The Burnt Child dreads the Fire OR AN EXAMINATION Of the Merits of the PAPISTS Relating to England mostly from their own Pens IN Justification of the late Act of Parliament for preventing dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants And further shewing That whatsoever their Merits have been no thanks to their Religion and therefore ought not to be gratified in their Religion by Toleration thereof Numb 25.16 17 18. The Lord spake unto Moses Vex the Midianites for they trouble you with their Wiles Isaiah 45.20 They have no knowledge that set up the Wood of their graven Image and pray unto a God that cannot save By William Denton M.D.M.Q.R. LONDON Printed for James Magnes and Richard Bentley 〈…〉 Post-Office in Russel-street in Covent-Garden 167◠Omnibus Christi Fidelibus Vt Causae Regis magnae Britanniae Franciae Hiberniae verae Antiquae Apostolicae Fidei Defensoris ejusque Parliamentorum Justicia toti Orbi Christiano Innotesceret THough it hath not been deemed prudent that Legislators should in their Acts and Sanctions render their reasons of them lest by so doing they might haply invite and court contradiction from some ill-affected thereunto which might prove derogatory unto their Supreme Authority by giving occasion to the governed to wrestle with their reasons rendred and alledged and if they should think though erroneously that they have resolved or confuted them they would then also think that they have taken all vertue and efficacy from the very Laws themselves Yet it hath ever been esteemed acceptable and good Service to Government it self that Subjects should defend the just Laws of their Princes and especially those wherein Religion is concerned And Religion being or ought to be the grand concern of every Individual I hope I shall not be thought to wander inconsiderately out of my own Province whilst I endeavour to justifie the late Act of Parliament for preventing dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants I must confess that I dare not adventure my Salvation or Damnation on blind obedience or Implicite Faith or on any Deputies Proxies Popes Priests or Fryars no◠take their bare word without express warranty from Scripture especially being commanded to search them and thereby to try them that say they are Apostles and are not and being pre-cautioned lest by good words and fair speeches the Hearts of the simple be deceived Rom. 16.17 In which kind of Arts the Papalins are most expert I have exposed this Treatise to the consideration of all Christians but more especially of all Kings Princes and Governours not to implore their Countenance or Protection of any error that haply may be found herein that were not only unmannerly but injurious to Majesty it self If what is here written cannot be justified by its own truth and effort of sound reason let it fall to the ground and be obliterate for ever For no error or salshood or any false equivocating reasonings can ever be pleasing to the God of Truth and therefore ought not to be supported or countenanced by any sublunary Majesty whatsoever Justa ratio sapientem non possit offendere The chief aim and great design in this Publication is to justifie to all the Christian World His Majesties great Title of Defender of the Faith truly Antient Catholick and Apostolick by his ready compliance with His great Council his Two Houses of Parliament to put away the evil from this our Israel by this His Act that both this and future Ages perceiving it to have been grounded both on great reasons of State and true grounds of Religion all the World may be the better satisfied and his own Subjects may hear and fear and do no more so presumptuously It is the great duty of every individual Christian for Truth and Conscience sake but more especially of Gods Lieutenants on Earth even for necessity and reason of good government also nay even out of duty to him by whom they reign to maintain and preserve Religion in its purity For this very end God hath ordained Kings and Queens to be his Vicegerents on Earth and conferred greatness and Majesty upon them to make them Defenders nursing Fathers and nursing Mothers of his Holy Church in which Calling the greatest of them can never give a good account of this their Charge and Stewardship except it be by a constant watchful care in matters of Religion As it is not prudent in civil Politicks for any Prince to receive a great succour from a more purissant Empire so it is as imprudent for any temporal Prince or Power to indulge or countenance any Sects that own any dependence on a Foreign Head Ecclesiastical or Civil especially if Sworn to advance that Head and promote his Interest And such a Head is the Pope who claims to be superiour to all Princes to be exempt from all Controll and exempts his Ecclesiasticks from their subjection and obedience unto their natural Princes and whom if you will believe them they cannot chastise though they are rebellious that he hath Power over all and can deprive Kings of their Kingdoms that in any difference between the Ecclesiastical and Secular the judgment appertains to the Ecclesiastical as to the more worthy And as is the Pope so are his Papalins The same Hour they become his Proselytes they also become his sworn Vassals and Advocates Can it be other than an infinite prejudice done to the Authority of Sovereign Princes if they should but supinely permit or be constrained to change or but to suspend their own Laws at the Beck and Pleasure of another State or Interest passing from one Law to another or tacitely by conniving only to acknowledg that he borrows from any other any power of governing in matters Civil or Ecclesiastical and therefore but just and reasonable for Princes to secure their own power by wholsome Laws preventing all Popish influencies that haply by some Wiles or politick Stratagems might oppose them or interfere with them in order to gratifie and support their own interest contrary to the interest of those Princes whose Subjects they are The main Bane of true Church power hath been the great opinion that the Antient and first converted Emperors had of the Abilities piety and devotion of the Antient Fathers Ecclesiasticks which confidence begat in them supiness and negligence of their own power and that gave occasion and encouragement to the Popes and their Ecclesiasticks to usurp and encroach upon their Authority whilst they little regarded their own power which God had fairly stampt upon them consequently neglecting their duty as if they were to render no account to God for themselves or their Subjects as if the care and defence of Religion and Piety were the least of their concerns tolerating for their own interest the people to be deceived by suffering the Pope to set up new Orders and Rites under the umbrello of Religion but in reality for his own Empire and profit without considering that such Orders and Customs by tract of time
Richard and impudently personated the King They were Priests and Friars that suborned a False Richard whereof 8 being Miners were hanged at Tyburne Oswald Bishop of Galloway was the chief Plotter against Richard the 2d in the Year 1403. A Priest of Warwick and also Walter Waldock a Prior of Land in Leicester-Shire and one Richard Freseby a Dr. in Divinity was Executed in his Religious Habit and Weede and not long after 10 Grey Fryars were executed all for Treason In the year 1404. Tho. Percy Earl of Worcester with other Rebelled In the year 1406. Henry Percy Earl of Northumberland R. Scroope Arch-Bishop of York with others Robelled and were Beheaded in the Year 1414. Sir John Beverley an Anointed Priest with others conspired the death of H. the 5th other Conspiracies there were in the Year 1416. and 1417. against the same King by the like Generation of Men. And by such also several other Rebellions were raised against H. the 6th in the Year 1433. 1442. 1447. 1450. 1451. and so against Edward the 4th in the Year 1461. 1472. 1478. his Two Sons were after his death murdered by the contrivance of Sir James Tyrrel by the appointment of the Duke of Gloucester their Uncle who then procured himself to be Crown'd King by the name of Rich. the 3d. but both the Duke of Dloucester Sir James Tyrrel and Miles Forrest one of those that smothered the Innocents came all to untimely and shameful deaths according to Psal 55. The Blood-thirsty and deceitful Men shall not live out half their days King Richard himself Slain in Battle hacked hewed and hurried on Horse-back dead most ignominiously being tugged torn and dragged like a Dog They were Priests and Friars that 1 Ed. 4 conspired with Jasper Earl of Pembrooke for which they were Executed There were likewise several Treasons and Conspiracies against H. the 7th in the Year 1494 1497 1498 1499. Asa a Priest of Ireland was a chief Complotter against the union of the Two Roses So Two Priests Greenwell and Garnet would have destroyed that Blessed Vnion in King James During the Reign of H. the 8. many were executed for several Treasons as 29 April 1536. The Prior of the Charter-house at London the Prior of Bevall the Prior of Exham Reignolds a Brother of Sion and John Haile Vicar of Thissleworth were Condemned and Executed the 4th of May following 18 Junii Three Monks of the Charter-house at London named Exmew Midlemore and Nidigate were Executed for Treason and that without any exclamation in those days that they were executed for Religion a late trick taken up only since the days of Queen Elizabeth though no more reason for that Calumny now than was then § There were also Two Rebellions raised in the North the same Year against the King and one in Lincolnshire 1537 for which Twelve were Executed 29 March whereof Five were Priests one Abbot a Suffragan Dr. Mackerel the Vicar of Louth in Lincolnshire and Two Priests In the Year 1538. There was another rebellious commotion in Somersetshire Lawrence Cooke a Prior of Dancalfe William Horne a Lay-Brother of the Charter-house with six others were Executed for Treason The same Year there was a new Rebellion in Yorkshire Many more such good Works have we done for which of them will you stone us or deny us a tolleration or liberty to do more By this short Survey without travelling beyond Seas which would fill Volumes of like Presidents it s abundantly apparent to all that are not wilfully blind that Papists themselves even before Jesuitism was batched made it their usual practise to Rebel against their Princes though of the same Faith and Relgiion with themselves and can it then be reasonably expected that they will ever be Loyal and Faithful to Protestants in their account Heretick Princes especially now Jesuitisme is founded established nay vastly increased and advanced so that indeed they are the only great Apolloes in the See of Rome whose Doctrin it is to Excommunicate depose nay destroy Princes quacumque arte and that uncontrollably for that several Popes have decreed that the Jesuits are Immediate Subjects only to the See of Rome free and exempt from all other Jurisdictions whatsoever and that the Institutions and Doctrins of the Jesuits must not be oppugned nor contradicted directly or indirectly no not by way of Disputation or otherwise Spec. Jesuit 27. However let us see what have been their practises since Jesuitisme first sprung up which was about the 31. Year of of H. the 8th in whose time several Papists submitted to death rather than they would quit the Popes Supremacy and acknowledg the Kings which yields certain demonstration of the impossibility of such so principled being faithful Subjects to Protestant Caesars that own the Pope to be his and their Superiour In the Reign of King Edward the 6th which was very short and he himself a Minor there were Rebellions and Commotions in Somersetshire and Lincolnshire for which many were Executed then in Cornwall and Devon where above 4000 were Slain and taken Prisoners by John Lod Bussel Lord Privy Seal Then they Rebelled in Norfolk and Suffolk against whom Sir John Dudley Earl of Warwick went with an Army and slew above 5000. and took their Ring Leader About the same time 3090 rose in Rebellion in the North and East-riding of Yorkshire but were suppressed by the Lord President Amongst those Western Rebels Humphrey Arundel was Chief Leader who amongst others with 8 Priests were taken and Executed therefore What were those but Church-men that b y their Doctrin in the Pulpit and subscription of Hands to Traiterous Decrees Embassed the Two Daughters of H. 8. both before and after the death of Ed. 6. for satisfaction to the Pride and Ambition of an aspiring Humour In the days of Queen Mary though there were few Treasons committed yet was there much Innocent Christian Blood shed Concerning which I shall make this Observation and Comparison between the Marian and Elizabethian days § In Queen Elizabeths days the Papists put out many traiterous infamous and lying Libels in sundry Languages and reported in other Princes Courts that she put a multitude of persons to torments and death only for professing the Roman Catholick Religion when in truth none of them were questioned for matters of Religion but justly by order of Laws openly condemned as Traytors for treasonable practises against Her Person and State maintaining and adhering to the Pope the Capital Enemy of Her Majesty Camb. 213 214. and her Crown who was not only the cause of several Rebellions in England and Ireland but in one of Ireland did manifestly maintain at his own charge Commanders and Souldiers under the Banner of Rome against the Queen so as no Enemy could do more and that not by force of new Laws either for Religion or against the Popes Supremacy as the slanderous Libellers would have it seem to bee but by the Ancient Laws of the Realm made in Edward the
