THE CASE OF THE Irish Protestants In Relation to RECOGNISING OR Swearing ALLEGIANCE to And PRAYING for King WILLIAM and Queen MARY Stated and Resolved LONDON Printed for Robert Clavel and are to be Sold by John North Bookseller in Dublin M DC XC I. Advertisement THE following Paper contains the Result of a certain Persons Thoughts sometime since when he being cut off from the usual means of consulting with others could only enter into a Consultation with himself for resolving his own Conscience It is no mans sin simply to doubt but it is every mans business to endeavor his own Satisfaction and 't is some mens Duty to satisfie others besides themselves Of this number because the Author took himself to be he communicated these his Thoughts to such for whom he was concern'd and 't is at their Promotion if they now go further In his Arguing he chose for Satisfaction to proceed rather on Foundations of Divinity than Policy and Law little meddling with those Grounds on which since the Writing hereof he finds abler Heads most to build He is very content to leave each Man to his own Province and only desires he may not be censured as too ignorant for keeping so close within what he apprehends to be his It is indeed herein he finds most solid Content Resolution and Repose of Mind God make all of us Sincere Humble Satisfied and if not Vnanimous yet at least Peaceable and Quiet Octob. 27. 1690. THE CASE OF THE IRISH PROTESTANTS In Relation to RECOGNISING King WILLIAM and Queen MARY STATED and RESOLVED I. FOR the due Stating and so more satisfactory Resolving this our Case it will be necessary to consider in the beginning what Recognition of these Princes or of their Sovereignty is either expresly or by consequence required of us and then what Barrs there lie in Conscience to our making such Recognition II THERE can be no doubt but it is intended that we should receive and submit to King William and Queen Mary as perfectly and intirely as ever by Law we submitted to or owned any of our late Sovereigns And I must add we Protestants especially in Ireland have all the Reason in the World even from our own Interest to do it with more Zeal and Passion than we did to either of their immediate Predecessors But all the Recognition which as far as yet to me appears is expresly required from any is only to take an Oath of Fidelity to them and to pray for them as King and Queen and perhaps as our Deliverers from Oppression Now that Oath as I am informed is pen'd in a shorter easier and milder Form than any of our Oaths of Allegiance in the Reigns of our former Kings Thus it is said to run I do swear to bear Faith and true Allegiance to King William and Queen Mary The very penning of this Oath shews the Tenderness Moderation and Temper of these great Princes For there is nothing therein Dogmatical if I may use that Term of which Nature was the greater part and most of the Paragraphs of the former Oath but only a Sacred Promise of what is needful Faith and true Allegiance Which tho I say it be most certainly intended it should be firm and plenary and according to the Intention of the Imposer must every Oath be understood by them that take it else there is Fallacy and Equivocation therein yet as to each Man 's secret Sentiments there is by these indefinite Terms much left to the Judgment and Conscience of every individual Subject what the particulars of that Faith and true Allegiance are A Temper not observed in the penning the former Oaths of Allegiance or Supremacy III. THE Barrs in Conscience which any I think can pretend to against such Recognition are Oaths formerly taken and a Recognition made of James II. who is yet alive and the Bond with which Holy Scriptures tie all Oaths upon our Consciences and Practice yea tho somewhat unadvisedly and prejudicially made even to our own Hurt and Damage The Oaths I think which can stick upon any are chiefly Two The Oath of Allegiance and of Supremacy Yet there is also if I mistake not besides these what some called the Short Oath Not to take up Arms against the King or any Commissioned by him imposed on the Members of most Corporations in this Kingdom as I have been informed of late days However there is a Declaration in these Words subscribed and publickly read or recognised In Sacris by all the Conforming Clergy of the three Kingdoms in so solemn a manner that it was even upon them equivalent to a most solemn Oath The Recognition is that made in the late pretended Irish Parliament May 7. 