which of the two he is most indebted and render him matchless in the present and rarely exceeded by any in former Ages He is not only of innate Courage fearless and intrepid as a Lion but a Commander of great Experience both at Land and Sea preferring the last more for his Countries safety and honour than his own ease or pleasure In all things temperate and sober in his Actions between Man and Man nicely just in his Word and Promises strictly faithful and religiously punctual sincere in his Friendships and Professions a kind Brother and a dutiful Subject an obliging Husband and an excellent Master a great lover of Business sedulous and diligent and indefatigable in Labours affable and easy of access patient in hearing and dispatching the meanest of quick Apprehension and sound Judgement and tho in this traduc'd by Envy Malice and Design yet I defy the worst of his Enemies to instance wherein he ever spake impertinently on any Subject He is what the French call un bonest homme too comprehensive to be English'd by one Word signifying A Person composed of all the good Qualities that make Men truly valuable He was born to retrieve the sinking Glory of the English Nation a Truth once readily acknowledged by all and would be so at this day if the contrary were not imposed by the cunning of the Ambitious under the disguise and pretence of Zeal for Religion in which whatever his private Opinions are he desires not a liberty he would not grant He is not of a narrow persecuting Spirit so much in love with his own as to despise the Opinions of all others He would have every Man enjoy the right of Nature Liberty of Conscience without disturbance of the publick peace In a Word he is brave and generous liberal but not profuse resolute but not stubborn great but not proud humble but not abject in all his Actions he shews himself a Gentleman but in none forgets that he is a Prince He is not an Angel but a Man and therefore not free from some Passions and human Fraitlties but in the World there cannot be found a Prince with fewer He needs not boast the Statues of his Ancestors he has a stock of fame and vertue of his own large enough to make him great He is doubly related to the Title of his Grand Father Henry the 4th by Birth and by his Sufferings Without flattery he may be accounted the most illustrious of modern Hero's and very little if at all out-done by Caesar or by Alexander by Hannibal or by Scipio The English Scots and Irish have been Witnesses of this Truth to their Honour and Renown The French the Spaniards and Flemmings and the Dutch the German Sweed and Dane have seen and felt his Actions to their cost to thir Envy And what has this great Min done to have felt his Vertues and his Lawrels wither'd and forgot Is it for exposing his person like a common Sea man for the Glory of the English Nation or is the change of the peoples Affections owing to the alteration of his Opinions about the Modes and Circumstances of Religion for in reality 't is no more Oh! no it proceeds from the subtilty of some Fellow-Subjects who under pretence of Love for the publick and Zeal for Religion design for themselves a Tyranny and therefore endeavour by all the arts of Malice to remove out of the way of their Ambition this great Person the only Obstacle imposing upon the World that all themselves aim at are intended by the D. when nothing is further from his thoughts than a purpose of governing England otherwise than by the establish'd Laws A Lye may for a while sully and eclipse the brightest Innocence but at length it must break through those Clouds with a greater increase of Lustre and of Glory 'T is good Machiavilian policy calumniare fortiter aliquid adherebit Throw Dirt enough some of it will stick There was a time when only Vice was safe and honourable and nothing fatal but to be brave and vertuous and the best Citizens were therefore proscribed and why should it be wondred that in England as well as in Rome or Athens no Aristides should be banished for being too good Now considering that Laws may bind a King which to deny is folly and madness and that there are already enough more may be added to prevent a Popish Successors mischieving Protestant Subjects if there were no Laws to this purpose yet prudence and right reason would continue to us the enjoyment of Liberty Property and Religion let never so bigotted a Papist ascend the Throne much less is any alteration to be apprehended from the Duke who besides all those Obligations does further secure us by his innate Goodness and temper 't is no wonder his Majesty should so often forbid the intermedling with Succession since he could not but conclude from so unreasonable a procedure something else might be designed besides the security of the protestant Religion under the sairest Tufts of Grass we know Snakes are likeliest to be hid For first there was no cause to conclude the D. should certainly out-live his Royal Brother or if he did that he would or could alter the Government nor secondly that he should always continue of his present Opinion in Religion since he that once changed might do so again upon the alteration of his temper never at a stand or the same in any person or upon his fuller consideration of the Controversie But if in this he should remain unalterable and chance to out-live him his consenting to such an Act would never prevent great Effusion of Bloud civil War and unaccountable Miseries and Calamities for let Men Fancie what they please the D. would still have no small party in England all or most of Scotland and Ireland would be entirely for him he is accounted by both a Prince of their Bloud and by their Laws who no more than those of England allow their Kings mortal to be their Soveraign upon the Death of his predecessor without the Formalities of Proclamation or Coronation and who knows not that the united force of these two Kingdoms with the power within the third would counter ballance all the rest of the Might of England Besides Scotland and Ireland being distinct Kingdoms and governed by Laws of their own Parliaments no Act made by that of England can be binding in any instance much less in excluding their Sovereign Now over and above those advantages all the popish Princes of Europe and they if united are too strong for the Protestant would be on his side if Religion have that power some Men apprehend But if it have not yet France would account it their interest to reinstate the D. in his possessions for then they two joining to which nothing else could invite the King of England all rubs in the way of the Universal Monarchy would be certainly removed And what would the Consequence of this be but a
