and so weak an Adversary Let us suppose then for once That Luther Calvin and as many more as he has a mind to take into his c. have held That Princes may be depos'd upon the Account of Religion By what new Logick can he make this pertinent to the present Discourse Does he thinke it the same thing to hold indefinitely That Princes may be depos'd upon the Account of Religion and to hold That the Church has a Right to depose them upon that Account To hold that they may be deposed by an Authority Civil and to hold that they may be depos'd by an Authority Ecclesiastical Let him now speak his Conscience without a Dispensation Does he in good earnest think these two Propositions equivalent or at least equivalent as to the point in controversie between him and the Bishop of Lincoln and that they equally disgrace the profess'd Religion of him who affirms them He cannot sure be so void of the ordinary reason of a Man though he has swallow'd down never so many Roman Catholick Doctrines as not to perceive a palpable difference between them 'T is not but that the former of these Positions is a very bad Principle dangerous to Princes and destructive to the Peace and Settlement of a Nation though not so much as the latter because it wants the Enforcement of Conscience and Religion to fix it in the Mind and thrust it out upon occasion into action with that Violence which usually accompanies a pretended Zeal for the Honour of God But how bad soever it may be still 't is a Civil not a Religious Principle and though it may be Sedition in the highest degree it can never be Heresie a mans Life and Estate who maintaines it is answerable for it not his Religion To make this a little clearer I say 'T is one thing to hold That Princes may be dedepos'd by the State though upon the Account of Religion i. e. for being of a Religion different from the establish'd grounding this Opinion upon the Laws and Customs of some particular Civil Constitutions or upon the ends of Government in general and quite another thing to hold that they may be depos'd by the Church grounding this Opinion upon the Laws of Religion and a Power suppos'd to be delegated to her by Christ This last is the Principle we charge and the Bishop of Lincoln has prov'd upon the Church of Rome which makes her Religion it self dangerous to Princes On the other side though Luther Calvin or any other Protestant Divines should hold the first though it be a false and a bad yet as I said before 't is a Civil Principle and their holding it could no more reflect on the Protestant Religion than an Error they might be guilty of in History or Mathematicks The Protestant Religion therefore remaines clear from any suspicion of allowing the Doctrine of Deposing Princes the point I undertook to make good though it should be granted the Compendianist that Luther and Calvin c. have had ill Principles in Relation to Civil Governments If he could prove indeed That Luther and Calvin or any other Protestant Divines have held The Lawfulness of Deposing Princes as a Principle of their Religion and plac'd the power of doing it the Church he would say something that were to the purpose and parallel to what we accuse the Church of Rome off but in the Method he has taken he does but beat the Air and fight with Shadows I shall explain this Distinction a little further by some famous Examples in order to meet with the other Cavils of this idle wrangler and make the Inconsequence of his Arguings if it be possible yet more apparent He may remember then That here in England Edward the II. and Richard the II. were actually depos'd in times of Popery and by Papiits yet did our Writers never charge the Church of Rome though she held then the same doctrines and had the same Pride to trample on Princes that now she has with those two disloyal and unjust Usurpations upon the Sovereignty of the Kings of England And for what imaginable reason but this only viz. because they were both acts of the Civil Power and carried on by men who grounded what they did upon Principles though grosly false and mistaken drawn from the Constitution of the English Government and the Rights of the two Houses of Parliament and the Church of Rome contrary to her Custom upon such occasions was only a bare Spectator neither her Authority nor her Principles being made use of to further or justifie those proceedings I would now a k this Collector of Impertinences this teadious Compendianist whether he thinkes this a good reason to clear the Church of Rome from being concern'd in the deposing of these two unfortunate Princes If he sayes T is as no doubt he will with what face can he pretend to charge the Church of England as he would be understood to do pag. 76 lin 38. with the Endeavours that were us'd to keep Queen Mary from the Crown the Death of the Queen of Scots and the Bill of the late House of Commons against the Duke of York's succession since the Cases are directly parellel I