mee in my own Parish and within my owne small fold Are they not unsufferably bold when a Priest came to my Lodging and there in his fury attempted to draw a sword upon me If you graciously assist me not I have bin saved abroad to perish at home with all my friends about me or at least to lie buried in secrecie and contempt Pardon me if I am hot I have bin hitherto chill and lukewarmnesse is highly blameable I have bin wrought upon through all my life and bowed to serve other mens ends And have ignorantly suffered my selfe to be moved and fashioned in order to them But now the vizard is off I will throw them off one here and one there and only serve God who is my true end It is remarkable that the Papists turn our lenity and gentlenesse towards them into an argument against us inferring that wee have no zeale no religion O consider the flocks and multitudes of ignorant people that came to me when I lodged in London crying for satisfaction in matters of beliefe Every one of them being divided betwixt a Protestant and a Papist not knowing where to finde rest for their souls And some came under my hands whom the papists by their continual perswasions had wrought into a distraction some into madnes This others know with mee God will require an account of these souls O that it were granted to mee but first to the glory of God that while I have leave to behold this good light both of the Sun and of the Gospell I might speake in the light as our Saviour commands us what I have heard in darknesse and that I might be always at hand to binde up the gaping wounds of afflicted spirits even where they are most wounded because there are most Enemies Neither do men saith Mat. 5. 15. our Saviour light a candle and put it under a bushell but on a candlestick and it giveth light to all that are in the House The Candlestick is the place of the candle be it small or great Shall the zeale of the true Church be overcome in religious forwardnesse by a false one It is not all my purpose to labour in the prevention of Popery Part of it is to teach plainly and truly the Faith professed in England and the piety of a Christian life even to the perfection of it as will appeare to the Reader It is our Saviours Rule commended to Saint Peter When thou art converted Luk. 22. 32. strengthen thy Brethren God hath abundantly performed his part towards mee the performance of my part remaineth towards him and my Brethren And no zeale is like to zelus animarum the zeal of souls It somewhat suits which the Bridegroom said to the Spouse My Cant. 2. 10 11 12 13. beloved spake and said unto mee Rise up my love my faire one and come away For loe the winter is past the rain is over and gone The flowers appeare on the earth the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the Turtle is heard in our land The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell Arise my love my faire one and come away When God calls who loves because he will love and therefore says first My Love and then my faire one and he first loves because we are not faire but by his love And he seems to love without reason and to do what hee does as women doe because he will doe it but it is the greatest of all reasons that his will should be done And this is confessed by the Schoolmen in the resolution of other great difficulties and when hee cals so movingly and so prettily it is high time to goe But before I go I beg of all the zealous and noble spirits included in my Dedication that they will so farre listen after me and remember Gods worke in me as to take notice and observe what becomes of me And so God that in his good time hath remembred you and us remember both you and us all in the end and world without end Which humbly prays Your humble servant Richard Carpenter EXPERIENCE HISTORY and DIVINITY The first Booke CHAP. 1. Let not my Reader reject many easie things being joined with a few that are not so easie because in the best book the Elephant swimmeth and the Lambe wadeth THe Divines authorized by Saint John in the beginning of his Gospell whom therfore Gregory the Great calls Evangelistarum Aquilam the Eagle of the Evangelists beginning their discourses of Christ with his eternall Generation stile him the word The Reason is reason Because as verbum mentis the word of the Mind even after it cometh of the minde doth still notwithstanding remaine in it the word of the Tongue perishing with the sound So the Son of God comming of his Father by a most ineffable yet most true Generation receiveth a personall distinction and yet remaineth with and in his Father by a most unseperable Unity of Essence This blessed word I call to witnesse before whom wee shall answere for every idle word that my words heere in the matters of Experience and History are so farre agreeable to the Divine word that they are true which is the first excellencie of words as they are words The matters of Divinity will stand by themselves I have read in the Schoolmen that Omne verum est à Spiritu Sancto Every Truth comes from the Holy Ghost I will bee sure to tell truth and upon this ground truth being told every man may be sure from whom it comes fix upon it in the deduction of the Conclusions it virtually containeth as upon the firm Principles of a Science I am not ignorant that sometimes it is a sin to speak truth because there may be a falshood committed though not spoken as a false breach of true Charity which many times obligeth to secrecie And these times the speaking of truth is indeed a lie because such a sin and against God who is Truth even as he is Truth But I know it for a Maxime Against a publique enemie of the Church of God we may lawfully and religiously speak all Truths It is a rule amongst Casuists Certa pro certis habenda dubia ut dubia sunt proponenda in a Relation certain things are to be proposed as things certain and doubtfull as doubtfull Let no man doubt but I will certainly dresse every thing in cloathes according to its degree Hence followes a lesson and it falles within my lesson God was in all eternity till the beginning of the World and but one word came from him and that a good one as good as himselfe and not spoken but as it were onely conceived Words are not to bee thought rashly and if not to bee thought not to he spoken because we think not in the sight of our neighbours but we speak in the hearing of our neighbours and if not to
observe the miserable ends of drunkards of lewd proud and profane persons and the condition of solitary sins and of sinnes that keepe ill company as Drunkennesse Adultery Murder which are many times found in the same knot And lay up all things in thy heart .. It hapneth oftentimes that a man killeth his neighbour and by that foule act doth execute the severe justice of God upon the man whom he killeth upon himselfe and upon friends on both sides Learne that men being touched in a soare part are most troubled Rule 12. SPeake not willingly of other mens faults or imperfections whether naturall or morall Judge no man neither say or thinke that such a man is proud envious malicious that he hath an ill looke of his owne and so forth Judge not of things which are not plaine and open to thee either for the present secrecie or for the future uncertainty although the person is now blacke it is not farre to the fountain he may be quickly whiter then Snow And he hath the same Creator Redeemer Sanctifier Benefactour and Preserver with thee whom he calleth Father and to whom he prayeth every day who will also bee his Judge and thine Rule 13. VVHen you are afflicted with losse of health or wealth or good-name or with misery meete it with open armes and accept it willingly as a small punishment for your sins saying How good is God to be thus easily put off with a temporall punishment an eternall punishment being due I have deserved more and more and yet more and Christ hath suffered infinitely more in my occasions I see now there is good reason why the blessed are called Blessed of his Father but not the cursed cursed of his Father He blesseth of himselfe and never curseth but exceedingly urged And he did not prepare Hell for man but for the Devill And Christ died rather for men then Angels because it was a more eminent worke of charity to fasten the weakenesse and to relieve the wants of men then of Angels God is said to harden the heart because upon a refusall and contempt of his grace and of him standing at the doore of the heart with his lookes all moistned with the dewe of the morning he justly withdraweth his helpes which he is not bound to continue after which followeth hardnesse of heart And we see that men of high calling and good life if they fall fall to the bottome because they have neglected the more forcible moving and urgent helpes of God Rule 14. MAke a weekely Bill of Gods benefits and thy sinnes and alwayes when the Lords day commeth to which come thou prepared by prayer and humiliation blesse God more plentifully for those and for all his other benefits and crave pardon more seriously for these and for all thy other sinnes And this day principally fold thy selfe within thy selfe and looke backe upon God as hee was before the world Be present with him in the Creation as Wisedome was which saith I was with him making all things Stand by and observe the strangenesse of the workmanship Consider that which thou canst not conceive the nothing that was before the world the thought of darknesse will come the nighest to it Listen and heare God say Let there be light Marke with what quicknesse Light followes Admire it and crie out Lord there was Light before there was light for thou art Light and in thee there is no darknesse at all Consider the different state of the Church from Abel through the Law of Nature the written Law and the Law of Grace to this houre Mark how strangely the providence of God hath carried the publike affaires of the world and the particular businesse of every creature in the world At length come home to thy selfe examine thy memory and discover the different tracts of Gods working with thee from thy child-hood his daily discourse to thy heart and the strange inventions by which he hath called thee to him and thy unkindnesse On the other side labour to lay open the plots of the Devill whether beaten and ordinary or strange and extraordinary endeavouring to know and fortifie thy weakenesse In thy prayers imagine thy selfe to lye prostrate before God amongst the worms amongst the sculs and bones of the dead or at the foot of his Crosse upon Mount Calvarie Mark what God inwardly saith to thee in thy prayers and thence raise good purposes Let thy demeanour in Gods house be seasoned with all possible reverence and with a decent composition of body and face and especially with a watchfull carriage of thy eyes And lastly note as to the devotion of our morning prayer the successe of the day doth commonly answer so from our behaviour on the Lords day every day of the weeke doth commonly take his direction THE FOVRTH BOOKE CHAP. I. THe provinciall of the English Jesuits being my Kinsman and the onely Papist of all my Kindred who died soone after sent me to the English Colledge in Rome And in my journey when I came to Marselles a Port-towne in the remote parts of France I was strongly conceited that by the prayers of Saint Mary Magdalene whose shrine and chiefe reliques were not farre off I should gaine the benefit of a good winde and be conveyed as I was informed I might have beene in foure and twenty houres to Rome And therefore I prayed earnestly to her but shee did not heare me and my conceit was very weake though it was very strong For sixe long weekes passed before I could recover Rome It is worthy to be knowne that in Marselles when I passed through it to it Rome there were but foure or five Jesuits and those in a house in the best roome of which they could scarce all together turn themselves round but two yeares after when I returned their number was exceedingly encreased and they were seated in three faire houses One a casa professa as they call it for their old men another a Colledge for their Students and the third a house for the tutoring of their novices And it is not unworthy to be knowne that there is not a Papist of any worth in England whose worth in the matter of his estate the Iesuits doe not exactly know and have not set downe in writing and that the Jesuits doe every where professe and publish themselves to be in debt that they may be thought poore and lie the more openly open to the Charity of people When I came within halfe a dayes journey of Rome and beheld part of Saint Peters Church I was taken presently and I have often wondred at it with a strange rising of Spirit against the City and Church of Rome By which I did as it were presage what I should afterwards know The Church of this Colledge is all painted in the inward And the pictures counterfeit men and women that were hang'd or beheaded in England as they speake either in the profession of faith or the defence of vertue And the
