THE JESUIT'S MEMORIAL FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE Church of England THE JESUIT'S MEMORIAL For the Intended Reformation of England Under their First POPISH PRINCE PUBLISHED From the Copy that was presented TO THE Late KING JAMES II. WITH An INTRODUCTION and some ANIMADVERSIONS BY EDWARD GEE Rector of St. Benedict Paul's-Wharf and Chaplain in Ordinary to Their Majesties LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswel at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXC To the Right Reverend Father in God WILLIAM Lord Bishop of S. ASAPH Lord Almoner to Their MAJESTIES My Lord IT was a very easie thing for me to determine to whom I should present the following Discourses as it was from your Lordship's Sermon before Their Majesties the last 5th of November that I had the hint of your Lordship's having seen the Memorial that we had sought but in vain so earnestly after in the late King's Time so it was by your Lordship's Interest that I obtained not only the happiness of seeing it but the permission to publish it from the most authentick if not the only Copy in England from that which had been presented by the Jesuits to the late King James himself And since my Lord Decency requires the concealing from whose hands your Lordship received this Copy of the Memorial and the Leave for me to publish it it was necessary for me to address it to your Lordship from whose hands I received it that thereby any Objections against my Fidelity or Truth herein may be prevented as all will when my Lord Almoner's Name is seen at the Head of it Some indeed will wonder to see a Jesuit's Book dedicated by a Minister of the Church of England to a Bishop that hath been always most zealous against Popery and especially against the Jesuits Order to such persons I hope this Apology will be sufficient I am sure it will be to your Lordship that I publish this Jesuit's Memorial because I am fully perswaded that I am by it doing a greater service to the Protestant Interest against Popery than I was ever able to do by any thing I wrote against Popery during the Controversie in the late Reign In this Memorial we have naked Jesuitism and the several Projects laid down by which our Protestant Religion was not only to have been rooted out of England but the very possibility of its ever reviving here prevented and this I hope will teach some of the discontented People among us to acknowledge at least that our danger from the Jesuits Faction in the last Reign was as great as we made it and that our Deliverance by their present Majesties was a far greater blessing upon the account of our Protestant Establishment than they have hitherto been pleased to believe it I have had so much experience of your Lordship's goodness towards me that I do not in the least suspect your pardoning me the trouble of this Address Had I had no other reasons to make it the many favours I have received at your Lordship's hands would have engaged me to make this publick acknowledgment for them since I cannot but reckon it one of the greatest blessings of my Life that I have the honour to be known to your Lordship who are so eminent for your extraordinary Learning Piety Charity and Moderation I mention your Lordship's Moderation because some Men of late have been pleased to be very angry with your Lordship for it had your Lordship and those Eminent Persons that continued of your Judgment been as willing to part with Episcopacy as with the Apocrypha and as desirous to lay aside the whole Liturgy as they were to improve it I should have excused their anger against you for which I can see no other reason in the World but that your Lordship and those of your Mind could not forget so fast and so entirely as some others did their discourses their promises and intentions about accommodating matters with the Moderate Dissenters as well as giving ease to the rest of them That your Lordship may be blessed with a long continuance of health and enabled thereby to finish those excellent Designs that you have under your hands that you may long continue an Ornament to the Church of England and to Protestant Episcopacy and may be blest with success in your endeavours for the Establishment and Glory of both these is the most sincere Prayer of My Lord Your Lordship 's most obliged and most obedient Servant EDWARD GEE THE INTRODUCTION SINCE the Jesuit that was Author of the following Memorial has made so much noise in the World and was infamous for his Treasonable Practices during the Reigns he lived in and has by his seditious writings laid the Foundation of perpetual trouble to the Kingdom of England as long as there are or shall be either Papists in England or English Papists beyond Seas it will not be improper to furnish the Reader with the History of him that thereby he may be enabled to read and pass a truer Judgment upon the following Memorial for rooting out our Protestant establishment and replanting again their Popish Religion in England The World is not agreed either about his Name or Parentage for the Name of Parsons or Persons as he writes it himself they will have it to be given him upon a scandalous reason while the true name of his supposed Father was Cowback or Cubbuck He was born not at Stockersey in Somerset-Shire as the Secular Priests affirm against him but at Nether-Stowey in that County and notwithstanding the meanness of his Parentage had the advantage of a liberal Education and was fitted for the University whither he was sent and admitted into Baliol College in Oxford he was afterwards made Fellow of the same College and entered into Holy Orders and became a noted Tutor having the greatest number of Pupils in the College But notwithstanding his setting out so very well he was afterwards turned out of his Fellowship and the College with disgrace he was not expelled indeed but forced to resign with leave to keep his Chambers and Pupils a while longer but this grace was quickly crossed out the occasion of which the Writers of those times and of his own Society are very much divided about Father Morus the Jesuit and Author of the History of the Jesuits Mission into England will have it to be because he was not only suspected of inclining to Popery but as he will have it palam de Religione aliter judicaret loqueretur quam regni jura definierant c. both thought and spake openly for the Romish Religion and therefore that it was an unfit and a dangerous thing to trust such a Man with the Education of so many Youth as he generally had under his care But this cannot be the true reason since Father Persons behaved himself as a good Protestant and conversed especially with such Men Mr. Squire and Dr. Hide for example then famous Men and zealous Protestants as might instruct and confirm
