Practices It is false that the Prince had given a Suspition of any Intention to make himself the Supreme Governour of the Vnited Provinces On the contrary he generally rejected all the occasions that were offered him to accept of that Dignity The King of France made him an Offer of Holland with full Sovereign Power and he refused it Anno. 1672. During the Consternation that these Countries were in by reason of the French Army the City of Amsterdam more then ordinary jealous of her Liberty consented to bestow on the Prince both the Rights and Title of Earl of Holland The Prince would by no means accept of it The States of Geldre having signified their Intentions to make him Duke of that Province he refused the offer and referred himself to the Opinion of the other Provinces The Low Countries have great reason sure to complain of the Prince's Government since the Year 1671. He found a Common-wealth oppressed under the Yoak of a Foreign Power having it's Bowels torn to pieces destitute of Arms destitute of Forts without Friends and without Allies and he accomplished his design by the most wise Conduct imaginable taking Possession of their Hearts beating back the Common Enemy by his Courage engaging all Europe in a Joynt Alliance which crushed all the French Designs Engaging the English Interest and causing the Treaty of Peace to be concluded at Breda He defended his Nation against all the pernicious Intrigues of the French Counsels he by his wise Conduct restored Trade to it's former Splendor and made it again to flourish It is now in the highest Esteem that ever any Common-wealth was in He was Umpire of the most Important Peace that has been concluded these hundred Years past which was made betwixt the two Crowns These are the great disorders that the Prince of Orange committed in the Republic and the truth is they are very great disorders in respect of France whose purpose is to reduce all her Neighbours into Confusion and Servitude for her own ends Now it is worth the knowing who this Famous Author is He is one whom France hath kept in Holland as a Spy and as an Incendiary He has not been idle during his Abode there he has not so much as omitted the most impertinent Occurrences that never passed the Frontiers of the State before and which were only the talk of the Mobile Such is the application of the Words of the Prophet Esay to the Birth of the Prince of Wales Before she was in pain she brought forth before she Travelled she was delivered of a Man Child See what he imputes to the Prince as a Crime and calls it a profanation of Holy Scripture to uphold his Pretences against the Prince of Wales He also justifies King James from the Accusation that is brought against him in the Prince's Declaration for having had a Design to suppress the Religion and overthrow the Laws of the Land He thinks in a moment to possess the Minds of Men with a Prejudice against the Prince as if his Expediâ—â—â—n could not have been undertaken for the Preservation of Religion as not being of the English perswasion but a Presbyterian He is obliged saith he according to the Calvinstical Doctrine to believe that all Ministers have equal Authority that Episcopacy is an unlucky Pillar of Papal and Antichristian Tyranny The Presbyterians destroyed the English Church banished the Prelates and abolished the Liturgy during the Common-wealth and behold a Presbyterian and an Army of Calvinists who pass into England to deliver the English Church which they have always look'd upon as Professing a false Religion Upon this Subject the Author shews what an able Man and great Divine he is he multiplies Words and idle Reflections We answer him in a Word that the English Church never Condemned the Presbyterians on this side of the Sea and never beheld their Religion as false She has only remonstrated the Extravagancies of the English Presbyterians and possibly iâ— that she is not much in the wrong The Presbyterians on this side the Sea in like manner never Condemn Episcopacy as an Appurtenance of Antichristianism The difference in Point of Government never hindred the English Protestants and those in these Parts from being ready to afford one another mutual Assistance as being of the same Religion Queen Elizabeth helped the Dutch and French Protestants King James did the same and which is more he sent his Divines and Bishops to the Synod of Dort which was otherwise all composed of Presbyterians that action alone is an undoubted proof of the Communion that the Bishops and Presbyterians maintained amongst themselves If the English Bishops have Assisted the Presbyterians on this side the Sea as their Brethren when they were like to be oppressed why may not the Presbyterians here with very good reason go and assist the English Church which they have always look'd upon to be a true Protestant Church Again this Author endeavours to prove first that the Late King of England in his suspending the Penal Laws had no other end but the Establishment of a perfect Tranquillity in his Kingdom taking from his Subjects all occasion of Persecuting one another upon the account of Religion This is the Old Song but all those who speak so are not in hopes to perswade others nor are they themselves perswaded of the Truth of this allegation They know very well and all the World is sensible of it that King James did extreamly hate the Presbyterians Independants and Anabaptists looking upon them as the Authors of his Father's death and as his own Enemies It is very well known that during all the time that he was Duke of York he did cruelly Persecute them to do the English Church a Pleasure thinking to be so much a gainer thereby as to do afterwards whatever he pleased It was not then in Favour of the Non Conformists his Sworn Enemies that he intended to repeal the Penal Laws it is notoriously known that it was never in his thoughts to take them away but for the sake of the Roman Catholics and that he included other Dissenters for no other end but to palliate his designs It is beyond all dispute King James II. of England was a great Enemy of Persecution He made his inclinations manifest whilst he was as yet Duke of York possibly it cannot be denied but that that King had a very great Zeal for his own Religion for this Author does him that great Honour as to avouch it He had consequently a passionate desire to Establish it in England Can this be denied if he acknowledge it for he must be destitute both of common sence and honour to deny it he must also own that all his Actions tended to that end if all his Actions tended to that end with better reason so important a one did such as was the suspension of the Penal Laws Can he deny it or can any Person do it for him It is therefore plain that he had a
in the hands of Papists It is true that when any one presumed to speak publickly of Religion he was put from his Pulpit if not from his Benefice It is true that when the Bishops refused to read the King's Declaration of Liberty of Conscience to Roman Catholicks under the Name of Dissenters they were sent to the Tower But to what purpose is all this they were alive still they Preached they had Pulpits and Churches whereas in France there was no such thing to be seen I but there was always reason to believe that King James who was so true a Friend to Lewis XIV and zealously bent on the same courses in agreement with him would in time push on things to such an issue to take effect in his own or his Successours days whom he was setting up as has already fallen out in France They were afraid of it I say and they had reason for the Popish Religion is a most insatiable Monster an implacable Enemy If it be allowed but room for one foot it will quickly usurp an entire Possession of all It makes profession of admitting no Partnership and of suffering no Rivals The English had forgot this Truth I know not how and suffered a Popish Prince to ascend the Throne The Cause of James II. his Misfortunes is to be looked for in the conduct of the French King It is he and he only that was the Cause thereof The English must of necessity have been very fast asleep not to awaken at the Cries of the infinite Numbers of miserable Creatures who went to carry their Afflictions and their Complaints to the Ears of the English Nation and who without speaking did pathetically express the meaning and weight of this important Advice Learn to have a care of Tyrants and Kings that are possessed by Jesuits The defence for King James is destined against King William Prince of Orange The Religion established by Law was entire and therefore his present Majesty as the Man reasons could have no just cause for passing into England Besides the Author endeavours to strengthen his Argument by the measures His Majesty took in Holland a Country where he had signalized himself more frequently than in England where he made it be blown about as this man says that his Father in Law was about to suspend the Penal Laws There are certainly Penal Laws in Holland against the Roman Catholicks but it is as certain saith he that the wisest Magistrates did judge that it was the Interest of the Republick to suspend their execution especially in the Province of Holland which is the most considerable amongst them God be praised for it You may now at last take notice of a publick confession that is express and in print That the Roman Catholicks are not persecuted in Holland Thus both Mr. Arnauld and all the Apologists for the French Persecution who were so bold as to complain of the Persecutions that their Church suffered in the Low Countries are declared to be Slanderers Note this well for these Gentlemen will say the contrary the very next day because they always speak according to their Interest but here it is their Interest to confess the truth that they may be in a capacity to conclude that the City of Amsterdam that of Rotterdam and that of Harlem had Power to suspend the Penal Laws that a King who is a Sovereign Prince can do as much as a particular City That if the Dutch without betraying their Religion might do this we have no reason to complain of a Catholick who was willing to shew the same gentleness to those of his own Religion as a Protestant Common-wealth does It is necessary that King William himself be concerned in the Proof He had a very great Number of Catholicks in his Guards and likewise amongst his Domestick Servants It is not then an Argument of Religion saith he that he does charge it as a Crime upon his father-in-Father-in-Law that being himself a Catholick he did suffer the Catholick Religion to be exercised within his Dominions Our Author is not ill to please his Premises are false throughout and his Conclusion is very bad He supposes that the Prince of Orange would answer thus that his father-in-Father-in-Law permitted the Exercise of the Roman Religion in England as it is in Holland this is false Mijn Heer Fagel's Letter was Penned to shew the contrary to King James The Prince does agree that such Penal Laws should be repealed which might endanger the Lives of the Priests and might ensnare the Conscience He does allow that the Papists be tolerated in England as they are in Holland He does again suppose falsly that King James had