hearing But what a shameful Impudence is this for a man to bely a whole Auditory I mean all that were not a sleep For they could not choose but hear Mr. Bedlow declare that he receiv'd the said Letter at a Consultation of two French Abbots and several English Monks among whom there was no other Discourse but of the English Plot and Destroying the King But why should Harcourt call Mr. Bedlow over the way for no other Reason but to hear Mr. Colemans Treasonable Expressions in the Height of his Zeal Why perhaps because he was unwilling his Friend should stand in the Wet or the Sun or for some other Considerations him thereunto moving Would any but a Narrative-Snipper have us put such an Impertinent question as this to men of Reason As if they who believe they can trust one another care what they hear one another say Besides 't is well known that Coleman as much a man of Intrigue as he was which is one of Compendium's excuses of the probability that the finding of his Letters might hang him was two much wrapt up in the Admiration of himself to be either profound or wary But there is yet another Riddle behind For there was never such a Sphynx in Nature as our Compendium Writer How Mr. Bedlow could carry La Chaise a Letter from Mr. Coleman Dated April 75 and yet Mr. Coleman's First Letter to him was his Long Letter Dated September 29. 1675 This is a Question 't is true But why Mr. Compendium should ask it is another Question For it plainly shews that the Narrative-Clipper was careless of that Examination which he so earnestly reoommends to the People Pag. 37. For Mr. Bedlow does not say he carryed any Letter from Mr. Coleman to La Chaise Dated April 75. But he sayes That in April 75. he carryed over a large Packet of Letters to Monsieur La Chaise from Mr. Coleman wherein Mr. Secretary is not Charg'd to have had any particular Letter of his own but only to have been the Hander and Conveyer of the Accounts of the Plot given to La Chaise by other men upon which the Confessor well knowing how deeply Mr. Coleman was Engag'd thought fit to give Mr. Coleman his Sentiments in a particular Letter directed to himself And so the Correspondence began in September following And thus the Riddle is resolv'd without the Help of an Oedipus Now let men of Reason but consider the lamentable miserable pittiful sorry inconsiderable and weak shifts of Confidence and Fallacy that these people are put to to uphold the shallow Defences of their Villanous Disloyalty as if they thought to deal with the Protestants like Babies because their own Religion is a Religion only of Trinkets and Baubles But now the Epitomizer is at a wicked Loss the ghastly Apparition of Colemans Letters has scar'd him almost out of his Senses Those Letters are upon him as the Philistines were upon Sampson so that he knows not which way to turn himself True it is he makes use of the Jaw-bone of an Ass but not to the same purpose as Sampson did For instead of smiting he falls to expounding and extenuating Instead of an Abbreviator he turns Commentator but with so little Success that there is not one word of Sense in what he urges First he acknowledges that Coleman acknowledged them very full of Extravagant Expressions because there was no way to avoyd it But that he hoped they were not Treasonable Suppose a Fellow breaks open and rifles a house Let the People Examine whether it be a sufficient plea for the Malefacter to say he hoped it was no Fellony He Prosecutes the Mighty-work of Converting Three Kingdoms and Subduing the Pestilent Heresie of Protestantisme Implores and Sollicits Forreign Power and Assistance to effect all this and hopes it is no Treason Violates the Tundamental Laws of the Land and hopes it was no Treason But these saith the Animadverter were only Rhetorical Flowers to wheedle in La Chaise A very probable Story Men pretending to Sense should be asham'd to own in Print such childish simplicities so scandalous to reason The Commentator confesses that the Court of France had smelt him out for all his pretences and knew him to be a Person of no Interest a meer Epistle-monger so that saith he Mr. Coleman could not Dream to wheedle such a cunning Fox as La Chaise by any other means then by presenting him with a Rhetorical Nose-gay But what was to have been the effect of this Wheedle To advance the King of Englands Interest By whose Commission was this Wheedle to have been managed By no body's only it was Mr. Colemans Generosity to his Prince to give himself the trouble Briefly then Mr. Coleman was to advance the King of Englands Interest and the business was to have been brought about thus Mr. Coleman was to tickle La Chaise's Nostrils with his Rhetorical Flowers and then La Chaise was to have perswaded the King of France to have sent Mr. Coleman 200000 l. to go on with the Design In good Sooth the King of France had been sweetly gul'd to have given Mr. Coleman 200000 l. for a Rhetorical Posie for his Confessor No no Mr. Colemans meaning no doubt was just as the Court persons that understood the meaning of English words expounded it down right self-seeking Treason and if he and his Confederates had not hung together better then the sence of them that defend their Crimes we had been but in a bad Condition ere now But the main business is behind Saith Mr. Coleman saith the Commentator There are some Expressions that explain that he had No