violently urged by the Jesuits above all others excepting that Society whose rich Colleges and abundance of Treasure made it apparent quickly to the World that some were great gainers while the poor Lay-Catholicks were made great sufferers by that Recusancy Upon Campian's Execution England grew too hot for our Father Parsons and notwithstanding the mighty zeal he pretended for the Conversion of England yet he was for saving one and getting out of harms way and therefore slips away back into France under the Pretext of conferring with Doctor Allen about the Seminaries and of Printing some Books which could not be done in England and never returned hither tho' he continued Superiour of the Jesuits Mission after this But though the Kingdom was delivered from such a Firebrand yet he continued diligent beyond Seas in his Seditious Designs and was to the last a constant Enemy to his Native Countrey As he had laboured in the promoting the Popish Recufancy and getting the English Papists to be governed by the Jesuits so he now employs all his Arts and all his interest to get Seminaries erected for the supplying England from time to time with Priests to keep up that Recufancy and to prepare the Papists here to joyn with any Invasion that they abroad should procure against their own Countrey Assoon as he was got hence to Roan in France he dealt with the Duke of Guise to erect a Seminary for such a purpose in Normandy after which he goes into Spain and prevails with King Philip to encourage and erect such in Spain so that in a short time they could not only boast of their Seminaries at Rome and at Rhemes but of those at Valladolid at Sevil at St. Lucars in Spain at Lisbon in Portugal at Doway and St. Omers in Flanders in all which their Youth were educated with violent Prejudices against their own Native Countrey and their minds were formed to all the Purposes and Designs which this chief Incendiary Parsons had in his head Father Moor the Author of the History of the Mission does indeed tell us That Father Parsons was for having the Youth that were entered into these Seminaries to take an Oath about faithfully answering the End and Benefit of their Education there but says not a word of their being forced to subscribe the Infanta of Spain's Title against the True Title of the then King of Scots King James the First The Oath was this IN. N. considering with how great benefits God hath blessed me c. do promise by God's assistance to enter into Holy Orders assoon as I shall be fit for them and to return into England to Convert my Countrey-men there whenever it shall please the Superior of this House to command me But when once Father Parsons being puffed up with his Familiarity with the King and Court of Spain had devoted his Soul and Body both to the service of that aspiring Crown then he was for having the Youth in the Seminaries to subscribe to the Spanish Title which was of his own inventing to the Crown of England then he was for speaking out his design against his Native Countrey And that he dealt in such traiterous designs after his getting out of England is proved upon him by their own Writers As touching the Colleges says Clark the Priest concerning him and Pensions that are maintained and given by the Spaniard which he so often inculcateth we no whit thank him for them as things are handled and occasions thereby ministred of our greater Persecution at home by reason of Father Parson's treacherous practices thereby to promote the Spanish Title to our Country and his hateful Stratagems with such Scholars as are there brought up enforcing them to subscribe to Blanks and by publick Orations to fortifie the said wrested Title of the Infanta meaning Isabella Clara Eugenia Daughter to Philip the Second of Spain whose Right to the English Crown was maintain'd in a Book by this Parsons made but published by him under the false name of Doleman As this Priest gives us an account of the zeal of Father Parsons for the Infanta so Watson another Romish Priest helps us to another of his knavery about the same affair That Parsons earnestly moving the young Students in Spain to set their hands to a Schedule that they would accept the Lady Infanta for Queen of England after the decease of her Majesty to wit Queen Elizabeth that now is but finding them altogether unwilling to intermedle with these State-affairs belonging nothing to them and most hurtful to both their Cause and Persons used this cunning shift to draw on the innocent and simple youths to pretend forsooth to them of Valladolid that the Students in Sevil had done it already no remedy then but they must follow And that having thus craftily gotten their names he shewed them to the Students in Sevil for an example of their fact and forwardness which he required them to imitate Though these are sufficient Evidences of the use Father Parsons put the erected Seminaries to yet I cannot but add that great and wise Cardinal the Cardinal d'Ossat's account of these very Seminaries in his Letter to the King of France Henry the Fourth about the Spaniards and Father Parsons Design against England For this purpose also says he were the Colleges and Seminaries erected by the Spaniards for the English at Doway and at St. Omers wherein the young Gentlemen of the best Families in England are entertain'd thereby to oblige them and by them their Parenâ—â— and Kindred and Friends The principal care which these Colleges and Seminaries have is to catechise and bring up these young English Gentlemen in this Faith and firm Belief that the late King of Spain had and that his Children now have the true Right of Succession to the Crown of England and that this is advantageous and expedient for the Catholick Faith not only in England but where-ever Christianity is And when these young English Gentlemen have finished their Humanity-Studies and are come to such an age then to make them throughly Spaniards they are carried out of the Low-Countries into Spain where there are other Colleges for them wherein they are instructed in Philosophy and Divinity and confirmed in the same Belief and holy Faith that the Kingdom of England did belong to the late King of Spain and does now to his Children After that these young English Gentlemen have finished their courses those of them that are found to be most Hispaniolized and most couragious and firm to this Spanish Creed are sent into England to sow this Faith among them to be Spies and give advice to the Spaniards of what is doing in England and what must and ought to be done to bring England into the Spaniards hands and if need be to undergo Martyrdom as soon or rather sooner for this Spanish Faith than for the Catholick Religion In this Cardinal we find to what excellent purposes the Seminaries were erected that Father Parsons laboured
