of the Bodleian Library and of which Library he was the Head-keeper And in that Office very Diligent and Careful and was a Person of great Learning and Probity The Knowledge of this Rescript of that Vniversity and likewise of the other of Cambridge is necessary to all who will be Masters of the Knowledge of the History of those times For the Author of a Book in Quarto Printed in Oxford in the year 1645. called the Parliaments power in Laws for Religion having there in p. 4. said that the third and Final Act for the Popes Ejection was an Act of Parliament 28. H. 8th c. 10. entituled an Act extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome Saith it was usher'd in by the Determination first and after by the practice of all the Clergy for in the Year 1534. which was two years before the passing of this Act the King had sent this Proposition to be agitated in both Vniversities and in the greatest and most famous Monastery's of the Kingdom That is to say An aliquid authoritatis in hoc Regno Angliae Pontifici Romano de Jure competat plusquam alii cuicunque Episcopo extero By whom it was Determined Negatively that the Bishop of Rome had no more power of Right in the Kingdom of England than any other Foraign Bishop which being Testified and return'd under their Hands and Seals respectively the Originals whereof are still remaining in the Library of Sir Robert Cotton was a good preamble to the Bishops and the rest of the Clergy Assembled in their Convocation to conclude the like And so accordingly they did and made an Instrument thereof Subscribed by the Hands of all the Bishops and others of the Clergy and who afterward confirm'd the same by their Corporal Oaths The Copies of which Oaths and Instruments you shall find in Foxes Acts and Monuments vol. 2. fol. 1203. and 1211. of the Edition of John Day An. 1570. And this was semblably the ground of a following Statute 35. H. 8. c. 1. Wherein another Oath was devised and ratified to be imposed upon the Subject for the more clear asserting of the Kings Supremacy and the utter exclusion of the Popes for ever Which Statutes though they were all Repeal'd by one Act of Parliament 1st and 2d of Phillip and Mary C. 8. Yet they were brought in force again 1 Eliz c. 1. My Lord Herbert in his History of Henry the 8 th under the year 1534. and the 26 th year of his Reign p. 408. telling us that it was Enacted that the King by his Heirs and Successors Kings of England should be Accepted and Reputed the Supream Head on Earth of the Church of Eng. called Ecclesia Anglicana c. saith that that Act though much for the manutention of the Regal Authority seem'd not yet to be suddenly approved by our King nor before he had consulted with his Counsel c. and with his Bishops who having discussed the point in their Convocations declared that the Pope had no Iurisdiction warranted to him by Gods Word in this Kingdom which also was seconded by the Vniversities and by the Subscriptions of the several Colledges and Religious Houses c. Most certainly Hen. the 8 th's gaining this point that the Bp. of Rome hath no more power here by Gods Word than any other Foraign Bishop was of great and necessary use in order to the effectual withstanding the Papal Usurpations and was re verâ the gaining of a Pass and for which end he made use of intellectual Detachments from his Vniversities And suitably to the Wisdom of our Ancestors here in Henry 8 ths time any Popish Prince abroad who intends effectually to Combat the Papal Usurpations must first gain that Pass For the effect of the common sayings in Natural Philosophy that Natura non conjungit extrema nisi per media and that Natura non facit Saltum must likewise obtain in Politicks when the Nature of things is operating there toward a Reformation of Church or State And this weighty Rescript of the Vniversity of Oxford not being Printed in Dr. Burnets excellent Historical Books of the Reformation nor yet in Fox his Martyrology and now Published here as set down in English by Dr. Iames may perhaps serve usefully to illuminate the World abroad about the way of its Transitus from Popery But here I shall observe that though I find in Mr. Fox his Acts and Monuments Printed in 3 Volumes in London for the Company of Stationers An. 1641. the Iudgment of the Vniversity of Cambridge is there set down in p. 338. and relates to the same year with the Oxford Rescript namely the year 1534. yet it doth not there appear to be a Rescript to King Henry 8 th by way of return to a Letter from his Majesty and it begins thus Vniversis sanctae Matris Ecclesiae filijs ad quos praesentes literae perventurae sunt Caetus omnis Regentium non Regentium Academiae Cantabrigiensis salutem in omnium Salvatore Iesu Christo. Cum de Romani Pontificis potestate c. And then follows the Translation of the whole in English and which makes about half of that page 338 and wherein the same Judgment for substance is given with that of the Oxford Rescripts That the Bishop of Rome hath no more State Authority and Iurisdiction given him of God in the Scriptures over this Realm of England than any other extern Bishop hath That Instrument hath not there the Date of any Month to it as the Oxford Rescript hath But in the Body of the Instrument 't is mentioned that the Iudgment of that Vniversity was therein required though not by whom and towards the Conclusion of it 't is Styled an Answer in the Name of that Vniversity and 't is probable that the Iudgment of that Vniversity might have been required by some of the Ministers of King Henry 8 th and by his Order whereas the Oxford Rescript mentioned his Majesties having himself required the Iudgment of that Vniversity in that point What I have here mentioned of the Iudgment of our two Vniversities gives me occasion to take notice of an Oversight of my Lord Herbert in this place of his History by me Cited For he in this p. 408. makes the Vniversities Determining that the Pope had no Iurisdiction warranted to him by Gods Word in this Kingdom whereas he should have Represented their Sense of his not having more here than any other Foraign Bishop And thus you truly express the Sense of their Judgment in this Case when you say p. 70 th of your Book that the Popes Cards were by the Clergy that plaid his Game thrown up as to all claim of more power here by the Word of God than every other Foraign Bishop had And both our Vniversities sent their Iudgments about the same thing to the K. which methinks might make our Papists approach a little nearer to us without any fear of Infection For we allow the Bishop of Rome
the chief Managers of these Hellish Contrivances and what more convincing Argument that they are well approved and conform to the Religion taught by their Church And as to which in his Papist Represented he fairly saith Neither let any one pretend to Demonstrate the Faith and Principles of the Papists by the Works of every Divine in that Communion or by the Acts of every Bishop Cardinall or Pope for they extend not their Faith beyond the Declaration of General Councils and standing fast to these He had before said there against what was mentioned in the Papist Misrepresented about fireing of London the Late Plot in the year 78 c. And though he is not bound to believe all to be Truth that is charged upon them by Adversaries there being no NARRATIVE of any of these Divelish Contrivances and Practices laid to them wherein Passion and Fury have not made great additions wherein things dubious are not improved into certainty Suspicious into Realities Fears and Jealousies into Substantial Plots and downright Lyes and Recorded Perjuries into Pulpit nay Gospel Truth yet he really thinks there have been Men of his profession of every rank and degree c. that have been Scandalous in their lives c. But what then is the whole Church to be Condemned for the Vicious Lives of some of her professors c. And in the Conclusion he saith These are the Characters of the Papist as he is Mis-represented and as he is Represented And as different as the one is from the other So different is the Papist as reputed by his Maligners from the Papist as to what he is in himself The one is so absurd and monstrous that 't is impossible possible for any one to be of that Profession without first laying by all thoughts of Christianity and Reason The other is just Contradictory to this and without any further Apology may be exposed to the perusal of all prudent and unpassionate considerers to examine if there be any thing in it that deserveth the Hatred of any Christian and if it be not in every point wholly conform to the Doctrine of Christ and not in the least contrary to Reason I will readily accord with him that Delictum personae non debet ad ecclesie detrimentum trahi And do therefore suppose that he likewise will not charge the Constitution of the Church of England with any imperfections because many of its Members have Mis-represented or Calumniated any Papist Nor hath any one a greater Compassion then my self for such Innocent and Loyal Papists as have in the late Fermentation been aspersed with the Shammes in Narratives Any one may easily Judge me not untaught as to the Moral Offices of such Compassion from the Measures of Non Ignara Mali c. I never in the Conjuncture when we were so much deafned with the Noise of Narratives thought otherwise of them than as being partly like the River Euphrates according to the known Description of it in that Hymne of Callimachus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Assyrius fluvius volvit magno agmine fluctus Et trahit Illuviem Multasque hinc indeque sordes The Recorded Infamous Person who in his Affidavit that made so much noise and threw so much Dirt on me and who by being so presumptuous therein as to Reproach his Majesty with things that no Man of Sense could believe thought to eternize his Name like him who burn'd the Temple at Ephesus hath Missed of that Aim as far as in me lay and so shall And I think you have done well in not naming the Profligate But it having pleased God to permit him while he was under the Course of his due punishment and under the protection of the Law to fall by the Hand of an Assassinate and at whose Hand his Majesty required his Blood that Signal instance of the Justice inherent in his Majesties Nature hath sufficiently encouraged all his Liege People to think themselves safe by his being a Terror to Evil Doers and not bearing the Sword in vain According to the Moral Offices you have so well described of not Condemning whole parties merely on the account of the immoral Actions of particular Members of them I however blame not any Religionary Caetus that either the