upon occasion to show themselves in their proper Colours The Villany of which Damnable Falshood is sufficiently apparent from the forementiond Indulgence For why such a Dispensation Why a playing the basest of Hypocrites and Bantring with Religion Sacraments nay GOD himself as such a Dispensation is no less when under so universal an Impunity there was not the least Occasion for it There 's a natural Pride in all Religions to avow their own Principles and no Man like St. Peter denyes his Master unless like him too under some Apprehension of Danger in Owning him And therefore these papal Dispensations must be the Second Part of Otes his Commissions and nothing but the Restless Malice of Schisme and the Diabolical Spirit of Rebellion can raise so false an Alarum of popery and bugbear the Ignorant Rabble by so vile and so cursed an Imposture But to return to our Standing Army An Army of Papists is not to be had and an Army of Atheists is as unseizible as the other For whatever dissolute Debauchees might possibly be culled out as the Character tells you of no Religion nor Principles for a few particular Officers the whole Gross of an Army of the same Stamp is not in rerum Naturâ For if a popish Successour will have an Army of English-men he must take them as he finds them the loose and poorer sort of Rabble the Bore and Peasant the Refuse of the Shop and the Plough which are ever the Composition of Armyes in a Kingdom not so extraordinary peopled as England and these must be the Hands that this popish Successour must raise for his Standing Armyes And if so how far the Genius of the Commonalty of England lyes towards such a popish Vndertaking and this No-popish Army shall push on to these All-popish Designs is worthy our Consideration Here 's an Army expresly rais'd for a Forreign Invasion or the like and on the quite contrary intended to cut our own Throats at home rays'd for the Kingdom 's preservation used for its downright Destruction and all this forsooth because their Arbitrary popishly Affected Officers shall pull off the Vizor and wheel about and at the word of Command the whole Army after them But the Quaery is Whether they 'll obey that Command and be so tamely indifferent pro or con in their Obedience to act the most opposite thing to what they were raysed for and maintain perhaps the only Cause that they abhor I confess in the Quarrels of Princes and States as to Forreign Engagements the vindicating of a National Honour or the enlarging of Dominion c. Armyes are generally of their Leaders Inclinations and it boots litâ—le possibly to an English Army whether ingaged against a Dutch or a French Enemy But in Domestick and Intestine Jarrs the Favour of the Cause ever animates the Arm that fights it In all the popish Rebellions or Massacres whether in Ireland Piedmont or Paris whether for or against the Prince or in all the several Hugonot Rebellions in France or any other Kingdoms of Europe when Religion was the Quarrel 't was not the Command of the Leader but the Principle of the Party adhering to him that was ever the First Mover on both sides And a popish Cause in England can never move but upon the same Axle And nothing is more iâ—le than to fancy such an Extravagance in any People or Religion in the World as to swallow such Implicite Obedience to Princes as to do any Thing or all Things because Commanded 'T is not the first time that through prejudice to the Person or the Cause disgusted Souldiers have shot through their Captains instead of their Enemies Heads and the Fate of Kuniski amongst the Cossacks is no Original of the Kind nor is it any such Rarity in History to find whole Armies turn Deserters and not only set up new Leaders but new Soveraigns too And truly upon engaging an English Army under so Bloody a popish Standard what Assurance can this popish Successour propose to himself not so much of going through with so crabbed a piece of Work but even of his own meer Safety under the Protection of such Hands and Swords to uphold him What Security shall he or indeed can he in common reason expect from the Stubborn obstinate English Hands a People too apt to fly in the very Face of Princes upon a less Provocation than so ungrateful a piece of Service and that upon raising an Army for any such kind of purpose he has not put the Sword into their very hands that may guide it to his own Throat whil'st possibly they shall be opportunely raised for some more Darling-protestant Favourite to step into the Head of them and dismount not only their popish Officers but popery too and the very Royal popish Nimrod himself nay and perhaps use him with as little Remorse as the Turkish Janizaries have done several of their less hated Grand Seigniours under a much more Trivial Disgust But to give an Example out of our English Chronicles of the Obedience and Loyalty of English Armyes to a King they hate I shall only refer the Reader to the Fate of King Richard the Third at Bosworth Field Baker tells us that Richard's Army was double the Strength and Number of his Adversarys the Earl of Richmond's Yet see the Infidelity of an