Scots â—roclamation for the stopping disabling and 〈…〉 spensing with such and such Laws as are 〈…〉 ere referred unto and for the granting 〈…〉 e toleration with the other liberties immuâ—â—ties and Rights there mentioned is more 〈…〉 an sufficient to set the point we are disâ—oursing beyond all possibility of rational â—ontrol As 't is one and the same Kind â—f Authority that is claimed over the Laws â—nd Subjects of both Kingdoms tho for some â—ertain reasons it be more modestly desigâ—ed and expressed in the Declaration for a â—iberty in England than it is in the Proclamaâ—ion for a Toleration in Scotland so the utmost that the Czar of Mosco the great Moâ—ull or the Turkish Sultan ever challenged over their respective Dominions amounts only to an Absolute Power which the King both owns the Exertion of and makes it the fountain of all the Royal Acts exercised in the forementioned Papers And as the improving this challenged Absolute Power into an obligation upon the Subjects to obey his Majesty without reserve is a paraphrase upon Despotical Dominion and an advancing it to 〈◊〉 pitch above what any of the ancient or modern Tyrants ever dream't of and beyond what the most servile part of Mankind was ever acquainted with till the present French King gave an instance of it in making his â—eer will and pleasure to be the ground and argument upon which his Reformed Subjects were to renounce their Religion and to turn Roman Catholicks so it is worth considering whether His Maj. who glories to imitate that forraign Monarch may not in a little time make the like application of this Absolute power which his Subjects are bound to obey without Reserve and whether in that case they who have Addressed to thank him for his Declaration and thereby justified the Claim of this Absolute power being that upon which the Declaration is superstructed and from which it emergeth can avoid paying the Obedience that is demanded as a Duty in the Subject inseparably annexed thereunto That which more confirms us that the English Declaration and the Scotts Proclamation are not only designed for the obtaining from the Subjects an acknowledgment of an Absolute power vested in the King but that no less than the Usurpation and exercise of such a power can warrant and support them are the many Laws and Rights which a jurisdiction is challenged over and exerted in reference unto in the Papers stiled by the forementioned Names All confess a Royal prerogative setled on the Crown and appertaining to the Royal Office nor can the Supream Magistrature be executed and discharged to the advantage and Safety of the Community without a power affixed unto it of superceding the Execution of some Laws at certain junctures nor without having an Authority over the Rights of particular men in some incident cases but then the received Customes of the respective Nations and the universal good preservation and safety of the People in general are the measures by which this prerogative in the Crown is to be regulated and beyond which to apply or exert it is an Usurpation and Tyranny in the Ruler All the Power belonging to the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland ariseth from an agreement and concession of the People wherein it is stipulated what Rights Liberties and Priviledges they Reserved unto themselves and what Authority and Jurisdiction they delegated and made over unto the Soveraign in order to his being in a condition to protect and defend them and that they may the better live in Peace Freedom and Safety which are the Ends for which they have chosen Kings to be over them and for the compassing whereof they originally submitted unto and pitched upon such a Form of Civil Administration Nor are the Opinions of particular men of what Rank or Order soever they be to be admitted as an exposition of the extent of this Prerogative seeing they thro their dependencies upon the King and their obnoxiousness to be influenced by selfish and personal Ends may enlarge it beyond what is for the benefit of the Community but the immemorial course of Administration with the sense of the whole Society signified by their Representatives in Parliament upon emerging occasions are to be taken for the sense paraphrase and declaration of the Limits of this Royal and prerogative Power and for any to determine the bounds of it from the Testimonies of Mercinary Lawyers or Sycophant Clergy-men in cases wherein the Parliament have by their Votes and Resolutions setled its boundaries is a crime that deserves the severest animadversion and which it is to be hop'd a true English Parliament will not let pass unpunished Now a Power arising from Royal prerogative to suspend and disable a great number of Laws at once and they of such a nature and tendency as the great security of the people consists in their being maintained and which the whole Community represented in Parliaments have often disallowed and made void Princes medling with so as to interrupt their execution and course is so far from being a Right inherent in the Crown that the very pretending unto it is a changing of the Government and an overthrowing of the Constitution Fortescue say's that Rex Angliae populum Gubernat non merâ potestate Regiâ sed politicâ quia populus iis legibus gubernatur quas ipse fert the King of England doth not so properly Govern by a power that is Regal at by a power that is pâ—litical in that he is bound to Rule by the Lawsâ— which the people themselves chuse and Enact Anâ— both Bracton and Fleta tell us that Rex Angliae habet superiores viz. legem per quam factus est Rex ac Comites Barones qui debent â—i fraenum ponere the King of England hath for Superiors both the Law by whi 〈…〉 he is constituted King and which is the measur 〈…〉 of his Governing Power and the Parliament whicâ— is to restrain him if he do amiss And thereupon we have not only that other saying of Bracton that nihil aliud potest Rex nisi id solum quod jure potest the King can do nothing but whaâ— he can do by law but we have that famous passage in our Parlament Rolls non est ulla Regis prerogativa quae ex justitiâ aequitate quicquam derogat that there is no prerogative belongs to the King by which he can decline from acting according to Law and justice So careful were our Ancestors both in England and Scotland to preserve their Laws from being invaded and superceded by their Kings that they have not only by divers Parliamentary Votes and Resolutions and by several St 〈…〉 tutes declared all dispensations by the King from Laws and enjoined Oaths to be null and void and not admittable by the Iudges or other Executors of Law and Justice but they have often impeached arraigned and condemned those to one penalty or another that have been found to have counselled and advised
found to have taken Orders in 〈…〉 e Church of Rome obnoxious to death or 〈…〉 ose other Statutes by which the King hath 〈…〉 ower Authority for levying two thirds of 〈…〉 eir Estates that shall be convicted of Recu 〈…〉 cy but by an usurped prerogative and an Absolute power he is pleased to suspend all 〈…〉 e Laws by which they were only disabled 〈…〉 rom hurting us thro standing precluded 〈…〉 rom places of power and trust in the Government So that the whole security we have in time to come for our Religion depends upon the temperate disposition and good nature of those Roman Catholicks that shall be advanced to Offices and Employments and does no longer bear upon the protection and support of the Law and I think we have not had that experience of grace and favour from Papists as may give us 〈…〉 just confidence of fair and candid treatment from them for the future Now that we may be the better convinced how little security we have from his Majesties promise in his Declaration of his protecting the Arch Bishops Bishops and Clergy and all other his subjects of the Church of England in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law established and in the quiet and full enjoyment of their possessions without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever which is all the Tenour that is left us 't is not unworthy of observation how that beside the suspending the Bishop of London ab Officio and the Vice Chanceller of Cambridg both ab Officio and Beneficio and this not only for Actions which the Laws of God and the Kingdom make their duty but thro a sentence inflicted upon them by no legal Court of Judicature but by five or six mercinary persons supported by a Tyrannous and Arbitrary Commission his Majesty in his Proclamation for Toleration in Scotland â—earing date the 12. of February doth among many other Laws cass disable and dispense with the Law enjoining the Scots Test tho it was not only enacted by himself while he represented his Brother as his high Commissioner but hath been confirmed by him in Parliament since he came to the Crown Surely it is as easie to depart from a promise made in a Declaration as 't is to absolve and discharge himself from the obligation of a Law which he first concurred to the enacting of and gave the creating Fiat unto as the late Kings Commissioner and hath since ratified in Parliament after he was come to the Throne As there is no more infidelity dishonor and injustice so there is less of absolute power and illegality in doing the one than the other Nor is it possible for a rational man to place a confidence in his Majesties Royal word for the protection of our Religion and the Church of England men's enjoying their possessions seeing he hath not only departed from his promise made to the Council immediately after his Brothers death but hath violated his Faith given to the Parliament of England at their first Session which we might have thought would have been the more sacred and binding by reason of the grandure state and quality of the Assembly to which it was pledged If we consider how much protestants suffered what number of them was burnt at the stake as well as murderd in Goals beside the vast multitudes who to avoid the rage and power of their Enemies were forced to abandon their Countrey and seek for shelter in forraign parts and what endeavoures of all kinds were used for the Extirpation of our Religion under QueenMary we may gather and learn from thence what is to be dreaded from James the II. who is the next popish Prince to her that since the Reformation hath sat on the Throne of England For tho there be many things that administer grounds of hope that the Papists will not find it so easie a matter to bring us in shoals to the stake nor of that quick and easie dispatch to suppress the protestant Religion and set up Popery at this time as they found it then yer every thing that occurs to our thoughts or that can affect our understandings serves not only to persuade us into a belief that they will set upon and endeavour it but to work us up to an assurance that his Majesty would take it for a di 〈…〉 ution of his glory as well as reflection upon his zeal for the Church of Rome not to attempt what a woman had both the courage to undertake and the fortune to go thro with And there is withal a concurrence of so many things both abroad and at home at this juncture which if laid in the ballance with the motives to our hope of the papists miscarrying may justly raise our fears of their prospering to a very sad and uncomfortable height Whosoever shall compare these two Princes together will find that there was less danger to be apprehended from Mary and that not only upon the score of her Sex but by reason of a certain gentleness and goodness of nature which all Historians of judgment and credit ascribe unto her than is to be expected from the present King in whom a sourness of temper fierceness of disposition and pride joined with a peevishness of humour not to bear the having his will disputed or controlled are the principal ingredients into his Constitution and which are all strangely heightned and enflamed by contracted distempers of Body and thro furious principles of mind which he hath imbib'd from the Iesuites who of all men carry the obligations arising from the Doctrines of the popish Religion to the most outragious and inhumane excesses Nor can I forbear to add that whereas the cruelty which that Princess was hurried into even to the making her Cities common shambles and her streets Theatres of murder for innocent persons for which she became hated while she lived and her memory is rendred infamous to all Generations that come after was wholly and entirely owing to her Religion which not only proclaims it lawful but a necessary duty of Christianity and an act meriting a peculiar Crown of Glory in heaven to destroy Hereticks 't is to be feared there will be found in the present King a spice of revenge against us as we are Englishmen as well as a measu 〈…〉 heap't up and running over of furious 〈◊〉 zeal against us as we are Protestants 〈◊〉 the wrath he bears unto us for our depar 〈…〉 from the Communion of the Romish Chu 〈…〉 and our rebellion against the triple Crow 〈…〉 the war wherein many of the Kingdom wer 〈…〉 engaged against his Father and the issue of it in the execution of that Monarch is what he hath been heard to say that he hopes to revenge upon the Nation And all that the City of London underwent thro that dreadful conflagration 1666. of which he was the great Author and Promoter as well as the Rescuer and Protector of the Varlets that were apprehended in their spreading and
Kings to an usurpation of Power over the Laws and to a violation of established and enacted Rules It would draw this Discourse to a length beyond what is intended should I mention the several Laws against Papists as well as against Dissenters that are suspended stopt disabled and dispensed with in the two fore-mentioned Royal Papers and it would be an extending it much more should I make the several Reflections that the matter is capable of and which a person of a very ordinary understanding cannot be greatly to seek for I shall therefore only take notice of two â—r three Efforts which occur there of this â—oyal prerogative and Absolute power which â—s they are very bold and ample exertions â—f them for the first time so should the â—ext exercises of them be proportionable 〈…〉 ere will be nothing left us of the Protestant â—eligion or of English Liberties and we must â—e contented to be Papists and Slaves or else 〈◊〉 stand adjudged to Tyburn and Smithfield One is the suspending the Laws which en 〈…〉 in the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy â—nd the prohibiting that these Oaths be at any 〈…〉 me hereafter required to be taken by which â—â—ngle Exercise of Royal prerogative and Absolute â—ower the two Kingdoms are not only aâ—ain subjected to a forraign Iurisdiction the miseries whereof they groaned under for several Ages but as the King is hereby deprived of the greatest security he had from â—is Subjects both to himself and the Government â—o the Crown is robb'd of one of its chiefest â—ewels namely an Authority over all the Subâ—ects which was thought so essential to Soveâ—aignty Royal Dignity that it was annexed to the Imperial Crown of England adjudged inherent in the Monarch before the Reformed Religion came to be received established And it concerns their Royal Highnesses of Orange to whom the Right of succeeding to the Crownâ— of Great Brittain unquestionably belongs to consider whether his Majesty may not by the same Authority whereby he alienates and gives away so considerable and inherent a Branch of the Royal Iurisdiction transferr the Succession it self and dispose the Inheritance of the Crown to whom he pleaseth Nor will they about him who thrust the last King out of the Throne to make room for his present Majesty much scruple to put a Protestant Successor by it if they can find another Papist as Bigotted as this to advance unto it However were they on the Throne to morrow here is both a Forraign Iurisdiction brought in and set up to Rivall and controll theirs and they are deprived of all means of being secured of the Loyalty and Fealty of a great number of their Subjects Nor will His Majesties certain knowledg and long experience whereof he boasts in the Scots Proclamation that the Catholicks as it is their principle to be good Christians so it is to be dutiful Subjects