words and not seene the speaker would scarce have thought this had beene little Agnes I speake in the clouds and I am loth to come out of them till I am call'd and urged to speake what ought not to be spoke without a command from necessity CHAP. XIIII MY Superiours now sent me and one of them brought me to one of their greatest houses in England being the house of a very noble personage where they were destitute of a Preacher But I repairing to London while the matter was hot in debating rumour had carried to their eares that I had opened my heart to some Protestants of note concerning my good will to the Church of England which blew up all their hopes For some passages of the Countrey where I lived which had passed in my time had much bowed my heart to a cōsideratiō of what I had formerly known The passages in part were these To confirme the doctrine of worship due to Images it was spread amongst the Papists that the night before a certaine holy Priest was apprehended by a Pursevant all the pictures in his chamber were seen to sweat And to bolster up the doctrine of praying to the Virgin Mary and other Saints it was given out for a fixt truth that a devout person being frighted in his bed with the strange likenesse of a Ghost and calling upon Christ by the holy name of Jesus no helpe appeared but at length turning his speech to the Virgin Mary the Ghost with all possible haste vanished In these parts a great Priest great in body being most talkative in his owne praises perswaded the weaker sort of his faction that he had already cast foure hundred Devils out of a poore needy woman by the vaine exorcizing of whom set out with bold action and a loud voice he raiseth to himselfe a great part of his maintenance For he carrieth her from house to house as poore men doe Apes to shew tricks with her And he had tooke much paines to release her in the house where I lived It is easie to delude fooles but that wise persons should goe astray after a delusion would be a contradiction in wisdome and prove that wisedome were not so well united in it selfe I was present one time when the play was acted For the fat Priest had gathered together the refuse of Papists being the poore silly sheep of people I dare say not one of them knew the biggest letter in the Alphabet into a house standing alone He sate in a Chaire habited with his Priests ornaments The woman kneeled at his feete and turned her mouth and face into strange figures He spoke to the Devill with a commanding voice the Devill answered by the woman He asked the Devill how many Devils had possession of the body The Devill answered all were gone of so many hundreds but onely two Hee commanded the Devill to come up to the top of her longest finger He did so and the finger was held out Having got him there he asked him his name The Devill answered in a grave tone Dildo He commanded the other to the same place and likewise asked his name This Divell also answered Dildo But there the womans wit fell short for she should have given the other Devill another name And here was all that is notable which I saw in the best part of a night who notwithstanding was very curious in seeing And in the word of an honest man I saw nothing but what might easily be and what reason tels me was counterfeit And all the while the poore ignorant people were all on their knees praying upon their Beads knocking their brests groaning as loud as the Patient crying Our blessed Lady help thee The root of the deceit is They say the Devill first entred into her when she entred into one of our Churches to see the childe of a Papist buried to which shee had beene Nurse And still the wonders pluck at our doctrine as here people are frighted from entring into our Churches for feare of being possessed with Devils The plaine simple truth is which I made good by enquiry The woman was alwayes a very idle and lazie person and the childe failing grew poore and discontented and so either fell to her tricks or was easily wrought into them I am a saver here as in other places Onely this I present to the consideration of all wise people If one small part of a County in the small time of a yeere gave plenty of these most ridiculous passages what prankes doe they play every houre in England what in the world I kenw the Jesuite that came to the dore of a great house in England leading an Ape and professing to make sport with him The secret was he desired to win a kinswoman of his abiding in the house To whom afterwards comming as she walked in the fields in hay-time and not being able to bend her to him he drew his knife upon her and had shee not beene relieved by an out cry she might have beene spoyled by him of her life though not of her religion These and the like strange carriages of heavenly matters scanned in my thoughts moved me at first to separate my selfe a little from the Papists In which time they wrote a very persuasive letter to me Which having perused I sent a letter to a person of quality amongst them wherein for I promised in the beginning of my book to speak the truth in all things I signified to him that my heart failed me and I feared to goe on in my new resolution And in so great a change as the change of Religion after the practice of thirteene yeeres amongst the Papists and all the yeeres of my knowledge it would have beene a miracle if the heart should not have imitated the Seamans Needle turning to the North-pole and have shaked before it had fixt Yet this hapned before I had actually tooke the the habit of a Minister Let them shew mee that I gave them any solid shew I was of their minde since I first made open shew of the profession I now sticke to and they will shew more then they can shew CHAP. XV. I Beganne soone after to compare the two Religions in these words The Protestants have one great Power upon whom onely they depend and to whom alone they flie by prayer in all their necessities observing that of Saint Peter Cast all 1 Pet. 5. 7. your care upon him for he careth for you The Papists have as many hearers and helpers as they have Saints and Angels And yet devotion being divided is lesse warme and the expectation of a benefit from a heavenly power under God doth engage us to performe the highest acts at least of outward reverence to a creature as to prostrate our selves before him and to call upon him in all places as if he were every where The Protestants leane wholly upon the merits of Christ Jesus desiring to suit with that of Saint Paul For by
exercise of obedience they may not question the sufficiencie of the command And both they and their Priests may with more leave and a lesse breach of Law commit Fornication or Adultery or Sodomy or beastiality a thousand times over then marry although Gods Law was antecedent to their vow of chastity and is of more validity yea though we should grant their vow as the vow to be ratified with some limitation by another Law of God because the matter of the vow is of greater perfection It came from the Monke of Doway that not long agoe it was a custome in Biscay a Province of Spaine and observed with all exactnesse of diligence that every man having married a wife sent her the first night to the Priest of the Parish And that these different Orders of Religion did not take their beginning from the speciall inspiration of God I will manifestly prove out of their owne Canons The Councell of Lateran celebrated in Concil Later the dayes of of Pope Innocentius the third hath this Canon Ne nimia Religionum diversitas gravem in Ecclesia Dei confusionem inducat firmiter prohibemus ne quis de caetero novam Religionem inveniat Sed quicunque voluerit ad Religionem converti unam de approbatis assumat Lest the diversity of Religions should trouble all and raise a confusion in the Church of of God we firmely forbid any man hereafter to invent a new Religion but whosoever will be turned to Religion let him apply himselfe to one of those which are already approved Marke the phrase of these Lateran Bishops invent a new Religion and I suppose they would not put limits to the Spirit of God and for the confusion here mentioned it is as plaine to be seene as the Church of Rome for in dissention is the destruction of love and order and consequently confusion And what true learning can the world expect from these people who cannot speake or write the sincere meaning of their minds because their tongues and pens are confined to the severall opinions of their orders Armed with these grounds I tooke up a good and masculine resolution and letting fall Popery made a confession of Faith against which the gates of Hell can never prevaile in the words and manner following CHAP. XVI I Beleeve that the Church of England comparing the weake and decayed estate of the Roman Church in the beginning of this latter age with the strong and flourishing condition of the Primitive times some hundreds of yeares after Christ and finding the Church of Rome with relation to those times so unlike the Church of Rome and so contrary to it selfe had good reason to trust the soules and eternity of her faithfull people rather with the old purity of the younger times neere Christ the ancient of dayes then with the new belefe of these old and dangerous times It being confessed and all Histories as if they had beene written with the same pen testifying that in those golden times the name of Pope was not heard of The Bishop of Rome was indeed esteemed a Bishop a Patriarch and there was a full point All the supremacie hee could possibly then claime rested in his being a supreme Patriarch Which supremacie gave him the first place allowed him to give the first sentence and there hee stuck And how little the Councell of Nice of Constantinople and all the Grecian Councels favoured the Latin Church and their Patriarch the Bishop of Rome he that can read and understand may be a witnesse And to consider the just ordering of Church-imployments Constantine the first Christian Emperour if I may stile him so without prejudice to Philip ex sacerdotum sententia saith Ruffinus advised by certaine Ruff. Eccl. Hist l. 1. c. 1. Bishops called the Councell of Nice And he cannot be said as Bellarmine answereth to have executed the Popes commandement For the Author seemeth not in his relation to have thought of the Bishop of Rome unlesse you will urge he thought of him in a confused manner as being in the number of Bishops Behold here the great height of Princely and temporall authority Edesius and Frumentius labouring Ruff. Eccl. Hist l. 1. c. 9 to reconcile a great Kingdome of India to Christ dealt their affaires with Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria they had not learned the duty of repairing to Rome Observe the indifferencie of Episcopall and Spirituall power And againe it being most certaine that in those cleane and holy times the Sacrament of the Eucharist was not adored and consequently not beleeved to be God and was freely delivered in both kindes to the people And I wonder that the strange inconveniencies which the nicenesse and curiosity of Rome pretendeth were not perceived by the cleare eyes of the holy Prelates in those dayes who little dreaming of a reall presence little thought waking that the administration of the Sacrament in one kinde gave the things signified by both kindes the body and bloud and was therefore sufficient to spirituall nourishment And moreover it appearing plainely in all the old Monuments of Records that the Scripture was then read not to the eares but through the eares to the hearts of people in a knowne language So that when the supremacie of the Pope beganne to take place then onely his language began to be supreme as well as he More a great deale may be said but I have not time to say it at this time Indeed and indeed the Church of Rome in my thoughts is rather the carcasse of a Church then the Church animated with the holy Ghost and is like the ruines of a City burnt or decayed by which we may perceive there hath beene a City Her people may say Fuimus Troes we have been the beautifull Church of Christ It can doe no harme if it be knowne that three dayes before I preached my first Sermon by which I declared my recantation certaine Papists very neere to me in familiarity came to my lodging and desiring to dine with me furnished the table with provision of their owne buying But some houres after there rose such a tumult and combustion in my body that I was forced to take my bed and keep it and yet leave it every halfe houre that for three dayes I slept if at all but very little And when I came to the Pulpit I was more like the wrack of poyson then a living body And yet God carried me through that good work with great power THE FIFTH BOOKE CHAP. I. HAving thus boldly behaved my selfe in the open Field the Popish Priests and Papists beganne to let their tongues goe at me with all their power Potiphars wife threw slanders after Joseph flying from her The Dragon cast rivers of water out of his mouth thinking to drowne the Woman with her childe that had escaped to the Wildernesse The Plutarch Crocodiles are said to beate themselves when they have lost their prey Let the Crocodile correct himâ—â—â—â—â— but let him spare me
