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
so familiar to them that they can no more be put out of countenance But it seems very strange to us that some who if they are to be believed are strict to the severest Forms and Sub-divisions of the Reformed Religion and who some Years ago were jealous of the smallest steps that the Court made when the danger was more remote and who cried out Popery and Persecution when the design was so mask'd that some well-meaning Men could not miss being deceived by the Promises that were made and the Disguises that were put on that I say these very Persons who were formerly so distrustful should now when the Mask is laid off and the Design is avowed of a sudden grow to be so believing as to throw off all Distrust and be so gulled as to betray all and to expose us to the Rage of those who must needs give some good words till they have gone the round and tried how effectually they can divide and deceive us that so they may destroy us the more easily this is indeed somewhat extraordinary They are not so ignorant as not to know that Popery cannot change its Nature and that Cruelty and Breach of Faith to Hereticks are as necessary parts of that Religion as Transubstantiation and the Pope's Supremacy are If Papists were not Fools they must give good Words and fair Promises till by these they have so far deluded the poor credulous Hereticks that they may put themselves in a posture to execute the Decrees of their Church against them and though we accuse that Religion as guilty both of Cruelty and Treachery yet we do not think them Fools so till their Party is stronger than God be thanked it is at present they can take no other method than that they take The Church of England was the Word among them somst Years ago Liberty of Conscieece is the Word at present and we have all possible reason to assure us that the Promises for maintaining the one will be as religiously kept as we see those are which were lately made with so great a profusion of Protestations and shews of Friendship for the supporting of the other III. It were great Injustice to charge all the Dissenters with the Impertinencies that have appeared in many Addresses of late or to take our measures of them from the impudent strains of an Alsop or a Care or from the more important and now more visible steps that some among them of a higher form are every day making and yet after all this it cannot be denied but the several Bodies of the Dissenters have behaved themselves of late like Men that understand too well the true Interest of the Protestant Religion and of the English Government to sacrifice the whole and themselves in Conclusion to their private Resentments I hope the same Justice will be allowed me in stating the matter relating to the so much decried Persecution set on by the Church of England and that I may be suffered to distinguish the Heats of some angry and deluded Men from the Doctrine of the Church and the Practices that have been authorized in it that so I may shew that there is no reason to infer from past Errors that we are incurable or that new Opportunities inviting us again into the same Severities are like to prevail over us to commit the same Follies over again I will first state what is past with the Sincerity that becomes one that would not lie for God that is not afraid nor ashamed to confess Faults that will neither aggravate nor extenuate them beyond what is just and that yet will avoid the saying of any thing that may give any cause of Offence to any Party in the Nation IV. I am very sorry that I must confess that all the Parties among us have shewed that as their turn came to be uppermost they have forgot the same Principles of Moderation and Liberty which they all claimed when they were oppressed If it should shew too much ill nature to examine what the Presbytery did in Scotland when the Covenant was in Dominion or what the Independents have done in New-England why may not I claim the same priviledg with relation to the Church of England if Severities have been committed by her while she bore Rule yet it were as easy as it would be invidious to shew that both Presbyterians and Independents have carried the Principle of Rigor in the point of Conscience much higher and have acted more implacably upon it than ever the Church of England has done even in its angriest fits so that none of them can much reproach another for their Excesses in those matters And as of all the Religions in the World the Church of Rome is the most persecuting and the most bound by her Principles to be unalterably cruel so the Church of England is the least persecuting in her Principles and the least obliged to repeat any Errors to which the Intrigues of Courts or the Passions incident to all Parties may have engaged her of any National Church in Europe It cannot be said to be any part of our Doctrine when we came out of one of the blackest Persecutions that is in History I mean Queen Mary's we shewed how little we retained of the Cruelty of that Church which had provoked us so severely when not only no Inquiries were made into the illegal Acts of Fury that were committed in that persecuting Reign but even the Persecutors themselves lived among us at Ease and in Peace and no Penal Law was made except against the publick Exercise of that Religion till a great many Rebellions and Treasons extorted them from us for our own Preservation This is an Instance of the Clemency of our Church that perhaps cannot be matched in History and why should it not be supposed that if God should again put us in the state in which we were of late that we should rather imitate so noble a Patern than return to those Mistakes of which we are now ashamed V. It is to be considered that upon the late King's Restauration the remembrance of the former War the ill usage that our Clergy had met with in their Sequestrations the angry Resentments of the Cavalier Party who were ruined by the War the Interest of the Court to have all those Principles condemned that had occasioned it the heat that all Parties that have been ill-used are apt to fall into upon a Revolution but above all the Practices of those who have still blown the Coals and set us one against another that so they might not only have a divided Force to deal with but might by turns make the Divisions among us serve their Ends All these I say concurred to make us lose the happy Opportunity that was offered in the Year 1660 to have healed all our Divisions and to have triumphed over all the Dissenters not by ruining them but by overcoming them with a Spirit of Love and Gentleness which is the only Victory that
a Generous and Christian Temper can desire In short unhappy Counsels were followed and severe Laws were made But after all it was the Court Party that carried it for rougher Methods Some considerable Accidents not necessary to be here mentioned as they stopped the Mouths of some that had formed a wiser Project so they gave a fatal Advantage to angry and crafty Men that to our misfortune had too great a stroak in the conduct of our Affairs at that Time. This Spirit of Severity was heightned by the Practices of the Papists who engaged the late King in December 1662 to give a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience Those who knew the Secret of his Religion as they saw that it aimed at the Introduction of Popery so they thought there was no way so effectual for the keeping out of Popery as the maintaining the Uniformity and the suppressing of all Designs for a Toleration But while those who managed this used a due reserve in not discovering the secret Motive that led them to it others flew into Severity as the Principle in vogue And thus all the slacknings of the rigour of the Laws during the first Dutch War that were set on upon the pretence of quieting the Nation and of encouraging Trade were resisted by the Instruments of an honest Minister of State who knew as well then as we do now what lay still at bottom when Liberty of Conscience was pretended VI. Upon that Minister's Disgrace some that saw but the half of the Secret perceiving in the Court a great inclination to Toleration and being willing to take Measures quite different from those of the former Ministry they entred into a Treaty for a Comprehension of some Dissenters and the tolerating of others And some Bishops and Clergy-men that were inferior to none of the Age in which they lived for true Worth and a right Judgment of Things engaged so far and with so much success into this Project that the Matter seemed done all things being concerted among some of the most considerable Men of the different Parties But the dislike of that Ministry and the Jealousy of the ill Designs of the Court gave so strong a Prejudice against this that the Proposition could not be so much as hearkned to by the House of Commons And then it appeared how much the whole Popish Party was allarmed at the Project It is well known with how much Detestation they speak of it to this day though we are now so fully satisfied of their Intentions to destroy us that the Zeal which they pretended for us in opposing that Design can no more pass upon us VII At last in the Year 1672. the Design for Popery discovering it self the End that the Court had in favouring a Toleration became more visible And when the Parliament met that condemned the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience the Members of the House of Commons that either were Dissenters or that favoured them behaved themselves so worthily in concurring with those of the Church of England for stifling that Toleration chusing rather to lose the benefit of it than to open a Breach at which Popery should come in that many of the Members that were of the Church of England promised to procure them a Bill of Ease for Protestant Dissenters But the Session was not long enough for bringing that to Perfection and all the Sessions of that Parliament after that were spent in such a continual struggle between the Court and Country-Party that there was never room given for calm and wise Consultations yet though the Party of the Church of England did not perform what had been promised by some leading Men to the Dissenters there was little or nothing done against them after that till the Year 1681 so that for about nine Years together they had their Meetings almost as publickly and as regularly as the Church of England had their Churches and in all that time whatsoover particular Hardships any of them might have met with in some corners of England it cannot be denied but they had the free Exercise of their Religion at least in most parts VIII In the Year 1678 things began to change their face it is known that upon the breaking out of the Popish Plot the Clergy did universally express a great desire for coming to some temper in the Points of Conformity all sorts and ranks of the Clergy seemed to be so well disposed towards it that if it had met with a sutable Entertainment matters might probably have been in a great measure composed But the Jealousy that those who managed the Civil Concerns of the Nation in the House of Commons took off all that was done at Court or proposed by it occasioned a fatal Breach in our Publick Councils in which division the Clergy by their Principles and Interests and their Disposition to believe well of the Court were determined to be of the King's side They thought it was a Sin to mistrust the late King's Word who assured them of his steadiness to the Protestant Religion so often that they firmly depended on it and his present Majesty gave them so many Assurances of his maintaining still the Church of England that they believed him likewise and so thought that the Exclusion of him from the Crown was a degree of Rigor to which they in Conscience could not consent upon which they were generally cried out on as the Betrayers of the Nation and of the Protestant Religion Those who demanded the Exclusion and some other Securities to which the Bishops would not consent in Parliament looked on them as the chief hinderance that was in their way and the License of the Press at that time was such that many Libels and some severe Discourses were published against them Nor can it be denied that many Church-men who understood not the Principles of Human Society and the Rules of our Government so well as other Points of Divinity writ several Treatises concerning the measures of Submission that were then as much censured as their Performances since against Popery have been deservedly admired All this gave such a Jealousy of them to the Nation that it must be confessed that the Spirit which was then in fermentation went very high against the Church of England as a Confederate at least to Popery and Tyranny Nor were several of the Nonconformists wanting to inflame this dislike all secret Propositions for accommodating our Differences were so coldly entertained that they were scarce hearkned to The Propositions which an Eminent Divine made even in his Books writ against Separation shewed that while we maintained the War in the way of Dispute yet we were still willing to treat for that great Man made not those Advances towards them without consulting with his Superiors Yet we were then fatally given up to a Spirit of Dissention and tho the Parliament in 1680 entred upon a project for healing our Differences in which great steps were made to the removing of all the occasions of
