Insaniit Wickleffus qui sensit impios nullum dominium habere Wickleff was mad who thought that no wicked man had any right of dominion Osiander witnesseth the same in his ninth Century and divers others of the same reforming race who have themselves written altogether as Rebel Doctrines yet tax Wickleff highly for this that all wicked men should lose their propriety So as if Princes be so which rests in their sanctity onely to judge they must presently forfeit their Crowns And yet Mr. Fox calleth him Stellam matutinam in medio nebulae Lunam plenam in diebus illis a morning star in the middle of a fog and the full Moon of the time and the consequence of those Doctrines may be seen in the stories of Sir John Oldcastle Lord Cobham and Sir Roger Acton two of Wickllffs Disciples who raised a Rebellion accordingly and were by that active King Henry the fifth defeated and deservedly put to death for Heresie and Treason And how careful that phanatical Oldcastle was of his Followers may be seen in his Speech to Sir Tho. Erpingham that if he saw him rise the third day from the dead he should procure quietness and favour to those of his Sect But by his not resurrection as he promised his Sect lay strangled in the Cradle and buried with him till King Edward the sixt his days when some ends of it were taken up again and set out with more ostentation then ever in that Princes Minority and what rare effects of obedience were by that means produced in Queen Maries time who brought them up again to the Test may be easily read in our Chronicles Wherein it is plain that in the poor five years of her Reign there was de facto more open and violent opposition and rebellion made by her own Subjects than Queen Elizabeth had in fortie five yeers or any Prince before or since the Wickliffian Doctrine till the same smothered fire broke out at last in our good King Charles his time to his utter ruine and the shaking of the very foundations of his Monarchy And yet to this very day is Wickliff held for a grand Apostle amongst all the Phanaticks in England who are at present more numerous than ever Howsoever it cannot enter into me to beleeve that he deserved the Honour to be reputed the first Father of our Protestants of Integrity though he might possibly by that single Doctrine of his open a gap to all those gallant Champions against Kings that succeeded him So exit Wickleffus and enter valiant Martin Luther who is by some and truly not altogether undeservedly supposed to be the great Grandfather of these prodigious Doctrines against the State Dignity and Persons of Kings and Princes It is well known that in the yeer of our Lord 1514 the whole estate of the Church joyed a setled Peace and all their ancient Rights and Priviledges All Princes with great devotion were Nursing-Fathers and Protectors of it there was a perfect harmony and correspondence for all matters of Religion and Faith between the Church of Rome and the Princes and Common-Wealths of all Christendom Anno 1515. Martin Luther an Augustane Frier a man of a turbulent spirit was indeed the first that broke this long and happy peace who having interposed himself in the fatal business of Indulgences sent by Pope Leo the tenth into Germany began first as Proctor for his Order to preach against the injury done to his fraternity against the covetousness and abuses of the Collectors and against their Authority which did nominate them c. And finding as Novelty is ever at first well entertained by the multitude Populo placere quas fecisset fabulas and perceiving also some of the greatest Princes in Germany did hear him and would be ready to back him upon all occasions and in all his proceedings pufft up with vain-glory and an ambitious conceit of himself he presently set himself upon higher strains and as a man grown sick in his spirits and of a fiery disease he begun to rave and defame all Church Government he abandoned his Cloister cast off his Habit and renounced all obedience to his Superiours For now he preacheth against the whole Clergy against the Tyranny and Superiority of the Bishop of Rome whose Authority in matters Ecclesiastical was till then held sacred perswaded thepeople not to render him or them any obedience The Pope he termed Satanissinum Papam Messem Asino the Prelates he called blind guides the Religious he termed Swine and Candles set under a Bushel Thus he sought non purgare abusus sed tollere ordinem Triticum cum zizanio evellere studuit not to cleanse the Church of abuses but to extirpate all Order and to pluck up the Wheat with the Weeds Now his first step towards all the Tragedies he intended was this that he might work his mischief and confusion in the Civil State the better he first tears in pieces the Ecclesiastical and so proclaims open War against all the Bishops in Germany and therefore writes a Book expresly Contra statum Ecclesiae Luth. in lib. cont stat Ecc. c. adversus falso nominatum ordinem Episcoporum against the State of the Church and the Order of Bishops falsly so called in which he sends out his Bull as he calls it in these words Attendite vobis Episcoporum umbrae vult vobis Bullam Edictum legere non valdè teneris vestris auribus placiturum and this was his Lecture worth the hearing Omnes quicunque opem ferunt bona famam sanguinem in hoc impendunt honoremque sunm in hoc exponentes ut Episcopatus Pompatici devastentur tam remoti alieni ab omni functione Apostolica totumque hoc Satanicum Regimen Episcoporum extinguatur Hi sunt dilecti filii Dei verè Christiani observantes praecepta Dei Whosoever shall succour us in this business with their goods good name or blood and lay out all their honor too in it that these pompous Bishopricks may be laid waste and all the Devilsh Regiment of Bishops be extinguisht Id. in lib. cont Sylv. Pricat Tom. 1. dat Wittenbergh these are the beloved children of God and true Christians observing the Commandements of God And in another Book he tells us Si fures furca latrones gladio haereticos igne tollimus cur non potius hos magistros perditionis hos Cardinales hos Papas totam istam Romanae Sodomiae colluviem omnibus armis impetimus corum sanguine manus nostras lavemus Nothing must now serve his turn but to wash his hands in the blood of Bishops But here he must not stop neither the ruine of the whole Hierarchy of the Church will not satisfie his furious Reformation But as if it were as I doubt not but it was purposely to bring in Barbarism and to put out the eyes of the poor Almains for ever that neither they nor their posterity might ever discover his Frenetick Errors he
