shall destroy it VVhen a Man is condemned by God and his Country in a due course of Law it is time for him to die and he ought willingly to submit to the Laws of the Land for every Man enjoys the benefit and protection of them upon those terms and Job lays down a great Rule of Equity when he asks Shall we receive Good things at the Hand of God and not likewise Evil But if a Man be illegally assaulted in the way of Violence and Assassination he may use all lawful Remedies to defend himself It is a currant Notion among the Fathers that we ought to spare our Persecutors and not suffer them to be guilty of Murder Gregory gives that as a very good reason of Marcus's flight from Arethusa And St. Chrysostom introduces David speaking after thisis manner when he fled from Saul and as the Scripture tells us had Goliah's great Sword with him and put himself into a posture of Defence It is better for me to be miserable and to suffer more hardships than that Saul should be condemned by God for the Murder of an Innocent Person And that he meant no more than only to prevent the effusion of Innocent Blood appears by the several Opportunities he had to have cut off Saul but the sense of his Duty made him abhor the least thought of it He only sought his own safety and preservation which he could not abandon without being accessary to Saul's murdering of him There is no question but it is every Man's Duty to prevent the murder of any Innocent Person and especially of himself by all the ways and means which the Laws of God and of his Country do allows and if he do not he is a kind of Felo de se and guilty of his own Murder VVe are to suffer Persecution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if need be as St. Peter's words are and not else Now I humbly conceive being the VVrit de Haeretico Comburendo is taken away in time and the Laws protect us in our Religion that it will be a very needless thing to go to Smithfield and there be burnt for an Heretick And so far it is fit to inform the Popish Crew for we have no apprehensions of Persecution from any other Quarter lest they should be mistaken in the good Protestant Religion of our good Church as Coleman calls it in his Declaration No doubt they would bestow more good words upon us if we would be all Passive Protestants for then the fewer active Papists would serve to dispatch us But most men are satisfied that Archbishop Abbot's Doctrine was much more the good Protestant Religion of our good Church than Dr. Sibthorp's and that Dr. Manwaring was Orthodox when he Recanted but by no means when he preached his Pulpit Law For that name the Great and Loyal Lord Faulkland long before the War broke out was pleased to bestow upon such mischievous flattery which he then complained had almost ruined the Nation and it can never be good for any thing else in any Age. And yet the Arbitrary Doctrine of those Times did not bring any great terror along with it it was then but a Rake and served only to scrape up a little paltry Passive Money from the Subject but now it is become a Murdering piece loaden with no body knows how many Bullets And that the Patrons of it may not complain that it is an exploded Doctrine as if Men only hooted at it but could not answer it I shall stay to speak a little more to it 'T is true this Doctrine cannot discover its malignity under his Majesty's Gracious Reign which God prolong and prosper who has been pleased to give the Nation the security of his Coronation Oath which we know all Protestant Princes value and look upon as Sacred and likewise of many Gracious Promises that He will govern according to Law But in case we should be so sharply punished for our Sins as to fall under a Popish Successor then this Bloody Doctrine will have the opportunity to shew it self in its own Colours and we may then see and it may be feel the sting of it For first I suppose these Men will allow a Popish Successor when he is in possession to be a Lawful Magistrate because according to them it is not lawful no not for the King and Parliament to exclude him 2. I suppose that this Lawful Magistrate will persecute Protestants for by so doing he does God and the Church good Service he merits Heaven he cannot better testifie the truth and reality of his Conversion Nay if he does not persecute Hereticks with Fire and Sword he lies at the Pope's Mercy to have his Kingdom taken from him and further he is in danger to be so served as the two Henries of France were However because some Persons are so happy as to believe that he will not persecute no he will protect the Church of England as it is now established by Law and be a Mighty Defender of the Faith I shall be contented with what every Body must grant that he may persecute that the thing is possible 3. In this case all Protestants cannot fly they will not be all in travelling case and if they were the Ports may be 〈◊〉 the Writ ne exeas Regnum may be serv'd upon them and besides many may be persuaded that they ought not to fly and leave their Native Country naked and defenceless and expose it to a Conquest they may likewise believe it a thing of very ill Consequence perdere Patriam which no Man in England is bound to do 4. Now we are taught in this Case That if Men do not over-run their Country there is nothing but Death or Damnation at home or as it is in their own words Neither doth the Gospel prescribe any Remedy but flight against the Persecutions of the lawful Magistrate allowing of no other mean when we cannot escape betwixt denying and dying for the Faith What the Gospel prescribes is one thing what it allows is another there are ten thousand things allowed by the Gospel not one of which is prescribed by it inditements Appeals suing for Tythes in a word all humane Constitutions which are not morally Evil. But it seems the Gospel does not so much as allow any mean when we cannot escape by flight betwixt denying and dying for the Faith As for denying the Faith that is down-right Destruction both of Body and Soul and therefore is not to be thought of as being the far greater extremity of the two And so welcome Death But by what Law must we die Not by any Law of God surely for being of that Religion which he approves and would have all the World to embrace and to hold fast to the end Nor by the Laws of our Country where Protestancy is so far from being Criminal that it is Death to desert it and to turn Papist By what Law then By none that I know of but Parasites
