may be unquestionable with a City-Rout a crowd of credulous Fools or resolute Knaves But if ever the Countrey has an occasion for a Triumvirate to write Paradoxes Lyes and Forgeries it will wisely pitch upon Mr. Baxt. Mr. H-t and this Person of Quality You are willing to lay a great Obligation on his Majesty from his Act of Oblivion but yet ungratefully forbear to mention your Party so much as oblig'd Then you address your self to the King's Friends and their Friends the Papist together I thought your Lordship could not allow Roman-Catholicks any relation or acquaintance with men that love the Religion of the Church of England and King of it as in common Charity my Lord some of us at least may be thought to do But why must we and they be thought such Intimates It no way appears upon Record my Lord as the Familiarity of your Party with the Jesuits neither has Mr. Oates sworn that they frequent our Churches as he testifies they do your Conventicles therefore without being such Favourites to them if you please we will obey your Injunctions and Consider what Promises Declarations and Engagements the dissenting Protestants had both of his Majesty his Lords and Bishops at the time of his coming over and how they have since been used and with what Submission and Loyalty they have carried themselves And now must tell your Lordship having considered and weighed every jot and tittle of it I can answer you to every Punctilio first that the Promises your dissenting Protestants had have certainly been made good to them perhaps above their bargain and expectation I am sure beyond their merit and desert not only the Laws when in full force against them and such Offenders have been seldom executed but for a while wholly suspended with a general Toleration although that I confess they will by no means grant to have been done in their favour notwithstanding it seem'd extorted by their own clamors and importunity and was the Counsel and Advice of some that are now the greatest Patriots and Bigots of their Cause And 't is very notorious that this dissenting Protestant all the time of that Indulgence resented it as an Act of Grace and Favour though I confess never the nearer won to Peace and Conformity with such a condescention but had their tender Consciences as much harden'd and steel'd with the Lenitives of Moderation as ever they could have been in the hottest flames of a real Persecution But as soon as ever they came to be bridled again by the Law with a seasonable restraint the Wretches that at best but flatter and dissemble when they command any thing in the Government presently arraign'd it as a design of introducing Popery though it truly promoted nothing more than the growth of their own Faction and made the Beast insolent and unruly by giving it the reins whom the curb of a severe Discipline might have made more gentle and tame And now I would have your Lordship tell us a way of satisfying so froward and perverse a Sect that is clamorous till it is indulg'd and then is discontented at its own Indulgence But beside all this your Lordship very well knows that they were not only conniv'd at in their Religious Schisms and sanctified ways of violating the Canons of the Church and the Laws of the Realm but some of them were advanced to Places of Honour and Profit and far'd once altogether as well as those that had more faithfully served the King and dutifully conform'd to the Discipline of the Church But granting these Promises and Declarations were not so punctually perform'd is the Government pretently to be upbraided for it And his Majesty almost told in plain terms that had you thought he would have fail'd you so he should never have got in the Throne so easily and can these grumbling and discontented Wretches be call'd the Restorers of his Majesty that would capitulate with their Prince for his Birth-right stand upon Terms and Articles like Rebels in a Garrison before they will surrender and are now sorry they had not made him compound for his Kingdoms at a dearer rate Your Lordship knows all this to be as true as the Suggestions of their hard usage are false and malicious would you have the greatest Laick of your Faction made the greatest Minister of State too that has been done already and your Noble Peer himself advanc'd to the Mace would you have some Head of your canting Priests preferr'd to be the Head of our Church and a thing put for the Pillar of it that has twice endeavour'd to undermine it why somewhat of this has been offer'd too and we have Mr. Baxter's own word for it that he refused a Bishoprick and now for God's sake my Lord what usage would you your self advise to be shown to such Miscreants whom neither Honour or Profit can perswade so much as to suffer the Government to remain undisturb'd Thus much for our Promises and Usage now my Lord for their Loyalty and Submission which you so vainly extol and magnifie but I wish your Eloquence a more copious Theam when-ever you have a mind to write a Panegyrick or else you 'l want indeed a great deal of Invention or rather another part of Rhetorick plain Hyperbole to make amends for the barrenness of the Subject You talk of the difficulty of finding a parallel Instance but all the while don't instance in one single act of this unparallel'd Submission and you vindicate your own Party just at the same rate as you vilify all others only with general Assertions but your Lordship shall see I will more fairly demonstrate their Treasons and Insurrections than you have done their Loyalty and Submission His Majesty was hardly settled in his Throne before these submissive Villains began to disturb it in 61. Venner and his Crew were plotting on the Government discovered and executed for High-Treason about 62. Phillips