The ENGLISH-MAN's Allegiance OR Our Indispensable Duty by Nature by Oaths and by Law to our Lawful King Ante leves ergo pascentur in aethere Cervi Et freta destituent nudos in littore Pisces Quam nostro Illius labatur pectore Vultus Virg. BEing as fully sensible as any Man breathing how much we OWE to the late Pious and Disinterested Undertaking of the Matchless Prince of Orange now our declar'd True and Lawful Soveraign And being also as intirely convinc'd as the best of my Fellow-subjects of his Wonderful PRUDENCE ever since which renders him we must confess Worthy of the Crown were his TITLE questionable as having put the whole Nation in the present happy State nay fixt besides our Liberties and Religion the Monarchy it self on a most firm and a durable Foundation I say being fully sensible and intirely convinc'd of all This and finding besides by the sober cool and well-temper'd Votes of our Loyal and most Legal Parliament I mean those of the House of Commons That all Persons whether Men or Women above the Age of Sixteen are to take the Oaths of Allegiance or be Imprison'd without Bail or Mainprize I thought it an incumbent Duty being a known Patriot and yet walk ever Incognito to cast in my Mite that is in other terms to do something and what considering some Circumstances can I do more for if I cou'd I would do it without fail than advise Loyalty to others as well as practise it my self Therefore in this small Treatise I shall shew to the World even to all that have their Eyes as the usual Phrase is upon our World That as following a River is a most certain way for a young Virtuoso to find out the Sea so the breaking Allegiance is the ready and Infallible Road to the Devil Now seeing what I am to Discuss is a very difficult and nice Point and who in manners and good breeding can call that Easie which has many hard and wilful Antagonists I intend to handle it in exact form and like a Grave School-man or perchance a School-Boy and so must tell my Reader as well what I am not as what I am First Negative I am not a Quaker for I can swear and have both sworn Allegiance and am also very fully resolv'd to keep it as firmly believing that whoever makes a Vow I will require it at his hands says the Lord. Secondly I am no Commonwealths-man and therefore had far rather hear the Dutch whose Wit and Language I strangely fancy call an English-man-of-War the Constant Prater than our own people stile an English-Grown-man the Constans Speaker Nor do I by any means admire a Duke of Venice unless it be in the Morea or some other pâ—rt of Turkey Thirdly Affirmative I am and three or thrice bring generally most men as well as Poets to the point Nay it distinguishes a Christian from an Infidel and makes even Dogs according to Plutarch to Syllogize and find out a Hare without smelling and truly I love three Things or three Persons with all my heart as I guess my Reader will tho I am about Oaths presently Believe without an Oath I say Thirdly Affirmatively I am one Born and Bred in the Church of England that extremely lov'd Plumb-Broth when Porredge was out of Fashion that Eat many a Mince-Pye in Defiance of the Directory and that still daily says We have Err'd and stray'd like lost Sheep Besides I am of the long Robe especially when I put on a Night-gown and ready therefore secundum Artem to give iâ— under my hand that Abdicating is a far less English Law-Term than Dispensing In my Family for want of a Chaplain I say Grace my self and then heartily pray according to the Ancient Rubricks and Canons for both Their Majesties and the Prince that is in the words at length for King Queen and Prince of Denmark and doubtless this last pâ—tition is most decent and just for if we consider that Hero in himself he is certainly a Great Man but when we Reflect upon the present Courtesie of England by which Men precede their Wives he is a kind of an Heir apparent Now had this been Law in other places Jack in the Old Tale of Rushy Coat who ran away with the Kings Daughter would have been the True King and she in her own Kingdom only Hoyty Toyty and Nominal but all Legislators are not of the same opinion as the Hebrew Proverb has it So much then for the Porch or Preliminaries now for the Main Body of the Fabrick and thence to the Penetralia and innermost Recesses of the very Oracle For to speak the plain Truth after Puns and Witticisms of that Nature I love plain dealing and therefore was from Youth tho it may seem at first dash a Bull much inclin'd to Riddles and to Doat on Enigma's and Hieroglyphicks which still makes me think Sphinx the greatest She-Philosopher among the Ancients and yet I acknowledge I shall never willingly follow her Example should any Ingenious and Egiptiacally-Abstruse Meaning of mine be found out But certainly no way of Speaking and of Writing also can be more proper for our Refin'd Age and Nation since we have so many rare men so many Oedipus's nay greater