on the side of the Protestants than on that of the <14> Church of Rome: For the Church of Rome, by supposing her Pretensions, ought to preserve the natural Tenderness of a Mother for the Protestants, and make use only of moderate Chastisements to recover ’em to their Duty. We know how David commanded that they shou’d spare the Life of his Son Absalom, tho in Arms against him, and tho he had carry’d his Rebellion to the greatest Extremity;12 and there are very few Mothers who won’t put up the Affronts and Insolences of their Children, rather than arraign ’em before the criminal Judg, when they think their Lives may be in danger. So that the terrible Punishments which the Church of Rome has inflicted on Hereticks for so many Ages past, are a Rigor so much the more unnatural and monstrous, the more strongly one supposes her Pretensions.
But by supposing the Pretensions of the Protestants, their most extreme Rigors are in the order of human things. For when the case is no less than the revenging a Mother impiously turn’d out of her own House by a Strumpet, and resettling her in her Right, Nature does allow her Children to act with all imaginable Vigor and Vehemence; nor can it be thought hardly of, if they have no Mercy upon this wicked Prostitute who had usurp’d her place, or upon her Favorers and Adherents.
The Reader will easily perceive the Ridiculousness of the Passage which I have cited, without my taking it to task Period by Period; and comprehend, that nothing is more reasonable than the Apprehensions of some sort of People, did the Protestants think fit to imitate the Church of <15> Rome. Let any one but reflect a little on the State in which the two Religions liv’d together about twenty Years ago, supposing always their respective Pretensions. The Church of Rome, believing her self the true Mother of all Christians, thought it expedient for the good of those Children who did own her, not to exercise her Right over those who persisted in their Disobedience. The Protestant Church, believing the Romish an Adulteress, who in prejudice of her Rights acted the Mistress in the Family, suffer’d her for peace sake to injoy the finest Apartments in the House, and suspended her Right of punishing the Favorers and Accomplices of her Adultery. Here was a kind of Truce; the Church of Rome comes and violates this Truce, and prosecutes her Pretensions, constraining all those of France, who were of her Rival’s Party, to come over to her own. Who sees not that the Protestant Church has all the right in the World, on the foot which we suppose, to prosecute the Punishment of the Whore’s Accomplices? So that the Church of England might now reasonably tell all the English Papists; I hitherto suspended the Punishment due to you for continuing in the Interest of a Harlot, who had expel’d me my House; me, who am the true Mother of the Family: but since she begins to treat my faithful Children cruelly, I shall no longer delay your deserv’d Punishment.
Pray mind what this Author advances twice in a Breath, That one must be abandon’d to all shame to pretend, that rebellious Children have the same Right over their Mother which she has over them. But who told him, the Protestants are rebellious Children? only a humor of always supposing the <16> thing in question. To be a little more exact he shou’d have stated the Question thus, One must be abandon’d to all shame who pretends, that Children who do not wish to recognise as their Mother a Woman they believe is only a rapacious Adulteress prostituted to all Comers, have as much Right of punishing her, as a Mother has to punish those, who she pretends are her Children. The Question being thus propos’d, to pretend this, is so far from being a Sign that one is lost to all shame, that not to pretend it, one must have lost all his Senses; for what Right can be more reasonable than a Right in Children to expel a wicked Woman out of their House, who is a Dishonor to the Family, and to the Memory of their Father, who deprives the Mother of her Dowry, and of all the Provision for her Widowhood, and consumes their Substance on a pack of dissolute Wretches, and Servants whom she has seduc’d? To continue in her Interest, even after the injur’d Mother has bin reinstated in her House, as God be thank’d she is in England, is much the same as continuing in Cromwel’s Interest after the Restoration of King Charles II. Nor let it be pretended, that there’s a difference between the two Cases, because Cromwel’s Usurpation lasted but 9 or 10 Years; for we are all agreed in this common Principle, that there’s no Prescription against the Truth: so that tho the dethroning the Successors of Hugh Capet, for example, might be an unjust Attempt in the Descendants of Charlemagne, were there any of his Line in being, so very long a Possession having rectify’d the Injustice done to the Family of Charlemagne by Hugh; yet it can be no Injustice, after a thousand, two thousand Years, or any longer Prescription of Falshood, to restore the Truth, <17> and reinstate it in all its inalienable Rights.13 And by this we overthrow, and have overthrown so often that we are even asham’d to repeat it, all the Common-places of Papists on the uninterrupted Succession, &c. Nothing they can possibly say will hinder the Principle that Falshood may not usurp the place of Truth; and therefore we are to examine whether the Case has really happen’d as the Protestants alledg. We are to examine which side is right, and which wrong in fact; for if we talk of the bare Pretension only, and if Pretension be a sufficient ground for persecuting, all the World will persecute; each Party will say that they persecute righteously, and are very unrighteously persecuted: and till such time as God shall decide this great Claim at the last Day, the Strong will always oppress the Weak without controul. Are not these rare Principles?
It’s plain then, that a Right of Persecuting cannot be contested to Protestants upon the ridiculous Reason which this Author assigns, nor upon any other but that which I have establish’d in this Work, and which equally and universally takes this Right from all Religions.
I shan’t say any thing in particular to his alledg’d Example of a King who punishes his rebellious Subjects, and of Rebels who sometimes serve their Prisoners of the King’s side in the same kind; because the Application is one of the common Impertinences of the Party. Be it known to him, that the Protestants look on themselves as those who fight under the Banner of the lawful Queen, and on the Papists as rebellious Subjects, who had depriv’d her of almost <18> all her Dominions, and who still usurp the most considerable part of them; persisting obstinately in the Interests of an Adulteress, most justly repudiated, and still continuing her Prostitutions.
I must now offer a word or two in answer to an Objection which may be made, upon the Laws of this Kingdom’s excluding Papists from all Places, and exacting from ’em the Oath of Supremacy. Is not this, say they, tempting Men? Is not this the ready way to make the Ambitious betray their Consciences, when a fair Employment presents for the Reward of their Hypocrisy? I answer, according to my Principles, That no doubt there is a defect in these Laws, in that they don’t equally exclude all the new Converts; for did they exclude ’em for Life, and their Children who had not abjur’d Popery before they were fully bred up and instructed in it, nothing in my opinion cou’d be more reasonable or more necessary than these Laws: not that I think the false Religion of Papists, consider’d simply as such, a just ground for making Laws against those who profess it. No, it certainly is not. I take the Justice of these Laws to be founded wholly on their having Principles, such as that Hereticks must be compell’d to come in, that Heretick Kings should not be obey’d, &c., inconsistent with the publick Safety of the State where they themselves are not uppermost: for tho I shou’d suppose that there were here and there a Papist who believ’d the paying Obedience to a Heretick King no Sin, yet there’s no Papist but must believe the Doctrine right in the main, as it is better relish’d at Rome, and more agreeable to the Sense of several Councils <19> than the contrary Doctrine. And this alone is a sufficient Reason for never trusting Popish Subjects but upon special Security: the rather, because they clandestinely introduce Monks, and other Emissarys of the Church of Rome, who study all occasions of embroiling the State, and devolving the Crown on Heads of their own Religion; wherein if they succeed, presently they talk of nothing else but crushing the infernal Hydra of Heresy, and sacrificing all their Oaths and Assurances to the Interests of Religion. The Reign of Queen Elizabeth, and that of her Successor (to say nothing of the two following) have shewn to what excesses they can carry their Attempts against Sovereigns of a contrary Religion: So that ’twere the most inexcusable Imprudence in this Nation, not to take all just Precautions against this Party, by excluding it from all Trusts and Employments, which ’tis plain