Aetatis suee 33 Psal. 27. 4. One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seeke after that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the dayes of my life V. 6. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine Enemies round about me Quod innuebat facio non quod Volebat Mitto te in Angliam ad pascendos Catholicos et Haereticos reducendos W. Marshall sculpsit 1641 THE Downfal of Anti-christ OR A treatise wherin is plainly discover'd 1. That the Pope is Anti-Christ and that Rome is Babilon 2. The severall deceitfull workings and enticing means that the Babilonish whore hath used to intoxicate the Kingdomes of the Earth with the wine of her fornication as likewise what Agents have been sent into great Brittain and Ireland for this end 3. Probable conjectures that the Anti-Christian party have seene their best dayes and that the Popish Relion and all the power of Rome shall more and more decay throughout all the Churches of Europe as it is foreshewed by those symtomes of death that are to be found in the limbes of that man of sin which may be so many Predictions unto us that he is giving up the Ghost that all these Commotions that he hath raised in England Scotland and Ireland are but the pangs of dying Popery amongst us 4. That the destruction and exterpation of Anti-Christ shall make way for the setting up the Kingdome of our Lord Jesus Christ in its glory and beauty which alone is that which maketh a People or a Nation truely happy Babilon is fallen is fallen Revel 14. 8. By R. C. an unworthy admirer of these things Printed at London for Iohn Stafford 1644. TO THE HONOVRABLE House of Commons assembled in Parliament MAy it please you who are called by the Superiour Powers both in Heaven and Earth to bring into the light abscondita tenebrarum the hidden things of darknesse to cast your eys down upon the ground where you shall finde lying in a corner a poore man tossed by the course of the World from Darknesse to Obscurity There is nothing more eminent and more admirable in God than his Providence And therefore no instruments are more glorious than the instruments which hee employeth in the setting forth and illustration of it I had great reason to feare because through all the chances and changes of my life some kinds of darknesse did still haunt me that I should never have appeared in the perfect light till I should have come to the light of Heaven But animated with the reflexion of your countenance I shall have better hopes O yee good and great Protestors against the pride and prophanenesse of the Church of Rome Ponder I most humbly beseech you the mayn things that I have learned from the mouthes of Popish Priests beyond the Seas where every man speaks freely which in part are these First that their number in England is so great and the Houses of all Papists who are able to goe under the burden so ful they cannot but with much hardnes live by one another And it must needs be so For the man is of little account amongst them that will not mayntaine a Priest and many receive many Secondly That they convey many thousands of pounds every yeare to their Houses For the Bodies resident in their Houses are such that the parts are either all homogeneous and of the same kinde as all Iesuits all Monks all Friars and these have great Reliefe sent them from England or heterogeneous and of a different kind as Iesuits and Scholers and these are sustained by Lands or by Pensions where the Scholers are set apart for Priesthood as in Rome Sevill Valladolid to other places as to their Colledges of Saint Omers and Doway a very great part of their meanes and maintenance comes out of England And that for this purpose and the safe passage of their Goers and Cemmers young and old the Iesuits are Masters of a Ship furnished with many kinds of Colours and many sorts of Countrimen in which Ship I my selfe should have passed Thirdly that banished out of England going from one Port they must presently return to another because their Priestly Function hath not leave from the Pope to apply it selfe to action and exercise but in the Dominions of England Scotland and Ireland and so their Faculties run And their places of Residence in other Countries are loaded Fourthly that they win souls to them every day in England and almost in all parts of it hoping greatly to undermine us by little and little and grow up wee not minding them to the greater number Wherefore they are strangely cunning in their carriages taking the shapes of Physicians that in a more covert manner they may visit the sick which as the generall voice goes was acted in my poore parish a little before I came to it and the effect was that the woman died a papist who had lived a protestant and her husband soon after made a papist and rewarded by a great person with a service And the habits of Beggars Souldiers Captains and of Countrymen bearing long staves upon their necks And they will be Servingmen too if occasion give way And there is scarce a House that looks like a House which they have not fitted with private doores and conveyances Fiftly that the Iesuits have two Houses in England one in London known to them by the name of Saint Ignatius another in the Country called Saint Xaverius his House And that both the Iesuits Monks and Friers have received Novices which have wore their Habits and performed their Novice-ships even in England And that the Bishop of Chalcedon in the time of his abode heere ordained Priests And that they are or have bin furnished with secret presses under ground for the printing of Books Thus farre in the first encounter I doe charge the Popish Priests of England having truly faithfully and religiously brought them as witnesses against themselves And if men may be judged out of their Serve nequam ex tuo ipsius ore judicaberis own mouthes as one was judged by the Iudge himselfe they may be likewise accused out of their owne mouthes because right judgement proceedeth according to just accusation And when men of these darke ways men of pragmaticall and working heads are also bold what will they not dare to endevour What will they leave unattempted And are they not very bold when Franciscus à sancta Clara a man of a holy name because hee named himself but a subtil one and of my old acquaintance durst vent the relikes of his old Dictates in a forme bending us and the profession of our Faith by which we are entitled to Heaven to a Reconciliation with them And this being done follow mee almost to my owne doores in the Country and having took his standing in a great House neer me give matter and heart to his evill Instruments to dishonour me and make a sport and scorne of
mercy and his Gentlenesse And not to be like God in that in which he most shews himself to us is high neglect You see I take but heere and there and where I take I do but touch I will keep some thing for hereafter to be used if they goe on to trouble the peace of my sweet reposall in the bosome of my deare Mother the Church of England In Spain according to the Law of the Realme but not according to Gods Law if a man finde his wife in the actuall commission of Adultery he may kill both his wife and the Adulterer The Jesuits know a Gentleman who sent a dish of hot meat covered to a Friary the shaved head of a Friar and it was presented to the Friars being at dinner with this Message that such a Gentleman a good Benefactor of theirs had sent them a dish from his Table and many thanks were given with acknowledgment that they were much beholding to him and alwayes bound to him by new favours But the Messenger uncovering the dish began with the other end of his Message and fairely told the Friars that as many of them as came where he was found for he had spared his wife his Master would serve with the same sawce Had this Friar married hee might have died with his head upon his shoulders Upon the last good Friday which I saw in Spain the upper part of a Church fell standing in a Town not far distant from us And as the manner is the women sitting in the body of the Church many of them were oppressed The Preacher seeing it when it first yielded turned to go downe the Pulpit was joyned to a side pillar but he was beaten down and lost the use of both his legs The noise went presently abroad and brought in all sorts of people And the women wearing many Rings they pulled them off and where they came not at the first pull cut off their fingers when many of them were alive and onely stunnied And presently came downe another part of the roof and destroyed them and their crueltie This is the day when the Crosse is adored crept to and kissed and brought into the Pulpit and there spoke to And as my Discourses are altogether occasionall so heere in place of these follies of Devotion I will give matter of Meditation for this and other good times MEDIT. 1. CHrist being promised to the sicke and wounded World in those acceptable words The seed of the woman shall bruise Gen. 3. 15. the Serpents head God in his wisdome suffered the World to walk many hundreds of yeares by the twilight of Nature And then also there was a Church and Melchisedech was a Priest of the most high God The breach of this Law bringing a deluge upon the whole World and an overflow of corruption upon Faith and Manners God gave an addition of the written Law But that likewise little helping to the perfect cure and the World having now fully seene in the Glasse of long Experience that man of himselfe was altogether unable and that there was extream need of a Saviour God sent his own and onely Son in the fulnesse of time the Prince of Peace when the World was setled in a firm peace Esay 9. 6. to promulgate the Law of Grace a Law which bindeth vinculo pacis with the bond of peace And when both the Law of Nature and the written Law passed by the manifold necessities of the miserable world the good Samaritan performed all the businesse with a little Balsam It is generally true which is commonly said that example doth more forcibly move then words For it is not onely true of ordinary words delivered by the tongue the hearts Interpreter but also of that great Word the Son of God by whom wee were not so strongly and efficaciously moved when in the beginning was the Word and the Word was John 1. 1. with God and when he remained invisibly with the Father as when the Word was Verse 14. made flesh and dwelt among us Every man was lost and lost before he was found and lost for ever and a great Father without a Father sent his Son being also a Son without a Son and without a brother for there could not be many such Sons to labour till hee dyed in the recovery And lest vaine men should say God made the World indeed a goodly piece of work but a lasse he brought about all this fair diversitie of building with a word or two a word is soon spoken He said let there be this let there be that and both that and this came presently and shewed themselves but hee did not labour he did not sweat in the performance his works are great but they are not painfull Dealing now the great work of our Redemption hee labours to extinguish the flames of sin with teares for hee was often seene to weep but never to laugh with sweat with bloud with sweat of bloud And as the Unicorne is taken in the Wildernesse by laying his head in a Virgins lap and there sleeping till he is bound and carried away with his precious horne the sovereigne cure of poyson So while Christ laid himselfe down in the Virgins lap hee was bound and carried away to be the onely cure of spirituall poyson No marvell now if the whole World favoured the time of his birth and the great Sea was at quiet while the little Halcyon was in building her Nest No marvell if as in his eternall generation he hath a Father without a Mother so in his temporall generation hee came of a Mother without a Father and from her into the World without opening the doore in his entrance No marvell if the Kings of the East animated with the prophecies of Iob or Balaam came hastily to him under the strange conduct of a new-made Star No marvell though as hee entred into Egypt the trees to which others bowed and gave idolatrous worship bowed themselves to worship him and though the Idols fell in pieces No marvell if Oracles lost their voices and that of Apollo answered Augustus Me puer Hebraeus c. An Hebrew Boy hath silenced mee and no marvell if a false God complained the very day of Christs passion to certaine Mariners at Sea that he was now utterly destroyed For that to which these wonders were directed or from which they were derived was it selfe superlatively wonderfull The Son of the Ever-living God being life it self died for us MEDIT. 2 THe terms of Divinitie are to be taken into the mouth as the Canonists speak cum grano salis with a grain of salt that is wisely tasted and understood otherwise they will not prove good nourishment The Son of the living God was crucified and being God was crucified but God was not crucified Saint Paul saith Had they 1 Cor. 2. 8. known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory But hee doth not meane that the Lord of glory was