Tongue Gibbs and one Stubbs with another were arraigned for a Plot as Hellish altogether as this of the Papists the latter of which confesses the Fact before his Tryal the other four abiding it were upon full evidence condemned and executed In 63. we have one Captain Oates mustring up his Regiment of Traytors In 66. Another little Mutiny and Rebellion of a parcel of discontented Officers and Souldiers lately Mr. Colledge that with his last breath profess'd himself a dissenting Protestant condemned and executed for a more unparallel'd piece of Treason than any incomparable Instance you can give of Dissenters Loyalty and last of all for a head to this Comet this long train of Rebellion out comes the treasonable Scheam of Association and alarms the Kingdom with the fearful Presages of a second War Thus much my Lord for the submission of English Dissenters since the Restoration and now for the Loyal deportment of your Scottish one How many Field-Preachers since 60. have been executed renouncing with their last breath all Allegiance and Supremacy Kid and King
an unbias'd man believe the justice of his Courts corrupted and his Judges Arbitrary because it is the opinion of some perhaps that have a mind to sit on the Bench Are those fair and competent Asserters of an Arbitrary Power and good Witnesses of their Princes Tyranny only because they are banish'd the Court and could see nothing of it when they sate in the Council Lastly can he truly fear Popery that is of no Religion at all and be an impartial Judge of the Temper of the Duke of York that is his avow'd and mortal Enemy neither the Civil Law or Common will admit of any prejudic'd Evidence And for God's sake let the King and Government when they are arraign'd have as fair play for it as one of your Joyners or Coblers a Colledge or an Hewson would expect Next my Lord you would prove the Queens Association to have been carried on without her knowledge from a certain Speech of hers to her Parliament but whether the Quotation be false or true we won't dispute at present but this seems to me a plain sort of owning the Paper of which your Friends are accused only you would say somewhat for your selves in not acquainting his Majesty with it a little sooner by telling the Kingdom his Predecessor Queen Elizabeth knew nothing of such a Combination any more than himself and that she look'd upon it as an obligation from her Subjects to find so many hands unknowingly subscrib'd but granting they agree in this circumstance that such a Loyal Design as well as a Treasonable one may possibly have been carried on in the dark Can you imagine my Lord She would have taken it for an Obligation too had they tender'd her a Paper that would have sworn her out of her Supremacy and lodg'd it in the major part of her House of Commons and with what face could ever any Subject offer a scheam of Rebellion to his Soveraign and desire of him the liberty to commence a Rebel and a Traytor only for his defence and preservation The Story of the Queen of Scots which you would make so plain a Parallel is in my judgment as little to the purpose First Did the Queen of England shew her self as vigorous in opposing the disinheriting of her next Heir as our King has been both kind and just in asserting the Rights of his Brother and Successor Secondly Do you think if she had really declared her self against the proceedings of her Parliament in that Affair her Subjects would have enter'd into an Association to have done it by themselves No no your Lordship is too good an Historion not to know that things were then carried on with her Majesties Connivance and tacit Approbation and that she acted her part of the Tragedy like one of Matchiavel's Monarchs behind the Curtain and for which even Writers very favourable to your own Party and no Causines have justly condemn'd her And it seems all your own factious Crew don't agree with your Lordship in thinking the Proceedings against that unfortunate Queen so fair and honourable for very lately a certain Protestant Buffoon has prov'd it plain Murder in his second part of a thing call'd a Speculum or the View and Reflection of a Chimera half Droll half Author and half Ass and from that very Case this Hotch-potch Animal proves King-killing to be the Doctrine of the Church of England but I hope you will agree with me because he differs from you in this point that this his Argumentation is like the rest of his Stuff very ridiculous but as for his abusing the Church-men there you may shake hands again for he paints them out very pleasantly like Fools Anticks and Jack-Puddings and you draw them out terribly all in blood Governours of the Popish Interest revengeful implacable and such as never forgive so that between you the Clergy may be pretty well secur'd of an Odium when you can expose them even in the two several extreams But would a Jew take such to be Christians that vilify the Church of which they would seem to be and ridicule the very Religion they are thought to profess And here I can't but observe a Barbarous as well as a Malicious hint of your Lordships who when you have represented how violent the Parliament was against the Succession of the Queen of Scots with a cruel and emphatical Malice cry out Nay and against her Life too We know my Lord the Parliament help'd the Grand-Mother to the Block and you saw another made the Father stoop to it But would you have your Associated Baalites sacrifice the Blood of the Son too This is stretching up a private Revenge to vye even with the Vengeance of the Almighty and an angry God only visits to the third and fourth Generation Your Lordship in this Insinuation shews a great deal of Inhumanity not to be parallel'd but by that of your Friends the Dissenters