conformable Divines who have triumphed over it in elaborate Discourses and who have beaten the Romish Scriblers off the Stage Nor can it be thought that they who have so accurately related and vindicated the History and asserted an desended the Doctrine of the Reformation should either tamely relinquish or be wanting in all due and legal ways to uphold and maintain it And tho one or two Fanaticks have with sufficient strength and applause brandished their pens against Arbitrariness and in detecting the Designs of the Royal Brothers yet they who have generally and with greatest honor appeared for our Laws and Legal Government against the Invasions and Usurpations of the Court have been Theologues and Gentlemen of the Church of England Nor in case of further attempts for altering the Constitution and enslaving the Nation will they shew themselves unworthy the having descended from Ancestors whose Motto in the high places of the Field was Nolumus leges Angliae mutari They who have so often justified the Arms of the united Netherlands against their Rightful Princes the Kings of Spain and so unanswerably vindicated their casting off Obedience to those Monarchs when they had invaded their Priviledges and attempted to establish the Inquisition over them cannot be ignorant what their own Right and Duty is in behalf of the Protestant Religion and English Libertles for the security whereof we have not only so many Laws but the Coronation Oaths and Stipulations of our Kings And those Gentlemen of the Church of England who appeared so vigorously in three Parliaments for excluding the Duke of York from the Succession to the Crown by reason of a jealousie of what through being a Papist he would attempt against our Religion and Priviledges in case he were suffered to ascend the Throne cannot be now to seek what becomes them towards him tho actually Regnant having seen and felt what before they only apprehended and feared For if the Law that entalleth the Succession upon the next of Kin and obligeth the Subjects to admit and receive him not only may but ought to be dispensed with in case the Heir through having imbib'd Principles which threaten the safety and are inconsistent with the happiness of the People hath made himself incapable to inherit we know by a short Ratiocination how far we stand bound to a Prince on the Throne who by transgressing against the Laws of the Constitution hath abdicated himself from the Government and stands virtually deposed For whosoever shall offer to Rule arbitrarily does immediately cease to be King de jure seeing by the Fundamental Common and Stature Laws of the Realm we know none for Supream Magistrate and Governor but a limited Prince and one who stands circumscribed and bounded in his Power and Prerogative And should the Dissenters entertain a belief that the Conformists are less concerned and zealous than themselves for the Protestant Religion and Laws of the Kingdom they would not only sin and offend against the Rules of Charity but against the measures of Justice and daily Evidences from matters of Fact. For neither they not we owe our Conversion to God and our practical holiness to the Opinions about Discipline Forms of Worship and Ceremonies wherein we differ but to the Doctrines of Faith and Christian Obedience wherein we agree 'T is not their being for a Liturgy a Surprize or a Bishop that hath heretofore Influenced them to subserve the Court in Designs tending to Absoluteness but they were seduced unto it upon Motives whereof they are now ashamed and the ridiculousness and folly of which they have at last discovered Nor is the multitude of profligate and scandalous persons with which the Church of England is crowded any just impeachment of the purity of her Doctrine in the Vitals and Essentials of Religion or of the Virtue and Piety of many of her Members For as it is her being the only Society established by Law that attracts those Vermin to her Bosom so it is her being restrained by Law from debarring them that keeps them there to her reproach and to the grief of many of many of her Ecclesiasticls Neither is it the fault of the Church of England that the Agents and Factors for Popery and Arbitrary Power have chosen to pass under the name of her Sons but it proceeds partly from their Malice as hoping by that means to disgrace her with all true Englishmen as well as with Dissenters and partly from their Craft in order thereby the better to conceal their Design and to shrowd themselves from the Censure and Punishment which had it not been for that Mask they would have been exposed unto and have undergone And I dare affirm that besides the Obligations from Religion which the Conformists are equaâ—ly under with Dissenters for hindering the introduction of Popery there are several inducements from Interest which sway them to prevent its establishment wherein the Fanaticks are but little concerned For tho Popery would be alike afflictive to the Consciences of Protestants of all Perswasions yet they are Gentlemen and Ministers of the Church of England whose Livings Revenues and Estates are threatened in eâ—se it come to be established Nor