has put an end to the Dispute whereas if he 'll but Read Books before he Answers them he 'll find that we vouch'd his own Authority for so saying and if he Consults his Six Papers he 'll find himself to say so and that this Dispensing of the King 's is an actual Repeal so that the Iustices Oaths are unconcern'd indeed as he states the Case and their Sins of Omission entirely remitted them by this Divines Authority but I must confess notwithstanding his forc'd Application of it which was only offer'd to fasten the greater Odium upon the King 's Absolute Power I must really think those more understanding Gentlemen in Commission would have a less Obligation from their Oaths should they conspire to get a Parliamentary Repeal notwithstanding the Dr's Representing it as a Royal One. That the Dispensing Power has no Refeence nor Analogy to the Power of Pardoning is but a single Dr's Opinion for the saving of Men and the destroying of Government are in this point whatever he fancy 's truly the same for destroying of the Government does not consist in any particular Persons thinking such a thing will destroy it want of executing this dispensing Power some will say has help'd to destroy it once already and it continues a good Government still after three Years practising it but pray would not the continual saving of men for Felony and Murder embolden them so far with their Impunity as to destroy the Government and make it more monstrous than any Part of Africa private Crimes are alway punish'd for the publick Good and for that Reason Felony is made so Capital which otherwise for the Loss of a little Goods could never forfeit a Life And Lastly for his mighty MENACES with his Dispensing Power for the future the Dissenters I suppose and the Iesuits that he so sacrifices to his Fury will thank him for his Warning consider what they are to expect from Men of his Mildness and Moderation and how he abuses those Heroick Spirits which but just before were above all Cruelty and Revenge My Kindness to his States Generals as I have confess'd to him before is no more than what I have in general for all such States whose Constitution is what is commonly call'd a Republick or a Common-wealth and if I have any more particular Aversion to that of Holland since he will needs put it upon me I must own it to be only for this Reason That there is so little Reparation made His Majesty for those Indignities that Himself with the greatest Insolence has offer'd a Connivance at such Affronts against Majesty was alwayes accounted among Princes and Allyes as injurious a Violation as an open Defyance and Justification and I hope his Masters will not excuse themselves because they are of no Royal Extraction It is the sense of Civilians and by their Imperial Law and its Construction all Treatises and Alliances are regulated and maintain'd that a Body Politick in general does espouse those Offences and Provocations which in any particular Person it does not prohibit and suppress and that Injuries that are offer'd by private Subjects do then affect the Prince and People And with all submission to these learned Authors and of undoubted Authorities Dr. B's Case can be carry'd farther and so with less Reason to be justify'd some of these Lawyers as we have shewn are of Opinion as well as our Common ones That no Allegiance is transferable and none will allow that it can be transfer'd any more than for a time and that tho' there be an Allegiance due for such a Temporal Protection that will not divest of him that Duty he still owes to his Native Country and his Liege Lord which Case we shall prosecute farther when we come to his second Parcel of Reflections made in his own Justification but this will greatly aggravate the Injury that His Majesty suffers in the permitting one that has an unalienable Relation to his Native Subjection to disturb the publick Government and defame the very Person of his Soveraign only because he has acquir'd the new Denomination of an Enfranchised Citizen and a Subject naturaliz'd and if the Natives of any Nation are obnoxious to the publick for Reflexions upon their peaceful Allyes how accountable are those that suffer an Alien so grosly to reflect upon the Proceedings of his Prince and the Transactions of that Country in which He was born The Veneration I ever had of that Awful Constitution of Divine Government that is visible in a state of Monarchy does indeed make me have less Esteem for a Republick and though I am not posses'd with such a Patriarchical Piece of Speculation as to prove the Pedigree of every King to be by Discent in a Right Line to Rule by a Right Divine for that would be indeed to un-King a great many Princes and set up what they would perswade the most Christian did design an universal Monarch yet still without such absurdity we may maintain it for Sense that a single Soveraignty seems to be of Divine Institution and Democracy the Result of some Revolt and Defection from it that this has been my sense the World has long since seen in some Animadversions upon Mr. Sidney's Papers and so this Author is most injurious to me as well as inconsistent with himself when he would insinuate my Courting of a Common-wealth As I 've given some little Reason of this my kindness to Republicks and his Case has given me much to have the less for that of Holland so I must let them know too that the Respect and Regard any good Subject ought to have to all that are in Alliance with his Soveraign has hinder'd me from saying many things that would have more severely reflected and which after all this Provocation of this Authors Pen might have past for a just Retribution I am not so ignorant my self as not to know that Lincenses and Imprimaturs are not so frequently in use among the Dutch and that the Licentiousness of the Press is as popular and plausible there as that most applauded Policy of Liberty of Conscience the most Christian KING is as sensible of this as His MAIESTY of Great Britain The Writings of some of His protected Subjects affect His Honour as much as our Authors have endeavoured to blast His Majesty's Reputation and 't is well known to those that travel if they 'll find any Libels upon any Crown'd Heads they must look for it in Holland and our Author I think has help'd the curious Enquirer there to a great deal of this lewd Speculation The Considerations of the State of the united Netherlands That was printed there before the last War no man will say but that was an Act of the State and that had no more publick an Imprimatur than Dr. B's Papers so that such Writings as are permitted to be publish'd there without any animadversion on the Printer or the more Celebrated Author is as
now the last Instance of his famous List which he concludes with a Remark taken from the Revolt of the Low-Countries which if the Terms of their own Historians may be allow'd us we must still call so and what with our Adversaries own Authority we shall ex Confesso conclude that those Severities were the more excusable because these Reformations were look'd on as indeed they were a Revolt then made from establish'd Laws the Doctor 's Allegiance may be so far transferr'd as in true Fidelity to falsify for them Matter of Fact and in an History of his own assure us they were never Subjects to Spain but it is more than METERAN or GROTIVS have done yet The kindness that I have for that Kind Country of the Dr's I confess is no more than what I have ever had to most Republicks and Common-Wealths that is to think the Constitution of their State to be the result of some Revolt and Defection from their Ancient Prince and their Lawful Lord and that though we could not trace in History their Beginnings and date the Epoche of their usurped Government and Authority an Imperfection from which perhaps that compleat and celebrated and most antient Aristocracy of Venice will hardly be defended though it retains still the shadow of that more Imperial Sway from which their Aborigines might be said to Revolt or by expulsion from their Country fall into but the Defence of this so criminal Expression we shall refer to it's proper place The Dr. at present is in his own Province and affords us what is still his Kindness to Crown'd Heads a better Subject to defend and that is King Philip the Second from the Calumnies of an injurious Character that would defame him for the Foundation of which Reproach or the unreasonableness of it there can be no more fair and candid Procedure then to refer you as in the former Essays to to the rest before to some short Representation of Matter of Fact. It is known then and beyond Dispute that the Belgick Provinces in former times were first united under the Dominions of the Dukes of Burgundy and from them by lineal or lawful Descent devolv'd to the Kings of Spain after they came into their Power they were all priviledg'd so far that there was no great need to fear they should fall under Oppression and the miserable Condition as the Dr. makes it of absolute Slaves so long as by their Obedience they only continu'd good Subjects To tell us of their Priviledges under the Goths Vandals and Gauls their barbarous and confus'd Constitution even before their Counts so