functions of their Religion and be Singers Porters Butchers Bakers and Cooks for the Sacrifices c. So that this Tribe was stiled Clergy but figuratively and the Allegory passed into the New Testament where the Saints are sometimes called Clergy but never the Pastors or Deacons who were far from pretending in those days to come in the place of the Aaronical Priesthood The word Ordination in Scripture signifies lifting up of hands and is used first for the giving a Suffrage which in all popular Assemblies was done by stretching out the hand as it is in the Common-Hall of London In the next place it is applied to the Order or Decree made by the Suffrage so given which was then and is yet too in all Modern Languages called an Ordinance and the Suffrage it self Ordination which word proves that the first Christian Churches were Democratical that is That the whole Congregation had the Choice in this as well as the Soveraign Authority in all Excommunications and all other matters whatsoever that could occur for in all Aristocratical Commonwealths the word for choice is Keirothesia or Imposition of hands for so the Election of all Magistrates and Officers was made and not Keirotoniae These Pastors and other Officers did not pretend to be by virtue of such Choice of a peculiar profession different from other Men as their Followers have done since Antichrists Reign but were onely called and appointed by the Congregations approval of their gifts or parts to instruct or feed the Flock visit the sick and perform all other Offices of a true Minister that is Servant of the Gospel at other times they followed the business of their own Trades and Professions and the Christians in those times which none will deny to have been the purest of the Church did never dream that a true Pastor ought to pretend to any Succession to qualifie him for the Ministry of the word or that the Idle and Ridiculous Ceremonies used in your Church and still continued in that which you are pleased to call mine were any way essential or conducing to Capacitate a person to be a true Preacher or Dispencer of the Christian Faith And I cannot sufficiently admire why our Clergy who very justly refuse to believe the Miracle which is pretended to be wrought in Transubstantiation because they see both the Wafer and the Wine to have the same Substance and the same Accidents after the Priest has mumbled words over those Elements as they had before and yet will believe that the same kind of Spell or Charm in Ordination can have the Efficacy to Metamorphose a poor Lay-Ideot into a Heavenly Creature notwithstanding that we find in them the same humane Nature and the same Necessities of it to which they were subject before such Transformation nay the same Debauch Profanness Ignorance and Disability to preach the Gospel Noble Ven. Sir this discourse is very new to me I must confess I am much inclined to joyn with you in believing that the power Priests Exercise over Mankind with the Jurisdiction they pretend to over Princes and States may be a usurpation but that they should not have a Divine Call to serve at the Altar or that any person can pretend to perform those Sacred Functions without being duly Ordained seems very strange Eng. Gent. I am not now to discourse of Religion it is never very civil to do so in Conversation of persons of a different belief neither can it be of any benefit towards a Roman Catholick for if his Conscience should be never so cleerly convinc'd he is not yet Master of his own Faith having given it up to his Church of whom he must ask leave to be a Convert which he will be sure never to obtain But if you have the Curiosity when you come amongst the learned in your own Country for amongst our Ordination-Mongers there is a great scarcity of Letters and other good Parts you may please to take the Bible which you acknowledg to be the Word of God as well as we and intreat some of them to shew you any passage the plain and genuine sense of which can any way evince this Succession this Ordination or this Priesthood we are now speaking of and when you have done if you will let your own excellent Reason and Discourse judg and not your Priest who is too much concerned in point of Interest I make no doubt but you will be convinced that the pretence to the dispensing of Divine things by virtue of a humane Constitution and so ridiculous a one too as the Ordination practised by your Bishops and ours who descend and succeed from one and the same Mother is as little Justifiable by Scripture and Reason and full as great a Cheat and Vsurpation as the Empire which the Ecclesiasticks pretend to over the Consciences and persons of men and the Exemption from all Secular power Noble Ven. Well Sir though neither my Faith nor my Reason can come up to what you hold yet the Novelty and the grace of this Argument has delighted me extreamly and if that be a Sin as I fear it is I must confess it to my Priest but I ask your pardon first for putting you upon this long Deviation Eng. Gent. Well this Digression is not without its use for it will shorten our business which is grown longer than I thought it would have been for I shall mention the Clergy no more but when-ever I speak of Peerage pray take notice that I mean both Lords