profligate or assassin referred to for their respective Outrages did herd with And as the Author of the Papist Mis-represented c. is very fairly desirous that we should take our measures of the Church of Rome from the Principles approved by it I shall herein Comply with him But here must say that I am sorry to find that the Author is in a Church where the DEPOSING Power is so much as DELIBERATED For as you have well cited it out of two Heathen Authors Dum deliberant desciverunt And Ea deliberanda omnino non sunt in quibus est turpis ipsa deliberatio And I am glad that in his 26 th Chap. viz. of Mental Reservation he was enabled to cite the present Pope's Decree of the 2 d. of March 1679. for the Damning of the Doctrine of Equivocation of Oaths And among the many Principles of the Iesuits and other Casuists which may come under your Denomination of irreligionary ones that Sicarious one as you properly call it viz. It is lawful for a Person of Honour to kill a Man that intends to Calumniate him if there is no other way to avoid that Reproach was in that Decree very justly Condemn'd And but for that Principle having till its Condemnation been approved in the Church of Rome there could be no more just cause to charge any Papist except the Actors with the Blood of Godfrey than there was to cast the odium of the Execrable Murder of the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews on any of the Presbyterians except the Ruffianly Actors And as to the case of Godfrey I remember you told me that since your warm aggravations about it in your DISCOVRSE you were a colder Concurrer with the Iustice of the Nation therein and that you thought there was still somwhat of the Intervallum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uncertain or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fabulous in the case of his Death And as to what the Author speaks of Papists being Misrepresented with relation to the late Plot in the year 1678. To Subvert the Government and destroy his Majesty I who in the Conjuncture of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made so little about it shall not now make any at all What I have read in a Pacificatory Discourse of a Pious Divine published in the year 1653. where speaking of a Spirit of Iealousie and of envy strife Railings and Evil Surmisings and having quoted 1. Tim. 6.4 and that Strife and evil surmisings are near of kinne and that if Contentious Men can get nothing against their Brethren they will surmise there is something and if they can find nothing in their Actions to Iudge they will Iudge their Hearts If there be nothing above-board they will think there may be
both in the Close of your Discourse as well as your Discussion to do the Persons as well as Tenets of Papists all the Justice you could From your having in that Discussion occasionally so much dilated on the Moral Offices of Loyalty to our Princes without respect to their Religion and what ever Religion they may profess different from that by Law Established I shall be glad if the thoughts of all his Majesties Protestant Subjects will Receive deep Impressions of the peculiar Duties we owe to him our Great and Gracious Soveraign particularly eo nomine When ever we pray for him at the Prayers of our Church or our private Devotions let us think of him with the Honour due to a King and Gods Vicegerent Let us not Slander the Footsteps of Gods Anointed in what ever way to Heaven he hath placed the same nor yet by Reproaches make the few of this great populous Nation uneasie who as Viatores attend him in the same way but be the more Civil to them for being part of his retinue therein Since it is Rudeness for any Man to be Curiously Inquisitive into the Speculative points of Religion held by Subjects it may be thought both that and Profanation of Gods more than ordinary Care over the Hearts of Kings to be prying and intruding into the Sentiments of our Soveraign As there are peculiar Moral Offices that concern Subjects when the Prince is not in the External Communion of the same Church with them so there are such likewise incumbent on those Subjects that are in the External Communion of the same Church with their Prince and which oblige them particularly to promote the Ease and Tranquillity of his Reign It having pleas'd God by the Course of the Executive power of the Law in his Majesties Hands to free them from many Hardships to which they were before liable and to put a great price into their Hands if they have Hearts to make use of it and to give them an opportunity by their Moderation and by their Complaisance with his Majesties Measures in the Defence and Supporting of the Church of England and by their knowing in this their Day the things that belong to their Peace to compass an Universal and lasting Tenderness in the great Body of the English People toward their Persons and making the Laws and the whole Hive of the English People to guard them and the very Anger and Zeal of the Protestants to be a Defensive Wall of Fire round about them as your words are it becomes them to contribute to the ease of his Majesties Royal Cares by their being what you say they generally are and by their not Misrepresenting or Calumniating those who are of the Religion different from theirs which yet you have shew'd Father Parsons predicted they must necessarily do and by their not affecting such an excessive internal Power in the Government as you say in the distant Reighnes of some of our Protestant Princes they did It concerns them by their Reverently using their present Temporary Indulgence to effect for his Majesty that in the Case of his easing their Consciences and their Estates from some Penal Laws it may be as was in the Reign of David viz. that whatsoever the King did pleas'd all the People There is none desires more than my self that among the various Opinions in Religion all exasperations against each others Persons and Misrepresentations of each others Doctrines may for ever cease And therefore according to the expressions us'd in the Acts of the General Assembly of the French Clergy complaining of Calumny publish'd against the Doctrine of the Church and the Faith of the Catholick Church and their seeming there to restrain that Doctrine and that Faith to the Decisions of the Council of Trent and such as are of the Nature with those printed in one Column apart I in what I have Written in my private Papers concerning the Religion of the Church of Rome have observ'd the Measures that our great Writer Mr. Chillingworth hath done in his Book forecited and where he saith Chap. 6. N. 56. I do not vnderstand by your Religion the Doctrine of Bellarmine or Baronius or any other private Man among you nor the Doctrine of the Sorbon or of the Jesuits or Dominicans or of any other particular company among you but that wherein you all agree or profess to agree the Doctrine of the Council of Trent And tho in your Explication of what you mean by Popery you seem to restrain your aversion to it as comprising only the Papal Usurpations or what is Congrous to the known Distinction of the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome and profess to follow the Measures of the late Earl of Clarendon of whom Cressy in p. 101. of his Epistle Apologetical saith that he makes the Popes Temporal power to be the Hinge upon which all other Controversies between Protestants and English Catholicks do hang and depend so entirely that if that only were taken off all the rest would quickly fall to the ground I am pleas'd with his Lordship or yours having gone so far with me in my way against Popery for if any Friend bears me Company good part of my way in any Journey I shall be pleas'd therewith tho he accompany me not to my Journeys end I am yet to tell you that in my way to Heaven I have further to go than merely so far as the leaving that Temporal Power of the Pope behind me And must freely pass the bounds of Trent but yet strictly observing the Moral Offices of not injuring or troubling or Misrepresenting or Miscalling any Man for not going my way and if I find the profess'd observers of the Doctrines of the Council of Trent seeming but tacitly to reject the Disloyal Principles propp'd up formerly by the Council of Lateran and owning expresly only the Doctrines of the Council of Trent I shall not trouble my self or them to charge them with the Odious Matter of the former Council or to Recant by Words what you say so many and so great Papists have done by Actions And if the Roman Catholicks who were suppos'd to have publishâ—d that Translated Book of the Acts of the French Clergy intended only thereby to caution us against the Misrepresenting them and the Doctrine of their Church I shall be glad if the Caution may be justly pursued by all Men. But some Criticks on that Translation have presumed to Judge their publishing the French Kings Edict of the 14 th of Iuly last for Restraining the French Protestants former Liberty of Writing and Speaking against the Doctrines of the Council of Trent or as the words there are from speaking directly or indirectly after what manner soever of the Catholick Religion was perhaps done with an ill intent by some who with an Evil Eye look'd on the Kings goodness to the Church of England I am far from Attributing the Heat or Indiscretion of particular Persons to the Body of any Religionary Party