mean parallel in all that concernes the present Question Were they not every one of the Acts of the Civil Power and carried on by men who grounded what they did on Civil not Religious Principles Was not the setting up of the Lady Jane Grey and the raising an Army to oppose Queen Mary an Act of the Privy Council in persuance of King Edward's Will and a Law made in the Reign of Henry the VIII for the Illegitimating of this Princess as the Lords of the Council themselves declare in their Answer to her Letter writ from Framingham Castle Was not the Death of the Queen of Scots most notoriously an act of the State and justified by the Laws of the Land Was she not indicted for Treason and known to pretend a better Title to the Crown than Queen Elizabeth Lastly was not the Bill against the Duke of York grounded on a suppos'd Legal Power in the King and the Two Houses to alter the Course of the Succession when they think fit Have not all the Pamphlets that have been writ in Vindication of that Bill argued the Lawfulnesse of it from the Constitution of the Civil Government and wholly disclaim'd the Interesting of Religion at all in the businesse as to the justifying of it in the least degree endeavouring with great paines to prove That true Religion does not meddle with the Civil Rights of Princes but leaves them to be determin'd by the Laws and Customs of particular Countries By what strange consequence then can he entitle the Church of England or the Protestant Religion to things that are so perfectly of a Civil nature unless he will make them answerable for all the Actions of Protestants of what kind soever and resolve to maintaine that childish Sophisme I
take this occasion to inform the ignorant Reader for none else can need it how much the Monarchy has gotten by the Reformation in point of Civil Advantage and consequently how great a Loser it will be every way if by some fatal Infatuation any Successor of his Majesty should again bring the Crown and the Nation under the Romish Yoke that worse than Aegyptian Darknesse and Slavery which neither our Fathers nor We are able to beare In the first place the The Monarchy has by the Reformation gotten an absolute Freedom from the Tyranny of the Popes Spiritual Supremacy and his pretended Temporal Power in ordine ad Spiritualia to which it was before subject and in persuance of which several of our Kings have been summon'd to appear personally at Rome and King John forc'd to resigne his Crowne to a Legate to the high Dishonour of the Regal Majesty and the apparent Prejudice of that Reverence it ought to have in the mindes of the People Nay further all that Part of the Pope's Spiritual Power which was either Necessary or useful for the Government of the Church is by the Reformation become the King's so that no Authority but God Almighty's is now above him nor any in England independent of him He is equally Head both of the Church the State No Appeales can be made from his Courts nor any sort of Persons priviledg'd from his Justice In a word He is no longer a Feauditary Vassall to the Popes as in effect all Popish Princes are since the Pope has an allow'd Right to command them in whatever he will call Spirituall or will say has any relation to Spiritual Matters and by declaring them Hereticks he can according to the Romish Religion depose them and destroy them when he pleases Now the being deliver'd from such a low unworthy Servitude and the acquiring such a large Increase both of Honour and Power is certainly no small addition to the Monarchy yet this it has gotten purely by the Reformation Secondly The Monarchy has by the Reformation gotten a greater Security than it had before both for the King's Person and his Crowne those Hellish Papal Doctrines which I have been hitherto discoursing off did in times of Popery perpetually hang over their Heads like Damocles's Sword ready to doe Execution upon the least irregular Motion and they were neither of them any longer safe than the Pope pleas'd But since the Reformation the Popes Excommunications and Bulls of Deposition are of no Force and can have little effect in England some they will have while Papists are suffered to live among us and by enjoying Estates to have an Interest in the Kingdom as the present popish PLOT does but too plainly prove however by many degrees less than if Popery were again the establish'd Religion so that I say The King of England has by meanes of the Protestant Religion at least a greater Security for his Life and his Crown than he had before an absolute one he must not expect while he has any popish Subjects Thirdly The Monarchy has by the Reformation gotten to the King of England the Government of all English men of what Order or Profession soever which heretofore he had not the Ciergy being exempt from the Civil Jurisdiction and depending chiefly on the Pope who bestow'd most of the Bishopricks and great Benefices both for Protection and Preferment