Spiritual and Temporal since they stand both upon the same foot of Property But if you please I will fall immediately to discourse of the Government of England and say no more of those of our Neighbours than what will fall in by the way or be hinted to me by your Demands for the time runs away and I know the Doctor must be at home by noon where he gives daily charitable audience to an Infinity of poor people who have need of his help and who send or come for it not having the confidence to send for him since they have nothing to give him though he be very liberal too of his Visits to such where he has any knowledg of them But I spare his Modesty which I see is concerned at the Just Testimony I bear to his Charity The Soveraign Power of England then is in King Lords and Commons The Parliaments as they are now constituted that is the assigning a choice to such a Number of Burroughs as also the manner and form of Elections and Returns did come in as I suppose in the time of Henry the third where now our Statute-Book begins and I must confess I was inclined to believe that before that time our Yeomanry or commonalty had not formally assembled in Parliament but been virtually included and represented by the Peers upon whom they depended but I am fully convinced that it was otherwise by the learned Discourses lately publisht by Mr. Petit of the Temple
probable you have and keep forty Servants and at length by your neglect and the industry and thrift of your Domesticks you sell one Thousand to your Steward another to your Clerk of the Kitchen another to your Bayliff till all were gone can you believe that these Servants when they had so good Estates of their own and you nothing left to give them would continue to live with you and to do their service as before It is just so with a whole Kingdom In our Ancestors times most of the Members of our House of Commons thought it an honour to retain to some great Lord and to wear his blew Coat And when they had made up their Lord's Train and waited upon him from his own House to the Lords House and made a Lane for him to enter and departed to sit themselves in the Lower House of Parliament as it was then and very justly called can you think that any thing could pass in such a Parliament that was not ordered by the Lords Besides these Lords were the King 's great Council in the Intervals of Parliaments and were called to advise of Peace and War and the latter was seldom made without the consent of the major part if it were not they would not send their Tenants which was all the Militia of England besides the King's tenth part Can it be believed that in those days the Commons should dislike any thing the Lords did in the Intervals or that they would have disputed their Right to receive Appeals from Courts of Equity if they had pretended to it in those days or to mend Money-bills And what is the reason but because the Lords themselves at that time represented all their Tenants that is all the People in some sort and although the House of Commons did Assemble to present their Grievances yet all great Affairs of high Importance concerning the Government was Transacted by the Lords and the War which was made to preserve it was called the Barons Wars not the War of both Houses for although in antienter times the word Baron were taken in a larger sense and comprehended the Francklins or Freemen yet who reads any History of that War shall not find that any mention is made of the concurrence of any assembly of such men but that Simon Monford Earl of Leicester and others of the great ones did by their Power and Interest manage that contest Now if this Property which is gone out of the Peerage into the Commons had passed into the King's hands as it did in Egypt in the time of Joseph as was before said the Prince had had a very easie and peaceable reign over his own Vassals and might either have refused justly to have Assembled the Parliament any more or if he had pleased to do it might have for ever managed it as he thought fit But our Princes have wanted a Joseph that is a wise Councellor and instead of saving their Revenue which was very great and their expences small and buying in those Purchases which the vast expences and luxury of the Lords made ready for them they have alienated their own Inheritance so that now the Crown-Lands that is the publick Patrimony is come to make up the interest of the Commons whilest the King must have a precarious Revenue out of the Peoples Purses and be beholding to the Parliament for his Bread in time of Peace whereas the Kings their Predecessors never asked Aid of his Subjects but in time of War and Invasion and this alone though there were no other decay in the Government is enough to make the King depend upon his People which is no very good condition for a Monarchy Noble Ven. But how comes it to pass that other Neighbouring Countries are in so settled a State in respect of England does their Property remain the same it was or is it come into the hands of the Prince You know you were pleased to admit that we should ask you en passant something of other Countries Eng. Gent. Sir I thank you for it and shall endeavour to satisfie you I shall say nothing of the small Princes of Germany who keep in a great