his Great thoughts intent on restoring England to its ancient Figure in the World namely of balancing it and coming to the Throne when he found the Land so impoverish'd â—y the Witnesses Plot and the spirits of the Inhabitants so much intimidated with Fears and Iealousies he by his own noble Iealousie for the Honour of the Nation hath chased away all ignoble Iealousies for ever and by shewing so great an Example of Universal Confidence in his People hath by his Augusâ— Genius found out so expedite a way to make the Confidence between the Prince and People mutual and which is the hinge on which the Happy State of any Country turns as hath made any general Relapses into Principles of disloyalty during his Reign almost morally impossible For according to that Saying of Tully Perditissimi est hominis eum laedere qui laesus non esset nisi â—redidisset and the Common Notion that next to the being perfectly good it is the most difficult thing to bring Humane Nature to be perfectly bad we may well expâ—ct a general growth of Loyalty from the Effects of that great Confidence and the great Spectacle it affords the World that may be partly expressed in the words of the Prophet viz. The heart of the Father's being turned to the Children and the natural Consequence of the turning the heart of the Children to their Father a more noble work then for an Elias to come and solve Doubts And thus while the Principles of some narrow-hearted Divines might seem confined like the Sands in their Hour-glasses yet His Majesty's great Thoughts and largeness of heart given him by God being as was said of Solomon's like the Sands of the Sea shoar and he having without setting up Weigh-houses for Loyalty or Religionary Principles created universal Charity and Peace in the Nation and allow'd his Subjects a paulò majora canamus then verbal Recantations he by thus trusting his Subjects at once with their Consciences hath provided an otherguess Prospect for English Minds then what can rise from disputacity or the Ecclesiarum Scabies and hath likewise secured the transmitting of his Character into the English Chronicles with such Rays of Glory as are brighter then those that have there adorn'd our former Princes under whom the Roses and Scepters and Kingdoms were united through his having so much united the hearts of People of all Religions to himself and to one another My Lord It is here but just that I should acknowledge it to your Lordship that you have been and are Pars Magna in so highly Contributing by your great Figure at the Helm in the last and this present Reign to this happy State of England For while in that Reign so many were so intent by what an ingenious late Writer calls The Wheel within a Wheel i. e. the Real Plot within the Nominal one of the Witnesses and by Out-cries against the Church of Rome to bring in a Roman Republick your Lordship by your most wise Councels and indefatigable diligence in guarding the Monarchy and effecting that it should not be plotted away by Names or Things will appear in the History of the Age as one who perhaps beyond any one now a Subject secured the old Fundamental Government of England and upon which only the new future Happiness of it could subsist I have entertain'd the Reader with a new Argument of Republicks generally growing more impracticable but I shall do but justice to your Lordship in representing your very Character as an Argument of sufficient weight to poise the minds of the ingenious and the ingenuous against innovations by that sort of Government For the World would soon want the benefit of the Example of the perfect justice inherent in your nature that glorious Virtue that is the allow'd Continent of all the rest and necessarily attracting the Eyes and Hearts and Veneration of the Populace if Heaven had not fix'd you in the Sphere of Monarchy a dull Mediocrity of Vertue and of Wit and reason being only easie to a popular Government and nothing but an Oyster-Shell or an Olive-Leaf being to be there expected by a Person heroically just to his Country as his recompence and his being always liable to such liberae accusationes Calumniationes as were under what I have call'd the Martyrocracy here in the turbid Interval of the Plot-times and of the Fears and Iealousies Your Lordship was then by the help of your great Vnderstanding and excellent Temper and your constant Serenity of thought saevis tranquillus in undis and while so many of the timid were with their narrow spirits in that stormy Conjuncture toss'd about with excessive Fears and Iealousies and nauseous to themselves and others your Lordships great thoughts like a well built first Rate-Ship allow'd you both Ease and Triumph on the Sea of Time and in the Night of the Popular Fears your great Reason was directive to the Loyal tanquam lucerna in navi Praetoriâ how and where to steer their Course with safety to the Publick While toward the End of the following Discourse I recollected how much and how far my belief had been with that of many Loyal embarqued in the belief of a Plot or the Plot I there in p. 359 and 360. took notice that the Notions that men had of a Plot were very various Some then were so far gone in credulity as like the Fool that Solomon saith believeth every word they were resolv'd to believe every thing the Witnesses had said or would say the Loyal generally acquiesced in the Notification of it as Publish'd by the Government and I likewise call'd to mind what I had during my belief of somewhat of it mention'd in those hot Times and while I was writing the warmest part of my Discourse in that Conjuncture and when generally every heat of mens Passions was Feverish and every Fever Pestilential and when the Vitium temporis was Concurrent with the Faults of the Writer and there in p. 14. observing that since according to the expression of God's not being the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles so it being true that the King is King of the Papists as well as Protestants King of the Irish as well as English and a Common Father to them all it may be worthy of his royal goodness and a god-like thing in him to distribute to them all the kindness that would not undo themselves and others i. e. that they were capable of and having then in p. 44. urged the possibility of Recusants being a sound part of the State here as well as in Holland I held my self obliged to do them and the Course of my Impartial observing the right as toward the end of the Discourse to mention it that whatever petulance some of them were formerly guilty of yet that the deportment of the generality of them hath of late appear'd with such a Face of Loyalty as was necessarily attractive of our Christian Love and Compassion And
instance Of their great progress wherein we have an account in Pryn's Compleat History of the Tryal of Arch-bishop Laud where he saith And had they not been interrupted in this good work they would probably in very few years have purchased in most of the great Towns and noted Parishes Impropriate in England in Lay-mens Lands And which had they effected they might have settled such a Bank of Land on the Fond whereof to have brought into their possession the greatest part perhaps of the mony Currant in England and that party without any but Silver weapons have acquired such an arbitrage of the interests of all others in England as to have usurped Harry the Eighth's Motto of Cui adhaereo praeest But though the Livings in these great Corporate Towns are so small and the value they had by oblations be evaporated every where but in the King's Books where it remains still to enhance their payment of first Fruits and Tenths the heterodox Divines there find Harvests of oblations rich enough and so will the Divines of the Church of England if ever a storm of Popish Persecution shall drive them there for shelter to be Pastors of the Monied Men and if the worst comes to the worst they will there find some â—at gathered Churches better then lean Bishopricks as perhaps some heterodox Pastors do now there experiment them and the ambient heat of State-favour that call'd out some of the inward one of Religion being abated they will probably grow more exemplary in austere vertue and thereby attract so much reverence from their flocks as to become Confessors as well as Preachers to them for so the Non-conformist Divines there now in a manner are and as Confession under Popery proved the only Guaranty to the Priests for their being paid their Personal Tithes and as then people at their deaths expiated their omissions in the payment of their Tithes by valuable Legacies thus too will it probably happen to the Ministers of Christ's New Testament and often to be Executors or at least Legatees in Christians Wills the very dust of whose feet is thought beautiful by all Men generally when their return to their own dust is approaching And the persecution design'd them will but reduce their state in the Eye of the World to look and be like that of the Primitive Christians who made the Apostles their Bankers and the depositaries of their wealth and whose Successors likewise in the administration of the Gospel during the following Ages of Persecution had good livelihoods on the Fond of Oblations And as for Tithes we hear nothing of them for many Ages in the Primitive Church In the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Universae published by Iustellus the most authentick Book in the World next the Bible and which contains the Canons received by the Universal Church till the year 451 there is not one word of Tithes The Clergy were then liberally maintained by the free oblations of the people which were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And there was no such Proverb heard of in the World abroad as laâ—ci semper sunt infensi Clericis till there was another unlucky one Ecclesia peperit divitias c. and till the Goths and Vandals being Proselyted to Christianity exprest the natural zeal of new Converts by vastly endowing the Clergy 〈◊〉 Lands who had as I may say setled Heaven upon them and whoâ—e greâ—â— proportion in the balance of Land necessarily made them aâ—terward one of the Three Estates in the Christian World. And most worthy of Christian Princes care it was to endeavour to secure the profession of Christianity in future times as well as their own by providing that the Clergy should not be of the meanest of the people nor depend on benevolence which in the prosperous condition of Christianity might perhaps grow cold as under Popery the Charity of Oblations had done but for the Aâ—tifices before mentioned of Saints Shrines c. and Reliques and the fear of Purgatory Of the Oblations of the people here in England decreasing toward the Pastors of Independent Churches when Independency became the Darling Religion of the State we had an indication in the late times when some of the most eminent of them obtain'd the possession of great Livings and their Tithes and others of them retreated from their Churches to Headships of Colledges Nor has there been any failure of the return of the old Exuberance of Oblations from such Churches to such Divines who have again returned to them when they were dislodged from those preferments I find not that the Piety of our Ancestors had established any Revenue to the Church from Tithes in England till about the end of the Eighth or middle of the Ninth Century nor was the division of England into Parishes before the time of Honorius Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 636 till which time there could not be Parochial Tithes About that time as 't was said that the measure of donations to the Church was immensitas so was the modus of their Artifices to preserve them sine modo it being incident to humane Nature to be restless in the acquiring of riches for without the perpetual acquiring of more no Man is sure to preserve the Quota of what he hath 'T was thence that Sacriledge of the Monks arose that tore the Bread out of the Mouths of the Parish Priests by the Name of Appropriations which shewed the President to Wolseys alienation of Religious Houses that was the President to Harry the Eighth's And it may well be supposed that the Design of the Monks in robbing the Parochial incumbents by Appropriations was to propagate ignorance among the Laity thereby and to leave the Age as dark as they found it or rather to be able generally to let in or keep out what quantity of light they pleased Yet had those Appropriations been made in an Age of knowledge they would then have met with that Nick-name of Impropriations that was born many years afterward and it would then have appeared improper to all that the Monks should Muzzle the mouth of the Ox that did tread out the Corn and that old natural Zeal for Religion so anciently radicated in English minds that Popes have formerly complained they were addrest to with more questions about Religion from England than from all the World beside would have inclined the respective Parishioners according to their abilities to contribute a liberal maintenance to their Parish Priests and even in St. Paul's words To have plucked out their own Eyes and have given them but that they saw that devotion that brought the fore-mentioned concourse of Spectators and Offerers to the Images and Shrines and to the Altars there made the Vicars at least competently to live by the Altar And if that Classe of heterodox Pastors in Corporations who as to skill in Theology and the Encyclopaedy of Arts and Sciences requisite to Crown a Divine are generally but Images in comparison of the excellent
Divines of the Church of England have been how ever so much adored there and had such offerings from their adorers the substantial and learned Divines of our Church there may on occasion well say quid non speremus During that late persecution of the Divines of the Church of England in the times of the Usurped Powers who therein exercised all the cruelty they durst it might be truly said of the Doctrine of that Church and the fire of the zeal of the Laity in providing for the liberal maintenance of many of its Clergy as it is of Lime in the Emblem Mediis accendor in undis What burning and shining lights then in the midst of a perverse Generation were among others of the Church of England in London Bishop Gunning Bishop Wild Bishop Mossom Nor did their numerous Congregations in the least for want of plentiful Oblations to them starve the Cause of Religion The last forementioned person at the Funeral of Bishop Wild in a Printed Panegyric of his Life takes occasion to speak of the Oblations in those times afforded him and saith p. 7. And whereas some good Obadiahs did then hide and feed the Lord's Prophets it was his care to Communicate to others what himself received for his own support Many Ministers sequestred many Widows afflicted many Royalists imprisoned and almost famished can testifie the diffusive bounty of his hand dispensing to others in reliefs of Charity what himself received of others in offerings of Devotion And as if that Iron Age had been the Golden one of the Church of England he doth so pathetically represent the internal glories of that Church in that conjuncture that any one who would draw an Historical Painting of the State of the Primitive Church to the exactness and bigness of the life might best do it by the Church of England sitting in that posture he describes These are his words p. 6 And here I cannot but recount with joy amidst all this Funeral sorrow what were then the holy ardours of all fervent devotions in Fastings and Prayer and solemn Humiliations Ay in Festival and Sacramental Solemnities O the lift up praying and yet sometime down cast weeping Eyes of humble Penitents O the often extended and yet as often enfolded arms of suppliant Votaries Vpon days of Solemnity O how early and how eager were the peoples devotions that certainly then if ever the Kingdom of Heaven suffered violence so many with Jacob then wrestling with God in Prayer not letting him go till he gave them a blessing c. Thus was that great Magazine of Learning and Piety Dr. Hammond in the late time of the Persecution of the Church of England the Magazine then likewise of mighty Alms insomuch that Serenus Cressy saith in his Epistle Apologetical Printed in the year 1674 p. 48. Dr. Hammond in those days inviting me into England assured me I should be provided of a convenient place to dwell in and a sufficient subsistence to live comfortably and withal that not any one should molest me about my Religion and Conscience I had reason to believe that this invitation was an effect of a cordial Friendship and I was also inform'd that he was well enabled to make good his promise as having the disposal of great Charities and the most zealous promoter of Alms-giving that liv'd in England since the change of Religion Thus while as noble Confessors they forsook Houses and Land they according to the Evangelical promise received the effects of Houses and Lands and praedial Tithes an hundred fold in this Life with the Gospel Salvo as I may call it of Persecutions And as in the primitive and best times when the Christian Pastors had no Tenths but the Decumani fluctus or Ten Persecutions and many Christians were decimated for Martyrdom that Community of Goods that was never read of to be practised but in Vtopia and that Renunciation of that dear thing called Property for the defence whereof Political Government is supposed to have been chiefly invented did so much glorifie the Christian Morality to the confounding all examples of the most sublime Morals of the Heathens that the Pastors had the Christians All at their Feet and did tread on Oblations at every step they took so likewise those great Divines beforementioned and many others found that Primitive Temper revived in some of the Lay-Members of the Church of England by their generous Offerings and Contributions which adorn'd the Gospel and supported its Ministers and which Laity though cruelly decimated by the Usurpers yet were then Rich in good works ready to distribute and willing to Communicate and by their forementioned great liberality in Oblations exceeding the rate of Tenths did lay up in store a good Foundation against the time to come for the Pastors that shall be their Successors in Persecution that may secure their expectations of good Pastures in our Cities and of having a Table prepared for them in the presence of their Enemies come what can come from Popery Moreover by such an accident only can the great Cities in England be freed from some illiterate Pastors of gather'd Churches who without having their Quarters beaten up by Penal Laws will disappear there when the excellent try'd Veterans of the Church of England shall come to Garrison them Those little Sheep-stealers of others Flocks will then no longer attempt there to have Common of Pasture without Number but will by all be numbred and found too light 'T will be visible to all that the Divines of the Church of England can with ease Preach in as plain a manner as the other and that the other can not with pains Preach as Learnedly and Rationally as they We see that many ridiculous Lay-Preachers who in the late times did set up a kind of Religion-Trade in great Cities and did gather Churches and likewise gather there some maintenance have thence silently took their march on the occasion of the more Learned Presbyterian Divines ejected from their Livings retiring thither and there having constant auditories partly resembling the guise of gathered Churches And the disproportion in intellectual Talents being generally as great between them and the Divines of the Church of England as is that between them and the Lay-Preachers they must there prove Bankrupt necessarily as the others did Dr. Glanvil in his Book called The Zealous and Impartial Protestant did but right to the Episcopal Clergy of England when he ascribes to them the honour of having by their Learned Writings Confuted exposed triumph'd over the numerous Errours of Popery and there names Bishop Iewel Bishop Morton Bishop Andrews Archbishop Laud Bishop Hall Bishop Davenant Archbishop Vsher Archbishop Bramhal Bishop Taylor Bishop Cozens Dr. Hammond Mr. Chillingworth Mr. Mead Dean Stillingfleet Dean Tillotson Dean Lloyd Dr. Henry More Dr. Brevint And speaking of the Episcopal Clergy of the City of London saith How many Learned Substantial Convictive Sermons have they Preach'd against the Popish Doctrines and Practice since our late fears
Millions of Souls But there scarce needs any other Medium whereby to evince that the Progress of the Reformation hath vastly encreased the value of our Land and proportion of our Commerce then that it hath so vastly encreased the number of our People a Fact that I have already proved and have shewn what Depopulaors or dispeoplers of the Kingdom the Monks were and have made some Calculations of the numbers of the Religious Persons living in Celibate and the effects thereof in restraining formerly the growth of the Numbers of the People but do find that I was extremely short in assigning the number of those whom Popery made to live in Celibate to be but 120000. I was glad to gain a rise for somewhat like an Estimate of the numbers of all the Religious persons in Monasteries by finding it in Weavers Monuments that the Religious Persons put out of the Religious Houses under the yearly value of 200 l. were above 10000 and that therein Weaver agrees with Sanders de Schismate c. but I made no Estimate of the numbers of Friers Mendicant the which were very great and I was too short on the accounting that there were perhaps no more Secular Priests then Benefices in England for thô the Rule of the Canon Law allows not Orders to be given to Men without a Title yet it admits an exception in the Case of Men who can live on their own patrimony and it still took the Title to be a Curate as current Coyn for one to a living and moreover the livelihoods that many unbeneficed Secular Priests acquired by saying particular Masses did pass for Titles and thus in France it being conceived that the Secular Priests unbeneficed are about 6 times as many as the beneficiaries we may thence guess what the proportions of their numbers were in England But yet further to discourse of the growth of the numbers of the people of England before and since the Reformation I shall acquaint your Lordship that you may easily find among the Records of the Exchequer what the number of the people of England was in the Year 1522 when Harry the 8 th as I cited it out of my Lord Herberts History p. 121 Caused Warrants to be Issued out Commanding the Certificates of the number of all above 16 years old to be returned and by an Index or Repertory of the Matters of State in the Exchequer that I have I can readily direct the finding it out there and moreover by the accounts of the Pole Acts in former times a considerable indication of the numbers of the people in those days may be had And if we may guess at the encrease of the people of England from that of London I can easily satisfie any person about the prodigious growth of that City in numbers of people and consequently in wealth since the abandoning of the Papacy I have by me an account of the proportions of the Shires of England City of London in a Tax of 50000 l. long since in Edward the 3 ds time and in which Surry bore the same proportion with London and in which London and Surry and Middlesex paid but about 1500 l. which was but about a 16 th part And in Harry the 8 ths times it hapned that Cardinal Pool excited divers Princes of Christendom to invade England a fit man he was who had been then a Traytor to come here and absolve Hereticks but Holling shead in his Chronicle of Harry the 8 th p. 947 tells us That the King having heard of the Treasonable practices of the Cardinal did Anno 1539 make a Survey of his Naval Strength and did ride to the Sea-Coasts and that Sir William Foreman Knight then Major of London was commanded to certifie the names of all the Men within the City and liberties thereof between the age of 16 and 60 whereupon the said Mayor and his Brethren each one in his Ward by the Oath of the Common-Council and Constable took the number of Men Arms and Weapons and after well considering of the matter by view of their Books they thought it not expedient to admit the whole number certified for apt and able men and therefore assembling themselves again they chose forth the most able persons and put by the residue especially such as had no Armour But when they were credibly advertised by Thomas Cromwel Lord Privy-Seal to whom the City was greatly beholden that the King himself would see the People of the City Muster in a convenient number and not to set forth all their power but to leave some at home to keep the City c. then he saith the number beside the Whifflers and other Waiters was 15000. But the Observator on the Bills of Mortality hath in his last Observations on that Subject told us That there are in London about 6 hundred and 70000 Souls and thô I know that some Parishes are included within the Bills of Mortality for the said City that formerly were not yet the said Observator having told us that there are in London more Males then Females and it being true that there are as many above the Age of sixteen as are under it and that the Sexagenarii are but a 6 th part of Mankind and the Quota of the numbers resulting from the Parishes added being likewise shewn us by that Observator let any one judge how vast the number of able Men certifiable between 16 and 60 is grown to be since that year of Harry the 8 th before mentioned It must be acknowledged that the thanks of the Age are due to the Observator on the Bills of Mortality for those solid and rational Calculations he hath brought to light relating to the numbers of our people but such is the modesty of that excellent Author that I have often heard him wish that a thing of so great publick importance to be certainly known might be so by an actual numbring of them and the truth is it is much to be pittied that by the care of Magistrates an exact number of the people as well of London as of all other places in the Realm hath not with diligence been made and preserved the knowledge whereof is the Substratum of all political measures that can be taken as to a Nations strength or riches and the part thereof that is spareable for Colonies and the value of the branches of the publick Revenue and the equality in proportioning any Taxes or Levies by Act of Parliament and the satisfying the World about the value of our Alliances a thing one would think somewhat necessary when 't is published in Print that a Forraign Minister who hath spent much time here and is deservedly famous for being a Critical Judge in the Politicks and in many sorts of Learning makes the people of England to be but two Millions and when a late famous French Author of la Politique Francoise who sets up with his Goose-quill to be a Governor of the World reproacheth us
