of it for an Enformation Why who says there 's any sin in 't And then there 's Guard and Guard People are said one way to be upon their Guard with their Swords in their hands and another way with their eies in their heads But I presume he speaks to the multitude and he speaks too in the Stile of Authority Let them stand upon their Guard says he as if he were giving Orders He might as well have said Let them stand to their Arms and his expression of all expedients expounds it so even allowing him to be his own Interpreter for the business is to keep out Popery and Tyranny And he makes it one expedient fol. 2. and an essential one too to act the Offensive part as well as the Defensive Provided still says he that we preserve the Sacred Succession in its right Line for that we are TOLD both King and People are oblig'd in Conscience to defend and uphold That same little word TOLD is a most Emphatical Mockery and then provided that the Succession be secur'd all other expedients are pronounced lawful Methinks he might have thought of a Proviso too for the securing of the Kings Honour Dignity Person Government and the Peace of his Dominions which are at the rate of his latitude of allowance all of them equally concerned in the danger with the Succession He proceeds now to debate the matter of Conscience And if we find him as Tender as he is Zealous as good a Christian on the Subjects side as on the Patriots as careful to uphold the Sacred Character of Majesty as to prevent the Excesses of Tyranny and finally as clear a Casuist as he is a powerful Orator there will be no contesting any further with him Char. First then saith he let us fancy we see this Popish Heir on his Throne and by all the most illegal and Arbitrary Means contrary to the whole Frame and Hinges of the English Government introducing Popery with that Zeal and Vigour till his inâ—atuatedâ— Conscience has perverted the King into a Tyrant What a phancy of a phancy is here that for want of fact and argument is fain to have recourse to Imaginations and Dreams And to what end is all this but by disgusting of the People at the ways of Providence set them a hankering after State-Wizzards again and Strange-Gods for the knowledge of things to come wherefore let me once again inculcate that of 27 Jer. Hearken not ye to your Prophets nor to your Diviners nor to your Dreamers which is the same with phansiers nor to your Inchanters nor to your Sorcerers which speak to you saying you shall not serve the King of Babylon Foâ— they Prophesie a Ly unto you to remove you far from your Land Let us for the Honour of our kind either live and act and reason like Men or else down upon all four and away into the Woods and Rocks and hunt and growl'd and tear one another to pieces like Beasts But we 'll discourse the matter a little Well! The English are certainly the Freest and the Happiest People upon the Face of the Earth Ay but we shall be all Slaves e're 't be long When 's that When the Popish Heir comes to the Crown Ay but when 's that again When the King is dead Well but when is the King to Dy Nay I cannot tell that How long has the Popish Heir to live I cannot tell that neither Will the Queen have any Children Nor that neither How long will the Queen live How should I know that Will the King survive her or not I cannot tell Will he Marry again if he does I cannot tell that neither Will he have any Children if he Marrys again Who knows But what if the Heir should not live to come to the Crown but it may be he may though And it may be he may not Ay but I PHANSY that he will Well! But suppose he should come to the Crown What then Why then he will set up Popery and Tyranny Not whether he can or no. Why how did Queen Mary She had the odds on her side for the Papists were then in a manner as the Protestants are now And yet coming in betwixt two Protestants Popery ye see went off as it came on But still there was a Persecution 'T is true there was but all Princes are not alike Q. Mary Persecuted the Protestants Henry the Fourth of France did not so And it is as good an inference from the instance of Henry IV. that the Popish Heir will not be a Persecutor as from that of Queen Mary that he will But where the Popes Authority intervenes both King and People are bound to obey And yet you see that for all the Power of the Pope and the Covenant of the Holy League to boot the People of France though Roman Catholiques would not submit to the Dis-possessing of a Protestant Successor neither did that generous Prince upon the Reconciling of himself afterward to the Church of Rome exercise any one act of Tyranny over his Protestant Subjects which is enough said upon this point Well but I PHANSY it will be Popery and Tyranny yet for all this Well! but to go a little further with you now suppose it should come to a down right Persecution Aye but we must stand upon our Guards to prevent it That would be more than ever the Primitive Christians did under the Ten Persecutions