God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restraiz with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England The Lawes of the Realm may punish Christian men with death for heinous and grievous crimes It is lawful for Christian men at the Commandment of the Magistrate to wear weapons and serve in the Wars The XXXV Article appoints Homilies against Rebellion to be read in Churches The summary of these Homilies and the whole drift of them is contained First part page 2. of the first Homily against wilful disobedience and rebellion in these words In reading of the holy Scriptures we shall finde in very many and almost infinite places as well of the Old Testament as of the New That Kings and Princes as well the evil as the good do reigne by Gods Ordinance and that subjects are bound to obey them And that Doctrine of the Church of England which is that of the Word of God is fully demonstrated in these godly Homilies published and enjoyned to be read in Churches by Royal Authority CHAP. IV. Proving by the Bulls and Decrees of Popes That the Doctrine of the Roman Court in the point of Obedience to Sovereignes is a Doctrine of Rebellion HItherto we have stood upon the Defensive and have with no great labour wiped off the false and foul aspersions of Rebellion cast upon the Doctrine of the Protestant Churches Let us try whether we can use the Sword as well as the Buckler And we will use no other then the Popes own Sword For as David said of Goliah's sword There is none like that give it me In this Combate the enemies sword is the right weapon none like it The Adversary to disgrace our Doctrine hath objected to us some passages of our Authors most of them false or wrested and some actions of persons of the Protestant party But though he had proved all these to be true he had done no harm to our Doctrine which is not built upon private opinions or upon private or publick actions He should have taken our Confessions in hand and Indicted them of rebellious Tenets if he could have found any Or finding none he should have given glory to God and confessed the Truth of God with us But if I bring him the Bulls of his Popes and their Decrees can he scape as we do when he urgeth us with maxims of Buchanan or Goodman Can he say The Pope speaks Treason and prescribes Rebellion as we say of these men and my faith is not tyed to his authority Can he as freely go off from the Popes judgement as we do from the best of our party when their Tenet is represented to us aberring from the rule of Gods Word and dissenting from the Articles of Religion consented unto by the Provincial Convocations of the Church We will then object to him and his party that which they cannot disown unless they disown their Faith and Religion since their Faith and Religion depend upon the Popes Decrees and that so strongly and with such a spirit of delusion that the most pestilent opinions pass with them for Evangelical Truths and the most abominable actions for patterns of Holiness if they be once marked with that stamp according to Bellarmines sentence which no Romanist hath yet disallowed for any thing I know If the Pope did Bellarm. lib. 4. de Pontifice ca. 5. Si Papa erraret in praecipiendo vitia vel prohibendo virtutes teneretur Ecclesia credere vitia esse bona virtutes malas nisi vellet contra conscientiam loqui Idem cap. 31. in Barklaium In bono sensu dedit Christus Petro potestatem faciendi de peccato non peccatum de non peccato peccatum erre in commanding vices or prohibiting vertues the Church should be obliged to believe that vices are good and vertues evil unless she would speak against Conscience And to the same purpose he affirmeth That in good sense Christ hath given to St. Peter the power to make sin to be no sin and that which is no sin to be sin And he takes it for granted That the power which Christ hath given to St. Peter he hath ipso facto given it to the Pope his Successor If then we prove that sedition rebellion and murther of Kings is justified promoted yea and commanded by that Head of their Faith the Papists must either approve it as good and holy or cease to be Papists and learn to have the Faith of the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of glory without respect of persons Since the Roman Church stands much upon her Antiquity we will begin by the ancientest example of approving the murther of Kings that can be charged Ann. Chr. 611. upon the Roman See It is that of Gregory the I. who hearing that Phocas had slain the Emperour Mauritius his Liege Lord having first killed his children before his face and that he had invaded the Empire writ a gratulatory Epistle to that monster where these words are found We are glad that the benignity Greg. 1. lib. 11. Epist 36. Benignitatem pietatis vestrae ad Imperiale fastigium pervenisse gaudemus Laetentur Coeli exultet Terra de benignis actibus vestris universae Reip. populus hilarescat of your Piety hath attained to the Imperial Dignity Let the heavens rojoyce and let the Earth be glad and let the people of the whole Commonwealth be joyful for your gracious deeds The next example shall be that of Gregory the II. who rebelled against his Sovereigne the Emperour Ann. Chr. 726. Leo Isaurus and made Rome and the Roman Dutchy do the same And while the Emperour was sore afflicted with the wars of the Saracens in the East he made himself Lord of that part of his Masters Dominions in Italy for which Sigonius giveth an admirable Sigonius Hist de Regno Italiae lib. 3. Ita Roma Romanusque Ducatus à Graecis ad Romanum Pontificem propter nesandam eorum haeresim impietatemque pervenit reason That Rome and the Roman Dutchy were lost by the Grecians and got by the Pope of Rome by reason of their wicked heresie A strange kind of penance from a Pastor to turn the sinner out of his house and possess himself of it That wicked heresie of Leo Isaurus was That he prohibited the adoration of Images and pulled them down every where For that Heresie and Impiety the holy Father Gregory the II. imposed this penance upon the Emperour He made him lose his Estate and himself seized upon it This is the beginning of the Popes Temporal Principality This is the Title whereby he holds Rome and the Territory of it to this day even plain Rebellion and Tyrannical Invasion of his Sovereigns Estate and Dominion The next Successor of Gregory the II. was Gregory the III. of whom Platina writeth thus This Pope as soon as he attained to the Papal Platina in Greg.
quarrel of which something must be said before he and I part For Paraeus we are against him about the point of obedience as much as our Adversary His son seeing what Philip. Paraeus Append. ad Rom. 13. Loquitur D. parens meus cum Politicis Iurisconsultis non de Rege absoluta potestate induto sed sub conditione admisso Pag. 23. general opposition his Doctrine found among the Protestants and that the Book was burnt in England by authority made this excuse for his father Valeat quantum valere potest My father speaks with the Politicks and Iurisconsults not of a King invested with absolute power but admitted upon conditions Paraeus considerd not how the world was abroad but how it was in his countrey The Adversary quarrelleth also with Gracerus but hath nothing else to say against him but that he is against the Antichrist Coercenda gladio est Antichristi ambitio which he expounds thus That Antichristian ambition is to be cut off with the sword that is all Princes and Prelates It seems the man taketh part with Antichrist since he taxeth Gracerus for being against him But that Gracerus would cut off Princes and Prelates because he would repress the ambition of Antichrist is a great inconsequence Observe this Gentlemans learning the Verb coercere signifieth repress which is a modest term of Gracerus But our Adversary translates it cut off shewing himself to be as great a scholar in Latine as he approved himself to be in Greek when he translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an eloquent Oration And that his head is much like that upon a clipt sixpence it is a little head without letters His objection of the rebellious Maxims of some Scots Pag. 47 seq as Knox and Buchanan is now stale and out of season since they have been generally condemned and exploded by Protestants both on this and the other side of Rivet Castiga Not. in Epist ad Balsac cap. 13. num 14. sub finem the sea The judgement of the learned Rivet to this purpose is ingenuous and prudent that these things must be imputed to the hot and audacious brains of the Scots then heated again by persecution Let me adde that when the persecution was pretty well overcome they were kept in their heat by sharp contention There being then a Royal Bastard who pretending that his Father had once a designe to make him King followed that designe very close yet closely raising all the troubles he could against the Kings Widow and his legitimate Heir for which the difference of Religion happening about that time gave him fair play for all his ambitious projects were cloaked with the furtherance of the cause of the Gospel This was the man that countenanced that divinity of rebellion Which that it may not be imputed to the Religion I desire all judicious heads maturely to ponder Dr. Rivet's wise observation That the Scots of a hundred and five Kings which they reckon till Queen Mary had deposed three expelled five and killed thirty five I demand then whether all those excesses must be imputed to the doctrine and zeal of Religion If so let the Roman Catholicks look how they shall defend their Religion which then was prevalent But if that must be imputed to the bold and stirring Genius of the Nation why shall the troubles risen under the Queen Regent of Scotland and her daughter Mary be ascribed to Religion and Reformation supposed the cause not the occasion by the managing of crafty self-seeking men of the distempers of the State and the intemperance of pens Yea it shall be found as Dr. Rivet observeth and we find it now that the light of the Evangelical truth did very much mitigate the fierceness of the Nation and that those disorders as turbulent as they were are not comparable to those that were in former times in Scotland which as we are too ingenuous to ascribe to the Religion of those dayes the Papists ought to shew the like ingenuity about the excesses of wits and swords since the coming of the Reformation It were to no purpose to follow all the objections of this Gentleman out of Protestant Writers since whether they be well or ill alledged our belief is not ingaged in their ill opinions nor our reputation concerned in the wrong done to them by perverse and unfaithfull allegations I have discovered so many of them that the Reader may well mistrust his other citations If all were as they are represented they are but so many Doctours opinions