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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A47906 The reformed Catholique, or, The true Protestant L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704. 1679 (1679) Wing L1289; ESTC R20504 23,451 38

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to his Majesty made a Man unfit for the Service of his Country He should have done well to have warn'd them against the Known Enemies of the Government rather then the Suspected Servants of the King The Free-holders Choice is a very Martin Mar-Prelate His Language against the Clergy is too coarse for an Honest man to repeat after him but he has rang'd them in good Company for he says that they lay out themselves to accommodate their Masters with the veriest Villains that can be pick'd up in all the Country that so we may fall into the hands again of as Treacherous and Lewd a Parliament as the Wisdom of God and Folly of Man has most miraculously freed us from Methinks some of the Members of that Parliament should concern themselves to call for Justice upon so foul a Scandal The Author of the Seasonable Quaeres does not only recommend the same Cautions with the rest but calls his Majesty himself to Shrift and puts the Question whether Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments at such a time as this does not fill the hearts of Protestant Subjects with evident fears of destruction And Secondly says he Whether it be not high time for all the Protestants in England to Resolve as one man that they will stand by and maintain the Power and Privileges of Parliament together with the Power and Just Rights of the King according to the Laws of the Kingdom so as the One may not intrench upon the Other The former Expostulation upon the Reason of the Kings Proceedings would have been more taken notice of perhaps if it had not been follow'd with one of the most Audacious Challenges that this Licentious season has produc'd for the meaning of it is to incourage a direct Rising as if the King and the Parliament were going together by the Ears forgive the Expression and the People to interpose to see fair Play This is the very Trace of the Old Covenant They must resolve to maintain no body knows what on the one side for the Privileges of Parliament are past finding out But then they are to stand by the King on the other side with a Limitation only in his Just Rights and of those Bounds they themselves are to be the Judges This Epithete was apply'd to the Late Kings Case by those very men that cut off his Head The Author of Englands great Interest having directed the Good People what persons to choose for the ensuing Parliament and whatnot His next work is to instruct them in the Knowledge of their Powers which he divides into three Rights or Fundamentals The First is Property that is a Right and Title to their own Lives Liberties and Estates For the Law he says is Umpire between King Lords and Commons and the Right and Property is one in kind through all Degrees and Qualities in the Kingdom Mark that Why does he not say that the King is Vmpire betwixt King Lords and Commons as well as that the Law is so For the Law is only the Kings Pleasure made known and the whole Force and Authority of it is but an Emanation from Soveraign Power And then for his Three Fundamentals As I am a Commoner of England my self I should be loth to lose any Right of an English man and yet as I am a Loyal Subject also I should be as unwilling to encroach upon the Privileges of the Crown I do not know what he means by his one in Kind with the Emphasis of Mark that upon it If it be that the People have as much Right to their Lives Liberties and Estates as the King himself has though it be true in some sense it will not hold yet as he would have it understood For the People may forfeit their Lives Liberties and Estates but the King cannot forfeit His Wherefore Mark That too His Second Fundamental is Legislation Or the Power of making Laws for no Law can be made or Abrogated he says in England without them It is not Candidly done to call that the very act of Legislation which is only Consultive and Preparative towards it The making of Laws is a Peculiar and Incommunicable Prerogative of Soveraignty so that to place the Legislative Power in the Commons is to make them Supream and to set a King of England once more at the Commons Bar. Beside that his Inference is as Inconsequent as his Assertion is Dangerous As if a Law must necessarily be made By th●m because it cannot be Made or Abrogated Without them Does he that furnishes the Ingredients therefore make the Medicine becau●e the Medicine cannot be made without the Ingredients What signifies the form of an Instrument to the passing of an Authority or Obligation without Signing and Sealing Yet the one cannot be done without the other Does the Councel that draws the Conveyance pass away the Estate because the Act could not have been good without him And again the Law in this Case is no other then a Promise under the Kings Hand past to the People and partakes of the Nature of other Promises It was made by the Promiser and cannot be discharg'd without the Consent of those to whom it was Promised His Third Fundamental is Executive and holds Proportion with the other two in order to compleat both their Freedom and Security and that is their share as he says in the Judicatory Power in the Execution and Application of those Laws that they Agree to be made A Judicatory Power without Authority to Minister an Oath is to me I must confess a new thing And now for the word Agree though it may be pertinent enough to his purpose for there needs no more to the Undoing of the most Regular Government upon the face of the Earth then First to turn the Peoples hearts against it and then to possess them that they have a Legal Remedy in their Own hands Yet that word I say in this place is very improper for it is but a Request presented to his Majesty for his Approbation The Request or Bill is no doubt agreed upon but it were an Uncouth kind of expression for a Petitioner to say that he does Agree that his Petition shall be Granted The Business it fairly push'd already But the Publisher of a Pretended Speech lately Printed carries it a step further If a Prince says he be Born to a Kingdom who is either Lunatique or otherwise disabled to do the Kingdom any good shall not the Subjects in this Case proceed to chuse another who may preserve the Kingdom when otherwise it must of necessity Perish As lately in the Case of Portugal they chose another to Succeed because of the Disability of the former This is in plain terms a Deposing Principle For if a King may be Remov'd in such Case of Disability the People being made Judges of the Case it is but their saying that he is not sit to Govern and the work is done There is a Sheet Printed under the Title of A Plea c.
