about us But what were these People all this while If we may credit the Appellant they were Priests and Iesuits Or at least Papists But the King tells us they were Brownists Anabaptists and Other Sectaries Preaching Coachmen Felt-makers c. The Act for Indempnity gives us a List of the Regicides The Act of Uniformity stiles them Schismatiques and throughout the whole History of their Acts and Ordinances there appear none but Dissenting Protestants The Church of England being the Only Sufferer betwixt the Two Extreams And these People had the Interest of the Two Crowns in prospect too which the Appellant descants so Jollily upon Almost every Pulpit promising Salvation to the Fighters of the Lords Battels against the Lords Anointed with a Cursed be He at the End on 't that doth the work of the Lord Negligently Upon the Third Head he says that most Princes Believe or Disbelieve the Information which is given them of a Plot according to the Nature of the Evidence and Credit of the Informants There is no more in This than that most Princes Believe upon the Common Inducements that move all men of Reason whatsoever to Believe Viz The Probability of the matter in Question and the Credit of the Witnesses Now as to the Popish Plot we shall give him these Two Points for Granted but without discharging a Plot likewise on the Other hand upon the same Principles and no less pregnant Evidence We do not speak here of the Popish Plot which the Papists would most sillily have turn'd upon the Presbyterians the shallowest Contrivance certainly that ever was hatch'd and the most palpable Imposture But we speak of a Plot that was Bred and born in the Fanatical party whereof we have as many Witnesses almost as Readers in Forty Libels of That Leaven and Extraction Beside several Open and Violent attempts upon the Government which do unanimously bear Testimony against them The Following parts of This Paragraph are wrought into such a Complication of Zeal and Scandal one Snap at the King and another at the Plot that every period is a Bait And whoever touches upon it is sure of a Hook in his Nostrils Under Colour of Asserting and making out the Truth of the Plot which no sober man doubts of he throws Dirt upon his Majesty and his Ministers for dodging and Imposing upon the People in favour of it One while too Much comes out another while too Little The Frequent Dissolutions and Prorogations of Parliaments he says expresly were to prevent the Tryal of the Lords And so the Squib runs sputtering on from the King to his Privy Councel Thence to his Courts of Justice and in One word the whole Story comes to no more than a Political abstract out of Harris's Domestick Intelligence But why these Pamphlets to the Multitude First There 's no fear of the peoples running into Popery For 't is their Horrour and Aversion Secondly There 's no need of Convincing Them of the Truth of the Plot But rather to keep them from Extravagances upon the Jealousies and apprehensions they conceive of it already Thirdly There 's no need neither of calling Them to our assistance toward the suppressing of it For the sifting and Examining of this Conspiracy with the bringing of the Confederates to Publique Justice is a great part of the business of the Government So that these Libels cannot be reasonably understood to have any Other than these Two ends First To Teaze and Chafe the Rabble into a Rage disposing and preparing them to entertain any occasion for uproar and Tumult Secondly When their Bloud is up against This Detestable Plot with the Contrivers Promoters and abetters of it what does he but turn the Rancour of That Outragious Humour upon the King Privy Councel Courts of Justice and Briefly all his Friends by marking Them out for Parties in the Treason And so rendring his Majesty and his Government Odious by these Malicious Insinuations and endangering the Peace of the Publique to the Highest Degree The Fourth and Last Argument says he which may sometimes prevail with the Prince to disbelieve any report of a Conspiracy is taken from the Nature and Principles and from the Inâ—erest of the Pretended Conspiratours But neither of these Motives can pretend to Influence Our Prince into a Disbelief of This Popish Plot Fol. 7. The Appellants Observation and Inference is this that the Popish Plot is to be Believ'd because it squares with the Principles and Interest of the Party We are better informed in the History and Doctrine of Massacres and Regicides then to question the Malice of the Jesuitical Positions or the credibility of the Plot here in Debate and so we shall yield him in the Hellish Tenet which he insists upon of Murthering KINGS and a Hellish Tenet it is indeed and as Hellish undoubtedly in a Schismatique as in a Jesuit For his Quarrel otherwise is to the Faction not to the Maxim which is equally Dangerous and detestable in all Factions Now wheresoever we find the same Principles we have the Appellants leave honestly to suspect the same Designs Was not this the Doctrine of the Fanatiques from Forty to Sixty And did they not make good their Doctrine by their Practise Did they not declare the King Accountable to the People And did they not put him to Death upon that Foundation We have the very Journals themselves of those Times to prove what we say beside the Damned Harmony of