so much about and of which he glories so much up and down his Writings These Seminaries were the Nurseries of the Conspiracies and Treasons which were from time to time set on foot and carried on against the Queen and Realm of England and Father Parson 's whole Life from his leaving the Mission in England appears to me to have been one continued Act of Treason against his Natural Queen and Native Country To mention some of his Treasons that are come to light he was very grateful to the Duke of Guise whom he had perswaded to set up a Seminary in France for the English that should come thither for with him he conspires against his own Queen how to depose her and set up in her room Popery and the Queen of Scots He endeavoured for this purpose as we are told to make a List of Catholicks which under the conduct of the Duke of Guise should have changed the State of the Kingdom using for it the pretence of the Title of Queen Mary of Scotland But that her Council at Paris which understood business better were so sensible of his boldness that they took from him the Queen's Cypher which he had purloyned and commanded him never more to meddle in her affairs But notwithstanding these People would not let our Father Parsons have any thing further to do in those treasons which were really carried on at that time for the Queen of Scots yet he pretended to mighty merit upon her and her Son's Account in his Letter to Father Chreyton the Jesuit telling him how many long and tedious journeys he had taken for their sakes and how much Mony he had procured for them at one time twenty four thousand Crowns from the King of Spain at another time the same summ and from Pope Gregory XIII four thousand Crowns he confesses indeed that things had not succeeded for them as he had wished but wonders that any body should make him to be an Enemy to the King of Scots who had been so very serviceable to him and his Mother I suppose Father Parsons was disgusted at this sleighting of his faithful services to the Queen of Scots by her Ministers and to be revenged of her and them betakes himself wholly into the Spanish Interest which he espoused so far as not only to sollicite and encourage their open attempts by Invasion against England but after the ill success of that to set up their sham Title to the Kingdom of England He and Cardinal Allen whom Parsons had by his Interest with the King of Spain procured to be made a Cardinal two Brethren in iniquity were mighty forward for the famous Spanish Invasion in 1588. and to make it more successful wrote in defence of it a Tract which Allen was perswaded to own though Parsons had as great if not a greater hand in it than himself In this Admonition to the Nobility and People of England the Queen's Government is called impious and unjust her self an Usurper obstinate and impentinent and it is affirmed that for this reason Pope Sixtus Quintus moved by his own and his Predecessors zeal and the vehement desire of some principal Englishmen had used great diligence with divers Princes especially with the Spanish King to use all his force that she might be turned out of her Dominions and her Adherents punished for a great many Reasons there laid together after which it proceeds thus Wherefore seeing these Offences some of them rendring her uncapable of the Kingdom others unworthy to live his Holiness by the power of God and the Apostles reneweth the Censures of Pius V. and Gregory XIII against her excommunicates and deprives her of all Royal Dignity Titles Rights and Pretences to England and Ireland declares her Illegitimate and an Usurper of the Kingdoms and absolves all her Subjects from their Obedience and Oaths of Allegiance due to her And expressly commands All under pain and penalty of God's Wrath to yield her no obedience aid or favour whatsoever but to employ all their power against her and to joyn themselves with the Spanish Forces who will not hurt the Nation nor alter their Laws or Priviledges only punish the wicked Hereticks And by the same Presents it was declared not only lawful but commendable to lay hands on the said Usurper and other her Adherents for doing of which they should be well rewarded And lastly to all these Roman Assistants is liberally granted a plenary Indulgence and Remission of all their Sins But this unerring Thunderbolt as well as the Spanish Invincible Armado did very shamefully miscarry to the no small disappointment of our good Father Parsons who was not discouraged at that defeat though a worse Man than himself if any such could be would have seen the Finger of God plainly in it but labours with the King of Spain a while after for a second Invasion and after that for a third plotting and devising all ways to bring the King of Spain to it and the Papists of England both those at home and the fugitives abroad to joyn and assist the King of Spain in it but all his pains was lost about these Invasions from abroad and therefore he next sets himself to raise a Rebellion in England it self and deals with Ferdinand Earl of Derby to appear in and â—ead it which because he declined to do he was poysoned by Father Hesketh's procurement who had been sent to him by Father Parsons But failing here also of the desired success the poor Father was now at a loss what to do with this Kingdom of England and since he saw all miscarried that he had plotted against Queen Elizabeth who descended to her Grave full of years and honour his next business was to keep out King James who was a Protestant also from succeding her For this purpose he wrote his Doleman or Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England the chief design of which was to exclude the Scotch Title as well the Lady Arabella's as King James's and to set up the Spanish Infanta I know Mr. Camden will have Cardinal Allen and Sir Francis Inglefield to have their shares in this Book but Cardinal d'Ossat who had far better opportunities of finding out the Author makes it to be Parson's own and in one of his Letters to the King of France gives that King an account of it wherein he gives our Jesuit the true Character he deserved of being a fellow that regarded neither truth nor reason One thing I cannot but remark here that though this Jesuit had the Impudence to meddle in these matters and to set up forged Titles against the Royal Line of Scotland yet when King James contrary to their Popish designs as well as Expectations did quietly succeed to the Crown of England he had the greater Impudence to deny his ever intending to exclude that King this is in the Preface to his Three Conversions of England added upon the news of the Queens Death and
