I shall not mention would have taken so many bold wide and illegal stepps for the supplanting our Religion and Laws and for the introduction and establishment of Popery and Tyranny and this not only to the losing and disobliging his former Votaries and Partizans but to the strange allarming and disgusting most persons of honor quality and interest in the three Kingdoms were he not beside the being under the sway of his own Bigottry and the strong ballance of a large measure of ill nature bound by ties of implicite obedience to the Commands of that extravagant and furious Society to the promoting of whose passions and malice rather than his own safety and glory or the lasting benefit of the Roman Catholicks themselves the whole course of his Government hitherto seems to have been shapen and adapted The occasion and subject of the late contest between him and the Pope which hath made so great a noise not only at Rome but thro all Europe may serve to convince us both of the Extraordinary zeal he hath for the Society and of the transcendent power they have over him and that 't is no wonder he should exact an obedience without reserve from his Subjects in Scotland seeing he himself yields an obedience without reserve to the Iesuites 'T is known how that by the Rules of their Institution no Iesuite is capable of the Myter and that if the Ambition of any of them should tempt him to seek or accept the dignity of a Prelate he must for being capacitated thereunto renounce his Membership in the Order Yet so great is His Majesties passion for the Honor and Grandure of the Society and such is their domination and absolute power over him that no less will serve him neither would they allow him to insist upon less than that the Pope should dispense with Father Peters being made a Bishop without his ceasing to be a Iesuite or the being transplanted into another Order And this the old Gentleman at Rome hath been forced at last to comply with and to grant a Dispensation whereby Father Peters shall be capable of the Prelature notwithstanding his remaining in the Ignatian Order the Iesuites thro their Authority over the King not suffering him to recede from his demand and His Majesties zeal for the Society not permitting him to comply either with the prayers or the Conscience and Honour of the Supream Pontiff Not only the Kings unthankfulness unto but his illegal proceedings against and his arbitrary invading the Rights of those who stood by him in all his dangers and difficulties and who were the Instruments oâ— preventing his exclusion from the Crown and the Chief means both of his advanc 〈…〉 ment to the Throne and his being kept in are so many new evidences of the ill w 〈…〉 he bears to all Protestants and what they a to dread from him as occasions are admin 〈…〉 stred of injuring and oppressing them a 〈…〉 may serve to convince all impartial a 〈…〉 thinking people that his Popish malice to o 〈…〉 Religion is too strong for all principles of H 〈…〉 nor and Gratitude and able to cancel t 〈…〉 Obligations which Friendship for his pers 〈…〉 and service to his interest may be suppos 〈…〉 to have laid him under to any heretofor Had it not been for many of the Church 〈◊〉 England who stood up with a zeal and v 〈…〉 gour for preserving the succession in t 〈…〉 right line beyond what Religion co 〈…〉 science Reason or Interest could co 〈…〉 duct them unto he had never been able 〈◊〉 have out-wrestled the endeavours of thr 〈…〉 Parliaments for excluding him from the I 〈…〉 perial Crown of England and had it n 〈…〉 been for their abetting and standing by 〈◊〉 with their swords in their hands upon th 〈…〉 Duke of Monmouth's descent into the Kingdom anno 1685. he could nothave avoid 〈…〉 the being driven from the Throne and th 〈…〉 having the Scepter wrested out of his hanâ— Whosoever had the advantage of knowin 〈…〉 the temper and genius of the late King an 〈…〉 how affray'd he was of embarking into an 〈…〉 thing that might import a visible hazard t 〈…〉 the peace of his Government and dra 〈…〉 after it a general disgust of his person wi 〈…〉 be soon satisfied that if all his Protestant Subjects had united in their desires and coâ— curred in their endeavoures to have ha 〈…〉 the Duke of York debarred from the Crow 〈…〉 that his late Majesty would not have onâ— scrupled the complying with it and th 〈…〉 his Love to his dear Brother would havâ— given way to the apprehension and fear 〈◊〉 forfeiting a love for himself in the hear 〈…〉 of his people especially when what wa 〈…〉 required of him was not an invasion upoâ— the fundamentals of the constitution of th 〈…〉 English Monarchy nor dissonant from th 〈…〉 practice of the Nation in many repeated i 〈…〉 stances Nor can there be a greater evidence 〈◊〉 the present Kings ill nature Romish Bi 〈…〉 ry and prodigious ingratitude as well 〈◊〉 of the design he is carrying on against our 〈…〉 ligion and Laws than his carriage and be 〈…〉 viour towards the Church of England tho 〈◊〉 cannot but acknowledg it a righteous 〈…〉 gment upon them from God and a just 〈…〉 nishment for their being not only so un 〈…〉 ncerned for the preservation of our Reli 〈…〉 n and liberties in avoiding to close with 〈…〉 e only methods that were adapted there 〈…〉 to but for being so passionate and indu 〈…〉 ious to hasten the loss of them thro put 〈…〉 g the Government into ones hands who 〈…〉 s they might have foreseen would be 〈…〉 e to make a sacrifice of them to his belo 〈…〉 d Popery and to his inordinate lust after 〈…〉 spotical and arbitrary power And as the 〈…〉 ly example bearing any affinity to it is 〈…〉 t of Louis the 14 th who in recompence to 〈◊〉 Protestant Subjects for maintaining him 〈◊〉 the Throne when the late Prince of Con 〈…〉 assisted by Papists would have wrested the 〈…〉 own from him hath treated them with Barbarity whereof that of Aâ—â—iochus to 〈…〉 ards the Jews and that of Diocletian and 〈…〉 aximian towards the primitive Christians 〈…〉 ere but scanty and impersect draughts so 〈…〉 ere wants nothing for compleating the pa 〈…〉 lel between England and France but a little 〈…〉 ore time and a fortunate opportunity and 〈…〉 en the deluded Church men will find that 〈…〉 er Peters is no less skilful at Whitehall for 〈…〉 nsforming their acts of loyalty and merit 〈…〉 wards the King into crimes and motives 〈◊〉 their ruin than Pere de là Chaise hath shewn 〈…〉 mself at Versailles where by an Art peculiar 〈◊〉 the Iesuites he hath improved the loyalty 〈…〉 zeal of the Reformed in France for the house 〈◊〉 Bourbon into a reason of alienating that 〈…〉 onarch from them and into a ground of 〈◊〉 destroying that dutiful and obedient
peo 〈…〉 It will not be amiss to call over some 〈◊〉 his Majesties proceedings towards the 〈…〉 urch of England that from what hath 〈…〉 en already seen and felt both they and all 〈…〉 glish Protestants may the better know what they are to expect and look for hereafter Tho it be a method very unbecoming a Prince yet it shews a great deal of spleen to turn the former persecution of Dissenters so maliciously upon the Prelatical and conforming Clergy as his Majesty doth in his letter to Mr. Atsop in stiling them a party of Protestants who think the only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller matters Whereas the severity that the Fanaticks met with had much of its Original at Court where it was formed and designed upon motives of Popery and Arbitrariness and the resentment and revengful humour of some of the old Prelates and other Church men that had suffered in the late times was only laid hold of the better to justify and improve it And tho it be too true that many of the dignified Rank as well as of the little Levites were both extreamly fond of it and contentiously pleaded for it yet it is as true that most of them did it not upon principles of judgment and conscience but upon inducements of retaliation for conceived injuries and upon a belief of its being the most compendious method to the next preferment and benefice and the fairest way of standing recommended to the favour of the two Royal Brothers Nor is it unworthy of observation that some of the most virulent writers against liberty of conscience and others of the most fierce Instigators to the persecuting Dissenters among whom we may reckon Parker Bishop of Oxford and Cartwright Bishop of Chester are since Adressing for the Declaration of Indulgence became the means of being gracioully lookt upon at Whitthall turned foreward promoters of it tho their success in their Diocesses with their Clergy hath not answered their expectations and endeavoures For as these two Mytred Gentlemen will fall in with and justify whatsoever the King hath a mind to do if they may but keep their Seas and enjoy their Revenues which I dare say that rather than lose they will subscribe not only to the Tridentine Faith but to the Alcoran so it is most certain that they two as well as the Bishop of Durham have promised to turn Roman Catholicks and that as Crew hath been several times seen assisting at the celebration of the Mass and that as Cartwright payd a particular respect to the Nuncio at his solemn Entrance at Windsor which some Temporal Lords had so much conscience and honor as to scorn to do so the Author of the leige Letter tells us that Parker not only extreamly favours Popery but that he brands in a manner all such for Atheists who continue to plead for the Protestant Religion 'T is an Act of the same candor and good nature in the King with the former and another Royal effect of his Princely breeding as well as of his Gratitude when he endeavours to cast a farther odium upon the Church of England and to exasperate the Dissenters against her by saying in the forementioned letter to Mr. Alsop that the reason why the Dissenters enjoyed not liberty sooner is wholly owing to the sollicitation of the Conforming Clergy whereas many of the learned and sober men of the Church of England could have been contented that the Nonconforming Protestants should have had liberty long ago provided it had been granted in a legal way and the chief executioners of severity upon them were such of all ranks orders and stations as the Court both set on and rewarded for it 'T is not their Brethrens having liberty that displeaseth modest good men of the Church of England but 't is the having it in the virtu ' of an usurped prerogative over the Laws of the Land and to the shaking all the legal foundations of the Protestant Religion it self in the Kingdom And had the Declaration of Indulgence imported only an exemption of Dissenters and Papists from rigours and penalties I know very few that would have been displeased at it but the extending it to the removing all the Fences about the Reformed Doctrine and worship and laying us open both to the tyranny of papists and the being overflowed with a deluge of their superstitions and Idolatries as well as the designing it for a means to overthrow the established Chur 〈…〉 is that which no wise Dissenter no more t 〈…〉 a conformable man knows how to digest 〈◊〉 I am not of Sr. Roger l'Estranges mind w 〈…〉 after he hath been writing for many yea 〈…〉 against Dissenters with all the venom and m 〈…〉 lice imaginable and to disprove the wisdo 〈…〉 justice and convenience of granting th 〈…〉 liberty hath now the impudence 〈◊〉 publi 〈…〉 that whatsoever he formerly wrote bears an exact conformity to the present Resolutions of State in that the liberty now vouchsased is an Act of Grace issuing from the supream Magistrate an 〈…〉 not a claim of Right in the people And as to r 〈…〉 cited expressions of the King they are onl 〈…〉 a papal trick whereby to keep up heats an 〈…〉 animosities among Protestants when both th 〈…〉 inward heats of men are much allay'd and th 〈…〉 external Provocations to them are wholly removed and they are meerly Iesuitick method's by which our hatred of one another may b 〈…〉 maintained tho the Laws inabling one part 〈…〉 to persecure the other which was the chie 〈…〉 spring of all our mutual rancour and bitterness be suspended It would be the sport and glory of the Ignatian Order to be able to make the disabling of penal Laws as effectual to the supporting differences among Protestants a◠the Enacting and rigorous execution of them was to the first raising and the continuing them afterwards for many years And if the foregoing Topicks can furnish the King arguments whereby to reproach the Church of England when he thinks it seasonable and for the interest of Rome to be angry with them I dare affirm he will never want pretences of being discontented with of aspersing Fanaticks when he finds the doing so to be for the service of the papal cause And if the forementioned instances of his Majesties behaviour to the Church of England to which he stands so superlatively obliged be neither Testimonies of his ingenuity evidences of his Gratitude nor effects of common much less Royal justice yet what remains to be intimated do's carry more visible marks of 〈…〉 malice and design both against the le 〈…〉 established Church and our Religion For 〈…〉 ing satisfied with the suspension of all 〈◊〉 Laws by which Protestants and they 〈◊〉 the national Communion might seem to be 〈…〉 urious to Papists in their persons and E 〈…〉 tes such as the Laws which make those 〈…〉 ho shall be