English Army to a Prince under the popular Dissatisfaction and Prejudice A great part of his Army raised for his preservation was actually ingaged in his Destruction For the Lord Stanly by a Revolt with 2000 Horse Sir William Stanly with a party of 3000 more and with these Sir Walter Hungerford Sir John Savage Sir Brian Stanford Sir Simon Digby all Commanders who withdrew likewise with their Respective Inferiour Souldiers amounting between them to the Majority of Richard's whole Army turned all to the Earl of Richmond and carryed the whole Fortune of the day to the Victorious Enemies Side to the Loss both of Richard's Crown and Life together Nay he goes further and expresly tells us that in this Battle Henry Earl of Northumberland a Commander of Richard's Party never strook Stroke as likewise many other who follow'd him moreout of Fear than Love which Neuters upon the same Revolt as the Lord Stanly might undoubtedly have withdrawn their party to Richmond too So that upon that dangerous and Fatal Rock the people's Aversion how easily are the Crowns and Lives of princes Shipwrack't and what little Trust can Monarchs repose in the Strength and Swords of Armies whose Hearts are not Theirs But alas if Richard the Third found such Treachery from a Revolting Army and an Antipathy so destructive to him What Truth or Faith is a popish Tyrant like to find from Armies under a more universal and inveterate Detestation For wherein was King Richard's Crime so great I mean as to the people 'T is true he Mounted the Throne by the most Inhumane of Murders And from that only Grievance proceeded the Defection
Capacity of Tyrannizing either with Armyes or without them that he has no other Support both of Himself and his whole Party but by following the forementiond Measures of Richard the Third and either to in dear himself by making of Wholesome Laws for the people's Freedom and Tranquility or at least by keeping within the Bounds of those wholesome Ones they have already made for their Security Now with all these Numerous and undeniable Blocks in his way why must a popish Successour be Able or indeed possest with so Enthusiastick a Presumption for nothing less than Supernatural Inspirations will do it as to Think himself able to accomplish that very Thing in England which was never done by Monarch before Nay to make the Presumption a little more prodigious this very Successour who of all the Kings since the Creation has the worst Tools for such an Atchievement must be the first and only person that is for undertaking it For as a National Slavery is always the work of Time and can get footing at best but by slow and subtle Encroachments and likewise if at all 〈◊〉 a thousand times more Feasible from a Prince that is the People's Darling than one that is the â—â—â—version How unfit a Prince will a popish Successour be for so hazardous an Attempt when the continual and united Jealousies of his Subjects will prevent the first part of the Danger by forewatching even the least Surprize or Arbitrary Encroachment upon them and next will never furnish him with half hands enough to perfect the Vndertaking Well but notwithstanding all this there are a sort of People in the World that shall make Answer that Arbitrary Power in a Papist is not a thing so new nor so unpracticable when the Government of the now French King is so manifest a Testimony to the Contrary And truly there are but too many Incendiaries in this Age that distract the Brainless part of Mankind with almost no other Gorgon Viz. That the French King's Standing-Armyes are to be the Pattern of a popish Successour's Government and the Persecution of his Hugonots the very Fate of the Protestants in England whil'st under the Rose Popery and Slavery are to Copy from no other Original As this is one of the main Pretensions of the Whig-Fears and indeed the Top-Demonstration of Popery and Arbitrary Power so when truly examined you 'll find it just such an Apparition as Otes's bloody Pilgrims the more terrible the more ridiculous For as 't is the common Fate of all popular Arguments on that Subject so much the more Formidable still so much the more Ayry the Phantom For first not to insist much upon the General Mistake of Mankind when possibly the French Arbitrary Power is infinitely magnifyed above what really it is for excepting the French King's now and then fleecing an Over-rich Cheating Courtier a little Arbitrarily and thereby in truth making but a Reprizal of his own I could never yet learn by those that know the French Government that any man's Meum or Tuum was Illegally taken away or any Man's Life or Fortune stood or fell but by the Judicial Process of the Laws of the Land 'T is true indeed his Wars have been Expensive but then his Revenues have been large to support them and not only that but his Forreign Depredations have supplyed the greatest part of the Expence Nevertheless whatever Arbitrary Taxes he may have raysed to the Injury of any particular aggrieved Subject or whatever Tyranny he may have exercised over the distrest and persecuted Hugonots if either of the two can be