to settle Religion in the purity thereof TO MAINTAIN THE ANCIENT and FUNDAMENTALL GOVERNMENT OF THIS KINGDOME TO PRESERVE THE RIGHTS and LIBERTIES OF THE SUBJECT to lay hold on the first opportunity of procuring a safe and well grounded peace in the three Kingdoms and to keep a good understanding between the two Kingdomes of England and Scotland according to the grounds expressed in the Solemn League and Covenant And lest these generals should not give a sufficient satisfaction we have thought fit to the end men might no longer be abused in a misbelief of our intentions or a misunderstanding of our actions to make a further enlargement upon the particulars And first Concerning Church-Government c. because we cannot consent to the granting of an Arbitrary and unlicensed Power and Jurisdiction to neer ten thousand Judicatories to be erected within this Kingdome and this demanded in such a way as is not consistent with the FVNDAMENTAL LAWS and GOVERNMENT OF THE SAME c. Our full resolutions still are sincerely really and constantly to endeavour the Reformation of Religion in the Kingdome of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship and Government according to the word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches and according to the Covenant WE ARE SO FARRE FROM ALTERING THE FUNDAMENTAL GOVERNMENT OF THIS KINGDOME BY KING LORDS and COMMONS that we have onely desired that with the consent of the King such Power may be settled in the TWO HOVSES without which we can have no assurance but that the like or greater mischiefs than those which God hath hither to dilivered us from may break out again and engage us in a second and more destructive war whereby it plainly appears Our intentions are not to change the Antient Frame of Government within this Kingdome but to obtain the end of the Primitive Institution of all Government The safety and weal of the People not judging it wise or safe after so bitter experience of the bloody consequence of a pretended Power of the Militia in the King to leave any colourable authority in the same for the future attempts of introducing AN ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT OVER THIS NATION We do declare That we will not nor any by colour of any Authority derived from us shall interrupt the ordinary course of Justice in the severall Courts of Judicatories of this Kingdome nor intermeddle in the cases of private interest other where determinable unlesse it be in case of male-Administration of Justice wherein we shall see and provide that Right be done and punishment inflicted as there shall be occasion ACCORDING TO THE LAWS OF THE KINGDOME Lastly Whereas both Nations have entred into a Solemn League and Covenant we have and EVER SHALL BE VERY CAREFULL DULY TO OBSERVE THE SAME that as nothing hath been done SO NOTHING SHALL BE DONE BY US REPUGNANT TO THE TRUE MEANING AND INTENTION THEREOF c. WHO WILL NOT DEPART FROM THOSE GROUNDS AND PRINCIPLES upon which it was framed and founded Though the generality of the afterwards secured and secluded Majority of the House of Commons endeavoured constantly to make good this Declaration in all particulars yet how desperatly the garbled Minority thereof continuing in power after their Seclusion prevaricated apostatized and falsified their Faith herein in every particle in the highest degree we cannot but with greatest grief of heart and detestation remember to the subversion ruine of our King Lords Commons Kingdome Parliaments Fundamentall Laws Government and the peoples Liberties c. almost beyond all hopes of restitution or reparation in humane probability without a miracle from heaven The Lord give them grace most seriously to consider repent of and really sincerely reform it now at last and to make it the principle subject of their prescribed publike Humiliations Fasts and Lamentations as God himself prescribes Isa 58. 5 6 7 8. Jer. 34. 8. to 22. Ezech. 19. 1. 14. Hos 10. 3 4. and not still to adde drunkennesse to thirst lest they bring them to temporall and eternal condemnation for it in Gods own due time and engender endlesse Wars Troubles Taxes Changes Confusions in our Kingdomes as they have hitherto done and will do till all be restored to their just Rights Powers Places Possessions and Liberties By this full Jury of Parliamentary Authorities to omit many others of like or inferiour nature and lesse moment it is undeniable That the people of England have both ancient Fundamentall Rights Liberties Franchises Laws and a Fundamental Government which like the Laws of the Medes and Persians neither may nor ought to be altered or innovated upon any pretence but perpetually maintained defended with greatest care vigilancy resolution and he who shall deny or oppugn it deserâ—â—s no refulation by further arguments since it is a received Maxime in all Arts Contra Principia negantem non est disputandum but rather demerits a sentence of Condemnation and publike execution at Tyburn as a Common Enemy Traitor to our Laws Liberties Nation it being no lesse than a transcendent crime and High Treason by our Laws for any person or persons secretly or openly to attempt the undermining or subversion of our fundamental laws rights Liberties Government especially by fraud treachery force or armed power and violence the later part of my first proposal which I shall now confirm by these twelve following Presidents and Evidences corroborating likewise the former part That we have such Fundamental laws liberties rights franchises and a fundamental Government too In the fifth year of King Richard the second the vulgar rabble of people and villains in Kent Essex Sussex Norfolk Cambridge-shire and other Counties under the Conduct of Wat Tyler Jack Straw and other Rebels assembling together in great multitudes occasioned at first by the new invented Tax of Poll-money granted by Parliament and the over-rigorous levying thereof on the people by the Kings Officers though nothing so grievous as our Excises Contributions new Imposts now so long exacted without any legal Grant in true free and full English Parliaments resolved by force and violence to abrogate the law of Villenage with all other laws they disliked formerly setled to burn all the Records kill and behead all the Judges Justices and men of law of all sorts which they could get into their hands to burn and destroy the Inns of Court as they did then the new Temple where the Apprentices of the law lodged burning their Monuments and Records of Law there found to alter the tenures of lands to devise new laws of their own by which the Subjects should be governed to change the ancient Hereditary Monarchicall Government of the Realm and to erect petty elective Tyrannies and Kingdomes to themselves in every shire A project eagerly prosecuted by some Anarchicall Anabaptists Jesuits Levellers very lately and though withall they intended to destroy the King at last and all the Nobles too when they had gotten sufficient power yet at first to
Church Religion then to follow the Advice Votes Councels Directions Commands of our Parliaments Kingdomes and the best affected Protestants of all ranks who first raised and have so long maintained them for quite other ends hereafter touched then what they of late times have most pursued to the Popes and Jesuits great content 5. That the Jesuits have endeavoured attempted the convulsion concussion subversion not onely of the Empires Realms and ancient setled Governments and States of Germany Russia Bohemia Hungaria France Poland but likewise of England Scotland and Ireland and to new model them into other Forms of Government What mould of Government they intended to cast England into is thus long since described by William Watson a secular Priest in his Quodlibets Anno 1602. page 309 310 330 331. England is the main chance of Christendome at this present by seditions factions tampering and aspiring Heads the onely But Mark White the Jesuits aym at as well in intention as execution of their pretended expedition exploit and action I am of opinion that no man on earth can tell what Government it is they intend to establish ratifie and confirm when they come to their preconceited Monarchy no not any of their Plot casters No question it is but their Government shall be as uncertain as their New conceited Monarchy their Monarchy as mutable as their Reign and their Reign as variable as the Winde or Proteus in his Complements But no question is to be made of it but that the Government they do directly intend at this present is A MOST ABSOLUTE SOVERAIGNTY DOMINION AND STATE CLEARLY EXEMPTED from any subordination TO ANY LAW or Legifer divine or humane and therefore it is rightly called DESPOTICON in the highest degree of exemplary immuniâ—le IMPERIALITY AND ABSOLUTE REIGN RULE AND AUTHORITY as containing in it three sorts of Government Sâ—il Monarchical Aristocraticall Democraticall in matters of Counsell and mannaging of Common wealths causes not in point OF REGALITY HONOUR AND INHERITANCE For there shall be neither Title nor Name nor Honour given taken or done to any Prince Duke Marquesse Earl Viscount Lord Baron or the like all the Jesuitical Governours being Puritan like Seniours Elders Provincials c. neither shall there be any successions by Birth or blood TO ANY HONOUR OFFICE OR MAGISTRACY from the Monarch Pater General to the Minor Pâ—ter Minister but ALL SHALL GO BY ELECTION OR CHOICE Whether our late and present variable floating New moulded Governments have not been cast by this long since predicted Jesuiticall Mould let wise men with all our late yea present Governours now sadly consider and determine 6. That the Jesuits in a publique Disputation held at Madrid published by them under this Title Conclusiones Politicae sub Regis Domini nostri praesidio instructed the King of Spain their Chief Protector whom they most extoll above all other Kings to promote both his universall Monarchy and their own thereby That in relation to his Empire Power was necessary which power they defined to be A faculty not onely of retaining the Kingdomes he already possessed but likewise of acquiring other mens Perswading him by this Doctrine to believe That he was therefore consecrated a Catholike King by God that he might enjoy a faculty not onely of keeping his own but also OF INVADING AND SEISING UPON OTHER MENS DOMINIONS For to retain ones own was the praise onely of a private family DE ALIENIS CERTARE REGIA LAUS EST but it was a Royall praise to fight for that which is other mens NEC REGNANDI CAUSA JUS VIOLARE CRIMEN EST DUM CAETERIS REBUS PIETAS COLATUR Neither is it a Crime to violate Law or Right to reign or gain a Crown whiles that Piety in other things shall be observed Which Jesuitical Machivilian unrighteous Doctrine though as Alphonsus Vargas a Spanish Popish Priest resolves it be diametrically contrary to the doctrine of our Lord Jesus himself instructing men that aliena obtinere non Potentis Principis SED IMPOTENTIS AC VIOLENTI PRAEDONIS EST Yet the Jesuites and their Instruments of late years have sufficiently propagated it amongst our English Grandees and Army-Saints for a most sacred Oracle as their violent invasions of other mens Realms Powers Offices Pallaces Lands Estates and Possessions of all kindes by meer armed power and might demonstrate beyond contradiction 7. That the Jesuites in their Book De Zelo S. Ignatii in Religione sua instituenda printed at Madrid p. 13 do glory Hoc Societatis proprium esse ut quotidie novâ—â— promat inventiones quibus homines ad Deum perducantur That this is the property of their Society that it DAILY BRINGS FORTH NEW INVENTIONS whereby men may be brought home to God that is to their Religion and Society the principle whereof they and Vargas record to be these Their perswading of men to embrace the Gospel by AN ARMY the use of ARMES Power Terrour Fire Their Exercise of Merchandize which many of them in most places in England too now use they being very great Merchants Factors and Returners of Moneys by Bils of Exchange and of all other Secular Imployments Callings in Lay-mens habits the more easily to insinuate themselves into all Countries Places Companies and Societies of men to infect seduce and discover their secrets according to this their received Maxime JESUITA EST OMNIS HOMO a Jesuit is every man that is a man of all Professions Callings Sects Religions to effect his ends Their questioning traducing oppugning censuring of all the Articles of the Apostles Creed and received Principles Doctrines of Christian Religion corrupting slighting falsifying the Scriptures themselves together with Councils Fathers Schoolmen and all other Divines but those onely of their own Order which they incomparably extoll above and prefer before all other Their venting of new Opinions Notions Revelations Exposâ—â—ions Crochets Herefies Problems both in Divinity itself and all other Arts and Sciences in the Presse Pulpit Universities Schools And if these as Vargas assures us be their properties and new inventions to propagate the Gospel and draw men unto God which our Lord Jesus himself and his true Disciples were wholy ignorant of may we not certainly conclude that they have of late years been extraordinary busie at this their harvest work amongst us and more especially in spreading their Gospel by AN ARMY and taking upon them the use of Arms in 〈◊〉 of their Military Father Ignatius with all other secular Imployments and New Sects to draw Proselites and new separate Congregations to them throughout our Realms to destroy both our Church Discipline and Religion as well as our Civill Government and Laws 8. That as the whole House of Commons in their Remonstrance of 15. December 1641. charge the Jesuites and late Jesuited Court-Counsellors with a Malignant and pernicious designe of SUBVERTING THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS and Principles of Government upon which the Religion and Justice of the