1689 and past in form of an Act penned I confess with all the Weight and Emphasis which I think either proper or improper Language could put into it Now that the Resolutions of all Doubts arising from any of these may be as distinct as the Brevity designed will permit we will consider each severally And if in the end it appear that in our present Circumstances there lies no Obligation upon us to James II. from any of these Ties then we may with safe Conscience perform what is required IV. AND first for the Oath of Allegiance This Oath was lawful and wholesome enough and in former Reigns even to Protestants possible to be kept and also Obligatory But there are three things which wholly take off our being obliged by it to King James First he the said King James II. has made it to us unlawful Secondly God and King James have made it at present impossible Thirdly we in Ireland are formally released from it perhaps by Law I am sure in Reason and Equity Now if any one of these three be true the Obligation thereof to King James is discharged much more if all V. FIRST I say King James II. has made it to us who are Protestants unlawful to pay him such Allegiance as was due to his Predecessors and would have been due to him by virtue of that Oath had he trod in his Predecessors Steps His Predecessors since the framing this Form of Oath went not about to subject the Imperial Crown and Dignity of the three Kingdoms as King James has done especially that of Ireland with a Witness to the Power of any Foreign Prince or Potentate no not of the Pope himself Which for a Subject to do for of Princes we will not speak is unlawful and Treason by our Laws We cannot therefore with all our might assist and defend such a King which yet in the Oath of Allegiance we seem to have sworn to do because by this assistance we are guilty of contributing to the highest Breach of our Laws we commit Treason against the Crown And there being no Accessories in Treason I will not say in what danger we should be in a Protestant Successors Reign But there is more yet in the Case It is unlawful by the Law of God
used us But this is in our favor For it appears hereby those who were their Conquerors were our Deliverers and if it be lawful in this case for the Irish to accept of Terms 't is our duty to be thankful to God that there are those now come who can give Terms both to them and us This Plea sufficiently justifies us Irish Protestants against any possible Imputation to us from our Irish Adversaries in this behalf And as to our English Friends we will suppose them more sensible of our Condition than that before them we ought to make Apologies when in our Consciences we want none But as to the Irish let me tell them farther no imaginary freedom of theirs can now in Conscience exempt them from this Subjection The People of the Jews the Seed of Abraham were never in bondage to any as free born a People certainly as Irish Men can be yet when God put them under the Yoke of Nebuchadnazzar his command by the Prophet encouraged too by a blessing annext is serve the King of Babylon and Live The same which God speaks now by the Voice of his Providence to the Natives of this Kingdom in as much as he has left nothing else possible to them They must therefore be subject not only for Wrath but Conscience sake and for Men to swear to do what is their duty to do cannot certainly be unlawful VIII FURTHER not only God but even King James II. has made it impossible to his Protestant Subjects to keep the Oath of Allegiance to him For that Oath expresly as well as another ordinarily taken by many of us I mean the Oath of Supremacy obliges all who have taken it not only to defend to the uttermost of their power His Majesties Person Heirs and Successors but both His and Their Crown and Dignity Which Crown and Dignity signifie as the Oath of Supremacy and so the Law interprets those Terms all Jurisdictions Preeminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs or Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm that is of England The Crown of England saith our Law is Imperial and subject to no Prince on Earth but only unto God If therefore a Prince will subject his Crown and so his People to a Foreign Power and especially to that Power which has now these several Ages incessantly and indefatigably by all means within its Sphere studied and endeavor'd the Ruin of them and the Extirpation of their Religion I mean to the Pope of Rome it becomes impossible for the Subjects of such a King at once or together to the uttermost of their power to defend His Person and His Heirs and Successors His and Their Crown and Dignity The Kingdom of England of which by Law and Prescription Ireland is a Branch and dependent has ever been avowed and to this day is a Free Kingdom But how Tributary and enslaved it would become by being again subjected to the Papacy I list not to aggravate yet cannot but in short take notice that the Heir by the Subjects defending and maintaining such a King Possessor loseth of his Power and Rights and so doth the Crown of its Dignity Preeminence and Authority In such case therefore a Man can no more keep this Oath than he can reconcile Contradictions which even the Roman Catholick Divines ordinarily Teach is not in the power of Omnipotence And such is the Case between James II. and all the Protestants of these Three Kingdoms But it was worse with the