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
once both body and Soul. He charges Dr. Stillingfleet as the great Founder of this and all other Anti-catholick and Anti-christian and uncharitable Principles among us and that the TEST is the Swearing to the Truth of his unlearned and Phanatick Notion of Idolatry pag. 130 135. and the result of all is That Idolatry made the Plot and then the Plot made Idolatry and that the same persons made both He has also troubled the Reader with a second impertinence to shew his second-hand Reading again upon the Notion of Idolatry but all this falls off with a very short Answer if he is of the Church of England and believes that the Homilies contain a Godly and Wholesom Doctrine all this Clamour against Idolatry turns against himself for he will find the Church of Rome charged with this almost an Age before Dr. Stillingfleet was Born and tho perhaps none has ever defended the Charge with so much Learning as he has done yet no malice less Impudent than his is could make him the Author of the Accusation It will be another strain of our Author's modesty if he will pretend that our Church is not bound to own the Doctrine that is contained in her Homilies he must by this make our Church as Treacherous to her Members as Sa. Oxon is to her for to deliver this Doctrine to the People if we believe it not our selves is to be as impudent as he himself can pretend to be A Church may believe a Doctrine which she does not think necessary to propose to all her Members but she were indeed a Society fit for such Pastors as he is if she could propose to the People a Doctrine chiefly one of so great Consequence as this is without she believed it her self So then he must either Renounce our Church and her Articles or he must Answer all his own Plea for clearing that Church of this Imputation which is so slight that it will be no hard matter even for such a trifling Writer as himself is to do it As for what he says of Stabbing and Cut-throat Words he may charge us with such words if he will but we know who we may charge with the Deeds I would gladly see the List of all that have been murder'd by these Words to try if they can be put in the Ballance either with the Massacre of Ireland or that of Paris upon which I must take notice of his flight way of mentioning Coligny and Faction and telling us in plain words pag. 45. That they were Rebels This is perhaps another instance of his kindness to the Calvinist Prince that is Descended from that Great Man. If Idolatry made our Plot it was not the first that it made but his malignity is still like himself his charging Dr. Stillingfleet who he says is the Author of the Imputation of Idolatry as if he had suborned the Evidence in our Plot. I should congratulate to the Doctor the Honour that is done him by the Malice of one who must needs be the object of the hatred of all good Men if I did not look upon him as so contemptible a person that his love and his hatred are equally insignificant If he thinks our Church worse than Canibals I wish he would be at the pains to go and make a trial and see whether these Salvages will use him as we have done I dare say they would not Eat him for they would find so much Gall and Choler in him that the first bit would quite disgust them A second Part of the ENQUIRY into the Reasons offered by Sa. Oxon for Abrogating the TEST Or an Answer to his Plea for Transubstantiation and for Acquitting the Church of Rome of IDOLATRY THE two seemingly contrary Advices of the Wise man of Answering a Fool according to his Folly and of not Answering him according to his Folly are founded on such Excellent Reasons that if a man can but rightly distinguish the Circumstances he has a good Warrant for using both upon different occasions The Reason for Answering a Fool according to his Folly is lest he be wise in his own eyes that so a haughty and petulant humour may be subdued and that a Man that is both blinded and swelled up with self-conceit may by so severe a Remedy be brought to know himself and to think as meanly of himself as every Body else does But the reason against Answering a Fool according to his Folly is lest one be also like unto him and so let both his mind and stile be corrupted by so Vicious a Pattern Since then in a former Paper I was wrought on to let our Author see what a severe Treatment he has justly drawn on himself and to write in a stile a little like his own I will now let him see that he is the Man in the World whom I desire the least to resemble and so if I writ before in a stile that I thought became him I will now change that into another which I am sure becomes my self In the former I examined his Arguments for abrogating the Test in a strain which I thought somewhat necessary for the Informing the Nation aright in a matter of such Consequence that the Preservation of our Religion is judged to depend upon it by the Presumptive Heir of the Crown but now that I am to argue a point which requires more of a Gravity than of an acrimony of stile I will no more consider the Man but the Matter in hand In a word He would persuade the World that Transubstantiation is but a Nicety of the Schools calculated to the Aristotelian Philosophy and not defined positively in the Church of Rome but that the Corporal and Real Presence of the substance of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament was the Doctrine of the Universal Church in the Primitive Times and that it is at this day the generally received Doctrine by all the different Parties in Europe not only the Ro. Catholicks and Lutherans but both by the Churches of Switzerland and France and more particularly by the Church of England so that since all that the Church of Rome means by Transubstantiation is the Real Presence and since the Real Presence is so Universally received it is a heinous thing to renounce Transubstantiation for that is in effect the renouncing the Real Presence This is the whole strength of his Argument which he fortifies by many Citations to prove that both the Ancient Fathers and the Modern Reformers believed the Real Presence and that the Church of Rome believes no more But to all this I shall offer a few Exceptions I. If Transubstantiation is only a Philosophical Nicety concerning the manner of the Presence where is the hurt of renouncing it and why are the Ro. Catholicks at so much pains to have the Test repealed for it contains nothing against the Real Presence indeed if this Argument has any force it should rather lead the Ro. Catholicks to take the Test since according to
followed their Decisions and which was Imployed in the Execution of them makes it appear rather a stranger thing that so many opposed them than that so many submitted to them When Inquisitors or Dragoons manage an Argument how strong soever the Spirit may be in opposing it it is certain the Flesh will be weak and will ply easily When Princes were threatned with Deposition and Hereticks with Extirpation and when both were executed with so much rigour the success of all the Doctrines that were established in those days ought to make no Impression on us in its favour VII It is no less plain that there was a great and vigorous opposition made to every step of the progress of this Doctrine When the Eutichians first made use of it the greatest men of that Age set themselves against it When the Worshippers of Images did afterwards deny that the Sacrament was the Image of the Body and Blood of Christ a General Council in the East asserted according to the Ancient Liturgies the Contrary Proposition When Paschase Radbert set on Foot the Corporal Presence in the West all the great men of the Age writ against him Berenger was likewise highly esteemed and had many secret Followers when this Doctrine was first decreed and ever since the time of the Council of the Lateran that Transubstantiation was established there have been whole bodies of men that have opposed it and that have fallen as Sacrifices to the Rages of the Inquisitors And by the Processes of those of Tholouse of which I have seen the Original Records for the space of Twenty years it appears that as Transubstantiation was the Article upon which they were always chiefly examined so it was that which many of them did the most constantly deny so far were they on both sides from looking on it only as an Explanation of the Real Presence VIII The Novelty of this Doctrine appears plainly by the strange work that the Schools have made with it since they got it among them both in their Philosophy and Divinity and by the many different methods that they took for explaining it till they had licked it into the shape in which it is now which is as plain an Evidence of the Novelty of the Doctrine as can be imagined The Learned Mr. Alix has given us a clear Deduction of all that confusion into which it has cast the Schoolmen and the many various Methods that they sell on for maintaining it First they thought the Body of Christ was broken by the Teeth of the Faithful then that appearing absurd and subjecting our Saviour to new sufferings the Doctrine of a Bodies being in a place after the manner of a spirit was set up And as to the change some thought that the Matter of Bread remained but that it was united to the Body of Christ as nourishment is digested into our Bodies others thought that the Form of Bread remained the Matter only being changed And some thought that the Bread was only withdrawn to give place to the Body of Christ whereas others thought it was Annihilated While the better Judges had always an eye either to a Consubstantiation or to such an Assumption of the Bread and Wine by the Eternal Word as made the Sacrament in some sense his Body indeed but not that Body which is now in Heaven All these different Opinions in which the Schoolmen were divided even after the Decision made by Pope Innocent in the Council of the Lateran shew that the Doctrine being a Novelty men did not yet know how to mould or form it but in process of time the whole Philosophy was so digested as to prepare all Scholars in their first formation to receive it the more easily And in our Age in which that Philosophy has lost its credit what pains do they take to suppress the New Philosophy as seeing that it cannot be so easily subdued to support this Doctrine as the Old one was And it is no unpleasant thing to see the Shifts to which the Partisans of the Cartesian Philosophy are driven to explain themselves which are indeed so very ridiculous that one can hardly think that those who make use of them believe them for they are plainly rather Tricks and Excuses than Answers IX No man can deny that Transubstantiation is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome but he that will dispute the Authority of the Councils of the Lateran and Trent Now tho some have done the first avowedly yet as their number is small and their Opinion decried so for the Council of Trent tho I have known some of that Communion who do not look upon it as a General Council and tho it is not at all received in France neither as to Doctrine nor Discipline yet the contrary opinion is so universally received that they who think otherwise dare not speak out and so give their Opinion as a secret which they trust in confidence rather than as a Doctrine which they will own But setting aside the Authority of these Councils the common Resolution of Faith in the Church of Rome being Tradition it cannot be denied that the constant and general Tradition in the Church of Rome these last Five hundred years has been in favour of Transubstantiation and that is witnessed by all the Evidences by which it is possible to know Tradition The Writings of Learned Men the Sermons of Preachers the Poceedings of Tribunals the Decisions of Councils that if they were not general were yet very numerous and above all by the many Authentical Declarations that Popes have made in this matter So that either Tradition is to be for ever rejected as a false conveyance or this is the received Doctrine of the Church of Rome from which She can never depart without giving up both her Infallibility and the Authority of Tradition X. There is not any one point in which all the Reformed Churches do more unanimously agree than in the rejecting of Transubstantiation as appears both by the Harmony of their Consessions and by the current of all the Reformed VVriters And for the Real Presence tho the Lutherans explain it by a Consubstantiation and the rest of the Reformed by a Reality of Virtue and Efficacy and a Presence of Christ as crucified yet all of them have taken much pains to shew that in what sense soever they meant it they were still far enough from Transubstantiation This demonstrates the wisdom of our Legislators in singling out this to be the sole point of the Test for Imployments since it is perhaps the only point in Controversy in which the whole Church of Rome holds the Affirmative and the whole Reformed hold the Negative And it is as certain that Transubstantiation is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome as that it is rejected by the Church of England it being by name condemned in our Articles And thus I hope the whole Plea of our Author in favour of Transubstantiation is overthrown in all its three Branches which