people to enter into the Comâ—union of the Church of Rome He expects 〈◊〉 have his Will immediately conformed â—nto and not to be disputed or controlled â—ut lest what we are to expect from the â—ing as to the extirpation of the Reformed â—eligion and the inflicting the utmost Seveâ—ties upon his Protestant Subjects that Papal â—ge armed with power can inable him unâ—â— may not so fully appear from what hath â—een already intimated as either to awaâ—en the Dissenters out of the Lethargy into which the late Delaration hath cast them or 〈◊〉 quicken those of the Church of England to â—hat zealous care vigilancy and use of all Lawful means for preserving themselves â—nd the Protestant Religion that the impenâ—ent danger wherewith they are threatned â—equires at their hands I shall give that farmer Confirmation of it from Topicks and motives of Credibility Moral Political and â—istorical as may serve to place it in the â—rightest light and fullest evidence that a â—atter future and yet to come which is onâ—â— the object of our prospect and dread and â—ot of our feeling and experience is capaâ—le of It ought to be of weight upon the minds â—f all English Protestants that the King of â—eat Brittain is not only an open and avowed â—apist but as most Apostates use to be a â—ery Bigot in the Romish Religion and who 〈◊〉 the Leige Letter from a Jesuite to a Broâ—â—er of the Order tells us is resolved either to convert England to Popery or to die a Martyr Nor were the Iewish zealots of whose rageful transports Iosephus gives us so ample an account nor the Dervises among the Turks and Indians of whose mad attempts so many Histories make mention more brutal in their fanatical Heats than a Popish Bigot useth to be when favoured with advantages of exerting his animosity against those who differ from him if he be not carefully watched against and restrained Beside the innumerable instances of the Tragical Effects of Romish Bigottry that are to be met with in Books of all kinds we need go no further for an evidence of it than to consult the Life of Dominick the great Instigator and Promoter of the Massacre of the Waldenses and the Founder of that Order which hath the Management of the bloody Inquisition together with the Life of Henry the third of France who contrary to the advice of Maximilian the Emperor and the repeated intreaties of the wisest of his own Councellors the Chancellor de l'Hospital and the President de Thou not only revived the War and Persecution against his Reformed Subjects after he had seen what Judgments the like proceedings had derived upon his Predecessors and how prejudicial they had proved to the Strength Glory and Interest of his Crown and Kingdom but he entred into a League with those that sought to depress abdicate and depose him and became the Head of a Faction for the destroying that part of his Subjects upon whom alone he could rely for the defence of his person and support of his Dignity Nor were the Furies of the Duke de Alva heretofore or the present Barbarities of Louis the Fourteenth so much the effects of their haughtie and furious tempers as of their Bigottry in their inhumane and sanguinary Religion That the King of England is second to none in a blind and rageful Popish Zeal his behaviour both while a Subject and since he arrived at the Crown doth not only place it beyond the limits of a bare suspition but affords us such evidences of it as that none in consistency with principles of wisdom and discretion can either question or contradict it To what else can we ascribe it but to an excessive Bigottry that when the Frigat wherein he was sailing to Scotland anno 1682. struck upon the Sands and was ready to sink he should prefer the Lives of one or two pittiful Priests to those of men of the greatest Quality and receive those mushrom's into the Boat in which himself escaped while at the same time he refused to admit not only his own Brother-in-Law but divers Noblemen of the Supreamest Rank and Character to the benefit of the same means of deliverance and suffered them to perish tho they had undertaken that Voyage out of pure respect to his person and to put an Honor upon him at a Season when he wanted not Enemies Nor can it proceed from any thing but a violent and furious Bigottry that he should not only disoblige and disgust the two Universities of whose Zeal to his service he hath received so many seasonable and effectual Testimonies but to the violation both of the Laws of God and the Kingdom offer force to their Consciences as well as to their Rights and Franchises and all this in favour of Father Francis whom he would illegally thrust into a Fellowship in Cambridg and of Mr. Farmer whom he would arbitrarily obtrude into the Headship of a Colledg in Oxford who as they are too despicable to be owned and stood for in competition against two famous Universities whose greatest crime hath been an excess of zeal for his person and interest when he was Duke of York and a measure of Loyalty and Obedience unto him since he came to the Crown beyond what either the Rules of Christianity or the Laws of the Kingdom exact from them so he hath way's enough of expressing kindness and bounty to those two little contemptable Creatures and that in methods as beneficial to them as the places into which he would thrust them can be supposed to amount unto and I am sure with less scandal to himself and less offence to all Protestants as well as without offering inj 〈…〉 to the Rights of the University or of coâ— pelling those learned grave and vene 〈…〉 ble men to perjure themselves and act 〈◊〉 gainst their Duties and Consciences T 〈…〉 late proceedings towards Dr. Burnet a 〈…〉 not only contrary to all the measures of Jâ— stice Law and Honor but argue a stran 〈…〉 and furious Bigottry in His Majesty for Po 〈…〉 ry there being nothing else into which 〈◊〉 man can resolve the whole tenor of his prâ— sent Actings against Him. Seeing setting 〈◊〉 side the Doctor 's being a Protestant and a Mâ— nister of the Church of England and his havinâ— vindicated the Reformation in England froâ— the Calumnies and slanders wherewith 〈◊〉 was aspersed by Sanders others of the Roman Communion and the approving himself in some other Writings worthy of thâ— Character of a Reformed Divine and of thaâ— esteem which the World entertains of him for knowledg in History and all other part 〈…〉 of good learning there hath nothing occurred in the whole tenor and trace of hiâ— Life but what instead of Rebuke and Censure hath merited acknowledgments and the Retributions of Favour and Prefermenâ— from the Court. Whosoever considers his constant Preaching up passive Obedience to such a degree and height as he hath done May very well be surprised at the whole method of
in the late King and his Brother of their giving no discouragement nor obstruction to so holy a design and thereupon as the first Edicts for infringing the liberty and weakning and oppressing Protestants in France and the persecution in Hungary commenced and bore date with the Restoration of the Royal Family and multiplied and encreased from year to year as they grew into farther assurance of the Royal Brothers approving as well as conniving at what was done so that for the abolition of the Edict of Nant's and the total suppression of the Reformed Religion in France was emitted upon his present Majesties being exalted to the Throne and the encouragement he gave them to a procedure which as he now justifies he will hereafter imitate It were to suppose English Protestants exceedingly unacquainted with the History of their own Nation to give a long deduction of what the Papists have attempted foâ— the extirpation of our Religion while we had Princes on the Throne whose belief and principles in Christianity led them to assert and defend the Reformation and who had courage as well as integrity to punish those that conspired against it Their many Conjurations against Queen Elizabeth's person and their repeated endeavours of bringing in Forraigners and of betraying the Nation to the Spaniards who were to convert the Kingdom as they had done the West-Indies by killing the Inhabitants are sufficiently known to all who have allowed themselves leasure to read or who have been careful to remember what they have been often told by those that have inspected the Memoires of those times The Gunpowder plot with the motives unto it and the extent of the mischief it was shapen for together with the insurrection they were prepared for in case it had succeeded and the forraign aid they had been solliciting and were promised and all for the extirpation of English Hereticks are things so modern and which we have had so many times related to us by our Fathers that it is enough barely to intimate them The Irish Massacre in which above two hundred thousand were murderd in cold blood and to which there was no provocation but that of hatred to our Religion and furious zeal to extirpate Hereticks ought at this time to be more particularly reflected upon as that which gives us a truè scheme of the manner of the Church of Rome's converting Protestant Kingdoms and being the Copy they have a mind to write after and that in such Characters and lines of blood as may be sure to answer the Original At the season when they both entred upon and executed that hellish conjuration they were in a quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the private exercise of their Religion yea had many publick meeting-places thro the means of the Queen and many great friends which they had at Court and were neither disturbed for not coming to Church nor suffered any severities upon the account of their profession but that â—ould not satisfie nor will any thing else 〈…〉 less they may be allowed to cut the 〈…〉 roats or make bonefires of all that will 〈…〉 ot join with them in a blind obedience to 〈…〉 e Sea of Rome and of worshipping St. Pa 〈…〉 ick The little harsh usarges which the Papists at any time met with there or in England they derived them upon themselves 〈…〉 y their Crimes against the State and for their Conspiracies against our Princes and their Protestant Subjects For till the Pope had â—aken upon him to depose Queen Elizabeth and absolve her Subjects from their Allegiance and till the Papists had so far approved that Act of his holiness as to