Now as it happen'd at last that these Solunarian Gentlemen found it necessary to do the same thing themselves, viz. To lay aside their Loyalty, Depose, Fight against, shoot Bullets at, and throw Bombs at their King till they frighted him away, and sent him abroad to beg his Bread. The Crolians began to take Heart and tell them, now they ought to be Friends with them, and tell them no more of Rebellion and Disloyalty; nay, they carry'd it so far as to challenge them to bring their Loyalty to the Test, and compare Crolian Loyalty and Solunarian Loyalty together, and see who had rais'd more Wars, taken up Arms oftenest, or appear'd in most Rebellions against their Kings; nay, who had kill'd most Kings, the Crolians or the Solunarians, for there having been then newly fought a great Battle between the Solunarian Church-Men under their new Prince, and the Armies of Foreign Succours under their old King, in which their old King was beaten and forc'd to flie a second time, the Crolians told them that every Bullet they shot at the Battle was as much a murthering their King, as cutting off the Head with a Hatchet was a killing his Father.
These Arguments in our World would have been unanswerable, but when they came to be brought to the Test of Lunar Reasoning, alas they signify'd nothing; they distinguisht and distinguisht till they brought the Prestarian War to be meer Rebellion, King-killing, Bloody and Unnatural; and the Solunarian fighting against their King, and turning him adrift to seek his Fortune, no prejudice at all to their Loyalty, no, nor to the famous Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Absolute Subjection.
When I saw this, I really bewail'd the unhappiness of some of our Gentlemen in England, who standing exceedingly in need of such a wonderful Dexterity of Argument to defend their share in our late Revolution, and to reconcile it to their anticedent and subsequent Conduct, should not be furnish'd from this more accurate World with the suitable Powers, in order the better to defend them against the Banter and just Raillery of their ill-natur'd Enemies the Whigs.
By this they might have attained suitable reserves of Argument to distinguish themselves out of their Loyalty, and into their Loyalty, as occasion presented to dismiss this Prince, and entertain that, as they found it to their purpose; but above all, they might have learnt a way how to justify Swearing to one King and Praying for another, Eating one Prince's Bread and doing another Prince's Work, Serving one King they don't Love and Loving another they don't Serve; they might easily reconcile the Schisms of the Church, and prove they are still Loyal Subjects to King James, while they are only forc'd Bonds-Men to the Act of Settlement, for the sake of that comfortable Importance, call'd Food and Rainment; and thus their Reputation might have been sav'd, which is most unhappily tarnish'd and blur'd, with the malicious Attacks of the Whigs on one Hand, and the Non-Jurants on the other.
These Tax them as above with Rebellion by their own Principles, and contradicting the Doctrin of Passive Submission and Non-Resistance, by taking up Arms against their Prince, calling in a Foreign Power, and deposing him: They charge them with killing the Lord's Anointed, by Shooting at him at the Boyn, where if he was not kill'd it was his own fault, at least 'tis plain 'twas none of theirs.
On the other Hand, the Non Jurant Clergy charge them with Schism, declare the whole Church of England Schismaticks, and breakers off from the general Union of the Church, in renouncing their Allegiance, and Swearing to another Power, their former Prince being yet alive.
'Tis confest all the Answers they have been able to make to these things, are very weak and mean, unworthy Men of their Rank and Capacities, and 'tis pity they should not be assisted by some kind Communication of these Lunar Arguments and Distinctions, without which, and till they can obtain which, a Conforming Jacobite must be the absurdest Contradiction in Nature; a thing that admits of no manner of Defence, no, not by the People themselves, and which they would willingly abandon, but that they can find no side to join with them.
The Dissenting Jacobites have some Plea for themselves, for let their Opinion be never so repugnant to their own Interest, or general Vogue, they are faithful to some thing, and they wont joyn with these People, because they have Perjur'd their Faith, and yet pretend to adhere to it at the same time. The Conforming Whigs won't receive them, because they pretend to rail at the Government they have Sworn to, and espouse the Interest they have Sworn against; so that these poor Creatures have but one way left them, which is to go along with me, next time I Travel to the Moon, and that will most certainly do their Business, for when they come down again, they will be quite another sort of Men, the Distinctions, the Power of Argument, the way of Reasoning, they will be then furnish'd with will quite change the Scene of the World with them, they'll certainly be able to prove they are the only People, both in Justice, in Politicks and in Prudence; that the extremities of every side are in the Wrong, they'll prove their Loyalty preserv'd, untainted, thro' all the Swearings, Fightings, Shootings and the like, and no Body will be able to come to the Test with them; so that upon the whole, they are all distracted if they don't go up to the Moon for Illumination, and that they may easily do in the next Consolidator.
But as this is a very long Digression, and for which I am to beg my Reader's Pardon, being an Error I slipt into from my abundant respect to these Gentlemen, and for their particular Instruction, I shall endeavour to make my Reader amends, by keeping more close to my Subject.
To return therefore to the Historical part of the Solunarian Church-Men, in the World in the Moon.