a flame of Zeal reflected in these words on the Queen her self Our posterities shall rue that ever such Fathers went before them and Chronicles shall report this Contempt of learning among the Plagues and Murrains and other Punishments of God they shall leave it written in what time and under whose reign this was done If the good Bishop had considered the vastness of Queen Elizabeth's Expences before mention'd in desending the Protestant Cause contra gentes he would have given her day to have built and endowed some Churches and to those expences before mention'd it comes into my memory here to add what I then forgot which is related in the Travels of Mr. Fines Moryson who was Secretary then to the Chief Governor of Ireland in her Reign viz. That she expended in 4 years time on that Kingdom a Million and one Hundred Ninety Eight Thousand Pound Sterling which Sum so laid out then on Ireland will seem the more considerable when by a late Report of the Counsel of Trade in that Kingdom drawn by Sir W. P. The currant Cash of that Kingdom is made to be but Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Pound Sterling But this by the way and to resume my discourse of our Clergies neither getting nor losing by Religion I shall say that as the acceptable free restoration of the Church as well as the Crown to its Lands shewed that there was no fear of its injuring the Ballance of the Kingdom or hurting Religion by its weight so hath the following acquiescence of all dis-interested men in the same evinced that weight to be no gravamen In a Pamphlet called a Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country Printed in the Year 1675 generally supposed to be writ by the Earl of Shaftsbury and which asserts the Justice of the Declaration of Indulgence the Author in p. 5. speaking of the Church of England becoming the head of the Protestants at home and abroad saith For that place is due to the Church of England being in favour and of nearest approach to the most powerful Prince of that Religion and so always had it in their hands to be the Intercessors and Procurers of the greatest good and protection that Party throughout all Christendom can receive And thus the Archbishop of Canterbury might become not only alterius orbis but alterius Religionis Papa and all this Addition of Honour and Power attain'd without the least loss or diminution of the Church it not being intended that one Dignity or Preferment should be given to any but those that were strictly conformable The natural inclination in all ingenious Men not to cast an evil Eye on the Church Revenue appears in Mr. Marvel 's Second Part of the Rehersal transpos'd p. 146. where he saith I am so far from thinking enviously of the Revenue of the Church of England c. That I think in my Conscience it is all but too little and wish with all my heart that there could be some way found out to augment it And our ingenious and great Lord Chancellor Bacon in his certain Considerations touching the pacification of the Church of England hath with great equity decreed our Parliaments to be in some sort indebted to the Church Moreover that Gentlemanly way of writing used by our great Divines in a late Conjuncture against Popery and so suitable to the refinement of Wit and Reason in the Age and wherein without the Pedantry of unnecessary Words or Quotations or raising a dust out of the Learned Rubbish of the Schoolmen they generally with a manly Style and clear reason and skill at that weapon got the Sword out of their Enemies hand by the Argumentum ad hominem and shewed us that Popery and Implicit Faith were not Calculated for the Meridian of this Age hath I think made all ingenious Men Conformists in this opinion that if their Genius had been cramp'd with the res angust a domi their thoughts had not in their Books appeared so great and therefore I hope that all the well writ works of their hands and seasonable discourses against Popery at that time when it was ready to curse us and to rise up against our Religion will make all thinking Protestants to say Amen to that Prayer of Moses Bless O Lord Levi 's substance accept the work of his hands smite through the Loyns of them that hate him that they rise not again It will I doubt not appear to rational and thinking men that our little interloping Churches or Congregations that set up with their precarious Power and small stock of Learning or Revenue will no more be able to break the great Compacted Body of the Papal Church that hath the Monopoly of the Religion-Trade in so many parts of the World then a few interloping Merchant-men to break the Opulent Dutch East-India Company who have engross'd so much of the Spices of the World that sometimes they cause several Ships loadings of them to be at once consumed as knowing what quantity and no more will be useful to the World. And somewhat like that thing too the Polity of the Anglican Church in Harry the 8 th's time perform'd while it drove a Religion-Trade with Rome and yet consumed a great quantity of its superfluous Merchandize and the same thing hath been done by our National Church as to remaining parts of the Romish Superstition in succeeding times and indeed Superstition which is a kind of Nimiety of Religion is so incident to Humane Nature and is so destructive to the Polity of Churches and the substantial Commerce of Nations that it is worthy the Power and Care of Nations to consume it And considering that the Church of Rome hath still valued it self for being terribilis sicut castrorum acies ordinata it is a vain thing to contend with such a Regular Church Militant without our having of general Officers and as exact a Conduct or to think to have such Officers without Honourable Maintenance from the Publick For none doth go a Warfare at any time at his own charge When I think how in the Primitive times while a Cloud of Persecution was always over the head of the Christians that yet they strain'd themselves so much in Contributions for the Pastorage of their Souls that all the Pastors then were so far from losing by Religion that some were tempted to that Office for filthy Lucre as we may see out of Peter Ep. 1. Ch 5. Vers. 2. tho yet too so little comparatively was to be gain'd by all thereby that others probably undertook that Office by constraint as the same place intimates and that therein the Apostolick Prudence was conspicuous in ordering it upon the whole matter that the generality of Pastors then should not get or lose by Religion I may reasonably conclude that we who live in the flourishing and prosperous State of Christianity ought to provide that the meanest Pastor of Souls in England may live competently and decently by that
Petition yet the Impartial Thuanus doth it and in Book 135. and on the Year 1605. going to relate the History of the Gun-powder Treason he saith Ad libellum supplicem pro libertate Conscientiarum à Majorum Religioni addictis i. e. the Papists in proximis Comitiis oblatum à Rege rejectum fama erat alium his proximis quae jam aliquoties dilata erant porrectum iri qui non repulsae ut prior periculum sed concessionis vel ab invito extâ—rquendae necessitatem adjunctam haberet Itaque qui regni negotia sub principe generoso ac minime suspicioso procurabant nihil pejus veriti in eo laborabant ut petitiones iis adjunctam necessitatem eluderent Verum non de gratiâ de quâ desperabatur decimò obtinendâ sed de repulsâ illà vel cum regni exitio quod minime rebantur illi inter conjuratos agebatur And as to the Puritans Petition to King Iames The Resolution of the Lords and likewise of the Iudges assembled in Star-Chamber shortly after doth I think refer to it in the 3d § viz. Whether it was an offence punishable and what punishment they deserved who framed Petitions and Collected a Multitude of Hands thereto to prefer to the King in a publick Cause as the Puritans had done with an intimation to the King that if he denied the Suit many thousands of his Subjects would be discontented where to all the Iustices answered that it was an offence finable at discretion and very near Treason and Felony in the punishment for they tended to the raising of Sedition and Rebellion and discontent among the People to which resolution all the Lords declared that some of the Puritans had raised a false rumour of the King how he intended to grant a toleration to Papists c. And the Lords severally declared how the King was discontented with the said false rumour and had made but the day before a Protestation to them that he never intended and would spend the last drop of Blood before he would do it I remember not in the Millenary Petition any such expression as the insolent intimation that thousands would be discontented if it were not granted but do on the occasion of this ruffianly way of petitioning by Papists and Puritans remember what Alexander ab Alexandro speaks of the Persians who worshipped Fire that they did once in their supplicating their God threaten him that if he would not grant their Request they would throw him into the water I was therefore no imprudent Act of the Nonconforming Divines who had been deprived of their Livings to publish voluntarily such a Protestation of their Tenets as aforesaid after the detection of the Papists Gun powder Treason Plot and by which Act the Government was diverted from putting such a Cautionary Test on their Party as was on the Papists by the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Certain it is that both the Parties appeared very rude in the manner of their Petitioning In the Decrets where the Text saith that a thing is done Contra fidem Catholicam the gloss explains it to be Contra bonos more 's and so it may be said that both the Petitioners for the Roman Catholick Faith and for the others alledged Catholick Faith were injurious to each by their unmannerly Petitionings as well as to their Prince and their being both such frequent Aggressors against his quiet gave occasion for the Question to vex his Reign viz. Which were the worse of the two or whether they were not equally bad and so many may carelessly render them according to the saying Rustici res secant per medium What Bishop Elmore the Bishop of London thought in such a Case I have said and yet that Bishop as Fuller tells us in the Church History was a Learned Man and a strict and stout Champion for Disciplinâ— and on which account was more mock'd by Mar-Prelate and hated by the Nonconformists then any one And a great Son of the Church and Minister of the State hath judiciously in a publick Speech inculcated the different regard to be had to those who stray from the Flock and those who would destroy it Moreover a great Iustitiary of the Realm in the Tryal of one of the Popish Plotteâ—s took occasion to observe That Popery was ten times worse then the Heathen Idolatry And Dr. Burnet in a printed Sermon having said That in many places Lutherans are no less and in some tbey are more fierce against the Calvinists then against Papists adds like a strange sort of People among our selves that are not ashamed to own a greater aversion to any sort of Dissenters then to the Church of Rome I hope the Authority of that great Divine and excellent Person will in the point of this Comparison help to allay such a mistaken Aversion to some mistaken Dissenters I care not who knows the great deference I have to the judgment of that great Historian of our Reformation and whose History of which as the House of Commons has done right to by one of their Votes so likewise hath the highest Judicatory in England I mean the House of Lords by a late Order of theirs by which the Thanks of that House are given him for the great service done by him to this Kingdom and to the Protestant Religion in writing the History of the Reformation of the Church of England so truly and exactly and that he be desired to proceed to the perfecting what he further intends therein with all convenient speed c. As the words in the Iournal are My reading lately ten small printed Controversial Discourses between two Baronets of Cheshire near of kin to each other in which are many references to Historical Antiquities concerning the Illegitimacy of one Amicia Daughter to one of the Earls of Chester and my observing that one of those Authors blames the other for not better learning the duty to his deceased Grand-mother as his words are then by divulging the shame of her Illigitimacy and saith there is no Precedent in Scripture of any man that did divulge the shame of any person out of whose loyns he did descend except the wicked Ham and that the other Author thinks himself on the account of truth and for its sake to assert her Illegitimacy those many Tracts passed about that Controversy from the Year 1673 to 1676 occasioned my thinking that thus have some Writers that would take it ill perhaps not to be thought legitimate and true Sons of the Church of England took too much pains to prove the Birth of its Reformation to be illegitimate to the great Applause of the Papists and that our Reverend Historian of it did seasonably come in to Aid his Mother Church by publishing the very Records that would secure her from a blush on that account and leave that Mauvaise honte as the French call it to be Enemies and hath appear'd by his very laborious and judicious Writings to be a
busie Anti-Papists then others have been immediately admitted to the good Graces of the People and cried up by them as Patriots and Hero's and by their afterward espousing the true Interest of the Kingdom as to the point of Popery all their former spurious Actions have been not only pardoned but almost according to the Canon Law legitimated and as the Popes in any Croysad for the Exterminium of Hereticks were wont to give plenary Indulgences for all Sins past and to come for many years so have the People heaped such Indulgences on such Persons that in any Conjuncture shewed their zeal in the extermination of Popery And though to an ordinary view these mens Title to their Fame may appear by some of their former Actings much incumbered yet who ever pryes into it is as much generaly hated as are those Projectors who rake for their Bread among the weak Titles of other Mens Estates and cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they have found out a flaw there 'T is observable that S. Iames C. 2. in his Assertion of Justification by works gives two Instances of Persons so justified and that one is of Abraham and the other of Rahab the Harlot in v. 25. likewise also was not Rahab the Harlot justified by workt when she had received the Messengers and had sent them another way and yet too that senâ—â—â— the Spies another way as the Fact is Historically mentioned in Ioshua the 2 d would to some Scruplers seem unjustifiable Thus do the People in their way justifie all that they believe are assistful to them in the attaquing of the Romish Babylon and look on them as their Saviours and as captious as they are against others yet think of nothing but saving them and all that they have as was in the case of Rahab Nor is it to be wonder'd at that Men who have so much to account for to the Public should be thus discharged by the populace tho many of them are Gallios in Religion and were no more concern'd for the Eclipse of Protestancy or the light of the Gospel in the year 1678. or 1680. then they were for the four Eclipses of the Luminaries viz. two of the Sun and two of the Moon that will be in the year 1701. and particularly of that of the Sun which will be in Ianuary then and not seen by us but only by our Antipodes but there is that adherent to Popery that if it could rivet it self into our Law here it would make the light of the Sun not worth the looking on namely the Confiscation of the Goods and Estates of those that Holy Church calls Heretics and the throwing them into such forlorn Prisons where they could see neither Sun or Moon and therefore as the Devils those Seducers in Chains are hated by Men because they know those Fiends would destroy their lifes if they could for the same reason all that lye open to the Name of Heretics will be animated with a brisk hatred against Popery and magnify those as their tutelar Angels that shall pretend to defend them from it tho such did before conspire against them But therefore because a Zeal against Popery is a remedy so cheap and so easie to be had and yet so infallible a one against the Peoples being discontented with Men who did before so much by their Principles poison the Realm 't is the common interest of us all both Protestants and Papists out of love to our Country to wish that no Men may be tempted so fatally to injure it hereafter by being beforehand sure of purchasing both Pardon and Adoration from the People on such easie terms The strong currents of Inclination I find in my self and observe in others not only to Pardon but to extol and magnifie nay to bless all Men that help their Country as it is contesting with Popery or Presbytery or either of those or any Religion-trade and to say to them as the Expression is in the Psalms We bless you in the name of the Lord will I hope be accompany'd with such an Extirpation of it as will not leave any Fibre behind it in our English World. As it need not be told to our Divines of the Church of England that they are under no obligation to strain any point of Courtesie whereby to render the Papists generally not worse than Puritans and that their Character hath been by the Papists all along render'd more vile than that of the Puritans and that Doleman in his Book of the Succession weighing the Parties in England and having first spoke of the Protestants of the Church of England afterward p. 242. saith That the Puritan party is more generally favour'd throughout the whole Realm with all those which are not of the Roman Religion then is the Protestant upon a certain general persuasion that the profession of the Puritan Party is the more perfect especially in great Towns where Preachers have made more impression in the Artificers and Burgesses than in the Common People And among the Protestants themselves all those that are less interested in Ecclesiastical Livings or other Preferments depending on the State are more affected commonly to the Puritans c. And p. 244. The Puritan Party at home in England is thought to be most vigorous of any other that is to say most ardent quick bold resolute and to have a great part of the best Captains and Soldiers on their side which is a point of no small moment and that Weston Lib. 3. de Trip. Hom. Offic. Cap. 16. p. 226. in a very janty manner crying up the Puritans beyond the Prrotestants of the Church of England saith Protestantibus inâ—â— Sacrâ praestabiliores puritanos Qui enim estis Protestantes hominum judicamini ignavissimi omnium religionis etiam fuco destituti impiissimi aeruscatores parati jurare in cujusvis verba modò inde emolumentum rebus vestris accrescat and in p. 227. Puritani sane multò solidius ac syncerius sua dogmata profitentur So neither need it be told the Papists that the Divines of the Church of England did never prefer the Tenets of Popery or Professors thereof to those of Puritanism or Presbytery as such and that they never complain'd of the Protection the Dutch and French Churches have long here enjoy'd with Liberty to worship God according to their peculiar Rites and Church Discipline and that upon the late great migration of many French Protestants from their own Country hither under great Circumstances of want our Divines and particularly those in and near London shew'd all the efforts of their Art of Persuasion from their Pulpits to move their Hearers to liberal Contributions to them that they could have possibly done in the case of their own Countrimen or Kindred and that one of those Divines in one of the greatest Cures there being for his Learning and Life and Endowments proper to his Function a great Ornament to the Gospel when he with great Eloquence so pathetically bespoke
Loyalty that any Christian who hath taken these Oaths shall think sufficient doth most certainly take the name of Loyalty and Protestancy and of Christianity and even of God in vain and as the Scripture implies that there is a Repentance to be repented of I shall say that such a mans Protestancy is to be protested against And when we consider that the Presbyterian Author of the EXERCITATION beforementioned hath in p. 41. with so much Loyalty and Reason told us in terms That Obedience is owing to Princes without condition of Religion or Iustice on their part performed and the Scripture is clear for an irrespective and in regard of the Rulers Demeanor absolute subjection Exod. 20. 12. 21. 25. Rom. 13. 1 2 c. Tit. 3. 1. 1 Pet. 2. 13. 1 Sam. 24. 6 7. 26. 9 10 11. Jer. 27. 12. 29. 7. Matth. 22. 21. and hath told us in p. 56. That our Oaths put no condition on the Prince but are all absolute and irrespective and run without ifs or ands in like manner as the Obligation of Subjects Allegiance to their Sovereign is irrespective according to Divine Institution methinks it should make any Son of the Church of England to start at the thought of his being out-done in Loyalty and sworn Allegiance by a Covenanting Presbyterian for such that Author was and at the thought of any ones having taken those Oaths relating to the King his Heirs and Successors and afterward interlining the interpretation of them with ifs and ands and at the thought of such an interlineation not appearing as ill in the Court of Conscience as any would do in a Court of Law. But the truth is the Church of England appearing in this late Religionary Fermentation to have so incorporated this Doctrine of absolute and irrespective Loyalty into its Constitution beyond any other Church in the World and likewise the Doctrine of Charity and Moderation toward all Christians whether Foreigners or Domesticks whether whole Churches or single Persons as Primate Bramhal's words are that the same doth now as I may say strike the Eyes of all indifferent men and enforce it self on the thoughts of any who do but for Curiosity walk about this Sion and go round about her and tell the Towers thereof I mean do consider its Prayers Homilies Articles Canons and Ecclesiastical Constitutions it hath hereby been necessarily made like the Eagle to renew its youth and to be invigorated as with a new Soul after its Enemies thought it dead or asleep and after Mr. Hooker's shrewd guessing that after the Year 1677. That what followed would be likely to be small joy to them who should behold it For the Doctrine of absolute and irrespective Loyalty being Essential to the Peace of Kingdoms and likely to be so more and more to the Worlds end and the Church of England appearing as by consent of Parties to be THE Church that overtowers all others in the Principles for THAT Sort of Loyalty as well as in the august Principles of Charity for all Christians according to the saying of Magnes amoris amor it must naturally attract the love of thoâ—e in other Churches and supposing that any Church or People love themselves and cannot be preserved but by Loyalty Nature will direct the World to a growing love for the Church of England and therefore I am no Visionaire in predicting from natural Causes That what shall follow to the Church of England will be great joy to those who shall behold it to the very end of time And nothing could possibly in my opinion have brought it to this firm State of its Glory but the disloyal Principles and Practices of some of its Competitors and particularly the just and dreadful apprehensions given to considerate men upon some Nominal Protestants and Nominal Property-men having founded Dominion in Grace and yet having reproached the Church of England and its Divines with Popery and invited the Protestant Mobile to make a Schism from it on such an account and printed many Seditious Pamphlets for the Establishing the IF or AND-Loyalty or indeed which is all one an absolute Disloyalty and in such a Conjuncture when it would have been not more pernicious to the particular Souls of the Disloyal than to the Body of the whole Nation and to the State of Christendom Thus through the Divine Omnipotence which can bring good out of evil hath our late Fermentation been made perfective to our Church as well as the Hereditary Monarchy and the Rule of God's governing the World by the Prayers of his Church and Lusts of his Enemies been here exemplified and as the Air that is the Steem of the dull Earth or the Textura halituum terrae as Gassendus calls it is made by nature to be the Vehicle of those Beams of the Sun that dazle our Eyes thus have the Fumes exhaled by such mens Lusts of Disloyalty and Malice that darken'd their own understandings and would have obscured the glory of the Church of England been made instrumental in dispersing its brightness through the World and even in the opening of the Eyes of many to behold it with amazement and that service hath been done our Church thereby which by all the Pens of its Iewel and Hooker and Sanderson could never be effected England that had so much the Carriage and the Trade of the World till the Munster Peace of 48 could bear the Civil War after 41 and breathe under it and flourish after it but as the State of the World abroad and at home now is and likely to be our ALL must depend upon the Principles and Practice of Loyalty and therefore this new Soul I spake of as now animating the Church of England must be immortal and it may well say to it self under any Prince that can come Soul take thy ease thou hast Loyalty and the Principles of it laid up for many years and England did not before 48 more excel other Realms in Trade than its Church doth now other Churches in absolute and irrespective Loyalty That great Iudge of Churches and their Principles Arch-Bishop Laud having in p. 36. of his famous Star-Chamber Speech remarked the dangerous Consequence of avowing That the Popish Religâ—ion is Rebellion saith That some Principles of theirs teach Rebellion is apparently true c. and I shall add that some Principles of our late Covenanting Dissenteâ—s have taught it is apparently true and for such of the latter who believed and practised these Principles to reproach any Papists with Disâ—oyalty is as apparently ridiculous as was Mr. Prynn's writing two Voluminous Tractates of The Disloyalty of Papists at the time when he was making so great a Figure in the late Rebellion But however suitably to the Moral Offices urged by Ames of not condemning whole Parties of men on the account of the guilt of some Persons I have under this Conclusion cited the loyal Principles of some Recusants of all sorts pertinent to my Scope and because the irrespective Loyalty
