or more Popes since And yet many of their Church took that Oath and some of them defended it in writing and 't is taken and defended in like manner to this day By many others it is and hath been refused Whether as being contrary to the Principles of their Sect or whether in Reverence to the Popes Prohibition and possibly some may have refused to take the Oath upon some scruple which they have conceived against the wording of it But whatsoever the cause of their refusal may be the State hath no way left to distinguish and therefore being assured of the lawfulness of the Oath in these Terms and being aware of the wicked design with which it is forbidden hath just cause to secure it self by their peril It hath surely no cause to look on them as Friends that prefer their own scruples to its safety much less that break its just Commands to serve or to please its open Enemy And for this cause that wise and gracious Prince suffered some of their Clergy that were obnoxious otherwise to fall under the edge of the Law But never in his nor his Sons days did any one of that Communion suffer death for any Crime against the State that would clear himself of it by taking the Oath of Allegiance From what I have said it sufficiently appears that the asserting an undue Authority in the Pope or Bishop of Rome is properly to be called Popery 't is the chief thing and the only thing in the Popes esteem 't is most hurtful and dangerous and the worst thing in the Construction of the Law From whence I shall infer that among Roman Catholicks some are properly Papists and some are improperly called so And however they are both of one Communion and meet together in the same Offices of Worship and therefore cannot easily be distinguished unless they please to distinguish themselves yet there is a great difference between them As great a difference in relation to the State as there is between Wens and useful Members in the Body They that wholly deny the Popes Supremacy cannot properly be called Papists but Vnreformed Catholicks as men generally were here in England in the later part of King Henry VIII's days And they as I believe were the first that used the word Papists to denote the Assertors of that outed Supremacy Nor can they properly be called so in France or other Countreys who deny the Pope to have any Authority over them by Divine Right but grant it only by such Canons and Laws as being made upon good Considerations may on better be abrogated and repealed I know there are some of this mind in England and do believe there would appear to be many if they found sufficient cause to declare it Now though such men believe the same erroneous Tenets and use the same Superstitious and Idolatrous Rites that Papists do namely such as the Pope himself has made the Terms of his Communion and therefore they are properly in Communion with him yet those Tenets and Rites are not properly Popery Though they are bad enough otherwise yet if they keep them to themselves they are not hurtful to Humane Society As being consistent with the safety of the Kingdom and with obedience to Government and with Justice of Contracts and love of Neighbours with all which at least collectively taken Popery in the proper Notion of it is inconsistent and generally held so not only by all other Christians but by a very great and considerable part of the Roman Catholicks themselves They are properly Papists that hold the Pope as Vicar of Christ by Divine Right to have a Power and Authority over all Christians And yet if they give him this power in Spirituals only and not also in Temporals they are but half-Papists And so they will find the Pope accounts them if they have occasion to make use of him They only are thorough-Papists that acknowledge his Authority in both First directly in Spiritual things and then in Temporals also whether directly or whether indirectly in order to Spirituals it matters not Let him have the Power and he will trust himself with the use of it Now this thorough-Papist being a man after the Popes own heart I shall from him take the perfect measures of Popery He is one that asserts and maintains or at least practically submits to the Popes pretended Power and Usurpation over all Kings and People in their Temporals and over all Bishops and Churches in their Spirituals and in all things over all persons on earth not only separately but collectively in their Parliaments or Councils and consequently over all their Canons Laws and Definitions In few words that owns him to be the Infallible Oracle and Universal Vicar of God a kind of God upon Earth who has no limits to his Commission or to the execution of it but his own will and pleasure This most excellent Systeme it is that only passes at Rome for the Catholick Doctrine This is authorized by the Pope this is taught in his own Church at Rome and elsewhere by his Stipendiaries or other Dependants And this is properly Popish for it belongs not to any other Christians of whatsoever Church Sect or Denomination Nor is it owned by the far greater number of them that are or call themselves Roman Catholicks I have given my own private Opinion as well of the true as of the false Notion of Popery and have intimated withal though but occasionally what my Opinion is as well of the great Concernment of the Christian World if not of all Mankind to suppress Popery truly such as of the little occasion there is for any great severity to be used against that for Name-sake which in truth is not Popery nor has any essential or necessary conjunction with it Now to enter upon the main design of this Paper which according to the title is a Consideration or Search for the true way of suppressing of Popery I declare my design to be against Popery in its proper Notion And whereas I have shewn a lower degree of it to consist in owning the Popes power in Spirituals only by suppressing of this I intend at least such a restraint upon it as may suffice to keep it from being hurtful or troublesom For the other degree which cannot but be hurtful wheresoever it is in being I declare my design to be no less than the extinguishing of it at least out of England and if it were possible from the face of the Earth Of this matter to deliver my thoughts with all freedom I confess it seems to me that undistinguishing Severity whether of Laws or of the execution of them against all Roman Catholicks in general cannot be the true way to suppress Popery much less to rid it out of this Kingdom or any other of his Majesties Dominions The general Motives which induce me to think so are these three 1. That such
be made Criminals nor should any Criminal suffer more by any Law than was meant by the Legislator Now 't is commonly said there are very many RomanCatholicks I hope the far greater number of them in England who maintain no Principles or Opinions which destroy the Fundamentals of Government or disturb the peace of the Kingdom nor hold any of those Opinions which are essential to Popery namely which assert any undue Authority in the Pope or as it is exprest in the Statute which withdrawSubjects from their naturalObedience or move them to promise Obedience to the pretended Authority of theSee of Rome There are many of that Communion who profess that they hate detest all such Doctrines And therefore to indifferent Judges how can it but seem very hard to extend the severity of theLetter of our Penal Laws against the Legislators intention to all Roman Catholicks universally and indistinctly without any exception in favour of those many that hold no such Opinions and that are in all respects truly Loyal and peaceable Surely the punishment cannot seem just or equitable which has not theLaw for it and that has not theLaw for it which is against the intention of the Legislator Next I say with submission that granting the intention of the Statute-Laws of our Land and of the Legislators by whom they were made to have been against all Roman Catholicks indistinctly and not only against the mere Papalins yet according to the Eternal Law of Reason and ancient practice of Christianity it may seem in such case than an undistinguishing execution of the Laws would neither be just nor equitable For first it seems very unreasonable to go about to force men to change their judgments in any thing that hurts none but themselves and especially in so weighty a matter as is that of Religion It is confess'd that the Religion of Roman Catholicks differs very much from that which is established by Law and I am much to blame if I know not it is Erroneous in those points in which it differs For which Reason I doubt not they ought to be restrain'd from publick exercise of it and as far as it is possible from hurting others by the Propagation of their Errours I also grant that by some kind of Punishment less than death or ruine men that err may and ought to be awaken'd and stirr'd up to seek better Information and to attend to the means of it that they may be reclaim'd from their Errours I also grant that it belongs to the Legislative Power to define how far and by what means all this should be done without which I see no way to preserve established Truth or to suppress Heresie in any Kingdom But all the punishment that is necessary for this purpose may be inflicted without any force upon Conscience as I shall have occasion to shew toward the end of this Paper Much less is that any force upon Conscence when men are punish'd for Treason or for treasonable Principles For those Principles are Treason in Bullion and will be coyn'd out whensoever the Pope pleases to set the Mint going and that he will do whensover he thinks it time to pay off any King that does not please him But I cannot say so when men that have no such Principles are punish'd as if they had and are either put to death or made unable to live unless they will part with those things in their Religion which are purely and simply erroneous and which have no ill influence upon the State any otherwise than as it is inconvenient to have different Religions in being together in the Kingdom This Severity is truly a force upon Conscience And 't is very unreasonable besides that the simply erroneous should be made to feel the weight of that punishment than which no greater could be inflicted by Law if their Errours were heightned and envenom'd with all the Malignity of that which we call properly Popery 'T is also against the ancient practice of Christianity For the Christians when they came to have power in their hands did not punish either Pagans or Jews with either Sanguinary or Mulctative Laws nor for ought that appears thought it reasonable for them so to do I confess they did after a while punish Donatists with pecuniary penalties and kept both them and all the rest under divers incapacities and the same reason they had for so doing is enough to induce the Church and State of England to deal as they do now with Dissenters and especially with Roman Catholicks in keeping them under incapacitating Laws If it be objected that those who were so favourably dealt with in those first Christian times did not communicate with any that were dangerous to the State as those do who pretend to the like favour amongst us and that while they communicate with men of disloyal Principles it may be thought not unfit to involve them in the same punishment that is due to men of those Principles It will be answer'd that they do not communicate with them in any disloyal Doctrine or Practice and therefore they ought not to be joyn'd with them in the punishment of those Doctrines or Practices God forbid that Innocents should be handled as Nocents for being of the same Communion with them We should think it very hard and unreasonable that honest men and good Protestants who communicate in the Church and Worship of God with such as prove to be Traytors or Felons must therefore partake with them in suffering for their misdeeds If it be farther objected that among the Roman Catholicks there are many who are faln off from the Church of England and that such men at least deserve punishment for their Apostacy and much more the Priests or others that wheedled them away I cannot deny that in this case we have a just provocation to Severity And we have an example before us in the Roman Church which if we should follow it would go hard with such persons They which turn from them to us find no mercy in those Popish Countries where the Inquisition is setled nor much favour in any other But we are not bound to follow those examples And therefore setting them aside and considering things without Provocation I must needs say that the simplicity of most of their Converts seems to me to deserve rather pity than any hard punishment They are generally such as understood not their own Religion before they suffer'd themselves to be fool'd out of it Otherwise if they are learned and knowing men who thus leave our Communion which I think rarely happens and specially if they are Converts to downright Popery it cannot but argue that such persons are vehemently lead by their affections and therefore they may be justly suspected of ill design and of forming to themselves some interest against the Laws And if that be true it cannot be deny'd that they deserve to suffer all that the Laws have ordain'd for such persons Yet if men of knowledge and
