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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A40496 A friendly letter to Father Petre, concerning his part in the late King's government published for his defence and justification. 1690 (1690) Wing F2224; ESTC R5400 19,576 33

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A Friendly Letter TO Father Petre. Concerning his Part in the Late KING's GOVERNMENT Published for his Defence and Justification Licens'd May 3. 1690. J. Fraser LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwin in the Old-Baily MDCXC A Friendly Letter to FATHER PETRE c. Reverend Father HAving some particular Obligation to you more than every body knows I thought my self obliged in point of Gratitude which goes a great way in my Religion though it is nothing in yours to endeavour to make you some kind of Requital and not knowing now where to find you or any of your Friends I was at a great loss how to discharge my self of that Debt At last I considered that to do you a real piece of Service behind your Back were much better than an empty Thanks to your Face and I knew of no greater Service I could do you than to vindicate your Reputation to the World and to shew that you have always acted like an honest Man that is one that is true and constant to the Principles he Believes and Professes which I take to be a good definition of an Honest Man And this I do not at all fear to demonstrate to your greatest Enemies As a farther proof of my desire to serve you I will likewise make bold to offer your Reverence some Advice which if ever it has the luck to reach you and you have the Wisdom and Honesty to follow it I will presume to say shall establish your Reputation to all future Ages And in doing you these two pieces of Service I hope I shall fully discharge what Obligation I have to you and sufficiently shew my self your Friend But you will say How comes your Reputation to need a Vindication Sir I must deal plainly with you and tell you That I can go no where but I find every one blaming the strange miscarriages of the late King James and the wiser sort that knew that Prince well and how wholly devoted and given up he was to the Roman Catholic Religion say That it is impossible he should have gon on in such courses without the permission at least or rather the direction of his Spiritual Guide which you had favour to be So that whatsoever wrong course the late King fell into and persisted in you are to Answer for it to whose Guidance there is no doubt he wholly resigned himself and truly this you and I and all the World must grant But for your Vindication I will shew that in advising and encouraging the late King in all these things the Hereticks call Miscarriages you acted most agreeable to your Principles that is the true Principles of a Roman Catholic Guide of the Order of the Jesuits and therefore cannot I think but be confessed to be an honest man We will then descend to Particulars of what is laid to the late King's Charge and necessarily lights upon you the Guide of so devoted a Prince's Conscience First The Hereticks say That it is without Example and beyond any ingenuous man's Imagination that a Noble and an High-born Prince should for many years make it his Glory to have his Word esteemed most Sacred and raise men to the highest Trust and Confidence in it so that men were ready to Blaspheme when they talked of this subject and to compare his Word to the Word of God and say That Heaven and Earth could sooner pass away than his Word fail And when he had raised men to the highest confidence in it with the greatest solemnity to give this Sacred Word to his People first in his Privy Council and afterwards in full Parliament and to bind it with the highest Solemnity in his Coronation-Oath That he would invioably preserve to 'em what they accounted most dear that is the Laws of the Land and their Religion established by Law And yet that this Prince assoon as he was warm and as he thought safe in his Throne should without any regard to Honour without any fear of God or shame of Man so openly and apparently break this Sacred Word this they say is to do all that lies in a man's power to destroy all Trust and Confidence amongst Men and to put an end to humane Society Now that he did break this Sacred Word in the face of the Sun and in the sight of all Men no Man can be so senceless to deny that can but remember what was done with the Law of the Test that Bulwark of the Protestant Safety how it was wholly taken away by a total Dispensation and that with a bare-faced design to bring in Popery by making Popish Officers Masters of those they call Hereticks Lives and Fortunes which mischief that Law was only intended to prevent 'T is true a Law may be dispenced with in some particular cases where a thing is contrary to the Letter but not to the meaning of the Law because the Intent and Meaning of a Law is the Law But totally to dispence with a Law against the plain and whole Intent and Meaning of it is certainly to render the making of Laws Ridiculous and Useless and to dissolve the Constitution of the Government Then for preserving the Church of England according to his two solemn Promises in Council and Parliament and indeed his Promises an hundred times over to particular Persons Did He not say they take the right course to preserve the Church of England in setting up the Ecclesiastical Commission to call in question any that maintain'd the Doctrine of the Church of England against growing Popery which was Propagated Cherish'd and made to Grow as much as 't was possible in our cold and stubborn Climate on purpose to supplant and thrust out the Profession of the Church of England Did He not say they keep to his Word to defend and preserve the Church of England when as fast as the lesser Episcopal Sees became vacant for the good were kept for Original Catholicks he fill'd them up with such special Fellows the very Scum and Dregs of all the Clergy on purpose to make the Name of Protestant Bishops stink and be abhorr'd and to have fit Tools wherewith to Abuse Oppress Suspend and Deprive all the honest Clergy over whom he set these Beasts whose Filth and ill Manners prophan'd the very Name of Bishops Did He not say they begin finely to preserve the Church of England according to his Promise when he took care to poison the very Fountains and planted one of the best Colleges in Oxford with Jesuits This and the like stuff the Hereticks make a great noise with and say Was not Father Petre an accursed Villain to perswade and thrust on the poor Bigotted Prince to do things so manifestly contrary to his solemn and so often-repeated Profession But methinks I see you and your Brethren ready to burst your fides with laughing when you hear all this dismal Charge as Hereticks think it against you And so truly would any Man laugh heartily that understood any thing of Catholick Principles to