superior to the Jesuits in England which as they were sent privily so were they kept very closely and Communicated unto very few The tenor and purport of them was that they should admit no Man how near soever in Blood for King after the Queens death unless he would not only tollerate the Roman Catholick Religion but also promote the same with his whole might and undertake by Oath according to the manner of his Ancestors to perform the same which in true understanding was directly to exclude King James and his Family from the Crown These Bulls came forth upon the aforesaid negotiation of Tho. Winter in Spain at what time an Army should shortly after have been sent to Invade the Land and this was to be put in execution Quandocumque contingeret miseram illam seminam exhac vita excedere 16. b. when ever it should happen that that wretched Woman so pleased the High-Priest of Rome to call the Queen the greatest of Women cujus memoria semper erit in benedictione should depart this life Of these Bulls also within Two Years after was begot that dreadful roaring Monster the Powder Treason Their Force and Vertue was not confined with Tweed but extended it self also into Scotland For the Sword was prepared there also at the same time by the Rethuens Brethren to take away King James's life who boiling with revenge for their fathers death the Earl Gowry by Law in the Kings nonage by a Wile inticed the King to whom they were much engaged into their House most wickedly appointed him to the slaughter had not God the Protector of Kings prevented it by the help of John Ramsey and Thomas Areskin and turned it upon the heads of the Authors Having thus summarily declared the good intentions and faithful Service the Papists performed towards James 6th King of Scotland whilst he stood the next and undoubted Heir apparent to the Crown of England before he came to be King thereof I will now shew you one other great Plat-form and design of theirs for the ruine of this Nation and then proceed to shew you how faithful they were to King James after he came to be King of England and have been since unto his Son and Grandson The Seminaries being thus founded and established in divers places and at Vallodolid by the procurement of Parsons that Arch-Traytor who for his uncessant Romish Contrivances had by this time got great Interest in Rome and Spain that in them they might consult and act how to bring to pass their grand design of erecting their universal spiritual Monarchy for Rome Spain and Jesuitism and a seeming Title being made out by his Book of Titles or Succession of the Crown of England to the Infanta He then in another Book called A Memorial for Reformation or High-Court or Council of Reformation of England written at Sevil 1596. of which he was so fond that he kept it like a precious Jewel An Answer to a Jesuited Gent. as close in his bosom as the Dukes of Florence are said to keep Tully de rebublica vvhich not all the World have but themselves as laboured all he could to have it read in the Refectaries at Rome he there lays a secret Snare for our ruine by a Plat-form to vvork insensibly the Alteration of our Government by bringing it to a popularity and hovv near it vvas brought to effect in these late times by Papists as some Write under the Title of Levellers Agitators Independents Fifth Monarchy Men Quakers c. vvho are but Badgers Working Holes for the Foxes the Jesuits vvill be obvious to every intelligent Reader In this Book it is designed that no Religious Order should resort into England or be permitted to live vvithin its Dominions but Jesuits and Capuchins That all Abbey and Church Lands and those of Colledges Parsonages Bishops Vicarages 16 b. Monasteries Nunneries Frieries c. must be no longer in their Hands but must be brought into a publick Exchequer under the Government of Four Jesuits and Two Secular Priests to be chosen by the General and Provincial Jesuits vvho vvere to allovv the Bishops Parsons Vicars c. Stipends and Pensions as Bishops Suffragans and Mont Seigniors had in other Catholick Countries all the rest must be imployed in Pious Uses pro ut c. vvithou rendring an Account They prescribed Rules of Living for the Lords Temporal and other the Nobility and Gentry vvhat Retinue they vvould keep hovv much should be allovved them to spend yearly and what diet they should keep at their Tables That Magna Charta should be burnt the manner of holding Lands in Fee-simple Fee-tail Frank-Almanige c. by Kings Service Soccage or Villenage should all be brought into Villany Scoggery and Popularity the Common Laws to be wholly annihilated and destroyed and Caesars civil Imperials brought into this Vtopian Spiritual Monarchy Quodlibets 92 95. And the Reasons are given in these Quodlibats viz. For that the state of the Crown and Kingdom by the Common Laws is so strongly settled as whilst they continue the Jesuits see not how they can work their Wills He hath also set down a Course how all Men may shake off Authority at their pleasures And this Stratagem is how the Common people may be inveigled and seduced to conceipt to themselves such a liberty and prerogative as that it may be lawful for them when they think meet to place and displace Kings and Princes as Men may do their Tenants at Will Hirelings or ordinary Servants 286. Princes had need be fond of such Subjects and account them their best Friends Having thus acquainted you with the Plat-form laid long since deep in Council for our Ruine I leave to all Contemporaries of these late Rebellious Anarchical times to judg how much of this Train hath taken Fire and how much of the substance of this Plot hath been put in Execution and how near the whole design was like to have taken Effect when the Assembly Elected only by the Army Officers on the 20th of August 1653. as the Diurnals printed they ordered there should be a Committee selected to consider a new Body of the Law for the Government of this Common Wealth who were to new mould the whole Body of the Law and is not this according to T. F. Parsons Plat-form He that would know more of it must read the Book it self which is still in great esteem amongst them or because that is rare he may read a Book of the same Parsons Entituled A manifestation of the folly and bad spirit of the secular Priests wherein this Memorial is owned by him and Analysed and Excused from f. 55. to 64. or W. Clark a Roman Priest his Answer to the Manifestation Entituled A Reply unto a certain Libel lately set forth by Fa. Parsons p. 74 c. or Watsons Quodlibets p. 92 95 together with a Reply to a brief Apology and several other Books which above 60 Years ago the Priests wrote
to cherish factious Mens humours disturb Religion and the Common-Wealth and mingle Divine and Humane things a Thing Evil in Deed but in Example worst of all to her own good Subjects hurtful and unto themselves to whom it is granted neither greatly commodious nor yet at all safe She was therefore determined out of her natural Clemency and especially at their request to be willing to heale the private insolency of a few by much Connivance yet so as she might not encourage their obstinate minds by her Indulgence § When Sussex treated with the Emperor Maximilian on the Articles of Marriage between Arch-Duke Charles his Son and Queen Eliz. both Father and Son did require That a publick Church might be allowed wherein Divince Service might be celebrated to him and his after the Romish manner When this would not be granted then that in some private place in the Court he might peaceably use his Service of Cod as was permitted to Popish Princes Ambassadors in their Houses and that with these Conditions That no English Man should be admitted thereunto and neither he nor his Servants should speak against the Religion received in England or favour those that did speak against it That if any displeasure should arise in respect of Religion he should be present with the Queen at Divine Service to be celebrated after the manner of the Church of England Unto this the Queen answered That if she should grant this she should offend her Conscience and openly break the publick Laws of her Realm not without great peril both of her dignity and safety The same Princely Pious and immovable Resolution she held when in the like Treaty of Marriage between her and the Duke of Anjou where Tolleration of the Roman Religion being much pressed and insisted on both by the Queen his Mother and by Charles the 9th King of France his Brother Queen Eliz. though it were suggested that the Romish Religion was not deeply rooted in the Dukes mind being but young and for that he was Educated under Carnlette a person not averse from the Protestant Religion and that by degrees he might be brought to the Protestant profession and many other and great advantages would thereby accrew to the good of the Reformed Religion answered as well became Gods Vice-gerent in her Dominions That although the outward Exercise of Christian Religion might haply be tollerated with different Rites and Ceremonies amongst the Subjects of one and the same Kingdom yet a different yea a flat contrary Exercise between the Queen who is the Head of her people and her Husband might not only seem perilous but also altogether absurd she prayed them to consider with equal Ballauce on the one side her own hazard and on the other side the Duke of Anjou's Honour By Tollerating his Religion she should break the Laws established give offence to her best Subjects and encouragement to her worst which things would certainly over-weigh the Duke of Anjou's Honour If the Duke would water more plentifully the Seeds of the purer Religion already sown and suffer more to be sown he should soon see that it would be unto him a most high Honour At length it came to this Issue That if so be the Duke would be present with the Queen at the Celebration of Divine Service and not refuse to hear and learn the Institutions of the Protestant Religion she would assent that neither the Duke nor his Family should be constraned to use the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England nor molested for other Divine Rites not openly and manifestly repugnant to Gods Word so as it were done in a certain private place and no occasion given to the English to break the Laws established Foix stuck at the Word the Word of God for whose satisfaction the Queen commanded instead of Gods Word to put in Gods Church which when it liked him worse and for it would have had to be put in the Catholick Church the Queen flatly and stoutly refused it and so by degrees it cooled Her religious care herein was also so great and steady that Walsingham her Ambassador had secret Instructions That if the Duke of Anjou should be content to omit in that Treaty that point concerning Tolleration of Religion yet would the Queen bind him in such sure caution that he should not require is at any time after § Of the same opinion was King James Anno 1596. in the Case of Huntley Angus and Arrol Popish Lords who though they would have betrayed the Kingdom to the Spaniard yet the King being willing afterwards to have them return though Guilt had made them Fugitives and being returned the King writ thus to Huntley viz. My Lord I am sure you consider and do remember how often I have incurred Skaith and hazard for your cause therefore to be short resolve you either to satisfie the Church betwixt that day that is appointed without any more delay or else if your Conscience be so Kittle as it cannot permit you make for another Land betwixt this and that day where you may use freely your own Conscience your Wife and Barnes sholl in that Case enjoy your Living but fo◠your self look never to be a Scottish Man again deceive not your self to think by lingring of time your Wife and your Allys shall ever get you better Conditions And think not that I will suffer any professing a contrary Religion to dwell in this Land Afterwards when His Majesty came to the Crown of England which was May 14. 1602. he declared to his Parliament there 19. May 1603. Li c. p. 1 That the Popish point of Doctrin is that Arrogant and Ambitious Supremacy of their Head the Pope whereby he not only claims to be Spiritual Head of all Christians but also to have an Imperial civil power over all Kings and Emperors dethroning and decrowning Princes with his Foot as pleaseth him and dispensing and disposing of all Kingdoms and Empires at his appetite The other point which they observe in continual practise is the Assassinates and Murders of Kings thinking it no sin but rather a matter of Salvation to do all Actions of Rebellion and Hostility against their natural Sovereign Lord if he be once accursed his Subjects discharged of their fidelity and his Kingdom given a Prey by the Three Crowned Monarch or rather Monster their Head Which Positions of theirs the Gun-powder-traitors within Two Years after made good after which time he was not only willing whilst he lived that we should pray to God as was done in the days of Great Eliz. that he would keep us from all Papistry and that he would preserve us from the Pope as well as from the Turk in as much as the Pope laboured to dethrone Christ as well as the Turk did but he required further of us That we should pray God to strengthen his Hands and the Hands of his Nobles and Magistrates in the Land to out off the Papists In the Prayer to