than he among us Sparks that to serve a Turn can Kill a Father without rubbing an Eye and would Lye too with their Mother out of a meer Experiment or Joke JOCASTA Mr. Bays JOCASTA Pray remember that happy jest and particularly what a Bob in your own way I have given to Tottenham-Court or as some now write it Totteridge alias Tottering-Court and then confess I have out-done you a whole Bar and a half But to the business and first for Definitions Axioms or common receiv'd Opinions A Promissary Oath or Vow Terms here Synonimous is not only a Declaration That as sure as God is or has a Being I will make good my Word but also a sincere Supplication and Wish That he would if I fail in it both eternally deprive me of his blessed sight and throw me headlong into Hell All Oaths lawfully injoyn'd are ever to be taken in the sense and meaning of the Imposer seeing otherwise a Cardinal might possibly without breach of Principles take the Oath of Supremacy which possibility Enervating the whole Drift and Intent of the Oath renders the Action a sin in it self for who without sin can take Gods Name in Vain To wit considerately use it to no purpose These Oaths are ever to be Impos'd by Lawful Authority that is to say by those that have Right to do it for else they oblige no more than if a Filoux a Highway-Man or any other Atheistical Russian should by Invading or setting upon us on the Road or any place else force us to swear Nay the bare compliance in taking such an Oath tho upon Compulsion may chance to be a sin to be repented of with many Tears especially if we have already taken the contrary by lawful
order But the insisting upon such a Contradictory Oath or intending to make it good is a Double Crime so that continuing thus to the end is final Impenitence and consequently equal to the sin against the Holy Ghost The Supream Lawful Authority of England is our Lawful King all other Lawful Authority in the Kingdom being but subordinate and Act by his Commission Nay our very Laws are not only call'd his but as Laws solely made by Him for tho the matter be Consider'd and the words put in order by the Wisdom of a Parliament yet all is but a Lump a Dead Letter till his Fiat gives it Life And as the Scripture calls Kings Gods by reason of their high and necessary Attributes so nothing can better Quadrate with that Allegorical Title than the common and usual Rhetorick of our most Ancient Lawyers when they treat of the Majesty Power and Right of our Kings Our Lawful King and to him our Obedience in only Due sits always on a Hill and is as Conspicuons as the Pyramids of Modin the Tombs of the Maccabees which might be seen even by all that sail'd on the Sea The Inscription on his Throne is in such legible Characters that he that runs may read it Nor can any Native of England or Scotland possibly mistake his Royal and Sacred Person unless the Remainder of those ten Tribes who could in Defiance of Law and Law-Makers ser up a Calf in Dan and Bethel and yet own themselves still in the Right Our Obedience to our Lawful King is not only positively and explicitly injoyn'd by the Word of God who equals Rebellion to the Highect Crime but we are oblig'd to it by the very Law of Nature which Dictating Self-preservation tell us that Government is the only Medium to it and consequently that even Tyranny in the Abstract is far better than Anarchy and Confusion Yet seeing the Depravity and Corruption of Mankind is great and that without refreshing Artifices our very memory grows torpid if not wholly lost Good Men in all Ages thought it necessary to impose Oaths and Enact Laws also to preserve Obedience In a Well-meaning man by the sacredness of the action and by the grievous penalty that follows the Breach Swearing or a just Oath makes his Conscience strangely mindful of the thing tho a known Duty before nay we see sometimes great Effects of it even in private Oaths between man and man for by this means a Profligate Rogue shall sometimes V. G. pay a Debt which he never perchance intended to do a Drunkard to continue for a while sober and it may be a Common Whore as long Continent So that Lawful Governours finding this and the like by Experience have on emergent occasions sworn their Subjects in general as well as Ministerial Officers in particular even to those very things as I said which they all knew they were oblig'd to before both by Nature and Religion Obedience being the first Postulat in Government and indispensably due to it our principal Laws have therefore Exacted it from us to our Lawful King under the highest Punishments and call even the lifting up of a Finger against his Sacred Person not only Treason but fully to awaken and terrifie us give it the most horrid and sacrilegious Name of Killing him nay our Law like the Precepts of the Gospel descends even to thoughts and to silence all Criticisms and Excuses in unquiet Breasts it declares not only that the Crown takes