thoughts of their worship to the Consecrated Bread. But I believe there are others who do not intentionally direct their adoration to any Creature in that Sacrament and only to the Person of Christ our Lord and as when Abimelâ—â—h mistook Sara from her Husband being informed by Abraham that She was his Sister God was pleased to acknowledge That he did it in the simplicity of his heart so I shall leave such to their Master and without particular ground charge no particular Person of them with the guilt of Formal Idolatry and should much rather choose to absolve a Church from approving Idolatry than to render the Persons in it liable as Idolaters to be in a Christian State dealt with according to the rigor or as some Calvinsts call it the Equity of the Iewish Law. As we justly remember the Bigottish Cruelty of the Marian days so we must be so just to our selves as not to forget how some Nominal Protestants and such too as were magni nominis did long ago and as they do still accuâ—e the Discipline of the Church of England and its decent Ceremonies with the guilt of Idolatry and how fatal both to our Church and State so false and base and spightful an Accusation hath proved Mr. Hobs in his History of our late Civil Wars attributes somewhat of the success of the disloyal Enemies of our Church to the natural Cause of their fighting with spight We know that not only Mr. H. Iacob in his Exposition of the 2d Commandment printed in the Year 1610. hath thus charged our Church with Idolatry in express words but that Ames himself did so in effect in his Puritanismus Anglicanus that Year printed and as Learned and Pious a Man as he was his Cases of Conscience shewing him tainted with the Tenet of Monk Gratian and Calvin and our Assembly-men about the Iudicial Law for he saith there That that Law tho not appertaining to Christistians Sub ratione legis sperialiter obligantis yet is so sub ratione doctrinae quatenus vel generali suâ naturâ vel proportionis aequitâ—te exhibet sempeâ— nobis optimam juris noturalis determinationem one might easily gueâ—s from such a Principle when believed and practised what quarter the Church of England or any Church accused of Idolatry could expect The truth is that on the Division of the World by some into 30 parts and rendring 19 thereof to be down-right Idolaters and 6 Mahumetans and 5 Christians it may well seem a deplorable absurdity that the Christian Quota should be so much addicted both to call one another Idolaters and to Sacrifice one another as such beyond the superstitious rage of the Heathen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mr. Iacob in his said Exposition calls the Lutherans Idolaters for having Images in their Churches and what may well seem strange is that when Cromwel the Vsurper being inclined to tolerate the Iews and appointing a Meeting of his Ministers of State and his Divines to debate the lawfulness of it at that time Fiennes his Lord-Keeper declared it then unlawful for that the Iews were Idolaters as worshipping God out of Christ and whereby he implied in effect that Adam was an Idolater Thus apt have Enthusiasts been to play with Idolatry but a shameful thing it is to our English understandings not to have a just general apprehension of the aim of some factious Anti-Papists to set up new real Idolatry in the State while they are vexing us with their old Nominal Idolatry in the Church I here refer to all that would outrage the Hereditary Monarchy and I call any Crime of that Nature by the name of Idolatry as our judicious Sanderson hath done in his Learned Lecture De legum humanarum causâ efficiente § 15. where having shewn how Kings are called Gods Psalm 82. 6. Quod ipsius Dei in terris vices gerant idque Deo ipsis Conferente hanc potestatem non populi suffragiis EGO dixi Dii estis he thus goes on to ask very properly Poteritne populus aliquis sine turpis idololatriae crimine sibi Deos constituere cum sit uniuscujusque hominis ei qui ipsius vicem gerat potestatem vicariam suâ authoritate demandare non alieno arbitratu Audebitne quisquam mortalium id Iuris sibi arrâ—gare ut qui Dei in terris Minister Vice-Deus futurus sit omnem illam suam authoritatem potestatem ab ipso sibi collatam agnoscat Let all such then who did AVDERE thus in the Affair of our Hereditary Monarchy and to have the Vice-Deus futurus moulded by their fancies consider how great a Casuist hath loaded them with Idolatry and moreover remember how the inspired Prophet did make Rebellion as the Sin of Witchcraft and contumacy or stubborness as Idolatry I was contented with finding one thing asked by the ingenious Author of the Compendium because I supposed and that then even by Calculation I might resolve the doubt and which I have held my self obliged to do viz. Can it be said that the Monarchy of England hath gotten by the Reformation and what desperate Enemies that hath created us may be easily imagined that nothing but Popery or at least its Principles can make it again emerge or lasting but was sorry and ashamed to find that Authors had cause to cite the disloyal Pamphlet of Pereat Papa as asserting the lawfulness of proceeding against Idolaters as is there mentioned and that he likewise had so much reason to make so great a Remark on the Exclusion in the foregoing Page viz. He who believes he can disinherit a lawful Successor on the account of Religion will hardly find Arguments of force to keep the Prince in being on his Throne whenever this happens to be imputed to him Moreover I was ashamed after the effort of the Idolatry in the Exclusion and of the Mobile's worshipping a Plot-Witness with the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Non-Conformist Author of the Book called The peaceable Design printed in the year 1675. speaking so tenderly of the Papists then in the words of The Papist in our account is but one sort of Recusants and the conscientious and peaceable among them must be held in the same predicament with those among our selves that likewise refuse to come to Common-Prayer yet reprinting his Book in the year 1680. doth thus alter the former passage and say The Papist is one whose worship to us is Idolatry and we cannot therefore allow them the liberty of publick assembling themselves as others of the Separation When the Non-Conformists had a while after the Declaration of Indulgence idolized both it and the Papists for being supposed to have had some hand in the procuring it and were as soon weary of it as Children of their Images yet it seems that presently after the noise of the Popish Plot the Non-Conformists Censure of Transubstantiation was transubstantiated and their Religion grew to be Idolatry as if the ill actings or shams of either
a few or many indigent or dissolute Persons ought to be turned on the whole Body of Papists or especially on their Religion it self and their Religionary Tenets But many of the Non-Conformists then being abandoned to sham the very Church of England and its Discipline with Idolatry and with a participating in the PLOT to bring in POPERY according to what Arch-Bishop Land's Star-Chamber Speech mentions as the Style of the Libels in those days That there were then great Plots in hand and dangerous Plots to change the Religion established and to bring in Romish Superstition the sagacious Loyal began to see that they made but a Stalking-horse of the Plot of the Church of Rome to shoot at the Hereditary Monarchy and by outcries against the Church of Rome to bring in a Roman Republick and to make themselves the Idols of the People in a popular State while they complained of the Idolatries of Churches But there remains somewhat else to be said as to this point of calling or thinking every particular Papist an Idolater and that is what I shall further urge out of the great Speech aforesaid of the Arch-Bishop of Bourges who knew well enough that Papists had in their Writings frequently called Hereticks Idolaters and as accordingly the Author of a Popish Pamphlet printed in London in the Year 1663 Entituled Miracles not ceased hath done and where his words are The Protestant Religion is a Cheat and Heathenism the Protestant Bishops are Cheaters and Priests of Baal the Protestant Religion is ridiculous and idolatrous yet this Arch-Bishop in that Speech having as I said cleared his Prince tho a Protestant from the guilt of Heresy and Pertinacy doth likewise there particularly say he is no Idolater and where he likewise hath with great judgment and loyalty taught us that as to those Constitutions in the Civil Law whereby Manichees and Arrians are excluded from Magistracy and publick Office It was to be understood to be only in the Case of Inferiour Magistrates and not of Sovereign Princes who cannot be disinherited of their Rights without the destruction of the whole Government and People and to decree any thing of whom did only belong to the Iurisdiction of God Almighty There is another thing that inclines me to think my self Morally bound not to call all Papists Idolaters and to wipe off the stain of Idolatry from the Church of Rome as much as any of the Fathers of our Church have done and that is the Conversion of England from Heathenish Idolatry that Gregory the Great was God's Great Instrument in many hundred of years ago HAving thus Finished my Casuistical Discussion I shall be glad if the Result thereof may by the Blessing of God whose both the Deceived and the Deceiver are according to the words of Iob 12. 16. be in all such Protestants who have been deceived into a belief and practice of the Irreligionary Tenet of Popery viz. Of Dominion being founded in Grace a more exuberant Compassion to all Loyal Papists who have not believed and practised that Tenet and may have erred in Popish Tenets Religionary 'T is both visible and palpable that such Excluders and Nominal Protestants while they accused Papists of being deluded into a Plot to destroy the King were themselves deluded into a Practice that would ipso facto have destroyed the Hereditary Monarchy 'T is most plain that by being so deceived they have given occasion to Papists to reproach Protestants by saying to this effect You see how vain your attempts are to leave Popery and its Tenets and as he who would by running or riding or sailing to any remote places imagine to be able to get from being under the Covering of the Heavens would give any one occasion to upbraid his vanity by telling him he could not do it for that the further he went from being under one part of the Heavens he would but Compass the being nearer to another part thereof so while you would get from being under the Predominance of one part of Popery you obtain but to be the nearer to another part of it You have run from the belief of Purgatory to the Tenet of founding dominion in Grace and there being no steady hand among you to hold the balance that Tenet practised by you would instead of a Purgatory hereafter make a present Hell upon Earth You are got from the Council of Trent and yet the odiosa materia in the very Council of Lateran which you charge upon us as a general one is approved believed and practised by you And you would Exterminate the King's Heirs and Successors as Heterodox in Religion and have in effect obsolved your selves from your Oaths Promissory in their behalfs Thus therefore doâ—h the Vniversality of our Catholick and Heavenly Religion seem to be naturally made like that of the Heavens from which there is no escaping Thou who abhorrest Idols dost thou commit Sacrilege and abhor the Sacredness of the Regal Power and of thy own Oaths And thou who abhorrest Superstition in things wilt thou idolize words and imagine there can be Sacredness in letters Doth not every one know that even literae significantes Sacras sententias non significant eas in quantum sacrae sunt sed in quantum sunt res ergò literae non sunt Sacrae Doth not the very word Sacred likewise signifie accursed Can therefore the name of true Protestant Legitimate a Calumnious interpretation of Oaths more than the name of the Society of Jesus Legitimate the Doctrine of Calumny or more than the world Catholick Monopolized formerly by the Donatists and Arrians could justifie or Sanctifie their Tenets Will your name of Reformation weigh any thing if while you are come out from among the Religionary Tenets of our Church you remain in the Babel of the Irreligionary ones approvâ—d by some of our Popes and Doctors and Schoolmen and which we grant that if believed and practised would bring every Kingdom to confusion and not only into a diversity of Languages but into an alteration of the Hereditary Government and Transubstantiate even that If you are angry with us for mistaking Saint Peter ' s Successors as you think will you not be angry with your selves for mistaking the Successors of your Kings so easily to be known Since you may think him a wise Child who knoweth his true Spiritual Father as well as his true Natural one will you reproach our understandings for not knowing that true Spiritual one and what is the true Church when you seem thus not to know your true Political Father or who is to be in the course of the descent the true King Will not you pity us for our Implicit Faith in the Guides of the Church in things wherein we cannot hurt you when your selves do by Implicit Faith follow the Demagogues in the State in matters that would destroy us all When Brutus after he had given the blow to Caesar found cause to exclaim of Vertues being an empty Name will
THE HAPPY Future State of England OR A DISCOURSE by way of LETTER to the late EARL of ANGLESEY Vindicating Him from the Reflections of an AFFIDAVIT Published by the HOUSE of COMMONS Ao 1680. by occasion whereof Observations are made concerning Infamous WITNESSES The said Discourse likewise contains various Political Remarks and CALCULATIONS referring to many Parts of Christendom with Observations of the Number of the People of ENGLAND and of its Growth in Populousness and Trade The Vanity of the late Fears and Iealousies being shewn the Author doth on Grounds of Nature Predict the Happy future State of the Realm At the End of the Discourse There is a Casuistical Discussion of the Obligation of the KING His Heirs and Successors wherein many of the Moral Offices of Absolute and Vnconditional Loyalty are Asserted Before the Discourse is A large PREFACE giving an Account of the whole WORK with an Index of the Principal Matters ALSO The Obligation resulting from the Oath of SUPREMACY to Assist and Defend the Preheminence or Prerogative OF THE Dispensative Power Belonging to the KING His Heirs and Successors In the Asserting of that Power various Historical Passages occurring in the Vsurpation after the Year 1641. are mentioned and an Account is given of the Progress of the Power of Dispensing as to Acts of Parliament about Religion since the Reformation and of diverse Judgments of Parliaments declaring their Approbation of the Exercise of such Power and particularly in what concerns Punishment by Disability or Incapacity LONDON Printed MDCLXXXVIII To the Right Honorable the Earl of Sunderland Lord President of His Majesty's most Honorable Privy-Council and Principal Secretary of State and Knight of the most Noble Order of the GARTER MY LORD FOR one who is sensible how little he knows of things past or present to Dedicate a Discourse of the future State of his Country to your Lordship who are by the Age allow'd to be as Critical a Iudge of Men and Things as any it affords may seem to have in it somewhat of Presumption But when your Lordship shall have had leisure to consider the plain Grounds of Nature on which my Prediction in the following Papers hath gone I will not so much hope that what I have attempted may appear to have been no Presuming as I will expect that your Censure will cast the Presumption on the other side namely on such who were Predictors with a continuando of the Unhappy State of their Country and especially on the account of the Religion of our most Gracious Prince And were I now to have my Iudgment tryed only by that of the Mobile who measure all things by the Events I account I should be out of the Gunshot of Censure since the course of Providence after my writing of the following Work having Conducted His Majesty to fill the Throne of his Ancestors with so many Royal Virtues it has been Conspicuous to them that the Glories of his Reign have transcended the highest flights of my mentioned Expectation And indeed as I remember to have long ago heard one of the Fathers cited for a Passage to this purpose namely that on a Supposal that God recounting to him the Perfections of the Creation should ask him what he could name wanting and that he could wish he would answer Unum Laudatorem Domine so it might till of late be said that in this new Creation or Restoration of England under His Majesty's Reign the only thing we had with anxiety to wish and desire from God next to the ennabling us to Praise his divine Goodness was one whose Talent of noble thoughts and words might be adequate to the celebrating the many Talents of our Prince and their successful Improvement both for the Honour and Security and Ease of his People But neither is such one Praiser now wanting for he who shall read the many late Loyal Addresses from all Parts of the Kingdom will find the People of England to be the Unus Laudator My Lord as I in the following Discourse almost wholly Printed long ago in the last Reign during the freedom of the Press adventured on Grounds of Nature to predict such a growth of Loyalty as would make all England become one sober Party of Mankind and that the more ingenious sort of Iesuits would by natural Instinct throw off those Principles condemned in this Pope's Decree and with Iustice then acknowledged a Sober Party in that order and have at large in p. 322. particularly shew'd my Abhorrence of charging the belief or practice of those Principles on all Persons in that Order So I have likewise in p. 238. given my Iudgment that all Seditious Principles own'd by any who call'd themselves Protestants must naturally decay and have at large in my Preface opposed my measures of futurity to those of a late Father of the Church of England concerning the two Plots that he thought the Papists and Dissenters would be ever carrying on and without his Lordships excepting the Loyal in those religionary Parties But having said this I must likewise say that these happy births of Fate having been but as it were the Births of a Day under the Powerful Influences of His Majesty's Government or as I may say a Nation 's being thus born in a Day are beyond what I did expect and I did little think that with the suddenness of the motion of Lightning when it melts the Sword and spares the Scabbard His Majesty's Declaration of Indulgence to Dissenters would at the same time melt so many hearts and all hostile Principles of the Doctrine of Resistance wrapp'd therein as it spared the Persons of the deluded Opiners I account that any indifferent Observer of the extraordinary sweetness of the way of painting their Loyalty in their Addresses and which resembleth the way of Corregio and is as excellent in its kind as that of the Sons of the Church of England after the way of the bolder touches of Titian in their former Addresses with the Style of LIVES AND FORTUNES was in its must be very hard-hearted if he likewise be not melted into a new kind of Compassion toward such his Brethren and into a noble sense of a great and good Prince having made his Subjects of all Religionary Perswasions Lachrymists for Joy and turned all their hearts to invoke Heaven in wishing for him according to that old Style a long Life a secure Kingdom a safe House valiant Armies a faithful Senate loyal Subjects the world at Peace c. The comparatively narrow Idea's of Charity and Beneficence that Subjects Minds are capable of toward one another do incline them to think chiefly of particular Toleration and such as we call Dispensation and that too with the nicety of Caution and upon Persons making the notification of their Principles and their particular disclaiming of all Disloyal ones previous to their Toleration and beyond this pitch the flights of my poor thoughts have not gone in the following Work. But His Majesty having
that have been since augmented Yet however I doubt not but that if it had been Gods will further to have lengthen'd the last reign the Course of Nature would then have operated as I have mention'd And if it shall appear that those natural Considerations I have urged shall have the success of such further Parliamentary Supplies to His gracious Majesty as may tend to the further greatning of his Character and that of the Kingdom I shall account my claim the more equitable to have the pardon of my fellow Subjects of what Religionary Sect soever for any thing in this Discourse that may disgust them And as an eminent Protestant Divine hath in a Printed Sermon thus said viz. that man is not worthy to breathe in so good a Land as England is who would not willingly lay down his life to cure the present divisions and distractions that are among us I shall say that any Subject deserves not to live here under the Indulgence of so good a Prince who for the helping him to money by all due means for the defence of this good Land would not wish himself as well as his Bigottry a Sacrifice and who would not as to any Extravagant dash of a Pen lighting on his Party and bringing Money to his Prince cry foelix peccatum rather then such Divisions and Distractions and Diffidences of the Government and stifling of Publick Supplies should still live as were formerly known in some Conjunctures and when the Art of Demagogues appear'd so spightful in endeavours to frustrate the Meetings of Parliaments But our Prince having freed all his dissenting Subjects from their uneasiness under Pecuniary Mulcts for Religion and the Members of the Church of England from the uneasiness of imposing such Soul-Money will I doubt not when he shall please to Call a Parliament find from them such necessary Supplies for the support of the Body of the Kingdom as may ease him under the weight of his great Desires for it and that it will then appear to all as absurd to Crown such a Head with Thorns as hath taken the Thorn out of every man's foot in England and that his pass'd Sufferings for his Conscience and others of his Communion having too suffer'd for his Conscience bespeaking us in those words of the Apostle Fulfil ye my joy that both his and theirs will be then Consummated and as the Ioy of those of the Church of England and of all nominal Churches in England hath been fulfill'd by him and that as Luther was pleas'd in a Christian-like transport of good Nature to Profess in his Epistle to Jeselius a Iew Me propter Unum Judaeum Crucifixum omnibus favere Judaeis we shall for the sake of one of the Roman-Catholick Communion who hath formerly suffer'd so much for his Conscience and since done so much for the freedom of ours shew all those of that Communion our favour to such a proportion as may compleat his and their Ioy. My Lord I am here obliged to acknowledge that tho while the several Parts of the following Work were written in the times the Government charged both Papists and Anti-Papists with Disloyalty and Plots I express'd my sense of the Non-advisableness to have the Penal Laws against them repeal'd pending such Charge and Plots I desire the Reader to look on me as very far from insisting on any thing of that nature in this Happy State of England now that the Corner Stone and that some of the Builders rejected hath thus successfully united the sides of the Fabrick of the Government in Loyalty My Lord It is near a year since I writ my Thoughts at large concerning the Subject of the Repealing those Laws and they are in the Fourth Part of my Work about The Dispensative Power of which the two first Parts conclude this Volume ready for the Press and reserving my poor Iudgment in this great Point till the Publication of the whole I think I shall then set forth my Opinion as founded on Medium's that have not appear'd in Print from other Writers and which I believe will not only not give offence to any Member of the Church of England but be of general use in allaying the ferment the Question hath occasion'd And if as they who were long fellow-Passengers in a Ship among violent Tempests and Hirricanes do usually from their being Participants together in the danger and horror take occasion to raise a friendly esteem and well-wishes for each other such of the Loyal whose belief I referr'd to as imbarqued with mine in that of the Plot during the late Stormy Conjuncture shall be the more favourable to what I write I shall be glad both for their sakes as well as mine but do further judge that what I have so largely in the following Discourse asserted and by Reasons taken from Nature concerning the Moral impossibility of the belief of the Tenets of the Church of Rome gaining ground here considerably on the belief of the Doctrine of the Church of England will tend to secure any one from fears of our losing our Religion by any loss of the Test that may happen a thing that none I think will fear who are of the Iudgment of the House of Commons in their Address to the late King on the 29 th of November 1680. that I have referr'd to in my Fourth Part and where they say that POPERY hath rather gain'd then lost Ground since the TEST ACT and make that Act to have had little effect I have in the following Discourse referr'd to that Act as represented to have had its rice in the year 1673. from the alledged petulant Insolence of Papists in that Conjuncture and I took notice of a learned Lord since deceas'd as vouching somewhat in Print of such temper among some of them And a Proclamation that year charging the Papists therewith I was implicitly guided thereby to take the thing for granted and as to the which considering since the publick Passages in that Conjuncture I have otherwise judged But as I think no loyal Roman-Catholick should in that Conjuncture have suffer'd any Prejudice for any ill Behaviour of any other of that Communion then much less ought any such thing be now and when there appears so noble and general a spirit of Emulation among all men of sense in the Diffusive Body of the People about who shall make the Head and all Members of that Body most easie and for the doing which we may well hope that the People representative and the other Estates of the Realm will come with all due Preparation of Mind when it shall please His Gracious Majesty to assemble them My Lord I have nothing further to add but my begging your Lordship's Pardon for this trouble and my owning the many Obligations I am under to be My Lord Your Lordship 's most Obedient Servant P. P. THE PREFACE TO THE READER THE Earl of Anglesy having shewed me an Affidavit and Information against him delivered at the Barr
fewer according to the Rule of the Observator on those Bills That the more sickly the year is it is the less fertile of Births All who have been in the least conversant with those Observations of his know that the Births in ordinary years are equal to the Burials or rather more and I have observed the same from the Paris Bills where the Christenings do generally much exceed the Burials and as particularly appeared by the Total of the Burials in the year 1683 being 17764 and the Total of the Christenings being 19717 but by the Christenings among us registred and reckoned in our Bills we know thence when the disposition of the People to baptize their Children in the way of the Church began to encrease and Dissentership consequently to decrease and accordingly the ground gained by the Church of England and lost by Dissentership within the Compass of those Bills after the year 81 hath been by me sufficiently proved Quod erat demonstrandum I have in this Discourse given somewhat like a little Historical Account of the Numbers of the Papists since the Reformation to our late Conjuâ—ctures and have with honour mentioned the Vigilance of his Majesty's late Minister the Earl of Danby in directing a Survey of the Numbers of the People of several Religionary Perswasions in the Province of Canterbury and which was returned in the year 76 and whereby the Comparative Paucity of the number of Papists there is apparent as it is by themselves agreed on so to be as I have cited out of the Compendium But tho the Copy of that Survey is in the hands of so many Persons I would not have mentioned any thing thereof as to the Number of the Papists but that Dr. Glanvill had first published the same and whose Book I have referred to for the same Nor shall I therefore give any particular account of the numbers of the Non-Conformists resulting from the same But tho I think that the Number of the Non-Conformists was not returned perhaps in that Survey so justly and near the matter as was that of the Papists yet I am fully of opinion that if the number of Non-Conformists were thrice as great as that returned which I believe no man will reckon it to be their proportion with that of the Total of this great Populous Nation would be very inconsiderable But as to all the Writers or Discoursers of their proportion to that Total that I have conversed with and who have rendered the Quota of the Dissenters so vast with much positiveness I am able to say That I have easily perswaded them to desist from any positive magisterial determination therein by shewing them that their measures of the Total of the People of England have been but conjectural and depending perhaps on some Calculations too fine and subtle or others too course and gross and that no man can be a competent Judge of this Total who hath not seen the Returns on the Bishops Survey and likewise the Returns on the late Pole-Bills and of which latter under the Patronage of a powerful Minister of the Kings I obtained Copies and have thence in the following Discourse shewed the Total of the People of England and Wales to be probably much greater than any cautious Calculators have made it and some whereof made the Total to be 5 others 6 others 7 Millions I thought the doing of this an acceptable service to my Prince and Country and the rather for that several Authors among the Magna nomina have published it in Print that the People of England and Wales are but 2 Millions and which number if they did not exceed we might allow our Dissenters a considerable proportion therein tho yet nothing near so great even as to such a Total as some would have it But the Ebb of their Numbers is at this time so apparent if we respect the State of them in the whole Kingdom that their Out-cry of Implevimus omnia and The Nation and its Trade cannot subsist without us is very ridiculous and they are not in my opinion their friends who writing for them do so customarily magnify their Numbers and as if they were half the People of England as some have done and I believe the Gentleman whom I have cited for saying in a late Parliament that he observed That in the Choice of Knights of the Shire for the County he lived in that they could not bring one in twenty to the Field would if he had been at Elections in some other Counties have found they could not there bring in so great a number And tho the Puritans of old were very numerous in the House of Commons and our Dissenters in the King 's long Parliament made so great a Figure as to be able by their weight to crush the Declaration for Indulgence yet in the succeeding Houses of Commons the Dissenters were far from valuing themselves an their weight or numbers but of the Dissenters in that Loyal Long Parliament I believe there were not any who wished for the Yoke of Presbytery or thought its Platform practicable in this Realm I have in this Discourse mentioned one thing that made the most Eminent Presbyterian Divines after 41 think their bringing of the Yoke of Presbytery upon the English Necks practicable and that is their accounting according to the Pacta conventa between Them and the Parliament they should have the Bishops and Deans and Chapters Lands settled on their Church whereby their Discipline how defective soever in weight as to Principles of Divinity and Humanity would have made it self â—ormidable by its Balance of Land and 't is probable that in Scotland the Livings of the inferiour Clergy weighing more in value than the Estates or Livelihoods of the ordinary inferiour Layety hath supported that Clergy there in their pretences to expect somewhat of Power and which they yet enjoy in the Figure of the Church Government there Established under Bishops and altho King Iames in his planting so many Benefices throughout that Kingdom worth 30 l. per Annum with a House and some Glebe Land belonging to them never intended any advantage to Presbytery thereby he yet occasioned some by making so many Divines there more considerable in wealth but our Presbyterian Divines here having been so fatally disappointed about the Bishops Lands promised them all ingenious men must necessarily thereby be made apprehensive that they are never to hope to bring the terror of that Church Government upon us by that means It is moreover observable that most of the Race of our old Presbyterian and Independant Divines having been extinct some few of whom were Learned Men and gave some Ornament to their Tenets by their Learning scarce any new ones and who appeared not in the Church before the King's Restoration have since by the publication of any Theological or DevotionalWritings propp'd up the Credit of their Party and that of the Ecclesiasticks of those perswasions none have published any thing valuable against
