this by saying the Argument would hold all the World over and so make it a sin as well in France as here then they reply That in Catholick Countries though you hear Heresie in a Protestant Sermon yet you have a Catholick Sermon presently clears the point and makes it indubitable on the Churches side Now this by the Prohibition of Religion is prevented in England and therefore the case very different One would think this a very subtile Argument so notably put together that there would be no possibility of answering it if one did but very much stand in awe of the Magisterial Mountebank that it may be with a world of Rhetorical flourishes and grave Quotations out of Scotus doth positively affirm this to be the opinion of all School-men nay the Catholick Church it elf But Heaven knows examine it a little and you will find it a meer rope of sand as solidly compacted as their ridiculous though politick Doctrine of Probabilities and no better For will not they or any observing man confess that the Romanists of England take them one with another are ten for one more learned and confirmed in the Principles of their Religion than those of France or any Catholick Country indeed are He that considers that most of the Natives of this Kingdom who are of that Faith be either Persons of Quality who have had great advantages by Education or Converts from the Protestants will easily believe there must be a great disparity between such and the general herd of Vulgars bred in Countries under a Religion no ways famous for making the common people too knowing But suppose it is not so and that those who have so long strugled under difficulties in their Fortunes for Conscience sake have done it more out of ignorance the Mother as some say of Popish devotion than of understanding yet will the former Argument wash away in that part which says those in Catholick Countries have more opportunity of being untaught what they might prejudicially have suckt in For none will deny but more Doctrine is collected from rational discourses Pro and Con than from such set Speeches as Sermons are Therefore considering there are few Gentlemen in England of the Romish Religion who have 500 l. per Ann. but keep a Priest in their Houshold How is it likely if good Arguments be to be found against every thing the Protestants teach contrary to the Romish Faith but that they should presently upon inquiry have their new-raised scruples at Church by such sooner and stronger wip't off than a person that it may be in a Catholick Country may go to Church both Sunday and other Holy-day a year before he hears any Sermon casually to glance upon that point whereon such doubt of his arose And I dare affirm so sweet is the profit the Jesuits and Missionaries find in England that there resides and is like to do constantly so many here that few Papists need to be a day from speaking with one of them and that is an advantage equal to the most Catholick Nations But suppose all here said nothing to the purpose but that 't is likely many would be changed in time and become Protestants What is that to you or I Brother or indeed to any rational Lay Catholick in England for he whose case it should be need not much repine that his conscience should lead him into a more advantageous Religion as to this World and for the other he would no doubt be as confident of a good place there if he acted purely upon the score of Faith as ever he was whilst he remained Papist But I confess many such accidents as those would shrewdly inconvenience the Priests and in time lessen their number But still what is that to you or I Brother I find no Canon of any General Council commanding you to give two thousand pound a year to increase the number of Priests or to maintain those that be Nor can I believe Christian Religion ever obliged its Professors to such remote considerations No all men were not bound like S. Paul to love to that extremity as to wish damnation for their Country-mens sakes They that can let them but still say I Brother keep your money you 'l repent it else one day take my word for it Another Argument I have heard started which is that if Catholicks should go to Church yet the Parliament would at last find out something like the late Test for Imployments by which they would be found out and so consequently be no ways the better but suffer equally to what they should do by Recusancy To this I answer that I ought as a Christian to obey the Government as far as I can in Conscience and that for Conscience sake and to trust the Divine Providence in whose hands are the hearts of Princes and Rulers for any thing by them for the future to be commanded which if I cannot then comply with I must either follow the direction of flying in persecution from city to city or patiently suffer for my sins what God shall please by the Law to impose upon me But this supposition how well grounded soever it may seem ought not to hinder me from complying as far as I am able at the present such test when if ever it comes will then with its penalties be time enough to submit to But I am of the opinion and not without some colour of reason that such a Test may never be especially if Catholicks would leave off Recusancy The grounds for my conceptions are these The People of England boast of this Priviledge beyond most European Nations if not all that no person is bound by Torture or Oath to accuse himself of any thing which by the Law is penal but that proof ought to come of matter of Fact before he suffer Now this so rational a Priviledge which frees us from the slavish subjection of those governed by the Civil Law all English Parliaments hitherto have been extremely tender of as appears by those Laws provided for security of Religion since the Reformation For every person knows they who incur punishment by not complying in Forms of Worship or matters of Faith do it out of tenderness of Conscience though it may be misguided Now such persons one may well believe would scruple above all things a false Oath Therefore if our Law-makers had not been very careful of this English Free-mans Priviledge they might have quickly left a latitude to Judges and other inferiour Magistrates by Interrogatories upon Oath to have found out all persons that had through Conscience offended against any Ecclesiastical Law as Whether have you heard Mass within a year or no have you asserted or taught the Popes Supremacy or brought in Crosses Beads or Images c. But we find no such Method allowed which can spring from nothing but the care of this Sacred English Priviledge always firmly rooted in the breasts of the Compilers of English Statutes For I should think