And we have not only their Example but their Express Doctrine against it And we are never the better Protestants for being the worse Christians So that here 's only Phansy set up in opposition to Religion Reason and Experience And That 's enough in all Conscience too For there needs no more then the Flames of a distemper'd Spleen to cause an Earth-quake in the Government What are Fears but Phansies What are Jealousies but Phansies What Original had they Phansies again And what was the Consequence of them Sum up the Sins and the Calamities of the worst of People and of Times Those Crimes and Those Miseries were the effect of Those Phansies They were Hag-ridden and Night-mar'd with Goblins and Apparitions and haunted in their Beds with the Images of those Visions and illusions which they had taken down from the Press and Pulpit waking The brave Strafford was a Sacrifice to the Phansy of Arbitrary Power and the Venerable Laud a Victim to the Phansy of Popery They Phansy'd AntiChrist in the Hierarchy the Rags of the Whore of Babylon in a Surplice Popery in the Common-Prayer the Sacrament of Baptism they phansy'd little better than an Exorcism the Lords Prayer well enough for a Christian Primer a School-boy Form that might do so so till People came to be better gifted When they had Phansy'd the Heads of these great men off their Shoulders the Bishops out of the House of Peers they went on Phansying still They Phansy'd Episcopacy out of the Nation and their Scotish Presbytery into it the Clergy out of
which if he had accomplish'd he might easily have done And to do his Memory Justice he told me this Story with very great Inâ—â—ignation the Substance of which as I shall answer for it to God at the day of Judgment I have faithfully related to the best of my memory upon the Faith of a Christian man Now to 〈◊〉 his Point will not the very Name of a Republican Râ—formation which is at Present become the Theme of every Pamphlet warm Our Mud into Monsters again and raise Coblers and Tinkers to Colonels Draymen and Thimble-makers to be Kings Judges Wherefore Now or Never is his Majesty oblig'd if his Word Honour or Coronation-Oath be more then a Name if I may be pardon'd for speaking my Authours words after him to uphold the Protestant Interest which now lyes a bleeding in this Cause of the Church One Branch of the Coronation Oath being as follows I will preserve and maintain to You the Bishops and the Churches committed to your charge all Canonical Priviledges and due Law and Justice and I will be your Protector and Defender to my Power by the Assistance of God as every good King in his Kingdom â—n right ought to protect and defend the Bishops and Churches under theâ—r Government Then the King ariseth and is led to the Communion Table where he makes a Solemn Oath in sight of all the People to observe the Premises and laying his hand upon the Book saith The Oath The things which I have before promised I shall perform and keep So help me God and the Contents of this Book Char. But let us suppose we may have such a Roman Catholique King as shall discountenance Pope and Popery Cherish Protestantism and effectually deterr and punish all those that shall endeavour to undermine and supplant it And then let us examine what This King thus qualify'd must do Fol. 2. Here is a Supposition fairly propounded in appearance but yet without Expounding himself upon the Worâ—d Protestantism there 's no coming to an Issue upon 't If he means by Protestantism the Opions of the Outlyers that have leapt the pale and which are rather Phansies then Perswasions the Law it self animadverts upon those people as the Underminers of our Ecclesiastical Establishment And his Discountenancing of Separatists will amount to no more then a Legal Discharge of his Office But if by Protestantism he intends a practical Conformity to the Orders of the Church the Law provides as well for the upholding of the One as the suppressing of the Other And it would be a strange Oversight for any Prince that should mount the English Throne under the disadvantages of that Perswasion to put his Perogative upon the stretch of Enacting or Abrogating Laws without the Consent of his Parliament Char. First then In continuing the Ecclesiastique Jurisdiction Honours and Preferments in the hands of the Protestant Clergy he must confer his Favours and Smiles on those very men whom by the Fundamentals of his own Vncharitable Perswasion which dooms all that dy out of the Bosom of the Romish Church to a certain State of Damnation he cordially believes do preach and teach and lead his Subjects in the direct way to Hell And next at the same time he must not only punish and persecute but perhaps emprison and hang those very only Righteous men whom from the bottom of his Soul he believes can only open them the Gates of Paradice whilest in so doing he cannot but accuse himself of coppying the Old Jewish Cruelty Nay in One respect he outgoes their Crime for he acts that Knowingly