be made 5. Novemb. for the Gun-powder-treason to root them out of the Confines and Limits of the Kingdom protesting in Parliament that he could not permit the increase and growth of Popery without betraying the liberty both of England and Scotland and of the Crown in his posterity and did declare in his Speech in Parliament 1605. That none of those that truly know and believe the whole Grounds and School-Conclusions of their Doctrins can ever prove-good Christians or good Subjects Vide his Works 504. Nay farther in the Second Year of his Reign ter ' tr ' upon a false rumor being spread that His Majesty intended to grant a Tolleration to Papists he commanded all the Judges with divers of the greatest Nobility viz. Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer and to Assemble in the Star-Chamber to receive their opinions upon these and other points at which time the Lords severally declared how the King was discontented with the said false Rumor and had made but the day before a protestation unto them that he never intended it and that he would spend the last drop of Blood in his Body before he would do it And prayed that before any of his Issue should maintain any other Religion than what he truly professed and maintained that God would take them out of the World Vide Sir George Crokes Reports part 2. ter tr Anno 2 Jac. Reg. in Banco Regis § When a Match with Spain was propounded to King James for Prince Charles and there with an Article defired for a Tolleration of the Popish Religion which when King James had propounded to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury 1623. the Arch-Bishop did write his Sentiments of King James in which Letter He besought His Majesty to take into his consideration what your Act is and what the Consequence may be by your Act you labour to set up the most Damnable and Heretical Doctrine of the Church of rome the Whore of Babilon How hateful it will be to God and grievous to the good Subjects the professors of the Gospel that your Majesty who hath often disputed and learnedly written against those should now shew your self a Patron of those wicked Doctrins which your Pen hath told the World and your Conscience tells your self are Superstitious Idolatrous and Detestable Besides this Tolleration which you endeavour to set up by your Proclamamation cannot be done without a Parliament unless your Majesty will let your Subjects see that you will take unto your self ability to throw down the Laws of the Land at your pleasure c. prout King James not long after viz 23. Ap. 1624. returns this Answer to a Petition of his Parliament touching Recusants viz. What my Religion is my Books declare my profession and my behaviour do shew and I hope in God I shall never live to be thought otherwise sure I am I shall never deserve it And for my part I wish that it might be written in Marble and remain to posterity as a mark upon me when I shall swerve from my Religion for he that doth dissemble withy God is not to be trusted by Man My Lords Ip rotest before God my Heart hath bled when I have heard of the increase of Opery and God is my Judg it hath been so great a grief unto me that it hath been like Thorns in my Eyes and Pricks in my sides so far have I been and ever shall be from turning any other way And my Lords and Gentlemen you all shall be my Confessors if I knew any way better than other to hinder the growth of Popery I would take it and he cannot be an honest man who knowing as I do and being perswaded as I am would do otherwise The Romish Catholicks for want of this liberty and tollerance in the time of Queen Eliz. and since have made and written many bitter Complaints and Invectives against the Rigour of our Penal Laws c. Rex Talionis I could requite them by commemorating the flames they kindled in England to burn their Brethren to dust How Pius Qintus conferred England on Philip II. King of Spain and approved as an Act lawful by Azorius Instit Mor. part 2. lib. 11. c. 5. And how many Princes they have displaced poisoned and murdered The Holy House which the Friars have planted in spain resembling the Torments of Nero his Garden the Massacres of Provence Piedmont of old and of late and of Paris where they murdered Men Women and Children by Thousands against the very Grounds off all Equity Piety Charity and Humanity without Convicting Accusing or so much as Calling them before any Judg to hear what was misliked in them And when was any of this put in Execution some of it even the 24 Aug. 1572. the very Year that Charles IX the French King pretending great kindness to the Protestants had in Testimony thereof desired a Confederacy at Blois with Queen Eliz. and the Princes of Germany in favour of them whom notwithstanding he had secretly and treacherously designed to the flaughter For no sooner were the Articles of Confederacy agreed on which was the 11th of April and confirmed by Oath by the Queen at Westminster 15. May in the presence of Montmo rency stiled the first Christian Prince and accounted the most Noble Family of all france who also again earnestly sollicited the Marriage with the Duke of Anjou but for that they could not agree about the Exercise of Religion he hasted into France to the Marriage of Henry of Navarre and Madam Margarite the French Kings Sister To this Marriage in pursuance of the said Bloody Design were invited the Queen of Navarre and all the choicest of the Protestants and also Burleigh and Leicester our of England pretending Honour to them and the Palatine Elector's Sons out of Germany that being brought into the snare both they and with them the Protestant Evangelical Religion might with one stroak if not have had their Throats cut yet at least receive a Mortal Wound For no sooner was the Marriage Solemnized but that barbarous Massacre of Paris and the Bloody Butchering of the Protestants throughout the Cities of France upon men of all Estates was cursedly put in Execution and that within Two days after Mota Fennelon the French Ambassador had propounded the Marriage between Queen Eliz. and the Duke of Anjou at Kenelworth Camb. Elisab 162. Which considered I annot but wonder to hear you thus complaining at the Fatherly Chastisement wherewith this Realm seeketh your amendment and sucketh not your Blood Compare the penalties which you fret at with the Laws of former Emperours and you will see how easie they are in respect of their ancient Edicts which restrained such as did forbear to communicate with the Church of Christ from buying selling disposing bequeathing Goods or Lands by will or otherwise yea from receiving any Legacies or enjoying their Fathers Inheritance the place where Schismatical Service was faid Chappel or House to be forfeited and the Bishop and Clergy-man
Intollerable on a Politick Account neither can any Merits render it tollerable or reasonable Notwithstanding their pretensions of Merit are so high that they are not content with connivance safety which they enjoy without grudging and with more freedom and less trouble than many non-assenting Protestants nor yet with Honours which they have had also in great measure nor yet with power and trust of which they have had their shares also and yet are not contented Lords Paramount they must be or else restless and clamorous they will be Such is their Nature that it must devour or trample down all before it or else it will never rest satisfied Such is the unsatiableness of this Scarlet Lady so often drunk with the Blood of the Saints that no Blood could yet satisfie but that she still cries Give Give In all Histories from Generation to Generation they that run may read prodigious Examples of Exorbitant Papal Claims and pride over Kings Emperours Princes and Free States even against right reason and to the Indignation of all Mankind and these justified by their Popes Councils Decretals Canons and Divines of the first Magnitude ascribing to the Pope power of deposing Kings if Hereticks and they are all so when his Holiness pleaseth so to tearm them by as good Logick as the Foxes Ears are Horns if the Lyon please to call them so And if yet there be any Papists that in Word or Writings do disown such Doctrins as the Seculars did in Queen Eliz. days of whom notwithstanding it is observed That they never discovered any traiterous design until it was first discovered by others and that in several Treasons though many of the Seminary Priests were active and forward yet they are as little to be confided in as those that own and justifie them for that by so doing they contradict and disclaim the very Faith they own and profess and unto which they are sworn thereby forsaking their Popes Councils Canons Divines and Decretals nay their Doctrins of Supremacy of believing as the Church i. e. as the Pope believes of Infallibility and Probability of Equivocation of no Faith to be kept with Hereticks c all Doctrins of the Church of Rome which alone are in their esteem of power sufficient to warrant and justifie their blind obedience and to null all the security that can possibly be given between Prince People whether Oaths or Laws Civil or Ecclesiastical nay Divine And if we may prognosticate of practises to come by practises past let the said Experience of former Ages and of all Countries and of ours in particular rise up in Judgment against them that they never have been never will be Loyal Subjects to our Protestant Princes the Reasons are strong for that they are ever incited to such evil Machinations and practises by the strong impulse and impetuous zeal of their own Doctrins and Superstitions and all proceeding from causes pecular unto Romish Religion and Principles which they have not in the least as yet changed nor disclaimed nor yet their Interest § Besides if the Papists of England have merited any thing from the King and his Father in these late troubles it is no thanks to their Religion and therefore no reason they should be gratified in their Religion for had it proceeded from the undoubted principles of their Religion it would have held as well in Ireland as in England nay it would have held as well in Queen Elizabeth and King James his time as in the time of King Charles Father and Son a Postscript to an Answer to a Jesuited Gent and also in a sparing Discourse It being confessed by themselves that none of them have in all the times of persecution dyed expresly for Religion but all for Treason b Answer to a Letter to a Jesuited Gent. f. 45. And that Irish Papists would have been as little Loyal to Queen Mary as unto Queen Eliz. But the continual Plots against the Life and Crown of that Queen and that horrid Gun-powder Plot against King James and all his Race and Nobles and the late Rebellion in Ireland against King Charles do demonstrate the contrary and their Religion where that and the Pope are concerned teaching the contrary but they thought not their Religion in that case concerned if they had then it would have appeared whether their Loyalty would have born up against it or no more than it hath done in former times Therefore if any such Merits have been they have been only personal and so may be and no doubt so have been and will be requited with personal favours but in no case with such as may tend to the advantage of the Popish and consequently to the disadvantage of the Protestant Religion Power and Interest of our Princes But let us a little examin what in truth have been the Merits of the Papist in the late Wars To say the Papists were the Formal Causes of the late War upon what hath been before written were happily not quite besides the Cushion However the former matter and grounds administers good Reasons to believe and affirm that they were great occasions both of the rise growth and continuance of our late Wars Some and those not a few of the wisest and most sober Cavaliers thought that the Papists did look upon the War as their great Interest and Hahvest either by opening unto them occasions to pretend something in favour of their party in case the King prevailed or otherwise by somenting of the War between Protestant and Protestant they should have gained an Interest through their divisions when they had weakened one another and that by fishing in troubled Waters they should gain some advantage by the confusions which as the Law stood in a setled State of Affairs they could not expect § However if the Papists did not design those divisions and the breaking in pieces of the Antient Government of this Kingdom and that wherein they hoped to find their Interest it is certain they were great occasions thereof for what on the one hand with their Negotiations before the War by Seignior Con and other the Popes Agents and the State tampering with the Pope and King of Spain about the Infanta not yet on t of the Minds and Memories of his Subjects and their boldness upon the favour they might happily expect from the Kings Mother and the Clemency which they found from his Father no way desirous to have the Sanguinary Laws Executed upon them and what by the Rebellion of those of that Religion in Ireland they created so great Jealousies in the minds of the Protestant party in England that it rather weakened the Royal party than fortified it and made the Adverse party so numerous and so successful as a long time it was And it may be truly said there was never a Papist in the Kings Army but it lost him the Hearts of many Protestants and as it cannot be supposed that they brought a Blessing on the Kings Armies
