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
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
restore the antient disciplin much abated by wars and factions recovered the exclesiastick investitures out of the hands of emperour Henricus who had invaded them and moved Christian princes to a war in the holy land for the caus of Jesus Christ there blasphemed where he should principally be honoured and the assistance of distressed Christianity against the Turk good works all and which none but he would have heeded to effect 10. Pape Innocent the second when Peter de Lions his antipope had filled Christendom with wars and factions and Peter de Bruis had no less corrupted their judgments with heresies against baptism temples almes deeds and offerings rose up and manfully fought them both for the recovery of truth and peace of Christianity in his tenth oecumenical councel at Lateran an 1139. 11. Some while after in the time of pape Alexander the third the Christian world was no less rent asunder both by the faction of a competitour of his called Victor the second and the heresies of the Waldenses or Albigenses against both which the said Pape called his eleventh Councel at Lateran an 1179 and made provision there most carefully against any the like disturbance upon such occasion 13. Pape Innocent the third did the world no les good service in his twelfth general councel at Lateran an 1215 where he judged and condemned the heresies of those times which infected and troubled the world censured abbot Joachim his book against Magister sententiarum and wicked Almaricus who denied the real presence and resurrection c. and exhorted all Christian princes to the recovery of the holy land which had been regained by the joint endeavours of the Christian world in Pape Vrban the seconds time Godfrey of Bullen being there made king of Jerusalem but after 90 years was lost again in the daies of pape Vrban the third whose successour Gregory the eight and his followers till this Innocent the third did much lament and labour to help the loss but Innocent had more hopes by reason that Baldwin earl of Flanders was then made emperour of Constantinople 13. Pape Innocent the fourth found a great deal of trouble in the world and to heal the malady he called a general synod at Lions an 1245 which was the thirteenth oecumenical councel against the cruelties of emperour Frederick who filled Christendom with wars and bloodshed whence arose the faction of the Gwelfs and Gibellines against the tirrany of the saracens the perfidiousnes of the greeks who plotted at Constantinople the destruction of all the Latines and against the irruption of the Tartarians who ruined Poland and Hungary 14. A little afterwards when now Michael Paleologus had got the empire of greece by the expulsion of Baldwin and the greeks began to fall back to som of their former errours denying the Holy Ghosts procession sacrifice in unleavened bread and some fasts so that much combustion happened upon this occasion in the oriental Church Pape Gregory the tenth called the fourteenth councel at Lions an 1274 for the healing these disorders recovery of the holy land and union of the Greeks 15. In the year 1311 when the knights Templers began to give some offence in the Christian world or at least the king of France and other princes pretended so and the Bogards and Beguines a kind of religious people in Germany sowed some errours up and down to the great scandal of people Pape Clement the fift called a councel at Vienna to rectify both as also for recovery of the holy land and reformation of discipline then much decayed in the Church 16. But still there was much division in the oriental part of the Church among the greeks who denied many of them the procession of the Holy Ghost from the second person of the Trinity the felicity of the blessed and purgatory in the Churches antient sens and the primacy of the Roman See which although they held in the primitive times for many ages together yet they sank into that dangerous errour by degrees for after that they had got an emperour in Constantinople absolute and independent they motioned in councels kept in those times for the most part in the oriental parts first that the byshop of that Sea for the honour of the empire might be made a Patriarch then afterwards that he might have place before other antient patriarchs who had the right of precedency before him and then at last they would have him independent as the emperour himself was in temporals thus by degrees running themselvs into schisms To prevent these errours and factions Pape Eugenius the fourth called the sixteenth general councel at Florence an 1439 where by means of Josephus patriarch of Constantinople and other grave grecian prelates there assembled the union betwixt the greeks and latins was made up 17. In the year 1512 was kept the seaventeenth councel at Lateran under Pape Julius the second and Leo the tenth to mitigate a great schisme raised by means of an episcopal conversion at Pisa called together by cardinal Caravaial and Sanseverin without the Papes autority both which came in here and submitted as also to bring Christian princes to mutual concord to stop the frequent argumentations that were too vehemently urged in schools out of Aristotle against the souls immortality and to hasten an expedition against the Turk 18. And lastly three Popes one after another Paulus Julius and Pius fought successively with equal resolution against Luther and Calvin and several others of their apostate priests for internal justification the possibility and merit of doing well the truth and efficacy of the seaven sacraments