which they committed Ignorantly For by the Dictates of Religion he must be Convinc'd that in effect he does little lesse then save a Barabbas and Crucify a Jesus Fol. 3. Here is First presented a dismal Prospect of a Popish Successour in the Life of a Protestant Prince and the present Government of that Protestant Prince troubled and distracted with Clamours and Jealousies for fear of a Popish one to come If Religion were really the business they would rather blesse God for the Peace and Happiness they enjoy and wait his further Pleasure with Thankfullness and Resignation then with Murmuring and Distrust to anticipate Future Evills and Prejudge Providences to come Or if Religion were All what 's the meaning of their hammering so much of late upon the Subject of Arbitrary Power and so many Models and Projects of a Common Wealth which were the very Method of our late Usurpers as to matter of Arbitrary Power the King has pass'd away so many Concessions already for the gratifying of his Subjects that if he had it in his Will his Majesty has not left it in his Power to be guilty of that which is so ungratefully Charg'd upon him Which makes it look liker a mockery then an Accusation And then for the New-fangled Device of a Free Common Wealth our Republican Agitators should do well to mind the People of England of the blessed condition they were in under the pretended Keepers of an Liberties The Sound of Freedom and Liberty brings the Multitude like Larks to the Glasse but not a word of the Net They say nothing of the Standing Army that must be kept afoot to support it nor of the bloudy Taxes that must be rais'd to maintain those Troops and Martial Law to make good all those Violences Why do they not tell them of their Charters Franchises Priviledges and Tenures which are all swallow'd up in that Gulph of Popular Tyranny And so are all other advantageous Dependences upon the Crown The Body of the Law must be new garbled and a Civil War with all the Miseries and Contingences of it must be the Prologue to the Opening of this Tragical Scene And if the Sedition fails of successe they bring themselves into the state again of a Conquer'd Nation And upon these Terms it is at best that they are to exchange a Condition of Peace Freedom and plenty for â—eggery Bondage and Confusion It was very well sayd of Grotius upon the NetherLanders delivering themselves from the 〈◊〉 of Spain We Fought says he to save the Tenth part of our Estates and now that we have got the day we have Compounded 〈◊〉 th' other Nine Here is a Criminal and a Dangerous but I hope an Impracticable Proposal set afoot But brought in God knows by Head and shoulders under the Countenance of Religion and Succession It is possible there may be no more in it then a Well-meaning mistake But there must be an Infinite Tenderness of Conscience and a most untainted Loyalty to justify the Authour But to return to my Character As to the Influence which a Popish Successour may have upon Ecclesiastical matters as in the Character there needs no more to be sayd in 't then this that the King hath been gratiously pleased to offer the Passing of any Bill for securing the Protestant Religion without barring or diverting the Succession And such Expedients have been also fram'd to that
again Char. Thus says he whilst the bonds of Faith Vows Oaths and Sacraments cannot hold a Popish Successor what is that in an Imperial Head but what in a private Man we punish with a Jail and Pillory whilst the Perjur'd Wretch stands the Vniversal Marque of Infamy and then is driven from all Conversation and like a Monster hooted from Light and Day Pray'e correct the Errata ' s of this passage thus For Popish Successor read Jesuitical Covenanter and for an Imperial Head read a Committee of Safety And then ye have the Mystery uncipher'd But the Pope he says and a Royal Hand may do any thing there 's a Crown in the case to guild the deeds his Royal Engines act This Pope and Royal Hand should have been their General Assembly and their Pretended Christ upon his Throne and then Gods Cause and according to the Covenant hallows the Sedition Et quod Turpe est Cerdoni Volesos Brutosque decebit One Verse more would have expounded the whole business Ille Crucem sceleris Pretium tulit Hic Diadema Char. They are still says he that adorable Sovereign Greatness we must kneel to and obey What if a little Perjur'd Villain has sworn a poor Neighbour out of a Cow or a Cottage Hang him inconsiderable Rogue His Ears deserve a Pillory But to VOW and COVENANT and FORSWEAR THREE KINGDOMS OVT OF THEIR LIBERTIES AND LIVES that 's Illustrious and Heroique There 's Glory in great Atchievments and Virtue in Success Alas a vast Imperial Nimroâ— hunts for Nobler Spoils flyes at a whole Nations Property and Inheritance A Game wâ—rthy a Son of Rome and Heir of Paradise And to lay the mighty scene of ruine secure he makes his Coronation-Oath and all his Royal Protestations those splendid Baits of premeditated