measure their ancient bounds both of Government and Property and if their Princes now and then exceed their part yet it is in time of Troubles and War and things return into their right Chanel of Assembling the several States which are yet in being every where But Germany lying so exposed to the Invasion of the Turks on the one side and of the French on the other and having ever had enough to do to defend their several Liberties against the encroachments of the House of Austria in which the Imperial dignity is become in some fort Hereditary if there had been something of extraordinary power exercised of late years I can say Inter arma silent leges but besides their own particular States they have the Diet of the Empire which never fails to mediate and compose things if there be any great oppresson used by Princes to their subjects or from one Prince or State to another I shall therefore confine my self to the three great Kingdoms France Spain and Poland for as to Denmark and Sweden the first hath lately chang'd its Government and not only made the Monarchy Hereditary which was before Elective but has pull'd down the Nobility and given their Power to the Prince which how it will succeed time will shew Sweden remains in point of Constitution and Property exactly as it did anciently and is a well-Governed Kingdom The first of the other three is France of which I have spoken before and shall onely add That though it be very true that there is Property in France and yet the Government is Despotical at this present yet it is one of those violent States which the Grecians called Tyrannies For if a Lawfull Prince that is one who being so by Law and sworn to rule according to it breaks his Oaths and his Bonds and reigns Arbitrarily he becomes a Tyrant and an Usurper as to so much as he assumes more than the Constitution hath given him and such a Government being as I said violent and not natural but contrary to the Interest of the people first cannot be lasting when the adventitious props which support it fail and whilst it does endure must be very uneasie both to Prince and People the first being necessitated to use continual oppression and the latter to suffer it Doct. You are pleased to talk of the oppression of the People under the King of France and for that reason call it a violent Government when if I remember you did once to day extol the Monarchy of the Turks for well-founded and natural Are not the people in that Empire as much oppressed as in France Eng. Gent. By no means unless you will call it oppression for the grand Seignior to feed all his People out of the Product of his own Lands and though they serve him for it yet
to say much of the Succession of the Crown which is my next Province but this I have said already That it is needless to make any Provision against a Popish Successor if you rectifie your Government and if you do not all the Care and Circumspection you can use in that Particular will be useless and of none effect and will but at last if it do not go off easily and the next Heir succeed peaceably as is most likely especially if the King live till the People's Zeal and Mettle is over end probably in a Civil War about Title and then the Person deprived may come in with his Sword in his Hand and bring in upon the Point of it both the Popish Religion and Arbitrary Power Which though I believe he will not be able to maintain long for the Reasons before alledged yet that may make this Generation miserable and unhappy It will certainly be agreed by all lovers of their Country that Popery must be kept from returning and being National in this Kingdom as well for what concerns the Honour and Service of God as the Welfare and Liberty of the People and I conceive there are two ways by which the Parliament may endeavour to secure us against that danger the first by ordering such a change in the Administration of our Government that whoever is Prince can never violate the Laws and then we may be very safe against Popery our present Laws being effectual enough to keep it out and no new ones being like to be made in Parliament that may introduce it and this remedy will be at the same time advantagious to us against the Tyranny and Incroachments of a Protestant Successor so that we may call it an infallible Remedy both against Popery and Arbitrary power The second way is by making a Law to disable any Papist by name or otherwise from Inheriting the Crown and this is certainly fallible that is may possibly not take place as I shall shew immediately and besides it is not improbable that an Heir to this Kingdom in future times may dissemble his Religion till he be seated in the Throne or possibly be perverted to the Roman Faith after he is possest of it when it may be too late to limit his Prerogative in Parliament and to oppose him without that will I fear be Judged Treason Doct. But Sir would you have the Parliament do nothing as things stand to provide at least as much as in them lies that whoever succeeds be a good Protestant Eng. Gent. Yes I think it best in the first place to offer to his Majesty the true Remedy if they find him averse to that then to pursue the other which concerns the Succession because the People who are their Principals and give them their Power