be enough for their Royal Highnesses to rely upon their Religion obliging them to the contrary towards Princes whom the Church of Rome hath adjudged to be Hereticks A second Instance wherein this pretended Royal Prerogative is exercised paramount to all Laws and which nothing but a claim of Absolute Power in his Majesty can support and an acknowledgment of it by the Subjâ—stâ— make them approve the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and the Proclamation for Toleration is the stopping disabling and suspending the Statutes whereby the Tests were enacted and thereby letting the Papists in to all Benefices Offices and Places of Trust whether Civil Military or Ecclesiastick I do not speak of Suspending the Execution of those Laws whereby the being Priests or taking Orders in the Church of Rome or the being Reconciled to that Church or the Papists meeting to celebrate Mass were in one degree or another made punishable tho the Kings dispensing with them by a challenged claim in the Crown be altogether illegal for as diverss of these Laws were never approved by many Protestants so nothing would have justified the making of them but the many Treasons and Conspiracies that they were from time to time found guilty of against the State. And as the Papists of all men have the least cause to complain of the injustice rigour and severity of them considering the many Laws more cruel and sanguinary that are in Force in most Popish Countries against Protestants and these enacted and executed meerly for their Opinions and Practices in the matters of God without their being chargeable with crimes and offences against the Civil Government under which they live so were it necessary from principles of Religion and Policy to relieve the Roman Catholicks from the forementioned Laws yet it ought not to be done but by the Legislative Authority of the Kingdoms and â—or the King to assume a power of doing it in the vertue of a pretended prerogative is both a high Usurpation over the Laws and a Violation of of his Coronation Oath Nor is it any commendation either of the humanity of the Papists or of the meekness and Truth of their Religion that while they elsewhere treat those who differ from them in Faith and Worship with that Barbarity they should so clamorously inveigh against the severities which in some Reformed States they are liable unto and which their Treasons gave the rise and provocation unto at first and have been at all times the motives to the infliction of But they alone would have the allowance to be cruel wherein they act consonantly to their own Tenets and I wish that some provision might be made for the future for the security of our Religion and our safety in the profession of it without the doing any thing that may unbecome the merciful principles of Christianity or be unsutable to the meek and generous temper of the English Nation and that the property of being Sanguinary may be left to the Church of Rome as its peculiar Priviledg and Glory and as a more distinguisting Character than all the other Marks which she pretends unto That which I am speaking of is the suspending the Execution of those Laws by which the Government was secured of the Fidelity of its Subjecte and by which they in whom it could not confide were meerly shut out from places of power and trust and were made liable to very small damages themselves and only hindred from getting into a condition of doing mischief to us All Governments have a Right to use means for their own preservation provided they be not such as are inconsistent with the Ends of Government and repugnant to the will and pleasure of the Supream Soveraign of mankind and it is in the power of every Legislative Assembly to declare who of the Community shall be capable or incapable of publick Imploys and of possessing Offices upon which the Peace Welfare and Security of the whole Politick Body does depend Without this n 〈…〉 Government could subsist nor the People b 〈…〉 in safety under it but the Constitution woul 〈…〉 be
in constant danger of being subvertedâ— and the Priviledges Liberties and Religion of the Subjects laid open to be overthrown And should such a power in Legislators be upon weak suspitions and il 〈…〉 grounded jealousies carried at any timâ— too far and some prove to be debarreâ— from Trusts whose being imployed woulâ— import no hazard yet the worst of that would be only a disrepect shewn to individual persons who might deserve more favour and esteem but could be of no prejudice to the Society there being alway's 〈◊〉 sufficient number of others fit for the discharge of all Offices in whom an entire confidence may be reposed And 't is remarkable that the States General of the Uniteâ— Provinces who afford the greatest Liberty to all Religions that any known State iâ— Europe giveth yet they suffer no Papists to come into places of Authority and Iudicature nor to bear any Office in the Republick thaâ— may either put them into a condition oâ— lay them under a temptation of attempting any thing to the prejudice of Religion oâ— for the betraying the Liberty of the Provinces And as 't is lawful for any Government to preclude all such persons from publick Trusts of whose enmity and ill will to the Establishment in Church or State they have either a moral certainty or just grounds of suspition so 't is no less lawful to provide Tests for their discovery and detection thaâ— they may not be able to mask and vizoâ— themselves in order to getting into Offices and thereupon of promoting and accomplishing their mischievous and malicious intentions Nor is it possible in such a case but that the Tests they are to be tried by must relate to some of those principles by which they are most eminently distinguished from them of the National Settlement and in reference whereunto they think it most piacular to dissemble their Opinion Nor have the Papists cause to be offended that the Renouncing the Belief of Transubstantiaâ—â—on should be required as the distinguishing â—ark whereby upon their refusal they may â—e discerned when all the penalty upon their â—eing known is only to be excluded from a â—â—are in the Legislation and not to be admitted â—o Employments of Trust and profit seeing it â—ath been and still is their custome to require â—he belief of the Corporal presence in the Sacraâ—ent as that upon the not acknowledgment whereof we are to be accounted Hereticks â—nd to stand condemned to be burnt which is â—omewhat worse than the not being allowed â—o sit in the two Houses of Parliament or â—o be shut out from a Civil or Military â—ffice Neither are they required to Declare â—uch less to Swear that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is false or that there is no 〈…〉 ch thing as Transubstantiation as is affirmed 〈…〉 n a scurrilous Paper written against the Loyalty of the Church of England but all â—hat is enjoined in the Test Acts is that 〈◊〉 A. B. do declare that I do believe that there 〈◊〉 not any Transubstantiation in the Sacrament 〈◊〉 the Lords Supper or in the Elements of Bread â—nd Wine at or after the Consecration thereof by â—ny Person whatsoever Tho the Parliament â—as willing to use all the care they could for â—he discovering Papists that the provision for â—ur security unto which those Acts were deâ—igned might be the more effectual yet â—hey were not so void of understanding as â—o prescribe a Method for it which would â—ave exposed them to the world for their â—olly 'T is much different to say swear or â—eclare that I do believe there is not any Transubâ—â—antiation and the saying or declaring that â—here is not a Transubstantiation the former â—eing only expressive of what my sentiment or opinion is and not at all affecting the Doctrine it self to make or unmake it other â—han what it is independently upon my judgment of it whereas the latter does primaâ—ily Affect the Object and the determination of its existence to such a mode as I conceive â—t and there are a thousand things which I can say that I do not believe but I dare not say that they are not Now as 't is the dispensing with these Laws that argues the Kings assuming an Absolute Power so the Addressing by way of thanks for the Declaration wherein this Power is exerted is no less than an owning and acknowledging of it and that it rightfully belongs to him There is a third thing which shame or fear would not suffer them to put into the Declaration for liberty of Conscience in England but which they have had the impudence to insert into the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland which as it carries Absolute Power written in forehead of it so it is such an unpresidented exercise of Despoticalness as hardly any of the Oriental Tyrants or even the French Leviathan would have ventured upon For having stop't disabled and suspended all Laws enjoining any Oaths whereby our Religion was secured and the preservation of it to us and our posterity was provided for he imposeth a new Oath upon his Scots Subjects whereby they are to be bound to defend and mantain Him his Heirs and Lawful Successors in the Exercise of their Absolute Power and Authority against all deadly The imposing an Oath upon Subjects hath been always look't upon as the highest Act of legislative Authority in that it affects their Consciences and requires the approbation or disapprobation of their Minds and Judgments in reference to whatsoever it is enjoined for whereas a Law that affects only mens Estates may be submitted unto tho in the mean time they think that which is exacted of them to be unreasonable and unjust And as it concerns both the wisdom and justice of Law-givers to be very tender in Ordaining Oaths that are to be taken by Subjects and that not only from a care that they may not prostitute the name of God to prophanation when the matter about which they are imposed is either light and trival or dubious and uncertain but because it is an exercise of Jurisdiction over the Souls of men which is more than if it were only exercised over their Goods Bodies and Priviledges so never any of our Kings pretended to a Right of enjoining and requiring an Oath that was not first Enacted and specified in some Law and it would have been heretofore accounted a good plea for refusing such or such an Oath to say there was no Statute that had required it It was one of the Articles of high Treason and the most material charged upon the Earl of Strafford that being Lord Deputy of Ireland he required an Oath of the Scotts who inhabited there which no Law had ordained or prescribed which may make those Councellors who have advised the King to impose this new Oath as well as all others that shal require it to be taken upon his Majesties bare Authority to be a little apprehensive whether it may not at some time rise in judgment against them and prove a
forefeiture of their lives to justice And as the imposing an Oath not warranted by Law is a high Act of Absolute Power and in the King an altering of the Constitution so if we look into the Oath it self we shall find this Absolute Power strangly manifested and displayed in all the parts and branches of it and the people required to swear themselves his Majesties most obedient Slaves and Vassalls By one Paragraph of it they are required to swear that it is unlawful for Subjects on any pretence or for any Cause whatsoever to rise in Arms against him or any Commissioned by him and that they shall never resist his power or Authority which as it may be intended for a foundation and means of keeping men quiet when he shall break in upon their Estates and overthrow their Religion so it may be designed as an encouragement to his Catholick Subjects to set upon the cutting Protestants throats when by this Oath their hands are tied up from hindring them It is but for the Papists to come Authorised with his Majesties Commission which will not be denied them for so meritorious a work and then there is no help nor remedy but we must stretch out our necks and open our breasts to their consecrated swords and sanctified daggers Nay if the King should transfer the Succession to the Crown from the Rightful Heir to some zealous Romanist or Alienat and dispose his Kingdoms in way of donation and gift to the Pope or to the Society of the Iesuites and for the better securing them in the possessioâ— hereafter should invest and place them iâ— the enjoyment of them while he lives thâ— Scotts are bound in the virtue of this Oatâ— tamely to look on and calmly to acquiescâ— in it Or should his Physitians advise him to 〈◊〉 nightly variety of Matron's and Maids as thâ— best remedy against his malignant and venemous heats all of that Kingdom are bounâ— to surrender their Wives and daughters to him with a du'tiful silence and a profound veneration And if by this Oath he can securâ— himself from the opposition of his dissenting Subjects in case thro recovery of their Reason a fit of ancient zeal should surprise them he is otherway's secured of an Asiatick tameness in his prelatical people by a principlâ— which they have lately imbib'd but neitheâ— learned from their Bibles nor the Statutes oâ— the Land. For the Clergy upon thinking that the wind would alway's blow out of one quarter and being resolved to make that a duty by their learning which their interest at that season made convenient have preached up the Doctrine of passive Obedience to such a boundless height that they have done what in them lyes to give up themselves and all that had the weakness to believe them fettered and bound for sacrifices to popish rage and Despotical Tyranny But for my self and I hope the like of many others I thank God I am not tainted with that slavish and adulatory doctrine as having alway's thought that the first duty of every member of a Body politick is to the Community for whose safety and good Governours are instituted and that it is only to Rulers as they are found to answer the main ends they are appointed for and to Act by the legal Rules that are Chalcks out unto them Whether it be from my dulness or that my understanding is of a perverser make than other mens I cannot tell but I could never yet be otherway's minded than that the Rules of the Constitution and the Laws of the Republick or Kingdom are to be the measures both of the Soveraigns Commands and of the Subjects obedience and that as we are not to invade what by concessions and stipulations belongs unto the Ruler so we may not only lawfully but we ought to defend what is reserved to our selves if it be invaded and broken in upon And as without such a Right in the Subjects all legal Governments and mixt Monarchies were but emptie names and ridiculous things so wheresoever the Constitution of a Nation is such there the Prince who strives to subvert the Laws of the Society is the Traitor and Rebel and not the people who endeavour to preserve and defend them There is yet another branch of the foresaid Oath that is of a much more unreasonable strain than the former which is that they shall to the utmost of their Power assist defend and maintain him in â—he exercise of this Absolute Power and Authority which being tack't to our Obeying without reserve make us the greatest Slaves that either are or ever were in the universe Our Kings were heretofore bound to Govern according to law and so is his present Majesty if a Coronation Oath and faith to Hereticks were not weaker than Sampson's cords proved to be but instead of that here is a new Oath imposed upon the Subjects by which they are bound to protect and defend the King in his Ruling Arbitrarily It had been more than enough to have required only a calm submitting to the exercise of Absolute Power but to be injoined to swear to assist and defend his Majesty and Successors in all things wherein they shall exert it is a plain destroying of all natural as well as Civil Liberty and a robbing us of that freedom that belongs unto us both as we are men and as we are born under a free and legal Government For by this we become bound to dragg our Brethren to the Stake to cutt their Throats plunder their Houses embrew our hands in the Blood of our Wives and Children if his Majesty please to make these the Instances wherein he will exert his Absolute Power and require us to assist him in the exercise of it As it was necessary to Cancell all other Oaths and Tests as being directly inconsistent with this so the requiring the Scotts to swear this Oath is the highest reveng he could take for their Solemn league and Covenant and for all other Oaths that lust after Arbitrariness and Popish Bigottry will pronounce to have been injurious to the Crown But no words are sufficient to express the mischiefs wrapt up in that new Oath or to declare the abhorrency that all who value the Rights and liberties of mankind ought to entertain for it nor to proclaim the villany of those who shall by Addresses give thanks for the Proclamation There may a fourth thing be added whereby it will appear that his Majesties assuming Absolute Power stands recorded in Capital Letters in his Declaration for liberty of Conscience For not being contented to omit the requiring the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and the Test Oaths to be taken nor being satisfied to suspend for a season the enjoining any to be demanded to take them he tells us that it is his Royal will and pleasure that the foresaid Oaths shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken which is a full and direct Repealing of the Laws in which they are Enacted It