Succession of the King of Scotland to the Crown of England And as for the person says he to the English Catholicks now advanced I know most certainly that there was never any doubt or difference among you but that ever you desired his advancement above all others as the only Heir of that renowned Mother for whom your fervent zeal is known to the World and how much you have suffered by her adversaries for the same Yet do I confess that touching the disposition of the person for the place and manner of his advancement all zealous Catholicks have both wished and prayed that he might first be a Catholick and then our King this being our bounded duty to wish and his greatest good to be obtained for him And to this end and no other I assure my self hath been directed whatsoever may have been said written or done by any Catholick which with some others might breed disgust Thus the Jesuit thought to pacifie King James's Court by a piece of Impudence to be met with only in a Jesuit whoever will be at the pains to compare Parson's Doleman with this Preface cannot but declare him to be the greatest Villain that ever set Pen to Paper and to have lost all sense of Modesty Truth and Justice Amidst these his Projects for the Spanish Interest he had hopes upon the death of Cardinal Allen to be made by the Spanish Interest a Cardinal for England and there was set about in Flanders by Holt the Jesuit and Worthington a Petition to the King of Spain for that purpose subscribed by the Common Soldiers Labourers Artizans and Pensioners nay Scullions and Laundresses as well as by those of better rank and quality Upon this Father Parsons makes haste out of Spain to Rome to hinder it as the Jesuits say for him when he came thither upon a day set him he waited on the Pope and acquainted him how the City was full of the discourse of his being shortly to be made a Cardinal and that Spain and Flanders rung with it too and therefore begged of him that he would not think of making him a Cardinal who might be more serviceable in the condition he was now in to the affairs of England The Pope told him That the King of Spain had not written a syllable to him about any such thing and that he must not mind foolish Reports and bid him go and mind his studies I cannot but think that this neglect in the King of Spain lost him Father Parsons who soon after though he could not leave of plotting went on other designs four of which he seems to have had on foot together for the Exclusion of King James from the Crown of England The most improbable one was that of the Peoples rising and setting up a popular Government he had furnished them with Principles in several of his Books for this purpose In the Second and Third he dealt with the Pope either about making if his Purse and Interest were large enough his Kinsman the Duke of Parma King or in joyning with the Lady Arabella's Interest and marrying her to the Duke's Brother the Cardinal Farnese whom he had made upon the death of Cardinal Cajetan Protector of England thereby to ingratiate him with the Clergy and Laity of this Kingdom Cardinal d'Ossat gives a very large account of both these Projects in the Letter whcih I have already quoted to the King of France And in another of his Letters he gives an account of the fourth Project wherein he himself had been dealt with by Parsons then Rector of the College of Jesuits at Rome which was that the Pope the King of France and King of Spain should agree among themselves of a Successor for England that should be a Catholick and that they should joyn their Forces to settle him in the Throne of England Thus we see how Plotting and Treason was the whole business of this Jesuit's Life in which he was so notorious that Pasquin set him forth thus at Rome If there be any Man that will buy the Kingdom of England let him repair to a Merchant in a black square Cap in the City and he shall have a very good penniworth thereof While he thus filled his head with designs and hopes of a Popish Prince to be set up in England by some of these foreign Princes it was that he drew up the following Memorial for that his Prince his Directions to whom are like his other Counsels and Actions I will trouble the Reader with no more of his History As I take the Jesuits to be the very worst of Men so I think the preceeding accounts have proved Father Parsons to be the very worst of Jesuits A MEMORIAL OF THE REFORMATION of ENGLAND CONTAINING Certain Notes and Advertisements which seem might be proposed in the First Parliament and National Council of our Country after God of his mercy shall restore it to the Catholick Faith for the better Establishment and Preservation of the said Religion Gathered and set-down by R.P. 1596. THE PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR SHEWING How and why these Notes were gathered and the principal Parts to be treated THE Notes and Observations of this Memorative following were gathered and laid together in time of Persecution when there was no place to execute or put them in ure and it is no more than seventeen or eighteen Years past that the Gatherer began first to put some of them in writing and having had the experience of the Years which have ensued since and his part also in the Catholic affairs of his Country and the Practice of divers other Catholic Nations abroad he was desirous in case that himself should not live to see the desired day of the Reduction of England yet some of his Cogitations and Intentions for the publick good thereof might work some effect after his Death and that thereby other Men might be the sooner moved to enter into more mature Considerations of these and such like Points yea and also to descend unto many more particulars than here are set down For that the Gatherer's meaning was only to open the way and to insinuate certain general and principal Heads that might serve for an awaking and remembrance at that happy day of the Conversion of our Country unto such Persons as shall be then able and desirous to further the common good and to advance Almighty God's Glory with a Holy Zeal of perfect Reformation who perhaps may be so entangled with multitudes of other business and Cogitations at that time as they will not so easily enter into these except they be put in mind thereof by some such Memorials and Advertisements as here are touched And what is said in this Treatise for the Kingdom of England is meant also for Ireland so far as it may do good seeing the Author desireth as much benefit for God's Service and the good of that Nation to the one Country as to the other And for that the principal
