from any kindness he can have for the Protestants in other Countries Nor do I know how to reconcile his boasting of the transcending Charity of the Church of England towards other Churches with his accusing them of looking upon the Non-consormists of England as bastards or making no account of any other Interest in them than a man makes of the Vermin which breed out of his excrementitious sweat or those Ascarides which comes sometimes in his most uncleanly parts but for such homely expressions surely the Church of England will not think themselves beholding to him no more than for rendring them so charitable to those that differ from them both in Doctrine and Discipline as the Papists do who are the Church he must mean and so uncharitable to those that agree with them in all material points of Doctrine and differ only from them in circumstantials as the Non-conformists do Secondly The growth of Papists in England ought to be prevented because there is a kind of natural unaptness to business in that Religion compared to the reformed as Italy and Spain where they are the greatest Bigots do evidence besides that the same seems to be made good in England in that for one Papist stranger of business that is in it there is thought to be fifty Protestants or more though I fear that the difference in the number of the one and th' other Religion is not much and the fewer idle and unprofitable persons any Country hath the more prosperous it must needs be Thirdly Because the vast sums of money that go out of England sent by Papists to such uses as they call pious for putting young Gentlewomen into Nunneries and breeding Gentlemens sons in Popish Schools and Universities is a great impoverishing of the Nation and so a prejudice to Trade the School at St. Omers having seldom less than an hundred and twenty English youths and the Colledge at Doway eighty or more Students besides their other Schools Universities Convents and Nunneries scattered over all the Popish territories sounded on purpose to encrease that Interest in England corrupt and pervert their Gentry which are too many to enumerate And lastly Because the multitude of lazie Priests and Jesuits sent as Emissaries to seduce Protestants and encourage Papists in their errours are a vast charge to those of that Religion and in them to the Nation without contributing any thing to the good of mankind And if the French King thinks it his Interest in order to the rendring himself Protector of the Romish Religion to suppress his Protestant Subjects who by Law have a right to Liberty of Conscience equal with the Papists who own no other Head but their Native King and who were so faithful to him that when reduced to the greatest extremities at Rochel and forced to implore the assistance of England yet would never depart from their Allegiance in putting themselves under England when sollicited to it The King of England hath much more reason to think it his Interest in order to his safety and making himself Head of the Protestant Party to suppress the Papists who own another Head and so have a Forein Interest and who are bred to Principles which lead them to a restless plotting against their Sovereigns if contrary to them in Religion never joyning with such but upon design for themselves holding the murther of King and people rebellion or any thing else which they judge may tend to the propagating of their Religion lawful in the case of such as they call Hereticks as those who have conversed with Papists abroad where they sometimes speak their hearts and own their principles do know as well as the Gun-powder Treason the Massacre in Ireland and the many plots in Queen Elizabeths dayes which cannot be forgotten do sufficiently witness In contemplation whereof were I suppose made those wise Statutes enacting that the Popish Recusants shall be restrained to their private houses in the Country and not at any time after to pass or remove above five miles from thence upon pain of forfeiture for life of all lands goods and chattels That none of them convicted or to be convicted shall remain within ten miles of London nor come into the Court or House where his Majesty or Heir apparent shall be nor have in their own houses or in the hands or possession of any others at their disposition any Arms Gun-powder or Ammunition whatsoever and by the Book of Thanksgiving appointed for the fifth of November set forth by King James and the Parliament it is enjoyned to pray upon that day for the strengthening of the hand of the King and Magistrates of the land to cut off with Judgment and Justice those workers of iniquity the Papists whose Religion is Rebellion whose Faith is Faction whose practice is the Murthering of Souls and Bodies and to root them out of the Confines of the Kingdome And now since the wisdome of the Nation hath judged the Papists so dangerous it may seem strange that putting the Laws in execution against the Non-conformists should be thought a good reason for the prosecution of them and be none against the other of whose dangerons principles there hath been such large experience some observations here may peradventure be thought strained and new as that is a kind of Natural unapness in the Popish Religion to business whereas on the contrary amongst the Reformed the greater their zeal the greater is their inclinations to Trade and Industry as holding Idleness unlawful but experience in most places makes it good as in Spain and Italy no one City can boast of any