Perjury the Cover and Skreen to the hidden fatal Toyl laid to ensnare a Nation fol. 7. Never were those Illustrious and Heâ—oick Vowers and Covenanters that for swore three Kingdoms out of their Liberties and Lives drawn so to the Life and five hundred Nimrods too upon the chase of our Property and Inheritance And it was a Game worthy of the Sons of Buchanan and if they may be their own Godfathers the Children of the Lord too under the Cover of their ambiguous Protestations and their Holy League-Bands of Confederacy they câ—nceal'd the Snare of that premeditated Perjnry which was follow'd with so many dreadful judgments upon the Nation He prosecutes his Subject with a Reply to the Objection that ' its impossible for a Popish Successor to introduce Popery into England That the Jesuits had such a design that the whole Party believ'd it practicable he evinces from the Plot and the prospect of a presumptive Popish Heir render'd them more confident of succeeding in it fol. 7. and 8. And yet four or five Lines further he represents the difficulties of restoring Popery into England to be almost insuperable and so with just reflections upon the Paris and Irish Massacres Villanies of Gun-powder Treasons Conflagratiens and Plots against Kings and Kingdoms He finishes that Paragraph I shall easily agree here to all the Ill that he says of the Seditious and pragmatical Papists without disputing one syllable of it And yet I think it very well worth our care to distinguish betwixt zeal and clamour and not over-hastily to give credit to That Sort of People whose method it is first to make Papists odious and then to make the Church of England Popish And this is not said neither to divert any man from a reasonable apprehension of the other danger There never was a greater noise of Popery than in the Prologue to the misfortunes of the late King And what was the Ground or what the Issue of it There was a Conspiracy to undermine the Government and no way but that to put the People out of their Wits and out of their Duties together and the Project succeeded to the actual subversion of the Government And when the Zelots had possessed themselves of the Quarry they shar'd both publick and private Revenues among themselves and fell afterward to the cutting of one another's Throats for the Booty without one word more of Popery In Brief to joyn in an Out-cry against Papists with those that Reckon Episcopacy to be Popery is to assist our Enemies toward the putting on of our own Shackles And it is gone so far too that the Libellers and their Dictators range them hand in hand already and you shall seldom see a Blow made at the Pope without a Lick at the Bishops But the Project begins now to open Char. Let us now rightly consider how far the first Foundations of Popery vix Arbitrary Power may be laid in England First then if a Papist Reign the Judges Sheriffs Justices of the Peace and all the Judiciary Officers are of the King's Creation and as such how far may the influence of Preferment on baser Constitutions cull'd out for his purpose prevail even to deprave the very Throne of Justice her self and make our Judges use even our Protestant Laws themselves to open the first Gate to Slavery We are just now upon a Preliminary to the Nineteen Old Propositions over again For fear of an Arbitrary Power the King was not to be trusted with the Choice of his own Officers But no though taken for the securing of the Government from Popular Tumults and Insurrections in case of lodging that trust in any other hand Beside the putting of the King into an incapacity of providing for the justice and security of the Government But he is so far however in the right that the perverting of that power may endanger the State And for that consideration it is a Trust not to be parted with lest it should once more be re-apply'd to the destruction of the King and People as it was before It is a certain Truth that a Prince by the abuse of his Power may prove a Tyrant But it is as certain again that there is not any form or temperament of Sovereignty imaginable that is not lyable to the same possibility For Tyranny it self is only the straining of the Essential and necessary powers of Government beyond their pitch We have experimented the worst effects of Usurpation and Corruption and of turning the Equity of the Law against the Letter of it nay of setting up the Laws themselves against the very authority that made them And all this would never have done the work neither if the faction had not supply'd the want of Laws for their purpose in some cases and superseded others that were against them by an Arbitrary Device of Votes and Ordinances So that the hazard is nothing so great as he represents it in the hand of a Prince for want of that power of Enacting and Repealing which the Faction possessed themselves of by an Usurpation But alas says he Pag. 8. The Laws in corrupted Iudges hands have been too often used as barbarously as the Guests of Procrustes who