raise Rebellions at home and enter into treasonable confedaracies abroad there were no Laws that could be stiled severe enacted in England against Papists and the making of them was the result of necessity in order to preserve our selves and not from an Inclination to hurt any for matters of meer Religion Such hath always been the moderation of our Ru 〈…〉 ers and so powerful are the incitements to lenity which the generality of Protestants through the influence and impression of their Religion especially they of a more generous education have been under towards those of the Roman Communion that nothing but their unwearied restlessness to disturb the Government and destroy Protestants hath been the cause either of enacting those Laws against them that are stiled rigorous or of their having been at any time put into execution And notwithstanding that some such Laws were enacted as might appear to savour of severity yet could they have but submitted to have dwelt peaceably in the land they would have found that their meer belief and the private practice of their worship would not have much prejudiced or endangered them and that tho the Laws had been continued unrepealed yet it was only as a Hedg about us for our protection and as Bonds of obligation upon them to their good behaviour To which may be added that more Protestants have suffered in one year by the Laws made against Dissenters and to the utmost height of the penalties which the violation of them imported and that by the instigation of Papis 〈…〉 and their influence over the late King and his present Majesty than there have Papists from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign to this very day tho there was a difference in the punishments they underwent However we may from their many and repeated attemps against us while we had Princes that both would and could chasten their insolencies and inflict upon them what the Law made them obnoxious unto for their outrages gather and conclude what we are now to expect upon their having obtained a King imbu'd with all the persecuting and bloody principles of Popery and perfectly baptised into all the Doctrines of the Councils of Lateran and Constance And it may strengthen our faith as well as increase our fear of what is purposed against and impends over us in that they cannot but think that the suffering our Religion to remain in a condition to be at any time hereafter the Religion of the State and of the universality of the people may not only prove a means of retrieving Protestancy in France and of assisting to revenge the barbarities perpetrated there upon a great and innocent people but may leave the Roman Catholiks in England exposed to the resentment of the Kingdom for what they have so foolishy and impudently acted both against our Civil Rights and Established Religion since James the II. came to the Crown and may also upon the Government 's falling into good hands and Magistrates coming to understand their true Interest which is for an English Prince to make himself the Head of the Protestant cause and to espouse their quarrel in all places give such a Revolution in Europe as will not only check the present Career of Rome but cause them repent the method's in which they have been ingaged These things we may be sure the Papists
intercepted and lately printed Letter tells a Brother of the Order what a wonderful veneration the King hath for the Society and with what profound submission he receives those Reverend Fathers and hearkens to whatsoever they represent Nor is His Majesties being under the influence of the Iesuites thro having one of them for his Confessor and several of them for his Chief Councellors and principal Confidents the only thing in this matter that awakens our fear in what we are to expect from his armed power excited and stirred by that fiery Tribe but there is another ground why we ought more especially to dread him and that is his being entred and enrolled into the Order and become a Member of the Society whereby he is brought into a greater subjection and dependence upon them and stands bound by ties and engagements of being obedient to the Commands of the General of the Iesuites and that not only in Spirituals but in whatsoever they shall pretend to be subservient to the exaltation of the Church and for upholding the glory of the Triple Crown This is a Mystery which few are yet acquainted with and which both His Majesty and the Order judgd it their interest to have industriously concealed but whereof the World may ere long receive that convictive intelligence that there will be no room left for suspecting the truth of it and whereof a Jesuite in the late printed Letter from Liege hath given us already sufficient intimation both in telling us That the King of England stiles himself a Son of the Society and how that he wrote to Father de la Chaise that he would account every injury done to the Jesuites to be a wrong committed against himself Neither is it so surprising as it may seem at first view that the King should list himself a Member of the Order seeing there have been four other Crowned Heads of whose Entrance and matriculation into the Society there is all the evidence and assurance imaginable And tho one of them is acknowledged to have been in the Classis of the Directors while the other three are generally believed to have been in the Form of the Directed yet such was the power of the Society over them all that a great part of the Cruelty exercised towards Protestants both in the last age and in this is to be ascribed to that implicite and blind Obedience which they were bound to yield to the injunctions of the Order and to the Commands of the General Philip the Second of Spain who was the first King that entred into the Order and who did it upon motives of Policy in hopes by their means to have compassed the Universal Monarchy which he was aspiring after and who thro being in the Classis of Directors had advantages of using and improving and not of being in that degree of servitude unto them which the others have been yet to what barbarous Cruelties did they overrule and instigate him not only to the destruction of unconceivable numbers of his Subjects whose only Crime was that they could not believe as the Church of Rome doth which issued in the depopulating some of his Dominions and his being deposed from the Soveraignty in others but to the sacrificing his Son and Heir Prince Charles whom to gratify the Society he caused upon an Accusation of his favouring the Low Countrey Hereticks and the being himself tainted with Lutheranism to be murdered in is own Court and Palace Sigismond of Po 〈…〉 d who was the second crowned Head admitted into the Order thro complying with he Councels and serving the wrath rage â—nd passions of the Jesuites in endeavouring â—o suppress Religion in Swedland to which he was Heir and in striving to subvert their Civil Rights drew upon himself the resentment and wrath of that Nation to such a degree that they abdicated him and his Heirs from the Government and advanced another to the Throne Casimire who was also King of Poland is reckoned to be the â—hird Soveraign Prince that entred into the Society and he thro coming under the Domination of the Iesuites and being bound to follow their directions and to execute whatsoever the General of the Order thought fit to enjoin for the promotion and benefit of the Church became not only an Instrument of a severe persecution against all sort of Dissenters from the Romish Faith so that many were put to death and more driven to abandon their Countrey but through committing many things in the course of his Government that were prejudicial to the Rights and thereupon disgustful to the Polish Nobility they conceived such an aversion and hatred for him that to avoid the effects of their resentment and indignation he was forced to lay down his Crown and to chuse to end his day 's in France in no higher a Post and under no more glorious a Character than that of Abbot of Saint German There is a fourth Prince and who is yet in being that is generally believed to be enrolled into the Order and the persecution he hath carried on in Hungary contrary to his natural temper and to all the Rules of Interest and Policy and to the violation of his Promises and Oaths for continuing unto them the Liberty of their Religion is both too probable an evidence of it and a strong confirmation of the cruelties which the Iesuites instigate Princes unto over whom they have influence and whom they have wheedled into engagments of obeying their commands and pursuing their injunctions And as the desolating of Hungary thro a long and bloody War and the tempting the Turks to invade the Austrian Territories are some of the effects that have ensued upon the Emperor's complying with the fierce and heady Councels of the Iesuites so we have not seen all the mischiefs that the persecution which they have engaged him in against Protestants is like to issue in tho beside the disgusting several Electoral Princes and States in Germany and the furnishing the Ottoman Potentate with Encouragements of continuing the War there are wonderful advantages afforded by it to embolden the French King in his encroachments upon the Empire which otherway's he would not have dared to attempt and whereof the result at last may prove fatal to the Imperial Dignity and to the whole House of Austria Now what the Protestants in Great Brittain and Ireland ought to dread from the King upon his being entred into a Society that hath breathed nothing but fire and blood since its first Institution I leave to the serious consideration of all men who value their Lives Liberties and Estates and that do not think of renouncing their Religion and turning Papists Nor is it to be imagined that the King before he can be supposed well setled on the Throne and while under a declining state of Body as well as in an advanced age having the weight of four and fifty upon his shoulders beside something else that he is obliged to the Earl of Southesk for which