hath hitherto passed for an undoubted Maxim that eorum est tollere quorum est condere they can only abrogate Laws who have Power and Authority to make them and we have heretofore been made believe that the Legislative power was not in the King alone but that the two Houses of Parliament had at least a share in it whereas here by the disabling and suspending Laws for ever the whole legislative Power is challenged to be vested in the King and at one dash the Government of England is subverted and changed Tho it hath been much disputed whether the King had a liberty of Refusing to Assent to Bills relating to the benefit of the publick that had passed the two Houses and if there be any sense in those words of the Coronation Oath of his being bound to Govern according to the Laws quas vulgus Elegerit he had not yet none till now that his Majesty doth it had the impudence to affirm that he might abrogate Laws without the concurrence and assent of the Lords and Commons For to say that Oaths enjoined by Laws to be required to be taken shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken is a plain Cancelling and repealing of these Laws or nothing of this World ever was or is nor can the wisdom of the Nation in Parliament assembled find words more emphatical to declare their Abrogation without saying so which at this time it was necessary to forbear for fear of allarming the Kingdom too far before his Majesty be sufficiently provided against it For admitting them to continue still in being and force tho the King may promise for the nonexecution of them during his own time which is even a pretty bold undertaking yet he cannot assure us that the Oaths shall not be required to be taken at any time hereafter unless he have provided for an eternal Line of popish Successors which God will not be so unmerciful as to plague us with or have gotten a lease of a longer life than Methusalah's which is much more than the full Century of years wished him in a late Dedication by one that stiles himself an Irishman a thing he might have foreborn telling us because the Size of his understanding fully declares it However here is such a stroke and exercise of Absolute Power as dissolves the Government and brings us all into a State of Nature by discharging us from the ties which by vertue of fundamental Stipulations and Statute Laws we formerly lay under forasmuch as we know no King but a King by Law nor no Power he has but a legal Power Which thro disclaiming by a challenge that the whole legislative Authority does reside in himself he hath thrown the Gantles to three Kingdoms and provokes them to a trial whether he be ablest to maintain his Absoluteness or they to justify their being a free People And by virtu ' of the same Royal will and pleasure that he annulls which he calls Suspending the Laws enjoining the Tests and the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and commands that none of these Oaths and Declarations shall at any time hereafter be required to be taken he may in some following Royal Papers give us whitehall or Hampton Court Edicts conformable to those at Versailles which at all times hereafter we shall be bound to submitt unto and stand obliged to be Ruled by instead of the Common Law and Statutâ— Book Nor is the taking upon him to stamp us new Laws exclusively of Parliamentary concurrence in the virtu ' of his Royal prerogative any thing more uncouth ' in it self or more dissagreeable to the Rules of the Constitution and what we have been constantly accustomed unto than the cassing disabling and abrogating so many old ones which that absolute out of date as well as ill favoured thing upon Monarchs called a Parliament had a share in the Enacting of I will not say that our Addressers were conscious that the getting an Absolute Power in his Majesty to be owned and acknowledged was one of the Ends for which the late Declaration was calculated and emitted but I think I have sufficiently demonstrated both that such a power it issueth and flows from and that such a power is plainly exercised in it Which whether there coming now to be told and made acquainted with it may make them repent what they have done or at least prevent their being accessory to the support of this Power in other mischievous effects that are to be dreaded from it I must leave to time to make the discovery it being impossible to foretel what a People fallen into a phrenzie may do in their paroxism's of distraction and madness Nor was the Seruing himself into the possession of an Absolute power and the getting it to be owned by at least a part of the people the only Motive to the publishing the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland but a second inducement thaâ— sway'd unto it was the undermining an subverting the Protestant Religion and the opening a door for the introduction and establâ—â—hment of Popery Nor was it from any compassion to Dissenters that these two Royaâ— Papers were emitted but from his Majestieâ— tender love to Papists to whom as there arise many advantages for the present so the whole Benefit will be found to redound to them in the issue We are told a◠〈…〉 ave already mentioned that the King is â—esolved to convert England or to die a Martyr â—nd we may be sure that if he did not think â—he suspending the penal Laws and the disâ—ensing with requiring of the Tests and the â—ranting Liberty and Toleration to be means admirably adapted thereunto he would not have acted so inconsistently with himself nor in that opposition to his own designes as to have disabled these Laws and vouch sav'd the Freedom that results thereupon Especially when we are told by the Leige Iesuite that the King being sensible of his growing old finds himself thereby obliged â—o make the greater hast and to take the larger steps lest thro not living long enough to effect what he intends he should not only lose the glory of converting three Kingdoms but should leave the Papists in a worse condition than he found them His Highness the Prince of Orange very justly concludes this â—o be the thing aim'd at by the present Indulgence and therefore being desired to approve the Suspension of the Test Acts and to cooperate with his Majesty for the obtaining their being Repealed was pleased to Answer â—hat while he was as well as prosesseth himself a Protestant he would not Act so unworthily as â—o betray the Protestant Religion which he necessarily must if he should do as he was desired Her Royal Highness the Princess of Orange has likewise the same apprehension of the tendency of the Toleration and Indulgence and therefore was pleased to say to some Scotts Ministers that did themselves the honor
and performed the duty that became them in going to wait upon her that She greatly commended their having â—o accession to the betraying of the Protestant Religion by their returning home to take the benefit of the Toleration What an indelible Reproach will it be to a Company of men that pretend to be set for the defence of the Gospel and who stile themselves Ministers of Iesus Christ to be found betraying Religion thro justifying the Suspension of so many Laws whereby it was established and supported and whereby the Kingdoms were Fenced about and guarded against Popery while these two Noble Princes to the neglect of their own Interest in His Majesties Favour and to the provoking him to do them all the prejudice he can in their Right of Succession to the Imperial Crowns of Great Brittain do signify their open dislike of that Act of the King and that not only upon the account of its illegality and Arbitrariness but by reason of its tendency to supplant and undermine the Reformed Religion And they are strangely blind that do not see how it powerfully operates and conduceth to the effecting of this and that in more way's and method's than are easie to be recounted For thereby our divisions are not only kept up at a time when the united Councels and strength of all Protestants is too little against the craft and power of Rome but they who have Addressed to thank the King for his Royal Papers are become a listed and enrolled Faction to abet and stand by the King in all that naturally follows to be done for the maintaining his Declaration and justifying of the usurped Authority from which it issues 'T is matter of a melancholy consideration and turns little to the credit of Dissenters that when they of the Church of England who had with so great indiscretion promoted things to that pass which an easie improvement of would produce what hath since ensued are thro being at last enlightned in the designes of the Court come so far to recover their witts as that they can no longer do the service they were wont and which was still expected from them there should be a new Tribe of men muster'd up to stand in their room and who by their vows and Promises made to the King in their Addresses have undertaken to perform what others have the Conscience and Honesty as well as the Wisdom to refuse and decline Nor are the Divisions among Protestants only hereby upheld and maintained but our Animosities and rancours are both continued and enflamed For while they of the Established way are provoked and exasperated to see all the legal Foundations both of the Protestant Religion and their Church subverted the Addressing-Dissenters are emboldned to revenge themselves upon the National Clergy in Terms of the utmost opprobry virulence and reproach for their accession to the sufferings which they had endured Surely it would have been not only more generous but much more Christian and becoming good as well as wise men to have made no other Retaliations but those of forgiveness and pardon for the injuries they had met with and to have offered all the assistances they could give to their conformable Brethren for the stemming and withstanding the deluge of Popery and Tyranny that is impetuously breaking in upon the Kingdoms And as this would have united all Protestants in bonds of forbearance and love not to be dissolved thro petty differences about Discipline Forms of Worship and a few Rites and Ceremonies so it would in the sense and judgment of all men have given them a more triumphant victory over those that had been their imprudent and peevish Enemies than if they were to enjoy the spoiles of the conformable Clergy by being put into possession of their Cures and Benefices The Relation I have stood in to the Dissenting party and the Kindness I retain for them above all other make me heartily bewail their losing the happiest opportunity that was ever put into their hands not only of improving the compassion which their calamities had raised for them in the hearts of the generality into friendship and kindness but of acquiring such a merit upon the Nation that the utmost favoures which a true English Protestant Parliament could hereafter have shewed them would have been accounted but slender as wel as just Recompences Nor can I forbear to say that I had rather have seen the Furnace of afflictions made hotter for them tho it should have been my own lot to be thrown into the most scorching flames than to have beheld them guilty of those excesses of folly towards themselves and of treachery to Religion and the Laws of their Countrey which their present ease and a shorâ— opportunity afforded them of acquiring gain have hurried and transported so many of them into It plainly appears with what aspect upon our Religion the Declaration for liberty of Conscience was emitted if we do but observe the advantages the Papists have already reapt by it How is the whole nation thereupon not only overflow'd with swarms of Loâ—â—sts and all places filled with Priests and Iesuites but the whole executive Power of the Government and all preferments of honor interest and profit are put into Roman Catholick hands So that we are not only exposed to the unwearied and restless importunities of Seducers but through the advancement of Papists to all Offices Civil and Military if not Ecclesiastick the covetous become brib'd the timorous threatned and the prophane are baited with temptations sutable to their lusts and they that stand resolved to continue honest are laid open not only to the bold affronts of Priests and Fryers the insolencies of petulant Popish Justices the chicaneries and oppressions of the Arbitrary Commission Court but to the rage of his Majesty and the danger of being attaqu'd by his Armed Squadrons To which may be added that by the same Prerogative and Absolute Power that his Majesty hath suspended the Laws made for the Protection of our Religion he may disable and dispense with all the Laws by which it is set up and established And as it will not be more illegal and Arbitrary to make void the Laws for Protestancy than to have suspended those against Popery so I do not see how the Adressers that have approved the one can disallow or condemn the other For the King having obtained an acknowledgment of his Absolute Power and of his Royal prerogative paramount to Laws on his exercising it in one Instance it now depends meerly upon his own will for any thing these Thanks-giving Gentlemen have to say against it whether he may not exert it in another wherein they are not likely to find so much of their ease and gain There is a third Inducement to the Emitting those Royal Papers which tho at the first â—iew it may seem wholly to regard Forraigâ—ers yet it ultimately terminates in the subâ—ersion of our Religion at home and in the Kings putting himself into a condition of
