being above three Years since we had a Session that enacted any Law Methods have been taken and are daily a taking that render this impossible Parliaments ought to be chosen with an entire Liberty and without either Force or Preingagements whereas if all Men are required before-hand to enter into Engagements how they will vote if they are chosen themselves or how they will give their Voices in the electing of others This is plainly such a preparation to a Parliament as would indeed make it no Parliament but a Cabal if one were chosen after all that Corruption of Persons who had preingaged themselves and after the Threating and Turning out of all Persons out of Imployments who had refused to do it And if there are such daily Regulations made in the Towns that it is plain those who manage them intend at last to put such a number of Men in the Corporations as will certainly choose the Persons who are recommended to them But above all if there are such a number of Sheriffs and Mayors made over England by whom the Elections must be conducted and returned who are now under an Incapacity by Law and so are no legal Officers and by consequence those Elections that pass under their Authority are null and void If I say it is clear that things are brought to this then the Government is dissolved because it is impossible to have a Free and Legal Parliament in this state of things If then both the Authority of the Law and the Constitution of the Parliament are struck at and dissolved here is a plain Subversion of the whole Government But if we enter next into the particular Branches of the Government we will find the like Disorder among them all The Protestant Religion and the Church of England make a great Article of our Government the latter being secured not only of old by Magna Charta but by many special Laws made of late and there are particular Laws made in K. Charles the First and the late King's Time securing them from all Commissions that the King can raise for Judging or Censuring them If then in opposition to this a Court so condemned is erected which proceeds to judg and censure the Clergy and even to disseise them of their Free-holds without so much as the form of a Trial though this is the most indispensible Law of all those that secure the Property of England and if the King pretends that he can require the Clergy 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 Nuncio'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 Imployments 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 design'd to be overturn'd 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 sound and entire And if all these things are done now it is easy to imagine what may be expected when Arbitrary Power that spares to Man and Popery that spares no Heretick are finally established Then we may look for nothing but Gabelles Tailles Impositions Beneviolences and all sorts of Illegal Taxes as from the other we may expect Burning 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 I. 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
forgotten among the rest for 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 mark'd out 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 of this 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 Postscript His Majesty assures his Subjects that he will maintain them in their Properties as well in Church and Abby-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 null and void of it is self Church-Lands are also according to the Doctrine of their Canonists so immediately Gods Right that the Pope himself is only the Administrator and Dispenser 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 Fulsomness 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 tho' he lived four Years after that he called no Parliament notwithstanding the Law for Triennial Parliaments and the manner of his Death and the Papers printed after his Death in his Name have sufficiently shewed that he was equally sincere in both those Assurances that he gave as well in that relating to Religion as in that other relating to frequent Parliaments yet upon his Death a new set of Addresses appeared in which all that Flattery could invent was brought forth in the Commendations of a Prince to whose Memory the greatest kindness can be done is to forget him And because his present Majesty upon his coming to the Throne gave some very general Promise of Maintaining the Church of England this was magnified in so extravagant a strain as if it had been a security greater than any that the Law could give tho' by the regard that the King has both to it and to the Laws it appears that he is resolved to maintain both equally Since then the Nation has already made it self sufficiently ridiculous both to the present and to all succeeding Ages it is time that at last men should grow weary and become ashamed of their Folly. XII The Nonconformists are now invited to set an Example to the rest and they who have valued themselves hitherto upon their Opposition to Popery and that have quarrelled with the Church of England for some small Approaches to it in a few Ceremonies are now sollicited to rejoyce because the Laws that secure us against it are all plucked up since they enjoy at present and during pleasure leave to meet together It is natural for all men to love to be set at ease especially in the matters of their Consciences but it is visible that those who allow them this favour do it with no other design but that under a pretence of a General Toleration they may introduce a Religion which must persecute all equally It is likewise apparent how much they are hated and how much they have been persecuted by the Instigation of those who now court them and who have now no Game that is more promising than the engaging them and the Church of England into new Quarrels And as for the Promises now made to them it cannot be supposed that they will be more lasting than those that were made some time ago to the Church of England who had both a better Title in Law and greater Merit upon the Crown to assure them that they should be well used than these can pretend to The Nation has scarce forgiven some of the Church of England the Persecution into which they have suffered themselves to be cousened tho' now that they see Popery barefac'd the Stand that they have made and the vigorous opposition that they have given to it is that which makes all men willing to forget what is past and raises again the Glory of a Church that was not a little stained by the Indiscretion and Weakness of those that were too apt to believe and hope and so suffered themselves to be made a Property to those who would now make them a Sacrifice The Sufferings of the Nonconformists and the Fury that the Popish Party expressed against them had recommended them so much to the Compassions of the Nation and had given them so just a Pretension to favour in a better time that it will look like a Curse of God upon them if a few men whom the Court has gained to betray them can have such an ill Influence upon them as to make them throw away all that Merit and those Compassions which their Sufferings have procured them and to go and court those who are only seemingly kind to them that they may destroy both them and us They must remember that as the Church of England is the only
that the Censures upon it are divided both fall heavy Some suspect their Sincerity others accuse them for want of a right Understanding For tho' all are not of the pitch of the Irish Priests Reflections on the Bishop of Bath and Wells his Sermon which was indeed Irish double refined yet both in your Books of Controversie and Policy and even in your Poems you seem to have entred into such an Intermixture with the Irish that the Thred all over is Linsie-woolsie You acknowledge that the Gentleman whom you answer has a Polite Pen and that his Letter is an ingenious Paper and made up of well-composed Sentences and Periods Yet I believe he will hardly return you your Complement If it was well writ your Party wants either Men or Judgment extremely in allowing you this Province of answering it If the Paper did you some hurt you had better have let the Town be a little pleased with it for a while and have hoped that a little Time or some new Paper tho' one of its force is scarce to be expected should have worn it out than to give it a new Lustre by such an Answer The Time of the Dissenters Sufferings which you lengthen out to Twenty seven Years will hardly amount to Seven For the long Intervals it had in the last Reign are not forgot and those who animated the latest and severest of their Sufferings are sueh that in good manners you ought not to reflect on their Conduct Opium is as certain a Poyson tho' not so violent as Sublimate and if more corrosive Medicines did not work the Design is the same when soporiferous ones are used since the Patient is to be killed both ways and it seems that all that is in debate is which is the safer The accepting a present Ease when the ill intent with which it is offered is visible is just as wise an Action as to take Opium to lay a small Distemper when one may conclude from the Dose that he will never come out of the Sleep So that after all it is plain on which side the Madness lies The Dissenters for a little present ease to be enjoyed at mercy must concur to break down all our Hedges and to lay us open to that devouring Power before which nothing can stand that will not worship it All that for which you reproach the Church of England amounts to this that a few good Words could not persuade her to destroy her self and to sacrifice her Religion and the Laws to a Party that never has done nor ever can do the King half the Service that She has rendred him There are some sorts of Propositions that a Man does not know how to answer nor would he be thought ingrateful who after he had received some Civilities from a Person to whom he had done great Service could not be prevailed with by these so far as to spare him his Wife or his Daughter It must argue a peculiar degree of Confidence to ask things that are above the being either ask'd or granted Our Religion and our Government are Matters that are not to be parted with to shew our good Breeding and of all Men living you ought not to pretend to Good Manners who talk as you do of the Oppression of the last Reign When the King's Obligations to his Brother and the share that he had in his Councils are considered the reproaching his Government has so ill a grace that you are as indecent in your Flatteries as injurious in your Reflections And by this Gratitude of yours to the Memory of the late King the Church of England may easily infer how long all her Services would be remembred even if she had done all that was desired of her I would fain know which of the Brethren of the Dissenters in Foreign Countries sought their Relief from Rebellion The Germans Reformed by the Authority of their Princes so did the Swedes the Danes and likewise the Switzers In France they maintained the Princes of the Blood against the League and in Holland the Quarrel was for Civil Liberties Protestant and Papist concurring equally in it You mention Holland as an Instance that Liberty and Infallibility can dwell together since Papists there shew that they can be friendly Neighbours to those whom they think in the wrong It is very like they would be still so in England if they were under the Lash of the Law and so were upon their Good-behaviour the Government being still against them And this has so good an effect in Holland that I hope we shall never depart from the Dutch Pattern Some can be very Humble Servants that would prove Imperious Masters You say that Force is our only Supporter but tho' there is no Force of our Side at present it does not appear that we are in such a tottering condition as if we had no Supporter left us God and Truth are of our side and the indiscreet use of Force when set on by our Enemies has rather undermined than supported us But you have taken pains to make us grow wiser and to let us see our Errors which is perhaps the only Obligation that we owe you and we are so sensible of it that without examining what your Intentions may have been in it we heartily thank you for it I do not comprehend what your Quarrel is at the squinting Term of the next Heir as you call it tho' I do not wonder that squinting comes in your mind whensoever you think of HER for all People look asquint at that which troubles them and Her being the next Heir is no less the Delight of all Good Men than it is your Affliction All the pains that you take to represent Her dreadful to the Dissenters must needs find that credit with them that is due to the Insinuations of an Enemy It is very true that as She was bred up in our Church She adheres to it so eminently as to make Her to be now our chief Ornament as we hope She will be once our main Defence If by the strictest Form of our Church you mean an Exemplary Piety and a shining Conversation you have given Her true Character But your Design lies another way to make the Dissenters form strange Ideas of Her as if She thought all Indulgence to them Criminal But as the Gentleness of her Nature is such that none but those who are so guilty that all Mercy to them would be a Crime can apprehend any thing that is terrible from Her so as for the Dissenters Her going so constantly to the Dutch and French Churches shews that She can very well endure their Assemblies at the same time that She prefers ours She has also too often expressed her dislike at the heats that have been kept up among us concerning such inconsiderable Differences to pass for a Bigot or Persecutor in such Matters and She sees both the Mischief that the Protestant Religion has received from their Subdivisions and the happiness of granting