their Livingâ— the King himself and his Loyal Subjects out of their Lives Liberties and Estates the Crowns Churches and the Peoples Monies into their own â—ockets the House of Peers into a Cypher or Nullity the House of Commons into a Secret Committee the Monarchy into a Republick the Laws into Votes and Ordinances their Committe into a Rump-Assembly That Rump into a Protector and that Protector again into a Committee of Safety And all this was done by the Power of Imagination and a strong phansy of Tyranny and Popery And why may not all this he phansy'd over again But pray let me Phansy a little on the other side Let us Phansy his Majesty to Survive his Brother Let us Phansy an Heir Apparent either by her Majesty in being or by the providence of a Second Marriage or the Successor to be a person of Honour Conscience or Prudence whatever his Religion be And that in Honour and Conscience he will govern himself by the Tyes of his Word and his Duty and that in Prudence he will not venture upon a Project so impracticable as an attempt of Subverting the Religion and Government when every mans Neck shall lye at stake that shall but dare to assist him in 't which might be sufficiently provided for by some previous Act that saving the Kings Prerogative in the Case might secure their not being pardon'd in That particular We shall now Counterpoise Dangers to Dangers Here is a present opposed to a future a Certainty to a Possibility a Greater to a Less and a Protestant King to a Papist The Present danger is the probable Effect of these Intoxicating Methods to the People If Phansy was Poyson to the Multitude under the late King the same Phansy in a larger Dose and with less Corrective to it will be at least as strong a Poyson to the People under This. If the Fact on the one side be true the Reason on the other side is not to be deny'd The dismal Calamities that ensu'd upon it I have â—et forth already Now what is there in the future to weight against the Life of the King the Safety of the Church the Law and the Government the Peace of the Kingdom There may possibly be a Popish King and there may probably not And that King may Possibly have a Will to change the Government but probably not in respect of the very Immorality of Inclining to such a Violation of his Trust and Word But all most certainly not in regard of so manifest an Inability to bring it to pass When I say a Certainty I mean only a Natural Train of Events in the Application of Actives to Passives which in a high degree has taken place already For the People are almost Raving mad at the apprehensions of these Stories the Feaver encreases upon them and they grow every day Hotter and Lighter-headed than other So that we are in Forty times a greater danger of a Sedition at hand than of a Popish Successor at a Distance As to the Ballance of a greater danger and a Less we 'l e'en take the matter as they suppose it A King upon the Throne that 's Principled for Arbitrary Government and Popery But so clogg'd and shackl'd with Popular and Protestant Laws that if he had never so great a mind to 't there is not a Subject in his Dominions that would dare to serve him in his Design But on the other hand there 's no King at all no Church no Law no Government no Magna Charta no Petition of Right no Property no Liberty c. PROBATVM Beside that the Phansy comes to no more in Effect than if the sky fall we shall catch Larks But once again yet Here 's a Protestant Prince expos'd for fear of a Popish one Is the Chimera of a future danger of more value to us then the Conscience of an incumbant and indispensable Duty shall we take pet at God Almighties providence and not go to Heaven at all unless we may go our own way Shall we Level a shot at the Duke at a distance if there be no coming at him but through the Heart of our Sovereign shall we actually break in upon the Protestant profession which stands or falls with the Church of England because the Author of the Character phansies the hazard of a Popish Religion in the Moon and by the unavoidable Consequence of a Misgovernment under this apprehension draws the very plague upon us that we pretend to fear While we thus go on exposing both our Temporal and Eternal peace for shadows The Writer of the Character had most Rhetorically amplifi'd in his Calculations upon his Popish Successor but so Oversiz'd the figure that when ever the people come to their wits again they will look upon the story of Garagantua as not much the less Credible of the Two For his dangers are all out of Ken his Thunderâ—s in the Clouds and the Multitude are all turn'd Star-Gazers and gaping after ill-boding Conjunctions and malevolent influences while with him in the Fable They are tumbling into a Precipice as deep as Hell and take no notice of it Here is a danger suggested and such a means intimated for the prevention of it as makes the Remedy worse than the Disease for the very Expedient undermines the Government But first a word of the dangers on the other side There are several ways started for the disappointing of this inconvenience One by Attainder upon 23. 