peo 〈…〉 It will not be amiss to call over some 〈◊〉 his Majesties proceedings towards the 〈…〉 urch of England that from what hath 〈…〉 en already seen and felt both they and all 〈…〉 glish Protestants may the better know what they are to expect and look for hereafter Tho it be a method very unbecoming a Prince yet it shews a great deal of spleen to turn the former persecution of Dissenters so maliciously upon the Prelatical and conforming Clergy as his Majesty doth in his letter to Mr. Atsop in stiling them a party of Protestants who think the only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller matters Whereas the severity that the Fanaticks met with had much of its Original at Court where it was formed and designed upon motives of Popery and Arbitrariness and the resentment and revengful humour of some of the old Prelates and other Church men that had suffered in the late times was only laid hold of the better to justify and improve it And tho it be too true that many of the dignified Rank as well as of the little Levites were both extreamly fond of it and contentiously pleaded for it yet it is as true that most of them did it not upon principles of judgment and conscience but upon inducements of retaliation for conceived injuries and upon a belief of its being the most compendious method to the next preferment and benefice and the fairest way of standing recommended to the favour of the two Royal Brothers Nor is it unworthy of observation that some of the most virulent writers against liberty of conscience and others of the most fierce Instigators to the persecuting Dissenters among whom we may reckon Parker Bishop of Oxford and Cartwright Bishop of Chester are since Adressing for the Declaration of Indulgence became the means of being gracioully lookt upon at Whitthall turned foreward promoters of it tho their success in their Diocesses with their Clergy hath not answered their expectations and endeavoures For as these two Mytred Gentlemen will fall in with and justify whatsoever the King hath a mind to do if they may but keep their Seas and enjoy their Revenues which I dare say that rather than lose they will subscribe not only to the Tridentine Faith but to the Alcoran so it is most certain that they two as well as the Bishop of Durham have promised to turn Roman Catholicks and that as Crew hath been several times seen assisting at the celebration of the Mass and that as Cartwright payd a particular respect to the Nuncio at his solemn Entrance at Windsor which some Temporal Lords had so much conscience and honor as to scorn to do so the Author of the leige Letter tells us that Parker not only extreamly favours Popery but that he brands in a manner all such for Atheists who continue to plead for the Protestant Religion 'T is an Act of the same candor and good nature in the King with the former and another Royal effect of his Princely breeding as well as of his Gratitude when he endeavours to cast a farther odium upon the Church of England and to exasperate the Dissenters against her by saying in the forementioned letter to Mr. Alsop that the reason why the Dissenters enjoyed not liberty sooner is wholly owing to the sollicitation of the Conforming Clergy whereas many of the learned and sober men of the Church of England could have been contented that the Nonconforming Protestants should have had liberty long ago provided it had been granted in a legal way and the chief executioners of severity upon them were such of all ranks orders and stations as the Court both set on and rewarded for it 'T is not their Brethrens having liberty that displeaseth modest good men of the Church of England but 't is the having it in the virtu ' of an usurped prerogative over the Laws of the Land and to the shaking all the legal foundations of the Protestant Religion it self in the Kingdom And had the Declaration of Indulgence imported only an exemption of Dissenters and Papists from rigours and penalties I know very few that would have been displeased at it but the extending it to the removing all the Fences about the Reformed Doctrine and worship and laying us open both to the tyranny of papists and the being overflowed with a deluge of their superstitions and Idolatries as well as the designing it for a means to overthrow the established Chur 〈…〉 is that which no wise Dissenter no more t 〈…〉 a conformable man knows how to digest 〈◊〉 I am not of Sr. Roger l'Estranges mind w 〈…〉 after he hath been writing for many yea 〈…〉 against Dissenters with all the venom and m 〈…〉 lice imaginable and to disprove the wisdo 〈…〉 justice and convenience of granting th 〈…〉 liberty hath now the impudence 〈◊〉 publi 〈…〉 that whatsoever he formerly wrote bears an exact conformity to the present Resolutions of State in that the liberty now vouchsased is an Act of Grace issuing from the supream Magistrate an 〈…〉 not a claim of Right in the people And as to r 〈…〉 cited expressions of the King they are onl 〈…〉 a papal trick whereby to keep up heats an 〈…〉 animosities among Protestants when both th 〈…〉 inward heats of men are much allay'd and th 〈…〉 external Provocations to them are wholly removed and they are meerly Iesuitick method's by which our hatred of one another may b 〈…〉 maintained tho the Laws inabling one part 〈…〉 to persecure the other which was the chie 〈…〉 spring of all our mutual rancour and bitterness be suspended It would be the sport and glory of the Ignatian Order to be able to make the disabling of penal Laws as effectual to the supporting differences among Protestants a◠the Enacting and rigorous execution of them was to the first raising and the continuing them afterwards for many years And if the foregoing Topicks can furnish the King arguments whereby to reproach the Church of England when he thinks it seasonable and for the interest of Rome to be angry with them I dare affirm he will never want pretences of being discontented with of aspersing Fanaticks when he finds the doing so to be for the service of the papal cause And if the forementioned instances of his Majesties behaviour to the Church of England to which he stands so superlatively obliged be neither Testimonies of his ingenuity evidences of his Gratitude nor effects of common much less Royal justice yet what remains to be intimated do's carry more visible marks of 〈…〉 malice and design both against the le 〈…〉 established Church and our Religion For 〈…〉 ing satisfied with the suspension of all 〈◊〉 Laws by which Protestants and they 〈◊〉 the national Communion might seem to be 〈…〉 urious to Papists in their persons and E 〈…〉 tes such as the Laws which make those 〈…〉 ho shall be
are aware of and that having proceeded so far they have nothing left for their security from punishments because of crimes committed but to put us out of all capacity of doing our selves Right and them justice and he must be 〈…〉 ll who do's not know into what that must necessarily hurry them It being then as evident as a matter of this nature is capable of what we are to expect and dread from the King both as to our Religion and Laws we may do more than presume that the late Declaration for liberty of conscience and the Proclamation for a Toleration are not intended and designed for the benefit and advantage of the Reformed Religion and that whatsoever motives have influenced to the granting and emitting of them they do not in the least flow or proceed from any kindness and goodwill to Protestant Dissenters And tho many of those weak and easie people may flatter themselves with a belief of an interest in the Kings favour and suffer others to delude them into a perswasion of his bearing a gracious respect towards them yet it is certain that they are people in the world whom he most hates and who when things are ripe for it and that he hath abused their credulity into a serving his Ends as far as they can be prevailed upon and as long as the present Juggle can be of any advantage for promoting the papal cause will be sure not only to have an equal share in his displeasure with their Brethren of the Church of England but will be made to drink deepest in the cup of fury and wrath that is mingling and preparing for all Protestants No provocation from their present behaviour tho it is such as might warm a person of very cool temper much less offences of another complexion administred by any of them shall ever tempt me to say they deserve it or cause me to ravel into their former and past carriages so as to fasten a blott or imputation upon the party or body of them whatsoever I may be forced to do as to particular persons among them For as to the generality I do believe them to be as honest industrious useful and vertuous a people tho many of them be none of the wisest nor of the greatest pr 〈…〉 spect as any party of men in the Kingdo 〈…〉 and that wherein soever their carriage eve 〈…〉 abstracting from their differences with thei 〈…〉 fellow Protestants in matters of Religion hath varied from that of other Subjects they have been in the Right and have acte 〈…〉 most agreeably to the interest safety of th 〈…〉 Kingdom But it can be no reflection upo 〈…〉 them to recall into their memories tha 〈…〉 the whole tenor of the Kings actings towards them both when Duke of York and since he came to the Crown hath been such 〈◊〉 might render it beyond dispute that the 〈…〉 are so far from having any singular room i 〈…〉 his favour that he bears them neither pit 〈…〉 nor compassion but that they are the objects of his unchangeable indignation Fo 〈…〉 not to mention how the persecutions tha 〈…〉 were observed alway's to relent both upon his being at any distance from the late Kingâ— and upon the abatement of his influence 〈◊〉 any time into Counsels were constantl 〈…〉 revived upon his return to Court and wer 〈…〉 carried on in degrees of severity proportionable to the figure he made at Whitehall an 〈…〉 his Brothers disposedness and inclination t 〈…〉 hearken to him surely their memories can not be so weak and untenacious but the 〈…〉 must remember how their sufferings wer 〈…〉 never greater nor the Laws executed wit 〈…〉 more