falling off of the Nobility and Gentry who avow to have no other End than to prevail with the King to secure their Religion which they saw so much in danger by the Violent Counsels of the Priests who to promote their own Religion did not care to what Dangers they exposed the King I am fully perswaded that the Prince of Orange designs the King's Safety and Preservation and hope all things may be composed without more Bloodshed by the Calling a Parliament God grant a happy End to these Troubles that the King's Reign may be prosperous and that I may shortly meet You in perfect Peace and Safety till when let me beg You to continue the same favourable Opinion that you have hitherto had of Your most Obedient Daughter and Servant ANNE A MEMORIAL OF THE Protestants of the Church of England Presented to their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of ORANGE YOur Royal Highnesses cannot be ignorant that the Protestants of England who continue true to their Religion and the Government established by Law have been many ways troubled and vexed by restless Contrivances and Designs of the Papists under pretence of the Royal Authority and things required of unaccountable before God and Man Ecclesiastical Benefices and Preferments taken from them without any other Reason but the King's Pleasure that they have been summoned and sentenced by Ecclesiastical Commissioners contrary to Law deprived of their Birth-Right in the free Choice of their Magistrates and Representatives divers Corporations dissolved the Legal Security of our Religion and Liberty established and ratified by King and Parliament annull'd and overthrown by a pretended Dispensing Power new and unheard-of Maxims have been preached as if Subjects had no Right but what depends on the King's Will and Pleasure The Militia put into the Hands of Persons not qualified by Law and a Popish Mercenary Army maintained in the Kingdom in Time of Peace absolutely contrary to Law The Execution of the Law against several high Crimes and Misdemenours superceded and prohibited the Statutes against Correspondence with the Court of Rome Papal Jurisdiction and Popish Priests suspended that in Courts of Justice those Judges are displaced who dare acquit them whom the K. would have condemned as happened to Judg Powel and Holloway for acquitting the seven Bishopâ— Liberty of chusing Members of Parliament notwithstanding all the Care taken and Provision made by Law on that behalf wholly taken away by Quo Warranto's served against Corporations and the three known Questions All things carried on in open view for the Propagation and Growth of Popery for which the Courts of England and France have so long jointly laboured with so much Application and Earnestness Endeavours used to perswade your Royal Highnesses to consent to Liberty of Conscience and abrogating the Penal Laws and Tests wherein they fell short of their Aim That they most humbly implore the Protection of your Royal Highnesses as to the suspending and Incroachments made upon the Law for maintenance of the Protestant Religion our Civil and Fundamental Rights and Priviledges and that your Royal Highnesses would be pleased to insist that the Free Parliament of England according to Law may be restored the Laws against Papists Priests Papal Jurisdiction c. put in Execution and the Suspending and Dispensing Power declared null and void the Rights and Priviledges of the City of London the free Choice of their Magistrates and the Liberties as well of that as other Corporations restored and all things returned to their ancient Channel c. THE PRINCE of ORANGE HIS DECLARATION of Novemb. 28. 1688. WE have in the course of our whole Life and more particularly by the apparent Hazards both by Sea and Land to which We have so lately exposed our Person given to the whole World so high and undoubted Proofs of our fervent Zeal for the Protestant Religion that we are fully confident no true English-man and good Protestant can entertain the least Suspicion of our firm Resolution rather to spend our dearest Blood and perish in the Attempt than not carry on the blessed and gloâ—ious Design which by the Favour of Heaven we have so successfully begun to rescue England Scotland and Ireland from Slavery and Popery and in a Free Parliament to establish the Religion the Laws and the Liberties of those Kingdoms upon such a sure and lasting Foundation that it shall not be in the Power of any Prince for the future to introduce Popery and Tyranny Towards the more easy Composing this great Design We have not been hitherto deceived in the just Expectation we had of the Concurrence of the Nobility Gentry and People of England with Us for the Security of their Religion the Restitution of the Laws and Re-establishment of their Liberties and Properties Great Numbers of all Ranks and Qualities having joined themselves to us and others at great Distances from Us have taken up Arms and declared for Us. And which we cannot but particular mention in that Army which was raised to be the Instrument of Slavery and Popery many by the special Providence of God both Officers and Common Souldiers have been touched with such a feeling Sense of Religion and Honour and of true Affection for their Native Country that they have already deserted the Illegal Service they were ingaged in and have come over to Us and have given Us full Assurance from the rest of the Army that they will certainly follow this Example as soon as with our Army we shall approach near enough to receive them without the Hazard of being prevented and betray'd To which End and that We may the sooner execute this just and necessary Design We are ingaged in for the Publick Safety and Deliverance of these Nations We are resolved with all possible Diligence to advance forward that a Free Parliament may be forthwith called and such Preliminaries adjusted with the King and all Things first settled upon such a Foot according to Law as may give Us and the whole Nation just Reason to believe the King is disposed to make such necessary Condescentions on his part as will give intire Satisfaction and Security to all and make both King and People once more Happy And that we may effect all this in the way most agreeable to our Desires if it be possible without the Effusion of any Blood except of those execrable Criminâ—als who have justly forfeited their Lives for betraying the Religion and Subverting the Laws of their Native Country We do think fit to declare that as we will offer no Violence to any but in our own Necessary Defence so we will not suffer any Injury to be done to the Person even of a Papist provided he be found in such Place and in such Condition and Circumstances as the Laws require So we are resolved and do declare that all Papists who shall be found in open Arms or with Arms in their Houses or about their Persons or in any Office or Imployment Civil or Military upon any
Administration of Justice so that it is really a Dissolution of the Government since all Trials Sentences and the Executions of them are become so many unlawful Acts that are null and void of themselves The next Thing in our Constitution which secures to us our Laws and Liberties is a Free and Lawful Parliament Now not to mention the breach of the Law of Triennial Parliaments it being above three Years since we had a Session that enacted any Law Methods have been taken and are daily a taking that render this impossible Parliaments ought to be chosen with an entire Liberty and without either Force or Preingagements whereas if all Men are required before-hand to enter into Engagements how they will vote if they are chosen themselves or how they will give their Voices in the Electing of others This is plainly such a preparation to a Parliament as would indeed make it no Parliament but a Cabal if one were chosen after all that Corruption of Persons who had preingaged themselves and after the Threating and Turning out of all Persons out of Imploiments who had refused to do it And if there are such daily Regulations made in the Towns that it is plain those who manage them intend at last to put such a number of Men in the Corporations as will certainly chuse the Persons who are recommended to them But above all if there are such a number of Sheriffs and Mayors made over England by whom the Elections must be conducted and returned who are now under an Incapacity by Law and so are no legal Officers and by consâ—quence those Elections that pass under their Authority are null and void If I say it is clear that things are brought to this then the Government is dissolved because it is impossible to have a Free and Legal Parliament in this state of things If then both the Authority of the Law and the Constitution of the Parliament are struck at and dissolved here is a plain Subversion of the whole Government But if we enter next into the particular Branches of the Government we will find the like Disorder among them all The Protestant Religion and the Church of England make a great Article of our Government the latter being secured not only of old by Magna Charta but by many special Laws made of late and there are particuâ—ar Laws made in K. Charles the First and the late King's Time securing them from all Commissions that the King can raise for â—udging or Censuring them If then in opposition to this a Court so condemned is ercted which proceeds to Judg and Censure the Clergy and even to disseise them of their Free-holds without so much as the form of a Trial though this is the most indispensable Law of all those that secures the Property of England and if the King pretends that he can require the Clergy to publish all his Arbitrary Declarations and in particular one that strikes at their whole Settlement and has ordered Process to be begun against all that disobey'd this illegal Warrant and has treated so great a number of the Bishops as Criminals only for representing to him the Reasons of their not obeying him If likewise the King is not satisfied to profess his own Religion openly though even that is contrary to Law but has sent Ambassadors to Rome and received Nuncio's from thence which is plainly Treason by Law If likewise many Popish Churches and Chappels have been publickly opened if several Colledges of Iesuits have been set up in divers parts of the Nation and one of the Order has been made a Privy Counsellor and a principal Minister of State And if Papists and even those who turn to that Religion though declared Traitors by Law are brought into all the chief Imploiments both Military and Civil then it is plain That all the Rights of the Church of England and the whole Establishment of the Protestant Religion are struck at and design'd to be overturned since all these Things as they are notoriously illegal so they evidently demonstrate That the great Design of them all is the rooting out of this Pestilent Heresy in their stile I mean the Protestant Religion In the next place If in the whole course of Justice it is visible that there is a constant practising upon the Judges that they are tâ—rned out upon their varying from the Intentions of the Court and if Men of no Reputation nor Abilities are â—ut in their places If an Army is kept up in time of Peace â—â—d Men who withdraw from that illegal Service are hanged up as Criminals without any colour of Law which by consequence are so many Murders and if the Souldiery are connived at and encouraged in the most enormous Crimes that so they may be thereby prepared to commit greater ones and from single Rapes and Murders proceed to a Rape upon all our Liberties and a Destruction of the Nation If I say all these things are true in Fact then it is plain that there is such a Dissolution of the Government made that there is not any one part of it left sound and entire And if all these things are done now it is easie to imagine what may be expected when Arbitrary Power that spares no Man and Popery that spares no Heretick are finally established Then we may look for nothing but Gabelles Tailles Impositions Benevolences and all sorts of Illegal Taxes as from the other we may expect Burnings Massacres and Inquisitions In what is doing in Scotland we may gather what is to be expected in England where if the King has over and over again declared that he is vested with an Absolute Power to which all are bound to obey without reserve and has upon that annulled almost all the Acts of Paâ—liament that passed in K. Iames I. Minority though they were ratified by himself when he came to be of Age and were confirmed by all the subsequent Kings not excepting the present We must then conclude from thence what is resolved on here in England and what will be put in Execution as soon as it is thought that the Times can bear it When likewise the whole Settlement of Ireland is shaken and the Army that was raised and is maintained by Taxes that were given for an Army of English Protestants to secure them from a new Massacre by the Irish Papists is now all filled with Irish Papists as well as almost all the other Imployments it is plain that not only all the British Protestants inhabiting that Island are in daily danger of being butchered a second time but that the Crown of England is in danger of losing that Island it being now put wholly into the Hands and Power of the Native Irish who as they formerly offered themselves up sometimes to the Crown of Spain sometimes to the Pope and once to the Duke of Lorrain so are they perhaps at this present treating with another Court for the Sale and Surrender of the Island and for the
