many venturous and bold Champions amongst them in so Meritorious a Cause But alas every Heroe is not a Sampson There are no doubt those of them that would spare neither pains nor study to propagate their own Religion though never so indirectly those possibly that would have it in their Power if they could come handsomely by it to use their Heretick Adversaries with as little Mercy as HE did his Philistian Enemies but alas not with his Hardiness too as like Him to pull down that Roof upon their Heads to their own inevitable Destruction only to have the pleasure of crushing some of VS with them We read I confess that pro Aris Focis men will venture far Yes truly for their Religion and Estates together they will do so But in the Popish Case where the Founding of the One will be the Destruction of the Other where the Setting up of their Religion will be the Forfeiting not only their Estates but Heads too 't is more than a hundred to one betwixt these two so directly opposite Interests but that the keeping of their Skin and Bones warm on the one side may make their Zeal a little the cooler on the other For let me tell you where the Erecting of the Altar will at long run make the Builders the Sacrifice in all humane probability that Popish Temple will go but slowly up whose Stones are to be dug out of so fatal a Quarry 'T is very remarkable in Queen Mary's Reign when by the Majority of her Parliament the Protestant Religion then but in its Minority was abolish't and the Romish Government and Papal Supremacy Re-establish't and indeed the Grandure of Rome even to Haeretici comburendi maintain'd Yet that Parliament that had it absolutely in their power to gratifie the Pope's utmost Wishes refused the returning his Church-Lands again Nay the Parliament were so averse to the thought of such a Restitution that they had never been wrought up to the restoring of the very Supremacy it self and of making of all those favourable Acts towards the re-installing of Popery again but by much pains used as Burnet in his Abridgement pag. 268 says by the policy of Bishop Gardiner to ensure the Kingdom from the Fear of coming under such Tyranny from Rome as their Ancestors had groaned under and likewise from the Loss of the Abbey-Lands Insomuch that Gardiner promised them for Removal of all such Jealousie that all the old Laws against Provisions should continue in Force and to shew them that Legates should exercise no dangerous Authority in England he made Pool take out a License under the Great Seal for his Legantine Power and for the other Viz. the Abbey-Lands he promised both an Act of Parliament and Convocation confirming them and undertook that the Pope himself should ratifie the Alienation of the Church-Lands which History tells us was accordingly done Nevertheless as this Papal Dispensation came very unwillingly from Rome being only a Forced Compliance and Temporizing with the English Obstinacy in that point The Queen her self restored all the Church-Lands in her Possession and proceeded so far as to the Re-building of several Religious Houses declaring to her Treasurer and some of her other Officers that she thought her self bound in Conscience to restore all the Church-Lands as being unlawfully acquired and not to be held without a Sin as Baker in his Chronicle tells us Nay the Pope himself set out a Bull excommunicating all that kept any Lands belonging to Abbeys or Churches which gave such an Alarm to the Nation that Gardiner was forced to pacifie them by telling them that Bull was intended only to the people of Germany and not England However the Pope continued his high Resentments against the Undutifulness of England that he could not forbear telling the Queen's Ambassadours Abridg. pag. 221. That it was beyond his power to confirm Sacriledge and all were obliged under the pain of Damnation to restore to the last Farthing every thing that belong'd to the Church he said likewise that he would send over a Collectour to gather the Peter-pence for they could not expect that St. Peter would open Heaven to them so long as they denied him his Rights upon Earth Yet all this made so little Impression on the Commons of England that whatever Conscience might dictate their Priests insinuate their Popish Successour Solicite or their Pope himself endeavour so powerful was Interest above Conscience and all other Motives whatever that several of the Commons in Parliament lay'd their hands on their Swords and declared that they would not part with their Estates but defend them And every Motion that way was always carryed in the Negative Abridg. of the Reform B. 3. pag. 309 Now pray for once let us compare Cases If the Papists in her Reign with the highest Papal Dominion and Soveraignty in their own Hands under an Establish't Roman Church against both their Priests and their Prince nay a Prince too with her Hereticks under her Feet and her Religion in the very Saddle could refuse both their Pope and their popish Successour so Just and so Sacred a Right and so important to his Church's Interest and that too when with all Safety round them they might have confirm'd their Oblation even by the strongest Bonds of Law so on the other side how shall it be suppos'd that the more prodigal Papists in our Age in the quite contrary extream shall gratifie the unjust Demands of a more Impotent popish Successour under the lowest Ebb of Popery against all Law or Pretence of Law whatever by launching out into the most notorious .075 Violation of all the highest sanctions of Right and Justice and the most openfaced Tyranny and most impudent Barbarity in the world and all forsooth for the Establishing of Popery and all God wot too little for the Work and this too to the running themselves into unavoidable Iayls and Halters and not only to the ruining of their Estates but to the cutting off of the Lives of Themselves and even the very RACE of Papists under the next immediate Crown'd-Head that succeeds Besides as boldly as the Roman Zealots stand up for the Interest and Dignity of Mother-Church and the Grandure and Dominion of their Peter's Successour not only the Papists but the very Priests themselves are not so overcouragious in this Cause as the World suspects them For Instance in Henry the Eighth's Reign the whole Clergy of England by a State-surprize upon them were found guilty of a Premunire by submitting to Cardinal Woolsy's Legantine-power as derived only from the Pope's Authority and thereby expresly against the Statute of PROVISOES an old dormient Law made several King's Reigns before though rarely or never put in Force by reason of the Remissness of the Government and the Supiness of the Nation and Kings Submission to Rome and therefore unwarily transgrest by the Clergy now By vertue however of which they had forfeited their Goods and Chattels to the King and their
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