properly Arbitrary or Tyrannick when past into a Law and made a Decree enacted by parliament as both the Taxes and the present Hugonot Persecution are the French King 's Arbitrary Incroachments in France are no precedent for a popish Successour's Imitation in England and that because the State and Constitution of the Two Kingdoms are so extreamly different that there is not the least Ground for such a Foundation here as there For first as to the Nature and Genius of the People In France the Peasants ab Origine have not enjoyed half the Priviledges and Immunityes of the Freeborn people of England And therefore under that sordid Education as knowing no better and being in a manner inured to Slavery 't is no such great wonder to see the French Commonalty submitting to such Oppression as indeed why should they otherwise when they submit but to Law And if the French King has any greater Ascendance over his Parliaments than the Kings of England over Theirs to perform all this why should that be any Rarity when in reality they are of so different a Constitution from those of England that they are rather the settled Magistrrcy of the Nation than any thing like Our Parliaments and as Ours are of the peopl's Election Theirs in a manner only the King 's every Member of the French Parliaments holding his Office not only for Life but even to his Heirs unless alienated by the Prince upon a Forfeiture or any personal Dislike that in short as being the Creatures of the King they are truly more like a Turkish DIVAN than an English House of Commons But in fine to make a Parallel of our Dangers between the State of the two Nations which in truth is bringing North and South together BECAVSE a popish French King with the Majority of the Kingdom of his own Religion the Religion Established by Law and Flourishing in Glory by help of such vaste Armies too intirely of that Religion and thereby principled for his own Service can squeeze some particular of his Subjects Purses a little Arbitrarily and oppress and persecute the poor forlorn Hugonots a Party infinitely the Minority disabled too from all power and at highest but suffered by the Indulgence of the State and that even with the most favourable Aspect of the Government under that pittance of Encouragment that for Example to the whole Body of the Reformers inhabiting in that vaste and populous City of Paris there is tolerated but One Hugonot Church and that standing like our Pancras only more Miles out of Town because I say the French King under these Circumstances can do all this THEREFORE pray mark it a popish English King with his Diminitive Romish Party the most inconsiderable Handful of the Nation under not only the Censure of the Law but the utter Abhorrence of the People with the help of an Army if he has any of a quite contrary Religion and thereby wholly unprincipled for the Service intended shall vanquish and subject the Protestant Establish't Religion in all its Lustre and Strength upheld by all the Fortifications of Law and by Numbers even to a more than hundredfold Majority whil'st the English Protestants are not only to feel the French Hugonots Smart but if either the Fanatical Suggestions or the popish Character speaks Truth to groan under a hundred times Oh! Monstrum Horrendum more dismal Persecution and Slavery the
present French Arbitrary Stretch being little more than a Fleabiting to our total Abolition of our Laws Libertyes and Religion But to make this French Goblin more monstrous still there are some People that go a Bowes Shoot farther yet and will tell you that by the aforesaid almost Omnipotent Things called Standing-Armyes a popish Successour shall not only crush our Protestant Laws and Liberties to pieces Himself but likewise hectour our very parliaments to that degree as to force them to the giving up our very Birthrights to him nay to the very passing of at once both Popery and Slavery into Law it self and then Lord have Mercy upon poor lost England For alas the same Absolute uncontroulable Soveraignty that the French King has over his Parliaments is they 'll tell you the intended Scheme of a popish Dominion in England And then where Oh where is our Religion and Liberties when that black Day once comes Now in the Name of Lucifer what Infernal Impudence reigns in the World when such Rank such Nonsensical Stuff as this can be asserted by Rogues and credited by Fools For besides the most infamous Calumny that this execrable Imputation throws upon the whole Body of the Nation Viz. That Englishmen shall be such tame such abject such despicable Wretches and Cowards as out of any personal Fear whatever to yield up their Laws Rights and Religion to the Ruine of themselves and their Posterity and thereby offer as it were even their own Throats to the Slaughter What Relation has the present Management in France to that of Popery in England or the French King 's Parliamentary Influence to that of a popish Successour's For whatever extraordinary Obedience or Subjection the French Parliaments may yield to their King in the grant of any Oppressive Impositions upon the Subject