Love of the People by Virtue and Extinguish these Factions by a severe and constant Execution of our Laws as I said before but however this they may be certain of the Enemies of the established Religion are their Irreconcileable and Sworn Enemies And this brings me to the third Thing necessary to be known viz. The several Factions we have amongst us and how to Govern them Which I reckon to be three the Popish the Puritan and the Common-wealth Party which is made up of Men of all Religions in pretence tho in the Bottom they may be suspected to have none Popery was once the Sole Religion of England Popery and altho they were well disposed to throw it off by the Exactions and Oppressions of the Court of Rome in the days of Henry the 2d and King John as appears by the Complaints made of them in the Reign of Richard the 2d and at other times in Parliament yet when Henry the 8th resolved to Extinguish the Pope's Supremacy by an Oath many stuck so heartily to it that they Suffered Death of whom Sir Thomas Moore was the Chief who had been Lord Chancellor of England and besides that Prince maintained the greatest part of the Popish Doctrine intire to his last breath Edward the 6th reformed the Doctrine too but he Lived not long and Queen Mary his Successor threw all things back again into their former state and reconciled her Self and the Nation to the Pope Queen Elizabeth on the other side fallowed the Example of her Brother and settled the Religion as now it stands but then these irregular Motions kept mens Minds in great Suspence so that they knew not what to think and some men had changed so often to Comply with their Princes that at last they were ashamed to change any more and so Continued Papists in Queen Elizabeths time tho they had been Protestants in the Reign of Edward the 6th Others imbraced the Protestant Religion then with a resolution to desert it again if the Times Changed but their Children became sincere and they died in that Profession when they never had any occasion to alter it with Safety And many thro Prejudice and Education and for Want of Means and Ability to Examine things Continued in the Popish Religion but yet the greatest part of the Nation took up an hearty Aversion for it out of a detestation of the Cruelty they had seen used in the Reigns of Henry the 8th and Queen Mary and of the Treacheries they had seen practised against Queen Elizabeth whom they infinitely Loved and Admired And indeed the Length and Prosperity of her Reign had in all Probability put an End to that Faction in England if two things had not kept up their hopes and revived it The first of which was their Expectation that Mary Queen of the Scots would have succeeded her in the Throne who was true to them and when this was Cut off by her death tho that was a long time after yet they still flattered themselves some other person of their Perswasion would inherit her Crown and put an end to their Sufferings And the truth is it is the Nature of Mankind to hope for Extraordinary assistances from God especially when they suffer for Religion and this is it that maketh it so difficult to Extirpate those Factions that are built upon that pretence The second thing that tended to uphold Popery in England was the Policy of Philip the 2d King of Spain who to revenge the Assistance the Queen lent his Subjects in Flanders then in a War with him built several Colledges at Doway and other places for such Priests and Jesuits as fled over to him out of England and endowed them with some small Revenues and these made it their business to draw over as many of the English Youth as they could especially of the Nobility and Gentry and there they bred them up in an invincible hatred of the Religion by Law Established and Others they sent over with Orders to preach up Popery as much as they durst and had it not been for this there had been very few Papists left at that Queens death who reigned 44 Years Tho King James were infinitely disobliged by this Faction at his first coming to the Crown by the Powder-Plot and so made Severer Laws against them than Queen Elizabeth did yet neither were they Carefully Executed in his or his Sons times yet this Faction sensibly decreased and a great part of those that remained were ruined by the War and the late Plot in this King's time hath proved very effectual to bring off many more from that Opinion so that by one means or other it is become one of the most despicable Factions in this Nation and if the Blow had been well followed might perhaps have been intirely ruined Had Queen Elizabeths Methods been well pursued by all her Successors they must in likelyhood have been Extinguished but there was an Odd sort of Policy taken up which was to Slacken the Execution of the Laws against them that they might be a Counter-ballance to the Puritan Faction which produced two great Evils First They were so far from lending us any Assistance against the Dissenters that their Priests encreased the Number of them by Preaching up their Opinions and Adding to them as appears by a small Pamphlet called Foxes and Firebrands which proved they were the Fathers of Extemporary Prayers in Publick assemblies And by several other such Stratagems which they imployed against us Secondly These Dissenters made it their great business to inculcate into the Heads of the Rabble an Opinion That all the Lenity that was used towards the Papists proceeded from a Love to Popery which both made more Puritanes than there would otherwise have been and made them better thought of by the Rabble so that instead of Diminishing or Weakning that Faction it encreased it and added reputation to it and the Papists made the same use of it and drew over some Weak and Unsteady Souls to joyn with them so that our Enemies encreased on both sides but especially the Dissenters and this was all we ever did or can get by that Extravagant piece of Policy Besides all this the People will ever entertain jealous thoughts and be discontented at all those that ever so little favour the Papists and so long as there is any Number of them amongst us besides all the disquiet they give us the Factious Dissenters will take hold of that pretence to do us a mischief as time and opportunity serve So I conclude it is the Interest and Duty of all Magistrates to put the Laws against them Constantly and Vigorously in Execution and especially those against sending their Children beyond Sea to be bred in the Seminaries and Jesuites Colledges where they learn more Malice and more Skill than they could do in England And because this is a work of time it is their Duty in the interim to shew the People two things First That