relate to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church the Doctrine of the Church of Rome and the Doctrine of the Church of England as well as of the other Reformed Churches I have not loaded this Paper with Quotations because I intended to be short but I am ready to make good all the matters of fact asserted in it under the highest pains of Infamy if I fail in the performance and besides the more Voluminous works that have been writ on this subject such as Albertine's Claud's Answer to Mr. Arnaud and F. Nonet Larrogue's History of the Eucharist there have been so many learned Discourses written of late on this Subject and in particular two Answers to the Bishops Book that if it had not been thought expedient that I should have cast the whole matter into a short Paper I should not have judged it necessary to trouble the world with more Discourses on a subject that seems exhausted I will add no more but that by the next I will give another Paper of the same Bulk upon the Idolatry of the Church of Rome A Continuation of the Second Part of the ENQUIRY into the Reasons offered by Sa. Oxon for Abrogating the TEST Relating to the Idolatry of the Church of Rome THE words of the Test that belong to this Point are these The Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are Superstitious and Idolatrous Upon which our Author fastens this Censure That since by this the Church of Rome is charged with Idolatry which both forfeits Mens Lives here and their Salvation hereafter according to the express words of Scripture it is a damnable piece of Cruelty and Uncharitableness to load them with this Charge if they are not guilty of it and upon this he goes to clear them of it not only in the two Articles mentioned in the Test the Worship of Saints and the Sacrifice of the Mass but that his Apology might be compleat he takes in and indeed insists chiefly on the Worship of Images tho that is not at all mentioned in the Test He brings a great many Quotations out of the Old Testament to shew the Idolatry prohibited in it was the worshipping of the Sun Moon and Stars or the making an Image to resemble the Divine Essence upon which he produces also some other Authorities And in this consists the Substance of his Plea for the Church of Rome But upon all this he ought to have retracted both the License that himself gave some years ago to Dr. Stillingfleets Book Of the Idolatry of the Church of Rome and his own hasty Assertion in condemning both Turk and Papist as guilty of Idolatry the one for worshipping a leud Impostor and the other for worshipping a senseless piece of Matter Def. of his Eccl. Pol. p. 285 286 It seems he is now convinced that the latter part of this Charge that falls on Papists was as false as the former that falls on the Turks certianly is for they never worshipped Mahomet but hold him only in high Reverence as an extraordinary Prophet as the Jews do Moses It is very like that if the Turks had taken Vienna he would have retracted that as he has now in effect done the other for I believe he is in the same Disposition to reconcile himself to the Mufti and the Pope but the Ottoman Empire is now as low as Popery is high so he will brave the Turk still to his Teeth tho he did him wrong and will humble himself to the Papist tho he did him nothing but right but now I take leave of the Man and will confine my self severely to the matter that is before me And I. How guilty soever the Church of Rome is of Idolatry yet the Test does not plainly assert that for there is as great a difference between Idolatrous and Idolatry as there is in Law between what is Treasonable and what is Treason The one Imports only a worship that is conformable to Idolatry and that has a tendency to it whereas the other is the plain Sin it self there is also a great deal of difference between what is now used in that Church and the Explanations that some of their Doctors give of that usage We are to take the usage of the Church of Rome from her Publick Offices and her authorised Practices so that if these have a Conformity to Idolatry and a tendency to it then the words of the Test are justified what Sense soever some learned Men among them may put on these Offices and Practices therefore the Test may be well maintained even tho we should acknowledg that the Church of Rome was not guilty of Idolatry II. If Idolatry was a Crime punishable by Death under the Old Testament that does not at all concern us nor does the Charge of Idolatry authorise the People to kill all Idolaters unless our Author can prove that we believe our selves to be under all the Political and Judiciary Precepts of the Law of Moses and even among the Jews the Execution of that severe Law belonging either to the Magistrate or to some authorised and inspired Persona who as a Zealot might execute the Law when the Magistrate was wanting to his Duty So that this was writ invidiously only as it seems to inflame the Papists the more against us But the same Calvinist Prince that has expressed so just an Aversion to the repealing the Test has at the same time shewed so merciful an Inclination towards the Roman Catholicks that of all the Reproaches in the World one that intended to plead for that Religion ought to have avoided the mentioning of Blood or Cruelty with the greatest care III. It is true we cannot help believing that Idolatry is a damnable Sin that shuts Men out of the Kingdom of Heaven and if every Sin in which a Man dies without Repentance does it much more this which is one of the greatest of all Sins But yet after all there is Mercy for Sins of Ignorance upon Mens general Repentance and therefore since God alone knows the degrees of Mens Knowledg and of their Ignorance and how far it is either Affected on the one hand or Invincible on the other we do not take upon us to enter into Gods Secrets or to Judg of the Salvation or Damnation of particular Persons nor must we be byassed in our Enquiry into the nature of any Sin either by a fond regard to the State of our Ancestors or by the due respect that we owe to those who are over us in Civil Matters In this Case things are what God has declared them to be we can neither make them better nor worse than he has made them and we are only to Judg of things leaving Persons to the merciful as well as the just and dreadful Judgment of God. IV. All the stir that our Author keeps with the examining of the Idolatry committed by
Dr. Burnet's PAPERS THere have been so many Papers given out for mine which are not that in order to the preventing of Mistakes of that kind I have given Directions for the Publishing of this COLLECTION which contains none but those that were writ by me in single Sheets and are now put together by my Order G. BURNET A COLLECTION OF EIGHTEEN PAPERS Relating to the AFFAIRS OF Church State During the Reign of King JAMES the Second Seventeen whereof written in Holland and first printed there By GILBERT BURNET D. D. Licensed and Entred according to Order Reprinted at London for John Starkey and Richard Chiswell 1689. THE CONTENTS Of the following PAPERS REasons against the repealing the Acts of Parliament concerning the Test Humbly offered to the Consideration of the Members of both Houses at their next Meeting on the twenty eighth of April 1687. Pag. 1 Some Reflections on His Majesties Proclamation of the Twelfth of February 1686 / 7. for a Toleration in Scotland Together with the said Proclamation p. 10 A Letter containing some Reflections on His Majesties Declaration for Liberty of Conscience dated the Fourth of April 1687. p. 25 An Answer to Mr. Henry Payne's Letter concerning His Majesties Declaration of Indulgence writ to the Author of the Letter to a Dissenter p. 38. An Answer to a Paper printed with allowance entitled A New Test of the Church of England 's Loyalty p. 45 The Earl of Melfort's Letter to the Presbyterian Ministers in Scotland writ in His Majesties Name upon their Address Together with sowe Remarks upon it p. 56 Reflections on a Pamphlet entitled Parliamentum Pacificum licensed by the Earl of Sunderland and printed at London in March 1688. p. 65 An Apology for the Church of England with relation to the Spirit of Persecution for which she is accused p. 83 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 p. 97 An Edict in the Roman Law in the twenty fifth Book of the Digests Title 4. Sect. 10. as concerning the visiting of a Big-bellied-Woman and the looking after what may be born by her p. 110 An Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority and of the Grounds upon which it may be lawful or necessary for Subjects to defend their Religion Lives and Liberties p. 119 A Review of the Reflections on the Prince of Orange's Declaration p. 133 The Citation of Gilbert Burnet D. D. to answer in Scotland on the Twenty seventh of June Old Stile for High Treason Together with his Answer And Three Letters writ by him upon that Subject to the Right Honourable the Earl of Middletoun His Majesty's Secretary of State. p. 145 Dr. Burnet's Vinication of himself from the Calumnies with which he is aspersed in a Pamphlet entitled Parliamentum Pacificum Licensed by the Earl of Sunderland and printed at London in March 1688. p. 172 A Letter containing some Remarks on the Two Papers writ by His late Majesty King Charles the Second concerning Religion p. 188 An Enquiry into the Reasons for abrogating the Test imposed on all Members of Parliament offered by Sa. Oxon. p. 200 A Second Part of the Enquiry into the Reasons offered by Sa. Oxon for abrogating the Test Or an Answer to his Plea for Transubstantiation and for acquitting the Church of Rome of Idolatry p. 215 A Continuation of the Second Part of the Enquiry into the Reasons offered by Sa. Oxon for the abrogating of the Test relating to the Idolatry of the Church of Rome p. 229 REASONS Against the Repealing the ACTS of PARLIAMENT Concerning the TEST Humbly offered to the Consideration of the MEMBERS of BOTH HOUSES at their next Meeting on the Twenty eighth of April 1687. I. IF the just Apprehensions of the Danger of Popery gave the Birth to the two Laws for the two Tests the one with relation to all Publick Employments in 73. and the other with relation to the Constitution of our Parliaments for the future in 78. the present Time and Conjuncture does not seem so proper for repealing them unless it can be imagined that the danger of Popery is now so much less than it was formerly that we need be no more on our guard against it We had a King when these Laws were enacted who as he declared himself to be of the Church of England by receiving the Sacrament four times a Year in it so in all his Speeches to his Parliaments and in all his Declarations to his Subjects he repeated the Assurances of his Firmness to the Protestant Religion so solemnly and frequently that if the saying a thing often gives just reason to believe it we had as much reason as ever People had to depend upon him and yet for all that it was thought necessary to fortifie those Assurances with Laws and it is not easie to imagine why we should throw away those when we have a Prince that is not only of another Religion himself but that has expressed so much steadiness in it and so much zeal for it that one would think we should rather now seek a further Security than throw away that which we already have II. Our King has given such Testimonies of his Zeal for his Religion that we see among all his other Royal Qualities there is none for which he desires and deserves to be so much admired Since even the Passion of Glory of making himself the Terrour of all Europe and the Arbiter of Christendom which as it is natural to all Princes so must it be most particularly so to one of his Martial and Noble Temper yields to his Zeal for his Church and that he in whom we might have hoped to see our Edward the Third or our Henry the Fifth revived chuses rather to merit the heightning his degree of Glory in another World than to acquire all the Lawrels and Conquests that this low and vile World can give him and that in stead of making himself a Terrour to all his Neighbours he is contented with the humble Glory of being a Terrour to his own People so that in stead of the great Figure which this Reign might make in the World all the News of England is now only concerning the Practices on some fearful Mercenaries These things shew that his Majesty is so possessed with his Religion that this cannot suffer us to think that there is at present no danger from Popery III. It does not appear by what we see either abroad or at home that Popery has so changed its nature that we have less reason to be afraid of it at present than we had in former times It might be thought ill nature to go so far back as to the Councils of the Lateran that decreed the Extirpation of Hereticks with severe Sanctions on those Princes that failed in their Duty of being the Hangmen of the Inquisitors or 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