the King had little power either to punish or reward them as the Historyes and Records of those times do sufficiently demonstrate But 't is notoriously knowne to what a degree the Reformation has alter'd the state of things in that point and how much the Interests of Clergy men do now tye them more than others to the Service of the Crowne as also how well they undestand and how zealously they pursue those Interests whenas heretofore they were the constant Raisers of Factions against their Princes in favour of Rome and obstinate maintainers of the Pope's Encroachments upon their Regal Rights Nay the Laity themselves were the Pope's Subjects in Spiritual matters and for the most Part wholely guided by their Priests the Pope's Dependants by Reason of the great command they had over their Consciences in their Civil concernes also Soe that the King under these and other circumstances of Popery was but a Servant to the Church and little more in Effect than the Popes Vice-Roy But the Reformation has freed both him and his people from this base dishonorable Subjection aud most inconvenient Dependance on a foreign Power These are things which all the World must acknowledge to be very considerable in themselves and very great acquisitions to the Monarchy yet are they such as have naturally and necessarily fallen into it upon the establishment of Protestant Religion in the room of Popery and that too as 't is this particular form of Government call'd a Monarchy distinguish'd from all other Kindes if I should take notice of the Advantages it has receiv'd by this change as 't is a Civil Government in general I might observe many more as first an Increase of the Trade and consequently of the Riches of the Kingdom as well by the taking away that vast number of unnecessary sencelesse Holydaies impos'd on the People by the Church of Rome which must needs be a great hinderance to the carrying on of publick Business and Commerce as by the application of many Thousands of Persons to the waies and means of raising a Fortune to maintain themselves who were heretofore maintain'd and liv'd wholely like idle Drones upon the labour and industry of others and by being shut up in a Cloyster and sequestred from the common Employments of other men were made every way useless Members of the State and a burden to it Secondly Another advantage the Monarchy consider'd in the general as a body Politick has receiv'd by this Change is an Increase of the Strength and Safety of the Kingdom by the great Increase of People which also alwayes increases Trade since the Clergy have been allow'd to marry and the Folly of Monkery and Vowes of pepetual Caelibacy as they call it in either Sex has been both forbidden and scorn'd 'T were easy for me to enlarge upo this Argument and further shew how friendly an Institution and how highly serviceable the Protestant Religion when rightly understood is to the Civil Interests both of this and all other Kingdomes and States as well by the great gentleness and moderation of her external Discipline as by the peaceable temper and Loyalty of her Doctrines And that on the other side Popery does not only make the Prince himself a Dependant and unsafe but his people few ignorant and poor She robbes him first of his Authority and then of his Subjects her Monasteries decoy the zealous her Inquisitions drives away the wise and both together enslave and beggar the foolish Issachars that stay behend to bow down their servile shoulders to the Burden of an oppressive Government But I think what I
if they had it would have signified nothing to the Compendianist's purpose since there is no King-Deposing or King-Killing Principle to be found in any Protestant Confessions of Faith or Articles of Communion which are the only proper Evidences to convince a Protestant Church of any Principle or Doctrine that is laid to her Charge and so it would have amounted to no more than their particular mistaking or perverting the Principles of their Religion as grosly and as wilfully as they did the Laws of their Country But this is not the Case for they did not so much as pretend any Warrant from the Protestant Religion for what they did How then can He charge Protestant Principles with the Personal Crimes of these men Or what does his Home-Blow and all his other Instances prove except this only viz. That several Protestants have been Rogues very great Rogues Murderers Rebels Traytors c. Does He not know that they are all mortal men too and subject to many other Vices which he might very clearly have prov'd upon them if he he had pleas'd by undeniable Examples There 's not a Sin the Pope pardons of what Price soever but 't is too sadly true that Protestants have been guilty of it at some time or other if that will do him any service But now in the name of a little common sense Who or what does this Raver oppose in this strenuous Argument Did ever any of our Writers assert that all the