to advance their King 's Exorbitant Power and Greatness are the French King 's Arbitrary Endeavours to root up the Foundations of his popish Laws and the Establish't Religion of France which vice versa is the Case in England so that if a popish Successour can hector our English Parliaments to no farther a Complyance than the French King does His the Devil an Inch of Ground will Popery get in England for as I take it the French Parliaments are all popish and as such are in so little danger of their Religion that truly their Prince in the other Extream is in the highest Extravagance of Advancing it So that unless we state the Parrallel between the two Kings Thus Viz. Supposing the French King a Hugonot which is but turning our Tables that then both his popish Armies and popish Parliaments would nevertheless be awed and bullyed into that intire Submission to him as to abolish the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and thereby subject themselves and all their Brethren Papists to the self same Persecution and Slavery under the Hugonots that the Hugonots suffer under Them without which Supposition his Tyranny is wholly alien to our popish Successour's and nothing but the most Villanous Phanatical Sophistry dares cant at this wretched rate to pretend to make the French Tyranny a Model for English Popery to work by But put the Case there were a French Hugonot King and that had the forementioned purpose in Agitation either by Armies or Parliaments as plyable as the French Genius is supposed to be his Ill Success in such an Exploit might be soon guest by the Difficulties and Obstructions of their Hugonot Henry the 4 th in his way to the Throne under but a suspition of inclining that way And consequently what worse Success would attend the like popish Changes in England under the manifest disproportion of the English Papists to the French Hugonots is past dispute However if neither English Armies nor English Parliaments can do the popish Feat there 's one last Expedient yet to vanquish all Obstacles and that I assure you if no small Authors may be believed a most puissant one Viz. If the popish Hands in England are too weak to enslave us this popish Successour shall borrow the Assistance of popish Neighbours to help out and so what cannot be done by Domestick Forces shall be perform'd by a Forreign Army call'd over on purpose This Expedient I confess is so much the more remarkable as it has some little Affinity to Bedlow's St. Jago Expedition and truly has sometimes had the Honour to be harangued upon even in a House of Commons as no small Danger from Popery But notwithstanding the Authority and Veracity this Projection may seem to arrogate from its Admission into an Honourable House of Parliament upon due Examination I am half afraid 't will prove but one of the Observator's downright Twangers For if this popish Successour be for setting up Popery by pitch't Battles and plain Conquest and that too by Outlandish Ayde in the first place he must have far more than tenfold as many Forreign popish Hands as he has of his own to pretend at least to a strength able to subdue England nay and in truth here 's one unlucky Circumstance attending that is if he can borrow popish Neighbours 't is odds but the protestants may borrow protestant Neighbours too upon occasion for Princes have as often lent Armies to succour opprest Subjects as to assist Oppressing Tyrants But let that pass But supposing the best face of the thing that there were some Chance for him in this bold Cast and that after his setting of Honour Life Empire all at a Throw upon the hazard of War there were only an even Lay of Keeping or loosing them a Caesar aut nullus 't were a little more pardonable Venture But as the Devil would have it there 's not one syllable of this in the Matter For if overthrown he 's so irrevocably lost that possibly not only his own Ruine but that of all his Royal Family and of Monarchy it self goes together But admitting he Conquers the Question is whether the Caesarship on the other side be so secure or no For truly what if the aforesaid tenfold Majority of Forreign Conquerours should make bold to pass a Civil Complement upon this Successour Militant and the rest of his popish Remnant and fairly keep the Victory when they have got it For I assure him little England is a pritty Parcel of Terra firma and 't were no small Temptation to popish or no popish Fingers to be a little tenacious with so fortunate a Prize And when those Triumphant Forreigners have tasted the sweet Air of so delicate a Spot as England 't is fourty to one whether They or at least the Crown'd Head that lends them will be overhasty of resigning so inviting a Trophy as the English Diadem and truly cosidering the Blackness of the Cause they came over to ingage in if any Forreign Prince can lend an Army for so Dishhonourable a Quarrel which indeed all Nations and all Religions must cry Shame against with much less Dishonour may he wear the Lawrel he wins