long before the Emperor Lewis the Second had regulated and civiliz'd them with such a Title and that this Philip the Second forfeited his Right for not maintaining them is no more than if His Majesty were now to forgo His Three Kingdoms for not observing the Rites and Rules of our old Druids and the obsolete Customs of our antiquated Britains The Notion is so extravagantly wild that with sober men it will pass only for the fancy of some of their First Governours and Legislators who had no other Name but that of Forresters Yet this Notion was entertain'd so far and mixt with several other pernicious Principles truly Democratical that it serv'd to dress up that Oration which was afterward made in their Famous Senate by themselves assembled for the renouncing their Allegiance and deposing of the King of Spain which whether an Act of Iustice or popular Outrage from the subsequent Discourses will appear Under the Dukes of Burgundy we do not find them tumultuous tho' perhaps discontented when under any great or more frequent Contributions Charles the Fifth was too fortunate and powerful to fear them and no forreign Forces were then the Grievance though most of all by him maintain'd he knew his absolute Power as well as Philip that follow'd after In matters of Religion and Reformation though he was a little more moderate it must be remembred the Reformers were then also more few yet finding some Disturbance he publish'd an Edict against Innovation there about the time that Luther's was condemn'd in Germany he finding according to his old Aphorism and Opinion That those who had no Reverence for the Church would think they ow'd as little Obedience to himself their KING this put him indeed upon some Execution of the Laws as Grotius observes but with such ill success that many times when some of Note were brought to suffer such Multitudes would meet as with open Sedition to hinder and oppose it but the Progress of such seditious Insurrections by his presence and residing with them was soon interrupted but when Philip the Second succeeded his Father and the Fugitives from Forreign Parts began to fill those of Flanders the Reform'd began to be very powerful there and could never be thought good Neighbours if ever there were any Insurrections to the Church-Government that there was then Establish'd and to which they had expres'd so great an Aversion Philip the Second foresaw this and fearful of what follow'd was forc'd to leave those Forreign Souldiers as he told them for their Defence but indeed for his own but for all this suppos'd strength they finding he had left too the Government in the hands of a Woman they soon discovered an apparent Weakness and one of their Nobility then the greatest Subject and without any Detraction from his mighty Deeds as greatly discontented too whom out of Reverence to his Royal Dust and respect to his Noble Line we will leave without a Name thinking himself as injuriously disappointed of the Government of those Provinces which upon the King 's returning into Spain he had promis'd to himself and indeed from his Merit and Desert might very well expect was animated so far as to think upon an expedient for the heightening of his Power to make himself Head of the Protestant Party which upon the absence of their King began to multiply apace for this purpose he Consults with the Counts of Egmont and Horn about redressing some Grievances that were necessary for them to be eas'd of and that was first the three thousand Spanish Souldiers though so far from being any thing dangerous to the People that they themselves had the Command of them They petition for their Removal the King grants graciously their Request but withal thought fit to detain them there until the new Number of Bishops that he had instituted were settled for fear of any further Insurrection but they influence the People so that no Contribution could be got to pay them and the Dutchess of Parma now empowr'd by the King transports them all away for Spain This one would think should have been sufficient to pacifie them but no sooner was this Grievance redrest but Discontent like an Hydra from her Amputation rises with another Head Granvel then the greatest Minister of State was then as great a Grievance too and from his
come command their Votes or else certainly such an Assembly suppos'd of the Wisest as well as the greatest Men in the Nation could never have been prevail'd on for passing such Absurdities and Contradictions into Law for the making lawful Heirs illegitimate and then to legitimate again the self same unlawful Heirs to make one Daughter spurious and then another and at last to make them both to be legal Issue with the single Charm of Be it Enacted It is said of that Assembly that it can do every thing but make a Man a Woman but here I think they went pretty near that too and made Women what they pleas'd In the First Ann's Case Incontinency was made the Cause to divorce Her In the Second the Defect of natural Inclination and only upon sending down some Lords to the Lower House what Marriage he pleas'd was declar'd unlawful It was not the Roman Consistory that was Lords of the Articles then or else they had hardly parted so soon with the Supremacy though that invidious Reflection on that Honourable Constitution in Scotland must come a little unkindly from Protestants since if we believe the Bishop to those Lords they are much oblig'd for the helping on the Reformation in short since the Dr. lays such a mighty Weight upon his getting all warranted or confirm'd by Parliament it is but a weak Support for the Confirmation of his Cause for it will give some People the more occasion to observe that such was once our KING's Authority over Parliaments that they could obtain from the Civil Sanctions of the State to sacrifice the Sacred Authority of the Church Wives and Children Women and Men to his Lust and Anger His Parliamentary Warrant will do him but little Service in such Excesses since His present Majesty's Proposals I think are much more reasonable which he desires only so to be Warranted and if these Excesses are so ordinary in great Revolutions some Persons may think this unexpected Indulgence and Toleration as great a Turn The Dr. very wisely passes by without any Consideration all the Proceedings of Edw. the Sixths Reign in which some may think that some Excesses were Committed too and that even in the very two Points that His Majesty has solemnly declar'd to Defend us in Property and Religion In the very First Year of that Reign which the Dr. cannot be unacquainted with it being so of the Reformation too Did the Protector only by his Proclamation order all Enclosures to be laid open which for some time had been enjoy'd by the Lords and Gentry and was partly possess'd by them by Vertue of those Abby-Lands they had from the Crown The Duke knew this would gratify the Common People and being desirous to be popular he issues out this Commission of Absolute Power for all the Lords and Gentry look'd upon it as an Invasion of Property especially when they were in such a Tumultuous manner thrown down were Abby Lands to be thus invaded now by a Proclamation we might well complain of Excess In the same Year were Injunctions sent forth only the Order of the Council Board over all the Kingdom for altering all the Old Ceremonies and way of Worship in the Church of Rome several for opposing these Commissions and Injunctions as something like Excesses were punish'd or sent to Prison The Bishop of London was clap'd up in the Fleet only for scrupling an Obedience and that though he made most solemn submission which is more some People will say than what has been done by some Successor since upon a milder Test of Obedience and a Process less severe Gardiner was Committed to the Tower only for wishing these Proceedings might be delay'd till the King was more capable of the Government Durham Rochester and Chichester for the same Disobedience were so serv'd all of them dispossess'd of their Bishopricks and what was worse the Bishopricks Sees themselves dispossess'd reform'd from their Revenues These Excesses could not but create great Disorders in the State when they saw that what was call'd the King's Proceedings was allow'd to be Law for the regulating of the Church the several Rebellions of the West and North that follow'd meerly upon these Excesses of Reformation had too Tragical Conclusions to relate and so the Dr. took care lest they should be mentioned the suppression of which did not end without a Western and a Northern Campaign and a great deal of Blood and Severity Sir Will. Kingston's pleasant Cruelty in the West his Landlords the Millers Tragedy do declare Northumberland in the North is so well known that I 'le engage the Doctor confesses it a thing which help'd to facilitate Q. Mary to the Throne In short it appears plain from the History that the Protector saw that Reformotion could not be carryed on without Arms that therefore he made the War in Scotland a Pretence to take them up and for this he brought in Germans and Walloons though the coming over of our own Irish now is made a Terror and Astonishment the Elections of the Bishops was then given to the