from the Church of Rome that you are some I believe unawares come thither again as is unanswerably proved by Lysimachus Nicenor lately reprinted at Oxford in his Letter of Congratulation to the Kirk But Secondly the Parallel fails in this too That his Royal Highness is not a declared Papist as the King of Navarre was a declared Protestant nor has yet openly renounced the Communion of the Church of England for which his blessed Father died a Martyr And therefore of the two our English Guisards are much more to blame in representing his Roual Highness as a Papist which is so difficult to imagine him Strictly to be But furthermore upon supposition he were a declared Papist the Proposal of my Lord Chose was very ridiculous since it did suppose a possibility of prevailing with his Majesty to Disinherit his Royal Brother who must needs be so much dearer to him than the King of Navarre was to Henry III as he is nearer in Blood And for may own part I cannot but imagine at this distance that his Majesty who is a Prince incomparably wiser and juster then was Henry III. of France must needs disdain and abhor such a Proposal which were it Enacted it would enervate the Laws of Succession by which He and His Ancestors have hitherto Reigned and give a greater Blow to the English Monarchy than that which cut off His Royal Fathers Head I have here forborn to give you an Account of the Tragical End of the Duke of Guise which is a Lesson well worth your Learning and may teach all Persons so disposed as he was how unsafe it is to provoke Soveraign Authority since the goodness of the best of Kings like the infinite Goodness of God himself whose Ministers they are may at length be so injured and affronted as to be forced to sharpen it self into Sovereign Vengeance and Justice And therefore Cousin let me advise you if not for Conscience yet for Wraths sake to have nothing to do in Blowing up the Flames of Sedition Nor let your Soul enter into the secret of my Lord though his Interest among the Senators as you write be so very considerable and strong You likewise forget your self in miscalling the Execution of the late Laws by the odious name of Persecution which if you can prove to be such according to the Scriptural notion of Persecution viz. Infliction of Evil for Righteousness sake then will I become your Proselyte and forsake the Church of England as much as I have this Idolatrous Church of Rome For no man is persecuted but either for immediate matters of Divine Worship which concern the First Table or with respect to matters of Morality or a Good Life which concern the Second With respect to the First a man is persecuted either on a negative account for not worshiping a False God as the three Children in Daniel or for not worshipping the True in a False way as St. Paul and the other Apostles were persecuted by the Pharisees for not worshipping the True God according to the Jewish manner after it was abrogated Or as our Fore fathers in England For not worshiping God and our Saviour after the Romish Rites Or Secondly on a positive account For worshipping the true God in a way that is true or to express it yet more clearly and absolutely in your own terms For serving of God as Daniel was cast into the Lyons Den for praying to God against the King's Decree With respect to the Second A man is also persecuted on a negative account For not doing something which is in its own nature or by God positive command morally evil as the good Midwives were afraid to be persecuted by Pharaoh for not murthering the Hebrew Infants Or else on a positive account for doing some good moral action which ought in such and such circumstances to be done and thus was our blessed Saviour persecuted for opening the eyes of the blind man and for healing on the Sabbath-day Now these distinctions being premised tell me in which of these cases you are Persecuted or which is all one for what you are Confessors and Martyrs For no man is persecuted but as he is persecuted he is a Confessor or Martyr and by his sufferings bears witness to the Truth With respect to the Second head you cannot say that you are persecuted and therefore let me see whether you are so with respect to the first And First 't is plain that you do not suffer for not worshiping a false God and 't is likewise as plain that you do not suffer for not worshipping the true God in a false way For first the Laws whose Execution you mis-call Persecution do not punish you for not worshiping God after our way or if they did to prove their Execution to be Persecution you must First prove that the Church of England whose Doctrine is down right against Idolatry and Superstition does worship God in an Idolatrous and Superstitious manner which good Cousin you know can never be proved There remains nothing then but to assert That you are punished for serving God or for Worshipping God in a way which you are sure is true That you worship God in a true way I verily believe and could heartily joyn