The Dissenters,who had been long persecuted by the parliament,and bantered and abused by the court,were encouraged by the conjuncture to lift up their heads.They took advantage of the horror and indignation,which the discovery of the Popish Plot,and the use made of this discovery had raised all over the kingdom.They could not be more zealous in this cause than the members of the established Church had shown themselves to be;but they cried,perhaps,louder for it.In short,whatever their management was,or however they were abetted,certain it is that they were very active,and very successful too,in the elections of the Parliament which followed the long Parliament,according to Rapin,who asserts that many of the members,chosen into this House of Commons,were Presbyterians.He might have said as much,upon just as good grounds,of the two Parliaments which followed this;and I shall speak of them indiscriminately.The leaders,who mustered all their forces,in order to push the Bill of Exclusion,looked on this turn in the elections as an advantage to them:and it might not have been a disadvantage,if they and the Dissenters had improved it with more moderation.But they were far from doing so,as Rapin himself seems to own a little unwillingly,when he says,that complaisance for the Presbyterians were carried,perhaps,too far in the bill for the comprehension of Protestant Dissenters.Bishop Burnet speaks more plainly.He owns that many began to declare openly in favour of the nonconformists;that upon this the nonconformists behaved themselves very indecently.that they fell severely on the body of the clergy;and that they made the bishops and clergy apprehend that a rebellion,and with it the pulling the Church to pieces,was designed.Several other passages of the same strength,and to the same purpose,might be collected from this historian;and he,who reads them,will not be surprised,I think,to find that such proceedings as these,both in Parliament and out of it,gave an alarm to the clergy,and set them to make parallels between the late and the present times;and to infuse the fears and the passions,which agitated them,into the nation.
The bishop accuses them,indeed,of doing this with much indecency.But they,who are frightened out of their wits,will be apt to be indecent;and indecency begets indecency.
At the same time that the jealousies of a design to destroy the Church prevailed,others prevailed likewise of a design to alter the government of the state;of a design not only against the successor,but against the possessor of the crown.Many well-meaning men,says bishop Buret upon one occasion,began to dislike these practices,and to apprehend that a change of government was designed.--The King came to think himself,says the same author upon another occasion,levelled at chiefly,though for decency's sake his brother was only named.Rapin goes farther;for,speaking of the same time,he uses this remarkable expression;that 'Things seemed to be taking the same course as in the year 1640;and there was reason to think that the opposing party had no better intentions towards the king now than the enemies of King Charles the First had towards him.'But whatever some particular men,who knew themselves irreconcilable with the King,as well as the Duke,or some others,who had still about them a tang of religious enthusiasm and republican whimsies,might intend;I am far from thinking that the party,who promoted the exclusion,meant to destroy,on the contrary it is plain that they meant to preserve,by that very measure,the constitution in Church and state.The reason why I quote these passages,and refer to others of the same kind,is not to show what was really designed,but what was apprehended;for as the distinction of Whig and Tory subsisted long after the real differences were extinguished,so were these parties at first divided,not so much by overt acts committed,as by the apprehensions,which each of them entertained of the intentions of the other.When the resolution was once taken of rejecting all limitations,on the belief artfully,and,I think,knavishly propagated,that the King would yield,if the Parliament persisted;the necessary consequences of the King's adhering inflexibly to his brother were those which followed,those fulmina parliamentaria,harsh votes,angry proceedings,addresses,that were in truth remonstrances,projects of associations,pretensions to a power of dispensing with the execution of laws (that very prerogative they had so justly refused to the crown)and many others,which I omit.All these would have been blasts of wind,bruta fulmina,no more,if the King had yielded:
and that they were pushed in this confidence by the bulk of the party who pushed them,cannot be doubted;since it cannot be doubted that the bulk of the party depended on the King's yielding almost,perhaps,even to the last.Some few might be willing,nay desirous,that he should not yield,and hope to bring things into a state of confusion;which none but madmen,or those,whom their crimes,or their fortunes render desperate,can ever wish to see.But it would be hard,indeed,if parties were to be characterized,not by their common view,or the general tenor of their conduct,but by the private views imputed to some amongst them,or by the particular sallies,into which mistake,surprise,or passion,hath sometimes betrayed the best-intentioned,and even the best-conducted bodies of men.Whig and Tory were now formed into parties;but I think they were not now,nor at any other time,what they believed one another,nor what they have been represented by their enemies,nay by their friends.The Whigs were not roundheads,though the measures they pursued,being stronger than the temper of the nation would then bear,gave occasion to the suspicions I have mentioned.The Tories were not cavaliers,though they took the alarm so sudden and so warm for the Church and the King;and though they carried the principles in favour of the King,at least,whilst the heat of their contests with the opposite party lasted,higher than they had been ever carried before.The Whigs were not Dissenters,nor republicans,though they favoured the former,and though some inconsiderable remains of the latter,might find shelter in their party.The Tories had no disposition to become slaves,or papists,though they abetted the exercise of an exorbitant power by the crown,and though they supported the pretensions of a popish successor to it.--Thus I think about the parties,which arose in the reign of King Charles the Second;and as I deliver my thoughts with frankness,I hope they will be received with candour.Some farther and stronger reasons for receiving them so,may perhaps appear in a subsequent letter.
I am,sir,your,etc.
