tended with, in reference to your royal highness, and even to the king himself, whose greatest security (under God) is in the affection and duty of his protestant subjects. Your royal highness well knows how far I have always been from wishing that the Roman Catholicks should be prosecuted with severity; but I less wish it should ever be in their power to be able to prosecute those who differ from them, since we well know how little moderation they would or could use.

And if this, which people so much talk of, I hope, without ground, should fall out, it might very probably raise a greater storm against the Roman Catholicks in general, than modest men can wish; since, after such a breach, any jealousy of their presumption would seem reasonable. I have written to the duchess, with the freedom and affection of a troubled and perplexed father. I do most humbly beseech your royal highness, by your authority, to rescue her from bringing a mischief upon you and herself, that never can be repaired; and to think it worthy your wisdom to remove and dispel those reproaches, how false soever, by better evidence than contempt; and hope you do believe that no severity I have, or can undergo, shall in any degree lessen or diminish my most profound duty to his majesty, or your royal highness; but that I do, with all imaginable abedience, submit to your good pleasure in all things.

God preserve your Royal Highness,

SIR,

and keep me in your favour,

Your Royal Highness's

most humble and obedient servant,

CLARENDON,

The Earl of Clarendon's Letter to the Duchess of York.

You have much reason to believe that I have no mind to trouble

you, or displease you, especially in an argument that is so unpleasant and grievous to myself; but as no distance of place that is between us, in respect of our residence, or the greater distance in respect of the high condition you are in, can make me less your father, or absolve me from performing those obligations which that relation requires from me: So when I receive any credible advertisement of what reflects upon you, in point of honour, conscience, or discretion, I ought not to omit the informing you of it, or administering such advice to you, as to my understanding seems reasonable, and which I must still hope will have some credit with you. I will confess to you, that what you wrote to me many months since, upon those reproaches which I told you were generally reported concerning your defection in religion, gave me so much satisfaction, that I believed them to proceed from that ill spirit of the time that delights in slanders and calumny; but I must tell you, the same report increases, of late, very much, and I

myself saw a letter, the last week, from Paris, from a person who said the English ambassador assured him, the day before, that the duchess was become a Roman Catholick; and which makes greater impression upon me, I am assured that many good men in Eng, land, who have great affection for you and me, and who have thought nothing more impossible, than that there should be such a change in you, are at present under much affliction, with the observation of a great change in your course of life, and that constant exercise of that devotion which was so notorious; and do ap ́prehend, from your frequent discourses, that you have not the same reverence and veneration, which you used to have, for the church of England, the church in which you were baptized, and the church the best constituted, and the most free from errors, of any christian church, this day, in the world; and that some persons, by their insinuations, have prevailed with you to have a better opinion of that which is most opposite to it, the church of Rome, than the integrity thereof deserves. It is not yet in my power to believe that your wit and understanding, with God's blessing upon both, can suffer you to be shaken further, than with melancholick reflections upon the iniquity and wickedness of the age we live in, which discredits all religion, and which, with equal license, breaks into the professors of all, and prevails upon the members of all churches, and whose manners will have no benefit from the faith of any church.

I presume, you do not intangle yourself in the particular controversies between the Romanists and us, or think yourself a com petent judge of all difficulties which occur therein; and, therefore, it must be some fallacious argument of antiquity and universality, confidently urged by men, who know less than many of those you are acquainted with, and ought less to be believed by you, that

can raise any doubts and scruples in you; and, if you will, with

equal temper, hear those who are well able to inform you in all such particulars, it is not possible for you to suck in that poison, which can only corrupt and prevail over you, by stopping your own ears, and shutting your own eyes. There are but two persons in the world, who have greater authority with you than I can pretend to, and am sure they both suffer more in this rumour, and would suffer much more, if there were ground for it, than I can do; and truly I am as unlikely to be deceived myself, or to deceive you, as any man who endeavours to pervert you in your religion; and, therefore, I beseech you, let me have so much credit with you, as to persuade you to communicate any doubts or scruples, which occur to you, before you suffer them to make too deep an impression upon you. The common argument, that there is no salvation out of the church, and the church of Rome is that only true church, is both irrational and untruc. There are many churches, in which salvation may be attained, as well as in any one of them; and were many even in the apostles time, otherwise they would not have directed their epistles to so many several churches, in which there were different opinions received, and very

different doctrines taught. There is, indeed, but one faith, in which we can be saved, the stedfast belief of the birth, passion, and resurrection of our Saviour; and every church, that receives and embraces that faith, is in a state of salvation. If the apostles preached true doctrine, the reception and retention of many errors does not destroy the essence of a church; if it did, the church of Rome would be in as ill, if not in a worse condition, than most other christian churches, because its errors are of a greater magnitude, and more destructive to religion. Let not the canting discourse of the universality and extent of that church, which has as little of truth as the rest, prevail over you. They, who will imitate the greatest part of the world, must turn heathens; for it is generally believed, that above half the world is possessed by them, and that the Mahometans possess more than half the remainder. There is as little question, that of the rest, which is inhabited by christians, one part of four is not of the communion of the church of Rome; and God knows, in that very communion, there is as great discord in opinion, and in matters of great moment, as is between the other christians.