with you in other circumstances But then you are not punished for worshipping God in that manner for the same Laws you complain of allow you to worship God in what fashion you please and not only you but your Family be it as great as it will and lastly not only your Family but Five Persons more Which allowance were you the only Christians in the World and the Magistrates Heathens or which your Friends are more likely to suggest were they Papists or Atheists is so far from being Persecution that were you of the temper of the Primitive Christians you would esteem it as a great priviledg and instead of reviling thank the kind Magistrate for the same But then if on the contrary hand you be considered and many good English men and good Christians cannot but consider you as a sort of men that have formerly raised a most Unnatural Rebellion and now make Schism in the Church and Broyles in the State the punishments you suffer and complain so loudly off will be so far from seeming Persecution of you as Christians that they will rather seem your just Desert as Factious and Turbulent Subjects And I assure you that your Brethren in France whom you falsly so call and for whom you pretend so great respect are so far from Judging you persecuted that they will not excuse you but wonder at your non-submission to the Church and pity your mistakes that make you stand out against the Laws They that have seen and examined our English Liturgy which is Printed at Geneva in French cannot understand your Notion of Persecution And Ministre Claude the most famous of them all for Piety and Learning told me in the presence of many others after a Discourse wherein
A LETTER FROM A Person of Quality To an EMINENT DISSENTER To rectifie his MISTAKES concerning the SUCCESSION The Nature of PERSECUTION AND A COMPREHENSION LONDON Printed by T. B. for Randolph Taylor near Stationers-hall MDCLXXXV A LETTER sent from beyond the Seas to a Noted Dissenter Dear Cousin I Was very glad to receive your Letters but very sorry to find by them that you are still so extreamly desirous of Innovations in a Government so well Established as that is under which you live I perceive you are more zealous then it becomes a good Subject or a good Christian to be for carrying on a Project of the Earl of Shaftsbury as Unreasonable as New viz. That of Disabling a Papist to Inherit the Crown For doubtless that proposal was first made and afterwards promoted by him the last Sessions of Parliament not out of true Love to the Reformed Religion but out of Spite and Revenge to the D. of Y Who were he not only Papist but Heathen or Mahumetan which I think is not much worse would certainly have as good a Title to his Crown and all his Temporal Rights as if he were the most Orthodox and Holy Christian in the World And I am perswaded that my zealous Lord Chose would not be willing that the King and Parliament should make a particular Act to disable his own Posterity to Inherit the great Estate he hath got if they should turn Papists or Atheists as others have done before them We all know what mischief in the World that Damnable Doctrine has made That Temporal Rights and Inheritances depend upon Saintship and Grace And if it be clear from Scripture as nothing is more clear that a King ought not to lose his Crown for not being a Christian or for renouncing the Christian Religion as Julian did then it is plain that neither the Duke nor any other Prince ought to be debarred from the Crown which is the greatest and most sacred of Temporal Rights for not being Protestants or which is more for renouncing the Christian Religion And I am heartily glad that God gave the Fathers of the English Church the Grace and Courage to defend her Doctrine in opposing that Unreasonable and truly Romish Proposal of my Lord Chose which if they had approved and defended after it was proposed they had truly acted in that like Prelats Popishly affected and really shewed themselves to be what their Adversaries would fain perswade the World they are For 't is the Romish Church and her Doctors which maintain That Kings Excommunicated or Heretick Kings or which is all one that Kings that renounce the Apostolick Faith ought to be Deprived and Deposed But 't is the Church of England that maintains the contradiction of that Unscriptural Unevangelical Principle and thinks her self as much obliged to submit her self to a Heathen Atheistical Heretical or Popish Prince where she can as to an Orthodox King and where she cannot she thinks her self obliged to suffer as her Saviour like a Lamb brought to the slaughter and dares pretend to take up to Arms but those of the Primitive Christians Whose true Copy she is Tears Arguments and Prayers I say it is the Church of England that is of this Judgment and neither the Church of Rome nor the Kirk of Scotland both of which have actually Excommunicated and Dâ—posed Lawful and Rightful Princes under the Notion of being Hereticks and Enemies to Christs Kingdom