autority which can onely constitute religion so likewise all anticatholicks both Independent Presbyterian and Protestant have the same power and advantage each one against another which any other may pretend against him scripture easy scripture interiour light and spirit whiles none of them will in the interim admit of any living judg nor of the autority of a foregoing Church wherein they found themselvs when they first went out and changed And I have already said and truly said that no man ever yet was impowred even from heaven to go out of the general flock but to have recours unto it nor considering the order God hath set ever can be Nor is there any surer rule of discerning a fals pretension than that of the Apostle Exierunt ex nobis which if it held good in the Church when that apostle was alive it must needs do so unto all generations so long as the Church remains by vertue of him who promised to confirm it and therein his deity must chiefly appear even vnto the consummation of the world And if we consider the first ingress of all these religions we shall find that the catholick faith entred our land first and chased hence our antient paganisme after it had been here existent a thousand years the Protestant went forth out of it the Puritan by and by out of the Protestant not to mention any further subdivision and the catholick religion entered by vertue of her own powerful integrity all the others by force either of Parliament or Sword that Church as she entered peaceably so she remained quietly all the time of her stay in the Kingdom but the others neither stay nor enter without disturbance she hath a rule to go by and a judg to submit unto in all affairs others as they will be their own judg so must the rule speak as they list and no otherwise which manner of proceeding if it have its free cours must needs work much disorder in a kingdom I have often marvelled that these various wayes of religion here in England which multiply without end or any hope of reconciliation have not all this while appealed to the sacred majesty of the King who hath been acknowledged by all the parties to be supreme in all his kingdoms as well in spirituals as temporals and head as well of the Church as State Certainly had this been don and that all had rested upon his verdict as they ought by reason of their own acknowledgment to do much mischief had been prevented But we were so far all of us from doing so that on the contrary first we secretly murmured against both Queen Elizabeth and King James and then broke forth into open hostility against his son Indeed that private swelling of the murmuring waters were an ill boding omen of the vast tempest which followed afterwards in the reign of our good King Charls with so dismal and violent a rage that it both split the ship and drowned our pilot We did not appeal then with submission to his judgment as by our own law and agreement upon our revolt from Popery we ought to have don but forced him imperiously to our own and when in right reason he could not consent unto it we made no conscience to destroy and cut off not so much his head as our own which being a singular unparallel'd piece of insolent cruelty never yet acted before upon earth it will remain an eternal blemish both upon the men and religion too so long as the world lasteth Did we sincerely think our King to be head as well of Church as of State how then durst we subjugate him to our selves in the affairs of both and under pretens of purity of religion oppress him from whom under God all our religion should be derived as the head and sours of it The body may prepare blood and vital spirits to be presented to the head but of these are not made animal spirits till the head receivs and makes them such for the good of the whole and from the head com down all those influences that be fitted and proportioned unto that life which the animal lives So may and ought every kingdom either apart or in Parliament assemblies to propose affairs unto their head but can take none as authentick till he have determined and derived them to us whether civil or spiritual if so be he be head of both resting quiet within our selves both before and after he hath don it for what hand or foot ever questioned the spirits which the head derived it or pretended either to mend or make them But we have by these our proceedings condemned our selves if we do not indeed think him our spiritual head as we profess in words of vise hypocrisie if we do beleev him so of inconsequent madnes But to remove the Pope the King is head with us and to remove the King the people is head and to remove one another each particular person is his own head So arbitrary a thing it is with us to set up and pull down power at our pleasur It would seem very strang to a rational man that the Pope who is in our esteem the worst of men should keep together the people of many kingdoms which as they be not at all subject to him in civil affairs so are they very divers among themselves both in habits manners language lawes and other weighty respects and inclinations in a constant unity of religion from age to age and yet a noble vertuous prudent King should not be able to do so much among his own subjects all of one guarb one law one language for one age together the Pope all the while we beleev to be a fals and onely pretended Head the King an acknowledged and true one This is a greater secret and yet greater too upon this account that if any should fall away from the Popes religion the apostate runs himself into no more danger upon that account than what he