Poor Irish Protestants than with the rest of the People of any of his Majesties Dominions We though most of us English-men were not only subjected to Roman Catholicks but to the most inveterate of them Irish Roman Catholicks Enemies to us on other scores besides our Religion contrary to the express Laws of both Kingdoms in this behalf contrary to the manifest Interest of the Heir contrary to the Honor and Dignity of the Crown of England from which as far as an Act of an Irish Parliament could do the feat this Kingdom of Ireland was by Statute solemnly past in that their Parliament above mentioned in effect actually separated and disunited The Crown of England was hereby to lose the Kingdom of Ireland a very considerable Emolument certainly as well as Honor and Jurisdiction These things are notorious matter of Fact and so publickly manifest that they cannot be denied I speak not of being subjected to a French Government and Governors of our being enforced to supplicate many times for our Liberties and Lives I am sure for the supports of our Lives the eating the Bread and wearing the poor Clothes which of our own were left us and some of us directly for our Lives even in Cases wherein we were Offenders against no Law of God or of Man Military or Civil I speak not I say of our being necessitated thus to supplicate to Governors of a Foreign Nation and Language who could not understand us when addressing to them in our own Speech and would not understand our Interpreters in theirs I speak not of Pacts and Sales of which great Evidence as to this Kingdom of Ireland or a great part of it might be given nor of other like or more odious things as designedly avoiding all that might exasperate some Men or together immoderately aggravate others Guilt as well as our Oppressions But it is hereby as clear as the Sun that if there could be degrees in natural Impossibilities there lay the highest natural Impossibility on all but especially the Irish Protestants in the Circumstances they were in to keep this Oath and that not by any fault of their own for they were cast into this impossibility by the Prince to whom by that Oath Allegiance was or was to have been due Now forasmuch as no one can be bound to that which is impossible of all Men the Irish Protestants stand not by the Oath of Allegiance bound to defend the Person of James II. in his or their present Circumstances IX IF it should be said by any These Pleas can only discharge Subjects of so much Allegiance as can be proved unlawful or impossible but they shall still stand obliged to what is lawful and possible I allow it for truth and together Avow that notwithstanding our Performance of what either or both the fore-mentioned Branches of Recognition by the present King and Queen required of us do contain We both may and I doubt not all considerative conscientious Persons within these Kingdoms Do bear and pay all lawful parts or Instances of Duty to our late King And principally what the Article of King John's Magna Charta in such Case as this exacts The Safety of the Persons of the King and Queen and of their Children we look upon as most religiously inviolable None of us would attempt or consent to any attempt upon their Sacred Persons There is indeed a Child in Controversie touching which it must at least be
confest what a most zealous and constant adherent of King James's the same too if I mistake not more than once in great Power and Trust under him has not doubted to publish to the World The business of the Prince of Wales has been so carried as if those whom it most concerns that it should be true had not had a mind it should be believed or words to that effect for I have not the Paper by me 't is intitled Englands Crisis It is to me an ungrateful task to give such Descant or Illustration to this ingenuous Acknowledgment as the Case requires but instead thereof I must be so faithful to my own sense as to add That the Persons most concerned for the Legitimacy of that Child have now so farther managed the matter that I see not how its Legitimacy is possible ever to be made out to the Publick Satisfaction of these Nations Wherefore in my Apprehension it must remain a doubt till the day shall come that shall open all things In the mean time being there is the same Reason of things not in being and of things not apparent no Man can forfeit his Allegiance for not being sollicitous for the preservation of this Child especially now it is removed out of the Sphere of our Defence as well as Knowledge As to any other part of Allegiance imaginable in the present Juncture lawful or possible it would be considered in special what the Particulars are Our Counsel would never be taken and we have been declared again and again not to be trusted yea and notwithstanding the utmost fidelity of many of us reviled and treated as such As to our Prayers what it is not lawful for us to endeavor it is not lawful for us to pray for But it