it hath been to cut the Tacklings and to steer contrary to the Pilot's Directions he thinks such safer by far shut up under Hatches then set at Liberty or employ'd to do mischief As for his supposition of 30000 men to be sent out of Ireland into Handers I cannot tell what to make on 't Let them crack the Shell that hope to find the Kernel in it For my part I despair though the readiness of the English Souldiers of Ireland who at twenty four hours warning came into England to serve His Majesty in the time of Monmouth's Rebellion ought to have been remembered to their advantage and might serve to any unprejudic'd person as a Pattern of the Loyalty and good Inclinations of all the Protestants in that Kingdom if his Majesty had had occasion for them VVhether the Parliament will Repeal the Test for those several weighty Reasons our Author says are fitter for contemplation than Discourse tho methinks it would be pleasant to see a House of Common sit like the Brethren at a silent Meeting is not my Province to determine As likewise VVhether they will so much consider that Grand Reason the King will have it so for his Conscience and theirs may differ or what the diffenters will do I cannot tell One thing I am sure of there will be no such Stumbling-block in the way of the King's desires when they meet as the present condition of Ireland they will be apt when His Majesty tells them they shall have their equal shares in Employments when they have Repealed the Laws to say Look at Ireland see what is done there where the Spirit of Religion appears bare fac'd and accordingly compute what may become of us when we have removed our own legal Fences since they now leap over those Hedges what may we expect when they are quite taken away Poyning's Law is a great grievance to our Author and here in one word he discovers that 't is the dependance this Kingdom has on England he quarrels at 'T is fit the Reader should understand that Law enacted when Poynings was Lord Deputy makes all the English Acts of Parliament of force in Ireland we are therefore so fond of that Law and cover so much to preserve our dependance on England that all the Arguments our Author can bring shall not induce us to part with it I will not reflect in the least on the Courage of the Irish I know there are several brave men among them but they have had the misfortune to fall under the Consideration of as our Author softens it but the plain sence is been beaten by a warlike Nation And I question not unless they behave themselves modestly in their Prosperity they will again fall under the Consideration of the same Nation 't is better we should live in peace and quietness but the Choice is in their hands and if they had rather come under our consideration again than avoid it let them look to the Consequence Another advantage which may accrue to Ireland by a Native as a Governour our Author reckons to be His personal knowledge of the Tories and their Harbourers and his being thereby better capacitated to suppress them Malicious People would be apt to infer from this Suggestion that his Excellency had occasion formerly to be familiarly acquainted with such sort of Cattle I have heard indeed that one of our bravest English Princes Henry the during the Extravagancies of his youth kept Company with publick Robbers and often shar'd both in the Danger and Booty But as soon as the Death of his Father made way for his Succession to the Crown he made use of his former acquaintance of their Persons and Haunts to the extirpating and dissolving the greatest knot of Highway-men that ever troubled England My Lord therefore in imitation of this great Prince no doubt will make use of his Experience that way to the same end And I readily assent to the Author that no English Governour can be so fit to clear that Kingdom of Tories and that for the same reason he gives us There are two other Advantages remaining one is his Excellency's having already made different Parties in that Kingdom the Objects of his Love and Hatred let the Offences of the one or the Merits of the other be never so conspicuous Whether the Brittish can draw any comfort from his Excellency's knowledge of them this way is fit to be debated The other is the probality of his getting the Statute for benefit of Clergy in favour of Cow-Stealers and House Robbers Repealed and where by the way there is a severe Rebuke given to our English Priests for their ill-placed Mercy to Irish Offenders A fault I hope they will be no more guilty of Whether these Advantages be so considerable as to move his Majesty to continue a Man for other more weighty Reasons absolutely destructive to this Kingdom or whether some of them might not be performed by an English Governour His Majesty is the only Judge Only this I am sure of The King if he were under any Obligations to His Minister has fully discharged them all and has shewed himself to be the best of Masters in giving so great and honourable an Employment to his Creature and continuing him in it so long notwithstanding the decrease of his own Revenue and the other visible bad effects of his Management the Impoverishment of that Kingdom amounting to at least two Millions of Mony And His Majesty may be now at liberty without the least imputation of Breach of promise to his Servant to restore us to our former flourishing condition by sending some English Nobleman among us whose contrary Methods will no doubt produce different effects To conclude methinks the comparison between His Majesty and Philip of Macedon when he was drunk is a little too familiar not to say unmannerly and that between Antipater and my Lord Tyrconnel is as great a Complement to the latter But provided my Lord be commended which was our Author's chief design he cares not tho' the comparison does not hold good in all points 't is enough that we know we are Govern'd by such a Prince that neither practises such Debauches himself nor allows of them in his Servants But we are not beholding to the Author for the knowledge of this should a Foreigner read his Pamphler or get it interpreted to him he would be apt and with reason to conclude that His Majesty as much resembled Philip in a Debauch as my Lord Tyrconnel doth sober Antipater I have now done with all that seems of any weight in our Author's Pamphlet and can see nething in his Postscript that deserves an Answer All that I will say is That his Recipes bear no proportion to our desperate Disease and he will prove not to be a Physitian but a pretending Quack who by ill applied Medicines will leave us in a worse Condition than he found us I shall conclude with telling you That your Letter which enclosed
houses in Holborn at the same time That he was at the Fire in the Temple but was not engaged to do any thing in it And said that Gyfford told him that there were English French and Irish Roman Catholicks enough in London to make a very good Army and that the King of France was coming with 60000 Men under pretence to shew the Dauphin his Dominions but it was to lay his Men at Deep Bulloign Callis and Dunkirk to be in an hours Warning to be Landed in England and he doubted not but it would be by the middle of June and by that time all the Catholicks here will be in readiness all were to rise in order to bring him in That the Papists here were to be distinguished by Marks in their Hatts that the said Father Gyfford doubted not but he should be an Abbot or a Bishop when the work was over for the good service he hath done That at their Meeting Father Gyfford used to tell them it was no more sin to kill a Heretick then a Dog and that they did God good Service in doing what Mischiefs they could by firing their houses That it was well Sir Edmondbury Godfrey was Murdered for he was their Devilish Enemy That Coleman was a Saint in Heaven for what he had done And saith he is fearful he shall be Murthered for this Confession Father Gyfford having sworn him to Secresie and told him he should be Damned if he made any Discovery and should be sure to be killed and that he should take the Oaths because he was a House-keeper and that it was no sin And saith That Gyfford and Roger _____ told him when their Forces meet about the middle of June then have at the VOTES and ADDRESSES Of the Honourable House of Commons ASSEMBLED IN PARLIAMENT Made this present Year 1673 Concerning Popery and other Grievances March 29. 1673. The Parliaments Address to his Majesty for the Removal of Grievances in England and Ireland WE your Majesties most Loyal Subjects the Commons in this present Parliament assembled conceiving our selves bound in necessary Duty to your Majesty and in Discharge of the Trust reposed in us truly to inform your Majesty of the Estate of your Kingdom And though we are abundantly satisfied that it hath been your Royal Will and Pleasure that your Subjects should be governed according to the Laws and Customs of this Realm yet finding that contrary to your Majesties gracious Intention some Grievances and Abuses are crept in We crave Leave humbly to represent them to your Majesties Knowledge and Desire 1. That the Imposition of 12 d. per Chaldron upon Coals for the providing of Convoys by Vertue of an Order from Council dated the 15th of May 1672 may be recalled and all Bonds taken by Virtue thereof cancelled 2. That your Majesties Proclamation of the 24th of December 1672 for preventing of Disorders which may be committed by Soldiers and whereby the Soldiers now in your Majesties Service are in a manner exempted from the ordinary Course of Justice may likewise be recalled 3. And whereas great Complaints have been made out of several parts of this Kingdom of divers Abuses committed in Quartering of Soldiers That your Majesty would be pleased to give Order to redress those Abuses and in particular that no Soldiers be hereafter Quartered in any private Houses and that due Satisfaction may be given to the Inn-keepers or Victuallers where they lye before they remove 4. And since the continuance of Soldiers in this Nation will necessarily produce many Inconveniences to your Majesties Subjects We do humbly present it as our Petition and Advice That when this present War is ended all your Souldiers which have been raised since the last Session of Parliament may be Disbanded 5. That your Majesty would be likewise pleased to consider of the Irregularities and Abuses in pressing Soldiers and to give Order for the Prevention thereof for the future 6. And although it hath been the Course of former Parliaments to desire Redress in their Grievances before they proceeded to give a Supply yet we have so full Assurance of your Majesties Tenderness and Compassion towards your People that we humbly prostrate our selves at your Majesties feet with these our Petitions desiring your Majesty to take them into your Princely Consideration and to give such Orders for the Relief of your Subjects and the Removing these Pressures as shall seem lest to your Roâal Wisdâm Address touching Ireland WE your Majesties most Loyal Subjects the Commons in this present Parliament assembled taking into Consideration the great Calamities which have formerly befallen your Majesties Subjects of the Kingdom of Ireland from the Popish Recusants there who for the most part are profest Enemies to the Protestant Religion and the English Interest and how they make use of your Majesties gracious Disposition and Clemency are at this time grown more insolent and presumptuous than formerly to the apparent Danger of that Kingdom and your Majesties Protestant Subjects there the Consequence whereof may likewise prove very fatal to this your Majesties Kingdom of England if not timely prevented And having seriously weighed what Remedies may be most properly applied to those growing Distempers do in all Humility present your Majesty with these our Petitions 1. That for the Establishment and Quieting the Possessions of your Majesties Subjects in that Kingdom your Majesty would be pleased to maintain the Act of Settlement and Explanatory Act thereupon and to recall the Commission of Enquiry into Irish Affairs bearing Date the 17th of January last as containing many new and extraordinary Powers not only to the Frejudice of particular Persons whose Estates and Titles are thereby made liable to be questioned but in a manner to the Overthrow of the Acts of Settlement And if pursââd may be the Occasion of great Charge and Attendance to many of your Subjects in Ireland and shake the Peace and Security of the whole 2. That your Majesty would give Order that no Papist be either continued or hereafter admitted to be Judges Justices of the Peace Sheriffs Coroners or Mayors Sovereigns or Portrieves in that Kingdom 3. That the Titular Popish Archbishops Bishops Vicars-General Ablââs and all other exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction by the Popes Authority and in particular Peter Talbot pretended Archbishop of Dublin for his notorious Disloyalty to your Majesty and Disobedience and Contempt of your Laws may be commanded by Proclamation forthwith to depart out of Ireland and all other your Majesties Dominions or otherwise to be prosecuted according to Law And that all Convents Seminaties and Publick Popish Scholes may be dissolved and suppressed and the Secular Priests commanded to depart under the Penalty 4 That no Irish Papist be admitted to inhabit in any part of that Kingdom unless duly licensed according to the aforesaid Acts of Settlemenâ and that your Majesty would be pleased to recall your Letters of the 26th of February 1671. And the Proclamation thereupon whereby general Licence is
although we do not in the least question your Faithfulness to the true Interest of this Nation nor your Prudence in the Management thereof yet esteeming it greatly our Duty in this unhappy Juncture wherein our Religion Lives Liberties Properties and all that is dear unto us are in such iminent danger to signifie our pressing Dangers unto You. And accordingly we do request That in the next Parliament wherein we have chose You to Sit and Act That You will with the greatest Integrity and most undaunted Resolution joyn with and assist the other Worthy Representatives and Patriots of this Nation in the searching into and preventing the Horrid and Hellish Villânies Plots and Designs of that wicked and restless sort of People the Papists both in this and the Neighbouring Kingdoms And making some honourable Provision for the Discovery thereof In securing to us the Enjoyment of the True Protestant Religion and the well established Government of this Kingdom In Promoting the happy and long prayed for Union among all His Majesties Protestant Subjects In Repealing the 35th of Elizabeth the Corporation-Act and all other Acts which upon experience have proved injurious to the true Protestant Interest In Asserting the Peoples unquestionable Rights of Petitioning In removing our just Fears by reason of the great Forces in this Kingdom under the Name of Guards which the Law hath no knowledge of In preventing the Misery Ruine and utter Destruction which unavoidably must come upon this and the neighbouring Nations if James Duke of York or any other Papist shall ascend the Royal Throne of this Kingdom And lastly in securing to us our Legal Right of Annual Parliaments which under God will unquestionably prove the highest security of all that is good and desirable to us and our Posterity after us Always assuring our selves that you will not in any wise consent unto any Money-Supply until we are effectually secured against Popery and Arbitrary Power And particularly we desire you to give the most hearty Thanks of this County to that Noble Peer the Earl of Essex and by him to the rest of those Noble and Renowned Peers who were pleased lately and so seasonably to offer their Petition and Advice to His Majesty In the pursuance of all which Needful Worthy and Excellent Ends we shall as in duty bound stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes A Letter of Thanks from the Grand-Jury of the County of Worcester to the Knights of this Shire Dated Jan. 12. 1680. Honoured Sirs WE the Grand-Jury of the County of Worcester at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace held for the said County the 11th day of Jan. in the 32d year of the King's Majesties Reign do hereby in the behalf of our selves and the County for which we serve return you our most hearty Thanks for your constant and unwearied Attendance upon the Service of His Majesty and your Country in this present Parliament in a Time of such iminent danger And especially of your concurrence in those Methods that have been taken for the Security of His Majesties Sacred Person the Protestant Religion and the Properties of His Majesties Subjects against the Hellish Plots of the Papists and their Adherents And we do humbly request your continuance therein and shall ever pray for the preservation of the Person of our most Gracious Sovereign and that God will direct and unite his Councils and upon all occasions testifie that we are Honoured Sirs Your very Humble Obliged and Thankful Servants This was signed by all the said Grand-Jury and directed to the Honourable Colonel Samuel Sandys and Thomas Foley Esquires Members of this present Parliament A Letter from the Ancient and Loyal Borough of North-Allerton in Yorkshire Dated Jan. 14. 1680. to their Burgesses in Parliament Honoured Sirs THe unexpected and sudden News of this Day 's Post preventing us from sending those due Acknowledgments which the greatness of your Services for Publick Good have merited from us we have no better way now left us to express our Gratitude and the highest Resentments of your Actions before and in your last Sessions of Parliament than to manifest our Approbation thereof by an Assurance that if a Dissolution of this present Parliament happen since you have evidenced so sufficiently your Affections to His Majesties Royal Person and Endeavours for the preserving the Protestant Religion our Laws and Liberties we are now resolved if you are pleas'd to continue with us to continue you as our Representatives And do therefore beg your Acceptance thereof and farther that you will continue your Station during this Prorogation faithfully assuring you that none of us desire to give or occasion you the Expence or Trouble of a Journey in order to your Election if such happen being so sensible of the too great expence you have been at already in so carefully discharging the Trust and Confidence reposed in you by Gentlemen Your Obliged and Faithful Friends and Servants Signed by the Burgesses and Electors of North-Allerton and directed to Sir Gilbert Gerrard and Sir Henry Calverly Burgesses for the Borough of North-Allerton in Yorkshire The same day the Grand-Jury of Reading Presented the following Paper to the Mayor of that Town Berkshire ss The Petition of the Grand-Jury of the Borough of Reading at the Sessions holden at the said Borough Jan. 14. 1680. To the Right Worshipful the Mayor and Aldermen of the Town and Borough of Reading The Humble Petition of the Grand-Jury of the said Town in behalf of themselves and others the Inhabitants of the same Sheweth THat your Petitioners are deeply sensible of the Great and Iminent Dangers and Mischiefs that threaten Us as well as the whole Nation by the implacable Malice and Endeavour of our Enemies to introduce Popery and Arbitrary Government to Subvert the Protestant Religion and our well-establisht Laws and to deprive us of our undoubted Rights and Liberties We therefore humbly entreat you that you would take it into your consideration that no Person whatsoever may be imployed encouraged or empowered to act in any wise in this Corporation that hath been Voted and Deemed in Parliament a Betrayer of the Rights of the People of England And your Petitioners shall Pray c. Soon after the Amazing Dissolution happened and His Majesty having then Declared his pleasure to Summon and Hold the next Parliament not at Westminster which in all Ages has been generally the usual place of Convening those Assemblies as being most conveniently situate near the Metropolis of the Kingdom where all Persons may be much better accommodated than elsewhere but at the City of Oxford several Noble Lords thought it their Duty humbly to Represent the Inconveniencies which in their apprehensions would attend such chargeable Removal and submissively to offer their Advice to His Majesty to alter that Resolution in the following Petition which being presented to His Majesty by that Noble Peer of approved Loyalty and Prudence the Right Honourable the Earl of Essex His Lordship
and Corporations throughout England were generally so well satisfied with the Proceedings of the Honourable House of Commons in the last Parliament That as soon as they heard of the Dissolution they Resolved to chuse the very same respective Persons again and contriv'd to make their Elections without putting the Gentlemen chosen to any Charge Thereby to crush that Pernicious Custom of over-ruling Debauchery at Choice of Members which had not only scandaliz'd the Nation but almost impoyson'd and destroyed the very Constitution of our Parliaments A Letter from the famous Town of Kingston upon Hull to Sir Michael Wharton Kt. and William Gee Esq Burgesses for that Town in the late Parliament Worthy Gentlemen WE understand you have signified to us our Magistrates your willingness to represent in the ensuing Parliament and that they have gratefully accepted of your generous Offer which if they had communicated to us our joynt compliance would have been readily manifested for we are so sensible of your integrity in the late Parliament by your indefatigable care and pains in endeavouring the security of His Majesties Sacred Person as also our Religion and Property that we cannot but rejoyce that you are pleased again to offer us that kindness which your former good Service hath engaged us to become Suitors for We do therefore return you our hearty thanks and you may be confident without your appearance or the least charge to have all our Suffrages Nemine contradicente and will as our Obligations bind us stand by your Proceedings as becomes Loyal Subjects and true Englishmen subscribing our selves Your obliged and affectionate Friends and Servants c. Which was subscribed by Matthew Johnson Esq Sheriff of the said Town and 122 more of the most Eminent Burgesses and Electors Another Letter from Lewis in Sussex on the like Occasion To their late Worthy Representatives Richard Bridger and Thomas Pellam Esquires Gentlemen WE are sensible of the great Trouble and Charge you have been at as our Representatives and of your great Care and Constancy for which we return you our hearty Thanks with our earnest Request that you would be pleased once more to favour us in the same capacity And you will thereby much Oblige Your Faithful Friends and Servants This was Subscribed by near 150 of the Inhabitants of Lewis aforesaid On the 4th of February The City of London Assembled in Common-Hall consisting of several Thousand Livery-Men having by an Unanimous Voice Elected their Old Representatives Returned them their Thanks in a Paper there Publickly Read and Approved of with a General Consent The Address of the City of London To the Honoured Sir Robert Clayton Knight Thomas Pilkington Alderman Sir Thomas Player Knight and William Love Esq late and now chosen Members of Parliament for this Honourable City of London WE the Citizens of this City in Common-Hall Assembled having Experienced the great and manifold Services of you our Representatives in the Two last Parliaments by your most faithful and unwearied Endeavours to Search into and discover the depth of the horrid and hellish Popish Plots to preserve His Majesty's Royal Person the Protestant Religion and the well established Government of this Realm to secure the Meeting and Sitting of frequent Parliaments to Assert our undoubted Rights of Petitioning and to punish such who would have Betrayed those Rights to promote the happy and long-wished for Union amongst all His Majesty's Protestant Subjects to Repeal the 35th of Elizabeth and the corporation-Corporation-Act and especially for what Progress hath been made towards the Exclusion of all Popish Successors and particularly of James Duke of York whom the Commons of England in the two last Parliaments have Declar'd and we are greatly sensible is the Principal Cause of all the Ruine and Misery impending these Kingdoms in general and this City in particular For all which and other your constant and faithful Management of our Affairs in Parliament we offer and return to you our most hearty Thanks being confidently assur'd that you will not consent to the granting any Money-Sudply until you have effectually Secur'd us against Popery and Arbitrary Power Resolving by Divine Assistance in pursuance of the same Ends to stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes And likewise there was offered another Paper directed to the Sheriffs purporting their Thanks to the several Noble Peers for their late Petition and Advice to His Majesty which was as followeth To the Worshipful Slingsby Bethel and Henry Cornish Esquires Sheriffs of the City of London and Westminster WE the Citizens of the said City in Common-Hall Assembled having read and diligently perus'd the late Petition and Advice of several Noble Peers of this Realm to His Majesty whose Counsels we humbly conceive are in this unhappy Juncture highly seasonable and greatly tending to the Safety of these Kingdoms We do therefore make it our most hearty Request that you in the Name of this Common-Hall will return to the Right Honourable the Earl of Essex and by him to the rest of those Noble Peers the Grateful Acknowledgment of this Assembly Which being Read and Approved of by a General Acclamation the Sheriffs promised to give their Lordships the Thanks of the Common-Hall in pursuance of their Request The Address of the City of Westminster Febr. 10. 1680 1. To the Honoured Sir William Poultney and Sir William Waller Knights Unanimously Elected Members of the ensuing Parliament for the Ancient City of Westminster WE the Inhabitants of this City and the Liberties thereof Assembled retaining a most grateful and indelible Sence of your prudent Zeal in the late Parliament in searching into the depth of the horrid and hellish Plots of the Papists against His Majesty's Royal Person the Protestant Religion and the Government of the Realm and in endeavouring to bring the Authors of Wicked Counsels to condign punishment And remembring also your faithful discharge of that great Trust reposed in you in vindicating our undoubted Right of Petitioning His Majesty That Parliaments may Sit for the Redress of our Grievances which Hereditary Priviledge some Bad Men would have wrested out of our Hands upon whom you have set such a just Brand of Ignominy as may deter them from the like Attempts for the time to come And further reflecting upon your vigorous Endeavours to secure to us and our Posterity the Profession of the True Religion by those Just Legal and Necessary Expedients which the great Wisdom of the Two last Parliaments fixed upon and adhered to Do find our selves obliged to make our open Acknowledgement of and to return our hearty Thanks for your eminent Integrity and Faithfulness your indefatigable Labour and Pains in the Premises not once questioning but you will maintain the same good Spirit and Zeal to secure His Majesty's Royal Person and to preserve to us the Protestant Religion wherein all good Subjects have an Interest against the secret and subtil Contrivances and open Assaults of the Common Enemy as also our Civil Rights and Properties
His Majesty's Royal Person the good Government of the Nation by Law and in securing our Rights and Liberties for your real Endeavours herein we joyntly return our hearty Thanks and have now chosen you again to be our Representatives in this Parliament And though we have not the least Suspicion or Doubt of your Wisdom and Integrity in Acting for our Common Good now as we apprehend in great danger yet we judge it expedient to discover our Minds and hearty Desires in the Particulars following viz. I. That you 'll continue vigorously to prosecute the horrid Popish Plotters and endeavour thay may be brought to condign punishment especially all Sham-Plotters which we esteem the worst of Villains II. That you will insist on a Bill for excluding all Popish Successors to the Crown which we believe an effectual Means under God for preserving the Protestant Religion His Majesty's Life and Tranquillity with the well established Government of the Kingdom and securing it to our Posterity III. That you endeavour passing a Bill for Regulating Elections and the Frequency of Parliaments for dispatch of those weighty Affairs of the Nation that shall from time to time be before them which we judge the best prevention of an Arbitrary Power IV. That you perservere in Asserting our Right of Legal Petitioning for removing our just Grievances and pass a Bill if there be no Law to punish such that shall obstruct it V. That you will use your utmost Endeavours to bring in a Bill against Pluralities of Church-Livings Non-residency and Scandalous Ministers of which there are too many in most Counties VI. That you will endeavour to preserve His Majesty's Person to root out Popery and prevent Arbitrary Government and use your utmost Endeavours to unite His Majesty's Protestant Subjects VII Lastly That you will not consent to any Money-Bill till the foresaid Particulars be effected and in so doing we hereby promise to stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes The Address of the Free-holders of the County of Leicester To the Right Honourable Benet Lord Sherrard and Sir John Hartopp Baronet as it was audibly read in Court by the Sheriff and unanimously approved of by the said Free-holders immediately after their Election 24 Febr. 1680 1. WE the Free-holders of the County of Leicester having chosen you to be our Representatives in the Two last Parliaments being highly sensible of the care you have taken to secure his Majesty's Royal person the Protestant Religion our Liberties and Properties as also your Endeavours further to discover and prosecute the horrid Popish Plot spread over the Realm of England and others of His Majesty's Dominions with your zealous promoting an happy Union of all good Protestants in this Land not only by good and wholesome Laws for that End but by Repealing those which were destructive to it and especially for your persisting in the Exclusion of James Duke of York and all other Popish Successors from inheriting the Imperial Crown of England which we esteem the only Security under God of His Majesty's Person and Dominions Likewise your Vindicating our fundamentally Right of Petitioning His Majesty for frequent Sitting of Parliaments by your particular Marks of Displeasure laid upon the Opposers of it For all which and other good Laws you were about to make we give you most hearty Thanks And having now again Unanimously chosen you for the ensuing Parliament if you shall continue the prosecution of the aforementioned absolutely necessary Things we shall stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes The Address of the Gentry and Free-holders of the County of York publickly read in Court and fully consented to by the whole Assembly by a general Acclamation at their Election March 2. To the Right Honourable Charles Lord Clifford and Henry Lord Fairfax May it please your Lordships THe Assurance we had of your Fidelity and Activity for the Service of our King and Country in the Parliament which began at Westminster the 6th of March 1678. Was the only Reason of our Choice of you to Represent us in the last Parliament and our experience of your Faithfulness and Diligence in the same Service the last Parliament is the only Ground of our uncontradicted Choice of you again this Day into the same Trust for the ensuing Parliament appointed to meet at Oxford the 21th instant And we judge it our Duty as good Protestants Loyal Subjects and True Englishmen not only to express our hearty Concurrence with you in but also to return you our real and publick Thanks for the many good Things you did and were about to do in both the last Parliaments and more especially for your seasonable Addresses to His Majesty your Necessary Votes Resolutions Orders and Bills whereby you have endeavoured 1. To preserve the Protestant Religion His Majesty's Person and the Kingdoms of England and Ireland from the many Dangers which threaten them 2. To Exclude a Popish Successor 3. To Unite all His Majesty's Protestant-Subjects 4. To purge out the Corruptions which abound in Elections of Members to serve in Parliament And 5. To secure us for the future against Popery and Arbitrary Power And we intreat you to proceed in a Parliamentary way to the Accomplishment of these Excellent Things and we assure you that these things being done we shall with great chearfullness be willing to supply His Majesty to the utmost of our Ability with Money for the securing of His Interest and Honour both at home and abroad A Letter agreed upon by the Mayor and Inhabitants of the Borough of Bridgwater to be sent to their Burgesses chosen on the 26th of February Sir Halswel Tynt and Sir John Malet WE greet you both with our most humble and hearty Service and by these inform you that on Saturday the 26th past with all becoming Calmness and Fairness we Elected you to be our Burgesses and Representatives in the ensuing Parliament We do also Unanimously approve of that great Care and indefatigable Industry which the last Parliament took in and toward the securing of the Protestant Religion than which nothing is more dear to us His Majesty's Sacred Person and Government together with the Vindication and Preservation of our Native Rights Liberties and Priviledges For their utmost Endeavour to bring the Betrayers of the same together with all the principal Conspirators in that most damnable and hellish Popish Plot to condign punishment not omitting our grateful Acknowledgments of those many Good Bills which they had prepared And moreover for all those worthy Votes Resolutions and orders made and past in that most Loyal and never-to-be-forgotten Parliament whereof one of you in the last and both of you in former Parliaments to our great comfort and encouragment approved your selves faithful Members We do also humbly and heartily Desire and Petition you to follow their good Precedent and Example in this ensuing Parliament to do your utmost to secure the King's Person with the Protestant Religion which we apprehend with deep sense
then first of all assure you very positively that their Highnesses have often declared as they did it more particularly to the Marquiss of Albeville His Majesties Envoy Extraordinary to the States that it is Their Opinion That no Christian ought to be persecuted for his conscience or be ill used because he differs from the publick and Established Religion And therefore They can consent that the Papists in England Scotland and Ireland be suffered to continue in their Religion with as much Liberty as is allowed them by the States in these Provinces in which it cannot be denied that they enjoy a full Liberty of conscience And as for the Dissenters Their Highnesses do not only consent but do heartily approve of their having an entire Liberty for the full exercise of their Religion without any trouble or hindrance so that none may be able to give them the least disturbance upon that account And their Highnesses are very ready in case his Majesty shall think fit to desire it to declare their willingness to concur in the setling and confirming this Liberty and as far as it lies in them they will protect and defend it and according to the Language of Treaties They will confirm it with their Guaranty of which you made mention in yours And if his Majesty shall think fit further to desire their concurrence in the repealing of the Penal Laws they are ready to give it provided always that those Laws remain still in their full vigour by which the Roman Catholicks are shut out of both Houses of Parliament and out of all publick Employments Ecclesiastical Civil and Military As likewise all those other Laws which confirm the Protestant Religion and which secures it against all the attempts of the Roman Catholicks But their Highnesses cannot agree to the repeal of the Test or of those other Penal Laws last mentioned that tend to the security of the Protestant Religion since the Roman Catholicks receive no other prejudice from these then the being excluded from Parliaments or from publick Employments And that by them the Protestant Religion is covered from all the Designs of the Roman Catholicks against it or against the publick safety and neither the Test nor these other Laws can be said to carry in them any severity against the Roman Catholicks upon account of their Consciences They are only provisions qualifying men to be Members of Parliament or to be capable of bearing Office by which they must declare before God and Men that they are for the Protestant Religion So that indeed all this amounts to no more than a securing the Protestant Religion from any prejudices that it may receive from the Roman Catholicks Their Highnesses have thought and do still think that more than this ought not to be ask'd or expected from them since by this means the Roman Catholicks and their posterity will be for ever secured from all trouble in their Persons or Estates or in the Exercise of their Religion and that the Roman Catholicks ought to be satisfied with this and not to disquiet the Kingdom because they cannot be admitted to sit in Parliament or to be in Employments or because those Laws in which the Security of the Protestant Religion does chiefly consist are not repealed by which they may be put in a condition to overturn it Their Highnesses do also believe that the Dissenters will be fully satisfied when they shall be for ever covered from all danger of being disturbed or punished for the free Exercise of their Religion upon any sort of pretence whatsoever Their Highnesses having declared themselves so positively in these matters it seems very plain to me that They are far from being any hindrance to the Freeing Dissenters from the Severity of Penal Laws since they are ready to use their utmost endeavours for the Establishing of it Nor do They at all press the denying to the Roman Catholicks the Exercise of their Religion provided it be managed modestly and without Pomp or Ostentation As for my own part I ever was and still am very much against all those who would persecute any Christian because he differs from the publick and established Religion And I hope by the Grace of God to continue still in the same mind for since that Light with which Religion illuminates our minds is according to my sense of things purely an effect of the Mercy of God to us we ought then as I think to render to God all possible Thanks for his Goodness to us and to have pity for those who are still shut up in Error even as God has pitied us and to put up most earnest prayers to God for bringing those into the way of Truth who stray from it and to use all gentle and friendly methods for reducing them to it But I confess I could never comprehend how any that profess themselves Christians and that may enjoy their Religion freely and without any disturbance can judge it lawful for them to go about to disturb the Quiet of any Kingdom or State or to overturn Constitutions that so they themselves may be admitted to Employments and that those Laws in which the Security and Quiet of the established Religion consists should be shaken It is plain that the Reformed Religion is by the Grace of God and by the Laws of the Land enacted both by King and Parliament the publick and established Religion both in England Scotland and Ireland and that it is provided by those Laws that none can be admitted either to a place in Parliament or to any publick Employment except those that do openly declare that they are of the Protestant Religion and not Roman Catholicks and it is also provided by those Laws that the Protestant Religion shall be in all time coming secured from the Designs of the Roman Catholicks against it In all which I do not see that these Laws contain any Severity either against the Persons or Estates of those who cannot take those Tests that are contrary to the Roman Catholick Religion all the inconveniences that can redound to them from thence is that their Persons their Estates and even the Exercise of their Religion being assured to them only they can have no share in the Government nor in Offices of Trust as long as their Consciences do not allow them to take these Tests and they are not suffered to do any thing that is to the prejudice of the Reformed Religion Since as I have already told you Their Highnesses are ready to concur with his Majesty for the Repeal of those Penal Laws by which Men are made liable to fines or other Punishments So I see there remains no difficulty concerning the Repealing the Penal Laws but only this that some would have the Roman Catholicks render'd capable of all publick Trusts and Employments and that by consequence all those should be repealed that have secured the Protestant Religion against the designs of the Roman Catholicks where others at the same time are not less
good a Title to be ravished from them either by Monks or Janizaries though authorised thereunto by the Princes Commission Even they who had formerly suffered themselves to be seduced to prove in a manner Betrayers of the Rights and Religion of their Country will now being undeceived not only in conjunction with others withstand the Court in its prosecution of Popish and Arbitrary Designs but through a generous exasperation for having been deluded and abused will judge themselves obliged in vindication of their Actings before to appear for the Protestant Religion and the Laws of England with a Zeal equal to that wherewith they contributed to the undermining and supplanting of them For they are not only become more sensible than they were of the Mischiefs of Absolute Government so as for the future to prize and assert the Priviledges reserved unto the people by the Rules of the Constitution and chalk'd out for them in the Laws of the Land but they have such a fresh view of Popery both in its Heresies Blasphemies Superstitions and Idolatries and in the Treachery Sanguinariness Violence and Cruelty which the Papal Principles mould influence and oblige Men unto that they not only entertain the greatest abhorrency and detestation imaginable for it but seem resolved not to cherish in their Bosom a Thing so abominable to God execrable to good Men and destructive to Humane as well as to Christian Societies Nor are the Dissenters meerly to believe that the Conformists are equally zealous as themselves for the Reformed Religion and English Rights but they are to consider them as the only great and united Body of Protestants in the Kingdom with whom all other parties compared bear no considerable proportion For though the Nonconformists considered abstractly make a vast number of honest and useful people yet being laid in the Scale with those of the Episcopal Communion they are but few and lye in a little room And whosoever will take the pains to ballance the one against the other even where Dissenters make the greatest Figure and may justly boast of their Multitude they will soon be convinced that the number of the other doth far transcend and exceed them And if it be so in Cities and Corporations where the greatest Bulk of Dissenters are it is much more so in Country Parishes where the latter bear not the proportion of one to a hundred Nor doth the Church of England more exceed the other parties in her number than she doth in the quality of her Members For whereas they who make up and constitute the separate Societies are chiefly persons of the middle Rank and Condition the Church of England doth in a manner vouch and claim all the Persons of Honour of the Learned professions and such as have valuable Estates for her Communicants And though the other sort are as necessary in the Common-wealth and contribute as much to its Strength Prosperity and Happiness yet they make not that Figure in the Government nor stand in that Capacity of having influence upon Publick Affairs For not only the Gentlemen of both the Gowns who by reason of their Calling and Learning are best able to defend our Religion and vindicate our Laws and Priviledges with their Tongues and Pens but they whose Estates Reputation and Interest recommendeth them to be elected Members of the great Senate of the Nation as well as they who by reason of their Honours and Baronages are Hereditary Legislators are generally if not all of the Communion of the Church of England So that they who conform to the established Worship and Discipline are to be look'd upon and acknowledged as the great Bulwark of the Protestant Religion in England and the Hedge and Fence of our Civil Liberties and Rights And though it be true that this great Breach made upon our Religion and Laws is fallen out under their hand while the poor Dissenters had neither accession to nor were in a condition to prevent it yet seeing their own Consciences do sufficiently load and charge them for it with Shame and Ignominy it were neither candid nor at this Juncture seasonable to upbraid it to them or improve it to their Dishonour and Reproach For as they have tamely look'd on and connived till our Religion and Liberties are so far undermined and supplanted so it is they alone who have been in a condition of stemming the Inundation of Idolatry and Tyranny with which we were threatned and of repairing our Breaches and reducing the Prerogative to its old Channel and making Popery sneak and retreat into its holes and corners again And should the Church of England have been overthrown and devoured what an easie Prey would the rest have been to the Romish Cormorants And could the King under the Conduct of the Jesuits and with the assistance of his Myrmidons have dissolved the established Worship and Discipline they of the Separation would have been in no capacity to support the Reformed Religion nor able to escape the common Ruine and Persecution 'T is therefore the Interest as well as the Duty of the Dissenters to help maintain and defend those Walls within the skreen and shelter whereof their own Huts and Cottages are built and stand And the rather seeing the Conformists are at last though to their own Religion's and the Nations Expence become so far enlightned as to see a necessity of growing more amicable towards them and to enlarge the Terms of their Communion grant an Indulgence to all Protestants that differ from them And as we ought to admire the Wisdom of God in those Providences by which Protestants are taught to lay aside their Animosities and let fall their Persecutions of one another so it would be a Contradiction both to the principles and repeated Protestations of Dissenters to aim at more than such a Liberty as is consistent with a National Ecclesiastick Establishment Yea it were to proclaim themselves both Villains and Hypocrites not to allow their Fellow-Protestants the Exercise of their Judgments with what further Profits and Emoluments the Law will grant them provided themselves may be discharged from all obnoxiousness to Penalties and Censures upon the account of their Consciences and be admitted a free and publick Practice of their own respective Modes of Discipline and be suffered to worship God in those ways which they think he hath required and enjoyned them And were England immediately to be rendred so happy as to have a Protestant Prince or Princess as we are not now quite out of hopes ascend the Throne and to enjoy a Parliament duly chosen and acting with freedom no one party of the Reformed Religion among us must ever expect to be established and supported to the denial of Liberty to others much less to be by Law empowered to ruine and destroy them Should it please Almighty God to bring the Princess of Orange to the Crown though the Church of England may in that case justly expect the being preserved and upheld as the National
Honor and Happiness of those Nations may be established upon Lasting Foundations Given under our Hand and Seal at our Court at the Hague the Tenth day of October in the Year 1688. William Henry Prince of Orange By His Highness's Special Command C. HUYGENS. His Highness's Additional Declaration AFter we had prepared and printed this our Declaration we have understood that the Subverters of the Religion and Laws of those Kingdoms hearing of our Preparations to assist the People against them have begun to retract some of the Arbitrary and Despotick Powers that they had assumed and to vacate some of their Injust Judgments and Decrees The Sense of their Guilt and the distrust of their Force have induced them to offer to the City of London some seeming Relief from their Great Oppressions hoping thereby to quiet the People and to divert them from demanding a Secure Re-establishment of their Religion and Laws under the shelter of our Arms. They do also give out that we intend to Conquer and Enslave the Nation And therefore it is that we have thought fit to add a few words to our Declaration We are Confident that no Persons can have such hard thought of us as to imagine that we have any other Design in this Undertaking than to procure a Settlement of the Religion and of the Liberties and Properties of the Subjects upon so sure a Foundation that there may be no danger of the Nations relapsing into the like Miseries at any time hereafter And as the Forces that we have brought along with us are utterly disproportioned to that wicked Design of Conquering the Nation if we were capable of intending it so the Great Numbers of the Principal Nobility and Gentry that are Men of Eminent Quality and Estates and Persons of known Integrity and Zeal both for the Religion and Government of England many of them being also distinguished by their constant Fidelity to the Crown who do both accompany us in this Expedition and have earnestly solicited us to it will cover us from all such Malicious Insinuations For it is not to be imagined that either those who have invited us or those that are already come to assist us can joyn in a wicked Attempt of Conquest to make void their own lawful Titles to their Honors Estates and Interests We are also confident that all Men see how little weight there is to be laid on all Promises and Engagements that can be now made since there has been so little regard had in time past to the most solemn Promises And as that imperfect Redress that is now offered is a plain Confession of those Violations of the Government that we have set forth so the Defectiveness of it is no less Apparent for they lay down nothing which they may not take up at Pleasure and they reserve entire and not so much as mentioned their Claims and Pretences to an Arbitrary and Despotick Power which has been the Root of all their Oppression and of the total Subversion of the Government And it is plain that there can be no Redress nor Remedy offered but in Parliament by a Declaration of the Rights of the Subjects that have been invaded and not by any Pretended Acts of Grace to which the Extremity of their Affairs has driven them Therefore it is that we have thought fit to declare That we will refer all to a Free Assembly of the Nation in a Lawful Parliament Given under our Hand and Seal at our Court in the Hague the 24th day of October in the Year of our Lord 1688. William Henry Prince of Orange By His Highness's Special Command G. HUYGENS. By his Highness William Henry Prince of Orange A Declaration Printed in the Year 1688. WE have in the course of our whole Life and more particularly by the apparent Hazards both by Sea and Land to which we have so lately exposed our Person given to the whole World so high and undoubted Proofs of our fervent Zeal for the Protestant Religion that we are fully confident no true English-man and good Protestant can entertain the least Suspicion of our firm Resolution rather to spend our dearest Blood and perish in the Attempt than not carry on the Blessed and Glorious Design which by the Favour of Heaven we have so successfully begun to Rescue England Scotland and Ireland from Slavery and Popery and in a Free Parliament to Establish the Religion the Laws and the Liberties of those Kingdoms upon such a sure and lasting Foundation that it shall not be in the Power of any Prince for the future to introduce Popery and Tyranny Towards the more easy Compassing this great Design we have not been hitherto deceived in the just Expectation we had of the Concurrence of the Nobility Gentry and People of England with Us for the Security of their Religion the Restitution of the Laws and the Re-establishment of their Liberties and Properties Great Numbers of all Ranks and Qualities having joyned themselves to us and others at great Distances from Us have taken up Arms and Declared for Us. And which we cannot but particularly mention in that Army which was Raised to be the Instrument of Slavery and Popery may by the special Providence of God both Officers and common Souldiers have been touched with such a feeling sense of Religion and Honour and of true Affection for their Native Country that they have already deserted the Illegal Service they were ingaged in and have come over to Us and have given us full Assurance from the rest of the Army That they will certainly follow this Example as soon as with our Army we shall approach near enough to receive them without the Hazard of being prevented and betray'd To which end and that we may the sooner execute this just and necessary Design we are ingaged in for the publick Safety and Deliverance of these Nations We are resolved with all possible Diligence to advance forward that a Free Parliament may be forthwith called and such Preliminaries adjusted with the King and all things first settled upon such a foot according to Law as may give Us and the whole Nation just Reason to believe the King is disposed to make such necessary Condescensions on his part as will give intire Satisfaction and Security to all and make both King and People once more happy And that we may effect all this in the way most agreeable to our Desires if it be possible without the Effusion of any Blood except of those execrable Criminals who have justly forfeited their Lives for betraying the Religion and Subverting the Laws of their Native Country We do think fit to declare That as we will offer no Violence to any but in our own necessary Defence so we will not suffer any Injury to be done to the Person even of a Papist provided he be found in such Place and in such Condition and Circumstances as the Laws require So we are resolved and do declare that all Papists who shall be found
our just and due Acknowledgments for the happy Relief You have brought to us and that we may not be wanting in this present Conjuncture we have put our selves into such a Posture that by the Blessing of God we may be capable to prevent all ill Designs and to preserve this City in Peace and Safety till your Highness's Happy Arrival We therefore humbly desire that your Highness will please to repair to this City with what convenient speed you can for the perfecting the great Work which Your Highness has so happily begun to the general Joy and Satisfaction of us all December the 17th 1688. THE said Committee this day made Report to the Lieutenancy that they had presented the said Address to the Prince of Orange and that His Highness received them very kindly December the 17th 1688. By the Lieutenancy Ordered That the said Order and Address be forwith Printed Geo. Evans To his Highness the Prince of Orange The Humble Address of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common Council assembled May it please Your Highness WE taking into Consideration your Highness's fervent Zeal for the Protestant Religion manifested to the World in your many and hazardous Enterprizes which it hath pleased Almighty God to bless You with miraculous Success We render our deepest Thanks to the Divine Majesty for the same And beg leave to present our most humble Thanks to your Highness particularly for your appearing in Arms in this Kingdom to carry on and perfect your glorious Design to rescue England Scotland and Ireland from Slavery and Popery and in a Free Parliament to establish the Religion the Laws and the Liberties of these Kingdoms upon a sure and lasting Foundation We have hitherto look'd for some Remedy for these Oppressions and Imminent Dangers We together with our Protestant Fellow-Subjects laboured under from His Majesty's Concessions and Concurrences with Your Highness's Just and Pious purposes expressed in Your gracious Declaration But herein finding Our Selves finally disappointed by his Majesty's withdrawing Himself We presume to make Your Highness Our Refuge And do in the Name of this Capital CITY implore Your Highness's Protection and most humbly beseech Your Highness to vouchsafe to repair to this CITY where Your Highness will be received with Universal Joy and Satisfaction The Speech of Sir George Treby Kt. Recorder of the Honourable City of London to his Highness the Prince of Orange Dec. 20. 1688. May it please your Highness THE Lord Mayor being disabled by Sickness your Highness is attended by the Aldermen and Commons of the Capital City of this Kingdom deputed to Congratulate your Highness upon this great and glorious Occasion In which labouring for Words we cannot but come short in Expression Reviewing our late Danger we remember our Church and State over-run by Popery and Arbitrary Power and brought to the Point of Destruction by the Conduct of Men that were our true Invaders that brake the Sacred Fences of our Laws and which was worst the very Constitution of our Legislature So that there was no Remedy left but the Last The only Person under Heaven that could apply this Remedy was Your Highness You are of a Nation whose Alliances in all Times has been agreeable and prosperous to us You are of a Family most Illustrious Benefactors to Mankind To have the Title of Soveraign Prince Stadtholder and to have worn the Imperial Crown are among their lesser Dignities They have long enjoyed a Dignity singular and transcendent viz. To be Champions of Almighty God sent forth in several Ages to vindicate his Cause against the greatest Oppressions To this Divine Commission our Nobles our Gentry and among them our brave English Soldiers rendred themselves and their Arms upon your appearing GREAT SIR When we look back to the last Month and contemplate the Swiftness and Fulness of our present Deliverance astonish'd we think it miraculous Your Highness led by the Hand of Heaven and called by the Voice of the People has preserved our dearest Interests The Protestant Religion which is Primitive Christianity restor'd Our Laws which are our ancient Title to our Lives Liberties and Estates and without which this World were a Wilderness But what Retribution can We make to your Highness Our Thoughts are full-charged with Gratitude Your Highness has a lasting Monument in the Hearts in the Prayers in the Praises of all good Men among us And late Posterity will celebrate your ever-glorious Name till Time shall be no more Chapman Mayor Cur ' special ' tent ' die Jovis xx die Decemb ' 1688. Annoque RR. Jacobi Secundi Angl ' c. quarto THIS Court doth desire Mr. Recorder to print his Speech this day made to the Prince of Orange at the time of this Court 's attending his Highness with the Deputies of the several Wards and other Members of the Common Council Wagstaffe His Highness the Prince of Orange's Speech to the Scots Lords and Gentlemen With their Advice and his Highness's Answer With a true Account of what past at their Meeting in the Council-Chamber at Whitehall January 7th 168â His Highness the Prince of Orange having caused Advertise such of the Scots Lords and Gentlemen as were in Town met them in a Room at St. James's upon Monday the Seventh of January at Three of the Clock in the Afternoon and had this Speech to them My Lords and Gentlemen THE only Reason that induced me to undergo so great an Vndertaking was That I saw the Laws and Liberties of these Kingdoms overturned and the Protestant Religion in Imminent Danger And seeing you are here so many Noblemen and Gentlemen I have called you together that I may have your Advice what is to be done for Securing the Protestant Religion and Restoring your Laws and Liberties according to my Declaration As soon as his Highness had retired the Lords and Gentlemen went to the Council-Chamber at Whitehall and having chosen the Duke of Hamilton their President they fell a consulting what Advice was fit to be given to his Highness in this Conjuncture And after some hours Reasoning they agreed upon the Materials of it and appointed the Clerks with such as were to assist them to draw up in Writing what the Meeting thought expedient to advise his Highness and to bring it in to the Meeting the next in the Afternoon Tuesday the Eighth Instant the Writing was presented in the Meeting And some time being spent in Reasoning about the fittest way of Coveening a General Meeting of the Estates of Scotland At last the Meeting came to agree in their Opinion and appointed the Advice to be writ clean over according to the Amendments But as they were about to part for that Dyet the Earl of Arran proposed to them as his Lordship's Advice that they should move the Prince of Orange to desire the King to return and call a Free Parliament which would be the best way to secure the Protestant Religion and Property and to
