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REPRINTED, THE SIXTH TIME, BY A. MILLAR, H. WOODFALL, 1.
WHISTON AND B. WHITE, 1. RIVINGTON, L. DAVIS AND C. REYMERS, R. BALDWIN, HAWES CLARKE AND
COLLINS; W. IOHNSTON, W. OWEN, 1. RICHARDSON, S. CROWDER, T. LONGMAN, B. LAW, C.
RIVINGTON, E. DILLY, R. WITHY, C. AND R. WARE, S, BAKER, T. PAYNE, A. SHUCKBURGH, 1.
HINXMAN
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Reader, thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse
concerning government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have
filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it is not worth while to tell thee.
These, which remain, I hope are sufficient to establish the throne of our great restorer,
our present King William; to make good his title, in the consent of the people, which
being the only one of all lawful governments, he has more fully and clearly, than any
prince in Christendom; and to justify to the world the people of England, whose love of
their just and natural rights, with their resolution to preserve them, saved the nation
when it was on the very brink of slavery and ruin. If these papers have that evidence, I
flatter myself is to be found in them, there will be no great miss of those which are
lost, and my reader may be satisfied without them: for I imagine, I shall have neither the
time, nor inclination to repeat my pains, and fill up the wanting part of my answer, by
tracing Sir Robert again, through all the windings and obscurities, which are to be met
with in the several branches of his wonderful system. The king, and body of the nation,
have since so thoroughly confuted his Hypothesis, that I suppose no body hereafter will
have either the confidence to appear against our common safety, and be again an advocate
for slavery; or the weakness to be deceived with contradictions dressed up in a popular
stile, and well-turned periods: for if any one will be at the pains, himself, in those
parts, which are here untouched, to strip Sir Robert's discourses of the flourish of
doubtful expressions, and endeavour to reduce his words to direct, positive, intelligible
propositions, and then compare them one with another, he will quickly be satisfied, there
was never so much glib nonsense put together in well-sounding English. If he think it not
worth while to examine his works all thro', let him make an experiment in that part, where
he treats of usurpation; and let him try, whether he can, with all his skill, make Sir
Robert intelligible, and consistent with himself, or common sense. I should not speak so
plainly of a gentleman, long since past answering, had not the pulpit, of late years,
publicly owned his doctrine, and made it the current divinity of the times. It is
necessary those men, who taking on them to be teachers, have so dangerously misled others,
should be openly shewed of what authority this their Patriarch is, whom they have so
blindly followed, that so they may either retract what upon so ill grounds they have
vented, and cannot be maintained; or else justify those principles which they preached up
for gospel; though they had no better an author than an English courtier: for I should not
have writ against Sir Robert, or taken the pains to shew his mistakes, inconsistencies,
and want of (what he so much boasts of, and pretends wholly to build on) scripture-proofs,
were there not men amongst us, who, by crying up his books, and espousing his doctrine,
save me from the reproach of writing against a dead adversary. They have been so zealous
in this point, that, if I have done him any wrong, I cannot hope they should spare me. I
wish, where they have done the truth and the public wrong, they would be as ready to
redress it, and allow its just weight to this reflection, viz. that there cannot be done a
greater mischief to prince and people, than the propagating wrong notions concerning
government; that so at last all times might not have reason to complain of the Drum
Ecclesiastic. If any one, concerned really for truth, undertake the confutation of my
Hypothesis, I promise him either to recant my mistake, upon fair conviction; or to answer
his difficulties. But he must remember two things.
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