have not one and the same Joynt-interest in Religion and State with themselves And that the Governours ought to be very vigilant in care themselves to forbid or at least discountenance all Councils and Things which may in any respect hurt or but disorder a good Government lest the Subjects thereof should be caught with any guile or seduced to embrace any opinions which may be repugnant either to good Government or sound Religion And I hope this Nation will never again be so infatuated as ever to put power into their Hands who have so often given such palpable Demonstration and Testimony how they have used it already and such pregnant presumptions how they would use it again could they obtain it Even they that run may read what the Papists like Jehn drive so furiously at even to make England once more Issachar like to couch and carry the Saddle Vah Papae shall it ever be again the style and reproach of England Glorious England that is scituate among the Rivers whose Rampart is the Sea and whose God is the Lord to carry the Saddle again God forbid But if so unhappy so unfortunate I 'le prophesie that not the Pope only but the Devil will ride her Pardon these Expressions I have encouragement from St. Jerome Neminem volo patientem esse in causa laesae fidei and from Moses the Mirror of meekness who knows no patience in Israels Idolatry Numb 12.3 Exod. 22.19 26 27. Idem manens idem semper facit idem THE REAL MERITS OF THE PAPISTS SUch hath the Confidence of the Papists of these latter times been as to claim a Right unto the Kings Majesties favour for a tolleration of their Religion upon the account of their great Merits as having best deserved of His Majesty because of all they were the most faithful to him and his Father The purport of this hath not only been averred by the generality of them in their ordinary discourses but also set out in print by several of them P. W. R. P. J. S. H. M. and others At which confident Assertion of theirs when I consider how boldly and feircly the contend for meritorious works nay for works of super-errogation even with God himself I do not so much wonder that such Merit-mongers broach it so confidently now as that they have not done it all this while § He that is first in his own Cause seemeth just but his Neighbour cometh and searcheth him Prov. 18.17 Which that we may the better do we will only a little look back into our own Chronicle without cloying the Reader with like Foreign Stories which would fill Volumes and first see how true and trusty Trojans the Papists have been to the Kings of England no Protestants but Papists and if they shall be found to have been neither true nor trusty but Traytors and Rebels to the Kings of their own Religion can it then ever be believed or hoped that they ever will be Loyal and Faithful to Protestant Princes when a neat opportunity offers the contrary and that Maugre all Roman Mandates to the contrary What Prince or other Sovereign soberly considers the new founded Society of Jesuits erected by Pope Paul the 3 d. about 1540 who although at first but 10 in Number yet so wonderfully encreased since that they bragged not a few years ago that they were 1300010. they lived in Colledges and places of residence besides those that trotted up and down that they had 359. Colledges or Schools 18 Domus professae 40 Domus probationis 8 Seminaries 1010 Residentiaries Vide speculum Jesuiticum Runninge Register And what their Principles and Doctrins are and what their practices have been for the destroying of all Princes quacumque Arte that will not become Vassals to the See of Rome and and acknowledg a Spiritual Monarchy in that Roman Chair paramount all temporal Crowns and Scepters and how strict and of what extant their vow of Obedience is to the Roman Bishop and how it is decreed by several Popes that the Institutions and Doctrins of the Jesuits must not be contradicted or disputed by any Ordinary Delegate Judg or Magistrate and how vastly that society is enlarged both in their Clergy and Layety since these great brags of theirs will be sufficiently convinced that neither their persons or their Kingdoms can ever be secure where either one sort or other are suffered to flourish § Let us now see matter of Fact Did not Pope Alexander the 3d. by violence and tyranny force King H. the II. to surrender his Crown Imperial into the hand of his Legate and afterwards b e content with a private Condition for a while to the great regret and Indignation of his Subjects Did not Innocent the 3d. stir up the Nobility and Commonalty of this Kingdom against King John and gave the Inheritance and Possession of all his Dominions unto Ludovicus the French King What were those 52000. but Papists that rebelled against Richard the I. Anno 1196. And all those that rebelled against Edward the II. Anno 1316 1317 1321 1322 1326. Amongst whom was Robert Baldock Bishop of Norwich and Lord Chancellor of England And all those that consented to the Murder of Edward the Third's Father and sought to kill John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster Edward the Third's Son Anno 1330. 1372. And those in Richard the Third's time Anno 1381. Annimated by John Ball a Priest who at his Execution refused to ask the King forgiveness and despised him so peremptory was he Jack Straw confessing that when he sent for the King to Black-Heath they purposed to have murdered all Knights Esquires and Gentlemen that should have come with him and when they had got sufficient force they would suddenly then have put to death in every County all Lords and Masters of the Common people in whom might appear to be either Council or Resistance one Argument used by some of the late Protectorians for the death of our Glorious King and Martyr that he was too knowing and too intelligent to be suffered to live and especially they would have killed the Knights of St. John and all Men of any Possessions only Begging Fryars should have lived that might have Administred the Sacraments throughout the Realm and lastly they would have killed the King himself and made Kings in every Shire Thomas Arrundel Arch-Bishop of Canterbury traiterously practiced the deposing of the said Richard his lawful Sovereign § It were no very wild conjecture to Divine that our late Generation of Levellers Major Generals Quakers and Phanaticks were spawned from them and that they are still but Badgers plotting and digging Holes for Romish Foxes to lie couchant and covertly in for their more subtile contrivances § What were those but Papists that rebelled against H. the 4th designing to Murder him under the colour of Justinge and other pastimes pretended 1399. And also those who raised Arms against him among whom was John Madelyn a Priest who had been Chaplain to King
any Crimes or pains of Treason nor yet willingly searched in their Consciences for their contrary opinions that savoured not of Treason and mony even of those that were Edecuted would she have pardoned if they would but have owned Her Regality and defended Her Majesty against any Forrein Force though coming or procured from the Pope himself An Example of Royal Clemency never to be matched in Queen Maries time And John Lecey in defence of the Petition Apologet. presented to King James in July 1604. confesseth That Queen Eliz. both in person and by Here Embassies abroad did aver That Her Will and Intention was not to punish Her Subjects for their Religion and Conscience fo 13. It is also observable That after the Sanguinary Laws were Enacted that no Priest or Jesuit remaining here that had before these Acts taken Orders beyond Seas and lived quietly was ever called in question for his Religion In all the Laws though extorted from the Queen by so many Rebellions nd Treasons there was nothing that did reflect upon an old quiet Queen Maries Priest or any that were Ordained within the Land by the Romish Bishops then surviving so they were no over active and busie in Treasons and Conspiracies This also was such another Example of Royal favour as was not to be parallel'd in Queen Maries time And yet it s very remarkable That the chiefest of all these and the most of them had in the time of Hen. 8. Ed. 6. either by preaching writing or arguing taught all people to Condemn yea to Abhor the Authority of the Pope for which they had also yielded to both the said Kings the Title of Supreme Head c. and many of their Books and Sermons against the Popes Authority were printed both in English and in Latin to their great shame and reproach to change so often but especially in prosecuting such as themselves had taught and established to hold the contrary A sin near to the sin against the Holy Ghost Just Brit. f. 4 5. The Priests themselves confessed that such of them as upon examination were found moderate were not so hardly proceeded with in so much as 55. by the Laws liable to death were in 1585. when great mischiefs were in hand only banished A Regal Favour not to be parallel'd in Queen Maries days Import Considerations f. 29 30. Having seen how Faithful and Loyal Papists have been to Princes of their own Religion and also to Edw. 6. and Queen Eliz. Princes of a different profession let us now see how faithful they have been to King James and his posterity Such were the deep malicious and early Councels and designs of Papists against our protestant Princes and Reformation it self in the bud as they would have it that they were not content by all open and secret Councels Powers and Artifices imaginable that Rome France Spain Catholick Princes Priests and Jesuits could contrive or possibly suggest to Assassine and destroy that incomparable Princess Queen Eliz. but in her days laid such a foundation and ground-work for future disturbances ruine and destruction even to all her Successors and to this Nation and to the Protestant Religion that hitherto it hath wrought and is still working by undermining powers and policies the effect whereof we feel even to this day and so like to continue to all successive Generations as long as the Seminaries and Jesuitism continue whose Trade and Business it is to encourage themselves and others in mischiefs and to Commune among themselves how they may privily lay snares In the Year 1568. The English fugitive Priests assembling themselves at Doway by the design of William Allen of Oxon the most learned amongst them did Collegiate together in a common Colledge-like Discipline Vide the Hope of Peace 20. to whom the Pope assigned a yearly pension Afterwards being banished the Netherlands by Don Lewis Requesens the King of Spains Deputy A like Seminary was erected at Rheims by the Guises the Queen of Scots Kinsmen Camb. 216.206 and another at Rome by Gregory XIII And afterwards another founded at Vallodolid that there might never want a successive Generation of Men of corrupt Minds Heady High-minded despisers of Dominion Idolatrous and Traiterous Priests to poison England with their false Doctrines and traiterous principles In these Seminaries it was quickly