they are more proper for the Gravity of an Historian or the Authority of a Parliament to handle than for a private Gentleman in a Letter to his Friend The Bishops Papers and the Prince of Orange's Declarations are the best Memoires of them but they only begin where the two parts of the History of the growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government left off and how far we may trust to Catholick Stipulations Oaths and Treaties the Facts of past and the present Age are the best Criterions and Rules to guide and determine us for what happens every day will in all probability happen to morrow the same Causes always produce the same Effects and the Church of Rome is still the same Church it was an hundred Years ago that is a Mass of Treachery Barbariety Perjury and the highest Superstition a Machine without any Principle or setled Law of Motion not to be mov'd or stop'd with the weights of any private or publick Obligations a Monster that destroys all that is Sacred both in Heaven and Earth so Ravenous that it is never content unless it gets the whole World into its Claws and tears all to pieces in order to Salvation a Proteus that turns it self into all shapes a Chameleon that puts on all Colours according to its present circumstances this day an Angel of Light to morrow a Beelzebub Amongst all the Courts of Christendom where I have conversed that of Holland is the freest from Tricks and Falsehood and tho I am naturally jealous and suspicious of the Conduct of Princes yet I could never discover the least Knavery within those Walls it appear'd to me another Athens of Philosophers and the only Seat of Justice and Vertue now left in the World. As for the Character of the Prince of Orange it is so faithfully drawn by Sir William Temple Doctor Burnet and in a half sheet lately printed that I who am so averse from Flattery that I can scarce speak a good word of any Body or think one good thought of my self will not write any further Panegerick upon his Highness only that he is a very Honest Man a Great Souldier and a Wise Prince upon whose Word the World may safely rely A late Pamphleteer reviles the Prince with breaking his Oath when he took the Stat-holder's Office upon him not considering that the Oath was impos'd upon his Highness in his Minority by a French Faction then jealous of the aspiring and true Grandeur of his Young Soul that the States themselves to whom the Obligation was made freed his Highness from the Bond and that the Necessity of Affairs and the Importunities of the People forced that Dignity upon him which his Ancestors had enjoy'd and he so well deserv'd that he sav'd the sinking Common-wealth their Provinces being almost all Surpriz'd and Enslav'd by the French compared to the gasping State of Rome after the loss at Cannae His Highness was no more puft up with this Success than he had been daunted with Hardships and Misfortunes always the same Hero Just Serene and Unchang'd under all Events an Argument of the vastness of his Mind whereas on the contrary Mutability sometimes Tyrant sometimes Father of a Country sometimes Huffing other times Sneaking is often-times a Symptom of a Mean and Cowardly Soul vile and dissolute born for Rapine and Destruction As for the Princess she may without any flattery be stiled the Honour and Glory of her Sex the most Knowing the most Vertuous the Fairest and yet the best Natur'd Princess in the World belov'd and admir'd by her Enemies never seen in any Passion always under a peculiâ—r sweetness of Temper extreamly moderate in her Pleasures taking delight in Working and Study humble and affable in her Conversation very pertinent in all Questions charitable to all Protestants and frequenting their Churches The Prince is often seen with her at the Prayers of the Church of England and â—he with the Prince at the Devotion of his Church She dispences with the use of the Surplice bowing to the Altar and the Name of Jesus out of Compliance to a Country that adores her being more intent upon the Intrinsick and Substantial Parts of Religion Prayer and Good Works She speaks several Languages even to Perfection entirely obedient to the Prince and he extreamly dear to her In a word She is a Princess of many extraordinary Vertues and Excellencies without any appearance of Vanity or the least mixture of Vice and upon whose Promise the World may safely depend As for the many Plots and Conspiracies against this Royal Couple a short time may bring them all to light and faithful Historians publish them to the World. Lastly We may observe that whereas it hath been the Maxim of several Kings both at home and abroad of late Years to contend and outvie each other in preying upon and destroying not only their Neighbours but their own Protestant Subjects by all methods of perfidiousness and cruelty the only way to establish Tyranny and to enslave the natural Freedom of Mankind being to introduce a general Ignorance Superstition and Idolatry for if once People can be perswaded that Statues and Idols are Divinities and adorable and thaâ— a Waâ—er is the Infinite God after two or three ridiculous words utter'd by a vile Impostor and impudent Cheat then they may easily be brought to submit their Necks to all the Yokes that a Tyrant and a Priest can invent and put upon them for if once they part with their Reason their Liberty will soon follow as we behold every day in the miserable enslav'd Countries where Popery domineers On the contrary it hath always been the steady and immutable Principle of the House of Orange to rescue Europe from its Oppressours and to resettle Governments upon the Primitive and Immortal Foundation of Liberty and Property a Glorious Maxim taken from the Old Roman Common-wealth that Fought and Conquer'd so many Nations only to set them Free to Restore them wholsome Laws their Natural and Civil Liberties a Design so Generous and every way Great that the East groaning under the Fetters and Oppressions of their Tyrants flew in to the Roman Eagles for Shelter and Protection under whose Wings the several Nations liv'd Free Safe and Happy till Traitours and Usurpers began to break in upon the Sacred Laws of that vertuous Constitution and to keep up Armies to defend that by Blood and Rapine which Iustice would have thrown in their Face and punished them as they deserved the Preservation and Welfare of the People being in all Ages call'd the Supreme Law to which all the rest ought to tend From the foregoing Relation of matter of Fact it appears most plain that the Roman Catholicks are not to be ty'd by Laws Treaties Promises Oaths or any other bonds of Humane Society the sad experience of this and other Kingdoms declares to all Mankind the invalidity and insignificancy of all Contracts and Agreements with the Papists who notwithstanding all their Solemn Covenants
open profession of the Popish Religion so he did then promise and solemnly swear at his Coronation That he would maintain his Subjects in the free enjoiment of their Laws and Liberties and in particular that he would maintain the Church of England as it was established by Law It is likewise certain that there have been at divers and sundry times several Laws enacted for the preservation of those Rights and Liberties and of the Protestant Religion And among other Securites it has been enacted that all Persons whatsoever that are advanced to any Ecclesiastical Dignity or to bear Office in either University as likewise all other that should be put in any Imploiment Civil or Military should declare that they were not Papists but were of the Protestant Religion and that by their taking of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the Test yet these Evil Counsellors have in effect annulled and abolished all those Laws both with relation to Ecclesiastical and Civil Emploiments In order to Ecclesiastical Dignities and Offices they have not only without any colour of Law but against most express Laws to the contrary set up a Commission of a certain Number of Persons to whom they have committed the Cognizance and Direction of all Ecclesiastical Matters In the which Commission there has been and still is one of his Majesty's Ministers of State who makes now publick profession of the Popish Religion and who at the time of his first professing it declared That for a great while before he had believed that to be the only true Religion By all this the deplorable State to which the Protestant Religion is reduced is apparent since the Affairs of the Church of England are now put into the Hands of Persons who have accepted of a Commission that is manifestly Illegal and who have executed it contrary to all Law and that now one of their chief Members has abjured â—he Proâ—estant Religion and declared himself a Papist by which he is become incapable of holding any Publick Emploiment The said Commissioners have hitherto given such proof of their submission to the Directions given them that there is no reason to doubt but they will still continue to promote all such Designs as will be most agreeable to them And those Evil Counsellors take care to raise none to any Ecclesiastical Dignities but Persons that have no Zeal for the Protestant Religion and that now hide their unconcernedness for it under the specious pretence of Moderation The said Commissioners have suspended the Bishop of London only because he refused to obey an Order that was sent him to suspend a Worthy Divine without so much as citing him before him to make his own Defence or observing the common Forms of Process They have turned out a President chosen by the Fellows of Magdalâ—ne Colledg and afterwards all the Fellows of that Colledg without so much as citing them before any Court that could take legal cognizance of that Affair or obtaining any Sentence against them by a competent Judg. And the only Reason that was given for turning them out was their refusing to chuse for their President a Person that was recommended to them by the iâ—â—â—igation of those Evil Counsellors Though the right of a free Election belonged undoubtedly to them But they were turned out of their Freeholds contrary to Law and to that express Provision in Magna Charta That no Man shall lose Life or Goods but by the Law of the Land. And now these Evil Counsellors have put the said Colledg wholly into the Hands of Papists though as is above said they are incapable of all such Imploiments both by the Law of the Land and the Statutes of the Colledg These Commissioners have also cited before them all the Chancellors and Arch-deacons of England requiring them to certify to them the Names of all such Clergy-men as have read the King's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and of such as have not read it without considering that the reading of it was not enjoined the Clergy by the Bishops who are their Ordinaries The illegality and incompetency of the said Court of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was so notoriously known and it did so evidently appear that it tended to the subversion of the Protestant Relâ—â—ion that the most Reverend Father in God William Arch-bishop of Canterbury Primate and Metropolitan of all England seeing that it was raised for no other end but to oppress such Persons as were of eminent Virtue Learning and Piety refused to sit or concur in it And though there are many express Laws against all Churches or Chappels for the exercise of the Popish Religion and also against all Monasteries and Convents and more particularly against the Order of the Jesuits yet those Evil Counsellors have procured Orders for the building of several Churches and Chappels for the Exercise of that Religion They have also procured divers Monasteries to be erected and in contempt of the Law they have not only set up several Colledges of Iesuits in divers places for the corrupting of the Youth but have raised up one of the Order to be a Privy Counsellor and a Minister of State. By all which they do evidently shew that they are restrained by no Rules or Law whatsoever but that they have subjected the Honours and Estates of the Subjects and the Establish'd Religion to a Despotick Power and to Arbitrary Government In all which they are served and seconded by those Ecclesiastical Commissioners They have also followed the same Methods with Relation to Civil Affairs For they have procured Orders to examine all Lords-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants Sheriffs Justices of Peace and all others that were in any Publick Employment if they would concur with the King in the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws and all such whose Consciences did not suffer them to comply with their Designs were turned out and others were put in their places who they believe would be more compliant to them in their Designs of defeating the Intent and Execution of those Laws which had been made with so much Care and Caution for the Security of the Protestant Religion And in many of these places they have put professed Papists though the Law has disabled them and warranted the Subjects not to have any regard to their Orders They have also invaded the Priviledges and seized on the Charters of most of those Towns that have a right to be represented by â—heir Burgesses in Parliament and have procured Surrenders to be made of them by which the Magistrates in them have delivered up all their Rights and Priviledges to be disposed of at the pleasure of those Evil Counsellors who have thereupon placed new Magistrates in those Towns such as they can most entirely confide in and in many of them they have put Popish Magistrates notwithstanding the Incapacities under which the Law has put them And whereas no Nation whatsoever can subsist without the Administration of good and impartial Justice upon which Mens Lives
