IN a time when every Man thrusts his thoughts into Print , and the Press ( that has been polluted with so many Invectives against the Government ) prostitutes it self to every Scribler , a seasonable truth from an honest well meaning hand may , I hope , be allowed of .

For the Subject merits both a wiser Head and a larger Volume , yet this , if us'd with a Fanatick Industry , may not possibly be altogether unprofitable : For how industrious is that Party in dispersing every little scribled Half-sheet as abounding in Malice and Mischeif as defective in Sense ) to every quarter of the Nation ? that the meanest of their Party might be well grounded in Sedition , and none of them be unfurnisht with some sort of Argument against the Church and Government : And how instrumental have even Car and Curtis been in Supporting their Cause , and in strengthning the animosities of Declining Brethren ? and by how small instruments have all the irreverent suspicions and dislikes of the King , his Counsellors , and the Clergy , been convey'd ? I will not therefore utterly despair of some Success from these few lines , whose aim is onely to take the Vizors from the Dissenters Faces , and shew those True Protestants in their True Colours , And that by natural easie inferences from their Different belief of the Popish and Fanatick Plot ( for we shall clearly Evidence this last Hellish Conspiracy to be theirs ) And from their different zeal shewn in their pursuit of these Horrid Contrivances .

Since the first discovery of the Late Plot ( which all honest undesigning men must believe and abhor ) I have observ'd the Dissenters , in all their openest actions and discourses to allow it little Credit , and in their own private opinions less , I believe , or none at all : which they must Justly allow me to be surpris'd at , when I recollect how zealous they appeared for the safety of the King's Person and the Government in the very beginning of the late Popish Plot , how easie they were of belief , how truly apprehensive of every danger , and how susceptible of fear , and what kind provisions they then endeavour'd to make , for prevention of every the most distant ills that then threatned our best of Kings , from those blind and bloudy zealots : How Instrumental every man of them was ( proportionably to the Sphere wherein he was plac'd ) in providing for his Majesty's safety , by a Rigorous severity against that whole Party , nor would their eager Kindness then think his Majesty secure enough , without cutting all hope from the Popish Party by he Utter Exclusion of his Royal Brother ; ( which very Act would , I fear , have shokt the foundation of that Government it pretended to defend ) and I heartily wish that the same heat ( to give it no worse a name ) which from without doors screw'd it self into the House of Commons , and there was incorporated into a Vote , that this Majesty's Death should be reveng'd ( right or wrong ) on the Papists , were not Instrumental in kindling this Fanatick Plot .

't is wondrous , I say ! that those men even in the very dawn of that Plot when Mr. Oates was so ill seconded , when no Person condemn'd confest , when no person accus'd fled , when Salaries and Allowances were given , and when Pardons proclaim'd could produce so few , and those so profligate Witnesses , ( as they 〈◇〉 themselves at Colledge's Trial , and at Guild Hall when the Bill was found Ignoramus against my Lord Shaftsbury to all the Witnesses remaining except Mr. Oates ) when neither Army , Arms , nor Commission could be seen , yet could they then easily believe all the Roman Catholicks in England concern'd in it , and that every Sufferer dyed with a lye in his mouth , that there were Officers of all sorts appointed , and an Insurrection to have been in London , an Army of Foreigners landed in Ireland , and an Army of Spanish Pilgrims in England .

But an Accusation against Dissenters ( for such , or the creatures of such , are onely concern'd in this late Villany ) made probable by Swarms of Seditious Books and Libellous Pamphlets , those constant Ushers of Treason and Rebellion , and made certain by the Evidence of men ( before they were deluded into this Treasonable design ) of unquestion'd credit , by the confessions of some that have been lately Executed for it , and by the Flight of others accus'd of it , and yet farther confirm'd by a deplorable Instance which I shall for bear to reflect upon . But although these Persons are so rightly accus'd , and this Accusation so plainly prov'd , the Dissenters in general pretend a misbelief , and bestow their pity , where their detestation would be more proper . And their subtilest Endeavours are us'd to pass these horrid truths upon the easie part of the world , as tricks and contrivances , laid by the Favourers of Popery and Arbitrary Powers to ensnare those men that were ( out of mere conscience and good design to serve their Country ) its most violent Opposers .

And what ground have they for these Insinuations , so contradictory to reason , so full of partiality , and so fatal Reflexions on the King and Government ? what foundation is there to support so great an obstinacy ? Alas ! they grasp ( like drowning men ) at every broken reed to support their sinking cause ; for theirs I must call it , since they all seem to Interest themselves in it by a so particular Incredulity .

