summoning of them utterly impracticable according to the Fundamental Constitutions of the Kingdom Does not these and such like Proceedings perfectly dissolve the Government to our hands and deprive the King of the best Security he hath for his Crown to wit the Security of the Laws so dissolved And that this was our Case is apparent by what is before written And this brings to my mind a saying of the late King James at his first Accession to the Crown That he desired to be no greater King than the Laws of England made him and upon my Conscience had he continued always in that mind and acted accordingly he might nay he would have Reigned a Glorious King to the great Joy and Satisfaction of all his Subjects I suppose it will be granted That the end of all Government is the Protection and Peace and Security of the People by governing of them agreeably to the Laws enacted for that end now if this end cease and all things be acted contrary is there not an end of that Government with relation to the Peoples concerns in it And in such case what can reasonably be expected from them by the Laws of God of Nature and Self-preservation the first and great Principle of Nature but that they should look for better terms where they may have them All this whole matter is grounded upon a false Opinion of Government being Jure Divino even with relation to the species or kind of Government nay to the very Person or Family regnant than which there cannot well be a greater Paradox for tho it be most true that Government in general is of Divine and Natural Right yet all the World will never be able to make either of these two things appear viz. either that this or that Species of Government is of such a right for example Monarchy in contradistinction to all other or much less that this or that family or person hath such a Divine or natural right to such or such a Kingdom or Dominion for upon this Principle we condemn all other kinds of Government as sinful we oblige our selves to perpetuate the Succession of the same Family in a direct Line in the same Dominion a thing by the experience of all Ages known to be impossible and of which this Kingdom on several occasions hath taken very little notice For he is a mighty stranger to the English Histories who knows not that some Persons have been removed from the Administration of the Regal Power by the Authority of Parliament and others Crowned in their stead while the former were in being and likewise in the Succession of the Crown little regard hath been had to the next in Proximity of Blood whatever outcry we make now and certainly when it was Enacted in Queen Elizabeth's time That it should be a Praemunire for any person to affirm That it was not in the power of the Parliament to settle the Succession of the Crown they were far from dreaming of this Chimaera of Divine Right And certainly when a Parliament in Henry the 8th's time gave that King Power to settle the manner of the Succession and nominate the Successors as he thought fit they were far from this Divine Right too Nay this Opinion that men would so fain impose upon us is destructive of all Right of Conquest or Prescription for against Divine and Natural Right none of these are prevalent for still the former Obligation remains to the kind of Government and Family pleading such a Divine Right which would be so far from conducing to the Peace of Mankind the great End of all Government that it would certainly perpetuate Blood War and lasting Confusions In a word I am sure our Government is such as will acknowledge That the Kings of England are bound to govern their People not as they please but according to the Laws of the Land Now I would fain ask these few Questions upon this Concession Whether it be just that the King should be absolutely secured by the peoples Oath of Fidelity to him and if they break it Gibbets Axes Whipping-Posts Pillories Exile Confiscations of Goods are their just and deserved Punishments and yet the People should have no Security in the Earth by any Oaths the King makes to them but he is still at his liberty to break them and the People without all possibility of redress if he do so And consequently Whether the Coronation-Oath be a meer matter of form and administred only to mock God and the Nation since after all the King may at pleasure break it and the whole Kingdom hath no remedy but God help Whether when Christ and his Apostles prescribed to us general Rules of Subjection and Obedience to Government they did not leave the several Nations in the possession of those Civil Rights they enjoy'd notwithstanding but engag'd Mankind to be all Slaves to the Lust and Will of their Governours without possibility of controul Whether any acting in this Kingdom by an illegal Commission can possibly be esteemed to act by the King's Commission which we are sworn not to resist since it 's certain that all Illegal Commissions are null and void in themselves and that Men are bound to resist such in their own defence since the Subject is never to suppose any private Will of the King in the governing of his People contrary to the publick Will of his Laws and is always to be supposed that he who takes upon him the just defence of the Laws is so far from resisting the King that he is really defending of him If the Case be not thus then we