making a Ruffian of the Pope himself But indeed long before the Edition of that trifling Book many things had occurred so far to shake the testimony of the Witnesses as that it grew generally the Concordant voice of the Populace that on a supposal of several of the same Persons being again alive to be tryed on the Testimony of the same Witnesses before the same Judges it would not have prejudiced a hair of the heads that were destroyed by it and particularly in the unfortunate Lord Stafford's Case I have in two or three places of this Discourse speaking of the Papal Hierarchy called it Holy Church its old known term and by which I meant no reflection of scorn nor would I laugh at any Principle of Religion found among any Heterodox Religionaries that the dying groans of the holy Iesus purchased them a liberty to profess But 't is no Raillery to say that the Artifices of any dis-loyal Popish and Protestant Recusants that have so long made Templum Domini usurp on the Lord of the Temple and his Vice Gerents that is Kings and Princes will support no Church and that as it hath been observed of some Free Stones that when they are laid in a Building in that proper posture which they had naturally in their Quarries they grow very hard and durable and if that be changed they moulder away in a short time a long duration may likewise be predicted to the Arts and Principles of reason applied to support a Church as they lay in the Quarry of Nature and where the God of Nature laid them for the support of Princes and their People and è contrà In fine therefore since the Principles of the Church of England are thus laid in it as they were in that Quarry none need fear that they will be defaced by time or that a lawful Prince of any Religion here will accost it otherwise than with those words of the Royal Psalmist viz. Peace be within thy Walls and Prosperity within thy Palaces AN INDEX Of some of the Principal Matters Contained in the following DISCOURSE IN ALETTER TO THE Earl of ANGLESY HIS Lordship is vindicated from mis-reports of being a Papist and an account given of his Birth and Education and time spent in the University and Inns of Court and afterward in his Travels abroad Page 1 2 3. An account of his first eminent publick employment as Governor of Ulster by Authority under the Great Seal of England p. 4. An account of his successful Negotiation with the then Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the Surrender of Dublin and all other Garrisons under his Command into the Parliaments hands p. 5. An account of his being a Member of the House of Commons in England and of the great Figure he afterward made in the King's Restoration ib. Reflections on the Popular Envy against the Power of a Primier Ministre ib. and p. 6 7 8. Remarks on the Saying applied in a Speech of one of the House of Commons against the Earl of Strafford viz. That Beasts of Prey are to have no Law ib. Reflections on the rigour and injustice of the House of Commons in their Proceedings against the Earl of Strafford p 9. The Usurpers declared that tho they judged the Rebellion in Ireland almost national that it was not their intention to extirpate the whole Irish Nation p. 10. The Author owneth his having observed the Piety and Charity of several Papists p. 11. The Author supposeth that since all Religions have a Priesthood that some Priests were allowed by the Vsurpers to the transplanted Irish p. 13. An account of the Privileges the Papists enjoyed in Ireland before the beginning of the Rebellion there and of the favour they enjoyed in England before the Gun-powder Treason p. 14. Observations on the Pope's Decree March the 2d 1679. Condemning some opinions of the Jesuites and other Casuists in Pages 15 41 50 51 52 53 201. The great goodness of the Earl of Anglesy's nature observed and particularly his often running hazard to save those who were sinking in the favour of the Court p. 16. The Authors observation of the effects of the hot Statutes against Popery and Papists in Queen Elizabeth 's and King Iames his time shortly ceasing ib. The Authors Iudgment that a perfect hatred to Popery may consist with a perfect love to Papists p. 19. He expresseth his having no regret against any due relaxation of any Penal Laws against Popish Recusants p. 20. An account of the Earl of Anglesy and others of the Long Parliament crushing the Jure-Divinity of Presbytery in the Egg p. 29 30. The out-rage of the Scots Presbyterian Government observed p. 29 The People of England did hate and scorn its Yoke in the time of our late Civil Wars ib. Remarks concerning infamous Witnesses and their credibility after Pardon of Perjury or after Crimes and Infamy incurred p. 33 34 35. at large and p. 204 205. The incredibility of the things sworn in an Affidavit by such a Witness against his Lordship p. 35 36. The Principle in Guymenius p. 190. Ex tractatu de justitiâ jure censured viz. licitum est Clerico vel Religioso calumniatorem gravia crimina de se vel de suâ Religione spargere minantem occidere c. p. 37. Cardinal D' Ossats Letters very falsly and ridicâ—lously cited by an English Priest of the Church of Rome for relating that the Gunpowder Treason Plot was a sham of Cecils contrivance p 38. Father Parsons one of the greatest Men the Jesuites Order hath produced p. 40. D' Ossat in his Letters observed to have given a more perfect Scheme of the whole design to hinder King Iames his Succession then all other Writers have done ib. Observations on the Author of the Catholick Apology with a reply c speaking of his not believing that Doleman's Book of the Succession was writ by Father Parsons and that Parsons at his death denied that he was the Author of it and on Cardinal D' Ossat in his Letters averring that Parsons was Reverâ the Author of it and that Parsons made application to him in order to the defeating King James his Succession unless he would turn Catholick p. 41. D' Ossat's observing that Parsons in that Book doth often and grossly contradict himself ib. D' Ossat's commending our English Understandings for so soon receiving King Jame and so peaceably after the death of Queen Elizabeth ib. The Author grants that Papists may be sound parts of the State here as they are by Sir William Temple in his Book observed to be in Holland p. 44. The vanity of some Papists designing to raise their Interest by Calumny and Shamm ib. The Pope's said Decree of the 2d of March accuseth the Jesuites and other Casuists of making Calumny a Venial sin p. 45. The nature of a Venial sin explained ib. The Jesuites Moral Divinity patronizing Calumny is likely to be fatal to their Order p. 47. 49. The
Amsterdam to the Admiralty of the Northern Quarter ib. The number of the Inhabitants of Venice in the year 1555 ib. An Account of the Political Energy of the Reformation in England p. 107. The Revenue of the Kingdom of England quintuple in the year 1660 to what it was at the time of the Reformation p. 108. A Calculation of the Revenue of the Church holding in the year 1660 the same proportion of encrease ib. The Customs of England when Queen Elizabeth came to the Crown made but 36000 l. per Annum and were since 1660 farmed at 400000 l. per Annum and have since then made about double that Sum p. 109. The yearly Revenue of the whole Kingdom of England computed ib. Queen Elizabeth wisely provided for the enlargement of the Trade and Customs of England ib. The Numbers of the People of Spain p. 111. The knowledge of the Numbers of People in a Kingdom is the Substratum of all Political measures ib. An Animadversion on the Author of la Politique Françoise ib. There were about 600,000 Souls in Paris shortly after the year 1660 p. 113. An Animadversion on the Calculation of Malynes in his Lex mercatoria ib. Animadversions on the Calculations of Campanella as to the numbers of the People of France p. 114. Lord Chief Iustice Hales his Observations of the gradual encrease of the People in Glocester shire corroborated by the Author p. 115. The Author believes the Total of the People of England to be very much greater than any cautious Calculators have made it p. 116. Observations on the Numbers of the People of England resulting from the returns on the late Pole-Bills and the Bishops Survey ib. and p. 117 118 119. An account of a Tax of Poll-Money in Holland in the year 1622 p. 117. Some illegal Proceedings in Queen Mary's Reign remarked p. 119 120. The Authors opinion that any Roman Catholick Prince that may come to inherit the Crown will use the Politics of Queen Mary as a Sea mark to avoid and Queen Elizabeth's as a Land-mark to go by p. 122. Eight hundred of the empty new built Houses of London have been filled with French Protestants ib. A high character given of Edward the 3 d a sharp Persecutor of the excesses of the Power of the Pope and his Clergy and who saved the being of the Kingdoms Trade and Manufacture and patronized Wickliffe and the Authors opinion that any lawful Prince of the Roman Catholick Religion that can come here will uphold the falling Trade of the Kingdom as he did ib. Occasional Remarks on the Numbers of the People in the old Roman Empire p. 124. The vanity of the fear of any ones erecting another Universal Monarchy p. 125. Campanellas Courting Spain and afterwards France with that Monarchy remarked ib. Observations on the fate of the Spanish Armada in 88 and of the Numbers of its Ships and Seamen and likewise of the Numbers of the Ships and Seamen then in Queen Elizabeth's Fleet p. 127. She claimed no Empire of the Ocean either before 88 or afterward ib. The Shipping and Numbers of our Seamen in 12 years after 88 were decayed about a 3 d part p. 128. An account of the French Monarch's Receipts and Expences in the year 1673 ib. The Authors conjecture of the result of the Fermentation about the Regalia in France p. 129. The things predicted in the Apocalyps are with reference to exactness of number and measure p. 130. The Origine of the name Fanatick ib. The Author asserts this as a Fundamental Principle for the quiet of the World as well as of a mans own Conscience viz. That no man is warranted by any intention of advancing Religion to invade the right of the Sovereign Power that is inherent in Princes by the Municipal Laws of their Countries ib. The Author gives his Iudgment of the set time humanly speaking for the extermination of Presbytery here being come p. 133. Of the illegality of the Scotch Covenant p. 134. The Assembly of Divines here would have been Arbitrary in Excommunication ib. The first Paragraph of the Covenant introduced Implicit Faith p. 135. The Author of the Book called The true English Interest computes that 300,000 were slain in the late Civil War in England p. 138. Observations on his Majesty's and Royal Brothers Exile into Popish Countries caused by our Presbyterians and even out of Holland into France and out of France into Spain p. 138 139. Presbyterians are obliged of all men to speak softly of the danger of Popery p 139. An account of the present Numbers of the Papists in England and some Historical Glances about the gradual decrease thereof in this Realm in several Conjunctures since the Reformation from p. 139 to p. 154. The late Earl of Clarendon occasionally mentioned with honour p. 147. The Authors judgment that the growth of Popery and of the fears thereof will abate under any Conjuncture of time here that can come from p. 153 to p. 157. In December 1672 the Protestants in Paris mere but as one to 65 p. 157. Observations on the late Conversions in France ib. The Author explains what he means by the expression of Religion-Trade ib. The Author's Assertion that the World can never be quiet and orderly till its State be such that men can neither get nor lose by Religion from p. 158 to 160. Animadversions on a Pamphlet aiming at the overthrow of the Clerical Revenue of England and called The great Question to be considered c. p. 160 161. The Author asserts the present Clerical Revenue of England to be reasonable and necessary and very far from excess in its proportion from p. 161 to p. 167. The Author's reason why he doth usually in this Discourse call Popery an Hypothesis or Supposition and not it or our former Presbytery in gross by the name of Religion from p. 168 to p. 170 and after The Author's Assertion That Papists as well as others of Mankind have a Right and Title to the free and undisturbed worshipping of God and the Confession of the Principles of Religion purchased for them by the blood of Christ p. 170. The Author distinguisheth Principles of Papists Socinians and Presbyterians into Religionary and Non-religionary and shews to what Principles the name of Religion is absurdly applied from p. 168 to p. 172. The Author observes it in many Papists who have deserted the Church of England that the rational Religion they were first educated in hath had the allurements of the Natale solum that they could never wholly over-power p. 174. An Observation of three of the Nobility that went off from the Church of England to that of Rome but receded not from the Candour of their tempers and that neither of them perverted their Wives or Children to Popery and that the eldest Sons of them all are eminent Sons of the Church of England and make great Figures in the State ib. Turen after his being a Papist as kind to his Protestant Friends as
Royal Line from the Crown ib. and p. 222. The Protestants in France now about 2 Millions p. 222. Their Loyal Demeanor to Harry the the 4 th after he became a Papist ib. His condition after he became one ib. An account of the Apology for John Chastel the Scholar of the Jesuites assassinating himâ— and of the Positions in that Apology ib. The Aâ—ology affirms That Excommunication for Heresie doth quite take away any Regal Right and that Henry of Bourbon cannot be called a King by reason of his Conversion p. 223. An account of the Gun-powder Treason out of Thuanus and the Tenets that the Traitors had imbibed from their Confessors and particularly That Heretical Princes by being reconciled to the Church of Rome recover not a Title to their Crown and that by such reconciliation they only save their Souls and that Heresie barrs the Hereticks Line from the Succession c. p. 224. Observations on the Millenary Petition in the beginning of King James's Reign ib. Observations on the Papists Petition to him about the same time p. 225. Dr. Burnet's History of the Reformation commended p. 226. The reason why the Author would have more severity shewn to a Seditious Protestant than a Seditious Papist p. 231. Mr. Fox referred to about his Question Whether the Turk or Pope be the greater Anti-Christ p. 232. An account of the Popes being Pensioners to the Turk p. 234. The Author observes in the famous Hosius of the Church of Rome a viler Blasphemy than any he remembers in the Alcoran p. 235. Observations on the Loyalty of many Papists in France to Harry the 4 th when he came to inherit the Crown and remained a Protestant and under the Papal Excommunication p. 236. Harry the 4 th an expected Protestant Successor was Primier Ministre to Harry the 3 d a Papist ib. An Argumentative Speech of an Arch-Bishop of France to prove That Harry the 4th ought not for his Religion to be debarred from the Crown ib. Maimbourg reflects on Calvin for his instigating the Magistrates of Geneva to burn Servetus ib. and p. 237. Dr. Peter du Moulin cited for saying That in the time of the late Usurpation the Jesuites were the principal directors of the Consciences of the English Papists ib. A Book published Anno 1662 observes That of the Papists in England 7 parts of 10 were Gentlemen and People of great Quality ib. The Author believes that the more ingenious and modest sort of Jesuites will by Natural Instinct be more and more ashamed of the turpitude of the former Principles of the Iesuites and particularly of the 13 th 14th 15th 30th 32d contained in the Popes Decree before mentioned p. 238. The Author judgeth that all bloody and rebellious Principles owned by any who call themselves Protestants must naturally by shame and fear decay ib. Mr. Cranford a Presbyterian Divine cited for saying in a Printed Sermon at St. Pauls in the Year 1645 That in 80 years there did not arise among us so many Blasphemous Heresies under Episcopacy as have risen in these few years since we have been without a Government and that above 160 Errors have been here since broached and many of them damnable ib. and p. 241. A Speech in a late Parliament referred to for observing that according to the best Calculation the Dissenters could not in the last Elections for Knights of the Shire bring in above 1 in 20 into the Field ib. The present Gentlemanly temper appearing in the People of England observed as to the not having râ—sentments against any men or their Converse by reason of their asserting Controverted Points capable of the name of Religion p. 241. The great Controversy about Easter now slighted ib. The Terms of Omo-ousios and Omoi-ousios will make no more fermentation in the World p. 242. The word Heresy now generally here reduced to its quiet Primitive Signification of an opinion without reference to truth or falshood ib. Our Courts Christian do no more prosecute men for being Hereticks than for being Usurers ib. There is now a more valuable libera theologia in England then was under the Usurpation p. 243. The Obligation our Land hath received from the Royal Society mentioned ib. The knowledge of Anatomy enriched within this last Century a 3d part ib. There were in the Year 1599 reckoned in Christendom 2,25044 Monasteries ib. By Herods Infanticidium a Million and 44 Thousand slain in the account of Volzius p. 214. In 45 years the Spaniards in America put to death 20 Millions of Indians ib By the growing Populousness of Mankind we must naturally hear more and more of Wars and rumours of Wars p 245. In the beginning of the Reign of the Royal Martyr England not afraid to contend with both France and Spain ib. 2,50000 l. per Annum Calculated to have been formerly at a Medium for 76 years gained to England by the Balance of its whole Trade p. 246. The Author en passant Calculates that England hath for late years gained double that Summ by the fashion of Crape ib. Ten times as much spent on the Law or Physick here as on the Clergy p. 247. By the Calculations of Cardinal Pool there were more Colleges and Hospitals in England then in France which he said exceeded England by two 3ds in the numbers of People as in Lands p. 248. The Author observes that in the Code Loüis published in the Year 1667 the Method injoyned for the registring the Christenings and Burials in each Parish in France is better contrived than that used in London ib. 'T is supposed that the publishing the Observations on the Bills of Mortality about three years before in London might occasion the aforesaid exact registring of the Christenings and Burials in France and moreover the registry of the Marriages by the Code Loüis enjoyned p. 249. The Registring of the Births and Burials is as old as the ancient times of the Romans and introduced among them by Servius Tullius ib. The prudenâ—e of the Code Loüis remarked in the numbring of the Regulars and Seculars there enjoyned ib. Sometime before the year 1588 the number of men in Spain being taken by secret Survey there were returned a 11 hundred and 25 thousand and 300 and 90 men ib. A Computation out of Thuanus of the Expences and Receipts of Lewis the 13 th for the Year 1614 ib. The Expences and Receipts of that Crown were more than quadrupled in the year 1674 p. 250. A Calculation of about a 3d part of the Current Coyn of England yearly carried into France ib. A Descant on the saying so much in vogue viz. Res nolunt male adnimistrari and an account of its Original ib. The Author supposeth that a more important Linen Manufacture will here happen from the many French Protestants here lately planted than was the Woollen one here introduced by the Dutch whom Duke Alva's Persecution brought hither p. 251. Remarks about the general sowing of Hemp and Flax here and about the designed
settlement of the same proving Abortive in several Parliaments ib. The French King in the last War did forbid the Importation of Sail-Cloath to England ib. A presage of the future happy State of England and the Authors Idea thereof at large ib. and p. 252. An account of the Rough Hemp and Flax and Sail-cloth and all other Manufactures of Hemp and Flax yearly brought into England and from what Countries deduced out of the Custom-house Books p. 254. All the Hemp and Flax sown in England is observed to be bought up by the years end p. 257. Almost as much Hemp and Flax yearly brought into Amsterdam as into the whole Kingdom of England ib. The Authors judgment of the effects of the necessity that will drive us on to the Linen Manufacture ib. An Account of the fine Linen lately made by the French Protestants at Ipswich and of the Flax by them sown ib. The Author's Censure of the excessive Complaints of the danger of Popery ib. His belief that the future State of England will make men ashamed of their pass'd fears of Popery ib. The Vote of the House of Commons for the recalling the Declaration of Indulgence carried by the Party of the Nonconformists p. 258. Most of the Papists of England in the Year 1610 computed to be under the guidance of the Jesuites p. 260. Many Popish Writers have inveighed against Gratian the Compiler of the Decrets of the Canon Law ib. That Law never in gross received in England ib. Binds not English Papists in the Court of Conscience ib. A Tenet ridiculously and falsly in the Canon Law founded on Cyprian ib. Gratian's founding it on Cyprian gives it only the weight it could have in Cyprian's Works p. 261. Pere Veron's Book of the Rule of Catholick Faith cited for Gratian's Decrees and the gloss claiming nothing of Faith and Bellarmine's acknowledging errors therein ib. One definition in the Canon Law and gloss held by all Papists ridiculous ib. The Author thinks he has said as much to throw off the Obligation on any Papists to obey the Pope's Canon Law as they would wish said ib. He thinks himself morally obliged in any Theological Enquiry to say all that the matter will fairly bear on both sides ib. Heylin and Maimbourg cited about the firing of Heretical Villages in France p. 262. Parsons and Bellarmine cited by Donne for rendring some things obligatory that are said by Gratian p. 263. The Author expects that the growing populousness of England will have the effect of rendriâ—g men less censorious of any supposed Political Errors in the Ministers of our Princes p. 265. Mr. Fox cited for his Observation of many Excellent men falsly accused and judged in Parliament and his advice to Parliaments to be more circumspect ib. The Author minded by that passage out of Fox to reflect on the severity in a late Parliament in their Votes against the King's Ministers ib. The injustice of the Vote against the Earl of Hallifax p. 266. The Earl of Radnor occasionally mentioned with honour ib. The Constancy of the Earl of Anglesy to the Protestant Religion further asserted p. 267. Mention of his Lordships being injuriously reflected on in a Speech of Sir W. J. ib. The unreasonableness of the Reflections on the Lord Chief Justice North for advising and assisting in the drawing up and passing a Proclamation against Tumultuous Petitions ib. The great deserved Character of that Lord Chief Justice p. 268. throughout A reflection on the popularity of Sir W. J. and on the â—â—â—essive Applause he had from the House of Commons after his Speech for the Exclusion-Bill p. 269. Sir Leolin Jenkins mentioned with honour ib. The Cabal of Sir W. J. observed to be full of fears of the Exclusion-Bill passing and their not knowing what steps in Politicks to make next ib. The Earl of Peterborough at large mentioned with honour ib. and p. 270. A further Account of the Authors prediction of England's future happy State ib. and p. 271. The Author observes that the most remarkable late Seditious Writers have published it in Print That they feared the next Heir to the Crown only as Chief Favourite to his Prince and that they judged that the Laws would sufficiently secure them from fears of his power if he should come to the Crown p. 271. An Assertion of his never having advised his Prince to incommode any one illegally and of his not having used his own power to any such purpose ib. The Author judgeth such Persons to write but in jest who amuse the People about being Lachrymists by that Princes Succession ib. The Author reflects on our Counterfeit Lachrymists for not affecting as quick a prevention of any future growth of Popery as was 〈◊〉 care of in Scotland p. 272. He observes that few or none in Scotland fear that Popery can ever in any Course of time there gain much ground ib. The Papists in that Kingdom estimated to be but 1000 ib. The Author believes that the fears of Poperies growth will be daily abated in England and in time be extinguished ib. More Popish Ecclesiasticks observed to be in Holland then Ministers in France and that yet none in Holland pretend to fear the Papists ib. The Authors judgment of the Dissenters Sayings being usefully published ib. Some Notes on the Geneva Bible seditious ib. The same Tenet of firing Heretical Cities that is in the Popes Canon Law founded on the 13 th of Deuteronomy is chargeable on our late Presbyterians ib. The Assemblies Annotations cited to that purpose ib. The Church of England illuminates us with better Doctrine p. 274. Bishop Sanderson cited for that purpose ib. Calvin as to this point did blunder as shamefully as our Assembly-men p. 274. Several of the Calvinistick and Lutheran Divines imbibed the error of Hereticidium from the same mistaken Principle of Monk Gratians ib. The Presbyterians here fired the Church and State with a Civil War ib. The Authors belief that there will never be any new Presbyterian Synod in England nor General Council beyond Sea ib. The Popes Pensions in the Council of Trent that sate for 18 years came to 750 l. Sterling per Month â—b The Author predicts the extermination of all Mercenary Loyalty in England ib. The reason of such his Prediction p. 275. The Lord Hyde first Commissioner of the Treasury mentioned with honour ib. What the new Heaven and the new Earth is that the Author expects in England ib. The reason that induced false Prophets to foretel evil rather than good to States and Kingdoms p. 276. at large The same applied to our Augurs who by enlarging our fears and jealousies and their own fortunes thereby rendred the Genius of England less august ib. The Authors measures of the future State of England are taken only from Natural Causes and Natures Constancy to it self p. 277. A short account of several great Religionary Doctrines having naturally pierced through the sides and roots of one another p. 279. The
