THE DISSENTER unmasked, With Respect to the Two PLOTS.  
IN a time when every Man thrusts his thoughts into Print, and the Press( that has been polluted with so many Invectives against the Government) prostitutes itself to every scribbler, a seasonable truth from an honest well meaning hand may, I hope, be allowed of.  
For the Subject merits both a wiser Head and a larger Volume, yet this, if used with a fanatic Industry, may not possibly be altogether unprofitable: For how industrious is that Party in dispersing every little scribbled Half-sheet as abounding in Malice and mischief as defective in Sense) to every quarter of the Nation? that the meanest of their Party might be well grounded in Sedition, and none of them be unfurnisht with some sort of Argument against the Church and Government: And how instrumental have even Car and Curtis been in Supporting their Cause, and in strengthening the animosities of Declining Brethren? and by how small instruments have all the irreverent suspicions and dislikes of the King, his Counsellors, and the Clergy, been conveyed? I will not therefore utterly despair of some Success from these few lines, whose aim is onely to take the Vizors from the Dissenters Faces, and show those True Protestants in their True Colours, And that by natural easy inferences from their Different belief of the Popish and fanatic Plot( for we shall clearly Evidence this last Hellish Conspiracy to be theirs) And from their different zeal shown in their pursuit of these Horrid Contrivances.  
Since the first discovery of the Late Plot( which all honest undesigning men must believe and abhor) I have observed the Dissenters, in all their openest actions and discourses to allow it little Credit, and in their own private opinions less, I believe, or none at all: which they must Justly allow me to be surprised at, when I recollect how zealous they appeared for the safety of the King's Person and the Government in the very beginning of the late Popish Plot, how easy they were of belief, how truly apprehensive of every danger, and how susceptible of fear, and what kind provisions they then endeavoured to make, for prevention of every the most distant ills that then threatened our best of Kings, from those blind and bloody zealots: How Instrumental every man of them was( proportionably to the Sphere wherein he was placed) in providing for his Majesty's safety, by a Rigorous severity against that whole Party, nor would their eager Kindness then think his Majesty secure enough, without cutting all hope from the Popish Party by he Utter Exclusion of his Royal Brother;( which very Act would, I fear, have shokt the foundation of that Government it pretended to defend) and I hearty wish that the same heat( to give it no worse a name) which from without doors screwed itself into the House of Commons, and there was incorporated into a Vote, that this Majesty's Death should be revenged( right or wrong) on the Papists, were not Instrumental in kindling this fanatic Plot.  
'tis wondrous, I say! that those men even in the very down of that Plot when Mr. oats was so ill seconded, when no Person condemned confessed, when no person accused fled, when Salaries and Allowances were given, and when Pardons proclaimed could produce so few, and those so profligate Witnesses,( as they 〈◇〉 themselves at Colledge's Trial, and at Guild Hall when the Bill was found Ignoramus against my Lord Shaftsbury to all the Witnesses remaining except Mr. oats) when neither Army, Arms, nor Commission could be seen, yet could they then easily believe all the Roman catholics in England concerned in it, and that every Sufferer dyed with a lie in his mouth, that there were Officers of all sorts appointed, and an Insurrection to have been in London, an Army of Foreigners landed in Ireland, and an Army of Spanish Pilgrims in England.  
But an Accusation against Dissenters( for such, or the creatures of such, are onely concerned in this late villainy) made probable by Swarms of Seditious Books and Libellous Pamphlets, those constant Ushers of Treason and Rebellion, and made certain by the Evidence of men( before they were deluded into this Treasonable design) of unquestioned credit, by the confessions of some that have been lately Executed for it, and by the Flight of others accused of it, and yet farther confirmed by a deplorable Instance which I shall for bear to reflect upon. But although these Persons are so rightly accused, and this Accusation so plainly proved, the Dissenters in general pretend a misbelief, and bestow their pity, where their detestation would be more proper. And their subtlest Endeavours are used to pass these horrid truths upon the easy part of the world, as tricks and contrivances, laid by the Favourers of Popery and Arbitrary Powers to ensnare those men that were( out of more conscience and good design to serve their Country) its most violent Opposers.  
And what ground have they for these Insinuations, so contradictory to reason, so full of partiality, and so fatal reflections on the King and Government? what foundation is there to support so great an obstinacy? Alas! they grasp( like drowning men) at every broken reed to support their sinking cause; for theirs I must call it, since they all seem to Interest themselves in it by a so particular Incredulity.  