into Anarchy and confusion it wheel'd about again to it's first form and yet even there the unsteady course of humane affairs permits it no longer to continue then till the unequal courage and vertues of the Successors make way for the incroachments of the Ambitious or the folly and madness of the giddy multitude to give it fresh rounds and turns So that if a man would examine things strictly he would find more reason to give to every of the Governments of the World rather the name of a fluctuating Oligarchy than that by which they are commonly called for upon exact scrutiny it would perhaps be found that even the most absolute Monarchs admit some He or She Privadoes or Copartners into the managment of their Scepters In the beginning the burden of a Crown was not so heavy nor the cares so many as to need Advisers or Supporters then Integrity was so great in Prince and People that his will was their undisputed law the emergent Dictates of his pleasure no written constitutions silenc'd all their controversies Populus nullis legibus tenebatur arbitria Principum pro legibus erant But after upon great increase and spreading of mankind the Princes found it necessary as Jethro Moses Father in law had done in the case of the Jews to distribute some part of their power but with dependence upon themselves among the Elders chief and wisest of their people and to consult with them at their pleasure in all the weighty Affairs of state Hence came the Egyptians Magi not Conjurers as is commonly received but Astronomers and Counsellors of State the best Judges of meum and tuum in a Country where those boundaries were often interrupted by the overflowings of Nilus to this likewise are owing the Eastern Monarchs Sophies Colledges of wise and disinteressed Philosophers and studying and employ'd in the good of their Countreys as well those of China Indostan or the great Mogul the Tartars and the Persiâ—ns as of others After whose Examâ—…s the Turks instituted their Divans practiced by the Emperours of Fez and Morocco and by all the rest of Africa The same reasons gave the Ethiopian Priests and the Druids of the Gauls and Brittians originally the same people their power and to the Jews their Sanhedrim to the Germans their Dyets and to the Romans their Senate to the Pope as a temporal Prince his Colledge of Cardinals to the Saxons our immediate Ancestors not to instance in more their Wittena Gemot or great Council since the Norman conquest alter'd in Name and other circumstances though not in the foundation to that of our present Parliaments In all which 't is very observable that the Priests the Flamens and Archflamens for such there were among the most barbarous who had their glimmerings of a future life always held the first form and were in the management even of State Affairs of greatest credit But to pass by the rest and come to our own in which we are most immediatly concern'd we shall find that upon the Roman Empires going to wrack and their Colonies with many of the Natives being hence drained to support it's tottering State there arose a contention between the Bâ—…tiains and the Picts for the dominion of this Island they were both originally the same people but the Picts contemning the vassalage and the Customs of the Romans to which the other had submitted fled into the extremest parts called Scotland from the Irish Inhabitants who were anciently known by no other Name and now returning with assistance were too hard for the Brittains Hereupon they were forced to intreat the help of the Saxons a Warlike people of Germany The motion being communicated by Hengist to whom it was first made they embraced it conditionally they might have the continuance of their own Laws and Custom and the conquer'd Country equall ydivided among the Adventurers for they undertook not the voyage so much with design of assistance to others as of advantage to themselves Hengist surmising this to the Leaders they soon assembled and drew together 9000 men besides Wowen and Children On the confines of the River Elbe as their Neighbours the Franks had done before on the Banks of Sala and as these did here so did they thre enact by mutual agreement the performance of those Artcles appointing that Hengist and his line should be their Leaders and their Kings reserving to themselves the power of choosing a new Monarch only upon the failure of his issue Accordingly they set sail and soon arriving in England had first the Isle of Thanet and after Kent â—…signed for their Province after many bickerings fresh supplies and inundations of their own People they at last not only drive out the Picts and Scots but even the Brittains forcing â—hem into the remote part of Wales and Cornwall the certain consequence of unnatural civil Wars and dissentions where the contending Parties ever become loosers making way for some stranger or third Person to snatch a way the prize Policy would have taught the Brittains that Leagues with an overpowerful State always prove destructive to the weaker and that they could not reasonably have expected from forreign assistance any other fate than that of the Lamb in the fable who calling for the Lyons aid against the Woâ—… had only the pleasure of seeing him first chased away and himself immediately after devoured or then that of the Mouse and the Frog who while striving with each other for the mastery gave the Kite an opportunity of sweeping away both Not to instance more remotely it was this that soon after upon the Saxon divisions encouraged the invasion of the Danes and gave England to the Normans and Ireland to the English And not long since while King