severity upon them than since hi 〈…〉 Majesty came to ascend the Throne As it is no 〈…〉 many years since he said publickly in Scotland that it were well if all that part of th 〈…〉 Kingdom which is above half of the Nation where the Dissenters were known t 〈…〉 be most numerous were turned into a hunti 〈…〉 field so none were favoured and promote 〈…〉 either there or in England but such as wer 〈…〉 taken to be the most fierce and violent of a 〈…〉 others against Fanaticks Nor were me preferred either in Church or State for the learning vertu ' or merit but for the passionate heats and brutal rigours to Dissenters And whereas the Papists from the ve 〈…〉 first day of his arrival at the Governmen 〈…〉 had beside many other marks of his Grac 〈…〉 〈…〉 s special Testimony of it of not having 〈…〉 e penal Statutes to which they stood liable 〈…〉 t in execution against them all the Laws 〈◊〉 which the Dissenters were obnoxious â—ere by his Majesties Orders to the Judges 〈…〉 stices of the peace and all other Officers 〈…〉 vil and Ecclesiastical most unmercifully exe 〈…〉 ted Nor was there the least talk of lenity Dissenters till the King found that he 〈…〉 uld not compass his Ends by the Church of 〈…〉 gland and prevail upon the Parliament 〈…〉 r Repealing the Tests and cancelling the 〈…〉 her Laws in force against Papists which if 〈…〉 ey could have been wrought over unto 〈…〉 e Fanaticks would not only have been left 〈…〉 ttiless and continued in the hands of the 〈…〉 rious Church-men to exercise their spleen 〈…〉 pon but would have been surrendred as a 〈…〉 crifice to new flames of wrath if they of 〈…〉 e prelatical Communion had retained 〈…〉 eir wonted animosity and thought it for 〈…〉 eir interest to exert it either in the old or 〈◊〉 fresh method's But that project not sucâ—eeding his Majesty is forced to shift hands 〈…〉 d to use the pretence of extending comâ—assion to Dissenting Protestants that he may â—he more plausibly and with the less hazard â—â—spend and disable the Laws against Papists â—nd make way for their admission into all â—ffices Civil and Military which is the first 〈…〉 ep and all that he is yet in a condition to 〈…〉 ke for the subversion of our Religion And â—ll the celebrated kindness to Fanaticks is â—nly to use them as the Catt's paw for â—ulling the Chesnut out of the fire to the Monkey and to make them stales under whose â—hroud and covert the Church of Rome may undermine and subvert all the legal foundations of our Religion which to suffer themselves to be instrumental in will not in the issue turn to the commendation of the Dissenters wisdom or their honesty Nor is there more truth in the Kings declaring it to have been his constant opinion that conscience ought not to be constrained nor people forced in matters of meer Religion than there is of justice in that malicious insinuation in his Letter to Mr. Alsop against the Church of England that should he see cause to change his Religion he should never be of that party of Protestants who think the only way to advance their Church is by undoing those Churches of Christians that differ from them in smaller matters forasmuch as he
people to enter into the Comâ—union of the Church of Rome He expects 〈◊〉 have his Will immediately conformed â—nto and not to be disputed or controlled â—ut lest what we are to expect from the â—ing as to the extirpation of the Reformed â—eligion and the inflicting the utmost Seveâ—ties upon his Protestant Subjects that Papal â—ge armed with power can inable him unâ—â— may not so fully appear from what hath â—een already intimated as either to awaâ—en the Dissenters out of the Lethargy into which the late Delaration hath cast them or 〈◊〉 quicken those of the Church of England to â—hat zealous care vigilancy and use of all Lawful means for preserving themselves â—nd the Protestant Religion that the impenâ—ent danger wherewith they are threatned â—equires at their hands I shall give that farmer Confirmation of it from Topicks and motives of Credibility Moral Political and â—istorical as may serve to place it in the â—rightest light and fullest evidence that a â—atter future and yet to come which is onâ—â— the object of our prospect and dread and â—ot of our feeling and experience is capaâ—le of It ought to be of weight upon the minds â—f all English Protestants that the King of â—eat Brittain is not only an open and avowed â—apist but as most Apostates use to be a â—ery Bigot in the Romish Religion and who 〈◊〉 the Leige Letter from a Jesuite to a Broâ—â—er of the Order tells us is resolved either to convert England to Popery or to die a Martyr Nor were the Iewish zealots of whose rageful transports Iosephus gives us so ample an account nor the Dervises among the Turks and Indians of whose mad attempts so many Histories make mention more brutal in their fanatical Heats than a Popish Bigot useth to be when favoured with advantages of exerting his animosity against those who differ from him if he be not carefully watched against and restrained Beside the innumerable instances of the Tragical Effects of Romish Bigottry that are to be met with in Books of all kinds we need go no further for an evidence of it than to consult the Life of Dominick the great Instigator and Promoter of the Massacre of the Waldenses and the Founder of that Order which hath the Management of the bloody Inquisition together with the Life of Henry the third of France who contrary to the advice of Maximilian the Emperor and the repeated intreaties of the wisest of his own Councellors the Chancellor de l'Hospital and the President de Thou not only revived the War and Persecution against his Reformed Subjects after he had seen what Judgments the like proceedings had derived upon his Predecessors and how prejudicial they had proved to the Strength Glory and Interest of his Crown and Kingdom but he entred into a League with those that sought to depress abdicate and depose him and became the Head of a Faction for the destroying that part of his Subjects upon whom alone he could rely for the defence of his person and support of his Dignity Nor were the Furies of the Duke de Alva heretofore or the present Barbarities of Louis the Fourteenth so much the effects of their haughtie and furious tempers as of their Bigottry in their inhumane and sanguinary Religion That the King of England is second to none in a blind and rageful Popish Zeal his behaviour both while a Subject and since he arrived at the Crown doth not only place it beyond the limits of a bare suspition but affords us such evidences of it as that none in consistency with principles of wisdom and discretion can either question or contradict it To what else can we ascribe it but to an excessive Bigottry that when the Frigat wherein he was sailing to Scotland anno 1682. struck upon the Sands and was ready to sink he should prefer the Lives of one or two pittiful Priests to those of men of the greatest Quality and receive those mushrom's into the Boat in which himself escaped while at the same time he refused to admit not only his own Brother-in-Law but divers Noblemen of the Supreamest Rank and Character to the benefit of the same means of deliverance and suffered them to perish tho they had undertaken that Voyage out of pure respect to his person and to put an Honor upon him at a Season when he wanted not Enemies Nor can it proceed from any thing but a violent and furious Bigottry that he should not only disoblige and disgust the two Universities of whose Zeal to his service he hath received so many seasonable and effectual Testimonies but to the violation both of the Laws of God and the Kingdom offer force to their Consciences as well as to their Rights and Franchises and all this in favour of Father Francis whom he would illegally thrust into a Fellowship in Cambridg and of Mr. Farmer whom he would arbitrarily obtrude into the Headship of a Colledg in Oxford who as they are too despicable to be owned and stood for in competition against two famous Universities whose greatest crime hath been an excess of zeal for his person and interest when he was Duke of York and a measure of Loyalty and Obedience unto him since he came to the Crown beyond what either the Rules of Christianity or the Laws of the Kingdom exact from them so he hath way's enough of expressing kindness and bounty to those two little contemptable Creatures and that in methods as beneficial to them as the places into which he would thrust them can be supposed to amount unto and I am sure with less scandal to himself and less offence to all Protestants as well as without offering inj 〈…〉 to the Rights of the University or of coâ— pelling those learned grave and vene 〈…〉 ble men to perjure themselves and act 〈◊〉 gainst their Duties and Consciences T 〈…〉 late proceedings towards Dr. Burnet a 〈…〉 not only contrary to all the measures of Jâ— stice Law and Honor but argue a stran 〈…〉 and furious Bigottry in His Majesty for Po 〈…〉 ry there being nothing else into which 〈◊〉 man can resolve the whole tenor of his prâ— sent Actings against Him. Seeing setting 〈◊〉 side the Doctor 's being a Protestant and a Mâ— nister of the Church of England and his havinâ— vindicated the Reformation in England froâ— the Calumnies and slanders wherewith 〈◊〉 was aspersed by Sanders others of the Roman Communion and the approving himself in some other Writings worthy of thâ— Character of a Reformed Divine and of thaâ— esteem which the World entertains of him for knowledg in History and all other part 〈…〉 of good learning there hath nothing occurred in the whole tenor and trace of hiâ— Life but what instead of Rebuke and Censure hath merited acknowledgments and the Retributions of Favour and Prefermenâ— from the Court. Whosoever considers his constant Preaching up passive Obedience to such a degree and height as he hath done May very well be surprised at the whole method of