13. of Eliz. Another by a Bill in Parliament for diverting the Succession And some of the Libellers fall down right upon a Third Proposal of the peoples preventing the Succession though without or against Law And Fourthly either to expel the Successour or to keep him out in case of Survivorship To the first of these ways I shall speak when the point comes on As to the second which is matter of Parliamentary Cognizance I reckon it my duty to acquiesce in the Legal Issue of their Debates as an Authority to which I have ever paid a Duty and a Veneration This only I shall take the freedom to say that there is a vast difference betwixt their Deliberations that purely regard the prospect and interest of both Church and State in what concerns the Popish and Protestant Religion and the passionate excursions of private men on the wrong side of the Parliament Doorâ— that thrust themselves into the Controversie rather out of envy to the Person and fame of the Successour than to promote the more important cause of Religion like men that crow'd into a Church for company to pick a pocket and this to without any respect to the King himself in the person of his Brother or to the measures of duty to the Government Now as to the two last ways of proposal which are eiher for prevention or exclusion I have this to say If there be danger from a popish Successour during his expectancy within the Kingdom the danger is infinitely greater if he be driven
more gross than to talk of fighting for Religion or to pretend to the maintaining of that by Arms that is not liable to Violence Did ever any Man hear of a Religion that was either shot or cut Nor can there be any Confederacy or Association purely upon the score of Religion for how shall People agree to defend they know not what which is the very case when one Man undertakes for the Religion of another If our Religion be assaulted by Argument we may assert it by Redargution But when the Opposition advances into any over act the case is no longer Religion but Political Safety Beside that Government is Gods Ordinance for the common benefit of Human Society and of Pagans as well as of Christians without any regard to this or that Religion for Bedies Politique have no Consciences but every particular indeed stands or falls to his own Master I cannot but observe through what degrees the Character has advanced the Popish Successor First From the possibility of a good Man and then from bad to worse till he has made him fol. 14. a Corrupted Leprous Branch of Royalty and at next word a downright Traitor upon the Statutes of 23 and 13 of Queen Eliz. and another of Hen. 8. Fol. 15. This matter being as I am informed at present coram Judice I shall say no more to it than this that there are two Provisoes in the 5th of the Queen that make the Case somewhat different from what he has stated it As for Instance Provided alway that forasmuch as the Queens Majesty is otherwise sufficiently assured of the Faith and Loyalty of the Temporal Lords of Her High Court of Parliament Therefore this Act nor any thing therein contained shall not extend to compel any Temporal Person of or above the degree of a Baron of this Realm to take or pronounce the Oath abovesaid viz. of Supremacy nor to incur any Penalty limited by this Act for not taking or refusing the same c. II. Provided also that if any Peer of this Realm shall hereafter offend contrary to this Act or any Branch or Article thereof that in that and all such Case and Cases they shall be try'd by their Péers in such manner and form as in other Cases of Treasons they have used to be Tryed and by no other means It would be well if every Man that presses with this un-precedented rigour upon the Person here in question would lay his hand upon his heart and say if the King has pardoned me Teâ— Thousand times more than this comes to with what Reason or Conscience can I importune His Majesty thus bitterly against His Brother After all these Clamours about a Popish Successor I would fain know how it is possible for any Man to be other than a Papist in our present condition of Affairs A Church-of England-Man is a Papist to the Dissenters a Presbyterian and an Independent so one to another a Quaker to both and among the Eight Score several Sects of Heretiques and Schismatiques that Paget and others have reckoned up since Liberty of Conscience came in Fashion there are just so many sorts of Papists among them in the Opinion of one Sect or another He has a Paragraph fol. 15. where under the People of England he expounds himself to mean their Representatives which is a point I am not to touch upon Only I must confess he has drawn the Arrow to the Head in one expression in it Why should not they saith he the House of Commons be as active and vigorous for their own Royal Inheritance and Sacred Succession of Power as a King for