to run so far back as the unhappy Wars in his Father's time of ever Blessed and Glorious Memory when the Church of England was ruined and a great many of the Members of it of all degrees and conditions exposed to the greatest miseries for their firm adherence to the Interest of the Crown Nor yet to speak of his Late Majesty King Charles the Second's happy Restauration it 's enough only to reflect upon our dutiful behaviour to King James himself both when Duke and King. Who were the great opposers of the Bill of Exclusion in Parliament both in the House of Lords and Commons and out of Parliament all the Kingdom over and preferred their standing fast to the Duke's Interest at that time to all their own Interest in the World What Reproaches Disgraces Insolencies nay Threats were cast upon and used towards us we very well remember Was there ever any King received by his People or proclaimed in all Places with greater Satisfaction Joy and Acclamations than he was For who then doubted of the Sincerity of King James the Just Who were they that so readily setled the Revenue of the Crown and gave larger supplies than the necessity of Affairs required Who were they that stood the Shock and ventured their Lives in suppressing of that dangerous Rebellion of Monmouth Were they not all Members of the Church of England who preserved the Crown for King James before he came to the possession of it by opposing the Bill of Exclusion and kept it upon his Head when he was possessed of it by suppressing Monmouth's Rebellion And this brings to my mind an Expression in the Oxford Reasons against signing the Address of their Bishop Dr. Parker for being told that their refusal of the Address would exasperate the King and move him to take rougher Methods against the Church their Answer was That if the remembrance of the Services of the Church to the Crown in those two Affairs of the Bill of Exclusion and Monmouth's Rebellion were not sufficient to secure the King's kindness to and protection of the Church of England and its Members the signing of such insignificant Addresses would never do it and truly I cannot tell what else could do it But the truth of it is the Papists have all along upon all occasions so ill requited the Fidelity of the Protestants to their Popish Princes as if they had a mind never more to be obliged in that nature I need not speak of the obligations put upon Queen Mary the Daughter of Henry the Eighth and the barbarous usage shewed them in a very little while after nor of former dealings of that kind in France the present King of France hath demonstrated this to the full he ows his possession of the Crown of France and consequently all his Glory he so proudly boasts of to the firm adherence of his Protestant Subjects to his Interest He hath several times publickly owned this and yet his Cruelty to them hath far surpassed all Heathen Barbarity And now I am very sorry that such a hearty Endeavour to subvert the Religion established in this Church which could not be without the ruine of those to whom the late King JAMES was so highly obliged hath given such another fresh Instance that Popery will not suffer Kings so much as to be grateful to their Subjects for by this means they have more than satisfied the World that it 's utterly unsafe for a Protestant Kingdom to be under the Government of a Popish Prince But since all men have neither that knowledge of nor that zeal for their Religion that it were heartily to be wished they had yet every man is very sensible when their Liberties and Properties and the Laws by which they are secured are invaded and lest the Endeavours to subvert Religion should not have been sufficient to have provoked the Nation there was added to this a plain Invasion of the Rights of the Subject and of the Laws upon which they are grounded to let the World know that there was no mistake in those men who affirmed that Popery could never be introduced into this Kingdom unless Slavery ushered it in It were endless to make instances of this the Master and Fellows of Magdalen Colledge are a sufficient proof of this who were deprived of their Freeholds by a most arbitrary Sentence of a Court that in the whole constitution of it was utterly illegal and in an Affair of this nature a Judge altogether incompetent where the Persons concerned were admitted to no legal Tryal before the competent Judges by a Jury of the Vicinage as in those Cases is the Law of the Nation but were removed by Persons who had no more right to disposess them of their Freeholds than the Persons receiving such an injurious Sentence had to dispossess their very Judges of theirs And it was no wonder that the general Cry of the Nation following that unjust and Arbitrary Sentence was All our Freeholds and Estates shake by this Sentence Another proof of this Invasion of our Rights and Estates was the most exorbitant and extravagant Fines put upon persons by the plain Arbitrary Will of the Judges as if they would declare to the World