put the Nation on an Enquiry that nothing but necessity will drive them to For a Nation may be laid asleep and be a little cheated but when it is awakened and sees its danger it will not look on and see a Rape made on its Religion and Liberties without examining From whence have these Men this Authority They will hardly find that it is of Men and they will not believe that it is of God. But it is to be hoped that there will be no occasion given for this angry Question which is much easier made than answered VII If all that were now asked in favour of Popery were only some Gentleness towards the Papists there were some reason to entertain the Debate when the Demand were a little more modest If Men were to be attainted of Treason for being reconciled to the Church of Rome or for reconciling others to it If Priests were demanded to be hanged for taking Orders in the Church of Rome and if the two thirds of the Papists Estates were offered to be levied it were a very natural thing to see them uneasie and restless but now the matter is more barefaced they are not contented to live at ease and enjoy their Estates but they must carry all before them and F. Petre cannot be at quiet unless he makes as great a Figure in our Court as Pere de la Chaise does at Versailles A Cessation of all Severities against them is that to which the Nation would more easily submit but it is their Behaviour that must create them the continuance of the like Compassion in another Reign If a restless and a persecuting Spirit were not inherent in that Order that has now the Ascendant they would have behaved themselves so decently under their present Advantages as to have made our Divines that have charged them so heavily look a little out of countenance and this would have wrought more on the good Nature of the Nation and the Princely Nobleness of the Successors whom we have in view than those Arts of Craft and Violence to which we see their Tempers carry them even so early before it is yet time to shew themselves The Temper of the English Nation the Heroical Vertues of those whom we have in our Eyes but above all our most holy Religion which instead of Revenge and Cruelty inspires us with Charity and Mercy even for Enemies are all such things as may take from the Gentlemen of that Religion all sad Apprehensions unless they raise a Storm against themselves and provoke the Justice of the Nation to such a degree that the Successors may find it necessary to be just even when their own Inclinations would rather carry them to shew Mercy In short they need fear nothing but what they create to themselves so that all this stir that they keep for their own Safety looks too like the securing to themselves Pardons for the Crimes that they intend to commit VIII I know it is objected as no small Prejudice against these Laws That the very making of them discovered a particular Malignity against His Majesty and therefore it is ill Manners to speak for them The first had perhaps an Eye at his being then Admiral and the last was possibly levelled at him tho' when that was discovered he was excepted out of it by a special Proviso And as for that which past in 73 I hope it is not forgot that it was enacted by that Loyal Parliament that had setled both the Prerogative of the Crown and the Rites of the Church and that had given the King more Money than all the Parliaments of England had ever done in all former Times A Parliament that had indeed some Disputes with the King but upon the first Step that he made with relation to Religion or Safety they shewed how ready they were to forget all that was past as appeared by their Behaviour after the Triple Alliance And in 73 tho' they had great cause given them to dislike the Dutch War especially the strange beginning of it upon the Smyrna Fleet and the stopping the Exchequer the Declaration for Toleration and the Writs for the Members of the House were Matters of hard Digestion yet no sooner did the King give them this new Assurance for their Religion then tho' they had very great Reasons given them to be jealous of the War yet since the King was engaged they gave him 1200000 Pounds for carrying it on and they thought they had no ill Peniworths for their Money when they carried home with them to their Countries this new Security for their Religion which we are desired now to throw up and which the Reverend Judges have already thrown out as a Law out of date If this had carried in it any new piece of Severity their Complaints might be just but they are extream tender if they are so uneasie under a Law that only gives them Leisure and Opportunities to live at home And the last Test which was intended only for shutting them out from a share in the Legislative Body appears to be so just that one is rather amased to find that it was so long a doing than that it was done at last and since it is done it is a great presumption on our Understandings to think that we should be willing to part with it If it was not sooner done it was because there was not such cause given for Jealousie to work upon but what has appeared since that time and what has been printed in his late Majesty's Name shews the World now that the Jealousies which occasioned those Laws were not so ill grounded as some well-meaning Men perhaps then believed them to be But there are some Times in which all Mens Eyes come to be opened IX I am told some think it is very indecent to have a Test for our Parliaments in which the King's Religion is accused of Idolatry but if this Reason is good in this Particular it will be full as good against several of the Articles of our Church and many of the Homilies If the Church and Religion of this Nation is so formed by Law that the King's Religion is declared over and over again to be Idolatrous what help is there for it It is no other than it was when His Majesty was Crowned and Swore to maintain our Laws I hope none will be wanting in all possible Respect to His Sacred Person and as we ought to be infinitely sorry to find him engaged in a Religion which we must believe Idolatrous so we are far from the ill Manners of reflecting on his Person or calling him an Idolater for as every Man that reports a Lie is not for that to be called a Liar so tho' the ordering the Intention and the prejudice of a Mispersuasion are such Abatements that we will not rashly take on us to call every Man of the Church of Rome an Idolater yet on the other hand we can never lay down our Charge against the Church
of Rome as guilty of Idolatry unless at the same time we part with our Religion X. Others give us a strange sort of Argument to persuade us to part with the Test they say The King must imploy his Popish Subjects for he can trust no other and he is so assured of their Fidelity to him that we need apprehend no Danger from them This is an odd Method to work on us to let in a sort of People to the Parliament and Government since the King cannot trust us but will depend on them so that as soon as this Law is repealed they must have all the Imployments and have the whole Power of the Nation lodged in their hands this seems a little too gross to impose even on Irishmen The King saw for many Years together with how much Zeal both the Clergy and many of the Gentry appeared for his Interests and if there is now a Melancholy Damp on their Spirits the King can dissipate it when he will and as the Church of England is a Body that will never rebel against him so any Sullenness under which the late Administration of Affairs has brought them would soon vanish if the King would be pleased to remember a little what he has so often promised not only in Publick but in Private and would be contented with the Exercise of his own Religion without embroiling his whole Affairs because F. Petre will have it so and it tempts Englishmen to more than ordinary degrees of Rage against a sort of Men who it seems can infuse in a Prince born with the highest sense of Honour possible Projects to which without doing some Violence to his own Royal Nature he could not so much as hearken to if his Religion did not so fatally muffle him up in a blind Obedience But if we are so unhappy that Priests can so disguise Matters as to mislead a Prince who without their ill Influences would be the most Glorious Monarch of all Europe and would soon reduce the Grand Louis to a much humbler Figure yet it is not to be so much as imagined that ever their Arts can be so unhappily successful as to impose on an English Parliament composed of Protestant Members SOME REFLECTIONS On His MAJESTY'S PROCLAMATION Of the Twelfth of February 1686 / 7. for a TOLERATION in Scotland Together with the said PROCLAMATION I. THe Preamble of a Proclamation is oft writ in haste and is the Flourish of some wanton Pen but one of such an Extraordinary nature as this is was probably more severely examined there is a new Designation of his Majesty's Authority here set forth of his Absolute Power which is so often repeated that it deserves to be a little searched into Prerogative Royal and Sovereign Authority are Terms already received and known but for this Absolute Power as it is a new Term so those who have coined it may make it signifie what they will. The Roman Law speaks of Princeps Legibus solutus and Absolute in its natural signification importing the being without all Ties and Restraints then the true meaning of this seems to be that there is an Inherent Power in the King which can neither be restrained by Laws Promises nor Oaths for nothing less than the being free from all these renders a Power Absolute II. If the former Term seemed to stretch our Allegiance that which comes after it is yet a step of another nature tho' one can hardly imagine what can go beyond Absolute Power and it is in these Words Which all our Subjects are to obey without reserve And this is the carrying Obedience many sizes beyond what the Grand Seigneur has ever yet claimed For all Princes even the most violent Pretenders to Absolute Power till Lewis the Great 's Time have thought it enough to oblige their Subjects to submit to their Power and to bear whatsoever they thought good to impose upon them but till the Days of the late Conversions by Dragoons it was never so much as pretended that Subjects were bound to obey their Prince without Reserve and to be of his Religion because he would have it so Which was the only Argument that those late Apostles made use of so it is probable this Qualification of the Duty of Subjects was put in here to prepare us for a terrible le Roy le veut and in that case we are told here that we must obey without reserve and when those severe Orders come the Privy-Council and all such as execute this Proclamation will be bound by this Declaration to shew themselves more forward than any others to obey without reserve and those poor Pretensions of Conscience Religion Honour and Reason will be then reckoned as Reserves upon their Obedience which are all now shut out III. These being the Grounds upon which this Proclamamation is founded we ought not only to consider what Consequences are now drawn from them but what may be drawn from them at any time hereafter for if they are of force to justifie that which is now inferred from them it will be full as just to draw from the same Premises an Abolition of the Protestant Religion of the Rights of the Subjects not only to Church-lands but to all Property whatsoever In a word it asserts a Power to be in the King to command what he will and an Obligation in the Subjects to obey whatsoever he shall command IV. There is also mention made in the Preamble of the Christian Love and Charity which his Majesty would have established among Neighbours but another dash of a Pen founded on this Absolute Power may declare us all Hereticks and then in wonderful Charity to us we must be told that we are either to obey without Reserve or to be burnt without Reserve We know the Charity of that Church pretty well It is indeed Fervent and Burning and if we have forgot what has been done in former Ages France Savoy and Hungary have set before our Eyes very fresh Instances of the Charity of that Religion While those Examples are so green it is a little too imposing on us to talk to us of Christian Love and Charity No doubt his Majesty means sincerely and his Exactness to all his Promises chiefly to those made since he came to the Crown will not suffer us to think an unbecoming Thought of his Royal Intentions but yet after all tho' it seems by this Proclamation that we are bound to obey without Reserve it is Hardship upon Hardship to be bound to Believe without Reserve V. There are a sort of People here tolerated that will be very hardly found out and these are the Moderate Presbyterians Now as some say that there are very few of those People in Scotland that deserve this Character so it is hard to tell what it amounts to and the calling any of them Immoderate cuts off all their share in this Grace Moderation is a Quality that lies in the Mind and how this will be found out I