their best received Authors to that purpose We propound say the Remonstrants that the Person of the King may be speedily brought to Justice for the Treason Bloud and Mischief he is Guilty of An Act says another agreeing with the Laws of God Consonant to the Laws of Men and the Practices of all Well-order'd States and Kingdoms Let Justice and Reason blush says another and Traytors and Murtherers Parricides and Patricides put on white Garments and Rejoyce as Innocent ones if this man speaking of the Late King should escape the hands of Justice and Punishment The Government of England says a Fourth is a Mixt Monarchy and Govern'd by the Major Part of the Three Estates assembled in Parliament Whensoever a King says a Fifth or other Superior Authority Creates an Inferior they invest it with a Legitimacy of Magistratical Power to punish themselves also in case they prove Evil Doers It is Lawful says a Sixth for any who have the Power to call to account a Tyrant or wicked King and after due Conviction to Depose and put him to Death if the Ordinary Magistrate have deny'd to do it Detrahere Indigno c. It is not for private persons to Depose a wicked Governour but that the Universality of the People may Lawfully do it I think no body questions These Seditious Positions with many more and some worse perhaps were publiquely Printed and avow'd before his Majesties Return And the very same Principles with Pestilent Additions to them have
the more earnestly upon this Point because the comfort of Humane Society is totally destroy'd if we come once to be transported by these stories into a Common Diffidence every man of his Neighbour and put into such a condition by the Entertainment of these Jealousies that there will be no longer any Faith or Confidence in Mankind for fear of these Invisible and undistinguishable Enemies in our daily Conversation Now to support and fortifie himself in his Opinion he says farther that not only Dr. Oates mentions this-in his Evidence but that the Papists themselves were so well assured of the Scotch Rising before it happen'd that at the Disbanding of this late Popish Army many of the Officers and Souldiers had secret Orders not to sell their Horses but to be in a readiness for that they should have occasion to use them again within a Fortnight and so it happen'd for within a Fortnight after the Disbanding the Rebellion brake out in Scotland So well acquainted were the Authors of this Mischief with the time when it would happen With the Appellants leave Dr. Oates only Reports what these Agents Design'd to do and the Hopes of their succeeding in it but says nothing positively that I can find of what they had done and in his Thirty fifth Deposition expresly makes their Project to be the weakening of both the Presbyterian and Episcopal Faction As to the casting of the Plot upon the Presbyterians it was not so well contriv'd me thinks as it might have been For it is no Clearing of the Papists from One Plot upon the Kings Life the charging of the Presbyterians with another Then there 's another slip he will have the Papists privy to the Scotch Rising because at the Disbanding of the Popish Army some Officers were order'd not to sell their Horses c. First it is not prov'd that they had any such Orders Secondly he calls it a Popish Army and implies that these Orders were given to Popish Officers which Officers either went upon the service or not If they went they overthrew their own design for he makes it the Papists Interest to entertain those Tumults and these Gentlemen made it their business to suppress them If they did not go their Orders were to no purpose But why does the Appellant call it a Popish Army He should do well to wash his Mouth after so foul and scandalous an expression But now let us change hands and see if it be not more probable that the Fanaticks knew before-hand of that Rising then the Papists For though we had at that time greater apprehensions of the French then ever yet the importunities of some people were so violent for the immediate disbanding of the Army that it lookt like a design to remove that Block out of the Scots way The next passage is a little mysterious He says that it was likely the Scots would be beaten by the Kings Forces that says he it might make both Them and Us less apt to Rise upon any account whatsoever So that here is a tacit Confession that the Appellant found some inconvenience in this discouragement to a joynt Rebellion And so he goes on saying that if this had been a Fanatical Plot the same Party would certainly have risen in England at the same time But this under favour will not hold for the Scots tumulted in 37. and appeared in actual Rebellion in 38. whereas their Brethren in England did not take up arms till 41 though privy to and confederate in the Tumults of 37. He lays it down for granted in the next Line that the Papists Murthered the Late King and so proceeds in these words After the Catholiques had thus brought the Fathers head to the Block and sent the young Princes into Exile let us reflect upon their Vsage of them in France c. Now to give the Devil his due I cannot find so much as One Papist in the whole List of the Regicides and yet I have turn'd over all the Acts and Ordinances Walkers Independency and in one word the whole History of those times