largly contributed to this war and designe for which he Sir John Winter Master Mountague and others who had a hand in this conspiracy were convented and brought upon their knees at the Commons House-bar Jan. 28. 1640. upon which he retyring into France was about May 1645. sent as a speciall Embassadour from the Queen to the Pope of Rome himself to solicit him for ayds of monies men arms against the Parliament is first audience he had the best reception and fairest Promises of Aid in general that could be wished writing hopefully of supplies of Moneys from Rome to the Queen and others as both Houses of Parliament in their Declaration and Letters published 26 March 1646. proclaim to all the world and likewise good Hopes of a Cardinals Cap for himself or the Lord Aubeny or Mr. Mountagne for which he and the Queen sollicited After that upon his return from Rome he was sent over into England about Decemb. 1648. as a fit instrument to New-moddle us into a Commonwealth and promote the violent Proceedings of the Army Officers and their Confederates set on work by the Jesuits and their Agents against the late King Parliament Members where upon his arrival he was instead of being apprehended and brought to justice for the premises hugged by some Grandees whom he courted permitted to ride and walk about at large while the Members were under strict guards and restraints frequently repaired to Whitehall where he was well received his Sequestration totally taken off without any Fees or gratification by special order and himself now at last permitted to lodge not only in Wildemans House where the Queens Capuchins formerly resided but sometimes in Whitehall it self to the admiration of many understanding Protestants who justly suspect he hath there more disguised Iesuits to consult with and promote both their old and new designs against our Church State Religion Laws Liberties till they have brought them and us to utter ruine I shall for brevity sake acquaint you with one memorable general instance discovering what swarms of Jesuites are now amongst us under other visors An English Protestant Nobleman a person of honor whose Ancestors were Papists being courteously entertained within these two years at Rome by some eminent Iesuits in their chief Colledge there was brought by them into a Gallery having Chambers round about it with Titles over every door for several Kingdoms and amongst the rest one for ENGLAND Upon which he enquiring of the Iesuits what these titles signified was answered by them That they were the Chambers of the Provincial Iesuits of each Kingdom and Province written ever the respective doors wherein they had any members of their society now residing who received all Letters of intelligence from their Agents in those places every week and gave account of the to the General of their Order That the Provincial for England lodged in the Chamber over which the title ENGLAND was written who could shew him the last news from England which he desiring to see they thereupon knocked at the door which was presently opened the Provincial being informed who what the Lord was read the last news from England to them Hereupon the Nobleman demanded of them Whether any of their society were now in England how they could stay with safety or support themselves there seeing most of the English Nobility Gentry and Families that were Papists were ruined in their estates or sequestred by the late wars troubles so as they could neither harbour conceal nor maintain them as they had done heretofore They answered It was true but the greater the dangers and difficulties of those of their society now in England were the greater was their merit And that they had then above fiftéen hundred of their Society in England able to work in several Professions Trades which they had there taken upon them the better to support secure themselves from being discovered who together with some Popish Priests and Friers no doubt upon diligent inquiry will appear to be the chiefest Speakers Quakers Disputers Seducers Rulers in most separate Congregations and the principle brochers of all New Opinions Blasphemies now abounding amongst us This Relation I have heard from the mouth of a Reverend Divine more than once to whom this Noble Lord upo his return into England not many Months since seriously related the Premises averring the truth of them upon his Honour Yet for all this since the stupendious pretended repeals and annihilations of the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance that of Abjuration of Popery consented to by the late King in the Isle of Wight purposely made for the better detection and prevention of Iesuites and their treasonable forementioned practises against our Church Kingdoms Princes Religion Parliaments and Government by the wisdom and zeal of our best affected vigilant * Protestant Parliaments I can neither hear nor read of any effectual means endeavoured or prescribed by any in power for the discovery of these Romish Ianizaries or banishing feretting and keeping them out of England where they have wrought so much mischief of late years and whose utter ruine they attempt nor any incouragement at all given to the Discoverers of their Plots and Persons but many affronts and discouragements put upon them and particularly on my self lately mewed up close Prisoner under strictest Guards in remotest Castles near three years space without any Accusation hearing or particular cause yet assigned or disclosed to me though oft then and since demanded by me from my Imprisoners whiles they all walked abroad at large of purpose to hinder me from any discoveries of their practises by my Pen where as they printed vended publickly here in England above 30000 Popish Books of several kinds during my imprisonment without the least restraint to oppugne our Protestant established Religion as many of them do in terminis as most damnable Heresie propagate the Jesuites Plots and antichristian Romish Church and Religion amongst us as you may read at large in the Stationers Beacon fired which seasonable book and Discovery of these Romish Emissaries books and plots some Officers of the Army in their Beacon quenched publickly traduced in print as a New-Powder-Treason of the Presbyterian Party to blow up the Army and that pretended Parliament of their own erection which themselves soon after blew up and dissolved in good earnest pleading for a free Toleration of such Popish Books and all Religions as agreeable to the Armies Engagements and Principles to carry on their designs against our Religion and Laws But most certain it is there hath been of late years not only a General Councel of Officers of the Army sitting many moneths together in Councel to alter and new model all our ancient Laws and Statutes in pursuance of Father Parson's design but likewise two Conventicles of their own selection and election sitting of late in the Parliament House at Westminster assuming to themselves the Name and far
Government and Religion of our Realm which the Jesuites and their Instruments make their Master-piece totally to undermine and subvert And in nothing terrified by your Adversaries which is to them an evident token of Perdition but to you of Salvation and that of God If the Presidents of your renowned Ancesters here recorded the Paterns of many gallant Pagan Romans Graecians who have spent their Lives for their Countries Laws Liberties Or if my example and these my Lucubrations shall provoke you hereunto I shall think my labour well bestowed and you and your Posterities worthy to live like English-Freemen But if you wil now neither manfully demand speak nor contend for them any more out of a slavish fear of a prevailing Army raised only for their just defence or any other humane Powers whatsoever nor once adventure with united Spirits now at last so much as confidently boldly to ask these your unquestionable Birthrights at the Thrones of any mortal Grandees your Fellow-Subjects when God Almighty himself commands you to come with boldnesse to his coelestial Throne of Grace that you may obtain not meer right as here but Mercy it self and Grace to help in time of need Heb. 4. 16. Qui timide rogat docet negare you can neither hope for nor ever obtain them for the future but deserve eternally to forfeit them and you and yours to be made slaves for ever However I though these Collections prove successless shal carry this as a comfortable Cordial with me to my grave That I have faithfully discharged my Conscience and bounden Duty to my degenerous Native Country by endevouring all I could both to make and preserve it free indeed to detect and prevent all Jesuitical Plots and Practises to undermine imbroyl divide subvert ruine it and used my utmost sincerest constant endeavours in my place and calling herein But if through the Malice Tyranny or Injustice of any prevailing Enemies of publick Freedom or Jesuitical Agents I shall chance to suffer for it in any kind as I have formerly done for most of my publick services of this nature be it close-imprisonments Fines Pillories Stigmatizings or Death it self I shall onely say beforehand as Gregory the Great did heretofore Indict 2. Epist 78. In causa qua Deo placeâ—e cupio homines non formido and as noble Heroick Esther did in a like publick case for her endangered captivated Nation If I perish I perish and this my unrighteous suffering shall be a new Glorious permissive ordering over-ruling Providence doth no wayes justify nor extenuate the guilt of any Traytors Rebels Murderers Conspirators sinnes Treasons Rebellions Murders Regicides Conspiracies Rapines Oppressions or Wicked Devices which he permits them to plot act accomplish so it doth in no wise exempt them in Gods or Mens esteem from being the true Original Plotters Contrivers and immediate instrumental Actors of them nor from the divine or humane Punishments which they in justice demerit as is most evident by Gen. 50. 15. to 21. Psal 37. 7. 9. Prov. 24. 10 21 22. Iob 20. 5 6 c. 1 Kings 12. 12. to 25. c. 15. 23. to 30. c. 16. 1. to 30. specially ver 7 8. 2 Kings 11. 1. to 17. c. 14. 5 6. c. 15. 8. to 32. c. 17. 21 22. 1 Sam. 8. 2 Sam. 1. 2. to 17. c. 4. throughout Hos 1. 4. c. 8. 4 5. Isay 29. 15 16 c. 10. 5 6 7 c. Acts 1. 16. to 21. c. 2. 23. 1 Thess 2. 14 15 16. Mat. 27 3 4 5. compared together And if we should look upon all our late Changes Revolutions in our Kingdoms Government Church Parliaments Religion Laws wrought by the Iesuites and their Instruments as the meer wonderfull immediate Productions and Glorious Operations of God himself in the world and upon the instruments imployed in them only as Gods own precious chosen Saints and Servants accomplishing nothing but his own determinate Will Providence Councel though to satisfie their own ambition covetousnesse malice rapine blood-thirstinesse lusts as many now proclaim them and not as Conspirators Treacherous Perfidious Pernicious Malefactors in the highest degree as well as Iack Cade Wat Tyler Strafford Canterbury or the murderers of our Saviour Joash Ishbosheth with other Kings heretofore and of Henry the 3. and 4. of France of late there should then be no Traytors Conspirators Murderers Sinners Treasons Conspiracies Murders Sinnes in the world being all perpetrated by Gods permissive Providence no Law nor Hell to punish them and it would be no less than a direct resisting fighting against God and his Providence for any Christians Kingdoms Kings or Loyal Subjects to pray against resist oppose the Treasons Murders Conspiracies Vsurpations Rebellions Innovations Plots of any Iesuites or Romish Emissaries or their under-Agents against our Kings Kingdoms Governors Parliaments Laws Liberties Government and Religion which would be professed Blasphemy or Frenzy at least for any man to affirm 2. That this Iesuite Parsons in his â—oâ—ks of the Reformation of all the States of England as he prescribed Reformations to the Prince Court Counsellors Noblemen Bishops Prelates Pastors Universities Lawyers Laws in which he will have STRANGE METAMORPHOSES so likewise THE COVRT OF PARLIAMENT HE WILL HAVE BROVGHT TO BETTER FORM as W. W. a secular Priest in A Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay-Gentleman printed at Rhemes An. 1601. p. 95. Watson in his Quadlibets p. 92. to 96. 320. to 334. William Clark a sâ—cular Priest in his Answer to Father Parsons Lâ—bel p. 75. c. in direct terms attest And may we not then justly suspect that the late New-models and Reformations of our Kingdoms Parliaments Government Laws c. originally promoted by our Army Counsels and Officers proceeded primarily from the Iesuites Projections Plots against them if the Statutes of 23 Eliz. c. 1. 27 Eliz. c. 2. 35 Eliz. c. 2 3. Iac. c. 1 2 4 5 7. 7 Iac. c. 6. and the manifold Declarations of both Houses of Parliament Exact Collection p. 491 492 497 498 616. 631 666 698 813 to 828. may be judges 3. That the Iesuites drift directly is immediatly by means of CONQUEST intended for England to bring it and all Christendom into an uproar FOR COMMON SOVLDIERS TO EXAMINE THEIR SOVERAIGNS WHAT TITLE THEY HOLD BY that thereupon themselves by craft money and multitudes gathered together through their Policy may bring England and then Spain and all the rest under their subjection and Monarchy And that principally by this Iesuitical Position That every Precopie or Tartarian multitude getting once the stile and title of a PUBLICK STATE or HELVETIAN COMMON-WEALTH may alter change and innovate the course of inheritances and succession TO CROWNS AND KINGDOMS and also to every private Persons heritage holden in Fee-sâ—mple as William Watson assures us in these very terms And whether the Jesuites have not instructed our Army Officers and Common Souldiers upon this pretext and for this very end to examine their Soveraigns yea our
