Neighbouring Princes will not be denied but whether with more than one of them I question and whether thereby he did not sink the Reputation of his Justice and Honour both abroad and at home will appear by the respect he had at Rome where one would have thought he should have been courted at another rate for a Protestant instance the States denial of Dr. Burnet and not suffering the Doctor to with-draw though he desired it is sufficient and the Carriage of the French at Hudsons-hay shews their kindness as well as respect If our Author had considered these things surely he would not have bragged of the good Correspondence he held with his Neighbour Princes and States or of the Reputation he had acquired to himself abroad When I met the Author praising the late King for his Mercy and Compassion to his Enemies I began to suspect my Eyes and was in hopes that he would have brought us so good news from the West that we should speak no more of the Western Campaign and that the Numbers that were said to be executed there were only in Effigie and that he had the very persons to produce sound and in good health without I could have done this I should not have mentioned the other especially if I had been of the Author's opinion that he was Master of so many other good qualities I should think that the using this had been enough to make people suspect the rest of the Character for if that had been true there had been no need to add this so notoriously otherwise I have read the History of England and upon a serious reflection thereon I believe it may be truly said That so many of the Common people were not put to death by the Hand of Justice and driven into Exile for all the Rebellions of these 600 years as were served for that of Monmouth's which did not last six weeks the weaker Sex not spared But for the Duke of Alva's Government of the Netherlands Foreign Story could not have afforded a precedent but then I do not find that great Man praised for his Lenity in this we are an Original neither do I find that he was more exact in his Scrutiny than we were at Westminster where we were told that the Rebels were 6000 of which 2000 killed and only 2000 brought to Justice the other 2000 our Grand-Jury were directed to find out and yet after all this some people will brag of this Man's forgiving Nature the sobriety of his Life and discountenancing Debauchery may be true as to excessive Drinking but the placing his spurious Issue in the highest degree of Honour is no great discouragement to the other sort of Debauchery For his Assiduity in his Councils and Treasury and the rest of that Paragraph as it is needless to examine them so certainly the truth of them is no proof that the late King intended the happiness of his Subjects in general The next Paragraph asserts That it was the late King's opinion that Liberty of Conscience would be grateful to a great many of his Subjects and would invite Forreigners to fix their Habitations amongst us to our great advantage that it was the best expedient to bring us to a brotherly Love and to prevent the Calamities that befel this Kingdom in his Father's time and that he had this Notion still fixed in him with a design to signalize his Reign thereby In opposition to which I will endeavour to shew that the late King had no such glorious aim and that thereby he only intended to subvert the established Religion of these Kingdoms which will plainly appear if we consider first how different such a method is to the fundamental principles of his Religion as well as the practise of all Ages those that believe there is no Salvation out of the Church which is only one and that theirs if they have any Bowels of Compassion or Charity will endeavour the enlarging the pale of that Church And then that Hereticks are to be extirpated upon the penalty of having their Territories given away to others where this duty is neglected is as essential a part of his Religion as General Councils can make it therefore it were an injury to his Charity and Piety to suspect he would not use his power so as became a zealous and submissive Son of the Church and what could be a greater brand to the sincerity of his Religion than decreeing counter to infallible Councils it were as easie reconciling Toleration to Infallibility as such actions with being a good Catholick unless they were sanctified with a good intention and done for the good of the Church but to say he did not understand so much of the Arcana of his Religion cannot be supposed without saying he understood nothing of it and though he did not it cannot be doubted but he would have been told of his duty by some Monitory Briefs from Rome St. Peter's Successor used to be so kind to Princes as to lay before them the guilt and danger of actions less favourable to Hereticks and to call upon them to avoid both by executing the Decrees of the Church against them if it be said that the Roman Church at least the Guides of it approved what King James did in this matter and that to preserve his Conscience the Decrees of the Councils were suspended as to him I do verily believe it and think that it follows from thence that they knew what hook lay under that gilded bait otherwise I know not how the same persons could approve of the French King's Edict of October 85. annulling the perpetual and irrevocable Edict of Nantes and the barbarous manner of the execution of it and the late King's Declaration in 87. giving a general Liberty of Conscience two Decrees that concur only in one thing that they are both against the Laws of their several Lands In my opinion this would look so like an affront to that mighty Monarch's Conduct that unless he were likewise privy to the plot his Resentment would not be satisfied with less than a solemn Renunciation and taking new measures now he has the late King so much at his devotion And I doubt not if this proceeding had displeased him but in his late Contests with the Pope we should have heard him upbraiding his Holiness with this kindness to Hereticks but since neither of these have followed and that neither the King of France nor the Pope is offended at our Indulgence we may lawfully conclude there was little kindness thereby intended to us Secondly If this Notion had been still fixed in the late King and had he always been of opinion that none ought to be oppressed and persecuted for matters of Religion he would still have acted consonant to this principle which that he did not do is plain from his concurring with and promoting the enacting of the severest Laws against Dissenters in his Brother's time and also from his first Act of Government the rigorous imposing