certainly are commanded to swear and actually do swear to expose our Persons Families Fortunes Laws Liberties nay Religion it self to as many Mens Wills as may have the Conscience to act against us or ruine us in any or all these particulars by Illegal Commissions In fine Whether the King 's being generally said to do no wrong be not to be interpreted either because he most commonly employs other persons in the execution of his Commands either Legal or Illegal or else in respect that the King being sworn to govern by Law he is not to be supposed to act against it If the First then they that execute illegal Commands are liable to be called in question and punished for so doing but if the King protecting them with all his Power prevent this Justice doth he not then make these Illegal Executions his own whether we will or no If the Second then we are to conlude That no Illegal Act is a Regal Act and consequently if a King either by Himself or by Others commissionated by him oppress and ruine his People in all particulars that are of greatest concern to Mankind he so far Unkings himself and puts his People upon an absolute necessity of Self-defence As for the lawfulness of transferring our Allegiance to Their present Majesties the Reverend Bishop of Salisbury in his excellent Letter to his Clergy hath so fully cleared
THE ADVANTAGES OF THE PRESENT SETTLEMENT AND THE GREAT DANGER OF A RELAPSE LICENSED July 4. 1689. J. Fraser LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXIX THE ADVANTAGES OF THE Present SETTLEMENT c. THE wonderful Revolution that hath fallen out in the Island of Great Britain since September last 1688. is justly at present the discourse and amazement of all Europe but chiefly in the three Kingdoms of Scotland England and Ireland whose Inhabitants are the Parties most concerned in it and no wonder since a greater Deliverance more unexpected and that hath plainer Characters of a Divine Contrivance and Conduct hath neither been heard of nor seen in any place of the World in any of the former Ages of it But there is a greater Wonder now to be observed amongst us than the Deliverance we have received if any thing can be greater viz. That there are many of us who seem to be much discontented with it and express themselves in such a manner as if they were offended with Heaven it self for being so propitious to us and seem ungratefully to envy his Honour whom God made the great Instrument of our Deliverance Strange that another Change should come under the desires of reasonable men which must of absolute necessity occasion a fatal Relapse into the same Miseries we were so deeply plunged and likewise occasion the inevitable and lasting ruine not only of our potent Deliverer but also of all those Royal Branches of the Royal Family in whose prosperity all the hopes of England's Happiness are certainly reposed While I frequently hear such Murmurings and Whisperings as tend to such a fatal End I cannot but be surprized both with astonishment and grief astonishment it being wonderful men should be displeased with their own Safety and Happiness and grief it being easie to apprehend those ill Consequences to the Publick that usually attend such Discontents and undutiful Murmurings so maliciously and industriously promoted And though I am very sensible of my own utter unfitness for so great an undertaking as the allaying of those Heats and Animosities that so much disturb the quietness and peace we have in our hands if we would but embrace it and be contented to enjoy it yet I hope I shall be forgiven of all even of those who perhaps may have an aversion to this Discourse for the very sincerity of my Intention for the Author assures his Reader that his Condition is so obscure his Acquaintance in the World so narrow and as you will easily perceive by this Pamphlet both as to the matter and style of it which falls so much below the dignity of the Subject and is so rude and unpolisht his Habitation is somewhat solitary and in a manner rural and thereforefore it cannot be imagined that Self-interest should share in his Design no suffer him only quietly to put in his poor mite into the Treasury and if he in any measure contribute to the Publick Peace and Happiness of that Church of which he glories to be a Member even that of England as it is now by Law established and of that Kingdom which he accounts it the greatest part of his civil happiness to be a Subject in he is sufficiently satisfied which design he is sure no man can possibly blame I would therefore as an Introduction to what follows ask but this question of those Persons that seem so discontented with our present Tranquility Gentlemen what is it you would be at what do you desire If they speak plainly and give a round answer to this question it must be this We would have King WILLIAM and Queen MARY dethroned again and have them either voluntarily to return back from whence they came or else to be sent back again by force we would have King JAMES the Second restored to his Crown and Dignity and reinstated in his Throne and Government This must be the Answer or else I cannot imagine what some men keep such a noise for Fair and soft Sirs This is a demand of the greatest consequence and importance that ever England heard I assure you it 's not likely to be yielded to without very