to the Church of Rome are equally guilty of High Treason and to suffer as in Cases of Treason And a second Act of Henry the VIII In which the Refusal of the Oath of Henry's Supremacy in Renuntiation of the Pope was also made High Treason Now if every Papist in England without lifting a Hand uttering a Word or imagining the least disloyal Thought against his Lawful Soveraign his Crown and Dignity or against the Peace of the Nation where he 's a Subject yet nevertheless out of a point of Conscience and meer Matter of Faith cannot be induced to believe a Temporal Prince capable of being Head of a Church but is invincibly perswaded how erronious soever that the POPE is Peter's undoubted Successour and Christ's unquestioned Vicar upon Earth and cannot without hazard of his Soul so much as consent to acknowledge otherwise yet notwithstanding by the Protestant Laws of the Land this Invincible Perswasion without any other Crime is interpreted High-Treason and punish't as such Now I say in this Case what wondrous Difference is there between the Rigour of a Popish or a Protestant Constitution This that makes a Defection from Their Church-Establish't TREASON and the other from Theirs HERESY This that punishes an Apostate with Hanging and Quartering at Tiburn and the other with Burning at Smithfield 'T is true that Branch of Queen Elizabeth's Statute that concerns the Popish Layman's High-Treason was never yet put in Execution and I hope for the Glory of the Reformation Establish't by that Illustrious Princess as so extreamly Sanguinary was never intended to be being severe enough to give our Popish Enemies a Matter of Recrimination though Enacted but in Terrorem But here I beg the Reader to be assured that I urge not this Comparison in Disparagement of our Protestant Laws but only to satisfie the Mistaken Part of Mankind that all such Judicial Severities under the Government of both Religions have ever been introduced by the most Awful and Sacred Authority of the rightful Law-Makers of the Nations and consequently in the English Constitution not only the King 's but the Peoples Acts and Decrees and so to convince them of the unreasonableness of that senseless Surmise that upon the Admission of a Popish Successour all the forementioned Cruelties though without any such Induction of Law and consequently with all the Injustice Rapine and Cold-blooded Murder even to that formal Solemnity of Butchery that humane Imagination would tremble at must and shall be introduced For alas how ridiculously extravagant must those Fears be that can aâ—dlâ— Men's Senses into a Dread of that prodigious Stroke from Popery that was never given by it since the Creation What Magnifying Glasses therefore must the Popular Fears see through to behold such Stupendious Visions of Popery as that THAT shall be that NEVER was whil'st a Popish Crown'd Head in England must be the first nay only Royal Savage of a Papist that ever Reign'd However for once let us suppose the Devil and Pope as familiar together as ever they were painted at a Queen Elizabeth's Night and that this Gospel Propagation were really the Doctrine of his pretended Infallibility and this Bloody Mandate to a Popish Successour the special Edict of the whole CONSISTORY what would the Execution of that Mandate make towards the Growth or Advancement of Popery God knows so far from promoting the Romish Religion that possibly there wants but that One Attempt to shame it almost out of the World For in the first place 't is so far from a way or means to convert even one Soul in England that 't is the only Course to increase their Abhorrence and Execration of that Religion and bring the very THOVGHT of Popery even below Damnation 'T would no more make Converts to Rome than the old Heathen Caldrons and Gridirons to Paganisme For as the greatest Prejudice of Englishmen against Popery lyes in their Horrour of the Cruelties of it so consequently nothing can contribute to the Advancement of it but the Clemency and Mercy of its Professours to reconcile us even into meer Charity with them whil'st the Exercising of the formentioned unexampled Barbarities would make us fall from our present Ill Opinion of Popery as a Corrupted Church to believe it no Church at all but rather an Association of Monsters and a Den of Cannibals and Tygers and the greatest Operation such unprecedented Cruelty could meet were at best but to force the frighted People into a superficial counterfit Complyance and make them Temporize a little only to compound for their Lives yet that Temporizing under so Villanous a Persecution would be so far from a True Conversion or any thing like it that they 'd only play the Highest of Hypocrites come perhaps to Mass to mutter Curses instead of Ave-Mary's or be hunted into the Popish Fold only to pray for a favourable Opportunity of having a pull at the Throats of the Wolves that drive them thither And Secondly Besides the Impotent Effects 't is certain to find towards the Heretick Conversion the Pope's Command nay indeed Connivance at any such Arbitrary Tyrannick Stake-burning or Throat-cutting from a Popish Successour instead of advancing of Popery by so excentrick a Motion will be enough to stagger half the Popish Hearts in Christendom for as Implicit as the Faith of the Romish Zealots is and as intirely devoted as they are to their Peter's Chair and Mother-Church undoubtedly there are Thousands of them that notwithstanding they can disgest a Wafer for a GOD can never be wrought to believe the Transubstantiation of such visible Tyranny and Butchery into Righteousness and Christianity how Zealous soever they may be for the Conversion of so Heretical a Nation as England And that this would be the Infallible Consequence of all such Barbarous Popish Measures they that will but look back to the Annals of Queen Mary will find Historians telling us That nothing so much advanced the Reformation as the Mistaken Conduct of Queen Mary and her bloody Counsellors in that Point And Dr. Burnet expresly assures us That the whole Body of the Nation grew to dislike the Cruelty of Rome Abridg. Book the 3 d. Pag. 275. to that degree that the Popish Bishops for their Apology threw it off from Themselves and openly laid it on the King's and Queen's Commands insomuch that King Philip for his Excuse made his Confessour preach a Sermon at Court against the taking of Peoples Lives for their Opinions in Religion and inveighed against the Bishops for doing it By which means a stop was put to it for some time But nevertheless as the same Severity soon after return'd again he tells us all along That the Nations Dislike of it was Universal and the repeated Acclamations and universal Transports of Joy at the Proclaiming of Queen Elizabeth proceeded from the People's Hopes of better Days under Her Scepter than her Sister 's By which it appeared how weary the Nation was of the Cruel and weak Administration
