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A47806 L'Estrange his appeal humbly submitted to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty and the three estates assembled in Parliament; Appeal humbly submitted to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty and the three estates assembled in Parliament L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704. 1681 (1681) Wing L1202; ESTC R13428 24,333 40

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This Clause and no otherwise Nor is any man to blame for being of such or such a Principle that lyes under the force of an Invincible Perswasion and consequently under the necessity of a Suitable Inclination So much for This Poynt The Next is §. 5. My falling foul upon all the Petitioners The Fifth Exception is that I have Scandalously misrepresented all the Petitioners and Promoters of the late Petitions How far this Imputation is True or False and upon what grounds I support my Opinion shall be seen in what follows But may not men Petition you will say and Petition for a good thing Yes if the thing be Simply Good the Petitioners Competent Iudges of it and every man keep himself to his own Post I see no hurt in 't But for the Multitude to interpose in matters of State as in the Calling or Dissolving of Parliaments Regulation of Church-Government or in other like Cases of Doubtfull and Hazzardous Event wherein they have no Skill at all nor any Right of Intermeddling Why may not Twenty Thousand Plow-jobbers as well Subscribe a Petition to the Lord Mayor of London for the calling of a Common Councell Or as many Porters and Carr-men here in London put in for the better Government of the Herring-Trade in Yarmouth Seasonable Memorial Pag. 21. And then again Let the matter of the Petition be never so fair if it be a businesse out of the Petitioners Sphere and Capacity either to meddle in or to understand it is a Suspitious way of Proceeding Such were the Confederate Petitions of England and Scotland for a Parliament in 1641. which were but a Prologue to the Opening of the Subsequent Confederacy against the Government when the Petitions that follow'd sufficiently expounded the Meaning of the Former They Petition'd against Ecclesiastical Courts Ceremonies Scandalous Ministers Bishops Votes in Parliament and Episcopacy it self against Evill Councellors Monopolies Corruptions of State Courts of Oppression and innumerable Grievances And so for the Militia the Kings Towns and Forts till they brought the King to the Block Pag. 20. And after this manner have they proceeded now again The Petition was at first for the Meeting of the Parliament and then they came to twit the King with his Coronation-Oath and then Delinquents must be brought to punishment and then the Parliament was to sit as long as they pleas'd And at last every man must be mark'd for a Common Enemy that would not Subscribe to 't So that First they would have the Parliament Sit and Then they would cut them out their work and in Fine it was little other then a Petition against those that would not Petition The Late Kings Observations upon the Growth of Petitions of this kinde are very Pertinent Vpon the tumultuous Confluxes of mean and rude People who are taught first to Petition then to Protect then to Dictate at last to Command and Over awe the Parliament EIK. BAS upon TUMVLTS And the Practices of these people are excellently well set forth by his late Majesty also Ex. Coll. Pag. 536. Their Seditious Preachers says he and Agents are by them and their Special and particular directions sent into the Several Countys to infuse Fears and Iealousies into the minds of our good Subjects with Petitions ready drawn by Them for the People to Sign which were yet many times by them changed three or four times before the Delivery upon accidents or occasions of either or both Houses And when many of our poor deceived People of our several Countyes have come to the City of London with a Petition so fram'd alter'd and sign'd as aforesaid That Petition hath been Suppress'd and a New one ready drawn hath been put into their hands after their coming to Town inso much as few of the Company have known what they Petition'd for and hath been by them presented to one or both our Houses of Parliament as That of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire witnesse those Petitions and amongst the rest That of Hertfordshire which took notice of matters agreed on or dissented from the night before the Delivery which was hardly time enough to get so many thousand hands and to travel to London on that Errand So that I have very good Authority here for apprehending the danger of Popular Petitions And to shew now that I am not at all possess'd against Petitions in Generall or against ALL the Petitioners Truman says that to joyn in a Petition for the Meeting of a Parliament to bring Malefactors to a Tryall or to extirpate Popery is in the appearance of it not only Lawfull but Commendable But then it must be promoted by Lawfull Means and under Decent Circumstances Citt and Bum. Pag. 27. It is a good thing to execute Justice but yet a Private man must not invade the Judgment-Seat tho' it were to passe even the most Righteous Sentence Ibid. Pa. 28. And Moreover Truman acknowledges that he finds many honest and considerable men concern'd in these Petitions Ibid. Which is more Evidence then needed for the purging of my self from so grosse a Slander I come now to the Last Article of my Charge §. 6. My Writings they say create Misunderstandings and tend to the Embroyling of the Kingdome It it be so I have been extremely out in my Measures all this while to be still creating of Misunderstandings in the very Act of Endeavouring either to rectify or to prevent them And to be Endangering the Peace of the Kingdome in the Design of preserving it If to Assert the Law aud the Government against all Opposers If to lay open the Malice and Calumny of so many bold Libells against his Majesties Person Authority and Government if to maintain the Apostolical Order and the Constitutions of the Church against Schism and the Powers and Priviledges of the State against all Principles of Sedition If to inculcate Reverence and Obedience toward our Superiours If to recommend the Blessings and Duties of Vnity in a due Submission to the Provisions that are made for the Upholding of Order both in Church and State If the bending of all my thoughts and Applications to these Ends be to create Misunderstandings and breed Ill Blood in the Hearts of his Majesties Liege People Thus am I guilty of the matter charged upon me in This Article and no Otherwise I shall passe now in Order from the Particulars of my Charge to the Quality of the Libellers and the true Reason of their Rancour against me in despite of all their Pretensions to the Contrary As to the Quality of the Libellers a man may judge of the Meannesse of their Souls by the Condition of the Office which is the Part of the very Devill himself being only to Blacken and to Defame They have lickt up the Vomit of the Nation which they discharge again in their Writings partly upon my self and the rest upon the Government for I have still the Honour to suffer not