KING for the Ends of Reformation of which 't is now too late to repent In the next President we are reflected on again because Q. Elizabeth's Power in Ecclesiastical Matters was founded on an Act of Parliament which the Dr. says was in a great measure repeal'd in King Charles the First 's time and that Repeal again in Charles the Second's ratify'd this Authors Argument of a Parliamentary power was little to his advantage in his Reign of Hen. 8. not at all for his purpose in the First of Edward the Sixth for there those great Alterations in Church and State were made before the Parliament was call'd meerly by Injunctions Orders of the Protector or the Council Table and that absolute power authorised by the specious Name of the King's Proceedings This was the Original of that Arbitrary Law and Queen Mary might well write after such a Copy but the Dr. does most designedly misapply to our Presidents in Queen Elizabeth's time this Parliamentary power as well as he designedly and wisely omits it in K. Edw. Reign because he knew he could not apply it for if he 'll but examin one of the Cases I put him in the Queens Reign about Her dispensing with the Latin Service to be read in Collegiate Chappels and the Vniversities contrary to an express proviso of an Act of Parliament for the sake of Reformation and the applauded Opinion of Moor that the Queens power of Non Obstante was good even against the Non Obstante of an Act of Parliament to that Her Power he 'll find that some of Her Affairs and Proceedings were so far from being founded on Acts of Parliaments that She acted without them and upon Resolutions that were given to illude and invalidate their power so that in short the Dr. would apply the Case of the Court of Commission founded by the First of
had Interest enough to procure it could not by the same Power have continued it to them too Had the Late KING been so designing so resolute to introduce this Religion so much contended against He must from the Drs. Argument have stood to His Toleration and which he might have done too notwithstanding the Clamours of the Ensuing Parliament to suppress it and if an Army alone alarms the Dr. with this Absolute Power and must absolutely make any Monarch Arbitrary with which such fearful Authors have made such a formidable Noise then 't was about that time too there was a standing one afoot and 't is but an Argument against him for the quieting of all Minds and assuring of Men they may the better acquiesce when amidst an Army and under an Indulgence the Protestant Religion was entirely preserv'd nothing was alter'd in the establisht Church nothing in the Constitution of the State. His bitter Reflection that Dissenters were pawn'd to the Rage of the Church like the Iewels of the Crown for want of Money was only an Allegory forc'd in for a better inveighing against his Prince in a severer Sarcasm and a more invidious Expression by way of Figure 't is only a sublimer toucht of his Kindness to the Memory of His Majesty that is to be forgotten 't is but the Language of one that loves the Crown like the Famous Author of the Mercurius Politicus who as politickly knew how to render it contemptible by representing of it poor and so plainly call'd His Late Majesty the King of Beggars I confess the practising upon the necessities of the Prince was once a pretty Prologue and expedient to promote a Rebellion but I am sure the Church of England never lik'd it so well and will think Her self but little oblig'd to this pretious Iewel Her most gracious Son for exposing Her for such a Pattern that Her Loyalty was only a Pander for Oppression and for giving no Money till His Majesty had given Her up the Dissenters however the Observation as malitious as it is will do now no Mischief since our present Soveraign is as safe from the Consequences of it as above the Fears SECT IV. ANd now we are come to the true Province of Dr. B that looks indeed like one of his Seventeen defying of his Prince and reproaching of Him for faithless perfidious Designs to falsify all His Protestations and waiting but for an Oportunity to break through all his Promises I confess Liberty of Conscience and the Writ de Comburendo cannot consist and are as contrary things as the Dr. is sometimes even to himself but what occasion the King has given us to have the least suspicion or shadow of such an injurious Thought that after Liberty for a little while allow'd we shall come to the worst of Poenal Laws I cannot comprehend Is it because his Word was ever Sacred and was never violated but in Dr. B's Mouth Was it to be rely'd on even with an implicit Faith when he was but a Subject and a Successor And must it be the less believ'd now because his Character is much greater Does His Person partake more of Infirmity and human Nature when the Church stiles him next under GOD and nearer to the Divine Is it because 't is His Interest so to do when the Quiet and Tranquility of the State will depend upon his not doing it the Love of His Subjects and the Ease of Himself And Lastly Is it probable he 'l doe all this because possible to be done No the Dr. knows all this is good Sedition but bad Argument he knows with what difficulty the King is compassing for all His Dissenting Subjects an Establisht Toleration as sure any Prince would that was not himself of the National Church Establish't unless He could delight to see himself and his perswasion Criminals to the State and made obnoxious for their Faith to his Satutes and the Law sentenc'd in some Cases even to Death by some of those Sanctions to which in a Legal Sense himself is suppos'd to give their Life he knows that only for cancelling these Severities and some other absurd Inconsistencies in the present Constitution of our State his Prince Condescends to solicit the Repeal of these Laws and for it to gratify and indulge all his Subjects And yet even this the Dr. sees he knows will not be compas't but with much time care and caution and what these invidious Authors would observe but by extraordinary Methods and extrajudicial Proceedings does he think it so easy then when only the Laws and Tests are repeal'd with such difficulties to find a Parliament after a Session or Two that will establish severer Acts of Vniformity to the Church of Rome when that of England has but just lost Hers And another formal Repeal must be made before of the Toleration Establisht I need not take notice that the Number of Catholicks of Quality and Note was never yet enough to make an House and may be a long time before they be that the National Religion will be ever that which is the most generally receiv'd the former Treatise has superseded for it my Pains in this but it is easy for the Dr and a Man of Art that Iuggles with the Government with the turn of his Hand or the shaking of his Box to shuffle upon us from a preceding Protestant a very Loyal Catholick Parliament No 't is not the Proof that His Majesty has given that his Promises to this establisht Church are not to be rely'd on 't is not the Apparancy of his visible Interest that obliges him to Ruin and suppress the Protestant 't is not the possibility of doing it so easily were it so injuriously Design'd to be done 't is none of this that thus disturbs him no 't is his Zeal for his Religion 't is his Love for a particular Society 't is the Popes Power to dissolve these Promises and some private Doctrines that will instruct him in Aequivocations But will this Illuminato say that all this Calumny is new too his own peculiar Notion taken from Originals His Majesties Zeal has long been known to the World as well as His Courage and that to none more than his new Masters the Dutch and who have too much Honour in them to deny it His constant perseverance in a Faith which he too believes the True One Maugre the many Temptations to a Change and the Dangers that threatned his Continuance This I confess shews a well setled Zeal and somewhat like that which inspir'd some Primitive Professors of a Religion which we all agree to have been the True Catholick Faith A Zeal not subject to Flattery and as much above Fear 't is not Christian to make this Criminal and if he will introduce this Doctrine among the Dutch we must in his own Words believe there are Bramans there That His Majesties Favours are only extended to a particular Society is an invidious Assertion more dogmatically laid down