I shall not mention would have taken so many bold wide and illegal stepps for the supplanting our Religion and Laws and for the introduction and establishment of Popery and Tyranny and this not only to the losing and disobliging his former Votaries and Partizans but to the strange allarming and disgusting most persons of honor quality and interest in the three Kingdoms were he not beside the being under the sway of his own Bigottry and the strong ballance of a large measure of ill nature bound by ties of implicite obedience to the Commands of that extravagant and furious Society to the promoting of whose passions and malice rather than his own safety and glory or the lasting benefit of the Roman Catholicks themselves the whole course of his Government hitherto seems to have been shapen and adapted The occasion and subject of the late contest between him and the Pope which hath made so great a noise not only at Rome but thro all Europe may serve to convince us both of the Extraordinary zeal he hath for the Society and of the transcendent power they have over him and that 't is no wonder he should exact an obedience without reserve from his Subjects in Scotland seeing he himself yields an obedience without reserve to the Iesuites 'T is known how that by the Rules of their Institution no Iesuite is capable of the Myter and that if the Ambition of any of them should tempt him to seek or accept the dignity of a Prelate he must for being capacitated thereunto renounce his Membership in the Order Yet so great is His Majesties passion for the Honor and Grandure of the Society and such is their domination and absolute power over him that no less will serve him neither would they allow him to insist upon less than that the Pope should dispense with Father Peters being made a Bishop without his ceasing to be a Iesuite or the being transplanted into another Order And this the old Gentleman at Rome hath been forced at last to comply with and to grant a Dispensation whereby Father Peters shall be capable of the Prelature notwithstanding his remaining in the Ignatian Order the Iesuites thro their Authority over the King not suffering him to recede from his demand and His Majesties zeal for the Society not permitting him to comply either with the prayers or the Conscience and Honour of the Supream Pontiff Not only the Kings unthankfulness unto but his illegal proceedings against and his arbitrary invading the Rights of those who stood by him in all his dangers and difficulties and who were the Instruments oâ— preventing his exclusion from the Crown and the Chief means both of his advanc 〈…〉 ment to the Throne and his being kept in are so many new evidences of the ill w 〈…〉 he bears to all Protestants and what they a to dread from him as occasions are admin 〈…〉 stred of injuring and oppressing them a 〈…〉 may serve to convince all impartial a 〈…〉 thinking people that his Popish malice to o 〈…〉 Religion is too strong for all principles of H 〈…〉 nor and Gratitude and able to cancel t 〈…〉 Obligations which Friendship for his pers 〈…〉 and service to his interest may be suppos 〈…〉 to have laid him under to any heretofor Had it not been for many of the Church 〈◊〉 England who stood up with a zeal and v 〈…〉 gour for preserving the succession in t 〈…〉 right line beyond what Religion co 〈…〉 science Reason or Interest could co 〈…〉 duct them unto he had never been able 〈◊〉 have out-wrestled the endeavours of thr 〈…〉 Parliaments for excluding him from the I 〈…〉 perial Crown of England and had it n 〈…〉 been for their abetting and standing by 〈◊〉 with their swords in their hands upon th 〈…〉 Duke of Monmouth's descent into the Kingdom anno 1685. he could nothave avoid 〈…〉 the being driven from the Throne and th 〈…〉 having the Scepter wrested out of his hanâ— Whosoever had the advantage of knowin 〈…〉 the temper and genius of the late King an 〈…〉 how affray'd he was of embarking into an 〈…〉 thing that might import a visible hazard t 〈…〉 the peace of his Government and dra 〈…〉 after it a general disgust of his person wi 〈…〉 be soon satisfied that if all his Protestant Subjects had united in their desires and coâ— curred in their endeavoures to have ha 〈…〉 the Duke of York debarred from the Crow 〈…〉 that his late Majesty would not have onâ— scrupled the complying with it and th 〈…〉 his Love to his dear Brother would havâ— given way to the apprehension and fear 〈◊〉 forfeiting a love for himself in the hear 〈…〉 of his people especially when what wa 〈…〉 required of him was not an invasion upoâ— the fundamentals of the constitution of th 〈…〉 English Monarchy nor dissonant from th 〈…〉 practice of the Nation in many repeated i 〈…〉 stances Nor can there be a greater evidence 〈◊〉 the present Kings ill nature Romish Bi 〈…〉 ry and prodigious ingratitude as well 〈◊〉 of the design he is carrying on against our 〈…〉 ligion and Laws than his carriage and be 〈…〉 viour towards the Church of England tho 〈◊〉 cannot but acknowledg it a righteous 〈…〉 gment upon them from God and a just 〈…〉 nishment for their being not only so un 〈…〉 ncerned for the preservation of our Reli 〈…〉 n and liberties in avoiding to close with 〈…〉 e only methods that were adapted there 〈…〉 to but for being so passionate and indu 〈…〉 ious to hasten the loss of them thro put 〈…〉 g the Government into ones hands who 〈…〉 s they might have foreseen would be 〈…〉 e to make a sacrifice of them to his belo 〈…〉 d Popery and to his inordinate lust after 〈…〉 spotical and arbitrary power And as the 〈…〉 ly example bearing any affinity to it is 〈…〉 t of Louis the 14 th who in recompence to 〈◊〉 Protestant Subjects for maintaining him 〈◊〉 the Throne when the late Prince of Con 〈…〉 assisted by Papists would have wrested the 〈…〉 own from him hath treated them with Barbarity whereof that of Aâ—â—iochus to 〈…〉 ards the Jews and that of Diocletian and 〈…〉 aximian towards the primitive Christians 〈…〉 ere but scanty and impersect draughts so 〈…〉 ere wants nothing for compleating the pa 〈…〉 lel between England and France but a little 〈…〉 ore time and a fortunate opportunity and 〈…〉 en the deluded Church men will find that 〈…〉 er Peters is no less skilful at Whitehall for 〈…〉 nsforming their acts of loyalty and merit 〈…〉 wards the King into crimes and motives 〈◊〉 their ruin than Pere de là Chaise hath shewn 〈…〉 mself at Versailles where by an Art peculiar 〈◊〉 the Iesuites he hath improved the loyalty 〈…〉 zeal of the Reformed in France for the house 〈◊〉 Bourbon into a reason of alienating that 〈…〉 onarch from them and into a ground of 〈◊〉 destroying that dutiful and obedient
found to have taken Orders in 〈…〉 e Church of Rome obnoxious to death or 〈…〉 ose other Statutes by which the King hath 〈…〉 ower Authority for levying two thirds of 〈…〉 eir Estates that shall be convicted of Recu 〈…〉 cy but by an usurped prerogative and an Absolute power he is pleased to suspend all 〈…〉 e Laws by which they were only disabled 〈…〉 rom hurting us thro standing precluded 〈…〉 rom places of power and trust in the Government So that the whole security we have in time to come for our Religion depends upon the temperate disposition and good nature of those Roman Catholicks that shall be advanced to Offices and Employments and does no longer bear upon the protection and support of the Law and I think we have not had that experience of grace and favour from Papists as may give us 〈…〉 just confidence of fair and candid treatment from them for the future Now that we may be the better convinced how little security we have from his Majesties promise in his Declaration of his protecting the Arch Bishops Bishops and Clergy and all other his subjects of the Church of England in the free exercise of their Religion as by Law established and in the quiet and full enjoyment of their possessions without any molestation or disturbance whatsoever which is all the Tenour that is left us 't is not unworthy of observation how that beside the suspending the Bishop of London ab Officio and the Vice Chanceller of Cambridg both ab Officio and Beneficio and this not only for Actions which the Laws of God and the Kingdom make their duty but thro a sentence inflicted upon them by no legal Court of Judicature but by five or six mercinary persons supported by a Tyrannous and Arbitrary Commission his Majesty in his Proclamation for Toleration in Scotland â—earing date the 12. of February doth among many other Laws cass disable and dispense with the Law enjoining the Scots Test tho it was not only enacted by himself while he represented his Brother as his high Commissioner but hath been confirmed by him in Parliament since he came to the Crown Surely it is as easie to depart from a promise made in a Declaration as 't is to absolve and discharge himself from the obligation of a Law which he first concurred to the enacting of and gave the creating Fiat unto as the late Kings Commissioner and hath since ratified in Parliament after he was come to the Throne As there is no more infidelity dishonor and injustice so there is less of absolute power and illegality in doing the one than the other Nor is it possible for a rational man to place a confidence in his Majesties Royal word for the protection of our Religion and the Church of England men's enjoying their possessions seeing he hath not only departed from his promise made to the Council immediately after his Brothers death but hath violated his Faith given to the Parliament of England at their first Session which we might have thought would have been the more sacred and binding by reason of the grandure state and quality of the Assembly to which it was pledged If we consider how much protestants suffered what number of them was burnt at the stake as well as murderd in Goals beside the vast multitudes who to avoid the rage and power of their Enemies were forced to abandon their Countrey and seek for shelter in forraign parts and what endeavoures of all kinds were used for the Extirpation of our Religion under QueenMary we may gather and learn from thence what is to be dreaded from James the II. who is the next popish Prince to her that since the Reformation hath sat on the Throne of England For tho there be many things that administer grounds of hope that the Papists will not find it so easie a matter to bring us in shoals to the stake