to the cutting of one anothers throats yet Governors may both deny Liberty to those whose principles oblige them to destroy those that are not of their mind and may in some measure Regulate the Liberty which they vouch save to others whose opinions tho they do not think dangerous to the peace of the Community yet thro judging them erroneous and false they conceive them dangerous to the Soules of men As there is a vast difference betwixt Tolerating a Religion and approving the Religion that is Tolerated so what a Government doth not approve but barely permitts and suffers may 〈◊〉 brought under Restrictions as to time plac 〈…〉 and number of those professing it that sha 〈…〉 assemble in one meeting which it wer 〈…〉 an undecency to extend to those of th 〈…〉 justified and established way Now wha 〈…〉 soever Restrictions or Regulations are E 〈…〉 acted and ordained by the Legislative Aâ—thority in reference to Religions or Religio 〈…〉 Assemblies they are not to be stop't disable 〈…〉 or suspended but by the same Authority th 〈…〉 Enacted and ordained them The King say 〈◊〉 very truely that Conscience ought not to 〈◊〉 constrained nor people forced in matters of me 〈…〉 Religion but it does not from thence follo 〈…〉 unless by the Logick of Whitehal th 〈…〉 without the concurrence of a Parliamen 〈…〉 he should suspend and dispense with the Law 〈…〉 and by a pretended preroragtive relieve an 〈…〉 from what they are obnoxious unto by th 〈…〉 Statutes of the Realm His saying that th 〈…〉 forcing people in matters of Religio 〈…〉 spoils Trade depopulates Countries discour 〈…〉 geth Strangers and answers not the End 〈◊〉 beinging all to an Uniformity for which it 〈◊〉 employ'd would do well in a Speech to th 〈…〉 Houses of Parliament to perswade them t 〈…〉 Repeal some certain Laws or might do we 〈…〉 to determine his Majesty to assent to suc 〈…〉 Bills as a Parliament may prepare and offe 〈…〉 for relieving persons in matters of Co 〈…〉 science But does not serve for what it 〈◊〉 alledged nor can it warrant his suspending th 〈…〉 Laws by his single Authority And by th 〈…〉 way I know when these very Argument 〈…〉 were not only despised by His Majesty an 〈…〉 ridiculed by those who took their Cue fro 〈…〉 Court and had wit to do it as by the prâ—sent Bishop of Oxford in a very ill natur 〈…〉 Book called Ecclesiastical Polity but whe 〈…〉 the daring to have mentioned them woul 〈…〉 have provok'd the then Duke of York's i 〈…〉 dignation and have exposed the party th 〈…〉 did it to discountenance and disgrace T 〈…〉 question is not what is convenient to 〈◊〉 done in some measure and degree and 〈◊〉 reference to those whose Religion does n 〈…〉 oblige them to destroy all that differ fro 〈…〉 â—om when they have opportunity for it 〈…〉 t the point in debate is who hath the leâ—â—l power of doing it and of fixing its bounds â—â—d limits It was never pretended that the 〈…〉 ing ought to be shut out from a share in spending and Repealing Laws but that the â—â—le Right of doing it belongs to him is â—hat cannot be allowed without changing 〈…〉 e Constitution and placing the whole Le 〈…〉 slative Authority in His Majesty And as it is 〈◊〉 Usurpation in the King to challenge it and 〈◊〉 treachery in English Subjects to acknowledg 〈…〉 so the inconveniences that this or that â—arty are in the mean time exposed unto 〈…〉 ro the Laws remaining in force are raâ—â—er to be endured than that a power of 〈…〉 ving case and relief farther than by con 〈…〉 vance should be confessed to reside in â—â—y one in whom the Laws of the Comâ—unity have not placed it 'T is better to â—â—dergo hardships under the Execution of â—â—just Laws than be released from our â—roubles by a power Usurped over all Laws â—or by the one the measures of Government 〈◊〉 well as the Rights and Priviledges of a Na 〈…〉 on are destroy'd whereas by the other â—â—ly a part of the people are afflicted and â—â—duly dealt with While we are Govern'd 〈◊〉 Laws tho several of them may be in 〈…〉 st and inconvenient yet we are under a â—â—curity as to all other things which those â—aws have not made liable but when we â—ll under an illimited prerogative and Abso 〈…〉 e Power we have no longer a Title 〈◊〉 or a hedg about any thing but all lies â—â—en to the lust and pleasure of him in â—hom we have owned that power to be 〈…〉 ated A Liberty is what Dissenters have 〈◊〉 Right to Claim and which the Legislative â—uthority is bound by the Rules of Justice 〈…〉 d Duty as well as by Principles of Wisdom 〈…〉 d Discretion to grant And I am sorry 〈…〉 at while they stood so fair to obtain it 〈◊〉 a Legal and Parliamentary way any of 〈…〉 em by acknowledging a Right in another 〈◊〉 give it and that in a manner so subver 〈…〉 e of the Authority of Parliaments should 〈…〉 ve rendred themselves unworthy to receive it from them to whom the power of bestowing it does belong Not but that a Toleration will be alway's due to their Principles but I know not whether the particular men of those Principles who have by their Addresses betray'd the Kingdom may not come to be judged to have forfeited all share in it for their crime committed against the Constitution and the whole Politick Society Nor is there any thing more just and equal than that they who surrender and give away the Rights both of Legislators and Subjects should lose all grace and favour from the former and all portion among the latter And how much soever some Protestant Dissenters may please themselves with the Liberty that at present they enjoy in the vertue of the two Royal Papers yet this may serve to moderate them in their transports of gladness that they have no solid Security for the continuance of it For should a Parliament null and make voide the Declaration for Liberty and impeath the judges for declaring a power vested in the King to suspend so many Laws and for forbearing upon the Kings Mandat to execute them the freedom that the Dissenters possess would immediately vanish and have much the same destiny that the Liberty had which was granted unto them by the Declaration of Indulgence anno 1672. Or should the Parliament be willing to grant ease and Indulgence to all Protestants by a Bill prepared for Repealing of all the Laws formerly made against them and should only be desirous to preserve in force the Laws relating to the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Statutes which enjoin the Tests of whose Execution we never more wanted the benefit in order to our preservation from Popery and which an English Parliament cannot be supposed willing to part with at a time when our Lives Estates and Religion are so visibly threatned to be swallowed up and destroyed by the
temper or upon his Religion they might now know hand gratuitam in tanta superbia comitatem that a person of his pride would not stoop to such flattery as his Letter to Mr. Alsop expresseth but in order to some design But what need other proof of the fallaciousness of the two Royal Papers and that no Protestants can reasonably depend upon the Royal Word there laid to pledg for the continuation of their Liberty but to look into these two Papers themselves where we shall meet expressions that may both detract from our belief of His Majesties sincerity and awaken us to a just jealousie that the Liberty and Toleration granted by them are intended to be of no long standing and duration For while He is pleased to tell us that the granting His Subjects the free use of their Religion for the time to come is an addition to the perfect enjoyment of their property which has never been invaded by His Majesty since his coming to the Crown he doth in effect say that His Fidelity Truth and Integrity in what he grants in reference to Religion is to be measured and judged by the verity that is in what He tells us as to the never having invaded our property And that I may borrow an expression from Mr. Alsop and to no less a person than to the King himself namely that tho we pretend to no refined intellectualls nor presume to philosophise upon Mysteries of Government yet we make some pretence to the sense of feeling and whatever our dulness be can discern between what is exacted of us according to Law and what we are rob'd of by an exercise of Arbitrary Power For not to sist upon the violent seisure of mens Goods by Officers as well as Souldiers in all parts of England which looks like an invasion upon the properties of the Subject nor to dwell upon his keeping an Army on foot in time of peace against the Authority as well as without the countenance of Law which our Ancestors would have stiled an Invasion upon the whole property of the Kingdom I would sain know by what name we are to call his levying the customs and the Additional Excise before they were granted unto him by the Parliament all the legal establishment of them upon the nation having been only during the late Kings life till the settlement of them upon the Crown was again renewed by Statute It were also worth his Majesties telling us what Titles are due to the suspending the vice Chancellor of Cambridg a beneficio and the turning the President of Maudlins in Oxford out of his Headship and the suspending Dr. Fairsax from his Fellowship if they be not an Invasion upon our property seeing every part of this is against all the known Laws of the Kingdom and hath been done by no legal Court but by a Set of mercinary villains armed with an Arbitrary Commission and who do as Arbitrarily Exercise it And as the End unto which that Inquisition Court was instituted was to robb us of ours Rights and Priviledges at the meer pleasure of the King so the very Institution of it is an Invasion both upon all our Laws and upon the whole property of the Nation and is one of the highest Exercises of Despotical Power that it is possible for the most Absolute and unlimited Monarch to exert Among all the Rights reserved unto the Subjects by the Rules of the Constitution and whereof they are secured by many repeated Laws and Statutes there are none that have been hithero less disputed and in reference to which our Kings have been farther from claiming any Power and Authority than those of levying money without the grant as well as the consent of Parliament and of Absolving and discharging Debtor from paying their Creditors and of acquitting 〈◊〉 from being sued and imprisoned in case of no 〈…〉 payment and yet in defiance of all Law and to the subverting the Rights of the peo 〈…〉 ple and the most essential Priviledg and I 〈…〉 risdiction of Parliaments and to a plain chan 〈…〉 ging the ancient legal Constition into an Absolute and Despotical Governing Power the King they say is assuming to himself a 〈…〉 Authority both of imposing a Tax of five pound per annum upon every Hackney Coach and of Releasing and discharging all Debtors of whom their Creditors cannot claim and demand above ten pound Sterling which as they will be signal Invasions upon property and leaâ—ing Cases for the raising money in what other instances he pleaseth by a Hampâ—on Courâ— or a Whitehall Edict without standing in need of a Parliament or being obliged to a dependance upon their Grant for all Taxes to be levied upon the Subjects as his Predecessors have heretofore been so they may serve fully to instruct us what little security either the Dissenters have as to being long in the possession of their present liberty or Protestants in general of having a freedom continued unto them of professing the Reformed Religion if we have nothing more to rely upon for preventing our being abridged and denyed the liberty of our Religion than we have had for preserving our Property from being Invaded and broken in upon We may subjoin to the Clause already mentioned that other Expression which occurs in the foresaid Declaration viz. that as he freely gives them leave to meet and serve God after their own may and manner so they are to take special care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways â—end to alienate the hearts of the people from his Majesty or his Government which words as they import the price at which the Dissenters are to purchase their freedom whereof we shall discourse anon so they admirably serve to furnish the King with a pretence of retrenching their liberty whensoever he pleaseth nor are they inserted there for any other End but thâ—◠〈…〉 on a plea of their having abused his Gra 〈…〉 us Indulgence to the alienating the hearts of 〈◊〉 his people from him they may be adjud 〈…〉 d to have thereby deservedly forfeited 〈…〉 th all the benefits of it and of his Royal 〈…〉 our Nor is it possible for a Protestant 〈…〉 nister to preach one Sermon which a 〈…〉 ish Critick or a Romish Bigot may not 〈…〉 ily misconstrue and pervert to be an 〈…〉 enation of the peoples hearts from the Kings 〈…〉 son and Government And of which as we 〈…〉 ve heard many late Examples in France so 〈◊〉 will be easie to draw them into president 〈…〉 d to imitate them in England I might add 〈…〉 e observation of the ingenious Author of 〈…〉 e Reflections on his Majesties Proclamation for 〈◊〉 Toleration in Scotland namely that where 〈…〉 s the King gives all assurance to his Scotts â—ubjects that he will not use invincible necessity â—gainst any man on the account of his perâ—uasion he does thereby leave himself at a liâ—erty of Dragooning torturing burning and â—oing the utmost violences all
the Laws of Christ when they are found to interfere with what is required by the King. But whether Gods Power or the Kings be superior and which of the two can cassate the others Laws and whose wrath is most terrible the judgment day will be able and sure to instruct them if all means in this world prove insufficient for it The Addressers know upon what conditions they hold their Liberty and they have not only observed how several of the National Clergy have been treated for preaching against Popery but they have heard how divers of the Reformed Ministers in France before the general suppression were dealt with for speaking against their Monarchs Religion and therefore they must be pardoned if they carry so as not to provoke his Majesty tho in the mean time thro their â—â—lence they both betray the Cause of their Lord and Master and are unfaithful to the Soules of those of whom they have taken upon them the spiritual guidance As for the Papers themselves that are stiled by the name of Addresses I shall not meddle with them being as to the greatest part of them fitter to be exposed and ridicul'd either for their dulness and pedantry or for the adulation and sycophancy with which they are fulsomly stuffâ— than to deserve any serious consideration or to merit reflections that may prove instructive to Mankind Only as that Address wherein his Majesty is thanked for his restoring God to his Empire over Conscience deserveth a rebuke for its blasphemy so that other which commends him for promising to force the Parliament to raâ—iâ—y his Declaration tho by the way all he says is that he does not doubt of their concurrence which yet his ill succ 〈…〉 upon the closetting of so many Member 〈…〉 and his since Dissolving that Parliament shews that there was some cause for the doub 〈…〉 ting of it I say that other Address merits severe Censure for its insolency against th 〈…〉 legislative Authority And the Authors of 〈◊〉 ought to be punished for their crime com 〈…〉 mitted against the Liberty and Freedom 〈◊〉 the two Houses and for encouraging th 〈…〉 King to invade and subvert their most essen 〈…〉 tial and fundamental Priviledges and withou 〈…〉 which they can neither be a Council Judi 〈…〉 cature nor Lawgivers After all I hope the Nation will be so in 〈…〉 genuous as not to impute the miscarriages 〈◊〉 some of the nonconformists to the whole part 〈…〉 much less to ascribe them to the principles o 〈…〉 Dissenters For as the points wherein the 〈…〉 differ from the Church of England are purel 〈…〉 of another Nature and which have no re 〈…〉 lation to Politicks so the influence that the 〈…〉 are adapted to have upon men as member 〈…〉 of Civil Societies is to make them in a specia 〈…〉 manner regardful of the Rights and Fran 〈…〉 chises of the Community But if some nei 〈…〉 ther understand the tendency of their ow 〈…〉 principles nor are true and faithful unto them these things are the personal faults of thos 〈…〉 men and are to be attributed to their ig 〈…〉 norance or to their dishonesty nor are thei 〈…〉 carriages to be counted the effects of thei 〈…〉 Religious Tenets much less are others of the party to be involved under the reproach an 〈…〉 guilt of their imprudent and ill conduct 〈…〉 Which there is the more cause to acknow 〈…〉 ledg because tho the Church of England ha 〈…〉 all the reason of the World to decline Addressing in that all her legal Foundation a 〈…〉 well as Security is shaken by the Declaration yet there are some of her Dignitaries and C 〈…〉 gy as well as divers of the Members of he 〈…〉 Communion who upon motives of Ambition Covetousness Fear or Courtship hav 〈…〉 enrolled themselves into the Liâ—â— of Addre 〈…〉 sers and under pretence of giving thanks 〈◊〉 the King for his promise of protecting 〈◊〉 Arch-Bishops Bishops and Clergy and a 〈…〉 〈…〉 erof the Church of England in the free Exer 〈…〉 of their Religion as by Law established 〈…〉 ve cut the throat of their Mother at 〈…〉 ose breasts they have suckt till they are 〈…〉 own fat both by acknowledging the usur 〈…〉 prerogative upon which the King assumes 〈◊〉 Right and Authority of Emitting the De 〈…〉 ration and by exchanging the legal standâ—â—g and Security of their Church into that 〈…〉 ecarious one of the Royal word which 〈…〉 ey fly unto as the bottom of her Subsistence 〈…〉 d trust to as the wall of her defence And 〈◊〉 most of the Members of the Separate So 〈…〉 ties are free from all accession to Ad 〈…〉 essing and the few that concurred were 〈…〉 eerly drawn in by the wheedle and impor 〈…〉 nity of their Preachers so they who are 〈◊〉 the chiefest Character and greatest repu 〈…〉 tion for Wisdom and Learning among 〈…〉 e Ministers have preserved themselves 〈…〉 om all folly and treachery of that kind The Apostle tells us that not many wise not â—any noble are called which as it is verified 〈◊〉 many of the Dissenting Addressers so it â—ay serve for some kind of Apology for their 〈…〉 ow and sneaking as well as for their in 〈…〉 iscret and imprudent behaviour in this matâ—er And it is the more venial in some of â—hem as being not only a means of ingra 〈…〉 iating themselves as they phansie with â—he King who heretofore had no very good â—pinion of them but as being both an easie â—nd compendious method of Attoning for Offences against the Crown of which they were strongly suspected and a cheap and expenceless way of purchasing the pardon of their Relations that had stood actually 〈…〉 ccused of high Treason Nor is it to be doubted but that as the King will retain very little favour and mercy for Fanaticks when once he has served his Ends upon them so they will preserve as little kindness for the Papists if they can but obtain relief in a legal way And as there is not a people in the Kingdom that will be more 〈…〉 oyal to Princes while they continue so to govern as that fealty by the Laws of God 〈…〉 or man remains due to them so there are none of what principles or communion soever upon whom the Kingdom it its whole interest come to ly at stake may more assuredly and with greater confidence depend than upon the generality of Dissenting Protestants and especially upon those that are not of the Pastoral Order The severities that the Dissenters lay under before and their deliverance from oppression and disturbance now seconded with the Kings expectation and demands of thanksgiving Addresses were strong temptations upon men void of generosity and greatness of spirit and who are withall of no great Political Wisdom nor of prospect into the Consequences of Councils and tricks of State to act as illegally in their thanks as His Majesty had done in his bounty So that whatsoever animadversion they may
