shall think fit to bestow on them and only restrains them from invading the Protestant Churches by force so that here a Door is plainly opened for admitting them to the Exercise of their Religion in Protestant Churches so they do not break into them by force and whatsoever may be the sense of the Term Benefice in its ancient and first signification now it stands only for Church Preferments so that when any Churches that are at the King's Gift fall vacant here is a plain intimation that they are to be provided to them and then it is very probable that all the Laws made against such as go not to their Parish-Churches will be severely turned upon those that will not come to Mass XII His Majesty does in the next place in the vertue of his Absolute Power annul a great many Laws as well those that established the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy as the late Test enacted by himself in Person while he represented his Brother upon which he gave as strange an Essay to the World of his Absolute Justice in the Attainder of the late Earl of Argile as he does now of his Absolute Power in condemning the Test it self he also repeals his own Confirmation of the Test since he came to the Crown which he offered as the clearest Evidence that he could give of his Resolution to maintain the Protestant Religion and by which he gained so much upon that Parliament that he obtained every thing from them that he desired of them till he came to try them in the Matters of Religion This is no extraordinary Evidence to assure his People that his Promises will be like the Laws of the Medes and Persians which alter not nor will the disgrace of the Commissioner that enacted that Law lay this Matter wholly on him for the Letter that he brought the Speech that he made and the Instructions which he got are all too well known to be so soon forgotten and if Princes will give their Subjects reason to think that they forget their Promises as soon as the Turn is served for which they were made this will be too prevailing a Temptation to the Subjects to mind the Princes Promise as little as it seems he himself does and will force them to conclude that the Truth of the Prince is not so Absolute as it seems he fancies his Power to be XIII Here is not only a Repealing of a great many Laws and established Oaths and Tests but by the exercise of the Absolute Power a new Oath is imposed which was never pretended to by the Crown in any former time and as the Oath is created by this Absolute Power so it seems the Absolute Power must be supported by this Oath since one Branch of it is an Obligation to maintain his Majesty and his lawful Successors in the exercise of this their Absolute Power and Authority against all Deadly which I suppose is Scotch for Mortals Now to impose so hard a Yoke as this Absolute Power on the Subjects seems no small stretch but it is a wonderful Exercise of it to oblige the Subjects to defend this it had been more modest if they had been only bound to bear it and submit to it but it is a terrible thing so far to extinguish all the Remnants of Natural Liberty or of a Legal Government as to oblige the Subjects by Oath to maintain the Exercise of this which plainly must destroy themselves For the short Execution by the Bow-strings of Turkey or by sending Orders to Men to return in their Heads being an Exercise of this Absolute Power it is a little hard to make Men swear to maintain the King in it and if that Kingdom has suffered so much by the many Oaths that have been in use among them as is marked in this Proclamation I am afraid this new Oath will not much mend the matter XIV Yet after all there is some Comfort his Majesty assures them he will use no Violence nor Force nor any Invincible Necessity to any Man upon the account of his Persuasion It were too great a want of Respect to fancy that a time may come in which even this may be remembred full as well as the Promises that were made to the Parliament after His Majesty came to the Crown I do not I confess apprehend that for I see here to great a Caution used in the choice of these Words that it is plain very great Severities may very well consist with them It is clear that the general Words of Violence and Force are to be determined by these last of Invincible Necessity so that the King does only promise to lay no Invincible Necessity on his Subjects but for all Necessities that are not Invincible it seems they must expect to bear a large share of them Disgraces want of Employments Fines and Imprisonments and even Death it self are all Vincible things to a Man of firmness of Mind so that the Violences of Torture the Furies of Dragoons and some of the Methods now practised in France perhaps may be included within this Promise since these seem almost Invincible to Humane Nature if it is not fortified with an extraordinary measure of Grace but as to all other things His Majesty binds himself up from no part of the Exercise of his Absolute Power by this Promise XV. His Majesty orders this to go immediately to the Great Seal without passing thro' the other Seals Now since this is counter-signed by the Secretary in whose Hands the Signet is there was no other step to be made but thro' the Privy Seal so I must own I have a great curiosity of knowing his Character in whose Hands the Privy Seal is at present for it seems his Conscience is not so very supple as the Chancellor's and the Secretaries are but it is very likely if he does not quickly change his Mind the Privy Seal at least will very quickly change its Keeper and I am sorry to hear that the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary have not another Brother to fill this Post that so the Guilt of the Ruine of that Nation may lie on one single Family and that there may be no others involved in it XVI Upon the whole matter many smaller things being waved it being extream unpleasant to find fault where one has all possible dispositions to pay all Respect we here in England see what we must look for A Parliament in Scotland was tried but it proved a little stubborn and now Absolute Power comes to set all right so when the Closetting has gone round so that Noses are counted we may perhaps see a Parliament here but if it chances to be untoward and not to obey without Reserve then our Reverend Judges will copy from Scotland and will not only tell us of the King 's Imperial Power but will discover to us this new Mystery of Absolute Power to which we are all bound to obey without Reserve These Reflections refer in so many Places
of Rome as guilty of Idolatry unless at the same time we part with our Religion X. Others give us a strange sort of Argument to persuade us to part with the Test they say The King must imploy his Popish Subjects for he can trust no other and he is so assured of their Fidelity to him that we need apprehend no Danger from them This is an odd Method to work on us to let in a sort of People to the Parliament and Government since the King cannot trust us but will depend on them so that as soon as this Law is repealed they must have all the Imployments and have the whole Power of the Nation lodged in their hands this seems a little too gross to impose even on Irishmen The King saw for many Years together with how much Zeal both the Clergy and many of the Gentry appeared for his Interests and if there is now a Melancholy Damp on their Spirits the King can dissipate it when he will and as the Church of England is a Body that will never rebel against him so any Sullenness under which the late Administration of Affairs has brought them would soon vanish if the King would be pleased to remember a little what he has so often promised not only in Publick but in Private and would be contented with the Exercise of his own Religion without embroiling his whole Affairs because F. Petre will have it so and it tempts Englishmen to more than ordinary degrees of Rage against a sort of Men who it seems can infuse in a Prince born with the highest sense of Honour possible Projects to which without doing some Violence to his own Royal Nature he could not so much as hearken to if his Religion did not so fatally muffle him up in a blind Obedience But if we are so unhappy that Priests can so disguise Matters as to mislead a Prince who without their ill Influences would be the most Glorious Monarch of all Europe and would soon reduce the Grand Louis to a much humbler Figure yet it is not to be so much as imagined that ever their Arts can be so unhappily successful as to impose on an English Parliament composed of Protestant Members SOME REFLECTIONS On His MAJESTY'S PROCLAMATION Of the Twelfth of February 1686 / 7. for a TOLERATION in Scotland Together with the said PROCLAMATION I. THe Preamble of a Proclamation is oft writ in haste and is the Flourish of some wanton Pen but one of such an Extraordinary nature as this is was probably more severely examined there is a new Designation of his Majesty's Authority here set forth of his Absolute Power which is so often repeated that it deserves to be a little searched into Prerogative Royal and Sovereign Authority are Terms already received and known but for this Absolute Power as it is a new Term so those who have coined it may make it signifie what they will. The Roman Law speaks of Princeps Legibus solutus and Absolute in its natural signification importing the being without all Ties and Restraints then the true meaning of this seems to be that there is an Inherent Power in the King which can neither be restrained by Laws Promises nor Oaths for nothing less than the being free from all these renders a Power Absolute II. If the former Term seemed to stretch our Allegiance that which comes after it is yet a step of another nature tho' one can hardly imagine what can go beyond Absolute Power and it is in these Words Which all our Subjects are to obey without reserve And this is the carrying Obedience many sizes beyond what the Grand Seigneur has ever yet claimed For all Princes even the most violent Pretenders to Absolute Power till Lewis the Great 's Time have thought it enough to oblige their Subjects to submit to their Power and to bear whatsoever they thought good to impose upon them but till the Days of the late Conversions by Dragoons it was never so much as pretended that Subjects were bound to obey their Prince without Reserve and to be of his Religion because he would have it so Which was the only Argument that those late Apostles made use of so it is probable this Qualification of the Duty of Subjects was put in here to prepare us for a terrible le Roy le veut and in that case we are told here that we must obey without reserve and when those severe Orders come the Privy-Council and all such as execute this Proclamation will be bound by this Declaration to shew themselves more forward than any others to obey without reserve and those poor Pretensions of Conscience Religion Honour and Reason will be then reckoned as Reserves upon their Obedience which are all now shut out III. These being the Grounds upon which this Proclamamation is founded we ought not only to consider what Consequences are now drawn from them but what may be drawn from them at any time hereafter for if they are of force to justifie that which is now inferred from them it will be full as just to draw from the same Premises an Abolition of the Protestant Religion of the Rights of the Subjects not only to Church-lands but to all Property whatsoever In a word it asserts a Power to be in the King to command what he will and an Obligation in the Subjects to obey whatsoever he shall command IV. There is also mention made in the Preamble of the Christian Love and Charity which his Majesty would have established among Neighbours but another dash of a Pen founded on this Absolute Power may declare us all Hereticks and then in wonderful Charity to us we must be told that we are either to obey without Reserve or to be burnt without Reserve We know the Charity of that Church pretty well It is indeed Fervent and Burning and if we have forgot what has been done in former Ages France Savoy and Hungary have set before our Eyes very fresh Instances of the Charity of that Religion While those Examples are so green it is a little too imposing on us to talk to us of Christian Love and Charity No doubt his Majesty means sincerely and his Exactness to all his Promises chiefly to those made since he came to the Crown will not suffer us to think an unbecoming Thought of his Royal Intentions but yet after all tho' it seems by this Proclamation that we are bound to obey without Reserve it is Hardship upon Hardship to be bound to Believe without Reserve V. There are a sort of People here tolerated that will be very hardly found out and these are the Moderate Presbyterians Now as some say that there are very few of those People in Scotland that deserve this Character so it is hard to tell what it amounts to and the calling any of them Immoderate cuts off all their share in this Grace Moderation is a Quality that lies in the Mind and how this will be found out I