prayers for the dead intercession of saints and indulgences in the great oecumenical councel of Trent There have been in the Church besides these greater councels six hundred other national provincial diocesan synods over and above those which S. Peter kept with the apostles in Jerusalem which being called together upon several occurrencies were all licensed guided and directed by the Papes of those times who kept continual correspondence with the prelates while they sate in councel and if any synod either opposed him or swarved from his directions it was looked upon by the rest of Christendom as reprobate on that account I should be too tedious if I should declare the indefatigable industry high wisdom and piety of Popes in steering the Ship of the Church both in the calms of peace that she might not then lye hulling and idle but make good progress towards bliss and also in the strang storms and tempests that the malignity of this world hath raised against her which have been so great and various that one would have thought by the many leaks that sprang in her at times the excessive beatings of decuman billows upon her sides the dangerous hidden rocks on which she has dasht unawares and the greater apparent ones she has been carried upon by the violence of wind and weather not humanly to be avoided that she could never have lasted to this
for when they had all under their feet that might any waies oppose or binder their design yet could they never bring to pass any of the spetious things they made pretens of the great welfar of our Kingdom settlement of a pure religion liberty of conscience and freedom of the subject unto all which their actions were so contrary all these twenty years together that man could not discern by their doings that they did so much as mean any such thing whether it were that they did indeed never sincerely intend or were not able to compas or by severall concurrencies of affairs were diverted and jusled from that end unto waies utterly opposite both to our good and their own too I was ever of opinion all the while that the account of Religion as the case stands needed not of all other things so highly to incens us one against another unto such injurious outrages as past amongst us and found in my heart several times to put pen to paper and utter my minde but I was retarded by the two reasons of my own small ability and my Countries indisposition at that time to such discours But now people seem more calmly disposed and my self somwhat bettered by reading more books of Quakers Anabaptists Presbyterians and by the society of these and severall others Wel-willers Seekers Atheists Philosophers The books of Roman Catholicks I had perused and digested a forehand our Protestant Religion I understood long ago being born and bred in that way So that an exact knowledg of all I am to speak together with my long observing experience will I hope somwhat supply my other wants One thing incourages me not a little to this enterprize which is that I have frequently observed that it is not alwaies a muchnes either of eloquence learning or wisdom that strikes a stroke in asswaging differences or makes a right understanding between parties but such a hidden caus somtims in the words and gestures of persons as we may rather call it chance than any thing else I have my self pacified neighbours even in their hottest dissentions when others of greater wisdom and acquaintance have prevailed less So that I have thereupon concluded that these kind of feudes against charity may have in them somwhat of the property of the tarantulaes stingings which be cured not by the best musick but the fittest Another thing I must adde that I never yet heard of any that so much as endeavoured to allay our religious distempers by the generall lights I go upon without which notwithstanding every one will remain so fixed in his own way that little good can be wrought as by daily experience we finde it true The Prince of all to picks in the alaying of these kind of combustions is that of Virgil Sed motos praestat componere fluctus Controversies be written on this side and that invective defiances made on all sides without end confutations of Sects bitter enough every where objections and replies endles some for Papists some against them some against our Protestants some for them some by Presbyterians some by Anabaptists some by Quakers against all some by all sorts against the Quakers But all these kind of disputes be so far from quenching that they adde still more fewel to the fire and make it both to flame more vehement and last longer and spread farther whiles every one remains so inveigled and addicted to his own way that he execrates all the rest and cannot let fall a good word for any or acknowledge a truth in them but Popery the devill of Popery we are so transported with the hatred of it that we could tear it in pieces with our teeth My dislike therfore of such mistakes and ungrounded rancour and the love I bear to a right understanding urge me to attempt what I see in this way no others go about a mitigation of groundles but dangerous animosities I had the very same good purpos when I wrote the Reclaimed Papist but Satan hindered me in that and I am resolved now once again for the good of my Countrey which I dearly love to try if I can compas it another way But I am finally inflamed to this work by a sight of his Majesties most gracious Speech together with the Lord Chancellors unto the two houses of Parliament upon their adjournment in September 1660. where one may evidently see our Sovereigns most earnest and even groaning desire of a moderate and prudent comportment in this