to be too much trusted or relied upon by His Majesty should he be tempted contrary to his Duty and Inclination to offer at any thing Illegal considering how unjustly clamorous they have been against the House of Commons For their Illegal Votes and Orders and usurping upon their Persons and Estates For Tyrannizing over their Fellow-Subjects For their Arbitrary Proceedings in the two last Parliaments and their Vnlimited and Illegal Im-Imprisonments and their Messengers exorbitant exacting pretended fees contrary to Magna Charta For if they be so heated and transported against their own and the Kingdoms Representatives when very many wise learned and indifferent persons and who are as jealous of the least invasion upon the liberty and property of the Subject as any in the Nation think that the House of Commons did nothing in all the Cases that are with so much warmth and resentment reflected upon but what they both might and ought to do by the Laws of the Land and Parliamentary Presidents Is it to be imagined that they would very tamely loose their Lives or suffer themselves to be silently dispossessed of their Estates at the sole and indisputable pleasure of the Prince SECT XIV And whereas by all the Addresses they testifie with what approbation they have received His Majesties late Declaration it is too plain that thereby they intimate their Satisfaction in the Dissolution of so many Parliaments Nay some of them expresly publish their unanimous consent and delight therein And others return His Majesty solemn thanks for giving his two last Parliaments such timely Dissolutions Had these people the discretion and modesty which might become them they would have esteem'd themselves very improper and unsufficient Judges of the prudentialness of that exercise of Royal Power And this is the first president that ever England saw of any Commoners giving His Majesty thanks for dismissing Parliaments For tho' some of our former Kings have upon Misunderstandings arisen between them and their Parliaments abruptly Dissolved them and Published very weighty Declarations in Justification of what they did yet whatever Submission the people yielded to what these Princes had done or how seasonable and justifiable soever they in their own minds believed it they never Addressed these Monarchs in a way of Thanks for doing of it And tho possibly the last Long Parliament was through its long Sitting esteemed a great grievance to the Nation and too many of its Members judged easily manageable for betraying the liberty of the Subject had they been powerfully tempted thereunto and tho' His Majesties Dissolving them was entertained with an Universal joy yet none had the folly to thank him for it as knowing of what fatal consequence such an action might afterwards prove And whether the many acknowledgments which some have returned the King for Dissolving Two such Parliaments that for what appears by their Printed Votes and Debates were filled with Men of as great integrity and ability as well as Gentlemen of as great Estates as have in any age met together in the great Councel and Senate of the Kingdom do become those that are well-wishers to the Protestant Religion either at home or abroad or such as have duly considered the present state of the Nation and the many dangers with which it is encompassed may be worthy of their most serious thoughts when they are at leasure to look back upon and examine what they have done Surely those men who at the same time thank the King for promising to Govern by Law never considered that it is both a fundamental Law of the Kingdom and much of the soul and life of all our Laws not only to have frequent Parliaments but have them permitted to sit to dispatch the affairs of the Nation Nor can they be supposed to have seriously weighed how when the Kingdom seems in so much danger from an aspiring and formidable Neighbour our Religion and Lives so greatly in hazard by the hellish conspiracies of the Papists our Allies in so much need of countenance and assistance that the King tho' never so well inclined as we will always believe His Majesty to be cannot without the concurrence aid and advice of a Parliament do any thing that may effectually answer those weighty importunate and loud calls For what can His Majesty be conceived able to do in such circumstances when he hath neither power over the Purses of his people nor can so much as command the Militia of the Nation to march out of their respective Counties But that which these Addresses imply which is yet of more dangerous importance is that the very Being of Parliaments doth wholly depend upon the will pleasure of the King Whereas such a supposal is inconsistent with the constitution of the Kingdom does no-way comport with the ends of our Government and might prove very dangerous to the safety and happiness of the Nation in case we should hereafter have a King void of compassion to and regardless of the interest of his people For tho' it be left to the Wisdom of the Soveraign where he will have Parliaments to Assemble and belongs to His Prerogative to call them when his own Princely