What means the universal Stress put upon that Paper, which is said to be delivered by the late Lord russel to the Sheriffs at the place of Execution, and his Speech thereto annexed, which they oppose against those crowds of direct Proofs before mentioned, and think to stifle the Plot by it, and which every fanatic spreads upon his Shopboard, and some part or other of that speech, is always his Text, when he designs to preach an inferior Customer into a belief of their Innocence? But I would have left it to have contradicted itself, but that it will be very Iustrumental in the plainer illustration of those clear truths he there denies.  
I am heartily sorry indeed to find it stuffed with such contradictions and such dangerous Insinuations, which may help to spread that humour in the Hearts and Minds of some people which did in all probability first cause his disaffection to the Government, and wrought him by degrees to that height which occasioned his deplorable fall: As particularly where he says in is second page., that his opposition of Popery had procured him such great and powerful enemies, that he had for some time expected the worst, and was glad he now fell by the Axe, and not by the Fiery Trial; and likewise in the same page., where he seems to keep up the heats of that sort of people( who are too apt to use the pretence alone to the Destruction of our established Religion) by enforcing the near approach of Popery, and by insinuating that it is now breaking in, and expressing his sorrow because so many Protestants gave their helping hands to it; and likewise in the third page., where he tells you, That he believes his earnestness in the Bill of Exclusion, had no small influence on his present Sufferings.  
What else is this, I appeal to all the Indifferent part of the world, but to make the King a Favourer of Popery, or which is but varying the Phrase) to make him Influenced by those that are so? And what is or can be the dreadful Consequent of that, but to make him also a sharer in that hatred, violence and opposition, which heretofore seemed aimed onely against the Successor? and from thence it may be reasonably feared, that those designs and pretences that urged with such violence for the Exclusion of the one, may blindly drive them to the Dethroning of the other; and indeed the rather, because where the people are possessed that the present Prince is a Favourer of Popery, the dangers that ensue from it are more present and immediate, but in ●the ase of a Successor they are onely in possibility, and more remote and distant.  
Then as for his contradictions, which every one must see, but those who wilfully hold their hands before their eyes, for in his speech to the Sheriff, he professeth himself on the words of a dying Man, to know of no Plot, either against the King's Life or the Government, yet in his written Paper delivered to the Sheriff, page. the third, he says, that there was at my Lord Shaftsbury's general discourses about seizing the Guards, but he flew out and exclaimed against it, and asked if it succeeded what could be next done but Massacring the Guards, and Killing them in could blood, which he looked on as a thing so detestable, and so like a Popish practise, that he abhorred it; and in the same page. he says, that the Duke of Monmouth came to him and  told him, he was glad he was come to Town, for my Lord Shaftsbury, and some other hot men, would undo them all, by doing some disorderly thing or other, and desired him to use his own, and his friends interest to prevent it, and called him to go to Mr. Shepherd's with him that night, where there was a meeting, at which, his Lordship declares there were things said by some with much more heat than judgement, which he did then sufficiently disapprove, and yet for those very things he stands Condemned; and in the same page. he says, that as for his being acquainted with and not discovering those Designs, that is but Misprision, and he there farther adds, that he hopes none will think so mean a thought could enter into him, as to go about to save himself by the accusing others.  
By which words of his Lordship's I take it to be directly proved, that there was a Design carrying on, and that too a Treasonable one, against the King and Government. For if no design, what means the Meetings at my Lord Shaftsbury's, Mr. Shepherd's, and other places? what means the frequent discourses of Seizing the Guards? which was not in itself, or as 'twas Treason against the King, or as 'twas a method to force him to compliance with their desires, disliked, even by this Lord himself, but onely according to his own confession, he was apprehensive of its bloody consequences, viz. killing them in could blood, and that too chiefly, because it looked so like a Popish practise: What means the Duke of Monmouth so earnestly to desire his assistance, in the preventing my Lord Shaftsbury and some other hot men, from doing some disorderly action, to all their undoings? why should they be any-ways apprehensive of danger from their over violence, if they were not embarked in a particular design with them? Besides, I am apt to think my Lord Shaftsbury's Character will not allow any one to believe, that he would have either suffered or encouraged discourses of that nature, before any person not aiming at one and the same end, although( not being altogether so through paced in villainy) they might perhaps differ in the bloody means.  