defined That the Pope hath by the Law of God fullness of power over the whole World as well in Ecclesiastical as Temporal matters and that he out of his fulness of power may Excommunicate Kings and being Excommunicate depose them and absolve their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance Then were divers Priests well instructed in such Principles and Doctrins sent into England This done divers traiterous Combinations and Conspiracies both Forrein and Domestick were plotted as here so elsewhere is related Then the Jesuits on one side Camb. 297. and the Fugitive Noble-men and others on the others side with different affections suggested unto Mary Queen of Scots such dangerous Councels that the Seculars afterwards charged the Jesuits as procurers and Instruments of her death And the Jesuits when they saw there was no hope of restoring the Romish Religion either by her or King James her Son began to forge a new and feigned Title in the succession of the Kingdom of England for the Spaniard so wonderful faithful were they to King James and they sent into England as Pasquire saith one Saimer a Man of their Society to draw a party to the Spaniards and to thrust the Queen of Scots forwards to divers dangerous practises by telling her That if she were refractory neither she nor her Son should Reign most faithful Men still and by exciting the Guises her Kismen to new stirs against the King of Navarre and the Prince of Condey that they might not be able to aid her This their faithfulness such as it was lasted not only before King James came to the Crown but afterwards as will e're long appear Did not Fa. Parsons in Spain contest bitterly with Fa. Creighton Parsons to settle the Crown on the Infanta and Creighton on the King of Scots Did not Fa. Parsons with Sir William Stanley thrust on Hesket to perswade Ferdinando Earl of Darby to Claim the Crown Did not he perswade York and Young to fire Her Majesties Store-houses Did not he perswade Fr. Dickenson and others to tempt Water-men to fly with Ships to the Spaniards as hath been intimated before Dialogue 93. Thus you see how many several Titles did they seign and set up to set by Q. Eliz. from the Crown and to set up M. Q. of Scots whom they prompted and annimated unto so many Contrivances of dangerous Consequences that brought that Princess unto that sad Catastrophe and consequently were the occasion thereof and so confess'd in print by themselves they left no stone unturned Paul the 4th would not acknowledg here and why Because forsooth this Kingdom was held in Fee of the Apostolick See that she could
not succeed being Illegitimate and that it was a great boldness to assume the Name and Government without him and therefore refused to hear Sir Edward Kerne her Ambassador All this and more was pretended to have been done in favour of that Admirable person M. Queen of Scots But what think you would they have done if the Tables had been turned And Q. Eliz. had been an Illegitimate Papist and M. Q. of Scots a Legitimate Protestant would you then have been so zealous and industrious for the Q. of Scots Certainly not which is demonstrable by their Actings and Endeavours to hinder King James from the English Crown And it is plain that it was not Bastardy but Heresie i. e. for being a Protestant that made their malice so implacable and this is apparent by the Bull of Pope Pius V. Dated 25. Febr. 1570. in which there is not the least mention of Bastardy No No Illegitimacy is not so monstrous a Gudgeon but that it will easily be swallowed at Rome Gregory XIII had a Bastard James Buon Compagna and to him he gave Ireland and impowred Stewkely with Men Arms and Money to Conquer it for him And England he gave to Don John the Emperors Bastard both admirable Catholicks without all peradventure and gave him leave to Conquer it for himself Christs brave Vicar give that which was none of his own or had any thing to do withall But that perverse Queen had no occasion to part with either on such ridiculous Nods And his Successor Sixtus Quintus took no Notice at all of King James proceeded against her with all his Italian Scarcrows curst her afresh and publisht a Croysade against her and gave all her Dominions to Philip II. King of Spain but forgot to give his Benedictions of Craft and Cunning to get them and so they still remain vested in the hands of the right owners and long may they so do even till time shall be no more Now if Romish zeal for Qu. M. of Scots had had its Rise and Original from her more rightful Title to the Crown of England then it would have continued unto King James also but their Actings being Diametrically opposite and contrary it was visible to all the World that it was Popery not the Title that they contended so furiously for And it was the common voice amongst the Jesuits of those days That if King James would turn Catholick they would follow him but if not they would all die against him Watson Quodlib p. 150. The mutual love and amity that was between Queen Elizabeth and King James his immovable constancy in Religion the strict Laws made against Jesuits and such kind of Men the Execution of Graham of Feutre the forwardest of all those that affected the Spanish party the granting of Supreme Authority in matters Ecclesiastical to the King by the States and the assotiations against the Papists did so quash all hope of restoring Popery in England and Scotland that some of them in England which most of all favoured his Mothers Title began to project how to substitute some English Papists in the Kingdom of England when they could not agree uon a fit man of their own Number they cast their Eyes upon the Earl of Essex who never approved the utting of Men to death in the cause of Religion feigning a Title from Thomas of Woodstock King Edward the Third's Son from whom be derived his Pedigree Indeed rather for any Body then for King James who they foresaw would be Malleus Hereticorum such was their faithfulness to him as also witness the designs of Gordon Creighton Abercromy Jesuits and others plotting the ruine of King James of Scotland And also the Two Breues sent by Clement the 8th to exclude King James from the Inheritance of the Crown of England unless he would take an Oath to promote the Roman Catholick Interest But the Fugitives favoured the Infanta of Spain although they feared lest the Queen and the States would by Act of Parliament prevent it by offering an Oath to every one and they held it sufficient if they could set the King of Scots and the Earl of Essex at Enmity To which purpose to Book was Dedicated to Essex under the Counterfeit name of Doleman but wrote by Parsons Cardinal Allen and Sir Francis Inglefeild as was believed In this Book despising the right of Birth they project that the Antient Lawsz of the Land concerning Hereditary Succession to the Crown of England are to be altered that new Laws are to be brought in cocerning Election That no man but a Roman Catholick 14. b. of Blood soever they be is to be admitted King And was not this another piece of meritorious service to King James like the rest no doubt of those that went before and of those that will follow They traduced most of the Kings of England as wrong possessors and all in England of the Blood-Royal as either Illegitimate or uncapable of the Crown The most certain right of King James to the Crown of England they most unjustly sought to overthrow and did by forged Devices most falsely Entitle thereunto the Infanta Isabella of Spain because she was a Roman Catholick Yea they proceeded with that violence herein that they compelled the English in the Spanish Seminaries if they themselves are to be credited to subscribe to the forged title of the Infanta therein set down and exacted in Oath of the Students in the Seminaries to maintain the same brave Blade They rested not in their Pens and Tongues but prosecuted the same by Actions For Thomas Winter as he himself confessed and Jesmund a Jesuit being come into Spain from Garnet and others of them privily plotted to cast off Queen Eliz. and exclude James King of Scots from his most just Title to the Crown of England Yet not long after when King James was proclaimed this Impudent Parsons excused by Letters to a Friend of his as proceeding not from a mind to do King James wrong but out of an earnest desire to draw him to the Romish Religion and he hoped he should be excused for that these Injurres did not prejudice the King because forsooth they failed of success As in the Year 1592. Patrick Cullent Treason who was incited by Sir William Stanley Hugh Owne Jaques Frances a base Laun dress Son who said That unless Mrs. Elizabeth be suddenly taken may the State of England is and will be so settled that all the Devils in hell will not be able to prevail with it or shake it Hitherto a true Prophet I hope will be so still And Holt the Jesuit vvho resolved to kill the Queen vvas accompanied vvith a Book called Philo-pater written for the abetting and warranting of such a Devilish Act in general by Creswel the legier Jesuit in Spain so was Tesmunds Treason accompanied with Two Bulls or Breues from Pope Clement the 8th when the Queen was full of days and infirm one to the Clergy the other to the Laiety unto H. Garnet
against the Jesutis and the Jesuits against the Priests whereby the Reader may in transitu besides all this perceive that there be as many and as great differences between them as among Protestans Smiths Preface to the Apology f. 12. See also Citizen the Morgentine Jesuit f. 2 c. 18. of his POliticks and Campanella in his Monarchia Hispan The Jesuits now seem to drive another design all the World over viz. as they have one Ecclesiastical or Universal Monarch so to set up a temporal universal Monarch which Eul. Postellus attributes to Terra sancta cui Gallia ob primariam orbis nomen jus substituitur eo quod Ambae toti arhi legem sunt daturae I now proceed to shew you how faithful the Papists were to the Crown of England after King James came to it The first Meritorious Act towards King James was to calumniate him with a breach of promise as made to some of them before he came into England for a Tolleration of their Religion which now he did deny to perform which had this intended double mischief in it viz. That it should bring an Odium upon him from the Protestants for making such a promise and the like from the Papists for the breaking of it And unto whom should this promise be made but unto that Arch-traitor Percy and to that false Priest Watson both afterwards found in other Treasons for which being condemned Watson confessed to the Earl of Northampton purposely sent by the King to examine him who was the first first Author of that false report at Winchester a day or Two before he was Executed at which time no man is prefumed to lye that he never could receive any spark of Comfort touching ease of Counscience to Catholicks from His Majesty 17. b. how unjustly soever the World had made him Author of that Scandal though withall he added how unwilling he had been to declare to his Fellows how averse the King shewed him in his own Words lest over great discouragement might render them desperate The like did Percy another desperate Traitor aver after his return out of Scotland both before and after the Queens death that in the point of Conscience he found the kings intent and final purpose to be peremptory Proceedings against Traitors 182. A. 6. 