mature and serious deliberation and I am very confident would men suffer their Reason to act freely without the strong Biass of Interest or Passion they would see it as unfit to be asked as they certainly must despair of having it granted For upon the whole the yielding to the Proposal would be a fatal Relapse into all those Miseries under which we so lately groaned and as it is in the case of a Relapse into the same Distempers from which Patients seemed almost to be freed their last condition is much more dangerous than their first so undoubtedly it would be with us And this will the more clearly appear upon a serious consideration of these three things 1. What condition we were in before the happy arrival of their present Majesties 2. What condition we are now in by this happy Revolution 3. What a miserable condition we must of necessity fall into upon such a second Revolution as would satisfy some mens desires As to the first of these it 's to be hoped that you will not take it ill if upon your proposal we make a review of that state you would reduce us to I assure you we are as sorry even for King JAMES's sake that the reflection is so unpleasant as possibly you can be yet if we find it to be a miserable Condition you will I hope excuse us if we be not willing desperately to rush our selves into it again Now I know not what in all the World is dear to a reasonable Creature that was not as our Circumstances were in the greatest hazard of being utterly lost For what is it that is most dear to us as Christians Religion What is most dear to us as English men The enjoyment of our Liberties and Properties secured to us by the Laws of the Land. What is most dear to us as individual single persons The safety and protection of our Lives Persons and Families Now I dare appeal to all unprejudiced men whether in any Nation under Heaven that was so firmly in the possession of all these as we were a few years ago they were ever in greater danger of being utterly lost than they were here in England so that the preservation of them is next to a Miracle That there was a Design to subvert the established Religion of this Church and Kingdom I hope no man will so much as question King JAMES did quickly let us see what was so much feared by many before he came to the Crown That it was great folly to imagine that a Prince so great a Zealot for his own Persuasion would not think it his Duty to use that Power God had given him to the promoting of that Religion he was so Zealous for which could never be without the Extirpation of the Established Religion accounted by him
a Pestilent Heresie To this end tended the Erecting of Chappels for Popish Devotion and Publick Schools for Popish Education Was it for nothing that an Ambassador was resident at Rome And a Nuncio publickly entertained here for a constant Correspondence between England and Rome Why were all the Protestant Nobility and Gentry turned out of all places either of Honour Profit or Trust and Papists put in their Rooms What could be the design of that ducoy of Liberty of Conscience at a time when since the first beginnings of those unhappy divisions of Protestants here at home there was never less need of it When not any Protestant Party amongst us did so much as Petition for it when the Generality of Dissenters were so well satisfied with the Church of England that there were never fairer hopes of perfect Unity amongst us But this was the matter the division of Protestants amongst themselves would weaken the whole Body of them and render them the more capable of an easie overthrow a design which the wiser sort of Dissenters quickly saw and even the generality of them in a short time were satisfied in For since it 's as easie for the Arctick and Antarctick Poles to meet together or for the East and West to be in Conjunction as to reconcile Infallibility of one Religion with a Toleration of all the necessity of Extirpating all Hereticks with a Connivance at all Heresies all were easily convinced what such a Toleration tended to and none were entrapped in the Snare or trepanned with the Cheat but a few hot-headed Zealots ready to Sacrifice all to Ambition and Revenge What could be the design of putting Papists in for Heads of Houses Masters and Fellows of Colleges in our famous Universities What could be the design of Erecting a High Commission Court for Ecclefiastical Causes for the suspending and depriving of Bishops and Clergy which was justly termed the New Inquisition of England Why was that ensnaring Declaration so violently and yet so unnecessarily prest upon the Clergy to be read in Churches and Seven Bishops imprisoned and the whole Clergy of the Kingdom threatned with Deprivation for Non-Compliance If these things and a great many more will not satisfie men That there was a real Design of subverting our Religion I know not what will. Yet to demonstrate this matter to the full consider only the mighty endeavours that were used to abrogate the Penal Laws and Test in which the King used so much industry that he truly took methods too much below Royal Dignity to effect it What a mean office for a King to become an earnest Sollicitor of his Subjects to that which they could not in Conscience nor Honour yield to and then a disobliger of all his Kingdom for removing them from all places