his decrees tell me again what Church or Prince or private person can promise himselfe security whilst every villaine hath that principle to justifie his attempt against them These and the like Doctrines dispersed up and downe in the written works of the late Reformers obvious to be met withall both in the Authors themselves and in others that write of them did D. Carier ponder and in them saw cleerly the effects that by an unavoidable connexion as long as the causes were kept in their vigour were to flow out of them and these were the overthrow of Church and State Nor did he see these effects only in their cause but really extant in themselves he saw the Germans till then commended for loyall to their Princes and obedient to their spirituall Pastors presently upon Luthers firing and blowing the coales with a pretence of Reformation divided among themselves in open Rebellion against their Liege Emperour Charles 5. without regard to Ecclesiasticall Superiours He saw their Churches wasted and prophaned and mens manners in a moment altered into worse he saw the Genevean tumults against their true Prince and Bishop their Reformer Calvin that so he might be more absolutely independent of all and chiefe over all being the Incendiary Nor can I thinke him ignorant of the Councell held at Geneva in the yeer 1560. for the murdering of the King and Queen of France the Queen Mother with the royall issue the Catholike Peers Magistrates of the Kingdom the two great Reformers Calvin and Beza being Authors and principalls in the Conspiracy as Bolsecus in the life of Calvin makes appeare out of a Letter of the said Calvin to his trusty friend Viretus he saw the ruinous devastations that fell upon the flourishing Kingdome of France from the same fiery spirit of Reformation which Herod-like was most malicious against the venerable Antiquities of the nation He saw again to omit others the rebellion of the Scots against their Soveraigne Queen Mary our present Kings Grandmother who afterwards by the arm and axe of the old cause was beheaded at Fodringham Castle in England the common Hang-man of London by publike authority O eternall shame to the English and Scottish Nation imbruing his hands in her royall blood And observing how hand in hand reall destruction rebellion with their issue out-rages and their sister preâ—ence of Reformation traversed other Countreyes he saw that one could not stand long parted from the other throughout King James his Dominions so gave him a seasonable warning of it and as a provident Noe shewed his Majesty a safe Arke to prevent the Deluge if he pleased But to the present woe of his posterity and their loyall Subjects through ill private choice or counsell from others he neglected the wholesome advice of his knowing and faithfull servant the Doctor Now though the publishing of this Epistolar Treatise comes too late for the effect first intended to King James yet seeing the old principles still standing and the authority of their founders still maintained by the Reformed Church of England And againe seeing our Kingdome in blood from Sea to Sea with wounds inflicted doubled and redoubled by them though few reflecting whence the blowes do originally proceed I thought it no ill office of a Patriot though now in a kind of exile to endeavour a stop to my Countreyes evills as far forth as the reading of a sheet or two of printed paper might contribute thereunto by presenting all whom it may concern and whom doth it not concern with a fresh view of D. Cariers advice The old proverb out of the Prophet Isay cap. 28. v. 19. is Vexatio dat intellectum vexation gives understanding it sometimes cures mad men and brings them to themselves againe Perhaps the smart of so many blowes may make men reflect whence they have good and bad derived unto them and render them more capable to regard the Doctors remedy then whilst they were blinded with fulnesse ease and prosperity His remedie in a word is an obedient return of all unto that Church whence those Reformers rebelliously apostated the charge of which Church is to execrate to the pit of hell the blasphemies and seditious principles of Luther and Calvin to reduce all to a sound saveing beliefe with a good conscience to order all into their due postures of obedience to temporall and spirituall Superiours and in a word not to live prophanely as men destitute of the knowledge of the true God nor thirsting one anothers blood nor invading one anothers rights as Wolves and Tygers but as the Apostle saith Tit. cap. 2. v. 12. sobriè justè piè soberly for our selves justly towards our neighbour and piously to God or as the true patterne of all Justice Christ Jesus hath taught us reddentes quae sunt Caesaris Caesari quae sunt Dei Deo By this you have one reason why D. Cariers Letter is republished Another reason is to shew the world that the late conversion of D. Tho. Vane late Chaplaine to the Kings Majesty that now is and of Dean Cressey so much talked of in England and the more by reason of their learned bookes printed to satisfie all why they became Roman Catholikes and of many other prime wits of our Universities some whereof are hereafter particularly mentioned who have lately trodden the same paths utterly forsaking thir former Tenets in Religion not for temporall gain as all men know unlesse it be of poverty and persecution is not a thing new strange or to be wondred at When D. Carier listed himself into the Militia of the Roman Church choosing rather as Moses did in Exodus to be afflicted with the true Israelites then prosper among the Aegyptians and to be according to the Psalmists Dialect an abject in the House of God rather then inhabite the Tabernacles of sinners there were many circumstances that might make some inconsiderate people to wonder at it The Church then called Protestant whereof