cutting them off by the Spiritual sword but by the tares cannot be meant persons of wicked lives for then the Text would forbid the punishment of evil doers by not gathering the tares cannot be meant the not cutting them off by the Spiritual sword for then the Text would forbid the Church to excommunicate either wicked livers or obstinate Hereticks And therefore of necessity by the tares must be meant persons of evil Opinions and by the not gathering them the not destroying them by the Temporal sword and this Interpretation is very much favoured by the reason that is given of the Prohibition least ye also root up the wheat with them as if he should have said as for external wickednesses I freely leave them to the lash of humane Judicatures the rectitude or obliquity of them being far more discernable then of inward speculations and Opinions but I will by no means trust you with the punishment of Errors least through interest passion or mistake you should exterminate the Truth with it for you being so fallible and apt to err it is impossible but sometimes you must miss the mark mistake the wheat for tares and hit the Truth though you aime at Error Having thus shewed you how contrary it is to the spirit and genius of Christianity to destroy mens lives upon the score of mere Opinion or Religion I shall now conclude what I have said with one inference from the whole Use From hence I infer the Antichristian tyranny of the Church of Rome who hath fleshed her self with so many slaughters and dyed her Garments so deep in the blood of Christians upon no other score but only their differing from her in some at least disputable and harmless Opinions because upon her bare word they could not believe propositions which to them seemed contrary to sense and reason and Scripture and their Faith had not stomach enough to digest the most fulsome absurdities and swallow the grossest contradictions Blessed Jesu that ever a Church pretending to be thy Spouse should be so forgetful of thy mercies as to spill the blood of so many thousands of Christians upon no other account but because they could not believe her absolution such a Philosophers Stone as to turn attrition into effectual Repentance and a few words of a Priest such a powerful charm as to conjure a man to Heaven in an instant and because thou hast made holiness the sole condition of eternal life durst not depend upon confraternities stations and priviledge-Altars Dei's little offices amulets and such like hallowed baubles because they could not worship Images and pray to God and Saints in the same form of words and durst not run from Scripture to uncertain traditions and from ancient traditions unto new pretences from reasonable services into blind devotions from believing the necessity of inward acts of piety and devotion into a dangerous temptation of resting upon the Opus Operatum the meer numbring of so many Beads and saying of so many prayers that ever Christians should be destroyed by Christians for not believing all those monstrous absurdities which transubstantiation implies that Christs body may be in a thousand places at the same time that it may stay in a place while it is going from it be both in and out of the same place in the same moment that it may come from Heaven to Earth and yet never stir out of Heaven nor be any where in the way between that his whole body is in each crumb of each consecrated wafer and that without being lessened all its parts are crouded up into one single attom and lye all within the compass of a Pin's head though it be 4 foot long that though it be whole and entire in every crumb and there be 10000 of these crumbs in 10000 distant places yet doth it not multiply into 10000 bodies but still remains one and the same now what greater tyranny can there be than to destroy and massacre men for not believing such a mass of palpable contradictions and yet for these and such like causes it is that Rome hath so often washed her barbarous hands in Protestant blood imbroiled the Christian world and by the terrour of her awful thunder-bolts scared Subjects into Rebellion against their lawful Soveraigns and Soveraigns into persecution of their natural Subjects of the truth of which I could give you a thousand forein instances but in complyance with the time and occasion I shall rather chuse to confine my self at home to destroy mens lives upon the score of Religion was a practice never known in England till the time of Henry the 4th who being an Usurper and so liable to many enemies both forein and domestick sought to endear the Pope to him who was then moderator of Christendom by sending him as a token of his love and duty the blood of his enemies and for many years after this was the yearly sacrifice our English Monarks were fain to offer up to the Roman Idol and whensoever through their own weakness they either feared or were forced to flatter him they had no other way to appease the angry Demon but by causing their children to pass through the fire to him and glutting his thirsty vengeance with their blood but when afterwards