January last was composed of these not a County City or Borough of England but appeared there by their Representatives and the whole Peers did or might have appeared by themselves or Proxies so that here was a Parliament in substance and the Author will not pretend that any thing was wanting but the King 's Writ to call them together To which I say first That anciently when Parliaments met at the King's Court on fixed times as the Feast of the Nativity and other Feasts every year we have no account of any Summons because the Time and Place of meeting being known that was needless But these Times are so dark that I will not insist much on this nor on the Election of our Kings in the Saxon Times which was done by an Assembly convened certainly without the King 's Writ or any Authority from one I confess that in the ordinary Administration of Affairs the King's Writ is requisite to bring the Nation to a great Council But this is not required so much for any Authority derived from thence as to keep up an agreement and harmony in the Government if this were otherwise all Members could sit in the House of Commons that have such a Writ authorizing their Election which not so especially in long-liv'd Parliaments such as King Charles the Second's was there a Majority of the House might have been of such as were Elected by vertue of a Warrant from the Speaker In 73 about Thirty Members Elected by vertue of the King's Writs were not suffered to sit but were dismissed the House and the Speaker Issued Warrants for new Elections so that in these cases the Authority seems to proceed more from the Speaker's Warrant than the King 's Writ But I say that from this usual practise it does not follow that the Estates may not Assemble otherwise in extraordinary Cases As in this Hereditary Monarchy Suppose the Royal Family were extinct must the Nation remain still in confusion never come into any form of Government because we cannot have the King 's Writ to Summon a Parliament that is unreasonable therefore the Representatives of the Nation must meet and settle the Government without any Writ of Summons this is no impossible supposition though it never happened in this Kingdom because it has happened in other places and upon such occasions the Government has been re-settled by the States Next Supposing that on the Death of the reigning King his Son or Successor is far distant this is no fictitious supposition because it really happened In what condition must we be until the return of our King or directions from him The Authority of our Judges Sheriffs c. determined with the King's Life so they cannot act therefore in this necessity to avoid Anarchy and Confusion the States of the Kingdom must meet and settle the Government by appointing Officers and doing what else is requisite for the safety of the Kingdom And this they did upon the Death of Henry the Third without any Writ or Authority from his absent Son After the Death of William Rufus the Crown of this Kingdom was given to King Henry by an Assembly of the people not chosen by Writ this shews also the regard they had in those days to the Lineal succession These instances shew that the King 's VVrit of Summons is not so essentially necessary to the Being of Parliaments but that the people of England may and have assembled in some cases without them of which we have a very late instance in the Parliament to which the Royal Family is much obliged and to which the Nation was more obliged than to any but the one now sitting I mean the Parliament that brought back the Royal Family This Parliament met without the King 's VVrit and was called in the Name of the Keepers of the Liberties of England and yet fate made Laws and acted as a Parliament with King Charles the second for several Months together and yet no Man can say there was so great reason for their continuing together as for the present Parliaments we had not then so many Enemies abroad and at home the Kingdom was in full quiet the French and Irish were not then our avowed Enemies nor ready to devour us a forty days delay then had not put us in the power of either of them as probably it had now done and if the King had now taken that course the consequence had only been the trouble of Electing the same persons a-new and postponing the necessary preparations for our security for two Months at least And if we further compare the Case in question with these I have mentioned we will find that it has much the advantage in other circumstances for that Parliament laboured under more difficulties than the want of VVrits of Summons a doubt that the Long Parliament was then in being by vertue of King Charles the First 's unfortunate Act that it should not be dissolved without their own consent and in 59 King Charles was at Breda or not much further off and he would gladly have Issued VVrits if they had been desired of him but his Brother cancelled and tore those he had once Issued that Parliament met without any request from the Body of the people this at the Express request of the City of London and almost the whole Nation and if that Parliament was called by those that Exercised the chief Authority in the Nation so was this by him that at our own desire had taken the Administration of Affairs upon him though the Royal Line was not extinct yet in October last the Kingdom was left as much in confusion and without government as if that misfortune had befallen us a Parliament by VVrits we could not have and without a Parliament it was impossible to settle the Kingdom so that we had no choice but either to continue without any Government as we were or to meet in Parliament as we did which being formerly done in other Countries as well as our own And since the King is pleased to consult with them we must acquiesce in their Judgments and obey them as the Legislative power of this Kingdom notwithstanding our Author's Jests here and his Assertions in the fourth Article That this is done without precedent or colour of Law The third Article Article is His committing and prosecuting the Bishops for humbly Petitioning to be excused from consenting to the said assumed Power of Suspending the Laws and their execution For answer to which our Author refers us to what he said on this subject before and therefore so do I. He tells us further on this Head That the present Government remembring the Proverb Felix quem faciunt is resolved to avoid the Rocks the last split upon which I look upon to be no ill news For now if we will take the Author's word there will be no further attempts against our Church or Religion our Laws or Properties but God-bethanked we have better assurance than the Author