diligenza con amore con fortuna is what I find in your page 217 and 218. For 't is there that in your great picture of His Late Majesty as an Agonist and laying the Crown of Righteousness before him eo nomine and as Contending for the Succession You have interweaved the picture of your own Loyalty and Contention for it with such bold Touches as I shall not name but refer the Reader to them which it was pitty but your Index had done with a hand in the Margent There is no doubt but the very Curiosity of the Calculations in your Discourse would have brought it into the late Kings Cabinet and to his perusal had he lived till its Publication and your great Majestick Insinuations of perswasive Arguemnt there brought apparently wâ—th a Design to fortifie his great Mind against any possible further Batteries from Members of any of the three Estates to occasion his consenting to the Exclusion must necessarily have been soon perceiv'd by so quick an Apprehension as his Majesties and could not but have made deep impressions on him for the continuance in his former purpose And I will hereupon say that if any Loyal Roman-Catholick would not on the Account of what you have said in those two pages absolve you from his severe Censuring of the warmest passages against Popery in your whole Discourse he would injure his own Judgment And the Truth is Arch-Bishop Hutton's minding Queen Elizabeth so boldly from the Pulpit though yet with a Salvo to the Rules of Modesty and Decorum of what in Justice concerned her as to K. Iames's Succession which you have mentioned and which was by her so well taken was not a harder Task to be performed than what you presented to the consideration of his Late Majesty from the Press in the Affair of his preserving the Lineal Succession of his present Majesty As it is natural to Men on the sight of any Combatants or Wrestlers whom they had never before seen to wish better to the one than the other and to have their Fancy's by the Current of Nature constantly carryed along to favour the Fortunes of this or that Contender whom yet they never saw so I have during the course of our long acquaintance observed in you on all occasions a natural and constant tenderness in your Wishes of Happiness and good Success to his present Majesty when Duke of York And had not you on grounds of Nature and so like a Philosopher expressed the same and from the Knowledg of things in particular founded your Conjectural measures of Englands future Happy State if under his Government but had only presaged well of his Reign in general one might have thought that your natural Affection and Honour for his Person might have byassed you that way as a praedicter rather than the natural knowledge of things especially considering what you have well hinted that the very praediction of things is often a Natural cause in some degree of Men's being Animated to bring them to effect And indeed I receiving many of your printed Sheets during our late Fermentation when so many Writers seemed Associated in the praediction of the worst of Events under a Popish Successor was the more pleased to find one Man that was not like a dead fish carryed down with the stream of the Times as to the point of ill boding to the publick and the strength of whose fancy mixt with his great Reason and Judgment might be able to help to turn that stream And God be thanked that by his Majesties coming to inherit the Throne of his Ancestors with almost as equal Peace and Ioy of the People as his Royal Brother was Restored to the same and for your Description of the Figure I made in which latter or to speak more properly of my Duty I discharged therein I return you my Just Acknowledgments and by his so early and voluntary Gracious Declaration of his defending the C. of E. and the Civil Government as by Law Established and so publickly owning the Loyalty of the Principles of that Church and by his continuance of the prosperity of that Church and the Peace and Prosperity of the Kingdom while the whole Creation as I may say groans under the pressure of some of our Protestant Brethren abroad you have hitherto appeared so much a True Praedicter as you have I am likewise glad hereby that another Learned Person of our Church I mean Dr. Thomas Sprat the Lord Bishop of Rochester taking his view of the Future State of England in his History of the Royal Society and there saying as you have Cited it that we may safely conclude that what ever vicissitude shall happen about Religion in our time it will probably be neither to the advantage of implicit Faith nor of Enthusiasm has hitherto appear'd so fortunate in that praediction God be thanked that such as in the late Conjuncture troubled us with the being Lachrymists in another and the imagin'd nubecula est c. as to persecution have had some cause to be ashamed of their Fears And that you have hitherto had no more cause to be ashamed of praedicting Englands future pacifick State though yet we have had a * Monmouths Rebellion since But as to that it may be properly said that that persecution against the Throne nubecula fuit transivit We have had presently after the Kings coming to the Throne a little Cloud of Calumny cast on the Reputations of four of the most Eminent Divines of our Metropolis by some of their fellow Subiects supposed Roman Catholicks but it soon passed off And God brought forth their Righteousness as the Light and their Iudgment as the Noon-Day And the thing scarce deserves to be remembred that after they had thus misrepresented four such Protestant Divines with so much falshood some others of those published a Book called The Papist Misrepresented and Represented and which is lately answer'd with that Candour and Strength of Reason that ought to be in Theological Writings and wherein as the Lord Falkeland who was then Secretary was wont to say it was as absurd to mingle angry reviling expressions as to do so in a Love-Letter There was a despicable Childish Pamphlet and Writ with too much petulant insolence called An Address from the Church of England to both Houses of Parliament and which was by many of the Fathers of that Church held not worth the taking notice of And because it is very Ridiculous for any now to think to Re-Baptize the present Church of England with the Name of ROMAN Catholick I have here thought fit in pursuance of what you mentioned in p. 70. to let you and others have a Copy of the Rescript or Iudgment of the Vniversity of Oxford to Henry the 8 th whereby the Bishop of Rome was pronounced to have no more power here by the Word of God than any other Foreign Bishop I Judge that that Old Book of Dr. Iames's you refer to is
Parliament I mentioned of 28 of H. 8 th viz. An Act for Extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome and as to whose Authority we are told by More 463. that all the power of the Pope was not by the 25 of H. 8th given to the King but was extinct in Holy wells Case for any Writers without the Heat and Light of much clear Learned Argumentation to rekindle that extinguished ignis alienus a strange fire of Foreign power in our Beliefs will I may modestly say be a strange Attempt and not to be Effected by any Rhetorical Representer But here I cannot forbear observing that the Author of the Papist Misrepresented c. doth in his Reflections upon the Answer to his Book in p. 13. refering to Dr. Hickes his Iovian call him a Worthy Divine and Cite him for saying that in Case a Popish Julian indeed should Reign over us he should believe him uncapable of Repentance and upon that Supposition should be tempted to pray for his Destruction and then in seeming Charity to the Church of England deny that because the Doctor used those Words it is honest hence to blacken the Church of England with this Disloyal Principle as if she allowed her Members though not to fight against yet to pray for the Destruction of such a Prince The Doctor whose great Learning and Pains taken in doing right to the Succession you have so particularly Represented in your Preface and whereupon if we reflect on the little or nothing ex professo writ by any Romanists against the Exclusion it will be no Complement to â—ay that he hath therein laboured more abundantly than THEY all might if it had pleased this Representer have been deservedly referred to by him with a higher Character And if in any expressions warmer than ordinary against the principles of Popery he had erred by any little Transports in any of his Books he sufficiently Merited from any Roman Catholick Criticks their mildest Representation of them And it had been but Justice in the Representer to have Cited the former part of the Doctors Sentence viz. and if it should please God to plague the Church with such a Spightful Enemy of Christ c. And if he had done so it would have invited the Reader to look back to what the Doctor had written from the 140 th page to the passage which he Cites and then his Reflection would have come to nothing By what I have heard of the Doctors Loyalty I believe him to be one who with Effectual Fervent Prayers doth Importune Heaven for his Majesties long and prosperous Reign and doth his Duty of praising God for his Majesties being so far a Nursing Father to the Church of England And I have that opinion of the largeness of his Christian Charity and Justice that he is ready to retaliate with the Representer in not blackning the whole Church of Rome with the principles lately held by some Iesuits and others Casuists referred to in the Popes Decree of March 2 d. 1679. in § 13 14 15. by the 1 st of which it is rendred no Mortal Sin to be troubled for the Life of another so it be done with due Moderaton and by the second it is made Lawful to desire the Death of ones Father by an absolute desire and by the 3 d. Lawful for a Son to rejoyce at the same and perpetrated by a Son in Drunkenness I suppose you could not but take notice how that Answerer of the Papist Mis-represented c. reflects on the unlucky instance there in Caiaphas and saying was not Caiaphas himself the Man who proposed the taking away the Life of Christ at that time was he assisted in that Councel Did not he determine afterward Christ to be guilty of Blasphemy and therefore worthy of Death For you have well observed the ill Luck that the Famous Hosius as he is called by you had in this case of Caiaphas as to which Dr. Crackanthorp exclaims against Hosius O Hominem Sacrilegum ac Blasphemum Illene reus Mortis qui innocens innoxius vitam dedit An Blasphemus etiam Ea judicij pars You may in Bishop Iewels Apology find this blot of Hosius hit where speaking of the Pope p. 151 152. of the London Edition in the â—ear 1581. he saith Petrus quidem á Soto ejus astipulator HOSIVS nihil dubitant affirmare concilium illud ipsum in quo Christus Iesus adjudicatus est morti habuisse spiritum propheticum spiritum sanctum spiritum veritatis Nec falsum aut vanum fuisse quod Episcopi illi dixerunt Nos habemus Legem secundum legem debet mori illos judicasse Sic enim scribit HOSIVS judicij veritatem omninóque justum fuisse illud decretum quo ab illis pronuciatum est Christum dignum esse qui moreretur Mirum verò est non posse istos pro se dicere propugnare causam suam nisi uná etiam Annae Cajaphaeque pratrocinentur Nam qui illud ipsum concilium in quo filius Dei ad crucem ignominiosissime condemnatus est legitimum dicent fuisse ac probum quod tandem illi concilium decernent esse vitiosum Tamen qualia sunt istorum concilia ferè omnia necesse illis fuit ut ista de Cajaphae Annaeque concilio pronunciarent c. He there had Cited in the Margin Hosius contra Brentium lib. 2. But if so great a Divine as Hosius who was a Polonian Bishop and Cardinal of Rome and one of the Popes Legates in the Councel of Trent did thus err in this point the mistake of an other therein who was of an inferior Character is not to be much wondered at However as I am an Honourer of Learned Men I Derogate not from the Talents of Wit and Learning shewn in his Book and do suppose that somewhat of the Moderation he shews therein may be attributed to the Candour of that Church he was first Educated in And am sorry that he should find any Cause in his Papist Misrepresented Chapter 31. Of wicked Principles and Practices to say take but a view of the Horrid practices She i. e. the Church of Rome hath been engaged in of late years consider the French and Irish Massacres the Murder of Hen. the 3 d. and 4 th Kings of France the Holy League the Gunpowder Treason the Cruelty of Queen Mary the Firing of London the late Plot in the year 1678. to Subvert the Government and destroy his Majesty the Death of Sir Edmund Godfrey c. And then tell me whether that Church which hath been the Author and Promoter of such Barbarous Designs ought to be esteemed Holy c. and let never so many pretences be made yet 't is evident that all these Execrable practices have been done according to the known Principles of this Holy Church and that her greatest Patrons the most Learned of her Divines her most Eminent Bishops her Prelates Cardinals and even the Popes themselves have been
