbour But in what follows of this Writer of Considerations I doubt me whether he doth not act the part of a scorning Atheist for that he would perswade the World from all care and regard of Religion by telling us it is able to shift for it self it being the work of Gods own hand His Atheistical scorn and low valuation of the true Christian Religion is further very notorious and remarkable for that he makes the establishment thereof amongst us to be such a like work of the Almighty Hand of God that establish'd Jeroboam in the Kingdom of Israel O thou Insensatus Galata to return thy own Exclamation which thou usest against thy own honest and discerning Country-men upon thy stupid self For who I pray you but a senseless man would compare a providential permission of the revolt of the ten Tribes for the sins of David and the sins and oppressions of Solomon to which the People were prepared by the exactions oppressions and riotous Reign of Solomon and his Successor Rehoboam to the work of the Reformation which was the delivery and restoring to it self the Gospel of Christ and his true Religion which was spoiled and depraved by the Church of Rome for the benefit I doubt not of all the Ages of Mankind to the end of the World against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail and which we in despight of the Roman Successor shall see yet flourish in this Land But we must not expect though God did first plant his Church by Miracles in Nature and demonstrations of the Spirit of Power by the wonderful Gifts of the Holy Ghost and by the Spirit of Glory resting upon the Primitive Martyrs of the Holy Faith and did restore the purity of the Christian Faith by a Miraculous Providence and the Spirit of Martyrdom which we are now peacefully and Legally possessed of I say we have no reason to expect Wonders for our preservation when it seems to be in our own hands Nor ought we to subject the Professors of the True Religion again to Slaughters Fire and Faggot Tortures Inquisitions and Massacres Let us not think that our Government as it lies in History and our Laws in Books and Parliament-Rolls which will easily suffer an Index expurgatorius and make no complaint can defend us and it against the Instruments and Engines designed for its subversion in the Plot and the powers that have been long addressing to that purpose and are now at leisure to execute what we know is designed against us better than we can make out and discover This Expression I know would scarce pass for sense in any other Age or Matter but we live in an Age of Mystery and Prodigy producing things Monstrous and unnatural and our Language must be agreeable to the things we speak of The True Patriot proceeds and affirms That it is an unwarrantable Attempt and a point without example or president to Depose a Prince for not complying with his People in Religion I appeal to all that shall read him whether he appears to be a man of Reading enough to warrant him to pronounce a general Negative in this matter But by this time there is nothing so extravagant but
that to make Experiments and try Conclusions upon There is little reason to charge the Guilt of the unexpiable Murder of our late Excellent King for which at this day we are doing most severe penances upon Presbytery which was not thought of here in England till the War was begun The heats that produced that unhappy War were from other Causes and Reasons as every body may know But when that War was once begun as no War can be managed by fore-established Rules and Measures it did not stand within the reasons and first designs thereof but was prosecuted and managed by such means and measures as were necessary and possible This will always happen more especially in a Civil War wherein though both parties share in the Causes yet the Guilt to be sure belongs to the Rebels side The Parliament in the Course of the War in their distress prayed Aid of the Scotch Nation who was shortly before entered into the Covenant They refused them any Assistance except they would enter into that Covenant which they had passed upon their own people By this accident that part of the Nation that was engaged in that unnatural War of the Parliaments side were imposed upon by the Scotch Presbytery But after the Covenant was thus imposed they still retained the English Loyalty filled the Town with Protestations and Remonstrances against the Kings feared Murther declared out of their Pulpits against the Actors of that detestable Tragedy were continually contriving to restore our present King to the Government of his Kingdoms and of their instrumentality in his Restoration the King himself is very sensible I wish the Church too were made sensible of the extinction of that prejudice the Scotch Covenant created against her for though God be thanked she hath survived almost all of those deluded Covenanters yet the apprehension of the danger or the remembrance of the evil at least will return with the mention of that name and render it very displeasing I wish I say that prejudice was removed by their frank Declaration of their good liking of her Order in general and by their humble desires to be spared in the matters whereof they yet remain in doubt by the indulgence of the Church That we may not incur the danger of loosing