has been shewn King James has made it unlawful for us to defend him in his Possession and Exercise of his Regal Power And to bring him back thereto as far as human Prudence I think can see were but to bring our Religion and its Professors under the same Yoke Opressions and danger of Extinction under which we so lately groaned therefore this it is unlawful to pray for As far as we may lawfully pray for him we own we do nor is it inconsistent with the Prayers required of us for King William and Queen Mary Amongst those who Err and are Deceived amongst Our Enemies Persecutors and Slanderers whom we beseech God to have mercy on to forgive them and turn their Hearts by way of Eminency we tacitly comprise our late King In secret also perhaps by name we further pray That God would take from him all Ignorance hardness of Heart and contempt of his Word and to bring him home to Christ's Flock that he may be saved amongst the remnant of the true Israelites To do this for him by Name in publick would be looked upon as Affront and publick Reproach To do it in secret as it is Prudent Charity so it is a Loyalty we disown not Thus Samuel mourned for Saul even when God had rejected him and it repented the Lord that he had made him King And beyond what I have thus openly and freely specified I acknowledge I see not any part of Loyalty and Devotion left lawful or possible to us Irish Protestants in behalf of King James II. except any would have added a sublime degree of Civil Honor the saluting or serving him upon the Knee or such like of which together with a Revenue ample enough to maintain a Court I think there ought to be no dispute but none of these interfere with the Recognition required X. Now to return from Objections and to proceed with what was above propounded Lastly it is to be said for the Protestants who now are at least who all along these Troubles remained in Ireland they are as fully and directly Released from this Oath at least from that part of Allegiance Defending King James by force of Arms as Reason Equity or even Express Law can be well conceived to release them In all Civil Othas if the Power imposing the Oath and to whom the Oath is made shall release the Obligees such Obligees are discharged of their Oath and reduced to their first Liberty Now I say we the People before specified were three ways released either from the whole Oath or at least from this part of it which some expect we should own our selves bound to of fighting for King James II. First the whole Oath of Allegiance Summer was twelve-month by King and Parliament a Parliament at least whose Authority and Legitimacy our Adversaries will not impeach was in this Kingdom by express Statute repealed under the Name if my memory fail not of the New Oath of Allegiance And whereas some Peers upon Reasons which are not needful here to be inserted stood against the Repeal of it and one excepted against that style The New Oath of Allegiance the Answer was returned by them who ruled assigning the Reign in which that Oath of Allegiance was made a point wherein the Objector was not at all ignorant as I take it but I am sure was born some Ages at least a long Age and upwards since that Reign and so never took any elder and I am as confident never any Newer or Later Oath of Allegiance to King James Wherefore being by this Repeal released from that Oath of Allegiance and having never taken any other such Irish Protestants as I speak of are under no Oath of Allegiance to King James the Second and that through his own and his Dear Roman Catholick Parliaments Act. Which being I think the only Service they did us we ought not but with thanks to acknowledge and record it to Posterity tho what Service thereby they did THEIR King as appropriating him to themselves they used to call him we must leave him and them together at their leisure to consider Again we Irish Protestants were not only disarmed as abovesaid but by iterated Proclamations interdicted to have any kind of Arms in our Houses tho merely for the Defence of them from Thieves and Robbers and that under divers Forfeitures which in each later Proclamation were still made severer and in the end as I remember the Penalty was no less than being proceeded against as Traitors How far these Proclamations were executed upon many innocent persons in City and in Country by such who coming into our Houses to search for Arms could easily find what themselves had hid I have no mind to speak But certainly King James's forbidding us so strictly to wear or have Arms was on his part a Discharge to us from the use of them tho in his Defence For what it was Treason for us to Have how could it be Allegiance or Duty for us to Vse Lastly it must not be omitted here what is with the greatest Assurance reported by Multitudes even of our Adversaries that upon the late Defeat at the Boyn King James himself told his Irish Commanders then about him He