and bodies should wait upon God But the Lyce were not the onely biters in the Friery And here my Reader shall understand what religious hearts these religious persons that compose the monster of Rome beare one towards another For the Monke by whom I was directed in the Monastery is now in the Friery another man and confessed to be all knit together of craft and a great student in the art of policy and over-reaching And the Jesuits had their load too as may appeare by this story which a superiour amongst the Friers told me A certaine Frier of their coate and company comming to speake with a Jesuite at his chamber in London found him earnest in his study behinde a curtaine After the discussion of their businesse the Jesuit stepped hastily downe to give order concerning the entertainment of his friend And in the interim the Frier looked behinde the the curtaine and found before his chair a written book The title of the Chapter which then lay open was By what motives to stirre a widow or other free person to give her estate into the hands of the Church and how afterwards to dispose of her The Frier by whom I was informed named to me a principall man of his Order who then had one of these bookes lying by him Whatsoever the Scribes and Pharises practised I doe not read that they commended the art of devouring widowes houses to writing for the information of their posterity The fortune of the booke as it was related to me is this The Jesuits dare not print it lest it should at any time slip besides their hands into the world And the Jesuits that are sober natur'd and seriously given are never suffered to heare of this booke it is onely permitted to practicall men and at such a time after their entrance into the Order but not before I had formerly heard of this booke and that it was full of damnable conveyances My Reader may see with halfe an eye that I relate things briefely and plainely and that I build upon the testimonies which they give one of another being a sure way The learning of bookes plowes not halfe so deepe Another Frier struck both the Jesuits and the Monks in one turning of his tongue with these words The Jesuits are the daily plotters and actours of businesses which we can never answer And were not the Monks ashamed to give out the other day that a mad man of their Order wrought miracles These Friers have a sleight by which they confirme their young ones They have printed under a picture of Saint Francis Saint Francis obtained of God by his prayers that whosoever dieth in his Order and hath the benefit of confession shall infallibly goe to Heaven The Monks have made the like promise under the picture of Saint Benet But let them unloose this knot without cutting it If their confession come from a penitent heart it will bring them alone to Heaven in the opinion of the Romanists if it come not from such a bruised heart Heaven is denyed to it by all their Doctors The Jesuits are a little more solid They have a picture wherein are printed at large the Prophecies of many Jewish Rabbines foretelling that God would send a religious and learned company of men into the World in the decaying and old age of it as I imagine for the elects sake Now I began to turne my thoughts a seeking againe because I had not yet found what I looked for And therefore I pretended the want of health and loth to continue a begging Frier upon these tearmes freely begged leave to depart CHAP. VII I Was now even cloyed and surfeited with these vanities And I meditated upon a conversion to the Church of England But although I staggered having drunke deepe of the poysoned Cups of Babylon yet my whole heart was never converted neither did I ever apply my selfe with an open profession to the Church of England before this happy time And still my heart gaped for more knowledge of their wayes Wherefore I was commended to an uncloister'd Monk in Paris with whom I lived a while as a stranger and enjoyed the great benefit of a faire Library This Monk communicated with the Church of Rome but inclined very much to the Greeke Church Yet his two Monks for they were all his family inclined every way as they went being seldome sober In Paris I found the fault of Doway that many schollers lived by theft and that men threw themselves into danger of their lives who stirred abroad in the black of night as well neare the Colledges as elsewhere These are not good orders of Universities neither is this a promising and hopefull education of Priests In this Towne I lay at watch for a better occasion You shall have more hereafter Now onely one farewell to the Friers They have many Rules of a stange out-landish nature and condition He that will be rul'd by reason may judge of this Rule A Frier is licensed by his Rule to touch and receive money with his Garment his sleeve or the lappet of his coate but not with his hand He is utterly forbid to touch it with any part of his flesh I see there may be an equivocation committed as well in manners as in words And I saw this Rule kept by a Frier who received a French crowne into a paper In the defiance of this and all other Rules of the like profession I give to him who is pleased to take with his bare hand and heart Rules directory in a Christian life and founded either in themselves or in their grounds upon the received principles of Gods holy word Rule 1. REmember alwayes that God is alwayes with you about you in you and in every part of you and of all his creatures and that when you goe from one place to another you leave God behinde you and yet he goes with you and yet you finde him where you come because he was there before you came And that although not alwayes the same yet some Angels and Devils are alwayes by you watching over you and carefully observing your behaviour yea and oftentimes beholding your heart in outward actions And let your thoughts and tongue bee alwayes running and repeating Shall I commit an act of high treason against so great a King so just and severe a Judge so good so pure a God and in his presence It is he whom Joseph meant when hee said How can I doe this great wickednesse and sinne against God How sweet is God that sendeth his first and most perfect creatures his holy Angels downe from Heaven with an injunction of stooping and attending to the meane and homely affaires of men The Angels are daily conversant with us and yet are never discharged from the glorious vision of God to whom they are united being present with them wheresoever they are such a pretious mixture and composition of good things ought the life of man to be it must be compounded
as other vaine tyes hold them I doe shake off all these idle obligations in imitation of the Primitive Church and of all holy men in succeeding Ages I firmely beleeve that the Scripture is the word of God and that all things revealed in it are true And I beleeve that as God made the world for himselfe and his glory So and more eminently he directeth his Church to himselfe and his glory That is therefore the pure Church of Christ which casteth all the glory upon God which leaneth and relieth wholly upon the most pretious merits and passion of Christ which cryeth to God onely for helpe which is throughly obedient for Gods sake to lawfull authority bee it amongst Heathens which doth not permit and countenance sinne by which onely God is dishonoured And she cannot be the cleane spouse of Christ which God and his Truth being infallible performeth the most high and most reverend Acts of Religion upon uncertainties As prayeth absolutely for a soule turned out of the body without a certaine knowledge of her being a determinate friend or enemy of God And worshipeth that with the worship of God for God which if the Priest be deficient in his intention or defective in his orders is in her owne opinion a creature And she is not the faire spouse which hath lost her attractive beauty and which all Jewes and Infidels hate and abhorre justly moved at least with a notorious shew of Idolatry And therefore I beleeve that the Church of England is the Spouse of Christ as being free from these blemishes and conformable to Scripture And in the defence of this Faith I stand ready to give up my sweete life and dearest bloud And if I die suddenly to this Faith I commend the state of my eternity An Act of hope in God I doe hope in God because hee is infinitely full of goodnesse and is like a nurse which suffereth pain in her brests till she be eased of her milke because hee is most able and most willing to helpe me because he hath sealed his love with most unbreakable promises and because hee knoweth the manifold changes and chances of the world the particular houre of my death and the generall day of judgement in all which I hope greatly this good and great God will deliver me An Act of the love of God I such a one in perfect health and memory able yet to revell in the world to enjoy wealth and pleasure to sacrifice my body and soule to sensuality doe contemne and lay under my feete all goe behinde me Satan sworne enemy of Mankinde and love God purely for himselfe For put the case he had not framed this world or beene the prime cause of any creature in it put the case hee had never beene the Author of any blessing to mee yet excellencie and perfection of themselves are worthy of love and duty and as the object of the understanding is truth so the object of the will is goodnesse and therefore my will shall cheerefully runne with a full career to the love of it Saint Austin S. Aug. hom 38. hath taught me Qui amicum propter commodum quodlibet amat non amicum convincitur amare sed commodum He that loves his friend for the profit he reapes by him is easily convinced not to love his friend but the profit Wherefore although I should see in the Propheticall booke of the divine Prescience my selfe not well using the divine helpes not rightly imploying the talents commended to my charge and to be damned for ever yet still I would love him away ill thoughts touch me not I would insomuch that if it were possible I would even compound and make to meet hands the love of God and damnation For although I were to be damned yet God could not be in the fault and though I should be exceedingly miserable by damnation he would yet remaine infinitely good and great by glory and though I did not partake so plentifully of his goodnesse yet many others would O Lord I love thee so truely that if I could possibly adde to thy perfection I freely would but because I cannot I am heartily glad and love thee againe because thou art so good and perfect that thou canst not be any way more perfect or good either to thy selfe or in thy self And I most humbly desire to enjoy thee that thy glory may shine in mee and that I may love thee for ever and ever It grieves me to thinke that if I should faile of thee in my death I should be deprived in Hell not onely of thee but also of the love of thee Note pray that other vertues either dispose us in a pious way towards our neighbour as justice or doe order the things which are ours and in us as many morall vertues or they looke upon those things which appertaine to God as Religion or they direct us to God himselfe but according onely to one Attribute or peculiar perfection As the vertue of Faith giveth us to beleeve the divine authority revealing to us Gods holy truth Hope to cast Anchor upon his helpe and promises But with charity or the love of God we fasten upon all God with respect to all his perfections we love his mercie justice power wisedome infinity immensity eternity And faith hope patience temperance and other vertues leaving us at the gate of Heaven charity enters with us and stayes in us for ever An Act of Humility O Lord if others had beene stored with the divers helpes the inspirations the good examples the good counsell the many loud cals from without and yet from thee which I have had they would have beene exceedingly more quicke more stirring in thy service Many Acts which I have thought vertues in me were onely deedes of my nature and complexion My nature is bespotted with many foolish humours I am unworthy dust and ashes and infinitely more unworthy then dust and ashes A Sinner I am not worthy to call thee Father or to depend in any kinde of thee to live or to be The foule Toade thy faire creature is farre more beautifull then I a Sinner-Toade Verily if men did know of me what thou knowest or what I know of my selfe I should be the rebuke and abomination of all the world An Act of resignation to the will of God Whither shall I flie but to thee O Lord the rich store-house of all true comfort The crosse which seemeth to me so bitter came from thy sweet will Can I be angry with thy good providence Is it not very good reason that thy royall will should be done in earth as it is in heaven And though perhaps it was not thy direct and resolute will that all my crosses should in this manner have rushed upon me yet the stroke of the crosse being given it is thy direct intention that I should beare it patiently I doe therefore with a most willing hand and heart take Gaule and Vineger delivered by thy sweete