So that Conquest may make Way for a Government but it cannot constitute it Secondly There is a Supreme Power in every Community essential to it and inseparable from it by which if it be not limited immediately by God it can form it self into any kind of Government And in some extraordinary Occasions when the Safety and Peace of the Publick necessarily require it can supply the Defects reform the Abuses and re-establish the true Fundamentals of the Government by Purging Refining and bringing Things back to their first Original Which Power may be called The Supreme Power Real Thirdly When the Community has made choice of some Form of Government and subjected themselves to it having invested some Person or Persons with the Supreme Power The Power in those Persons may be called The Supream Power Personal Fourthly If this Form be a mix'd Government of Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and for the easie Execution of the Laws the Executive Power be lodg'd in a single Person He has a Supream Power Personal quoad hoc Fifthly The Supreme Power Personal of England is in Kings Lords and Commons and so it was in Effect agreed to by King Charles the First in his Answer to the nineteen Popositions and resolved by the Convention of the Lords and Commons in the year 1660. And note That the Acts of that Convention tho' never confirmed by Parliament have been taken for Law and particularly by the Lord Chief Justice Hales Sixthly The Supreme Power Personal of England fails three Ways 1. 'T is dissolved For two Essential Parts fail 1. a King 2. a House of Commons which cannot be called according to Constitution the King being gone and the Freedom of Election being destroyed by the Kings Incroachments 2. The King has forfeited his Power several Ways Subjection to the Bishop of Rome is the Subjection against which our Laws cry loudest And even Barclay that Monarchical Politician acknowledges That if a King alienate his Kingdom or subject it to another he forfeits it And Grotius asserts That if a King really attempt to deliver up or subject his Kingdom he may be therein resisted And that if the King have part of the Supreme Power and the People or Senate the other part the King invading that part which is not his a just Force may be opposed and he may lose his Part of the Empire Grotius de Bello c. Cap. 72. But that the King has subjected the Kingdom to the Pope needs no Proof That he has usurp'd an absolute Power superieur to all Laws made the Peoples Share in the Legislative Power impertinent and useless and thereby invaded their just Rights none can deny 'T were in vain to multiply Instances of his Forfeitures And if we consider the Power exercis'd by him of late it will most evidently appear to all who understand the English Constitution that it admits of no such King nor any such Power 3. The King has deserted 1. By incapacitating himself by a Religion inconsistent with the Fundamentals of our Government 2. By forsaking the Power the Constitution allow'd him and usurping a Foreign one So that tho the Person remained the King was gone long ago 3. By Personal Withdrawing Seventhly The Supreme Power Real remains in the Community and they may act by their Original Power And tho every Particular Person is notwithstanding such Dissolution Forfeiture or Desertion subject to the Laws which were made by the Supreme Power Personal when in Being yet the Communities Power is not bound by them but is paramount all Laws made by the Supreme Power Personal And has a full Right to take such Measures for Settling the Government as they shall think most sure and effectual for the lasting Security and Peace of the Nation For we must note that it was the Community of England which first gave Being to both King and Parliament and to all the other Parts of our Constitution Eighthly The most Renowned Politician observes That those Kingdoms and Republicks subsist longest that are often renewed or brought back to their first Beginnings which is an Observation of Self-evident Truth and implies That the Supreme Power Real has a Right to renew or bring back And the most-ingenious Lawson observes in his Politica That the Community of England in the late Times had the greatest Advantage that they or their Ancestors had had for many Ages for this purpose tho God hid it from their Eyes But the wonderful Concurrence of such a series of Providences as we now see and admire gives ground to hope That the Veil is removed and the Nation will now see the Things that concern their Peace Ninthly The Acts done and executed by the Supreme Power Personal when in Being have so modell'd the Parts and Persons of the Community that the Original Constitution is the best justest and the most desirable The Royal Family affords a Person that both Heaven and Earth point out for King There are Lords whose Nobility is not affected by the Dissolution of the Government and are the subject Matter of a House of Lords And there are Places which by Custom or Charter have Right to choose Representatives of the Commons Tenthly There are inextricable Difficulties in all other Methods For 1. There is no Demise of the King neither Civil nor Natural 2. There is consequently no Descent 3. The Community only has a Right to take Advantage of the King's Forfeiture or Desertion 4. Whatever other Power may be imagin'd in the two Houses as Houses of Parliament it cannot justify it self to the Reason of any who understand the Bottom of our Constitution 5. By this Method all Popish Successors may be excluded and the Government secured in case all the Protestants of the Family die without Issue And this by the very Constitution of England And the Question can never arise about the Force or the Lawfulness of a Bill of Exclusion 6. The Convention will not be oblig'd to take Oaths c. Eleventhly If these things be granted and the Community be at Liberty to act as above it will certainly be most advisable not only for the Security and Welfare of the Nation but if rightly understood for the Interest of their Royal Highnesses to limit the Crown as follows To the Prince of Orange during his Life yet with all possible Honour and Respect to the Princess whose Interests and Inclinations are inseparably the same with his Remainder to the Princess of Orange and the Heirs of her Body Remainder to the Princess of Denmark and the Heirs of her Body Remainder to the Heirs of the Body of the Prince of Orange Remainder as an Act of Parliament shall appoint This will have these Conveniences among others 1. Husband and Wife are but one Person in Law and her Husbands Honour is hers 2. It puts the present Kingly Power into the best Hand in the World which without Flattery is agreed on by all Men. 3. It asserts the above said Power in the
Community 4. It will be some Acknowledgment to the Prince for what he has done for the Nation And it is worthy Observation that before the Theocracy of the Jews ceased the manner of the Divine Designation of their Judges was by God's giving the People some Deliverance by the hand of the Person to whose Government they ought to submit and this even in that time of extraordinary Revelations Thus Othniel Gideon Jephthah Sampson and others were invested by Heaven with the Supreme Authority And though Joshua had an immediate Command from God to succeed Moses and an Anointing to that purpose by the laying on of Moses's Hands Yet the Foundation of the People's Submission to him was laid in Jordan And I challenge the best Historians to give an Instance since that Theocracy ceased of a Designation of any Person to any Government more visibly Divine than that which we now admire If the Hand of Providence miraculously and timely disposing Natural Things in every Circumstance to the best advantage should have any influence upon Mens Minds most certainly we ought not here to be insensible If the Voice of the People be the Voice of God it never spoke louder If a Nation of various Opinions Interests and Factions from a turbulent and fluctuating State falls into a serene and quiet Calm and Mens Minds are strangely united on a sudden it shews from whence they are influenced In a word if the Hand of God is to be seen in Human Affairs and his Voice to be heard upon Earth we cannot any where since the ceasing of Miracles find a clearer and more remarkable Instance than is to be observ'd in the present Revolution If one examines the Posture of Foreign Affairs making way for the Prince's Expedition by some sudden Events and Occurrences which no Human Wisdom or Power could have brought about if one observes that Divine Influence which has directed all his Counsels and crown'd his Undertakings notwithstanding such innumerable Dangers and Difficulties with constant Honour and Success If one considers how happily and wonderfully both Persons and Things are changed in a little time and without Blood it looks like so many marks of God's Favour by which he thinks fit to point him out to us in this extraordinary Conjuncture I will trouble you but with one Consideration more which is That the two things most necessary in this Affair are Unanimity and Dispatch For without both these your Counsels will have little Effect In most things 't is good to be long in resolving but in some 't is fatal not to conclude immediately And presence of Mind is as great a Vertue as Rashness is a Vice For the turns of Fortune are sometimes so quick that if Advantage be not taken in the critical hour 't is for ever lost But I hope your Lordships and all those Gentlemen who compose this August Assembly will proceed with so much Zeal and Harmony that the Result of your present Consultations may be a lasting and grateful Monument to Posterity of your Integrity Courage and Conduct The Late Honourable Convention proved a Legal Parliament I. THE necessity of a Parliament agreed by the Lords and Commons Voting that the Throne is Vacant for there being a Vacancy there follows an immediate necessity of setling the Government especially the Writs being destroyed and the Great Seal carried away put a period to all publick Justice and then there must be a supply by such means as the necessity requires or a failure of Government II. Consider the Antecedents to the calling the Convention that is about three hundred of the Commons which is a majority of the fullest House that can be made above sixty Lords being a greater number than any part divided amounted to at this great Meeting the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Common Council of the City of London by application to His then Highness the Prince of Orange desired him to accept of the Administration of Publick Affairs Military and Civil which he was pleased to do to the great satisfaction of all good People and after that His Highness was desired to Issue forth his Circular Letters to the Lords and the like to the Coroners and in their absence to the Clerks of the Peace to Elect Knights Citizens and Burgesses this was more than was done in fifty nine for the calling a Parliament in April 1660. for there the Summons was not real but fictitious i. e. in the names of the Keepers of the Liberties of England a meer Notion set up as a Form there being no such Persons but a meer Ens rationis impossible really to exist so that here was much more done than in 1659 and all really done which was possible to be invented as the Affairs then stood Besides King Charles the 2d. had not abdicated the Kingdom but was willing to return and was at Breda whither they might have sent for Writs and in the mean time have kept their form of Keepers of the Liberties c. But in the present case there was no King in being nor any style or form of Government neither real or notional left so that in all these respects more was done before and at the calling of this Great Convention than for calling that Parliament for so I must call it yet that Parliament made several Acts in all thirty seven as appears by Keebles Statutes and several of them not confirmed I shall instance but in one but it is one which there was occasion to use in every County of England I mean the Act for Confirming and Restoring Ministers being the 17th of that Sessions all the Judges allowed of this as an Act of Parliament tho never confirmed which is a stronger case than that in question for there was only fictitious Summons here a real one III. That without the Consent of any Body of the People this at the Request of a Majority of the Lords more than half the number of the Commons duly chosen in King Ch. the 2d. time besides the great Body of the City of London being at least esteem'd a 5th part of the Kingdom yet after the King's Return he was so well satisfied with the calling of that Parliament that it was Enacted by the King Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament that the Lords and Commons then Sitting at Westmiuster in the present Parliament were the two Houses of Parliament notwithstanding any want of the Kings Writs or Writ of Summons or any defect whatsoever and as if the King had been present at the beginning of the Parliament this I take to be a full Judgment in full Parliament of the case in question and much stronger than the present case is and this Parliament continued till the 29th of December next following and made in all thirty seven Acts as abovementioned The 13 Caroli 2. chap. 7. a full Parliament called by the Kings Writ recites the other of 12 Caroli 2. and that after his Majesties return they were continued till the 29th of December
to publish all his Arbitrary Declarations and in particular one that strikes at their whole Settlement and has ordered Process to be begun against all that disobey'd this illegal Warrant and has treated so great a number of the Bishops as Criminals only for representing to him the Reasons of their not obeying him if likewise the King is not satisfied to profess his own Religion openly though even that is contrary to Law but has sent Ambassadors to Rome and received Nuntio 's from thence which is plainly Treason by Law if likewise many Popish Churches and Chappels have been publickly opened if several Colledges of Jesuits have been set up in divers parts of the Nation and one of the Order has been made a Privy Counsellor and a principal Minister of State and if Papists and even those who turn to that Religion though declared Traitors by Law are brought into all the chief Employments both Military and Civil then it is plain That all the Rights of the Church of England and the whole establishment of the Protestant Religion are struck at and designed to be overturned since all these things as they are notoriously illegal so they evidently demonstrate That the great design of them all is the rooting out of this Pestilent Heresy in their stile I mean the Protestant Religion In the next place If in the whole Course of Justice it is visible that there is a constant practising upon the Judges that they are turned out upon their varying from the Intentions of the Court and if Men of no Reputation nor Abilities are put in their places if an Army is kept up in time of Peace and Men who withdraw from that illegal Service are hanged up as Criminals without any colour of Law which by consequence are so many Murders and if the Souldiery are connived at and encouraged in the most enormous Crimes that so they may be thereby prepared to commit greater ones and from single Rapes and Murders proceed to a rape upon all our Liberties and a destruction of the Nation if I say all these things are true in fact then it is plain that there is such a dissolution of the Government made that there is not any one part of it left found and entire and if all these things are done now it is easy to imagine what may be expected when Arbitrary Power that spares no Man and Popery that spares no Heretick are finally established Then we may look for nothing but Gabelles Tailles Impositions Benevolences and all sorts of illegal Taxes as from the other we may expect Burnings Massacres and Inquisitions In what is doing in Scotland we may gather what is to be expected in England where if the King has over and over again declared that he is vested with an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and has upon that annulled almost all the Acts of Parliament that passed in K. James the Ist's Minority though they were ratified by himself when he came to be of age and were confirmed by all the subsequent Kings not excepting the present We must then conclude from thence what is resolved on here in England and what will be put in execution as soon as it is thought that the Times can bear it When likewise the whole Settlement of Ireland is shaken and the Army that was raised and is maintained by Taxes that were given for an Army of English Protestants to secure them from a new Massacre by the Irish Papists is now all filled with Irish Papists as well as almost all the other Imployments it is plain That not only all the British Protestants inhabiting that Island are in daily danger of being butchered a second time but that the Crown of England is in danger of losing that Island it being now put wholly into the hands and power of the Native Irish who as they formerly offered themselves up sometimes to the Crown of Spain sometimes to the Pope and once to the Duke of Lorrain so are they perhaps at this present treating with another Court for the sale and surrender of the Island and for the Massacre of the English in it If thus all the several Branches of our Constitution are dissolved it might be at least expected that one part should be left entire and that is the Regal Dignity and yet even that is prostituted when we see a young Child put in the reversion of it and pretended to be the Prince of Wales concerning whose being born of the Queen there appear to be not only no certain Proofs but there are all the Presumptions that can possibly be imagined to the contrary No Proofs were ever given either to the Princess of Denmark or to any other Protestant Ladies in whom we ought to repose any Confidence that the Queen was ever with Child that whole matter being managed with so much Mysteriousness that there were violent and publick Suspitions of it before the Birth But the whole Contrivance of the Birth the sending away the Princess of Denmark the sudden shortning of the Reckoning the Queen 's sudden going to St. James's her no less sudden pretended Delivery the hurrying the Child into another Room without shewing it to those present and without their hearing it cry and the mysterious Conduct of all since that time no satisfaction being given to the Princess of Denmark upon her Return from the Bath nor to any other Protestant Ladies of the Queen's having been really brought to bed These are all such evident Indications of a base Imposture in this matter that as the Nation has the justest reason in the World to doubt of it so they have all possible reason to be at no quiet till they see a Legal and Free Parliament assembled which may impartially and without either Fear or Corruption examine that whole matter If all these Matters are true in fact then I suppose no Man will doubt that the whole Foundations of this Government and all the most sacred Parts of it are overturned And as to the truth of all these Suppositions that is left to every Englishman's Judgment and Sense The Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy no Badges of Slavery THE Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the Crown of England having been invaded and broke in upon by the Power of the Court of Rome in K. Henry the Eighth 's time all Foreign Power was abolished and the Antient Legal Supremacy restor'd and by many additional Acts corroborated But all that was done of that kind in K. Henry the Eighth 's time was undone again in Queen Mary's and therefore in the first Year of Queen Elizabeth's Reign an Act of Parliament was made Intituled All Antient Jurisdiction restored to the Crown A Repeal of divers Statutes and Reviver of others and all foreign Power Abolished Which Act recites that whereas in the Reign of R. H. 8. divers good Laws were made and established as well for the utter extinguishment and putting away of all Vsurped and Foreign Powers and
Authorities out of this Realm as also for restoring and uniting to the Imperial Crown of this Realm the antient Jurisdictions Authorities Superiorities and Preheminences to the same of Right belonging and appertaining by reason whereof the Subjects of this Realm were kept in good order and disburthened of divers great and intolerable Charges and Exactions until such time as all the said good Laws and Statutes by one Act of Parliament made in the first and second Years of the Reigns of King Philip and Queen Mary were clearly repealed and made void by reason of which Act of Repeal the Subjects of England were eftsoons brought under an usurped Foreign Power and Authority and yet remained in that Bondage to their intolerable Charges and then Enacts that for the repressing of the said usurped Foreign Power and the restoring of the Rights Jurisdictions and Preheminences appertaining to the Imperial Crown of this Realm The said Act made in the first and second Years of the said late King Philip and Queen Mary except as therein is excepted be repealed void and of none effect The said Act of Primo Elizabethae proceeds First to revive by express words many Statutes that had been made in King Henry the Eighth's time and repealed in Queen Mary's and Secondly to abolish all Foreign Authority in these words viz. And to the intent that all Vsurped and Foreign Power and Authority Spiritual and Temporal may for ever be clearly extinguished and never to be used or obeyed within this Realm c. May it please your Highness that it may be Enacted That no Foreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate Spiritual or Temporal shall at any time after the last day of this Session of Parliament use enjoy or exercise any manner of Power Jurisdiction Superiority Authority Preheminence or Priviledg Spiritual or Ecclesiastical within this Realm c. but the same shall be clearly abolished out of this Realm c. Any Statute Custom c. to the contrary notwithstanding Thirdly The said Act restores in the next Paragraph to the Imperial Crown of this Realm such Jurisdictions Priviledges Superiorities c. Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power or Authority had heretofore been or might lawfully be exercised or used c. Fourthly the Act impowers the Queen to assign Commissioners to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction And Fifthly For the better observation and maintenance of this Act imposes upon Ecclesiastical and Temporal Officers and Ministers c. the Oath commonly call'd the Oath of Supremacy which runs thus viz. The Oath of SUPREMACY I A. B. do utterly testify and declare in my Conscience that the Queen's Highness is the only Supream Governour of this Realm and of all other her Highness's Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things and Causes as Temporal and that no Foreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Foreign Jurisdictions Powers Superiorities and Authorities and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the Queen's Highness her Heirs and lawful Successors and to my Power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminencies and Authorities granted or belonging to the Queen's Highness her Heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm So help me God and by the Contents of this Book It cannot but be obvious to every impartial Peruser of the Statute especially if he have the least knowledg of what Condition the Government of this Nation was reduced to by Papal Encroachments and Usurpations That the Makers of this Law and the Sense of this Oath was no other in general than that the People of this Realm should bear Faith and true Allegiance even in Matters relating to Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to the Queen's Highness her Heirs and lawful Successors and not to the Pope or any foreign pretended Jurisdiction What the several Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the Queen her Heirs and Successors are in particular and what the Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authorities United and Annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm are in particular is not material here to be discoursed of though the several Statutes made in King Henry the Eighth's time and King Edward the Sixth's and revived in Queen Elizabeth's will unfold many of them and clear the distinction which the OATH makes betwixt Authorities granted or belonging to the King and Authorities united and annexed to the Imperial Crown and Mr. Prynn's History of the Pope's intolerable Usurpations upon the Liberties of the Kings and Subjects of England and Ireland together with Sir Roger Twisden's Historical Vindication of the Church of England in point of Schism will in a great measure acquaint the Curious how matters stood with us here with respect to Church-Government before the Pope had wrested the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction almost wholly out of the hands of our Kings our Parliaments and Courts of Justice In short those Jurisdictions c. are such as the Antient Laws Customs and Usages of the Realm or latter Acts of Parliament have Created Given Limited and Directed The Makers of this Law did not design to impose upon the People of England any new Terms of Allegiance but to secure the old ones exclusive of any Pretences of the Pope or See of Rome Nor are there any words in this Oath more strong more binding to Duty and Allegiance than are words which the old Oath of Fealty is conceived in which all Men were antiently obliged and may yet be required to take to the King in the Court-Leet at twelve years of Age which runs thus viz. You shall swear that from this day forward you shall be true and faithful to our Soveraign Lord King James and his Heirs And Faith and Truth shall bear of Life and Limb and terrene Honour And you shall not know nor hear of any ill or damage intended to him that you shall not defend So help you Almighty God This is as full and comprehensive as the Oath of Supremacy I do promise that I shall bear faith and true Allegiance to the Queen's Highness her Heirs and lawful Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions c. So that the true sense and meaning of the Oath of Supremacy is this viz. I will be true and faithful to our Soveraign Lord the King his Heirs and lawful Successors and will to my Power assist and defend all his Rights notwithstanding any pretence made by the Pope or any other Foreign Power to exercise Jurisdiction within the Realm all which Foreign Power I utterly renounce in Matters Ecclesiastical as well as Temporal The Oath of Allegiance is appointed by the Act of 3 Jac. 1. Chap. 4. Intituled An Act for discovering and repressing of Popish Recusants It
for it being terrified by the greatness of the danger would have compounded so far as to have taken away the Penal Laws against Papists and so have set them upon a Level with other English Subjects provided the Test might have been continued and the Government secured from falling into the hands of that Faction all such offers were despised and rejected with scorn Nor would any thing content the Bigotry and Arbitrary humour of those who were then in the Saddle less than the total enslaving of the Nation and the Re-establishment of that Idolatrous Religion from which our Ancestors had freed themselves with so much Bravery and Generosity in the beginning of the last Century In this deplorable Condition His then Highness the Prince of Orange found these Kingdoms when he came to relieve us from the greatest Oppressions He heard the Voice of the People that earnestly invited him over to their Rescue and taking it as undoubtedly it was for the Voice of God complied and God hath made us All happy with the desired success Had the late King James stuck firmly to the Interests of his People He would thereby have easily secured his own and if they could have found He had had what he assured both Houses of Parliament King's Speech to both Houses of Parliament May 30. 1685. in a Speech he made to them A true English heart as Jealous of the Honour of the Nation as they themselves could be he might have carried by God's Blessing and their Assistance as he then said the Reputation of it yet higher in the World than ever it had been in the time of any of his Ancestors He wanted not some about him at the first especially that would gladly have given him faithful Counsel Those that were able to advise him well and were real Friends to Him as they were true to their Religion and to the Interest of their Countrey and A Wise Man says my incomparable Author Memoirs of Philip de Comines lib. 3. c. 5. p. 159. in a Prince's Retinue is a great Treasure and Security to his Master if one has the Liberty to speak truth and the other the Discretion to believe him But unhappy Prince He was resolvedly bent by the force of his own Superstition the Power and Influence of the Priests and Jesuits that continually attended on him and the Directions from France upon the total Destruction of our Reformed Religion that Pestilent Northern Heresy our Liberties and our Properties and was upon the point of effecting that Tremendous Design but God in his Wise Providence with Infinite Mercy and Compassion to this almost Ruined Land and People saw it meet to give check to that Imperial Carreer with a hitherto shalt thou come and no further HE REMOVETH KINGS AND SETTETH UP KINGS In this Volume you have a full Account of our late happy Revolution with almost all the steps and measures that were taken in it and a justification of our present Settlement 'T was God's doing and it ought ever to be marvellous in our eyes We have now a King and Queen professing the same Faith with our selves who as He came over to preserve our Dearest Interests the Protestant Religion and to restore to Vs our invaded Laws and Liberties found the Nation generally disposed to receive him as the Mighty Deliverer under God of this Church and State The hand of Heaven conducted him with safety up to London and all the Kingdom called him Blessed and in a sence of Joy and Gratitude to Him and His Royal Consort The whole Body of the Nation by their Representatives in Parliament have recognized and acknowledged Their present Majesties to be their Lawful and Rightful Sovereign Liege Lord and Lady And how could we do less than own them for our King and Queen who by such an amazing turn have redeemed from Slavery both our Souls and Bodies if we pretend to any value for our Holy Religion or any English Love of Liberty We have a King of an Extraordinary Personal Valour and Conduct that hath very often already ventured his Life and still resolves to despise all difficulties and hazards himself that His People may reap the fruit of them in their own Peace and Prosperity and that the Protestant Religion may be established to us and our Children to future Generations The Queen is as Supream in Her Vertue as in Her Dignity and hath shewed a most Eminent Resolution as well as a most Prudent Care in all the Administrations of the Government when the Absence of the King hath obliged Her to take the Exercise of the Regal Power upon Her So that the Nation may now hope to enjoy a lasting Felicity from the Royal Protection of both Their Majesties whose constant endeavours we are assured from themselves will be imployed to procure and support the Interest and Honour of it and the Benefit Safety and Ease of their People they throughly understanding the Truth of Mons Gourville's Observation who had been long enough here in England Memoirs of what past in Christendom from the War begun 1672. to the Peace concluded 1679. p. 33 34. to know the Humour of our Court and People and Parliaments to conclude Qu'un Roy d'Angleterre qui veut estre l'homme de son peuple est le plus Grand Roy du monde mais s'il veut estre quelque chose d'avantage par Dieu il n'est plus rien i. e. That a King of England who will be the MAN of his People is the greatest King in World but if he will be something more he is nothing at all I may venture therefore to Prophesy that this King and Queen will take the same care to continue as they have already done to make themselves the DARLING of their People and no Good English Man can wish for more but that this King and Queen may long Reign and that the Tripple Alliance of their Sacred Majesties their Parliaments and their People may never be dissolved Little needs be said concerning the usefulness of such Collections as these THAT formerly published having received sufficient Approbation from Persons of Learning and Knowledg The benefit of them is the same with what redounds from a true History not of Battels and Sieges Births Marriages and Deaths of Princes which are temporary and momentary things but of the Legal Government of a Nation struggling with Arbitrary Power and Illegal Proceedings so far forth as it was invaded within the time mentioned in the Title A CATALOGUE OF THE TRACTS Contained in This Second Volume 1. THE Earl of Clarendon's Speech about disbanding the Army September 13. 1660. Fol. 1 2. The State of England both at home and abroad in order to the Designs of France considered 6 3. Of the Fundamental Laws or Politick Constitution of this Kingdom 22 4. London's Flames revived Or an Account of several Informations exhibited to a Committee appointed by Parliament Sept. 25. 1666. to inquire into the burning of London
With several other Informations concerning other Fires in Southwark Fetter-Lane and elsewhere 27 5. Votes and Addresses of the Honourable House of Commons assembled in Parliament made 1673. concerning Popery and other Grievances 49 6. A Letter from a Parliament-man to his Friend concerning the Proceedings of the House of Commons this last Session begun the 13th of October 1675. 53 7. A Speech made by Sir William Scroggs one of His Majesty's Serjeants at Law to the Right Honourable the Lord Chancellor of England at his admission to the Place of one of His Majesty's Justices of the Court of Common-Pleas 56 8. A Discourse upon the Designs Practises and Councels of France 59 9. An Answer to a Letter written by a Member of Parliament in the Countrey upon the Occasion of his reading of the Gazette of the 11th of December 1679. wherein is the Proclamation for further proroguing the Parliament till the 11th of November next ensuing 67 10. The Right Honourable the Earl of Shaftsbury's Speech in the House of Lords March 25. 1679. 71 11. The Instrument or Writing of Association that the true Protestants of England entred into in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth 73 12. The Act of Parliament of the 27th of Queen Elizabeth in Confirmation of the same 74 13. A Word without doors concerning the Bill for Succession 76 14. A Collection of Speeches in the House of Commons in the Year 1680. 81 15. A Copy of the Duke of York's Bill 91 16. Some particular Matters of Fact relating to the Administration of Affairs in Scotland under the Duke of Lauderdale 93 17. The Impeachment of the Duke and Dutchess of Lauderdale with their Brother the Lord Hatton presented to his Majesty by the City of Edenburgh The matters of fact particularly relating to the Town of Edenburgh humbly offered for His Majesty's information 96 18. His Majesty's Declaration for the dissolving of His late Privy Council and for constituting a New One made in the Council-Chamber at White-hall April 20. 1679. 99 19. The Mâssage from the King by Mr. Secretary Jenkins to the Commons on the 9th of November 1680. 102 20. The Address to His Majesty from the Commons on Saturday the 13th of November 1680. Ibid. 21. The Address of the Commons in Parliament to His Majesty to remove Sir George Jeffreys out of all publick Offices 103 22. His Majesty's Message to the Commons in Parliament relating to Tangier 104 23. The Humble Address of the Commons assembled in Parliament presented to His Majesty on Monday the 29th of November 1680. in answer to that Message ibid. 24. The Humble Address of the House of Commons presented to His Majesty on Tuesday the 21st of December 1680. in answer to His Majesty's Gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament upon the 15th day of the same December 107 25. The Report of the Committee of the Commons appointed to examine the Proceedings of the Judges c. 109 26. The Report from the Committee of the Commons in Parliament appointed by the Honourable House of Commons to consider of the Petition of Richard Thompson of Bristol Clerk and to examine Complaints against him And the Resolution of the Commons in Parliament upon this Report for his Impeachment for High Crimes and Misdemeanors on Friday the 24th of December 1680. 116 27. Articles of Impeachment of Sir William Scroggs Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench by the Commons in Parliament assembled in their own Name and in the name of all the Commons of England of High Treason and other great Crimes and Misdemeanors 119 28. The Humble Petition of the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common Council assembled on the 13th of January 1680. to the King 's Most Excellent Majesty for the sitting of the Parliament prorogued to the 20th then instant together with the Resolutions Orders and Debates of the said Court 122 29. Vox Patriae Or the Resentments and Indignation of the Free-born Subjects of England against Popery Arbitrary Government the Duke of York or any Popish Successor being a true Collection of the Petitions and Addresses lately made from divers Counties Cities and Burroughs of this Realm to their Respective Representatives chosen to serve in the Parliament held at Oxford March 21 1680. 125 30. The Speech of the Honourable Henry Booth Esq at Chester the 2d of March 1680 1 ãâã his being elected One of the Knights of the Shire for that County to serve in the Parliament summon'd to meet at Oxford the 21st of the said Month. 147 31. An Account of the Proceedings at the Sessions for the City of Westminster against Thomas Whitfield Scrievener John Smallbones Woodmonger and William Laud Painter for tearing a Petition prepared to be presented to the King for the sitting of the Parliament with an Account of the said Petition presented on the then 13th Instant and His Majesty's Gracious Answer 150. 32. The Judgment and Decree of the Vniversity of Oxford passed in their Convocation July 21 1683. against certain pernicious Books and damnable Doctrines destructive to the Sacred Persons of Princes Their State and Government and of all Humane Society 153 32. The Case of the Earl of Argyle Or an Exact and Full Account of his Tryal Escape and Sentence As likewise a Relation of several Matters of Fact for better clearing of the said Case 151 33. Murther will out Or The King's Letter justifying the Marquess of Antrim and declaring that what he did in the Irish Rebellion was by direction from His Royal Father and Mother and for the Service of the Crown 217 34. Vox Populi Or The Peoples claim to their Parliaments sitting to redress Grievances and to provide for the Common safety by the known Laws and Constitution of the Nation 219 35. The Security of English-mens Lives Or The Trust Power and Duty of the Grand Juries of England explained according to the Fundamentals of the English Government and the Declarations of the same made in Parliament by many Statutes 225 36. The Speech and Carriage of Stephen Colledge before the Castle at Oxford on Wednesday Aug. 31. 1681. taken exactly from his Mouth at the place of Execution 255 37. The Speech of the late Lord Russell to the Sheriffs together with the Paper delivered by him to them at the place of Execution July 21. 1683. 262 38. To the King 's Most Excellent Majesty the Humble Petition of Algernoon Sidney Esq 266 39. The very Copy of a Paper delivered to the Sheriffs upon the Scaffold on Friday Dec. 7. 1683. by Algernoon Sidney Esq before his Execution there 267 40. Of Magistracy 269. Of Prerogatives by Divine Right 270. Of Obedience 271. Of Laws 272. By Mr. Samuel Johnson 41. Copies of two Papers written by the late King Charles II. published by His Majesty's Command Printed in the Year 1686. 273. 42. A Letter containing some Remarks on the Two Papers writ by His late Majesty King Charles II. concerning Religion 274
and filling up the Throne with K. William and Q. Mary 450 93. A Proclamation Declaring William and Mary King and Queen of England to be King and Queen of Scotland Edinburgh April 11. 1689. 452 93. The manner of the King and Queen's taking the Coronation-Oath 453 94. The Coronation-Oath of England 454 The Coronation-Oath of Scotland Ibid. 95. Proposals humbly offered to the Lords and Commons in the present Convention for Setling of the Government 455 96. The late Honourable Convention proved a Legal Parliament 457 97. The Present Convention a Parliament 459 98. The Thoughts of a private Person about the Justice of the Gentlemens undertaking at York Novemb. 1688. wherein is shewed That it is neither against Scripture nor Moral Honesty to defend their Just and Legal Rights against the Illegal Invaders of them occasioned then by some private Debates and now submitted to better Judgments 461 99. An Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supream Authority and of the Grounds upon which it may be lawful or necessary for Subjects to defend their Religion Lives and Liberties 483 100. The Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy no Badges of Slavery 489 THE Earl of Clarendon's Speech ABOUT Disbanding the Army SEPTEMBER 13. 1660. My Lords and Gentlemen THE King tells you that he hath commanded me to say many particulars to you and the truth is He hath charged me with so many that I have great reason to fear that I shall stand in much need of His Mercy for omitting many things He hath given me in Command at least for delivering them in more Disorder and Confusion then Matters of such Moment and Importance ought to be to such an Assembly for which the King Himself hath even a kind of Reverence as well as an extraordinary Kindness I am to mention some things He hath done already and many things He intends to do during this Recess that you may see how well content soever he is that you should have Ease and Pleasure and Refreshment he hath designed Work enough for Himself The King hath thanked you for the Provision you have made that there may be no free Quarter during the time the Army shall be Disbanding and hath told you what He will do with that Money you have given Him if there should want wherewithal to Disband it And now I hope you will all believe that His Majesty will consent to the Disbanding He will do so And yet He does not take it unkindly at their hands who have thought that his Majesty would not Disband this Army It was a sober and a rational Jealousie No other Prince in Europe would be willing to Disband such an Army an Army to which Victory is entailed and which humanely speaking could hardly fail of Conquest whithersoever He should lead it and if God had not restored His Majesty to that rare Felicity as to be without apprehension of Danger at home or from abroad and without any Ambition of taking from his Neighbours what they are possessed of Himself would never Disband this Army an Army whose Order and Discipline whose Sobriety and Manners whose Courage and Success hath made it famous and terrible over the World an Army of which the King and His two Royal Brothers may say as the noble Grecian said of Aeneas Stetimus tela aspera contra Contulimusque manus experto credite quantus In clypeum assurgat quo turbine torqueat hastam They have all three in several Countries found themselves engaged in the midst of these Troops in the heat and rage of Battel and if any common Souldiers as no doubt many may will demand the old Roman Priviledge for having encountred Princes single upon my Conscience he will find both Favour and Perferment They have all three observed the Discipline and felt and admired and loved the Courage of this Army when they were the worse for it and I have seen them in a season when there was little else of comfort in their view refresh themselves with joy that the English had done the great Work the English had got the Day and then please themselves with the Imagination what wonders they should perform in the head of such an Army And therefore when His Majesty is so entirely possessed of the Affection and obedience of this Army and when it hath merited so much from Him can it be believed or imagined that He can without some regret part with them No My Lords and Gentlemen He will never part with them and the only sure way never to part with them is to Disband them should it be otherwise they must be exposed to the daily Importunity of His great Neighbours and Allies and how could He refuse to lend them His Troops of which He hath no use Himself His Majesty knows they are too good English men to wish that a standing Army should be kept in the howels of their own Countrey that they who did but in Bello pacis gerere negotium and who whilest an Army lived like good Husbandmen in the Countrey and good Citizens in the City will now become really such and take Delight in the Benefit of that Peace they have so honestly and so wonderfully brought to pass The King will part with them as the most indulgent Parents part with their Children for their Education and for their Perferment He will prefer them to Disbanding and prefer them by Disbanding and will always retain such a Kindness for them and such a Memory of the Service they have done him that both Officers and Souldiers after they are Disbanded shall always find such countenance favour and reward from His Majesty that He doubts not but if he should have Occasion to use their Service they will again resort to Him with the same Alacrity as if they had never been Disbanded And if there be any so ill amongst them as there can be but very few if any who will forfeit that Favour and Protection they may have from Him by any withstanding His Majesties Commands and the full and declared sense of the Kingdom His Majesty is confident they will be as odious to their Companions as they can be to any other honest Men. My Lords and Gentlemen I am in the next place by the Kings Command to put you in mind of the Act of Indemnity not of any Grants or Concessions or Releases He made to you in that Act I have nothing of that in charge no Prince hath so excellent a memory to forget the Favours he doth but of what He hath done against you in that Act how you may be undone by that Act if you are not very careful to perform the Obligations He hath laid upon you in it the clause I am to put you in mind of is this And to the intent and purpose that all names and terms of Distinction may be likewise put into utter Oblivion Be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That if any Person or Persons within the space of three Years next
have the least good Opinion of the Sincerity of their Faith and Dealing That which you have alledged touching the Support which the Royal House of England may particularly hope for from the Amity of France is both a delicate and a dangerous Stone to stir The Glory and the Safety of our King doth only consist in the Love of his People and a streight Union betwixt His Majesty and his present Parliament since He hath no other sound Interest to rely upon but that of the Kingdom having need of no other Arms or Assistance The hearty affections of His Subjects and His own Royal Vertues will be as so many Cittadels erected to maintain His Authority and any other project is contrary both to His Genious and His admirable Prudence For all those who shall dare to inspire any other thoughts into His Majesty will infallibly undergo the weight of His Displeasure as Enemies to His Fame and Quiet But at the Bottom of all what help can He rationally expect from France should He come to need it which God defend after their unworthy abandoning of the King His Father in His great Distress and of the King which now is likewise when the Wheel of Fortune ran against them even to the Exstirpation of the Royal Line had not He by whom Kings reign wonderfully restored them to the Throne of their Ancestors It was that shameful Treaty which the French ratified with those Usurpers then that sacrificed Charles the First to the Ambition of the Tyrant Oliver Cromwel who had snatched the Scepter from the right Owners and Proprietors thereof Nay to such a Degree was the Inhospitability of France grown at that time though His Father were thus execrably Murthered before the Eyes of the French our King 's own Cousin-german refused Him a Retreat that might be secure for His own Person Therefore 't is fit that the English should be disabused once for all by being better informed since France is so far from being assisting or useful unto us upon this Conjuncture that in truth they do seek only to increase our Divisions and Troubles For 't is both their Interest and Maxim so to do which Conduct hath been exactly and hereditarily observed in their Counsels for many Ages together and newly in the last Civil War here since all the Baits which they do present unto us are but so many Apples of Discord which the French Emissaries cast up and down among us purposely to embroil us with our Neighbours or else with one another Next let us consider at present whether we shall find our Accompt better with Spain 'T is evident that solid Reason of State doth totally incline us to leave that other way and you cannot but all acknowledge this to be our true Fundamental Maxim whereby we may keep the Balance in aequilibrio and that our Safety doth most consist in such an aequilibrium why then should we swerve from thence out of vain hopes or quit the Body for the Shadow The Interest of Commerce no way invites us to take part with France and this Truth is so notorious to all the people of England that there is no Eloquence able to perswade them contrary to their own Experience therein The Cause is just and favourable A young * The King of Spain Pupil unworthily oppressed a Peace so solemnly and piously established as lightly violated by a Process of Cavils and Legerdemain by a Proceeding thereupon full of Surprisals and Violence as well as Pretensions unjustly revived after an Authentick â Vide The Buckler of State and Justice Art 4. Renunciation are so many voices which speak to the Root of our Consciences to call us to that which we owe to Justice Pitty good Neighbourhood the Publick Cause of Christendom and our selves For in this matter is concerned no less than the Case of Royal Successions which France will needs have submitted to the Customs of ordinary Citizens and the Conservation of that Bulwark which is common to all these parts of Europe against this Torrent which threatens the whole Vicinity with a great Inundation and the assuring the Tranquility of the Christian Republick against an unquiet Nation that will never desist from disturbing of it until their Insolence shall be abated The Foundation then being so solid because we shall in this Opposition have to treat with a Nation that makes profession of Honour and Generosity which hath never yet been accused to be guilty of having violated any Publick Treaty and that would rather â The remarkable Integrity of Spain hazzard the loss of their Monarchy than their Reputation the Advantage is both secure and considerable whereas on the account of France we shall appear but as little Accessories and the French will carry us on as the First Motion only according to the rapidness of their Progress by applying us meerly in the course of their Game to their own Ends and thus shall we become the Ministers of their Ambition and be made use of like a pair of Stairs on which they do mean to tread in order to their obtaining the Universal Monarchy In fine their Interests if that we are still predestinated to be thus grosly deluded must be the Rule of ours and our future Conduct too and Operations But in taking part with Spain we shall be the Arbitrators of Peace and War and enabled to give the whole weight unto the Resolutions of each Party Then will France consider us with terrour and the apprehension of what our Arms may do and Spain by the addition of our Succours If we do desire Conquests we cannot hope for more lawful ones nor easier Victories than to re-unite by this means our ancient Dominion in France which have formerly been dismembred from the Crown of England But if we shall limit our Designs to the sole establishment of a Peace we can find the Accompt both of Glory and Safety likewise therein since it appears by Authentick Letters of Monsieur de Lionn's writing that France is resolved to be content with Reason as soon as ever they do see England fixed to joyn with Spain and the States of the United Provinces So that 't is in our choice whether to make an advantagious War or procure an honest Peace at the first appearance of our preparations in Arms. Whereas on the contrary 't is evident by the Interception of the aforesaid Dispatches that they will despise all manner of Offices and Mediations that are not Armed but rather pursue vigorously their Course whither Fortune shall drive it on so long as they do meet with no powerful Obstacles in the way Therefore because you seem to believe that Spain is reduced to so low a Condition that our Relief would be altogether unuseful to them and serve for nothing but to bring down the Vengeance of France exasperated upon us for God's sake cure your self of this Pannick fear as soon as you can 'T is France endeavours to erect a formidable Power if
Parliament guilty of exercising an arbitrary Power if their Proceedings be not regulated by written Laws but by Salus Populi Ans For the Parliament to be bound up by written Laws is both destructive and absurd First it is destructive it being the Fundamental Court and Law or the very Salus Populi of England and ordained as to make Laws and see them executed so to supply their Deficiency according to the present Exigency of things for publick Preservation by the Prerogative of Salus Populi which is universally in them and but particularly in particular Laws and Statutes which cannot provide against all future Exigents which the Law of Parliaments doth and therefore are not they to be limits to this And it would yet be further destructive by cutting the Parliament short of half its Power at once for it being a Court both of Law and Equity as appears by the Power of making Laws which is nothing but Equity reduced by common Consent into Polity when ever it is circumscribed by written Laws which only is the Property of inferiour Courts it ceaseth to be supreme and divests it self of that inherent and uncircumscribed Power which Salus Populi comprehends Secondly as it is destructive so also it is absurd for the Legislative Power which gives Laws is not to receive Laws saving from the nature and end of its own Constitution which as they give it a being so they endow it with Laws of Preservation both of it self and the whole which it represents I would not herein be mis-understood as if the Parliament when as it only doth the Office of inferiour Courts judging between Party and Party were not limitted by written Laws there I grant it is because therein it only deals between meum and tuum which particular written Laws can and ought to determine so that its superlative and uncircumscribed Power I intend only as relating to the Universe and the Affairs thereof wherein it is to walk by its fundamental Principles not by particular Precepts or Statutes which are made by the Parliament between King and People not between People and Parliament they are ordained to be Rules of Government to the King agreeing with the Liberty and Property of the People and Rules of Obedience to the People without detainment of their Freedom by the Exercise of an illegal usurped and unconsented Power whereunto Kings especially in hereditary Monarchies are very prone which cannot be suspected by a Parliament which is representatively the Publick intrusted for it and which is like to partake and share with the Publick being but so many private Men put into Authority pro tempore by common Consent for common Good Nor is the Parliament hereby guilty of an arbitrary Government or is it destructive to the Petition of Right when as in providing for Publick-weal it observes not the letter of the Law First because as aforesaid that Law was not made between Parliament and People but by the People in Parliament between the King and them as appears by the whole tenour of it both in the complaining and praying parts which wholly relate to the King Secondly because of the common Consent that in the representative Body the Parliament is given thereunto wherein England in her Polity imitates Nature in her Instincts who is wont to violate particular Principles for publick Preservation as when light things descend and heavy ascend to prevent a Vacuum And Thirdly because of the equitable Power which is inherent in a Parliament and for publick Good is to be acted above and against any particular Statute or all of them And Fourthly because the end of making that Law to wit the publick Preservation is fulfilled in the breaking of it which is lawful in a Parliament that is chosen by the whole for the whole and are themselves also of the Body though not in a King for therein the Law saith Better a mischief than an inconvenience But it may be objected Though it be not arbitrary for the Parliament to go against written Law yet is it not so when they go against the Kings Consent which the Law even the fundamental Law supposeth in Parliamentary Proceedings This hath been answered That the King is juridically and according to the intention of the Law in his Courts so that what the Parliament consults for the publick Good That by Oath and the Duty of his Office and Nature of this Polity he is to consent unto and in case he do deny it yet in the Construction of the fundamental Law and Constitutions of this Kingdom he is conceived to grant it supposing the Head not be so unnatural to the Body that hath chosen it for good and not for evil But it will be answered Where is the Kings Negative Voice if the Parliament may proceed without his Consent I answer That there is no known nor written Law that gives him any and things of that nature are willingly believed till they be abused or with too much Violence claimed That his Majesty hath fundamentally a Right of Consent to the Enacting of Laws is true which as aforesaid is part of that honourable Trust constituted in him And that this Royal Assent is an Act of Honour and not of Absolute and Negative Power or Prerogative appears by these following Reasons First by his Oath at the Coronation mentioned in one of the Parliaments Declarations where he doth or should swear to confirm and grant all such good Laws as his People shall choose to be observed not hath chosen for First The word concedis in that Oath were then unnecessary the Laws formerly Enacted being already granted by foregoing Kings and so they need no more Concession or Confirmation else we must run upon this Shelf that all our Laws die with the old King and receive their being anew by the new Kings Consent Secondly hereby the first and second Clause in that Interrogatory viz. Concedis justas leges permittas protegendas are confounded and do but idem repetere Thirdly Quas Vulgus elegerit implies only the Act of the People in a disjunctive sense from the Act or Consent of the King but Laws already made have more than Quas Vulgus elegerit they have also the Royal Consent too so that that Phrase cannot mean them wherein the Act or Consent of the King is already involved Secondly by the Practise of requiring the Royal Assent even unto those very Acts of Subsidies which are granted to himself and for his own use which it is supposed he will accept of and yet Honoris gratia is his Royal Assent craved and contributed thereunto Thirdly by the Kings not sitting in Parliament to debate and consult Laws noâ are they at all offered him by the Parliament to consider of but to consent to which yet are transmitted from one House to another as well to consult as consent to shewing thereby he hath no part in the consultory part of them for that it belongs only to the People in Parliament to discern and
