A REVIEW of the REFLECTIONS ON THE Prince of Orange's Declaration.  
1. THE Prince's unwillingness to charge the Government with any thing but what was Evident and Undeniable, affords the Reflection with which this Paper gins; That all the noise of a secret League with France has been only a feigned danger, and a false fear, since it is not so much as mentioned in the Prince's Declaration. It is certain, that the French Ambassador asserted it in a public Audience, and in a Memorial given in to the State's General at the Hague; and all the World has clearly seen through the grimmace that the Court of England made upon it to Mr. Skelton; for it is not to be supposed, that the Court of France would have published this Alliance, unless it had been made, or that they would have made it, unless they had seen full powers for it in Mr. Skelton's hands. But after all, as the Articles of it are secret, ●o the Court of England having disowned it, the Prince's exactness in not mentioning a doubtful thing, deserved rather a Reflection in his favour.  
2. The Reflector is offended at the Prince's using the Style of We and Us, for it seems thou and thee are so dear to him, that he cannot hear any thing out of that Cant. But tho' by the Connivance of our Court, France has rob the Prince of his Principality, yet the Rights and Dignity of a Sovereign Prince remain still with him, which will justify his speaking in the plural number: And the other terms of Authority that are in his Declaration, being the usual Style of all that Command Armies, his using them imports no more, than that he is resolved to use force for the Restoring of our Liberty; and if the Style is a little high, it is their fault who would not hearken to softer and humbler representations, and that had made it a Crime so much as to Petition.  
3. There is nothing works more on weak people, than the fastening an ill name even on the best actions, and therefore Invasion being a term that naturally gives horror, the Reflector fastens that upon the Prince's Attempt to save the Nation; but things appear now too broad to be disguised, and therefore the wise and worthy part of the Nation esteems that to be a Deliverance, which is here called an Invasion. It is true, the Prince promises to send back his Forces, which imports, that he intends to stay behind; for he having engaged to see a Free Parliament Called and Assembled, must stay after his Army is sent away, since no Parliament can be chosen with freedom, while the Nation is overawed by a Military Power; but when that is laid down of all hands, than the Prince will be obliged to see the promise that he has made to the Nation for a Free Parliament executed. So that all the malicious insinuations of his Aspiring to be King, which return so often in the Reflections, are thrown out only to create an unjust jealousy of His Highness' Intentions.  
4. The security which the Reflector promises to the Nation, and the Religion, by the Concurrence of Protestants to save the Court, is now a little too late, the same Cheat will hardly pass twice. This had once a great effect in bringing the Nation off from the design of the Exclusion, and Men in the simplicity of their heart believed it. But the Court has taken so much pains to convince them of their error, and has succeeded so effectually in it, that it is too great an imposing upon us, to fancy that we can be so soon deluded again in the same manner. We know now, by sad experience, what all the Promises and Oaths that a Papist can make to Protestants do signify; and we see how little is to be built even on the honour of a Prince, when a Jesuit has the keeping of his Conscience. Nor can it be any Reproach on our Religion, if the Nation comes under the Protection of a Prince that has so near an interest in the Succession to the Crown, to preserve itself and the Established Religion from the Conspiracies of those who intent to destroy both, and had made a great way in it, and would have probably brought their designs to a full ripeness this Winter, if the Prince's coming had not checked them. The Reflector thinks the Prince ought to have turned his Arms rather on France, and allows that he has a just right to do it. But England had a greater Title to his Protection, and aught to have been first taken care of by him, and when that is once done, the proposition here made, with relation to France, may be more seasonable.  
5. Great exceptions are taken, because the Prince found'st the Invasions that are made on the Protestant Religion, on this, that it is the Religion Established by Law; since our Reflecter tells us, that it is the Truth and not the Legality of a Religion that is its warrant; and that otherwise Paganism and Judaisme had been still the Established Religion. But the Reflector confounds things of different Natures. If we consider Religion, as it gives us a Title to the favour of God, and to Eternal happiness, we ought to have no regard but to the truth of it. But when Religion is considered as the first of all Civil Rights, than the Legal Establishment is the foundation of its Title: And if Legislators had not changed Laws, Paganism had been still the Legal Religion, notwithstanding its falsehood; and though the Truth of the Christian Religion is the only ground upon which we believe it, yet it must become Legal as well as it is true, before we can claim the Protection of the Law and the Government that has secured it to us; so that to fight against Popery, where that is the Established Religion, 〈◊〉 as certainly a Sin, as it is a debt that we own our Religion and Country, to fight for the Protestant Religion, when the Law is for it, and illegal violence is employed to pull it down.  