Plot or design to Kill the King As how For the Reader says the Interpreter may find Mr. Coleman telling La Chaise That the Labourers were few and the Harvest Great Whence the Expositor draws this immediate Conclusion that it was an Argument that there were but a few concern'd with Mr. Coleman Dear Interpreter thou art fallen into the pit which thou prepared'st for another The Argument for thy Client is against him For here is a plain confession that Mr. Coleman was concern'd though but a few were concern'd with him That is not enow to kill and take possession Indeed the Crop of England is a great Crop and Mr. Coleman I believe did want Labourers to reap the Harvest of his incessant industry Which made him so earnestly petition the French King to send him men and money to advance the interest of the King of England And thus we have done with this mighty Champion so far as concernes Mr. Coleman And give me leave to tell the world that if all the rest of the right writing Papists have no more Salt in their braines then this Zealous Epitomizer I would abhor the Catholick Religion onely for his sake Concerning Ireland Grove and Pickering IT is impossible that there should be any Truth in a Religion when there is no Truth in the professors of it The Abbreviator desies
while he makes the miserable Artor upon the Hang-mans Stage to forgive his Enemies yet Cite'em before the Triâ—â—nal of Heaven for doing Injustice almost in the same Breath He withdraws his Recognizance yet designs a prosecution at the same Instant So that by this double dealing with God Man by that palpable Equivocation of saying he forgives yet hopes that God will not he so shamefully impos'd upon a dying Malefactor it appears most apparently that the Person Executed was Guilty of the thing laid to his Charge and consequently the rest Otherwise there was no need of putting their Friend upon such a counterfeit and obvious denyal of a Crime whereof he had been really Innocent And it was only a meer shallow Contrivance of Persons equally Guilty as being privy to the Fact to repair the Contaminated Credit of the Romish-Church For they cannot choose but know what all the World knows that Innocence never seekes nor has any need of these ridiculous shifts to clear her Reputation Concerning White Harcourt Fenwick Gawen and Turner NOW then since the Epitomizer has been so unsuccessfull in his endeavours to wrest out of our hands the Truth of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey's Murther even by those very Persons that were accused and justly executed for it he can have little hopes to be believed in any thing more that he says However that vanity over-rules him still and he runs on with his fallacies misconstructions and salse conclusions as briskly as ever Nay he is so full of his little fetches and dazling reflections upon the Trials of these men as if he were striving to make amends for his former negligence and disability in the weighty concerns of Hill Green and Berry In the first place the Reader must observe that the Epitomizer has most corruptly and fallaciously contrary to his defiance lessen'd and curtall'd Mr. Oats's Charge against all these men though 't is true he repeats enough to convince any rational Person of their Treasons or else he must have left out the whole But that is not all when a man makes a promise he ought to be as good as his word For he leaves out that Foul mouth'd expression of Whitebreads which Discover'd the bottom of his Rebellious Heart That he hoped to see the Black F s Head at White-Hall laid fast enough and that if his Brother should appear to follow his Foot-steps his Passport should be made too That he wrote Letters out of England to St. Omers wherein he hoped that it would not be long e're the blow would be given and that by the word Blow they had Instructions to understand the Murther of the King which being all omitted the sum of Mr. Oates's Charge Epitomiz'd by the Compendium is only this That he Summond a Consult which began upon the Fourth of April 78. where they pitcht upon Cary to go to Rome and resolv'd the Paper being afterwards Signed by some at Irelands by others at Whites by others at Fenwicks Chamber that the King should be kill'd That White did about the beginning or middle of July send from St. Omers Instructions by Mr. Ashby concerning Ten thousand pounds to be given to Sir George Wakeman to Poyson the King and a Commission for Sir John Gage but he leaves out that the Commission was Sign'd and Seal'd by Whitebread That in July or August he saw Gawen at Irelands Chamber and that though he had seen Letters from the said Gawen giving an accompt p. 14. the Epitomizer should have said of the Affaires of Shrop-shire and Stafford-shire yet he never saw him Write till he drew a Bill upon Sir William Andrews in Irelands Chamber where he Discours'd of the same things as he had given an account of in his Letters which last circumstance should have been repeated by the Epitomizer as well as the former because insisted upon by the Court. As for Fenwick and Harcourt he affirmed they were with Blundel and others on the 21st of August at Wild-House where lay before them Eighty pounds for the Windsor-Ruffians and that Coleman coming in gave the Messenger a Guinney p. 15. left out by the Abreviator that from Wild-House they drew off to Harcourts Chamber where Harcourt paid the Money