strengthened with no approbation of persons authorized for it And to speak after our Most Excellent King JAMES in his Defense of the right of Kings I would not defend all that some private men could say It is enough that in our Religion there is no rule to be found that prescribeth rebellion nor any thing that dispenseth subjects from the oath of their allegiance nor any of our Churches that receive that abominable doctrine This is spoken with a Royal brevity and an imperious weight which both confutes all objections in that kind and together silently retorts upon the Roman Catholicks that among them they have rules that prescribe rebellion and an authority dispensing from the oath of allegiance and that their Church is commanded to receive that abominable doctrine Blessed be God our doctrine about the point of obedience never gave yet jealousie to Kings though of contrary Religion Whereas the Sovereign Courts of the same Princes have expelled the Jesuites for teaching and practising the murther of Kings and condemned the Popes Bulls to be torn for sowing rebellion among the people Is it not a matter for no lesse patience then that of God to see those that teach rebellion by the publick expresse laws of the head of their Church now to charge our Churches with rebellion for some words of private men either falsly imputed unto them or disallowed by the generality of the Protestant Churches Is it for him that hath cut the purse to cry stop the thief Must the Doctors of high treason lay an action of rebellion against us in effect because we will not be rebels with them and acknowledge a King above our King for when all is said that is the ground of the quarrel and we can buy our peace with them at no other rate But before I lay the charge against them at which I long to be I must make an end of answering the charge which they lay against us CHAP. II. Whether the Reformation of Religion ought to be charged with Rebellion Reflections upon the actions of the Protestant party THe Charge of Rebellion which the Adversary layeth against us consisteth in two things The Doctrine of our Divines and the actions of our party especially in the beginnings of the Reformation I have answered the first part of the Charge and shewed that either the Charge is false or it is nothing to us because we have no dependance upon the Authors charged with it
with his whole power against Queen Elizabeth and had raised a great Army for that expedition But when Stukely came to Sebastian he found him possess'd with a new project to help a Moor King of Fez against another King who kept him out of possession and to get the Kingdome from them both To that War he invited Stukely promising that presently after that work done which he represented to him most easie they should go together to the War against England and Ireland So they sailed over into Africa where Sebastian and his whole Army were destroyed and with him Stukely and the Popes Italian Souldiers were cut in pieces A deliverance of England ever to be remembred with praise and admiration So let thine enemies perish O Lord. This Pope had a great hand in that unparallelled villany wrought by the marriage of Henry King of Navarra with the Sister of Charles the IX of France A marriage which Pius the V. would never consent unto by reason of their difference in Religion But when his Successor Gregory the XIII was told by the Cardinall of Lorrain that this marriage was intended as a trap to destroy Henry and his Protestant party he presently gave his dispensation for the celebrating of it and encouraged the design The horrible massacre which attended the jollity of that marriage was received at Thuanus Rome with triumphant expressions of publick joy And Cardinal Vrsin was sent Legat into France to praise the Kings piety and wisdom in that great action and to bestow blessings and spiritual graces upon the King and the Actors of that fearful Tragedy The Court of Rome might well praise what themselves had procured if not contrived and truly the plot hath an Italian garb and looks not like a production of the French soil Not long after this Pope sent to Henry the III. of France and to his people Indulgences for millions of years which were to be obtained by making processions to four Churches in Paris and by being zealous and diligent in the extirpation of heresies that is in his style to extermine the Protestants The male line of the Kings of Portugal being extinct this Pope laid a claim to the Kingdome as depending from the holy See and would have the Nation to have taken Arms for him against the heirs from the females But his claim was hissed out with great scorn In the year 1580. this Pope sent an Italian called San Iosepho with some Italian Troops into Ireland to joyn with the Irish Rebells When they were demanded by a message from the Lord Deputy who they were and what they came for they answered Some that they were sent by the most holy Father the Pope and some from the Catholick King of Spain to whom the Pope had given Ireland because Queen Elizabeth had justly forfeited her Title to Ireland by her heresie A doctrine which at the same time was preach'd in England and Ireland by Jesuites and other Seminary Priests with great boldness and vehemency till the Queen and her Councell perceiving what danger the State was running into by these mens activeness and impunity Campian and some others sent by the Pope on that errand were apprehended And being examined they obstinately defended the Popes authority over the Queen and maintained that she was no Queen as being lawfully deposed by the Pope upon which they were condemned and executed That Crown of Martyrdom the Pope procured to his Confessors And the greater the number is of those Martyrs that the Papists muster the more they exaggerate the Popes cruelty to his truest Vassalls For could the Pope expect that persons sent to perswade the people to dispossess and kill their Sovereign should have other dealing from the hand of Justice The principal Article of the late Papal Creed is that which Pius the V. sets forth in his Bull against the Queen that God hath made the Bishop of Rome Prince over all people and all Kingdoms But the English Papists are taught that besides that general right over all Kingdomes the Pope hath a peculiar right over England and Ireland as his proper Dominions This is Bellarmins doctrine which he hath made bold to maintain unto King James himself The King Bellarm. lib. cui Titulus Tortus pag. 19. Rex Anglorum duplici jure subjectus est Papae uno communi omnibus Christianis ratione Apostolicae potestatis quae in omnes extenditur juxta illud Ps 44. Constitues eos Principes super omnem terram Altero proprio ratione recti dominii of England saith he is subject to the Pope by double right The one by reason of his Apostolick power which extends over all men according to that Charter Ps 44. Thou shalt establish them Princes over all the earth The other proper by a right dominion Then he pleadeth that England and Ireland are the Churches dominions the Pope the direct Lord and the King his Vassal This then being become an Article of Religion in which the English Papists are instructed and this in consequence that if the Pope disallow the King he is no more King of England but an Usurper and must be used accordingly Let any man judge who hath some equity and freedome of judgement left whether a prudent Prince and Council of State ought to suffer such an instruction to be given to the people Truly the more Religion is pretended for that doctrine and the practice of Rebellion obtruded as a commandement of the Church the more it concernes the loyal Magistrate to oppose it vigorously Pope Sixtus the V. to favour the enterprise of Philip the II. upon England renewed the Excommunication of Queen Elizabeth pronounced by Pius the V. deprived her verbo tenus of her Kingdome absolved her subjects from all Allegiance to her and published a Croisada against her as against the Turk giving plenary Indulgence to all that would make warre against her But the Popes Curses provoked Gods blessings upon the Queen who might say as David when Shimei cursed him The Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day All the storms raised against England were blown over without harme The great preparations of Spain served onely to disable it and secure England And the many attempts against the Queens life upon that Bull contributed to her safety by manifesting to the World the wickednesse of Rome and the pernicious effects of the Roman principles For which I might produce the Examinations and Confessions of many that suffered for attempting to murther the Queen but I will bring but one for all William Parry acknowledged that he had promis'd at Rome to kill the Queen about which he was most troubled in his conscience till he lighted upon Dr. Allens book which taught that Princes excommunicate for heresie were to be deprived of Kingdome and life Which book saith he did vehemently excite me to prosecute my attempt This Popes Excommunications had more effect in France for after that he had excommunicated King Henry the
III. and absolved his subjects from all Allegiance to him in consequence of that Bull many of the French rebelled against their King and he wasslain upon that account by a Dominican Friar Which when this Pope heard he commended the action highly in a full Consistory at Rome and forbad that any funeral rites should be celebrated for him Which funeral rites usually celebrated at Rome for departed Princes consisting most in prayer for their souls it appeareth that his Holinesse was not contented that he had slain that King by his Bull but would also damne his soul Gregory the XIV excommunicated by his Bulls Henry the IV. of France forbidding all Peers Nobles Cities and Commons to yield him obedience and declaring him incapable of the Crown as an Heretick and relapse But that Bull was by the Court of Parliament then sitting at Tours condemned to be torn and burnt by the Hang-man Clement the VIII did the same over again and excommunicated Henry The Bull was condemned as the other to be burnt by the hand of the Hang-man But the effect of these Bulls appeared by the attempts against the Kings life which soon after followed first by a woman next by Peter Barriere and again by John Chastel all denying him to be King because he was not absolved by the Pope Neither did the effects of these Bulls cease after that the King was absolved by his Holinesse For by them the King got his death Ravilliac who killed him could alledge them when he was examined and say that the King was an Heretick in his heart and deserved to be slain as an enemy of the Church Paul the V. was as turbulent as his predecessors as he shewed it in his insolent and impertinent quarrel with the Venetians because they had stopt by Edict the giving