it seems he counted himselfe a member was at that time most flourishing in England they had a visible supreme head of above forty yeares standing without interruption after the title was first taken by Henry the eight to legitimate his Marriage with Anno Bolen whilest his first wife lived it ceased during the reigne of his daughter Q. Mary and so was interrupted in whom by Oath they acknowledged the supremest power in all things under heaven They gloried in their Prelats Bishops not found in any reformed Churches out of their Kings Dominions they had some colourable pretence to a succession of Ministeriall Ordinations and Missions from the Apostles and Christ They thought they had their Church well and properly marked by thirty nine Articles They boasted of a Liturgie consecrated with the blood of Martyrs more compleat for all uses and satisfactory to the people thou any of the neighbouring Reformations injoyed They had differences of daies some kept holy others fasted They used some solemnities in the administration
of the Catholikes Where the Church afterwards called the Lutheran or Reformed was in the yeare of Christ 1512. when Luther was an Augustine Frier in his Monastery a Catholike in communion with the Pope of Rome Who was then a Protestant In what Countrey did he live What was his name the question is not Who was then a Protestant in name without asking them we know by Histories that the Lutherans had the name of Protestants some yeares after the Reformation begun from their Covenants and Protestations first made at Spire and afterwards at Smalcald in Germany when finding their party growing strong they began to take head against their Catholike Soveraigne Charles the fifth Nor was the question who was then before Luthers forsaking his cloistre and former Religion opposite to the Church of Rome or of a different beliefe from hers This question had been easily answered by naming the Hussits Wicklesians Berengarians Arrians and others which for particular points of Doctrine were as different from Luther as he from the Catholike but the meaning of the question was and still is Who did then believe all those points of Faith and onely those which Luther or any other after-Reformer did afterwards believe and wherein they differed from the beliefe of Catholikes which they pretended to reforme this hath been from the beginning and still is a tormenting question to all of the Reformed Churches and though daily asked by Catholikes Writers and Discoursers yet to this day could never be answered with any satisfaction or probability worthy a Schollers pen. If now in this November 1648. I should aske who is a Protestant in England .i. one holding all those points of faith and only those what other definition of a Protestant to give I know not but desire the learned Protestants to agree in it and to set it downe that he who desires to be one of their number may know what he desires which Luther the supposed Grandfather of Protestancy and Enemy to Catholikes professed to believe perhaps it would prove as troublesome or unsatisfiable a Quaere as the former yea if I should aske what three or four Schollers speaking of those that are come to some eminency in learning and to have some conceit of themselves for it are to be found in the Kingdome justly agreeing in all matters of faith yea to come closer to the purpose if the question were what one man setting the Catholikes aside is there to be found of the same opinion now in matters of saith that he was of on the second of November 1640 the day before the present Parliament began perhaps it would put you to a long search before you met a sure satisfactory answer Lest you should think I speake too much at random consider I beseech you how frequently you meet with men seriously and deliberately saying Pox on it rather then hazard my life liberty or fortunes I 'le be of any profession I 'le keep my conscience to my self but I 'le never lose my land for want of outward compliance or conformity with the prevailing Multitude And really their practice both in Religion and Loyalty is squared by that Dictamen Of what Religion I pray you do you count these Are they Protestants Weighing them in the true scale of the Sanctuary I take them to be Nullisidians indifferent for Christianity or the Turkish Turbant in evident state of damnation for their soules and that Tyre and Sidon may escape with a more remisse damnation in the day of Judgment then they Mat. ch 11. v. 22. Consider secondly the multitude of Sects lately sprung up in the Kingdom what divisions and subdivisions are there known to be of the old Anabaptists besides the two main Factions of Presbyterians and Independents new things and names that have almost quite abolished their Protestant Progenitor their zeale and number ebbing and flowing by successe of the Sword Some you know are servent Zelots of the Scottish Reformation others detest it as pestiferous and hereticall Some retain the old denomination of Protestants yet have much of the new Modell Some hold Episcopacy essentiall to the true Protestant Church others deny it holding Bishops altogether unnecessary to the reformed Churches and demonstrating it by the not being and non-use of them in any Reformation even from the beginning out of the King of Englands Dominions Some againe as you know either of curiosity or to prevent Penalties frequent the Parish Churches on Sundayes and on other dayes frequent Conventicles of another Communion utterly detesting that of the Parish Church as superstitious or hereticall and so on the Week daies outwardly disavow the profession they avowed on the Sunday Consider thirdly the little regard that is now given to the 39. Articles heretofore the distinctive difference of the old English Protestant And fourthly the questioning of the Apostles Creed which