and Parliament were disputing for the Supremacy Liberty and Prerogative made the way for others to destroy both and instead of an excellent well temper'd Government to set up an intolerable and most arbitary Tyranny I hope the sense of the unexpressible calamities under which the Nation then groan'd will teach us to avoid such miseries for the future another civil War being like without a miracle to enslave us to a Tyrant of another Nation which like the Devils entring in a second time wou'd make our latter condition seven fold worse than the former from which in all appearance nothing but Providence and a Spirit of moderation and concord can defend our Country The Saxons having at length gain'd the Victory pursued their resolutions even during the Heptarchy as far as the frequent and almost continued Wars would permit after the stronger had swallowed up the rest they centured into a single Monarchie and in the person of Alfred Collected into one body the substance of their Laws attempted before in part by K. Ina and yet to be met with in Lambert The execution of these by the after incursions of the Danes being interrupted they were at last methodiz'd by the Confessor by whose death the Normans possessed the Crown
conduct of their own Reason for every mans Reason is Reason to himself but the Reason of the Communitie is the Reason of State not the Reason of the man And therefore the Supreme is always entrusted with this Reason and in the Exercise of it ought to be secured by a transcendent Power to give Check to the pretentions of the Enemies of Society This must be done two ways I. By assuring a strength competent against any Attempts of retrieving their original Right of Nature 2. By an equal Administration of Justice and good Government for Res nolunt male administrari The end of Government is That men may live together unanimously in the equal use of Civil Laws The end of Religion is to be happy in the next World and therefore ought not to interfere with Civil Laws or those by which the good this Life is regulated But because the Motives to Obedience to those Laws do very much depend upon the Rewards and Expectations of a Future State they are therefore necessarily conjoyned so that whatever Religion is established by Law becomes Law and ought not in prudence to be chang'd and disturb'd Whoever hath a private Religion or Opinion seing it is not more in our power to have mentem sanam than corpus sanum yet if the man be not mad or injurious he may and ought to enjoy it freely without punishment provided he do not violate the peace of the City If he do 't is nor Sincerity but Hypocrisie and seeing there may be bona mens in malo articulo all liberty ought to be afforded that can reasonably modestly be claimed by any of those who pretend a tender Conscience Now if you consider throwly these Positions you will find not onely the Reasons of entring into Society but the Causes of its Continuance and Decay fully asserted The Rules of Government are as demonstrable as any Mathematical Problems and where the Supreme is wise there can be no Rebellion or not dangerous and wherever there is the Government is infirm and foolish In order then to your Question you must observe That Power is an equivocal Word and is sometime taken for the Right and Force of Nature sometimes for the Right and Force of Laws In the first sense 't is called vis or potestas in the latter jus or dominium The first sort of Power men in society have renounced and cannot use without returning to the State of War where every man has as equal Right or Power over another as another has over him The second sort of Power is that which the Laws of the Society warrant and by which 't is said Illud tantum possumus quod de jure possumus Now if we consider the Power of Parliaments bounded by Laws in the letter sense 't is plain they can have none to bar the Duke from Succession because the Laws Common and Statute leave them no such Power and in Nature and Reason after entring into Society they can exercise no more than is left them by the Agreements of the Society In the first sense 't is true they have power to do what they please as two is stronger then one But then it must be remembred that the using that Power loosens the bond of the Commonwealth the whole having no more Right over Peter and Paul while they break not the Laws of the Country than Peter and Paul had over all the rest If it were not so there would be no Right nor Wrong in the World neither subsequent nor antecedent to Humane Constitutions Virtue and Viec would be but empty Names Scar-crows for the Fools and the Weak For every thing would be lawful that a man had force or strength enough to justifie A Principle destructive of Government and Society of Peace and Happinesse Everle Thief and Murderer Robber and Traytor if successful being honest persons guilty of no Mischiefs Thus indeed Vice becomes Virtue Prosperum scelus virtus vocatur This therefore not being to be allowed among men much lesse Christians the Parliament cannot justifie a Power of putting by the next Heir by the Constitutions of the Kingdom nor by those of nature which allows not the major part to have recourse to natural Force or Liberty without leaving all the rest of the Members to their choice of entring either into none or a new Form or continuing under the old And those that assert the Parliament may do what they please know not what they say if they deny others the same freedom and if they do 't is bidding all men Draw try who has the strongest Arm and the longest Sword making Might or Power the onely Rule of Justice and Measure of Humane Actions But this so dangerous mistake is grounded upon not considering that what was lawful before I became a Member of the Society ceases to be so after When a Bargain is once concluded between one man and a thousand the thousand cannot without injustice break the Agreement nor without folly expect the single man will not take the first opportunity to be reveng'd and obliege them to their first Contract And whether he prove successful or no it will occasion such Mischiefs Calamities that they will too late repent their