and whose Inquisitiveness in Religion is not at its Journeys end in Rome and whom you have found inclined to return to the Church of England if the Tenent I shewed you discussed by Gundissalvus and asserted in the gloss and Text of the Canon Law can be charged on the Church of Rome as approved by it I know not but shall here send you a Transcript of the same and shall first observe that the sedes materiae for this Tenet that a whole City may be burned with fire if the Major part thereof were Hereticks is in the Body of the Canon Law namely in the Text of the Decrets it self Can. si audieris 23 Caus. Q. 5. And if any one will consult the Body of the Canon Law with the gloss and Case of the Edition at Turin in the year 1620 he will find it there as followeth SI AVDIERIS CASVS Cyprianus fuit interrogatus an mali post adventum Domini in hunc mundum morte sint puniendi Et certe respondet quod sic quia si ante adventum Christi hoc fuit ut probabitur autoritate Deuteronomij exemplo Matathiae Multo fortius post adventum Christi hoc fieri debet Autoritas durat a principio usque ibi cujus praecepti Postea sunt verba Cypriani SI AUDIERIS Haec verba sumpta sunt de Deuterono usque ad illum locum hujus praecepti Necabis Tu quicunque sis Et sic quandoque ille qui non est judex potest punire malesicos c. OMNES QUI si Ergo aliqui haeretici sunt in una civitate tota civitas possit exuri sic ecclesia vel civitas punitur pro delicto personarum ut 25. q. 2. ita nos c. NVNC id est in futurum c. CVIVS haec suntverba Cypriani MATATHIAS ut legitur in libro Machabeorum Item Cyprianus lib. de exhortatione Martyrij cap 5. Principes saeculi pessimis parcere non debent 34. § Si audieris in unâ ex civitatibus quas dominus deus tuus dabit tibi inhabitare illic dicentes eamus serviamus dijs alijs quos non novisti interficiens necabis omnes qui sunt in civitate caede gladij Et incendes civitatem igni erit sine habitaculo in aeternum non reaedificabitur etiam nunc ut avertatur dominus ab indignatione irae suae dabit misericordiam tibi miseribitur tui multiplicabit te si exaudieris vâ—cem dom dei tui observaveris praecepta ejus Cujus praecepti rigoris memor Matathias inteâ—fecit eum qui ad aram sacrificaturus accesserat Quod si ante adventum Christi circa deum colendum idola spernenda haec praecepta servata sunt quanto magis post adventum Christi servanda sunt quando ille veniens non tantum verbis nos hortatus est sed factis To this place in the Canon Law Gundissalrus refers in his Discourse against Heretical Pravity and which I shewed you in my Study among the Tractatus Criminales published by Franciscus Maria Passerus at Venice in the year 1556. and where in p. 158. he hath discussed the Tenet at large and ex professo 'T is among those Criminal Tractates called Tractatus contra haereticam pravitatem per Gundissalrum de villa diego Sacri Palatij Apostolici Auditorem char 158. and where it follows thus viz. Summarium 1. Civitas in qua aliqui insunt Haeretici an tota possit igne exuri aut alias destrui latissimè usque ad questionis finem 2. Civitas quando dicatur Haeresim committere ut universe destrui possit 3. Vniversitate punitâ de Haeresi an singuli quoque puniti videantur ita ut amplius puniri non possint Questio 24. Vigesimo quartò quaeâ—o an si aliqui Haeretici sunt in unâ civitate possit tota civitas exuri sive alias destrui glo in c. Si audieris 23. q. 5. arguit quod sic per illum tex videntur ibi velle Ioan. Laur. quod quilibet possit hoc facere sed in Contrarium inducitur ea q. si non licet ver quasdam versi his igitur q. 4. ver non ergo q. â—ult quodcunque quod no. 33. q 1. inter haec in 1. glo Archi. in c. praesidentes de haere l. 6. dicit quod Ecclesia concedit generalem authoritatem exterminandi haereticos 23. q. v. si vos c. Si audieris Quae non tantum diriguntur principibus Et facit eadem causa q. legi de haeretici communicamus § Catholici ubi etiam ad eos exterminandos conceditur cruce signat indulgentia ultra-marina tamen occifio spoliatio talium tutum est quod fiat ex edicto principis aut Ecclesiae c. cum secundum leges eo titu lib. 6. ne ex cupiditate vel ultione potius quam ex justitia vel obedientia pugnare videantur 23. q. 1. quid culpatur q. 11. c. 1. q. 111. Sex differentiae quod etiam tenuit in summa eo titu versic Sed nunquid Goffre in summa eo titu § sed nunquid Catholici Hostien in summa eo titu qualiter evitentur vers sed nunquid Catholici idem sequitur Joan. And in novel in d. c. praesidentes domi qui subjungit oportere necessario praecedere judicis declarationem super crimine haeresis ad hoc ut ista executio fieret per d. c. cum secundum leges Sed ista videntur mihi cum supportatione nimis crudè indigeste dicta in tantâ questione ubi de tantorum periculo agitur praesertim ubi innocentes pro nocentibus puniiuntur gravius profundius scribendum calamus magis temperandus fuisset quapropter ego dicerem quod etiam si aliqui de civitate sint Haeretici dummodo civitas ipsa haeresim non incurrerit adeo quod delictum istud universitati civitatis ascribi possit non propterea civitas possit uxuri aut alias destrui Nullo enim jure hoc reperitur cautum omnia jura clamant in contrarium scilicet quod peccata suos debent tenere Authores C. de pae sancimus de his quae fiunt a Majori parte c. quaesivit Ad jura quae in contrarium inducuntur stat responsio ad C. si audieris per quod glo praefata se fundat dici potest multipliciter Primo quod illud erat praeceptum legis veteris judiciale ut patet clare nam habetur originaliter Deutero 13. talia in lege novâ cessaverunt nisi de novo fuissent instituta nec legitur nova institutio Nam Cyprianus cui inscribitur ille tex in decretis non habuit facultatem jura generalia concedenai cum non fuerit Ro. Ponti eo Maxime ubi de incendio morte inferendis disponitur ut patet in illo tex quae paenae ab ecclesiâ non
live in Bondage I am far from desiring to entrench on this liberty for Papists in matters or Tenets properly denominable by the Term of Religionary ones according to the expression by you frequently used and do suppose though there were no such thing in the World as a Pope or Patriarch that the Religionary Tenets of Transubstantiation and Purgatory c. may continue to be believed by many and if any one shall contrary to the Sense of the Government and of Acts of Parliament in Henry 8 ths time believe as the Representer doth that the Bishop of Rome hath here in Spirituals more power by the Word of God than other Foraign Bishops I shall not endeavour by any severity to impose on him the contrary Belief But yet shall still by virtue of that Sacred Word think my self bound and that particular passage in it cited by Dr. Iackson not to be a Servant of Men as to any Doctrinal Impositions and to forbear external Communion with any Church that would impose upon my Belief I know of none of the Church of England who hath avowed the practice of more Indulgence to Papists in the Confession of their Religionary Principles than I have done And I thank God that my practice in this kind hath not been by Fits or Starts or Turns of Times or Humours but that my Life hath in this Point of doing Just and Charitable Offices to all Consciencious and Loyal Papists been as I may say a Thred even spun upon every Wheel of Providence Your self can tell of the Signal good Offices I did to many Papists and to others that a Clamorous Common Fame would have run down as Popishly Affected when you applyed to me then in their behalf during the Season of some of the late Narratives and I am able further to do you the Justice as to remember what you have long ago told me and what I had reason to believe that when the figure you made in another of his Majesties Realms allowed you Virtute officij to have made many thousands of them groan under the Burden of the Penal Laws you held your self in Conscience obliged not to do it but on the contrary to rescue them from the least Hardship thereby But I shall here take occasion to tell you that I have scarce in any thing more shewed my Friendliness to the Persons of some of my Roman Catholick Friends than by my Advice to them that they would apply to the Writers of their Church to forbear troubling our English World with new Models of Reconciliation of Churches And indeed Nature doth now Loudly enough tell us that the Real Peace of Kingdoms ought not to be troubled by projects of a Chimerical one between Churches The best Men are Reconciled to one another and the Reconciling of all the worst Men in the World together would make their Association more troublesom to Mankind And when we know that the Bigots of the Church of Rome can stir no further from the Councel of Trent than our Soldiers in Africa could from their Garrison of Tangier before the Peace there is no thinking of their Travelling far to meet us And if any one suppose that they would meet us half way yet notwithstanding he might likewise according to the Principles of Nature suppose that the other Moiety of the Theological Controversies not agreed in would occasionally render Mens Spirits more Tempestuous toward each other and the publick as we usually see Storms to be most violent about the Season of the Equinoctial Moreover they who give themselves the Office of Reconcilers general or intrude into the Station of the Publick Mediators appearing thereby hot and unquiet in their own tempers rendring themselves always liable to disquiet from abroad by attacks from all parties are of all Men the most unlikely to be universal Peace-Makers or to gain any Blessing by being such And as you have