a Bill of Exclusion which they say is to the prejudice of his R. H. because we there pray That God would prosper him with all happiness both here and hereafter There is no man in the Communion of the Church of England that prayes that Prayer more heartily than I do But it would be a Curse either in the Mouth or in the Heart of any Protestant under the name of Happiness to wish him the opportunity and which is more the invincible Temptation and a kind of Necessity to extirpate the best Religion in the World That I am sure would be far from promoting his happiness in the next World and I am apt to think will contribute nothing at all to it in this He that prays that Prayer with understanding prays for his R. H's return to the Protestant Religion which would both prove an unspeakable blessing to himself and restore these three Kingdoms to be the happiest upon Earth It would be some comfort if we could but hope for such a thing But if the D. is perswaded that he has made a better choice it were very desirable but not unless it stand with his H's good likeing that he would injoy that Religion to the greatest advantage and take his fill of it at the Fountain-head which a Crowned Head at this instant does who could not enjoy it so happily at home And the rather because all Protestants are sworn not to suffer Rome to come hither For I am throughly satisfied and so may any Man else by once looking upon them that the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy are Protestant Oaths as a great asserter of Religion and Laws now with God thought fit to term them and we shamefully and wickedly break them unless to our power we keep out Popery And the Oath of Supremacy being often called in Statutes the Oath of Obedience we are bound by virtue of our Religion of our Oath and of our Obedience which are strong Obligations to oppose the entrance of Popery into this Kingdom And I am afraid it is a vain undertaking to go about by Law to twist a Popish Interest with these Oaths when both our Religion and our sworn Obdience engage us to oppose it For in any case that can be put whether it be fit to obey Man or God and Man too judge ye Julian endeavoured to entangle the Christians and to destroy Christianity that very way There was a Law and an Ancient Law of the Empire and so great stress was laid upon it that the breach of it was look'd upon as an Offence against the Government and the Empire that every one should honour and worship the Emperor's Statues and Pictures which were set up for that end in publick Places Now he took advantage of that Law to ensnare them unawares in Heathenish Worship for he added the Figures of the Heathen Gods to his own Picture and as Gregory's words are mingled Poyson with their Meat abusing their Loyalty to the Purposes of Idolatry For this was his project as Sozomen tells us He concluded that if he could bring over the Christians to this he might the more easily attempt any thing else that he had a mind to but if he found them disobedient then to punish them without Mercy as innovating in the Roman Customs and offending against the Government and the Empire A few therefore who were also punished understood the Cheat would not worship according to custom Who they were S. Gregory tells us some of the wiser and more conscientious found out the fraud but they paid for their sagacity the pretence was that they offended against the Honour of the Emperor but the truth was they came into danger for the sake of the true King and for the sake of Religion But the multitude as they use to do from ignorance or an unthinking mind simply thought they obeyed an Old Law and more simply approached these Images But what says Gregory of this sort that obeyed the old Law Who perhaps says he may obtain pardon for their Ignorance as being hurried into Wickedness by a Wile He makes a doubt of it but he would have readily pronounced concerning their Pardon who wink hard are wilful Now if a Prince puts a Border of Popery which some say is ten times worse than a Border of Paganism about his Picture which we fain would honour and reverence and once did before we saw that unhappy addition what shall we say or what can we do In these afflicting Thoughts I had almost forgot a Matter of great Consequence and that is a passage of St. Austin which rises up against all that we have said concerning the behaviour of the Christians towards Julian and is to this effect That the Christian Souldiers served under this Infidel Emperor and where their Religion was not concern'd made Conscience of obeying him but where indeed it came to the Cause of Christ there they made as much Conscience of disobeying him Now the Reader may please to take notice that the whole Contest which I have described betwixt these Christians and Julian was purely upon the score of Religion and not from any lawless or ungovernable humour And as for these Souldiers fighting under Julian against the Persians or other common Enemies of the Empire far as sure as they were Christians they would never have drawn a Sword to destroy their fellow Christians or the Interest of Christianity and obeying the Word of Command when they received his pay it is such a low part of Honesty that any man may pretend to it If I had been there a Souldier of Fortune I should have done the same and which is more would have lost my own Life rather than have served him that slippery trick in Persia. But the Christians obeying Julian in indifferent Matters which did not concern their Religion puts me in mind of a more famous Compliance amongst themselves Every Body knows how the Church was rent in sunder by Arrianism and there might be too much stifness and rigidness on the other hand about Words for ought I know but miserably rent it was which gave Julian great advantage against the Christian Religion Now what did the Christians do Did the Orthodox go and side with Julian to revenge the Injuries which they had received from the Arrians in Constantius's Time or make use of Julian's Favour which he shewed in restoring them to crush their Brethren which differed from them No there was no seeking to him by either side only the Donatists of Africk complemented him and received some small favours from him but they were made infamous by it Honorius the Emperor posted them for it all over the Empire very many Years after and St. Austin is often teazing them for it in the next Generation For instead of that a Synod held by Athanasius and other Bishops at Alexandria determined That because the Question of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 troubled
Years And in the same Paragraph we have a fuller description of the State of all Christendom before the Reformation So that Laity and Cleray Learned and Unlearned all Ages Seas and degrees of Men Women and Children of whole Christendom an 〈◊〉 and most 〈◊〉 thing to think have been at once 〈◊〉 in abominable Idolatry of all other 〈◊〉 most detested of God and most damnable to 〈◊〉 and that by the space of eight hundred Years and more And in another place after a description of their Men Saints which look'd like Princes of Persia Land and the Idols of their Women Saints which might have been taken for nice and well-trimmed 〈◊〉 you have these words And because the whole Pageant must be throughly plaid it is not enough thus to deck Idols but at the last come in the Priests themselves likewise decked with Gold and Pearl that they may be meet Servants for such Lords and Ladies and fit worshippers of such Gods and Goddesses And with a solemn pace they pass forth before these Golden Puppets and fall down to the Ground on their Marrow Bones before these honourable Idols c. And elsewhere you have a large Discourse shewing That their 〈◊〉 and Ceremonies in honouring and worshipping of the Images or Saints be all one with the 〈◊〉 which the 〈◊〉 Idolaters used in honouring their Idols In Pilgrimages to 〈◊〉 Images which had more Holiness and Vertue in them than others In their Candle-Religion turning Incense offering up Gold to Images hanging up Crouches Chains and Ships Legs Arms and whole Men and Women of War before Images as though by them or Saints as they say they were delivered from Lameness Sickenss Captvity or Shipwrack In spreading abroad after the Example of the