nor of that quick and easie dispatch to suppress the protestant Religion and set up Popery at this time as they found it then yer every thing that occurs to our thoughts or that can affect our understandings serves not only to persuade us into a belief that they will set upon and endeavour it but to work us up to an assurance that his Majesty would take it for a di 〈…〉 ution of his glory as well as reflection upon his zeal for the Church of Rome not to attempt what a woman had both the courage to undertake and the fortune to go thro with And there is withal a concurrence of so many things both abroad and at home at this juncture which if laid in the ballance with the motives to our hope of the papists miscarrying may justly raise our fears of their prospering to a very sad and uncomfortable height Whosoever shall compare these two Princes together will find that there was less danger to be apprehended from Mary and that not only upon the score of her Sex but by reason of a certain gentleness and goodness of nature which all Historians of judgment and credit ascribe unto her than is to be expected from the present King in whom a sourness of temper fierceness of disposition and pride joined with a peevishness of humour not to bear the having his will disputed or controlled are the principal ingredients into his Constitution and which are all strangely heightned and enflamed by contracted distempers of Body and thro furious principles of mind which he hath imbib'd from the Iesuites who of all men carry the obligations arising from the Doctrines of the popish Religion to the most outragious and inhumane excesses Nor can I forbear to add that whereas the cruelty which that Princess was hurried into even to the making her Cities common shambles and her streets Theatres of murder for innocent persons for which she became hated while she lived and her memory is rendred infamous to all Generations that come after was wholly and entirely owing to her Religion which not only proclaims it lawful but a necessary duty of Christianity and an act meriting a peculiar Crown of Glory in heaven to destroy Hereticks 't is to be feared there will be found in the present King a spice of revenge against us as we are Englishmen as well as a measu 〈…〉 heap't up and running over of furious 〈◊〉 zeal against us as we are Protestants 〈◊〉 the wrath he bears unto us for our depar 〈…〉 from the Communion of the Romish Chu 〈…〉 and our rebellion against the triple Crow 〈…〉 the war wherein many of the Kingdom wer 〈…〉 engaged against his Father and the issue of it in the execution of that Monarch is what he hath been heard to say that he hopes to revenge upon the Nation And all that the City of London underwent thro that dreadful conflagration 1666. of which he was the great Author and Promoter as well as the Rescuer and Protector of the Varlets that were apprehended in their spreading and
is in â—â—e mean time a member of the most persecuting and bloody Society that ever was cloathed with the name of a Church and whose cruelty towards Protestants he is careful not to arraign by fastning his offence at severity upon differences in smaller matters which he knows that those between Rome and us are not nor so accounted of by any of the papal Fellowship It were to be wished that the Dissenters would reflect and consider how when the late King had emitted a Declaration of Indulgence anno 1672. upon pretended motives of tenderness and compassion to his Protestant Subjects but in truth to keep all quiet at home when in conjunction with France he was engaging in an unjust war against a Reformed State abroad and in order to steal a liberty for the Papists to practice their Idolatries without incurring a suspition himself of being of the Romish Religion and in hope to wind up the prerogative to a paramount power over the law and how when the Parliament condemned the illegality of it and would have the Declaration recalled all his Kindness to Dissenters not only immediately vanished but turned into that Rage and fury that tho both that Parliament addressed for some favour to be shew'd them and another voted it a betraying of the Pretestant Religion to continue the execution of the penal laws upon them yet instead of their having any mercy or moderation exercised towards them they were thrown into a Furnace made seven times hotter than that wherein they had been scorched before And without pretending to be a Prophet I dare prognosticate and foretel that whensoever the present King hath compassed the Ends unto which this Declaration is designed to be subservient namely the placing the Papists both in the open exercise of their Religion and in all publick Offices and Trusts and the getting a power to be acknowledged vested in him over the Laws that then instead of the still voice calmly whispered from Whitehall they will both hear and feel the blasts of a mighty rushing wind and that upon pretended occasions arising from the abuse of this Indulgence or for some alledged crimes wherein they and all other Protestants are to be involved tho their supiness and excess of Loyalty continue to be their greatest offences this liberty will not only be withdrawn and the old Church of England severities revived but some of the new à là mode à France treatments come upon the stage and be pursued against them and all other perverse and obstinate British Hereticks The Declaration for liberty of Conscience being injurious to the Church of England and not proceeding from any inward and real good will to the Dissenters it will be worth our pains to inquire into and make a more ample deduction of the Reasons upon which it was granted that the grounds of emitting it being laid under every man's view they who have Addressed may come to be asham'd of their simplicity and folly they who have not may be farther confirmed both of the unlawfulness and inconveniency of doing it and that all who preserve any regard to the protestant Religion and the Laws of England may be quickned to the use of all legal and due means for preventing the mischievous effects which it is shapen for and which the Papists do promise themselves from it The motives upon which his Majesty published the Declaration may be reduced to three of which as I have already made some mention so I shall now place every one of them in its several and proper light and give such proofs and evidence of their being the great and sole inducements for the Emitting of it that no rational man shall be able henceforth to make a doubt of it The first is the Kings winding himself into a Supremacy and Absoluteness over the Law and the getting it acknowledged and calmly submitted unto and acquiesced in by the Subjects The Monarchies being legal and not Despotical bounded and regulat 〈…〉 by Laws and not to be exercised accoâ—ding to meer will and pleasure was th 〈…〉 which he could not digest the though 〈…〉 of when a Subject and had been hea 〈…〉 to say that he had rather Reign a day in th 〈…〉 absoluteness that the French King doth th 〈…〉 an Age tied up and restrained by Rules as 〈…〉 Brother did And therefore to persuade t 〈…〉 Prince of Orange to approve what He h 〈…〉 done in dispensing with the Laws and 〈…〉 obtain Him and the Princess to join wi 〈…〉 his Majesty and to employ their inter 〈…〉 in the Kingdom for the Repealing the T 〈…〉 Acts and the many other Statutes ma 〈…〉 against Roman Catholicks he used this Argâ—ment in a Message he sent to their Roy 〈…〉 Highnesses upon that errand that the ge 〈…〉 ting it done would be greatly to the aâ—vantage and for the increase of the prorog 〈…〉 tive but this these two noble Prince 〈…〉 of whose ascent to the Throne all Prâ—testants have so near and comfortable prospect were too generous as well 〈…〉 wise to be wheedled with as knowin 〈…〉 that the Authority of the Kings and Quee 〈…〉 of England is great enough by the Rul 〈…〉 of the Constitution without grasping at new prerogative power which as the La 〈…〉 have not vested in them so it would b 〈…〉 of no use but to inable them to do hur 〈…〉 And indeed it is more necessary both fo 〈…〉 the honor and safety of the Monarch an 〈…〉 for the freedom and security of the peopl 〈…〉 that the prerogative should be confined withi 〈…〉 its ancient and legal Channels than be left t 〈…〉 that illimited and unbounded latitude whic 〈…〉 the late King and his present Majesty have eâ—deavoured to advance and screw it up unto 〈…〉 That both the Declaration for liberty of Coâ—science in England and the Proclamation for Toleration in Scotland are calculated for raâ—sing the Soveraign Authority to a transceâ—dent Power over the Laws of the two Kingdoms may be demonstrated from the Papers themselves which lay the Dispensin 〈…〉 Power before us in terms that import n 〈…〉 less than his Majesties standing free an 〈…〉 solved from all ties and restraints and 〈◊〉 being cloathed with a Right of doing â—hatsoever he will. For if the Stile of 〈…〉 yal Pleasure to suspend the execution of 〈…〉 ch and such Laws and to forbid such 〈…〉 d such Oaths to be required to be taken 〈…〉 d this in the virtu ' of no Authority decla 〈…〉 d by the Laws to be resident in his Ma 〈…〉 sty but in the virtu ' of a certain vagrant 〈…〉 d indeterminate thing called Royal prero 〈…〉 tive as the power exercised in the English â—eclaration is worded and expressed be not 〈…〉 ough to enlighten us sufficiently in the 〈…〉 atter before us the Stile of Absolute Power â—hich all the Subjects are to obey without reâ—â—rve whereby the King is pleased to chalk â—efore us the Authority exerted in the
