THere being lately dispersed a Pamphlet, entituled. Bet­ter Late then Never. Wherein the Author acknowledg­eth Hereditary Monarchy can only quiet and render Hap­py the Minds of English-Men: That Monarchy is and ought to be Limitted: And that considering the divided Sects of England, as well upon Principles of Policy, as Religion, an Universal and Impartial Toleration ought to be Establish'd: And he likewise has an English dread of an Arbitrary and Military Government. All which Topicks of his Discourse savour of a moderate & English tem­per. And since his friendly Admonitions seem more particularly to be directed to the State-Whiggs, and he out of a more peculiar kindness to that set of Men (of which I suppose he is) lays before them some of their Faults, I who wish well to every Opinion of mankind, beg their leave to represent Candidly and Calmly to each of them the Causes of those Misfortunes of which they complain, and of which they can, humanly speaking, see no End.

I desire I may not be thought an Enemy to Kings, nor disrespect­ful to the Church of England, if I say, Passive Obedience is next to an impossible Doctrine, unless the flattering Divines would preach Original Contracts to Kings. This Belief in the Church has pro­ved a Sandy Foundation for the State to build upon; and those very Men that have so largely filled the History of it, have not only over­look'd their own Writings, but all the Stated Laws which would have secured King James, and us from Lancastrian Convulsions. The King can do no wrong, the King is unaccountable in his own Per­son, &c. would not serve the turn of those that were to preach Court-Sermons, or solemnize the Aniversary of King Charles's Mur­ther. Not only those who had a hand in his Blood, but every body who was in the War against him, were never to be forgiven in this, or the World to come. St. Robert Fillmore's Patriarcha was the only Model of Government. And Sr. Roger's Observators, the Guides of all our Clergy. Our Judges and Juries determined that all Insur­rections, whether made, or only intended, must end in the Civil or Natural Death of the King, tho' we are beholding to some in Popish Times for Magna Charta, &c. which had a happier Accomo­dation. These Church of England Homilies, and Episcopal Judicial Proceedings, nauseated all Men of severer Reasonings; & whilst the People were Harangued and punish'd into Non-Resistance, our Di­vines were better Bred then to teach their duty to Princes. They for­got to tell what Common Care belongs to a Common Father. The Coronation [...]ath was Unmention'd, lest it should smell of Com­pact; and Kings were to be Jure Divino, that Bishops might be so too. And for those Notions, how difficult soever, they are to be maintained; they persecuted the Puritans and Fanaticks into Re­bellion, and the Papists into Plots: Whilst to speak the truth, the Penal Laws and Sacramental Tests, have been all along but formal Combinations against them; And the greatest Sticklers for Uncon­trolable Power have cozened, deserted, and fought against their Rightful and Lawful Soveraign, as soon as ever they fancyed their own Church Property, their Great Diana was in danger, and that their fellow Subjects might share in Places. But a King has lately seen that these Men have not the Patience of Job, as much as they brag'd o [...] their Passive Vertue, for they did not serve the King for Nought; and therefore, I hope, if he is Restored, he will know that mankind are Governed by their Interest, he will believe that since most men are guilty of all Riot and Debauchery, are Ambi­tious, Covetous and Prophane, contrary to the more evident Prin­ciples of their Religion; he can't expect they will be ravag'd in their Fortunes, and hazarded in their Liberties and Lives, upon such a Contested Principle. I hope our former Beautefeux will be more modest upon the thirtieth of January, and the fifth of November; and tho' they have their Churches, that they will keep the Peace there, they not being able now to throw the first stone. And further, I hope, with their good leave, tho' I am not an Enemy to Church ones, we may settle a Civil Comprehension.