45.6.46 The like slander and Scandal was raised upon the King by the Lord of Belmerinath his Scotish Secretary by sending the Pope Word that King James would become his obedient Son who afterwards being Arraigned acknowledged his offence in devising Letters and sending them to Rome which himself got cunningly Signed in shuffling them in amongst others His Majesty being utterly ignorant of the Contents Speed 917. Another faithful service towards King James his Person Crown and Posterity was plotted by Watson and Clark Two Secular Italianated Priests who drew others of the Nobility and Gentry into their Hellish Confederacy as Lord Cobham Lord Gray of Wilton Sir Walter Raleigh Lord Warden of the Stanneries Sir Griffin Markeham Sir Edward Parham George Brooke and others their design was to have surprised the Kings person and his Son Prince H. to have kept them prisoners in the Tower or in Dover Castle and there by violence to obtain their Ends viz. A Tolleration of Religion and a removal of evil Councellors or to put some other projects in Execution and then to obtain their Pardons Watson to have been Lord Chancellor Lord Gray Earl-Marshal of England George Brooke Lord Treasurer Sir Griffin Markham Secretary c. Thus did they divide the Bears-skin which is not yet caught though the same Generation in all probability be still in hot pursuit of the same Quarry viz. A Tolleration and Change of Religion in the transferring of all Crowns from Protestant to Popish Princes and Government according to Parsons and Campanella's Plat-form Of those Consederates only Sir William Parham was acquitted and Three only Executed viz. George Brooke Clark and Watson who had taught equivocating and to avoid his other solemn protestations both by Word and Writing that the Act was lawful being done before his Coronation for that the King was no King before he was Anointed and the Crown solemnly set on his Head By this we may conclude that there is no trust to be reposed in Papists of any Order What Man in the World could profess and pubish to all the World in Writing more obedience and faithfulness to a Prince than Watson did to Queen Eliz. most fiercely and bitterly blaming the Jesuits for their iterated and re-iterated Treasons and Rebellions against her and for creating disturbances in allt he states of the World where they are As he lived to see so I hope he lived to repent of his sin and error for he left this brand and suspicion on the Jesuitical Order at his death that they in revenge had cunningly and covertly drawn him into this Action which brougt him into this shameful End § What shall I say more 18. b. 31. Vox faucibus haeret I am now come to that monstrum horrendum Informe Ingens cui Lumen Ademptum unto Guy Fawks and his dark Lanthorn that never to be parallel'd Gunpowder-Treason in which I will say with the Grave Senator repertum esT hodierno die facinus quod nec Poeta fingere nec Historia sonare nec Minus Imitare poterit This plot of plots is yet so fresh in memory and so well known all the World over that I will not enter into the particulars of it though there are some so desperately Jesuited that either out of simplicity or Impudence will not confess the truth thereof others extenuate it by saying they were only a few discontented persons desperate in Estate or base or not setled in their Wits without Religion Habitation Gredit Means or Hope and as our Apologizer for Catholicks f. 5. A few Desperadoes But most certain it is that they were Gentlemen of good Houses of excellent parts and of Competent Fortunes Besides that Percy was of the House of Northumberland Sir William Stanley who principally imployed Fawks into Spain and John Talbot of Graston both of great and Honourable Families others say That there was never a Religious Man in this Action which is no truer than the other Whoever yet knew a Treason without a Romish Priest In this there were many Three of them Legiers and States-men Henry Garnet alias Waller superior of the Jesuits Legier here in England T. F. Creswel Legier Jesuit in Spain Fa. Baldwin Legier in Flanders as Parsons at Rome besides their Itinerant or Cursory Men as Gerrard Oswald Tesmond alias Greenway Hamond Hall and other Jesuits Proceedings 27 18. Others of them condemn it now that happily would have commended it it had taken effect Prosperum Scetus virtus vocatur would have been a good Axiom then such Hellish Actions being of their Nature and Number quae non Laudantur nisi peracta 〈◊〉 â—gainst whom was this Hellish Plot contrived not to name Parliament Council
beautified and inriched as it then was and is at this day though now by them miserably pejorated by that Intestine War raissed by themselves in the midst of their happy enjoyments and that without any provocation ground or colour against the King as himself expressed under his Great Seal To this give Testimony those early instructions privately sent over into England by the Lord Dillon of Costeloe presently after the breaking out of the Rebellion by the Remonstrance of the County of Longford pretended about the same time to the Lords Justices by the same Lord Dillon as also by their frame of their new Common-Wealth found in Sir John Dungans house not far from Dublin and sent upon thither out of Connaught to be communicated to those of Leinster the sum of which and other such like is summ'd up and may be seen to have that purport in the Irish Rebellion written by Sir John Temple f. 80 81 82. § Indeed if the Irish Papists had been so Loyal and Faithful as they now boast themselves to have been Nay had they had the least spark of gratitude for that King who had disobliged so many by obliging them so much they would never in his distresses have capitulated so severely and on the Swords point with him nor have held him to such hard tearms as they did in all their Treatises which they used only as Stratagems to Trapan not to serve His Majesty For in the Year 1643. when a Cessation was concluded with them by the Kings Authority and both English and Irish Engaged by Articles to Transport their Armies to England for His Majesties Service the English did it the Irish only pretended they would do it when the English were gone and then accordin gto one of their old Maxims Nulla fides servanda cum Hereticis they plotted and attempted the ruine of the small Remnant of English left behind in Munster where the Lord Inchiquin commanding by the Kings Commission and the English with him were necessitated to stand on their own defence against the Popish Army Orery 25. Though in the Year 1645. the Earl of Glamorgan gave as Adventageous tearms as they could ask and condescended to such hard and dishonourable propositions on the Kings part as the then Marquess now Duke of Ormond in Justice and Honour neither could nor would condescend unto and though the Commissions of the confederate Catholicks solemnly engaged the publick Faith for the performance of them 23. b. one Article whereof was That they should send 10000. to serve His Majesty c. yet did they not in due time perform their plighted Troath herein which was a great disservice to His Majesty In which slender performance of theirs they could have no other end than thereby to render the Rebells in England more irreconcilable to His Majesty that so that War might be kept up that they might the better gain by Fishing in those troubled Waters so that they well hoped to give Law to both It was the constant observation of the Protestant Army there that the lower and more unfortunate the King was in his successes in England the higher were the demands of the Irish for the Truth is how Loyal and dutiful soever their pretences were towards the King yet their design was to set up for the Pope and the establishing the Romish Religion and erecting its Spiritual Monarchy at least if not a Temporal with it The Arch-Bishop of Tuum was a principal Agent in the Irish Wars and of the Supreme Council of Kilkenny He attended the Army about this time to visit his Diocess and to put in Execution an Order for the Arrears of his Bishoprick granted to him from the Council at Kilkenny which Order together with the Popes Bull and several other Letters of Correspondence between him and his Agents from Rome Paris and several parts of Ireland were found about him whereby it did appear that the Pope would not at the first engage himself in sending of a Nuntio for Ireland till the Irish Agents had fully satisfied him that the Establishment of the Catholick Religion was a thing feaseable and attainable in that Kingdom in which being satisfied he was content to sollicite their cause with Florence and Venice c. and also to delegate Farmano his Nuntio to attend the Kingdom who after some delays in France was at last posted from thence by express Order from the Pope and he arrived at that River of Kilmore in a Friggot of 21 Guns in October with 26 Italians of his Retinue Secretary Belinges and divers Regular and Secular Priests and also with great Supplies for the service of the King no doubt as 2000 Muskets 4000 Bandaliers 2000 Swords 500 Petronells and 20000 l. of Powder all which arrived at Brooke-Haven the same Month together with 5 or 6 Deskes or Small Truncks of Spanish Gold how far all those Popish Auxiliaries conduced to the Kings service and the Protestant Interest I leave to all Contemporaries to judg As in the year 1645. so in that Year 1646. after a peace concluded with them they treacherously attempted to cut off the Lord Lievtenant and his Army with him who marched out of Dublin on security and confidence of that peace 24. b. The same year the Council and Congregation of the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland obliged their General Preston by a solemn Oath to exercise all Arts of Hostility against the Lord Marquess of Ormond the Kings Vice gerent and his Party and to help and advise with Council and assist in that service the Lord General and Vlster employed in the same Expedition In the Year 1647. from Kilkenny 18. January the General Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland employed Commissioners to Rome France and Spain to invite a Forrein power into Ireland To Rome they sent their Titular Bishop of Ferns and Nichola◠Plunket Esq Knighted there by the Pope for his good service therein to declare that they raised Arms for the freedom of the Catholick Religion which are their own words in the Third Article of those their Instructions Orerey This is consonant to the Oath framed the same Year with some Addition to what had formerly been taken by the said General Assembly and pressed on all sorts of people under pain of high Treason which Oath enjoyns the maintenance of these ensuing Propositions 1. That the Roman Catholicks both Clergy and Laiety in their several Capacities have the free and publick exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion and Function throughout the Kingdom in as full lustre and splendour as it was in the Reign of Hen. VII or any other Catholick King his Predecessors Kings of England and Lords of Ireland either in Ireland or in England 2. That the Secular Clergy of Ireland viz. Primates Archbishops Bishops Ordinaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-Deacons Prebendaries and other Dignitaries all other Pastours of the Secular Clergy their respective Successors shall have and enjoy all and all manner of Jurisdictions
Fortunes as also others of them of meaner rank ventured both Lives and fortunes very gallantly for their Sovereign but it was still against a Protestant not against a Popish party however I wish they may continue heartily Loyal against all parties and that all of that Religion were so minded which though I may wish yet can never rationally hope to see whilst they continue true to Romish Principles which oblige them to set up another Supreme Head within those His Majesties Dominions in derogation of this Imperial Crown and Scepter I shall not trouble you with the repetition of many store of the disguised and dark Actings of the Papists against the King and Crown of England they being already extant in several Treaties viz. In hidden works of darkness brought to light Jus Patronatus Mr. Prinne his Speech in Parliament his Memento his Epistle to a reasonable and legal vindication c. Quaders unmarked In which and other Books many particulars may be seen of their secret undermining Actings In the Year 1638. when the Kings had great need both of Men and Money and the Hearts of all his Subjects and their contributions whether Popish or Protestants his Holiness gave directions to his Catholicks in England whereof these following were part viz. You are to command the Catholicks of England in general that they suddenly desist from making such offers of Men towards this Northern Expedition as we hear they have done little to the advantage of their direction And likewise it is requisit considering the penalties already imposed they they be not forward with Money more than what Law and Duty enjoyns them to pay without any Innovation at all or view of making themselves rather weaker Pillars of the Kingdom than they were before Declare unto the best of the Peeres and Gentry by word of mouth or Letters that they ought not at this time to express any averseness in case the High Court of Parliament be called nor shew any discontents against the Acts which do not point blank aim at Religion being in general the most fundamental Law of this Kingdom Advise the Clergy to desist from the foolish nay rather illiterate and childish Custom of distinction in the Protestant and Puritan Doctrin and especially this Error is so much the greater when they undertake to prove that Protestanisme is a Degree nearer to the Faith-Catholick For since both lye without the verge of the Church it is a needless Hypocrisie yea it begets more malice than it is worth All busie Inquirers are defended but especially into Arcanes of States It is affirmed by in a printed Speech before a great Assembly 4. September 1654. p. 16 17. That he knew very well that Emissaries of the Jesuits never came over in those Swarms as they have done since these times That divers Gentlemen could bear witness with him that they had a Consistory and Council abroad that Rules all the Affairs of the things of England That they had fixed in England in the limits of most Cathedrals of which he was able to produce the particular