And that the very business of all these Meetings was Treason, will be apparent, if we consider that in the next Meeting after the Duke's complaint( which certainly none of their most modest proposals occasioned) and that too, when he and my Lord Russel with all their interest( his Lordship would have you believe) went to alloy their heats, yet even then, by my Lord Russel's own confession, there were at that very Meeting, things said by some, with much more heat than judgement( a modest expression for Treason) for which things he says, he now stands condemned, although he then sufficiently disapproved them: So that his condemnation being for Treason, and it being evident by his own confession, that he stands condemned for what was said and done then that night( notwithstanding his and the Duke's pretended disallowance) with more heat than judgement, it must necessary follow, that the transaction of that night must be Treason; and so he must at best be privy to a Treasonable Plot and Design, by the showing of his own Paper, in several places of which, he seems( by saying that his not discovering was but Misprision) openly to confess Misprision of Treason( which none but who hath a knowledge of Treason can be guilty of) which he utterly denies, in his Speech to the Sheriff.  
Nor doth he less, in my mind, contradict himself, in pretending to disapprove those Treasons, for so far is he from the least endeavour to prevent them,( which is a necessary consequent of dislike) that he says in his third page., That he hopes no body will imagine, that so mean a thought could enter into him, as to go about to save his own life by accusing others: nor does he( in the same place) altogether forbear reflecting on those, to whom we owe the safety of the King and Government.  
And I must be allowed a little to admire, how his Lordship, who seems( through that whole discourse) so much enamoured with openness and plainness, and who all along expresses himself so freely and feelingly against tricks and evasions, should so far forget himself( in a time when his circumstances required so much sincerity) as to call Treasonable discourses, Heats and Tumult; and Rebellion, by the lessening name of Stirs: For he seems indeed( not without some difficulty) to delude himself into an opinion of his own Innocence, by his own favourable constructions. Nor can I( in the next place) imagine, how the construing the design of seizing the Guards, to be a design of killing the King, should be urged as so strange a Fetch when there have been Precedents for it in other Kings Reigns, and when both ours and the Civil Law agree in it; for it was the thing chiefly insisted on by that great unwieldy Favourite of Queen Elizabeth's, Robert Earl of Essex, at his Trial in the 44th year of her Reign for High Treason, that he intended no harm against the Queen; and for satisfaction of his often repeated Protestations of the mildness of his intentions, the Justices then Assistants declared it to be their opinions, That if any man attempt to make himself so strong that the King shall not be able to resist him( as certainly he that seizeth his Guards doth) he is guilty of Rebellion, and that the Law interpreteth, that in every Rebellion, there is a Conspiracy against the Life and Crown of the King, for a Rebel will never suffer that King to live and Reign, who may afterwards punish or revenge such his Treason or Rebellion: And by the Imperial or Civil Law, any thing done against the safety of a Prince is reputed Treason, and we may justly be allowed to be apprehensive of the great danger that his Majesty's life would have been in, when his Guard( which is the enclosure to which a Prince owes his safety) had been surprised, from the Examples of Edward II. and Richard II. drawn out of our own English Chronicles, both which being once by Force of Arms gotten by their Subjects into their power, were soon after deposed and made away; and even here lately in our own age, the very same sort of men, animated by the very same Principles,( and some of them, indeed, the very Numerical men that are now concerned in this horrid practise) waged open War against the King, under the specious popular pretences of suppressing of Popery, preventing of Arbitrary Power, and removing of evil Counsellors; but when they had distressed his Armies, surprised and taken his Garrisons, and at last gotten his Person( after his being miserable tost from place to place, and still unfortunately falling into the hands of Rebels) into their custody, never did such unparalleled God-like Justice, Clemency and Piety meet with such unexampled, brutal, villainous fury: For nothing, alas! could serve to cement their new modeled Government but his blood, and that too  shed in a manner so ignominious, and with a cruelty so formal, as if they scorned the common Road of villainy, and trodden paths of other traitors, and stood resolved to sin beyond all Precedent: But to return, for the brevity designed will not allow of large Excursions.  