painter played the counterfeit too For he hath cunningly mingled old stories with these of late dayes the more to deceive the beholder and to passe them all under the same cause Truely if my power had beene pound-waight with my will the Schollers should have complained to the Pope of the foule abuses which have besmeared the Government of this Colledge It was significant that F. Fitz-Herbert wrote a booke against Matchiavell for why said one of our Schollers at Rome that he might not seeme to be what he was a Matchiavellian because our craft is void if we are knowne to be crafty In this Towne the tricke of counterfeiting is in great request For many vile Caitifes are permitted to counterfeit themselves possessed with Devils and openly in the Churches to make strange signes and motions with the eyes mouth tongue hands and with the whole frame and building of the body to impresse a beliefe into the soft and ignorant Congregation that the Devill is more stirred and they more tormented with the sight of such and such reliques of these and these Images and the like the learned part of people knowing and confessing they are foule dissemblers Here I heard it confessed that the Jesuits were openly convinced in Rome by the Dominicans to have corrupted Saint Austin And that of Saint Brigit and Saint Catherine the one had a revelation from God that the Virgin Mary was not conceived in originall sinne and the other that she was I heard it likewise avouched by themselves that in the Inquisition when they combate with a person whom they cannot crook and bowe to their owne purposes some young Ruffian appeareth to him by night in the most horrid shape of a Devill who telleth him with a voice like a Devill that all of his opinion are damned in Hell and that a very deepe place is there provided for him which must needs work upon a man used to darknesse and affliction and to solitary thoughts But the truth of God is all-sufficient and doth not call deceit to helpe her My reader must thinke in reason that I could not but step aside into a corner and say privately Have I forsook all my noble friends and good fortunes to spot my selfe with deceit and hypocrisie Nothing is more certaine then that the Inquisition is a Den of horrour and deceit The English Jesuits and Monkes have a great account to give for a man who was a Monke in Paris and one of the most able Schollers in the Christian world This Monke wrote a learned booke against equivocation And had formed another booke but it never saw light the subject of which was that the Pope is Antichrist Him they carried having by cunning meanes bended the higher powers to them into the Low-Countries and laid up fast in a Castle neere Brissels and for more terrour they barred him up in a comfortlesse chamber hanging over a Water-mill and had they but stirred a certaine device made for the purpose the whole frame of the boards had turned under him he lost his footing fell downe and been ground into a thousand peeces But they reserved him to bee a more publike example And the like precipice they have at Rome in the Castle of S. Angelo receiving the miserable creature that is throwne downe in every part of his body with most sharpe pikes This Monke they conveyed to the Inquisition at Rome where they so terrified him with the blacke thoughes of being burned that they drove him into madnesse And he was then carried to the Bedlam of Rome and there bound in the necke with an iron collar and secured with an iron chaine to the post of a bed where he spoke the Fathers both Greeke and Latine to the great admiration of all Schollers that were present They are as cruell as we mercifull The Colledges both of Rome and Spaine are seldome without a mad-man In both places I saw examples And the mad man in the Colledge at Rome had beene a fugitive from the Church of England And his words to them continually were vos me fascinastis yee have bewitched me But he was the daily jeere of them all O that the Schollers in our Universities were all as wise as they are learned CHAP. II. THere is a holy place in a Church in Rome called the Sanctum Sanctorum where they receive as they say that part of skin which was cut from Christ in his Circumcision and one of the Popes a great while agoe attempting to looke upon it a mighty storme comming in thunder and lightning and a fierce winde indangered the whole Citie and frighted away his purpose It was an old objection that in Rome when they set a fresh Maid to sale in the Stewes they hang a Flagge a knowne signe out of a window One of our Jesuits in Spaine to blot out this objection said the hanging was exposed in honour of the Sacrament But I being in Rome although some hangings are exposed to glorifie the Sacrament found the objection to be true and sound And it is not agreeable to the decencie of Religion that those eminent Princes the Cardinals should behave themselves with such open curtesie towards noted women noted onely for their publike profession of wickednesse or cover one nakednesse with another the naked wals of their Palaces with pictures moving to lust and venery The deepe Monke at Doway recreated me with a sweete historicall relation and affirmed the matter to have beene done within a few yeares Their Agent at Rome having recourse to a Cardinall as his occasions wav'd him the Cardinall frowned upon him and urged that the Priests in England as he heard were much given to women The Agent being a subtill head and knowing the inclination of the Cardinall replyed that indeed the English women were a powerfull temptation and that young comely Maids brought the Priests every night to their chambers The Cardinall gave an Italian action with his shoulders and answered Friend if it be so you say truth the temptation is very powerfull and so the quarrell ended and the Cardinall began to be graciously kinde Two chiefe things I much wonder at in the Cardinals First that many of those high persons are men of meane low and inferiour learning Secondly that a young stripling in a thred-bare coate his Uncle being chosen Pope is the next day a most eminent Prince and little differing from a King A notable thing passed in Rome a small time before my arrivall thither It was that the Pope picked a quarrell with the Bishop of Spalato whom he had received into Rome with great pompe comming from us under a colourable pretext that he inclined to the Grecian Schisme For hee would not suffer so great a scandall to goe unpunished lest it should draw others into its owne example and he could not punish it without a colour And therefore he was lodged in the Castle where he quickly dyed of griefe and his body was burned in campo Fiori a place in
Here I must advertise my Reader and before the advertisement I will consider that my Creatour my Redeemer and my Judge is present with me and observes how I manage my Pen. The Popish Religion in the continuance of it stands upon these two maine props as upon two mighty Pillars First the spreading and dilating of their praises who fight under their Banner Secondly the vilifying and debasing of those who take armes against them And it is to me a certainty that the world lies drown'd in the bottome of these two great flouds and is utterly ignorant what persons have beene able and good what otherwise for these many ages Their end is The hearts of people prepossessed with evill rumours will be so filled with them that the doctrine of him upon whom the rumours attend shall either have no place or a very poore one And such a person or the good in him shall ever be looked upon through the rumour which like a false Glasse shall make a strange creature of him It is with the Popish Priests amongst themselves that knowing one another so well they know not how to instill a beliefe into one another of what they say I will give onely a soft touch or two because they are very sore in this part The Jesuits had a Scholler when I was their Scholler marked for a Jesuit and they voiced of him that every word which came from him in his exercises was worthy to be written in gold They had another Scholler whose thoughts were not with the Jesuits and he being gone they gave out a rumour that he was in opinion an Adamite and held that we ought and might with lesse danger of sinning to conforme our selves in the matter of apparell to Adam and Eve before their fall The man branded with this rumour is now a Priest and a Prisoner in England but a plaine one and as free from any such imagination as the best of us all If they be thus mischievous at their owne home what shall become of me that have another home set up in opposition to their home Where true Faith is the Mistresse Christian simplicity is ever a waiter But falshood is weake and alwayes wanting and as she is false so are all her attendants and all her wayes The Schollers in the Seminaries beleeve nothing of the same ranke more truely then that Master Fox who wrote the Martyrologe was of so weake a braine that hee thought his head was an Vrinall and if it touched a thing of a hard substance it would breake Is not this a pretty way to transforme people into a belief that all the doctrine and history which came out of that head was no better then Urinall proofe A person of worth and great vertue amongst the Protestants wrote against them And if I have eares they reported he was tooke in the base act of Fornication with a poore Blackamore drudge They would not grant him the honour to have dealt with a Woman of his owne skinne Was not this a deepe way to perswade that his booke was begot betwixt him and the Devill I heard the man named who wrote the book in the name of Bishop King on his death-bed The Bishop was abused And yet the Church of Rome cannot blush But I cannot stay upon this Dung-hill because I see more foule way in my way concerning my selfe CHAP. II. THey reported so basely of me in the matter of my departure from them and from the place of my residence in the Countrey that I was forced to repaire to the Master of the house for a testimony under his hand of my religious demeanour who being a direct man in his way gave it me in ample manner and freed me both from the sinne and the suspition of it on his part And I can make it evident to any middle and indifferent person that I could not have proceeded otherwise either in reason or justice or prudence all circumstances considered and my knowledge of the present condition of things And yet they have not feared to report a most execrable falshood that the Master of the house tooke me in bed with his wife and vehemently protested that if I had not beene a sacred person a Priest hee would have killed me And that the matter might seeme more colourable they imployed a Minister of the same Countrey a friend of theirs and a wilde one and a man of all companies to make it his pot-discourse who in this was not Christs Minister but theirs and the Devils How much hath poore England suffered and how long groaned under such Ministers divided in their owne hearts and torne betwixt Papists and Protestants neither altogether faithfull to one nor wholly true to the other Albeit I am sure that as in all great workes so especially in the service of God the heart must be united in it selfe that it may be more strong in its motion But to turn upon the report I may use extraordinary words because I am extraordinarily charged As I shall ever desire to partake either of the promises of the Gospel or of the merits of Jesus Christ no such thing nor yet any shadow of it was true And in my conscience I cannot taxe the Gentlewoman with any thing but foundnesse and indiscretion to which the sexe is very prone and which shee hath practised upon more then my selfe Witnesse the witnesses of our conversation which either were of the house or of their Tenants Thinke now into what troubled streames he throwes himselfe that kicks off Rome and twines with the Church of England If he be not supported with strong hands both inwardly and outwardly in truth in truth he floats upon a very cold and comfortlesse condition What then when his owne Brethren make him the jest and contempt of men halfe metamorphosed into beasts But this was little to what came after It was proclaimed with a genenerall cry that I was madde and that I and my wits had beene parted this many a yeare But O my Father of Heaven I thank thee I have them still and my joy is that as they were in thy gift so they are in thy keeping If they answer these were the noises of common people and rumours are no sooner hatched but they have long feathered wings What say they to the Scotch Priest in Holborne who reported to certaine Protestants that I was runne away with the mans wife in whose house I lodged And they doubting of it doe yee thinke said he that I know it not who lodge very neere to him This rumour was discovered in the mouth where it was first borne Having preached in Saint Clements Church I was no sooner out of the Pulpit but the Reader desired me to satisfie him in one particular and related that he had spoke a day or two before with an honest and moderate Papist who assured him that in the beginning of the weeke I had ravished a maid and such a Justice naming a Gentleman in Holborne had sent
