by Oath to those Princes but have now submitted to him and sworn new Allegiance are obliged to venture their Lives and Fortunes by vertue of their old Oaths to restore those Cities to their former Masters doubtless he would solve their Scruples with a Halter if he found they attempted it Besides the Injuries as they are called done to the late King by his own Acts if they were capable of Reparation must not be repaired with the injuring yea ruining many thousand innocent Persons who must unavoidably lose their Lives and be undone in their Estates by his returning by Force The present King and his Army are bound by Oaths Duty and Interest to oppose him so are all now protected by him and who have sworn Allegiance to him and 't is certain all that are not perjur'd Hypocrites will do so And then what Englishmans Bowels must not Bleed to consider what Murthers Burning Plundering and Destruction he brings upon his Native-Country who encourages the Aggressors If he have any Kindness for us whom he calls his Subjects he would rather sit quietly under his single Injuries than wish or however attempt to be restored by Blood and an Universal Ruin And if he have no Pity for us why should we be so concerned for him as to Sacrifice our Lives and Fortunes to his Revenge He went away while a Treaty was on Foot and nothing but a Treaty can restore him fairly which he never yet offered We did not force him to go away in Disguise and if he will force himself upon us again by French Dragoons and Irish Cut-Throats we may and must Oppose him for our Allegiance is now transferred to another Finally there is no Injury to any but himself and those who run into Voluntary Exile with him by his being out of the Possession the Monarchy the Law the Church and Property are all in better Estate than in his time and all these with innumerable private Persons must be irreparably injured by his Return in an Hostile manner So that there can be no reason to redress the sufferings he ows to his own Faults by so many publick and private Injuries If it be pleaded that he who was born to a Kingdom really wants Subsistance I reply that if he would seek the Peace of Christendom and of his late Subjects he might by a fair Treaty set on foot not only restore the Exiles but have a sufficient and honourable Maintenance from this Government but while the War he makes upon it puts us to so great Expence he cannot expect it nor imagin we should give him a Supply to enable him to ruin us The Second Pretence why we should assist towards his Restauration is to deliver our selves from the Oppression we suffer under the present King And to set off this with a better Gloss the late Reign is magnified by the Jesuits and their Tools and this blackned Freedom from Taxes then is made a rare Instance of his Gentleness and the present Impositions heightned with all the Rhetorick imaginable to represent this King as an Oppressor The flourishing of Trade then is extolled the decay of it now odiously insinuated and great hopes are given of Golden Days upon the Return of James the Just he is to make us all happy Now to answer this there is no need to make a Satyr on that Reign or a Panegyrick on this that is so well remembred and this so fully known that all unprejudiced People see on which side the Truth lies But 't is great Pity they who have the Wit to invent or urge this Plea have not a Memory to remind them that none complained more of the Danger of Law and Religion of our Lives and Fortunes in that Reign than many who have this high Opinion of it now the Cruel Severities in the West the High Commission turning out of Office all good Protestants attempting to reverse all the Penal Laws putting unqualified Men into all Places of Trust Profit and Power excluding the Fellows of Magdalen and putting in Papists with the Imprisonment and Trial of the Bishops were thought Oppressions then but now all these are buried in Oblivion and those Taxes which the late King and his Ally of France with their Abettors alone make necessary to this Frugal Prince these are our only Grievance and this Kings unpardonable Crime The late King had one Tax and might yea would have had more for the glorious Design of enslaving his Subjects if he could have got a Parliament to his Purpose which he vigorously endeavoured and it was because he was sure he must satisfie his People in their just Complaints when ever he asked a Supply that he durst not ask it of a freely chosen Parliament yet then we were in Peace with all Nations and now he hath intangled us in a War with the worst Enemy in Europe Assessments then were not needed but to hasten our Ruin now they are absolutely necessary to our Safeâ—y and made so by him and his complaining Friends Yet still what Grievances are these Taxes in comparison of what is laid on the French Slaves into whose Condition we were intended to be brought There is a vast difference between losing our Property for ever and paying some part of our Profits to secure the rest and our Inheritances