their present actings towards him and at the same time that they find cause to justify the Righteousness of God iâ— making them the Instruments of his persecution whom in so many way 's he had sought to oblige they may justly conclude that none save a Bigotted Papist could be the Author of so infutable as well an illegal and unrighteous returns For as to all whereof he is accused in the Criminal Letters against him bearing date the 19. of April 1687. I my self am both able to assert his innocence and dare assure the World that none of the persons whom he is charged to have conspired with against the King would have been so far void of discretion knowing his principles as to have transacted with 〈◊〉 in matters of that kind but whether 〈◊〉 Letters since that to the Earl of Midle 〈…〉 with the Paper inclosed in one of 〈…〉 m have administred any Legal ground 〈◊〉 their Second Citation I shall not take up 〈…〉 me to determine and will only say that 〈◊〉 I heartily wish he had not in those Letters 〈…〉 orded them any probable pretence for 〈…〉 oceeding against him so there are excesses 〈◊〉 Loyalty in them to attone for the utmost 〈…〉 discretions his words are capable of being 〈…〉 rested unto nor can any thing but Papal Malice and Romish Chicanerie construe and â—ervert them so far contrary to his inten 〈…〉 on s as to make crimes and much less to 〈…〉 ake Treasons of them Now as nothing 〈…〉 n be of more portentous Omen to British â—nd Irish Protestants than to have a Popish 〈…〉 igott exalted to Rule over them so thro 〈◊〉 concurrence of ill nature and a deficienâ—y in intellectuals met in him with his fuâ—ious Zeal and Bigottry they are the more â—o expect whatsoever his Power inables him â—o inflict that is severe and dreadful 'T is possible that a Ruler may be possessed with a â—ondness and Valuation of Popery as the only Religion wherein Salvation is to be obtained and thereupon in his private Judgment and Opinion sentence all to eternal Flames who cannot herd with him in â—he same Society and yet he may thro a great measure of Humanity and from an extraordinary proportion of compassion and meekness woven into his nature hate the imbrucing his hands in their Blood or treating those with any harshness whose supposed misbelief is their only Crime and that finding them in all other respects vertuous peaceable and industrious He may leave them to the decretive Sentence of the Soveraign and infallible Judg without disturbing or medling with them himself Nor is it impossible but that there may be a Prince so far Bigotted in Popery as to have inclination and propensity to force all under his Authority to be of his Religion or else to destroy and extirpate them yet thro being of that largeness of Understanding and Political Wisdom as to be able to penetrate into the hazards of attempting it and to foresee the Consequences that may ensue upon it in reference to the Peace and Safety of his Government as well as the Wealth and power of his Dominions he may come to check and stiffle his furious Inclinations and chuse rather to leave his Subjects at quiet than to impoverish weaken and dispeople his Countrey either by destroying them or by driving them to abandon his Territories in order to find a Shelter and Sanctuary in other places But where as in the King of England a small measure of Understanding accompanied with a large share of a Morose Fierce and ill Nature and these attended with Insolency and pride as they usually are in weak and froward people come to have a Bigottry in such a Religion as Popery superadded to them whose Doctrines and Principles instigate and oblige to Cruelty towards all of other perswasions there Protestants do find nothing that may incourage to hope for security and protection under a Prince of that temper and complexion but all that does affect and impress their minds bidds them prepare for persecution and to look for the utmost rigours and severities that pride malice brutal zeal backt and supported with force and power can execute and inflict And how much such a Princes Religion proves too weak to restrain him from uncleannesses and other immoralities by so much the more is he to be dreaded in that he thinks to compound for and expiate Crimes of that nature by his cruelty to Hereticks and his offering them up in Sacrifices of Attonement to the Triple Crown Nor are the Priests either displeased with or careful to diswade Princes from Offences of that kind tho they know them to be great provocations to God and of mischievous example to Subjects seeing they are Masters of the Art of improving them to the Service of Holy Church and the Advantage of the Catholik Faith. For instead of imposing upon those Royal Transgressors the little and Slavish Pennances of Pilgrimages whippings and going barefoot they require them to make satisfactions for those and the like Crimes by the pious and meritorious Acts of murdering Protestants and of extirpating the Northern Heresie And as one of the French Whore's of State is reported to have been a person that hath principally instigated to all the Cruelties against the Reformed in France so no doubt but as she did it under the influence and conduct of her Confessors to compensate for her Adulteries so she advised and perswaded Louis to it upon motives of the same nature Nor do they who have the guidance of Consciences at Whitchal want matter of the same kind to improve and work upon and as there are of the licentious Femal's that will be glad of attoning for their filthy pollutions by Acts so agreeable to the Articles of their Religion so there are some who as they have influence enough upon the King to councel Him to the like Method's so they will find Him sufficiently disposed to compound for his Loathsome and Promiscuous scatterings at a rate so sutable to his temper as well as to the Doctrines of the Papal Faith. If any be deluded into a good Opinion of His Majesty and brought to flatter themselves with expectations of their being protected in the profession of the Protestant Religion they may be easily undeceived and prevailed upon to change their Sentiments if they will but consider his behaviour towards Protestants in the post wherein he formerly stood and what his carriage was to them while he was fixed in a meanner and more subordinate station than now he is Tho there have been many whose behaviour in their private condition would have rendred them thought worthy to Rule if their actions after their advancement to Governing power had not confuted the Opinion entertained concerning them yet there have been very few that have approved themselves 〈◊〉 just and merciful after their attaining to Soveraignty whose carriage in an inferior station had been to thâ— dammage and general hurt of mankind 〈◊〉 far as their
narrow power and intereâ—â— would extend It ought therefore to lay uâ— under a conviction what we are to expecâ— from His Majesty on the Throne when wâ— find the whole thread and series of his conduct while a Subject to have been a continued design against our Religion and an uninterrupted plot for the subversion of our Laws and Liberties 'T is sufficiently known how active he alway's was to keep up and inflame the differences among Protestants and how he was both a great Promoter of all the severe Laws made against Dissenters and a continual instigator to the rigorouâ— Execution of them So that his affirming it to have been ever his judgment that none ought to be oppressed and persecuted for matters of Religion nor to be hindred in Worshipping God according to their several perswasions serves only to inform us either with what little Honesty Honor and Conscience Hâ— acted in concurring to the making of the foresaid Laws or what small faith and credit is now to be given to his Declaration and to what he hath since the Emission of it repeated both in his Speech to Mr. Penn and in his Letter to Mr. Alsop And to omit many other Instances of his kindness and Benignity to the Fanaticks whom he now so much huggs and caresseth it may not be amiss to remember them and all other Protestants of that Barbarous and illegal Commission issued forth by the Council of Scotland while He as the late Kings High Commissioner had the management of the affaires of that Kingdom by which every Military Officer that had command over twelve men was impower'd to impannel Juries try condemn and cause to be put to death not only those who should be found to disclaim the Kings Authority but such as should refuse to acknowledg the Kings new modelled Supremacy over that Church in the pursuance and execution of which Commission some were shot to death others were hang'd or drowned and this not only during the conti 〈…〉 〈◊〉 oâ— the Reign of his late Majesty â—ut 〈◊〉 〈…〉 e a year and a half after the preâ—â—nt King came to the Crown But what â—eed is there of insisting upon such little parâ—â—culars wherein he was at all times ready 〈◊〉 express his malice to Protestants seeing 〈…〉 e have not only Dr. Oates's Testimony 〈…〉 d that of divers others but most authen 〈…〉 ck proofs from Mr. Coleman's Letters of 〈…〉 s having been in a Conspiracy several years 〈…〉 r the subversion of our Religion upon the 〈…〉 eritorious and sanctified Motive of extir 〈…〉 ating the Northern Heresie Of which be 〈…〉 de all the Evidence that four Successive â—arliaments arrived at I know several who 〈…〉 nce the Duke of York ascended the Throne have had it confirmed unto them by â—ivers forraign Papists that were less reâ—â—rved or more ingenuous than many of 〈…〉 hat Communion use to be To question 〈…〉 he Existence of that Plot and his present Majesties having been accessory unto and in 〈…〉 he head of it argues a strange effrontery and 〈…〉 mpudence thro casting an aspersion of weakness folly and injustice not only upon those three Parliaments that seem'd to have reâ—ained some zeal for English Liberties but by fastning the same imputations upon the 〈…〉 ong Parliament which had shew'd it self at all times more obsequious to the will of the Court than was either for their own Honor or the safety and Interest of the Kingdom and who had expressed a Veneration for the Royal Family that approached too much unto a degree of Idolatry Whosoever considers that Train of Councels wherein the King was many years engaged and whereof we felt the woful effects in the burning of London the frequent Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments the widening and exasperating Differences among Protestants the â—â—irring up and provoking Civil Magistrates and Ecclesiastical Courts to persecute Dissenters and the maintaining Correspondencies with the Pope and Catholick Princes abroad to the dishonor of the Nation and danger of our Laws and Religion cannot avoid being apprehensive what we are now to look for at his hands nor can he escape thinking that he esteems his Advancement to the Crown both a reward from heaven for what he hath done and plotted against these three Kingdoms and an opportunity and advantage administred unto him for the perfecting and accomplishment of all those Designes with which he hath been so long bigg and in travel for the destruction of our Religion the subversion of our Laws and the reestablishment of Popery in these Dominions The conduct and guidance under which His Majesty hath put himself and the fiery temper of that Order to whose Government he hath resigned his Conscience may greatly add to our fears and give us all the jealousie and dread that we are capable of being impressed with in reference to matters to come that there is nothing which can be fatal to our Religion or persons that we may not expect the being called to conflict with and suffer For tho most of the Popish Ecclesiasticks especially the Regulars bear an inveterate malice to Protestants and hold themselves under indispensable Obligations of eradicating whatsoever their Church stiles Heresie and have accordingly been alway's forward to stirr up and provoke Rulers to the use and application of force for the destruction of Protestants as a Company of perverse and obstinate Hereticks adjuged and condemned to the Stake and Gibbet by the infallible Chaire yet of all men in the Communion of the Romish Church and of their Religious Orders the Jesuites are they who do most hate us and whose Councels have been most sanguinary and alway's tending to influence those Monarchs whose Consciences they have had the guiding and conducting of to the utmost Cruelties and Barbarities towards us What our Brethern have had measured out to them in France thro Father de la Chaise's influence upon that King ' and thro the bewitching power and domination he hath over him in the quality of his Confessor and as having the direction of his Conscience may very well allarm and inform us what we ought to expect from His Majesty of Great Brittain who hath surrendred his Conscience to the guidance of Father Peters a person of the same Order and of the like mischievous and bloody disposition that the former is 'T is well observed by the Author of the Reasons against repealing the Acts of Parliament concerning the Test that Cardinal Howard's being of such a meek and gentle temper that is able to withstand the Malignity of his Religion and to preserve him from concurring in those mischievous Councels which his purple might seem to oblige him unto is the reason of his being shut out from acquaintance with and interest in the English affaires transacted at Rome and that whatsoever his Majesty hath to do in that Court is managed by his Ambassador under the sole direction of the Jesuites So that it is not without cause that the Jesuite of Leige in his