His. What he means by this Royal inheritance and Sacred Succession of Power I shall remit to the Consideration of the Learned Bradshaw indeed pass'd a Sentence upon the Late King as a Traytor to the ROYALTY of the People But the strongest Argument for himself that I find in the whole Book is five or six Lines lower If ever a Papist mâ—unts this Throne says he then all their Murmurs their Petitions Protesting and Associating-Votes will be remembered to the purpose Now what can be a greater indignity to the Justice and Resolution of that Illustrious Body than to imagine that so narrow a thought could any way influence the Candour and Solemnity of their Debates He spends his sixteenth Page upon Instances out of Hen. VIII to prove the Succession of the English Crown to be wholly subjected to the Disposal Determinations and Limitations of Parliament How far his Assertion is right or wrong I shall not concern my self But however as he has ordered the matter it makes nothing at all for his purpose The Parliament he says 25 Hen. 8. settled the Crown upon the Heirs of that Kings body by Queen Ann and in the 28th Repealed that Act and Entailed the Succession upon the Heirs of his body by Queen Jane Mary and Elizabeth being declared Illegitimate And in Case he Died without Issue then the Parliament empowered him by the same Act to dispose of the Succession by his own Letters Patents or his Last Will. In the 35th Year of his Reign the Parliament granted the Succession to Edward and for want of Heirs of his Body to the Lady Mary and the Heirs of her body and for want of such Heirs to the Lady Elizabeth under certain Limitations and Conditions contained in that Act. From hence he infers that a Parliament may order and dispose of the Succession But whether they may or not here 's little or nothing prov'd from these Citations First under the ambiguity of the Word Parliament he would have this thought to be the single Act of the Lords and Commons when the Enacting Authority of it was solely in the King And yet he says expresly that Henry 8. was so far from submitting to Parliaments that he would never have complemented them with a power that was not their due If that power did belong to the Parliament what needed they the King's authority for the making of it good or to divest themselves of that power by transferring it to the King to dispose of the Reversion or Remainder of the Crown by his Will or Letters Patents to such person as he pleas'd Secondly These Statutes do not so properly transfer a Right as declare and notifie the persons for the prevention of disputes and competitions as appears by the Preamble to that of the 28th Wherefore We your most humble and obedient Subjects in this present Parliament Assembled calling to Our Remembrance the great Divisions which in Times past have been in this Realm by reason of several Titles pretended to the Imperial Crown of this Realm which some times and for the most part ensued by occasion of ambiguity and doubts then not so perfectly declared but that men might upon froward intents expound them to every mans sinister appetite and affection and posterity of the Lawful kings and Emperours of this Realm whereof hath ensued great effusion and destruction of Mans
a Mental Reservation First We swear in this Oath as in all others to the Sense of the Authority that imposes it And can any body imagine that the Government impos'd this Test of Allegeance upon the People to leave them still at Liberty to play fast and loose with Reserves and Qualifications of their own And so to frustrate the main intent of the Oath by accommodating the Exposition of it for the serving of a Turn or a Faction The Oath binds them to Subjection and they absolve themselves of That Subjection by giving it the Name of Slavery And so every man is left at pleasure to take off his own Shackles But what if it were Slavery it self The Prince were to blame for straining his Authority but the Subjects nevertheless Criminal on the other side for withdrawing their Duty He has found a Loop-hole to evade This Oath by turning SVBIECTS into SLAVES But That will not do his business without turning a Lawful Successor to a Protestant Establisht and bounded Government into an arbitrary absolute Popish Tyrant In which supposition he holds forth This Doctrine to the People that in This Case there is a Forfeiture of the Government and that this is the very Case which we have now before us wherein contrary to Law Reason and the Fundamental Essentials of all Government he does as much as in him lyes authorize and incite the Multitude to a Sedition I answer that the Law is clearly against him for tho the Prerogative is bounded the Duty of the Subject is yet left unconditional there being no Law nor so much as the colour of any incase of the Kings passing his legal Limits to absolve the People of their Allegeance And it is not the Plea of Provocation or the exercise of a Tyrannical Power that will save the Subject from