now to treat the Men of the Church of England with the same Brutal Excesses that he bestowed so lately and so liberally on the Dissenters as if his Design were to render himself equally odious to all Mankind III. The Church of England may justly expostulate when she is treated as Seditious after she has rendred the highest Services to the Civil Authority that any Church now on Earth has done She has beaten down all the Principles of Rebellion with more Force and Learning than any Body of men has ever yet done and has run the hazard of enraging her Enemies and losing her Friends even for those from whom the more Learned of her Members knew well what they might expect And since our Author likes the figure of a Snake in ones Bosome so well I could tell him that according to the Apologue we took up and sheltered an Interest that was almost dead and by that warmth gave it life which yet now with the Snake in the Bosome is like to bite us to death We do not say we are the only Church that has Principles of Loyalty but this we may say That we are the Church in the World that carries them the highest as we know a Church that of all others sinks them them the lowest We do not pretend that we are Inerrable in this Point but acknowledge that some of our Clergy miscarried in it upon King Edward's Death Yet at the same time others of our Communion adhered more steadily to their Loyalty in favour of Queen Mary than She did to the Promises that she made to them Upon this Subject our Author by his false Quotation of History forces me to set the Reader right which if it proves to the disadvantage of his Cause his Friends may thank him for it I will not enter into so tedious a Digression as the justifying Queen Elizabeth's being Legitimate and the throwing the Bastardy on Queen Mary must carry me to this I will only say That it was made out that according to the best sort of Arguments used by the Church of Rome I mean the constant Tradition of all Ages King Henry the VIII marrying with Queen Katherine was Incestuous and by Consequence Queen Mary was the Bastard and Queen Elizabeth was the Legitimate Issue But our Author not satisfied with defaming Queen Elizabeth tells us that the Church of England was no sooner set up by her than She Enacted those Bloody Cannibal Laws to Hang Draw and Quarter the Priests of the living God. But since these Laws disturb him so much What does he think of the Laws of Burning the poor Servants of the living God because they cannot give Divine Worship to that which they believe to be only a Piece of Bread The Representation he gives of this part of our History is so false that tho' upon Queen Elizabeth's coming to the Crown there were many Complaints exhibited of the illegal Violences that Bonner and other Butchers had committed yet all these were stifled and no Penal Laws were enacted against those of that Religion The Popish Clergy were indeed turned out but they were well used and had Pensions assigned them so ready was the Queen and our Church to forgive what was past and to shew all Gentleness for the future During the first thirteen years of her Reign matters went on calmly without any sort of Severity on the account of Religion But then the restless Spirit of that Party began to throw the Nation into violent Convulsions The Pope deposed the Queen and and one of the Party had the Impudence to post up the Bull in London upon this followed several Rebellions both in England and Ireland and the Papists of both Kingdoms entred into Confederacies with the King of Spain and the Court of Rome The Priests disposed all the People that depended on them to submit to the Pope's Authority in that Deposition and to reject the Queen's These Endeavours besides open Rebellions produced many secret Practices against her Life All these things gave the rise to the severe Laws which began not to be enacted before the twentieth year of her Reign A War was formed by the Bull of Deposition between the Queen and the Court of Rome so it was a necessary piece of Precaution to declare all those to be Traitors who were the Missionaries of that Authority which had stript the Queen of hers Yet those Laws were not executed upon some Secular Priests who had the Honesty to condemn the Deposing Doctrine As for the Unhappy Death of the Queen of Scotland it was brought on by the wicked Practices of her own Party who fatally involved her in some of them She was but a Subject here in England and if the Queen took a more violent way than was decent for her own Security here was no Disloyalty nor Rebellion in the Church of England which owed her no sort of Allegiance IV. I do not pretend that the Church of England has any great cause to value her self upon her Fidelity to King Charles the First tho' our Author would have it pass for the only thing of which She can boast for I confess the cause of the Church was so twisted with the King 's that Interest and Duty went together tho' I will not go so far as our Author who says that the Law of Nature dictates to every Individual to fight in his own Defence This is too bold a thing to be delivered so crudely at this time The Laws of Nature are perpetual and can never be cancelled by any special Law So if these Gentlemen own so freely that this is a Law of Nature they had best take care not to provoke Nature too much lest She fly to the Relief that this Law may give her unless she is restrained by the Loyalty of our Church Our Author values his Party much upon their Loyalty to King Charles the First But I must take the liberty to ask him of what Religion were the Irish Rebels and what sort of Loyalty was it that they shewed either in the first Massacre or in the Progress of that Rebellion Their Messages to the Pope to the Court of France and to the Duke of Lorrain offering themselves to any of these that would have undertaken to protect them are Acts of Loyalty which the Church of England is no way inclined to follow and the authentical Proofs of these things are ready to be produced Nor need I add to this the hard terms they offered to the King and their ill usage of those whom he imployed I could likewise repress the Insolence of this Writer by telling him of the slavish Submissions that their Party made to Cromwel both Father and Son. As for their adhering to King Charles the First there is a peculiar boldness in our Author's Assertion who says That they had no Hope nor Interest in that cause The State of that Court is not so quite forgot but that we do well remember what Credit the Queen had
God and the Laws have given us legal Security and His Majesty has promised to maintain us in it and we think it argues no Distrust either of God or the Truth of our Religion to say that we cannot by any Act of our own lay our selves open and throw away that defence Nor would we willingly expose His Majesty to the unwearied Sollicitations of a sort of men who if we may judge of that which is to come by that which is past would give him no rest if once the restraints of Law were taken off but would drive matters to those Extremities to which we see their Natures carry them head long VII The last Paragraph is a strain worthy of that School that bred our Author he says His Majesty may withdraw his Royal Protection from the Church of England which was promised her upon the account of her constant Fidelity and he brings no other Proof to confirm so bold an Assertion but a false Axiome of that despised Philosophy in which he was bred Cessante causa tollitur effectus This is indeed such an Indignity to His Majesty that I presume to say it with all humble reverence these are the last persons whom he ought to pardon that have the boldness to touch so sacred a point as the Faith of a Prince which is the chief Security of Government and the Foundation of all the Confidence that a Prince can promise himself from his People and which once blasted can never be recovered Equivocations may be both taught and practised with less danger by an Order that has little Credit to lose but nothing can shake Thrones so much as such treacherous Maxims I must also ask our Author in what point of Fidelity has our Church failed so far as to make her forfeit her Title to His Majesties Promises For as he himself has stated this matter it comes all to this The King promised that he would maintain the Church of England as established by Law. Upon which in Gratitude he says That the Church of England was bound to throw up the Chief Security that she had in her Establishment by Law which is that all who are intrusted either with the Legislative or the Executive parts of our Government must be of her Communion and if the Church of England is not so tame and so submissive as to part with this then the King is free from his Promise and may withdraw his Royal Protection tho' I must crave leave to tell him that the Laws gave the Church of England a Right to that Protection whether His Majesty had promised it or not Of all the Maxims in the World there is none more hurtful to the Government in our present Circumstances than the saying that the King's Promises and the Peoples Fidelity ought to be reciprocal and that a Failure in the one cuts off the other for by a very natural Consequence the Subject may likewise say That their Oaths of Allegeance being founded on the Assurance of His Majesties Protection the One binds no longer than the Other is observed and the Inferences that may be drawn from hence will be very terrible if the Loyalty of the so much decryed Church of England does not put a stop to them THE EARL of MELFORT's LETTER TO THE PRESBYTERIAN-MINISTERS IN SCOTLAND Writ in his Majesties Name upon their ADDRESS Together with some Remarks upon it The Earl of Melfort's Letter Gentlemen I Am commanded by His Majesty to signifie unto you his gracious acceptance of your Address that he is well satisfied with your Loyalty expressed therein for the which he resolves to perpetuate the Favour not only during his own Reign but also to lay down Ways for its Continuance and that by appointing in the next ensuing Parliament the taking off all Penal Statutes contrary to the Liberty or Toleration granted by him His Majesty knows that Enemies to Him to You and this Toleration will be using all Endeavours to infringe the same but as ever the Happiness of his Subjects standing in Liberty of Conscience and the Security of their Properties next the Golry of God hath been his Majesties great end so he intends to continue if he have all sutable Encouragement and Concurrence from you in your Doctrine and Practice and therefore as he hath taken away the Protestant Penal Statutes lying on you and herein has walked contrary not only to other Catholick Kings but also in a way different from Protestant Kings who have gone before him whose Maxim was to undo you by Fining Confining and taking away your Estates and to harrass you in your Persons Liberties and Priviledges so he expects a thankful acknowledgment from you by making your Doctrine tend to cause all his Subjects to walk obediently and by your Practice walking so as shall be most pleasing to His Majesty and the concurring with him for the removing these Penal Statutes And he further expects that you continue your Prayers to God for his long and happy Reign and for all Blessings on his Person and Government and likewise that you look well to your Doctrine and that your Example be influential All these are His Majesties Commands Sic subs MELFORT REMARKS THE Secretary Hand is known to all the Writing Masters of the Town but here is an Essay of the Secretary's Stile for the Masters of our Language This is an Age of Improvements and Men that come very young into Imployments make commonly a great Progress therefore common things are not to be expected here it is true some Roughnesses in the Stile seem to intimate that the Writer could turn his Conscience more easily than he can do his Pen and that the one is a little stiffer and less compliant than the other He tells the Addressers That His Majesty is well satisfied with their Loyalty contained in their Address for the which he resolves to perpetuate the Favour It appears that the Secretary-Stile and the Notary-Stile come nearer one another than was generally believed For the which here and infringe the same afterwards are Beauties borrowed from the Notary-Stile The foresaid is not much courser The King 's perpetuating the Favour is no easie thing unless he could first perpetuate himself Now tho' His Majesties Fame will be certainly immortal yet to our great Regret his Peron is mortal so it is hard to conceive how this Perpetuity should be setled The Method here proposed is a new Figure of the Secretary-Stile which is the appointing in the next ensuing Parliament the taking off all Penal Laws All former Secretarie used the modest Words of proposing or recommending that he who in a former Essay of this Stile told us of His Majesties Absolute Power to which all the Subjects are to obey without reserve furnishes us now with this new term of the King 's appointing what shall be done in Parliament But what if after all the Parliament proves so stubborn as not to comply with this Appointment I am afraid then the Perpetual will