Considerations Anno Dom. 1601. which ought to put it down in their own words to move all true and sound Catholicks who are not wholly Jesuited to acknowledge without all Equivocations Ambiguities or Shiftings that the Proceedings of her Majesty and of the State with them Since the beginning of her Highnesses Reign have been hath Mild and Merciful And what they say here by way of Preface they prove more at large in their Book It cannot be deny'd say the Secular Priests but that for the first ten years of her Majesties Reign the State of Catholicks in England was tolerable and after a sort in some good quietness Such as for their Consciences were imprisoned in the beginning of her coming to the Crown were very kindly and mercifully used the State of things then considered Some of them were appointed to remâ—â—â— with such their Friends as they themselves made choice of Others were placed some with Bishops some with Deans and had their Diet at their Tables with such convenient Lodgings and Walks for their Recreation as did well content them They thâ— were in the ordinary Prisons had such liberty and other commodities as the places would afford not inconvenient for 〈◊〉 that were in their cases But that our Brethren of the more fiery and Jesuitial humour may not snuff here at we have thought it meet to cool their heat with some of Mr. Parsons and his fellow Master Creswel more gentle delays than are usual with them who in one of their Books do confess as much is effect as here we have set down if not more thus these Emperour-like Jesuits do speak to her Majesty In the beginning of thy Kingdom thou didst deal something more gently with Catholicks none were then urged by thee or pressed either to thy Sect or to the denial of their Faith All things indeed did seem to proceed in a far milder course no great complaints were heard of there were seen no extraordinary contentions or repugnancies Some there were that to please and gratifie you went to your Churches But when afterwards thou didst begin to wrong them c. And when was that our great Monsigneurs Surely whensoever it was to answer for you we our selves certain Catholicks of all sorts were the true causes of it Thus far have I been able to vindicate the beginning of Queen Eliz. Reign out of the Mouths of Romish Priests themselves and by their help out of our Jesuit's own Mouth who has the face notwithstanding in this Memorial to talk of Multitudes of their Martyrs For the Executions during the rest of her Reign let us but see in short what those Papists died for and we shall be far from believing them Martyrs whom the Jesuit falsly calls so and brags of in this Chapter This we may learn from the Pen of the same Secular Priests who thus conclude their Important Considerations We are fully perswaded in our Consciences and as men besides our Learning who have some Experience that if the Catholicks had never sought by indirect means to have vexed her Majesty with their designments against her Crown if the Pope and King of Spain had never plotted with the Duke of Norfolk if the Rebels in the North had never been heard of if the Bull of Pius Quintus had never been known if the said Rebellion had never been justified if neither Stukely nor the Pope had attempted any thing against Ireland if Gregory the Thirteenth had not renewed the said Excommunication if the Jesuits had never come into England if the Pope and King of Spain had not practised with the Duke of Guise for his attempt against her Majesty if Parsons and the rest of the Jesuits with other our Countrymen beyond the Seas had never been Agents in those traiterous and bloody designments of Throckmorton Parry Collen York Williams Squire and such like if they had not by their Treatises and Writings endeavoured to defame their Sovereign and their own Country labouring to have many of their Books translated into divers Languages thereby to shew more their own disloyalty if Cardinal Alane and Parsons had not published the Renovation of the said Bull by Xistus Quintus if thereunto they had not added their Scurrilous and Vnmanly Admonition or rather most prophane Libel against her Majesty if they had not sought by false Perswasions and ungodly Arguments to have allured the hearts of all Catholicks from their Allegiance if the Pope had never been urged by them to have thrust the King of Spain into that barbarous Action against the Realm if they themselves with all the rest of that Generation had not laboured greatly with the said King for the Conquest and Invasion of this Land by the Spaniards who are known to be the cruellest Tyrants that live upon the Earth if in all their Proceedings they had not from time to time depraved irritated and provoked both her Majesty and the state with these and many other such like their most ungodly and unchristian practices most assuredly the State would have loved us or at least born with us where there is one Catholick there would have been ten there had been no Speeches amongst us of Racks and Tortures nor any cause to have used them for none were ever vexed that way simply for that he was either Priest or Catholick but because they were suspected to have had their hands in some of the same most traiterous designments This is sufficient from the Mouths of Popish Priests to vindicate the Execution of Justice during Queen Elizabeth's Reign and to convince the Reader that Father Parsons was very much in the wrong to make Martyrs of such Criminals but much more to pretend to Multitudes It is however somewhat pardonable in him to give such wicked Traitors the glorious name of Martyrs since he had been the chief Incendiary and Encourager of most of those Rebels and Traitors and does deserve according to the Secular Priests Character of him in these Important Considerations the Title of Arch-traitor for himself c Offer occasion the second time c. This passage ought not only to be a warning to our Protestant Nation to provide by all ways lawful to keep Popery from gaining strength or power amongst us but to be the occasion of many hearty thanksgivings to God for having delivered us out of the bâ—â—â—â— and danger of Jesuit Reformers whose fury we see must not stop till we are clear rooted out or to speak more properly in the Jesuit's own Dialect till we are burnt up Who can without horrour read this Jesuit's complaint of the Imperfect Deformation and the great coldness and lukewarmness in Queen Mary's Restorers of Popery and recollect what numbers of innocent Protestants Old and Young Men and Women Clâ—â—ly and Laity were burnt at Stakes up and down the Nation during that short but bloody Reign d Fourthly the facility c. and a little lower For in the behalf of the Realm and Country I perswade my self most certainly
