variety of Flowers may grow on the same Bank so may Protestants and Papists live in England Vnion in Affection is not inconsistent with disagreement of Opinion c. Considerations moving to a Toleration and Liberty of Conscience page the 3d Consideration the 6th The Pensilvanian tells us he cannot but admire His the Answerer's Wisdom Manners or Justice in his Reflections upon the Roman Catholicks after the Assurances that so great an one of their Communion has given him and his Friends of their Security and Protection page the 26th And now are not the Roman Catholicks bound to give him thanks for his great Civility to them who have done worse both by them and the great Man of their Communion than barely to reflect on them though they have done that sufficiently too Remember the Character of a Popish Successor the Virulent Appeal to the City Julian the Apostate the Fanatick Plot the use these Good Men made of the late Toleration and tell me if these are not a sort of Trusty Friends for Roman Catholicks to rely on Doubtless it is as little their interest to procure a Toleration for the Dissenters as it is that of the Church Men as things now stand and they are wise Men and know it and if the Liberty of Conscience-Men were not Num-skulls they would never have made these fulsome Applications at this time of the day Well but whatever the Dissenters have been there are three or four small Pamphleteers will give the King their worshipful words for their good behaviour for the Future In good time But suppose it proves otherwise what then Why he is deceived they good Men will cry who could have thought it But I will answer this in the Words of the Noble Peer the late Earl of Shaftsbury a special Friend of theirs If a French Nobleman saith he should come to dwell in my House and Family I should think it concern'd me to aâ—k what he did in France for if he were there a Felon a Rogue a Plunderer I should desire hem to live else-where and I hope your Lordships will do the same thing for the Nation if you find the same cause Now there is no need of an enquiry here we have tryed them and know by experience what they are and then his Lordship will inform us what we are to do But we are told all the ill things they have done is because there are Laws made against them and they would be quiet if they might have their minds As to the first of these ex malis Moribus bonae oriuntur Leges there was ill and disloyol Practices against the State by Seditious Sectaries before there was any Law made against them Look into the preamble of the 35 of Eliz. c. 1. which was the first Law that was made against them and see if be not so and as for all the rest we can remember upon what occasions they were made And now if they were so turbulent before there was any Law and have been so unruly and ungovernable notwithstanding the Laws have hung over their Heads and have some times been seasonably Executed upon them what may we expect they will be when the Laws and with them all Fear and Aw is removed Men of Wisdom will try as few Conclusions in point of Government as is possible because they weaken Authority and strengthen Factions And I am fully perswaded these Gentlemen do no more hope to obtain a Toleration than I fear they will they do neither Write nor Act as if they did What then is the Design Why it is hard to dive into the Secrets of Men but yet a Man may conjecture at them with submission to wiser Heads First upon his now Majesties coming to the Crown the whole Party were Thunder-struck they knew how they had used him and therefore expected he would treat them tho' not as they deserved yet otherwise than they desired and fearing at once his Valour Justice Activity and Constancy they sat down in Silence and Sorrow expecting the Event and who would be in an Insurrection Hereupon all the Trimmers and Half-way Men began to tack about to take the Sacrament go to Church Vote for Loyal Men imagining the Game was lost and no hopes of another Revolution No room for Seditious prate Cogging nor Flattery In this Melancholly Mood his Grace found them when he Published his Essay and it was a Work which no meaner Person durst have began But we see there is enough that will follow Secondly the Parliament drawing on apace they expect the Press will then be restrain'd so that what they do they must do quickly for their Affairs are desperate and meer desperation makes them Valiant and if they cannot prevent the fatal Blow they will yet try if they cannot Revenge it and render the Church Party odious Lastly it is very probable they have some encouragement from their Friends in Holland and whilst they are preparing for a descent in Scotland this is a Stratagem to Alarm the Party in England and to let them see the Cause is not quite lost yet there are those that will stick to it and appear for Liberty of Conscience Hector the Church and plead for a forgetfulness of what ever is past that they may be in a Capacity to react all their old Crimes over again And if they meet with the least encouragement either at home or abroad the least countenance or belief I can easily foretel what