implies a doubt of its truth at least in some points Before this Parliament it was every where used throughout the Kingdome as an outward profession of every ones beliefe Now it is questioned and consequently doubted of by the Representative Body of the whole Kingdome and their Synodicall Divines Add to this the old true saying Dubius in fide infidelis est he that doubts in matters of faith is no right believer and then draw you the consequence Put all together and you will see that the questions I made you are not so easily answerable as perhaps you thought at the first S. Augustine lib. de haeres numbereth ninety severall Heresies so many Reformations were they sprung up betwixt Christs time and his i. in about four Centuries So many more rose betwixt S. Augustines daies and Luthers i. 180. Heresies in 1500. yeares according to the observation of others Betwixt Luthers apostacie from S. Austins Rule and defection from the Catholike Church in the yeare 1517. and the year 1595. which is but the intervall of 78 modern Authors Staphilus Hosius Pâ—ateolus and others do reckon 270 new Sects all Reformations of what was some daies or houres before But if any man would number all the Reformations or Sects that these last 8. yeares have hatcht in England perhaps the probablest rule of his Arithmetick would be quot capita tot sententiae as many opinions in matters of Religion as heads of men no common name being to be found sit to comprehend our Sectaries but that of a Suist one that followes his own dreams or fancy in choice of Scripture in the interpretation of it and in every particular concerning Religion without profession of agreement or communion which any follow unlesse it be the communion of non-agreement The Scrofa Alba of Reformation hath been so fertile these later dayes that to use Stanislaus Roscius his words Lib. de Atheismis Errans nescit quid velit neec quid nolit The erring Reformer doth neither know what he would nor what he would not let it be but new it sufficeth S. Hilarie lib. ad Constantium Constantem Imperat.
in the beginning and I remember M. Causabon told me when I brought him out of France that his Errand was nothing else but to mediate peace betwixt the Church of Rome and the Church of England Therefore I thought before I would submit my selfe to the Church of Rome I would write to M. Causabon such a Letter as hee might shew unto your Mdjesty containing such conditions as I thought might satisfie your Majesty if they were performed by the Church of Rome The copie of which Letter is too long here to set downe But when Mr. Causabon answered me that he knew your Majesty was resolved to have no society with the Church of Rome upon any condition whatsoever and that it would be my undoing if those my Letters should come to your Majesties hands or of those that bare the sway I began to despaire of my returne into England unlesse I would overthrow both the health of my body and the quiet of my mind and either utterly damne my own soule or greatly indanger not only my living and credit but my life it selfe also by reason of your Majesties displeasure and the severity of the Statutes made and in force against Catholikes and Catholike Religion 16. There is a Statute in England made by King Henry the 8. to make him supreme head of the Church in spirituall and Ecclesiasticall Causes which Statute injoynes all the Subjects of England on paine of death to believe and to sweare they do believe that it is true And yet all the world knowes if King Henry the 8. could have gotten the Pope to divorce Q. Katherine that he might marry Anne Boleigne that Statute had never been made by him and if that Title had not enabled the King to pull down Abbeyes and Religious Houses and give them to Lay-men the Lords and Commons of that time would never have suffered such a Statute to be made This Statute was continued by Q. Elizabeth to serve her own turne and it is confirmed by your Majesty to satisfie other men And yet your Majesty yeelds the Church of Rome to be the Mother Church and the Bishop of Rome to be the chiefe Bishop or Primate of all the Westerne Churches which I doe also verily believe and therefore I do verily thinke he hath or ought to have some spirituall Jurisdiction in England And although in my younger daies the fashion of the world made me swear as other men did for which I pray God forgive me yet I ever doubted and am now resolved that no Christian man can take that * .i. Of Supremacy Oath with a safe conscience neither will I ever take it to gaine the greatest preferment in the world 17. There is another Statute in England made by Q. Elizabeth and confirmed by your Majesty which makes it death for any Englishman to be in England being made a Priest by authority derived or pretended to be derived from the Bishop of Rome I cannot believe that I am a Priest at all unlesse I be made by authority derived from Gregory the great from whence all the Bishops in England have their being if they have any being at all 18. There is another Statute in like manner made and confirmed that it is death to be reconciled by a Catholike Priest to the Church of Rome I am perswaded that the Church of Rome is our Mother Church and that no man in England can be saved that continues wilfully out of the visible unity of that Church and therefore I cannot chuse but perswade the people to be reconciled thereunto if possibly they can 19. There is another Statute in like manner made and confirmed that it is death to exhort the people of England to Catholike Romane Religion I am perswaded that the Religion prescribed and practised by the Church of Rome is the true Catholike Religion which I will particularly justifie and make plaine from point to point if God give time and oportunity and therefore I cannot chuse but perswade the people thereunto It may be