Land one of us towards another according to the dictamen of our Christianity and right reason in these matters of Religion together with a promis of his utmost endeavours to our generall satisfaction if we in the interim could but have charity one towards another till he may understand how to please us all Could wisdom and goodnes it self desire ought of us that might either be more facil or rationall or more pleasing than that we should be good to our selves And who would not endeavour to his power what he sees so great a Prince desires as a thing necessary to the welfar of our Land which for want of this moderation hath been lately so miserably harassed and undone My Lord Chancellors words upon his Majesties suggestion are these There are two other particulars which I am commanded to mention which were both mentioned and commended unto you by his Majesty in his declaration from Breda the one for confirmation of sales or other recompens for purchases the other for the composing of those differences and distempers in Religion which have too much disturbed the peace of the Kingdom Two very weighty particulars c. For the first his Majesty hath not been without much thought c. the other of Religion is a sad argument indeed It is a consideration that must make every religious heart to bleed to see religion which should be the strongest obligation and ciment to affection and brotherly kindnes and compassion made now by the pervers wranglings of passionate and froward men the ground of all animosity hatred malice and revenge And this unruly and unmanly passion which no question but the divine nature exceedingly abhorres somtimes and I fear too frequently transports those who are in the right as those who are in the wrong c. These be the learned Chancellors words set down more at large in the last § of my book so grave discreet and patheticall that if they were seriously pondered as they deserv might suffice to put us to a stand even in the highest carreer of our most uncharitable animosities upon Religions account How many waies does the honourable Oratour turn himself to move us to our own welfar how wisely does he select his to picks how sweetly unites how vigorously presses ab essentialibus ab effectibus à contrariis ab inconvenientibus à dissimilibus c. to this effect Religion is the ciment of affection must or can that be the ground of malice Surely that is an evil passion by what
when this was don it had ceased again had not Presbyterian Anabaptist and Independent sprung out of the Puritan disturbed one another and all the land by the same stratagems Thus Haslerig and Vane two grand Puritans antient and mortal enemies both of them unto Roman catholicks when at length they fell out and jarred in this last Rump Parliament they did both in publick and private with the utmost rage imaginable object Popery to one another which they judged both of them to be both the extremest vilification could be cast upon any one and also most advantageous to him that objects it every mouth and book in the long Parliaments time said no less of the Kings army wherewith he defended himself that they were all Papists and Popishly affected all the adherents of Tectour Oliver after he had broken and shamefully dismist the long Parliament said the like of it the friends of the dissolved long Parliament which were a considerable part of the land asserted the like of Oliver and his souldiers and so did great store of good Protestants otherwise grave men say confidently that the red coat souldiers were all Jesuites and Papists and the same red coat soldiers both swindged and pillaged all the land upon the same account laying popery to us all and made us smart for it over and over as if the very notion and name of Popery had even turned our brains and made us all mad If we do but hear any one say of his neighbour that he is a Papist our blood rises presently against him whom we never saw and if we know him one we shall beleev any evil that is spoken of him be it never so incredible or even impossible and are apt to imagin and speak it our selves in any place A rational man would hardly beleev that som English men should report confidently even in Rome to the citisens there that the Parliament men and judges who murdered our good King here in England were most of them papists who indeed were all of them more profest enemies to the Papist or Catholick than to the King himself So that the malice of popery once taken away and as it expresses catholick religion it deserves none we should not know in our religious feudes what to object to one another for disparagement It would seem a strang thing if after all our warres and the mischiefs we have either done or intended one another upon the account of popery it should prove at last so good and sincere a religion that we can never more truly commend our neighbour than when we lay popery to his charg deservedly nor ever act greater iniquity than when we persecute him upon that account But indeed if popery be taken as it is now conceived for a fardel of iniquity fraud and treachery then it will least agree to them it is most put upon and is indeed proper only unto them who impose it upon others Hitherto I have endeavoured to take all men off from any basis of private interpretation reason or light within themselvs whereupon they may raise a new religion and wars and broils to maintain it against the Church out of which they sallied And by this the Independent loses his conceived advantage against the Presbyterian this his against the Protestant and the Protestant his against the Roman Catholick What we are to fix upon I have here and there intermingled although very sparingly and he told us it long ago who said If any will be my disciple let him deny himself Fourth Chapter All Religions who have opposition to the Catholick are equally innocent to one another as likewise is the Roman religion truly innocent and unblamable to them all §. 