the begetting of an understanding betwixt the King and the States and the Parliament will consent to the Liberty so much the rather that they have a Protestant Successor in prospect I cannot on these things make any Conclusion but simply leave them to your Reflection and the best use you please to make of them I will expect your Answer per first Windsor July 18. 1687. THE Hints that I gave you in my two former Letters I shall now explain more fully in this And therefore I heartily wish that the Prince and Princess may understand all that you think needful on this Subject it troubles his Majesty to find them so averse from approving this Liberty and concurring for its Establishment so that in truth I cannot see why their Highnesses should not embrace cheerfully so fair an Opportunity to gratify both his Majesty and the far greater and better part of the Nation Now upon the whole I expect that you will make all I have written fully known at the Hague especially with the Prince But the main thing I expect from you is to have your Mind whether or not his Highness may be so disposed as that a well chosen Informer sent to himself might perfect the work And this Answer I will expect per first where-ever the Prince be you know who are to be spoken and how I again entreat your Care and Dispatch in this with your Return London July 29. 1687. MIne of the 9 / 19 July with my last of the 26th July V. St. will I am sure satisfy you fully for therein I have indeed answered all can be objected and have given you such an Account of the Confirmation of all I have writ from his Majesty himself that I must think it a Fatality if your People remain obstinate And I again assure you if your People be obstinate it will be fatal to the poor Dissenters and I fear productive of Ills yet unheard of and therefore pray consider my Letters and let me know if there be any place to receive Information by a good hand but however let us endeavour Good all we can and I assure you I have my Warrant Haste your Answer Windsor Aug. 5. 1687. AND in a word believe me if the Prince will do what is desired it is the best Service to the Protestants the Highest Obligation on his Majesty and the greatest Advancement of his own Interest that he can think on but if not then all is contrary but pray haste an Answer Windsor Aug. 12. 1678. I Have yours of the 5 / 15 Instant long look'd for your Remark that you have received mine of the 26th of July but say nothing of that of the 19th which was my fullest and which I assure you was writ not only with permission but according to his Majesty 's Mind sufficiently expressed our Religion ought certainly to be dearer to us than all Earthly Concerns It is very true what you say that Mistakes about its Concerns especially in such a time may be of the greatest Importance which no doubt should perswade to a very scrupulous caution But yet I am satisfied that the simple representing of what was wrote to you which was all I required was no such difficult Task But to be plain with you as my Friend your return was not only long delay'd but I observe such a Coldness in it different from the strain of your former that I think I mistake not when I understand by your Letter more than you express I wish the P. may see or hear this from end to end London Aug. 22. 1687. I have yours of the 16th Instant When I said your last was more cool I meant not as to your Affection but as to your Diligence in that Affair for I am perswaded that the establishing of this Liberty by Law is not only the Interest of Protestant Dissenters above all others but that his Highness consenting to it would be its secure Guarantee both against Changes and Abuses As you love the quiet of good Men and me leave of Complements and Ceremonies and discourse his Highness of all I have written I am now hastning to Scotland but may return shortly for the King is most desirous to gain the Prince and he will be undoubtedly the best Guarantee to us of this Liberty and also to hinder all your Fears about Popery Newark Aug. 26. 1687. BUT now I must tell you that though I know to be my very good Friend yet he hath not answered my Expectation for you see that to seven of mine he gave me not one word of Answer although I told him that the Substance of them was writ by the King's Allowance and a Return expected by him besides the Answers he makes are either Generals or Complements whereas my desire was that the Prince should know things and that his Answer with his Reasons might be understood but my Friend has delayed and scruffed things From Scotland Septemb. 24. 1687. I Have yours of the 30th of August but have delayed so long to answer because I had written other Letters to you whereof I yet expect the Return my most humble Duty to my Friend at the Hague Edinburgh Octob. 8. 1687. AS for that more important Affair wherewith I have long troubled you I need add no more my Conscience bears me witness I have dealt sincerely for the freedom of Gospel I had certainly long ere now written to Pensioner Fagel were it not that I judged you were a better Interpreter of any thing I could say I know his real Concern for the Protestant Religion and shall never forget his undeserved Respects to me but alas that Providences should be so ill understood London Novemb. 8. 