of Lands to the Church whereby the State lost many tributes and services He threatned them of Excommunication if they did not recal that Law And upon their maintaining of it he excommunicated them and put their State in Interdict But it took no effect for none of their Clergy would or durst obey it the Jesuites onely excepted who therefore were expelled out of their dominions They condemned the Popes Bull by Edict and forbad the bringing of it into their Territory upon pain of hanging Neither did they give any satisfaction to the Pope when the businesse came to an Arbitrement but forced him to make amends to himself and to come to their terms In the beginning of this Popes reigne was detected that Treason not to be matcht in any age for cruelty and depth of villany the Gunpowder-plot to have destroyed in one blow the King the Parliament the Judges of the Land and all the flowre and strength of the Kingdome of England This horrid Treason was the effect of the several Bulls of the Pope before the Reigne of our gracious King James of glorious memory who coming into his Kingdome of England found it lying under a Papal Interdict and himself excluded from the Crown by a Bull sent into England a little before the death of Queen Elizabeth whereby all that are not Roman Catholicks are declared incapable of and excluded from the Succession of which his Majesty complains in his Apology And that Bull was produced in the Indictment of the Jesuite Garnet as the principal motive of the Gunpowder Treason This gave occasion to the Oath of Supremacy set forth by the King and his Parliament then sitting for the security of his Majesties Life and Dignity wherein it is required of all to whom it is administred to acknowledge his Majesty to be the lawful King of the Realmes of England Scotland and Ireland and that the Pope hath no right to depose him of his Kingdoms or dispense his Subjects from their obedience to him Also that they abhorre as impious and heretical this doctrine That Princes excommunicated by the Pope may justly be deposed or slain by their owne Subjects This Oath being presented to the Roman Catholicks some of them made no difficulty to take it among others Blackwell the Arch-priest Whereupon the Pope sent Apostolical Letters into England declaring that Dated Sept. 22. 1606. this Oath could not be taken with a safe conscience and exhorting the English to suffer all kinds of torments and death it self rather then to offend Gods Majesty by such an Oath To imitate the constancy of other English Martyrs To have their loins girt about with vertue to put on the Brest-plate of righteousnesse and take the Buckler of Faith He tells them that God who hath begun in them that good work will perfect it and will not suffer them to be Orphans c. And he injoyneth them to observe diligently the precepts contained in the Letters which Clement the VIII his predecessor had written a little before to Mr. George Arch-priest of England By which Letters all Princes of a Religion contrary to the Roman are excluded from the Crown of England These Letters whereby the English were exhorted to be Martyrs of the Popes Sovereignty in England and to make it an Article of their faith which they must signe with their blood that the Pope hath power to depose Princes and expose them to be expelled and slain by their own subjects did not receive that entertainment which he expected among the English of his Religion For some rejected them as supposititious forged by the Hereticks to draw persecution upon them and kindle their Kings wrath against them he being already justly provoked to revenge by the late conspiracy The Pope hearing of this sends other and more express letters Dated Aug. 23. 1607. into England to expostulate with the Roman Catholicks saying That he wondred at their doubting of the truth of the Apostolick letters to dispense themselves upon that pretence from obeying his commandments And therefore he declareth That those Letters were written by himself not only motu proprio ex certa scientia by his own motion and certain knowledge but also after a long and grave deliberation enjoyning them again to obey those Letters because such is his pleasure To these letters which set up rebellion with a high hand as an Article of the Roman Faith were joyned letters of Cardinal Bellarmine to Blackwell the Archpriest wherein he chides him bitterly for taking the Oath which under colour of modifications had no other end but to transport the Popes authority to a Successor of Henry the VIII And by the examples of his Predecessors he exhorteth him to defend the Popes primacy whom he calleth The Head of the Faith Of this Oath thus prohibited by the Pope and cryed down by Bellarmine the Jesuite Becanus saith That both of them the Pope and Bellarmine Beean de dissidio Anglic. Vterque negat salva conscientia praestari posse hoc juramentum quia abnegarent fi-Catholicam deny that it may be taken with a safe Conscience because by taking it the Catholick Faith is denyed Is it then an
York Squire Hesket Lopez Babington with his associates and how many more All were assisted and prompted by Jesuites as the judicial examinations will justifie And now we speak of Babington and his associates I find two brothers Bellamy's both apprehended for hiding them after they were openly proclaimed traitors in their house neer Harrowhill where they were kept ten dayes and clothed in rustical habits There they were all taken and thence carried to prison where one of the Bellamies strangled himself the other was executed with the conspirators his name Hierome Bellamy From which of the two brothers our Adversary Thomas Bellamy is descended and whether from either or neither himself best knows But it seems by his behaviour that the crime of hiding and disguising traitors runs in the blood For what is his covering of the parricidial doctrine of Jesuites with falfe constructions but hiding and disguising traitors whose doctrine is declared treasonable by sundry Acts of Parliament Let him take warning by the crime and the ill successe of these men of his name and apply to himself that Sentence of Tully which he misapplyeth to the Protestants of Integrity Mirror te Antoni quorum facta imitere corum exitus non pertimescere Since you imitate the actions of men of your name Sir Bellamy I wonder you are not frighted with thinking of their ends The Devil and the Jesuites having been so often disappointed of their attempts against England in the end contrived the foulest plot that ingenious cruelty did in any age imagine the Gunpowder-Treason which shall be to the Worlds end the wonder of succeeding ages and the shame of ours This was the godly product of the English Seminaries abroad and the Roman education It is easie to judge that the plotters of it had been bred long in another Climate then the middle aire of England for it looks like one of the feats of Caesar Borgia Non nostri generis monstrum nec sanguinis Of that attempt to cut off King and Kingdome with one blow none could be capable but such as had many years breathed the same aire where he reigned who wished that the Romans had but one neck that he might cut it off with one stroke But a Jesuite is capable of devising and the Romish zeal of executing any mischief though never so prodigious to promote the Papal interest And they have law for it even the Roman Decree the Oracle of the Pope himself We do not account them for Causa 23. qu. 5. Can. Excommunicatorum Non enim eos homicidas arbitramur quos adversus excommunicatos zelo Catholicae Matris Ecclesiae ardentes aliquos eorum trucidasse configerit murtherers saith his Holinesse who burning with the zeal of our Catholick Mother the Church against exmunicate persons shall happen to kill some of them Now England was lying under many excommnnications when the Gunpowder-Treason was plotted and lyeth under them still for they never were repealed Truly so far we must excuse Campian Garnet Hall Hamond and other Jesuites who have plotted or incouraged rebellions and treasons in England They have done no more then they were commanded or allowed by the Pope And here I must be a suitor to all the conscionable Roman Catholieks who abhorre these wicked wayes to acknowledge ingenuously that the Actors were grounded upon the fundamental Laws of the Court of Rome And that the Pope the Head of their Faith is he that commands by his Canons and Bulls the slaughter of those that displease him the breach of faith the deposing of Kings and the rebellion of the people as I have sufficiently demonstrated before If after that they adhere to the other points of the Roman Religion upon this main ground of the Roman Faith That the Pope cannot erre they blinde themselves wilfully and building their faith upon an unsafe ground they may come short of the end of their faith the salvation of their souls This power of deposing Kings and exposing them to the attempts of their enemies so peremptorily assumed by the Pope and so boldly executed by his zealous agents ought to be grounded upon some proof out of holy Writ In all the passages which I have alledged out of Jesuites books I finde but two of those proofs The one of Bellarmine who proveth Bellarm. lib. cui Titulus Tortus p. 19. Rex Anglorum subjectus est Papae jus omnibus Christiadis communi ratione Apostolicae potestatis juxta illud Ps 4. 4. Constitues eos Principes super omnem terram that the King of England is subject unto the Pope by a right common to all Christians by reason of the Apostolick power according to this Text Psal 44. Thou shalt make them Princes over all the earth In that Psalm which with us is the 45. this promise is made to the Kings Spouse which is the Church the Spouse of Christ our King Instead of thy Fathers house shall be thy children whom thou mayest make Princes over all the earth Answerably to that we learn Rev. 1. 6. That God hath made us Kings and Priests unto God our Father That blessing then to be understood and fulfilled in Gods good time belongs to all the true children of the Church The ingrossing of it to the Pope alone to the exclusion of all Christians is a bold and indeed a ridiculous inclosing of Commons without any warrant Suarez brings a proof of the like validity After that horrid assertion alledged before that after that a Prince is excommunicated he may be dispossess'd or slain by any persons whatsoever He prevents the objection out of Rom. 13. 1. Let every soul Suarez adversus sect Anglic lib. 6. c. 6. sect 24. 〈◊〉 Paulus his verbis Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdi a sit Rom. 13 nunquam addidit etiam potestatibus excommunicatis vel deprvatis a Papa omnes subditisint be subject to the higher Powers and saith that the Apostle never added Let all be subject also to the Powers excommunicated and deprived by the Pope A recreative proof which would make but a poor enthymema The Apostle addeth not that we must be subject also to the higher Powers deprived by the Turk Ergo if the Great Turk pronounce a sentence of deprivation against a Christian Prince the Subjects of that Prince are free from their allegiance and may dispossess and kill him when they think good But what These proofs are as concluding as those that the Popes themselves bring to prove their power Nicholaus 1. Epist ad Michael Imp. Constant Petro specialiter ostensum est ut ea mactaret manducaret Illi soli jussum est ur rete plenum piscibus ad littus traheret as when Pope Nicholas the I. proveth the Papal power because it was said to Saint Peter Kill and eat and because to him alone was granted that power to draw a Net full of Fishes to Land Likewise Bonifacius the VIII proveth his primacy Bonifac. VIII