granted nothing to the English Papists but what the Dutch had granted to the Romish Religion in their Countries It is Impudence without Example to affirm this It is notoriously known that the toleration of Papists in Holland is not established by any Law nor by any Decree suspending the Laws It is well known that the Papists have not entred into any Office of Justice and of the Government of the State they are only admitted into Military Employs but King James was for receiving them into all the Offices of the Kingdom and not only for suspending the Execution of the Penal Laws by a tacite Toleration of Religion as it is in Holland but by an express Cessation of the Laws themselves In the third Place he does falsly suppose that the King of England has the same Power with respect to Religion that the States of Holland have in their Country This is not so the States of Holland are Sovereign and Absolute in their Provinces without limitation for it is they who make Laws but the King of England makes no Laws but with the joynt Assent and Authority of Parliament and can change nothing in such as concern Religion any more than he can do in other Laws without the Parliament Lastly He is infinitely mistaken when he compares the Quality of the Toleration of the Popish Religion that is admitted in Holland to that which he would have established in England because in Holland the Sovereign Authority is Protestant and in England the Sovereign Authority was Popish There is a very great difference betwixt having Popish Subjects and Servants and having Popish Masters The States of Holland are very well content to have Popish Subjects and the Prince will admit Popish Servants but they would not have Masters of that Religion This was designed to be done in England Their Great Master was a Papist and that Master endeavoured that all others should become so And so it does not follow from the Prince's Goodness in admitting of Papists amongst his Servants that he ought to suffer that his Father-in-Law should commit the Offices and Places of Trust within the Kingdom into the hands of Papists The words also of Popery and Papists used in his present Majesty's Declaration are not pleasing to our Opponent That Man ought to have known that those Words
are used in the English Laws and the Publick Records of the Kingdom when they speak of the Roman Religion and of those who profess it as in France we are called the pretended Reformed in the Edicts and Public Ordinances this Name is no more honourable for us than that of Papists for them who call themselves Catholicks But he likewise takes exception at this Expression To introduce Popery into three Kingdoms On which he spends a great Article to prove that nothing can be worse express'd that the business is not about introducing the Catholick Religion into three Kingdoms where it always was and where it is still And here he falls on Controversie to prove that the Roman Religion is the Ancient Religion that ours is an Innovation that is without Mission and without Miracles Must he not be very destitute of Judgment to shew himself so mightily pedantick on a Subject that is purely politick Is it not hereby very manifest that he loves to leave the Point and take occasion of one Word upon which he may exercise his talent by making thereupon a common-place To answer in good earnest Reflections that are so impertinent would argue one to be Master of as little sense as he is who makes them The Grievances of the Prince and of the English which they owed to James II. had not only a respect to the Violation of the Laws of the Land but to the Subversion of Religion Yet our Author has so much insisted on the point and spent so much breath on the head of Religion in such a declamatory method and with such vigorous efforts that he has left very little more to say in the justification of his Hero as to Affairs of State and therefore he has but one word concerning it and only touches upon one of the Articles that the Prince has expressed in his Declaration and that is that the Liberty that King James gave of placing Popish Judges on the Bench reduced the Estates and Fortunes of the Subjects to an uncertainty that was extremely irksom because the Sentences pronounced by the Judges who were not legal are reputed to be null and void tho' they were never so just Thus those who lose the Suit seeing themselves lye under the sentence of incompetent Judges will be sure not to let slip the first opportunity that shall present it self for their relief against that Judgment which would bring the Estates and Fortunes of private persons into an eternal uncertainty In opposition to this our Author pretends to plead endeavouring to make it appear that tho' the King should make a Judge illegally the Judge should nevertheless have a legal authority to give judgment and that the Sentence that is pronounced by him is without all question valid and binding for confirmation of which he cites the Law Barbarius Philippus by which it appeared that a Slave having obtained the Pretorship by surprize it was judged that his Determinations were not to be questioned It belongs to the English properly to make answer to this The Law Barbarius Philippus is a Rule of Prudence which neither amounts to a Natural Right nor a Necessary Law Naturally Acts done by a Subject who is incapable of bearing certain Characters are invalid All the Ordinances given by a Tyrant and Usurper are null and void as soon as ever the Tyrant is put from the Helm If a Turk should usurp the Papal Chair or turn Priest all the Oaths that should be administred by him would be manifestly void In like manner all the Sentences given by one who is incapable of being a Judge and whom the Law barrs from sitting on the Bench are naturally of no force If the Sovereign in consideration of the consequence and to avoid trouble is pleased to continue them it is in his power so to do and they shall bind but it is absolutely necessary that the pleasure of the Sovereign intervene in this case for giving force to such Judgments The Law Barbarius makes this easily appear If the English had any Law that could give a validity to Judgments and Decrees of a Judge tho' he were made so contrary to the Laws it is true that the Sentences given by Popish Judges might remain in force but it is so far from being so that on the contrary it is manifestly true the English have Laws according to which every Sentence past by Judges appointed against Law ought to be revised We are not to spend all our thoughts on these smaller matters and neglect so many Grievances and Complaints of the Nations against the Government of James II. Is it nothing for example that he usurped a power of dispensing with the Laws Is it nothing that he made himself an Absolute Sovereign and exercised Arbitrary Power Of what use are the Laws if it be in the Prince's power to suspend them by hindring their execution whenever he pleases and acting directly contrary to what the Laws ordain If it were thus I would rather now chuse to live at Paris or Constantinople than at London and be subject to Lewis XIV or Mahomet than to the Government of a King of England The Authority of the Judges of the Kings-Bench who were generally of opinion that the Dispensing Power was annexed to the Crown is not sufficient For it is well known who those Judges were that most of them were Papists and by some means or other those that were not were brought over to joyn with the rest Can it be thought that a few ill Men who betrayed their Country and sold their Liberties should be the Sovereign Disposers of the Interest of such a Vast Number of People Is it nothing that the King of England prevailing over the weakness of the Kingdom of Scotland had a considerable success in the design of making himself Absolute Sovereign having in his Declarations used a Style that is more Despotick than that of the Grand Seignior affecting to insert therein almost in every Period the Terms We Will We Command of Full Power of Absolute Power Have we not seen this with our Eyes Is it nothing that all the Charters and Priviledges were taken from the English Cities and Corporations and particularly from the City of London by horrible Violences and unjust Procedures to the end that the King might be in a capacity to fill up the vacancies of Offices and Places of Trust with Court-Slaves and Enemies of the Protestant Religion Is it nothing that the Bishops who are Peers of the Realm were imprisoned against all sort of Law only because they were so bold as to make a most humble Address to the King by way of Remonstrance against his Ordinance Where are there any Monarchical States in which it is not permitted to make such Remonstrances to their Sovereign Is it nothing to threaten all the Judges of the Kingdom with the loss of their Places and actually to deprive them thereof upon their not consenting to repeal a fundamental Law of the Land Is it
a moment and did the Prince's business without effusion of Blood It is true that at last the King at a pinch consented to the Calling of a Parliament but it was then too late and they knew very well that that was only to gain time yet tho' as late as it was it is yet true That if the King had stayed his Enemies could never have done any thing against him the Parliament had taken his part This is soclear by the manner of the carriage of many of the Members of the Convention that he must be blind who cannot see it or be very hard of belief not to acknowledge it As for the King's Friends they would have had no liberty of speech saith my Author how dare he say so seeing that in the Convention the King having left the Kingdom and the Prince of Orange being in the possession of his Army and the House of Commons declaring against James II. yet even then his Friends durst speak for him It was proposed in a full Assembly to call him back Many Lords-Spiritual and Temporal protested against the Vacancy of the Throne and with so little danger and disgrace that some of them were afterwards made Members of the Privy Council What could not the Friends of James II. have said if Himself had been present It is past all doubt that they had carried it for him or kept the Affairs of State in a most equal Ballance If the Prince had had any design to do violence to the Members of Parliament would not the whole Nation and all the Forces thereunto belonging have joyned together to oppose him as a treacherous person who came to destroy their Liberty after having so solemnly declared He would Maintain it Could the Prince with his 10 or 12000 Foreigners have made one day's resistance It is therefore certain that neither the King nor his Friends had any reason to be afraid in that case The other Argument by which this Man endeavours to prove that the pretence of a free Parliament is really a Chimera is because the Parliament could not make Laws without the King's consent And if it be granted that this pretended free Parliament had met the King would have opposed all their Resolutions He would have refused to pass the Bills And the Parliament could never have done any thing at least could not but by force Upon which account it would not have been a free Parliament seeing the King