carrying on the fire is but earnest in respect of what is designed farther to be payd them for the having been the great supporters of that war both by continued Recruites of men and repeated Supplies of treasure Tho it was Queen Mary's misfortune and proved the misery of Protestants that she was under the influence of popish Bishops and of Religious of several Orders by whom she was whetted on and provoked to those barbarities where-with her Reign is stained and reproached yet she had no Iesuites about her to whom all the other Orders are but punies in the arts of wheedling and frighting Princes forward to cruelty The Society being then but in its infancy and the distance between its Institution which wasin the year 1540. and the time of her coming to the Crown which was anno 1553. not affording season enough for their spreading so far abroad as they have since done nor for the perfecting themselves to that degree in the methods of butchery and in the Topicks whereby to delude Monarchs to serve and promote their sanguinary passions as they have in process of time attained unto Nor have the Protestants now any security for their Religion whereby it or themselves may be preserved from the attempts of his Majesty for the extirpation of both but what our Predecessors in the same faith had in the like kind tho not to the same measure and degree when Queen Mary arrived at the Throne For tho our Religion was of late Fenced about with more Laws and we had Royal promises oftner repeated for the having 〈◊〉 preserved and our selves protected in the Profession of it yet it is certain that it had not only received a legal establishment under King Edward the VI but had the Royal Faith of Queen Mary laid to pledg in a promise made to the men of Suffolk that nothing should be done towards its subversion or whereby they might be hindred in the free exercise of it But as neither Law nor promise could prove restraints upon Mary to hinder her from subverting Religion and burning Protestants so the obligation of gratitude that she was under to the men of Suffolk for their coming in so seasonably to her assistance against the Duke of Northumberland who was in the field with an Army in the name of the lady Jean Gray whom the Council had proclaimed Queen could not excuse them from sharing in the severity that others met with it being observed that more of that County were burnt for Religion than of any other Shire in England And 't is greatly to be feared that this piece of her example will not escape being conformed unto by the King in his carriage towards those that eminently served him as well as all the rest of it in his behaviour towards Protestants in general Nor is it possible to conceive that the Papists living at that ease and quietness which they did under his late Majesty of whose being of their Religion they were not ignorant as appears by the proofs they have wouchsav'd the world of it since his death would have been in so many plots for destroying him and at last have hastned him to his Fathers as can be demonstrated whensoever it is seasonable had they not been assured of more to be attempted by his Successor for the extirpation of Protestants than Charles could be wrought up unto or prevailed upon to expose his person and Crown to the danger and hazard of For as 't is not meerly a Princes being a Papist and mild gentle and favorable to Catholicks that will content the fiery zealots of the Roman Clergy and the Regular Orders but he must both gratify their ambition in exalting them to a condition above all others and serve their inhuman lusts and brutal passions in not suffering any to live in his Dominions that will not renounce the Northern Heresie so it is not more i 〈…〉 edible that they should dispatch a Prince by an infusion in a cup of Tea or Chocolate whom tho they knew to be a Papist yet they found too cold slow in promoting their designs than that they should have murder'd another by a consecrated dagger in the hand of Ravailac the one being both more easie to be detected and likelier to derive an universal hatred and revenge upon them than the other And as the Kings being conscious of that parriciâ—â— committed upon his Brother plainly tells us that there is nothing so abominable and Barbarous which he hath not a conscience that will swallow and digest so the promotion of the Catholick cause being the motive to that horrid crime we may be sure that what is hitherto done in favour of Papists falls much short of what is intended there being something more meritorious than all this amounts unto needful to attone for so barbarous a villany which can be nothing else but the extripating the protestant Religion out of the three Kingdoms Nor is it probable that the present King who is represented for a person ambitious of Glory would lose the opportunities wherewith the present posture of affaires in the world presents him of being the Umpire and Arbiter of Christendom and of giving check to the grandure and usurpations of a neighbouring Monarch to whom all Europe is in danger of becoming enslaved if he were not swallowed up in the thoughts of a conquest over the Consciences Laws and liberties of his own people and of subjugating his Dominions to the Sea of Rome and had he not hopes and assurances of aid and assistance therein from that Monarch as he is emboldned and encouraged thereunto by his pattern and example What the Papists have all along been endeavouring for the subversion of our Religion during and under the Reigns of Protestans Princes may yet farther inform and confirm us what they will infallibly attempt upon their having gotten one into the Throne who is not only in all things of theâ—â—â—n faith but of an humour agreeable unto their desires and of a temper every way suited and adapted to their designes Tho the protestant Religion had obtained some entrance into several States and Kingdoms and had made some considerable spread in Europe before it came to be generally received and established upon foundations of Law in England yet they of other Countries were little able to defend themselves from the power and malice of the Church of Rome and of Popish Princes and many of them were very unsucceful in endeavours of that nature till England in Queen Elizabeths time by espousing their cause and undertaking their Quarrel not only wrought out their safety but made them flourish This the Court of Rome and the Priests grew immediately sensible of and have therefore moulded all their Counsels ever since against England as being both the Bulwark of the protestant Religion and the Ballance of Europe All the late attempts for the extirpation of the protestant Religion in France and elsewhere are much to be ascribed to the confidence the Papists had
Scots â—roclamation for the stopping disabling and 〈…〉 spensing with such and such Laws as are 〈…〉 ere referred unto and for the granting 〈…〉 e toleration with the other liberties immuâ—â—ties and Rights there mentioned is more 〈…〉 an sufficient to set the point we are disâ—oursing beyond all possibility of rational â—ontrol As 't is one and the same Kind â—f Authority that is claimed over the Laws â—nd Subjects of both Kingdoms tho for some â—ertain reasons it be more modestly desigâ—ed and expressed in the Declaration for a â—iberty in England than it is in the Proclamaâ—ion for a Toleration in Scotland so the utmost that the Czar of Mosco the great Moâ—ull or the Turkish Sultan ever challenged over their respective Dominions amounts only to an Absolute Power which the King both owns the Exertion of and makes it the fountain of all the Royal Acts exercised in the forementioned Papers And as the improving this challenged Absolute Power into an obligation upon the Subjects to obey his Majesty without reserve is a paraphrase upon Despotical Dominion and an advancing it to 〈◊〉 pitch above what any of the ancient or modern Tyrants ever dream't of and beyond what the most servile part of Mankind was ever acquainted with till the present French King gave an instance of it in making his â—eer will and pleasure to be the ground and argument upon which his Reformed Subjects were to renounce their Religion and to turn Roman Catholicks so it is worth considering whether His Maj. who glories to imitate that forraign Monarch may not in a little time make the like application of this Absolute power which his Subjects are bound to obey without Reserve and whether in that case they who have Addressed to thank him for his Declaration and thereby justified the Claim of this Absolute power being that upon which the Declaration is superstructed and from which it emergeth can avoid paying the Obedience that is demanded as a Duty in the Subject inseparably annexed thereunto That which more confirms us that the English Declaration and the Scotts Proclamation are not only designed for the obtaining from the Subjects an acknowledgment of an Absolute power vested in the King but that no less than the Usurpation and exercise of such a power can warrant and support them are the many Laws and Rights which a jurisdiction is challenged over and exerted in reference unto in the Papers stiled by the forementioned Names All confess a Royal prerogative setled on the Crown and appertaining to the Royal Office nor can the Supream Magistrature be executed and discharged to the advantage and Safety of the Community without a power affixed unto it of superceding the Execution of some Laws at certain junctures nor without having an Authority over the Rights of particular men in some incident cases but then the received Customes of the respective Nations and the universal good preservation and safety of the People in general are the measures by which this prerogative in the Crown is to be regulated and beyond which to apply or exert it is an Usurpation and Tyranny in the Ruler All the Power belonging to the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland ariseth from an agreement and concession of the People wherein it is stipulated what Rights Liberties and Priviledges they Reserved unto themselves and what Authority and Jurisdiction they delegated and made over unto the Soveraign in order to his being in a condition to protect and defend them and that they may the better live in Peace Freedom and Safety which are the Ends for which they have chosen Kings to be over them and for the compassing whereof they originally submitted unto and pitched upon such a Form of Civil Administration Nor are the Opinions of particular men of what Rank or Order soever they be to be admitted as an exposition of the extent of this Prerogative seeing they thro their dependencies upon the King and their obnoxiousness to be influenced by selfish and personal Ends may enlarge it beyond what is for the benefit of the Community but the immemorial course of Administration with the sense of the whole Society signified by their Representatives in Parliament upon emerging occasions are to be taken for the sense paraphrase and declaration of the Limits of this Royal and prerogative Power and for any to determine the bounds of it from the Testimonies of Mercinary Lawyers or Sycophant Clergy-men in cases wherein the Parliament have by their Votes and Resolutions setled its boundaries is a crime that deserves the severest animadversion and which it is to be hop'd a true English Parliament will not let pass unpunished Now a Power arising from Royal prerogative to suspend and disable a great number of Laws at once and they of such a nature and tendency as the great security of the people consists in their being maintained and which the whole Community represented in Parliaments have often disallowed and made void Princes medling with so as to interrupt their execution and course is so far from being a Right inherent in the Crown that the very pretending unto it is a changing of the Government and an overthrowing of the Constitution Fortescue say's that Rex Angliae populum Gubernat non merâ potestate Regiâ sed politicâ quia populus iis legibus gubernatur quas ipse fert the King of England doth not so properly Govern by a power that is Regal at by a power that is pâ—litical in that he is bound to Rule by the Lawsâ— which the people themselves chuse and Enact Anâ— both Bracton and Fleta tell us that Rex Angliae habet superiores viz. legem per quam factus est Rex ac Comites Barones qui debent â—i fraenum ponere the King of England hath for Superiors both the Law by whi 〈…〉 he is constituted King and which is the measur 〈…〉 of his Governing Power and the Parliament whicâ— is to restrain him if he do amiss And thereupon we have not only that other saying of Bracton that nihil aliud potest Rex nisi id solum quod jure potest the King can do nothing but whaâ— he can do by law but we have that famous passage in our Parlament Rolls non est ulla Regis prerogativa quae ex justitiâ aequitate quicquam derogat that there is no prerogative belongs to the King by which he can decline from acting according to Law and justice So careful were our Ancestors both in England and Scotland to preserve their Laws from being invaded and superceded by their Kings that they have not only by divers Parliamentary Votes and Resolutions and by several St 〈…〉 tutes declared all dispensations by the King from Laws and enjoined Oaths to be null and void and not admittable by the Iudges or other Executors of Law and Justice but they have often impeached arraigned and condemned those to one penalty or another that have been found to have counselled and advised