wou'd the most Loyal and Obsequious Levites provided they resolve to continue Protestants be willing that their Parsonages and Incumbencies to which they have no less Right by Law than the King hath to the Excise and Customs should be taken from them and bestowed upon Romish Priests by an Act of Dispotical Power and of unlimited Prerogative And for the Gentlemen as I think sew of them would hold themselves obliged to part with their Purses to High-way Padders tâ—ough such should have a Patent from the King to rob whomsoever they encountred upon the Read so there will not be many inclined to suffer their Mannors and Abbey-Lands to which they have so good a Title to be ravished from them either by Monks or Janizaries tho authorized thereunto by the Prince's Commission Even they who had formerly suffered themselves to be seduced to prove in a manner Betrayers of the Rights and Religion of their Country will now being undeceived not only in conjunction with others withstand the Court in its prosecution of Popish and Arbitrary Designs but through a generous exasperation for having been deluded and abused will judg themselves obliged in vindication of their actings before to appear for the Protestant Religion and the Laws of England with a Zeal equal to that wherewith they contributed to the undermining and supplanting of them For they are not only become more sensible than they were of the Mischiefs of Absolute Government so as for the future to prize and assert the Priviledges reserved unto the People by the Rules of the Constitution and chalkt out for them in the Laws of the Land but they have such a fresh view of Popery both in its Heresies Blasphemies Superstitions and Idolatries and in the Treachery Sanguinariness Violence and Cruelty which the Papal Principles mould
THE ILL Effects of Animosities AMONG PROTESTANTS IN ENGLAND DETECTED AND The necessity of Love unto and Confidence in one another in order to withstand the Designs of their Common Enemies laid open and enforced Every Kingdom divided against it self is brought to desolation and every city or house divided against it self shall not stand Matth. xii 25. Dum pugnant singuli universi vincuntur Tacit. Printed in the Year 1688. IT is long since the Court of England under the Authority of the late King and his Brother was embarked in a design of subverting the Protestant Religion and of introducing and establishing Popery For the two Royal Brothers being in the time of their Exile seduced by the Caresles and importunities of their Mother allured by the promises and favours of Popish Princes and being wheedled by the Crafts and Arts of Priests and Jesuits who are cunning to deceive and knew how to prevail upon persons that were but weakly established in the Doctrine and wholly strangers to the practice and power of the Religion they were tempted from they not only abjured the Reformed Religion and became reconciled to the Church of Rome but by their example and the influence which they had over those that depended upon them both for present subsistence and future hopes they drew many that accompanied them in their Banishment to renounce the Doctrine Worship and Communion of the Church of England though in the War between Charles I. and the Parliament they had pretended to fight for them in equal conjunction with the Prerogatives of the Crown So that upon the Restoration in the year 1660. they were not only moulded and prepared themselves for promoting the desires of the Pope and his Emissaries but they were furnished with a stock of Gentlemen out of whom they might have a supply of Instruments both in Parliament and elsewhere to cooperate with and under them in the methods that should be judged most proper and subservient to the extirpation of Protestancy and the bringing the Nation again into a servitude to the Triple Crown And besides the Obligations that the Principles of the Religion to which they had revolted laid them under for eradicating the Established Doctrine and Worship they had bound themselves unto it by all the promises and Oaths which persons are capable of having proscribed unto and exacted of them Nor can any Now disbelieve his late Majesties having lived and died a Papist who hath either heard what he both said and did when under the prospect of approaching death and past hope of Acting a Part any longer on the present Stage or who have seen and read the two Papers left in his Closet which have been since published to the World and attested for Authentick by the present King. And had we been so just to our selves as to have examined the whole course of his Reign both in his Alliances abroad and his most important Counsels and Actions at home or had we hearkned to the reports of those who knew him at Collen and in Flanders we had been long ago convinced of what Religion he was Nor were his many repeated protestations of his Zeal for Protestancy but in order to delude the Nation till insensibly as to us and with safety to himself he had overturned the Religion which he pretended to own and had introduced that which he inveighed against And while with the highest asseverations he disclaimed