attainting of many hundreds of the Nobility and Gentry of Ireland who were fled to England But the Town of London-Derry holding out and an Army being every Day expected from England the 18th of July this Parliament was prorogued till October And notwithstanding their Act for Liberty of Conscience and the dreadful Expectation of a sudden Revenge from England the Popish Clergy took possession of the Tithes and Church Revenues and many of the Protestant Clergy were clapt up in Prison in order to be sent into France All that our discontented Party here in England have to say to all this is That we must not believe all is told as out of Ireland but they mean That we must believe nothing of it but call in King James and try if he will use us at the same rate We have a Proverb That Experience is the Mistress of Fools and certainly none but such will come a second time under her Discipline when they have so lately tried it and see every Day hundreds of the Nobility Gentry and Clergy of Ireland flee hither to save their Lives with the loss of all besides who agree very exactly one with another in these dreadful Stories Now let it be considered That nothing was asked by the Bishops in their Proposals and by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in their Petition of the 17th of November but a free and legal Parliament and the redress of our Grievances and that this was the principal thing insisted on by the Prince of Orange in his Declaration viz. That a free and legal Parliament might settle and adjust all things in Difference or Dispute and that it was obstinately refused till the 28 th of that Month and then granted when it could be no longer denyed the greatest part of the Nobility and Army being then gone over to the Prince Let also that Passage in the Proclamation of the 30th of November be considered For the reconciling all Publick breaches and obliterating the very Memory of all past Miscarriages We do hereby Exhort and kindly Admonish all our Subjects to dispose themselves to Elect such Persons for their Representatives in Parliament as may not be byassed by Prejudice or Passion but qualified with Parts Experience and Prudence proper for this Conjuncture and agreeable to the Ends and Purposes of this Our Gracious Proclamation And after this that by his Message of the 8th of December sent by the three Lords to the Prince of Orange He promised That he would consent to every thing that could be reasonably required for the security of those that came to it that is to the Parliament And that the 10th of December he sent for the Lord Mayor and Aldermen and Sheriffs of London to Whitehall and again passed his Word to them That though the Queen and Child were gone for France He would stay with them And though this Evening he received such an Answer from the Prince to his Proposals that he could not but acknowledge It was fairer than he could or did expect Yet after all these solemn ingagements he burnt the Writs for the Summoning a Parliament and went the very next Morning away for France as his Roman Catholick Friends had foretold he would above a fortnight before And who accordingly sent a Letter to him whilst he was at Salisbury perswading him to come back from thence and withdraw himself out of the Kingdom and leave it in confusion Assuring him That within two years or less the Nation would be in such Disorder that he might come back and have his Ends of it That is Ruine both our Civil Rights and our Religion When all these solemn promises were thus easily broken or rather never intended to be kept at the very time they were made and all those he has since made have been violated in Ireland where only he had power to keep or break his word what can we conclude but that as a Minister of State told our Planters It is very undecent not to say undutiful to tax this King with his Promises Who of all Mankind has shewn the least regard in time past to them and for time to come can never be blamed for any breach the Parties that take his word being alone responsible for their Incorrigible folly Some of these Men have confessed to me That if ever he be restored they expect to be treated as they were before without Truth Justice or Mercy but yet if it be his Right he must have it And they cannot think his Right can be determined but by Death or a voluntary surrender or a Conquest made by meer Foreigners to the utter Ruine of the English Nation And they will admit no Answer to these their Scruples but what shall be palpable convictive to that degree that they can make no Objection against it Now if they admit all the dreadful consequences that attend this relapse and yield up both Church and Nation to certain and inevitable ruine only that they may not be damned for Perjury and Disobedience to a King that has left them when he might have staied and now offereth to return and do what he then refused What shall we also consent and sacrifice our selves and our Posterity to the humour or scruples of these Men Shall we suffer the English Church Liberties and the very People of England to be destroyed to gratifie two or three hundred persons I have been told from good hands That one of our Bishops said Though he could not satisfie his own Scruples yet he thought the English Nation fools if ever they suffered King James to return and I may from hence reasonably conclude the far greatest part of our Scruplers are satisfied in the main and do heartily wish they could also be of the same mind with the rest of their Brethren in the rest so that the cause is half obtained against them and those that shall finally persist will I hope not meet with much Compassion it being scarce possible there should not be a very great deal of Will in so much blindness Our Neighbours abroad have observed with wonder That England was delivered from an Arbitrary Government which threatned the Ruine and Desolation of the whole Nation and the Destruction of our Religion without the shedding any of our Blood and that the Army of our Deliverer has committed no Disorder or Rapine in any of our Places through which it passed Now one would think the manner of our Deliverance were a Mercy almost equal to the Deliverance No they cry if King William the Third had entered England as William the First did and had slain fifty or sixty thousand English Men in a Battle then it had been a true Conquest and would have justified our submission and God would not have been offended with us if we had transferred our Allegiance from the beaten James to the Victorious King William Now if Men were like Beasts altogether distitute of the use of Reason and capable of no Reflection but the