there is a Paper wherein these words are engraven Ego sicut Oliva fructifera in domo Dei taken out of Ps 52. 8. which pourtraictures they then printed and published to the world wherein they set forth the number of their Colledges and Seminaries to be no less then 777. increased to 155 more by the yeer 1640. in all 932. as they published in like Pictures Pageants printed at Antwerp 1640. Besides sundry New Colledges and Seminaries erected since In these Colledges and Seminaries of theirs they had then as they print 15591 Fellews of their Society of Jesus besides the Novices Scholars and Lay-brethren of their Order amounting to neer ten times that number So infinitely did this evil weed grow and spread it self within one hundred yeers after its first planting And which is most observable of these Colledges and Seminaries they reckoned then no less then 15 secret ones IN PROVINCIA ANGLICANA in the Province of ENGLAND where were 267 SOCII or Fellows of that Society besides 4 COLLEDGES OF ENGLISH JESUITES ELSEWHERE In IRELAND and elsewhere 8 Colledges of IRISH JESUITES and in SCOTLAND and otherwhere 2 Residencies of SCOTTISH JESUITES What the chief imployments of Ignatius and his numerous swarms of Disciples are in the World his own Society at the time of his Canonization for a Romish Saint sufficiently discovered in their painted Pageants then shewed to the people wherein they pourtraied this new Saint holding the whole world in his hand and fire streaming out forth of his heart rather to set the whole world on fire by Combustions Wars Treasons Powder-plots Schismes new State and old Church-Heresies then to enlighten it with this Motto VENI IGNEM MITTFRE I came to send fire into the World which the University of Cracow in Poland objected amongst other Articles against them Anno 1622. and Alphonsus de Vargas more largly insisteth on in his Relatio de Stratagematis Sophismatis Politicis Jesuitarum c. An. 1641. c. 7 8 24. Their number being so infinite and the Pope and Spaniard too having long since by Campanella's advice erected many Colledges in Rome Italy Spain the Netherlands and elsewhere for English Scottish Irish Jesuites as well as for such secular Priests Friers Nuns of purpose to promote their designs against the Protestant Princes Realms Churches Parliaments of England Scotland Ireland to reduce them under their long prosecuted UNIVERSAL MONARCHY over them by Fraud Policy Treason intestine Divisions and Wars being unable to effect it by their own Power no doubt of late yeers many hundreds if not thousands of this Society have crept into England Scotland and Ireland lurking under several disguises yea an whole Colledge of them sate weekly in counsel in or neer Westminster some few yeers since under Conne the Popes Nuntio on purpose to embroyle England and Scotland in bloody civil wars therby to endanger shake subvert these Realms and destroy the late King as you may read at large in my Romes Master-piece published by the Commons special Order An. 1643. who occasioned excited fomâ—nted the first and second intended but happily prevented wars between England and Scotland and after that the unhappy Differences Wars between the King Parliament and our three Protestant Kingdoms to bring them to utter desolation and extirpate our reformed Religion The Kings Forces in which many of them were Souldiers after some yeers wars being defeated thereupon their Father Ignatius being a SOULDIER and they his Military sons not a few of them secretly insinuated themselves as Souldiers into the Parliaments Army and Forces as they had formerly done into the Kings where they so cunningly acted their parts as extraordinary illuminates gifted brethren and grand States-men that they soon leavened many of the Officers Troopers and common Souldiers with their dangerous Jesuitical State-politicks and Practises put them upon sundry strange designs to new-mould the old Monarchical Government Parliaments Church Ministers Laws of England erecting a New General Councel of Army-Officers and Agitators for that purpose acting more like a Parliament and Supream Dictators then Souldiers And at last instigated the Army by open force against their Commissions Duties Oaths Protestations and Solemn League Covenant to Impeach imprison seclude first eleveÌ„ Commoners then some six or seven Lords after that to secure seclude the Majority of the Commons House suppress the whole House of Lords destroy the King Parliament Government Priviledges Liberties of the Kingdom Nation for whose defence they were first raised which by no other adverse power they could effect This produced new bloody divisions animosities wars in and between our three Protestant Realms and Nations after with our Protestant Allies of the Netherlands Campanella's express old projected Plots to subject us both to the Popes and Spaniards Monarchies effected by the Spaniards Gold and Agents with sundry heavy Monthly Taxes Excises Oppressions Sales of the Churches Crowns and of many Nobles and Gentlemens Lands and Estates to their undoing our whole Nations impoverishing and discontent an infinite profuse expence of Treasure of Protestant blood both by Land and Sea decay of Trade with other sad effects in all our three Kingdoms yea sundry successive New changes of our publick Government made by the Army-Officers who are still ringing the changes according to Campanela's and Parsons Platforms So that if Fire may be certainly discerned by the smoke or the Tree commonly known by its Fruits as the Truth it self resolves Matth. 12. 33. we may truly cry out to all our Rulers as the Jews did once to the Rulers of Thessalonica in another case Act. 17. 6. THOSE Jesuites WHO HAVE TURNED THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN ARE COME HITHER ALSO and have turned our Kingdoms Kings Peers Monarchy Parliaments Government Laws Liberties yea our very Church and Religion too in a great measure UPSIDE DOWNE even by those very Persons who were purposely raised commissiond waged engaged by Protestations Covenanes Vows Oathes Laws Allegiance and Duty to protect them from these Jesuitical Innovations and subversions And those Jesuites Spanish Romish Agents who have so far seduced so deeply engaged them contrary to all these Obligations and to their own former printed Engagements Remonstrances Representations Proposals Desires and RESOLUTIONS for setling this Nation in its just Rights the Parliament in their just Priviledges and the Subjects in their Liberties and Freedoms published to all the World in the name of Sir Thomas Fairfax THE ARMY AND THE GENERAL COUNCEL OF THE ARMY none Volume London 1647. which they may do well to peruse yea against the Votes Intreaties Desires Advices of both Houses of Parliament the Generality of the good Ministers people of the three whole Kingdoms and their wisest best affected Protestant Friends who commissioned raised paid assisted them for far other ends O whether may they will they not in all humane probability rashly blindly suriously henceforth lead drive precipitate them to our whole three Kingdoms Churches Parliaments
or inheritance because in his and the Jesuites Opinion onely not in Truth he was both an Heretick and A TYRANT Asserting That it was lawful for Castle or any other private man TO DESTROY AN HERETICK OR TYRANT much more then him that was both And John Guignardus a Jesuite Fellow of the Jesuites Colledge of Claremount in his Papers then seised by and reported to the Parliament of Paris Anno 1595. not onely compared Henry the third and fourth to Nero and Herod and justified Clements murder of the one and Castles attempt upon the other as most Heroical and praise-worthy Actions but likewise added That if we in the year 1572. on Saint Bartholmews day in the General Massacre of the French Protestants had CVT OFF THE BASILICON VEINE Henry King of Navarre we had not fallen out of a Feavour into that Plague which now we finde Sed quicquid delirant Reges plectunctur Achivi SANGVINI PARCENDO That King Henry should be but over-mildly dealt with if he were thrust from the Crown of France into a Monastery and there had his crown shaven That if he could not be deposed without a war then a war was to be raised against him but if a war could not be levied against him the cause being dead CLAM E MEDIO TOLLATVR he should then be privily murdered and taken out of the way For which the Parliament of Paris adjudged and executed him for a Traytor Yea so desperately were the Jesuites after this bent to destroy this King that Alexander Hay a Scottish Jesuite of Claremont privy to Castles villany used to say That if King Henry the fourth should pass by their Colledge the first there built for them he would willingly cast himself out of his window headlong upon him so as he might break the Kings neck though thereby he brake his own Yet was he punished but with perpetual Banishment After which Jesuitical conspiracies detected and prevented notwithstanding this King Henry before these two attempts to murder him had by their sollicitations renounced the Protestant Religion professed himself a zealous Romanist recalled the Jesuites formerly banished for the murther of Henry the third against his Parliaments and Counsels advice reversed all the decrees of Parliament against them razed the publick Pillar set up in Paris as a lasting Monument of their Treasons and Conspiracies built them a magnificent Colledge in Paris indowed them with a very large Revenue entertained Pere Cotten one of their Society for his Confessor who revealed all his Secrets to the King of Spain bequeathed a large Legacy of Plate and Lands to their Society by his will and was extraordinary bountiful and favourable towards them yet these bloody ingrateful Villains animated that desperate wretch Ravilliac to stab him to death in the open street in Paris Anno 1610. Albigni the Jesuite being privy to this murder before it was perpetrated Yea Francis de Verona in his Apology for John Castle p. 258. thus predicted his second mortal stab in these words Though this Prince of Orange scaped the first blow given him in his cheek yet the next hit whereof this was a presage as the blow given by Castle SHALL BE THE FORE-RVNNER OF ANOTHER BLOW Such implacable Regicides are the Jesuites 4. By their suborning instigating sundry bloody instruments one after another to murder William Prince of Orange prevented in their attempts by God's providence till at last they procured one Balthasar Gerard to shoot him to death with a Pistol charged with three Bullets An. 1584. the Jesuites promising him no less then HEAVEN it self AND A CANONIZATION AMONG THE SAINTS AND MARTYRS for this bloody Treason as they did to James Clement before for murdering the French King And it is very remarkable That after this murder of his Thomas Campanella a Jesuited Italian Frier prescribed this as a principal means to the King of Spain of reducing the Netherlands under his Monarchy again to sow emulation and discords amongst their Nobles States and to murder Prince Maurice his son and successor which he expresseth in these direct termes Maxime opus est ut Serpens seditionis Comes Scilicet Mauritius Interimatur non vero per bellum diuturnum copia illi danda est magis magisque succrescendi which they twice likwise attempted to affect An. 1594 and 1598. No wonder that they so much endeavour by all means instruments to suppress that noble family now to whom the Netherlands principally owe their infranchisement from the Spanish yoak of bondage 5. By their poysoning Stephen Botzkay Prince of Transylvania for opposing their bloody persecution 6. By their manifold bloody Plots and Attempts from time to time to murder depose stab poyson destroy our famous Protestant Queen Elizabeth by open Insurrections Rebellions Invasions Wars raised against her both in England and Ireland and by intestine clandestine Conjurations from which Gods ever-waking providence did preserve her Amongst other Conspiracies that of Patrick Cullen an Irish Frier hired by the Jesuites and their Agents to kill the Queen is observable Holt the Jesuite who perswaded him to undertake the murdering of her told him that it was not onely lawful by the Laws but that he should merit Gods Favour and Heaven by it and thereupon gave him remission of all his sins the Eucharist to encourage him in this Treason the chief ground whereof and of all their other Treasons against this Queen was thus openly expressed by Iaquis Francis for Cullens further encouragement That the Realm of England then was and would be so well setled that unless Mistras Elizabeth so he termed his Dread Soveraign though but a base Landressson were suddenly taken away All the Devils in Hell would not be able to prevail to shake and overturn it Which then it seems they principally endeavoured and oft-times since attempted and have now at last effected by those who conceit they demerit the Title of Saints though not in a Romish Kalender and no less then Heaven for shaking overturning and making it No Kingdom 7. By their Conspiracy against King James to depâ—ive him of his Right to the Crown of England imprison or destroy his person raise Rebellion alter Religion and Subvert the Statâ— and Government by vertue of Pope Clement the eighth his Bull directed to Henry Garnet Superiour of the Iesuites in England whereby he commanded all the Archpriests Priests Popish Clergy Peers Nobles and Catholicks of England That after the death of Queen Elizabeth by the course of Nature or otherwise whosoever shall lay claim or title to the Crown of England though never so directly or neerly interessed by descent should not be admitted unto the Throne unless he would first tolerate the Româ—sh Religion and by his best endeavours promote the Catholick cause unto which by his Solemn and Sacred Oath he should religiously subscribe after the death of that miserable woman as he stilled Queen Elizabeth By vertue of which
universal liberty of exercising their Popish Religion throughout his Realms and Dominions and then to train up his Son under them in the Popish Religion To which not onely heretofore but now likewise they strenuously endeavour by all possible means to seduce him as appears more especially by Monsieur Militiere his late book dedicated to Him for that purpose to invite him to the Roman Catholick Faith Surely all these premised instances compared together and with that memorable passage of the English Jesuite Campian in his Concertatio Ecclesiae Catholicae or Epistle to Queen Elizabeths Councel Treviris 1583. p. 22. Velim sciatis quod ad Societatem nostram attinet omnes nos qui per totum Orbeni longe lateque diffusi sunt quarum est continua successio magnus numerus Sanctum foedus infisse nec quamdiu unus nostrum supererit studium consilia nostra intermissuros ad Reges Hereticos quovis modo tollendos as Hospinian relates and expounds his words and meaning Religionem vestram extingâ—ere Iampridem jacta est ratio inchoatum certamen nulla vis nullus Anglorum impetus superabit so as to hinder this their holy League and Covenant long since entred into To destroy take out of the way ruine all Protestant Kings throughout the World under the Notion of Hereticks by any means whatsoever and the Protestant Religion togetherwith them With a Copy of a Letter sent by an Independent Agent from Paris some few weeks before the Kings removal from the Isle of Weight by the Army-Officers declaring the Jesuites implacable Enmity to the King and to hereditary Monarchy throughout the World And an Express sent from Paris to the King himself some three dayes before his seisure and translation from Weight to this effect as I have heard from persons of Honour That the Jesuites at a general meeting in France had resolved by the power of their friends in England to seise on his Majesty bring him to justice and cut off his head because he had contrary to their expectation closed with the Parliament consented to the abolishing of Episcopacy and to five new Bills against Jesuites Popish Priests Mass Popery and all Popish Ceremonies in the last Treaty and advising Him to prepare for this new storm which within few days after fell upon him will sufficiently inform the world that the late unparallel'd capital proceedings against our Protestant King contrary to the Votes of both Houses of Parliament the Parliament Members Peers House and forced dissolved late Parliament too proceeded not from the Principles of