the Event will be But if they find neither to suite their desires and that the next Parliament prove what they fear it will the People of the Whig Party must bear the smart and the Pamphleteers have only lost so much Paper and Time And if any of the Tribe fall into the Hands of Justice for it they hope to get more by the Compassion than they shall lose by the Suffering The Conclusion Thus do Men of No-Conscience no Honour nor Honesty pretend to be the Advocates for the Tender Consciences of other Men who have not much more than themselves If this Censure seems sharp let any Man consider how False and Impudent a thing it is to Sham the late Excluders upon the Church of England an Honest Turk would have scorn'd so base a Practice within five years after the Fact and in a Case wherein the whole Nation knows the contrary Now let no Man pretend to have a mighty Reverence for God or any Form of Religion who has not a little Veneration for Morality a Man of a Tender Conscience will never dare to lie and dissemble with God and Man And whereas they pretend the Church of England Party especially the Clergy Persecute them out of Worldly Interest and Carnal Policy I desire they would tell me how Christ can be the Head of opposite Bodies And consider this Place of Scripture and bless the World with a Commentary on it Revelations II. 20. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee because thou Sufferest or Toleratest that Woman Jezebel which calleth her self a Prophetess a Godly Woman to teach and to seduce my Servants to commit Fornication and to eat things Sacrificed to Idols Now I would fain know how long Toleration has been a Christian Virtue FINIS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chap. 24. Dr. Bates his History of the Rise and Progress of the late Troubles the 2d Part p. 96. in English Preface to the unreasonableness of Sepation p. 25 26. Novem. 1680. A Reply to the Answer of the Man of No Name The Pensilvanian pag. 27. Preface Vox Patriae The Defence of the D. of Buck page the 4th Address to the Freemen Part the 2d pag. 52.
AN APOLOGIE FOR THE Church of England AGAINST THE CLAMOURS Of the MEN of No-Conscience Or the DUKE of Buckingham's Seconds By E. B. Esquire Stulta est clementia cum tot Vbique Vatibus occurras periturae parcere Chartae LONDON Printed for W. Kettilby at the Bishops Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1685. AN APOLOGIE FOR THE Church of England Against the CLAMOURS Of the Men of No-Conscience THAT the House of Commons now Elected and within a very fews day to Sit is one of the most Loyal that this Nation has seen at any time since the Death of Queen Elizabeth is I suppose not doubted by any Man who has at all considered either who has Chosen them or who has been Chosen Whence then proceeds the insufferable Insolence and Impetuosity of the Dissenters from the Church of England just at this time and where may one guess the Design to terminate Liberty of Conscience is no new Plea it has fed the Press yea and maintain'd many of its Patrons too almost ever since the Year 1660. For before that time we had no great kindness for the Doctrine but only in relation to those who had imbroyl'd three Nations in Blood and Misery and yet all they could not find in their hearts to allow it to their own dear Brethren neither for the Presbyterians opposed and both wrote and Preached what they could against it as has been proved beyond a possibility of Contradiction from their own Prints and when they were reduced to so low a Condition that they could neither grant nor deny it Oliver Cromwell and the Independant Party would never grant this Liberty either to the Roman Catholicks or to the Members of the Church of England and which was more than Barbarous they would not suffer CHARLES the First of Blessed Memory when under restraint by them to have any one of his own Chaplains with him which Extorted this bitter Complaint from him To deny me the Ghostly Comfort of my Chaplains seems a greater Rigour and Barbarity than is ever used by Christians to the meanest Prisoners and greatest Malefactors whom tho' the Justice of the Law deprived of worldly Comforts yet the Mercy of Religion allows them the Benefit of their Clergy as not aiming at once to destroy their Bodies and to damn their Souls But my Agony must not be relieved with the Presence of any one good Angel for such I account a Learned Godly and Discreet Divine And a little before this he has this Expression The Solitude they have confin'd me unto adds the Wilderness to my Temptations for the Company they obtrude upon me is more sad than any Solitude can be When after this they had inhumanly Murthered him and the Duke of Richmond the Marquess of Hertford and the Earls of Southampton and Lindsey together with the Bishop of London had taken upon them the Care and Charge of Interring their Murdered Master and thereupon Petitioned with great Humility to have Liberty to Read the Liturgie appointed for that Purpose it was denyed and they forced to Deposite him in Silence and Sorrow How the English Puritans treated the Son after the Death of the Father