great Trade driven by their Natives the greatest part of their Commerce being carried on by Protestant strangers Amsterdam alone having more Trade than all the Sea Towns of Italy and Spain have put together but to come closer to the Observation In Germany even in those Cities where they are Papists without toleration to any other there the Reformed may be said to carry all the Trade as at Colne in other Towns where they are Lutherans with a publick toleration to Papists which is denied to Calvinists there the reformed carry the Trade clearly from both Lutherans and Papists the latter having little as at Frankford upon the Main In other places where the Cities are half Papists half Lutherans without toleration to any other there the latter have the Trade as at Augsburgh In France the Reformed for their number are the greatest Traders though that people being looser from the Bishop of Rome than Spain or Italy are more given to Industry than either of those Nations but yet that the Reformed are by much the more Industrious appears in that they have no beggars amongst them though calculated to exceed three or four millions of souls it having been observed by one that travelled France round and crossed it several wayes that in all his travels in it he never met with one Protestant beggar and yet the multitudes of Popish are such
that it hath upon tryal been sound that in going from the City of Rouen in Normandy to the Protestants Church two English miles and an half out of town to give every beggar but that which they call a double hardly the sixth part of a penny will cost a Lewis d'or which is at least 17 s. sterling These Instances cannot be denied by any traveller that hath been curious to enquire into the condition of these places and examples are the same in Politicks as experience is in Naturals Upon my own observation hereof being inquisitive after the reason a person of Quality and Minister of State to one of the Electors of Germany with whom I had the honour to be acquainted granted the truth of these things but went no farther for the reasons than that the Religion of the reformed was an argument of their wit and that their Understandings made them the abler Merchants And now upon the whole since it appears that Trade depends much upon Liberty of Conscience the suggestions against it either from unexperienced or concerned persons are not to be regarded Country Gentlemen bred only at home to a Religion which exacts little from them besides Conformity to humane Ceremonies with opposition to every thing that is contrary being tenacious of that which is so pleasing and grateful to snail Nature are not generally competent Judges of this Interest nor yet any sort of people who having spent their dayes in studying Books more than Men or Things employing themselves more in punishing tender Consciences for not obeying in the Worship of God the Commandments of men than in the weightiest duties of their Callings as in suppressing Papists ignorant debauched and scandalous Ministers rendring their actions thereby to proceed more from Self-interest than an enlightned and sincere Conscience are not in this case against demonstrations to be harkened unto And indeed it is a work most suitable unto Soveraignty the Grand child of Henry the great of France and the large experience of his Majesty in cases of Religion in other Countries to surmount all selfish opposition in this matter for the advancement of his own Interest and the good of his people which whatsoever flatterers may suggest to the contrary are bound up together I know that the enemies to Liberty of Conscience do impose upon the world an apprehension of danger in it but the position hath no foundation in reason presidents or any thing else save a confident running down of truth for their own advantage it no where appearing that ever Protestants dissenting from their National Church having Liberty of Conscience given them did rise up against their King or disturbed the quiet of their Countrey as those of the Romish Church have in all Ages and Nations done For as the Reformed Religion obligeth its Members to worship God according to his will revealed in his word so keeping good Consciences in that it teacheth them obedience to their Soveraigns in civil commands It is confessed that the old Waldenses Subjects of the Duke of Savoy have sometimes fled to Arms for defence of themselves in the exercise of their Religion but although the advantages they have often had of their Princes have been great yet no sooner was ever Liberty granted them then they laid down Arms returning again to obedience in which they alwayes continued until their Articles were broke which contrary to Faith was frequently done and the like cannot be denyed unto the Protestants of France Hungary and other places whereas on the contrary antient and modern Story afford us plentiful relations of those of the Romish Religion rising up against their Kings when they have had full liberty in Religion and no restraint upon them in their worship as who were greater Instruments in the Barons Wars in England against their Kings and in the changes that followed thereupon than the Church in time of Popery were not the many Tragedies acted antiently in Scotland in such times when they were all Papists Did not the Romish Catholicks in France notwithstanding theirs was the National Religion depose and degrade their lawful Soveraign Henry the 4th the Parliament of Tholouse in his absence