Philanax Anglicus OR A CHRISTIAN CAVEAT FOR ALL Kings Princes Prelates How they entrust a sort of Pretended Protestants of Integrity or suffer them to commix with their respective Governments Shewing plainly from the Principles of all their Predecessours that it is impossible to be at the same time Presbyterians and not Rebells WITH A Compendious Draught of their Portraictures and Petigree done to the life by their own Doctors dead hands perfectly delineating their Birth Breeding bloody Practices and prodigious Theorems against Monarchy Faithfully Published by T. B. Gent. Tunc male res agitur cum ad gustum populi Principatus exigitur Cassiod Qui stat videat ne cadat 1 Cor. 10 12. LONDON Printed for Theo Sadler next door to the Dolphin against Exeter house in the Strand 1663 T. Jolley Esq F. L. A. To the Right Reverend Father in God Gilbert Lord-Bishop of London and Dean of his Majesties Chappel Royal. AFter a tedious Contraste with my self whose Patronage I might most properly implore to protect this fatherless piece I must needs confess that your Lordship was the first and last of my thoughts and I hope good reason will vindicate me in that boldness First Because your Lordship is by Divine Providence chosen to be the Diocesan of this great City where so much mischief and villany has been of late and we still may justly fear is concentred and your Lordship is so far concerned in the care of those souls that it may be hate yours that those whom you cannot bring into your Fold by your sweet Paternal-Call may be drawn to it by the power of your Pastoral-staff or abandoned to the mercy of their own beloved Wolves in Sheeps-cloathing Secondly Because your Lordship is honoured to be so neer his Majesties Royal Ear and is as to all Church matters his chief Intellectus Agens so your Lordship is concerned again to inform his Majesty of the Civil dangers that are like to proceed from such religious Mutineers For this sect here treated of are of the very race of the Hyperphanii that ingenuous Barclay speaks so largely of in his Argenis Bar. Arg. lib. 2. fol. 92.93.94 and descended from the same Father Usinulca and are truly as he is pleased to say a sort of people who as certain creatures are nourished with poyson so they grow strong in publick calamities and are only fatted with War and slaughter The first Children of the Church bore neither rod nor stick to plant faith in the hearts of men but these Protestants of Integrity as they call themselves have published a Religion to the world all bristled with Swords all sooted over with the smoak of Canon all besprinckled with the blood of Christians Senec. Epist 24. Now in such a case the Philosopher adviseth all States-men Quicquid fieri potest quasi futurum cogitare to conceive that all things may which can come to pass and though the wisdom of Modern Statists has been seen a little in some neat and cleanly evasions fine deliveryes and shiftings of dangers when they are neer yet the most approveable part of prudence will be seen as it has alwayes been your Lordships course in solid and well-grounded preventions of them before they fall and to keep them aloof and therefore Josephus that learned Jew most judiciously adviseth likewise that Bonum est dum adhuc stat Navis in portu Joseph de Billo Jud. l. 2. praecavere tempestatem futuram non eo tempore quo in medias irrueris procellas trepidare It is necessary for him that goes to Sea to foresee a Storm coming if he can and not to rush into the fury of the Seas and tremble at the tempest afterwards that will avail little but to be rendred ridiculous for rashness Your Lordship very well knows that this kind of Caterpillers when they have once taken head will not easily be taken off and it is as true as old Turpius ejicitur quà m non admittitur They are of the nature of those birds whose feathers are so imperious that they will not quietly mix with the plumage of others if they do they then consume them as with a dull file Nor are they unlike that unsociable Tree which the wise Secretaries of Nature have called by the name of Iff that insensibly draws the juice of all plants to it But I need not enlarge more concerning the danger of their admission into power for there is none that has converst with them but knows that the Sea it self is less furious a Thunder-clap less dreadfull nay the gall of Dragons and poyson that swelleth up the necks of Asps is much more tolerable My Lord all this that I have said is not to inform or advise your Lordship whose knowledg is super-excellent in all things but to justifie to the world the oeconomy of your Prelatical Proceedings For under whose wing soever this Cockatrice Egg gets life it will repay it with a death and sting to the heart of him whose bosome hatch'd it ensnaring him in his own goodness These Cockatrice Christians doubtless intend nothing more for they are not afraid to speak it than to play their old game over again and rebel again against this most Excellent and Clement King and the Church and will grow every day more and more insolent upon his Majesties and your Lordships pious mildness and gentleness For we have seen sufficiently that how great vertue soever may be in a Prince or Prelate it will be all contemned by them if there be not seasonably added an opinion of their justice and severity For no Persons in power are better beloved of the people than they that shew in time that they have in themselves matter worthy of fear They must be made I say to know ere t is too late that the Miters of Prelates are like the Crowns of the Kings of Egypt which carry Aspicks upon the top of them that insensibly sting those who too neer approach with intention to offend them and by this means your Lordship shall prove to the world that you have not spent so much time in your former divine solitudes and the sweet delights of your studyes to gather so much honey but that you yet retain the vigour of a sting which casts me naturally upon the third and greatest reason of my present presumption Which is that I have had the honour long to know your Lordship though the Authour of this piece now departed much longer and better when you were a principal Governour amongst us in that most famous University of Oxford the glorious Seminary of so many great Spirits that have held predominance in all manner of learning and sciences and Warden of Allsouls-Colledge which hath always been a most principal part in that Pantheon and like the Altar of the Sun from whence light has been borrowed to illuminate all other Lamps I have been long knowing I say to your most incomparable piety and parts and indeed what is fitter then