their design was rather to ruine the Delinquent than punish the Delinquency This was so frequent that every Term shewed how easily for very small faults men might be ruined in their Fortunes in a trice The invading the Rights of Corporations was more than sufficient proof that our Liberties Estates and Laws were in the greatest hazard The despoiling them of all their Ancient Privileges struck at the very Foundation of the Government it self the altering all the Ancient Prescriptions in choosing of persons for Representatives in Parliament struck at the very Fountain of our Laws both in being and to be made But above all things tending to the ruine of all our Security in our Laws Liberties and Properties none is more worthy of our serious consideration than that Hellow of Dispensing Power that would have devoured all at a morsel and swallowed all at one draught if need had been there was no Law no Privilege able to stand in the way of this Leviathan This was such a Power that once being yielded to in the full latitude it was claimed would have rendered all Laws in England not only uncertain and insecure but utterly needless nay altogether ridiculous For to what purpose should the Nation be put to so much trouble and charge to elect Representatives for the House of Commons or why should Persons who have either a natural Right as Noblemen or a deputed Right as Commoners go from all parts of the Kingdom to enact Laws for the good and profit of the Realm if the Sovereign Power can dispense with them whenever their backs are turned To what purpose is all this wast Or why should the Nation be fooled with Laws which when made promise us the greatest security in all things that are most valuable when in the mean time at the mere will of the Prince in
since they would never be suffered to do us good and in all probability could not fail in doing us much harm The Case is quite altered now as is obvious at first sight our Religion hath the greatest Security our Bishops and Clergy the greatest Protection our Vacant Bishopricks are filled with the most wise and learned of the Clergy Colledges are restored to their proper Owners the Idolatry of Popery dare not shew it self any where the Wind hath blown these Locusts of Priests Jesuits c. beyond the Seas to their former Lurking-Places every one sits safe under his own Vine enjoying securely the Liberty of an Englishman the Property he is possest of our Councils Navies Armies Magistrates are Protestants and a Security to our Religion dearer to us than our Lives our Judges are as at the first and our Counsellors as at the beginning Pray Gentlemen recount with your Selves What was our greatest Hope our only Comfort on Earth in those Days of our Dustress What was it that sustained our Spirits and delivered us from utter Dispair What did we discourse of every-where to one another as the sole Foundation of our Hopes of Freedom and Relief Was it not that the King was a Mortal Man and after him we had a Reserve of the Prince and Princess of Orange for our Security How often then did we cast our Eyes and Hearts upon the Belgick Shore trusting that at last the Providence of God would whaft over that blessed Pair to the lasting Joy of this British Island The Papists knew this very well and could never think themselves safe till these Princes Interests were defeated and thereby as they thought all our Hopes frustrate But God that brings Good out of the greatest Evil by his infinite Wisdom and Power converted that Project by which they intended to perpetuate the Slavery of these Nations to an accelerating or hastening our Deliverance sooner than ever we hoped for it for never was there a juster Cause given any Prince to quarrel with a Possessor than was given the Prince of Orange when he saw not only all our Laws violated and the People of England enslaved but likewise his just Interest in the Crown in Right of his Princess the immediate Heir so violently invaded without any Satisfaction given usual in such Cases of the Sincerity of that Affair of the pretended Prince of Wales in which not only this whole Nation was violently suspicious upon very great Grounds but likewise the intended Fraud was the Discourse of Europe This Matter hath been sufficiently written of and for my part if there were no more to create a Diffidence in me not possible of receiving any Satisfaction this would be more than sufficient that I never heard of any Satisfaction given to the Great and Vertuous Lady the Princess Ann of Denmark in this whole Affair and yet it was highly just she should have received it in respect of her Proximity to the Crown and likewise in regard of that Fruitful Womb God hath been pleased to bless her Highness with whose Children have a very fair Prospect to the Royal Inheritance it had been likewise very easy to have done it because her Highness was perpetually upon the very place where the Scene was acting just till the time of its finishing and then it was most necessary she should