our Contest the Leaders of the Dissenters to the amazement of all Persons made no account of this and even seemed uneasy at it of which the Earl of Nottingham and Sir Thomas Clarges that set on that Bill with much Zeal can give a more particular account All these things concurred to make those of the Church of England conclude a little too rashly that their Ruin was resolved on and then it was no wonder if the Spirit of a Party the remembrance of the last Wars the present prospect of Danger and above all the great favour that was shewed them at Court threw them into some angry and violent Counsels Self-preservation is very natural and it is plain that many of them took that to be the case so that truly speaking it was not so much at first a Spirit of Persecution as a desire of disabling those who they believed intended to ruin them from effecting their Designs that set them on to all those unhappy things that followed They were animated to all they did by the continued Earnestness of the King and Duke and their Ministers That Reproach of Justice and of the Profession of the Law who is now so high was singled out for no other end but to be their Common-Hangman over England of whom the late King gave this true Character That he had neither Wit Law nor Common Sense but that he had the Impudence of ten carted Whores in him Another Buffoon was hired to plague the Nation with three or four Papers a Week which to the Reproach of the Age in which we live had but too great and too general an effect for poisoning the Spirits of the Clergy But those who knew how all this was managed saw that it was not only set on but still kept up by the Court. If any of the Clergy had put preached a word for Moderation he had a chiding sent him presently from the Court and he was from that day marked out as a disaffected Person and when the Clergy of London did very worthily refuse to give Informations against their Parishioners that had not always conformed the design having been formed upon that to bring them into the Spiritual Courts and excommunicate them and make them lose their Right of Voting that so the Charter of London might have been delivered up when so many Citizens were by such means shut out of the Common-Council We remember well how severely they were censured for this by some that are now dead and others that are yet alive I will not go further into this matter I will not deny but many of the Dissenters were put to great Hardships in many parts of England I cannot deny it and I am sure I will never justify it But this I will positively say having observed it all narrowly that he must have the brow of a Jesuit that can cast this wholly on the Church of England and free the Court of it The beginnings and the progress of it came from the Court and from the Popish Party and though perhaps every one does not know all the Secrets of this matter that others may have found out yet no Man was so ignorant as not to see what was the chief Spring of all those irregular Motions that some of us made at that time so upon the whole matter all that can be made out of this is that the Passions and Infirmities of some of the Church of England being unhappily stirred up by the Dissenters they were fatally conducted by the Popish Party to be the Instruments in doing a great deal of Mischief IX It is not to be doubted but though some weaker Men of the Clergy may perhaps still retain their little peevish Animosities against the Dissenters yet the wiser and more serious Heads of that great and worthy Body see now their Error they see who drove them on in it till they hoped to have ruined them by it And as they have appeared against Popery with as great a strength of Learning and of firm Steadiness as perhaps can be met with in all Church-History so it cannot be doubted but their Reflections on the Dangers into which our Divsions have thrown us have given them truer Notions with relation to a rigorous Conformity and that the just Detestation which they have expressed of the Corruptions of the Church of Rome has led them to consider and abhor one of the worst things in it I mean their Severity towards Hereticks And the ill use that they see the Court has made of their Zeal for supporting the Crown to justify the Subversion of our Government that is now set on from some of their large and unwary Expressions will certainly make them hereafter more cautious in meddling with Politicks the Bishops have under their Hands both disowned that wide extent of the Prerogative to the overturning of the Law and declared their Disposition to come to a Temper in the matters of Conformity and there seems to be no doubt left of the Sincerity of their Intentions in that matter Their Piety and Vertue and the prospect that they now have of suffering themselves put us beyond all doubt as to their Sincerity and if ever God in his Providence brings us again into a settled State out of the Storm into which our Passions and Folly as well as the Treachery of others has brought us it cannot be imagined that the Bishops will go off from those moderate Resolutions which they have now declared and they continuing firm to them the weak and indiscreet Passions of any of the Inferior Clergy must needs vanish when they are under the Conduct of wise and worthy Leaders And I will boldly say this that if the Church of England after she has got out of this Storm will return to hearken to the peevishness of some four Men she will be abandoned both of God and Man and will set both Heaven and Earth against her The Nation sees too visibly how dear the dispute about Conformity has cost us to stand any more upon such Punctilios and Those in whom our Deliverance is wrapt up understand this matter too well and judg too right of it to imagine that ever they will be Priest-ridden in this point So that all Considerations concur to make us conclude that there is no danger of our splitting a second time upon the same Rock and indeed if any Argument were wanting to compleat the certainty of this Point the wise and generous Behaviour of the main Body of the Dissenters in this present Juncture has given them so just a Title to our Friendship that we must resolve to set all the World against us if we can ever forget it and if we do not make them all the returns of Ease and Favour when it is in our Power to do it X. It is to be hoped that when this is laid together it will have that effect on all sober and true Protestants as to make them forget the little angry Heats that have
in Mr. Fagel's Letter and how well that was received and how civilly it was answer'd all England saw It is true the Prince is very nearly related to the King but there are other Ties stronger than the Bonds of Flesh and Blood He owes more to the Protestant Religion and to the Nation than can be defaced by any other Relation whatsoever and if the faling in one Relation excuses the other then enough might be said to shew at what pains the Court of England has been to free the Prince from all other Engagements except those of Loving Enemies and doing good to those who despitefully use us for upon this account the Prince lies under all possible Obligations 11. The Reflector thinks that those who left Ireland were driven by a needless Fear but tho' he has no reason to apprehend much from the Irish Papists yet those who saw the last Bloody Massacre may be forgiven if they have no mind to see such another He faintly blames that great Change that was lately made in the whole Government of Ireland but he presently excuses it since it was natural for the King and his Friends to desire to be safe some where till they had fair Quarter in England they must make sure of Ireland but he adds that as soon as that was done the thing must have returned into its old Channel again This ought to be writ only to Irishmen for none of a higher size of Understanding can bear it if it can ever be shewed that Papists have yielded up any thing which they had once wrung out of the Hands of Protestants except when they were forced to it we may believe this and all the other gross things which are here imposed on us The plain Case was the Papists resolved to destroy us and to put themselves in case to do it as soon as was possible So they went about it immediately in Ireland only they have delay'd the giving the Signal for a new Massacre till Matters were ripe for it in England 12. The Reflector has reason to avoid the saying any thing to the Article of Scotland for even his Confidence could not support him in justifying the King's claiming an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and the Repealing of a great many Laws upon that Pretension this is too gross for Humane Nature and the Principles of all Religions whatsoever Our Author avoids speaking to it because he does not know the Extent of the Prerogative of that Crown But no Prerogative can go to an Obedience without Reserve nor can Absolute Power consist with any Legal Government 13. The Declaration had set forth that the Evil Counsellors had represented the Expedient offer'd by the Prince and Princess as offer'd on design to disturb the Quiet and Happiness of the Kingdom upon which the Reflector bestows this kind Remark on the Ministry And did they not say true as it happens Believe me some Folks think many of them are not often guilty of such forelight The Writer is angry that his Side is not uppermost and tho' he includes himself in the Ministry by saying Us when he speaks of them yet here tho' he was to censure the Party that is against him he distinguishes them by saying many of the Counsellors use not to have such foresight But perhaps they can object as much to his foresight and with as much reason But if the King comes up to Mr. Fagel's Letter why was it rejected with so much Scorn and answered with so much Insolence Now perhaps they would hearken to it when they have brought both themselves and the Nation to the brink of Ruin by their mad Councils But they ought to be forgiven since they have been true to the Principles and Dictates of their Religion 14. Our Reflector thinks a Free Parliament a Chimera and indeed he and his Friends have been at a great deal of pains to render it impossible But perhaps he may be quickly cured of his Error and a Free One is the sooner like to be chosen when he and such as he are set at a due distance from the Publick Councils If Members are sometimes chosen by Drinking and other Practices this is bad enough but still it is not so bad as the laying a Force upon the Electors and a Restraint upon the Election Nor is it very much to the King's Honour to remember how the last Parliament was chosen it was indeed a very disgusting Essay in the beginning of a Reign and gave a sad prospect of what might be look'd for but if one Violence was born with when the struggle of another Party seemed to excuse it this does not prove that a course of such Violences when the Design is become both more visible and less excusable ought to be endured If the Members of that Parliament proved Worthy Patriots I do not see why they ought not to be remembred with Honour tho' there is a great deal to be said upon their first elevation to that Character which they maintained indeed nobly so that if the first Conception of the Parliament was Irregular yet its End was Honourable since never a Parliament was dissolv'd upon a more Glorious Account 15. The Reflector sets up all his Sail when he enters upon the Article of the pretended Prince of Wales This was a Point by which he hoped to merit highly and upon that to gain ground on that Party of the Court on whom he had reflected with so much scorn Therefore here must the Prince be attack'd with all the malicious Force to which his Rhetorick could carry him and all those Men of Honour that went over to wait on him at the Hague and to represent to him the bleeding and desperate Condition of the Nation must be stigmatized as a lewd Crew of Renegadoes tho I must tell him that the common acceptation of Renegado is one that changes his Religion and by this he will find some near him to whom that Character belongs more justly He almost blames the King for the low Step he lately made to prove that Birth It was a low one indeed to make so much ado and to bring together such a Solemn Appearance to hear so slight a Proof produced which could have no other Effect but to make the Imposture so much the more visible when the utmost Attempts to support it appear to be now so feeble that as to the main Point of the Queen's bearing the Child there is not so much as a colour of a Proof produc'd And it is certain that if this had been a fair thing the Court would have so managed it that it should not have been in the Power of any Mortal to have called it in question And on the other hand they have so managed it that one must needs see in every step of it broad Marks of an Imposture It will not be half Proofs nor suborned Witnesses that will satisfy the Nation in so great a Point But I will