could not have his Liberty It may also be saith our pious Author that the Hand of God which is not shortened was so gracious to that generous Prince as to make him hearken to their Threats with the same Firmness of Resolution with which St. Lew is heard the Saracens whose Prisoner he was when a hundred drawn Swords ready to dispatch him could not shake him from his stedfastness and oblige him to take an Oath the thoughts of which were more terrible to him What is to be done on such an occasion Behold this pretended free Parliament is arrested all on a sudden and all the fair fruits that were expected from it become abortive The English ought to answer this They know their own Laws and we do not but according to the Light of good Sense and the Laws of Nature we may make him Answer by two Things that are very weighty The first is that we ought to distinguish betwixt those Laws that are already made and those Laws that are only a making That the Consent of the King of England is not necessary for the Preservation of those Laws that are made But there were Laws requiring the Exclusion of all Papists from Offices and Places of Trust as well Military as Judiciary and Civil There were Laws that prohibited upon the Pain of Death the Priests and especially the Monks coming into the Kingdom There were Laws standing that required the demolishing of the Romish Chappels and hindring all Publick Exercise of the Popish Religion There were Laws that declared every Person of the Realm guilty of High-Treason who should keep correspondence with the Court of Rome and who should hide Priests and Monks There were Laws enough for the Security of the Protestant Religion The Parliament had nothing to do but to put those Laws into strict Execution The King 's consent was not necessary for the enacting of new Laws for that purpose But seeing he has the executive Power of the Laws in his hands what is to be done if the King will not put those Laws in execution Then and in that Case it is evident that the Parliament might lawfully appoint some Persons who should execute those Laws for otherwise for what end are Laws made if it be always in the Power of one individual Person to hinder their Execution It must be supposed that those who made the Laws were no Fools but certainly they had not been wise if they had reserved no Power to themselves for the Execution of the Laws whensoever the King should refuse so to do It is not then necessary that there should be new Laws to bear down Popery which shewed her self bare faced Neither were there any new Laws necessary to oppose the King and to declare him incapable of the Government For all the Laws which before that Time had been made against Popery make it manifest with great Force and Necessity that a King of England must be a Protestant that without doing any Violence to the Law they might declare to James II. that they could no otherwise consider him but as a private Person But again there is no Law expressed in so general and so precise terms but admits of an Exception of Cases of Necessity And according to this Rule we are to understand the Laws of England That the Parliament cannot make a Law without the King Let us suppose that in a Kingdom such as England is where the Estates have reserved to themselves one Part of the Sovereign Power a King goes about to alienate all or any Part of the Realm to bring in a forreign Power to abrogate the Ancient to revoke all the Priviledges of the People to harrass his Subjects with an Army to cause to Murther all those who comply not with his Pleasure or all those whom he pleases so to treat Will any one say that the Estates or the Parliaments who are the Trustees Guarrantees and Protectors of the Liberties of the People have not a Power according to Law to issue forth such Orders and to take such Measures as may hinder the Violences committed by that Prince and that for this Reason The Parliament can do nothing without the King 's confent and therefore cannot oppose the Violences done by him for the King will never consent to it I maintain that he that would argue thus has utterly lost his Wits In vain have Parliaments reserved to themselves the Legislative Power if they had no Authority to exercise it In vain have they preserved their Priviledges if they had no Power for
altogether in as good and possibly in a much better Condition in the hands of those to whom the profuse Life of the last Proprietor brought them than in his hands who made such a disposition and the Public Laws have not established so exact Rules for hindring the Alienation of Lands Possessions and Moveables as they have settled for preventing of the Ruin of the State and the dissolution of Societies If Houses Trees Horses and Oxen had reasonable Souls God without doubt had ordained Laws of Right to limit the possession of the Proprietors Thus because private Persons have a full right to do with their possessions as they please and to govern them according as it seems good to them yet Public Persons cannot govern States and Societies according to their own Caprice without any right left to their Subjects and Members to oppose and hinder the devastation thereof and in some respects even the Children of a House and the presumptive Heirs of a Private Person have a right to hinder the wasting of the Possessions that belong to the Family It is very well known that the Laws have allowed Means to Heirs for the prevention of their own impendent Ruin that they may not be barr'd of their right to that Estate which ought to revert to them With far better reason may Princes Heirs of Crowns and of Kingdoms have a Right to hinder the Ruin and Devastation of those Countries which they are to possess one day Besides there is a difference betwixt Public Possessions and those of Private Persons The Law and one's Birth give the latter without any reservation but it is God and the People who bestow Public Possessions and Sovereignities and with this reservation that the Welfare and the Safety of the State and of the People is the Soveraign end of Governments and the Supreme Law God I say and the People confer Sovereign Power and bestow it on whom they please without being obliged always to have regard to the Laws of Succession David invests himself with the two Crowns of the People of Israel during the Life of the Children of Saul who was their true and lawful King and which is more the Children of Jonathan his incomparable Friend The Laws of Friendship and of such a Friendship as that was betwixt Jonathan and David are at least as inviolable amongst honest Men as the Relations of Son-in-Law and Father-in-Law Yet David without any scruple went up to Hebron and made himself be Crown'd King of Judah and not content with this seven Years after he treats with Abner General of the Army of the People of Israel to draw them from their Allegiance to Ishbosheth the Son of Saul their lawful King by Birth by Succession and by Possession to oblige him to put the Ten Tribes upon Revolting from their Obedience to their lawful Sovereign If a People in prejudice of an eldest Son would establish Cadets upon the Throne in the opinion of some By assed Persons Hell it self could not afford Colours black enough to Paint the Rebellion Enterprise and Attempt of that People yet we may see how the People of Judah and Israel set Solomon on the Throne in prejudice of I do not know how many Elder Brothers of Solomon all of them Men capable of government It may be objected that God who is the disposer of Crowns does bestow them on whom he pleases it was he who gave the Crown to David and to Solomon in prejudice of the true Heirs he could do it I find the answer very good for the Objector it is also for me and it amounts to what I have said viz. that God and the People are the Lords of Crowns to give them to whom they please God as the Sovereign Lord the People as the Lords of their Possessions under God God as the Lord of all Crowns in general every People as the Lords of their own Crown in particular thus we find innumerable instances in History of People who in their Families make one to Inherit in prejudice of another who prefer a Cadet to the Eldest Son and oftentimes the Son to the Father because the safety of the People and the welfare of the Society does so require The People go further they transfer the Sovereign Power from one House to another The Jews leave the Royal Family of David and take that of the Maccabees The French renounce that of the Morivingians to take that of Charles Martell and at last forsook that of Charles Martell who had Male Issue to set on the Throne a third Race which Reigns at this day There is no State of which History is not full of such Examples it will only wast time to set them down And such an Action is the only Foundation of the right by which the Crown of France is held Examples of this nature have the force of Laws for the constant and perpetual Custom as well of the People of God as of other Nations does make it manifest to us that it is the Peoples right and without enumerating Examples good sense and right reason make a Law and clearly declare that since Societies do make Kings for their own preservation they have a right to transfer the Power of the Government to him who is Judged the most capable to preserve the Society and Common-Wealth If these two Truths be joyned together First that Kings are not Lords of reasonable Souls as private Men are Lords of their Lands and of their Cattle Secondly that God and the People may of right bestow Crowns on whom they please a third Position will result from both viz. that the People as well as the Church is always a Minor that Kingdoms are Pupils that Kings are properly their Guardians and that consequently in the same manner as it is permitted to presumptive Heirs of the Possessions of a Pupil to hinder the disorders and prevent the wasting of the Estate which belongs to him or may belong to him for the time to come so the presumptive Heirs of a Crown not only can but ought by the Laws of Religion of Piety and of conscience to hinder disorders to preserve the Society which is going to ruin and repress the violences of him who having in his hand the Sovereign Power uses it to the destruction of the public though the lawful Heir of a Crown should have no other interest but his own he ought to be allowed to maintain and preserve it much more and with better reason when he has in his view the interest of Religion and of the Kingdom and there is no relation either of Son in-Law or of Father or of Son but ought to yeild to so inviolable an Obligation for we must love God and the Common-wealth more then Father and Mother besides this is not so much to love superiors as to abandon to them a Kingdom or a Church for the common ruin and destruction thereof It is to suffer them to take a full career to Hell and Death it is
