forgotten among the rest for there is a scurvy Paragraph in it concerning Self-preservation that is capable of very unacceptable Glosses It is hard to tell what Section of the Law of Nature has mark'd out either such a Form of Government or such a Family for it And if his Majesty renounces his Pretensions to our Allegiance as founded on the Laws of England and betakes himself to this Law of Nature he will perhaps find the Counsel was a little too rash But to make the most of this that can be the Law of Nations or Nature does indeed allow the Governours of all Societies a Power to serve themselves of every Member of it in the cases of extream Danger but no Law of Nature that has been yet heard of will conclude that if by special Laws a sort of Men have been disabled from all Imployments that a Prince who at his Coronation swore to maintain those Laws may at his pleasure extinguish all these Disabilities X. At the end of the Declaration as in a Postscript His Majesty assures his Subjects that he will maintain them in their Properties as well in Church and Abby-Lands as other Lands But the Chief of all their Properties being the share that they have by their Representatives in the Legislative Power this Declaration which breaks thro' that is no great Evidence that the rest will be maintained And to speak plainly when a Coronation Oath is so little remembred other Promises must have a proportioned degree of Credit given to them As for the Abbey-Lands the keeping them from the Church is according to the Principles of that Religion Sacriledge and that is a Mortal Sin and there can no Absolution be given to any who continue in it And so this Promise being an Obligation to maintain men in a Mortal-Sin is null and void of it is self Church-Lands are also according to the Doctrine of their Canonists so immediately Gods Right that the Pope himself is only the Administrator and Dispenser but is not the Master of them he can indeed make a truck for God or let them so low that God shall be an easie Landlord but he cannot alter God's Property nor translate the Right that is in him to Sacrilegious Laymen and Hereticks XI One of the Effects of this Declaration will be the setting on foot a new run of Addresses over the Nation For there is nothing how impudent and base soever of which the abject Flattery of a slavish Spirit is not capable It must be confest to the Reproach of the Age that all those strains of Flattery among the Romans that Tacitus sets forth with so much just Scorn are modest things compared to what this Nation has produced within these seven Years only if our Flattery has come short of the Refinedness of the Romans it has exceeded theirs as much in its loathed Fulsomness The late King set out a Declaration in which he gave the most solemn Assurances possible of his adhering to the Church of England and to the Religion established by Law and of his Resolution to have frequent Parliaments upon which the whole Nation fell as it were into Raptures of Joy and Flattery But tho' he lived four Years after that he called no Parliament notwithstanding the Law for Triennial Parliaments and the manner of his Death and the Papers printed after his Death in his Name have sufficiently shewed that he was equally sincere in both those Assurances that he gave as well in that relating to Religion as in that other relating to frequent Parliaments yet upon his Death a new set of Addresses appeared in which all that Flattery could invent was brought forth in the Commendations of a Prince to whose Memory the greatest kindness can be done is to forget him And because his present Majesty upon his coming to the Throne gave some very general Promise of Maintaining the Church of England this was magnified in so extravagant a strain as if it had been a security greater than any that the Law could give tho' by the regard that the King has both to it and to the Laws it appears that he is resolved to maintain both equally Since then the Nation has already made it self sufficiently ridiculous both to the present and to all succeeding Ages it is time that at last men should grow weary and become ashamed of their Folly. XII The Nonconformists are now invited to set an Example to the rest and they who have valued themselves hitherto upon their Opposition to Popery and that have quarrelled with the Church of England for some small Approaches to it in a few Ceremonies are now sollicited to rejoyce because the Laws that secure us against it are all plucked up since they enjoy at present and during pleasure leave to meet together It is natural for all men to love to be set at ease especially in the matters of their Consciences but it is visible that those who allow them this favour do it with no other design but that under a pretence of a General Toleration they may introduce a Religion which must persecute all equally It is likewise apparent how much they are hated and how much they have been persecuted by the Instigation of those who now court them and who have now no Game that is more promising than the engaging them and the Church of England into new Quarrels And as for the Promises now made to them it cannot be supposed that they will be more lasting than those that were made some time ago to the Church of England who had both a better Title in Law and greater Merit upon the Crown to assure them that they should be well used than these can pretend to The Nation has scarce forgiven some of the Church of England the Persecution into which they have suffered themselves to be cousened tho' now that they see Popery barefac'd the Stand that they have made and the vigorous opposition that they have given to it is that which makes all men willing to forget what is past and raises again the Glory of a Church that was not a little stained by the Indiscretion and Weakness of those that were too apt to believe and hope and so suffered themselves to be made a Property to those who would now make them a Sacrifice The Sufferings of the Nonconformists and the Fury that the Popish Party expressed against them had recommended them so much to the Compassions of the Nation and had given them so just a Pretension to favour in a better time that it will look like a Curse of God upon them if a few men whom the Court has gained to betray them can have such an ill Influence upon them as to make them throw away all that Merit and those Compassions which their Sufferings have procured them and to go and court those who are only seemingly kind to them that they may destroy both them and us They must remember that as the Church of England is the only
have still as melancholy an answer to this as I have had to all the former Applications I have made I must maintain my Innocence the best way I can in which I will never forget that vast Duty that I owe His Majesty whatsoever I may meet with in my own particular If there is any thing either in the Inclosed Paper or in this Letter that seems a little too vehement I hope the provocation that I have met with will be likewise considered for while my Life and Reputation are struck at and while some here are threatning so high a man must be forgiven to shew that he is not quite unsensible tho my Duty to the King is Proof against all that can ever be done to provoke me yet I must be suffered to treat the Instruments and Procurers of my disgrace who are contriving my destruction with the plainness that such Practices draw from me I will delay Printing any thing for a fortnight till I see whether your Lordship is like to receive any Order from His Majesty relating to him who is May it please your Lordship Your Lordships c. At the Hague the 17. of May Old St. 1687. My Third Letter to the Earl of Middletoune May it please your Lordship I Venture once more to renew my Addresses to your Lordship before I Print the Paper that I sent you by my last of the 17. of May together with the Two Letters that I writ you for I find it necessary to add this and that it go with the rest to the Press I am told that great Advantages have been taken upon an Expression in my First Letter in which I writ that by my Naturalization during my stay here My Allegiance was translated from His Majesty to the Soveraignty of this Province as if this alone was crime enough and I hear that some who have been of the Profession of the Law are of this Mind I indeed thought that none who had ever pretended to study Law or the general Notions of the Entercourse among Nations could mistake in so clear a Point I cautioned my words so as to shew that I considered this Translation of my Allegiance only as a temporary thing during my stay here And can any man be so ignorant as to doubt of this Allegiance and Protection are things by their natures reciprocal since then Naturalization gives a Legal Protection there must be a return of Allegiance due upon it I do not deny but the root of Natural Allegiance remains but it is certainly under a suspension while the Naturalized Person enjoys the Protection of the Prince or State that has so received him I know what a Crime it had been if I had become Naturalized to any State in War with the King but when it was to a State that is in Alliance with him and when it was upon so just a ground as my being to be married and setled in this State as it could be no Crime in me to desire it so I having obtained it am not a little amazed to hear that any are so little conversant in the Law of Nations as to take Exceptions at my words Our Saviour has said that a man cannot serve two Masters and the nature of things say that a man cannot be at the same time under two Allegiances His Majesty by Naturalizing the Earl of Feversham and many others of the French Nation knows well what a right this gives him to their Allegiance which no doubt he as well as many others have sworn and this is a translating their Allegiance with a Witness That Lord was to have commanded the Troops that were to be sent into Flanders in 1678. against his Natural Prince and yet tho' the Laws of France are high enough upon the points of Soveraignty it was never so much as pretended that this was a Crime And it is so much the Interest of all Princes to assure themselves of those whom they receive into their Protection by Naturalizing them since without that they should give Protection to so many Spies and Agents for another Prince that if I had not very good ground to assure me that some have pretended to make a Crime out of my Words I could not easily believe it My Lord this is the last trouble that I will give your Lordship upon this Subject for it being now a month since I made my first Address to you I must conclude that it is resolved to carry this matter to all Extremities and Mr. d' Albevilles Instances against me and the Threatnings of some of his Countreymen make me conclude that all my most humble Addresses to His Majesty are like to have no other effect but this that I have done my duty in them so that it seems I am to be judged in Scotland I am sorry for it because this must engage me in a defence of my self I mean a Justification of my own Innocence which I go to much against my heart but God and man see that I am forced to it and no Threatnings of any here will frighten me for I will do that which I think fit for me to do to day though I were sure to be assassinated for it to morrow but to the last moment of my Life I will pay all Duty and Fidelity to His Majesty My Lord I am with a profound respect Your Lordships c. At the Hague the 6. of June Old St. 1687. ADVERTISEMENT WHen I had resolved on the Printing these Papers and was waiting till the day should come to which I was cited I received a new Advertisement that the first Citation was let fall and that I was cited of new to the 15 of August to Answer to the Crimes of High Treason upon the account of two Heads in my first Letter to the Earl of Middletoune The one is that I say that by my Naturalization I am loosed from any Allegiance to His Majesty and the other is that I threaten His Majesty with the Printing and Discovering of Secrets that have been long hid If after what I have hitherto met with there were room left for new Surprises this would have been a very great one Those who have advised the King to this way of Proceeding against me shew that they consider very little the Reputation of His Majesty's Justice and so I be but Sacrificed they do not care how much the Kings Honour suffers in it for First after a Citation of High Treason which has made so much noise that is let fall Which is plainly to confess that there is no truth in all those Matters that were laid to my Charge and then where is the Justice of this way of Proceeding to Summon a Man to appear upon the pretence of Crimes of which they know him to be Innocent But this new matter is of such a Nature that it is not easy for me to find words soft enough to speak of it with the decency that becomes me This is now more the Cause of