is very well known but they of Scotland pretended to oblige him Call'd him in and promised to Crown him But did they allow him the Liberty of his Conscience No he must take the Covenant first and be converted And one Evening walking in the Garden a couple of Dapper Covenant-Levites making up to him very severely chid him for Profaning the Lords Day by a Walk tho' he had heard two Sermons and been publickly at Morning and Evening Prayers that day besides other private Meditations he was much given to This was all the Liberty of Conscience they would allow their Prince in Scotland whereas in England they sought his Blood How they treated the Episcopal or Prelatical Party during the Rebellion is well enough remembred and after the King was restored and the Laws thereby return'd to their former Force and Vigor yet they pretended even then to fear they had sinn'd against the Lord by suffering Popery so they call'd the Service of the Church of England to be set up and did what they could to hinder it Till an Act of Parliament brought them under And ever since the Act of Uniformity passed they have been Bauling for Liberty of Conscience At length in the beginning of 1672 they by the assistance of the Roman Catholicks obtained an Indulgence of the Late King what use did they make of it Why one of the furious Dissenters suspected the kindness and made Queries upon the Declaration wherein he represented it as a Stratagem to introduce Popeâ—y and Arbitrary Government And though there were others which defended it with that inconvenience annexed to it till they were in a Capacity to do their own business without them yet after they had set a foot the Popish Plot and possess'd themselves of the Affections of the Populace then the Note was altered and the Papists was declared one whose Worship to us is Idolatry and we cannot therefore allow them the Liberty of Publick Assembling as others of the Separation This very passage but five years before was Worded thus But as for the Common Papist who lives Innocently in his way he is to us the Dissenters as other Separatists and so comes under the like Toleration So in 1675 it was lawful to tolerate the Popish Recusants because they could not be Tolerated themselves without their assistance But in 1680. when they were in their Ruff and had as they thought brought all under their Feet then it was unlawful And now again in 1685. it is not only become Lawful but absolutely necessary These are your Men of Conscience I pray what was the pretended Reason for Excluding His present Majesty Resolved Nemine contradicente That the Duke of York 's being a Papist and the hopes of his coming such to the Crown hath given the greatest countenance and encouragement to the present Designs and Conspiracies against the King and Protestant Religion Resolved That a Bill be brought in to disable the Duke of York to inherit the Imperiul Crown of this Realm Well but one of them tells us Now. Who knows not that they were such as hardly knew how to Pray but out of our Liturgy that attempted to Exclude the Presumptive Heir to the Crown upon the score of his Religion Another follows the cry thus Let him the Answerer be just and he will find the Excluders almost every Sunday at their Parish Churches and if three quarters of them were to pray for their Lives it may be they could better read their Clergy than say their Prayers without the Publick Liturgy The other quarter tho' were gifted Brethren in this Gentleman's esteem whereas with the former they were all Church of England Men. Why the Author of Julian the Apostate will tell you the Addressers with a brave and warm Zeal for the Protestant Religion
and a Protestant Prince generously offered their Lives and Fortunes and the last drop of Blood in defence of his Majesty and the Religion now Established by Law and by the same Lives and Fortunes and last drop of Blood are promised over again to a Popish Successour What is this saith he but clapping cold Snow upon the head of all their Protestant Zeal For he that offers his Service to both these together lists himself under two the most Adverse Parties in the World and is Guelph and Gibeline both at once What Benefit a Popish Successour can reap from Lives and Fortunes spent in defence of the Protestant Religion he may put in his Eyes And what the Protestant Religion gets by Lives and Fortunes spent in the Service of a Popish Successor will be over the left Shoulder The poor Levice was fain to rifle the Alcoran for a simile to represent this Contradiction by Now Gentlemen were these Addressers Church of England Men or Dissenters Was this Book cryed up by Whiggs or Tories It is but five years ago since the Vote pass'd less since Julian was Printed rub up your Memories and try if you can possibly recollect who was for the Exclusion and who was against it Who addressed to the Oxford Members and who to the King after the Dissolution of the Oxford Parliament and then tell me if your Fore-heads be not a little steel'd to talk at this rate and whereabouts a Dissenters Conscience may be found before we allow it Liberty Well but Liberty of