17. History of religion I Have proceeded hitherto with a kind of negligent carefulnes as I may so call it not lapping up my discours with pithy argumentations and a formal order but letting it flow loose and intermingled that it may delight all and withall profit any that will read seriously but now that these contents of my fourth chapter may connaturally appear unto the sight of every one I will to refresh my readers appetite a little leave even that method too and that he may discern of himself without any further discours of mine both how all the several wayes of religion here in England are equally innocent and withall that the Roman catholick is absolutely unblamable I will make a brief narration of the ingress and progress of Christianity in this land unto these present times and leav the concluding inference unto every mans own judgment Truth needs not the help of art and it s very natural appearance is the best argument can be made for it I know there be many eaglesighted men that are able to trace the proceedings of states and policy and religion from far yet becaus generally men live at home and see no further than the present which suffices nothing at all for judgment in these our turbulent affairs I must crave leav of those great heroes very briefly to run over that story which although they do well enough know already yet to the generality of Englishmen whom in this my discours I serv and labour for is so utterly unknown that they do not so much as dream of any such thing In the thirty fifth year of our Lord when Sulpitius Galba and Cornelius Sylla were consuls all the Christians in Jerusalem except only the apostles being disperst abroad upon that great persecution which cut off St. Stephen the Church of God did spread and propagate upon that occasion into several countries not only of Judea and Samaria but Phaenicia Cyprus Antioch Damascus and round about beyond the borders of Palestin At that time Lazarus Mary Magdalen Martha with Marcella her handmaid Maximin a disciple and Joseph of Arimathea that noble decurion against whom the Jews were more vehemently incensed were after much pillaging and many injurious affronts put together into a ship without sail in which notwithstanding by the conduct of that providence they worshiped they arrived safe at last in Marselles in France where Joseph of Arimathea so far companion of the common danger with them left them to divine protection and is said haply by means of some Brittish merchant in those coasts to have sailed thence into this our isle of Britanny where by the power of his words and holy life having converted many of our Brittons unto faith he ended his dayes the testimony of whose sanctity that strange thorn of Glasenbury abbey which grew green and flourished every Christmas day remained even to our times This story of a fact so long ago atchieved although it be obscured by that vicissitude of time which at length buries all things yet it servs so much as we have of it to shew that the religion he brought was catholick since the same antiquities that speak his arrival here and his conversion of people mention their erection of crosses shrines oratories altars monasteries and the like
which was infinite eas both for rich and poor even unto all eternity but these once pillaged and destroyed vanishing in particular mens hands like water through the fingers whereof nothing at all considerable is kept Nay he that was before the richest and noblest king in Enrop after this vast spoil which a man would think were enough to set up any Prince that was never so low became so very poor before his death that he was forced to make adulterate and leather-coin to supply his wants and of all the great families that were enriched with that spoil there is not one in twenty that keeps up his head at this day Queen Mary stopped this torrent for a while but it burst forth again in Queen Elisabeths reign who also found it so impetuous that she with all her subtle counsel could not tell how to wield or rule a people of so many heads and factions as had then flown together in the land out of several nations and endeavoured to perswade the people every one to their own way of reformation as the onely pure one Yet the Queen notwithstanding being declared illegitimate in her fathers daies thought it safer all things considered to leav off her ancient religion in which she had by catholick byshops received the Crown than to disgust the resolute Protestants All the difficulty was how to content even them being so severally biassed that no one thing could do it French Protestants the Calvinists and Suinglians were mo in number but German Protestants of greater repute and both these and those so subdivided into parties as there appeared no hopes to pleas any one without the offence of all the rest She concluded therefore by the advice of her counsel which saw a necessity of it to recall episcopacy which had been now some years banished by whose awe and power the rabble might be brought to som order And becaus the catholick byshops who were now all of them so many as remained alive imprisoned would not be induced either by promis or threats to ordain her any and Protestant byshops there were none upon earth she appointed her own divines by her autority and power to create one another which kind of ordination though it were not onely ridiculous