position of parliament; till at last the scene began to open more, and the dissenters to see that they were made the tools of promoting what they never intended, the advancement of the prerogative above law, and the toleration of popery against it.

To conclude. By such means as I have described, the constitution of parties after the restoration preserved unhappily too near a resemblance to the constitution of parties before the war. The prerogative was not indeed carried so high in some instances, as James and Charles the first had attempted to carry it. Nay, some supports of it were bought off, and taken away; and others more dangerous, as we have observed, were prevented by the virtue of the men at that time in power. But still the government was established on principles, sufficient to invite a king to exercise arbitrary power, and support him by their consequences in the exercise of it afterward; so that in this respect, the seeds of future divisions were sowed abundantly. The dissenters had, indeed, lost much of their credit, and all their power. But still they had numbers, and property, and industry, and compassion for them; so that here was another crop of dissensions planted to nurse up, and to strengthen the other. They did not inflame the contest, which followed, into a civil war, as they had helped to do formerly; but I think that without them, and the disunion and hatred among protestants, consequent upon them, the zeal against popery could not have run into a kind of factions

fury,

fury, as we shall be obliged to confess it did. I think that fears of falling once more under pres-' byterian, or republican power, could not have been wrought up in the manner they were, towards the end of this reign, so as to drown even the fear of popery itself; so as to form a party, in favour of a popish successor; so as to transport both clergy and laity into an avowal of principles, which must have reduced us to be at this time slaves, not freemen, papists, not protestants; if the very men, who had avowed such principles, had not saved themselves and us, in direct opposition to them.-But I am running into the subject of another letter, when this is grown too prolix already.

I am, SIR,

Yours, &c.

LETTER III.

SIR, THE HE sum of what hath been said, concerning the settlement of church and state, and the division of parties at the restoration, amounts to this; that as the attempts of king James and king Charles the first, against the spirit of the constitution, threw the nation into a civil war, and all the miserable consequences, both necessary and contingent, of that calamity; so the fury, enthusiasm, and madness of those factions which arose during that unnatural ferment, frightened the nation back, if not into all, yet more generally perhaps than be fore, into most of the notions that were established

to

to justify the excesses of former reigns. Hereditary, indefeasable right, passive obedience and nonresistance, those corner-stones, which are an improper foundation for any superstructure, but that of tyranny, were made, even by parliament, the foundation of the monarchy; and all those, who declined an exact and strict conformity to the whole establishment of the church, even to the most minute parts of it, were deprived of the protection, nay, exposed to the prosecution of the state. Thus one part of the nation stood proscribed by the other; the least, indeed, by the greatest; whereas a little before the greatest stood proscribed by the least. Roundhead and cavalier were, in effect, no more. Whig and tory were not yet in being. The only two apparent parties were those of churchmen and dissenters; and religious differences alone at this time maintained the distinction.

Such was the state of party, upon the meeting of the first parliament called by king Charles the second, and for some years afterward, as nearly as I have been able to observe by what I have read in history, and received from tradition.How the notions then in vogue began to change, and this spirit to decline, some time after the restoration; how the zeal of churchmen and dissenters against one another began to soften, and a court and country party to form themselves; how faction mingled itself again in the contest, and renewed the former resentments and jealousies; how whig and tory arose, the furious offspring of those inauspicious parents round-head and cava

lier; how the proceedings of one party might have thrown us back into a civil war, confusion and anarchy; how the success of the other had like to have entailed tyranny on the state, and popery in church; how the revolution did, and could alone, deliver us from the grievances we felt, and from the dangers we feared; how this great event was brought about by a formal departure of each side from the principles objected to them by the other; how this renewal of our constitution, on the principles of liberty, by the most solemn, deliberate, national act, that ever was made, did not only bind at least every one of those, who concurred in any degree to bring it about; (and that description includes almost the whole nation) but how absurd it is for any man, who was born since that æra, or who, being born before it, hath been bound by no particular, legal tye to any other settlement, to be willing to give up the advantages of the present constitution, any more than he would give up the privileges of the great charter, which was made and ratified so many ages ago; all these points are to be now touched in that summary manner, which I have prescribed to myself, and which will be sufficient, in so plain a case, where men are to be reminded of what they know already, rather than to be informed; and to be confirmed, not to be convinced.

I proceed therefore to observe, that the nation began to be indisposed to the court, soon after the restoration. The sale of Dunkirk helped to ruin a great and good minister, though it be still doubtful

doubtful at least, notwithstanding the clamour raised, and the negotiations with d'Estrades so much insisted upon, whether he was strictly answerable for this measure.-Who knows how soon the reestablishment of the same port and harbour may be laid in form to the charge of those two men, who are strictly and undeniably answerable for it, and who stagger already under the weight of so many other just imputations?

The first Dutch war, which was lightly and rashly undertaken, and which ended ignominiously for the nation, augmented the publick indisposition. Nay misfortunes, such as the plague, and the burning of London, as well as mismanagement, had this effect. But we must place at the head of all a jealousy of popery, which was well founded, and therefore gathered strength daily. This soon heated the minds of men to such a degree, that it seems almost wonderful the plague was not imputed to the papists, as peremptorily as the fire.

The death of my lord Southampton, and the disgrace and banishment of my lord Clarendon, made room for new causes of jealousy and dissatisfaction; and the effects increased in proportion. These two noble lords had stood in the breach against popery and foreign politicks; and what one of them said of the other, that is, Southampton of Clarendon, may be applied with justice to both. They were true protestants, and honest Englishmen. While they were in place, our laws, our religion, and our liberties were in safety.

When