Salus Britannica, or, The safety of the Protestant religion against all the present apprehensions of popery fully discust and proved wherein all the popular fears and imaginary dangers are wholly dissipated and confuted, against all objections whatever.

Salus Britannica: OR, THE SAFETY OF THE Protestant Religion, Against all the present Apprehensions of POPERY.

GREAT and Terrible have been the pretended Dangers of Popery, espe∣cially for some late Years; and Indefatigable have been the Arts and Sorceries of Faction and Villany to conjure up this Hideous Apparition, to fright the deluded Multitude, both out of their Wits and their Allegiance. But not to Insist much upon the Grosser Impostures of Fanatical Incendaries, such as the Old most Impudent Cheat of turning both the Best of PRO∣TESANT-KINGS, and a Protestant CHURCH it self into Popish and Antichristian; hoping that the most Vulgar Eyes and Humblest Capa∣cities have fully seen through so Diabolical a Delusion: However, as there still remains upon some Weaker Understandings, and Unsatisfied Minds, a Terror yet unvanquish'd; The business of this Treatise is to Examine what National Operation or Influence a Real Popish Crown'd Head can have over the Lives, Liberties or Estatss of Englishmen, as now Enjoy'd, and the Religion of the Kingdom, as at present Establish'd; and by confuting even the most Substantial of their Imagin'd Dangers, dissipate those False Fears of Popery, which no Man possibly (I mean in my humble Station) has more unhappily rais'd than my self.

The wonderful State-Convulsions that Popery (or rather the Sophistry of Scriblers upon that Theme) seems to threaten, are no where, I confess, more Spightfully, more Venemously, or indeed (consider∣ing the weakness of the Cause) more Artfully described than in that Libel, called, The Character of a Popish Successour. But not to answer particularly to a Rapsody of Rhetorical Flourishes, a Tautology of Gay Words and Big Sounds to little or no Signification; which indeed is almost the whole Jargon of that Pamphlet, being truly the Best Reason the Subject would bear; I shall chiefly Reply only to the Argumentative Part of it; or at least, that which was intended as such.

Therefore as this following Discourse will naturally fall under these two Heads, viz. If Popery be ever Introduced, it can have only these Two Doors for its Admission, Persecution, or Perswasion, I shall accordingly Examine,

First, What Progress towards a National Conversion, and the Establishment of Popery, the CRU∣ELTY and TYRANNY of it under a Popish Successor is able to make, by an Assault on the Weak Side of Mankind their Cowardice.

And Secondly, What Advance towards the aforesaid Conversion, &c. the SUBTILTY and ELOQUENCE of Popish Emissaries, and Jesuitical Seducers, under the Ʋmbrage and Encou∣ragement of a Popish Successor are likely to work, by an Attaque on the Blind Side of Mankind their Ignorance.

To begin then with the First of the two, as the more Horrible Horn of the Beast; Persecution.The Character is not a little prolix on that old Popular Arch-Devil Arbitrary Power, whilst PO∣PERY and SLAVERY, those always Twin Monsters, those Never Seperable Feinds are so Painted to the Life, with all their Fire and Brimstone round them, that it has little else from the

Beginning to the End, but the Ratling of Chains, the Crackling of Flames, the Blazing of Smithfield Piles; and in fine, the universal Groans of Destruction and Desolation through the whole Land.

And for an unanswerable Demonstration of all those most certain Calamities from a Popish Suc∣cessor. The Character tells you, that in the first place, the Romish Principles are such, That they value neither their Word, Promise, Vows, Oaths, nor Sacraments, but all their strongest Engagements are lighter than the very Breath that utters them. Next, That they so little Consult either their Reputa∣tion or Glory, that there is not the most Abject Thing, that even C••own'd Heads themselves shall not un∣dertake, when Rome, or Romes Interest shall command. And Lastly, That the puting all this Barba∣rity into Execution, is so highly Meritorious in the Romish Church, that the Pope will undoubtedly assign him no Common Diadem in Paradice for this Ʋndertaking. But upon his Remissness or Tenderness in this Point, bethunder him with so many Curses and Anathema's, as, an Ʋndutiful, Ʋnactive Son of Holy Mother Church, a Scandal to her Glory, a Traytor to her Interest, a Deserter of her Cause; One while accusing the Lukewarmness of his Religion; another while, the Pusillanimity of his Nature, &c. till in short, To spare a Faggot in Smithfield, he does little less than walk upon Burning Irons himself.

But how is it likely, that Romes continual Bulls (as the Character fancies) shall Bellow so loud against a Popish Successor for sparing a Faggot in Smithfield, when under the Infamy and Execration of so Tyrannick a Murderer (for what in Queen Maries days was the Sentence of Justice, and the Legal Execution of the Law, must now be the highest Subversion of Justice, and Abrogation of Law) he must expose himself to the whole World as a greater Monster than NERO; so much a greater than He, as Nero's Barbarities were committed under the Ignorance and Darkness of Infidelity and Paganism, and this Mans Murders and Butcheries under the Light of the Gospel: Nay, the terrible Burning, Broyling, and Roasting denounced in the Character, with the Heating of Popish fiery Furnaces like Nebuchadnezars seven times Hotter than ordinary, with all the rest of the Romantick Popish Throat-cutting, will be ten times worse from a Popish Successor than the whole Ten Primitive Christian Persecutions. For a Nero, Caligula, Domitian, and the rest of them, as they had the Law in their own Breath, and a Sic volo, sic jubeo, was as much Authentick in old Heathen Rome, as an Act of Parliament in little England; and consequently, how Barbarous soever the Christian Perse∣cution was, yet it had the Face of Law, as being the Edict of the Absolute Prince, and thereby the Ordinance of the very Government. But such a Scheme of Cruelty here, as being beyond the Reach of the Perogative, and notoriously contrary to the Establish'd Constitution of the Kingdom, would, Ipso facto, be Ten Times more dreadfully Flagitious, as 'tis the highest Violation of Law, and Dissolution of Government. And whatever Opinion the noysie Fools of Mankind may have Im∣bibed of Jesuitisme, Papisme, and all the Chimerical Terrours from Rome, how can that very Rome (if it pretends but to Christianity) that has Canoniz'd so many of those Suffering Primitive Martyrs, at the same time likewise make Saints of really Worse Monsters amongst Themselves than the very Heathen Butchers of those very Martyrs.

'Tis true Inquisition-Houses, Lollards-Towers, and the Cruelty of Fire and Faggot we know have been frequent: but all this while they were never Erected by Standing ARMIES, Arbitrary CƲT-THROATS, nor Military EXECƲTION, but Establish'd by the Legislative Power of the Respective Governments that used them, and consequently Introduced with the Solemn In∣stitution of Law, as a necessary Support of the Community: Neither has it been a Practice singular only to the Papists, to secure the Establish'd Religion, and thereby the Peace of the Civil Govern∣ment by Capital Punishments, when the Protestant Government has done the like.

For Example, does not the Character instance two several Acts of Parliament; one of Queen Elizabeth, in which, not only the Popish Priests, that shall have taken Orders from Rome, and after∣wards Return to England, but likewise all Persons withdrawn by them from the Protestant Religion Establish'd, to a Reconciliation to the Church of Rome, are Equally Guilty of High-Treason, and to suffer as in Cases of Treason —And a Second Act of Henry the VIII. In which the Refusal of the Oath of Henery's Supremacy in Renunciation of the Pope, was also made High-Treason.

Now if every Papist in England, without lifting a Hand, uttering a Word, or imagining the least Disloyal Thought against his Lawful Soveraign, his Crown and Dignity, or against the Peace of the Nation where he's a Subject, yet nevertheless out of a point of Conscience and meer matter of Faith, cannot be induced to believe a Temporal Prince capable of being Head of a Church, but is Invincibly perswaded (how Erronious soever) that the Pope is Peters undoubted Successor, and Christs unquestioned Vicar upon Earth, and cannot, without hazard of his Soul, so much as con∣sent to acknowledge otherwise; yet notwithstanding, by the Protestant Laws of the Land, this In∣vincible Perswasion, without any other Crime, is Interpreted High-Treason, and Punish'd as such. Now I say, in this case, what wonderous Difference is there between the Rigour of a Popish or a Pro∣testant Constitution? This, that makes a Defection from Their Church Establish'd, TREASON; and the other from Theirs, HERESY: This that punnishes an Apostate with Hanging and Quar∣tering at Tyburn; and the other with Burning at Smithfield. 'Tis true, the Branch of Queen Eliza∣beths Statute that concerns the Popish Laymans High-Treason was never yet put in Execution; and I hope, for the Glory of the Reformation Establish'd by that Illustrious Princess, as so extreamly Sanguinary, was never intended to be, being severe enough to give our Popish Enemies a Matter of Recrimination, though Enacted but in Terrorem.

But here I beg the Reader to be assured, that I urge not this Comparison in Disparagement of our Protestant Laws, but only to satisfie the Mistaken Part of Mankind, that all such Judicial Severities under the Government of both Religions have been introduced by the most Awful and Sacred Authority of the rightful Law-Makers of the Nations, and consequently in the English Constituti∣on, not only the King's, but the People's Acts and Decrees; and so to convince them of the unreaso∣nableness of that senseless Surmise, that upon the Admission of a popish Successour, all the foremen∣tioned Cruel••ies, though without any such Induction of Law (and consequently, with all the Injustice, Rapine, and Cold-blooded Murder, even to that formal Solemnity of Butchery, that humane Imagination would tremble at) must and shall be introduced. For alas! how ridiculously extravigant must those Fears be, that can addle Men's Senses into a Dread of that prodigious Stroke from Popery, that was never given to it since the Creation. What Magnifying Glasses therefore must the popular Fears see through, to behold such stupendious Visions of Popery, as that THAT shall be that NEVER was, whil'st a Popish Crown'd Head in England must be the first, nay, only Royal Savage of a Papist that ever Reign'd.

However for once let us suppose the Devil and Pope as familiar together as ever they were painted at a Queen Elizabeth's Night, and that this Gospel-propagation were really the Doctrine of his pretended Infallibility, and this Bloody Mandate to a popish Successour the special Edict of the whole CONSISTORY, what would the Execution of that Mandate make towards the Growth or Advancement of Popery? God knows, so far from promoting the Romish Religion, that possibly there wants but that one Attempt to shame it almost out of the World.

For in the first place, 'tis so far from a way or means to Convert even one Soul in England, that 'tis the only Course to increase their Abhorrence and Execration of that Religion, and bring the very THOUGHT of Popery even below Damnation. 'Twould no more make Converts to Rome, than the old Heathen Caldrons and Gridirons to Paganisme: For as the greatest prejudice of Eng∣lishmen against Popery lyes in their Horrour of the Cruelties of it: so consequently nothing can contribute to the Advancement of it but the Clemency and Mercy of its Professours to reconcile us even into meer Charity with them: whil'st the Exercising of the forementioned unexampled Barba∣riti••s would make us fall from our present Ill Opinion of Popery as a Corrupted Church, to believe it no Church at all, but rather an Association of Monsters, and a Den of Cannibals and Tygers: and the greatest Operation such unprecedented Cruelty could meet, were at best but to fright the fright∣ed People into a superficial, counterfit Complyance, and make them Temporize a little, only to com∣pound for their Lives; yet that Temporizing under so Villanous a Persecution, would be so far from a True Conversion, or any thing like it, that they'd only play the Highest of Hypocrites, come perhaps to Mass to mutter Curses instead of Ave-Mary's; or be hunted into the Popish Fold, only to pray for a favourable Opportunity of having a pull at the Throats of the Wolves that drive them thither.

And Secondly, Besides the Impotent Effects, 'tis certain to find towards the Heretick Conversion: the Pope's Command, nay indeed, Connivance at any such Arbitrary, Tyrannick Stake-burning, or Throat-cutting from a Popish Successour, instead of advancing of Popery by so excentrick a Moti∣on, will be enough to stagger half the popish Hearts in Christendom; for as Implicit as the Faith of the Romish Zealots is, and as intirely devoted as they are to their Peter's Chair, and Mother-Church, undoubtedly there are Thousands of them, that notwithstanding they can disgest a Wafer for a GOD, can never be wrought to believe the Transubstantiation of such visible Tyranny and But∣chery into Righteousness and Christianity, how Zealous soever they may be for the Conversion of so Heretical a Nation as England.

And that this would be the Infallible Consequence of all such Barbarous Popish Measures: they that will but look back to the Annals of Queen Mary, will find Historians telling us, That nothing so much advanced the Reformation as the Mistaken Conduct of Queen Mary and her bloody Counsel∣lers in that point. And Dr. Burnet expresly assures us, That the whole Body of the Nation grew to dislike the Cruelty of Rome [Abridg. Book the 3d. Pag. 275.] to that degree, that the popish Bishops for their Apology threw it off from Themselves, and openly laid it on the King's and Queen's Commands; insomuch that King Phillip, for his Excuse, made his Confessour preach a Sermon at Court against the taking of people's Lives for their Opinions in Religion, and inveighed against the Bishops for doing it. By which means a stop was put to it for some time. But nevertheless, as the same Severi∣ty soon after return'd again, he tells us all along, That the Nations dislike of it was Vniversal, and the repeated Acclamations, and Universal Transports of Joy at the proclaiming of Queen Elizabeth proceeded from the people's hopes of better Days under Her Scepter than her Sister's. By which it appeared how weary the Nation was of the Cruel and weak Administration of Affairs under the former Reign. And the Joy in this Change (he says) was so Great and Vniversal, that but a Sad Look was thought Criminal.

So that to ballance Cases, if the Severity of Burning of two hundred and sixty Protestants in Queen Mary's Five Years Reign under the Legal Sentence of the then Law of the Land, and in that Respect by the Hand of Justice, begat such a Hatred of Popery, and made so many Converts to the Reformation, that possibly 'twas one of the Greatest Lifts to the Downfall of the Romish Re∣ligion in England; insomuch that 'tis the Opinion of all wise Men, that a Bonner and a Gardiner did more towards the Propagation of the protestant Religion than a Cranmer and a Ridley. How much infinitely more therefore must the Exercise of such popish Cruelties from the Hand of the most Arbitrary Tyranny under the visible Monstrous Face of the most notorious Illegality, and the blackest Injustice, increase our Irreconcileable Detestation of Rome, and by making more Apostates than

Proselytes to their Cause, heap up but fuel for the Popish, not Protestant Confusion: and so at best, this Arbitrary Bloody Tyranny can have no higher prospect than of committing Murders for meer Murders sake.

But to silence all Dangers of such stupendious papal Excursions. This barbarous Model of Gospel Propag••tion is at this present Age of the World wholly unpractised in all the Popish Nations in Europe, and excepting the Spanish Inquisition (and that too, seldom rigorous against any but the Open Seducers of the People from their Religion, to prevent the Disturbance of the settled Peace of the Kingdom under so ••eneral and unanimous a Conformity of the Roman Religion in Spain) There is now no Popish Government whatever, that proceeds against Heresy with Fire and Fag∣got, or any other Sanguinary Punishment; whil'st on the contrary, the Reformers are more or less Indulged or Tolerated through almost all the Popish Kingdoms in the World; though 'tis true, that Indulgence or Toleration in the publick Exercise of their Religion is sometimes more enlarged, and other times more curtil d, according to the more or less generous Temper of the Respective Kings that grant them; which though magnifyed at a prodigious rate by the present Dreaders of Pope∣ry, such as the Tender-hearted Condolers of the true Protestant Dissenter Count Tekely, &c. is no more tha•• w••••t is dayly done even by Protestant Princes in the same Nature, whil'st the Immunities and Priv ledges of all Dissenting Perswasions against the Establish't Religion of the Land, as being but the Donation of the Governments Discretion and Curtesy, are increased or diminished, as the Favour of the Sov••raign shall extend, or the Policy of the Nation shall require.

However, a•• all Sanguinary Persecutions of Heresy are now so universally l••ft off, and that too, considering the Popes Influence over the Royal Sons of his own Church, undoubte••ly with his own Privity and Consent: 'tis certain, that both He and his Crown'd Heads are by Experience con∣vinced of the Fataility of such Rigorous Ecclesiastick Extremities, as wholly ineffectual to the Great Work Designed, the Intended Propagation of Religion. And consequently, the Pope must be strangely out of his Right Senses, to put a Popish Successour, and that in England, of all the Coun∣treys of the Universe, upon a Projection so long out of F••shion in all the World beside; nay, and to a more Monstrous height of Extravagance (as being positively against any Law or Right what∣ever) than wa•• ever practised in the World before.

Neverthel ss, laying Policy, Prudence, nay, Common Reason aside; for once, we'll dispense with all manner of Incoherencies and Absurdities whatever, and put the Supposition, That the Pope should ••e s••••ng w•••••• t••at strange Tarantuia, as to begin this Frantick Dance, and a Popish Successour, that Madman, to follow him. The next Question that arises will be, How he shall set this Arbitrary Machine ag••ing? And which way he shall find Hands, Tools, and Materials to build this Terrible COLOSSUS, called Arbitrary Power. 'Tis true inde••d, the Character tells us the way of do∣ing it, as follows: Let us but rightly consider how far the Foundations of Popery (Viz. Arbitrary ••ower) may be layed in England. First then, if a Papist Reign, ••e very well understand that the Ju••g••s, Sheriffs▪ Justices of the Peace, and all the Judiciary Officers are of the King's Creation. And a•• such, how far may the Influ••nce of Preferment on Baser Const••tutions culled out for his purpose, dreva•• even to deprave the very Throne of Iustice her self, and make our Judges use even our Pro∣testant Laws themselves to open the First Gate to Slavery. Alas! the Laws in corrupted Judges Hands, have been too often used as barbarously as the Guests of Procrustes, who had a Bed for all Tra∣vellers, but then he either cut them shorter, or stretcht them longer to sit them to it. And after all this, the Character proceeds, and ••••lls you, that to crown the Work, and make the Pope Absolute, this Popish Succ••ssour wants a STANDING-ARMY, and he shall have it, &c.