1687. I Have yours of the 1st of November the enclosed from the L. Pensionary surprize me with a Testimony of his Favour and Friendship and also of his sincere love to the Truth and fair and candid reasoning upon the present Subject of Liberty beyond what I can express he hath seriously done too much for me but the more he hath done in Compliance with my insignificant Endeavours the more do I judg and esteem his noble and zealous Concern for Religion and Peace which I am certain could only in this matter be his just Motive I hope you will testify to him my deep sense of his Favour and most serious profession of Duty with all diligence until I be in case to make his L. a direct return I shewed the Letter to my Lord Melfort who was satisfied with it London Novemb. 6. 1687. which it seems is by a Mistake of the Date I Have your last but have been so harrassed and toiled that I have not had time to write to you much less to my L. Pensionary yet since my last I acquainted the Earl of Sunderland with his Answer as the King ordered me but I see all hope from your side is given quite over and Men are become as cold in it here as you are positive there London
Transubstantiation in spite of the Evidence of Sense to the contrary yet those that feel themselves at ease will hardly be brought to think that they are persecuted because they are told so in an ill-writ Pamphlet And for their Rebellion the Prince that is only concerned in that finds them now to be his best Allies and chief Supports as his Predecessors acknowledged them a Free State almost an Age ago And it being confessed by the Historians of all sides That there was an express Proviso in the Constitution of their Government That if their Prince broke such and such Limits they were no more bound to obey him but might resist him and it being no less certain that King Philip the Second authorised the the Duke of Alva to seise upon all their Priviledges their resisting him and maintaining their Priviledges was without all Dispute a justifiabble Action and was so esteemed by all the States of Europe and in particular here in England as appears by the Preambles of several Acts of Subsidy that were given the Queen in order to the assisting the States and as for their not dealing fairly with Princes when our Author can find such an Instance in their History as our Attempt upon their Smyrna Fleet was he may employ his Eloquence in setting it out and if notwithstanding all the Failures that they have felt from others they have still maintained the Publick Faith our Author's Rhetorick will hardly blemish them The Peace of Nimmegen and the abandoning of Luxemburgh are perhaps the single Instances in their History that need to be a little excused But as the vast Expence of the late War brought them into a Necessity that either knows no Law or at least will hearken to none so we who forced them to both and first sold the Triple Alliance and then let go Luxemburgh do with a very ill grace reproach the Dutch for these unhappy steps to which our Conduct drove them VIII If a strain of pert bolness runs thro this whole Pamphlet it appears no where more eminently than in the Reflections the Author makes on Mr. Fagel's Letter He calls it pag. 62. a pretended Piece and a Presumption not to be soon pardoned in prefixing to a surreptitious and unauthorised Pamphlet the Reverend Name of the Princess of Orange which in another place Page 72. he had reason to imagine was but a Counterfeit Coin and that those Venerable Characters were but politically feigned and a Sacred Title given to it without their Authority All this coming out with so solemn a License has made me take some pains to be rightly informed in this matter those whom I consulted tell me they have discoursed the Pensioner himself on this Subject who will very shortly take a sure Method to clear himself of those Imputations and to do that right to the Prince and Princess as to shew the World that in this matter he acted only by their Order For as Mr. Stewart's Letter drew the Pensioner's Answer from him so this Paper licensed as it is will now draw from him a particular Recital of the whole Progress of this Matter Mr. Albeville knows that the Princess explained her self so fully to him in the Month of May and June 1687. upon the Repeal of the Test that he himself has acknowledged to several Persons that though both the Prince and Princess were very stiff in that matter yet of the two he found the Princess more inflexible Afterwards when Mr. Stewart by many repeated Letters pressed his Friend to renew his Importunities to the Pensioner for an Answer he having also said in his Letters That he writ by the King's Order and Direction Upon this the Pensioner having consulted the Prince and Princess drew his Letter first in Dutch and communicated it to them and it being approved by them he turned it into Latine but because it was to be shewed to the King he thought it was fit to get it to be put in English that so their Highnesses might see that Translation of his Letter which was to be offered to His Majesty and they having approved of it he sent it with his own in Latine and it was delivered to the King. This Account was given me by my Friend who added that it would appear e're long in a more Authentical manner And by this I suppose the Impudence of those men does sufficiently appear who have the Brow to pubtish such Stuff of the Falshood of which they themselves are well assured And therefore I may well conclude that my Lord President 's License was granted by him with that Carelessness with which most Books are read and licensed Our Author pretends that he cannot believe that this Letter could flow from