was in Scotland and the pretension to Absolute Power is so great a thing that since His Majesty thought fit once to claim it he is little beholden to those that make him fall so much in his Language especially since both these Declarations have appeared in our Gazettes so that as we see what is done in Scotland we know from hence what is in some Peoples Hearts and what we may expect in England II. His Majesty tells his People that the perfect Enjoyment of their Property has never been in any Case invaded by him since his coming to the Crown This is indeed matter of great Encouragement to all good Subjects for it lets them see that such Invasions as have been made on Property have been done without His Majesty's knowledge so that no doubt the continuing to levy the Customs and the Additional Excise which had been granted only during the late King's Life before the Parliament could meet to renew the Grant was done without His Majesty's knowledge the many Violences committed not only by Soldiers but Officers in all the Parts of England which are severe Invasions on Property have been all without his Majesty's knowledge and since the first Branch of Property is the Right that a Man has to his Life the strange Essay of Mahometan Government that was shewed at Taunton and the no less strange Proceedings of the present Lord Chancellor in his Circuit after the Rebellion which are very justly called His Campagne for it was an open Act of Hostility to all Law and for which and other Services of the like nature it is believed he has had the Reward of the Great Seal and the Executions of those who have left their Colours which being founded on no Law are no other than so many Murders all these I say are as we are sure Invasions on Property But since the King tells us that no such Invasions have been made since he came to the Crown we must conclude that all these things have fallen out without his Privity And if a Standing Army in time of Peace has been ever look'd on by this Nation as an Attempt upon the whole Property of the Nation in gross one must conclude that even this is done without His Majesty's knowledge III. His Majesty expresses his Charity for us in a kind Wish That we were all Members of the Catholick Church In return to which we offer up daily our most earnest Prayers for him That he may become a Member of the truly Catholick Church for Wishes and Prayers do no hurt on no side But His Majesty adds That it has ever been his Opinion that Conscience ought not to be constrained nor People forced in Matters of meer Religion We are very happy if this continues to be always his Sense but we are sure in this he is no obedient Member of that which he means by the Catholick Church for it has over and over again decreed the Extirpation of Hereticks It encourages Princes to it by the Offer of the Pardon of their Sins it threatens them to it by denouncing to them not only the Judgments of God but that which is more sensible the loss of their Dominions and it seems they intend to make us know that part of their Doctrine even before we come to feel it since tho' some of that Communion would take away the Horror which the Fourth Council of the Lateran gives us in which these things were decreed by denying it to be a General Council and rejecting the Authority of those Canons yea the most learned of all the Apostates that has fallen to them from our Church has so lately given up this Plea and has so formally acknowledged the Authority of that Council and of its Canons that it seems they think they are bound to this piece of fair dealing of warning us before hand of our Danger It is true Bellarmin says The Church does not always execute her Power of Deposing Heretical Princes tho' she always retains it one Reason that he assigns is Because she is not at all times able to put it in execution so the same Reason may perhaps make it appear unadvisable to extirpate Hereticks because that at present it connot be done but the Right remains entire and is put in execution in such an unrelenting manner in all Places where that Religion prevails that it has a very ill Grace to see any Member of that Church speak in this strain and when neither the Policy of France nor the Greatness of their Monarch nor yet the Interests of the Emperour joined to the Gentleness of his own Temper could withstand these Bloody Councils that are indeed parts of that Religion we can see no Reason to induce us to believe that a Toleration of Religion is proposed with any other Design but either to divide us or to lay us asleep till it is time to give the Alarm for destroying us IV. If all the Endeavours that have been used in the last four Reigns for bringing the Subjects of this Kingdom to a Unity in Religion have been ineffectual as His Majesty says we know to whom we owe both the first Beginnings and the Progress of the Divisions among our selves the Gentleness of Queen Elizabeth's Government and the numbers of those that adhered to the Church of Rome made it scarce possible to put an end to that Party during her Reign which has been ever since restless and has had credit enough at Court during the three last Reigns not only to support it self but to distract us and to divert us from apprehending the danger of being swallowed up by them by somenting our own Differences and by setting on either a Toleration or a Persecution as it has hapned to serve their Interests It is not so very long since that nothing was to be heard at Court but the supporting the Church of England and the extirpating all the Nonconformists and it were easie to name the Persons if it were decent that had this ever in their Mouths but now all is turned round again the Church of England is in disgrace and now the Encouragement of Trade the Quiet of the Nation and the Freedom of Conscience are again in vogue that were such odious things but a few years ago that the very mentioning of them was enough to load any Man with Suspicions as backward in the King's Service while such Methods are used and the Government is as in an Ague divided between hot and cold Fits no wonder if Laws so unsteadily executed have failed of their Effect V. There is a good Reserve here left for Severity when the proper Opportunity to set it on presents it self for His Majesty declares himself only against the forcing of Men in Matters of meer Religion so that whensoever Religion and Policy come to be so interwoven that meer Religion is not the Case and that Publick Safety may be pretended then this Declaration is to be no more claimed so that the fastning any thing
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
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
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
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
high had more Heat than Decency in it And indeed all this was so very extraordinary that if She was not acted by a Principle of Conscience She could make no Excuse for her Conduct There appeared such peculiar Marks of Affection and Heartiness at every time that the Duke was named whether in drinking his Health or upon graver Occasions that it seemed affected And when the late King himself whose Word they took that he was a Protestant was spoke of but coldly the very Name of the Duke set her Children all on fire this made many conclude that they were ready to sacrifice all to him for indeed their Behaviour was inflamed with so much Heat that the greater part of the Nation believed they waited for a fit opportunity to declare themselves Faith in Jesus Christ was not a more frequent Subject of the Sermons of many than Loyalty and the Right of the Succession to the Crown the Heat that appeared in the Pulpit and the Learning that was in their Books on these Subjects and the Eloquent Strains that were in their Addresses were all Originals and made the World conclude That whatever might be laid to their charge they should never be accused of any want of Loyalty at least in this King's time while the remembrance of so signal a Service was so fresh When His Majesty came to the Crown these men did so entirely depend on the Promise that he made to maintain the Church of England that the doubting of the performance appeared to them the worst sort of Infidelity They believed that in His Majesty the Hero and the King would be too strong for the Papist and when any one told them How weak a tie the Faith of a Catholick to Hereticks must needs be they could not hearken to this with any patience but looked on his Majesties Promise as a thing so Sacred that they imploy'd their Interest to carry all Elections of Parliament-men for those that were recommended by the Court with so much Vigour that it laid them open to much Censure In Parliament they moved for no Laws to secure their Religion but assuring themselves that Honour was the King's Idol they laid hold on it and fancied that a publick reliance on his Word would give them an Interest in His Majesty that was Generous and more sutable to the Nobleness of a Princely Nature than any new Laws could be so that they acquiesced in it and gave the King a vast Revenue for life In the Rebellion that followed they shewed with what Zeal they adhered to His Majesty even against a Pretender that declared for them And in the Session of Parliament which came after that they shewed their disposition to assist the King with new Supplies and were willing to excuse and indemnifie all that was past only they desired with all possible Modesty that the Laws which His Majesty had both Promised and at his Coronation had Sworn to maintain might be executed Here is their Crime which has raised all this Out cry they did not move for the Execution of Severe or Penal Laws but were willing to let those sleep till it might appear by the behaviour of the Papists whether they might deserve that there should be any Mitigation made of them in their Favour Since that time our Church men have been constant in mixing their Zeal for their Religion against Popery with a Zeal for Loyalty against Rebellion because they think these two are very well consistent one with another It is true they have generally expressed an unwillingness to part with the two Tests because they have no mind to trust the keeping of their Throats to those who they believe will cut them And they have seen nothing in the Conduct of the Papists either within or without the Kingdom to make them grow weary of the Laws for their sakes and the same Principle of common Sense which makes it so hard for them to believe Transubstantiation makes them conclude That the Author of this Paper and his Friends are no other than what they hear and see and know them to be II. One Instance in which the Church of England shewed her Submission to the Court was that as soon as the Nonconformists had drawn a new Storm upon themselves by their medling in the matter of the Exclusion many of her zealous Members went into that Prosecution of them which the Court set on foot with more Heat than was perhaps either justifiable in it self or reasonable in those Circumstances but how censurable soever some angry men may be it is somewhat strange to see those of the Church of Rome blame us for it which has decreed such unrelenting Severities against all that differ from her and has enacted that not only in Parliaments but even in General Councils It must needs sound odly to hear the Sons of a Church that must destroy all others as soon as it can compass it yet complain of the Excesses of Fines and Imprisonments that have been of late among us But if this Reproach seems a little strange when it is in the Mouth of a Papist it is yet much more provoking when it comes from any of the Court. Were not all the Orders for the late Severity sent from thence Did not the Judges in every Circuit and the Favourite Justices of Peace in every Sessions imploy all their Eloquence on this Subject The Directions that were given to the Justices and the Grand Juries were all repeated Aggravations of this Matter and a little Ordinary Lawyer without any other visible Merit but an outragious Fury in those Matters on which he has chiefly valued himself was of a sudden taken into His Majesties special Favour and raised up to the Highest Posts of the Law. All these things led some of our Obedient Clergy to look on it as a piece of their Duty to the King to encourage that Severity of which the Court seemed so fond that almost all People thought they had set it up for a Maxim from which they would never depart I will not pretend to excuse all that has been done of late years but it is certain that the most crying Severities have been acted by Persons that were raised up to be Judges and Magistrates for that very end they were Instructed Trusted and Rewarded for it both in the last and under the present Reign Church Preferments were distributed rather as Recompences of this devouring Zeal than of a real Merit and men of more moderate Tempers were not only ill lookt at but ill used So that it is in it self very unreasonable to throw the load of the late Rigour on the Church of England without distinction but it is worse than in good manners it is fit to call it if this Reproach comes from the Court. And it is somewhat unbecoming to see that which was set on at one time disowned at another while yet he that was the Chief Instrument in it is still in so high a Post and begins