our English Monarchs threw off the Roman yoak and would no longer be the Popes Leeches he immediately issueth out his Bulls and excommunications to alarum their subjects into a Rebellion against them for immediately upon Queen Elizabeth's coming to the Throne Pope Paul the 4th refuseth to acknowledge her pretending this Crown to be a fee of the Papacy and that therefore it was audaciously done of her to assume it without his leave and because she would not turn out immediately when her great Landlord had given her such fair warning Pope Pius the 5th takes out a Writ of Ejectment issueth out his Bull and deposeth her in which he thus expresserh himself Volumus jubemus ut adversus Elizabetham Angliae Reginam subditi arma capessant it is our will and command that the Subjects of England take up Arms against their Queen upon which followed the Northern Rebellion and sundry private attempts of the Papists to murder her Afterwards Pope Gregory the 15th having two Bastards to provide for one of his own and another of the Emperours he bestowed the Kingdom of England upon the one and that of Ireland upon the other but neither of these prevailing Sixtus the 5th curses her afresh and publishes a crusade against her and bequeaths the whole right of her Dominions to Philip the 2d King of Spain but when neither the Popes bounty nor the blessings of his successors nor the Spanish Arms nor Italian Arts could prevail against God's providence which till the end of her daies pitched its tents about her Pope Clement the 8th seeing there was no other remedy resolved to let her go like a Heretick as she was and to take more care that another Heretick might not succeed
them out by Force and Violence but yet they had not so far abandoned all their natural sense of mercy and goodness as to proceed to bloodshed till the Divine Right of Fire and Faggot was invented by St. Dominick that rabbid and furious Incendiary by whose instigation the Albigenses were wasted by a dreadful War and 180 of them burnt to death because they would not abjure their Religion which horrid butchery was acted by the Commission of Pope Innocent the third who to encourage it granted a plenary pardon and indulgence to the Executioners and now like Lybian Tygers having tasted Blood they thirst insatiably for more and instead of Pastors turn Buttchers to the Flock of Christ by their repeated Cruelties converting that Church into an infamous Slaughter-house of Christians which was once so famous a Seminary of Martyrs and for these 600 years bleeding hath been the only Remedy those Spiritual Mountebancks have prescribed to cure the Diseased Church and this hath been cryed up as their great Catholicon witness the infinite Slaughters they have acted and instigated in Italy Bohemia the upper and lower Germany witness the Spanish Inquisition where the Holy Fathers confute Hereticks with Racks and Gibbets witness the Parisian Massacre where our Religion was consuted only with Skenes and Daggers witness the Marian days wherein the Roman Faith was defended so gloriously against all Arguments with only that Dreadful Text Recant or Burn and if all this be not enough witness that Horrid Power Plot the Prevention of which we now Commemorate a Villany so Foul and Monstrous as was never Parallell'd either in Fiction or History and compared with which the most Tragick Scenes of Melancholy Poets and dismal Phantasms of Despairing Souls are but all Comick Tales Subjects of Sport and Laughter a Tragedy so deep and bloody that certainly had the most barbarous Canibal in America been hired to act it the very thought of it must have startled him into an Agony and he could not but have relented considering thus with himself I am now giving Fire to a Train which at one blow will Ruine a whole Kingdom tear in pieces its King and Princes and scatter their Members in the Air strew its Fields with the Limbs and Quarters of its slaughtered Nobles and Gentry fill its Streets with the Threns and Lamentations of woful Mothers the shrieks and out cryes of desolate Wives Children shake its goodly Temples and Royal Palaces into ruines and in one moment lay all its glory in the dust and yet O tell it not in Gath publish it not in the streets of Askalon All these Cruelties were designed under the livery of the most merciful Jesus and this Cannibals feast of fellow-Christians blood prepared to entertain the Father of Mercies and the Prince of Love as if they like the Heathens Daemons fed their hungry Nostrils with the Niderous reeks and steams of humane sacrifices Thus by degrees you see Persecution is imbodyed into the Romish Religion and when Heresie is the Disease Ruine is the only Remedy A sure one indeed but O how heavenly wide of those mild prescriptions of the great Physician of souls who being urged by his own Disciples to revenge himself upon a company of rude and obstinate Scismaticks solemnly professes that he came not to destroy mens lives but to save them The occasion of which words was an affront which the Samaritans had offered to our blessed Saviour who being