same service what fortune ever fall by chance in the same Battle against the Mind and Will of the Prince as in this Land some time passed hath been seen that it is not reasonable but against all Law Reason and good Conscience that the said Subjects going with their Sovereign Lord in Wars attending upon him in his Person or being in other places by his commandment within this Land or without any thing should lose or forfeit for doing their true Duty and Service of Allegiance c That for the said deed and true Duty of Allegiance he or they be in no wise Convict or Attaint of high Treason ne of other Offences for that cause by Act of Parliament or otherwise by any Process of Law whereby he or any of them shall lose or forfeit Life Lands Tenements c. or any other things but to be for that Deed and Service utterly discharged of any vexation trouble or loss And if any Act or Acts or other Process of the Law hereafter thereupon for the same happen to be made contrary to this Ordinance that then that Act or Acts or other Process of the Law whatsoever they shall be stand and be utterly void 5 Provided always that no Person or Persons shall take any Benefit or Advantage by this Act which shall hereafter decline from his or their said Allegiance Which is to be understood of the King in being as the rest is and against the same King. To this Statute it is alledged That the Title of the Crown was then so ambiguous and uncertain that it was hard to know where the Right lay which is a meer Cavil The Title was as well known then as it is now and is a thing of that Nature that it can never be universally known but the greatest part of Mankind take those that are set over them without further inquiry nor is it reasonable any Man should suffer for obeying them whom he cannot nor ought to resist So that what some have said That every one is bound to take notice of the right Title at his Peril is true if the Person is in Possession but false if he is out of Possession Conquest a voluntary Surrender and a wilful Desertion of a Crown will put an End to the best founded Title in the World as I think is universally agreed so that if the Party pretending has a Title why is he not in Possession too if he is outed by his own Act I am absolved if by the Force and Power of another why then he is conquered and both waies especially if I had no hand in it I am and ought to be absolved before God and Man. But then not only the three Estates of England but all the Princes and Sovereign States in Christendom except the King of France have allowed King William and Queen Mary as the rightful Sovereigns of England which is a kind of giving Judgment against the late King after hearing what has been alledged on both sides So that this Case is determined by all the ways that are possible and must absolve any Man that submits now to that which is the only Supreme Power in England As to the Oaths taken to the late King they create no new Obligation upon us as to the Extent or Duration of our Allegiance I was under the same Obligations of Allegiance before I was sworn as I was afterwards and every Subject of England oweth by the Laws of England a natural Allegiance to his Prince before he is sworn as every Man ows naturally Obedience to God before he entreth into the Baptismal Covenant And so the Primitive Christians were under the same Obligation to their Princes we are tho' I do not find they ever swore any Allegiance to them 2. This Allegiance is no everlasting Obligation as to time Death a voluntary Resignation a wilful Desertion or a lawful Conquest will put an End to it 3. It is no wild unlimited Obedience whilst it lasteth but is plainly limited by the Laws of God and the Laws of the Land and if I obey further actively I am responsible to God and Man for it I come now to the Words of the Oaths which may seem to create any Scruple which in the Oath of Supremacy I suppose may be these I do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the King's Highness his Heirs and Lawful Successors and to my Power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Where first I observe No Man is bound beyond his Power but that all those who stuck to the late King till he left the Nation and another took Possession of his Place are thereby disabled and freed from attempting any further 2. That the Authorities I am to defend are such only as belong to the Crown of England by the Laws of England which are to limit my Allegiance but by the Law of England my Allegiance is now transferred to another and cannot be due to two in opposition each to other so that if I persist in my Allegiance to James II. I am punishable by these very Laws therefore my Allegiance which was a legal Allegiance is determined That in the Oath of Allegiance which may be objected is this I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to his Majesty his Heirs and Successors and him and them will defend to the uttermost of my Power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity by reason or colour of any such Sentence or otherwise c. Now this Oath which binds us to the Person as the other did to the Power is capable of the same Limitation and is to be limited both as to its Duration and extent by the Laws of England and the Law of Nations and therefore is determinable the same way the other was The Power and uttermost Power reserved and expressed in these Oaths is a Legal Power and therefore no Man is by these Oaths bound to exert his Natural Power for any Prince when he may by the Laws of England be punished as a Traytor for so doing it being a Legal and not an Illegal Allegiance we promise by them If King James would have been contented with the Preheminences Priviledges Authorities and Jurisdictions granted and annexed or belonging to the Crown of England I believe no Body questions but he had been still King of England but by grasping at others which did not belong to him he cut off his own Succours and hindred those that otherwise would have defended him and them from doing it He would not be content with those that belonged to him and they could not fight for or defend any other and between these two his Power fell to the Ground by his own Default and his withdrawing put an End to his Sovereignty