with the King and what Hopes She gave the Party yet they did not so entirely espouse the King's cause but that they had likewise a flying Squadron in the Parliaments Army how boldly soever this may be denied by our Author for this I will give him a Proof that is beyond exception in a Declaration of that Kings sent to the Kingdom of Scotland bearing date the 21 of April 1643. which is printed over and over again and as an Author that writes the History of the late Wars has assured us the clean draught of it corrected in some places with the King 's own Hand is yet extant so that it cannot be pretended that this was only a bold Assertion of some of the Kings Ministers that might be ill affected to their Party In that Declaration the King studied to possess his Subjects of Scotland with the Justice of his Cause and among other things to clear himself of that Imputation that he had an Army of Papists about him after many things said on that head these words are added Great numbers of that Religion have been with great Alacrity entertained in that Rebellious Army against us and others have been seduced to whom we had formerly denied Imployments as appears by the Examination of many Prisoners of whom we have taken twenty and thirty at a time of one Troop or Company of that Religion I hope our Author will not have the Impudence to dispute the Credit that is due to this Testimony but no Discoveries how evident so ever they may be can affect some sort of Men that have a Secret against blushing V. Our Author exhorts us to change our Principles of Loyalty and to take example of our Catholick Neighbours how to behave our selves towards a Prince that is not of our Perswasion But would he have us learn of our Irish Neighbours to cut our Fellow-subjects Throats and rebel against our King because he is of another Religion For that is the freshest Example that any of our Catholick Neighbours have set us and therefore I do not look so far back as to the Gunpowder-Plot or the League of France in the last Age. He reproaches us for failing in our Fidelity to our King. But in this matter we appeal to God Angels and Men and in particular to His Majesty Let our Enemies shew any one point of our Duty in which we have failed for as we cannot be charged for having preach'd any seditious Doctrine so we are not wanting in the preaching of the Duties of Loyalty even when we see what they are like to cost us The Point which he singles out is That we have failed in that grateful Return that we owed His Majesty for his Promise of maintaining our Church as it is established by Law since upon that we ought to have repealed the Sanguinary Laws and the late impious Tests the former being enacted to maintain the Usurpation of Queen Elizabeth and the other being contrived to exclude the present King. We have not failed to pay all the Gratitude and Duty that was possible in return to His Majesties Promise which we have carried so far that we are become the Object even of our Enemies Scorn by it With all Humility be it said that if His Majesty had promised us a farther Degree of his Favour than that of which the Law had assured us it might have been expected that our return should have been a degree of Obedience beyond that which was required by Law so that the return of the Obedience injoined by Law answers a Promise of a Protection according to Law Yet we carried this matter further for as was set forth in the beginning of this Paper we went on in so high a pace of Compliance and Confidence that we drew the Censures of the whole Nation on us Nor could any Jealousies or Fears give us the least Apprehensions till we were so hard pressed in matters of Religion that we could be no longer silent The same Apostle that taught us to honour the King said likewise that we must obey God rather than man. Our Author knows the History of our Laws ill for besides what has been already said touching the Laws made by Queen Elizabeth the severest of all our Penal Laws and that which troubles him and his Friends most was past by K. James after the Gunpowder-Plot a Provocation that might have well justified even greater Severities But tho' our Author may hope to impose on an ignorant Reader who may be apt to believe implicitly what he says concerning the Laws of the last Age yet it was too bold for him to assert that the Tests which are so lately made were contrived to exclude the present King when there was not a Thought of Exclusion many years after the first was made and the Duke was excepted out of the Second by a special Proviso But these Gentlemen will do well never to mention the Exclusion for every time that it is named it will make People call to mind the Service that the Church of England did in that matter and that will carry with it a Reproach of Ingratitude that needs not be aggravated He also confounds the two Tests as if that for Publick Imployments contained in it a Declaration of the King 's being an Idolater or as he makes it a Pagan which is not at all in it but in the other for the Members of Parliament in which there is indeed a Declaration that the Church of Rome is guilty of Idolatry which is done in general terms without applying it to His Majesty as our Author does Upon this he would infer That his Majesty is not safe till the Tests are taken away but we have given such Evidences of our Loyalty that we have plainly shewed this to be false since we do openly declare that our Duty to the King is not founded on his being of this or that Religion so that His Majesty has a full Security from our Principles tho' the Tests continue since there is no reason that we who did run the hazard of being ruined by the Excluders when the Tide was so strong against us would fail his Majesty now when our Interest and Duty are joyned together But if the Tests are taken away it is certain that we can have no Security any longer for we shall be then laid open to the Violence of such restless and ill-natured men as the Author of this Paper and his Brethren are VI. The same reason that made our Saviour refuse to throw himself down from the Roof of the Temple when the Devil tempted him to it in the vain Confidence that Angels must be assistant to him to preserve him holds good in our Case Our Saviour said Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And we dare not trust our selves to the Faith and to the Mercies of a Society that is but too well known to the World to pretend that we should pull down our Pales to let in such Wolves among us
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
malicious and soon-discovered Artifices of one that knew that She had ordered the Letter and that thought himself safe in this Disguise in the discharging of his Malice against her So ingratefully is she required by a Party for whom she had expressed so much Compassion and Charity This Author Pag. 53. thinks it is an indecent forecast to be always erecting such Schemes for the next Heir both in Discourse and Writing as seem almost to calculate the Nativity of the present and he would almost make this High-Treason But if it is so there were many Traitors in England a few Years ago in which the next Heir though but a Brother was so much considered that the King himself look'd as one out of Countenance and abandoned and could scarce find Company enough about him for his Entertainment either in his Bed-Chamber or in his Walks when the whole Dependance was on the Successor so if we by turns look a little at the Successor those who did this in so scandalous a manner ought not to take it so very ill from us In a melancholy State of things it is hard to deny us the Consolation of hoping that we may see better Days But since our Author is so much concerned that this Letter should not be in any manner imputed to the Princess it seems a little strange that the Prince is so given up by him that he is at no pains to clear him of the Imputation For the happy Union that is between them will readily make us conclude that if the Prince ordered it the Princess had likewise her share in it I find but one glance at the Prince in the whole Book Pag. 52. when the Author is pleasing himself with the hopes of Protection from the Royal Heir out of a sense of Filial Duty He concludes Especially when so nearly allied to the very Bosom of a Prince whose way of Worship neither is the same with the National here and in whose Countries all Religions have been ever alike tolerated The Phrase of so near an Alliance to the very Bosom of a Prince is somewhat extraordinary An Author that will be florid scorns so simple an Expression as married he thought the other was more lofty But the matter of this Period is more remarkable it intimates as if the Prince's way of Worship was so different from ours tho we hear that he goes frequently with the Princess to her Chappel and expresses no aversion to any of our Forms tho he thinks it decent to be more constantly in the Exercises of Devotion that are authorised in Holland And as for that that all Religions have been ever alike tolerated there it is another of our Author's flights I do not hear that there are either Bonzis or Bramans in Holland or that the Mahometans have their Mosques there And sure his Friends the Roman Catholicks will tell him that all Religions are not alike tolerated there Thus I have followed him more largely in this Article than in any other it being that of the greatest Importance by which he had endeavoured to blast all the good effects which the Pensioners Letter has had among us IX I have now gone over that which I thought most important in this Paper and in which it seemed necessary to inform the Publick aright without insisting on the particular Slips of the Author of it or of the Advantages that he gives to any that would answer him more particularly I cannot think that any Man in the Nation can be now so weak as not to see what must needs be the effect of the Abolition of the Test after all that we see and hear it is too great an Affront to Mankind to offer to make it out A Man's Understanding may really mislead him so far as to make him change his Religion he remaining still an honest Man but no Man can pretend to be thought an honest Man that betrays the legal and now the only visible Defences of that Religion which he professes The taking away the Test for publick Employments is to set up an Office at Father Peter's for all Pretenders and perhaps a Pretender will not be so much as received till he has first abjured so that every Vacancy will probably make five or six Profelites and those Protestants who are already in Employments will feel their ground quickly fail under them and upon the first Complaint they will see what must be done to restore them to favour And as for the two Houses of Parliament as a great Creation will presently give them the Majority in the House of Lords so a new set of Charters and bold Returns will in a little time give them likewise the Majority in the House of Commons and if it is to be supposed that Protestants who have all the Security of the Law for their Religion can throw that up who can so much as doubt that when they have brought themselves into so naked a condition it will be no hard thing to overturn their whole Establishment and then perhaps we shall be told more plainly what is now but darkly insinuated to us by this Author that the next Heir seems still to be so nearly related to this State. AN APOLOGY FOR THE CHURCH of ENGLAND With Relation to the Spirit of PERSECUTION For which She is accused I. ONE should think that the Behaviour of the English Clergy for some Years past and the present Circumstances in which they are should set them beyond Slander and by consequence above Apologies yet since the Malice of her Enemies works against her with so much Spight and since there is no Insinuation that carries so much Malice in it and that seems to have such colours of Truth on it as this of their having set on a severe Persecution against the Dissenters of being still sour'd with that Leaven and of carrying the same implacable Hatred to them which the present Reputation that they have gained may put them in a further capacity of executing if another Revolution of Affairs should again give them Authority set about it it seems necessary to examine it and that the rather because some aggravate this so far as if nothing were now to be so much dreaded as the Church of England's getting out of her present Distress II. If these Imputations were charged on us only by those of the Church of Rome we should not much wonder at it for though it argues a good degree of Confidence for any of that Communion to declaim against the Severities that have been put in Practice among us since their little Finger must be heavier than ever our Loins were and to whose Scorpions our Rods ought not to be compared yet after all we are so much accustomed to their Methods that nothing from them can surprise us To hear Papists declare against Persecution and Jesuits cry up Liberty of Conscience are we confess unusual things yet there are some degrees of Shame over which when People are once passed all things become
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