not without as great a disturbance to the State for Innovations tho' introduc'd for improvement and Reformation must unavoidably create Troubles and Confusions nay tho' there be nothing really new but only some alteration of Old Customs by bare Omission and receding from former Opinions hitherto receiv'd these sorts of Mutations being look'd upon as Novel attract the consideration of those whom it may Concern forms imediately a Party or a Sect which sets up in opposition to that which is Establisht and political bodies like to those that are truly natural having this common principle to endeavour for their own preservation there must unavoidable be great conflicts between that Party that would retain its Power and that which in spite of it would aspire to it our Henry the Eighth in 's Reign the first great Example amongst us of such a scene of Change and Animosity did himself best experience and describe it too and had some occasion to say that some peoples standing so stiff to their old Mumpsimus and others so Zealous for their new Sumpsimus had occasion'd a great deal of confusion in his Kingdom and I think so too tho' himself too was the most improper person in the world to pass the Animadversion for certainly if any Party can be answerable for the Ill consequences that attend an Alteration tho' the pretence be never so good it must in Justice be charg'd on that which gives the occasion to the Change there can be no Innovation either in a Church and State without Invading somwhat of a right either of Antiquity and Prescription Possession and the Law now I never met with a Legislator yet but what did allow him to be always in the wrong that invaded another mans Right and the Notion we have got in our Noddles of our Parliamentary power being able to do all this and almost any thing I believe some people will at present be loath to allow tho' very well pleas'd with the Latitude it took in our Original Reformation our Common Law did ever justify a Lay-man in the defence of his Inheritance and his House and if I mistake not our Magna Charta made That Church to have her Priviledges and Patrimony too and provides especially that they be kept unviolate when a strong man Armed keepeth his Palace his Goods are in peace but when a stronger man shall come upon him and overcome him he taketh from him all wherein he trusted and divideth the Spoil and I wish I could not apply it here to the Revenues of our Church And this perhaps you 'll find was like to have been the Case in France too Francis the First of that Kingdom having a mind to be Famous took the wisest way to make himself so by sending abroad for Men of Learning whose Pens might transmit his Fame with more advantage to Posterity expecting I suppose no Authors could then be met with that would write the Memoirs of their Monarch only to vilify him to Future Ages this encouragement you may be sure drew a great concourse from all Countrys upon promise of being incorporated too into a University at Paris Luther was then a Reforming in Germany where already they had fallen out amongst themselves as well as with the Emperor He takes this occasion to send Bucer and some of the best of his followers thither to propagate the Doctrine where for about ten Years they Flourish'd under the countenance of the Kings Sister and Wife to the King of Navar who you may be sure could have no kindness for the Pope that had depriv'd her Husband but the troubles these Innovations created to the Kingdom and the contumacious carriage and attempts they shew'd against the Church from the Countenance of that angry Queen provok'd the King so far that even her Power could not protect them from feeling his Resentment so that by several Edicts their Preachers were expel'd the name of Luther very nearly lost exstinguish'd but Calvin comes on and had better success for he being so debonair as to be able to write to them in French their own idioms the Vulgar tongue and it could not but tickle the common sort from hardly understanding it to be made Iudges in Religion so that all his doctrines could not but go down as indeed they did and spread so fast that Hen. the Second was alarm'd at it as any Prince would to find a Party become so formidable as to oppose the Church that was then establish'd by Law This made him endeavour to suppress them Amidst these Troubles the King dies and the Minority of his Son Francis soon rais'd them again to their former Vigor and that the whole Kingdom did afterward sufficiently feel for in this Conjuncture the Greatness of the House of Guise animating that of Bourbon to Rebel the Duke of Vendosme and Prince of Conde disgusted and slighted drew in the Two Chastilions Admiral Coligny and Mr. D' Andilot these discontented Courtiers Consulting together found no expedient so agreeable to promote their Designs as the drawing in of the Hugonots into the Conspiracy and by making themselves the Head of them and though the Duke de Vendosme did for a long time dislike it it was so carryed on by Conde Coligny and his Brother that in short the Hugonots were drawn in to Vnite and League themselves under the Princes of that House and this is that League or Vnion our Author shall call it which he pleases that by me was plainly meant into which the Protestants enter'd and not that of the Papists which was long after and I wish Dr. B. only more foresight when he would Libel and Invade my Sincerity they rais'd Men Monies and Ammunition come to Blois with Petitions in one hand and Swords in the other with an intent to seise the King and Queen and put the Guises to the Sword this would have been a little Massacre too but the Court having intimation of it was remov'd to the strong Castle of Amboise there they come too to pursue the design but the D. of Guise being made Lieutenant ordered the matter so that they were all routed and Renaudy the chief of the Rebells kill'd this tho' of their own seeking set all the rest of the Neighbouring Provinces in a flame they seiz'd upon Catholick Churches by force w ch if Calvin himself could call rashness the Romanist's might well Rebellion the same outrages they committed at Avignon so that at an Assembly at Fountainbleau it was thought best to make some favourable Edict in their behalf but this I hope will not excuse them from the blood that was spilt before or the Insurrection that was made since they prided themselves in it and glory'd in the Consternation they had cast on the Kingdom and without considering their Obligation to the Edict presently after concluded to seise upon some of the most considerable Towns in France and even Paris it self to depose the Queen remove
overturning of Churches the zealous Queen of Navar encouraging them so far that at Pamiers on a Corpus Christi Day upon a solemn Procession they put themselves in Arms fell upon the unarm'd Catholicks made a great Slaughter among the Church-men these escaping with impunity encourag'd the like Bloodshed in several other places this may be call'd a little tho' not such a famous Massacre and this day of Corpus Christi almost as dreadful as St. Bartholomew which from the abhorrence I have of both I can hardly think that Providence could permit such severe Retaliation and to match the Dr's Observations on the deposing Power about that time a Book came out and was publish'd by them maintaining it lawful to kill the King if he turn'd an Idolater and was follow'd by the most Antimonarchical Pieces such as I am sure the Society never penn'd or ever saw and some Catholick Writers assert from the Confession of Prisoners that were rack'd that they once had a Design to kill the King and Queen and place the Crown on the Head of Conde which from the partiality of the Authors and the extortion of the Evidence and our Charity to the Hugonots wee 'll hope to be False and rather disbelieve After all these Revolutions of Revolt and Pacification they join at last with the Rochellers to maintain the War when other Towns had submitted to Peace after all this Obstinacy can their Kings be condemn'd for not keeping their Edicts which themselves would never observe and obey All forreign Forces were invited in to the hazard of the whole Kingdom and even our Queen Elizabeth a second time prevail'd upon to succour them after they had betray'd her in the First yet such was her Zeal or Interest of State that She could never deny assistance to any of her Neighbours when in Arms against their Prince but this to France prov'd very unlucky for besides her Charges and being beaten out of Normandy by those She had befriended they sent her back the Plague for the Service She did them in the Civil War I will not say a just Reward since it fell upon a People for whose Prosperity I had rather pray but it must be remarkable though we may not call it a Iudgment for She had a League with the King of France at the same time and which She had sworn too not long before when She lent Money Men and Arms to his Subjects to fight against him but it was not to be call'd a Breach of it because it must be suppos'd that the Forces of the Reform'd were only rais'd to Fight for his Service and the true Religion though against his Person Crown and Dignity this Distinction I think must have in it some favour too of the Mental Reserve and be an Instance of another Promise that was not very well kept In short with this Assistance they held out a long War which ended at last in the Death of the Prince of Conde at the Battle of Iarnar and let the World judge whither the Condemning the Admiral and Confiscating his Estate for Rebellion was just after this there continu'd a dissembled Reconciliation on both sides such an one as the most open Hostility had been less dangerous which afterward that dismal Day of Death and Marriage did discover some zealous on the Catholick side will tell us this Tragedy was Acted only to preserve them selves that a Plot of the Hugonots was found out for which purpose Edicts and Proclamations were publish'd and Meddals stampt for the Deliverance