THE CHARACTER Of an Honest, and Worthy Parliament-Man.  
I Hope the Reader will not be so unwife, as to expect that I should here entertain him with a Pompous Enumeration of all those Imaginary Virtues, wherewith the Romantic Modellers of a Platonic, or Utopian Commonwealth, adorn their Paper Senators; when the Character even of a Real Cato, would be altogether as useless in our Times, as it is rarely found to be practised; and consequently as little regarded now, as he himself was by the Corrupt Age wherein he lived: Not but that our Nation has of late produced as Great Heroes as any Antiquity can boast of, yet it cannot be imagined that they are to be found in every little Town or Borrough.  
As for my Honest and Worthy Parliament Man, all the Qualifications that I desire to find in him, are only such as it would be the greatest affront imaginable to any English Gentleman to think him destitute of: That is, that he should be a Man of Sense, Integrity and Honour. Let him but follow their Dictates, and then all the duties which we may reckon, or think of, to be incumbent on him; will be as easily performed by him, as they are demonstrable to be the obvious, and Natural Consequents of such Principles.  
As for his Religion, he is a sincere, as well as open Professor of that which by our Laws is now become Essential to his Office, I mean, that of the Church of England: Nor is he of it because it is Established by Law, or that he was bred in it; but before he settled his Opinion, he maturely examined its first Principles, and found them agreeable to the Divine will, and Right Reason, he discovered the Folly and Errors of those who oppose any points of its Doctrine: And being throughly satisfied in the Fundamentals, for its Discipline, he entirely submits himself to the Judgement and Authority of those to whose Conduct and Discretion the Government of the Church has been in all Ages committed.  
But tho' he be a zealous Churchman himself, yet he is so far from Persecuting those who Dissent from the Established Religion purely for Conscience sake, that he is ready to pity their weakness, have Compassion on their Infirmities, and express the greatest Tenderness imaginable for their Persons, whenever that time shall come, when it will be his chance to meet with those, whose scruples arise rather from a real defect in their understandings, than some Worldly Interest or desire of Filthy Lucre, an Obstinate, Peevish, or Self-conceited Humour, or the vain glorious Spirit of Contradiction.  
As for his Sentiments in State Affairs, in which next to his Religion, his greatest desire is to be Orthodox; before they fixed, he always tries them with the Touchstone of Reason; and consequently thinks it Lawful for him to be a Latitudinarian in Judgement in Relation to Civil Matters: I mean so far as not to expect to find an Infallible Judge, amongst either Torys, Whigs, or Trimmers. He takes up Opinions upon trust from no Party, nor condemns any, because they are of it, who differ from him in other things: And therefore he could not but smile, to see in our late Times of Dissension, so many in all outward appearance Honest, and thinking men, continually jog on, like a Gang of Packhorses after the Leaders of their several Parties; and though they wander, after these Blazing, butdeceitful Lights, into never so many Crooked and by paths, yet with an Implicit and Blind Faith, still believe themselves to be in the right way.  
For his part, his only aim is at the Honour, Safety, and Interest of his Country: On this Mark, he keeps his eye constantly fixed; nor can the dreadful Frowns of an Enraged Prince, or the horrid Clamours of a possessed Multitude; ever be able to remove him from his point. He finds that his beloved virtue brings such solid, though invisible rewards along with her, that he is equally insensible to the promising smiles of fawning great ones that would tempt, and the terrible menaces of the Fiercest Demagogues, that would force him to forsake her. He can securely, without any Fear of Infection, deride the folly, and pity the madness of those who forfeit their Honesty, to found their happiness, upon the unstable Basis of Court Favours, or Popular Applause.  
He truly enjoys all that Freedom in his Actions, which he thinks his Duty to procure for, and defend his Countrymen in. He is wholly a stranger to the servile Ambition of gaining the favourable Opinion of others; nor can he tell what it is to fear the Censures of any: He is Directed, Influenced, or biased by none; And whilst he is engaged in his Country's service, he thinks the most Glorious Epithets the World can fix upon him, are those of a Rigid Inflexible Ill-natured Honest Man.  
When he discovers that any have Designs contrary to the Public good, let their Authority and Power be never so great, he opposes their Opinions, with all the Courage and Zeal his generous Principles can furnish him with; without any respect to their Persons. But when the time comes, wherein the right side shall turn uppermost, as after all Revolutions it ever will at last, he is then so far from trampling upon his fallen Adversaries, though he becomes, I mean as a private Man, most tender of the Persons without any Respect to their Opinions.  
He is altogether unacquainted with that base and degenerate Passion called Hatred: Yet there is one sort of Men whom he thinks worthy of the utmost Degree of his Contempt and Scorn; I mean those false and Treacherous Friends, who have formerly gone along with, nay, much before him in the same Cause; those pretended Zealots for their Country and Religion, who for their own Paltry Interest, or some by ends made it their business to set us together by the Ears, with their nosy Clamours against Popery and Slavery: But when the danger was become real, and just hanging over our Heads, when our Church and State were designed for immediate Ruin, with the same Mercenary breath servilly offered themselves to be employed as Tools, in the Destruction of them both. These he conceives aught to have a mark put upon them, as the worst of Traitors; he takes them to be the vilest of Men, or rather (to use he expression of one who perhaps may think himself cocerned, here) to carry nothing of men, that is, English Men, but the shape.  
But I now find myself necessiated, to take my hand from off the Tablet, lest instead of completing the Portraiture of an Honest Parliament-man I should insensibly touch upon them, who deserve another Character. My intention then being like my Honest Patriots, willingly to offend no man, I shall take my leave of him at present, with this Remark only, That a Nation where such as he preside, at the Helm, will without doubt be altogether as happy, as if it were Steered by Plato's Philosophising Governors, or Governing Philosophers.  
FINIS.