that that Soul should be full of light and flames that is to serve others for so great a guide for by your Lordships great reading of men as well as books there are become incorporated in your sole person the vertues and faculties of thousands others Your fair soul ever appeared to be like the Ibis that precious bird of Persia that builds her nest alwayes in Palmes perpetually conversant in great contemplations and had no more impressions of earth than the supream Sphere of Celestial Bodies As nothing was too high for your understanding so nothing was too low for your bounty beneficence Psal 104. Ep. ad Heb. God Almighty has bestowed upon you the gift which the Scripture attributes to the Patriarch Joseph to oblige hearts by sweetness not unlike the Engins of Archimedes which made water mount in descending so your Lordship ever caused your humility to descend but still to make it reascend to the sourse of the prime sublimity and your vertues upon earth will make your Crowns in Heaven Your Lordship has alwayes communicated your self with so much sweetness facility and affability that you encreased alwayes respect by familiarity which usually dissolves it and like a precious Amethyst shined so much the more as it hath been often worn It has been only the mischief and misfortune of our late times that hindred your Lordship from being sooner preferred to the Pontifical Robe for the opinion of the world did point your Lordship out for it with your first blooming beard your early learning and gravity so much anticipating your years and vertue rendring you Reverend before time But it is your Lordships glory to have deserved the honour of a Bishoprick sooner than to enjoy it Pardon my Lord that I have dared to draw your youthfull Character with my rude pen but those excellent endowments of your Soul so much akcnowledged by envy cannot but be admired by truth And now that your Lordship is so far stept into years we find yet the vigour of your divine vertues augmented by time in their happy influences upon us as it is said that the best Incense comes from old Trees and Torches made of Aromatick-wood cast out their odoriferous Exhalations when they are almost wasted Before you were an example only to youth but now your Lordship is become a pattern to Priests and a president to Prelates under whose heart remains a Temple of true Piety Who then so proper for the highest Prelacy as he that can entermarry Sobriety with Chastity and Piety with Learning How pure ought those persons to be who are not only of the House of God but of his Cabinet and as it were of the very bosome of God In the Sacrifices to the Sun there was never made an effusion of Wine How far from that then ought they to be who are to sacrifice to the great Master of the Sun And Chastity as holy Zeno telleth us is happy in Virgins strong in Widdows St. Zeno. faithfull in the Married but with Priests and Prelates it ought to be as it is in your Lordship wholly Seraphical Some Bishops we have known that have lived in Bishopricks like blind Cyclopes in a hollow cave insomuch that they have gone very far towards a perswasion of the world that piety was a thing almost impossible to be aspired to like ill-Physicians that make the sick despair of health because they cannot cure them Julius Caesar wondred to see men dandle Apes having Children in their houses and who can but admire in Prelates to whom God has afforded so many spirâ—tual Children to see them kiss Monkeys and it may be something worse play with Dogs and carry Hawks c From all these vanities your Lordships known innocency and piety has alwayes defended you and you appear now in the Church as you ought to do like those ancient Statues of Polycletes and Phydias of which there was not a lineament but spake Your Lordships example has been a perpetual Sermon which is the best of preaching as St. Greg. Nazianzen divinely observes of the great St. Athanasius that his voyce was as a Thunder-clap and his life a Lightning flash Greg. N. â—z in Jamb because words never thunder well if examples enlighten not There is no Libertine but will be daunted at the sight of such a life lead truly according to Christianity it is a mirrour that kills Basilisks by the repercussion of their own proper poyson So may your Lordship thunder on still and enlighten this distracted people with your pious Precepts and Practice that these poor seduced Christians may be reduced out of the Clawes of the Cockatrice and recovered into your Christian Fold And sure I cannot at all despair of the effect if their refractory spirits will be at all won with sweetness It is said that Amber sweetly drawes a trifling straw and Adamant gently wins the hardest iron and with a Hony-comb fountains of the most troubled waters are cleansed Nothing disarmes a Passion and their whole Religion is no more so much as Patience and temper which your Lordship is known to be the accomplished Master of and so shall by that means throw prostrate at your feet those hair-brained Zelots who seem now to roar over your Lordships head Flecti autem qui recusant frangi oportet nec invalescenti Ecclesiae Reipublicae morbo S. Fulgent molli uspià m Diaetâ succurrendum est sed Chirurgiâ So may your Lordship proceed and prosper in your happy Prelacy and grow up to be as exemplary an instrument of your Royal Masters peace his Kingdoms happiness the Churches good glory of your gown and honour of your University and Colledge as that great and glorious Prelate Henry Chichly was your most famous founder which is meant for as much temporal felicit as can be wish d from the heart of My Lord Your Lordships Most humble Honourer and most dutifully obedient Servant Tho. Bellamy The Preface to the Reader rendring the occasion of the following Discourse with some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 marks or characters of that sort of Christians that call themselvs Protestants of Integrity THough the Authour of this ensuing Treatise intended it principally for a Caveat to all Christian Princes and Prelates yet it is as properly applicable to all sorts of Christian people too who ought to take it for a Warning Piece to arm themselves against that most horrid cheat of Presbytery now called Protestancy of Integrity For how can the supream Prince either of Church or State be capable to govern well unless their Subjects be taught how to obey which is absolutely impossible they should ever learn to do so long as by the Principles of any wretched Religion that they shall suck in with their first milk they find themselves bound to rebel Now that the Presbyterian Profession is cleerly such a one and not onely inconsistent with Monarchy but all sorts of Civil Government you shall find most evidently made out to you by