in your Discourse Studiously declined the use of the little Names of Distinctions of three differing Parties in the State so shall I likewise do but can easily give you occasion to guess which of them refers to Men most Hated and most Impolitick by Minding you how the Systematical Writers of Politicks do often call neuters Middle Region Men and such as being Lodged in the Middle Rooms are annoyed with the droppings from above and smoak from below You have expressed your self in your Preface and Discourse as so much agreeing with me in this Subject that I shall be but Just to you in owning my Belief that your varying from some of the Measures of the Church of England in some Points tended not to encourage others to undertake the Thankless Office of being Match-Makers of Churches I know very well what my Lord Primate Bramhall in order to shewing that the Sons of the Church of England are not Slaves to its Articles saith In his Iust Vindication of the Church of England and how Mr. Chillingworth in his Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation tells us that by the Religion of Protestants he understands not the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melanchton nor the Articles of the Church of England c. But that wherein they all agree and which they all Subscribed c. as a perfect Rule of their Faith and Actions that is the Bible the Bible I say the Bible only is the True Religion of Protestants c. And therefore what ever freedom you justly claim by the Charter of the Bible to confess any Religionary Tenets however different from those I own I am not to envy you But do know that I am bound to pitty you or any else of Mankind that I shall think to err therein though it should be in any Religionary Tenet of Popery it self or in the Power of the Bishop of Rome in Imposing Creeds or Rules of Divine Worship on Men by Divine Right as part of your Description of Popery runs and as to which I think there may be occasion in your Review of it to avoid giving more Offence both to the Church of England and that of Rome thereby than you perhaps intended I have observed a late French Writer to avoid the Censure of describing the Communion of the Church of Rome or the Faith of that Church by a doubtful Name having used the Term la Catholicitè But as to your Description of Popery I may mind you that according to your Quotation in p. 318. out of Ames of the Seven Venetian Divines who in that most Iudicious Tractate of theirs as Ames calls it of the Papal Interdict affirmed that a Christian ought not to obey any Command of the Popes unless he had first examined the Command as far as the Subject Matter required whether it were convenient lawful and Obligatory and that he Sins who Implicitly obeys it those Divines though adhering to la Catholicitè firmly enough did thereby throw off the Power of the Bishop of Rome in imposing Creeds and Doctrines and Rules of
Divine Worship on Men as much as your Description doth And the Venetians particularly opposing the Popes Interloping in their Jurisdiction that other thing referred to in your Description is sufficiently known But if by your Description of Popery you intend only to give us a Dictionary of your Sense of the word generally as used by you and that you intend by the Extermination of Popery the Banishing only of those Principles of it that are Irreligionary out of Mens Minds namely the Principles that tend to the Popes Spiritual and Temporal Vsurpations I am not to quarrel with your expressing your own meaning But as I Judge several Roman-Catholick Writers using the Term Popery to intend thereby the Religion of the Church of Rome as for example the Author of the Compendium saying what I before referred to that nothing but Popery or at least its Principles can make the Monarchy of England again emerge or lasting yet as to which a Divine Sentence was in the Mouth of the King when in his Gracious Expressions in Council concerning the Church of England he Judged otherwise and said I know the Principles of that Church are for Monarchy c. and meaning by Popery what was called la Catholicitè I shall say that according to the common acception of the Word Popery were I to explain what I usually mean by it I would declare that I mean not only the Power of the Bishop of Rome but of any General Councils in Imposing Creeds and Doctrines c. on me And I desiring to have all Religionary Errors banished out of my understanding and Loving my Neighbour as my self will desire they may be so out of his and particularly if after he knoweth he is bought with a price he shall think it lawful for him to be a Servant of Men And will not only weigh the Commands and Decrees of any Bishop But of any General Council whatsoever And if in Matters that Import my Salvation I find them contrary to the Bible with a Salvo to the Reverence I owe to all Lawful General Councils I will desire them to excuse me from obeying them Were it not for what you have so well in p. 48. said that the Protestant Religion not making the intention of the Preist essential to the Sacrament of the Eucharist is more strongly assertive of the Real presence there than the Popish Hypothesis and for that great and excellent Notion of yours in your Discourse viz. That Papists and others being bought with a Price that therefore they ought not to be the Servants of Men and my Judging that according to what I have mentioned out of Dr Iackson that you would separate your self from any Church that imposed any thing Magisterially on Mens Faiths I might think that perhaps had you lived in the Reign of Henry the 8 th you would not have separated from the Ecclesia Anglicana as then by Law Established And therefore when by your warm Expressions in p. 47. after you have said that the Protestation that the Protestant Religion requires is such a continual one as is Reiterated upon every fresh Act and Attempt of the Papal Religion upon ours and whereby it would impose Creeds and Doctrines on us contrary to the Liberty of the Church of England as now by Law Established You tell us that We are to shew no Mercy to these Principles of Popery that disquiet the World and on the several occasions offered protest against the Damages that both our King and Country may have from the Rage of Popery I may tell you that this PROTESTANCY amounts to no more than what we read of in the Review of the Council of Trent where in Book 1. and 12 th Chapter the Author refers to the French King by his Embassadors causing a PROTESTATION to be made against the Council of Trent and as appeared by the Oration there made by Mr. Arnold de Ferriers the 22 d. of September 1563. where among other things having mentioned many grievances he saith that according to the Commands of the most Christian King they were constrained CONCILIO INTERCEDERE VT NVNC INTERCEDEBANT by the same Token that that Book relates how thereupon a certain Prelate of the Council of Trent not well understanding the Propriety of the Word Intercedere which the Tribunes were wont of Old to use when thay made their Oppositions and Hinderances asked his Neighbour PRO QVO ORAT REX CHRISTIANISSIMVS But of the French Kings Embassadors protesting not only against Grievances in the Council of Trent but against it self as a Grievance and of some occasions thereof it will come in my way to speak hereafter Nor was there ever any Instrument or Paper Writ with more sharpness of Anger and Scorn in the way of Defiance against Papismus or Popery than H. the 8 ths Protestation against the Council of Trent and yet inclusive too of another Protestation I mean of his Adherence to the Faith then called Catholick That long Protestation calls the Pope by the Name of Bishop of Rome and saith surely except God take away our right Wits not only his Authority shall be driven out for ever but his NAME also shall be forgotten in England Nor did ever any Protestant Writer in Queen Elizabeths or King Iames the First 's time or in our late Fermentation so zealously press the Exterminating of the Papal Power as Henry the 8ths Proclamation about the Abolishing the same Triumph at its being here done And where he saith We have by Good and Wholsom Laws and Statutes made for this purpose EXâ—IRPED ABOLISHED Separated and Secluded out of this our Realm the Abuses of the Bishop of Rome his Authority and Iurisdiction of long time Vsurped c. And the King there Orders all manner of Prayers Oraisons Rubricks Canons of Mass-Books and all other Books in the Churches wherein the Bishop of Rome is NAMED or his Presumptuous and proud Pomp and Authority preferred utterly to be Abolished Eradicate and Razed out and his NAME and Memory to be never more except to his Contumely and Reproach remembred but perpetually suppressed and obscured The Act of 28 of Henry the 8 th before spoken of called an Act for Extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome was here referred to and which Act and other Acts of Parliament Establishing the Kings Supremacy and Excluding the Pope for ever I mentioned as revived in Queen Elizabeths time after their being repeal'd in Queen Mary's I need not observe to you how this present French King hath likewise lately shewn a very Commendable Zeal for the Exterminating the Vsurpations of the Papal Power in the Business of the Regalia and that the Case of that Kings Power is much altered for the better since D' Ossat Writ to Villeroy from Rome with so much Joy for his having found out an expedient as to the difference between Henry the 4 th and the Pope about the granting to one a Church Dignity in France Namely to have the Words put
