Page:Antidote against the infectious contagion of popery and tyranny.pdf/5

 the whole muſt inevitably be productive of to Religion, to the King, and to the Realm in general.

Imo, The Perſon pretending to be our King is a profeſſed and bigotted Papiſt, being one of the Pope's Cardinals, and the pretended lineal (tho' moſt reckon him but the ſpurious) Succeſſor of K. James VII. who to the Treachery, Diſſimulation, Covenant-breaking, Reformation-burying. Bloodſhed and Tyranny of his Grandfather, his father and Brother (Sins for which we have Reaſon to expect God will, according to the ſecond Command of the Moral Law, reckon with that Race unto the third and fourth Generation) added his utmoſt Endeavours, not only by intolerable Force and Cruelty upon the Lord's Peaple, but by Fraud and Deceit with the more ſimple, to bring back theſe Lands to Popery, and ſubject them to Slavery: for which he and his poſterity were in the righteous Judgment of God excluded from ſwaying the Sceptre over us.

2.do, The Principle whereupon this Pretender and his Friends, in all their Manifeſto's and Declarations, found his Title and Claim to theſe Kingdoms, being a hereditary indeſeaſible Right, is evidently productive of ſundry Plagues and Inconveniencies. For, (1) The preſent Exerciſe thereof were inconſiſtent with all Laws Divine and Human: For this Pretender being a Papiſt, and as ſuch an Idolater, the Law of God (Deut. xii.) which makes no Diſtinction betwixt King and Subject, commands that the ldolater thall die the Death; conſequently all ſuch are incapable of, and unfit for, Dominion in a Chriſtian Land. And by the Laws of the Land (viz. Act 8. Parl. 1. K. James VI. and Parag. 1 of the Claim of Right, ratified by ſundry Acts of Parliament) no Papiſt, or one of a different Religion from the People. can be our King: And for the Pretender has not yet ſignified the leaſt Attachment to Proteftantiſm.

(2.) This hereditary Right robs the People of their natural Liberty of chooſing their Kings, which alſo the Scripture in many places particularly in 1 Sam.