Protestants in the World were good Men and pious Christians Or is there any sort of people among us besides Quakers i. e. mad men who hold a state of Absolute Perfection in this Life He has put himself into an extraordinary Heat and made strange violent Assaults and yet no Enemy appears near him What ayles the man he has sure been combating some Giant in imagination like Don Quixote when he hack'd down the Walls of his Chamber Well whoever he be though it were Malambruno himself I 'l warrant him he 's kill'd outright this La Mancha has so laid about him with Home-Blows Another great quarrel he has to the Bishop is that he does not answer four Books nam'd in the Compendium's margin writ it seems by the Catholicks of England since the Kings Restoration about the Deposing Power of the Church His Lordship says he is so far from answering these Authors that he never so much as cites them to this purpose a great fault indeed so that we must conclude them unanswerable Well argued o' my word I see he deals in nothing but Home-Blows Mr. Bayes and this Compendianist would have made a couple of rare Disputants if they had not been spoil'd by their Tutors and ill-grounded at first they have both an admirable natural talent at Reasoning all the difference between them is Bayes loved it in Rhime and this man 's altogether for it in Prose But without Raillery does he believe the Bishop of Lincoln oblig'd to take particular notice of every idle Pamphlet of theirs that keeps a Pudder about the Deposing Power of the Church with design to make the business intricate and dark and to think them as considerable as his Party always do their own Books No doubt he takes it monstrous ill too that the Bishop has not thought him worth his Answering and perhaps concludes himself unanswerable But I hope I shall hinder him from falling into that mistake and make him sensible what an Impar Congressus Achilli what a poor contemptible thing he is when he appears in the Lists against so great a Scholar as the Bishop of Lincoln For the Pamphlets he mentions they are more than answered in the Bishops Book though it does not particularly name them and when he or any other Factor for Popery gives a tolerable Answer to those clear Testimonies I told him of before and which he never so much as cites to this purpose by which the Bishop does so plainly prove the Doctrine of Deposing Kings upon the Church of Rome I here engage my word to him these Pamphlets shall be made ridiculous by name and their Authors shew'd to the people in the Fools Coat they deserve In the next place he tells us That the Venetians have openly in their very Writings denied this Deposing Power of the Church without Censure And That several Authors have been censur'd in France and elsewhere for writing for it In answer to which First we know very well that the Church of Rome does always accommodate her Allowing and Condemning of Books to the Circumstances of her present condition and as Princes are sometimes forc'd by the necessity of their Affairs to disavow the Actions of their Ministers though done by their most expresse Command so is this interested Church frequently reduc'd to connive at Books which she does by no means like and to Censure others which she does not only approve but under-hand directs A good instance of this we have in the case of Sanctarellus's Book one of those he mentions which though at first Printed by the Approbation and special License of Mutius Vittellescus then General of the Jesuits and by the Order of the Master of the Popes Palace yet when the Pope found it would not be endur'd in France but that both the Sorbonne had condemn'd it and the Parliament of Paris had order'd it to be burnt he thought fit after it had been out so long that the Copies were almost all bought up to forbid the Sale of it at Rome but without any manner of Censure either upon the Author or Doctrine which is generally their way of condemning these kind of Books when Civil Considerations at last oblige them to it viz. a bare prohibition of them after every body has read them that cares for them Such a Condemnation as this did Mariana meet with in Spain and of this gentle nature was Becanus's Correction at Rome not for the Doctrines he maintain'd but for Oveâ—lashing as Bishop Montague expresses it in his Preface to King James's Works i. e. for speaking the mind of their Church more plainly than was at that time convenient For Secondly we know well enough that those Principles of Deposing and Killing Kings and Extirpating Hereticks are thought too precious Truths and too high Points to be ordinarily expos'd to the Vulgar and press'd upon all Occasions that they are the Arcana Imperii of their Kingdom of Darknesse and kept like Warrants Dormant among the Cabala of their wicked Mysteries to justifie Rebellions Assassinates and Massacres when the Church has very great need of them and finds it her Interest to own these Doctrines of Devils at other times it may suit better with her Designs to preach up Loyalty and Obedience to Princes and universal Charity to Mankind Lastly we know that the Venetians and the French have been always Opposers of the Pope's Encroachments upon civil Sovereigns and that they do not submit to these sort of Doctrines which are so directly calculated for