But that our Dissenting Brethren may be fit for it, I must humble them a little with the Repetition of their Faults; The Parsons have told them enough of carrying the late Civil Wars beyond an honest and National Design, have enough reproach'd them with the Mur­ther of King Charles the first, &c. But I will reproach them only with their Follies in the two last Reigns, since it is base to triumph too much over them who are an oppressed People still; And besides, that the Late discourse touches something upon them. I will not, tho' they practise the contrary, tax them with what they have Writ against Deposing Princes when they have managed the Controversie against the Roman-Catholicks; but that which I will with the late Au­thor blame them for, is that they are so easily gull'd into Discontents and Faction against such Princes of whose Inclinations, or Circum­stances they might make use for the good of themselves & Country. King Charles the Second was forced from the Liberty which he pro­mised at Breda; but when he put out his Declaration of Indulgence, the Church-Whispers, and secret Promises made the Dissenters soon fly in his Face. They should have lest him and his Church-Parliament to dispute the Prerogative, and been glad he made use of it in favour of them; by this means they would have proved that it is only Persecution that made them Disloyal; and though I would not have had them flatter a Dispensing Power, they might lawfully have Exercised that Liberty that is the Right of Mankind. And tho' Roman-Catholicks might have been the better for it, an Incorporation of all our Sects into the National Interest will in all times be the Natural consequence of an Universal Liberty of Con­science, and that would have been for England's Welfare, as well as for the Dissenters Ease. You must either Banish, or expect Con­spiracies from any Sect you will not be equal to. But hitherto I have blamed the Dissenters for too little Manners, in the next Reign they have too much, and turn Tory-Conventiclers, and Court-Pa­rasites; my Lord Plausible could not be no more Civil to a Roman-Catholick then many of tha Phanatic [...]s in King James's time, and their Addresses to the King were affected and Canting Adulations. They drew in a King to venture all upon their narrow Bottom, and then left His Interest, as soon as the Disobliged Church had call'd over a Champion to Invade him. Tho' the Bishops (as it hath been affirm'd to me) when he was coming, would have Compound­ed for all other Miscarriages, if they might have been Restored to their Power of Persecution: For they offered to put out an Abhorrence of such The Author would by no means have this Story reflect upon those Reverend Bishops, who have since to preserve their Consciences, sa­crificed all their Preferments; For to their Eternal Honour be it spoken, they repent their ha­ving at any time stood upon Ni­cities, their having refused their word to the Council for their Appearance, (which occasioned their being sent to the Tower) I say, I am satisfied they repent; and I wish those who advised the reading the Declaration, would as much repent: And I dare say those good Bishops at tbis day are very willing to comply with any Li­berty of Conscience that is law­fully established, and is consistent with the Liberties of England. an Invasion, provided the King would call in his Declaration of Liberty. He offered to call a Parliament, and settle it by Law; but sure the Bishops thought Liberty it self unlawful, since that would not serve their turn; Yet with the Clamours of those Swearing Church-men, the Dissenters, joyn'd, and were very easily engaged in their Conspiracy, against a King who Re­leased twelve Thousand of them at his coming to the Crown, and kept many others out of Goals, and pre­ferred some, tho I allow too few. In In this King's time you had the greatest opportunities of Establish­ing Religious and Civil matters upon Just and Lasting Foundations, upon Solid Securites, and to have been Immixed with all the Rights & Priviledges of the rest of your fellow Subjects. But some sawn'd, and some Rail'd, and all con­tributed to destroy, what might have made us the Envy of the whole World. You are not much the better for the Change; you are not let into the Government, the Sacramental Test is still in Be­ing. And therefore I will be more tender upon your Faults.