our reformed Protestant Religion as this Monsieur in his printed Pamphlet would make his Reader the youg King to whom he dedicates it and all the World believe but from the Popes and Jesuites forecited Treasonable Opinions seconded with their clandestine Sollicitations and Practises and that they with some French Cardinals Jesuites as well as Spanish and English then present in England to promote their Designes were the chief original Contrivers Promoters of them whoever were the immediate visible Instruments as I have elsewhere more fully demonstrated for the wiping off this Scandal from our reformed Religion the sincere Professors of it who both abominated and protested against it in print 〈◊〉 Radolphus Hospinian in his excellent Historia Jesuitica l. 4. f. 244 245. reckons up these three prime causes of the Jesuites Regicides other Notorious Treasons The first is that blinde Obedience which they vow to their Superiours to execute with great celerity spiritual joy and perseverance whatever their Superiours shall enjoyne them by being perswaded That all their Cemmands are Iust to them by renouncing their own Opinion and Iudgement with a certain Blinde Obedience and by believing that those who live under Obedience are carried and governed by Divine Providence a word now most in use with our Army-Saints and Souldiers wholly infected with this Jesuitical Doctrine of Obedience by their Superiors whithersoever they shall suffer themselves to be carried or in what sort soever they shall be dealt with by them like a staffe in the hand of a man which readily obeys him that holds it wheresoever and in what thing soever he will please to use it especially when backed with a pretext of Necessity Religions Safety Publick Good Exemplary Justice and promoting the common Cause for which their Society was first instituted 2. That they hold themselves obliged to no Kings Princes or Civil Magistrates by any Oath of Allegiance but onely to the Pope and their Generals and therefore think themselves free and unable to commit any Treason at all against them although at the Popes and â—heir Superiours commands they still rise up against murder â—stroy them 3. That they deem those Kings Princes which the Pope and Jesuites or other learned men of their Religion or the common people shall deem Hereticks to be thereby wholly made uncapable of any Empires Kingdoms or Principalities or any other civil Diguity yea to be accursed Tyrants unworthy of the name of Kings that thereby their Subjects are totally absolved from the bond of Allegiance to them and that thereupon it is lawful to kill and destroy them and the murders of such are meritorious Now that these three Jesuitical Grounds and Principles infused into our Army-Officers and Souldiers by the Jesuites and their Instruments of late yeers against their Primitive Orthodox Positions Protestations Declarations Oaths Covenants Engagements backed with secret Avarice Ambition and Self-ends were the principal impulsive Causes of all the extravagant violent Proceedings both against the late King and Parliament not the loyal Principles of the Protestant Religion is apparent unto all the World by the Armies own Declarations of Nov. 16. and Decemb. 7. 1648. Their True State of the Commonwealth of England c. 1654. and other Pamphlets for their justification which all true Protestants blush at 〈◊〉 3. That the Jesuites ever since the Establishment of their Military Order under Ignatius their Martial General have been the principal Firebrands Bellows Instruments of kindling somenting raising continuing all the publick commotions wars seditions and bloody fewds that have happened in or between any Kings Kingdoms States Princes Soveraigns or Subjects throughout the Christians world and more particularly of all the Civil commotions wars in France Germany Transylvania Bohemia Hungary Russia Poland England Scotland and Ireland to the effusion of whole Oceans of Christian blood which one poetically thus expresseth Quicquid in Orbe mali passim Peccante Gradido est Quicquid turbarum tempora nostra vident Cuncta Sodalitio mentito Nomine Jesu Accepta Historiâ teste referre licet Itâ— modò vestrae celebrate Encaenia Sectae Militis inventum Loiolana cohors Yea it is well worthy observation what Jacobus Crucius a Jesuite Rector of the Jesuites Novices at Landsberge presumed to publish in his Explication of the Rules of the Jesuites Anno 1584. in these words The Father
of our Society ought to be a Souldier because as it is the part of a Sculdier to rush upon the Enemy with all his Forces and not to desist till he become a Conquerour so it is our duty to run violently upon all who resist the Pope of Rome and to Destroy and Abolish them not onely with Counsels Writings and Words Sed invocato etiam brachio seculari Igne Ferro tollere abolere sicut Pontifer nostra Vota contra Lutheranos suscepta Volunt Mandant But likewise by calling in to our assistance the secular Arm of an Army to take away and destroy them with Fire and Sword as the Pope and our Oathes taken against the Protestants Will and Command And may we not then safely conclude they have been the Original Contrivers Fomenters Continuers of all our late intestine and forraign wars by Land and Sea with our Christian Protestant Brethren and Allyes as sundry Parliament Declarations of both Houses aver and attest And that many of them have secretly crept into and listed themselves Souldiers in our Armies on purpose to put on foot their designs against our King Kingdoms Churches Religion and perpetuate our Civil Wars And so much the rather because Alphonsus de Vargas a Spanish Popish Priest informs us That the Jesuites being a Generation of Incendiaries are so welpleased with the name of their Founder Ignatius derived from Fire and signifying a Caster about of wild-Fire or an Incendiary that though his christned name at first was Innicus or Inighistas Yet Iohannes Eusebius Nirenberger a Jesuite in his Book De Vita Ignatii printed at Madrid 1630. most falsly records That his Parents at his Baptism being in doubt what name to give him thereupon the Infant himself with a loud voice said He would be named Ignatius to signifie what office he should obtain in the Church and world even to cast abroad fire in them and set them all in a flame Hereupon his Disciples the Jesuites considering that this their founder was by his name A firebrand and a Souldier by his profession professed publikely to the King of Spain his councel and the world that it was no less consonant to the mind institution and statutes then to the name of their warlike Father Ignatius that they should not onely exercise but Publikely profess and teach to others Artem Pyrotechnisam c. the art how to make and cast abroad fire-balls fire-works and wild-fire to fire and burn houses and Cities and likewise the art of warre of setting Armies in battel array of Assaulting cities the maner of making Gun-powder bullets fire-bals of casting Guns and the maner and wayes of making all other Military works Engines together with rules and precepts belonging to Navigation omnia maritini belli munia and all duties and incidents belonging to Sea-fights Upon which they perswaded the King of Spain notwithstanding the opposition of all the Universitâ—es of Spain against it to erect a publike University for their fiery martial order at Madrid and to endow it with an annual Revenue of ten thousand Crownes wherein they set up a publike Lecture concerning war and all incidents appertaining thereunto with this Printed title Acroasis De re Militari in qua pracipietur Doctrina forma Militiae veteris Hodiernae Species Mathematum arti isti subordinatarum quae sunt Tactica five De Acie instruenda Topographica Machinaria Militaris Organo Poetica Pyrotechnica c. Hanc acrosia faciet P. Hermannus Hago a Jesuit quarta pomeridiana usque ad quintam This is the first publike Military Lecture I ever read of erected in any University amongst Christians and Professors of the Gospel of peace who are expresly enjoyned by the God of peace and Prince of peace To put up their swords into their scabberds because all those that that the sword shall perish with the sword To beat their swords into plowâ—shares and their spears into pruning-hookes not to lift up the sword against one another neither To learne war any more Yet such bloody incendiaries and delighters in war are the Jesuites that they thus publikely teach others the art of war and fire-workes to set the whole Christian world in combustions and open warres against each other which they have everywhere accomplished and that upon this accompt that the Gospel of Jesus is principally to be taught and propagated by armed power exercitu armorum usu by An army and the use of armes whereby they now propagate it in our Kingdomes the quite contrary way to the ruine of our Church and religion whereupon Vargas passeth this just censure on them Hos velut Ignigenos illis Comici verbis recte quis a se amoliri in malam rem abire jusserit Apage illum a me nan ille quidem Vulcani irati est filius Quaqua tangit Omne amburit si prope abstes calefacit And a German Frier in his Astrum inextinctum gives this true Character of them Discordias inter suprema Reipublicae Christianae capita seminare credimus esse veritati patrocinari quam salvam esse negant quamdiu Principes isti inter se non colliduntur Hoc est flammas in Europa suscitare sicut gloriantur Patrem societatis Ignatium esse illum de quo Christus dexerit Veni ignem mittere in terram hoc est classicum in aulis Principum canere illos inter so committere 4. That the Jesuites from the first erection of their Military order have conspired attempted to subvert and utterly extirpate under the name of Schismatickes Hereticks Gospellers Heresie and the Gospel all professors whatsoever of the Protestant Religion and their Doctrines throughout the world not onely by Machivilian plots and treasons but by war fire sword holy leagues Armies armed power as is evident both by their bookes and Practices To instance in a few particulars both abroad and at home Franciscus Veronas Constantiensis a Jesuite in his Apology for John Castle Anno 1595. part 5. c. 13. resolves That all wars to extirpate heretickes Protestants Arâ— lawfull yea more lawfull then against all other Infidels because Heresie according to Gods word is worse then all Infidelity And if war be Just against Heretickes how much more just is it against the head of the Heretickes And if it be just to Extirpats hereticall Kings out of all Christian Kingdomes which the Jesuites entred into an holy League to effect as you heard before out of Campian How much more just is it in the most Christian Kingdom France to root out King Henry the 4 whom they not onely warred against but stabbed and murdered as aforesaid Thuanus Historiae l. 65. p 238. and lib. 67. 299. records That it is the opinion and Sentence of the Jesuites that it is a Pious and wholsome thing that all Christians should lay violent hands upon Sectaries and Protestants ought to be armed against them and to make no peace
keep no faith nor truce with them yea that it would be more profitable for the Church and more conducing to Gods glory for all Christians to give over their warrs they wage against the Turkes by common consent and to let the Turks alone and to turn all their arms and forces against the Evangelical Sectaries or Protestants which live amongst them who are worser and ought to be more odious to true Christians then Turkes and utterly to destroy and persecute them to death rather then to delete the unbelieving Mahometans who are not so dangerous as they Hoc quà m pie et juxta mansuetudinem Christianam dicatur ipsi qui conscientias alioram moderantur conscientiam suam rogant Subjoynes Thuanus though a Papist And Joannis Paulus Windeck in his Book De extirpandis Haeres antid 10. p. 404. 412. antid 11. p. 480. and p. 244. positively determines That the Lutheranes and Calvinists are to be persecuted with warrs and not onely to be terrified but likewise deleted cut off taken out of the way and utterly extirpated with arms and flames That all Catholike Princes ought to enter into Holy leagues associations confederacies to destroy and root them out as they did in France Anno 1587. That the oportunity is not to be neglected namely Quando Protestantes Pecuniis exhausti sunt when the Protestants Purses and money are exhausted as they are now amongst us by excessive endless Taxes Excises Civil wars and a perpetual army too much swayed by Jesuitical counsels to eat us out and ruine us with our Religion in conclusion ere disbanded And that the Catholickes may more easily oppress and destroy these Sectaries they are to be severed one from and divided against each other by sundry various arts and means and all occasions laid hold on for this purpose And are we not so now in all our Realmes and Dominions more then ever by the Jesuites and Romish Emissaries Which the Emperor Charles the 5 observed in his proceedings against the Protestants in Germany to his great advantage In pursuance of these Jesuitical Positions Anno 1576. and 1577. the King of Spain Duke of Guise with sundry others Jesuited Popish Princes Nobles and Papists of all degrees by the Jesuites instigation and Popes speciall approbation entred into a bloody Conspiracy or holy League as they term it To restore and retain the most holy worship of God according to the form and maner of the holy catholike Apostolike Church of Rome to abjure all errors or corruptions contrary thereunto c. To spend not onely all their Estates but lives to repeal all publique Edicts in favor of the Protestants and their associates to extirpate all Heresies heretickes and pursue all such as publike enemies with fire and sword to death who should any way oppose or withstand this League or refuse to joyne with them in it or fall off from it upon any pretext after this Oath to observe it Which League they several times renewed and in the renovation thereof Anno 1598. the Jesuits openly boasted That they would use their utmost endeavours that before the year 1600. began Evangelium So they termed the Protestant Religion Radicitus ex orbs toto extirpetur Should be clean extirpated out of the whole world The Massacres Slaughters of how many thousand Protestants by open intestine wars and bloody Conspiracies this League occasioned in France Germany and the Netherlands together with the murders of two French Roman Catholike Kings the French and Belgick Histories of those times will sufficiently inform the Reader In the year 1602. the Jesuites erected a new Colledge and Society at Thonon in Savoy to convert or utterly extirpate the Protestants under the Notion of Heretickes 1. by Preachings 2. by