Since it appears by this very Speech( which the dangerous charity of some men hath strangely misconstrued) that at my Lord Shaftsbury's, and Mr. Shepherd's, there have been Treasonable designs and discourses carried on; and it appears by the Oaths of several Witnesses, and by confession of some that were Executed, that those designs were so near being effected, that the place was appointed, and the fatal Instruments provided for the performance of that amazing Act: And since we cannot possibly imagine but that those men of meaner quality, that were actually to have killed the King, were influenced by the men of Interest and Honour that met at these Consults, to contrive the seizing the Guards, and raising of Stirs:( For it would be little less than a Miracle, if those designs, so allied in their nature, should be carried on at one and the same time, and the parties unknown to each other) it is more than probable therefore that my Lord Ruffel, who was one at the Consults, knew of this black design, which was but the natural issue of those Consults; and yet he neither then revealed it, nor seemed afterwards to repent it: So that the Treason being so plain, and this Lord's share in it so great, where is his mighty boasted Innocence? where the pretended hardship of his Sentence? But lest I should be taxed for begging a principle( in laying this down as a fanatic Plot without more plainly proving it so) I must be allowed a word or two( now I have done with the Treason itself) as to the Persons concerned in this Treasonable Undertaking; who may be all included( although I cannot indeed confine them to any particular Species) under the Genus of Dissenters, for such are most of those wretches that were to have been more immediately concerned in the execution of the villainy, and( not to mention Mr. Trenchard and Mr. Hambden which unfortunate Gentlemen are true Heirs to their Fathers Principles, and like good Husbands have improved them; nor Wildman who was indebted to Rebellion for his Estate, and so in more gratitude spent his life in her service) I think those Noblemen, whose Ambition, Interest, Prejudice or Disaffection has withdrawn them from their several Duties, and plunged them into this Dishonourable action, may justly come under the same name, since they have all been assisting in the same Design, and have all so notoriously animated that sort of people; for though their Principles are clouded over with a show of Conformity, yet their nicest most undiscernible subtleties, by which they work upon the humours of the giddy People, are known by their effects, and though we cannot see the well-wrought Wire by which the Puppet moves, we know there is one: And 'tis not their spending now and then a drowsy hour in a Church( whose Enemies they encourage and side with) can justly procure them either the name or character of a Protestant of the Church of England as by Law established: A name which none but he that has a true value for the Church, and a detestation( as far as is consistent with Christian Charity) for all its opposers can any ways merit.  
But I too much, and too justly fear, that this growing mischief hath spread itself much wider than our weak Eyes( by the light the accusers have given us) can yet discern; but if we may be allowed to make an Inference from their Interest and Actions, the whole Party will plainly appear to be involved in it, First for their Actions,  
How in the name of wonder are they become such altered men? How are all their kind fears for their King's Safety vanished? What mighty numbness has seized their late vigorous Loyalty? Why is not the murder of the King at the Play-house as much the object of their detestation, as Sir George Wakeman's poisoning him at Whitehall? and why are not the Rye-house Assassinates pursued by them with an equal Fury, and as warm a rage as the four Irish Ruffians? If their just and dreadful apprehensions of Popery, and their commendable violence against that Party, sprung onely from a true zeal to the King and Government,( both which were then threatened) the same Cause would necessary produce the same effect, and the same danger, though from another Party, would have been equally dreadful; and the parties would have been pursued by them with the same heat, and the same becoming violence. But alas! too plain is the hypocrisy, 'twas all design and plain pretence, as will more evidently appear by a short view of the vast difference betwixt their Actions and the Church Protestants.  
The one, like true and constant Enemies to Treason and Disloyalty, favour it no more, and pursue it as much, in any of their own Tribe,( if one that merits that title can be guilty of it) as in Papists or Fanaticks, and no disguise can hid its deformity from their eyes: and Rebellion, in any Garb( though Embroidered over with Religion, Liberty and Property) is equally their aversion. And they, as they believed the Popish Plot, as far as 'twas rational, so they pursued it as far as 'twas just.  