arraigning and condemning him to death executing him in his Effigies by Harquebushes none of which Traiterous and Rebellious usage did that great and excellent King Grandfather of His Majesty of England although he recovered all by force of Arms in the least revenge by which generous as well as politick carriage he added to the Conquest of his Country the conquest of the hearts of all his people reconciling at once all the animosities and factions which had been the product of near forty years civil war Are they not Papists in Spain and Portugal where in our time have been so many revolts and mutations with the deposition or confinement of the present King of Portugal the late Confederates in Poland against their King were all Papists and of a Country where Popery is the National Religion The present French Kings danger in 1650 c. was from his Popish and was delivered chiefly by his reformed Subjects The Papists in Ireland had as none can deny liberty for exercise of their Religion exceedingly above what the Non-conformists had at that time when they committed that not to be parallelled bloudy and more than barbarous Massacre in the year 1641. Nay the steadie greatness and quiet of Sweeden is of no elder date than since they cast off Popery pulled down their Bishops and embraced Protestantism the Church having been until then the occasion of much trouble unto that Kingdome And none of these particulars being deniable the Papists cannot without great impudence boast as many of them do of their fidelity to their Princes accusing the Protestants with want of it and especially since if these instances were not enough to make good the assertion that the Protestants are the best and Papists the woâ—st of Subjects the like might be observed of every individual Country and Nation in the Christian part of Europe in the times of Popery but supposing these to be sufficient I shall not give my self any farther trouble upon this point or other domestick concern of England but proceed to the external importances of that Kingdome And first As the Foreign Interest of a Nation looks outward and in order to its good and preservation regards the actings and designs of Foreign Princes and States especially their Neighbours endeavouring to reduce them to that which may most agree with their own good and safety so it is the Interest of the King and Kingdome of England to make use of the advantages their strength and situation gives them in weighing the Imperial powers of Christendome keeping the balance by adding to or diminishing from any of them as best suits with Justice and their own Interests And as undoubtedly His Majesty hath done more than any since good Queen Elizabeth if for a short time a sort of people not fit to be remembred did not
of Dissenters in all the rest besides the irrepairable damage of this Kingdom in their former Bishops driveing the woollen Manufactures back into the Netherlands as the King of Spain had before driven them into England by Persecution where they have ever since increased and where they now remain sad Monuments to this Nation of the impolitick severity of those times they could not but be convinced of the vanity and wickedness of such practices as well as of the civil prejudice they bring to Nations in destroying of their people and therein depriving them of the benefit of Industry thinking charitably of that saying which was antiently in Voge and is still in some places remembred that when a Bishop is created the Devil enters into him and makes him his Executioner which as it had its original in times of Popery so it concerns their Bishops only Fourthly and Lastly As it is the King and Kingdome of Englands Interest to give Libertie of Conscience to all Protestant Dissenters so it is not only to deny it to the Papists after the example of other reformed countries as Denmark Sweeden several Princes in Germany and the reformed Cantons in Switzerland but also to take care to prevent the growth of them and that upon a civil score as first because they own a forein head upon the account of their Religion in which they are carried on by such a blind zeal as cannot render them less than Spies and Intelligencers for that Interest and ready upon all occasions to appear for it And even the wisest Popish States acknowledge the reason of this principle Sir Walter Rawleigh affirming that the Venetians as not holding it safe to have any in their Counsels who have dependance by Oath Homage natural Obligation Pension or Reward when their Senate is Assembled causeth Proclamation before shutting of the doors to be made for all Priests to depart and he who in this Commonwealth is called the Divine of the State an Ecclesiastical Person to be advised within matters of Religion is commonly chosen such a one as is reputed the least Bigot in that Religion as in the memory of some living Padri Pauli and after him Fulgentio both Successively performed that office and were esteemed favourers of the Reformation and corresponders with Diodati of Geneve and if Papists dare not trust their own Clergy in their Counsels upon the account of their forein dependance Protestants upon the same account have no cause to trust Popish Subjects in their Countries longer than until they that are now living die away and that they can breed their Children to the Protestant Religion I am not ignorant that there are a sort of men who with the Author of that Book intituled The State of England seek to infuse a belief into the