do expect something extraordinary from them at this time and the most of them believe this last the only present means to save them from Popery which they judge and very justly will bring in with it a change of Government But then I suppose they may be encouraged to propose in the first place the true Cure not only because that is infallible as has been proved but likewise because His Majesty in probability will sooner consent to any reasonable Demand towards the Reforming of the Government and to the securing us that way than to concur to the depriving his onely Brother of the Crown And possibly this latter as I said before may be the only way the Parliament can hope will prove effectual For if you please to look but an Age back into our Story you will find that Henry the Eighth did procure an Act of Parliament which gave him power to dispose of the Crown by his last Will and Testament and that he did accordingly make his said Will and by it devise the Succession to his Son Edward the Sixth in the first place and to the Heirs of his Body and for want of such to his Daughter Mary and to the Heirs of her Body and for want of which Heirs to his Daughter Elizabeth our once Soveraign of Immortal and Blessed Memory and the Heirs of her Body and for want of all such Issue to the right Heirs of his Younger Sister who was before he made this Will married to Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk and had Issue by him By this Testament he disinherited his elder Sister who was married in Scotland and by that means did as much as in him lay exclude His Majesty who now by God's Mercy Reigns over us as also his Father and Grandfather And to make the Case stronger there passed an Act long after in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth That it should be Treason during that Queen's Life and a Premunire afterwards to assert that the Imperial Crown of England could not be disposed of by Act of Parliament yet after the Decease of that Queen there was no considerable Opposition made to the peaceable Reception and Recognition of King James of happy Memory And those who did make a little stir about the other Title as the Lord Cobham Sir Walter Rawleigh and a few others were apprehended condemn'd according to Law And notwithstanding that since in the Reign of K. Charles the First there was a bloody Civil War in which Men's Minds were exasperated at a high rate yet in all the Course of it the Original Want of Title was never objected against His late Majesty I do not urge this to aver that the Parliament with the King's Consent cannot do lawfully this or any other great Matter which would be an incurring the Penalty of that Law and a Solecism in the Politicks But to shew that when the Passions of men are quieted and the Reasons other than they were it happens oftentimes that those Acts which concern the Succession fall to the Ground of themselves and that even without the Sword which in this Case was never adoperated And that therefore this Remedy in our Case may be likely never to take place if it please God the King live till this Nation be under other kind of Circumstances Doct. Sir you say very well but it seems to me that the last Parliament was in some kind of Fault if this be true that you say for I remember that my Lord Chancellor did once duringtheir Sitting in His Majesty's Name offer them to secure their Religion and Liberties any way they could advise of so they would let alone meddling with the Succession and invited them to make any Proposals they thought necessary to that end Eng. Gent. Hinc ille lachrimae If this had been all we might have been happy at this time but this Gracious Offer was In limine accompanied with such Conditions that made the Parliament conjecture that it was only to perplex and divide them and did look upon it as an Invention of some new Romanza Counsellors and those too possibly influenced by the French to make them embrace the Shaddow for the Substance and satisfying themselves with
himself to our Senate to Mediate with the Pope that a week might be set apart for a Jubilee and Fasting three days all over the Christian World to storm Heaven with Masses Prayers Fasting and Almes to prosper his Designs he began to open the Matter That the Cause of all the Wickedness and Sin and by Consequence of all the Miseries and Affliction which is in the World arising from the enmity which is between God and the Devil by which means God was often cross'd in his Intentions of good to Mankind here and hereafter the Devil by his temptations making us uncapable of the Mercy and Favour of our Creator therefore he had a Design with the helps before mentioned to mediate with Almighty God That he would pardon the Devil and receive him into his Favour again after so long a time of Banishment and Imprisonment and not to take all his power from him but to leave him so much as might do good to Man and not hurt which he doubted not but he would imploy that way after such reconciliation was made which his Faith would not let him question You may judge what the numerous Auditory thought of this I can only tell you that he had a different sort of Company at his return from what he had when he came for the Men left him to the Boys who with great Hoops