At home; for it would bebead the factions without blood, and banish the ring-leaders without going abroad. When the great bodies of Diffenters fee the care of the government for their fafety, they have no need of their captains, nor thefe any ground for their pretences: for as they used the people to value themselves, and raise their fortunes with the prince, fo the people followed their leaders to get that ease they see their heads promised, but could not, and the government can and does give them.

Multitudes cannot plot; they are too many, and have not conduct for it; they move by another fpring. Safety is the pretence of their leaders: if once they fee they enjoy it, they have yet wit enough not to hazard it for any body for the endeavours of bufy men are then difcernable; but a ftate of feverity gives them a pretence, by which the multitude is eafily taken. Men may indifcreetly plot to get, what they would never plot to lose. So that eafe is not only their content, but the prince's fecurity.

This I fay, upon a fuppofition, That the Diffenters could agree against the government;' which is a begging of the queftion: for it is improbable, ifnot impoffible, without conformists; fince, befides the distance they are at in their perfuafions and affections, they dare not hope for fo good terms from one another, as the government gives: and that fear, with emulation, would draw them into that duty, that they must all fall into a natural dependance, which I call, holding the prince as the great head of the state.

From abroad, we are as fafe as from within ourselves: for if leading men at home are thus disappointed of their interest in the people, foreigners will find here no interpreters of their dividing language, nor matter (if they could) to work upon. For the point is gained; the people they would deal in, are at their eafe, and cannot be bribed; and those that would cannot deserve it.

It is this that makes princes live independent of their neighbours: and, to be loved at home, is to be feared

feared abroad: one follows neceffarily the other. Where princes are driven to seek a foreign affistance, the issue either must be the ruin of the prince, or the absolute fubjection of the people; not without the hazard of becoming a province to the power of that neighbour that turns the fcale. Thefe confequences have on either hand an ill look, and should rebate extremes.

The greatnefs of France carries thofe threats to all her neighbours, that, politically fpeaking, it is the melancholiest profpect England has had to make fince eighty-eight: the Spaniard at that time being fhorter in all things but his pride and hope, than the French king is now of the fame univerfal monarchy. This greatness, which began with the eleventh Lewis, fome will have it, has not been so much advanced by the wisdom of Richlieu, and craft of Mazarine, no, nor the arms of the present monarch, as by the affiftance or connivance of England, that has moft to lose by him.

O. Cromwell began, and gave him the scale against the Spaniard. The reafon of ftate he went upon, was the Support of ufurped dominion:' and he was not out in it; for the exile of the royal family was a great part of the price of that aid: in which we see how much intereft prevails above nature. It was not royal kindred could fhelter a king against the folicitations of an ufurper, with the fon of his mother's brother.

But it will be told us by fome people, We have not degenerated, but exactly followed the fame fteps ever fince; which has given fuch an increase to those beginnings, that the French monarchy is almost above our reach.' But fuppofe it were true, what is the cause of it? It has not been old friendship, or nearnefs of blood, or neighbourhood. Nor could it be from an inclination in our minifters to bring things here to a like iffue, as fome have fuggefted; for then we fhould have clogged his fucceffes, inftead of helping them in any kind, left in fo doing we should have put it into his power to hinder our own.

But perhaps our crofs accidents of state may fometimes have compelled us into his friendship, and his

councils

councils have carefully improved the one, and husband. ed the other to great advantages, and that this was more than made for our English intereft: and yet it is but too true, that the extreme heats of some men, that moft inveighed against it, went too far to ftrengthen that understanding, by not taking what would have been granted, and creating an intereft at home, that might naturally have diffolved that correfpondence abroad.

I love not to revive things that are uneafily remembered; but in points moft tender to the late king, he thought himself fometimes too clofely preffed, and hardly held; and we are all wife enough now to fay, a milder conduct has fucceeded better: for if reafonable things may be reasonably preffed, and with fuch private intentions as induce a denial, heats about things doubtful, unwife or unjuft, must needs harden and prejudice.

Let us then create an intereft for the prince at home; and foreign friendships (at beft uncertain and dange rous) will fall of courfe: for if it be allowed to private men, fhall it be forbid to princes only, to know and to be true to their own fupport?

