Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A65410
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An answer to the late King James's declaration to all his pretended subjects in the Kingdom of England, dated at Dublin-Castle May 8, 1689
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Welwood, James, 1652-1727.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing W1299; ESTC R24610
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16,973
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14
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â—â—oos'd returns of his House and follows his labour but anone down comes upon him the Rabble of the Army like an inundation of Goths and Vandals sweep all before them and leaves nothing behind them but a starving Family The wretched man making his address to Hamilton received this cold answer I promised to protect you from the Army but I have no power to restrain the Rabble In the beginning of the second Paragraph we are told of the Care King James has taken of the Church of England that they be not disturbed in the exercise of their Religion and possession of their Benefices and that all Protestant Dissenters enjoy Liberty of their Consciences without the least molestation And out of his Royal Care for the prosperity of his People as he calls them he has recommended to his Parliament as the first thing necessary to be dispatched to settle such a security and Liberty both in Spiritual and Temporal Matters as may put an end to these Divisions which have been the source of all their Miseries being resolved as much as in him lies to entail Liberty and Happiness on his People so far as to put it out of the power of his Successors to invade the one or revenge the other And this he takes God to witness was always his design The first part of this long period is but a repetition of what had been formerly said in the first Paragraph of the Protestants their Religion Priviledges and Properties being his chief Care and what truth that can bear we have shewed already There is one thing that I find King James was ever inclinable to value himself upon and which he here likewise mentions I mean his tenderness to Protestant Dissenters and his Principle for Liberty of Conscience They are very thick sighted that could not discern what lay at the bottom of this Liberty and what could be the true motive that should have induced one of King James's Religion to do it But because he has been at the pains so often during his Reign to assure us That it was his Opinion Conscience should not be constrained nor People forced in Matters of Religion and particularly in his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience dated August 4. 1687. I 'll beg leave to say That in this King James is no obedient Son of the Church of Rome for it has over and over again decreed the extirpation of Hereticks It encourages Princes to it by the offer of the Pardon of their Sins It threatens them to it by denouncing to them not only the Judgments of God but that which is often more sensible the loss of their Dominions It 's true Bellarmine tells us The Church does not always execute her power of deposing Heretical Princes though she always retains it and he gives a very good reason for it because she is not at all times in a capacity to put it in Execution So the very same Reason might have made it unadviseable to King James when he was so liberal of his Tolerations to extirpate Heresie because it could not be then easily done But we see the Right remains intire and is put in execution in such an unrelenting manner in our neighbouring Countries that it has a very Grace to see any Member of that Church pretend to be against constraining the Conscience in point of Religion And when we consider that neither the Policy and true Interest of France nor the greatness of their Monarch could withstand these bloody Counsels that are indeed parts of that Religion I could never see any reason to induce us to believe that the late Tolerations of Religion were proposed with any other design but either to divide the Protestants among themselves or to lay them asleep till it was time to give the alarm for destroying them And that in the Opinion of that Church the Glory of extirpating Heresie is valued above all other great Actions we have a remarkable instance in that famous Harrangue made by the Bishop of Violence to the French King in the Name of the Convention of the French Clergy at St. Germans in June 1684 where that Prelate having recounted the innumerable Conversions made by the Kings Orders Cares and Liberalities to use his very Words he subsumes thus Je bien même que chercherois vainement dans les sicoles passés que l'appulerois vainement a mon secours touts les eloges des pâ—â—miers des plus saints Empereurs It were says he in vain to search into the Ages past It were in vain to call to my assistance all the Panegyricks of the first and holiest of the Emperours And afterwards he treats him with the Title of the Great Restorer of the Faith and extirpator of Heresie and tells him that these infinitely surmount all his other glorious Titles And then speaking of his Masters great Victories in Germany Flanders c. and the Peace of Nimiguen made upon the back of them he concludes thus That the Fruit which the King had received by that Peace made it fully apparent what was the principal end he aimed at in the Victories meaning the Extirpation of Hereticks The late King James has always copied so fair after Lewis le Grand That we have no Reason to question but in this so glorious a work of extirpating Heresie it would have come up to the Original if his Designs and a favourable juncture of time had concurr'd together When he tells us That the first thing he has recommended to his Parliament is to settle such a Security and Liberty as may put an end to these Divisions which have been the source of all our Miseries I find the greatest exactness of Truth in these Words if we but take them in the sence and meaning of the Speaker viz. a Roman Catholick Prince For albeit we all know that the first thing recommended by King James to his Irish Parliament was The Repealing the Act of Settlement which is indeed the Great Charter by which most of the Protestants enjoy their Estates And tho' the destroying that Act gives a mortal blow to the Protestant Interest in Ireland yet according to the native Principles of King James his Religion the repealing of this Act of Settlement may well be called The setling a Security that may put an end to their Divisions which has been the source of all our Miseries That is to say King James from a Principle of Religion is resolved to remove that Barrier that protects the Protestants in Ireland in their Separation from the Church of Rome That by its removal he may be in a capacity conform to the Holy Dictates of that Church and the laudable Example of Lewis XIV to put an end to all Divisions in point of Religion by forcing them to return to the Mother Church by the calm Methods of late so happily used in France And this I am very inclinable to believe he may with a safe Conscience take God to Witness was always his Design I am