This True Ble•• Protest••nt Schem•• of In roduction for Arbitrary Power, by the way of distorting of our very Protestant Laws to bring it in, the History of the Popish Plot only excepted, is one of the most Comical Whim••••s that was ever invented. I confess indeed some intricate Cases in Meum and Tuum may occur, wh••re the most Impartial Judges may be divided in their Opinions, even in Mat∣ter of Law, and the ••iversity of various, and almost absolete Records and Statutes in several lesser Law-Matters may som times admit of Disputes & diverse Interpretations, and a corrupt Judge under such a Latitude, may le••n or turn as Inclination shall guide. But that part of our Engl••sh Law that concerns our Religion and Liberties, the long and labour'd Work of so many Successive Parlia∣ments; nay, and after the very Lopping of the Prerogative to secure the Subject by the Abolition of Oaths ex Offici••, Star-Chamber Courts, Court of Wards, and by the Benefit of Habeas Corpus Acts, &c. the continued Care and Industry of our Law-makers for a hundred years together, stands so strongly fortifyed against all Romish or Arbitrary Invasions, that there's not the least Cran∣ny in the Law left open for the Admission of the One or the Other. However, this part of the Char••cter was very well timed for the Season 'twas writ in. For when the very Protestant Cler∣gy and B••shops of the Land, the whole Court, nay and the KING himself not excepted, were all helter skelter, just upon being turn'd into downright Papists in Masquerade, 'twas not at all unsea∣sonable to improve upon the Fiction, and bring in the Protestant Laws too in the Crowd for Po∣pish Masqueraders among ••heir Fellows.

However, notwithstanding this Pretended Dangerous Inlet to Arbitrary Power, the Character, by a certain Fault which I ••ave read in a Treat••se, called Richard and Baxter, (a Figure of Speech much used by that Eloqu••nt Divine, and truly much borrow'd in the Character, being little else throughout) makes bold in another place point Blank to contradict this Passage, and positively af∣firms, That to set up Popery or Arbitrary Power by Law, under the Laws we have already against them, is wholly impossible, and that our Laws will be but the Hedge to keep in the Cuckow. For Papists

and Slaves we must and shall be made, as the inseperable Concomitants of a Popish Successour. And to prove all this Breaking of all Laws whatever, it says in haec verba;

How can the Force of Laws, made by a Protestant Predecessour, and a Protestant Parliament, in any sort bind a Popish Successour? When the very first Advance of the Pope's Supremacy [a very nimble leap] introduces that higher Power, those Canonical Ecclesiastick Laws, which no Secular, or any other Tem∣poral Court can or may Controul•••••• Laws that shall declare, not only the Statutes and Acts of Parliament made against the Dignity of Mother-Church, voyd and Null, but the very Law-makers themselves, as Hereticks, wholly uncapable of ever having any Right of making any such Laws. No doubt then, but that Fire that burns those Heretick Law-makers, shall give their Laws the same Martyrdom.

Here indeed the Affairs are alter'd, and truly, the Matter much mended. This I confess, says the Character, and this, at least three parts of the Fools of English Mankind believe for Oracles. And though all our Records, Histories, Chronicles, and the whole Series of all Ages since the Conquest to this day, do notoriously prove the Contrary; yet this Popular maxime, That the Romanists by their Ecclesiastick Laws, pretend to anull and make void all Secular Laws against their Church, and to incapacitate the very Prerogative and Authority of that Majesty, und those Law-makers that made them, though one of the most Impudent Falshoods in nature, is nevertheless one of the most received Vulgar Traditions that ever startled Ideots.

For Example, to begin with their very Heretici Comburendi: The very Ax and Fasces of Rome, was it not an Act of the Secular Power? In the v••ry high••st Reign of Porpery, did, or could the Pope punish an Heretick Apostate by Imprisonment, Fire or Faggot, any further than by Parliamen∣tary Permission, and excepting that the Clergy were made Judges of Heresy, a••d that too, by con∣cession of the Secular Authority. Was not the Execution of that Law kept in Temporal Hands?

Nay, though 'tis true, the papal Power made many Ʋsurp'd Encroachments here, through the Bigotry of the Governm••nt; yet, upon too hard, Pressures from Rome, did not several of our Kings many hundred years before the Reformation, resume their own Original Right; and expresly in the St••tute against PROVISOES under Penalty of Forfeiture of Goods, and Imprisoment for Life, forbid the admitting of the Popes Legantine Power in England, or making Appeals to Rome, or tak∣ing Inductions to Episcopal Sees from the Pope.

And for Queen Mary her self, was there one Syllable of the Laws Enacted by the Father Henry, or her Brother Edward in favour of the Reformation, that she ever pretended to Over-rule by any Ec∣clesiastick Law or Pretence whatever? Nay, and did not the Pope's Supremacy it felf, and that not till many a hard tug, and two years after she came to the Crown, come in by Act of Parliament, un∣der several Limitations of his Power, with the Confirmation of the antient Statute against Provisoes, &c. and several other Boundaries; as much as to say, Move thus far, and no Further.

But alas! what's all this to the Author of a Popish Character? Popery and Arbitrary Power in spight of Fate, shall and must be set up. And therefore what Laws sh••ll, or shall not get uppermost, is ene as Mr. Scribler pleases. For truly Malice put pen to paper, and Truth and Reason were never minded: and indeed, there was no need of either of them; for as that Pamphlet had the honour in the Title-Page, of being humbly offered to the Consideration of the then HOƲSES of Parliament, both Truth and Reason were Immaterial to itb Recommendation▪ For where an Otes his Narrative past for Gospel, the Devil's in't, if a Popish Character could miscarry.

However, to confute that sensless Fear, that a Popish Successour will subvert the whole Foundati∣ons of the Government, and erect his own Arbitrary Edict, for the Supreme Standard of JƲSTICE, and that he shall find those Popish Judges, Sheriffs, or any other Officers or Ministers, that under the Protection of a Standing Army, shall make our Lives and Liberties wholly dependant upon the Caprichio and Pleasure of the Prince, and persuant thereto, shall furnish him with Jayls, Gibbets, and Smithfield Piles, or any other Arbitrary, though less Sanguinary Persecution to convert us to Popery.

First, let us examine the Courage of all these Arbitrary Judges, Officers, and State-Ministers that embarque in this Arbitrary Undertaking. They must be all those hardy popish Tools, whether cor∣rupted by Zeal or Interest, that they must not value all their own Lives▪ for notwithstanding what∣ever Protection or Impunity they may receive during the Life of their Royal Popish Driver; no sooner shall the next Protestant Heir succeed him, but every Mothers S••n of them shall be answera∣ble with their Necks for the least drop of Protestant BLOOD they have shed, or Protestant Liber∣ty they have invaded. The Protestant Laws of the Land will not be so tamely overthrown, without a certain Vengeance attending it; insomuch that those bold Babel Builders, these Arbitrary Pope∣ry Raisers must either be so generous to their King as the Indian Wives to their Husbands, and make one glorious Funeral Pile upon his Grave; or else, resolve to live to offer up their Throats to the very Sword of Iustice in the Hand of a Lawful Authority, which themselves before have so Vn∣lawfully abused in their own.

And that the Liberty of the Subject is so tender in the Eye of the English Government, the very misusing and torturing of Hereticks in Prison, though under that Attainder, Ivable to the most ig∣nominious of Deaths; and though done in a Popish predecessours Reign, was sufficient to have taken the great Statesman Bonner's Head off, but only that Queen Elizabeth's Mercy interposed, as un∣willing to stain the beginning of her Reign with Blood. [Reform. Abridg. B. 4. pag. 357.] And if his Illegal Compliance with his Prince was so Capital an Offence, what must the more violent Irruptions of Arbitrary Rapines against the untainted Liberty of the Protestant Subjects now pull down upon the bold Invaders Heads.

'Tis no difficult matter to possess the overcredulous World, the easy swallowing Multitude, with what wondrous Atchievements the Zealots of Popery shall undertake, and what indefatigable La∣bours and Hazards they will go through for the Re-building of their Faln Temples, when animat∣ed and influenced by a Popish Soveraign.

I acknowledge ('tis true) there is no Courage more daring than that which Zeal inspires; and no Zeal possibly more violent than that of the Papists, and undoubtedly for Rome's Restoration, there would be many venturous and bold Champions amongst them in so Meritorious a Cause.

But alas! every Heroe is not a Sampson. There are, no doubt, those of them that would spare neither pains nor study to propagate their own Religion, though never so indirectly; those possi∣bly that would have it in their Power (if they could come handsomely by it) to use their Heretick Adversaries with as little Mercy as HE did his Philistian Enemies; but alas, not with his Hardi∣ness too, as like Him, to pull down that Roof upon their Heads to their own inevitable Destructi∣on only to have the pleasure of crushing some of ƲS with them.

We read, I confess, that pro Aris & Focis men will venture far. Yes truly, for their Religion and Estates together they will do so. But in the Popish Case, where the Founding of the One will be the Destruction of the Other; where the Setting up of their Religion, will be the Forfeiting not only their Estates, but Heads too; 'tis more than a hundred to one, betwixt these two so directly opposite Interests, but that the keeping of their Skin and Bones warm on the one side, may make their Zeal a little the cooler on the other. For let me tell you, where the Erecting of the Altar will at long run make the Builders the Sacrifice, in all humane probability that Popish Temple will go but slowly up, whose Stones are to be dug out of so fatal a Quarry.

'Tis very remarkable in Queen Mary's Reign, when by the Majority of her Parliament, the Pro∣testant Religion then but in its Minority was abolish't, and the Romish Government and Papal Su∣premacy Re-establish't; and indeed the Grandure of Rome even to Haeretici comburendi maintain'd. Yet that Parliament that had it absolutely in their power to gratifie the Pope's utmost Wishes, re∣fused the returning his Church-Lands again.

Nay, the Parliament were so averse to the thought of such a Restitution, that they had never been wrought up to the restoring of the very Supremacy it self, and of making of all those favourable Acts towards the re-installing of Popery again, but by much pains used (as Burnet in his Abridge∣ment, pag. 268 says) by the policy of Bishop Ga••din••r, to ensure the Kingdom from the Fear of coming under such Tyranny from Rome as their Ancestors had groaned under, and likewise from the Loss of the Abbey-Lands. Insomuch that Gardiner promised them for Removal of all such Jealousie, that all the old Laws against Provisions should continue in Force, and to shew them that Legates should exercise no dangerous Authority in England, he made Pool take out a License under the Great Seal for his Legantine Power; and for the other, Viz. the Abbey-Lands, he promised both an Act of Parliament and Convocation confirming them, and undertook that the Pope himself should ratifie the Alienation of the Church-Lands; which, History tells us, was accordingly done.

Nevertheless, as this Papal Dispensation came very unwillingly from Rome, being only a Forced Compliance and Temporizing with the English Obstinacy in that point. The Queen her self restored all the Church-Lands in her Possession, and proceeded so far as to the Re-building of several Religi∣ous Houses, declaring, to her Treasurer, and some of her other Officers, that she thought her self bound in Conscience to restore all the Church-Lands, as being unlawfully acquired, and not to be held with∣out a Sin: (as Baker in his Chronicle tells us) Nay, the Pope himself set out a Bull, excommunicat∣ing all that kept any Lands belonging to Abbeys or Churches; which▪ gave such an Alarm to the Nation, that Gardiner was forced to pacifie them, by telling them, that Bull was intended only to the people of Germany, and not England. However, the Pope continued his high Resentments against the Undutifulness of England, that he could not forbear telling the Queen's Ambassadours. (Abridg. pag. 221.) That it was beyond his power to confirm Sacriledge, and all were obliged, under the pain of Damnation to restore to the last Farthing every thing that belong'd to the Church; he said like∣wise, that he would send over a Collectour to gather the Peter-pence; for they could not expect that St. Peter would open Heaven to them, so long as they denied him his Rights upon Earth.

Yet all this made so little Impression on the Commons of England, that whatever Conscience might dictate, their Priests insinuate, their Popish Successour Solicite, or their Pope himself end••avour, so powerful was Interest above Conscience, and all other Mo••ives whatever, that several of the Commons in Parliament lay'd their hands on their Swords, and declared that they would not part with their Estates, but defend them. And every Motion that way, was always carryed in the Negative. (Abridg. of the Reform. B. 3. pag. 309)

Now, pray, for once, let us compare Cases. If the Papists in her Reign, with the highest Papal Dominion and Sov••raignty in their own Hands, under an Establish't Roman Church, against both their Priests and their Prince; nay, a Prince too, with her Hereticks under her Feet, and her Religion in the very Saddle, could refuse both their Pope, and their popish Successour so Iust and so Sacred a Right, and so important to his Church's Interest, and that too, when with all Safety round them, they might have confirm'd their Oblation even by the strongest Bonds of Law; so on the other side, how shall it be suppos'd that the more prodigal Papists in our Age, in the quite contrary ex∣tream, shall gratifie the unjust Demands of a more Impotent popish Successour, under the lowest Ebb of Popery against all Law or Pretence of Law whatever, by launching out into the most notorious

Violation of all the highest sanctions of Right and Justice, and the most openfaced Tyranny and most impudent Barbarity in the world, and all (forsooth) for the Establishing of Popery; and all, God wot, too little for the Work; and this too, to the running themselves into unavoidable Iayls and Halters; and not only to the ruining of their Estates, but to the cutting off of the Lives of Them∣selves, and even the very RACE of Papists under the next immediate Crown'd-Head that succeeds.

Besides, as boldly as the Roman Zealots stand up for the Interest and Dignity of Mother-Church, and the Grandure and Dominion of their Peter's Successour, not only the Papists, but the very Priests themselves are not so overcouragious in this Cause as the World suspects them. For Instance, in Hen∣ry the Eighth's Reign, the whole Clergy of England, by a State-surprize upon them, were found guilty of a Premunire, by submitting to Cardinal Woolsy's Legantine-power, as derived only from the Pope's Authority, and thereby expresly against the Statute of PROVISOES, an old dormi∣ent Law, made several King's Reigns before, though rarely, or never put in Force, by reason of the Remissness of the Government, and the Supiness of the Nation and Kings Submission to Rome, and therefore unwarily transgrest by the Clergy now. By vertue however of which they had forfeited their Goods and Chattels to the King, and their persons to be imprisoned. Upon the King's Menace of executing which Law (Reformat. Book the 2d. pag. 112.) the Convocation of Canterbury, in tenderness to their Skins and Estates, brought a Petition to his Majesty, acknowledging him in the Title, Protectour, and Supream Head of the Church and Clergy of England. Which was agreed to by nine Bishops, 82 Abbots, and the majority of the Convocation in the Province of Canterbury, pray∣ing him to accept of 100000 l. in leiu of the Punishments incurred. And the Province of York soon afterwards consented to the fame Submission, with the Offer of 18840 l. for obtaining the same pardon.

Insomuch that we find the very popish Clergy themselves so servilely compounding for their Mam∣mon, and their Carcases (not so much in the Voluntary Tribute of their Purses) as with the Re∣nunciation of the Pope's Ecclesiastical Supremacy, the very brightest Iewel in the Tripple Diadem, and consequently by this sordid Compliance, even the Priesthood it self by their own Leading Act, gave the fatal Original precedent to the succeeding Act of Parliament to confirm that Supremacy in the Crown, and so struck the first main Blow towards the shaking of the Romish Prerogative in Eng∣land, and thereupon Conspired to the gr••••••••st part of the ensuing Fatalities to their Religion it self.

And therefore, if the Ecclesiastical Sons of Rome could ward themselves from the Stroke of Law due to that less Capital Transgression THEN, by denying their very Pope: Why must the Sons of Rome be so prodigiously Fool-hardy NOW, as to run themselves into a more Dangerous and more Mortal Noose of Law for his Vindication.

'Tis very easie preaching to Fools and Madmen (as the popish Character has very Rhetorically done) what miraculous Fire and Faggot Feats, or other Arbitrary Extravagancies the wonderful Pa∣pists under a popish Successour shall do. But as great a Deity as the Romanists make of their Keep∣er of the Keys of Heaven, as the Devil (speaking of Job) makes answer to God Almighty, put forth thine hand, and touch him in all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy Face. So let his Ho∣liness put these Zealots upon that Hard Task, where their Necks are sure to stretch in the Ser∣vice, and Obedience will be so little a part of the Sacrifice they'l make his Divinityship in such a Command, that all his Bell, Book, and Candle will be too little to conjure up half hands enough for so ungrateful and so cursed an Employment. Whatever pleasure they may take in bringing Vs to Stakes and Gibbets, they are not overfond of Martyrdom themselves. And though Great is their DIANA of Ephesus, whil'st Profit and Safety go along with her, and upon Reasonable Terms, much might be done to exalt her; yet ther's that Vniversal Charm in that thing call'd OƲR ALL, and that strange superseding Quality in those potent Operators, Self, and Self-preservation, that it over-rules the highest Excursions even of the most daring Zeal, and the very biggest Devils of Outrage and Tyranny are laid by no other Spell.

But perhaps it may be objected, That to incourage the bold Labourers in this Harvest, this popish King, to prevent the Ruine both of his Cause and his Party, will take Care, in case of a protestant Heir, to divert the Succession, and continue the Crown upon some other popish Head; and so by a longer Usurpation of this Arbitrary Supremacy, and a more lasting Persecution of the Protestants, provide as much as in him lyes, that the propagation of the Romish Faith may be compleated in suc∣ceeding Ages, upon so good a Foundation lay'd in his Own.

This foolish Supposition is so lewdly ridiculous, that ther's scarce a shadow for such a Fear: For (alas) there will be so little Hopes of a popish Vsurper's mounting the Throne, after so notorious a Tyranny under a Lawful popish King before him, as nothing can scarcely be more impossible. 'Tis possible indeed, the Duty of our Christianity, and the Bond of Passive Obedience, as having the Lawful Power of no other Weapons but our Prayers and Tears against the Tyranny of our Lawful Prince, may tye up our hands, and keep us in the Bounds of Peace and Resignation during his Reign. But the setting up of a popish Vsurper after him, in wrong to the Imperial protestant Right Heir, will undoubtedly ingage all the Protestant Hands and Hearts against so impudent an Invader; (and if Occasion require, his Protestant Royal Neighbours in such a Cause) whil'st the taking

up Arms in such a Quarrel, which had been Rebellion against his Predecessour before, would be the work of their highest Duty and Allegiance now. And as the Remembrance of their past Yoke to all true English Spi••its, would certainly double Edge their very Swords; so, in so just a Cause, 'twould infallibly spur them to so perfect, and so unanimous a Revenge, as to cut off their popish Enemies, even to the last Man. Now what popish Ʋsurper shall venture to pass such an Ordeal to a Throne? Or what hopes a popish King can have of such a Successour, or of accomplishing his own popish Designs on such a Basis, let common Reason judge.