which whether only to palliate so many Murders or that those who had all along been so restless had further Machinations must be left as a secret to the Searcher of Hearts Most certain it is it was more Cruel and Universal than that by the Protestants at Pamiers the greatest Dangers could never justify so black a Deed and Fate seem'd to Revenge the Effusion of so much Blood in that of the KINGS who poured out his own and his Soul together in some Two Years after From this abstracted Narrative will appear to all impartial People what was the Original what occasion'd the Continuance and what promoted the end of all this bloody War it is hard that Catholicks should be condemned alone for it and their Princes upbraided for those Transactions which some Protestants have look'd upon as the very Scandal of the Reformation And from hence will appear too his Sincerity as I observ'd before how disingenuously the Dr. would fasten upon my meaning his own Malice and Mistake as if I had taken the Holy League of the Papists for that which these Protestants enter'd into so long before If he 'll Quarrel with me for the Word we will not call it a League but an Vnion of the Protestants under the Prince of Conde begun about Twenty Year before the League of the Papist under the Duke of Guise 'T is plain that I referr'd to this and the Dr. in his Chronology as is much out now as Mr. Varillas Prepossession and Prejudice whether the result of Education Interest or Religion are all the same Inconsistencies with the Faithfulness of an Historian and which in these Relations I have wholly abstracted and taken these short Extracts from the comparing the different Complexions of Catholick and Protestant Writers for the Light of Truth is so much a Spark too that it is best Strook from the most solid and disagreeing Bodies and is the sooner discovered from such a Collision and such is my Charity too that whatever were the Faults of the First Reformers in France which themselves must own were too many it can by no means justify the furious Proceedings against them at present either with prudence or safety from the Maxims of the State or any great Credit to the Doctrines of this Gallican Church for as it cannot be suppos'd but that any Government Establish'd will endeavour to suppress all growing Opinions in their Original Productions especially should the Novelty or but suppos'd Innovation threaten not only the Religion of the State but even the Subversion of the Constitution of the Government it self as we see it did in this Kingdom and in the Low-Countries as hereafter will appear was actually compleated so a general Indulgence is as naturally requisite where such different Sentiments have prevail'd and for a series of Time been settl'd and confirm'd especially where the Professors of such a different Faith have comported themselves so long with all deference to the civil Magistrate and even to the support of the Crown and it is far from Reason and Justice a Vengeance peculiar and assum'd only by the Almighty Judge to visit to the Third and Fourth Generation Imputation of Guilt was never transferr'd but in Original Sin and those unfortunate Calamities that by the Reformation were occasion'd can no more warrant that King's Persecutions than they could excuse our Charity to those that he persecutes SECT VIII WE will examin
Minister for Diseases that are desperate commonly require Remedies as dangerous too tho' I must say as Grotius observes That had been the season for Philip himself to have come to suppress them for such necessitated Severities are sooner born with and have better success when they come from the Prince himself than from any common Subject tho' the greatest Minister of State especially when from one that has contracted a popular Odium The Duke comes with a powerful Army of good old experienc'd Souldiers to restore his Soveraign to that his Country which as he had left so that had almost entirely deserted him the Duke seizes two of the chief of the Faction Egmont and Horn they were Try'd Condemn'd and Executed publickly at Brussels judicially proscribes the Prince of O seises upon his Eldest Son sends him Prisoner into Spain confiscates his Estate and all this proceeding of Absolute Power I conceive among Civilians will be still call'd Law a Iudicial Process against Disobedient Subjects for Conspiracy Sedition Sacrilege and High-Treason These were the Laws by which he was to Govern these Laws of Nations were then too those of all the Land by which most parts of it at this very time are govern'd and how many of those were violated by that multitude of Tumultuous People and whether every one of them was not in the highest manner broken I hope from the foregoing Relations will appear not one of these Crimes but was ever reputed by the Imperial Law Capital and no wonder then so many lost their heads so general was the Defection that an incens'd King might well declare the Provinces had forfeited their Liberty and almost every Man his Life Whatever were the Obligations of the Prince they themselves had Violated all the former Pacifications and indeed without any regard to the mildness of the Dutchess of Parma she had got the Souldiers remov'd Cardinal Granvell to be sent away and conniv'd at their Tumultuous Assemblies and Religious Meetings 'T is true these Pacifications and Condescentions did somewhat appease them but no longer till they had an opportunity and encouragement to demand greater Freedoms or Licentiousness and that offer'd it self when Lewis Count of Nassaw was return'd from Heydelberg with assurance that the Elector Palatin would lend them assistance for then you see as in the foresaid Relation they fell to Libelling of the Government the Lords associate themselves at Breda Brederode comes in that bold manner to the Court the Governess as she could not well avoid in such a Seditious Juncture gave them good hopes that the Emperors Edicts should be moderated and the Inquisition taken away but it was fit the King should be first acquainted with it but for this it seems they would not stay but run out into all those Extravagant Mischiefs we have repeated before so when Egmont was somewhat before this sent into Spain to sift the King's Inclinations and to mollifie him From Grotius himself I cannot discover that the Dutchess had therein granted them any publick Edict of Pacification nor indeed from any other Author It appears from all that she conniv'd at their boldness till better times could come to suppress it all that the King told the Count from his Annals does appear to be only this That there might be some hopes of the moderating the severity of such Edicts but it seem'd to depend too upon the submissive Comportment of the People for whom he exprest a great deal of Affection but when he receiv'd an account of the several Tumults before recited and especially the Seditious Carriage of the Senate of Bruges who had imprison'd some of his Officers only for Executing of his Iustice it was then that he thought them to deserve no mercy and so sent to his Sister to let her know all what he had promis'd Count Egmont and that she should see the Edicts of the Emperor and those of Trent put in Execution The Dr. says King Philip the 2 d. did ratifie to Count Egmont the Dutchess of Parma's Edict of Pacification if his Friend Meteran were not mistaken and all other Authors the Count's Negotiation in Spain was two years before the Pacification at Brussels was penn'd or heard of for he was sent away immediately after Granvel's Removal in the year 1564 5 and the Dutchess's Edict bears date 23 d. August 1566 neither is there any mention of his confirming made nor could well be for she sent out to all the Provinces her Pacificatory Letters by the 26 th of the same Month but the Dr. depended upon the license of a Traveller and thought no one would offer to go so far as to disprove him And the business of Bayonne that presently ensu'd and all that famous Conference between the two Crowns of France and Spain for extirpating the Protestants has no other foundation than the Story of the King of France's confessing it to the Prince of O as a Secret when he was a Hunting where if we consider what a weakness it must argue in the King and the prejudice that might dispose the Prince to such a representation it being his interest to make Spain as odious as he could we may have some reason to suspend our belief Grotius and those that have it from him have themselves no other foundation for it but the Princes own Authority and Confession it was otherwise receiv'd by the World Philip himself not appearing at it only for an enterview for a kind Correspondence between the Mother of France and her Children and perhaps nothing but the Duke of Alva's being present at the Conference has given occasion to the countenancing the report of such cruel Intentions where if a Subject of so great concern to the two Crowns had been to be debated it is somewhat probable the Queen-Mother would have brought with her one of the greatest Ministers of State and brought the Duke of Guise to have matcht that of Alva for her Son Charles the Ninth was too young to be such a Counsellor tho' if they really had what is yet left so uncertain consulted how to preserve themselves against a growing and formidable Party that infested both their Kingdoms and mutually assisted one another as Conde did the Mutineers in Flanders It comes to no more than this that those two Monarchies like meer natural Bodies did Conspire for their own Preservation for Princes in Prudence are oblig'd to preserve a Religion that has been long establish'd in their Dominions tho' the same Policy did at first oblige them to oppose its Establishment And I 'le engage Dr. B. to be of the same mind when he says If Persecution can be at any time excus'd it is in the first beginning of Heresies the Heats that were rais'd in the first Formation of the Breach may take away from the Guilt of the Sacrifices that were made but always when Princes meet especially with some jealous people such an interview though but a Complement is improv'd