a Princess of so sweet a Temper pag. 62. and yet others find so much of the Sweetness of her Temper in it that for that very reason they believe it the more easily to have come from her No Passion or indiscreet Zeal appears in it and it expresses such an extended Charity and Nobleness of Temper that these Characters shew it comes from one that has neither a narrowness of Soul nor a sourness of Spirit In short She proposes nothing in it but to preserve that Religion which she believes the true one and that being secured she is willing that all others enjoy all the Liberties of Subjects and the Freedoms of Christians Here is Sweetness of Temper and Christian Charity in their fullest extent The other Reason is so mysteriously expressed that I will not wrong our Author by putting it in any other words than his own pag. 62. She is certainly as little pleased to promote any thing to the Disturbance of a State to which she still seems so nearly related She seems still are two significant Words and not set here for nothing She seems in his Opinion only related to the Crown that is She is not really so but there is something that these Gentlemen have in reserve to blow up this seeming Relation And She seems still imports that though this apparent Relation is suffered to pass at present yet it must have its Period for this seems still can have no other meaning But in what does She promote the Disturbance of the State or Patronise the Opposers of her Parents as he says afterwards ibid. Did She officiously interpose in this matter or was not her Sense asked And when it was asked must She not give it according to her Conscience She is too perfect a Pattern in all other things not to know well how great a Respect and Submission She owes her Father but She is too good a Christian not to know that her Duty to God must go first And therefore in matters of Religion when Her Mind was asked She could not avoid the giving it according to her Conscience and all the invidious Expressions which he fastens on this Letter and which he makes so many Arguments to shew that it could not flow from Her are all the
malicious and soon-discovered Artifices of one that knew that She had ordered the Letter and that thought himself safe in this Disguise in the discharging of his Malice against her So ingratefully is she required by a Party for whom she had expressed so much Compassion and Charity This Author Pag. 53. thinks it is an indecent forecast to be always erecting such Schemes for the next Heir both in Discourse and Writing as seem almost to calculate the Nativity of the present and he would almost make this High-Treason But if it is so there were many Traitors in England a few Years ago in which the next Heir though but a Brother was so much considered that the King himself look'd as one out of Countenance and abandoned and could scarce find Company enough about him for his Entertainment either in his Bed-Chamber or in his Walks when the whole Dependance was on the Successor so if we by turns look a little at the Successor those who did this in so scandalous a manner ought not to take it so very ill from us In a melancholy State of things it is hard to deny us the Consolation of hoping that we may see better Days But since our Author is so much concerned that this Letter should not be in any manner imputed to the Princess it seems a little strange that the Prince is so given up by him that he is at no pains to clear him of the Imputation For the happy Union that is between them will readily make us conclude that if the Prince ordered it the Princess had likewise her share in it I find but one glance at the Prince in the whole Book Pag. 52. when the Author is pleasing himself with the hopes of Protection from the Royal Heir out of a sense of Filial Duty He concludes Especially when so nearly allied to the very Bosom of a Prince whose way of Worship neither is the same with the National here and in whose Countries all Religions have been ever alike tolerated The Phrase of so near an Alliance to the very Bosom of a Prince is somewhat extraordinary An Author that will be florid scorns so simple an Expression as married he thought the other was more lofty But the matter of this Period is more remarkable it intimates as if the Prince's way of Worship was so different from ours tho we hear that he goes frequently with the Princess to her Chappel and expresses no aversion to any of our Forms tho he thinks it decent to be more constantly in the Exercises of Devotion that are authorised in Holland And as for that that all Religions have been ever alike tolerated there it is another of our Author's flights I do not hear that there are either Bonzis or Bramans in Holland or that the Mahometans have their Mosques there And sure his Friends the Roman Catholicks will tell him that all Religions are not alike tolerated there Thus I have followed him more largely in this Article than in any other it being that of the greatest Importance by which he had endeavoured to blast all the good effects which the Pensioners Letter has had among us IX I have now gone over that which I thought most important in this Paper and in which it seemed necessary to inform the Publick aright without insisting on the particular Slips of the Author of it or of the Advantages that he gives to any that would answer him more particularly I cannot think that any Man in the Nation can be now so weak as not to see what must needs be the effect of the Abolition