I Hope the Reader will not be so unwife, as to expect that I should here enter­tain him with a Pompous Enumeration of all those Imaginary Vertues, where­with the Romantick Modellers of a Platonick, or Utopian Common-wealth, adorn their Paper Senators; when the Character even of a Real Cato, wou'd be altogether as useless in our Times, as it is rarely found to be practis'd; and con­sequently as little regarded now, as he himself was by the Corrupt Age wherein he lived: Not but that our Nation has of late produced as Great Heroes as any Antiquity can boast of, yet it cannot be imagined that they are to be found in eve­ry little Town or Borrough.

As for my Honest and Worthy Parliament Man, all the Qualifications that I desire to find in him, are only such as it wou'd be the greatest affront imaginable to any English Gentleman to think him destitute of: That is, that he shou'd be a Man of Sense, Integrity and Honour. Let him but follow their Dictates, and then all the duties which we may reckon, or think of, to be incumbent on him; will be as easily performed by him, as they are demonstrable to be the obvious, and Natural Consequents of such Principles.

As for his Religion, he is a sincere, as well as open Profess [...]r of that which by our Laws is now become Essential to his Office, I mean, that of the Church of England: Nor is he of it because it is Establish'd by Law, or that he was bred in it; but before he settled his Opinion, he maturely examin'd its first Principles, and found them agreeable to the Divine will, and Right Reason, he discovered the Folly and Errours of those who oppose any points of its Doctrine: And be­ing throughly satisfied in the Fundamentals, for its Discipline, he entirely submits himself to the Judgment and Authority of those to whose Conduct and Discretion the Government of the Church has been in all Ages committed.

But tho' he be a zealous Church-man himself, yet he is so far from Persecuting those who Dissent from the Establisht Religion purely for Conscience sake, that he is ready to pity their weakness, have Compassion on their Infirmi­ties, and express the greatest Tenderness imaginable for their Persons, whenever that time shall come, when it will be his chance to meet with those, whose scru­ples arise rather from a real defect in their understandings, than some Worldly In­terest or desire of Filthy Lucre, an Obstinate, Peevish, or Self-conceited Humour, or the vain glorious Spirit of Contradiction.

As for his Sentiments in State Affairs, in which next to his Religion, his greatest desire is to be Orthodox; before they fixt, he always tries them with the Touch­stone of Reason; and consequently thinks it Lawful for him to be a Latitudinarian in Judgment in Relation to Civil Matters: I mean so far as not to expect to find an Infallible Judge, amongst either Torys, Whigs, or Trimmers. He takes up Opinions upon trust from no Party, nor condemns any, because they are of it, who differ from him in other things: And therefore he cou'd not but smile, to see in [Page]our late Times of Dissention, so many in all outward appearance Honest, and thinking men, continually jogg on, like a Gang of Pack-Horses after the Leaders of their several Parties; and tho they wander, after these Blazing, butdeceit­ful Lights, into never so many Crooked and by paths, yet with an Implicit and Blind Faith, still believe themselves to be in the right way.

For his part, his only aim is at the Honour, Safety, and Interest of his Countrey: On this Mark, he keeps his eye constantly fixt; nor can the dreadful Frowns of an Enraged Prince, or the horrid Clamours of a possess'd Multitude; ever be able to remove him from his point. He finds that his beloved vertue brings such solid, tho invisible rewards along with her, that he is equally insensible to the promising smiles of fawning great ones that wou'd tempt, and the terrible menaces of the Fiercest Demagogues, that wou'd force him to forsake her. He can securely, with­out any Fear of Infection, deride the folly, and pity the madness of those who for­feit their Honesty, to found their happiness, upon the unstable Basis of Court Fa­vours, or Popular Applause.

He truly enjoys all that Freedom in his Actions, which he thinks his Duty to procure for, and defend his Countrey-men in. He is wholly a stranger to the servile Ambition of gaining the favourable Opinion of others; nor can he tell what it is to fear the Censures of any: He is Directed, Influenc'd, or Byass'd by none; And whilst he is engaged in his Countries service, he thinks the most Glo­rious Epithetes the World can fix upon him, are those of a Rigid Inflexible Ill-na­tur'd Honest Man.

When he discovers that any have Designs contrary to the Publick good, let their Authority and Power be never so great, he opposes their Opinions, with all the Courage and Zeal his generous Principles can furnish him with; without any re­spect to their Persons. But when the time comes, wherein the right side shall turn uppermost, as after all Revolutions it ever will at last, he is then so far from trampling upon his faln Adversaries, tho he becomes, I mean as a private Man, most tender of the Persons without any Respect to their Opinions.

He is altogether unacquainted with that base and degenerate Passion called Ha­tred: Yet there is one sort of Men whom he thinks worthy of the utmost Degree of his Contempt and Scorn; I mean those false and Treacherous Friends, who have formerly gone along with, nay, much before him in the same Cause; those pre­tended Zealots for their Country and Religion, who for their own Paultry In­terest, or some by ends made it their business to set us together by the Ears, with their nosy Clamours against Popery and Slavery: But when the danger was be­come real, and just hanging over our Heads, when our Church and State were de­sign'd for immediate Ruin, with the same Mercenary breath servilly offer'd them­selves to be employ'd as Tools, in the Destruction of them both. These he con­ceives ought to have a mark put upon them, as the worst of Traytors; he takes them to be the vilest of Men, or rather (to use he expression of one who per­haps may think himself cocern'd, here) to carry nothing of men, that is, English Men, but the shape.

But I now find my self necessiated, to take my hand from off the Tablet, lest in­stead of compleating the Portraicture of an Honest Parliament-man I shou'd insensi­bly touch upon them, who deserve another Character. My intention then be­ing like my Honest Patriots, willingly to offend no man, I shall take my leave of him at present, with this Remark only, That a Nation where such as he pre­side, at the Helm, will without doubt be altogether as happy, as if it were Steer'd by Plato's Philosophizing Governours, or Governing Philosophers.