means of Prayer The practice therefore of this holy Duty has been every styled and esteemed by all the holy fathers of the Church as the key of Heaven and confusion of Hell the standard of our Christian warfare the conservation of our peace the bridle of our impatience the guardiau of our temperance the seal of chastity the Advocate of offendors the consolation of the afflicted and the Passport of the dying c. for the Just do live and die in prayer as the Phaenix in her perfumes A Christian therefore without Prayer may be compared to a Bee without a sting which can neither make honey nor wax The Apostle therefore bid us to pray alwayes which St. Gregory Nazianzen interpreteth thus that we are to have God in our minds so often as we breath It is not therefore unfilty styled the Spirit of Prayer for it is the breath of the inward man Os meum aperui saith the Scripture attraxi spiritum I opened my mouth and drew in the spirit we are all of us ready to be choaked with filthy flesh and fat and to be devoured with the flames of concupiscence unless upon all occasions we do open our mouths to take in that gentle air of God a good Christian is therefore resembled to the Palm-tree which as it is the tallest and straitest of all trees so bears its best and most solid strength in its top just so has a true Christian his whole vigour in God and for God his life is a perpetual Sabbath Sabbathum delicatum a most delicious Sabbath as the Prophet cals it nourishing and reposing the Soul with the constant draught of this holy Spirit of Prayer a true Christian makes it not onely his lock and key of the day but his bolt at night nor only so but his very meals and recreations The Primitive Christians therefore were usually called the Crickets of the night because at any time of it if any interruption of sleep hapened they ever made it out with esaculatory Prayer and elevation of their hearts Those that love God truly will have recourse to him at all hours and upon all occasions not confining their devotions to time or place Jonas and the three Children found sufficient Chappels in the Whales belly and in the fiery Furnace because the love of God the wisest Architect had erected them and God was as neer them in the intrals of fish or the midst of flames as he would have been in his most holy Temple Now methinks I hear our Pharisailal Protestants of Integrity crying out O we have enough of that to say for our selves there are none living so conversant in that holy duty of frequent and Family Prayer as we Yes indeed like some of those devotes which Horace speaks of Jane Pater Clare Clare cum dicit Apollo Labra movet metuens audire c. Da mihi fallere da justum sanctumque videri Pray much and very often but immediately fall to cozening lying and cheating and to study how to entrap men a devotion much like his whose way to his wench lying through a Church-yard said his prayers alwayes going and coming This is not the true devotion that is spoken of but as St. Gregory well expresseth it to sacrifice the Calf without the flower which is to make Prayer with the lips without application of the heart so granting the Prayers of these Protestants of Integrity to be never so good or frequent they do no otherwise than one Neanthus did who having inherited Orpheus his Harp and thinking to do wonders with it played so ill that dogs affrighted with his untuneable skreaking noyse tore him all to pieces So it is not enough to have a great many holy Frayers in our hands which sound like the strings of Gods Harp and may be consign'd to us by Jesus Christ himself and all the Primitive holy Fathers and to repeat them as often too as they did but we must use them with that true devotion of heart as is required least we find our punishment in the very sacrifice of Propitiation Nor must this high Christian duty be performed in that strange sawey familiar and Pharisaical manner as is customary with these Protestants of integrity but rather in our most retyred privacies and a becoming silence better than any exterior ostent resembling those rivers which run under the earth choosing to steal from the eyes of the world to seek for the sight of God only So true devotions ever study solitude and retirements and are alwayes best when shut up within themselves I have the rather chose to insist upon this because the pretence of these Protestants of Integrity to a true performance of this duty is the grand cheat and imposture that they put upon poor Christian souls to draw them into their unchristian Conventicles So I come to the second part of our last remark upon true Religion which is a practical Piety towards God and Man for as the heart and marrow of Religion consists wholly in the interiour so we can make no other judgment of that than by the apparent practise of Piety and true Godly and religious lives of men c. and all this is but a natural effect of that precious Spirit of Prayer before spoken of For true devotion as the great St. Tho. of Aquine has described it is nothing but a prompt will for the service of God Aquin. l. 2. q. 82. his words are these Voluntas quaedam prompta tradendi se ad ea quae pertinent ad Dei famulatum A very prompt and affectionate vivacity in things which concern the service of God nay we may find so much as that said by Porphyry himself a Pagan and one of the most Atheistical ones that ever lived Deus saith he omnium Pater nullius indigit sed nobis est bene cum eum adoramus ipsam vitam precem ad cum facientes per inquisitionem imitationem de ipso That is God the Creator and Father of this great Univers hath no need at all of our service but it is our good to honour serve and adore him making our lives to be perpetual prayers to him by a diligent enquiry after his Perfections and a holy imitation of his Virtues St. August All this St. Austin the Oracle of the Latine Church recites out of that Heathen to teach us faith from the Philosophy of the most perfidious and religion from the writings of the most irreligious man in the whole world just as if an â—honest man should pull a thing stoln out of a thieves coffer And indeed it is a most evident truth that the best life is the best prayer and therefore St. Greg. Nazianzen tells us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Naz. in Jamb A dumb work speaks a Christian better than the most eloquent oration and a golden tongue and a leaden heart make an ill march together yet we know that some there are of these pure Protestants of Integrity