And therefore the Pope must have a very little Paternal Care, of his Royal Son of Rome, and in∣deed of all his Catholick Sons in England, as to imbark them in a Cause so apparently, Derstuctive, whil'st by misleading them into such sanguinary, illegal Cruelties against the Protestants, and all for an impossible Conversion of a Nation, he runs his own darling people, Root and Branch into an ine∣vitable Fate under the next Protestant Successor, exposed not only to the highest popular Swords and Fury, but even to Cords and Axes, and the severest Stroke and Vengeance of Law it self. But possibly their Fate shall not wait so long as the next King's Coronation, but overtake them in the first Onset of their popish Barbarity. For let ut but look back to the Gun-powder Treason, a Plot where Faux's Powder-Barrels were neither like Otes his Teuxbury Mustard-Balls, nor his Black Bills, Invisible. A Plot too, where the Conspirators dyed not Tongue-tyed, but confessed their Guilt, without that wonder-working Dispensation of asserting a Counterfeit Innocence, to the stretch o their Sal∣vation, and Renuntiation of their God, on the very Brink of Eternity. Let us look back, I say, to the Discovery of that Plot: and History informs us, that 'twas as much as the King, Court and Govern∣ment could possibly do to restrain the peopl's Rage from Butchering all the Papists in England, the Guilty and Innocent together in the Revenge of so barbarous a Machination, though uneffected; tho by Providence detected and frustrated. And if the Genius of England was so highly exasperated, and so furiously transported in Zeal for their Prince's and their Representativ's Danger, though past and escaped. What Security shall the Pope, or his popish Successour promise themselves, that the people's Zeal for their own Dangers Approaching, will not be as much transported too. And that the Eruption of Smithfield Fires, with the dragging of their Fathers, their Wives, their Chil∣dren, or their Kindred (and possibly their own Turn next) to a popish Stake, will not equally, if not more violently inflame them into as great, or greater Outrages than the Gun-powder Plot could do.

But whether this certain Ruine should persue these Arbitrary popish Instruments either sooner or later, and that it were really possible these, or any other Illegal popish Measures might give us some Trouble and Disturbance during this popish Monarch's Reign. How wretched a piece of Work must the Wisdom of the Pope and the whole Conclave undertake, to make Popery and Arbitrary Power under a popish Successour, those Feeble Serpents that shall but just bite our Heels to provoke our succeeding Vengeance to crush their Heads.

In the second year of Queen Mary, after the Repeal of King Edward's Laws, but before the Re∣storation of the Pope's Supremacy, we are told in the History of the Reformation: (Abridg. B. 3. pag. 253.) of a project proposed by the Spanish Ambassadour to the Queen, of assuming the power of a Conquerour, and ruling at pleasure; by which she might restore both the Religion and the Abbey-Lands, and be under no Restraint. This she communicated to her Chancellour Gardiner, and charged him to give her his Opinion of it sincerely, as he would answer to God for it at the last day. He read it carefully, and told her it was a most pernicious Contrivance, and begg'd her not to listen to such Platforms which might be brought her by base Sycophants. Ʋpon that she burnt the Paper, and charged ••••e Am∣bassadour to bring her no more such projects. This gave Gardiner great Apprehensions of ••••e Mis∣chiefs that Spanish Councils might bring upon the Nation: and so he procured the Act to be made; by which the Queen was bound by the Law, as much as her Ancestors were.

Now if that Bloody popish Zealot Gardiner was so violently averse to the Thought of bringing Arbitrary-power into England, for what Service soever to the Romish Cause, as in his Opinion so most pernicious; when at the same time the Majority, or Half of the Nation at least were of that perswasion. And if popish Standing Armies could have done the Feat, they were ten times easier to be rais'd for any Arbitrary popish purpose then; especially too, when the Queen lay in the Bo∣some of that potent Spanish Husband (witness his Invincible Armada soon after against Queen Elizabeth) that could have lent her a very considerable Helping Hand from Forreign Assistance to push on the project, had her English Strength been Insufficient. Now I say, if nevertheless the De∣sign was deem'd so pernicious then, what popish State Councellours at this time of day will run their own and their Prince's Fingers so far in the Fire, as to advise him to any such Arbitrary Projection now, under so low a Wane of Popery, that scarce the 200th. part of the Nation are of that Reli∣gion, and therefore infinitely more pernicious than in Queen Mary's Case, and consequently, which nothing but the most abandon'd Lunacy can ever pretend to advise, or attempt.

'Tis true indeed, the popish Character lays down a most Expeditious Method of raising this dread∣ful Standing Army, that are to accomplish the mighty Feat of Popery and Slavery under a Romish Suc∣cessour; which for the Reader's Diversion take as follows.

To make the Pope Absolute, there wants a Standing-Army; and he shall have it. For who shall hin∣der him? Nay, all his Commanders shall be qualify'd even by our present Protestant Test for the Employ∣ment. He shall have enough Men of the Blade out of one half of the Gaming Houses in Town, to Of∣ficer twice as many Forces as he shall want. 'Tis true, they shall be Men of no Estates nor Princi∣ples.

But they shall fight as well as those that have Both. For people are ever as Valiant that have their Fortunes to raise, as those that have them to defend: Nay, of the two they shall be the more Faithful. For they have no Property to be concern'd for, and will more zealously serve him, by Reason their whole Interest and Estates lye in Him. And that this Army may be more quietly raysed, how many honourable Pretences may be found? Perhaps the greatest and most important Preservation of his Kingdom shall call for it: and then upon second Thoughts, instead of defeating some Forreign Enemy, they are opportunely ready to cu•• our Throats at Home, &c.

This Projection I confess is the only passage through the whole Character, that endeavours to make out the possibility of any part of the numerous popish Mischiefs denounced through the whole Pamphlet. For all along it absolutely supposes the power of a popish Successour's doing whatever he pleases; and after so fallacious a Petitio principii, it leaps over all Mountains in the way, and only labours to prove the Depravity of a popish Successour's Tyrannical Inclinations, and give him the Will of putting that power into Execution.

But to examine the Depth of this Projection, granting such a Set of Atheistick Officers could be found; what then must their Army be? Here's a Forreign Invasion, or some other Honourable Cause proposed, and an Army raysed for that seeming Intent and Purpose: an Army of papists they cannot be, for there is not 10000 Men, Women, and Children of that perswasion in the whole King∣dom, and consequently, far short of 10000 Fighting Men amongst them all; and possibly, not one half of them neither, such Foolhardy Desperadoes, as to hazard their Lives so madly and so extrava∣gantly in so unpromising a Cause, so unaccomplishable a Design as Subjecting of England by the Hands of the papists. So that an Army of Papists can be no part of a popish Successour's Thoughts.

And that the number of the papists in England is really no Greater. The King's Indulgence for∣merly to those of that Religon, in gratitude for their Loyal Endeavours at Worcester; and indeed through all his Fathers Distresses; has been so far from putting them to the Shifts of Disguises or Concealment of their Perswasions, that before the late wakening of the Laws against them, the pa∣pists were every where as visible, and generally as distinguishable from the rest of Mankind as one Sex is from another; insomuch that (unless their Numbers have Increased by Converts made since the popish Discovery, and the Execution of the Statutes against them) there's scarce one papist in Eng∣land, that all his Neighbours round him cannot particularly point at. And how thin sown those Pa∣pists are, is notoriously manifest, when in many and many a ten Parishes together in England there is not three Papists, and the whole number computed through the Nation, scarce the 200th. Man of that Perswasion. Notwithstanding there have been many Fanatical Pretensions of wonderful po∣pish Dispensations; by vertue of which, there are at least thirty or fourty thousand Church-papists as some old Oliverian Rebels shall tell you, tolerated by the Pope to an Absolute Protestant Ʋnifor∣mity, and ready upon occasion, to show themselves in their proper Colours. The Villany of which Damnable Falshood is sufficiently apparent, from the forementiond Indulgence. For why such a Dis∣pensation? Why a playing the basest of Hypocrites, and Bantring with Religion, Sacraments, nay, GOD himself; (as such a Dispensation is no less) when under so universal an Impunity, there was not the least Occasion for it? There's a natural Pride in all Religions to avow their own Princi∣ples; and no Man, like St. Peter, denyes his Master, unless, like him too, under some Apprehension of Danger in Owning him. And therefore these papal Dispensations must be the Second Part of Otes his Commissions, and nothing but the Restless Malice of Schisme, and the Diabolical Spirit of Rebel∣lion can raise so false an Alarum of popery, and bugbear the Ignorant Rabble by so vile and so curs∣ed an Imposture.

But to return to our Standing Army. An Army of Papists is not to be had; and an Army of Atheists is as unfeizible as the other. For whatever dissolute Debauchees might possibly be culled out (as the Character tells you) of no Religion nor Principles, for a few particular Officers; the whole Gross of an Army of the same Stamp is not in rerum Naturâ: For if a popish Successour will have an Army of English-men, he must take them as he finds them, the loose and poorer sort of Rabble, the Bore and Peasant, the Refuse of the Shop and the Plough, which are ever the Composition of Armyes in a Kingdom not so extraordinary peopled as England, and these must be the Hands that this popish Successour must raise for his Standing Armyes. And if so, how far the Genius of the Commonalty of England lyes towards such a popish Ʋndertaking, and this No-popish Army shall push on to these All-popish Designs, is worthy our Consideration.

Here's an Army expresly rais'd for a Forreign Invasion, or the like; and on the quite contrary, in∣tended to cut our own Throats at home; rays'd for the Kingdom's preservation, & used for its down-right Destruction; and all this, forsooth, because their Arbitrary popishly Affected Officers shall pull off the Vizor, and wheel about, and at the word of Command, the whole Army after them. But the Quaery is, Whether they'll obey that Command, and be so tamely indifferent pro or con in thei Obe∣dience as to act the most opposite thing to what they were raysed for, and maintain perhaps the only Cause that they abhor.

I confess, in the Quarrels of Princes and States, as to Forreign Engagements, the vindicating of a National Honour, or the enlarging of Dominion, &c. Armyes are generally of their Leaders In∣clinations, and it boots little possibly to an English Army, whether ingaged against a Dutch or a French Enemy. But in Domestick and Intestine Jarrs, the Favour of the Cause ever animates the Arm that fights it. In all the popish Rebellions, or Massacres, whether in Ireland, Piedmont, or Pa∣ris, whether for or against the Prince, or in all the several Hugenot Rebellions in Fr••••••••

o••her Kingdoms of Europe; when Religion was the Quarrel, 'twas not the Command of the Leader but the Principle of the Party adhering to him, that was ever the First Mover on both sides. And a popish Cause in England can never move, but upon the same Axle. And nothing is more i••le, t••an to fancy such an Extravagance in any People or Religion in the World, as to swallow such Im∣plicite Obedience to Princes, as to do any Thing, or all Chings because Commanded.

'Tis not the first time that through prejudice to the Person or the Cause, disgusted Souldi∣ers have shot through their Captains instead of their Enemies Heads, and the Fate of Kuniski a∣mongst the Cossacks, is no Original of the Kind; nor is it any such Rarity in History, to find whole Armies turn Deserters, and not only set up new Leaders, but new Soveraigns too. And truly upon engaging an English Army under so Bloody a popish Standard, what Assurance can this popish Successour propose to himself, not so much of going through with so crabbed a piece of Work, but ••ven of his own meer Safety under the Protection of such Hands and Swords to uphold him? What Security shall he, or indeed can he in common reason expect from the Stubborn, obstinate Eng∣lish Hands, a People too apt to fly in the very Face of Princes upon a less Provocation than so un∣grateful a piece of Service: and that upon raising an Army for any such kind of purpose, he has not put the Sword into their very hands that may guide it to his own Throat, whil'st poss••bly they shall be opportunely raised for some more Darling-protestant Favourite to step into the Head of them, and dismount, not only their popish Officers, but popery too, and the very Royal popish Nimrod himself; nay, and perhaps use him with as little Remorse as the Turkish Janizaries have done several of their less hated Grand Seigniours under a much more Trivial Disgust.

But to give an Example out of our English Chronicles, of the Obedience and Loyalty of English Ar∣myes to a King they hate; I shall only refer the Reader to the Fate of King Richard the Third at Bosworth Field. Baker tells us, that Richard's Army was double the Strength and Number of his Adversarys, the Earl of Richmond's. Yet see the Infidelity of an English Army to a Prince under the popular Dissatisfaction and Prejudice. A great part of his Army raised for his preservation, was actually ingaged in his Destruction. For the Lord Stanly by a Revolt with 2000 Horse, Sir William Stanly with a party of 3000 more; and with these Sir Walter Hungerford, Sir John Savage, Sir Brian Stanford, Sir Simon Digby, all Command••••••, who withdrew likewise with their Respective Inferiour Souldiers, amounting between them, to the Majority o•• Richard's whole Army, turned all to the Earl of Richmond, and carryed the whole Fortune of the day to the Victorious Enemies Side, to the Loss both of Richard's Crown and Life together. Nay, he goes further, and expresly tells us, that in this Battle Henry, Earl of Northumberland, a Commander of Richard's Party, never strock Stroke; as likewise many other, who follow'd him moreout of Fear than Love: which Neu∣ters upon the same Revolt as the Lord Stanly, might undoubtedly have withdrawn their party to Richmond too. So that upon that dangerous and Fatal Rock, the people's Aversion, how easily are the Crowns and Lives of princes Shipwrack't? and what little Trust can Monarchs repose in the Strength and Swords of Armies whose Hearts are not Theirs.

But alas! if Richard the Third found such Treachery from a Revolting Army; and an Antipathy so destructive to him; What Truth or Faith is a popish Tyrant like to find from Armies under a more universal and inveterate Detestation.

For wherein was King Richard's Crime so great? (I mean, as to the people) 'Tis true, he Mounted the Throne by the most Inhumane of Murders. And from that only Grievance proceeded the Defection of his Souldiers, that cost him his Life and Empire. But still, that was not half so great an Incentive to his Revolting Subjects, as the forementioned Barbarities of a popish Tyrant now. For though he was so deeply stain'd in Royal Blood, yet that was not so nearly felt by the people, as a Romish Tyrants cutting his Subjects Throats would be, by reason that Englishmen have ever a greater Tenderness of Themselves than their Princes. Besides, whatever Wrong he had done to the Royal Family, never had Prince more endeared himself (or endeavoured it, at least) than he to his people. For Baker gives this Account of him, That having gotten the Crown by pestilent Courses, he sought to Establish it by Wholesome Laws: for in no King's Reign were ever better Laws made, for the Ease and Solace of the people, or more Immunities granted to the Subject. Nor was there any thing of Religious Difference in his Case (Religion, that the Character tells you, sets all Nations in a Flame) For Richard and his Souldiers were of One Church; and so no part of the people's Hatred (as in the Case of popery now) nor any part of the Coals was blown up from that Wind. Yet, if under no Danger to Religion and Liberties, no Approach nor Apprehension of Tyran∣ny and Slavery, nevertheless his parricides alone outweighed all other Merits, and their Hatred of Richard only on that Score, could turn his Subjects Swords against his own Breast; how much more violent an Aversion will the Hatred of a popish Tyrant, both for his Religion and his Cause to∣gether produce, being enough to exasperate the English Constitutions, not only into Rebels, but even into Savages too.

But for a farther Instance of Revolting Armies, the History of Demetrius, Emperour of Russia, is a memorable Example. This Demetrius, the only Heir of the Empire, was in his Infancy stoln away to be rescued from the Danger of his Life from the Cruelty of the Usurper Boritz Fedoritz, then in possession of the Empire, and another Body very like him, was exposed Dead to the View of the people. This Demetrius being brought up in Poland with the Palatine Sandomir, after he had travelled into Germany and Italy for the space of twenty years, gave himself to be known for the

So•• of Bazil, and Heir of Russia, and by the Assistance of the Palatine, the Jesuites, and the Favour o•• the King himself, entred in••o Muscovy, well accompanied with Germanes, Poles, and Cossacks▪ Ag••inst wh••m Boritz raised a puissant Army. Nevertheless the Infidelity of his People, who rose in Arms against him, together with several Losses sustained, deprived him both of Co••rage and L••fe, and thereupon he dyed, but left his Son to succeed him; who was received indeed by some of his Faction. But the City of Muscovy, together with all the Country, having joyn'd with Demetri∣us, throw Boritz Son into Prison, and Establish't D••metrius upon the Throne; whose Corenation, (as 'tis la••gely described in the History of the Iron Age) was attended with such loud Transports of the ••e••ple, and such universal Acclamations of Joy, as could scarce be exceeded. Yet this very Pri••ce had no sooner ascended the Throne, and was scarce yet warm in the Seat, but those very Sub∣j••cts whose Hands and Swords had so chearfully and vigorously asserted the Justice of his Cause and Birthri••ht, and advanced him to the Empire; nevertheless, understanding that he had ••mbraced the R••m••sh Faith, and acknowledge the Pope, and that he had introduced the Jesuites, as they ap∣pr••h••nded, to endeavour the Change of the Religion (which in Russia, is the Greek Church) fell so tot••lly off from their n••w Allegiance, and entred into so sudden and so perfidious a Conspiracy against him, that upon a General Uproar they fell upon the Poles, and others, as they were going to Court, insomuch that they overpower'd all the Forreign Assistance he had brought with him, and appreach't so near to his Palace, till the Emperour left his Queen, and got away, and upon persuit, leapt down f••om a Tower through a Window; at the Foot whereof (being found alive) he was forthwith dispatcht, and the Cruelty of the barbarous Multitude continued upon his dead Body, which they to••e in pi••ces: And so swift was the Change of popular Affections, and so violent the Fury stirred up by the meer Alarum of altering the Religion, that all this prodigious Revolution was wrought in a Month's Time after his Acquisition of the Crown.