Affair Mr. d' Albeville his Majesties Envoy did in the Month of July last put in a Memorial against me which being already in Print I shall only offer here the abstract of it In the Preamble it sets forth That whereas I had obtained Letters of Burgership in the Town of Amsterdam In the Vertue thereof these Letters being presented to the States of Holland by the said Town I had obtained the Protection of the States with which I was not satisfied but by my Libels I defamed the King and his Government of which it offered two Instances one that I represented my self as Persecuted upon the account of Religion which was so false that all Religions were tolerated by the King. The other was that I pretended that my life was in danger for which If I had any grounds I ought to have represented it to the King's Ministers in England or to his Minister bere and that it was Notorious that the greatest of all Criminals were in safety here for fear to draw upon themselves his Majesties displeasure who abhors such practices tho by the King's Laws every one of his subjects was warranted to seise on them here in what manner soever Upon all which it concluded That the States ought to punish both me and my Printer without naming him I hope I may without being wanting to the respect due to his Character make some observations on this It is well known that I was never made Burgess of Amsterdam so that all the Preamble falls and it appears that the Envoy has not taken the pains that forraign Ministers ordinarily do to be rightly informed of this matter when he began to move in it I applied my self immediately to the States of Holland in order to my being Naturalized and in my Petition I set forth the Reason of it which ever since Solons Laws has been thought the justest ground for it and that was a Marriage and this was no pretended colour for I was contracted the same day I had lived before that a year at the Hague and I saw clearly a storm coming upon me yet I had used no precaution to cover my self from it but when a Marriage and a settlement in Holland made it necessary for me to desire the Rights and Priviledges of the Countrey it cannot be thought strange if I petitioned for it and the States who know how long I had both lived and preached publickly at the Hague under the eyes of two of the Kings Ministers one after another saw no sort of reason so much as to deliberate upon my petition but granted it to me as a thing of course As for the matter that His Majesties Envoy objected to me I said nothing in the paper I printed but what plainly contradicts the first point my words relating to it are that it is yet too early to set on a Persecution for matters of Religion and therefore Crimes against the State must be pretended and fastned on those whom these men intend to destroy Now it is plain that by these men I intend those who had Informed against me the matters that are in the first Citation and that being let fall as a Calumny too gross to be any longer supported I had all reason to pass that censure on these men But these words cannot be supposed to have any relation to the King unless in that part of them that it is yet too early to Persecute for matters of Religion which import that my Enemies dare not attempt to carry his Majesty to that so that this period in my paper is evidently contrary to the Inference that is drawn from it The 2d point is no better grounded since I published nothing relating to the Danger in which I was but my Letters to the Earl of Middleton so that I had begun my Complaints to him but I was never encouraged to go to the naming of particulars As for that period that the greatest of Criminals are here safe from such Attempts for fear of drawing upon themselves the King's displeasure de peur de s'attirer certainly the Envoy was in haste when he drew it for the want of a clear sense in it is such that it cannot be carried off by an Ignorance of the French tongue since sure those Criminals are not afraid to Draw upon themselves the King's displeasure by attempting on themselves So that some such words as these all his Majesties good subjects avoiding such practices for fear of drawing upon themselves his Displeasure must be supposed to make the period Clear sense But if I had any apprehensions of Danger before this Memorial they are justly encreased by it since the Envoy concludes the paragraph by saying that every one of the King's subjects were warranted by his Laws to seise on such here in what manner soever a s'y emparer en quelque maniere que ce soit in what manner soever does always on such occasions signifie either Dead or Alive Now when the Kings Envoy did in a Memorial to the States which was afterwards printed assert that this was Law It is easy to Infer from hence what just apprehensions this might suggest to me As for his desire to have me Punished for that Libel he did in that Appeal which he made to the Justice of the States acknowledge me to be their Subject but if I have by printing of that or any other Paper made my self liable to the punishment of the States the Complaint ought to have been made in the form of Law to the Court of Holland as it would be in England to the Kings Bench since the States themselves do not not enter into the prosecutions of Justice and to that Court I most humbly submit my self and acknowledg that if I cannot justify my self of every thing that can be laid to my Charge they ought to punish me with the utmost severity of Justice Since a man of my Profession as he ought to be an Example for his good behaviour so he ought to be made an Example of Justice when he brings himself within the compass of the Law. This was the first step that was made in my affair which lay in this state till the Envoy's return from England in December last upon which he gave in a long Memorial of which I was made one Article He set forth that I being now Judged a Rebel and Fugitive in Scotland the States were bound to deliver me up or to banish me out of their Dominions and so he demanded that this might be executed Upon this I was called before some of the Deputies of the States and both the Envoys Memorials being read to me I was required to offer what I had to say upon them I could not but first take notice of the great difference that was between them The first complaining of me as a subject of the States and demanding that I might be punished by them and the second demanding me as the King 's Subject To the first I answered according to
the Council of Constance that decreed That Princes were not bound to keep their Faith to Hereticks tho' it must be acknowledged that we have extraordinary Memories if we can forget such things and more extraordinary Understandings if we do not make some Inferences from them I will not stand upon such inconsiderable Trifles as the Gunpowder-Plot or the Massacre of Ireland but I will take the liberty to reflect a little on what that Church has done since those Laws were made to give us kinder and softer thoughts of them and to make us the less apprehensive of them We see before our eyes what they have done and are still doing in France and what feeble things Edicts Coronation Oaths Laws and Promises repeated over and over again prove to be where that Religion prevails and Louis le Grand makes not so contemptible a Figure in that Church or in our Court as to make us think that his Example may not be proposed as a Pattern as well as his Aid may be offered for an Encouragement to act the same things in England that he is now doing with so much applause in France and it may be perhaps the rather desired from hence to put him a little in countenance when so great a King as ours is willing to forget himself so far as to copy after him and to depend upon him so that as the Doctrine and Principles of that Church must be still the same in all Ages and Places since its chief pretention is that it is infallible it is no unreasonable thing for us to be afraid of those who will be easily induced to burn us a little here when they are told that such fervent Zeal will save them a more lasting burning hereafter and will perhaps quit all scores so entirely that they may hope scarce to endure a Singing in Purgatory for all their other Sins IV. If the severest Order of the Church of Rome that has breathed out nothing but Fire and Blood since its first formation and that is even decried at Rome it self for its Violence is in such credit here I do not see any inducement from thence to persuade us to look on the Councils that are directed by that Society as such harmless and inoffensive things that we need be no more on our guard against them I know not why we may not apprehend as much from Father Petre as the French have felt from Pere de la Chaise since all the difference that is observed to be between them is that the English Jesuit has much more Fire and Passion and much less Conduct and Judgment than the French has And when Rome has expressed so great a Jealousie of the Interest that that Order had in our Councils that F. Morgan who was thought to influence our Ambassadour was ordered to leave Rome I do not see why England should look so tamely on them No reason can be given why Card. Howard should be shut out of all their Councils unless it be that the Nobleness of his Birth and the Gentleness of his Temper are too hard even for his Religion and his Purple to be mastered by them And it is a Contradiction that nothing but a Belief capable of receiving Transubstantiation can reconcile to see Men pretend to observe Law and yet to find at the same time an Ambassadour from England at Rome when there are so many Laws in our Book of Statutes never yet repealed that have declared over and over again all Commerce with the Court and See of Rome to be High Treason V. The late famous Judgment of our Judges who knowing no other way to make their Names immortal have found an effectual one to preserve them from being ever forgot seems to call for another Method of Proceeding The President they have set must be fatal either to them or us For if twelve Men that get into Scarlet and Furs have an Authority to dissolve all our Laws the English Government is to be hereafter lookt at with as much scorn as it has hitherto drawn admiration That doubtful Words of Laws made so long ago that the Intention of the Lawgivers is not certainly known must be expounded by the Judges is not to be questioned but to infer from thence that the plain Words of a Law so lately made and that was so vigorously asserted by the present Parliament may be made void by a Decision of theirs after so much Practice upon them is just as reasonable a way of arguing as theirs is who because the Church of England acknowledges that the Chuurch has a Power in Matters of Rites and Ceremonies will from thence conclude that this Power must go so far that tho' Christ has said of the Cup Drink ye all of it we must obey the Church when she decrees that we shall not drink of it Our Judges for the greater part were Men that had past their Lives in so much Retirement that from thence one might have hoped that they had studied our Law well since the Bar had called them so seldom from their Studies and if Practice is thought often hurtful to Speculation as that which disorders and hurries the Judgment they who had practised so little in our Law had no byass on their Understandings and if the habit of taking Money as a Lawyer is a dangerous Preparation for one that is to be an incorrupt Judge they should have been incorruptible since it is not thought that the greater part of them got ever so much Money by their Profession as paid for their Furs In short we now see how they have merited their Preferment and they may yet expect a further Exaltation when the Justice and the Laws of England come to be in Hands that will be as careful to preserve them as they have been to destroy them But what an Infamy will it lay upon the Name of an English Parliament if instead of calling those Betrayers of their Country to an account they should go by an after-game to confirm what these Fellows have done VI. The late Conferences with so many Members of both Houses will give such an ill-natured piece of Jealousie against them that of all Persons living that are the most concern'd to take care how they give their Votes the World will believe that Threatnings and Promises had as large a share in those secret Conversations as Reasoning or Persuasion and it must be a more than ordinary degree of Zeal and Courage in them that must take off the Blot of being sent for and spoke to on such a Subject and in such a manner The worthy Behaviour of the Members in the last Session had made the Nation unwilling to remember the Errors committed in the first Election and it is to be hoped that they will not give any cause for the future to call that to mind For if a Parliament that had so many Flaws in its first Conception goes to repeal Laws that we are sure were made by Legal Parliaments it will