me to Newgate And they were as busie in the Countrey For a Countrey-Papist came to my lodging enjoyned by his friends to see me Truely said he it is credibly reported and beleeved in the Countrey that you are dead having cut your throat O Rome canst thou maintaine thy greatnesse by no better meanes Then thou art a wretched Rome indeed and blessed be the houre in which I left thee And lately when by reason of some words in my Parish vomitted out of the black mouth of a Popish servant in the dishonour both of me and our Religion I wrote to his Master desiring that my Parishioners might not be stirred in their service of God or averted from their allegiance to the King inserting these words concerning my selfe Set aside the sweete name of Christ I would rather choose to be a Turke then a Papist I discerned no change in the working of my letter but only that I was defamed through the Countrey and proposed as one that had more inclination to Turcifme then to Christianity in them that part which qualified the proposition set aside the sweet name of Christ being wholly concealed and set aside in the report and my intention evacuated The occasion of my inserting that clause was because the Popish servant had said he was sure that I would quickly bee theirs againe which is alwayes a great part of their plea when the man that commeth from them is circumspect in his life I see that where one notorious abomination dwels all other sinnes are neighbours This my letter was shewed by the Papists to one of my owne cloth and profession But one whom the Papists have bought and seal'd their speciall friend by speciall benefits and entertainments He speaking as affection prompted him not as Religion so farre helped them on both in their opinions and in their depression of me that he perswaded them the proposition which they had chose for the instrument of their abuses Set aside the sweete name of Christ I had rather be a Turke then a Papist to be no other thing but elegant nonsense His reasons were as I received them from his owne mouth First because the sweete name of Christ could not be set aside Secondly because the proposition being resolved into the sense of it if it hath any is this Set aside the sweete name of Christ I had rather be a Turke then a Christian I reply This is the discourse of flesh and bloud or rather of hunger and thirst and wanton appetite Were there the greatest of all connexions betwixt the name of Christ and the Popish Religion I might borrow of the Philosophers an hypotheticall and imaginary separation per impossibile But my meaning in the inwards is I doe not conceive there is any mighty businesse of Christ amongst the Papists but his name and that wheresover it is is a sweete name and a name without a thing will easily be removed by an Intellectus agens And therefore it will stand as close as this mans tongue does to the Papists Set aside the sweete name of Christ I had rather bee a Turke then a Papist And his second reason is most injurious to his owe Religion I meane the Religion which he professeth For it comes with a long taile and implies that nothing is signified by the word Papist but Christian they being termini convertibiles and that every tenent of Popery is Christian and derived from Christ But the wonder is that I am forced to defend my propositions and assertions by which I disclaime Popery against a Brother The Father of Heaven in his Sonne Jesus Christ blesse and continue the Parliaments of England or many a faire birth-right will be sold for a messe of Pottage Two things I have learn'd and experience was my Schoole-mistresse speaking to me from the lives of others The first is that to divide and rend our selves betwixt two Religions is the nearest path to Atheisme And the second that men so rent divided are company-keepers lovers of pleasure hunters gamsters caet And by such I shall joyfully be resisted having so good an assurance that I fight Gods battels And that the Papists may rise as high as scandall can mount they have spread into the world that I have tooke one of their Priests by whose hands God hath beene very kinde to me To this I thus answer First that my obligation to my Prince the State and the Parliament being the representative body of the whole Kingdome doth binde me farre more strictly then the private kindnesses betwixt friend and friend Secondly as I desire to be washed with the bloud of Christ I had no hand in the taking of that person nor knowledge of it The man I tooke was one from whom I was utterly disinteressed a scandalous person a scandall-raiser and one by whose practises I am as sicke to the Popish Religion as I would bee dead to its sinnes The other my quondam friend I could have taxed in a fit place of this book for his wily dealings with a maid said to be possessed with a Devill and related that the Devill lurking in a lump of her flesh would runne from part to part and could not endure to be touched with his fingers used in the touch of the consecrated Host But I spared my friend I could be copious if I should not bee tedious in these relations Old wives tales are odious And Saint Gregory Nazianzen taxeth Julian the Apostata for blowing the coales at the Devils Altar with old women How their wisedome is confounded It is vainely done of the Pelican that seeing her nest fired by Shepheards commeth in all haste and thinking to redeeme her young from the danger by the waving of her wings bloweth the fire and encreaseth the flame and at last applying her whole body loseth her wings the safety of her body And these reports are in effect the same The flame of my devotion towards the Church of England is increased and they lose their wings and themselves in the fire when doubtles they thought to scape away like the Fish in the black inke they cast round about them upon their brother O these reports They goe as Demosthenes saies of the waves in the Sea one confusedly tumbling over the back of another without any stop or intermission And he that flyeth from Babylon is like one of the Martyrs in the Primitive Church Church tormented in a brazen Bull. The bellowing and roaring that you heare is in the thing it selfe the voice of the Martyr but much altered by passing through the wide throate of the brazen Bull. The torments of Marcus Arathusius were strange ones described by Saint Gregory Nazianzen The venerable S. Greg. Naz. orat 3 in Julian old man was drawn through the kennels through all sorts of unclean places He was hung up by the armes and tossed from side to side where the boyes stood with Pen-kifes to receive his naked body He was drawne up in a basket
in the heate of a burning day and all spread with hony to gather a meeting of Bees upon his body But he was happy And happy were the Martyrs who prayed and meditated walking upon hot fiery coales as upon Roses I complained to one of them of these scandals And it was answer'd that I might be called an Adulterer a Ravisher and the like because I had defiled the Spouse of Christ and turned to a Harlot But why then is the crime delivered without the comment Some dayes after the publication of my closing with the Church of England a Popish Priest came to me having in his company one habited like an English Minister and the maine point of his businesse broke out in these words See how God provides for his Church you have left us and here is one comming to us from that for the love of which you forsooke us And thus speaking he pointed to the Minister The Gentleman is now beneficed with us and therefore you shall not know his name though you are acquainted with his fault because God hath hid many of my faults from those that know my name Yet I like not that he so much savoureth of the Popish practise as to stigmatize me with the brand of insufficiencie in matter of learning wheresoever he commeth For if he were come quite home to us hee would be one heart and soule with me and draw the practise of his life more neare to his parts both of nature and learning in both which whatsoever I am he is not unable though both he and the Priest were of a most horrid life Let Men and Angels heare me If any member of the Church of Rome or England can make it plaine to the reason of competent and fit Judges that from the day wherein I first gave my necke into the yoke of the Papists to this houre I have committed any scandalous action scandalous in the judgement of the Church of England and moreover have not lived a wary sober and recluse life I will restore againe the little I have received from the Church of England and begge my bread all the dayes of my life Let them goe to my lodging-places in the City and to my Parish in the Countrey they are well knowne and when they come home againe convince me either of immodesty intemperancie idlenesse or other such crime and I will turne begger in the very day of my conviction And yet I know that the Church of Rome will set mee out and Reader remember my Prophecie in the forme of a foolish madde ignorant shallow and odiously wicked creature And I am all this but they know it not And even now I play the foole for in the defence of my selfe I commend my selfe But I trust my intention is rather to defend the honour of the Church from which I did once cut my selfe and to which God hath joyned mee againe I have heard it spoke in the corners of their Colledges that they presently write the lives of persons who revolt from them and put them and their actions in a strange habit I shall be joyfull to reade my life that I may weepe for my sinnes and blesse God for my deliverances but if it be not written truely he will write it that best knowes it If they come with falshoods I shall more and more detest them and their Religion and beleeve that all their good purposes in the service of God are but Velleities Wils and no Wils Wils which would but will not I desire peace if it may be granted with good conditions I was bound to satisfie good people and stop the mouths of the evill To many hath beene denied the use of a sword but no man ever was prohibited to use a buckler because a buckler is ordained only for defence and in our defence we kill and yet are not thought to commit murder CHAP. III. GOD hath brought me home with a mighty hand Had I sailed from Rome one day sooner as my purpose was I had certainely beene carried away by the Turkish Gallyes which swept away all they met the day before I passed I was dangerously sicke in my journey towards England at Ligorne but God restored me The Ship wherein I was ranne a whole night laid all along upon one of her sides And another time began to sinke downright I fell into the hands of theeves by the Sea-shore that would have killed mee and all in my journey towards England And after all this and much more I am a convert to the Church of England in a time which needs a man of a bold heart and a good courage like my selfe to resist the craft encroaching and intrusion of Popery Let a great Papist remember his ordinary saying that he beleeved God would worke some great worke by me And I have great hope that the Church wil be pleased to look upon me and fixe me where I may best be seene and most be heard I am not of their minde that move and sue and labour in the atchievement of that which ought to bee cast upon them The Lord knowes that although the Church of Rome accuseth mee of ambitious thoughts a small being in a fit place is the top of all my wishes A Councell said Meminisse Con. Aquisgr can 134 The Councel of Aix oportet quia columba est in divinis Scripturis Ecclesia appellata quae non unguibus lacerat sed alis pie pertulit We ought all to remember that the Church is stiled in holy Scripture an innocent Dove for her gentlenesse which chides rather then teares and having chid is friends again presently and receives with all gentlenesse Yet I am bold to say that it would be a noble worke to provide for the present reliefe and entertainment of Shollers who shall afterwards desert the Church of Rome and cleave to us The Church of Rome doth exceedingly bragge of her charity in that part when it is certaine their common aime if not their chiefe aime is the strength and benefit of their private body wherein they are all as one that they may stand the faster I owe my prayers and in a manner my selfe to many great personages The Lord pay them againe what I received of them in that money which goes in Heaven And persons of ordinary condition refreshed me above their condition Let him for whose sake they were so pious reward them I would the Levite had beene as earnest as the Samaritane CHAP. IIII. ANd being come to the Arke I desire not to settle onely upon the top of the Arke but to come into it and be pliable in all points If I have committed an errour in this booke I shall presently correct it after the least whisper of admonishment which may have beene easily committed because I have not used other books borne with a desire of haste but was contented with part of my owne papers and certaine extractions out of the Popish Libraries I beleeve as the Church of England beleeves