our Religion and Government by the scandal that is given to the Church-men at the old remembrance of what hath been done here by some that were of the Presbyterian Name For this matter of Offence they of the Popish Faction do with mighty advantage to their Villainous design cultivate and improve They stigmatize all that oppose the Popish Plot with the Name of Presbyterians and thereby would denote them Enemies of our Church-Order By this means they have brought many too many Eminent men of our Church to at least a dead Neutrality as if things were come to this pass that they must perish either by that or the Popish Faction and had nothing left them to do but to chuse which way our Church shall be destroyed A cold comfort this would be that whatever way they should take they must assist to the destruction of their Order Upon this rock we are like to be split this makes our deliverance to stick in the birth and upon this hinge the fate of our Religion and Nation will turn Lord what a prodigious thing is this that is come to pass in our age Religion it self must be the devoted thing to the rage and folly of the Priests of that Religion Let them in the Name of God consider what iniquity it is to declame against the faults of others and not endure to hear of their own Crimes To hate one-another for those very proceedings that their own faults occasion where the fault is in both sides the fault is in neither so as they may justly accuse one another and yet they will both fall under a most severe Condemnation to be sure in the next world if they do not both miss their aims and be confounded with guilt and disappointment in this I wish it were considered that scarce any Nation ever yet perished that was so blinded in her own concerns that she had not discerning men enough to have preserved her from the destroying Evil if many good and wise men did not perswade themselves it was better to suffer it than to endeavour to prevent it and from the fears of one Party and the dislike they have conceived against the other determine with themselves to stand Neuters whilst they want Resolution to oppose the dangers that one side threatens and think the disorders of the discontents incorrigible It was a wise Law of Solon That if the Common-wealth at any time should be divided into Factions that the Neuters should be noted with infamy by which every man was obliged to take a side or Party and all the virtuous peaceable and modest were engaged to appear openly in the concernments of the Government he concluded assuredly that by this means Peace would be more easily restored and terms of an accommodation more readily invented and entertained the Factious Knaves of both sides turned out of Office their Evil Designs disappointed and the ruine of the Nation by the Extremities of wicked men prevented For the worst men are most forward in Factions and the greatest beautefeus most honoured by their respective contending Parties before the wise and good interpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Causes of the Differences would be better understood be rendred clear and conspicuous when the honest men such as can have no interest but the publick good whose Authority is more prevalent with the people than the clearest Reason do declare them and those that are mis-led and abused into Extreams would then unite and conspire against those who gave the first occasion to the Divisions and promote them As did the Factions of the Colonnois and the Vrsins who having discovered that Pope Alexander the Sixth set them still at discord and variance amongst themselves so by their Calamities and Falls to encrease the strength and power of his Son Borgia they fell to agreement among themselves and made head against him their common Enemy If all that are true Protestants and true lovers of our Government would declare themselves on the behalf of our Religion and Government in such terms as befit honest men and as the Exigency of our present state shall require we shall find the numbers of Addressers reduced to the Dukes Pensioners Creatures The number of Phanaticks made so few that the Papists would again become the Fautors and Defenders of Fanaticism as they were about ten years since lest the numbers of Fanaticks should not be big enough to make a Scare-crow for the Church of England or the Schism not considerable enough to disgrace her All discerning men see that the late Addresses have been obtain'd by application That the design therein was to make Voices for the discontinuance of Parliaments and for a Popish Succession If the people