willingly brings upon himself the loss of further communion with him and his Church for the Popes excommunication signifies no more and all the Pope can do is but to excommunicate him who before by his own voluntary act put himself out of his communion But the King hath a temporal sword in his hand to take corporal reveng upon rebellion and apostacy and the people subject to him in faith are likewise subject in other temporal respects and by their rebellion against him hazzard their estates and lives I know well enough that Popes are generally as civil and accomplished gentlemen as be in Europe and for the most part very learned yet can I never beleev but that there be others in the Christian world both priests doctours and byshops as learned as the pope himself and as wise too and accomplisht persons in any perfections either natural or moral and yet can none but He hit upon this feat of guiding the Christian flock in unity and peace Nay which yet augments the
hugely augmented Insomuch that this new clergy made up of fallen priests and votaries fell to writing stifly against their ecclesiastical pastour and the laiety drew themselvs into bodies against their temporal superiours in every place those in Germany against the emperour those in Holland against their King they in France against theirs nay the contagion flew so swiftly about Europe like wild fire in dry stubble that ere King Philip could get into Spain his subjects there were corrupted many of them and hissing hot unto battle but he was a wise prince and well understood the unquiet genius of heresie and therfore took a speedy cours with som for an ensample and terrour to the rest and so preserved his kingdom but the wars in France were long and dangerous those of Germany and Holland hardly yet ended It was almost twelv years before this strang confluence of people could agree together by what name to be owned till a chance gave it them thus There was congregated for the catholick Churches peace a solemn diet at Spire in Germany against which and the articles there agreed upon Luthers new troop made a joint unanimous Protestation appealing from the diet to the emperour although their after comportment shewed that they did indeed no more respect the emperour than his diet upon which general and hearty Protestation of their own they were pleased ever after to call one another Pretestants Yet sooner than they had well agreed in the name they so much disagreed in doctrine ambitious heads as all of them were emulating each one as great a name and fame as Luther had whom they both equalled in renown and place whilst they all remained priests in the catholick Church and now separated injoyed as great fulnes of the spirit as himself that they did not only set up several wayes and sects amongst themselvs but inveighed and wrote bitterly one against another even with more virulency than they had aforetime used against the Church in the beginning of their discession And now there was up and down amongst the Protestants here Osianders church there Stancars there Melanchthons here a body of rigid Lutherans there soft ones here Calvinists enemies to both here Illyricans there Valentine-gentilists here Plenilutherans there Semilutherans there Antilutherans here the disciples of Oecolampadius there of Suinglius c. all which did so eagerly quarrel about the matters of Reformation that a sober man could not have the patience either to hear their sermons or read their books Since that first division of Luther which is now above a hundred years there have been several times both in Germany and other places many great meetings by Protestant divines of all sorts and sides to bring all parties to an union but it could never be effected to this day which is a shrewd sign as Luther spake ingenuously before the duke of Saxony that the concertation was not begun for God nor yet for God shall ever be ended An ambition they have by their very discession and novelties to advance their name and worldly contents being so opposite as it is unto yielding or submission to anothers judgment will both make schisms and maintain them without controul nor can it be expected he should yield to his fellow servant or condisciple who contemns the maister and doctour and chief pastour of Christianity §. 19. Item INto our Kingdom of England this new invented protestancy had found access exceeding difficil if not altogether impossible all our Kings even from the Conquerour to that day being ever most vigilant that no innovation should arise to the endangering as those wise princes apprehended not only the spiritual but politick state under what ever pretens it should begin and the whole land carrying throughout the world so eminent a renown both for their piety and learning and zealous long continued affection to the catholick religion above all other nations when an odde accident set the doors wider open here than either in Germany France or Netherlands for its more free and copious ingress and it was this King Henry the eight a valorous and noble prince who had also set forth a book against Luther and his new coined protestancy for which zealous and Christian act of his the Pope conferred upon him the title of Defensor fidei wherein our Kings glory to this day even this so great a prince stood at that time so vehemently affected unto one of his subjects Anne Bullen that for her he ran himself into a hundred troubles and his whole kingdom into irreparable miseries To the end he might marry with her he endeavoured a divorce from his good wife Queen Catharine with whom he had lived