to permit them to cover their memories with shame and infamy it is to assist them in a conduct that renders them odious to mankind and consequently to oppose their disorders is to wish them well and to do them good Was it ill taken that the Dauphin Charles who was afterwards King of France under the Name of Charles VII made a Campaign with a considerable Army against his Father Charles VI. and that he opposed a Government that exposed the state to ruin and threatned the Kingdom with utter destruction and because Charles did not bear to his Father a base compliance by leaving him and his Ministers to commit what mischiefs they pleased had Charles reason to disinherit his own Son to set up a Forreign Prince in the Kingdom to make him be Crowned in Paris during his own Life Would Charles have done well to suffer such outragious Mischiess because he received them from a Father Let us suppose a King who is not only profuse but a Tyrant who brings desolation upon the Community who kills massacres who ravages all the State who reduces it to the brink of ruin without remission or concealment Can it be believed that a presumptive Heir though he were even a Son would be obliged to behold such grievances without redressing them he that would perswade himself of such a thing would justly deserve the Character of a compleat Fool. On the contrary a Prince who is Heir of the Crown is obliged to joyn himself with the States of the Kingdom to disarm the Tyrant and to deliver the Kingdom out of his hands that it may not become a frightful desart Let us descend yet one degree lower and suppose a King not so ill as the former but who Acts under the covert of some formality of Justice who likewise might possibly have some good intention but who nevertheless being possessed with evil Counsellours and blinded with a certain extraordinary Zeal does lay the whole Kingdom desclate and ruins the honestest Gentlemen of the Realm depopulates the State by illegal and rigorous proceedings that strike the whole World with horrour who lays an indispensable Obligation on his Subjects to desert him by suffering unjust judgments and practises violent courses oppressions and Massacres by charging the Kingdom with such excessive impositions that it was very near involved in an universal ruin by sowing the Seeds of Rebellion over all by exciting the hatred and horrour of all Foreign Princes by unjust Wars by breaking his Promises by violating his Treaties by infringing his most Solemn Capitulations by perpetual and violent Invasions of the Rights and Properties of his Neighbours by drawing upon the Kingdom the dreadful Calamities of some Foreign War which threatned the State with imminent ruin if such a King I say has been found of this stamp and conduct the presumptive Heir whether Son or Son in-in-Law would be indispensably obliged to take some course in such an exigency and to oppose such mischiefs by force of Arms First because every one ought to preserve and maintain his own Inheritance from violence and desolation In Crowns that go by succession a Prince and Heir during the time that he is yet presumptive Heir has no right to govern it is true but has an undoubted right to demand a Part in the Government after he is past the Years of Minority and is arrived at those of perfect Maturity A King who ruins his Kingdom who slights and sends away his Son of sufficient Age to govern and treats him as one of the Pages of his Court may thank himself if the Son does himself Justice and demands a little better information about the measures that are taken in the Government of the Kingdom which he beholds running against the fatal Bank by the male-administration of the Royal Pilot and whereof himself is one day to be both Father and King He meddles not in Affairs that do not belong to him for nothing can be more his interest Thus therefore a Prince Heir of the Crown has an interest that he may not inherit a vast desart instead of a Kingdom and that his Father by a violent Conduct may not leave him both his Subjects and Neighbours for Enemies out of whose hands he cannot escape There is yet a reason and an interest that is more considerable and likewise more justifiable viz. that of the Public The Laws of Charity do oblige all to rescue those that are in misery and to deliver them from their Afflictions A Prince Heir of a Crown ought to look upon all the Subjects and Members of the Kingdom as his Brethren he is obliged in Conscience to lend them his Hand and save them although even his and their common Father be the Man who involves them in a common ruin If an Elder Brother sees his Father take his Children one after another and plunge them in a River to drown them this Eldest Brother is not bound to see his Younger Brothers drown'd without plucking them out of the hands of his Father for fear of violating the respect that is due to a Father Humble remonstrances towards a Father who is so unnatural are not enough what he owes to God and to the Public is far above all the Duties of Blood of Alliance and Parentage Here are two interests one of a Prince and the other of the public both together which ought to oblige the Presumptive Heir to repress the violences of his own Father because this King whom we have last supposed has filled the Kingdom with Male-contents exhausted its Treasures by excessive Impositions ruined it by proscriptions and depopulations made all the Neighbouring Princes his Enemies and does thereby make way for a mighty revolution which may preclude the lawful Heir from his Right and reduce his Kingdom either to an Anarchy or a Civil War or make it pass into the Possession of strangers This is clear for an oppressed State such as we have supposed attack'd by Enemies which their King's Injustice has procured will be sure to give a joyful reception to a Foreign Power that shall make an entrance by force of Arms and look upon them rather as their Saviours then Enemies They will say and will have reason to say that they can be no worse treated then they are that they can lose nothing by changing their Master and the Truth is a stranger entring into a Kingdom has nothing else to do but to Proclaim Liberty every one would hasten to come under his Banner and from this would ensue the desolation of the Realm by a Civil War or the ruin of the Government which would pass into their hands A Prince Heir of the Crown is not obliged to be a Spectator of so pressing and so great dangers without applying a Remedy thereunto if he be always Patient the Enemy will come the Male-contents will joyn in a Body with them and he will be deprived of those means whereby he might justify his rightful Pretences to the Crown or
Nation but durst not disanul Parliaments but he dissolved them and caused them to be dissolved by his Brother as soon as ever the Parliaments did any thing that displeased him He deprived the Corporations of their Charters and Priviledges He obstructed free Elections he took upon him a Power of dispensing with the Laws and of acting in a direct opposition to what was thereby ordained He was not legally impowred to proceed so far and therefore he transgressed the due Bounds and thereby put the Nation in a rightful Capacity no longer to acknowledge him for it is certain that in all Relations of Father and Son of Wife and Husband of Master and Servant of Subject and King where there is an express Contract and certain Conditions laid down when one of the Parties happens to violate the Contract and to be wanting in the performance of the Conditions that the other Party is no longer obliged The Lawyers Maxim Princeps Legibus solutus est has no place here By the Prince is understood one that is Sovereign and a Magistrate that is absolute without limitation Unhappy are the People who have got such Masters who have suffered their Priviledges to be disanulled but the People and the Nations which are so happy as to preserve the Bulwarks which in the Establishment of their Monarchy have been raised against the Ambition of their Princes are very Wise in maintaining them The King of England does not boast that he is above the Laws for he is obliged to Reign according to the Laws If there be any Sovereign in England who is above the Laws it is the Parliament and the King together This Sovereign makes Laws and repeals them and so is not bound thereby but the Parliament alone can neither make nor repeal Laws neither can the King alone do it So that these Words of Cambden concerning the Authority of the Kings of England does not take away the Rights of Parliaments and the Priviledges of the People that are publicly known Seeing the Kings of England are bound to Reign according to the Laws there lyes no obligation upon the People any longer to acknowledge them when they raise themselves above the Laws and have no regard thereunto Indeed a modern Writer has said that Protestants may be trusted because they swear Allegiance to the Prince without reservation But we swear Allegiance without reservation only where the Law does not annext it and where the Princes have their bounds limited by the Laws our Religion does not at all oblige us to make Oath of Fidelity without reservation and without condition since the Kings of England themselves in Conjunction with their Parliaments have annexed certain reservations to the Oaths of Allegiance which they require from their Subjects We do no ways believe that the English violate their Oaths of Allegiance when they think that they are free so to do by the Invasion that their Kings make upon the Fundamental Laws of the Realm From all this it follows that the English Nation did justly look upon King James II. as incapable of the Crown because of his Religion and as fallen from his Rights by his violation of all the Fundamental Laws and consequently William III. his Son-in-Law and Mary his Daughter now King and Queen of England possess the Crown most lawfully which returns to them by Right of Succession and which was confirmed to them by the unanimous Consent of the three Estates of the Kingdom They did not trample upon the respect which they owed to him who was their Father or held the place of a Father for nothing is owing to a Father in prejudice of the Rights that are due to God and our Country They committed no Violence as a means of coming by the Crown for they first received it from a free Convention they did nothing against the Commands of St. Peter and St. Paul of being Subject to the Powers for neither St. Peter nor St. Paul had any design of Establishing the Arbitrary Power of Kings whose Authority is limited by the Laws nor of favouring Tyrants Now as there have not been Men wanting to misconstrue His Majesties late Expedition so there have been some of his Majesties Enemies mentioned at the beginning who charged the Misfortunes of the Two De Wits Anno. 1672. on the then P. of Orange But it is known to all the World how the Matter went it happened by a popular Commotion which was like Gun-powder kindled and spread in a moment It is true that the two De Wits were accounted Enemies to the Prince It is true that there were two Parties formed in the State one against the Prince and the other for him but if things had gone well and the order which the De Wits had given for the preservation of the Country had succeeded no Person had ever muttered against them but Unhappily the State was without any Defence without Arms without Forts without Forces without Alliances which afforded the French an Opportunity of Marching into the very Heart of the Country leaving nothing but Desolation