cannot so readily guess If a Standard had been given of Opinions or Practices then one could have known how this might have been distinguished but as it lies it will not be easie to make the Discrimination and the declaring them all Immoderate shuts them out quite VI. Another Foundation laid down for Repealing all Laws made against the Papists is That they were enacted in King James the Sixth's Minority with some harsh Expressions that are not to be insisted on since they shew more the Heat of the Penner than the Dignity of the Prince in whose Name they are given out but all these Laws were ratified over and over again by King James when he came to be of full Age and they have received many Confirmations by King Charles the First and King Charles the Second as well as by his present Majesty both when he represented his Brother in the Year 1681. and since He himself came to the Crown so that whatsoever may be said concerning the first Formation of those Laws they have received now for the course of a whole hundred Years that are lapsed since King James was of full Age so many Confirmations that if there is any thing certain in Humane Government we might depend upon them but this new coined Absolute Power must carry all before it VII It is also well known that the whole Settlement of the Church-Lands and Tythes with many other things and more particularly the Establishment of the Protestant Religion was likewise enacted in King James's Minority as well as those Penal Laws so that the Reason now made use of to annul the Penal Laws will serve full as well for another Act of this Absolute Power that shall abolish all those and if Maxims that unhinge all the Securities of Humane Society and all that is sacred in Government ought to be look'd on with the justest and deepest Prejudices possible one is tempted to lose the Respect that is due to every thing that carries a Royal Stamp upon it when he sees such Grounds made use of as must shake all Settlements whatsoever For if a Prescription of 120 Years and Confirmations reiterated over and over again these 100 Years past do not purge some Defects in the first Formation of those Laws what can make us secure But this looks so like a Fetch of the French Prerogative Law both in their Processes with relation to the Edict of Nantes and those concerning Dependences at Mets that this seems to be a Copy from that famous Original VIII It were too much ill Nature to look into the History of the last Age to examine on what Grounds those Characters of Pious and Blessed given to the Memory of Q. Mary are built but since King James's Memory has the Character of Glorious given to it if the Civility due to the Fair Sex makes one unwilling to look into the one yet the other may be a little dwelt on The peculiar Glory that belongs to King James's Memory is that he was a Prince of great Learning and that he employed it chiefly in writing for Religion Of the Volume in Folio in which we have his Works two thirds are against the Church of Rome one part of them is a Commentary on the Revelation proving that the Pope is Antichrist another part of them belonged more naturally to his Post and Dignity which is the Warning that he gave to all the Princes and States of Europe against the Treasonable and Bloody Doctrines of the Papacy The first Act he did when he came of Age was to swear in Person with all his Family and afterwards with all his People of Scotland a Covenant containing an Enumeration of all the Points of Popery and a most solemn Renunciation of them somewhat like our Parliament Test His first Speech to the Parliament of England was Copious on the same Subject and he left a Legacy of a Wish on such of his Posterity as should go over to that Religion which in good manners is suppressed It is known King James was no Conqueror and that he made more use of his Pen than his Sword so the Glory that is peculiar to his Memory must fall chiefly on his Learned and Immortal Writings and since there is such a Veneration expressed for him it agrees not ill with this to wish that his Works were more studied by those who offer such Incense to his Glorious Memory IX His Majesty assures his People of Scotland upon his certain Knowledge and long Experience that the Catholicks as they are good Christians so they are likewise dutiful Subjects But if we must believe both these equally then we must conclude severely against their being good Christians for we are sure they can never be good Subjects not only to a Heretical Prince but even to a Catholick Prince if he does not extirpate Hereticks for their beloved Council of the Lateran that decreed Transubstantiation has likewise decreed That if a Prince does not extirpate Hereticks out of his Dominions the Pope must depose him and declare his Subjects absolved from their Allegiance and give his Dominions to another So that even his Majesty how much soever he may be a Zealous Catholick yet cannot be assured of their Fidelity to him unless he has given them secret Assurances that he is resolved to extirpate Hereticks out of his Dominions and that all the Promises which he now makes to these poor Wretches are no other way to be kept than the Assurances which the Great Lewis gave to his Protestant Subjects of his observing still the Edict of Nantes even after he had resolved to break it and also his last Promise made in the Edict that repealed the Edict of Nantes by which he gave Assurances that no Violence should be used to any for their Religion in the very time that he was ordering all possible Violences to be put in execution against them X. His Majesty assures us that on all occasions the Papists have shewed themselves good and faithful Subjects to him and his Royal Predecessors but how Absolute soever the King's Power may be it seems his Knowledge of History is not so Absolute but it may be capable of some Improvement It will be hard to find out what Loyalty they shewed on the occasion of the Gunpowder Plot or during the whole Progress of the Rebellion of Ireland if the King will either take the Words of King James of Glorious Memory or King Charles the First that was indeed of Pious and Blessed Memory rather than the Word of the Penners of this Proclamation it will not be hard to find occasions where they were a little wanting in this their so much boasted Loyalty and we are sure that by the Principles of that Religion the King can never be assured of the Fidelity of those he calls his Catholick Subjects but by engaging to them to make his Heretical Subjects Sacrifices to their Rage XI The King declares them capable of all the Offices and Benefices which he
upon the Protestant Religion that is inconsistent with the Publick Peace will be pretended to shew that they are not persecuted for meer Religion In France when it was resolved to extirpate the Protestants all the Discourses that were written on that Subject were full of the Wars occasioned by those of the Religion in the last Age tho' as these were the happy Occasions of bringing the House of Bourbon to the Crown they had been ended above 80 Years ago and there had not been so much as the least Tumult raised by them these 50 Years past so that the French who have smarted under this Severity could not be charged with the least Infraction of the Law yet Stories of a hundred Years old were raised up to inspire into the King those Apprehensions of them which have produced the terrible Effects that are visible to all the World. There is another Expression in this Declaration which lets us likewise see with what caution the Offers of Favour are now worded that so there may be an Occasion given when the Time and Conjuncture shall be favourable to break thro' them all it is in these words So that they take especial Care that nothing be preached or taught amongst them which may any ways tend to alienate the Hearts of our People from us or our Government This in it self is very reasonable and could admit of no Exception if we had not to do with a set of Men who to our great Misfortune have so much Credit with his Majesty and who will be no sooner lodged in the Power to which they pretend than they will make every thing that is preached against Popery pass for that which may in some manner alienate the Subjects from the King. VI. His Majesty makes no doubt of the Concurrence of his two Houses of Parliament when he shall think it convenient for them to meet The Hearts of Kings are unsearchable so that it is a little too presumptuous to look into His Majesties secret Thoughts but according to the Judgments that we would make of other Mens Thoughts by their Actions one would be tempted to think that His Majesty made some doubt of it since his Affairs both at home and abroad could not go the worse if it appeared that there were a perfect Understanding between Him and His Parliament and that his People were supporting him with fresh Supplies and this House of Commons is so much at his devotion that all the World saw how ready they were to grant every thing that he could desire of them till he began to lay off the Masque with relation to the Test and since that time the frequent Prorogations the Closetting and the Pains that has been taken to gain Members by Promises made to some and the Disgraces of others would make one a little inclined to think that some doubt was made of their Concurrence But we must confess that the depth of His Majesty's Judgment is such that we cannot fathom it and therefore we cannot guess what his Doubts or his Assurances are It is true the words that come after unriddle the Mystery a little which are when His Majesty shall think it convenient for them to meet for the meaning of this seems plain that His Majesty is resolved that they shall never meet till he receives such Assurances in a new round of Closetting that he shall be put out of doubt concerning it VII I will not enter into the Dispute concerning Liberty of Conscience and the Reasons that may be offered for it to a Session of Parliament for there is scarce any one Point that either with relation to Religion or Politicks affords a greater variety of Matter for Reflection and I make no doubt to say that there is abundance of Reason to oblige a Parliament to review all the Penal Laws either with relation to Papists or to Dissenters but I will take the boldness to add one thing that the King 's suspending of Laws strikes at the root of this whole Government and subverts it quite for if there is any thing certain with relation to the English Government it is this that the Executive Power of the Law is entirely in the King and the Law to fortifie him in the Management of it has clothed him with a vast Prerogative and made it unlawful upon any Pretence whatsoever to resist him whereas on the other Hand the Legislative Power is not so entirely in the King but that the Lords and Commons have such a share in it that no Law can be either made repealed or which is all one suspended but by their Consent so that the placing this Legislative Power singly in the King is a Subversion of this whole Government since the Essence of all Governments consists in the Subjects of the Legislative Authority Acts of Violence or Injustice committed in the Executive part are such things that all Princes being subject to them the Peace of Mankind were very ill secured if it were not unlawful to resist upon any Pretence taken from any ill Administrations in which as the Law may be doubtful so the Facts may be uncertain and at worst the Publick Peace must always be more valued than any private Oppressions or Injuries whatsoever But the total Subversion of a Government being so contrary to the Trust that is given to the Prince who ought to execute it will put Men upon uneasie and dangerous Inquiries which will turn little to the Advantage of those who are driving Matters to such a doubtful and desperate Issue VIII If there is any thing in which the Exercise of the Legislative Power seems Indispensible it is in those Oaths of Allegiance and Tests that are thought necessary to qualifie Men either to be admitted to enjoy the Protection of the Law or to bear a Share in the Government for in these the Security of the Government is chiefly concerned and therefore the total extinction of these as it is not only a Suspension of them but a plain Repealing of them so it is a Subverting of the whole Foundation of our Government For the Regulation that King and Parliament had set both for the Subjects having the Protection of the State by the Oath of Allegiance and for a share in Places of Trust by the Tests is now pluckt up by the Roots when it is declared That these shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken or subscribed by any Persons whatsoever for it is plain that this is no Suspension of the Law but a formal Repeal of it in as plain Words as can be conceived IX His Majesty says that the Benefit of the Service of all his Subjects is by the Law of Nature inseparably annexed to and inherent in his Sacred Person It is somewhat strange that when so many Laws that we all know are suspended the Law of Nature which is so hard to be found out should be cited but the Penners of this Declaration had best let that Law lie