the being what he really was and with most sacred and tremendous Oaths professed the being what he was not his Religion might in the mean time have been traced through all the signal occurrences of his Government and have been discerned written in Capital Letters through all the material affairs wherein he was engaged from the day he ascended the Throne till the hour he left the World. His entring into two Wars against the Dutch without any provocation on their part or ground on his save their being a Protestant State his being not only conscious unto but enterposing his commands as well as encouragements for the burning of London his concurrence in all the parts of the Popish Plot except that which the Jesuits with a few others were involved in against himself his stifling that Conspiracy and delivering the Roman Catholicks from the dangers into which it had cast them his being the Author of so many forged Plots which he caused to be charged upon Protestants his constant Confederacies with France to the dissobliging his people the betraying of Europe the neglect of the Reformed in that Kingdom and the encouraging the design carried on against them for their extirpation his entailing the Duke of York upon the Nation contrary to the desires and endeavours of three several Parliaments and that not out of love to his Person but affection to Popery which he knew that Gentleman would introduce and establish all these besides many other things which might be named were sufficient evidences of the late Kings Religion and of the design he was ingaged in for the Subversion of ours So that it would fill a sober person with amazement to think that after all this there should be so many sincere Protestants and true Englishmen who not only believed the late King to be of the Reformed Religion but with an insatiableness thirsted after the blood of those that durst otherwise represent him And had it not been for his receiving Absolution and Extreme Unction from a Popish Priest at his death and for what he left in Writing in the two Papers found in his Strong Box he would have still passed for a Prince who had lived and died a Cordial and Zealous Protestant and whosoever had muttered any thing to the contrary would have been branded for a Villian and an execrable person But with what a scent and odour must it recommend his memory to them to consider his having not only lived and died in the Communion of the Church of Rome in contradiction to all his publick Speeches solemn Declarations and highest Asserverations to his people in Parliament but his participating from time to time of the Sacrament as Administred in the Church of England while in the interim he had Abjured our Religion stood reconciled to the Church of Rome and had obliged himself by most sacred Vows and was endeavouring by all the Frauds and Arts imaginable to subvert the Established Doctrine and Worship and set up Heresie and Idolatry in their room And it must needs give them an abhorrent Idea and Character of Popery and a loathsom representation of those trusted with the Conduct and Guidance of the Consciences of Men in the Roman Communion that they should not only Dispence with and indulge such Crimes and Villanies but proclaim them sanctified and meritorious from the end which they are calculated for and levelled at And for his dear Brother and renowned Successor who now possesseth the Throne I suppose his most partial Admirers who took him for a Prince not only merciful in his
of excommunicating and persecuting each other that ours have done How have some among us through having their spirits fretted and exasperated by the craft and cunning of our Enemies not only loaded and stigmatised their Bretheren and Fellow Protestants with crimes and Names which were they true and deserved would justly render us a loathing and an abomination to mankind but have libelled and branded those whom God had honored to be instruments of the Reformation with appellations and characters fit to beget a detestation of their Doctrine as well as their Memory The worst that the Papists have forged and vomited out against Luther Zwinglius Calvin c. hath been raked up and repeated to the disparagment of the Reformation and to the scandalising the minds of weak men against it And as the Jesuites and Priests have improved those slanders and calumnies to the seduction of diverse from the Church of England and to a working them over to a Reconciliation with the Church of Rome so the Court hath there by had an increase of their Faction and party against our Religion aud Liberties and have been inabled to muster Troops of Janisaries for their Despotical and unlimited claim Nor have our Divisions with the heats animosities revilings persecutions that have ensued thereupon proved only an occasion of the seduction of several from our Religion and of their Apostacy to Popery but they have been a main spring force of the debauchery irreligion and Atheisme which have overspread the Nation have brought so many both to an indifferency and unconcernedness for the Gospel and all that is vertuous and noble and have disposed them to fall in with those