of Rome as guilty of Idolatry unless at the same time we part with our Religion X. Others give us a strange sort of Argument to persuade us to part with the Test they say The King must imploy his Popish Subjects for he can trust no other and he is so assured of their Fidelity to him that we need apprehend no Danger from them This is an odd Method to work on us to let in a sort of People to the Parliament and Government since the King cannot trust us but will depend on them so that as soon as this Law is repealed they must have all the Imployments and have the whole Power of the Nation lodged in their hands this seems a little too gross to impose even on Irishmen The King saw for many Years together with how much Zeal both the Clergy and many of the Gentry appeared for his Interests and if there is now a Melancholy Damp on their Spirits the King can dissipate it when he will and as the Church of England is a Body that will never rebel against him so any Sullenness under which the late Administration of Affairs has brought them would soon vanish if the King would be pleased to remember a little what he has so often promised not only in Publick but in Private and would be contented with the Exercise of his own Religion without embroiling his whole Affairs because F. Petre will have it so and it tempts Englishmen to more than ordinary degrees of Rage against a sort of Men who it seems can infuse in a Prince born with the highest sense of Honour possible Projects to which without doing some Violence to his own Royal Nature he could not so much as hearken to if his Religion did not so fatally muffle him up in a blind Obedience But if we are so unhappy that Priests can so disguise Matters as to mislead a Prince who without their ill Influences would be the most Glorious Monarch of all Europe and would soon reduce the Grand Louis to a much humbler Figure yet it is not to be so much as imagined that ever their Arts can be so unhappily successful as to impose on an English Parliament composed of Protestant Members SOME REFLECTIONS On His MAJESTY'S PROCLAMATION Of the Twelfth of February 1686 / 7. for a TOLERATION in Scotland Together with the said PROCLAMATION I. THe Preamble of a Proclamation is oft writ in haste and is the Flourish of some wanton Pen but one of such an Extraordinary nature as this is was probably more severely examined there is a new Designation of his Majesty's Authority here set forth of his Absolute Power which is so often repeated that it deserves to be a little searched into Prerogative Royal and Sovereign Authority are Terms already received and known but for this Absolute Power as it is a new Term so those who have coined it may make it signifie what they will. The Roman Law speaks of Princeps Legibus solutus and Absolute in its natural signification importing the being without all Ties and Restraints then the true meaning of this seems to be that there is an Inherent Power in the King which can neither be restrained by Laws Promises nor Oaths for nothing less than the being free from all these renders a Power Absolute II. If the former Term seemed to stretch our Allegiance that which comes after it is yet a step of another nature tho' one can hardly imagine what can go beyond Absolute Power and it is in these Words Which all our Subjects are to obey without reserve And this is the carrying Obedience many sizes beyond what the Grand Seigneur has ever yet claimed For all Princes even the most violent Pretenders to Absolute Power till Lewis the Great 's Time have thought it enough to oblige their Subjects to submit to their Power and to bear whatsoever they thought good to impose upon them but till the Days of the late Conversions by Dragoons it was never so much as pretended that Subjects were bound to obey their Prince without Reserve and to be of his Religion because he would have it so Which was the only Argument that those late Apostles made use of so it is probable this Qualification of the Duty of Subjects was put in here to prepare us for a terrible le Roy le veut and in that case we are told here that we must obey without reserve and when those severe Orders come the Privy-Council and all such as execute this Proclamation will be bound by this Declaration to shew themselves more forward than any others to obey without reserve and those poor Pretensions of Conscience Religion Honour and Reason will be then reckoned as Reserves upon their Obedience which are all now shut out III. These being the Grounds upon which this Proclamamation is founded we ought not only to consider what Consequences are now drawn from them but what may be drawn from them at any time hereafter for if they are of force to justifie that which is now inferred from them it will be full as just to draw from the same Premises an Abolition of the Protestant Religion of the Rights of the Subjects not only to Church-lands but to all Property whatsoever In a word it asserts a Power to be in the King to command what he will and an Obligation in the Subjects to obey whatsoever he shall command IV. There is also mention made in the Preamble of the Christian Love and Charity which his Majesty would have established among Neighbours but another dash of a Pen founded on this Absolute Power may declare us all Hereticks and then in wonderful Charity to us we must be told that we are either to obey without Reserve or to be burnt without Reserve We know the Charity of that Church pretty well It is indeed Fervent and Burning and if we have forgot what has been done in former Ages France Savoy and Hungary have set before our Eyes very fresh Instances of the Charity of that Religion While those Examples are so green it is a little too imposing on us to talk to us of Christian Love and Charity No doubt his Majesty means sincerely and his Exactness to all his Promises chiefly to those made since he came to the Crown will not suffer us to think an unbecoming Thought of his Royal Intentions but yet after all tho' it seems by this Proclamation that we are bound to obey without Reserve it is Hardship upon Hardship to be bound to Believe without Reserve V. There are a sort of People here tolerated that will be very hardly found out and these are the Moderate Presbyterians Now as some say that there are very few of those People in Scotland that deserve this Character so it is hard to tell what it amounts to and the calling any of them Immoderate cuts off all their share in this Grace Moderation is a Quality that lies in the Mind and how this will be found out I
Establishment that our Religion has by Law so it is the main body of the Nation and all the Sects are but small and stragling Parties and if the legal Settlement of the Church is dissolved and that Body is once broken these lesser Bodies will be all at mercy and it is an easie thing to define what the Mercies of the Church of Rome are XIII But tho' it must be confessed that the Nonconformists are still under some Temptations to receive every thing that gives them present ease with a little too much kindness since they lie exposed to many severe Laws of which they have of late felt the weight very heavily and as they are men and some of them as ill-natured men as other People so it is no wonder if upon the first Surprises of the Declaration they are a little delighted to see the Church of England after all its Services and Submissions to the Court so much mortified by it so that taking all together it will not be strange if they commit some Follies upon this occasion Yet on the other hand it passes all imagination to see some of the Church of England especially those whose Natures we know are so particularly sharpned in the point of Persecution chiefly when it is levelled against the Dissenters rejoyce at this Declaration and make Addresses upon it It is hard to think that they have attained to so high a pitch of Christian Charity as to thank those who do now despitefully use them and that as an earnest that within a little while they will persecute them This will be an Original and a Master-piece in Flattery which must needs draw the last degrees of Contempt on such as are capable of so abject and sordid a compliance and that not only from all the true Members of the Church of England but likewise from those of the Church of Rome it self for every man is apt to esteem an Enemy that is brave even in his Misfortunes as much as he despises those whose minds sink with their Condition For what is it that these men would thank the King Is it because he breaks those Laws that are made in their favour and for their Protection and is now striking at the Root of all the legal Settlement that they have for their Religion Or is it because that at the same time that the King professes a Religion that condemns his Supremacy yet he is not contented with the Exercise of it as it is warranted by Law but carries it so far as to erect a Court contrary to the express words of a Law that was so lately made That Court takes care to maintain a due proportion between their Constitution and all their Proceedings that so all may be of a piece and all equally contrary to Law. They have suspended one Bishop only because he would not do that which was not in his power to do for since there is no Extrajudiciary Authority in England a Bishop can no more proceed to a Sentence of Suspension against a Clergy man without a Trial and the hearing of Parties than a Judge can give a Sentence in his Chamber without an Indictment a Trial or a Jury and because one of the Greatest Bodies of England would not break their Oaths and obey a Mandate that plainly contradicted them we see to what a pitch this is like to be carried I will not anticipate upon this illegal Court to tell what Judgments are coming but without carrying our Jealousies too far one may safely conclude that they will never depart so far from their first Institution as to have any regard either to our Religion or our Laws or Liberties in any thing they do If all this were acted by avowed Papists as we are sure it is projected by such there were nothing extraordinary in it but that which carries our Indignation a little too far to be easily governed is to see some pretended Protestants and a few Bishops among those that are the fatal Instruments of pulling down the Church of England and that those Mercenaries sacrifice their Religion and their Church to their Ambition and Interests this has such peculiar Characters of Misfortune upon it that it seems it is not enough if we perish without Pity since we fall by that hand that we have so much supported and fortified but we must become the Scorn of all the World since we have produced such an unnatural Brood that even while they are pretending to be the Sons of the Church of England are cutting their Mother's Throat and not content with Judas's Crime of saying Hail Master and kissing him while they are betraying him into the hands of others these carry their Wickedness further and say Hail Mother and then they themselves Murther her If after all this we were called on to bear this as Christians and to suffer it as Subjects if we were required in Patience to possess our own Souls and to be in Charity with our Enemies and which is more to forgive our False-Brethren who add Treachery to their Hatred The Exhortation were seasonable and indeed a little necessary for human Nature cannot easily take down things of such a hard digestion but to tell us that We must make Addresses and offer Thanks for all this is to insult a little too much upon us in our Sufferings And he that can believe that a dry and cautiously worded Promise of maintaining the Church of England will be religiously observed after all that we have seen and is upon that carried so far out of his Wits as to Address and give Thanks and will believe still such a man has nothing to excuse him from believing Transubstantiation it self for it is plain that he can bring himself to believe even when the thing is contrary to the clearest Evidence that his Senses can give him Si populus hic vult decipi decipiatur POSCRIPT THese Reflections were writ soon after the Declaration came to my Hands but the Matter of them was so tender and the Conveyance of them to the Press was so uneasie that they appear now too late to have one Effect that was designed by them which was the diverting Men from making Addresses upon it yet if what is here proposed makes Men become so far wise as to be ashamed of what they have done and is a means to keep them from carrying their Courtship further than good Words this Paper will not come too late AN ANSWER TO Mr. HENRY PAYNE's LETTER Concerning His MAJESTY's DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE Writ to the Author of The LETTER to a DISSENTER Mr. PAYNE I Cannot hold asking you how much Money you had from the Writer of the Paper which you pretend to Answer For as you have the Character of a Man that deals with both Hands so this is writ in such a manner as to make one think you were hired to it by the Adverse Party But it has been indeed so ordinary to your Friends to write in this manner of late