is in â—â—e mean time a member of the most persecuting and bloody Society that ever was cloathed with the name of a Church and whose cruelty towards Protestants he is careful not to arraign by fastning his offence at severity upon differences in smaller matters which he knows that those between Rome and us are not nor so accounted of by any of the papal Fellowship It were to be wished that the Dissenters would reflect and consider how when the late King had emitted a Declaration of Indulgence anno 1672. upon pretended motives of tenderness and compassion to his Protestant Subjects but in truth to keep all quiet at home when in conjunction with France he was engaging in an unjust war against a Reformed State abroad and in order to steal a liberty for the Papists to practice their Idolatries without incurring a suspition himself of being of the Romish Religion and in hope to wind up the prerogative to a paramount power over the law and how when the Parliament condemned the illegality of it and would have the Declaration recalled all his Kindness to Dissenters not only immediately vanished but turned into that Rage and fury that tho both that Parliament addressed for some favour to be shew'd them and another voted it a betraying of the Pretestant Religion to continue the execution of the penal laws upon them yet instead of their having any mercy or moderation exercised towards them they were thrown into a Furnace made seven times hotter than that wherein they had been scorched before And without pretending to be a Prophet I dare prognosticate and foretel that whensoever the present King hath compassed the Ends unto which this Declaration is designed to be subservient namely the placing the Papists both in the open exercise of their Religion and in all publick Offices and Trusts and the getting a power to be acknowledged vested in him over the Laws that then instead of the still voice calmly whispered from Whitehall they will both hear and feel the blasts of a mighty rushing wind and that upon pretended occasions arising from the abuse of this Indulgence or for some alledged crimes wherein they and all other Protestants are to be involved tho their supiness and excess of Loyalty continue to be their greatest offences this liberty will not only be withdrawn and the old Church of England severities revived but some of the new à là mode à France treatments come upon the stage and be pursued against them and all other perverse and obstinate British Hereticks The Declaration for liberty of Conscience being injurious to the Church of England and not proceeding from any inward and real good will to the Dissenters it will be worth our pains to inquire into and make a more ample deduction of the Reasons upon which it was granted that the grounds of emitting it being laid under every man's view they who have Addressed may come to be asham'd of their simplicity and folly they who have not may be farther confirmed both of the unlawfulness and inconveniency of doing it and that all who preserve any regard to the protestant Religion and the Laws of England may be quickned to the use of all legal and due means for preventing the mischievous effects which it is shapen for and which the Papists do promise themselves from it The motives upon which his Majesty published the Declaration may be reduced to three of which as I have already made some mention so I shall now place every one of them in its several and proper light and give such proofs and evidence of their being the great and sole inducements for the Emitting of it that no rational man shall be able henceforth to make a doubt of it The first is the Kings winding himself into a Supremacy and Absoluteness over the Law and the getting it acknowledged and calmly submitted unto and acquiesced in by the Subjects The Monarchies being legal and not Despotical bounded and regulat 〈…〉 by Laws and not to be exercised accoâ—ding to meer will and pleasure was th 〈…〉 which he could not digest the though 〈…〉 of when a Subject and had been hea 〈…〉 to say that he had rather Reign a day in th 〈…〉 absoluteness that the French King doth th 〈…〉 an Age tied up and restrained by Rules as 〈…〉 Brother did And therefore to persuade t 〈…〉 Prince of Orange to approve what He h 〈…〉 done in dispensing with the Laws and 〈…〉 obtain Him and the Princess to join wi 〈…〉 his Majesty and to employ their inter 〈…〉 in the Kingdom for the Repealing the T 〈…〉 Acts and the many other Statutes ma 〈…〉 against Roman Catholicks he used this Argâ—ment in a Message he sent to their Roy 〈…〉 Highnesses upon that errand that the ge 〈…〉 ting it done would be greatly to the aâ—vantage and for the increase of the prorog 〈…〉 tive but this these two noble Prince 〈…〉 of whose ascent to the Throne all Prâ—testants have so near and comfortable prospect were too generous as well 〈…〉 wise to be wheedled with as knowin 〈…〉 that the Authority of the Kings and Quee 〈…〉 of England is great enough by the Rul 〈…〉 of the Constitution without grasping at new prerogative power which as the La 〈…〉 have not vested in them so it would b 〈…〉 of no use but to inable them to do hur 〈…〉 And indeed it is more necessary both fo 〈…〉 the honor and safety of the Monarch an 〈…〉 for the freedom and security of the peopl 〈…〉 that the prerogative should be confined withi 〈…〉 its ancient and legal Channels than be left t 〈…〉 that illimited and unbounded latitude whic 〈…〉 the late King and his present Majesty have eâ—deavoured to advance and screw it up unto 〈…〉 That both the Declaration for liberty of Coâ—science in England and the Proclamation for Toleration in Scotland are calculated for raâ—sing the Soveraign Authority to a transceâ—dent Power over the Laws of the two Kingdoms may be demonstrated from the Papers themselves which lay the Dispensin 〈…〉 Power before us in terms that import n 〈…〉 less than his Majesties standing free an 〈…〉 solved from all ties and restraints and 〈◊〉 being cloathed with a Right of doing â—hatsoever he will. For if the Stile of 〈…〉 yal Pleasure to suspend the execution of 〈…〉 ch and such Laws and to forbid such 〈…〉 d such Oaths to be required to be taken 〈…〉 d this in the virtu ' of no Authority decla 〈…〉 d by the Laws to be resident in his Ma 〈…〉 sty but in the virtu ' of a certain vagrant 〈…〉 d indeterminate thing called Royal prero 〈…〉 tive as the power exercised in the English â—eclaration is worded and expressed be not 〈…〉 ough to enlighten us sufficiently in the 〈…〉 atter before us the Stile of Absolute Power â—hich all the Subjects are to obey without reâ—â—rve whereby the King is pleased to chalk â—efore us the Authority exerted in the
â—xercising his Absolute Power in whatsoever Acts he pleaseth over his own Subjects wheâ—her after the French fashion in commanding them to turn Catholicks because he will â—ave it so or after the manner of the Grand â—eignior to require them to submit their Necks to the Bow string because he is jeaâ—ous of them or wants their Estates to pay â—is Janizaries The united Provinces are they whom he bore a particular spleen and indignation unto when he was a subject and upon whom he is now in the Throne he resolves not only to wreak all his old malice but by conquering and subduing them if he can to strengthen his Absoluteness over his own People and to pave his way for overthrowing the protestant Religion in great Brittain without lying open to the hazards that may otherwise attend and ensue upon the attempting of it And instead of expecting nothing from him but what may become a brave and generous Enemy they ought to remember the encouragement that he gave heretofore to two varlets to burn that part of their Fleet which belong'd to Amsterdam an action as ignominious as fraudulent and that might have been fatal to all the Provinces if thro a happy and seasonable detection and the apprehension of one of the miscreants it had not been prevented He knows that the States General are not only zealous assertors of the protestant Religion but alway's ready to afford a Sanctuary and a place of Refuge to those who being oppressed for the profession of it elsewhere are forced to forsake their own Countries and to seek for shelter and relief in other parts And as he is not unsensible how easie the withdrawment and flight is into these Provinces for such as are persecuted in his Dominions so he is aware that if multitudes and especially men of condition and Estates should for the avoiding his cruelty betake themselves thither that they would not be unthoughtful of all ways and means whereby they might Redeem their Country from Tyranny and restore themselves to the quiet enjoyment of their Estates and liberties at home But that which most enrages him is the Figure which the two Princes do make in that State of whose Succession to the Crown the Protestants in Brittain have so near a prospect and the Post which the Prince filleth in that Government so that he dare neither venture to difinherit Them nor impose upon them such Terms and Conditions as their Consciences will not suffer them to comply with while either these States remain Free or while such English and Scotts as retain a zeal for Religion and the ancient Laws and Rights of their respective Countries can retreat thither under hopes of Admission and Protection And so closely are the interests of all Protestants in England and Scotland woven and inlaid with the interest of the united Netherlands and such is the singular regard that both the one and the other bear to the Reformed Religion the liberty of Mankind and their several Civil Rights that it is impossible for his Majesty to embarque in a design against the One without resolving at the same time upon the ruin of the Other Neither will the One be able to subsist when once the Other is subdu'd and enslaved As Philip the II. of Spain saw no way so compendious for the restoring himself to the Soveraignty and Tyrannous Rule over the Dutch as the subjugating of England that hel'p to support and assist them which was the ground of rigging out his formidable Armado and of his design against England in 1588. so his Brittish Majesty thinks no method so expeditious for the enslaving his own People as the endeavouring first to subdue the Dutch. And as upon the one hand it would be of a threatning consequence to Holland could the King subjugate his own People extirpate the protestant Religion out of his Dominions and advance himself to a Despotical Power so upon the other hand could he conquer the Dutch we might with the greatest certainty Date the woful Fate of great Brittain and the loss of all that is valuable to them as men and Christians from the same moment and Period of time They are like the Twins we read of whose Destiny was to live and die together and which soever of the two is destroyed first all the hope and comfort that the other can pretend unto is to be last devoured Now after the advances which his Majesty hath made towards the enslaving his Subjects and the subverting the Reformed Religion in his Kingdoms he finds it necessary before he venture to give the last and fatal stroke at home and to enter upon the plenary exercise of his Absolute Power in laying Parliaments wholly aside in cancelling all Laws to make way for Royal Edicts or Declarations of the complexion of the former and in commanding us to turn Roman Catholicks or to be dragoon'd I say he thinks it needful before he proceed to these to try whether he can subdue and conquer the Dutch and thereby remove all hopes of shelter relief comfort and assistance from his own People when he shall afterwards fall upon them And how much soever the Court endeavoures to conceal its design and strives to compliment the States General into a confidence that all Alliances between them and the Crown of England shall be maintained and preserved yet they not only speak their intentions by several open and visible actions but some of them cannot forbear to tell it when their blood is heated and their heads warm'd with a liberal glass and a lusty proportion of wine Thence it was that a Governing Papist lately told a Gentleman after they two had drunk hard together that they had some Work in England that would employ them a little time but when that was over they would make the Dutch fly to the end of the World to find a resting place Delenda est Carthago is engraven upon their hearts as being that without which Rome cannot arrive at the universal Monarchy that it aspires after It was upon a formed design of a war against the united Provinces that the King hath for these two years stirr 〈…〉 up and incited as well as countenanced a 〈…〉 protected the Algerines in their Piracies th 〈…〉 thro their weakning and spoiling the Du 〈…〉 before hand it may be the more easie a maâ—ter for him to subdue them when he sh 〈…〉 think fit to begin his hostilities 'T is in oâ—der to this that he hath entred into neâ— and secret Alliances with other Princes thâ— purport of which is boldly talk't of in Loâ—don but whether believed at the Hague I caâ—not tell For as Monsr Barrillion and Monsâ— Bonrepos present Transactions at Whitehal relate to something else than meerly to the aâ—fair of Hudsons Bay so Prince Georges erranâ— to Denmark is of more importance than bare visite or a naked compliment to hiâ— Brother 'T is upon this design that all thaâ— great Marine preparation hath been so lonâ— making in the
these being â—incible to a person of an ardent love to God â—nd of a lively faith in Jesus Christ and which accordingly many thousands have been â—riumphantly victorious over Nor is it likely that this new and uncouth phrase of â—ot using an invincible nec 〈…〉 would have found room in a Paper of that nature if it had not been first to counceal some malicious and mischievous design and then to justify the consistency of its execution with what is promised in the Proclamation Moreover were there that security intended by these two Royal Papers that protestant Dissenters might safely rely upon or did the King act with that sincerity which he would delude his people into a belief of there would then be a greater agreeableness than there is betwixt the Declaration for liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland The principle his Majesty pretends to act from that Conscience ought not to be constrained and that none ought to be persecuted for meer matters of Religion would obliege him to act uniformly and with an equal extention of favour to all his Subjects whose principles are the same and against whom he hath no exception but in matters meerly Religious Whereas the disparity of grace kindness and freedom that is exercised in the Declaration from that which is exerted in the Proclamation plainly shews that the whole is but a Trick of State and done in sâ—bserviency to an end which it is not yet seasonable to discover and avow For his circumscribing the Toleration in Scotland to such Presbyterians as he stiles moderate is not only a taking it off from its true bottom matters of meer Religion and a founding it upon an internal quality of the mind that is not discernable but it implyes the reserving a liberty to himself of withdrawing the benefits of it from all Scots Dissenters thro fastning upon them a contrary Character whensoever it shall be seasonable to revive persecution And even as it is now exerted to these moderate ones it is attended with Restrictions that his Indulgence in England is no ways clog'd with All that the Declaration requires from those that are indulged is that their Assemblies be peaceably openly and publickly held that all Persons be freely admitted to them that they signify and make known to some Justice of the peace what places they set apart for these uses and that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the bearâ—s of the people from the King or his Government whereas the Proclamation not only restrains the meetings of the Scots Presbyterians to private Houses without allowing them either to build meeting Houses or to use out-houses or Barns but it prohibits the hearing any Ministers save such as shall be willing to swear that they shall to the utmost of their Power assist defend and maintain the King in the exercise of his Absolute power against all deadly Nor is it difficult to assign the reason of the difformity that appears in His Majesties present Actings towards his dissenting Protestanâ— Subjects in those two Kingdoms For should there be no Restriction upon the Toleration in Scotland to hinder the greatest part of the Presbyterians from taking the advantage of it the Bishops and Conforming Clergy would be immediately forsaken by the generality if not all the people and so an â—ssue would not only be put to the division among Protestants in that Kingdom but they would become an united and thereupon a formidable Body against Popery which it is not for the interest of the Roman Catholicks to suffer or give way unto Whereas the more unbounded the Liberty is that is granted to Dissenters in England the more are our divisions not only kept up but increased and promoted especially thro this Freedom's arriving with them in an illegal way without both the Authority of the Legislative Power and the approbation of a great part of the People it being infallibly certain that there is a vast number of all ranks and conditions who do prefer the abiding in the Communion of the Church of England before the joining in fellowship with those of the Separate and dissenting Societies Upon the whole this different method of proceeding towards Dissenting Protestants in matters meerly Religious shews that all this Indulgence and Toleration is a Trick to serve a present juncture of Affairs and to advance a Popish and Arbitrary design and that the Dissenters have no security for the continuance of their Liberty but that when the Court and Jesuitick end is compassed and obtained there is another course to be steered towards them and instead of their hearing any longer of Liberty and Toleration they are to be told that it is the interest of the Government and the safety and honor of his Majesty to have but one Religion in his Dominions and that all must be Members of the Catholick Church and this because the King will have it so which is the Argument that hath been made use of in the making so many Converts in France They who now suffer themselves to be deluded into a confidence in the Royal word will not only come to understand what Mr. Coleman meant in his telling Pere de la Chaise that the Catholicks in England had a great work upon their hand being about the extirpation 〈◊〉 that Heresie which hath born sway so long 〈◊〉 this Northern part of the world but they wiâ—â— also see and feel how much of the desig 〈…〉 of Rome was represented in that passage 〈◊〉 the Popes Nuncio's Letter dated at Bruxel 〈…〉 Aug. 9. 