upon so necessary a refusal The design must be mighty great when Arts both so mean and so harsh were used to accomplish it But this was it The Papists had then stood upon even ground with all other Subjects and the great advantage of Authority on their side would quickly have raised their Ground above us the doors of both Houses of Parliament had been set wide open to them whence the House of Peers might quickly have been filled with new Creations and the House of Commons as quickly made Popish by Force or Fraud in Elections Corporations being framed and regulated agreeable to the design and what could be then expected but a sudden Establishment of Popery The whole Nation did see this Project so clearly that the greatest part of the Dissenters were so sensible of the mischief that though they had smarted somewhat hardly under the Lash of the Penal Laws but a little while before yet they would rather venture the Continuance of them than run the hazard of ruining the substance and being of the Protestant Religion amongst us nor could all the virulent Pamphlets thrown about to exasperate them by a Tragical Commemoration of their former Suffering by the Penal Laws ever perswade them so far out of their Senses as not to be fully assured that the Little Finger of the Popish Inquisition would be heavier upon them than the Loins of all the Penal Laws made since the Reformation against them And indeed to the Fidelity of that Party at that Critical time are we to ascribe a great share of the disappointment the Popish Party met with being much chafed that the Grand Cheat of the Toleration had no better success And as all these plain matters of fact are more than sufficient to convince us of the Mischievous Design of subverting the Established Religion in these Kingdoms so are they a plain and evident proof that there was certainly a Private League between the Late King James and the French King for bringing this to pass tho there were nothing else to evince is For it could never be hoped that the Popish Party here in England could do it their Strength and Interest were not sufficient to accomplish such a Design There was a fine Army indeed but most of them Protestants who would hardly be commanded by Popish Officers to ruine their Religion for men must certainly fight very faintly when the edge of their Swords is turned against themselves and their success is certain desolation to their Country From whence one of these two things must follow either that King James had no Resolution to change the Religion of this Nation the contrary of which appears by what hath been said and besides to say so is to put the greatest affront and dishonour upon the Late King that can be and calls his Wisdom and Discretion highly in question in the conduct of his Affairs that he should do all these mean harsh and suspitious things before alledged for no other end but to bring an obloquy upon himself to render his Government uneasie fearful and suspected and to disoblige all the three Kingdoms But if it cannot be admitted that a person of any common seuse or reason should be guilty of so much Indiscretion that might in the end prove so fatal to himself then we must acknowledge that some Foreign Power was certainly to be made use of since no reasonable man proposeth to himself any end but withall he proposeth means proportionate to that end in order to the acquiring of it and now we would fain learn what other Force can so much as come under the Probability of being made use of but the French And now that which makes this Design abundantly the more inexcusable in it self and the more insupportable to us is this That this Church and the Religion professed in it run such a great hazard from a Prince from whom the Members of that Church and Professors of that Religion had all the reason in the world to expect much kinder usage For I am sure never any Prince could be more highly obliged by Subjects than King James was by the Members of the Church of England both before and after he was King. Not
Genius of the Nation than hazard his Majesties Honour and Safety in such violent and harsh measures But the truth of it is they saw they had nothing to rely upon but the King's Life and that was as uncertain as any other mans and therefore they were willing to drive at all furiously For say they if we succeed we have our aim the day is our own if not we know the worst of it we are but where we were we can as easily retire to the Cells we crept from as we left them but whether the King sink or swim is the least of our concerns And ah that these Wretches had fallen alone without drawing such a Prince into such misfortunes with them by their precipitate Counsels Let this therefore be for ever another instance of Popish Treachery and Falshood to their Princes for these men always act as if they gloried in being the Instruments of the Destruction of Kings or Kingdoms or Both. And as they were the falsest Men to their Prince so they were the foolishest for never Men took so improper means to attain their Ends as they did In truth they left nothing undone which any man could wish them to do who never so earnestly wished a disappointment of all their Designs as a Reverend Divine and great Man of our Church said in his Sermon on the Thanksgiving-day they were Politicians by Book and never