with the King and what Hopes She gave the Party yet they did not so entirely espouse the King's cause but that they had likewise a flying Squadron in the Parliaments Army how boldly soever this may be denied by our Author for this I will give him a Proof that is beyond exception in a Declaration of that Kings sent to the Kingdom of Scotland bearing date the 21 of April 1643. which is printed over and over again and as an Author that writes the History of the late Wars has assured us the clean draught of it corrected in some places with the King 's own Hand is yet extant so that it cannot be pretended that this was only a bold Assertion of some of the Kings Ministers that might be ill affected to their Party In that Declaration the King studied to possess his Subjects of Scotland with the Justice of his Cause and among other things to clear himself of that Imputation that he had an Army of Papists about him after many things said on that head these words are added Great numbers of that Religion have been with great Alacrity entertained in that Rebellious Army against us and others have been seduced to whom we had formerly denied Imployments as appears by the Examination of many Prisoners of whom we have taken twenty and thirty at a time of one Troop or Company of that Religion I hope our Author will not have the Impudence to dispute the Credit that is due to this Testimony but no Discoveries how evident so ever they may be can affect some sort of Men that have a Secret against blushing V. Our Author exhorts us to change our Principles of Loyalty and to take example of our Catholick Neighbours how to behave our selves towards a Prince that is not of our Perswasion But would he have us learn of our Irish Neighbours to cut our Fellow-subjects Throats and rebel against our King because he is of another Religion For that is the freshest Example that any of our Catholick Neighbours have set us and therefore I do not look so far back as to the Gunpowder-Plot or the League of France in the last Age. He reproaches us for failing in our Fidelity to our King. But in this matter we appeal to God Angels and Men and in particular to His Majesty Let our Enemies shew any one point of our Duty in which we have failed for as we cannot be charged for having preach'd any seditious Doctrine so we are not wanting in the preaching of the Duties of Loyalty even when we see what they are like to cost us The Point which he singles out is That we have failed in that grateful Return that we owed His Majesty for his Promise of maintaining our Church as it is established by Law since upon that we ought to have repealed the Sanguinary Laws and the late impious Tests the former being enacted to maintain the Usurpation of Queen Elizabeth and the other being contrived to exclude the present King. We have not failed to pay all the Gratitude and Duty that was possible in return to His Majesties Promise which we have carried so far that we are become the Object even of our Enemies Scorn by it With all Humility be it said that if His Majesty had promised us a farther Degree of his Favour than that of which the Law had assured us it might have been expected that our return should have been a degree of Obedience beyond that which was required by Law so that the return of the Obedience injoined by Law answers a Promise of a Protection according to Law Yet we carried this matter further for as was set forth in the beginning of this Paper we went on in so high a pace of Compliance and Confidence that we drew the Censures of the whole Nation on us Nor could any Jealousies or Fears give us the least Apprehensions till we were so hard pressed in matters of Religion that we could be no longer silent The same Apostle that taught us to honour the King said likewise that we must obey God rather than man. Our Author knows the History of our Laws ill for besides what has been already said touching the Laws made by Queen Elizabeth the severest of all our Penal Laws and that which troubles him and his Friends most was past by K. James after the Gunpowder-Plot a Provocation that might have well justified even greater Severities But tho' our Author may hope to impose on an ignorant Reader who may be apt to believe implicitly what he says concerning the Laws of the last Age yet it was too bold for him to assert that the Tests which are so lately made were contrived to exclude the present King when there was not a Thought of Exclusion many years after the first was made and the Duke was excepted out of the Second by a special Proviso But these Gentlemen will do well never to mention the Exclusion for every time that it is named it will make People call to mind the Service that the Church of England did in that matter and that will carry with it a Reproach of Ingratitude that needs not be aggravated He also confounds the two Tests as if that for Publick Imployments contained in it a Declaration of the King 's being an Idolater or as he makes it a Pagan which is not at all in it but in the other for the Members of Parliament in which there is indeed a Declaration that the Church of Rome is guilty of Idolatry which is done in general terms without applying it to His Majesty as our Author does Upon this he would infer That his Majesty is not safe till the Tests are taken away but we have given such Evidences of our Loyalty that we have plainly shewed this to be false since we do openly declare that our Duty to the King is not founded on his being of this or that Religion so that His Majesty has a full Security from our Principles tho' the Tests continue since there is no reason that we who did run the hazard of being ruined by the Excluders when the Tide was so strong against us would fail his Majesty now when our Interest and Duty are joyned together But if the Tests are taken away it is certain that we can have no Security any longer for we shall be then laid open to the Violence of such restless and ill-natured men as the Author of this Paper and his Brethren are VI. The same reason that made our Saviour refuse to throw himself down from the Roof of the Temple when the Devil tempted him to it in the vain Confidence that Angels must be assistant to him to preserve him holds good in our Case Our Saviour said Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And we dare not trust our selves to the Faith and to the Mercies of a Society that is but too well known to the World to pretend that we should pull down our Pales to let in such Wolves among us
Sincerity that he endeavoured to perswade all others to rely as much on his Word as he himself did It is well known how fatal this Confidence was to him and see Meteren lib. 3. that two years after this that King sent over the Duke of Alva with that severe Commission which has been often printed in which without any regard had to the former Pacification or Promises the King declared that the Provinces had forfeited all their Liberties and that every man in it had forfeited his life and therefore he authorised that unmerciful Man to proceed with all possible Rigour against them It is also remarkable that that bloody Commission is founded on the King 's Absolute Power and his Zeal for Religion This is the only Edict that I know in which a King has pretended to Absolute Power before the two Declarations for Scotland in the year 1687. so whether they who penned them took their Pattern from this I cannot determine it I could carry this view of History much further to shew in many more Instances how little Protestants can depend on the Faith of Roman Catholicks and that their Condition is so much the worse the more pious that their Princes are As for what may be objected to all this from the present State of some Principalities or Towns in Germany or of the Switzers and Grisons it is to be considered that in some of these want of Power in the Roman Catholicks to do mischief and the other Circumstances of their Affairs are visibly the only Securities of the Protestants and whensoever this Nation departs from that and gives up the Laws it is no hard thing to guess how short-lived the Liberty of Conscience even tho' setled into a Magna Charta would be V. All that our Author says upon the General Subject of Liberty of Conscience is only a severe Libel upon that Church whose Principles and Practices are so contrary to it But the Proposition lately made has put an end to all this Dispute since by an Offer of Repealing the Penal Laws reserving only those of the Test and such others as secure the Protestant Religion the question is now no more which Religion must be tolerated but which Religion must reign and prevail All that is here offered in Opposition to that is that by this means such a number of Persons must be ruined Pag. 64. which is as severe a way of forcing People to change their Religion as the way of Dragoons I will not examine the particulars of this matter but must express my joy to find that all the Difficulty which is in our way to a happy quiet is the supplying such a number of men with the means of their subsistance which by the Execution of the Law for the Test must be taken from them This by all that I can learn will not come to near an Hundred Thousand Pound a year and indeed the supplying of those of the King's Religion that want it is a piece of Charity and Bounty so worthy of him that I do not know a man that would envy them the double of this in Pensions and if such a Sum would a little charge the King's Revenue I dare say when the Settlement of the Nation is brought to that single point there would not be one Negative found in either House of Parliament for the reimbursing the King So far are we from desiring either the Destruction or even the Poverty of those that perhaps wait only for an occasion to burn us I will add one bold thing further that tho' I will be no undertaker for what a Parliament may do yet I am confident that all men are so far from any desire of Revenge but most of all that the Heroical Minds of the next Successors are above it that if an Indemnity for that bold violation of the Law that has been of late both practised and authorised among us would procure a full Settlement even this could be obtained tho' an Impunity after such Transgressions is perhaps too great an Encouragement to offend for the future But since it is the Preservation of the Nation and not the ruine of any party in it that is aimed at the Hardiness of this Proposition will I hope be forgiven me It is urged pag. 63. that according to the Dutch Pattern at least the Roman Catholicks may have a share in Military Employments but the difference between our Case and theirs is clear since some Roman Catholick Officers where the Government is wholly in the Hands