into the Popes Bull thus viz. pro quo Christianissimus Rex scripsit instead of quem Rex Christianissimus nominavit I doubt not but your Curiosity hath led you to see a Copy of the Letter writ to the French King on the 10 th of Iuly 1680. by the Arch Bishops and Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks of France appointed by the Clergy there about the last Breve of this Pope upon the Subject of the Regale in which Letter they take notice how THIS POPE required him not to subject any of their Churches to the right of the Regale and threatned him that he would make use of his Authority if his Majesty did not Submit to the Paternal Remonstrances he had often made and repeated to him about that point and they there pass as YOVR Protestants so far as to make a PROTESTATION as their word is against the Papal Vsurpation designed by THIS POPE And moreover YOVR sober party of the IESVITS have in France adhered to the King against the Pope in this Contest about the Regale But how severe the same Arch-Bishops and Bishops in France who made that PROTESTATION have since been in their ADDRESS against the True Protestants there who have been averse from the Religionary part of Popery as you call it I suppose you cannot be ignorant For undoubtedly the Acts of the general Assembly of the French Clergy in the year 1685. Concerning Religion together with their Complaint against the Calumnies and Injuries which the pretended reformed have and do every day publish in their Books and Sermons against the Doctrine of the Church presented to the King by the Clergy in a Body July the 14 th 1685. Cannot have escaped your view the same having been since printed in London Translated into English and as I suppose by some of the Roman Catholick Religion and will not trouble my self to guess for what intent of the Publisher I have looked it over and leave it to our Divines to consider whether it deserves any Answer I observed in it one Reference to Peter du Moulins Nouveaute de Papisme of the Edition of Sedan about Protestants rendring the Papists Idolatrous as invocating Saints which was an Instance of the freedom allowed Protestants in that Realm in Writing and Publishing Books against the Religion of Popery as by Law Established in France a liberty that the Publisher of that Translation hath likewise sufficiently taken in publishing it here without Licence and whereby he hath brought our Famous Whitaker and Downham Rainolds and Ames into the Range of Calumniators and Publishers of Calumny's against the Church of Rome Though the Course of my Studies hath lain much more among Law-Books than in those of Polemical Divinity yet the time I have spent on the latter hath enabled me to observe one very Inauspicious passage under the first Article and the Column of the Calumny of the pretended Reform'd about it and where the French Clergy accuse them of Calumny for saying That with the Hereticks mentioned by St. Irenaeus Roman Catholicks reject the Holy Scriptures that with the Montanists they accuse it of Imperfection that they Contemn it and afterward that the Roman Catholicks call the Scripture a Dumb Rule a Stumbling Stone a Nose of Wax a Two edged Sword And for that purpose having begun with accusing our Whitaker and Downham as Calumniators and refer'd to their works to prove it they afterward quote the Thesaurus Disputationum Theologicarum in Academiâ Sedanensi c. de summo controvers Iudice Tom. 1. p. 26. Onerant pontificij Scripturam plaustro convitiorum vocando eam Regulam Mutam lapidem scandali nasum cereum gladium ancipitem But without any undue Reflections on that Clergy I think it might have been more worthy of their great Learning and Hatred of CALVMNY and their Tenderness for the Honour of the Scripture and their Obligation to handle Theological Controversie with the fairest and softest hands they could and in short more worthy of the Honour of the Church of Rome if they had quoted Turrian cont Sadel p. 99. Canus lib. 3. Loc. Theol. Cap. 2. Sect. â—ec vero Ecchius in ench tit de ecclesiâ Hosius lib. 3. de Auth. Sac. Script Sect. fingamus p. 148. as I find them Cited by our Dr. Crackanthorp under his De loc arguendi ab Authoritate that you have referred to and whom you have Celebrated for being just in his quotations and who there speaking of Papists slighting the Scripture thus quotes these Authors viz. HI Scripturam vocant gladium Delphicum Nasum cereum ad sensum quemvis flexibilem quae non nisi ecclesiae suae authoritate authentica sit de quâ posse pio sensu dici volunt eam si destituatur ecclesiae authoritate non plus valere quam Aesopi fabulas And had further Cited some index expurgatorius for censuring the profaneness of those expressions in Roman Catholick Authors and one of whom was a Legate in the Council of Trent and another a Divine sent to that Council by the Pope There is another Eminent Father of our Church whose Writings the French Clergy might if they pleas'd have quoted for the same purpose they did those of Whitaker and Downham and that is Iewel in his Apology who in p. 106 107 108. saith Itaque Sacrosanctas Scripturas quas Servator noster Iesus Christus non tantúm in omni sermon usurpavit sed etiam ad extremum sanguine suo consignavit quo populum ab illis tanquam à re periculosâ noxiâ minore negotio abigant solent literam frigidam incertam inutilem mutam occidentem mortuam appellare Quod nobis quidem perinde videtur esse ac si eas omnino nullas esse dicerent Sed addunt etiam simile quoddam non aptissimum Eas esse quodammodo nasum cereum posse fingi flectique in omnes modos omnium instituto inservire An PONTIFEX ista à SUIS dici nescit Aut tales se habere patronos non intelligit Audiat ergo quà m sanctè quamque piè de hac re scribat Hosius quidam polonus ut ipse de se testatur Episcopus certe homo disertus non indoctus acerrimus ac fortissimus propugnator ejus causae Mirabitâ—â— opinor hominem pium de illis vocibus quas sciret proâ—ectas ab ore Dei vel tam impiè sentire potuisse vel tam contumeliosè scribere ita praesertim ut eam sententiam non fuam unius propriam videri vellet sed istorum communem omnium Nos inquit ipsas scripturas quarum tot jam non diversas modo sed etiam contrarias interpretationes afferri videmus facessere jubebimus Deum loquenâ—em potius audiemus quà m ut ad EGENA ista ELEMENTA nos convertamus in illis Salutem nostram constituamus Non oportet legis Scripturae peritum esse sed à Deo doctum vanus est labor qui scripturis impenditur Scriptura enum creatura est
egonum quoddam Elementum Haec Hosius Eodem prorsus spiritu atquè animo quo olim Montanus aut Marcio quos diunt solitos esse dicere cum sacras scripturas contemptive repudiarent se multo plura Meliora scire quà m aut Christus unquam scivisset aut Apostoli Quid ergo hic dicam O columina religionis O praesides Ecclesiae Christianae An haec ea reverentia vestra est quam adhibetis verbo Dei And afterward saith aut illud verbum quo uno ut Paulus ait reconciliamur Deo quodque propheta David ait sanctum castum esse in omne tempus esse duraturum egenum tantum mortuum elementum appellabitis I have not time to Consult the Works of Whitaker and Downham as Cited by the French Clergy But do find that by Iewells Citing Pighius and likewise Hosius to make good his Charge the French Clergy knew why and wherefore to spare Iewell 's Name in their Class of Calumniators Iewell in his Margent Cites Pighius in Hierarchia and in his Margent referring to Hosius saith very candidly Haec Hosius in lib. de expresso verbo dei sed astutè sub alterius personâ Quamvis ipse alià s eadem in eodem etiam libro disertis verbis affirmet They afterward referred to our Learned Rainolds as a Calumniator under their 6 th Article and Cite him for saying that Roman Catholicks do call the Virgin Mary Queen of Heaven And they might if they had pleas'd have call'd to mind that in the proper Mass of her seven Sorrows she is called Caeli Regina Mater Mundi and that in an Office where the Te Deum is Travesty'd to her and which Office the Present Pope hath worthily Suppress'd she is called the Queen of Glory But as to their charging our Ames under their Seventh Article with Calumny for saying in his Bellarminus enervatus the Pope was the ILLE Antichristus I shall make no remark on their Charge but let it pass There was however another thing that I could not but take notice of in that Book of the French Clergy that made their accusing the Writers of the Reformed Religion as Calumniators and Falsifiers of the Doctrine of the Church seem to me very severe Namely that Clergy's joyning the Decisions of the Council of Trent with the Profession of their Faith and noting in one Columne that profession and the Articles of the Council of Trent and there making the Doctrine of their Church a result from both and opposing thereunto in another Columne the Calumny's in the Writings of the Reform'd and yet by the Date of the Impressions of many of those Writings as mentioned at the end of that Book it appears they were Printed long before the year 1615. and some before the year 1579. in which latter year Cressy in his Epistle Apologetical to the Late Earl of Clarendon voucheth but to no effect as I shall by and by shew that De Marca in his Volume De Concordiâ Sacerdotij Imperij tells us the Definitions of Faith of the Council of Trent were admitted by a publick Edict concerning the same in France and as to which former year Cabassutius an Oratorian in his Notitia concil declares out of the Records of the French Clergy that in their General Assembly at Paris in the year 1615. the Canons of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent were unanimously received by the whole Clergy And in p. 6. of the Translated Book of the French Clergy a Book of Beza's is cited as printed in the year 1576 and one of Luther's printed in the year 1558. and one of Melanchton's in the year 1552 to shew them Calumniators of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent as the Received Doctrine in the Gallican Church And whether the many other Authors there cited as printed before the year 1615 and yet too Cited as Calumniating for injuring the Trent Doctrines as being those of the Gallican Church were not likewise severely dealt with is left to the impartial to Judge and to whose view of that Book of the French Clergy it will be obvious that the profession of Faith inserted at the end of the Council of Trent is brought in in the beginning of that Clergy's Representing the Doctrine of the Church I love not to be Curious in alienâ Republicâ and much more not to be so in alienâ Ecclesiâ But since the Acts of that Clergy have been made to speak English here and so without Licence to Travel about our Country I cannot but occasionally make a further Remark on the Severity of that Clergy in taking it ill of the Protestants there supposing that the Catholick Church Disguiseth or Condemneth the most Essential verity's of Religion and Representing her under the Hideous idea of a Society professing an impious Doctrine and denying the chiefest Articles of Faith since as I said that it was but in the year 1615. that the Canons of the Council of Trent were pretended to be unanimously received by the whole French Clergy at Paris and that it was but a year before that the SAME Clergy as I find it observ'd by the Author of The Difference between the Church and Court of Rome p. 31. referred to the Account of what was done upon the meeting of the three Estates and when Cardinal Perron being the Clergy's Spokes Man told the King that The Matter contested was a point of Doctrine c. and that the Power of the Pope was full nay most full and direct in Spirituals and indirect in temporals c. and that they would Excommunicate all those who were of a contrary Opinion to the Proposition which affirm'd the Pope could depose the King c. and for which 't is there Cited how the Pope by a Breve in that year 1615. returned his Solemn thanks to the Clergy of France for what they had done against the Articles of the 3d. Estate wherein his Power was concern'd The use I make of this is only to shew that the present French Clergy who no doubt are Conscious of the Error of their Predecessors in such a DOCTRINE wherein Religion and Loyalty are concerned were obliged to shew all the Tenderness and Compassion to their Frail and Fallible Brethren not Erring in a Point of that Nature but only in such as were Subject to Controversy I shall here observe that Cressy in the Book aforesaid reflects on the late Earl of Clarendon for saying in p. â—48 of his Vindication of Dr. Stilling-fleet that the Council of Trent is not yet received in France and in many other Catholick Country's and saith to the Earl under favour Honoured Sir you will I suppose grant that the late Famous and Learned Arch-Bishop of Paris Peter de Marca was better informed in the Ecclesiastical State of France than your self a Stranger and quotes the Volume of De Marca before mentioned lib. 2. cap. 17. S. 6. for Writing expresly that the Definitions of Faith