found this following Paper which immediately either by himself or a Relation of his was delivered to Sir William Morrice one of his Majesties Principal Secretaries of State The Contents of the Paper are as follows A Warning to Protestants I Who have been a Papist from my Infancy till of late and in Zeal for their horrid Principles had too great a share in the Firing of the City and did intend to do further Mischief to the Protestants of which I am now and ever shall be a Member do upon Abhorrence of that Villany and Religion that hath moved me to it declare to all Protestants the Approach of their sudden Ruine that it may be prevented if it be not too late When I together with other Papists both French Irish and English fired the City others were imployed to Massacre the Protestants we thinking thereby to destroy the Heads of your Religion but the Massacre was disappointed by the Fear of him who was the chief Agent in this Villany And the Fire not having done all its Work they have often endeavoured to fire the remaining part They intend likewise to land the French upon you to whose Assistance they all intend to come and for that purpose are stored with Arms and have so far deceived the King that they have the Command of most part of the Army and the Sea-Ports The French intend to land at Dover that Garison being most Papists And the Papists in England have express Command from Rome to hasten their Business before the next Parliament and to dispatch Therefore as you love your Lives and Fortunes prevent your Ruine by disarming all the Papists in England especially C. L. from the Tower and the L. D. and all his Adherents and Souldiers from Dover and by disarming all Papists I have such an Abhorrence that I would willingly undergo any Punishment for it and declare my self openly were I not assured that I could do you more good in concealing my Name for the present Delay not from following these Directions as you love your Lives and be not deceived by any Pretences whatsoever An Impartial Account of some Informations taken before several Justices of the Peace concerning the several Fires happening of late in and near the City of London ABout the latter end of June and in July one Joseph Harrison came several times to the Greyhound-Inn in Holborn pretending to enquire for Letters for himself and about the beginning of July comes into the said Inn and meeting Mr. Atkins the Master of the said Inn He the said Harrison asked him for a Can of Beer whereupon Mr. Atkins ordered his Man to draw two Cans drinking one himself and giving the other to Harrison After which the said Harrison took Mr. Atkins by the Hand and lead him out of his own Yard into Holborn and by the Rails in the Street the said Harrison advised the said Atkins to put off his House and dispose of his Goods as soon as he could for within Three Weeks or a Month there would be great and dreadful Fires in and about London Mr. Atkins asked him How he knew so The said Harrison replied If you will not believe me you may chose and so left him One Monday July the 25th Mr. Atkins his Wife hearing of the Fire at the George-Inn in Southwark went to her Mother at the Talbot-Inn in Southwark the back-part of which said Inn is adjoyning to the George-Inn and was likewise on Fire and being there she espied the aforesaid Joseph Harrison in the Yard and remembring the aforesaid Advice to her Husband desired some Persons that were next her to lay hold on him which being done he was conveyed to a Foot-Company that stood in Arms near the said Inn judging that the nearest place to secure him After which Sir John Smith one of the Sheriffs of London was acquainted with the whole matter Upon which he with the L. C. went to the said Company and in the hearing of several gave Charge to the Captain of the said Company to keep him safe until they had time to examine him After the Fire was put out some went to enquire after the Prisoner and the Captain told them The L. C. had dicharged him The next Day being Tuesday a Person was informed that the said Harrison taught School in Thread-Needle Street and that he boasted of his Deliverance and said That the L. C. was pleased to honour him so far as to take him in his Barge with him to White-hall and bad him but be patient a while and he should have Satisfaction from the Persons that had troubled him But hearing where to find him Endeavours were used to retake him and accordingly was accomplished on Wednesday July 27. and had before the Worshipful Sir John Frederick who sent him to Bishopsgate and ordered him to be brought before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen the next day to be examined Before whom were these following things proved against him upon Oath 1. THat he hath had frequent Correspondency with Jesuits and Papists 2. That he hath spoken to several of his Acquaintance to go with him to Popist Meetings declaring that he knew of many 3. That he hath been perswaded to turn Mendicant Fryer and hath been offered a Stipend to turn to the Romish Religion 4. That he knew there would be divers great and dreadful Fires in and about London within a Month. 5. That he advised Friends to rid their Hauds of all their Concerns in and about London for there would be a great Consumption of houses there 6. That when he was in the Custody of the Foot-Company aforesaid Mr. Atkins aforesaid affirming to swear the former Article he threatned him if he did it should cost him the best House he had 7. That he said there were forty thousand French Papists lately come over to his Knowledge besides many that were amongst us already 8. The Lord Mayor asking him Who perswaded him to turn Catholick He answered The King's Under-Barber Phillips After which he told the Court That when he was apprehended for these things my L. C. discharged him and took him with him in his Barge to White-hall He further told the Court That he was some time an Assistant to Mr. Lovejoy Schoolmaster at Canterbury and that he had Letters Testimonial of his good Behaviour from the Dean of Canterbury Upon which my Lord Mayor remembring that he had seen him with Mr. Lovejoy and said that Mr. Lovejoy told him That he was an idle Rogue And so he was committed to Newgate On Saturday the 30th of July it was further deposed upon Oath by Thomas Roe before Sir John Frederick as follows The Information of Thomas Roe of Bernard-Inn Gent. taken the 3th of July 1670. by Sir John Frederick Alderman one of His Majesties Justices of Peace in the City of London upon Oath as followeth THomas Roe saith that he hath for at least twelve or thirteen Years last past been acquainted with one Joseph Harrison who was
by certain Noblemen and others of our Kingdom of Ireland suggesting Disorders and Abuses as well in the Proceedings of the late begun Parliament as in the Martial and Civil Government of the Kingdom We did receive with extraordinary Grace and Favour And by another Proclamation in the 12th year of his Reign Procl 12 Jac. he declares That it was the Right of his Subjects to make their immediate Addresses to him by Petition and in the 19th year of his Reign he invites his Subjects to it And in the 20th year of his Reign Procl Dat. 10 July 19. Jac. Procl Dat. 14. Feb. 20. Jac. he tells his People that his own and the Ears of his Privy Council did still continue open to the just Complaints of his People and that they were not confined to Times and Meetings in Parliament nor restrained to particular Grievances not doubting but that his loving Subjects would apply themselves to his Majesty for Relief to the utter abolishing of all those private whisperings and causless Rumors which without giving his Majesty any Opportunity of Reformation by particular knowledge of any Fault serve to no other purpose but to occasion and blow abroad Discontentment It appears Lords Journ Anno 1640. that the House of Lords both Spiritual and Temporal Nemine contradicente Voted Thanks to those Lords who Petitioned the King at York to call a Parliament And the King by his Declaration Printed in the same year Declar. 1644. declares his Royal Will and Pleasure That all his Loving Subjects who have any just cause to present or complain of any Grievances or Oppressions may freely Address themselves by their humble Petitions to his Sacred Majesty who will graciously hear their Complaints Since his Majesty's happy Restauration Temp. Car. 2. the Inhabitants of the County of Bucks made a Petition That their County might not be over-run by the Kings Deer and the same was done by the County of Surry on the same Occasion 'T is time for me to conclude your trouble I suppose you do no longer doubt but that you may joyn in Petition for a Parliament since you see it has been often done heretofore nor need you fear how many of your honest Countreymen joyn with you since you hear of Petitions by the whole Body of the Realm and since you see both by the Opinions of our Lawyers by the Doctrine of our Church and by the Declarations of our Kings That it is our undoubted Right to Petition Nothing can be more absurd than to say That the number of the Supplicants makes an innocent Petition an Offence on the contrary if in a thing of this Publick concernment a few only should address themselves to the King it would be a thing in it self ridiculous the great end of such Addresses being to acquaint him with the general desires of his People which can never be done unless multitudes joyn How can the Complaints of the diffusive Body of the Realm reach his Majesty's Ears in the absence of a Parliament but in the actual concurrence of every individual Person in Petition for the personal application of multitudes is indeed unlawful and dangerous Give me leave since the Gazette runs so much in your mind Stat. 13. Car. 2. c. 5. to tell you as I may modestly enough do since the Statute directs me what answer the Judges would now give if such another Case were put to them as was put to the Judges 2 Jacobi Suppose the Nonconformists at this day as the Puritans then did should sollicite the getting of the hands of Multitudes to a Petition to the King for suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws against themselves the present Judges would not tell you that this was an Offence next to Treason or Felony nor that the Offenders were to be brought to the Council-board to be punished but they would tell you plainly and distinctly That if the hands of more Persons than twenty were solicited or procured to such a Petition and the Offenders were convicted upon the Evidence of two or more credible Witnesses upon a Prosecution in the Kings-bench or at the Assizes or Quarter Sessions within six Months they would incur a Penalty not exceeding a 100 l. and three Months Imprisonment because their Petition was to change a matter establisht by Law But I am sure you are a better Logician than not to see the difference which the Statute makes between such a Petition which is to alter a thing establisht by Law and an innocent and humble Petition That a Parliament may meet according to Law in a time when the greatest Dangers hang over the King the Church and the State The Right Honourable the Earl of Shaftsbury 's Speech in the House of Lords March 25. 1679. My Lords YOU are appointing of the Consideration of the State of England to be taken up in a Committee of the whole House some day next Week I do not know how well what I have to say may be received for I never study either to make my Court well or to be Popular I always speak what I am commanded by the Dictates of the Spirit within me There are some other Considerations that concern England so nearly that without them you will come far short of Safety and Quiet at Home We have a little Sister and she hath no Breasts what shall we do for our Sister in the day when she shall be spoken for If she be a Wall we will build on her a Palace of Silver if she be a Door we will inclose her with Boards of Cedar We have several little Sisters without Breasts the French Protestant Churches the two Kingdoms of Ireland and Scotland The Foreign Protestants are a Wall the only Wall and Defence to England upon it you may build Palaces of Silver glorious Palaces The Protection of the Protestants abroad is the greatest Power and Security the Crown of England can attain to and which can only help us to give Check to the growing Greatness of France Scotland and Ireland are two Doors either to let in Good or Mischief upon us they are much weakened by the Artifice of our cunning Enemies and we ought to inclose them with Boards of Cedar Popery and Slavery like two Sisters go hand in hand sometimes one goes first sometimes the other in a doors but the other is always following close at hand In England Popery was to have brought in Slavery in Scotland Slavery went before and Popery was to follow I do not think your Lordships or the Parliament have Jurisdiction there It is a Noble and Ancient Kingdom they have an illustrious Nobility a Gallant Gentry a Learned Clergy and an Understanding Worthy People but yet we cannot think of England as we ought without reflecting on the Condition therein They are under the same Prince and the Influence of the same Favourites and Councils when they are hardly dealt with can we that are the Richer expect better usage for 't is
and future Times To which I could not but Reply That I begged their Pardon if I differed from them in Opinion and did believe that how honestly soever the House of Commons might intend in that matter yet that the point of Succession was so Sacred a thing and of so high a Nature that it was not subjected to their Cognizance That Monarchy was of Divine Right That Princes succeeded by Nature and Generation only and not by Authority Admission or Approbation of the People and consequently that neither the Merit or Demerit of their Persons nor the different influences from thence upon the People were to be respected or had in consideration but the Common-wealth ought to obey and Submit to the next Heir without any further Inquisition and if he proved a Worthy Vertuous and Just Prince it was a great Happiness if Unjust Barbarous and Tyrannical there was no other Remedy but Prayer Patience and an intire Submission to so difficult a Dispensation of Gods Providence I had no sooner ended my Discourse but one of the Gentlemen that was the most serious in the Company seeing me a Young Man gravely Replied That he could not but be extreamly concerned to hear that such pernicious Notions against all lawful Government had been taught in the World That he believed they were in me purely the Effects of an University-Education and that it had been my Misfortune to have had a very high Church-man for my Tutor who had endeavoured as it was their constant Practice to all Young Gentlemen under their Care to debauch me with such Principles as would enslave my mind to their Hierarchy and the Monarchical part of the Government without any Regard at all to the Aristocratical and Popular and that fat Parsonages Prebendships Deanaries and Episcopal Sees were the certain and constant Rewards of such Services That the Place we were in was a little too Publick for Discourses of this Nature but if I would accept of a Bottle of Wine at the next Tavern he would undertake to give me juster measures adding it was pity so hopeful a Gentleman should be tainted with bad Principles My Friend coming in at the same Time proved to be one of their particular Acquaintance and both he and I readily complied with so generous a motion We had no sooner drank a Glass round but the Old Gentleman was pleased to renew his Discourse and said it was undoubtedly true that the inclination of Mankind to live in Company from whence come Towns Cities and Common-wealths did proceed of Nature and consequently of God the Author of Nature So likewise Government and the Jurisdiction of Magistrates in general which does necessarily flow from the living together in Society is also of Nature and ordained by God for the common Good of Mankind but that the particular Species and Forms of this or that Government in this or that manner To have many few or one Governour or that they should have this or that Authority more or less for a longer or a shorter time or whether ordinarily by Succession or by Election All these things he said are Ordained and Diversified by the particular positive Laws of every Country and are not Establish'd either by Law Natural or Divine but left by God unto every Nation and Country to pitch upon what Form of Government they shall think most proper to promote the common good of the whole and best adapted to the Natures Constitutions and other Circumstances of the People which accordingly for the same Reasons may be altered or amended in any of its parts by the mutual Consent of the Governours and Governed whenever they shall see reasonable cause so to do all which appears plainly both from the diversity of Governments extant in the World and by the same Nations living sometimes under one sort of Government and sometimes under another So we see God himself permitted his peculiar People the Jews to live under divers Forms of Government as First under Patriarchs then under Captains then under Judges then under High-Priests next under Kings and then under Captains and High-Priests again until they were conquered by the Romans who themselves also first lived under Kings and then Consuls whose Authority they afterwards limitted by a Senate by adding Tribunes of the People and in extraordinary Emergencies of the Commonwealth they were governed by Dictators and last of all by Emperors So that it 's plain no Magistrate has his particular Government or an Interest of Succession in it by any Institution of Nature but only by the particular Constitution of the Commonwealth within it self And as the kinds of Government are different so also are the measures of Power and Authority in the same kind in different Countries I shall begin said he with that of the Roman Empire which though it be the first in Dignity among Christian Princes yet it is so restrained and limited by the particular Laws of the Empire that he can do much less in his State than other Kings in theirs He can neither make War nor exact any Contribution of Men or Money but by the Consent of all the States of the German Diet And as for his Children and Relations they have no Interest or Pretence to succeed but only by Election if they shall be thought worthy Nay the chiefest Article the Emperour swears to keep at his Admission to that Honour is That he shall never endeavour to make the Dignity of the Empire Hereditary to his Family In Spain and in France the Priviledges of Kings are much more eminent both in Power and Succession their Authority is more absolute every Order of theirs having the Validity of a Law and their next of Bloud does ordinarily inherit though in a different manner In Spain the next Heir cannot succeed but by the Approbation of the Nobility Bishops and States of the Realm In France the Women are not admitted to succeed let them be never so lineally descended In England our Kings are much more limited and confined in their Power than either of the two former for here no Law can be made but by Consent and Authority of Parliament and as to the Point of Succession the next of kin is admitted unless in extraordinary Cases and when important Reason of State require an Alteration And then the Parliaments of England according to the ancient Laws and Statutes of the Realm have frequently directed and appointed the Succession of the Crown in other manner than in course it would have gone of which I shall give you some Examples in Order But first let us look abroad and see how things have been carried as to this Point in other Countries Amongst the Jews the Law of Succession did ordinarily hold and accordingly Rehoboam the Lawful Son and Heir of Solomon after his Fathers Decease went to Sichem to be crowned and admitted by the People and the whole Body of the People of Israel being there gathered together did before they would admit him their lawful
the Ability of the person found Guilty have not been the Measures that have determined the quantity of many of these Fines which being so very numerous the Committee refer themselves to those Records as to the general instancing in some particulars as followeth Upon Joseph Brown of London Gent. on an Information for publishing a printed Book called The Long Parliament Dissolved in which is set forth these words Trinit 29 Car. 2. Nor let any man think it strange that we account it Treason for you to sit and Act contrary to our Laws for if in the first Parliament of Richard the second Grimes and Weston for lack of Courage only were adjudged guilty of High Treason for surrendring the places committed to their trust how much more you if you turn Renegadoes to the people that intrusted you and as much as in you lie surrender not a little pitiful Castle or two but all the legal defence the people of England have for their Lives Liberties and Properties at once Neither let the vain presuasion delude you That no persident can be found that one English Parliament hath hang'd up another tho paradventure even that may be proved a mistake for an unpresidented Crime calls for an unpresidented punishment and if you shall be so wicked to do the one or rather endeavour to do for now you are no longer a Parliament what ground of Confidence you can have that none will be found so worthy to do the other we cannot understand and do faithfully promise if your unworthiness provoke us to it that we will use our honest and utmost endeavours whenever a new Parliament shall be called to chuse such as may convince you of your mistake the old and infallible Observation That Parliaments are the pulse of the people shall lose its esteem or you will find that this your presumption was over fond however it argues but a bad mind to sin because it 's believed it shall not be punished The Judgment was That he be fin'd 1000 Marks be bound to the good behaviour for seven years and his name struck out of the Roll of the Attorneys without any offence alledged in his said Vocation And the publishing this Libel consisted only in superscribing a Pacquet with this inclosed to the East Indies Which Fine he not being able to pay living only upon his practice he lay in prison for three years till His Majesty gratiously pardon'd him and recommended him to be restored to his place again of Attorney by His Warrant dated the 15. of Decem. 1679. Notwithstanding which he has not yet obtained the said Restauration from the Court of Kings Bench. Upon John Harrington of London Gent. for speaking these words in Latin thus Hill 29 30. Car. 2. Quod nostra Gubernatio de tribus statibus consistibat si Rebellio eveniret in regno non accideret contra omnes tres status non est Rebellio A Fine of 1000 l. Sureties for the Good behaviour for seven years and to recant the words in open Court which Fine he was in no capacity of ever paying Upon Benjamin Harris of London Stationer Hill 31 32. Car. 2. on an Information for printing a Book call'd An Appeal from the Countrey to the City setting forth these words We in the Countrey have done our parts in chusing for the generality good Members to serve in Parliament but if as our two last Parliaments were they must be dissolved or prorogued whenever they come to redress the grievances of the Subject we may be pitied not blam'd if the Plot takes effect and in all probability it will Our Parliaments are not then to be condemn'd for that their not being suffer'd to sit occasion'd it Judgment to pay 500 l. Fine stand on the Pillory an hour and give Sureties for the good behaviour for three years And the said Benj. Harris inform'd this Committee That the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs prest the Court then to add to this Judgment his being publickly whipt but Mr. Justice Pemberton holding up his hands in admiration at their severity therein Mr. Justice Jones pronounc'd the Judgment aforesaid and he remains yet in prison unable to pay the said Fine Notwithstanding which Severity in the cases forementioned this Committee has observed the said Court has not wanted in other cases an extraordinary Compassion and Mercy though there appear'd no publick reason judicially in the Trial as in particular Upon Thomas Knox Principal Hill 31. 32. Car. 2. on an Indictment of Subornation and Conspiracy against the Testimony and life of Dr. Oats for Sodomy and also against the Testimony of William Bedloe a Fine of 200 Marks a years Imprisonment and to find Sureties for the good behaviour for three years Upon John Lane for the same offence a Fine of 100 Marks Exd. Ter. to stand in the Pillory for an hour and to be imprison'd for one year Upon John Tasborough Gent. Par. 32. Car. 2. on an Indictment for Subornation of Stephen Dugdale tending to overthrow the whole Discovery of the Plot The said Tasborough being affirmed to be a Person of good Quality a Fine of 100 l. Upon Ann Price for the same offence 200 l. Eod. Ter. Trin. 32. C. 2. Upon Nathaniel Thompson and William Badcock on an Information for Printing and Publishing weekly a Libel call'd The true Domestick Intelligence or News both from City and Country and known to be Popishly affected a Fine of 3 6 8 on each of them Upon Matthew Turner Stationer on an Information for vending and publishing a Book Eod. Ter. call'd the Compendium wherein the Justice of the Nation in the late Tryals of the Popish Conspirators even by some of these Judges themselves is highly Arraign'd and all the Witnesses for the King horribly asperst and this being the common notorious Popish Book-seller of the Town Judgment to pay a Fine of 100 Marks and is said to be out of Prison already Upon Loveland Trin. 32. C. 2. on an Indictment for a Notorious Conspiracy and Subornation against the Life and Honour of the Duke of Buckingham for Sodomy a Fine of 5 l. and to stand an hour in the Pillory Upon Edward Christian Mich. 32. C. 2. Esq for the same offence a Fine of 100 Marks and to stand an hour in the Pillory And upon Arthur Obrian for the same offence a Fine of 20 Marks and to stand an hour in the Pillory Upon Consideration whereof this Committee came to this Resolution Resolv'd That it is the Opinion of this Committee That the Court of King's Bench in the Imposition of Fines on Offenders of late years hath acted Arbitrarily Illegally and Partially favouring Papists and persons Popishly affected and excessively oppressing His Majesty's Protestant Subjects And this Committee being inform'd That several of His Majesty's Subjects had been committed for Crimes Bailable by Law although they then-tendred sufficient Sureties which were refus'd only to put them to vexation and
to which it stands Prorogued until they have sufficiently provided against Popery and Arbitrary Power This Court after some Debate and Consideration had thereupon did return the Petitioners Thanks for their Care and good Intention herein And did thereupon nominate and appoint Sir John Lawrence Sir Robert Clayton Knights and Aldermen Mr. Recorder Sir Thomas Player Kt. Mr. John Du Bois John Ellis Esq and Mr. Michael Godfrey Commoners to withdraw and immediately to prepare a Petition to his Majesty upon the Subject matter of the said Petition who accordingly withdrawing after some time returned again to this Court and then presented the Draught of such a Petition to his Majesty The Tenor whereof followeth Viz. To the King 's most Excellent Majesty c. After reading whereof It is agreed and ordered by this Court Nemine Contradicente That the said Petition shall be presented to his Majesty this Evening or as soon as conveniently may be And the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor is desired to present the same accompanied with Sir John Lawrence Sir Joseph Sheldon Sir James Edwards Knights and Aldermen Mr. Recorder Deputy Hawes Deputy Daââl John Nichols John Ellis Esquires Mr. Godfrey and Capt. Griffith Commoners who are now nominated and appointed to attend upon his Lordship at the Presenting thereof Ward Mayor Commune Concil ' tent ' 13 Januarii 1680. Annoque Regis Car. II. 32. IT is Agreed and Ordered by this Court Nemine Contradicente That the Humble Petition to His Majesty from this Court now read and agreed upon shall be presented to His Majesty this Evening or as soon as conveniently may be And the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor is desired to Present the same accompanied with Sir John Lawrence Sir Joseph Sheldon and Sir James Edwards Knights and Aldermen Mr. Recorder Deputy Hawes Deputy Daniel John Nichols John Ellis Esquires Mr. Godfrey and Capt. Griffith Commoners who are now nominated and appointed to attend upon his Lordship at the Presenting thereof Wagstaffe To the KING 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Commons of the City of London in Common-Council Assembled Most Humbly sheweth THat Your Majesty's great Council in Parliament having in their late Session in pursuance of Your Majesty's Direction entred upon a strict and impartial Inquiry into the horrid and execrable Popish Plot which hath been for several years last past and still is carried on for destruction of Your Majesty's Sacred Person and Government and extirpation of the Protestant Religion and the utter Ruine of Your Majesty's Protestant Subjects and having so far proceeded therein as justly to attaint upon full Evidence one of the five Lords impeached for the same and were in further Prosecution of the remaining Four Lords and other Conspirators therein And as well the Lords Spiritual and Temporal as the Commons in Your said Parliament assembled having Declared That they are fully satisfied that there now is and for divers years last past hath been a horrid and Treasonable Plot and Conspiracy contrived and carried on by those of the Pupish Religion in Ireland for Massacring the English and subverting the Protestant Religion and the Ancient established Government of that Kingdom And Your said Commons having Impeached the Earl of Tyrone in order to the bringing him to Justice for the same And having under Examination other Conspirators in the said Irish Plot. And Your said Commons having likewise impeached Sir William Scroggs Chief Justice of Your Majesty's Court of Kings Bench for Treason and other great Crimes and Misdemeanors in endeavouring to subvert the Laws of this Kingdom by his Arbitrary and Illegal proceedings And having voted Impeachments against several other Judges for the like Misdemeanors Your Petitioners considering the continual Hazards to which Your Sacred Life and the Protestant Religion and the Peace of this Kingdom are exposed while the Hopes of a Popish Successor gives Countenance and Encouragement to the Conspiratours in their wicked Designs And considering also the Disquiet and Dreadful Apprehensions of Your good Subjects by reason of the Miseries and Mischiefs which threaten them on all parts as well from Foreign Powers as from the Conspiracies within Your several Kingdoms against which no sufficient Remedy can be provided but by Your Majesty and Your Parliament were extreamly surprized at the late Prorogation whereby the Prosecution of the Publick Justice of the Kingdom and the making the Provisions necessary for the Preservation of Your Majesty and Your Protestant Subjects hath received an interruption And they are the more affected herewith by reason of the Experience they have had of the great Progress which the emboldned Conspirators have formerly made in their Designs during the late frequent Recesses of Parliament But that which supports them against Dispair is the Hopes they derive from Your Majesty's Goodness That Your Intention was and does continue by this Prorogation to make way for Your better Concurrence with the Counsels of Your Parliament And Your Petitioners humbly hope That Your Majesty will not take Offence that your Subjects are thus Zealous and even impatient of the least Delay of the long hoped for Security whilst they see your precious Life invaded the true Religion undermined their Families and innocent Posterity likely to be subjected to Blood Confusion and Ruine and all these Dangers encreased by reason of the late Endeavours of Your Majesty and Your Parliament which have added Provocation to the Conspirators but have had little or no Effect towards securing against them And they trust Your Majesty will graciously accept this Discovery and Desire of their Loyal Hearts to preserve Your Majesty and whatever else is dear to them and to strengthen Your Majesty against all Popish and Pernicious Counsels which any ill affected Persons may persume to offer They do therefore most humbly Pray That Your Majesty will be graciously pleased as the only means to quiet the Minds and extinguish the Fears of Your Protestant People and prevent the imminent Dangers which threaten Your Majesty's Kingdoms and particularly this Your Great City which hath already so deeply suffered for the same to permit Your said Parliament to Sit from the Day to which they are Prorogued untill by their Counsels and Endeavours those good Remedies shall be provided and those just Ends attained upon which the Safety of Your Majesty's Person the preservation of the Protestant Religion the Peace and Settlement of Your Kingdoms and the Welfare of this Your Ancient City do so absolutely depend For the pursuing and obtaining of which good Effects Your Petitioners unanimously do offer their Lives and Estates And shall ever Pray c. Vox Patriae Or the Resentments and Indignation of the Free-born Subjects of England against Popery Arbitrary Government the Duke of York or any Popish Successor being a true Collection of the Petitions and Addresses lately made from divers Counties Cities and Boroughs of this Realm to their respective Representatives chosen to serve in the Parliament
held at Oxford March 21 1680. HE was certainly no Fool that first said Parliaments were the Pulse of the People 'T is from thence Wise State-Physitians take their Diagnosticks What Sentiments our late Parliament had of our Modern Affairs is obvious in their Printed Votes and Addresses Nor will it be less plain what is the Common Sense of the Body of the People in this Juncture of iminent Danger if the Unanimous Addresses from so many considerable parts of England be regarded No sooner was the late Parliament surprizingly Prorogued Jan. 10. 1680 1 in the very Crisis of Business and when they had so many excellent Bills before them and had made so hopful a Progress in unvailing the horrid Popish Plot which still like an Ill Spright haunts and Night-mares us and in bringing Criminals to Justice but presently the whole Nation was startled and forthwith as Convulsions are first perceived in the Head the same Day a considerable Number of Eminent Citizens of London Presented the following Address to their Major To the Right Honourable Sir Patience Ward Knight Lord Mayor of the City of London WE the Citizens of the said City on behalf of our selves and others our Fellow Citizens being very apprehensive of the great and iminent Dangers that this Metropolis and the whole Protestant Intrest are expos'd to by the Horrid and Devilish Designs of the Papists and their Adherents And being sensible that they are increas'd and heightned by the Surprizing Prorogation of this present Parliament do most humbly recommend to your Lordship the Particulars hereunder mentioned I. That your Lordship will be pleased to cause the several Watches of this City to be doubled this Night and so to continue and cause some House-keepers to watch in person and a sufficient Ward to be kept by Day II. To cause the several Chains in the several Streets of this City to be put up this Night and so to continue III. That your Lordship will be pleas'd to keep the Keys of the several Gates of this City this Night and so to continue IV. To cause the several Gates of this City to be kept Lock'd up every Lord's Day and permit the several Wicket-Doors only to be opened V. That your Lordship will not permit any Body of Armed Souldiers greater or less other than the Trained Bands of this City to march through any part of the same VI. That your Lordship will forthwith Order a Meeting of the Common Council of this City Which his Lordship was pleased favourably to receive and read and then gave the Gentlemen answer That he was very apprehensive of the Danger of this City and had done something already to have full Watches and intended to go out himself to see that they were kept and assured them that he would seriously consider their Desires and take all the care that lay in him to prevent the Danger that so threatned them The very same day and before it was possible the news or thoughts of any Prorogation could reach so far the Grand Jury of Shropshire in the name and behalf of themselves and that whole County thought fit to express their hearty Concurrence with and thanks to the then House of Commons for their Zealous Proceedings against the most Dangerous Popish Interest in the Termes following To the Honourable Ric. Newport Esq and Sir Vincent Corbet Bar. Knights of the Shire in this present Parliament for the County of Salop Jan. 10. 1680. WHereas the Honorable the Commons in this Parliament assembled have to the great satisfaction of the Nation caused their Votes to be published thereby letting the Kingdom know the Candour and Integrity of their Proceeding which they desire may be examined in the face of the Sun but fully satisfying us with what Wisdom Constancy and Courage in this time of iminent danger they have endeavoured to secure our King our Religion the Government and our Liberties We the Grand-Jury Impannelled for the Body of this County of Salop being extreamly sensible how worthily you have discharged the Trust reposed in you and finding our Opinions therein seconded by the Unanimous Resolution of the rest of our County do believe our selves in all Justice obliged humbly to testify unto you how much we rejoyce in the Proceeding you have made how heartily we concur with your wise Resolutions and how earnestly we desire they may be brought to perfection and in particular the Bill to Exclude the D. of York That so we and our Posterity may be delivered from the apparent Danger of Popery and the necessary Consequences thereof Tyranny and Oppression and remain Free Protestant Subjects to acknowledge evermore the Service and Obligation we owe to Patriots that have serv'd us so faithfully Signed by all the Members of the Grand-Jury being 17 of the most considerable Gentlemen of the County January 13. 1680 1. A Common Council being held at Guild-Hall several Eminent Citizens Presented the following Petition To the Right Honourable Sir Patience Ward Kt. Lord Mayor of the City of London and the Right Worshipful the Aldermen and Commons in Common-Council Assembled The humble Petition of the Citizens and Inhabitants of the said City Sheweth THat we being deeply sensible of evils and mischiefs hanging over this Nation in general and this City in particular in respect of the danger of the Kings Person the Protestant Religion and our well establish'd Goverment by the continued hellish and damnable designs of the Papists and others their adherents And knowing no way under heaven so effectual to preserve His Royal Majesty and us from the utter ruin and destruction threatned as by the speedy sitting of this present Parliament the surprising Prorogation of which greatly adds to and increases the just fears and jealousies of your Petitioners minds We your Petitioners do therefore beseech your Lordship and this Honorable Court to acquaint His Majesty with these our fears and apprehensions and that it is our humble and earnest desire as well as yours that His Majesty would be pleased for the utter defeating the wicked and bloudy purposes of our Enemies to permit this present Parliament which stands Prorogued to the 20th of this instant January then to Assemble and continue to sit until they have effectually secured us against Popery and Arbitrary Power and Redressed the manifold Grievances which at present we groan under and for our immediate security that you will be pleased to order whatsoever else shall be thought necessary and expedient by your Lordship and this Honourable Court in this time of imminent danger for the safety of this great City And your Petitioners shall ever Pray c. The Address of the Free-holders of the County of Middlesex to Sir William Roberts Knight and Nicholas Raynton Esq Knights of the Shire WE the Freeholders of this County have in great Confidence of your Integrity Wisdom and Courage now chosen You to Represent Us in the next Parliament to be holden at Oxford on the 21st Day of this present March. And
lie under for want thereof 5. That you will use your utmost Endeavours to put a Brand upon those abominable Monsters which were the Pensioners in the late Long Parliament that thereby the Generations to come may be deterr'd from Attempting the like unheard of Villainy 6. That you will vigorously and carefully represent to the rest of your Fellow Members the present Condition of the Royal Navy as also of the Stores Castles and Forts which are under God the Bulwarks of England and that such effectual Ways and Means may be found out and prosecuted for the better Securing and Improving the Navy as also That none may be employed therein but such Persons who are of known Integrity and Loyalty both to the King and Nation and that all Debauch'd and Unskilful Persons now employ'd may be removed and Men fearing God loving Truth and hating Covetousness may be put into their Places that so our present Fears may be abated and thereby the dreadful growing Power of France may be timely check'd Gentlemen In the pursuance of these good Ends and such other as you shall think conducing to the Happiness of the King and Kingdom we shall stand by you with our Lives and Fortunes There were many more Addresses of like Nature and Purport made from divers other Parts of the Realm true Copies of which are not yet come to our hands But indeed the Re-election of so many of the former Members is it self a general Address and loudly speaks it The Voice of the People which we trust will be ratified by the Voice of Heaven No Popish Successor no French Slavery THE SPEECH Of the Honourable Henry Booth Esq Spoken in Chester March 2. 1680 1. at his being Elected one of the Knights of the Shire for that County to serve in the Parliament Summon'd to meet at Oxford the Twenty first of the said Month. Gentlemen and Countrymen I Must acknowledge that God hath been good unto me from my Cradle to this moment and of all his Providences to me there is none for which I have greater reason to bless his Holy Name than that he hath enabled me to govern my self and actions so as to gain your good opinion and kindness and I cannot but own I have your favour accompanied with all the obliging Circumstances imaginable for the first time that you were pleased to command my Service was in the Eighteen Years Parliament upon the death of Sir Foulk Lucy who had served you faithfully in that Parliament and though I was raw and unacquainted with those affairs and without any Tryal of my Integrity you ventured all you had in my hands at a time when England was in danger to be lost for want of a Vote For that Parliament chiefly consisted of such as sold their Country for private advantage and would have sold their King too if they could have made a better market I served you some time in that parliament at last it was Dissolved and a new one called and then as if you had approved of what I did you thought fit to imploy me again in that Service though you laid him aside who had been my Collegue that Parliament continued not long but was Dissolved and a new one called and then again a third time you thought me fit to represent you in Parliament though as you had done before you set him aside whom you had sent along with me and Chose a new one in his room but why you did me so Singular an honour as to continue me in your Service two Parliaments together and did not the like to the other Gentlemen it is not for me to give the reasons of it those are best known to your selves This is now the fourth time that I have waited on you on the like occasion and it is not a lessening of your former kindness that you have not changed my former Partner but rather a Confirmation of it because that the first time you have continued him is when he appears to be of my opinion and that which still adds weight to your kindness is that notwithstanding all this stir this bustle this unnecessary Charge and expence all the Stories by which I have been traduced you have not been prevailed upon to withdraw or diminish your favour Gentlemen I humbly beg your Patience to speak a few words in answer to what they say of me lest by Silence I may seem to cry Amen to their reports and Stories the first thing they reported was that I would not stand again but would decline your Service but withall they give no reason for it only it is so because they said it but what reason there is to contradict them now who said so the last time and how true it was you well remember So that this being the Second time that they have told you the self same falshoods I hope for the future that others will believe them as little as you have done It was reported that I was kill'd without giving any reasons or circumstances and that to this also they expected an implicit belief I wish they are not for an implicit faith in all things It was truly an excellent Artifice to threap you out of your Votes yet had I been kill'd had it been for your Service I should have thought my self well bestowed and rather meet than avoid the occasion of my Death They tell you also that I ãâã very obnoxious to the King but they do not tell you that I am restored to âny former Station of my Commission of the Peace without seeking or desiring it it cannot be imagined that his Majesty would be so Gracious to a man of whom he hath an ill opinion and it is a reflection to his Majesty to think he will do a thing of that Nature out of any regard whatsoever but when a thing carries its weight and reasons with it so that by this you may discern how all their reports are grounded being rather the effects of their desires than that the thing is truly so It seems the Gentlemen are much displeased that this County have frequently commanded those of my Family to serve them in Parliament they call it an entailing upon the Family but they are not pleased to vouchsafe the reasons why the Son may not be imployed as well as the Father in case he proves as fit for it but the truth is they would govern you and are angry that you will be your own chusers yet whether in this they design to serve you or their own ends I submit to your Judgment but as to my own particular they think the County highly that I have served you in several Parliaments Alas Gentlemen I know I am much inferiour in Parts and Learning to a great many but in saithfulness to your interest I will submit to no man but if you would observe it they would impose that upon you which they would not have done to themselves If they have a Servant who hath served them faithfully they
would not take a new one in his room because they have entertained him several years but you must change your Members as oft as you have new Parliaments though they serve you well and you ought to hate them because they would have it so for they give no better reasons for it but whether they seek your good or their private regard I leave to you to determine A Reverend Gentleman at Northwich was pleased to tell you that you must not chuse the same Members again for if you did the King and parliament would not agree I wonder how long he hath been one of the King's Cabinet Council that he can tell so well before if we may believe the greatest Ministers they say otherwise and that the King out of his gracious disposition to his people will deny himself in that which is most dear rather than break with his people so that either he or they are out and I am not convinced that he is infallible and am apt to believe that he is in the wrong since I have observed that they are for the most part mistaken who take upon them to judge of matters when they are at so great a distance from White-Hall though it may be remembred that this Gentleman hath an affair at London that requires his presence much oftner than he is pleased to afford it and but that great wits are unhappy in short memories that Gentleman could not have forgot that if the Parliament had continued one of his Cloth had been severely reproved for medling with matters not belonging to his Function I mean Mr. Thompson of Bristol and I hear there is so great a number of the last House chosen and like to be chosen that his fault will be remembred which by the way Gentlemen is the Judgment of you in your choice of me you doing that which the rest of the Nation hath done and where any change is it is only to reject those that were Pensioners or else vehemently suspected to be Mercenaries But I could wish it were not the opinion of too many that the way to recommend themselves as true Sons of the Church is to Preach seldom and meddle with State affairs more I hear some have taken offence because at Northwich I did commend the last House of Commons truly Gentlemen I only gave it as my Opinion and till the contrary doth appear I must believe that for Riches Integrity Learning Experience and all things that are expedient for members of that House England never had a better and why the parliament was Dissolved I know not for they who advised it have neither dared to own it nor the reasons for it There is one thing I could not but take notice of in the opposition that hath been made against me If you will observe they are the persons that were most inveterate one against another in the dispute between Sir Philip Egerton and my Cousin Cholmondley but to oppose me they are united as one man If their new-made Friendship be sincere and they have this way to do it I am very glad I have been the occasion of their reconciliation but if in this matter alone they are cemented then it doth discover upon what Principles they act and they are to be blamed and not the Gentlemen who were set up to oppose me for I believe them both to be very worthy men one of them is my Neighbour and I will do him what Service I can and for the other he shall find me a Gentleman if he hath occasion to use me Gentlemen I have as well as I can repeated the particular charges against meâ I had but a short time to recollect my self there remains yet a general Charge which I desire to speak to and truly it is an heavy charge a charge not to be born if I were guilty of it They say I am an evil man as to the King and Church I wish my accusers had either so much power or will to serve the King or Church as I have and because I do not know my self to be guilty as to either of them I hold my self obliged to say something in my Vindication I know not where I ever gave my Vote to impair the King's Prerogative for this is my Principle and ever hath been my Opinion that the King's Prerogative when rightly used is for the good and Benefit of the People and the Liberties and Properties of the People are for the support of the Crown and King's Prerogative when they are not abused but this blessed Harmony may sometimes be disordered either by the influence of some ill Counsel about the King who to obtain their own ends do not care to ruin their King and Master or else from the restless Spirits of some ambitious men of broken fortunes who hope to repair them out of other mens Estates But It seems that I and the House of Commons are much to blame because by one of our Votes we forbid the People to lend Money upon the Revenue by way of anticipation I never knew it was a Crime to pass a Vote the Law had justified for the Law will maintain every part of that Vote and therefore I need say no more of it and besides this is not a place to argue it in As for my part I 'll do my best to preserve the King's Prerogative and the way to do it is neither to add nor to diminish for to make a King absolute is not to support but pull down his prerogative for the King holds his Prerogative by the Law and if that be destroy'd the Title is to be disputed by the Sword and he that hath the sharpest will prove to have the best right As to the Church I am for it as it is now Established under Episcopacy but I would have them to be such as St. Paul to Tim. in his first Book and 3 chap. describes and when they live accordingly I have as great a reverence for them as any man but when they live otherwise they prove to be and a ruin of the Church and ought to be abhorr'd of all true Christians And for Ceremonies I take them not to be necessary to Salvation but for decency and order sake and I conceive this Ceremony is so much the more necessary as it tends to the more effectual uniting of protestants and to preserve Peace and concord in the Church I am of opinion the Church is in danger and I 'll do my best to support it and as the case stands we must either bring in Protestants or Papists I am for bringing in Protestants and that is my Crime but you are pleased to judge me to be in the right Now I will no longer doubt of my opinion I am sure he that is against bringing in Protestants is for bringing in Papists and whether it be more profitable to support the Church by uniting of those who differ in Ceremonies or those who differ in Fundamentals I think is very plain
of the Traytors it was comfortably hoped before thirty Months should have past over after the detection thereof some effectual Remedies might have been applied to prevent the further Attempts of the Papists upon us and better to have secured the Protestants in their Religion Lives and Properties But by sad experience we have found that notwithstanding the vigorous Endeavours of three of our Parliaments to provide proper and wholsome Laws to answer both ends Yet so prevalent has this Interest been under so potent a Head the D. of Y. as to stifle in the birth all those hopeful Parliament-Endeavours by those many surprizing and astonishing Prorogations and Dissolutions which they have procured whereby our Fears and Dangers have manifestly increased and their Spirits heightned and incouraged to renew and multiply fresh Plottings and Designs upon us But that our approaching Parliament may be more successful for our Relief before it be too late by being permitted to sit to Redress our Grievances and to perfect those Good Bills which have been prepared by the former Parliaments to this purpose these following Common-Law Maxims respecting King and Parliament and the Common and Statute-Laws themselves to prevent such unnatural Disappointments and Mischiefs providing for the fitting of Parliaments till Grievances be redress'd and publick Safety secured and provided for are tendered to consideration Some known Maxims taken out of the Law-Books 1. Respecting the King That the Kings of England can do nothing as Kings but what of right they ought to do That the King can do no wrong nor can he dye That the King's Prerogative and the Subjects Liberty are determined by Law That the King hath no Power but what the Law gives him That the King is so called from Ruling well Rex à bene Regendo viz. according to Law Because be is a King whilst be Rules well but a Tyrant when he Oppresses That Kings of England never appear more in their glory splendor and Majestick Sovereignty than in Parliaments That the Prerogative of the King cannot do wrong nor be a Warrant to do wrong to any Plowd Comment fol. 246. 2. Respecting the Parliament That Parliaments constitute and are laid in the Essence of the Government That a Parliament is that to the Common-Wealth which the Soul is to the Body which is only able ãâ¦ã and understand the symptoms of all Diseafes which threaten the Body-politick That a Parliament is the Bulwark of our Liberty the boundary which keeps us from the Inundation of Tyrannical Power Arbitrary and unbounded Will-Government That Parliaments do make new and abrogate old Laws Reform Grievances in the Commonwealth settle the Succession grant Subsidies And in sum may be called the great Physician of the Kingdom From whence it appears and is self-evident if Parliaments are so absolutely necessary in this our Constitution That they must then have their certain stationary times of Session and continuance for providing Laws essentially necessary for the being as well as the well-being of the People and redressing all publick Grievances either by the want of Laws or of the undue Execution of them in being or otherwise And suitable hereunto are those Provisions made by the Wisdom of our Ancestors as recorded by them both in the Common and Statute-Law First Coke lib. 7. Rep. p. 12 13. What we find hereof in the Common-Law The Common-Law saith my Lord Coke is that which is founded in the immutable Law and light of Nature agreeable to the Law of God requiring Order Government Subjection and Protection c. Containing ancient Vsages warranted by Holy Scripture and because it is generally given to all it is therefore called Common Lib. 9. Preface And further saith That in the book called The Mirror of Justice appeareth the whole frame of the ancient Common-Laws of this Realm from the time of K. Arthur 5 6. till near the Conquest which treats also of the Officers as well as the diversity and dictinction of the Courts of Justice which are Officinae Legis and particularly of the High Court of Parliament by the name of Council-General or Parliament so called from Parler-la-ment speaking judicially his mind And amongst others gives us the following Law of King Alfred who reigned about 880. Le Roy Alfred Ordeigna pur usage perpetuel que a deux foits per lan ou plus sovene pur mistier in temps de peace so Assembler a Londres Mirror of Justice Ch. 1. Sect. 3. pur Parliamenter surle guidement del people de dieu corneât gents soy garderent de pechers viverent in quiet receiverent droit per certain usages saints Judgments King Alfred ordaineth for a usage perpetual That twice a year or oftner if need be in time of peace they shall assemble themselves at London to treat in Parliament of the Government of the People of God how they should keep themselves from Offences should live in quiet and should receive right by certain Laws and holy Judgments And thus saith my Lord Coke you have a Statute of K. Alfred Lord Coke's Comment upon it as well concerning the holding of this Court of Parliament twice every year at the City of London as to manifest the threefold end of this great and honourable Assembly of Estates As First That the Subject might be kept from offending that is that Offences might be prevented both by good and provident Laws and by the due Execution thereof Secondly That men might live safely and in quiet Thirdly That all men might receive Justice by certain Laws and holy Judgments that is to the end that Justice might be the better administred that Questions and Defects in Laws might be by the High Court of Parliament planed reduced to certainty and adjudged And further tells us That this Court being the most Supream Court of this Realm is a part of the frame of the Common-Laws and in some cases doth proceed Legally according to the ordinary course of the Common-Law as it appeareth 39 E. 3. f. Coke Inst ch 29. fol. 5. To be short of this Court it is truly said Si vetestatem specter est antiquissima si dignitatem est honoratissima si jurisdictionem est capacissima If you regard Antiquity it is the most Ancient if Dignity the most Honourable if Jurisdiction the most Sovereign And where question hath been made whether this Court continued during the Heptarchy let the Records themselves make answer of which he gives divers Instances in the times of King Ine Offa Ethelbert After the Heptarchy King Edward Son of Alfred King Ethelston Edgar Ethelred Edmond Canutus All which he saith and many more are extant and publickly known proving by divers Arguments that there were Parliaments unto which the Knights and Burgesses were summoned both before in and after the Reign of the Conqueror till Hen. 3d's time and for your further satisfaction herein see 4 E. 3.25 49 Ed. 3.22 23. 11 H. 4.2 Littl. lib. 2. cap. 20. Whereby we may understand 1.