instead of Acclamations brought him to the Gondola which conveyed him to the Redentor where he lodged And I never had the curiosity to enquire what became of him after Doct. I thank you heartily for this Intermess I see you have learnt something in England for I assure you we have been these twenty Years turning this and lal serious Discourses into Ridicule but yet your Similitude is very pat for in every Parliament that has been in England these sixty Years we have had notable Contests between the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman Eng. Gent. Well Sir we have had a Michael here in our Age who has driven out Lucifer and restored the true Deity to his Power but where Omnipotency is wanting which differs the Frier's Case and mine the Devil of Civil War and Confusion may get up again if he be not laid by prudence and Vertue and better Conjurers than any we have yet at Court Noble Ven. Well Gentlemen I hope you have pardoned me for my Farce But to be a little more serious pray tell me how you will induce the King to give up so much of his Right as may serve your turn Would you have the Parliament make War with him again Eng. Gent. There cannot nor ought to be any Change but by his Majesty's free Consent for besides that a War is to be abhorred by all Men that love their Country any Contest of that kind in this case viz. to take away the least part of the Kings Right could be justified by no man living I say besides that a Civil War has miscarried in our days which was founded at least pretendedly upon Defence of the People's own Rights In which although they had as clear a Victory in the end as ever any Contest upon Earth had yet could they never reap the least advantage in the World by it but went from one Tyranny to another from Barebones Parliament to Cromwell's Reign from that to a Committee of Safety leaving those Grave Men who managed Affairs at the beginning amazed to see new Men and new Principles Governing England And this induced them to Co-operate to bring things back just where they were before the War Therefore this Remedy will be either none or worse than the Disease It not being now as it was in the Barons time when the Lord who led out his Men could bring them back again when he pleased and Rule them in the mean time being his Vassals But now there is no Man of so much Credit but that one who behaves himself bravely in the War shall out-vye him and possibly be able to do what he pleases with the Army and the Government And in this corrupt Age it is ten to one he will rather do Hurt than Good with the Power he acquires But because you ask me how we would perswade the King to this I answer by the Parliament's humbly Remonstrating to His Majesty that it is his own Interest Preservation Quiet and true Greatness to put an end to the Distractions of his Subjects and that it cannot be done any other way and to desire him to enter into debate with some Men Authorized by them to see if there can be any other means than what they shall offer to compose things if they find there may then to embrace it otherwise to insist upon their own Proposals and if in the end they cannot obtain those Requests which they think the only essential means to preserve their Country then to beg their Dismission that they may not stay and be partakers in the Ruin of it Now my Reasons why the King will please to grant this after the thorough discussing of it are two First Because all great Princes have ever made up Matters with their Subjects upon such Contests without coming to Extremities The two greatest and most Valiant of our Princes were Edward the First and his Grandchild Edward the Third these had very great Demands made them by Parliaments and granted them all as you may see upon the Statute-Book Edward the Second and Richard the Second on the contrary refused all things till they were brought to Extremity There is a Memorable Example in the Greek Story of Theopompus King of Sparta whose Subjects finding the Government in disorder for want of some Persons that might be a Check upon the great Power of the King proposed to him the Creation of the Ephores Officers who made that City so great and Famous afterwards The King finding by their Reasons which were unanswerable as I think ours now are that the whole Government of Sparta was near its Ruin without such a Cure and considering that he had more to lose in that Disorder than others freely granted their desires for which being derided by his Wife who asked him what a kind of Monarchy he would leave to his Son answered a very good one because it will be a very lasting one Which brings on my Second Reason for which I believe the King will grant these things because he cannot any way mend himself nor his Condition if he do not Noble Ven. You have very fully convinced me of two things First That we have no reason to expect or believe that the Parliament will ever increase the Kings Power And then that the King cannot by any way found himself a New and more absolute Monarchy except he can alâ—er the Condition of Property which I think we may take for granted to be impossible But yet I know not why we may not suppose that although he cannot establish to all Posterity such an Empire he may notwithstanding change the