all his false turns But both my Readers and I have better businesses then to heap up dung or search all the Impostures of a Novice of the Iesuites For the end he brings some rules of Law concerning the nature of the English Monarchy which if he had studied well he had never taken upon him to defend the doctrine of the Iesuites which is inconsistent with them For they allow not that which he affirmeth That the Monarchy of England can do no homage having no superiour and that the Crown of England is independent and his jura Regalia are holden of no Lord but the Lord of heaven Bellarmine saith the clean contrary and makes the Pope Sovereigne of England by double right as we heard before Yet this Scholar of the Iesuites may give Bellarmines sense to that assertion that the Crown of England is independent for holding with his Masters that the Crown of England belongeth to the Pope he will say also that it is independent and oweth homage to none but God meaning that the Pope the right Sovereigne oweth homage for it to none but God The man being evidently a Scholar of the Jesuites cannot but be instructed in the doctrine of equivocations about which Tolet Tolet lib. 4. Instruct Sacerd. cap. 21. Aliquando uti licet aequivocatione decipere audientem ut cum Iudex petit juramentum ab aliquo ut dicat crimen vel proprium vel alienum si omnino est occultum jurare cogatur utatur aequivocatione puta Nescio intelligendo intra se ut dicam tibi vel simile Et lib. 5. c. 38. lib. 4. c. 21 22. gives large instructions in his book of the Instruction of Priests saying expresly That it is lawful sometimes to use equivocations and to deceive the hearer And Sanchez tells us in what case it is lawful to equivocate There is a just cause saith he to Sanch. oper Mor. l. 3. c. 6. num 19. Causa jure utendi his amphibologiis est quoties id necessarium aut utile est ad salutem corporis honorem tes familiares tuendas use these equivocations whensoever it is necessary or useful for the preservation of body honour or estate Since then the sect and Religion of the Jesuites which subjecteth the Crown of England unto the Pope cannot subsist in England without palliating that criminal doctrine with equivocation They finde it necessary for the preservation of body honour and estate to profess that the Monarchy of England can do no homage having no superiour and that the Crown of England is independent but to whom that independant Crown belongs that they will reserve in their thoughts Or if they say they will be true to the King they will by the King understand the Pope or the King of Spain to whom the Pope gave the Kingdome of England fourscore years ago and never recalled that gift since Wherefore if this Gentleman appear in Print again or any of his confreres for him about this point of obedience we must desire him to speak more home before he can justifie himself to be a true Philanax Anglicus and a good English subject of his Majesty To that end let him declare that he acknowledgeth the following Articles as true and just and is ready to subscribe unto them I. The Kings Most Excellent Majesty Charles the II. hath no superiour on Earth de jure in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland and other His Majesties Dominions II. All Roman Catholicks born in these His Majesties Dominions are his subjects de jure and of none else although they have taken the Orders of the Church of Rome or have a General of some Religion to whom they have sworn obedience III. The Doctrine of Cardinal Bellarmine is false that the King of England is subject to the Pope by double right besides his pretended subjection in matters spiritual IV. The Pope hath no power to deprive Kings of their Kingdoms or any way to dispose of their Crowns or their Lives V. The Pope cannot absolve the subjects of His Majesty King Charles the II. or of any of His Successors from the Oath of their Allegiance Neither are they now absolved from it by any precedent Decree from the Popes VI. A King declared heretick or excommunicate by the Pope is not thereby disabled from exercising his Kingly jurisdiction VII The excommunicating or depriving of a King by the Pope doth not exempt that Kings natural subjects from the duty of their Allegiance VIII King John had no power to give his Kingdome to the Pope without the consent of his Peers and Commons Neither is that Contract of any validity IX A Priest having learned in Confession a Conspiracy against the Kings life ought to discover it to the King or his Councel X. The Peers and Commons of England and other His Majesties Dominions have no power to judge their King much less to depose him or put him to death or to choose another King or to alter the Government of the State He that will refuse to subscribe these Articles and openly profess his consent unto them cannot justifie his love and fidelity to the King and is altogether unfit to charge the Protestants with rebellious tenets Vacuum culpa esse decet qui in alium paratus est dicere He that is in an error cannot justifie himself but by forsaking it That yeilding is glorious and to be overcome by the truth is a great victory Without such a justification lessons of loyalty given by a Iesuite are unsuitable and of as little effect as a Lecture of Chastity preach'd by an allowed Curtizan of Rome JOH VIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CAROLE qui Latias artes fulmina bruta Et Capitolini contemnis Vejovis iras Macte manumissus coelesti lumine Princeps Lumine Romuleas tibi dispellente tenebras Assertamque sacro capiti firmante coronam Dum trepidi Reges sancti luminis orbi Serva Quirinali submittunt colla tyranno Tu liber specta stantes ad fraena Monarchas Stratorum officio succollantesque cathedrae Augustos lixas mox flexo poplite curvos Turpia purpureo libantes oscula socco Erige tu curvos rectus fratresque doceto Quos Regum Pater agnoscit Natosque Deosque Quà m male prostituat divum Rex sanctus honorem Tarpeiam lambens crepidam solosque pudendum Excussisse jugum libertatique litasse Gnaviter amplexos coelestia lumina Reges FINIS ERRATA PAge 8. line 17. Galileo p. 9. l. 5. put out which p. 11. in the margent l. 10. tenerentur p. 19. l. 12. matter p. 24. l. 14. Popes p. 26. l. 10. by the preaching l. 12. oppressing l. opposing p. 30. l. ult Francis the II p. 31. l. 7. Iesuites p. 33. l. 20. Henry the IV. l. 22. because p. 3â— l. â—4 the ordinary l. 13. any of five Kings p. 49. l. 28. unequitable l. equitable p. 53. l. 13. stonie the just p 87. l. 13. frequent l. pregnant p. 113. l. 24. Pope p. 115. in the margent 1. 6. non sine manibus p. 124. l. put out persons put letters p. 128. l. 25. Mutius p. 137. l. 26. depose
A VINDICATION OF THE SINCERITY OF THE Protestant Religion In the Point of Obedience to SOVEREIGNES Opposed To the Doctrine of Rebellion authorised and practised by the Pope and the Jesuites In Answer to a Jesuitical Libel Entituled PHILANAX ANGLICVS By PETER DU MOULIN D. D. Canon of Christ-Church Canterbury one of His Majesties Chaplains LONDON Printed by I. Redmayne for John Crook at the Ship in St Pauls Church-yard 1664. Imprimatur Ex Aedib Lambeth Nov. 19. 1663. Geo. Stradling S. T. P. Rever in Christo Pat. Dom. Gilb. Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacr. Domest To the Most Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Archbishop of Canterbury his GRACE Primate of all England and Metropolitan my most Honoured Diocesan and Visitor My LORD AN Adversary of the Truth and therefore Yours hath lately offered to your Grace the same abuse as the Roman Souldiers did to the Lord Jesus For as they arrayed him in Royal Scarlet bowed the Knee before him and said to him Hail King of the Jews but at the same time spit upon him and smote him on the head This enemy who is also a Roman Souldier clotheth your Grace with high praises and makes a profound obeysance to your Place and Merits in an Epistle Dedicatory But by the same Epistle he puts under your Graces Protection a charge of Rebellion against our Catholick Orthodox Church and an Apologie for the Doctrine of the Jesuites This is stroaking and striking together No blame is so disgraceful as such praises So did the Devil call Christ the Son of the living God to disgrace him by his Testimony and make him to be taken for one of his Confederates The man never appearing to own his work seems to acknowledge that neither his person nor his work deserveth the notice of the world Yet I thought it necessary to let the world know what a cheat is put upon the Readers by this childe of darkness who being altogether unknown to your Grace as your self were pleased to express unto me beareth himself for your ancient Acquaintance and claims your Patronage while he disgraceth your Person and revileth your Doctrine Neither doth the Libel being but an ignorant scolding deserve an answer but that the man recompenceth his shallow learning with his superlative malice making use of this conjuncture when the minds of loyal subjects are exulcerated by their late and long sufferings by rebellious Zelots under pretence of Religion to make the sufferers to fall out with Religion it self These are the depths of Satan who knows perfectly how to steer the spirits by the Rudder of their most sensible Interesses and at this time labours to drown the too remiss sense of holy Belief in the quick resentments of personal oppression Blessed be God that he is come short of his aim in this attempt and that this Libeller by his Imposture hath only stirred the just indignation of good Christians in whom the interess of Gods truth and glory takes place before all personal concernments Himself might have bin an example of that just severity which he commends in your Grace if he had been as bold to Present the Book as audacious to Dedicate it to so great a Patron I cannot but have recourse unto the same Patron which he hath chosen for his untruths to protect the confutation of them Knowing that the Vindication of the Truth is in its right place being put under your Graces protection in