them on from Perverse Principles in the matter of Rule and Subj●ction to Evil Thoughts of their Superiors and Governors and from Thence to transport them into Undutiful and Intemperate Practises against the publick Peace We have already felt the Effects of This way of Proceeding in the most outragious Rebellion in all Circumstances perhaps that ever was heard of And the Late King himself imputed it principally to the Force of Seditions Libels Now the same Methods being set a foot again and That Invective Course of Liberty against both the Church and the State proceeding without any Check or Controll I thought my self bound in Honour and Duty both as an English Man and as a Subject to use the best means I could either to Stop or to divert that Torrent Upon This I took upon me so much as in Me lay the Defence of the Law and the Government against all those Erroneous and Disloyal Positions that were dayly Published and imposed upon the Unskilful and Unwary Multitude to the extreme Hazard and Dishonour of the State I brought the Terms of Dominion and Obedience to the Right Standard I laid Open and Rectified all their Fallacious Distinctions and the dismal Consequences of the Peoples swallowing such Mistakes I took off the Baits of Religion Liberty and Reformation in the very sight of the Common People and laid open the Hook that was under them I shewed them that the whole Pretence was no other than a Counterfeit and that there was no more of Religion Liberty or Reformation in the bottom of it then of a Living Fly in an Artificial one and that one Leap at it was as much as their Lives Estates and their Souls were worth I gave the Multitude Antidotes against all their Pestilent and Poysonous Infusions I resolv'd all their Riddles and from their own Actions and Acknowledgments in the like Cases expounded their meanings In one word by the blessing of God upon this Naked and honest Simplicity of Dealing I have found some Well-meaning Dissenters reclaim'd from their Errors and Others that were wavering before Now to be fully fatisfyed and Confirm'd Nor can it well be otherwise in so Righteous and Reasonable a Cause where the manifest Iustice and Evidence of the matter would do its own business with the help even of a very slender Advocate to support it I have spoken enough to the Circumstances of my Charge but all That Story serves only for a Blind And in truth my Zeal for the Upholding of the Government is my Unpardonable Crime the Libellers would Otherwise take notice of the many and the open Scandals that are cast upon the King and the Church with an Evident Design to expose Majesty and Episcopacy to Hatred and Scorn and shew their Affections That way for the Life and Honour of the KING and for the Protestant Religion and not stand picking of Holes in the Coat of a person that has so unquestionably dedicated all the Faculties of his Soul Body Fortune and Interests to the Service of his Prince and Country and to set Spyes upon every Action and Line in his whole Life to try if they can find but any one poynt either in his Conversation or Writings that might bear a Double meaning and at last to render that very Ambiguity if it were possible no less than Capital too But I thank God My Faults of That kind are as hard to be found out as my Accusers Virtues It goes a great way with many Moderate Nonconformists and other Reasonable Persons too that have not as yet taken any strong Impressions either on the one side or on the other that notwithstanding all the rudenesses of Clamor and ill Language against me for the Papers I have Published I have not as yet received one single Reply to the Argument of any thing that ever I wrote more than the Opposing of Revilings to my Reasons So that their Quarrel to me is purely for interposing betwixt Faction and Authority It will be said perhaps that my Papers are not worth the Answering How comes it then that they think it worth the while to bestow so much pains upon my Person nay and to propound and meditate so many extraordinary Ways of Animadversion upon L'Estrange as if the Foundations of the Government were to be removed for my sake and that an Englishman were to be no longer safe under the Protection of the Law But these are only Coffee-House-Imaginations and which I am sure will never receive any Countenance or Encouragement from the Authority and Wisdom of a Parliament But since my Hand is in upon this Subject there are Two Points more worth the Clearing than all the rest as being of greater Importance toward the understanding of the present Controversie The One has a Respect to the more effectual Discovery of Priests and Iesuits The Other To the Impartial Stating and Discussing the Business of Toleration The former of these I have handled in my Further Discovery Dedicated to Dr. Oates and Grounded upon the Authority of his Evidence The Other I have Treated upon more at large in my Toleration Discussed and with a regard to all the Circumstances that I could fairly bring within the Compass of the Question Let the whole World fairly and by dint of Reason overthrow either the One or the Other and I will yield my self to have been all this while under a great Mistake I know very well that I am Charg'd for writing more than my Share when the true Reason of it was that others wrote less and in effect it was more than one Man's Work to attempt what I have done But upon a Sense that the thing was of absolute Necessity for some body to do and finding other People more Cautious than I thought was either Needful or Expedient in so Publick a Case I engag'd my self further than my Neighbours and not without the Foresight of these Outrages which I knew I was to draw upon my self Neither is this the first time that I have Sacrificed all other Considerations to my Duty Some will have it that I have been set on by the Promises and Temptations of Advantages and Reward which is an Imagination so far from the truth of this Matter that all things considered saving my Veneration and Humble Acknowledgments to His Majesty who hath been very Gracious to me I do positively averr that the King has not a Subject in his Three Kingdoms that has suffered harder Measure and more contrary to Law and Iustice than I my self have done and all this without the Ballance of any other Recompence than a little Court-Holy-Water and Fair Words Besides that in the Worst of Times I did the same thing through all Difficulties and Hazards Having already in general Terms reflected upon Scandalous and Dangerous Libels as the Occasion of my Writings I shall now take a Taste of the Condition and Tendency of those Libels and lay open as briefly as I