at the Court than Church of Rome witness the Act of the six Articles made by him defending the greatest and principlest Tenets of Rome by no less than Capital Punishments and a Parlimentary Reinforcement of the old Statute de Hereticis comburendis Ref. pag. 147. the Heretick Burning continuing through his whole Reign As these I say were all the Changes made by Henry the Eighth instrumental to the present Reformation and that too not without Obstructions witness several Rebellions occasioned by this Change the one of 20000 Strong in Lincolnshire another more formidable one in Yorkshire called by the Rebels The Pilgrimage of Grace attended with a general Insurrection in all the North. However as I said before here is no Motive or Inducement now for the like Parliamentary Compliance with a Popish Successour to make any the least Change Instrumental to the Romish Restoration For first supposing how notoriously false soever an equal Mutability or Disposition in the People now to return to Rome as then to depart from it Here 's no stigmatizing Brand of Murder or any other publick Perpetration or Avowing of any Villany whatever to taint the whole Protestant Clergy and thereby withdraw the People's Hearts from them Here 's no Holy-Cheats and Superstitious priest-Impostures practised to drein the People's Purses to gratifie a scandalous voracious Clergy Or any detected Abuses and Corruptions to disgust and exasperate the People against them Here 's no least Dormient Statute or Title whatever for a Popish Successour to lay hold of in favour of the Papacy's Return into England as there was for its Expulsion The Fence of our present Protestant Constitution being so strong against it and all Pretensions of Rome so utterly extinct and abolish't Neither is here any Premunire incurred by the whole Clergy and Nation to affright or dasterdize them into any sordid Condescencion or Grants in Diskindness to our Religion And lastly here 's no Fleeeing of an Overgrown Overrich Church in the Case The present Church Revenues under so many Impropriations being no more than will but just support its Dignity and Pastors but with Subsistence and Decency No Ecclesiastick Booty nor Prize to bribe or allure an Avaricious Parliament to weaken or impoverish their Church for the temptation of sharing the Spoyl But above all other Obstacles against Rome her 's an Absolute Impossibility of a Temporizing Clergy to favour Popery For supposing even the most barbarous Insinuation of their Fanatical Enemies True and that Mammon Interest Sycophantry how rascally soever that Infamous Suggestion were above Religion with them Yet nevertheless the utmost Influence of a Romish Prince could never warp them to any such Execrable Apostacy by reason the Indispensable Coelibacy of the Romish Clergy would totally exclude the present Members of the Church of England as being Marryed Men from any Share or Hopes under a Romish Government whil'st instead of Preferment or Interest nothing but Degradation and Beggery could attend them And for an unanswerable Dispurity between Henry the Eighth's Influence towards the present Protestant Religion and a Popish Successour's towards Popery The Protestant Religion with an inviting Face was in a State of Innocence untainted by any of its Corrupted Professours with any thing like Parisian Massacres Irish Rebellions or Gun-powder Treasons enough of themselves alone to open that uncloseable Chasme that never to be cemented Breach between Englishmen and Popery that Popery could not now gain three Proselites to a hundred gain'd in Henry the Eighth's Time to the Protestant Religion But here I cannot but take notice of one Gross Mistake that 's commonly receiv'd for Truth Viz. That Henry the Eighth hectored his Parliaments to what he listed Which is oftentimes made use of as an Argument that a Popish Successour with the same Courage may do the like with his when on the contrary they acted only by their own Inclinations and when any thing was proposed by the King that went against the Grain not all his Menaces could force them to a Submission For Example when a Bill had past the House of Lords for regulating a common Practice then in England of defrauding the King and several of the Lords of their Advantages made by Wards Marriages and Primier Seisin by Men's making such Settlements of their Estates by their last Wills and other Deeds to that purpose Yet notwithstanding the utmost pressure both of the King and Lords for redressing that Abuse the Commons rejected the Bill Ref. pag. 116. And as to the Reformation some part of it was of their own seeking For Example in his 22 d. Year the Commons complained to the King of the grievous and intolerable Severity of the Ecclesiasticks for calling Men before them ex Officio and laying Articles to their Charge without any Accuser and then admitting no Purgation but causing the Party accused either to abjure or burn Reform Pag. 116. And indeed in all the Reformation they rather drew with him than were driven by him And to shew the vast Difference betwixt the Operation of the Prince either by Edward or Mary towards the Change of the Religion and the working of a Change now In the first place besides the dayly Converts made to the Protestant Religion in Edward's Reign which added Strength and Vigour to the Reformation wrought by that Prince as the State of Religion then stood the Popish and Protestant Party were grown in a manner to be an Equal Division of the Nation and 't is not to be wondred that where the Weight's even the Soveraign Power added to the Ballance could turn the Scale as both in his and his Sister's Reign Either Party having an Easie Game to play whilst the Respective Monarch might with small Difficulty turn up his own Religion Trump when he had half the Cards in his hands Besides the Law had then so weakly provided for the true Settlement of either Religion that the greatest part of the Ecclesiastick Changes then lay almost wholly in the pleasure of the Prince For after the Parliament had fully invested Henry the Eighth with the Supremacy they impowered him as Head of the Church to dispose of all Episcopal Sees by Letters Patents during pleasure Abrid Ref. Book 2. pag. 4. and the Bishops by the same Authority had the like Jurisdiction over the Inferiour Clergy This unbounded Latitude of the Supremacy continuing through both the next Reigns a great part of the Changes was owing wholly to this Prerogative whil'st King Edward made choice of a Clergy of his own Perswasion and in like manner Queen Mary placed or displaced her Bishops and removed all the Inferiour Clergy ad Libitum turning out whom she pleas'd without any Form of Process or special Matter objected against them All which Abridg. B. 2. pag. 249. was done by virtue of the Queens being Head of the Church which though she condemned as a sinful and sacraledgious Power yet she now employ'd it against those Bishops whose Sees were quickly filled with Men for