Gentiles Idolaters lying and feigned Miracles of Images Such an Image was sent from Heaven like the Palladium or Diana of the Ephesians Such an Image was brought by Angels Such an one came it self far from the East to the West as Dame Fortune fled to Rome Some Images though they were hard and stony yet for tender-heart and pity 〈◊〉 Some spake more 〈◊〉 than ever did Balaam's Al 's who had Life and Breath in him Such a Criple came and saluted this Saint of Dke and by and by he was made whole and lie here hangeth his Crouch Such an one in a Tempest vowed to Saint Christopher and scaped and behold 〈◊〉 is his Ship of War Such an one by Saint Leonard's help brake out of Prison and see where his 〈◊〉 hang. And 〈◊〉 thousands more Miracles by like or more shameless Lies were reported And to conclude The Papists serve themselves of those very ercuses which the Devil heretofore put into the Mouths of the Gentiles to palsiate their Idolatry So that by making use of the same Pretences and Answers it is plain that they be all one with the Gentiles Idolaters These things hitherto are spoken in reference to the worshipping of Images and then as to their worshipping the Host the Rubrick after the Communion declares that it is Idolatry to be 〈◊〉 of all faithful Christians Which has been always the Doctrine of our Church notwithstanding the ignorant Cavils of some men as appears by the Homilies where this Doctrine was never discontinued The Papists ignorance of the Sacrament is affirmed to have been the cause of the ruine of God's Religion the cause of gross Idolatry and of mummish 〈◊〉 Their worshipping and falling down before every cross piece of Timber which is but an Image of our Saviour's Cross must needs be rank Idolatry when in St. Ambrose judgement to have worshipped the Cross to self which was 〈◊〉 with our Saviour Christ s own precious Blood had been an hearthentsh Error and 〈◊〉 of the Worked In a word 〈◊〉 is so interwoven with their Religion that the Homily very justly brands them with the Name of the Idolatrous Church So much for the Doct of the Church of England which I hope will not seem strange or new to the meanest Reader for I am sure all the people of England ought to have been instructed and perfect in it any time this hundred Years and better 2. And now I shall undertake to prove the Papists to be as blockish Idolaters as ever were in the World by irrefragable and uncontroulable authorities such as they must either own or renounce their Popery and they are their own Mass-book the Roman Catechism set out by the Decree of the Council of Trent and the Roman Pontifical And 1. I shall set down all the sorts of Idolatry which are enumerated by the Roman Catechism And then 2. prove them to be guilty of 〈◊〉 very things which they themselves acknowledge to be both Idolatry and old Heathen Idolatry In their Explication of the Second Commandment they have these words It is manifest that two ways especially as to this Precept the Majesty of God is very much injured The first is If Idols and Images are worshipped as God or if any Divinity or Vertue be believed to be in them for the sake of which they are to be worshipped or that any thing is to be desired of them or that any trust is to be put in them as was done heretofore by the Gentiles who placed their hope in Idols which the Scripture every where reproves The other is If any one endeavour to represent the form of the Divinity in any kind of Work as if it could be seen with bodily Eyes or expressed by Colours or Figures To begin with the first instance of Idolatry to worship Idols or Images as God by which if they mean worshipping an Image with a persuasion that it is God truly that is a very low dispensation which very few if any of the Heathens were under And such an imputation as this they always look'd upon as an horrid slander upon their Religion If any Papist had charged the Heathens with it in Julian's time he would have returned him this answer O thou Block-head How can we chuse but account them Stocks and Stones which the hands of men have fashioned Dost thou think that the accursed Devils lead all other men by the Nose as they do thee so as to esteem them to be Gods which are their own Workmanship Or if they mean by those words the worshipping of Images with the same honour and devotion as God himself even this the Heathens renounced Julian gives this account of the respect which they paid to Images whereby you may perceive a wide difference betwixt that and the honour which they gave to their Gods Says he Whosoever is a lover of his King or Child or Father is delighted with their several Pictures and pleased in looking upon them by the same reason he that is a lover of God is pleased and delighted in looking upon the Images of the Gods at the same time worshipping and dreading the Gods who see him but are not
them he was a Roman And did not he in another place bring the Magistrates of Philippi one of the chief Cities of Macedonia upon their Knees when they had illegally beaten him without a fair Trial by telling them he was a Roman Although it is very plain that he and Silas who suffered with him had really offended as they were accused and were guilty of breaking the Roman Laws yet St. Paul insists upon this that they were uncondemned It were easie to produce many more passages to the same purpose And then as for the Laws of the Land That Doctrine overthrows Magna Charta Chap. 29. together with multitudes of Statutes and ruled Cases which as I cannot stand here to name so I need not they are so well known Only I will set down one Case for the 〈◊〉 of it which comprises in it more than all that I have said In the Circuit of Northampton when the Lord Anderson and Glanvile were Justices of Assize a Pursivant was sent by the Commissioners to arrest the Body of a man to appear before them and in resistance of the Arrest and striving amongst them the Pursivant was killed And if this was Murder or not was doubted and this depended upon the validity of Power and authority of the Pursivant for if his authority was lawful then in killing of an Officer of Justice in execution of his Office is Murder And advisement was taken till the next Assizes and upon Conference at the next Assizes it was resolved that the Arrest was Tortius and by consequence that this was not Murder The Pursivant was a proper Officer of the High Commission Court he was sent by the Court to make this Arrest it was one of the Powers of their Commission to send for any by Pursivant c. And yet because this Power had no foundation upon the Act 1. Eliz. upon which their Commission was grounded it could not justifie the Arrest and consequently the Pursivant's Blood was upon his own Head For as every Subject ought to be and therefore is supposed to be connusant of the Law much more ought they to be who have any part in the execution of it Now any man may see that my Discourse does not descend to any such petty Matters as false Arrests though a Man's Liberty is not to be despised neither but I have honest'y and legally parsued the end of our Saviour's coming into the World which as himself witnesses was not to destroy Men's Lives but to save them Of which the Laws of the Land are likewise very tender and have taken a particular care of all those who are put upon an inevitable necessity of defending themselves against the assaults of violent or