patience declared it self to be of Heaven and of a divine Original according to the Prophesies on that behalf it took possession of the Empire Crowns and Scepters became submitted to the Cross The Christians acquired a civil right of Protection and Immunity which they ought not they cannot relinquish and abandon no more than they can destroy themselves or suffer Violence and Cruelty to destroy the Innocent Such as thus perish shall never wear a Martyrs Crown but perish in the next world for perishing in this This will be interpretatively Crucifying Christ afresh after he is received up into Glory i. e. after his Religion is exalted into Dignity and Honour and civil Authority If the Senate of Rome had been Christians they would never have given up the Government to a Pagan Augustus with a power to him and his Successors to make Laws for extirpating the Christian Faith What is said of the Christian Religion and Paganism holds between the Reformed Religion and Popery If any man is so vain as to say that an unalterable course of Succession to the Crown is established amongst us by Divine Right I say he is a man fitted to believe Transubstantiation and the infallibility of the Pope he is deeply lapsed into Fanaticism he dreams when he is awake and his Dreams are Dreams of phrensie There are some things so false that they cannot be disproved as some things are so evidently true that they cannot be proved This Proposition hath no colour to ground it self upon no medium to prove it no argument for it which is to be answered nor is there any thing more absurd than it self to reduce it to But if any shall adde that this Doctrine is the Doctrine of the Reformation and adventure to tell the people so they are the most impudent falsaries that ever any Age produced when there is scarce a Child but hath heard what was done said and maintained by the Clergie of England in the Case of Mary Queen of Scots a Popish Successor in the earliest time of our Reformation here in England Our Age is blessed with a Clergie renownedly Learned and Prudent By the Providence of God and the Piety of our Ancestors they possess good though not to be envyed Revenues and Honours It is scarce possible they should have many among them that can countenance a proposition so wickedly impious and sacrilegious That we cannot have new Laws for the preservation of our Religion but must lose the old at the pleasure of a Popish Successor against not their own interest and the Rights of the Church but against the Rights and Liberty of Religion it self For she is capable of Franchises and Immunities which ought above all things to be most zealously asserted and defended by her Ministers Can they themselves with their own hands ever pull down her Hedg and destroy her Defensatives and expose her helpless to the rage of her implacable Enemies and suspend all the Legal security she hath for her preservation upon the Life of our present King whom God long preserve If Kings be admitted to have a power to make Laws one Proclamation may establish the Popish Religion amongst us which the Papal Bulls so long as that See continues will never be able to effect Next to Religion her self the Revenues of the Church challenge their faithful care for they are at best but Usu-fructuary Trustees of her Endowments for the Succession which they will wretchedly betray to an Arbitrary Successor if they do not repress such Opinions that pretend to change the Government into an absolute jure Divinity Monarchy which will leave nothing jure divino but it self and the Popedom Kings for their so doing have the authority of Sir Robert Filmer who affirms in his Treatise called the Power of Kings Fol. 1. That the Laws Ordinances Letters Patents Priviledges and Grants of Princes have no force but during their Life if they be not ratified by the express consent or at least by the sufferance of the Prince following who had a knowledge thereof This is but the necessary consequence and result from the Doctrine of the absolute power of a Prince for in such Government the Concessions of a Predecessor can no more oblige the Successor than he can Govern when he is dead and the Successor must be absolute in his time as the Predecessors were in theirs But in vain is the Net spread in the sight of any Bird this deceit is of so gross a thread that it cannot pass with the common people much less upon our Clergy But I will not dissemble what may be the true reason of the seduction of some young good-natured Gentlemen of the Clergy It is thus they perswade themselves that if these principles and opinions of the Vnlimited Power of Kings had been received the late Wars had been prevented Not rightly considering that if such opinions had never been broached or Universally rejected that War could never have ensued and we should together with peace have enjoyed our ancient Government which our Ancestors transmitted to us without that miserable inter-regnum I would not be perversely understood by any man as if I went about to justify our late War This is all I say that every Government once established will continue for ever if all the parts of it would unalterably consent to preserve it to which their natural Allegiance doth oblige them And never any Prince endeavored to change the Government but where part of the people were first willing or content to have it so Those false flatterers that go about to remove the boundaries of power and change the Government are the greatest enemies to the quiet and happy Reigns of Kings and the peace and prosperity of Kingdoms And if they do adventure to call their fellow-Subjects by any opprobrious names of disloyalty because they will not joyn with them in such change they are as absurdly impious and insolent as any Prince or State would be who should challenge another as free and absolute as himself for his Tributary and Vassal and traduce him for a troubler of the World because he would not Compose the Quarrel thus injuriously sought with the surrender of his Crown and Dignity I desire these Gentlemen to consider that the happiness of a Nation is best supported with Truth and Justice This new Doctrine is not true and whosoever entertains a belief of it is not onely barely mistaken but will be led by the mistake into the most mischievous impious and sacrilegious injustice and treachery It is very agreeable to a good man to embrace a proposition with an easie belief that offers the least seeming probability of a security against the miseries of War by all means to be avoided But this Doctrine of the Divinity of Kings is most dangerous to the Peace of Kingdoms for it is pregnant with Wars Besides that it will give bad Princes which sometime hereafter may be Born into the World for such there have been now and then power to