What means the universal Stress put upon that Paper , which is said to be deliver'd by the late Lord Russell to the Sheriffs at the place of Execution , and his Speech thereto annext , which they oppose against those crouds of direct Proofs before mention'd , and think to stifle the Plot by it , and which every Fanatick spreads upon his Shopboard , and some part or other of that speech , is always his Text , when he designs to preach an inferior Customer into a belief of their Innocence ? But I would have left it to have contradicted it self , but that it will be very Iustrumental in the plainer illustration of those clear truths he there denies .

I am heartly sorry indeed to find it stufft with such contradictions and such dangerous Insinuations , which may help to spread that humour in the Hearts and Minds of some people which did in all probability first cause his disaffection to the Government , and wrought him by degrees to that height which occasion'd his deplorable fall : As particularly where he says in is second page , that his opposition of Popery had procur'd him such great and powerfull enemies , that he had for some time expected the worst , and was glad he now fell by the Axe , and not by the Fiery Trial ; and likewise in the same page , where he seems to keep up the heats of that sort of people ( who are too apt to use the pretence alone to the Destruction of our establisht Religion ) by enforcing the near approach of Popery , and by insinuating that it is now breaking in , and expressing his sorrow because so many Protestants gave their helping hands to it ; and likewise in the third Page , where he tells you , That he beleives his earnestness in the Bill of Exclusion , had no small influence on his present Sufferings .

What else is this , I appeal to all the Indifferent part of the world , but to make the King a Favourer of Popery , or which is but varying the Phrase ) to make him Influenced by those that are so ? And what is or can be the dreadfull Consequent of that , but to make him also a sharer in that hatred , violence and opposition , which heretofore seem'd aim'd onely against the Successor ? and from thence it may be reasonably fear'd , that those designs and pretences that urged with such violence for the Exclusion of the one , may blindly drive them to the Dethroning of the other ; and indeed the rather , because where the people are possest that the present Prince is a Favourer of Popery , the dangers that ensue from it are more present and immediate , but in ●the ase of a Successor they are onely in possibility , and more remote and distant .

Then as for his contradictions , which every one must see , but those who willfully hold their hands before their eyes , for in his speech to the Sheriff , he professeth himself on the words of a dying Man , to know of no Plot , either against the King's Life or the Government , yet in his written Paper deliver'd to the Sheriff , page the third , he says , that there was at my Lord Shaftsbury's general discourses about seizing the Guards , but he flew out and exclaim'd against it , and askt if it succeeded what could be next done but Massacring the Guards , and Killing them in cold Bloud , which he lookt on as a thing so detestable , and so like a Popish practice , that he abhor'd it ; and in the same page he says , that the Duke of Monmouth came to him and told him , he was glad he was come to Town , for my Lord Shaftsbury , and some other hot men , would undoe them all , by doing some disorderly thing or other , and desired him to use his own , and his friends interest to prevent it , and call'd him to go to Mr. Shepherd's with him that night , where there was a meeting , at which , his Lordship declares there were things said by some with much more heat than judgment , which he did then sufficiently disapprove , and yet for those very things he stands Condemned ; and in the same page he says , that as for his being acquainted with and not discovering those Designs , that is but Misprision , and he there farther adds , that he hopes none will think so mean a thought could enter into him , as to go about to save himself by the accusing others .

By which words of his Lordship's I take it to be directly prov'd , that there was a Design carrying on , and that too a Treasonable one , against the King and Government . For if no design , what means the Meetings at my Lord Shaftsbury's , Mr. Shepherd's , and other places ? what means the frequent discourses of Seizing the Guards ? which was not in it self , or as 't was Treason against the King , or as 't was a method to force him to compliance with their desires , disliked , even by this Lord himself , but onely according to his own confession , he was apprehensive of its bloudy consequences , viz. killing them in cold bloud , and that too chiefly , because it lookt so like a Popish practice : What means the Duke of Monmouth so earnestly to desire his assistence , in the preventing my Lord Shaftsbury and some other hot men , from doing some disorderly action , to all their undoings ? why should they be any-ways apprehensive of danger from their over violence , if they were not embarkt in a particular design with them ? Besides , I am apt to think my Lord Shaftsbury's Character will not allow any one to believe , that he would have either suffer'd or encourag'd discourses of that nature , before any person not aiming at one and the same end , although ( not being altogether so thorough paced in villany ) they might perhaps differ in the bloudy means .