behind them Those who were at the Helm were narrowly look'd to whether they were to blame or no. The People thereupon were enraged against those who had the management of Affairs They made a general insurrection in the Town against the Magistrates It was much less for the Prince's Interest then for their own that there was such an uproar amongst the People The Mobile had been little enough concerned who governed provided the Government had been in safety Hitherto the Government of the De Wits as it had been happy so it had been attended with Tranquillity But in the Year 1672. the Government of those Gentlemen was extreamly Unfortunate the People who peremptorily reckoned the Unhappy Success of the measures they took to be an Effect of their Mismanagement of Affairs fell upon them and spent all the Magazine of their Rage against them And it was the King of France to whom the De Wits were indebted for that Tragical Execution it is he who by his unjust Enterprifes and his happy Success did provoke the People's Patience to the last extremity and obliged them to avenge themselves by force on those who had so very ill provided for the safety of the State The Prince was no ways concerned therein but accidentally if he had had the Administration of Affairs for some Years before that if he had been mistaken in his Measures as they had been if the King of France had met with the same Success after the Administration of the Prince of Orange that he had after that of the De Wits it is certain that the Prince of Orange had been in danger of having been the object of the People's Fury as those Gentlemen were but it is well known that this is the usual manner of popular Commotious that when they make an insurrection against one they make a Bulwark of another Expressing their Fury because the Government being altogether a Republic had not
provided against those extream Grievances which they lay under it was easie for them to find at hand the Name and Person of the Prince of Orange to whose Family upon former considerations they had the greatest Obligations and therefore their Acclamations for the Elevation of the Prince were mixed with Exclamations of Fury and Rage against the De Wits It is the greatest injustice to charge this as a Crime upon a Young Prince who then being but a Youth had given proofs of his Wisdom and of a consummated Moderation Neither have I heard that in Holland any of those who were the greatest Loosers by the Death of the De Wits and the Change of Government did entertain the least suspition thereof The Battle of St. Denis is also objected which his present Majesty gave at the very time when the Treaty of Peace at Nimeghen was a concluding in which seven or eight thousand Men were killed on one side and other His Majesty was not at all obliged to know that the Peace was concluded and it is well known that he was extreamly condescending to make the best Conditions he could If the advantage had been more compleat and the French Army had been entirely defeated it had very well appeared that the Action had not been so ill construed The Peace was signed at Nimeghen but it was not ratified and until the Ratification of a Treaty there is always time allowed to the Parties to change their Councils either for the Confirmation or relaxation thereof From the same Source does proceed another Charge against his Majesty in favour of a little Gentleman called the Prince of Wales as if he had been look'd upon to block up his Majestie 's way to the Crown but the true Heirs of the Crown had no ground to believe that the pretended Prince of Wales did block up their way to the Crown He was very far off he was born a Papist he had the Pope for his Godfather he was naturally excluded from the Crown of England upon that score and the Party which had set James II. on the Throne tho' a declared Papist could not maintain their pretensions for any long time James II. had supported him by his forwardness by his Intrigues and by his Army On his Death or oververthrow by some blow the Stripling 's Aspect would have been soon changed with his Fortune This young Popish Prince surviving either a Minor or destitute of Strength and Wisdom for supporting himself could not maintain his Point for any long time against the known Laws of the Country against the People and against the Religion of the Land and the lawful Rights of the Princess besides a Birth so obscure and so destitute of good proof could not be maintained against the manifest and professed Birth of the two Princesses who were lawful Heirs This Prince of Wales would have been obliged one day to prove his Birth against the two Princesses who would dispute it and it is very probable that he would have come but ill off I do not at all doubt but that his Birth whether true or suppos'd oblig'd the Nation to be more Urgent in calling for his present Majestie 's Assistance So long as they saw none else seated upon the Throne a Popish King on whom Old Age and consequently Death was making it's near approaches they might have Patience in hopes of seeing within a little time Protestant Successors in the Possession of the Crown But when they perceived that a New Prince was trump'd up who in all probability was nothing else but a Chimera to perpetuate the Popish Religion on the Throne from Generation to Generation they were awakened they thought of their own safety they implored help from their deliverer they had reason to crave it and his present Majesty had reason to grant it for it was a perillous and pressing Juncture and it was not to be expected that the People who accustomed themselves to every thing with time would inure themselves to bear with a presumptive Heir of the Crown set up in favour of a Religion that is a mortal Enemy both to the Peace and Religion of the Realm I intend not here to set down the process of the supposititious Birth of the Prince of Wales nor do I think it necessary I shall only make some reflections on it all Europe knows or ought to know that King William and Queen Mary were the last who entertained this supposition It is manifestly known to the World that the report was Universally spread throughout England and all Europe from the time that there was any talk of the Queen's being with Child of her Vow to our Lady of Loretto of the rich Presents that she sent thither of the Bath whither she went to prepare her self for pregnancy of the King's journey to the Bath to visit the Queen of the rumour that was spread abroad immediately after that of the Queen's being with Child Not only all the Protestants but all the Catholics of good sence who gave no great credit to the Miracles of our Lady look'd upon all as a prelude to the Comedy that was to be Acted All England is witness that during all the time that the Queen was with Child the City of London and Whitehall were full of Satyrs and Lampoons in Verse and in Prose like rude Serpents they flew about not sparing the Queen's Petticoats her pregnancy was ridiculed And it is also known that not only the Mobile but all Persons of the greatest Note in the Kingdom had the same suspition My second Reflection is that the Prince had all reason imaginable to conceive a suspition of this Birth in consideration of the quality of the witnesses who were summoned to attest it It is very well known that neither Princess Ann of Denmark nor any of the Friends of the Present King and Queen nor King Jame's Enemies were called to be by and it is as well known that the Bishops were put in the Tower some days after It is known that the Queen was brought to Bed when she thought fit and that she went for that end to St. James's House it is known that she made two reckonings within the compass of a Month and there was good reason to suspect that she took an advantage from it to take the most agreeable Measures for the management of the intrigue When there is but one reckoning all things requisite are not always in readiness against the named time for an Action of that nature It is Universally known that King James and his Queen were informed of all the reports that were spread abroad that the Queen's being with Child was a sham and consequently they were obliged to use all imaginable precaution to Work an assurance in Peoples minds that it was genuin they would not do it by any means they encreased the suspition by this neglect Seeing there are so great reasons to call it into question could his Present Majesty be blamed for endeavouring to be
Answer they received and it amounts 〈◊〉 this The King Declares to the Prince that 〈◊〉 consents to the calling of a Free Parliament and said he had appointed Lords Commissioners to adjust and regulate with the Prince all those Points that were necessary as well for the Free Election of Members to serve in Parliament as for the security of the next Sessions The Prince does propose such Conditions as were most equitable and most necessary for his own and the Public Safety The Prince demands that the Papists beput out of Places of Trust and that they be disarmed there could not have been security enough for himself and his Friends if the Papists had continued in Offices and in Arms with their Sword in their hands He requires that all the Proclamations in which his Friends had been Declared Rebels should be revoked and anulled How could a Free Parliament have been called and what Equity could the Prince have expected from the same if all the Peers and Gentlemen who had Declared for him had been excluded from sitting in Parliament as being Rebels He requires that all those of his side who had been taken should be set at liberty How could he provide for the security of the Laws and Religion so long as those who had come over to their Deliverers side were to be treated as Criminals and if they had been really chargeable was it ever required of a Prince who has his Sword in his Hand that he should condemn himself and give his consent that those who adhered to him should be treated as Traytors The Prince Demands that for the security of the City of London that the Custody and Government of the Tower should be committed to the said City It had been ill that in so nice a juncture King James had remained Master of the Tower to be in a capacity to destroy the City of London and to reduce it to Ashes so soon as ever she should attempt to favour the vigorous Resolutions of a Parliament If 〈◊〉 Prince 〈◊〉 â—â—â—manded that the Tower should be put into his own possession it had been unjust but since his intentions were to take such Measures and use such means as tended to the security of the People's Liberties it was absolutely necessary to secure all those Places of Strength which were made use of for destroying the Liberty of the Subject The Prince desired the King to withdraw from London during the holding of the Parliament or that if he inclined to stay there it might also be allowed that the Prince should be there with an equal Number of Guards a very just Demand The Prince was not obliged to leave King James in a Capacity of Exercising an Absolute Power over the English as well as the Scotch Parliament whilst he abide at London with his Guards which would not have failed to convey to the Tower all such Members who