of of Protestants cannot be of such dangerous Consequence as it must needs be under a King that is not only of that Perswasion but is become nearly allied to the Society as the Liege Letter tells us VI. It is true our Author would perswade us that the King 's dispensing Power has already put an end to the Dispute and that therefore it is a seeming sort of Perjury see pag. 48. to keep the Justices of Peace still under an Oath of executing those Laws which they must consider no more Some Presidents are brought from former times pag. 22 23 24. of our Kings using the dispensing Power in Edward the Third Richard the Second Henry the Seventh Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth's time It is very true that the Laws have been of late broke through among us with a very high hand but it is a little too dangerous to upbraid the Justices of Peace with their Oaths lest this oblige them to reflect on so sacred an Engagement for the worthy Members of Magdalen Colledge are not the only Persons in England who will make Conscience of observing their Oaths so that if others are brought to reflect too much on what they do our Author's Officiousness in suggesting this to them may prove to be no acceptable piece of servce I will not examine all his Presidents we are to be governed by Law and not by some of the excesses of Government nor is the latter end of Edward the Third a time to be much imitated and of all the parts of the English History Richard the Second's Reign should be the least mentioned since those excesses of his produced so Tragical a Conclusion as the loss of his Crown and Life Henry the Sixth's feeble and imbroiled Reign will scarce support an Argument and if there were some excesses in Henry the Eighth's time which is ordinary in all great Revolutions he got all these to be either warranted or afterwards confirmed in Parliament And Q. Elizabeth's Power in Ecclesiastical matters was founded on a special Act of Parliament which was in a great measure repealed in the year 1641. and that Repeal was again ratified by another Act in the late King's time We are often told of the late King's repealing the Act concerning the Sise of Carts and Waggons but all Lawyers know that some Laws are understood to be abrogated without a special Repeal when some visible Inconvenience enforces it such as appeared in that
a Generous and Christian Temper can desire In short unhappy Counsels were followed and severe Laws were made But after all it was the Court Party that carried it for rougher Methods Some considerable Accidents not necessary to be here mentioned as they stopped the Mouths of some that had formed a wiser Project so they gave a fatal Advantage to angry and crafty Men that to our misfortune had too great a stroak in the conduct of our Affairs at that Time. This Spirit of Severity was heightned by the Practices of the Papists who engaged the late King in December 1662 to give a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience Those who knew the Secret of his Religion as they saw that it aimed at the Introduction of Popery so they thought there was no way so effectual for the keeping out of Popery as the maintaining the Uniformity and the suppressing of all Designs for a Toleration But while those who managed this used a due reserve in not discovering the secret Motive that led them to it others flew into Severity as the Principle in vogue And thus all the slacknings of the rigour of the Laws during the first Dutch War that were set on upon the pretence of quieting the Nation and of encouraging Trade were resisted by the Instruments of an honest Minister of State who knew as well then as we do now what lay still at bottom when Liberty of Conscience was pretended VI. Upon that Minister's Disgrace some that saw but the half of the Secret perceiving in the Court a great inclination to Toleration and being willing to take Measures quite different from those of the former Ministry they entred into a Treaty for a Comprehension of some Dissenters and the tolerating of others And some Bishops and Clergy-men that were inferior to none of the Age in which they lived for true Worth and a right Judgment of Things engaged so far and with so much success into this Project that the Matter seemed done all things being concerted among some of the most considerable Men of the different Parties But the dislike of that Ministry and the Jealousy of the ill Designs of the Court gave so strong a Prejudice against this that the Proposition could not be so much as hearkned to by the House of Commons And then it appeared how much the whole Popish Party was allarmed at the Project It is well known with how much Detestation they speak of it to this day though we are now so fully satisfied of their Intentions to destroy us that the Zeal which they pretended for us in opposing that Design can no more pass upon us VII At last in the Year 1672. the Design for Popery discovering it self the End that the Court had in favouring a Toleration became more visible And when the Parliament met that condemned the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience the Members of the House of Commons that either were Dissenters or that favoured them behaved themselves so worthily in concurring with those of the Church of England for stifling that Toleration chusing rather to lose the benefit of it than to open a Breach at which Popery should come in that many of the Members that were of the Church of England promised to procure them a Bill of Ease for Protestant Dissenters But the Session was not long enough for bringing that to Perfection and all the Sessions of that Parliament after that were spent in such a continual struggle between the Court and Country-Party that there was never room given for calm and wise Consultations yet though the Party of the Church of England did not perform what had been promised by some leading Men to the Dissenters there was little or nothing done against them after that till the Year 1681 so that for about nine Years together they had their Meetings almost as publickly and as regularly as the Church of England had their Churches and in all that time whatsoover particular Hardships any of them might have met with in some corners of England it cannot be denied but they had the free Exercise of their Religion at least in most parts VIII In the Year 1678 things began to change their face it is known that upon the breaking out of the Popish Plot the Clergy did universally express a great desire for coming to some temper in the Points of Conformity all sorts and ranks of the Clergy seemed to be so well disposed towards it that if it had met with a sutable Entertainment matters might probably have been in a great measure composed But the Jealousy that those who managed the Civil Concerns of the Nation in the House of Commons took off all that was done at Court or proposed by it occasioned a fatal Breach in our Publick Councils in which division the Clergy by their Principles and Interests and their Disposition to believe well of the Court were determined to be of the King's side They thought it was a Sin to mistrust the late King's Word who assured them of his steadiness to the Protestant Religion so often that they firmly depended on it and his present Majesty gave them so many Assurances of his maintaining still the Church of England that they believed him likewise and so thought that the Exclusion of him from the Crown was a degree of Rigor to which they in Conscience could not consent upon which they were generally cried out on as the Betrayers of the Nation and of the Protestant Religion Those who demanded the Exclusion and some other Securities to which the Bishops would not consent in Parliament looked on them as the chief hinderance that was in their way and the License of the Press at that time was such that many Libels and some severe Discourses were published against them Nor can it be denied that many Church-men who understood not the Principles of Human Society and the Rules of our Government so well as other Points of Divinity writ several Treatises concerning the measures of Submission that were then as much censured as their Performances since against Popery have been deservedly admired All this gave such a Jealousy of them to the Nation that it must be confessed that the Spirit which was then in fermentation went very high against the Church of England as a Confederate at least to Popery and Tyranny Nor were several of the Nonconformists wanting to inflame this dislike all secret Propositions for accommodating our Differences were so coldly entertained that they were scarce hearkned to The Propositions which an Eminent Divine made even in his Books writ against Separation shewed that while we maintained the War in the way of Dispute yet we were still willing to treat for that great Man made not those Advances towards them without consulting with his Superiors Yet we were then fatally given up to a Spirit of Dissention and tho the Parliament in 1680 entred upon a project for healing our Differences in which great steps were made to the removing of all the occasions of
our Contest the Leaders of the Dissenters to the amazement of all Persons made no account of this and even seemed uneasy at it of which the Earl of Nottingham and Sir Thomas Clarges that set on that Bill with much Zeal can give a more particular account All these things concurred to make those of the Church of England conclude a little too rashly that their Ruin was resolved on and then it was no wonder if the Spirit of a Party the remembrance of the last Wars the present prospect of Danger and above all the great favour that was shewed them at Court threw them into some angry and violent Counsels Self-preservation is very natural and it is plain that many of them took that to be the case so that truly speaking it was not so much at first a Spirit of Persecution as a desire of disabling those who they believed intended to ruin them from effecting their Designs that set them on to all those unhappy things that followed They were animated to all they did by the continued Earnestness of the King and Duke and their Ministers That Reproach of Justice and of the Profession of the Law who is now so high was singled out for no other end but to be their Common-Hangman over England of whom the late King gave this true Character That he had neither Wit Law nor Common Sense but that he had the Impudence of ten carted Whores in him Another Buffoon was hired to plague the Nation with three or four Papers a Week which to the Reproach of the Age in which we live had but too great and too general an effect for poisoning the Spirits of the Clergy But those who knew how all this was managed saw that it was not only set on but still kept up by the Court. If any of the Clergy had put preached a word for Moderation he had a chiding sent him presently from the Court and he was from that day marked out as a disaffected Person and when the Clergy of London did very worthily refuse to give Informations against their Parishioners that had not always conformed the design having been formed upon that to bring them into the Spiritual Courts and excommunicate them and make them lose their Right of Voting that so the Charter of London might have been delivered up when so many Citizens were by such means shut out of the Common-Council We remember well how severely they were censured for this by some that are now dead and others that are yet alive I will not go further into this matter I will not deny but many of the Dissenters were put to great Hardships in many parts of England I cannot deny it and I am sure I will never justify it But this I will positively say having observed it all narrowly that he must have the brow of a Jesuit that can cast this wholly on the Church of England and free the Court of it The beginnings and the progress of it came from the Court and from the Popish Party and though perhaps every one does not know all the Secrets of this matter that others may have found out yet no Man was so ignorant as not to see what was the chief Spring of all those irregular Motions that some of us made at that time so upon the whole matter all that can be made out of this is that