occasions or the necessities of his people do require yet the Law which His Majesty is sworn to observe it being a part of His Coronation Oath Tenere Leges consuetudines Regni doth both provide that we shall have Annual Parliaments and by directing the ends for and the affairs about which they are to meet doth at least imply something of their continuing to sit till those affairs be accomplished and the said ends compassed and obtained Nor will His Majesty be ever induced to believe that he can be thought to Govern according to Law without calling Parliaments whensoever the distresses and grievances of His people bespeak and require them Neither is it to be imagined that he should long harbour any such thought in His Royal breast That he can answer the directions and ends of the Law without permitting Parliaments to sit such a convenient season as that they may in conjunction with His Majesty relieve the people from their manifold fears redress the numerous and sore grievances of the Nation and provide for the safety strength and honour of the Kingdom SECT XV. In the next place All the Addresses seem to be fram'd towards the expressing a willingness in the People that the Duke of York should succeed his Majesty And this they insinuate a readiness in the Addressers to further without the least desire to have any provision made before-hand for the Security of the Protestant Religion or Save guarding the Lives of such as prosess it under the Reign of one that is a known and violent Papist For whilst the Addressers are pleased to say That it is the Kingdoms Interest to continue the Succession in its Due and Right Line And take upon them to thank his Majesty For his unalterable Resolutions to preserve the Crown
in its due and Legal course of Descent and undertake to sacrifice their Lives to preserve the Kings Heirs and lawful Successors And offer their Lives and Fortunes to his Majesties Disposal for this purpose All people do sufficiently understand what they aim at and that the meaning of all this is That they would have the Duke of York come to the Throne But I wish they had shown so much Ingenuity and Candour as to have taken notice and acknowledged that all His Majesties Subjects are as tender of the Preservation of the Monarchy and as zealous to have it continued in the Royal Line as any of themselves dare pretend to be For it is more than probable that nothing so much influenced the bringing and pressing the Bill of Exclusion as a regard to the Preservation of the Monarchy which some of the best wisest and most Loyal of His Majesty's Subjects think the coming to have a Popish King may shake and endanger especially considering what this Nation felt from the last Papist that possest the Throne and how it hath been of late and still is threatned by the Bloody Conspiracies of the Romish Party Besides it had not been amiss if our late Addressers had owned that the King Lords and Commons have a Power to dispose of the Succession as they shall judge most conducible to the Safety Interest and Happiness of the Kingdom and that he is His Majesties Heir and Successor upon whom the whole Legislative Power shall think meet to settle the Inheritance of the Crown Nor would it have misbecome men professing the Protestant Religion and tender of English Liberties to have recommended to His Majesties second Thoughts and maturer Advice what three several Parliaments have with so much strength of Reason insisted upon and with so much earnestness pursued and desired And I wish they were able to tell us what they mean when at the same time that they engage to defend the Protestant Religion they vow to the last drop of their Blood to stand by the next Successor And the rather because there is some reason to believe that many of them will not be over-forward to dye Martyrs It would be also some satisfaction to be instructed how they think to defend the Crown in the Preservation whereof they pretend to be ready To sacrifice themselves and all they have seeing by being willing to admit a Papist to be King they consent to the robbing it of the Supremacy which is one of the brightest Jewels in it However it is some comfort that one end of setting on foot and carrying on these Addresses being to make a Survey and obtain a List of all that were for the Duke of York they do not upon the Muster-Rolls appear so many as to endanger the Nation in a Civil War in case the King should hereafter so far comply with the humble Requests of his People as to be willing to pass the Bill of Exclusion if tendred to him by a future Parliament SECT XVI But besides what is already said concerning the Quality and Design of the said Addresses there is this farther tendency in them all namely to insinuate to the Nation that we have and enjoy a sufficient Security for our Religion Lives and Liberties For as if it were not enough to acknowledge as all His Majesties Liege-people do His Majesties Easie Just and most Gracious Government since His Restoration and to testifie their sense of the Felicity and Happiness which all His Majesties Subjects have most comfortably enjoyed under