honourably and peaceably twenty years together which with most earnest importunity for six whole years together when he could not obtain of the Pope he renounced him and by the insinuation of some Lutherans who by this time had crept into the land he made himself Pope and head of the Church within the territories of England and so he dispensed with himself and made that divorce by his own autority which the Pope could not do with his and married Anne whom a while after by the same autority he divorced again and cut off as King and Pope both Anne from his bed and Annes head from her shoulders Upon this strang act of the Kings declaring himself head of the Church never before known or heard of since Christianity first entered England for though Kings were ever honoured as nursing fathers of the Church yet head of influence to this mystical body of Christ is onely Jesus himself and head of government under him only that person who first begot us in Christ and in whom all the sacred hierarchy ends I say upon that strang act of his both King Henry and his whole kingdom was overthrown at one blow and laid prostrate under the feet of those men whom he had so gloriously triumphed of late and obtained thereby to the no small ornament of his crown the addition of a new title for now came flocking in out of Germany Geneva and the Netherlands whole swarms of reformers as thick as grashoppers by whom in a small time the Kings countenance being now set against catholicks who could never be brought to like of his divorce the land was so universally corrupted defaced and spoiled that within few years all the goodly monasteries nunneries abbeyes and their Churches were utterly dispeopled pillaged and ruined and millions of people of both sexes a sad sight to behold who had served God night and day in those their angelical retirements cast forth into the wide world to begin a secular worldly life many of them in their feeble old age when all their whole livelihood was taken from them The prey indeed was very great but it proved aurum Tolosanum neither King nor people was ever the richer for it general granaries as the monasteries then were making provision for all children to be born in the land
in old times and so it doth still And I hope none of us hereafter will have the heart to hate and persecute that religion whose charity and goodnes is so great that it extends beyond the very horison and utmost limits of this world §. 29. Pope THe catholicks as I perceived by their books and practises do all the world over pray for their Pape and pastour with a most tender affection which I esteemed a piece of most civil piety practised in all ages for the comfort and good of him they look upon as supreme head and governour of their religion under God upon earth We may perceiv in the epistles of good St. Paul that to pray for one another was a thing very familiar to the primitive Christians but when S. Peter their prince and head fell into danger the whole Church then united their supplications in his behalf as one in whose welfar they were universally and in a more peculiar manner all of them concerned Peter was kept in prison saith the sacred text in the Acts and prayer was made without intermission by the Church unto God for him I doubt not but that they praied likewise for other apostles too that God would keep and bring them out of danger but the writer of that Story gives us no notice of any universal praier made for any one but only Him the head and prince of all the whole congregation therby to intimate the singular respect and love they did universally bear him But we in England do not more ordinarily call a Spade a Spade than we do traduce defame execrate the Pope and proclaim him whom also we do not know leud wicked sensual proud seducer serpent Antichrist and I know not what and that not only in our ordinary society but in books and sermons not only som of us but all hate him not in England only but all protestant places not now only but in all times since Protestancy began and our very children by that time they com to be eight or nine year old are by our example and imitation inabled to say after us like parrets Pope is a rogue pope is a rogue This behaviour of ours if it be not impious yet no man I should think will after serious consideration deny it to be unmannerly And what kind of spirit must this be that delights so much in defamations and curses Surely the spirit of God is a meek civil and quiet spirit Either the Pope is good or evil if he be good why do we hate him if bad why do we not pray for him as gospel teaches us to do even for our enemies and sinners but still defame and curs him to make him wors I know much good he has don our land even so much good as the Christianity we had from him hath ever wrought amongst us but never any evil no not in the least kind Ministers above all others stand excessively ingaged to him even for the very bread they eat for the formality of their clothes and cassocks they wear for the pulpits they preach in for the parishes and tithes they liv upon for the universities they were brought up in for the degrees they have taken there and the canon of their ordination for the catholick learned books they study and the very gospel they either do or seem to preach all which were originally from the Pope And as for others of the laety if the Churches they meet in once a week and the hopes they have of a life to com if the good wholsom laws of the land if corporations or other orderly dispositions in the kingdom if the antient militia now almost abolished wherein