evil-disposed Persons And to conclude That Doctrine quite alters our Oath of Allegiance and gives us new Measures of Obedience whereas the old ones are these I shall be obedient to all the King's Majesty's Laws Precepts and Process proceeding from the same And then after all that the case of a Pagan Successor might not seem remote and foreign and nothing of kin to Popery I found it necessary to make a short comparison of both those Religions which though an unfinish'd Piece I will be bold to say is very like wherein Popery may see her self neither flattered nor disfigured The Church of England reserves her Faith entire for the Canonical Books of Scripture her Reverence she divides betwixt the Ancient Fathers and the first Reformers of this Church who partly were Martyrs that died for 〈◊〉 Protestant Religion and partly were 〈◊〉 that afterwards setled it as it is now 〈◊〉 How much the Fathers would have been for a Bill of Exclusion we have seen already I shall in a word or two shew you the sense of the other Every Body knows that King Edward the Sixth to prevent his 〈◊〉 Sister from succeeding and not having time to call a Parliament bequeathed his Kingdom by Will to the Lady Jane Gray which was confirmed by the Privy Council It signified nothing indeed because it could not make void an Act of Succession in Henry the Eighth's Time but by doing that nothing they shewed what they would have done if they could I need not 〈◊〉 what Bishops were concern'd nor how far they were concerned in that Business But to pass by that the Bishops in Queen Elizabeth's Time to whom under God and that Queen we owe the settlement of our Church concurred to the making of that Statute 13. Eliz. Ch. 1. which makes it High Treason in her Reign and forfeiture of Goods and Chattels ever aster in any wise to hold or 〈◊〉 That an Act of Parliament is not of sufficient Force and Validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the Descent Limitation Inheritance and Government thereof And when you see their Names you will find that very many of them were Confessors Canterbury Matt. Parker London Edwyn Sands Durham James Pilkinton Winchester Robert Horne 〈◊〉 John Scory Worcester Nicholas Bullingham Lincoln Tho. Cooper Salisbury John Jewel St. Dabids Richard Davies Rochester Edmund Guest Norwich John Parkhurst Carlisle John Best Chester John Downham Alaph Glocester Richard Cheyney Bangor Nicolas Robinson Landaff Hugh Jones And that these Bishops were active and zealous for such Acts as these and were not concluded by a majority of the other Lords appears by what they did accor ing to some this Parliament but as Sir Simon D'Ewes will have it the next Year in relation to the Queen of Scots I am not satisfied with Sir Simon 's Reason which is That there was nothing moved about the Queen of Scots in the 13th of Eliz. For Cambden says There was a Bill for making her lyable to be tryed as the Wife of a Peer of England if hereafter she offended against the Laws which the Queen hindred from passing into an Act. I should not have mentioned this but by Sir Simon 's Account we lose John Jewel who died in the Interval betwixt this and the next Parliament But still there are Worthies enough left who were excluders with a witness for they were for excluding Mary Queen of Scots the next Heir to the Crown not only from the Succession but out of the World As you may see by their Writing intituled Reasons to prove the Queen's Majesty bound in Conscience to proceed with severity in this Case of the late Queen of Scots Some of which I will here set down only to invite the Reader to peruse the whole Paper Every good Prince ought by God's Commandment to punish even with Death all such as do seek to seduce the people of God from his true Worship unto Superstition and Idolatry For that Offence God hath always most grievously punished as committed against the First Table Deut. 13. His words are these If thy Brother the Son of thy Mother or thine own Son or thy Daughter c. Here you may perceive that God willeth his
Magistrate not to spare either Brother or Sister Son or Daughter Wife or Friend be he never so nigh if he seek to seduce the People of God from his true Worship c. But the late Queen of Scots hath not only sought and wrought by all means she can to seduce the people of God in this Realm from true Religion but is the only hope of all the Adversaries of God throughout all Europe and the instrument whereby they trust to overthrow the Gospel of Christ in all Countries And therefore if she have not that punishment which God in this place aforementioned appointeth it is of all Christian Hearts to be fear'd that God's just Plague will light both upon the Magistrates and Subjects but that by our slackness and remiss Justice we give occasion of the overthrow of God's Glory and Truth in his Church mercifully restored unto us in these latter days Constantinus Magnus caused Licinius to be put to Death being not his Subject but his Fellow-Emperor for that the said Licinius laboured to subvert Christian Religion And the same Constantinus is for the same in all Histories highly commended Much more shall it be lawful for the Queen's Majesty to execute this Woman who besides the subversion of Religion c. A Prince ought in Conscience before God by all the means he can to see to the Quietness Safety and good Estate of that people over which God hath appointed him Governour Therefore as the Queen's Majesty indeed is mereiful so we most humbly desire her that she will open her Mercy towards God's people and her good Subjects in dispatching those Enemies that seek the Confusion of God's Cause amongst us and of this noble Realm Object But haply it may be that some do discredit these Reasons by the Persons when they cannot by the Matter and will put in her Majesty's mind that we in persuading her respect our own danger fear of Peril coming to us and not right and true Judgment Yea and that it may appear very unseemly and worthy sharp reproof in a Bishop to excite a Prince to Cruelty and Blood contrary to her merciful Inclination Resp. As touching the first Branch surely we see not any great continuance of danger likely to come unto us more than to all good Subjects while this State standeth and the State cannot lightly alter without the certain Peril both of our Prince and Country Now if our Danger be joyned with the Danger of our Gracious Sovereign and Natural Country we see not how we can be accounted Godly Bishops or Faithful Subjects if in common Peril we should not cry and give warning Or on the other side how they can be thought to have true Hearts towards God and towards their Prince and Country that will mislike us for so doing and seek thereby to discredit us As touching the second Branch God forbid that we should be Instruments to incense a merciful Prince to Cruelty and Bloodiness neither can we think well of them or judge that they have true meaning Hearts that in the Minister of God and Officer do term Justice and right Punishment by the name of Bloodiness and Cruelty God I trust in time shall open her Majesty's Eyes to see and espy their cruel Puposes under the Cloak of extolling Mercy c. Here you see how urgent they are with the Queen contrary to her inclination to put Queen Mary to death who did not suffer till thirteen years after and how they mak thedangerousness of her Religion and the