And that the very business of all these Meetings was Treason , will be apparent , if we consider that in the next Meeting after the Duke's complaint ( which certainly none of their most modest proposals occasion'd ) and that too , when he and my Lord Russel with all their interest ( his Lordship would have you believe ) went to allay their heats , yet even then , by my Lord Russel's own confession , there were at that very Meeting , things said by some , with much more heat than judgment ( a modest expression for Treason ) for which things he says , he now stands condemn'd , although he then sufficiently disapprov'd them : So that his condemnation being for Treason , and it being evident by his own confession , that he stands condemn'd for what was said and done then that night ( notwithstanding his and the Duke's pretended disallowance ) with more heat than judgment , it must necessarily follow , that the transaction of that night must be Treason ; and so he must at best be privy to a Treasonable Plot and Design , by the shewing of his own Paper , in several places of which , he seems ( by saying that his not discovering was but Misprision ) openly to confess Misprision of Treason ( which none but who hath a knowledge of Treason can be guilty of ) which he utterly denies , in his Speech to the Sheriff .

Nor doth he less , in my mind , contradict himself , in pretending to disapprove those Treasons , for so far is he from the least endeavour to prevent them , ( which is a necessary consequent of dislike ) that he says in his third page , That he hopes no body will imagine , that so mean a thought could enter into him , as to go about to save his own life by accusing others : nor does he ( in the same place ) altogether forbear reflecting on those , to whom we owe the safety of the King and Government .

And I must be allow'd a little to admire , how his Lordship , who seems ( through that whole discourse ) so much inamour'd with openness and plainness , and who all along expresses himself so freely and feelingly against tricks and evasions , should so far forget himself ( in a time when his circumstances required so much sincerity ) as to call Treasonable discourses , Heats and Tumult ; and Rebellion , by the lessening name of Stirs : For he seems indeed ( not without some difficulty ) to delude himself into an opinion of his own Innocence , by his own favourable constructions . Nor can I ( in the next place ) imagine , how the construing the design of seizing the Guards , to be a design of killing the King , should be urg'd as so strange a Fetch when there have been Precedents for it in other Kings Reigns , and when both ours and the Civil Law agree in it ; for it was the thing chiefly insisted on by that great unwieldy Favourite of Queen Elizabeth's , Robert Earl of Essex , at his Trial in the 44th year of her Reign for High Treason , that he intended no harm against the Queen ; and for satisfaction of his often repeated Protestations of the mildness of his intentions , the Justices then Assistants declar'd it to be their opinions , That if any man attempt to make himself so strong that the King shall not be able to resist him ( as certainly he that seizeth his Guards doth ) he is guilty of Rebellion , and that the Law interpreteth , that in every Rebellion , there is a Conspiracy against the Life and Crown of the King , for a Rebel will never suffer that King to live and Reign , who may afterwards punish or revenge such his Treason or Rebellion : And by the Imperial or Civil Law , any thing done against the safety of a Prince is reputed Treason , and we may justly be allow'd to be apprehensive of the great danger that his Majesty's life would have been in , when his Guard ( which is the Inclosure to which a Prince owes his safety ) had been surpriz'd , from the Examples of Edward II . and Richard II . drawn out of our own English Chronicles , both which being once by Force of Arms gotten by their Subjects into their power , were soon after deposed and made away ; and even here lately in our own age , the very same sort of men , animated by the very same Principles , ( and some of them , indeed , the very Numerical men that are now concerned in this horrid practice ) waged open War against the King , under the specious popular pretences of suppressing of Popery , preventing of Arbitrary Power , and removing of evil Counsellors ; but when they had distrest his Armies , surpriz'd and taken his Garrisons , and at last gotten his Person ( after his being miserably tost from place to place , and still unfortunately falling into the hands of Rebels ) into their custody , never did such unparallel'd God-like Justice , Clemency and Piety meet with such unexampled , brutal , villanous fury : For nothing , alas ! could serve to cement their new model'd Government but his Bloud , and that too shed in a manner so ignominious , and with a cruelty so formal , as if they scorn'd the common Road of Villany , and trodden paths of other Traytours , and stood resolv'd to sin beyond all Precedent : But to return , for the brevity design'd will not allow of large Excursions .