honesty and good nature as is no where to be met with but in the Moralls of a Jesuite and the Christianity of a Romish Zealot For what is intended in this malicious Passage to reflect on the Bishop of Lincolne as if he were as bad a Hypocrite as Dr. Taylor is here represented to have been and could have writ if he had pleas'd a better Book on the Papists side 't is so witless a Libel such silly Slander that I think there is no need of answering it to any who have ever heard of his great Name and he must have liv'd very remote from Company who is in England a Stranger to that His Life is a sufficient proof of the honesty of his Writings and a full confutation of this and all other Lyes which the Instruments of Rome or Hell can invent to asperse him in vain do they think to answer him as they have done other men by reflections on his Person and to overthrow his Reasons by ridiculous Stories and absurd Romance these Argumenta ad Hominem which are usually their best Refuge will miserably fail them here they look like the frettings of a gaul'd Faction and do but betray an impotent Spite the Bishop of Lincolne's Honour is as much above the reach of their malice as their deserts and they may then hope to make the World think ill of him when they can so far cozen it as to be thought well off themselves 'T is true his Abilities are extraordinary enough to recommend almost any thing he would appear for though never so unreasonable and no doubt he knows how to write Sophistries as well as to confute them but we are satisfyed his Piety will no more suffer him to plead a bad Cause than his Learning will let him prejudice a good one Besides let them not flatter themselves the Knavery of theirs is now so palpably obvious their Religion has by long and constant delays grown so monstrously deform'd it has at last out-liv'd the help of Art The Writings of their best Witts and their most eminent Scholars have in my Opinion done it more hurt than good when they have adorn'd it all they can with strain'd pieces of Rhetorick out of the Fathers and daub'd it as much as possible with the forc'd Flatteries of Councils when they have set it forth in the specious colours of pretended Union and Universality and cover'd it all over with School-Distinction̄s what can an indifferent man conclude but that such vast paines would not nor need not be taken except it were to hide some notorious Defects such extream studyed Ornaments are evident proofes of great want of natural Beauty in a word this Spiritual Whore does but appeare the more Strumpet through the grosse Artifice of her Dress and the thickness of her Paint I have now done with the Compendianist and shall enlarge this Discourse no farther but to joyn with all good English men in offering up my hearty prayers to God Almighty that He would still preserve the Protestant Religion among us and continue to render fruitlesse the contrary Endeavours and Contrivances of wicked and unreasonable Men fallacious Writers and Traiterous Plotters that He would keep the most knowing and best civiliz'd Nation in the World from falling again under the Barbarism of Popery from being Opprest by the Tyranny and cumber'd with the Weight of this huge unweildy Mass of Non-sense and Puppetry This farce of Ceremonies this Counterfeit Christianity this Enemy to true Learning and free Philosophy this Discourager of Trade and usefull Industry this Troubler of agreeable Conversation and reasonable Living this Prohibiter of good Sense and this Extinguisher of good Nature in a word this Un-Christian and this Immoral Religion or rather this new Species of Irreligion which by her Doctrines of dispensing with Oaths and absolving from all manner of Crimes upon slight and ridiculous Penances as well as by those the Bishop of Lincoln has convinc'd her of has not only overthrown the Foundations of real Goodnesse and true Piety but even of necessary Faith and common Honesty loosening the very Bands and Ligaments and undermining the Props of Civil Communities FINIS * Rev. 17. 2 5 6. * Compend pag. 77. * Compend pag. 77. * Dr. Stillingfleet's Fanaticisme of the Church of Rome pag. 276. a Thuanus Hist l. 53. p. 837. b History of the Waldenses c History of the Irish Rebellon printed 1680. * Compend pag. 77. * Compend pag. 76. * Bakers Chron. * See the Compend pag. 76. * Compend pag. 78. * Compend pag. 78. * See Sanctarellus himself * See more of this in the Preface to the Jesuits Loyalty * Compend pag. 76. * A Sect of Religious Murderers among the Turks See an Account of them in Tavernier's Six Voyages pag. 199. †Compend pag. 79.