6 The Reflector's Common-place-stuff, with relation to the Dispencing Power, has been so oft exposed, that it scarce deserves a review. The Obligation of all Laws depends on the force of the Penalties against Transgressors; so that the Dispensing with Penal Laws, carries in it the Dispensing with all Laws whatsoever; and by this Doctrine, the whole frame and security of our Government is at the King's discretion: Nor will that distinction of malum in se, and malum prohibitum save the matter, unless all the World were agreed upon the point; what things are evil of themselves, and what not. In the sense of a Papist, all the Laws against their Religion are so far from being Obligatory of their own Nature, that they are impious attempts upon that Authority which they think Infallible. Therefore all the distinction that is offered to save us from the exorbitancy of this Dispensing Power, as if it could not reach to things that are evil of themselves, is of no force, unless a measure were laid down, in which both Protestants and Papists were agreed concerning things that are good or evil of themselves. For instance, Murder is allowed by all to be evil of itself; yet if the Extirpation of Heretics is a duty incumbent on a Catholic King, as we are sure it is, than a Commission given to destroy us would be a justifiable Action, and so the Laws against Murder and Manslaughter might in that case be Dispensed with, since the kill of Heretics is by the Doctrine of Papists only Malum prohibitum, and not Malum in se.  
7. Our Author might have spared his Rhetoric how well soever he loads it upon the head of Persecution and Liberty of Conscience, if it had been but for this reason, that it discovered too plainly who it was that wrote these Reflections, which perhaps he may have e'er long some Reasons to wish it were not so well known, as he has taken pains to do by his luxuriant Style. All that can be said on this head, belongs very pertinently to the consideration of a Parliament, but is very improperly urged in favour of the bloodiest of all Persecutors, who could not begin their breaking in upon our Laws and our Religion more dextrously than at this of Liberty of Conscience, tho' they themselves had been the Authors of all the severities that had been acted among us, and intended by this show of ease to bring us under all the Cruelties of an Inquisition, which is one of the inseparable Perquisities of that bloody Religion.  
8. The greatest part of the Invasions made on our Government, that are set forth in the Prince's Declaration, are acknowledged to be such by our Reflector. But he thinks they are now redressed. The High Commission is at an and, Magdalen College is restored. If the King had of his own motion, and from a sense of the justice of the thing done all this while he apprehended no danger, and if he had brought the Authors of those Pernicious Councils to condign Punishment, than it had been more reasonable to Value those Acts of Justice, by which the former Violences had been in some measure repaired: but what is done in the present Circumstances, shows only a meanness of Spirit, and a feebleness in the Government: And some men's Tempers are too well known, to suffer us once to doubt of their returning back to all their former Violences, and of their carrying them on to greater Excesses; if God for the sins of the Nation, should blast this Glorious Undertaking. And if the Charters are now restored, we know by the Proceed of the late Regulators of Corporations, that it was far from their thoughts but a little while ago, so that this is likewise an effect of the present Fear they are under; and it shows that after all their Huffing during their Prosperity, they sink under dangers as much as others, whose Memory they are so careful to blemish, how much soever they are beholding to them. It is here said, that most of the Charters were taken away in the late King's time: But as it is well known under whose Influence the last years of the late Reign were conducted, so the limiting the Elections to a special number, contrary to Custom and Prescription, was the Invention of the present Reign.  