the Laws of Christ when they are found to interfere with what is required by the King. But whether Gods Power or the Kings be superior and which of the two can cassate the others Laws and whose wrath is most terrible the judgment day will be able and sure to instruct them if all means in this world prove insufficient for it The Addressers know upon what conditions they hold their Liberty and they have not only observed how several of the National Clergy have been treated for preaching against Popery but they have heard how divers of the Reformed Ministers in France before the general suppression were dealt with for speaking against their Monarchs Religion and therefore they must be pardoned if they carry so as not to provoke his Majesty tho in the mean time thro their â—â—lence they both betray the Cause of their Lord and Master and are unfaithful to the Soules of those of whom they have taken upon them the spiritual guidance As for the Papers themselves that are stiled by the name of Addresses I shall not meddle with them being as to the greatest part of them fitter to be exposed and ridicul'd either for their dulness and pedantry or for the adulation and sycophancy with which they are fulsomly stuffâ— than to deserve any serious consideration or to merit reflections that may prove instructive to Mankind Only as that Address wherein his Majesty is thanked for his restoring God to his Empire over Conscience deserveth a rebuke for its blasphemy so that other which commends him for promising to force the Parliament to raâ—iâ—y his Declaration tho by the way all he says is that he does not doubt of their concurrence which yet his ill succ 〈…〉 upon the closetting of so many Member 〈…〉 and his since Dissolving that Parliament shews that there was some cause for the doub 〈…〉 ting of it I say that other Address merits severe Censure for its insolency against th 〈…〉 legislative Authority And the Authors of 〈◊〉 ought to be punished for their crime com 〈…〉 mitted against the Liberty and Freedom 〈◊〉 the two Houses and for encouraging th 〈…〉 King to invade and subvert their most essen 〈…〉 tial and fundamental Priviledges and withou 〈…〉 which they can neither be a Council Judi 〈…〉 cature nor Lawgivers After all I hope the Nation will be so in 〈…〉 genuous as not to impute the miscarriages 〈◊〉 some of the nonconformists to the whole part 〈…〉 much less to ascribe them to the principles o 〈…〉 Dissenters For as the points wherein the 〈…〉 differ from the Church of England are purel 〈…〉 of another Nature and which have no re 〈…〉 lation to Politicks so the influence that the 〈…〉 are adapted to have upon men as member 〈…〉 of Civil Societies is to make them in a specia 〈…〉 manner regardful of the Rights and Fran 〈…〉 chises of the Community But if some nei 〈…〉 ther understand the tendency of their ow 〈…〉 principles nor are true and faithful unto them these things are the personal faults of thos 〈…〉 men and are to be attributed to their ig 〈…〉 norance or to their dishonesty nor are thei 〈…〉 carriages to be counted the effects of thei 〈…〉 Religious Tenets much less are others of the party to be involved under the reproach an 〈…〉 guilt of their imprudent and ill conduct 〈…〉 Which there is the more cause to acknow 〈…〉 ledg because tho the Church of England ha 〈…〉 all the reason of the World to decline Addressing in that all her legal Foundation a 〈…〉 well as Security is shaken by the Declaration yet there are some of her Dignitaries and C 〈…〉 gy as well as divers of the Members of he 〈…〉 Communion who upon motives of Ambition Covetousness Fear or Courtship hav 〈…〉 enrolled themselves into the Liâ—â— of Addre 〈…〉 sers and under pretence of giving thanks 〈◊〉 the King for his promise of protecting 〈◊〉 Arch-Bishops Bishops and Clergy and a 〈…〉 〈…〉 erof the Church of England in the free Exer 〈…〉 of their Religion as by Law established 〈…〉 ve cut the throat of their Mother at 〈…〉 ose breasts they have suckt till they are 〈…〉 own fat both by acknowledging the usur 〈…〉 prerogative upon which the King assumes 〈◊〉 Right and Authority of Emitting the De 〈…〉 ration and by exchanging the legal standâ—â—g and Security of their Church into that 〈…〉 ecarious one of the Royal word which 〈…〉 ey fly unto as the bottom of her Subsistence 〈…〉 d trust to as the wall of her defence And 〈◊〉 most of the Members of the Separate So 〈…〉 ties are free from all accession to Ad 〈…〉 essing and the few that concurred were 〈…〉 eerly drawn in by the wheedle and impor 〈…〉 nity of their Preachers so they who are 〈◊〉 the chiefest Character and greatest repu 〈…〉 tion for Wisdom and Learning among 〈…〉 e Ministers have preserved themselves 〈…〉 om all folly and treachery of that kind The Apostle tells us that not many wise not â—any noble are called which as it is verified 〈◊〉 many of the Dissenting Addressers so it â—ay serve for some kind of Apology for their 〈…〉 ow and sneaking as well as for their in 〈…〉 iscret and imprudent behaviour in this matâ—er And it is the more venial in some of â—hem as being not only a means of ingra 〈…〉 iating themselves as they phansie with â—he King who heretofore had no very good â—pinion of them but as being both an easie â—nd compendious method of Attoning for Offences against the Crown of which they were strongly suspected and a cheap and expenceless way of purchasing the pardon of their Relations that had stood actually 〈…〉 ccused of high Treason Nor is it to be doubted but that as the King will retain very little favour and mercy for Fanaticks when once he has served his Ends upon them so they will preserve as little kindness for the Papists if they can but obtain relief in a legal way And as there is not a people in the Kingdom that will be more 〈…〉 oyal to Princes while they continue so to govern as that fealty by the Laws of God 〈…〉 or man remains due to them so there are none of what principles or communion soever upon whom the Kingdom it its whole interest come to ly at stake may more assuredly and with greater confidence depend than upon the generality of Dissenting Protestants and especially upon those that are not of the Pastoral Order The severities that the Dissenters lay under before and their deliverance from oppression and disturbance now seconded with the Kings expectation and demands of thanksgiving Addresses were strong temptations upon men void of generosity and greatness of spirit and who are withall of no great Political Wisdom nor of prospect into the Consequences of Councils and tricks of State to act as illegally in their thanks as His Majesty had done in his bounty So that whatsoever animadversion they may
REPRESENTATION Of The Threatning Dangers Impending Over PROTESTANTS In GREAT BRITTAIN With an Account of the Arbitrary and Popish Ends unto which the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in England and the Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland are designed Neque enim satis amarint bonos Principes qui malos satis non oderint Plin. in Panegyr c. 53. Sedem obtinet Principis ue sit Domino locus id ibid. c. 55. Tantum tibi licet quantum per leges licebit Pacat. ad Theodos. August THey are great strangers to the Transactions of the World who know not how many and various the attempts of the Papists have been both to hinder all endeavours towards a Reformation to overthrow and subvert it where it hath obtained and prevailed For beside the innumerable Executions and Murders committed by means of the Inquisition to crush and stiffle the Reformed Religion in its rise and birth and to prevent its succeeding and settlement in Spain Italy and many other Territories there is no Kingdom or State where it hath so far prevailed as to come to be universally received and legally established but it hath been through strange and wonderful conflicts with the rage and malice of the Church of Rome The Persecutions which the Primitive Christians underwent by vertu ' of the Edicts of the Pagan Emperoâ—s were not more sanguinary and cruel than what through the Laws and Ordinances of Popish Princes have been inflicted upon those who have testified against the Heresies Superstitions and Idolatries and have withdrawn from the Communion of the Papal Church Nor were the Martyrs that suffered for the Testimony of Jesus against Heathenism either more numerous or worthier of esteem for vertu ' Iustice and Piety than they who have been slaughtered upon no other pretence but for Endeavouring to restore the Christian Religion to the simplicity and purity of its Divine and first Institution and to recover it from the corruptions wherewith it was become universally tainted in Doctrine Worship and Discipline How have all the Nations in Europe been soak't with the Blood of Saints through the Barbarous Rage of Popish Rulers whom the Roman Bishops and Clergy stirred up and instigated in order to support themselves in their secular grandure and in their Tyranny over the Consciences of men and to keep the World in Slavery under Ignorance Errors Superstition and Idolatry which the reducing Christianity again to the Rule of the Gospel would have redeemed mankind from and been an effectual means to have dissipated and subverted They of the Roman Communion having strangely corrupted the Christian Religion in its Faith Worship and Discipline and having prodigiously altered it from what it was in the Doctrines and Institutions of our Saviour and his Apostles they found no other way whereby to sustain their Errors and Corruptions and to preserve themselves in the possession of that Empire which they had usurped over Conscience and in the enjoyment of the Wealth and secular Greatness which by working upon the Ignorance Superstition Lusts and Prophanness of People they had skrewed and wound themselves into but by adjudging all who durst detect or oppose them to fire and Sword or to miseries to which Death in its worst shape were preferrable Nor have they for the better obstructing the growth and compassing the Extirpation of the Reformed Religion omitted either the Arts and Subtlities of Julian or the Fury and Violence of Galâ—rius and Diâ—cletian Whosoever hath not observed the Craft and Rage that have been employed and exerted against Protestants for these 170. Years must have been very little Conversant in Histories and strangely overlook't the conduct of affaires in the World and the Transactions in Churches and States during their own time And tho the Papists do not think it fit to put their Maxim's for preserving the Catholick Religion and converting Hereticks in Execution at all times and in every place yet some of their Writers are so ingenuous as to tell us