gross errour feares what it should love by virtue and can hardly have any knowledg of or approach to the Deity but by violation of his Clemency a thing most hateful to him through a false presumption of his severity They must be very silly souls sure and have very little or no feeling of the divinity that can apprehend God whom we hourly find to be infinitely merciful to be as Terrible as a Minos or a Radamanthus mentioned in Poetical Fables who were alwayes represented in those Fictions to be most Spiteful Deities to come and pry into all humane actions to number all mens steps and taking pleasure to prepare punishments for them were wont to raise themselves immortal Trophyes upon poore Mortals ruins It would be a pretty piece of Christianity one would think now to be preached amongst us that devotion and all labours in Religion should be undertaken by us without any relaxation perpetual disturbancies undergone by Christians without any repose and miseries without any remedy or comfort at all This sure must be thought the oxtream of all extreams and fit only for our Protestants out of their wits that now call themselves Protestants of Integrity but I sear will be found to be Protestants of pure knavery I mean those Hypocrites and formal Professors of Religion treated of whom we may very well compare to those Oxon of Baal who are cut and mangled for Sacrifice into little Gobbets but notwithstanding receive no fire from Heaven just so these pittifull creatures this sad sort of Christians do most miserably macerate and almost kill themselves to sacrifice only to the opinions of the world and their own bruitish appetites without ever tasting the consolations of God A true good Christian in the mean time endeavours so to distribute his fastings watchings prayer repast recreations and studies with so prudent an oeconomy for the service of his God that he holds his life most admirably interlaced between Action Contemplation and repose that he makes on earth a perfect figure of Angels ascending and descending and receives already so great a tast of those benefits which he is to hope for in the other world that he seems to have his soul in heaven whilst he dwells upon the earth to fathom mysteries and with his beatified understanding to enjoy an Antepast of Paradise it self Who then can with more justice and reason shew forth a jolly cheerfull countenance and make the clarity of his heart break forth at his eyes and lips then such a Christian How well this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Character agrees with the sad Professors of this age let the whole world judge who are just such as Seneca described some of his time Seneca Tristes omnia deplorantes quibus nulla non causa in querelam placet semper presentibus infesti Sad and melancholly Companions alwayes complaining of every thing and nothing displeased still with the present state of Affairs and then concludes upon this kind of mal ' contents Aegri proprium est animi nihil diu pati mutationibus ut remediis uti Their sickly dispositions are alwayes given to change and so use mutations for remedies So that these sad Christians are altogether as dangerous to all Civil States wheresoever they live as to the State of the Church and are only fit to hold compliance with that sort of people whose Religion is to worship a Cat. The last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Symptom of true Christian Religion is Humility the stars we know are best beheld in the bottom of a Pit and the most radiant splendors of a Christian do appear in a profound humility St. Cyprian therefore sayes of this transcendent virtue that it is Primus Religionis introitus ultimus Christianitatis Exitus The gate of all Religion and the very Crown of Christianity for who can think that that man will be faithfull at all to Jesus Christ that can be unfaithfull to that holy vâ—rtue which shined so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in him the whole cours of his life upon earth being nothing else from the Crib to the Cross but a constant moving Homily of humility The Sun we see which is the Prince of Planets dispelleth always all the grosest thickest and stiffest vapours and draweth the thinnest and most subtil to himself how much more then that we do attenuate lesson and annihilate our selves by the practice of this caelestial virtue of humility so much the neerer we are sure to approach to the Son of righteousuess and true glory But our pure Protestants of Integrity are so overgrown with Pride of Spirit that it may be quickly seen how far they run out of the road of Christianity Their Pride is far greater then that of the old Pharisee who boasted only that he was not as other men are but they boast themselves to be what all others should be and so prescribe themselves to be pure patterns of Perfection to all the world But it is we know the terriblest blow in the whole world when a man is wounded in the head by his own proper judgment Pride and Presumption We come to the end of most things by strength of Industry stones are pulled forth from the very entrals of men the head is sometimes opened to make vapours issue out but what hand hath ever drawn a false opinion out of the brains of a spiritually prond and presumptuous man All seems green saith Aristotle to those that look upon the water and all is good and specious Arist to such as behold themselves in proper love Better it were according to the counsels of the old Fathers of the desert to have one foot in Hell with a docibility of spirit than a hand or arm in heaven with ones own judgment To be short this unhappy Pride of Spirit commits a massacre upon the whole chain of holy virtues It marres all that can be called good in a man let this cursed dram be infused and all together will signifie no more than a wholsome medicament with a commixture of poyson in it It is such a spiritual venom that it turnes the sublimest virtues into specious vices and makes them become but holly Trayters to the souls of men Thus if the pulses of our pure brethren these Protestants of Integrity be judiciously felt the world may quickly find their adulterate new no Religion From these proud melancholick malcontent hypocritical Spirits it is that all those impious doctrines of disobedience and rebellion have proceeded as you will see proved by the process of this discours T is plainly they and only they that have sturred up the ashes of old Rubelais here again amongst us and do still so delight themselves to convers with putrifaction that under their wings we do daily behold new vermin to arise in the Church which endeavour to gnaw and dissipate all that hath any Piety or fear of God in Christianity Nor are they only content to throw poyson and putrifaction into