must be expected from him when he came furnished also with the Pope's Thundring Sentence of Excommunication and Deposition against the already despised and deposed Queen As to the Fruits of Father Parson's Doctrine in these points and his restless and seditious Practices against his Native Countrey upon them I will inquire after them by and by Soon after his coming into England a Controversie was raised and most probably by himself and fellow-Jesuit Campian about the Catholicks frequenting the Protestant Churches a thing which had been constantly and generally practised from the accession of the Queen to the Crown It is certain that abundance of people were drawn from their Popish Opinions and Superstitions by it and it is probable that the remaining Roman Catholicks would in time have come over entirely into the Communion of the Church of England and have brought their Hearts and Affections as well as their Bodies thither for it could not have been otherwise but that the Light and Plainness and Reasonable Service of the Protestant Church would have prevailed by God's Blessing upon every honest well-meaning Papist and have saved the Pope the trouble of detaching his Incendiaries and Seminary Priests hither Since therefore this Practice would have made their Seminaries useless and their whole Craft was endangered by it it was these new Jesuits Interest and they made â—t their business to oppose and exclaim against it every where and upon all occasions And they pretended that they had very good Authority for it no less than that of the Council of Trent which tho' it did not in open Council decree against and forbid all Catholicks the frequenting the Protestant Churches because this would have alarmed the Government of England and would have caused great mischiefs and disturbance to all the remaining Catholicks there yet did appoint a Committee of twelve Bishops and others to consider determine and give answer in the Name of the Council of Trent to the Petition that was either sent but without Name or pretended to be sent to that Council from the Catholicks of England wherein it was desired that they might be resolved in this point Whether the Laws enjoyning all Peoples going to their Parish Churches under a strict Penalty they might do it without danger of their Souls or offending God I put the sence of the Postulation in Father Moor's words in his History of the Mission the answer to which he makes to be that after Commendations of the English Papists for their constancy in the Catholick Religion and their having not during those troublesome times in England never bowed their Knees before Baal as if forsooth the Church of England had had Images and Reliques and a Wafer Host for their Members to bow to they declared to them with one consent that they ought not to be present at our Impious Worship nor can appear there without Sin and offending God and giving Scandal to the Church of God every where I know nothing worth the observing in that tedious dull determination of these twelve Delegates out of the Council of Trent which is so far from being worth transcribing that it is not worth reading except the good words they give our Protestant Worship throughout it which is one while Impious then most Profligate then Nefarious and which is the best Jest of all Idolatrous and what not It would be too great a disparagement of our Divine and Excellent way of Worshipping God to enter the lists in defence of it against such Sottish and Wretched Calumnies this I will only say concerning it That if to put into the Mouths of Minister and People Devout and Fervent Prayers to God for his Grace to enable them to repent of their sins to resist Temptations and to lead true Christian Lives in Piety Justice and Sobriety be Wicked and Nefarious then I will own that our Church Service does deserve this hard Character of being Nefarious That if to put the Prayers into such a Language as that the Unlearned as well as the Learned part of the Congregation may joyn with understanding in them and offer them up together with fervency of Spirit to God be Impious then I must again own that our Common-Prayer is Impious that if to offer up all the Prayers and Praises in our Divine Service to God the Father through the alone Merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ our alone Mediator as well as Redeemer be Idolatrous and I know nothing else in our service so likely for those Delegates to fix the Idolatry upon then I will own and subscribe too that our Protestant Worship is Idolatrous Impious Profligate and Nefarious and what else or worse these Trent Fathers should have been pleased to call it It was very hard for men that did pretend to be Christians and were some of them men of great Figure in the Romish Church to give out such hard words against a Form of Divine Worship which probably never a one of them had ever seen or inquired into they being all Foreigners and perfect Strangers to this Church that were employed in this Affair I would ask one of that Persuasion Whether if Queen Elizabeth had come to terms with Pope Pius Quartus that sent her a flattering Letter by Parpalia his Nuncio and if that Pope as he offered her had confirmed the English Liturgy by his Authority and granted the use of the Sacraments to us English under both kinds this bare Confirmation of the Pope would have made our Worship to be holy pure and Christian which without it as they said was impure wicked and Idolatrous If the Pope's power be so great as to make Wickedness Innocence and Vice Virtue it s the better for them who live under him if it be not either the Pope was grievously out in offering to confirm or these doughty Delegates at Trent in giving such a Character of our Church of England-Worship Whether this whole business of the Delegates and their Determination be not an Invention of the Jesuits themselves I cannot affirm But if it was a real thing either it was not heard of much or had little effect among the English Catholicks since we see that eighteen years after its making the English Papists went to Church when Father Parsons came over and the thing was disputed among them in 1580 which it could not easily have been had the Council of Trent by twelve Delegates determined so strictly against it as the Jesuits say they did in 1562. eighteen years before Father Parsons laboured with all his might to break the Catholicks of that custom of frequenting the Protestant Churches which he did easily foresee would be the ruine of Popery in England and betook himself to his Pen and under the seigned Name of Howlet published Reasons why Catholicks refuse to go to Church But a Brother Romish Priest tells us That all this care and concern was meerly for Temporal ends and designs and shews that no body was a gainer by this Recusancy so