whose shadow the Church rejoyceth as of the gracious Patron of Piety and Vertue the Incourager of Goodness the Maintainer of the Orthodox Faith and in that respect the right Arm of the great Defender of the same That your Government may be blessed unto the Church and Prosperous and Honourable unto your Self is the fervent prayer My LORD Of Your GRACES Most dutiful and humblest Servant PETER DU MOULIN To the Roman Catholicks of His Majesties Dominions My Lords and Gentlemen THe Adversary against whom I appear having laid a Charge of Rebellion against a sort of Protestants in his Title page hath in his Book brought the generality of Protestants under that Indictment I will not imitate his unsincerity by laying that charge proper to the Court of Rome and the Jesuites upon all the Roman Catholicks knowing the Loyalty of many of them with whose acquaintance I am honoured and making use in this Treatise of the Testimony of great Persons and whole Courts and Societies of the Roman profession against the precepts of Disloyalty enjoyned by the Roman Court and acted by the Jesuites For to these only I profess that my present opposition is limitted Only I will be here your humble Suitor That since the Pope is called by Cardinal Bellarmine The a Epist ad Blackwell Head of the Faith and b Praefat. ad lib. de summo Pontisice The Fundamental Stone of Sion you be pleased to consider seriously how taking the Popes sense and authority for the foundation of your Faith in this point can consist with that Honour and Loyalty which you harbour in your generous Breasts And how you that venture your lives so freely for the Defence of your King can acknowledge the power which the Pope assumeth of disposing of the Crowns and Lives of Kings and absolving you from the duty of your Allegience when he thinks good Certainly when you have weighed this in the Ballance of Conscience and sound Judgement you shall finde your selves hedged in within this Dilemma Either to cease to be good subjects or to acknowledge that the Pope can erre even when he speaks and makes Decrees from his Chair Of which Truth if you be once perswaded your way is open to know more Truth That our faith may be setled upon that Truth which makes us free we must call upon the Joh. 8. 32. assistance of the God of Truth and prepare for it a meek docible and unprejudiced spirit which are qualities altogether remote from the furious and contumelious Adversary whom I take in hand in this Treatise Yet since they are not opprobrious terms but clear proofs that are most offensive to the accused I cannot deny that I have been more offensive to him then he to the Protestants God govern his Catholick Church with the Spirit of Truth and Peace and convert with his blessings those that curse us So prayeth My Lords and Gentlemen Your most humble servant in the Lord Iesus our Common Saviour Peter Du Moulin Preface The Designe Style and Genius of that Libel Observations upon the Epistle and Prefaces THe licentiousness of the Press hath long since beaten me to that patience to let others speak contenting my self to think Looking upon the eagerness of some men to confute all untruths that appear abroad as a relick of Knight-Errantry which obliged the Knights to redress all the wrongs that were done in the world But my patience was overcome by the bold and pernicious untruths vented in a Libel tending to no less then the rooting out of Protestants out of all States
by their Religion I will not take the pains to disprove any thing else All his Preface is verba voces Moralities far from his purpose interlarded with invectives without ground For who are those that will do no good works for fear of meriting by them And where are those Protestants among whom dulness and heaviness of spirit is taken up as a practise A character more befitting Monastical devotion God fetcheth light out of darkness but it is the Devils work to fetch darkness out of light This man labours to do the same Sententias loquitur carnifex But he goeth untowardly to work For he pulls his doctrines by the hair to bring them to his uses It seems the man had made some petty declamations when he was a Grammar Scholar in a broken boyish style made up of a thousand stollen shreds And now lest these pieces of wit should perish he brings them in by head and shoulders to decide controversies in points not controverted For to his silly commendations of devotion and humility one may say as that King to him that would commend Hector in his presence Quis vero illas vituperat What need you speak for these Vertues when no body speaks against them And what are these declamations to the matter in hand To give a taste of his learning in Greek he translates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an eloquent Oration He calls St. Austin the Oracle of the Latine Church But he never belonged to it but to the African And for a tast of his wit and eloquence barking at the Moon he saith to be the Divinity of Dogs This is of the same kinde The blessed eyes of Bats they have to mock at the greatest lights But if the Bats mockt at the great light they would out-face it whereas they hide themselves from it One more of these impertinencies out of the body of the book He gives these commendations to our late pag. 57. 58. excellent King a Prince as wise as Apollo valiant There wanted no more but animo prudens ut Homerus as it is upon the Tombe of Richard the 11. as Achilles vertuous as Socrates pious as Aeneas and beautiful as an Amazon O brave boy Well declamed for a Scholar of the second Form See what comes by being bred in the Colledges of the Jesuites of Flanders for such a gallant strain of Oratory could never have been learned in the Schools of Westminster or Eaton Yet me-thinks the first and the last of these comparisons have a reach quite beyond common sense Will he call holy King Charles a Prince as wise as Apollo It is a fit parallel for Julian the Apostate Had he no better comparison for that Saint then a Pagan God and a Devil who by reason of the uncertainty of his Oracles was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 crooked and winding How doth that fit such a pattern of Christian and Royal ingenuity so sincere in his words so real in his actions The last parallel is as incongruous as the first He calls the King as beautiful as an Amazon Where hath this Antiquary found those viragines the Amazons with their right breast burnt set out as Paragons of beauty And though they had been such Is a womans beauty fit to express the majestical presence of a King How do these two comparisons suit with the subject and one with another Velut aegri somnia vanae Finguntur species ut nec pes nec caput uni Reddatur formae This writer affords more occasions to make sport with him by his ignorance but more by his blind choler then which there is nothing that disarmeth a man more and exposeth him more to be a laughing stock Such another Pierochol and Cacafuego I never met with His style is a continual casting of firebrands and firing of Granado's to scatter among the Protestants in all the corners of the world What would become of the Ship of this Church if these men ruled upon the Deck and were masters of the Stern and the Sayls seeing they are so swaggering now they lye under the Hatches Let the Author of the book keep himself there for me and remain unknown The publisher will not acknowledge himself to be the Father but only the Godfather although the Epistle Preface and Book look like three brats of one venter We need not question who is the father since the godfather answereth for the childe Neither is it more material to search into the occasion of the writing of the book which he saith to be a Letter from a Protestant of integrity in answer to a letter from a person of quality These letters I never saw But if that Protestant of integrity will have the Presbyterians conformable to the Church of England in Ecclesiasticks as the Epistle seems to intimate we are of his minde neither is any more required of the Presbyterians for the blessed work of concord and for the comfort of their Protestant brethren and their own The Title of Philanax Anglicus whereby the Author makes a profession to love the King is his passport into the patience of the Reader And he makes of it a Fort under the shelter of which he thinks he may boldly shoot upon whom he pleaseth to take for his mark But what advantage this lover of the King alloweth to him is much like the gift of Juglers his Majesty may hold it fast and finde nothing in his hand as we shall see afterwards A Vindication of the Protestant Religion in the point of obedience to Sovereigns opposed to the doctrine of Rebellion authorized and practised by the Pope and the Jesuits In answer to a Jesuitical Libel intituled Philanax Anglicus CHAPTER I. Of the Objections out of the Books of Protestant Writers THe Book of this Adversary consisting of stale Objections which have been a thousand times answered would put me and any man that would answer him to the unavoidable necessity of saying over many things that were said before but that all his Objections may be reduced into one and therefore one answer will serve for them all For from the beginning to the end he objects unto us some passages out of Protestant Writers which savour of disobedience as he dresseth them and some faults in that kinde of those that have embraced the Protestant party whence he inferreth That both the Doctrine and the Practise of Reformed Religion is Rebellion He labours especially to pick faults in the first Reformers but coming short of his end he quarrelleth with others that came long since the Reformation But though he had brought the Reformers to plead guilty he hath done nothing against us For to all these allegations we answer that our Belief depends not upon the doctrine of any particular person or persons much less upon their actions But that to know the true belief of our Churches one must look upon their publick Confessions of Faith The Law was received by the disposition of Angels saith St. Steven Act. 7. 53. and