That Parliaments are part of the frame of the Common-Law which is laid in the Law and Light of Nature right Reason and Scripture 2. That according to this Moral Law of Equity and Righteousness Parliaments ought frequently to meet for the common peace safety and benefit of the People and support of the Government 3. That Parliaments have been all along esteemed an essential part of the Government as being the most ancient honourable and Sovereign Court in the Nation who are frequently and perpetually to sit for the making and abolishing Laws Redressing of Grievances and see to the due administration of Justice 4. That as to the place of Meeting it was to be at London the Capital City the Eye and Heart of the Nation as being not only the Regal Seat but the principal place of Judicature and residence of the chief Officers and Courts of Justice where also the Records are kept as well as the principal place of Commerce and Concourse in the Nation and to which the People may have the best recourse and where they may find the best accommodation 5. The Antiquity of Parliaments in this Nation which have been so ancient that no Record can give any account of their Beginning my Lord Coke thus tracing them from the Britains through the Saxons Danes and Normans to our days So that not to suffer Parliaments to sit to answer the great ends for which they were Instituted is expresly contrary to the Common Law and so consequently of the Law of God as well as the Law of Nature and thereby Violence is offered to the Government it self and Infringement of the Peoples fundamental Rights and Liberties Secondly What we find hereof in the Statute-Law The Statute Laws are Acts of Parliament which are or ought to be only Declaratory of the Common Law which as you have heard is founded upon right Reason and Scripture for we are told that if any thing is Enacted contrary thereto it is void and null As Coke Inst l. 2. c 29. f. 15. Finch p. 3. 28 H. 8. c. 27. Doct. and Stud. The first of these Statures which require the frequent Meeting and Sitting of Parliaments agreeable to the Common Law we find to be in the time of Ed. 3. viz. 4 Ed. 3. ch 14. In these words ' Item It is accorded that a Pariament shall be holden every year once or more often if need be The next is in the 36 of the same K. Ed. 3. c. 10. viz. Item For the maintenance of the said Articles and Statutes and Redressing of divers Mischiefs and Grievances which dayly happen a Parliament shall be holden every year as at another time was ordained by a Statute viz. the aforementioned in his 4th year And agreeable hereto are those Statutes upon the Rolls viz. 5 Ed. 2. 1 R. 2. No. 95. By which Statutes it appeareth That Parliaments ought annually to meet to support the Government and to redress the Grievances which may happen in the Interval of Parliaments That being the great End proposed in their said Meetings Now for Parliaments to meet Annually and not suffered to sit to Answer the Ends but to be Prorogued or Dissolved before they have finished their Work would be nothing but a deluding the Law and a striking at the foundation of the Government it self and rendering Parliaments altogether useless for it would be all one to have No Parliaments at all as to have them turn'd off by the Prince before they have done that that they were called and intrusted to do For by the same Rule whereby they may be so turn'd off one Session they may be three Sessions and so to threescore to the breaking of the Government and introducing Arbitrary Power To prevent such intollerable Mischiefs and Inconveniencies are such good Laws as these made in this King's time and which were so Sacredly observed in after times That it was a Custom especially in the Reigns of H. 4. H 5. H. 6. to have a Proclamation made in Westminster-Hall before the end of every Session * An honest and a necessary Proclamation to be made every Parliament That all those who had any matter to present to the Parliament should bring it in before such a day for otherwise the Parliament at that day should Determine Whereby it appears the People were not to be eluded nor disappointed by surprizing Prorogations and Dissolutions to frustrate and make void the great ends of Parliaments And to this purpose saith a late Learned Author That if there was no Statute or any thing upon record extant concerning the Parliaments sitting to redress grievances yet that I must believe that it is so by the fundamental Law of the Government which must be lame and imperfect without it For otherwise the Prince and his Ministers may do what they please and their Wills may be their Laws Therefore it is provided for in the very Essence and Constitution of the Government it self and this saith our Author we may call the Common-Law which is of as much value if not more than any Statute and of which all our good Acts of Parliament and Magna-Charta it self is but Delaratory so that though the King is intrusted with the formal part of summoning and pronouncing the Dissolution of Parliaments which is done by Writ yet the Laws which oblige him as well as us have determined how and when he shall do it which is enough to shew that the King's share in the Soveraignty that is in the Parliament is cut out to him by Law and not left at his disposal The next Statute we shall mention to inforce this fundamental Right and Privilege 25 Ed. 3. c. 23. Statute of Provisors is the 25th Ed. 3. ch 23. called the Statute of Provisors which was made to prevent and cut off the Incroachments of the Bishops of Rome whose Usurpations in disposing of Benefices occasioned intollerable Grievances wherein in the Preamble of the said Statute it is expressed as followeth Whereupon the Commons have prayed our said Soveraign Lord the King that sith the Right of the Crown of England and the Law of the said Realm is such that upon the Mischiefs and Damage which happeneth to his Realm be ought and is bounden of the accord of his said People in his Parliament thereof to make Remedy and Law in avoiding the Mischiefs and Damage which thereof cometh That it may please him thereupon to provide Remedy Our Soveraign Lord the King seeing the Mischiefs and Damage before-named and having regard to the said Statute made in the time of his said Grand-Father and to the Causes contained in the same which Statute holdeth always his force and was never defeated or annulled in any point and by so much is bound by his Oath to do the same to be kept as the Law of this Realm tho that by Sufferance and Negligence it hath since been attempted to the contrary And also having regard to the grievous Complainte made to him by his
People in divers Parliaments holden heretofore Willing to ordain Remedy for the great Damages and Mischiefs which have happened and dayly do happen by the said Cause c. By the assent of all the great Men and Commonalty of his said Realm hath Ordained and Established c. In which preamble of the Statute we may observe 1. The intollerable grievance and burden which was occasion'd by the illegal Incroachments of the See of Rome 2. The many Complaints the People had made who in those dark times under Popery were sensible of groaning under those Burdens 3. The Endeavours used in vain by former Parliaments to Redress the same and to bring their Laws in being to have their Force and Effect 4. The acknowledgment of the King and Parliament that the Obligation hereto was upon the King 1. From the Right of the Crown which obliged every King to pass good Laws 2. The Statute in force 3. The King's Oath to keep the Old and pass New Laws for his Peoples safeguard which they should tender to him 4. From the sence of the People expressed in their Complaints and 5. From the Mischief and Damage which would otherwise ensue And therefore by the desire and accord of his People He passes this famous Law The Preamble whereof is here recited Another Statute to the same purpose you find 2 R. 2. No. 28. Also the Commons in Parliament pray That forasmuch as Petitions and Bills presented in Parliament by divers of the Commons could not heretofore have their Respective Answers That therefore both their Petitions and Bills in this present Parliament as also others which shall be presented in any future Parliament may have a good and gracious Answer and Remedy ordained thereupon before the departing of every Parliament And that to this purpose a due Statute be ensealed or Enacted at this present Parliament to be and remain in Force for all times to come To which the King replied The King's Answer THE King is pleased that all such Petitions deliver'd in Parliament of things or matters which cannot otherwise be determined A Good and Reasonable Answer shall be made and given before the departure of Parliament In which excellent Law we may observe 1. A Complaint of former remisness their Bills having aforetime been pass'd by their Grievances Unredressed by unseasonably Dissolving of Parliaments before their Laws could pass 2. That a Law might pass in that very Parliament to rectifie that Abuse for the future And 3. That it should not pass for a temporary Law but for perpetuity being of such absolute Necessity that before the Parliaments be dismissed Bills of common Right might pass And the King agreed hereto Suitable hereto we have my Lord Chief Justice Coke that great Oracle of the Law in his Instit 4. B. p. 11. asserting Petitions being truly preferr'd though very many have been Answered by the Law and Custom of Parliament before the end of Parliament This appears saith he by the Ancient Treatise De Modo tenendi Parliamentum in these Words faithfully Translated The Parliament ought not to be ended while any Petition dependeth undiscussed or at the least to which a determinate Answer is not made Rot. Par. 17. E. 3. No. 60. 25 E. 3. No. 60. 50 E. 3. No. 212. 2 R. 2.134 2 R. 2. No. 38. 1 H. 4.132 2 H. 4325.113 And that one of the principal ends of calling Parliaments is for redressing of Grievances that daily happen 36 E. 3. c. 10. 18 E. 3. c. 14. 50 E. 3. No. 17. Lyons Case Rot. Par. 1 H. 5. No. 17. 13 H. 4. No. 9. And that as concerning the departing of Parliaments It ought to be in such a manner faith Modus Tenendi viz. To be demanded yea and publiekly Proclaimed in the Parliament and within the Palace of the Parliament whether there be any that hath delivered a Petition to the Parliament and hath not received Answer thereto if there be none such it is to be supposed that every one is Satisfied or else Answered unto at the least so far forth as by the Law be may be And which custom was observed in after Ages as you have heard before Concerning the Antiquity and Authority of this Ancient Treatise called Modus tenendi Parliamentum saith my Lord Coke whereof we make often use in our Institutes Certain it is that this Modus was Rehearsed and Declared before the Conqueror at the time of his Conquest and by him approved for England and accordingly he according to Modus held a Parliament for England as appears 21 E. 3. so 60. Whereby you clearly perceive that these wholsome Laws are not only in full agreement with the Common Law and declarative thereof but in full accord with the Oath and Office of the Prince who has that great trust by the Law lodged with him for the good and benefit not hurt and mischief of the People viz. First These Laws are very suitable to the Duty and Office of a Ruler and the end for which he was instituted by God himself who commands him to do Judgment and Justice to all especially to the Oppressed and not to deny them any request for their relief protection or welfare 2 Sam. 22.3 1 Chron. 13.1 to 5.2 Chron. 9.8.19.5 c Est 1.13 Our Law-Books enjoyning the same as Bracton Lib. 1. c. 2. Lib. 3. c. 9. fol. 107 c. Fortiscue ch 9. fo 15. c. 7. fol 5.11 Coke 7. Book Reports Calvin's Case f. 11. Secondly They are also in full Harmony with the King's Coronation Oath solemnly made to all his Subjects viz. To grant fulfill and defend all rightful Laws which the Commons of the Realm shall choose and to strengthen and maintain them after his Power Thirdly These Laws are also in full agreement and oneness with Magna Charta it self that Ancient Fundamental Law which hath been Confirmed by at least Forty Parliaments viz. We shall deny We shall defer to no Man Justice and Right much less to the whole Parliament and Kingdom in denying or deferring to pass such necessary Bills which the Peoples needs call for Object But to all this which hath been said it may be objected That several of our Princes have otherwise practised by Dissolving or as laterly used by Prorogucing Parliaments at their pleasures before Grievances were Redressed and Publick Bills of Common Safety Passed and that as a Privilege belonging to the Royal Prerogative Answ To which it is Answered That granting they have so done First It is most manifest that deth not therefore create a right to them so to do according to that known Maxim a facto ad jus non valet Consequentia especially when such Actions are against so many express and positive Laws such Principles of Common Right and Justice and so many particular Tyes and Obligations upon themsââes to the contrary Secondly But if it had been so yet neither can Prerogative be pleaded to justify such Practices because the King has no Prerogative but what the Law gives
shall Act not only contrary to but to the Destruction of the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom And how Harmonious such Justice will be the Text tells us Deut. 27.17 Cursed be he that removeth his Neighbours Land mark and all the People shall say Amen That this present Session may have a happy Issue to answer the great ends of Parliaments and therein our present Exigencies and Necessities is the incessant Cry and longing Expectation of all the Protestants in the Land The Security of English-mens Lives or the Trust Power and Duty of the Grand Juries of England Explained according to the Fundamentals of the English Government and the Declarations of the same made in Parliament by many Statutes THE Principal Ends of all Civil Government and of Humane Society were the Security of Mens Lives Liberties and Properties mutual assistance and help each unto other and provision for their common benefit and advantage and where the Fundamental Laws and Constitution of any Government have been wisely adapted unto those Ends such Countries and Kingdoms have increased in Vertue Prowess Wealth and Happiness whilst others through the want of such excellent Constitutions or negect of preserving them have been a Prey to the Pride Lust and Cruelty of the most Potent and the People have had no assurance of Estates Liberties or Lives but from their Grace and Pleasure They have been many times forced to welter in each other's Blood in their Master's quarrel for Dominion and at best they have served like Beasts of burthen and by continual base subserviency to their Master's Vices have lost all sense of true Religion Virtue and Manhood Our Ancestors have been famous in their Generations for Wisdom Piety and Courage in forming and preserving a Body of Laws to secure themselves and their Posterities from Slavery and Oppression and to maintain their Native Freedoms to be subject only to the Laws made by their own Consent in their general Assemblies and to be put in execution chiefly by themselves their Officers and Assistants to be guarded and defended from all Violence and Force by their own Arms kept in their own hands and used at their own charge under their Prince's Conduct entrusting nevertheless an ample Power to their Kings and other Magistrates that they may do all the good and enjoy all the happiness that the largest Soul of man can honestly wish and carefully providing such means of correcting and punishing their Ministers and Councellors if they transgressed the Laws that they might not dare to abuse or oppress the People or design against their freedom or welfare This Body of Laws our Ancestors always esteemed the best Inheritance they could leave to their Posterities well knowing that these were the sacred Fence of their Lives Liberties and Estates and an unquestionable Title whereby they might call what they had their own or say they were their own Men The inestimable value of this Inheritance moved our Progenitors with great resolution bravely from Age to Age to defend it and it now falls to our lot to preserve it against the Dark Contrivances of a Popish Faction who would by Frauds Sham-Plots and Infamous Perjuries deprive us of our Birth-rights and turn the points of our Swords our Laws into our own Bowels they have impudently scandalized our Parliaments with Designs to overturn the Monarchy because they would have excluded a Popish Successor and provided âor the Security of the Religion and Lives of all Protestants They have caused Lords and Commoners to be for a long time kept in Prisons and suborned Witnesses to swear matters of Treason against them endeavouring thereby not only to cut off some who had eminently appeared in Parliament for our ancient Laws but through them to blast the Repute of Parliaments themselves and to lessen the Peoples Confidence in those great Bulwarks of their Religion and Government The present purpose is to shew how well our Worthy Fore-fathers have provided in our Law for the safety of our Lives not only against all attemps of open Violence by the severe punishment of Robbers Murtherers and the like but the secret poisonous Arrows that fly in the dark to destroy the Innocent by false Accusation and Perjuries Our Law-makers foresaw both their dangers from the Malice and Passion that might cause some of private condition to accuse others falsly in the Courts of Justice and the great hazards of Worthy and Eminent Mens Lives from the Malice Emulation and Ill Designs of Corrupt Ministers of State or otherwise potent who might commit the most odious of Murthers in the form and course of Justice either by corrupting of Judges as dependant upon them for their Honour and great Revenue or by bribing and hiring men of depraved Principles and desperate Fortunes to swear falsly against them doubtless they had heard the Scriptures and observed that the great men of the Jews sought out many to swear Treason and Blasphemy against Jesus Christ They had heard of Ahab's Courtiers and Judges who in the Course and Form of Justice by false Witnesses murthered Naboth because he would not submit his Property to an A bitrary Power Neither were they ignorant of the Ancient Roman Histories and the pestilent false Accusers that abounded in the Reign of some of those Emperors under whom the greatest of Crimes was to be virtuous Therefore as became good Legislators they made as prudent Provinon as perhaps any Country in the World enjoys for equal and impartial Administration of Justice in all the concerns of the Peoples Lives that every man whether Lord or Commoner might be in safety whilst they lived in due obedience to the Laws For this purpose it is made a Fundamental in our Government that unless it be by Parliament See Lâ Cook 's Instit 3d part p. 40. See Mag. Chart. Cooke's âd part of Insâât p. 50 51. no man's Life should be touched for any Crime whatsoever save by the Judgment of at least 24 Men that is 12 or more to find the Bill of Indictment whether he be Peer of the Realm or Commoner and 12 Peers or above if a Lord if not 12 Commoners to give the Judgment upon the general Issue of not guilty joined of these 24 the first 12 are called the Grand Inquest or the Grand Jury for the extent of their power and in regard that their number must be no more than 12 sometimes 23 or 25 never were less than 13. Twelve whereof at least must agree to every Indictment or else 't is no legal Verdict If 11 of 21 or of 13 should agree to find a Bill of Indictment it were no Verdict The other Twelve in Commoners Cases are called the Petit-Jury and their number is ever Twelve but the Jury for a Peer of the Realm may be more in number though of like Authority The Office and Power of these Juries is Judicial they only are the Judges from whose Sentence the Indicted are to expect Life or Death upon their Integrity and Understanding
the Lives of all that are brought into Judgment do ultimately depend from their Verdict there lies no Appeal by finding Guilty or not Guilty they do complicately resolve both Law and Fact As it hath been the Law so it hath always been the Custom and Practice of these Juries upon all general Issues pleaded in Cases Civil as well as Criminal to judge both of the Law and Fact See the Reports of the Ld Chief Justice Vaughan p. 150 151. So it is said in the Report of the Lord Chief Justice Vaughan in Bushel's Case That these Juries determine the Law in all matters where Issue is joined and tried in the Principal Case whether the Issue be about Trespass or a Debt or Disseizin in Assizes or a Tort or any such like unless they should please to give a special Verdict with an implicite faith in the Judgment of the Court to which none can oblige them against ther wills These last 12 must be Men of equal condition with the Party indicted and are called his Peers therefore if it be a Peer of the Realm they must be all such when indicted at the Suit of the King and in the Case of Commoners every man of the 12 must agree to the Verdict freely without compulsion fear or menace else it is no Verdict Whether the Case of a Peer be harder I will not determine Our Ancestors were careful that all men of the like condition and quality presumed to be sensible of each other's infirmity should mutually be Judges each of others lives and alternately taste of Subjection and Rule every man being equally liable to be accused or indicted or perhaps to be suddenly judged by the Party of whom he is at present Judge if he be found innocent Whether it be Lord or Commoner that is indicted the Law intends as near as may be that his Equals that judge him should be his Companions known to him and he to them or at least his Neighbours or Dwellers near about the place where the Crime is supposed to have been committed to whom something of the Fact must probably be known and though the Lords are not appointed to be of the Neighbourhood to the indicted Lord yet the Law supposes them to be Companions and personally well known each unto other being presumed to be a small number as they have anciently been and to have met yearly or oftner in Parliament as by Law they ought besides their other meetings as the hereditary Councellors of the Kings of England If time hath altered the case of the Lords as to the number indifferency and impartiality of the Peers it hath been and may be worthy of the Parliament's consideration and the greater duty is incumbent upon Grand Juries to examine with the utmost diligence the Evidence against Peers before they find a Bill of Indictment against any of them if in truth it may put their Lives in greater danger It is not designed at this time to undertake a Discourse of Petit-Juries but to consider the Nature and Power of Grand Inquests and to shew how much the Reputation the Fortunes and the Lives of English-men depend upon the Conscientious performance of their Duty It was absolutely necessary for the support of the Government and the safety of every Man's Life and Interest that some should be trusted to inquire after all such as by Treasons Felonies or lesser Crimes disturbed the peace that they might be prosecuted and brought to condign punishment and it was no less needful for every man's quiet and safety that the trust of such Inquisitions should be put into the hands of Persons of understanding and integrity indifferent and impartial that might suffer no man to be falsely accused or defamed nor the Lives of any to be put in jeopardy by the malicious Conspiracies of greator small or the Perjuries of any profligate Wretches For these necessary honest Ends was the institution of Grand Juries Our Ancestors thought it not best to trust this great concern of their Lives and Interests in the hands of any Officer of the King 's or in any Judges named by him nor in any certain number of men during life lest they should be awed or influenced by great men corrupted by Bribes Flatteries or love of Power or become negligent or partial to Friends and Relations or pursue their own Quarrels or private Revenges or connive at the Conspiracies of others and indict thereupon But this trust of enquiring out and indicting all the Criminals in a County is placed in men of the same County more at least than Twelve of the most honest and most sufficient for knowledge and ability of Mind and Estate to be from time to time at the Sessions and Assizes and all other Commissions of Oyer and Terminer named and returned by the chief Sworn Officer of the County the Sheriff who was also by express Law anciently chosen annually by the People of every County and trusted with the Execution of all Writs and Processes of the Law and with the Power of the County to suppress all Violences unlawful Routs Riots and Rebellions Yet our Laws left not the Election of these Grand Inquests absolutely to the Will of the Sheriffs but have described in general their Qualifications who shall enquire and indict either Lord or Commoner They ought by the old Common-law to be Lawful Liedge-people of ripe Age not over aged or infirm and of good Fame amongst their Neighbours free from all reasonable suspicion of any design for himself or others upon the Estates or Lives of any suspected Criminals or quarrel or controversie with any of them They ought to be indifferent and impartial even before they are admitted to be sworn and of sufficient understanding and Estate for so great a Trust The ancient Law-book called Briton of great Authority says See Brit. p. 9 and 10. The Sheriffs Bailiffs ought to be sworn to return such as know best how to enquire and discover all breaches of the Peace and lest any should intrude themselves or be obtruded by others they ought to be returned by the Sheriff without the denomination of any except the Sheriff's Officers And agreeable hereunto was the Statute of 11 H. 4. in these words Item Because of late See 11 Hen. 4. Inquests were taken at Westminster of persons named to the Justices without due Return of the Sheriff of which persons some were outlawed c. and some fled to fanctuary for Treason and Felony c. by whom as well many Offenders were indicted as other lawful Liege-people of the King not guilty by Conspiracy Abetment and false imagination of others c. against the force of the Common-Law c. It is therefore granted for the Ease and Quietness of the People that the same Indictment with all its Dependences be void and holden for none for ever and that from henceforth no Indictment be made by any such persons but by Inquest of the King's Liedge-people in the manner as
was used c. returned by the Sheriffs c. without any denomination to the Sheriffs See Coke's Instit 3d part fol. 33. c. according to the Law of England and if any Indictment be made hereafter in any point to the contrary the same be also void and holden for none for ever See also the Statute of Westm 2d cap. 38. and Articul super Cortas cap. 9. So careful have our Parliaments been that the power of Grand Inquests might be placed in the hands of good and worthy men that if one man of a Grand Inquest though they be Twenty three or more should not be Liber Legalis Homo or such as the Law requires and duly returned without denomination to the Sheriff all the Indictments found by such a Grand Jury and the proceedings upon them are void and null So it was adjudged in Searlet's Case I know too well that the Wisdom and Care of our Ancestors in this Institution of Grand Juries hath not been of late considered as it ought nor the Laws concerning them duly observed nor have the Gentlemen and other men of Estates in the several Counties discerned how insensibly their Legal Power and Jurisdiction in their Grand and Petit Juries is decayed and much of the means to preserve their own Lives and Interests taken out of their hands 'T is a wonder that they were not more awakened with the Attempt of the late L. Ch. K. who would have usurped a Lordly Dictatorian power over the Grand Jury of Somersetshire and commanded them to find a Bill of Indictment for Murther for which they saw no Evidence and upon their refusal he not only threatned the Jury but assumed to himself an Arbitrary Power to fine them Here was a bold Battery made upon the ancient Fence of our Reputations and Lives If that Justice's Will had passed for Law all the Gentlemen of the Grand Juries must have been theâ basest Vassals to the Judges and have been penally obliged Jurare in Verba Magistri to have sworn to the Directions or Dictates of the Judges But thanks be to God the late long Parliament though filled with Pensioners could not bear such a bold Invasion of the English Liberty but upon the Complaint of one Sir Hugh Windham Foreman of the said Jury and a Member of that Parliament the Commons brought the then Chief Justice to their Bar to acknowledge his fault whereupon the Prosecution ceased The Trust and Power of Grand Juries is and ought to be accounted amongst the greatest and of most concern next to the Legislative The Justice of the whole Kingdom in Criminal Cases almost wholly depending upon their Ability and Integrity in the due execution of their Office Besides the Concernments of all Commoners the Honour Reputation Estates and Lives of all the Nobility of England are so far submitted to their Censure that they may bring them into question for Treason or Felony at their Discretion Their Verdict must be entred upon Record against the greatest Lords and process must legally go out against them thereupon to imprison them if they can be taken or to outlaw them as the Statutes direct and if any Peer of the Realm though innocent should justly fear a Conspiracy against his Life and think fit to withdraw the direction of the Statutes in proceeding to the Outlawry being rightly pursued he could never reverse the Outlawry as the Law now stands save by Pardon or Act of Parliament Hence it appears that in case a Grand Jury should be drawn to indict a Noble Peer unjustly either by means of their own weakness or partiality or a blind submission to the Direction or Opinion of Judges One such failure of a Jury may occasion the Ruine of any of the best or greatest Families in England I mention this extent of the Grand Juries Power over all the Nobility only to shew their joint Interest and Concern with the Commons of England in this ancient Institution The Grand Juries are trusted to be the princpal means of preserving the Peace of the whole Kingdom by the terror of executing the Penal Laws against Offenders by their Wisdom Diligence and Faithfulness in making due Inquiries after all Breaches of the Peace and bringing every one to answer for his Crime at the peril of his Life Limb and Estate that every man who lives within the Law may sleep securely in his own House 'T is committed to their Charge and Trust to take care of bringing Capital Offenders to pay their Lives to Justice and lesser Criminals to other punishments according to their several demerits The Courts or Judges or Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer and of Goal-Delivery are to receive only from the Grand Inquest all Capital Matters whatsoever to be put in issue tried and judged before them by the Petit Juries The whole stream of Justice in such Cases either runs freely or is stopped and disturbed as the Grand Inquests do their Duties either faithfully and prudently or neglect or ornit them And as one part of their Duty is to indict Offenders so another part is to protect the Innocent in their Reputations Lives and Interests from false Accusers and malicious Conspirators They are to search out the Truth of such Informations as come before them and to reject the Indictment if it be not sufficiently proved and farther if they have reasonable suspicion of Malice or wicked Designs against any Man's Life or Estate by such as offer a Bill of Indictment the Laws of God and of the Kingdom bind them to use all possible means to discover the Villany and if it appear to them whereof they are the Legal Judges to be a Conspiracy or malicious Combination against the Accused they are bound by the highest Obligations upon Men and Christians not only to reject such a Bill of Indictment but to indict forthwith all the Conspirators with their Abettors and Associates Doubtless there hath been Pride and Covetousness Malice and desire of Revenge in all Ages from whence have sprung false Accusations and Conspiracies but no Age before us ever hatched such Villanies as our Popish Faction have contrived against our Religion Lives and Liberties No History affords an Example of such Forgeries Perjuries Subornations and Combinations of infamous Wretches as have been lately discovered amongst them to defame Loyal Innocent Protestants and to shed their guiltless Blood in the Form and Course of Justice and to make the King 's most faithful Subjects appear to be the vilest Traitors unto him In this our miserable State Grand Juries are our only security inasmuch as our Lives cannot be drawn into jeopardy by all the malicious Crafts of the Devil unless such a number of our honest Countrymen shall be satisfied in the truth of the Accusations For prevention of such Plotters of wickedness as now abound was that Statute made in the 42 of E. 3.3 See the Stat. 42 E. 3.3 in these words To eschew the mischiefs and damage done to divers
desolationibus tam sanctae Eccles quam Reg. factis per hoc iniquum Concilium Domini Regis contra magnas Chartas tot toties multoties emptas redemptas concessas confirmatas per tot talia Juramenta Domini Regis nunc Dominorum Henrici Johannis ac per terribiles fulminationes Excommunicationis sententiae in transgressores communium libertatum Angliae quae in chartis praedictis continentur corroboratas cum spes praeconcepta de libertatibus illis observandis fideliter ab omnibus putaretur stabilis indubitata Rex conciliis malorum Ministrorum praeventus seductus easdem infringendo contravenire non formidavit credens deceptive pro numere absolvi à transgressione quod esset manifestum regni exterminium Aliud etiam nos omnes angit intrinsecus quod Justiciarii subtiliter ex malitia sua ac per diversa argumenta avaritiae intolerabilis superbiae Regem contra fideles suos multipliciter provocaverunt incitaverunt sanoque salubri consilio Ligeorum Angliae contrarium reddiderunt consilia sua vana impudenter praeponere affirmare non erubuerunt seu formidaverunt ac si plus habiles essent ad consulendam conservandam Rempublicam quam tota Universitas Regni in unum collecta Ita de illis possit vere dici viri qui turbaverunt terram concusserunt Regnum sub fuco gravitatis totum populum graviter oppresserunt praetextuque solummodo exponendi veteres Leges novas non dicam Leges sed malas consuetudines introduxerunt vomuerunt ita quod per ignorantiam nonnullorum ac per partialitatem aliorum qui vel per munera vel timorem aliquorum potentum innodati fuerunt nulla fuit stabilitas Legum nec alicui de populo Justitiam dignabantur exhibere opera eorum sunt opera nequitiae opus iniquitatis in manibus pedes eorum ad malum currunt festinant ac viam recti nescierunt Quid dicam non est judicium in gressibus suis Quam plurimi liberi homines terrae nostrae fideles Domini Regis quasi viles ultimae servi conditionis diversis Carceribus sine culpa commiserunt ibidem carcerandi quorum nonnulli in carcere fame maerore vinculorum pondere defecerunt extorquerunt pro Arbritrio insuper infinitam pecuniam ab eââdem pro redemptione sua crumenas aliorum ut suas impregnarent tam à divitibus quam pauperibus exhauserunt ratione quorum incurriverunt odium inexorabile formidabile imprecationes omnium quasi tale incommunicabile privilegium per Chartam detest abilem de non obstante obtinuerunt perquiviserunt ut à lege divina humanaque quasi ad libitum immunes essent Gravamen insuper solitum adhuc sive aliquo modo saevit omnia sunt venalia si non quasi furtiva proh dolor Quid non mortalia pectora cogit Auri sacra fames Ex ore meo contra vos O Impii tremebunda coeli decreta jam auditis Agnitio vultuum vestrorum accusat vos peccatum vestrum quasi Sodoma praedicavistis nec abscondistis vae animae vestrae vae qui condunt leges scribentes injustitiam scripserunt ut opprimerent in judicio pauperes vim facerent causae humilium populi ut essent viduae praeda eorum pupillos diriperent vae qui aedificant domum suam injusticia coenacula sua non in Judicio vae qui concupiverunt agros violenter tulerunt rapuerunt domos oppresserunt virum domum ejus imo virum Haereditatem suam vae Judices qui sicut Lupi vespere non relinquebant ossa in mane Justus Judex adducit Consiliarios in stultum finem Judices in stuporem mox alta voce justum Judicium terrae recipietis His auditis omnium aures tinniebant totaque Communitas ingemuerunt Vide Mat. West Anno 1289. p. 376 li. 13. dicentes heu nobis heu ubi est Angliae toties empta toties concessa toties scripta toties jurata Libertas Alii de Criminalibus sese à visibus populi subtrahentes in locis secretis cum amicis tacite latitaverunt Anno vero 1290. 18. Ed. 1. deprehensis omnibus Angliae Justiciariis de repetundis praeter Jo. Metingham Eliam de Bleckingham quos honoris ergo nominatos volui judicio Parliamenti vindicatum est in alios atque alios carcere exilio fortunarumque omnium dispendio in singulos mulcta gravissima amissione officii Spelmans Glossary p. 1. co 1. 416. alios protulerunt in medium unde merito fere omnes ab officiis depositi amoti unus à terra exulatus alii perpetuis prisonis incarcerati alii que gravibus pecuniarum solutionibus juste adjudicati fuerunt AFter that the King for the space of three Years and more had remained beyond Sea and returned out of Gascoign and France into England he was much vexed and disturbed by the continual clamour both of the Clergy and Laity desiring to be relieved against the Justices and other His Majesties Ministers of several oppressions and injuries done unto them contrary to the good Laws and Customs of the Realm whereupon King Edward by his Royal Letters to the several Sheriffs of England commanded that in all Counties Cities and Market Towns a Proclamation should be made that all who found themselves agrieved should repair to Westminster at the next Parliament and there shew their Grievances where as well the great as the less should receive fit Remedies and speedy Justice according as the King was obliged by the Bond of his Coronation Oath And now that great day was come that day of judging even the Justices and the other Ministers of the King's Council which by no Collusion or Reward no Argument or Art of Pleading they could elude or avoid The Clergy therefore and the People being gathered together and seated in the great Palace of Westminster the Archbishop of Canterbury a man of eminent Piety and as it were a Pillar of the holy Church and the Kingdom rising from his Seat and fetching a profound sigh spoke in this manner Let this Assembly know that we are called together concerning the great and weighty Affairs of the Kingdom too much alas of late disturbed and still out of Order unanimously faithfully and effectually with our Lord the King to treat and ordain Vide Fleta Cap. 17. p. 18 19. Authoritas Officium ordinarii Concilii Regis Ye have all heard the grievous complaints of the most intollerable injuries and oppressions of the daily desolations committed both on Church and State by this corrupt Council of our Lord the King contrary to our great Charters so many and so often purchased and redeemed granted and confirmed to us by the several Oaths of our Lord the King that now is and of our Lords King Henry and John and corroborated by the dreadful thundrings of the sentence of Excommunication against the
Invaders of our common Liberties of England in our said Charters contained and when we had conceived firm and undoubted hopes that these our Liberties would have been faithfully preserved by all men the King circumvented and seduced by the Counsels of evil Ministers hath not been afraid to violate it by infringing them falsly believing that he could for Rewards be absolved from that offence which would be the manifest destruction of the Kingdom There is another thing also that grieves our Spirits that the Justices subtilly and maliciously by diverse Arguments of covetousness and intollerable pride have the King against his faithful Subjects sundry ways incited and provoked counselling him contrary to the good and wholsome Advice of all the Liegemen of England and have not blushed nor been afraid impudently to assert and prefer their own foolish Councils as if they were more fit to consult and preserve the Commonweal than all the Estates of the Kingdom together assembled so that it may be truly said of them they are the men that troubled the Land and disturb'd the Nation under a false colour of gravity have the whole People grievously opprest and under pretence of expounding the antient Laws have introduced new I will not say Laws but evil Customs so that through the Ignorance of some and partiality of others who for reward or fear of great Men have been engaged there was no certainty of Law and they scorned to administer Justice to the people their deeds are deeds of wickedness and the work of Iniquity is in their hand their feet make haste to evil and the way of truth have they not known what shall I say there is no Judgment in their paths How many Free-men of this Land faithful Subjects of our Lord the King have like the meanest Slaves of lowest condition without any fault been cast into Prison where some of them by hunger grief or the burthen of their chains have expired they have also extorted at their pleasure infinite sums of money for their ransoms the Coffers of some that they might fill their own as well from the rich as the poor they have exhausted by reason whereof they have contracted the irreconcilable hatred and dreadful imprecations of all men as if they had purchas'd and obtain'd such an incommunicable priviledge by their detestable Charter of non Obstante that they might at their own lust be free from all Laws both humane and divine Moreover there is another more the ordinary grievance which hitherto hath and in some measure doth still rage among us All things are expos'd to sale if not as it were to plunder and theft Alas how great power hath the love of money in the breasts of Men Hear therefore O ye wicked from my mouth the dreadful decree of Heaven the dejection af your countenances accuseth you and like the men of Sodom ye have not hidden but proclaimed the sin woe be to your souls woe be to them that make Laws and Writing write injustice that they may oppress the poor in Judgment and injure the cause of the humble that Widows may become their Prey and that they might destroy the Orphan Woe be to those that build their Houses in injustice and their Tabernacles in Vnrighteousness Woe be to them that covet large possessions that break open Houses and destroy the Man and his Inheritance woe be to such Judges who are like Wolves in the Evening and leave not a bone till the morning The Righteous Judge will bring such Counsellors to a foolish end and such Judges to confusion ye shall all presently with a loud cry receive the just sentence of the Land At the hearing of these things all Ears tingled and the whole Community lifted up their Voice and mourned saying Alas alas for us what is become of that English Liberty which we have so often purchased which by so many Concessions so many Statutes so many Oaths have been confirmed to us Hereupon several of the Criminals withdrew into secret places being concealed by their friends some of them were brought forth into the midst of the People and deservedly turned out of their Offices one was banished the Land and others were grievously Fined or Condemned to perpetual Imprisonment This is confirmed by Spelman An. 1290. All the Justices of England saith he were An. 18. Ed. 1. apprehended for Corruption except John Mettingham and Elias Bleckingham whom I name for their honour and by Judgment of Parliament condemned some to Imprisonment others Banishment or Confiscation of their Estates and none escaped without grievous Fines and the loss of their Offices The Speech and Carriage of STEPHEN COLLEDGE Before the Castle at Oxford Wednesday Aug. 31. 1681. Taken exactly from his Mouth at the place of Execution Mr. High-Sheriff MR. Colledge It is desired for satisfaction of the World because you have profest your self a Protestant that you would tell what Judgment you are of Colledge Dear People dear Protestants and dear Country-men I Have been Accused and Convicted for Treason the Laws Adjudge me to this Death and I come hither willingly to submit to it I pray God forgive all those persons that had any hand in it I do declare to you whatever has been said of me that I was never a Papist or ever that way inclined they have done me wrong I was ever a Protestant I was born a Protestant I have lived so and so by the Grace of God I will die of the Church of England according to the best Reformation of the Church from all Idolatry from all Superstition or any thing that is contrary to the Gospel of our blessed Lord and Saviour I do declare I was never in any Popish Service Prayers or Devotions in my life save one time about seventeen or eighteen years ago as near as I remember I was out of a curiosity one afternoon at St. James's Chappel the Queens Chappel at St. James's except that one time I never did hear any Popish Service any thing of the Church of Rome Mass or Prayers or any thing else private or publick I know you expect that I should say something as to what I die for It has been charged upon me when I was apprehended and brought before the Council some of the Council the Secretary and my Lord Killingworth and Mr. Seymour they told me there was Treason sworn against me truly they surprized me when they said so for of all things in the World I thought my self as free from that as any man I asked them if any man living had the confidence to swear Treason against me They said several three or four as I remember Then they told me it was sworn against me that I had a design to pull the King out of White-hall and to serve him as his Father was served or to that purpose the Loggerhead his Father or that kind of Language I did deny it then and do now deny it upon my Death I never was in any manner of Plot in my
days neither one way nor another never knew any suââ persons nor ever had such Communication with any man hitherto I know of no Plot in the World but the Popish Plot and that every man may know as much as I. If I had had such a design as these men have sworn against me to have seiz'd his Majesty either at London or this place at Oxford I take God to witness as I 'm a dying man and upon the terms of my Salvation I know not any one man upon the face of the Earth that would have stood by me and how likely it was that I should do such a thing my self let the whole World judge Dugdale swears That I spoke Treason to him treasonable words in the Coffee-house and in the Barbers shop by the Angel even he could not pretend to see me any where else but it is false and a very unlikely thing that I should speak Treason to him I must confess I was in his company at the Coffee-house and that Barbers shop before I went out of Town but there could be no Communication between us for he was writing at one end of the Room and eating a piece of bread and I lighted a Pipe of Tobacco at the other end and took it till Sir Tho. Player and Sir Rob. Clayton came to me and we went to my Lord Lovelace's out of Town that night so when they came we took horse and went out of Town with the rest For my part I can't sum up my Witnesses I was under most strange Circumstances as ever any man was I was kept Prisoner so close in the Tower that I could have no Conversation with any though I was certain the Popish Lords had it every day there but I could have none I could not tell the Witnesses that were to swear against me I could not tell what it was they swore against me for I could have no Copy of the Indictment nor no way possible to make any preparation to make my Defence as I ought to have done and might have done by Law I had no liberty to do any thing as I am a dying man And as to what Dugdale Smith Turbervile and Heyns swore against me they did swear such Treason that nothing but a mad man would ever have trusted any body with and least of all to Papists every one of them that had been concerned with Plots and Treasons among their own party and under the greatest Tyes and Obligations of Damnation and to be Sainted if they kept it secret and to be damned if they revealed it If these men will not keep things secret for their own Party how could I trust them I take God to witness and do freely acknowledge I have sought my God with Tears several times to inform me if so be I had with any word transgressed at any time I knew not of any part of what they swore against me till such time as I heard it swore against me at the Bar. This is very hard Gentlemen but this is the Truth And there be a great many other strange Reports that I have heard since I have been a Prisoner That I should be a means to convert the Countess of Rochester by bringing one Thompson a Priest to her Truly all that I was concerned in was some fifteen or sixteen years ago I lodged at Col. Vernon's that married my Lady Brookes The Family were Papists the Brookes were Papists and there was this Thompson and I did suppose him a Priest in the House though I never saw him at Popish Service or Worship though I was there half a year but coming afterwards to my Lord Rochester's about some business I had to do for him and several other persons of Quality he sent for me one afternoon from the Parsonage in Adderbury to his House and his Lady and he stood together He sent to me and ask'd me if my Horse were at home said he I would have you carry this Letter to Mr. Thompson if you are at leisure this afternoon My Lord I am at leisure to serve you So I took a Letter from his hand and his Lady 's too as I remember he made an offer that way sealed with his own Seal and carried it to Thompson and delivered it to him and he told me that he would wait upon my Lord for it was for some Lands my Lord did offer to raise Money for some occasions This is the Truth of that Scandal It is said that I had a Priest several years in my House viz. Serjeant that came over from Holland to discover About some ten years ago that very same man came to me but was a stranger to me and he came to me by the name of Dr. Smith a Physician and there was an Apothecary in the Old-baily and a Linnen-draper within Ludgate that came with him they brought him thither and took a Chamber and lay about half a year or three quarters at times by the name of Dr. Smith and as a Physician This is the Truth of that and no otherwise This is the Entertainment of Serjeant So the occasion of my coming to Oxford I do say was voluntary The Parliament-men last Parliament at Westminster and several Lords dined together the day before they sate the last Sessions of Parliament at Wistminster they sent for me to the Sun-Tavern behind the Exchange and when I came the Duke of Monmouth and several Lords were together and I believe above a hundred Parliament-men of the Commons The Duke of Monmouth called me to him and told me he had heard a good Report of me and that I was an honest man and one that may be trusted and they did not know but their Enemies the Papists might have some design to serve them as they did in King James's time by Gun-powder or any other ways And the Duke with several Lords and Commons did desire me to use my utmost skill in searching all places suspected by them which I did perform and from thence I had as I think the popular name of the Protestant Joyner because they had intrusted me before any man in England to do that Office The same Haynes one of them that swore against me had discovered to me and several others as to Macknamar and his Brother and this Ivy who are now all of another stamp That the Parliament was to be destroyed at Oxford and that there was a design to murther my Lord Shaftsbury by Fitzgerald and his Party and that they did endeavour to bring Macknamar over to him and said Then it would be well with him and they would not be long before they had Shaftsbury's life And he made Depositions of this to Sir Geo. Treby as I heard afterwards for I was not with him when it was sworn I wish the Commons of England as well as I wish my own heart and I did not understand but when I serv'd the Parliament I serv'd his Majesty too and let them be miserable that make the Difference
this Absolute Power it is a little too hard to make men swear to maintain the King in it and if that Kingdom has suffered so much by the many Oaths that have been in use among them as is marked in his Proclamation I am afraid this new Oath will not much mend the matter XIV Yet after all there is some Comfort his Majesty assures them he will use no Violence nor Force nor any Invincible Necessity to any man on the account of his perswasion It were too great a want of respect to fancy that a time may come in which even this may be remembred full as well as the promises that were made to the Parliament after his Majesty came to the Crown I do not I confess apprehend that for I see here so great a Caution used in the choice of these words that it is plain very great Severities may very well consist with them It is clear that the general words of Violence and Force are to be determined by the last Invincible Necessity so that the King does only promise to lay no Invincible Necessity on his Subjects but for all Necessities that are not Invincible it seems they must bear a large share of them Disgraces want of imployments Fines and Imprisonments and even Death it self are all vincible things to a man of a firmness of mind so that the Violences of Torture the Furies of Dragoons and some of the Methods now practised in France perhaps may be included within this Promise since these seem almost Invincible to Humane Nature if it is not fortified with an Extraordinary measure of Grace but as to all other things his Majesty binds himself up from no part of the Exercise of his Absolute Power by this Promise XV. His Majesty Orders this to go Immediatly to the Great Seal without passing through the other Seals now since this is Counter-signed by the Secretary in whose hands the Signet is there was no other step to be made but through the Privy Seal so I must own I have a great Curiosity of knowing his Character in whose hands the Privy Seal is at present for it seems his Conscience is not so very supple as the Chancellors and the Secretaries are but it is very likely if he does not quickly change his Mind the Privy Seal at least will quickly change his Keeper and I am sorry to hear that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary have not another Brother to fill this post that so the guilt of the ruine of that Nation may lie on one single Family and that there may be no others involved in it XVI Upon the whole matter many smaller things being waved it being extream unpleasant to find fault where one has all possible dispositions to pay all respect we here in England see what we must look for A Parliament in Scotland was try'd but it proved a little stubborn and now Absolute Power comes to set all right so when the Closetting has gone round so that Noses are counted we may perhaps see a Parliament here but if it chances to be untoward and not to Obey without Reserve then our Reverend Judges will copy from Scotland and will not only tell us of the King 's Imperial Power but will discover to us this new Mystery of Absolute Power to which we are all bound to Obey without Reserve These Reflections refer in so many places to some words in the Proclamation that it was thought necessary to set them near one another that the Reader may be able to Judge whether he is deceived by any false Quotations or not By the King A PROCLAMATION JAMES R. JAMES the Seventh by the Grace of God King of Scotland England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. To all and sundry our good Subjects whom these presents do or may concern Greeting We have taken into our Royal Consideration the many and great inconveniencies which have happened to that our Ancient Kingdom of Scotland of late years through the different perswasions in the Christian Religion through the great Heats and Animosities amongst the several Professors thereof to the ruin and decay of Trade wasting of Lands extinguishing of Charity contempt of the Royal Power and converting of true Religion and the Fear of God into Animosities Names Fractions and sometimes into Sacrilege and Treason And being resolved as much as in us lies to Unite the Hearts and Affections of Our Subjects to GOD in Religion to Us in Loyalty and to their Neighbours in Christian Love and Charity Have therefore thoughe fit to Grant and by our Soveraign Authority Prerogative Royal and Absolute Power which all our Subjects are to Obey without Reserve Do hereby give and grant Our Royal Toleration to the several Professors of the Christian Religion after named with and under the several Conditions Restrictions and Limitations after-mentioned In the first place We Allow and Tolerate the Moderate Presbyterians to Meet in their Private Houses and there to hear all such Ministers as either have or are willing to accept of Our Indulgence allanerly and none other and that there be not any thing said or done contrary to the Well and Peace of Our Reign Seditious or Treasonable under the highest Pains these Crimes will import nor are they to presume to Build Meeting-Houses or to use Out-Houses or Barns but only to Exercise in their Private Houses as said is In the mean time it is our Royal Will and Pleasure that Field-Conventicles and such as Preach or Exercise at them or who shall any ways assist or connive at them shall be prosecuted according to the utmost Severity of our Laws made against them seeing from these Rendezvouzes of Rebellion so much Disorder hath proceeded and so much Disturbance to the Government and for which after this Our Royal Indulgence for tender Consciences there is no Excuse left In like manner we do hereby tolerate Quakers to meet and Exercise in their Form in any place or places appointed for their Worship And considering the Severe and Cruel Laws made against Roman Catholicks therein called Papists in the Minority of Our Royal Grand-Father of * Glorious Memory without His Consent and contrary to the Duty of good Subjects by His Regents and other Enemies to their Lawful Soveraigns Our Royal Great Grand-Mother Queen Mary of Blessed and Pious Memory wherein under the pretence of Religion they cloathed the worst of Treasons Factions and Usurpations and made these Laws not as against the Enemies of GOD but their own which Laws have still been continued of course without design of executing them or any of them ad terrorem only on Supposition that the Papists relying on an External Power were incapable of Duty and true Allegiance to their Natural Soveraign and Rightful Monarchs We of Our certain Knowledge and long Experience knowing that the Catholicks as it is their Principle to be good Christians so it is to be dutiful Subjects and that they have likewise on all Occasions shewn themselves