ne vilescant sine moribus leges There is nothing more exposeth the Authority of Government to contempt than a publick and an open neglect of its Injunctions But where obedience to Laws is exacted under severe penalties where it doth not greatly import the common good to have them observed that Government is unequal and useth its Authority unjustifiably Leges cupiunt ut jure regantur The consideration of the sad effects the Schism in our Church hath occasioned the contempt that it hath brought upon our Ecclesiastical Governours That Religion it self is thereby made the scorn of Atheists That the Papists are thereby furnished with matter of objection reproach and scandal to the Reformation That every Age since it begun hath heightned the malignity of the Schism That it seems now to despise the Cure of the greatest Cassanders These considerations I say make it infinitely desirable to have it utterly extinguished There seems to be now left but one way of accommodating our Divisions and that is that we do not hereafter make those things wherein we differ matter and reason of Division That the Children of the Light and Reformation be at length as wise in this matter as the Church of Rome which is at unity with it self under more and greater differences than those that have troubled the peace of our Church which is sufficiently known to all Learned men Had it not been happy that this Schism had been prevented by the use of the power of the Church in Ecclesiastical dispensations If no Law had been made touching the matters that gave the first occasion to the Schism it had been in the Power of the Church to have prevented it No good Bishop but would have relaxed the Canons that enjoyned these Ceremonies about whose lawfulness there hath been so much Zeal mispent and unwarrantable heat and contention raised for the sake of peace and preservation of the Unity of the Church to men peaceable and otherwise obedient to her injunctions So dangerous it is to make Laws in matters of Religion which takes the conduct of Religion in so much from the Guides of the Church The beginning of contention is like the breaking out of waters saith the wise man and they are assoon as begun more easily ended Before the Contenders have exasperated one another with mutual severities and contumelies which at every return increase until both sides lose either their Vertue or the Reputation of it Can any man imagine that any prejudice can accrew to the Church of England if she did enlarge her Communion by making the conditions of it more easie especially if this may be done without annulling any of her institutions which the better instructed Christians will always and the Weak may in time devoutly observe But till they can they may be received and retained of her Communion and not be rejected by her censures though they do not submit to all of them at present Will it be any prejudice that the Number of her Bishops be increased and that Suffragans be appointed or approved by the present Bishops in partem sollicitudinis as was enacted by the Statute 26 H. 8. cap. 14. Which Law was repealed by 1 2 P. M. and revived by 8 Eliz. cap. 1. These Suffragans were not intended to participate of their Honours or Revenues Had it not been much more eligible to have dispenced with invincible Scruples rather than a Schism should have been occasioned which the longer it continues will be more incurable and with greater difficulty accommodated as it grows likewise more mischievous Is it fit that the peace should be hazarded or the Nation put with reason or without reason in fear of it Or a Kingdom turned into a Shambles for a Ceremony or a Ritual in our publick Worship which if omitted would leave the exercise of it solemn and decent For no man knows the obstinacy of inveterate prejudices founded perhaps in the very Complexions and Natures of the Dissenters hardned also in their way by observing how little effect Laws have had for reducing their Numbers and also how unpracticable any Severity is in the present broken and distracted state of the Nation Why may not Standing at the Sacrament be tolerated though Kneeling is the devoutest gesture and to me most agreeable when it is a posture of Prayer enjoyned in the Primitive Church in their solemn Meetings for Divine Worship between the Feasts of Easter and Whitsontide Why may not the signing of the Cross in Baptism for the sake of Peace and Unity be dispensed with where desired when the Sacrament is entire without it Why may