should presume to Declare themselves to be of an Opinion that crossed the King's Interest and Intentions King James and the Prince were at that time as two Parties at Law in a Suit that was to be heard and determined in Parliament and of which the Parliament was the only competent Judge and consequently it was necessary and equitable that the Parliament should enjoy an entire liberty This could not be unless he did overthrow or permit the Prince to be near to stand by his Friends as the King was desirous to defend his own The Prince requires that both the Armies should March 40 Miles from London The Prince could make no Demand more equitable to the end that the Parliament might be left in full Liberty It was not requisite that all King James's Forces should have Encamped round about Westminster and that the said King with his Sword in his hand should have forced the Parliament to Condemn the Prince of Orange and all his Friends as Guilty of High-Treason to be cut in pieces In the last place the Prince of Orange does Demand That to prevent the descent of the French Portsinouth might be put into the hands of a Person who might be trusted both by the Prince and by the King It was one of the most just and most necessary precautions in the World It is unknown to none that King James had Intelligence with the French with a design by their Assistance utterly to subvert Religion Liberty and Property The World was sufficiently informed that after the Report was spread of the Prince's Expedition it was several times deliberated upon in Council if they should receive the French Forces It was known that the Papists did mightily Press King James to consent thereunto and that the said King did only refuse it by reason of the fear he had of a general revolt of the Kingdom Had he not been very prudent to leave in the said King's hand during the sitting of the Parliament the Principal Port of the Kingdom that was open to receive Strangers with whom it is very well known that he had conspired for the Ruin of the Prince and of the Kingdom It was very impertinently said by a certain Foreign Scribler speaking of the Prince his Principality of Orange as a Title had not justified his raising of an Army to reduce the King of England with in due limits Was it not extreamly needful to give this Publie Advertisement and this very advantagious precaution in this Matter Without it there would have been some sort of Folks without all doubt who would have said why had not William of Nassan a Right to dispute the Crown of England with King James seeing he was already Prince of Orange before Does not the Principality of Orange give a very good Title to the English Crown This Author wanted an occasion to make a Defence by the by for the King of France for the ill Services he has done his present Majesty in that Principality and therefore he was obliged to bring in the Principality of Orange in this place only for this end that he might have the occasion to say that William Henry of Nassau was justly deprived of his Principality because it belonged to the House of Longueville which descended from that of Chaalons whereas the House of Nassau had only kept it by meer Vsurpation The French Court was resolved too late to do Justice in this Affair to the House of Longueville Henry IV Lewis XIII and Lewis XIV himself were very backward in rendering to their Subjects and to their Servants that which appertained to them and in accomodating the differences that have been depending amongst them The truth is if this pittiful Scribler had been Wise he would not have touched upon this Point and would not have recalled into Men's Minds such Ideas which cannot take place without causing Horror and a just Indignation To restore to the House of Longueville a Possession that so justly belonged to them it was not necessary to lay it desolate as they did to demolish and raze the Castles to level the
Walls with the ground to Plunder the Town several times to quarter an Army at discretion in a small subjected Country and which never made any Resistance to Imprison the principal Inhabitants of that small State and to commit against them the utmost Violences It is not to Orange only that his Majesty has found Pretenders In Burgundy in the Franch county and every where else where King William had Possessions and Lands there were not wanting Houses of Longueville in favour of which the Lands of a Prince were seised with which the Usurpers had nothing to do and by such base Artifices as have begot the hearty Concern of all Princes they opposed William of Nassau on all occasions when he could not defend himself without ever declaring War against him These are Instances of a base and unworthy Revenge for two Kings to take For the English King was in League with Lewis to Abandon his son-in-Son-in-Law to Rapin and Desolation This is one of the Obligations that the son-in-Son-in-Law has to his Father-in Law and for which public Fame bears him upon her Wings for a stupendous Example of Ingratitude The Prince has already sustained damage enough in his Principality of Orange and Lands of Burgundy by his Father-in-Law's good Offices But I cannot say but he will demand new Costs and Charges at the Hands of the most Christian King We shall see if he can hold out to be as easily Victorious over William III. King of England as he laid desolate the Possessions of William of Nassau BURGER of the Hague for so the Prince was called at Paris This Burger of the Hague begins now to strike Terror in the Grand Seignior of Versailles who has been so terrible to many and I am very apt to think that his fear will not prove to be in vain and that the mighty Mounsieur shall not escape so The same Author tells us that we must shew standing Laws that allow a Son as the next Heir to the Crown to make himself his Father-in-Laws Judge to invade his Kingdom with a Fleet of five hundred Ships Indeed this Orator would not have done amiss to have spared his Breath to have reserved his Rhetoric and his Eloquence to Answer the Demands that William of Nassau in all likelihood will make ' ere it be long to Lewis XIV for if it should so happen that he prove the stronger one day he has very good reason to call him to an account and ask him by what Laws he invaded and retained Lorain and possessed himself of Strasburg in the time of Peace by what Laws he laid the principality of Orange Desolate and treated the same as a place subjected to him by an absolute Conquest why he reduced the Palatinate and the Towns and Villages on the Rhine to Ashes treating it as a Country destined by the most Savage Proscription to perpetual Desolation and why he seizes the Possessions of every one and keeps Faith with none This insolent Author repeats the Case of the De Wits and imputes the Misfortunes that befel them and others to King William whom he alledges to have managed the Multitude for the accomplishment of his Designs But was it during the Years of his Minority or after they were past that he gained the Multitude Did he Court that small People Did he require any thing of them Did he complain to them of the wrongs that had been done to him Was there one Man of that People to whom he was personally known or with whom he had the least Conversation imaginable As for the then deposed Magistrates if they were Established by Law they were laid aside by Law This is done by the order of the States of Holland who are the Sovereign Governours of the Province This was to put a stop to the Rage of the People who being reduced to the brink of Destruction seized on the Magistrates right or wrong There were no other means left of dispelling that Mist but by changing the Governours And to be short this business was not carried on by a suddain Enterprise but was managed with a great deal of Prudence All the Magistrates who were rejected were Enemies to the Prince who being invested with the Office of General Stadtholder and placed at the Helm of the Government was obliged to put in such Magistrates as were on his own side otherwise they had torn the Commonwealth by their contrary Methods and the State would have been thereby infested with such Divisions that would have exposed it to unavoidable Ruine As for the Elections in their Cities The Prince in managing them used no force made no use of the settled Army he Besieg'd no Town Imprison'd no Person by his own Authority When there was a design of puting into Offices such Persons as could not have that Correspondence with him that was necessary amongst the Governours of a Common-wealth He only made use of the Authority of the States and of the Court of Judicatory according to the Laws and Rights by which he held his Office and his Character great were The Cries and Lamentations saith the same Author for the Ships that were destroyed which he had disposed of without the Consent of the City of Amsterdam to which they did belong He means the Fleet that was cast away returning from the Sound in the Month of November Anno. 1683. this Man has impudence enough to impute to the Prince the Shipwrack of all the Vessels that have been lost by Stormy Weather since the Year 1672. and to think him answerable for all the Works of Heaven If the City of Amsterdam had not advised the sending out of that Fleet his Consent could not have been necessary When the charge of a Naval Force is computed and agreed upon by the States it may be disposed of by the Admirals and the Admiralities according to their own Prudence with the Suffrages of the major part of the Counsel for the good of the Common-wealth provided they do not engage in a War without their consent If there was no good understanding at that time betwixt the City of Amsterdam and the Prince that was the result of the Intrigues of France which by a Diabolical Artifice sowed Divisions in the Cities and Members of the States The violent Suspitions he goes on though he frequently gave of making himself the Master of those whose Minister he only was He never gave cause to such violent Suspitions but it was the Instruments of the French King who raised them for they were continually imployed to diffuse Jealousies through the State against the Prince There was none of his most innocent Actions that they did not misrepresent In their Judgment it was Criminal for him to maintain his own Rights against those who had a design to Invade them They had made so great a Progress before the Year 1672. by this Conduct and by the Jealousies they had kindled in Men's Minds against the House of Orange that there was no Defence left against their