Great Ministers of State and Great Men of the Nation are a part of them and are named in all the Commssiions yet the persons who reside in the several Counties and do actually execute the Office are for the most part Noble-men and Lay-Gentlemen or Lawyers whose Education hath not generally necessitated them to those Studies that are requisite to fit them for such Moral Reflections and those that are best acquainted with them will yet be pleased perhaps to see this discourse ready laid together to their hands and I am not without all hopes that some or other may be so far displeased with what what I have done as to do it better for I will not deny that the Subject deserves a better Head and Pen than mine and it would please me to see the use of this superseeded by a better But till this is done I have only one Request to make to my Reader That he would candidly interpret what I have written not out of a design to find fault and instruct my Betters but kindly to represent to them the loveliness of Virtue and the baseness and turpitude of Vice that so my Reader may from thence take occasion to reform himself in what is amiss and to give God hearty thanks for preserving him from the rest of those Crimes which have not yet touched him And as for those who may take exceptions I do assure them I never intended to reflect personally upon any one man in the World and I fear there is no one passage in the whole Book but what may too pertinently be applyed to too great a Number of Men I wish it were otherwise But then this may be added to the other Reasons I have given why I have concealed my Name to prevent the Rabble from making application of several of the worst parts of my discourse to persons for whom they were never intended and if they can once find out one they will presently pretend they have found out all the rest and this was meant of this man and that of the other and so I shall become accountable for all their wild Surmizes There is one other Exception which may lie against the whole and that is that by telling the World what sort of men Magistrates should be I have given their Inferiours who are also Naturally inclin'd to be more inquisitive into the faults of their Superiours then into that which is their own duty too great a temptation to consider what they are or have been and consequently to undervalue and despise them but this is in their own power in great part to prevent by reforming what would have betrayed them to the scorn of the Many tho I had never been born for Virtue and Vice were well understood before this little piece was thought of and men ever were and always will be accordingly esteemed The late Lord Chancellor Clarendon in a Circular Letter to all the Justices of the Peace in England bearing date the 30th of March 1665 tells them I assure you the King hath so great a sense of the service you do or can do for him that He frequently says He takes himself to be particularly beholding to every good Justice of the Peace who is Chearful and Active in his Place and that if in truth the Justices of the Peace in the several Divisions be as careful as they ought to be in keeping the Watches and in other parts of their Office the keeping up their Monthly Meetings and suppressing Conventicles c. the Peace of the Kingdom can hardly be interrupted within and the Hopes and Imaginations of Seditious Persons would be quickly broken and all men would study to be quiet and injoy those many blessings God hath given the Nation under this happy Government All this is certainly true and tho the times were then as they are now very unquiet and there was a formidable Conspiracy then set on foot by the Republicans and Dissenters of the Nation yet the sole Vigilance and Care of the Justices of the Peace disappointed it and made it end in Smoke to the Eternal Reproach and Dishonour of the Conspirators which shews the excellence and usefulness of this Order of men Yet give me leave to say that those good Justices of the Peace who are most Active and Chearful in their Places are not always either the Richest and Greatest or the best beloved and most favoured by the rest And for this Sir Thomas Egerton Lord-Keeper of the Great Seal in the 44th of Elizabeth in a Speech made the 13th of February 1601. in the Star-Chamber by her Maiesty's express Command and Printed in the end of the Historical Collections of the four last Parliaments of her Reign shall be my witness who thus complained Is there any more fervent than others in the business of the Common-wealth he streight hath given him the Epithite of a busie Jack but I know there be many good and I wish their number were increased but who be they Even the poorer and meanner Justices by one of which more good cometh to the Common-wealth than by a Hundred of greater condition and degree I wish this complaint were superannuated and that our times were quite otherwise but alas such Justices of the Peace must not only be content to hear worse Language than this but there is too frequently Combinations made amongst the rest to cross and quash whatever they shall propose be it never so just and reasonable and nothing alledged for it but that they are mean proud busie people and will perk up too much above their Betters if they be not thus mortified and kept under this is the worst sort of Respect of Persons that can be thought of and most mischievous and irrational that whereas Envy ever riseth by Nature here it descendeth and the Superiour who should love and cherish the Industry and Vigilance of his Inferiour envieth and hateth him for being more serviceable than he need perhaps to have been But let it be considered who reaps the Advantage of all their Industry and Activity but the King and Kingdom and these very men that thus severely treat them if there were none such the Nation must needs in a small time be ruined for as the Lord Chancellor Clarendon takes notice in the above Cited Letter So much Artifice so much Industry and so much dexterity as this People the Enemies of the Government are possessed with cannot be disappointed by a Supine Negligence or Laziness in those who are invested with the Kings Authority or indeed without an equal industry dexterity and combination between Good Men for the Preservation of the Peace of the Kingdom and for the suppressing of the Enemies thereof Now if instead of this the Justices of the Peace combine in Parties one against another and the Great men will neither do the duties of their Places themselves nor suffer the meaner but more active to do it for them what can be the event in the end but this That like