hath hitherto passed for an undoubted Maxim that eorum est tollere quorum est condere they can only abrogate Laws who have Power and Authority to make them and we have heretofore been made believe that the Legislative power was not in the King alone but that the two Houses of Parliament had at least a share in it whereas here by the disabling and suspending Laws for ever the whole legislative Power is challenged to be vested in the King and at one dash the Government of England is subverted and changed Tho it hath been much disputed whether the King had a liberty of Refusing to Assent to Bills relating to the benefit of the publick that had passed the two Houses and if there be any sense in those words of the Coronation Oath of his being bound to Govern according to the Laws quas vulgus Elegerit he had not yet none till now that his Majesty doth it had the impudence to affirm that he might abrogate Laws without the concurrence and assent of the Lords and Commons For to say that Oaths enjoined by Laws to be required to be taken shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken is a plain Cancelling and repealing of these Laws or nothing of this World ever was or is nor can the wisdom of the Nation in Parliament assembled find words more emphatical to declare their Abrogation without saying so which at this time it was necessary to forbear for fear of allarming the Kingdom too far before his Majesty be sufficiently provided against it For admitting them to continue still in being and force tho the King may promise for the nonexecution of them during his own time which is even a pretty bold undertaking yet he cannot assure us that the Oaths shall not be required to be taken at any time hereafter unless he have provided for an eternal Line of popish Successors which God will not be so unmerciful as to plague us with or have gotten a lease of a longer life than Methusalah's which is much more than the full Century of years wished him in a late Dedication by one that stiles himself an Irishman a thing he might have foreborn telling us because the Size of his understanding fully declares it However here is such a stroke and exercise of Absolute Power as dissolves the Government and brings us all into a State of Nature by discharging us from the ties which by vertue of fundamental Stipulations and Statute Laws we formerly lay under forasmuch as we know no King but a King by Law nor no Power he has but a legal Power Which thro disclaiming by a challenge that the whole legislative Authority does reside in himself he hath thrown the Gantles to three Kingdoms and provokes them to a trial whether he be ablest to maintain his Absoluteness or they to justify their being a free People And by virtu ' of the same Royal will and pleasure that he annulls which he calls Suspending the Laws enjoining the Tests and the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and commands that none of these Oaths and Declarations shall at any time hereafter be required to be taken he may in some following Royal Papers give us whitehall or Hampton Court Edicts conformable to those at Versailles which at all times hereafter we shall be bound to submitt unto and stand obliged to be Ruled by instead of the Common Law and Statutâ— Book Nor is the taking upon him to stamp us new Laws exclusively of Parliamentary concurrence in the virtu ' of his Royal prerogative any thing more uncouth ' in it self or more dissagreeable to the Rules of the Constitution and what we have been constantly accustomed unto than the cassing disabling and abrogating so many old ones which that absolute out of date as well as ill favoured thing upon Monarchs called a Parliament had a share in the Enacting of I will not say that our Addressers were conscious that the getting an Absolute Power in his Majesty to be owned and acknowledged was one of the Ends for which the late Declaration was calculated and emitted but I think I have sufficiently demonstrated both that such a power it issueth and flows from and that such a power is plainly exercised in it Which whether there coming now to be told and made acquainted with it may make them repent what they have done or at least prevent their being accessory to the support of this Power in other mischievous effects that are to be dreaded from it I must leave to time to make the discovery it being impossible to foretel what a People fallen into a phrenzie may do in their paroxism's of distraction and madness Nor was the Seruing himself into the possession of an Absolute power and the getting it to be owned by at least a part of the people the only Motive to the publishing the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland but a second inducement thaâ— sway'd unto it was the undermining an subverting the Protestant Religion and the opening a door for the introduction and establâ—â—hment of Popery Nor was it from any compassion to Dissenters that these two Royaâ— Papers were emitted but from his Majestieâ— tender love to Papists to whom as there arise many advantages for the present so the whole Benefit will be found to redound to them in the issue We are told a◠〈…〉 ave already mentioned that the King is â—esolved to convert England or to die a Martyr â—nd we may be sure that if he did not think â—he suspending the penal Laws and the disâ—ensing with requiring of the Tests and the â—ranting Liberty and Toleration to be means admirably adapted thereunto he would not have acted so inconsistently with himself nor in that opposition to his own designes as to have disabled these Laws and vouch sav'd the Freedom that results thereupon Especially when we are told by the Leige Iesuite that the King being sensible of his growing old finds himself thereby obliged â—o make the greater hast and to take the larger steps lest thro not living long enough to effect what he intends he should not only lose the glory of converting three Kingdoms but should leave the Papists in a worse condition than he found them His Highness the Prince of Orange very justly concludes this â—o be the thing aim'd at by the present Indulgence and therefore being desired to approve the Suspension of the Test Acts and to cooperate with his Majesty for the obtaining their being Repealed was pleased to Answer â—hat while he was as well as prosesseth himself a Protestant he would not Act so unworthily as â—o betray the Protestant Religion which he necessarily must if he should do as he was desired Her Royal Highness the Princess of Orange has likewise the same apprehension of the tendency of the Toleration and Indulgence and therefore was pleased to say to some Scotts Ministers that did themselves the honor
â—xercising his Absolute Power in whatsoever Acts he pleaseth over his own Subjects wheâ—her after the French fashion in commanding them to turn Catholicks because he will â—ave it so or after the manner of the Grand â—eignior to require them to submit their Necks to the Bow string because he is jeaâ—ous of them or wants their Estates to pay â—is Janizaries The united Provinces are they whom he bore a particular spleen and indignation unto when he was a subject and upon whom he is now in the Throne he resolves not only to wreak all his old malice but by conquering and subduing them if he can to strengthen his Absoluteness over his own People and to pave his way for overthrowing the protestant Religion in great Brittain without lying open to the hazards that may otherwise attend and ensue upon the attempting of it And instead of expecting nothing from him but what may become a brave and generous Enemy they ought to remember the encouragement that he gave heretofore to two varlets to burn that part of their Fleet which belong'd to Amsterdam an action as ignominious as fraudulent and that might have been fatal to all the Provinces if thro a happy and seasonable detection and the apprehension of one of the miscreants it had not been prevented He knows that the States General are not only zealous assertors of the protestant Religion but alway's ready to afford a Sanctuary and a place of Refuge to those who being oppressed for the profession of it elsewhere are forced to forsake their own Countries and to seek for shelter and relief in other parts And as he is not unsensible how easie the withdrawment and flight is into these Provinces for such as are persecuted in his Dominions so he is aware that if multitudes and especially men of condition and Estates should for the avoiding his cruelty betake themselves thither that they would not be unthoughtful of all ways and means whereby they might Redeem their Country from Tyranny and restore themselves to the quiet enjoyment of their Estates and liberties at home But that which most enrages him is the Figure which the two Princes do make in that State of whose Succession to the Crown the Protestants in Brittain have so near a prospect and the Post which the Prince filleth in that Government so that he dare neither venture to difinherit Them nor impose upon them such Terms and Conditions as their Consciences will not suffer them to comply with while either these States remain Free or while such English and Scotts as retain a zeal for Religion and the ancient Laws and Rights of their respective Countries can retreat thither under hopes of Admission and Protection And so closely are the interests of all Protestants in England and Scotland woven and inlaid with the interest of the united Netherlands and such is the singular regard that both the one and the other bear to the Reformed Religion the liberty of Mankind and their several Civil Rights that it is impossible for his Majesty to embarque in a design against the One without resolving at the same time upon the ruin of the Other Neither will the One be able to subsist when once the Other is subdu'd and enslaved As Philip the II. of Spain saw no way so compendious for the restoring himself to the Soveraignty and Tyrannous Rule over the Dutch as the subjugating of England that hel'p to support and assist them which was the ground of rigging out his formidable Armado and of his design against England in 1588. so his Brittish Majesty thinks no method so expeditious for the enslaving his own People as the endeavouring first to subdue the Dutch. And as upon the one hand it would be of a threatning consequence to Holland could the King subjugate his own People extirpate the protestant Religion out of his Dominions and advance himself to a Despotical Power so upon the other hand could he conquer the Dutch we might with the greatest certainty Date the woful Fate of great Brittain and the loss of all that is valuable to them as men and Christians from the same moment and Period of time They are like the Twins we read of whose Destiny was to live and die together and which soever of the two is destroyed first all the hope and comfort that the other can pretend unto is to be last devoured Now after the advances which his Majesty hath made towards the enslaving his Subjects and the subverting the Reformed Religion in his Kingdoms he finds it necessary before he venture to give the last and fatal stroke at home and to enter upon the plenary exercise of his Absolute Power in laying Parliaments wholly aside in cancelling all Laws to make way for Royal Edicts or Declarations of the complexion of the former and in commanding us to turn Roman Catholicks or to be dragoon'd I say he thinks it needful before he proceed to these to try whether he can subdue and conquer the Dutch and thereby remove all hopes of shelter relief comfort and assistance from his own People when he shall afterwards fall upon them And how much soever the Court endeavoures to conceal its design and strives to compliment the States General into a confidence that all Alliances between them and the Crown of England shall be maintained and preserved yet they not only speak their intentions by several open and visible actions but some of them cannot forbear to tell it when their blood is heated and their heads warm'd with a liberal glass and a lusty proportion of wine Thence it was that a Governing Papist lately told a Gentleman after they two had drunk hard together that they had some Work in England that would employ them a little time but when that was over they would make the Dutch fly to the end of the World to find a resting place Delenda est Carthago is engraven upon their hearts as being that without which Rome cannot arrive at the universal Monarchy that it aspires after It was upon a formed design of a war against the united Provinces that the King hath for these two years stirr 〈…〉 up and incited as well as countenanced a 〈…〉 protected the Algerines in their Piracies th 〈…〉 thro their weakning and spoiling the Du 〈…〉 before hand it may be the more easie a maâ—ter for him to subdue them when he sh 〈…〉 think fit to begin his hostilities 'T is in oâ—der to this that he hath entred into neâ— and secret Alliances with other Princes thâ— purport of which is boldly talk't of in Loâ—don but whether believed at the Hague I caâ—not tell For as Monsr Barrillion and Monsâ— Bonrepos present Transactions at Whitehal relate to something else than meerly to the aâ—fair of Hudsons Bay so Prince Georges erranâ— to Denmark is of more importance than bare visite or a naked compliment to hiâ— Brother 'T is upon this design that all thaâ— great Marine preparation hath been so lonâ— making in the