the reason of it and that they do not forbear it upon Principles of Christianity or good Nature but upon motives of Policy and Fear lest the cutting one of our Throats might endanger two of their own However they have been careful not to suffer a period of twenty years to elapse since the beginning of the Reformation without affording us in some place or another renewed evidences of Papal Charity and of the Roman method of hindring the growth of Heresie either by a Massacre War or Persecution begun and executed upon no other account or provocation but meerly that of our Religion and because we cannot believe and practice in the matters of God as they do And having obtained of late great Advantages for the pursuing their malice against us more boldly and avowedly than at an other Season and that not only through a strange concurrence and conjunction of Princes in the Papal Communion who are more intoxicated with their Superstitions and Idolatries or less wise merciful and humane than some of their Predecessors of that Fellowship were but through having obtained a Prince intirely devoted unto them under the implicit guidance of their Priests to be advanced unto a Throne where such sometime used to sit as were the Terror of Rome the Safeguard of the Reformed Religion and the Sanctuary of oppresed Protestants they have thereupon both assumed a Courage of stirring up new and unpresidented Persecutions in divers places against the most useful best and loyallest of Subjects upon no other charge or Allegation but for dissenting from the Tridentine Faith and denying Subjection to the Tripple Crown and are raised into a Confidence of wholly Extirpating Protestancy and of reestablishing the Papal Tyrannies and Superstition in the several Countries whence they had been expelled or stood so depressed and discountenanced as that the Votaries and Partizans of their Church had not the Sway and Domination Nor need we any other conviction both of their Design and of their Confidence of Succeeding in it than what they have already done continue to pursue in France Hungary and Piedmont wheretheir prospering to such a degree in their Cruel and Barbarous Attempts not only gives them boldness of entertaining thoughts of taking the like Methods and Acting by the same measures in all places where they find Rulers at their beck and under their Influence but to unite and provoke all Popish Monarchs to enter into a holy War against Protestants every where that by Conquering and Subduing those States and Kingdoms where the Reformed Religion is received and established they may extirpate it out of the World under the Notion of the Northern Heresie If principles of humanity Maxim's of Interest Rules of Policy Obligations of Gratitude Ties of Royal and Princely Faith or the repeated Promises Oaths Edicts and Declarations of Soveraigns could have been a Security to Protestants for the Profession of their Faith and Exercise of their Worship in the forementioned Territories and Dominions they had all
that could be rationally desired for their Safety and Protection in the free and open profession and Practice of their Religion whereas by a violation of all that is Sacred among men of a binding vertu unto Princes except Chains and Fetters or that confer a Right Claim and Security unto Subjects the poor Protestants in those Places have been and still are persecuted with a rage and Barbarity which no age can parallel and for which it is difficult to find words proper and severe enough whereby to stamp a Character of infamy upon the treacherous cruel and savage Authors Promoters and Instruments of it Nor do's it proceed from a Malignancy of Nature peculiar to the Emperor the French King and the Duke of Savoy above what is in other Princes of the same Communion or that they are more regardless of Fame and less concerned how future generations will brand their Memories than other Papal Monarchs seem to be that they have suffered themselves to be prevailed upon to violate the Promises and Oaths they were bound by to their Protestant Subjects seeing the Emperour is character'd for a person of a meek and gentle temper and of the goodness of whose Nature thereremain some shadows interwoven with the bloody streaks of the Hungarian Persecution And the French King tho he stand not much commended for sweetness and Benignity of disposition is known to be unmeasurably Ambitious of having his name transmitted to Posterity in Letters of Greatness and Honor which his behaviour towards his Subjects of the Reformed Religion is no way 's adapted unto but calculated to make him hereafter listed with Nero and Julian As to the Duke of Savoy there seems by the whole course of his other Actions to be a certain Greatness of Mind in him not easily consisting with that savage and brutal temper which the Cruelties he hath exercised upon the Protestants in Piedmont would intimate and denote But it ariseth from the Mischievousness and Pestilency of their Religion their Bigottry in it and their having put themselves so entirely under the conduct of the Clergy particularly of the Jesuites who are for the most part a set of men especially the latter that through acting in the prospect of no other Ends but the Grandure Wealth and Domination of the Church of Rome do with an unlimited rage and a peculiar kind of Malice persecute all that have renounced Fellowship with it and care not if they Sacrifice the Honor Glory and Safety of Monarchs and bring their Kingdoms into contempt and desolation by rendring them weak poor and dispeopled provided they may wreck their spleen and revenge upon those whose Religion is not only dissonant from theirs but should it prevail to be the Religion of the Legislators and Rulers of Nations those springs of Wealth would be immediately dried up by which their Superior Clergy and all their Religious Orders are enriched and fed up in idleness And should the People come to be generally imbued with principles of Gospel Light and Liberty they would immediately shake off a blind and slavish Dependence upon Pope and Priests and thereby subvert the Foundation upon which the Monarchick Grandure of the Romish Church and their whole Religion is superstructed and destroy the Engine by which they are inabled to Lord it over the Bodies Estates and Consciences of men And if Protestants every where especially under Popish Rulers were not under a strange Infatuation they would look for no fairer Quarter from Papists than what their Brethren have met with in France and Piedmont nor would they rely upon the Faith of any King that stiles himself a Roman Catholick seeing Sacred Promises tremendous Oaths and the most Authentick Declarations are but Papal Arts and Tricks sanctified at Rome whereby to full Subjects into a Security and delude them into a neglect of all means for preserving themselves and their Religion till their Rulers can be in a condition of obeying the Decrees of the fourth Lateran Council that enjoins Kings to destroy and extirpate Hereticks under pain of Excommunication and of having both their Subjects absolved from Allegiance to them and their Territories given away to others and till without running any hazard they may comply with the Ordinance of the Council of Constance which not only releaseth them from all Obligation of keeping Faith to Hereticks but requires them to violate it and accordingly made Sigismond break his Faith to John Hus whom in dâ—fiance of the Security given him by that King they caused to be condemned and burnt Nor is the practice and late Example of the Great Louis designed for less than a pattern by which all Popish Princes are to act and his proceedings are to be the coppy Moddel which they who would merit the name of Zealous Catholicks and be esteemed dutiful Sons of the Church are to transcribe and limn out in lines of force violence and Blood and for the better corresponding with the Original to imploy Dragoons for Missionaries And tho I will not say but that there may be some Popish Princes who through an extraordinary measure of good Nature and from principles of Compassion woven into their Constitution previously to all notices of Revelation whether real or preâ—ended and who through Sentiments imâ—ib'd from a generous Education and their â—oming afterwards to be under the influence â—nd Management of wise and discret Counsellors may be able to resist the malignant â—mpressions of their Religion and so be preserved from the inhumanities towards â—hose of different perswasions from them in the things of God which their Priests would lay them under Obligations unto by the Doctrines of the Romish Faith yet there appears no reason why an understanding man should be induced to believe that the King of England is likely to prove a Prince of that great and noble temper there being more than enough both to raise a jealousie and beget a perswasion that there is not a Monarch among all those who are commonly stiled Catholicks from whom Protestants may justly dread greater Severities than from Him or look for worse and more Barbarous Treatments I am not ignorant with what candor we ought by the Rules of Charity and good manners to speak of all men whatsoever their Religion is nor am I unacquainted with what Veneration and Deference we are to Discourse of Crowned Heads but as I dare not give those flattering Titles unto any of which there are not a few in some of the late Addresses presented to the King by an inconsiderable and foolish sort of Dissenting Preachers so I should not know how to be accountable to God my own Conscience or the World should I not in my station as a Protestant and as a Lover of the Laws and Liberties of my Countrey offer something whereby both to undeceive that weak and short-sighted People whom their own being accommodated for a Season by the Declaration of Indulgence hath deluded into an Opinion that His Majesty cherisheth no thoughts of