and their Estates and many of which Estates were Church-Lands notwithstanding the Popes Declaration of the Nullity of that Peace supported by his Present Majejesty and as I doubt not but it always will be as well as by other Roman-Catholick Crown'd Heads And the figure the present French King made in the Munster Treaty in the year Forty Eight and in the Restauration of its effects and Vigor in Christendom in the year Seventy Nine is a sufficient Demonstration of his thinking it lawful for the Lateran Council to be Disobey'd by Popish Princes as to the point of Exterminating their Heretical Subjects I do therefore account this your Manly way of Confuting the Fears and Iealousies founded on that Council to have been at this time the more opportune and the more worthy of your Loyalty because as you have mentioned it after the End of your Discussion It may seem the Design of some People in the World abroad to encrease our Divisions and the popular hatred against Papists and Popery here by the usage that Protestants meet with there as if the Religion of Popery did necessarily Cause the same You have therefore well reputed it the opus diei here in England to shew the contrary and have done it more effectually than any late Writer of the Church of Rome I know here hath done or perhaps was able to do And your quoting for this purpose in p. 208. D' Ossats Speech to the Pope and wherein he so Argumentatively both like a Divine and a States-Man asserted the Lawâ—ulness of Henry the 4 th's of France observing the EDICTS in favour of his Protestant Subjects and wherein he mentioned how other Roman Catholick Princes had done what was tantamount to it and how that the Pope made no Reply to him thereupon may much help to shew our Timid and Iealous People that the Religionary part of Popery or Doctrine of the Church of Rome doth not oblige Roman-Catholick Princes to make the Lives of their Protestant Subjects uneasie to them It here falls in my way to acknowledge to you that the great Instances you have given in your Discourse concerning the Consummat Loyalty of great numbers of Henry the 4ths Popish Subjects to him while a Protestant and under the Popes Excommunication have been very useful for the enlarging Peoples Charitable Thoughts as to the Persons of some Papists and the tendency of their Principles to Loyalty and to the shewing that though in the Great Lateran Council wherein were 1215 Fathers it was Synodically and Categorically concluded that the Pope might absolve Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance that yet great Numbers of Henry the 4ths Roman-Catholick Subjects knew and Practised better things and that their great Absolute and Unconditional Loyalty to him lives in the Records of the Impartial Thuanus And that notwithstanding any principles Chargeable on the Church of Rome the Faith of many particular persons in it hath by its Works shewn it self very perfect for Loyalty But here I am likewise obliged to gratifie you by my Complaisance with your Temper in differing somwhat in Opinion from you for you say you are better pleased in Conversation with those who in many points differ from you than with those who in all agree with you and am frankly to tell you that tho' I am sufficiently satisfied with your discharging of the Moral Offices of Honouring all Men and giving Honour particularly to some Roman Catholicks to whom it was due and particularly where in p. 360. You have with so great a Height of Expression Celebrated the Virtue of the Queen Dowager and from whom I had the Honour to receive Thanks by the late Earl of Ossory for the Justice I did her Majesty in a late Conjuncture Yet there is one thing at the end of your Discourse and another after the end of your Discussion wherein you are pleased to give your Judgment concerning the Papists here in geral as I would not have given mine in the Case You say in p. 285. That after the Various Intervals in which the Discourse was Written it having happened that the Papists are to the General Satisfaction of Impartial Judges of Men and things become as sound a part of this Nation as they were and are of the Dutch States and as throughout the Discourse you always supposed them Capable of being and in p. 361. You say that it is with Justice to be by all Men to our Popish Fellow Subjects acknowledged that what ever petulance some of them were formerly guilty of or of any Ambitious Design of making too great a Figure in the Internal Government of the Nation yet that the Deportment of the Generality of them hath lately appeared with such a Face not only of Loyalty but of Complaisance with his Majesties Measures in imploying the Hands and Heads of Protestants of the Church of England in the Management of great Matters of State as is necessarily Attractive of our Christian Love and Compassion c. But tho' I account my self Morally obliged to Judge several Papists of my Acquaintance to abound in Loyalty and to be such whose Moderation is known to all Men and to be no Exorbitant Affecters of making too great a Figure in the Internal Government of the Kingdom and do hope that many others are so with whom I am not acquainted and will Judge no particular Papist to believe or practise Principles of Disloyalty without particular grounds and tho' on the account of the Trite Rule that Interest never lyes I will hope that the generality of them will in his Majesties Reign and afterward be neither Disloyal nor Heady nor High-Minded nor affecters of Preheminence Yet if I were required to give my present Judgment in short of the present Temper of the generality of them as to the Qualifications about which you have given your Judgment in the Case and that too relating to future times I considering the Formulary of the Letters denoting Judgment given in the Mode of the Old Roman Laws viz. A. and C. and N. L. would not presume either to Absolve or Condemn the gross of their Numbers as to those Qualifications but would interpose the Non Liquet in their Case and much less will I Condemn your Judgment of Charity to them and say that some of your Sharp Reflections on Popery and some Papists have favoured of the Common way of some Partial Judges Byassed with an intent to bring off some Criminals Namely to make some disobliging rough Language previous to the obliging them with their Sentence at last But taking every thing in the best Sense it will bear shall suppose that your Information of the Temper of the Generality of them might be what arrived not at my Knowledge and that therefore you pronounced thereof as you have done And moreover your Discourse being Writ before the Late Kings Death I shall account it was for several Reasons a strengthening of Loyalty and weakening of the Fears of Timid Protestants for you
And do Judge that when our Excellent Divines of the Church of England shall be of Opinion that the Emissaries of Rome are not more than ordinarily busie in endeavouring to pervert any of their Flocks from their Religion they will naturally throw off Debates of Speculative Controversial Divinity For granted it must be that both Protestants and Papists do stand more in need to be taught what were the Moral Practices of the Primitive Christians than what were their Speculative Assertions And as a late Divine hath well remark'd Sixteen Hundred Years are run out since the Son of God came down to Sanctifie and Save the World which are so many Degrees whereby we are Descended from the first Perfection We are more distant from them in Holiness than in time so universal and great is the Corruption that 't is almost as difficult to revive the dying Faith of Christians and to Reform their Lives according to the Purity of their Profession as the Conversion of the World was from Heathenism to Christianity And when I consider how much the Christian Religion hath been Debased to a Religion-Trade as your Term is and and a project to advance Mens Ambition or profit and by ways and Artifices contrary to the Law of Nature and below that generous Contempt of Sordid Actions and below the fides verecundia honestas and the Simplicity of Manners that Adorn'd the Minds and the Conversations of the Antient Heathens and how much the Old pietas in patriam you have referr'd to in Cicero is evaporated among Christians and the very ideas of Heroical Actions lost that is such Actions as were term'd so as respecting the good of our Prince and Country and when I consider how by that Cruel Revengeful implacable Spirit rendring Christians worse Enemies to one another than even ever Iulian was for he in one of his Epistles to Iamblichus profess'd that he thought then was not fit for him to persecute the Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. I think it fit to teach but not to punish Fools seeing some Christians to apostatise from that which was commendable in the temper of Iulian the Apostate I cannot forbear thinking of those severe words of my Friend Dr. Hammond in the Epistle to his practical Catechism viz. As Machiavel thought Religion would emasculate and enfeeble Common wealths we have more reason to complain that it hath Debauch'd and Corrupted Lives And were it not that God hath been pleas'd to preserve a scatter'd Remnant a few in every Nation to be the Records as it were from whom it may be seen what Christianity is able to do if it may be hearken'd to Were it not that there