these are not all severall Statutes some of them may be members of the same for I have not my bookes about me to search but I am sure all of them do make such felonies and treasons as were the greatest vertues of the Primitive Church and such as I must needs confesse my selfe I cannot chuse if I live in England but indeavour to be guilty of and then it were easie to find Puritanes enough to make a Jury against me and there would not want a Justice of Peace to give a sentence and when they had done that which is worse then the persecution it selfe they would all sweare solemnly that Doctor Carier was not put to death for Catholike Religion but for Felony and Treason I have no hope of protection against the cruelty of those Lawes if your Majesty be resolved upon no conditions whatsoever to have any society at all or communion with the Church of Rome And therefore whilst the case so stands I dare not returne home againe But I cannot be altogether out of hope of better newes before I die as long as I do believe that the Saints in heaven do rejoyce at the conversion of a sinner to Christ and do know that your Majesty by your birth hath so great an interest in the Saints of heaven as you shall never cease to have untill you cease to be the son of such a mother as would rejoyce more then all the rest for your conversion Wherefore I assure my selfe that she with all the rest doe pray that your Majesty before you die may be Militant in the Communion of that Church wherein they are Triumphant And in this hope I am gone before to joyne my prayers with theirs in the unity of the Catholike Church And do humbly pray your Majesty to pardon me for doing that which was not in my power to avoid and to give me leave to live where I hope shortly to die unlesse I may hope to do your Majesty service and without the prejudice of any honest man in England to see some unity betwixt the Church of England and her mother the Church of Rome And now having declared the meanes of my conversion to Catholike Religion I will briefly also shew unto you the hopes I have to do your Majesty no ill service therein CHAP. II. The hopes I have to doe your Majestie no ill service in being Catholike MY first hope that your Majesty will accept of that for the best service I can do you which doth most further the glory of our Blessed Saviour and my own salvation Indeed there are Kingdomes in the world where the chiefe care of the Governor is Non quà m bonis sed quà m subditis regnent such were the heathen Kingdoms which S. Augustine describes in his 2. de Civit. Dei cap. 20. In such Common-wealths the way to be good Subjects is not to be good men but to serve the times and the turns of them that beare the sway
whatsoever they are But if it be true as some holy learned Fathers teach that in a well-ordered Government there is cadem faelicitas unius hominis ac totius civitaiis then I am sure that it must follow that in a Common-wealth truly Christian there is eadem virtus boni viri ac boni Civis And therefore being a Minister and Preacher of England if I will rather serve your Majesty then my self and rather procure the good of your Kingdome then my own preferment I am bound in duty to respect and seek for those things above all other that may advance the honour of God and the salvation of my own soule and the soules of those who do any way belong to my charge and being sufficiently resolved that nothing can more advance the honour of our Saviour and the common salvation then to be in the unity of his Church I have done you the best service I could at home by preaching peace and reconciliation and being not able for the malice of the times to stand any longer in the breach at home I think it safest in this last cast to look to mine own game and by my daily Prayers and dying to doe your Majestie the same service in the unity of the Church which by my daily preaching and living I did indeavour to do in the midst of the Schisme 2. And though it be sufficient for a man of my profession to respect only matters of heaven and of another world yet because this world was made for that other I have not regarded my owne estate that I might respect your Majesties therein and after long and serious meditation which Religion might most honour your Majesty even in this world I have conceived undoubted hope that there is no other Religion that can procure true honour and security to your Majesty and your Posterity in this world but the true Catholike Romane Religion which is the very same whereby all your glorious Predecessors have been advanced and protected on earth and are everlastingly blessed in heaven 3. The first reason of my hope is the promise of God himselfe to blesse and honour those that blesse his Church and honour him and to * No question but this will come home in the end to the Church-Prophaners of our times curse and confound those that curse his Church and dishonour him which he hath made good in all ages There was never any Man or City or State or Empire so preserved and advanced as they that have preserved the unity and advanced the prosperity of the Church of Christ nor ever any been made more miserable and inglorious then they that have dishonoured Christ and made havock of his Church by Schism and Heresie 4. If I had leisure and bookes it were easie for me to inlarge this point with a long inumeration of particulars But I think it needlesse because I cannot call to mind any example to the contrary except it be the State of Q. Elizabeth or some one or two other lately fallen from the unity of the Catholike Church or the State of the great Turk that doth still persecute the Church of Christ and yet continues in great glory in this world But when I consider of Q. Elizabeth I find in her many singularities she was a woman and a Maiden Queen which gave her manie advantages of admiration