The state of the Protestants of Ireland under the late King James's government in which their carriage towards him is justified, and the absolute necessity of their endeavouring to be freed from his government, and of submitting to their present Majesties is demonstrated.

SECT. II. Shewing from the Obligations of his Religion, that King James designed to destroy us.

IT is easie to demonstrate that every Roman Catholick King, if he throughly understand his Religion, and do in earnest believe the Principles of it, is obliged, if he be able, to de∣stroy his Protestant Subjects; and that nothing can excuse him from doing it but want of power. This is plain from the third Chapter of the fourth Lateran Council, and from the Council of Constance in the Bull that confirms it, read in the 45. Session: if therefore a Popish King can persuade his Protestant Subjects to submit to him whilst he doth it, he is obliged by his Principles to destroy them, even when they are the greater part and Body of his Subjects. Now King James was (as is known to all the World) a most zealous Roman Catholick, and ingaged with that party of them, that most zealously assert and practise this Doctrine of rooting out He∣reticks. He gave himself up intirely to the Conduct and guidance of Jesuits, these were the Governors and Directors of his Conscience, and he seemed to have no other Sentiments than such as they inspired into him. If then these have pre∣vailed with the French King (whom some report to be a mer∣ciful Man in his own Nature, and certainly a mighty Zealot for his Honor) to break his most solemn established Laws, vio∣late his repeated Declarations and Oaths, and in spite of all these, to persecute and destroy his Protestant Subjects: if the same have prevailed with the Duke of Savoy to do the like, though as he is now convinced, manifestly against his Interest,

nay almost to his own Destruction, having lost thereby his best and most resolute and useful Subjects, who would have served him most Cordially against France, the Enemy he ought most to dread, and which one day will swallow up his Dukedom, if his Allies do not prevent it. If, lastly, they have prevailed with the Emperor to involve himself in a War, that has now lasted about twenty years, and almost lost him his Empire, rather than suffer a few Protestants to live quietly in Hungary; Is not our late Kings being of the same Principles, and under the Government of the same Directors of Conscience; is not his fondness of France, and his Alliance with it, his affecting to imitate that King in every thing, and above all his prose∣cuting the same, if not worse methods towards the Protestants in Ireland, that the King of France did with the Hugonots in his▪ Dominions, a clear and full proof of both Kings being in the same design, to root out not only the Protestants of these Kingdoms, but likewise of all Europe? and that we must all have expected the same usage our Brethren met with in France.

Nor could our Kings Promises and Engagements▪ be any greater assurances to us than those of the French King were to his Subjects. It is observable that King James was more than ordinarily liberal in his Promises and Declarations of favour towards Protestants. He boasted in a Declaration sent to England, and dispersed by his Friends there, dated May 8. 1689. at Dublin, That his Protestant Subjects, their Re∣ligion, Priviledges and Properties were his especial care since he came into Ireland. He often professed that he made no distincti∣on between them and Roman Catholicks, and both he here, and his Party there, did much extol his kind dealings with his Protestants in Ireland. What those dealings truly were I shall have occasion to shew: the representation of them made in England by him and his Party was no less false than his Pro∣mises were unsincere; it being plain he had a reserve in them all. It is a maxim, as I take it, in Law, that if the King be deceived in his Grant, though it pass the Great Seal, yet it is void: much more must all his verbal Promises be void if he be deceived in them. Now if we consider who were the Dire∣ctors of the Kings Conscience, we ought not to wonder that

he made no great scruple to evade them: Doctor Cartwright, one of his Instruments, gives us a right notion of King James's Promises in his Sermon at Rippon▪ where in effect he tells us that the Kings Promises are Donatives, and ought not to be too strictly examined or urged, and that we must leave his Majesty to explain his own meaning in them; this Gloss pleased King James so well that he rewarded the Author with the Bishoprick of Chester, though very unfit for that Character; and shewed in all his actions that he meant to proceed accord∣ingly: and the humour run through the whole party; when∣ever they were at a pinch, and under a necessity of serving themselves by the assistance or credulity of Protestants, they promised them fair, and stuck at no terms with them; but when their turn was served, they would not allow us to men∣tion their promise, much less to challenge the performance.

2. It plainly appeared that it was not in King James's power if he had been disposed himself, to perform his promises to us. The Priests told us that they would have our Churches, and our Tyths, and that the King had nothing to do with them, and they were as good as their words; nor could his Majesty upon trial hinder them▪ One Mr. Moore preached before the King in Christs Church in the beginning of the year 1690. his Sermon gave great offence: he told his Majesty that he did not do justice to the Church and Churchmen; and amongst other things said that Kings ought to consult Clergymen in their temporal affairs, the Clergy having a temporal as well as a spiritual right in the Kingdom; but Kings had nothing to do with the managing of spiritual affairs, but were to obey the Orders of the Church. It is true King James highly re∣sented this, and the Preacher was banished, or voluntarily withdrew from Court; but in this he spake the general sense of the Clergy, indeed of the Roman Church, to which the King had given himself up, and must be forced to submit to it at last. The Kings Promises therefore or his Laws, could signifie nothing towards the securing us, except he could get the Roman Church to join in them, and become a party to them; for whilst the Governours of that Church challenge the whole management of spiritual things, and King James owned their power so▪ far that he consented to abolish the Oath of

Supremacy that denies it, for him to promise safety and liber∣ty to Hereticks, and make Laws about the worship of God, and Liberty of Conscience, is clearly according to their Do∣ctrine, to give away what is not his own, and dispose the rights of another without consulting the party interessed; and ac∣cording to all Casuists, such promises are void; they that speak most favourably of the Council of Constance, which is supposed to determine that no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks, make this Apology for the Council. The Emperor Sigismond granted, without consulting the Council, a safe conduct to Jerome of Prague; the Council condemned him for Heresie, and ordered him to be burnt: the Emperor interpos'd to justifie his safe conduct, but the Council answered that he was not obliged to make it good to the Heretick, because it was not in the Em∣peror to grant a safe conduct to secure a Man against the Ju∣stice of the Council, without consulting it; this is the most favourable representation I have met with of this matter; and even thus it is a sufficient caution for all Protestants not to trust Kings or Princes of the Roman Communion, in matters that re∣late to the Church or Religion, without the express consent of that Church or Religion, without the express consent of that Church; if they do, it is at their own peril, and they cannot blame those Princes when they fail in their Promises, for they had sufficient warning not to trust them, since they engage for a thing that according to their own confession is not in their power, but is avowedly the right of another.

Notes

• Pro defensione fi∣dei prestant jura∣mentum quod de terris suae jurisdi∣ctioni Subjectis, u∣niversos haereticos ab ecclesia denota∣tos, bona fide pro viribus extermina∣re studebunt. Conc. Later. IV. cap. 3. Concil. Constan∣tiens. Sess. 45. Bull. Mart. De erroribus Johan. Wickleff.