the King in such manner as the Laws of the Land do or shall prescribe and who are firmly perswaded that the contrary Positions of Popery are as bad as they are declared to be in the Oath of Allegiance And some of them have declared this very honestly and publickly in their Writings both heretofore and of late days I think I should do them no service in naming them For as things now are it would only provoke and enable those of the former sort to do them mischief Which we see they are prone enough to do by their traducing them publickly though Priests of the same Church and branding them with the Characters of Schism Heresie Apostacy c. and thereby setting the people of their Communion against them But whereas those honest men of that Communion tell us that there are many more of their Principles among the Secular Clergy and also among the Regulars of inferior rank and condition I cannot but say that if they are not mistaken there is a great fault among them on the other hand Those many good men of whom they tell us are much to blame that they do not declare against the Pope's Usurpation but rather strengthen it by their sinful compliance and silence Either they do not think it so bad as they pretend or else what Wretches are they to juggle with the Consciences of their People How can they answer it to God from whom they pretend to have these Souls given them in charge that they do not warn them of so dangerous a sin that has slain its thousands and ten thousands in our streets Why do they suffer so great a scandal to lye upon their Church and such a danger to hang over the Civil State while they that are the Spiritual Watchmen see it and yet hold their peace Nay worse than so the Dog fawns upon the Wolf These honest men if they may yet be so called hold very good quarter and fellowship with those whom they know to be Zealots for Popery They make their Court to them of whom they cannot be ignorant that both their Principles and their Interest lead them to it that is in effect they are so officious to stand by and hold the horses of them that are committing a Robbery or worse employ'd in doing all those evils above-mentioned I cannot see how they can excuse this any otherwise than by alledging That all their Compliance is for fear of being ruin'd and imprison'd and starv'd as some of their Brethren have been for doing their duty and more are like to be if some course be not taken to protect them against the rage of their implacable Enemies Not to judge of the sufficiency of this excuse I confess there is reason for what they say For 't is visible what became of those Church-men of their Communion who have given the highest Test of their Loyalty who have scorn'd all those servile Compliances and who have declared against Popery by their Actions and Writings 'T is the easier to observe this because there have been so few of them I think not above two or three in an Age. They have been fain to stand the mark of a violent endless Persecution both from the Court of Rome and from all its Faction in England And however it came to pass they did not find that countenance which they might have expected from the State in defence of whose Rights they drew all that wrath upon themselves We have a great example of this in Preston who having both taken the Oath of Allegiance himself and maintain'd it against all the great Champions of Popery was fain to take Sanctuary in the Clink and glad to hide his head there for many years before he died Another Learned man Dr. Barnes the famous Author of Romano-Catholicus Pacificus had not leave to choose a Prison to dye in For he was spirited by the Pope's Emissaries and carried away to Rome and thrown into the Inquisition there What became of him since we shall know at the day of Judgment If these be their ways to maintain and to propagate Popery we cannot be to seek for our way to suppress it For it is manifest that this cannot be more effectually done than by such a Discrimination as has been propounded On the one hand it would be a means to preserve those few men of that Communion among us who have already declared against the Popes Vsurpations And the same course that should be taken to keep them out of danger would also be a means to free all other men of their Principles from the fear under which they have been kept so many years Whether at this present they have more or less cause to apprehend the Popish Faction they will be the better able to judg when they see what is done in Monsieur Luzance's case For as there is no reason to doubt that those Gentlemen if they find they may do what they please will do no less to those of their own Communion that oppose their grand design than they attempted on him that had deserted their Communion So if the State shall think fit to check their audacious Insolence in this case by some exemplary punishment though I doubt they will not forsake the Land upon it yet it is to be hoped that they will upon some other Act of State to which this may be a very good Introduction Sure enough if the Laws were duly executed on all those that will not give sufficient Security to the State we should soon be rid of all or most part of their Company And then it would be a time for better men to shew themselves Those that did give Security would be obliged in their own defence if no otherwise to own the Principles by which they were warranted to give it Besides it would be as well their interest as their duty to disabuse that great part of the Laity whom those Hildebrandists had fed with lies these fourscore years It would concern them to possess themselves as well of their Consciences as of their Chappels and therefore to make them see how vast a distance there is between that Faith which had been chiefly inculcated into them I mean the properly Popish Faith and the Primitive Christian and to convince them what a cursed Immorality they have been taught all this while under the name of Obedience to the Church and to shew them that the way which their former Guides have conspired to miscal by the glorious name of Holy Martyrdom is the down-right way to Hell Having thus declar'd that most necessary Truth to which both their Interest and Conscience led them the same Reasons would oblige them to love home and to study the Peace of their Country They would have little business at Rome and that would be so ill done there that they would not be encourag'd to send thither again On the other hand of the Pope's Faction in England if the Laws were so executed as I have said none
diligence in our intestine Divisions and in the growth of Atheism which we cannot but be sadly sensible are both much increased since the late Toleration In these and the like practises they plainly declare that rather then not bring in Popery they would drive out Christianity before them and not leave the name of Christ to the people that will not receive the Pope as his Vicar How those Churches where he is so received and bears rule as he would do among us are blessed in it we may partly guess by the means that he employs to get us under him For it is seldom known that they who are so greedy of power use it well when they have it But not to go by guess when we have a Map before us We may see the condition of his Subjects describ'd by some of themselves that writ in those times when men durst write of such things when there was no Inquisition for them nor no Index Expurgatorius for their Writings I believe a more cruel Bondage a more miserable Thraldom and Yoke then they describe never was among the barbarous Nations I believe also the Inquisition where it is introduc'd hath not made their condition easier since And that it is not introduc'd in some Countreys as namely in France and Flanders they may thank the poor Protestants for it Where such are the Pope will have a care not to make too much noise for fear of frighting away the Birds that he would take And yet in France where there is no Inquisition he found other ways not long since to make the Iansenists feel the weight of his hand and that severely for no other reason but because in certain School-points they presum'd to oppose another party that were more firm to his Interests If this be his way of keeping Unity for which they so much cry up his Government though men do not speak so well of the Russian which keeps Unity better I see no reason why we should not be content and endure our dissentions or rather find some other way to compose them than by putting our necks into a yoke which being once fastned it will be too late for us to complain afterward We must either draw as he would have us or else go to the Shambles For the Temporal State how it hath been turmoild with this Papal Usurpation would ask a large Book to describe as the matter deserves I shall only say this that ever since it began it hath hung like a Comet over Kingdoms and Nations and shed forth direful Influences on all that have been any way obnoxious to it But it came not to its height till Pope Hildebrand's days whom their heavenly Muster-Roll calleth St. Gregory VII A Saint no doubt worthy of Red Letters for he caused the shedding of more Christian Blood than Mahomet himself and as Mahomet did he taught his Sect to do the same and merit Heaven by it His Dictates are commonly known being publish'd both in his Books and in the Councils I appeal to any one that hath read them whether Antichrist at his coming if he be yet to come can speak greater things Sure I am nothing can be more contrary to the humble and meek spirit of Christ. Among these there is one Doctrine briefly expressed but more amply declared in his Bulls and in his actions pursuant to them It is concerning a power that he assumes to himself to depose Kings and to dispose of their Kingdoms Which Arrogant Claim such as none but the Devil ever made before him hath ever since been continued by his Successors and yet is as often as they see occasion both declared and manifested by the like Bulls and actions The woful effects of it throughout this Western part of Europe are notoriously known to all that read History having torn the Bowels of this part of Christendom like an Earthquake for these last six hundred years having shaken the Foundations of all Empires Kingdoms and States involving all of them at one time or other in bloody and cruel Wars accursed and unnatural Rebellions and all other consequent Calamities In Germany particularly where it first began to operate The two next Emperours were fain to fight no less than sixty Field-battels to keep their Crowns upon their Heads In France it hath wrought proportionably Other Countreys have suffered their share But none more than England in King Iohn's miserable days And that had been forgotten in 88. if the design had taken which God only could and did defeat when otherwise this Doctrine in all probability had destroyed the English Kingdom and Nation we had been gone and our name had scarce remained upon the face of the Earth The sad experience of the manifold mischiefs and dangers both to Church and State from this pretended Authority taught our Fore-fathers at sundry times to provide against it by Laws with such Penalties annex'd to them as they found needful to prevent the like mischiefs and dangers for the future It appears that the ancientest Laws of this kind were made by them that lived and died in the Roman Communion I mean the Laws of Provisors and Praemunire enacted some hundreds of years since by Roman Catholick Kings and their Parliaments who could have no design against any other of those things we call Popery for they held the same erronious Opinions which our now-Papists do though they held them not as Articles of Faith But they endeavoured by those Laws to secure themselves against the daily Encroachment of the Pope and his Faction in the Roman Church When those Banks were found insufficient to restrain the growing Torrent within its bounds they found it needful to stop the Channel to exclude the Papacy it self and turn it out of the Kingdom This was done by King Henry VIII upon such a Provocation as perhaps would have moved a much gentler Prince to do the same For he was made to dance Attendance upon the Court of Rome five or six years for Sentence in a Cause which he commenced not of himself but by advice of the Popes Legat and his Confessor A Cause which the Pope himself at first had encouraged in which he had the judgment of the whole Church of England and divers Foreign Universities of his side His exclusion of the Papal Authority was by Acts both of Parliament and of Convocation almost no man dissenting They both form'd the Oath of Supremacy and took it themselves and joyn'd with him in imposing it in direct opposition to this grand point And yet this King himself and all the Members of those Bodies were firm to all things else that we call Popery It was otherwise in the time of Queen Elizabeth of blessed Memory who at the entrance of her Reign not only repair'd her Father's Fence against the Papal Authority but also purged the Church of all those Errours and Corruptions which are yet retain'd and own'd by all them of the Roman Communion And yet she
laid no penalty on any of them but the loss of their Ecclesiastical Preferments and the payment of Twelve pence for every Sunday that they were absent from Church This is all that they suffer'd for many years till the Pope took upon him to turn her out of her Kingdom When he had publish'd his Bull to that purpose and sent it hither among her Subjects and some of them had taken Arms and tried all ways to put that Bull in execution then she enacted a Law to forbid any of her Subjects under pain of Premunire to bring Bulls or any other such Trumpery from Rome and made it Treason for any of them to be reconciled as they call it to the Roman Church Yet for six years more though some were taken in the offence none suffer'd the penalty of that Law When the Pope proceeded further in Hostility against her to give away her Crown to invade her Dominions and to practise against her life when she found that under pretence of Religion he drew over many of her Subjects and train'd them up as his spiritual Janizaries in Houses founded for that purpose when she found that at their return they fully answered the ends of their Education and rather listed Souldiers against her than made Proselytes to their Religion then she executed those former Laws and made more from time to time as they gave her occasion In which Laws though she found it necessary to forbid sundry Acts which were purely Religious and to make it penal to such as were taken at them because she had no other way to find out them that were dangerous to the state yet she made it sufficiently appear that the design of such Laws was only against dangerous persons by the great care she took to turn the edge of them from those that were otherwise She gave private Instructions to her Judges that before any was to suffer by the Sanguinary Laws they should examine him how he stood affected to the State whether he owned Hildebrands Doctrine whether he approved the Popes Sentence whether he would side with him against her Majesty If they found any one in those Circumstances of a Prisoner dead in Law so desperately bold that he durst own a Foreign power in defiance of her that had his life at her mercy she would not have her Judges spare him that she might be very sure would not have spared her nor her Kingdom Otherwise if they stood right as to the Civil Authority it was her will that none should suffer death And though they were such of the Clergy whom she knew to be the Popes Disciples and Pensioners and therefore thought it not safe to trust them in her Kingdom yet if they gave her a fair answer she sent them out of it quietly And thus she dismist some of them that proved afterward as errant Traytors as any whom she put to death But for many other of their Clergy and especially those who were Priests in Queen Mary's days knowing them to be of peaceable Principles she suffered them to live peaceably in her Kingdom Of the Laity likewise she put none to death that would disown the Popes temporal power She took only a pecuniary Mulct with which she thought fit to repair her self for the charge she was put to in defending her self against the Head of their Communion When that charge was apprehended to be over namely at King Iames his coming to the Crown they were discharged even of those pecuniary penalties The King knew of no Sentence that the Pope had issued forth against himself and finding no trouble from those of his Communion he was willing to give none Nor did he till he had tried them None suffer'd among them in any kind none had cause to be in fear of any suffering no distinction was made between them and other Subjects But this calm was soon interrupted by the breaking out of a Conspiracy which yet seemed only to waken the vigilance of the State For no great matter was done upon it till another broke forth that of the Powder-Treason which out-went all former examples And then when it was almost too late he understood by searching into this Conspiracy that though the Pope had not deprived him by name of the Kingdom yet he had barred his right to it by a sufficient Description having sent out two Breves before the Queens death in which he commanded all his Catholicks not to suffer any Protestant how near soever in Blood to succeed her in the Kingdom This Papal Precept it was to which the Authors themselves ascribed their Gunpowder-Treason And that the King might not always be in the like danger he saw no way but to punish them that heeded such Precepts Other Papists he excused and made himself as it were their Compurgator declaring to the World that he believ'd they were innocent and peaceable Only they were not to be excused for keeping ill Company For they joyned in all Religious Acts with those of Hildebrand's Sect therefore they ought not to think much if their purses paid for it But otherwise the King did what lay in him to distinguish them And therefore he provided the Oath of Alleigance by the taking or refusing whereof he might be able to know the one from the other That Oath was made at first in such Terms as might perhaps have raised scruple in those that held the Papacy to be of Divine Right though not in Temporals but only in Spiritual things Though most of that Communion held otherwise in France and few held so in England in King Henry VIII's days Yet lest that might stick with any innocent person the King that desired to hurt none that might be spared and well knowing all their Principles for he had studied their Authors therefore took upon him so to moderate the Oath that it could not pinch the Conscience of any Roman Catholick that was not first infected with Hildebrand's Principles And they were generally so well satisfied with the Oath in those Terms in which he had conceived it that it was forthwith taken by the Superior of the Secular Clergy and by many other both of the Clergy and Laity Few stuck at it but those of Hildebrand's Sect whom the King had a mind to single out of the Herd and to rid the Land of them that he might live quietly with the other Roman Catholicks But this pleased not at Rome where only those are the Darlings And it concerned the Pope to assert his own power in Temporals which being something the younger he is more fond of than that in Spirituals and yet the elder being the more popular he wilfully mistook and perswaded the people as if he had believed himself that the Oath was against his power in Spirituals But he mistook not in forbidding the Oath of Allegiance to be taken by any Catholick upon any Terms whatsoever His Prohibition was under pain of his Curse both which were confirm'd by one