Sincerity that he endeavoured to perswade all others to rely as much on his Word as he himself did It is well known how fatal this Confidence was to him and see Meteren lib. 3. that two years after this that King sent over the Duke of Alva with that severe Commission which has been often printed in which without any regard had to the former Pacification or Promises the King declared that the Provinces had forfeited all their Liberties and that every man in it had forfeited his life and therefore he authorised that unmerciful Man to proceed with all possible Rigour against them It is also remarkable that that bloody Commission is founded on the King 's Absolute Power and his Zeal for Religion This is the only Edict that I know in which a King has pretended to Absolute Power before the two Declarations for Scotland in the year 1687. so whether they who penned them took their Pattern from this I cannot determine it I could carry this view of History much further to shew in many more Instances how little Protestants can depend on the Faith of Roman Catholicks and that their Condition is so much the worse the more pious that their Princes are As for what may be objected to all this from the present State of some Principalities or Towns in Germany or of the Switzers and Grisons it is to be considered that in some of these want of Power in the Roman Catholicks to do mischief and the other Circumstances of their Affairs are visibly the only Securities of the Protestants and whensoever this Nation departs from that and gives up the Laws it is no hard thing to guess how short-lived the Liberty of Conscience even tho' setled into a Magna Charta would be V. All that our Author says upon the General Subject of Liberty of Conscience is only a severe Libel upon that Church whose Principles and Practices are so contrary to it But the Proposition lately made has put an end to all this Dispute since by an Offer of Repealing the Penal Laws reserving only those of the Test and such others as secure the Protestant Religion the question is now no more which Religion must be tolerated but which Religion must reign and prevail All that is here offered in Opposition to that is that by this means such a number of Persons must be ruined Pag. 64. which is as severe a way of forcing People to change their Religion as the way of Dragoons I will not examine the particulars of this matter but must express my joy to find that all the Difficulty which is in our way to a happy quiet is the supplying such a number of men with the means of their subsistance which by the Execution of the Law for the Test must be taken from them This by all that I can learn will not come to near an Hundred Thousand Pound a year and indeed the supplying of those of the King's Religion that want it is a piece of Charity and Bounty so worthy of him that I do not know a man that would envy them the double of this in Pensions and if such a Sum would a little charge the King's Revenue I dare say when the Settlement of the Nation is brought to that single point there would not be one Negative found in either House of Parliament for the reimbursing the King So far are we from desiring either the Destruction or even the Poverty of those that perhaps wait only for an occasion to burn us I will add one bold thing further that tho' I will be no undertaker for what a Parliament may do yet I am confident that all men are so far from any desire of Revenge but most of all that the Heroical Minds of the next Successors are above it that if an Indemnity for that bold violation of the Law that has been of late both practised and authorised among us would procure a full Settlement even this could be obtained tho' an Impunity after such Transgressions is perhaps too great an Encouragement to offend for the future But since it is the Preservation of the Nation and not the ruine of any party in it that is aimed at the Hardiness of this Proposition will I hope be forgiven me It is urged pag. 63. that according to the Dutch Pattern at least the Roman Catholicks may have a share in Military Employments but the difference between our Case and theirs is clear since some Roman Catholick Officers where the Government is wholly in the Hands of of Protestants cannot be of such dangerous Consequence as it must needs be under a King that is not only of that Perswasion but is become nearly allied to the Society as the Liege Letter tells us VI. It is true our Author would perswade us that the King 's dispensing Power has already put an end to the Dispute and that therefore it is a seeming sort of Perjury see pag. 48. to keep the Justices of Peace still under an Oath of executing those Laws which they must consider no more Some Presidents are brought from former times pag. 22 23 24. of our Kings using the dispensing Power in Edward the Third Richard the Second Henry the Seventh Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth's time It is very true that the Laws have been of late broke through among us with a very high hand but it is a little too dangerous to upbraid the Justices of Peace with their Oaths lest this oblige them to reflect on so sacred an Engagement for the worthy Members of Magdalen Colledge are not the only Persons in England who will make Conscience of observing their Oaths so that if others are brought to reflect too much on what they do our Author's Officiousness in suggesting this to them may prove to be no acceptable piece of servce I will not examine all his Presidents we are to be governed by Law and not by some of the excesses of Government nor is the latter end of Edward the Third a time to be much imitated and of all the parts of the English History Richard the Second's Reign should be the least mentioned since those excesses of his produced so Tragical a Conclusion as the loss of his Crown and Life Henry the Sixth's feeble and imbroiled Reign will scarce support an Argument and if there were some excesses in Henry the Eighth's time which is ordinary in all great Revolutions he got all these to be either warranted or afterwards confirmed in Parliament And Q. Elizabeth's Power in Ecclesiastical matters was founded on a special Act of Parliament which was in a great measure repealed in the year 1641. and that Repeal was again ratified by another Act in the late King's time We are often told of the late King's repealing the Act concerning the Sise of Carts and Waggons but all Lawyers know that some Laws are understood to be abrogated without a special Repeal when some visible Inconvenience enforces it such as appeared in that
in which we are and it is plain that the Rules serve in the Gospel can be carried no further It is indeed clear from the New Testament that the Christian Religion as such gives us no grounds to defend or propagate it by force It is a Doctrine of the Cross and of Faith and Patience under it And if by the order of Divine Providence and of any Constitution of Government under which we are born we are brought under Sufferings for our professing of it we may indeed retire and fly out of any such Country if we can but if that is denied us we must then according to this Religion submit to those Sufferings under which we may be brought considering that God will be glorified by us in so doing and that he will both support us under our Suffering and gloriously reward us for them This was the State of the Christian Religion during the three first Centuries under Heathen Emperors and a Constitution in which Paganism was establish'd by Law. But if by the Laws of any Government the Christian Religion or any Form of it is become a part of the Subjects Property it then falls under another Consideration not as it is a Religion but as it is become one of the principal Rights of the Subjects to believe and profess it and then we must judg of the Invasions made on that as we do of any other Invasion that is made on our other Rights X. All the Passages in the New Testament that relate to Civil Government are to be expounded as they were truly meant in opposition to that false Notion of the Jews who believed themselves to be so immediately under the Divine Authority that they could not become the Subjects of any other Power particularly of one that was not of their Nation or of their Religion therefore they thought they could not be under the Roman Yoke nor bound to pay Tribute to Caesar but judged that they were only subject out of Fear by reason of the Force that lay on them but not for Conscience sake And so in all their Dispersion both at Rome and elsewhere they thought they were God's Freemen and made use of this pretended Liberty as a Cloak of Maliciousness In opposition to all which since in a course of many Years they had asked the Protection of the Roman Yoke and were come under their Authority our Saviour ordered them to continue in that by his saying Render to Cesar that which is Cesar 's and both St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans and St. Peter in his general Epistle have very positively condemned that pernicious Maxim but without any formal Declarations made of the Rules or Measures of Government And since both the People and Senate of Rome had acknowledged the Power that Augustus had indeed violently usurped it became Legal when it was thus submitted to and confirmed both by the Senate and People and it was established in his Family by a long Prescription when those Epistles were writ So that upon the whole matter all that is in the New Testament upon this Subject imports no more but that all Christians are bound to acquiesce in the Government and submit to it according to the Constitution that is setled by Law. XI We are then at last brought to the Constitution of our English Government So that no general Considerations from Speculations about Soveraign Power nor from any Passages either of the Old and New Testament ought to determine us in this Matter which must be fixed from the Laws and Regulations that have been made among us It is then certain that with Relation to the Executive part of the Government the Law has lodged that singly in the King so that the whole Administration of it is in him but the Legislative Power is lodged between the King and the two Houses of Parliament so that the Power of making and repealing Laws is not singly in the King but only so far as the two Houses concur with him It is also clear that the King has such a determined extent of Prerogative beyond which he has no Authority As for Instance If he levies Mony of his People without a Law impowring him to it he goes