there be between the Crown of a King and the la Beretta of the Duke of Venice I cannot here forget how irreverently this Eusebius Philadelphus for so Mr. Theodore Beza was pleased there to call himself did use his own King Charles in his Book entituled Reveille Martin Reveille Martin where he usually calls the King Tyrant and makes this Anagram Chasseur Desloyal Read his rimes and scandalous reproaches against the Queen-Mother peruse the Forty Articles recorded in that Book Art 40. for the better advancement of Seditious and Rebellious Government and in the last of them they are obliged never to disarm so long as Religion as they call it is pursued and persecuted that is according to his meaning so long as the King goes about to chastise their Rebellion It were too much to trouble any ingenuous Reader with all those holy Articles of Bearne Articles of Bearne 1574. coyned with Mr. Theodores own stamp and communicated at Melun to all the Mosches of the French Church that they might the more strongly as they said make war against their enemies till it pleased God to turn the heart of the French Tyrant By all this it must be very evident that Beza and his followers have caused all those uproars and commotions in France when he himself writing to Christopher Thretius Epist 40. Christoph Thretio speaks his resolution to fight it out to the very last Ego quidem pacem nullam nisi debellatis hostibus ausim sperare he could hope no peace till the enemies were quite subdued Now if you ask who were those enemies he quickly clears that Cacolicorum castra trans Ligurim sunt meaning the Kings Army that were Roman Catholicks and saith a little before Ab eo tempore nostri copiis felicissime instauratis Tholosanum agrum infestarunt unde ad Rhodanum usque progressi occupatis aliquot oppidis Arcibus in quibus praesidium reliquerunt About that time our forces with their recruits invaded and possest all about Tholouse and thence marched towards the Rhone taking by the way Towns and Castles wherein they had left Garisons Thus you may see how these good men made no bones to disturb the publick peace to surprize the Kings Towns and Castles and fortifie them against him and to oppugne his forces plunder his friends c. like true Protestants of Integrity I might here travel a great way further and weary you with as good stuff out of the Book De jure Magistratus Lib. de jure Magistratus a Bird of the same nest for if it was not Beza's own as most think it was it must needs be Ottomans one of his chief Comerades But Dr. Sutcliff Dr. Sutcliff a Country-man of ours and very near of the same Sect confesseth the Book to be Beza's and saith that Beza in his Book De jure Magistratus doth too much arm Subjects against their Princes and blameth him for going about to overthrow the Authority of all Christian Kings and Magistrates To Dr. Sutcliff may be added the judgment of the famous Lawyer Fr. Bald. Resp alt ad Joh. Calv. p. 74. Francis Baldwin who had particularly converst with Galvin at Geneva in his Book called Responsio altera ad Johannem Calvinum Paris 1562. Pag 74. Mirabar quor sum evaderet inflammatus tuus quidam Apostolus sc Mr. theodore Beza qui cùm hic concionaretur suis auditoribus vehementer commendabat extraordinarium illud exemplum Levitarum strictis gladiis per castra discurrentium obvios quosque Idolloatras trucidantium Sed nunc audio te vix contentum esse talibus Levitis And P. 128. Leviora saith he sunt illa Pag. 128. cum statuis sepulchris ossibus Principum ac Martyrum Barbarum bellum indictum videmus cum Civitates occupari fana spoliari audimus c. I wondered saith he what your fierce Apostle meant and whether he would by name Mr. Theodore Beza who when he preached here did most extreamly recommend to his Auditory that extraordinary example of the Levites running through the Camp with their drawn Swords and killing all the Idolaters they met withal but now I hear that you are hardly contented with such moderate Levites c. And then in Pag. 128. Those are small matters saith he to what we hear and see now a Barbarous War is waged with the Statues Sepulchres and Bones of Kings and Princes nay and of Martyrs Cities are seized on by force Churches prophaned and spoiled c. Perfect pranks of Protestants of Integrity And Dr. Sutcliff adds yet further that that Book of Vindiciae contra Tyrannos gives a power to Subjects not onely to resist but to kill their Kings if they impugne Gods Religion of which and all their other misdemeanors they must be the onely Judges as it is fit they should be Sed Transant cum caeteris erroribus I shall forbear to insist any longer upon the Doctrines of these French Champions which touch too roughly upon the String of Majesty and Monarchy for I fear I have said more than enough already but now to shew you that it is not onely a French disease or accidental onely to Zuinglius Calvin and Beza but that it is Morbus innatus in their Religion called Protestancy of Integrity and that Mali Corvi est malum Ovum and an Egg still of the old Cockatrice we will pass the Alps but of France into Germany and there take up Bohemia for the next Stage of our present Tragedy Exit Beza Yet before I enter the Bohemian Stage I shall be bold to take the Palatinate in my way an unfortunate Province of late and which in a hundred years hath changed its Religion five or six times at whose disorders we need not much marvel if we read but Paraeus and Gracerus Paraeus Com. 13. Rom. Paraeus in his Comment upon the Thirteenth of the Romans teacheth plainly That Subditi possunt suos Reges deponere quando degenerant in Tyrannos aut suos subditos cogunt ad Idololatriam Subjects may depose their Kings when they degenerate into Tyrants or press their Subjects to commit Idolatry that is if they go about to establish any other Religion besides Calvinism After that he is pleased to add another ground for the Excommunication Deposition and Deprivation of Kings Quando praetextu Religionis quaerunt propria commoda When under pretext of Religion they seek to make out their own particular profit which sure had been a lecture not very plausible to Henry the Eighth nor his Instruments nor in the Protectors ears after him And surely if a man should ask whether Murrey and Morton in Scotland whether Orange and Horn in the Netherlands whether the Admiral of France and Prince of Conde himself whether the Protector and Duke of Northumberland in England had not their particular ends too I believe we shall finde them Subject to them same censure There is yet another Warrant that he