to our Posterity as well as our Selves Besides should we not leap out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire if to avoid tolerable Payments we should rashly bring a fatal War to our Doors that must last till more than one half of the Nation be destroyed and the rest utterly and almost irrecoverably impoverished This I am sure is voluntarily to change our Whips for Scorpions We have paid as much formerly for assisting France to ruine Europe and maintain Vice at Home as now serves to deliver Europe and secure our Native Country and Religion from utter Destruction Nor are the Sums considerable reckoning the Abatement of Chimney-Mony which we have paid to this Government no Country in Europe hath paid so little in proportion to our Wealth these last Three Years of War And if the late King return England must pay all the Sums borrowed of France to maintain him abroad to keep Ireland and to discharge the Forces that come to thrust him on us and must stay to compleat the happy Design of setting up Popery and Slavery the natural consequences of his Restauration and 't is well if Arrears of Chimney-Mony and other publick Monies be not called for to carry on so glorious a Work So that if England rebel against the present King to avoid the Burthens now upon them they expose themselves to Ten times greater Taxes for many Years and it can end in nothing but the utter Impoverishing of the whole Nation especially the Protestant part of it who by their Poverty will become a more easie Prey As for Trade the Decay of it began in the late King's time and it is the War which he and France have engaged us
May 25th 1692. Let this be Printed Nottingham THE PRETENCES OF THE French Invasion EXAMINED FOR THE INFORMATION OF THE PEOPLE of ENGLAND LONDON Printed for R. Clavel at the Peacock in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1692. A Catalogue of some Books lately Printed and Reprinted for Robert Clavel at the Peacock in S. Paul's Church-Yard THE State of the Protestants of Ireland under the late King James's Government in which their Carriage towards him is justified and the absolute Necessity of their Endeavouring to be freed from his Government and of submitting to their present Majesties is demonstrated Writ by Bishop King Licensed by the Right Honourable the Earl of Nottingham The Third Edition with Additions The Frauds of the Romish Monks and Priests set forth in Eight Letters lately Written by a Gentleman in his Journey into Italy The Third Edition very fairly printed Observations on a Journey to Naples wherein the Frauds of Romish Monks and Priests are farther discover'd By the Author of the former Book Forms of Private Devotions for every Day in the Week by a Method agreeable to the Liturgy with Occasional Prayers and an Office for the Holy Communion and for the time of Sickness L. Annaei Flori Rerum Romanarum Epitome interpretatione Notis illustravit Anna Tanaquilli Fabri Filia Jessu Christianismi Regis in usum Serenissime Delphini In a large 8vo curiously Printed LEVSDEN's Greek Testament The Fifth Edition A Defence of Pluralities or holding two Benefices with Cure of Souls as it is now practised in the Church of England THE PRETENCES OF THE French Invasion EXAMINED For the Information of the People of England THat the Sword hath thus long been kept from destroying among us is a Blessing which we cannot sufficiently understand unless we consider the woful Desolation it hath made in all Neighbouring Nations Nor are they at all sensible how much they owe to God and their Majesties for keeping us in Peace who give the least Encouragement to this intended Descent which must turn our Land into an Aceldama and will make such woful Havock of our Lives and Fortunes while one party fights for Safety and the other for Revenge that no Age can parallel the horrid Consequences of such a Civil War as this will prove And if Papists only blinded by Zeal for their Religion and blown up with hopes of absolute Empire encouraged this bloody design it would be no Wonder and could have no Success considering the general Aversion of the People to them and the fresh Instances of their Insolence and Cruelty But alas It appears that many who call themselves Protestants are engaged in this fatal Conspiracy against their Religion and their Native-Country which is so prodigious and amazing that a Man would wonder who hath bewitched these foolish Galatians to push on their own and the Churches Ruin And every one must be inquisitive into the specious pretences by which these Men are induced to become their own Executioners Now the pretended Motives are these 1. Repairing the Injury done to the late King 2. Delivering us from the Oppressions we suffer under the present King 3. Setling the Government upon its old Basis. 