I think that an eximious man impeacht in Parliament and there acquitted will need no Herald to proclaim his worth nor his deserving to be restored in integrum to the Royal Protection and Favour when that his own works have praised him in the gates that is in the Jurisdiction where they were so strictly scann'd My Lord if any could prove your Lordship to be a Papist he need not call that accumulative Treason in you nor need he go about by torturing the Law to make it confess many Felonies to be one Treason many Rapes to be one false coming But Popery in you would be plain down-right palpable and rank Treason by vertue of the Statute of 23 of Elizabeth Ch. 1. which makes it High Treason for any person in the Dominions of the Crown of England to be withdrawn from the Religion then established to the Romish Religion That your Lordship hath been bred a Protestant and been so as it were ex traduce there needs no other evidence then the contents of this Letter and that you have not been withdrawn to the Romish Religion you have declared by the Series of your actings against it that shew your Mind beyond the power of words and 't is by the help of that great Wisdom God has given you that our English World expects that a way may be found how to make it more clearly appear to the eye of the Law when any others have been or are withdrawn to the Romish Religion a thing perhaps at present of somewhat difficult proof For without supposing that the Pope can or will give them dispensations to take all Oaths and Tests that can be devised doth not a reserving some fantastic sense to themselves make nonsense of all Oaths and that one word Equivocation make them proof against all other words Doth not that with them sanctify or at least justify all other words they can use May they not on these terms safely swear there is neither God nor Man nor Hell nor Devil that is meaning not in a Mathematical point or in Vtopia and that they saw not such a Man such a day that is not with the eyes of a Whale And have not the late dying Speeches of some of these Imposters and particularly Father Irelands shewn us that in the points of mental reservation and equivocation they persevere in the impudent owning of that which would unhinge the World and turn humane Society into a dissolute multitude And do we not believe many to be Papists who we know have taken the Oaths and Tests Hath not a Papist some Years since writ of the lawfulness of the taking of the Oath of Supremacy I speak not this my Lord to derogate from the Wisdom of our Ancestors that appointed these discriminations nations and do think that when we have used all the lawful means we can to know who among us are Papists as certainly as we do what is Popery and to keep Papists from hurting us and themselves we ought to acquiesce in the Results of the Providence of God. But what all those means are tho I know not yet I am apt to believe that your Lordships comprehensive knowledg of men and things and of the true interest of the Kingdom hath qualified you to tell your Royal Master and His Houses of Parliament nor do I believe that the difficulty of either finding out such means and making practicable things be practised will blunt but rather whet the edg of your Industry in this case as being of Quintilians mind who Judged that there was Turpitude in despairing of any thing that could be done I think his words are Turpiter desperatur quicquid fieri potest â—Tis certainly the interest of the King and Kingdom that the numbers of the Papists here and especially of those withdrawn from Protestancy to the Church of Rome should be known in the case of which Apostates tho it be impossible without seizing on the Papers and Archives of one certain Priest to see the Original Acts of their Recantation of Protestancy yet is it most certain and on all hands confessedly true that Eminent Overt-Acts of abhorrency of Protestantisme are alwayes required at the admitting one who was of that Religion into the bosome of the Roman Catholic Church which any one will be convinced of who reads the Letter of Cardinal D'Ossat to Villeroy of the 20 th of Octob. 1603. from Rome where he gives his Opinion against the Queen of England being made Godmother at the Baptism of Madam That Cardinal who had incomparable skill in the Canon Law and the knowledg of all the Customs of the Papal See and who had lived at Rome above 20 Years saith in that Letter I account it my duty to write to you freely that that cannot be done without very great Scandal to good Catholicks nor without the extream displeasure and offence of the Pope You presuppose that the Queen of England is a Catholic but Here we know the contrary tho some believe that she is not of the worser sort of Heretics and that she has some inclination to the Catholic Religion And I will tell you moreover that tho she were in her heart of the Catholic Apostolic and Roman Religion as much as the Pope himself so it is that she having been bred up in Heresie and outwardly persisting in it as she doth she cannot according to the Canons be held for a Catholic in public acts of Religion till she hath first both viva voce and by writing under her hand abjured all Heresie and made profession of the Catholic Faith. Nor was it ever known that in the case of any Protestants Apostacy to the Church of Rome any Pope ever dispensed with those Canons and therefore it may well hence be inferr'd That if evidence just so much as the Law requires as to such Apostacy be given that no superpondium or proof of overt-acts more then necessary ought to be expected for that overt Acts almost impossible to be proved may yet necessarily be presumed but this by the way And therefore now further my Lord if fas est ab hoste doceri be adviseable in the case as strict Circumstances may be required in the conversion of Papists to our Church as are in the withdrawing of any from our Church to theirs Indeed if I were a Member of Parliament and any one there should be so happy as to invent a way and propound it whereby the present Lay-Papists in England might let us have a Moral Certainty that they neither consented to nor concealed the late Plot and likewise that they did really detest all those desperate Popish Principles that are fundamentally destructive to the Safety of the King and Kingdom and that they would harbour no Priests born in the Kings Dominions nor send any of their Children to be bred in Forrain Seminaries and on the contrary that on occasion they would discover to a Magistrate any such Priest or one who sent his Children to such Seminary
and likewise any one that owned any of those Pernitious Principles that strike at the heart of the Civil Government and that they would presently give his Majesty an accompt of all their own Names Places of abode and Numbers of their Families and that they would not live in nor come to the Court nor into any of our Cities or great Towns without leave obtain'd pursuant to the Statute of the 35 th of Elizabeth Ch. 2. wherein 't is Enacted under several Penalties That they shall not remove above Five miles from their dwellings and to give in their Names to the Constables Headborough and Minister c. and that the people might be delivered not only from any danger by them but any fears that might fall on a wise man either of their power or numbers encreasing I should joyfully entertain such an invention But what way of that kind is practicable I am altogether ignorant But do suppose that the present Lawes Oaths and Tests ought to continue till with the Consent of His Majesty and Lords and Commons in Parliament we are further secured I know that we ought to be much more vigilant over English Papists then over any Forrainers for that 't is a kind of a Rule that Angli nil modicum in Religione possunt and therefore that no Popish Priest who is a Subject to England can with the public safety live here Your Lordship hath I think as comprehensive a knowledg of the affairs of Ireland as any man can have and therefore I shall here tell you that a Gentleman of Ireland told me that in the times of the usurpt powers 't was in the Act of Settlement for Ireland by the Parliament declared that it was not their intent after almost a National Rebellion to extirpate the whole Irish Nation but that after an exception of certain persons as to Life and Estate the Act orders some Irish to be banish'd the Kingdom and other Irish to be transplanted to some part of Ireland allowing them such proportion of Land and Estate there as they should have had of their own elsewhere in Ireland if they had not been removed What effect that Transplantation had I know not but I suppose it easier to remove a handful of men from one corner of the Land to another then 't was to remove almost a Nation And do suppose there are some Papists in England as innocent of this late Plot as there were some in Ireland of that Rebellion The Dean of Canterbury doth in his incomparable Sermon before the House of Commons on the 5 th of November 1678 acknowledg the Piety and Charity of several persons who lived and dyed in the Roman Communion as Erasmus Father Paul Thuanus and many others who had in truth more goodness then the Principles of that Religion do either incline men to or allow of And so I think my self bound in justice to Judge in that manner of some Papists of my acquaintance Thus the Epicureans of old tho their Principle of making happiness consist in pleasure was detestable gained this point that many of their Sect were honest men And so much Tully acknowledged to be true but with a Salvo to his exception against their Doctrine Speaking of Epicurus and his Followers L. 2. De Finibus Boni Mali he saith Ac mihi quidem videtur quod ipse vir bonus fuit multi Epicurei fuerunt bodie sunt in amicitirs fideles in omni vita constantes graves nec voluptate sed officio consilia moderantes It seems to me that Epicurus was a good man and many of his Sect have been and are faithful in their friendships and constant and serious men in every condition of life and managing the conduct of their life 's by duty and not pleasure But then saith he hoc videtur major vis honestatis minor voluptatis and afterwards he saith atque ut caeteri existimantur dicere melius quam facere sic hi mihi videntur melius facere quam dicere As much as if he had said No thanks to their Principles but their honest inclinations the force of honesty shew'd it self more Predominant in them then that of pleasure and as other mens Principles are accounted better then their Practises these mens Practises are better then their Principles It is I think Gods standing Miracle in the world who is able to make a divulsion between the formal and the vital Act namely to make fire not burn to keep some men from undoing themselves and Mankind by the genuine consequences of the Opinions they profess in matters of Religion And thus it is happy for the World that Caliginosa nocte premit Deus nepotes discursus And he can by an Omnipotent easiness when he pleaseth Divert a mans understanding from seeing any first-born consequence from his opinion as well as a more remote one Moreover the Divine Power doth in the Government of the World interpose it self sometimes between professed Notions or Principles themselves and mans intellectual faculties Good men sometimes do not believe even the existence of that and of some other divine Attributes where the things to be believed are to be seen by the light of Nature And bad men habituated to lying sometimes do at last believe the lyes and shamms themselves made though yet for the most part it happens what is perfectly worthy of the Divine Power and goodness when men are with Candor and purity of mind seeking after Truth that-Heaven does so influence their understandings as that they are not by false lights artificial seduced to believe any thing against the light of Nature nor given up by weak arguments to strong delusions These things considered I think that that great Divine of our Age the Lord Bishop of Lincoln hath with a Noble modesty and charity in the Title of his unanswered and unanswerable Book against Popery exprest the Principles of that Religion when really believed to be pernicious And having said all this I need not trouble your Lordship or my self much further about finding a way to prevent the Papists from troubling us but do suppose that the Papists themselves are most concerned to labour in such an invention And instead of their being led by any hellish Principles to destroy any City of Course by Sinister means That is by burning it they may if they please in their Devotion address to Heaven for that favour to its old chosen People on Earth mentioned in Psalm 107. v. 7. And he led them forth by the right way that they might go to a City of Habitation I suppose that after so eminent a Person as the Lord High Chancellor of England in his Speech at the Condemnation of the Lord Stafford made that great interogation Does any man now begin to doubt how London came to be burnt and after the Vote of the last Parliament the last day of their Sitting in these words viz. Resolved That it is the Opinion of this House That
to every Member of that great Body wishing his happiness as your own extending the arm of your beneficence as far as it can reach to the remotest object without hurting your self by the straining it with a pitying Eye and a tender Hand and forgiving Heart guiding unhappy men out of the very Labyrinths they had brought themselves into by injuring you accounting your mercy to be justice to Humane Nature adorning greatness both in your self and others with goodness in the case of the injur'd poor and weak making oft the great and the mighty asham'd of their oppression by your reason and alwayes with Language as soft as the yoke they intended was hard when you could not make them afraid of it by your power and blushing your self for the degeneration of Mans Nature when you saw any that shame could not divert from the turpitude of injuring their brethren of mankind and by your compassion alleviating that burthen of the miserable that they had sunk under but by your Fellowship in their grief and never dispensing either the Kings reproof or your own to offenders without moderation and respect to the frail state of Humanity and without that mixture of benign advice that gave the Malheurevs a plank after the Shipwrack of their Fame and very often running the hazard of drowning your self by helping to save those that were sinking in the Favour of the King and Court and when their fate was such that all the rest of the herd avoided them as a wounded Deer In a word they that know your Lordship know that by arguments hard to be answered and a softness of words and Temper almost inimitable you have Proselyted several Papists out of their pernicious Principles and have taught them goodness by your example and by your having that happy inclination that Hillel a Famous Jewish Doctor who lived a little before our Saviours Incarnation so well advised Namely Be of the Disciples of Aaron who loved Peace and followed Peace and who loved Men and brought them near to the Law. Your Lordship by your being so well vers'd in our Statute Laws and Histories is able to acquaint them with the Justice of our Ancestors in the making of many fresh additional capital Laws for sanguinary they ought not to be called since just against Papists upon the detection of several fresh horrid Treasons particularly those against Queen Elizabeth and King Iames and that our Ancestors then having a great and violent indignation against Popery and Papists made Laws with the dread of the Vltimum supplicium therein and further the anger of Man could not go But it cannot scape your Lordships observation that the violence of Passion not being capable of lasting long in its highest rage how just soever and especially in the brest of an English Man and a Protestant those hot Statutes made only as I may say a hizzing like a little fire thrown into Water and as to their Execution went out presently Nor have I ever heard of any one that apostatiz'd from the Church of England to that of Rome who was as those Statutes ordain punisht as a Traytor merely for so doing And indeed since no Stratagems are to be used twice and especially such as did not succeed once I am highly pleased that on the Discovery of the late detestable Plot there was so great a calmness in the minds so general a smoothness in the brows of the people such an universal Spirit of Patience forbearance and meekness every where visible in their Faces even greater then that which shone in the Minds and Faces of the Londoners when with composed looks they saw their City newly made ashes and had smelt the Incendiaries almost as soon as the Fire that none can imagine but who as eye witnesses observed And even on the fifth of November ensuing the Discovery of the Plot the two excellent Preachers desired to preach before the House of Lords and the House of Commons on that day when both an Old and a New Plot were staring the Nation in the Face happen'd to be with the Peaceable Genius of the Christian Religion and of the People in that Conjuncture inspired in the choice of that same part of Scripture that was their Text and contain'd the calm yet severe reproof given by the Founder of Christianity to some of his Disciples that would have been Commission'd to call for Fire from Heaven to consume the inhospitable Samaritans in one of which Sermons namely that of the Dean of Canterbury's 't is for the Honour of our Nation and Religion by him observed p. 31. of the Sermon that after the Treason of this day nay at this very time since the Discovery of so barbarous a design and the highest provocation in the World by the Treacherous murder of one of His Majesties Iustices of the Peace a very good man and a most excellent Magistrate who had been active in the Discovery of this Plot I say after all this and notwithstanding the continued and insupportable insolence of their carriage and behaviour even upon this occasion no violence nay not so much as any incivility that I have heard of has been offer'd to any of them Thus for the words of this good and learned man. He that loves not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen And the Religion that prompts them to destroy our bodies that they see makes them fearless in the damming of our Souls that they have not seen and even without giving us a minutes warning to make up our accounts with God and that too perhaps for extravagant lenity shew'd to some incorrigibles among them which was poor Godfreys case But the calm temper of the Protestants to them upon the Discovery of the Plot not breathing out any Cruelty or new Severity against their Bodies or Souls shall alwayes endear to me the Protestant Religion And though those two great Votes of the House of Commons may seem severe to the Papists yet are they warning pieces only if they please and not murdring ones and like the Arrows of Ionathan to warn David and not to hurt him And indeed only to warn them not to kill David and not to hurt themselves and in effect a reasonable request or petition of â—wo Parliaments to them only to make much of themselves and like the lenity that accompanied the Divine threatning of moriendo morieris restrain'd to their eating of one tree so that no Flaming Swords need fence up their way from the Tree of Life unless they please But though the Spirit of the people hath not on the occasion of the late Plot shew'd its angry resentments against the persons of the Papists by any outrage or rudeness and though our Parliaments have not on that occasion as those in the times of Queen Elizabeth and King Iames made the Anger of the Statute Book to swell with many Acts of Parliament against them they are not to infer that therefore
of Experiments of Taxes were tryed on his Subjects who payed him toward his charge of the War with France Wool and Grain as not having Mony enough to supply him wholly therewith and when as it is said in Cotton's Collections A long Bill was brought in by the Commons against the Usurpation of the Pope as being the Cause of All the Plagues Murrains Famine and Poverty of the Realm so as thereby was not left the third Person or Commodities within the Realm as lately were and the Commons did desire that it might be enacted That no Mony might be carried forth of the Realm by Letters of Lombardy or otherwise on pain of forfeiture and imprisonment But the Pope knew it seems there was mony to be had out of England though the Commons grudged it him and that a complaint of the Commons of the decay of Trade was no proof of it but rather in his case an indication of the contrary for that 't is Proverbial with Rich Men when they have no mind to part with their mony to say they have none and it appears out of a balance of Trade on Record in the Exchequer that in the 28 th year of Edward the Third the Sum of the over-plus of the Exports above the Imports amounted to 255214 l. 13 s. 8 d. This however shews sufficiently the Indignation of a Popish House of Commons at the Pope and his Lombard-street Bankers who convey'd his mony for him hence by Bills of Exchange and if our late Parliaments have not thought fit to comply with the demands for satisfaction of Protestant Bankers there much less will future ones favour any of the Popes Lombards That the Pope formerly had as much mony here from the publick as the King we may well believe possible since 't is generally held that Wolsey's Revenue equalled Harry the Eighth's Matthew Paris tells us Anno 1240 Misit Papa Pater noster sanctus quendam exactorem in Angliam Petrum Rubeum qui excogitata muscipulatione infinitam pecuniam a miseris Anglis edoctus erat emungere i. e. Our holy Father the Pope sent an exactor Peter Rubeus into England who with a kind of Mouse-trap trick â—â—ped the poor English of infinite Sums of Money And the expression of Wiping the English of infinite Sums of Mony was in fashion among all eminent later Writers of ours against the Papal Usurpation and 't is particularly used by Parker in his Antiq. Britan. where he saith Praeterea indulgentiarum dispensationum similiumque fraudum immensâ copiâ— infinitis pecuniis Anglos emunxerunt Nothing less then infinity of Treasure out of one Island could supply the great exacter of Rome who it seems resembled him that Cicero brands by saying infinitum genus invenerat ad innumerabilem pecuniam Corripiendam But there is now no catching a Nation in Mouse-traps As the Pope has never thought it worth his while to send Emissaries to Denmark and Sweden and some other Northern Countreys to spunge Mony out of them which he knows that great spendor called War that so generally infests them makes them have none to spare for the Popes use and Curia Romana non vult ovem sine lana so will the future vast charge too likely to be for ever incumbent on England and other parts of the World in providing and maintaining Capital Ships effectually provide against the profusion of any on the Projector of Religion at Rome and against Romes being to us as Matthew Paris called it of old barathrum proventuum And any who considers that his Majesty hath not without difficulty obtain'd Supplies of Mony from late Parliaments and that they have been all appropriated to certain publick uses may well give the Pope City-security that he shall have no Mony from England and no Man I think now supposeth that any thing that time can cause can make the Pope get much Mony out of the Exchequer of England but one who as Charoâ— says was born in a Bottle and never saw the World but out of a little hole But if according to the Calculations that have been by some made the currant Coin of the Nation doth not now exceed Six Millions and the publick Revenue in times of Peace has amounted to somewhat near one Third of that and if the Pope should be allow'd here to have a spiritual income equal to the King 's and the restored Abbots and Monks and the other Clergy be allow'd another Third for so the accounts of their proportion were totted by some Critical Calculators the whole Laity would be nichil'd as the Exchequer word is King Edward the First as the Antiq. Britan. mention sent some of his Courtiers to treat with the Clergy about the Quota of their supplying him viz Misit ex aula suâ Nuntios qui suo nomine agerent cum clero quoniam eorum tranquillitas Major fructus atque reditus annui tunc essent longe uberiores quam populi ut ad Regem in his bellicis angustiis adjuvandum se ostenderent promptiores And it appears out of Cotton's Collections That in the fourth Year of Richard the Second The Clergy confess'd they had a Third part of the Revenue of the Kingdom and therefore then consented to pay a Third part of the Taxes But in those ancient times of Popery beside the Clergies share in the Ballance of Land it might be justly added to the Inventory of their Wealth That they generally engrossed the highest and chiefest Offices in the Kingdom and that from the Office of Lord High Chancellor to that of the very Clerks in Chancery and other Clerks places whence to this day the officiating Registers of Courts are called Clerici or Clerks whereby they caught in a manner the whole Kingdom in a Purse-net 'T is therefore no wonder that the great affluence of the Riches of the Clergy drew to them that Popular esteem that as the Antiquaries observe the English word Sir was affixed to the Christian Names of Clergy-men from King Iohn's time down to the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and which was also express'd in Latine by the word Dominus as for example in the witnessing of a Deed Testibus Domino Willielmo de Massy persona de Bowden Matheo Hale c. And of the people calling their Parish Priests by the name of Sir William Massy and the like as in ordinary Communication we call Knights we have the instance of the first Christian on whom here for his Religion incineration was practised viz. Sir William Sautre Parish Priest of the Church of St. Scythe c. in London in Henry the Fourths time for so he is Styled in the Acts and Monuments Bishop Sanderson who in his profession of Divinity was greater then any praise was likewise so accurate an observer of the weight of what he affirmed in the Pulpit though it was not of a point of Theology that every thing he there said has a Title to be regarded And he in his Sermons in fol. ad