the Passions and Infirmities of some of the Church of England being unhappily stirred up by the Dissenters they were fatally conducted by the Popish Party to be the Instruments in doing a great deal of Mischief IX It is not to be doubted but though some weaker Men of the Clergy may perhaps still retain their little peevish Animosities against the Dissenters yet the wiser and more serious Heads of that great and worthy Body see now their Error they see who drove them on in it till they hoped to have ruined them by it And as they have appeared against Popery with as great a strength of Learning and of firm Steadiness as perhaps can be met with in all Church-History so it cannot be doubted but their Reflections on the Dangers into which our Divsions have thrown us have given them truer Notions with relation to a rigorous Conformity and that the just Detestation which they have expressed of the Corruptions of the Church of Rome has led them to consider and abhor one of the worst things in it I mean their Severity towards Hereticks And the ill use that they see the Court has made of their Zeal for supporting the Crown to justify the Subversion of our Government that is now set on from some of their large and unwary Expressions will certainly make them hereafter more cautious in meddling with Politicks the Bishops have under their Hands both disowned that wide extent of the Prerogative to the overturning of the Law and declared their Disposition to come to a Temper in the matters of Conformity and there seems to be no doubt left of the Sincerity of their Intentions in that matter Their Piety and Vertue and the prospect that they now have of suffering themselves put us beyond all doubt as to their Sincerity and if ever God in his Providence brings us again into a settled State out of the Storm into which our Passions and Folly as well as the Treachery of others has brought us it cannot be imagined that the Bishops will go off from those moderate Resolutions which they have now declared and they continuing firm to them the weak and indiscreet Passions of any of the Inferior Clergy must needs vanish when they are under the Conduct of wise and worthy Leaders And I will boldly say this that if the Church of England after she has got out of this Storm will return to hearken to the peevishness of some four Men she will be abandoned both of God and Man and will set both Heaven and Earth against her The Nation sees too visibly how dear the dispute about Conformity has cost us to stand any more upon such Punctilios and Those in whom our Deliverance is wrapt up understand this matter too well and judg too right of it to imagine that ever they will be Priest-ridden in this point So that all Considerations concur to make us conclude that there is no danger of our splitting a second time upon the same Rock and indeed if any Argument were wanting to compleat the certainty of this Point the wise and generous Behaviour of the main Body of the Dissenters in this present Juncture has given them so just a Title to our Friendship that we must resolve to set all the World against us if we can ever forget it and if we do not make them all the returns of Ease and Favour when it is in our Power to do it X. It is to be hoped that when this is laid together it will have that effect on all sober and true Protestants as to make them forget the little angry Heats that have
in which we are and it is plain that the Rules serve in the Gospel can be carried no further It is indeed clear from the New Testament that the Christian Religion as such gives us no grounds to defend or propagate it by force It is a Doctrine of the Cross and of Faith and Patience under it And if by the order of Divine Providence and of any Constitution of Government under which we are born we are brought under Sufferings for our professing of it we may indeed retire and fly out of any such Country if we can but if that is denied us we must then according to this Religion submit to those Sufferings under which we may be brought considering that God will be glorified by us in so doing and that he will both support us under our Suffering and gloriously reward us for them This was the State of the Christian Religion during the three first Centuries under Heathen Emperors and a Constitution in which Paganism was establish'd by Law. But if by the Laws of any Government the Christian Religion or any Form of it is become a part of the Subjects Property it then falls under another Consideration not as it is a Religion but as it is become one of the principal Rights of the Subjects to believe and profess it and then we must judg of the Invasions made on that as we do of any other Invasion that is made on our other Rights X. All the Passages in the New Testament that relate to Civil Government are to be expounded as they were truly meant in opposition to that false Notion of the Jews who believed themselves to be so immediately under the Divine Authority that they could not become the Subjects of any other Power particularly of one that was not of their Nation or of their Religion therefore they thought they could not be under the Roman Yoke nor bound to pay Tribute to Caesar but judged that they were only subject out of Fear by reason of the Force that lay on them but not for Conscience sake And so in all their Dispersion both at Rome and elsewhere they thought they were God's Freemen and made use of this pretended Liberty as a Cloak of Maliciousness In opposition to all which since in a course of many Years they had asked the Protection of the Roman Yoke and were come under their Authority our Saviour ordered them to continue in that by his saying Render to Cesar that which is Cesar 's and both St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans and St. Peter in his general Epistle have very positively condemned that pernicious Maxim but without any formal Declarations made of the Rules or Measures of Government And since both the People and Senate of Rome had acknowledged the Power that Augustus had indeed violently usurped it became Legal when it was thus submitted to and confirmed both by the Senate and People and it was established in his Family by a long Prescription when those Epistles were writ So that upon the whole matter all that is in the New Testament upon this Subject imports no more but that all Christians are bound to acquiesce in the Government and submit to it according to the Constitution that is setled by Law. XI We are then at last brought to the Constitution of our English Government So that no general Considerations from Speculations about Soveraign Power nor from any Passages either of the Old and New Testament ought to determine us in this Matter which must be fixed from the Laws and Regulations that have been made among us It is then certain that with Relation to the Executive part of the Government the Law has lodged that singly in the King so that the whole Administration of it is in him but the Legislative Power is lodged between the King and the two Houses of Parliament so that the Power of making and repealing Laws is not singly in the King but only so far as the two Houses concur with him It is also clear that the King has such a determined extent of Prerogative beyond which he has no Authority As for Instance If he levies Mony of his People without a Law impowring him to it he goes beyond the Limits of his Power and asks that to which he has no Right So that there lies no Obligation on the Subject to grant it and if any in his Name use Violence for the obtaining it they are to be looked on as so many Robbers that invade our Property and they being violent Aggressors the Principle of Self-Preservation seems here to take place and to warrant as violent a Resistance XII There is nothing more evident than that England is a Free Nation that has its Libertits and Properties reserved to it by many positive and express Laws If then we have a Right to our Property we must likewise be supposed to have a Right to preserve it for those Rights are by the Law secured against the Invasions of the Prerogative and by consequence we must have a Right to preserve them against those Invasions It is also evidently declared by our Law that all Orders and Warrants that are issued out in opposition to them are null of themselves and by consequence any that pretend to have Commissions from the King for those Ends are to be considered as if they had none at all since those Commissions being void of themselves are indeed no Commissions in the Construction of the Law and therefore those who act in virtue of them are still to be considered as private Persons who come to invade and disturb us It is also to be observed that there are some Points that are justly disputable and doubtful and others that are so manifest that it is plain that any Objections that can be made to them are rather forced Pretences than so much as plausible Colours It is true if the Case is doubtful the Interest of the publick Peace and Order ought to carry it but the Case is quite different when the Invasions that are made upon Liberty and Property are plain and visible to all that consider them XIII The main and great Difficulty here is that though our Government does indeed assert the Liberty of the Subject yet there are many express Laws made that lodg the Militia singly in the King that make it plainly unlawful upon any Pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King or any Commissioned by him And these Laws have been put in the Form of an Oath which all that have born any Employment either in Church or State have sworn and therefore those Laws for the assuring our Liberties do indeed bind the King's Conscience and may affect his Ministers yet since it is a Maxime of our Law that the King can do no Wrong these cannot be carried so far as to justify our taking Arms against him be the Transgressions of Laws ever so many and so manifest And since this has been the constant Doctrine of the Church of
being above three Years since we had a Session that enacted any Law Methods have been taken and are daily a taking that render this impossible Parliaments ought to be chosen with an entire Liberty and without either Force or Preingagements whereas if all Men are required before-hand to enter into Engagements how they will vote if they are chosen themselves or how they will give their Voices in the electing of others This is plainly such a preparation to a Parliament as would indeed make it no Parliament but a Cabal if one were chosen after all that Corruption of Persons who had preingaged themselves and after the Threating and Turning out of all Persons out of Imployments who had refused to do it And if there are such daily Regulations made in the Towns that it is plain those who manage them intend at last to put such a number of Men in the Corporations as will certainly choose the Persons who are recommended to them But above all if there are such a number of Sheriffs and Mayors made over England by whom the Elections must be conducted and returned who are now under an Incapacity by Law and so are no legal Officers and by consequence those Elections that pass under their Authority are null and void If I say it is clear that things are brought to this then the Government is dissolved because it is impossible to have a Free and Legal Parliament in this state of things If then both the Authority of the Law and the Constitution of the Parliament are struck at and dissolved here is a plain Subversion of the whole Government But if we enter next into the particular Branches of the Government we will find the like Disorder among them all The Protestant Religion and the Church of England make a great Article of our Government the latter being secured not only of old by Magna Charta but by many special Laws made of late and there are particular Laws made in K. Charles the First and the late King's Time securing them from all Commissions that the King can raise for Judging or Censuring them If then in opposition to this a Court so condemned is erected which proceeds to judg and censure the Clergy and even to disseise them of their Free-holds without so much as the form of a Trial though this is the most indispensible Law of all those