people that the dispensing with the Laws against the Papists is necessary for the prevention of persecution to Protestant Subjects by their Popish Princes but the imposers of that opinion persumes more upon ignorance and easie nature in the most of men than upon any strength there is in their arguments for this suggested danger must referr to Spain Italy the Emperour or the French King and for the two first they have by former Persecutions though not without depopulating of their several Countries left no Native Protestants in them so that however England shall deal with their own Papists the King of Spain nor the Pope have any Protestant Subjects to use better or worse and for the few reformed Merchant-strangers that are among them they must for their own Interest in reference to Commerce suffer them to enjoy a trading liberty without having their Religion inquired into and more than that they are never likely to have And as to the Emperour he being through facility of Nature acted by the Church hath to almost the ruin of himself as well as his Protestants spent all his Reign hitherto in a grievous and sore persecution of the Reformed in his Hereditarie Countries having no power over them in other places of Germany for by it he hath lost a great part of Hungaria and in a fair way of losing the rest besides that he hath thereby much prejudiced Trade and lessened his people for even the Protestant Gently and Nobility who by birth have great Immunities and ought not to be imposed upon in matters of Religion were lately some forced to leave their Countries and others who stayed to entertain none but Papist Servants in their Families so that England by no kind of treatment of their Papists can increase the Emperours persecution which is already so high of his protestant Subjects And for the French King he cannot persecute his Reformed without breach of the Edict of Nantes their Magna Charta and several other Laws giving them as good a right to exercise their Religion as the Papists have for theirs making them also capable of all civil offices privileges and preferments equal with Papists and that upon consideration of having been alwayes loyal and faithful to the Crown so that there is no parity betwixt the French Kings Arbitrary breaking of his Laws against the reason of them which hath not yet been forfeited and which were made with acknowledged gratitude for the preservation of the reformed And the King of England with the continued reason of his Laws witness the Massacre in Ireland his keeping and executing them against his Papists but further those that observe any thing of France must confess that that King in matters of Religion regards no examples of others or any thing but his own designs as in his present persecution of his reformed Subjects he may well be judged to aime at the advancing of his reputation with the Church of Rome as a means to help him forward in his aspiring designs for but few years since when the Papists were under the most severity in England the Protestants were under most liberty in France and now they enjoy the greatest liberty in England the Reformed are the most persecuted in France but besides these circumstances it cannot but be of evil consequence and a lessening unto Soveraignty to own the having an eye to other Princes in the execution of their Laws for nothing can be more dishonourable to a Prince than to be under the awe of Forein Potentates in his administration within his own Dominions but this Gentleman doth not alwayes ponder what he writes for when I consider his sharpness against the Presbyterians c. in England calling them Mushromes Tares and the Sons of Belial insinuating the transplantation and extirpation of them I cannot but wonder he should have so much concern for the reformed abroad who are the same with the Presbyterians of England and therefore must judge it to proceed from favour to the Papists towards whom he so tenderly avoids all reflections and severity as if he thought the revolt of a Presbyterian c. to Popery to merit a pardon from transplantation or extirpation and not
the same in hitting upon his true Forein Interest in that triple League of which he was the Author and into which he hath with so much wisdome and prudence lately entered for opposing all growing greatness by Sea or Land in the French they being already too potent for their bordering Neighbours so constantly and effectually to adhere thereunto in joyning with all others to that end and particularly with Spain with whom England hath a much more profitable Trade than with France is according to present affairs the same For should France by the acquisition of those convenient Provinces and ports of the Netherlands become Competitors with England in Trade to say no worse of them they would in a short time make good Sir Walter Rawleighs Character of them in being false insolent and covetous neighbours Secondly As England and the Vnited Netherlands which are in ordinary discourse understood by the name of Holland that Province by way of eminence giving denomination unto the whole are the two great Masters of Naval strength and seated with such advantages for assisting each other that whilst a true intelligence is preserved betwixt them it is not in nature for all their enemies combining together to prejudice either of them so it is the true Interest of England to maintain a firm and perpetual friendship and union with them and that First Because as the Netherlands are