Follies and find no other comfort than the sad one which this scrap of Latin affords Supplicium stultorum stultitia But further if you rightly examine things you will find that the Lords onely act for themselves and that the Commons of England do no otherwise represent the People than as Attorneys who therefore are presum'd limited to the first Constitutions and Fundamentals that is the Common Law or Magna Charta whose Bounds if they exceed they forfeit the Patent or Commission by which they act This is agreeable to Reason and the practice of Former Ages when the Commons being ask'd their Consents to new Matters went home and consulted their Principles and according to their directions gave in their Answers as you may find at large in the Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores and as in the present as well as ancient usage in the Dyets of Germany and States of Holland And thus it was in the Senate of Rome who though they had the Supreme power as a Parliament in England yet in the making of any new Law there was a Rogatio Legis an exposing of it in Tables to the view of all for a certain limited time wherein if the meanest shewed Arguments why it should it was wholly laid aside And so dangerous a thing have Innovations in this sort been accounted by the Ancients that among the Locrenses and other Commonwealths of Greece new Laws were propounded with Ropes about the proposers Necks submitting themselves to the loss of their Lives if the proposition were not approved by every single person And in Poland no King can be elected without the consent of every individual Elector And indeed in so material an Instance as the designation of a Supreme Governour upon whom depends thâ— Fates of
Thousands no majority Parties or Factions ought to prevail The same care have our Ancestors taken in the case of Jurors concluding it necessary for despoiling a man of his Life or Fortune to have the matter of Fact so plain and conspicuous that it should not be possible for any to doubt or long dispute it And upon this reasonable Supposition it is that they are not allowed either meat or drink or that eleven agreeing while One dissents should make a Verdict And can the publick Concern of the Nation of putting by the next of Blood from his Right to the Crown be of less moment Consider this in time lest hereafter by a dear bought repentance you confesse your fatal Errour Besides the Commons do not represent one sixth of the Nation their Electors being onely such freeholders as are worth 40 s. a year or upwards together with the Freemen of Incorporated places these are far short of the Body of the people and for them to fetter the rest who have none or less Estates is to make themselves Lords and Tyrants and to the others not Servants but Slaves and Villains a power unreasonable and therefore not to be allowed by the Clergy who as such have no hand in the Election and are a considerable part of the People nor by the Husband men and Labourers and many others who without Freedom inhabite Corporations who bearing their proportion of the publick charge are equally intituled to the protection of the Laws Free-born-Subjects and therefore unask'd cannot be presumed to consent to any alteration of Government either in the Form or Person by making an Hereditary Monarchy Elective Such a Power once acknowledged may after at pleasure change it into Aristocracy or Democracy Nor in my opinion is it a mean Argument against the Commons being the Representation of the whole People That of 512. Forty should be enough to oblige the Consent of all the others That London should send but four when an old Burrough with a Shepherd and a Dog does half as many and That Cornwal which in the Number of Shires is but the two and fiftieth part makes above an eleventh and yet London the sixth part of the Kingdom but the 128. part of the whole Representative Whoever weighs this Inequality must find out a new signification of Words if he calls the Parliament the Representative of all the Commons of England Let it be remembred how easie it is to make a second Rump by Cunning and Address Threats and Tumults to make the House so thin that forty agreeing shall be still the major Party and then see how far the Nation must conclude themselves bound by their Actings One may well conclude all that Voted against the Act and all or most that were absent will fight for his Title against whom it was made as well as all or most of those that hold not themselves represented and what can be the issue of this but a renewal of the Yorkist and Lancastrian Quarrel in which was spilt the blood of 20000 besides that of several Kings and Princes and Nobles without number And yet it appears in Story That the Right Heir was never kept out beyond the second Descent nor that ever any Usurper Though Armed with Power claimed the Crown but by pretending to be of the Right Line nor did the Parliament ever consent out when aw'd by Fear and a vast Army As for the Act 13. Eliz. the best Lawyers will tell you 't is now out of doors made in defence of a possessor without Title against the rightful Heir at that time excluded for Reasons as obvious as tedious here to be mentioned but after joyfully received and solemniz'd in Parliament 1 Jac. and Obedience promised to him and his Heirs for ever so that now in the opinions of many that Statute ought no more to be urged than that which made Oliver Protector and excluded his present Majesty and his Line To allow the Parliament so Despotick a Power is to submit at present and make our selves obnoxious to unaccountable miseries hereafter What shall hinder a Parliament who at pleasure makes every thing lawful or unlawful as they are aw'd by a strong hand or left at libertie by a weak to do any thing though never so extravagant to sell the Kingdom to the French or any rich enough to make the purchase I confesse I think it a hard proposition and that which makes the Government of a single man though Tyrannical more tolerable than this of so many That the major part of 700. as they may be ordered of less than 100. who as Commons have no inderivative Power are only called to advise and