Fires with the dragging of their Fathers their Wives their Children or their Kindred and possibly their own Turn next to a popish Stake will not equally if not more violently inflame them into as great or greater Outrages than the Gun-powder Plot could do But whether this certain Ruine should persue these Arbitrary popish Instruments either sooner or later and that it were really possible these or any other Illegal popish Measures might give us some Trouble and Disturbance during this popish Monarch's Reign How wretched a piece of Work must the Wisdom of the Pope and the whole Conclave undertake to make Popery and Arbitrary Power under a popish Successour those Feeble Serpents that shall but just bite our Heels to provoke our succeeding Vengeance to crush their Heads In the second year of Queen Mary after the Repeal of King Edward's Laws but before the Restoration of the Pope's Supremacy we are told in the History of the Reformation Abridg. B. 3. pag. 253. of a project proposed by the Spanish Ambassadour to the Queen of assuming the power of a Conquerour and ruling at pleasure by which she might restore both the Religion and the Abbey-Lands and be under no Restraint This she communicated to her Chancellour Gardiner and charged him to give her his Opinion of it sincerely as he would answer to God for it at the last day He read it carefully and told her it was a most pernicious Contrivance and begg'd her not to listen to such Platforms which might be brought her by base Sycophants Vpon that she burnt the Paper and charged the Ambassadour to bring her no more such proâ—ects This gave Gardiner great Apprehensions of the Mischiefs that Spanish Councils might bring upon the Nation and so he procured the Act to be made by which the Queen was bound by the Law as much as her Ancestors were Now if that Bloody popish Zealot Gardiner was so violently averse to the Thought of bringing Arbitrary power into England for what Service soever to the Romish Cause as in his Opinion so most pernicious when at the same time the Majority or Half of the Nation at least were of that perswasion And if popish Standing Armies could have done the Feat they were ten times easier to be rais'd for any Arbitrary popish purpose then especially too when the Queen lay in the Bosome of that potent Spanish Husband witness his Invincible Armada soon after against Queen Elizabeth that could have lent her a very considerable Helping Hand from Forreign Assistance to push on the project had her English Strength been Insufficient Now I say if nevertheless the Design was deem'd so pernicious then what popish State Councellours at this time of day will run their own and their Prince's Fingers so far in the Fire as to advise him to any such Arbitrary Projection now under so low a Wane of Popery that scarce the 200 th part of the Nation are of that Religion and therefore infinitely more pernicious than in Queen Mary's Case and consequently which nothing but the most abandon'd Lunacy can ever pretend to advise or attempt 'T is true indeed the popish Character lays down a most Expeditious Method of raising this dreadful Standing Army that are to accomplish the mighty Feat of Popery and Slavery under a Romish Successour which for the Reader 's Diversion take as follows To make the Pope Absolute there wants a Standing-Army and he shall have it For who shall hinder him Nay all his Commanders shall be qualify'd even by our present Protestant Test for the Employment He shall have enough Men of the Blade out of one half of the Gaming Houses in Town to Officer twice as many Forces as he shall want 'T is true they shall be Men of no Estates nor Principles But they shall fight as well as those that have Both. For people are ever as Valiant that have their Fortunes to raise as those that have them to defend Nay of the two they shall be the more Faithful For they have no Property to be concern'd for and will more zealously serve him by Reason their whole Interest and Estates lye in Him And that this Army may be more quietly raysed how many honourable Pretences may be found Perhaps the greatest and most important Preservation of his Kingdom shall call for it and then upon second Thoughts instead of defeating some Forreign Enemy they are opportunely ready to cut our Throats at Home c. This Projection I confess is the only passage through the whole Character that endeavours to make out the possibility of any part of the numerous popish Mischiefs denounced through the whole Pamphlet For all along it absolutely supposes the power of a popish Successour's doing whatever he pleases and after so fallacious a Petitio principii it leaps over all Mountains in the way and only labours to prove the Depravity of a popish Successour's Tyrannical Inclinations and give him the Will of putting that power into Execution But to examine the Depth of this Projection granting such a Set of Atheistick Officers could be found what then must their Army be Here 's a Forreign Invasion or some other Honourable Cause proposed and an Army raysed for that seeming Intent and Purpose an Army of papists they cannot be for there is not 40000 Men Women and Children of that perswasion in the whole Kingdom and consequently