naturally strong so they are above all other Countries fitted by situation for the use of England to give check to any aspiring Prince and be as invincible bulwarks against the all devouring designs of the French King in being able at any time with the countenance of England to destroy him at Sea who being brought down there and so in his Commerce will soon abate of his power at Land and surely nothing can be more for the security of Europe than to reduce the Naval strength of that threatning King within former bounds for the world found that untill the Spaniard lost his Maritime force in the year 1639. which he never after recovered he maintained his design for the Universal Monarchy very vigorously and never sunk till then Secondly Because it is equally their Interest with England in reference to their Navigation to keep the ballance betwixt the Northern Kings and Sovereigns not suffering any of them to engross that Sea because Naval Commodities coming thence neither of them can be safe longer than the Sea remains divided among several Princes and States whose general Interest it can never be to deny them necessaries for their shipping the chief walls of their several Countries or a general Trade with them as a Monarch he being sole Master of the whole would peradventure in some cases judge it his and presume to refuse them all accommodations and this principle the States of Holland have wisely in our dayes several times owned as in the years 1643. in siding with the Crown of Sweeden when the Danes would had not the States assistance been in the way have run them down at Sea as also on the contrary in the year 1658 in taking part with the Danes when the Swedes had otherwise done the like by them by which means both the Crowns are preserved and kept within tolerable limits and bounds Thirdly Because that as Providence seems to have placed them with conveniencies for joyning with England in keeping all other Maritime Princes or Powers in order so without any capacity of being dangerous to their Neigh-Neighbours their Constitution being such as will not well admit of any further acquists Fourthly Because as England and Holland are of one and the same Religion save in some Ceremonies so it would be of great incouragement and countenance to all the Protestant Countries to have a firm League betwixt two such for midable Powers of their own belief and as great a trouble and disturbance to all the Popish Counsels Fifthly Because the world having had such large experience of the happy success of their Conduct in being principal Instruments in preventing the House of Austria in their grand design for the universal Monarchy and consequently in the propagation of the reformed Religion as well as at several times in preventing both Dane and Sweed from either of them devouring the other it were surely high impolity as well as in some degree ingratitude to suffer such useful instruments and allies to whom this Generation is so much obliged for their wise and excellent management of the general Interest of these parts of Europe to be destroyed These States I know have many enemies some envying their Trade and Riches others their revolt from the King of Spain as of bad example and the Church of Rome their established National Religion as that which is past shaking but because none of these arguments can be plausibly made use of against them by the Papists who dreads the conjunction of England with them nor by those Princes and States who assisted them in their revolt the grand reason for subducing of them is made the greatness of their Trade which being destroyed would be divided amongst their Neighbours loading them sometimes untruly with accusations of unjust dealings exactions and falseness to which I shall only answer this that although I have no cause to become an Advocate for them from any advantages or benefit received yet having travelled their Countries observed their Manners and read their Disputes and Transactions with other Nations I think it but an Act of Justice to acknowledge that in the generality of their Morals they are a reproach to some Nations and particularly in so little using that art of over-valuing their Commodities in their selling to France who so shamefully use and practise it and as to their Treaties and Alliances after which I have been inquisitive I have sometimes found them wrongfully charged with breach of Articles and do not find cause to accuse them of having been in the observance of Treaties less candid or faithful than other Countries and I cannot think their Trade or Wealth although I believe that Holland singly taken is the richest spot of ground for its bigness that ever was since the Creation to be a good or honest foundation of a quarrel for their Commerce being alone the effects of Industry and Ingenuity it is no reason for any to be angry with others because they exceed them in these Virtues but besides that the destroying of the Netherlands would be the shaking the safety of these Northern Regions the increase of Trade to other Countries so much promised by some in their destruction would surely fail for were Trade ruined in Holland as less cannot be the effects of Conquest and Slavery the example and emulation of their Trade which hath been the great increase of it in other Countries being taken away and Trade fallen to a sort of people of less concern for it men would grow lazy and weary of Commerce every one thinking they did well so long as they were upon equal