with us a Force sufficient by the Blessing of God to defend us from the Violence of those Evil Counsellors And We being desirous that our Intentions in this may be rightly understood have for this end prepared this Declaration in which as We have hitherto given a true Account of the Reasons inducing us to it so we now think fit to declare that this our Expedition is intended for no other Design but to have a free and lawful Parliament assembled as soon as possible and that in order to this all the late Charters by which the Elections of Burgesses are limited contrary to the Ancient Custom shall be considered as null and of no force and likewise all Magistrates who have been injustly turned out shall forthwith resume their former Imployments as well as all the Buroughs of England shall return again to their Ancient Prescriptions and Charters And more particularly that the Ancient Charter of the great and famous City of London shall again be in force and that the Writs for the Members of Parliament shall be addressed to the proper Officers according to Law and Custom That also none be suffered to choose or to be chosen Members of Parliament but such as are qualified by Law and that the Members of Parliament being thus lawfully chosen they shall meet and sit in full Freedom that so the two Houses may concur in the preparing such Laws as they upon full and free debate shall judg necessary and convenient both for the confirming and executing the Law concerning the Test and such other Laws as are necessary for the Security and Maintenance of the Protestant Religion as likewise for making such Laws as may establish a good Agreement between the Church of England and all Protestant Dissenters as also for the covering and securing of all such who will live peaceably under the Government as becomes good Subjects from all Persecution upon the account of their Religion even Papists themselves not excepted and for the doing of all other things which the two Houses of Parliament shall find necessary for the Peace Honour and Safety of the Nation so that there may be no more danger of the Nations falling at any time hereafter under Arbitrary Government To this Parliament we will also refer the Enquiry into the Birth of the pretended Prince of Wales and of all things relating to it and to the Right of Succession And We for our part will concur in every thing that may procure the Peace and Happiness of the Nation which a Free and Lawful Parliament shall determine since We have nothing before our Eyes in this our Undertaking but the Preservation of the Protestant Religion the covering of all Men from Persecution for their Consciences and the securing to the whole Nation the free Enjoyment of all their Laws Rights and Liberties under a just and legal Government This is the Design that We have proposed to our Selves in appearing upon this occasion in Arms In the Conduct of which We will keep the Forces under our Command under all the strictness of Martial Discipline and take a special care that the People of the Countries through which we must march shall not suffer by their means and as soon as the State of the Nation will admit of it We promise that We will send back all those Foreign Forces that we have brought along with us We do therefore hope that all People will judg rightly of us and approve of these our Pâ—oceedings but We chiefly relie on the Blessing of God for the Success of this our Undertaking in which We place our whole and only Confidence We do in the last place invite and require all Persons whatsoever all the Peers of the Realm both Spiritual and Temporal all Lords-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and all Gentlemen Citizens and other Commons of all Ranks to come and assist us in order to the executing of this our Design against all such as shall endeavour to oppose us that so we may prevent all those Miseries which must needs follow upon the Nations being kept under Arbitrary Government and Slavery and that all the Violences and Disorders which have overturned the whole Constitution of the English Government may be fully redressed in a FREE AND LEGAL PARLIAMENT And We do likewise resolve that as soon as the Nations are brought to a State of Quiet We will take care that a Parliament shall be called in Scotland for the restoring the Ancient Constitution of that Kingdom and for bringing the Matters of Religion to such a Settlement that the People may live easie and happy and for putting an end to all the injust Violences that have been in a course of so many Years committed there We will also study to bring the Kingdom of Ireland to such a State that the Settlement there may be religiously observed and that the Protestant and British Interest there may be secured And we will endeavour by all possible means to procure such an Establishment in all the three Kingdoms that they may all live in a happy Union and Correspondence together and that the Protestant Religion and the Peace Honour and Happiness of those Nations may be established upon lasting Foundations Given under our Hand and Seal at our Court in the Hague the Tenth day of October in the Year 1688. WILLIAM HENRY PRINCE OF ORANGE By His Highnesses special Command C. HUYGENS. His Highnesses Additional Declaration AFter We had prepared and printed this our Declaration we have understood that the Subverters of the Religion and Laws of those Kingdoms hearing of our Preparations to assist the People against them have begun to retract some of the Arbitrary and Despotick Powers that they had assumed and to vacate some of their unjust Judgments and Decrees The sense of their Guilt and the distrust of their Force have induced them to offer to the City of London some seeming Relief from their great Oppressions hoping thereby to quiet the People and to divert them from demanding a Secure Reestablishment of their Religion and Laws under the shelter of our Arms. They do also give out that we intend to Conquer and Enslave the Nation and therefore it is that we have thought fit to add a few words to our Declaration We are confident that no Persons can have such hard Thoughts of us as to imagine that we have any other Design in this Undertaking than to procure a Settlement of the Religion and of the Liberties and Properties of the Subjects upon so sure a Foundation that there may be no danger of the Nation 's relapsing into the like Miseries at any time hereafter And as the Forces we have brought along with us are utterly disproportioned to that wicked Design of Conquering the Nation if we were capable of intending it so the great Numbers of the principal Nobility and Gentry that are Men of Eminent Quality and Estates and Persons of known Integrity and Zeal both for the Religion and Government of England many of them
the proceeding of a Parliament But if to the great Misfortune and Ruine of these Kingdoms it should prove otherwise We further Declare That We will to our utmost defend the Protestant Religion the Laws of the Kingdom and the Rights and Liberties of the Subject A Letter from a Gentleman at Kings-Lyn Decemb 7. 1688. to his Friend in London SIR THE Duke of Norfolk came to Town on Wednesday Night with many of the chiefest of the County and yesterday in the Market-place received the Address following which was presented by the Mayor attended by the Body and many hundreds of the Inhabitants To his Grace the most Noble HENRY Duke of Norfolk Lord Marshal of England My Lord THE daily Allarums we receive as well from Foreign as Domestick Enemies give us just Apprehensions of the approaching Danger which we conceive we are in and to apply with all earnestness to your Grace as our great Patron in all humble Confidence to succeed in our Expectations That we may be put into such a posture by your Grace's Directions and Conduct as may make us appear as zealous as any in the Defence of the Protestant Religion the Laws and Ancient Government of this Kingdom Being the desire of many hundreds who most humbly challenge a Right of your Grace's Protection His Grace's Answer Mr. Mayor I Am very much obliged to you and the rest of your Body and those here present for your good Opinion of me and the Confidence you have that I will do what in me lies to support and defend the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion in which I will never deceive you And since the coming of the Prince of Orange hath given us an opportunity to declare for the defence of them I can only assure you that no Man will venture his Life and Fortune more freely for the Defence of the Laws Liberties and Protestant Religion than I will do and with all these Gentlemen here present and many more will unanimously concur therein and you shall see that all possible Care shall be taken that such a Defence shall be made as you require AFter which the Duke was with his Retinue received at the Mayor's House at Dinner with great Acclamations and his Proceedings therein have put our County into a Condition of Defence of which you shall hear further in a little time our Militia being ordered to be raised throughout the County Our Tradesmen Seamen and Mobile have this morning generally put Orange Ribbon on their Hats Ecchoing Huzza's to the Prince of Orange and Duke of Norfolk All are in a hot Ferment God send us a good issue of it Lyn-Regis Decemb. 10. 1688. SIR BY mine of the 7 th Instant I gave you an Account of the Address of this Corporation to hiâ— Grace the Duke of Norfolk and of his Grace's Answer thereto Since which his Grace has sent for the Militia Troops and put them in a posture of Defence as appears by the ensuing Speech The Duke of Norfolk's Second Speech at Lynn I Hope you see I have endeavoured to put you in the posture you desired by sending both for Horse and Foot of the Militia and am very glad to see such an Appearance of this Town in so good a Condition And I do again renew my former Assurances to you that I will ever stand by you to defend the Laws Liberties and the Protestant Religion and to procure a Settlement in Church and State in concurrence with the Lords and Gentlemen in the North and pursuant to the Declaration of the Prince of Orange And so God save the King. The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in and about the Cities of London and Westminster Assembled at Guildhal Dec. 1688. WE doubt not but the World believes that in this Great and Dangerous Conjuncture We are heartily and zealously concerned for the Protestant Religion the Laws of the Land and the Liberties and Properties of the Subject And We did reasonably hope that the King having Issued His Proclamation and Writs for a Free Parliament We might have rested Secure under the Expectation of that Meeting But His Majesty having withdrawn Himself and as We apprehend in order to His Departure out of this Kingdom by the Pernicious Counsels of Persons ill Affected to Our Nation and Religion We cannot without being wanting to Our Duty be silent under those Calamities wherein the Popish Counsels which so long prevailed have miserably involved these Realms We do therefore Unanimously resolve to apply Our Selves to His Highness the Prince of Orange who with so great Kindness to these Kingdoms so vast Expence and so much hazard to his own Person hath Undertaken by endeavouring to Procure a Free Parliament to rescue Us with as little Effusion as possible of Christian Blood from the imminent Dangers of Popery and Slavery And We do hereby Declare That We will with our utmost Endeavours assist his Highness in the obtaining such a Parliament with all speed wherein Our Laws Our Liberties and Properties may be Secured the Church of England in particular with a due Liberty to Protestant Dissenters and in general the Protestant Religion and Interest ovâ—r the whole World may be Supported and Encouraged to the Glory of God the Happiness of the Established Government in these Kingdoms and the Advantage of all Princes and States in Christendom that may be herein concerned In the mean time We will Endeavour to Preserve as much as in Us lies the Peace and Security of these great and populous Cities of London and Westminister and the Parts Adjacent by taking Care to Disarm all Papists and Secure all Jesuits and Romish Priests who are in or about the same And if there be any thing more to be performed by Us for promoting His Higness's Generous Intentions for the Publick Good We shall be ready to do it as occasion shall Require W. Cant. Tho Ebor. Pembroke Dorset Mulgrave Thanet Carlisle Craven Ailesbury Burlington Sussex Berkeley Rochester Newport Weymouth P. Winchester W. Asaph Fran. Ely. Tho. Roffen Tho. Petribtrg P. Wharton North and Grey Chandos Montague T. Iermyn Vaughan Carbery Culpeper Crewe Osulston WHereas His Majesty hath privately this Morning withdrawn himself We the Lords Spiritual and Temporal whose Names are Subscribed being assembled at Guild-hall in London having Agreed upon and Signed a Declaration Entituled The Declaration of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in and about the Cities of London and Westminister Assembled at Guild-hall 11 Decemb. 1688. Do desire the Right Honourable the Earl of Pembroke the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Weymouth the Right Reverend Father in God the Lord Bishop of Ely and the Right Honourable the Lord Culpeper forthwith to attend his Highness the Prince of Orange with the said Declaration and at the same time acquaint his Highness with what we have further done at that Meeting Dated at Guild-hall the 11 th of December 1688. A Paper delivered to his Highness the Prince of Orange by the Commissioners sent by
any ill designs if any have been tampering to reconcile him to Popery which is no less than Treason he will presently detect those mischievous Instruments that they may be brought to condign Punishment and applaud the Iustice that has been done on Coleman the five Jesuits Godfrey's Murderers c. thereby stopping the Mouths of that brazen Tribe who would make the World believe they died innocently He will declare 〈◊〉 all Arbitrary Designs detest those who by sneaking flatteries would unâ—â—ngâ— the ancient and most wise Constitution of our Government He will heartily recommend Parliaments to his Sacred Brother as the wisest and safest Councils and even thank the late Houses of Commons for their zeal against him whilst they apprehended him as an Enemy to his King and the Religion and safety of the Kingdom He will vigorously by his Counsels and Interests oppose the growing greatness of the French which at this day threatens all Europe with Chains and immediately tends not only to the decay of Great Britains Trade and Glory but also to the diminution oppression and if it lay in humane Power utter subversion of the Reformed Religion throughout the World. These and the like Noble Fruits will the People not unreasonably expect from your R. H. when ever you shall please to declare your self a Protestant which that you may speedily do not Politickly or Superficially but with that sincerity as so serious a matter of infinite more value than the Three Crowns you are Presumptive Heir to is the Prayer of all good Men and particularly of Your Royal Highness 's Most Humble and Faithful Servant Philanax Verax LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Richard Ianeway 1688. Ten Seasonable QUERIES Proposed by an English Gentleman in Amsterdam to his Friends in England a little before the Prince of Orange came over I. WHether any Real and Zealous Papist was ever for Liberty of Conscience it being a fundamental Principle of their Religion That all Christians that do not believe as They do are Hereticks and ought to be destroyed II. Whether the King be a Real and Zealous Papist If he be Whether he can be truly for Liberty of Conscience III. Whether this King in his Brother's Reign did not cause the Persecution against Dissenters to be more violent than otherwise it would have been IV. Whether he doth not now make use of the Dissenters to pull down the Church of England as he did of the Church of England to ruin