forelaid Council of Trent entirely and fully without Limitation or Restraint but to embrace also and to put it in ure where occasion and place is offered such other points of Reformation as tend to the perfect restitution of Ecclesiastical Discipline that were in use in the ancient Christian Church though afterward decayed for want of Spirit and not urged now again nor commanded for the Council of Trent for the causes before by me alledged for better Declaration whereof we may consider that the Council of Trent touching Reformation of Manners had to repair an old ancient House whereof many parts were sore weakened by Corruptions and some perished but yet the whole could not be changed nor built anew but necessarily the reparation must be made according to the State and Condition of the other parts that yet remained and so those good Fathers could not frame all points to their own likeing nor yet according to the Rules of perfect Ecclesiastical Architecture But now in England no doubt but that the State of things will be far otherwise whensoever the change of Religion shall happen For then it will be lawful for a good Catholick Prince that God shall send and 2 for a well affected Parliament which himself and the time will easily procure to begin of new and to build from the very foundation the external face of our Catholick Church and to follow the Model which themselves will chuse and if that will be a good and perfect Model it will endure at least for a time and be a pattern of true Christianity to the rest of the World but if it be but ordinary and of the meaner sort at the beginning it will quickly slide back to the old Corruptions wherein it was before and so the benefit of this Probation and Tribulation will soon be lost both before God and Men which Jesus forbid for that it is and will be the greatest Crown that ever England hath had since her first Conversion to the Christian Faith and according to this account must our purpose be of Reformation whensoever God shall restore us to Liberty and Peace lest we lose in Peace that which we gained in War as Eusebius Caesariensis saith that some did in antient Persecutions and it ought to be a warning to us to take heed by their Examples And this is so much as in this behalf seemeth needful to be remembred Animadversions on Chap. II. 1 THE late Council of Trent The Jesuit in the former Chapter was complaining of the coldness and imperfect Reformation of Queen Mary's Reign and here he is as severe upon the Council of Trent it self which notwithstanding its being directed and assisted by the Holy Ghost as this Jesuit as well as the rest of their Writers will have it to be when they are engaged in Controversie against the Reformed and notwithstanding the Infallible Vicar at Rome presided in it by his Legates and did from time to time influence and direct all its Consultations and Determinations yet was so base and cowardly according to our fierce Jesuit as to truckle to the humours of the Age and make a very lame and imperfect Reformation out of compliance with the lukewarmness and iniquity of that Age. But the rest of the World were not of our Jesuit's Mind but did easily see that no Temporal Prince could submit to that Council which by the bye was nothing but a meer Western Conventicle of Italian Bishops and the Pope's own Creatures who had sworn to be true and faithful to him and to preserve to him those which he and they call the Rights and Honours of S. Peter before ever they came within the Walls of that assembly without wrong to himself and to his People However our Jesuit is for having his Popish Prince in England to receive the Council of Trent entirely and fully without Limitation and Restraint though the Prince that does it makes himself feudatory to the Popes and leaves his Country to their disposal when they think fit to have it escheat to them this no body can doubt of it that will but examine what that Council at Trent hath determined about the Matter of Duels in any Princes Countries and this without Question is one of the Reasons why the Gallican Church could not then nor can be to this day perswaded to admit the Council of Trent entirely but refuse it as to the Canons about Discipline which encroach upon the Prince's Right and the Churches Authority By what I can observe from our Jesuit he is for overdoing the whole World and while he brands others with the name of Cold Catholicks would I suppose have a Council of Jesuits to reform their Church and then I am sure it will be done to purpose 2 For a well affected Parliament which himself and the time will easily procure Here is an Instance of a fatal mistake in our Jesuit's Politicks and Foresight The Papists in England by God's Permission have had a Popish Prince and a Prince governed by Jesuits too and as zealous as our Jesuit himself could either imagine or wish him to be and yet after all he was not able to get a well affected Parliament that is a Parliament that would have settled Popery effectually among us That Prince came to the Crown with greater advantages than one of his Perswasion could well have been supposed to have done he was no sooner fixt in his Throne than he had the good success to break and suppress two very dangerous Rebellions and appeared to the World to have the love of all his Subjects who gratified him in his first Parliament with every thing that they could either with Honour or Conscience give But when tempted I am afraid by the reading of this Jesuit's Memorial and by the strange success against the two Insurrections he began to pull off the Vizard and was for breaking in upon the National Protestant security by keeping up a standing Army with a great many Popish unqualified Officers and thought it would prove 〈◊〉 easie matter to bring in his Popery we see how miserably he was out in his Measures that very Parliament that had been so kind as to settle a greater Revenue upon him than ever King of England had by six hundred thousand Pounds a Year as I have been informed for some Years and to give him great Supplies and to Voâ—â— him more and that did stand by him with their Fortuneâ— and Lives were yet for standing by their Religion and their Laws and were neither so tame nor foolish as to be either complemented or hector'd out of either of them This dissolved that Parliament and shewed how graâ—â—ful a Popish Prince could be to the best and kindest Parliament And when this Parliament was dissolved and Popery made every day larger steps than before and the whole Constitution was laid to sleep in favour of Fanatiâ— and Papists did he or time procure a more kind or well affected Parliament Indeed all the care imaginable