she was the last of her race and needed not care what became of the world after her owne daies were ended She came upon the Remainders of Devotion and Catholike Religion which like a Bowle in his course or an Arrow in his flight would go on for a while by the force of the first mover and she had a practise of maintaining warres among her neighbours which became a woman well that she might be quiet at home And whatsoever prosperity or honour there was in her daies or is yet remaining in England I cannot but ascribe to the Church of Rome and to Catholike Religion which was for many hundred yeares together the first mover of that Government and is still in every setled Kingdome and hath yet left the steps and shadow thereof behind it which in all likelihood cannot continue many yeares without a new supply from the fountain 5. As for the honor and greatnesse of the Turke and other Infidells as it reacheth no farther then this life so it hath no beginning from above this world and if we In Luc. 4. alibi may believe S. Ambrose those honors are conferred rather by Gods permission then by his donation being indeed ordained and ordered by his providence but for the sins of the people conferred by the Prince that rules in the ayre It is true the Turkish Empire hath now continued a long time but they have other principles of State to stand upon The continuall Guard of 100000. Souldiers whereof most of them know no parents but the Emperor The Tenure of all his Subjects who hold all in capite ad voluntatem Domini by the service of the sword their injoyned silence and reverence in matters of Religion and their facility in admitting other Religions as well as their owne to the hope of salvation and to tolerate them so that they be good Subjects These and such like are principles of great importance to increase an Empire and to maintaine a Temporall State But there is no State in Christendome that may indure these principles unlesse they meane to turne Turks also which although some be willing to do yet they will neither hold in Capite nor hold their peace in Religion nor suffer their King to have such a guard about him nor admit of Catholike Religion so much as the Turk doth 6. It is most true which I gladly write and am ready with all the honour I can of your Majesty to speak that I thinke there was never any Catholike King in England that did in his time more imbrace and favour the true bodie of the Church of England then your Majesty doth that shadow thereof which is yet left and my firm hope is that this your desire to honour our Blessed Saviour in the shadow of the Church of England will move him to honour your Majesty so much as not to suffer you to die out of the body of his true Catholike Church and in the mean time to let you understand that all honour that is intended to him by Schisme Heresie doth redound to his great dishonour both in respect of his Reall and of his Mysticall Body 7. For his Reall Bodie it is not as the Ubiquitaries would have it every where as well without the Church as within but only where himselfe would have it and hath ordained that it should be and that is onely amongst his Apostles and Disciples and their Successors in the Catholike Church to whom he delivered his Sacraments and promised to continue with them untill the worlds end So that though Christ be present in that Schisme by the power of
his Deity for so he is present in hell also yet by the grace of his humanity by participation of which grace onely there is hope of salvation he is not present there at all except it be in corners and prisons and places of persecution And therefore whatsoever honour is pretended to be done to Christ in Schisme and Heresie is not done to him but to his utter enemies 8. And for his mysticall Body which is his Church and Kingdome there can be no greater diâ—honor done to Christ then to maintain schisme and dissention therein What would your Majesty think of any Subjects of yours that should go about to raise civill dissention or warres in your Kingdome and of those that should fâ—ster and adhere unto such men It is the fashion of all Rebells when they are in Armes to * You know who have done so of late pretend the safety of the King and the good of the Countrey but pretend what they will you cannot account such men any better then Traytors And shall we beleeve that our B. Saviour the King of Kings doth sit in heaven and either not see the practises of those that under colour of serving him with Reformation do nothing else but serve their owne turnes and distract his Church that is his Kingdome on earth with sedition Or shall we think that he will not in time revenge his wrong Verily he sees it and doth regard it and will in time revenge it 9. But I hope and pray that he may not revenge it upon you nor yours but rather that he will shew that your desire to honour him is accepted of him and therefore will move you to honour your selfe and your posterity with bestowing the same your favour upon his Church in the unity thereof which you do now bestow in the Schisme and that he will reward both you and yours for the same according to his promise not only with everlasting glory in heaven but also with long continued temporall honour and security in this world And this is the first reason of my hope grounded upon the promise of God The second Reason of my hope that Catholike Religion may be a great meanes of honour and security to your Majesties posterity is taken from the consideration of your neighbours the Kings and Princes of Christendome among whom there is no State ancient and truly honourable but only those that are Catholike The reason whereof I take to be because the Rules of Catholike Religion are eternall universall and constant unto themselves and withall so consonant unto Majestie and greatnesse as they have made