meet for the meaning of this seems plain that His Majesty is resolved that they shall never meet till he receives such Assurances in a new round of Closetting that he shall be put out of doubt concerning it VII I will not enter into the Dispute concerning Liberty of Conscience and the Reasons that may be offered for it to a Session of Parliament for there is scarce any one point that either with relation to Religion or Politicks affords a greater variety of matter for Reflection and I make no doubt to say that there is abundance of Reason to oblige Parliaments to review all the Penal Laws either with relation to Papists or to Dissenters but I will take the boldness to add one thing that the King 's Suspending of Laws strikes at the root of this whole Government and subverts it quite for if there is any thing certain with relation to English Government it is this that the Executive Power of the Law is entirely in the King and the Law to fortifie him in the Management of it has cloathed him with a vast Prerogative and made it unlawful on any pretence whatsoever to resist him whereas on the other hand the Legislative Power is not so entirely in the King but that the Lords and Commons have such a share in it that no Law can either be made repealed or which is all one suspended but by their consent so that the placing this Legislative Power singly in the King is a subversion of this whole Government since the Essence of all Governments consists in the Subjects of the Legislative Authority Acts of Violence or Injustice committed in the Executive part are such things that all Princes being subject to them the peace of mankind were very ill secured if it were not unlawful to resist upon any pretence taken from any ill Administrations in which as the Law may be doubtful so the Facts may be uncertain and at worst the publick Peace must always be more valued than any private Oppressions or Injuries whatsoever But the total Subversion of a Government being so contrary to the Trust that is given to the Prince who ought to execute it will put men upon uneasie and dangerous Inquiries which will turn little to the Advantage of those who are driving matters to such a doubtful and desperate Issue VIII If there is any thing in which the Exercise of the Legislative Power seems indispensable it is in those Oaths of Allegiance and Tests that are thought necessary to Qualifie men either to be admitted to enjoy the protection of the Law or to bear a share in the Government for in these the Security of the Government is chiefly concerned and therefore the total Extinction of these as it is not only a Suspension of of them but a plain repealing of them so it is a Subverting of the whole Foundation of our Government For the Regulation that King and Parliament had set both for the Subjects having the protection of the State by the Oath of Allegiance and for a share in the places of Trust by the Tests is now pluckt up by the roots when it is declared That these shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken or subscribed by any persons whatsoever for it is plain that this is no Suspension of the Law but a formal repeal of it in as plain words as can be conceived IX His Majesty says that the Benefit of the Service of all his Subjects is by the Law of Nature inseparably annexed to and inherent in his Sacred Person It is somewhat strange that when so many Laws that we all know are suspended the Law of Nature which is so hard to be found out should be cited but the Penners of this Declaration had best let that Law lie forgotten among the rest and there is a scurvy Paragraph in it concerning self-Preservation that is capable of very unacceptable Glosses It is hard to tell what Section of the Law of Nature has markt either such a Form of Government or such a Family for it And if his Majesty renounces his Pretensions to our Allegiance as founded on the Laws of England and betakes himself to this Law of Nature he will perhaps find the Counsel was a little too rash but to make the most that can be the Law of Nations or Nature does indeed allow the Governours of all Societies a Power to serve themselves of every Member of it in the cases of Extream Danger but no Law of Nature that has been yet heard of will conclude that if by special Laws a sort of men have been disabled from all Imployments that a Prince who at his Coronation Swore to maintain those Laws may at his pleasure extinguish all these Disabilities X. At the end of the Declaration as in a Poscript His Majesty assures his Subjects that he will maintain them in their Properties as well in Church and Abbey Lands as other Lands but the chief of all their Properties being the share that they have by their Representatives in the Legislative Power this Declaration which breaks thro' that is no great Evidence that the rest will be maintained and to speak plainly when a Coronation Oath is so little remembred other Promises must have a proportioned degree of Credit given to them as for the Abbey Lands the keeping them from the Church is according to the Principles of that Religion Sacriledge and that is a mortal Sin and there can no Absolution be given to any who continue in it and so this Promise being an Obligation to maintain men in a mortal Sin is nul and void of it self Church-Lands are also according to the Doctrine of their Canonists so immediately God's Right that the the Pope himself is the only Administrator and Dispencer but is not the master of them he can indeed make a truck for God or let them so low that God shall be an easie Landlord but he cannot alter God's Property nor translate the Right that is in him to Sacrilegious Laymen and Hereticks XI One of the Effects of this Declaration will be the setting on foot a new run of Addresses over the Nation for there is nothing how impudent and base soever of which the abject flattery of a slavish Spirit is not capable It must be confest to the Reproach of the Age that all those strains of flattery among the Romans that Tacitus sets forth with so much just scorn are modest things compared to what this Nation has produced within these seven Years only if our Flattery has come short of the Refinedness of the Romans it has exceeded theirs as much in its loathed Fulsomeness The late King set out a Declaration in which he gave the most solemn Assurances possible of his adhering to the Church of England and to the Religion established by Law and of his Resolution to have frequent Parliaments upon which the whole Nation fell as it were into Raptures of Joy and Flattery but though he lived four
your selves it is not the Nature of lasting Plants thus to shoot up in a Night you may look gay and green for a little time but you want a Root to give you a continuance It is not so long since as to be forgotten that the Maxim was It is impossible for a Dissenter not to be a REBEL Consider at this time in France even the new Converts are so far from being Imployed that they are Disarmed Their sudden Change maketh them still to be distrusted notwithstanding that they are Reconciled What are you to expect then from your dear Friends to whom whenever they shall think fit to throw you off again you have in other times given such Arguments for their excuse Besides all this you Act very unskilfully against your visible Interest if you throw away the Advantages of which you can hardly fail in the next probable Revolution Things tend naturally to what you would have if you would let them alone and not by an unseasonable Activity lose the Influences of your good Star which promiseth you every thing that is prosperous The Church of England convinced of its Errour in being severe to you the Parliament whenever it meeteth sure to be Gentle to you the next Heir bred in the Country which you have so often Quoted for a Pattern of Indulgence a general Agreement of all thinking Men that we must no more cut our selves off from the Protestants abroad but rather inlarge the Foundations upon which we are to build our Defences against the Common Enemy so that in Truth all things seem to conspire to give you ease and satisfaction if by too much haste to anticipate your good Fortune you do not destroy it The Protestants have but one Article of Human Strength to oppose the Power which is now against them and that is not to lose the advantage of their Numbers by being so unwary as to let themselves be divided We all agree in our Duty to our Prince our Objections to his Belief do not hinder us from seeing his Vertues and our not complying with his Religion hath no effect upon our Allegiance we are not to be Laughed out of our Passive Obedience and the Doctrine of Non-Resistance though even those who perhaps owe the best part of their Security to that Principle are apt to make a Jest of it So that if we give no advantage by the fatal Mistake of misapplying our Anger by the natural course of things this Danger will pass away like a shower of Hail fair weather will succeed as lowring as the Sky now looketh and all by this plain and easie Receipt Let us be still quiet and undivided firm at the same time to our Religion our Loyalty and our Laws and so long as we continue this method it is next to impossible that the odds of two hundred to one should lose the Bett except the Church of Rome which hath been so long barren of Miracles should now in her declining Age be brought a Bed of one that would out-do the best she can brag of in her Legend To conclude the short Question will be whether you will Joyn with those who must in the end run the same Fate with you If Protestants of all sorts in their Behaviour to one another have been to blame they are upon the more equal terms and for that very Reason it is fitter for them now to be reconciled Our Dis-union is not only a Reproach but a Danger to us those who believe in modern Miracles have more Right or at least more Excuse to neglect all Secular Cautions but for us it is as justifiable to have no Religion as wilfully to throw away the Human Means of preserving it I am Dear SIR Your most Affectionate Humble Servant T. W. The ANATOMY of an EQUIVALENT I. THE World hath of late years never been without some extraordinary Word to furnish the Coffee-houses and fill the Pamphlets Sometimes it is a new one invented and sometimes an Old one revived They are usually fitted to some present purpose with Intentions as differing as the various Designs several Parties may have either to delude the people or to expose their Adversaries They are not of long continuance but after they have passed a little while and that they are grown Nauseous by being so often repeated they give place to something that is newer Thus after Whig Tory and Trimmer have had their Time now they are dead and forgotten being supplanted by the word Equivalent which reigneth in their stead The Birth of it is in short this After many repeated Essays to dispose Men to the Repeal of Oaths and Tests made for the security of the Protestant Religion the general aversion to comply in it was found to be so great that it was thought adviseable to try another manner of attempting it and to see whether by putting the same thing into another Mould and softning an harsh Proposition by a plausible Term they might not have better success To this end instead of an absolute quitting of these Laws without any Condition which was the first Proposal Now it is put into gentler Language and runneth thus If you will take away the Oaths and Tests you shall have as good a thing for them This put into the fashionable Word is now called an Equivalent II. So much to the Word it self I will now endeavour in short to Examine and Explain in order to the having it fully understood First What is the nature of a true Equivalent and In the next place What things are not to be admired under that denomination I shall treat these as general Propositions and tho I cannot undertake how far they may be convincing I may safely do it that they are Impartial of which there can be no greater evidence than that I make neither Inference nor Application but leave that part intirely to the Reader according as his own Thoughts shall direct and dispose him III. I will first take notice that this Word by the Application which hath been made of it in some modern instances lieth under some Disadvantage not to say some Scandal It is transmitted hither from France and if as in most other things that we take from them we carry them beyond the Pattern it should prove so in this we should get into a more partial Stiâe than the Principles of English Justice will I hope ever allow us to be guilty of The French King's Equivalents in Flanders are very extraordinary Bargains his manner of proposing and obtaining them is very differing from the usual methods of equal dealing In a later Instance Denmark by the encouragement as well as by the example of France hath propos'd things to the Duke of Holstein which are called Equivalents but that they are so the World is not yet sufficiently convinc'd and probably the Parties concern'd do not think them to be so and consequently do not appear to be at all disposed to accept them Princes enjoyn and prescribe such things when
so I desire to know why I may not read an Homily for Transubstantiation or Invocation of Saints or the Worship of Images if the King sends me such good Catholick Homilies and commands me to read them And thus we may instruct our People in all the Points of Popery and recommend it to them with all the Sophistry and Artificial Infintrations in Obedience to the King with a very good Conscience because without our Consent If it be said this would be a Contradiction to the Doctrine of our Church by Law established so I take the Declaration to be And if we may read the Declaration contrary to Law because it does not imply our Consent to it so we may Popish Homilies for the bare Reading them will not imply our Consent no more than the Reading the Declaration does But whether I consent to the Doctrine or no it is certain I consent to teach my People this Doctrine and it is to be considered whether an honest Man cand do this Thirdly I suppose no Man will doubt but the King intends that our Reading the Declaration should signifie to the Nation our Consent and Approbation of it for the Declaration does not want Publishing for it is sufficiently known already but our Reading it in our Churches must serve instead of Addresses of Thanks which the Clergy generally refused though it was only to Thank the King for his Gracious Promises renewed to the Church of England in His Declaration which was much more innocent than to publish the Declaration it self in our Churches This would perswade one that the King thinks our Reading the Declaration to signifie our Consent and that the People will think it to be so And he that can satisfie his ãâã to do an Action without Consent which the Nature of the Thing the Design and intention of the Command and the Sense of the People expound to be a Consent may I think as well satisfie himself with Equivocations and mental Reservations There are two things to be answered to this which must be considered 1. That the People understand our Minds and see that this is Matter of Force upon us and meer Obedience to the King To which I answer 1. Possibly the People do understand that the Matter of the Declaration is against our Principles But is this any Excuse that we read that and by Reading recommend that to them which is against our own Consciences and Judgments Reading the Declaration would be no Fault at all but our Duty whââ the King commands it did we approve of the Matter of it but to consent to teach our People such Doctrines as we think contrary to the Laws of God or the Laws of the Land does not lessen but aggravate the Fault and the People must be very good natured to think this an Excuse 2. It is not likely that all the People will be of a Mind in this Matter some may excuse it others and those it may be the most the best and the wifest Men will condemn us for it and then how shall we justifie our selves against their Censures when the World will be divided in their Opinions the plain way is certainly the best to do what we can justifie our selves and then let Men judge as they please No Men in England will be pleased with our Reading the Declaration but those who hope to make great Advantage of it against us and against our Church and Religion others will severely condemn us for it and censure us as false to our Religion and as Betrayers both of Church and State and besides that it does not become a Minister of Religion to do any thing which in the Opinion of the most charitable Men can only be excused for what needs an Excuse is either a Fault or looks very like one besides this I say I will not trust Mens Charity those who have suffered themselves in this Cause will not excuse us for fear of suffering those who are inclined to excuse us now will not do so when they consider the thing better and come to feel the ill Consequences of it when our Enemies open their Eyes and tell them what our Reading the Declaration signified which they will then tell us we ought to have seen before though they were not bound to see it for we are to guide and instruct them not they us II. Others therefore think that when we read the Declaration we should publickly profess that it is not our own Judgment but that we only Read it in Obedience to the King and then our Reading it cannot imply our Consent to it Now this is only Protestatio contra sactum which all People will laugh at and scorn us for for such a solemn Reading it in time of Divine Service when all Men ought to be most grave and serious and far from dissembling with God or Men does in the Nature of the thing imply our Approbation and should we declare the contrary when we read it what shall we say to those who ask uâ why then do you read it But let those who have a mind to try this way which for my part I take to be a greater and more unjustifiable Provocation of the King than not to read it and I suppose those who do not read it will be thought plainer and honester Men and will ãâã as well as those who read it and protest against it and yet nothing less than an express Protestation against it will salve this Matter for only to say they read it meerly in Obedience to the King does not express their Dissent It signifies indeed that they would not have read it if the King had not commanded it but these Words do not signifie that they disapprove of the Declaration when their Reading it though only in Obedience to the King signifies their Approbation of it as much as Actions can signifie a Consent let us call to mind how it fared with those in King Charles the First 's Reign who read the Book of Sports as it was called and then preached against it To return then to our Arguments if Reading the Declaration in our Churches be in the Nature of the Action in the Intention of the Command in the Opinion of the People an interpretative Consent to it I think my self bound in Conscience not to read it because I am bound in Conscience not to approve it It is against the Constitution of the Church of England which is established by Law and to which I have subscribed and therefore am bound in Conscience to Teach nothing contrary to it while this Obligation lasts It is to teach an unlimitâd and universal Toleration which the Parliament in 72. Declared illegal and which has been condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages It is to teach my People that they need never come to Church more but have my free Leave as they have the King 's to go to a Conventicle or Mass It is to teach the Dispencing Power which alters what
the Pamphlet whereof I have here given you my thoughts was more than a Fortnight on the way or else you had received this sooner I am Dubââ 1688. SIR Your most Humble Servant A PLAIN ACCOUNT OF THE PERSECUTION Laid to the CHARGE of the Church of England THE Desire of Liberty to serve God in that Way and Manner which Men judge to be most acceptable to him is so Natural and Reasonable that they cannot but be extreamly provoked against those who would force them to serve him in any other But the Conceit withal which most Men have that their Way of Serving God is the only acceptable Way naturally inclines them when they have Power to use all Means to constrain all other to serve him in that way only So that Liberty is not more desired by all at one time than it is denied by the very same Persons at another Put them into different Conditions and they are not of the same Mind but have different Inclinations in one State from what they have in another As will be apparent by a short View of what hath passed in these Churches and Kingdoms within our Memory II. Before the late Civil Wars there were very grievous Complaints made of the Bishops that they pressed the Ceremonies so strictly as to inflict heavy Censures upon those called Puritans who could not in Conscience conform to them Now no sooner had those very Persons who thus complaned got their Liberty to do as they pleased but they took it quite away from the other and suquestred all those who would not enter into their Holy League and Covenant for the reforming all things according to the Model which they propounded Nay they were not willing to bear with Five Dissenting Brethren among themselves who could not conform to the Presbyterial Government And when these Dissenting Brethren commonly known by the Name of Independants had got a Party strong enough which carried all before them they would not allow the use of the Common Prayer in any Parish no not to the King himself in his own Chappel not grant to one of the old Clergy so much Liberty as to teach a School c. Which things I do not mention God knows to reproach those who were guilty of them but only to put them in mind of their own Failings that they may be humbled for them and not insult over the Church of England nor severely upbraid them with that which when time was they acted with a higher Hand themselves If I should report all that the Presbyterians did here and in Scotland and all that the Independants did here and in New England it would not be thought that I exceed the Truth when I say they have been more Guilty of this Fault than those whom they now charge with it Which doth not excuse the Church of England it must be confessed but doth in some Measure mitigate her Fault For the Conformable Clergy having met with such very hard Usage in that disinal Time wherein many of them were oppressed above Measure no wonder if the Smart of it then fresh in their Minds something imbittered their Spirits when God was preased by a wonderful Revolution to put them into Power again III. Then a stricter Act of Vnifamity was made and several Laws pursuant to it for the enforeing that Uniformity by severe Penalties But let it be remembred that none were by those Laws constrained to come to Church but had Liberty left them to serve God at Home and some Company with them in their own Way And let it be farther remembred that the Reâion why they were denied their Liberty of meeting in greater Assemblies was because such Assemblies were represented as greatly endangering the publick Peace and Safety as the Words are in the very first Act of this Nature against âuakers in the Year 1662. Let any one read the Oxford Act as it is commonly called made in the Year 1665. and that at Westminster in the Year 16ââ and he will find them intended against Sedââous Conventicles That is they wâââ made them were perswâdâd by the Jâsuâ Iâterest at first to look upon such Meetings as Nurseries of Sedition where bad Principles were infused into Mens Minds destructive to the Civil Government If it had not been for this it doth not appear that the Contrivers of these Laws were inclined to such Severities as were thereby enacted but the Nânconformists might have enjoyed a larger Liberty in Religion It was not Religion alone which was considered and prerended but the publick Peace and Settlement with respect to which they were tyed up so straitly in the Exercise of their Religion Which to deal clearly I do not believe would have raught Rebellion but this was constantly insinuated by the Court Agents and it is no wonder if the Parliament who remembred how the Ministers of that Perswasion though indeed from the then Appearance of Popery had been the Principal Incouragers of that Defensive War against the King were easily made to believe that they still retained the same Principles and would propagate them if they were suffered among the People Certainly it is also that the Court made it their Care to have those Acts passed though at the same time they hindred their Execution that they might keep up both Parties in the height of their Animosities and especially that they might make the Church of England be both hated and despised by the Dissenters IV. Thus things continued for some time till wise Men began to see into the Secret and think of a Reconciliation But it was always hindred by the Court who never thought of giving Liberty by a Law but only by the Prerogative which could as casâly take it away There was a time for instance when a Comprehension c. was projected by several great Men both in Church and State for the taking as many as possible into Union with us and providing Ease for the rest Which so netled the late King that meeting with the then Arch-bishop of Canterbury he said to him as I perfectly remember What my Lord you are for a Comprehension To which he making such a Reply as signified he heard some were about it No said the King I will keep the Church of England pure and unmixed that is never suffer a Reconciliation with the Dissenters And when the Lords and Commons also had not many years ago passed a Bill for the Repealing of the most heavy of all the Penal Laws against Dissenters viz. the Statute of 35 Eliz. 1. which by the Parliament is made against the Wicked and dangerous Practices of Seditiâââ Sectaries and disloyal Persons his late Majesty so dealt with the Clerk of the Parliament that it was shuffled away and could not be found when it was to have been presented to him among other Bills for his Royal Consent unto it A notable Token of the Abhorrence the Court then had of all Penal Laws and of their great Kindness to Dissenters V. Who may
the Face to turn them again upon you after they have made all this Noise for Liberty And the Church of England you may be assured will not any more trouble you but when a Protestand Prince shall come will joyn in the Healing of all our Breaches by removing all things out of the way which have long hindred that blessed Work They cannot meet together in a Body to give you this Assurance how should they without the Kings Authority so to do but every particular Person that I have discoursed withal which are not a few and you your selves would do well to ask them when you meet them profess that they see an absolute Necessity of making an end of these Differences that have almost undone us and will no longer contend to bring all Men to one Vniformity but promote an Vniform Liberty Do not imagine I intend to give meer Words I meân honestly such a regular Liberty as will be the Beauty and Honour not the Blot and Discredit of our Religion To such a Temper the Archbishop of Canterbury with several other Bishops of his Province and their Clergy have openly declared they are willing to come And the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England have never been know to act deceitfully Our Religion will not at any time allow them to equivecate nor to give good VVords without a Meaning much less at such a time as this when our Religion is in great danger and we have nothing to trust unto but Gods Protection of sincere Persons Let Integrity and Vprightness preserve us is their constant Prayer They can hope for no Help from Heaven if they should prevaricate with Men. God they know would desert them if they should go about to delude their Brethren And they are not so void of common Sense as to adventure to incur his most high Displeasure when they have nothing to rely upon but his Favour In short Trust to those who own you for their Brethren as you do them for though they have been angry Brethren yet there is hope of Reconciliation between such near Relations But put no Confidence in those who not only utterly disown any such Relation to you but have ever treated you with an implacable Hatred as their most mortal Enemies unto whom it is impossible they should be reconciled Prov. 12.19 20. The Lips of Truth shall be established for ever but a lying tongue is but for a mâment Lying Lips are an Abomination to the Lord but they that deal truly are his Delight Abby and other Church-Lands not yet assured to such Possessors as are Roman Catholicks Dedicated to the Nobility and Gentry of that Religion SInce it is universally agreed on that so great a Matter as the total Alienation of all the Abby-Lands c. in England can never be made legal and valid and such as will satisfie the reasonable Doubts and Scruples of a religious and conscientions Person except it be confirm'd by the Supreme Authority in this Church t is evident that the Protestants who assert the Church of England to be Autokephalos and such as allows of no Foreign Jurisdiction or Appeals having had these Lands confirmed to them by the King as Head of the Chuech the Convocation as the Church Representative and by the King and Parliament as the Supreme Legislative Power in this Realm have these Alienations made as valid to them as any Power on Earth can make them but the Members of the Church of Rome who maintain a Foreign and Supreme Jurisdiction either in a General Council or in the Bishop of Rome or both together cannot have these Alienations confirm'd to them without the Consent of one or both of these Superior Jurisdictions If therefore I shall make it appear that these Alienations in England were never confirm'd by either I do not see how any Roman Catholick in England can without Sacriledge retain them and his Religion together As to the first of these since there hath been no Council from the first Alienation of Abby-Lands in England to this Day that pretends to be general but that of Trent we need only look into that for the Satisfaction of such Roman Catholicke as esteem a General Council above the Bishop of Rome And I am sure that that Council is so far from confirming these Abby-Lands to the present Possessors that it expresly denounceth them accursed that detain them Sess 22. Decret de Ref. Cap. 11. Si quem c. If Covetousness the Root of all Evil shall so far possess any Person whatsoever whether of the Clergy or Laity though he be an Emperor or a King as that by Force Fear or Fraud or any Art or Colour whatsoever he presume to convert to his own Use and usurp the Jurisdiction Goods Estates Fruits Profits or Emoluments whatever of any Church or any Benefice Secular or Regular Hospital or Religious House or shall hinder that the Profits of the said Houses be not received by those to whom they do of right belong let him lie under an Anathema till the said Jurisdiction Goods Estates Rents and Prosits which he hath possessed and invaded or which have come to him any manner of way be restored to the Church and after that have Absolution from the Bishop of Rome So great a Terror did this strike into the English Papists that were Possessors of Church-Lands against whom this Anathema seems particularly directed that many of the zealous Papists began to think of Restitution and Sir William Peters notwithstanding his private Bull of Absolution from Pope Juââus the Fourth was so much startled at it as that the very next Year he endowed eight new Fellowships in Exeter-Colledge in Oxford Again the same Council Sess 25. Decret de Râf c. 2 â Cupiens Sancta Synodus c. Decreeth and commandeth that all the Holy Ca ãâã and General Councils and Apostolick Sanctions in Favour of Ecclesiastical Persons and the Liberties of the Church and against those that violate them be exactly observed by eveây ãâã and doth farther admonish the Emperor Kings Princes and all Persons of what Estate soever that they would observe the Rights of the Church as the Commands of God and defend them by their particular Patronage nor suffer them to be invaded by any Lords or Gântlemen whaâsoever but severely punish all those who hinder the Liââwââies Immââities and Jurildictions of the Church and that they would imitate those excellent Princes who by their Authority and Bounty encreased the Revenues of the Church so far were they from suffering them to be invadââ and in this let every one sedulously perform his part c. And now after so full and express Declaration of the Council of Trent I do not ââe how any of those Râman Catholicks who esteem a general Council to be the Supreme Authority in the Church and receive the Trent Council as such can any way excuse themselves in point of Conscience from these heavy Curses that are there denounc'd against all those
The Pope published a Bull in print against the restoring of Abby-Lands which Dr. Burnet affirms also Ap. Fol. 403. It is notoriously false they both asserting the contrary Dr. Burnet's Words in that very place are these The Pope in plain terms refused to ratifie what the Cardinal had done and soon after set out a severe Bull cursing and condemning all that held any Church Lands Seventhly and lastly The succeeding Popes have been clearly of this opinion Pope Pius the Fourth who immediately succeeded this Paul confirm'd the Counoil of Trent and therein damned all the detainers of Church-Lands and tho he was much importuned to confirm some Alienations made by the King of France to pay the debts of the Crown yet he absolutely refused it F. Pauls H. C. Trent 713. Pope Innocent the Tenth first protested against the Alienations of Church Lands in Germany that were made at the great Treaty of Munster and Osnaburg A. D. 1648. and when that would not do by his Bull Nov. 26. in the very same Year damns all those that should dare to retain the Church-Lands and declares the Treaty void Infirmnentum pacis c. Innocentii 10 me declaratio nullitatis Artic. c. and all their late Popes in the Bulla caenae do very solemnly Damn and Excommunicate all who usurp any Jurisdiction Fruits Revenues and Emoluments belonging to any Ecclesiastical person upon account of any Churches Monasteries or other Ecclesiastical Benefices or who upon any occasion or cause Sequester the said Revenues without the Express leave of the Bishop of Rome or others having lawful power to do it c. And tho upon Geod-Friday there is published a general Absolution yet out of that are expresly excluded all those who possess any Church Lands or Goods who are still left under the sentence of Excommunication Toleti Instr Sacerd. and his Explicatio casuum in Bulla caenae Dni reserva From which consideration it 's evident that it never was the design of the Pope to confirm the English Church Lands to the Lay-possessors but that he always urg'd the necessity of restoring of them to religious uses in order to which the papists prevailed to have the statute of Mortmain repealed for 20 Years In Queen Elizabeth's Reign the factious party that was manag'd wholy by Romish âmissaries demanded to have Abbtes and such Religious Houses restored for their Vse and A. D. 1585. in their petition to the Faâhament they set it down as a ãâã Doctrine that things once dedicated to Sacred Vses ought so to remain by the Word of God for ever and ought not to be converted to any private Vse Bishop Bancrofts Sermon at p. c. A. D. 1588. p. 25. And that the Church of Rome is still gaping after these Lands is evident from many of their late Books as the Religion of M. Luther lately printed at Oxford p. 15. The Monks wrote Anathema upon the Registers and Donations belonging to Monasteries the weight and essect of which curses are both felt and dreaded to this day To this End the Monastiâââ Anglicanum is so diligently preserved in the Vatican and other Libraries in the popish Countries and especially this appears from the obstinate refusal of this present Pope to confirm these Alienations tho it be a matter so much controverted and which would be of that vast Use towards promoting their Religion in this Kingdom If therefore the Bishops of Rome did never confirm these Alienations of Church-Lands but earnestly and strictly required their Restitution if they have declared in their Authentick Canons that they have no power to do it and both they and the last general Council pronounce an heavy Curse and Anathema against all such as detain them Then let every one that possesseth these Lands and yet own either of these Foreign Jurisdictions consider that here is nothing left to excuse him from Sacriledge and therefore with his Estate he must derive a curse to his posterity There is scarcely any Papist but that is forward to accuse King Henry the 8th of Sacriledge and yet never reflects upon himself who quietly possesseth the Fruits of it without Restitution either let them not accuse him or else restore themselves Now whatever opinions the papists may have of these things in the time of health yet I must desire to remember what the Jesuits proposed to Cardinal Pool in Doctor Pary's Days Viz. That if he would encourage them in England they did not doubt but that by dealing with the Consciences of those who were dying they should soon recover the greatest part of the Goods of the Church Dr. Burnet's Hist Vol. 2. p. 328. Not to mention that whensoever the Regulars shall grow numerous in England and by consequence burthensome to the few Nobility and Gentry of that perswasion they will find it necessary for them to consent to a Restitution of their Lands that they may share the burthen among others For so vast are the Burthens and Payments that that Religion brings with it that it will be found at length an advantagious Bargain to part with all the Church Lands to indemnifie the rest And I am confident that the Gentry of England that are Papists have found greater Burthens and Payments since their Religion hath been allow'd than ever they did for the many years it was forbid and this charge must daily encrease so long as their Clergy daily grows more numerous and their few Converts are most of them of the meanest Rank and such as want to be provided for And that 's no easie matter to force Converts may appear from that Excellent Observation of the great Emperour Charles the Fifth who told Queen Mary That by endeavouring to compel others to his own Relegion he had tired and spent himself in vain and purchas'd nothing by it but his own dishonour Card. Pool in Heylin's Hist Ref. p. 217. And to conclude this Discourse had the Act of Pope Julius the Third by his Legate Cardinal Pool in confirming of the Alienation of Church Lands in England been as valid as is by some pretended yet what shall secure us from an Act of Resumption That very Pope after that pretended Grant to Cardinal Pool published a Bull in which he Excommunicated all that kept Abby-Lands or Church Lands Burnet's Hist Vol. 2. p. 3â9 by which all former Grants had there been any were cancell'd His Successor Pope Paul the Fourth retrieved all the Goods and Ecclesiastical Revenues that had been alienated from the Church since the time of Julius the Second and the chief Reasons that are given why the Popes may not still proceed to an Act of Resumption of these Lands in England amount only to this That they may stay for a fair opportunity when it may be done without disturbing the peace of the Kingdom From all which it 's evident that the detaining of Abby-Lands and other Church-Lands from the Monks and Friars is altogether inconsistent with the Doctrine and Principles of the Romish Religion The King's
Power in Ecclesiastical Matters truly stated HIS present Majesty having erected an High-Commission Court to enquire of and make redress in Ecclesiastical Matters c. Q. Whether such a Commission as the Law now stands be good or not And I hold that the Commission is not good And to maintain my Opinion herein I shall in the first place briefly consider what Power the Crown of England had in Ecclesiastical or Spiritual Matters for I take them to be synonymous Terms before 17 Car. 1. ca. 11. And Secondly I shall particularly consider the Act of 17 Car. 1. ca. 11. And Thirdly I shall consider 13 Car. 2. ca. 12. And by that time I have fully considered these three Acts of Parliament it will plainly appear that the Crown of England hath now no Power to erect such a Court. I must confess and do agree That by the Common Law all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction was lodged in the Crown and the Bishops and all Spiritual Persons derived their Jurisdiction from thence And I cannot find that there were any Attempts by the Clergy to divest the Crown of it till William the First 's Time and his Successors down to King John the Pope obtained four Points of Jurisdiction First Sending of Legates into England Secondly Drawing of Appeals to the Court of Rome Thirdly Donation of Bishopricks and other Ecclesiastical Benefices And Fourthly Exemption of Clerks from the Secular Power Which four Points were gained within the space of an hundred and odd Years but with all the Opposition imaginable of the Kings and their People and the Kingdom never came to be absolutely inslaved to the Church of Rome till King John's Time and then both King and People were and so continued to be in a great measure in Henry the Third's Time and so would in all likelihood have continued had not wise Edward the First opposed the Pope's Usurpation and made the Statute of Mortmain But that which chiefly brake the Neck of this was That after the Pope and Clergy had endeavoured in Edward the Second's Time and in the beginning of Edward the Third to usurp again Edward the Third did resist the Usurpation and made the Statutes of Provisors 25 Ed. 3. and 27 Ed. 3. And Richard the Second backed those Acts with 16 Rich. 2. ca. 5. and kept the Power in the Crown by them Laws which being interrupted by Queen Mary a bloody Bigot of the Church of Rome during her Reign there was an Act made in 1 Eliz-ca 1. which is Intituled Keeble's Stat. An Act to restore to the Crown the ancient Jurisdiction over the Estate Ecclesiastical and Spiritual and abolishing all foreign Powers repugnant to the same From which Title I collect three things First That the Crown had anciently a Jurisdiction over the Estate Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Secondly That that Jurisdiction had for some time been at least suspended and the Crown had not exercised it Thirdly That this Law did not introduce a new Jurisdiction but restored the old but with restoring the old Jurisdiction to the Crown gave a Power of delegating the Exercise of it And as a Consequence from the whole that all Jurisdiction that is lodged in the Crown is subject nevertheless to the Legislative Power in the Kingdom I shall now consider what Power this Act of 1 Eliz. 1. declares to have been anciently in the Crown and that appears from Sect. 16 17 18. of the same Act. Section 16. Abolisheth all Foreign Authority in Cases Spiritual and Temporal in these VVords And to the intent that all the Vsurped and Foreign Power and Authority Spiritual and Temporal may for ever be clearly extinguished and never to be used or obeyed within this Realm or any other Your Majesties Dominions or Countries 2 May it please Your Highness that it may be further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid that no Foreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate Spiritual or Temporal shall at any time after the last Day of this Session of Fââliament use enjoy or exercise any manner of Power Jurisdiction Superiority Authority Preheminence or Priviledge Spiritual or Ecclesiastical within this Realm or within any other Your Majesties Dominions or Countries that now be or hereafter shall be but from thenceforth the same shall be clearly Abolished out of this Realm and all other Your Highness's Dominions for ever any Statute Ordinance Custom Constitutions or any other Matter or Cause whatsoever to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding And after the said Act hath abolished all Foreign Authority in the very next Section Sect. 17. It annexeth all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to the Crown in these VVords And that also it may likewise please your Heghness That it may be Established and Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That such Jurisdictions Priviledges Superiorities and Preheminencies Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power or Authority hath heretofore been or may lawfully be exercised or used for the Visitation of the Ecclesiastical State and Persons and for Reformation Order and Correction of the same and of all manner of Errors Heresies Schisms Abuses Offences Contempts and Enormities shall for ever by Authority of this present Parliament be Vnited and Annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm From these VVords That such Jurisdiction c. as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power or Authority had then-to-fore been exercised or used were annexed to the Crown I observe That the Four things aforesaid wherein the Pope had incroached were all restored to the Crown and likewise all other Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction that had been exercised or used in this Kingdom and did thereby become absolutely vested in the Crown Then Section 18. Gives a Power to the Crown to assign Commissioners to excrcise this Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in these VVords And that Your Highness Your Heirs and Successors Kings or Queens of this Realm shall have full Power and Authority by Virtue of this Act by Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England to Assign Name and Authorize when and as often as Your Highness Your Heirs or Successors shall think meet and convenient and for such and so long time as shall pleass Your Highness your Heirs or Successors such Person or Persons being natural born Subjects to Your Highness Your Heirs or Successors as Your Majesty Your Heirs or Successors shall think meet to Exercise Vse Occupy and Execute under Your Highness Your Heirs and Succâssors all manner of Jurisdictions Priviledges and Preheminencies in any wise touching or concerning any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction within these Your Realms of England and Ireland or any other Your Highness's Dominions and Countries 2. and to visit Reform Redress Order Correct and Amend all such Errors Heresies Schisms Abuses Offences Contempts and Enormities whatsoever which by any manner of Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power Authority or Jurisdiction can or may lawfully be Reformed Ordered Redressed Corrected Restrained and Amended to the pleasure of Almighty God the Increase of Vertue and the Conservation
of the Peace and Vnity of this Realm 3. And that such Person or Persons so to be Named Assigned Authorised and Appointed by Your Highness Your Heirs or Successors after the said Letters Patents to him or them made and delivered as is aforesaid shall have full Power and Authority by Vertue of this Act and of the said Letters Patents under Your Highness Your Heirs and Successors to exercise use and execute all the premisses according to the Tenor and Effect of the said Letters Patents any matter or cause to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding So that I take it that all manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction was in the Crown by the Common Law of England and declared to be so by the said Act of 1 Eliz. 1. and by that Act a Power given to the Crown to assign Commissioners to exercise this Jurisdiction which was accordingly done by Queen Elizabeth and a High Commission Court was by her erected which sate and held Plea of all Causes Spiritual and Ecclesiastical during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth King James the First and King Charles the First till the 17th Year of his Reign Which leads me to consider the Statute of 17 Car. 1. ca. 11. which Act recites the Title of 1 Eliz. ca. 1. and Sect. 18. of the same Act and recites further Section 2. That whereas by colour of some Words in the aforesaid Branch of the said Act whereby Commissioners are authorised to execute their Commission according to the Tenor and Effect of the Kings Letters Patents and by Letters Patents grounded thereupon the said Commissioners have to the great and insufferable Wrong and Oppression of the Kings Subjects used to Fine and Imprison them and to exercise other Authority not belonging to Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction restored by that Act and divers other great Mischiefs and Inconveniences have also ensued to the Kings Subjects by occasion of the said Branch and Commissions issued thereupon and the Executions thereof Therefore for the repressing and preventing of the aforesaid Abuses Mischiefs and Inconveniences in time to come by Sect. 3. the said Clause in the said Act 1 Eliz. 1. is Repealed with a Non obstante to the said Act in these Words Be it Enacted by the Kings most excellent Majesty and the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled and by the Authority of the same That the aforesaid Branch Clause Article or Sentence contained in the said Act and every Word Matter and thing contained in that Branch Clause Article or Sentence shall from henceforth be Repealed Annulled Revoked Annihilated and utterly made Void for ever any thing in the said Act to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding And in Sect. 5. of the same Act it is Enacted That from and after the first of August in the said Act mentioned all such Commissions shall be void in these Words And be it further Enacted That from and after the said first Day of August no new Court shall be erected ordained or appointed within this Realm of England or Dominion of Wales which shall or may have the like Power Jurisdiction or Authority as the said High Commission Court now hath or pretendeth to have but that all and every such Letters Patents Commissions and Grants made or to be made by his Majesty his Heirs and Successors and all Powers and Authorities granted or pretended or mentioned to be granted thereby And all Acts Sentences and Decrees to be made by virtue or Colour thereof shall be utterly void and of none effect By which Act then the Power of Exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction by Commissioners under the Broad-Seal is so taken away that it provides no such Power shall ever for the future be Delegated by the Crown to any Person or Persons whatsoever Let us then in the last place consider Whether the Act of 13 Car. 2. ca. 12 hath restored this Power or not And for this I take it that it is not restored by the said Act or any Clause in it and to make this evident I shall first set down the whole Act and then consider it in the several Branches of it that relate to this Matter The Act is Entituled An Act for Explanation of a Clause contained in an Act of Parliament made in the 17th Year of the Late King Charles Entituled An Act for Repeal of a Branch of Statute in Primo Elizabethae câncerning Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical The Act it self runs thus Whereas in an Act of Parliament made in the Seventeenth Year of the Late King Charles Intituled An Act for Repeal of a Branch of a Stature primo Elizabethae concerning Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical It is amongst other things Enacted that no Arch-bishop Bisââp or Vicar-General nor any Chancellor nor Commissary of any Arch-Bishop Bishop or Vicar-General nor any Ordinary whatsoever nor any other Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Judge Officer or Minister of Justice nor any other Person or Persons whatsoever exercising Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power Authority or Jurisdiction by any Grant Lisence or Commission of the Kings Majesty His Heirs or Successors or by any Power or Authority derived from the King his Heirs or Successors or otherwise shall from and after the First Day of August which then should be in the Year of our Lord God 1641. Award Impose or Inflict any Pain Penalty Fine Amercement Imprisonment or other Corporal Punishment upon any of the Kings Subjects for any Contempt Misdemeanor Crime Offence Matter or Thing whatsoever belonging to Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Cognizance or Jurisdiction 2. Whereupon some Doubt hath been made that all ordinary Power of Coertion and proceeding in Causes Ecclesiastital were taken away whereby the ordinary Course of Justice in Causes Ecclesiastical hath been obstructed 3. Be it therefore Declared and Enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled and by the Authority thereof That neither the said Act nor any thing therein contained doth or shall take away any ordinary Power or Authority from any of the said Arch-Bishops Bishops or any other Person or Persons named as aforesaid but that they and every of them exercising Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction may proceed determine Sentence execute and exercise all manner of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and all Censures and Coertions appertaining and belonging to the same before any making of the Act before recited in all Causes and Matters belonging to Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction according to the Kings Majesties Ecclesiastical Laws used and practised in this Realm in as ample Manner and Form as they did and might lawfully have done before making of the said Act. Sect. 2. And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That the afore recited Act of Decimo Septimo Car. and all the Matters and Clauses therein contained excepting what concerns the High Commission Court or the new Erection of some such like Court by Commission shall be and is thereby repealed to dlintents and purposes whatsoever