much borrow'd in the Character being little else throughout makes bold in another place point Blank to contradict this Passage and positively affirms That to set up Popery or Arbitrary Power by Law under the Laws we have already against them is wholly impossible and that our Laws will be but the Hedge to keep in the Cuckow For Papists and Slaves we must and shall be made as the inseperable Concomitants of a Popish Successour And to prove all this Breaking of all Laws whatever it says in haec verba How can the Force of Laws made by a Protestant Predecessour and a Protestant Parliament in any sort bâ—nd a Popish Successour When the very first Advance of the Pope's Supremacy a very nimble leap introduces that higher Power those Canonical Ecclesiastick Laws which no Secular or any other Temporal Court can or may Controul Laws that shall declare not only the Statutes and Acts of Parliament made against the Dignity of Mother-Church voyd and Null but the very Law-makers themselves as Hereticks wholly uncapable of ever having any Right of making any such Laws No doubt then but that Fire that burns those Heretick Law-makers shall give their Laws the same Martyrdom Here indeed the Affairs are alter'd and truly the Matter much mended This I confess says the Character and this at least three parts of the Fools of English Mankind believe for Oracles And though all our Records Histories Chronicles and the whole Series of all Ages since the Conquest to this day do notoriously prove the Contrary yet this Popular Maxime That the Romanists by their Ecclesiastick Laws pretend to anull and make void all Secular Laws against their Church and to incapacitate the very Prerogative and Authority of that Majesty and those Law-makers that made them though one of the most Impudent Falshoods in nature is nevertheless one of the most received Vulgar Traditions that ever startled Ideots For Example to begin with their very Heretici Comburendi The very Ax and Fasces of Rome was it not an Act of the Secular Power In the very highest Reign of Popery did or could the Pope punish an Heretick Apostate by Imprisonment Fire or Faggot any further than by Parliamentary Permission and excepting that the Clergy were made Judges of Heresy and that too by concession of the Secular Authority Was not the Execution of that Law kept in Temporal Hands Nay though 't is true the papal Power made many Vsurp'd Encroachments here through the Bigotry of the Government yet upon too hard Pressures from Rome did not several of our Kings many hundred years before the Reformation resume their own Original Right and expresly in the Statute against PROVISOES under Penalty of Forfeiture of Goods and Imprisonment for Life forbid the admitting of the Popes Legantine Power in England or making Appeals to Rome or taking Inductions to Episcopal Sees from the Pope And for Queen Mary her self was there one Syllable of the Laws Enacted by her Father Henry or her Brother Edward in favour of the Reformation that she ever pretended to Over-rule by any Ecclesiastick Law or Pretence whatever Nay and did not the Pope's Supremacy it self and that not till many a hard tug and two years after she came to the Crown come in by Act of Parliament under several Limitations of his Power with the Confirmation of the antient Statute against Provides c. and several other Boundaries as much as to say Move thus far and no Further. But alas what 's all this to the Author of a Popish Characterâ— Popery and Arbitrary Power in spight of Fate shall and must be set up And therefore what Laws shall or shall not get uppermost is ene as Mr. Scribler pleases For truly Malice put pen to paper and Truth and Reason were never minded and indeed there was no need of either of them for as that Pamphlet had the honour in the Title-Page of being humbly offered to the Consideration of the then HOVSES of Parliament both Truth and Reason were Immaterial to itâ— Recommendation For where an Oâ—es his Narrative past for Gospel the Devil 's in 't if a Popish Character could miscarry However to confute that sensless Fear that a Popish Successour will subvert the whole Foundations of the Government and erect his own Arbitrary Edict for the Supreme Standard of JVSTICE and that he shall find those Popish Judges Sheriffs or any other Officers or Ministers that under the Protection of a Standing Army shall make our Lives and Liberties wholly dependant upon the Caprichio and Pleasure of the Prince and persuant thereto shall furnish him with Jayls Gibbets and Smithfield Piles or any other Arbitrary though less Sanguinary Persecution to convert us to Popery First let us examine the Courage of all these Arbitrary Judges Officers and State-Ministers that embarque in this Arbitrary Undertaking They must be all those hardy popish Tools whether corrupted by Zeal or Interest that they must not value all their own Lives for notwithstanding whatever Protection or Impunity they may receive during the Life of their Royal Popish Driver no sooner shall the next Protestant Heir succeed him but every Mothers Son of them shall be answerable with their Necks for the least drop of Protestant BLOOD they have shed or Protestant Liberty they have invaded The Protestant Laws of the Land will not be so tamely overthrown without a certain Vengeance attending it insomuch that those bold Babel Builders these Arbitrary Popery Raisers must either be so generous to their King as the Indian Wives to their Husbands and make one glorious Funeral Pile upon his Grave or else resolve to live to offer up their Throats to the very Sword of Iustice in the Hand of a Lawful Authority which themselves before have so Vnlawfully abused in their own And that the Liberty of the Subject is so tender in the Eye of the English Government the very misusing and torturing of Hereticks in Prison though under that Attainder lyable to the most ignominious of Deaths and though done in a Popish predecessours Reign was sufficient to have taken the great Statesman Bonner's Head off but only that Queen Elizabeth's Mercy interposed as unwilling to stain the beginning of her Reign with Blood Reform Abridg. B. 4. pag. 357. And if his Illegal Compliance with his Prince was so Capital an Offence what must the more violent Irruptions of Arbitrary Rapines against the untainted Liberty of the Protestant Subjects now pull down upon the bold Invaders Heads 'T is no difficult matter to possess the overcredulous World the easy swallowing Multitude with what wondrous Atchievements the Zealots of Popery shall undertake and what indefatigable Labours and Hazards they will go through for the Re-building of their Faln Temples when animated and influenced by a Popish Soveraign I acknowledge 't is true there is no Courage more daring than that which Zeal inspires and no Zeal possibly more violent than that of the Papists and undoubtedly for Rome's Restoration there would be