subverting our Religion and also further to enlighten and confirm others in the just apprehensions they are possessed with of the design carrying on in Grear Brittain and Ireland for the extirpation of Protestancy and that the late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience is emitted in subserviency thereunto and calculated by the Court toward the paving and preparing the way for the more facile accomplishment of it And while Mercinary Sycophants by their Flatteries infect and corrupt Princes and by their Representing them to the World in Colours disagreable from their tempers and dispositions and in milder and fairer Characters than any thing observable in them either deserveth or correspondeth with do delude Subjects into such Opinions of them as beget a neglect of means for preserving themselves 't is become a necessary Duty and an indispensable Service to mankind to deal plainly and above board that so by describing Kings as they are and setting them in a true and just Light we may prevent the Peoples being further imposed upon or if through suffering themselves to be still deceived they come to fall under miseries and persecutions they may lay all their Distresses and Desolations at the door of their own folly in not having taken care how to avoid what they were not only threatned with but whereof they were warned and advertised For as I am not of Sr. Roger l'Estranges mind That if we cannot avoide being distrustful of our Safety yet it is extreamly vain foolish and extravagant to talk of it so I am very sensible how many of the French Ministers by painting forth their King more like a God than a Man and by possessing their people with a belief of Wisdom Justice Grace and Mercy in Him of which they knew him destitute they both emboldned him to attempt what he hath perpetrated and laid them under snares which they know not how to disentangle themselves from in order to escape it Nor would the King of England have acted with that neglect of the future Safety of the Papists nor have exposed them to the resentment and hereafter revenge of three Nations by the Arbitrary and Illegal steps he hath made in their favour if he intended any thing less than the putting Protestants for ever out of capacity and condition of calling them to a reckoning and exacting an account of them which neither He nor they about him can have the weakness to think they have sufficiently provided against without compelling us by an Order of à la mode France Missionaries to turn Catholicks or by adjudging us to Mines and Galleys according to the Versailles President for our Heretical Stubborness or which is the more expeditious way of converting three Kingdoms to cause murder the Protestant Inhabitants according to the pattern which his Loyal Irish Catholicks endeavoured to have set anno 1641. for the conversion of that Nation Had his Majesty been contented with the bare avowing and publishing himself to be of the Communion of the Church of Rome and of challenging a Liberty tho against Law for the Exercise of his Religion it might have awakened our Pity and Compassion to see him embrace a Religion where there are so many impediments of Salvation and in doing whereof he was become obnoxious unto the imprecation of his Grandfather who wished the curse of God to fall upon such of his Posterity as should at any time turn Papists but it would have raised no intemperated heats in the minds of any against him much less have alienated them from the Subjection and Obedience which are due unto their Soveraign by the Laws of the several Kingdoms and the Fundamental Rules of the respective Constitutions Or could he have been contented with waving the rigorous Execution of the Laws against Papists of whatsoever Quality Rank or Order they were and with the bestowing personal and private Favours upon those of his Religion it would have been so far from begetting rancor or discontent in his Protestant Subjects that they would not only have connived at and approved such a procedure and those little Benignities and Kindnesses but had the Papists quietly acquiesced in them and modestly improved them it might have been a means of reconciling the Nation to more lenity towa 〈…〉 them for the future and might have iâ— fluenced our Legislators when God sh 〈…〉 vouchsafe us a Protestant on the Throne 〈◊〉 moderate the Severities to which by thâ— Laws in being they are obnoxious and 〈◊〉 render their condition as easie and safe 〈◊〉 that of other Subjects and only to take car 〈…〉 for precluding them such places of poweâ— and trust as should prevent their being ab 〈…〉 to hurt us but could bring no damage or iâ— convenience upon themselves But thâ— King instead of terminating here anâ— allowing only such Graces and Immun 〈…〉 ties to the Popists as would have been 〈◊〉 nough for the placing them in the priva 〈…〉 Exercise of their Religion with Security 〈◊〉 them and without any threatning dangeâ— to us He hath not only suspended all thâ— penal Laws against Roman Catholicks but 〈◊〉 hath by an usurped Prerogative that is par 〈…〉 mount to the Rules of the Constitution and 〈◊〉 all Acts of Parliament dispensed with anâ— disabled the Laws that enjoin the Oath of A 〈…〉 legeance and Supremacy and which appoi 〈…〉 and prescribe the Tests that were the Fenceâ— which the Wisdom of the Nation ha 〈…〉 erected for preserving the Legislative A 〈…〉 thority securing the Government and keeping places of Power Magistracy and Offic 〈…〉 in the Hands of Protestants and thereby 〈◊〉 continuing the Protestant Religion and Engli 〈…〉 Liberties to our selves and the generation that shall come after us And as if this werâ— not sufficient to awaken us to a consideration of the danger we are sin of havinâ— our Religion supplanted and overthrown He hath not only advanced the most viole 〈…〉 Papists unto all places of Military comman 〈…〉 by Sea and Land but hath established many of them in the Chief Trusts and Offi 〈…〉 of Magistracy and Civil Judicature so th 〈…〉 there are scarce any continued in Poweâ— and Employment save they who have 〈◊〉 ther promised to turn Roman Catholicks 〈◊〉 who have engaged to concur and assist 〈◊〉 the subverting our Liberties and Religion uâ— der the Mask and disguise of Protestan 〈…〉 〈◊〉 is already evident that it is beyond the â—â—lp and relief of all Peaceable and Civil â—eans to preserve and uphold the Protestant â—eligion in Ireland and that nothing but force â—nd an intestine War can retrieve it unto â—nd reestablish it there in any degree of safe 〈…〉 Nor is it less apparent from the Arbiâ—â—ary and Tyrannous Oath ordained to be â—â—quired of His Majesties Protestant Subjects 〈◊〉 Scotland whereby they are to swear Oâ—â—dience to Him without Reserve that our Reâ—â—gion is held only precariously in that Kingâ—â—m and that whensoever he shall please to â—â—mmand the establishment of Popery and 〈◊〉 enjoin the
Kings to an usurpation of Power over the Laws and to a violation of established and enacted Rules It would draw this Discourse to a length beyond what is intended should I mention the several Laws against Papists as well as against Dissenters that are suspended stopt disabled and dispensed with in the two fore-mentioned Royal Papers and it would be an extending it much more should I make the several Reflections that the matter is capable of and which a person of a very ordinary understanding cannot be greatly to seek for I shall therefore only take notice of two â—r three Efforts which occur there of this â—oyal prerogative and Absolute power which â—s they are very bold and ample exertions â—f them for the first time so should the â—ext exercises of them be proportionable 〈…〉 ere will be nothing left us of the Protestant â—eligion or of English Liberties and we must â—e contented to be Papists and Slaves or else 〈◊〉 stand adjudged to Tyburn and Smithfield One is the suspending the Laws which en 〈…〉 in the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy â—nd the prohibiting that these Oaths be at any 〈…〉 me hereafter required to be taken by which â—â—ngle Exercise of Royal prerogative and Absolute â—ower the two Kingdoms are not only aâ—ain subjected to a forraign Iurisdiction the miseries whereof they groaned under for several Ages but as the King is hereby deprived of the greatest security he had from â—is Subjects both to himself and the Government â—o the Crown is robb'd of one of its chiefest â—ewels namely an Authority over all the Subâ—ects which was thought so essential to Soveâ—aignty Royal Dignity that it was annexed to the Imperial Crown of England adjudged inherent in the Monarch before the Reformed Religion came to be received established And it concerns their Royal Highnesses of Orange to whom the Right of succeeding to the Crownâ— of Great Brittain unquestionably belongs to consider whether his Majesty may not by the same Authority whereby he alienates and gives away so considerable and inherent a Branch of the Royal Iurisdiction transferr the Succession it self and dispose the Inheritance of the Crown to whom he pleaseth Nor will they about him who thrust the last King out of the Throne to make room for his present Majesty much scruple to put a Protestant Successor by it if they can find another Papist as Bigotted as this to advance unto it However were they on the Throne to morrow here is both a Forraign Iurisdiction brought in and set up to Rivall and controll theirs and they are deprived of all means of being secured of the Loyalty and Fealty of a great number of their Subjects Nor will His Majesties certain knowledg and long experience whereof he boasts in the Scots Proclamation that the Catholicks as it is their principle to be good Christians so it is to be dutiful Subjects be enough for their Royal Highnesses to rely upon their Religion obliging them to the contrary towards Princes whom the Church of Rome hath adjudged to be Hereticks A second Instance wherein this pretended Royal Prerogative is exercised paramount to all Laws and which nothing but a claim of Absolute Power in his Majesty can support and an acknowledgment of it by the Subjâ—stâ— make them approve the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience and the Proclamation for Toleration is the stopping disabling and suspending