forgetting both alike the Prâ—cepts and Examples of our Saviour and his Apostles on which the Church of England hath grounded the contrary Doctrine as well as on right reason Our Saviour though God rendred unto the Heathen Caesar the things that were Caesar's he owned his right to the Empire both by word and deed although he were but the adopted Successor of the greatest Usurper that ever was in the World Nay furthermore he owned and submitted to the procuratory Power of Pilate who acted but by Commission from the Emperour Tiberius who if there be any truth in the Character of Tacitus was one of the greatest Tyrants and most wicked men that ever the World saw And as for St. Paul there is no Article of our Religion not even that that Jesus Christ is the Son of God more clear in his Epistles than that Every Soul should be subject to the Higher Powers that we should Obey not only for Wrath but Conscience sake that whosoever resisieth receiveth to himself Damnation and lastly that all the Powers and when he wrote there were none but Heathen Powers were ordained of God I might here insist upon the Practice of the Apostles as it is represented in their Acts and the constant Submission and Sufferings of the Primitive Christians as they are reported by the Ecclesiastcal Fathers and Historiaens but the Scripture it self is sufficient to demonstrate the truth of this Argument which the Church of England has not only established in her Doctrine but her Fathers and Sons of late maintained in their Practices and which the Kirk of of Scotland agreeing in this and many other Points with that of Rome did ever oppose both in Word and Deed. And since that Kirk and Nation have been of this Opinion we need not wonder that the English Disciples of their Buchanan and Knox have practised those rebellious Principles which have so debauched and corrupted the Subjects of the Kings of England as to make them be proverbially called The Kings of Devils And which the Anababtists in Germany improved into this Maxim That Saintship was the Foundation of Soveraignty and that the Righteous ought to Inherit the Earth And furthermore if Crowns ought to descend upon Protestants only then it is but just that the Estates of all Subjects whatsoever should be so Entailed â—nd if for example the D of Y must be cut off from his Right for being a Roman Catholick then let the rest of the Papists lose theirs they are all alike Idolaters and let them all alike suffer And to bring the Case to your own House can you imagine that you your self ought to lose your Right to the Estate you have or may have hereafter upon that supposition that you should turn Papist which men as firmly resoved against it as you have certainly done These Practises and Proposals are such that they have left a blot on the memories of some men that seem more zealous than their Brethren And I am glad at present that the Religious Lord Chose is the Chief Patron and Promoter of such and Unreasonable and Romish Design It is unreasonable to exclude a Popish Heir from a Crown to which he derives his right from Popish Ancestors and I have more than ordinary reason to call it Romish because I have heard it maintained here among all the Priests I converse with It is a Doctrine dearly beloved by the Romanists And put but the Name of Heretick to a Prince here and it is just the same case as when you call a Prince a Papist
in England where if there be no more than my good Lord Chose that are Fautors of this Romish Doctrine my Country is in a far better case than I thought it to be And truly this noble Project of the late Lord Chose was condemned by all Protestants as soon as it took air in France not only for that it was an Ungospel way of Proceeding and savours strongly of the Doctrine of Rome which they abhor but because it puts their King in mind of a Project he is very much inclined to viz. To make a like Law here that none but a Roman Catholick shall ever be King or bear any Office or Trust in the Kingdom And certainly if it should ever please God for our sins to suffer our Princes to backslide into Romish Idolatry and Superstition we have nothing to do but to pray and like our Glorious Ancestors in Queen Mary's days suffer quietly when we cannot flie And therefore I wonder that you would so obliquely reflect upon the Bishops and censure them for doing that which in Honour and Duty they were bound to do and represent this to their Disgrace which all good and well advised Protestants must needs Commond them for if they will be Impartial But put the case such an Act were made who can see the bad consequences thereof The Union of Great Briâ—tain will be broke upon it and War entailed upon both Kingdoms and by the same reason that none but a Protestant shall succeed now Faction still increasing none perhaps within a while will be thought sit to Inherit the Crown but a Presbyterian c. For you that are used to talk of Numbers and Strength can best tell how Numerous and Powerful they