to the Messenger in Fenwicks presence That about a day after as near as he could remember there was a Consult held by the Benedictines where Harcourt and Fenwick were present and there they understood of the Conspiracy against the Life of the Duke of Ormond by Letters from Arch-Bishop Talbet who desired also Commissions and Money for raising Forces p. 16. Omitted by the Epitomizer that Fenwick did bring Commissions with him to the said Consult and sent them to Chester by a special Messenger and several Letters by the Post and that the next day Fenwick gave him Money and admonished him to procure Masses to be said for the prosperous success of the design that Ireland being returned Mr. Oates went to him but was beaten and revil'd for that the Jesuits suspected he had betray'd them they having understood that one in such Cloaths as Oates's had been with the King yet that White said he would be Friends with him if he would give an accompt of the Party and Minister that went to His Majesty Then declaring he had no more to say against the Prisoners at the Bar excepting only that Whitebread offer'd 5000 l. more to the sum of 10000 l. which Sir George Wakeman refus'd and greatly rejoyc'd that the Money was accepted he ended with this that he did not remember that Gawen was at the Consult though he remembers he then saw his Subscription but he said positively that Turner was there Pag. 17. and Sign'd the Resolve should have been added This was the Summ of Mr. Oates's accompt the omissions being added which had a very great Encomium from the Court to be as exact an accompt as could be given by any man in England But for all that now methinks I see the Abreviator pulling off his Mittens resolving to handle Mr. Oates after a strange Manner This Malleus Haereticorum makes him beat and torment his own Brains most unmercifully But he has hitherto so immoveably stood the violence of their most furious blasts that there is no fear of such an Epitomizing Whiffler as this The Charge being finished saith the Observator it soon became very dubious as to Gawen and Turner because Oates knew them not at their Apprehension Pag. 14. and his own words in Court make it good For first he confest that when he met Gawen after his Apprehension in the Lobby he did not well know him being under an illfavor'd Perriwig and knowing him to have a good head of Hair he did not understand the Mistery of it and so spar'd his Evidence and informing the Council against him Well! Mr. Epitomizer and what of all this It may be he might not know him in that filthy Perriwig Pag. 14. for it seems it was a
Discovery is so monstrous or of such disagreeing parts as to shew it self so vain and chimerical as this Plotthing were at last reduced to proportion as he most Jesuitically insinuates it was done by the efforts and skill of better Artists Rather he ought to be call'd to an Account whom he means by better Artists For the Lords of the Council the Lords assembled in Parliament and the whole House of Commons had the Examination of all things The Attorney and Sollicitor General and all the King's Council had also their Inspections into the Proofs so then these must be the better Artists which he means that assisted Mr. Oates in the management of his Defects It lies heavy upon the Two Committees of Secresie and nothing but a Jesuites weighty Defence can help 'em out They were very ill Artists though our Observator be so courteous as to grant 'em better then Mr. Oates that all their private Debates and Consultations should be only to produce a Plot for Mr. Oates's sake that should so easily be render'd Defective and Fabulous by a Compendium-mongers untainted Witnesses Not so untainted neither as he dreams nor so much Masters of Reputation either by Law or Gospel in regard they have been all so notoriously and palpably disprov'd And that it has been so fairly made out that they onely came to lend their Friends a stretch of Equivocation if it would have serv'd their turn Neither do I believe this Plot-Plaisterer to be a Man of that Grandeur to authorize him to revile any Man with the term of Profligated Wretch unless it be because he may be Excommunicated by Don Paolo d'Oliva nor to be so good a Physiognomist as to judge by any Mans Temper or Poverty of his Inclinations And therefore he might have spar'd his Bear-Garden Arguments when he wrote to Lords and Gentlemen Now if the Observator believe that the weight of his Defences lies in Ifs and And 's and How can it be possible Then we leave it to the consideration of the People upon what has been already said but if he think that the Ponderosity lies in their Vows Denials and Protestations he only builds in the Air and must have Dr. Wilkinson's Engine to keep it from falling For it is certain that the Pope does assume to himself an absolute power to excommunicate Kings Sixtus V. Excommunicated two himself Henry de Navarre Henry Valois of France Now let us see what the Substance and Penalties of this Excommunication are The Pope order'd the King to be Excommunicated which was saith Cicarela in the Life of the same Pope That he should be struck with the Thunder of Anathema That he should incur all Ecclesiastical Censures which are contain'd in the Sacred Canons in the general and particular Constitutions and the Bull of the Lords Supper And the same Censure shall be good against all that assist the same