have been there and it 's impossible to imagine had it been a real Thing care would have been taken that she should have been present but on the other Hand if it was not real then it was altogether necessary that of all Persons she should be out of the way and such care was accordingly taken And as her Satisfaction was both just and easy so it would have been of mighty advantage to the convincing of the Nation of the Truth of it her Highnesse's Evidence would have been of more weight than all those at Council-Board in respect none will bear witness against their own Interest especially in a matter of so great Moment unless it be very true All the answer ever I could hear to this most material ground of Suspicion is either that there was no Obligation to give any such Satisfaction or that the Princess did not desire it and was not curious of being satisfied To which this is only fit to be said by way of Reply that the first is a desperate and the second a senseless Answer Is it not then a great Favour of God to us that the Deliverance we so earnestly wished and the Persons on whom our Eyes were fixed are thus come to our Deliverance our very Enemies hastening it sooner than ever we looked for it Is it not the Joy of all good Men who love the Prosperity of our Sion and pray for her Peace to see a Protestant King and Queen in England a Happiness Britain hath not been favoured with since the Death of Queen Ann the Wife of King James the First We have no Dalilah in the Bosom of our Sampson to allure him to betray his own and the Nations Strength that we may be the easier Prey to the Philistines The Marriage of our Kings to Ladies of the Popish Persuasion hath been so plain a Cause of the Nations Misery that we have great cause to rejoice in so happy a sight as both King and Queen to be of the same Religion and that which is the professed and established Religion of their Kingdoms and it s greatly to be hoped the Wisdom of our Parliament will make it no small part of their Care to prevent the Mischiefs that have so constantly attended our Kings being so unequally yoked Our King and Queen draw not now several Ways their Principles are the same as they are in Bed and at Board one so it 's our great Comfort to see them repair to the same Churches exercised in the same Devotions addressing to the same Altar in a word of the same Faith and Religion to the great encouragement of their Subjects to follow so pious so great an Example So that there are no hopes now of the Philistines plowing with Sampson's Heifer The Royal Interest is now absolutely the same with that of the People for their Majesties and their People are more surely tyed together by the Bonds of that Religion for which both have an equal Zeal than by any Political Obligations whatsoever so that now both rejoice in the mutual Prosperity of each other their Majesties rejoicing in their Peoples Security and they again in the Royal Protection as in all Things so chiefly in that which is the best of all Things Religion Neither are we to neglect the Consideration of that which deservedly makes his present Majesty the Darling of these three Kingdoms nay like another Titus the Delight of Mankind viz. that the King the Prince of Orange had no such great matters to look for as to his own Interest to move him to encounter so great Dangers to undergo so much Trouble He was considerably great in the Low-Countries
he hath no Children to enjoy the Crown after his own Death so that it plainly appears his Zeal for Religion his great concern for the bleeding state of these Nations his love to Justice did much more prevail with him to this Heroick and Glorious Undertaking than any concern of his own in the Case Now upon the whole if we despise so wonderful a Mercy and become so bereft of Reason as to be weary of Happiness and court perpetual Slavery and abandon our present Security and Tranquillity for those Miseries we have reason to look for upon such an unwise change What can we then expect but to be treated by God as the despisers of his greatest Goodness and to perish without so much as the pity of Men since we knew not how to prize a lasting Security when we had it in our Hands and consequently that our Relapse must be very miserable to us But if at last we propose to our Selves the Miseries that must unavoidably fall upon us if the Sins of this Nation so provoke God as to bereave us of that Happiness we now enjoy and if we be wise may entail it upon our Posterity by another Revolution some Men so eagerly desire we cannot but be convinced that a Relapse is highly dangerous I do profess that the Calamities that fatally attend such a Revolution are so tremendous and horrible that the very apprehension of them cannot but strike considerate Men into the greatest Confusion and Amazement we can expect nothing else but that our Miseries should occasion our being a Proverb and a By-word a hissing and reproach of Popish Nations who gape for our Ruine and greedily thirst