not our publick Liturgie be changed and altered though it may be defended as it is and as it is entertains the devotions of the best men meerly for this reason because it is not liked in some parts of it by some men yet truly devout Besides it is the wish of some excellent persons of the Church of England that our publick Offices were more and those we have not so long and that the Church had a greater Treasury of Prayers and by variety of Forms for the same Office were enlarged in her spirit of Prayer and her publick Devotions heightned Why may not the Rubrick be altered as general scruples shall arise by the Authority of the Church this would not lessen her Authority but advance the esteem of her Wisdom in the exercise of it when she useth it for edification It is much better sure to give place to an innocent opinion when entertained by considerable Numbers though a mistake than to keep up contention and strife Peace in the Church is better than precise and nice Orthodoxness and Union is to be preferred before unnecessary Truth which is of no more importance to our Salvation than one of Euclids Propositions though to be sure not so certain and of less use The business of the Church is not to make men great Clerks to improve us to the subtilty of the Schools but to build men up in the Faith and Love of God by which they may be instructed to every good Work Her aim is not to make men courtly in their behaviour in our Churches but truly devout and true devotion will never fail to make the Publick Worship solemn and advance it beyond a decent formality But I would not be mistaken it is not the Dissenters I intend to befriend but the Church of England for as for them I declare I have no liking to any thing they say or do and am especially dissatisfied with their very bad manners It is difficult to abstain from an invective but that I think it would be thrown away upon them and that they are at present incorrigible This is not the season for instructing their Wisdoms we must wait for the mollia tempora fandi I thus conclude since that excellent person the Dean of Pauls hath been treated by them with such petulancies and rude insults for his Sermon of the mischiefs of Separation If a
Church the Bishops and the Clergie The Atheist the impious and profane have listed themselves Fanaticks that they might have the greater Liberty of reviling Religion it self with impunity Consider how the Church of England is used which is truly the Bulwark of the Protestant Religion About ten years since they designed to slight her works and demolish her by a general Indulgence and Toleration And now they intend to destroy her Garrison those that can and will defend her against Popery By one of their Pamphleteers the Separation is called an Usurpation upon the Government and all the Dissenters as such only Rebels and Traiterous to the King The same Gentleman would perswade the world that the ready way to extirpate Popery is by rooting out of Fanaticism whether saith he the Fanaticks bring on the Jesuits Plot or the Jesuits the Fanaticks is not a farthing matter But in the mean time that the Papists have a Plot on foot needs no proof That any sort of Protestants are engaged in a Plot cannot be proved But all honest Protestants of the Church of England think it more righteous to punish the Deceivers and pity the Deceived and wish them only cut off that make Divisions It is one way of curing or rather of extinguishing the Disease to kill the Patient but no Prince did ever yet provide Cut throats for his People in epidemical Diseases instead of Physicians But if the Papists could arm other Protestants against Dissenters there would be the less work for Papists to do And they will be sure to requite them for this Favour with Polyphemus his Courtesie For to give the Devil his due they are not themselves so fond of Massacres and destruction of Hereticks as to envy that employment to any other that will undertake it They had rather any other party of men should do the drudgery for them Besides what one sort of Protestants shall execute upon another will give them better pretence and more hardiness if they wanted either Pretence or Resolution to destroy such as they call Hereticks to execute the like destruction upon the Church-Protestants who certainly differ more from the Papists than the Separatists do from our Church Surely there is good reason they should be more sharply treated by the Papists than they treated the Dissenters And if they are in such sort used they must lay their hands upon their mouths and be silent before their Persecutors and acknowledge the righteous Judgment of God in bringing such tribulation upon them from their Enemies wherewith they troubled their own Brethren But there are better ways sure of putting an end to the Popish Plot than by putting it in Execution for them That is to say By suppressing that contumacy that is grown so rife in the Dissenters against the Church of England by putting the revilers of her Establishment and Order under the severest Penalties By the Church her condescention and indulgences to those that are weak and scrupulous and the peaceable Dissenters such Condescention will not abate but magnifie her Authority The Church of England will not be by this means lost but her Governance