whole Counties and acted Barbarities proper only to themselves and their French Confederats and by which they have forc'd away a great many Thousands from their Countrey at the point of Starving having sav'd nothing of their Fortunes from so universal a Calamity Yet no withstanding all this appears in the Face of the Sun King James that he may not come short of his Patron boldly affirms That the Religion Priviledges and Properties of his Protestant Subjects as he names them are his chiefest Care ever and above What a gross Contradiction is it to common Sense and Reason that a Prince bigotted to the Romish Religion and enslav'd to Jesuitick Councils should make that Religion which in his Opinion is an execrable Heresy become his equal Care with what he calls the Recovery of his Right Sure I am in this Expression he has mightily overacted his part and nothing but a belief capable to receive Transubstantiation can be perswaded of the fair meaning of it If the proposition could possibly admit of favourable Construction then it must necessarily follow That King James is of another Communion than that of Rome which were a great injury done him to suppose seing he has given us such convincing proofs to the contrary For every Roman Catholick is obliged to look upon the Protestants as Hereticks and their Religion as Heresy and we have once every year the imaginary Successor of Saint Peter formally Cursing us in person and from his plenary power declaring us to be fallen from all our Civil Rights If King James had said the Protestants are his Care meaning the Conversion of them to his Religion by the calm methods of a Dragoon Mission he would have found no great difficulty to have been believ'd But to affirm that That pestilent Northern Heresy the the Protestant Religion was his Care is indeed a stretch beyond the ordinary pitch of Jesuitick Equivocation it self We have had occasion enough to be acquainted with the charity of the Church of Rome towards those of our Religion it has been both fervent and burning And lest we should forget what has been done in former Ages France and Savoy have of late set before us new Instances of the Charity of that Church No doubt King James's sincerity in this assertion is the same with that of all his promises And albeit when he was upon the Throne we were told in some of his Proclamations That we were bound to obey without reserve It 's hardship upon hardship to be oblig'd now when he is justly Abdicated to believe without reserve But that we may the easier be persuaded of King James's care of the Protestants of Ireland and their properties let us take a short glance of the great favours he has bestowed on them since his Arrival there One would think that a Mans's Estate his House Furniture his Arms Money Chattels and the like were included under the word Property King James his care has been so transcendently great of this sort of Property that there are at this day in England and the Neighbouring Nations Noblemen Gentlemen Clergy Merchants and Tradesmen whose Estates seiz'd upon by King James's Order amounts to no more than four Million of pounds Sterling If any doubt of the Truth of this I refer them to List and Account taken of the Irish Protestants by the Commissioners appointed by the King for that effect Neither is there at present one single Protestant within that Kingdom that can rationally assure himself of one moments possession of what the Barbarous Irish has left them yet undestroyed Who knows not That upon weighty Reasons the Wisdom of the Kings of England thought it very dangerous to trust the Natives of Ireland with Arms knowing from many funest Experiences they were a people impatient of the English Yoke and ready to accept all occasions to throw it off But King James treads quite another path in stead of dis-arming these his darling Wild Irish they are the only people he can trust as knowing their furious Zeal to his Religion and their Hereditary hatred to the English Nation renders them fit Instruments to execute the designs concerted betwixt him and his intimate Allie the French King And which to capacitate them the better to effectuate he has wisely disarmed before hand the whole Protestants of that Kingdom and prepared them ready Victims for their Bloody Enemies when ever it shall be time to give the blow I confess it requires the greatest stock of patience to hear one boldly affirm his care of my life and at the same time to see him give me up bound and deâ—enceless into the hands of my cruel and mortal Enemies There is another transcendent Instance of King James's Care of the Protestants in Ireland their Religion and Property which merits to be engraven in Corinthian Brass to posterity All that are in the least acquainted with the Laws and Affairs of that Kingdom know that the Act of Settlement is the great Security of the Protestants their Religion and properties and the Fundamental Right they have to their Estates conquer'd from the Rebellious Irish at the expence of their Blood and Treasure By this Act the lasting Landmarks are fixt among the Protestants themselves and between them and the Natives This is indeed the Magna Charta of the Protestants of Ireland and the true Basis of their Liberties and Properties upon the taking away of which the Superstructure must tumble to the ground Now King James's Care of the Protestants is of so high a nature that in his first Speech to his Mock-parliament consisting all of Papists except about five or six May 7. he assures them He would consent to the enacting such Laws as might relieve them of the Act of Settlement And May â—0 we find it moved in the House That nothing could be more advantageous to the King and Countrey than to destroy the horrid barbarous act of Settlement and whosoever shall alledge the contrary shall be deem'd an Enemy to both Thereafter we find it mov'd by one of the Worthy Members of that Parliament That the Act of Settlement should be publickly burnt by the Commons Hangman Behold the transcendent care of King James for the Priviledges and Properties of the Protestants of Ireland His accustomed Zeal obliges him at the first meeting of his packt-up Popish Parliament to put them in mind of the best methods to Repeal the Great Security of he Protestants Estates His impatience to have this done could not stay till it had been propos'd by any of the Members themselves He must needs demonstrat his tenderness to his belov'd Irish by leading them the way how to break off the English Yoke and make an inroad upon those Properties the Protestants had acquired at the Expence of their Blood. As I intimated before it was ever the Maxim of English Policy to bridle in the unwearied Attempts of the Irish for regaining their Countrey by a good standing Army in that Kingdom consisting of Protestants