are a few Antient primitive Spirits by whom as by a Standard others may and ought to be reformed we have reason to think and say that Christian Men are the impurest part of the World That Satans after-game hath proved more prosperous and lucky to him than his first designment did that his Night-walk hath brought him more proselytes than his unlimited range of going up and down to and fro over the face of the Earth that as Sin by the Law so Satan by the Faith of Christ hath taken occasion and so deceived and ruined us more desperately more universally than by all the National Idolatrous Customs of Heathenism he hath been able to do There is one noble Virtue of the Primitive Christians that hath indeed by the Successful labours of the Divines of the Church of England been lately much Propagated in this Land and that is Loyalty to our Princes and God be thanked that we have many thousands of the Layety of that Church who have been better instructed in that Primitive virtue then ever Bellarmine was as appears by his Quia deerant vires And I wish that for the ease of his Majesties Cares and Safety of his Government all Mens Ideas and Practices of Loyalty may grow both more refined and firm And that according to your excellent quotation out of Seneca Quanto latius officiorum patet quam juris Regula all his Majesties Subjects may practise the Primitive Obedience to the Height of all Moral Offices not to think that their being barely legales homines in doing what the Law compells them to for his Service is all the Loyalty or Obedience requisite The obvious thought of Children as well as Parents being Morally bound to be helpful to each other beyond what they are constrained to by the Law may shew us the reasonableness of the extending our Obedience to our Political Father to all the Noble heights of Virtue I-am very well pleas'd with the passages in your Discourse that brand Mercenary Loyalty in p. 274. and the I opeans you sing to the Crowns victories obtained over Mercenary loyalty And here I cannot omit being so just to your self as to acknowledge that you have as good a warrant as any Subject of the Crown I know to reprehend Mercenary Loyalty since on your modest Application to the late King upon the importunity of your friends for a Compensation of your varicus Services done him almost ever since his Restoration and the Reinbursment of your expences in his Service and on his Ministers by reference consulting my Judgment about your Case I found several thousands of pounds due to you on that account and do Judge that you never since apply'd to his late Majesty nor any of his Ministers about the same But one instance more of your unmercenary Loyalty I shall not conceal that I was assured of from a Lord in High Favour with his late Majesty Namely that when in his late Majesties Reign he knowing your Abilities to serve the King did of his own accord offer to you his readiness to move his Majesty to afford you a fair Pension you Over-Modestly requested his Lordship to move no such thing in your behalf professing to his Lordship that it should be the business of your life to promote all his Majesties Just Measures in what you could without any expectation of other reward than what the pleasure of all Actions of Loyalty necessarily included in the doing of them And to this too I might add that in the time when the late Western Rebellion was most considerable your having with other Gentlemen appear'd to his Majesty as ready at your own expence to be then in Arms to serve the Crown at an Hours warning was a further fair example of your unmercenary Loyalty And the truth is that in the Present State of England when it so much imports us to restore England to its Old Office of ballancing the World Mercenary Loyalty would be now a kind of Monster In morality It here falls in my way to observe that you have in p. 156. and 157. very usefully shewn Mercenary Religion to be a thing both senseless and odious And therefore tho you may seem the only person of the Church of Eng. who hath in print vary'd from its Homilies or Articles since his
something under-board and from thinking there MAY BE something they will think it is very LIKELY there is something and from LIKELY THERE IS they will conclude THERE IS surely there is some PLOT working hath still since inclined me to be cautious how in my most private thoughts I charged any Men and especially any great Bodies of Men with PLOTS And I think the Author of the Papist Mis-represented c. will find enough Protestants as ready as you and my self to avoid troubling them with the Witnesses Plot. But since the Author hath in this case thought fit to invite us to a view of the Principles APPROVED and Conform to the Religion taught by his Church I shall reflecting on the Principles approved by so many in that Church tell him I cannot but Judge them short of that unconditional Loyalty you have so clearly asserted in your Discussion and shall judge as the L. Falkland the Secretary did in the Letter to Mr. Mountague I before referred to where his Lordship on Mr. Mountagues making POPERY the way to Obedience having had these words viz. I cannot but say that though no Tenet of their whole Church which I know makes at all against it yet there are prevailing opinions of that side which are not fit to make good Subjects when their Kings and they are of different perswasions and having quoted D' Ossat for saying that it is the Spaniards Maxim that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks and more that the Pope intimated as much in a Discourse intended to perswade the King of France to forsake the Queen of England and that they hold at Rome that the Pope to avoid a probable Danger of the encreasing of Heresy may take away a Territory from the true owner and dispose of it to another and many also defend that he hath power to Depose an Heretical Prince and of Heresy he makes himself the Judge His Lordship with a profound Charity and Iudgment thus goeth on viz. So that though I had rather my Tongue should cleave to the Roof of my Mouth than that I should deny that a Papist may be a good Subject even to a King whom he accounts an Heretick since I verily believe that I my self know very many very good Yet Popery is like to an ill Air wherein though many keep their Healths yet many are Infected so that at most they are good Subjects but during the Popes pleasure and the rest are in more danger than if they were out of it Moreover as to the firing of London which the Author referreth to in his Papist Misrepresented as well as the Death of Godfrey I was always as careful as you were to charge no more Papists with the Odium of it than such as the Justice of the Nation Criminated therewith Moreover if any one will have it that Hubert and Peidelow were not Papstis I shall not account it tanti to contend with him about it and as you told me lately that you would not I remember when we were long since Discoursing of that fire you shewed me a Book of Vigelius a Civilian who treating de praesumptionibus quaestionum facti laid it down as a particular Rule viz. Si de causâ incendij quaeritur culpâ inhabitantium praesumitur factum and saith quae regula approbatur l. 3. § 31. ff de officio praefecti vigilum ubi Paulus plerumque inquit incendia fiunt culpâ inhabitantium Moreover you once shew'd me it represented as a Rule in Magerus his Advocatia armata that damnum quod ignoratur à quo provenerit ab inimico illatum esse praesumitur which doth partly agree with the presumption of the causer of the damage mentioned in the parable of the tares an enemy hath done this And you have with Candour in the Papists behalf in p. 180. to shew that the Pope was not the inimicus Homo helped them to the Testimony of an adversary I mean of Marvil in his growth of Popery You have likewise done Iustice to the Papists in p. 181. Exploding the great popular Argument of London being designedly fired by many Popish Persons because of the flames breaking out at once in several places distant from one another An Argument that the Author of Pyrotechnica-Loyolana printed in London in the year 1667. doth in p. 130. lay great stress on and saith that as at Cracow in Poland which he had before accused the Iesuits for having fired the flames did break out there in several places of the City at the Tops of Houses so here the fire did break first out at the Tops of several Houses which were every way at a considerable distance from the contiguous burning in the main Body c. And therefore on the Account of the thing you mentioned and which is obvious enough in Nature a fire first caused in London or Cracow culpâ inhabitantium might afterward appear breaking out in several distant places thereof And I have several times told you how I was in the behalf of the Roman Catholicks troubled at the Votes of the House of Commons that threw the Guilt of the fire of London on the Papists in general and likewise at what was spoke by an Eminent Son of our Church and Minister of his late Majesties that at the Condemnation of the Lord Stafford in effect did so for there as you have truly said in p. 179. the Evidence did not rise High and Clear enough for the charging any Papist with it Nor need I now tell you that I was in the year 79 sorry to find that a Pamphlet against Popery that charged the Papists in general with the Fire of London and with that particularly of the Temple caused by a Non-Papist Debauchè who was burn'd in it was then Licenced by a very Loyal and Learned Licenser But since our Roman-Catholick Author in his Papist Misrepresented doth partly found the Mis-representation on these execrable practices having been done according to the known Principles of the Church of Rome I shall take this occasion he hath given me to offer it to him to consider how far any known principle founded on the Papal Usurpations and approved either BY or IN that Church might have Legitimated a practice of the like Nature As for Example the Firing of the Heretical Villages at the Massacre of Merindol affirm'd by Heylin and Maimbourg and the designed one of the City of Westminster in the Gunpowder-Treason And shall leave it to the ingenious Author to Recollect whether any Divines or Divine of the Church of England he withdrew from and much more whither any of its Canons approved any princiciple of that extravagant Nature Whatever Impressions it may make on his Thoughts or those of the Gentleman you refer to in p. 173. and there mention with Honour and as one though having forsaken the Communion of the Church of England yet being a Pious and Learned Roman Catholick and of a nice tenderness of Conscience and a lover of Truth as such