that could countenance and protect them in their impiety and prophaneness feed their luxury and pride with honor and gain What a woful scheme of Religion have we afforded the world and how shamefully have we painted forth and represented the holy Doctrin of the blessed Jesus while we have not only lived in a direct opposition to all the commands of meekness love and mutual forbearance which our Religion lays us under the Authority off but have neglected to practice good manners to observe the rules of Civility to treat one another with common humanity to do as we would be done unto While we have been more offended at what seemed to supplant our Dominations Grandures than at what dishonor'd God reproached the Gospel while we weighd not so much whether they whom we took into our sacred Communion as well as into our personal friendship were conformable in their lives to the Scripture as whether they comply'd with the Canons of the Church while we reprobated all that were not of our way tho never so vertuous devout and sainted all that were tho never so wicked prophane while we branded such for Fanaticks whom we could justly charge with nothing save the not admiting that into Religion which came not from the divine Author of it hugged those for good and orthodox believers that would sooner consult the Statute Book for their practice in the Worship of God than the Bible while we haled those to prison spoiled them of their Estates to whom nothing could be objected except their being too precise and conscientious in avoiding that through fear apprehension of sinning which others had a liberty latitude to do as judging it lawful and in the mean time esteemed those worthy of the chiefest Trusts in the Church commonwealth whose folly villanies made them unfit for civil Societies while they who lived most agreeably to the Laws of God the example of Christ were persecuted as Enemies to Religion and the pests of the Kingdom and in the interim too many of the very Clergy were not only countenancers of the most profligate persons as their best friends but joined and assisted in scandalous debaucheries under pretence of sustaining the honor of their Tribe doing service to the Church I say while these were unhappy but too obvious fruits of our Divisions of the bitter heats that accompanied them how was the reverence for the sacred Order lessened diminished the veneration for Religion weakned and lost the shame dread of appearing profane wicked removed and banished such who took the measures of Chistianity from the practices of those that were stiled Christians rather than from the immaculate and holy Scriptures tempted to think all Religion a juggle priesthood but an artifice craft to compass honor wealth And tho nothing but a shortness of understanding and an immoderate love to their lusts could occasion the drawing such a conclusion from foregoing premisses yet I must needs grant that there was too just ground administr'd to them of saying that many did not believe that themselves the Faith whereof they recommended to others But that which I would more particularly observe is that it is from among those who by the foregoing occasion have been tempted to debauchery irreligion that the Romish Emissaries have made the harvest of proselytes converts to the Church of Rome For as they who fear not God will be easily brought to imitate Caesar such who are of no Religion will in subserviency to secular ends assume the mask and profession of any so Popery is extreamly adapted to the wishes and desires of wicked and profane men in that it provides for their living as enormously as they please here flatters them with hopes assurances of blessedness hereafter They who can be ascertained of going to Heaven upon the confessing their sins to a Priest and their receiving Absolution the Encharist and Extreme Unction need not look after Repentance toward God Conversion to holiness nor a life of Faith Love Mortification and Obedience which the Protestant Religion upon the Authority of the Gospel obligeth them unto in order to the obtaining of eternal happiness And as the late Apostates to Popery in England are chiefly such who were Notorious for loosness prophaness and immorality and were the scandal of our Religion while they professed it and while in our Church were not properly of it so it from among men of this stamp character that his late Majesty and the present King have found persons assisting and subservient to their Despotical and Arbitrary designs For whosoever takes a survey of the Court Faction considereth who have been the Advocates for encroachments upon our Liberties and abetters of usurpation over our Right they will find them to have been principally the profligate and debauched among the Nobility and Gentry the Mercenary ignorant scandalous among the Clergy the offscouring and such as are an ignominy to humane Nature among the yeomanry and pesants And it was in order to this villanous End that the Royal Brothers have endeavoured so industriously to debauch the Nation have made sensuality profaneness the qualifications for preferment the badges of Loyalty And if among those that