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england_n	act_n	church_n	king_n	3,418	5	3.7630	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43659	The judgment of an anonymous writer concerning ... I. a law for disabling a papist to inherit the crown, II. the execution of penal laws against Protestant dissenters, III. a bill of comprehension : all briefly discussed in a letter sent from beyond the seas to a dissenter ten years ago.	Hickes, George, 1642-1715.; L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.	1684 (1684)	Wing H1854; ESTC R5996	17,943	35

THE JUDGMENT OF AN Anonymous Writer CONCERNING These following Particulars I. A Law for Disabling a Papist to Inherit the Crown II. The Execution of Penal Laws against Protestant Dissenters III. A Bill of Comprehension All Briefly Discussed In a Letter sent from beyond the Seas to a Dissenter ten Years ago The Second Edition LONDON Printed by T. B. for Robert Clavel and are to be sold by Randolph Taylor near Stationers Hall MDCLXXXIV THE Bookseller TO THE READER THIS Little Book was first Printed in the Year 1674. Who the Author of it was I cannot tell nor dare I presume to conjecture When it came out first it was received as the last thing that was written by a Late Learned and Right Honourable Author who was in France at that time and since hath been cited as if it had been his and I was so carried away with the common Opinion that I was almost perswaded to print it under his Name especially having heard that the Late Firebrand of the Nation The Earl of Shaftsbury always took it for his But as I was ready to put it to the Press a Gentleman to whom I communicated my Design did assure me he was not the Author of it but another Person but because I cannot speak upon Assurance for fear of mistake I will not so much as hint to the Reader whom I think him to be I was perswaded by a Learned Gentleman as ignorant of the Author as myself to give it a New Impression and by this small Pamphlet which came out so long since the Republican Party might have seen that there were good Men in the NATION who would not sit idle and see them run down the Government For if a Loyal Subject at such a distance did Ten years since defend the Succession when it was but lightly attack'd it was easie to foresee that there would be great Numbers to defend it both with their Pens and Swords when it came to be so powerfully opposed God Almighty be praised for giving the KING the Victory over the Enemies of the Monarchy and give his Loyal Subjects Grace to walk worthy of the same Amen Robert Clavel 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 Iulian 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 no 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 Deposed Lawful and Rightful Princes under the Notion of being Hereticks and Enemies to Christs Kingdom forgetting both alike the Precepts 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 Iesus 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 resisteth 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 Ecclesiastical Fathers and Historians 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 and if for example the D of Y must be cut off from his Rights 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 resolved 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 an 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 Protestan's must needs Command 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 Brittain 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 fit 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 Zeal us for this condition as the greatest Zealot of them all And I 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 the 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 Iesuits 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 yours 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 Iesuits 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 Protestants 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

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 he said all for you that could be said that he wondred how the Presbyterians in England could rend the Peace of the Church for such little indifferent matters and that if he were in England he would be of the Episcopal Party and heartily submit himself to the Discipline and Government of the Church of England And if you would do so too how happy a thing would this be both for your selves and the Nation Or seeing as you pretend you cannot yet at least live Peaceably and forbear to trouble the World with compassing Sea and Land that is by doing all that you can like your Fathers the old Pharisees to make Proselytes when yet you cannot shew any sinful condition of Communion with the Church of England nor prove your way of Worship as Apostolical as that of hers from which out of Pride Interest or Ignorance or partly altogether you Dissent I am sure this would rather become the Dissenting Brethren then to Foment Divisions Raise Parties betake themselves to the wickedest of Men as of late to and cry up the Kings Prerogative which they formerly cried down which with many other self-contradictions confirms me in an opinion you know I was of before That in those matters wherein you differ from us you are men of no Principles and know not where to fix I have Enlarged upon this Theam more than I thought to do at first because the Papists here in France complain as loudly as you of the cruelty of our Ecclesiastical Laws and cry out wherever they come how their Brethren have been and still are Persecuted among us though with this difference that in disputing ad hominem their case is far more reasonable and pleadable then yours As for you I protest tho' the Laws you complain off look like hard Laws when I consider you as Free born Subjects of England yet when I consider you as Head-strong Turbulent and Factious Subjects I cannot but think them just and good and I will maintain that the Execution of them would not be Persecution altho' you were the only true Christians in the World For as I hinted before you have the Liberty in your Houses to profess what Religion you please and to worship God in what manner you will And for fear your Family should not be a just Congregation you may have five more But for fear you should do as you have formerly done you are not to have five Hundred or five Thousand which Liberty not only the Primitive Christians but our own Ancestors an hundred years ago would have called a Blessing and a Priviledg and have heartily thanked God and the King for the same And God grant we may never see that time in England when truly tender Consciences will esteem so much Liberty as the greatest blessing in the World The good Protestants here in France though their Religion is made an Obstacle to all State-preferments though it Disable them to sit in the Courts of Parliaments except just so many as serve in the Chamber of Edicts to decide Controversies between Protestants and Papists or to have any other Charges of Iudicacature or any high Offices in the Army though their Numbers are much diminished and their Interest weakened by a Prohibition to Marry with Roman Catholicks and by a Capital Law which makes it Death to return Protestants after they have once turned Papists and though a great number of their Temples have been demolished some under a pretence that they were built since the Edict of Nantes others that they were built without License and others that they were built upon Holy Ground so that hereby they are forced in very many places to the grievous Inconvenience of going two three four or five Leagues to Church if not more And though all the Places of Strength where they do abound are Demolished and Cittadels are Erected to awe them in other Towns where they are Numerous though their own particular Hospitals and all other their perpetual Provisions for their Poor are taken away and they disabled either living or dying to give any setled Maintenance either to their own Ministers or People as to Endowe Churches Build Schools Colledges or Hospitals c. nay tho' they are deprived of the benefit of other Hospitals provided for the rest of the Subjects and although their Ministers are forbid to speak against the Pope or to Preach against the Romish Religion with half that freedom and plainness that you dare speak against the Church of England or to Preach in any places but those few appointed by the King though they are forbidden to call the Papists in their Sermons by any other Name but that of Catholicks or to make mention of their Religion and Ceremonies without Reverence and Respect though they are forbid to call themselves Priests or Pastors and have no other Title allowed them but only Ministres de la Religion pretenduë Reformés and though it be Enacted that their Religion shall be called by no other Name in any Publick Acts Registers c. Though they are forbidden to