and preserved the Catholike Church most reverent and venerable throughout the world for these 1600. yeares and those Temporall States that have been conformable thereunto have been alwaies most honourable and so are like to continue untill they hearken unto Schisme And as for those that have rejected and opposed the Rules of Catholike Religion they have been driven in short time to degenerate and become either tyrannicall or popular your Majestie I know doth abhor Tyranny but if Schisme and Heresie might have their full swing cover the Seas the very shadow and Reliques of Majesty in England should be utterly * God grant this prove not too true defaced and turned into Helvetian or Belgian popularity For they that make no conscience to prophane the Majesty of God and his Saints in the Church will after they feel their strength make no bones to violate the Majesty of the King and his Children in the Common-wealth 10. I know well that the Puritanes of England the Huguenots of France and the Gueses of Germany together with the rest of the Calvinists of all sorts are a great faction of Christendome and they are glad to have the pretence of so great a Majesty to be their chief and of your posterity to be their hope but I cannot be perswaded that they ever will or can joyne together to advance your Majesty or your Children farther then they may make a present gaine by you They are * One may sweare it not agreed of their own Religion nor of the principles of Universall and Eternall Truth and how can they be constant in the rules of particular and transitory honor where there is Nullum Principium ordinis there can be Nullum Principium honoris such is their case there is a voice of Confusion among them as well in matters of State as of Religion Their power is great but not to edification but destruction They joyne together only against good order which they call the Common Enemy and if they can destroy that they will in all likelihood turn their fury against themselves and like Devills torment like Serpents devoure one another In the meane time if they can make their Burgers Princes and turn old Kingdomes into new States it is like enough they will do it but that they will ever agree together to make any one Prince King or Emperour over them all and yeeld due obedience unto him further then either their gaine shall allure them or his Sword shall compell them that I cannot perswade my selfe to believe And therefore I cannot hope that your Majesty or your posterity can expect the like honour or security from them which you might do from Catholike Princes if you were joyned firmly to them in the unity of Religion 12. The third reason of my hope that Catholike Religion should be most available for the honour and security of your Majesty and your children is taken from the consideration of your Subjects which can be kept in obedience to God and to their King by no other Religion and least of all by the Calvinists for if their principles be received once and well drunk in and digested by your Subjects they will openly maintaine that God hath as well predestinated men to be * Is not this now openly professed by those who would have the King called to an account c. Traytors as to be Kings and he hath as well predestinated men to be Theeves as to be Judges and he hath as well predestinated that men should sin as that Christ should die for sin which kind of disputations I know by my experience in the Countrey are ordinary among your Countrey Calvinists that take themselves to be learned in the Scriptures especially when they are met in the Ale-house and have found a weaker brother whom they think sit to be instructed in the profound mysteries And howsoever they be not yet all so impudent as to hold these conclusions in plain termes yet it is certain they all hold these principles of Doctrine from whence working heads of greater liberty do at their pleasures draw these consequences in their lives and practises And is * It now appears it is not this a Religion sit to keep Subjects in obedience to their Soveraigns 13. Here I know the great Masters of Schisme will never leave objecting the horrible treason of certaine Catholikes against your
now purchased the Bishops Lands at easie rates c. Favourites of the Court were given the Lands and Inheritance of the Abbeys and religious Houses that having once as it were washed their hands in the bowells and blood of the Church both they and their posterity might be at utter defiance therewith And so having overthrowne and prophaned the good works of the Saints it was necessary for them to get them Chaplains that might both dispute preach and write against the merits of good works the Invocation of Saints the sacrifice of the Altar Prayer for the dead and all such points of Catholike Doctrine as were the grounds of those Churches and Religious Houses which they had overthrowne and prophaned And it was not hard for those Chaplains by some shew of Scripture to prove that which their Lords and their followers were so willing to believe 24. To the Commons was given great hope of reliefe for their poverty case of Subsidies and of the burden of so great a Clergie and many other goodly gay nothings And for the present they should have liberty and the benefit of the Common-Law that is leave to live by such Lawes as themselves list to make and to contemne the Authority of the Church which although it were for their benefit every way yet because it crossed their affections like wayward Children they could never abide it And was not this reason enough for them to hold out the breach and to study Scripture themselves that they might be able to confute Confession Satisfaction Penance and to declaime against all that Tyranny of the Church of Rome whereby themselves and their fore-fathers had been kept in awe and obedience unto God