I A. B. do acknowledge testifie and declare that JAMES the Seventh by the Grace of God King of Scotland England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c is rightful King and Supream Governour of these Realms and over all Persons therein and that it is unlawful for Subjects on any pretence or for any cause whatsoever to rise in Arms against Him or any Commissionated by Him and that I shall never so rise in Arms nor assist any who shall so do and that I shall never resist His Power or Authority nor ever oppose his Authority to his Person as I shall answer to God but shall to the utmost of my Power Assist Defend and Maintain Him His Heirs and lawful Successors in the exercise of their ABSOLUTE POWER and Authority against all Deadly So help me God. And seeing many of Our good Subjects have before Our Pleasure in these Matters was made publick incurred the Guilt appointed by the Acts of Parliament above mentioned or others We by Our Authority and Absolute Power and Prerogative Royal above-mentioned of Our certain Knowledge and innate Mercy Give Our ample and full Indemnity to all those of the Roman Catholick or Popish Religion for all things by them done contrary to Our Laws or Acts of Parliament made in any time past relating to their Religion the Worship and Exercise thereof or for being Papists Jesuits or Traffickers for hearing or saying of Mass concealing of Priests or Jesuits breeding their Children Catholicks at home or abroad or any other thing Rite or Doctrine said performed or maintained by them or any of them And likewise for holding or taking of Places Employments or Offices contrary to any Law or Constitution Advices given to Us or Our Council Actions done or generally any thing performed or said against the known Laws of that Our Ancient Kingdom Excepting always from this Our Royal Indemnity all Murders Assassinations Thefts and such like other Crimes which never used to be comprehended in Our General Acts of Indemnity And we command and require all Our Judges or others concerned to explain this in the most Ample Sense and Meaning Acts of Indemnity at any time have contained Declaring this shall be as good to every one concerned as if they had Our Royal Pardon and Remission under Our Great Seal of that Kingdom And likewise indemnifying Our Protestant Subjects from all Pains and Penalties due for hearing or Preaching in Houses Providing there be no Treasonable Speeches uttered in the said Conventicles by them in which case the Law is only to take place against the Guilty and none other present Providing also that they Reveal to any of our Gouncil the Guilt so committed As also excepting all Fines or Effects of Sentences already given And likewise indemnifying fully and freely all Quakers for their Meetings and Worship in all time past preceding the Publication of these Presents And we doubt not but Our Protestant Subjects will give their Assistance and Concourse hereunto on all occasions in their respective Capacities In consideration whereof and the ease those of Our Religion and others may have hereby and for the Encouragement of Our Protestant Bishops and the Regular Clergy and such as have hitherto lived orderly We think fit to declare that it never was Our Principle nor will We ever suffer violence to be offered to any Mans Conscience nor will We use force or Invincible Necessity against any Man on the Account of his Perswasion nor the Protestant Religion but will protect Our Bishops and other Ministers in their Functions Rights and Properties and all Our Protestant Subjects in the free Exercise of their Protestant Religion in the Churches And that We will and hereby Promise on Our Royal Word to maintain the Possessors of Church Lands formerly belonging to Abbeys or other Churches of the Catholick Religion in their full and free Possession and Right according to Our Laws and Acts of Parliament in that behalf in all time coming And We will employ indifferently all our Subjects of all Perswasions so as none shall meet with any Discouragement on the account of his Religion but be advanced and esteemed by Us according to their several Capacities and Qualifications so long as we find Charity and Unity maintained And if any Animosities shall arise as We hope in God there will not We will shew the severest Effects of Our Royal Displeasure against the Beginners or Fomenters thereof seeing thereby Our Subjects may be deprived of this general Ease and Satisfaction We intend to all of them whose Happiness Prosperity Wealth and Safety is so much Our Royal Care that we will leave nothing undone which may procure these Blessings for them And lastly to the End all Our good Subjects may have Notice of this Our Royal Will and Pleasure we do hereby command Our Lyon King at Arms and his Brethren Heraulds Macers Pursevants and Messengers at Arms to make Proclamation thereof at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh And besides the Printing and Publishing of this Our Royal Proclamation it is Our express Will and Pleasure that the same be past under the great Seal of that Our Kingdom per saltum ☞ without passing any other Seal or Register In Order whereunto this shall be to the Directors of Our Chancellary and their Deputies for writing the same and to Our Chancellor for causing Our Great Seal aforesaid to be appended thereunto a sufficient Warrand Given at Our Court at Whitehal the twelfth day of Febr. 1686 / 7. And of Our Reign the third year By His Majesties Command MELFORT GOD SAVE THE KING A LETTER Containing some REFLECTIONS On His MAJESTY's DECLARATION FOR LIBERTY of CONSCIENCE Dated the Fourth of April 1687. SIR I. I Thank you for the Favour of sending me the late Declaration that His Majesty has granted for Liberty of Conscience I confess I longed for it with great Impatience and was surprised to find it so different from the Scotch Pattern for I imagined that it was to be set to the Second Part of the same Tune nor can I see why the Penners of this have sunk so much in their Style for I suppose the same Men penned both I expected to have seen the Imperial Language of Absolute Power to which all the Subjects are to obey without Reserve and of the cassing annulling the stopping and disabling of Laws set forth in the Preamble and Body of this Declaration whereas those dreadful Words are not to be found here for in stead of repealing the Laws His Majesty pretends by this only to suspend them and tho' in effect this amounts to a Repeal yet it must be confessed that the Words are softer Now since the Absolute Power to which His Majesty pretends in Scotland is not founded on such poor things as Law for that would look as if it were the Gift of the People but on the Divine Authority which is supposed to be delegated to His Majesty this may be as well claimed in England as it
a due Liberty of Conscience where She has so long lived that there is no reason to make any fansie that She will either keep up our Differences or bear down the Dissenters with Rigour But because you hope for nothing from Her own Inclinations you would have her terrified with the strong Argument of Numbers which you fansie will certainly secure them from Her recalling the Favour But of what side soever that Argument may be strong sure it is not of theirs who make but One to Two hundred and I suppose you scarce expect that the Dissenters will rebel that you may have your Masses and how their Numbers will secure them unless it be by enabling them to Rebel I cannot imagine This is indeed a squinting at the Next Heir with a witness when you would already muster up the Troops that must rise against Her. But let me tell you that you know both Her Character and the Princes very ill that fansie they are only to be wrought on by Fear They are known to your great grief to be above that and it must be to their own merciful Inclinations that you must owe all that you can expect under them but neither to their Fear nor to your own Numbers As for the Hatred and Contempt even to the degree of being more ridiculous than the Mass under which you say Her way of Worship is in Holland this is one of those Figures of Speech that shew how exactly you have studied the Jesuits Morals All that come from Holland assure us that She is so universally beloved and esteemed there that every thing that she does is the better thought of even because She does it Upon the whole matter all that you say of the Next Heir proves too truly that you are that for which you reproach the Church of England a Disciple of the Crown only for the Loaves for if you had that respect which you pretend for the King you would have shewed it more upon this occasion Nor am I so much in love with your Style as to imitate it therefore I will not do you so great a pleasure as to say the least thing that may reflect on that Authority which the Church of England has taught me to reverence even after all the Disgraces that She has received from it and if She were not insuperably restrained by Her Principles in stead of the Thin Muster with which you reproach Her She could soon make so Thick a one as would make the Thinness of yours very visible upon so unequal a Division of the Nation But She will neither be threatned nor laughed out of Her Religion and Her Loyalty tho' such Insultings as She meets with that almost pass all Humane Patience would tempt Men that had a less fixed Principle of Submission to make their Enemies feel to their cost that they owe all the Triumphs they make more to our Principles than to their own Force Their laughing at our Doctrine of Non resistance lets us see that it would be none of theirs under the Next Heir at whom you squint if the strong Argument of Numbers made you not apprehend that Two hundred to One would prove an Unequal Match As for your Memorandums I shall answer them as short as you give them 1. It will be hard to persuade People that a Decision in favour of the Dispensing Power flowing from Judges that are both made and paid and that may be removed at pleasure will amount to the recognizing of that Right by Law. 2. It will be hard to perswade the World that the King 's adhering to his Promises and his Coronation-Oath and to the known Laws of the Land would make him Felo de se The following of different Methods were the likelier way to it if it were not for the Loyalty of the Church of England 3. It will be very easie to see the Use of continuing the Test by Law since all those that break thro' it as well as the Judges who have authorized their Crimes are still liable for all they do and after all your huffing with the Dispensing Power we do not doubt but the apprehension of an after-reckoning sticks deep somewhere You say It may be supposed that the aversion of a Protestant King to the Popish Party will sufficiently exclude them even without the Test But it must be confessed that you take all possible care to confirm that Aversion so far as to put it beyond an It may be supposed And it seems you understand Christ's Prerogative as well as the Judges did the King's that fansie the Test is against it it is so sutable to the nature of all Governments to take Assurances of those who are admitted to Places of Trust that you do very ill to appeal to an Impartial Consideration for you are sure to lose it there Few Englishmen will believe you in earnest when you seem zealous for Publick Liberty or the Magna Charta or that you are so very apprehensive of Slavery And your Friends must have very much changed both their Natures and their Principles if their Conduct does not give cause to renew the like Statutes against them even tho' they should be repealed in this Reign notwithstanding all your confidence to the contrary I will still believe that the strong Argument of Numbers will be always the powerfullest of all others with you which as long as it has its Force and no longer we may hope to be at quiet I concur heartily with you in your Prayers for the King tho perhaps I differ from you in my Notions both of His Glory and of the Felicity of his People And as for your own Particular I wish you would either not at all employ your Pen or learn to write to better purpose But tho I cannot admire your Letter yet I am Your Humble Servant T. T. AN ANSWER TO A PAPER Printed with Allowance Entitled A New Test of the Church of England's Loyalty I. THE Accusing the Church of England of Want of Loyalty or the putting it to a new Test after so fresh a one with relation to His Majesty argues a high degree of Confidence in him who undertakes it She knew well what were the Doctrines and Practices of those of the Roman Church with relation to Hereticks and yet She was so true to her Loyalty that She shut her Eyes on all the Temptations that so just a fear could raise in her And She set her self to support His Majesties Right of Succession with so much Zeal that She thereby not only put her self in the power of her Enemies but She has also exposed her self to the Scorn of those who insult over her in her Misfortune She lost the Affections even of many of her own Children who thought that her Zeal for an Interest which was then so much decry'd was a little too servent And all those who judged severely of the Proceedings thought that the Opposition which She made to the side that then went so
last Year Yet when Men of Honour have once given their Word they take it ill if any do not trust to that but must needs have it repeated to them In the ordinary Commerce of the World the repeating of Promises over and over again is rather a ground of Suspicion than of Confidence and if we judg of the Accomplishment of all the other parts of the Declaration from that one which relates to the maintaining of the Church of England as by Law established the Proceedings against the Fellows of Magdalen Colledg gives us no reason to conclude that this will be like the Laws of the Medes and Persians which alter not all the talk of the New Magna Charta cannot lay us asleep when we see so little regard had to the Old one As for the security which is offered us in this repeating of the King's Promises we must crave leave to remember that the King of France even after he had resolved to break the Edict of Nantes yet repeated in above an hundred Edicts that were real and visible Violations of that Edict a Clause confirmatory of the Edict of Nantes declaring that he would never Violate it and in that we may see what Account is to be had of all Promises made to Hereticks in Matters Religion by any Prince of the Roman Communion but more particularly by a Prince who has put the conduct of his Conscience in the Hands of a Jesuite Some EXTRACTS out of Mr. JAMES STEWART's LETTERS Which were Communicated to Mijn Heer FAGAL the States Pensioner of the Province of Holland Together with some References to Master STEWART's Printed Letter MR. Stewart staid about seven Months after he had received the Pensionary's Letter before he thought fit to write any Answer to it and then instead of sending one in writing to the Pensioner or in a Language understood by him he has thought fit by a Civility peculiar to himself to print an Answer in English and to send it abroad into the World before the Pensioner had so much as seen it The many and great Affairs that press hard upon that Eminent Minister together with a sad want of Health by which he has been long afflicted have made that he had not the leisure to procure Mr. Stewart's Letter to be translated to him and to compare the Matters of Fact related to in it with the Letters that were writ the last Year by Mr. Stewart which are in his possession nor did he think it Necessary to make too much hast