notorious Scismaticks and professed enemies to the Jews that worshipped at Jerusalem refused to entertain our Saviour for one night perceiving he was a Jew and so of a contrary Religion to themselves upon which James and John moved with great indignation to see their blessed Master so unworthily treated request him that after the example of Elias they might call for fire from Heaven to destroy them but he no way approving their motion severely rebukes them for it and plainly tells them that they knew not what spirit they were of as much as if he should have said if you will needs imitate that Legal zelotick spirit Elias acted by whatever you pretend you act not like my Disciples whose spirit and genius ought to be more tender and merciful and therefore though these Samaritans are of a different Sect and Religion and will not imbrace me nor my Doctrine yet far be it from me to destroy them for this is quite contrary both to my temper and the design of my coming which is not to destroy mens lives but to save them So that you see the plain scope of the words is this That to destroy mens lives upon the score of Religion is a practice contraty to the Spirit of Christ and the design of his Religion Before I proceed to the proof of this Proposition I shall briefly endeavour to state and restrain it within its just bounds and limits and they are these four First That it is not to be understood of any Religion that is in its own nature wicked and immoral for if a mans Religion teacheth Vice or directly patronizeth it his Vice is not the less punishable because his Religion prompted him to it Indeed if he keep his wicked Opinion to himself it cannot be punished because it cannot be known but if he perswade others to it or practise it himself it becomes matter of fact and is as punishable as the crime is it perswades to for the great Rules of Virtue and Good Life are so clear and perspicuous that a man cannot be ignorant of them without being faulty and therefore if a man imbrace a wicked Opinion and act or spread it the matter of fact is justly punishable according to the proportion of its malignity And indeed if wicked actions were to be excused upon the score of Conscience or Opinion Religion would be made a Sanctuary for all the villanies in the world and there is no crime so monstrous but would make a shift to shelter it self from punishment under the protection of Conscience Secondly And more particularly that the Proposition is not to be understood of such Opinions as either directly or in their immediate consequents undermine the foundations of Government for Government being indispensably necessary to the well-being of the world men ought to know that that can be no good Religion which teacheth Doctrines whose consequents destroy it and therefore its just and reasonable it should be rooted out as a dangerous post and nuisance to the publick interest and the necessity of the thing will justifie the lawfulness of it For were Princes bound to tolerate ungovernable principles they must be Kings no longer than they can get leave to reign from the humour or conscience of each hot-brained Opinionists and all their Authority must be dependant upon the little capricio's of every peevish Zealot the consequents of which must be the dissolution of Government and that an in-let to all disorder and confusion and therefore those that under a pretence of Religion propagate
her for which end he sent over two Breves into England one to the Clergy and another to the Laity commanding them not to suffer any but a Catholick though never so near in blood to succeed her the design of which was to exclude King James who was the sole Heir apparent to the Crown upon which the Papists indeavoured to their utmost to prevent his coming in and afterwards to throw him out again and when neither took effect at last they resolve to send him to Heaven with a vengeance by a blow of Gun-powder which was a villany so black and odious that the Romanists themselves do blush to own it And indeed were it not so apparent from the confessions of the Traitors themselves who acknowledged the Jesuits to be their Conspirators that egged them on by their pernicious counsels swore them to secresie by the holy Trinity and gave them the Sacrament upon it that they should neither withdraw themseves from nor discover it to others without common consent I say were it not for these and a thousand other notorious circumstances one would have thought it impossible such a hellish design could ever have been acted under the wing and patronage of the best Religion that ever was but he that shall consider the bloody principles with which the Roman Church hath sophisticated Christianity must needs confess that there is no wickedness so horrid of which her Religion will not make her capable for 't is decreed by the Lateran Council that in case any Prince be a favourer of Hereticks the Pope shall discharge his Subjects from their allegiance and give away his Kingdom to some Catholick who upon rooting out those Hereticks shall possess it without contradiction