9 But if the Reflector will not justify every thing that the Government has done, and thinks the present state of things could hardly bear so gross an Abuse; yet he insists often upon this, that these Illegal things were fit for the Consideration and the Redress of a Parliament, and that they do not justific the Prince of Orange's Attempt. But the Prince's Design is only to see a Free Parliament Chosen and Assembled according to Law. For our Author and his Complices (for he reckons himself in the Ministry, Sect. 23. when he names the things objected against the Ministry, as objected against us,) had taken such care to keep off a parliament, and to overturn all Corporations, to Corrupt all Elections, and to provide for false Returns by Popish Sheriffs and Mayors, that we were out of all hopes, or rather out of a possibility of ever seeing a Free Parliament again; so that any nearer Prospect that we now have of one, is wholly owing to the Prince's Undertaking; and indeed what is given us at present, is done with so ill a Grace, and the Popish and corrupt Ministry, is still preserved and cherished with so particular a Confidence, that they seem to have a mind to make the Nation see that all is done so grossly, that those who are cheated by it, will have no excuse for their Folly, since the Trick is acted with too bare a 〈◊〉 to pass on any.  
10. The Reflector thinks that the Prince ought to have complained to the King of these Abu●●●, tho' in other places of this Paper, he pretends that the Prince was not a proper Judge in th●se Matters; he Aggravates the Prince's 〈…〉 an Uncle and a Father-in-Law without warning given. Indeed, if this were the Case, all that could be said upon it, was, that he had copied from the Pattern that was set him in 1672. in that famous Attempt on the S●●●na Fleet: What Complaints the Prince ●●●de, or what encouragement he had to make any, and how they were entertained and Answered, are Domestic matters, of which the World knows little, since all that has appeared in public was in Mr. Fagel's Letter, and how well that was received, and how civilly it was answered, all England saw. It is true, the Prince is very nearly related to the King, but there are other Ties stronger than the Bonds of Flesh and Blood; He owes more to the Protestant Religion and to the Nation, than can be defaced by any other Relation whatsoever; and if the failing in one Relation excuses the other, then enough might be said, to show at what pains the Court of England has been, to free the Prince from all other Engagements, except those of Loving Enemies, and doing good to those who Despitefully use us, for upon this account the Prince lies under all possible Obligations.  
11. The Reflector thinks, that those who left Ireland, were driven by a needless fear; but tho' he has no reason to apprehend much from the Irish Papists, yet those who saw the last Bloody Massacre, may be forgiven, if they have no mind to see such another. He faintly blames that great Change that was lately made in the whole Government of Ireland; but he presently excuses it, since it was Natural for the King and his Friends to desire to be safe some where; till they had fair Quarter in England, they must make sure of Ireland; but he adds, that as soon as that was done, the thing must have returned into its old Channel again. This aught to be writ only to Irish- mwn, for none of a higher size of Understanding can bear it; if it can ever be showed that Papists have yielded up any thing, which they had once wrung out of the hands of Protestants, except when they were forced to it; we may believe this and all the other gross things which are here imposed on us. The plain case was, the Papists resolved to destroy us, and to put themselves in case to do it as soon as was possible; so they went about it immediately in Ireland, only they have delayed the giving the Signal for a new Massacre, till matters were ripe for it in England.  
12 The Reflector has reason to avoid the saying any thing to the Article of Scotland, for even his Confidence could not support him in justifying the King's claiming an Absolute Power, to which all are bound to obey without reserve, and the Repealing of a great many Laws upon that pretention; this is too gross for Human Nature, and the Principles of all Religions whatsoever. Our Author avoids speaking to it, because he does not know the extent of the Prerogative of that Crown. But no Prerogative can go to an Obedience without Reserve, nor can Absolute Power consist with any Legal Government.  
13. The Declaration had set forth, that the Evil Counsellors had represented the Expedient, offered by the Prince and Princess, as offered on design to disturb the Quiet and Happiness of the Kingdom; upon which the Reflector bestows this kind Remark on the Ministry: And did they not say true, as it happens? Believe me, some Folks think many of them are not often guilty of such foresight: The Writer is angry that his side is not uppermost, and tho' he includes himself in the Ministry by saying Us, when he speaks of them, yet here, tho' he was to censure the Party that is against him, he distinguishes them, by saying many of the Counsellors use not to have such foresight: But perhaps they can object as much to his foresight, and with as much reason. But if the King comes up to Mr. Fagel's Letter, why was it rejected with so much scorn, and answered with so much Insolence? Now perhaps they would hearken to it, when they have brought both themselves and the Nation to the brink of Ruin, by their mad Councils: But they ought to be forgiven, since they have been true to the Principles and Dictates of their Religion.  