preserv'd especially if the Relaxation that shall be made proceeds from her ex mero motu and is not imposed upon her by any secular Authority Nay she will become by this means more ample and venerable What Glories will then shine upon the heads of the Bishops We shall all rise up and call them blessed They will attain an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here and receive divine Honours while they live Their Order will be recovered into the highest Veneration and it will never be after a question in the English Church whether the Order of Bishops be Apostolical The Parliament will make all Laws yield and comply to such happy peaceable and gratious Intendments All the people will honour them as their common Saviours that shall thus snatch us from the very brink of Ruine and render the designs of the implacable Enemies of the Church ready to take effect to the destruction of our Religion and Nation utterly defeated But what punishments can we think too severe upon any that shall be guilty of such insolent Iniquity as not to allow that Liberty to the Church which they seek as a favour from her to themselves that will not let the Church escape their Censures when she graciously exempts them from her Censures and pities their Errors and Follies What Fines and Imprisonments Pillories and Scourgings do they deserve that persecute the Church with Revilings when they themselves are tolerated Their condemnation must be just whatever their doom be themselves being Judges They will suffer as evil doers and disturbers of the peace not for their Religion but for a most extravagant and intolerable unrighteousness They who will not tolerate others are themselves for that reason most intolerable Against these our Laws are to be sharpned and their iniquities to be punished by a Judge But the Statute of 35 Eliz. which punisheth dissatisfaction and peaceable withdrawings from the publick Worship with Exile and Death declares how odly the business of the Separation hath been managed and with what disadvantages to the Church as it doth also the impracticableness of Laws that make perhaps invincible prejudices and modest and peaceable dissatisfactions capitally criminal The execution of this Law is scarce possible It is by no means agreeable either to the Christian temper of our Church or his Majesties great Clemency of which he hath assured us in the general course of his Reign And especially for that that Law hath been very rarely proceeded upon A Gentleman that lay in Cambridge-Goal under the Judgment of that Law was reprieved by his Majesty with a great dislike expressed by him against that and such like severities Whatever extravagances of a few wild Fanaticks of that Age occasioned that Law the state of the Separation and of the Nation being quite altered from what it was then the execution of this Law now would be something like a Sheriffs serving a Writ out of date in another County which can have no effect but mischief to himself While our Dissenters are thus reasonably indulged and strictly obliged to their peaceable behaviour they can give no apprehensions to the Government either in Church or State This is all that is designed and all that they ought to have This certainly would be readily yielded them in this present juncture especially if the Evils of the late unhappy times did not stand upon their score But I perswade my self that as this course if it had been heretofore taken would have prevented one great cause of our late Troubles so it will in such measure prevent them from returning as the Separation can be accounted the cause of them As for the Sacriledge and Spoil which was then made upon our Church it could never have hapned but upon the dissolution of the Government nor can it even happen again That War would have been impossible if the Church-men
been ashamed of some of their works of darkness and do not bring into present use some of their most gross Impostures and some worse than Pagan Superstitions Yet when this light is extinguish'd it will be a most dismal and eternal Night upon the Christian world If we return to her our Ears will be bored and we shall be irredeemably enslaved The spirit of Popery if it returns and possesseth us again that hath been walking in the reformed Countries as in dry places seeking rest and finding none and finds us thus swept and garnisht will bring with it seven Devils more wicked than it self and our last estate will be worse than the first The Pride Cruelty and Avarice Domination and Luxury of their Priesthood will be aggravated upon us and the minds of the Laity more lowly depressed by Superstition and Ignorance The Gospel of Cardinal Palavicini will be the Canon of the Christian Religion or it may be something worse for who can tell what will be the Religion that that Church will offer in process of time to the world under the Christian-Name When the Pope by his pretended infallibility may make the Christian Religion what he please by interpreting adding altering or detracting with an uncontroulable Authority For us therefore to become Papists to return to the Church of Rome acknowledge the Popes Infallibility there is no other way to become Papists is virtually to betray the Christian Faith to renounce our Allegiance to our Lord Christ to prefer the Bulls of a profane Pope to the holy Oracles of God and the Revelation of Jesus God blessed for ever With this Religion therefore we can never make an accommodation we may as well make a Covenant with Hell This as Dr. Jackson one of the glories of the Church of England in his Book called The Eternal Truth of Scriptures vehemently admonisheth us admits no terms of parley for any possible reconcilement whose following words to this purpose I shall here transcribe The natural separation of this Island from those Countries wherein this Doctrine is professed shall serve as an everlasting Emblem of the Inhabitants divided Hearts at least in this point of Religion And let them O Lord be cut off speedily from amongst us and their Posterity transported hence never to enjoy again the least good thing this Land affords Let no print of their Memory be extant so much as in a Tree or Stone within our Coast Or let their Names by such as remain here after them be never mentioned or always to their endless shame Who living here amongst us will not imprint these or the like wishes in their Hearts and daily mention them in their Prayers Littora Littoribus contraria fluctibus undas Imprecor arma armis pugnent ipsique Nepotes Which he thus renders Let our forein Coasts joyn Battel in the Main E're this foul Blasphemy Great Britain ever stain Where never let it come but floating in a Flood Of our our Nephews and their Childrens blood I shall only subjoyn my hearty Desires and Prayers that we may all fear God and be zealous for his true Religion Honour the King and firmly adhere to the Government and in our several places steadily oppose and resist those Villains that are given to change That by our Vnion we may defeat the crafty designs of our cruel and implacable Enemies who if they can continue those Divisions they have made amongst us by their wicked Arts will certainly at length destroy us who are bent upon our destruction though they themselves perish with us we cease to be a Nation and our Language be forgotten in a foreign Captivity Sir Now I have given you my Answer to your Reasons to disswade me from publishing the Argument for the Bishops by representing how few of the Clergy can with reason be thought guilty of Opinions so mischievous to the Church and State which you charge to have generally corrupted them and how easily and with little consideration they will be laid aside by them I will make no other Apologie for the publishing this than that I have communicated these thoughts to no Man alive either of the Church of England or any other denomination or consulted any mans advice about it That I can serve to design of no party of men herein nor any particular design of my own I wish they can be serviceable in the least degree to publick good I have had them by me a great while and have considered them under the several varieties of temper that our bodies are disposed to which induce different thoughts and various apprehensions in most things under the several passions that the fluctuation of publick affairs have occasioned under the Ebbs and Flows of Hopes and Fears in reference to the state of the Kingdom for some length of time And finding them to have the same appearance and to give me the same satisfaction in all their several postures and the views that I could take of them I assure my self I was sincere when I thought and that they result meerly from my Judgment such as it is uncorrupted That I am not perverted or biassed by any secret passion or desire of any sort which many times lurk and steal upon us deceive us unawares and undiscernedly abuse us Sir the sum of my Apologie is this that I know my self sincere of honest Intentions moved by nothing but a hearty love and affection to our King Religion and Country And for what any man shall think of me I am not Solicitous Yours T. H. The Great and Weighty CONSIDERATIONS Relating to the Duke of York OR Successor of the Crown Offered to the KING and both Houses of Parliament CONSIDERED WITH An ANSWER to a LETTER from a Gentleman of Quality in the Country to his Friend relating to the Point of Succession to the Crown Whereunto is added A short HISTORICAL COLLECTION touching the same LONDON Printed for the Author and are to be Sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster 1682. TO THE READER I Have in the Postscript offered Reasons of the Lawfulness of an Act of Exclusion which to all true Protestants must needs be desirable if it can be lawfully obtained Yet for the farther satisfaction of unthinking people and Men of weak Minds who are never certain especially in great Matters where Men of Note are divided in their Opinions but for that very Reason where they have no direct Reason to guide them in forming their Judgment remain scrupulous if not doubtful and for that they doubt they must therefore conclude the Matter as to themselves at least unlawful I have Reprinted these Discourses that were Printed near three years since in Answer to two Books written by two Eminent Persons the first supposed to be writ by a great Secretary the other by a notable Lawyer thereto employed under promises and expectations of great Preferments This mans Book especially is highly applauded by the Ducal Party his very words made the stile of the