that secure the Property of England and if the King pretends that he can require the Clergy to publish all his Arbitrary Declarations and in particular one that strikes at their whole Settlement and has ordered Process to be begun against all that disobey'd this illegal Warrant and has treated so great a number of the Bishops as Criminals only for representing to him the Reasons of their not obeying him If likewise the King is not satisfied to profess his own Religion openly though even that is contrary to Law but has sent Ambassadors to Rome and received Nuncio's from thence which is plainly Treason by Law If likewise many Popish Churches and Chappels have been publickly opened if several Colledges of Jesuits have been set up in divers parts of the Nation and one of the Order has been made a Privy Counsellor and a principal Minister of State And if Papists and even those who turn to that Religion though declared Traitors by Law are brought into all the chief Imployments both Military and Civil then it is plain That all the Rights of the Church of England and the whole Establishment of the Protestant Religion are struck at and design'd to be overturn'd since all these Things as they are notoriously illegal so they evidently demonstrate That the great Design of them all is the rooting out of this Pestilent Heresy in their Stile I mean the Protestant Religion In the next place If in the whole course of Justice it is visible that there is a constant practising upon the Judges that they are turned out upon their varying from the Intentions of the Court and if Men of no Reputation nor Abilities are put in their places If an Army is kept up in time of Peace and Men who withdraw from that illegal Service are hanged up as Criminals without any colour of Law which by consequence are so many Murders and if the Souldiery are connived at and encouraged in the most enormous Crimes that so they may be thereby prepared to commit greater ones and from single Rapes and Murders proceed to a Rape upon all our Liberties and a Destruction of the Nation If I say all these things are true in Fact then it is plain that there is such a Dissolution of the Government made that there is not any one part of it left sound and entire And if all these things are done now it is easy to imagine what may be expected when Arbitrary Power that spares to Man and Popery that spares no Heretick are finally established Then we may look for nothing but Gabelles Tailles Impositions Beneviolences and all sorts of Illegal Taxes as from the other we may expect Burning Massacres and Inquisitions In what is doing in Scotland we may gather what is to be expected in England where if the King has over and over again declared that he is vested with an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and has upon that annulled almost all the Acts of Parliament that passed in K. James I. Minority though they were ratified by himself when he came to be of Age and were confirmed by all the subsequent Kings not excepting the present We must then conclude from thence what is resolved on here in England and what will be put in Execution as soon as it is thought that the Times can bear it When likewise the whole Settlement of Ireland is shaken and the Army that was raised and is maintained by Taxes that were given for an Army of English Protestants to secure them from a new Massacre by the Irish Papists is now all filled with Irish Papists as well as almost all the other Imployments it is plain that not only all the British Protestants inhabiting that Island are in daily danger of being butchered a second time but that the Crown of England is in danger of losing that Island it being now put wholly into the Hands and Power of the Native Irish who as they formerly offered themselves up sometimes to the Crown of Spain sometimes to the Pope and once to the Duke of Lorrain so are they perhaps at this present treating with another Court for the Sale and Surrender of the Island and for the Massacre of the English in it If thus all the several Branches of our Constitution are dissolved it might be at least expected that one part should be left entire and that is the Regal Dignity And yet even that is prostituted when we see a young Child put in the Reversion of it and pretended to be the Prince of Wales concerning whose being born of the Queen there appear
first-born of Oats's Plot and brought forth on purpose to give Credit and Reputation to the Perjury p. 5. And because this went in common between the Two Houses he bestows a more particular mark of his Favour on the House of Lords and tells them That this was a Monument erected by themselves in honour of so gross an Imposture Ibid. But after all the Royal Assent was added and here no doubt it itched somewhere for if it had not been for the manner of the Late King's Death and the Papers published since his Death he would have wreaked his Malice upon his Memory for he will never forgive his not advancing him And the Late King being so true a Judg of Wit could not but be much taken with the best Satyr of our Time and saw that Bays's Wit when measured with another's was of a piece with his Virtues and therefore judged in favour of the Rehearsal Transpros'd this went deep and though it gave occasion to the single piece of Modesty with which he can be charged of withdrawing from the Town and not importuning the Press more for some years since even a Face of Brass must grow red when it is so burnt as his was then yet his Malice against the Elder Brother was never extinguished but with his Life But now a strange Conjuncture has brought him again on the Stage and Bays will be Bays still He begins his Prologue with the only soft word in the whole piece I humbly Conceive but he quickly repents him of that Debonarity and so makes Thunder and Lightning speak the rest as if his Designs were to Insult over the two Houses and not to convince them He who is one of the Punies of his Order and is certainly one of its justest Reproaches tells us pag. 8. That to the Shame of the Bishops this Law was consented to by them in the House of Lords But what shame is due to him who has treated that Venerable Bench and in particular his Metropolitan in so scurrilous a manner The Order has much more cause to be ashamed of such a Member tho if there are two or three such as he is among the twenty six they may Comfort themselves with this that a dozen of much better Men had one ameng them that I confess was not much worse if it was not for this that he let the Price of his Treachery fall much lower than Sa. Oxon does who is still true to his old Maxim that he delivered in Answer to one who asked him What was the best Body of Divinity Which was That that which could help a man to keep a Coach and six Horses was certainly the best But now I come to Examine his Reasons for Abrogating the TEST The first is That it is contrary to the Natural Rights of Peerage and turns the Birth-Right of the English Nobility into a Precarious Title which is at the mercy of every Faction and Passion in Parliament and that therefore how useful soever the TEST might have been in its Season it some time must prove a very ill President against the Right of Peerage and upon this he tells a Story of a Protestation made in the House of Lords against the TEST that was brought in in 1675 together with the Resolution of the House against that Penalty upon the Peers of losing their Votes in case of a Refusal he represents this as a Test or Oath of Loyalty against the Lawfulness of taking Arms upon any pretence whatsoever against the King. But in Answer to all this one would gladly know what are the Natural Rights of Peerage and in what Chapter of the Law of Nature they are to be found for if those Rights have no other Warrant but the Constitution of this Government then they are still subject to the Legislative Authority and may be regulated by it The Right of Peerage is still in the Family only as the exercise of it is limited by the Law to such an Age so it may be Suspended as oft as the Publick Safety comes to require it even the indelible Character it self may be brought under a total Suspension of which our Author may perhaps afford an instance at some time or other 2. Votes in either House of Parliament are never to be put in ballance with Establish'd Laws These are but the Opinions of One House and are changeable 3. But if the TEST might have been useful in its Season one would gladly see how it should be so soon out of Season for its chief use being to Secure the Protestant Religion in 1678 it does not appear That now in 1688 the Dangers are so quite dissipated that there is no more need of securing it In one Sense we are in a safer Condition than we were then For some false Brethren have shewed themselves and have lost that little Credit which some unhappy Accidents had procured them 4. It was not the Loyalty in the TEST of the Year 1675 that raised the greatest opposition to it But another part of it That they should never Endeavour any alteration in the Government either in the Church or State. Now it seemed to be an unreasonable Limitation on the Legislative Body to have the Members engaged to make no Alteration And it is that which would not have much pleased those For whose satisfaction this Book is published The second Reason was already hinted at of its dishonourable birth and original p. 10. which according to the decency of his Stile he calls the first Sacrament of the Otesian Villany pag. 9. This he aggravates as such a Monstrous and Inhuman piece of Barbarity as could never have entered into the thoughts of any man but the infamous Author of it this piece of Elegance tho it belongs to this Reason comes in again in his fourth Reason pag. 6. and to let the House of Lords see their Fate if they will not yield to his Reasons he tells them that this will be not only an Eternal National Reproach but such a blot upon the Peers that no length of time could wear away nothing but the Universal Conflagration could destroy Which are the aptest Expressions that I know to mark how deeply the many blots with which he is stigmatized are rooted in his Nature The wanton man in his Drawcansir-humor thinks that Parliaments and a House of Peers are to be treated by him with as much scorn as is justly due to himself But to set this matter in its true Light it is to be remembred that in 1678 there were besides the Evidences of the Witnesses a great many other Discoveries made of Letters and Negotiations in forreign Parts chiefly in the Courts of France and Rome for Extirpating the Protestant Religion upon which the Party that was most united to the Court set on this Law for the Test as that which was both in it self a just and necessary Security for the Establish'd Religion and that would probably lay the fermentation which was then in the Nation