for a Protestant People to assist and defend in the Exercise and Possession of Regal Power such a King as James II. has made and carried himself for they could not thereby but manifestly contribute and put their Hands not only to the destroying their own but their Protestant Fellow Subjects Estates Liberties and Lives and what is more their Common Religion too * The proof of these Particulars by some Historical Instances in the Treatment which the poor Irish Protestants found from those in Power under the late King would cast such Odium on more perhaps than were guilty that I cannot persuade my self to set it down and possibly it is so notorius that I need not Enough has fallen from my Pen in the Sequel through a kind of Impotency or too tender Sense of what I have seen If it be said the King promised to maintain us in the Profession of our Religion and Possession of our Estates Liberties c. He did indeed so promise and I believe of himself at first intended it But he had put the Power of all into such Mens hands thar he could not perform what he had promised Were not our Rights our Lands our Goods and our Churches themselves taken from us contrary not only to his Promises but Proclamations And which of any of these especially our Churches tho upon his express Command under his Hand and Seal was ever restored What can be expected from him who first incapacitates himself to perform and then makes fair Promises Did not the Irish Act of Attainder debar the King of his Prerogative to pardon those which it made Criminals and Traitors contrary to the Law of Nature that common Test of Equity so much appealed to by some in the late Irish House of Lords for flying merely to preserve their Lives or securing themselves from Irish Mercy that is from what I will not say Nor will I insist upon what I might add and aggravate By the Constitution and Laws of the Religion he professes he either had sworn to destroy or ought to have sworn to destroy both us and our Religion And when Men first swear to do a thing and then promise not to do it and capacitate themselves to perform their Oaths but incapacitate themselves to perform their Promises which can be expected should take place the Promise or the Oath I may safely avow in behalf of the Protestants of the three Kingdoms there is not a conscientious Man amongst us would ever have withdrawn from King James even our Active Obedience could we have secured our Religion and good Conscience by active Adhesion to him I will add also because in my Conscience I believe it had not the securing the Protestant Religion more forcibly moved the Prince of Orange than the Ambition of a Throne he would never have attempted so speedy a Succession In a Word we did obey as far as God's Command goes Gods Command is with Limitation Obey in the Lord we did so We did obey as long and as far as was lawful and that is as far as any Oath can bind us for to an unlawful Act no Oath can bind Herod's Oath did not bind him to cut off S. John Baptist's Head nor can our Oaths oblige us to be Assistants and aiding to the cutting off the Heads of innocent Protestant Peers or hanging up such Commons and to the disarming and putting out of Power all Protestants and arming and advancing all Papists and so destroying our selves Neighbors and Religion This is unlawful by the Law of God VI. I might here instead of saying King James has made the Allegiance due to him by this Oath unlawful for Protestants to pay have said perhaps with more Propriety of Speech he has made the Oath as to him void and null For all his Subjects who took it were supposed by Law to swear to a Legal King that is to a King who would govern according to Law and protect his Subjects and their Rights as by his Oath and Law bound Such a King the Oath was design'd to and actually to such a King we swore Allegiance But such King James did not please to be Wherefore by this Oath no Allegiance is due to him But I thought this notion might seem to some more subtile and the proof of it might as above suggested have been more odious than the other Each comes much to the same final issue for according to either the Obligation ceaseth as concluded and the Reader may take in his Candor which he pleases To proceed then VII GOD has made it to us the Irish Protestants here at least morally impossible to perform to King James the Duty which in the Oath of Allegiance we swore Therefore the Obligation of that Oath ceaseth as to him or which is the same we are not bound to him by that Oath I doubt not but that our Adversaries will say defending the Person and Possession of a King by force of Arms to be a point of Allegiance I say we are here by God's Providence unable to defend King James by Arms in the Possession of the Crown Not to mention that it is not long since our Roman Catholick Adversaries by King James's Orders as they said took away our Arms from us and surely we are not perjur'd for not being in Arms for a King who would not suffer