and their Kings 25. To the Clergy men that would turne with the times besides the possibility of present preferment by the alteration was given shortly after leave to marry and to purchase and injoy the profit and pleasure of the world as well as the Laity And what carnall minded Monk or Priest would not with might and maine keep open the breach after he was once plunged in it rather then be in danger to forgo so pleasing a commodity Hence did arise a necessity of speaking and writing against Vowes Virginity Poverty Fasting Praying Watching Obedience and all that austerity of life which is by the Lawes of the Church required in a Monasticall and Priestly Conversation 26. Upon these conditions the Lords the Commons and the Clergie were content to believe that the King was supreme Head of the Church of England not that they did think so indeed or that they desired to augment his authority but that they might be protected by him and freely injoy those commodities So our Purchasers love not to hear of peace or unity lest they should come to lose their so easie bought Bishops lands other profits which they thought Schisme had brought unto them and feared the unity of the Church might again take from them Hence did arise a necessity of inveighing against the Pope and the Church of Rome as against Antichrist and Babylon and the greatest enemies of the State of England Insomuch that that Clergie-man was most acceptable to them and in their opinion most worthy of preferments that could most confidently preach and write the most foule and monstrous assertions of the Pope and the Church of Rome though they were never so false These and such like are those temporall respects which would faine seem the daughters of those Doctrines which themselves have brought forth and to be divided from the Catholike Church by Doctrine when they themselves have caused the Doctrine of Division 27. In all these and all other Doctrines of Division men have received great countenance and incouragement from Geneva For although â— John Calvin were never any good Subject or friend to Bishop Duke or King yet he did so fit the common people with new Doctrine that no Gospell can be so pleasing to them nor so lightsome as his For finding Geneva to be fallen out both with their Bishop who was their ancient Prince and their Duke to whom they pretended against their Bishop and to be all in a combustion among themselves for want of government although he were then a stranger and a very young man of some 26. or 27. years old at the most yet he thought good upon the oportunity to give the venture and to step in himselfe to be the founder of a new Church and State amongst them and for that purpose he found them out such a Catechisme as they might easily contemn all ancient Learning and authority and save themselves by a strong fancy which he called Faith And this pleased the Burgers of Geneva so well that they called a meering and caused all the Citizens to sweare that that Catechisme was true and that all Popery was false as may appeare in Calvins life written by Beza himselfe and prefixed to his Epistles And although the Ministeriall Presbytery of Geneva hath lost much of M. Calvins greatnesse yet the City hath had the fortune ever since by the help of their neighbours to hold out against their Bishop and their Duke and all their ancient Governours 28. Now it is the nature of all common people especially of Islanders not only still to * These late times witnesse this truth sufficiently affect more and more novelty and liberty and to be wearie of their old Clergie but also to admire any thing that comes from beyond the Seas to cherish and comfort one another with reporting the good successe which Schismaticks and Rebells happen to have against their lawfull Prelates and ancient Governours to impute all their good fortune to their new Religion Hence it comes to passe that that Doctrine which is indeed the lawfull Doctrine of the Church of England is neglected and contemned as a Relique or a Rag of Popery and Calvins Institutions being come from Geneva and fairly bound up with the Preface of the Gospell is dispersed throughout all Schooles Cities and Villages of England and hath so infected both Priest and People as although it be against Law yet it is cried up by voices to be the only current Divinity in Court and Countrey In hope belike that it may one day serve the turn in England as well as it hath done in Geneva and in other places where it hath prevailed 28. These reasons or rather Corruptions of State have so confounded the Doctrine of the Church of England and so slandered the Doctrine of the Church of Rome as it hath turned mens braines and made the multitude on both sides like two fools who being set back to back do think they are as far asunder as the Horizons are which they look upon But if it might please your Majesty to command them to turne but each of them a quarter about and looke both one way to the Service of God and your Majesty and to the salvation of soules they should presently see themselves to be