persons to sit in Parliament and to exercise Offices in Church and State is only to declare that they do believe there is not any Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or in the Elements of Bread and Wine at or after the Consecration by any persons whatsoever and that the Invocation of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are Superstitious and Idolatrous And this Declaration the Non-conformists are of all people the most inclinable and forward to make and therefore very far by vertue of those Statutes from standing incapable of any Trust Office and Employment that other Subjects are admitted unto Nor hath there been a Protestant Dissenter since the first hour that these Laws were enacted that ever scrupled to take the Tests or that was precluded from Office and Employment for refusing them But on the contrary several of the most famous Dissenters such as Sir John Hartop Alderman Love and Mr. Eyles persons who at all times have kept at the greatest distance from Communion with the Church of England by reason of her Forms and Ceremonies are known to have chearfully made the Declaration contained in the Test Laws and thereupon to have sit as Members in divers Parliaments And as a further demonstration of the impudence and dishonesty of our Author in this particular it is not unworthy of remark that tho' the King hath taken upon him to dispense with the Tests and to prohibit the requiring them yet the Dissenters who have since that time been preferred to publick Trusts continue still to take them and go to the respective Courts where by Law the Declaration is enjoined to be exacted and there demand the being admitted to make it Tho' in the mean season they cannot be unsensible that it is the thing in the World whereby they most highly offend his Majesty it being both a proclaiming the Illegality of that Authority which he challengeth of dispensing with Laws and a defeating so far as lieth in them his great design as well as artifice for the introducing of Popery which his Soul is so much in travel with And were not this Author both a person of a most depraved Conscience and destitute of all common sense he would never have slandered Monsieur Fagel and so egregiously perverted his plain meaning as to tell us that tho' he be a Hollander and a Non-conformist yet he thanks God for the Test Laws by which his Non-conforming Brethren in England of what degree and quality soever they be stand excluded from Publick Employments For every one that will be so kind to himself and so just to the Pensionary as to read his Letter will immediately discern that there is not one word in it upon which to superstruct this calumny and accusation seeing he therein affirms in repeated and emphatical Terms that all contained in and designed by the Test Laws is the securing the Reformed Religion thro' the having provided that none be allowed to sit in Parliament nor admitted to Publick Offices except they declare that they are of the Reformed and not of the Roman Catholick Religion So that how Monsieur Fagel's Non-conformity Brethren in England should come to be affected by these Laws so as to receive any prejudice by them is that which none but a person of our Author's wit integrity and candor could have had the faculty either to conceive or alledge But that we may come to the second particular there is the less reason to wonder at this Gentleman's calumniating Mijn Heer Fagel and affixing dull tho' malicious Forgeries of his own unto him if we do but consider-with what petulancy and injustice he treats Their Serene Highnesses and at the gate of their own Court assumeth the confidence to misrepresent lessen and asperse them The nearness which those Princes stand in to the ascending the English Throne and the joyful prospect which all Protestants have of it exciteth a discontent and rage in our Author which he knows not how either to suppress or govern For not to mention what we learn of the kindness of Roman Catholicks to an Heir professing the Reformed Religion from the proceedings of Sixtus Quintus and the Papists in France towards Henry 4. we are sufficiently instructed what good will they bear to a Protestant Successor by the Bull which Clement 8. published about the End of Queen Elizabeth's Reign For the Supream and Infallible Head does therein ordain That when it should happen to that miserable Woman to die they should admit none to the Crown quantumque propinquitate sanguinis niterentur nisi ejusmodi essent qui fidem Catholicam non modo tolerarent sed omni ope ac studio promoverent more majorum jurejurando se id praestituros susciperent whatsoever Right and Title they should have thereunto by vertue of their next affinity in blood unless they should first swear not only to tolerate but to advance and establish the Romish Religion Nor can I avoid being filled with fear and reverence to the safety of some certain persons when I remember how Cardinal Baronius commends Irene for murdering the Emperor her Son because he was against the Worship of Images and not only calls it Justitiae zelum a righteous zeal but adds Christum docuisse summum pietatis genus esse in hoc adversus filium esse fidelem That Christ hath taught the perfiction of Religion in such a case to consist in fidelity to the Church tho' by destroying one that was both her Son and her Soveraign 'T is a high piece of injustice in our Author towards Their Highnesses and calculated for no other end but to alienate his Majesties affections from them when he tells us that the thing aimed at in the writing of the Pensionary's Letter as well as that pursued in the manner of publishing it was to obstruct the King's righteous pious designs and to render them unpracticable For the Letter being written in obedience to the Command of Their Highnesses to declare their Opinion in reference to the several matters about which it treateth it plainly follows that tho' Mijn Heer Fagel be accountable for the manner of cloathing and delivering their thoughts and for the Order and Method in which things are digested and possibly for the ratiocinations by which they are supported and enforced yet that the Prince and Princess are the persons who are alone responsible for the End unto which it was intended And it appears to have been so far from their intentions thereby to obstruct and defeat any pious and just designs of his Majesty that nothing can be more visible than that as it is admirably adapted to the giving ease and security to all his Protestant Subjects so it offereth means for relieving the Papists from the severe Laws to which they are liable and for the granting them a Warranty in a legal way for the exercise of their Religion Nor doth it
enacted for our security which to every ones knowledge are so palpably false that we have all the ground that may be both to question and suspect his sincerity and to conclude that his Masters do not purpose to confine themselves within the bounds that he is pleased to chalk out for them and which he undertakes they shall be contented with for their allotment For what can be remoter from Truth than that the Test Laws were designed as a preamble to the Bill of Exclusion as he phrases it Letter first and that they were contrived to exclude the Duke of York from the Crown as he expresseth it p. 15. of his Good Advice c. when it is most certain that as the Test in 73. was made long before there were or could be any thoughts of it and was enacted by a Parliament against whose Loyalty there can be no exception so there was a clause in the last Test Act by which it was provided that he should not be obliged to take it Again what can be more repugnant to experience than that the King onely desires ease for those of his Religion Good Adv. p. 44. and that the Papists desire no more than a Toleration and are willing upon those Terms to make a perpetual peace with the Church of England Good Advice p. 17. For do we not daily see Protestants turned out of all Places of Trust Authority and Command and Papists advanced into all Offices Military and Civil Could the King have been contented with a Non-execution of the Laws against those of his Communion and could they have been satisfied with such an Indulgence and have modestly improved it 'T is not improbable but that such a behaviour would have so far prevailed upon the ingenuity and good nature of the generality of Protestants that without needing to have been importuned they would have repealed all the Penal Laws against Roman Catholicks But the methods which have been pursued by his Majesty and them shews both that they aim at no less than the Domination and that we must be very willing to be deceived if we either credit Mr. Pen or suffer our selves to be influenced by him after his obtruding upon us for truths matters which our very senses inable us to refute It may justly make us question his sincerity and beget a suspition in all thinking people of the sinistrous design these Papers are adapted unto when we find him endeavouring to cajole the Nation to an abrogation of the Laws by which our Religion and Safety are secured by telling us That the King's word is enough for us to rely upon if they were gone Good Advice p. 49. and that he could easily pack a Parliament for Repealing them if he did not seek a more lasting and more agreeable security to his Friends Letter third p. 12. and that if they were abolished 't is below the Glory of our King to use ways so unlike the rest of his open and generous principles as to endeavour to get a Parliament afterwards returned that is not duly chosen Letter second p. 15. and that he is a Prince of that Honour Conscience and generoas nature as not by invading the Rights of the Church of England to become guilty of an injustice and irreligion he hath so often so solemnly and earnestly spoken against Letter second p. 11. He must needs take us to be strangely unacquainted with the whole Tenor of the King's Actings in England as well as in Scotland and Ireland and to be persons of very weak understandings and of an easie belief if he think we are to be imposed upon and decoy'd by such Topicks as these to absolish the Tests or that after what we have seen and felt contradictory to those Panegyricks and inconsistent with those beautiful and lofty Characters fastned upon his Majesty we should believe Mr. Pen to mean nothing but well and honestly towards the Protestant Interest in what he so earnestly solliciteth the Church of England and the Dissenters in the forementioned Papers to concurr and consent unto I do acknowledge that what he hath said about Liberty due to men in matters of meer Religion and by way of rebuke unto and reflection upon the Wisdom and Justice of those that either are or have been for persecution is very strong and convincing but I must withall add that it is all at this time very needless and impertinent For the Church of England is so sensible of the Iniquity as well as folly of that Method that there is no ground to suspect She will ever be guilty of it for the future They whom no Arguments could heretofore convert the Court whose Tools they were in that mischievous and Unchristian work and by whom they were instigated to all the severities which they are now blamed for by objecting it to them as their Reproach and Disgrace and by seeking to improve the resentments of those who had suffered by Penal Laws to become an united party with the Papists for their subversion hath brought them at once to be asham'd of what they did and to Resolutions of promoting all Christian Liberty for the time to come And should there be any peevish and ill-natur'd Ecclesiasticks who upon a turn of Affairs would be ready to reassume their former principles and pursue their wonted course we may be secure against all fear of their being successful in it not only by finding the Majority as well as the more learned both of the dignified and inferior Clergy unchangeably fixed and determined against it but by having the whole Nobility and Gentry and those Noble Princes whose right it will be next to ascend the Throne fully possessed with all the generous and Christian purposes we can desire of making provision for Liberty of Conscience by a Law Nor can I forbear to subjoyn how surprizing it ought to be to all Protestants that while Mr. Pen expresseth so much charity for the Papists he entertaineth so little for the Church of England He would perswade us that if the Penal and Test Laws were abrogated the Papists would be so far afterward from seeking to shake the Constitution of the Church of England or from breaking in upon the Liberty that is now vouchsafed unto Dissenters or from endeavouring to make their Religion National that they would not onely be contented with a bare Toleration but that upon their enjoyment of ease by Law they would turn good Countrymen and come in to the Interest of the Kingdom Letter first Whereas at the same time he would have us believe that all the Protestations of those in the Communion of the Church of England for exercising Moderation in time to come are but the Language of their fear that their promises are not to be trusted Good Advice p. 54. and that the Dissenters deserve to be begged for Fools should they be satisfied with any less assurance than the abolition of the Penal and Test Laws ibid. p. 55. 'T is enough not onely to excite
our Jealousie but to stir up severer passions to be told at a season when we know what the Catholicks are doing in France and in most other places where they have any power that the Papists through having burnt their fingers with persecution may be grown so wise as to do so no more and yet to have it asserted in the same Page that they who can be prevailed upon to believe that the Church of England is sorry for what She hath done and that she will not be guilty of such a thing again have little reason to quarrel at the unaccount ableness of Transubstantiation Good Advice p. 8. Nor is it becoming one who stiles himself a Protestant no more than it is consistent with Truth to extenuate our being scandal'd at the severity upon Protestants in France by affirming that he can parallel some of the severest passages in that Kingdom out of the Actions of some Members of the Church of England in cool Blood ibid. p. 7. And though I have all the kindness imaginable for Mr. Pen's Person and am loath to think otherways of him as to his Religious Principles than as his avowed profession discovers him yet these and diverse passages more of that kind together with the accession he must necessarily have had to the apprehension and imprisonment of Mr. Gray c. for abandoning the Benedictine Order are things I can neither reconcile to the title he assumes nor to his many Discourses for Repealing the Test Laws And to speak freely considering the Nature of our Laws against Papists and that it was their manifold Treasons and onely our care to preserve our selves that both gave the first rise unto them and has necessitated their continuance I know neither how to construe that Assertion of Mr. Pen's Good Advice p. 13. that the Principle which the Church of England acts by justifies the King of France and the Inquisition nor that other Letter first of there having been eight times more Laws made for ruining men for their Conscience since the Church of England came to be the National Establishment than were all the time that Popery was in the Chair Nor can this be designed to any other end but the giving the Church of Rome the commendation of Mercy and Moderation above a Protestant Church For as 't is certain that the one Law of Burning and Extirpating Hereticks was a thousand fold worse and hath produced infinitely more Sanguinary effects than all the Laws and Rigours that the Church of England can be charged with so there is nothing can be falser than that either her Principle or Practice do parallel or justifie the barbarous and brutal severities of the French King and the Inquisition Moreover were all Protestants agreed that Liberty in meer matters of Religion should be immediately granted in a Legal way yet I do not see how the Papists should pretend to any benefit by it or be able to lay a just claim to a share in it So that the foundation which Mr. Pen goes upon of mens having a Right to be indulged in matters of Religion is too narrow to support the structure he raiseth upon it For though there may be some things retained in Popery which may be called matters of Religion yet in the bulk and complex of it it is a Conjuration against all Religion and a Conspiracy against the Peace of Societies and the Rights of Mankind 'T is one of the Crimes as well as the Miseries of this Age that out of a dread of some and in complacence to others we have avoided representing Popery in its native colours and calling it by the Names properly due unto it But I have always thought that 't is better fail in our Courtship to Men than in our duty to God and fidelity to the Interest of Jesus Christ and the safety of Mankind Nor do I doubt but that they will be better approved in the Great day of Account who Character Persons Doctrines and Practices as the Scripture doth than they who that they may accommodate themselves unto and be acceptable with the world speak of them in a softer stile Now if either Blasphemies against God or Tyrannies over Men if either the defacing the Ideas of a Deity or corrupting the Principles of Vertue and Moral Honesty if either the subverting the foundations of natural Religion or the overthrowing the most essential Articles of the Christian Faith if either the most avowed and bold affronts offered to heaven or the bloodiest and most brutal outrages executed against the best of men if all these be sufficient to preclude a party from the benefit of Liberty due to people in Religious Matters I am sure none have reason to challenge it in behalf of the Papists nor cause to complain if it be denied them Can there be any thing more unreasonable than that they should claim a Toleration in a Protestant State whose Principles not only allow but oblige them to destroy us as soon as their power inables them to do it Is not the Doctrine of the Pope's Supremacy and his having a Right to Depose Kings and absolve Subjects from their Allegiance together with that of breaking Faith to Hereticks and the extirpating all those who cannot believe as the Church of Rome doth mighty inducements to those whom they have baptized with that Name and to whom they long to exercise that courtesie for the Repealing of the Penal and Test Laws against Papists Nor are these Principles falsely charged upon them but they are the Oracular Decisions of their General Councils and Popes whom they stile Infallible So that Mr. Pen's Book and Letters which seem to have been written not so much in favour of Dissenting Protestants as of Roman Catholicks can little advantage the latter even allowing the Principle which he goes upon and admitting all he hath said for Mens Right to Liberty in meer matters of Religion to be unanswerable And his telling us Good Adv. p. 42. that Violence and Tyranny are not natural consequences of Popery does onely discover his kindness to Rome and the little Friendship and care he hath for the Protestant Interest For we know both the Principles of their Religion too well and have at all times experienced and do at this day feel the effects of them too sensibly to be deluded by this kind of Sophistry and imposed upon by so palpable a Falsehood to abandon the means of our safety Wheresoever any Popish Rulers Act with Gentleness and Moderation towards those whom their Church hath declared Hereticks 't is either because there are Political Reasons for it as might be easily shewed in reference to all those States and Governments which he mentions or because there are some Princes of the Roman Communion in whom the Dictates of Humane Nature are more prevalent than those of their Religion But should the gentle Temper of the English Nation sway them beyond the strict obligations of duty and make them willing to Repeal the
what Mr. Pen intends when he tells us that such a Bargain will be driven with the Kingdom as will make the Church of England think that half a Loaf had been better than no Bread Good Adv. p. 43. and that one year will shew the Trick and mightily deceive her and the opportunity of her being preserved lost and another Bargain driven mightily to her disadvantage Ibid. p. 42. But as it will be impossible for Papists and Dissenters should they conspire together to be able to effect it considering the interest which her integrity in the Protestant Religion and her tenderness for the Rights and Liberties of the Kingdoms have justly acquired unto her so it were both the most foolish as well as criminal thing which any pretending themselves Protestants can be guilty of to be in any measure accessory unto it For as there is nothing in reference to their own Religious Liberties and the Priviledges of the Nation which they may not undoubtedly expect from her Justice as well as from her Mercy and Moderation so there is no means left within our view either to give a lasting Peace and a firm settlement to Three distracted Kingdoms or to bring the Protestant Interest into such a condition as may ballance the Papal grandure in Europe and give check to the rage of Persecution in all places but her happy advancement to the Thrones of Great Brittain and Ireland when it shall please God to remove his Majesty Until which time I hope all who call themselves Protestants will submit to the worst of fate rather than to fall under the Curse of this Age and Ignominy with all that shall come after for becoming an United Party with the Church of Rome in any of her Designs how plausible soever they may appear The Ill Effects of Animosities 'T IS long since the Court of England under the Authority of the late King and his Brother was embark'd in a design of subverting the Protestant Religion and of introducing and establishing Popery For the two Royal Brothers being in the time of their Exile seduced by the Caresses and Importunities of their Mother allured by the Promises and Favours of Popish Princes and being wheedled by the Crafts and Arts of Priests and Jesuites who are cunning to deceive and know how to prevail upon persons that were but weakly established in the Doctrine and wholly strangers to the practice and power of the Religion they were tempted from they not only abjured the Reformed Religion and became reconciled to the Church of Rome but by their Example and the Influence which they had over those that depended upon them both for present Subsistence and future Hopes they drew many that accompanied them in their Banishment to renounce the Doctrine Worship and Communion of the Church of England though in the War between Charles the First and the Parliament they had pretended to fight for them in equal conjunction with the Prerogatives of the Crown So that upon the Restoration in the year 1660 they were not only moulded and prepared themselves for promoting the desires of the Pope and his Emissaries but they were furnished with a stock of Gentlemen out of whom they might have a supply of Instruments both in Parliament and elsewhere to co-operate with and under them in the methods that should be judged most proper and subservient to the Extirpation of Protestancy and the bringing the Nation again into a Servitude to the Triple Crown And besides the Obligations that the Principles of the Religion to which they had revolted laid them under for eradicating the established Doctrine and Worship they had bound themselves unto it by all the Promises and Oaths which persons are capable of having prescribed unto and exacted of them Nor can any now disbelieve his late Majesty's having lived and died a Papist who hath either heard what he both said and did when under the prospect of approaching Death and past hope of acting a part any longer on the present Stage or who have seen and read the two Papers left in his Closet which have been since published to the World and attested for Authentick by the present King And had we been so just to our selves as to have examined the whole course of his Reign both in his Alliances Abroad and his most Important Counsels and Actions at Home or had we hearkened to the Reports of those who knew him at Collen and in Flanders we had been long ago convinced of what Religion he was Nor were his many repeated Protestations of his Zeal for Protestancy but in order to delude the Nation till insensibly as to us and with safety to himself he had overturned the Religion which he pretended to own and had introduced that which he inveighed against And while with the highest asseverations he disclaimed the being what he really was and with most sacred and tremendous Oaths professed the being what he was not his Religion might in the mean time have been traced through all the signal Occurrences of his Government and have been discerned written in Capital Letters through all the material Affairs wherein he was engaged from the Day he ascended the Throne till the Hour he left the World His entring into two Wars against the Dutch without any provocation on their part or ground on his save their being a Protestant State his being not only conscious unto but interposing his Commands as well as Encouragements for the burning of London His concurrence in all the parts of the Popish Plot except that which the Jesuites with a few others were involved in against himself his stifling that Conspiracy and delivering the Roman Catholicks from the Dangers into which it had cast them His being the Author of so many forged Plots which he caused to be charged on Protestants His constant Confederacies with France to the disobliging his people the betraying of Europe the neglect of the reformed in that Kingdom and the encouraging the Design carried on against them for their Extirpation His entailing the Duke of York upon the Nation contrary to the Desires and Endeavours of three several Parliaments and that not out of Love to his person but Affection to Popery which he knew that Gentleman would introduce and establish All these besides many other things which might be named were sufficient Evidences of the late King's Religion and of the Design he was engaged in for the Subversion of Ours So that it would fill a sober person with amazement to think that after all this there should be so many sincere Protestants and true English Men who not only believed the late King to be of the reformed Religion but with an insatiableness thirsted after the Blood of those that durst otherwise represent him And had it not been for his receiving Absolution and Extream Unction from a Popish Priest at his Death and for what he left in writing in the two Papers found in his strong Box he would have still passed for a Prince
who had lived and died a cordial and zealous Protestant and whosoever had muttered any thing to the contrary would have been branded for a Villain and an execrable person But with what a scent and odor must it recommend his Memory to them to consider his having not onely lived and died in the Communion of the Church of Rome in contradiction to all his publick Speeches solemn Declarations and highest Asseverations to his People in Parliament but his participating from time to time of the Sacrament as Administred in the Church of England while in the interim he had Abjured our Religion stood reconciled to the Church of Rome and had obliged himself by most sacred Vows and was endeavouring by all the Frauds and Arts imaginable to subvert the established Doctrin and Worship and set up Heresy and Idolatry in their room And it must needs give them an abhorrent Idea and Character of Popery and a loathsom representation of those trusted with the Conduct and Guidance of the Consciences of Men in the Roman Communion that they should not onely dispense with and indulge such Crimes and Villanies but proclaim them Sanctified and Meritorious from the end which they are calculated for and levelled at And for his dear Brother and renowned Successor who possessed the Throne after him I suppose his most partial Admirers who took him for a Prince not onely merciful in his Temper and imbued with all gracious Inclinations to our Laws and the Rights of the Subject but for one Orthodox in his Religion and who would prove a zealous Defender of the Doctrine Worship and Discipline of the Church established by Law are before this time both undeceived and filled with Resentments for his having abused their Credulity deceived their Expectations and reproached all their Gloryings and Boastings of him For as it would have been the greatest Affront they could have put upon the King to question his being of the Roman Communion or to detract from his Zeal for the introduction of Popery notwithstanding his own antecedent Protestations as well as the many Statutes in force for the preservation of the Reformed Religion so I must take the liberty to tell them that his Apostacy is not of so late Date as the World is made commonly to believe For though it was many Years concealed and the contrary pretended and dissembled yet it is most certain that he Abjured the Protestant Religion soon after the Exilement of the Royal Family and was reconciled to the Romish Church at St. Germains in France Nor were several of the then suffering Bishops and Clergy ignorant of this though they had neither the Integrity nor Courage to give the Nation and Church warning of it And within these five Years there was in the custody of a very worthy and honest Gentleman a Letter written to the late Bishop of D. by a Doctor of Divinity then attending upon the Royal Brothers wherein the Apostacy of the then Duke of York to the See of Rome is particularly related and an Account given how much the Dutchess of Tremoville though without being her self observed had heard the Queen Mother glorying of it bewailed it as a dishonour unto the Royal Family and as that which might prove of pernicious consequence to the Protestant Interest But though the old Queen privately rejoyced and triumphed in it yet she knew too well what disadvantage it might be both to her Son and to the Papal Cause in Great Brittain to have it at that Season communicated and divulged Thereupon it remained a Secret for many Years and by virtue of a Dispensation he sometimes joined in all Ordinances with those of the Protestant Communion But for all the Art Hypocrisy and Sacrilege by which it was endeavoured to be concealed it might have been easily discerned as manifesting it self in the whole Course of his Actions And at last his own Zeal the Importunity of the Priests and the Cunning of the late King prevailing over Reasons of State he withdrew from all Acts of Fellowship with the Church of England But neither that nor his refusing the Test enjoyned by Law for distinguishing Papists from Protestants though thereupon he was forced both to resign his Office of Lord High Admiral c. nor his declining the Oath which the Laws of Scotland for the securing a Protestant Governour enjoyn to be taken by the High Commissioner nor yet so many Parliaments having endeavoured to get him Excluded from Succession to the Crown upon the account of having revolted to the See of Rome and thereby become dangerous to the Established Religion could make impression upon a wilfully deluded and obstinate sort of Protestants but in defiance of all means of Conviction they would perswade themselves that he was still a Zealot for our Religion and a grand Patriot of the Church of England Nor could any thing undeceive them till upon his Brother's Death he had openly declared himself a Roman Catholick and afterwards in the fumes and raptures of his Victory over the late Duke of Monmouth had discovered and proclaimed his Intentions of overthrowing both our Religion and Laws Yea so closely had some sealed up their Eyes against all beams of Light and hardned themselves against all Evidences from Reason and Fact that had it pleased the Almighty God to have prospered the Duke of Monmouth's Arms in the Summer 85. the present King would have gone off the Stage with the Reputation among them of a Prince tender of the Laws of the Kingdom and who notwithstanding his own being a Papist would have preserved the Reformed Religion and have maintained the Church of England in all her Grandure and Rights And though his whole Life had been but one continued Conspiracy against our Civil Liberties and Priviledges he had left the Throne with the Character and under the Esteem of a Gentleman that in the whole course of his Government would have regulated himself by the Rules of the Constitution and the Statutes of the Realm Now among all the Methods fallen upon by the Royal Brothers for the undermining and subverting our Religion and Laws there is none that they have pursued with more Ardor and wherein they have been more successful to the compassing of their Designs than in their dividing Protestants and alienating their Affections and embittering their Minds from and against one another And had not this lain under their prospect and the means of effecting it appeared easie they might have been Papists themselves while in the mean time they had been dispensed with to protest and swear their being of the Reformed Religion and they might have envied our Liberties and bewailed their Restriction from Arbitrary and Despotical Power but they never durst have entertained a Thought of subverting the Established Religion or of altering the Civil Government nor would they ever have had the boldness to have attempted the introducing and erecting Popery and Tyranny in their room And whosoever should have put them upon reducing the Nation
and lull those into a tameness of admitting his Return into his Dominions whom a jealousie of being afterwards persecuted for their Consciences might have awakened to withstand and dispute it And to give him his due he never judged himself longer bound to the observation of Promises and Oaths made to his People than until without hazard to his Person and Government he could violate and break them Accordingly he was no sooner seated in the Throne of his Ancestors and those whom he had been apprehensive of Resistance and Disturbance from put out of Capacity and Condition of attempting any thing against him but he thought himself discharged from every thing that the Royal Word and Faith of a Prince had been pledged and ãâã to stake for in that Declaration and from that day forward acted in direct opposition to all the Parts and Branches of it For having soon after his Return obtained a Parliament moulded and adapted both to his Arbitrary and Popish Ends he immediately set all his Instruments at work for the procuring of such Laws to be Enacted as might divide and weaken Protestants and thereby make us not onely the more easie Prey to the Papists but afford them an advantage through our Scuffles of undermining our Religion with the less notice and observation How such persons came to be chosen and to constitute the Majority of the House of Commons who by their Actings have made themselves Infamous and Execrable to all Ages were a matter too large to penetrate at present into the Reasons of but that which my Theme conducts me to observe is That as they sacrificed the Treasure of the Nation to the profuseness and prodigality of the Prince and our Rights and Liberties to his Ambition and Arbitrary Will so they both introduced and established those Things which have been a means of dividing us and by many severe and repeated Laws they subjected a great number of industrious English-men and true Protestants to Excommunications Imprisonments rigorous and multiplied Fines and all this for Matters onely relating to their Consciences and for their Obedience to God in the Ordinances of his Worship and House And notwithstanding the late King 's often pretended compassion to the Dissenters it will be hard to discern them unless in Effects which proceed from very different and opposite Principles The distance which he kept them from his Person and Favour the influencing these Members of both Houses that depended upon him to be the Authors and Promoters of Severities against them the enjoyning so often the Judges and Justices of Peace to execute the Laws upon them in their utmost rigour the instigating the Bishops and Ecclesiastical Courts if at any time they relented in their Prosecutions to pursue them with fresh Citations and Censures the arraigning them not onely upon the Statutes made intentionally against Dissenters but upon those that were originally and solely enacted against the Papists these and other Procedures of that Nature are the onely Proofs and Evidences which I can find of the late King's Bowels Pity and Tenderness to them And whereas the weak Church-men were imposed upon to believe that all the Severity against the Nonconformists was the Fruit of his Zeal for the Protestant Religion and for the security of the Worship and Discipline established by Law they might have easily discovered if Passion Prejudice Wealth and Honour had not blinded them that all this was calculated for Ends perfectly destructive to the Church and inconsistent with the Safety and Happiness of all Protestants For as his seeking oftner than once to have wriggled himself into a Power of superseding and dispensing with those Laws and suspending their Execution plainly shews that he never intended the support and preservation of the Church by them so his non-execution of the Laws against Papists his conniving at their encrease his perswading those nearest unto him to reconcile themselves to the See of Rome as he did among others the late D. of Monmouth his countenancing the Roman Catholicks in their open and intollerable Insolencies and his advancing them to the most gainful and Important Places and trusts sufficiently declare that he never had any love to Protestants or care of the Reformed Religion but that all his designs were of a contrary tendency and his fairest Pretences for the Protection and Grandure of the Church of England adapted to other ends Thus the Royal Brothers having obtained such Laws to be enacted whereby one Party of Protestants was armed with means of oppressing and persecuting all others neither the necessity of their Affairs at any time since nor the Application and Interposure of several Parliaments for removing the Grounds of our Differences and Animosities by an Indulgence to be past into a Law could prevail either upon his late Majesty or the present King to forgoe the Advantage they had gotten of keeping us in mutual Enmity and thereby of ministring to their projection of supplanting our Religion and re-establishing the Faith and Worship of the Church of Rome Hereupon the last King not onely refused to consent to such Bills as diverse late Parliaments had prepared for indulging Dissenters and for bringing them into an union of Counsels and Conjunction of Interest with those of the Church of England for resisting the Conspiracies of the Papists against our Legal Government and Established Religion but he rejected an Address for suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws against Dissenters which was offered and presented unto him by that very Parliament which had framed and enacted those cruel and hard Laws And as the Royal Brothers have made it their constant Business to cherish a Division and Rancour among Protestants and to provoke one Party to persecute and ruine another so nothing could more naturally fall in with the Design of Arbitrariness or be more subservient to the betraying the Nationââ Papal Idolatry and Jurisdiction For several Penal Laws against a considerable Body of People do either expose them against whom they are enacted to be destroyed by the Prince with whom the executive Power of the Law is trusted and deposited or they prove a Temptation to such as are obnoxious of resigning themselves in such a manner to the Will and Pleasure of the Monarch for the obtaining his connivancy at their violation of the Laws as is unsafe and dangerous for the common Liberty and Good of the Kingdom For in case the Supreme Magistrate pursue an Interest distinct from and destructive to that of his People they who the Law hath made liable to be oppressed are brought under Inducements of becoming so many Parisans for abetting him in his Designs in hopes of being thereupon protected from the Penal Statutes the execution whereof is committed to him And as it is not agreeable to the Wisdom and Prudence which ought to be among Men nor to the Mercy and Compassion which should be among Christians for one party to surrender another into the Hands and Power of the Soveraign to be
impoverished and ruined by him at his pleasure especially when those whom they give up to be thus treated and entertained are at agreement with them in all the Essentials of Religion equally zealous as themselves for the Liberties of their Country and who for Sobriety in their Lives Industry in their Callings and Usefulness in the Common-Wealth are inferior to none of their Fellow-Subjects So it is obvious to any who give themselves leave to think that the King would long ere this have been stated in the Absoluteness that is aspired after and both Church and State reduced to lie at the discretion of the Monarch provided the Nonconformists for procuring his Favour in non-execution of the Laws had suffered themselves to be prevailed upon and drawn over to stand by and assist him in his Popish and Despotical Designs But that honest people though hated and maligned by their Brethren rather than be found aiding the King in his Usurpations over the Kingdom have chosen to undergoe the utmost Calamities they could be made subject unto either through the Execution of those Laws which had been made against them or through our Princes and their Ministers wrecking their Malice upon them in Arbitrary and Illegal Methods But what the Royal Brothers could not work the afflicted and persecuted Side unto they found the Art to engage the other Side in though not onely excepted from all Obnoxiousness to those Laws but strengthened and supported by them For as soon as the Court begun to despair of prevailing upon Dissenters to become their Tools and Instruments of enslaving the Nation and of exalting the Monarchy to a Despotical Absoluteness they applied to the Bigots of the Church of England whom by gratifying with a vigorous Execution of the Laws upon Dissenters they brought to abett applaud and justifie them in all those Counsels and Ways which have reduced us into that miserable condition wherein we not long since were The Clergy being advanced to Grandure and Opulency things which many of them are fonder of and lother to foregoe than Religion and the Rights of the Nation the Court made it their business to possess them with a Belief that unless the Fanaticks were suppressed and ruined they could not enjoy with Security their Dignities and Wealth Whereupon not onely the lesser Levites but the Superior Clergy having their Lesson and Cue given them from White-hall and St. James's fell upon pursuing the Nonconformists with Ecclesiastical Punishments and upon exciting and animating the Civil Officers against them And under pretence of preserving and defending the Church they gave themselves over to an implicit serving of the Court and became not onely Advocates but Instruments for the robbing of Corporations of their Charters for imposing Sheriffs upon the City of London who had not been legally elected and of fining and punishing Men arbitrarily for no Crime save the having asserted their own and the Nations Rights in modest and lawful ways Posterity will hardly believe that so many of the Prelatical Clergy and so great a number of Members of the Church of England should from an Enmity unto and pretended Jealousie of the Dissenters have become Tools under the late King for justifying the Dissolution of so many Parliaments the Invasion made upon their Priviledges the ridiculing and stifling of the Popish Plot the shamming of forged Conspiracies upon Protestants the condemning several to Death for High-Treason who could be rendred guilty by the Transgression of no known Law and finally for advancing a Gentleman to the Throne who had been engaged in a Conjuration against Religion and the Legal Government and whom three several Parliaments would have therefore Excluded from the Right of Succession And being seduced into an espousal of the Interests of the Court against Religion Parliaments and the Nation it is doleful to consider what Doctrines both from Pulpit and Press were thereupon brought forth and divulged Such as Monarchy's being a Government by Divine Right That it is in the Prince's Power to Rule as he pleaseth That it is a Grace and Condescention in the King to give an Account of what he does That for Parliaments to direct or regulate the Succession borders upon Treason and is an Offence against the Law of Nature And that the onely thing left to Subjects in case the King will Tyrannize over their Consciences Persons and Estates is tamely to suffer and as some of them did absurdly express it to exercise Passive Obedience So that by corrupting the Minds and Consciences of men with those pestilent and slavish Notions they betrayed the Nation both to the Mischiefs which have alrerdy overtaken us and to what further we were threatned with Nor did these Doctrines tend meerly to the fettering and enfeebling the Spirits of Men but they were a Temptation to the Royal Brothers to put in Execution what they had been so long contriving and travelling with and were a kind of reprimanding them for being ignorant of their own Right and Power and for not exerting it with that Vigour and Expedition which they might I do acknowledge that there were many both of the Sacred Order and of the Laick Communion of the Church of England who were far from being infected with those brutish Sentiments and Opinions and who were as zealous as any for having the Monarchy kept within its ancient limits Parliaments maintained in their wonted Reverence and Authority the Subjects preserved in the enjoyment of their immemorial Priviledges and who were far from sacrificing our Religion and Laws to Popery and Arbitrariness and from lulling us into a Tameness and Lethargy in case the Court should attempt the abolishing the established Doctrine and Worship and the subverting and changing the Civil Government But alass besides their being immediately branded with the Name of Trimmer and conformable Fanaticks and registred in the Kalender with those that stood precluded the King's Favour and merited his Animadversion their Modesty was soon drowned and silenced in the loud Noise of their clamorous Brethren and their retiredness from Conversation while the others frequented all places of Society and publick Concourse deprived the Nation of the benefit of their Example and the happiness of their Instructions Nor have I mentioned the Extravagancies of any of the Ecclesiasticks and Members of the Church of England with a design either of reproaching and upbraiding them or of provoking and exasperating the Dissenters to Resentments but onely to shew how fatal our Divisions have been unto us what excesses they have occasioned our being hurried and transported into and what mischievous Improvement our Enemies have made of them to the supplanting and almost subverting of all that is valuable unto us as we are English-men Christians and Protestants And as our Animosities through our Divisions gave the Courrt an advantage of suborning that Party which they pretended to befriend and uphold into a Ministration to all their Counsels and Projections against our Religion and Laws so by reason of the
while ago to see connived at in the exercise of their Worship in private Houses are allowed now to practise their Idolatry openly in our chief Towns and in the Metropolitan City of the Kingdom to usurp the publick Churches and Cathedrals Those Catholick Gentlemen whom heretofore it was matter of surprise to see countenanced with the private Favour of the Prince are now advanced to the supream Commands in the Army and the principal Trust in Civil Affairs The Recusant Lords whose enlargement out of the Tower we could not but look upon as an unpresidented Violation both of the Laws of the Land and of the Rights and Jurisdiction of Parliament being committed thither by the Authority of the House of Lords upon a Charge and Impeachment of High Treason by the Commons of England in Parliament assembled were now honoured to be Members of the Privy Council and exalted to be chief Ministers of State They whom the Statutes of the Realm make subject to the severest Penalties for Apostacy to Rome are not only protected from the edg of the Laws but maintained in Parochial Incumbencies and Headships of Colledges Our Orthodox Clergy are not only inhibited to preach against Popery but are illegally Reprimanded Silenced and Suspended for discharging that Duty which their Consciences Offices Oaths and the Laws of the Kingdom oblige them unto And such whom neither the Ecclesiastical nor Westminster Courts can arraign and proceed against we have a new Court of Inquisition erected for the adjudging and punishing of them So that it is not the Dissenters who are the only Persons to be struck at and ruined but the Conformists are to be treated after the same manner and to share in the common Lot whereunto all honest and sincere Protestants are destined and designed Even they who were the Darlings of Whitehall and St. Jameses and recompensed with Honours and Titles for betraying the Rights and Priviledges of Corporations persecuting Dissenters and heading Addresses wherein Parliaments were reproached the Course of Justice against Popish Offenders was slandered the illegal and arbitrary procedures of the Court applauded and justified and all that were zealous for our Laws and Liberties stigmatized with the names of Villains and Traitors are now themselves for but discouraging Popish Assemblies and attempting to put the Laws in execution against Priests who had publickly celebrated Mass not only check'd and rebuked but punished with Seisure and Imprisonment Nor are our Religion and Civil Liberties meerly supplanted and undermined by illegal Tricks glossed over with the Varnish of judicial Forms but they are assaulted and battered in the face of the Sun without so much as a palliation to give their procedures a plausible figure And the King being brought to a despair of managing the Parliament to his barefaced Purpose of Popery and Arbitrariness and of prevailing with them to establish Tyranny and Idolatry by Law notwithstanding their having been as industriously pack'd and chosen to answer such a Design as Art Bribery and Authority could reach and notwithstanding their having been obsequious in their first Session to an excess that has proved unsafe to themselves and the Nation he became resolved not to allow them to meet any more but to set up a-la-mode de France and to his personal Commands seconded with the Assent of his durante-beneplacito-Judges to be acknowledged and obeyed for Laws So that they who were formerly seduced into a good Opinion of him are not only undeceived but provoked to warm Resentments for having had their credulity and easiness of belief so grosly abused And as the converting so vast a number of well-meaning but wofully deluded People who had suffered themselves to be hoodwink'd and fatally hurried to betray their Religion Country and Posterity to the Ambition and Popish Bigottry of the Court was a design becoming the Compassion Mercy and Wisdom of God so the Method's and Means whereby they are come to be enlightned and proselyted are a signal vindication of the Sapience and Righteousness of God in all those tremendous steps of his Providence by which our Enemies have been emboldned to detect and discover themselves For though their continuing so long to have a good opinion of the present King and their abetting him so far in the undermining our Religion and invading our Liberties may seem to have proceeded not so much from their Ignorance as from their Obstinacy and Malice yet God who penetrates into the Hearts of Men may have discovered some degrees of sincerity in their Pretentions and Carriages though accompanied with a great deal of folly and unmanliness Nor are the Lords ways like to ours to give Persons over as unteachable and irreclaimable upon their withstanding every measure of Light and the resisting even those Means which were sufficient and proper for their Conviction but he will try them by new and extraordinary Methods and see whether Feeling and doleful Experience may not convert those upon whom Arguments and Moral Evidence could make no impressions And there being among those formerly misled and deluded Protestants many who retained a Love for their Country a Care for their Posterity and a Zeal for the Gospel and Reformed Religion even when their Actions imported the contrary and seem'd to betray them the singling and weeding out such from among the Court-Faction and Party is a compensation both for the defeatment of all endeavours for the prevention of the Evils that have overtaken us and for the Distresses and Calamities under which we do at present lie and groan And if there be joy in Heaven upon the conversion of a Sinner with what thankfulness to God and joy in themselves should they who have so many years wrestled against the encroachments of Popery and Arbitrariness and who have deeply suffered in their Names Persons and Estates upon that account welcome and embrace their once erring and misled but now enlightned reclaimed and converted Brethren And in stead of remembring or upbraiding them with the opposition and rancour which they expressed against our Persons Principles and Ways let there be no Language heard from us but what may declare the joy we have in our selves for their conversion and the entire trust and confidence which we put in them The first Duty incumbent therefore upon Dissenters towards those of the Church of England is to believe that notwithstanding there have been many of them so long Advocates and Partisans for the Court through ignorance of what was aimed at and intended they are nevertheless as really concerned as any others and as truly zealous for the preservation of the Protestant Religion and for maintaining the legal Rights and Liberties of the Subject and when occasion shall offer will approve themselves accordingly 'T is a ridiculous as well as a mischievous Fancy for one Party to confine all Religion only to themselves or to circumscribe all the ancient English Ardor for the common Rights of the Nation to such as are of their particular Fellowship and Perswasion