us to bear Arms God has now put us under the Power of the Second William the Conqueror whom I must affirm besides his being more ways than one otherwise justly intitle'd to have a Right to our Allegiance by Conquest that which gave the King of England the first and still avowed Title to Ireland I do averr us in Ireland conquered and with my Heart bless God for it For besides our being thereby delivered intirely and finally I hope from Popery we are delivered also if we attend thereto from all Scruple which would stick in us touching the Will of God as to our Subjection to our new King For we cannot doubt but that we ought to be subject to them whom God has set over us And when by his Providence he so plainly pulls down one and sets up another we cannot doubt who it is whom he has set over us If still any will doubt I demand of them what should a vanquish'd Multitude what should Men Women and Children brought under Subjection do Must they all dye Martyrs for the Title of a Prince who would not preserve their Rights by Law and Peace and through the hand of God has not been able to defend his own or theirs by War Do not the Irish Roman Catholicks who blame us most daily make Conditions for themselves and shall it be unlawful for us to do the same The great difference betwixt them and us as to our present Circumstances is They were conquered with their Swords in their hands We as being their Prisoners perhaps they may think Slaves and Properties as it has been too plain to us they would have
Non-resistance more opportune seasonable and so more obligatory at one time than another did occur in our the poor Irish Protestants Condition who were under the power of the Roman Catholicks We had nothing left us to do but what we did first to commit our Souls to God and then yield our outward man and concerns to what should betide us without fruitless and to us certainly destructive Struglings and Exasperations of our Enemies We could thus heap Coals of Fire upon our Persecutors Heads that is perhaps melt their otherwise relentless Hearts soften their Temper or exhaust the impetus of their Cruelty This way too there was possibility of escaping the other none And this course taken was next to the Divine Protection our great Preservative and in our Condition as far as we can yet see the only one imaginable I am sure it was the only inducement or reasonable Topic which some of us upon the utmost Consideration could find out to urge to our hard Masters with hopes of success for mercy In a word we by this Practice made up a Temper and mixed what our Saviour taught us in time of Persecution to do Wisdom with Innocence and if some think us herein to have been imprudent and others too credulous we crave leave still modestly and peaceably to dissent it is a very small thing to us that we are judged of men Touching our Honesty Sincerity and through all our Sufferings Constancy to God to our common Religion and true Interest and I may add touching our Charity and upright Intentions to Mankind we appeal to the Judgment of him who searcheth and seeth Hearts I will I need say no more to these our Friends XVI AS to the other sort who perhaps with us acknowledge at least in Hypothesi Passive Obedience to be a Duty but accuse us not only of the neglect of it but of Presumptions and wilful casting it off we avow and stand to our avowry we have practised it all along in its due latitude and we adhere to the practice of it at present We have been and are constant to our selves constant to our Faith and Duty We never were nor are we of the number of those who cry up Absolute Power under a Roman Catholick King and exclaim against the Exercise of legal and qualified Power under Protestant Princes who therefore shew it is not any more true Loyalty than true Religion or Conscience that acts them but Interest and blind Obedience dictate to them their Opinions and then Faction or Bigottry governs their Practice and that so slavishly as not to suffer them to be impartial in what yet for the general they approve As to us the Holy Word of God is our Rule and Primitive Catholick Saints our Patterns and Examples And from these we allow not our selves to swerve Of Active Obedience as far and as long as with good Conscience we could we declined no part as above professed When we could go no farther or through the Suggestions of our Enemies might not be trusted we quietly submitted even to the enduring Oppression it self in its very extremity In both regards thus rendering unto Caesar the things which are Caesars We could not serve in a War for the Destruction of the Protestant Religion No more did the ancient Christians against their fellow Christians and they are reputed Saints for it to this day even in the Roman Church Witness the famous Case of St. Martin There have been perhaps scarce in any days more illustrious Spectacles of Passive Obedience The Thebaean Legion being excepted than some parts of