far short of 10000 Fighting Men amongst them all and possibly not one half of them neither such Foolhardy Desperadoes as to hazard their Lives so madly and so extravagantly in so unpromising a Cause so unaccomplishable a Design as Subjecting of England by the Hands of the papists So that an Army of Papists can be no part of a popish Successour's Thoughts And that the number of the papists in England is really no Greater The King's Indulgence formerly to those of that Religon in gratitude for their Loyal Endeavours at Worcester and indeed through all his Fathers Distresses has been so far from putting them to the Shifts of Disguises or Concealment of their Perswasions that before the late wakening of the Laws against them the papists were every where as visible and generally as distinguishable from the rest of Mankind as one Sex is from another insomuch that unless their Numbers have increased by Converts made since the popish Discovery and the Execution of the Statutes against them there 's scarce one papist in England that all his Neighbours round him cannot particularly point at And how thin sown those Papists are is notoriously manifest when in many and many a ten Parishes together in England there is not three Papists and the whole number computed through the Nation scarce the 200 th Man of that Perswasion Notwithstanding there have been many Fanatical Pretensions of wonderful popish Dispensations by vertue of which there are at least thirty or fourty thousand Church-papists as some old Oliverian Rebels shall tell you tolerated by the Pope to an Absolute Protestant Vniformity and ready
and assume that vanquish't Kingdom to himself when he robs but a Robber and at most deposes a Cut-throat And therefore to make Instance in the Case what popish Successour will venture to call over suppose thirty or forty thousand French to enslave his people and thereby at one dash loose his People's Hearts beyond all Thoughts of a Recovery as thither indeed the Whig Fears seem to point upon a Confidence that the now French King's Generosity though possibly not the best Faith-keeper in Christendom after the Accomplishment of the Conquest will make so intire a Resignation of all Pretensions of Victory to Establish this Absolute Popish Sultan especially considering the insatiate Ambition of that aspiring Prince to Vniversal Monarchy and particularly to the Soveraignty of the Seas which though with all his present great Ships under the Maritime Weakness of France he cannot atchieve he might intirely possess by so opportune and so important an Addition to his Conquests as England Now they must have a wonderful Stock of Faith with no small mixture of Madness that can really believe any popish Crown'd Head in the World will ever play so cursed a Loosing Game and take that Path towards Popery with two such amnable Precipices both on the Right Hand and the Left that the very Masterpiece of the Projection is but in effect writing his own MENE TEKEL over his own Head So that all the forementioned Impotence and Impossibilities of popish and arbitrary Tyrannys Introduction into England being fully demonstrated I have only this to add There is no greater Mistake in the generality of Mankind than an Imbibed Opinion that the Papists think themselves obliged to endeavour the setting up of their Religion hap-hazard right or wrong hand over head without Consideration or Regard to the Issue or Success of the Undertaking and that in fine a popish Successour will certainly muster all Forces and all Engines to attempt the Storming of the whole Protestant Liberty and Religion though under a tenfold Odds of laying his very Bones at the Siege But the Grossness of this popular Errour will appear from the past Conduct of all the Papists in all Ages and all Countreys when they never attempted a Rebellion Massacre or any such Monstrous Design but where they had not only proper popish Instruments for the Service but also a popish Strength capable in all reasonable prospect of going Through-stitch with it Besides a Bigot in Religion is nevertheless a Statesman in the Establishing of that Religion and excepting such Bedlamite Enthusiasts as the old Fifth Monarchy Adventurers there 's Policy as well as Faith in all Churches and how far soever Faith may stretch Policy moves in the Bounds of Reason and he that can believe the greatest lying Miracle in a Romish Legend will never trust to Miracles in a Romish Battalia And were a popish Successour in his Nature ten times if possible a Bloodyer-minded Tyrant than the very Character has shaped him if he wants Humane Strength to enslave us let us not suspect his relying on Divine or Infernal Assistance the Ayd of Angels or Devils to help him And truly when a popish Successour shall seriously consider the Temper of the Head-strong English a people always impatient of Wrongs to that degree of Ill-nature in the Resentment and Prosecution of Ills above all Mankind beside that whereas all other Nations cry Run Rogue 't is observable the English Note is ever Stop Thief But above all a People so nicely Jealous of Liberty that the very Name of Oppression especially from the Crown-side without the Thing is enough to make them slip the Biâ—â— and run stark mad insomuch that a King of England is but too justly call'd a King of Devils when he considers all this I say a popish Successour a thousand to one will never venture the raising those mutinous English Devils without a Charm full strong enough to lay them again And whatever his Inclinations might be for the Heretick Slavery yet as Vana est sine viribus Ira. 