and the Act was so little acceptable to him whom he calls its Author that he spake of it then with Contempt as a Trick of the Court to lay the Nation too soon asleep The Negotiations beyond Sea were too evidently proved to be denied and which is not yet generally known Mr. Coleman when Examined by the Committee of the House of Commons said plain enough to them that the Late King was concerned in them but the Committee would not look into that matter and so Mr. Sacheverill that was their Chair-man did not report it yet the thing was not so secret but that one to whom it was trusted gave the late King an Account of it who said That he had not heard of it any other way and was so fully convinced that the Nation had cause given them to be jealous that he himself set forward the Act and the rather because he saw that the E. of S. did not much like it The Parliament as long as it was known that the Religion was safe in the King 's Negative had not taken any great care of its own Constitution but it seemed the best Expedient that could be found for laying the Jealousies of His late Majesty and the apprehensions of the Successor to take so much care of the two Houses that so the Dangers with which men were then allarm'd might seem the less formidable upon so effectual a security and thus all the stir that he keeps with Perjury and Imposture ought to make no other impression but to shew the wantonness of his own Temper that meddles so boldly with things of which he knew so little the true Secret For here was a Law passed of which all made great use that opposed the Bill of Exclusion to Demonstrate to the Nation that there could be no danger of Popery even under a Prince of that Religion but as he would turn the matter it amounts to this That that Law might be of good use in that season to lay the Jealousies of the Nation till there were a Prince on the Throne of that Communion and then when the turn is served it must be thrown away to open the only door that is now shut upon the Re-establishment of that Religion This is but one hint among a great many more of the state of Affairs at the time that this Act of the TEST was made to shew that the Evidence given by the Witnesses had no other share in that matter but that it gave a rise to the other Discoveries and a fair Opportunity to those who knew the secret of the late King's Religion and the Negotiation at Dover to provide such an effectual Security as might both save the Crown and secure the Religion and this I am sure some of the Bishops knew who to their Honour were faithful to both The third Reason he gives for Repealing the Act is the Incompetent Authority of those who Enacted it for it was of an Ecclesiastical nature and here he stretches out his Wings to a Top-flight and charges it with nothing less than the Deposing of Christ from his Throne the disowning neglecting and affronting his Commission to his Catholick Church and entrenching upon this sacred Prerogative of his Holy Catholick Church and then that he might have occasion to feed his spleen with railing at the whole Order he makes a ridiculous objection of the Bishops being present in the House of Lords that he might shew his respect to them by telling in a Parenthesis that to their shame they had consented to it But has this Scaramuchio no shame left him Did the Parliament pretend by this Act to make any Decision in those two Points of Transubstantiation and Idolatry Had not the Convocation defined them both for above an Age before In the 28th Article of our Church these words are to be found Transubstantiation or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthrows the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many superstitions and for the Idolatry of the Church of Rome that was also declared very expresly in the same body of Articles since in the Article 35 the Homilies are declared to contain a godly and wholesom Doctrine necessary for those times and upon that it is judged that they should be read in the Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the People And the Second of these which is against the Peril of Idolatry aggravates the Idolatry of that Church in so many particulars and with such severe Expressions that those who at first made those Articles and all those who do now sign them or oblige others to sign 'em must either believe the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry or that the Church of England is the Impudentest Society that ever assumed the Name of a Church if she proposes such Homilies to the People in which this Charge is given so home and yet does not believe it her self A man must be of Bays's pitch to rise up to this degree of Impudence Upon the whole matter then these points have been already determined and were a part of our Doctrine enacted by Law All that the Parliament did was only to take these out of a great many more that by this Test it might appear whether they who came into either House were of that Religion or not and now let our Reasoner try what he can make out of this or how he can justify the Scandal that he so boldly throws upon his Order as if they had as much as in them lay destroyed the very being of a Christian Church and had profanely pawned the Bishop to the Lord and betrayed the Rights of the Church of England as by Law Established in particular as well as of the Church Catholick in general p. 8 9. All this shews to whom he has pawned both the Bishop and the Lord and something else too which is both Conscience and Honour if he has any left When one reflects on two of the Bishops that were of that Venerable Body while this Act passed whose Memory will be blessed in the present and following Ages those two great and good Men that filled the Sees of Chester and Oxford he must conclude that as the World was not worthy of them so certainly their Sees were nor worthy of them since they have been plagued with such Successors that because Bays delights in figures taken from the Roman Empire I must tell him that since Commodus succeeded to Marcus Aurillius I do not find a more incongrous Succession in History With what sensible regret must those who were so often edified with the Gravity the Piety the Generosity and Charity of the late Bishop of Oxford look on when they see such a Harleguin in his room His Fourth Reason is taken from the uncertainty and falsehood of the matters contained in
the Council of Constance that decreed That Princes were not bound to keep their Faith to Hereticks tho' it must be acknowledged that we have extraordinary Memories if we can forget such things and more extraordinary Understandings if we do not make some Inferences from them I will not stand upon such inconsiderable Trifles as the Gunpowder-Plot or the Massacre of Ireland but I will take the liberty to reflect a little on what that Church has done since those Laws were made to give us kinder and softer thoughts of them and to make us the less apprehensive of them We see before our eyes what they have done and are still doing in France and what feeble things Edicts Coronation Oaths Laws and Promises repeated over and over again prove to be where that Religion prevails and Louis le Grand makes not so contemptible a Figure in that Church or in our Court as to make us think that his Example may not be proposed as a Pattern as well as his Aid may be offered for an Encouragement to act the same things in England that he is now doing with so much applause in France and it may be perhaps the rather desired from hence to put him a little in countenance when so great a King as ours is willing to forget himself so far as to copy after him and to depend upon him so that as the Doctrine and Principles of that Church must be still the same in all Ages and Places since its chief pretention is that it is infallible it is no unreasonable thing for us to be afraid of those who will be easily induced to burn us a little here when they are told that such fervent Zeal will save them a more lasting burning hereafter and will perhaps quit all scores so entirely that they may hope scarce to endure a Singing in Purgatory for all their other Sins IV. If the severest Order of the Church of Rome that has breathed out nothing but Fire and Blood since its first formation and that is even decried at Rome it self for its Violence is in such credit here I do not see any inducement from thence to persuade us to look on the Councils that are directed by that Society as such harmless and inoffensive things that we need be no more on our guard against them I know not why we may not apprehend as much from Father Petre as the French have felt from Pere de la Chaise since all the difference that is observed to be between them is that the English Jesuit has much more Fire and Passion and much less Conduct and Judgment than the French has And when Rome has expressed so great a Jealousie of the Interest that that Order had in our Councils that F. Morgan who was thought to influence our Ambassadour was ordered to leave Rome I do not see why England should look so tamely on them No reason can be given why Card. Howard should be shut out of all their Councils unless it be that the Nobleness of his Birth and the Gentleness of his Temper are too hard even for his Religion and his Purple to be mastered by them And it is a Contradiction that nothing but a Belief capable of receiving Transubstantiation can reconcile to see Men pretend to observe Law and yet to find at the same time an Ambassadour from England at Rome when there are so many Laws in our Book of Statutes never yet repealed that have declared over and over again all Commerce with the Court and See of Rome to be High Treason V. The late famous Judgment of our Judges who knowing no other way to make their Names immortal have found an effectual one to preserve them from being ever forgot seems to call for another Method of Proceeding The President they have set must be fatal either to them or us For if twelve Men that get into Scarlet and Furs have an Authority to dissolve all our Laws the English Government is to be hereafter lookt at with as much scorn as it has hitherto drawn admiration That doubtful Words of Laws made so long ago that the Intention of the Lawgivers is not certainly known must be expounded by the Judges is not to be questioned but to infer from thence that the plain Words of a Law so lately made and that was so vigorously asserted by the present Parliament may be made void by a Decision of theirs after so much Practice upon them is just as reasonable a way of arguing as theirs is who because the Church of England acknowledges that the Chuurch has a Power in Matters of Rites and Ceremonies will from thence conclude that this Power must go so far that tho' Christ has said of the Cup Drink ye all of it we must obey the Church when she decrees that we shall not drink of it Our Judges for the greater part were Men that had past their Lives in so much Retirement that from thence one might have hoped that they had studied our Law well since the Bar had called them so seldom from their Studies and if Practice is thought often hurtful to Speculation as that which disorders and hurries the Judgment they who had practised so little in our Law had no byass on their Understandings and if the habit of taking Money as a Lawyer is a dangerous Preparation for one that is to be an incorrupt Judge they should have been incorruptible since it is not thought that the greater part of them got ever so much Money by their Profession as paid for their Furs In short we now see how they have merited their Preferment and they may yet expect a further Exaltation when the Justice and the Laws of England come to be in Hands that will be as careful to preserve them as they have been to destroy them But what an Infamy will it lay upon the Name of an English Parliament if instead of calling those Betrayers of their Country to an account they should go by an after-game to confirm what these Fellows have done VI. The late Conferences with so many Members of both Houses will give such an ill-natured piece of Jealousie against them that of all Persons living that are the most concern'd to take care how they give their Votes the World will believe that Threatnings and Promises had as large a share in those secret Conversations as Reasoning or Persuasion and it must be a more than ordinary degree of Zeal and Courage in them that must take off the Blot of being sent for and spoke to on such a Subject and in such a manner The worthy Behaviour of the Members in the last Session had made the Nation unwilling to remember the Errors committed in the first Election and it is to be hoped that they will not give any cause for the future to call that to mind For if a Parliament that had so many Flaws in its first Conception goes to repeal Laws that we are sure were made by Legal Parliaments it will