Ireland have shewn within these fourteen or fifteen Months last past Many hundreds of able lusty and well spirited Men have rendred themselves up in a body at the cry of a Bell-Man or some such mean Summons to a few People then in Power whose Persons they would have scorned had they not worn the most plausible Character or Pretence there was at that time in that part of the Kingdom of legal and ordinary Authority We can say it was only through want of Commission that is through mere Conscience of want of due Authority on our sides which we now own our selves to have that we suffered our selves while we were sensible of our real Strength to be driven in flocks to remote Prisons we knew not but as Sheep to the slaughter for not a few perished by or in Prison Mean while some poor Protestant Women with their Sucking Children in their Arms and at their Breasts have been knockt down with the Butt ends of Muskets for giving their hungry Husbands a bit of Bread in their Hands as they passed by driven to Prison And I my self when complaining of this have been told This usage was too good for us c. These Instances and Vicissitudes of Imprisonment and Oppression we Irish Protestants have suffered oftener than my Memory now or perhaps knowledge from the first serves to report And these are ample Demonstrations of our due regard to the Christian Laws in this behalf XVII BUT some of these Gentlemen whom we are now answering may possibly further urge However the quiet part of the Protestants in Ireland may not formerly have had so great a share in Rebellion as their Brethren in England yet must they acknowledge those their Brethren to have in the present Revolution utterly cast off the aforesaid Doctrine and Practice and themselves now joyning with them must needs become if not equal yet Partisans in their Guilt and consequently be Rebels and Apostates from their own avowed Principles In Answer hereto these great Patriots of Christianity in Dispute but Enemies and Oppressors of it in Practice must suffer us to tell them for it is no great presumption to suspect most of them either through Infirmity Wilfulness or Devotedness to a Party ignorant that Passive Obedience or Non-Resistance as well as other Christian Duties has its Bounds and Seasons of Practice and tho it be an undoubted Duty obligatory to private persons and perhaps to some small subordinate Societies of Men yet does it not either concern all sorts of Men or all Bodies of People much less whole Nations It is not the Business of this Paper to ascertain all its Measures But in short Who can imagine not resisting Evil turning the other Cheek giving the Cloak also are Duties to be Preached to or required of a Parliament Can any be so absurd as to put no difference betwixt the private Rules of holy Living and the publick Laws of Civil Government betwixt means intended to bring penitent Men to Heaven and those designed to curb or restrain obstinate wilful Sons of Violence that they destroy not the innocent and one another For the attaining of one end the great Measure to be observed is Self-denial and abundance of Charity for the other strict Justice and insisting upon particular Rights On the one hand in fit Circumstances Non Resistance takes place as necessary on the other Resistance where other
saw their Men would not stand and they had nothing to do to think of contesting with such an Army as was against them commanded too by such a Prince for their General He therefore advised them to shift for themselves as he said he would do and indeed did and to make the best Terms they could for themselves The same in effect as is testified by many he afterwards repeated at his passage through Dublin and 't is plain he confirmed these his Sentiments by his practice Now what was said to them we cannot but take as implicitly at least reaching and extending it self to all his People in Ireland then in subjection to him as I am sure were we touching whom the present Consultation proceeds Wherefore we were then released amongst others and left to our selves to make Terms and the Conqueror allowing us no other Terms but these we are therefore by this Release if we had not been so before at liberty to embrace and accept them We have then thus done with the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy together with the Obligation of them both as to King James the Second XI IT follows we proceeed to the Oath or Declaration of Not taking up Arms against the King or any Persons commissionated by him extant in the Act of Vniformity Anno Dom. 1662. and either taken or subscribed and avowed publickly by very many of us Touching this I will not say what I have heard some Learned in our Laws have said that this Declaration is not to be found in the Original record of that statute IN TERMINIS as in our Books but has been corruptly and surreptitiously inserted as it stands into the Printed Copy If this be true it was an abominable