deliberate with the Prince as Counsellors should make that lawful that could not be done so without their Consents and me a Rebel for resisting though I have the greatest part of the Nation on my side and my Actions warranted by all those that are called Fundamental and held sacred and inviolable by Englishmen as our Bibles are by all Protestants He that remembers England has been given by a King to the Pope and offer'd to the Turk and that a bold resolute Prince has humbled Parliaments as much as ever a weak and gentle has exalted them ought not to think it impossible but that the Parliament may one time or other be wrought to sell or inslave the Peoples Libertie For a worthy Author has it Nothing but a Parliament can destroy a Parliament and we know there have been that deserved no other Titles than of Indoctum Insanum Parliamentum I should not wonder that men resolved rather to quit their Country than yield it to an Arbitrary power or any pretence whatsoever with the bold Romans Farewell applied to this Kingdom Vale venalis civitas mox peritura si emptorem inveneris I need not put you in mind of Pensioners or tell you a mercenary parliament is an acry Notion What has been may be again I reverence a well-constituted Parliament as much as any man and look upon it as an excellent preservative of Justice and Liberty yet I am not so fond of the Name as to make it an Idol 't is not at all improbable but that it may be so managed as to become the Instrument of the peoples Slavery and the Princes Tyranny and therefore I hold it no more lawful to ascribe Omnipotencie or Infallibilitie in all Determinations to a Parliament than to a Pope or Council the one is not more circumscribed and bound up by Scripture and Apostolick Traditions than is the other by the Fundamental Laws of the Land such there are in every Country as Magna Charta is in this by Nature and by Reason All which tell us That no single man in Community is to be put by his Right or Property by any subsequent Law against his own Consent and that if he be he is at liberty to regain it any how by force or by violence without the least imputation of Wrong
Prophets This then would be folly and to pursue it would be madness because it would be to oppose his single strength for in this case he would stand alone to the united force of Lords and Commons and the whole Body of the People And who knows not that in this Sense Dominium fundatur in voluntatibus hominum For without an Army and a very great one he could not compasse his impertinent project this Army he could not raise without a vast Treasure this Treasure he cannot have but from his own people in Parliament who will not give it to their prejudice For out of Parliament he cannot have enough even for his ordinary Expence much lesse for the defence of the Kingdom against forraign Attempts because upon the death of the present the following Successor will find so much fallen off that there will not be left one third of the present insufficient Revenue for all necessary Uses of the Crown An Argument that alone may convince the sober and unbyass'd that be he of what perswasion soever he must of necessity comply with his Parliament who can't be suppos'd neglectful of the great Concern of Religion And to think that the Papists at home or abroad will give it is Folly or Inconsideration Those at home could not by the sale of all their Fortunes make the Fond that can never be supposed by men in their wits nor indeed can I see why they should contribute at all since their gain by offices of which they are now incapable would be but advantagious to some and why shall the whole be at a losse for the profit of a few that uncertain Besides that party is now more a Gainer by freedom from offices of Charge and Trouble than they could then be by the partial Advantage of Employments The Papists abroad will less find their Accompt for Princes of all Religions and the only present rich and powerful one of That expends his Money for Earthly Glory leaving as he ought the Heavenly to the Spiritual Princes These all are ever were and will be such Lovers of Wealth Pomp and Grandour as not to bestow it in the purchase of Heaven which they know is not to be bought for Silver or for Gold The Pope regaining Peter-pence could not invite him if he had the Sum for if you compute that you will find it a Trifle 6666 reckoning it after the way of the present Chimney-money set for 160 odd thousand pounds at two shillings a Chimney whereas that was only a peny a House not a peny a Chimney as in this Caluclation is allow'd when Houses are much more than in those days And for the First-fruits and Tenths they are no lesse inconsiderable For Indulgences Appeals and the consequent Charges they are trivial and accidental and go not into the Pop's but into particular Officers pockets Besides no one Pope can hope to see such a Design effected and the Nephews and Nieces will prevent their converting their Riches to the advantage of the Successors And as for the Church or Abby-Lands they could not on this accompt be of any moment since if restor'd to the Church which would be uncertain as the effect of War they would fall into the hands of Clergy-men who have nothing before hand to contribute Now considering that the late rais'd Army under 30000 men put the King to the charge of more than a Million how many Millions think you must be requisite for a much greater Army necessary for so great a Design when the Opposition will be strong and lasting the very Lifted Millitia being above 160000 And supposing that all the Papists in the three Kingdoms would become Voluntiers in this extravagant Expedition the whole would be still as disproportionat and as unliklely to prevail as an Army of Pigmies with Spears of Bulrushes mounted on Crans against an Army of Gyants riding on Elephants and every way well appointed for War In the year 1672. and they cannot since be much encreas'd the Papists upon a Survey of them Conformists and Nonconformists severally were found throughout England to be under 27000. Men Women and Children In Scotland the disproportion is greater on the protestant side in Ireland on