and can hear no news of them Take notice that it is not the question here whether or no the Papists would have scrupled it upon a fair Occasion but whether or no in the Truth of the Fact it was the Papists that did it and I do not think it Fair to hang one Man or Condemn one party for anothers fault Put the case one man steals a Horse and another robs a Church 't is no vindication of the Horse-stealer to discharge him of the Sacrilege no vindication of him that rob'd the Church to acquit him of the Horse-stealing but it were a high injustice to charge one offender with the crime of another His following Reflections upon the Ill-usage the Royal Family received in France when his Majesty was abroad and the good Offices which France has received from hence in requital are only meant for a sly and invidious Reproach upon the Government and there is more of flourish in them then matter of weight only he has one speculation not to be past over I cannot but ascribe great part of our present Calamities says he to his Highnesses Education in that Arbitrary and Popish Government Here he pretends to tell us of our miseries and from whence in a great measure they proceed but it would puzzle a man to find out what these present Calamities are more then the froward and fantastical apprehensions of remote and imaginary Evils Nay the very fear it self is counterfeited as well as the danger and the men that dress up these goblins to fright the silly multitude they do but laugh at them themselves Our State Empericks do with our Politique as our Physicians do with our Natural Bodies for there are Intoxicating Opinions as well as Passions they make their Patients many times stark raving mad with that which they are not one jot affected withall themselves Do we not live or if we will at least we may in Peace and Plenty under the protection of a Gracious a Protestant Prince and under the blessing also of so particular a providence that when all our Neighbours have been at fire and sword round about us this Nation has been yet exempt from the common calamities of Christendom And shall we now expose and abandon our present quiet and security only for future possibilities and make our selves certainly miserable before-hand for fear of being miserable hereafter Whosoever soberly considers what we enjoy on the one hand and what we fear on the other comparing and examining both parts with their due and reasonable circumstances he shall find all attempts and proposals of popular prevention of reformation to be as wild a project as if a man should cut off a leg or an arm for fear of corns and chilblains But what if our fears were yet juster then they seem to be how many things may yet intervene
according to the ordinary course of humane affairs to disappoint the danger as Mortality Survivorship change of thought c. or can the Appellant prescribe us any Remedy that is not worse then the disease shall a man cast himself from the top of Bow for fear of tumbling down stairs shall we destroy Protestantism for fear of Popery or a Good Government for fear of a bad One shall we run the hazzard of Damnation for fear of Oppression Nay what if our present apprehensions were Gratify'd New ones would yet succeed into their places For the Rage of Jealousy is boundless and Incurable And so we found it in the Late Rebellion which was built upon the same Foundation Never so mean and so despicable a slavery as that which we then brought upon our selves for fear of slavery Never was any Papacy so Tyrannical and so Ridiculous together as that Persecuting and Non-sensical Presbytery which we had in Exchange for the best temper'd Ecclesiastical Government upon the face of the Earth Were not Those blessed days when our Divines had Salesmen and Mechaniques for their Tryers and the Laity a supercilious Company of Classical and Congregational Noddies for the Inspectors of our Lives and Manners When Tone and Lungs without either Learning or Honesty were the distinguishing Marks of a Gifted Brother Methinks the very Memory of these servile and profane Indignities should put the bare thought of the Second part of it out of Countenance And he seems as much out in the pretended Cause of our Calamities as he was in the Calamities themselves There were no Princes Educated abroad in the Late Kings time and yet the same clamour to a Tittle But if the Appellant had been so minded he might have given us a much more Rational account of our misfortunes then he has done He might have charg'd them upon those people who in truth first sent the young Princes into Exile and then kept them there and have at present a design upon the Exercise of the same Arbitrary power again which they would be thought to fear They began with a cry against Popery but they concluded in the Murther of the King the dislution of the Monarchy and the perpetual Exclusion of the Royal Family as may be seen in their Proclamation of Jan. 30.48 for Inhibiting any person to be King Whereas Charles Stuart King of England say they being for the Notorious Treasons Tyrannies and Murthers committed by Him in the Late Unnatural and cruel Wars condemned to Death c. It is remarkable that though they possest the people against his Majesty as a Papist there is not one word of Religion in the Reasons of their putting him to death The