in their Association or the Cannibals of the West-Indies which as some say infest our Plantations there and refresh themselves in nothing more than in the Blood of an Enemy These are the bloody Measures which your Passion transports you to and not your Judgment directs People look through these transparent Politicks like Water and see nothing but Malice and Revenge at the bottom Your last politick Observation is That his present Majesty is the first Prince that ever was perswaded to be so willing to settle indubitably the Title of his presumptive Heir But why perswaded Has he not natural Affection enough to be willing himself And would he not much rather be thought the first should he humour your Faction that ever unnaturally disinherited a kind Brother and his Heir apparent And I believe nothing grieves you more than that his Majesty's Consent must be requir'd and could a Parliament be gotten once to act again without him no doubt but the Bill of Exclusion would be the first Act of the Session But the Law of Nations ever since the Time of Justinian the Laws of the Kingdom down from the Conqueror have happily placed the Sanction of every Law in the Will of the Prince and you and your Friends must be contented my Lord till you can perswade the King to give you his Le Roy Vult and the Crown and Scepter to the Bargain And seeing you are pleas'd to call the D. of Y. but a presumptive Heir and seem to lay such a stress and Emphasis upon the new-coin'd word we will discuss this Business a little further My Lord if I mistake not your Friend you pretend to vindicate was the first that applied this pretty Distinction to the next Heir of the Crown It looks like a piece of State-Sophistry and your noble Friend some say was fam'd for a fine distinguishing Logical Head when a young Academick and a body would almost swear this Vindicator the Vindicated and the noble Peer differ only like the little Man with three great Names who still makes but the same person
our own Suffering in the Flame and one of the greatest Reasons your Sticklers urge for such a dangerous Alteration in the Government is but Matter of Expediency These factious Innovators I confess fling about a common Objection too That it is a little strange a Parliament their publick Representative should not be allow'd what we grant every private Subject viz. To Disinherit But I hope there is some difference between an Heir to three Kingdoms and one perhaps only to so many Acres Lands and Leases may be dispos'd of by the Proprietor when Crowns and Scepters are out of the disposal of the Prince The Laws of Nations will allow men a Dominion over their Issues and Estates when they won't Kings a Power of disinheriting their own Successors much less an hereditary Monarch to pass for a Parliament's Heir instead of the Crown 's Our Chronicles tell us of one of our young Princes that laid hold on the Crown as soon as ever the old King was but suppos'd dead and told the dying Monarch when he reviv'd for a little while that he thought him expir'd and then knew the Crown to be presently his And why would not the D. of Y. who notwithstanding all your Lordships malicious Suggestions never shew'd such a forwardness to mount the Throne have the same Diadem immediately transferr'd should his Majesty which I hope will be long first yield to the same Fate the Laws admitting no more of an Interregnum than an Exclusion But if your Lordship whose Politicks are best understood from the Measures you take can bring this Monarchy to an Elective one then I grant the Successor must be forc'd to court your honourable Assemblies for their Suffrages But then I date promise he will wave his Pretension to the Crown and have more reason to despair of Justice than those that lately let fall their Suits and Actions Then he shall relinquish his Right to the Government of Old England and leave your Lordship sole Candidate to be King of a New Poland There are many Creatures sometimes maliciously good and that makes your Lordship bestow a few faint Elogies on his Majesty only that his Brother may appear the more odious and with a great deal of spight you could picture him a Saint could you make the other the more truly to represent the Devil the Greatness of our Soveraign's Spirit is as well known as the Meekness of his Temper and his Abilities and Courage need no such spightful Pen as yours to write the Panegyrick But why then must his Highness that has the same Blood in his Veins be thought an effeminate Person and a Coward but the best of it is no one will think him so the sooner for an envious Suggestion of his inveterate Enemy and no indifferent person can be so mad as to take the Character of the Duke of York from a Friend of the E. of S. And can those with Modesty accuse him for want of Valour that has hazarded his Life for the Service of his King and Country against the Forces of the Dutch and the Rage of Wind and Water who have never shown any of their own unless it were in Arms against their Soveraign and fighting under the Banner of a Common-wealth And as for his Temper it is both generous and mild enough and not hated by such Multitudes as your Lordship would insinuate and by none I fancy but those that fear it and have merited the severest of its Animadversions and it was the Foxes Trick in the Fable my Lord when it had offended the Guardian Mastiff of the Flock to accuse him for the worrying of the Sheep And as Religious as you seem to be in the Close you shall find us altogether as Devout praying with more Zeal and less Hypocrisie that the God of Heaven who is the searcher of all Hearts would still detect the deep Designs of yours bless the King in defeating the Counsels of all Achitophels and the Curses of every Shimei FINIS