Let Hereticks of all degrees be exterminated! And the truely Apoftolical Romish Religion at length be restored by Blood, by Ruin, and by Devastation !

This gives us fo painful an Image of the brutal Cruelty of the Papifts, that a warm Imagination cannot well be trufted with proper Animadverfions upon it: The naked expreflions carry fo much Horror along with them, that they want no Colours to enliven them.

End of the Introduction to the Second Edition of the Debates on the Exclufion-Bill, published in the Year 1716.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE SENTIMENTS OF THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF ORANGE, CONCERNING THE REPEAL OF THE TEST-ACT IN ENGLAND, BY WHICH PAPISTS WERE EXCLUDED FROM HOLD. ING CIVIL AND MILITARY EMPLOYMENTS; TO WHICH REPEAL THEY WERE SOLLICITED BY KING JAMES II. IN THE YEAR 1687, TO GIVE THEIR CONSENT.

Extracted from Bishop Burnet's History of bis Own Times, Vol. II. from Page 432 to 453.

THE King was every day faying, "that he was King, and he would be obeyed, and would make those who oppofed him feel that he was their King:" And he had both Priests and flatterers about him, that were still pushing him forward. All men grew melancholy with this fad profpe&t. The hope of the true Proteftants was in the King's two daughters; chiefly on the eldeft, who was out of his reach, and was known to be well-inftructed, and very zealous in matters of religion. The Princess Anne was ftill very steadfast and regular in her devotions, and was very exemplary in the course of her life. But, as care had been taken to put very ordinary Divines about her for her Chaplains, fo fhe had never pursued any study in those points with much application. And, all her Court being put about her by the King and Queen, fhe was befet with fpies. It was therefore much apprehended, that he would be ftrongly affaulted, when all other defigns would fo far fucceed as to make that seasonable. In the mean while

wrote to the

Orange about religion.

The King she was let-alone by the King, who was indeed a very Princess of kind and indulgent Father to her. Now he refolved to make his first attack on the Princess of Orange. D'AIbeville went-over to England in the summer, and did not come-back before the twenty-fourth of December, Christmas Eve. And then he gave the Princefs a letter from the King, bearing date the fourth of November. He was to carry this letter: And his difpatches being put-off longer than was intended, that made this letter come fo late to her.

The King took the rife of his letter from a queftion she had put to D'Albeville, defiring to know what were the grounds upon which the King himself had changed his religion. The King told her, he was bred-up in the doctrine of the Church of England by Dr. Stewart, whom the King, his father, had put about him; in which he was fo zealous, that, when he perceived the Queen, his Mother, had a defign upon the Duke of Gloucefter, tho' he preferved ftill the respect that he owed her, yet he took care to prevent it. All the while that he was beyond fea, no Catholick, but one Nun, haď ever spoken one word to persuade him to change his religion: And he continued for the most part of that time firm to the doctrine of the Church of England. He did not then mind those matters much: And, as all young people are apt to do, he thought it a point of honour not to change his religion. The first thing that raised scruples in him was, the great devotion that he had obferved among Catholicks: He saw they had great helps for it: They had their Churches better adorned, and did greater acts of charity, than he had ever seen among Proteftants. He also obferved, that many of them changed their course of life, and became good Chriftians, even tho' they continued to live ftill

in

in the world. This made him firft begin to examine both religions. He could fee nothing in the three reigns in which religion was changed in England, to incline him to believe that they who did it were fent of God. He read the history of that time, as it was writ in the Chronicle. He read both Dr. Heylin, and Hooker's preface to his Ecclefiaftical Policy, which confirmed him in the same opinion. He faw clearly, that Christ had left an infallibility in his Church, against which" the gates of Hell cannot prevail:" And it appeared that this was lodged with St. Peter from our Saviour's words to him, St. Mat. xvi. ver. 18. Upon this the certainty of the Scriptures, and even of Chriftianity itself, was founded. The Apoftles acknowledged this to be in St. Peter, A&t xv. when they said," It feemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." It was the Authority of the Church that declared the Scriptures to be Canonical: And certainly they who declared them could only interpret them: And whereever this infallibility was, there must be a clear fucceffion. The point of the infallibility being once fettled, all other controverfies must needs fall. Now the Roman Church was the only Church that either has infallibility, or that pretended to it. And they who threw-off this authority did but open a door to Atheism and Infidelity, and took people off from true devotion, and fet even Chriftianity itself loofe to all that would question it, and to Socinians and Latitudinarians who doubted of every thing. He had difcourfed of thefe things with fome Divines of the Church of England; but had received no fatisfaction from them. The Chrif-: tian Religion gained its credit by the miracles which the Apostles wrought, and by the holy lives and fufferings of the Martyrs, whose blood was the feed of the Church.

2 K 2

Church. Whereas Luther and Calvin, and those who had set-up the Church of England, had their heads fuller of temporal matters than of spiritual, and had let the world loose to great disorder. Submission was neceffary to the peace of the Church. And, when every man will expound the Scriptures, this makes way to all fects, who pretended to build upon it. It was alfo plain, that the Church of England did not pretend to infallibility: Yet fhe acted as if the did: For ever fince the Reformation fhe had perfecuted those who differed from ber, Diffenters as well as Papists, more than was generally known. And he could not fee why Diffenters might not feparate from the Church of England, as well as he had done from the Church of Rome. Nor could the Church of England feparate herself from the Catholick Church, any more than a County of England could feparate it felf from the rest of the Kingdom. This, he faid, was all that his leifure allowed him to write. But he thought that these things, together with the King his brother's papers, and the Dutchefs's papers, might ferve, if not to juftify the Catholick Religion to an unbiaffed judgement, yet at leaft to create a favourable opinion of it.

I read this letter in the original: For the Prince fent it to me together with the Princefs's answer, but with a charge not to take a copy of either, but to read them over as often as I pleased; which I did till I had fixed. both pretty well in my memory. And, as foon as I had fent them back, I fat-down immediately to writeout all that I remembered; which the Princess owned to me afterwards, when the read the abstracts I made, were punctual almost to a tittle. It was easy for me to believe that this letter was all of the King's enditing; for I had heard it almost in the very same words from his

own