Populum on 1 Cor. 7. 24. pag. 195 and 196 speaking of the Monks saith It is well known in this our Land how both Church and Common-Wealth groan'd under the burden of these heavy Lubbers The Common-wealth while they becamâ— Lords of very little less by their computation who have travelled in the search â—hen one half of the temporalties of the Kingdom and the Church while they engrossed into their hands the fruits of the best Benefices of the Realm allowing scarce so much as the Chaff to those who tread out the Corn. This profession is God be thanked long since suppressed There is nothing of them now remains but the rubbish of their Nests and the stink of their memories unless it be the sting of their Devilish Sacriledge in â—â—bbing the Church by damnable Impropriations He had before said they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Slow-bellies Stall-fed Monks and Friars who liv'd mew'd up in their Cells like Boors in a Frank pining themselves into Lord and beating down their bodies till their Girdles crackt But though it hath been truly observ'd That the not providing for the augmentations of the poorer Livings in England was a scandal to our Reformation in that it made so many scandalous Livings and consequently so many such Ministers and it has been in one of Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments notify'd by Dr. Iames as Townsend's Collections mention that of Eight Thousand and odd Parish-Churches then in England but Six Hundred did afford a competent Living for a Minister And it has been publickly aver'd by Archbishop Whitgift That there were Four Thousand Five Hundred Benefices which are not worth above Ten Pound a Year in the King's Books yet the dispersing of so much of the Church Revenue among the Laity hath had this effect namely to engage the possessors of so great a proportion of the Land of England to be Champions against Popery and one other good effect within my own observation it produced in the late times when Tithes themselves were thought Delinquent namely that the Impropriate Tithes saved the others And the not augmenting the poorer sort of Livings the which mostly were in Cities and Corporations in the Countrey hath not however prov'd any augmentation to the interest of Popery For though the Reliques and Images and Shrines of Saints there that brought a concourse of Offerers and Offerings thither enrich'd those places and the Churches and had the effect of Staple Ecclesiastical Commodities and Harry the Eighth's abolishing them reduced the value of the Livings there almost to nothing they grew by occasion thereof afterward to be receptacles for heterodox Divines who seiz'd on the Livings there in a manner derelict and finding the Genius of Trading people averse from Ceremonies did represent the few and innocent and indeed decent ones of the Church of England as odious to them and therefore were sure of pleasing their auditors by constant declaiming against those of Popery that were so many and cumbersome and had caused so much blood-shed and were known to be Ceremonies both mortuae mortiferae And as Doleman alias Parsons observed in his time that the strength of the Puritans lay in those Corporate Towns and Cities there will the hatred of the Principles of the Papists probably for ever encrease I have for this purpose found it truly observed in a Discourse in octavo concerning Liberty of Conscience Printed for Nath. Brooks at the Angel in Cornhil That the Puritan Preachers by their disesteem of Ceremonies and external Pomp in the worship of God were the more endeared to Corporations and the greater part of persons engaged in Trade and Traffic who hate Ceremonies in general and what does unnecessarily take up time And that persons who nauseate Ceremonies in Civil things will loath them likewise in Religious as a man who has an antipathy against Muscadine in his Parlor cannot love it at the Sacrament And that if we reflect on those who did most love Ceremonies heretofore in our Nation we shall find them to have been persons of the greatest Rank and Quality who did effect Ceremonies in Civil things or of the poorest sort who did get their daily bread by the Charity of the other So natural is it for men to Paint God in Colors suitable to their own fancies that I do not wonder at Trading Persons who hate Ceremonies that they thus think God in respect of this hatred altogether such as themselves That Discourse had before set forth That 't is natural to Men who live by Trade and whose being rich or beggars depends much on the honesty of their Servants to be enamoâ—â—â—â— on that Preaching that is most passionate and loud against what looks like luxury and is apt to occasion unnecessary expences to them And therefore no humane Art will ever Reconcile them to one Casuistical Tenet that is so so branded in the Pope's said Decree of the second of March viz. Servants of either Sex may secretly steal from their Masters for the value of their service if it is greater than the Salary which they receive The Mystery of Iesuitism letter 6 pag. 80 cites for this Tenet Father Bauny's Summary p. 213 and 214 of the sixth Edition viz. May Servants who are not content with their Wages advance them of themselves by filching and purloining as much from their Masters as they imagine necessary to make their Wages proportionable to their services On some occasions they may as when they are so poor when they come into service that they are obliged to accept any proffer that 's made to them and that other servants of their quality get more elsewhere At the rate of this Moral Theology no Tradesman knows what Mony he has either in his Pocket or Compter or what Cash in his Closet nor indeed any King what Treasure he has in his Exchequer But notwithstanding the aversion of many persons of high Birth and Breeding and who are lovers of Pomp and Ceremony in matters Civil and likewise in Religious from the contrary humour of Trading Men yet is there one thing that hath and always will in spight of all differences in Religion occasion an entercourse of Civility between the former Class of Mankind here and the latter and 't is that necessity of nature that makes the Borrower a Servant to the Lender namely that the expensive former Classe taking up Mony at interest from the more frugal latter obligeth them to give the Lenders the respect of fair quarter And thus according to that Bull in Tacitus That in some parts of Scotland the Sun shines all night long there will still during the contrariety of their tenets and humours and which are as opposite as light and darkness occasionally arise a clear understanding between them And of the Redundance of Money the Puritans party had in the late times and of their designed employing it for the greatning the interest of their party the establishment of Feoffees by them for purchasing Impropriations is a great
longevity of Popery if ever it should call it self here the State-Religion for it can naturally be but a short dull Parenthesis of time in an Age of Sense and the Eye of Reason can see through the duration of it as well as through its absurdities and it can naturally be but like an angry Cloud that with the Eye of Sense we shall see both dropping and rowling away over our heads and shall behold the Sun playing with its Beams around the Heavens near it at the same time and nothing can be easier to you then to dye in the Faith that Popery cannot live long in England and to know that you are not to be compared to an Infidel though you should have provided for your surviving Family nothing but Abby Lands the which I believe may by a bold instrument of Eternity drawn by a small Scriveners Boy be effectually Conveyed to any Lay-man and his Heirs for ever I know that the present State of that part of the Land of England that was aliend from the Church is such that it bears not the price of years purchase it did before the Plott and that it is according to the common expression become a drug as to Moneys being taken up on it in comparison of other Lands and it is obvious to consider how much herein the Plott hath prejudiced the Wealth and Trade of the Kingdom in making so great a part of the Land in some regard comparatively useless to the Possessors but I likewise know that hereby Popery will be no gainer for that 't is apparent that the owners of it will be indefatigable in the use of all means lawful to bring Popery to such a State as shall make any men ashamed to say they fear it Tho Holy Church that everlasting Minor that Minor like Sir Thomas Mores Child that he said would be always one will be still labouring the Resumption of what was alien'd from it and hence I believe it hath proceeded that our Kings thô in the eye of the Law always at full Age have thought fit to learn from Holy Church the Priviledge too of being reputed Minors or Infants in Law for so the Books call them that upon occasion they may resume what was alien'd from the Crown and thô the hopes of such resumption would be a bait to help Popery to Multitudes of Proselytes yet the people imagine a vain thing who think such resuming practicable in England and especially at this time if the Calculation of the Ebb of the Coinage of England be as is contain'd in Britannia languens viz. from the foremention'd period of May 1657 to November 1675 near another nineteen years 3 238 997 l. 16s ¾ a Calculation that I think cannot be disproved but by the Records in the Pipe Office where annual account of the Money Coined in the Mint are preserved or by Ballances of Trade made up from that time whereby the exportations eminently preponderating what is imported would evince what considerable quantities of Bullion have been Coyned or by our knowing that since that time Sterling Silver has not still obtain'd the Price of 5 s 2d an Ounce a price that it has not indeed fall'n short of in England about these twenty years past and therefore before the late Act for the Coynage could never be entertain'd by the Mint to be Coyn'd which was by its Law and Course necessarily restrain'd from giving for Sterling Silver above 5 s. the Ounce and which Rate and no more it did afford when the Ballance of Trade favouring us caus'd that vast Coynage mentioned in the former Ternary of nineteen years But in fine his Majesties Royal Goodness to his People in not only quitting what did accrue to him for Coynage but being at the expence of the Coyning the most exquisite sort of Money in the Known world and such as in Curiosity does equal Meddals is an indication of the Ballance of Trade not having employed the Mint sufficiently in making for his Subjects the Medium of Commerce and for the depression of the Trade not only of the English but of more then the European World the Usurper Cromwel is to be justly blamed who not long after the wounds England had felt by the Munster Peace did harrass us by his fantastick War with Spain which not only impoverish'd England but the Trading World and forcibly obstructing the Returns of the Spanish Plate Fleets did particularly put both Spain and France under a necessity of making that Peace that gave the French Crown its leasure to trouble the World. But let any one judge then how ridiculous it is to suppose that the Trade of the Nation must not as I may say shut up Shop if half its wealth should be again juggled into the hands of a few Ecclesiasticks and the old Trade between England and Rome be renew'd of giving the Pope Gold for Lead It must indeed be acknowledged by all who have conversed with History that the absolute and unbounded Power with which the Eastern Monararchs Governed their Kingdoms did not more require an excessive share of the publick Revenue to feed standing Armies then Priests who with their Idols and Superstitions and Crafts did awe and delude People into obedience but as in orderly Commonwealths there is no need of such an immense Charge for Artifice to make men obey themselves so in our Constitution of the English Government it being justly to be supposed that we have all the desireable solid and substantial freedom that any Form of Government can import besides the insignificance of the name of it and insignificant we may well call it who remember that our late real Oligarchists took not only the name of God but the name of a Commonwealth in vain and are to the envy of Forraigners and shame of our former Domestick Propounders blessed with the Soveraign Power of a Great and Glorious King over a free and happy People as the words of the Royal Martyr are in one of his Declarations it may be well said to any one who shall talk of giving half the profits of the Realm to use Art and Imposture to make Members obey their Head so constituted quorsum perditio haec But in a word to come closer to the Case of Popery any one that would have half the Revenue of the Kingdom given to Impostors for the making a Monarch only half a King or King but of half his People and for the tricking both him and them into a blind obedience to a Forraign Head and for the making a Forraign Power Arbitrary and absolute is a very bad Land-Merchant and knoweth not the use or value of the soyle of England and will never find the half of 25 Millions of Acres sold for Chains and Fetters and will be put to the trouble of taking out the Writ de idiota inquirendo against at least three Millions who have already out-witted him and will never think a Forraign Minor and whose concessions are resumable fit to be
rate the people of England and Wales will appear to be 10 Millions The slowness of believing great things which is incident to Humane Nature and my inclination to desire that any thing may be proved to me by ocular Demonstration where the Subject Matter will bear it do make me as to any of the greater forementioned Quotas of the People of England contended for by Calculators to reserve my Judgment till some such accurate Survey hath been made thereof as I have heard Sir W. P. that Mathematical Statâ—s-man wish for But this I will venture to affirm that by what may be observed out of the Returns on the late Pole-Bills and the Bishops Survey 't is very highly probable that the Total of the number of the people here will upon any actual view hereafter to be made by publick Authority appear very considerably greater then any cautious Calculators have made it Another account of the same great Quaesitum was sent me into the Country from a Gentleman of London who acquainted me that he received the same from a very knowing and ingenious person whom the late Lord Treasurer as great a Master of the Science of Numbers as perhaps ever any that Acted in that high Sphere of State employed to effect an Impartial Return of the number of the people in London and in Middlesex and every other County both in England and Wales and the Total resulting from them was as I cast up the same 8,272,062 But I judge that this account was not taken upon ocular View of the several Counties but by way of Estimate not absolutely perfect and by Calculation or comparing several former accounts together There is no doubt but the most satisfactory way that we can at present take for our Estimates and whereby we may Trace the Numbers of the people from somewhat that looks like matter of Record is as I hinted from the Returns on the Pole Bill and the Bishops Survey And as to the Poll-money of Anno 1666 2 hundred thirty seven thousand Pound was the gross Charge and if on the consideration of Counties whereof the Charge was not returned as Buckinghamshire Durham Northumberland Kent Oxon North Wales Brenoc Radnor Glamorgan Pembroke of which the proportions in numbers with the Counties return'd are not hard to be Calculated and of the omissions perhaps through partiality whereby great numbers of persons chargeable were not returned and withal on a supposal that there had been in the Act no qualifications and exceptions of many persons from being Charged and particularly of persons under the Age of Sixteen and of Paupers c. we may further venture to make the Total chargeable to be 600,000 l. and every one paying for his Head there would then apppear 20 times as many people i. e. 12 Millions I know that out of such a Sum as 600,000 l. supposed chargeable it will be obvious to consideration that what was paid by the Nobility and by Titlers and Officers must be substracted but when it shall be likewise considered that in that Poll-money that of the Peers paid into the Receipt came to but 5693 l. 6s 8d and that perhaps as much went beside the Nett of the Receipt under the notion of imaginary Paupers and by persons not return'd as came into it from the Officers and Titlers and that the persons excepted under the Age of 16 were about a Moiety of the people the supposition of 600,000 l. chargeable by way of Capitation will not seem so strange as at the first view The great difficulty of having the Total of the people chargeable by any Poll-Bill exactly and impartially return'd appears in the Case of a PollTax in Holland The Author of the Interest of Holland mentions that Anno 1622 The Tax of Poll-money was laid on all the Inhabitants of Holland and none excepted but Prisoners and Vagrants and those that were on the other side the Line and all strangers and that then there were found in South Holland no more then 481934 Souls though yet the Commissioners instructions were strict for the making true returns and the particular returns are thus Registred in the Chamber of Accounts viz. Dort with the Villages 40523. Harlem with the Villages 69648. Delft with the Villages 41744. Leyden and Rynland 94285. Amsterdam and the Villages 115022. Goud with the Villages 24662. Rotterdam with the Villages 28339. Gornichem with the Villages 7585. Schiedam with the Villages 10393. Schoonhoven with the Villages 10703. Briel with the Villages 20156. The Hague 17430. Heusden 1444. In all 481934. And supposing that West Friesland may yield the 4 th part of the Inhabitants of South Holland it would amount to 120483. In all 602417. The Author there delivers his opinion That many evaded the being return'd on that Poll and that the number return'd was very short and defective but adheres to the account of them being now as is before mentioned viz. 2 Millions 4 hundred thousand And this as it doth in some measure fortifie my foregoing notion of the prodigious growth of the people of Holland under the Reformation so it doth likewise afford an instance of the partiality used in the returns of the numbers chargeable in Poll-Money But that which doth chiefly induce me to believe the Total of our numbers may very much exceed the sentiments of Cautious Calculators in this point is the Result of the Bishops Survey which was made for the Province of Canterbury and wherein none under the age of Communicants or 16 were return'd and but very few Servants or Sons and Daughters or Lodgers or Inmates of the people of several perswasions of Religion and the thing endeavour'd was that the heads of Families or House-Keepers i. e. Man and Wife might be truly return'd and at that rate the Total at the foot of the account for the Province of Canterbury is 2,228,386 the which according to the forementioned currant Rule of Calculation to be necessarily about doubled on the account of the people under 16 makes the Total of the Souls in that Province to be 4 Millions 4 Hundred 56 thousand 7 hundred seventy two and the Province of York bearing a sixth part of the Taxes and having therefore the 6th part of the people that the Province of Canterbury hath which is 742,795 that being added to those of Canterbury makes 5 Millions a hundred ninety nine thousand five hundred sixty seven and since 't is apparent that not more persons were returned in that Survey then did really exist in Nature and live within the Province as return'd it will hereafter seem a very unnecessary thing and indeed absurd to question whether the people of England were not then at least 5,199,567 But since it appears by the inspection of that Survey that there was so vast a quantity of places that made no returns at all some of which presently occur'd to my view in the Cursory reading and taking some few Notes thereof and without my designing to make any Collection of all the
fumed into Mens heads in several Islands anciently and made them Prophetically Fanatick as Gryphiander de Insulis mentions and in his Chapter there De Mirabilibus Insularum saith Alibi fatidici specus sunt quorum exhalatione temulenti futura praecinunt ut Delphis nobilissimo oraculo Homines eo Spiritu Correpti dementes ac fanatici dicti quod circum fana bacchentur But it is confessedly too true That some of the Expositors of this Book and particularly in this our Island did too long here Bacchari circum Fana and have therefore justly had the name of Fanaticks and may as justly expect that their Oracles should be silenced as the Delphic was and that any persons of a sober Party drunk with Enthusiasme will not be again allowed to make all things reel into Confusion Those likewise who did here more cum ratione insanire then the Fifth Monarchy-men I mean the Assertors of Presbytery and who by the pretence of putting the Scepter into Christ's hand projected to put it into their own will find the numbers of knowing men now so encreased that our World will be more averse then formerly against their offers to mend it by their assuming of Regal Power What well willers they were to the Mathematicks of stretching out on our Church and State the Line of Confusion as the Scripture-expression is and how they thought Confusion as commendable a thing as I mention'd Antony's thinking Sedition sufficiently appears out of Mr. Nyes Book I quoted before where the great Architectonical Rule for settling a Government in the Church is rendred to be the destroying its Government by Law Establish'd and he there names it viz. Tollatur lex fiat certamen and thereupon he saith p. 187. It was moved by some Parliament men Friends to Episcopacy when it was to be removed that it might remain till a better Government were concluded but on the other hand it was prudently considered how while that form stood and had the advantage of the Law there would be no freedom in arguing about it But I account that the great Fundamental Principle for the quiet of the World as well as of a mans own Conscience is contrary to that of tollatur lex viz. that no man is warranted by any intention of advancing Religion to invade the right of the Sovereign Power that is inherent in Princes by the Municipal Laws of their Countries When ever any man quits this Principle he hath made his first step from a Precipice he is fallen from the Pinacle of the Temple and has very presumptuously tempted Omnipotence to save him after he hath thus begun to destroy himself and Religion too and has to Heavens secret Will sacrificed it s Reveal'd The shaking of this Principle is as I may say the shaking of the Earth and as Aulus Gellius tells us in his Noctes Atticae that the Romans did not know to which of all their Gods to offer Sacrifice in the time of an Earthquake but did then only worship an unknown Deity this too will be the fate of Nations where the lex terrae is shook by Enthusiasts namely that too many people will not know what God to adore and their pretended Illuminations will only serve to conduct them to such an Altar as at Athens ground under the Subscription to the unknown God and if perhaps some Enthusiastick weak Brethren arrive not at the denomination of the Forts-sprits applyed in France to Atheists they will be abandon'd to a disposition to close with the next Hypothesis of Religion they shall meet whether that of Deists Papists or Muggletonians or Mahumetans as Bodin speaking of the Cause of several Nations being fixt in their particular soiles saith alii longo errore jactati non judicio elegerunt locum sed lassitudine proximum occupaverunt To this purpose our incomparable Bishop Sanderson in his Lecture de adâ—â—quatâ Conscientiae Regulâ doth with great weight and a profound pious passion reflect on the effects of the breaking the Establish'd Religion in England by our late Reformers and saith Stetit hic aliquamdiu sed non diu stetit effraenis hominum temeritas c. hoc fonte derivata audacia effluxit tandem in apertam Rabiem exivit jamdiu in furorem Anabaptiscum quamvis quo porrò progrediatur vix habet usque tamen progreditur indies nova quotidie parturit opinionum monstra ut nisi ex sacrosancto Dei verbo didicissemus firmum stare fundamentum Dei neque adversus ecclesiam Christi praevalituras unquam ex toto Inferorum portas omnino metuendum foret ne Vniversa Christi ecclesia Atheismi velut diluvio obruta toto orbe funditùs periret Little did many of our deluded Reformers when they broke the hedge of the Law think what Serpent bit them and as little did many of their well-meaning followers think that while their Pastors did speak the Cause of Religion so fair that at that time the very poyson of the aspes of Popery and Superstition was under their tongues for that No Principle hath in it more of the Popishness of Popery if I may so say in the resemblance of the aggravation of Sin by it self viz. the sinfulness of Sin then the legitimation of unjust things by holy ends and this too our last mention'd Bishop brands in his Praelectio secunda De bonâ intentione where having mention'd that a Cardinal telling the Pope in a Conclave that somewhat he propounded to be done was not just and that the Pope reply'd Licet non posset fieri per viam justitiae oportere tamen fieri per viam expedientiae he goes on thus Nimirum is thoc est sapere haec est ex Iesuitarum ni fallor officinis deprompta Theologia omnia metiri ex Commodo Sanctae Matris Ecclesiae sacrosancta dei eloquia qua lubet inflectere Nasi ad instar Cerei torquere distorquere invita Cogere in rem suam And too little do many who justly Complain of Popery's having supported it self by Arbitrary Power on Earth reflect on their having supported that Power against Earth and even against Heaven it self and that the fumes of their Enthusiasme do vainly try to erect a Pillar of smoke against Heaven as I spake before of the Iesuites Morals setting up one of Ignominy against it and that it is an unlucky part of the Arbitrariness of Popery to transplant some of its odious Principles among other Sects as the Devil can at pleasure transform himself into an Angel of light The general received notion of Superstition is that 't is a needless fear about Religion and there is no fear more needless and irrational than that of Gods being unconcern'd in its Protection the which to imagine is more unworthy of the Deity and a greater tendency to Atheism then was the delirium of Epicurus about God's Carelesness of humane affairs and in relation to which Tully in his De Natura Deorum having discours'd of one that deny'd