a course in all likelihood would not prove effectual 2. That if it should prove effectual yet it would be very far from seeming just or equitable 3. It would be against the interest of England in diversContingencies 1. That it would be ineffectual I am persuaded by the well-known experience of above a Hundred years that is of what hath pass'd in this Kingdom ever since the Reformation For notwithstanding all the Penal Laws that have been made and the execution of them which was severe enough at some times we see that still there have been Roman Catholicks ever since and they were never so much lessen'd by their sufferings as by the Court of Wards which took off many of the wealthiest Families But that which made them bear up against sufferings was this as I humbly conceive That by divers of our Laws or by the Interpreters and Executors of them especially of those Laws that had pecuniary Penalties they saw no distinction made between loyal and disloyal between peaceable and turbulent Principles between matters simply of Religion and those which threatned the State The same cause is like to have the same effect still And therefore I think we have just occasion to fear that if all men of that Communion are still equally liable to the same punishments in any kind and accordingly treated it will be thought by themselves if not by others also that their suffering is for some Articles of Catholick Religion and not for any Principles either of Treason or other Papal Superstition which Principles very many of them do as much as any Protestant with all their hearts abhor and are ready to abjure And while they think so it will undoubtedly cause at least a considerable number of them to stand the utmost extremities and thereby the Pope will peradventure gain more Proselytes to his Communion and more strength to his side than he will lose from it Besides the number of their Priests at home and of their Seminaries abroad would not lessen but increase by such undistinguishing Severity For divers of those Sufferers being streightned with want would send their Children beyond Sea to get them off of their hands to have them bred without charge and put into a way of living And they are so brought up and so principled in their Foreign Colledges that let the Laws in England be never so severe they will return hither and not stick to venture their lives in the service Seminaries also would increase For they are so addicted to their Religion beyond Sea that let a Preacher in a good Town sollicite the Charity of people towards the maintenance of such as shall expose their Lives to propagate their Religion and there will quickly be a new Foundation erected for that purpose The Colledge in Sivil was maintain'd by Alms and I think that at Valledolid likewise and yet Scholars lived no where better These two Colledges when the times were most severe to Roman Catholicks sent every year many Priests into England and now in many years send none But would undoubtedly grow numerous again if the Fame of our Severity here should quicken the peoples Charity in those parts which hath been slackned very much of late years Again neigbouring Princes who shall see men persecuted for the same Perswasions which they profess themselves will interpose in their behalf both of their own accord in some measure and much more at the Popes Sollicitation who will be sure to engage all the credit he has with them on such an occasion And the interest of all neighbour States are so interwoven that at one time or other it will be found inconvenient not to gratifie them in such a request There will oftentimes happen another kind of Obstruction even at home from English Protestants themselves For I think it ought to be considered that many Roman Catholicks however abused in their Judgments about some matters of Divine Belief or Worship are esteemed by their Protestant neighbours honest well-meaning men such as they cannot find in their hearts to use hardly without great and evident Cause Others have Relations or Friends or Dependants tied by several interests to them And even strangers to the persons who are to suffer the penalties of the Laws will think it hard to inflict them on men that are no otherwise liable than merely for such Religious Tenets and Rites as have been for many Ages warranted by the Laws and held and practised by all Christian People amongst us So that from one or other of these causes I have mentioned it will prove a very difficult matter to have the Laws executed on Roman Catholicks without Discrimination that is without separating those who are so qualifi'd for pity from those who deserve none in the judgment of any Protestant nay of any true Englishman whatsoever For no man that loveth the Peace of his Country can think fit to spare them who are so fond of a Foreign Government that rather than not be under it they will not spare to involve their Country in Blood and Misery Other men of that Principle have done as bad in former times And we have cause to be jealous of all men of that Religion that they are of the same Principles and will do the same things unless they will secure us by some Act which they may lawfully do being required to it Now it is evident we have too many such among us who are thorough-Papists and Ministers of that Foreign Government and many others who will not secure us by doing any such Act that the State shall require against the interest of that Foreign Government Therefore the State hath just cause to secure it self against them by such Laws as being executed it shall not be in their power to do us hurt But when those Laws are made without any distinction they Herd themselves with others of their Communion and being hunted together they have some little trouble perhaps which they laugh at for they know it will come to nothing After a while good nature works in the Protestants every man that should execute the Laws knoweth some or other that deserve favour and for their sakes he will punish none So the Prosecution at first grows cold and at last ceases till some fresh Apprehension of Danger awakens us and then there will be a little more stir to no purpose as we have seen more then once in our days But lastly If the Laws are executed to the full I speak of Laws made without Discrimination whatsoever severity shall be used in pursuance of them will chiefly light on the best and most innocent persons on them that are truly English and have nothing to do with Rome save that they live within her Communion For the thorough-paced Papist will shift better than the other can do The Jesuites can equivocate and teach their Scholars to do it They can sail with every wind and rather than lose their Port they can do all that Protestants do
And if they have no Dispensation before hand they can have a Pardon for it afterward For they know where those things are to be had which any honest man though of that Religion abhors either to ask or need And if a Jesuite should have so over-slept himself that he is taken napping with other Catholicks he is sure to have Friends to bring him off If none in England can do it he has them abroad to help If he be put to fly his Country he knows whither to go If he step short and fall into a Prison there at least he is sure not to want either relief or means for his deliverance While the man of Loyal principles if he fall into any of those Circumstances is stuck and knows not which way to look for help For from whence should he have it At home he has no Friend that dares know him abroad he has no manner of interest For all there depend upon the Pope who is so far from concerning himself for any whom he knows to be no Papists that he does not own them for Catholicks And especially if any such be men of parts whom he hears to be in Prison or the like he only wishes them hanged out of the way that he may have the rest the more intirely at his Devotion Much more might be said on this head but what I have said may suffice And therefore to insist no longer on that Question Whether undistinguishing Severity would be effectual or no I come now to shew that if it should prove effectual yet it would be very far from seeming just or equitable to indifferent men And of this I am strongly assured first by all the judgment I can make of the Intention of our Laws secondly by Arguments from the rule of right Reason and the Ancient Practise of Christianity I begin with the former and observe That although the Severity of our Penal Statutes according to the bare letter of them generally not distinguishing between Papists and Roman Catholicks falls indifferently on both yet by the wording of them in several places and by other Circumstances it appears that they were intended against the Abettors of undue Authority in the Pope and against no other For what appears in the wording of the Statutes I shall instance only two viz. 23 Eliz. and 3 Iacobi Whereof the former namely that of Queen Elizabeth expresses the crime to be punished by the Statute in these terms An intent to withdraw Subjects from their natural Obedience The other namely that of King Iames which was very severe as it ought to be on so great an occasion mentions this as the crime to be punished by it The withdrawing Subjects from their natural Obedience and moving them to promise Obedience to the pretended Authority of the See of ROME That the Sanguinary Laws were intended against Popery in this sense and no other it may further appear by the Account I have given before where I briefly set forth on what occasions they were made and in what manner they were executed It is evident that none ever suffer'd Death as a Papist who could be brought to take the Oath of Supremacy or Allegiance Now it is certain that those Oaths were primarily designed to be a suffient Test to distinguish Papists from others And yet in either of them there is no mention made of any Doctrines but only those which concern Government that is the external Government both of Church and State It is indeed objected by Papists against the Oath of Supremacy and it sticks with some of those Roman Catholicks who are not Papists that by the Oath of Supremacy the King is made a spiritual Head of the Church But he that reads the Oath will find no such thing in it and it is expresly declar'd by the Church of England in her Articles That she ascribes to the King no other Jurisdiction over the Church than what is meerly external even the same that was exercised by the Kings of Iudah and the Christian Emperours over the Church in their Kingdoms and Empires To this I may add the constant Profession and Answer of all Protestant Writers Whensoever any Complaint has been made of the severity used to Roman Catholicks it has been always said that they suffered not for Religion but Treason And this is a very plain and satisfactory Answer while those only suffer who do those things or hold those Tenets which involve Treason in them But if they who do no such thing and who renounce all such Tenets are yet made to suffer in like manner though they suffer for that which the Law declares to be Treason it will bear some dispute whether Law-makers may not miscall things However it shews the general sense of the Church and State of England I mean for what concerns the design or intention of those Penal Laws And here by the way it may be observed how very different our dealing with the Roman-Catholicks is from their dealing with Protestants in Q. Mary's days That then all profest Protestants were handled severely and that many of them were put to death I think none will deny But to avoid the Odium of this some of that Communion in our Age would persuade us that their suffering was not upon the Account of Religion And to colour this Evasion they endeavour to show that Cranmer and two or three more had deserved death for Treason which is more than they are able to prove But admit this were true that these men had deserved it yet they did not suffer death for Treason but Religion as they would have it believed that made them dye For they declared this throughout the whole course of their Criminal Proceedings And it concerned them so to do For otherwise by the Laws then in force they had murthered as many as they burnt there being no Law to Burn men for Treason but for Heresie And so far they were from using any Moderation that they rather extended the Letter of the Law by inflicting it on many poor Creatures who had nothing to provoke any Jealousie against them but enough to move pity if there had been any in their Adversaries It has been the glory of our Church that we have not been like them in this nor can be without altering the Design of them that made all our Laws against Popery The intention of our Laws appearing so manifestly as I conceive against Papists only and not against any other Roman Catholicks it seems not reasonable that any other butPapists should suffer by the Letter of those Laws For it is a Maxim That not the bare Letter of any one or more Clause or Clauses but the Intention of the whole Law is the Life and Soul of it I mean it is that which gives signification to words w ch ought where itis evident to interpret theLaw It is also a Maxim That all Penal Laws should be interpreted favourably and therefore more should not