the Dissenters that the Papists may be the better enabled in a short time to destroy them both V. Whether any ought to believe he will be for Liberty any longer than it serves his Turn and whether his great eagerness to have the Penal Laws and Test repealed be only in order to the easie establishing of Popery VI. Whether if these Penal Laws and Test were repealed there would not many turn Papists that now dare not VII Whether the forcing of all that are in Offices of Profit or Trust in the Nation to lose their Places or declare they will be for Repealing the Penal Laws and Test be not Violating his own Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and a new Test upon the People VIII Whether the suspending the Bishop of London the Dispossessing of the Fellows of Magdalen Colledge of their Freeholds the Imprisoning and Prosecuting the Seven Bishops for Reasoning according to Law are not sufficient instances how well the King intend to keep his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience wherein he promiseth to protect and maintain all his Bishops and Clergy and all other his Subjects of the Church of England in quiet and full enjoyment of all their Possessions with any molestation or disturbance whatsoever IX Whether the Usage of the Protestants in France and Savoy for these three years past be not a sufficient Warning not to trust to the Declaration Promises or Oaths in matters of Religion of any Papist whatsoever X. Whether any Equivalent whatsoever under a Popish King that hath a standing Army and pretends to a Dispensing Power can be as equal Security as the Penal Laws and Test as affairs now stand in England FINIS A SIXTH Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. Five Letters from Scotland giving Account of expelling Popery from thence II. The Prince of Orange's Speech to the Scots Lords and Gentlemen met at St. Iames's With their Advice to the Prince to take upon him the Administration of the Affairs of Scotland With his Highness's Answer III. A Letter to a Friend advising in this Extraordiry Juncture how to Free the Nation from Slavery IV. The Application of the Bishop and Clergy of London to the Prince of Orange Sept. 21. 1688. V. An Address of the Nonconformist Ministers of London to the Prince of Orange VI. The Address of the City of Bristol to the Prince of Orange VII A Word to the Wise for Setling the Government VIII A Modest Proposal to the present Convention IX An Historical Account touching the Succession of the Crown X. A Narrative of the Miseries of New-England by reason of an Arbitrary Government erected there Licensed and Entred according to Order London printed and are to be sold by Richard Ianeway in Queen's-head-Court in Pater-noster-Row 1689. Advertisement VVHereas there is a sixth and seventh Collection of old Papers with new Title-Pages remote from the present Juncture of Affairs published by R. Baldwin The Reader is desired to take notice that the Person that collected the first five Parts will continue them from time to time as often as matter occurs in which he will take care not to impose any thing but what is new and genuine and worth the Reader 's Money To be sold by Richard Ianeway in Queen's-Head Court in Pater-Noster-Row who sells the former five and so all that shall follow Five LETTERS From a Gentleman in Scotland to his Friend in LONDON Being a True Account of what Remarkable Passages have happened since the Prince's Landing The manner of the taking of the Chancellor and his Lady in Man's Apparel The burning of the Pope Demolishing of the Popish Chappels c. with the total overthrow of the Roman Catholicks Edinburgh Decemb. 3. 1688. THE Students of the University here designed some time ago to burn the Pope's Effigies but that was not more zealously desired to be prevented by some than to be done by others Notwithstanding all the imaginable Care taken to prevent it yet it was done about Ten Days ago after day-light gone at the Cross and blown up with Art that seems to have been beyond their Invention above four Stories high Two Days thereafter they went to the Parliament-House at mid-day passing by the Guards crying No Pope No Papist And being got into the Parliament-House after they had required the Guards to be present at the Sentence and having got upon the Bench they Arraigned his Holiness before his Judges and gave the Jury their Commission who brought him in
into utter Despair of the Continuance amongst them of the true Religion of Almighty God and of her Majesties Life and of the Safety of all her Subjects and of the Good Estate of this flourishing Commonweale For that she the said Queen of Scots had continually breathed the Overthrow and Suppression of the Protestant Religion being poysoned with Popery from her tender Youth and at her Age joyning in that false termed Holy League and had been ever since and was then a powerful Enemy of the Truth For that she rested wholly upon Popish hopes to be delivered and advanced and was so devoted and doted in that Profession that she would as well for the satisfaction of others as for the feeding her own Humour supplant the Gospel where and whensoever she might which Evil was so much the greater and the more to be avoided for that it slayeth the Soul and would spread it self not only over England and Scotland but also into all Parts beyond the Sea where the Gospel of God is maintained the which cannot but be exceedingly weakned if Defection should be in these two most violent Kingdoms For that if she prevailed she would rather take the Subjects of England for Slaves than for Children For that she had already provided them a Foster-father and a Nurse the Pope and King of Spain into whose hands if it should happen them to fall what would they else look for but Ruin Destruction and utter Extirpation of Goods Lands Lives Honours and all For that as she had already by her poyson'd Baits brought to Destruction more Noble-men and their Houses and a greater multitude of Subjects during her being here than she would have done if she had been in Possession of her own Country and arm'd in the Field against them so would she be still continually the cause of the like spoil to the greater loss and peril of this Estate and therefore this Realm neither could nor might endure her For that her Sectaries both Wrote and Printed that the Protestants would be at their Wits end Worlds end if she should out-live Queen Elizabeth meaning thereby that the end of the Protestant World was the beginning of their own and therefore if she the said Queen of Scots were taken away their World would be at an end before its beginning For that since the sparing of her in the Fourteenth Year of Q. Elizabeths Reign Popish Traitors and Recusants had multiplied exceedingly And if she were now spared again they would grow both innumerable and invincible also And therefore Mercy in that case would prove Cruelty against them all Namâ—st quaedam crudelis mâ—sericordia and therefore to spare her Blood would be to spill all theirs And for God's Vengeance against Saul for sparing the life of Agag and against Ahab for sparing the life of Benhadad was moâ—t apparent for they were both by the just Judgment of God deprived of their Kingdoms for sparing those wicked Princes whom God had delivered into their Hands And those Magistrates were much conmmended who put to Death those mischeivous and wicked Queens Iezabel and Athaliah And now I would desire our Grumbletonians especially they of the Clergy to consider how extreamly they have degenerated from the good and laudable Principles of their Fore-fathers They may see how urgent the Bishops and others in Queen Elizabeth's days were to have the Queen of Scots removed as above said and how they encouraged the Queen to assist the Dutch against their Soveraign Lord when he attempted them in their Religion and Laws but now they that first opposed One that has broken the Original Contract between King and People and done horrid things contrary to the Laws of God Nature and the Land yet when God out of his merciful Providence and singular favour to us all has inclined him being sensible of his own Guilt to leave the Throne these Very Men that first withstood him as I said begin to pitty him plead for him and extol him and continually both in Pulpit for one of them lately said there That a parcel of Attoms could as soon make a World as a Convention make a King and also in Coffee-houses mutter and grumble against the Proceedings of the great and Honorable Convention of the Kingdom and are busy in sending out and privately scattering their puling Pamphlets under the Titles of Mementoes Speeches and Letters empty of ought else but the spleen of a foolish and frustrated Faction Good God! what inconstancy folly and madness possesses the Breasts of these Men to what a miserable slavery would they lead us and how fond and eager do they seem to have him rule over Us who like the Stork in the Fable has and would make it his greatest delight to devour the best of free-born Subjects But I hope that in a little time they will know the Things that belong to the Kingdom 's Peace and dutifully pray for tho at present there is no uniformity in their Pulpits save in the Dissenters and submit chearfully and thankfully to him whom God has made the Glorious Instrument of our Deliverance from Popery and Slavery God save King William and Queen Mary ADVERTISEMENT ☞ THere is lately published the Trial of Mr. PAPILLON by which it is manifest that the then Lord Chief Justice Iefferies had neither Learning Law nor good manners but more Impudence than ten Carted Whores as was said of him by King CHARLES II. in abusing all those worthy Citizens who voted for Mr. PAPILLON and Mr. DUBOIS calling them a parcel of Factious Pragmatical Sneaking Whining Canting Sniveling Prickear'd Cropear'd Atheistical Fellows Rascals and Scoundrels c. as in p. 29. and other places of the said Trial may be seen Sold by Richard Ianeway and most Booksellers FINIS A TENTH Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. Reflections upon our late and present Proceedings II. Some short Notes on a Pamphlet entituled Reflections upon our late and present Proceedings III. The Scots Grievances or A short Account of the Proceedings of the Scotish Privy-Council Justiciary Court and those commissioned by them c. IV. The late Honourable Convention proved a Legal Parliament V. The Amicable Reconciliation of the Dissenters to the Church of England being a Model or Draught for the Universal Accommodation in the Case of Religion and bringing in all Parties to her Communion London printed and are to be sold by Richard Ianeway in Queen's-head-Court in Pater-â—oster-Row 1689. Reflections upon our Late and Present Proceedings in England THO no Man wishes better to the Protestant Religion in general and the Church of England in particular than I do yet I cannot prevail with my self to approve all those Methods or follow all those Measures which some Men propose as the only Security both of the one and the other Never perhaps was there a more proper time wherein to secure our Religion together with our Civil Liberties than now offers it self if we have but the
notwithstanding any want of thâ— Kings Writs or Writ of Summons or aâ—y defect whatsoever and as if the King had been present at the beginning of the Parliament this I take to be a full Judgment in full Parliament of the case in question and much stronger than the present case is and this Parliament continued till the 29 th of December next following and made in all thirty seven Acts as aboâ—e mentioned The 13 Caroli 2. chap. 7. a full Parliament called by the Kings Writ recites the other of 12 Caroli 2. and that after his Majesties return they were continued till the 29 th of December and then dissolved and that several Acts passed this is the plain Judgment of another Parliament 1. Because it says they were continued which shews they had a real being capable of being continued for a Confirmation of a void Grant has no effect and Confirmation shews a Grant only voidable so the continuance there shewed it at most but voidable and when the King came and confirm'd it all was good 2. The dissolving it then shews they had a being for as ex nihilo nihil sit so super nihil nil operatur as out of nothing nothing can be made so upon nothing nothing can operate Again the King Lords and Commons make the great Corporation or Body of the Kingdom and the Commons are legally taken for the Free-holders Inst. 4. p. 2. Now the Lords and Commons having Proclaimed the King the defect of this great Corporation is cured and all the Essential parts of this great Body Politique united and made compleat as plainly as when the Mayor of a Corporation dies and another is chosen the Corporation is again perfect and to say that which perfects the great Body Politique should in the same instant destroy it I mean the Parliament is to make contradictions true simul semel the perfection and destruction of this great Body at one instant and by the same Act. Then if necessity of Affairs was a forcible Argument in 1660 a time of great peace not only in England but throughout Europe and almost in all the World certainly 't is of a greater force now when England is scarce delivered from Popery and Slavery when Ireland has a mighty Army of Papists and that Kingdom in hazard of final destruction if not speedily prevented and when France has destroyed most of the Protestants there and threatens the ruin of the Low-Countries from whence God has sent the wonderful Assistance of our Gracious and therefore most Glorious King and England cannot promise safety from that Forreign Power when forty days delay which is the least can be for a new Parliament and considering we can never hope to have one more freely chosen because first it was so free from Court-influence or likelihood of all design that the Letters of Summons issued by him whom the great God in infinite Mercy raised to save us to the hazard of his Life and this done to protect the Protestant Religion and at a time when the people were all concerned for one Common interest of Religion and Liberty it would be vain when we have the best King and Queen the World affords a full house of Lords the most solemnly chosen Commons that ever were in the remembrance of any Man Living to spend Mony and lose time I had almost said to despise Providence and take great pains to destroy our selves If any object Acts of Parliament