persons to be imprisoned Upon the King's Menace of executing which Law Reformat Book the 2 d. pag. 112. the Convocation of Canterbury in tenderness to their Skins and Estates brought a Petition to his Majesty acknowledging him in the Title Protectour and Supream Head of the Church and Clergy of England Which was agreed to by nine Bishops 82 Abbots and the majority of the Convocation in the Province of Canterbury praying him to accept of 100000 l. in leiu of the Punishments incurred And the Province of York soon afterwards consented to the same Submission with the Offer of 18840 l. for obtaining the same pardon Insomuch that we find the very popish Clergy themselves so servilely compounding for their Mammon and their Carcases not so much in the Voluntary Tribute of their Purses as with the Renunciation of the Pope's Ecclesiastical Supremacy the very brightest Iewel in the Tripple Diadem and consequently by this sordid Compliance even the Priesthood it self by their own Leading Act gave the fatal Original precedent to the succeeding Act of Parliament to confirm that Supremacy in the Crown and so struck the first main Blow towards the shaking of the Romish Prerogative in England and thereupon Conspired to the greatest part of the ensuing Fatalities to their Religion it self And therefore if the Ecclesiastical Sons of Rome could ward themselves from the Stroke of Law due to that less Capital Transgression THEN by denying their very Pope Why must the Sons of Rome be so prodigiously Fool-hardy NOW as to run themselves into a more Dangerous and more Mortal Noose of Law for his Vindication 'T is very easie preaching to Fools and Madmen as the popish Character has very Rhetorically done what miraculous Fire and Faggot Feats or other Arbitrary Extravagancies the wonderful Papists under a popish Successour shall do But as great a Deity as the Romanists make of their Keeper of the Keys of Heaven as the Devil speaking of Job makes answer to God Almighty put forth thine hand and touch him in all that he hath and he will curse thee to thy Face So let his Holiness put these Zealots upon that Hard Task where their Necks are sure to stretch in the Service and Obedience will be so little a part of the Sacrifice they 'l make his Divinityship in such a Command that all his Bell Book and Candle will be too little to conjure up half hands enough for so ungrateful and so cursed an Employment Whatever pleasure they may take in bringing Vs to Stakes and Gibbets they are not overfond of Martyrdom themselves And though Great is their DIANA of Ephesus whil'st Profit and Safety go along with her and upon Reasonable Terms much might be done to exalt her yet ther 's that Vniversal Charm in that thing call'd OVR ALL and that strange superseding Quality in those potent Operators Self and Self-preservation that it over-rules the highest Excursions even of the most daring Zeal and the very biggest Devils of Outrage and Tyranny are laid by no other Spell But perhaps it may be objected That to incourage the bold Labourers in this Harvest this popish King to prevent the Ruine both of his Cause and his Party will take Care in case of a protestant Heir to divert the Succession and continue the Crown upon some other popish Head and so by a longer Usurpation of this Arbitrary Supremacy and a more lasting Persecution of the Protestants provide as much as in him lyes that the propagation of the Romish Faith may be compleated in succeeding Ages upon so good a Foundation lay'd in his Own This foolish Supposition is so lewdly ridiculous that ther 's scarce a shadow for such a Feaâ— For alas there will be so little Hopes of a popish Vsurper's mounting the Throne after so notorious a Tyranny under a Lawful popish King before him as nothing can scarcely be more impossible 'T is possible indeed the Duty of our Christianity and the Bond of Passive Obedience as having the Lawful Power of no other Weapons but our Prayers and Tears against the Tyranny of our Lawful Prince may tye up our hands and keep us in the Bounds of Peace and Resignation during his Reign But the setting up of a popish Vsurper after him in wrong to the Imperial protestant Right Heir will undoubtedly ingage all the Protestant Hands and Hearts against so impudent an Invader and if Occasion require his Protestant Royal Neighbours in such a Cause whil'st the taking up Arms in such a Quarrel which had been Rebellion against his Predecessour before would be the work of their highest Duty and Allegiance now And as the Remembrance of their past Yoke to all true English Spiâ—its would certainly double Edge their very Swords so in so just a Cause 't would infallibly spur them to so perfect and so unanimous a Revenge as to cut off their popish Enemies even to the last Man Now what popish Vsurper shall venture to pass such an Ordeal to a Throne Or what hopes a popish King can have of such a Successour or of accomplishing his own popish Designs on such a Basis let common Reason judge And therefore the Pope must have a very little Paternal Care of his Royal Son of Rome and indeed of all his Catholick Sons in England as to imbark them in a Cause so apparently Derstructive whil'st by misleading them into such sanguinary illegal Cruelties against the Protestants and all for an impossible Conversion of a Nation he runs his own darling people Root and Branch into an inevitable Fate under the next Protestant Successor exposed not only to the highest popular Swords and Fury but even to Cords and Axes and the severest Stroke and Vengeance of Law it self But possibly their Fate shall not wait so long as the next King's Coronation but overtake them in the first Onset of their popish Barbarity For let ut but look back to the Gun-powder Treason a Plot where Faux's Powder-Barrels were neither like Otes his Teuxbury Mustard-Balls nor his Black Bills Invisible A Plot too where the Conspirators dyed not Tongue-tyed but confessed their Guilt without that wonder-working Dispensation of asserting a Counterfeit Innocence to the stretch o their Salvation and Renuntiation of their God on the very Brink of Eternity Let us look back I say to the Discovery of that Plot and History informs us that 't was as much as the King Court and Government could possibly do to restrain the peopl's Rage from Butchering all the Papists in England the Guilty and Innocent together in the Revenge of so barbarous a Machination though uneffected tho by Providence detected and frustrated And if the Genius of England was so highly exasperated and so furiously transported in Zeal for their Prince's and their Representativ's Danger though past and escaped What Security shall the Pope or his popish Successour promise themselves that the people's Zeal for their own Dangers Approaching will not be as much transported too And that the Eruption of Smithfield