with Protestants of Integrity Indeed there needs no other argument to convince and confound this accursed League but the bare subscription of this Monsters name to it as a principal in the Contract whom the world must needs judge very unlike to be a fitting instrument to advance the Cross of Christ and to reform Religion Yet this was the man upon whose head the Union did agree to set the Crown of Hungary Now I do wish that the partial Reader would look upon Germany and see the Picture of Troy on fire see the image and horror of War which we have already pretty well tasted of and by the same means and how well it would please them to see which of late we were very near the face of London and Middlesex c. so disfigured with wounds and desolation and they who are now most forward to blow the coals of discord and sedition and to inflame a State with fury and quick-silver may quake and tremble when they shall consider in what devastation all that beautiful Country of the Empire hath lain long mourning and groaning The Provinces about the Rhine were wholly wasted and impoverished by the Soldiers on both sides especially Worms all Tillage was suspended Traffick decayed Trades ceased Taxes imposed new Fortifications still charged the Countrey Men were not masters of their own Goods and above a hundred thousand men then accounted to be slain These are the fruits of Civil Wars which are bitter to them that taste them as I think we in England have done sufficiently if we do not yet long for more And these are the very fruits and effects of Calvinism it self if we can yet take warning of it and not be longer deluded with the pitiful pretence of Protestancy of Integrity For their justifying sole Faith can never justifie without it bring Charity in her bosom and the true marks of Charity bring Patience Humility Zeal and Obedience strongly conjoyned in one link Now the little Patience Humility or Obedience that these new Evangelists our Hot-spur Protestants of Integrity have shewed convince their Zeal to be counterfeit and Faith to be fruitless Could ever Charity have directed these godly Bethlemites to invade the Duke of Bavars Territories if he refused to stand Neuter Charity sure did not counsel Anhalt in his Letters to Donau 1619. Charity doth not use to direct Christians to sollicite the Turks assistance against their Emperors and Princes the Nursing Fathers of Gods Church as Pag. 80. Cancellariae Nor to set down such Plots as they intended Pag. 42. 32. 66. But these Minions of Geneva now called Protestants of Integrity bring Religion to plead in the defence of their Union and that they endeavored onely to punish Ochosias for consulting with the Idol of Acharon and to root out all superstition Here indeed is the voice of Jacob but the roughness of Esau words of Saints but actions of Devils All must be presently Idolatry and Superstition that does not please their humor Besides could they shew as good a warrant as Elias did Did God call them did God authorize them to deprive their Princes Per me Reges regnant By me Kings raign was Gods own Proposition 1 Pet. 2.13 and St. Peters commands us to be subject to every humane creature for God whether to a King as excelling or to Rulers c. I am sure there is no ground for such a doctrine as to degrade and depose the King and these Protestants of Integrity must needs finde St. Paul in his Thirteenth Chapter to the Romans Rom. 13 1. to be of another Religion Exeunt Paraeus Gracerus cum Bethlehem Gabore with all his Protestants of disloyalty and enter some if we can finde them of better of Integrity So we change our Scene into the Netherlands The Cockatrice is now arrived in Holland and Zealand that horrible Akeldama and Field of Blood and the Theater of most tragical and lamentable stories Now as you have heard the Axioms and Positions at large before of those grand Patriarchs of our pure Protestants of Integrity so the practices and tyrannies of these their followers are here best to be discovered and above all the actions of their Conspiracy in the Union of Utricht were the most capital and infamous A device it was perfectly framed according to the rules of Junius Brutus and in imitation of their great Grand-father the Swiss before spoken of and of his sanctified Cantons which of it self is argument strong enough to convince them of Rebellion though they have been ever pleased to march under the notion of Religion and naming their War Bellum Sacrum a Holy War This Union was made by the States 1578. who seeing the fortunate proceedings of the Duke of Parma and the whole course of the Malecoutents entered into a perpetual League comprised in Twenty Articles for their mutual support and union as they were pleased to term it First They of Holland Zealand Friezland and Gilders did joyn contra omnem vim quae sub praetextu nominis Regis aut Religionis inferretur Against all force that might be offered under the pretence of the name of King or of Religion After that the Prince of Orange and they of Antwerp and Gaunt came with him into the League and subscribed it the Fourteenth of February 1579. The which was afterwards confirmed at the Hague 20 July 1581. And the scope of all this was to abandon and expel the King of Spain and to depose him from his own dominion and inheritance Therefore upon that they established an Edict Que le Roy de Espagne est deschen de la Seigneurie du Pais Bas That the King of Spain was faln from his Soveraignty over the Low-Countreys And to make it more authentical they devised a form of Abjuration from the King and a particular Revocation and Dispensation of their former Promise and Oath of Obedience in these words J. W. N. Do swear avow and bind my self to the Provinces united to be loyal and faithful to them and to aid them against the King of Spain Coment un bon Vasall du Pais Bas as a good Subject of the Low-Countreys And when they had taken that Oath they broke all the Kings Seals pulled down his Arms seized and entred upon his Lands Rents Customs and all other Hereditaments and took the same into their own hands and as absolute Lords they coyned money in their own names placed and displaced Officers of the State banished all the Kings Counsellors published Edicts possest the Church-Lands supprest all that were of another Religion besieged Amsterdam and used all the Marks and Notes of Soveraignty in their own names Did not their Brethren here that were equal Protestants of Integrity do just the same things in England Now the Reasons they gave why the King of Spain had forfeited his Title and Right were these First The suppressing of their Religion Secondly For oppressing them with Tyranny Thirdly For abrogating their Priviledges and for