of the Test after all that we see and hear it is too great an Affront to Mankind to offer to make it out A Man's Understanding may really mislead him so far as to make him change his Religion he remaining still an honest Man but no Man can pretend to be thought an honest Man that betrays the legal and now the only visible Defences of that Religion which he professes The taking away the Test for publick Employments is to set up an Office at Father Peter's for all Pretenders and perhaps a Pretender will not be so much as received till he has first abjured so that every Vacancy will probably make five or six Profelites and those Protestants who are already in Employments will feel their ground quickly fail under them and upon the first Complaint they will see what must be done to restore them to favour And as for the two Houses of Parliament as a great Creation will presently give them the Majority in the House of Lords so a new set of Charters and bold Returns will in a little time give them likewise the Majority in the House of Commons and if it is to be supposed that Protestants who have all the Security of the Law for their Religion can throw that up who can so much as doubt that when they have brought themselves into so naked a condition it will be no hard thing to overturn their whole Establishment and then perhaps we shall be told more plainly what is now but darkly insinuated to us by this Author that the next Heir seems still to be so nearly related to this State. AN APOLOGY FOR THE CHURCH of ENGLAND With Relation to the Spirit of PERSECUTION For which She is accused I. ONE should think that the Behaviour of the English Clergy for some Years past and the present Circumstances in which they are should set them beyond Slander and by consequence above Apologies yet since the Malice of her Enemies works against her with so much Spight and since there is no Insinuation that carries so much Malice in it and that seems to have such colours of Truth on it as this of their having set on a severe Persecution against the Dissenters of being still sour'd with that Leaven and of carrying the same implacable Hatred to them which the present Reputation that they have gained may put them in a further capacity of executing if another Revolution of Affairs should again give them Authority set about it it seems necessary to examine it and that the rather because some aggravate this so far as if nothing were now to be so much dreaded as the Church of England's getting out of her present Distress II. If these Imputations were charged on us only by those of the Church of Rome we should not much wonder at it for though it argues a good degree of Confidence for any of that Communion to declaim against the Severities that have been put in Practice among us since their little Finger must be heavier than ever our Loins were and to whose Scorpions our Rods ought not to be compared yet after all we are so much accustomed to their Methods that nothing from them can surprise us To hear Papists declare against Persecution and Jesuits cry up Liberty of Conscience are we confess unusual things yet there are some degrees of Shame over which when People are once passed all things become
last Year Yet when Men of Honour have once given their Word they take it ill if any do not trust to that but must needs have it repeated to them In the ordinary Commerce of the World the repeating of Promises over and over again is rather a ground of Suspicion than of Confidence and if we judg of the Accomplishment of all the other parts of the Declaration from that one which relates to the maintaining of the Church of England as by Law established the Proceedings against the Fellows of Magdalen Colledg gives us no reason to conclude that this will be like the Laws of the Medes and Persians which alter not all the talk of the New Magna Charta cannot lay us asleep when we see so little regard had to the Old one As for the security which is offered us in this repeating of the King's Promises we must crave leave to remember that the King of France even after he had resolved to break the Edict of Nantes yet repeated in above an hundred Edicts that were real and visible Violations of that Edict a Clause confirmatory of the Edict of Nantes declaring that he would never Violate it and in that we may see what Account is to be had of all Promises made to Hereticks in Matters Religion by any Prince of the Roman Communion but more particularly by a Prince who has put the conduct of his Conscience in the Hands of a Jesuite Some EXTRACTS out of Mr. JAMES STEWART's LETTERS Which were Communicated to Mijn Heer FAGAL the States Pensioner of the Province of Holland Together with some References to Master STEWART's Printed Letter MR. Stewart staid about seven Months after he had received the Pensionary's Letter before he thought fit to write any Answer to it and then instead of sending one in writing to the Pensioner or in a Language understood by him he has thought fit by a Civility peculiar to himself to print an Answer in English and to send it abroad into the World before the Pensioner had so much as seen it The many and great Affairs that press hard upon that Eminent Minister together with a sad want of Health by which he has been long afflicted have made that he had not the leisure to procure Mr. Stewart's Letter to be translated to him and to compare the Matters of Fact related to in it with the Letters that were writ the last Year by Mr. Stewart