parts though they have deserted our Church can content themselves to be Strangers and not Enemies and will prove it by declaring against all the Popes Usurpations which will be a certain bar to their preferment and therefore may be a good proof of their sincerity in this case I do not see but we may live quietly with them and perhaps the more safely by their means What Laws are now in force against them that shall be reconcil'd or that shall reconcile others to the Church of Rome were intended to keep men from being poyson'd with Popery against which those Laws were severe enough and yet not more than there was cause And yet according to the wording of those Laws he is equally to suffer the penalty of them that draws others or that is drawn himself into the Roman Communion though not into Popery as we have defin'd it I do not know that those penalties have been inflicted on any one Offender these many years nor has it been considered what the Principles were either of them that were seduced or of them that seduced them and 't were hard that the impunity of them who have directly transgress'd the intent of those Laws should be a snare to them that have only transgress'd the letter of them Therefore I humbly conceive that whatsoever Retrospection is made it ought to be with some kind of Discrimination And it were to be wish'd for the future that the old Laws may be put in ure against them that seduce others or are seduced into Popery and that some gentler Laws may be made against them that shall enter into that Communion though they do acquit themselves of those dangerous Principles But how this may be done I humbly leave to the wisdom of the State to consider The third Reason which I mention'd against an undistinguishing Severity was this That it would be against the interest of the Church and State of England Both those great Interests are united together in the preservation of the Monarchy For Monarchy is essential to the State as is visible in the Constitution of it And for the Church of England as she is the best support of the Monarchy so she is supported by it and must either fall with it or be brought into a very low condition as we have seen by the experience of late years Now of all sorts and parties among us that dissent from the Church of England there is none but has Principles which seem to look ill upon Monarchy nor is there any that has not explain'd the meaning of them by their practices at one time or other within our memory To specifie this in Instances of all would be needless for I know no sort of Dissenters that go about to justifie themselves wholly in this matter except only Roman Catholicks Among them some late Writers would bear us down that they are and have been always faithful to the Monarchy It were better said by others of that Church than by some of them that have written this But the truth is they are a mixt Communion whereof the governing part of the Clergy are thorough-Papists and therefore neither they nor any of their Faction can be right Friends to such a Monarchy as we speak of whatsoever they pretend Many of the inferior Clergy and of the Laiety of that Communion are no Papists as I have shewn in this Paper and they have shewn it themselves in adhering to Monarchy against the Pope himself Of both these sorts of Roman Catholicks we have lately seen the tryal in Ireland where for some years they agreed in nothing but that some times they went to Church together Their Bishops and the rest of the chief of their Clergy were indeed the Pope's Creatures and Subjects For they had sworn Allegiance to him and received a Right from him as well to the Temporalties as to the Spiritualties of their titular Preferments What the Pope's meaning was in preferring them we may guess by what follow'd For as soon as they saw an opportunity for it they formed a Rebellion in that Kingdom against the King And when the Pope sent his Nuncio to head it they joyn'd with him and drove the King's Lieutenant out of the Kingdom Which accursed Rebellion of theirs lost the King not only that Kingdom but the other two Kingdoms and his life in the end And yet they of that Faction in Ireland are so far from acknowledging that they did any ill in all this that within these ten years the General-Assembly of the Clergy of that Nation in plain terms refus'd to ask His Majesties pardon for any thing that had been done in the late War by any of the Clergy of that Kingdom This was a sufficient Demonstration of the Prevalence of those Popish Principles among them and of the ill Influence they have upon Monarchy Yet there was even then as plain a Demonstration of better Principles in others of that Communion For some there were though much fewer in number who kept their Allegiance to the King throughout that whole Rebellion and fought for him against the Pope himself in the person of his Nuncio and having one while got a great part of the Laity to joyn with them they prevail'd so far as to drive him out of the Kingdom But they and all the rest that serv'd the King in that Nation were excommunicated for it by the Nuncio and his Clergy in Ireland And that Sentence being judicially ratified at Rome I am assured that many of them do continue under it to this day In England it is to be observ'd in all our Histories That even in Popish times there were those that stood up for the Rights of the Crown against the Pope's Usurpations and that they which did so were the generality of the People of this Nation How else came those Laws of Provisors c. to pass in Parliament though the Spiritual Lords oppos'd them with all their might and protested against them as oft as such Laws came before them How came King Henry VIII to pass his Law against the Papal Supremacy which in effect contain'd no more than those former Laws did And yet the Bishops at that time not only voted for it but set their hands to a Book that was writ in defence of it and some of the most Learned among them writ besides on that subject as good Discourses as were written in that Age. And how came the whole Kingdom to stand by him as they did both before and after the Dissolution of Monasteries against the Pope's Bull of Excommunication and Deprivation which Bull I conceive was that which first made the Schism Though this Breach was made up again by Queen Mary who restor'd the Pope's Authority to strengthen her own Right to the Crown which otherwise had hung by the single thred of an Act of Parliament yet by what pass'd before it sufficiently appears to have been the judgment of our Forefathers in former Ages that Popery is no
part of the Catholick Doctrine That it has more obtained since and that the number of Papists has increas'd among the English of that Communion I partly ascribe to the great offence which was taken at first here in England against the Reformation The Horse is said to have first taken up Man upon his back to hunt down his Enemy And for the same end I conceive the Roman Catholicks suffer'd the Pope to saddle them in Queen Mary's days They could not have gratified him more than by letting him ride and hunt together both which he loves dearly Soon after the Pope having by his Council of Trent made Articles of Faith of their controverted Opinions it could not but oblige them to look kindly on all that he did for himself in that Council After which 't is no wonder that Queen Elizabeth found the World so much alter'd since her Father's time I think 't is observable that when He was curs'd and bann'd by the Pope as She afterwards was yet he had not one attempt made against his life Some Rebellions he had against him but those not so much in the Pope's quarrel as in the Common People's who were enrag'd at him for dissolving the Monasteries But Queen Elizabeth who had little to do of that kind and who generally pleas'd the People otherwise and was therefore not so liable to be shockt with Rebellions yet for all that when the Pope mark'd her out for destruction some or other of her Subjects were continually driving practices to take away her life I mention this as a great Instance of the growth of Popery among the People of that Communion And yet no doubt she knew those among them that were no Papists or else she would not have made visits to them as she did in the most dangerous times nor have protected their Priests without sufficient assurance of their Loyalty Yet she had not that way of assurance which K. Iames found out afterwards and which the Pope himself help'd to make the more satisfactory For when as I have said upon occasion of the Gunpowder Treason K. Iames requir'd the Oath of Allegiance to be taken by all his Subjects and Pope Paul V. requir'd all his Subjects to refuse it It was easie from thenceforward among the Roman Catholicks to know which were the Pope's and which were the King's Subjects for each of them would do the will of their Lord and what they did they maintain'd on both sides I think there needs no better defence for the Rights of the Crown against the Pope and his Faction than has been made by one of their Priests namely Preston in his Books for the Oath of Allegiance Now this being the only Test appointed by Law and this being already taken by many Roman Catholicks who profess themselves ready to take any other that the State shall prescribe for the securing it self against Popery I conceive that such persons being taken off by this means from all dependance of the Pope ought in reason to be accounted good Subjects For if their Principles be such as they swear they are as well their Principles as their Oath will make them firm to the Monarchy And nothing can be imagin'd to make them against it or to loosen them from it but the Pope's Dispensation against which they secure us as the Law directs them to do For they both swear expresly that they will not take any such Dispensation and that they believe the Pope has no power to give it I do not say but while they continue in that Communion they are continually liable to be tempted and drawn from these Principles And I know no way the State has to help it but by making them often renew their Security as I shall humbly propose in due place But while they keep to their Principles which in relation to Monarchy are the same that the Church of England holds though she ought to desire their Conversion and to seek it by all lawful means yet I see not why she should desire to have them driven away or disabled from assisting her in defence of the Monarchy Now there is nothing more plain than that this party of Roman Catholicks must be utterly disabled and destroy'd by an undistinguishing execution of the Laws For if they have no favour at home they are sure to find worse abroad There they must learn to hate their own Country by suffering for having loved it too well When they have spent what they can carry over with them they must want and may perish ere they find relief While their zealous Antagonists the true Sons of the Pope are received with all kindness wheresoever they come and when they have weathered out the storm they are sure to be sent back with full pockets and fresh supplies and such Instructions as may fit the change of times Then we shall if it should happen which God forbid see the fruit of an undistinguishing Severity We shall see the destruction of a considerable number of men that were friends to the Government and that would have been useful at such a time Or we shall see them return with other Principles and become Enemies to the Government which used them as Enemies and wholly joyn'd in affection to them that fed them in their exile In few words we shall see the Popish Faction truly so called return with more hope to do mischief and with more power to do it than ever they had before They could never yet make all of their Communion to joyn with them in any design against the Government But then undoubtedly they will if there be not a sufficient number left of the other side to oppose them They at Rome are thought to understand their own Interest well And there is reason they should for it is the Study of that place And I suppose 't is not in favour to the Church or State of England but for the interest of Rome that they are very well pleas'd with an undistinguishing execution of the Penal Laws in England against the Roman Catholicks and are so far from desiring to have it otherwise that they hate and detest all distinction and declare him their Enemy that desires it This might be proved by more instances than are proper for this place But I shall give one or two that are sufficient And first of former days Widdrington a Priest of the Roman Communion gives this following Relation That Q. Elizabeth having discovered that she was minded to shew favour to as many Roman Catholick Priests as should give her assurance of their Loyalty and to exempt them from suffering the penalties of her Laws some well-meaning men went to Rome to carry the good news as they thought it But when they were come thither they found themselves much mistaken Instead of thanks they were reproach'd by the governing party and branded with the name of Schismaticks Spies and Rebels to the See Apostolic And moreover saith our Author
there was one of that party F. F. compiled a Treatise in Italian to advise his Holiness That it was not good nor profitable to the Catholick Cause that any liberty or toleration should be granted by the State of England to Catholicks Secondly what their judgment is at present concerning this matter I know not who can inform us better than the Pope's Nuncio's He that now is or lately was at Brussels Falconieri the Internuncio of Burgundy and the Low-Countries I suppose has a power given him over our Roman Catholicks for his immediate Predecessor Airoldi had it and came over hither in hope to establish his Jurisdiction in England This Falconieri was inform'd while the Parliament were yet sitting in March was twelve month that divers Roman Catholick Peers had taken the Oath of Allegiance which provoked him so far that he lash'd out these words It were better there were not a Catholick left in England than that they should take that Oath to free themselves from Persecution This Relation I had from one of that Communion whom I have very much reason to credit And yet if any one doubts of his Testimony he may see as much written by a Nuncio himself who was also this man's Predecessor I think his words go something beyond those of Falconieri unless they like the Oath of Allegiance better than the Irish Remonstrance which whosoever compares them will judge they cannot well do according to their Principles And yet of that Remonstrance it was that the former Nuncio Vecchii gave his judgment in these words It may do more hurt and mischief to the Church of God viz. to the Popish Faction in it than any Persecution that ever was from the Hereticks I doubt not the late Pope's Nuncio that waged war in Ireland against our late King if he had lived to these times would have been of the same mind He would have endeavoured to keep his party together and not let them be separated by a Test. He would have told them they were as good have ask'd Pardon for what they had done as Promised to do so no more which promise in fewer words was the effect of that Remonstrance By these Indications we may guess at that which might otherwise have been a mystery to us namely why so many Leading-men of that Communion in England who refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance are so much against the framing of any other Test. It might seem very strange that they who are so loud above all others in crying out of Persecution are yet so extremely averse from doing that which is the only sure way to avoid it namely from giving publick Security to the State But their meaning is plain They would not have Popery garbled out of their Religion nor those Principles forsworn that may be useful when time serves If 't were known who are the Pope's and who are the King's Subjects it were to be feared the Pope's would be left single and that they themselves would be found to be of that number I cannot blame them that they had much