Now the Roman-Catholicks must expect their share, who had at least through Indiscretion, too much in bringing about the Revolu­tion, as well as they have in keeping out King James They be­lieve Miracles in Politicks, as well as in Religion; and with their sew Hands and indifferent Heads, are for mighty Undertakings; and tho' our Laws had not put them upon an equal, nor, to speak plain­ly, an equitable Foot, were for engrossing all things. I will not lay open their former Faults, by which they abused a King out of his Throne, and ran a Risk of their own extirpation: I fear these things are but too much remembred. But the greatest Folly of all, has been their foolish and villanous Project which they have talked as sillily over, of Conquering their Native Country, a Design too Barbarous for an Indian to dream of; one would think too Vision­ary for any Mortal: And who can wonder that English Men hate these Noisy Sparks, who are avowedly in a Plot against their Li­berties, their Properties, and their Lives? These Wretches have a Zeal without Knowledge, without knowledge of the Strength of their Native Country, the united Resistance such a Project will find, or the Inclinations of the King, who upon all occasions, not only in private, reproves the hot and indiscreet talk of such People, but in his Publick Discourse daily discourages their Folly, by declaring how Disagreeable such things are to his Nature, Preju­dicial to his Interest, and Inconsistent with his Resolutions, ‘He hath often told them, that though in Italy and Spain railing against Protestants, and in Sweden and Denmark against Catholicks, may be more excusable; yet in his Dominions it is false Policy, as well as salse Zeal, especially in Catholicks who are the lesser number, and not the National Church. There is hardly a Morning passes that he does not entertain them at his leave with the Accompts of the Ser­vices, and Sufferings of Protestants for his Father, Brother, and [Page 2] Himself; nay, even with the former Services of many of those who are as he, willing to diminish their Faults, expresses it, deluded with Fear, and frighted with Force, to be his Enemies. There is’ no discourse more grateful to him, then what may furnish him with some excuse, not only for the defection of Protestants in ge­neral, but even for particular, and the worst of men. It is not many Weeks since he publickly discoursed the former Services of some so black in their Villany to him, that their very Names' are not fit to be mentioned, and it was observed that he wanted some body to say something in excuse of them, which is often by Per­sons that know his temper, on purpose done to gratifie him. He is so far from encouraging those that upbraid Protestants and their Religion, because of their Rebellion, so contrary to their long professed Principles; That he not only entertains them with Sto­ries of Rebellion in France, and other Catholick Countries, but hath even sometimes taken Pains to let them see, that even Catho­licks, and the Catholick Religion, have been as accessary to his Treatments, and received as great a Stain by their share in it, as Protestants and theirs. And there is no man can dispute this, when he considers the parts the Pope, and Emperor, the King of Spain, and other Catholick Princes, with their Countries, have acted, and still act towards it; For they were the Turners, and are the Keep­ers of him out, and the People of England, who, some Catholicks will have thought only Criminal Overawed by their Force, and Cheated by their Contrivances, though they can't be excused, Acted but the second part in it. And to assure you that these are the Senti­ments of your King—I will tell you what he did not long ago to discover them, for having daily Accompts of the impertinent, fool­ish and violent discourses of some People at St. Germaines, who were not reclaimed by all the pains he had taken; He sent for all the English Confessors there, and after having first told them how ‘much he was troubled, and his Service discouraged, and the Religion and Manners of Catholicks reflected upon by the Intem­perance and Ignorance of those People, he injoyn'd and required of them as a Duty both to God, and Himself, that each of them should from him apply to their several Penitents, and let them know how angry he was at such things, what fair Methods he had hitherto used to prevent them; that now seeing all others ineffectual, he had taken this particular one, to require of them upon pain of his highest displeasure, that they never more publickly, or privately Reflect upon the Protestant Religion, Pro­testants in General, or any Particular Protestant; That they ne­ver more talk of the methods of his Restoration, or express their Wishes for it otherways then by the Concurrence of his People, and that they never more hope or expect any particular Favour or peculiar Regard, when it shall please God to restore him, upon the accompt of their being Catholicks. They should have no greater Claim upon the score of their Religion, nor should they say they have. But he told them, for that reason their Faults should be more, and sooner punish'd; and their Services, though even not so much regarded, yet more punctually expected, for that he will always treat his Subjects of all Perswasions with equal esteem and tenderness, and Confer his Favours where he finds Vertue and Merit, without regard to the Religion of him that has them. And’ further required of the Confessors, ‘That they should strictly observe and discover who neglect Obedience to those Commands, & bring him from time to time an Acount of them, that they might be Banish'd both his Court and Favour. He knows he is a King of’ Protestants, and that