Since it appears by this very Speech ( which the dangerous charity of some men hath strangely misconstrued ) that at my Lord Shaftsbury's , and Mr. Shepherd's , there have been Treasonable designs and discourses carried on ; and it appears by the Oaths of several Witnesses , and by confession of some that were Executed , that those designs were so near being effected , that the place was appointed , and the fatal Instruments provided for the performance of that amazing Act : And since we cannot possibly imagine but that those men of meaner quality , that were actually to have kill'd the King , were influenced by the men of Interest and Honour that met at these Consults , to contrive the seizing the Guards , and raising of Stirs : ( For it would be little less than a Miracle , if those designs , so allied in their nature , should be carried on at one and the same time , and the parties unknown to each other ) it is more than probable therefore that my Lord Ruffel , who was one at the Consults , knew of this black design , which was but the natural issue of those Consults ; and yet he neither then revealed it , nor seem'd afterwards to repent it : So that the Treason being so plain , and this Lord's share in it so great , where is his mighty boasted Innocence ? where the pretended hardship of his Sentence ? But lest I should be taxt for begging a principle ( in laying this down as a Phanatick Plot without more plainly proving it so ) I must be allowed a word or two ( now I have done with the Treason it self ) as to the Persons concerned in this Treasonable Undertaking ; who may be all included ( although I cannot indeed confine them to any particular Species ) under the Genus of Dissenters , for such are most of those wretches that were to have been more immediately concerned in the execution of the Villany , and ( not to mention Mr. Trenchard and Mr. Hambden which unfortunate Gentlemen are true Heirs to their Fathers Principles , and like good Husbands have improv'd them ; nor Wildman who was indebted to Rebellion for his Estate , and so in mere gratitude spent his life in her service ) I think those Noblemen , whose Ambition , Interest , Prejudice or Disaffection has withdrawn them from their several Duties , and plunged them into this Dishonourable action , may justly come under the same name , since they have all been assisting in the same Design , and have all so notoriously animated that sort of people ; for though their Principles are clouded over with a shew of Conformity , yet their nicest most undiscernible subtilties , by which they work upon the humours of the giddy People , are known by their effects , and though we cannot see the well-wrought Wire by which the Puppet moves , we know there is one : And 't is not their spending now and then a drowzy hour in a Church ( whose Enemies they encourage and side with ) can justly procure them either the name or character of a Protestant of the Church of England as by Law Establish'd : A name which none but he that has a true value for the Church , and a detestation ( as far as is consistent with Christian Charity ) for all its opposers can any ways merit .

But I too much , and too justly fear , that this growing mischief hath spread it self much wider than our weak Eyes ( by the light the accusers have given us ) can yet discern ; but if we may be allowed to make an Inference from their Interest and Actions , the whole Party will plainly appear to be involv'd in it , First for their Actions ,

How in the name of wonder are they become such alter'd men ? How are all their kind fears for their King's Safety vanisht ? What mighty numbness has seiz'd their late vigorous Loyalty ? Why is not the murther of the King at the Play-house as much the object of their detestation , as Sir George Wakeman's poisoning him at Whitehall ? and why are not the Rye-house Assassinates pursu'd by them with an equal Fury , and as warm a rage as the four Irish Ruffians ? If their just and dreadfull apprehensions of Popery , and their commendable violence against that Party , sprang onely from a true zeal to the King and Government , ( both which were then threatned ) the same Cause would necessarily produce the same effect , and the same danger , though from another Party , would have been equally dreadfull ; and the parties would have been pursued by them with the same heat , and the same becoming violence . But alas ! too plain is the Hypocrisie , 't was all design and plain pretence , as will more evidently appear by a short view of the vast difference betwixt their Actions and the Church Protestants .

The one , like true and constant Enemies to Treason and Disloyalty , favour it no more , and pursue it as much , in any of their own Tribe , ( if one that merits that title can be guilty of it ) as in Papists or Fanaticks , and no disguise can hide its deformity from their eyes : and Rebellion , in any Garb ( though Embroidered over with Religion , Liberty and Property ) is equally their aversion . And they , as they believ'd the Popish Plot , as far as 't was rational , so they pursu'd it as far as 't was just .