the Statutes whereby the Tests were enacted and thereby letting the Papists in to all Benefices Offices and Places of Trust whether Civil Military or Ecclesiastick I do not speak of Suspending the Execution of those Laws whereby the being Priests or taking Orders in the Church of Rome or the being Reconciled to that Church or the Papists meeting to celebrate Mass were in one degree or another made punishable tho the Kings dispensing with them by a challenged claim in the Crown be altogether illegal for as diverss of these Laws were never approved by many Protestants so nothing would have justified the making of them but the many Treasons and Conspiracies that they were from time to time found guilty of against the State. And as the Papists of all men have the least cause to complain of the injustice rigour and severity of them considering the many Laws more cruel and sanguinary that are in Force in most Popish Countries against Protestants and these enacted and executed meerly for their Opinions and Practices in the matters of God without their being chargeable with crimes and offences against the Civil Government under which they live so were it necessary from principles of Religion and Policy to relieve the Roman Catholicks from the forementioned Laws yet it ought not to be done but by the Legislative Authority of the Kingdoms and â—or the King to assume a power of doing it in the vertue of a pretended prerogative is both a high Usurpation over the Laws and a Violation of of his Coronation Oath Nor is it any commendation either of the humanity of the Papists or of the meekness and Truth of their Religion that while they elsewhere treat those who differ from them in Faith and Worship with that Barbarity they should so clamorously inveigh against the severities which in some Reformed States they are liable unto and which their Treasons gave the rise and provocation unto at first and have been at all times the motives to the infliction of But they alone would have the allowance to be cruel wherein they act consonantly to their own Tenets and I wish that some provision might be made for the future for the security of our Religion and our safety in the profession of it without the doing any thing that may unbecome the merciful principles of Christianity or be unsutable to the meek and generous temper of the English Nation and that the property of being Sanguinary may be left to the Church of Rome as its peculiar Priviledg and Glory and as a more distinguisting Character than all the other Marks which she pretends unto That which I am speaking of is the suspending the Execution of those Laws by which the Government was secured of the Fidelity of its Subjecte and by which they in whom it could not confide were meerly shut out from places of power and trust and were made liable to very small damages themselves and only hindred from getting into a condition of doing mischief to us All Governments have a Right to use means for their own preservation provided they be not such as are inconsistent with the Ends of Government and repugnant to the will and pleasure of the Supream Soveraign of mankind and it is in the power of every Legislative Assembly to declare who of the Community shall be capable or incapable of publick Imploys and of possessing Offices upon which the Peace Welfare and Security of the whole Politick Body does depend Without this n 〈…〉 Government could subsist nor the People b 〈…〉 in safety under it but the Constitution woul 〈…〉 be
could to give them relief in a legal way Where as if any thing enflame and exasperate t 〈…〉 Nation to revive their sufferings it wi 〈…〉 arise from a resentment of the unworth 〈…〉 and treacherous carriage of so many 〈◊〉 them in this critical and dangerous ju 〈…〉 cture But the Terms which thro their A 〈…〉 dressing they have owned the receivi 〈…〉 their Liberty and Indulgence upon does in peculiar manner enhance their guilt again 〈…〉 God and their Countrey and strangely ad 〈…〉 to the disgust and anger which lovers 〈◊〉 Religion and the Laws of the Nation hav 〈…〉 conceived against them For it is Hot onl 〈…〉 upon the acknowledgment of a preroga 〈…〉 in the King over the Laws that they hav 〈…〉 received and now hold their Liberty b 〈…〉 it is upon the condition that nothing be preach 〈…〉 or taught amongst them that may any ways tend 〈◊〉 alienate the hearts of the People from his Majesti 〈…〉 person and Government He must be of an u 〈…〉 derstanding very near allied unto and approaching to that of an Irish man who do 〈…〉 not know what the Court sense of that clau 〈…〉 is and that his Majesty thereby intends th 〈…〉 they are not to preach against Popery nor t 〈…〉 set forth the Doctrines of the Romish Church i 〈…〉 terms that may prevent the peoples being i 〈…〉 â—ected by them much less in colours th 〈…〉 may render them hated and abhorred T 〈…〉 accuse the Kings Religion of Idolatry or 〈◊〉 affirm the Church of Rome to be the Apoc 〈…〉 lyptick Babylon and to represent the Articl 〈…〉 of the Tridentine Faith as faithful Ministers 〈◊〉 Christ ought to do would be accounted a 〈…〉 alienating the hearts of their hearers from t 〈…〉 King and his Government which as they 〈◊〉 in the foresaid Clause required noâ— to do 〈◊〉 they have by their Addressing confessed t 〈…〉 Iustice of the Terms and have undertaken 〈◊〉 〈…〉 old their liberty by that Tenor. And to give 〈…〉 em their due they have been very faithful 〈…〉 itherto in conforming to what the King 〈…〉 xacts and in observing what themselves have 〈…〉 ented to the equity of For notwithstan 〈…〉 ing all the danger from popery that the Na 〈…〉 on is exposed unto and all the hazard that 〈…〉 e Souls of men are in of being poysoned 〈…〉 i th Romish principles yet instead of prea 〈…〉 ing or writing against any of the Doctrines of 〈…〉 e Church of Rome they have agreed among 〈…〉 emselves and with such of their Congre 〈…〉 ations as approve their procedure not so 〈…〉 uch as to mention them but to leave the 〈…〉 rovince of defending our Religion and of 〈…〉 etecting the falshood of papal Tenets to the 〈…〉 astors and Gentlemen of the Church of Eng 〈…〉 nd And being ask'd as I know some of 〈…〉 em that have been why they do not preach 〈…〉 gainst Antichrist and confuse the papal Do 〈…〉 rines they very gravely reply that by prea 〈…〉 ing Christ they preach against Antichrist 〈…〉 nd that by Teaching the Gospel they Re 〈…〉 te Popery which is such a piece of fraudu 〈…〉 ent and guilful subâ—erfuge that I want words 〈…〉 o express the knavery and criminalness of it What a reserve and change have I lived to see 〈…〉 n England from what I beheld a few years 〈…〉 go It was but the other day that the Con 〈…〉 rmable Clergy were represented by some of 〈…〉 he Dissenters not only as favourers of 〈…〉 opery but as endeavouring to hale it in upon 〈…〉 s by all the methods and ways that lay within 〈…〉 heir circle and yet now the whole defence of 〈…〉 e Reformed Religion must be entirely de 〈…〉 olved into their hands and when all the 〈…〉 ces are pulled up that had been made to 〈…〉 inder Popery from overflowing the Nation 〈…〉 ey must be left alone to stemm the inun 〈…〉 ation and prevent the deluge They among 〈…〉 e Fanaticks that boasted to be the most avo 〈…〉 ed and irreconcilable Enemies of the Church 〈…〉 f Rome are not only become altogether si 〈…〉 ent when they see the Kingdom pesterd with 〈◊〉 swarm of busie and seducing Emissaries but 〈…〉 e both turned Advocats for that Arbitrary 〈…〉 aper whereby we are surrendred as a prey 〈…〉 nto them and do make it their business to detract from the reputation and discourage the laboures of the National Ministers who with a zeal becoming their Office and a learning which deserves to be admired have set themselves in opposition to that croaking fry and have done enough by their excellent and unimitable Writings to save people from being deluded and perverted if either unanswerable consutations of Popery or demonstrative Defences of the Articles and Doctrines of the Reformed Religion can have any efficacy upon the minds of men Among other fulsom flatteries adorning a Speach made to his Majesty by an Addressing Dissenter I find this hypocritical and shameful adulation namely that if there should remain any seeds of disloyalty in any of his Subjects the transcendent goodness exerted in his Declaration would morâ—isie and kill them to which he might have added with more truth that the same transcendent goodness had almost destroyed all the seeds of their honesty and mortied their care and concernment for the interest of Iesus Christ and for the Reformed Religion Their old strain of zealous preaching against the Idolaâ—ry of Rome and concerning the coming out of Babylon my people are grown out of fashion with them in England and are only reserved and said by to recommend them to the kindness and acceptation of forraign Protestants when their occasions and conveniencies draw them over to Amsterdam Whosoever comes into their Assemblies would think for any thing that he there hears delivered from their pulpits that She which was the Whore of Babylon a few years ago were now become a chast Spouse and that what were heretofore the damnable Doctrines of Popery were of late turned innocent and Harmless opinions The Kings Declaration would seem to have brought some of them to a melius inquirendum and as they are already arrived to believe a Roman Catholick the best King that they may in a little time come to esteem Papists for the best Christians The keeping back nothing that is profitable to save such as hear them and the declaring the whole Counsel of God that are the Terms upon which they receiyed their Commission from Iesus Christ and wherein they have Pauls practice and example for a pattern would seem to be things under the Power of the Royal prerogative and that the King may supercede them by the same Authority by which he dispenses with the penal Statutes Which as it is very agreeable unto and imported in his Majesties Claim of being obeyed without reserve so the owning this Absolute Power with that annex of challenged obedience does acquit them from all obligations to