which are in his possession nor did he think it Necessary to make too much hast and therefore if he has let as many weeks pass without ordering an Answer to be prepared as the other had done Months he thought that even this slowness might look like one that despised this indecent Attempt upon his Honour that Mr. Stewart has made in giving so unjust a representation of the Matter of Fact. He hopes he is too well known to the World to apprehend that any Persons would entertain the hard thoughts of him which Mr. Stewart's late Print may have offered to them and therefore he has proceeded in this Matter with the slowness that he thought became his Integrity since a greater haste might have look'd like one that was uneasy because he knew himself to be in Fault As for the reasoning part of Mr. Stewart's Paper he has already expressed himself in his Letter to Mr. d' Albeville that he will not enter into any arguing upon those Points but will leave the Matter to the Judgment of every Reader therefore he has given order only to examin those Matters of Fact that are set forth in the beginning of Mr. Stewart's Letter that so the World may have a true account of the Motives that induced him to write his Letter to Mr. Stewart from the words of Mr. Stewart's own Letters and then he will leave it to the Judgment of every Reader whether Mr. Stewart has given the Matter of Fact fairly or not It is true the Pensioner has not thought fit to print all Mr. Stewart's Letters at their full length there are many Particulars in them for which he is not willing to expose him and in this he has shewed a greater regard to Mr. Stewart than the usage that he has met with from him deserves If Mr. Stewart has kept Copies of his own Letters he must see that the Pensioner's reservedness is rather grounded on what he thought became himself than on what Mr. Stewart has deserved of him But if Mr. Stewart or any in his Name will take Advantages from this that the Letters themselves are not published and that here there are only Extracts of them offered to the World then the Pensioner will be excused if he prints them all to a Tittle The Truth is it is scarce conceivable how Mr. Stewart could assume the confidence that appears in his printed Letter if he have kept Copies of the Letters that he writ last Year and if he engaged himself in Affairs of such Importance without keeping Copies of what he writ it was somewhat extraordinary and yet this censure is that which falls the softest on him but I will avoid every thing that looks like a sharpness of Expression for the Pensioner expects that he who is to give this Account to the English Nation should rather consider the Dignity of the Post in which he is than the Advantages that Mr. Stewart may have given for replying sharply on him And in this whole Matter the Pensioner's chief concern is to offer to the World such a Relation of the Occasions that drew his Letter to Mr. Stewart from him as may justify him against the false Insinuations that are given he owed this likewise as an expression of his Respect and Duty to their Highnesses in whose Name he wrote his Letter and at whom all those false Representations are levelled tho they fall first and immediately upon himself The sum of the Matter of Fact as it is represented by Mr. Stewart amounts to this That he was so surprised to see in January last the Pensioner's Letter to him in print that he was inclined to disbelieve his own Eyes considering the remoteness of the occasion that was given for that Letter that he had never writ to the Pensioner but was expresly cautioned against it But that seeing the sincerity of the King's Intentions he was desirous to contribute his small endeavours for the advancing so good a Work and for that end he Obtained Leave to write to a private Friend who he judged might have opportunity to represent any thing he could say to the best advantage but that of the Letters which he writ to his Friend there were only two intended for communication in which he studied to evince the Equity and Expediency of repealing the Tests and the Penal Laws and that with a peculiar regard to the Prince and Princess of Orange's Interest and he desired that this might be Imparted to Friends but chiefly to those at the Hague And that this was the substance of all that
he writ on that occasion But finding that the Prince had already declared himself in those Matters he resolved to insist no further yet his Friend insinuating that he had still hopes to get a more distinct and satisfying Answer from a better hand though without naming the Person he attended the Issue and about the beginning of November almost three moneths after his first writing he received the Pensioner's Letter though he had not writ to him which is repeated again and again and in it an account of the Prince and Princess of Orange's Thoughts about the Repeal of the Tests and Penal Laws which he had not desired upon which he took some care to prevent the publishing of it But when he saw it in print he clearly perceived that it was printed in Holland and so wonders how the Pensioner could say that it was printed in England which he found in his printed Letter to Mr. d' Albeville He knows not upon what Provocation the Pensioner writ that Letter but in it he finds that he writ that he was desired by himself to give him an account of the Prince and Princess of Orange's Thoughts and that these pressing Desires were made to him by His Majestie 's Knowledg and