you are bold to brag that at this present there are within the Realm more Catholicks and Catholick Priests then there were forty years since Math. Kellison in his Survey in the Epist. dedic almost at the latter end They afterward in their Supplication use the word Catholickly affected to make it comprehensive of both parts of Parsons his distinction of Papists more open and close and therein have the honour of the Invention of the Phrase of Popishly affected that hath so much gall'd them since and at this day continues to do and I shall accord with them that the Number of Papists or of Popishly affected was apparently grown great in the juncture of time after King Iames came here to the Crown but 't is not deniable that after the Epoche of the Gun-powder-Treason it did more sensibly decrease for they cannot say that by the intended blow from the Gun powder they designed to make him Catholick in order to make him continue a King. The Dean of Bangor in his excellent Sermon in Print and Preached at St. Martins on the 5 th of November 1678. Speaking p. 29 of the Conspirators in the Gun-powder-Treason saith judiciously For the Number I believe the design it self was known to few but that there was a design was known to many more King James himself tells us so in his works p. 291. A great number of my Popish Subjects of all Ranks and Sorts both Men and Women as well within as without the Country had a confused Notion and obscure knowledge that some great thing was to be done in that Parliament for the Weal of the Church tho for Secresies sake they were not to be acquainted with the particulars And no doubt but that great Number took occasion to slip their Necks out of the Collar of Misprision of Religion as well as of Treason thereupon and a vast encrease of the Numbers of the Protestants was thereby occasioned But there afterward appeared another Conjuncture of time in which the Catholickly affected did in his Reign multiply in the which however implicit faith could never come so much in fashion but that as Gondomar observed in the Kings Chappel when ever the Preacher quoted Texts of Scripture the Auditors would immediately turn to their Bibles to find them Mr. Pryn saith in his Introduction to the Archbishop of Canterbury ' s Tryal p. 13. That the number of Priests and Popish Recusants enlarged out of Duress by King James if we may believe Gondomars Letter from hence to the King of Spain or the Letter of Serica that Kings Secretary Dated from Madrid July 7 th 1622 to Mr. Cottington was no less then 4000. He had before in p. 10. and 12. set down the Petition and Remonstrance intended to be sent to King James by the House of Commons in December 1621 where among other things 't is said That the Popish Recusants were then dangerously encreas'd in their Numbers and complaint is made of the swarm of Priests and Iesuites dispersed in all parts of the Kingdom 'T is probable that not many Papists except Priests were then imprison'd and it may be conceived that the Number of Priests who escaped the Net of Imprisonment was more then double to that which was took therein and that the Number of Lay-Papists was very growing in that Conjuncture Mr. Iohn Gee's Book of the Foot out of the Snare of 4th Edition Printed in London 1624. mentions the Names of many Romish Priests and Jesuites resident about London in that year and begins with the Bishop of Chalcedon and shortly after him mentions Collington the Titular Arch-Deacon of London and Wright Treasurer for the Iesuites and Smith Vicar-General for the South parts of England and Broughton Vicar-General for the North parts of England and Bennet Vicar-General for the West parts of England and the whole Number of them there named together with the places of their Lodging is two hundred sixty one and the number of the Iesuites out of that Total is 72. Moreover out of that Total he mentions only 3 as having been formerly in Prison in England and but one who was at that time in Prison At the end of the Catalogue of the Priests there he saith These be all the Birds of this feather which have come to my Eye or Knowledge by Name c. yet above four times so many there are that overspread our Thickets through England as appears by the empty Nests beyond Sea from whence they have flown by Shoals of late I mean the Seminary Colledges which have deeply disgorged by several Missions of them as also is gathered by particular Computation of their divided Troâ—ps when as in one Shire where I have abode sometime they are reputed to nestle almost three hundred of this Brood In the following Pages he there Prints a Catalogue of Popish Physitians in and about the City of London and makes the Number of them 27 and no doubt but that in that Conjuncture of time the number of Papists encreasing there were enow Patients of that persuasion to afford Livelyhoods to so many Physitians In that Book immediately after p. 116. he Prints a Catalogue of such English Books that he knew of to have been Printed reprinted or dispers'd by the Priests and their Agents in England within two years last past or thereabout viz. 156. So fortunate was that Conjuncture to the Papists then that the odious Name of Puritan was bestowed on any of the Magistrates that went to put any Laws in execution against Popery as we find it from Sir R. Cotton in his serious Considerations for repressing of the encrease of Iesuites Priests and Papists without shedding of blood p. 33. his words there are There is no small Number that stand doubtful whether it be a gratful work to cross Popery or that it may be done safely without a foul aspersion of Puritanisme or a shrew'd turn for their labour at some times or other c. In the Petition and Remonstrance of the House of Commons in December 1621 before mentioned among the Causes of the growing mischiefs here the fifth Paragraph assignes one what would make Popery very prolific with Proselytes here viz. The strange Confederacy of the Princes of the Popish Religion aiming maiâ—ly at the advancement of theirs and subverting ours c. and another is assigned in the 6 th Paragraph viz. The great and many Armies raised and maintained at the Charge of the King of Spain the chief of that League and another in § 8th The interposing of Forraign Princes and their Agents in the behalf of Popish Recusants for Connivance and Favours to them But in fine in King Iames his Reign the gross of the Number of the Protestants was generally reckoned to be ten times greater then the Papists the which is hinted in the Posthuma of Cotton who then said To what purpose shews it to muster the Names of the Protestants and to vaunt them to be ten for one of the Roman Faction In the
Reign of the Royal Martyr their Numbers decreased faster in many active Conjunctures of time then they encreased in any lazy one The Author of the Regal Apology and supposed to be Doctor Bate the Physitian saith in p. 39. It is well known there are not 24000 Papists Convicted in all England and Wales And if we should suppose the Number of the Papists then not Convicted to be double to that of the Convicted yet would such their number appear considerably dwindled from what it was swoln to in any Conjuncture before in King Iames's Reign And I believe if our Civil Wars had not happen'd one Canon even of the Convacation of 1640 as ill as that Convocation heard among many I mean the third Canon would have effected the extermination of Popery from England in the Reign of the Royal Martyr The Title of the Canon is for Suppressing of the growth of Popery No doubt but a little before that time Popery did again lift up his head as if its Redemption were to draw nigh in Ireland and England and therefore the Convocation then with great conduct and skill did lead up our Ecclesiastical Hierarchy to confront its growth and I do not remember to have found that Phrase of the growth of Popery which has in later days so filled our Mouths used in any Author before the writing of that Canon and do think that all the Committees that have been appointed to prevent the growth of Popery or Books of that Subject have not produced to the World any means or expedient so likely to make Popery have done growing here as is the excellent Scheme for that purpose drawn in that Canon and which when ever it shall be with vigour executed will make our fears grow out of fashion either of the number of the Arguments of the Papists or of the Argument of their Numbers That since that Restoration of our King and Laws and of the discipline of our Church a Conjuncture hap'ned that made the barren Womb of Popery here fruitful of Numbers none will deny who consider how all our great Divines of the Church of England did so lately lift up their voices like a Trumpet against it as I before observed In the account of the Numbers of the perswasions in Religion in the Province of Canterbury that Dr. Glanvile said he had seen and which is contained in a Sheet of Paper among the nine Preliminary Observations the first is That many left the Church upon the late indulgence who before did frequent it I believe by the many there are meant those that veer'd toward Popery and I suppose that few had for several precedent years repaired thither from fear of the Penal Laws We have a Remark given us by that Learned States-man and Noble Confessor of the Church of England the Earl of Clarendon in his judicious Animadversions printed Anno 1673 on Cressy ' s Book against Dr. Stillingfleet That the rude and boisterous behaviour of some of the Roman Catholicks here disturbed the happy Calm they all enjoyed and the vanity and folly of others made that ill use of the Kings bounty and generosity toward them that they endeavoured to make it believ'd that it proceeded not from Charity and Compassion toward their persons but from affection to their Religion and took upon them to reproach the Church of England and all who adhered to it as if they had been in a condition as well as a disposition to oppress it and to affront and discountenance all who would adhere to it and so alienated the affections of those who desired they should not be disquieted and kindled a jealousie in others who had believed that they were willing to attempt it and had more power to compass it then was discerned c. and this mischief the wisest and soberest Catholicks of England have long foreseen would be the effect of that petulant and unruly Spirit that sway'd too much among them and did all they could to restrain it c. And afterward saith As if they could subdue the whole Kingdom and so care not whom they provoke A friend of mine in the Kings Loyal long Parliament wrote to me for News after one of their Sessions that the Speaker of the House of Commons Mr. Seymour opening according to the customary manner in a publick Speech to his Majesty in the House of Lords the nature of the Bills then ready for the Royal Assent spake thus concerning that sharp one that will forever here cut Popery to the quick viz. And for the severity of this Bill to the Papists they may thank their own petulant insolence The word petulant being very significant and importing sawcy malepert impudent reproachful ready to do wrong one would suppose that those two great observing persons would not apply it to any body of men without just occasion It seems the House of Commons at their next Session in an Address to the King October 31. 1673. had this Clause That for another age at the least this Kingdom will be under continual apprehensions of the growth of Popery and the danger of the Protestant Religion and in an Address to his Majesty November the 3 d 1673. Speaking of the Popish Recusants they have these words whose numbers and insolencies are greatly of late encreased c. It was then high time for that Great Minister of the King the Earl of Danby when he saw that of all Dissenters chiefly the Popish ones had sascinated so many with a belief of their Numbers to cause that great enquiry into them to be made and it was his fortune by the very enquiry to strip the Papists of many of their valued number for the very next observation to that I before mentioned is this The sending forth these Enquiries has caused many to frequent the Church Alsted in his Chronology ventures to say p. 112. David ex merâ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 numerat populum and the thing perhaps done with an ill intent was punish'd with a Plague from God but the Fact of our Noble and Profound States-man did abate the Plague of the late Conjuncture of pragmatical insolence and too the Plague of the fear of Papists that was then so epidemical among Protestants and did in effect console us as with the words of Elisha viz. Fear not for they that be with us are more then they that be with them and indeed the numbering of people in the Bills of Mortality who dye of the Plague is not more necessary to the State then is the numbring of the Souls infected in any Conjuncture with destructive opinions and the omission thereof in a publick Minister when ever it should be as necessary as at that time it was would appear in him a Lethargy that would be as Penal as a Plague to a Kingdom That useful undertaking of his Lordship as it was worthy of his very great abilities and vigilance for the publick so was it of the great power he had in the Government and
for the establishing to himself a firm Monarchy in the World and therefore ought to be guarded against and punished by the Magistrate not as errors in Religion but as destructive to the Government The Author of Omnia comesta à Belo as great a Calculator as he would go for was yet but a Blunderer in respect of the Author of this discourse in which there is so much smoothness of words and plausibleness of notion that if it were possible he would deceive some of the very Elect and that too of their Established Maintenance But whatever the Sentiments of that Author were I must affirm that as ample as the Revenue of the Church of England shews if compared with that of other Protestant Countries it is yet so far from excess in its proportion as to ward off all inconveniences from the State of mens getting by Religion The over ballance of Land here was so much on the Churches side in the times of Popery that it was then in our Provincial Constitutions sulminated as a Menace to the Layety that in case of some particular Contumacy none of their Children should be admitted into the Clerical Calling for three Generations But how Nugatory would such a threatning now be There are few or none of the inferiour Clergy but might have in inferiour Callings arrived at greater Incomes and with less charge of Education and the most envied of our dignified Clergy might in the other two of the great professions viz. in Law and Physick raised their Estates and Families on better and easier terms then they now can And that the Men of the most eminent natural parts would be losers by Religion I mean by the Clerical Profession but for the encouragement of these Dignities we have an indication from the quality of the Divines in the late times who were generally so unlearned that Learning it self then seemed to have retreated from our Vniversities to the Colledge of Physitians in London Notwithstanding the great Sums of Money by the Usurp'd Powers employ'd in the Augmentations of Livings one may well suppose that all of the 10000 Livings in England except 600 needed for that was the number of the Livings in England as beforesaid averr'd to have afforded a Competent maintenance for a Minister the dearth of Learning and Learned Men still continued insomuch that the teeming press then brought forth few Learned Discourses relating to the faculty of Theology but what was published by Dr. Hammond Dr. Taylor Dr. Sanderson and some other Divines born and bred in the Sunshine of the Church of England And I do believe that in Holland the Livelihoods for their Parochial Divines are better then those that our Livings at a Medium yield especially considering that the Dutch Ministers Widdows have 40 l. a year paid them during their Viduity but for want of such encouragement as our Dignities afford for the Educating their Natives in Learning they are constrained as Mr. Philip Nye observes in his Book called Beams of former light p. 152. To send to Forraign Parts to men to be their Professors in their Academies And I account that nothing less then the hopes of being Dignitaries could in the flourishing condition of the Church of England make so many of our Learned Divines take up with the poor generality of our Livings which are such that the Answer to the Abstract published by Authority in the Year 1588 mentions in p. 27 That surely if a Survey were taken of all Parish Churches and Parochial Chappels in England I dare affirm that it would fall out that there be double or treble as many more Livings allotted for Ministers under the true value of 30 l. a year ultra omnia onera reprisas as are above that Rate And that our Divines in the late Times look'd on such a yearly Sum as an uncomfortable pittance for a Minister we have an instance in the Story told in a History of the late Times in Print where a Patron desiring one to recommend to him a godly man for a Living of 50 l. a year he then had void was answered That a godly man could not be had to accept of a Living of so small a value It is moreover a lamentable thing to consider what an Excisum hath been put on the value even of our poor Livings by the Simoniacal Practices of Lay-Patrons and in their hands the greatest part of the Impropriations hath been computed to be Sir Benjamin Rudyard a Famous Parliament-man of the last Age in a Speech of his in behalf of the Clergy spoke in Parliament and Printed at Oxford Anno 1628 speaks there of the Scandalous Livings we have of 5 l. and 5 Mark a year and Cites Bishop Iewel for complaining in a Sermon before Queen Elizabeth That the Simony of our Lay-Patrons was general throughout England and that a Gentleman cannot keep his House unless he have a Parsonage or two in farm for his Provision And how generally a Simoniacal disposition hath continued to infect our Gentry appears by the vile Bonds that have been so much by Lay-Patrons imposed on the Ministers they presented viz. to resign their Livings again to them at pleasure and it is for the lasting Glory of the Lord Chancellor that he hath in Court declared that he will on occasion Null all Bonds of that sort and no doubt but the accidental encrease of the poverty of the Gentry which hath tempted them to sell the same Land twice and to sell the same Living once will tend to the encrease of Simony Moreover when it shall be considered that the Case of a Minister is such that tho Lay-men are secured by the Great Charter from being punished for Contempt of the King's Commands otherwise then with the saving of their Contenement and Free-hold yet that he holding Virtute Officii is lyable by the Kings Ecclesiastical Laws even for those things that in the Layety are no offences to be deprived of the Free-hold that the Law supposed him as Parson or Vicar to possess and that he by the Artifice of the said Bonds hath had the benefit of his Free-hold in effect during the Patrons leâ—eplacitum and further that every New Political Conjuncture threatens him with New Subscriptions from the Magistrate and New Nic-names from the Mobile and that on any change of Religion he is sure to be put in the forlorn hope and that he tho continually thinking of Divinity which is his profession hath not yet that freedom to speak all his Sentiments of the controverted part of it which a Lay-man enjoys and that he is still exposed by constant thinking to prey on the Membranes of his own Brain to find Notions for sensless people methinks after he has all his life before been constrain'd to take these bitter Pills as they are in themselves none should repine at their being gilded for him in his declining age and if among Ten thousand of these twenty six shall in their old Age have the Revenue of Bishops
ever errors they fell into as I should be if I heard any Principal speak unkindly of his Second who contending for him in loco lubrico or fencing on the Ice did slip and shall be as apt as any to wish and hope that now such have consulted with their Country as the Agonothetae and know their opinions better then formerly that they will take other measures and especially when they see the present State of Christendom importuning us to be quiet more then formerly and thus in the old Agnonistic Games many of the lapsi athletae came to be Crown'd The Rule in those Games was that the Agonists were to make three Attaques on each other and he that did slip or go back in the first and second if yet he overcame in the third On-set was lawfully Crown'd and good luck say I have they with their honour who having an opportunity of a third Assault against Popery shall out-do not only others but themselves and I have the Charity to believe that what the great Athletae did in the Exclusion Bill was thought lawful by them and that they thought therein they did not transilire metas And 't is but with Justice that the generality of the People of England seem as Agonothetae to have judged of the temper of our Prince in this Religionary Certamen and I believe whatever time can cause that yet among all composed and sedate Minds his Majesties deportment in the late Conjuncture will never happen to be forgot and particularly his wrestling with his Parliaments as I may say by several Gracious Offers and Messages relating to the security of the Protestant Religion and to the making of English Men everlasting Comprehensors of the same He notified it to them by the Lord Chancellor on March the 11th 78. That this is the time to secure Religion at home and strengthen it from abroad by strengthening the Interests of all the Protestants in Europe c. The results of this Council seem to be decisive of the fate of this Kingdom c. And I must confess I wish that tempus acceptabile as I call'd it before had been accepted of that great Critical Moment of time when the curious needed no intelligence from that Oracular States-man of the measures taken abroad to extirpate Protestancy and when its Enemies in some Countries thought they had the life of that Religion as sure within their gripe as he had that of the Bird when out-braving the Oracle he ask'd if the Bird in the hand were dead or alive and when all his Majesties real acceptable offers were thus reiterated to all the noble Contenders and offered like the water of life to prevent their fainting in their Race and that without Money and without Price And because his Majesties Title hath appear'd as due to his Agonists Crown as to his Inheritable Royal one for having in the several periods of his life at home and abroad contended so earnestly for the Protestant Faith and purchased an immunity from Envy it self and that according to the right of that Law in the Code that restrains the obtaining of Immunities only to such a one who hath striven per omnem aetatem cum coaevis and hath to the Athlotletae given proof of his valour from his youth and who hath at least in tribus agonibus been Conqueror I think the rather that a Crown of Iustice is laid up for him both in time and in eternity for his preserving the property of his Line in some of those his earnest Messages aforesaid and for that he did not by the infringing the Legal Rights of that as I may say transilire lineas or by doing any thing of the Justice whereof he doubted and much more of the Injustice whereof he was fully convinced As the figure of a Crown must be entire so must every good Action consist of entire Causes that is to be rewarded with it and any Prince who doth deliberate of the doing a thing in it self unjust has need of the Caution given to the Angel of the Church in Philadelphia hold fast that which thou hast that no Man take away thy Crown and indeed for a Monarch to do an Act of Injustice is a greater misfortune to him than to be deposed the latter being but the evil of punishment and the former of sin I reading lately in Klockius de aerario was ashamed to see the 41. Summarium of Chap. 109th Book 2d to be this viz. A Iustitiâ licite in parvis subinde variariut in majoribus inviolata sit and ashamed to find in that Chapter Tacitus quoted by him for it and saying Habet aliquid ex iniquo omne magnum exemplum and Plutarch cited for saying A justitia in parvis rebus nonnunquam abeas si salvam eam voles in magnis But honest Cicero tells us better things and that Nihil honestum esse potest quod justitiâ vacat and the Christian Morallity I am sure prohibits the doing of one unlawful Act tho the effect of it would be the restoring the whole Creation in integrum to its first State in Paradice and it enjoyns the fortitude of not fearing those that kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul as our Saviours words are in St. Math. 10. 28. and where he doth not say fear not those that can kill the Body but who do actually and frequently kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul implying that unjust men often labour to do that and would do it if they could and their cursed sollicitude therein is not capable of being practised more then by endeavouring to prevail on Men by fear of imminent bodily danger to warp from principles of Justice and the Scripture doth annex the Crown of Life to the condition of being faithful unto death and to not fearing the things to be suffered as 't is said in Rev. 2. 10. the ominous Text Preached on at the Coronation of the Royal Martyr And as it is a saying that Must is for the King so he that Rules over Men must be just ruling in the fear of God as part of the last words of King David assures us and must not by fear of Man do any unjust thing that would imply his intermitting the filial fear of Heaven which is justly punished by being abandon'd to the Servile Fear of Man and to that fear bringing a Snare as that Kings Son hath in his Proverbs told us and when otherwise he might have made his own wrath as the roaring of a Lion as Solomons words are And 't is when exact Justice is as it should be fixed in the Firmament of a Princes Mind that its brightness is above being Ecclipsed by any popular temptations or fears that it resembles the fixt Stars whose great height dazles the eyes of gazers and which Stars cannot be eclipsed by the shaddow of the whole earth The Populace and their Multitudes and Commotions are in the Scripture frequently compared to
feed sleep in them they must work for it and that no Papists and Presbyterians will in their sleep cry out of Persecution as formerly and that no Papist will hereafter applaud either the Justice or temper of Mr. Coleman in writing as aforesaid to the Inter-Nuncio of the Execution of the Penal Laws against the Papists and saying Which are so insupportable that 't is impossible any that is reach'd by them to have wherewithal to eat Bread if they be executed according to the said Proclamation Nor I believe will such Complaining be heard in our Streets from any of the Non-Conformist Divines as I have read in Print from one Learned Divine of them viz. some of the ejected Ministers are so reduced and find so little succour that they live upon brown Bread and Water some have died through the effects of want we will be thankful to be under no severer usage than Colliers and Barge-men and Sea-men than begging Rogues and Vagabonds have But as among the Augurs of old the Poultreys not eating their Meat or Bread served as an indication that the Roman Army was not then to fight so I hope that the same thing was meant by the sullenness of Mr. Colemans Augury and the others Complaint and that both Papists and Protestants will here eat the Bread of Quietness with Thanksgiving And considering the great number of Attorneys and Sollicitors and Dealers towards the Law that hath long over-spread the Land and planted in the same such a general proneness to litigation and over-ran it so with Briars and Thorns of the Law that our Country is not more famous for our Wooll than infamous for our so much fleecing one another and considering how another thing hath occasionally put so many men to be skilful Masters of the Science of Defence with the Weapons of the Law I mean the farming of so much of the publick Revenue I may well predict that if such a wild probability should happen as any Princes hereafter endeavouring by any illegal Course to advance Popery that tho good and loyal people would be Lachrymists to him they would be soon apt to make all ministerially concerned therein to be Lachrymists to them Altho England had a King namely Harry the 1 st of whom 't is recorded that reforming the old and untrue measures he made a measure after the length of his Arm yet as we have one who hath graciously measured the Arm of his Power by the Laws so I may safely adventure to foretel what his lawful Successors will do and it is to this purpose in some of the most subtle seditious Pamphlets notified in Print by the ill wishers to the next Heir to the Crown viz. that they fear more mischief from him as Chief Favourite and Minister to his Prince than they would from him if ever he should live to wear a Crown for then say they we shall know how to be provided against him by the Course of the Law. Nor is it to be doubted but that he who never was known to advise his Prince to incommode any one contrary to the Law will never employ his own power to the illegal detriment of any man. During this time that his Prince hath so justly placed so much of the Royal Favour on him may he not as to his administration thereof say with the same Justice as the great Prophet Whose Ox or Ass have I taken May it not be asked whom of the mad sort of Cattle that with an infinity of Calumnies and Shams gored his reputation or wild Asses that kick'd at the same did he hurt with power or yet take the fair advantage of the Law against till his many loyal friends who were secret true Lachrymists for the publick false misreports spread against him did importune him so for the Kingdoms good to defend his honour and that they might no more be punished by seeing the limbs of his reputation lie torn and mangled in every Coffee-house who had so often exposed those of his Body to Bullets and Chain-shot in Sea Fights for the saving the life and honour of their Country Those therefore that could in earnest write to the effect abovemention'd in such seditious Pamphlets let them talk or look as gravely as they will I shall yet think but in jest while at other times they are amusing any with questions about their being Lachrymists under such a Prince and they put me in mind of a famous Musician we had in the Court in King Iames's time Dr. Iohn Dowland who printed a Book of Songs and Pavans for the Lute with the Title of Lachrymae and Dedicated it to Queen Anne and in the Table of the Book several of them are thus remarked viz. Lachrymae antiquae Lachrymae gementes Lachrymae verae and he observes there in the Epistle what is obvious enough that Tears are not always shed in sorrow but sometimes in joy and gladness But there is another thing of more weight that occurs to my thoughts from the remembring that Mr. Henry Peacham in his Book called the Compleat Gentleman doth on the name of this Lutinest Iohannes Dowlandus bestow the Anagram annos ludendo hausi and that is that many in several Parliaments who thought they could do no right to Protestancy but by doing wrong to the next Heir did too much and too long play with the Royal Offers and when they might if they pleased have effected as quick a prevention of the growth of Popery under any Roman Catholiek Successor as was took care of in Scotland Yet however I have said enough for my continuing to think that as in that Kingdom there are are few or none that fear that the belief of Popery can ever there gain much ground and ever be the Paramount Religion there and who think not that the words of arise Peter kill and eat will sooner bring the Scots to eat Hogs Flesh and believe there is a Divine Right for their so doing St. Peters Sheet from Heaven in the Vision having had that Animal in it than to swallow the belief of Popery or of the Iure-Divinity of the Pope so the fears of its growth in England or of any occasion for the Virtue of the Lachrymae antiquae of the Primitive Christians will daily grow more and more moderate and in time be extinguished The late Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews estimated the number of Papists and their Children in Scotland to be but about a thousand but their number in the States of the Vnited Provinces is vastly more insomuch that the ingenious Author of the Policy of the Clergy of France to destroy the Protestants of that Kingdom mentions that there are in Holland a Country of small extent ten times more Popish Ecclesiasticks than there are Protestant Mâ—nisters in all France which is very large There is a compleat Clergy and Hierarchy Amsterdam and all the other great Cities have their Bishops Those Bishops have their Chapter and their Priests There are even religious houses They