hopes which the Papists had conceived of ruining the Protestant Religion by her means not only sufficient but necessary Reasons for so doing A Bill of Exclusion is perfect Courtship to these Reasons Let those therefore that run down three successive Houses of Commons for that Bill turn their Fury and Reproaches with more justice upon these old 〈◊〉 and we have done And let them likewise give us but one Reason to provs a Bill of Exclusion to be unlawful which they will own to be a Reason a week after and not be ashamed of it and I do solemnly promise to joyn with them in renouncing these Old Reformers and will hereafter readily follow their new Guides and new Light In the mean time because I see hearty Protestants abused to their Ruin with shameful Sophistry I think it the part of every honest man to detect it And the most popular Argument is this You are preingaged and cannot consent to a Bill of Exclusion for if you do you are forsworn because you have long since sworn Allegiance to the King and to his lawful Heirs and Successors Now though the Lawyers tell them an hundred times over No man can have an Heir while he is alive yet this will not overcome that deceitful Prejudice which is occasioned by our common Speech where a man and his Heirs are contempory and familiarly live at once in the same House and eat and drink together every day Where likewise Heir Apparent sounds as a greater addition to Heir and Heir Presumptive sounds as somewhat a less addition and few are capable of considering them as terms of Diminution No more than on the other hand a Papist can be persuaded that Images are Idols because there common speech has made a distinction where really there is none as the Homily well observes Whereas here it has confounded an actual Heir with one that is only in possibility What is to be done then Shall we shew them that the Duty of Excise for instance is granted to the King his Heirs and Successors in which it is plain that Heirsand Successors have not any title to a Penny while his Majesty lives which God grant may be long to keep them a great while from it Why still it may be replied that Heirs and Successors may have this Law sense in an Act of Parliament but an Oath of Allegiance ought to be conceived in plain words and to be taken in the common sense of those words without any Jesuitical Equivocation Well if it be so then let them be sure to keep it in that sense in which they have taken it or should have taken it by sixteen Years of Age in the Court-Leet in these words This hear you the Steward and the Court that I shall swear That I will be true Liege-man and true Faith and Troth bear to our Soveraign Lord the King that now is and to his Highness Heirs and lawful Successors Kings or Queens of this Realm of England and other his Dominions depending on the same c. Whereby it is plain to every body that no one certain or known Person in the World has any interest at present in the Oath of Allegiance besides his Majesty that now is for who shall be King or Queen of this Realm of England hereafter none but God himself knows Another Argument I have heard which is fetch'd from the Common-Prayer That no Church of England-man can with a good Conscience be for
his Memory Their Behaviour in his Life-time will fall under these three Heads of their Words and Actions and Devotions I shall begin with the first of these where Julian began with them And they sufficiently requited him for calling them Galileans for they named him Idolianus instead of Julianus and Pisaeus and Adonaeus from his worshipping of Jupiter and Adonis and Bull-burner from the great number of them which he sacrificed The Antiochians exceeded in this kind of despiteful usage and chafed him into the revengeful humour of writing a Book against them which has preserved the memory of those Indignities which they put upon him They derided the shape of his Body his Gate his Goat's Beard every thing that belonged to him as you may see in the very beginning of that Book And afterwards he tells them they were very happy Men who had renounced all service either of the Gods or Laws or him who was keeper of the Laws and that the Gods as well as he had suffered dishonour from that City It was a saying among them that Chi and Cappa had never done any injury to their City by which Letters they meant Christ and Constantius Yes says he let me tell you freely Constantius did you one single Injury that when he had made me Caesar he did not kill me Two or three times in that little Book he mentions their Anapests and Lampooning his poor sorry Beard He complains that whereas the French loved him for the likeness of his Humour and took up Arms for him and gave him Mony and applauded him the Antiochians did the quite contrary they said That he turned the World up-side down and that his Beard was fit to make Ropes of and that he made War against Chi and they wish'd for Cappa again And after Julian had written this Book they were smart upon him again and tho he was inwardly enrag'd he was forc'd to dissemble it at the present These things indeed were not said to his Face but they were the common talk of the Christians just under his Nose while he lay with his Army about seven Months in that City to be in a readiness for the following Campaign And he was so enraged at them that at his departure when some wish'd him a happy Expedition and a glorious Return he very roughly said That he would never see them more their Nick-names and 〈◊〉 stuck so in his Stomach But who commends them for this Even that does no less a Man than Theodoret who lived under two of the four first General Councils and was himself present and a great part of the last of them He puts it all upon the score of their Zeal and Love for their Religion His words are these That the Antiochians who had received their Christianity from the greatest pair of Apostles Peter and Paul and had a warm Affection for the Lord and Saviour of all did always abominate Julian who ought never to be remembred you have his own word for it For for this Reason he writ a Book against them and called them the Beard-haters 2. They did not only thus scoff at him and derided him behind his back but they took the freedom to reproach him and his Religion to his Face of which I shall give these two Instances The first of a Noble Man of Beraea the story is very remarkable upon several accounts which Theodoret gives us in this manner Julian before his Expedition against the Persians sent to consult the Oracles who promised him certain Victory And after his Victory he designed the ruin of the Christians and threatned to set up the Idol of Venus in the Christian Churches Marching on with these Threatnings he was overcome by one single Man in Beraea This Man was indeed in other respects an eminent Person for he was Governour there but his Zeal made him more eminent For seeing his Son warping towards the false Religion which then prevailed he turned him out of Doors and publickly disinherited him But he coming to the Emperor who was but one Stage from the City declared to him both his own Perswasion and how his Father had disinherited him Julian bid the young Man set his Heart at rest promising that he would reconcile his Father to him So when he came to Beraea he invited the Magistrates and chief Men to a feast and amongst these was this young Man's Father and him with