Allowance this being so different from the Letters he had writ of which he is sure that the account he has given is true in every point he was forced to vindicate the King's Honour and his own Duty He writ not out of any curiosity to know their Highnesses Thoughts which were already known they having been signified to the Marquis of Albeville and therefore he had no Orders from the King for writing on that Subject but only a Permission to use his little Endeavors for the advancing of his Service but it was never moved to him to write either in the King's Name or in the Name of any of his Secretaries This is Mr. Stewart's Account in the first nine Pages of his Letter and is set down in his own words Now in opposition to all this it will appear from the following Extracts that Mr. Stewart writ to his Friend as the most proper Interpreter for addressing himself to the Pensioner that he repeated his Proposition frequently finding his Friend unwilling to engage in so Critical a matter He gives great Assurances of His Majesties Resolutions never to alter the Succession which is plainly the Language of a Treaty he presses over and over again to know the Prince's Mind whose concurrence in the Matter would be the best Guarentee of the Liberty He by Name desires his Letters may be shewed to the Prince and Princess of Orange though he says he only ordered them to be shewed to Friends at the Hague so it seems he has the modesty to reckon them among the number of his Friends but it is a question whether their Highnesses do so or not he says in one Letter That what he writ was from his Majesty himself and enlarges more fully on this in two other Letters and he desires that the Princes Answers with his Reasons might be understood which very probably gave the occasion to all the reasoning part of the Pensioner's Letter and it appears by that Letter that the Return to all this was expected by the King and in almost every Letter he presses for a Return And in Conclusion upon his receiving the Pensioner's Letter he expresses likewise a great sense of the Honour done him in it that he had so far complied with his Insignificant Endeavours he mentions his acquainting both the King and the Earls of Sunderland and Melfort with it and in another Letter after new Thanks for the Pensioner's Letter he laments that it was so long delayed But all these things will appear more evident to the Reader from the Passages drawn out of Mr. Stewart's own Letters which follow Mr. Stewart seems not to know upon what provocation the Pensioner writ to Mr. d' Albeville and yet the Pensioner had set that forth in the Letter it self for the Pamphlet entituled Parliamentum Pacificum that was licensed by the Earl of Sunderland contained such Reflections on his Letter to Mr. Stewart either as a Forgery or as a thing done without the Princess of Orange's knowledg that the Pensioner judged himself bound in honour to do himself right As for Mr. Stewart's criticalness in knowing that the Pensioner's Letter was first printed in Holland and his Reflection on the Pensioner for insinuating that the Letter was first printed in England it is very like that Mr. Stewart after so long a practice in Libels knows how to distinguish between the Prints of the several Nations better than the Pensioner whose course of Life has raised him above all such Practices But it is certain that wheresoever it was first printed the Pensioner writ sincerely and believed really that it was first printed in England This is all that seemed necessary to be said for an Introduction to the following Extracts July 12 1687. AND I assure you by all I can find here the Establishment of this equal Liberty is his Majesty's utmost Design I wish your People at the Hague do not mistake too far both his Majesty and the Dissenters for as I have already told you his Majesty's utmost Design and have ground to belive that his Majesty will preserve and observe the true Right of Succession as a thing most sacred so I must entreat you to remark that the Offence that some of the Church-of-England-Men take at Addressing seems to me unaccountable and is apprehended by the Dissenters to proceed so certainly from their former and wonted Spirit that they begin to think themselves in large more hazard from the Church of England's Re-exaltation than all the Papists their Advantages And next that the Prince is thought to be abused by some there to a too great Mislike of that which can never wrong him but will in probability in the Event be wholly in his own Power I hope you will consider and make your best use of these things I expect an account of this per first I mean an Answer to this Letter and pray improve it to the best Advantage The Second Letter without a Date THat it is a thing most certain that his Majesty is resolved to observe the Succession to the Crown as a thing most Sacred and is far from all thoughts of altering the same and that his Majesty is very desirous to have the Prince and Princess of Orange to consent to concur with him in establishing this Liberty So that upon the whole it may be feared that if the Prince continue obstinate in refusing his Majesty he may fall under suspitions of the greatest part of England and of all Scotland to be too great a Favourer of the Church of England and consequently a Person whom they have reason to dread And many think that this Compliance in the Prince might be further a wise part both as to the conciliating of his Majesty's greater Favour and