But the others by their pretended fears, rather seconded and furthered those designs, and the whole Party onely used that horrid Plot, as an Instrument to work their own ends with; by aspersing his Majesty as one of their favourers, and traducing the Church for treading too near their steps, and not a man that was either signally Loyal, or eminently Serviceable to his Prince, but was the particular mark of their ungoverned fury, and underwent the censure of an Evil counselor; and to lay a foundation strong enough to support the weightiest villainy they could contrive to act, and that we might not know the Builders, though we should see the bloody fabric, they insinuated into the People, that the late War, though made under the pretence of suppressing Popery, and carried on by the swarms of Sectaries( the few Papists that were fighting then on the King's side, and being particularly instrumental in the present King's preservation at Worcester) yet the Jesuits, they would fain persuade you, had the greatest hand in that King's death; and what can be the meaning of so senseless and impudent a Story, but that the Jesuits( who have wickedness enough of their own to sink them) were the designed Fathers for their conceived Issue of Rebellion whenever it should be brought forth? and monstrous it must needs have been, for the Party has been these two years and upwards teeming with it; and when 'twas now just ripe for birth, and each well-wisher lent his Midwise hand, kind Providence strangled it in the very Womb: And yet this plain Fact would they deny, but all in vain, for we know the very progress of their mischiefs, from Riot and Contempt, to Treason and Rebellion. Who was it hollowed the Duke of Monmouth round the Kingdom, and in whatever quarter of the Nation he came, went crowding out to meet him, and throwing up their Caps, cried, Long live the Protestant Prince, in contempt of the King's Majesty, and all orderly Government? The Dissenters; to whose popular breaths that noble Lord owes the ruin of his once spreading famed, and growing virtue: Who fixed that formidable Character of Popishly affencted on every man that durst act Loyally, or speak Respectfully of his Prince? The Dissenters: Who are those that struggled so much in all Elections, whose large and busy swarms buz'd such fears and suspicions into every open Ear, and to whom do we owe those heats in Parliament, and those frequent Dissolutions? To the Dissenters: And when Elections were making for the Oxford Parliament, Who drew up Scandalous and Seditious Addresses to their Members, stuffed with unnecessary Thanks, and unmannerly Instructions; which were red in the names of whole Counties, when not one part in four were consenting to it? The Dissenters: Who attended the Elected Members to the said Oxford Parliament, in an unusual( I think I may safely say tumultuous manner) with Blunderbusses, Swords and Pistols, but the Dissenters? and not to mention by whom the warm Votes there were chiefly influenced, Who are those that have not onely pursued his Majesty's Royal Brother, with a violence that might have proved fatal to these Three Kingdoms, but have lessned and aspersed his Majesty, and openly abused his Royal and Matchless Patience, with Riotous over-busy celebrations of his Predecessor, Queen Elizabeth's Birth-days, whilst his own( to which we owe so great and so inestimable a Blessing) passed by in silence, almost unregarded: And who made Bonfires for the delivery of traitors by Ignoramus Juries; who railed against his Guard as Instruments of Arbitrary Power; and talked of his Person every where seditiously and irreverently, and wrote of him Libellously? The Dissenters. And lastly, What end did all these Tumultuous Scandals aim at, or what other could be the tendency of those contempts, but as Introductory Impieties to that greater blackest villainy, that murder of deepest die? They were all too plainly preparatory mischiefs to the King's Death, and if we should ask to whose Heads we owe that Damnable Contrivance, and whose Hands were destined for that startling Act, it must be answered, The Dissenters. 'tis they who drank the Father's blood, and whose Insatiate Drought hath long thirsted for the Son's.  
Then as for the interest of that Party, if we ask with Cassius, cvi bono? who alone would have been advantaged by the success of this Hellish enterprise? it must be answered likewise; The Dissenters: since the Roman catholics( those other Royal bloodsuckers) would have lost all their immaginary hopes, and all their pleasing prospect of Innovation in a Popish Successor, by the Duke's Death( for the comprehensive barbarity aimed at no less than the destruction o● that Royal pair and I think I need say nothing in excuse of those of the Church of England as now by Law established, for the Government designed against, being most for their benefit and the great Defender of their Faith, whose Life was so attempted, being the chief and onely bulwark against the furious Assault of those their two gigantic enemies, Popery and Fanaticism; they must needs have felt each wound of his, and every fatal stab would have reached their Loyal Hearts, and the Crown and Mitre would have found the same Grave. It must be therefore the Dissenters who might reasonably expect on the ruins of this Government which must necessary have sunk when its Royal Supporter had been removed to have taken the advantage of that confusion, and to have erected a new Frame after their old Model, which being wholly voided of Use, Decency, Form or Regularity, might better have suited with their Church. And so the oppressive Government and Hypocritical Religion of these true Protestants, might have wrought a through Reformation in Church and State, and Justice and Piety would have gone hand in hand just as they did in Forty Nine.   

LONDON, Printed for J. Cripps, at the Black Lion Post-Office, between the two Temple Gates in Fleetstreet. 1683.