design of Establishing his own Religion He had therefore a design to destroy all others and consequently to ruin the English Church the Presbyterians and the Independants for it is known by the whole World that the Popish Religion never looks upon her self to be Established till once she has made her Way through the Ruins of all other Religions Secondly This Author endeavours to prove that the Prince only fought a pretence against his Father-in-Law Because saith he he reproaches him for having suspended then Penal Laws in Favour of the Roman Catholics and has not considered him as having also suspended them in behalf of the Presbyterians and other Sectaries as if it were possible for him to have transgressed the Limits of his Power with respect to the one and not to the other He calls this an unreasonable distinction c. All this is nothing else but a piece of affected malice and ignorance This mighty Lawyer ought to know that the Penal Laws were only enacted against the Papists The Oaths if there were nothing else do sufficiently attest this They were made against those who believe the Pope to be the Head of the Church that there is another Jurisdiction within the Realm then that of the King that there is such a thing as Transubstantiation and that the Invocation of Saints is no Idolatry There are no Protestants who believe there things It is not against them that the Penal Laws and the Oaths were made but if the Penal Laws some few Years ago were extended to the Presbyterians that was done by evil designs of James Duke of York who did sow Divisions betwixt the two Parties and therefore the Prince ought to have taken it in good part that he did relax then as to the Presbyterians because that is consonant to the purport and true meaning of the Penal Laws and he ought to have taken it in ill part that the same Favour was allowed to the Roman Catholics because that is contrary to the express Decisions of the Law All the Penal Laws were made to serve as a Bulwark not only for the English Church but for all Protestants in general and therefore all Protestants of all sides set themselves against the Declaration of Liberty of Conscience in general because they saw very well whither that did tend Besides the Addresses by which this Author would prove that the Presbyterians â—â—ok'd upon the suspension of the Penal Laws as an obligation that they owed to the King were nothing else but cunning Artifices and Suppositions for the most part or made by three or four Quakers Independants or Papists who presented those Addresses without the consent of their Respective Bodies in whose name they yet pretended to speak This we know by good hands and we have derived the Account we have had hereof from the very Fountain and it appeared sufficiently by the Unanimous concurrence of those Communities on whom the said Addresses were Fathered with the Prince of Orange The Author concludes this Reflection with two confiderations The first is a mighty Elogy on the Roman Religion which he commends by reason of its Antiquity and Extent by it's Sanctity and the Saints it has given to England The other consideration is of the Power that the Church of England allows the King in Spiritual Causes whence he concludes that the Church of England would be very unreasonable if it were of the Opinion that that Power could be restrained without Cause in respect of that which is of all things most grateful to the World which is to Allow the Free Exercise of their Religion to those of his Subjects who with himself are of the most Antient Religion of all that maintain the Adoration of Jesus Christ. That is to say in a Word that if the King has Power to dispense with the Penal Laws with respect to New Sects he ought in all reason to have the same Power with respect to the Antient Religion that is professed by himself This Consequence is denied If the King of England has Power in Spiritual Causes it iâ— not an Arbitrary Power is bounded by the Laws but the Laws do not forbid a Toleration of the Presbyterians but they forbid a Toleration of the Popish Religion because that so Antient a Religion and which is so far spread through the World and is so holy is a common Enemy of all other Religions whether true or false Those other Religions which give may also receive Toleration but who is obliged to grant a Toleration to the Popish Religion which Tolerates none which destines all those to the Fire and Sword who do not submit themselves to it The Author puts an end to this part of his Defence of King James touching his Religion by taking a review of the Church of England he turns it on every side and finds it safe and sound without so much as Spot or Wrinkle She was the same under the Catholick King that she was under the Protestant Kings She had her Bishops her Cathedral Churches her Parochial Churches her Ecclesiastical Revenues The King built very near twenty Chappels at his own Charge And this is that for which he makes all this Cry Thus our Gentleman concludes that it is an imposition upon the World and a manifest token of want of sense to call that a Subversion of the Religion that was established by Law Certainly the People of England were very far in the wrong that they had not patience till King James brought their Religion to the same Issue as Lewis did the reformed in France It is true that King James established the Popish Service in all the Cities and Burroughs within the Realm where there were Papists It is true that the Jesuits were so bold as to open Schools up and down It is true that by this time London was provided with Monks of all Orders It is true that the Jesuits remained in the Court and that Father Peters was the Head of the English Church by vertue of the entire Influence that he had on the King and the precedency that he had at the Council Board It is true that the principal Offices of State were taken out of the Hands of Protestants and given either to Papists or to those who had no Religion at all It is true that the Earls of Clarenden and Rochester the King's Brothers-in-Law lost their Places of Trust for refusing to change their Religion It is true that the most part of the Judges of the King's Bench were Papists It is true that the Justices of the Peace in the Country were not a few of them Roman Catholicks It is true that the Papists were possessed of Magdalen Colledge in Oxford It is true that the Archbishoprick of York being vacant was designed for a Jesuit or some Priest It is true that the Offices in the Militia the Government of Counties and the Lieutenant ship of Ireland the Town and Fort of Portsmouth and all the places of strength on the Sea-coasts were
nothing to deprive the Lords and the Prime Officers of State of their respective Places of Trust because they refused to give their consent to the thing Is this any thing else but to shed the Blood of the whole Kingdom by Apostate Judges and Slaves to the Court as the Prince complains in his Declaration Is it nothing to have obstructed the free Elections of Members to serve in Parliament by depriving them of all manner of Liberty and making them to depend on the Court by so many Cabals so many Violences and Injustices All these Articles deserve to be considered somewhat more than that of the Invalidity of Judgments given by Popish Judges It must needs be that in all these Points this great Advocate who is so profuse of Words and Reflections found nothing to say in favour of his Hero and against the Prince For he that speaks so much elsewhere would not otherwise have been silent in this matter After this take his word for it and believe him when he tells you that if any thing deserves reprehension in the King's Conduct it was so inconsiderable that Posterity will be astonished that there are Christians found in these Ages who are so barbarous as upon that occasion to give so ill treatment to so good a King whom all Histories will own to have possessed very Royal Qualities And in the sequel he attributes a Great Heart and a Great Soul to him This Author differs very much from himself or from one of his Friends who writ the Letter of M. to M. upon the Affairs of the Times for instead of ascribing to him Royal Qualities therein whil'st they manifest their discontent and murmuring they treat him as a Man who in his conduct was destitute both of Sense and Prudence and as one who has done just so much as was necessary to destroy himself That Great Prince seemed to have neither Heart nor Head in all that Affair We know well enough what is believed of him and what has been said of him in Paris since they have enjoyed his presence It is certain that so many as have known him whether Friends or Enemies do all agree that instead of Royal Qualities he was endowed with an Extreme Fierceness with a very little Spirit and a Heart in a degree below mediocrity But if he were the most considerable Person in the World it is very certain that he abused his power and this is enough to justifie the English Nation If he had had no other Quality but that of a declared Papist it were enough to make him incapable to Reign in England For it is unspeakable folly to alledge that a Popish Prince can be King of England a Kingdom that is altogether Protestant and in which according to the most impartial calculation those Papists who live there are nothing in comparison The English Nation have abdicated this Error as well as the powerful Cause of it It was not possible for her to be kept in it for any long time There were in France a Million of Protestants and that party was in a condition of making head against the other when it was declared to Henry IV. that the King of France must of necessity be a Catholick From the same infected Source do spring two great Articles to prove that the Free Parliament about which the Prince made so great a Noise in his Declaration and which was the great Hinge of the Motions of the Kingdom is as great a Chimera as a Mountain without a Valley considering the condition into which the Prince had reduced the Nation by his Invasion All this effusion of Words may be reduced to two Arguments The first That to make a Parliament free the King must of necessity have at least as great Liberty as the Members of Parliament that he may be in a capacity to propose to and demand of them whatever he pleases This Article may be very well questioned for the Definition of a Parliament does not consist in a liberty that the King has to demand and to propose He has always enough and oftentimes he loses a great deal The nature of a free Parliament lies in this that the Members thereof have been freely elected by the Counties Cities and Burroughs and where the said Members may speak their Opinions even in opposition to the King's pleasure without danger It was a long time since there were such Parliaments in England For it is known in what manner those were treated who durst oppose the King's Will But let us suppose what he says that the nature of a free Parliament does require that the King have a perfect Liberty as aforesaid Who hindred this Liberty If James II. upon the Prince's arrival in Exeter had of his own accord given his consent to the calling of a free Parliament there might have been sufficient assurance given as of a thing most certain that he might have had all manner of freedom to propose to speak and to demand of the Parliament whatever he pleased Who would have barr'd him from this He had his Guards he had his Army consisting of about 40000 Men against ten or twelve thousand whom the Prince had taken with him It is certain that the Army would have proved faithful to him and not one person would have joyned with the Prince against him if at that instant the King had called a free Parliament But God who intended to Ruine him did leave him to be blinded and made obstinate by Popish Counsels so as not to consent to the sitting of a free Parliament The Papists had reason to give him such Counsel but the King was very much in the wrong to take it The Papists had reason for a free Parliament had ruined them as it did the King in the issue and reduced them to a worse condition than they were then in but the King had no reason to follow that counsel for it is not to be doubted but that it was better for him to Reign under the Restraint of the Laws which hindred the Establishment of his Religion than not to Reign at all That which we alledge viz. That the King had nothing to fear as to his Person and Dignity if he had called a free Parliament at the first is not a bare conjecture There is no English Man but says it and is ready to depose it upon Oath And in my opinion every one of them ought to know what he thinks but that which perverted the Army and provoked the People is that fierceness with which the King rejected the Request which was presented to him at London at that time by Fifteen or Twenty Lords as well Spiritual as Temporal and which was afterwards back'd with a more considerable number Then it was seen that the Religion Laws and Liberty of the Kingdom lay at stake and that if the King should get the better of the Prince they were to expect the last extremity of Rigour And this made the face of things to change in
