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. XVII. 3. King James took away the Jurisdiction of the Church from Protestants.

1. IT is impossible any society should subsist without a power of rewarding and punishing its Members; now Christ left no other power to his Church, but what is pure∣ly Spiritual; nor can the Governours of the Church any other way punish their Refractory Subjects, but by refu∣sing them the Benefits of their society, the Administration of the Word and Sacraments, and the other Spiritual Offi∣ces annexed by Christ to the Ministerial Function. But Kings and Estates have become Nursing Fathers to the Church, and lent their Temporal power to second her Spiritual Censures. The Jurisdiction therefore of the Cler∣gy, so far as it has any Temporal effect on the Bodies or Estates of Men, is intirely derived from the Favour of

States and Princes, and acknowledged to be so in the Oath of Supremacy. However this is now become a right of the Clergy, by ancient Laws through all Christendom; and to take it away, after so long continuance, must needs be a great blow to Religion, and of worse Consequence than if the Church had never possessed it; yet this was actually done by King James to the Protestant Clergy; and is a plain sign that he intended to destroy their Religion, when he depriv'd them of their support.

2. For first he past an Act of Parliament, whereby he ex∣empted all that dissented from our Chruch, from the Juris∣diction thereof: and a Man needed no more to free him from all punishment for his Misdemeanors, though only cogni∣zable and punishable in the Ecclesiastical Courts, than to pro∣fess himself a Dissenter, or that it was against his Conscience to submit to the Jurisdiction of our Church: nay, at the first, the Act was so drawn, and past the House of Com∣mons, that no Protestant Bishop could pretend to any Juris∣diction even over his own Clergy; but that, and several o∣ther passages in the Commons Bills, were so little pleasing to some who understood the King's Interest, that Sir Edward Herbert was employed by King James to amend the Act for the House of Lords; which he did in the form it is now in; nothing of the Commons Bill being left in it, but the word, Whereas; tho after all it effectually destroyed the Ju∣risdiction of the Church.

3. But second, in most places there was no Protestant Bi∣shop left; and consequently the Popish Bishop was to suc∣ceed to the Jurisdiction; they being by another Act invest∣ed in Bishopricks, as soon as they could procure King Jame's Certificate under his privy Signet, that they were Archbishops or Bishops; all incapacities, by reason of their religion, by any Statute or Law whatsoever, being taken off. There were already vacant in Ireland, one Archbishoprick and three Bishopricks; they had Attainted Two of the surviving Arch∣bishops, and Seven Bishops, so that they had already the Ju∣risdiction of ¾ of the Kingdom by a Law of their own ma∣king, secured into the Hands of Papists; and the rest were quickly to follow.

4. But Third, where any shadow of Jurisdiction remain'd with the Protestant Clergy, they rendered it insignificant, by encouraging the most Obstinate and Perverse Sectaries, and by shewing them Favour according as they were most op∣posite and refractory to all Ecclesiastical Discipline, and pay∣ing their Dues to the Clergy: this may be suppos'd one reason of their peculiar Fondness of Quakers; and that it was upon this account chiefly they made them Burgesses or Aldermen in their new Corporations, and reckoned them as most useful Tools to pull down the Discipline of the Church; tho their Tythes were not given away to the Popish Priests, yet there was no way left for the Protestant Clergy to re∣cover them; they being exempted from their Jurisdiction; and from the very beginning of King James's Reign, they so ordered the matter, that Quakers were generally exempt∣ed from paying Tythes; which at last became a more sen∣sible loss to the Protestant Clergy, because these were the only People that call'd themselves Protestants, who had any thing left them out of which Tythes were due.

5. 'Twas on the same account that lewd and debauch't Converts were encouraged amongst them; and a Man need∣ed no more to escape the Censures and punishments due to his Crimes, but to profess himself reconcil'd; upon which all proceedings against him must immediately cease. Thus many lewd▪ Women turn'd Converts, and continued their Wicked∣ness without fear of the Ecclesiastical Judg.

6. If at any time a Bishop went about to correct a Scan∣dalous Clergy-man, the Kings Courts immediately interpos'd and granted prohibitions, tho the matter did not bear one. They knew it must put the Bishop to much pains and costs to have it removed, and they were in hopes to weary him out before he could get a Consultation: and so zealous were the, Popish Lawyers to protect a Scandalous Minister against his Bishop, that they would of their own accord, gratis, plead his Cause; they thought it Fee enough to weaken the Jurisdiction of a Protestant Bishop, and to do a mischief to our Religion, by keeping in a wicked scandalous Clergy-man to be a reproach to it. One Mr. Ross was prosecuted by his

Bishop for very leud and notorious Crimes; but the King's Judges interpos'd, and Serjeant Dillon, then Prime Serjeant▪ pleaded his Cause gratis against the Bishop of Kilmore, who prosecuted him. If any Clergy-man turn'd Papist, as we have reason to thank God that very few did, whatever his Mo∣tives of Conversion were, he was sure to keep his Livings by a Dispensation, and to be exempted from the Power of his Bishop.

