A letter to a member of the convention of states in Scotland by a lover of his religion and country. Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707. 1689 Approx. 15 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 5 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2004-05 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A48200 Wing L1684 ESTC R30992 11759861 ocm 11759861 48651 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A48200) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 48651) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 1486:30) A letter to a member of the convention of states in Scotland by a lover of his religion and country. Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707. 8 p. s.n.], [Edinburg : MDCLXXXIX [1689] Place of publication suggested by Wing. Reproduction of original in the Harvard University Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. 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Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng James -- II, -- King of England, 1633-1701. Great Britain -- History -- Revolution of 1688. Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1660-1714 2003-11 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2003-12 SPi Global Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2004-02 John Latta Sampled and proofread 2004-02 John Latta Text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-04 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion A Letter To A MEMBER Of The CONVENTION of STATES In SCOTLAND By a Lover of His Religion and Country . Printed in the Year MDCLXXXIX . A LETTER to a Member of the Convention of States In SCOTLAND SIR , I Had fully Determined not to encrease the number of these Scriblers , who now a dayes fill the Press , with every little Product of their Empty Brain : And lov'd better to please my self with Reading other Mens Opinions ; than hazard my own to the Censure of the World. But when I consider the great Heats and Animosities , among all sorts of People , and the Vast Pains that some Violent Men are at , to throw us back into a Thousand worse miseries , than these from which GOD has most Graciously delivered us : The Duty I owe to my Religion , to my Country , and the particular Freindship I bear to you , will not suffer me any more to be silent . You are now called together , Sir , by his Highness the Prince of Orange , to Consult and Deliberate , what Methods will be most proper to secure Our Religion , Laws and Liberties ; in order to which , the first thing that will fall under your consideration , is the setling the Soveraign power . I take for granted , that you are fully convinced , that K : Iames the 7th : by his many Violations of the Fundamental Laws , by his endeavouring to establish a Despotick and Arbitrary povver , and introduce Popery , ( tho he himself had confirmed all the Laws that were enacted in Favours of the Protestant Religion , ) has thereby subverted the Constitution , and that our Miseries might have no Redress from him , has left us in a time when we needed his Protection most . The Eyes of all Europe are upon you , and it is in your Power to make your Selves and your Posterity either Happy or Miserable ; by making a choise either to call back the same King Iames , and hazard once more all that Men account Dear , To his Mercy , or to settle the Government on some other , under whom you may live Quiet and Peaceable Lives , without the perpetual Terror of being swallowed up by Popery and Arbitrary Government , which all good men hoped were now quite banished , and yet behold a new Off spring is sprung up , which plead Eagerly for both , tho' under the mistaken Names of Duty and Allegiance ; It 's strange that any Man can so far Degenerate , as to prefer Slavery to Liberty , and that they should be so much in Love with Chains , that when they were Fairly shaken off , they should run Furiously to be Fettered again ; as if the Ottoman and French Government were so charming in our Countrey that we cannot not live without it , tho' we have so lately groaned under the Dismal Burden of it : And it might have been supposed that even these who had been Instrumental in Enslaving their Fellow-Brethren , and were grown Fat with sucking in the Nations Blood ; would have taken another Method to Reconcile themselves , than by perswading us to purchase their Safety , at so vast an expence as the Ruine of more than three parts of the Nation will necessarly Amount to . Do but a little Reflect Sir , on the Motives which these Men ( blinded by self Interest ) make use of , to Delude the Nation into a security , that wanted very little of proving Fatal to it , and compare them with the Strong Reasons , we have to disswade us from being so imposed on , and they will be found so Weak , and Impertinent , that you must Judge it next to Impossibility , to suffer our Selves to be Twice Deceived . But if the Experience of our former Miseries , so lately hanging over our Heads , ( the very thoughts of renewing which make all good Men to tremble ) has not made us Wiser , and be not of Efficacy enough , to deterr us from venturing another Shipwrack , and exposing all again to the Discretion of a Roman Catholick ; It 's more than probable that GOD has abandoned us , and given us up to believe strong Delusions . First , Sir , they will endeavour to perswade You , that Kings are Eximed from Punishments here on Earth , and nothing they do can be Quarrelled by their Subjects ; which indeed might with some Reason be urged among the Turks , who reserve nothing from the Power of their Sultans and where its Death to Dispute his Commands , tho' never so Arbitrary and Tyrranical : But with what Impudence can such Stuff be imposed on us , who never admit our Kings to the Government , till they swear to Rule us according to Lavv and no otherways ? The Lavvs are the only Security we have for our Lives and Properties , which if our Soveraign subvert , Subjects cannot be blamed , for making use of the Ordinary Means to preserve them , and since that cannot be done without withdrawing Obedience from such a Magistrate as goes about to destroy them , such an Act cannot properly be said to punish him , ( because we take nothing from him to which he has a just Claim ) but do only shun the occasion of making our selves Miserable . The Speculative Doctrine of passive Obedience , has done too much Mischief among us , and what has befallen the King may be justly imputed to it , for the believing that without Opposition he might do what he pleased , encouraged him to take such Measures as have drawn all these Misfortunes on him . Secondly , Others are so Fond as to believe , that we may be secure in calling the King back , providing they so Limit him , that it will not be in his Power to hurt us : These Men do not Consider , how small a Complement this is to a Man of the Kings Temper , from an Absolute Prince as he was pleased to Fancy himself , to Content himself with the bare Title of a King , and how insupportable the Change must be , if from being Master of all , he must force himself to comply with a Thousand