to catholicks but hateful also to the greater part of Protestants who in all their reformations that were ever yet made jointly execrated episcopacy as the main badg of popery yet the Queen provided by an Act that none upon pain of her displeasure and further penalties should laugh at it Thus was settled and English Protestant Church neither according to Luther Melanchthon Calvin or any of those first Protestant teachers much less the Roman catholick and yet too a part of every thing as it were on purpos to pleas all at least to stop their mouths The name of Protestants we assumed from Luther as the most ancient and honourable of the reformation the doctrin for the most part from Calvin as most pure and our episcopacy in imitation of the Catholick as most safe and so we were neither one nor the other and yet in some sens all We pulled down altars which Luther kept up and set up episcopacy which Luther pulled down We joyned with Calvin in his doctrin but not his government we joyned with Catholicks in their form of government but not in their doctrin We cast off the Priests albe and vestment to pleas Calvinists we keep still the surplice to comply with Luther and a sacrament or two in condescention to the Catholick who delivered them with the addition of more Our ministers mourned in black to imitate the Papist priests that were then only in repute and yet they did it with a wife in their hand that Luther might not take exception whether the wife were virgin or widdow to satisfie Calvin who without scruple of irregularity married a tailors widow For Luthers sake we defied the Pope for Calvins satisfaction we bore our selvs towards the King as if he were little concerned in spiritual affairs and yet to affront the Catholicks we called him head of our Church We preached the word becaus Catholicks amongst other things used to do it we made no sacrifice becaus Calvin abhorred it and yet we kneeled in communion becaus Luther liked it The mass we cashiered to satisfie Calvin for Luthers sake we drew a compendious Common-prayer book out of it and the breviary and to content the Catholicks we kept all the gospel entire The real presence with Calvin we cried down yet we kept an altar-table covered with linnen in some compliance to Luther and we bowed our knee as we past by though it were a meer naked board in imitation of Catholicks who used to do so to their inshrined Messias We kept up the pulpit that Catholicks who built them for that use might not except against us for pulling down all we removed the altar-table to pleas Calvin and instead of the crucifix upon the rood loft we placed a naked unicorn to content Luther and Catharin Bore To affront Catholicks we preached down good works and charity we cried up faith for Luthers sake and hope becaus we could not see how it could stand with Calvins certainty of salvation we left to his disposal c. §. 20. Item I Cannot see why a wise counsel and Parliament may not with as much autority form a Church both for doctrin and government as either Luther or Calvin their judgments are moe in number more versed in weighty affairs more clear and free from that passion which transported those good birds to their reformation And this mixture of things by the discretion of so many grave men if a Church as well as other polities be of human institution is so far from derogating that it augments the splendour I am sure this Church of ours marched forward with a very handsome show and some tranquility of progress even until the reign of our good King Charls the first when it was with a violent wild rage miserably defaced In all which time of its flourish the distressed Catholick was with all exact care persecuted all the land over both in their livelihood and dignities and liberty and somtimes life too although their imprisonments and loss of their estates did not so much afflict them as two other vexations the one to their fame the other to conscience both of them unto good and upright men almost insupportable For the press and pulpit were ever sweating out somthing against the honour of Roman catholicks which hath rendered them at length as black as ingenious calumny can make them The conscience torture was a double edged Oath drawn on purpos to entangle those catholicks whom threats punishment or promises could not move to desert their former way of faith and it could not but take for going under the specious name of Allegiance and Supremacy and withall implicitely involving as the letter sounded an abnegation of ancient Christianity it would if they refused
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
Antichrist frog caterpillar serpent c. Besides the absence of the person we calumniate flout and expose to derision is a circumstance that does not a little aggravate the fact and renders it no less foolish and irrational than 't is unjust and rude It is a wonder that our Protestant byshops should countenance these disorders A wise woman will not hear her child call her neighbor Whore without the application of a just rebuke knowing that such like impudence being countenanced may imbolden him at last to call Her so too Indeed the judgment is already com home to our doors for now our byshops of England are as contumeliously treated in the pulpits by their own ministers as the byshop of Rome was by their connivance and applaus abused aforetime in the same place by the self-same persons Nor have ther been any in this land more furiously bent these last twenty years against our good King than they who to flatter our former princes most passionately reviled the Pope and the seed of those men who in the dayes of Edward the sixth Queen