I hear you do, in publick discourses, dislike some things in the church of England, as the marriage of the clergy; which is a point that no Roman Catholick will pretend to be of the essence of religion, and is in use in many places, which are of the communion of the church of Rome, as in Bohemia, and those parts of the Greek church which submit to the Roman. And all men know, that, in the late council of Trent, the sacrament of both kinds, and liberty of the clergy to marry, was very passionately pressed, both by the emperor and king of France, for their dominions; and it was afterwards granted to Germany, though under such conditions, as made it ineffectual; which however shews, that it was not, nor ever can be, looked upon as matter of religion. Christianity was many hundred years old, before such a restraint was ever heard of in the church; and, when it was endeavoured, it met with great opposition, and never was submitted to. And, as the positive inhibition seems absolutely unlawful, so the inconveniences, which result from thence, will, upon a just disquisition, be found supe rior to those, which attend the liberty which christian religion permits. Those arguments, which are not strong enough to draw persons from the Roman communion into that of the church of England, when custom and education, and a long stupid resignation of all their faculties to their teachers, usually shuts out all reason to the contrary, may yet he abundant to retain those who have been baptised, and bred and instructed in the grounds and principles of that religion, which are, in truth, not only founded upon the clear authority of the scriptures, but upon the consent of antiquity, and the practice of the primitive church. And men, who look into antiquity, know well by what corruption and violence, and with what constant and continual opposition those opinions, which are contrary to ours, crept into the world; and how unwarrantably the authority of the Bishop of Rome, which alone

1

supports all the rest, came to prevail, who hath no more pretence of authority and power in England, than the Bishop of Paris or Toledo can as reasonably lay claim to; and is so far from being matter of catholick religion, that the Pope hath so much, and no more, to do in France or Spain, or any other catholick domi nion, than the crown, and laws, and constitutions of several kingdoms gave him leave, which makes him so little, if at all, considered in France, and so much in Spain. And, therefore, the English catholicks, which attribute so much to him, make themselves very unwarrantably of another religion than the catholick church professeth; and, without doubt, they who desert the church of England, of which they are members, and become thereby disobedient to the ecclesiastical and civil laws of their country, and there in renounce their subjection to the state, as well as to the church, which are grievous sins, had need have a better excuse, than the meeting with some doubts which they could not answer; and less than a manifest evidence, that their salvation is desperate in that communion, cannot serve their turn. And they, who imagine they have such an evidence, ought rather to suspect, that their understanding hath forsaken them, and that they are become mad, than that the church, which is replenished with all learning and piety requisite, can betray them to perdition. I beseech you to consider (which I hope will over-rule those ordinary doubts and objections which may be infused into you) that, if you change your religion, you renounce all obedience and affection to your father, who loves you so tenderly, that such an odious mutation would break his heart. You condemn your father and your mother (whose incomparable virtue, and piety, and devotion, hath placed her in heaven) for having impiously educated you; and you declare the church and state, to both which you owe reverence and subjection, to be, in your judgment, anti-christian. You bring irreparable dishonour, scandal, and prejudice, to the duke your husband, to whom you ought to pay all imaginable duty, and who, I presume, is much more precious to you than your own life, and all possible ruin to your children, of whose company and conversation you must look to be deprived; for God forbid, that, after. such an apostasy, you should have any power in the education of your children. You have many enemies, whom you herein would abundantly gratify, and some friends, whom you will thereby, at least as far as in you lies, perfectly destroy, and afflict many others, who have deserved well of you.

I know you are not inclined to any part of this mischief, and therefore offer these considerations, as all those particulars would be the consequence of such a conclusion. It is to me the saddest circumstance of my banishment, that I may not be admitted, in such a season as this, to confer with you; when, I am confident, I could satisfy you in all your doubts, and make it appear to you, that there are many absurdities. in the Roman religion, inconsistent with your judgment and understanding, and many impieties, inconsistent with your conscience; so that, before you can sub

mit to the obligations of faith, you must divest yourself of your natural reason and common sense, and captivate the dictates of your own conscience to the impositions of an authority which hath not any pretence to oblige or advise you. If you will not, with freedom, communicate the doubts which occur to you, to those near you, of whose learning and piety you have had much experience, let me conjure you to impart them to me, and to expect my answer, before you suffer them to prevail over you.

God bless you and yours.

A MODERN ACCOUNT OF

SCOTLAND:

Being an exact Description of the Country, and a true Character of the People

IF

and their Manners.

Written from thence by an English Gentleman.

Printed in the Year 1670. Quarto, containing twenty Pages.

F all our European travellers direct their course to Italy, upon the account of its antiquity, why should Scotland be neglect. ed, whose wrinkled surface derives its original from the chaos? The first inhabitants were some stragglers of the fallen angel, who rested themselves on the confines, till their captain Lucifer provided places for them in his own country. This is the conjecture of learned criticks, who trace things to their originals; and this opinion was grounded on the devil's brats yet resident amongst them (whose foresight, in the events of good and evil, exceeds the oracles at Delphos) the supposed issue of those pristine inhabitants.

Names of countries were not then in fashion; those came not in till Adam's days; and history, being then in her infancy, makes no mention of the changes of that renowned country. In that interval betwixt him and Moses, when their Chronicle commences, she was then baptised (and most think with the sign of the Cross) by the venerable name of Scotland, from Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Hence came the rise and name of these present inhabitants, as their Chronicle informs us, and is not to be doubted of, from divers considerable circumstances; the plagues of Egypt being entailed upon them, that of lice (being a judgment unrepealed) is an ample testimony, these loving animals accompa nied them from Egypt, and remain with them to this day, never forsaking them (but as rats leave a house) till they tumble into their graves. The plague of biles and blains is hereditary to them, as a distinguishing mark from the rest of the world, which (like the devil's cloven hoof) warns all men to beware of them. The judgment of hail and snow is naturalised and made free denison here, and continues with them from the sun's first ingress into Aries, till he has passed the thirtieth degree of Aquary.