beyond the Limits of his Power and asks that to which he has no Right So that there lies no Obligation on the Subject to grant it and if any in his Name use Violence for the obtaining it they are to be looked on as so many Robbers that invade our Property and they being violent Aggressors the Principle of Self-Preservation seems here to take place and to warrant as violent a Resistance XII There is nothing more evident than that England is a Free Nation that has its Libertits and Properties reserved to it by many positive and express Laws If then we have a Right to our Property we must likewise be supposed to have a Right to preserve it for those Rights are by the Law secured against the Invasions of the Prerogative and by consequence we must have a Right to preserve them against those Invasions It is also evidently declared by our Law that all Orders and Warrants that are issued out in opposition to them are null of themselves and by consequence any that pretend to have Commissions from the King for those Ends are to be considered as if they had none at all since those Commissions being void of themselves are indeed no Commissions in the Construction of the Law and therefore those who act in virtue of them are still to be considered as private Persons who come to invade and disturb us It is also to be observed that there are some Points that are justly disputable and doubtful and others that are so manifest that it is plain that any Objections that can be made to them are rather forced Pretences than so much as plausible Colours It is true if the Case is doubtful the Interest of the publick Peace and Order ought to carry it but the Case is quite different when the Invasions that are made upon Liberty and Property are plain and visible to all that consider them XIII The main and great Difficulty here is that though our Government does indeed assert the Liberty of the Subject yet there are many express Laws made that lodg the Militia singly in the King that make it plainly unlawful upon any Pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King or any Commissioned by him And these Laws have been put in the Form of an Oath which all that have born any Employment either in Church or State have sworn and therefore those Laws for the assuring our Liberties do indeed bind the King's Conscience and may affect his Ministers yet since it is a Maxime of our Law that the King can do no Wrong these cannot be carried so far as to justify our taking Arms against him be the Transgressions of Laws ever so many and so manifest And since this has been the constant Doctrine of the Church of
England it will be a very heavy Imputation on us if it appears that though we held those Opinions as long as the Court and Crown have favoured us yet as soon as the Court turns against us we change our Principles XIV Here is the true Difficulty of this whole Matter and therefore it ought to be exactly considered 1. All general Words how large soever are still supposed to have a tacit Exception and Reserve in them if the Matter seems to require it Children are commanded to obey their Parents in all things Wives are declared by the Scripture to be subject to their Husband in all things as the Church is unto Christ And yet how comprehensive soever these words may seem to be there is still a Reserve to be understood in them and though by our Form of Marriage the Parties swear to one another till Death them do part yet few doubt but that this Bond is dissolved by Adultery though it is not named for odious things ought not to be suspected and therefore not named upon such occasions But when they fall out they carry still their own force with them 2. When there sems to be a Contradiction between two Articles in the Constitution we ought to examine which of the two is the most Evident and the most Important and so we ought to fix upon it and then we must give such an accommodating sense to that which seems to contradict it that so we may reconcile those together Here then are two seeming Contradictions in our Constitution The one is the Publick Liberty of the Nation the other is the renouncing of all Resistance in case that were invaded It is plain that our Liberty is only a thing that we enjoy at the King's Discretion and during his Pleasure if the other against all Resistance is to be understood according to the utmost Extent of the Words Therefore since the chief Design of our whole Law and of all the several Rules of our Constitution is to secure and maintain our Liberty we ought to lay that down for a Conclusion that it is both the most plain and the most important of the two And therefore the other Article against Resistance ought to be so softned as that it do not destroy us 3. Since it is by a Law that Resistance is condemned we ought to understand it in such a sense as that it does not destroy all other Laws And therefore the intent of this Law must only relate to the Executive Power which is in the King and not to the Legislative in which we cannot suppose that our Legislators who made that Law intended to give up that which we plainly see they resolved still to preserve entire according to the Ancient Constitution So then the not resisting the King can only be applied to the Executive Power that so upon no pretence of ill Administrations in the Execution of the Law it should be lawful to resist him but this cannot with any reason be extended to an Invasion of the Legislative Power or to a total Subversion of the Government For it being plain that the Law did not design to lodg that Power in the King it is also plain that it did not intend to secure him in it in case he should set about it 4. The Law mentioning the King or those Commissioned by him shews plainly that it only designed to secure the King in the Executive Power for the word Commission necessarily importts this since if it is not according to Law it is no Commission and by Consequence those who act in virtue of it are not Commissionated by the King in the Sense of the Law. The King likewise imports a Prince clothed by Law with the Regal Prerogative but if he goes to subvert the whole Foundation of the Government he subverts that by which he himself has his Power and by consequence he annuls his own Power and then he ceases to be King having endeavoured to destroy that upon which his own Authority is founded XV. It is acknowledged by the greatest Assertors of Monarchial Power that in some Cases a King may fall from his Power and in other Cases that he may fall from the Exercise of it His Deserting his People his going about to enslave or sell them to any other or a furious going about to destroy them are in the opinion of the most Monarchical Lawyers such Abuses that they naturally divest those that are guilty of them of their whole Authority Infancy or Phrenzy do also put them under the Guardianship of others All the Crowned Heads of Europe have at least secretly approved of the putting the late King of Portugal under a Guardianship and the keeping him still a Prisoner for a few Acts of Rage that had been fatal to a very few Persons And even our Court gave the first countenance to it though of all others the late King had the least reason to have done it at least last of all since it justified a younger Brother's supplanting the Elder yet the Evidence of the Thing carried it even against Interest Therefore if a King goes about to subvert the Government and to overturn the whole Constitution he by this must be supposed either to fall from his Power or at least from the Exercise of it so far as that he ought to be put under Guardians and according to the Case of Portugal the next Heir falls naturally to be the Guardian XVI The next Thing to be considered is to see in Fact whether the Foundations of this Government have been struck at and whether those Errors that have been perhaps committed are only such Malversations as ought to be imputed only to humane Frailty and to the Ignorance Inadvertencies or Passions to which all Princes may be subject as well as other Men. But this will best appear if we consider what are the Fundamental Points of our Government and the chief Securities that we have for our Liberties The Authority of the Law is indeed all in one word so that if the King pretends to a Power to dispense with Laws there is nothing left upon which the Subject can depend and yet as if the Dispensing Power were not enough if Laws are wholly suspended for all Time coming this is plainly a repealing of them when likewise the Men in whose Hands the Administration of Justice is put by Law such as Judges and Sheriffs are allowed to tread all Laws under-foot even those that infer an Incapacity on themselves if they violate them this is such a breaking of the whole Constitution that we can no more have the Administration of Justice so that it is really a Dissolution of the Government since all Trials Sentences and the Executions of them are become so many unlawful Acts that are null and void of themselves The next Thing in our Constitution which secures to us our Laws and Liberties is a Free and Lawful Parliament Now not to mention the breach of the Law of Triennial Parliaments it
the Council of Scotland that Husbands should be fined for their Wives not going to Church tho' it was not founded on any Law. And of all Men living he ought to be the last that should speak of the taking away of Estates who got a very fair one during the present Reign by an Act of Parliament that attainted a Gentleman in a Method as new as his Stile is upon this ground that two Privy Counsellors declared they belived him guilty He will hardly find among all the Maxims of those Protestant persecuting Kings any one that will justifie this It seems the New Stile is not very copious in Words since Doctrine is three times repeated in so short a Letter He tells them that their Doctrine must tend to cause all the Subjects to walk obediently now by obediently in this Stile is to obey the Absolute Power without reserve for to obey according to Law would pass now for a Crime This being then his meaning it is probable that the Encouragements which are necessary to make His Majesty continue the happiness of his Subjects will not be so very great as to merit the perpetuating this Favour There is with this a heavy charge laid upon them as to their Practice that it must be such as shall be most pleasing to his Majesty for certainly that can only be by their turning Pastpis since a Prince that is so zealous for his Religion as His Majesty is cannot be so well pleased with any other thing as with this Their concurring with the King to remove the Penal Laws comes over again for tho' Repetitions are Impertinencies in the Common Stile they are Flowers in the new one In Conclusion he tells them That the King expects that they will continue their Prayers for him yet this does not agree too well with a Catholick Zeal for the Prayers of damned Hereticks cannot be worth the asking for the third time he tells them to look well to their Doctrine now this is a little ambiguous for it may either signifie that they should study the Controversies well so as to be able to defend their Doctrine solidly or that they should so mince it that nothing may fall from them in their Sermons against Popery this will be indeed a looking to their Doctrine but I do not know whether it will be thought a looking well to it or not He adds That their Example be influential I confess this hard new word frighted me I suppose the meaning of it is That their Practice may be such as that it may have an Influence on others yet there are both good and bad Influences a good Influence will be the animating the People to a Zeal for their Religion and a bad one will be the stackning and softning of that Zeal A little more clearness here had not been amiss As for the last Words of this Letter That all these are his Majesty's Commands it is very hard for me to bring my self to believe them For certainly he has more Piety for the Memory of the late Martyr and more regard both to himself to his Children and to his People than to have ever given any such Commands In order to the communicating this Piece of Elegance to the World I wish the translating it into French were recommended to Mr. d' Albeville that it may appear