there being sincere Christians and true Englishmen among those of all Judgments and Societies of Protestants and among none more than those of the Communion of the Church of England It were the height of Wickedness as well as the most prodigious Folly to imagine that the Conformists have abandoned all Fidelity to God and cast off all care of themselves and their Country upon a mistaken Judgment of being Loyal and Obedient to the King The contrary is plain enough they knew as well as any that the giving to Caesar the Things that are Caesar's lay them under no Obligation of surrendring unto him the Things that are God's nor of sacrificing unto the Will of the Sovereign the Priviledges reserved unto the People by the Fundamental Rules of the Constitution and by the Statutes of the Realm And they understand as well as others that the Laws of the Land are the only measures of the Prince's Authority and of the Subjects Fealty and where they give him no Right to Command they lay them under no tye to Obey And though here and there a Dissenter has written against Popery with good Success yet they have been mostly Conformable Divines who have triumphed over it in elaborate Discourses and who have beaten the Romish Scriblers off the Stage Nor can it be thought that they who have so accurately related and vindicated the History and asserted and defended the Doctrine of the Reformation should either tamely relinquish or be wanting in all due and legal Ways to uphold and maintain it And though some few of the Nonconformists have with sufficient strength and applause used their Pens against Arbitrariness in detecting the Designs of the Royal Brothers yet they who have generally and with greatest Honour appeared for our Laws and Legal Government against the Invasions and Usurpations of the Court have been Theologues and Gentlemen of the Church of England Nor in case of further Attempts for altering the Constitution and enslaving the Nation will they shew themselves unworthy the having descended from Ancestors whose Motto in the high Places of the Field was nolumus Leges Angliae mutari They who have so often justified the Arms of the Vnited Netherlands against their Rightful Princes the Kings of Spain and so unanswerably vindicated their casting off Obedience to those Monarchs when they had invaded their Priviledges and attempted to establish the Inquisition over them cannot be ignorant what their own Right and Duty is in behalf of the Protestant Religion and English Liberties for the Security whereof we have not only so many Laws but the Coronation Oaths and Stipulations of our Kings And those Gentlemen of the Church of England who appeared so vigorously in three Parliaments for excluding the Duke of York from the Succession to the Crown by reason of a Jealousy of what through being a Papist he would attempt against our Religion and Priviledges in case he were suffered to ascend the Throne cannot be now to seek what becomes them towards him having seen and felt what before they only apprehended and feared For if the Law that entaileth the Succession upon the next of Kin and obligeth the Subjects to admit and receive him not only may but ought to be dispensed with in case the Heir thro' having imbib'd Principles which threaten the Safety and are inconsistent with the Happiness of the People hath made himself incapable to inherit we know by a short Ratiocination how far we stand bound to a Prince on the Throne who by Transgressing against the Laws of the Constitution hath abdicated himself from the Government and stands virtually Deposed For whosoever shall offer to Rule Arbitrarily does immediately cease to be King de jure seeing by the Fundamental Common and Statute Laws of the Realm we know none for Supream Magistrate and Governor but a limited Prince and one who stands circumscribed and bounded in his Power and Prerogative And should the Dissenters entertain a belief that the Conformists are less concerned and zealous than themselves for the Protestant Religion and Laws of the Kingdom they would not only Sin and offend against the Rules of Charity but against the Measures of Justice and daily Evidences from Matters of Fact For neither they nor we owe our Conversion to God and our practical Holiness to the Opinions about Discipline Forms of Worship and Ceremonies wherein we differ but the Doctrines of Faith and Christian Obedience wherein we agree 'T is not their being for a Liturgy a Surpliss or a Bishop that hath heretofore influenced them to subserve the Court in Designs tending to Absoluteness but they were seduced unto it upon Motives whereof they are now ashamed and the ridiculousness and folly of which they have at last discever'd Nor is the multitude of profligate and scandalous persons with which the Church of England is crowded any just impeachment of the Purity of her Doctrine in the Vitals and Essentials of Religion or of the Vertue and Piety of many of her Members For as it is her being the only Society established by Law that attracts those Vermin to her Bosom so it is her being restrained by Law from debarring them that keeps them there to her reproach and to the grief of many of her Ecclesiasticks Neither is it the fault of the Church of England that the Agents and Factors for Popery and Arbitrary Power have chosen to pass under the name of her Sons but it proceeds partly from their Malice as hoping by that means to disgrace her with all true English-men as well as with Dissenters and partly from their Craft in order thereby the better to conceal their Design and to shrowd themselves from the Censure and Punishment which had it not been for that Mask they would have been exposed unto and have undergone And I dare affirm that besides the Obligations from Religion which the Conformists are equally under with Dissenters for hindring the introduction of Popery there are several Inducements from interest which sway them to prevent its establishment wherein the Dissenters are but little concerned For though Popery would be alike afflictive to the Consciences of Protestants of all Persuasions yet they are Gentlemen and Ministers of the Church of England whole Livings Revenues and Estates have been threatned in case it had come to be established Nor would the most Loyal and obsequious Levites provided they resolve to continue Protestants be willing that their Personages and Incumbencies to which they have have no less Right by Law than the King hath to the Excise and Customs should be taken from them and bestowed upon Romish Priests by an Act of Despotical Power and of unlimited Prerogative And for the Gentlemen as I think few of them would hold themselves obliged to part with their purses to High-way-Padders though such should have a pattent from the King to rob whomsoever they met upon the Road so there will not be many inclined to suffer their Mannours and Abbey-Lands to which they have so
Establishment yet all other Protestants may very rationally promise themselves an Indulgence and that not only from the Mildness and compassionate Sweetness of her Temper but from the Influence which the Prince her Husband will have upon her who as he is descended from Ancestors whose Glory it was to be the Redeemers of their Country from Papal Persecution and Spanish Tyranny so his Education Generosity Wisdom and many Heroick Vertues dispose him to embrace all Protestants with an equal Tenderness and to erect his Interest upon the being Head and Patron of all that profess the Reformed Religion Had the late Duke of Monmouth been victorious against the Forces of the present King and inabled to have wrested the Scepter out of his Hand though all Protestants might thereupon have expected and would certainly have enjoyed an equal freedom without the liableness of any party to Penal Laws for matters of Religion yet he would have been careful and I have reason to believe that it was his purpose to have had the Church of Eng. preserved and maintained and that she should have suffered no alteration but what would have been to her Strength and Glory through an enlargement of the Terms of her Communion and what would have been to the Praise of her Moderation and Charity through her being perswaded to bear with such as differ from her in little things and could not prevail with themselves to partake with her in all Ordinances Upon the whole it is both the prudence and safety of Dissenters as they would escape Extirpation themselves and have Religion conveyed down to Posterity to unite their Strength and Endeavours to those of the Church of England for the upholding her against the assaults of Popish Enemies who pursue her Subversion As matters have been circumstanced and stated in England there hath not been an Affront or Injury offered or done unto her by the Court which did not at the same time reach and wound the Dissenters 'T is not her being for Episcopacy Ceremonies and imposed Set-Forms of Worship the things about which she and the Nonconformists differ that she hath been not long since maligned and struck at by the Man in Power and his Popish functo but it is for being Protestant Reformed and Orthodox Crimes under the Guilt whereof Dissenters were equally concerned and involved Being therefore in opposition to the common Cause of Religion that the late Court of Inquisition was erected over her Ecclesiasticks all Protestants jointly resented the Wrongs which she sustain'd and not only to sympathize with those dignified and lower Clergy which were called to suffer but to espouse her Quarrel with the same warmth that we would our own And as we are to look upon those of the Episcopal Communion to be the great Bulwark of the Protestant Religion and Reformed Interest in England so it was farther incumbent on Dissenters towards them and a Duty which they owe to God the Nation and themselves not to be accessary to any thing through which the legal Establishment of the Church of England might have been by an Act of pretended Regal Prerogative weakned and supplanted I never counsel the Dissenters to renounce their Principles nor to participate with the Prelatical Church in all Ordinances on the Terms to which they have straitned and narrowed their Communion For while they remain unsatisfied of the lawfulness of those Terms and Conditions they cannot do it without offending God and contracting Guilt upon their Souls nor will they of the Church of England in Charity Justice and Honesty expect it from them For whatsoever any Man believeth to be Sin it is so to him and will by God be imputed as such till he be otherwise enlightned and convinced nor are the Dissenters to be false and cruel to themselves in order to be kind and friendly to them But that which I would advise them unto is that after the maintaining the highest measure of Love to the conformable Congregations as Churches of Christ and the esteeming their Members as Christian Protestant Brethren notwithstanding the several things wherein they judge them to err and to be mistaken that they would not by any Act and Transactions of theirs betray them into a Despotical Power not directly nor indirectly acknowledge any Authority paramount unto and superseding the Laws by which the Church of England is established in its present Form Order and Mode of Jurisdiction Discipline and External Worship Whatsoever Ease arrived to the Dissenters through the Kings suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws without their Address and Application they might receive it with Joy and Humility in themselves and with thankfulness to God nor was there hereby any prejudice offered on their part to the Authority of the Law or Offence or Injury given or done to the conformable Clergy Nor is it without grief and regret that the Church-men have been forced to behold the harassing spoiling and imprisonment of the Nonconformists while in the mean time the Papists were suffered to assemble to the Celebration of their Idolatrous Worship without Censure and Controul And had it been in their power to remedy it and give Relief to their Protestant Brethren they would with delight and readiness have embrac'd the occasion and opportunity of doing it But alas instead of having an advantage put into their hand of contributing to the Relief of the Dissenters which I dare say many of them ardently wish and desire they were compelled contrary to their Inclination as well as their Interest to become instrumental in persecuting and oppressing them Nor does the late King covet a better and a more legal advantage against the Conformists than that they would refuse to pursue Dissenters and decline molesting them with Ecclesiastical Censures and civil Punishments So that their condition was to be pityed and bewailed in that they were hindered from acting against the Papists though both enjoyed by Law and influenced thereunto by Motives of self-Preservation as well as by tyes of Conscience while in the mean time they were forced to prosecute their fellow-Protestants or else to be suspended and deposed and put out of their Offices and Employments And tho I believe that they would at last have more Peace in themselves and be better accepted with God in the great Duty of their Account should they have refused to disturb and prosecute their Protestant Brethren and scorn to be any longer Court-Tools for weakning and undermining the Reformed Cause and Interest yet I could not but leave them to act in this as they should be perswaded in themselves and as they judged most agreeable to Principles of Wisdom and Conscience In the interim the Dissenters have all the Reason in the World to believe that the Proceedings of the Clergy and Members of the Church of England against them were not the Results of their Election and Choice but the Effects of moral Compulsion and Necessity Nor will any Dissenter that is prudent and discreet blame them for a matter
and Historical as may serve to place it in the brightest Light and fullest Evidence that a matter future and yet to come which is only the object of our prospect and dread and not of our feeling and experience is capable of It ought to be of weight upon the minds of all English Protestants that the King of Great Britain is not only an open and avow'd Papist but as most Apostates use to be a fiery Bigot in the Romish Religion and who as the Leige Letter from a Jesuit to a Brother of the Order tells us is resolved either to Convert England to Popery or to dye a Martyr Nor were the Jewish Zealots of whose rageful Transports Josephus 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 favored 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 farther 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 Counsellors 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 fought 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 haughty and furious Tempers as of their Bigottry in their inhuman 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 Frigot 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 pitiful Priests to those of Men of the greatest Quality and receive those Mushroons 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 Supremest Rank and Character to the benefit of the same means of Deliverance and suffered them to perish though 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 receiv'd 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 favor of Father Francis whom he would illegally thrust into a Fellowship in Cambridge and of Mr. Farmer whom he would arbitrarily obtrude into the Headship of a College 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 ways enough of expressing Kindness and Bounty to those two little contemptible 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 Injury to the Rights of the University or of compelling those learned grave and venerable Men to perjure themselves and act against their Duties and Consciences The late Proceedings towards Dr. Burnet are not only contrary to all the Measures of Justice Law and Honor but argue a strange and furious Bigottry in His Majesty for Popery there being nothing else into which a Man can resolve the whole Tenor of his present Actings against Him seeing setting aside the Doctor 's being a Protestant and a Minister of the Church of England and his having vindicated the Reformation in England from the Calumnies and Slanders wherewith it was aspersed by Sanders and others of the Roman Communion and the approving himself in some other Writings worthy of the Character of a Reformed Divine and of that esteem which the World entertains of him for Knowledge in History and all other parts of good Learning there hath nothing occurred in the whole Tenor and Trace of his Life but what instead of Rebuke and Censure hath merited Acknowledgments and the Retributions of Favor and Preferment 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 their present Actings towards him and at the same time that they find cause to justifie the Righteousness of God in making them the Instruments of his Persecution whom in so many ways he had sought to oblige they may justly conclude that none save a Bigotted Papist could be the Author of so insuitable as well as illegal and unrighteous Returns For as to all whereof he is accused in the Criminal Letters against him bearing date the 19th of April 1687. I my self am both able to assert his Innocence and dare assure the World that none of the Persons whom he is charged to have conspired with against the King would have been so far void of Discretion knowing his Principles as to have transacted with him in Matters of that kind but whether his Letters since that to the Earl of Middletoune with the Paper inclosed in one of them have administred any Legal Ground for their Second Citation
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 Jesuits 'T is known how that by the Rules of their Institution no Jesuit is capable of the Mitre 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 Grandeur 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 Jesuit 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 Jesuits through their Authority over the King not suffering him to recede from his Demand and His Majesty's Zeal for the Society not permitting him to comply either with the Prayers or the Conscience and Honor of the Supreme Pontiff Not only the King's 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 of preventing his Exclusion from the Crown and the chief means both of his Advancement to the Throne and his being kept in it are so many new Evidences of the ill will he bears to all Protestants and what they are to dread from him as Occasions are Administred of Injuring and Oppressing them and may serve to convince all impartial and thinking People that his Popish Malice to our Religion is too strong for all Principles of Honor and Gratitude and able to cancel the Obligations which Friendship for his Person and Service to his Interest may be supposed to have laid him under to any heretofore Had it not been for many of the Church of England who stood up with a Zeal and Vigor for preserving the Succession in the right Line beyond what Religion Conscience Reason or Interest could conduct them unto he had never been able to have out-wrestled the Endeavors of Three Parliaments for ex-excluding him from the Imperial Crown of England And had it not been for their Abetting and standing by him with their Swords in their Hands upon the Duke of Monmouth's Descent into the Kingdom Anno 1685 he could not have avoided the being driven from the Throne and the having the Scepter wrested out of his Hand Whosoever had the Advantage of knowing the Temper and Genius of the late King and how afraid he was of embarking into any thing that might import a visible Hazard to the Peace of his Government and draw after it a general Disgust of his Person will be soon satisfied that if all his Protestant Subjects had united in their Desires and concurred in their Endeavors to have had the Duke of York debarred from the Crown that his late Majesty would not have once scrupled the complying with it and that his Love to his Dear Brother would have given way to the Apprehension and Fear of forfeiting a Love for himself in the Hearts of his People especially when what was required of him was not an Invasion upon the Fundamentals of the Constitution of the English Monarchy nor dissonant from the Practice of the Nation in many repeated Instances Nor can there be a greater Evidence of the present King 's ill Nature Romish Bigottry and prodigious Ingratitude as well as of the Design he is carrying on against our Religion and Laws than his Carriage and Behavior towards the Church of England tho I cannot but acknowledge it a righteous Judgment upon them from God and a just Punishment for their being not only so unconcerned for the Preservation of our Religion and Liberties in avoiding to close with the only Methods that were adapted thereunto but for being so Passionate and Industrious to hasten the Loss of them through putting the Government into ones hands who as they might have foreseen would be sure to make a Sacrifice of them to his beloved Popery and to his inordinate Lust after despotical and Arbitrary Power And as the only Example bearing any Affinity to it is that of Louis XIV who in recompence to his Protestant Subjects for maintaining him on the Throne when the late Prince of Conde assisted by Papists would have wrested the Crown from him hath treated them with a Barbarity whereof that of Antiochus towards the Jews and that of Diocletian and Maximian towards the Primitive Christians were but scanty and imperfect Draughts so there wants nothing for compleating the Parallel between England and France but a little more time and a fortunate Opportunity and then the deluded Church-men will find that Father Peters is no less skillful at Whitehall for transforming their Acts of Loyalty and Merit towards the King into Crimes and Motives of their Ruin than Pere de la Chaise hath shewn himself at Versailles where by an Art peculiar to the Jesuits he hath improved the Loyalty and Zeal of the Reformed in France for the House of Bourbon into a reason of alienating that Monarch from them and into a ground of his destroying that dutiful and obedient People It will not be amiss to call over some of his Majesty's Proceedings towards the Church of England that from what hath been already seen and felt both they and all English 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. Alsop 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 revengeful Humor 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 justifie and improve it And tho it be too true that many of the dignified Rank as well as of the little Levites were both extremely 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 Favor 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 Addressing for the Declaration of Indulgence became the means of being graciously look'd upon at Whitehall turned forward Promoters of it tho their Success in their Diocesses with their Clergy hath not answered their Expectations and Endeavors For as these two Mytred Gentlemen will fall in with and justifie 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 paid a particular respect to the Nuncie 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 Liege Letter tells us that Parker not only extremely favors 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 Endeavors 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 Non-conforming 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 and good Men of the Church of England but 't is the having it in the virtue 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 Rigors 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 Church is that which no wise Dissenter no more than a conformable man knows how to digest For I am not of Sir R. L'Estrange's mind who after he hath been writing for many years against Dissenters with all the venom and malice imaginable and to disprove the wisdom justice and convenience of granting them liberty hath now the impudence to publish that whatsoever he formerly wrote bears an exact conformity to the present Resolutions of State Pref. to his Hist of the Times p. 8. in that the liberty now vouchsafed is an Act of Grace issuing from the supreme Magistrate and not a claim of Right in the people And as to recited expressions of the King they are only a papal trick whereby to keep up heats and animosities among Protestants when both the inward heats of men are much allay'd and the external provocations to them are wholly removed and they are merely Jesuitick methods by which our hatred of one another may be maintain'd tho the Laws enabling one party to persecute the other which was the chief spring of all our mutual rancor 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 as 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 Ch. 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 and 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 Majesty's behaviour to the Ch. 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 does carry more visible marks of his malice and design both against the legally established Church and our Religion For not being satisfied with the suspension of all those Laws by which Protestants and they of the national Communion might seem to be injurious to Papists in their Persons and Estates such as the Laws which make those who shall be found to have taken Orders in the Ch. of Rome obnoxious to death or those other Statutes by which the King hath Power and Authority for levying two thirds of their Estates that shall be convicted of Recusancy but by an usurped Prerogative and an absolute Power he is pleased to suspend all the Laws by which they were only disabled from hurting us thro standing precluded from places of Power and Trust in the Government So that the whole security we have in time to come for our Religion depends upon the temperate disposition and good nature of those Roman Catholicks that shall be advanced to Offices and Employments and does no longer bear upon the protection and support of the Law and I think we have not had that experience of grace and favour from Papists as may give us just confidence of fair and candid treatment from them for the future Now that we may be the better convinced how little security we have from his Majesty's promise in his Declaration of his protecting the Archbishops Bishops and Clergy and all other his Subjects of the Church of England in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law established and in the quiet and full enjoyment of their poffessions without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever which is all the Tenour that is left us 't is not unworthy of observation how that beside the suspending the Bishop of London ab Officio and the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge both ab Officio and Beneficio and this not only for Actions which the Laws of God and the Kingdom make their duty but
thro a sentence inflicted upon them by no legal Court of Judicature but by 5 or 6 mercenary persons supported by a tyrannous and arbitrary Commission his Majesty in his Proclamation for Toleration in Scotland bearing date Febr. 12. doth among many other Laws cass disable and dispense with the Law enjoining the Scots Test tho it was not only enacted by himself while he represented his Brother as his high Commissioner but hath been confirmed by him in Parliament since he came to the Crown Surely it is as easie to depart from a promise made in a Declaration as 't is to absolve and discharge himself from the obligation of a Law which he first concurred to the enacting of and gave the creating Fiat unto as the late King's Commissioner and hath since ratified in Parliament after he was come to the Throne As there is no more infidelity dishonor and injustice so there is less of absolute power and illegality in doing the one than the other Nor is it possible for a rational man to place a confidence in his Majesty's Royal word for the protection of our Religion and the Ch. of England mens enjoying their possessions seeing he hath not only departed from his Promise made to the Council immediately after his Brother's death but hath violated his Faith given to the Parliament of England at their first Session which we might have thought would have been the more sacred and binding by reason of the Grandeur State and Quality of the Assembly to which it was pledged If we consider how much Protestants suffered what number of them was burnt at the Stake as well as Murdered in Goals beside the vast Multitudes who to avoid the Rage and Power of their Enemies were forced to abandon their Country and seek for shelter in foreign Parts and what Endeavors of all kinds were used for the Extirpation of our Religion under Q. Mary we may gather and learn from thence what is to be dreaded from James II. who is the next Popish Prince to her that since the Reformation hath sat on the Throne of England For though there be many things that administer grounds of Hope that the Papists will not find it so easie a matter to bring us in shoals to the stake nor of that quick and easie dispatch to suppress the Protestant Religion and set up Popery at this time as they found it then yet every thing that occurs to our Thoughts or that can affect our Understandings serves not only to perswade us into a belief that they will set upon and endeavor it but to work us up to an Assurance that his Majesty would take it for a diminution of his Glory as well as reflection upon his Zeal for the Church of Rome not to attempt what a Woman had both the Courage to undertake and the Fortune to go through with And there is withal a Concurrence of so many things both abroad and at home at this Juncture which if laid in the ballance with the Motives to our hope of the Papists miscarrying may justly raise our Fears of their prospering to a very sad and uncomfortable height Whosoever shall compare these two Princes together will find that there was less danger to be apprehended from Mary and that not only upon the score of her Sex but by reason of a certain gentleness and goodness of Nature which all Historians of Judgment and Credit ascribe unto her than is to be expected from the present King in whom a Sourness of Temper Fierceness of Disposition and Pride joined with a peevishness of humor not to bear the having his will disputed or controlled are the principal Ingredients into his Constitution and which are all strangely heightned and enflamed by contracted distempers of Body and thro' furious Principles of Mind which he hath imbib'd from the Jesuits who of all Men carry the Obligations arising from the Doctrines of the Popish Religion to the most outragious and inhuman Excesses Nor can I forbear to add that whereas the Cruelty which that Princess was hurried into even to the making her Cities common Shambles and her Streets Theatres of Murder for Innocent Persons for which she became hated while she lived and her Memory is rendred infamous to all Generations that come after was wholly and entirely owing to her Religion which not only proclaims it lawful but a necessary duty of Christianity and an Act meriting a peculiar Crown of Glory in Heaven to destroy Hereticks 't is to be feared there will be found in the present King a spice of revenge against us as we are Englishmen as well as a measure heapt up and running over of furious Papal Zeal against us as we are Protestants Beside the Wrath he bears unto us for our departure from the Communion of the Romish Church and our Rebellion against the Triple Crown the War wherein many of the Kingdom were engag'd against his Father and the issue of it in the Execution of that Monarch is what he hath been heard to say That he hopes to revenge upon the Nation And all that the City of London underwent thro' that dreadful Conflagration 1666. of which he was the great Author and Promoter as well as the Rescuer and Protector of the Varlets that were apprehended in their spreading and carrying on the fire is but earnest in respect of what is design'd farther to be paid them for the having been the great Supporters of that War both by continu'd Recruits of Men and repeated Supplies of Treasure Tho' it was Qu. Marys 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 wherewith her Reign is stain'd and reproach'd yet she had no Jesuits 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 was in 1540. and the time of her coming to the Crown which was A. 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 attain'd unto Nor have the Protestants now any security for their Religion whereby it or themselves may be preserv'd 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 Qu. 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 it preserv'd and our selves protected in the Profession of it yet it is certain that it had not only receiv'd a legal Establishment under K.
were prepared for in case it had succeeded and the foreign 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 200000 were murder'd 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 true 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 would not satisfie nor will any thing else unless they may be allowed to cut the throats or make bonefires of all that will not join with them in a blind obedience to the Sea of Rome and of worshipping S. Patrick The little harsh usages which the Papists at any time met with there or in England they derived them upon themselves by their Crimes against the State and for their Conspiracies against our Princes and their Protestant Subjects For till the Pope had taken 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 confederacies 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 mere Religion Such hath always been the moderation of our Rulers 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 restlesness 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 mere 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 Hedge 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 Papists 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 attempts 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 Catholicks in England exposed to the resentment of the Kingdom for what they have so foolishly and impudently acted both against our Civil Rights and Established Religion since James 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 methods in which they have been engaged These things we may be sure the Papists are aware of and that having proceeded so far they have nothing left for their security from punishments because of crimes committed but to put us out of all capacity of doing our selves Right and them Justice and he must be dull who does not know into what that must necessarily hurry them It being then as evident as a matter of this nature is capable of what we are to expect and dread from the King both as to our Religion and Laws we may do more than presume that the late Declaration for liberty of Conscience and the Proclamation for a Toleration are not intended and designed for the benefit and advantage of the Reformed Religion and that whatsoever motives have influenced to the granting and emitting of them they do not in the least flow or proceed from any kindness and good will to Protestant Dissenters And though many of those weak and easie People may flatter themselves with a belief of an interest in the Kings favour and suffer others to delude them into a persuasion of his bearing a gracious respect towards them yet it is certain that they are People in the world whom he most hates and who when things are ripe for it and that he hath abused their credulity into a serving his Ends as far as they can be prevailed upon and as long as the present Juggle can be of any advantage for promoting the Papal Cause will be sure not only to have an equal share in his displeasure with their Brethren of the Church of England but will be made to drink deepest in the cup of fury and wrath that is mingling and preparing for all Protestants No provocation from their present behaviour tho it is such as might warm a person of very cool temper much less offences of another complexion
administred by any of them shall ever tempt me to say they deserve it or cause me to ravel into their former and past carriages so as to fasten a blot or imputation upon the party or body of them whatsoever I may be forced to do as to particular persons among them For as to the generality I do believe them to be as honest industrious useful and vertuous a people tho many of them be none of the wisest nor of the greatest prospect as any party of men in the Kingdom and that wherein soever their carriage even abstracting from their differences with their Fellow Protestants in matters of Religion hath varied from that of other Subjects they have been in the Right and have acted most agreeably to the interest and safety of the Kingdom But it can be no reflection upon them to recall into their memories that the whole tenor of the King's actings towards them both when Duke of York and since he came to the Crown hath been such as might render it beyond dispute that they are so far from having any singular room in his favour that he bears them neither pity nor compassion but that they are the objects of his unchangeable indignation For not to mention how the Persecutions that were observed always to relent both upon his being at any distance from the late King and upon the abatement of his influence at any time into Counsels were constantly revived upon his return to Court and were carried on in degrees of severity proportionable to the figure he made at Whitehall and his Brothers disposedness and inclination to hearken to him surely their memories cannot be so weak and untenacious but they must remember how their sufferings were never greater nor the Laws executed with more severity upon them than since his Majesty came to ascend the Throne As it is not many years since he said publickly in Scotland that it were well if all that part of the Kingdom which is above half of the Nation where the Dissenters were known to be most numerous were turned into a hunting field so none were favoured and promoted either there or in England but such as were taken to be the most fierce and violent of all others against Fanaticks Nor were men preferred either in Church or State for their learning vertue or merit but for their passionate heats and brutal rigours to Dissenters And whereas the Papists from the very first day of his arrival at the Government had beside many other marks of his Grace this special Testimony of it of not having the penal Statutes to which they stood liable put in execution against them all the Laws to which the Dissenters were obnoxious were by his Majesty's Orders to the Judges Justices of the Peace and all other Officers Civil and Ecclesiastical most unmercifully executed Nor was there the least talk of lenity to Dissenters till the King found that he could not compass his Ends by the Church of England and prevail upon the Parliament for repealing the Tests and cancelling the other Laws in force against Papists which if they could have been wrought over unto the Fanaticks would not only have been left Pitiless and continued in the Hands of the furious Church men to exercise their Spleen upon but would have been surrendred as a Sacrifice to new Flames of Wrath if they of the Prelatical Communion had retained their wonted Animosity and thought it for their Interest to exert it either in the old or in fresh Methods But that Project not succeeding his Majesty is forced to shift Hands and to use the Pretence of extending Compassion to Dissenting Protestants that he may the more plausibly and with the less Hazard suspend and disable the Laws against Papists and make way for their Admission into all Offices Civil and Military which is the first Step and all that he is yet in a Condition to take for the Subversion of our Religion And all the celebrated Kindness to Fanaticks is only to use them as the Cat 's Paw for pulling the Chesunt out of the Fire to the Monkey and to make them stales under whose Shroud and Covert the Church of Rome may undermine and subvert all the legal Foundations of our Religion which to suffer themselves to be Instrumental in will not in the Issue turn to the Commendation of the Dissenters Wisdom or their Honesty Nor is there more Truth in the King 's declaring it to have been his constant Opinion that Conscience ought not to be constrained nor People forced in Matters of mere Religion than there is of Justice in that malicious Insiuuation in his Letter to Mr. Alsop against the Church of England That should he see cause to change his Religion he should never be of that Party of Protestants who think their only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller Matters Forasmuch as he is in the mean time a Member of the most Persecuting and Bloody Society that ever was cloathed with the name of a Church and whose Cruelty towards Protestants he is careful not to Arraign by fastning his Offence at Severity upon Differences in smaller Matters which he knows that those between Rome and us are not nor so accounted of by any of the Papal Fellowship It were to be wished that the Dissenters would reflect and consider how when the late King had emitted a Declaration of Indulgence Anno 1672. upon pretended Motives of Tenderness and Compassion to his Protestant Subjects but in truth to keep all quiet at home when in Conjunction with France he was engaging in an unjust War against a Reformed State abroad and in order to steal a Liberty for the Papists to Practise their Idolatries without incurring a Suspition himself of being of the Romish Religion and in hope to wind up the Prerogative to a Paramount Power over the Law and how when the Parliament condemned the Illegality of it and would have the Declaration recalled all his Kindness to Dissenters not only immediately vanished but turned into that Rage and Fury that tho both that Parliament addressed for some Favor to be shew'd them and another voted it a Betraying of the Protestant Religion to continue the Execution of the Penal Laws upon them yet instead of their having any Mercy or Moderation exercised towards them they were thrown into a Furnace made seven times hotter than that wherein they had been scorched before And without pretending to be a Prophet I dare prognosticate and foretell that whensoever the present King hath compassed the Ends unto which this Declaration is designed to be subservient namely the placing the Papists both in the open Exercise of their Religion and in all publick Offices and Trusts and the getting a Power to be acknowledged vested in him over the Laws that then instead of the still Voice calmly whispered from Whitehall they will both hear and feel the Blasts of a mighty rushing Wind and
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 settled on the Crown and appertaining to the Royal Office nor can the Supreme Magistrate 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 Customs 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 Privileges they reserved unto themselves and what Authority and Jurisdiction they delegated and made over unto the Sovereign 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 through 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 Mercenary Lawyers or Sycophant Clergy-men in Cases wherein the Parliament have by their Votes and Resolutions settled its Boundaries is a Crime that deserves the severest Animadversion and which it is to be hoped 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 meddling 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 De Laudib Leg. Angl. c. 9. Fortescue says 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 as by a Power that is Political in that he is bound to Rule by the Laws which the People themselves chuse and enact And both Bracton and Fleta tell us Bract. l. 2. c. 16. Flet. l. 2. c. 17. That Rex Angliae habet superiores viz. legem per quam factus est Rex ac Comites Barones qui debent ei fraenum ponere the King of England hath for Superiors both the Law by which he is constituted King and which is the measure of his Governing Power and the Parliament which is to restrain him if he do amiss And thereupon we have not only that other Saying of Bracton Lib. 3. cap. 9. That Nihil aliud potest Rex nisi id solum quod jure potest The King can do nothing but what he can do by Law But we have that Famous Passage in our Parliament Rolls Rot. Parl. 7. Hen. 4. Num. 59 Non est ulla Regis prerogativa quae ex justitia 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 Statutes declared all Dispensations by the King from Laws and enjoyned Oaths to be null and void and not admittable by the Judges 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 Kings to an Usurpation of Power over the Laws and to a Violation of established and enacted Rules It would draw this Discourse to a length beyond what is intended should I mention the several Laws against Papists as well as against Dissenters that are suspended stop'd disabled and dispensed with in the two fore-mentioned Royal Papers and it would be an extending it much more should I make the several Reflections that the matter is capable of and which a Person of a very ordinary Understanding cannot be greatly to seek for I shall therefore only take notice of two or three Efforts which occur there of this Royal Prerogative and Absolute Power which as they are very bold and ample Exertions of them for the first time so should the next Exercises of them be proportionable there will be nothing left us of the Protestant Religion or of English Liberties and we must be contented to be Papists and Slaves or else to stand adjudged to Tyburn and Smithfield One is the Suspending the Laws which enjoyn the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the prohibiting that these Oaths be at any time hereafter required to be taken by which single Exercise of Royal Prerogative and Absolute Power the two Kingdoms are not only again subjected to a Foreign furisdiction the Miseries whereof they groaned under for several Ages but as the King is hereby deprived of the greatest Security he had from his Subjects both to himself and the Government so the Crown is rob'd of one of its chiefest Jewels namely an Authority over all the Subjects which was thought so essential to Sovereignty and Royal Dignity that it was annexed to the Imperial Crown of England and adjudged inherent in the Monarch before the Reformed Religion came to be received and established And it concerns their Royal Highnesses of Orange to whom the Right of succeeding to the Crown of Great Britain unquestionably belongs to consider whether his Majesty may not by the same Authority whereby he alienates and gives away so considerable and inherent a Branch of the Royal Jurisdiction transfer the Succession it self and dispose the Inheritance of the Crown to whom he pleaseth Nor will they
the known Laws of the Kingdom and hath been done by no legal Court but by a Sett of Mercenary 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 rob us of our Rights and Privileges at the mere 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 hitherto 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 Debtors from paying their Creditors and of Acquitting them from being Sued and Imprisoned in case of Non-payment and yet in Defiance of all Law and to the Subverting the Rights of the People and the most essential Privilege and Jurisdiction of Parliaments and to a plain changing the ancient legal Constitution into an Absolute and Despotical Governing Power the King they say is assuming to himself an Authority both of imposing a Tax of 5 l. per Annum upon every Hackney Coach and of Releasing and Discharging all Debtors of whom their Creditors cannot claim and demand above 10 l. Sterling which as they will be signal Invasions upon Property and leading Cases for the raising Money in what other Instances he pleaseth by a Hampton-Court 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 Predecessoâs 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 denied the Liberty of our Religion than we have had for preserving our Property from being Invaded and broken in upon We may subjoyn 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 way and manner so they are to take special care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend 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 inferted there for any other End but that upon a Plea of their having abused his Gracious Indulgence to the alienating the Hearts of his People from him they may be adjudged to have thereby deservedly forfeited both all the Benefits of it and of his Royal Favor Nor is it possible for a Protestant Minister to preach one Sermon which a Popish Critick or a Romish Bigot may not easily misconstrue and pervert to be an Alienation of the Peoples Hearts from the King's Person and Government And of which as we have heard many late Examples in France so it will be easie to draw them into President and to imitate them in England I might add the Observation of the ingenious Author of the Reflections on his Majesty's Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland Namely that whereas the King gives all Assurance to his Scots Subjects that he will not use invincible Necessity against any Man on the account of his Perswasion he does thereby leave himself at a liberty of Dragooning Torturing Burning and doing the utmost Violences all these being vincible to a Person of an ardent love to God and of a lively Faith in Jesus Christ and which accordingly many Thousands have been triumphantly Victorious over Nor is it likely that this new and uncouth Phrase of not using an invinsible Necessity would have found room in a Paper of that nature if it had not been first to conceal some malicious and mischievous Design and then to justifie 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 mere matters of Religion would oblige him to act uniformly and with an equal extention of Favor to all his Subjects whose Principles are the same and against whom he hath no Exception but in matters merely 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 Subserviency 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 mere Religion and a founding it upon an internal Quality of the mind that is not dissernable but it implies the reserving a Liberty to himself of withdrawing the Benefits of it from all Scots Dissenters through fastening 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 signifie 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 alionate the Hearts 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
their Lives Liberties Honors and Estates if they should go about to preserve themselves from this Oppression by Petitions Representations or other means authorised by Law Thus did they proceed with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops who having offered a most Humble Petition to the King in Terms full of Respect and not exceeding the number limited by Law in which they set forth in short the Reasons for which they could not obey that Order which by the Instigation of those Evil Counsellors was sent them requiring them to appoint their Clergy to read in their Churches the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience were sent to Prison and afterwards brought to a Trial as if they had been guilty of some enormous Crime They were not only obliged to defend themselves in that pursuit but to appear before professed Papists who had not taken the Test and by consequence were Men whose Interest led them to condemn them and the Judges that gave their Opinion in their Favors were thereupon turned out And yet it cannot be pretended that any Kings how great soever their Power has been and how Arbitrary and Despotick soever they have been in the Exercise of it have ever reckoned it a Crime for their Subjects to come in all Submission and Respect and in a due Number not exceeding the Limits of the Law and represent to them the Reasons that made it impossible for them to obey their Orders Those Evil Counsellors have also treated a Peer of the Realm as a Criminal only because he said that the Subjects were not bound to obey the orders of a Popish Justice of Peace tho it is evident that they being by Law rendred incapable of all such Trust no regard is due to their orders This being the Security which the People have by the Law for their Lives Liberties Honors and Estates that they are not to be subjected to the Arbitrary Proceedings of Papists that are contrary to Law put into any Employments Civil or Military Both we our selves and our Dearest and most Entirely Beloved Consort the Princess have endeavored to signifie in Terms full of Respect to the King the just and deep Regret which all these Proceedings have given us and in Compliance with His Majesties Desires signified to us we declared both by word of Mouth to his Envoy and in Writing what our Thoughts were touching the Repealing of the Test and Penal Laws which we did in such a manner that we hoped we had proposed an Expedient by which the Peace of those Kingdoms and a happy Agreement among the Subjects of all Perswasions might have been settled but those Evil Counsellors have put such ill Constructions on these our good Intentions that they have endeavored to alienate the King more and more from us as if we had designed to disturb the Quiet and Happiness of the Kingdom The last and great Remedy for all those Evils is The calling of a Parliament for securing the Nation against the Evil Practises of those wicked Counsellors but this could not be yet compassed nor can it be easily brought about For those Men apprehending that a lawful Parliament being once assembled they would be brought to an account for all their open Violations of Law and for their Plots and Conspiracies against the Protestant Religion and the Lives and Liberties of the Subjects they have endeavored under the specious Pretence of Liberty of Conscience first to sow Divisions among Protestants between those of the Church of England and the Dissenters The design being laid to engage Protestants that are all equally concerned to preserve themselves from Popish Oppression into mutual Quarrellings that so by these some Advantages might be given to them to bring about their Designs and that both in the Election of the Members of Parliament and afterwards in the Parliament it self For they see well that if all Protestants could enter into a mutual good Understanding one with another and concur together in the Preserving of their Religion it would not be possible for them to compass their wicked ends They have also required all Persons in the several Counties of England that either were in any Imployment or were in any considerable Esteem to declare before-hand that they would concur in the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws and that they would give their Voices in the Elections to Parliament only for such as would concur in it Such as would not thus pre-ingage themselves were turned out of all Imployments and others who entered into those Engagements were put in their places many of them being Papists And contrary to the Charters and Privileges of those Boroughs that have a Right to send Burgesses to Parliament they have ordered such Regulations to be made as they thought fit and necessary for assuring themselves of all the Members that are to be chosen by those Corporations and by this means they hope to avoid that Punishment which they have deserved tho it is apparent that all Acts made by Popish Magistrates are null and void of themselves so that no Parliament can be Lawful for which the Elections and Returns are made by Popish Sheriffs and Mayors of Towns and therefore as long as the Authority and Magistracy is in such Hands it is not possible to have any Lawful Parliament And tho according to the Constitution of the English Government and Immemorial Custom all Elections of Parliament-men ought to be made with an entire Liberty without any sort of Force or the requiring the Electors to chuse such Persons as shall be named to them and the Persons thus freely elected ought to give their Opinions freely upon all Matters that are brought before them having the good of the Nation ever before their Eyes and following in all things the Dictates of their Conscience yet now the People of England cannot expect a Remedy from a Free Parliament legally Called and Chosen But they may perhaps see one called in which all Elections will be carried by Fraud or Force and which will be composed of such Persons of whom those Evil Counsellors hold themselves well assured in which all things will be carried on according to their Direction and Interest without any regard to the Good or Happiness of the Nation Which may appear evidently from this that the same Persons tried the Members of the last Parliament to gain them to consent to the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws and procured that Parliament to be dissolved when they found that they could not neither by Promises nor Threatnings prevail with the Members to comply with their wicked Designs But to Crown all there are great and violent Presumptions inducing us to believe that those Evil Counsellors in order to the carrying on of their ill Designs and to the gaining to themselves the more time for the effecting of them for the encouraging of their Complices and for the discouraging of all Good Subjects have published that the Queen hath brought forth a Son tho there have