earls and marquesses command the counties dukes over them and the King over the dukes that in a moment all the land might be up at his Majesties beck and the like militia by sea where admiral vice admiral and reere admiral were all subjected to the king besides the train bands for defence of cities so orderly and wisely instituted if kingly autority and his crownland if the orderly sittings and proceedings in Parliament if dignities and titles of honour if the decency of gowns and caps and modes and rules of government in colledges halls and Innes of law if our very fashion of preaching and administring sacraments if all these and several such like things ordered and constituted amongst us be of any worth or commendable or may deserv any thanks we must then be civil towards the Pope and his catholick beleevers who invented disposed and ordered all these things for our good And yet we are so far from thinking of any of these things which might civilise us towards him that transported we cannot our selves tell how with animosity and passion we inveigh endlesly not only against Papists but even against the Pope himself who as he never hurt us so likewise doth he even to this day wish us all both temporal and spiritual good And I should think we might hereupon take occasion to admire at the Popes great civility and temperance not again to be paralel'd in the world who though he hath seen so many hundred virulent books writ against him and heard more words yet hath he never been known to let fall the least word of passion against any nor move any engine for revenge And thus much several of our countrimen have experienced of late years in Rome where railing at the Pope even under his nose as a wicked proud Antichrist they received being called before him no other check but this My friends be peaceable while you are in my territories least the people should fall upon you and hurt you when you are out of my territories say of me what you please I have seldom known any noble person but if his honour were traduced especially if falsly undeservedly and by an inferiour person and frequently and in a high degree but he would move more or less to a just reveng of his right Only the Pape goes quietly on in his cours as the full moon in the firmament which heeds not at all the barkings of so many curres that vainly open their mouths against her But in the interim can there be any thing more unseemly than a young Minister in a pulpit here in England vapouring and talking before a congregation that come thither to hear Gods word against a gentleman a grave venerable person a byshop a Prince who also living a thousand miles off hears not a word he saies and if he did would heed it as little We read a story in the book of Kings of a company of boies that mockt at Eliseus a grave and venerable person as he was going up to Bethel crying Vp baldpate up baldpate and the very bears issuing sodainly out of the woods tore them in sunder May not we justly fear som such like event for the like if not greater crime of ours shall fall upon us who do not only call that venerable person and his priests Baldpate but
things of catholick profession don by him and the people he converted But partly by the great succeeding persecutions raised by the Roman emperours against Christianity partly by the unwearied endeavours of the Pagan priests here in the land against it about the time of Marcus Aurelius the Roman emperour and year of our Lord 190. there were hardly any remnants of it left in this island Wherefore our noble Brittish King Lucius moved by the fame of that holy faith sent to Eleutherius then Pope in Rome to entreat he would destin into our countrey some of his special pastours to teach us his Christian faith The Pope sent him two good priests Fugatius and Damian who arriving here with some few others who were pleased to accompany them made both the King himself and his Queen and very many of his subjects Christian And this Christianity of the Brittons no man I think will doubt it to be catholick since the whole profession of it both while the Brittons lived in this land and after that they were expelled by the Pagan Saxes into the mountains of Wales doth clearly manifest it if Priests living together in monasteries some hundreds of them many times together and exercising in Churches their priestly functions upon the reall and mysticall body of Christ if praying before crucifixes erecting of crosses solemnizing of feasts keeping of Lent vigils and embers honouring of Saints making oblations and orisons for the dead may as it needs must signifie so much Nor can it be imagined that Pope Eleutherius sent to us by his Priests any other religion than his own And this is called Englands second conversion as that by Joseph of Arimathea the first and both of them equally to one and the same catholik faith and no other which however now by a strange judgment of heaven it be for a time traduced yet in primitive ages it was looked upon as a most sacred and blessed religion and then persecuted by none but such as were profest enemies to Christ himself as I could show at large but I must make haste After two or three hundred years this Religion all that while profest in the land was again banished by the utter overthrow and flight of the Brittons professors of it into our english Alps in Wales where Christian and Christianity lay hid together and the pagan Saxes who had driven them out equally hated both their faith and them Wherefor about the year of our Lord 596 the time of emperour Mauritius Pope Gregory the great of his own proper