a storm of injustice and iniquity by how much the more all parts and joints of equity both towards God and Man have been wrested and wronged therein by Hereticks and Atheists And first of all are to be redressed the open wrongs which have been done to our Catholicks for their Faith and Religion whether it were by shew or colour of Laws or by manifest Tyranny And secondly are to be remedied the known publick oppression of the common People by some that have been in authority as namely incroachments upon their Lands Tenements or the like as also the corrupt manner of proceeding of certain Quests and Juries both in matters of Life and Lands that in later days by the infection of Heresie have been accustomed to apply themselves to the favour of Magistrates in authority without regard of Right or Conscience One thing also in particular for very honour of our Realm and saving the Lives and Souls of infinite Men is greatly wished might be recommended to his Majesty and effectually redressed which is the multitude of Thieves that rob and steal upon the High-ways in England more than likely in any other Country of the World they being also oftentimes of no base Condition or Quality that do it but rather Gentlemen or wealthy Men's Sons moved thereunto not so much of poverty and necessity as of light estimation of the fault and hope of Pardon from the Prince whereby it cometh to pass that albeit the English Nation as by experience is found he not so much inclined to steal in secret as some other Nations are and that more are put to Death in England for punishment of that Fact than in many other Nations together yet is this enormity of robbing upon the High-ways much more frequent and notorious in England than any where else in Christendom which is a great infamy to our Government and hurt to the Common-wealth For remedy though divers means may be suggested whereof I shall have occasion to speak in the two Chapters following yet one principle is thought to be if it were once known that the Prince would hardly or never dispense or give pardon in that offence but upon great rare and extraordinary occasion For albeit many obtain not this pardon yet the very hope thereof encourageth others to attempt the Fact And we see that in some Countries and especially in Spain above all other that I have seen though the Realm be much bigger and have many more fit places to commit such offences than ours yet very rarely it is heard that publick robberies are committed upon the High-ways though in private and secretly is no Country perhaps more which principally is attributed unto the certain and constant publick Justice that is done upon them without remission that commit the Fact if they be found and to the great diligence used for finding them out by the particular pursuit of a certain Company and Confraternity of Men appointed for the purpose and peculiarly dedicated to this work named the Holy Brotherhood which is endued with many priviledges and sufficient authority for the same The which thing is wished also might be brought into England and made subordinate to the new Religious Order of Knights to be instituted both for the defence of Sea and Land which I have spoken of in the First Part of this Memorial And albeit the strictness of the Prince be necessary in giving Pardons for cutting off all hopes to the Malefactors yet were it to be wished that the rigour of our Temporal Laws for putting Men to death for theft of so small quantity or value as is accustomed in England were much moderated and some lesser bodily punishments invented for that purpose as also that some means of moderation wherein the manner of quick dispatch of Men's lives by Juries impanelled in haste and forced to give Verdict of Life and Death upon the suddain without allowing space either for them to inform themselves or for the accused to think duly upon his defence or to help himself by any Proctor Attorney contrary witness or other such aides as both reason and other Country Laws and equity it self seemeth to allow whereof I shall speak more when I shall come to speak of our Common-Laws of England in the Fourth Chapter of this Part. And for that it will not be enough to plant only Religion Justice and other such parts of a true Christian Commonwealth but also it will be needful to uphold maintain and defend the same It must appertain also unto a Catholick Prince whom God shall bless with the Crown of England to shew himself a continual Watch-man over the same and with his vigilance provide for the perpetuation thereof and first of all to assure the Succession of the Crown by good provision of Laws which Hereticks of later years have so much confounded and made so uncertain and in such manner must be link the state of Catholick Religion and Succession together as the one may depend and be the assurance of the other Moreover his Majesty must see due execution from time to time done of such good Laws and Ordinances as to these and like purposes by himself and the Realm shall be at the beginning determined and set down for which effect it seemeth that the custom of some other wise Catholick Princes of foreign Countries is much to be commended who do use both ordinarily and at other times unexpected to send Visitors to divers parts of their Realms as namely to Universities and to all Courts of Law and Justice and other places where any great abuse and excess may be committed touching the Prince's Service or other State of the Commonwealth which Visitors being Men of great integrity skill and wisdom and furnished with sufficient Authority and Commission to fear no Man do return back true Information of that which is well or amiss to the Prince and his Council who after diligent view and deliberation do cause the same to be published and all Parties to be punished or rewarded according to their merits which is a great Bridle to hold things in order Furthermore for that it is of great moment for the Prince to know and be truly informed of the quality and merit of such of his Subjects as he is to prefer to Offices and charge in the Common-wealth either Spiritual or Temporal it were necessary his Majesty from time to time as for Example from three years to three years or the like according as some other godly Princes also use should cause certain Lists and Catalogues to be given him of Men's names by divers secret ways and by Persons of credit discretion and good Consciences touching all such Subjects in every Country Province Universities Cathedral Churches Houses of Law and particular Colleges as for their learning wisdom and other good qualities were fittest to be imployed and preferred by his Majesty and that these Lists and Memoires should be often viewed by the Prince himself and by his Council