pious frauds 3. by Vi armata by force of armes to which new Society many Popish Kings Nobles and others gave their names and in June that yeare listed above 25000 expert Soldiers all Roman Catholickes to put this their Designe against the Protestants in execution upon the next oportunity there being above 50 Jesuites disguised in Lay-mens habits imployed in England to stir up the Papists and people there to joyn with them in this new Association to root out the Protestants in all places by the Sword the Principal Engine used by these Ignatians to effect it To pass by all the conspiracies and attempts of the Jesuites in Queen Elizabeths reigne to extirpate our Religion and the Professors of it by open wars Rebellions Spanish and forraign invasions both in England Ireland and Scotland recorded by Mr. Cambden Speed and others in her life and William Watson in his Quodlibets with their attempts of like Nature in the beginning of King James his raign recited in the Statutes of 3. Jacobi c. 2. where all may peruse them I shall onely acquaint you That a little before the beginning of our late bloody wars Divisions contrived fomented by the Jesuites and Papists as I have elsewhere at large discovered and many Parliament-Declarations attest one Francis Smith an English Jesuite openly affirmed to Mr. Waddesworth and Mr. Yaxly That it was not now a time to bring their Religion by disputing or Books of controversie but It must be done by an Army and By the Sword And it is very considerable That when the Jesuites Spanish and Romish Agents had engaged the King and English Protestants against their Protestant Brethren of Scotland 1639. to cut one anothers throats the King of Spain had provided a great new Spanish Armado by the Jesuites sollicitation and a great Land-Army of old Spanish Soldiers to invade the Western and Southern parts of England then destitute of all forces Arms Ammunition to defend it all drawn to the Northern parts against the Scots and to joyn with the Popish confederates here to extirpate the English he retickes and Protestants which designe of theirs through the Hollanders unexpected encounter which scattered their fleet upon the English Coasts and the Pacification with the Scots before any engagement of both Armies was happily prevented That this Spanish Fleet was then especially designed for England appeares besides other Evidences which I have elsewhere touched by the confession of an English Pilot in that Navy upon his death-bed mortally wounded in the first fight to an English Minister and others to whom he revealed it out of conscience by some Letters I have met with and by a Pamphlet made and printed by the Jesuites Anno 1640. intituled The Jubilee of the Jesuites taken from a Papist at Redriffe and presented by Sheriffe Warner to the whole Commons House November 14. 1640. Wherein among other Passages then read in the House entred in the Journal of that day out of which I transcribed them there was a Particular prayer For the holy martyrs that Suffered in the Fleet sent against the Hereticks of England 1639. with this advice That the Papists must fish in troubled waters to wit whiles that The
Kingdome are firmly established So William Watson a Secular Priest chargeth Father Parsons the English Jesuite and his Jesuited companions in their Memorial for Reformation of England when it should be reduced under the power of the Jesuites as Parsons was confident it would be though he should not live to see it written at Sevil in Spain Anno Dom. 1590. that they intended to have Magna Charta with our Common Fundamental Laws and Liberties abrogated and suppressed thus expressed by William Watson in his Quodlibets pag. 92 94 95. Father Parsons and the Jesuites in their deep Jesuitical Court of Parliament begun at Styx in Phlegeton have compiled their Acts in a compleat Volume intituled THE HIGH COVRT OF REFORMATION FOR ENGLAND And to give you a taste of their intent by that base Court of A TRIBE of TRAITORS sawcily like to Gade Jack Straw and Tom Tiler VSVRPING the AVTHORITY of both STATES ECCLESIASTICAL and TEMPORALL in all their REBELLIOVS ENTERPRICES these were principall points discussed set down and so decreed by them c. He first mentions three of them relating to Church-men Scholars and Church and Colledge-Lands which were to be put in Fee offâ—â—s hands and they all to be reduced unto Arbitrary Pensions c. And then proceeds thus to the Fourth The fourth Statute was there made concerning the COMMON LAWS of this LAND and that consisted of this one principal point That ALL THE GREAT CHARTERS of ENGLAND MUST BE BURNT the manner of holding Lands in Fee simple Fee tail Kings service Soccage or Villanage brought into villany scoggâ—â—y and popularity and in few the Common Law must be wholy annihillated abolished and troden down under foot and Caesars civill Imperials brought amongst us and sway for a time in their places All whatsoever England yeelds being but base barbarous and void of all sence knowledge or discretion shewed in the first Founders and Legifers and on the other side all whatsoever is or shal be brought in by these out-casts of Moses stain of Solon and refuse of Lycurgus must be reputed for metaphysical seme-divine and of more excellency than the other were Which he thus seconds Quodlibet 9. Article 2. p. 286. First it is plain that Father Parsons and his Company divide it amongst them how they list have laid a plot as being most consonant and fitting for their other Designments That the Common Laws of the Realm of England must be forsooth either abolished utterly or else bear no greater sway in the Realm than the Civil Law doth And the chief reason is for that the State of the Crown and Kingdome by the Common Laws is so strongly settled as whilest they continue the Jesuites see not how they can work their wills And on the other side in the Civil laws they think they have some shreds whereby they may patch a cloak together to cover a bloody shew of their Treasons for the present from the eys of the Vulgar people Secondly the said good Father hath set down a course how every man may shake off all authority at their pleasures as if he would become a new Anabaptist or King John of Leydon to draw all the world into Mutiny â—ebellion and Combustion And the Stratagem is how the Common people may be inveigled seduced to conceit to themselves such a liberty or prerogative as that it may be lawfull for them when they think meet to place and displace Kings and Princes as men do their Tenants at will hirelings or ordinary Servants Which Anabaptistical and abominable Doctrine proceeding from a turbulâ—nt tribe of Traiterous Puritanâ—s and other Hereticks this treacherous Jesuite would now foist into the Catholick Church as a ground of his corrupt Divinity And p. 330 332. He intends to alter and change all Laws Customs and Orders of this Noble Isle He hath prejudiced the law of Property in instituting Government Governours and Hereditary Princes to be BENEPLACITVM POPVLI and all other private possessions ad bene-placitum sui c Whether any such new deep Jesuitical Court of Parliament and high Court of Reformation for England to carry on this old Design of the Jesuites against our Laws hath been of late years sitting amongst us in or neer Westminster or elswhere in secret Counsel every week as divers intelligent Protestants have informed me and Hugh Peters reported to divers on his own knowledge being well acquainted with their Persons and practises of late years it concerns others neerer to them and more able then I to examine Sure I am a greater man by far then Hugh Peters in an Assembly of Divines and others for reconciling all dissenting parties not long since averred to them on his own knowledge That during our late innovations distractions subversions in Church State and overturning of Laws and Government the common adversary hath taken many advantages to effect his designes thereby in civill and spiritual respects That he knew very well that Emissaries of the Jesuites never came over in those swarms as they have done since these things were on foot That DIVERS GENTLEMNE CAN BEAR WITNES WITH HIM that they had a CONSISTORY AND COUNCEL ABROAD THAT RULES ALL THE AFFAIRS OF THE THINGS IN ENGLAND That they had fixed in England in the limits of most Cathedrals of which he was able to produce the PARTICULAR INSTRUMENT an Episcopal power with Archdeacons and other persons to pervert seduce and deceive the people And all this whiles we were in this sad and deplorable distracted condition Yea most certain it is that many hundreds if not some thousands of them within these few years have been sent over from Forraign Seminaries into England under the disguises of converted Jews Physitians Chyrurgions Mechanicks of all sorts Merchants Factors Travellers Souldiers and some of them particularly into the Army as appears by the late printed Examination of Ramsey the Anabaptized New-dipped Jesuite under the mask of a Jewish Convert taken at New Castle in June 1653. and by sundry severall late instances I could name To pretermit all instances of diverse particular Jesuites come over into England not only within these few years but moneths discovered by persons of credit with Sir Kenelm Digby who though the son of one of the executed old popish Gunpowder Traitors a dangerous active seducing Jesuited papist if not a professed Jesuit who in the years 1638 and 1639. conspired with the Popes Nuncio and a Conclave of Jesuites sitting in Council at London to subvert our Religion introduce a universall tolleration of the popish Religion in our kingomes new modle and shake our former established government and to poyson destroy the late King himself in case he consented not to them therein and for this very purpose both plotted raised promoted the first Wars between the Protestants of England and Scotland which he abetted all he could by his letters and secret Collections of moneys from all the Papists throughout England and elswhere who
more than the Power of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England together with the transcendent ambitious Title of The Supream Authority of the Nation in derogation of the Army Officers Supremacy who sufficiently chastised them for this strange Usurpation who have made it their chief businesse not only to New-model our ancient Fundamental Government Parliaments Ministry Ministers maintenance by Glebes Tithes and our Universities much according to Parsons and his Fellow Jesuites forementioned Plat-formes and Thomas Campanella his Instructions to the King of Spain De Monarchia Hisp. c. 25. but likewise to New-mould subvert eradicate the whole Body of our municipal Laws and with them the great Charter of our Liberties it self And in their last casâ—iered unelected Convention as some of their Companions now in greatest Power assure us in their True State of the Case of the Commonwealth of England c. London 1654. p. 5 16 17 18. there was a strong prevailing party whom nothing would satisfie but A Total Eradication of the whole body of the good old Laws of England the Guardians of our Lives and Fortunes to the utter subversion of civil Right and Propriety who likewise took upon them by vertue of a supposed right of Saintship in themselves to lay the foundation of a new Platform which was to go under the Name of A Fift Monarchy never to have an end but To war withall other powers and break them to pieces baptizing all their proselites into this Principle and perswasion that the Powers formerly in being were branches of the Fourth Monarchy of England Scotland and Ireland which must be rooted up and destroyed And what other Fifth Monarchy this could be but that projected universal Monarchy of the Iesuites which would bring the whole Monarchy of Great Britain and Ireland together with France Spain and all other Princes States in Christendome under the â—esuites subjection and break all other powers in pieces mentioned by Watson in his Quodlibets p. 306 to 333. and Alphonsus de Vargas Relatio de Stratagematis Sophismatis Politicis societatis Iesu Ad Monarchiam orbis terrarum sibi conficiendam c. 8. c. or else that Elective New Monarchy of Great Britain and Ireland projected by Campanella and Cardinal Richelieu which some Grandees now endeavour by their Instrument to erect and perpetuate for ever without alteration in themselves and their Successors though they thus expresly brand it in others let themselves and wise men resolve it being apparent by the practises and proceedings of all the Propugners of this new Project that this Fifth Monarchy they intend to erect is neither the spiritual Kingdom of Iesus Christ in their own hearts mortifying their ambitioÌ„ covetousness pride self-seeking unrighteousness violence rapines other worldly lusts nor the personal reign of Christ himself alone in and over our 3 Kingdoms and all other Nations for ever depriving all Temporal Kings and Princes of their Crowns Rights and Government over their Subjects which they falsly endeavour to evince from Dan. 2. 44 45 c. 7. 14 27. Micah 4. 1 2 7. Luke 1. 32 33. Rev. 20. 1. to 8. 1 Cor. 15. 24 25. Heb. 12. 26 27 28. but a meer supream arbitrary temporal Authority without Bounds or Limits encroached by and erected in themselves and their confederates without any colour of Right or Title by the Laws of God or the Realm and no ways intended but refuted by all these sacred Scriptures others which explain them This design of the Jesuites to alter and subvert the whole body of our Laws was so far promoted by the Iesuitical and Anabaptistical party in this last Assembly elected only by the Army-Officers that on Aug. 20. 1653. as our News-books print they Ordered there should be a Committee selected to consider of a A new Body of the Law for the Government of this Commonwealth who were to new-mould The whole Body of the Law according to Parsons his mould And hereupon our cheating Astrologers especially Lilly Culpeper the Iesuites grand Factors to cry down our Laws Tithes Ministers from the meer visible earthly Conjunctions Votes Motions Influences of these New wandring excentrick Planets at Westminster only not of any Coelestial Stars as they would make Country-Clowns believe alwayes moving and acting themselves by an unalterable Law from the very Creation until now Gen. 1. 14. to 19. c. 8. 22. Psal 104. 19. Psal 136. 8. 9. Ier. 31. 35 36. c. 33. 20 21. Iob 38. 32 33. therefore no ways exciting men to alter Fundamental Laws and Governments here on earth took upon them in their Monthly Prognostications for this year 1654. versity College Lands by Monthly endless Taxes Excises a perpetual Law Tith-oppugning Parliament-dissolving Army in whose Councels we have cause to fear the Iesuites have been most predominant of late years and will still make use of them to our final ruine if not effectually purged out and the Army new moulded new principled if any longer continued under pretext of publick safety and not wholy disbanded for the peoples ease and Liberty It is worthy observation that Tho. Campanella prescribed the sowing and continual nourishing of Divisions Dissentions Discords Sects and Schisms among us both in State and Church by the Machivilian Plots and Policies he suggests punctually prosecuted among us of late years as the principal means to weaken ruine both our Nation and Religion and bring us under the Spanish and Popish yokes at last witness his IAMVERO AD ENERVANDOS ANGLOS NIHIL TAM CONDUCIT QUAM DISSENTIO ET DISCORDIA INTER ILLOS EXCIT AT A PERPETUOQUE NUTRITA Quod citâ— meliâ—res occasiones suppeditabiâ— and that principally by instigating the Nobles and chief Men of the Parliament of England UT ANGLIAMIN FORMAM REIPUBLICAE REDUCANT AD IMITATIONEM HOLLANDORVM which our Republicans lately did by the power of the Army Officers or by sowing the seeds of an inexplicable war between England and Scotland By making it an Elective Kingdom as some now endeavour under another Notion or by setting up Other Kings of another Race without Legal Right or just Title against that ancient unquestioned undoubted Right and Title setled established in King Iames and his Royal Posterity by Inherent Birthright and lawfull right of Descent by God himself and his Laws confirmned strengthned by all possible Titles and Rights of compact Laws Statutes Oaths perpetual uncontradicted custome Protestations Covenants the solemn Publick Faith and Engagement of our English Parliaments Nation for themselves Their Heirs Posterities for ever as the Statutes of 1 Iacobi c. 1. 2 3 Iac. c. 1. 4 7. Iac. c. 6. which both houses of Parliament in their Declaration of Nov. 2. 1642. Exact Collect. p. 705 resolve And that upon this suggestion to the People Crudelem fore SCOTUM ubi semel Imperium in illos obtinuerit 〈…〉 mente repostum quanta injuria Angli Scotos superioribus
