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A33356
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The case of Protestants in England under a popish prince if any shall happen to wear the imperial crown.
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Clarkson, David, 1622-1686.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing C4569; ESTC R1246
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26,207
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36
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But suppose the Posterity of a Protestant or his Children being still Papists have continued in the possession of the Estates so left them for many years together Forty or an hundred years will not this create them a title since Prescription may do it where there is no other right and is allowed so to do both by Civil and Canon Law and an hundred years is confessed to be sufficient for Prescription against the Roman Church in other cases No an hundred years will not suffice in this case if the Possessors or their Fathers knew that he who left them the Estate was an Heretick and if he was at any time suspected to be so while he lived or if he was reputed a Catholick all his days yet if any time within 40 years after his decease it appears he was an Heretick there is no place left for Prescription but then they will have the Estate seised in whose hands soever it be sound and the Possessors thrust out though they be Roman Catholicks Hereby it appears that as soon as the Papacy is admitted all Title and Property is lost and extinct among us by the Law which will then be in force unless in those few Families who never had a Protestant Proprietor nor are they secure as to any part of their estate which ever belonged to Hereticks And therefore we must not think his Holiness acted extravagantly when he declared all his Majesties Territories to be his own as forfeited to the Holy See for the Heresie of Prince and People for herein he proceeded regularly and according to that which they esteem the best Law in the World Not only Abbey Lands are in danger who ever possess them but all Estates are forfeited to his Exchequer and legally confiscated All is his own which Protestants in these Three Nations have or ever had if he can but meet with a Prince so wise as to help him to catch it Thus we see the process of their Law against Protestants must not end with their Lives but follow them many years beyond Death and the Grave and ruine their Children and Childrens Children when they are gone And when they have left a Heretick nothing of his own to subsist on it is provided also that he shall have no Relief from others for this is part of his Penalty that none shall receive him into their houses nor afford him any help nor shew him any favour nor give him any counsel We in England are zealous for Property and all the reason in the world we should be but we must bid adieu to this when we once come under the Popes Authority for as soon as this is admitted all the Protestants in these Nations are Beggars by Law by the Laws of that Church which will then be ours divesting us of all Propriety and Title to what ever we count our own Thirdly The last Penalty I shall insist on which their Law will have inflicted on Hereticks is Death This is the Sentence of the Canon Law Hereticks are to be delivered to the Secular Power to undergo due punishment and that is Death as appear by many Papal Bulls approving and receiving the Civil Laws which have adjudged Hereticks to death For though those Laws were Originally intended against such only which were Hereticks indeed yet since the Roman Church will have all Protestants to be Hereticks they must suffer Death by vertue thereof how far soever they be from Heresie And the Canon Law further determines that Secular Judges cannot remit the Penalty as appears by the Text Cap. ut Officium and is more fully explained in the Bull of Vrban the 4th and in another of Innocent 4th Hereupon Zanardus takes it for granted that all Laws will have every Heretick put to Death and their Angelical Doctor is positive that Hereticks though they do not pervert others may be justly killed by Secular Judges and bereaved of all they have rather than such as are guilty of High-Treason If there were need to cite particular Doctors Suarez assures us that it is the judgment of all their Doctors Ita docent omnes Doctores But there is a Constitution of Paul 4th which may serve instead of all where to shew how impartial their Decrees are in this case Having declared that with the unanimous consent of the Cardinals all Poenal Acts Canons Constitutions against Hereticks made by any Popes Councils or others are by Apostolical Authority renewed and inforced he specifies persons of greatest Eminency in Church and State viz. Earls Barons Marquesses Dukes Kings Emperors c. and will have all these punishment inflicted on them if they are or shall hereafter be Hereticks Particularly it is decreed that they are therefore deprived wholly and perpetually of their Baronies Marquesats Dukedoms Kingdoms Empires and rendered uncapable hereof so as they shall never be restored And to make sure work all of them Kings and Emperours among the rest shall be put to death Only if they recant the Holy See may shew them this Clemency as to thrust them into some Monastery there to do penance all their days with Bread and Water This punishment they extend very far for Death is to be insticted not only on the Teachers of what they call Heresie but on all who belive any Doctrines opposite to what the Romanists receive as matters of Faith though they draw none else thereto yea on all that believe any one point of such Doctrine though they reuounce all the rest For they agree that one Errour makes a Heretick though all besides that one be abjured And on those also who abjure them all if they do not likewise discover their Complices and so betray all the Protestants they know to Death For such though they do profess themselves to be Papists and conform to them in all things yet if they discover not others and expose them to death they are judged to be but counterfeit Catholicks and not worthy to live The Death they will have us suffer is burning alive no Death more tolerable or of less exquisite torture will satisfie the Mercy of that Church For though they find no Rule for this in the body of the Civil Law yet they alledge some latter Constitutions for it and particularly that of Frederick which the Popes have made their own Law in these words Decernimus ut vivi in conspectu hominum comburantur We Decree that they shall be burned alive in the sight of the World The Holy Canons it is presumed are for it The first Statute of Henry 4th in England for the buring of Hereticks was Enacted according to the Holy Canons And if they had no other Law for it yet the Use and Custom of their Church hath the sorce of a Law and makes it as lawful and necessary for them to burn I rotestants as it is to burn Faggots when they are cold and that it is the custom of the Church they have the testimony