'T is not the Thunder in a Popish Successour's Heart but his Hand that can hurt us and where the Arm 's too weak and the Belt too unweildy let us never trouble our Heads with fearing the Blow But that Point Viz. A popish Successours POWER of Enslaving Persecuting Burning c. being sufficiently discust let us next examine the Veracity of the Character in another Point that is granting he either had or fancy'd he had the Power of doing it Quaery whither it necessarily follows that he must have the Will to do it The Character 't is true as I said before makes him plunge headlong into the Breach of all Promises Vows Obligations Oaths and Sacraments all the Dictates even of Morality and Common Humanity and what not and renders it withall so inseperable an Impulse and Principle of a popish Conscience that in a manner that popish Prince that neglects so incumbent and meritorious a Duty is little less in the popish Ballance than a Judas or a Julian c. Though I confess for all this terrible Oathbreaking the two Instances recited in the Character to prove this universal popish Infidelity are possibly the Idlest that a Man could wish to meet with The First of them is Queen Mary's Breach of Promise of their Quiet Exercise of the Protestant Religion made to the Norfolk and Suffolk Inhabitants that mounted her to her Throne which I acknowledge was both ungratefully and in the highest degree dishonourably done yet when truly weighed is far from any thing of that damnable Law-breaking popish Perjury that the Character all along endeavours to blacken all Romish Princes with that on the contrary though 't is true she broke her Promise given to Capitulating Rebels for the Norfolk and Suffolk Inhabitants were indeed little better for as their utmost Endeavours of setting their Lawful Soveraign upon her Throne was their absolute indispensible Duty whatever her Requital might be yet the Chronicle tells us they refus'd the Queen any Assistance whatever till they had first condition'd with her and extorted that Promise from her And if nevertheless she broke that Promise afterwards with them here was no Tyrannick Cruelty exercised nor any Coronation Oath Violated when she only burnt them by Law and as her Coronation Oath obliged her to rule by Law 't was only her Misfortune to believe the Equity of that Sanguinary Law and accordingly to act by it and consequently their Misery to feel the Scourge of it The 2 d. Instance of a Certain Gentleman on the Other side the Water that once took the Sacrament never to invade Flanders which since he hath so notoriously broken and the Inference from thence that a popish Successour will much more break all Oaths for the meritorious Propagation of his Religion when a popish Prince has violated even Sacraments themselves for his irregular unjustifyable Ambition is so impertinently urged that nothing can be less to the Purpose For that Gentleman's
now This very King I say with so small a Party of Protestants could nevertheless lay the very Corner Stone that the whole Reformation was afterwards built upon and that too by Act of Parliament And why on the other side shall it be so impossible for a popish Prince with Henry the Eight's Courage and Conduct withal after not a hundred and fifty years Reign of the protestant Religion to be likewise able to do the same Favour for Popery and lay the very Basis of it even by Parliaments and Law And a protestant Parliament now as a popish one then be so managed or Influenced as to give a main Lift to the Work Besides why should the Change of the Religion be so wondrous or difficult a Deed under a popish Monarch now when upon every Change of the Prince's Faith since the Conquest the Establish't Religion of the Kingdom has been changed with it For Instance after Henry's good Stroke towards it Did not an Infant Prince Edward the Sixth in poor seven years time Establish the protestant Religion by Law And did not Mary his popish Successour subvert it again by Law and by Law restore the very Pope's Supremacy And lastly Did not the protestant Queen Elizabeth after her trample both Pope and Popery under Feet and confirm that very Protestant Religion that Reigns at this Day And why shall a Popish Successour now with as much Zeal and Industry as his Predecessours miscarry in that very work in which not one of them fail'd before him There is nothing that possibly passes for a more Authentick Confirmation of all our popish Dangers than this One Assertion so universally received for Currant Sterling by being only taken at a Lump upon Trust unweighed and unexamined But when considerately and throughly inspected