illis annis afficerint Praeterea suspicionem cis incuâ—iat fore ut Jacobus CAEDEM MATERNAM VINDICATURUS SIT c. Exasperandi sunt etiam animi EpiscoporuÌ„ PresbyteroruÌ„ Anglicorum proponendo illis REGEM SCOTIAE Calvinismum amplexum esse SPE CUPIDITATE REGNI ADACTUMQVE VI A BARONIBUS HAERETICIS quod si vero Regnuâ— Angliae etiam â—btineat TVM ILLVM CITO PRIOREM RELIGIONEM REVOCATURUM ESSE qùandoquidem non solum MARIA EJVS MATER moriens virum etiaÌ„ REX IPSE GALLIARVM SVMMOPORE EI RELIGIONEM CATHOLICAM COMMENDARINT c. yet now transcribed almost verbatim out of Thomas Campanella who suggested it against King James to alienate the English from him keep him from the Crown very freshly by the Authors of The True state of the Case of the Commonwealth c. p. 48 49. objected against the present King of Scots and royal Issue to deprive him and them from the Crowne of England and engage the whole English Nation against their Title to vest it in some other Family in greatest power Or if these projects should fail then by dividing us into many Kingdoms or Republicks dislinct one from another and by sowing the seeds of Schisms and making alterations and innovations in all Arts Sciences and our Religion The old Plots of Campanella Parsons and late designs of Cardinal Richelieu of the Pope Spaniard Jesuites to undo subvert our Protestant Churches Kings Kingdoms and Religion as the marginal Authors irrefragably evidence yet all visibly set on foot yea openly pursued and in a great measure accomplished by some late nay present Grandees and Army-Officers who cry up themselves for our greatest Patrons Preservers Deliverers and Anti-Jesuits when they have rather been but the Jesuites Popes Spaniards and other Forraign enemies instruments and factors in all the late changes new-models of our Government Parliaments pretended reformations of our laws and Religion through inadvertency circumvention or self-ended respects as many wise and godly men justly fear For prevention whereof I shall recommend to the whole Kingdoms serious consideration the memorable Preamble of the Statute of 25 H. 8. c. 22. discovering the like Plots of the Pope and our Forraign Enemies to 〈…〉 to prevent them for the future in these ensuing words In their most humble wise shewen unto your Majesty Your most humble and obedient Subjects the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled that since it is the natural inclination of every man gladly and willingly to provide for the surety both of his Title and Succession although it touch his only private cause We therefore most rightful and dreadful Soveraign Lord reckâ—n our selves much more bounden to beseech and instant your Highness although we doubt not of your Princely heart and wisdom mixed with a natural affection to the same to foresee and provide for the perfect surety of both you and of your most lawful Succession and heirs upon which dependeth all our joy wealth in whom also is united and knit the only meer true inheritance and title of this Realm without any contradiction Wherefore We your said most humble and obedient Subjects in this present Parliament assembled calling to our mind the great divisions which in times past have been in this Realm by reason of several Titles pretended to the Imperial Crown of the same which sometimes and for the most pâ—rt ensued by occasion of ambiguity and doubts then not so perfectly declared but that men might upon froward intents expound them to every mans sinister appetite and affection after their sence contrary to the right Legality of the Succession and Posterity of the lawfull Kings Emperors of this Realm whereof hath ensued great effusion destruction of Mans blood as well of a great number of the Nobles as of other Subjects and specially Inheritors in the same And the greatest occasion hath been because no perfect substantial provision by law hath binmade within this realm it self when doubts and questions have been moved proponed of the certainty legality of the Succession posterity of the Crown By reason whereof The Bishop of Rome See Apostolick contrary to the great and inviolable grants of Jurisdictions By God immediatly to Emperours Kings Princes in succession to their heirs hath presumed in time past to invest who should please them to inherit in other mens Kingdoms Dominions which thing we your most humble Subjects both Spiritual and Temporal do most abhor detest And sometimes other forraign Princes and Potentates of sundry degrees minding rather dissention discord to continue in the realm to th'utter desolatioÌ„ therof then charity equity or unity have many times supported wrong titles wher by they might easily facilly aspire to the Superiority of the same the continuance sufferance whereof deeply considered pondered were too dangerous and perillous to be suffered any longer within this Realm too much contrary to the unity peace and tranquility of the same being greatly reproachful and dishonourable to the whole Realm In consideration wherof your said most humble and obedient Subjects the Nobles and Commons of this Realm calling further to their remembrance that the good unity peace and wealth of this Realm and the succession of the Subjects of the same Most specially principally above all wordly things consisteth and resteth in the certainty and surety of the procreation posterity of your Highness in whose most royal person at this present time is no manner of doubt or question Do therefore most humbly beseech your Highnes c. to declare the establishment of the successioÌ„ of your royal posterity in the Imperial Crowns of this realm as he and they did by this other succeeding acts of Parl. in 1 Eliz c. 3. 1 Jac. c. 1. to prevent the like civil wars and mischiefs for succeeding ages now revived promoted by the Pope Jesuits Foraign Popish Princes to work our ruine Certainly whosoever shall seriously ponder the premises with these passages in William Watsons Quodlibets concerning the Jesuits 1. That some of the Jesuits society have insinuated themselves into all the Princes Courts of Christendom where some of their Intelligencers reside and set up a secret counsel of purpose to receive and give intelligence to their General at Rome of the secrets of their Soveraigns and of all occurrents in those parts of the world which they dispatch to and fro by such cyphers which are to themselves best but commÌ„only only to themselves known so that nothing is done in England but it is known at Rome within a month after at least reply made back as occasion is offered to the consequent overthrow of their own natural Country of England and their native Princes and Realms by their unnatural Treasons against them that so the Jesuits might be those long gowns which should reign and govern the Island of Great
theÌ„ with the constitution of our Church State Religion publike affairs must needs acknowledg that these pragmatical Iesuits have bin very active prevalent powerful successful and not only militant but triumphant of late years amongst us under some disguise or other that they have dangerously poysoned us with these their Machiavillian and Atheal policies practises positions and have more real Disciples Factors if not Tutors now amongst us then in any former ages And is it not high time then to endeavour to detect their persons and prevent their dangerous designs upon us with greatest care and diligence Truly though most others be negligent and fearfull herein yet that text of Ezek. 2. 6 7. And thou son of man be not afraid of them neither be afraid of their words though bryars and thorns be with thee and thou dost dwell among scorpions be not afraid of their words nor be dismayed at their looks though they be a rebellions house And thou shalt speak my words unto them whether they will hear or whether they will forbear for they are most REBELLIOVS hath animated me to exonerate my conscience herein and to say with the prophet Isai 62. 1. For Zions Englands sake I will not hold my peace and for Ierusalems sake I will not rest until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness and the salvation thereof as a Lamp that burneth Wherefore Upon serious consideration of all these Premises and of all those Sacred Solemn Oaths that Protestation Vow League and National Covenant which I have formerly taken lying still as so many indissoluble Obligations on my Soul notwithstanding the ingrate malicious unchristian Requitals of all my former unmercinary services Sufferings for Religion Laws Liberties and the publique in times of greatest Danger recompenced only with long causeless close imprisonments injuries affronts losses of all kinds by pretended friends and Patrons of our Liberties as well as by professed causeless Enemies And notwithstanding all other Discouragements from the general baseness cowardise Sottishness slavishness degenerated Spirits of the whole Nation and their strange fearfulness even publiquely to own much less cordially to assist defend according to the sixth Article of the Covenant those few couragious Patrons who have hazarded their Lives Liberties Limbs Estates and all earthly comforts for the publique defence of our Religion the Laws Liberties Priviledges of our Kingdom Church Parliament against the old and late avowed subverters of them whose very Company visits the generality of their former friends and acquaintance have declined as if they had some plague sores on them not only during their late restraints but likewise since their enlargements out of them enough to perswade them never to write speak act or suffer any thing more for such ingrate unworthy Creatures but rather to put their helping hands to make them and their Posterities slaves for ever I have yet once more out of pure zeal love conscience towards my native Country adventured my life liberty and decayed estate considering the lawlessness and Danger of the times not the justice and goodness of the Common Cause I plead for the necessary defence of the Fundamental Liberties Franchises Lawes Rights Parliaments Priviledges and Government of our enslaved Nation though every way unworthy to be beloved by God or men of noble spirits in this Seasonable Legal Historical Vindication and Collection wherein I have with all boldness faithfulness without the least fear or flattery of any Mortals or created powers whatsoever argued evinced maintained my own particular with the whole Nations publique right and inheritance in them of which few or none take any care but only of their own private gains case safely though with the Publike ruine and endeavoured as much as in me lies to preserve them and our Religion from the several Jesuitical plots counsels specified in the whole Commons House Remonstrance of 15 December 1641. Exact Collection p. 3. to 14. of late years revived and more vigorously pursued than ever and to rescue them out of the Claws of Tyranny and all usurping arbitrary powers which have avowedly encroached on yea trampled them under feet of late more than ever the worst of all our Monarchs or beheaded King did though declaimed against as the greatest of Tyrants by some who have transcended him in his worst Regal Exorbitances and particularly in this which the Lords and Commons in Parliament in their Declaration of Aug. 4. 1642. thus grievously complained of and objected against the Kings ill Counsellers That the LAWS were no protection or defence of any mans right all was subject to will and power which imposed WHAT PAYMENTS THEY THOVGHT FIT to drain the Subjects purses and supply THOSE NECESSITIES which their ill counsel had brought upon the King and gratify such as were instrumental in promoting most ILLEGAL and OPRESSIVE COVRSES Those who yielded and complied were countenanced and advanced all others disgraced and kept under and are they not so now as much as then that â—o their minds made poor and base as they were never so poor and base as now and THEIR LIBERTIES lost and gone as they were never so much as now they might be ready to LET GO THEIR RELIGION whensoever it should be resolved to alter it which was and still is the GREAT DESIGN and all the rest made use of as instrumental and subservient to it Upon which consideration they thus concluded that Declaration Therefore we the Lords and Commons are resolved to expose our lives and fortunes for the defence and maintenance of the true Religion the Kings person honor and estate the power and priviledge of Parliament the just rights and liberty of the Subject And we do hereby require all those who have any sence of piety honor or compassion TO HELP A DISTRESSED STATE especially SVCH WHO HAVE TAKEN THE PROTESTATION and are bound in the same duty with us unto their God their King and Country to come into their aid and assistance That which hath not a little encouraged me hereunto is not only this their publick call but likewise this memorable passage vow protestation of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament in their printed Declaration in answer to his Majesties of October 23. 1642. Which I fear most of them since in power have quite forgotten and therefore I beseech them now seriously to remember it Though we know very well there are too many of the Gentry of this Kingdom who to satisfy the LVSTS OF THEIR OWN AMBITION are content like Esau TO SELL THEIR BIRTH-RIGHT AND CARE NOT TO SVBMIT THEMSELVES TO ANY ARBITRARY AND UNLIMITED GOVERNMENT so they may FOR THEIR OWN TIME PARTAKE OF THAT POWER to trample and insult over others And have not are not some of these declarers and censures such themselves yet we are assured that there are of the Gentry many worthy and true hearted Patriots but where are those many now who are ready to lay down their lives and fortunes and