4. Securing the Protestant Religion for all future Ages Now it becomes every true English Protestant to examine these Pretences very well before he venture on a thing of so evil Appearance and dangerous Consequence as is the joyning with these Invaders First It is pretended the late King was unjustly deprived of his Birth-right by his Subjects who by Nature and Oaths were bound to defend him in the Possession of it And now that he comes to demand his own all that ever were his Subjects must either assist or at least not oppose him But let it be considered that all the late Kings Sufferings were owing to and caused by the Counsels of his Popish-Priests and the Bigots of that Persuasion Protestants were not the Aggressors he might have kept his Possession to this day undisturbed if he had not made such open and bold Attempts upon our Laws our Religion and Properties so that he was the first and only Cause of his own Sufferings and why should Millions be involved in Blood and Ruin who are perfectly Innocent of doing this Injury No free Nation did ever bear more or greater Injuries or endure such Violences so long or so patiently as we did And when some Stop was to be put to the final Ruin of our Liberties and Religion it was done at first by Petitions and Complaints and when they were despised none but defensive Arms were taken up by some few and by a Foreign Prince only to cover their Heads while the Grievances were fairly redressed not to take away his Rights but to secure our own Nor did the Prince of Orange or these Gentlemen devest or deprive him of his Throne but owned his Right by offering a Treaty during the continuance of which he disbanded his Army dissolved his Government and as much as in him lay attempted to desert the Throne and seek Aids from an Enemies Country which might secure him against redressing any Grievances and enable him to be revenged upon the injured Complainers We did not make the Throne vacant but the late Archbishop and other Peers at Guildhall believed he had left it void or else they would not without his Consent have seized on the Administration of the Government secured his Chancellor taken possession of the Tower and offered the Exercise of the Supream-Power to the Prince of Orange He left us in Anarchy and we provided for our selves in the best manner such a Juncture would allow I will not enquire now whether these Subjects who are so Zealous for his Return were not bound to do more than they did to keep him in his Throne while he had it their Conscience then permitted them to look on and let him sink while his Security had been far more easily compassed But they who have now these unseasonable Pangs of their old Loyalty must consider that a Man may leave his Right when he pleaseth but may not take it again at his pleasure especially not by Force and this most especially as to Soveraign Power Some Body must govern when he would not the next undoubted Heir in an Hereditary Monarchy must and whoever doth govern in Chief in this Nation must be King by our Constitution and must have Power sufficient to protect himself and the Nation against all their Enemies and that cannot be without Swearing new Allegiance Now when a King and Queen are declared submitted to and owned by Oaths and all other Methods required in such Case The King is not at liberty to give up his own Power and the Protection of us nor are the People free to joyn with him that deserted them or to venture their Necks or their Countries Ruin to restore him I dare say that the French King will not grant that the Citizens of those Cities who were Subjects to Spain or the Emperour and bound
in that still keeps it at a low Ebb so that for the late King's Friends to expose the present Government for this is like a Conjurers complaining of the Storms he raises That ingenious History of Bishop King 's of the Estate of the Protestants in Ireland under King James makes it out that the late King feared and hated the increase of Trade which made him use all means to hinder it and all the World fees that no Absolute Monarch as he affects to be likes that his Subjects should grow rich by Trade But our present King so soon as he can have Peace will make it his first Care to promote Trade here as he did in the Country he came from and even in the difficult times he had Trade hath been a great part of his and his Parliaments Care Finally if Men can remember the times that are so lately past when Law and Right was only the King's Pleasure dictated by Mercenary Judges when no Party but the Papists flourished when a general Consternation had stopt all Business they cannot hope to be happy by his Return who caused all these Miseries And they must expect now he hath more perfectly Learned the French Methods of making a King the greatest of Monarchs by making his Subjects the vilest of Slaves that he will practise it with greater Industry and Application than ever to put it eternally out of his Subjects Power to protect themselves again For oppressing his People which was but expedient before will now be thought absolutely necessary So that nothing can be more improbable not to say impossible than for England to be happy under him that attempted to make her Miserable without any provocation