motion and good will towards us destined unto the conversion of the Saxes or Englishmen who being then pagans had possest themselvs of all the English territories S. Austin byshop and abbot who with forty other Priests his companions all good children of blessed S. Bennet preached here so powerfully that upon one Christmas day he baptised more then ten thousand souls for which good work of our conversion the Kingdom of England ever owned that good Pope for their spiritual patron and apostle And the children of S. Bennet are indeed our very fathers who first begat us in Christ and regenerated our English nation to the life of future bliss This Christian religion brought in by S. Austin the Brittons could not deny it to be conformable unto their own catholick faith received formerly from Pope Eleutherius in all matter of doctrin although they were so transported with passion against the Saxons their antient adversaries that they would neither let their own priests whereof they had more store then they had use of go forth to their conversion nor yet forbear to disturb good S. Austin in his so pious a work But such good Christians did our forefathers the Saxons after their conversion prove that they yielded nothing to the antient Brittons before them yea rather they exceeded them so that all the land was stored by them with goodly monasteries of S. Bennets order brave cathedral Churches fair colledges and libraries manuscript crosses shrines oratories sufficient and wholsom laws for all occasions hospitals corporations and all that might be necessary either to our temporal or spiritual welfar And all our people were wholly attentive to their devout contemplations of a life to com in Christ our great redeemer Church and State being now most piously and prudently provided for when William the Conquerour in the year of our Lord 1066 Constantine Duca being Emperour of the East came in upon us from France and conquered us This valiant captain finding our catholick religion conformable to his own Christianity although he abrogated much of our civil law and used in temporal affairs too too much of violence thereby to subjugate the land more perfectly to himself yet he medled not at all with any alteration in religion nor once excepted against it but lived himself with the rest of his subjects both saxes and normans and died contentedly therein building of his own devotion som fair monasteries to S. Bennet before his death wherein God might night and day be served and praised for his souls greater expiation from that tinctur of bloodshed it might have contracted in his wars and vehement proceedings with the saxon nobility after his victory And in this same catholick religion did both Norman and Saxon live peaceably together and without any the least disturbance upon that account though for civil respects York and Lancaster raised broils enough untill the end of King Henry the eighths reign about six hundred years together after the Conquerours ingress into the land the people offering daily their prayers and orisons before the altar and sacred crucifix together with their priests and prelats all Roman catholicks without any schisme or disturbance From whence we may note first that all the three conversions of our Kingdom wherein we lived unanimously so long together were all of them to one and the same catholick Roman faith secondly that this faith as it represents Christ its divine sours in purity which all men might see if they would have but patience to examine it so likewise both in unity and unchangeablenes as there is but one God and he immutable so is there but one faith and it unchangeable Thirdly that catholick religion is so far from being an enemy to the state-politick as som reformers to its greater disparagement would pretend that it is the great founder and maintainer of it Nor ever had this land for so many hundred years it was catholick upon the account of religion any disturbance at all whereas after the exile of that catholick beleef in our land from the period of K. Henries reign to these dayes we have ever been either in actual disquiet or at least in fears vulgar heads uncontroulable in their fansies since they were by the reformation constituted in effect both judges and contrivers of controversies ever raising som new fangled way or other to disturb or at least to threaten and indanger our peace And it is a thing of much wonder
that a nation such as England is so wise and serious in all other things so judicious and grave should be perswaded by any mans words against the dictamen of their own reason if they would but consult it to beleev any such thing of this innocent faith when they cannot but clearly see in all histories both our own and others that amongst all the pretended wayes of Christianity only catholick religion both sets up and preservs the Crown which giddy headed sects indanger Som of our english clergy tell us of a thousand I know not what dangers of the Pope thereby to get the assistance of secular power to their own ends but what is indeed the occasion they know assuredly that the Pope if he were once admitted would both separate them from the secular life they lead and bring into order their exorbitant opinions And what harm if both these things were done If we do but search antiquities we shall find that none of our ecclesiastiastical benefices were given by princes and people to maintain a wife and children but only such single abstracted contemplative men as had consecrated themselvs and all their whole affections to God to serv him in all singlenes of heart in prayer and fasting and perfect charity and in the sacrifice of the altar all the dayes of their life without any solicitude after this world as priests of antient Christianity did and not for women and children unto whose generation against ecclesiastical custom and constitutions our ministers give as much attendance as any secular man whatsoever and generate children which after their death unles they show in their life time more of wordly solicitude than their spiritual state permits must lie upon the parish and as for ordering our dissentions in points of faith I should think not only the Pope who would assuredly do it but any whatsoever thing in the world though it were but an owl in an ivy bush should deserv thanks if he effected it But I return to my story §. 