his Son he ordered to sit next himself And about the middle of Dinner Julian says to the Father In my mind it is not just to force a Man's Judgment which is otherwise inclined and to reduce it against his Will to the other side Therefore do not you force your Son against his mind to follow your Opinion For neither do I force you to follow mine although I can very easily compel you But the Father sharpnening his Discourse with a Divine Faith answered O King do you speak of this Villain who is hated by God and has preferr'd a Lie before the true Religion But says Julian putting on again a Vizard of Meekness Friend leave Railing and turning his Face to the young Man he said I will take care of you my self since I have not prevailed with your Father to do it I have not told this Story in vain says Theodoret but was willing to shew not only the admirable freedom of this Divine Person but also that there were very many who despised Julian's Power and Authority And that did Maris Bishop of Chalcedon with a witness long before Being led by the hand for he was blind and in Years he came to Court to the Emperor when he was publickly sacrificing to Fortune and reproached him much calling him Impious Apostate and Atheist And he reproached him again with his Blindness and saying Your Galilaean God will not cure you But Maris replied to the Emperor with more Boldness than before says he I thank God for striking me with Blindness that I may not see thy Face who art thus fallen into Impiety The Emperor said nothing to this but he persecuted him grievously afterwards And the aged Bishop I suppose had more wit than to expect any other It would be endless to reckon up the Sayings of Juventinus and Maximus whose Anniversary Sermon St. Chrysostom in his Time preach'd at Antioch of those Souldiers that were trapan'd into Sacrificing by one of Julian's Stratagems and of many others who did not spare him in the least And therefore in these Matters the Reader must be satisfied with a tast only CHAP. IV. Their Actions HAving shewed you the manner at least how they treated him in Words I proceed now to some of their Actions which make manifest their hatred to him and how they held him in the very lowest degree of Contempt I shall give but two Instances and the first is the Story of Valentinian which Theodoret ushers in with this Preface And others that were
in places of Dignity and Authority using the like boldness as Juventinus and Maximus did enjoyed equal Crowns For Valentinian himself who was afterwards Emperor but was then a Colonel of the Houshold Guards did not hide the Zeal which he had for the true Religion For when that Thunder-struck Mad-man went in Procession to the Temple of Fortune the Chaplains stood on both sides of the Doors cleansing as they counted it with Sprinklings or Holy Water that those entred in But when Valentinian who gained both Kingdoms of Earth and Heaven for what he now did walking before the Emperor saw this Holy Water coming near his Cloaths he struck the Chaplain with his Fist saying that it would not cleanse but defile him Julian seeing what passed sent him away to a Garison lying by a Desart and gave order that there he should spend his days But in a Year and a few-Months time he was made Emperor in reward of his Confession For the Righteous Judg not only rewards those that are concerned for Religion in the Life to come but sometimes he presently gives them the recompence of their pious Labours by these previous Gifts now confirming the belief of those which Christians hope for hereafter You see how Theodoret magnifies this Action and though it was so high a breach of the Peace as might have cost him his right Hand if not his Head in many Courts yet he makes him no less than a Confessor for it And so St. Austin calls him Valentinian was a Confessor of the Christian Faith under Julian and lost his place in the Guards for it Our next Instance is a Passage of as great a Man in his way and that is Old Gregory Bishop of Nazianzum Father to Gregory Nazianzen We have it in the Funeral Speech or Sermon of the Divine upon his Father's Death and after he has said a great deal in his praise he has these words But I suppose that some of them who knew his Life very well have wondred a good while that I should be so taken up in these things aforesaid as if I had nothing else in commendation of him and that I should make no mention of the difficulty of the Times against which he seemed to have been set in battel aray Come on then and let me add these things to what has been said Our Age bore such an Evil as no Age did before aud I suppose none will hereafter an Emperor that was an Apostate both from God and Reason who thought it a small Bursiness to conquer the Persians but a great Work to reduce the Christians And the Devils that drove him perswading him to it he omitted no manner of Impiety by Persuasions by Threatnings Sophistry drawing over to him not only those that he gained by Artifices but those also which he forced by Violence Now who is there to be found that more despised this Emperor or had a greater hand in destroying him than my Father Of his contempt of him amongst many other both those Archers and their Commander are a proof whom he brought against our Church as either to take possession of it or to destroy it For having assaulted many others he came hither likewise with the same intent and imperiously demanded the Temple He so far failed of accomplishing any thing of what he desired that if he had not presently got out of my Father's way being aware of it either of himself or by some Bodies advice he might have gone away kick'd The Bishop boyling with Anger against him and with Zeal for the Temple I have had more trouble with this Passage than with all the rest in the Book For I have often tried to make this seating intended for the Captain of the Archers and have been ready to make Solaecisms in the Greek to avoid the greater Solaecism of an Emperor of the World awed and terrified with the fear of a kicking But it will not do it is too late for me to consult Julian's Honour or to alter Gregory's words And that you may be satisfied this is the sense of them I have here set down the Comment of a Metropolitan of Crete who was a better Grecian than I ever expect to be Ac contemptionis praeter multa alia documento quoque sunt sagittarii illi Dux eorum quos impius ille adversùs Ecclesias concitabat tanquam scilicet eas aut assumpturus subacturus aut eversurus ac deleturus Cum quibus scilicet omnibus nihil eorum quae cupiebat perfecit in tale Ecclesiae propugnaculum incidens quin potiùs nisi quà m primum ipsi cessisset nimirum vel ipse per se intelligens vel alium quendam consultorem audiens etiam pedibus contusus abiisset eo nimirum vehementiore quodam adversis eum Divino Zelo commoto Ergo contemptionis quidem luculentum hoc Argumentum est Here you have the description of one of the Lachrymists of old who at fourscore and ten and after he had been thirty five Years a Bishop was an Over-match for a Pagan Emperor and having vanquish'd him and won the Field kept it as long as he lived which was about nine Years after Julian's Death And which is more than that The Garlands and Trophies of this Victory are hung up in the Church by the hands of another Bishop to satisfy the Exspectation of a number of good Christian People Basil the Great