a most Regular Gracious and Peaceful Government They are pleased further to add that His Majesties Promise in his late Declaration Of adhering to the Laws of the Land and making them the Rule of his Government is not only sufficient to allay all mens Fears and Jealousies remove the Misunderstandings of all well-meaning and reasonable People and give us all possible assurance of enjoying the greatest Liberty and best Religion that any people in the world have but that no greater Security can be had or hoped for in order to the enjoying our Religion Liberties and Properties than His Majesties Royal Word to Govern by the Laws Whereas not only four Parliaments have represented and declared the manifold Dangers by which our Religion Lives and Properties are threatned and encompassed and how difficult if not impossible it is to preserve and secure them from the Designs that are laid against them but the King also hath been pleased to signifie the same and that as well in several Proclamations published for the informing of His People as in divers Speeches to His two Houses of Parliament whose Advice He both thereupon required and also that effectual Laws might be made for the obviating and preventing those many Mischiefs and Dangers that are impending over us And if the King 's hitherto governing by Law hath not been sufficient to discourage our Popish Enemies from Conspiring our Destruction Can it be apprehended That His Majesties adherence to the Laws for the future will remove the Jealousies and allay the Fears which we have of the Papists Besides tho' His Majesty is always to be supposed resolved and inclined to Govern by Law yet there want not too many Instances wherein His Ministers that are trusted with the Administration of Justice have to the great prejudice of the Subject and the Alarming the whole Nation failed in their Duty Our dreadful Apprehensions do not proceed from any ill Opinion which we have of the King but from the implacable Hatred which the Romish Faction bear as well against Him as His Protestant Subjects and from the Corruption of those Officers of Justice who do either abuse or pervert the Law to base Ends or hinder its due and Legal Execution Nor is it our having good Laws but their being truely executed that will advantage and relieve us and therefore we are to be pardoned tho' we profess our selves doubtful of our security by them whilst some that have been entrusted with the administration of them are suffered to escape the punishments which they have deserved for obstructing their course and for perverting of them And what if we should with all thankfulness acknowledg that we are in some security during His Majesties Life will the Laws which we have without some farther and more effectual provision before His Majesties Death contribute much to our safety when we shall hereafter have a Popish King to Reign over us But can these men be supposed in earnest when they tell us that the Nation is in no danger while the Papists continue so active to extirpate the Northern Heresie and are in a more hopeful way to effect it than ever Alas the Popish Plot instead of being defeated is not so much as yet throughly detected And instead of the Papists being dismay'd by that discovery which hath been made or by the justice which hath been inflicted upon some of the Criminals they are only enflam'd to prosecute their divelish conspiracy
Popish Of reckoning up the pernicious endeavours of the Sectaries in consort with the Devilish Designs of the Papists And as if this were not sufficient to declare what they mean they not only take upon them to thank His Majesty For not passing Limitations or Nullifications of such wholesome Acts as were designed for Preservation of the Reformed Religion especially the 35th of Queen Elizabeth and for not suffering that Law and others made against Conventicles to be Repealed but they humbly pray His Majesty that those Laws now in force may vigorously speedily and equally be put in Execution against all Papists and Protestant Dissenters And particularly that the Statutes of the third of King James and the five and thirtieth of Queen Elizabeth may be put and continued in their due Execution It is something strange to find a company of men so zealous for the Protestant Religion when divers of them are the Disgrace and Reproach of any Religion which they take upon them to profess But can we believe that they are Protestants or at least that they understand the Protestant Interest who represent Dissenters as equally dangerous to the Government Established Religion as the Papists are It would administer a ground of too ill an Opinion of our Supreme Rulers and Publick Ministers should they allow and approve what these men have suggested For are there any among the Dissenters that have sworn Obedience to a Forreign Power that they should be thus put into the same List of dangerous persons to the Government with the Papists Or is there any Security that the Legislative Power can require of them for their Peaceableness that they are not willing and ready to give Yea Is not the Religion of the Dissenters