An answer to a Paper Entitled, A Letter to a Friend, upon the dissolving of the late Parliament, and the calling of a New one together, with a List of those that were against making the Prince and Princess of Orange, King and Queen.  
SIR,  
AS by the strain and stile of your Letter, I may easily repute you one more precipitant than prudent, and more passionate than politic: So may I on rational Grounds, from the drift and design of your Letter, conclude you a great Jacobite, or veiled Favourite of the late K. James: For in pretence of vindicating the present King's Interest, you first set up Marks of your own making, or Suppositions of your own Invention (which ought not to be supposed) and then fight, with the Maggots of your own brain, to please your own fond fancy, you discharge the Artillery of your pretended Zeal and Loyalty, at your own foolish proposals. And for all you pretend, by your Wit and Loyalty, to antidote the fate which besel his Majesty's Predecessors, viz. the robbing him of his people's affections, and then of his own Authority; yet could you not have fallen on a readier and surer way, to raise animosities in the Kingdom, and bred jealousies in the hearts of the King's best Subjects. For at first you suppose a controversy where really there is none, viz. whether it was the King's wisdom, or to please himself with an Exercise of Regal power, and to look Great, that made him dissolve this Parliament. Then Worthy Sir, (your own wisdom acquiescing with what his Majesty did) you take up the Cudgels in his Vindication, whilst there is few or none to strike at. Tho his Majesty, in his last Speech to the Parliament, when it was Prorogued, spoke more sense, and gave greater Reasons for what he did (though in few words) than in all your long, learned, Legomachical Apology. Next, you cast an Aspersion on the Members of Parliament, that they were ignorant of what was fit to be done: and therefore you tell them, that the K. sent them about their business, for not uniting the Protestants, and vindicating our Laws and Liberties, and punish those who had subverted our Constitution, etc. Truly Sir, there is much in this; for it wlil be found a difficult thing to unite the Church of England with Dissenters, tho' they seemtodiffer but in matters of Ceremony. But if they did not make it their Business to vindicate the Laws and Liberties of the Nation, and design (in the right place) to punish those who had subverted the Kingdom's Constitution; they were neither good Christians, just Judges, nor wise Statesmen; nor any ways fit to stand at the Helm of public affairs. But, till you prove your assertion, your contumelious speeches are but an aspersion. The next thing you propose out of your wisdom, is a speedy means to clear the King's Descent into England, from being an ambitious Usurpation. Truly Sir, I believe there are few men of sense that will repute the King's Expedition to England an Unrighteous Invasion, unless such busy men as you, by sowing such seeds of Dissatisfaction, and setting up such suppositions of Sedition and Faction, gain the Weather-gage on a right Understanding, and lead the people to open Rebellion; and tho' you be pleased confidently to say, that His present Majesty holdeth his Crown precariously, and that King James' Abdication is easily reversible, yet no man that is Master of his Reason, and knoweth the circumstance of the late Revolution, and the present state of Great Britain, will be so Foolish as to believe any such thing, Unless he, likewise, believe that it is an easy matter to turn Britain to a Bedlam, and all the Inhabitants thereof to Madmen; who would willingly forfeit their Religion, Lives, Laws and Liberties. Truly Sir (as I have said) you could have fallen upon no surer way to do both King and Country a diskindness, than by supposing, under the pretence of a good meaning, those Rebellious Controversies, which may breed Jealousies, make the best. Subjects question the Foundation of their Loyalty, and deny their Allegiance to our present King. For how can those Gentlemen (who because in the twinkling of an Eye, they were surprised with a sudden and unexpected Change and Revolution of Government, and could not be resolved in a moment, nor be satisfied in Conscience, at a word, whether they owed any Allegiance to King James or not) be now pleased to see their Names Listed, Posted, and exposed as Dissenters from the present Government, Stigmatised with the Title of Jacobites, and not likely to be true and lasting friends to King WILLIAMS Sovereignty? and consequently, unworthy to be Members of Parliament, or to have any hand in State Affairs, and undeserving of the King's favour? Now how can any Parliament at this rate be reputed free, When they lie under the lash of such disgraceful and murdering aspersions? I shall not meddle with more of your Letter; but take this of me: Men of least Conscience soon satisfy greatest scruples, and he's neither good Divine or good Statesman, that would divide a Kingdom against itself: For as Sallust de Bello Jugurth. saith, Concordia res parvae crescunt, Discordia autem maximae delabunter. Callicratidas being affronted by King Cyrus in his Embassy, when he returned to Sparta, broke out in these words: I shall use the best of my endeavours, to reconcile the Greeks among themselves, that they may be the more formidable to these Barbarians, and leaving off all Controversies among thesmelves, they may no more stand in need of help from that prodigal King. And of this Man's resolution Conrade Lycosthenes speaketh thus: Singularis profecto fuit prudentiae vir, quod perspexit Graecos non alia magis ratione posse reddi Barbar●s formidabiles, quam si depositis intestinis simultatibus, mutam inter se concordiam sancirent. Plut. in Lacon apoph. Scipio Africanus asked Tyresius, how the Numantians, who were once reputed so Warlike a People, were so easily broke and overthrown. Tyresius answered, concordia Victoriam, Discordia exitium praebuit. Thus Concord and Unity are the Sinews, Strength, and Victory of a Nation, which, (with Faith, Truth, and God's favour) I pray this Isle of Britain, and all true. Christian's may long enjoy.   

With Allowance.