3. Vt possint dispensare cum illis qui contraxerint cum tertio vel quarto gradu in foro conscientiae tantum 4. Vt possint commutare vota simplicia exceptis votis Castitatis Religionis in aliud opus pium cum causa 5. Vt possint benedicere vestes alia omnia quae pertinent ad Sacrificium praeter ea quae requirunt Chrisma 6 Vt possint restituere jus petendi debitum conjugale quando ex aliqua causa omissum est 7 Vt possint dare facultatem Catholicis legendi libros controversiarum a Catholicis scriptos in vulgari lingua 8. Quando non possunt ferre Breviarium vel recitare officium sine probabili periculo suppleant aliquot Psalmos dicendo vel alias orationes quas sciunt memoriter 9. Si aliis Facultatibus indiguerint vel dubia circa horum usum occurrerint remittant ad Reverendum Dominum Archipresbyterum Angliae ut illis satisfaciat prout ipsi in Domino visum fuerit eique in omnibus obedire teneantur quod etiam se facturos promittant priusquam hae vel aliae Facultates eis concedantur The Grants of giving Indulgences are either ordinary or extraordinary The ordinary are ordinarily knowne the extraordinary are these their Coppie is yet with me Formulae Extraordinariae Indulgentiarum pro utriusque sexus fidelibus qui penes se habuerint aliquam Coronam Rosarium parvam crucem aut imaginem benedictam caet 1. VT quicunque semel saltem in hebdomada officium divinum ordinarium aut Beatae Virginis aut Defunctorum aut septem Psalmos Paenitentiales aut Graduales aut coronam Domini aut Beatae Virginis aut tertiam partem Rosarii recitare aut Doctrinam Christianam docere aut infirmos alicujus Hospitalis vel detentos in carcere visitare aut pauperibus Christi subvenire consueverit vere paenitens ac confessus sacerdoti ab ordinario approbato sanctissimum Eucharistiae sacramentum sumpserit in aliquo ex diebus infra scriptis nempe Nativitatis Domini Epiphaniae Ascensionis Domini Pentecostes cum duobus sequentibus Corporis Christi Nativitatis Sancti Joan. Bapt. Sanctorum Apostolorum Petri Pauli Assumptionis beatae Mariae semper Virginis omnium sanctorum dedicationis propriae Ecclesiae Patroni vel tituli Ecclesiae atque ea die pie ad Deum preces effuderit pro Haeresium ac schismatum exterminatione pro fidei Catholicae propagatione ChristianoruÌ„ principum concordia atque aliis sanctae Matris Ecclesiae necessitatibus in singulis diebus ejusmodi plenariam omnium peccatorum Indulgentiam consequatur 2. Vt quicunque in prima Dominica Quadragesimae Quadragesimale jejunium salubriter celebrans vere paenitens confessus sacraque communione refectus ut supra oraverit itidem Plenariam 3. Vt quisquis vere paenitens ae si potuerit ut supra confessus sacra communione refectus alioqui saltem contritus in mortis articulo nomen Jesu ore si potuerit sin minus corde devote invocaverit similier plenariam Let the Ministers of England those I meane who dwell at home and not in Tavernes who burne with zeale not smoak with Tobacco and who steere not towards preferment but towards Heaven judge whether the man ought not to be cherished countenanced and exposed in the light and frequencie of people that hath shaken off with great loathing these wretched abuses and the Patrons of them But I poore man for so is the fortune of these times like him in the Comick Poet Vivus vidensque pereo live and while I live perish and perish in darknesse and yet see my selfe perish but am not sâ—â—â—â—e to perish for then sure I should not perish But it cannot be thus long And therefore O all yee Schollers beyond the Seas under whose profession there lie secret thoughts of returning to the Church of England be cheerefull For howsoever the clouds have shadowed me the Sunne will shine out upon you The Church of God hath ever beene subject to outward alterations And you shall be received and clasped round about with the armes of true zeale and charity Gods children in England will acknowledge his children flying from Babylon And every good soule will have a sense of what you feele and a sight of what you want before you can name it They that are great shall be the greatest in godlinesse and in all their greatnesse shall thinke themselves as little as you And the golden age will come againe And therefore once more I say it be of good comfort And for me I hope I shall now sing with the Prophet I will not dye but live and declare the workes of the Lord. CHAP. VI. O What a sweetnesse of heart it was to me when I first entred into the Protestant Churches after my conversion to heare the people answer and see them lissen in divine Service O the poore Countrey people amongst the Papists who not understanding their Service and seldome hearing Sermons live more like beasts then men I have seene of the Galiegos and heard of some Countrey people in Italy who they confessed did not much differ from beasts but in the outward shape And the case of all people in Rome is to be lamented whose ordinary phrase is Come let us goe and heare Musick and the Cardinals boyes sing at such a Church This is to please the sense not God I saw such a representation of Hell and Heaven in a Cardinals Palace and the parts of Saints and Devils so performed with singing and Musicke and the soules in so great a number comming out of the world into Purgatory that it was wonderfull Shewes of this nature are often seene in their Churches Aristotle sayes well Omnis cognitio nostra a sensu initium habet All the knowledge we gather from below begins at the sense And these Scribes and Pharisees doe foole the senses of their people exceedingly I have an old manuscript wrought excellently with gold and painting In which booke there is a prayer with this inscription Oratio venerabilis Bedae Presbyteri de septem verhis Christi in cruce pendentis quam orationem quicunque quotidie devote dixerit nec Diabolus nec malus homo ei nocere poterit nec sine confessione morietur per tringinta dies ante obitum suum videbit gloriosam Virginem Mariam in auxilium sibi praeparatam The prayer of venerable Bede Priest of the seven words or speeches of Christ hanging upon the Crosse which prayer whosoever shall say devoutly every day upon his knees neither the Devill nor any evill man shall ever hurt him neither shall he die without confession and three hundred dayes before his death hee shall see the glorious Virgin Mary in a readinesse to succour him At the Busse in Holland in the Church of S. Peter they have pictured a Bishop in a glasse-window On one side of him hangs Christ upon the Crosse with his wounds bleeding On the otherside stands the
the part of a Minister and a Changeling and a Devill and a Turke at Rome and all in one Comedy of my owne composing you shall ever make any more then a jest of it and but a poore one In our Colledges they were most gracious that most goared the Church of England the fond conceit of which moved mee to turne a Minister by the Alchymy of Action into all strange formes that I might passe more plausible I am Countrey-plaine and still short Certaine religious duties are to be performed of the same print with my present condition and I have done CHAP. VIII HEre I will give certaine formes of Christian duties which in some part belong to me in regard of my former wandrings and which I will not fit onely to my selfe that others may use them upon emergent occasions That God may be glorified and in conformity to his most holy Will the sacred measure of all goodnesse I most heartily forgive all people that have trespassed against me wheÌ„soever wheresoever or howsoever Now I look betterupon them I behold my own self in every one of them or another me very like my selfe sent hither into the world the same way upon the same businesse and sweating here in the Vineyard as Idoe for the same or like paiment here I doe not meane the Papists and perhaps pleasing God betterupon earth by some hidden vertues and to be seated more close to him in Heaven then my selfe Shall I be displeased with any with whom God is pleased to be well pleased Indeed we must be friends for wee hope to live together in one house for ever And more I behold the Image of God in them and our onely Saviour Christ Jesus in the humane nature which he tooke and married to his Divinity and cleerely in the body which he put upon him For his sake I will imitate Saint Stephen the boldest because the first of Martyrs who being oppressed with a showre not of hard words or the like but of stones kneeled downe and cried with a loud voyce His body Acts. 7. 60. was as low as Earth but his voice as high as Heaven and he sent it thither with a good will for he cried with a loud voice and yet he cried not for the help of others helpe helpe or for his owne wrongs but as his wrongs were their sinnes and hee kneeled downe before he was beate down and although they might have beate him from his standing yet they could not beate him from his kneeling before they had beate him from his life nor with most hard stones beate downe his prayer which then was his and now is mine Lord lay not this sinne to their charge One thing I know they were both Gods whips and the instruments of his triall in respect of me And blessed be God in all Eternity that fitted and prepared to my hands so rich so ample and such fine-weav'd occasions of patience and humility I blesse not God for the sinne that it was committed but for his good intention towards me supposing the commission of evill and for the good which he wrought by evill when it was committed O the blindnesse of anger It is impossible to goe or stand or spet or so much as looke handsomely in the troubled judgement of the angry person Anger thinks that we poyson the air when we breath and so is afraid of catching the Plague and that every thing we looke upon we infect with the eyes of a Basiliske and that what we touch is stung by a Scorpion and therefore the part touched must be cut off and that where wee smell thence we have extracted the sweetnesse And the minde of an angry person saith S. Chrysostome is a market-place full of tumult where is a continuall S. Chrys tom 4. hom 24. clamour of goers and commers this man calling that chiding one asking another answering a fifth murmuring a sixth hallowing one here singing one there lamenting and all with different voices the lond crying of Camels the rude braying of Asses a confused noise of all sorts of workemen incessantly knocking on every side with their severall instruments Here is noise enough to make a man lose the right use of his hearing Go my soule to the Philosophers that knew neither Christ nor his Father as we know them to Plato and to his Socrates Aske Cicero if this be the minde of a vertuous man The Stoicks would have thought such a man not a man but the Ship-wrack of a man It is the voice of the Psalmist Righteousnesse and peace have kissed each other Upon Psal 8â— 10 which words Saint Austin discourseth as he uses to doe most excellently and me S. Aug. super 〈◊〉 allud Psalmi 〈…〉 thinkes he speakes to me Duae sunt amicae Justitia Pax tu forte unam vis alteâ—â—m non facis Righteousnesse and Peace are deare and neare-united friends you perhaps would have one without the other Which can never be for they are as unseparable as their friendship you shall not finde them parted they are alwayes kissing together You desire the sweets of Righteousnesse but you have no minde to Righteousnesse that is sweet The one is to be done the other to be enjoyed If you will enjoy Peace you must doe righteousnesse Why then Lord I begge of thee not Peace without righteousnesse but the Peace of Righteousnesse that while they kisse together in me I may be kissing too but what thy sacred feete nailed to the Crosse and bleeding for me Under which I cast all my wrongs great and small And for the persons if my wishes were as efficacious as the first words of God in the creation Let there be Light after which immediately Gen 1. 3. appeared that most gallant creature all in white in the next instant they should all shine in glory with God and his Angels CHAP. IX NOw let me looke inward and search the many turnings and windings of my heart for sores that cannot be salv'd except they be salv'd as well abroad as at home and with different plaisters sores that ake in two places at once They are knowne by this name injuries done to my neighbours And they are like the Serpent which Plinie calleth Amphisbaena headed at both ends and at both ends they dispense their poyson for they not onely wound me with guilt but also in the same blow my neighbours with hurt dammage and losse of some good thing to which they have a just title unjustly taken from them Every good action is tutored by some vertue and the lawfull change of the dominion which every one hath over his owne lawfully made his owne must bee regulated and informed by Justice It is the Doctrine of Saint Austin Non dimittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum The S. Aug. sinne is not pardoned except the thing taken away be restored there being a greater 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and foulenesse of injustice in the keeping and retaining