14. Our Reflector thinks a Free Parliament a Chimaera, and indeed he and his Friends have been at a great deal of pains to render it impossible. But perhaps he may be quickly cured of his Error, and a Free One is the sooner like to be chosen, when he and such as he, are set at a due distance from the public Councils. If Members are sometimes chosen by drinking and other Practices, this is bad enough, but still it is not so bad as the laying a force upon the Electors, and a restraint upon the Election. Nor is it very much to the King's Honour, to remember how the last Parliament was chosen; it was indeed a very disgusting Essay in the beginning of a Reign, and gave a sad prospect of what might be looked for; but if one Violence was born with, when the struggle of another Party seemed to excuse it; this does not prove that a course of such Violences, when the Design is become both more visible, and less excusable, aught to be endured. If the Members of that Parliament proved Worthy Patriots, I do not see why they ought not to be remembered with Honour, tho' there is a great deal to be said upon their first elevation to that Character, which they maintained indeed nobly; so that if the first Conception of that Parliament was Irregular, yet its End was Honourable, since never a Parliament was dissolved upon a more Glorious Account.  
15. The Reflector sets up all his Sail, when he enters upon the Article of the pretended Prince of Wales: This was a Point by which he hoped to merit highly, and upon that, to gain ground on that Party of the Court, on whom he had reflected with so much scorn. Therefore here must the Prince be attacked with all the Malicious force to which his Rhetoric could carry him; and all those Men of Honour that went over to wait on him at the Hague, and to represent to him the bleeding and desperate Condition of the Nation, must be stigmatised as a lewd Crew of Renegadoes; tho' I must tell him, that the common acception of Renegadoe, is one that changes his Religion, and by this he will find some near him to whom that Character belongs more justly. He almost blames the King for the low step he lately made to prove that Birth: It was a low one indeed, to make so much ado, and to bring together such a Solemn Appearance, to hear so slight a Proof produced: which could have no other effect, but to make the Imposture so much the more visible, when the utmost attempts to support it, appear to be now so feeble, that as to the main point of the Queen's bearing the Child, there is not so much as a colony of a proof produced: And it is certain, that if this had been a fair thing, the Court would have so managed it, that it should not have been in the power of any Mortal to have called it in question: And on the other hand, they have so managed it, that one must needs see, in every step of it, broad marks of an Imposture. It will not be half Proofs, nor Suborned Witnesses, that will satisfy the Nation in so great a Point. But I will enter into no particulars relating to this Business, which will be better laid open when a Free Parliament meets to examine it.  
16. The Reflector charges upon the Prince all the miseries that may follow on a War, as an unsuitable return to the kindness that the Nation has showed him. But if the dissolution of the Government, brought on by the Court, has given a just rise to his coming, than the ill effects that may fall out in the progress of his design, are no more to be charged on him, than the miseries to which a severe Cure of the ill effects of a wilful disorder expose a Patient, aught to be imputed to a Physician, that betrays his Patient if he slatters him; and that must apply violent Remedies to obstinate Distempers. I do not hear from other hands, that the Lords and Bishops about the City have disowned their inviting the Prince: and I do not believe it the better, because our Author affirms it. But if it were true, there are others in England besides those about the City: so the thing may be true, tho' a few about the City had not been in it. A small Civility is bestowed on the Prince, when it is said, that he would not have affirmed it, if he did not believe it; but this is soon taken off, and it is said, that doubtless he was abused in this. If this is to be supposed, the Prince is as weak a man, as his Enemies, for their own sakes, aught to wish to be; if he could suffer himself to be engaged in a matter of this nature, without being well assured of the grounds he went on.  
17. What is said of the Prince's referring all matters to the determination of a Free Parliament, is too flat to require an Answer: This was a plausible thing, and therefore it ought to have been either quite passed over, or somewhat of force ought to have been set against it. This is not the referring of other people's Rights to a Parliament; but the leaving the healing of the Nation to those who are its proper Physicians. And the taking a Cure out of the hands of the Court, instead of that, is like the renouncing a sure Method and a good Physician, and the harkening to the arrogant promises of a bold Mountebank. The Prince has promised to send away his Army as soon as the state of the Nation will permit, upon which the Reflector says, that here is but a Foreigner's word against our own King's; and he refers it to our Allegiance to judge, which of the two we ought to trust. But I cannot find out in what the Prince's promise contradicts any that the King has made; for I do not hear that the King had promised that these Troops shall not return; and unless that were the Case, I cannot find out the Contradiction; and after all, if we must speak out, there is some odds to be made between a Prince whose Religion, as well as his Honour, has ever determined him to keep all his Promises, and another whose Religion has taught him so often to make bold with all his.  