all rational Men must blush to be deceived by so light and so drossy a Popular Tradition For to begin with Henry the Eighth In the first place here neither is nor can be the least Motive for the present Protestant People or their Representatives to make the least Change whatever in the present Church of England in any kind answerable to the several Inducements that wrought those Changes in Henry the Eighth's Time For first as no small Encouragement for the Reformation the People had then contracted a general and just Odium of the whole Clergy strangely occasion'd by the Murder of Hunn a Merchant of London in Prison This Hunn being sued in the Legates Court for Non-payment of a Mortuary to his Parish-Priest in return sued the Parish Priest in the Temporal Court for a Premunire for bringing the King's Subjects before a Forreign and Illegal Court This incensed the Clergy so much that they threw him into Prison for Heresy where having several Articles exhibited against him upon Confession of part of them and begging Mercy he was only enjoyn'd Penance But not being prevail'd upon to let fall his Suite in the Temporal Court the Bishop's Chancellour a Doctor and other of his Officers inhumanely Murdered him in Prison by breaking his Neck with an Iron Chain and other Wounds given him upon the Belly and then hanged him up in his own Girdle to possess the World that he hanged himself And what was yet worse upon a full Detection of the Truth of this Murder the Bishops of Durham and Lincoln to palliate the Guilt proceeded to charge him with new Heresies after Death and having sound a Wickliffs Bible in his House they condemn'd him as an Heretick and burnt his Body All which Proceedings being now looked upon as the Act of the whole Clergy they lost the Affections of the People to that degree that they could never recover them and nothing more disposed the People to the embracing of the New Preachers than the Resentment of so infamous a Murder committed and patronized by the whole Clergy Hist of Ref. pag. 14 and 15. And then for the Changes made in Parliament The Suppression of Monasteries one of their Acts was no more than what was design'd and begun in some Measure by Cardinal Woolsey and the Pope himself and that long before the Breach betwixt the King and Him who granted a Bull to destroy several of them to convert into Bishopricks Ref. pag. 22. the scandalous and lewd Lives of too many of the Monks and Fryars being obnoxious even to Rome it self Though 't is true the King and Parliament proceeded to a total Suppression of them afterwards for the same Intent of erecting new Episcopal Sees though indeed the vast profits arising from their Sale through the Extravagant Profuseness of Henry the Eighth were not wholly converted to that Use notwithstanding part of his Promise was performed Viz. In his constituting six new Bishopricks and making Allowance for fourteen Deanaryes and Prebendariships to fourteen Bishop's Sees But to gain the Parliament to the King's Party in the Destruction of Monasteries there was that which Governs the World Interest in the Case which was no small Wheel in the Machine For the King selling of the Lands at easie Rates to the Nobility and Gentry by this Policy the Parliament Members as Purchasers by the Temptation of such good penny-worths were ingaged to assist the King in the Maintenance of the Changes made Ref. pag. 223. And for another part of Henry the 8 th's Reformation Viz. The censuring and condemning of Bulls Indulgenses Shrines Pilgrimages and Relicks with the pulling down of Images the scandalous Impostures of several of them by the fraud of the Priests being publickly discovered Ref. p. 242. created no little aversion in the People But besides all that here could never be a more pleasing Change to them than so beneficial a part of Reformation Viz. The freeing them from all those Ecclesiastick Romish Dreins that had so long swallow'd almost half the Wealth of the Kingdom in which too many of them had been too great Sufferers not only through their own but also the deluded Superstition of their Bigotted Ancestors and by which no less than whole Families had been Impoverish't and Undone through the pious Frauds and continual Suckings of those Church Horse-leeches And lastly for the Exclusion of the Papal Supremacy the above cited penalty of Premunire incurred both by the whole Clergy and Layty of England in submitting to the Pope's Legantine Power contrary to Law as against the Act of Provisoes contributed no little matter both to the Clergy and Commons Submission to the King in the point of that Supremacy Besides to facilitate the Assumption of it it was plainly proved by that Provisoe Act and other Substantial Records that the Pope's Encroachments in England were but Vsurpation and the Supremacy in reality ab origine de jure inherent in the Crown and therefore the Resumption of it by the King no more than a Challange and Reprizal of his own Invaded Prerogative As these were all the Changes made by Henry the Eighth the Popish Religion being so far from abolish't by him that he rather strook