the Papists Yet by a Medium of all three there would be 203. Protestants to one Papist What then can be dreaded from them though assisted with an Army of profligat Hirelings for none else would fight to destroy Religion and enslave their Country and a Prince of their own Perswasion whose Example could win but on the mean and base the flattering and mercenary Courtiers to hold with him as with other Kings their Necks awry So inconsiderable a Number could not shock the main Body of the People sighting not as the others for Opinion or for Pay but further for Liberty Property Religion and Estate of which being possest though the others were equal in Numbers theirs would be the advantage according to that Rule Milior est conditio possidentis And indeed considering the Athelstical bent and humour of the Nation whose Religion is generally in their Mouths only and not in their Hearts I am apt to conclude the great Heat and Contention is founded upon the apprehension of the loss of Church and Abby-Lands not of protestantism and the rather because it is urged Nullum tempus occurrit Ecolesiae The Maxim is Regi and yet we find though most of the Lordships of England belonged formerly to the King they are now possest by others without danger of reassumption and yet even that has been practised in former Kings Reigns and advised by parliaments who al ways reputed them unalienable And yet why we should now be more sollicitous for fear of the Church than of the King I cannot understand since either prescription or their own Consent lies against both and that even in the infancy of the protestant Religion upon the return of Popery by parliament the Pope did in Q. Mary's Reign by his Legat Cardinal Poole confirm to the Laity the Temporal possessions of the Clergy And can any one imagine that how when a contrary Religion is of so long standing and the professors as far exceeding the Papists in number as they did then the Protestants a parliament would be kinder Earthly Interest will ever weigh more than Heavenly the World being now so much enlightned with Knowledge and Letters beyond its former Experience when not only Salvation but Wisdom hung upon the Lips of the priests it be will be impossible for men to be perswaded even upon their Death-beds to bestow all for the gaining of Heaven The Statute of Mortmain was made in the height of Popery and none but Fools can suffer themselves to be imposed upon that a Statute of Restitution could be possible in the Meridian of a contrary Religion This is well known to the leading and considering men who having Designs upon great Offices and preferments in the State make the Care of the Church a pretence only to their
Ambition 'T is notoriously evident That no men were more violent for the general Indulgence nay for Popery in 167â— not to mention their before breaking the Triple League and entring into an Alliance with France than those who now are accounted the only Lovers of an English Interest and the Protestant Religion A Restitution of the Great Seal or a Treasurers White Staff a Diamond-hilted Sword or being a Publick Minister might perswade the same Persons to act again as arbitrariously as before set up France and run down Holland with a delenda est Carthago Good God! how strange it is that men who changed with every Wind as that of their own Private not their Countries Interest blew or some younger Spirits influenced by their Precepts Examples in hopes to make new or retrive crack'd Fortunes should ride and hurry the Nation to so much Heat and Passion as endangers our utter ruine and destruction either from Intestine Divisions or Forreign Invasions Consider this in time before you are bemir'd and bewitch'd by any Will o' th' Wisp who now leads you astray and will certainly leave you in the lurch when he has gain'd the Point he drives at Judge of future by former Actions and remember if we must have any That the old is better than any new Master Oh but say some If we have a Popish Successor he will be the worst of Tyrants being oblig'd says the Author of the Few Words among many to extirpate his Protestant Subjects under the pain of Excommunication Damnation that by vertue of the Council of Lateran An Assertion very groundless whether you consider at large the Princes Interest with which such a Practice is incompatible his being a King depending upon his Subjects and a powerful one upon their Multitude Strength and Riches or if you consider the Influence Christianity it self has upon the Civil Magistrate or the particular Obligations of this pretended Decree Concerning which you are to know that this Council is not esteem'd General nor the Decrees of this wholly rejected by Canus and Bellarmine nor of any Council esteem'd infallible or obligatory in point of Discipline where they are not receiv'd and corroborated by the Temporal Prince who has the power of rejecting all or what part he thinks fit of such Decrees as appears not only in this but in that of Trent which is not universally received either in France or Germany Besides these few that own this Council say it was never design'd against Sovereign Independent Princes nor was it ever practised out of Italy So that why it should be dreaded in England cannot be found reasonable since at this day in France Germany and other Countries where the main Body of the People is Popish Protestants are permitted their Freedoms and their Fortunes A sufficient Argument that Popish Princes fear no such Sentence from Pope or Council In some places of Germany the people are governed successively by Popish Protestant Princes Lutherans by Calvinists further asunder than Church of England and Papist without inconvenience or disturbance taking their turns morning and afternoon in the publick Churches and notwithstanding the differences in Speculative matters nor possible to be avoided live together as they ought in the Union of Charity the only bond of perfection and Badge of true Christianity So that Papists may be good Kings and good Subjects as they are de facto and have been and therefore may be again And to shew how little particular Opinions can alter the Duties of Allegiance and