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
Prerogative can give it Nay let us suppose a popish Chappel in every Hamlet and Mass sung in every Parish in England and to officiate in this Work the whole Tribe of St. Omers Doway and all the rest of the English Seminaries abroad transplanted hither to perform the Mighty Operation What would all this do to bring in Popery Nay let the whole Colledge of Cardinals come over with them too they would be almost as inoffensive to the protestant Religion as the Jewish Synagogue and altogether as unable to make a National Conversion to Papisme as the other to Iudaisme For Instance who are they that these numerous popish Missionaries shall convert The Vnderstanding part of the Nation Men of Reason and Learning Not at all For let the popish Numbers increase as they please the popish Arguments are but the same whether defended by ten or ten hundred Romanists And therefore they that have their Principles of Faith and the Grounds of their Religion Rooted and Confirmed by sound and well pondered Iudgment and Mature Consideration will no more be shaken by all the popish Numbers they can send over than all the popish Volumes they have written Besides what greater Affront can be put upon our Religion it self than to imagine it so weakly supported as to be so much as capable of being thus overthrown Who then shall they Convert the Ignorant Multitude No Them less than the other For as the others have Sense to defend themselves These have that which is as strong or stronger and more Invincible Viz. Deafeness Prejudice and Resolution For let any man seriously consider the Genius of the People of England in that point and but fancy a Jesuit a Priest or any other popish Emissary tampering with the poorest high-shoo'd thick skull'd Clown to possess him with a Faith in Transsubstantiation Purgatory Saint-praying the Pope's Infallibility or any other of the Terrible Romish Principles and instead of making him a Proselite upon the least Breath of that sort of Ayr he should be so far from hearkening or listening so much as to the Means of a popish Conversion so far from attending even to the Eloquence of Angels upon that Subject that he should sooner look downwards for the Cloven-foot of the Seducer that utters it For certainly those very people that have always been so Mazed and Night-mared with popery that they have scarce seen any thing else but popish Specters and Goblins even at the very Shadow of it will fancy nothing less than Belzebubs and Lucifers at the real Appearance of it The Reduction indeed of England to the Romish Religion is a thing as easily SAY'D either in an Amsterdam Coffee-House a popish Courant or an Oxford House of Commons as a Tale out of the Seven Champions and truly with as much Credibility But alas when it comes to the DOING once the Papists will find that the whole Body of the people of England even to a Nemine Contradicente at least not one in a hundred excepted if without any other Defence of their Belief are still those Opinators in Religion that maugre the general Ignorance of the Multitude or the great Learning or Rhetorick of the Jesuites they 'd be no sooner perswaded to quit their plain English Bibles nay not so much as poor Sternhold and Hopkins to listen to an unintelligible Latine Mass or joyn in an Ora pro nobis sancte Paule sancte Petre sancte Loyola and the rest of the Fraternity of Major or Minor Saints then they 'd kneel to the Talmude or the Alcoran nor be no more perswaded into the possibility of a Wafer's Transsubstantiation into a Deity than of a Cartwheel into a Star and without these and the rest of the Romish Fundamentals where 's the Restoration of the Romish Faith or the Progress of a Popish Propagation in England But to confirm this certain Truth from a more substantial Authority than my own 'T is the very Opinion of the Reverend Dr. Burnet himself a person let me tell you under no small Pains-taking for the protestant Religion and as a Churchman under no common Consternation from popish Dangers and therefore not at all likely to lull us into a false Security of our Religion The Instance of which Opinion I find in the 9 th page of his Preface to the Rights of Princes as follows T is the Maxime of the Popes not to reform Abuses in their Church for if some Corruptions were once acknowledged and amended that would give credit to the Complaints which the Hereticks made and be a publick Confession that the Church had Erred and would set on foot a humour of making Changes which could not be easily limited or managed These Politicks prevailed at Rome so that instead of removing Abuses all were justifyed and maintained and yet humanely speaking it is not to be imagin'd but that if some more palpable Abuses in the Worship such as the scandalous Use of Images the denying the Chalice and saying the Office in an Vnknown Tongue had been corrected the Reformation could not have made so great a Progress as it did Wise Men are unwilling to make great Changes and the Rabble are wrought on not so much by Speculations and subtle and learned Arguments as by prejudices to some publick Abuses of which they are ALL sensible and while these are continued 't will be easie to heighten their Dislike of them and to lead them almost into any Opinions to which the hatred they bear to the Abuses may any way dispose them And the defending or maintaining of Abuses which cannot be defended endangers the whole Cause in the Opinion of those who judge of Parties in Gross and not by the Retail of particular Arguments So that to summe up the Matter Here 's the whole Cause of Rome in a manner wholly lost by the Gross Abuses in that Communion And what between the Invincible Obstinacy of the Romanists on one side never to recede from those Abuses and the Rabble's unanimous Disgust against them on the other as being apparent even to all Capacities here 's the greatest progress of the Reformation flowing from almost no other Channel and by consequence if the Original Prejudice against those Abuses could open so brord a Gate to the protestant Religion the present more irreconciliable Antipathy against Rome heightned by so many successive popular Inflammations will make the Resumption of that popish Vomit so more universally nauseous that it will undoubtedly much more contribute to the Confirmation of the Protestant Religion than ever it did to the Introduction of it For let but any reasonable Man consider that during so many Ages of Impunity to the Papists from the long Mercy of the late Kings of England when Recusancy went unmolested and unregarded and neither Papist nor popish priest either punish't or examined excepting some few Families that bred up their Children in their own Perswasion what Conversions have the popish party and all the Romish Missionaries made in England