and therefore if he has let as many weeks pass without ordering an Answer to be prepared as the other had done Months he thought that even this slowness might look like one that despised this indecent Attempt upon his Honour that Mr. Stewart has made in giving so unjust a representation of the Matter of Fact. He hopes he is too well known to the World to apprehend that any Persons would entertain the hard thoughts of him which Mr. Stewart's late Print may have offered to them and therefore he has proceeded in this Matter with the slowness that he thought became his Integrity since a greater haste might have look'd like one that was uneasy because he knew himself to be in Fault As for the reasoning part of Mr. Stewart's Paper he has already expressed himself in his Letter to Mr. d' Albeville that he will not enter into any arguing upon those Points but will leave the Matter to the Judgment of every Reader therefore he has given order only to examin those Matters of Fact that are set forth in the beginning of Mr. Stewart's Letter that so the World may have a true account of the Motives that induced him to write his Letter to Mr. Stewart from the words of Mr. Stewart's own Letters and then he will leave it to the Judgment of every Reader whether Mr. Stewart has given the Matter of Fact fairly or not It is true the Pensioner has not thought fit to print all Mr. Stewart's Letters at their full length there are many Particulars in them for which he is not willing to expose him and in this he has shewed a greater regard to Mr. Stewart than the usage that he has met with from him deserves If Mr. Stewart has kept Copies of his own Letters he must see that the Pensioner's reservedness is rather grounded on what he thought became himself than on what Mr. Stewart has deserved of him But if Mr. Stewart or any in his Name will take Advantages from this that the Letters themselves are not published and that here there are only Extracts of them offered to the World then the Pensioner will be excused if he prints them all to a Tittle The Truth is it is scarce conceivable how Mr. Stewart could assume the confidence that appears in his printed Letter if he have kept Copies of the Letters that he writ last Year and if he engaged himself in Affairs of such Importance without keeping Copies of what he writ it was somewhat extraordinary and yet this censure is that which falls the softest on him but I will avoid every thing that looks like a sharpness of Expression for the Pensioner expects that he who is to give this Account to the English Nation should rather consider the Dignity of the Post in which he is than the Advantages that Mr. Stewart may have given for replying sharply on him And in this whole Matter the Pensioner's chief concern is to offer to the World such a Relation of the Occasions that drew his Letter to Mr. Stewart from him as may justify him against the false Insinuations that are given he owed this likewise as an expression of his Respect and Duty to their Highnesses in whose Name he wrote his Letter and at whom all those false Representations are levelled tho they fall first and immediately upon himself The sum of the Matter of Fact as it is represented by Mr. Stewart amounts to this That he was so surprised to see in January last the Pensioner's Letter to him in print that he was inclined to disbelieve his own Eyes considering the remoteness of the occasion that was given for that Letter that he had never writ to the Pensioner but was expresly cautioned against it But that seeing the sincerity of the King's Intentions he was desirous to contribute his small endeavours for the advancing so good a Work and for that end he Obtained Leave to write to a private Friend who he judged might have opportunity to represent any thing he could say to the best advantage but that of the Letters which he writ to his Friend there were only two intended for communication in which he studied to evince the Equity and Expediency of repealing the Tests and the Penal Laws and that with a peculiar regard to the Prince and Princess of Orange's Interest and he desired that this might be Imparted to Friends but chiefly to those at the Hague And that this was the substance of all that
in which we are and it is plain that the Rules serve in the Gospel can be carried no further It is indeed clear from the New Testament that the Christian Religion as such gives us no grounds to defend or propagate it by force It is a Doctrine of the Cross and of Faith and Patience under it And if by the order of Divine Providence and of any Constitution of Government under which we are born we are brought under Sufferings for our professing of it we may indeed retire and fly out of any such Country if we can but if that is denied us we must then according to this Religion submit to those Sufferings under which we may be brought considering that God will be glorified by us in so doing and that he will both support us under our Suffering and gloriously reward us for them This was the State of the Christian Religion during the three first Centuries under Heathen Emperors and a Constitution in which Paganism was establish'd by Law. But if by the Laws of any Government the Christian Religion or any Form of it is become a part of the Subjects Property it then falls under another Consideration not as it is a Religion but as it is become one of the principal Rights of the Subjects to believe and profess it and then we must judg of the Invasions made on that as we do of any other Invasion that is made on our other Rights X. All the Passages in the New Testament that relate to Civil Government are to be expounded as they were truly meant in opposition to that false Notion of the Jews who believed themselves to be so immediately under the Divine Authority that they could not become the Subjects of any other Power particularly of one that was not of their Nation or of their Religion therefore they thought they could not be under the Roman Yoke nor bound to pay Tribute to Caesar but judged that they were only subject out of Fear by reason of the Force that lay on them but not for Conscience sake And so in all their Dispersion both at Rome and elsewhere they thought they were God's Freemen and made use of this pretended Liberty as a Cloak of Maliciousness In opposition to all which since in a course of many Years they had asked the Protection of the Roman Yoke and were come under their Authority our Saviour ordered them to continue in that by his saying Render to Cesar that which is Cesar 's and both St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans and St. Peter in his general Epistle have very positively condemned that pernicious Maxim but without any formal Declarations made of the Rules or Measures of Government And since both the People and Senate of Rome had acknowledged the Power that Augustus had indeed violently usurped it became Legal when it was thus submitted to and confirmed both by the Senate and People and it was established in his Family by a long Prescription when those Epistles were writ So that upon the whole matter all that is in the New Testament upon this Subject imports no more but that all Christians are bound to acquiesce in the Government and submit to it according to the Constitution that is setled by Law. XI We are then at last brought to the Constitution of our English Government So that no general Considerations from Speculations about Soveraign Power nor from any Passages either of the Old and New Testament ought to determine us in this Matter which must be fixed from the Laws and Regulations that have been made among us It is then certain that with Relation to the Executive part of the Government the Law has lodged that singly in the King so that the whole Administration of it is in him but the Legislative Power is lodged between the King and the two Houses of Parliament so that the Power of making and repealing Laws is not singly in the King but only so far as the two Houses concur with him It is also clear that the King has such a determined extent of Prerogative beyond which he has no Authority As for Instance If he levies Mony of his People without a Law impowring him to it he goes beyond the Limits of his Power and asks that to which he has no Right So that there lies no Obligation on the Subject to grant it and if any in his Name use Violence for the obtaining it they are to be looked on as so many Robbers that invade our Property and they being violent Aggressors the Principle of Self-Preservation seems here to take place and to warrant as violent a Resistance XII There is nothing more evident than that England is a Free Nation that has its Libertits and Properties reserved to it by many positive and express Laws If then we have a Right to our Property we must likewise be supposed to have a Right to preserve it for those Rights are by the Law secured against the Invasions of the Prerogative and by consequence we must have a Right to preserve them against those Invasions It is also evidently declared by our Law that all Orders and Warrants that are issued out in opposition to them are null of themselves and by consequence any that pretend to have Commissions from the King for those Ends are to be considered as if they had none at all since those Commissions being void of themselves are indeed no Commissions in the Construction of the Law and therefore those who act in virtue of them are still to be considered as private Persons who come to invade and disturb us It is also to be observed that there are some Points that are justly disputable and doubtful and others that are so manifest that it is plain that any Objections that can be made to them are rather forced Pretences than so much as plausible Colours It is true if the Case is doubtful the Interest of the publick Peace and Order ought to carry it but the Case is quite different when the Invasions that are made upon Liberty and Property are plain and visible to all that consider them XIII The main and great Difficulty here is that though our Government does indeed assert the Liberty of the Subject yet there are many express Laws made that lodg the Militia singly in the King that make it plainly unlawful upon any Pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King or any Commissioned by him And these Laws have been put in the Form of an Oath which all that have born any Employment either in Church or State have sworn and therefore those Laws for the assuring our Liberties do indeed bind the King's Conscience and may affect his Ministers yet since it is a Maxime of our Law that the King can do no Wrong these cannot be carried so far as to justify our taking Arms against him be the Transgressions of Laws ever so many and so manifest And since this has been the constant Doctrine of the Church of
enter into no Particulars relating to this Business which will be better laid open when a Free Parliament meets to examine it 16. The Reflector charges upon the Prince all the Miseries that may follow on a War as an unsuitable return to the Kindness that the Nation has shewed him But if the Dissolution of the Government brought on by the Court has given a just Rise to his coming then the ill Effects that may fall out in the Progress of his Design are no more to be charged on him than the Miseries to which a severe Cure of the ill Effects of a wilful Disorder expose a Patient ought to be imputed to a Physician that betrays his Patient if he flatters him and that must apply violent Remedies to obstinate Distempers I do not hear from other Hands that the Lords and Bishops about the City have disowned their inviting the Prince and I do not believe it the better because the Author affirms it But if it were true there are others in England besides those about the City so the thing may be true though a few about the City had not been in it A small Civility is bestowed on the Prince when it is said that he would not have affirmed it if he did not believe it but this is soon taken off and it is said doubtless he was abused in this If this is to be supposed the Prince is as weak a Man as his Enemies for their own sakes ought to wish to be if he could suffer himself to be engaged in a matter of this nature without being well assured of the grounds he went on 17. What is said of the Prince's referring all matters to the determination of a Free Parliament is too flat to require an Answer This was a plausible thing and therefore it ought to have been either quite past over or somewhat of force ought to have been set against it This is not the referring of other peoples Rights to a Parliament but the leaving the healing of the Nation to those who are its proper Physicians And the taking a Cure out of the hands of the Court instead of that is like the renouncing a sure Method and a good Physician and the hearkening to the arrogant promises of a bold Mountebank The Prince has promised to send away his Army as soon as the state of the Nation will permit upon which the Reflector says that here is but a Foreigner's word against our own King's and he refers it to our Allegiance to judg which of the two we ought to trust But I cannot find out in what the Prince's promise contradicts any that the King has made for I do not hear that the King has promised that these Troops shall not return and unless that were the Case I cannot find out the Contradiction and after all if we must speak out there is some odds to be made between a Prince whose Religion as well as his Honour has ever determined him to keep all his Promises and another whose Religion has taught him so often to make bold with all his 18. The Prince's summoning the Nobility and Gentry as it is the usual stile of