mentioning Writs and Summons c. I answer the Precedent in 1660 is after all those Acts. In private cases as much has been done in point of necessity a Bishop Provincial dies and sede vacant a Clerk is presented to a Benefice the Presentation to the Dean and Chapter is good in this case of Necessity and if in a Vacancy by the Death of a Bishop a Presentation shall be good to the Dean and Chapter rather than a prejudice should happen by the Church lying void Surely â fortiori Vacancy of the Throne may be supplied without the formality of a Writ and the great Convention turn'd to a Real Parliament A Summons in all points is of the same real force as a Writ for a Summons and a Writ differ no more than in name the thing is the same in all Substantial parts the Writ is Recorded in Chancery so are His Highnesses Letters the proper Officer Endorses the Return so he does here for the Coroner in defect of the Sheriff is the proper Officer the People Choose by virtue of the Writ so they did freely by Virtue of the Letters c. quae re concordant parum differunt they agree in Reality and then what difference is there between the one and the other Object A Writ must be in Actions at Common Law else all Pleadings after will not make it good but Judgment given may be Reversed by a Writ of Error Answ. The case differs first because Actions between party and party are Adversary Actions but Summons to Parliament are not so but are Mediums only to have an Election 2. In Actions at Law the Defendant may plead to the Writ but there is no plea to a Writ for electing Members to serve in Parliament and for this I have Littleton's Argument there never was such Plea therefore none lies Object That they have not taken the Test. Answ. They may take the Test yet and then all which they do will be good for the Test being the distinguishing Mark of a Protestant from a Papist when that is taken the end of the Law is performed Object That the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy ought to be taken and that the new ones are not legal Answ. The Convention being the Supream Power have abolish'd the old Oaths and have made new ones and as to the making new Oaths the like was done in Alfreds time when they chose him King vide Mirror of Justice Chap. 1. for the Heptarchy being turn'd to a Monarchy the precedent Oaths of the seven Kings could not be the same King Alfred swore Many Precedents may be cited where Laws have been made in Parliament without the King 's Writ to summon them which for brevity's sake I forbear to mention For a farewel the Objections quarrel at our Happiness fight against our Safety and aim at that which may indanger Destruction The Amicable Reconciliation of the DISSENTERS to the CHURCH of ENGLAND being a Model or Draught for the Universal Accommodation in the Case of Religion and the Bringing in all Parties to Her Communion Humbly presented to the Consideration of Parliament WHereas there are several parties of Christians in the Nation who must and will ever differ in their Opinions about the Church and Discipline of it in the Question which is of Christ's Institution it is not our Disputes about the Church â—s Particular which are rather to be mutually forborn and every party left herein to their own Perswasion but a common Agreement in what we can agree and that
Pretence whatsoever contrary to the known Laws of the Land shall be treated by Us and our Forces not as Souldiers and Gentlemen but as Robbers Free-Booters and Banditti they shall be incapable of Quarter and intirely delivered up to the Discretion of our Souldiers And We do further declare that all Persons who shall be found any ways aiding and assisting to them or shall march under their Command or shall joyn with or submit to them in the Discharge or Execution of their Illegal Commissions or Authority shall be looked upon as Partakers of their Crimes Enemies to the Laws and to their Country And whereas we are certainly informed that great Numbers of Armed Papists have of late resorted to London and Westminister and parts adjacent where they remain as we have reason to suspect not so much for their own Security as out of a wicked and barbarous Design to make some desperate Attempt upon the said Cities and their Inhabitants by Fire or a sudden Massacre or both or else to be the more ready to joyn themselves to a Body of French Troops designed if it be possible to land in England procured of the French King by the Interest and Power of the Jesuits in Pursuance of the Engagements which at the Instigation of that pestilent Society his most Christian Majesty with one of his Neighbouring Princes of the same Communion has entred into for the utter Extirpation of the Protestant Religion out of Europe Though we hope we have taken such effectual care to prevent the one and secure the other that by God's Assistance we cannot doubt but we shall defeat all their wicked Enterprises and Designs We cannot however forbear out of the great and tender Concern we have to preserve the People of England and particularly those great and populous Cities from the cruel Rage and bloody Revenge of the Papists to require and expect from all the Lord-Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and Justices of Peace Lord-Mayors Mayors Sheriffs and all other Magistrates and Officers Civil and Military of all Counties Cities Towns of England especially of the County of Middlesex and Cities of London and Westminster and Parts adjacent that they do immediately Disarm and Secure as by Law they may and ought within their respective Counties Cities and Jurisdictions all Papists whatsoever as Persons at all Times but now especially most dangerous to the Peace and Safety of the Government that so not only all Power of doing Mischief may be taken from them but that the Laws which are the greatest and best Security may resume their Force and be strictly Executed And We do hereby likewise declare that We will Protect and Defend all those who shall not be afraid to do their Duty in Obedience to these Laws And that for those Magistrates and others of what condition soever they be who shall refuse to assist Us and in Obedience to the Laws to Execute vigorously what We have required of them and suffer themselves at this Juncture to be cajoled or terrified out of their Duty We will esteem them the most Criminal and Infamous of all Men Betrayers of their Religion the Laws and their Native Country and shall not fail to treat them accordingly resolving to expect and require at their Hands the Life of every single Protestant that shall perish and every House that shall be burnt or destroyed by their Treachery and Cowardise William Henry Prince of Orange By his Highness special Command C. HUYGENS. Given under our Hand and Seal at our Head-quarters at Sherburn-Castle the 28 th day of November 1688. FINIS A SECOND Collection of Papers Relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England VIZ. I. An Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority and of the Grounds on which it may be lawful or necessary for Subjects to defend their Religion Lives and Liberties II. An Answer to a Paper intituled Reflections on the Prince of Orange's Declaration III. Admiral Herbert's Letter to all Commanders of Ships and Seamen in his Majesty's Fleet. IV. An Engagement of the Noblemen Knights and Gentlemen at Exeter to assist the Prince of Orange in the Defence of the Protestant Religion Laws and Liberties of the People of England Scotland and Ireland V. The Declaration of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty at the Rendezvous at Nottingham Novemb. 22. 1688. VI. The Duke of Norfolk's Speech to the Mayor of Norwich on the first of December instant in the Market-place of Norwich VII The Address of the Lord Dartmouth and the Commanders of his Majesty's Fleet giving his Majesty hearty Thanks for calling a Parliament to settle the Realm both in Church and State. Printed in the Year 1688. AN ENQUIRY Into the Measures of SUBMISSION TO THE SUPREAM AUTHORITY And of the Grounds upon which it may be lawful or necessary for Subjects to defend their Religion Lives and Liberties THis Enquiry cannot be regularly made but by taking in the first place a true and full view of the nature of Civil Society and more particularly of the nature of Supream Power whether it is lodged in one or more Persons 1. It is certain That the Law of Nature has put no difference nor subordination among Men except it be that of Children to Parents or of Wives to their Husbands so that with Relation to the Law of Nature all Men are born free and this Liberty must still be supposed entire unless so far as it is limited by Contracts Provisions and Laws For a Man can either bind himself to be a Servant or sell himself to be a Slave by which he becomes in the power of another only so far as it was provided by the Contract since all that Liberty which was not expresly given away remains still entire so that the Plea for Liberty always proves it self unless it appears that it is given up or limited by any special Agreement II. It is no less certain that as the Light of Nature has planted in all Men a Natural Ptinciple of the Love of Life and of a desire to preserve it so the common Principles of all Religion agree in this that God having set us in this World we are bound to preserve that Being which he has given us by all just and lawful ways Now this Duty of Self-preservation is exerted in Instances of two sorts the one are in the resisting of violent Aggressors the other are the taking of just Revenges of those who have invaded us so secretly that we could not prevent them and so violently that we could not resist them In which cases the Principle of self-Preservation warrants us both to recover what is our own with just Damages and also to put such unjust Persons out of a Capacity of doing the like Injuries any more either to our selves or to any others Now in these Instances of Self-Preservation this difference is to be observed that the first cannot be limited by any slow Forms since a pressing Danger requires a vigorous Repulse and cannot admit
Mankind hath given great Opportunities and Advantages to cunning Knaves to spread their Nets and lay their Traps in order to catch easie and unwary Creatures these being led on by Ignorance or Stupidity they by Pride or Ambition or else a Vile and Mercenary Principle therefore seeing we are in this State of Corruption bred up to believe Contradictions and Impossibilities led by the Nose with every State Mountebank and Monkish Iugler moved like Puppets by Strings and Wires it seems high time to vindicate Human Nature and to free her from these Shakles laid upon her in the very Cradle for Man who ought to be a Free and Rational Animal in his present State is only an Engine and Machine contriv'd for the Vanity and Luxury of Priests and Tyrants who claim to themselves and seem to monopolize the Divine Stamp tho we are all made of the same Materials by the same Tools and in the same Mould equal by Nature met together and link'd in Societies by mutual Contracts plac'd by turns one above another and entrusted for some time with the Power of executing our own Laws and all by general consent for the Publick Good of the whole Community this is the genuine Shape and Figure of Primitive and Sound Government not distemper'd and fatally infected with the monstruous Excrescences of Arbitrary Power in one single Member above all the Laws of the whole Infallibility Divine Right c. started by Knaves and Sycophants believ'd by Fools who scarce ever heard of the Greek and Roman Histories and never read their own I shall therefore give some Examples out of an infinite number of People ruin'd and utterly destroy'd by their easie Credulity and good Nature matter of Fact being a stronger Proof and better Rule to steer Mankind than the empty Notions of the Schools invented only to perplex and confound our Ratiocination lest it should discover the naked Truth of things The present Letter will confine it self only to Publick Promises Oaths and Solemn Contracts scandalously violated by the Roman Catholicks not with Heathens and Hereticks only but amongst themselves We will begin with the more remote Countries The Spaniards and Portugueses have acted so treacherously with the Africans and the Natives of both Indies that the Cruelty of the History would be incredible if it was not related by their own Historians their Leagues and Treaties the most sacred Bonds undâ—r Heaven were soon neglected and the Spirit of their Religion broke all before it how many Millions of those innocent Creatures were murder'd in cold Blood and for Pastime sake with all the variety of Torments that the Devil could inspire into them how soon were the vast Regions of Mexico New Spain Peru Hispaniola Braseel c. depopulated above twenty Millions of the poor harmless Inhabitants being put to death in full Peace and they the best natur'd People in the World and very ingenious tho they may seem Savages to a sort of Men who think all Barbarians that differ from them in Habits Manners Customs Diet Religion Language c. not considering that all wise Nature hath contriv'd a different Scene of things for various Climates Nay such is the Inhumanity of these Catholick Nations here at home that they will frequently bring Strangers settled amongst them by the Laws of Commerce and their own fellow-Subjects into the Inquisition especially if they are Rich upon a pretence of some Heretical Opinion tho they themselves at first protect and license the Opinion as in the case of Molino whose Book had receiv'd an Imprimatur from most of the Inquisitors of Spain and Italy and even from the Infallible Head of the Church yet afterwards it was burnt and he himself together with many of his Followers miserably tortur'd the Pope scarce escaping the Punishment The Generous Marshal Schomberg driven out of France for his great Services who had won many Battels for the Portugueses and sâ—v'd their Câ—untry could not be suffer'd to end his Old Age amongst them but was forc'd in the midst of Winter to commit himself to the Sea and fly to an inhospitable Shoar The present French King renounced all his Pretences on Flanders concluded the Pyrenean Treaty and swore at the Altar not to meddle with that Country but how well he observ'd that Sacred Covenant Baron D'Isola will best inform you in his Bouclier d'Etat for which he was thought to be poison'd Neither hath the French Monarch