whether the Secretary-Stile will look better in his Irish-French than it does now in the Scotch-English of him who penned it REFLECTIONS ON A PAMPHLET Entitled PARLIAMENTUM PACIFICUM Licensed by the EARL of SVNDERLAND AND Printed at London in March 1688. I. PEace is a very desirable thing yet every State that is peaceable is not blindly to be courted An Apoplexy is the most peaceable State in which a Man's Body can be laid yet few would desire to pacifie the Humours of their Body at that rate An Implicite Faith and Absolute Slavery are the two peaceablest things that can be yet we confess we have no mind to try so dangerous an Experiment and while the Remedies are too strong we will chuse rather to bear our Disease than to venture on them The Instance that is proposed to the Imitation of the Nation is that Parliament which called in the late King and yet that cannot so much as be called a Parliament unless it be upon a Commonwealth Principle That the Sovereign Power is radically in the People For its being chosen without the King 's Writ was such an Essential Nullity that no subsequent Ratification could take it away For all People saw that they could not depend upon any Acts past by it and therefore it was quickly dissolved and ever since it has been called by all the Monarchical Party a Convention and not a Parliament But now in order to the courting the Common-wealth Party this is not only called a Parliament but is proposed as a Pattern to all others from the beginning to Page 19. II. But since this Author will send us back to that Time and since he takes it so ill that the Memory of the late King should be forgotten let us examine that Transaction a little and then we shall see whether it had not been more for His Honour to let it be forgotten The King did indeed in his Declaration from Breda promise Liberty of Conscience on which he insisted in a large and wise Declaration set out after he was setled on the Throne but after that he had got a Parliament chosen all of Creatures depending on himself who for many years granted him every thing that he desired a severe Act of Uniformity was passed and the King's Promise was carried off by this That the King could not refuse to comply with so Loyal a Parliament It is well enough known that those who were then secretly Papists and who disguised their Religion for many Years after this as the King himself did to the last animated the Chief Men of our Church to carry the Points of Uniformity as high as was possible and that both then and ever since all that proposed any Expedients for uniting us or as it was afterwards termed for Comprehending the Dissenters were represented as the Betrayers of the Church The Design was then clear to some that so by carrying the Terms of Conformity to a great rigidity there might be many Nonconformists and great occasion given for a Toleration under which Popery might insensibly creep in For if the Expedients that the King himself proposed in his Declaration had been stood to it is well known that of the Two thousand Consciencious Ministers as he calls them pag. 14. by an Affectation too gross to pass on them that were turned out above Seventeen hundred had staid in Their Practices had but too good Success on those who were then at the Head of our Church whose Spirits were too much soured by their ill usage during the War and whose Principles led them to so good an Opinion of all that the Court did that for a great while they
been among us and even to forget the Injuries that have been done us all that we do now one against another is to shorten the work of our Enemies by destroying one another which must in Conclusion turn to all our Ruin. It is a mad Man's Revenge to destroy our Friends that we may do a pleasure to our Enemies upon their giving us some good words and if the Dissenters can trust to Papists after the usage that the Church of England has met with at their Hands all the Comfort that they can promise themselves when Popery begins to act its natural part among us and to set Smithfield again in a Fire is that which befell some Quakers at Rome who were first put in the Inquisition but were afterwards removed to Bedlam so tho those false Brethren among the Dissenters who deceive them at present are certainly no Changlings but know well what they are doing yet those who can be cheated by them may well claim the priviledg of a Bedlam when their Folly has left them no other Retreat XI I will not digress too far from my present purpose nor enter into a discussion of the Dispensing Power which was so effectually overthrown the other day at the King's Bench Bar that I am sure all the Authority of the Bench it self is no more able to support it Yet some late Papers in favour of it give me occasion to add a little relating to that Point It is true the Assertor of the Dispensing Power who has lately appeared with Allowance pretends that it can only be applied to the Test for Publick Imployments for he owns that the Test for both Houses of Parliament is left entire as not within the compass of this extent of the Prerogative But another Writer whom by his Sense we must conclude an Irish Man by his Brow a Jesuit and by the bare designation in the Title Page of James Stewart's Letter a Quaker goes a strain higher and thinks the King is so absolutely the Sovereign as to the Legislative part of our Government that he may dissolve even the Parliament Test so nimbly has he leap'd from being a Secretary to a Rebellion to be an Advocate for Tyranny He fancies that because no Parliament can bind up another therefore they cannot limit the Preliminaries to a subsequen Parliament But upon what is it then that Counties have but two Knights and Burroughs as many that Men below such a value have no Vote that Sheriffs only receive Writs and return Elections besides many more necessary Requisites to the making a legal Parliament In short if Laws do not regulate the Election and Constitution of a Parliament all these things may be overthrown and the King may cast the whole Government in a new Mould as well as dissolve the Obligation that is on the Members of Parliament for taking the Test It is true that as soon as a Parliament is legally met and constituted it is tied by no Laws so far as not to repeal them But the Preliminaries to a Parliament are still Sacred as long as the Law stands that settled them for the Members are still in the quality of ordinary Subjects and not entred upon their share in the Legislative Power till they are constituted in a Parliament legally chosen and lawfully assembled that is having observed all the Requisites of the Law. But I leave that impudent Letter to return to the most modest Apology that has been yet writ for the Dispensing Power It yields that the King cannot abrogate Laws and pretends only that he can dispense with them And the distinction it puts between Abrogation and Dispensation is that the one is a total Repeal of the Law and that the other is only a slackning of its obligatory Force with Relation to a particular Man or to any Body of Men so that according to him a simple Abrogation or a total Repeal is beyond the compass of the Prerogative I desire then that this Doctrine may be applied to the following words of the Declaration from which the Reader may infer whether these do import a simple Abrogation or not and by Consequence if the Declaration is not Illegal We do hereby further declare that it is our Royal Will and Pleasure that the Oaths commonly called the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and also the several Tests and Declarations shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken declared or subscribed by any Person or Persons whatsoever who is or shall be imployed in any Office or Place of Trust either Civil or Military under us or in our Government This is plain English and needs no Commentary That Paper offers likewise an Expedient for securing Liberty of Conscience by which it will be set beyond even the Dispensing Power and that is that by Act of Parliament all Persecution may be declared to be a thing Evil in it self and then the Prerogative cannot reach it But unless this Author fancies that a Parliament is that which those of the Church of Rome believe a General Council to be I mean Infallible I do not see that such an Act would signify any thing at all An Act of Parliament cannot change the Nature of Things which are sullen and will not alter because a hard Word is clap'd on them in an Act of Parliament nor can that make that which is not Evil of it self become Evil of self For can any Act of Parliament make the Clipping of Mony or the not Burying in Wollen evil of it self Such an Act were indeed null of it self and would sink with its own weight even without the burden of the Prerogative to press it down and yet upon such a Sandy Foundation would these Men have us build all our Hopes and our Securities Another Topick like this is that we ought to trust to the Truth of our Religion and the Providence and Protection of God and not lean so much to Laws and Tests All this were very pertinent if God had not already given us humane Assurances against the Rage of our Enemies which we are now desired to abandon that so we may fall an easy and cheap Sacrifice to those who wait for the favourable Moment to destroy us By the same Reason they may perswade us to take off all our Doors or at least all our Locks and Bolts and to sleep in this exposed Condition trusting to God's Protection The Simily may appear a little too high though it is really short of the Matter for we had better trust our selves to all the Thieves and Robbers of the Town who would be perhaps contented with a part of our Goods than to those whose Designs are equally against both Soul and Body and all that is dear to us XII I will only add another Reflection upon the renewing of the Declaration this Year which has occasioned the present Storm upon the Clergy It is repeated to us that so we may see that the King continues firm to the Promises he made
or in the way of War against their Neighbours to such a single Person or to such a Body of Men as they think fit to trust with this And in the management of this Civil Society great distinction is to be made between the Power of making Laws for the regulating the Conduct of it and the Power of executing those Laws The Supream Authority must still be supposed to be lodged with those who have the Legislative Power reserved to them but not with those who have only the Executive which is plainly a Trust when it is separated from the Legislative Power and all Trusts by their nature import that those to whom they are given are accountable even though that it should not be expresly specified in the words of the Trust it self IV. It cannot be supposed by the Principles of Natural Religion that God has authorised any one Form of Government any other way than as the general Rules of Order and of Justice oblige all Men not to subvert Constitutions nor disturb the Peace of Mankind or invade those Rights with which the Law may have vested some Persons for it is certain that as private Contracts lodg or translate private Rights so the Publick Laws can likewise lodg such Rights Prerogatives and Revenues in those under whose Protection they put themselves and in such a manner that they may come to have as good a Title to these as any private Person can have to his Property so that it becomes an Act of high Injustice and Violence to invade these which is so far a greater Sin than any such Actions would be against a private Person as the publick Peace and Order is preferrable to all private Considerations whatsoever So that in Truth the Principles of Natural Religion give those that are in Authority no Power at all but they do only secure them in the Possession of that which is theirs by Law. And as no Considerations of Religion can bind me to pay another more than I indeed owe him but do only bind me more strictly to pay what I owe so the Considerations of Religion do indeed bring Subjects under stricter Obligations to pay all due Allegiance and Submission to their Princes but they do not at all extend that Allegiance further than the Law carries it And though a Man has no Divine Right to his Property but has acquired it by human