18. Item NOt only the kingdoms of the continent Germany Hungary Italy France Spain but all the Northern coasts and islands Denmark Norway England Ireland and the isles about them were now in a full and quiet possession and profession of their catholick religion when upon a little occasion heaven so willing it for some great sin or neglect of mankind the whole scene was changed on the sodain and catholick faith in our northern coasts to the grief and amazement of all that were then alive utterly abolished even by the discontent of one person and he but a private one neither upon this occasion The Pastour of Christianity upon some solicitation of Christian Princes for a general compliance throughout all Christendom to their design sent forth in the year 1517. a plenary indulgence throughout the world in favour of the Cruciata against the Turk Albertus byshop of Mentz delegated by the Pope to see it executed in Germany committed the preaching and promulgation of it unto the Dominican friars which the hermits of St. Austin within the same place took ill but especially Martin Luther a preacher and professour in that order esteeming himself the best deserving man in the town grew exceeding wroth that any should be chosen before himself to execute that work which was likely to have as great an auditory and confluence of people as might happen in a mans life time to the no small repute of him who should be thought worthy before another to divulge the bull and make the exhortation sermon in the behalf as it were of the whole Christian world Vexed therfore that he was thus neglected and as he thought undervaliewed not only by words but books and papers secretly thrown about he diminished first the dominicans then the byshop then indulgences themselvs Catholick superiours and princes blamed this misdemeanour of Luther as a practis of much danger and sedition but he grew not any thing better thereby but rather more head-strong and furious as unlawful passion increases by the very means of mitigation inveighing now with more boldness as far as he durst both against Prince and Prelate too Insomuch that the duke of Saxony after a year or two invited friar Luther to his court where by dispute and colloquy with the eminent doctour Eckius if he could not make his caus good he might grow better principled at least for Gods sake and his own good condescend to moderation and peace But Luther after much tiresom talk told at last very boldly both the duke and his doctour too that the quarrel was not begun for God nor for God should it be ended And so departing thence he proceeded now with more virulent words to incens the people unto whom he promised liberty from their vowes and fastings and other penitential observances whereby he perverted much of the laity clergy and religious people both men and women who 't is strange to consider it violating their vowes deserted that Catholick Church besides which they had never known nor heard of other to follow the serpentine enticements of one private person and he if not the worst yet at least none of the best that ever were Thus when one ram has leapt over a hedg all the other poor sheep so many as be within ken of the fact are apt to follow So prone is man to go astray like sheep and do amiss to our own ruin without any other reason for it than the sight of a president acting before us what our own naturall inclination is apt of it self without the curb of religion or law of its own natur to embrace And so much was the world disposed at that ill hour to a dissolute loosnes that Luther was still gaining upon people even from his first apostacy But when he had once married himself unto Catherine Bore a Nun by him seduced out of the monastery of Mymick contrary to both theâ—r vowes so that he was now become a sure and fast enemy as well to continence as before he had shown himself to abstinence 't is wonder how fast they flocked to him on all sides not only from the vulgar laiety but even from all instutes and profession and countries even the priests and votaries of chastity Oecolampadius a monk of S. Briger Jacobus Praepositi an Augustine Andreas Carolstadius an archdeacon in Wittenberg Suinglius a cannon of Constance Martin Bucer a dominican fryar Lismanin a Franciscan Richerius a Carmelite John Calvin a curate priest Philip Melanchton out of Germany Michael Servetus out of Spain Bernardin Ochyn and Peter Martyr out of Florence John Alasco out of Poland Sebastian Castalio out of France Beza out of Burgundy Stancar and Valentine Gentile out of Italy Blandrate Alciate and David Georg out of Transylvania c. who being all hitherto catholicks took occasion now by the example of Luther to fall away whereby as the body of holy Church was purged of some unquiet spirits so was Luthers retinue in a short space