Instruments an Episcopal power with Arch-Deacons and other persons to pervert the people in the midst of all our sad Distractions And I presume it will not be denied Inde quod nuper veteres com gravere Coloni that very many of them have been sent or come over from Forrein Seminaries into England under the disguises of Converted Jews Phisitians Chyrurgians Independants Quakers Fifth Monarchy Men Agitators Mechanicks Merchants Factors Travellers Souldiers that they might the more unsuspectedly have an Influence on the Committees Agitators and Officers of the Army It was confessed to one of the English Nobility at Rome by the English Provincial there that they had then above 1500. of their Society in England able to work in several professions and Trades which they had there taken upon them the better to support and secure themselves from being discovered Who ever considers the fore-mentioned Plat-form laid subtilly by F. F. Parsons and others to work insensibly our Ruine Vide Smiths Preface fo 12. the Swarms of Papists here ready to joyn Heds and Hands and Hearts on all occasions and opportunities to bring it to pass the new printing about the time of that borrid matchless Murder of their Dolman that Infamous and Traiterous Libel against our Kings under a new Title of several Speeches delivered at a Conference concerning the powers of Parliaments to proceed against their Kings for mis-government together with what is averred for truth and offered to be justified when ever called thereunto by that learned and worthy Divine Du Moulin in his Vindication Se. 58 59 60. c. will easily conclude that their Merits have not been of that Nature as to be used as Arguments for a Tolleration no nor yet for the least of kindness viz. When the business of the late bad times are once ripe for an History and time the bringer of Truth to light hath discovered the Mysteries of Iniquity and the depths of Satan which have wrought so much crime and mischief it will be found that the late Rebellion was raised and fostered by the Arts of the Court of Rome That Jesuits professed themselves Independent as not depending on the Church of England and Fifth Monarchy Men that they might pull down the English Monarchy and that in the Committees for the destruction of the King and the Church they had their Spies and their Agents § The Roman Priest and Confessor is known who when he saw the fatal stroke given to our Holy King and Martyr flourished with his Sword and said Now the greatest Enemy we have in the World is gone When the News of that horrible Execution came to Roan a Protestant Gentleman of good credit was present in a great company of Jesuited persons When after great Expressions of Joy the gravest of the Company to whom all gave ear spake much after this sort The King of England at his Marriage had promised us the re-establlshing of the Catholick Religion in England and when he delayed to fulfil his promise we summoned him from time to time to perform it we came so far as to tell him That if he would not do it we should be forced to take those courses which would bring him to his destruction We have given him lawful warning and when no worning would serve we have kept our Word to him since he would not keep his Word to us That grave Rabbies Sentence agreeth with this certain Intelligence which shall be justified whensoever Authority will require it That the Year before the Kings death a select number of English Jesuits were sent from their whole party in England first to Paris to consult with the faculty at Sorbon then altogether Jesuited to whom they put this Question in writing That seeing the state of England was in a likely posture to change Government whether it was lawful for the Catholicks to work the change for the advancing and securing the
Forrein force though Authorized from the Pope himself as this Dialogist pretends now to do None of this sort were for their Religion prosecuted or charged with any crimes or pains of Treason And this I shall demonstrate in point of fact by instancing of some few of very many of the better sort for of the more ordinary sort they were sans nombre not unfit to be taken notice of as by name Dr. Heth that was Arch-Bishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England in Queen Maries days who at the first coming of Queen Eliz. to the Crown shewing himself a faithful and quiet Subject continued in both the said Offices though in Religion then manifestly differing and was not restrained of his liberty nor deprived of his proper Lands and Goods but willingly leaving both his Offices lived in his own House very discreetly and injoyed all his purchased Lands and disposd of them as he pleased at his death An Example of Clemency not to be parallel'd in Queen Maries time The like did Dr. Poole Bishop of Peter-borough Dr. Tunstall Bishop of Duresme Dr. White and Dr. Oglethorpe Bishops the one of Winchester the other of Carlisle who was so inclined to dutifulness to the Queen that he did the Office of Consecration and Coronation of Her Majesty And Dr. Thurleby and Dr. Watson the one of Ely the other of Lincoln Bishops and so Turbervile Bishop of Exeter all which lived at their own liberty without being charged with any Capital peine though they maintained the Popes Authority against the Laws of the Realm Some Abbots did the like as Mr. Fecknam Some Deans as Dr. Boxall Dean of Windsor Dr. Cole Dean of St. Pauls Dr. Reignold Dean of Exeter and many others having born Offices and Dignities in the Church and that had made profession against the Pope which they only began in Queen Maries time to change yet were these never troubled nor deprived of their proper Goods and Livelyhoods but only removed from their Ecclesiastical Offices which they would not Exercise according to the Laws and most of them and many others of their sort for a great time were retained in Bishops Houses very civily and courteously without charge to themselves or their friends untill the time that the Pope Phalaris like sent out his roaring Bull dated 5. Calend. Mart. 1569. 5. Papatus Pij Quint. and his bellowing Messages to trouble this Realm by stirring Rebellion about the same year being about 11 Years after Her Majesties coming to the Crown Besides these Ecclesiasticks there were also very many Lay-men of good Fortunes and Families that were manifestly seduced by their Priests to hold wrong opinions in Religion for the Popes Authority and none of them were ever impeached of Treason or of loss of Life Member or Inheritance for such their opinions in Religion or for the Popes Authority alone as our most impudent Adversaries have often published F. 5. and yet some of them were well known to hold opinion That the Pope ought by Authority of Gods Word to be Supreme and only Head of the Catholick Church over the whole World and only to rule in all Causes Ecclesiastical and that the Queens Majesty ought not to be Governour over any of her Subjects in her Realm being persons Ecclesiastical which opinions are nevertheless in some part by the Laws of this Nation punishable in other Degrees yet for none of these points were any persons prosecuted with the Crime of Treason or brought in danger of life but enjoyed their Religion in private with Connivance though not with Tolleration and Abetting and so they have done ever since even unto the very day this Dialogist writ his Dialogue with as much freedom and liberty Nay with more than have our other dissenting Brethren who differ in Discipline and Ecclesiastical Government only not in Doctrin without having their Consciences raked into by Six bloody Articles or any Oaths And if any thing of more than ordinary severity hath lately befallen them they may thank their own most implacable and restless Spirits for it And if any of the same Communion being of more quiet and moderate Temper and Humour and better principled do suffer thereby they ought in all Justice to do as the Seculars in Queen Eliz. days did and place the blame on the fiery tempers of that Crudele genus of some their own Colleagues that have brought this upon them and not to blame us or our Laws who in all prudence ought to provide for the safety and quiet of our selves and of our own Religion by wholsom Laws be displeased therewith who will Now were Papists in Queen Eliz. days the quieter or better Subjects for those 12 Years Indulgence Connivance Favours and princely Graces or the Queen in any manner the more secure in her person or quiet in her Dominions Let be Judg that Bull of Prius Quintus together with the Popes Commission granted to Dr. Sanders as Legate who before his passing into Ireland openly by writing Impudently avowed that Bull against Her Majesty to be lawful and which for ought I know is in force to this day against all her Successors if any Pope please to have it so and together with the Faculties granted by the Pope unto P. P. Robert Parsons and Edmund Campion at Rome 14. Apr. 1580. then going for England and together with the Confession of Hart who being Condemned with Campion did the last of December 1580. confess That the Bull of Pius Quintus for so much as is against the Queen is held amongst the English Catholicks for a lawful sentence 25. Feb. 1570. and a sufficient discharge of her Subjects fidelity and so remaineth in force but in some points touching her Subjects it is altered by the present Pope For where in that Bull all her Subjects are commanded not to obey her and she being Excommunicate and Deposed all that do obey her are likewise innodate and Accursed which point is perilous to the Catholicks for if they obey her they are within the verge of the Popes Curse if they disobey her they are in the Queens danger therefore the present Pope to relieve them hath altered that part of the Bull and dispensed with them to obey or serve her without peril of Excommunication which Dispensation is to endure but till it please the Pope otherwise to determine We thank his Holiness This Bull did Import 1. That Her Majesty was not the lawful Queen of England the first and highest point of Trason 2. That all her Subjects are discharged of all their Oaths and Obedince another point of high Treason 3. All warranted to disobey her and her Laws This was the proper and natural product of 12 Years Indulgence and Connivance with much moderation and many savours and from this Root sprang all the subsequent Treasons in Queen Eliz. days and since and will be again if not prevented of Northumberland Westmoreland Parsons Parry Throgmorton Somervile Stewkeley Saunders cum multis aliis A
all the Catholicks in General did desire to have the said Bull which is still in force against all her Successors when ever it shall please his Holiness so to declare it to be understood viz. against the Queen but yet to be free themselves which is made more demonstrable by the Confession of Hart one of their own Fellows and Condemned but not Executed with Campion who ult Decemb. 1580. Confessed That the Bull of Plus Quintus for so much as it is against the Queen is holden amongst the English Catholicks for a lawful Sentence and a sufficient discharge of her Subjects fidelity and so remaineth in force but in some points touching the Subjects it is altered by the present Pope Greg. XIII For where in that Bull all her Subjects are commanded not to obey her and she being Excommunicate and Deposed all that do obey her are likewise Innodate and Accursed which point is perilous to the Catholicks for if they obey her they be in the Popes Curse and if they disobey her they are in the Queens danger Therefore the present Pope to relieve them hath altered that part of the Bull and dispensed with them to obey and serve her without peril of Excommunication which dispensation is to endure but till it please the Pope otherwise to determine By the same reason that one Pope may receive and dispense with a former Popes Bull and ratifie one Paragraph thereof and make another void and make what Interpretation thereof he pleaseth pro re nata to serve a turn He may also by the same Reason declare the same Bull to be still in force and may at this very Nick of Time and Juncture of Affairs dispence with all our Catholicks by any ways or Arts to evade this last Act and where are we then and how the more secure § Edmund Campion that Arch-Traytor deeply designing and covertly as well as diligently preparing for the perpetrating of his Treasons against Queen Eliz. most cunningly before he came from Rome procured Tolleration for such other prepared Rebels to keep themselves Covert under pretence of temporary and permissive obedience to her Majesty the State standing then as it did but so soon as there should be sufficient force whereby the Bull of her Majesties deprivation might be publickly Executed they should then joyn altogether with that force upon pain of Damnation ex pede Herculem By this you may guess what kind of Obedience and