all Generals so it requires them only to appear and to act for their Country and their Religion and his promising to have a Parliament called in Scotland and Ireland imports no more but that he is come with a Resolution to have the Government setled on its true Basis and that he will see it done 19. The Reflector is in great wrath because the Prince has in his Additional Declaration shewed how little regard ought to be had to that imperfect Redress of Grievances that has been offered of late But it had been a concurring in the Cheat to suffer it to pass without laying it open When fair things are offered from Men to whom we ought to trust it is as seasonable to receive them as it is to reject all deceitful things when the Truth is apparent Therefore as the Prince had no reason to abandon the Cure of the Nation after the steps that he had made because of the endeavours of the Court to lay it asleep so he has so purged himself from the Imputations of designing a Conquest that all our Reflector's Malice cannot make them stick and all that Noble Company that came over with him and that have since come in to him are a proof of this beyond Exception Let all Men of Sense judg whether an Army composed of so many Irish Papists or another made up of so many Noblemen and Gentlemen of great Families and Estates are likeliest to set about the Conquering the Nation 20. He fancies that what the Prince gets by the Sword he will keep by the Sword And upon this he tells us that he said Once to the King that the bringing the Dutch Army to the Discipline in which it was had cost 1300 Lives Upon which he wishes those who value the Magna Charta and Trials by Juries to make some Reflections But since the Situation and Constitution of Holland makes an Army necessary to them and since they have provided by particular Laws that Marshal Discipline should be maintain'd by a Council of War nothing could have been contriv'd more for the Prince's Honour than to tell us that he has so ordered the Matter that the Army is become one of the most regular and inoffensive Bodies of Men that is in all Holland which this Nation sees now with no small astonishment to whom one Regiment of Irish has given more Fear and Disorder than this great Army has done to the places through which it has passed The Reflector tells us also as a very ridiculous thing that the Prince who has left the Dutch no Liberty at Home comes now to secure ours here And to make the Parallel compleat between the Prince and a near Relation of his he pretends that he broke his Oath to the States of Holland he having promised never to be Statholder though it should be offer'd him And to conclude all against him he says there is no more proportion between the Ancient Liberties of Holland and his present Government than there is between London and Brandford Here is the Force of all his Malice but we who have seen the State of Affairs in Holland and the Freedom of the Government there know that England can wish for no greater Happiness than that the Laws and Government here may be maintained as exactly here as they are there And the late Unanimous Concurrence of all the Provinces and of all the Negatives in every Province and not only of all the Members in every one of these Bodies but indeed of the whole People all over the Provinces Amsterdam it self leading the way to all the rest by which they gave their Fleet their Army and their Treasure so frankly up to the Prince was an Evidence of his good Government beyond all that can be set forth in words for real Arguments conclude always truly And
than my self so all the Discoveries that have been made of late Years have been so far from aspersing me that tho' there has been disposition enough to find fault with me yet there has not been Matter given so much as for an examination It is now thirteen Years since I came out of Scotland and for these last five Years I have not so much as mentioned the commonest News in any Letter I have writ to any in that Kingdom I do not mention Acts of Indemnity because I know that I do not need the benefit of them I went out of England by his Majesty's Approbation and I have stayed out of it because his Majesty expressed his dislike of my returning to it I am now upon the Point of Marrying in this Country and am naturalized by the States of Holland but tho' by this during my stay here my Allegiance is translated from his Majesty to the Soveraignty of this Province yet I will never depart from the profoundest respect to his Sacred Person and Duty to his Government Since my coming into these Parts I have not seen any one Person either of Scotland or England that is Outlaw'd for Treason and when the King took Exceptions at the access I had to the Prince and Princess of Orange there was not any thing of this kind then objected to me So I protest unto your Lordship I do not so much as imagine upon what it is that those Informations which it seems are brought to his Majesty are founded My Lord As I am not ashamed of any thing I have done so I am not affraid of any thing that my Enemies can do to me I can very easily part with a small Estate and with a Life of which I have been long weary and if my Engagements in this Country could dispense with it I would not avoid the coming to stand my Tryal but as this cannot be expected in the state in which I am so I humbly throw my self at His Majestys feet and beg that he may not condemn me so much as in his thoughts till I know what is the Crime that is objected to me that so I may offer a most humble Justification of my self to him I shall be infinitely sorry if any Judgment that may pass on me in Scotland shall oblige me to appear in print in my own Defence for I cannot betray my own Innocence so far as to suffer a thing of this nature to pass upon me without Printing an Apology for my self in which I will be forced to make a recital of all that share that I have had in Affairs these twenty years past and in which I must mention a vast number of particulars that I am affraid will be displeasing to His Majesty and as I will look on this as one of the greatest Misfortunes that can possibly befall me so with all the Duty and Humility in the World I beg I may not be driven to it I will not presume to add one word to your Lordship nor to claim any sort of Favour or Protection from you For I address my self only to your Lordship as you are the Kings Minister for these Provinces My Lord I am with all possible respect May it please your Lordship Your Lordships c. At the Hague May the 10th 1687. The Criminal Letters at the Instance of the Lord Advocate against Dr. Gilbert Burnet JAMES c. To our Lovits c. Herauls Pursevants Macers and Messengers at Arms Our Sheriffs in that part conjunctly and severally specially constitute Greeting Forsamikle as it is humbly meaned and complained to Vs be our Right Trustie and Familiar Councellor Sir John Dalrymple the Younger of Stair our Advocat for our Interest Upon Doctor Gilbert Burnet That where notwithstanding by the Laws and Acts of Parliament and constant Practique of this our Kingdom the venting of Sclanderous Treasonable and Advised Speeches and Positions and the Reproaching our Person Estate and Government and the Recepting Supplying Ayding Assisting Intercommoning with and doing Favours to denunced Rebells or forfaulted Traitors are punishable by Forfaulture of Life Land and Goods and particularly by the 134 Act of 8 P. K. Ia. 6. It is Statute Ordained that non of our Subjects of whatsoever Degree Estate or Quality shall presume or take upon hand privatelie or publicklie in Sermons Declamation or Familiar Conferences to utter any False Sclanderous or untrue Speeches to the Disdain Reproach or Contempt of Vs our Council or Proceedings or to the Dishonour Hurt or Prejudice of Vs or to meddle in our Affairs or Estate bygone present or in tyme coming under the Pain of Death and Confiscation of Moveables And be the 10 Act 10 P. K. Ia. 6. It is Statue and Ordained that all our Subjects containe themselves in Quyetness and dutieful Obedience to Vs our Government and Authority and that non of them presume nor take upon hand publicklie to declame or privatelie to speak or write any Purpose of Reproach or Sclander against our Person Estate or Government or to deprave our Laws and Acts of Parliament or misconstrue our Proceedings whereby any Dislike may be moved betwixt Vs our Nobility and Loving Subjects in tyme coming under the Paine of Death and that thes that do in the contrair shall be repute as Seditious and wicked Instruments Enemies to Vs and the Common-weel of this Realm and that the said Paine of Death shall be inflicted upon them with all Rigour in Example of others And be the second Act 2. Sess of the first Parliament of K. Ch. 2. We and our Estates of Parliament do declare that in thes Positions that it is Lawful for Subjects upon pretence of Reformation or any other pretence whatsomever to enter into Leagues or Covenants or to take up Arms against Vs or thes Commissionat by Vs or to put Limitations upon their due Obedience and Allegiance are Rebellious and Treasonable and that all Persons who shall by wryting Preaching or other malitious and advysed Speaking Express thes Treasonable Intentions shall be proceeded against and adjudged Traitors and shall suffer forfaulture of Life Lands and Goods lyke as by the third Act 1. P. of K. Ia. 1. and 37. Act of his second Parliament and be the 9. Act of 13. P. K. James 2. and 144. Act 12. P. K. James 6. And Diverse and Sundry other Laws and Acts of Parliament of this our Kingdom It is declared High-Treason for any of our Subjects to Recept Supply or Intercomon with declared or Forfaulted Traitors or give them Meat Drink Hous Harbour or any Relief or Comfort and if they do in the Contrair they are to undergo the same Paines the said Traitors or Rebels ought to have sustained if they had bein apprehended Nevertheless It is of Verity that the said Doctor Gilbert Burnet shaking off all Fear of God Conscience and Sense of Duty Allegeance and Loyalty to Vs his Soveraign and Native Prince upon the Safetie of whose Person and Maintinance of whose Sogeraign
and the Act was so little acceptable to him whom he calls its Author that he spake of it then with Contempt as a Trick of the Court to lay the Nation too soon asleep The Negotiations beyond Sea were too evidently proved to be denied and which is not yet generally known Mr. Coleman when Examined by the Committee of the House of Commons said plain enough to them that the Late King was concerned in them but the Committee would not look into that matter and so Mr. Sacheverill that was their Chair-man did not report it yet the thing was not so secret but that one to whom it was trusted gave the late King an Account of it who said That he had not heard of it any other way and was so fully convinced that the Nation had cause given them to be jealous that he himself set forward the Act and the rather because he saw that the E. of S. did not much like it The Parliament as long as it was known that the Religion was safe in the King 's Negative had not taken any great care of its own Constitution but it seemed the best Expedient that could be found for laying the Jealousies of His late Majesty and the apprehensions of the Successor to take so much care of the two Houses that so the Dangers with which men were then allarm'd might seem the less formidable upon so effectual a security and thus all the stir that he keeps with Perjury and Imposture ought to make no other impression but to shew the wantonness of his own Temper that meddles so boldly with things of which he knew so little the true Secret For here was a Law passed of which all made great use that opposed the Bill of Exclusion to Demonstrate to the Nation that there could be no danger of Popery even under a Prince of that Religion but as he would turn the matter it amounts to this That that Law might be of good use in that season to lay the Jealousies of the Nation till there were a Prince on the Throne of that Communion and then when the turn is served it must be thrown away to open the only door that is now shut upon the Re-establishment of that Religion This is but one hint among a great many more of the state of Affairs at the time that this Act of the TEST was made to shew that the Evidence given by the Witnesses had no other share in that matter but that it gave a rise to the other Discoveries and a fair Opportunity to those who knew the secret of the late King's Religion and the Negotiation at Dover to provide such an effectual Security as might both save the Crown and secure the Religion and this I am sure some of the Bishops knew who to their Honour were faithful to both The third Reason he gives for Repealing the Act is the Incompetent Authority of those who Enacted it for it was of an Ecclesiastical nature and here he stretches out his Wings to a Top-flight and charges it with nothing less than the Deposing of Christ from his Throne the disowning neglecting and affronting his Commission to his Catholick Church and entrenching upon this sacred Prerogative of his Holy Catholick Church and then that he might have occasion to feed his spleen with railing at the whole Order he makes a ridiculous objection of the Bishops being present in the House of Lords that he might shew his respect to them by telling in a Parenthesis that to their shame they had consented to it But has this Scaramuchio no shame left him Did the Parliament pretend by this Act to make any Decision in those two Points of Transubstantiation and Idolatry Had not the Convocation defined them both for above an Age before In the 28th Article of our Church these words are to be found Transubstantiation