rather keep themselves in the Herd and therefore perswade all men of their Church rather to run the hazard of a general undistinguishing Persecution than to submit to such a Test as may enable the State to know its Enemies It is plain that He whom they serve may despair of arriving at his ends upon England any otherwise than by one of these two ways viz. Either by an undistinguishing execution of the Laws against all Roman Catholicks in general or by an undistinguishing Toleration to them all and for their sakes to all other Dissenters whatsoever By the former way Popery properly so called would be kept from appearing in the Light which it does not love It would pass undiscovered in the Croud among Principles of Religion And the people by little and little would come to be perswaded that they ought to suffer as much for their Obedience to the Pope as for their belief in God Than which there is no one thing that our Hildebrandists drive at with more zeal and no doubt the Pope would buy it with all his heart at the hazard of leaving not one Roman Catholick in England Though the hazard would not be so great to them that should be his prime Agents in this business For they would be sure to keep themselves out of harms way And all the danger should light on Bigots and such hot-headed men who though living they are worth nothing yet when they dye leave Treasures to the Church For they must presently be cryed up for Martyrs And then What can be said enough to the glory of the Apostles that sent them forth and of the Apostolick See and of Christ's Vicar that sits in it Happy men that are sure to have their Bodies work Miracles wheresoever their Souls be And Blessed Cause for which such Men did not stick to sacrifice their lives If there happens a Leading-man a Garnet to be taken among them there is a loss indeed for which perhaps the straw makes not a sufficient recompence Yet this loss falls on Persons only and not on the Cause The Tenets which do all the mischief not only escape but gain ground If they were not de Fide before now they are being seal'd with the blood of Martyrs and attested with Miracles And this Faith is not like to want Preachers worthy of it self For there will be always men enough left of the worse sort The most subtle and dangerous will save themselves one way or other They 'll be sure to get out of the way till they see their own time to shew themselves And then they will appear the more Venerable to the party as being the Brethren and Successors of them that died for their Religion By the other way of undistinguishing Toleration they would have divers advantages more than I shall mention in this place For it is not my business here to write against Toleration but rather against an undistinguishing of Laws But that I may not seem by this means to desire to perswade a Toleration which I take to be much worse than the other I shall shew the danger of it in these following particulars For first they look upon Toleration as a sure way to destroy the establish'd Religion And therefore in all Countries where Popery is establish'd they are so far from admitting any Toleration that they look upon him that speaks for it as their Enemy and count none their sure Friends but them that set up the Inquisition By which also here in England if England were theirs they would make a short work with all those other Dissenters whom now they seem to look upon with compassion and to plead against Persecution and wish Liberty of Conscience for their sakes They would not have the Thorn be disturb'd while it is in their Enemies sides but if it were out they would burn it for fear it should be a
could remain here but only Hypocrites and Equivocators And their stay would be very uncomfortable if they kept silence but worse if they discovered themselves for then they must expect to suffer the Severity of the Laws They must either hang like bare-fac'd Traytors without any pretence of the Crown of Martyrdom or they must take it for a favour that they may have leave to go after their Fellows And they that are once out of the Kingdom will have no hope to come in again To be sure they shall not if the Priests of their own Church can keep them out or can discover them lurking in it Nor I suppose will any of the Laity be very forward to harbour them We have no reason to think that any man should be so unreasonable to venture neck or purse for the Reception of them for whom his Soul is not concern'd when he might without danger or any apprehension of it enjoy the exercise of his Religion when he might have all the Offices of it performed by other Priests as Canonical in their Mission and as exemplary in their lives men free from exception every way save that they have no tincture of Hildebrand's Doctrine If that be it that makes them so in love with a Jesuite that nothing seems sacred that comes out of any other hand the State has just cause to suspect from whence that niceness proceeds and to treat them as those that hold correspondence with its Enemies Nor can they in this case have any colour to pretend that they suffer for their Religion who might have enjoy'd their Religion without mingling it with that Treason for which they suffer And however the matter may be thought of by Him at Rome whose judgment we ought not to value in this case I believe no Foreign Prince will think this a Persecution of Roman-Catholicks France thought it none when time was to banish the Jesuites Nor Venice to turn out three Orders together which were all that submitted to the Pope's Interdict and Excommunication There is no reason to doubt that any other State of that Communion would have done the like upon as great an occasion So that if any of those States should interpose in favour of those against whom the State of England has so just an exception it might seem as if they did not so much desire to have them taken in here as to rid their own Country of such Vermin as they would not be willing to harbour They have reason to apprehend that those that we send over to them would teach their own people to do like them and put the Authority there to the trouble of doing the same thing that ours have done here and which themselves have been fain to do in former times I say not but any Prince that were in hostility or that thought himself likely ere long to break with England might be ready to receive this sort of men as he would do other Spies and Traytors to their Country There were very great Reason that a Prince in those circumstances should consider these men as being most compleatly qualified for all such purposes And because the Pope is a sure Enemy to all them that are for the suppressing of Popery I doubt not they would find him ready to mingle his quarrels with theirs and his Instruments would work much the better when they received their impulse from his hand But all this would last no longer than until those Princes thought it their best way to be at peace with us And that would soon be if we were at Unity among our selves As we should be if none were suffered to live among us but such as might live in an easie or very tolerable condition Then those Princes would soon ease themselves of the burthen and give the Pope leave to find some other way to keep his Vermin Which after a while he would do with such Italian Frugality that if their Rents were stop'd here in England they would soon look as thin as Fauxes Lanthorn or to describe them to the life they would be like Envy in the Poet. I need not trouble the Reader with minding him That in case of such a Discrimination there could be no danger of the increase either of Priests or Seminaries abroad and as little danger of any Commiseration or Pity at home to hinder it from being effectual It is obvious to every apprehension that the removal of these dangers would be one of the necessary consequences of it For who does not see that if the Roman Catholicks on such terms as I have describ'd might enjoy their Religion and their Estates and their liberty they would not count them their Friends that would perswade them to throw away that enjoyment Doubtless if some few did not know when they were well the generality of them would understand it And both they of their own Church and much more the Protestants would think them not to be pitied that should lose what they had thrown away with their own hands especially when they considered for what end these men did it that it was out of a restless desire to bring a Foreign Tyrannical Yoke upon their Country Therefore since by this and what else has been said on this head we cannot but see That the only immediate causes not only of the Propagation but Preservation of Popery in this Kingdom viz. the great business and boldness of them of the Popish Faction and the great tameness and fearfulness of the other Clergy of that Communion among us would be quite removed by such a Discrimination of Roman Catholicks We cannot but conclude with the same evidence That such a Discrimination would be effectual to suppress Popery in this Kingdom For nothing can be more clear in Natural Reason then that wheresoever the only immediate causes both of the Propagation and Conservation of any thing ceases there that thing it self must cease to be And after all that has been said already we cannot rationally doubt whether by such a Discrimination those only immediate causes of the Preservation and Propagation of Popery would cease to be any longer in England 'T is manifest to every considering man That in case of such a Discriminating Course duly and constantly held the busie Agents for Popery must either give up their Cause or fly their Country And either way will do our business If any of them stay they will do their part toward it by giving security to the State Which cannot be without the renouncing of Popery If they all go it will be a blessed riddance of them and Popery together For the active part or soul of it will depart with the Jesuites And the Body or Scheme of Doctrines will be interr'd by those whom they leave behind them or rather hang'd up for it does not deserve Christian Burial 2. Such a Discrimination would also be just and equitable For it would be according to the intention of the Laws of this Kingdom and most
agreeable to the eternal Law of Reason and the ancient practice of the Christian World By all these Rules I have shewn that it is not just nor equitable that the penalties of the Laws as now they are should be inflicted on all Roman Catholicks indifferently without any respect of Loyal or Disloyal And in proving this I have sufficiently shewn For it follows by the Rule of Contraries above-mention'd That it is both just and equitable that all of that Religion who being faulty in nothing else shall give such assurance of their Loyalty as the State shall think fit to require should enjoy an exemption from those penalties which were never intended for such persons But of this more shall be spoken in due place For them on the other hand who refuse to give such an assurance and by their obstinacy therein would keep the State in perpetual jealousie and expose it to the danger of unknown Enemies who cannot be known from good Subjects but by such a way of distinction as they endeavour to obstruct I conceive 't is just and equitable that the State should look upon them either as Enemies or at least as the Concealers of Enemies If they are only Concealers of such Enemies as our Papalins are it is just that they should suffer for it in the same degree as they transgress against the Law and as they hinder the security of the State And it is no small transgression in them that not only disobey the Law but as far as in them lies make many Laws utterly useles For those Laws being provided for the security of the State against a Sect or rather Faction of men who are dangerous in the highest degree and for whom the Law has therefore procured the highest punishment it is certainly a great presumption of those who in spight and as it were in defiance of the Law will keep them not only from being punisht but from being so much as distinguisht Now it is evident that the Papalins are such a Faction whose Principles lead them when they see their opportunity to subvert the present Government and Laws both of the Church and Kingdom of England It is certain that in pursuance of these Principles they have attempted to do all this more than once within these last hundred years And this in favour to the pretences of a Foreiner who has more than one dormant Title to the Sovereignty of England who actually invaded Ireland in Queen Elizabeths days and usurpt the Royal Power there by his Nuncio in our Age who assumes to himself in some cases whereof he makes himself the only Judge a right to dispose of all States and Kingdoms whatsoever If therefore any State may justly endeavour to preserve it self against a Forein Enemy and may make Laws to restrain their own people from joyning with them and may punish with death or otherwise as many as shall presume to break those Laws England has all this right within it self as well as any other State and may use it as well against the Pope as against any other Enemy And therefore the State may require all its Subjects to declare against his Usurpation and to renounce all those Principles that are any way favourable to it If any of them shall refuse to do do this the State may justly punish them whether with death or otherwise according to its Laws which in this point are enacted with the highest reason and backt with all other Laws Divine and Humane c. with the practice not only of other Christian States but of all other Nations in the world I know the Refusers will be ready to say their Conscience will not suffer them to declare against that Power which the Pope assumes to himself nor to renounce those ill Principles which they say are a part of their Religion No doubt they that are through-Papists have great reason to say this For Popery as I have shewn does consist of such Principles which though as to the matter of them they are truly Secular and Political yet go veiled under the sacred name of Religion They whose interest it is to have them believed are pleased to make them Articles of the Catholick Faith And no doubt it takes with many For we see there are those that do not stick to sacrifice their lives for those Principles And what can be dearer to men than their Lives but Religion We see they do not spare the lives of men of opposite Principles against whom they profess to have no other Quarrel but Religion And we have reason to believe them for 't is what our Saviour said When they kill you they shall think they are doing God service But what Religion is that which teaches men to do things which are so evidently against the light of Nature as Murder especially when joyned with Rebellion and acted upon the persons of their own Princes and tending to the dissolution of humane Society and destruction of mankind Whatsoever Religion this be sure enough 't is not Christian nor such as ought to be allow'd among Christians And therefore if their Conscience binds them not to renounce it so does the Magistrates Conscience bind him to punish them for it 'T is the duty of him that bears the Sword to punish all Immorality though never so lawful or necessary in the judgment of him that commits it If a Jew or a Turk come to live in this Kingdom and marry many Wives which he may safely do by his Law 't is just by our Law to hang him for it Much more if one be guilty of such immorality as tends immediately to the subversion of the Kingdom it is both just and necessary to send him away or not let him live in it but at his peril And if he complain that this is persecution for Conscience which by the way cannot but sound very odly from one of that Sect that burn men only for Conscience his complaint in this case would be very unreasonable And we ought to be no more moved with it than we should be if he complain'd that we would not stand still and have our throats cut in compliance with his Conscience There is nothing that can secure State or People against this Religious Distemper of the fiery Papalins and that can also preserve the Civil Rights and Proprieties of good Subjects of that Communion but only such a discrimination between them as may distinguish the Loyal from the Disloyal the Turbulent from the Peaceable in such manner that they both may have what they deserve This is in effect to render to every one his due according to Law and Reason Which is the very definition of Justice and Equity For the administration whereof God has ordain'd the Civil Power and put the Sword into the Magistrates hand to employ it as the Apostle says to the praise of them that do well and for the terror of evil doers By what has been said on this last Head it sufficiently