and 't is the general Doctrine of her most celebrated Divines that the Pope hath power to depose Kings at his pleasure and this Father Parsons determines to be a point of Faith to believe it is in the Popes power to depose Heretical Princes and that subjects are upon their being declared heretical thereby absolved from all duty of obedience to him and this Bellarmin proves at large by giving us sundry examples of Popes who have deposed Kings and Emperours as of Gregory the second who deprived the Emperour Leo of a great part of his Dominions because he opopposed the worship of Images of Pope Zacherie who deposed Childerick of France of Gregory the 7th who deposed Henry the 4th Emperor of Germany of Innocent the 3d who deposed the Emperor Otho the 4th of Innocent the 4th who deposed Frederick the 2d and Clement the 6th who also deposed Lewis the 6th aâ—d so at last gravely concludes that because they had done so they might do so still as if wickedness were sanctifyed by wicked Examples So also Gregory de Valentia affirms that an Heretical Prince may by the Popes Sentence be deprived of his Life Estate and Soveraignty But beyond all these are those Traiterous positions of Mariana the Spanish Jesuite who affirms That it is not only Lawful to kill a King upon the Popes Sâ—ntance but also upon the Verdict of a few Learned Doctors and discoursing pro and con of the most convenient way of doing it at last determines Prisoning to be the most Orthodox and Catholick And if we look into the Histories of these last 600 years we shall find their practice hath made a bloody Comment on their Doctrines for in those days when Excommunications from Rome were so terrible and all things shrunk at the flash of those Thunders it was the ordinary Recreation of those insolent Prelates to play at Foot-ball with the Crowns of Princes and trample on the Necks of Emperors as the Fredericks the Henries the Lodovici Bavari found by woful experience who were abandoned of their Subjects their Kindred their Allies their own Children were troden under foot deposed from their Empires defamed as Hereticks and chased like Raskals These goodly Mirrours one would think were sufficient to warn all Christian Princes to shake off the Yoak that for so many ages hath galed the Necks of their Ancestors But if after so mâ—ny woful Examples there should remain any doubt of the Tyrannick Cruelties of Rome let us Remember that pair of Royal Sacrifices the two last Henry's of France both barbarously murdered by the Popes Executioners the First by the hand of a Fryar whose Villany was commended by Pope Sixtus the 5th in an Oration to his Cardinals wherein he compares the Fact with the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ and the Fryars Virtue and Courage and servent Love to God to that of Judith and Eliazar in the Maccabees Blessed God! what wickedness will these men stick at the head of whose Religion Cannonizeth Regicide and Christians murder a meritorious Virtue and why should the Papists be ashamed to own the Powder Treason which though it may compare with the blackest Inteâ—â—gues of Hell and was foul enough to bring the Devil himself into disgrace yet was warranted by the Principles of their bloody Religion But 't is an old Maxim of the Roman Politicks never to own an unsuccessful Villany and without doubt had not the Parisian Massacre taken effect in which 30000 Protestants were slaughtered in one night the Papists would have as loudly disclaimed that as now they do the Powder Treason but it being successful the news of it at Rome as their own Thuanus tells us was welcomed with Publick Festivals bonfires and Tryumphs the Pope himself congratulating the Inhumane cruelty of the French King commending the Faith of those bloudy Wretches whose hands were imbrewed in the Slaughter and distributing his Paternal Blessings among them And without all controversie had Faux and Catesby been but as successful as they their Faith had been as much praised and their Persons as much blessed and the Fifth of November had been as high a Festival in the Roman Calender as it is now in the English Thus if you trace the Romish Religion in all her late Progresses you will find that her way hath lead all along through a wilderness of Confusion and a Red Sea of Blood and though now she exerciseth less Cruelties in the World than formerly yet her Will is the same her Principles the same her Documents of Cutting Throats the same though blessed be God her Power and Interest is abated For now a days Princes are grown too stout to kiss his Holiness's Toe to hold his Stirrup and run like Lacquies at his heels Those Golden Days are gone and he that was wont to Command is fain to Intreat his own Children and as an Ingenious Author hath observed whilst Princes can stand upon their own legs they may goe their own pace as fast and as slow as they please but should any misfortune throw them upon all four we shall soon see his Holiness get up and Ride them what pace he pleases and being bestrid by such a furious Jehu to be sure they will want neither Whip nor