been among us and even to forget the Injuries that have been done us all that we do now one against another is to shorten the work of our Enemies by destroying one another which must in Conclusion turn to all our Ruin. It is a mad Man's Revenge to destroy our Friends that we may do a pleasure to our Enemies upon their giving us some good words and if the Dissenters can trust to Papists after the usage that the Church of England has met with at their Hands all the Comfort that they can promise themselves when Popery begins to act its natural part among us and to set Smithfield again in a Fire is that which befell some Quakers at Rome who were first put in the Inquisition but were afterwards removed to Bedlam so tho those false Brethren among the Dissenters who deceive them at present are certainly no Changlings but know well what they are doing yet those who can be cheated by them may well claim the priviledg of a Bedlam when their Folly has left them no other Retreat XI I will not digress too far from my present purpose nor enter into a discussion of the Dispensing Power which was so effectually overthrown the other day at the King's Bench Bar that I am sure all the Authority of the Bench it self is no more able to support it Yet some late Papers in favour of it give me occasion to add a little relating to that Point It is true the Assertor of the Dispensing Power who has lately appeared with Allowance pretends that it can only be applied to the Test for Publick Imployments for he owns that the Test for both Houses of Parliament is left entire as not within the compass of this extent of the Prerogative But another Writer whom by his Sense we must conclude an Irish Man by his Brow a Jesuit and by the bare designation in the Title Page of James Stewart's Letter a Quaker goes a strain higher and thinks the King is so absolutely the Sovereign as to the Legislative part of our Government that he may dissolve even the Parliament Test so nimbly has he leap'd from being a Secretary to a Rebellion to be an Advocate for Tyranny He fancies that because no Parliament can bind up another therefore they cannot limit the Preliminaries to a subsequen Parliament But upon what is it then that Counties have but two Knights and Burroughs as many that Men below such a value have no Vote that Sheriffs only receive Writs and return Elections besides many more necessary Requisites to the making a legal Parliament In short if Laws do not regulate the Election and Constitution of a Parliament all these things may be overthrown and the King may cast the whole Government in a new Mould as well as dissolve the Obligation that is on the Members of Parliament for taking the Test It is true that as soon as a Parliament is legally met and constituted it is tied by no Laws so far as not to repeal them But the Preliminaries to a Parliament are still Sacred as long as the Law stands that settled them for the Members are still in the quality of ordinary Subjects and not entred upon their share in the Legislative Power till they are constituted in a Parliament legally chosen and lawfully assembled that is having observed all the Requisites of the Law. But I leave that impudent Letter to return to the most modest Apology that has been yet writ for the Dispensing Power It yields that the King cannot abrogate Laws and pretends only that he can dispense with them And the distinction it puts between Abrogation and Dispensation is that the one is a total Repeal of the Law and that the other is only a slackning of its obligatory Force with Relation to a particular Man or to any Body of Men so that according to him a simple Abrogation or a total Repeal is beyond the compass of the Prerogative I desire then that this Doctrine may be applied to the following words of the Declaration from which the Reader may infer whether these do import a simple Abrogation or not and by Consequence if the Declaration is not Illegal We do hereby further declare that it is our Royal Will and Pleasure that the Oaths commonly called the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and also the several Tests and Declarations shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken declared or subscribed by any Person or Persons whatsoever who is or shall be imployed in any Office or Place of Trust either Civil or Military under us or in our Government This is plain English and needs no Commentary That Paper offers likewise an Expedient for securing Liberty of Conscience by which it will be set beyond even the Dispensing Power and that is that by Act of Parliament all Persecution may be declared to be a thing Evil in it self and then the Prerogative cannot reach it But unless this Author fancies that a Parliament is that which those of the Church of Rome believe a General Council to be I mean Infallible I do not see that such an Act would signify any thing at all An Act of Parliament cannot change the Nature of Things which are sullen and will not alter because a hard Word is clap'd on them in an Act of Parliament nor can that make that which is not Evil of it self become Evil of self For can any Act of Parliament make the Clipping of Mony or the not Burying in Wollen evil of it self Such an Act were indeed null of it self and would sink with its own weight even without the burden of the Prerogative to press it down and yet upon such a Sandy Foundation would these Men have us build all our Hopes and our Securities Another Topick like this is that we ought to trust to the Truth of our Religion and the Providence and Protection of God and not lean so much to Laws and Tests All this were very pertinent if God had not already given us humane Assurances against the Rage of our Enemies which we are now desired to abandon that so we may fall an easy and cheap Sacrifice to those who wait for the favourable Moment to destroy us By the same Reason they may perswade us to take off all our Doors or at least all our Locks and Bolts and to sleep in this exposed Condition trusting to God's Protection The Simily may appear a little too high though it is really short of the Matter for we had better trust our selves to all the Thieves and Robbers of the Town who would be perhaps contented with a part of our Goods than to those whose Designs are equally against both Soul and Body and all that is dear to us XII I will only add another Reflection upon the renewing of the Declaration this Year which has occasioned the present Storm upon the Clergy It is repeated to us that so we may see that the King continues firm to the Promises he made
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
he writ on that occasion But finding that the Prince had already declared himself in those Matters he resolved to insist no further yet his Friend insinuating that he had still hopes to get a more distinct and satisfying Answer from a better hand though without naming the Person he attended the Issue and about the beginning of November almost three moneths after his first writing he received the Pensioner's Letter though he had not writ to him which is repeated again and again and in it an account of the Prince and Princess of Orange's Thoughts about the Repeal of the Tests and Penal Laws which he had not desired upon which he took some care to prevent the publishing of it But when he saw it in print he clearly perceived that it was printed in Holland and so wonders how the Pensioner could say that it was printed in England which he found in his printed Letter to Mr. d' Albeville He knows not upon what Provocation the Pensioner writ that Letter but in it he finds that he writ that he was desired by himself to give him an account of the Prince and Princess of Orange's Thoughts and that these pressing Desires were made to him by His Majestie 's Knowledg and Allowance this being so different from the Letters he had writ of which he is sure that the account he has given is true in every point he was forced to vindicate the King's Honour and his own Duty He writ not out of any curiosity to know their Highnesses Thoughts which were already known they having been signified to the Marquis of Albeville and therefore he had no Orders from the King for writing on that Subject but only a Permission to use his little Endeavors for the advancing of his Service but it was never moved to him to write either in the King's Name or in the Name of any of his Secretaries This is Mr. Stewart's Account in the first nine Pages of his Letter and is set down in his own words Now in opposition to all this it will appear from the following Extracts that Mr. Stewart writ to his Friend as the most proper Interpreter for addressing himself to the Pensioner that he repeated his Proposition frequently finding his Friend unwilling to engage in so Critical a matter He gives great Assurances of His Majesties Resolutions never to alter the Succession which is plainly the Language of a Treaty he presses over and over again to know the Prince's Mind whose concurrence in the Matter would be the best Guarentee of the Liberty He by Name desires his Letters may be shewed to the Prince and Princess of Orange though he says he only ordered them to be shewed to Friends at the Hague so it seems he has the modesty to reckon them among the number of his Friends but it is a question whether their Highnesses do so or not he says in one Letter That what he writ was from his Majesty himself and enlarges more fully on this in two other Letters and he desires that the Princes Answers with his Reasons might be understood which very probably gave the occasion to all the reasoning part of the Pensioner's Letter and it appears by that Letter that the Return to all this was expected by the King and in almost every Letter he presses for a Return And in Conclusion upon his receiving the Pensioner's Letter he expresses likewise a great sense of the Honour done him in it that he had so far complied with his Insignificant Endeavours he mentions his acquainting both the King and the Earls of Sunderland and Melfort with it and in another Letter after new Thanks for the Pensioner's Letter he laments that it was so long delayed But all these things will appear more evident to the Reader from the Passages drawn out of Mr. Stewart's own Letters which follow Mr. Stewart seems not to know upon what provocation the Pensioner writ to Mr. d' Albeville and yet the Pensioner had set that forth in the Letter it self for the Pamphlet entituled Parliamentum Pacificum that was licensed by the Earl of Sunderland contained such Reflections on his Letter to Mr. Stewart either as a Forgery or as a thing done without the Princess of Orange's knowledg that the Pensioner judged himself bound in honour to do himself right As for Mr. Stewart's criticalness in knowing that the Pensioner's Letter was first printed in Holland and his Reflection on the Pensioner for insinuating that the Letter was first printed in England it is very like that Mr. Stewart after so long a practice in Libels knows how to distinguish between the Prints of the several Nations better than the Pensioner whose course of Life has raised him above all such Practices But it is certain that wheresoever it was first printed the Pensioner writ sincerely and believed really that it was first printed in England This is all that seemed necessary to be said for an Introduction to the following Extracts July 12 1687. AND I assure you by all I can find here the Establishment of this equal Liberty is his Majesty's utmost Design I wish your People at the Hague do not mistake too far both his Majesty and the Dissenters for as I have already told you his Majesty's utmost Design and have ground to belive that his Majesty will preserve and observe the true Right of Succession as a thing most sacred so I must entreat you to remark that the Offence that some of the Church-of-England-Men take at Addressing seems to me unaccountable and is apprehended by the Dissenters to proceed so certainly from their former and wonted Spirit that they begin to think themselves in large more hazard from the Church of England's Re-exaltation than all the Papists their Advantages And next that the Prince is thought to be abused by some there to a too great Mislike of that which can never wrong him but will in probability in the Event be wholly in his own Power I hope you will consider and make your best use of these things I expect an account of this per first I mean an Answer to this Letter and pray improve it to the best Advantage The Second Letter without a Date THat it is a thing most certain that his Majesty is resolved to observe the Succession to the Crown as a thing most Sacred and is far from all thoughts of altering the same and that his Majesty is very desirous to have the Prince and Princess of Orange to consent to concur with him in establishing this Liberty So that upon the whole it may be feared that if the Prince continue obstinate in refusing his Majesty he may fall under suspitions of the greatest part of England and of all Scotland to be too great a Favourer of the Church of England and consequently a Person whom they have reason to dread And many think that this Compliance in the Prince might be further a wise part both as to the conciliating of his Majesty's greater Favour and