And if the Imaginary Introduction of Popery (as this was hitherto no more) could raise so ra∣pid a Torrent, and so sudden a Turn of Tide from the Revolting Muscovites; what miraculous Fideli∣ty can a Romanist expect f••om Englishmen, under as great an Abhorrence of the Religion, and a more real Appearance of the aforenamed Tyrannous Eff••cts of it.

But put the Case, the best and most plausible way, Viz Th••t a popish Successour (as some peo∣ple will fancy) though really impossibl••) could raise a whole Army of the same Stretching Con∣science as the Character has raised him Officers, a Crew of all Atheists, and neither Principles nor Religion were any part of their Consideration, and consequently plyable to any purpose whatever; as a Pack of such Reprobates as shall obey their Prince and his Officers in so unjustifyable a Com∣mand, and so ••nnatural a piece of Service as cutting the Protestant Throats, or upholding those Arbitrary Judges that shall do it; what Faith shall he dare lodge in an Army so Qualified? For what shall hinder them, upon any Opportunity or Overture of greater advantage, from turning as great Reg••es against him as for him? and truly with as little Guilt, and as good Conscience on one side as 'tother. For an Actual Obedience, even to a Crown'd Head in the Execution of an Vnlawful Act, especially so notorious as the Massacring of his Subjects, and Destruction of the Government, is as much against our Duty, both as Christians and Subjects, as downright to rebell against him. And if this Army can stretch so far as to such ••orrid popish Outrages, so much against the English Grain, 'tis very great Odds, but they'd much easier lean to their more Natural Byass on the o••her.

I need not insist much farther upon the manifest Inability of Popery's Advancement by Armies or Arbitrary Power, when Arbitrary Power of it self alone, without the other unweildy Clog of Popery at the heels of it, has been ever adjudged so impracticable in England, that the very Conquer••ur him∣self, the Norman William thought not his Victory secure, but by ingaging to adhere to William the Confessours Laws, or at least, to introduce no Noveltyes, excepting such as Tryals by Juryes, or the like; and these to the Priviledge, not Infringement of the Peoples Liberties. And the long and Bloody Baron's Wars, upon a less Invasion of Liberty, are a sufficient Demonstration of the Ʋneasi∣ness of Englishmen under any Yoke whatever. Insomuch that a popish Successour, under the un∣deniable Suspitions, and at best, but faint Affections of his People, is so far from a Capacity of Ty∣rannizing either with Armyes, or without them, that he has no other Support both of Himself and his whole Party, but by following the forementiond Measures of Richard the Third, and either to indear himself by making of Wholesome Laws for the people's Freedom and Tranquility; or at least by keeping within the Bounds of those wholesome Ones they have already made for their Security.

Now with all these Numerous and undeniable Blocks in his way, why must a popish Successour be Able, or indeed possest with so Enthusiastick a Presumption (for nothing less than Supernatural In∣spirations will do it) as to Think himself able to accomplish that very Thing in England which was never done by Monarch before. Nay, to make the Presumption a little more prodigious, this very Successour, who of all the Kings since the Creation, has the worst Tools for such an Atchievement, must be the first and only person that is for undertaking it. For as a National Slavery is always the work of Time, and can get footing at best but by slow and subtle Encroachments; and likewise, if at all, is a thousand times more Feasible from a Prince that is the People's Darling, than one that is their Aversion. How unfit a Prince will a popish Successour be, for so hazardous an Attempt, when the continual and united Jealousies of his Subj••cts will prevent the first part of the Danger, by fore-watching

even the least Surprize or Arbitrary Encroachment upon them, and next will never furnish him with half hands enough to perfect the Ʋndertaking.

Well, but notwithstanding all this, there are a sort of People in the World that shall make An∣swer, that Arbitrary Power in a Papist is not a thing so new, nor so unpracticable, when the Govern∣ment of the now French King is so manifest a Testimony to the Contrary. And truly there are but too many Incendiaries in this Age, that distract the Brain••••ss part of Mankind with almost no other Gorgon, Viz. That the French King's Standing-Armyes are to be the Pattern of a popish Suc∣cessour's Government, and the Persecution of his Hugonots, the very Fate of the Protestants in Eng∣land, whil'st under the Rose, Popery and Slavery are to Copy from no other Original.

As this is one of the main Pretensions of the Whig-Fears, and indeed the Top-Demonstration of Popery and Arbitrary Power; so when truly examined, you'll find it just such an Apparition as Otes's bloody Pilgrims; the more terrible, the more ridiculous. For as 'tis the common Fate of all popular Arguments on that Subject; so much the more Formidable, still so much the more A•••• the Phantom.

For first, not to i••sist much upon the General Mistake of Mankind, when possibly the French Arbitrary Power is infinitely magnifyed above what really it is; for excepting the French King's now and then fleecing an Over-rich Cheating Courtier a little Arbitrarily, and thereby, in truth, making but a Reprizal of his own, I could never yet learn by those that know the French Government, that any man's Meum or Tuum was Illegally taken away, or any Man's Life or Fortune stood or fell, but by the Judicial Process of the Laws of the Land. 'Tis true indeed, his Wars have been Expensive, but then his Revenues have been large to support them; and not only that, but his Forreign Depredations have supplyed the greatest part of the Expence. Nevertheless whatever Arbitrary Taxes he may have raysed, to the Injury of any particular aggrieved Subject, or whatever Tyranny he may have exercised over the distrest and persecuted Hugonots, if either of the two can be properly Arbitrary or Tyrannick, when past into a Low, and made a Decrée enacted by parliament, as both the Taxes and the present Hugon••t Persecution are; the French King's Arbitrary Incroachments in France, are no precedent for a popish Successour's Imita∣tion in England, and that because the State and Constitution of the Two Kingdoms are so extreamly different, that there is not the least Ground for such a Foundation here as there.

For first as to the Nature and Genius of the People: In France, the Peasants ab Origine have not en∣joyed half the Priviledges and Immunityes of the Freeborn people of England. And therefore under that sordid Education, as knowing no better, and being in a manner inured to Sla∣very, 'tis no such great wonder to see the French Commonalty submitting to s••ch Oppression, as indeed, why should they otherwise, when they submit but to Law.

And if the French King has any greater Ascendance over his Parliaments than the Kings of Eng∣land over Theirs, to perform all this; why should that be any Rarity, when in reality they are of so different a Constitution from those of England, that they are rather the settled Magistrrey of the Na∣tion than any thing like Our Parliaments; and as Ours are of the peopl's Election, Theirs in a man∣ner only the King's, every Member of the French Parliaments holding his Office not only for Life but even to his Heirs, unless alienated by the Prince upon a Forfeiture, or any personal Dislike; that in short, as being the Creatures of the King, they are truly more like a Turkish DIVAN than an English House of Commons.

But in fine, to make a Parallel of our Dangers between the State of the two Nations, which in truth is bringing North and South together. BECAƲSE a popish French King, with the Majo∣rity of the Kingdom of his own Religion, the Religion Established by Law, and Flourishing in Glory; by help of such vaste Armies too, intirely of that Religion, and thereby principled for his own Service, can squeeze some particular of his Subjects Purses a little Arbitrarily, and oppress and persecute the poor forlorn Hugonots, a Party infinitely the Minority, disabled too from all pow∣er, and at highest, but suffered by the Indulgence of the State, and that even with the most favour∣able Aspect of the Government, under that pittance of Encouragment, that (for Example) to the whole Body of the Reformers inhabiting in that vaste and populous City of Paris, there is tolerat∣ed but One Hugonot Church, and that standing like our Pancras, only more Miles out of Town, because I say, the French King under these Circumstances can do all this: THEREFORE (pray mark it) a popish English King with his Diminitive Romish Party, the most inconsiderable Handful of the Nation, under not only the Censure of the Law, but the utter Abhorrence of the People, with the help of an Army (if he has any) of a quite contrary Religion, and thereby whol∣ly unprincipled for the Service intended, shall vanquish and subject the Protestant Establish't Religion in all its Lustre and S••rength, upheld by all the Fortifications of Law, and by Numbers even to a more than hundredfold Majority; whil'st the English Protestants are not only to feel the French Hugonots Smart, but (if either the Fanatical Suggestions, or the popish Character speaks Truth) to groan under a hundred times (Oh! Monstrum Horrendum!) more dismal Persecution and Sla∣very: the present French Arbitrary Stretch being little more than a Fleabiting to our total Aboli∣tion of our Laws, Libertyes and Religion.

But to make this French Goblin more monstrous still, there are some People that go a Bowes Shoot farther yet, and will tell you, that by the aforesaid almost Omnipotent Things called Standing-Ar∣myes, a popish Successour shall not only crush our Protestant Laws and Liberties to pieces Himself, but likewise hectour our very parliaments to that degree, as to force them to the giving up our very

Birthrights to him, nay, to the very passing of at once both Popery and Slavery into Law it self; and then Lord have Mercy upon poor lost England. For alas! the same Absolute uncontroulable Soveraignty that the French King has over his Parliaments, is (they'll tell you) the intended Scheme of a popish Dominion in England. And then where! Oh where! is our Religion and Liberties when that black Day once comes?

Now in the Name of Lucifer, what Infernal Impudence reigns in the World, when such Rank, such Nonsensical Stuff as this can be asserted by Rogues, and credited by Fools. For besides the most infamous Calumny that this execrable Imputation throws upon the whole Body of the Nation, Viz. That Englishmen shall be such tame, such abject, such despicable Wretches and Cowards, as out of any personal Fear whatever, to yield up their Laws, Rights, and Religion, to the Ruine of themselves and their Posterity, and thereby offer, as it were, even their own Throats to the Slaughter. What Relation has the present Management in France to that of Popery in England, or the French King's P••rliamentary Influence to that of a popish Successour's?

For whatever extraordinary Obedience or Subjection the French Parliaments may yield to their King in the grant of any Oppressive Impositions upon the Subject to advance their King's Exorbitant Power and Greatness; are the French King's Arbitrary Endeavours to root up the Foundations of his popish Laws and the Establish't Religion of France, which vice versa, is the Case in England; so that if a popish Successour can hector our English Parliaments to no farther a Complyance than the French King do••s His, the Devil an Inch of Ground will Popery get in England; for as I take it, the French Parliaments are all popish; and as such, are in so little danger of their Religion, that truly their Prince in the other Extream is in the highest Extravagance of Advanc∣ing it.

So that unless we state the Parrallel between the two Kings Thus, Viz. (Supposing the French King a Hugonot, which is but turning ou•• ••ables) that then both his popish Armies and popish Parlia∣ments would nevertheless be awed and bullyed into that intire Submission to him, as to abolish the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom, and thereby subject themselves and all their Brethren Papists to the self same Persecution and Slavery under the Hugonots, that the Hugonots suffer under Them: without which Supposition his Tyranny is wholly alien to our popish Successour's; and nothing but the most Villanous Phanatical Sophistry dares cant at this wretched rate, to pretend to make the French Tyranny a Model for English Popery to work by. But put the Case there were a French Hu∣gonot King, and that had the forementioned purpose in Agitation, either by Armies or Parliaments (as plyable as the French Genius is supposed to be) his Ill Success in such an Exploit might be soon guest, by the Difficulties and Obstructions of their Hugonot Henry the 4th. in his way to the Throne under but a suspition of inclining that way. And consequently, what worse Success would attend the like popish Changes in England, under the manifest disproportion of the English Papists to the French Hugonots, is past dispute,

However, if neither English Armies nor English Parliaments can do the popish Feat, there's one last Expedient yet to vanquish all Obstacles, and that I assure you, (if no small Authors may be be∣lieved) a most puissant one, Viz. If the popish Hands in England are too weak to enslave us, this popish Successour shall borrow the Assistance of popish Neighbours to help out, and so what cannot be done by Domestick Forces, shall be perform'd by a Forreign Army, call'd over on purpose. This Ex∣pedient I confess, is so much the more ••••••••••••ble, as it has some little Affinity to Bedlow's St. Jago Expedition, and truly has sometimes had the Honour to be harangued upon even in a House of Com∣mons, as no small Danger from Popery.

But notwithstanding the Authority and Veracity this Projection may seem to arrogate from its Admission into an Honourable House of Parliament; upon due Examination, I am half afraid, 'twill prove but one of the Observator's downright Twangers. For if this popish Successour be for setting up Popery by pitch't Battles and plain Conquest, and that too, by Outlandish Ayde; in the first place he must have far more than tenfold as many Forreign popish Hands as he has of his own to pretend at least to a strength able to subdue England; nay, and in truth, here's one unlucky Circumstance at∣tending, that is, if he can borrow popish Neighbours, 'tis odds but the protestants may borrow pro∣testant Neighbours too upon occasion; for Princes have as often lent Armies to succour opprest Sub∣jects, as to assist Oppressing Tyrants. But let that pass.

But supposing the best face of the thing, that there were some Chance for him in this bold Cast, and that after his setting of Honour, Life, Empire all at a Throw upon the hazard of War, there were only an even Lay of Keeping or loosing them, a Caesar aut nullus, 'twere a little more pardonable Venture. But as the Devil would have it, there's not one syllable of this in the Matter. For if overthrown, he's so irrevocably lost, that possibly not only his own Ruine, but that of all his Royal Family, and of Monarchy it self goes together. But admitting he Conquers, the Question is, whe∣ther the Caesarship on the other side be so secure or no?

For truly, what if the aforesaid tenfold Majority of Forreign Conquerours should make bold to pass a Civ••l Complement upon this Successour Militant, and the rest of his popish Remnant, and fairly keep the Victory when they have got it. For I assure him little England is a pritty Parcel of Ter∣ra firma, and 'twere no small Temptation to popish or no popish Fingers to be a little tenacious with so fortunate a Prize. And when those Triumphant Forreigners have tasted the sweet Air of so delicate a Spot as England, 'tis fourty to one whether They, or at least the Crown'd Head that lends them, will be overhasty of resigning so inviting a Trophy as the English Diadem; and truly cosi∣dering

the Blackness of the Cause they came over to ingage in, if any Forreign Prince can lend an Army for so Dishhonourable a Quarrel, which indeed all Nations and all Religions must cry Shame against, with much less Dishonour may he wear the Lawrel he wins, and assume that vanquish't King∣dom to himself, when he robs but a Robber, and at most deposes a Cut-throat.

And therefore to make Instance in the Case, what popish Successour will venture to call over, sup∣pose thirty or forty thousand French to enslave his people (and thereby at one dash loose his Peo∣ple's Hearts beyond all Thoughts of a Recovery) as thither indeed the Whig Fears seem to point) upon a Confidence that the now French King's Generosity, though possibly not the best Faith-keeper in Christendom, after the Accomplishment of the Conquest, will make so intire a Resignation of all Pretensions of Victory to Establish this Absolute Popish Sultan: especially considering the insatiate Ambition of that aspiring Prince to Vniversal Monarchy, and particularly to the Soveraignty of the Seas; which though with all his present great Ships under the Maritime Weakness of France he cannot atchieve, he might intirely possess by so opportune and so important an Addition to his Con∣quests as England.

Now they must have a wonderful Stock of Faith, with no small mixture of Madness, that can really believe any popish Crown'd Head in the World will ever play so cursed a Loosing Game, and take that Path towards Popery, with two such amnable Precipices both on the Right Hand and the Left, that the very Masterpiece of the Projection is but in effect writing his own MENE TE∣KEL over his own Head.

So that all the forementioned Impotence and Impossibilities of popish and arbitrary Tyrannys Introduction into England, being fully demonstrated; I have only this to add; There is no greater Mistake in the generality of Mankind, than an Imbibed Opinion, that the Papists think themselves obliged to endeavour the setting up of their Religion hap-hazard, right or wrong, hand over head, without Consideration or Regard to the Issue or Success of the Undertaking; and that in fine, a po∣pish Successour will certainly muster all Forces and all Engines to attempt the Storming of the whole Protestant Liberty and Religion, though under a tenfold Odds of laying his very Bones at the Siege.

But the Grossness of this popular Errour will appear from the past Conduct of all the Papists in all Ages and all Countreys, when they never attempted a Rebellion, Massacre, or any such Monstrous Design, but where they had, not only proper popish Instruments for the Service, but also a popish Strength capable in all reasonable prospect of going Through-stitch with it. Besides a Bigot in Reli∣gion is nevertheless a Statesman in the Establishing of that Religion, and excepting such Bedla∣mite Enthusiasts as the old Fifth Monarchy Adventures, there's Policy as well as Faith in all Churches; and how far soever Faith may stretch, Policy moves in the Bounds of Reason, and he that can believe the greatest lying Miracle in a Romish Legend, will never trust to Miracles in a Romish Battalia. And were a popish Successour in his Nature ten times, if possible, a Bloodyer-minded Tyrant than the very Character has shaped him, if he wants Humane Strength to enslave us, let us not suspect his relying on Divine or Infernal Assistance, the Ayd of Angels or Devils to help him.

And truly when a popish Successour shall seriously consider the Temper of the Head-strong Eng∣lish, a people always impatient of Wrongs, to that degree of Ill-nature in the Resentment and Pro∣secution of Ills above all Mankind beside, that whereas all other Nations cry [Run Rogue] 'tis observable the English Note is ever [Stop Thief] But above all, a People so nicely Jealous of Li∣berty, that the very Name of Oppression (especially from the Crown-side) without the Thing, is enough to make them slip the Bi••t and run stark mad; insomuch that a King of England is but too justly call'd a King of Devils; when he considers all this, I say, a popish Successour, a thousand to one, will never venture the raising those mutinous English Devils, without a Charm full strong enough to lay them again. And whatever his Inclinations might be for the Heretick Slavery, yet as

Vana est sine viribus Ira.

'Tis not the Thunder in a Popish Successour's Heart, but his Hand that can hurt us, and where the Arm's too weak, and the Bolt too unweildy, let us never trouble our Heads with fearing the Blow.

But that Point, Viz. A popish Successours POWER of Enslaving, Persecuting, Burning, &c. being sufficiently discust, let us next examine the Veracity of the Character in another Point, that is, granting he either had, or fancy'd he had the Power of doing it; Quaery, whither it necessarily follows that he must have the Will to do it.

The Character, 'tis true (as I said before) makes him plunge headlong into the Breach of all Promises, Vows, Obligations, Oaths and Sacraments, all the Dictates even of Morality and Common Humanity, and what not; and renders it withall so inseperable an Impulse and Principle of a popish Conscience, that in a manner, that popish Prince that neglects so incumbent and meritorious a Duty, is little less in the popish Ballance than a Judas or a Julian, &c.