Arbitrary Movements and Acquisitions of a Romish Prince as the Character it self affirms which indeed by Chance is the very Oracle of the Pamphlet will be totally crusht and destroyed under the next protestant Soveraign and all his popish Tools and Partizans nay the whole Romish Cause it self given up to the protestant Justice and Revenge that shall crush them to pieces so that in perfect Contradiction instead of inextricable Slavery universal protestant Ruine and a total Extirpation of Heresy prognosticated all along in the Character here 's at most but a Temporary Flourishing of Popery and so far from a real protestant Suppression either by Persecution or Massacres or the Devil knows what that we shall be strong enough to rise up under the next protestant Heir and to pluck up and demolish even Root and Foundation all the preceding Batteries and Machinations against our Religion and Liberties whil'st the True Ruine lies in fine not on the protestant but popish Side If so I say as the Character has unluckily started this undeniable Truth certainly we lye under no danger of a popish Successours ever attempting that irregular popish Atchievement and setting up that Short-liv'd Arbitrary popish Dagon which as has been proved before and is even confest here will be of so Calamitous a Consequence to the Interest and Safety even of his whole Party and Religion You see Reader what Incoherence Absurdities Contradictions and indeed Impossibilities the popish Character is fraught with and what notorious Stuff that is that Revenge and Malice obtrudes upon Mankind where popery is the Theme But truely 't is to be consider'd that that Pamphlet was written and publish't not for the Instruction of the Seven Wise Men but of the seven thousand Ill-natured Knaves and the seventy thousand credulous unreasoning Fools of that Age the REPRESENTATIVE Patron to whom that Libel was Dedicated not excepted from the Number that would have swallow'd every Syllable of it had it been ten times more lewdly ridiculous than ' t was Now as not only the Character but the unpondered and groundless Apprehensions of Men have so dreadfully predicted such a terrible bloody Revolution under a popish Successour without one Jota of proving or examining how that wondrous Change is possible to come to pass that the Reader may not be surprized at that weak sort of arguing in the one and that headlong Credulity in the other 't is remarkable that not one Pen that ever wrote upon Popery and Arbitrary-Power ever scribbled otherwise For as the HOW and WHICH WAY they can be introduced into England are not in posse those Essential Circumstances are always slubber'd over and nothing but a Huddle and Jingle of general Notions of Fire and Faggot Assassinations and Massacres Popes and Devils c. And a Declamatory Discant upon those Tragical Heads are ever the whole Contents of the Chapter and whil'st the peoples Fears are set a tingling by this sort of Din and Gibberish they are babled out of their Senses and transported into Frenzy it self without looking farther or searching deeper for the Grounds of their Fears For Example let us trace up the first Alarum of Popery and Arbitrary-power even to the Fountain Head In all the venemous Libels in the late blest Martyr's Reign for there were popish Character Writers in those Days too though in other Names in all the Licentiousness of that Villanous Age and the highest Encouragement of Rebellious Senates there were neither those Pens nor Tongues within the Parliament House or without it that could ever go further than to a bare general 〈…〉 and Outcry of Popery and Arbitrary Power for in all the hideous Roarings against popish 〈…〉 as 't is not the Councellers but the Councel put in Execution that can hurt us was there 〈◊〉 Man of them all that did or indeed pretended to particularize those popish Counsels or form the least Draught of any Dangerous popish Machinations whatever under the least probability of shaking our Laws Liberties or Religion 'T is true there were strange and wondrous popish Incendiaries represented at work but about doing of what The Devil a word they inform us Not all the Republick Rhetorick nor all the Eloquence even of counterfeit Fears and Jealousies could lay down one tolerable Demonstration of the fatal Compositions of those popish Fireballs those Incendiaries were to use or the Conbustableness of what they were to set on Fire Nay those very Devils that had Impudence enough not only to murder the best of Kings but to bring him to a Scaffold with a solemn Pageantry of Iustice were nevertheless so far from the Confidence of pretending the popish Strength or Numbers in England to have the least Shadow of Ability to erect their Romish Altars and subvert the Protestant Religion that to carry on the popular Fears by that Forged Sham of Popery and give Body and Bulk to the Gorgon they were forced to help out one damn'd Imposture by a Greater and bring in the very Church of England for Popish and Antichristian to joyn in the Plot. Nor were our later true Protestant Rome-dreaders much short of the same Artifice to crutch up the same Cripple Nay for want of any Substantial Pretext of the Introduction of any of the Real Fundamental Superstitions of Rome they were put to the wretched Shift of making the harmless Book of Sports licensed by Bishop Laud and an after-Service Game at Coyts or Stool-Ball no less than all over Rome and Antichrist yes and to push the Jest a little farther the old Kings tolerating half a score of Priests in Indulgence to his Queen to wear the Habit of their Order though in Reality an Object more for the Hooting of Boys than the Converting of Men was screwed up to no less than a Plot upon the whole Reformation Now as the Characterizing of such a Tyrannick popish Successour in England is but Mounting that Chimerical Jehu in the Chariot where neither his Wheels can move him nor the Ground will bear him and all the Pretensions of Fears from Popery are only Suppositions and Delusive nay and considering that those most violent Asserters of Romish Dangers in that very Age when they had this Advantage to help out Viz. To alledge the Old King was a Papist in Disguise by which Villanous Supposition they had ten times a fairer Field for the pretended Introduction of Popery than can be under a Visible popish Prince could nevertheless urge so little to the purpose and so weakly support the Cause of such Fears The Contradictions Noyse Rumble and Nonsense in the Character on the worse side of the Hedge are a little more Excusable Having I may with Confidence say fully answered and confuted all Appearances or Suppositions of Danger from a Popish Successour yet as the Minds of some People are so strangely possest and infatuated with those Brainsick Fancies and Visionary Specters of Popery and Slavery that scarce the most apparent Truth the most substantial Reason not Oracles nay