away all former Blemishes and Faults but that the King can do no Wrong Now to shew us that this is indisputably so no subject from the beginning of Monarchy among us which is far Antienter than our very Records was ever yet Indicted for Rebelling or Maliciously doing the King Harm that the Fact being prov'd did escape Conviction let his Pretence Reason or Plea be what it would Even Bethel and Cornish knew this full well and that 't was past all Art to bring the most Pick'd and Garbled Jury to the Impudence of doing otherwise so that Ignoramus to save a Noble Peer was forc'd to Damn and disbelieve three Discoverers in Oats's Plot even three Saviours of the Nation with seven more of the second Rate Men once of mighty Fame and Valour for the whole Gang tho they and others had made Cha. II. long before blacker every way than his hair were yet sufficiently assur'd that this if true lessen'd not his Royal Authority and that all Defences of that Nature were too weak to stop the Fury of the Law that Uncontroulable Bear if once Unmuzzl'd and let loose All which demonstrates what we owe to our Lawful Soveraign and that his Person being out of the reach of Man can cry peccavi to none but God This being then the summ of our written as well as often inculcated Constitutions the present Repetition cannot but be infinitely serviceable to the Mighty WILLIAM whose Sirname is Just and whose Title is so much beyond Controversie that even meddling would if possible lessen and dishonour it I say this cannot but be extreamly serviceable to him especially when I show the Indispensability of the Oath of Allegiance which we have or shall take at any time to our Lawful Prince and how the Breach of it will most certainly draw upon Transgressors all the Plagues and Judgments that the highest Perjury can deserve The Indispensability of the said Oath appears even at the first sight by the intent and purpose of it For 't was purposely fram'd and design'd by our Lawful Governours to oblige all that took it to a strict remembrance and performance too of their natural duty in case our Lawful King were in any danger or misfortune and this they hop'd it might chance to accomplish by alarming not only good Men and so cause them to have their Eyes and Hands in readiness but by obviating also all sly Insinuations and Fancies as if Allegiance were an indifferent thing and at the pleasure of a Subject for an Oath the end of strife makes indifferency become an obligation Now to give my Reader a full and true Idea of the Breach of a Lawful promissary Oath and what a vile baseness it is in a Subject as well as a foul sin I shall here lay down a very remarkable Example and as I believe very pertinent also to the present business Henry the first drawing towards his end called his Great Lords and prime Subjects together and then told them that his Son being Dead and Maw his sole Heir being therefore to be their Queen he desired for his own satisfaction as well as for preventing all scruples about Women that they would own and swear Allegiance to Her This being deemed very far from unreasonable they did it not only once but thrice also yet after his Death one Stephen seising the Crown was declar'd the true and Lawful Monarch But that the whole matter may be yet more plain and Easie 't will not perchance be inconvenient before
I go on further to let the Reader fully understand who and what the said Stephen was He was it seems Nephew to the former King and if we credit some Historians a kind of Son in Law also He had a Feud in France and upon that account was called Earl or Prince of Bologne a little Inconsiderable thing in an out Province of that Kingdom which as to its Yearly value was even Inferiour to Sheffield and several other Mannors in our Nation Nay if I mistake not He had been for some time Commander in chief of the Armies of the Earls of Flanders who were then the most considerable of any in the whole Low Countrys This Stephen who well knew it seems how to forswear and break an Oath for advantage having now as I said Usurp'd the Throne and many Enormities being found to be sure in the preceding Reign no body more pertly asserts His Right than the Paultry Bishop of Salisbury one as all our Writers have it that was wholly obscure of himself and beholden altogether to Fortune and good hitts one false and Treacherous by Nature and which made it beyond Cure that thought it Wit to be so one that had formerly received much Countenance and Favour from the late King and one also that more than once swore the forementioned Oath which again particularly oblig'd him to a true and steady Allegiance to his Prince and Lawful Successour and yet now ran counter to it as well by distinctions and insinuating discourses as by the shameful and overt Act. Yet not to make the Devil uglier than he is tho it be the new mode to Blacken even Angels of Light This precious Divine notwithstanding his several Idle