Subjection let it be remembred That in the King of France his Descent upon Holland and in the time of his whole War with that State he could never get a Popish Spy But here I am not ignorant the Persecutions of Queen Mary will be urged though impertinently for besides that the odds was then on the Papists side yet in her Six years Reign as Speed and Baker tell us there were but 277 put to death and of these above 200 profligate Persons all dying by the Law then and several Ages before in being De Haretico comburendo by which several suffer'd in Queen Elizabeth's and King Jame's days for Arianism since abrogated So that as the case now stands in England none can suffer as Hereticks till some new Law be first made and that you know must be by Force or Parliament The first is shewn impossible and the latter improbable Yet if such an Act passd it must be esteem'd consonant to the desires of the whole Nation So that the Martyrs of Queen Mary's days can no more be accounted such than those who have suffer'd since the Popish Plot both being punish'd justly according to the Laws in being These last are reckoned 170 in the space of eighteen Mouths of which 147 starved and died in Prison and 23. executed to every of whom Pardon and Reward was offer'd would they but confess themselves guilty and make a Discovery besides five since condemned and many more fled starving and begging in other Countries And here I confess my amazement and wonder that so many Lay-men and Clergy-men Learned and Illiterate should all continue obstinate in the denial of this damnable and hellish Popish Plot when the Conspirators own'd that cruel one of the Gunpowder Treason Nor can the Objection be less trivial of the hazard to the Kings Sacred Life while a Papist is to succeed since a Clement or a Raviliac is not more easily found among them than a Poltrot or an Andelot among the Hugonots or Presbyterians But it is no greater disparagement to have single Instances of Wickedness in a Soceity than to the Apostles that there was a Judas in the number 'T is much more easie for Papists to give than to receive upon this account a Rowland for an Oliver They can not only return the number of Assassins but in stead of a few private ones shew them many publick Executioners of Kings and Princes and in stead of particular Asserters of the King-killing and Deposing Doctrines as Mariana and La Forest who yet do it but Problematically and are with their Books censured and condemned by the Eight Universities of France and the General of the Jesuits Order and the whole Body of the Catholicks and expresly forbidden by the universally receiv'd Council of Constance Sess 5. I wish there could not be found whole Shoals of the Reformed that avow those Antichristian Principles not only abroad but in England and Scotland Baxter yet alive has never recanted the Tenets of his Common-wealth not his owning in his Saints Rest his not finding upon the strictest examination to have done amiss in fomenting the late Rebellion I need not menti Outlandish Names of Calvin Beza Paraeus c. nor those of Scotland Knox Bu chann c. a Page would not contain all Miltons Englist Tutors and Scolars in this particular whose Religion is Treason and Rebellion and whose Devotion is all Cheat and Hypocrisie and who are ineed so much the
to subvert the Government and the Religion of the Nation I perfectly agree with the Writer of The growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government But I wish the Gentleman had nam'd as he easily might the Conspirators If you will believe against all Truth and Reason the before mentioned Answerer to the Declaration they are center'd in his R. H. and He alone has been the Author of the Ministers miscarriages or the Chances of ill Fortune that have hapned since the Kings Restauration One might have though Popery alone had been Crime enough to render him odious without loading him with the Burden of others Must they make him not onely presumptive Heir but presumptive Criminal But I confesse he that so much defames and so irreverently treats the King may with lesse hazard belie his Brother The end is visible That what Justice cannot popular Fury and the Rabble should take away the Beeing of that much injur'd Prince Hence it is he is said to have been the Author of the Fire of London His never to be forgotten pains and Diligence to suppress those Flames are ill requited He was then known to be a zealous Protestant and could he joyn with the Papists who are now call'd the Authors in a mean so destructive of Religion And if that were the Design what hinders its being effected If the Papists must be acquitted surely the Duke ought in that the Phanatick Plotters executed in April before confess'd at Tyburn they had so contriv'd that fatal Scene that it could not miscarry And indeed the Event verified their Prediction to aday as to the Fire though not to the rest of their intended Tragedie When Nero set Rome on fire he commanded Christianos ad Leones an ill President for Christian Commonwealths No man can make himself innocent by throwing his Crimes upon others But thus it fares with his R. H. as well in this as in many more Instances He is said to be the Author of the Popish Plots though not only Oates and Bedloe the last confirming it at his Death have acquitted him but likewise my Lord Danby tells you in his Printed Case The King was so far from believing it that it had never been brought upon the Stage but for the D's Importunity This alone if there were not many more is a sufficient Argument of his Innocence and abhorrence of the Fact and yet now forsooth he must have revealed it after the King had given him the intimation that the Conspirators might convey away their Papers If so I pray why were Colman's or any others found But it will appear on examination that Beddingfield no sooner receiv'd the Packet of which how Doctor Tongue could inform the Earl of Danby then in Oxfordshire 27 mils beyond Windsor so as to be with the King on that account within few hours after is a Riddle than he brought it to the Duke telling him there was mischief design'd to his R. H. in particular or to