rebellion is the enterprise of Amboise An. 1560. But the Protestant Religion had subsisted already forty years in France under the crosse And the Professors of the same though numerous had never fought for their Religion but by their constancy in asserting the truth and suffering for it The enterprise of Amboise was a 〈◊〉 quarrel of State not of Religion and â—â—…andâ—â— the Leader was a man most averse from the Protestant Religion The quarrel was this King Francis the II. being about sixteen years of age and younger in understanding then years was altogether governed by some Lords of the House of Guise then lookt upon as strangers and the Princes of the blood were excluded from the businesses of State These excluded Princes plotted to surprise the Court at Amboise and remove strangers from about the Kings person thinking themselves sufficiently warranted by their quality and interest that plot was cried Thuan. Hist lib. 24. Nullos ex conjuratis convictos fuisse alicujus molitionis in Regemaut Reginam sed tantuÌ„ in exteros sui in Aulâ tyrannicé omnia administrabant nempe Guisianos down as rebellious because it did not take effect and being discovered the House of Guise did not fail to make it a matter of High Treason although the great Thuanus depose for the conspirators that None of them was convicted of any attempt against the King and Queen but onely against strangers who governed all things about the Court in a tyrannical way Who so knoweth the interests of the Princes of the blood in France will never call that attempt treason And if they could do so much by the right of their birth their right was never the worse for their being Protestants Francis II. being dead soon after and his Successor Charls the IX being under age the Princes of the blood had more right then before to claim the management of the publick affairs being intrusted with them by the Laws of the Kingdome in the Kings minority at least in conjunction with the Queen Mother And being excluded from it again they raised an Army to recover their right That right is not considered at all by Jesuites that take upon them now a hundred years after to censure their actions but these Princes and their followers are represented onely as Hereticks and Rebels that made Warre against their Sovereigne After the King was out of minority the Princes and their party seeing that the King was much incensed against them and was of a dangerous and implacable nature durst not come neer him and the frequent Massacres made them keep themselves in a posture of defence and repel force by force To be rid of them at once the King used that famous and unparallelled treachery of a feigned peace with the Protestants sealed with the Marriage of his Sister with the Head of their party the first Prince of the blood next to his Brothers Henry King of Navarre and having invited them to the Wedding he slew them in their beds The number of the slain in cold blood on St. Bartholomew's Day and since within the space of three moneths amounted to about a hundred thousand An action publickly commended by the Pope and the Murtherers rewarded with many spiritual graces by his Holinesse That the relicks of the party after that general execution took defensive arms as it is not to be commended it is not to be wondred at neither Men are not Angels and there is nothing more natural then to strive for life The House of Guise having formed the League pretended for the destruction of Heresie but intended 〈◊〉 them for the pulling down of the Royal House King Henry the III. perceiving this too late made â—â—e of Henry King of Navarre then the apparent Heir of the Crown and of his Protestants Army to oppose the League That King being stabbed by a Monk soon after the Head of the Protestant party became lawful King and his Protestant Army the Royal Army yet their arms then though never so just were as much condemned by the Pope as before and as much taxed of rebellion But that praise cannot be denied to their arms that by them as Gods chief instruments the rebellion of the League was defeated and the lawful King preserved raised and setled upon his Throne whilest the Jesuited Zealots exprest their zeal of religion by attempting to stab him and were too good Catholicks to be good Subjects Since our Adversary alledgeth the words of King James of blessed and glorious memory and sets himself forth under the name of Philanax a Lover of the King he must in duty stand to the judgement of that great and judicious King This Sentence his Majesty pronounceth of that cause which this enemy calleth a Defence of the Right of Kings most unanswerable rebellion pag. 14. I never knew yet saith the King that the French Protestants took arms against their King In the first troubles they stood onely upon their defence Before they took arms they were burnt and massacred every where and the quarrel did not begin for Religion but because when King Francis the II. was under age they had been the refuge of the Princes of the blood expelled from the Court even of the Grandfather of the King now reigning and of that of the Prince of Conde who knew not where to take sanctuary For which the present King hath reason to wish them well It shall not be found that they made any other warre nay is it not true that King Henry the III. sent armies against them to destroy them and yet they ran to his help as soon as they saw him in danger Is it not true that they saved his life at Tours and delivered him from an extreme peril Is it not true that they never forsook neither him nor his Successour in the midst of the revolt and rebellion of most part of the Kingdome raised by the Pope and the greatest part of his Clergy Is it not true that they have assisted him in all his battails and helped much to raise the Crown again which was ready to fall Is it not true that they which persecuted the late King Henry the II. enjoy this day the fruits of the services done by the Protestants who are now maligned not for controversies of Religion but because that if their advice was followed the Crowne of the French Kings should no more depend on the Pope there would be no Frenchman in France that is not the Kings Subject there would be no appeal to Rome of beneficial and matrimonial causes and the Kingdome should be no more tributary under colour of Annats and the like impositions Even Cardinal Perron cleareth them from that imputation of rebellion when he saith that the doctrine of the deposition of Kings by the Pope was received in France till Calvin He doth then silently acknowledge that Kings were ill served before and that those whom he calls hereticks having brought forth the Holy Scripture to the publick sight
armes with the Kings you may easily judge what loss and what weakning of the party that will be How many of our Nobility will forsake yâ—u some out of treachery some out of weakness Even they who in an Assembly are most vehement in their votes and to And so it proved shew themselves zealous are altogether for violent waies are very often they that will revolt and betray their brethren They bring our distressed Churches to the hottest danger and there leave them going away after they have set the house on fire If there be once fighting or besieging of our towns whatsoever the issue may be of the combat or the siege all that while it will be hard to keep the people animated against us from falling upon our Churches which have neither retreat nor defense And what order soever the Magistrates of contrary Religion take about it they shall never be able to compass it I might also represent unto you many reasons out of the state of our Churches both within and without the Kingdome to shew you that this stirring of yours is altogether unseasonable and that you set sail against wind and tyde But you are clear-sighted enough to see it and to consider in what posture your neighbours are and from whence you may look for help whether among you the vertue and the concord and the quality of the heads is grown or diminisht Certainly this is not the time when the troubling of this pool can heal our diseases And certain it is that if any thing can help so much weakness it must be the zeal of Religion which in the time of our fathers hath upholden us when we had less strength and more vertue But in this cause you shall find that zeal languishing because most of our people believe that this evil might have been avoided without breach of conscience Be ye sure that there will be alwaies disunion among us every time that we shall stir for civil causes and not directly for the cause of the Gospel Against that it is objected that our enemies have determined our ruine that they undermine us by little and little that it is better to begin now then to stay longer Truly that man should be void of common sense that doubted of their ill will And yet when I call to mind our several losses as that of Lectoure Privas and Bearn I finde that we ourselves have contributed to them and it is no wonder that our enemies take no care to remedy our faults and that they joyn with us to do us harm But hence it follows not that we throw the helve after the hatchet and set our house on fire our selves because others are resolved to burn it or take in hand to remedy particular losses by means weak to redress them but strong and certain to ruine the general God who hath so many times diverted the counsels taken for our ruine hath neither lost his power nor altered his will We shall find him the same still if we have the grace to wait for his assistance not casting our selves headlong by our impatience or setting our mind obstinately upon impossibilities Take this for certain that although our enemies seek our ruine they will never undertake it openly without some pretence other and better then that of Religion which we must not give them For if we keep our selves in the obedience which subjects owe to their Sovereign you shall see that while our enemies hope in vain that we shall make our selves guilty by some disobedience God will give them some other work and afford us occasions to shew to his Majesty that we are a body usefull to this State and put him in mind of the signal services that our Churches have done to the late King of glorious memory But if we are so unfortunate that while we keep our selves in our duty the calumnies of our enemies prevail at least we shall get this satisfaction that we have kept all the right on our side and made it appear that we love the peace of the State Notwithstanding all this Gentlemen you may and ought to take order for the safety of your persons For whereas his Majesty and his Counsel have said often that if you separate your selves he will let our Churches enjoy peace and the benefit of his Edicts it is not reasonable that your separation be done with the peril of your persons And whenever you petition for your safe dissolution I trust it will be easily obtained if you make possible requests and such as the misery of the time and the present necessity can bear In the mean while you may advise before you part what should be done if notwithstanding your separation we should be opprest that order your prudence may finde and it is not my part to suggest it unto you If by propounding these things unto you I have exceeded the limits of discretion you will be pleased to impute it to my zeal for the good and preservation of the Church And if this advice of mine is rejected as unworthy of your consideration this comfort I shall have that I have discharged my conscience and retiring my self into some foreign Countrey there I will end those few daies which I have yet to live lamenting the loss of the Church and the destruction of the Temple for the building whereof I have laboured with much more courage and fidelity then success The Lord turn away his wrath from us direct your Assembly and preserve your persons I rest c. From Sedan Feb. 12. 