to hurt him Or did he ever fight and at last went not away conquerour As God hath furnished you with gifts of nature which you by his helpe have bettered with labour so he requires the imployment of them in his owne service And if the imployment or use be not reasonably paid a severe account must be rendered Can you without a pressure of conscience call that a Church in which you are a thing so torne and distracted Can your soule which hath hungred after heavenly things feede now with the swine upon such huskes God for his Christs sake open your eyes that you may see and know him and his Church and also your selfe Which he prayes day and night that loves you night and day The Answer Sir VVHereas you stile your selfe my old Acquaintance without any farther illustration I have greater reason to feare and to flie then to hope and pursue because amongst my old Acquaintance more have beene evill then good And by the sequell it appeares that you stand in the ranke of the evill ones And that you are my old Acquaintance in the same construction as the World is old of which one sayes Mundus qui ob antiquitatem sapere deberet c. The World which because it is so old ought to be wise growes every day more unwise as it is more old A hand I have received and a good one but that as good a heart came with it will not sinke into my heart The hand is faire but how shall I know the heart is not foule Indeed Aristotle sayes that speech is the picture or image of the minde But hee meanes when the speech is the mindes true Interpreter You cannot be ignorant that it is a received though a close principle amongst the Jesuits We may be free of faire words because they goe not from us as drops of bloud or money with losse or expence O the riches of experience Both the Indies are poore compared with them That you dare not trust me with your name or person gives evidence for me that I am more true to my Superiours then to you And good reason Because I conceive there mediates no reall tie betwixt you and me but the worne and old tie of old Acquaintance And I never learned that God obliging a man to his old Acquaintance joyned them with the bonds of extraordinary love in the least degree or bound them to a performance of the acts depending upon it But I am glewed to my Superiours by the firme tyes of extraordinary love and subjection and therefore of duty and obedience I am in reference to them as an inferiour part in respect of the head and shoulders And therefore if my old Acquaintance shall strike at the head or annoy the body of which I am a foote I shall kick him down if I can even to the ground and say there lies my old Acquaintance The man whom you propose to me under the title of an innocent man and a lover of me and of my soule would have beene more truely described if you had said A wilde Priest a swaggarer a lover and haunter of the Taverne even when the sword of death hung by a small haire over his head It was my chance to meete him in the Kings high-way attired like a Knight or Lord travelling alone in a faire Coach drawne with foure great Horses towards the house of a Lady whose Priests have beene the pernicious cause of many grievous disorders in the Countrey where I live and this in a most dangerous and suspected time And having there endeavoured to pervert me and breake the bonds and ligaments of my duty to God and of my Allegiance to the King besides the concealement of such a treason in regard of the Law how should I have answered such a concealement in foro interno in the inward court of my heart and at the Bench of my conscience Occisio Animarum the murder of soules is the highest breach of the Commandement Thou shalt doe no murder Was not this a murderous attempt in the Kings high-way And pray does he that attempts to murder the soule of a man love the man If he lov'd me hee lov'd all me or he lov'd not me I confesse we argue differently because our arguments proceed upon different grounds and suppositions If my grounds stand fast my discourse will prove irrefragable You call me poore man And I am so or I am sure was so when you knew me And you pitie me and your pitie is baptized the childe of your love Saint Gregory Nazianzen hath a pretty phrase when he sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Many speake golden words but their speech though it points at the practique and the object be some practicable thing is both in the act and in effect all speculative that is both the intention and execution end and vanish away in speculation It seemes then that your love is not unlike the water of Aesculapius his Well which no commixtion or approximation can urge to putrifie Let those beleeve it to be sweete that have not tasted of it The bitternesse is scarce yet out of my mouth I am going in hast and you call after me whither so fast And shall I tell you whither Shall I in good earnest I will then I am going and my businesse requires hast to see if I can finde any Priests or Jesuits lurking in the secret corners adjoyning or neighbouring to the Parliament house I know that their life though it be mixt hath so much of action in it that they must alwayes bee doing You desire me to look back At your entreaty I do so And looking back I still finde that every where there are whole swarmes of waspish and turbulent Papists For that which followes God is a Father still and so forth I learned all that lesson in my conversion to the Church of England And I hope I shall never forget it You tell me that I seemed to your people a man of a good nature and religiously enclined Here is a plaine Jesuiticall flattery with a sharpe sting in the taile of it Why now you seeme too seeme to praise when you dishonour But how will you make it seeme that I did onely seeme It is very naturall and proper that bonum reale a reall good should be also bonum apparens should appeare to be good For otherwise it would not trahere in amorem sui draw men to love it But it is an Ethicall observation that men used to foule sinnes are so conscious of them and yet so desirous to disavow them that their guiltinesse still hammering upon their sinnes their obstinacie helped with their cunning presently takes their tongues off from acknowledging them to bee in themselves and because if they be being accidents they must be in convenient subjects fastens them upon others You remember one thing and you understand another I remember likewise that being a young stripling I was active in bestowing my service upon your Church
fomented with your envenomed suggestions But give it me in a Demonstration at least a posteriori that your Church is the Catholike Church or Christs owne Spouse Your arguments are like your invincible Armado's which in their first appearance make a mighty Moone but are burnt and confounded in the end by a bold English man or an honest Hollander It is rooted in me that there is little symmetry little proportion betwixt you and the Spouse of Christ She is humble harmelesse bashfull compassionate zealous of her Lords honour and jealous of every thing which may impeach or impaire it She is filled with the holy Ghost and doubtlesse speakes all languages when she prayes because shee prayes in all her children with understanding that she may offer from the Altar of every heart a reasonable Sacrifice And I doubt not but you have your Emissaries and Intelligencers abroad Certainly had not one of the Presses into which my Book unhappily dropped beene almost it selfe pressed away surcharged with your notorious and scurrilous Pamphlets containing those most horrible and irreligious imputations of so many strange Sects amongst us those as false as foule discourses of Adamites and the like moving and disposing to the ruine and overthrow both of Church and Common-wealth which my experience assures me were yours and moreover had not your humble Petition taken place in it and wrought upon covetousnesse it had beene day with my booke long agoe You will me to to thinke and that without passion if this be not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Your will is to me a law I doe thinke and thinke without passion And now I have thought without passion I have learned that indeed this is to fight against God stay pray leave nothing behinde you if to fight against more then Luciferian pride against Blasphemy against Idolatry and against all other sins be to fight against God Pardon me He that railes is unreasonable either in the matter of his speech or in the delivery When I beleeve and can make it perspicuous to a cleare eye that the Church of Rome is a corrupted and putrified body head-sick and heart-sick and therfore ill all-over doe I fight against God if I labour to prevent and keepe off the infection ne pars sincera trahatur Her head is so weake that she thinkes it stands as high as the clouds at least if not as high as the starrie Firmament Her heart is not well For she is diseased in that which is the very primum vivens and ultimum moriens of Faith the doctrine of Christs merits And therefore her tongue speakes strange languages she knowes not what Her eyes have not the gift of discerning aright An Image appeares to her a little God Her eares are out of order they are more taken with melody then words of edification she doth not praise God in the musicall instruments because shee staies in the noise and ends in delight as it is in use with her to sleep and take her nights rest in opere operato Onely her taste is right and yet she thinkes it is not because she doth not taste the very flesh bloud of Christ Her hands are weak they give almes to force and extort a reward Her feete are worse they run to shed bloud And is she not a very sick creature And therefore you may put up your dagger For the words following wound not And with what weapons c. Concerning the gifts of nature which you call mine improved by industry the account of both Agnosco benefactorem I acknowledge a heavenly Benefactour And though no man is obliged ad optima to the performance of the best things yet in this point how can I better imploy the Talents with which I am intrusted then in the service of Gods Church But you come with a fresh supply Can I call a Church a thing so torne and distracted Can I make a belly-full of husks Was not the Church governed by the Apostles vexed with clamours of people crying I am of Paul and I am of Apollos It is in the body politique and Ecclesiastique as in the naturall body Every quick and sudden alteration cals up all the humours and they being up draw the body into parties either pulling to themselves by Sympathy or putting off by Antipathy The water is troubled but expect a little and it will settle againe For the husks I confesse with sorrow of heart there are many and those meate onely for swine dull and drossie-headed people as the profane rudenesse of shoo-makers Bakers Button-makers in the sacred house of God the contempt of Divine Service and of the Liturgy and consequently of Ministers and their Orders the crying down of Learning and of the reward of it conclusions sucked from Mahomet and now the discourse of vulgar people amongst Christians With such I proclaime it to the world I and my devotions shall have no communion though they were able to lash me to death with their foule tongues but they cannot touch me with them These earthy people doe not understand that minus perfectum ad magis perfectum referri atque ordinari debet every lesse perfect thing ought to submit and be referred to the thing more perfect their weake apprehensions and erroneous consciences to the truth and service of God What if the Logicians say that quae sunt eadem uni tertio sunt idem inter se and yet the Father Sonne and holy Ghost being the same in Essence differ in persons Reason informeth us that as the Pope forsooth or a Bishop will reserve cases to himselfe and his owne Court so God may and must reserve the knowledge of many things and especially of Mysteries to his owne privacie And it is very fit we should now bee ignorant of the things wee shall not hereafter know And every man understanding according to the capacity of his understanding why should not the ignorant man stoope to what is sufficiently expressed to him with consideration to his ignorance Though ignorance hath sometimes Ignorantia pura negationis an excuse obstinacie hath never any And the man that hath but sipped of outlandish experience will easily beleeve that a Papist was the malignant contriver of that swelling and wordy but chaffie senselesse and empty Pamphlet ballassed with the name of A true Relation of a combustion hapning at Saint Annes Church by Aldersgate betweene a stranger sometimes a Jesuit but now thankes be to God reformed to our Church and one Marler a Button-maker c. Wherein the Author of the true Relation hath scarce a true word to beare witnesse that he knowes what is truth And if there be a true word in all the Pamphlet it is that onely reformed to the Church of England For neither was the Preacher a Button-maker but a Divine neither did we joyne any kinde of discourse neither came I neere the Pulpit though invited by the Minister and Vestry-men Your prayer in the end is charitable on your part