after our Destruction and on the other Hand that we should be followed with Execrations and Curses from the Protestant World for so treacherously betraying that Truth we had so great a Zeal for that a Nation that glorified so justly in being accounted the Bulwark of the Protestant Religion should so fatally occasion the total overthrow of it I will but briefly recount some of those Mischiefs that any reasonable Man cannot but apprehend must overtake us upon such a Relapse if we consider with what Rage and Fury with what thirst of Revenge not only the late King whose natural Temper doth not much dispose him to a forgetting of Injuries but all of the Popish Party must return amongst us what are we to expect Is the late King ever the less a Papist than before Hath he abated any thing of his Zeal for that Superstition Have the Jesuits c. any other Sentiments of us and our Religion than they had ask the Protestants of Ireland and they will inform you who fly as fast out of that Kingdom as ever the French Refuges forsook France If we were so unjustly used when we had given no Offence what are we to look for when the worst of Crimes shall be laid to our Charge If our Religion 〈◊〉 â—ear lost our Laws and Liberties invaded when all the Obligations of the Earth were upon the Prince to protect them how utterly must all be lost when the Resentments of so late Affronts shall expose us to all the direful Effects of an ungoverned Zeal and enraged Revenge But besides How are we to expect that such a Revolution should be brought about I am very confident England and Scotland will never be willing to afford so great a Strength as is sufficient for such an Enterprize some hot-headed Men may assist a stronger Party from Abroad but they will never undertake to do it alone No no we plainly see it's an Irish and French Power must do this thence Men Money and Arms must come this is so certain that I do not believe any Man in the Nation so bereft of Sense as to expect it any other way And now what a Train of Miseries this Dragons-Tail draws after it is not easy either to be thought or exprest if ever such a dismal Calamity should befal us we shall want another Jeremiah to write the Lamentations of our Judah and Jerusalem I do not think that ever any Nation under Heaven was exposed to a more barbarous Desolation than this poor Nation must be upon such an unhappy Change. How hath the French King used his own Subjects to whom by the Oaths of God upon his Soul he owed all Protection and if so cruel at Home what are we Strangers to expect from his Armies but all the Outrages that attend an insulting Conquest of an Enemy who hath resolved our Ruine and sworn the Extirpation of our Religion If the cutting us off from being a People should be the price of it what are we to expect whose unhappy Connivance hath occasioned all his Greatness and whose Strength and Riches are the Shears that now clips his Wings from soaring to that height of Universal Empire he so vainly and proudly grasps at And the Truth is this is a great Misery that upon such a Change the Crown of England is most likely to devolve not from King William to King James but from King William to King Lewis of France which the great God of Heaven avert We have heard of Princes sposled of their Dominions by that King but never could hear yet of any Prince restored by him Can it possibly enter into the Thoughts of any reasonable Man that the King of France will employ his Forces by Sea and Land and spend his Treasures in conquering of these Kingdoms and then quietly deliver them up to another to possess who himself labours so deeply of the Dropsy of enlarging his Dominions that neither Faith of Treaties Laws of Nations Oath of God nor the sence of common Equity and Justice could ever yet bind him from making the most unjust Encroachments upon his Neighbours wherever he could And this is the more to be considered because it 's very easy to believe that the Popish Clergy of England would be willing enough it should be so King Lewis being more able to maintain his Conquest than King James can ever be supposed to be to maintain his Possession and their Security and if the Popish Clergy may justly be supposed to become so indifferent in this case it 's easy to foresee how the Laity of that Persuasion might be induced to a Satisfaction since these so slavishly and indeed so brutishly hang their Consciences at those Mens Girdles so that upon the whole King Lewis is like to be the only Gainer altho I am far from thinking that they who make this noise amongst us aim at any such thing yet it is worth their while seriously to consider whether it will lye in their Power to prevent or help it As for the Irish their Carriage to Protestants in King Charles the First 's Time and now to the Protestants at this very instant is more than sufficient to satisfy us what Measures we are to expect from them their natural Barbarity their constant Aversion to the English Nation their thirst after a Reprisal