But the others by their pretended fears , rather seconded and furthered those designs , and the whole Party onely us'd that horrid Plot , as an Instrument to work their own ends with ; by aspersing his Majesty as one of their favourers , and traducing the Church for treading too near their steps , and not a man that was either signally Loyal , or eminently Serviceable to his Prince , but was the particular mark of their ungoverned fury , and underwent the censure of an Evil Counsellor ; and to lay a foundation strong enough to support the weightiest villany they could contrive to act , and that we might not know the Builders , though we should see the bloudy Fabrick , they insinuated into the People , that the late War , though made under the pretence of suppressing Popery , and carried on by the swarms of Sectaries ( the few Papists that were fighting then on the King's side , and being particularly instrumental in the present King's preservation at Worcester ) yet the Jesuits , they would fain perswade you , had the greatest hand in that King's death ; and what can be the meaning of so senseless and impudent a Story , but that the Jesuits ( who have wickedness enough of their own to sink them ) were the designed Fathers for their conceived Issue of Rebellion whenever it should be brought forth ? and monstrous it must needs have been , for the Party has been these two years and upwards teeming with it ; and when 't was now just ripe for birth , and each well-wisher lent his Midwise hand , kind Providence strangled it in the very Womb : And yet this plain Fact would they deny , but all in vain , for we know the very progress of their mischiefs , from Riot and Contempt , to Treason and Rebellion . Who was it Hollow'd the Duke of Monmouth round the Kingdom , and in whatever quarter of the Nation he came , went crowding out to meet him , and throwing up their Caps , cry'd , Long live the Protestant Prince , in contempt of the King's Majesty , and all orderly Government ? The Dissenters ; to whose popular breaths that noble Lord owes the ruine of his once spreading Fame , and growing Vertue : Who fixt that formidable Character of Popishly affected on every man that durst act Loyally , or speak Respectfully of his Prince ? The Dissenters : Who are those that struggled so much in all Elections , whose large and busie swarms buz'd such fears and suspicions into every open Ear , and to whom do we owe those heats in Parliament , and those frequent Dissolutions ? To the Dissenters : And when Elections were making for the Oxford Parliament , Who drew up Scandalous and Seditious Addresses to their Members , stufft with unnecessary Thanks , and unmannerly Instructions ; which were read in the names of whole Counties , when not one part in four were consenting to it ? The Dissenters : Who attended the Elected Members to the said Oxford Parliament , in an unusual ( I think I may safely say tumultuous manner ) with Blunderbusses , Swords and Pistols , but the Dissenters ? and not to mention by whom the warm Votes there were chiefly influenc'd , Who are those that have not onely pursu'd his Majesty's Royal Brother , with a violence that might have prov'd fatal to these Three Kingdoms , but have lessned and asperst his Majesty , and openly abus'd his Royal and Matchless Patience , with Riotous noisie celebrations of his Predecessor , Queen Elizabeth's Birth-days , whilst his own ( to which we owe so great and so inestimable a Blessing ) pass'd by in silence , almost unregarded : And who made Bonfires for the delivery of Traytours by Ignoramus Juries ; who rail'd against his Guard as Instruments of Arbitrary Power ; and talkt of his Person every where seditiously and irreverently , and wrote of him Libellously ? The Dissenters . And lastly , What end did all these Tumultuous Scandals aim at , or what other could be the tendency of those contempts , but as Introductory Impieties to that greater blackest Villany , that Murther of deepest Dye ? They were all too plainly preparatory mischiefs to the King's Death , and if we should ask to whose Heads we owe that Damnable Contrivance , and whose Hands were destin'd for that startling Act , it must be answer'd , The Dissenters . 't is they who drank the Father's Bloud , and whose Insatiate Drought hath long thirsted for the Son's .

Then as for the interest of that Party , if we ask with Cassius , Cui bono ? who alone would have been advantaged by the success of this Hellish enterprise ? it must be answered likewise ; The Dissenters : since the Roman Catholicks ( those other Royal Bloud-suckers ) would have lost all their immaginary hopes , and all their pleasing prospect of Innovation in a Popish Successor , by the Duke's Death ( for the comprehensive barbarity aim'd at no less than the destruction o● that Royal pair and I think I need say nothing in excuse of those of the Church of England as now by Law Establisht , for the Government designed against , being most for their benefit and the great Defender of their Faith , whose Life was so attempted , being the chief and onely bulwark against the furious Assault of those their two Gygantick enemies , Popery and Fanaticism ; they must needs have felt each wound of his , and every fatal stab would have reacht their Loyal Hearts , and the Crown and Mitre would have found the same Grave . It must be therefore the Dissenters who might reasonably expect on the ruins of this Government which must necessarily have sunk when its Royal Supporter had been remov'd to have taken the advantage of that confusion , and to have erected a new Frame after their old Model , which being wholly void of Use , Decency , Form or Regularity , might better have suited with their Church . And so the oppressive Government and Hypocritical Religion of these true Protestants , might have wrought a thorough Reformation in Church and State , and Justice and Piety would have gone hand in hand just as they did in Forty Nine .