means such as Succession or Industry yet he has a Security for the Enjoyment of it from a Divine Right so tho Princes have no immediate Warrants from Heaven either for their Original Titles or for the extent of them yet they are secured in the Possession of them by the Principles and Rules of Natural Religion V. It is to be considered that as a private Person can bind himself to another Man's Service by different degrees either as an ordinary Servant for Wages or as one appropriate for a longer time as an Apprentice or by a total giving himself up to another as in the case of Slavery in all which cases the general Name of Master may be equally used yet the degrees of his Power are to be judged by the nature of the Contract so likewise Bodies of Men can give themselves up in different degrees to the Conduct of others and therefore though all those may carry the same Name of King yet every ones Power is to be taken from the measures of that Authority which is lodged in him and not from any general Speculations founded on some Equivocal Terms such as King Sovereign or Sapream VI. It is certain that God as the Creator and Governour of the World may set up whom he will to rule over other Men But this Declaration of his Will must be made evident by Prophets or other extraordinary Men sent of him who have some manifest Proofs of the Divine Authority that is committed to them on such occasions and upon such Persons declaring the Will of God in favour of any others that Declaration is to be submitted to and obeyed But this pretence of a Divine Delegation can be carried no further than to those who are thus expresly marked out and is unjustly claimed by those who can prove no such Declaration to have been ever made in favour of them or their Families Not does it appear reasonable to conclude from their being in Possession that it is the Will of God that it should be so this justifies all Usurpers when they are successful VII The measures of Power and by consequence of Obedience must be taken from the express Laws of any State or Body of Men from the Oaths that they swear or from immemorial Prescription and a long Possession which both give a Title and in a long Tract of Time make a bad one became good since Prescription when it passes the Memory of Man and is not disputed by any other Pretender gives by the common Sense of all Men a just and good Title so upon the whole matter the degrees of all Civil Authority are to be taken either from express Laws immemorial Customs or from particular Oaths which the Subjects swear to their Princes this being still to be laid down for a Principle that in all the Disputes between Power and Liberty Power must always be proved but Liberty proves it self the one being founded only upon a Positive Law and the other upon the Law of Nature VIII If from the general Principles of Human Society and Natural Religion we carry this matter to be examined by the Scriptures it is clear that all the Passages that are in the Old Testament are not to be made use of in this matter of â—â—ther side For as the Land of Canaan was given to the Jews by an immediate Grant from Heaven so God reserved still this to himself and to the Declarations that he should make from time to time either by his Prophets or by the Answers that came from the Cloud of Glory that was between the Cherubims to set up Judges or Kings over them and to pull them down again as he thought fit Here was an express Delegation made by God and therefore all that was done in that Dispensation either for or against Princes is not to be made use of in any other State that is founded on another Bottom and Constitution and all the Expressions in the Old Testament relating to Kings since they belong to Persons that were immediately designed by God are without any sort of Reason applied to those who can pretend to no such Designation neither for themselves nor for their Ancestors IX As for the New Testament it is plain that there are no Rules given in it neither for the Forms of Government in general nor for the degrees of any one Form in particular but the general Rules of Justice Order and Peace being established in it upon higher Motives and more binding Considerations than ever they were in any other Religion whatsoever we are most strictly bound by it to observe the Constitution
being above three Years since we had a Session that enacted any Law Methods have been taken and are daily a taking that render this impossible Parliaments ought to be chosen with an entire Liberty and without either Force or Preingagements whereas if all Men are required before-hand to enter into Engagements how they will vote if they are chosen themselves or how they will give their Voices in the electing of others This is plainly such a preparation to a Parliament as would indeed make it no Parliament but a Cabal if one were chosen after all that Corruption of Persons who had preingaged themselves and after the Threating and Turning out of all Persons out of Imployments who had refused to do it And if there are such daily Regulations made in the Towns that it is plain those who manage them intend at last to put such a number of Men in the Corporations as will certainly choose the Persons who are recommended to them But above all if there are such a number of Sheriffs and Mayors made over England by whom the Elections must be conducted and returned who are now under an Incapacity by Law and so are no legal Officers and by consequence those Elections that pass under their Authority are null and void If I say it is clear that things are brought to this then the Government is dissolved because it is impossible to have a Free and Legal Parliament in this state of things If then both the Authority of the Law and the Constitution of the Parliament are struck at and dissolved here is a plain Subversion of the whole Government But if we enter next into the particular Branches of the Government we will find the like Disorder among them all The Protestant Religion and the Church of England make a great Article of our Government the latter being secured not only of old by Magna Charta but by many special Laws made of late and there are particular Laws made in K. Charles the First and the late King's Time securing them from all Commissions that the King can raise for Judging or Censuring them If then in opposition to this a Court so condemned is erected which proceeds to judg and censure the Clergy and even to disseise them of their Free-holds without so much as the form of a Trial though this is the most indispensible Law of all those that secure the Property of England and if the King pretends that he can require the Clergy to publish all his Arbitrary Declarations and in particular one that strikes at their whole Settlement and has ordered Process to be begun against all that disobey'd this illegal Warrant and has treated so great a number of the Bishops as Criminals only for representing to him the Reasons of their not obeying him If likewise the King is not satisfied to profess his own Religion openly though even that is contrary to Law but has sent Ambassadors to Rome and received Nuncio's from thence which is plainly Treason by Law If likewise many Popish Churches and Chappels have been publickly opened if several Colledges of Jesuits have been set up in divers parts of the Nation and one of the Order has been made a Privy Counsellor and a principal Minister of State And if Papists and even those who turn to that Religion though declared Traitors by Law are brought into all the chief Imployments both Military and Civil then it is plain That all the Rights of the Church of England and the whole Establishment of the Protestant Religion are struck at and design'd to be overturn'd since all these Things as they are notoriously illegal so they evidently demonstrate That the great Design of them all is the rooting out of this Pestilent Heresy in their Stile I mean the Protestant Religion In the next place If in the whole course of Justice it is visible that there is a constant practising upon the Judges that they are turned out upon their varying from the Intentions of the Court and if Men of no Reputation nor Abilities are put in their places If an Army is kept up in time of Peace and Men who withdraw from that illegal Service are hanged up as Criminals without any colour of Law which by consequence are so many Murders and if the Souldiery are connived at and encouraged in the most enormous Crimes that so they may be thereby prepared to commit greater ones and from single Rapes and Murders proceed to a Rape upon all our Liberties and a Destruction of the Nation If I say all these things are true in Fact then it is plain that there is such a Dissolution of the Government made that there is not any one part of it left sound and entire And if all these things are done now it is easy to imagine what may be expected when Arbitrary Power that spares to Man and Popery that spares no Heretick are finally established Then we may look for nothing but Gabelles Tailles Impositions Beneviolences and all sorts of Illegal Taxes as from the other we may expect Burning Massacres and Inquisitions In what is doing in Scotland we may gather what is to be expected in England where if the King has over and over again declared that he is vested with an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and has upon that annulled almost all the Acts of Parliament that passed in K. James I. Minority though they were ratified by himself when he came to be of Age and were confirmed by all the subsequent Kings not excepting the present We must then conclude from thence what is resolved on here in England and what will be put in Execution as soon as it is thought that the Times can bear it When likewise the whole Settlement of Ireland is shaken and the Army that was raised and is maintained by Taxes that were given for an Army of English Protestants to secure them from a new Massacre by the Irish Papists is now all filled with Irish Papists as well as almost all the other Imployments it is plain that not only all the British Protestants inhabiting that Island are in daily danger of being butchered a second time but that the Crown of England is in danger of losing that Island it being now put wholly into the Hands and Power of the Native Irish who as they formerly offered themselves up sometimes to the Crown of Spain sometimes to the Pope and once to the Duke of Lorrain so are they perhaps at this present treating with another Court for the Sale and Surrender of the Island and for the Massacre of the English in it If thus all the several Branches of our Constitution are dissolved it might be at least expected that one part should be left entire and that is the Regal Dignity And yet even that is prostituted when we see a young Child put in the Reversion of it and pretended to be the Prince of Wales concerning whose being born of the Queen there appear