the well-merited death of a Traitor or if a Lay-man all the Law has in that case too easily provided I need not instance which Bulls I mean they are so often brought against the Catholick Religion it self by Protestant Writers and sufficiently to the shame though not of the Popish Religion yet of those Popes who granted them and of those Papists that adhere to or defend such Roman Court Doctrines But from such Catterpillers of the Christian Faith as those did arise amongst many more dangerous new Positions this of being not lawful for Roman Catholicks to go to Church as the Law requires in England And for the sakes and on the wise Authority of such desperate Casuists have many of our foolish Forefathers lost two thirds of their Estates rendred themselves suspected to the people and incapable of serving as they ought to do their lawful Prince in his extraordinary occasions which when they have attempted to do this their open unnecessary dissention has cast an Odium unjustly both on himself and his actions for imploying them Now if it be inquired by you or your Confessaries what Arguments could move Pope Pius Quintus or his immediate Successor to send a Bull of Prohibition to the Catholicks in England for going to Church the thing being in it self no fault and as I affirm so positively against the Rules and Practices of their Predecessors nay against the Fundamentals of their Government To this I must answer There were divers Motives in Policy as they observed things of this Island in Rome though none in Religion First they were perswaded by such Traitors as fled hence thither that almost the whole Nation remained Catholicks notwithstanding the Queen had altered the Government And that they would find them such ignorant ones too as their Holy Predecessors had known them when they made this Nation the Pack-horse to their pride and a perpetual Fountain of Money to their Treasuries which some of them with admiration boasted could never be exhausted Upon these suppositions they were made to believe that such a Bull would cause this mighty Party to be visible not only to their Enemies but themselves to the terrour of one and incouragement to the uniting of the other Party This was one and it may be the grand motive of that Proceeding so contrary to all President The next and in all likelihood not the least motive might be the perswasion of those Traitors that there would be found in England many as desperate as themselves to bandy together take Arms against or assasinate the Queen when they saw their Party so considerable as this would prove it besides the blessing must needs attends such pious endeavours warranted by his Holinesses care and direction But all these Policies and Practices did by the wisdom of that Queen and her Council only tend to the discovering such desperates as being of the like Principles thereon took Arms and were for it deservedly executed or forced to increase the numbers of those Fugitives in voluntary Banishment But notwithstanding this might like a Message from Heaven sufficiently have warned the Catholicks of England from hearkening any more after News from Rome at least till the Popes should have been so charitable to re-admit them into the Congregation of the Faithful by taking off the Excommunication from them yet have the private Missionaries being all sent into the Nation under the title of Traitors by the Law so adhered to the Tenets of the Court as well as Church of Rome which sends them that they have by degrees instilled into the Laity here many Principles of Adherence to the Pope that would be laught at in France and some few other rational Catholick Kingdoms Amongst which this of thinking the Popes Commands can make that a sin which in it self is none ought to be accounted one Upon which ground alone they refuse to obey the Law in the thing now in debate for which I think they are but justly punisht with the loss of their Estates But Brother be you wiser study the Catholick Doctrine as it is taught by Fathers and Councils and not as it would fain be made by the novel Positions of Ignatius's Followers between whom and you there is a vast difference both in the duty you owe to the King and his Laws as likewise in those you stand obliged in to Rome For first they and all other Missionaries being the hour they set foot here become Traitors and so consequently in all the business they come about not only out of the protection but under the severest censure of the Law no wonder they have not the same respect for it other Subjects ought to have but dare practise lesser contradictions that offend in the greater Nay it may be against their going to Church Scandal would prove a good Argument since they pretend to be ready always to lay down their lives for the increase of their Faith but this is no ways your or any other Lay Catholicks case the Law if you obey in some particulars prescribed giving you equal protection with others of the National Principles Another thing to be considered is That the hour they receive Holy Orders they take an Oath of Subjection to the Pope and so by the same Act become Renouncers of their Allegiance to the King and Subject to his Holiness Now how far this may be consonant to Christian Religion I will not examine here but I am sure it puts them in a very different posture as to the Popes designs to what any other Catholicks are in They being according to their vow upon the least summons to leave the Country and to go where his Holinesses good pleasure appoints them which I hope none of them will be so impudent to say you are obliged to do Brother except it be such as hold the mad Doctrine of Popes having power to depose Princes For though the other doth not sound so ill yet is it in effect the same for to be able to command a Princes Subjects out of his Dominions doth imply a power of leaving him none there which would produce an effectual deposing of him in the end Another considerable difference between Lay Catholicks and Missionary Priests in this Kingdom arises from the ones having Estates and the other none For no body can blame the last sort of Gentlemen to desire their power over the Consciences of the other should be as far extended as might be if one consult as most of mankind does their private interest Alas what is it to Mr. Politick your Ghostly Father that you shall lose by your Conviction 2000 l. a year his Allowance will be never the less he knows but his power will be much more For in the first place that is a sure sign you are as firmly resolved to live and die a Catholick as if he saw you at the stake to receive Martyrdom for it Do you think after that he will not take upon him to direct you what Servants it is