Appellant comes now to shew his Reading in two passages out of Philip de Comines with an application of his Observations upon them The former concerning certain English Pensioners which Lewis the Eleventh of France kept in Pay Now though I cannot agree the hundreth part of those Persons to be Pensioners which out of an envy to the Government the Common people are instructed to call so yet I shall never differ with him upon this point that the Money of Lewis the Fourteenth may perhaps have been current in England as well as that of Lewis the Eleventh was The other story is that of Lewis the Eleventh to Charles Duke of Burgundy in the Case of Campobache The French King advertizes the Duke of Burgundy they being then in hostility that the Count Campobache was a Traytor to him But the Duke would not believe it And there was one Cifron also who was of the Plot with Campobache This same Cifron being taken prisoner by the Duke before Nancy and condemned to dye gave the Duke to understand that he had a most Important secret to communicate to him But the Duke neither giving admittance to Cifron nor credit to the King lost his Life afterward and his Dominions by being too incredulous The Appellant applies this to his Majesties Case in Language so course and scandalous that there is no repeating of it And what does all this amount to but that a Prince may as well be undone by believing too much as too little If he had Trusted either less to Campobache or more to the King it had come all to a purpose He will have his Majesty in danger for not believing enough of the Popish Plot But his Royal Father was Ruin'd on the other side by not believing enough of the Presbyterian Plot. And God grant that his present Majesty may only believe so much of that Plot over again as may stand with his honour and safety But it appears in this place by the coursness of the Appellants Expressions and by the byass of the whole Libel throughout that he is not so much concern'd for the Kings believing or not believing as to fasten a scandal upon his Majesty by perswading the People that the King does not believe it and consequently to possess them that his Majesty is a favourer of Popery though never any Prince in Christendom gave more Convincing and Irrefragable Proofs of the contrary This passage of the Duke of Burgundy he says Fol. 4. may be very much to our purpose to shew you that when God designs the destruction of a King or People he makes them deaf to all discoveries be they never so obvious And having Levelled the Application in particular he speculates in general terms toward the bottom of the leaf upon the whole matter There are four several Arguments he says which many times prevail with Princes to be incredulous of all pretended Conspiracies against themselves The First is drawn from their being in or made privy themselves to Part of the Plot but not to the whole The Second from their own good nature and Clemency The Third from the nature of the Evidence And the Fourth from the nature and Interest of the pretended Conspirators To begin then with the First when the Prince hath been made acquainted with a Design of Introducing a New Government or a New Religion but not with the Design of taking away his own life this sometimes hath prevailed with him not to believe that the same party with whom he himself is in a Conspiracy should have any such other Plot against his Life But this I hope is not Our Case For c. And then he Reasons that his Majesty could get nothing by it Fol. 3. We shall put him together now and make English of him First he makes the Duke of Burgundies Case in his Deafness to Discoveries to be the Kings Secondly He infers from that Deafness that God has Design'd his Majesty to Destruction Thirdly he takes upon him to Philosophize upon the Reasons of Princes Incredulity in such Cases and very fairly represents his Majesty as a Party in-the Conspiracy and consenting to the Introduction of a New Government and a New Religion though not privy to the Plot of taking away
see presently of his own setting up Secondly He says that London is the only place where by reason of their Excellent Preaching and daily instruction in the Protestant Religion the people have a lively sense thereof and doubtless will not part with it to pleasure a Prince but perhaps rather lose their Lives by the Sword in the Wars than by Faggots in Smithfield The passage now is plain English and as many indignities upon the Government crouded into one sentence as could well be brought together Here is First an Exhortation to a Rebellion For the Prince here in question against whom the sword is to be drawn can be no other upon his supposition than actually the King And let him take his choice now whether it shall be intended of his present Majesty or of his Successour It is a Rebellion against the King that now is in the one Case and against the Next King in the other And Secondly It is not only a simple Rebellion but to the scandal of the Reformation and particularly of the Church of England a Rebellion founded upon the Doctrine of the Protestant Religion Thirdly It is no other then as he himself has worded it the Hellish Tenet of Murthering Kings in a disguise only a Jesuitical Principle in Masquerade It is Fourthly a Condemnation of the practices and submissions of the