assisting at the Ceremony And now know I no more than the Pope of Rome what to make of all this what they meant by it or upon what Principles these Men proceeded Whether the Laws of their Country allowed them which I am sure the Laws of our Country do not allow a Man to imagine to offer Violence to their lawful Emperor or whether old Gregory distinguish'd and did not resist Julian but only the Devil which his Son so often tells us was in him Or how it was I will never stand guessing Only this we may be assured of that none of these Bishops had ever been in Scotland nor had learn'd to fawn upon an Apostate and a mortal Enemy to their Religion CHAP. V. Their Devotions And first of their Psalms ' THese Passages which we have hitherto related were in common conversation in the Streets and Market-place in the Court and abroad in the World where the Christians might chance not to have their Religion about them and so shew themselves Men of like Passions with other Men but when they go to Church and enter upon Holy Ground or whenever they make their Addresses to God in Prayers and Praises there one may expect to see the flights of their self-denying and suffering Religion There one may justly expect they should lay aside all their Animosity against Julian though he were their Enemy and for that reason pray the harder for him Yes so they do the wrong way they cannot sing a Psalm but they make his Confusion the Burden of it And as they
too late for them to help themselves this was enough to raise not only all their Zeal but all their Indignation too Whereas the poor Primitive Christians of all were born to Persecution they neither knew better nor expected it They professed their new Religion as in some places the propounded new Laws with an Haltar about their Necks The Laws of the Empire were always in force against them though not always put in execution and the edge of the Ax stood always towards them though it were not at all times stained with their Blood In a word they perpetually lay at the Mercy of their Enemies their Religion at the best was in the VVorld but upon sufferance as Abraham was in the Land of Canaan where he had none Inheritance no not so much as to set his foot on But as his afflicted Posterity were afterwards Lords of that Country so after another Egyptian Bondage Christianity was advanced to be the established Religion of the Empire It is worth the while to read Eusebius only to see in what a transport of joy the Christians were upon that happy Revolution The Christian World at that time was the very Picture of Heaven Such joy there will be again amongst good Men when they have cross'd the tempestuous Sea of this VVorld and are safely landed in the Regions of Light and Immortality For what Gregory says of Constantius was true of many others Never any Man in this VVorld set his Heart so much upon any other thing as he did to see the Christians flourish and to have all the advantages of Glory and Power And neither conquered Nations nor a well-govern'd Empire nor great Treasures nor excess of Glory nor being King of Kings nor being stiled so nor all other things which make up other Men's Notion of happiness did delight him so much as to have the honour of bringing Honour to the Christians and of leaving them establish'd for ever in the possession of Power and Authority And Men that valued the establishment of their Religion at this Rate would not easily part with it Now for Julian who by his Baptism first and by 〈◊〉 into Orders after and by his going to Church after that sufficiently engaged himself to maintain Christianity to endeavour on the other hand to dispossess them of their Free-hold was an insupportable injury Is there no difference I appeal to all the VVorld between being turn'd out as Sheep among VVolves which was the deplorable but unavoidable case of the first Christians and being worried by one of their own Flock Has a Man no more Right nor Priviledg after he is naturalized than when he was a Stranger or Alien or accounted an Enemy Do not the same Laws which forbid Men to invade other Men's Rights enable them notwithstanding to maintain and defend their own These are the plain and palpable differences between the State of the first Christians and of those under Julian To sum up all in one word The first Christians suffered according to the Laws of their Country whereas these under Julian were persecuted contrary to Law For it is manifest that Julian oppressed them in a very illegal way He did not fairly enact Sanguinary Laws against them for their Religion but he put them to Death upon Shams and pretended Crimes of Treason and Sacriledg He dressed up an Accusation of Treason against Juventinus and Maximus and though they died for their generous Zeal and hearty Concernment for Christianity he gave out and commanded it to be noised abroad That they were punish'd for Treasonable words The other sham of Sacriledg St. Chrysostom acquaints us with in these words If any one in former Times when Godly Kings had the Government had either broken their Altars thrown down their Temples taken away their Oblations or done any such thing he was presently hurried away to the Tribunal and sometimes the Innocent were executed when they were only accused The truth of which Julian himself confirms in his own Writings where he says Let no Man distrust the Gods when he hears how some have done despite to Images and Temples For have not many slain good Men such as Socrates and Dion and the great Empedotimus which I am well assured were much more the Care of the Gods than their Images are But they have afterward punish'd their Murderers and this likewise has manifestly happened in our Time to those that were Robbers of Temples And besides all this by his connivance and encouragement he let loose the rage and fury of the Heathens upon them as I shewed before And therefore Gregory all over his Invectives charges him with Tyranny and often calls him Tyrant So that the same Men who would quietly have submitted to the Laws under a Nero or a Dioclesian do nevertheless pursue Julian as if he were a Mid-night Thief or a High-way Robber As for us who blessed be God have our Religion settled by such Laws as cannot be altered without our own consent we cannot better express our thankfulness for so great a Blessing than by living up to this Holy Religion and resolving to keep it For surely it is not of the Essence of the Gospel to be a Suffering Religion that is an evil Circumstance which attends it only in bad Times it is a Reigning Religion amongst us and I hope will never be otherwise while the World stands And therefore I much wonder at those Men who trouble the Nation at this time of the day with the unseasonable prescriptions of Prayers and Tears and the Passive Obedience of the Thobaean Legion and such-like last Remedies which are proper only at such a Time as the Laws of our Country are armed against our Religion What have we to do with the Thebaean Legion Blessed be God who has made the difference but I ask again VVhat have we to do with their Example Are we to Sacrifice or go to Mass to Morrow or else to have our Throats cut Are we under the Sentence of Death according to the Laws of our Country if we do not presently renounce our Religion Poor Men they were and though they died as glorious Martyrs in respect of their Religion yet they died as Criminals and Malefactors in the Eye of the Law I hope many good Protestants would make a shift to die for their Religion though it may be not with the gallantry that these Souldiers did if they were in the like sad Circumstances and had the Laws against them but till then they throw away their Lives and are certainly weary of them if they practise any such Passive Obedience And the truth is we justly deserve to be so used as the Thebaean Legion was and moreover to be loaded with the Curses of all Posterity if we suffer our selves to be brought into that condition For that can never happen but by our own Treachery to our Religion in parting with those good Laws which protect it and in agreeing to such as
