a divine Command to obey Superior Powers: and
the Duke will lawfully be such, no Bill of Exclusion having past against
him in his Brother's life: Besides this, we have the Examples of
Primitive Christians, even under Heathen Emperors, always suffering, yet
never taking up Arms, during ten Persecutions. But we have no Text, no
Primitive Example encouraging us to rebel against a Christian Prince,
tho of a different Perswasion. And to say there were then no Christian
Princes when the New Testament was written, will avail our Author
little; for the Argument is a _Fortiori_: if it be unlawful to rebel
against a Heathen Emperor, then much more against a Christian King. The
Corollary is this, and every unbiassed sober man will subscribe to it,
that since we cannot pry into the secret Decrees of God, for the
knowledge of future Events, we ought to rely upon his Providence, for
the Succession; without either plunging our present King into
necessities, for what may never happen; or refusing our obedience to one
hereafter, who in the course of nature may succeed him. One, who if he
had the will, could never have the power to settle Popery in _England_,
or to bring in Arbitrary Government.

_But the Monarchy will not be destroyed, and the Protestant Religion
will be preserved, if we may have a Protestant Successor_.

If his party had thought, that this had been a true Expedient, I am
confident it had been mentioned in the last Parliament at _Westminster_.
But there, _altum silentium_ not one word of it. Was it because the
Machine was not then in readiness to move! and that the Exclusion must
first pass? or more truly was it ever intended to be urged? I am not
ashamed to say, that I particularly honour the Duke of _Monmouth_: but
whether his nomination to succeed, would, at the bottom be pleasing to
the Heads of his Cabal, I somewhat doubt. To keep him fast to them by
some remote hopes of it, may be no ill Policy. To have him in a
readiness to head an Army, in case it should please God the King should
die before the Duke, is the design; and then perhaps he has reason to
expect more from a Chance Game, than from the real desires of his party
to exalt him to a Throne. But 'tis neither to be imagined, that a Prince
of his Spirit, after the gaining of a Crown, would be managed by those
who helped him to it, let his ingagements and promises be never so
strong before, neither that he would be confin'd in the narrow compass
of a Curtail'd