been contented to break all Faith and Measures with the Spaniard but he hath gone about to deceive and ruine tâ—e Pope Emperour and all the Princes and Electors of the Empire the Prince of Orange Duke of Lorrain the Switzers the Dutch and the English and not only these his Neighbours and Allies but his own Protestant Subjects who had all the Security that Solemn Edicts Oaths and Promises could afford them besides many other Obligations upon the Crown for bringing the King to the Throne yet all of a sudden they found themselves oppress'd and destroy'd by his Apostolical Dragoons their Temples razed their Wives and Children taken away their Goods and Estates confiscated themselves cast into Prisons sent to the Gallies and often shot at like Birds His seising of Lorrain France Compte Alsace Strasburgh Luxemâ—urgh the Principality of Orange the County of Avignon Philipsbourg the whole Palatinate the Electorates of Mentz Treves and Cologn his building of Cittadels in the Empire and in Italy c. are so contradictory to National Agreements and Publick Treaties that scarce a Iesuit or a French-man can have Impudence enough to defend them a Banditto a Pyrate or a Pick-pocket would be asham'd of such Actions and an ordinary Man would be hang'd for a Crime a Million times less His seising upon Hudson's Bay and leading the English into Slavery the French Treachery in the Engagement at Sea between us and the Dutch their frequent seizing of our Ships are light things not worthy our Resentment being under the Conduct of a Monsieur whom the World so justly vilifies and despises The Emperour can have no good Pretence to condemn the King of France or any other Catholick Prince for breach of Common Faith and Honesty since he himself hath plaid the same Game with his Protestant Subjects inviting some of the Chief of the Hungarian Nobility to Vienna under the colour of Treaty and Friendship and then cutting off their Heads seizâ—ng their Estates and Properties destroying their Pastors and Churches and extirpating the whole Reform'd Religion after he had promis'd and stipulated to protect and give them the Liberty of their Consciences The Parisian Massacres were carried on and executed under a Mask of Friendship all the principal Protestants of France being invited to the Healing-Marriage to revel and caress were barbarously butcher'd in their Beds at the Toll of a Bell when they dream'd they slâ—p securely The Irish Massacre of above 200000 Protestants was no less treacherous it was a Copy of the Spanish Cruelty iâ— the West Indies
of the Law of Nature did not press us at this time to come to some speedy and pertinent Determinations as to the business especially of settling the Government that Nicety which seems to be promoted and set afoot in all our Counsels might considering the Weightiness of the business in hand rather claim the just Commendation and Applauses of every good Man than as it seems now fall under their Censure and I may say Indignation If the matter debated were extraneous and the Kingdom within it self peaceably and firmly settled if the Circumstances of our Affairs were ordinary and usual and could admit of an unlimited time for their Decision if we were secure from injurious Resolutions of our Enemies abroad or from the private Machinations of disaffected Persons at home If these â—hings were so it were worthy the Wisdom of those who by their unseasonable Scruples so generally resolv'd against and now again by them started may seem either ignorant of the desperate languishing condition of these Kingdoms at present or prejudic'd and dis-affected to the Eâ—ace and Settlement of them for the future I say it were then worthy the Wisdom of these Men to dissect every particular of so important an Affair before they made any Determination of the General As we all acknowledg the extraordinary Circumstances of this Juncture so they themselves have not been a little contributing to this happy Revolution The Prince's first Declaration tells us he had the Invitation of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Was it Justice and agreeable to Conscience then to call for Foreign Arms to assist us against our own King in the recovery of those Rights Liberties and Properties which contrary to Law he had invaded and taken from us And is it now become a Scruple in those same Consciences to be confirm'd in those Rights c. by the same Arms and Power Is that pretended absolute unlimited Power which in their Prayers and Sermons they have so often nibbled at and endavoured to retrench now in its just Debasement become so Inviolable and Sacred that it must become a Point of Faith entirely to submit to it Has this small fit of Fear and Discouragement in our implacable Enemies so well secur'd us from any future Enchroachments that we need not be careful of any further Assurance Has these Men's Re-embellish'd Honours so obliterated the Memory of the Dangers some of them so lately have escap'd and the rest justly fear'd as to free them from all Apprehensions for the future What is it these Gentlemen would be at what do they fear Is it without Reason without Justice without Precedent that we desire to be everlastingly secur'd from Popery Slavery Not without Reason for when we have seen many of our fairest Branches lopp'd off many of our Liberties invaded many of our Laws perverted and the Axe at last laid to the Root of our Government 't is high time then I say to provide for our our Safety and to put a stop to that Current which would have quickly over-run and drowned us Not without Justice for where my Life and Property is hunted after and assaulted I may by the Law of God and Man â—epel the Injury and stand in my own Vindication Not without Precedent even in Protestant Kingdoms not to mention the Romanists who both teach and practise the Deposing of evil and wicked Magistrates and though in England we may perhaps think the Changes we have very lately seen among our selves admit of no Precedent it may easily be prov'd that which hath been done of late in this Nation hath been in great part formerly presented and allowed of upon Foreign Stages yea and not many Years out of the Memory of some yet living if we would but look into the Actions of other Regions and those too wherein the Reform'd Religion is professed we shall find that they by their publick Records acknowledged that in case of Tyranny and Oppression it was lawful not only to defend their Lives and Liberties against all Assaults but reduce and declare the Persons so offending incapable of holding the Government A lively Example of this and almost exactly parallel with ours was the Case of Sigismond the Third Hereditary King of Sweden who by a Convention of the States of that Kingdom was Excluded even with his Heirs a Severity which both the Honourable Houses of Parliament here have with great Justice and Wisdom declined from that Crown for ever Some of the Articles drawn up against him were these First For swerving from their received Christian Religion as also from his Oath and Promise and Solemn Engagement made to his People at his Coronation to preserve their Rights and Priviledges as also their Holy Reform'd Religion Inviolated For departing the Country without the Consent and unwilling to the States and Orders of the Realm For exporting several Acts of great Concernment out of the Cancellarie For prosecuting such as would not embrace or favour the Romish Superstition For contemning and endeavouring to undermine and annul those laudable Institutions and Laws made for the Security of the Realm and the Establishment of the Protestant Reformed Religion For raising up what Enemies he could against his Native Country thereby to involve his Subjects in a Deluge of Blood which he intended and had almost effected For inhumanely designing and suborning Russians and Villains to Murder and Assassinate one of the chief Nobles for no other Reason but that out of Conscience and Duty he would have perswaded him from those Irregularities and notorious Breaches of the known Laws of the Land. For these and many more Causes as the sending his Son out of the Land without the Consent of the States and causing him to be brought up and educated in the Romish Superstition did the Swedes submitting the same to the Judgment of all sincere and candid Arbitratours justify their Abdication for ever of King Sigismond the Third and his Heirs from the Crown of Sweden c. and proceeded strait to the Constituting and Electing of Charles Duke of Sudermannia vid. Spanheim 's Hist. of Sweden c. And in conclusion they pray for and doubt not of a candid Construction a benign and favourable Acceptation from all Christian Emperors Kings Princes States c. of this their Legitimate Defence and to vindicate them and their most equal Cause from all Calumny or eâ—il Interpretation whatsoever The Circumstances relating to this present Juncture in England bear so near a resemblance almost in all these Grievances objected against the said Sigismond that our late King by a sort of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems to have breath'd his Soul rather than to have copy'd after him though indeed in some Cases he has plainly out-done the Original especially in relation to his supposed Son. And as our King thought fit to Copy a King of Sweden I cannot apprehend how it can lessen our Judgments or Integrity our Piety or our Loyalty to follow the Example of the Swedes excepting
in the case of the Lawful Heirs whom every good Englishman and Protestant to their utmost Danger and Peril are ready to defend and maintain to take such Measures for our future Security and lawful Establishment as shall not by any Humane Art or Endeavour be liable to Interruption But as Precedents are least satisfactory or least confronting to obstinate Opposers where they make only for one party A Popish Sigismund deposed for Male-Administration in a Protestant Kingdom may not perhaps be allowed to carry its sufficient Justification with the Romanists and therefore the Tables ought to be turn'd and the Ballance made by Parallels of their own side the most prudent way of combating and securing a Victory in this matter being to lay the Scene of War in the Enemies Country To confute therefore and silence all the Romish Pretensions of Disgust and Murmur against the Injustice of such a Deprivation from Examples of Popish Deposals of Male-administring Protestants we 'll begin with Henry of Navarre afterwards Henry the Fourth of France The famous Holy League enter'd into by the Pope himself and so many potent Allies together with all the Romish Subjects of Franâ—e against that undoubted Heir of the Crown of France and at that time by succession the rightful King is so notoriously known to the World that all the tedious Particulars of the History would be impertinent Let it suffice here was a Prince the unquestion'd Inheritor of the Crown of France actually by all Open and Hostile Means and all such Hostility avowed and abetted and his very Birth-right fore-closed by the Pope himself opposed and denied his Accession to the Throne for no other Unqualifications but be a Hugonot that is of a Perswasion contrary to the Establish'd and Regnant Romish Religion in France being in all other Respects acknowledged a most excellent Prince Insomuch that after all other ineffectual Endeavours of recovering his Birth-right he had no means left to repeal his Exclusion and Debarment from the Throne but by his Abjuration of the Reformed Religion and return to the Romish Worship This Case of Henry the Fourth instead of a Parallel to ours does not come up to half the Justification of the present Measures of England For here was a Soveraign Prince under Deprivation for no other Default but his meer Religion for this Henry the Fourth being then but in his Entrance to the Empire if truly that was consequently yet at least whatever they might fear under no Dilemmas of the least breach of Compact with his People no Forfeitures for Male-Administration or Violation of the Laws of the Land or Rights of his Subjects their Dangers as then being only Apprehensions If therefore the meer private Opinion of a Crowned Head different from the Establish'd Religion of the Land has been of weight enough it self alone in their own Scales to oversway the Birth-Right of Princes and make a Bar to Empire and that too so solemnly confirmed and ratified even by the Sanction Apostolick the Decretals of Rome it self What Objections or Allegations can our Romish Disputants whether Foreign or Domestick make against the like Bar in Empire after so notorious an actual Male-Administration in the present Case of England such too visible Ruptures of the Laws of the Land and in defiance of all Obligations of Engagements Covenant Word Honour or OATHS themselves The next Example I shall point them to is that of the late Portuguese King who by the Ordinance of the States of Portugal ratified by the Pope's Assent was dethroned and his Brother invested with the Soveraignty and not only that but his Queen too taken from him Divorced and by a Dispensation married to his Brother The Grounds of this Deposal being only this that the King was sometimes taken with Delirious Fits. If such a Personal Infirmity was ground sufficient to displace the Crown Have not the Peopâ—e or Community of England in Convention asseâ—bled as much Right on their Side for the Deposal of a King for a far greater Infirmity of the two a more violent Madness his loâ—g tried and radicated Incapacity of being held either by the Bonds or Ties of Honour Laws or Oaths There being this infinite Difference between the Outrages of the one and the other as that a Prince so bigotted resolved for the Introduction right or wrong of his own Religion is the more Dangerous Frantick For his Superstitious Frency may push him to Violences that will hurt whole Nations whereas the Outrages of the other can be only Personal And if the Hands of the Lunatick Portuguese were thought Just to be tied up with no less Shackles than taking both his Kingdom and Queen away from him who shall Arraign the Wisdom of the English for depriving their King of his Kingdom much good may do him with his Queen under an infinite larger Capacity and more dangerous propensity to Mischief And for so doing what Warrant shall they want when the present unforced Desertion of the King and quitting the Helm has put the Power of Decision in that Point into their own Hands and lost him all Right of Appeal against the Alienation I shall venter to add one last Consideration viz. The Bull of Pope Pius Quintus against Queen Elizabeth by which the Pope deprives her of all Title to the Imperial Crown and all Dominion Dignity and Priviledg whatever declaring that all the Nobility Subjects and People of England and all others which have in any sort sworn unto her to be for ever absolved from any such Oath and all manner of Duty of Dominion Allegiance and Obedience c. and all forbidden to obey her or her Motions Mandates or Laws upon pain of Anathema Vide Bishop of Lincoln's Brutum Fulmen p. 6. I recite this unjust Deposal of a Lawful Queen by the pretended Authority of the Pope no other than to let the World know that the Romish Party have the least Reason in Nature to complain of the Deprivation of Princes They whose Infallible Guides can so insolently and arbitrarily place or displace Crown'd Heads not to mention the Illegality of the Pope's Interposition in the Affair in any kind for only acting by Law in Matters of Religious Changes for such were all Ecclesiastick Alterations of that Queen by the unquestion'd Authority of Acts of Parliament can be but ill furnish'd with Arguments against the present Deprivation enacted by the whole Community of England for such violent Measures and Foundations already form'd and begun for the subversion of Church and State against all Law. Reasons humbly offer'd for placing his Highness the Prince of Orange singly in the Throne during his Life I. IT will be a clear Assertion of the Peoples Right Firm Evidence of a Contract Broken and a sure Precedent to all Ages when after a most Solemn Debate the Estates of England Declare That the King having Abdicated the Government and the Throne thereby Legally Vacant They think fit to Fill it again with One who is