appeared both during the Queens Pretended Biggness and in the manner in which the Birth was managed so many just and visible Grounds of Suspition that not only we our selves but all the good Subjects of those Kingdoms do vehemently suspect that the Pretended Prince of Wales was not born by the Queen And it is notoriously known to all the World that many both doubted of the Queens Biggness and of the Birth of the Child and yet there was not any one thing done to satisfie them or to put an end to their Doubts And since our Dearest and most Entirely Beloved Consort the Princess and likewise we our selves have so great an Interest in this Matter and such a Right as all the World knows to the Succession to the Crown since also the English did in the Year 1672. when the States General of the United Provinces were Invaded in a most unjust War use their utmost Endeavors to put an end to that War and that in Opposition to those who were then in the Government and by their so doing they run the Hazard of losing both the Favor of the Court and their Imployments And since the English Nation has ever testified a most particular Affection and Esteem both to our Dearest Consort the Princess and to our selves We cannot excuse our selves from espousing their Interests in a matter of such high Consequence and from Contributing all that lies in us for the Maintaining both of the Protestant Religion and of the Laws and Liberties of those Kingdoms and for the Securing to them the continual Enjoyment of all their just Rights To the doing of which we are most earnestly solicited by a great many Lords both Spiritual and Temporal and by many Gentlemen and other Subjects of all Ranks Therefore it is that we have thought fit to go over to England and to carry over with us a Force sufficient by the Blessing of God to defend us from the Violence of those Evil Counsellors And we being desirous that our Intentions in this may be rightly understood have for this end prepared this Declaration in which as we have hitherto given a true Account of the Reasons inducing us to it So we now think fit to Declare that this our Expedition is intended for no other Design but to have a free and lawful Parliament assembled as soon as is possible and that in order to this all the late Charters by which the Elections of Burgesses are limited contrary to the Ancient Custom shall be considered as null and of no force And likewise all Magistrates who have been Injustly turned out shall forthwith resume their former Imployments as well as all the Boroughs of England shall return again to their Ancient Prescriptions and Charters And more particularly that the Ancient Charter of the Great and Famous City of London shall again be in Force And that the Writs for the Members of Parliament shall be addressed to the proper Officers according to Law and Custom That also none be suffered to choose or to be chosen Members of Parliament but such as are qualified by Law And that the Members of Parliament being thus lawfully chosen they shall meet and sit in full Freedom that so the Two Houses may concur in the preparing of such Laws as they upon full and free Debate shall judge necessary and convenient both for the confirming and executing the Law concerning the Test and such other Laws as are necessary for the Security and Maintenance of the Protestant Religion as likewise for making such Laws as may establish a good Agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters as also for the covering and securing of all such who will live Peaceable under the Government as becomes good Subjects from all Persecution upon the account of their Religion even Papists themselves not excepted and for the doing of all other things which the Two Houses of Parliament shall find necessary for the Peace Honor and Safety of the Nation so that there may be no more danger of the Nations falling at any time hereafter under Arbitrary Government To this Parliament we will also refer the Enquiry into the Birth of the Pretended Prince of Wales and of all things relating to it and to the Right of Succession And we for our part will concur in every thing that may procure the Peace and Happiness of the Nation which a Free and Lawful Parliament shall determine Since we have nothing before our Eyes in this our Undertaking but the Preservation of the Protestant Religion the covering of all Men from Persecution for their Consciences and the Securing to the whole Nation the free Enjoyment of all their Laws Rights and Liberties under a Just and Legal Government This is the design that we have proposed to our selves in appearing upon this occasion in Arms In the Conduct of which we will keep the Forces under our Command under all the Strictness of Martial Discipline and take a special Care that the People of the Countries through which we must march shall not suffer by their means And as soon as the State of the Nation will admit of it we promise that we will send back all those Foreign Forces that we have brought along with us We do therefore hope that all People will judge rightly of us and approve of these our Proceedings But we chiefly rely on the Blessing of God for the Success of this our Undertaking in which we place our whole and only Confidence We do in the last place invite and require all Persons whatsoever all the Peers of the Realm both Spiritual and Temporal all Lords-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and all Gentlemen Citizens and other Commons of all Ranks to come and assist us in order to the Executing of this our Design against all such as shall endeavor to oppose us that so we may prevent all those Miseries which must needs follow upon the Nations being kept under Arbitrary Government and Slavery And that all the Violences and Disorders which have overturned the whole Constitution of the English Government may be fully redressed in a Free and Legal Parliament And we do likewise resolve that as soon as the Nations are brought to a State of Quiet we will take care that a Parliament shall be called in Scotland for the restoring the Ancient Constitution of that Kingdom and for bringing the Matters of Religion to such a Settlement that the People may live Easie and Happy and for putting an end to all the Injust Violences that have been in a course of so many Years committed there We will also study to bring the Kingdom of Ireland to such a State that the Settlement there may be Religiously observed and that the Protestant and British Interest there may be secured And we will endeavor by all possible means to procure such an Establishment in all the Three Kingdoms that they may all live in a Happy Union and Correspondence together and that the Protestant Religion and the Peace
by Hundreds of Thousands at once 4. Because the Dragooners have made more Converts than all the Bishops and Clergy of France 5. The Parliament ought to establish one standing Army at the least because indeed there will be need of Two that one of them may defend the People from the other 6. Because it is a thousand pities that a brave Popish Army should be a Riot 7. Unless it be Established by Act of Parliament The Justices of Peace will be forced to suppress it in their own Defence for they will be loth to forfeit an hundred Pounds every day they rise out of Complement to a Popish Rout. 13 H. 4. c. 7. 2 H. 5. c. 8. 8. Because a Popish Army is a Nullity For all Papists are utterly disabled and punishable besides from bearing any Office in Camp Troop Band or Company of Soldiers and are so far disarmed by Law that they cannot wear a Sword so much as in their Defence without the allowance of four Justices of the Peace of the County And then upon a March they will be perfectly Inchanted for they are not able to stir above five Miles from their own Dwelling-house 3. Jac. 5. Sect. 8.27 28 29.35 Eliz. 2.3 Jac. 5. Sect. 7. 9. Because Persons utterly disabled by Law are utterly Unauthorized and therefore the void Commissions of Killing and Slaying in the Hands of Papists can only enable them to Massacre and Murder To the King 's Most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of William Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and divers of the Suffragan Bishops of that Province now present with him in behalf of themselves and others of their absent Brethren and of the Clergy of their respective Diocesses Humbly sheweth THAT the great averseness they find in themselves to the distributing and publishing in all their Churches your Majesty's late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience proceeds neither from any want of Duty and Obedience to your Majesty our Holy Mother the Church of England being both in her Principles and in her constant Practice unquestionably Loyal and having to her great Honour been more than once publickly acknowledg'd to be so by your Gracious Majesty Nor yet from any want of due tenderness to Dissenters in relation to whom they are willing to come to such a Temper as shall be thought fit when that Matter shall be considered and settled in Parliament and Convocation But among many other Considerations from this especially because that Declaration is founded upon such a Dispensing Power as has been often declared Illegal in Parliament and particularly in the years 1662 and 1672. and in the beginning of your Majesty's Reign and is a matter of so great Moment and Consequence to the whole Nation both in Church and State that your Petitioners cannot in Prudence Honour or Conscience so far make themselves Parties to it as the distribution of it all over the Nation and the solemn Publication of it once and again even in God's House and in the Time of his Divine Service must amount to in common and reasonable Construction Your Petitioners therefore most Humbly and Earnestly beseech your Majesty that you will be ciously pleased not to insist upon their Distributing and Reading your Majesty's said Declaration And Your Petitioners as in Duty bound shall ever Pray Will. Cant. Will. Asaph Fr Ely Jo. Cicestr Tho. Bathon Wellen. Tho. Peterburgen Jonath Bristol His Majesties Answer was to this effect I Have heard of this before but did not believe it I did not expect this from the Church of England especially from some of you If I change my Mind you shall hear from me if not I expect my Command shall be obeyed The PETITION of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for the Calling of a Free Parliament Together with his Majesty's Gracious Answer to their Lordships To the KING 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal whose Names are subscribed May it please your Majesty WE your Majesty's most loyal Subjects in a deep sense of the Miseries of a War now breaking forth in the Bowels of this your Kingdom and of the Danger to which your Majesty's Sacred Person is thereby like to be exposed and also of the Distractions of your People by reason of their present Grievances do think our selves bound in Conscience of the duty we owe to God and our holy Religion to your Majesty and our Country most humbly offer to your Majesty That in our Opinion the only visible Way to preserve your Majesty and this your Kingdom would be the Calling of a Parliament Regular and Free in all its Circumstances We therefore do most earnestly beseech your Majesty That you would be graciously pleased with all speed to call such a Parliament wherein we shall be most ready to promote such Counsels and Resolutions of Peace and Settlement in Church and State as may conduce to your Majesty's Honour and Safety and to the quieting the Minds of your People We do likewise humbly beseech your Majesty in the mean time to use such means for the preventing the Effusion of Christian Blood as to your Majesty shall seem most meet And your Petitioners shall ever pray c. W. Cant. Grafton Ormond Dorset Clare Clarendon Burlington Anglesey Rochester Newport Nom. Ebor. W. Asaph Fran. Ely Tho. Roffen Tho. Petriburg Tho. Oxon. Paget Chandois Osulston Presented by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury the Arch-Bishop of York Elect the Bishop of Ely and the Bishop of Rochester the 17th of November 1688. His Majesty's most Gracious Answer My LORDS What You ask of Me I most passionately desire And I promise You upon the Faith of a King That I will have a Parliament and such an One as You ask for as soon as ever the Prince of Orange has quitted this Realm For How is it possible a Parliament should be Free in all its Circumstances as You Petition for whil'st an Enemy is in the Kingdom and can make a Return of near an Hundred Voices The Lords Petition with the King's Answer may be printed Novemb. 29. 1688. The P. O.'s Letter to the English Army Gentlemen and Friends WE have given you so full and so true an Account of Our Intentions in this Expedition in Our Declaration that as We can add nothing to it so We are sure you can desire nothing more of us We are come to preserve your Religion and to restore and establish your Liberties and Properties and therefore We cannot suffer Our selves to doubt but that all true English men will come and concur with Us in Our desire to secure these Nations from POPERY and SLAVERY You must all plainly see that you are only made use of as Instruments to enslave the Nation and ruin the Protestant Religion and when that is done you may judge what ye your selves ought to expect both from the cashiering of all the Protestant and English Officers and Soldiers in Ireland and by the Irish Soldiers being brought over to be put in your places
That the using Torture without Evidence or in ordinary Crimes is contrary to Law That the sending of an Army in a Hostile manner upon any part of the Kingdom in a peaceable time and exacting of Locality and any manner of free Quarter is contrary to Law That the charging the Lieges with Law-burroughs at the King's instance and the imposing of Bands without the Authority of Parliament and the suspending the Advocates from their Imployments for not compearing when such Bands were offered were contrary to Law That the putting of Garisons on private Mens Houses in a time of peace without the consent of the Authority of Parliament is contrary to Law That the opinion of the Lords of Session in the two Causes following were contrary to Law viz. 1. That the concerting the demand of a Supply for a Forfaulted Person although not given is Treason 2. That Persons refusing to discover what are their private thoughts and judgments in relation to points of Treason or other Mens actions are guilty of Treason That the fining Husbands for their Wives withdrawing from the Church was contrary to Law That Prelacy and Superiority of any Office in the Church above Presbyters is and hath been a great and unsupportable Grievance and Trouble to this Nation and contrary to the Inclinations of the Generality of the People ever since the Reformation they having Reformed from Popery by Presbyters and therefore ought to be abolished That it is the Right and Privilege of the Subjects to protest for remand of Law to the King and Parliament against Sentences pronounced by the Lords of Session providing the same do not stop execution of the said Sentences That it is the Right of the Subjects to Petition the King and that all Imprisonments and Prosecutions for such Petitions are contrary to Law That for redress of all Grievances and for the amending strengthning and preserving of the Laws Parliaments ought to be frequently called and allowed to sit and the freedom of Speech and Debate secured to the Members And they do claim and demand and insist upon all and sundry the Premisses as their undoubted Right and Liberties and that no Declarations Doings or Proceedings to the prejudice of the People in any of the said Premisses ought in any ways to be drawn hereafter in consequence and example but that all Forfaultures Fines loss of Offices Imprisonments Banishments Pursuits Persecutions and Rigorous Executions be considered and the Parties seized be redressed To which demand of the Rights and Redressing of their Grievances they are particularly incouraged by his Majesty the King of England his Declaration for the Kingdom of Scotland of the _____ day of October last as being the only means for obtaining a full Redress and remead therein Having therefore an entire Confidence That his said Majesty the King of England will perfyte the Deliverance so far advanced by him and will still preserve them from the Violation of the Rights which they have here asserted and from all other Attempts upon their Religion Laws and Liberties The said Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland do resolve That William and Mary King and Queen of England France and Ireland âe and Be Declared King and Queen of Scotland to Hold the Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdom of Scotland to them the said King and Queen during their Lives and the longest Liver of them and that the sole and full exercise of the Royal Power be only in and exercised by him the said King in the Names of the said King and Queen during their joynt lives And after their deceases the said Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdom to be to the Heirs of the Body of the said Queen Which failing to the Princess Ann of Denmark and the Heirs of her Body Which also failing to the Heirs of the Body of the said William King of England And they do pray the said King and Queen of England to accept the same accordingly And that the Oath hereafter mentioned be taken by all Protestants of whom the Oath of Allegiance and any other Oaths and Declarations might be required by Law instead thereof And that the said Oath of Allegiance and other Oaths and Declarations may be Abrogated I A. B. Do sincerely Promise and Swear That I will be Faithful and bear True Allegiance to Their Majesties King William and Queen Mary So help me God A Proclamation declaring William and Mary King and Queen of England to be King and Queen of Scotland Edinburgh April 11. 1689. WHereas the Estates of this Kingdom of Scotland by their Act of the Date of these Presents have Resolved That WILLIAM and MARY King and Queen of England France and Ireland Be and Be declared King and Queen of Scotland to hold the Crown and Royal Dignity of the said Kingdom of Scotland to them the said King and Queen during their Lives and the longest Liver of Them and that the Sole and Full Exercise of the Regal Power be only in and Exercised by the said King in the Names of the said King and Queen during their joynt Libes As also the Estates having Resolved and Enacted an Instrument of Government or Claim of Right to be presented with the Offer of the Crown to the said King and Queen They do Statute and Ordain that William and Mary King and Queen of England France and Ireland be accordingly forthwith Proclaimed King and Queen of Scotland at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh by the Lyon King at Arms or his Deputs his Brethren Heraulds Macers and Pursevants and at the Head-Burghs of all the Shires Stewarties Bailliaries and Regalities within the Kingdom by Messengers at Arms. Extracted forth of the Meeting of the Estates by me Ja. Dalrymple Cls. God save King WILLIAM and Queen MARY The Manner of the King and Queen taking the Scotish Coronation Oath May 11. 1689. THis day being appointed for the publick Reception of the Commissioners viz. The Earl of Argyle Sir James Montgomery of Skelmerly and Sir John Dalrymple of Stair younger who were sent by the Meeting of the Estates of Scotland with an Offer of the Crown of that Kingdom to Their Majesties they accordingly at three of the Clock met at the Council-Chamber and from thence were Conducted by Sir Charles Cotterel Master of the Ceremonies attended by most of the Nobility and Gentry of that Kingdom who reside in and about this place to the Banqueting-House where the King and Queen came attended by many Persons of Quality the Sword being carried before them by the Lord Cardrosse and Their Majesties being placed on the Throne under a Rich Canopy they first presented a Letter from the Estates to his Majesty then the Instrument of Government Thirdly a Paper containing the Grievances which they desired might be Redressed and Lastly an Address to His Majesty for turning the Meeting of the said Estates into a Parliament All which being Signed by his Grace the Duke of Hamilton as President of the Meeting and
read to their Majesties the King returned to the Commissioners the following Answer WHen I engaged in this Vndertaking I had particular Regard and Consideration for Scotland and therefore I did emit a Declaration in relation to That as well as to this Kingdom which I intend to make good and effectual to them I take it very kindly that Scotland hath expressed so much Confidence in and Affection to Me They shall find Me willing to assist them in every thing that concerns the Weal and Interest of that Kingdom by making what Laws shall be necessary for the Security of their Religion Property and Liberty and to ease them of what may be justly grievous to them After which the Coronation-Oath was tendred to Their Majesties which the Earl of Argyle spoke word by word directly and the King and Queen repeated it after him holding Their Right Hands up after the manner of taking Oaths in Scotland The Meeting of the Estates of Scotland did Authorize their Commissioners to represent to His Majesty That that Clause in the Oath in relation to the rooting out of Hereticks did not import the destroying of Hereticks And that by the Law of Scotland no Man was to be persecuted for his private Opinion And even Obstinate and Convicted Hereticks were only to be denounced Rebels or Outlawed whereby their Moveable Estates are Confiscated His Majesty at the repeating that Clause in the Oath Did declare that He did not mean by these words That He was under any Obligation to become a Persecutor To which the Commissioners made Answer That neither the meaning of the Oath or the Law of Scotland did import it Then the King replyed That He took the Oath in that Sense and called for Witnesses the Commissioners and others present And then both Their Majesties Signed the said Coronation-Oath After which the Commissioners and several of the Scotish Nobility kissed Their Majesties Hands The Coronation OATH of England The Arch-bishop or Bishop shall say WIll You solemnly Promise and Swear to govern the People of this Kingdom of England and the Dominions thereto belonging according to the Statues in Parliament agreed on and the Laws and Customs of the same The King and Queen shall say I solemnly Promise so to do Arch-bishop or Bishop Will You to Your Power cause Law and Justice in Mercy to be Executed in all Your Judgments King and Queen I Will. Arch-bishop or Bishop Will You to the utmost of Your Power Maintain the Laws of God the true Profession of the Gospel and the Protestant Reformed Religion Established by Law And will You Preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of this Realm and to the Churches committed to their Charge all such Rights and Priviledges as by Law do or shall appertain unto them or any of them King and Queen All this I Promise to do After this the King and Qeen laying His and Her Hand upon the Holy Gospels shall say King and Queen The Things which I have here before Promised I will Perform and Keep So help me God Then the King and Queen shall kiss the Book The Coronation OATH of Scotland WE William and Mary King and Queen of Scotland faithfully Promise and Swear by this Our solemn Oath in presence of the Eternal God that during the whole course of Our Life we will serve the same Eternal God to the uttermost of Our Power according as he has required in his most holy Word reveal'd and contain'd in the New and Old Testament and according to the same Word shall maintain the True Religion of Christ Jesus the Preaching of his holy Word and the due and right Ministration of the Sacraments now Received and Preached within the Realm of Scotland and shall abolish and gainstand all false Religion contrary to the same and shall Rule the People committed to our Charge according to the Will and Command of God revealed in his aforesaid Word and according to the laudable Laws and Constitutions received in this Realm no ways repugnant to the said Word of the Eternal God and shall procure to the utmost of Our Power to the Kirk of God and whole Christian People true and perfect Peace in all time coming That we shall preserve and keep inviolated the Rights and Rents with all just Privileges of the Crown of Scotland neither shall we transfer nor alienate the same That we shall forbid and repress in all Estates and Degrees Reif Oppression and all kind of wrong And we shall Command and Procure that Justice and Equity in all Judgments be keeped to all persons without exception as the Lord and Father of all Mercies shall be merciful to us And we shall be careful to root out all Hereticks and Enemies to the true Worship of God that shall be Convicted by the true Kirk of God of the aforesaid Crimes out of Our Lands and Empire of Scotland And we faithfully affirm the things above written by Our Solemn Oath God save King WILLIAM and Queen MARY Proposals humbly offered to the Lords and Commons in the present Convention for settling of the Government c. My Lords and Gentlemen YOV are Assembled upon Matters of the highest Importance to England and all Christendom and the result of your Thoughts in this Convention will make a numerous Posterity Happy or Miserable If therefore I have met with any Thing that I think worthy of your Consideration I should think my self wanting in that duty which I owe to my Country and Mankind if I should not lay it before You. If there be as some say certain Lineaments in the Face of Truth with which one cannot be deceiv'd because they are not to be counterfeited I hope the Considerations which I presume to offer You will meet with your Approbation That bringing back our Constitution to its first and purest Original refining it from some gross Abuses and supplying its Defects You may be the Joy of the present Age and the Glory of Posterity FIrst 'T is necessary to distinguish between Power it self the Designation of the Persons Governing and the Form of Government For 1. All Power is from God as the Fountain and Original 2. The Designation of the Persons and the Form of Government is either First immediately from God as in the Case of Saul and David and the Government of the Jews or Secondly from the Community chusing some Form of Government and subjecting themselves to it But it must be noted that though Saul and David had a Divine Designation yet the People assembled and in a General Assembly by their Votes freely chose them Which proves that there can be no orderly or lasting Government without Consent of the People Tacit or Express'd and God himself would not put Men under a Government without their Consent And in case of a Conquest the People may be called Prisoners or Slaves which is a state contrary to the Nature of Man but they cannot be properly Subjects till their Wills be brought to submit to the Government
and then dissolved and that several Acts passed this is the plain Judgment of another Parliament 1. Because it says they were continued which shews they had a real being capable of being continued for a Confirmation of a void Grant has no effect and Confirmation shews a Grant only voidable so the continuance there shewed it at most but voidable and when the King came and confirm'd it all was good 2. The dissolving it then shews they had a being for as ex nihilo nihil fit so super nihil nil operatur as out of nothing nothing can be made so upon nothing nothing can operate Again the King Lords and Commons make the great Corporation or Body of the Kingdom and the Commons are legally taken for the Free-holders Inst 4. p. 2. Now the Lords and Commons having Proclaimed the King the defect of this great Corporation is cured and all the Essential parts of this great Body Politique united and made compleat as plainly as when the Mayor of a Corporation dies and another is chosen the Corporation is again perfect and to say that which perfects the great Body Politique should in the same instant destroy it I mean the Parliament is to make contradictions true simul semel the perfection and destruction of this great Body at one instant and by the same Act. Then if necessity of Affairs was a forcible Argument in 1660 a time of great peace not only in England but throughout Europe and almost in all the World certainly 't is of a greater force now when England is scarce delivered from Popery and Slavery when Ireland has a mighty Army of Papists and that Kingdom in hazard of final destruction if not speedily prevented and when France has destroyed most of the Protestants there and threatens the ruine of the Low-Countries from whence God has sent the wonderful Assistance of our Gracious and therefore most Glorious King and England cannot promise safety from that Foreign Power when forty days delay which is the least can be for a new Parliament and considering we can never hope to have one more freely chosen because first it was so free from Court-influence or likelihood of all design that the Letters of Summons issued by him whom the great God in infinite Mercy raised to save us to the hazard of his Life and this done to protect the Protestant Religion and at a time when the people were all concerned for one Common interest of Religion and Liberty it would be vain when we have the best King and Queen the World affords a full house of Lords the most solemnly chosen Commons that ever were in the remembrance of any Man Living to spend Money and lose time I had almost said to despise Providence and take great pains to destroy our selves If any object Acts of Parliament mentioning Writs and Summons c. I answer the Prededent in 1660 is after all those Acts. In private cases as much as has been done in point of necessity a Bishop Provincial dies and sede vacant a Clerk is presented to a Benefice the Presentation to the Dean and Chapter is good in this case of Necessity and if in a Vacancy by the Death of a Bishop a Presentation shall be good to the Dean and Chapter rather than a prejudice should happen by the Church lying void Surely a fortiori Vacancy of the Throne may be supplied without the formality of a Writ and the great Convention turn'd to a Real Parliament A Summons in all points is of the same real force as a Writ for a Summons and a Writ differ no more than in name the thing is the same in all Substantial parts the Writ is Recorded in Chancery so are His Highnesses Letters the proper Officer Endorses the Return so he does here for the Coroner in defect of the Sheriff is the proper Officer the People Choose by Virtue of the Letters c. quae re concordant parum differunt they agree in Reality and then what difference is there between the one and the other Object A Writ must be in Actions at Common Law else all Pleading after will not make it good but Judgment given may be Reversed by a Writ of Error Answ The case differs first because Actions between party and party are Adversary Actions but Summons to Parliament are not so but are Mediums only to have ân Election 2. In Actions at Law the Defendant may plead to the Writ but there is no plea to a Writ for electing Members to serve in Parliament and for this I have Littleton's Argument there never was such a Plea therefore none lies Object That they have not taken the Test Answ They may take the Test yet and then all which they do will be good for the Test being the distinguishing Mark of a Protestant from a Papist when that is taken the end of the Law is performed Object That the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy ought to be taken and that the new ones are not legal Answ The Convention being the Supream Power have abolish'd the old Oaths and have made new ones and as to the making new Oaths the like was done in Alfreds time when they chose him King vide Mirror of Justice Chap. 1. for the Heptarchy being turn'd to a Monarchy the precedent Oaths of the seven Kings could not be the same King Alfred swore Many Precedents may be cited where Laws have been made in Parliament without the King 's Writ to summon them which for brevity's sake I forbear to mention For a farewel the Objections quarrel at our Happiness fight against our Safety and aim at that which may indanger Destruction The Present Convention a Parliament I. THat the formality of the Kings Writ of Summons is not so essential to an English Parliament but that the Peers of the Realm and the Commons by their Representatives duly Elected may legally act as the great Council and representative Body of the Nation though not summoned by the King especially when the circumstances of the time are such that such Summons cannot be had will I hope appear by these following Observations First The Saxon Government was transplanted hither out of Germany where the meeting of the Saxons in such Assemblies was at certain fixed times viz. at the New and Full Moon But after their Transmigration hither Religion changing other things changed with it and the times for their publick Assemblies in conformity to the great Solemnities celebrated by Christians came to be changed to the Feasts of Easter Pentecost and the Nativity The lower we come down in Story the seldomer we find these General Assemblies to have been held and sometimes even very anciently when upon extraordinary occasions they met out of course a Precept an Edict or Sanction is mentioned to have Issued from the King But the Times and the very place of their ordinary Meeting having been certain and determined in the very first and eldest times that we meet with any mention of
such Assemblies which times are as ancient as any Memory of the Nation it self hence I infer that no Summons from the King can be thought to have been necessary in those days because it was altogether needless Secondly The Succession to the Crown did not in those days nor till of late years run in a course of Lineal Succession by right of Inheritance But upon the death of a Prince those Persons of the Realm that Composed the then Parliament Assembled in order to the choosing of another That the Kingdom was then Elective though one or other of the Royal Blood was always chosen but the next in Lineal Succession very seldom is evident from the Genealogies of the Saxon Kings from an old Law made at Calchuyth appointing how and by whom Kings shall be chosen and from many express and particular Accounts given by our old Historians of such Assemblies held for Electing of Kings Now such Assemblies could not be Summon'd by any King and yet in conjunction with the King that themselves set up they made Laws binding the King and all the Realm Thirdly After the Death of King William Rufus Robert his Elder Brother being then in the Holy Land Henry the younger Son of King William the First procured an Assembly of the Clergy and People of England to whom he made large Promises of his good Government in case they would accept of him for their King and they agreeing that if he would restore to them the Laws of King Edward the Confessor then they would consent to make him their King He swore that he would do so and also free them from some oppressions which the Nation had groan'd under in his Brothers and his Fathers time Hereupon they chose him King and the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of York set the Crown upon his Head Which being done a Confirmation of the English Liberties passed the Royal Assent in that Assembly the same in substance though not so large as King John's and King Henry the Third's Magna Charta's afterwards were Fourthly After that King's Death in such another Parliament King Stephen was Elected and Mawd the Empress put by though not without some stain of perfidiousness upon all those and Stephen himself especially who had sworn in her Fathers Life-time to acknowledge her for their Soveraing after his decease Fifthly In King Richard the First 's time the King being absent in the Holy Land and the Bishop of Ely then his Chancellor being Regent of the Kingdom in his Absence whose Government was intolerable to the People for his Insolence and manifold Oppressions a Parliament was convened at London at the Instance of Earl John the Kings Brother to treat of the great and weighty affairs of the King and Kingdom in which Parliament this same Regent was depos'd from his Government and another set up viz. the Arch-Bishop of Roan in his stead This Assembly was not conven'd by the King who was then in Palaestine nor by any Authority deriv'd from him for then the Regent and Chancellor must have call'd them together but they met as the Historian says expresly at the Instance of Earl John And yet in the Kings Absence they took upon them to settle the publick Affairs of the Nation without Him Sixthly When King Henry the 3d. died his Eldest Son Prince Edward was then in the Holy Land and came not home till within the third year of his Reign yet immediately upon the Fathers Death all the Prelates and Nobles and 4 Knights for every Shire and 4 Burgesses for every Borough Assembled together in a great Council and setled the Government till the King should return Made a new Seal and a Chancellor c. I infer from what has been said that Writs of Summons are not so Essential to the being of Parliaments but that the People of England especially at a time when they cannot be had may by Law and according to our old Constitution Assemble together in a Parliamentary way without them to treat of and settle the publick Affairs of the Nation And that if such Assemblies so conven'd find the Throne Vacant they may proceed not only to set up a Prince but with the Assent and Concurrence of such Prince to transact all Publick business whatsoever without a new Election they having as great Authority as the People of England can deligate to their Representatives II. The Acts of Parliaments not Formal nor Legal in all their Circumstances are yet binding to the Nation so long as they continue in Force and not liable to be questioned as to the Validity of them but in subsequent Parliaments First The two Spencers Temp. Edvardi Secundi were banished by Act of Parliament and that Act of Parliament repealed by Dures Force yet was the Act of Repeal a good Law till it was Annulled 1 Ed. 3. Secondly Some Statutes of 11 Rich. 2. and attainders thereupon were repealed in a Parliament held Ann. 21. of that King which Parliament was procured by forced Elections and yet the Repeal stood good till such time as in 1 Henry 4. the Statutes of 11 Rich. 2. were revived and appointed to be firmly held and kept Thirdly The Parliament of 1 Hen. 4. consisted of the same Knights Citizens and Burgesses that had served in the then last dissolved Patliament and those Persons were by the Kings Writts to the Sheriffs commanded to be returned and yet they passed Acts and their Acts tho never confirmed continue to be Laws at this day Fourthly Queen Mary's Parliament that restored the Popes Supremacy was notoriously known to be pack'd inso much that it was debated in Queen Elizabeth's time whether or no to declare all their Acts void by Act of Parliament That course was then upon some prudential considerations declined and therefore the Acts of that Parliament not since repealed continue binding Laws to this day The reason of all this is Because no inferiour Courts have Authority to judge of the Validity or Invalidity of the Acts of such Assemblies as have but so much as a colour of Parliamentary Authority The Acts of such Assemblies being Entred upon the Parliament-Roll and certified before the Judges of Westminster-Hall as Acts of Parliament are conclusive and binding to them because Parliaments are the only Judges of the Imperfections Invalidities Illegalities c. of one another The Parliament that call'd in King Charles the Second was not assembled by the Kings Writ and yet they made Acts and the Royal assent was had to them many of which indeed were afterwards confirmed but not all and those that had no Confirmation are undoubted Acts of Parliament without it and have ever since obtained as such Hence I inferr that the present Convention may if they please assume to themselves a Parliamentary Power and in conjunction with such King or Queen as they shall declare may give Laws to the Kingdom as a legal Parliament The Thoughts of a Private Person about the Justice of the Gentlemens Vndertaking
be miserably diminish'd sooner than we are aware But there remains yet another part of our Message which we have to impart to you on the behalf of your People They find in an antient Statute and it has been done in fact not long ago That if the King through any Evil Counsel or foolish Contumacy or out of Scorn or some singular petulant Will of his own or by any other irregular Means shall alienate himself from his People and shall refuse to be govern'd and guided by the Laws of the Realm and the Statutes and laudable Ordinances thereof together with the wholsom Advice of the Lords and great Men of his Realm but persisting head-strong in his own hare-brain'd Counsels shall petulantly prosecute his own singular humour That then it shall be lawful for them with the common assent and consent of the People of the Realm to depose that same King from his Regal Throne and to set up some other of the Royal Blood in his room H. Knight Coll. 2681. No Man can imagine that the Lords and Commons in Parliament would have sent the King such a Message and have quoted to him an old Statute for deposing Kings that would not govern according to Law if the People of England had then apprehended that an Obedience without reserve was due to the King or if there had not been such a Statute in being And though the Record of that Excellent Law be lost as the Records of almost all our Antient Laws are yet is the Testimony of so credible an Historian who lived when these things were transacted sufficient to inform us that such a Law was then known and in being and consequently that the Terms of English Allegiance according to the Constitution of our Government are different from what some Modern Authors would persuade us they are This Difference betwixt the said King and his Parliament ended amicably betwixt them in the punishment of many Evil Counsellors by whom the King had been influenced to commit many Irregularities in Government But the Discontents of the People grew higher by his After-management of Affairs and ended in the Deposition of that King and setting up of another who was not the next Heir in Lineal Succession The Articles against King Richard the Second may be read at large in H. Knighton Collect. 2746 2747 c. and are yet extant upon Record An Abridgment of them is in Cotton's Records pag. 386 387 388. out of whom I observe these few there being in all Thirty three The First was His wasting and bestowing the Lands of the Crown upon unworthy Persons and overcharging the Commons with Exactions And that whereas certain Lords Spiritual and Temporal were assign'd in Parliament to intend the Government of the Kingdom the King by a Conventicle of his own Accomplices endeavoured to impeach them of High-Treason Another was For that the King by undue means procured divers Justices to speak against the Law to the destruction of the Duke of Glocester and the Earls of Arundel and Warwick at Shrewsbury Another For that the King against his own Promise and Pardon at a solemn Procession apprehended the Duke of Glocester and sent him to Calice there to be choaked and murthered beheading the Earl of Arundel and banishing the Earl of Warwick and the Lord Cobham Another For that the King's Retinue and a Rout gathered by him out of Cheshire committed divers Murders Rapes and other Felonies and refused to pay for their Victuals Another For that the Crown of England being freed from the Pope and all other Foreign Power the King notwithstanding procured the Pope's Excommunication on such as should break the Ordinances of the last Parliament in derogation of the Crown Statutes and Laws of the Realm Another That he made Men Sheriffs who were not named to him by the Great Officers the Justices and others of his Council and who were unfit contrary to the Laws of the Realm and in manifest breach of his Oath Another For that he did not repay to his Subjects the Debts that he had borrowed of them Another For that the King refused to execute the Laws saying That the Laws were in his Mouth and Breast and that himself alone could make and alter the Laws Another For causing Sheriffs to continue in Office above a Year contrary to the tenor of a Statute-Law thereby incurring notorious Perjury Another For that the said King procured Knights of the Shires to be returned to serve his own Will Another For that many Justices for their good Counsel given to the King were with evil Countenance and Threats rewarded Another For that the King passing into Ireland had carried with him without the Consent of the Estates of the Realm the Treasure Reliques and other Jewels of the Realm which were used safely to be kept in the King 's own Coffers from all hazard And for that the said King cancelled and razed sundry Records Another For that the said King appear'd by his Letters to the Pope to Foreign Princes and to his Subjects so variable so dissembling and so unfaithful and inconstant that no Man could trust him that knew him insomuch that he was a Scandal both to himself and the Kingdom Another That the King would commonly say amongst the Nobles that all Subjects Lives Lands and Goods were in his hands without any forfeiture which is altogether contrary to the Laws and Vsages of the Realm Another For that he suffered his Subjects to be condemned by Martial-Law contrary to his Oath and the Laws of the Realm Another For that whereas the Subjects of England are sufficiently bound to the King by their Allegiance yet the said King compell'd them to take new Oaths These Articles with some others not altogether of so general a concern being considered and the King himself confessing his Defects the same seemed sufficient to the whole Estates for the King's Deposition and he was depos'd accordingly The Substance and Drift of all is That our Kings were antiently liable to and might lawfully be deposed for Oppression and Tyranny for Insufficiency to govern c. in and by the great Council of the Nation without any breach of the old Oath of Fealty because to say nothing of the nature of our Constitution express and positive Laws warranted such Proceedings And therefore the Frame of our Government being the same still and the Terms of our Allegiance being the same now that they were then without any new Obligations superinduced by the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy a King of England may legally at this day for sufficient cause be deposed by the Lords and Commons assembled in a Great Council of the Kingdom without any breach of the present Oaths of Supremacy or Allegiance Quod erat demonstrandum MANTISSA WHen Stephen was King of England whom the People had chosen rather than submit to Mawd tho the Great Men of the Realm had sworn Fealty to her in her Father's life-time Henry Duke of Anjou Son of the said Mawd afterwards King Henry the Second invaded the Kingdom An. Dom. 1153 which was towards the latter-end of King Stephen's Reign and Theobald Archbishop of Canterbury endeavoured to mediate a Peace betwixt them speaking frequently with the King in private and sending many Messages to the Duke and Henry Bishop of Winchester took pains likewise to make them Friends Factum est autem ut mense Novembris in fine mensis EX PRAECEPTO REGIS ET DUCIS Collect. pag. 1374 1375. convenirent apud Wintoniam Praesules Principes Regni ut ipsi jam initae paci praeberent assensum unanimiter juramenti Sacramento confirmarent i.e. It came to pass that in the Month of November towards the latter end of the Month at the summons of the King and of the Duke the Prelats and Great Men of the Kingdom were assembled at Winchester that they also might assent to the Peace that was concluded and unanimously swear to observe it In that Parliament the Duke was declared King Stephen's adopted Son and Heir of the Kingdom and the King to retain the Government during his Life I observe only upon this Authority That there being a Controversy betwixt the King and the Duke which could no otherwise be determined and settled but in a Parliament the Summons of this Parliament were issued in the Names of both Parties concerned Quisquis habet aures ad audiendum audiat FINIS
being accompanied with several other Lords at the Delivery thereof thus expressed himself The Earl of Essex's Speech at the Delivering the following Petition to His most Sacred Majesty Jan. 25. 1680. May it please your Majesty THe Lords here present together with divers other Peers of the Realm taking notice that by Your late Proclamation Your Majesty has declared an intention of calling a Parliament at Oxford and observing from History and Records how unfortunate many Assemblies have been when called at a Place remote from the Capital City as particularly the Congress in Henry the Second's time at Clarendon Three several Parliaments at Oxford in Henry the Third's time and at Coventry in Henry the Sixth's time With divers others which have proved very fatal to those Kings and have been followed with great mischief on the whole Kingdom And considering the present posture of affairs the many jealousies and discontents which are amongst the People We have great Cause to apprehend that the consequences of a Parliament now at Oxford may be as fatal to Your Majesty and the Nation as those others mentioned have been to the then Reigning Kings and therefore we do conceive that we cannot answer it to God to Your Majesty or to the People If we being Peers of the Realm should not on so Important an Occasion humbly offer our advice to Your Majesty that if possible Your Majesty may be prevailed with to alter this as we apprehend unseasonable Resolution The Grounds and Reasons of our Opinion are contained in this our Petition which We humbly Present to Your Majesty To the King 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition and Advice of the Lords under-named Peers of the Realm Humbly Sheweth THat whereas Your Majesty hath been pleased by divers Speeches and Messages to Your Houses of Parliament rightly to represent to them the Dangers that Threatned Your Majesty's Person and the whole Kingdom from the Mischievous and wicked Plots of the Papists and the sudden Growth of a Foreign Power unto which no stop or remedy could be Provided unless it were by Parliament and an Union of Your Majesty's Protestant Subjects in one Mind and one Interest And the Lord Chancellor in Pursuance of Your Majesty's Commands having more at large Demonstrated the said Dangers to be as great as we in the midst of our Fears could Imagine them and so pressing that our Liberties Religion Lives and the whole Kingdom would be certainly Lost if a speedy Provision were not made against them And Your Majesty on the 21st of April 1679. Having called unto your Council many Honourable and Worthy Persons and declared to them and the whole Kingdom That being sensible of the evil Effects of a single Ministry or private Advice or Forreign Committee for the General Direction of your Affairs Your Majesty would for the future Refer all things unto that Council and by the constant Advice of them together with the frequent use of your great Council the Parliament Your Majesty was hereafter Resolved to Govern the Kingdoms We began to hope we should see an end of our Miseries But to our unspeakable Grief and Sorrow we soon found our Expectations Frustrated The Parliament then subsisting was Prorogued and Dissolved before it could perfect what was intended for our Relief and Security and though another was thereupon called yet by many Prorogations it was put off till the 21st of October past and notwithstanding Your Majesty was then again pleased to acknowledge that neither Your Person nor Your Kingdom could be safe till the matter of the Plot was gone thorow It was unexpectedly Prorogued on the 10th of this Month before any sufficient Order could be taken therein all their Just and Pious Endeavours to save the Nation were overthrown the good Bills they had been Industriously preparing to Unite all Your Majesties Protestant Subjects brought to nought The discovery of the Irish Plot stifled The Witnesses that came in frequently more fully to declare That both of England and Ireland discouraged Those Forreign Kingdoms and States who by a happy conjunction with us might give a Check to the French Power disheartned even to such a Despair of their own Security against the growing greatness of that Monarch as we fear may induce them to take new Resolutions and perhaps such as may be fatal to us The Strength and Courage of our Enemies both at home and abroad increased and our selves left in the utmost danger of seeing our Country brought into utter Desolation In these Extremities we had nothing under God to comfort us but the Hopes that Your Majesty being touched with the Groans of Your perishing People would have suffered Your Parliament to meet at the Day unto which it was Prorogued and that no further interruption should have been given to their Proceedings in Order to their saving of the Nation But that failed us too For then we heard that Your Majesty by the private suggestion of some Wicked Persons Favourers of Popery Promoters of French Designs and Enemies to Your Majesty and the Kingdom without the Advice and as we have good Reason to believe against the Opinion even of Your Privy-Council had been prevailed with to Dissolve it and to call another to meet at Oxford where neither Lords nor Commons can be in Safety but will be daily exposed to the Sword of the Papists and their Adherents of whom too many are crept into Your Majesties Guards The Liberty of speaking according to their Consciences will be thereby Destroyed and the Validity of all their Acts and Proceedings consisting in it left Disputable The Straitness of the Place no way admits of such a concourse of Persons as now follows every Parliament the Witnesses which are necessary to give Evidence against the Popish Lords such Judges or others whom the Commons have Impeached or had resolved to Impeach can neither bear the Charge of going thither nor trust themselves under the Protection of a Parliament that is it self Evidently under the power of Guards and Soldiers The Premises considered We Your Majesties Petitioners out of a Just Abhorrence of such a dangerous and pernicious Council which the Authors have not dared to avow and the direful Apprehensions of the Calamities and Miseries that may ensue thereupon do make it our most Humble Prayer and Advice That the Parliament may not sit at a Place where it will not be able to Act with that Freedom which is necessary and especially to give unto their Acts and Proceedings that Authority which they ought to have amongst the People and have ever had unless Impaired by some Awe upon them of which there wants not Precedents And that Your Majesty would be graciously pleased to Order It to Sit at Westminster it being the usual Place and where they may Consult and Act with Safety and Freedom And your Petitioness shall ever Pray c. Monmouth Kent Huntington Bedford Salisbury Clare Stanford Essex Shaftsbury Mordant Evers Paget Grey Herbert Howard Delamer The Counties