It is no more than what every age makes us to fee in all parties of men. The parliaments of England, fince the reformation, giving no quarter to Roman Catholicks, have forced them to the crown for fhelter. And to induce the monarchy to yield them the protection they have needed, they have, with mighty address and skill, recommended themselves as the great friends of the prerogative; and fo fuccefsfully too, that it were not below the wisdom of that conftitution, to reflect what they have loft by that coftiveness of theirs to Catholicks. On the other hand, the crown having treated the Proteftant Diffenters with the feverity of the laws that af fected them, fuffering the fharpeft of them to fall upon their perfons and eftates, they have been driven fucceffively to parliaments for fuccour, whofe privileges, with equal skill and zeal, they have abetted: and our late unhappy wars are too plain a proof, how much their

acceffion

acceffion gave the fcale against the power and courage of both Conformists and Catholicks, that adhered to the

crown.

Nor must this contrary adhesion be imputed to love or hatred, but neceffary intereft: refufal in one place, makes way for addrefs in another. If the fcene be changed, the parts muft follow: for as well before, as after Cromwell's ufurpation, the Roman Catholicks did not only promise the most ready obedience to that government, in their printed apologies for liberty of confcience; but actually treated, by fome of their greatest men, with the minifters of thofe times, for indulgence, upon the affurances they offered to give of their good behaviour to the government, as then established.

On the other hand, we fee the Prefbyterians, that in Scotland began the war, and in England promoted and upheld it to forty-feven, when ready to be fupplanted by the Independents, wheel to the King. In Scotland they crown him, and come into England with an army to restore him, where their brethren join them; but being defeated, they help, by private collections, to fupport him abroad; and after the overthrow of Sir George Booth's attempt, to almost a miracle, reftore him. And, which is more, a great part of that army too, whofe victories came from the ruin of the prince they restored.

But to give the laft proofs our age has of the power of intereft, against the notion oppofed by this discourse. First, the Independents themselves, held the greatest republicans of all parties, were the moft lavish and fuperftitious adorers of monarchy in Oliver Cromwell, because of the regard he had to them; allowing him, and his fon after him, to be cuftos utriufque tabule; over all caufes, as well ecclefiaftical as civil, fupreme governor. And next, the Conformifts in parliament, reputed the most loyal and monarchical men, did, more than any body, queftion and oppose the late king's declaration of indulgence; even they themselves would not allow fo much prero

gative to the crown, but pleaded and opposed his political capacity.

This proves the power of intereft, and that all perfuafions center with it: and when they fee the government engaging them with a fixed liberty of confcience, they muft, for their own fakes, feek the fupport of it. by which it is maintained. This union, directed under the prince's conduct, would awe the greatness of our neighbours, and foon restore Europe to its ancient balance, and that into his hand too: fo that he may be the great arbiter of the Chriftian world. But if the policy of the government places the fecurity, of its intereft in the deftruction of the civil interest of the Diffenters, it is not to be wondered at, if they are less found in the praises of its conduct, than others, to whom they are offered up a facrifice by it.

I know it will be infinuated, That there is danger in building upon the union of divers interefts;' and this will be aggravated to the prince, by fuch as would engrofs his bounty, and intercept his grace from a great part of his people. But I will only oppofe to that mere fuggeftion three examples to the contrary, with this challenge, that if after rummaging the records of all time, they find one inftance to contradic me, I fhall fubmit the question to their authority.

The first is given by thofe Chriftian emperors who admitted all forts of Diffenters into their armies, courts, and fenates. This the ecclefiaftical ftory of those times affures us, and particularly Socrates, Evagrius, and Onuphrius.

The next inftance is that of prince William of Orange, who, by a timely indulgence, united the fcattered strength of Holland; and, all animated by the clemency, as well as valour of their captain, crowned his attempts with an extraordinary glory; and what makes, continues, great.

The laft is given us by Livy, in his account of Hannibal's army; That they confifted of divers nations, languages, cuftoms, and religions: that un⚫ der all their fucceffes of war and peace, for thirteen years