therefore to deal ingenuously with you I confess at the beginning of this Revolution I was under a very great Surprize I who have been in Arms for His Majesty a warm stickler for the Church of England puffed up with all the Bravado's and Excesses of an Oxford Loyalty must needs be Alarmed to hear our Nobility and Gentry beating up for the Prince of Orange even in the Bowels of our Country But when I came more seriously to reflect upon the Foundations of our Government as well as those antecedent Obligations which God Almighty has reserved as his own inviolable Prerogative I began to regulate my Zeal by calmer measures And making a more impartial and strict Inquiry into the Opinions of Learned Men concerning the Regal Power I found this most generally agreed upon viz. That the Obedience and Disobedience of Subjects must be measured by the peculiar Constitutions of every Kingdom without respect either to the Jewish Polity where things were determined by God Almighty's special Command or the Behaviour of the Primitive Christians who had few or no Legal Rights to Assert Diss. Ay but you Churchmen flattered the Court so long till our Constitutions were all swallowed up in the Abyss of Prerogative Ch. I must confess while Kings are a Protection to Liberty Property and Religion the World is naturally prone to flatter them neither would it be good Breeding to make too nice Inquiries into the Limits of a Prince while he does not exceed them but when Distress comes impetuously upon a Nation when Life and All that is Sacred to us lies at Stake then the Inquiry is not only just but necessary Diss. What Conditions therefore will you Churchmen at length confine your Prince too Ch. Why I shall present you with a short but impartial view of the Constitutions of this Kingdom as I find them most faithfully and ingenuously represented by the Royal Martyr in his Answer to the Nineteen Propositions in these Words viz. There being Three kinds of Government among Men Absolute Monarchy Aristoâ—racy and Demoâ—racy and all these having their particular Conveniences and Inconveniences the Experience and Wisdom of our Ancestors hath so moulded this out of a mixture of these as to give to this Kingdom the Conveniences of all Three without the Inconveniences of any one as long as the Balance hangs even between the Three Estates and they run jointly on in their proper Chanel c. In this Kingdom the Laws are jointly made by a King House of Peers and House of Commons chosen by the People all having free Votes and particular Priviledges c. And in this Kind of Regulated Monarchy that the Prince may not make not use of his Power to the Hurt of those for whose Good he hath it and make use of the Name of Publick Necessity for the Gain of his private Favorites and Followers to the detriment of his People the House of Commons an excellent Conserver of Liberty is solely entrusted with the Levying of Monys and the Impeaching of those who for their own Ends though countenanced by any surreptitiously gotten Command of the King have violated that Law which he is bound to protect c. Since therefore the Power Legally placed in both Houses is more than sufficient to Prevent and Restrain the Power of Tyranny c. Our Answer is Nolumus Leges Angliae mutari So far this Royal Author And indeed what could a generous Prince acknowledg or a Priviledg-asserting Subject desire more Therefore upon the whole it appears by the Confession of the best of Men as well as the wisest of Princes that we are under a Government so well appointed for Society and the Exigencies of Humane Kind that nothing but Folly can think of Establishing a better and nothing but a Jesuit disturb it The Scriptures themselves seem to have meant it when they tell us that Caesar's Prerogative must never come in Competition with that of God Almighty and that Governors shall be a Terror to evil Works Here King and People have each their Territories and all the Provision imaginable made against those Distractions which either Interest or Passion should attempt From all which what can be more naturally inferred but that we in this Kingdom are by no means obliged to resign up our selves to Violence and Oppression but that Passive Obedience has its Limits and the Oath of Allegiance its Restrictions A regulated and conditionated Monarch can expect no Obedience from me but what is Conditional too and what an Absurdity does it seem that by a Legal Oath I should swear an absolute Obedience to that Authority which is not Absolute Besides those Subsidies which were granted by the Clergy in several of Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments for the Relief of the French Dutch and Scotch Protestants against their Oppressors plainly shew that it was all along the Opinion of the Church to Resist in case Rights and Religion were Invaded Neither am I perswaded that the learned and unbyass'd Clergy of our present Church ever meant any other Obedience than an active Conformity to the Intent of the Law or a Passive Submiâ—sion to the Penalties of it Therefore â—hough upon the Foundations of our Government an impatient Spirit might with a great shew of Reason establish a very extensive Latitude in asserting the Subjects Right yet in Favour of Monarchy which I Reverence and with Respect to the Present Conjuncture I shall only now trouble you with these four Propositions supposing a mixt Government 1. That Suspicions and Jealousies of a Prince's sinister Designs are no sufficient Grounds for Subjects violently to assert their Rights but in this Case the Event of things muâ—t be left to Providence 2. That though one Man or a greater number of Men receive manifest Injuries by the Abuses of Government yet while they are but an inconsiderable part of the Community they are in Duty bound rather to submit to Oppression than interrupt the common Peace But 3. When Dangers become demonstrable when Religion it self and the very Foundations of Government are so undermined by the Insinuations of an inconsiderable party who have obtained the Ear of their Prince that its unavoidable Ruine must necessarily follow In this Case I cannot see any Reason why Right may not be asâ—erted But 4. When a Foreign Prince with a considerable Army Invades a Nation upon pretence of putting a stop to such violent Proceedings besides perhaps some just Causes of a War I say in this Case That the whole Nation may and ought to rise and put themselves in such a Posture that they may be able to return him Thanks acording to the Merits of his Favours without being jealous of his Greatness And indeed our present Case is so circumstantiated that I Question whether it may be paralle'd in History and let any Man tell me where the Subjects of a Limited Monarchy tired out with the Abuses of Government did by sighting for their King encourage Oppression by the Blood of Thousands
is in the Church as National must heal our Breaches The Catholicks are for one Universal Organical Church throughout the World whereof the Pope is Head according to some and the Bishops Convened in a General Council according to others That there is a Catholick Church Visible on earth as well as invisible whereof CHRIST is Head who was on Earth and is now Visible in Heaven is past doubt also with Protestants But that this Church is Organical and under the Government of a Monarchy by the Pope or of an Aristocracy by a General Council it seems a thing not possible in nature because neither can any Oeâ—umenical Council ever be Called or any One Man he sufficient to take on him the Concernmenâ—s of the whole World. A Political Church is a Community of Chrisâ—â—ans brought into an Orber of Superiority and Inferiority by an Head and Members organized for the Exercise of that Government which is proper to it but the whole Earth is not capable of any such Order And Councils therefore which are gather'd out of several Countries or of Bishops belonging to more Dominions than of one Supreme Power may behad for mutual Advice and Concord but not for Government A Nation Empire or Kingdom which consists of one Supreme Magistrate and People who are generally Christians are capable of such an Ecclesiastical Polity and a National Church Political in England is to be asserted and maintained The Church of England then is a Political Society of all the Christians in the Land united in the King as Head and organized by the Bishops for the executing those Laws or Government which he chooses for their spiritual Good and the publick Peace There is this difference between a Church National the Church Catholick and Particular Churches The two latter-are of Divine Right and Essential Consideration but the former is and can be only of Humane Institution for it is manifestly Accidental to the Church of Christ that the chief Magistrate and the whole People should be Christian. Distinguish we here of the Government of the Church as Internal belonging to the Spirit and External which belongs to Men And of the External Regiment thereof which is either Formal belonging to the Ministers or Officers of Christ or Objective belonging to the Magistrate the one being only by the Keyes the other by the Sword. Whether the Community now of Christians in England may be accounted a National Church in respect to any Formal Government of it we leave for dispute to others let them judg according to the foregoing Definition of a Political Church But that the main Body of the Nation are or may be constituted a proper Political Church National in respect to that External Objective Regiment which is or should be exercised by the Bishops as the proper Organs thereof under the King is what we hold reasonable and would lay as the Foundation-Stone of Peace in the matter of Religion between all Persons in the Kingdom Let the Parliament therefore we have be heartily for the Publick Good and thriving of England which must and can be only by an entire Liberty of Conscience in opposition to the narrow Spirit of any single Party or Faction and when such a Parliament as this shall set themselves about the Business of Union to purpose a Bill should be brought in Entituled An Act for declaring the Constitution of our Church of England A Parliament is the Representative of the whole Nation and no doubt but by Consent and Agreement they might upon the account mentioned Make a new Constitution and much more may they Declare the Constitution of it It should be declared then in such a Bill or Act that the Church of England consists of the King as the Head or pars Imperans who is to give Laws thereto and all the several Assemblies of Christians which he shall tolerate as the pars subdita or Body Some Discrimination between the Tolerable and Intolerable is indeed never to be gainsaid by any wise and good Man unto whom there is no Liberty can be desirable which is not consistent at least with these three things the Articles of our Creed a Good Life and the Fundamental Government of the Kingdom It is not for any private persons but a Parliament to prescribe the Terms of National Communion But we would have all our Assemblies that are Tolerable to be made Legal by such an Act and thereby parts of the National Church as well as the Parochial Congregations The Church here therefore must come under a double consideration as the Church of Christ and as the Church of England Take the Church as the Church of Christ and there must be as we have said at first endless Controversy about this point who are the true Members of it but take it under the consideration as National and there will be none at all for those must be Membâ—rs whom the Head by a Law does allow to be parts of the Body and the King under this notion only is made Head of the Church by the Stature that is as it is called Ecclesia Aâ—glicana The Protestant Dissenterâ— of all sorts as well as the Conformists will acknowledg the King to be Supreme Coercive Governour over all Persons and in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil throughout his Dominions And will not those who are Roman Catholicks do the like Did they not do so in Henry the Eight's time when they were generally such Again the Dissenters of all sorts even the Congregationalists of every Sect are ready to submit to any power legally derived from the King and upon such an account will admit of a superintendency of the Bishops as Ecclesiastical Magistrates under him when they cannot own any Authority that they have over other Ministers from Iesus Christ and will not Papists also be subject to all Authority that is exercised legally in his Name howsoever they may question the Spiritual Title of the English Clergy and their succession We would have the Bishops then qua Bishops as distinct in Office from Priests declared no other than the King's Officers whose power is but Objectively Ecclesiastical and to act Circa Sacra only by Vertue of his Authority and Commission As Iehoshaphat did comit the Charge incumbent upon him as Supreme Magistrate in regard to all Matters of the Lord unto the care of Amariah being Chief Priest and in regard to the King's Matters unto Zebadiah being as the Chief Iustice of the Realm so should the Diocesian Bishop be in our Ecclesiastical as the Judges are in Civil Matters the Substitutes altogether of His Majesty and execute his Jurisdiction This is indeed at State point which was throughly canvased by Henry the Eight whose Divines did agree on two Orders alone Priest and Deacon to be of Divine Appointment and that the Superiority of a Bishop over a Presbyter or of one Bishop over another was but by the Positive Laws of Men only as appears in that Authentick Book then put out entituled