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
sees all things and who will bring to light the hidden things of dishonesty and who will either compass me with his favour as with a shield and cover me from the rage of my Enemies or if he lets me fall into their hands will accept of the Sacrifice of my Life that I offer to him and receive me into his Presence where I shall be at quiet and safe both from the Strife of Tongues and from the Pride of Man. GILBERT BVRNET A Letter containing some Remarks on the two Papers writ by his late Majesty King Charles the Second concerning Religion SIR I Thank you for the Two Royal Papers that you have sent me I had heard of them before but now we have them so well attested that there is no hazard of being deceived by a false Copy You expect that in return I should let you know what Impression they have made upon me I pay all the reverence that is due to a Crown'd Head even in Ashes to which I will never be wanting Far less am I capable of suspecting the Royal Attestation that accompanies them of the truth of which I take it for granted no man doubts but I must crave leave to tell you that I am confident the late King only Copied them and that they are not of his composing for as they have nothing of that free Air with which he expressed himself so there is a Contexture in them that does not look like a Prince and the beginning of the first shews it was the effect of a Conversation and was to be communicated to another so that I am apt to think they were composed by another and were so well relished by the late King that he thought fit to keep them in oder to his examining them more particularly and that he was prevailed with to Copy them lest a Paper of that Nature might have been made a Crime if it had been found about him written by another hand And I could name one or two Persons who as they were able enough to compose such Papers so had Power enough over his Spirit to engage him to Copy them and to put themselves out of danger by restoring the Original You ought to address your self to the Learned Divines of our Church for an Answer to such things in them as puzzle you and not to one that has not the Honour to be of that Body and that has now carried a Sword for some time and imploys the Leasure that at any time he enjoys rather in Philosophical and Mathematical Enquiries than in matters of Controversy There is indeed one Consideration that determined me more easily to comply with your desires which is my having had the honour to Discourse copiously of those matters with the late King himself and he having proposed to me some of the Particulars that I find in those Papers and I having said several things to him in answer to those Heads which he offered to me only as Objections with which he seemed fully satisfied I am the more willing to communicate to you that which I took the Liberty to lay before his late Majesty on several occasions the Particulars on which he insisted in Discourse with me were the uselesness of a Law without a Judg and the necessity of an Infallible Tribunal to determine Controversies to which he added The many Sects that were in England which seemed to be a necessary consequence of the Liberty that every one took to interpret the Scriptures and he often repeated that of the Church of England's arguing from the obligation to obey the Church against the Sectaries which he thought was of no force unless they allowed more Authority to the Church than they seemed willing to admit in their Disputes with the Church of Rome But upon this whole Matter I will offer you some Reflections that will I hope be of as great weight with you as they are with my self I. All Arguments that prove upon such general Considerations That there ought to be an Infallible Judge named by Christ and clothed with his Authority signifie nothing unless it can be shewed us in what Texts of Scripture that nomination is to be found and till that is shewed they are only Arguments brought to prove that Christ ought to have done somewhat that he has not done So these are in effect so many Arguments against Christ unless it appears that he has authorised such a Judge therefore the right way to end this dispute is to shew where such a Constitution is authorised So that the most that can be made of this is that it amounts to a favourable presumption II. It is a very unreasonable thing for us to form Presumptions of what is or ought to be from Inconveniences that do arise in case that such things are not for we may carry this so far that it will not be easie to stop it It seems more suitable to the infinite Goodness of God to communicate the knowledge of himself to all Mankind and to furnish every Man with such assistances as will certainly prevail over him It seems also reasonable to think that so perfect a Saviour as Jesus Christ was should have shewed us a certain Way and yet consistent with the free Use of our Faculties of avoiding all sin nor is it very easie to imagine that it should be a reproach on his Gospel if there is not an Infallible Preservative against Error when it is acknowledged that there is no infallible Preservative against Sin for it is certain that the one Damns us more Infallibly than the other III. Since Presumptions are so much insisted on to prove what things must be appointed by Christ it is to be considered that it is also a reasonable Presumption that if such a Court was appointed by him it must be done in such plain terms that there can be no room to question the meaning of them and since this is the hinge upon which all other matters turn it ought to be expressed so particularly in whom it is vested that there should be no occasion given to dispute whether it is in One Man or in A Body and if in a body whether in the Majority or in the two thirds or in the whole Body unanimously agreeing in short the Chief thing in all Governments being the Nature and Power of the Judges those are always distinctly specified and therefore if these things are not specified in the Scriptures it is at least a strong Presumption that Christ did not intend to authorise such Judges IV. There were several Controversies raised among the Churches to which the Apostles writ as appears by the Epistles to the Romans Corinthians Galatians and Colossians yet the Apostles never make use of those passages that are pretended for this Authority to put an end to those Controversies which is a shrewd Presumption that they did not understand them in that sense in which the Church of Rome does now take them Nor does St. Paul in the directions 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
England it will be a very heavy Imputation on us if it appears that though we held those Opinions as long as the Court and Crown have favoured us yet as soon as the Court turns against us we change our Principles XIV Here is the true Difficulty of this whole Matter and therefore it ought to be exactly considered 1. All general Words how large soever are still supposed to have a tacit Exception and Reserve in them if the Matter seems to require it Children are commanded to obey their Parents in all things Wives are declared by the Scripture to be subject to their Husband in all things as the Church is unto Christ And yet how comprehensive soever these words may seem to be there is still a Reserve to be understood in them and though by our Form of Marriage the Parties swear to one another till Death them do part yet few doubt but that this Bond is dissolved by Adultery though it is not named for odious things ought not to be suspected and therefore not named upon such occasions But when they fall out they carry still their own force with them 2. When there sems to be a Contradiction between two Articles in the Constitution we ought to examine which of the two is the most Evident and the most Important and so we ought to fix upon it and then we must give such an accommodating sense to that which seems to contradict it that so we may reconcile those together Here then are two seeming Contradictions in our Constitution The one is the Publick Liberty of the Nation the other is the renouncing of all Resistance in case that were invaded It is plain that our Liberty is only a thing that we enjoy at the King's Discretion and during his Pleasure if the other against all Resistance is to be understood according to the utmost Extent of the Words Therefore since the chief Design of our whole Law and of all the several Rules of our Constitution is to secure and maintain our Liberty we ought to lay that down for a Conclusion that it is both the most plain and the most important of the two And therefore the other Article against Resistance ought to be so softned as that it do not destroy us 3. Since it is by a Law that Resistance is condemned we ought to understand it in such a sense as that it does not destroy all other Laws And therefore the intent of this Law must only relate to the Executive Power which is in the King and not to the Legislative in which we cannot suppose that our Legislators who made that Law intended to give up that which we plainly see they resolved still to preserve entire according to the Ancient Constitution So then the not resisting the King can only be applied to the Executive Power that so upon no pretence of ill Administrations in the Execution of the Law it should be lawful to resist him but this cannot with any reason be extended to an Invasion of the Legislative Power or to a total Subversion of the Government For it being plain that the Law did not design to lodg that Power in the King it is also plain that it did not intend to secure him in it in case he should set about it 4. The Law mentioning the King or those Commissioned by him shews plainly that it only designed to secure the King in the Executive Power for the word Commission necessarily importts this since if it is not according to Law it is no Commission and by Consequence those who act in virtue of it are not Commissionated by the King in the Sense of the Law. The King likewise imports a Prince clothed by Law with the Regal Prerogative but if he goes to subvert the whole Foundation of the Government he subverts that by which he himself has his Power and by consequence he annuls his own Power and then he ceases to be King having endeavoured to destroy that upon which his own Authority is founded XV. It is acknowledged by the greatest Assertors of Monarchial Power that in some Cases a King may fall from his Power and in other Cases that he may fall from the Exercise of it His Deserting his People his going about to enslave or sell them to any other or a furious going about to destroy them are in the opinion of the most Monarchical Lawyers such Abuses that they naturally divest those that are guilty of them of their whole Authority Infancy or Phrenzy do also put them under the Guardianship of others All the Crowned Heads of Europe have at least secretly approved of the putting the late King of Portugal under a Guardianship and the keeping him still a Prisoner for a few Acts of Rage that had been fatal to a very few Persons And even our Court gave the first countenance to it though of all others the late King had the least reason to have done it at least last of all since it justified a younger Brother's supplanting the Elder yet the Evidence of the Thing carried it even against Interest Therefore if a King goes about to subvert the Government and to overturn the whole Constitution he by this must be supposed either to fall from his Power or at least from the Exercise of it so far as that he ought to be put under Guardians and according to the Case of Portugal the next Heir falls naturally to be the Guardian XVI The next Thing to be considered is to see in Fact whether the Foundations of this Government have been struck at and whether those Errors that have been perhaps committed are only such Malversations as ought to be imputed only to humane Frailty and to the Ignorance Inadvertencies or Passions to which all Princes may be subject as well as other Men. But this will best appear if we consider what are the Fundamental Points of our Government and the chief Securities that we have for our Liberties The Authority of the Law is indeed all in one word so that if the King pretends to a Power to dispense with Laws there is nothing left upon which the Subject can depend and yet as if the Dispensing Power were not enough if Laws are wholly suspended for all Time coming this is plainly a repealing of them when likewise the Men in whose Hands the Administration of Justice is put by Law such as Judges and Sheriffs are allowed to tread all Laws under-foot even those that infer an Incapacity on themselves if they violate them this is such a breaking of the whole Constitution that we can no more have the Administration of Justice so that it is really a Dissolution of the Government since all Trials Sentences and the Executions of them are become so many unlawful Acts that are null and void of themselves The next Thing in our Constitution which secures to us our Laws and Liberties is a Free and Lawful Parliament Now not to mention the breach of the Law of Triennial Parliaments it