that Purpose The Supream Law does always interpret all other Laws and make exceptions therein And that Law is The Safety and Preservation of the People according to which Law we ought to explain or limit that Law which says The Parliament can do nothing without the King's consent When the King and the People are opposite the Parliament is Judge But a Judge does not stand in need of the Consent of either of the Parties to give force to the Sentence that is pronounced When the Parliament and the King are agreed for the Preservation of Religion and of the Society in that Case alone it is that one can do nothing without the other To make this Truth manifest we need only invert the Position and say the King can do nothing without the Parliament does it therefore follow that if a Parliament is so head-strong as to render all the Laws of no effect and to ruine the Nation a King of England may not lawfully oppose them and bring the Parliament within its due limits He may do it without all doubt in like manner a Parliament may lawfully provide for the Security of the Nation contrary to the King's Pleasure My Author goes back to the Prince's Declaration alledging it to be filled with sanguinary Orders And what are those sanguinary Orders They are such Clauses of the Prince's Declaration which appeared to him to carry the greatest force in them In one place he calls those who have betrayed their Religion and subverted the Laws of their Country Execrable Offenders who have justly deserved Death In another place He declares that all Papists who shall be found with Arms in their Hands or concealed in their Houses about their Persons or otherwise or who shall be in any Civil or Military Employment under any Pretence whatsoever shall receive no Quarter from his Army but be treated as High-way Men and Banditti by his Souldiers In a third place the Prince does say That they who shall take Arms under any Popish Officer and march under his Command shall be considered as Complices in their Crimes and Enemies to the Laws and to their Country And lastly William of Nassaw saith elsewhere That those Magistrates and other Persons who shall refuse to assist him and in Obedience to the Laws to perform strictly whatever he does require of them c. shall be looked upon as the Greatest Offenders and the most infamous of all Men as Traytors to their Religion to their Laws and to their Country and that he will not fail to treat them accordingly The Truth is we cannot tell if this Man is yet in his right Wits or rather if he is not one of those Bedlams who are tied to prevent the Effects of their Rage Miserable Soul Are these the Marks by which the Cruelty or Clemency of Princes is to be judged Are they not rather Innocent Stratagems by which they strike Terror that no ill may ensue Is not preventing of Resistance a proper means to hinder the Effusion of Blood Is there any Necessity that all such Threatnings should be accomplished How many Commanders and Generals have threatned the Cities which they besieged that they would abandon them to the Fury of the Souldiers if they would not surrender to which nevertheless they afterwards proposed favourable Conditions for a Treaty Let us trace the Footsteps of this Prince Are they marked with Blood What Persons has he put to death Is there any Man who has lost so much as a Nail of his Finger We know that the Papists that are in London and particularly the French talk with an unparallell'd Insolence The Parliament knows it the King is informed of it and hinders the Severities of Justice from taking hold of the Offenders The Ambassadors of the Emperor and of the King of Spain see it they acknowledge it they declare to His Majesty the grateful Sense they have of his Clemency and they inform their Masters of it But it may be said the Prince ought not to have denounced those terrible Menaces If it were so that he ought not to have uttered those Threats it would not have been the Effect of his Cruelty It is in Actions and not in Words that Men look for Blood and Cruelty Besides that the Prince had good reason to speak as he did if he had just cause to do what he did If he was in the wrong upon the matter he was to be blamed in every Circumstance but if he was justifiable in the main he was justifiable in the whole Affair For these are the ordinary Measures taken by Conquerors and Generals in just Wars They utter Threats they impress Fear and strike with Terror they likewise chastise those who yield not themselves upon such Manifesto's Those Traytors who in favor to the King had betrayed their Country Religion and Laws deserved to be called Execrable by the Prince and deserved all the Evils with which he threatned them yet without any design of their Accomplishment as it appeared by the Event He commanded the Papists upon Pain of Death to lay down their Arms. That had been good if after he had declared War against Popery upon his entring the Kingdom he had suffered the Papists to meet together and form a Body against him He declares that it was neither strictly the Persons of Papists nay nor their Religion that he had in his view but that he was resolved to oppose their Attempts by which they endeavoured to destroy the Religion established by Law Must he not then have been permitted to deprive them of their Arms at least seeing he left them their Life Property and Liberty of Conscience The Man complains loudly that the Prince in his Declaration sounds his Order for the Papists laying down their Arms upon their Meeting about London and Westminster with a barbarous Design of making some attempt upon the said Cities either by Fire or a Massacre or by both together He must certainly be very much in the wrong who suspects Papists and Popery of such Attempts they are very little acquainted with them St. Bartholomew's Massacre and many others committed in France The Murders a hundred times attempted upon the person of Queen Elizabeth and committed upon those of Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth The Assassination of William Prince of Orange The Gunpowder Plot for blowing up the Two Houses of Parliament in the beginning of the Reign of James the First The Burning of London The Assassination of Justice Godfrey The Death of the Earl of Essex by a Rasour And that of King Charles the Second by Poyson with a Hundred other Enterprizes of this nature make it appear that we commit an outragious violence against Popery if we believe that she is capable of inspiring the blackest Designs Now by this time the Man who has opposed the current of this present Narrative thus far begins to vomit torrents of Choler and accumulates Injuries upon Outrages The Wretch is a Monstrous Exception out of every Rule and particularly out of this One That Men without Judgment are ordinarily endowed with a good Memory He talks like a Mad-man without Judgment and also without Memory He has forgot where and the person for whom he speaks He speaks in France and he speaks for James the Second It is a mark of great judgment to look for Cruelty out of France and to accuse a Foreign Prince thereof whil'st he lives under the most cruel Government that has been in Europe for these many Ages A Government under which a Thousand Cruelties have been committed upon the Protestants to make them abjure their Religion They abandoned them their Honor and their Life to the Insolence of the Soldiers They tormented them by night and day they burnt they rack'd they tortured them The resolutions of many were shaken by the cruel torments that were used They massacred and burnt and tore many in pieces alive They left infinite numbers of People to perish in frightful Prisons and in unspeakable Miseries They snatch'd the Children from their Mothers the Husbands from their Wives the Wives from their Husbands Friends from Friends to send them away to perish in the American Islands in a direful Exile and horrible Miseries When King William shall have done so much against the English Catholicks we will agree that they abdicate the Notion of his Royal Clemency A Government moreover of whose Cruelty Foreign Nations have been sensible which has not spared either the Honor the Possessions or the Lives of their Allies and Neighbours which has reduced into Ashes the most Beautiful Cities of Flanders and Italy and which carries Horror and Desolation whithersoever she carries her Arms. These are the Men who accuse our Princes of Severity Get you gone then you Infamous Man Go and read Lectures of Clemency to your own Masters before you charge ours with Cruelty Take notice also for whom it is that you speak You speak for a Prince who alone has spilt more Blood by the hand of the Executioner than Twenty of his Ancestors have done together After the defeat of the Duke of Monmouth he sent a Monster of Injustice and Cruelty into the West of England He caused to Hang and Quarter more than two thousand persons in those Counties An Example of horrible Cruelty and which possibly cannot be parallel'd in History In the most Criminal Rebellions the Heads are punished and the Multitude is pardoned But he was for cutting off both Leaders and People and burying them under the same ruins You speak for a Prince who is suspected to have his hands stained with his Brother's Blood and to have dipt them in that of the Earl of Essex You ought to have let these Ideas of Horror sleep and engage those who wish him well not to awaken them and expose them to the view of England This Infamous Libeller acts the Prophet too and has found by an Astrological Scheme of his own that the Prosperity of His Majesty of King William will not last long but the Event without doubt will give this Prophet the Lie God by the continuance of his Favours and Blessings will justifie the Conduct of His Anointed and of His Servant and make Him Victorious in spite of all the Efforts of Calumny and the Machinations of his Enemies FINIS