they have faithfully served both him and his Predecessors, and doth not doubt their doing so again, so soon as their Eyes can be opened, and their Hands untyed. He knows Eng­land is not to be without utter Ruine conquered by a Foreign Pow­er, and hopes, as he wishes, that he may never be forced to do so much Prejudice to himself; he knows the Bodies of men are the Riches of a Country, that Conquest would be a revenging his In­juries upon his own Estate, it would make a Golgotha of these King­doms; he has Paid too dear for your warm Politicks, and is weary of Experiment; And by your twatling what can never be perform'd, you continue monstrous Bull-Beggars to the People, you hazard his Return, and your own Ruine. There are some of you that say, You are as well as if he Returns, unless he fills the Places of Trust and Profit with those of your Perswasion. And it is well for Protestants whose Disloyalty you upbraid, that you show your own founded upon In­terest; But such Mercenary Subjects, such Timmers, such Miscreants rather deserve to be Banish'd when He comes Home: I am glad there remain many Protestants more visibly Loyal, because they have less lyes of Interest, and that I am confident never project Gain by his Return. Those Church-men who have stuck to their old Principles, can never be enough Commended for their Hone­sty; They stand in the first Rank of Worthy Minds, their Interest was not at all concerned, they have Acted by the meer motives of their Conscience, and I Reverence them as I would have done Aristides and Cato amongst the Heathens, and the Primitive Con­fessors and Martyrs of the Christian Church: I would willingly change my Stile for their sakes, and alter my moderate and whol­some Satyre into the sublimest Panegyrick; But what they do, is not for the praises of men, nor can I indeed give them their de­served Character, no more then sufficiently applaud those Dissen­ters that are true to his Interest for their Gratitude to the King, and their clear understanding of the Nation's Interest, which is never secured by any Innovation where the Succession is interrupted, they and those who return to him by reason of the Male-Administra­tions of the Prince of Orange steddily, and like the Old Romans, shew their Disputes and Quarrels, have been for things, and not against men, and that they deserve more Power, since they would always use it for England, for the Preservation of the Rights and Priviledges we were Born to. And as to the Roman-Catholicks, I must aver, I personally know several of them, both here and at St. Germaines, that deserve to be made English-men for their Mode­ration, which they are not, whilst we have such violent Laws a­gainst them. These Catholicks prove, however Hereticks are to disposed of in the other World, they ought to be treated with all imaginable Charity, Candor, and Impartiality in this: They give Evidence that their Belief of a Foreign Ecclesiastical Head, will never make them Traytors to their King, or their Country; And that they can distinguish between Religious and Social Vertue, and that they own the last is due to all Governments. I am entred in­to a pleasant Field, I could dwell upon Commendations; finding Fault is not my nature, I never Reprove any man but for his own or the general good, not without galling my own Soul. I thank my God, I wish the good even of my Enemies, and would in imitation of the Holy Jesus, promote Peace upon Earth, and Good Will a­mongst Men. I wish that Religion that ought to sweeten our Na­tures, might not be matter of Strife; nor the things of the other World make any distinction about the things that are meerly of this: I would not have our Politicks understand Creeds, nor meddle with different Perswasions, farther than to propagate Morality, Natural Religion, and a Good Life; and that you may see this is the mind of your King, I will repeat you the Words of a Letter he lately writ, upon hearing that some in his Court had sent over Letters of a narrow and bigotted nature; the words of his Letter are so Ex­cellent, I think no man could invent Words better for the Con­clusion of this Discourse; The Words are these—‘Such as are truly my Friends, ought not to give credit to what my Enemies say; and if any of my indiscreet Friends write foolishly, they should not have so ill an opinion of me, as to believe it is by my Order, or Connivance; and they should remember what I have always said, and will always stand to, which is Impartial The Author can assure all the Members of the Church of England of his own knowledge, that the King does not design this Liberty shall let any sort of Dissen­ter, whether Catholick or Protestant, into any Church-Preferment; and the King told the Author an Expedient which he would consent to, which must satisfie all the Eccle­siasticks of the Church of England, that their Churches, their Colledges and Schools will all be secure; and perhaps the Author may in a short time be allowed to ac­quaint some of them with this Expedient. Liberty of Conscience to all my Subjects, and that I will always shew an Equal and Im­partial Care of them all, and that faithful Service, true Honesty, and not Religion, shall be the Standard for those that serve me in all my Im­ployments, both in Court and Government.’

The King sufficiently laments the Divisions of his Friends, he would have the Whiggs and Torys; the Church of England Men, the Dissenters, and the Roman-Catholicks all agree; if I may use the word again, in a Jacobite Comprehension. He thinks, as all wise men must, there is no coming Home: There is no Ruling upon any partial Bottom, and it is His earnest desire, as well as mine, that you would all come to Just Weights and Measures.