but scorned and trodden upon by his proud Enemy Did the Christians of this Age petition for their old Persecutor did they refuse to be under the milder Government of his Son Gallienus because the Father was still living tho' in Captivity No he tells us That this was added to his Punishment that though he had a Son which succeeded in the Empire yet there was no Revenger of his Captivity and Slavery nec omnino repetitus est nor was he in the least ever demanded or desired Next after him arose Aurelian a mad and a rash Prince who was cut off in the beginning of his Rage After him came Dioclesian who was hardly persuaded to begin a Persecution but raged more than any of his Predecessors soon after he fell into a Sickness and was thought by the Violence of it to have been dead but tho' he escaped with his Life he was a long time disracted and was forced by Galerious Imperio cedere to resign the Empire in the Year 305. and although he lived to the Year 313. which was nine Years after he was deposed none of the Christians of that Age desired he should again ascend the Throne One of the last of the Pagan Princes that persecuted the Church was Licinus upon whom Constantine made War for that very Cause and reduced him to a private Life in Thrace in the Year 324. and in the Year 325. put him to death for endeavouring to recover his Throne But neither here did the Christians that were his Subjects desire again to be under their Pagan Persecuting Prince rather than under their Deliverer Constantine Julian the Apostate was the last Pagan Prince that reigned in the Roman Empire and he perished in Persia by an unknown Hand within two Years and one Month and was followed both living and dead with the Detestation of that and all the succeeding Ages S. Ambrose as he is cited by Grotius de jure belli pacis saith This Apostate had many Christian Soldiers under him who when he commanded them To stand to their Arms against the common Enemy of their Country obeyed him but when he commanded them to sight against the Christians then they acknowledged the Emperor of Heaven That is they refused to serve him in this And the famous Thebean Legion made this their Apology We offer our Service against any Enemy but we esteem in an Impiety to stain them with the Bloods of Innocent Men You may command our Hands against the Wicked and your Enemies but we cannot butcher the Pious and our fellow-Subjects We do well remember That we took up Arms for and not against our Countrymen and we have ever fought for Justice for Piety and the Preservation of the Innocent These things have hitherto been the Rewards of our Dangers Shall we oh Sir ever be able to keep our Faith and our promise to you if we now fail of performing our Promise to our God They were then said to be led into France to fight against the Bagaudae a sort of outlawed Christians who were forced by the Iniquity of the Times to take up Arms under Dioclesian and were all of them destroyed by Maximianus so that if that Story be true it is a pregnant Testimony That he Doctrine of Passive Obedience doth not oblige any Man to lend his Assistance to the Ruine of the true Religion Beside these Pagan Princes there were some Arian Princes who treated the Catholicks of their Times very hardly and though none of the Christians of those Times rebelled against them yet neither would the Catholicks assist the Arian Princes against the Catholick Bishops as is plain in the Story of S. Ambrose and the many Tumults at Constantinople Antioch and Alexandria in those Times and when these Princes sell by the Justice of God in Civil or Foreign Wars their Ends were looked upon as deserved Thus Valens perished in Thrace and Valentinian the younger at Vienne the one by the Hands of the Goths and the other by the Procurement of Arbogastes an Usurper and the untimely Deaths of these two Princes proved the Exaltation of Theodosius the Resettler of the Catholick Religion and the extirper of Arianism in the Roman Empire In all the various Events of these Times the Providence of God ordered things for the good of his Church and the Christians of those Times left them to his Disposal and submitted to those he set over them quietly and without disputing their Rights or Titles whereas Procopius who claimed the Empire as cousin to Julian the Emperor perished in the Attempt without pity or the Regard of the Church There is no part of the Reign of James II. that has not been examined and represented by many pens so that it were a needless but an ungrateful Task for me to rip it up again it may suffice to say in general Never any of our Princes so openly attempted the Ruine of the English Liberties or went so far in it never did any Man more openly endeavour the Ruine of an established Religion or by more illegal Courses than he nor Laws nor Oaths nor Promises nor Gratitude could restrain him he broke through all the Barriers God and Man had put in his Way and seemed resolved to ruine us or Himself no Remonstrances from abroad no Petitions at home could work upon him till he saw the Sword coming to cut up the Gourd he had planted and was so fond of then indeed he seemed to relent and to give back but still he would be trusted he would yield up nothing but so as that he might when the Danger was over re-assume the same again An English Parliament was the thing in the World he most hated because he foresaw if it was Free there was an end for ever of the Hopes of setting up Popery in this Kingdom and that was his main and almost only Design and yet as fond as he ever seemed to be of an Absolute and Uncontroulable Power if he had been of our Church he would not have hazarded all for it but he would have managed Things with some Reserve but the Jesuites he took into his Bosom and his Queen especially spurred him on and put him upon these Courses only by representing to him the Glory and Merit of extirpating the Northern Heresies and settling the Catholick Religion in England Well but what has he done since he left us that may give us any Assurance we were mistaken as to what was past or may hope for better Usage for time to come Why there have been some General Promises made In the Letter pretended to be sent to the Lords and Commons of England and after wards printed in London he or some other Person for him tells us We are resolved Nothing shall be omitted on our Part whenever we can with Safety return that can contribute towards the Redress of all former Errors or present Disorders or add to the securing of the Protestant Religion or the Property