in Mr. Fagel's Letter and how well that was received and how civilly it was answer'd all England saw It is true the Prince is very nearly related to the King but there are other Ties stronger than the Bonds of Flesh and Blood He owes more to the Protestant Religion and to the Nation than can be defaced by any other Relation whatsoever and if the faling in one Relation excuses the other then enough might be said to shew at what pains the Court of England has been to free the Prince from all other Engagements except those of Loving Enemies and doing good to those who despitefully use us for upon this account the Prince lies under all possible Obligations 11. The Reflector thinks that those who left Ireland were driven by a needless Fear but tho' he has no reason to apprehend much from the Irish Papists yet those who saw the last Bloody Massacre may be forgiven if they have no mind to see such another He faintly blames that great Change that was lately made in the whole Government of Ireland but he presently excuses it since it was natural for the King and his Friends to desire to be safe some where till they had fair Quarter in England they must make sure of Ireland but he adds that as soon as that was done the thing must have returned into its old Channel again This ought to be writ only to Irishmen for none of a higher size of Understanding can bear it if it can ever be shewed that Papists have yielded up any thing which they had once wrung out of the Hands of Protestants except when they were forced to it we may believe this and all the other gross things which are here imposed on us The plain Case was the Papists resolved to destroy us and to put themselves in case to do it as soon as was possible So they went about it immediately in Ireland only they have delay'd the giving the Signal for a new Massacre till Matters were ripe for it in England 12. The Reflector has reason to avoid the saying any thing to the Article of Scotland for even his Confidence could not support him in justifying the King's claiming an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and the Repealing of a great many Laws upon that Pretension this is too gross for Humane Nature and the Principles of all Religions whatsoever Our Author avoids speaking to it because he does not know the Extent of the Prerogative of that Crown But no Prerogative can go to an Obedience without Reserve nor can Absolute Power consist with any Legal Government 13. The Declaration had set forth that the Evil Counsellors had represented the Expedient offer'd by the Prince and Princess as offer'd on design to disturb the Quiet and Happiness of the Kingdom upon which the Reflector bestows this kind Remark on the Ministry And did they not say true as it happens Believe me some Folks think many of them are not often guilty of such forelight The Writer is angry that his Side is not uppermost and tho' he includes himself in the Ministry by saying Us when he speaks of them yet here tho' he was to censure the Party that is against him he distinguishes them by saying many of the Counsellors use not to have such foresight But perhaps they can object as much to his foresight and with as much reason But if the King comes up to Mr. Fagel's Letter why was it rejected with so much Scorn and answered with so much Insolence Now perhaps they would hearken to it when they have brought both themselves and the Nation to the brink of Ruin by their mad Councils But they ought to be forgiven since they have been true to the Principles and Dictates of their Religion 14. Our Reflector thinks a Free Parliament a Chimera and indeed he and his Friends have been at a great deal of pains to render it impossible But perhaps he may be quickly cured of his Error and a Free One is the sooner like to be chosen when he and such as he are set at a due distance from the Publick Councils If Members are sometimes chosen by Drinking and other Practices this is bad enough but still it is not so bad as the laying a Force upon the Electors and a Restraint upon the Election Nor is it very much to the King's Honour to remember how the last Parliament was chosen it was indeed a very disgusting Essay in the beginning of a Reign and gave a sad prospect of what might be look'd for but if one Violence was born with when the struggle of another Party seemed to excuse it this does not prove that a course of such Violences when the Design is become both more visible and less excusable ought to be endured If the Members of that Parliament proved Worthy Patriots I do not see why they ought not to be remembred with Honour tho' there is a great deal to be said upon their first elevation to that Character which they maintained indeed nobly so that if the first Conception of the Parliament was Irregular yet its End was Honourable since never a Parliament was dissolv'd upon a more Glorious Account 15. The Reflector sets up all his Sail when he enters upon the Article of the pretended Prince of Wales This was a Point by which he hoped to merit highly and upon that to gain ground on that Party of the Court on whom he had reflected with so much scorn Therefore here must the Prince be attack'd with all the malicious Force to which his Rhetorick could carry him and all those Men of Honour that went over to wait on him at the Hague and to represent to him the bleeding and desperate Condition of the Nation must be stigmatized as a lewd Crew of Renegadoes tho I must tell him that the common acceptation of Renegado is one that changes his Religion and by this he will find some near him to whom that Character belongs more justly He almost blames the King for the low Step he lately made to prove that Birth It was a low one indeed to make so much ado and to bring together such a Solemn Appearance to hear so slight a Proof produced which could have no other Effect but to make the Imposture so much the more visible when the utmost Attempts to support it appear to be now so feeble that as to the main Point of the Queen's bearing the Child there is not so much as a colour of a Proof produc'd And it is certain that if this had been a fair thing the Court would have so managed it that it should not have been in the Power of any Mortal to have called it in question And on the other hand they have so managed it that one must needs see in every step of it broad Marks of an Imposture It will not be half Proofs nor suborned Witnesses that will satisfy the Nation in so great a Point But I will
the Reflections that I have already mentioned To the second I said I could not be a Fugitive since I had come out of Scotland fourteen years ago and after eleven years stay in England had come out of it three years ago by the King's leave As for my being a Rebel I could answer nothing to that till I saw the Judgment that had passed upon me but I was now the Subject of the States and as I humbly claimed their Protection so I pretended to no Protection against Justice but offered my self to a Tryal if any thing was laid to my charge This being reported to the States of Holland they were so far satisfied with my Answer that the substance of it was put in the form of an Answer to the two Memorials The whole amounts to this that I was become their subject by being naturalized before this process was begun against me so that I am now under their Protection But if there is any thing to be objected to me that can bear a Tryal they will give order that full and speedy Justice shall be done upon it in the Court of Holland Upon this a 3d Memorial was given in to which the Articles of the Treaty between the King and the States were annexed relating to Fugitives and Rebels and it was said in it that the States were bound to execute these with relation to me without taking upon them to examine the grounds upon which the sentence was past And because here lies the strength of the whole matter I shall offer such Considerations upon it as will I hope satisfie all persons 1. No Sentence is either passed or produced against me for I am not declared by any Judgment either Rebel or Fugitive and by the 7th Article all Condemnations ought to be notified by publick and Authentical letters which must be understood of a Record of the sentence that ought to be produced whereas there is nothing shewed in my case but only a Memorial 2. All Treaties especially in the odious parts of them are to be understood according to the common acceptation of the terms contained in them and not according to the particular forms of any Courts of Justice the common acceptance of Fugitive is a man that flies away after a crime committed from the prosecution of Justice and a Rebel in the common acceptation is a man that has born Arms against his Prince since then I am not so much as charged with either of these I cannot be comprehended in the Article of the Treaty for this must be the only sense according to which the States are bound to deny harbour to Declared Rebels and Fugitives 3. That which puts an end to the whole matter is that before I writ that Letter upon which I am now prosecuted I was become a Subject of the States and by Consequence was no more in a Capacsty to be either the King's Rebel or Fugitive And the point of Naturalizing Strangers is now such an universal Practice that the right of granting it is inseperable from Soveraign Power so that either the States have this Right or they are no more a Free and Soveraign State. And the obligations of honour that all Soveraigns come under to protect those whom they naturalize against every thing but their own Justice is no dark point of Law but is that which every Prince knows and practices as oft as there is occasion for it The King of France has used all the Naturalized Srangers in the same manner that he has used his own subjects in the point of Religion and tho the French Protestants that are gone into England are according to the severity of the Edicts passed against them made Criminals for flying out of that Kingdom so that according to the Letter of those Edicts they are Fugitives yet the King has received them all owned them for his Subjects naturalised some and supplied others of them by a Bounty truly worthy of so great a Prince and if the King does this to those of another Religion that do fly out of the Dominions of a Prince with whom he is in peace The States could not with any colour of reason refuse to Naturalise me who am of their own Religion when after so long a stay among them it appeared that the King had nothing ro lay to my charge and they having Naturalised me if they should withdraw their Protection before I had forfeited it by any illegal Action of mine they should make a Breach upon the Publick Liberty upon which their Government is chiefly founded And it is to be observed that the Treaty between the King and them as to the Articles concerning Rebels and Fugitives is Reciprocal as all the Ancient Treaties between the Crown of England and the Princes of these Provinces before the formation of the Commonwealth ever were as to this particular so that they can be no more bound to the King by it than the King is bound to them Now let us suppose that the King Naturalises a Dutchman by which he is admitted to all the Priviledges of an Englishman if the Dutch should after that condemn this person as guilty of Rebellion the King could not upon the States demanding of him deliver him up or banish him at his pleasure since this cannot be done arbitrarily to any Englishman without a legal tryal by his Peers and therefore it is plain that my case does not at all fall within the Articles of the Treaty so that in this whole matter the States have acted as a free State that was careful to maintain its Honour and to assert its being an Independent Soveraignty and for my own part I can appeal to all the Members of the States of Holland if I made any applications to them as if I would value my self on my being supported in opposition to the Envoy's Memorial I staid at home while the thing was under consultation without making Addresses to any one of them as to my own particular It is true I would not withdraw of my own accord from my own house which I thought would have been a forsaking the Rights of the Countrey a mistrusting the Protection of my Soveraigns as well as my own Innocence and an abandoning of the post in which God by his Providence has placed me And I am resolved rather to run the risque of all that with which I am threatned than show the least unbecoming fear I thank God I make use of that common but Noble expression that I am neither afraid to dye nor ashamed to live I will not go further into dark thoughts tho I know enough of of the contrivances against me by an order of men whose souls are as black as their Habits Tho for a great while I thought that the meanness of my person was such that even success in any design against me could not have counterballanced the Infamy of it Thus I hope those hard words of high treason or Rebellion will make no impressions on