Conscience is the thing they want and must have it if it be possible but all the Craft is in the catching now they know that the Law stands in the way and how to get rid of that is the difficulty First They accost the King and impudently tell him that they good Men never attempted to Exclude him and the consequence is that he must grant them Liberty of Conscience Why if they had never attempted it this was but a Negative Obligation and goes no further than if I should accost a Great Man I never saw before and beg a Favour because I never did him an Injury But here the King knows the contrary that they did attempt to Exclude him and had certainly passed an Act to that purpose if the late King had not with the assistance of the Lords and Loyal true Church of England Men oppos'd and baffled them Well but suppose he would help them to the thing they want there are established Laws in his way and he cannot repeal them but by other Laws and they must pass in Parliament and by the Consent of the Lords and Commons and time enough it had been to have made their Application to him and them in Parliament but of what use are these numerous Pamphlets in the mean time but to fire the Rabble make them ungovernable And suppose the King should to gratifie them do it by his Prerogative without Act of Parliament as the late King did what Reason hath he to expect any other return than his Brother found and that is to be represented forthwith to the Nation as one that designed to introduce Arbitrary Government and Popery and so to have his Throne undermin'd and his Government made unsafe and uneasie And in the mean time have they not gone as far as they could or durst since his Establishment to imbroyl his affairs to chuse those very Men into this Parliament that endeavoured to Exclude him in three last And is there not now Arms bought and Ships put to Sea to the intent to invade his Dominions by those of this Party that have fled for attempting to Murder him at the Rie with his Brother the late King And have they not endeavoured to recommend his Rival to the People here tho' there was no body to back them And after all this is it reasonable that he should loose the Reins and give Liberty to such enraged false perfidious Men as these are who have done what they could to ruin him in spite of all restraint Believe me they expect no such thing from him but make all the impudent applications to make him more odious to the Party by his denial Well they seem to have little reason to expect any favour from the King but what Friends may they expect in the States in this Parliament As to the Church of England Lords and Commons they have laid the Bill of Exclusion at their Doors turn'd over all the Excluders to them and washed their own hands of them as Pilot did of our Saviour's Blood with a See you to it I am innocent Now as this is the most impudent falshood that ever was spoken by Men so it is the basest Reproach the basest dishonour and I doubt not but they will accordingly resent it when time shall serve But many I might say almost all the Commons have been most basely traduced by these Men for sticking to the King against the Excluders many of them were excluded out of the Westminster and Oxford Parliament for Papists Abhorrers and Favourers of Papists or as the word was Adherents to the Papists many of them have been sent for up into Custody turn'd out of the House with Disgrace imprison'd and put to great Charges for their Loyalty all of them have been designed for Slaughter and Ruin as MEN-WORTHY by the WORTHY-MEN And after all this can they expect they will throw up the Laws and put themselves into the power of these Furies Is this the way to bespeak their Pity or obtain their Favour As to the Bishops which make the other part of the upper House what Injury could the Wit of Man devise which in the time of the late Popish Plot they did not heap upon them to make them odious to the King and to the People Did they not dispute their Priviledges in Parliament endeavour to make them appear guilty of the Plot did they not traduce them as this Kings fast Friends and therefore Enemies to the Protestant Religion And in all the late Pamphlets have they not represented them as the worst of Men together with the rest of the Loyal Clergy Take off the thing that pinches take off Prosecution do but change the Saddles and set them both aright and see then whether the Church-men or the Fanaticks and Catholicks will be most Governable That is persecute the Church-men and bestow the Bishoppricks and Church Revenues amongst the Catholicks and Phanaticks and see which will be best qualited best pleased most Humble and most Dutiful Subjects A rare expedient Well but when all other helps fails they expect some assistance from the Roman Catholicks His Grace leads the Dance and shews some kindness for Transubstantiation page the 7th The Reply tells One thing I must say Roman Catholicks have been Loyal in England and Holland and Presbyterians in France and the German Principalities page 22. Well but how have you and your Tribe rewarded them for their Loyalty Another thus As a