several ports of England buâ— to the hindring the execution whereof somâ— unexpected and not foreseen accidents havâ— interposed And it is in subserviency not to be disquieted at home while he is carrying on this holy war abroad that the Declaratioâ— for liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland are granted and published 'T is well enough known how that after the French King had among many other severities exercised against Protestants made them uncapable of Employments and commands yet to avoid the consequences that might have ensued thereupon while he was engaged in war against the Emperor the King of Spain and the States of Holland and to have the aid ' of his Reformed Subjects he not only intermitted and abated in many other rigours towards them but in Anno 1674. restored them to a capacity of being employed and preferred And that this did not flow from any compassion tendernes or good will towards them his carriage since the issue of that war and the miserable condition he hath reduced them unto do's sufficiently testify and declare Nor can we forget how that the late King after a rigorous execution of the penal Laws for several years against Dissenters yet being to enter into an unjust â—ar against the united Provinces Anno 1672. â—ot only forbore all proceedings of that kind â—ut published a Declaration for suspending the â—xecution of all those Laws and for the alâ—owing them liberty of Assembling to worâ—hip God in their separate meetings withâ—ut being hindred or disturbed What â—rinciple that proceeded from and to what â—nd it was calculated appeared in his behaâ—iour to them afterwards when neither the â—anger the Nation was in from the Papists â—or the application of several Parliaments â—ould prevail for lenity towards them much less for a legal Repeal of those impoâ—itick and unreasonable Statutes Nor does â—he present Indulgence flow from any kindness to Fanaticks but it is only an artifice to stiffe their discontents and to procure their assistance for the destroying of a Forraign Protestant State. And it may not be unworthy of observation that as the Declaration of Indulgenct Anno 1672. bore date much about the same time with the Declaration of war against the Dutch so at the very season that his present Majesty emitted his Declaration for liberty of Conscience there were Commissions of Reprisal prepared and ready to be grantrd to the English East India Company against the Hollanders but which were suppressed upon the Courts finding that they whom the suspending the Execution of so many Laws and the granting such liberties Rights and immunities to the Papists had disgusted and provoked were far more numerous and their resentments more to be apprehended than they were whose murmurings and discontents they had silenced and allay'd by the liberty that was granted Now as it will be at this juncture when the Protestant Interest is so low in the World and the Reformed Religion in so great danger of being destroyed a most wicked as well as an imprudent Act to contribute help and aid to the subjugating a people that are the chief Protectors of the protestant Religion that are left and almost the only Asserters of the Rights and liberties of Mankind so it may fill the Addressers with confusion and shame that they should have not only justified an Act of his Majestys that is plainly designed to such a mischievous End but that they should by the promises and vows that they have made him have emboldned his Majesty to continue his purposes and Resolutions of a war against the Dutch. Which as it must be funestous and fatal to the Protestant Cause in case he should prosper and succeed so howsoever it should issue yet the Addressers who have done what in them lyes to give encouragement unto it will be held betrayers of the Protestant Religion both abroad and at home and judged guilty of all the blood of those of the same Faith with them that shall be shed in this Quarrel That Liberty ought to be allowed to men in matters of Religion is no Plea whereby the Kings giving it in an illegal and Arbitrary manner can be maintained and justified Since ever I was capable of Exercising any distinct and coherent Acts of Reason I have been alway's of that Mind that none ought to be persecuted for their Consciences towards God in matters of Faith and Worship Nor is it one of those things that lye under the power of the Soveraign and Legislative Authority to grant or not to grant but it is a Right setled upon mankind antecedent to all Civil Constitutions and Humane Laws having its foundation in the Law of Nature which no Prince or State can legitimately violate and infringe The Magistrate as a Civil Officer can pretend or claim no power over a people but what he either derives from the Divine Charter wherein God the Supream Instituter of Magistracy has chalk't out the duty of Rulers in general or what the people upon the first and original Stipulation are supposed to have given him in order to the protection peace and prosperity of the Society But as it does no where appear that God hath given any such power to Governors seeing all the Revelations in the Scripture as well as all the Dictates of Nature speak a contrary language so neither can the People upon their chusing such a one to be their Ruler be imagined to transferr and vest such a power in him for as much as they cannot divest themselves of a power no more than of a Right of believing things as they arrive with a credibility to their several and respective Understandings As it is in no mans power to believe as he will but only as he sees cause so it is the most irrational imagination in the world to think they should transferr a Right to him whom they have chosen to Govern them of punishing them for what it is not in their power to help Nor can any thing be plainer than that God has reserved the Empire over Conscience to himself and that he hath circumscribed the power of all humane Governore to things of a civil and inferior nature And had God convey'd a Right unto Magistrates of commanding men to be of this or that Religion and that because they are so and will have others to be of their mind it would follow that the People may conform to whatsoever they require tho by all the lights of sense Reason and Revelation they are convinced of the falsehood of it seeing whatsoever the Soveraign rightfully Commands the Subjects may lawfully obey But tho the persecuting people for matters of meer Religion be repugnant to the light of Nature inconsistent with the fundamental Maximes of Reason directly contrary to the temper and genious as well as to the Rules of the Gospel and not only against the safety and interest of Civil Societies but of a tendency to fill them with confusion and to arm Subjects
Papists in that case we may confidently believe that the King instead either of Assenting to such a Bill for separate favour to Protestants or persevering in his Compassion and Kindness of continuing the Suspension of the Laws against Dissenters he would from an inveterate enmity as well as from a new contracted resentment be stirred up and enraged to the putting the Laws in execution with greater rigor and severity than hath been seen or felt heretofore And all that the Addressers would then reap by the Declaration would be to undergo the furious effects of brutal rage in their Persecutors and to be unpittyed by the Kingdom and unlamented by their fellow Protestants Or should His Majesty in favour to his good Catholicks resolve against the meeting of a Parliament or to adjourn and prorogue them whensoever he shall find that instead of confirming what he hath done they shall make null his Declaration vote his pretended prerogative illegal and arbitrary and fall upon those mercinary and perjured Villains who have allowed him a power transcendent to Law yet even upon that supposal which is the best that can be made to support mens hopes in the continuance of the present Liberty the Protestant Dissenters would have but slender Security all the tenure they have for the duration of their Freedom being only precarious and depending meerly upon the Kings Word and promise which there is small ground to rely upon Nor can he be true to them without being false to his Religion which not only gives him leave to break his Faith with Hereticks but obligeth him to it and to destroy them to boot and that both under the pain of damnation and of forfeiting his Crown and losing his Dominions And how far the Promise and Royal Word of a Catholick Monarch is to be trusted unto and depended upon we have a modern proof and evidence in the behaviour of Louis de Grand towards his Reformed Subjects not only in repealing the many Edicts made and confirmed by himself as well as his Ancestors for the free exercise of their Religion but in the method's he hath alway's observed namely to promise them protection in the profession of their Faith and practiâ—â— of their Worship when he was most steâ— fastly resolved to subvert their Religion a 〈…〉 was about making some fresh advan 〈…〉 and taking some new step for its extirpatiâ—â— Thus when he had firmly purposed not 〈◊〉 suffer a Minister to continue a year in tâ—â— Kingdom he at the same time publishâ—â— an Edict requiring Ministers to serve b 〈…〉 three years in one place and not to returâ— to the Church where they had first officiateâ— till after the expiration of twentie years 〈◊〉 the same manner when he had resolveâ— to Repeal the Edict of Nantes and had givâ— injunction for the Draught by which it wâ—â— to be done he at the same season gave thâ— Protestants all assurances of Protection anâ— of the said Edicts being kept inviolablâ—â— To which may be added that shameful anâ— detestable Chicanery in passing his Sacreâ— and Royal Word that no violence shoulâ— be offered any for their Religion tho at thâ—â— very moment the Dragoons were upoâ— their march with orders of exercising a 〈…〉 manner of cruelties and barbarities upoâ— them So that His Majesty of Great Brit 〈…〉 tain hath a pattern lately