or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthrows the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many superstitions and for the Idolatry of the Church of Rome that was also declared very expresly in the same body of Articles since in the Article 35 the Homilies are declared to contain a godly and wholesom Doctrine necessary for those times and upon that it is judged that they should be read in the Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the People And the Second of these which is against the Peril of Idolatry aggravates the Idolatry of that Church in so many particulars and with such severe Expressions that those who at first made those Articles and all those who do now sign them or oblige others to sign 'em must either believe the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry or that the Church of England is the Impudentest Society that ever assumed the Name of a Church if she proposes such Homilies to the People in which this Charge is given so home and yet does not believe it her self A man must be of Bays's pitch to rise up to this degree of Impudence Upon the whole matter then these points have been already determined and were a part of our Doctrine enacted by Law All that the Parliament did was only to take these out of a great many more that by this Test it might appear whether they who came into either House were of that Religion or not and now let our Reasoner try what he can make out of this or how he can justify the Scandal that he so boldly throws upon his Order as if they had as much as in them lay destroyed the very being of a Christian Church and had profanely pawned the Bishop to the Lord and betrayed the Rights of the Church of England as by Law Established in particular as well as of the Church Catholick in general p. 8 9. All this shews to whom he has pawned both the Bishop and the Lord and something else too which is both Conscience and Honour if he has any left When one reflects on two of the Bishops that were of that Venerable Body while this Act passed whose Memory will be blessed in the present and following Ages those two great and good Men that filled the Sees of Chester and Oxford he must conclude that as the World was not worthy of them so certainly their Sees were nor worthy of them since they have been plagued with such Successors that because Bays delights in figures taken from the Roman Empire I must tell him that since Commodus succeeded to Marcus Aurillius I do not find a more incongrous Succession in History With what sensible regret must those who were so often edified with the Gravity the Piety the Generosity and Charity of the late Bishop of Oxford look on when they see such a Harleguin in his room His Fourth Reason is taken from the uncertainty and falsehood of the matters contained in
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 having taken into Our Royal Consideration the many and great Inconveniencies which have hapned to that Our Ancient Kingdom of Scotland of late Years through the different Persuasions in the Christian Religion and the great Heats and Animosities amongst the several Professors thereof to the ruine 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 Factions and sometimes into Sacriledge 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 thought fit to Grant and by Our Sovereign 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 Rendezvouses 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 Grandfather of Glorious Memory without His Consent ☜ and contrary to the Duty of good Subjects by His Regents and other Enemies to their Lawful Sovereign Our Royal Great Grandmother 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 Soveraigns 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 Good and faithful Subjects to Us and Our Royal Predecessors by hazarding and many of them actually losing their Lives and Fortunes in their defence though of another Religion and the Maintenance of their Authority against the Violences and Treasons of the most violent Abettors of these Laws Do therefore with Advice and Consent of Our Privy Council by our Soveraign Authority Prerogative Royal and Absolute Power aforesaid suspend stop and disable all Laws or Acts of Parliament Customs or Constitutions made or executed against any of our Roman-Catholick Subjects in any time past to all Intents and Purposes making void all Prohibitions therein mentioned Pains or Penalties therein ordained to be inflicted so that they shall in all things be as free in all Respects as any of Our Protestant Subjects whatsoever not only to exercise their Religion but to enjoy all Offices Benefices and others which we shall think fit to bestow upon them in all time coming Nevertheless it is Our Will and Pleasure and we do hereby command all Catholicks at their highest pains only to exercise their Religious Worship in Houses or Chappels and that they presume not to Preach in the open Fields or to invade the Protestant Churches by force under the pains aforesaid to be inflicted upon the Offenders respectively nor shall they presume to make Publick Processions in the High-streets of any of Our Royal Burghs under the Pains above-mentioned And whereas the Obedience and Service of Our Good Subjects is due to Us by their Allegiance and Our Soveraignty and that no Law Custom or Constitution Difference in Religion or other Impediment whatsoever can exempt or discharge the Subjects from their Native Obligations and Duty to the Crown or hinder Us from Protecting and Employing them according to their several Capacities and Our Royal Pleasure nor Restrain Us from Conferring Heretable Rights and Priviledges upon them or vacuate or annul these Rights Heretable when they are made or conferred And likewise considering that some Oaths are capable of being wrested by Men of sinistrous Intentions a practice in that Kingdom fatal to Religion as it was to Loyalty Do therefore with Advice and Consent aforesaid cass annull and Discharge all Oaths whatsoever by which any of Our Subjects are incapacitated or disabled from holding Places or Offices in Our said Kingdom or enjoying their Hereditary Rights and Priviledges discharging the same to be taken or given in any time coming without our special Warrant and Consent under the pains due to the Contempt of Our Royal Commands and Authority And to this effect we do by Our Royal Authority aforesaid stop disable and dispense with all Laws enjoyning the said Oaths Tests or any of them particuarly the first Act of the first Session of the first Parliament of King Charles the Second the eleventh Act of the foresaid Session of the foresaid Parliament the sixth Act of the third Parliament of the said King Charles the twenty first and twenty fifth Acts of that Parliament and the thirteenth Act of the first Session of Our late Parliament ☜ in so far allanerly as concerns the taking the Oaths or Tests therein prescribed and all others as well not mentioned as mentioned and that in place of them all Our good Subjects or such of them as We or Our Privy Council shall require so to do shall take and swear the following Oath allanerly
Establishment that our Religion has by Law so it is the main body of the Nation and all the Sects are but small and stragling Parties and if the legal Settlement of the Church is dissolved and that Body is once broken these lesser Bodies will be all at mercy and it is an easie thing to define what the Mercies of the Church of Rome are XIII But tho' it must be confessed that the Nonconformists are still under some Temptations to receive every thing that gives them present ease with a little too much kindness since they lie exposed to many severe Laws of which they have of late felt the weight very heavily and as they are men and some of them as ill-natured men as other People so it is no wonder if upon the first Surprises of the Declaration they are a little delighted to see the Church of England after all its Services and Submissions to the Court so much mortified by it so that taking all together it will not be strange if they commit some Follies upon this occasion Yet on the other hand it passes all imagination to see some of the Church of England especially those whose Natures we know are so particularly sharpned in the point of Persecution chiefly when it is levelled against the Dissenters rejoyce at this Declaration and make Addresses upon it It is hard to think that they have attained to so high a pitch of Christian Charity as to thank those who do now despitefully use them and that as an earnest that within a little while they will persecute them This will be an Original and a Master-piece in Flattery which must needs draw the last degrees of Contempt on such as are capable of so abject and sordid a compliance and that not only from all the true Members of the Church of England but likewise from those of the Church of Rome it self for every man is apt to esteem an Enemy that is brave even in his Misfortunes as much as he despises those whose minds sink with their Condition For what is it that these men would thank the King Is it because he breaks those Laws that are made in their favour and for their Protection and is now striking at the Root of all the legal Settlement that they have for their Religion Or is it because that at the same time that the King professes a Religion that condemns his Supremacy yet he is not contented with the Exercise of it as it is warranted by Law but carries it so far as to erect a Court contrary to the express words of a Law that was so lately made That Court takes care to maintain a due proportion between their Constitution and all their Proceedings that so all may be of a piece and all equally contrary to Law. They have suspended one Bishop only because he would not do that which was not in his power to do for since there is no Extrajudiciary Authority in England a Bishop can no more proceed to a Sentence of Suspension against a Clergy man without a Trial and the hearing of Parties than a Judge can give a Sentence in his Chamber without an Indictment a Trial or a Jury and because one of the Greatest Bodies of England would not break their Oaths and obey a Mandate that plainly contradicted them we see to what a pitch this is like to be carried I will not anticipate upon this illegal Court to tell what Judgments are coming but without carrying our Jealousies too far one may safely conclude that they will never depart so far from their first Institution as to have any regard either to our Religion or our Laws or Liberties in any thing they do If all this were acted by avowed Papists as we are sure it is projected by such there were nothing extraordinary in it but that which carries our Indignation a little too far to be easily governed is to see some pretended Protestants and a few Bishops among those that are the fatal Instruments of pulling down the Church of England and that those Mercenaries sacrifice their Religion and their Church to their Ambition and Interests this has such peculiar Characters of Misfortune upon it that it seems it is not enough if we perish without Pity since we fall by that hand that we have so much supported and fortified but we must become the Scorn of all the World since we have produced such an unnatural Brood that even while they are pretending to be the Sons of the Church of England are cutting their Mother's Throat and not content with Judas's Crime of saying Hail Master and kissing him while they are betraying him into the hands of others these carry their Wickedness further and say Hail Mother and then they themselves Murther her If after all this we were called on to bear this as Christians and to suffer it as Subjects if we were required in Patience to possess our own Souls and to be in Charity with our Enemies and which is more to forgive our False-Brethren who add Treachery to their Hatred The Exhortation were seasonable and indeed a little necessary for human Nature cannot easily take down things of such a hard digestion but to tell us that We must make Addresses and offer Thanks for all this is to insult a little too much upon us in our Sufferings And he that can believe that a dry and cautiously worded Promise of maintaining the Church of England will be religiously observed after all that we have seen and is upon that carried so far out of his Wits as to Address and give Thanks and will believe still such a man has nothing to excuse him from believing Transubstantiation it self for it is plain that he can bring himself to believe even when the thing is contrary to the clearest Evidence that his Senses can give him Si populus hic vult decipi decipiatur POSCRIPT THese Reflections were writ soon after the Declaration came to my Hands but the Matter of them was so tender and the Conveyance of them to the Press was so uneasie that they appear now too late to have one Effect that was designed by them which was the diverting Men from making Addresses upon it yet if what is here proposed makes Men become so far wise as to be ashamed of what they have done and is a means to keep them from carrying their Courtship further than good Words this Paper will not come too late AN ANSWER TO Mr. HENRY PAYNE's LETTER Concerning His MAJESTY's DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE Writ to the Author of The LETTER to a DISSENTER Mr. PAYNE I Cannot hold asking you how much Money you had from the Writer of the Paper which you pretend to Answer For as you have the Character of a Man that deals with both Hands so this is writ in such a manner as to make one think you were hired to it by the Adverse Party But it has been indeed so ordinary to your Friends to write in this manner of late