that they have made themselves so and it may prove a good encouragement to their own Soldiers if men can so win Dignities by Offences to share the Towns in Holland amongst themselves or to induce them to a Bellum Pyraticum or Sociale a smart and quick war amongst themselves and to Cantonize that Province by their own Hogen Mogens example Now that I call all in this Religious Rebellion Hollanders I do it for divers reasons First For that they were the most notorious leading Cards and for the Matter of Religion at the making of their Union they made themselves Heads and Supream Governors of the Church and Religion by these words Quant au point de Religion ceux d'Hollande de Zealande s'y comporteront come bon leur semblera les autres selon les Placards de l' Archiduke Mathias As to matter of Religion they of Holland and Zealand might dispose themselves as they pleased but all the rest were to conform to the Archduke Mathias So by this the States of Holland and Zealand got the start and mounting the Tribunal did advance themselves to be Heads of the Church in those Provinces for all Ecclesiastical Matters must be Come bon leur semblera They are now the Regula Lesbia to square judge direct govern and order all things in Religion and what they shall follow must pass for currant and in that manner and for so long time as they shall please Thus did the Cockatrice play his game and got footing for his beloved Children these Protestants of integrity in that concave Country Now as for their pretended Priviledges it is plain That the King did never intend to make them void so they have built themselves upon most false grounds which some time or other must of necessity fail them And yet I would ask of them if it had been so great an offence for the King to go about to abrogate their Priviledges is it not a greater offence for Subjects to usurp his Is it not pretty for them so to make themselves Parties and Judges and by their own authority to punish their Prince Which if it had not been backed and exactly copied out by our English Protestants of Integrity had been an insolency and indignity incredible to all Posterity and such as neither the Swiâ—zers nor the Amphictiones the Confederate Cantons of Grecia did ever parallel or come near For so they make Monarchy to be a wilde kinde of hold Kingdoms to be occupantium jus qui potest rapere capiat the strongest take all catch as catch can A presumption opposite to all Laws and a portal to let in all confusion and ruine But if the King should as they would have him forfeit and lose all his Authority and Jurisdiction yet I see not why or how they could also challenge his Lands and private Inheritance for that must needs descend by Law Besides if the King could forfeit his Soveraignty how can he forfeit it to his Subjects It is true a Subject may make himself Civem alienae Reipubicae a Citizen of another State or subject himself to another Prince But if he stay in his own Countrey he cannot of a Subject make himself no Subject for though he do rebel as the Hollanders did yet he is still a Subject but it is more admirable how of a Subject he should become a Soveraign that is indeed scientia scientiarum a very supernatural skill and far exceeding my capacity As for the grievous Exactions they complain of videlicet Of the tenth peny imposed by the Duke of Alva It will be necessary here to draw the Curtains wherewith they labor to shadow and obscure the truth Extream necessity and not his own will forced Alva to exact that which neither he would have done nor the King have suffered if possibly to be avoided but being driven to a sad strait for satisfying of the Soldiers who always grow wilde without pay and so to avoid a greater mischief as he thought he was forced to incur that inconvenience At this time some of the Counsel in England in the Queens name seized in Hampshire Six hundred thousand Duckets sent from Spain to pay the Army without any charge at all to the Countrey Besides the King of Spain had sent the Duke of Medina a man of a milder nature to succeed Alva who partly by misfortune partly by his sternness partly by some errors but most of all by some Foreign Princes disfavors was grown odious who brought with him Two hundred thousand Duckets which the Zealanders intercepted upon the Seas and so was Alva by these means further plunged and perplexed But hereby it appears plainly That it was neither the Kings pleasure nor purpose who intended so largely and liberally to furnish those Countreys but the extremity of his present wants which compelled Alva to those Demands and Exactions And so it was rather an occasion of scandal and offence reflected upon the King and Alva than deserved by either and a quarrel rather made and contrived than given But now these popular Orators that plead so earnestly for the ease of the Commons and seem so careful to procure the Exoneration of the Impositions and Taxes laid upon the people Why do they not now inveigh as much against these new Magnifico â—s now Hogen Mogen Lords of Holland who are so far from laying down and diminishing the Subsidies and Excises there that they have raised and augmented them in such sort as at this day no Kingdom or Commonwealth in Christendom groaneth under the like burthens And it cannot be yet forgotten how the Gentle Father of the people as they call him the Prince of Orange did propound and labor to wrest and wring from them of Holland the sixth peny towards his charge and maintenance Anno 1584. I could shew you an endeavor to raise the sixth peny upon the Hollanders a strain far higher than the Duke of Alva's sed transeat Now one thing I must not pass by for it will illustrate all the rest West-Friezland in the beginning of their Rebellion did scarce contribute Denis octies centena millia Florenorum and now they are charged to pay Quadragies centena millia librarum dues milliones Barnevelt in Apol. I use Barnevelts own words in his Apology because I would not be challenged for mistaking them Whereas they paid before but Eight hundred thousand Florins they are taxed to pay Forty hundred thousand Libers and two Millions which makes a pretty difference Who is therefore now the Grand Tyrant or Exactor Though the people have changed their Lord they are not at all eased of their oppression and where before they complained they had one now are they subject to the command of many Tyrants who fleece them to the purpose nay unskin them daily If Alva beat them with whips I am sure these new States chastise them with Scorpions Examine but their Excizes and Impositions how they are increast upon Meat Drink Fewel Men