himself or the Papists in general for that the inclosed Letters were forged and one of them from Dr. Fogorthy to whose Person as well as Name he was till then a perfect Stranger This Packet the D. gave to the R. that very day about the last of August who looking on one of the Letters said he had â—…en the hand before Some eight days after Sir Edmundbury Godfrey sent by Coleman the whole Discovery with which the second time the D. acquainted his Majesty who yet spoke not to the D. of the matter The rest of that Libel is as false as these two Particulars which therefore for brevity I passe over no man in his Wits being able to think it needs any other Confutation than the Fire But before I conclude give me leave to tell you That the D. has not exposed his Person on all occasions for the honour of the English Nation but whereever he appeared carried Victory along with him which in his absence was not found In the first war he beat the Dutch in the second he got the better but in both the change of Admirals alter'd our Success And whatever false steps our Ministers have made whose Bastards are not to be laid at his doors he is no otherwise accountable for them then you or I who had no power to resist Every one knows who have been the publick and lose Managers of Affairs and these can witness the D. could never be reckon'd in their number He had no hand in dividing the Fleet in the first War nor in halling it up at Chatham before a Peace concluded He was not privy to the Advice of breaking the Triple League nor making an Alliance with France which he no sooner heard than he oppos'd foretelling with Cassandra's Fate the Issue He influenc'd not a War with Holland nor setting upon their Smyrna-Fleet before a Breach declared Delenda est Carthago was not his Sentence nor his Act the Shutting up the Exchequer nor was he the Author of Injunctions against the Bankers nor of usurping the Commons Right of filling their own Vacancies nor consequently of the other Part or Link of this Chain and Contrivance the Project of Indulgence though to give him his due he was for pursuing steddily Resolutions when once taken the contrary would be a lessning our power and a making us ridiculous at home and abroad Afterwards when these Measures were broken and new ones embraced he was for pursuing the Interest of England in defence of the Spanish Netherlands and did as verily believe and was as much impos'd upon as the most credulous in England that a War against France was then really purposed when desired by both Houses in 1678 7. His preparations to hazard his Person in that Expedition are notorious Evidences of this Truth Yet such is his misfortune that after all his Endeavours for the good of his Country he is reputed a Lover of the French Interest though none be more hated by that Crown an undenied proof of the maliâ—… of the Imputation whose unwearied diligence has been formerly employ'd and may now be well suspected to foment and keep up divisions between the King and his Subjects the only way to prevent our opposing his long designed Dominion An Observation that alone ought to invite us to an Union and a mutual Confidence and to study in the Spirit of Moderation the healing of our Breaches remembring That no Reason of State can be useful to the Publick or justifie any Actions contrary to the Laws both of God and Nations That it is a shame and a reproach upon us abroad and an Inconvenience at home to have a Plot kept so long on foot wherein all who should be found guilty upon unquestionable Evidence might have been made long since Exemplary A speedy and impartial proceeding in this Case without heat or passion or consideration of Parties or of Interest will remove all our Jealousies and Fears settle us upon the immovable Rocks of Truth and Honour and acquit and vindicate to the World That an English Parliament is not influenc'd by men whose Ambition leads them to study their own private more than the Publick Good That they serve their King and Country for Glory and for Conscience not for Gain or Preferment That they design nothing but the preservation of their Rights Libertis and Religion by the Methods of peace and prudence which without doubt may be for ever secured by the Laws already in force or other new Additions notwithstanding a Popish Soveraign The Kings of England have bound and may again limite their Power with their own Consent in Parliament But if this Truth be denied because of that Maxim in our Laws The King can do no wrong it cannot That their Ministers and Officers who must be and are accountable for all and punishable for Illegal Actions may be so confin'd as may make our Fears unreasonable of any Encroachments or Innovations let never so many Popish Princes much lesse any one succeed Whoever suggests the contrary is imposed upon by Ignorance Interest or the Malice of crafty and designing Achithophels who prefer their particular Advantage to Religion and Liberty no other way really to be endangered but by debarring the D. his Right of Succession which once past into an Act will in case he survive most certainly-bring upon the Three Kingdoms Horrour and Confusion Desolation and Misery and all the sad Effects of a Civil War Evils so far from your Temper and Inclination that I need not caution you against so much madnesse and Folly as inevitably attends the not regarding the Wisemans Advice My son fâ—ar God and Honour the King and meddle not with those that are given to change What I have written I have written in obedience to your Commands the love of Truth and zeal for the Publick being as you know neither Courtier nor Pensioner never was or like to be addicted to Popery not obliged by King nor Duke in any particular Grace or Favor but being wholly Independent and having something to lose and sensible no others can suffer by War and Rebellion I have used the same freedom without as I hope you will within doors for preventing those Calamities which seem to do more than threaten the Nation from which nothing but Gods Providence in the Wisdom and Moderation Courage and Prudence of our King and Parliament can defend this unhappie and distracted Kingdom FINIS