1621. When this Letter was read in the Assembly some arose immediately and left it others continued to sit and by their sitting turned these warnings into prophecies This Epistle will give to the judicious Reader an insight into the affairs of that time and State and together into the present question which is altogether of fact whether and how far the French Protestants may be taxed of disobedience against their Sovereign For it is justified by this relation that when some of them resisted they had the greatest temptation to it that a just fear can present unto flesh and bloud and yet that even then they were disavowed by the best and the most of their Church and exhorted to their duty by their Divines which in points of conscience are the representative persons of a party when they are solemnly met and this was the sense of the National Synod of which this eminent Divine was President but two moneths before Here every wise and charitable Christian should lay David's doctrine to heart Psal 41. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blessed is he that considers with intelligence and judgement him that is in a low condition It is easie for us that enjoy prosperity under a gracious King to determine the point of passive obedience not so for them that groan under the sad burden of the Cross Christian equity ought to pity those that are exposed to the sad counsels of terrour and despair I
former subjection From Holland the Adversary saileth into Scotland and objects to us the Maxims of Knox and Buchanan and the disorders of that time Of which I have said enough in the Chapter before Of the Work of Reformation in England and the publick actions of that age upon that interest he speaks very scornfully saying that the Sect of Wicleff lay pag. 71. strangled in the cradle till King Edward the VI. his dayes when some ends of it were taken up again and set out with more ostentation then ever in that Princes minority and what rare effects of obedience were by that means produced in Queen Maries time who brought them up again to the test may be easily read in our Chronicles Wherein it is plain that in the poor five years of her Reign there was de facto more open and violent opposition and rebellion made by her own subjects then Queen Elizabeth had in forty five years or any Prince before or since the Wicleffian doctrine till the same smothered fire broke out at last in good King Charles his time to his utter ruin and the shaking of the very foundation of his Monarchy Is this spoken like a most observant Son and in every honest mans esteem a pious reverend and learned Priest of the Church of England as this Author is tearmed in the Publishers Epistle to the Reader Certainly a Son and a Priest of the Church of England would never have derived from Wickleff but from the Holy Scripture the Religion of the Church his Mother nor ascribed to her Religion the cause of the late horrid rebellion We see what a Son and Priest of the Church he is the tree is known by his fruit What better figs can be gathered from such a thorn What better grapes from such a bramble And what is that doctrine of Wickliffe which he imputes to the Protestants to the English especially Impios nullum dominium habere That the ungodly pag. 70. can have no right of dominion Was that the doctrine set out with ostentation in Edward the VI. his dayes Or was any of the Protestants found tainted with that doctrine when Queen Mary burnt them which this man calls bringing them to the test Sure it was not upon that ground that some oppositions were made against that Queen It is a wonder that she met with no more considering how her Father had declared by Act of Parliament her Mothers Marriage unlawful and her self incapable of the Crown and had miserably incumbred the Title and Succession of his Children That there was more open and violent opposition against her in her five years reigne from her own Subjects then Queen Elizabeth had in forty five years it is because they that went to question her Title went to work plainly above boord but no secret Jesuitical conspiracies to stabbe or poyson her as against Queen Elizabeth The means she made to reduce her dissenting subjects in Religion when they made no opposition against her was to make bon-fires of them Three hundred of those burnt-offerings she sacrificed unto God A farre greater number in her poor five years then that of the Popish Martyrs of disobedience since the death of that Queen now above a hundred years For no Papist was executed for his Religion all for disobeying the Laws of the Land and many of them for High Treason It is known that Queen Mary got the Crowne by the assistance of the Protestants of Suffolk and what recompence she gave them for it And whereas no fewer then eight rebellions did rise in Henry the VIII his dayes I find not that the Protestants had a hand in any of them All were raised by Papists and upon the score of Popery The principal colour of our Adversaries malice is his detestation of the late rebellion of England and the execrable Murther committed in the sacred Person of our gracious Sovereigne Upon this he makes several Panegyricks which are very ill sorted with his Apology for Mariana and justifying of the Iesuites doctrine Especially seeing that those actions were copied out upon their principles Felicia tempora quae te Moribus admorunt Belike the curious pens of the wise States-men and learned Scholars of England had need to be supplied by the boyish theames of a petty Novice of Doway to learn the duty of Subjects and to abhorre the guiltinesse of rebellion The venome that lieth under that oratory of invectives is that all the mischief is imputed to the Protestants of Integrity a term which he useth like a stirrup-leather longer or shorter according to his occasions yet alwayes treacherously to cast the faults of some particular person or some heretical Sect upon the generality of the Protestants But let him know that the King the Church and the State are Protestants of Integrity and that the parricides and troublers of our Israel will never give him thanks for calling them Protestants Also that we acknowledge them not for such unlesse it be upon a new score because they protest against the Kings power and the duty of their obedience When Jesuits or their Scholars as this Gentleman is charge our Fanaticks with High Treason they do but act that which they had prepared to do if the Powder-Plot had taken For they had a Declaration ready to indite the Protestants of that Treason For these men would story the just clamor against them for their doctrine of rebellion and parricide by laying the same charge with loud words upon others We have great reason to call upon the Justice of God and Men to condemne the unsincerity of this clamour With what face or conscience can the Jesuits passe a hard Sentence upon the late Rebels and King-killers seeing that these furious Zealots have neither taught nor done any thing in that horrible defection but what they had learned of the Jesuits For what do they blame them for Is it for teaching that the Sovereigne Power lieth in the Commons and that they may alter the Government of a State Did they not learn Bellarm. de Laicis lib. 3. cap. 6. Potestas immediate est tanquam in subjecto in tota multitudine si causa legitima adsit potest multitudo mutare regnum in Aristocratiam aut Democratiam è contrarie that of Bellarmine The Power saith he is in the whole multitude as in its subject and if there be a lawful cause for it the multitude may alter the Royal State into an Aristocracy or Democracy and so on the contrary Is it for saying that the people makes the King and may unmake him and retains still the habit of power Did they not learn of the same Bellarmine that In the Kingdomes of Bellarm. de Concil lib. 2. cap. 19. In regnis hominum potestas Regis est à populo quia populus facit Regem Ibid. cap. 19. sect ad alteram In Rebusp temporalibus si Rex degeneret in tyrannum licet caput sit Regni tamen à populo potest
Article of the Catholick Roman faith that Princes excommunicated by the Pope are ipso facto deposed and their subjects absolved from all obedience and fidelity to them It is directly though not believed but by few You have that fundamental Law authentically pronounced by Gregory the VII and it is made a Canon of the Roman Church By Apostolical Causa 15. Qu. 5. cap. Nos Sanctorum Eos qui excommunicatis fidelitate aut Sacramento constricti sunt Apostolica authoritate a juramento absolvivimus ne sibi fidem observent omnibus modis prohibemus authority we absolve from their oath all them that are bound by fidelity or oath to excommunicate persons and by means we forbid them to keep faith unto such persons I would ask the Roman Catholicks Seriously do you believe this And are you ready to seal that faith with your obedience or sufferings upon occasions If you believe and will maintain it you are not good subjects but dangerous persons in the State If you deny faith and obedience to that Papal Decree you are not good Roman Catholicks for if you were you would acknowledge the Pope the Head of the Faith with Bellarmine and that the Pope cannot erre in his Canons and that it is in the Popes power to make Articles of faith according to the determination of the Council of Trent Now the Pope hath made this an Article of your faith the denying of it an heresie and the resisting of it a crime punish'd in the persons of Kings by the deprivation of Kingdom and life Open your eyes Christian souls that are so much blinded as to pin your faith upon the Popes Decrees And reading in your own Authors the histories of the Popes behaviour which I have here represented acknowledg that those Decrees for many hundred years have been the powerful stirrers of rebellion in Christendome and the ambition of Popes the first Intelligence that sets the great Orb of sedition on going After that the Popes have thus commanded and wrought rebellion by express Decrees and filled the Christian world with fire and blood these five or six hundred years have the Jesuites the face when we object this against the Head of their Faith to object unto us in exchange some passages out of books either false or disowned by us if true And the defensive Arms of a few persons living under the Cross and driven by themselves upon the brink of despair The evil which men of our Religion have said or done we condemn freely and openly Let the Romanists condemn also so many Decrees of the Popes which have been the Incentives of war and brands of rebellion But that they cannot as