struggle for Mastery occasioned what was so done It were but a small improvement of this Observation to shew that our Author broaches this Doctrine with the same design now when prudent and pious Endeavours are using to remove all stumbling-blocks out of the Dissenter's way in coming to our Churches which I hope will meet with the wished-for success notwithstanding all the endeavours of Rome and Hell to the contrary Next our Author goes to demonstrate That the overthrow of the Church of England or especially of Protestanism was never designed and this he thinks he does by the King 's so often declaring the contrary and by the sence he and his Juncto had that their Converts were but few and by the late King 's granting a safe retreat and liberal contribution to the French Protestants and by the paucity of the Papists in his Army To which I say that from all these it does not follow that the destruction of the Church was not designed for unless the King's Word were like the Laws of the Medes and Persians unalterable it will be but a loose Consequence the King promised not to do it therefore he will not it conculdes much stronger the Principles of his Religion obliege him to it therefore he will endeavour it When this Argument was used soon after the Gracious assurance given us at the first Council or first Session of Parliament where the same was again repeated it had so much colour of an Argument that it deceived many especially when there was subjoyned to it That these promises and assurances came from a Prince that valued his word so much as never to have broken it Buâ— now that we have seen him break through Laws that he had sworn as well as promised to maintain the very pretence to an Argument is vanished for as there is more Injustice so there is more of Dishonour in the one than the other When we examine his other instances they will prove as inconclusive for he could not deny a retreat to the fugitive Hugonots without allaruming his own Subjects and discovering his Designs too plainly to the most short-sighted and they were not then ripe for such a discovery After such an action who would have believed him that it was his Opinion That Conscience ought not to be forced If he had endeavoured either by fair or foul means to have preserved the Edict of Nantes to have supported that most distressed part of Mankind from their King's Barbarities as Queen Elizabeth did and his Father attempted it would have been a better proof of his love for Liberty of Conscience than either his Declarations or a small Charity afforded to a few fugitives which I must call but small when I consider what the Elector of Brandenburgh did for those poor people that great Man not only offorded them a safe retreat when they came into his Dominions but by a solemn Declaration invited them to take shelter there and to assist them in their Journey appointed his several Agents in Holland Hamburgh Francfort and Cologne to furnish all such of them as should desire it with what Vessels and Provisions they should stand in need of for the Transportation of themselves their Goods and Families to whatsoever Town in his Dominions they should pitch upon for the place of their abode But his kindness did not rest here for he provided Houses and Lands for them and their Heirs and where it was necessary he provided them all Materials for Repairs and Building where Houses were built on new Foundations they had Ten years Exemption from all Taxes and Duties and Six years where they were only repaired And for a further encouragement he made them Free of all his Towns and Corporations without paying any thing for the same and lest they might be oppressed he set over them a Jurisdiction composed of persons chosen by themselves and if any difference happened between them and a German this person was to joyn with the Magistrate in deciding the same and maintained one of their own Ministers for them in every Town with several other great favours If King James had taken this course our Author might have insisted on it at least as an heroick Act but since he did not set out a Fleet or so much as one single Ship to assist those poor people in their flight and when with difficulty they had gotten here he left them to their shifts and the charity of the Nation I do not see what he could have done less especially if we consider one discouragement that went along with it It is true he suffered them to breathe of his Air but would not suffer them to sigh or complain of the usage they had met with in France but at the instance of the French Ambassador ordered the Account they had written thereof to be Burnt by the hand of the Hangman which was accordingly done the fifth of May 86 and the Royal Exchange was made the place of Execution that the account thereof might fly the easier over France by our Merchant's Letters to their Correspondents there which as it proved a discouragement to those in France not to take sanctuary here so it so much frightned those that were then here that many of them thereupon removed to the West-Indies and other places where the French King's Ministers had not so much power being justly jealous that that power might soon be improved to a forcing them back But since our Author lays so much stress on this Act if ye examine the matter a little further we shall find these poor people owe the compleating of their misery to the late King For though the Tyrant began to oppress his Protestant Subjects some years ago which from time to time encreased as his Interest did at our Court yet he never ventured on the total suppression of the Reformed Religion nor revoked the Edict of Nantes until October 85. that the late King was on the Throne for as much his friend as King Charles was yet he did not know how far a Parliament might have influenced him to resent that matter therefore he forbore it until all was sure on this side the Water Next as to the Number of Papists in the Army they will appear very many if we consider two things First that there were fewer of them to be had in England than of other Men fit to be Souldiers and yet their proportion was greater with respect to the Army than to the Kingdom otherwise there had not been above two or three in a Regiment all that exceeded that number seems to be the effect of industry and pains rather than chance Next we must remember the little time the late King had for this mighty business he had little more than three years for the Raising his Army which at first to avoid offence was to be Protestant but a few Officers whose Loyalty he had experienced and having had the benefit of their Services in the late time of need and