same Ruin upon the Kingdom as those Barons did by their Delay Lastly If the Discusser will not be convinc'd by what has hitherto been said Let him examine the King 's own words and try whether he can pick out any better Construction out of them then that which I shall make Says the late King in his Letter to the Earl of Feversham Things being come to that Extrâ—mity that I have been forc'd to send away the Queen and my Son the Prince of Wales that they might not fall into my Enemies hands I am oblig'd to do the same thing and to endeavour to secure my self the best I can c. Expresâ—ions of a disponding Mind and only full of Grief for the Disappointment of the Popish Career The King was afraid of the Queen and his Son the Prince of Wales as he calls him and therefore deeming it convenient to send Them out of the way believes himself oblig'd to follow them 'T is true there might be some Reason perhaps for him to send Them away but none to send away himself not being under the same Circumstances For let it be Paternal or Conjugal Affection or both together What could be a greater Desertion than this for the sake of a Wife and a Son to leave three Kingdoms at six and sevens He speaks of securing himself as well as he can but mentions nothing of Danger only leaves it to the Lord Feversham and others to presume the Causes of his Fears But certainly the apprehension of Danger can never excuse a Sovereign Magistrate from the Desertion of his Dominions at the same time striving and strugling under the Pangs of the Dissolution of Government If such a Desertion of his Territories in that forlorn and languishing Condition to accompany the Tribulations of a Wife and a Son be not a perfect Abdication of his Territories the Words relinquish desert forgo abandon abdicate have lost their Signification Thus Lysimachus in Plutarch de sera vindicta Dei after he had surrendered his Person and Dominions to the Getae for a Draught of Drink in the extremity of a parching Thirst when he had quench'd his Thirst cryed out O pravum Hominem that for so small a Pleasure have lost so great a Kingdom He would be thought very unfit to be the Master of a Ship that should throw himself into the Sea when his Vessel and Cargoe were almost ready to perish And I will appeal to the Lord of Wemm himself whether if he were to try an Abdicating Prince upon this Point with the same Huffing and Domineering as he did Inferiour Offenders he would take it for a good Justification to say I had thought or I apprehended my Person to be in Danger Rather it becomes a Prince at such a time to exert his Courage and contemn his own when the publick Security lies at stake especially when the Remedy propounded was so easy as the Convoking of a Free Parliament But to withdraw at such a perillous Conjuncture from the Application of his desir'd nay almost implor'd Assistance What can the Discusser think of himself to deny so plain an Abdication And this I take to be the Opinion of the late King's Abdication intimated by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal assembled at Guild-Hall Decemb. 1688. where they are pleased to say That they did reasonably hope that the King having sent forth his Proclamation and Writs for a free Parliament they might have rested secure as doubtless the King might also have done in that Meeting But his Majesty having withdrawn himself c. they did therefore unanimously resolve to apply themselves to his Highness the Prince of Orange c. That is to say The King having withdrawn himself from the Cure of the Grand Distempers of the Nation and consequently Abdicated the Government they resolv'd to apply themselves to a more Skilful at least a more Willing Physician Which had the Discusser more considerately discuss'd when he wrote his Discussion would have sav'd him a great deal of trouble and expence Thus much for the Reasons which the Discusser brings to prove that the King before his withdrawing had sufficient Grounds to make him apprehensive of Danger and that therefore it cannot be call'd an Abdication That which follows being altogether grounded upon certain Statutes and Laws of the Land to the knowledg of which the Discusser seems to be a great Pretender is answer'd in a Word That they who pronounc'd the Throne Vacant understood the Latitude of their Power and the Intent and Limits of the Laws and Statutes of this Realm to that Degree that if nothing else the Consideration of that might have deterr'd the Discusser from the Presumption of appearing so vainly and scandalously in the World. Nor would I be thought so impertinent to transgress the Bounds of my own Understanding as he has done For indeed to tell ye the Truth if the Discusser should come to a Trial at Westminster-Hall I am afraid the Lawyers will certainly inform him that he has very much either mistaken or misquoted his Authors FINIS SATISFACTION tendred to all that pretend Conscience for Non-submission to our present Governours and refusing of the New Oaths of FEALTY and ALLEGIANCE In a LETTER to a FRIEND By R. B. late Rector of St. Michael Querne London And now Rector of Icklingham All-Saints Suffolk SIR I Cannot but admire at the Stiffness not to say Obstinacy of some in not complying with the present Government considering the late danger of Popery and that an Arbitrary Power was exercised amongst us by our late Rulers in asserting their Dispensing Power by the Mercenary Judges declared to be Law. You may remember in our late Conference upon this Subject you pleaded in Defence of your selves and others the Obligation you lay under to the Oath of Allegiance with your Subscription to the Doctrine of the Church of England contained in the 37 th Article and the First Canon of the Church but if it appear that all this is rather grounded upon Mistake than any solid Reality I will not question your ready Submission Oaths I confess are very strong Ties upon Men of Conscience and they are to be tenderly dealt with until that Prejudice be removed give me leave therefore with Sobriety and Meekness to enquire Whether that Oath be still in Force with the Obligation to it if not that Plea must vanish and disappear And here first let me remind you of the occasion of imposing the Oath of Allegiance it was injoyn'd to distinguish betwixt Church and Court Loyal and Disloyal Papists upon that horrid Gunpowder-Treason which hath left a Stain of Villany and Cruelty upon that Religion never to be wiped off Read over the Anatomy of that Oath made by K. Iames the First in his Book of the Defence of it And what is there in if that can stick upon any Protestant except that Clause of denying all Foreign Jurisdiction Prince or Potentate And this you seem'd to hint at when you said the
different and distinct Administrations they liv'd under absolute Monarchs their Grandeur was won by the Sword and confirm'd by a pure Despotick Power and therefore their Resistance had been unlawful contrary to the Rule and Force of their Government but it is quite otherwise with us We are setled upon a Gothick Model our Princes make no Laws without our own Consent they are obliged to the excution of Laws made by our selves with their Consent they have no Power to dispense with the breach of them by others nor to invade them themselves This was own'd by the seven Bishops declar'd by former Parliaments so that no Man is bound to pay their Allegiance any further Let Caesar have what is Caesar's and the Subjects what is theirs their Laws their Birth-right In some cases Moral positive Duties are superseded by what is naturally Moral as in the Duties of the fourth Command so here Tho Government in general be founded upon Nature yet this or that Form is but positive and if it be not consistant with the end of Government Self-preservation Why should not it be either altered or fixed in those who will prosecute the right end the Preservation of the publick Peace and Liberties of the People To what hath been said let me add ex abundanti the late King 's retiring into France if it amount not to an Abdication it comes near unto a Forfeiture and no Prince or State can have less Reason to indeavour to restore him to his Crown and Dignity than that Monarch Whence hath he his Claim but from Hugh Capet and he from the Election of the great Men of the Kingdom and why did they pretend to lay aside Charles Duke of Lorrain whose Right it was by Succession but meerly upon this ground He had joyned himself to the Enemies of the Kingdom and so they transfer the Crown unto another Family that of the Capets And does not all Christendom in general and the English Nation in particular look upon that great Man of France as a Common Enemy shall not that which may hinder Succession justify in part a translating of it unto another But blessed be God all these are cleared in an Abdication and that asserted by the Representative Body of the whole Nation And now good Sir be perswaded to lay aside all Prejudice submit your Sentiments to the Judgment of your Superiors yield your Obedience and Fealty in taking the Oaths this you see is your Duty and not only so but your Interest It is not long since we were apprehensive of Popery and the Church-of England-Men did set themselves in direct Opposition against it and all the Accesses toward it for which the Generations to come shall call them blessed But whence come these Apprensions to be lessened can we expect a perfect Freedom from these Fears should he be re-admitted to his Authority It is not possible a Popish Soveraign should keep Promise with his Heretical Subjects as they stile us their words and Oaths if Roman Catholicks bind no further then stands with the Interest of their Religion and we know who both can and will dispence with Oaths and Promises made to Hereticks Would you fetter him by Laws these have been like Sampsons Cords easily broken Would you place him under Tutors and Governours He is no minor cannot submit aut Caesar aut Nullâ—s Men are but Men at the best and Time and Preferment may alter their Judgments However these would make him a Prisoner and no King. Should we submit in hopes of another Opportunity Would he not settle a Correspondence with Male-contents at Home and Foreign Princes Abroad and if he prosper in the Design hath that Common plea That his Promises are Void because made by him when under Restraint And then What will become of all that is dear unto us Religion Lives Liberties and Estates This is prevented by an Abdication so that if he return it must be by Conquest and then he will rule by the Sword we shall all be in the same Condition lie under the charge of Hereticks Rebels and Traytors the Government chang'd from a regulated Monarchy into an absolute Tyranny our Religion abrogated we shall be sold as Slaves or burnt as Hereticks If Men love Bonds and Imprisonments Rapine and Sequestration Racks and Tortures Fire and Faggots let them continue this Humor and Aversation but if none of these be lovely as indeed they are not let us bless God who hath redeemed us from the Hand of our Enemies and the Hand of all that hate us Let us joyn issue with the Divine Providence which hath delivered us from all these Evils in submitting and yielding our Obedience to our Soveraign Lord and Lady by whose Conduct and Courage we are brought into a state of Freedom and Peace Be not affrighted out of this by the false Rumors and Reports spread abroad by evil-minded Men but let us unite in our Submission to our present Rulers that thereby we may strengthen their Hearts and Hands in our common Defence There remains one Prejudice but no Objection arising from the vain Fears of some Men that the Church begins to be shaken in her Authority whilst matters of Religion fall under a Dispute and no Convocation consulted with But this if fully considered would swell a private Letter into too great a Bulk Let me for the present desire you to consider there is nothing design'd in Doctrinals but meer Matters of Ceremony and a relaxation of some Laws not consistent with the greatest Interest of the Nation in this present Juncture the Union of Protestants And out of experience that the severity of those Laws never reclaim'd one Dissenter but rather did drive others out of the Pale of the Church it is not unworthy of but highly becoming the Wisdom of those worthy Patriots to find out a Method whereby all Protestants of every Form may be brought into an easy Condition This Subject if this Letter find a candid Reception may be more fully considered of by Your very Friend Servant and Brother R. B. To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal And to the Honourable the Knights Citizens and Burgesses in this present PARLIAMENT Assembled The Humbletition of TITUS OATES D. D. Most Humbly sheweth THat your Petitioner in the Year 1678 discovered a horrid Popish Conspiracy for the Destruction of the late King Charles the Second His Present Majesty and the Protestant Religion within these Kingdoms and prov'd it so fully that several Parliaments and Courts of Justice before whom he gave his Testimony declared their Belief of it by publick Votes and the Condemnation of several of the Conspirators For which Reason and because your Petitioner would not be terrified by their Threats nor seduced by their Promises of great Rewards with both which Temptations they often assulted him to desist in his Discovery the Jesuits and Papists pursued him with an implacable Malice and endeavoured to take away his Fame and Life by suborning Witnesses to