Superstitions Which is so great a Truth and so seasonable and coming from so great a Man that it deserves to be written in Letters of Gold And if Popery be ten times worse than all the Heathenish Superstitions then I am sure we do no worse than the Primitive Christians if we have ten times a greater aversion for a Popish Successor than they had for their Julian And yet if it be but equal I think it will serve the turn and therefore it will be sufficient to prove Popery as bad as Paganism though if in so doing I prove it much worse I cannot help that It would be endless to run through all the particulars of both these Religions and to compare them together I shall chuse therefore to insist upon those things wherein they mainly agree and wherein they are removed at the greatest distance from Christianity and they are Polytheism Idolatry and Cruelty which I shall treat of in order CHAP. X. Their Polytheism WHenever Paganism is named the most obvious thing in it and that which comes first to our Thoughts is the multitude of Gods which they worshipped And that the Papists have herein equalled and out-done the old Pagans I shall first shew is the publick and professed Doctrine of the Church of England And secondly I shall demonstrate the truth of it First That the Papists are gross Polytheists and worship a vast number of false Gods is the publick and professed Doctrine of the Church of England And he that doubts of this never read the Homilies which I shall take this occasion to recommend to every Bodies reading as one of the best Books that I know in the World next the Bible and in the mean time shall set down several passages at large which plainly shew what is the Doctrine of the Church in this point In the third part of the Sermon against Peril of Idolatry you have these words And for that Idolatry standeth chiefly in the mind it shall in this part first be proved that our Image-maintainers have had and have the same Opinions and Judgements of Saints whose Images they have made and worshipped as the Gentiles Idolaters had of their Gods And afterwards shall be declared That our Image-maintainers and worshippers have used and use the same outward Kites of honouring and worshipping their Images as the Gentiles did use before their Idols and that therefore they commit Idolatry as well inwardly and outwardly as did the wicked Gentiles Idolaters And concerning the first part of the Idolatrous Opinions of our Image-maintainers What I pray you he such Saints with us to whom we attribute the defence of certain Countries spoiling God of his due Donour herein but Dii tutelares of the Gentiles Idolaters Such as were Belus to the Babylonians and Assyrians Osiris and Isis to the Egyptians Vulcane to the Lemnians and to such other What be such Saints to whom the safeguard of certain Cities are appointed but Dii Praesides with the Gentiles Idolaters Such as were at Delphos Apollo at Athens Minerva at Carthage Juno at Rome Quirinus c. What be such Saints to whom contrary to the use of the Primitive Church Temples and Churches be builded and Altars erected but Dii Patroni of the Gentiles Idolaters Such as were in the Capitol Jupiter in Paphus Temple Venus in Ephesus Temple Diana and such like Alas we seem in thus thinking and doing to have learned our Religion not out of God's Word but out of the Pagan Poets who say Excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis Dii quibus imperium hoc steterat c. That is to say All the Gods by whose defence this Empire stood are gone out of the Temples and have forsaken their Altars And where one Saint hath Images in divers places the same Saint hath divers names thereof most like to the Gentiles When you hear of our Lady of Walsingham our Lady of Ipswich our Lady of Wilsdon and such other What is it but an imitation of the Gentiles Idolaters Diana Agrotera Diana Coriphea Diana Ephesia c. Venus Cypria Venus Paphia Venus Gnidia Whereby is evidently meant that the Saint for the Image sake should in those places yea in the Images themselves have a dwelling which is the ground of their Idolatry For where no Images be they have no such means Terentius Varro sheweth that there were three hundred Jupiters in his Time there were no fewer Veneres and Dianae we had no fewer Christophers Ladies Mary Magdalenes and other Saints Oenomaus and Hesiodus shew that in their time there were thirty thousand Gods I think we had no fewer Saints to whom we gave the honour due to God And they have not only spoiled the true living God of his due Honour in Temples Cities Countries and Lands by such Devices and Inventions as the Gentiles Idolaters have done before them But the Sea and Waters have as well special Saints with them as they had Gods with the Gentiles Neptune Triton Nereus Castor and Pollux Venus and such other In whole places be come Saint Christopher Saint Clement and divers other and specially our Lady to whom Shipmen sing Ave Maris stella Neither hath the Fire scaped the idolatrous inventions For instead of Vulcan and Vesta the Gentiles Gods of the Fire our men have placed Saint Agatha and make Letters on her day for to quench Fire with Every Artificer and Profession hath his special Saint as a peculiar God As for Example Scholars have Saint Nicholas and Saint Gregory Printers Saint Luke neither lack Souldiers their Mars nor Lovers their Venus amongst Christians All Diseases have their special Saints as Gods the curers of them The Por Saint Roche the Falling Evil Saint Cornelis the 〈◊〉 Saint Appolin c. Neither do Eeasts and 〈◊〉 lack their Gods with us for Saint Loy is the Dorseleech and Saint Anthony the Swineherd c. Where is God's Providence and due Honour in the mean season who saith The Heavens be mine and the Earth is mine c. But we have left him neither Heaven nor Earth nor Water nor Countrey nor City Peace nor War to rule and govern neither Men nor Beasts nor their Diseases to Cure that a Godly man might justly for zealous indignation cry out O Heaven O Earth and Seas what madness and wickedness against God are men fallen into What dishonour do the Creatures to their Creator and Maker And if we remember God sometime yet because we doubt of his Ability or Will to help we joyn to him another Helper as if he were a Noun Adjective using these sayings Such as Learn God and Saint Nicholas be my speed such as Neese God help and Saint John To the Horse God and Saint Loy save thee Thus are we become like Horses and Bules which have no understanding For is there not one God only who by his Power and Wisdom made all things and by his Providence governeth the same and by his goodness maintaineth and faveth them Be not all Things