established by Law as well as that of the Conformists tho' there be some things Ordained as the Accoutrements and Modes of the National Religion which the Non-Conformists cannot submit unto For as the only Foundation upon which the Dissenters go is that their Faith and Worship are agreeable and according to the Scripture which is the alone Rule of the mind of God to all his People in what they are to believe and perform So from the Authority which the Scripture hath allowed unto it by the Law of this Land and by the Consonancy of their Doctrine to the Establish'd Articles of Faith they humbly conceive that they have the countenance and warranty of the Law for their Religion Nor doth the Law disallow or forbid any thing which they profess it only enjoyns some further things which they cannot come up to And as the Dissenters do not oppose any one Doctrinal Article of the Church of England so they blame and judge no man for the Canonical Obedience that they promise to the Bishops or their Conformity to the Ceremonies but merely beg that themselves may be excused And should they be gratified as to all which in our present circumstances they do desire it would amount only to this That they may Preach the Gospel without being liable to Imprisonment Fines and Banishment Nor do they covet Ecclesiastical Preferments or Parochial Maintainance tho' were it not for some things which are made the Tests to those Places and Advantages and which without any Inconveniency might be laid aside there are many of them that are as worthy of them as others Neither can that which is stiled the Church of England suffer any diminution in the number of its Members by an Indulgence to Protestant Dissenters having both this will I give thee and thus saith the Migistrate on their side unless the Clergy should fall short in Abilities for their Function and in having Thus saith the Lord to plead for them But how dare these persons who have subscribed the Addresses assume the confidence to censure Parliaments for going about to repeal Laws which by woful Experience have been found not only useless but inconvenient both to the Protestant Religion and the Safety of the Kingdom For as Parliaments have Power to Enact Laws so they have the same Power to Abolish them whensoever they find that instead of answering the Ends which they were made for they have proved prejudicial to the Common Good And surely one may humbly say and that without the least Reflection upon the Grace and Favour with which the Addresses have been received that two Parliaments so fairly and unanimosly chosen and consisting of Gentlemen of the Chiefest Quality best Parts greatest Wisdom most plentiful Estates and firmest Integrity to the Interest of Religion and the Nation and all except a very few Zealous Sons of the Church and unfained Defenders of the present Hierarchy Discipline Forms and Rites of Worship were in all probability as able and likely to know what will let in or keep out Popery what will preserve us from or betray us into the hands and power of the Papists as Twenty or Thirty persons in a County or Corporation most of whom are not worth Forty Shillings Freehold a year and many of them not able to speak Ten words of sense together But it is easie to conjecture who in divers places set these Addressers at work and who put that in reference to Protestant Dissenters into so many Addresses namely either persons Popishly inclined that they might thereby continue and heighten our differences and make us the more easily a prey to Rome or some ignorant Clergy-men who besides their enmity at Phanaticks have little else to recommend them to the obtaining a common and civil respect but their Cassock and their Surplice SECT XIX And as if all this that I have with the greatest sincerity and justice represented unto you were not enough to blast the credit of the Addresses and to oppose the weakness and folly of such as have subscribed them there is something yet further and which is infinitely more pernicious that they pursue and aim at namely to possess His Majesty and the World with a belief that there is a design carried on by Protestants against the King and the Government Hence they not only thank His Majesty For recollecting the several steps and advances by which we were betrayed into our former confusions but take upon them to observe that there are some ill men who labour the subversion of our Religion Liberties and Properties under the specious pretence of Reformation being the same method that they brought to pass all the miseries of Vsurpation and Tyranny that this Kingdom lately groan'd under and that being seasoned with the old leaven of Common-wealth Principles they have endeavoured to make a misunderstanding betwixt His Majesty and his people and to throw us back into the same confusion we were delivered from by His Majesties happy Restauration and that not only the good order and quiet of the Government hath been most wickedly attempted to be disturbed and shaken but to be overthrown and utterly subverted and the very Monarchy it self to be destroyed Surely had these persons who