consulted the Genius and Humour of that People they had to do with It may be they are thought very wise Men and great Politicians in other Countreys but they can never in England expect any thing but the reputation of the most imprudent and unpolitick of Men and I hope this great Instance will be sufficient to convince all Princes how unsafe it is for them to trust Men of little Honesty and less Discretion If it be again said That the late King in all these things so deservedly decried was inform'd of the Legality of them by his Judges whose Advice in the like Cases all our Kings have relied upon so if he erred it was their fault and besides such as do unlawful things by the King's Command are liable to answer for it notwithstanding but not the King Himself To this the Answer is very easie The whole Nation knoweth very well that when the Judges at any time gave just and good Advice according to the Law and the best of their knowledge if it thwarted the Design intended there was a Quietus ready at hand for their descent from the Bench and thus the whole Reign of King James there was a perpetual Change of the Judges till they were so modelled as to secure the Interest driven at nay in the very last famous Tryal of the Seven Bishops all know that two of the Judges were immediately removed for giving their Opinion contrary to that Interest So that it is extremely plain the King was not advised by his Judges but the Judges by him how they should act at their Perils and he would have no other than such as would serve his design as for such as acted by his Authority either in Civil or Military Affairs it 's plain few or none were allowed of but such as would serve the Popish Interest what meant else the Change of Charters the Regulating of Corporations the so frequent alterations of the Governors of them the removing of all Officers that would not comply the previous Questions put so diligently all over the Kingdom to Deputy-Lieutenants Officers of the Militia Justices of Peace Magistrates of Cities and Boroughs concerning Elections of future Members of Parliament The King then was so far from suffering Persons to be brought to Tryal for their unjust and illegal Actions that as he would have no other Persons in his Service so he avowed their Protection In vain it was to expect a redress of these things since even in the beginning of that Reign when that King was so much obliged to the Fidelity of the Nation for opposing the Duke of Monmouth so vigorously yet that very House of Commons who but a little while before was so highly cajolled and caressed by the King went away with a Repulse to their honest Address against Papists bearing Offices without legal Qualifications and in a sew days after he prorogued them and never met them more Since then the late King would have no other Persons to serve him nor any in places of Trust but such as highly disserved the Nation since he protected such Persons in all their illegal Proceedings certainly all they did is clearly imputable to himself for so he would have it and no otherwise In fine while it 's said King James was lawful King of England accountable to none for his Actions but God only that all we had to do was to submit either Actively or Passively that our Oaths had obliged us against all Resistance of his Majesty or those commissioned by him and therefore let the worst be supposed that can be we cannot justify our reliction of him or transferring our Allegiance from him Now in the first place this is a plain acknowledgment That we had very great cause of complaining and only helps us with this Accumulation of our Misery we have no possibility of Redress Now it 's a desperate Condition a Prince is brought to that the only Justification of his Proceedings consists in asserting an unlimited and uncontroulable Power and indeed it is much the worse when this is done to a Nation that never have nor never will acknowledg themselves to be Slaves to be ruled by the Arbitrary and Despotick Power of their King but are Subjects governed by their King in the Execution of the Laws of the Land. Again There is nothing more certain than this That there is so great reference to be had to Governors and Government that every small irregularity in Government ought not to lessen the Affection or Fidelity of Subjects such as Injuries accruing only to some private Persons or if they be of a publick and general Nature yea even against Laws in force yet if it be in matters of small concern and importance it is rather to be born with than the Peace of the Government to be disturbed it is in such Cases duly to be considered that nothing perfect is to be found under the Sun that Changes and Alterations upon such small accounts would render Government very unsteady and uneasy to the main end of it which is the peace of Mankind But what if the Case be such that there is no less attempted than the ruin of Souls and Bodies and Fortunes of far the greatest part of the Subjects What if those Laws are laid aside and rendred useless which were enacted of set purpose to secure the Religion and Property of all the Subjects without ever consulting the Legislative Power nay after a great part of that Power hath remonstrated against it What if such Courses be taken as perfectly destroys the very being of Parliaments and makes a