that Stole Money and Plate under the pretence of Searching for Priests and for the Credit of the Exploit they Rob'd in Red Coats too that they might the better pass for some of his Majesties Guards The Similitude runs upon All Four for it was the very case of our pretended Protestants under colour of hunting for Priests they seized Money and Plate and committed Robberies in the very Livery of the Government This they did in Scotland under the Queen Regent and King James and in England under Queen Elizabeth and twice in Scotland again under the late King and after that in England Two actual Rebellions more in Scotland under this present King and now God Bless us from another at Home and all this from that sort of People that stil'd themselves Protestants The Principles the Methods and the Pretences the very same from one end to the other The Story of these Phanatical Conspiracies is almost as Nauseous as the thing it self is Detestable only this last in Scotland methinks seems to Crown the Infamy of all the rest For a Party that calls it self Protestant a Party in full Cry upon the scent of Popery a Popish Plot upon Oath too at the same time upon the Life of the King upon our Religion and Government and that Plot at that instant under a strict Examination the same Party at the same time also pressing for Justice upon the Conspirators nay and complaining of the remissness of the Prosecution notwithstanding the most exemplary Rigor in the Case that ever was known in this Nation For this Party I say under these Circumstances to flie in the face of the Government let the World judge if ever there was a more Consummated piece of Wickedness They raise a Rebellion and make Religion the Ground of it they declare a War against the King and the Church and yet write themselves Loyal Subjects and Protestants They cry out of the Danger of Popery and yet in the same breath draw their Swords upon their Prince in the very attempt of Crushing it and all these Aggravations complicated in one act Is it not high time then after an Imposture that has cost this Nation so dear to learn at last to distinguish betwixt a Religion and a Faction Betwixt what men are and what they call themselves Is a Renegado ever the less a Turk for putting out English Colours Are the Blessed Spirits ever the less Pure for the Devils transforming himself into an Angel of Light Is the Kings Broad Seal one jot the less Valuable for being Counterfeited So neither is our Profession And he that dishonours Religion or invades Authority under the Name of a Protestant is no more to any sober man than a Goth or a Vandal Judas his Betraying of his Master was a most ungrateful and abominable Sin but the doing of it with a Kiss made it by many degrees the more execrable And it was the height of the Prophet Davids Affliction the Circumstance of a Familiar Friend Where 's the harm now of saying Have a care of False Protestants The Author and the Finisher of our Faith is I hope of Authority sufficient to justifie that Caution Does not our Saviour himself tell us that there shall arise False Christs and False Prophets and why not False Protestants And does he not bid us take heed that no man deceive us for many says he shall come in my Name saying I am Christ and shall deceive many Does he not bid us beware of Woolves in Sheeps Cloathing And in his description of the Scribes and Pharisees give us the very Picture of our Impostors We have it upon the Credit of Dr. Tong and Dr. Oates that the Sedition of 1641. was totally contriv'd and carry'd on by Popish Counsels and that not only the Conventicles in that Bloody Revolution but all our Separate Meetings to this day and particularly the Scottish Commotions were and are Influenc'd by Priests and Jesuites under the Masque of Professors of those several Persuasions Have we not reason then to use all possible Circumspection that we may not be impos'd upon by such as these for Protestants No man has a greater Veneration for the memory of those Protestants that suffer'd Martyrdom for their Faith no man a greater Horrour for the Irish the Parisian and several other Massacres no man a higher Esteem or a more Ardent affection for Protestancy it self so far as the Profession of the Church of England is intended by it than I have But for those Turbulent Spirits that lay about them as if Heaven were to be taken by actual Violence whose Zeal outstrips Christianity it self imposing upon the World their own corrupt and impetuous passions instead of the Healing and Pacifique Motions of the Holy Ghost These are a dangerous sort of People and their ways are not only a Contradiction to the undeniable Principles of our Institution but to the common Interests of Mankind as well Individuals as Communities For if it be true that Charity is the great Lesson of the Gospel If it be true that Vnity in Faith and Vnanimity in the things of Civil Government would make up the most perfected Blessing that reasonable Nature is capable of in this Tabernacle of Flesh then must it necessarily follow that the nearer we approach to that Agreement the better Christians we are and the happier Men and the further we depart from it the more Wicked and the more Miserable we are This is either true or false If the former there 's no Treason in 't if the latter we may burn our Bibles Before I wade any further into this Controversie it may do well I think to give some Reason why upon this Subject and at this Time that the World may not take that for the Leaven of an Unquiet Humour which in great truth is only an act of Conscience in the discharge of a sober and a seasonable duty to my Prince and Country To the undertaking of this Office I have been induced by the Audacious Liberties of the Press in the matter of Religion and Government endeavouring to possess the Multitude with False and Pernicious Principles and Opinions and by Artificial Hints and Scandals to dispose them now toward the meeting of this next Parliament to a Partial and a Factious Choice So that my Business is only to encounter and lay open the Vanity and Weakness of those Libels and without confining my self to any one in particular to sum up the Malice of them all for so much as concerns our present purpose and to submit my self to the Reader in a fair and short Reply It is a Note worthy of Consideration that all the Papers here in question even to a single Sheet are the Work of Men exceedingly Byass'd against the Establish'd Government as Republicans Anabaptists and other sorts of Dissenters from the Church for the Publishers of these Papers are known every one of them and most of the Authors Now what advice toward the Honour and Safety