long as they remain Papists sworn to approve all that the Pope saith or doth The difference between the faults of the Pope and those of Protestants about the point of obedience is this That disobedience with us is a crime but with him it is a Law We punish rebels but the Pope rewards them We say to rebels after St Paul That they that So did Sixtus the V. of which before resist the higher powers shall receive to themselves damnation But the Pope promiseth eternal life to make subjects rebel against their King We abhor the murtherers of Kings but the Pope sets them on by his excommunications and after the murther committed makes panegyricks on their praise Can the Romanists produce among us a Priest that hath made himself a Temporal Prince by robbing his Master of his land who hath kickt down the Emperors crown trodden upon his neck with his foot deposed him from his Kingdom made his son rise in Arms against him absolved his subjects from their obedience and given his Dominions to another One that makes himself the absolute disposer of Kingdoms and Master of the Universe Such a Priest is no where to be found but at Rome After this true account of so many Emperours and Kings deposed and killed and so much rebellion slaughter and desolation wrought in Christendom by the Papal excommunications and factions let the conscionable Reader who is not altogether ignorant in modern History judge what truth there is in our Adversaries assertion That in this last Century of years there have been pag. 93. more Princes deposed and murthered for their Religion by those Protestants of Integrity then have been in all the others since Christ's time by the Popes excommunications or the attempts and means of Roman Catholicks He should have set down a list of those Princes deposed and murthered by Protestants and for their Religion For my part I have heard of none Indeed Charles the I. our holy King and Martyr suffered for his Religion and the Adversary may take that one for many because he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worth alone many Princes But they that murthered him were not Protestants they disavow that name And it was for the Protestant Religion that he suffered But since he speaks of the means and attempts made by Roman Catholicks against Princes he shall hear a little more of them CHAP. V. The Adversaries Defence of the Jesuites examined Their Doctrine and Attempts against the Crown and life of Kings THe Adversary who is commended in the Epistle to the Reader as a most observant Son of the Church of England takes upon him the defence of the Jesuite Mariana so infamous for his doctrine of killing of Kings and saith three things about that The one is That he handleth that matter only problematically page 94. But the Court of Parliament of Paris composed of grave heads did not understand it so when they condemned his book to the fire Neither doth he speak of the murther of Henry the III. of France problematically when he exalteth the murtherer in these words Making a shew of delivering Mariana lib. 1. de Rege Regis Iustitutione cap. 6. Specie litteras in manus tradendi cultro quem herbis noxiis medicatum manu tegebat supra vesicam altum vulnus inflixit Insignem animi confidentiam Facinus memorabile Caeso Rege ingens sibi nomen fecit letters to the King he gave him a deep wound above the bladder with a poysoned knife which he hid in his hand O admirable confidence of minde O memorable action by killing the King he got to himself a great name And in the same place he taxeth the Kings servants who presently killed that murtherer of cruelty and barbarousness The second answer for Mariana is That the question was not for killing of Kings but for killing of Tyrants page 94. This man shews himself a right scholar of the Jesuites for this is their distinction But if a King deposed by the Pope keeps his Kingdome in spight of him they account him no more a King but a Tyrant And whereas there are two sorts of Tyrants some by usurpation which they call Tyrannos in Titulo Tyrants in the Title some Tyrants by administration the Jesuites hold That a lawful King
Extravag Vnam Sanctam and Sovereignty because it is written that in the beginning God created heaven and earth Joseph's Coat of many colours and the Head of Holofernes would have been as pertinent to prove the Popes Temporal and Spiritual powér Yet see how resolutely and syllogistically his Holiness concludes upon those premisses Wherefore we declare say define and pronounce that it is of necessity of salvation to be subject to the Roman Prelate After these scientifical proofs of the Popes power to dispose of the Crowns and Lives of Princes Who should make any more doubt of it Who would not in the strength of these reasons venture his life to dethrone Heretick Kings and spill their hearts blood for a sacrifice of sweet savour unto his Holiness CHAP. VI. Some Assertions of the Libeller are examined AFter I have vindicated the Protestant Religion from the aspersion of Rebellion and laid that charge in its proper place I have done my main business And now partly out of compassion partly out of contempt I will pass by most of the untruths of this Libeller which are well nigh as many as his lines contenting my self to have disproved two of pag. 109. them The one That the Rebel-doctrines are back'd by the generality of them that call themselves Protestants But I have proved the contrary by their publick Confessions This plain dealing of his is towards the latter end of his Book He durst not have spoken so in the beginning But he must amuse the Reader a great while with railing against the Presbyterians or the Protestants of Integrity before he charge the generality of the Protestants with rebellion Besides he might hope tha few would have the patience to read his book so far This is worse In this Century of years saith he there have been more Princes deposed and murthered for their Religion by these Protestants of Integrity then have been in all the others since Christs time by the Popes excommunications or the attempts and means of the Roman Catholicks It is not easie to determine whether malice or ignorance be prevalent in that assertion I have shewed by unreproachable testimonies that the Popes have filled Christendome with sedition and rebellion for many centuries of yeers and what the Jesuites have been acting undet them in this last Century To which since the Libeller confines himself it had been no hard task to name those many Kings deposed and murthered by the Protestants so lately if the assertion had any truth in it When did a Protestant Minister thrust his knife into his Sovereignes body as the Monk James Clement did to his King Henry the III. and as the Jesuite Campian would have done to his Sovereigne Queen Elizabeth When did a Minister instruct any to kill his King as the Jesuites did Parry the Jesuite Walpole Edward Squire The Jesuite Holt Patrick Cullen York and Williams The Jesuite Parsons Heskec to tempt the Earl of Darby to rebellion Or as the Jesuite Varade instructed Barriere to kill Henry the IV. of France and the whole Colledge of the Jesuites John Chasiell Or what Protestant either of the Clergie or Laity was known to have made an attempt against the life of his Sovereigne For the late English Traytors who brought their most excellent Sovereigne to the Scaffold are no more Protestants then they are Papists and are Jesuites in the point of obedience When this Libeller called the Ministers of Scotland rare Saltpeter men fit for fireworks and to prepare matter to blow up both Church and State Did he remember that he gave them the right style belonging to the Jesuites Garnet Hall Hammond Gerard and Greenville For these were Saltpeter-men with a witness and without metaphor prepared matter to blow up Church and State Was it ever put to the charge of a Protestant Divine Chaplain to his Prince that he recommended to him a man sent by his enemies to make him away Or that he made questions to the Devil about his life Or that he sent word to his enemies of such things as he had revealed unto him to ease his Conscience as the Jesuite Cotton did Or did ever our Divines blow the doctrine of King-killing into ignorant souls as the Jesuites did to Ravaillac who being most rude and a very Brute in all other points of Religion was found by his examiners exquisitely skilful in all the evasions and distinctions of the Jesuites about that horrible doctrine Or did any convicted Traytor depose that he had declared his purpose to a Minister and shewed him the knife for the execution as Ravaillac maintained to Father Aubigni before his Judges Some such charges which might be justified by Records of Courts and Judicial proceedings this Accuser would have brought if there had been any and we are sure that he would not have spared us If ever any man deserved to be sued upon an Action of Slander it is this Libeller for thus slandering the generality of the Protestants and the State of which he is a Subject But I fear that if a Pursuivant were sent for him he would return and answer Non est inventus As for his saying That the doctrine of Rome with the page 110. opinions and practises of all its Doctors are as he hath shewed quite contrary to rebellion and all that is said against that Church in this particular is meer calumnly Let the world judge whether he hath shewed what he saith and whether is more credible his saying or my proving Yet because he stands for the Roman Church I desire my Reader to take notice that in this point of obedience my quarrel hath been with the Court not with the Church of Rome between which I conceive as much difference as between the Wind and the Sea The Church might be quiet enough from storms of rebellion did not the boysterous wind of sedition make it foam blown from the Court of Rome by its agents the Iesuites After that the Libeller had railed against us he falls upon a common place of loyalty and brings some texts of S. Austin taken out of Protestant books made by our Reverend Divines against the late Rebels For that he is not acquainted with S. Austin he shews it by the commendation he giveth him calling him the most ancient pag. 119. and learned Father of the Christian Church S. Austin deserveth a better commendation but he is neither the most ancient nor the most learned of the Fathers Most of those whom the Church calls Fathers were before him for he dyed in the fifth Century And as for Learning Origen and Hierome were far beyond him Could the English Seminaries pitch upon no abler Champion to fight against us then this raw souldier A more passionate and less reasonable Writer I never met with His style is a perpetual barking and biting too but without teeth I could lay up a great heap of his untruths ignorances and impertinencies if I would make such a wilde-goose-chase as to follow him in