Wrong and Imposition on the Subject and upon whom to be charged I will not speak nor so much as suffer my self to guess But certainly it would in such case much take off from the Obligation of that Oath or Declaration that it should be so fraudulently and illegally imposed My Answer then is I conceive Most I might have said all Irish Protestants have little to do wirh this Oath in the present juncture For either we are already in Arms or Not. Those of us who are already in Arms cannot but be presum'd to be satisfied touching the lawfulness of that War wherein we now are engaged and are not after Vows to make Enquiry To me truly the satisfaction seems easie For a Commission contrary to Law as are all Commissions of late years granted or in present being to R. Catholicks is by Law no Commission and consequently the Persons who bear it not commissionated but private men or rather while they Act pursuant to such Commissions Publick Robbers which point justified all that rose against Tyrconnell or any other R. Catholicks in this Kingdom pretending to Commissions from K. James And if K. James would put himself at the head of such a body to countenance and abet them I do not see how his presence even if he had been in full possession of his Crown could give them more Authority Since he could onely thereby make himself less a Legal King not them more Legal Officers And the same thing if there were no more still justifies those who now fight against them that act in his name Not to speak that K. James has otherwise here Vn King'd himself for certainly a King which releases his Subjects of their Allegiance as we have shewn him to have done is no longer their King Those who are not yet in Arms if they have any scruple for which I profess I see no reason may forbear taking Arms in that Cause wherein they are not satisfied I do not see any compulsory means used to bring them into Arms. It is not required of us all to fight but all of us are to promise to be quiet and to pray for our Protectors which certainly all may do without touching on any thing in that whether Oath or Declaration Wherefore in our present condition these also are out of Doors XII WE are in the next place to consider the Recognition which was made personally of James the Second in the late pretended Parliament of Ireland As to which parliamentary Act be it what it can be it must be said No Irish Protestant even of those few that were present in either House are accomptable for the very Body and Frame of it much less for every particular Expression or even Clause therein It was the first Act that was past and truly precipitated It was not admitted to any due debate at least in the Lords house and some who in the end earnestly desired the alteration but of one Expression which was apprehended to be improper Language could not speed therein Now those who would not at our importunity alter their style would not for our sakes have waved any of their fundamental materials of which they were much more fond What Perpetual dread and Moral Force all the protestant members were under I am very unwilling if not unable to speak It sufficiently speaks for them that as many of them as by their quality were capacitated to protest did protest against all the more Momentous Acts that passed this haply being excepted against which they had no time well to think much less to form a Protest the Act being first brought in to the House of Lords there read hastily three times for Forms sake rather than otherwise and to the best of my memory immediately sent down to the Commons and never by the Protestant Lords heard of again till brought in for the Royal Assent Besides this having been all along kept in the dark the Protestants there knew not on what bottom or in what posture things stood in England a Regency and many such Expedients were whispered up and down Nor had they had experience how a Royal Catholick would keep his renewed Promises with Hereticks Possibly they thought his own Misfortunes might have taught him if not better Faith yet more of Government And finally none could either with safety of their Liberties or even Lives have protested To have spoken against this Act had been to have struck at the Foundation of the Authority not only of that whatsoever it was of a Parliament jealous and tender enough be sure of its own Power but even of the whole Government of the Kingdom in all its Branches And it was as clear as the Sun such person would have been either ipso facto by Vote of both Houses executed for Treason or if he had got out of the Protection of either House been forthwith De Witted and torn in pieces by the Multitude In a word let this Recognition be of all the force and exactness imaginable to oblige us it was extorted from us Vi et Dolo malo And how far then it can oblige being satisfied in our own consciences we will leave to any who will be so just as to suppose themselves to have been in our case and to