plain than from this late Revolution in the Death of the President where if there had been but a submissive applicacation made to an offended Majesty and an humble Petition to be restor'd to favour if I may be forgiven the boldness of Imagination as well as the Dr. would be pardon'd the hardiness of Propositions I fancy many might have met with as much of the King's mercy as now they suffer under the effects of his Iustice and might have hinder'd a Society from returning to its Primitive Institution where some that possess it now may upon another score be too ready to observe that in the beginning it was not so The Dr. tells us we are to be govern'd by Law and not by the Excesses of Government but if he can tell me from any Reign since the Conquest of the Normans that there were not greater Excesses of Government complain'd of and greater us'd as in a particular Treatise I have prov'd I 'll grant him the Dispensing Power to be the greatest Grievance Discontents and Jealousies under any Revolution of State do only shift sides and are never wanting in a Government where the People can but make a Party had those Presidents of Excesses which I cited from our former Reigns but made for the Doctors purpose that had been Law which is now Excess and a Dispensation for the great Out-rages that were committed upon the Church in Edw. 6 th's Reign before any Parliament had authoriz'd it it seems was truly Law which as it was a power to save Men from being hang'd for Sacrilege so many will tell us too it was a sort of destroying the Government The R. Cath. I am confident will be glad to hear that the Severities by which they have so unreasonably suffer'd and that so long have been only the result of the Protestants fears and not so much their deserved Punishments for any perpetrated Crimes When the Elector Palatine had mov'd the King of France that he would tolerate all the Hugonots to Preach in Paris he return'd him the like motion that all the Catholicks might be allow'd to say Publick Mass in his Capital City if we must exclude them from all employment because of the dangerous Consequence under a Catholick King must not they think themselves as much beset with dangers when they shall have none but their Enemies in Office under a Protestant Successor and if they then should move to be the only persons employ'd would it not be as strange a Request as what is made now that none but Protestants must be so neither will this Establishment and Constitution of the State make any great disparity in the Parallel unless it be to the disadvantage of those that would make the difference for if Protestants will plead their Penal Laws their Tests their prescription of an hundred and fifty years possession and enjoyment in bar to their Pretensions it will put Papists upon the retrospect how they came to be thus excluded and discover that they had for above five hundred years before all the Laws of Church and State on their side and none others heard of or admitted into Office and Employment and therefore when the Doctor tells us that in Holland the Government is wholly in the hands of Protestants Papists will be apt to return they know how it comes to be so that both Holland and Zealand sided with those of Flanders at first in the Pacification of Gaunt to leave the governing part both of Church and State in the hands of the Catholicks but that when they came to Reform farther and grew more powerful nothing less would serve the turn than the Vnion of Utrecht by which they were to be left to govern themselves as they pleas'd and when their famous City of Amsterdam that now priviledges all Subjects as well as all Religions to its immortal honor made the stoutest resistance for the sake of their old Laws and Religion and its neighbour Harlem never resisted their King so stoutly as this fought for him for it was Besieg'd by Sea and Land and at last yielded only upon these honourable Terms That their former faith should continue establisht their Magistrates confirm'd yet were forc't to admit against their Capitulation a Garrison against their Articles of War new Articles of Faith and for their old Magistrates of the Peace to be govern'd by the standing Officers of the Army so it is not fit it should be known how the Government came to be wholly there in the hands of Protestants for fear it should reflect too much upon Promises too that were not well kept and that the same should become the seat and refuge for all sort of Sectaries that was once such a Celebrated City for being at Vnity with it self I need not take much pains to show why my Presidents from the reign of Edward 3 d. might be recommended to the practise of this since he gives no reason why they should not unless his Authority be such in History as some Dogmatists are said to have had in the Schools a Dixit and indisputable if I mistake not our British Annals cannot boast of a more Glorious and Auspicious Reign both for our Foreign Expeditions and victorious returns two Neighbouring Kings a sort of Prisoners to our own two Kingdoms but little better than our Tributarys the Misfortunes of Scotland the Fate of France will furnish us with too much matter to make those times for ever fam'd and his present Majesties most Heroick mind and military disposition may tell us too that they can be imitated I cant discover why the latter end of this King's Life may not be recommended as much for imitation the recovering of the Kingdom of Castile for its lawful Lord and another expedition into France were both such Actions of the renowned Prince his Son by which the Nation cannot suffer much in the Consummation of his reign but if any thing may make the latter end not to be imitated it may by some people be thought to be the Disturbances in the Discipline of the Church which was like to have made as great a Commotion in the affairs of the state for it was in this latter end that Wicklift divulg'd his new doctrines drew in a great many Proselites among the Common People and made a Party among some of the greatest Nobility too which terminated in this unhappy issue to shew us too soon the dangers and disturbances that always must attend any Innovation in Religion for the suppressing of this Gregory the XI wrote the Arch-Bishop and Bishop of London who cite Wickliff to appear at Pauls whither he comes well attended with the Duke of Lancaster and Piercy Lord Marshal where they were no sooner come but the Spiritual Lords fell out with the Temporal the Temporal with the Spiritual all about Wickliff's sitting down before his Ordinary which the Reforming Lords in contempt to the Bishops contended for and the Proselited Duke was so Zealous as to tell
Iohn and his exercising such a severe Authority over the Church Fining severely for suppos'd Crimes I suppose our Author thinks should be least mentioned because it produc'd the Barons Wars but no one will say they were the better Subjects whatever were the King's Excesses Henry the Third some say was so like his Father that he succeeded him if they must be call'd so in his Excesses too in resuming alien'd Lands in Fines in making advantage of the Vacancies of the Church The Proceedings of Edward the First against his Clergy putting them out of his Protection seising upon their Goods and Edward the Second's Confiscations after the Defeat of the Earl of Lancaster this Author will call Excesses too though I cannot see why they may not all have the more moderate Names of the King's Proceedings as well as when all things were so warranted in the Reign of Edw. 6 th As we had begun with these Observations on our King 's antiently Exercising of an Vnlimited Power which in other Treatises I have shewn and which our Author if he will shall call Absolute from the Reign of Edward 3 d. So here the Dr. may observe these Presidents deduc'd down to that Time too and so cannot but see that such Excesses are inseparable from the Government and perhaps a Prerogative that Soveraignty cannot well or will not be without and if Subjects must be allow'd to Censure and Reflect on their Princes Proceedings it is morally impossible that they can provide against all their Clamours and Complaints the Necessities of State will many times force them to some Excesses and Diversities of Opions and Parties and now the too much to be lamented Divisions in Religion will ever make those Proceedings seem just to one side that are look'd upon as injurious by the other Our Author will oblige the Roman Catholicks very much if he will justify for Law all the Proceedings of Queen Eliz. and I 'le engage he shall have the Thanks of the Society as heartily as he had that of the House for in the First Year before any Act of Parliament had past for Alterations Images were defac'd and Altars demolish'd by Her Proclamations She put down all publick Preachers but such as were Licens'd by Her Authority the business of the Reformation and Altering of Religion if we believe Baker was Carryed in Parliament but by Six Voices and will give Catholicks occasion to say That notwithstanding the present Clamours about Regulating Elections great Artifices were us'd then too to bring it about and but by Six Votes at last the Weighty Cause of Religion was over-ballanc'd 'T is certain that Excesses were then Complain'd of too and it was murmurred about even in the Lower House it self that the Parliament was pack'd that the Duke of Norfolk Earl of Arundel and Sir William Cecil for their own Ends had sollicited Votes and made a Party These Irregularities may serve to silence some Peoples unreasonable and indiscreet Clamors at present since they can be so soon retorted and which I urge only to shew the Consequence of such ill-manag'd Objections and not to justify and defend them SECT X. ANd now that I may be grateful in my Acknowledgments as I shall ever be for any Favours I must confess this Author has assisted me with one President more and the Dr. would do well to be so fair in some of his Writings as to own his Authorities It is the Case in the Late King's Time where he repeals an Act about the size of Carts and Waggons To Answer this our Author Appeals to the Lawyers and the Gentlemen of the Long Robe though he will not stand by the Judgment of the Twelve Men in Scarlet that to their knowledge some Laws are understood to be Abrogated without a special Repeal when some visible Inconvenience enforces it when this comes to be impartially considered it will be a granting of all that he contends against and the Tests and Poenal Laws will expire of their own Accord by this Authors inconsiderate Resolution It is one of the very Arguments of a late Catholick Lawyer upon the Dispensing Power and so as the Dr. wisely appeals to them they as civilly answer him that he is in the right The Dr. did not foresee the Dangerous Consequence amongst Lawyers of his visible Inconvenience for the Law has such an Aversion to this Inconvenience that it maintains as a Maxim that a Mischief is better suffered than an Inconvenience now putting the Case thus That a Legislative Power may possibly pass into Law what may prove a visible Inconvenience to the whole Kingdom or a great Part of it that a great part of the Kingdom and the King himself do judge the Test and Poenal Laws very inconvenient that they have been really found so to the Subject that the KING has in this Case too declared Himself satisfy'd of this Inconvenience and the People address'd against it as intolerable then from his own President and Concession it must be concluded that either these Laws must expire of themselves that there must be some Soveraign Power such as the KING 's to dispense with them and that it is very fit for a Parliament to repeal them for certainly it must conclude a Fortiori that the Inconvenience that is found in forcing of a Conscience is of a greater Consideration than an inconvenience in a Cart Wheel neither does that abrogating of his without a special Repeal make any difference for their expiring by disusance is indeed the self same thing as the Royal Disspensation for in Laws once made the Soveraign Authority is solely entrusted with their Execution and where the KING does not command the Iudges to execute or expresly forbid it no man of sense but will say that this is a perfect Dispensation Our Author is very unlucky in touching upon some Instances that do him some Disservice and in this more especially since I cannot but observe that when these Poenal Laws about Carriages and Encouragement of Navigation were so erroneously made and People solicitous about the repealing them one of the designs of the greatest Ministers of State that they then had in Holland was for embroyling us at home upon the same Account that they might appear the more formidable abroad as well as we weaken'd by those Severities that occasion'd our Divisions which visible Inconvenience was then too in the same manner upon the same Maxims dispenss'd with and prevented only 't is somewhat strange that this darling Liberty of theirs by which they were so gloriously founded and for so long time have so finely Flourish'd should seem so dangerous in our Country and from the goodness of the Soyl could only prosper in theirs but where Trade seems a sort of Religion 't is time to be jealous of such Neighbours that would also learn this Ecclesiastical Policy to make of their Godliness a Gain too Our Author says it is our saying that the KING 's Dispensing Power
much an Allowance of the State as any Licence from one of our Secretaries or the Lord President himself especially when Reparation for such Injuries has been demanded in a publick memorial and manifesto and instead of punishing such Offences the Offenders are encourag'd to farther and severer Reflections and that perhaps with a promise of Impunity Since this Author will make his Quarrel a National one which I should think a wise People would not suffer to gratify but a single mans Malice It is but just that we shew too what Party were the first Aggressors and how easy 't is for our English to make their Iustification I must profess that while our Author is permitted there so scandalously to reflect upon His Majesty's Proceeding Common Justice will oblige us to return the same Animadversions while no Memorial of theirs can with any Modesty represent it as Injurious In the mean time I shall confine my self to these more particular Vindications of the KING and Kingdom where the Calumnies of his most malitious Papers have sufficiently affected both and let him know that I as little fear the Resentments of his States as he seems to do the juster Indignation of the King of England To put us in mind of the Circumstances of our State before the beginning of the Dutch War and to parallel it with the present time is another unlucky Topick of our Authors and a wise man would think might have been better let alone It will make us recollect that indefatigable Industry of one of their Greatest Ministers against the slackning of these Laws that our Divisions amongst our selves might the sooner sacrifice us a Prey to our Neighbours and the more secure some of them from His Majesty's asserting of His just Rights I hope our Author has no Commission for the denouncing War nor any design upon the Chain at Chattam that he talks of Invading a State and threatens us with their Resentment and Preparations If Time must shew that 't is time too to look to our selves but I dare not detract so much from the Wisdom of their Lordships his new Masters as not to think they will not call him to an Account now for abusing themselves though with greater Decency they might suffer it against his Soveraign this is intermedling with Peace and War nay even a denouncing it before the States Generals I am confident have taken it into Consideration we do not hear yet they have agreed to any extraordinary Contributions for it there has been no Pole yet nor the hundredth Penny nor any Imposition upon Travellers but as formidable as our Author would make them whose Interest it is to magnify his Protectors this Historian must remember too that the Valour of his repudiated English has heretofore as victoriously engag'd them and that when assisted with two Crowns in Conjunction and in that juncture too when we had more merciless Enemies at home when the Almighty made himself indeed a consuming Fire and the Destroyer walk'd before it in darkness and a devouring Plague Two entire Victories were return'd us from the Sea to triumph over the Misfortunes that the land lay under and in the third Attack as unequal as we were in strength was by the weakness of both sides left undecided an Action in which 't was Glory enough only to have been the Aggressors The Courage of the Dr's deserted Nation was then confess'd by some of their great Ministers that would have so fomented our Divisions and found too much the Effect of the slackning of these Laws one would think that the Iealousy of such Neighbours should weigh with Men of Sense that it is a sincere Design to establish and continue with us both Liberty and Religion since it appears so much a visible Interest almost an unavoidable Necessity If a visible Inconvenience will warrant a Repeal why will not an Interest as visible secure us after it 't is strange that a Protestant People can make no difference between an invisible Establishment of the Catholick Religion and a visible Necessity that the Papist have to preserve themselves from a threatned Ruin. It is such a peculiar Confidence that it becomes none but