King either with Counsel or any way else And by his Excommunication thunder'd out against Henry de Navarre and Henry de Bourbon Prince of Conde he declar'd them Hereticks and uncapable of succeeding to the Crown of France He also absolv'd their Subjects from all Oaths of Allegiance and Fidelity sworn to those Princes Now if CHARLES II. King of England be Excommunicated at Rome as there is no question to be made but He is for any Papist to profess himself a Subject to CHARLES II. King of England being Excommunicated is not only to disobey the Pope but to contemn and render invalid the Thunder of Anathema the Ecclesiastical Censure the general and particular Constitutions and the Bull of the Lords Supper and consequently to renounce his Religion And therefore all their Denials Protestations and Imprecations signifi'd nothing because they had relation to no Body For according to the tenor of their Excommunication an Excommunicated King is no Body a meer Statue of a King And therefore for them to profess themselves Jesuites and Priests and pray for the King was Non-sense and they dy'd both like Fools and Knaves together in regard it was impossible for the King to be any thing to them that were true Subjects to the Pope Now that the King stands Eternally Excommunicated at Rome as an Heretick is not only plain from the Expressions of Coleman but is manifest from this That no Man of true Religion or Piety I may add Morality would dare to invade the Dominions of a Sovereign Prince call himself His Subject and violate His Laws if he thought either His Laws to be Laws or Him to be a King And the same Argument holds against the Observator's untainted Witnesses who might easily say any thing when they were taught and believ'd that what they said was neither in a Court of Judicature nor before them that were Magistrates For the Magistrates of a depos'd King can be no Magistrates according to the true Papistical Doctrine And indeed it was the Devils Master-piece when he had invented a Pope to entail those two Powers of Excommunication and Absolution to his Chair which are the Foundation of all breach of Oaths all Protestations Vows and Imprecations of all Infidelity and Christian Irregularity As for Langhorne's averring That he did not believe the Pope had any Authority to Excommunicate and consequently to Depose the King in so doing he deni'd the Doctrine of the chiefest Fathers of his Profession Petrus Ribadeneira Becanas of Mentz Jacobus Simmancha Bishop of Badâ—â—â—os Bellarmine himself Hosius the Cardinal and Molanus who all unanimously teach the same Doctrine That the Pope has Authority to Depose and Excommunicate Heretick Kings and Princes and to Absolve their Subjects from their Allegiance and Obedience to them So that he must either have some strange Reserve to himself for that he did not speak but only deliver his equivocating Conceptions in writing or else he could be no Papist but must dye the Lord knows what a double Traytor to the Pope and to his Prince No Man can serve two Masters And therefore he did but imitate St. Peter in a wrong sense as if he thought to have got the name of an Apostle by denying his Master Antichrist thrice before the Cock crow'd once And thus we behold the Policy of Papists who when they deal with others always propose to them the Pretence and Protestations of Religion and the Arguments of their Christian Piety while under the pretext of these they hide their Self-policy to use it in time and place convenient which no Body can for the present discover nor know the depth of the Intrigue but themselves But now as if he were the Supreme Chiestain of the Spanish Inquisition he undertakes like another Guido Vaux with his dark Lanthorn to pry into Mr. Oates's Life and Conversation and to blow up his Repute with a Gunpowder-Plot of Recrimination But all this while who is this Bull of Basin that bellows out all these Reproaches against the Evidence for the King and Kingdom Common Fame my Lords and Gentlemen speaks him a
confess I should have wonder'd that Men of Probitie should have intrigu'd themselves in such a bloody design But why such Christians and Men of Probitie as these passing Mr. Oates neither in Birth Learning Parts or Honesty for they lay no other Crimes to his charge but only Poverty and Perjury very slovenly urg'd upon him should be so abstentions as not to trust Mr. Oates a stirring active man and a new Convert the Abbreviator must give a better Account then he does But his and their Innocence may perhaps hang together in time for Fame reports him at this time Indicted of High-Treason so that it is not his Innocence that makes him resolute and constant as he tells my Lords and Gentlemen but a kind of Newgate-sturdiness that makes him bold and confident But now let me ask all Rational Men one Question What should move Mr. Oates to embrue his hands so heathenishly so barbarously without any compassion without any remorse of conscience in so many streams of Innocent blod without any cause without any offence given him but the petty Expulsion from a Colledge The Compendium-Framer will say The Hopes of Gain and Preferment That 's something indeed But how could Mr. Oates hope either for Gain or Preferment by plunging himself into the discovery of a Chimera from whence he could expect nothing but Ruine and Misery in this world For I omit the punishments of the other