appears that such a discrimination is also for the Interest of the Church and State of England For that Interest is preserv'd by Justice and Equity which will entitle it to that blessing from God which he hath promis'd in his Word and which are naturally apt to be instrumental to the Divine Providence in producing that good which he has promised For a just distribution of Rewards and Punishments makes the Government venerable in the eyes of the people and secures it at home by their chearful obedience It also acquires that Reputation abroad which will make it either loved or feared by all the neighbour Nations Our Neighbours of the Roman Communion who are now possest by the clamours of those among us that say they are persecuted for Religion and who can judge no otherwise when they see men severely handled that are criminal no other way will be soon disabused by such a discrimination And it will right us to those Protestants abroad to whom the State has been ill represented by fome on the other hand for not executing all the Penal Laws against Popery It will save England the trouble of making Apologies either way to vindicate the Justice of its proceedings to other Nations For it is manifest that no Government can tolerate such as hold Tenets inconsistent with its own safety nor on the contrary deny the protection of the Laws to men whose Principle it is to obey the Government and to do all that in them lies to support it To venture their lives in defence of the Authority not only of the Legislators but of those very Laws which they make against them till those Laws are repeal'd by the same power by which they were made It were easie to bring hither all those reasons with which I shewed before that undistinguishing Laws and execution of Laws are against the Interest of the Church and State of England and to prove by the same reasons that nothing of this kind can be more for it than such a Discrimination as is here propounded For if it be for the Interest of England to support and strengthen the Government then it is not to weaken the Friends of the Government nor to strengthen or preserve the Enemies of it I shew'd that such would be the effect of an undistinguishing way which is therefore desired by them of the Popish Faction as being next to a Toleration the most likely means to unite and to encrease their party among us Now taking those things for granted which are already proved it follows that upon the account of Interest this way of Discrimination should be as desirable to us as 't is hateful and detestable to them Sure enough they apprehend it and not without visible cause to be the likeliest way both to stop the further growth of Popery and to lessen the number of Papists among us I may add which is visible in the nature of the thing that a Discrimination between them that are of the same Communion will be a sure way to divide them among themselves Which may be a means to do some of them the greatest spiritual good or at least to keep us from taking that hurt which we have reason to fear from so numerous and powerful a Combination against us For the way of Distinction between Papists and other Roman Catholicks must be by some test or mark of Distinction And that either by the passing of some new Law for it especially when there is a new mark of Distinction or by the strict execution of those Laws that are in force for the taking of any Test that is already made In either of these Cases the Papalins who are men of intelligence will take an early alarm and try their Friends here in England if they can to prevent the passing of any such Law or the execution of any that is past If their Friends fail them here their next resort is to Rome where they have an old Friend that never fails them The Pope if he has not forgotten the old trick sends out his Censures against all that shall submit to those Laws and take the Test which is prescribed in them If it be no more than the Oath of Allegiance that is forbidden already by divers Popes and condemned by them as having many things in it which are contrary to the Catholic Faith And the reason of this severity is as well to guard their own Temporal Power as to keep their Creatures and Friends from discovery If any here and especially if any Priests of that Communion are so bold notwithstanding all this to take the Test then upon the next information or soon after the Pope sends to tell nofes And if he finds they are but few that transgress which will scarce be in our case he delays not to cite them to Rome and if they come thither woe be to them if not he curses them afresh and particularly But if they are many he considers their strength and being Curse-proof he forbears them for the present only leaving them under his general Censures Otherwise if they are a weak and obnoxious multitude he proceeds to further Censures against them And if some few have been more forward than the rest in doing that which the Law requires and specially if any dares justifie what they have done he denounces them Excommunicate by name and therein both sacrifices them to his own angry Deity and gives his discovered Creatures some kind of revenge on those poor men to ease their hearts till he and they can find how to be reveng'd on the State for which they are to wait their opportunity When any of these things happens as it has done in like cases and as it will do in these above-mentioned if Popes are constant to themselves For there is nothing here said but what I could prove both by Rule and Example we have reason to hope that some of those censur'd men who are able to right themselves or rather their Religion will do it by declaring against the horrible injury that is done both to it and them And specially their Priests who have hitherto alledg'd that the reason they have not done it all this while has been their continual fear of a Proclamation to send them beyond Sea where they are sure to be call'd to a severe account for whatsoever they have said or done against the Interest of Rome When that fear is over as it will be upon their giving security to the State it may justly be expected that they will both speak and write their minds freely as occasion shall be offered for the instruction of their people and for the Vindication of themselves and their Religion If the general Censures be objected as it is certain they will by those that procur'd them they will be oblig'd to shew the injustice and the invalidity of those Censures If they are Excommunicated by name for so doing they will be further engag'd to consider the Authority of him that lays
taking it for proved that a general Council is superiour to the Pope it must necessarily follow that there lies an Appeal from the Pope to such a Council And that his hands are tied up by such an Appeal so that he cannot proceed at least to Censure the Appellant for this were not only a private Injury to the Person but an Invasion of the Rights of the Supreme Court of Judicature among Christians Therefore if the Pope should do so Uncanonical a thing he may be Canonically disobeyed and resisted Yea he ought to be so for it were a betraying the Churches right to do otherwise till there is such a Court or Council to which the Appeal was made And such a Council there would be at least once in ten years if the Pope did not hinder it For having taken upon-himself the power of Calling and Presiding in Councils it is his pleasure to have none And no doubt he hath reason for it though there is Law to the contrary as good Law for a Council every ten years as can be made by any Authority in the Western Church Such Appeals from the Pope to a General Council have been made by divers Persons and Societies in the Roman Communion as namely by Auxilius in the name of the Clergy of all Italy By Michael of Caesena in the name of the whole Franciscan Order By seven Cardinals who were at that time the major part of their Colledge By divers Emperours of Germany against divers Popes some of whom they deposed and made other Popes in their Councils By divers Kings of France some of whom have forbid all Communication with Rome till they had right done them in their Controversies That some of these had cause enough for what they did and that they had just Authority to do it will be granted by most of them of the Roman Church But they will not grant the like of our King Henry VIII whom they make Author of the Protestant Schism as they call it And yet setting aside Popular Opinions and Prejudices I do not see what there was really in his Case which might not be cleared from Schism by those Rules and Examples I speak only of his casting off the Popes Authority as being that which no doubt was a means to bring on the Reformation As for those other things with which he is charged they are extrinsick to our Cause and we are no way accountable for them Namely for his dissolving of Monasteries It was one whom Wolsey had bred to it that taught him the way and they whom he employed would have burnt us if we had lived in those days For his being Head of the Church whosoever is offended at it let him blame the Six-Article men who brought up that Title and who both Preached and Writ for it and not the Q. Elizabeth Protestants who cast it forth Much more for his Personal excesses whatsoever they were if they concern any Religion it must be theirs and not ours For as to his Conscience they tell us he always continued a Roman Catholic These things being set apart or charged where they ought to be there will remain on our account only this to be considered Whether that Prince were guilty of Schism in casting the Popes Authority out of this Kingdom Or whether he did no more in that matter than he might lawfully do according to the Principles of his own that is the Roman Communion If he had Right to Appeal from the Pope to a Council and was hindred by him from prosecuting that right and was thereby forced to disobey and oppose him in this Case it has been shewn that Disobedience and Resistance was Lawful Whether that were his Case will appear by searching into matter of Fact And to be rightly informed of this one must not take all for true that Sanders says though having the luck to be contemned at the first by them that should have confuted him he has carried the World before him ever since being not only transcribed by the Writers of his side but also followed by many others that seem not to know whence they have their Stories We that live in a more inquisitive Age have seen many things of which he is the Author acknowledged by his Friends to be very improbable and some things proved by others to have been altogether impossible Yet in those things which he says without evident partiality Protestants are not unwilling he should be heard and Roman Catholics may be content to hear others with him who though Protestants yet are not liable to the like imputation In the Caufe of that King's Appeal many things are to be considered elsewhere which are not proper for this occasion It suffices to know that in his Minority he was betrothed to Katharine of Spain his Brothers Widow That the Contract was made by his Father for reasons of State against the judgment and advice of Archbishop Warham who then told him that he thought it neither honourable nor well-pleasing to God That the People at that time murmured against it and soon after the Prince himself as Warham advised made a formal Protestation that he would never marry her And yet after his Fathers death he was perswaded to it and did marry her with the Popes Dispensation When he had lived with her near seventeen years and as Sanders says was weary of her whether he was or no is not material the Popes Legate Cardinal Wolsey pretended to have found a Nullity in the Marriage and in care for the King's Salvation as he said acquainted Bishop Longland the Kings Confessor with it They both declared this to the King whose ancient doubt being now revived he spent almost a whole year in Study and Consultation concerning it I enter not into the merit of the Cause being indifferent at this time whether the Marriage was Lawful or no. For it appears which is enough that he had reason to doubt and that he took the best way for satisfaction according to their Principles When he had satisfied his own Judgment as himself says though Sanders say otherwise And had the Judgments not only of those Men before-mentioned but of all the Clergy of England save two that his Marriage was Null And he had reason to believe that most Learned Men abroad were of the same Opinion there wanted only this more to have the Popes Declaration of the Nullity This at present could not be had for he was the Emperour's prisoner But as soon as he was at liberty being desired by the King who had obliged him above all men and whom as yet he had occasion to use it seemed at first that there would be no difficulty that way For the Pope granted all his requests gave the King what Commissioners he had named impower'd them to hear the matter in England gave them Bulls