competency of temporal as well as plentitude of Spiritual Authority in the World We do not find for some Ages after that though several Emperours turned Arrian any Pope pretended to an Authority of dispensing their Subjects from the Oaths of Fidelity they had taken to them But it is possible some may and not impertinently answer There was then scarce such a thing in the World as an Oath of Allegiance therefore Dispensations from what were not in being could not be expected To this I assent and do well know Christian Religion in its Primitive Innocency taught obedience from the Laws of Nature which some called Conscience and did not suppose any persons truly toucht with its divine Doctrines could need any other obligation to perform their duties either to God or their Neighbour than what their sacred Initiating Vow of Baptism laid upon them And so far I believe the Quakers not without a true hint that they needed one amongst another no other affirmations but Yea and Nay and that they guided their Conversations by the true Rule Nature had taught them which the Quakers call the Light within them But when Religion became National and that many wicked people took the name of Christianity more for worldly than heavenly advantage then were they forced to have recourse to new sort of solemn Oaths taken either in Publick Churches where Kings did likewise condescend to take new invented Coronation Oaths and the People Oaths of Subjection in return In the management of which Ceremony the Bishops were the chief Officers which by degrees hankt a great respect to them and they not a little ambitious of more taught the dependency of Subjects and Princes one upon the other not to be from the Laws of Nature but from these Compacts which their Authority and nothing else could make Sacred These dangerous Tenets Princes not only at first connived at but made use of For the greatest part of the World being then shifting Subjection from the Roman Empire to native or more neighbouring Dominions was shatter'd into petty Regencies so that the Bishops who preserved a kind of Unity of their distinct Authorities in that of the Roman Sees had a greater power over the common peoples minds than those Kings of Counties had So that indeed Dominion was often transferred from lawful Princes that durst stomach these spiritual Usurpations to Usurpers that would truckle to the Clergy for their good word to prefer them Thus all things becoming again as in the first corruruption of humane Nature where every body were forced to secure themselves from violence and oppression by obligations they believed most sacred Oaths invented or formed by Popes and other Bishops became the Method which when there was a necessity of breaking then they were consulted with as persons best able to judge of that necessity and above all of them the Pope as the most eminent and then thought most disinterested Bishop he being well provided for in Temporalties and very much eased from such entire subjection to the Civil Magistrate as other Bishops in particular still remained under so from an unprejudiced assistant to Conscience he by frequency of Addresses became at length an Umpire then in a manner sole Judge of what Oaths or Compacts remained sacred and what by contingencies ceased to be obligatory So by degrees as naturally all men aspire after Power he took upon him to give and the World accepted from him of course Dispensations from any Vows were troublesom either to their affairs or appetites and it may be if he could have stopt here the World and most Princes in it would have been contented still to have made use of this impossible Power he had assumed but at last they flew to such Practices as disturbed nay destroyed their own Soveraign the Emperours that opposed their insolencies and attempted no less against most Christian Kingdoms nay to such a height were they arrived that few Kingdoms but must owne they did at one time or other receive a new Race of Kings from their appointment And though several of them as particularly this Kingdom have by Gods Providence received again their natural Princes yet was it long first and perhaps not truly in this Nation till King James's assuming the Crown But this excess as well in their extention as execution of their usurp't Authority alarm'd the World and put that upon new Consultations for its safety against a Power which pretended to the deposing of Princes and alteration of Governments without so fair a warning as the beat of Drum This produced our Statute of Praemunire against any person that should bring a Bull from Rome and that as early as Richard the Second's days wherein it is likewise provided That if any Nuntio Legate c. should presume to set foot in this Nation on a Message from the Pope without having first procured the Kings Licence he should be proceeded against as an Enemy to the State This and many other Laws of the like kind made both in this Nation and other Kingdoms about those times sufficiently shew how weary and afraid the Catholick World were grown of the Popes Pride and Usurpations But to return to the matter If we will be so foolish to allow all things may lawfully be done that have successfully been so then the Popes have not only a Power to absolve all persons from their Oaths and Compacts but likewise to alter the Government of Nations and dispense to Subjects their natural obediences to their lawful Soveraigns which are Tenets few Roman Catholicks in the World do hold to the full and such as do it is pity should be suffered to breathe any Air in safety but that of S. John's de Lateran or the Vatican But not to leave the matter fully as I found it upon doubtful Suppositions whether they have any Authority or no to dispense with any sort of Vows whatsoever I will proceed to divide all sorts of Oaths in the World under these three several kinds First Oaths to declare ones assent or to strengthen ones duty in performance of such things as the Law imprinted in every rational Soul does require should however be done Secondly Oaths of Compact between Prince and Prince State and State or private person and private person c. Thirdly Voluntary Vows or Oaths to perform some Religious exercise or function c. Under these three Heads I conceive all Oaths that have ever seemed to need or require Dispensation do fall As from Oaths in Evidence those come not under our consideration Now in the first kind neither the Pope nor any Power that is or ever was visible on Earth could or can dispense for that implies an Authority to give leave to commit things malas in se and under this Head does clearly fall obedience of Subjects to their Princes Children to their Parents c. things that if there never had been Religion would have no sooner lost their respect but humane Nature would have lost its being