and must return with the same Principles and Designs the same Counsellors and Interests he had before and with all the addition that Revenge Hatred and Fear can make to an angry and implacable Mind But it may be said his Dear-bought Experience of the ill success of these Methods will make him rule more moderately if he be restored To which I reply Coelum non Animum mutat The fore-cited Book of Bishop King's demonstrates that after he had lost England and Scotland and a great part of Ireland upon his Return thither from France he was more Arbitrary and hard to his Protestant Obedient Subjects than ever he had been before even though it was against his visible Interest and tended to disgust all the Protestants who would have served him there His declaring himself Papist at first here and all his Actions since shew that he prefers his Will and an obstinate pursuing his own Methods far above his true Interest whence it follows that we vainly expect from one of his Temper that either his past Experience or his future Interest should teach him Moderation any longer than till he hath Power to oppress us And if he should by a Thousand Promises or Oaths engage to rule by Law his frequent breach of both hath given us no reason to trust him and the Religion he professes can so easily dispence with both that neither of them give us any security from that sort of Obligations The Interests of Popery and France require he should be Absolute and his Nature spurs him on to it and nothing but Fear can for a Moment restrain him from being so What a shadow of a Dream then must this be of Protestant Subjects being happy under a bigotted Popish Prince of such a Temper Thirdly Whereas 't is said we have changed our old Hereditary Monarchy into one meerly Elective and by degrees shall bring it to a Common-wealth nor can any thing prevent this which will be of Fatal consequence to the Church but our restoring the late King I answer the Position is false and the Consequence a meer Sham the Government of England always was and ever must be Monarchical that Twelve Years when it was endeavoured to make it otherwise convinced all Men that all Projects to the contrary must come to nothing As for this Revolution 't is not likely a Parliament which made an Entail of the Crown in a Lineal Succession should be for setting up a Common-wealth or altering the Hereditary Monarchy If it be alledged there was a great Breach as to the Person of the Reigning King 't is replyed he himself made it and they did not make but find the Throne void And there have been greater Breaches since the Conquest as to the true Lineal Succession and laying aside yea deposing the Reigning King and setting up his Son or a Remoter Person which indeed was an Injury to the Kings so Deposed but still the Monarchy was called and continued to be Hereditary In our case the King deserted us yea left us without any Government but we applied to his next certain Heir with whom at her Request and for our Safety and hers by general consent a Title was given to her Husband and our Deliverer but this only for Life though he be much nearer in Blood to the Right of Succession than either Henry the Fourth or Henry the Seventh successively made Kings of England And the saving the Succession to the Princess of Denmark and her Heirs shews how far that Parliament was from designing any such thing as a Common-wealth We see Philip of Spain who had no Title to be King of England but by his Marriage with Queen Mary was made King at her Request and in her Right but he had not merited so much as our King and therefore his Title was to cease at her Death As for the Prince of Wales there are so clear Indications of his Birth being an Imposture and the Design of forming that Project is so known to be Revenge on the Princesses for adhering to their Religion and to get more time to force Popery and Slavery upon us yea his Health and Strength make it so unlikely he should proceed from such crazy Parents that till the Parties concerned prove the Affirmative by better Witnesses and clearer Evidence and the People of England in Parliament own him for the Heir we need not go about the unreasonable Task of proving a Negative Wherefore since the breach in the Succession was the late King 's own Act and only concerns his Person and a supposed unknown Heir we are not to answer for that and considering the hurry his unexpected Desertion put all things in and the absolute necessity of a speedy Settlement the Friends of the old English Monarchy have just cause to rejoyce it was made so near the old Foundation with a small and only Temporary Variation from it which was also absolutely necessary in that Juncture of Affairs And 't is evident that there are many of the best Quality and Interest who hate the notion of a Common-wealth in England and love Monarchy as well as any of the late King's Abettors who freely consented and firmly adhere to this Establishment If it be objected that King William was bred up in a Common-wealth and inclines to