Parliaments Titles Priviledges and Powers too of late and dispose of reject suppress them at their pleasure let themselves the whole Nation with all in present power in the fear of God most seriously consider without passion or affection before it be over-late 4. That the Oathes of Supremacy and Allegiance which all Members of Parliament ought by Law to take before they can sit or vote as Members specially made and prescribed by our most wise zealous Protestant Parliaments to prevent the Treasonable plots and designs of Popes Iesuites and Papists against our Protestant Princes Realms Parliaments Religion though confirmed by many Statutes and containing in them only the Declaration of such a Duty as every true and well-affected Subject not only by the bond of Allegiance but also by the COMMANDMENT OF GOD ought to bear to the King his Heirs and Successors and none but persons infected with Popish Superstition formerly oppugned as the Prologue of the Statute of 7 Iacobi c. 6. positively resolves have by late State innovators not only been discontinued suspended but declaimed against and repealed as much as in them lay as VNLAWFUL OATHS the old Lawes against Iesuits and Popish Seminaries discontinued abrogated or coldly executed The New Oath for abjuration of Popery with all Bills against Iesuites and Papists presented to the late King by both Houses the last Parliament and by him consented to in the Isle of Wight wholly laid aside and quite buried in oblivion The Solemn Protestation League and Covenant prescribed by the last Parliaments taken by all the well-affected in all the 3 Kingdoms to prevent the dangerous plots of Papists Iesuites and our common enemies to destroy our Religion Churches Realms Government Parliaments Laws Liberties quite antiquated decâ—ied detested and a New Engagement forcibly imposed under highest penalties and disabilities upon all men diametrically contrary to these Oaths Protestations and Covenants which have been by a new kind of Papal power publickly dispenced with and the people absolved from them to become sworn Homages to other new self-created Lords and Masters And are not all these with the late Proclaimed Universal Toleration and Protection of all Religions to considerate zealous Protestants strong Arguments of the Jesuites Predominancy in our late counsels transactions and changes of publike Government 5. That the Notion of THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT in my weak apprehension derived its original from the Iesuites late-invented PRESENT CHURCH the onely Supream Power and Judge of Controversies which all men must submit unto by a meer absolute blind Obedience and implicit faith without dispute by their determination as they must do by a like Iesuitical blind obedience newly taught and obtruded on us to that present Republican Government and new Optimacity and Popularity lately set up instead of our Monarchy Which two forms of Government and want of a King and Monarchy as they are the punishment of a peoples Sins and the Transgressions of a Land by Gods own resolution not a Mercy Hosea 10. 3. c. 1. 4. Ier. 18. 7. Prov. 28. 2. Ezâ— 19. 14. Lam. 4. 20. c. 5 7 8 12. so they were the inventions of Factious Grecians at first wâ—ch put all their Cities into Combustions fury frenzy and civil wars against each other to their utter overthrow in conclusion witness these verses of Heniochus a Greek Comedian Tum geminae ad illas accesserunt Mulieres TITAS QUAE CUNCTA CONTURBARUNT OPTIMAEst nomen alteri alteri POPULARITAS RUNT Quarum incitatis PRIDEM EXTERNATAE FUâ— So the Iesuits Parsons Campanella Car. Richelieu designed to introduce set them up among so us in Engl. Scotl. and Ireland of purpose to divideâ— destroy us by civil wars and combustions and bring us under their Jesuitical power at last as the marginal Authorities declare to all the world And if this be undeniable to all having any sence of Religion Peace or publick Safety left within their brests is it not more than high time for us to awake out of our former lethargy fordid selfish stupidity to prevent our ruine by these and other forementioned Jesuitical practises Of can any Englishman or real Parl. be justly offended with me for this impartial discovery of them Or for my endeavours to put all the dislocated Members and broken bones of our old inverted fundamental body Politick into their due places joints and postures again without which there is no more possibility of reducing it to its prâ—stine health ease settlement tranquility prosperity or of preserving it from perpetual pain inquietation consumption and approaching death than of a natural body whose principal members continue dis-joynted and bones broken all in pieces as all prudent State-Physicians must acknowledge These five Considerations together with the Premises will I presume sufficiently wipe off all the malicious scandalous Imputations which Militiere and other Papists have injuriously cast upon the Principles and chief Professors of our Reformed Religion in relation to the late exorbitant Proceedings against the King Parliament the publike Revolutions Confusions Ataxies both in our Church Kingdoms and retort them on the Iesuitical Papal seditious Treasonable Antimonarchical Principles and Professors of their Religion especially the Iesuits and French Cardinals Militiere his late Lords and Masters the original Contrivers and chief clandestine Promoters of them as every day more and more discovers to the world And withall abundantly justifie this my undertaking impartial discovery of Jesuitical plots to ruin our Church Religion Kingdoms Parliaments Laws Liberties Government against all malicious Enemies Accusers Maligners whatsoever before all the Tribunals of God or Men where I shal be ready to justifie them upon all occasions In perpetual testimony whereof I have hereunto set my Hand and by Gods Grace shall ever be ready to seal them and the truth of God with my blood if called out to do it Swainswick Aug. 12. 1654. William Prynne A Seasonable Legal and Historicall VINDICATION and Chronologicall Collection of the good Old Fundamental Liberties Franchiseâ— Rights Laws of all English Freemâ—n their best Inheritance Birth-right Security against all Arbitrary Tyranny Aegyptian Slavery and Burdens of late years most dangerously undermined oppugned and almost totally subverted under the specious feigned Disguise of their Defence Enlargement and future Establishment upon a sure Basis IT is an universall received Principle and experimentall truth beyond all contradiction That no naturall structure no artificial building no Civil or Ecclesiastical Corporation Realm Republike Government or Society of men no Art or Science whatsoever can possibly be erected supported established preserved or continued in their being or well-being without FOVNDATIONS Whereon as they were at first erected so they must necessarily still depend or else they will presently fall to utter ruine Hence it is to wave all Humane Authorities in so clear a verity that in Gods own sacred unerring word of Truth we finde frequent mention of the naturall
Foundations of the the vast natural Fabrick of the Earth Heavens and world it self of the Artificial Material Foundations of the Material Temple Wals City of Gods own most famous Jerusalem and of private Houses of the spirituall Foundations of the Spiritual Temple City Jerusalem and whole Church of God even Jesus Christ himself of Doctrinal Foundations and first Principles of Religion Christianity Salvation yea of the Politicall Foundations of Kingdomes Republicks Churches Governments States Which being once shaken undermined subverted razed or dâ—stroyed bring unavoidable ruine and desolation upon them Psal 11. 3. Psal 82. 5. Jer. 50. 15. 51. 25 26. Micah 1. 6 7 9. Even as we daily see Castles Walls Houses to fall instantly to the ground and become an heap of Confusion when their Foundations are blown up decayed or demolished Upon which consideration those publike Laws which establish fence fortifie support the Fundamental Constitutions Rights Liberties Priviledges of any Nation Kingdome Republike essentiall to their being and subsistence as a free or happy people against the Invasions underminings enchroachments of any Tyrants Vsurpers Oppressors or publike enemies are usually stiled Fundamental Laws and have ever been reputed so sacred inviolable immutable in all ages upon any pretences of necessity or publike safety that most Nations and our own English Ancestors above others have freely chosen to hazard yea lose their estates lives in their just defence against such exorbitant tyrannical Kings and other Powers who by force or policy have endeavoured to violate alter or subvert them rather than out of a Cowardice Sottishnesse Carelesnesse or want of cordial love to the Publike to suffer the least infringment repeal or alteration of them to the inthrawling of themselves or their posterities to the arbitrary wils of such domineering Tyrants and Vsurping Powers Now because after all our Old and New many years bloody costly dangerous Contests and Wars for the maintenance of our good Old Fundamental Liberties Laws â—ights Priviledges against all secret or open underminers of them I clearly behold with grief of heart that there is a strang monstrous generation of new Tyrannical State-Hereticks sprung up amongst us who are grown so desperately impudent as not only to write but publikely to assert in print in Books printed by AUTHORITY even in Capitals in every Title page That the Freemen and People of England have no such unalterable Fundamental Laws and Liberties left them by their forefathers as our Ancestours heretofore contested for both in the Field and Parliament-House with William the Conqueror Henry the first King John Henry the third Edward 1. 2. 3. Richard 2. with other Kings and Princes and our late Parliamentâ— and Armies too with King James and King Charls That neither Magna Charta nor the Petition of Right nor the Laws for trying Malefactors by Juries of their Pears are Fundamental or unalterable but that the State Physitians or rather Mountebanks of our time who are not tied up to them but left free unto themselves may lay them quite aside either in part or whol as they see cause Yea have now attained to such a super-transcendent Authority that they may as they assert lay aside all Parliaments Parliamentary wayes appoint something else as more seasonable and proper to us and as Providence makes way for it if they see it more conducing to the safety and good of the Commonwealth that is to their own privat Interests Honors Profits Securities Designes Oppressions Rapines gilded over with this specious pretext And then peremptorily conclude That to plead for these and other fundamental laws and liberties as unalterable though the only Bulwarks Badges of our Freedome is nothing else but to enslave the Nation for by such a Principle people do not only lose their Liberty but are brought under such a kinde of Tyranny out of which AS BEING WORSE THAN THE AEGYPTIAN BONDAGE there is no hope of deliverance An absurd Tyrannical Paradox transcending any I ever yet met with in any Author stripping us naked of all our long enjoyed Laws Liberties Franchises great Charters at once tending onely to reduce and perpetually inthrall us under such an absolute AEGYPTIAN BONDAGE and Tyranny without any hope of future deliverance from it which some now endeavour to entaile on us and our posterities for ever by an Iron law and Yoke of Steel in stead of restoring to us that glorious Freedome which we have so long expected from them in vain And because I finde the generality of the Nobility Gentry Clergy Commonalty of our Nation after all their late years expensive bloody wars and Parliamentary Disputes for the defence and preservation of these our ancient Hereditary Fundamentall Charters Laws Liberties Priviledges so strangely degenerated both from themselves and their Heroick prudent Ancestors as that they are more readily inclined upon every occasion out of a base unchristian unmanly un-english fear or sottish cowardise and stupidity wittingly to desert betray surrender them al up into the hands of any invading Vsâ—rpers without the least Publike Claim Dissertation Defence Dspute then diligently or couragiously to coÌ„tend or suffer for them of late they did So as that which Paul once taxed in the â—lavish besotted Corinthians 2 Epist 11. 20. may be most truly averred of our degenerated infatuated English Nation Ye suffer if a man bring you into bondage if a man deâ—â—ur you if a man take of you if a man exâ—lt himself above your Laws Liberties Franchises Parliaments Kings Nobles Properties Lives Consciences and all that is called God or warshipped if a man smite you on the face notwithstanding all their manifold late Protestations Vows Covenants Remonstrances Declarationâ— and Publike Engagements to the contrary And withall after diligent enquiry discovering scarce one man of Eminency or Power in the Nation nor so much as one of my degenerated temporizing Profession of the Law even when the whole body of our laws and all its Professors are violently assaultâ—d and devoted unto suddain ruine by many lawlesse spirits who hath so much courage magnanimity honesty zeal or cordial love to his Native Country remaining in his brest as manfully to appear in publike for the strenuous necessary defence of these our Hereditary fundamentall laws liberties rights franchises though their own and every other English Freemans best inheritance and security for fear of being persecuted imprisoned close imprisoned exiled condemned destroyed as a Traytor Rebell Seditious person enemy to the Publike or disturber of the Kingdomes peace by those who are truly such I thereupon conceived I could not undertake or performe a more necessary seasonable beneficiall service for my Country and ingrate unworthy Nation who are now ashamed afraid for the most part to own visit or be seen in the company of those Gallant men much lesse to assist defend and stick close unto them in their dangers according to the sixth Article of their late Solemn League and Covenant