set him anâ— that by the Illustrious Monarch whom hâ— so much admires and whom he makes iâ— his ambition and glory to imitate Noâ— are we without proofs already how insigni ficant the Kings promises are except to de lude and what little confidence ought tâ— be put in them The disabling and suspen ding the 13 th Statute of his late Parliameâ—â— in Scotland wherein the Test was confirmed and his departing from all his Promises Registred in his Letter as well as from those contained in the Speech made by the Lorâ— Commissioner pursuant to the Instructionâ— which he had undoubtedly received together with his having forgotten and recedeâ— from all his Promises made to the Church oâ— England both when Duke of York and since he came to the Crown are undeniable evidences that his Royal Word is no more Sacred nor binding than that of some other Monarchs and that whosoever of the 〈…〉 rotestants shall be so foolish as to rely â—pon it will find themselves as certainly â—isappointed and deceived as they of the 〈…〉 ormed Religion elsewhere have been 〈…〉 d while they of the established way find 〈◊〉 small security by the Laws which the â—ing is bound by his Coronation Oath to obâ—erve the Dissenters cannot expect very â—uch from a naked Promise which as it â—ath not a solemn Oath to enforce it so 't is â—oth illegal in the making and contrary to 〈…〉 he principles of his Religion to keep Nor is 〈◊〉 unworthy of observation that he hath â—ot only departed from his promises made â—o the Church of England but that we are told 〈◊〉 a late Popish Pamphlet Entitled A New Test 〈◊〉 the Church of Englands Loyalty published 〈…〉 as it self say's by Authority that they were 〈…〉 ll conditional to wit by vertue of some â—â—ntal Reservation in his Majesties breast â—nd that the Conformable Clergy having fai 〈…〉 ed in performing the Conditions upon which they were made the King is abâ—olved and discharged from all Obligaâ—ion of observing them The Church of England say's he must give his Majesty leave â—ot to nourish a Snake in his bosom but rather â—o withdraw his Royal protection which was proâ—ised upon the account of her constant fidelity Which as it is a plain threatning of all the Legal Clergy and a denunciation of the unâ—ust and hard measure thy are to look for So it shakes the Foundation upon which all credit unto and relyance upon his Majesties Word can be any way 's placed For tho Threatnings may have tacit Reserves because â—he right of executing them resides in the Threatner yet Promises are incapable of all â—atent conditions because every Promise vests 〈◊〉 Right in the Promise and that in the virâ—ue of the words in which it is made But 〈◊〉 is the less to be wondred at if His Majesty 〈…〉 y to Equivocations and Mental Reserves being â—oth under the conduct of that Order and a Member of the Society that first taught and â—racticed this treacherous piece of Chicaâ—erie However it may inform the Dissen 〈…〉 s that if they be not able to answer the End for which they are depended upon or be not willing in the manner and degree that is expected or if it be not for the interest of the Catholick cause to have them indulged in all these cases and many more the King may be pronounced acquitted and discharged from all the Promises he hath given them as having been meerly stipulatory and conditional And as he will be sure then finem facere ferendae alienae personae to lay aside the disguise that he hath now put on so if they would reflect either upon his
temper or upon his Religion they might now know hand gratuitam in tanta superbia comitatem that a person of his pride would not stoop to such flattery as his Letter to Mr. Alsop expresseth but in order to some design But what need other proof of the fallaciousness of the two Royal Papers and that no Protestants can reasonably depend upon the Royal Word there laid to pledg for the continuation of their Liberty but to look into these two Papers themselves where we shall meet expressions that may both detract from our belief of His Majesties sincerity and awaken us to a just jealousie that the Liberty and Toleration granted by them are intended to be of no long standing and duration For while He is pleased to tell us that the granting His Subjects the free use of their Religion for the time to come is an addition to the perfect enjoyment of their property which has never been invaded by His Majesty since his coming to the Crown he doth in effect say that His Fidelity Truth and Integrity in what he grants in reference to Religion is to be measured and judged by the verity that is in what He tells us as to the never having invaded our property And that I may borrow an expression from Mr. Alsop and to no less a person than to the King himself namely that tho we pretend to no refined intellectualls nor presume to philosophise upon Mysteries of Government yet we make some pretence to the sense of feeling and whatever our dulness be can discern between what is exacted of us according to Law and what we are rob'd of by an exercise of Arbitrary Power For not to sist upon the violent seisure of mens Goods by Officers as well as Souldiers in all parts of England which looks like an invasion upon the properties of the Subject nor to dwell upon his keeping an Army on foot in time of peace against the Authority as well as without the countenance of Law which our Ancestors would have stiled an Invasion upon the whole property of the Kingdom I would sain know by what name we are to call his levying the customs and the Additional Excise before they were granted unto him by the Parliament all the legal establishment of them upon the nation having been only during the late Kings life till the settlement of them upon the Crown was again renewed by Statute It were also worth his Majesties telling us what Titles are due to the suspending the vice Chancellor of Cambridg a beneficio and the turning the President of Maudlins in Oxford out of his Headship and the suspending Dr. Fairsax from his Fellowship if they be not an Invasion upon our property seeing every part of this is against all the known Laws of the Kingdom and hath been done by no legal Court but by a Set of mercinary villains armed with an Arbitrary Commission and who do as Arbitrarily Exercise it And as the End unto which that Inquisition Court was instituted was to robb us of ours Rights and Priviledges at the meer pleasure of the King so the very Institution of it is an Invasion both upon all our Laws and upon the whole property of the Nation and is one of the highest Exercises of Despotical Power that it is possible for the most Absolute and unlimited Monarch to exert Among all the Rights reserved unto the Subjects by the Rules of the Constitution and whereof they are secured by many repeated Laws and Statutes there are none that have been hithero less disputed and in reference to which our Kings have been farther from claiming any Power and Authority than those of levying money without the grant as well as the consent of Parliament and of Absolving and discharging Debtor from paying their Creditors and of acquitting 〈◊〉 from being sued and imprisoned in case of no 〈…〉 payment and yet in defiance of all Law and to the subverting the Rights of the peo 〈…〉 ple and the most essential Priviledg and I 〈…〉 risdiction of Parliaments and to a plain chan 〈…〉 ging the ancient legal Constition into an Absolute and Despotical Governing Power the King they say is assuming to himself a 〈…〉 Authority both of imposing a Tax of five pound per annum upon every Hackney Coach and of Releasing and discharging all Debtors of whom their Creditors cannot claim and demand above ten pound Sterling which as they will be signal Invasions upon property and leaâ—ing Cases for the raising money in what other instances he pleaseth by a Hampâ—on Courâ— or a Whitehall Edict without standing in need of a Parliament or being obliged to a dependance upon their Grant for all Taxes to be levied upon the Subjects as his Predecessors have heretofore been so they may serve fully to instruct us what little security either the Dissenters have as to being long in the possession of their present liberty or Protestants in general of having a freedom continued unto them of professing the Reformed Religion if we have nothing more to rely upon for preventing our being abridged and denyed the liberty of our Religion than we have had for preserving our Property from being Invaded and broken in upon We may subjoin to the Clause already mentioned that other Expression which occurs in the foresaid Declaration viz. that as he freely gives them leave to meet and serve God after their own may and manner so they are to take special care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways â—end to alienate the hearts of the people from his Majesty or his Government which words as they import the price at which the Dissenters are to purchase their freedom whereof we shall discourse anon so they admirably serve to furnish the King with a pretence of retrenching their liberty whensoever he pleaseth nor are they inserted there for any other End but thâ—◠〈…〉 on a plea of their having abused his Gra 〈…〉 us Indulgence to the alienating the hearts of 〈◊〉 his people from him they may be adjud 〈…〉 d to have thereby deservedly forfeited 〈…〉 th all the benefits of it and of his Royal 〈…〉 our Nor is it possible for a Protestant 〈…〉 nister to preach one Sermon which a 〈…〉 ish Critick or a Romish Bigot may not 〈…〉 ily misconstrue and pervert to be an 〈…〉 enation of the peoples hearts from the Kings 〈…〉 son and Government And of which as we 〈…〉 ve heard many late Examples in France so 〈◊〉 will be easie to draw them into president 〈…〉 d to imitate them in England I might add 〈…〉 e observation of the ingenious Author of 〈…〉 e Reflections on his Majesties Proclamation for 〈◊〉 Toleration in Scotland namely that where 〈…〉 s the King gives all assurance to his Scotts â—ubjects that he will not use invincible necessity â—gainst any man on the account of his perâ—uasion he does thereby leave himself at a liâ—erty of Dragooning torturing burning and â—oing the utmost violences all