Sophisms had more sense than to bolt out the least Argument in favour of a Conquest And to speak truth how was it possible for a Man that had any regard to himself to pretend to so silly a thing seeing Stephen had never fought for the Crown nor ever directly or indirectly stood upon any Right of Force but took and received the Government upon the sole conscientious invitation and Agreement of our Great Men. Besides since petty Principalities or Royalties the former Gifts of Emperours and Kings to deserving Men are Estates that may be bought by any mean Banker and we know 't is frequently done to this very day in Germany and elsewhere therefore the Civil Law or Law of Nations look upon these Toparchs tho Absolute enough among their Vassals with another sort of Eye and place them in another Class than they do those who are truly stiled Soveraign Princes so that if these should chance Sculkingly to Invade the other they might if taken be Legally prosecuted and punished as Pilferers and the like Lastly Stephen being as I said before a Servant and Subject for a General that receives Wages is as much so as any common Souldier had he by War and Battle brought England under his Power yet this Acquist must have been as all Civilians tell us his Masters not his own But perchance I excuse our worthy Bishop too much for 't was not it may be truth that hindered him from insisting on the ridiculous Title of Conquest but common Prudence as reasonably apprehending that a Doctrine that takes away all Freedome and Property from every Englishman might well deserve some remarkable censure in Parliament and Parliaments in former daies were by fitts as hot as those that lately ruined poor Sibthorp and Manwaring for a Tenet not half so foolish not half so dangerous nor half so scandalous as this For were this truly so every Gallant that gets in a Factious time the Crown and perchance Monsieur Blood among the rest especially if some Men want an argument will presently forsooth claim the almighty Title And let me again tell my Reader that not only all we possess belongs really to a Conquerour but should he pass an Act or two in favour of the Subject who knows the Equitable Plea of having been deceived in his Grant may not come into his thoughts and then Arma Tenenti c. the Lord have mercy upon us all Cursed therefore be the wretch that dares call any Man Conquerour of England But still a great Patriot a Man of God is exempted and far out of the reach of this wish tho in his Arcadia or Pastoral he stands highly upon a Conquest for every one that can Read his A B C knows that besides his usual Tropes and Figures he has a pretty way of his own and therefore only means I 'll engage that the Victory of the most potent William was over our Hearts and not our Lands and Purses To proceed If then the Advancing of Stephen were a horrid Perjury and truly the Remarks of Baker are not I see always impertinent for he tells us That many as well of these Bishops as the other Lords came afterward for this grand Villany to an ill End or at least to many Calamities before their End I say if this were a horrid Perjury how black and unexcusable must the Breach Now be when our Religion is so pure when the Oath is so Declaratory against any Evasion or double Meaning when the Statute-Law a Law not so well known to our Ancestors has in express Terms taken away all pretences for Rebellion and lastly when We have so often and upon so many accounts openly in the presence of God and Man disown'd all power in Pope or Devil of hurting as well the Rights as the Person of our Lawful Soveraign Now seeing there 's neither If nor And in this Oath and seeing the Oath it self was purposely made as I said to Remember us of and to stir and keep us up to our Duty in times of Troubles and Affliction for Kings want no Body's Duty but then it cannot be but pleasant and the Arguments also are much to be heeded to hear a man upon the Successes of a Rebellion or the like gravely to Phâ—losophize and positively to Assert That we are absolv'd from our Oath Nor is it less agreeable when we ask the Reason Why to have this excellent one palm'd upon us because forsooth the King cannot Protect us to which I answer Then we ought to Protect him For I am sure this was the Imposers meaning at the giving of the Oath as hoping thereby to prevent the being deserted his subjects Tho the Devil be God's Ape and therefore some Usurpers have some times imposed their Oaths also yet Ours here in England have seldom or never done it in general For we read not of any thus required by the aforesaid Stephen by Hen. 4 or by Rich. 3. nay honest Cromwell like Gallio cared for none of those things And certainly they were all in the Right and far Wiser than to think that those whom their former Oaths could not keep true to their respective Lawful Kings would be obliged now to Them by any tie of that nature They know too that it makes out of pity as