to shew the King and to assure him he was in earnest because things could not be done presently in form of Law he gave him secret advice to marry while the cause was depending The King having been two years without a Wife and not only holding himself free in his conscience but expecting to be shortly declared so and having now some kind of leave to chuse another cast his eye on Anne Bolen one whose Person and Birth might have deserved the best of his subjects and who being then a stranger in England could not have that part which Sanders gives her in displacing Queen Katharine nor could have preserved her any otherwise than by submitting to the King's lust the refusal whereof made her worthy of a nobler application But this Lady had been brought up in France among Protestants and was suspected to have some inclination that way which suspicion was enough not only to blacken her but to dash the King's suit much the sooner if not only for her sake It moved but slowly before for the Pope being engaged by the Emperour had sent instructions after his Legates requiring them to use all possible delays either to conceal his Bulls or to burn them and leave him free to do as he should see occasion Thus far he seems to have gone before he heard what choice the King had made But when that was discovered and whether for that cause or because he had made a new Alliance with the Emperour which tended to make the Popes Nephew Duke of Florence and the Queen being the Emperour's Aunt ought in reason to have some benefit of it whatsoever moved him to it the Pope after this would trust her cause no longer in England but having voided that Commission to his Legates called it home to his own Determination The King not knowing what to do next and taking time to consider in his Progress had Cranmer brought to him by some that chanced to hear him say what they thought was material in the Case He was a stranger to all that had passed hitherto which I mention because some would make him a chief man in it But from what he had heard and especially from their discourse he judged that the King had taken a wrong way in courting the Pope to retract his Predecessour's dispensation whereas in truth as most learned men thought the Matter it self was Indispensable And because it was not reasonable to expect that the Pope would judge it so for that had been to cut off a main limb of the Papacy he therefore wish'd that instead of dancing attendance at Rome the King would send to the Universities as being most able and unconcerned and get them to declare their Judgments in the case Hereupon the King sent learned men with his case and got the judgments of the Universities upon it To send to those in the Emperours dominions had been to no purpose But he had ours in England and those in France of his side and the two chief in Italy though not only the Emperour opposed but the Pope who had Bologna in his Territory And whereas it is said the King bought them which his Agents deny they say that the Emperour bought hands on the contrary and that he offered largely to get those who had given their judgments for the King to retract it but they would not take his Money though they might much more safely than the other The King being thus strengthened in his cause had reason to be the less in fear of the Pope and yet it appears he was not the more willing to break with him For after this he made fresh application to him by his Orators and Letters which were seconded with a Petition under the hands and seals of both the Archbishops and others the chief men of the three States of this Kingdom They represented their own and others judgments of the case they passionately besought him to do the King and them right in it they declared that if he did not they should think he had left them to themselves All this came out of time for the Pope was not then to be perswaded to break his Alliance while he was gathering the fruits of it This the King understood by his Answer And therefore knowing what he was to expect from abroad he was the more careful to secure himself at home Where to satisfie the minds of the people he declared what had passed to all his Subjects in Parliament he shewed them the Judgments of the Universities and the books of above one hundred Doctors against the lawfulness of his Marriage He also caused the same to be shewn to Queen Katharine by some Lords of his Council who would have perswaded her to withdraw her Appeal that she had made to the Pope and to refer her cause to the Judgment of others She refused it and thereupon was removed from the Court and had her choice given her of the Kings houses in the Country The Queen prosecuting her Appeal the Pope by Letters exhorted the King to receive her Which he refused as being unlawful for him to do and offered the Pope to send Doctors to dispute it before him He also got the King of France to mediate for him who did it as being assured of the Justice of his Cause But all this did not hinder the Pope from committing it to the Dean of the Rota who cited the King to appear before him This being done once and again the King entred his Protest against all proceedings in that Court. And the same day he privately married Anne Bolen in which if he was too hasty it was because he had not been quite seven years to consider Not long after this he had the Nullity of his former Marriage judg'd and declared in his own Kingdom which being done he owned her publickly as his Queen and gave her the solemnity of a Coronation This was no sooner heard of at Rome but the Pope who as long as the King was Plaintiff had used all possible delay and dissimulation now the Scales being turned without delay declared this Marriage a Nullity and gave Sentence of Excommunication against the King unless he put away Anne and restored Katharine before the end of September next The mean while the Pope made sure of the French King by a Treaty then afoot which produced an Interview between them at Marseilles and a Marriage between their two nearest Relations Our King in hope this new Allyance would have given good effect to the French King's Mediation in his behalf sent his Embassadours thither They waited there for a while but found nothing but delays And the Pope was now returning to Rome where he resolved to proceed in the Cause Therefore at an Audience before him they declared the King's Appeal
from the Pope to the next lawful General Council Which Appeal the Pope rejected as being unlawful and against the constitution of one of his Predecessours He also declared that there should be a General Council but that the calling of it belonged not to the King but to himself And soon after the term that he had set for the restoring of Queen Katharine being now expired he caused his Sentence against the King to be openly set up at Dunkirk which was then in the Emperours Dominions This was only a declarative Sentence in the case of Attentates as they term it but this being passed there was no doubt but soon after he would proceed to a Definitive Sentence in the cause The King was now concerned to look about him and to provide for the worst that could happen Therefore first with the advice of his Council he acquainted his Subjects with his Appeal which he caused to be set up on every Church door throughout his Kingdom And that his people might understand the validity of it he commanded that they should be taught that a General Council is above the Pope and that by Gods Law the Pope has no more to do in England than any other Forein Bishop Next he sent to engage as many Forein Princes as he could into a stricter Allyance with him And yet lastly to shew that he sought not these ways but was driven to them he desired the Bishop of Paris who was then Embassadour in England to get his Prince to deal effectually with the Pope and to promise in his name that if the Pope would forbear to pass any definitive Sentence till the cause might be heard before indifferent Judges he would also forbear what he had otherwise purposed to do that is to withdraw his obedience from the See of Rome The Bishop gladly took the office of Mediation upon himself and though it was now the dead of Winter yet he went post to Rome to discharge it There in Consistory he delivered his Message to the Pope and so far prevailed that at his earnest request there was a present stop of proceedings on condition that the King should send a Ratification of his promise precisely by such a day In prefixing the day they seemed not to have considered the time of the year For though the Messenger whom the Bishop sent into England found a present dispatch there yet being hindered by weather he did not return within his day The Pope as if he had watcht for that advantage resolved immediately to proceed to a definitive Sentence There being a Consistory called for that purpose the Bishop once more came in and pressed for a longer time He begg'd no more but six days which as he said might be granted to a King that had waited on them with patience for six years It was put to the vote where through the eagerness of the Imperial Cardinals not only that small request was denied but such precipitation was used that as much was done at once in that Consistory as would have askt no less than thrice according to their usual forms Such hast they were in to cut off and to destroy him whom three Popes successively had entitled their Defender and Deliverer When they had done their will within less than fix days that is the second day after this rash and hasty Sentence the Post returned from the King with a Ratification of all that had been promised in his name And he brought this further offer from the King that he would submit to the Judgment of that Court on condition that the Imperial Cardinals who had made themselves Parties against him should be none of his Judges There was an Authority sent for Proctors to appear for him on that condition At which great submission of the King compared with their precipitation the wiser Cardinals were astonished and petitioned the Pope for an arrest of Judgment Which could not well be denied him in those Circumstances And yet it was as if it had not been granted for they that got the Sentence passed by majority of Votes had the same will and power to get it confirmed And confirmed it was with this advantage that the Execution of the Sentence was committed to the Emperour who would be sure to see it done thoroughly as well to enrich himself with the Spoyls as to take his revenge in the ruine of a Prince that had provoked him no way more than in his zeal for the deliverance of this Pope out of his hands In this series of things I cannot but observe the hand of God and adore that unsearchable wisdom by which he made way to bring in the Reformation of this Church There was no King in that Age so zealous for Popery as he had been that came now to throw it out of his Kingdom Whosoever considers him from first to last in this business cannot but see he had no intention to do this He did all things to avoid it that could be done by one who was perswaded of the Justice of his cause And those Princes and Prelates who were perswaded as he was did their parts to hinder things from coming to this extremity None desired it but the Spanish and Imperial Faction unless perhaps the Pope himself could desire to lessen the Papacy by cutting off a whole Kingdom from the Church but he seemed to mind nothing but the raising of his Family and in order to that let the Imperialists do what they would with him Perhaps he might think when his own turns were served to give the King satisfaction afterwards as it may seem by what one says that when the Sentence was past he suspended the Execution of it till the end of September next But he died before that time and so his Sentence continued in force The next Pope that came after him did not approve what he had done for to use his own words he had urged him to right the King in his Divorce and would have perswaded the Emperour to have born it patiently But as then he could not prevail on that side so now he came too late to be heard on the other For on the day of his Coronation at Rome the Parliament met here in England that made the Act of Supremacy The edge of which Law falling severely on the Friends of the Papacy even while the Pope was offering at a reconciliation he was thereby provoked to curse the King afresh by a Bull which yet was not published till some years after When the King having presumed to Un-saint Thomas Becket the Pope thereupon pronounced him no King which made the breach quite unreconcileable I have given so large account of this matter because it is brought into common discourse and as it is told serves to blacken many other beside the King who was only or chiefly concerned in it Otherwise it would serve for our
influenced by a Priest as to do that for his sake which they would not do in obedience to the Church But if yet it be farther suspected that their Priests may be enabled to work such a change in their Penitents by their Intimacy and Assiduity with them and by that Reverence that is usually born to their Persons which being alway present with them may perhaps prevail more than the dumb Definitions of the Church Yet this danger the State may very easily remedy and will do it by the making of a just and prudent discrimination For that being to be made by such a Test as the State shall require no other Priests will be allowed but only such as have taken it And the Test being made with such a Clause as hath been proposed the Priests that take it will be upon the same terms with their Laity and will be equally obliged in behalf of the State to oppose any pretence that can be brought by any person or power whatsoever to draw them from their Allegiance And if there be any fear of Practices against the State by them that having taken the Test have been secretly changed by some means against which no provision is made the danger of this also may be prevented as far as any thing may be done by Obligations of Conscience Not to say that their Interest will oblige them likewise in great measure It may be done by a frequent Repetition of this Test which may discover any change in some short time after it is made and so may give an early stop to any practices which might follow upon it The Priests also may be obliged by their Oath to declare the Independent Right of Kings in their Sermons as expresly and as oft as the State shall prescribe And it may be so ordained that they shall continue in their charge no longer than while they can bring sufficient Testimony that they have done it These expedients will suffice in all likelihood to prevent the defection of them who have given security to the State or at least will secure it in time from receiving any dangerous hurt by their defection CONCLVSION TO conclude all with a brief Summary of what I conceive advisable in this whole affair I think it is not so proper to make the distinction between Regulars and Seculars Because many Seculars are more addicted to these Principles than many of the Regulars and some of the Regulars have declared against these Principles and suffered for it more than any Seculars in our age Besides that it may seem very partial to prejudge men by their Ranks when they may distinguish themselves sufficiently otherwise Yet withal whereas there are divers of those Regular Orders that were never received in England even by the Romanists themselves and who have here intruded themselves as well against their own Canons as against the known Laws of the Land it is but reasonable that we should take that Advantage against them which not only our Laws but even their own Canons will allow Especially where we have Reason in other regards to suspect them above others of being active and industrious in driving on dangerous defigns And this Advantage may be taken against three eminent Orders among them which have been founded since the Reformation and were never Canonically received here in England and yet are as Active as any other in designs for the advancing of Popery For the rest who are not thought fit to be totally excluded the most equal way for them and as secure a way for us to distinguish them is to do it by such a Test as has been more than once before mentioned That this is a safe way may appear from what hath been already shewn that even the high Papalins themselves cannot prevaricate in renouncing Prevarication and therefore may be capable of giving assurance to the State by submission to Tests if they are known to be consciencious otherwise But antecedently to any Test for some of them it would be requisite that they should first renounce their former Oaths and Obligations or explain them so as to secure us that they will not be induced by them to any dangerous practice against the State Those of them as their Bishops and others who have taken Oaths to the Pope as they are prescribed by their Pontifical either to explain them if they can possibly do it so that we