may give the least Addition of trouble to any Member of the Realm whose Principles and Practices are not justly suspected to threaten the disturbance of the whole and my being informed by some of my Correspondents who are very impartial observers of things that many of the Dissenters of this Age have made the Press send forth several of the Antimoniarchical Principles of the former and as if they designed to revive its Rebellion and that tho the same Laws that have secured our Religion have likewise secured the Power of the Militia solely to the King and Enacted that it is not lawful on any pretence to take up Arms c. yet that the Government is justly apprehensive of many Dissenters and their Pastors owning the former Doctrine of Resistance I could wish as I did in behalf of the Papists that they would themselves offer to his Majesty's Consideration such a way of a Test or Assurance of their being become sound parts of the State and that they aim at no power of disturbing it and as to his Royal Wisdom may appear substantial and satisfactory till they do so I wish that not only the Magistracy but all private loyal persons would have such a regardful eye on them as is had in Foreign parts on those that come for Prattiques from infected places and bring no Letters of Health and that they would have Prattique or Commerce with such of them which would soon enforce them to live by themselves I have in this Discourse already acknowledged it to your Lordships just praise that you are not of too narrow a Spirit or Principles as to Protestant Dissenters as supposing that you had such Sentiments of the usage fit to be afforded to some of them that our Learned Bishop of Winchester own'd in a Letter to your Lordship which you once shewed me and I was as ready to be their Excusator as any of the Church of England could be till I saw their ingratitude so instrumental in Cancelling the Declaration of Indulgence and still out of a natural inclination do as I said in the Case of the Papists wish them all that share of the Royal Favour that would not undo themselves and others and as I said in the Case of the Papists do suppose the continuance of the old Laws against Protestant Recusants necessary in this Conjuncture that the King in whom the Executive Power of the Laws is lodged may sharpen the edge against any one of the Party that should be an aggressor against the Peace of the Kingdom and especially considering how often many of the Puritans have took the advantage of the publick pressures of the Crown in former Ages and that while it was in procinctu to withstand a Foreign Invasion My Lord Keeper Puckering's Observation of their Temper expressed in his memorable Speech is known to all and the present apprehensions in the Government of danger from Dissenters have sufficiently evinced the Prudence of his Majesty's Measures in not repealing the Penal Clauses in our Statutes against Protestant Recusants When they who were regarded as weak Brethren do now fortiter Calumniari and Libel the Government and call whom they will Iulian 't is necessary that the Prince by having the power of the Penal Laws in his hand should be able to discriminate those who have not yet discriminated themselves and in the Case of Persons stupid and perverse 't is fitter that Children should be Lachrymists than old men When the Divines of the Church of England have of late from one end of the Land to the other alarmed the People with Exhortations against Disloyalty as loud as those in a late Conjuncture against Popery and the King's Ministers were informed of the Altum silentium in the Conventicles as to any making the English Bibles there support the Rights of our English Kings and that the Iulians there were Apostates from the Principles of the Non-Conformists in King Iames's time and had forgot how Reynolds Whitaker Cartwright Dod Traverse c. had in their Writings disowned the assigning it as a Cause of the Primitive Obedience Quia deerant vire and that a new Sect of false weak Brethren had learned to urge the deerant vires 't was time for the King to keep the strength of the old Laws in his hands and occasionally to arm them against the petulant insolence of any Seditious Protestant or Popish Recusants I have been far from recommending in this Discourse the Exterminium haereticorum or Extirpation of any Recusants but have endeavoured with the sedateness requisite in a Philosophical or Political Disquisition to give my Judgment of the Natural Causes that induce me to expect the Extermination only of things or Principles Relionary and indeed to speak more properly of that part of Mens Principles only that is irreligionary and against Nature and to expect such parts being luce delenda I expect not that all the Debates of the Religionary part of Presbytery should here among all men cease tho yet I have conjectured that they who should write professedly of that Subject here would want Readers and as I believe too Discoursers of the Latitudinarian Hypothesis would likewise and do think that many little Religionary Speculative Notions about the meaning of some obscure passages in Scripture may to some of our Dissenters seem great and employ their time in Debates and as when the famous Ainsworth and Broughton heretofore had before their Congregations of Dissenters who went hence to Holland many and fierce disputes about the Controvesie whether Aarons ephod were blew or Sea-green a Controversie that puzzled all the Dyers of Amsterdam as Fuller says of it in his Church History as well as it did our separatists there that took so much pains to be therein illuminated and which I think the light of a Farthing Candle brought in any night among them might have easily settled or as I may say deleted in regard that blew and yellow making a green the yellow of the flame of the Candle would have made what appeared blew by day to have seem'd green at night and prevented their further Anathematising one another as Schismaticks about the same And as I beforementioned it out of a late Book of a Divine of the Church of England that some of the Reliogionary parts of Popery he instanceth in viz. Invocation of Saints Transubstantiation Purgatory are and will be learnedly and voluminously defended to the Worlds end I believe the same may be so in Popish Countries abroad and that the same will be believed by many Persons here tho yet the voluminous discussion of the same hath long been and is like to be out of fashion here and reflections on the same en passant or only in short Treatises may be thought by our Divines sufficient to guide their Auditors from mistakes therein and effectually to confute and I believe that our English Church will never be troubled with the growth of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation under any Prince we
as formerly I will not despair of many of our Dissenters improving hereafter in Principles of Loyalty as likewise of Conformity but hope they will really deserve to be thought as Loyal as they were so de facto by many greater Judges than my self at the time of the beginning of this Discourse and when so many in our Loyal Parliaments were so extravagant in their Charity to Dissenters as to think that St. Peters Ship was the only Fire-Ship and Non-Conformity a quiet trading Merchant-man and being hared with fears and jealousies of Popery were so eager to have the very Laws against Protestant Recusants Repealed But as I hinted the distinguishing between Popish and Protestant Mathematâ—cks to be absurd and as a gross Error about Proportion or Numbers would appear more ridiculous in Archimedes than in an ordinary Mathematician so true Protestants Non-sense or true Protestants Rebellion is to be no favourable Case and the Name of Protestants must not more than that of the Society of Iesus be allowed as a Charm to raise the Devil of Rebellion When Luther and those who of old deserved the Name of True Protestants abroad as great Co-workers with Nature in introducing the Reformation of Religion were almost deafen'd by their Papal Adversaries Out-cryes of the tunica inconsutulis and when particularly as Sleidan tells us in his Commentarys Granvill the Emperors Deputy in an harangue he made to the Citizens of Wormes did so passionately conjure them That they would not tear Christ's seamless Coat the Protestant Populace was so far from being aw'd out of their way by those words as that they gave their Adversaries the Name of Inconsutulistae or the seamless men and as little will any of our false and jesuited Rebellious Dissenters effect any thing but the abuse of the name and thing of Protestancy and the ridiculing themselves by their usurping on a pretence to be TRVE PROTESTANTS It comes here in my way to observe that some of our Dissenters and other Nominal Protestants who are so apt without sense or reason to call others Enemies to the King and Kingdom have really appeared such to both by their having so much encreased Divisions in our State as well as Church and by their having been the Aggressors in the dividing the Populace here by spightful calling of Names which yet I have not thought fit to mention in this Discourse and whereby the Loyal have been forced some way to retaliate not only out of a generous scorn but that they might speak intelligibly such Aggressors have likewise notoriously contributed to the Divisions in the Kingdom by their too much encouraging the Plot-Witnesses and particularly that Recorded Profligate who so desperately perjured himself in the Case of your Lordship and the Earl of Peterborough and a High-born Prince and by extreme acerbity and rancour relating to the Persons of Papists But their most fatal injury to their Country hath been their weakning its Reputation a thing which Kingdoms must necessarily subsist by as well as private Persons through their studied Artifice of making a Popish Plot to be thought so long lifed and when England's reputation for its strength or which is all one for its being united within it self was much more necessary for its well being than in any Conjuncture of time that perhaps ever happen'd Considering therefore that the present State of England doth and that the probable Future State of it will call so peremptorily on all his Majesty's Subjects to preserve their Country by the Exterminium of all Divisions as I think I have not brought any disreputation to my own Judgment by adventuring to predict the necessary growth of Lâ—yalty making all England to become in time one Sober Party so I am sure I have provided for the Reputation of my Country thereby as well as I could I am not so angry as to think that many of our Religionary Recusants will either on the account of the Divine Prayer of the holy Iesus for the uniting his Flock or of any Scripture-predictions of the more pacific temper that Christians shall at last be blest with be thus inclined to endeavour to shew themselves as I may say honest Inconsutulists and to forbear dividing our Realm as formerly but by their Interest so visibly and palpably concerned in the strengthening the Kingdom I suppose necessity of Nature may be instrumental in the accomplishment of such Scripture-predictions and just as the Interest and Concern of the Souldiers in the Gospel who hoped to have Christ's seamless Coat come to their share inclined them not to rend it and to cast Lots for the same and whereby the Scripture was fulfilled as is said in the Gospel I have mentioned it out of the Scripture that the Stork knoweth her appointed times and the Crane and the Swallow observe the time of their coming and I may thinking of a great Prince abroad add that the sight of a numberless Flock of Stares making somewhat like a Cloud in the Air and safely flying close together while there is a Falcon towering above them will direct the Populace of several parts of Christendom to Loyalty and to the natural Garranty of Vnion at home under their respective Governors whereby they will be effectually preserved As I have in this Discourse entertained your Lordship with somewhat like a short Historical Account of the accidental encrease and natural decrease of the Numbers of the Papists in several Conjunctures since the Reformation so I shall in my intended Review with the like of those of the Non-Conformists and impartially take notice of the respective Conjunctures of their petulant insolence and whereby I shall shew to what strange Principles of Out-raging our Municipal Laws they were gradually abandoned As a Specimen hereof I shall observe That Ames a Learned Dissenter of the former Age in the Preface of his Puritanismus Anglicanus printed in the year 1610 speaking of the sufferings of the Clerical Dissenters saith That the Crime they were adjudged guilty of in England was Quod obstinaverunt sese contra leges and then goeth on to ask Sed quae tandem illae quarum gratiâ vi tot fideles alià s inculpati Ministri sunt bonis omnibus sedibusque pulsi nam ex altari vivebant dignitatibus functionibus suis exuti faedati etiam existimatione Sunt autem ne nescias non fundamentales Regni leges non vetera Majorum scita aut consulta quorum summam brevem in Magnâ ut appellant Charta conscriptam habemus haec illi Religiosissime colunt horum fidem implorant sed Canones nescio qui in legum fraudem dolo malo confecti à Parliamentario senatu damnati vere sontici quos denique adversus ministros inviti non sine pudore in alios culpae trajectione exercent Authores ipsi c. But we may with horror ask what kind of Laws is it that those have Outraged since 41 and some of them since the year 60 and since a
it saith Concessimus Deo hac praesenti charta confirmavimus pro nobis HAEREDIBVS nostris in perpetuum quod Ecclesia Anglicana libera sit habeat omnia jura sua integra libertates suas illaesas and whereby the British Churches are secured under a Prince of any Religion from Foreign Arbitrary impositions But indeed the Style current in Magna Charta is that our Kings for themselves and their Heirs forever did grant the Customs and Liberties contained in that Charter to our Ancestors and their Heirs for ever Our Ancestors had no occasion to spend time in seeking Knots in a Bull-rush or hidden Sense in the words HEIRS and the King's HEIRS when so anciently as by the Oath of Fealty which every Person above fourteen years old and every Tythingman was obliged to take publickly at the Court-Leet within which he lived they were sworn to the King and his HEIRS and that Oath was taken a fresh every year by all the Subjects under Edward the Confessor and William the first and is thus set down by Pryn in his Concordia Discors viz. I A. B. do swear that FROM THIS DAY FORWARDS I will be Faithful and Loyal to our Lord the King AND HIS HEIRS c. The instances are innumerable of Allegiance anciently Sworn to our Kings and their Heirs and this one for example occureth to me as Sworn in the time of Edward the 4th viz. Sovereign Lord I Henry Percy become your Subject and Leige-man and promit to God and you that hereafter I Faith and Troth shall bear to you as to my Sovereign Leige-Lord and to your Heirs Kings of England of Life and Limb and of Earthly Worship to Live and Die against all Earthly People and to you and to your Commandments I shall be Obeysant as God me help and his Holy Evangâ—lists 27. Oct. 9. Ed. 4. Claus. 9. Ed. 4. m. 13. in dorso Mr. Pryn likewise in that Book of his beforemention'd saith that there was an ancient Oath of Fealty and Allegiance both by the Subjects of England and Kings Bishops Nobles and Subjects of Scotland made to the Kings of England and Their Heirs as Supreme Lords of Scotland in these words viz. Ero fidelis legalis fidemque legalitatem servabo Henrico Regi Angliae haeredibus suis de vitâ membris terreno honore contra omnes qui possunt vivere mori nunquam pro aliquo portabo arma nec ero in consilio vel auxilio contra eum vel Haeredes suos c. which Oath he saith William King of Scots and all his Nobles Swore to King Henry the second haeredibus suis sicut ligio Domino suo and John Balliol John Comyn with all the Nobles of Scotland to King Edward the first and his Heirs He there likewise gives an account how the Nobles of England Swore Fealty to Richard King of England and to his Heirs against all men and how the Citizens of London Swore the like Oath and That if King Richard should die without Issue they would receive Earl John his Brother for their King and Lord juraverunt ei fidelitatem Contra omnes homines salva fidelitate Richardi Regis fratris sui as Hoveden relates And he moreover cites the Record of the Writ issued to all the Sheriffs of England soon after the Birth of Edward the 1 st Son and Heir to King Henry the 3 d. To Summon all Persons above 12 years old to Swear Fealty to him as Heir to the King and to submit themselves faithfully to him as their Liege Lord after his Death This form of the Oath in the Writ is there mention'd to that effect viz. Quod ipsi salvo homagio fidelitate nostrâ quâ nobis tenentur cui in vitâ nostrâ nullo modo renunciare volumus fideles eritis Edwardo filio nostro primogenito ita quod si de nobis humanitus Contigerit eidem tanquam Haeredi nostro domino suo ligio erunt fideliter intendentes eum pro domino suo ligio habentes And he there shews how they were Summon'd and Sworn accordingly and further how in the Parliament of H. 4. The Lords Spiritual and Tempâ—ral and Commons were Sworn to bear Faith and true Allegiance to the King to the Prince and his Issue and to every one of his Sons severally succeeding to the Crown of England And he there mentions more Oaths taken to our Kings and their Heirs of the like Nature The Consideration hereof would make any one wonder at the Confidence of a late Learned Lawyer and positive pretender to Omniscience in our English Antiquities and Records who in his Detestable Book called The Rights of the Kingdom and which contains a farrago of Impious Anti-monarchical Principles and Printed in London 1649. and there to the Scandal of the English and Protestant Name lately Re-printed by some Factious Anti-Papists hath averred That our Allegiance was of old tyed to the Kings Person not unto his Heirs and for the Kings Heirs saith he there I find them not in our Allegiance And he mentions the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance as enjoyn'd in Queen Elizabeth's and King Iames's time respectively to be the first that were made to the Kings Person and his HEIRS and SVCCESSORS But to return to the Cause in hand 'T is sufficient for the Obligation I press that HEIRS and SUCCESORS are so clearly expressed in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy And tho the Statute of 1 â— Elizabethae in the Clause of the Annexing Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to the Crown useth the style of Your Highness your Heirs and Successors Kings or Queens of this Realm shall have full Power c. as the Statue of the Supremacy 26o. Henry 8th runs in the Style of our Sovereign Lord his Heirs and Successors Kings of this Realms shall be taken accepted and reputed the only Supreme Head and tho the Oath in the 35 th H. the 8 th Cap. 1. that relates to the bearing Faith Truth and true Allegiance to the Kings Majesty and to his Heirs and Successors c. be further thus expressed viz. And that I shall accept repute and take the Kings Majesty his Heirs and Successors when they or any of them shall enjoy his place to be the only Supreme Head c. and tho' the old Oath of the Mayor of London and other Cities and Towns throughout England and of Bayliffs or other chief Officers where there are no Mayors runs in the style of Swearing That they shall well and Loyally Serve the King in the Office of Mayor in the City of L. and the same City shall keep surely and safely to the use of our Lord the King of England and of his Heirs Kings of England might give occasion for that great empty and big-sounding Sophism of Sir W. I. in his famous Speech wherein he said That we are Sworn to the King his Heirs and Lawful Successors but not Obliged to any during
dâ—bent ut aliquid operentur and that verba cum effectu sunt accipienâ—a And as 't is said in the Civil Law Semper in stipulationibus in caeteris contractibus id sequimur quod ACTVM est and as actus is there taken for a general word sive re sive verbis quid AGATVR here is an ACT of the Swearer done in relation to such HEIRS and SUCCESSORS and he is promittendi reus in the Civil Law Phrase and as he is there called Reus qui debitor est omninoque obligatus ex quavis Causa and as he who hath promised any thing is said Reus debendi and so Reus constitutus dicitur qui se obligavit ff Quod met Caus. l. 14. § Labeo But on the whole matter our Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy contain in them nothing impossible and nothing ambiguous and do ipso facto or in plain English oblige us as soon as taken to be ready to pay our Allegiance to the King and afterward to his Heirs and Successors as respectively due according to the Legal Course of Descent And if any one be frightned with Sir W. I's Day-Dream of Treason viz. in being immediately upon the taking of the Oaths under some Obligation to the Kings Heirs and Successors let him repair to our Statute-Book and he will there find as good Bail provided for him in the Case as Heaven and Earth can give for in the Preamble of an Act of Parliament the King and three Estates tell him of the Duty that every true and well affected Subject not only by BOND of Allegiance but also by the COMMANDMENT of Almighty God OVGHT to perform to his Majesty his HEIRS and SUCCESSORS 7 o Iac. c. 6. In fine I shall hereupon affirm that should any English Subject who hath taken these Oaths live to the age of Nestor and in the course of Nature â—ee several of our Kings Heirs and Successors in the due and Legal course of Descent Succeeding one another and should such Subject be never call'd on to reiterate those Oaths in the Reign of any of them he would yet by these Oaths before once taken continue obliged to bear true Faith and Allegiance to them all Successively And thus in the first faederal Oath we read of the Father of the faithful obliged himself at once in relation to Abimelech and his SON and his SONS SON and we know how afterward God was pleased to oblige himself at once to Abraham and his SEED and how after that God was pleased to oblige himself by his Oath and Covenant made to David and his SEED as to their Succession in the Royal Throne of Iuda And 't was to this the words in the Psalms ONCE have I Sworn c. refer And therefore this Scriptural Representation of God after the manner of Men condescending in the Government of the world to bind himself ex gratiâ as aforesaid may well inculcate to us the reasonableness of our becoming ipso facto bound by our Oaths to pay the debitum Iustitiae to his Vice-Roys and their HEIRS and SUCCESSORS To proceed therefore I shall lay down this as a 6 th Conclusion and genuinely deducible from the former one viz. That by Virtue of those two Clauses the takers of those Oaths do particularly bind themselves not only against the Aiding and Assisting or Abetting any Rebellion or any Vsurpation of the rights of his Majesty's Heirs and Successors that can happen but to the aiding and assisting of the Crown and preserving its Inheritable Rights on all Emergent occasions Sanderson in his 4th Lecture of the Obligation of Oaths puts the Case concerning the Person to whom an Oath was made viz. Whether he who hath Sworn the performance of a thing to another the Party to whom he Sware being deceased be bound to make it good to the Heirs and Successors of the said Party And his words are I answer ordinarily he is It is certain that the Party Swearing is obliged if he express'd that he would perform the Oath unto the Heirs of the other It may also be taken for granted that he is bound tho he expressed it not if the Oath taken relates to DIGNITY because DIGNITY varies not with the change of Persons Whence if any Subject or Souldier Swear Fidelity to his King or General the Oath is to be meant to be made unto them also who succeed to that Dignity Yet Ames our Learned Non-conformist in his Case of Conscience 4th Book Chapter 22. viz. De Iuramento as to the 11th Question and about the Obligation of an Oath Ceasing saith Quum aufertur ratio juramenti juramentum cessat ratione Eventus qui casus est eorum qui jurarunt se obedituroâ— Domino aut Principi alicui qui postea cessat esse talis But perhaps had the Case of so strict an Oath as that of Allegiance to our Prince and his HEIRS and SUCCESSORS layn before him he would have writ otherwise of its Obligation For as the Consideâ—ation of the forâ—mentioned Clauses in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy did sufficiently prevail with the Ejected and Persecuted Divines of the Church of England and most of its Lay Members to avoid all sinful Compliance with the late Vsurpation and Vsurpers so it did likewise with many of the Presbyterians and others to avoid the same and particularly to refuse the taking the ENGAGEMENT set up by the Republicans and even to Publish in Print their holding themselves obliged by those Oaths so to do I shall instance in two that did so Mr. Pryn in his Book before cited mentions those OATHS as in direct words extending not only to the late King's Person mentioning King Charles the 1 st but his HEIRS and SUCCESSORS and Inviolably binding the Swearers in perpeâ—uity in point of LAW and CONSCIENCE so long as there is any Heir of the Crown and Royal Line in being and that upon many Vnanswerable Scriptural Precedents and Legal Considerations c. He had before charged those with apparent Perjury who had taken those Oaths to the King and his HEIRS and yet repute those few Reliques of the old Parliament then sitting forcibly secluding the Lords and Majority of their Fellow Members to be a lawful Parliament within the Statute of 17 Car. Cap. 7. or submit to any Oaths Taxes or Edicts of theirs as Parliamentary or Legal I refer the Reader to the Book and which because somewhat Scarce I think to have reprinted The other Person of the Presbyterian Communion I shall refer to for this is the Author of a learned Tract in 4 to printed in the year 1650 called An EXERCITATION concerning VSVRP'D POWERS wherein the Author very substantially proves that by virtue of the Obligation to the King's HEIRS and SUCCESSORS resulting from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy it is not lawful to give up ones self to the ALLEGIANCE of an VSVRP'D Power and saith very well in p. 16. If I should do that I should yield assistance to the