1674. wherein upon the confidencâ— which they placed in the Duke of York whicâ— is not lessened since he came to the Crown he takes the confidence to write that theâ— hop'd speedily to see the total and final ruin 〈◊〉 the Protestant Party And as Protestant Dissenters have no secu rity by the Declaration and Proclamation foâ— the continuance of their Liberty so theâ— that have by way of thanksgiving Addresseâ— to the King for those Royal Papers have noâ— only acted very ill in reference both to the Laws and Rights of the Kingdoms and of Religion in general but they have carried very unwisely in relation to their own interest and the avoiding the effects of that resentment which most men are justly possessed with upon the illegal Emission of these Arbitrary and Prerogative Papers I shall not enter upon any long Discourse concerning this new practice of Addressing in general it having been done elsewhere some years ago but I shall only briefly intimate that it was never in fashion unless either under a weak and precarious Government or under one that took illegal courses and puâ—sued a different interest from that of the People and Community As he who Ruleth according to the standing Laws of a Countrey over which he is set needs not seek for an Approbation of his Actions from a part of his Subjects the Legality of his proceedings
being the best Justification of him that Governs and giving the truest Satisfaction to them that are Ruled so he who enjoy's the love of all his people needs not look for promises of being assisted stood by and defended by any one Party or Faction among them there being none from whom he can have the least apprehension of opposition and danger It was the want of a Legal Title in Oliver Cromâ—el and his Son Richard to the Government that first begot this 〈…〉 vice of Addressing and brought it upon 〈…〉 e stage in these Brittish Nations and it was 〈…〉 e Arbitrary procedures of the late King as 〈…〉 is of his present Majesty and their acting 〈…〉 on a distinct bottom from that of the three 〈…〉 ingdoms that hath revived and does con 〈…〉 nue it Nor is there any thing that hath 〈…〉 ndred those two Princes more contempti 〈…〉 e abroad and proclaimed them weaker 〈◊〉 home than their recurring unto and 〈…〉 lliciting the flatteries and aid of the 〈…〉 ercinacy timorous servile and for low 〈…〉 nd personal ends byass'd part of their 〈…〉 ubjects and thereby telling the World 〈…〉 at neither the generality nor the most ho 〈…〉 orable of their People have been united in 〈…〉 heir Interest nor approvers of the Coun 〈…〉 els that have been taken and pursued And 〈…〉 f any thing did ever cast a dishonor upon 〈…〉 he English Nation it hath been that loath 〈…〉 ome flattery and slavish Sycophancy wherewith the Addressers both now and â—or some years past have stuff't their apâ—lications to the two Royal Brothers The Thrâ—nâ— that is sustained and upheld by the Pillars of Law and Justice needs not to 〈…〉 hew out unto its self other Supporsers nor 〈…〉 lean upon the crooked and weak s 〈…〉 lts of the insignificant and for the most part de 〈…〉 ceitful as well as bâ—ib'd Vows of a sort of men who will be as ready upon the least disgust to cry cruciâ—y to morrow as they were for being gratified may be in their â—usts humours and revenges and at the best in some separate concern to cry Hosanna to day I shall decline prosecuting what concerns the honor or dishonor of him to whom the Adresses are made or how politick or impolitick the countenancing and encouraging them is and shall apply my self to this new set of Addressers and endeavour to shew how foolish as well as criminally they have acted Nor is it an argument either of their prudence or honesty or of their acting with any consistency to themselves that having so severely inveighed against the Addresses that were in fashion a few years ago and having fastned all the imputations and reproaches upon those that were accessory to them which that rank of Addressers could be supposed to have deserved they now espouse the practice which they had condemned and in reference to as Arbitrary and an unjustifiable an Act of His present Majesty as the most illegal one the late King was guilty of or the worst exercise of prerogative for which any hereâ—ofore either commended or promised to stand by him For tho the matter and subject of the Aâ—bitrary Act of him now upon the Tbrone be not as to every branch of it so publickly scandalous as some of the Arbitrary proceedings of the late King were as relating to a favour which mankind hath a just claim unto yet it is every way as illegal being in reference to a priviledg which His Majesty hath no Authoriâ—y to grant and bestow And were it not that there are many Dissenters who preserve themselves innocent at this juncture and upon whom the temptation that is administred makes no impression the world would have just ground to say that the Phanaticks are not governed by Principles but that the measures they walk by are what conduceth to their private and personal benefit or what lyes in a tendency to their loss and prejudice And that it was not the late Kings usurping and exerting an Arbitrary and illegal power that offended them but that they were not the Objects in whose favour it was exercised 'T is also an aggravation of their Folly as well as their Offerâ—câ— that they should revive a practice which the Nation was grown asham'd of and whereof they who had been guilry begun to repent thro having seen that all the former Declarations Assurances and Promises of the Royal Brothers which tempted to applications of that kind were but so many juggles peculiar to the late Breed of the Family for the deceiving of mankind and that never one of them was performed and made good But the transgression as well as the imprudence of the present Addressers is yet the greater and they are the more criminal and inexcusable before God and men in that they might have enjoyed all the benefits of the Kings Declaration without acknowledging the Justice of the Authority by which it was granted or making themselves the scorn and contempt of all that are truely honest and wise by their servile Adulations and their gratulatory Scribles unbecoming Englishmen and Protestants They had no more to do but to continue their meetings as they had sometimes heretofore used to do without taking notice that the present Suspension of the Laws made their Assembling together more safe and freed them from apprehension of fines and imprisonments Nor could the King how much soever displeased with such a conduct have at this time ventured upon the expressing displeasure against them seeing as that would have been both to have proclaimed his hypocrisie in saying that Conscience ought not to be constrained nor people forced in matters of meer Religion and a discovering the villanous design in subserviency to which the Declaration had been emitted so it were not possible for him after what he hath published to single out the Dissenters from amongst other Protestants and to fall upon all before matters are more ripe for it might be a means of the abortion of all his Popish Projections and of saving the whole Reformed interest in Great Brittain Neither would the Church of England men have envied their tranquillity or have blamed their carriage but would have been glad that their Brethren had been eased from oppressions and themselves delivered from the grievous and dishonorable task of prosecuting them which they had formerly been forced unto by Court injunctions and commands And as they would have by a Conduct of this nature had all the Freedom which they now enjoy without the guilt and reproach which they have derived upon themselves by Addrâ—ssing so such a carriage would have wonderfully recommended them to the Favour of a true English Parliam 〈…〉 which tho it will see cause to condem 〈…〉 the Kings usurping a power of suspending t 〈…〉 Laws and to make void his Declaratio 〈…〉 yet in gratitude to Dissenters for such a behaviour as well as in pitty and compassio 〈…〉 to them as English Protestants such a Parliament would not fail to do all it
could to give them relief in a legal way Where as if any thing enflame and exasperate t 〈…〉 Nation to revive their sufferings it wi 〈…〉 arise from a resentment of the unworth 〈…〉 and treacherous carriage of so many 〈◊〉 them in this critical and dangerous ju 〈…〉 cture But the Terms which thro their A 〈…〉 dressing they have owned the receivi 〈…〉 their Liberty and Indulgence upon does in peculiar manner enhance their guilt again 〈…〉 God and their Countrey and strangely ad 〈…〉 to the disgust and anger which lovers 〈◊〉 Religion and the Laws of the Nation hav 〈…〉 conceived against them For it is Hot onl 〈…〉 upon the acknowledgment of a preroga 〈…〉 in the King over the Laws that they hav 〈…〉 received and now hold their Liberty b 〈…〉 it is upon the condition that nothing be preach 〈…〉 or taught amongst them that may any ways tend 〈◊〉 alienate the hearts of the People from his Majesti 〈…〉 person and Government He must be of an u 〈…〉 derstanding very near allied unto and approaching to that of an Irish man who do 〈…〉 not know what the Court sense of that clau 〈…〉 is and that his Majesty thereby intends th 〈…〉 they are not to preach against Popery nor t 〈…〉 set forth the Doctrines of the Romish Church i 〈…〉 terms that may prevent the peoples being i 〈…〉 â—ected by them much less in colours th 〈…〉 may render them hated and abhorred T 〈…〉 accuse the Kings Religion of Idolatry or 〈◊〉 affirm the Church of Rome to be the Apoc 〈…〉 lyptick Babylon and to represent the Articl 〈…〉 of the Tridentine Faith as faithful Ministers 〈◊〉 Christ ought to do would be accounted a 〈…〉 alienating the hearts of their hearers from t 〈…〉 King and his Government which as they 〈◊〉 in the foresaid Clause required noâ— to do 〈◊〉 they have by their Addressing confessed t 〈…〉 Iustice of the Terms and have undertaken 〈◊〉 〈…〉 old their liberty by that Tenor. And to give 〈…〉 em their due they have been very faithful 〈…〉 itherto in conforming to what the King 〈…〉 xacts and in observing what themselves have 〈…〉 ented to the equity of For notwithstan 〈…〉 ing all the danger from popery that the Na 〈…〉 on is exposed unto and all the hazard that 〈…〉 e Souls of men are in of being poysoned 〈…〉 i th Romish principles yet instead of prea 〈…〉 ing or writing against any of the Doctrines of 〈…〉 e Church of Rome they have agreed among 〈…〉 emselves and with such of their Congre 〈…〉 ations as approve their procedure not so 〈…〉 uch as to mention them but to leave the 〈…〉 rovince of defending our Religion and of 〈…〉 etecting the falshood of papal Tenets to the 〈…〉 astors and Gentlemen of the Church of Eng 〈…〉 nd And being ask'd as I know some of 〈…〉 em that have been why they do not preach 〈…〉 gainst Antichrist and confuse the papal Do 〈…〉 rines they very gravely reply that by prea 〈…〉 ing Christ they preach against Antichrist 〈…〉 nd that by Teaching the Gospel they Re 〈…〉 te Popery which is such a piece of fraudu 〈…〉 ent and guilful subâ—erfuge that I want words 〈…〉 o express the knavery and criminalness of it What a reserve and change have I lived to see 〈…〉 n England from what I beheld a few years 〈…〉 go It was but the other day that the Con 〈…〉 rmable Clergy were represented by some of 〈…〉 he Dissenters not only as favourers of 〈…〉 opery but as endeavouring to hale it in upon 〈…〉 s by all the methods and ways that lay within 〈…〉 heir circle and yet now the whole defence of 〈…〉 e Reformed Religion must be entirely de 〈…〉 olved into their hands and when all the 〈…〉 ces are pulled up that had been made to 〈…〉 inder Popery from overflowing the Nation 〈…〉 ey must be left alone to stemm the inun 〈…〉 ation and prevent the deluge They among 〈…〉 e Fanaticks that boasted to be the most avo 〈…〉 ed and irreconcilable Enemies of the Church 〈…〉 f Rome are not only become altogether si 〈…〉 ent when they see the Kingdom pesterd with 〈◊〉 swarm of busie and seducing Emissaries but 〈…〉 e both turned Advocats for that Arbitrary 〈…〉 aper whereby we are surrendred as a prey 〈…〉 nto them and do make it their business to detract from the reputation and discourage the laboures of the National Ministers who with a zeal becoming their Office and a learning which deserves to be admired have set themselves in opposition to that croaking fry and have done enough by their excellent and unimitable Writings to save people from being deluded and perverted if either unanswerable consutations of Popery or demonstrative Defences of the Articles and Doctrines of the Reformed Religion can have any efficacy upon the minds of men Among other fulsom flatteries adorning a Speach made to his Majesty by an Addressing Dissenter I find this hypocritical and shameful adulation namely that if there should remain any seeds of disloyalty in any of his Subjects the transcendent goodness exerted in his Declaration would morâ—isie and kill them to which he might have added with more truth that the same transcendent goodness had almost destroyed all the seeds of their honesty and mortied their care and concernment for the interest of Iesus Christ and for the Reformed Religion Their old strain of zealous preaching against the Idolaâ—ry of Rome and concerning the coming out of Babylon my people are grown out of fashion with them in England and are only reserved and said by to recommend them to the kindness and acceptation of forraign Protestants when their occasions and conveniencies draw them over to Amsterdam Whosoever comes into their Assemblies would think for any thing that he there hears delivered from their pulpits that She which was the Whore of Babylon a few years ago were now become a chast Spouse and that what were heretofore the damnable Doctrines of Popery were of late turned innocent and Harmless opinions The Kings Declaration would seem to have brought some of them to a melius inquirendum and as they are already arrived to believe a Roman Catholick the best King that they may in a little time come to esteem Papists for the best Christians The keeping back nothing that is profitable to save such as hear them and the declaring the whole Counsel of God that are the Terms upon which they receiyed their Commission from Iesus Christ and wherein they have Pauls practice and example for a pattern would seem to be things under the Power of the Royal prerogative and that the King may supercede them by the same Authority by which he dispenses with the penal Statutes Which as it is very agreeable unto and imported in his Majesties Claim of being obeyed without reserve so the owning this Absolute Power with that annex of challenged obedience does acquit them from all obligations to
