But you will say, the King is not to be trusted: judg not of others by your selves; did ever any man observe the least inclination of revenge in his breast? has he not betides the innate propensity of his own nature to gentlenesse, the strict injunctions of a dying father and a Martyr, to forgive even greater offenders then you are? Yes, I dare pronounce it with confidence, and avouch it whith all assurance, that there is not an individuall amongst you, whose crimes are the most crimson, whom he will not be most ready to pardon, and graciously receive upon their repentance; nor any thing that can be desired of him, to which he would not cheerfully accommode, for the stopping of that torrent of blood, and extream confusion, which has hitherto run, and is yet imminent over us. Do but reason a little with your self, and confider sadly, whether a young Prince, mortified by so many afflictions, disciplin’d by much experience, and instructed by the miscarriages of others, be not the most excellently qualified to govern and reduce a people, who have so succeslesly tried so many governments, of old, impious and crafty Foxes, that have exercised upon us the most intollerable Tyrannies that were ever heard of?
But you object further, that he has lived amongst Papists, is vitiously inclin’d, and has wicked men about him: What can be said more unjustly, what more malitious? And can you have the foreheads to tell us he has lived amongst Papists to his prejudice, who have proscrib’d him from Protestants, persecuted him from place to place, as a Patridg on the Mountains? You may remember who once went to Achich the King of Gath and changed his behaviour before them, and fain’d himself mad in their hands; had many great infirmities, and was yet a man after Gods own heart; Whilst the Catholick King was your Allie, you had nothing to do with Papists, it was then no crime: God is not mocked, away with this respect of persons: But where is it you would have him to be? The Hollander dares not afford him harbour, lest you refuse them yours: The French may not give him bread for fear of offending you; and unless he should go to the Indies, or the Turk (where yet your malice would undoubtedly reach him) where can he be safe from your revenge? But suppose him in a Papist Countrey, constrained thereto by your incharity to his Soul as well as body; would he have condescended to half so much, as you have offered for a toleration of Papists, he needed not now have made use of this Apology, or wanted the assistance of the most puissant Princes of Christendome to restore him, of whom he has refused such conditions as in prudence he might have yielded to, and the people would have gladly received; whilst those who know with what persons you have transacted, what truck you have made with the Jesuites, what secret Papists there are amongst you, may easily divine why they have been no forwarder to assist him, and how far distant he is from the least wavering in his Faith. But since you have now declared that you will tollerate all Religions, without exception; do not think it a sin in him, to gratifie those that shall most oblige him.