are that are possessed with as firm a prejudice against the Church of England as the Church of Rome it self denying Communion equally with both and who educate their Children in perfect hatred of the one as the genuine Daughter of the other I have wrote all this to present to your view what perhaps in the hurry of Zeal you have not had time to consider And though I think it very impious and unreasonable to debar any such Prince from the Crown upon this account yet could we imagine the Government were to be formed again I would be as Zealous for this condition as the greatest Zealot of them all And am as sorry as any other good Protestant that it was not always one of the Fundamental Laws of England though now it be too late to make it such You tell me also that my Lord intends to come and live in London I suppose it may be under pretence to secure his Person from the Papists but I wish it may not be with a design to act over the same things under a pretence of securing the Protestant which the Duke of Guise acted in Paris under a seeming Zeal to secure the Popish Religion The Reason that makes me fear it is the conformity of our times in England with those in France as you may see by the following account The Duke who was a man of an High Spirit and not able to bear the least disgrace being removed by Henry III. from them most Rich and Honourable of his Court-Preferments became thereupon Male-content and retiring from the Court which he now did hate went to live at his House in Paris where by many Arts as in particular by the subtle Practises of the Priests and Jesuits he became in a short time the Minion of the People whose Affections he drew off from the King by representing him though a hearty Roman Catholick as a favorer of the Hereticks who under the protection of the Princes of the Bloud increased mightily in his Reign He also represented him in particular to be a great favourer of the King of Navarre against whom he himself had a particular ill will and whom the People through the Instigation of the Priests and Jesuits did perfectly hate because he was a Protestant although he was Primier Prince of the Blood for whom the French commonly have a great Reverence and by Consequence Heir Apparent or as a Friend of your would have said Heir Presumptive for the King had no Child to Inherit to the Crown of France After he had thus made the credulous People by the help of the Priests and Jesuits zealous for the Defence of their Declining Religion he drew them to League into Rebellion against their lawful Soveraign under a pretence of securing the same by removing Evil Councellors from his Person and obliging him to employ his Royal Power in suppressing the Protestans and in particular by declaring the Heretick King of Navarre afterwards H. IV. uncapable of succeeding to the Crown For the sake of Peace the King was willing so far to deny himself as to grant the two first but could never be made so false to the Interest of the Royal Family as to consent to the last by changing the order of Succession to the Crown by which his Ancestors had Reigned so many hundred years and which have been so long established without any respect to Religion by the Salique or Original Laws of France Hereupon the League in Imitation and after the Pattern of which the Solemn League and Covenant was formed or Rebellion grew so high as to beat the King out of Paris where the Guisards had a design to sieze upon his sacred Person shut him up like King Chilperick in a Monastery and set up the silly old Cardinal Bourbon the King of Navar 's Uncle to Reign in his stead But the King escaping from Paris sheltered himself in Chartres where to compose Differences he issued out Writs to call together the three Estates which much resemble our Parliaments at Blâ—is Thither the Deputies or Members repair some for the King but far more for the Cursed League and therefore the Guisards finding themselves more potent than the Royalists insisted almost on nothing else but securing the Roman Catholick Religion by de claring the King of Navarre because an Heretick uncapable of Succeeding to the most Christian Crown You see Cousin what a Parallel there is between those times and ours excepting First that there are no Priests and Jesuits to second such a Design in England as there were in France But to supply that Defect there may be found men as fit in all points as they in Black to stir up the People to Discontent and Rebellion I mean the same sort of Persons that Preached up the late Bloody War who really are the Bastard-brood of the Monastick and Jesuitical Emissaries though they bear not the Names of their Fathers but like Bastards are disowned by those that begot them The Seditious Principles Preached and Printed by them in the late Times are Evident Proofs of what Race they are come And as a man may Travel so far West till at last he come to the same Eastern Point from which he did set out so you Cousin and your Brethren have gone so far