18. The Prince's summoning the Nobility and Gentry, as it is the usual stile of all Generals, so it requires them only to appear and to act for their Country and their Religion; and his promising to have a Parliament called in Scotland and Ireland, imports no more but that he is come with a Resolution to have the Government settled on its true Basis, and that he will see it done.  
19 The Reflector is in great wrath, because the Prince has, in his Additional Declaration, shown how little regard ought to be had to that imperfect Redress of Grievances that has been offered of late. But it had been a concurring in the Cheat, to suffer it to pass, without laying it open: When fair things are offered from men to whom we ought to trust, it is as reasonable to receive them, as it is to reject all deceitful things, when the Truth is apparent. Therefore as the Prince had no reason to abandon the Cure of the Nation, after the steps that he had made, because of the endeavours of the Court to lay it asleep; so he has so purged himself from the Imputations of designing a Conquest, that all out Reflector's malice cannot make them stick; and all that Noble Company that came over with him, and that have since come in to him, are a proof of this beyond exception: Let all Men of Sense judge, whether an Army composed of so many Irish Papists, or another made up of so many Noblemen and Gentlemen of great Families and Estates, are likeliest to set about the Conquering the Nation.  
20. He saucies that what the Prince gets by the Sword, he will keep by the Sword: And upon this he tells us, that he said Once to the King, that the bringing the Dutch Army to the Discipline in which it was, had cost 1300 Lives: upon which he wishes those who value the Magna Charta, and Trials by Juries, to make some Reflections. But since the Situation and Constitution of Holland, makes an Army necessary to them, and since they have provided by particular Laws, that Marshal Discipline should be Maintained by a Council of War, nothing could have been contrived more for the Prince's Honour, than to tell us that he has so ordered the Matter, that the Army is become one of the most Regular and Inoffensive Bodies of Men that is in all Holland: which this Nation sees now, with no small astonishment; to whom one Regiment of Irish, has given more fear and disorder, than this great Army has done to the places through which it has passed. The Reflector tells us also, as a very ridiculous thing, that the Prince who has left the Dutch no Liberty at home, comes now to secure ours here: And to make the Parallel complete between the Prince and a near Relation of his, he pretends that he broke his Oath to the States of Holland, he having promised never to be Statholder, tho' it should be offered him: And to conclude all against him, he says, there is no more proportion between the Ancient Liberties of Holland, and his present Government, than there is between London and Brandford. Here is the force of all his Malice, but we who have seen the State of Affairs in Holland, and the Freedom of the Government there, know that England can wish for no greater Happiness, than that the Laws and Government here, may be Maintained as exactly here, as they are there: And the late Unanimous Concurrence of all the Provinces, and of all the Negatives in every Province, and not only of all the Members in every one of these Bodies, but indeed of the whole People all over the Provinces, Amsterdam itself leading the way to all the rest, by which they gave their Fleet, their Army, and their Treasure so frankly up to the Prince, was an evidence of his good Government, beyond all that can be set forth in words: For real Arguments conclude always truly. And for the Prince's Oath, it was an Obligation to the States, and was intended even by those who framed it, only to hinder all Caballing for obtaining any such offer to be made him. But when they were brought to that extremity, to which we helped to drive them, so that there was a change made in the greatest part of the whole Government, they Unanimously found the necessity of Vesting the Prince with the full Authority of Statholder; and therefore the Oath being made to them, it was in their Power to give it up: So that here was no breach of Oath, but only a Relaxation of the Obligation that was made to the States. The Reflections end with a piece of Raillery, which might pass, if it were either witty or decent; but if the things that are objected seem irregular, I fancy that Mr. Pen's Writing for Popery, and Mr. Stewart's for Tyranny, are things every whit as Incongruous as any of these, with which the Reflector diverts himself.   

Printed for William Churchil, 1688.