Though I confess, for all this terrible Oathbreaking, the two Instances recited in the Character to prove this universal popish Infidelity are possibly the Idlest that a Man could wish to meet with. The First of them is Queen Mary's Breach of Promise of their Quiet Exercise of the Protestant Religion, made to the Norfolk and Suffolk Inhabitants that mounted her to her Throne, which I ac∣knowledge was both ungratefully, and in the highest degree dishonourably done; yet when truly weighed, is far from any thing of that damnable Law-breaking popish Perjury that the Character all along endeavours to blacken all Romish Princes with; that on the contrary, though 'tis true,

she broke her Promise given to Capitulating Rebels; for the Norfolk and Suffolk Inhabitants were indeed little better; for as their utmost Endeavours of setting their Lawful Soveraign upon her Throne, was their absolute indispensible Duty, whatever her Requital might be, yet the Chronicle tells us they refus'd the Queen any Assistance whatever till they had first condition'd with her, and extorted that Promise from her. And if nevertheless she broke that Promise afterwards with them; here was no Tyrannick Cruelty exercised, nor any Coronation Oath Violated, when she only burnt them by Law; and as her Coronation Oath obliged her to rule by Law, 'twas only her Misfortune to b••lieve the Equity of that Sanguinary Law, and accordingly, to act by it, and consequently, their Misery to feel the Scourge of it.

The 2d. Instance of a Certain Gentleman on the Other side the Water, that once took the Sacrament never to invade Flanders; which since he hath so notoriously broken: and the Inference from thence, that a popish Successour will much more break all Oaths, for the meritorious Propagation of his Reli∣gion, when a popish Prince has violated even Sacraments themselves for his irregular, unjustifyable Ambition; is so impertinently urg••d, that nothing can be less to the Purpose. For that Gentle∣man's Breach of his Sacramentary Oath is no Sin of the papist, but the Man, not a Principle of his Religion, but the fault of his little or no Religion in so slight a Regard of so sacred an Obligation, wherein his Ambition overpowered his Christianity; and possibly under his Lust of Power, an Oath upon the Bible or the Alcoran might be much of a Strength.

But to find a better Example of Popish Perfidy than the Character affords, I acknowledge the hor∣rid and most barbarous Infidelity of Charles the 9th. of France and the Impious and Execrable Mas∣sacre of the French Protestants by that Inhumane and Treacherous Monarch's Machinations: which Davilah, an Historian of his own Church describes with Detestation, and which all Religions must re∣member with Horrour: but at the same time, to do Justice likewise to the Hugonot Guilt, all good Men ought to reflect on the three Hugonot Rebellions in his Reign (though whatever their Provo∣cation were) as wholly unallowable by the Laws of God; and th••ir Daylight Bloodsbed such a Blot in a Christian Scutcheon, which nothing but the others Midnight Murders could exceed; and possi∣bly those Rebellions no small Incentive to that Diabolical Assassination.

I confess likewise, that I have read in a more sacred Record, now the Jews upon Picques and Re∣venges have cut off almost whole Tribes amongst them; but at the same time, as 'tis certain, those Throat-cuttings committed upon ••heir Breth••en, were against their Religion and the Laws of God; and which nothing but Exemplary Penitence could Atone, so the Massacring Spirit of Charles the 9th. when rightly scan'd, will not be found so Canonizing a Qualification in a Romanist, as the World suspects it.

For if it were really that Signally Meritorious Principle of Popery, how comes it about that there's so few Popish Champions in so Holy a Popish War? For to instance the Practices of the Romanists in all Kingdoms, and all Ages since the Reformation. In the first place, in France (as Dr. Burnet in his Preface to his Rights of Princes assures us) the Hugonots enjoyed their Liberties, and the pub∣lick unmolested Toleration of their Worship for several King's Reigns together; nay, and what's particularly remarkable, the Edicts that confirm'd that Toleration were granted all by popish Kings and a Majority of Papists in Parliament, a Favour which was never granted to the Papists by any protestant Parliament whatever since the first Establishment of the Reformation in England. Nor is this popish Good Nature peculiar only to the French Climate, when so many of the Principalities of Germany, and of the Cantons in Switzerland, where Popery is the Church Establish't, have from Age to Age continued the same Toleration of the Reformers in the publick Impunity of their Persons and Estates, and the Exercise of their Devotion. Now if Persecuting and enslaving of Hereticks, &c. were so highly meritorious in the popish C••urch, nay, the very Shibboleth of the popish Christianity, as the Malice of popish Characters, and the Prejudice and Fear of English Fools has represented them, and that the highest of papal Blessings and Seats in Heaven were the promis'd Reward of such Tran∣scendent Merit; what unpardonable Apostacy lyes at the Doors of almost the whole Body of Papists through the World, and what Curses and Anathema's must such wilful, such undutiful, and such graceless Omission of a Duty so Obligatory, the Remissness and Lethargy of so many Kingdoms and Principalities from so many Generations to Generations, deserved.

But alas! as the Tree is known by the Fruit; and the Test of all Principles and Inclinations (I mean, under no Restraint) are their Actions; and as all those popish Governments have the popish Majority and Strength on their side; and thereby are in a visible Capacity of Oppressing and Per∣secuting their weaker Here••ick Subjects; therefore this general Indulgence and Mercy is an unan∣serable Argument, that under the POWER of Tyranny and Cruelty, they manifestly want the WILL. And whil'st their Lenity and Clemency so much exceeds even that of their Boasting Accusers, and the Favourable Concession of Romanists to Hereticks, outdoes that of Hereticks to Them; the Injustice of so false an Attainder, and so infamous an Imputation is sufficiently confront∣ed from such a Cloud of numerous Examples to the Contrary; whil'st it does no more follow, that a popish Successour, by the Tenents of his Church, must hold himself obliged to be a second Charles the 9th. or any thing like him (had he the Ability of being so) than that every popish Priest must be a Mariana or a Clements, and every Papist a Raviliac.

So that if it be true, as the Character affirms, That a popish Successour in England, that keeps Faith with Hereticks, and Rules by Law, will be the greatest Laughing-Stock of the whole World, whil'st all Roman Catholick Princes will deride the Feebleness of his Arm, and the Tameness of his Spirit for sparing a Fa••got in Smithfield, &c. 'Tis very strange that those very Princes should so loudly exclaim against Him for that very Fault in which Themselves are five hundred times more criminal

than He can be, by reason their greater Romish Transgression (if it be one) is so much more in∣excusable, as THEY have popish Opportunity, Strength, Power and Dominion to capacitate them for such a Persecution, and the Devil an One of them has HE.

And at the same time (if it be the Doctrine of Rome) the Pope himself too, in so extraordinary severe an Imposition upon an English Romanist, must be prodigiously partial, nay, a worse than Egyptian Taskmaster, to lay such Rigorous Injunctions upon so Impotent a popish Soveraignty here in England, and yet allow such profuse Dispensations, and such extravagant Latitude to the more powerful Papists through all the World beside.

Now after this pretended Brittleness of either Promises Obligations or Oaths, let us come to the next dreadful Phaenomenon of Tyrant and Barbarian in a Popish Successour. And that is, that his Zeal for his Church will supersede all the Dictates of Honour and Glory whatever, and nothing so horrid or villanous that a Papist, though never so great, either Prince or Potentate will stand out at, when for the Advancement of popery.

The Intended Proof of this Assertion is the very Master-stroke of the whole Character, Viz. Ver∣batim, as follows.

The Glory of a Papist! A pretty ayry Notion! How shall we ever expect that Glory shall steer the Actions of a popish Successour, when there is not that Thing so Abject, that he shall refuse to do; or that Shape or Hypocrisy so scandalous he shall not assume, when Rome, or Rome's Interest shall command; nay, when his own petulant Stubborness shall but sway him: As for Example; For one fit he shall come to the protestant Church, and be a Member of their Communion, notwithstanding at the same time his Face belyes his Heart, and his Soul is a Romanist: Nay, he shall vary his Disguises as often as an Al∣ge••ine his Colours, and change his Flag to conceal the Pyrate. As for Instance; another fit, for whole years together, he shall come neither to one Church nor 'tother, and participate of neither Communion; till ignobly he plays the Unprincely, nay, Unmanly Hypocrite so long, that he shelters himself under the Face of an Atheist to shrowd a Papist. A Vizor more fit for a Banditto than a Prince. And this methinks is so wretched and so despicable a Disguise, that it looks like being ashamed of his GOD.

Now to the Eternal Shame of the Contagious Air of 79, and the most Flagitious Depravity of that Infamous Season; as nothing but the most unpardonable Malice encouraged and animated by the Licentiousness of those Libertine Days could have produced so exquisi••e a Mass of Ranc••ur; so the Reader is to observe that it was exactly Calculated for that very Age 'twas written in, an Age when all Venome and no Reason was in Mode. For first, next to the old High Court of Justice, here's the most Impudent Tribunal set up, and a Prince most audaciously Arraign'd, and Sentenced for a Downright papist in his He••rt at the same hour he's a Member of the protestant Communion, an Accusation beyond the possibility of Humane power or Knowledge to make proof of, and of which only God, that knows the Secrets of Hearts could be Judge. I remember I read of a Tyrant that hang'd a Fellow for a Sower Look, as a certain Conviction of a False Heart. But the Character goes a Bows Shoot beyo•••• him, and pretends to Impeach Thoughts, and Adjudge Souls. And though neither the highest Scrutiny of Law, or Inquest of Humane Reason can inspect any further than into Visible Conformity and Ocular Demonstration: No matter for that, the popish Character can Out-fadom all Laws, and out-see all Reason, to find the vilest of Dirt to throw in the Face of Princes.

The second Inglorious and Monstrous Blot in the Princely Scutcheon, as the Character designs him, is the Being a Papist, and yet not daring to go to the popish Communion. Which by the way, is all Supposition still, and no Proof. However, granting the Supposition, that he is one, does not the Express Law of the Land say, That no papist, at least, no Native popish Subject of England, though never so Princely Born, shall go to the popish Communion. Yet nevertheless, here's a Prince most arrogantly asperst and vilyfyed in the most barbarous Terms of Ʋnprincely, Ʋnmanly Hypocrite, Pyrate, Banditto, &c. and all this for obeying the very Laws of the Land, and consequently, for performing the Duty of a Subject and a Christian: Nay, and in the Character way of Demonstrati∣on, he does an Act that looks like no less than being ashamed of his God, in submitting to the Go∣vernment, and thereby obeying the very Ordinance of God. If This be not a Master-stroke, as I told you, I know not what is.

But truly to be plain with this single Paragraph in the popish Character (no disparagement to the rest of that Libel) no Impartial Reader but would swear the Devil himself could not have crowd∣ed more Spight and Virulence, and less Sence into fewer Words; and yet to shew the misery of the time 'twas writ in; I was so far from an Original in that almost universal Spirit of Bitterness that then Reigned, that the Reader can't forget (as indeed the whole Nation has but too much Cause to remember) that if he at that time walked but Westminster or Oxfordwards, he might have seen five hundred Men together, much my Betters, that talk't, and what's worse, acted as had as I writ, and truly with as much, or more Gall, and full as little Reason.

Having thus fairly stated our Case, and proved the Imbecility of our Fears, and the Invalidity of the Arguments used for the Danger of Popery in England this Rougher way, through Perjury, Bar∣barity, &c. I shall come to the second Head of my Discourse, and enquire what Danger there is of its Introduction by Perswasion and Rhetorick, and all the gentler Meanes of a National Con∣version.

Now I confess, the pardoning of an Offender lyes in the Prerogative of the Crown, and the pu∣nishing, or not punishing of popish Priests, or any other Romish Emissaries, is wholly in the B••east of the Prince. And upon the Admission of a popish Soveraign to the Throne, 'tis presumed, that the Numbers of popish Visi••ants from Forreign Seminaries, will not only Encrease, but likewise act les•• Clandestinely than formerly under the Confidence of Connivance at least, from a Prince of their own Perswasion, and a Relaxation of all the poenal Statutes against Popery.

The Eminent Danger of Popery from this Inlet, raises no little Dust in the Character; and as if the whole Defence of our Protestant Religion was secured by no other Barriere than by keeping out popish Emissaries at Swords point, and hanging and Quartering of Priests and Jesuits, and the seve••est Execution of the Statutes of Recusancy; which by the old Figure Petitio principii taken for granted, the Character most furiously lays about, to prove the Moral Impossibility of such a barbarous unna∣tural popish Successour that shall hang and quarter those very Men that from the bottom of his heart he believes, are the undoubted Disciples of Heaven, and Pillars of Christianity, &c. And if he doth not do all this, the Protestant Religion is upon it last Leggs, and our whole Church under a manifest prospect of being undermined and blown up.

Though by the by, here's another piece of Richard and Baxterisme in the Case: For if popery shall make its Entrance, and sweep all before it this way, and by meer dint of Logick or Sophistry shall pervert the Church of England, what need was there of all the aforesaid Broyling, Roasting and Cut-throating, &c. to do the Job.

However, as this very Indulgence and Remission of the penal Laws is no more than what has been granted by the Clemency of the Crown even for Ages together, and all without one popular Mur∣mur, or the least Blot in the Royal Arms; the next Question is, what necessity of Shackling the Pre∣rogative, and tying up a popish Successour to harder Meat than all his protestant Predecessours; or what more mortal Crime is that Indulgence in a Papist than in all the protestant Crown'd Heads be∣fore him.

Oh yes, infinitely more they'l tell you: for the Case is different, the popish Hopes will be more Lively, their Courage more daring, and Themselves by their popish Prince, more publickly and more solemnly embraced and countenanced; so that the Inconveniences attending us from these more propitious Royal Smiles to the profest Enemies and Supplanters of our Religion, will, God knows, have those Victorious Effects, which all the feebler popish Efforts before could never obtain.

Well, imagine all this extraordinary Benigne Aspect towards popery, and for once, let us put the Case the Worst that can be. Let us suppose all the Indulgence or Incouragement to Popery from a popish Successour, that the highest stret••h of the Prerogative can give it. Nay, let us suppose a po∣pish Chappel in every Hamlet and Mass sung in every Parish in England, and to officiate in this Work, the whole Tribe of St. Omers, Doway, and all the rest of the English Seminaries abroad, trans∣planted hither, to perform the Mighty Operation. What would all this do to bring in Popery? Nay, let the whole Colledge of Cardinals come over with them too, they would be almost as inoffen∣sive to the protestant Religion as the Jewish Synagogue, and altogether as unable to make a National Conversion to Papisme, as the other to Iudaisme.

For Instance, who are they, that these numerous popish Missionaries shall convert? The Ʋnder∣standing part of the Nation, Men of Reason and Learning? Not at all. For let the popish Num∣bers increase as they please, the popish Arguments are but the same, whether defended by ten, or ten hundred Romanists. And therefore they that have their Principles of Faith, and the Grounds of their Religion Rooted and Confirmed by sound and well pondered Iudgment and Mature Conside∣ration, will no more be shaken by all the popish Numbers they can send over, than all the popish Volumes they have written. Besides, what greater Affront can be put upon our Religion it self, than to imagine it so weakly supported, as to be so much as capable of being thus overthrown.

Who then shall they Convert? the Ignorant Multitude. No, Them less than the other. For as the others have Sense to defend themselves, These have that which is as strong, or stronger, and more Invincible, Viz. Deafeness, Prejudice and Resolution. For let any man seriously consider the Genius of the People of England in that point, and but fancy a J••suit, a Priest or any other popish Emis∣sary, tampering with the poorest high-shoo'd, thick skull'd Clown, to possess him with a Faith in Transsubstantiation, Purgatory, Saint-praying, the Pope's Infallibility, or any other of the Terrible Romish Principles, and instead of making him a Proselite, upon the least Breath of that sort of Ayr, he should be so far from hearkening or listening so much as to the Means of a popish Conversion, so far from attending even to the Eloquence of Angels upon that Subject, that he should sooner look downwards for the Cloven-foot of the Seducer that utters it. For certainly those very people that have always been so Mazed and Night-mared with popery, that they have scarce seen any thing else but popish Specters and Goblins even at the very Shadow of it, will fancy nothing less than Belzebubs and Lucifers at the real Appearance of it.

The Reduction indeed of England to the Romish Religion is a thing as easily SAY'D, either in an Amsterdam Coffee-House, a popish Courant, or an Oxford House of Commons, as a Tale out of the Seven Champions, and truly with as much Credibility: But alas! when it comes to the DO∣ING once, the Papists will find that the whole Body of the people of England, even to a Nemine Contradicente (at least, not one in a hundred excepted) if without any other Defence of their Be∣lief, are still those Opinators in Religion, that maugre the general Ignorance of the Multitude, or the great Learning or Rhetorick of the Jesuites, they'd be no sooner perswaded to quit their plain English Bibles, nay, not so much as poor Sternhold and Hopkins, to listen to an unintelligible Latine

Mass, or joyn in an Ora pro nobi•• sancte Paule, sancte Petre, sancte Loyola, and the rest of the Fra∣ternity of Major, or Minor Saints, then they'd kneel to the Talmude or the Alcoran, nor ••e no more perswaded into the possibility of a Wafer's Transsubstantiation into a Deity, than of a Cartwheel into a Star: and without these and the rest of the Romish Fundamentals, where's the Restoration of the Ro∣mish Faith, or the Progress of a Popish Propagation in England.