with Hereticks in what is lawful and honest but in no case otherwise and so never in case of Heresie So that the Faith of any Prince however engaged is so far from giving an Heretick any security as Heresie is far from being a thing lawful and honest Upon these principles by which it appears that Rome hath changed Faith with Carthage that being now worse than Fides Punica and is when she would be counted Christian far more Faithless than when Pagan their Doctors Jesuits and others have instigated Kings to endeavour seriously the rooting out of Hereticks Asserting that an Oath in favour of Hereticks is but Vinculum iniquitatis In Fine This is the sense of their best Authors and we must believe it to be so unless we will be deluded By their Laws and Principles they are always under an Obligation utterly to exterminate Protestants yet sometimes they are concerned in point of Interest to forbear and dissemble Pretending to engage their Faith when they do it not in the sense of those who relye on it as the Council of Constance deluded Jerome of Prague that they might as they did burn him or engaging their Faith when they intend not to keep it as our Queen Mary Charles the 9th of France and other Popish Princes abused the Protestants to make them secure that they might have the better advantage to ruine them and then that they may seem real they may promise or swear that they will not proceed against us yet notwithstanding when they have an opportunity to destroy us though they were bound by Ten thousand Oaths not to attempt it yet they Sin damnably if they endeavour it not to the utmost But if there were neither Law nor Conscience to hinder yet in point of Interest he must not shew favour to Hereticks nor grant any Indulgence for their Religion he cannot do it without apparent hazard both of Crown and Life For by shewing such favour he in their account deposeth himself and immediately loseth title to his Kingdoms An Emperour or a King saith Parsons if he shew favour to an Heretick for that he loseth his Kingdom The Jesuits have sufficient grounds for this Doctrine how extravagant soever it seems For the Council of Lateran which Bellarmine calls their greatest and most Famous Council decreeth that if a Prince upon a years warning doth not exterminate Hereticks his Subjects are discharged from Allegiance and his Dominions are to be seized on by other Catholicks He thereby draws upon himself the Curse and Excommunication of the Church he is excommunicate by Law that Council hath passed Sentence already and he is de facto Anathematized yearly by the Bull of the Supper the former is Excommunicatio Juris by the Law and this is Excommunicatio Hominis by the Judg as several of their Doctors will have it So that it takes effect presently Ipso Facto and is of no less force than if the person concerned were Excommunicated particularly and by name though the terms be general The Pope every year doth solemnly Excommunicate and Curse not only all Hereticks but every Favourer and Defender of them and from this Sentence none can Absolve any but the Pope himself for it is a reserved case and they generally declare him to be a Favourer of Hereticks who hinders the execution of the Laws made against them Conformably hereto their Doctors teach that Kings and Princes when they are negligent in rooting out Hereticks they are to be Excommunicated and deposed by the Pope So Becamus Another as I find him cited sets it out more elegantly in a Metaphor making Princes to be the Popes their Shepherds Dogs as they are wont to do out of great reverence and expresseth himself significantly to this purpose If a Prince be a dull Cur and fly not upon Hereticks he is to be beaten out and a Keener Dog must be got in his stead Others tell us he incurrs more grievous penalties than Excommunication as appears by the Breves of several Popes though to be deprived of Kingdom and Life to which this Sentence makes a Prince lyable one would think sufficiently grievous But there is no need to cite particular Doctors seeing by the Decrees of that Church the Fautors of Hereticks are lyable to the penalties which are to be inflicted on Hereticks themselves and their Church-Law determines again and again that they are to be taken for Fautors of Hereticks whâ— omit what they ought to do for the punishing of Hereticks that they may cease from their errour And in this they all agree Ita docent omnes saith Suarez Sure he must have more Love for Protestants than any true Papist can have who will run such hazards to shew them Favour He must expect also to be burdened with the Hatred of Zealous Chatholicks and the effects thereof They detest such a Prince and damn that Political Prudence which forbears the severe execution of the Laws against Hereticks as being the way not only to ruine the Church but subvert a Kingdom They count none worthy the Crown who will not go through stitch with their design for extirpating Hereticks and promoting the Roman Interest with Fire and sword Nay they count such though they be Papists as bad as Hereticks worse than Turks and unworthy to live they will have a price set on their Heads and Assassinates hired to rid the World of them So Doctor Stapleton counted one of their greatest and most sober Divines And these are not only Points for Speculation they have been reduced to practice among those who have the repute of the most moderate Papists in Europe Henry 3d. and 4th two Kings of France were Assassinated on this account A suspicion that they favoured Protestants was the great inducement to Zealous Catholicks to get them stab'd The two Kings since indeed have escaped better no wonder for they never provoked the Catholick Assassinating Spirit They have given sufficient demonstration that they hate the Protestants for though they kill them not out-right yet have they reduced them to such Circumstances that their Mortal Enemies may to their satisfaction see them dye a Lingering Death And which more concernsus the Conspirators in all places having declared expresly that if RO. H. do not answer their expectation for rooting out of the Protestant Religion and Extirpating those that profess it Their design is to destroy him after they have killed his Brother So that whatsoever respect they have for him on the account of his Religion yet after they have served their turn on him a while he must expect nothing but Death unless he will give assurance that he will ruine the Protestants of these Nations Hereby we may judge what favour we may in reason promise our selves from the Temper or Interest of a Popish Successor But may not Parliaments secure us by Laws and Provisions restraining the Powers which endanger us There is nothing of this