is no new thing as long as the Grecians and Romans were poor and weak they lived contentedly under Kings but when they grew Rich and Powerful they threw off that Government and set up Common-wealths Two things afforded them great opportunities if not Temptations to it The first was the Poverty of the Crown The Old Revenues were much impaired by the Liberality or Necessities of our Princes and no relief could be had but in Parliament and there they knew so well how to truck that no Prerogative no Money They would not freely give but sell the King Supplyes for Liberty and they took care too to increase that Necessity by engaging the King in Wars and then denying him Money to carry them on and to discontent the People at the same time at the Unprosperous Events of them Thus the Crown grew every day poorer and the People Richer Another thing was the Factions in Religion which howsoever they were Managed one Party or other were dissatisfied and thereby disposed to Wreak their Malice on the Crown by Electing such Men to serve in Parliaments as were ill disposed to it Whereas before when England was all of one Religion it was scarce possible to pretend any thing in which the whole Body of the People were Concern'd So that these Animosities in Religion ended in a Civil Faction and many Ambitious Men who cared for No Religion did yet make use of them as tools to Work their Ends upon the Crown Two other things Contributed very much to the effecting their designs First Scotland led the Dance and Rebelled upon pretence of Religion and altho the King might easily have Conquered them by a Battel or Blocking up their Harbours yet being a Tender Prince and unwilling to shed the Blood of his own Traiterous Subjects he rather chose to end the Controversy by a Treaty which gave them time to Concert their Affairs with the English of the same Faction and that furnished them with means to raise another Army and enter England which necessitated the Calling of that Fatal Parliament which had like to have ruined the Monarchy and Nation both at once Secondly the Irish Papists Rebelled at the same time and rising suddenly Massacred 100000 English which so depopulated Ireland that the King could have no Assistance from it the remaining English being hardly able to Subsist and the Parliament made another Advantage of it by perswading the English to believe the King had Procured this desolation there The City of London lent the Parliament Money furnished them with Tumults to Drive the King out of it first and then with Armies to force him back again and too many of the Gentry were Lazy and would not stir timerous and durst not discontented and willing the Crown should be reduced tho not ruined But when they came to put the Project in Execution and after the ruine of the King's Forces to erect their Common-wealth of England there were other difficulties that could not be overcome their own Army that had done their Drudgery would not be Disbanded and they could not force them They had rid their hands of one of the Three Estates that Constitute our Parliament the Spiritual Lords at first And there was a parcel of Lords Temporal who for a long time Acted with them but at Last being not able to digest the Insolence of the Commons stood off upon which they Voted them Vseless and laid them by too So that all was then in the hands of the Commons They could not or would not Dissolve themselves in the state things then were for then the whole Power would have been in the Army and Officers who might easily have prevented the Meeting of another Parliament and the whole Nation was dissatisfied to see them divide the spoil and profit amongst themselves without any hope that any but they and their Relations should partake with them in the reward as they had in the danger the Gentry were generally known to have Wished well to the King and the Rabble were to be pleased by suffering them to insult over their Old Masters and the Royal Party tho Conquered were not dejected and the Godly Party were fallen in Sunder and the Independents were persecuting their Sire Presbytery The Commons were a Body constituted of two Knights for every Shire and two Burgâ—sses for each Corporation and the Latter exceeded vastly the former in Number and tho this inequality had not been much regarded Under the Monarchy yet now the House of Commons was to be made the Standing Senate of the Nation the Counties Would not indure it if the People had suffered any Grievance under the Monarchy they Complained in Parliament and had redress But Now they had no body to complain to but the Commons and they when the Case became their own Answered them with Blows and Death So that what looked so prettily and easy to be affected at a distance when iâ— came to be tryed was found impracticable and the most insufferable Slavery in Nature and one fell to devise one Remedy and another another but none would do and the Commons were not to be dispossest of what had cost them so many Lives to purchase it so the Sword determined the Controversy here too and to the general joy of the whole Nation the General and Army-Saints sent them packing to Consider what they had done and what they deserved but the Wealth they had got by Villany did yet afford them some Consolation in this World As I said before I have been as short as possibly I could and I have purposely omitted many things which should otherwise have been spoken that I might be so and now with the Readers Patience I shall enquire whether the design of extinguishing the Monarchy be really and totally laid aside at this day to which I answer No. For first all the Principal Causes do still subsist We have the same Religions which then we had and they have the same Principles and Dispositions and follow the same Methods they then did they Educate their Children in the same Places and recommend the same sort of Men to the People they did before But there are some things that stand in their way which did not then 1. His Majesty hath a better Revenue then his Father had and this is a great Block in their way but they hope it will end with his Life and in the mean time we know what hath been done to Curb him in that particular 2. His Majesty hath a strong Guard alwayes in Pay so that Tumults are not so safe especially at White-hall Gates as heretofore they were and this is the cause the Nation have been told that they are Papists and dangerous to the Liberty and Property of the Subjects 3. The Militia of the City of London and the rest of the Nation is in Trusty hands and no Rebellion can for the present be safely begun and therefore the Chief Officers are Traduced to the People as Men of Arbitrary