put the Nation on an Enquiry that nothing but necessity will drive them to For a Nation may be laid asleep and be a little cheated but when it is awakened and sees its danger it will not look on and see a Rape made on its Religion and Liberties without examining From whence have these Men this Authority They will hardly find that it is of Men and they will not believe that it is of God. But it is to be hoped that there will be no occasion given for this angry Question which is much easier made than answered VII If all that were now asked in favour of Popery were only some Gentleness towards the Papists there were some reason to entertain the Debate when the Demand were a little more modest If Men were to be attainted of Treason for being reconciled to the Church of Rome or for reconciling others to it If Priests were demanded to be hanged for taking Orders in the Church of Rome and if the two thirds of the Papists Estates were offered to be levied it were a very natural thing to see them uneasie and restless but now the matter is more barefaced they are not contented to live at ease and enjoy their Estates but they must carry all before them and F. Petre cannot be at quiet unless he makes as great a Figure in our Court as Pere de la Chaise does at Versailles A Cessation of all Severities against them is that to which the Nation would more easily submit but it is their Behaviour that must create them the continuance of the like Compassion in another Reign If a restless and a persecuting Spirit were not inherent in that Order that has now the Ascendant they would have behaved themselves so decently under their present Advantages as to have made our Divines that have charged them so heavily look a little out of countenance and this would have wrought more on the good Nature of the Nation and the Princely Nobleness of the Successors whom we have in view than those Arts of Craft and Violence to which we see their Tempers carry them even so early before it is yet time to shew themselves The Temper of the English Nation the Heroical Vertues of those whom we have in our Eyes but above all our most holy Religion which instead of Revenge and Cruelty inspires us with Charity and Mercy even for Enemies are all such things as may take from the Gentlemen of that Religion all sad Apprehensions unless they raise a Storm against themselves and provoke the Justice of the Nation to such a degree that the Successors may find it necessary to be just even when their own Inclinations would rather carry them to shew Mercy In short they need fear nothing but what they create to themselves so that all this stir that they keep for their own Safety looks too like the securing to themselves Pardons for the Crimes that they intend to commit VIII I know it is objected as no small Prejudice against these Laws That the very making of them discovered a particular Malignity against His Majesty and therefore it is ill Manners to speak for them The first had perhaps an Eye at his being then Admiral and the last was possibly levelled at him tho' when that was discovered he was excepted out of it by a special Proviso And as for that which past in 73 I hope it is not forgot that it was enacted by that Loyal Parliament that had setled both the Prerogative of the Crown and the Rites of the Church and that had given the King more Money than all the Parliaments of England had ever done in all former Times A Parliament that had indeed some Disputes with the King but upon the first Step that he made with relation to Religion or Safety they shewed how ready they were to forget all that was past as appeared by their Behaviour after the Triple Alliance And in 73 tho' they had great cause given them to dislike the Dutch War especially the strange beginning of it upon the Smyrna Fleet and the stopping the Exchequer the Declaration for Toleration and the Writs for the Members of the House were Matters of hard Digestion yet no sooner did the King give them this new Assurance for their Religion then tho' they had very great Reasons given them to be jealous of the War yet since the King was engaged they gave him 1200000 Pounds for carrying it on and they thought they had no ill Peniworths for their Money when they carried home with them to their Countries this new Security for their Religion which we are desired now to throw up and which the Reverend Judges have already thrown out as a Law out of date If this had carried in it any new piece of Severity their Complaints might be just but they are extream tender if they are so uneasie under a Law that only gives them Leisure and Opportunities to live at home And the last Test which was intended only for shutting them out from a share in the Legislative Body appears to be so just that one is rather amased to find that it was so long a doing than that it was done at last and since it is done it is a great presumption on our Understandings to think that we should be willing to part with it If it was not sooner done it was because there was not such cause given for Jealousie to work upon but what has appeared since that time and what has been printed in his late Majesty's Name shews the World now that the Jealousies which occasioned those Laws were not so ill grounded as some well-meaning Men perhaps then believed them to be But there are some Times in which all Mens Eyes come to be opened IX I am told some think it is very indecent to have a Test for our Parliaments in which the King's Religion is accused of Idolatry but if this Reason is good in this Particular it will be full as good against several of the Articles of our Church and many of the Homilies If the Church and Religion of this Nation is so formed by Law that the King's Religion is declared over and over again to be Idolatrous what help is there for it It is no other than it was when His Majesty was Crowned and Swore to maintain our Laws I hope none will be wanting in all possible Respect to His Sacred Person and as we ought to be infinitely sorry to find him engaged in a Religion which we must believe Idolatrous so we are far from the ill Manners of reflecting on his Person or calling him an Idolater for as every Man that reports a Lie is not for that to be called a Liar so tho' the ordering the Intention and the prejudice of a Mispersuasion are such Abatements that we will not rashly take on us to call every Man of the Church of Rome an Idolater yet on the other hand we can never lay down our Charge against the Church
upon the Protestant Religion that is inconsistent with the Publick Peace will be pretended to shew that they are not persecuted for meer Religion In France when it was resolved to extirpate the Protestants all the Discourses that were written on that Subject were full of the Wars occasioned by those of the Religion in the last Age tho' as these were the happy Occasions of bringing the House of Bourbon to the Crown they had been ended above 80 Years ago and there had not been so much as the least Tumult raised by them these 50 Years past so that the French who have smarted under this Severity could not be charged with the least Infraction of the Law yet Stories of a hundred Years old were raised up to inspire into the King those Apprehensions of them which have produced the terrible Effects that are visible to all the World. There is another Expression in this Declaration which lets us likewise see with what caution the Offers of Favour are now worded that so there may be an Occasion given when the Time and Conjuncture shall be favourable to break thro' them all it is in these words So that they take especial Care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the Hearts of our People from us or our Government This in it self is very reasonable and could admit of no Exception if we had not to do with a set of Men who to our great Misfortune have so much Credit with his Majesty and who will be no sooner lodged in the Power to which they pretend than they will make every thing that is preached against Popery pass for that which may in some manner alienate the Subjects from the King. VI. His Majesty makes no doubt of the Concurrence of his two Houses of Parliament when he shall think it convenient for them to meet The Hearts of Kings are unsearchable so that it is a little too presumptuous to look into His Majesties secret Thoughts but according to the Judgments that we would make of other Mens Thoughts by their Actions one would be tempted to think that His Majesty made some doubt of it since his Affairs both at home and abroad could not go the worse if it appeared that there were a perfect Understanding between Him and His Parliament and that his People were supporting him with fresh Supplies and this House of Commons is so much at his devotion that all the World saw how ready they were to grant every thing that he could desire of them till he began to lay off the Masque with relation to the Test and since that time the frequent Prorogations the Closetting and the Pains that has been taken to gain Members by Promises made to some and the Disgraces of others would make one a little inclined to think that some doubt was made of their Concurrence But we must confess that the depth of His Majesty's Judgment is such that we cannot fathom it and therefore we cannot guess what his Doubts or his Assurances are It is true the words that come after unriddle the Mystery a little which are when His Majesty shall think it convenient for them to meet for the meaning of this seems plain that His Majesty is resolved that they shall never meet till he receives such Assurances in a new round of Closetting that he shall be put out of doubt concerning it VII I will not enter into the Dispute concerning Liberty of Conscience and the Reasons that may be offered for it to a Session of Parliament for there is scarce any one Point that either with relation to Religion or Politicks affords a greater variety of Matter for Reflection and I make no doubt to say that there is abundance of Reason to oblige a Parliament to review all the Penal Laws either with relation to Papists or to Dissenters but I will take the boldness to add one thing that the King 's suspending of Laws strikes at the root of this whole Government and subverts it quite for if there is any thing certain with relation to the English Government it is this that the Executive Power of the Law is entirely in the King and the Law to fortifie him in the Management of it has clothed him with a vast Prerogative and made it unlawful upon any Pretence whatsoever to resist him whereas on the other Hand the Legislative Power is not so entirely in the King but that the Lords and Commons have such a share in it that no Law can be either made repealed or which is all one suspended but by their Consent so that the placing this Legislative Power singly in the King is a Subversion of this whole Government since the Essence of all Governments consists in the Subjects of the Legislative Authority Acts of Violence or Injustice committed in the Executive part are such things that all Princes being subject to them the Peace of Mankind were very ill secured if it were not unlawful to resist upon any Pretence taken from any ill Administrations in which as the Law may be doubtful so the Facts may be uncertain and at worst the Publick Peace must always be more valued than any private Oppressions or Injuries whatsoever But the total Subversion of a Government being so contrary to the Trust that is given to the Prince who ought to execute it will put Men upon uneasie and dangerous Inquiries which will turn little to the Advantage of those who are driving Matters to such a doubtful and desperate Issue VIII If there is any thing in which the Exercise of the Legislative Power seems Indispensible it is in those Oaths of Allegiance and Tests that are thought necessary to qualifie Men either to be admitted to enjoy the Protection of the Law or to bear a Share in the Government for in these the Security of the Government is chiefly concerned and therefore the total extinction of these as it is not only a Suspension of them but a plain Repealing of them so it is a Subverting of the whole Foundation of our Government For the Regulation that King and Parliament had set both for the Subjects having the Protection of the State by the Oath of Allegiance and for a share in Places of Trust by the Tests is now pluckt up by the Roots when it is declared That these shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken or subscribed by any Persons whatsoever for it is plain that this is no Suspension of the Law but a formal Repeal of it in as plain Words as can be conceived IX His Majesty says that the Benefit of the Service of all his Subjects is by the Law of Nature inseparably annexed to and inherent in his Sacred Person It is somewhat strange that when so many Laws that we all know are suspended the Law of Nature which is so hard to be found out should be cited but the Penners of this Declaration had best let that Law lie