world which it may be well answer'd The wicked do not value How poorly does this Compendium Mechanic think of the King the Council and the Parliament that they should be so deluded and cajoll'd by the mean and contemptible parts of such a pitiful Wretch as Mr. Oates Is it to be imagin'd that so much Mercy so much Piety so much Wisdom should prostitute the Lives of so many Innocent persons to the ambitious Perjuries of Mr. Oates Would the King have permitted such a daring Titan to scale the Heaven of Majesty it self and not have immediately thunder'd him down into the lowest Abyss of his Disfavor 'T is not for a Worm of a Subject to the counterfeit image of St. Peter to tell the King of England who is the real Vicegerent of God what Perjury is nor to flourish his pitiful Flag of Defiance against the Royal Standard of His determin'd Justice When the King of England desires to know what Perjury is perhaps he may be persuaded to address Himself to this Mushrome of a Compendium-Framer In the mean time his Diminutiveship would do well to find out some other Employment than to contend with his Sovereign by rebelliously appealing from Him to His Subjects As for his repeated Justification of the Murderers of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey I let it pass in regard it is but meerly Repetition and there has been sufficient Answer given already to all his Flashes and Evasions Only take notice by the way how infamously industrious this Compendium-Scribler has been to assail no less then twice in one Libel the Publick Justice done upon those more then prodigious Assassinates Concerning Dispensations he talks as if he had a dispensation for what he wrote For such an Affront was never offer'd to the Popes Authority at once to deprive him of the chiefest Howers of his Papal Prerogative and so ample a part of his Revenue But he says Lying is a sottish and sensless Crime so is Incest But the Pope frequently dispenses with the latter Sin why may he not as well dispense with the former Certainly if the Author of the Compendium had not had a plenary dispensation for Lying he would never have told so many Untruths as he has done Oh! but it is a great Evidence that there are no dispensations for Lying because so many lost Preferments and Employments for not taking the Test A very silly Argument For it would be a very sottish and sensless thing indeed to lye and equivocate where there was no occasion where there was no hazard of Life no danger of endamaging the Cause of Popery no Fear of bringing an irreparable Scandal upon the Profession of the Roman Catholick Religion there Constancy to their Mother the Church carry'd a kind of Face of virtuous Piety and Christian Patience but when the Honour of the Pope the Reputation of the Church the Dignity of the Catholick Religion lay all at stake upon the single Confession of a barbarous Murther and a detestable Plot there the Case is alter'd there must be grains of allowance upon such an Occasion Lying is no Lying but a Pious and Sem-like covering the shame of our Father the Pope and our Mother the Church and their Daughter the Romish Religion 'T is true some that needed neither Employment nor Preferment refus'd the Test but with others and those the far greater number it went down as pleasantly as Cream of Almonds For which if they had no Dispensation they cheated the Pope and were Persons of no Religion But why do I insist upon a Point that he who disputes against disputes against matter of Fact and the practice of Popery for many and many Ages As for that Renowned Prelate my Lord Bishop of Lincoln I shall not presume to intrude upon his concerns unwilling to incur the Censure of the World as if able to add the Least mite to the perfections of his most accomplisht Learning And thus my Lords and Gentlemen you see how laborious and sedulous this William with a wisp has been to lead your judgments astray and seduce the Belief of the people Now then most certain it is that there was if not still on foot a most hainons and detestable blot against the Life of our most Gracious Soveraign the Government and Establish'd Religion of the Nation That this Plot was carried on by the Papists is as certain let them endeavour to shift it of how they can which is evident by Coleman's own Letters wherein we find no Correspondence with Independants or Presbyterians or Quakers but with Monsieur Ferryer and Monsieur La Chaise with Salamanca and St. Omers and with the Jesuites Benedictines and several other Papists in England He does not crave aid and assistance of money and men from the different Opinions of the Protestant Religion but from the King of France from the Benedictines and the Contributions of the English Roman Catholicks Neither was his design against Episcopacy or Monarchy but to subvert that Pestilent Heresie that had so long raigned in the Northern parts of the World that is to say all dissenters in general from the Catholick Religion by which I say 't is evident that the Papists were the Parties only concern'd As certain it is that upon the discovery of Mr. Oates this Plot was first examin'd and div'd into and that soon after Sir Edmund bury Godfrey was basely and treacherously murthered As certain it is that so soon as Mr. Oates had broke the Ice several others came in and confirm'd his evidence persons that he had never seen or Conversed with before And