which will not save them from hell nor Superiors be ever told of their Errors but by Rebellion which will not bring them to heaven These such like be the liberties that both Prince People do enjoy by the want of Confession and of Catholike Religion 43. As for the liberty of making Lawes in Church-matters the Common Lawyer may perhaps make an advantage of it and therefore greatly stand upon it but to the common people it is no pleasure at all but rather a great burthen For the great Multitude of Statutes which have been made since the Schisme which are five times more then ever they were before since the name of Parliament was in England hath caused also an infinite number of Lawyers all which must live by the Commons and raise new Families which cannot be done without the decay of the old And if the Canons of the Church and the Courts of Confession were in request the Lawyers market would soon be marred And therefore most of your Lawyers in this point are Puritans do still furnish the Parliament with grievances against the Clergie as knowing very well that their own glory came at the first from the Court Infidell and therefore cannot stand with the Authority of the Church which came at the first from the Court Christian I speak not against the Ancient Lawes of England which since King Ethelberts time were all Catholike nor against the honest Lawyers of England I know many and honour all good men among them and do hope for better times by the learning wisedom moderation of the chiefest But I am verily perswaded that the pretended liberties of the Commons to make Lawes in matter of Religion doth burthen the Common wealth and both prejudice your Majesty and pleasure none at all but the Puritan and petty-fogging Lawyer that would faine fetch the antiquity of his Common Law from the Saxons that were before King Ethelbert So that whether we respect the spirituall instruction and comfort or the temporall wealth and liberty of the Commons of England if the Puritan Preacher and Puritan Lawyer who both do seek the overthrow of the Church and deceive and consume the people would let them alone there would quickly appeare no reason of their Staâ—e at all why they should hate the Catholike Church that is so comfortable and beneficiall unto them or maintain the Schisme that with sugred speeches and counterfait faces doth so much abuse them 44. I am therefore in very assured hope that by my coming to the Catholike Church besides the satisfying and saving of my own soule I shall do no ill service to your Majesty neither in respect of your selfe nor your Children nor in respect of your Lords and Commons and that there is no reason concerning the State in any of these that is sufficient to disswade unity There is only the * The Protestant Clergie are now like to find this a true prediction Clergy left which if Calvinisme may go on and prevaile as it doth shall not in the next age be left to be satisfied And there is little reason that any man that loves the Clergie should desire to satisfie such Clergie men as do under hand favour Calvinists and maintain such points of Doctrine as if your Majesties favour were not would out of hand overthrow the Clergie and instead of them set up a few stipendary Preachers 45. There never was is or shall be any well setled State in the world either Christian or Heathen but the Clergie or Priesthood was is and must be a principall part of the Government depending upon none but him only whom they suppose to be their God But where Calvinisme prevailes three or four stipendary Ministers that must preach as it shall please Mr. Mayor and his Brethren may serve for a whole City And indeed if their opinions be true it is but a folly for any State â—o maintain any more For if God hath predistinated a certain Number to be saved without any condition at all of their being in the visible Church by Faith or their persevering therein by good works If God hath reprobated the greatest part of the world without any respect at all of their infidelity heresie or wicked life If the Faith of Christ be nothing els but the assured perswasion of a Man 's own Predestination to glory by him If the Sacraments of the Church be nothing but signes and badges of that grace which a man hath before by the carnall Covenant of his Parents faith If Priesthood can do nothing but preach the Word as they call it which Lay-men must judge of and may preach too if they will where occasion serves If the studie an I knowledge of Antiquity Universality and Consent be not necessary but every man may expound Scripture as his own spirit shall move him If I say these and such like opinions be as true as they are among Calvinists in the world common and in England too much favoured and maintained there will certainly appear no reason at all to your Parliament whensoever your Majesty or your Successor shall please to ask them why they should be at so great a charge as they are to maintain so needlesse a party as these opinions do make the Clergy to be They can have a great many more How right this points upon the Doctrine of these times Sermons a great deale better cheap and in the opinion of Calvinisme the Clergy do no other service They that do in England favour and maintain those opinions and suppresse and disgrace those that do confute them they although themselves can be content to be Lords and go in Rochets are indeed the greatest Enemies of the Clergy And it were no great matter for the Clergy they might easily turn Lay and live as well as they do for the most part But it is a thing full of compassion and commiseration to see that by these false and wicked opinions the Divell the the Father of these and all other lies doth daily take possession of the soules of your Subjects both of Clergy and Laity These kind of Clergy men I confesse I do not desire to satisfie any other way then as I have alwaies done that is by the most friendly and plain confutation of their errors to shew them the truth As for other Clergy men that are conformable to the Religion established by Law as well for their Doctrine as for their Discipline if they be good Schollers and temperate men as I know many of them are they cannot but in their judgements approve the truth of Catholike Religion and if it were not for fear of losse or disgrace to their wives and Children they would be as glad as my selfe that a more temperate course might be held and more liberty afforded unto Catholikes and Catholike Religion in England These Clergy-men I am and ever shall be desirous to satisfie not only in respect of themselves but also in respect of their wives and