“Being informed, that there have sprung up, and still are springing up, daily in our realm, a great number of preachers, whose sole business is to stir up the people to rebellion, and to dissuade them from the practice of the Roman catholic and apostolic religion; we do command that all preachers, who shall call assemblies, preach in them, or discharge any other function, be put to death; the punishment appointed by the declaration in July 1686, for the minister of the pretended reformed religion, which we would not, for the future, have any one esteem a mere threatening, which will not be put in execution. We do likewise forbid our subjects to receive the said ministers or preachers, to conceal, aid, or assist them, or have, directly or indirectly, any intercourse or correspondence with them. We farther enjoin all those, who shall know any of the said preachers, to inform against them to the officers of the respective places; the whole under pain, in case of trespass, of being condemned to the gallies for life, if men; and, if women, of being shorn, and shut up the remainder of their days in such places as our judges shall think expedient; and whether they be men or women, under pain of confiscation.”
After perusing this, read, read also, I beseech you, the shocking accounts of the horrid butcheries, and cruel murders committed on the bodies of many of our fellow-subjects in America, by the hands of savage Indians, instigated thereto by more than savage popish priests.[¹] And if this be the beginning, what may we suppose the end will be, should a French power, or popish Pretender, be permitted to subdue either us or them? Speak, Smithfield, speak, and by thy dumb, but very persuasive oratory, declare to all that pass by and over thee, how many English protestant martyrs thou hast seen burnt to death in the reign of a cruel popish Queen, to whom the present Pretender to the British throne at least claims a kind of a distant kindred? Speak Ireland, speak, and tell if thou canst, how many thousands, and tens of thousands of innocent unprovoking protestants were massacred in cold blood by the hands of cruel papists within thy borders, about a century ago? Nay, speak Paris, speak, (for though popish, on this occasion we will admit thy evidence) and say, how many thousands of protestants were once slaughtered, on purpose, as it were, to serve up as a bloody dessert, to grace the solemnity of a marriage-feast. But why go we back to such distant æras? Speak, Languedoc, speak, and tell if thou canst, how many protestant ministers have been lately executed; how many more of their hearers have been dragooned and sent to the gallies; and how many hundreds are now, in consequence of the above-mentioned edict, lying in prisons, and fast bound in misery and iron, for no other crime than that unpardonable one in the Romish church, “hearing and preaching the pure gospel of the meek and lowly Jesus.”
[¹] See a pamphlet, intitled, A brief View of the Conduct of Pensylvania, for the Year 1755.
And think you, my dear countrymen, that Rome, glutted as it were with protestant blood, will now rest satisfied, and say, “I have enough!” No, on the contrary, having, through the good hand of God upon us, been kept so long fasting, we may reasonably suppose, that the popish priests are only grown more voracious, and (like so many hungry and ravenous wolves pursuing the harmless and innocent flocks of sheep) will with double eagerness pursue after, seize upon, and devour their wished-for protestant prey; and, attended with their bloody red-coats, those gallic instruments of reformation, who know they must either fight or die, will necessarily breathe out nothing but threatening and slaughter, and carry along with them desolation and destruction in all its various shapes and tortures, go where they will.
But I humbly hope, vile as we are, a gracious, long-suffering and merciful God, will not suffer us to fall into their blood-thirsty and cruel hands. He hath formerly most remarkably interposed in England’s favour; and why should we in the least doubt, but that he will again reveal his omnipotent arm, and make our extremity to be his opportunity, to help and defend us, against such threatening and unjust invaders? Invincible as the Spanish armada was supposed to be, and all-powerful as the Pope, under whose broad seal they acted, might boast he was in heaven or hell, it is plain he had no power over the water. “For thou didst blow, O Lord, with thy wind, and the enemy was scattered.” And is not this God the same now as he was yesterday? And will he not continue the same for ever? Of whom then should the inhabitants of Great Britain be afraid? Blessed be God, if we look to second causes, we have a glorious fleet, brave admirals, a well-disciplined army, experienced officers, and, if occasion should require, thousands and thousands of hearty voluntiers, with a Royal Hero, who hath once been made happily instrumental to save his country from impending ruin, if not Majesty itself prepared to head them. And if by fasting from as well as for sin, and by flying, through a living faith, to the merits of a dying, risen, ascended and interceding Mediator, we can but make God our friend, we need not fear what France and Rome, and Hell, with all their united force, can do unto, or plot against us. The way of duty is the way of safety, And if we are but found in the due use of proper means, we may confidently leave the issue and event of things with God. Be that event what it will (and I trust it will be a prosperous one) we have a divine authority to say unto the righteous, it shall be well with them. God’s own people, amidst all the wars and rumours of wars, may rest secure; for they not only dwell under the shadow of the most High, but have his own royal word for it, that all things shall work together for their good. And not only so, but they may be fully assured, that all the malicious efforts and designs of men and devils shall be so far from obstructing, that, on the contrary, through the sure, though secret hand of an ever-watchful, over-ruling, and omnipotent providence, they shall at present, (howbeit they think not so) be made not only to subserve the present further enlargement of his interests, who, in spight of all the strivings of the potsherds of the earth, will hold the balance of UNIVERSAL MONARCHY in his own hands; but at last shall terminate in the full and compleat establishment and perfection of that blessed kingdom, whose law is truth, whose king is love, and whose duration is eternity. Fiat! Fiat! Amen and Amen.
A
PREFACE
TO THE
SERIOUS READER,
On Behalf of
The Rev. Samuel Clarke’s Edition of the Bible.
A
PREFACE, &c.
WHEN Philip the Evangelist was commanded by the Holy Spirit, to go near and join himself to the chariot of a man of Ethiopia, and found him reading Esaias the prophet, we are told, Acts viii. verse 30. that he introduced himself with this question, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” The Ethiopian, though an eunuch, a person of great authority under Queen Candace, instead of being offended at this seeming impertinence, mildly answered, verse 31. “How can I, except some man guide me?” And as a proof of his willingness to be guided, he desires Philip that he would come up and sit with him. Upon which, as we are further informed, verse 35. “Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture,” which the eunuch was then providentially reading, “and preached unto him Jesus.” An instructive passage this! Not merely as it shews us, that the greatest personages ought not to think themselves above perusing God’s lively oracles; but also as it points out to us that teachable and child-like disposition, with which all ought to come to the reading of them; as well as the care which the Holy Spirit of God takes, to furnish such as have a mind to do his will, with proper instructors, that they may know it. “The meek will he guide in his way.”