after so many Declarations and solemn Protestations made by his Majesty to rule by the known Laws of this Land his Majesty by advice of his ill Councellors should be perswaded to set such a Commission on foot which is so clearly contrary TO THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF THIS LAND the Rights of Property and Liberty of the Subject contrary to former resolutions of Parliament and to the Petition of Right I am certain the generality of the Nation are now as much and more agrieved that some who were Parties to this Declaration and others who have made as many or more Declarations Protestations as his Majesty ever did to rule by the known laws of the Land should since this far exceed his Majesty in the like nay greater more exorbitances in the Militia Excises Taxes Impositions Imprisonments arbitrary extravagant proceedings capital executions in new erected Courts of Injustice and whole volumes of new binding Ordinances as they term them and their ill-sounding Instrument obliging all our three Nations both for the present all future ages in their intention as diametrically contrary as the Kings Commissions of Array to the Fundamentall Laws of the Land four times together so stiled and insisted on as such in this one Declaration of both Houses the Right of Property of the Subject contrary to former Resolutions and the Petition of Right yea which is most abominable to their own Declarations Remonstrances Votes Protestations Vows Solemne Leagues and Covenants in Parliament to their own eternall Infamy as well as the peoples intolerable oppression and slavery who thereupon may justly conclude and protest against them as both Houses did in the close of this Declaration against the Array viz. And the Lords and Commons do and shall adhere to their former Votes Resolutions That all those that are Actors in putting of this Commission of Array these Instruments Ordinances new Taxes Imposts Excises in execution shall be esteemed disturbers of the Peace of the Kingdome and of the Properties and Liberties of the Subject 10. The tenth Evidence is the Vote and Letter of both Houses of Parliament sent to his Majesty at Oxford 9. March 1643. in Answer to his Majesties of the third of March and wherein there is this passage We the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England c. Have resolved with the concurrent advice and consent of the Commissioners of Scotland to represent to your Majesty in all humility and plainnesse as followeth That this present Parliament convened according to the known and FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF THE KINGDOME the continuance whereof is established by a law consented to by your Majesty is in effect denied to be a Parliament c. And hereupon we think our selves bound to let your Majesty know That since the continuance of this Parliament is settled by a Law which as all other laws of your Kingdome your Majesty is sworn to maintain as we are sworn to our Allegiance to your Majesty those Obligations being reciprocall we must in duty and accordingly are resolved with our Lives and Fortunes to Defend and preserve the â—ust Rights and full Power of this Parliament To which the Earle of Essex then General by both Houses order in his Letter to the Earle of Forth January 30. 1643. adds this Corolary My Lord the mainâ—enance of the Parliament of England and the Priviledges thereof is that for which we are resolved to spend our bloud as being THE FOVNDATION WHEREON ALL OVR LAWS AND LIBERTIES ARE BVILT Which both the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament in their Declaration 23. March 1643. touching their proceedings upon his Majesties Letter concerning a Treaty of Peace wherein this Earls former letter is recited thus second The Parliament of England is the onely Basis the chief Support and Pillar of our Laws and Liberties c. And if notwithstanding all these Obligations the King shall at his pleasure dissolve this Parliament the Kingdome is not onely deprived of the present but made uncapable of enjoying the benefit of any future Parliament or Laws any longer than shall stand with the will and pleasure of the King and consequently THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ALL OUR LAWS AND GOVERNMENT ARE SUBVERTED Let the Parliament-purging securing sequestring dissolving Officers Army and their Confederates seriously ponder this yea let all the whole English Nation and their Trustees who shall hereafter sit in Parliament consider and reform it in the first place if ever they expect any Freedome free Parliaments Peace settlement enjoyment of their Fundamental Laws Rights or Liberties for the future depending on our Parliaments Freedome and exemption from all force and violence on its Members The eleventh is the Ordinance of both Houses of Parliament 13. Junii 1644. For the Forces raised in the County of Salop which begins thus The Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament taking into their serious considerations the great Oppressions under which the Inhabitants of the County of Salop lie by reason the insupportable Taxes c. and the present condition of the County by reason of the great number of Irish Rebels that have invaded it and joyned with Papists and other ill affected Persons now in those parts which threaten the extirpation of the Protestant Religion and the subversion of the FUNDAMENTAL LAWS and GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOM For prevention whereof c. A direct Ordinance in point The twelfth is a Declaration of the Commons of England assembled in Parliament 17. Aprilis 1646. Of their true intentions concerning the ANCIENT and FUNDAMENTAL GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOME securing the people against ALL ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT c. wherein they complain That the Enemy being in dispair to accomplish his Designes by War do mis-represent our intentions in the use we intend to make of the great successes God hath given us and the happy opportunity to settle Peace and Truth in the three Kingdomes to beget a belief that we now desire to excâ—ed or swerve from our first Aym's and Principles in the undertaking of this War and to recede from the Solemn League and Covenant and Treaties between the two Kingdomes and that we would prolong these uncomfortable troubles and bleeding distractions IN ORDER TO ALTER THE FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTION AND FRAME OF THIS KINGDOME to leave all Government in the Church loose and unsettled and ourselves to exercise THE SAME ARBITRARY POWER OVER THE PERSONS and ESTATES OF THE SVBJECTS which this present Parliament hath thought fit to abolish by taking away the Star-Chamber High-Commission and other arbitrary Courts and the exorbitant Power of the Council Table all which we have seen experimentally verified in every particular in the highest degree notwithstanding this Declaration by some in late and present power and new White-hall Council Tables exceeding the old in illegal Taxes Law-making and other extravagances All which being seriously considered by us c. We do declare THAT OUR TRUE and REAL INTENTIONS ARE and OUR ENDEAVOUR SHALL BE
peace upon grounds of Common Right 9. November 1647 viz. Resolved upon the Question That the matters contained in these Papers are destructive to the being of Parliaments and to the fundamental Government of this Kingdom Resolved c. That a Letter be sent to the General and those Papers inclosed together with the Vote of this House upon them And that he be desired to examine the proceedings of this business in the Army where it was first coyned and return an Accompt hereof to this House These Votes were seconded soon after with these ensuing Votes entred in the Commons Journal and printed by their special Order 23 Novemb. 1647. A Petition directed to the Supream Authority of England The Commons in Parliament assembled The humble Petition of many Free-born people of England c. was read the first and second time Resolved upon the Question That this Petition is A seditious and contemptuous avowing and prosecution of a former Petition and Paper annexed stiled An agreement of the People formerly adjudged by this House to be destructive to the being of Parliaments and Fundamental Government of the Kingdom Resolved c. That Thomas Prince Cheese-monger and Samuel Chidley bee forthwith committed Prisoners to the Prison of the Gate-house there to remain Prisoners during the pleasure of this House for a Seditious avowing and prosecution of a former Petition and Paper annexed stiled An Agreement of the people formerly adjudged by this House to be destructive to the being of Parliaments and fundamental Government of the Kingdom Resolved c. That Jeremy Ives Thomas Taylor and William Larnar bee forth-with committed to the Prison of Newgate there to remain Prisoners during the pleasure of this House for a seditious and contemptuous avowing and prosecution of a former Petition and Paper annexed stiled An Agreement of the People formerly adjudged by this House to be destructive to the being of Parliaments and fundamental Government of the Kingdom Resolved c. That a Letter be prepared and sent to the General taking notice of his proceeding in the execution according to the Rules of Warre of a Mutinous person avowing and prosecuting this Agreement in the Army contrary to these Votes at the Rendezvous near Ware and to give him thanks for it and to desire him to prosecute that Business to the bottome and to bring such guilty persons as he shall think fit to condign and exemplary punishment Resolved c. That the Votes upon the Petition and Agreement annexed and likewise the Votes upon this Petition be forth-with printed and published After which by a special Ordinance of both Houses of Parliament 17 Decemb. 1647. no person whatsoever who had contrived plotted prosecuted or entred into that Engagement intituled The Agreement of the people declared To bee destructive to the being of Parliaments and Fundamental Government of the Kingdom for one whole year was to be elected chosen or put into the Office or place of Lord Mayor or Alderman Sheriff Deputy of a Ward or Common Counselman of the City of London or to have a voyce in the Election of any such Officers All these particulars with the Capital proceedings against White and others who fomented this Agreement in the Army abundantly evidence the verity of my foresaid Proposition and the extraordinary guilt of those Members and Souldiers who contrary to their own Votes Ordinances Proceedings and Censures of others have since prosecuted this the like or far worse Agreement to the destruction of our ancient Parliaments and their Priviledges and of the fundamental Government Laws and Liberty of our Nation which I wish they would now sadly lay to heart with that saying of Augustine approved by all sorts of Divines and Casuists Non remittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatuâ—â— sciendum est Quod Restitutio est IN PRISTINUM STATUM POSITIO The third is the memorable Statutes of 3 Jacobi c. 1 2 4. 5. which relating the old Gunpowder Treason of the Jesuits and Papists and their infernal inhuman barbarous detestable plot to blow up the King Queen Prince Lords Commons and the whole House of Peers with Gunpowder when they should have been assembled in Parliament in the upper House of Parliament upon the fifth of November in the year of our Lord 1605. do aggravate the hainousness and transcendency thereof by this circumstance That it was as some of the principal Conspirators confessed purposely devised and concluded to be done in the said House That where sundry necessary and religious Laws for preservation of the Church and State were made which they falsly and slanderously termed Cruel Laws enacted against them and their Religion both Place and Persons should be all destroyed and blown up at once and by these dangerous Consequences if it had not been miraculously prevented but taken effect That it would have turned to the utter ruine overthrow and subversion of the whole State and Common-wealth of this flourishing and renowned Kingdom of Gods true Religion therein established by Law and of our Laws and Government For which horrid Treason they were all attainted and then executed as Traytors and some of their Heads Quarters set upon the Parliament House for terrour of others Even so let all other Traytors Conspirators against all Blowers up and subverters of our fundamental Laws Liberties Government Kings Parliaments and Religion treading presumptuously in their Jesuitical footsteps perish O Lord but let all them who cordially love and strenuously maintain them against all Conspirators Traytors Underminers Invaders whatsoever be as the Sun when hee goeth forth in his might That the Land may have rest peace settlement again for as many years at least as it had before our late Innovations Warres Confusions by their restitution and re-establishment CHAP. 2. HAving thus sufficiently proved That the Kingdom and Freemen of England have some antient Hereditary Rights Liberties Franchises Privileges Customs properly called FUNDAMENTAL as likewise a Fundamental Government no ways to bee altered undermined subverted directly or indirectly under the guilt and pain of High Treason in those who attempt it especially by fraud force or armed Power I shall in the second place present you in brief Propositions a Summary of the chiefest and most considerable of them which our prudent Ancestors in former Ages and our latest real Parliaments have both declared to be and eagerly contested for as fundamental and essential to their very being and well being as a Free People Kingdom Republick unwilling to be enslaved under any Yorkes of Tyranny or Arbitrary Power that so the whole Nation may the more perspicuously know and discern them the more strenuously contend for them the more vigilantly watch against their violations underminings in any kinde by any Powers or pretences whatsoever and transmit perpetuate them intirely to their Posterities as their best and chiefest inheritance I shall comprise the sum and substance of them all in these Ten Propositions beginning with the Subjects Property which hath been most