any to my prejudice for it is with them as with Blasphemy or Heresy which are very odious words but if mens passions carry them to apply these to the most Innocent things they lose that force which is in them and this will make the ancient observation return into mens minds that Treason was become the crime of those qui ab omni crimine innoxii erant who were free from all crimes so when all this prosecution is so slightly founded I make no doubt the world will do me Justice in it and I can as little doubt that if my cause could be so fairly represented to His Majesty that he might see it without those false colours with which the Malice of my Enemies darken it He who has of late shewed a disposition to receive even into his favour those who were formerly esteemed both his Fathers Enemies his Brothers and his own would return to juster and softer thoughts of me For since I have done nothing that deserves his displeasure it would be a greater crime than any of which I stand accused to think that it would be lasting This Author lays several Papers to my charge but he does not prove that they were writ by me and I do not think my self obliged to satisfie every spiteful man that will fasten all such things upon me as he thinks will render me odious I did solemnly purge my self of the matters laid to my charge in the first Citation but I said then that I would not give my Enemies the satisfaction of doing that any more or of clearing my self as oft as they should think fit to lay any thing to my charge so when there is any thing brought against me in a legal way I make no doubt but that I shall be able either to clear my self of it or to justifie my self in it But since this Author thought fit to fasten so many Papers on me which I have not owned he should in common equity and decency have taken some notice of a Discourse which I have owned and that was my Preface to Lactantius's book of the Death of the Persecutors in which I pleaded against Persecution perhaps with more force than most of those who have of late undertaken the Argument I carried the point so far as to include even the Papists in that General Toleration which I recommended This I had writ before either the King's Declaration appeared or that the proceedings against me were begun but tho the state of Affairs with relation to my self was upon that altered and the point was so tender that I had reason to apprehend it might offend many of my Brethren and best Friends at a time when I had no Reason to make Enemies to my self yet I published it without altering it in any one thing In the circumstances in which I was I could do nothing more to shew how far I was from desiring to Imbroil matters than when I touched so nice a matter with so much plainness As for all the other Reproaches with which he pursues me I think it below me to answer such a Scribler but for the sake of the License I take the liberty to say That I am not afraid neither of the Calumnies nor the Violences of my Enemies I lived many Years in England under a great deal of displeasure from the Court and yet there never was found the least appearance of any Guilt in me with relation to the Government Many of my friends have had pardons and by consequence did very probably discover all they knew of me for I have been credibly Informed that many have been Interrogated and some under Torture with relation to me but there never appeared the least shadow of a guilty Compliance with ill Principles not only was I free from accession to ill things I was free also even from faults of Omission with relation to the Publick for I never failed as oft as I saw the least occasion for it to bear down all things that tended to disturb the Publick Peace and this both in Books in Sermons and in private Conversation and I have Compurgators in this matter that are beyond exception as well as above Scandal I do not carry this matter further tho I could say that which might cover all my Enemies with Shame and which will perhaps apppear to their amasement when they may have put an end to my being in this world I have ever gone by the Principles in which I was bred up at first under a Father that from first to last adhered to the King's Cause without so much as one stumble or making even an Address of Civility to his Enemies but was as much an Enemy to Arbitrary Power as he was to Rebellion and thought it was as base and unwarrantable a thing for Subjects to give up their just and legal Rights as it was for them to fly out upon every pretended violation of them In these Principles I have fortified my self by study and observation and I may Love them for they have stood me very Dear I went no further than to assert an Obedience and submission according to law when I was Imployed to assert the Laws of Scotland against those who studied to overturn them in which it was thought I did the Government some service and for which the late King was pleased to thank me It is true I never could descend to the Methods of aspiring to Preferment that are expected in some Courts but if this made some look on me as sullen or affected yet it might have freed me from the Imputations of being Malecontent when there are many Vouchers for me who know that I avoided all Preferment as Industriously as the most ambitious do court it I came under ill Characters both in the Court and elsewhere because first and last I was always against the Prosecution of the Dissenters and I always thought that greater endeavours ought to have been used for the Composing of the small Differences among our selves and that greater gentleness ought to be expressed even to those who could not be brought within any terms of reconciliation These were my only Crimes and Heresies and for these Opinions I was represented as a favourer of the Kings and the Churches Enemies And therefore it cannot but seem strange that I who was hardly used upon those accounts should be now singled out to be the chief Instance of an unrelenting severity The designs against my Person seem not enough to satisfie that Malice that works so quick against me but they must lash out on my good name and my Reputation which I confess is the greater tryal of the two to my Patience but tho with relation to God I must lay my hand on my mouth and say that I am the Chief of sinners yet as to all men I may boldly say What have I done I hope God will not lay to the Charge of my Enemies all those Slanders and all that Injustice with which they have prosecuted me This
Author and some others have often given it out as if I had Betrayed a Master and I may expect the next time that they will say that I Murdered my Father for the one is as true as the other I never had a Master but the King for the whole course of my Life raised me above the serving of any Subject A design proposed to me by one that is now Dead and therefore shall not be named by me of bringing in an Army out of Scotland for the Spoiling and Subduing of England gave me a just horror at the Proposition and I did all I could to withstand it The same great Person did quickly take up such a Jealousy of me that he did all he could to ruin me tho His present Majesty who had then the Goodness for me to endeavour to Pacify him owned to me that he could see nothing in his hatred of me but a violent Passion Yet he was resolved to throw me in a Prison where very probably I had languished away the rest of my Life if the King that now is had not been so gracious to me as to warn me of my Danger which made me leave Scotland and after I had suffered near two years all that Wrath armed with Power could do to me at last while I was under one of the sharp effects of that great Minister's anger I told a Person of Honour that which I believed was one of the grounds of it The Gentleman set this so about that as he himself was a Member of the House of Commons so it was known to a great many others upon which I was sent for by the House I declined for four several times to say what had been proposed to me and at last being threatned to be prosecuted by the House of Commons as an Enemy to the Nation I was thus unwillingly brought to own it But that Great Man fell no sooner under an Eclipse of Favour then tho I had felt the weight of his Credit for seven years together I made not only all the steps necessary for a Reconciliation but I engaged some then in Favour so far into his Interests that he expressed a very thankful acknowledgment of it and a perfect Reconciliation with me Tho upon some Reasons of his own our Meeting was not thought convenient and his own Nephew who being now of the Roman Communion is a Witness to whom I may the more freely appeal brought me very kind Messages from him and signified them to me after his Death As for all the other things that can be objected to me I pass them over as things which can very little hurt me The Author it seems pities Varillas's defeated Condition who as my Friends from Paris write to me does not so much as pretend to justify himself of all those gross Errors of which I have discovered him Guilty but says he has received an Order from the King to insist no more in the Dispute in which he and I were engaged Our Author will be a very fit Person to succeed to that Despicable Writer who fancies that I contradict my self in setting forth Q. Maries Clemency in one place and yet shewing in another how Unmerciful she shewed her self towards those that were condemned of Heresy The best Natures in the World can be corrupted by a false Religion and they being once possessed with cruel Principles the more Pious they are they will be the more true to the Doctrines of their Church and by consequence they will execute all its severe Decrees with an unrelenting Rigour And we have clear Instances of this in the Age in which we live of Princes whose Inclinations to Clemency are as well known as the Severities to which the Credit of the Society has carried them are Deplorable There is another spiteful Insinuation with which I shall conclude my Apology This Author finding that the Matters of State of which he had accused me were not like to Blemish me much resolved to try what he could do in a Subject of another Nature which was indeed above him for tho it seems he is entertained to Scribble upon the Politicks yet the matters of Divinity probably do not lie within his Province but it seems he thought that any thing was to be ventured on that might Defame me He represents me as an Enemy to the Divinity of Jesus Christ because of the various readings of a verse in St. John's Epistle that I gave from some Ancient Manuscripts which I saw in my Travels And these men who have of late studied to make all the World either Deists or Socinians if they cannot make them Papists by representing that unless we believe the Infallibility of the Church we cannot upon good grounds believe either the Christian Religion or the Mysteries of it and this with so much Heat and Industry as if their design were to have us to be any thing rather than Protestants yet will accuse some of our Church of those Doctrines against which we have writ with greater force than any of our Calumniators For we have Accusers of the other side too All the Fathers that writ against the Arians believed those Mysteries tho they never cited that Passage from which it was reasonable to conclude that it was not in their Bibles otherwise it is not to be imagined that such Men as St. Athanase and St. Austin should not have mentioned it now the many other places of Scripture that determine me to believe the Divinity of the Saviour of the World are so clear that I believe it equally well whether this passage be acknowledged to be genuine or not But having for some years taken pleasure to compare Manuscripts those of the Holy Scriptures were naturally the most looked into by me and since a Man that has but a transcient View of M. SS cannot stay to examine them in many Passages that Passage being the most Important of all that are controverted I turned always to it and have given the account of what I saw sincerely both for it and against it For I have learned from Job not to lye for God since truth needs no support from falshood And I may well forgive those of a Church who have built so much upon Forgeries and Counterfeit Pieces to be angry with me for giving so sincere an account as I did of a Matter of Fact. But that Divine Saviour whom I adore daily as God equal with the Father knows the Injustice that is done me in this as well as in the other false Accusations with which my Enemies study to blacken me I can assure them that I have that Detestation of all Idolatry and of theirs in particular that I should never adore him as I do if I did not think him to be by Nature God over all blessed for ever And now to conclude if Men will not receive this Vindication of my self with the Justice that is due to me I humbly commit my Cause to him who judges righteously who