Masters and see his Throne become his prison . But how Airy is it to fancy , that any Restrictions of our Contrivance can bind the King. For 1 st . It 's most certain they can never be Voluntary , and what is constrained and done by Force , is by Lavv declared to be Void and Null ; to whose Assistance the popes Dispensing Power being joined , would quickly blow off these Samson-Cords , and the Royal Power would again revive with all its Vigour and Lustre . Secondly , The King is of a Religion that has in a Famous Council decreed , that no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks , much less with Subjects whom he looks upon as so many Rebels , and will not miss to treat them as such , when ever they give him the Opportunity of doing it , for his greatest Admirers do not runn to that height of Idolatry , to imagine him so much Angel , as not to take all Methods to Revenge so great an Affront , and secure himself at our Cost from such a Treatment for the future , the Apprehension of which Resentment , will strike such Terror in Mens minds , that nothing will be capable to divert them , from offering up all for an Atonement , and popery and Slavery will be thought a good Bargain , if they can but save their Lives : Then We may Lament Our Miseries , But it will not be in our power to help them , for a Prince of Orange is not alwayes ready to rescue us , with such vast expence and so great hazard to his person , and if our madness hurry us so far , we deserve rather his pity than his resentment . Thirdly , What Argument has the King given since he left us , to perswade us he will be more faithful in observing his Words and Oaths , than hitherto he has been ? Does he not in a Letter lately Printed here , expresly say he has ruled so , as to give no occasion of Complaint to any of his Subjects ? Is not the same Letter signed by one , who Sacrificed both Conscience and Honour to Interest , whose Pernicious and Head-strong Councils has Posted him to his ruine , tho all that has been done cannot make Him sensible of it ? Sure the reducing Hereticks to the See of Rome , is not less Meretorious than before , nor King Iames the 7 th . by breathing the French Air a little become less Bigot , It were a Dream to fancy it ; For so long as the Vatican Thunders Excommunications , against all such as do not use their outmost Endeavour to Extirpate Heresie ; a Roman Catholick must have no Religion at all if they be not Terrible to him . The Third Argument they make use of to perswade such as are , and shall be chosen Members of the Convention , that it 's their Interest to call back the King , Is that the Peace and Happiness of the Nation , cannot be otherways secured , nor Factions or Divisions extinguished ; But what Factions Sir do you Observe , but such as they themselves do Foment on Purpose , to disturb our Harmony ? All which would Immediately die , If the Government were once setled on these who deserved it best , for then if these fopps continued still fond of Popery and Tyranny , they would be Chastised , as Disturbers of the Publick Peace . The Argument may very justly be retorted , for if the King return wee will burst out into a Flame , and England which has already declared , will quickly be on our Top , an Enemy too Potent and too Numerous for us , tho we were all united , besides the Danger to which such a Procedure will expose us , we cut off all Hopes of an Union with that Nation , and thereby Deprive our selves of an unspeakable Advantage , which would redound to all sorts of People , and would be the only means to support an Impoverish'd and sinking Nation . Neither is this the only Inconveniencie , tho it be a very Great one , for if we state our selves in Opposition to England , by Restoring the King whom they Rejected , it is not to be doubted but he will use his outmost endeavour to Recover that Kingdom the loss of which is so considerable . Now seeing it were vain to suppose that the Scots alone were able to second his Desires , he must needs have recourse to the French and Irish , whose Religion will procure a more entire Confidence , than his Majesty can repose in any Others . These therefore must be received into our Bosome , and because Scotland is the most proper place , for Invading England , it must be the Scene of all the Blood and Confusion that this Melancholly thought gives us a Prospect of . The happy Success the PRINCE his Enterprise has met with , has made a considerable Alteration in the Affairs of Europe , for that great Enemy of the protestants and even of Christianity it self , who had propos'd nothing less to himself than an Vniversal Monarchy , whom the Strictest Leagues and Contracts cannot bind , but without regard to GOD or Man , threatens all his Neighbours with utter Desolation ; By the Scen's being changed among us , is so far humbled that from a Proud and Insulting Enemy , he is become a Supplicant for Peace , well fore-seeing that if Britain Join with those other Princes , whom his Insolence , Cruelty , and Avarice , has so justly Armed against him , his Ruine is Inevitable ; So that if we have not Soul enough to enjoy this great Blessing , and can easily part with the Glory of being once more the Arbiters of Europe , let us at least have so much Christian Love and Charity , for the Neighbouring Nations of our own Perswasion , as not to expose them to a necessary Participation of these Plagues , which our Common Enemies are prepraing for us , and which will certainly Terminat in all our Destructions . Lastly , Sir , I beseech you to consider what Persons they are who would Instill this Poyson in You , and you will find them of three kinds , First those who Postponeing the Common Good of the Nation , are wholly Acted by Self Interest , considering that in a Government where Iustice and Mercy equally Flourish , vertue and merit , not Villany will be rewarded . 2 dly . They who are Ignorant of the Nature of Government , and were never at the pains to Inform themselves what measures the Lavv of Nature , and Nations , have set to Mens Obedience , but are Angry at every thing that thwarts their wild Notions , and will admit of nothing tho' never so reasonable and convincing , if their dull Capacities cannot reach it . The 3 d. Sort are such as have been Instrumental in Enslaving their Countrey , and are afraid if they be called to an Account , they may be brought to suffer Condign Punishment , if such cannot Succeed in their Design they at least hope to be overlookt in a General Confusion , so they leave nothing unessayed that may tend to their own safety ; and if Heaven fail them , they Summond Hell to their Aid , not that Love to their Prince but meer Ambition and Interest , drives these Criminals to such Attempts , neither are they much to blame , if they are at such pains to sow Divisions among us : But no Person of your Witt and Iudgement nor any Good Man that is truly Protestant and Minds the good of his Country , Will suffer himself to be so grosly Imposed on by such Fire-brands , who would Build their Future Imaginary Greatness , on the Ruine of Our Religion , Laws and Countrey . Sir , Your Humble Servant .