But to confirm this certain Truth from a more substantial Authority than my own. 'Tis the ve∣ry Opinion of the Reverend Dr. Burnet himfelf, a person, let me tell you, under no small Pains-tak∣ing for the protestant Religion, and as a Churchman, under no common Consternation from popish Dangers, and therefore not at all likely to lull us into a false Security of our Religion. The Instance of which Opinion I find in the 9th. page of his Preface to the Rights of Princes, as follows;

Tis the Maxime of the Popes, not to reform Abuses in their Church, for if some Corruptions were once acknowledged, and amended, that would give credit to the Complaints which the He∣reticks made, and be a publick Confession, that the Church had Erred, and would set on foot a hu∣mour of making Changes, which could not be easily limited or managed. These Politicks prevail∣ed at Rome, so that instead of removing Abuses, all were justifyed and maintained, and yet humane∣ly speaking, it is not to be imagin'd but that if some more palpable Abuses in the Worship, such as the scandalous Ufe of Images, the denying the Chalice, and saying the Office in an Ʋnknown Tongue, had been corrected, the Reformation could not have made so great a Progress as it did. Wise Men are unwilling to make great Changes, and the Rabble are wrought on, not so much by Speculations, and subtle and learned Arguments, as by prejudices to some publick Abuses, of which they are ALL sensible; and while these are continued, 'twill be easie to heighten their Dislike of them, and to lead them almost into any Opinions, to which the hatred they bear to the Abuses may any way dispose them. And the defending or maintaining of Abuses, which cannot be defended, endangers the whole Cause in the Opinion of those who judge of Parties in Gross, and not by the Retail of particular Arguments.

So that to summe up the Matter: Here's the whole Cause of Rome in a manner wholly lost by the Gross Abuses in that Communion. And what between the Invincible Obstinacy of the Romanists on one side, never to recede from those Abuses; and the Rabble's unanimous Disgust against them on the other, as being apparent even to all Capacities; here's the greatest progress of the Reformation, slow∣ing from almost no other Channel; and by consequence, if the Original Prejudice against those Abu∣ses, could open so brord a Gate to the protestant Religion, the present more irreconciliable Antipa∣thy against Rome, heightned by so many successive popular Inflammations, will make the Resumption of that popish Vomit so more universally nauseous, that it will undoubtedly much more contribute to the Confirmation of the Protestant Religion, than ever it did to the Intro∣duction of it.

For let but any reasonable Man consider, that during so many Ages of Impunity to the Papists from the long Mercy of the late Kings of England, when Recusancy went unmolested and unregard∣ed, and neither Papist, nor popish priest, either punish't, or examined: excepting some few Families, that bred up their Children in their own Perswasion, what Conversions have the popish party, and all the Romish Missionaries made in England for half a hundred years last past? So far from any In∣crease, that on the contrary, they have from Generation to Generation apparently dwindled less and less till they are now scarce a handful in consideration of all England. And if Popery and Jesui∣tisme, with all their Learning and Insinuations under such Royal Indulgence have made such feeble progress in the Conversion of England, that they have dayly lost ground, not gain'd it; shall the yet larger Indulgence of a popish Successour, with the permission of their popish Pr••ests barefaced, the multiplying of their Numbers, or the Influence of Regis ad Exemplum do the Work? The quite con∣trary. For suppose the popish Priests a hundred times more numerous, and a hundred times bolder than now, yet as the popish Seducers are increased, so likewise under the dismal Apprehension of a visible popish Successour the popular Aversion will so much more increase too, and thereby become the more impregnable, whil'st the Ʋniversality of their Fear and Hate will make them so much the more Fortifyed against the utmost Assault. Besides, if the Jesuites have made so little Advances of Po∣pery formerly in England, that (granting it true that's said of them) they have been put to the poor shifts of herding with Fanaticks, and disguising into Conventicle Preachers; what Encouragements (Oh wonderful!) are they like to meet, when they throw off the Vizor, and walk by day, in the open Propagation of a Religion so universally loathed, that it wants the subtlest of Artifices and Disguises to obtrude even the least Tenet of it into the World; at least, our Part of the World.

But surely nothing in nature can be a more ridiculous Supposition at this time of day, as that the Example or Favour of a King in Case of Popery, shall contribute towards the People's Embracing it, when undeniable Experience tells us, that the very Aspersion of but popishly affected, has lost our Kings so many Hearts, nay One of Them (with horrour be it spoken) his very Crown and Head. By consequence, how many more Hearts shall Popery in earnest loose a true Popish King? and what little hope of gaining Proselites or Friends to a real Romanist, when the meer Imagination has rays'd such contagious Desertions and Enmity even to the best of Protestant Crown'd Heads. And therefore how wretched a piece of Sophistry must that be that Imposes on the unreasoning World so impudent a piece of Falshood, Viz. That Popery and a Popish Successour will find such

favourable Stars in England, when on the contrary, the bare Notion of Popery and popish Councils have been attended with such Fatality.

However, to answer a little nearer yet to the Danger of Popery's coming in through the Remiss∣ness and Neglect of executing the Laws against it, and the Indulgence and Incouragement of the Prince to promote it, I have only this Request to make to thee, thou poor frighted, half-witted Crea∣ture, that fearest all this Danger (for nothing of sense can fear it) to lay thy hand upon thy Heart, and answer me this Question. Amongst those Proselites that the aforesaid Toleration and Encouragement of the popish Successour, and the Witchcraft of the Pope and Jesuits are like to make, Art thou thy self one of the number that is in that danger of turning Papist? Now to answer for thee in thy own Dialect, No! God forbid, thoul't say, what, shall I turn to a Religion that has nothing in it but Superstition and Idolatry! a Religion worse than Paganisme and Judaisme, a Reli∣gion that consecrates Daggers, and canonizes Murderers, that makes nothing but stabbing of Kings, & Massacring whole Nations the only meritorious Act of Christianity; and do you think that either the Insinuations of Priests, or the Flattery of Kings themselves, or any Earthly Reward shall make me turn such an Apostate from Truth, as to damne my Soul and renounce my God: no, I have more As∣surance in his good Grace than to imagine he'll abandon me to such a Thought: no, no, my Fear is not for my self. But alas! though I shall never turn Papist, too many others will; and when these Iesuites, Priests, and Villains have perverted the greatest part of the Nation to their Idolatry, and thereby come to be able to set up the Romish Religion, with all the old Fire and Faggots that be∣longs to it, then shall such honest Protestants as my self be burnt at a Stake, for not turning Devil too for Company with them. And what a miserable Condition will the poor Protestants be in in that dreadful day.

Why thou fool, canst thou thus make this confident & Resolute Answer for thy self, and art thou so secure for thy own part, and only suspectest the Danger of a popish Conversion from the weakness of thy Neighbour. If that be all, trouble not thy self; nor distract thy little Brains for nothing, but for thy Comfort, examine thy Neighbours Hearts as thou hast done thy own, and of ever hundred amongst them thou wilt find almost every where at least ninety nine of them that have the same dreadful Opi∣nion of Popery as thou hast, and as utter an Abomination of it as thy self, with the same Confident As∣surance of themselves too; nay, and that have only thy very Reasons of fearing it. How ridiculous therefore must thy Fear be, when if thou art secure, they are so too. And if so, where then are the Infinite Numbers of those Weak Brothers that the Pope's Emissaries shall subdue, and that Majori∣ty of a perverted Nation that shall Establish and set up this Nebuchadnezar's Image, and doom thee to Fiery Furnaces for not kneeling with them to Worship it.

If the Dint of Perswasion and Indulgence then be all the Introduction of Popery, and this the high∣est Flight of a popish Successour (as indeed it is) all our Dangers are quite vanisht, and the more the Nation abhors Popery, the less Cause it has to fear it, whil'st the Universality of the Detestation is the certain Security of keeping it out; and none but Fools or Madmen can be frighted by the Appre∣hensions of it that way. For the Blacker the Feind, the less power he has over us, and they that are above Temptation need not fear the Devil himself.

But beyond all these various Pretences for Popery's coming in, there's one more general Argu∣ment almost in all Mouths, which we find dayly urged, and that bears no little sway in Vulgar Ap∣prehensions, Viz.

Why is it impossible that Popery should come in again, and that too, by Law Establish't? Expe∣rience plainly tells us, that Henry the Eighth lay'd the Foundation of the Protestant Religion, nay, and by a popish Parliament too. For by a Romish Parliament was the Pope's Supremacy destroyed, by a Romish Parliament the Monastery's and Abbey-Lands confiscated, and that very Monarch, after the Continuation of Popery by a Reign of more than half a thousand years, in the very Infancy too of the Protestant Religion, when possibly the Protestants then in England, were a less handful than are the Papists in England now. This very King I say, with so small a Party of Protestants, could nevertheless lay the very Corner Stone, that the whole Reformation was afterwards built upon, and that too by Act of Parliament. And why on the other side, shall it be so impossible for a popish Prince, with Henry the Eight's Courage and Conduct withal, after not a hundred and fifty years Reign of the protestant Religion, to be likewise able to do the same Favour for Popery; and lay the very Basis of it even by Parliaments and Law. And a protestant Parliament now, as a popish one then be so managed or Influenced, as to give a main Lift to the Work.

Besides, why should the Change of the Religion be so wondrous or difficult a Deed under a popish Mo∣narch now, when upon every Change of the Prince's Faith since the Conquest, the Establish't Reli∣gion of the Kingdom has been changed with it. For Instance, after Henry's good Stroke towards it, Did not an Infant Prince, Edward the Sixth, in poor seven years time Establish the protestant Religion by Law? And did not Mary his popish Successour subvert it again by Law, and by Law restore the very Pope's Supremacy? And lastly, Did not the protestant Queen Elizabeth after her, trample both Pope and Popery under Feet, and confirm that very Protestant Religion that Reigns at this Day. And why shall a Popish Successour now, with as much Zeal and Industry as his Predecessours miscarry in that very work in which not one of them fail'd before him.

There is nothing that possibly passes for a more Authentick Confirmation of all our popish Dangers than this One Assertion so universally received for Currant Sterling, by being only taken at a Lump upon Trust unweighed and unexamined. But when considerately and throughly inspected, all rational

Men must blush to be deceived by so light and so drossy a Popular Tradition.

For to begin with Henry the Eighth. In the first place, here neither is, nor can be the least Mo∣••ive for the present Protestant People, or their Representatives to make the least Change whatever in the present Church of England, in any kind answerable to the several Inducements that wrought those Changes in Henry the Eighth's Time.

For first, as no small Encouragement for the Reformation, the People had then contracted a gene∣ral and just Odium of the whole Clergy, strangely occasion'd by the Murder of Hunn, a Merchant of London in Prison. This Hunn being sued in the Legates Court for Non-payment of a Mortuary to his Parish-Priest; in return, sued the Parish Priest in the Temporal Court for a Premunire, for bring∣ing the King's Subjects before a Forreign and Illegal Court. This incensed the Clergy so much, that they threw him into Prison for Heresy; where having several Articles exhibited against him, upon Confession of part of them, and begging Mercy, he was only enjoyn'd Penance. But not being pre∣vail'd upon to let fall his Suite in the Temporal Court, the Bishop's Chancellour, a Doctor, and other of his Officers inhumanely Murdered him in Prison, by breaking his Neck with an Iron Chain, and other Wounds given him upon the Belly; and then hanged him up in his own Girdle to possess the World that he hanged himself. And what was yet worse, upon a full Detection of the Truth of this Mur∣der, the Bishops of Durham and Lincoln, to palliate the Guilt, proceeded to charge him with new Heresies after Death, and having sound a Wickliffs Bible in his House, they condemn'd him as an Heretick, and burnt his Body. All which Proceedings being now looked upon as the Act of the whole Clergy, they lost the Affections of the People to that degree that they could never recover them; and nothing more disposed the P••ople to the embracing of the New Preachers than the Re∣sentment of so infamous a Murder, committed and patronized by the whole Clergy.

[Hist. of Ref. pag. 14, and 15.]

And then for the Changes made in Parliament. The Suppression of Monasteries, one of their Acts, was no more than what was design'd, and begun in some Measure by Cardinal Woolsey, and the Pope himself, and that long before the Breach betwixt the King and Him, who granted a Bull to destroy several of them, to convert into Bishopricks; [Ref. pag. 22.] the scanda∣lous and lewd Lives of too many of the Monks and Fryars being obnoxious even to Rome it self. Though 'tis true, the King and Parliament proceeded to a total Suppression of them afterwards for the same Intent of erecting new Episcopal Sees; though indeed the vast profits arising from their Sale, through the Extravagant Profuseness of Henry the Eighth, were not wholly converted to that Use; notwithstanding, part of his Promise was performed, Viz. In his constituting six new Bishopricks, and making Allowance for fourteen Deanaryes and Prebendariships to fourteen Bishop's Sees.

But to gain the Parliament to the King's Party in the Destruction of Monasteries, there was that which Governs the World, Interest in the Case; which was no small Wheel in the Machine. For the King selling of the Lands at easie Rates to the Nobility and Gentry; by this Policy the Parlia∣ment Members, as Purchasers, by the Temptation of such good penny-worths, were ingaged to as∣sist the King in the Maintenance of the Changes made. [Ref. pag. 223.]

And for another part of Henry the 8th's Reformation, Viz. The censuring and condemning of Bulls, Indulgenses, Shrines, Pilgrimages, and Relicks, with the pulling down of Images; the scandalous Impo∣stures of several of them by the fraud of the Priests, being publickly discovered, [Ref. p. 242.] created no little aversion in the People. But besides all that, here could never be a more pleasing Change to them than so beneficial a part of Reformation, Viz. The freeing them from all those Ecclesiastick Romish Dreins, that had so long swallow'd almost half the Wealth of the Kingdom, in which too many of them had been too great Sufferers, not only through their own, but also the de∣luded Superstition of their Bigotted Ancestors, and by which no less than whole Families had been Impoverish't and Undone, through the pious Frauds and continual Suckings of those Church Horse-leeches.

And lastly, for the Exclusion of the Papal Supremacy, the above cited penalty of Premunire incurred both by the whole Clergy and Layty of England in submitting to the Pope's Legantine Power, contrary to Law, as against the Act of Provisoes, contributed no little matter both to the Clergy and Commons Submission to the King in the point of that Supremacy. Besides, to facilitate the Assumption of it, it was plainly proved by that Provisoe Act, and other Substantial Records, that the Pope's En∣croachments in England were but Vsurpation, and the Supremacy in reality ab origine & de jure in∣herent in the Crown; and therefore the Resumption of it by the King, no more than a Challenge and Reprizal of his own Invaded Prerogative.

As these were all the Changes made by Henry the Eighth, the Popish Religion being so far from abolish't by him, that he rather strook at the Court than Church of Rome; witness the Act of the six Articles made by him, defending the greatest and principlest Tenets of Rome, by no less than Capital Punishments, and a Parlimentary Reinforcement of the old Statute de Hereticis comburendis; [Ref. pag. 147.] the Heretick Burning continuing through his whole Reign. As these I say, were all the Changes made by Henry the Eighth, instrumental to the present Reformation, and that too, not without Obstructions, witness several Rebellions occasioned by this Change; the one of 20000 Strong in Lincolnshire; another more formidable one in Yorkshire, called by the Rebels, The Pilgrimage of Grace, attended with a general Insurrection in all the North. However, as I said before, here is no Motive or Inducement now for the like Parliamentary Compliance with a Popish Successour, to make any, the least Change Instrumental to the Romish Restoration.

For first, supposing (how notoriously false soever) an equal Mutability or Disposition in the Peo∣ple now, to return to Rome, as then to depart from it. Here's no stigmatizing Brand of Murder, or any other publick Perpetration or Avowing of any Villany whatever to taint the whole Protestant Clergy, and thereby withdraw the People's Hearts from them.

Here's no Holy-Cheats and Superstitious priest-Impostures practised to drein the People's Purses to gratifie a scandalous, voracious Clergy. Or any detected Abuses and Corruptions to disgust and ex∣asperate the People against them.

Here's no least Dormient Statute or Title whatever, for a Popish Successour to lay hold of, in fa∣vour of the Papacy's Return into England, as there was for its Expulsion. The Fence of our present Protestant Constitution being so strong against it, and all Pretensions of Rome so utterly extinct and abolish't. Neither is here any Premunire incurred by the whole Clergy and Nation to affright, or da∣sterdize them into any fordid Condescencion or Grants in Diskindness to our Religion.

And lastly, here's no Fleecing of an Overgrown, Overrich Church in the Case. (The present Church Revenues under so many Impropriations, being no more than will but just support its Dignity and Pastors but with Subsistence and Decency.) No Ecclesiastick Booty nor Prize to bribe or allure an Avaricious Parliament to weaken or impoverish their Church for the temptation of sharing the Spoyl.

But above all other Obstacles against Rome, her's an Absolute Impossibility of a Temporizing Clergy to favour Popery. For supposing even the most barbarous Insinuation of their Fanatical Ene∣mies, True; and that Mammon, Interest, Sycophantry, (how rascally soever that Infamous Suggesti∣on) were above Religion with them. Yet nevertheless the utmost Influence of a Romish Prince could never warp them to any such Execrable Apostacy; by reason the Indispensable Coelibacy of the Romish Clergy would totally exclude the present Members of the Church of England, as being Mar∣ryed Men, from any Share or Hopes under a Romish Government, whil'st instead of Preferment or In∣terest, nothing but Degradation and Beggery could attend them.

And for an unanswerable Disparity between Henry the Eighth's Influence towards the present Pro∣testant Religion, and a Popish Successour's towards Popery. The Protestant Religion with an invit∣ing Face was in a State of Innocence, untainted by any of its Corrupted Professours with any thing like Parisian Massacres, Irish Rebellions, or Gun-powder Treasons; enough of themselves alone to open that uncloseable Chasme, that never to be cemented Breach between Englishmen and Popery; that Popery could not now gain three Proselites to a hundred gain'd in Henry the Eighth's Time to the Protest••nt Religion.

But here I cannot but take notice of one Gross Mistake, that's commonly receiv'd for Truth, Viz. That Henry the Eighth hectored his Parliaments to what he listed. Which is oftentimes made use of as an Argument, that a Popish Successour, with the same Courage may do the like with his; when on the contrary, they acted only by their own Inclinations; and when any thing was proposed by the King that went against the Grain; not all his Menaces could force them to a Submission. For Example, w••en a Bill had past the House of Lords for regulating a common Practice then in Eng∣land, of defrauding the King and several of the Lords of their Advantages made by Wards, Marriages, and Primier Seisin, by Men's making such Se••tlements of their Estates by their last Wills, and other Deeds to that purpose. Yet notwithstanding the utmost pressure both of the King and Lords for redressing that Abuse, the Commons rejected the Bill [Ref. pag. 116.] And as to the Reformati∣on, some part of it was of their own seeking. For Example, in his 22d. Year, the Commons com∣plained to the King of the grievous and intolerable Severity of the Ecclesiasticks, for calling Men be∣fore them ex Officio, and laying Articles to their Charge without any Accuser, and then admit∣ting no Purgation, but causing the Party accused either to abjure or burn. Reform. Pag. 116. And indeed in all the Reformation they rather drew with him, than were driven by him.