Elisabeth and King James plotted so vehemently against the Catholick Church and nobility even to their utter disgrace and ruin under a pretens of establishing our State were now the onely great fighting sticklers against our State and Monarchy I give only this note by the way to reach all men to do to another as they would others do to them and no othewaies for God is just and punishes all iniquity of men oftentimes with those very rods and scorpions which themselves used before to plague their innocent neghbours who when they knew the justice of God yet would they not understand that they which do such things are worthy of death and not only they who do them but they also who consent and yield compliance to the doers But that I may a little lay open to my countreymen the unreasonablenes of our proceedings in hating and reviling a Person whom Catholicks on the contrary do so much esteem and love to what I have already said let thus much be added That the Pope is one whose whole life and study is to defend innocence promote concord and maintain unity of Faith in the world nor is ther any man but he alone that looks to the general safety of all Christianity and in all times like a faithful pastour he hath so don it as if it were not so much his office to do it as his nature And this we might easily see if we would look over antient stories and not suffer our selves to be misled by the reports of those who think themselves undon if he that would curb their extravagancies should com to be thought of according to his true deserts I might make it good in many particulars but I will content my self onely to run over briefly the eighteen general councels that have been in several ages in the Christian world and their results and motives wherby men may be perswaded to think that the Pope is so far from what we in England are made to conceiv of him that he is the only man that hath fought in all times for the unity of faith for concord and the good of all Christendom when other byshops and believers under him began many of them to revolt and disturb our welfar Nor had we had any thing left us at this day either of truth or unity humanly speaking had not he been set over us and watched to make and keep us happy even against som of our wills 1. Arrius a priest in Alexandria had seduced many priests deacons nuns byshops and princes to beleev amiss against the divinity of Jesus Christ our Lord when Pape Sylvester rose up against him and fought stoutly for the honour of our Messias in his general councel at Nice in the year 325. and so did other Popes his successours after him for som hundred years together 2. Pape Damasus in the second general councel at Constantinople with the like spirit of fortitude maintained as valiantly the divinity of the Holy Ghost against Macedonius priest and byshop of Constantinople and Eunomius that insolent Cappadocian and all their retinue as he did likewise that of Christ an 381. 3. When Nestorius a byshop with his priest Anastasius gave great scandals in Constantinople by denying the virgin Mary to be mother of God for that in Christ they said were two persons and one of them was the son of the virgin the other son of God Pape Celestin stood up and quelled them and all their adherents in his councel at Ephesus in the year 430. 4. Pape Leo in a fourth generall councell at Chalcedon an 450. stopped the mouthes of Eutyches an Abbot in Constantinople and Dioscorus deacon in Alexandria who by their great dislike of Nestorius opinion ran into the other extream and affirmed Christ our Lord to have not only one person but one nature too which was as scandalous and as much against the faith of beleevers as was the former 5. In the fifth general councel at Constantinople an 553. when all the oriental part of the Church was in a combustion about the three heads or contents of Theodore byshop of Mopsuesten an epistle of Ibas and Theodoret byshop of Cyrus his writings against S. Cyril who had been all three honourably mentioned in the councel of Chalcedon and yet their writings were then found very scandalous and faulty Pape Vigilius though very sick and weak yet by his writings from his chamber he laboured abundantly and to good effect to asswage the feud 6. Pape Agatho in the sixth general synod at Constantinople an 680. when Cyrus Sergius Macarius and many other learned unquiet priests and byshops monothelites had spread the Eutichian heresy under other notions and taught that Christ had but one will and operation with much offence to the people he rose up and manfully resisted and subdued them 7. Pape Adrian combated no less for the use of images and crucifix against Gregorius Neocaesariensis Paul patriarch of Constantinople and several other Iconoclasts who tore and preached them down contrary to the judgment and practis both of the Christians then living and all their predecessors in the seventh general councel at Nice an 787. And in one and the same place was maintained by the whole catholick world both the images and divinity of the crucified Messias 8. Not long after in the eight general councel at Constantinople an 869 Pape Adrian the second defended the innocence of the great patriarch Ignatius whom suttle Photius by the help of some potentates in Constantinople had expelled his byshoprick and put himself in his place miserably harassing and vexing both the good prelate Ignace and all his adherents to the great disturbance of the East who were all in a hot feud about it 9. In the ninth general councel at Lateran an 1122 when after infinity of troubles the Church had recovered her peace pape Callixtus the second like a good vigilant pastour laboured to