these being â—incible to a person of an ardent love to God â—nd of a lively faith in Jesus Christ and which accordingly many thousands have been â—riumphantly victorious over Nor is it likely that this new and uncouth phrase of â—ot using an invincible nec 〈…〉 would have found room in a Paper of that nature if it had not been first to counceal some malicious and mischievous design and then to justify the consistency of its execution with what is promised in the Proclamation Moreover were there that security intended by these two Royal Papers that protestant Dissenters might safely rely upon or did the King act with that sincerity which he would delude his people into a belief of there would then be a greater agreeableness than there is betwixt the Declaration for liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland The principle his Majesty pretends to act from that Conscience ought not to be constrained and that none ought to be persecuted for meer matters of Religion would obliege him to act uniformly and with an equal extention of favour to all his Subjects whose principles are the same and against whom he hath no exception but in matters meerly Religious Whereas the disparity of grace kindness and freedom that is exercised in the Declaration from that which is exerted in the Proclamation plainly shews that the whole is but a Trick of State and done in sâ—bserviency to an end which it is not yet seasonable to discover and avow For his circumscribing the Toleration in Scotland to such Presbyterians as he stiles moderate is not only a taking it off from its true bottom matters of meer Religion and a founding it upon an internal quality of the mind that is not discernable but it implyes the reserving a liberty to himself of withdrawing the benefits of it from all Scots Dissenters thro fastning upon them a contrary Character whensoever it shall be seasonable to revive persecution And even as it is now exerted to these moderate ones it is attended with Restrictions that his Indulgence in England is no ways clog'd with All that the Declaration requires from those that are indulged is that their Assemblies be peaceably openly and publickly held that all Persons be freely admitted to them that they signify and make known to some Justice of the peace what places they set apart for these uses and that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the bearâ—s of the people from the King or his Government whereas the Proclamation not only restrains the meetings of the Scots Presbyterians to private Houses without allowing them either to build meeting Houses or to use out-houses or Barns but it prohibits the hearing any Ministers save such as shall be willing to swear that they shall to the utmost of their Power assist defend and maintain the King in the exercise of his Absolute power against all deadly Nor is it difficult to assign the reason of the difformity that appears in His Majesties present Actings towards his dissenting Protestanâ— Subjects in those two Kingdoms For should there be no Restriction upon the Toleration in Scotland to hinder the greatest part of the Presbyterians from taking the advantage of it the Bishops and Conforming Clergy would be immediately forsaken by the generality if not all the people and so an â—ssue would not only be put to the division among Protestants in that Kingdom but they would become an united and thereupon a formidable Body against Popery which it is not for the interest of the Roman Catholicks to suffer or give way unto Whereas the more unbounded the Liberty is that is granted to Dissenters in England the more are our divisions not only kept up but increased and promoted especially thro this Freedom's arriving with them in an illegal way without both the Authority of the Legislative Power and the approbation of a great part of the People it being infallibly certain that there is a vast number of all ranks and conditions who do prefer the abiding in the Communion of the Church of England before the joining in fellowship with those of the Separate and dissenting Societies Upon the whole this different method of proceeding towards Dissenting Protestants in matters meerly Religious shews that all this Indulgence and Toleration is a Trick to serve a present juncture of Affairs and to advance a Popish and Arbitrary design and that the Dissenters have no security for the continuance of their Liberty but that when the Court and Jesuitick end is compassed and obtained there is another course to be steered towards them and instead of their hearing any longer of Liberty and Toleration they are to be told that it is the interest of the Government and the safety and honor of his Majesty to have but one Religion in his Dominions and that all must be Members of the Catholick Church and this because the King will have it so which is the Argument that hath been made use of in the making so many Converts in France They who now suffer themselves to be deluded into a confidence in the Royal word will not only come to understand what Mr. Coleman meant in his telling Pere de la Chaise that the Catholicks in England had a great work upon their hand being about the extirpation 〈◊〉 that Heresie which hath born sway so long 〈◊〉 this Northern part of the world but they wiâ—â— also see and feel how much of the desig 〈…〉 of Rome was represented in that passage 〈◊〉 the Popes Nuncio's Letter dated at Bruxel 〈…〉 Aug. 9. 1674. wherein upon the confidencâ— which they placed in the Duke of York whicâ— is not lessened since he came to the Crown he takes the confidence to write that theâ— hop'd speedily to see the total and final ruin 〈◊〉 the Protestant Party And as Protestant Dissenters have no secu rity by the Declaration and Proclamation foâ— the continuance of their Liberty so theâ— that have by way of thanksgiving Addresseâ— to the King for those Royal Papers have noâ— only acted very ill in reference both to the Laws and Rights of the Kingdoms and of Religion in general but they have carried very unwisely in relation to their own interest and the avoiding the effects of that resentment which most men are justly possessed with upon the illegal Emission of these Arbitrary and Prerogative Papers I shall not enter upon any long Discourse concerning this new practice of Addressing in general it having been done elsewhere some years ago but I shall only briefly intimate that it was never in fashion unless either under a weak and precarious Government or under one that took illegal courses and puâ—sued a different interest from that of the People and Community As he who Ruleth according to the standing Laws of a Countrey over which he is set needs not seek for an Approbation of his Actions from a part of his Subjects the Legality of his proceedings
the Laws of Christ when they are found to interfere with what is required by the King. But whether Gods Power or the Kings be superior and which of the two can cassate the others Laws and whose wrath is most terrible the judgment day will be able and sure to instruct them if all means in this world prove insufficient for it The Addressers know upon what conditions they hold their Liberty and they have not only observed how several of the National Clergy have been treated for preaching against Popery but they have heard how divers of the Reformed Ministers in France before the general suppression were dealt with for speaking against their Monarchs Religion and therefore they must be pardoned if they carry so as not to provoke his Majesty tho in the mean time thro their â—â—lence they both betray the Cause of their Lord and Master and are unfaithful to the Soules of those of whom they have taken upon them the spiritual guidance As for the Papers themselves that are stiled by the name of Addresses I shall not meddle with them being as to the greatest part of them fitter to be exposed and ridicul'd either for their dulness and pedantry or for the adulation and sycophancy with which they are fulsomly stuffâ— than to deserve any serious consideration or to merit reflections that may prove instructive to Mankind Only as that Address wherein his Majesty is thanked for his restoring God to his Empire over Conscience deserveth a rebuke for its blasphemy so that other which commends him for promising to force the Parliament to raâ—iâ—y his Declaration tho by the way all he says is that he does not doubt of their concurrence which yet his ill succ 〈…〉 upon the closetting of so many Member 〈…〉 and his since Dissolving that Parliament shews that there was some cause for the doub 〈…〉 ting of it I say that other Address merits severe Censure for its insolency against th 〈…〉 legislative Authority And the Authors of 〈◊〉 ought to be punished for their crime com 〈…〉 mitted against the Liberty and Freedom 〈◊〉 the two Houses and for encouraging th 〈…〉 King to invade and subvert their most essen 〈…〉 tial and fundamental Priviledges and withou 〈…〉 which they can neither be a Council Judi 〈…〉 cature nor Lawgivers After all I hope the Nation will be so in 〈…〉 genuous as not to impute the miscarriages 〈◊〉 some of the nonconformists to the whole part 〈…〉 much less to ascribe them to the principles o 〈…〉 Dissenters For as the points wherein the 〈…〉 differ from the Church of England are purel 〈…〉 of another Nature and which have no re 〈…〉 lation to Politicks so the influence that the 〈…〉 are adapted to have upon men as member 〈…〉 of Civil Societies is to make them in a specia 〈…〉 manner regardful of the Rights and Fran 〈…〉 chises of the Community But if some nei 〈…〉 ther understand the tendency of their ow 〈…〉 principles nor are true and faithful unto them these things are the personal faults of thos 〈…〉 men and are to be attributed to their ig 〈…〉 norance or to their dishonesty nor are thei 〈…〉 carriages to be counted the effects of thei 〈…〉 Religious Tenets much less are others of the party to be involved under the reproach an 〈…〉 guilt of their imprudent and ill conduct 〈…〉 Which there is the more cause to acknow 〈…〉 ledg because tho the Church of England ha 〈…〉 all the reason of the World to decline Addressing in that all her legal Foundation a 〈…〉 well as Security is shaken by the Declaration yet there are some of her Dignitaries and C 〈…〉 gy as well as divers of the Members of he 〈…〉 Communion who upon motives of Ambition Covetousness Fear or Courtship hav 〈…〉 enrolled themselves into the Liâ—â— of Addre 〈…〉 sers and under pretence of giving thanks 〈◊〉 the King for his promise of protecting 〈◊〉 Arch-Bishops Bishops and Clergy and a 〈…〉 〈…〉 erof the Church of England in the free Exer 〈…〉 of their Religion as by Law established 〈…〉 ve cut the throat of their Mother at 〈…〉 ose breasts they have suckt till they are 〈…〉 own fat both by acknowledging the usur 〈…〉 prerogative upon which the King assumes 〈◊〉 Right and Authority of Emitting the De 〈…〉 ration and by exchanging the legal standâ—â—g and Security of their Church into that 〈…〉 ecarious one of the Royal word which 〈…〉 ey fly unto as the bottom of her Subsistence 〈…〉 d trust to as the wall of her defence And 〈◊〉 most of the Members of the Separate So 〈…〉 ties are free from all accession to Ad 〈…〉 essing and the few that concurred were 〈…〉 eerly drawn in by the wheedle and impor 〈…〉 nity of their Preachers so they who are 〈◊〉 the chiefest Character and greatest repu 〈…〉 tion for Wisdom and Learning among 〈…〉 e Ministers have preserved themselves 〈…〉 om all folly and treachery of that kind The Apostle tells us that not many wise not â—any noble are called which as it is verified 〈◊〉 many of the Dissenting Addressers so it â—ay serve for some kind of Apology for their 〈…〉 ow and sneaking as well as for their in 〈…〉 iscret and imprudent behaviour in this matâ—er And it is the more venial in some of â—hem as being not only a means of ingra 〈…〉 iating themselves as they phansie with â—he King who heretofore had no very good â—pinion of them but as being both an easie â—nd compendious method of Attoning for Offences against the Crown of which they were strongly suspected and a cheap and expenceless way of purchasing the pardon of their Relations that had stood actually 〈…〉 ccused of high Treason Nor is it to be doubted but that as the King will retain very little favour and mercy for Fanaticks when once he has served his Ends upon them so they will preserve as little kindness for the Papists if they can but obtain relief in a legal way And as there is not a people in the Kingdom that will be more 〈…〉 oyal to Princes while they continue so to govern as that fealty by the Laws of God 〈…〉 or man remains due to them so there are none of what principles or communion soever upon whom the Kingdom it its whole interest come to ly at stake may more assuredly and with greater confidence depend than upon the generality of Dissenting Protestants and especially upon those that are not of the Pastoral Order The severities that the Dissenters lay under before and their deliverance from oppression and disturbance now seconded with the Kings expectation and demands of thanksgiving Addresses were strong temptations upon men void of generosity and greatness of spirit and who are withall of no great Political Wisdom nor of prospect into the Consequences of Councils and tricks of State to act as illegally in their thanks as His Majesty had done in his bounty So that whatsoever animadversion they may