the Sentence oâ— the Law in case of any disloyal act of Assault or Resistance It is against Reason likewise that the Inferiour shall overrule the Superiour and invert the last Resort of Decision and Judgment from the Prince to the Subject It is lastly destructive of Government it self to suppose such a Reserve in a Political Constitution as carries the last Appreal to the People which is the case in this Proposition The King as a Trustee that abuses his power incurrs a Forfeiture as our Author will have it of that Trust and so all subordinate Trustees may incurr the like Forfeiture till all Communities are melted down again into the ridiculous conceit of the Original Soveraignty of the Multitude which is onely a Chaos of Anarchy and Confusion He is over again here with the Royal Constitution of the three free States of England which must be understood either of the Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons or of the King Lords and Commons reckoning His Majesty to be one of the three Estates Take it the former way and instead of Your Majesty's Loyal Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament which was the style even of the last Rebellion it self the Petition should run t'other way and say The humble Petition of Charles the second to your Majesties the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons â—ssembled in Parliament Now take it as accounting the King to be one of the three Estates that Imaginary Câ—ordination leaves him at the mercy of the other two whensoever they please The Learned and the Right Reverened Bishop of Lincoln in his Discourse of Popery pag. 4. England says he is a Monarchy the Crown Impâ—rial and our Kings Supreme Governours and sole Supreme Governours of this Realm and all other their Dominions c. In our Oath of Supremacy we sweaâ— That the King is the Only Supreme Governour Supreme so none not the Pope above him and Only Supreme so none Coordinate or equal to him The Character brings in the Subjects Petition of Right for a further countenance to his pretension but what noise soever it makes in the cars of the people there is not one syllable in it that appears in his favour And yet once again upon the presumptions ascresaid he grounds this Assertion That in such a case neither is he the same King that we swore to nor we the same Subjects that took the Oath If this be not Rome against Rome and Popery against Popery I know not what is But at the worst it is but paraphrazing upon the Oath of Allegiance as they did upon the Covenant Give me leave now to retort the Argument His Popish Successâ—r will be a Tyrant he says for it is a Tyrannical Religion But after all the stress of â—rreverent Language upon his R. H. he cannot charge any thing in the worldupon him that looks that way in his inclination But yet here 's enough says he to conclude the Reason and the Necessity of his Seclusion The Compiler of this Character would take it ill now on the other side if a man should say that his very argument against the Duke holds as true against the Author of the Character For that Dominion is founded in Grace is the Principle both for which and by which he pretends to Supplant the Successor Now why may we not apprehend Sedition from the one as well as Tyranny from the other Nay and with more Justice too considering that there is but a bare Contemplation the One way and the Practice of an enflaming Discourse over and above that Contemplation the other Char. But alas says he that Bug-bear Passive obedeience is a Notion crept into the world and most Zealously and perhaps as ignorantly defended Fol. 20. This Period brings him well nigh to his Journeys end For till now he contented himself with only opposing the primitive Practices and the Common Principles of Christianity in justifying a Violence upon an Impulse of Religion But the making of Passive Obedience only a Bug-bear and the Defence of it an effect of Ignorance brings it home to the very person of our Saviour and to the Doctrine that was delivered by those Holy Lips So far says the Learned Prelate above mentioned Pag. 55. was St. Paul from believing those Popish Rebellious Principles Denying the Superiority of the Civil power and from Dissoyalty or Disobedience to that Imperial tho' Pagan Power under which he Lived that he publickly acknowledged and humbly submitted to it Nor was he only in his own Person Obedient and a Loyal Subject to the Emperor but writing to the Romans he did as an Apostle of Jesus Chrâ—st command them also to be Loyal and Obedient Let every Soul every man be Subject to the Higher the Supreme Powers c. And then he adds that they should render to them Tribute Custom Fear Honour and all their Duties By Supreme Power there he means men possessing Supreme power and the Supreme power under which He and the Romans then were was Nero a most Impious Pagan and Persecutor of Christ and Christians and yet every Soulq within his Empire even Peter as well as Paul was by the Law of