7. King James, by an order under his Privy Signet, took on him to appoint Chancellors to exercise jurisdiction over Prote∣stants. Thus he appointed one Gordon, who called himself Bishop of Galloway in Scotland, to be Chancellor in the Dio∣cess of Dublin; this Gordon was a very ignorant lewd Man, and a profest Papist; yet he took on him by Vertue of King James's Mandate, to exercise Ecelesiastical Jurisdiction over the Protestants of the Diocess, to grant Licenses for Marriages, Administrations of Wills, and to Cite and Excommunicate whom he pleas'd. But the Clergy refus'd to submit to him, or to denounce his Excommunications; which obliged him to let that part of his Jurisdiction fall; but as to the other part that concern'd Wills, he made his advantage of it, he cited the Widow or Relation of any deceased Person; and if they refused to appear, he granted Administrations to some of his own Creatures, and they came by force and took away the Goods of the Defunct. It is incredible what wicked brutish things, he, with a parcel of ill Men he got to act with him, did on this pretence; and how he oppress'd and squeez'd the Widows and Orphans, the poor People not being strong e∣nough to oppose him and the Crew he employed; for force was all the Right he could pretend; it being notorious that in the vacancy of the Archbishoprick, or in his absence, when he cannot have intercourse with his Diocess, the Jurisdiction de∣volveth to the Dean and Chapter, as Guardians of the Spiri∣tualities; and they, notwithstanding the difficulty of the times, and danger they were in, chose the Right Reverend the Bi∣shop of Meath to administer the Jurisdiction; which he did with all the meekness, modesty, and diligence that is peculiar to him; though he could not hinder the forementioned Gordons En∣croachments,

as to Administrations of Wills and Testaments. In short, King James, by Vertue of his Supremacy, claim'd a despotick Power over the Church, and pretended that he might do what he pleas'd as to matter of Jurisdiction; tho his Ecclesiastical Supremacy no more entitled him to encroach on the Liberties and Priviledges of the Church, than his Civil entitled him to dispose of the Civil Rights of the Subjects of his Kingdoms. He had indeed taken away the Oath of Supremacy by an Act of his pretended Parliament; but yet he would not disown the Power vested in him by it; tho the Papists would have had him renounce it expresly; but he answered, that he did not claim any Ecclesiastical Authority over his Roman Catholick Subjects, nor pretended to be Su∣pream in their Church in his Dominions, but only over the Protestants; the Mystery of which was plainly this; he fore∣saw that the Ecclesiastical Authority, which is settled by the Laws, and trusted in the Crown, as he could abuse it, might be a means to destroy the Protestant Religion, and to hinder the exercise of Ecclesiastical Discipline▪ and therefore was re∣solved not to part with it; not considering that such a ma∣nifest and designed abuse of a Trust, in direct opposition to, and destruction of the end for which it was granted to him, was a provoking Temptation to his People, on the first opportunity that offered, to think of transferring it to some other Person, that would administer it with more faithfulness, ac∣cording to the design for which it was granted.

8. I might add as a Fifth means of destroying the Protestant Religion, and slackening Discipline; the universal Corruption of Manners that was encouraged at Court; I do not charge King James with this in his own Person, nor will I insinuate that he design'd it, though he took no care to redress it; but it lookt like a design in some; and whether design'd or no, it serv'd the Ends of Popery more than easily can be imagined, and opened a wide Door for it: That Kingdom that is very corrupt in Morals and debaucht, is in a very fair way to em∣brace that Perswasion; and generally their Proselites were such as had renounced Christianity in their Practice, before they re∣nounced the Principles thereof as taught in the Reformed

Churches; and many Roman Catholicks declar'd, that they would rather have had us profess no Religion at all than the Protestant. In short, whether it was from the loosness of the Principles of their Religion, or from a design to gain on Pro∣testants, Impiety, Prophaness and Libertinism were highly en∣couraged and favoured; and it was observable, that very few came with King James into Ireland, that were remarkable for any strictness or severity of Life; but rather on the other hand, they were generally signal for their viciousness and loose∣ness of their Morals: Sir Thomas Hacket confess'd, that in the whole year 1688. wherein he was Mayor of Dublin, there was not one Protestant brought before him for The••••, and hardly one for any other immorality; whereas he was crouded with Popish Criminals of all sorts: The Perjuries in the Courts, the Robberies in the Country; the lewd Practices in the Stews; the Oaths, Blasphemies, and Curses in the Armies and Streets; the drinking of Confusions and Damnations in the Taverns, were all of them generally the acts of Papists, or of those who own'd themselves ready to become such, if that Party continu∣ed uppermost. But more peculiarly they were remarkable for their Swearing and Blaspheming and Prophanation of the Lord's Day; if they had any signal Ball or Entertainment to make, any Journey or weighty Business to begin, they commonly chose that day for it, and lookt on it as a kind of conquest over a Protestant, and a step to his Conversion, if they could engage him to prophane it with them. This universal vicious∣ness made Discipline impossible▪ and whatever Protestants were infected with it, were intirely lost to the Church and their Re∣ligion; for the stress of Salvation, according to the Principles of the Reformed Religion, depends on Virtue and Holiness of Life, without which neither sorrow for Sin nor Devotion will do a Man any Service; whereas he that hears Mass daily in the Roman Church, kneels often before a Crucifix, and believes firmly that the Roman Church is the Catholick, and that all out of her Communion are damned, makes not the least doubt of Salvation, though he be guilty of habitual Swearing Drun∣kenness, and many other Vices; and the observation of this Indulgence gained them most of those Proselites that went over

to them, of the Lewd Women and Corrupted Gentry; and many amongst themselves had so great a sense of this advan∣tage, that it made them very favourable to debauchery, and openly profess, that they had a much better opinion of the lewdest Persons that dyed in their own Communion, than of the strictest and most devout Protestant; and they would of∣ten laugh at our scrupling a Sin, and our constancy at Pray∣ers, since, as they would assure us with many Oaths, we must only be damned the deeper for our diligence; and they could not endure to find us go about to punish Vice in our own Members, since, said they, it is to no purpose to trouble your selves about Vice or Virtue, that are out of the Church, and will all be damned.