And to shew the vast Difference betwixt the Operation of the Prince, either by Edward or Mary towards the Change of the Religion, and the working of a Change now.

In the first place, besides the dayly Converts made to the Protestant Religion in Edward's Reign, which added Strength and Vigour to the Reformation wrought by that Prince, as the State of Reli∣gion then stood the Popish and Protestant Party were grown in a manner to be an Equal Division of the Nation, and 'tis not to be wondred, that where the Weight's even, the Soveraign Power added to the Ballanee, could turn the Scale; as both in his and his Sister's Reign. Either Party having an Easie Game to play, whilst the Respective Monarch might with small Difficulty turn up his own Re∣ligion Trump, when he had half the Cards in his hands.

Besides, the Law had then so weakly provided for the true Settlement of either Religion, that the greatest part of the Ecclesiastick Changes then, lay almost wholly in the pleasure of the Prince: For after the Parliament had fully invested Henry the Eighth with the Supremacy, they impowered him as Head of the Church, to dispose of all Episcopal Sees by Letters Patents during pleasure. (Abrid. Ref. Book 2. pag. 4.) and the Bishops by the same Authority had the like Jurisdiction over the In∣feriour Clergy.

This unbounded Latitude of the Supremacy continuing through both the next Reigns, a great part of the Changes was owing wholly to this Prerogative; whil'st King Edward made choice of a Clergy of his own Perswasion; and in like manner Queen Mary placed or displaced her Bishops, and remov∣ed all the Inferiour Clergy ad Libitum, turning out whom she pleas'd, without any Form of Process, or special Matter objected against them. All which (Abridg. P. 2. pag. 249.) was done by vir∣tue

of the Queens being Head of the Church; which though she condemned as a sinful and sacra∣ledgious Power, yet she now employ'd it against those Bishops, whose Sees were quickly filled with Men for her Purpose.

So that nothing could make a greater Turn of Church Affairs in the Kingdom in those Days, when under such a Total Alteration of the Clergy, and all ready at hand to step into their Seats, the whole Interest of the Adverse Religion through the forementioned Equality of Parties could not but be ex∣treamly shaken, and the Prevalence in Parliament be highly mov'd by no other Spring. Besides, the Act De Hereticis comburendis was then unabolish't, and as the Determination of Heresy lay in the Breast of the Clergy, here was an easie leap into all the foregoing Severities of Rome even by the Law it self. Insomuch that either of the Religions could not properly be call'd by Law Establish't, whil'st our Pastors and our Fold were in a manner at the Will of the Soveraign, and there wanted but little more than the Royal Breath to drive us to the Right or the Left, the Sheep or the Goats.

But all this is so prodigiously remote from the present State of England, and the Religion now Esta∣blish't, that Light and Darkness can be scarce more dissonant. For besides the infinite Disproporti∣on of the Popish Numbers in Queen Mary's Reign, to Ours, enough of it self to silence all Dispute; a popish Succesours Removal of the present Protestant Clergy, and the Introduction of Priests and Jesu∣its in their Room, as Head of the Church, is no more in his Prerogative than the Government of Transylvania: The present Bishops and Clergy holding for Life, and only to be displaced or silenced upon Crimes or Insufficiencies adjudged or condemned by the Protestant Censure and Sentence. And all the popish Clergy so incapable of their Places, that they are Aliens to the Nation, under an attaint of Treason upon the very Assumption of their Sacerdotal Orders; and so shut out from our Church-Ministry by Parliamentary Oaths, Tests, and Abjurations, that nothing but the most Diabolical Pa∣pal Dispensation, and a Conscience even Brimstone Proof could introduce them, were there really Room for their Admission.

But alas! considering in what Equilibrium Religion then hung, whatever Concurrence the Prince could then obtain from his People in Parliament in favour of his own Perswasion: The Genius of England is now quite another thing. All our Parliaments for almost a hundred years last past, have been so far from granting even the least Concession to the Crown in favour of popery, that on the contrary, all their Study, Votings, Labours, and Endeavours even to a Nemine Contradicente, have been levell'd at the very Root of it; so far from countenancing of it, that the very sound of it has made them fly out into the most rapid Torrent of Contradiction even beyond the Duty of Subjects, and in∣stead of Complimenting either Pope or Popery, they have tyed up their very Hands even from the best of Protestant Crown'd Heads, and in their highest Extremities denyed them their most reasonable Demands in the most pressing Necessities of the Crown, and all for the Apprehension of popish Designs, and for keeping the least String of their Purses from popish Fingers.

I need not instance what Load of Miseries attended the late Royal Martyr from this Fatal Original. Neither do I urge this in Relation to those detestable Regicides, the corrupted Limbs of that Exe∣crable Senate, that under the Vizor of Religion, were plotting the most Infernal of Mischiefs; and so from the false Alarum of popery, denyed their Soveraign All Things only to make him Nothing. No, as All Men are not Monsters, and even in that Accursed Parliament there were some honest Men; yet those very honest Men, those that by the universal Delusion were inchanted into False Fears, and so design'd nothing but Truly the Prevention of popery, were yet under that Terrour, so Jealous of their Prince, so Deaf to his Interest, and so inexorable even to his most Crying Wants, and all for battring these fancy'd Ayry Castles, that in the vehemence of their Zeal they contributed to the ve∣ry Designs of his Murderers; and how ignorantly soever, heap'd together the very Coals to the uni∣versal Conflagration; so far too, that they had only Time to detect the Infernal Imposture, and de∣plore the dire Effects of their miserable Mistake too late.

Besides, to come a little nearer home, What dismal Consequences were the late Malignant Con∣junction of Fears and Iealousies in the same Fiery Trigon producing again? What Demi-Gods and Nation-Saviours did the whole Vox populi, nay, the very sensible Men of the Nation make of those very Varlets, which now their Opened Eyes and waken'd Senses (I appeal to their own Consciences) tell them are those flagitious, unparallel'd Villains, that would shame a Gibbet.

And yet the very Loyallest of all our late Members of Parliament, for they were not all Shaftsburys nor all Sidneys; neither such that were for Associating to Kill-Kings, to keep out Popes, nor answer∣ing of Filmers out of Buchanan's and Miltons, nor seating the Good Old Cause at the Right Hand of GOD. Not those that made popery the pretence alone to manage their own Hellish Republick Ma∣chinations. But only those that (alas, and well a day!) had been Beuk-Blawd a little out of their right Wits by the aforesaid Nation-Saviours, and so were for combating of Popery, possibly for the Real Preservation of the King and Kingdom. Yet the very Loyallest of these Men, I say, were wrapt up to that height of perverseness, that to use the gentlest Terms I can find, they thought they could never do little enough even for that very King attested by their own unanimous reiterat∣ed Acknowledgments to be the very Isthmus that kept POPERY from Surround∣ing Us; and on whose Only Thread of Life the whole FATE of the Protestant Reli∣gion depended.

I shall not trouble my self wi••h the Repeating the Diversity of Statutes recited in the Character to instance the various Bandying of the Succession of the Crown in Henry the Eighth's Reign, design∣ed there as an Argument of Justice for a Parliamentary Bill of Exclusion against a Popish Heir. For whatever different Settlements of the Descent of the Crown that King and his Parliaments were pleas∣ed to make, occasioned by the Intricacy of his Daughter's Titles, grounded upon that long contro∣verted Point, the Divorce of Queen Katherine, the Mother of Queen Mary; and therefore not at all enacted as an Exclusion, but a Confirmation of the Right Heir.

However, as far soever as a Parlimentary Power may pretend to extend in that Case, all these Statutes make nothing to the purpose for Justification of an Exclusion for matter of Reli∣gion.

For had those Parliamentary Proceedings been a Warrant or Precedent for any such Exclusion, ne∣ver was a more urgent Necessity than in Queen Mary's Reign, of laying hold of such a Pretension. For considering the State of Religion in her Time, when looking back to the two last King's Reigns; so formidable a Progress had the Protestant Perswasion made, and the Inclinations of the People lean'd so much towards the Reformation, that the very Change of the Prince was enough to turn the whole Ballance; and therefore as all her popish Measures were under a manifest prospect of being bro∣ken to pieces under a Protestant Successour, and that Successour was notoriously foreseen in her Si∣ster Elizabeth, so much that Bishop Gardiner (speaking of her) could say, That their burning of Heroticks was only vainly cutting off the Branches▪ whil••st the Root was still alive. Yet nevertheless it was so far from entring the Breasts of a popish Soveraign and a popish Parliament to Exclude a Pro∣testant Heir, that Dr. Burnet in his Abridgment of the Reformation, Book the 3d. page 325. says as follows. A Bill was brought into Parliament, confi••ming the Letters Pa••ents which the Queen had granted, or might grant. This related to the Foundations of Religious Houses; but only Coxly opposed this, and insinuated, that perhaps the Queen intended to dispose of the Crown in prejudice of the Right Heir; at which the House express'd so great a Dislike, as shew'd they would not have it so 〈◊〉〈◊〉 as imagined, that Lady Elizabeth could be excluded. He had a publick Reprimand given him for insinuat∣ing a Thing so much to the Queen's Dishonour.

Now notwithstanding here was a Queen so Zealous for Popery, and a Parliament so officiously forward in Establishing of it, that they gave their Queen possibly one of the most Ample Royalties that ever Parliament lodged in the Prerogative, Viz. the confirming indefinitely all Letters Patents that the Soveraign either Had, or Might grant; yet still this very Parliament utterly abhorred even the Imagination of so infamous a Projection as an Exclusion Bill: nor did the Bigotted Queen her self ever debase her self so low as to make use of this Act of Parliament, or any part of her Prerogative for so Dishonourable a purpose as the Prejudice of her Sister's Succes∣sion.

Now to compare Cases. If both a popish Prince and a popish Parliament detested the Exclusion of a protestant Successour, though in so threatning a Juncture, and so truly an Impending Danger to their Religion from that Succession, and that too, when her Parliaments had declared the Divorce of Queen Katherine, Queen Mary's Mother, unlawful; and consequently might have soreclosed the Right of Elizabeth under the most specious Pretext even of Illegitimacy it self. On the contrary, why should a protestant Monarch and a protestant Parliament now Strain Honour and Consciences beyond the very Papists themselves, and exclude a Royal Heir upon Presumption of being a papist, though with never so undoubted a Right, and above all pretensions of Scruple or Dis∣pute, and that under little, or indeed no Danger to our Religion at all, a Religion not only so in∣vincibly Fortifyed with so many strong Bulwarks of Law, but likewise by that most Impregnable of all Bulwarks,

Defendit Numerus junctaeque umbone Phalanges.

The almost Totality of the Nation (comparatively speaking) against so feeble and scattered a Remnant of Papists, and so universal an Odium of popery.

I shall not think it worth my while to make much Reply to that part of the Character that treats upon Passive Obedience, and so boldly justifies the taking up Arms againg an Oppressing Monarch. 'Tis enough that Great Point of our Christianity has been the Subject of Nobler Pens, and therefore the discussing it is a province above me. I shall only give the Reader this Quaery. If the Great Lord of our Salvation could enjoyn the turning of the other Cheek even to Injuries received from our Equals; I would fain know what part of Christianity can allow Resistance to God's Annointed? Let it suffice, that all that part of the Character was written by the Direction of the Right Honour∣able the Earl of Shaftsbury, after an Amendment made in the Character by the Advise of that LOYAL Peer, bidding me speak more favourably of Rebellion.

Thus have you heard, not only all that the popish Character, but likewise the popular Fears have urged for the pretended Danger of Popery and Arbitrary-power. And I doubt not but all under∣standing and unbyassed Readers will be fully satisfyed of the unreasonableness of that Epidemical Jea∣lousie that has so long infected the Head and Brains of the Short-sighted populace through those Scare∣crows. I shall only now give the Reader his last Farewell of the popish Character in the Concluding Paragraph of that Pamphlet.

After that whole Libel by a Tautological sort of Rhetorick, a great many accumulated Words, but especially gay Allegories, has over and over again drawn a popish Successour only in so many

〈1 page duplicate〉〈1 page duplicate〉

〈1 page duplicate〉〈1 page duplicate〉

several Disguises; as one while making him a Nero with his Harp, and then his three Kingdoms are in one General Conflagration: another time an Alexander in his Cups, and then every honest protestant Clytus that doth but thwart his drunken Frenzy, is immediately his Frenzy's Sacrifice. Another while he's in the Prophet Elisha's Dream, and then the poor P•••••• ants are the very Birds and four legged Beasts that bob at his Mouth, with this Label over their Heads, Rise, Slay, and Eat. In another place, instead of Pater patriae, he's nothing but a downright Lupus Agri, and then we are only Sheep and Lambs. Cum multis aliis, &c. In short, having danced him through all the Elements, and transformed him into more several Bestial Shapes than ever Jupiter Whored in; after the Character has all the way brought us to universal and inevitable Destruction, and Enslaved both Vs and our posterity, till the Admission of a popish Successour at last is no less than a Plot of GOD himself to scourge a Nation, and make three Kingdoms miserable, a Design form'd by the Irresistable Decree of Heaven, either for our Sins, or what Cause, to its self best known, to lay a Groaning Country in Ruine, &c. After all this, no sooner is this Ruinous Doom pronounced, but the Character im∣mediately proceeds in haec verba.

Upon the Supposition of a popish Heir we must not conclude, that 'tis only the poor distressed Protestants that shall feel the Smart, and stand the Mark of Slavery and Martyrdom. A popish King has that pestilential Influence, that he blasts even the very party he smiles upon, and entayls a Curse upon his dearest Darling Favourites. As for Instance, if after this King's Reign, steps up a prote∣stant Prince (for surely the whole Royal Blood must not all follow his Apostacy, and degenerate in secula seculorum) th••n what becomes of the popish Interest in the next Generation; and all that flourishing Party, whom either the Witchcrafts of Rome, or the Contagion of Regis ad Exemplum has nurst up for Ruine. 'Tis the greatest Toyl of the next King's Reign, to make those severer Statutes for future Ages, to s••ppress the Insolencies and Follyes of the past; whil'st those very Idols that were Saints but yesterday, are now crush't and dash't to pieces.

Now in the Name of Blunder Egregious, here's Richard and Baxter to the highest of Perfection. For here's the whole foregoing Design of the Character quash't at this one last blow. For if really all the popish and Arbitrary Movements and Acquisitions of a Romish Prince (as the Character it self affirms, which indeed by Chance is the very Oracle of the Pamphlet) will be totally crusht and destroyed under the next protestant Soveraign: and all his popish Tools and Partizans, nay, the whole Romish Cause it self given up to the protestant Justice and Revenge, that shall crush them to pieces; so that in perfect Contradiction, instead of inextricable Slavery, universal protestant Ruine, and a total Extirpation of Heresy, prognosticated all along in the Character; here's at most but a Temporary Flourishing of Popery, and so far from a real protestant Suppression, either by Persecution or Massacres, or the Devil knows what, that we shall be strong enough to rise up under the next protestant Heir, and to pluck up and demolish even Root and Foundation all the preceding Batteries and Machinations against our Religion and Liberties, whil'st the True Ruine lies in fine, not on the protestant, but popish Side. If so, I say, as the Character has unluckily started this undeniable Truth, certainly we lye under no danger of a popish Successours ever attempting that irregular po∣pish Atchievement, and setting up that Short-liv'd Arbitrary popish Dagon, which, as has been proved before, and is even confest here, will be of so Calamitous a Consequence to the Interest and Safety even of his whole Party and Religion.

You see, Reader, what Incoherence, Absurdities, Contradictions, and indeed Impossibilities the popish Character is fraught with, and what notorious Stuff that is that Revenge and Malice obtrudes upon Mankind, where popery is the Theme.

But truely 'tis to be consider'd, that that Pamphlet was written and publish't, not for the Instru∣ction of the Seven Wise Men, but of the seven thousand Ill-natured Knaves, and the seventy thousand credulous, unreasoning Fools of that Age, (the REPRESENTATIVE Patrons, to whom that Libel was Dedicated, not excepted from the Number) that would have swallow'd every Syllable of it, had it been ten times more lewdly ridiculous than 'twas.

Now, as not only the Character, but the unpondered and groundless Apprehensions of Men, have so dreadfully predicted such a terrible bloody Revolution under a popish Successour, without one Jota of proving or examining how that wondrous Change is possible to come to pass; that the Rea∣der may not be surprized at that weak sort of arguing in the one, and that headlong Credulity in the other, 'tis remarkable, that not one Pen that ever wrote upon Popery and Arbitrary-Power, ever scribbled otherwise. For as the HOW and WHICH WAY they can be in∣troduced into England, are not in posse, those Essential Circumstances are always stubber'd over, and nothing but a Huddle and Jingle of general Notions of Fire and Faggot Assassinations and Mas∣sacres, Popes and Devils, &c. And a Declamatory Discant upon those Tragical Heads, are ever the whole Contents of the Chapter; and whil'st the peoples Fears are set a tingling by this sort of Din and Gibberish, they are babled out of their Senses, and transported into Frenzy it self without looking farther, or searching deeper for the Grounds of their Fears. For Example, let us trace up the first Alarum of Popery and Arbitrary-power even to the Fountain Head. In all the venemous Libels in the late blest Martyr's Reign (for there were popish Character Writers in those Days too, though in other Names) in all the Licentiousness of that Villanous Age, and the highest Encouragement of Rebellious Senates, there were neither those Pens nor Tongues within

the Parliament House, or without it, that could ever go further than to a bare general Allegation and Outcry of Popery and Arbitrary Power; for in all the hideous Roarings against popish-Counsel∣lers (as 'tis not the Councellers, but the Councel put in Execution that can hurt us) was there any Man of them all that did, or indeed, pretended to particularize those popish Counsels, or form the least Draught of any Dangerous popish Machinations whatever under the least probability of shaking our Laws, Liberties, or Religion.