deserve should they be proceeded against according to their demerit yet it is to be hoped that both they and the Addressers of the former stamp may all find room in an Act of Indemnity and that the Mercy of the Nation towards them will triump over and get the better of its Iustice. As it would argue a strange and judicial infatuation should they proceed to farther excesses and think to escape the punishment due to one Crime by comitting and taking Sanctuary in another thro improving their compliments into actions of treachery so all their hope of pardon as well as of lenity and moderation from a true Protestant and rightly constituted Authority depends upon their conduct and behaviour henceforward and their not suffering themselves to be hurried and deluded into a co-operation with the Court for the obtaining of a Popish Parliament All their endeavours of that kind would but more clearly detect and manifest their treachery to Religion and the Kingdom it not being in their power to ontvote the honest English part of the People so as to help the King to such a House of Commons as he desires and were it possible that thro their assistance in conjunction with violence and tricks used in Elections and Returns by the Court such a â—ouse of Commons might be obtained as would be serviceable to Arbitrary and papal Ends yet neither the King nor they would be the neâ—rer the compassing what is aimd at it being demonstrable that the Majority of the House of Lords are never to be wrought over to justify this illegal Declaration or to grant the King a Power of Suspending Laws at his pleasure nor to give their Assent to a Bill for Repealing the Test Acts and the Statutes that enjoin and require the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy And if they should be so far left of God and betrayd by those among themselves whom the Court hath gained as to become guilty of so enormous an Act of folly and villany and should the Election of the next Parliament be the happy juncture they wait for and the improving their interest as well as the giving their own votes for the Choice of Papists into the House of Commons be what they mean by an essential proof of their Loyalty and of the sincerity of their humble Addresses and that whereby they intend to demonstrate that the greatest thing they have promised is the least thing they will perform for his Majesties service and satisfation as in that case they will deserve to forfeit all hopes of bei 〈…〉 forgiven so it would be an infidelity to Go 〈…〉 and Men and a cruelty to our selves 〈◊〉 our Posterity not to abandon them as betray 〈…〉 of Religion expunge them out of the Roll 〈◊〉 Protestants strip them of all that where 〈…〉 free Subjects have a Legal Right and not 〈◊〉 condemn them to the utmost punishment 〈…〉 which the Laws of the Kingdom adjudg th 〈…〉 worst of Traitors and Malefactors unto There are some who thro hating of them do wish their miscarrying and offending t 〈…〉 so unpardouable a degree that they ma 〈…〉 hereafter be furnished with an advantage both of ruining them and the whole Diâ—senting party for their sakes But as the lov 〈…〉 that I bear unto them and the perswasio 〈…〉 and belief I have of the truth of their Religious principles do make me exceeding solic 〈…〉 tous to have them kept and prevented from being hurried and transported into so fata 〈…〉 and criminal a behaviour so I desire 〈◊〉 make no other excuse for my plain dealin 〈…〉 towards them but that of Solomon who tell us that faithful are the wounds of a friend whi 〈…〉 the kisses of an Enemy are deceitful and that h 〈…〉 who rebukes a man shall find more favour afterwards than he who flattereth with the tongu 〈…〉 POSTSCRIPT SInce the fore-going Sheets went to the press and while they were Printing off there is come to my hands a new Proclamation Dated at Windsor the 28. of Iune 1687. for granting further Liberty in Scotland and which was published there by an Order of the privy Council of that Kingdom bearing Date at Edinburgh the 5. of Iuly This Superâ—â—tation of one Proclamation after another in reference to the same thing is so apportioâ—ed and parallel to the late French method of Emitting Edicts in relation to those of the Reformed Religion in that Kingdom that they seem to proceed out of one mint to be calculated for the same End and to be designed for the compassing and obtaining the like effects For as soon as an Alarm was taken at the publishing of some unreasonable and rigorous Edict there used often to follow another of a milder strain which was pretended to be either for the moderating the severities of the former or to remove 〈…〉 d rectify what they were pleased to call 〈…〉 isconstructions unduly put upon it but 〈…〉 e true End whereof was only to stiffle and 〈…〉 tinguish the jealousies and apprehensions 〈…〉 at the other had begotten and excited and â—hich had they not been calmed and allayd 〈…〉 ight have awakened the Protestants there 〈◊〉 provide for their safety by a timely withâ—rawing into other Countries if they had â—ot been provoked to generous endeavoures â—f preventing the final suppression of their â—eligion and for obviating the ruin which 〈…〉 at Court had projected against them and â—as hastning to involve them under Nor 〈…〉 es my suspition of his Majesties pursuing â—e same design against Protestants which â—e great Louis glories to have accompli 〈…〉 ed proceed meerly from that conjun 〈…〉 ion of Counsels that all the world observes â—etween Whitehall and Versailles nor meerâ—â— from the Kings abandoning his Nephew â—nd Son in Law the Prince of Orange and not 〈◊〉 much as interposing to obtain satisfaction 〈◊〉 be given him for the many injuries dam 〈…〉 ages spoiles and robberies as well as 〈…〉 fronts done him by that haughty Monarch â—hen one vigorous application could not 〈…〉 il to effect it nor yet meerly from that â—greeableness in their procedures thro the â—ing of Englands imitating that forraign Po 〈…〉 ntate and making the whole course that 〈…〉 at h been taken in France the Pattern of 〈…〉 ll his actings in Great Brittain but I am â—uch confirmed in my fears and jealousies 〈…〉 y remembring a passage in one of Mr. Cole 〈…〉 ans Letters who as he very well knew what 〈…〉 e then Duke of York had been for many 〈…〉 ears ingaged in against our Religion and 〈…〉 ivil Liberties and under what Vows and 〈…〉 romises he was not to desist from prose 〈…〉 ting what had been resolved upon and un 〈…〉 ertaken so he had the confidence to say 〈…〉 at his Masters design and that of the King of 〈…〉 ance was one and the same and that this â—as no less as he farther informs us than 〈…〉 e exâ—â—â—pating the Northern Heresie Had the â—ing of England acted with
Loyal and faithful to himself save those who â—re willing to beâ—â—â—y their Countrey and be Rebells and Traitors against the Legal Constitution I say whosoever considers all this and a great deal more of the same Hue and complexion cannot imagine unless he be under a judicial blindness and a strange insatuation that any thing arriving from the King tho it may be a matter wherein they may find their present ease and advantage should proceed from compassion and good will to his Protestant Subjects but that it must be only in order to promote a distinct interest from that of his people and for the better and more easie accomplishing of some wicked and unjustifiable design And tho his Majesty would have us believe that the reasons moving him to the Emission of this 2â—â— Proclamation were the s 〈…〉 istruous Interpretations which either have or may be made of some Restrictions in his former yet it is not difficult even without being of his privy Council to assign a truer motive and a more real and effectual cause of it For as that of the 12 th of February came forth attended with so many limitations not casie to be digested by men of wisdom or honesty lest if it had been more unconfined and extensive and should have opened a Door for all Scotts Dissenters to have gone in and taken the benefit of it the generality of Protestants in that Kingdom abstracting from the Bishops Curaâ—es and a few others should have joined in the separate interest and thereby have become an united Body against popery but upon finding that hardly any would purchase their freedom from the penal laws at so dear a rate as to do things so unbecoming Men and Christians as the conforming to the Terms therein prescribed obliged them unto and that as they of the National Communion were alarm'd and disgusted so few or none of the Dissenting fellowships were pleased and that both were not only angry at the many illegal favours and threatning advantages bestowed upon the Papists but were grown so sensible of the design carrying on against the Protestant Religion and the liberties and priviledges of the Subject that tho they could not renounce their respective tenets in the matters wherein they differed yet they were willing to stifle their heats and animosities and to give that encouragement aid and assistance to one another as was necessary for their common safety upon these considerations his Majesty if he would have spoken sincerely ought to have said that he had published this new Proclamation in order to hinder Scots Protestants from uniting for their mutual defence against Turkish Tyranny and Romish Idolatry and in hopes thereby to continue and exasperate their undue and passionate heats and to keep them not only in divided and opposit interests but to make them contribute to the suppressing and ruining each other or at least to look on unconcernedly till he have ripened his designes against them both and be prepared for extirpating the Reformed Religion and for subverting the fundamental as well as Statute Laws and for bringing such to the stake and Gibbet as shall have the integrity to assert the one or the courage to plead for the other And yet in this last Proclamation wherein he grants a more illimited freedom than in the former and promiseth to Protect all in the exercise of Their Protestant Religion as he disdainfully and ignominiously calls it there is a clause that may discourage all honest men from owning their Liberty to the Authority that bestows it and from which it is derived and conveyed to them For not being satisfied to superstruct his pretended Right of Suspending S 〈…〉 pping and Disabling Laws upon his Soveraign Authority and Prerogative Royal but as knowing that these give no such pre-eminence and Iurisdiction over the Laws of the Kingdom he is pleased to challeng unto himself an Absolute Power as the source and spring of that exorbitant and Paramount Claim which he therein exerciseth and exerts And forasmuch as Absolute Power imports his Majesties being loose and free from all ties and restraints either by fundamental Stipulations or superadded Laws it is very natural to observe that he allows the Government under which we were born and to which we were sworn and stood bound to be hereby subverted and changed and that thereupon we are not only absolved and acquitted from the Allegiance and fealty we were formerly under to his Majesty but are indispensably obliged by the â—ies and engagements that are upon us of maintaining and defending the Constitution and Government to apply our selves to the use of all means and endeavours against him as an Enemy of the people and a subverter of the legal Government wherein all the interest he had or could lawfully claim was an official Trust and noâ— an Absolute 〈◊〉 or a despoâ—icat Dominion the first whereof he hath deposed aâ—d abdicated himself from by challenging and usurping the latter And should any Scots dissenter either in his entrance upon the Liberty granted by this Proclamation or in addressing by way of thankfulness for it take the least notice of this freedom's flowing from the King which cannot be done without Recognising this Absolute Power in his Majesty as the fountain of it he is to be lookt upon as the worst of Traitors and deserves to be proceeded against both for his aecession unto a 〈…〉 justifying the subversion of the Laws Libe 〈…〉 ties and Government of his Country anâ— for betraying the Rights of all free-borâ— men For those few Reflections in thâ— fore going Sheets which this New Proclamation may not only seem to render useless and frustrate the end whereunto they werâ— intended but may make the publishing anâ— animadversions upon that which the Kinâ— by departing from does himself Censure anâ— condemn be esteemed both a faileur iâ— in genuity and candor and a want of rega 〈…〉 to those Measures of Justice which oughâ— to be observed towards all men and morâ— especially towards Crowned Heads I shalâ— only say that as the Proclamation arrived wi 〈…〉 me too late to hinder and prevent the communication of them to the publick so I have this farther to add in justification oâ— their being published that it will thereby appear that what his Majesty stiles sinistruo 〈…〉 Interpretations made of some Restrictions mentioned in his former are no other than the just natural genuine and obvious constructions which they ly open unto and are capable of and which a man cannot avoid fastning upon them without renouncing all Sense and Reason And while the King continues to disparage and asperse all sober and judicious Reflections upon that Royal Paper by charging upon them the unjust and reproachful Character of sinistruous Interpretations it is necessary as well as equal that the whole matter should be plâ—iâ—ly and impartially represented to the World and that the 〈◊〉 â—be re 〈…〉 tted and lâ—â—t to the understanding and 〈…〉 ass ' 〈…〉 part of mankind who are the calumniators and Slanderers they who accuse the Proclamation of importing such principles consequences and tendencies or he and his Ministers who think they have avoided and answered the imputations fastned upon it when they have loaded them with hard and uncivil terms For tho he be pleased to assume to himself an Absolute Power which all are bound to obey without reserve and in the virtue of which 〈…〉 e Suspends Stops and Disables what Laws he â—leaseth yet I do not know but that his 〈…〉 ntellectuals being of the size of other mens 〈…〉 nd that seeing neither his Soveraignity 〈…〉 or Catholicalness have vested in him an 〈…〉 nerrability why we may not enter our 〈…〉 lea and demurr to the dictates of his Judgment tho we know not how to withstand the efforts of his Power Nor shall I sub 〈…〉 oin any more save that whereas his Ma 〈…〉 esty Declares so many Laws to be disabled to 〈…〉 ll Intents and purposes he ought to have remembred that beside other intents and purposes that several of them may hereafter serve unto as the Papists may possibly come to have experience there is one thing in reference to which he cannot even at present hinder prevent their usefulness and efficacy and that is not only their raising and exciting all just resentments in the minds of free-born and generous men for his challenging a Power to Suspend and Cassate them but their remaining and continuing Monuments of his Infidelity to the Trust reposed in him of his departure from all promises made at and since his entring upon the Government and of his invading and subverting all the Rules of the Constitution FINIS Pag. 4 col 2. lin 3. after Court put ibid. lin 41. r. knew P. 5. col 1. l. 3. r. account ibid. l. 30. r. inpemperate ibid. col 2. l. 35. r. in P. 6. col 2. l. 18. aiteâ— Order put P. 7. col 2. l 39. for anâ— as P. 11. col 1. l. 32. r. stirred up ibid. l. penult 1. judg P. 25. col 2. in the margin r. Rot. Parl. 7. Hen. 4. P. 31. col 2. l. 11. r. obsoleâ—e P. 40. col 1. l. 38. r. Promisee P. 47. col 1. l. 27. r. reverse Hist. of the Times Proef. to h 〈…〉 Hist. of th 〈…〉 Times p. 〈◊〉 De Laudib Leg. Angl. c. 9. Bract. lib. 〈…〉 cap. 16. Fle 〈…〉 lib. 1. c. 17. Lib. 3 〈…〉 cap. 9 〈…〉 Rol. Parl. 7. Hist. 4 Num. 59. See Mr. Alsops Speech to the King.