our Author or is no where but in him to be found to tax us so unreasonably for Reflecting on a State to which we have nothing of Relation and that only in Matters of Tradition and Truth at the same time that he vilifies a Crown'd Head to which he owes an Obedience and that with Forgery and Falslehood The Defence of KING and Country I think is every Subjects Concern by Nature if it were not commanded also by municipal Law and that leads me to justify our selves both in the Tripple Alliance and the Business of the Smyrna Fleet both which he upbraids us with as naturally as if he had been a Native of Holland and no need of being naturaliz'd though I cannot but think that those that revile their Allyes for old Breaches betray too much their willingness to make new That Allyance that was between Them Vs and the King of Sweden had in it this Conditional Clause That the Confederates were to assist one another if for the sake of their entering into such a League they were at any time by any other Party invaded the King of France declares a War soon after against the Dutch it did not appear from his Declaration that their entering into this Allyance was the Reason he declar'd it and that it was therefore his revengeful War which are Words express'd in the Articles for then he had the same Revenge to take against the rest of the Allyes against whom he denounc'd no war at all and it is a Rule in such Leagues as well as a Maxim among the Civil Lawyers that an Obligation that is conditionally specify'd must not extend as if it had no condition and were unlimited and for this Reason did the Dutch insist so much upon that Point that the War which threatned them from France was only upon the Account of that Allyance which as it did not appear either from any Discovery that could be made or the Declaration that was publish'd so it could not oblige England unless she would have been so forward to have engag'd in the War upon presumption and that the Swedes were of the same opinion appear'd from their neutrality and indifference This is that famous Violation for which we must be so much reflected on this is what the Dutch were pleas'd to call a Breach and which if it were in the least to be look'd upon as such they were only oblig'd for it to their fam'd Friend that fled to them too for Protection who was naturaliz'd also after the deepest Conspiracy detected against our KING and who was celebrated for the only Author of that uncharitable Aphorism Delenda est Carthago SECT XI IN the next place for his Heroical Attempt as he calls it on the Smyrna Fleet it seems his
witts alwayes the Greatest Enemies to our English Interest as well as their own and so eager by their Pensionaryes pursu'd that they had almost introduc'd an utter Anarchy entire Desolation in this fam'd Republick and never ceas'd till by the perpetual Edict they did so basely abolish that Office of the House of Orange which as it was Establish'd by the Vnion so their First Prince predicted they could never stand without The Prince's Highness whose Office and Authority amongst them we wish may be ever continu'd and augmented for his own Honour and the States and the necessity that it shews for some Resemblance of Monarchy even in a Republick and a Common-wealth and that too from the remarkable Prediction of one of his famous Predecessors and their First Founder as well as in the Constitution of some other Common-wealths but this Prince and that State is but little oblig'd to such a Defender who forces in such Arguments for their Defence as their intestine Enemyes had almost made use of for their utter subversion they that sacrificed these popular Pretences to their popular Outrages in the sad Obsequies of those tumultuous Men even to a Resentment that might be call'd cruel and inhumane can never have any great Obligation of kindness to such an Apologist that for want of Foresight and Consideration would only befriend them upon the Principles of their most dangerous Enemyes In the next place supposing that Resistance had been as lawful from the Constitution of their State as it was ever from the Doctrine of this Casuist and Divine does it therefore justifie a Revolt to be so too is there no difference between an endeavour to preserve their Priviledges in the Goverment and an actual Subversion of the whole frame of it Alva's great Severities were almost forgotten under the Reign of three milder Governours that had almost compos'd all this distraction when their particular defection was design'd The General insurrections as from the History has appear'd were before the arrival of this severe Minister and if Rebellion will forfeit Priviledges as our Laws and those of all Nations do declare I am sure 't is no Tyranny to seise them How some of the States of Europe did esteem this a Iustifiable Action our selves can best testifie to our shame but that all did is only the want of it or excess of Confidence in our shameless Author Arch Duke Matthias left them as appears when he saw it was coming to that the mild Emperor Maximilian tho' he mediated for a Peace yet could never justify the War those Princes of Germany that sent them aid from abroad were only such as were in the same circumstance of disobedience at home the Rebellions in Scotland and the deposition of the Q. were no more Iustified by the States of Europe than was her murder we committed here yet we saw from our Acts of Subsidy too that the Scots were assisted to Fight against their Soveraign 'T is still the constant misfortune of our Author and now it must fall at last upon his own Church to be Libelld in a friendly argument and sure such Actions of that Queen had better be forgotten which we 'll believe her forc'd to from the necessity of State and the condition of the Church tho' to the loss of her reputation and no little blemish to this Establisht Religion sure she believ'd the King of Spain had some Right to his revolted Subjects when she so wisely refus'd that Dominion they so frankly offer'd And the King of France was somewhat of the same mind when he so generously rejected that rash and rebellious Overture and this French King when some of his Calvinists and Male-contents were running into Flanders to their Assistance pursu'd them and thought it such a justtfiable Action that he cut them all to pieces But to keep only to the Queens Case 't is another of his unlucky Touches to talk of her assisting them it looks as if our Author had a mind to rub up the Memory of their ungrateful Returns the Tricks that the Faction we have mention'd before put upon their Deliverer Leicester the Collusions of their Councils with the good Intentions of Her Majesty the secret Treatys with France and treacherous Aid and the refusing to repay Her and to come homer to the Case it was protested by one of the fam'd Deputies of that time and that upon his Knees to some of his Companions that those Submissions made to the Q. of England was only to draw Her into a War with Spain which when She was asham'd of and would have mediated a Peace a Peace which by the very Articles She was to conduct them to and not to a Republick and by which She was made an Arbitress of That as well as of the War They sent Her a solemn Embassy to disswade Her from it which when it was not likely to prevail She urging that Arbitration to which they had agreed they took upon them to expound solemn Articles for Words of Course and that they had made Her an Umpire only out of Complement Respect Posterity is taught only to remember the Spanish Invasion with an Abhorrence as if it were a Popish Plot and our Author does no service to the Protestant Religion to let them know that Spain was first Invaded by the most Protestant Queen Five Thousand Foot and a Thousand Horse and that three Year before that Formidable Armado came to face our Coast were carryed over there to keep that sinking State from a certain falling into their former Constitution and returning by force to the Obedience of their Lawful Lord. That most impartial Author whom we can't but call so since their own Country-man gives but little Countenance to this Queens good Opinion of this Iustifyable Action for when She was again offer'd the Dominion of these Dutch by some of their Magistrates and the people of Frisia he observes that it was much suspected That if they had tender'd her the Goverment as got into their hands by the Mutiny of the Common People and the Sedition of the Souldiers She might sooner have accepted of it which when offer'd as from the publick Consent She cunningly refus'd She knew that Mutiny had made them what they were and that the same was the surest way to make them Hers whereas an Act of State from those that had made themselves so was of no more Authority than the Revolt by which they were made and that at any time would give to her self as Just a Title So true it is that a Defection from Princes unhinges all Right of Soveraignty and Property it self warrants Sedition from the Constitution of the State and lyes a Land open like those of our Lawyers to be Primi Occupantis But because this Author does give us a Touch of his more modern Politicks as well as of his excellency in antient History which if we