may be satisfied of their Innocency or to retract them where they will not admit of such an Explication And here also it ought to be considered what Oaths are taken by those Proselytes whom they gain into the Roman Communion When this is done and not till then they may be capable of being admitted to take the Test. Which ought in reason to contain all that which the Law hath already prescribed as being that which the wisdom of our Law-makers have judged fit and sutable to their condition It is not reasonable for them to expect that any of those trials should be waved which have been made even since the Reformation as long as the same Reason continues which prevailed with our Legislators to prescribe them But if they were to make a Test for themselves I do not see how they can with any confidence decline those professions which were made by their Ancestors before the Reformation They have so frequently boasted of them and alledge them as Arguments of the Consistence of their Religion with their Loyalty And therefore it were fit that the Test should take in all those Doctrines concerning the Rights of Kings which are contained or supposed in the Ancient Laws Especially in those which themselves have produced for the honour of their Communion as namely the Assize of Clarendon the Statutes of Provisors and Premunire These they cannot with any confidence refuse if they will but pretend to deal ingenuously and to let us see that they have been in earnest in those Elogies which they have given their Predecessors for making them Beside the forementioned particulars it were also needful for our satisfaction that they would profess themselves so far convinced in Conscience of their Obligation to their Prince and Country that no Ecclesiastical Judge or Judicatory whatsoever shall be able to draw them either from the belief or from the practice of their Duty This will fully secure us of their Loyalty if they deal sincerely in it And for satisfying us of their sincerity it hath already been advised to renounce all their pretences to Dissimulation And great care should be taken that no Doctrine be left out of this Test which would leave them any liberty of this kind in the Judgment of any celebrated or uncensured Casuist in their Church This will be not only a sufficient but also a just ground to distinguish between them For when a Test being thus contrived shall be prescribed by Authority it will then appear that none are like to suffer the severity of the Laws but they who either are
truly Criminal or are justly suspected of being so even for their refusing of such a Test. And then that due severity which may be thought necessary to preserve the State from their practising against it may be executed on them with less colour of exception to the Penalties They who have extolled the Loyalty of their forefathers in making those Laws already mentioned cannot except against the Penalties mentioned in those Laws They cannot pretend that there was any other Cause of severity in them but their care for the security of the Public for they were otherwise of their own Communion and therefore could not be liable to any suspition of that rigour against them of which they may suspect us in regard of our differences of Communion For other penalties I say no more but leave them to the wisdom of the State who best know that due measure of severity that is requisite in our present Circumstances For as their case may in some Reasons vary from the condition of them against whom those Laws were made so it is fit that their punishments should do so too whether their case be more excusable now or then that also I do not take upon me to determine For them who will take the Test so contrived and that as oft as the State shall require it were fit that such favour be shewn to them as may consist with the safety of the State And all the favour which themselves have desired is their exemption from Sanguinary Laws and protection against their Popish Adversaries and permission to live in their Country upon the same terms as other dissenters do who are as Innocent as themselves will be upon this supposal As for Places of trust they do not pretend to them Which may be a security against all reasonable jealousies For other Laws which have been made against the forein Education of their Children they will not then have the pretence of any necessity for it when they may have them taught at home by persons well affected to the State and yet otherwise of their own Religion And they will have no excuse if they do it without any necessity So that they cannot object against any Determination that the State shall think fit to make in that particular whether the Laws now in force shall be continued or changed and if continued under whatsoever Conditions and Penalties it should be done And if it be thought fit to impose on them such small pecuniary Penalties as may only oblige them in Interest to endeavour the farther satisfaction of their Conscience it might be convenient that those sums were applied to maintain converts to the Church and to reward them that shall inform the State how these things are observed among them This will be likely to keep up the practice of these Laws when they cannot be secured from discoverers among themselves And may also be a means by degrees to reduce them to the Communion of the Church in order to the capacitating of them for farther favours Thus much was in Prudence necessary to be said to shew as well the Practicableness as the Convenience of this Proposal The Convenience has appeared in the Discourse it self and the Practicableness in the Answer to the Objections For other more particular Expedients I leave them to the Prudence of the State whose most proper Office it is and who are best acquainted with all particular Circumstances to determine FINIS a P. 44. these ten years P. 50. March was twelve month P. 66 M. Luzance 's case b Chiefly from p. 80. till the Conclusion All Churches and Sects are Popish according to some mens Notions of Popery No Rites nor Doctrines common to other Churches which are not in Communion with the Pope can be Popish but in a false Notion of the word The true Notion of Popery describ'd Of the Pope's Authority over all Christians This Authority was the first thing in Popery All other Popish Errours were brought in by it This Authority is the chief thing in Popery a Poli. Reformatio Angliae decr 1. b Ib. decr 2. c Conc. Lateran V. Sess. 2. d Sess. 3. e Sess. 4. f Sess. 11. g Conc. Trident. Sess. 25. decr de Reform c. 21. h Ib. c. 2. i Ib. in Contin decr 5. Obedience to this Authority the only sure property of Roman Catholicks Camd. Eliz. anno 1560. It is also the worst thing in Popery * Martyrolog Roman Maii 25. * Rev. 13.5 * Luke 4.6 It is worst in the Construction of the Law Camd. Eliz. Anno 1571. Ib. Anno 1577. Ib. Anno 1581. * Rishton says it of himself in his virulent Cont. of Sand. de Schism Angl. Papist an equivocal word Improperly Papists * R. C. i. e. Ricardus Chalcedonensis alias Dr. Smith the last Roman Catholick Bishop that pretended Jurisdiction here in England was of this mind as appears by his Book against the Bishop of Derry entituled A Brief Survey c. Vid. cap. 5. p. 55. where he says 't is no point of Faith whether the Pope be St. Peter's Succeffor Iurâ— Divino or Humano Half-Papists Throrough-Papists Their Description Zenzelini Glossa Dominus Deus noster Papa Vid. Glos. Extravag Cum inter de verb. signif Edit Paris An. 1585. The main Argument Undistinguishing Severity is not the way to suppress Popery It would be ineffectual 2. It would not seem just and equitable It is so expresly provided in 27 Eliz. for fthe Oath of Supremacy and 3 Iac. for the Oath of Allegiance Justitia Britannica 8 o. Lond. 1584. and K. Iames works p. 252. 336. and K. Charles I. vol. 1. p. 384. * 1666 Iun. 11. V. Hist. of Irish Remonstrance part 2. page 671. * Dated 1533. Aug. 30. Camden Eliz. an 1592. Ibid. an 1602. pag. 276. * He writ his Books in the name of Widdrington The Pope and his party are against the distinguishing of Roman Catholicks * Pref. of his Book against Fitz Herbert the Jesuite * Father Fitz Herbert Hist. of the Irish Remons Part 1. p. 515. Two ways useful to the Pope's design against England I. An undistinguishing execution of the Laws agaiâ—st Popery II. Toleration Toleration is a way to destroy the establish'd Religion Toleration would weaken the Civil Government V. Dr. Baily's Life of B. Fisher about the end of it A Toleration would increase the number of Papists The true way to suppress Popery is by Severity to Papists and Clemency to other Roman Catholicks John 16.2 1 Pet. 2.14 Prov. 14.34 Isa. 28.19 Euseb. Hist. Eccl. V. 24. Vales. in locum Firmilians Epistle among Cyprian's Epist. 75. pag. 166. edit Rigaltii Cypr. Epist. 74. 75. Vide Rigalt in Cyprian Epist. 75. Iuly 28. and August 2. * Cyprian Ep. 74. 75. †Rigalt Obs. in Ep. 75. * Almost 22 years after the Reign of Alexander Severus Cyprian Epist. 75. p. 160. * In their Synodical Epist. * See in the Codex Canonum Universalis Ecclesiae or in the Councils Concil
to convince him that all their suffering is for Religion and not for treasonable Principles if he instance in that Loyal Person himself and bids him judge by his own experience he cannot but feel himself suffer he knows himself free from disloyalty therefore his suffering can be for nothing else but his Religion He must be a man of more than ordinary Abstraction that can discern the fallacy of this reasoning And he that cannot find that had need stop his ears with a resolution to hear nothing against the Government or else the Jesuite will be too hard for him He had need be as resolute in his Loyalty as in his Religion For the proof being made as well to his Sense as to his Reason it looks like an Argument against Transubstantiation If the person so attack'd be a very Iob in holding his integrity if no Argument will move him nor no other temptation draw him from it Yet he must yield to Want which can neither be hid nor resisted There are many good men that live from hand to mouth and that hardly enough while they enjoy their Estates If any of these be deprived of so much as the Law would take from him he cannot live with that which he has left And then if a Pension be offer'd him out of the Jesuites Bank or out of the Pope's Coffers he will scarce know how to refuse it Necessity will make a generous man do that which he would hate to think of in better circumstances And having eaten their bread he will find it a hard matter to keep himself disengag'd from their Interests Much more if he suffer himself once to be engag'd he will find it impossible to untwist himself afterwards And 't is next to impossible for him that has been oblig'd by their benefits and as it were listed in Service and taken pay on the Enemies side to have any kindness left for his Country that drove him to all this I know but one instance that of David in Gath of a man that was put to all these streights and yet not corrupted in his Principles I shew but one way of many how men that are very good Subjects and desire nothing more than to continue so may be spoil'd with hard usage and made Enemies against their Inclinations Which being added to those things said before on this head may be more than enough to make good my third Reason against an undistinguishing execution of the Laws on Roman Catholicks as being against the interest of the Church and State of England And this seems so evident to me that I have no manner of doubt that as the best news we could send to Rome would be of a general Toleration of all Religions and Sects whatsoever so next to that which I know would please them best the most welcome news would be to assure them that all the Laws here in England against Roman Catholicks were severely and indifferently put in execution And I am as sure that nothing would trouble them more than to hear of such a Discrimination or Distinction of Roman Catholicks as I come now to propound For now to speak on the Affirmative side of the Debate this seems to be the only way for suppressing of Popery if the State will be pleas'd to distinguish btween Papists and other Roman Catholicks and so to shew favour to the one upon security given of their Loyalty as that the other who will not give that security may have no part of that favour but be left to the severity of all those Laws that have been or shall be made against their Principles and Practices My Reasons are 1. Because this course being taken would be effectual to the end above-mentioned 2. It would be equitable in it self 3. And it would be for the interest of the Church and State of England I shew'd before that the undistinguishing way had not any of those three properties or qualities Now the way which I propound being contrary to it must have all the three by the Rule of Contraries and I conceive I need no other proof But to make the matter more plain I shall resume these three Reasons and prove them severally in the order propos'd 1. This course would be Effectual For it would take away the causes of Popery The only immediate causes which have either propagated or preserved Popery so long in this Kingdom notwithstanding all Laws that have been made against it as well anciently as of late times are chiefly these two On one side the great boldness and business of the truly Popish Clergy in asserting and crying up all Papal pretences whatsoever On the other side the tameness of the other Clergy of that Communion or whatsoever else their fault is and has been in not opposing those Papal pretences For the former of these I think 't is very visible in all the Iesuites that come among us and in most of the other Regular Orders and not a few of the Seculars that their chief business amongst us is to advance the Pope's Authority in all things and to reduce all men under the obedience of it 'T is true they have not yet seen their time to attempt this by open War They have not set up the holy Banner in England and plac'd the Pope's Nuncio in the head of an Army against the King as their Brethren did in Ireland and do not repent of it But neither will our Popish Clergy say that those in Ireland did ill in it They have neither declared their dislike of that Rebellion by any publick act Nor among all the Books they have writ since the King's Restauration has any one of their Writers writ so much as one line against it that ever I could see or hear of But their Books abound with those principles out of which that Rebellion was hatch'd They are slily insinuated in those which are to be had at every Stall And there are those that pass from hand to hand in which this Treason is the main scope of their writing By which we may guess what wholesome Doctrine it is that they infuse upon occasion in private when they are among their own people What kind of preaching and catechising they use What information of their Penitents What ghostly counsel they give and what loyal directions of Conscience And if we had nothing else to discover them to us we may soon find what kind of spiritual Offices they perform by the Fruit of them in the perversness and obstinacy of so many of their Laity who choose to do or endure any thing rather than take the Oath of Allegiance I deny not that there are other Priests of that Communion who as far as we can judge by their private discourse seem to be rightly principled and well inclined towards the Civil Government There are those that seem to be heartily for the Independency of the Crown of England and that hold that the external Government of the Church ought to be in