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 K. 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 K. James's Memory is that he was a Prince of great Learning and that he imployed it chiefly in writing for his 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 K. Iames was no Conquerour 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 Maj. 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 Allegeance 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 faithfull subjects to him and his Royall Predecessors but how Absolute soever the Kings 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 K. Iames of Glorious Memory or K. 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 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 antient and first signification now it stands only for Church Preferments so that when any Churches that are at the Kings 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 Lawes 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 Annull a great many Laws as well those that established the Oaths of Allegeance 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 Iustice 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 Lawes 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 on the Subjects to mind the Princes promise as little as
SOME REFLECTIONS On his Majesty's PROCLAMATION Of the 12th of February 1686 7 for a Toleration in Scotland together with the said Proclamation I. THe Preamble of a Proclamation is oft writ in hast 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 Majesties 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 Soveraign Authority are Termes already received and known but for this Absolute Power as it is a new Term so those who have coined it may make it signify 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 Lawes 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 Allegeance 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 sises 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 the 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 Proclamation 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 justify 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 lyes 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 lyes it will not be easy 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 K. 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 ratifyed over and over again by K. Iames when he came to be of full Age and they have received many Confirmations by K. Charles the First and K 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 K. Iames 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 coyned 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 K. Iames'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 Maximes that unhinge all the Securities of Humane Society and all that is sacred in Government ought to be lookt on with the justest and deepest prejudices possible one is tempted to lose the respect that is due to every thing that carrys 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
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 Lawes 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 Lawfull Successors in the exercise of this their Absolute Power and Authority against all deadly which I suppose is Scotch for Mortalls now to Impose so hard a yoke as this Absolute Power on the Subjects seems no small stretch but it is a wonderfull 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 naturall Liberty or of a legall 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 litle 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 affraid 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 on 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 so 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 generall 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 Imployments Fines and Imprisonments and even Death it self are all Vincible things to a man of a 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 Chancellors and the Secretaryes 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 L. Chancellor and the Secretary have not another Brother to fill this post that so the guilt of the ruin 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 tryed 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 Iudges will copy from Scotland and will not only tell us of the Kings Imperial Power but will discover to us this new Mystery of Absolute Power to which we are all bound to obey without Reserve These Reflexions refer in so many places to some words in the Proclamation that it was thought necessary to set them near one another that the Reader may be able to Judge whether he is deceived by any false Quotations or not By the King A PROCLAMATION JAMES R. JAMES the Seventh by the Grace of God King of Scotland England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c To all and sundry our good Subjects whom these presents do or may concern Greeting We having taken into Our Royal Consideration the many and great inconveniencies which have happened to that Our Ancient Kingdom of Scotland of late years through the different perswasions in the Christian Religion and the great Heats and Animosities amongst the several Professors thereof to the ruin and decay of Trade wasting of Lands extinguishing of Charity contempt of the Royal Power and converting of true Religion and the Fear of GOD into Animosities Names Factions and sometimes into Sacriledge and Treason And being resolved as much as in Us lyes to unite the Hearts and Affections of Our Subjects to GOD in Religion to Us in Loyalty and to their Neighbours in Christian Love and Charity Have therefore thought fit to Grant and by Our Souveraign Authority Prerogative Royal and Absolute Power which all Our Subjects are to obey without Reserve Do hereby give and grant Our Royal Toleration to the several Professors of the Christian Religion after-named with and under the several Conditions Restrictions and Limitations after-mentioned In the first place We allow and tolerate the Moderate Presbyterians to Meet in their Private Houses and there to hear all such Ministers as either have or are willing to accept of Our Indulgence allanerly and none other and that there be not any thing said or done contrary to the Well and Peace of Our Reign Seditious or Treasonable under the highest Pains these Crimes will import nor are they to presume to Build Meeting-Houses or to use Out-Houses or Barns but only to exercise in their Private Houses as said is In the mean time it is Our Royal Will and Pleasure that Field Conventicles and such as Preach or Exercise at them or who shall any ways assist or connive at them shall be prosecuted according to the