not Angels from Heaven could Cure or Dispel I shall therefore go one step further and to dissipate all Storms or Clouds whatever from Romewards impending plainly and absolutely convince them that whatever Scruples may yet remain unsatisfyed at this present day there is not the least Prospect or Idea of any such Threatning Successour in the present Royal Line of England For though that Illustrious Prince whom the Malice of Antimonarchal and Associating Traytors and the Insolence of a Pack of Seditious and Confederate Commons like the old Sons of Earth have levell'd their spightful though feeble Vengeance at though that great Injur'd Prince I say through the false Mirrour of those Anarchical Boutefeus has been villaniously rendred almost the only Object of the greatest part of the popular Jealousies as the intended Vnderminer of our Laws Religion and Liberties I shall unanswerably demonstrate the utter Impossibility of that glorious Prince's ever being that Man or debasing himself so much as to entertain the least Thought that way be his Religion what ever it will For supposing he were really a Convert to the Romish Perswasion what Pillar is that Prince likely to make to the Romish Cause For if he be that Convert either the Pope believes a popish Heir of England Capable of setting up the Romish Religion or not capable of doing it If capable as that 's the present Point Then undoubtedly which is but a reasonable Conclusion he has left no Pains nor Industry unmanaged to Advance or Advantage the Popish Interest by such a Convert as an Heir of the English Crown And if so the only Policy or indeed the only possible Means of favouring the least Romish Hopes whatever had been to have used the utmost Papal Authority for enjoyning and perswading him not only to have kept himself wholly undiscoverd but likewise wholly unsuspected to the Kingdom by any Abscenting from our Communion or any other Imaginary Symtome of such a Conversion For as all the greatest of Inconveniencies and Misfortunes have attended the whole popish Party upon the meer Supposition of such a Conversion and that only founded on the foremention'd Occasion of Suspition Witness the removing all Papists whatever from all Offices of Trust in the whole Kingdom from all Seats either in State Administration or Parliaments by the present Protestant TEST wholly created upon that Suspition by Force of which there is not the least Admission of a Papist into any Place of Power in the Government except by taking of the Protestant Sacrament and entring into a Solemn Oath against the popish Religion and subscribing to a Recorded Abjuration even of the greatest and most Essential Articles of their Faith as Superstitious and Idolatrous and so by the most impudent premeditated Perjury and setting the notorious Brand upon themselves of that sordid and scandalous Renuntiation of their very Religion which the poorest Soul'd Pagan that ever worship't but Garlick and Onions would blush at Besides all this weeding out of the popish Party from all Authority and Power being no small Blow to their Interest under so weak a Number of that Perswasion in England There is not any one Calamity that for these seven last years has befall'n the whole popish Party that is not truly owing almost wholly to this Suspition And therefore as all the Ill Consequences or worse attending them are really no more than the Pope and all his Counsellors could in common Reason expect from a Nation so extravagantly jealous of Popery whil'st woful Experience might have remembranced him bow dangerous and destructive even a less Shadow of popish Inclinations had been nothing was more indispensable I mean for the popish Interest in a popish Heir than all means of avoiding such Suspition nay possibly even for his own secure Access to the Throne 'T is true some ridiculous People have foolishly objected That the Deserting of our Communion was for the Advantage of their Cause it being as it were setting up the Standard of Popery to call all Hearts and Hands together whereas otherwise the Romanists had been kept in Ignorance of the Champion God had raised for their Deliverance and thereby might have neglected the glorious Opportunity that offered it self Now in the Name of Dulness if any such Deliverance were imaginable or any Succour to the Romish Cause whatever either sooner or later could be expected from such a Convert or lastly if the Conscience or unsullyed Glory of that Heroick Prince were possible to be wrought upon to stoop to so ignoble a Design as any unwarrantable popish Assistance Why must the Papists be kept in Ignorance of his being one of them if he were so without some kind of publick Declaration when 't is notoriously known to all the sensible part of Mankind what Advantages of Intelligence and Correspondence the Papists have above all Religions in the World when their Jesuites are by the very Duty of their Order the greatest Spyes upon Christendom whil'st the privatest Affairs and Secrets of Families Courts and Kingdoms through all Europe from hand to hand and from Superiour to Superiour of them are convey'd to the Pope himself So that take the whole Matter together with this Advantage of Communication even under Confession it self on the one side and the foremention'd Dangers from a National Jealousie on the other as I said before whatever Discovery might have been requisite to their own Party the highest Policy of Rome had been to have concealed the very Suspition of it from the Protestants more especially if they had had any such Thing as a King-killing Plot in hand or the least part of the Salamanca Conspiracy upon the Anvil For then they might have made use of Ruffians or Screw'd Gunners and as Dugdale swears have laid the King's Murder upon the Presbyterians or any other of the scatter'd Churches with ten times more ease and have hastened the Mounting a popish Successour with more Facility into the Royal Seat And therefore as nothing can be a plainer or greater Obâ—tacle to all popish Designs whatever than this Conduct in the present Heir of England if he be a Romanist and they had an Expectation of any considerable Advantage to their Religion from his being one undoubtedly there has been no Oratory wanting to induce him to so necessary and so Venial a Disguise as being the most important Prop of their Cause But maugre all the Necessity of such a Compliance and all the Romish Interest depending thereupon notwithstanding the papal Power of a Dispensation in that Case and all the Arts that may have been used to that purpose nothing is more visible than his Indisposition and Aversion to so dishonourable a Condiscension as playing the Hypocrite how dispensable soever in that Church or how advantagious soever to his own Circumstances Now I appeal to all Mankind what least Apparition of popish Danger or what humane possibility of that very Princes ever being that so much dreaded Romish Instrument for Arbitrary popish Tyranny