'Tis true, there were strange and wondrous popish Incendiaries represented at work, but about doing of what, The Devil a word they inform us. Not all the Republick Rhetorick, nor all the Elo∣quence even of counterfeit Fears and Jealousies could lay down one tolerable Demonstration of the fa∣tal Compositions of those popish Fireballs those Incendiaries were to use, or the Conbustableness of what they were to set on Fire. Nay, those very Devils that had Impudence enough, not only to murder the best of Kings, but to bring him to a Scaffold, with a solemn Pageantry of Iustice, were nevertheless so far from the Confidence of pretending the popish Strength or Numbers in England to have the least Shadow of Ability to erect their Romish Altars, and subvert the Protestant Religion; that to carry on the popular Fears by that Forged Sham of Popery, and give Body and Bulk to the Gorgon, they were forced to help out one damn'd Imposture by a Greater, and bring in the very Church of England for Popish and Antichristian to joyn in the Plot. Nor were our later true Protestant Rome-dreaders much short of the same Artifice, to crutch up the same Cripple.

Nay, for want of any Substantial Pretext of the Introduction of any of the Real Fundamental Superstitions of Rome, they were put to the wretched Shift of making the harmless Book of Sports, li∣censed by Bishop Laud, and an after-Service Game at Coyts or Stool-Ball, no less than all over Rome and Antichrist; yes, and to push the Jest a little farther, the old Kings tolerating half a score of Priests (in Indulgence to his Queen) to wear the Habit of their Order, though in Reality an Ob∣ject more for the Hooting of Boys, than the Converting of Men, was screwed up to no less than a Plot upon the whole Reformation.

Now, as the Characterizing of such a Tyrannick popish Successour in England, is but Mounting that Chimerical Jehu in the Chariot where neither his Wheels can move him, nor the Ground will bear him; and all the Pretensions of Fears from Popery are only Suppositious and Delusive; nay, and considering that those most violent Asserters of Romish Dangers in that very Age, when they had this Advantage to help out, Viz. To alledge the Old King was a Papist in Disguise; by which Villanous Supposition they h••d ten times a fairer Field for the pretended Introduction of Popery than can be under a Visible popish Prince; could nevertheless urge so little to the purpose, and so weak∣ly support the Cause of such Fears: The Contradictions, Noyse, Rumble and Nonsense in the Chara∣cter on the worse side of the Hedge, are a little more Excusable.

Having (I may with Confidence say) fully answered and confuted all Appearances or Suppositions of Danger from a Popish Successour; yet as the Minds of some People are so strangely possest and in∣fatuated with those Brainsick Fancies, and Visionary Specters of Popery and Slavery, that scarce the most apparent Truth, the most substancial Reason, not Oracles, nay, not Angels from Heaven could Cure or Dispel. I shall therefore go one step further, and to dissipate all Storms or Clouds whatever from Romewards impending, plainly and absolutely convince them, that whatever Scruples may yet remain unsatisfyed; at this present day there is not the least Prospect or Idea of any such Threatning Successour in the present Royal Line of England.

For though that Illustrious Prince, whom the Malice of Antimonarchal and Associating Traytors, and the Insolence of a Pack of Seditious and Confederate Commons, like the old Sons of Earth, have levell'd their spightful, though feeble Vengeance at; though that great Injur'd Prince, I say, through the false Mirrour of those Anarchical Boutefeus has been villaniously rendred almost the only Object of the greatest part of the popular Jealousies, as the intended Ʋnderminer of our Laws, Religion and Liberties; I shall unanswerably demonstrate the utter Impossibility of that glorious Prince's ever being that Man, or debasing himself so much, as to entertain the least Thought that way, be his Religion what ever it will.

For supposing he were really a Convert to the Romish Perswasion, what Pillar is that Prince likely to make to the Romish Cause? For if he be that Convert, either the Pope believes a popish Heir of England Capable of setting up the Romish Religion, or not capable of doing it.

If capable, as that's the present Point; Then undoubtedly (which is but a reasonable Conclusion) he has left no Pains nor Industry unmanaged to Advance or Advantage the Popish Interest by such a Convert as an Heir of the English Crown. And if so, the only Policy, or indeed the only possible Means of favouring the least Romish Hopes whatever, had been to have used the utmost Papal Au∣thority for enjoyning and perswading him, not only to have kept himself wholly undiscoverd, but like∣wise wholly unsuspected to the Kingdom by any Abscenting from our Communion, or any other Ima∣ginary Symtome of such a Conversion.

For as all the greatest of Inconveniencies and Misfortunes have attended the whole popish Party up∣on the meer Supposition of such a Conversion; and that only founded on the foremention'd Occasion of Suspition. Witness the removing all Papists whatever from all Offices of Trust in the whole Kingdom, from all Seats, either in State Administration or Parliaments by the present Protestant TEST, wholly created upon that Suspition; by Force of which there is not the least Admission of a Papist into any Place of Power in the Government, except by taking of the Protestant Sacrament,

and entring into a Solemn Oath against the popish Religion, and subscribing to a Recorded Abjurati∣on, even of the greatest and most Essential Articles of their Faith as Superstitious and Idolatrous; and so by the most impudent premeditated Perjury, and setting the notorious Brand upon themselves of that sordid and scandalous Renuntiation of their very Religion, which the poorest Soul'd Pagan that ever worship't but Garlick and Onions would blush at.

Besides all this weeding out of the popish Party from all Authority and Power, being no small Blow to their Interest under so weak a Number of that Perswasion in England. There is not any one Calamity that for these seven last years has befall'n the who••e popish Party, that is not truly owing almost wholly to this Suspition.

And therefore as all the Ill Consequences (or worse) attending them, are really no more than the Pope and all his Counsellors could in common Reason expect from a Nation so extravagantly jealous of Popery; whil'st woful Experience might have remembranced him how dangerous and de∣structive even a less Shadow of popish Inclinations had been; nothing was more indispensable (I mean for the popish Interest) in a popish Heir, than all means of avoiding such Suspition; nay, possi∣bly even for his own secure Access to the Throne.

'Tis true, some ridiculous People have foolishly objected, That the Deserting of our Communion was for the Advantage of their Cause; it being as it were setting up the Standard of Popery to call all Hearts and Hands together; whereas otherwise the Romanists had been kept in Ignorance of the Champion God had raised for their Deliverance; and thereby might have neglected the glorious Op∣portunity that offered it self.—Now in the Name of Dulness, it any such Deliverance were imagi∣nable, or any Succour to the Romish Cause whatever, either sooner or later could be expected from such a Convert; or lastly, if the Conscience or unfullyed Glory of that Heroick Prince were possible to be wrought upon to stoop to so ignoble a Design, as any unwarrantable popish Assistance; Why must the Papists be kept in Ignorance of his being one of them, if he were so; without some kind of publick Declaration: when 'tis notoriously known to all the sensible part of Mankind, what Advan∣tages of Intelligence and Correspondence the Papists have above all Religions in the World, when their Jesuites are by the very Duty of their Order, the greatest Spyes upon Christendom, whil'st the privatest Affairs and Secrets of Families, Courts and Kingdoms through all Europe, from hand to hand, and from Superiour to Superiour of them, are convey'd to the Pope himself.

So that take the whole Matter toge••her with this Advantage of Communication even under Confession it self on the one side, and the foremention'd Dangers from a National Jealousie on the other, as I said before; whatever Discovery might have been requisite to their own Party, the highest Policy of Rome had been to have concealed the very Suspition of it from the Protestants; more especially, if they had had any such Thing as a King-killing Plot in hand, or the least part of the Salamanca Conspiracy upon the Anvil. For then they might have made use of Ruffians, or Screw'd Gunners, and as Dugdale swears, have laid the King's Murder upon the Presbyterians, or any other of the scatter'd Churches with ten times more ease; and have hastened the Mounting a popish Successour with more Facility into the Royal Seat.

And therefore as nothing can be a plainer or greater Obstacle to all popish Designs whatever than this Conduct in the present Heir of England, if he be a Romanist, and they had an Expectation of any considerable Advantage to their Religion from his being one: undoubtedly there has been no Oratory wanting to induce him to so necessary and so Venial a Disguise, as being the most important Prop of their Cause. But maugre all the Necessity of such a Compliance, and all the Romish Interest depend∣ing thereupon, notwithstanding the papal Power of a Dispensation in that Case, and all the Arts that may have been used to that purpose; nothing is more visible than his Indisposition and Aversion to so dishonourable a Condiscension as playing the Hypocrite, how dispensable soever in that Church, or how advantagious soever to his own Circumstances.

Now I appeal to all Mankind what least Apparition of popish Danger, or what humane possibility of that very Princes ever being that so much dreaded Romish Instrument for Arbitrary popish Tyranny, through the most execrable Violation of the most sacred Royal Trust, the most flagitious of Perjury in the Breach of a solemn Coronation Oath, to trample our Laws, Religions, and Liberties to pieces; that has already proved himself so incapable of dispensing but with one poor piece of Hypocrisy, though against the highest Interest of Rome, though to the wakening of all the sleeping Statutes against Recusancy, tho to the raysing of Tests, Oaths, and Sacraments; and thereby not only excluding the Sons of Rome from all Honours, Trusts, and Employments, but likewise exposing them to the Dayly Severities and Perse∣cution of the Laws, nay, and very near to the shaking of his own Hereditary Succession to an Impe∣rial Crown.

Now (I say) if this very Prince (upon Presumption of that Church) be nevertheless a Person of those rigid Principles of Honour and Conscience, that he durst not so much as digest so inconside∣rable a piece of Dissimulation, though for the highest and most Important Service to himself and his whole Church; how much less shall he ever condiscend to the Ignominious and Indelible Brand of down∣right Perjur'd, and launch into all the Barbarities and Outrages of Tyrant and Murderer, and all this too, as has been plainly proved before) with very little, or none; at least, no reasonable Hopes of do∣ing himself or his Church any Service at all.

Besides, as tis utterly impossible either for Pope or Papists, even with the most Romantick Assurance and Confidence of Success ever to hope for a National Conversion, or a Romish Establishment in One Age; insomuch that 'tis not a single Popish Successour, but a Line of Popish Successours that can be so

much as suppos'd capable of going through with so difficult an Ʋndertaking; what least Shadow of any such Intention can we imagine from this Royal Heir, when he has not only bred up his next Imme∣diate Heirs, his Children in the Protestant Religion, but likewise lodg'd them in the Bosomes of those very Protestant Princes, as far from the least Inclination towards Rome, or a Look that way, as the whole Choice of Christendom could have pickt out. So that upon the Issue of the whole Matter, how contrary to common sense is it, to think that very Prince either is, or can be so stupidly infatuated as ever to Embark in so hazardous an Atchievement, which (were he Crown'd to morrow) with his years upon his back, he begins but with the latter part of a Life, and which the length of a Queen Eliza∣beth's Reign could never finish. And all this so preposterously too, as to be for building that Ro∣mish Interest with one hand, which he has so palpably destroy'd with the other.

Considering then, (as has been fully proved before) that Popery in the present State of England, is something like the vulgar Tradition of the Basilisk, it must either look Vs safely Dead, or we shall look that so; For there's no Medium in the Case, between Conquering or Dying: who in his right wits can imagine this Prince will ever Begin what he himself before hand has taken Care shall never be Finish't. And if not finish't, will be but put into a ten times worse Condition than if never begun. And therefore not only his meer Pride will be our Security, it being impossible that any thing that has one spark of Glory will ever ingage in a Cause under such Certainty of a Defeat: but likewise supposing even the utmost Suggestions true; under such an Impossibility of Crowning the Work, the Greater the Zeal, the more Inoffensive the Zealot: since all Irregular exorbitant Ferments of Popery will but hatch Scorpions and warm Stings for its own Destruction: the greater the Tender∣ness for his own Party and Religion, the greater the Security of ours.

Moreover the Character positively lays down this Maxime. That the Papists doom all out of their own Church to certain Damnation: and on that Foundation all their Bloody Principles are built, as thinking no Cruelty too severe, nor any Tyranny too sanguinary; but on the contrary, the most bar∣barous Gospel Propagation the greatest Obligation of their Religion. And therefore it tells you, A popish Successour will never believe he can do his Subjects an Injustice in that very Thing in which he doth God Service, or that he injures Ʋs when he does our Souls right. And that therefore all the threatned Miseries, Horrours and Desolations, &c. from the beginning to the end of the whole Character, flow from no other Source.

Now if this be truly the Tenet of a Romanist, and all our horrible dangers proceed from that Te∣net, either our present Royal Heir must be no Romanist at all; or if he be one, however he absolute∣ly dissents from Rome in that particular Main Principle. For if such were his Faith, and such his Principles, why has he so wilfully and so egregiously contributed to his own Children's Damnation, not only in their severest Protestant Education, but likewise in that additional Strengthening that Damnable Perswasion by such Fatal Marriages, whereby he has not only endanger'd their living and dying in that Erronious Faith, but likewise secured the Interest and Establishment of that prote∣stant Religion in likelihood by Them and their Heirs to the End of the World; and consequently con∣tributed to the Damnation of succeeding Heretical Generations in Secula seculorum.

I have only one thing more to add for the Safety of our Religion. There is not in the World that Prince in his Nature more grateful for Services and Obligations received, or a firmer and more unalterable Friend than himself. And as the Church, and only the Church of England has truly and vigorously asserted the Iustice and Duty of maintaining his unforfeitable Succession and Inviolable Birthright, and has stood ALONE in the Gap against all the whole Crowd of his Enemys; we may confidently assure our selves, that if ever 'tis Heaven's pleasure he should be our Soveraign, that all such kind and signally good Offices will never be ungratefully requited by the most Generous of Mankind.

I shall only conclude; under this manifest Security of our Religion and Government on all hands, They that shall have Impudence enough (no Person nor Quality, in any Station whatever excepted) to persecute that Prince under the Pretence of Fear, are undoubtedly planting the same Batteries against three Kingdoms that were rais'd in his Royal Father's Reign; and a Bill of Exclusion must truly carry the Design of all the old Remonstrances, Ordinances, Covenants, &c. with the Soul of a Cook, a Bradshaw, and a Cromwel at the Bottom on't: and all the Senate-House Church-proppers un∣der that Vizor, are only Establishing Religion with the same Brand in their Hearts that Cain built Citys. And I doubt not but the Wisdom and Loyalty of Succeeding Times will regain Sense enough to countermine all such Villany, and redeem the yet unrecovered Honour of England by shaming such a Second Imposture from the World.

And now to draw to a Period, I have only this Warning to give to the great Sticklers against Po∣pery and Arbitrary Power, to have a Care that they Themselves do not bring in what they so Zea∣lously endeavour to keep Out. For if Popery and Arbitrary Power shall ever get Footing in England by a Popish Successour, it can only be then, when by Ʋnlawful Exclusions, and Rebellious Associations against him, they shall put him upon cutting his way to his Throne by his Sword, and consequently give him the Occasion, both by Forreign and Domestick Assistance, of gaining that Right by Conquest which is denyed him to assume in Peace; and thereby enable him by the Power and Right of a Con∣querour, to Abolish what Laws, and Establish what Government he pleases, without either strain∣ing his Honour or Prerogative. And so shall the Irregular Designs of defending our Religion and Li∣berties,

be the only means of destroying them. And that this will be the undoubted Success of such unlawful and trayterous Opposition of the Royal Heir, let all such Turbulent Spirits (for their Com∣fort) consider that the World is much mended of late, and whatever Prosperity attended their victo∣rious Father's Rebellious Arms, the old Cheat will not pass altogether so glibly a second time; and the deposing of Monarchs will be, in all reasonable prospect, a tougher piece of Work in this Age than the last. For Men's Eyes and Understandings begin to be more Enlightned, and the Odds (thanks be to Heaven) is on the Loyal Side.

However as a Caution to those unwary People that may be seduced by the false Suggestions of Re∣publican Conspirators under the plausible Pretence of Liberty and Religion, to ingage in so impious a Cause. Besides the Breach of their Christianity and Hazard of their Souls in so wicked an Un∣dertaking; they are link't into that very Rebellion in which they are certain of making themselves Miserable, not only if they are Subdued, but likewise if they Conquer too. For as I said before, there's not only a certain Slavery attends their Defeat, the Impudence of such flagitious Treason be∣ing it self alone a sufficient Provocation of Tyranny, enough to exasperate even the serenest and best Temper'd Princes into a Spirit of Cruelty, and consequently, to make him impose that Yoke upon their Rebellious Necks which they have but too justly deserved; and so put him upon Acting what other∣wise had never entred so much as into his Soul to Think: So on the other side, supposing their Strength and Fortune would prove so great and successful as should answer their most Flattering Hopes, and that it would be possible for them to gain that Absolute Triumph o're the Royal Cause, as to reach, not only the Crown, but also the Head that wears it: yet all this while what have they done, but through all the gaping Wounds of their poor Bleeding Country, through all the Horrour and Miseries of a barbarous Civil War, deposed and butcher'd One Imaginary Tyrant to set up possibly five hundred Real Ones.

For as all Victorious Rebellion ends in Anarchy and Confusion, and all the Conquests, Acquisitions, and Trophies devolve into the Possession of the greatest Ringleaders of the Conspiracy, whil'st the popu∣lar hands, the working Tools that set them up, have little or no share in the Booty. What have the deluded Wretches gain'd by the Change, but only avoided a lesser Scylla, to run into a greater Cha∣rybdis, enslaved themselves and their Posterity to a Herd of Tyrants, to escape a single one. A worse Subjection than that they fear'd and fought against. A Republican Tyranny being so much more in∣tolerable than a Monarchical One can be, as this has but the Ambition of One man to satisfie, and the other of Hundreds, whil'st the particular Pride and Avarice of each respective Dignifyed Rebel in Power, has so many seperate sinister Interests and Appetites to gratifie, and thereby our Estates and Patrimonys continually to be squeez'd and drein'd not only for the Chargeable Support of Stand∣ing Armies that must uphold this Anarchical Constitution, but likewise be exposed to the insatiate Gorge of every State-Cormorant amongst them. A Tyranny so much more unsupportable than that of a Crown'd Head, as there are so many of ther•• to conspire and abet all the the greatest of Insolences and Injustice, and so many to divide the shame of it. A Tyranny yet so much more execrable still as every Low-born Villain amongst them dare stoop to all those dishonourable, abject, and sordid Deeds, that IMPERIAL Blood and ROYAL Heirs would staggar at.

FINIS.