Primitive Christians and the whole story of our Protestant Martyrology He says Thirdly that the City is too powerful for any Prince that Governs not by the love of his people which no Popish Successour can expect to do This is the very Translation of his Name-sake Junius Brutus in his Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos If the Prince fails in his promise says he the people are exempt from their obedience The contract is made void and the right of obligation is of no force It is therefore permitted to the Officers of a Kingdom either all or some good number of them to suppress a Tyrant Here 's a great deal of virulence in his Discourse without one word of weight to countenance it For the well-being of this City is so essentially requisite to the well-being of this Kingdom that the very charge of the Government is not to be defray'd without it So that it is the interest of all Governours to cherish and support it Here he trifles away some half a score lines more about the Fire and then from the danger of the City advances to the further danger accruing to the Citizens as well as to the whole Kingdom upon the King 's untimely Death The greatest danger says he will proceed from a confusion and want of some Eminent and Interested persons whom you may trust to lead you up against a French and Popish Army For which purpose no person is fitter then his Grace the Duke of Monmouth as well for Quality Courage and Conduct as for that his life and fortune depends upon the same bottom with Yours He will stand by you therefore ought you to stand by him And remember the old rule is He who hath the worst Title ever makes the best King Does he suppose this confusion upon the death of the King or the burning of the City or before or after Or has he consulted either the Illustrious Person or the Honourable City that he makes so bold with to know whether or not the one would accept of such a Commission upon the Appellants terms or the other offer it the Character that he is pleas'd to bestow upon his Grace for his Quality Courage and Conduct is not unknown to any man that ever so much as heard of his Name But the Appellant never considers that all these glorious circumstances are point blank contradictions to his design How can he imagine that so brave a Person can ever stoop to so mean a thought and suffer himself by a Prostitute Libell to be inchanted out of his Honour reason and Allegiance Or that the most Eminent City of Christendom for purity of Religion Loyalty to their Prince Power Good Government Wealth and Resolution should be cajol'd out of all these blessings and advantages by the Jesuitical Fanaticism of a Dark-lanthorn-Pamphlet But to what end is all this clutter the Appellant has a mind it seems to change his Master He who hath the worst Title he says ever makes the best King which is a very fair proposition for setting up of a worse Title in his Majesties place From hence he goes forward still computing upon his Majesties death as a thing to be taken for granted and so recommending himself to the most worthy Citizens he finishes his Appeal FINIS (a) So that either all Honest Men are Mutiniers or all Mutiniers Honest Men which makes him joyn them together (b) Here he shews himself to be an Informer (c) Wat Tyler's endeavour was to destroy the Kings Life and Government and plunder the City whereas the Appeal desires to save King City and Government or at least to revenge their sufferings (d) This year of 41. is indeed very remarkable for the Massacre of 250000 poor Irish Protestants by the Papists (e) I suppose our Author is the only party that accuses the Honourable City (f) Herein I must agree with him that the City lost many things by the last Civil War for they lost the Star-Chamber High-Commission-Court Knights-Service Court of Wards Privy-Seals c. (a) At first he claws the City but here you see his Complement does not hold long likening some of them to Horse-turds (b) Here he begins to withdraw you from believing or fearing a Popish Plot. (c) This Parallel is no other but an Harangue for Popery and against all the Protestants under the name of Schismaticks * As many times this Fidler hath done (d) Given for the Peoples own serviâ—e and security thâ—refore less grievous (e) The sum of this parallel is that he wrongfully accuses another of stealing an Ox to justifie his own Theft of a Horse since he cannot have the impudence to clear his own Popish Party of a Plot yet he hopes at least to extenuate their crime by unjustly calumniating the Protestants (f) Now to shew that this was written by a Papist examine the Catholick Naked Truth where you may find their usual way of writing is to set up their own Doctrine by making the Protestants and Fanaticks fall out (g) Sure this Author is in the Plot himself that he makes our present danger and the Plot to be but a Supposition or Vision when both King and Parliament have declared it real (h) As this Scribler would do our Abby Lands were his Religion uppermost (i) Nor Papists till just before a Parliaments dissolution (k) Here he supposes the best part of the House of Commons would lay the Kingdom in bloud whereas such men as he calls Good Members would lay the City in ashes (l) Many things are lawful but not expedient and 't is evident by this he fears nothing more than a