Allegiance Papists swear to Protestant Princes viz temporary and permissive i. e. during their will and pleasures of their Lord God the Pope or until they shall be strong enough to cut our Throats whose Nails desire to pare § It is likewise observable that her Majesties Ministers in their Examinations of Papists suspected Traitors and those only which were first known and evidently probable by former Detections Confessions c. had a full purpose to follow the Example of the Queens most Gratious Disposition and never tormented any Innocent or extorted Confessions at adventure upon uncertainties nor ever demanded any question of their pretended or supposed Conscience as what they believed in any point of Faith or Doctrin as of the Mass Transubstantiation c. but only with what persons at home or abroad and touching what Plots Practises and Conferences they had dealt about attempts against her Majesties person or to alter the Laws of the Realm for matters of Religion and how they were perswaded themselves and did perswade others touching the Popes Bull and pretence of Authority to depose Kings and namely for deprivation of her Majesty and to discharge Subjects from their Allegiance civily without mentioning or meaning therein any right that the Queen as in right of the Crown had over persons Ecclesiastical being her Subjects In all which Cases Campion and the * Briant Sherwin Kirby Cottam Richardson Fords Shert Lewis Filhee Bosgrave others rest never answered plainly but sophistically deceitfully and traiterously restraining their confession of Allegiance only to the permissive tearm of the Popes Tolleration As for Example If they were asked whether they did adknowledg themselves the Queens Subjects and would obey her they would say Yea for so they have leave for a time to do but being more narrowly interrogated if they would so acknowledg and obey her any longer than the Pope would so permit them or notwithstanding such Commandement as the Pope would or might give to the contrary then they either refused so to obey or denyed to answer or said they would not answer to those Questions without danger which Interpretatively was a plain Acknowledgment that they would be no longer true Subjects nor perswade others to be so than the Pope gave them Licence so to be And yet such was their Impudence that at their very Arraignments they would ad captandum populum cry out that they were to dye not for Treason but for matter Faith and Conscience in Doctrin touching the Service of God without any attempt or purpose against her Majesty and that they were true Subjects and did and would obey and serve her Majesty whereas in truth there was not the least Syllable in their Indictment of Faith or Doctrin and consequently not possible to be Arraigned or be Executed for any such thing And to try whether such their Hypocritical and Sophistical Speeches and Answers did extend to a perpetuity of their obedience or to so long time only as the Pope so permitted or no they were immediately and publickly even in the very place of their Arraignment asked by her Majesties Council whether they would so obey and be true Subjects if the Pope commanded the contrary they plainly discovered themselves in their Answers saying by the mouth of Campion that this place thereby meaning the Court of Her Majesties Bench hath no power to inquire or judg of the Holy Fathers Authority and other Answer they would not make For the better satisfaction of all people and that they may the better and more plainly understand how in what manner and for what all the Papists dyed in Queen Eliz. days who most falsely have since been reported to have dyed for Religion when in truth they dyed for Treason and nothing else Hereof take one Example and Instance for all the Indictment and Arraignment of William Parry that wicked perfidious faithless ungrateful Traytor sworn Her Majesties servant Anno Domini 1570. And as was his Indictment so were all the other Indictments Mutatis Mutandis Superlatively wicked in that he became twice reconciled to Rome and in that he boasted That for 20 Years past he having been a Catholick had never received the Communion and yet before he travelled beyond the Sea at Three several times within those 22. Years he voluntarily take the Oath of Obedience to the Queen made 1. of her Reign Faithless and ungrateful in that after many obligations conferred on him by loan of several Sums of Money and otherwise by Hugh Hare of the Temple he contrived his
Third's time about the Year 1330. above 200. Years before even when the Popes were suffered to have some Authority-Ecclesiastical in this Realm as he had in other Countries They gave out also that they dyed because they would not acknowledg Her the Supreme Head of the Church which was a most appetent untruth visibly to be contradicted by the very Acxts of Parliament For at the beginning of Her Reign that very Title was omitted in Her Style And to make the matter seem more horrible and lamentable they printed the particular names of all the persons which by their own Catalogue did not exceed 60. to the Year 1583 whereof hot above 30 Priests nor above 5 Receivers and Harbourers and for Religion not any one Executed whereof not any one at all till about the 12th Year of Her Reign And J. W. their own Martirologest for Her whole Reign which was above 44 Years doth not reckon above 180. whereas in the short Reign of Queen Mary which was little above Years there were by Imprisonment Torments Famine and Fire almost 400 destroyed besides such as were secretly murdered in Prisons and of that number above 20 that had been Arch-Bishops Bishops and Principal Prelates or Officers in the Church lamentably destroyed and of Women above 60 and of Children above 40 and amongst the Women some great with Child and one out of whose Body the Child by Fire being expelled alive was yet most barbarously thrown into the Fire again and burned Examples Cruel beyond the Cruelty of Heathens § It is further observable that they which suffered in Queen Maries days though they dyed constant unto and professing the Protestant Religion yet were there no traiterous Machinations nor Assassinatious laid to their charge nor did they ever at their deaths deny their lawful Queen or maintain any of Her open and Forrein Enemies or procure any Rebellion or Civil Wars nor did Sow any Sedition in secret Corners nor withdrew any of her Subjects from their obedience as the Papists being sworn Votaries to the Pope did continually do against Queen Elizabeth countenancing and avowing the Pops Excommunications Bulls and other publick Writings denouncing the Queen not to be Queen charging and upon pain of Excommunication commanding all Her Subjects to depart from their Duties and natural Allegiances encouraging also and authorizing all persons of all degrees in both Kingdoms to Rebel and upon this Antichristian Warrant contrary to all the Laws of God and Man and nothing at all agreeable to a pastoral Officer they sought by all ways and means to justifie and to put in Execution that traiterous Warrant of the Popes Bull. And yet of these kind of Offenders as many of them as after their Condemnations on second and better thoughts were contented to renounce their former traiterous Assertions so many were spared from Execution such was Her Majesties clemency and unwillingness to have any Blood spilt without very urgent just and necessary cause proceeding from themseloves I must make this further observation Merits of Papists by their own Confession That in the days of Queen Eliz though the Jesuits and Secular Priests fell strangely foul one upon the other with black Pens and Mouths with Language scarce to be matcht at Pitch-hatch or BVillingsgate yet the Seculars commended highly the Queens clemency and justified her proceedings against the traiterous Jesuits Avowing That they themselves knowing what they did know how under pretence of Religion the life of Her Majesty and subversion of the Kingdom was aimed at if they had beeen of Her Highness Council they would have given their consent for the making of very strict and rigorous Laws to the better suppressing and preventing of such Jesuitical and wicked designments Important Considerations c. f. 57. They did also complain een to the Pope and Cardinals That the Jesuits were the Fire-brands of all Seditions That by right or wrong they did seek simply and absolutely the Monarchy of all England That they were the couses of all the discords in England That Fa. Holt did not only intend but would indeed give wretched England in Conquest to himself and his Favonrites and many other Complaints there were of this nature Extracted out of the Memorials and other Letters dated at Rome 8. Novemb 1597. Relation of the faction at Wisbich 74 Though I say the Seculars were so violent against the Jesuits and such stout Assertors of the Queens moderate dealing with the Papists yet were some of them found guilty of like traiterous practises so little are any of them to be trusted for that though they have Mel in ore yet have they Fel in Corde Call to mind the great and serious Protestations that Watson the Priest made in his Quodlibetical Questions That albeit he differed in Religion from that which was professed in the Church of England yet if either Pope or Spaniard should seek by hostile means to invads his Countrey he would willingly spend his substance nay his dearest Blood against any such as should attempt it Yet he himself with Clark his fellow Seminary were the first that I read of that came to the Gallows for violating it which considered together with what they confessed upon their apprehension viz. That the Jesuits continually negotiated with Spain preparing for a Forrein Aid leavied great Sums of Money bought Horses Powder Shot Artillery c. and conveyed them secretly to their friends wishing not to stir but to be quiet till they heard from them c. These things I say considered do argue that Secular Priests and Jesuits and those that favoured them were all Traytors in Heart though their malice one towards the other made them discover and rayl and libel each other both at home and abroad which Queen Eliz. wisely considering would not confide in them notwithstanding all their books and promises but by her Proclamations banished both one and the other For in truth both Seculars and Jesuits were in this like Sampsons Foxes though they differed in many other things very bitterly yet in this they joyned their Tayles their main Ends to be Fire-brands to kindle dissention and withdraw her Subjects from her obedience and to reconcile them to Rome So as Joab kissed Abuer whilst he stab'd him and as Judas kissed our Saviour whilst he betrayed him to the Pharises So these men pretended Loyalty by their Tongues and Pens and yet acted traiterously by their Plots and Contrivances What could they print more than they did viz. We are fully perswaded in our Consciences and by Experience That if the Catholicks had never sought by indirect means to have vexed Her Majesty with their designs against her Crown If the Pope and the King of Spain had never plotted with the Duke of Norfolk who was to have been the head of a Rebellion if the Rebels in the North had never been heard of if the Bull of Pius Quintus had never been known if the Rebellion had never been justified If neither Stukeley nor the Pope
Expiation for their Crimes past and encouragement to His Majesty more securely to confide in them for the time to come and be a means to remove many Fears and Jealousies and would make way for future Graces But they are yet so far from doing any thing of this Nature that they contend Tooth and Nayl both by Pen and Interest for the performance of those extorted and Inglorious Articles made 1646. Articles that nothing but pure necessity could ever have compelled His Majesty to have yielded unto Articles that themselves broke and set at naught as hath been proved besides did not Gallway after the Articles of 1648. Treat with the Duke of Lorraine to be Protector of Ireland Did not Waterford deny a passage to the Lord Lieutenant and his Army Nay sought they not his life afterwards or to deliver him to the Usurpers had he not suddenly and secretly withdrawn and secured himself Their General Assembly stiled themselves His Majesties Loyal and Faithful Subjects and to manifest it the Enacted That no Temperal Government or Jurisdiction should be assumed kept or executed in Ireland or in any Province or County thereof other than of what should be approved or instituted by their General Assembly If this be not professing like Saints and doing like Devils I do not know what is profess Loyalty that they might have the better opportunities to perpetrate their wicked designs Kiss and Betra with Judas Salute and Honourably present with Ehud and at the same time thrust a Dagger into the Kings Bowels Hosanna on the rips of their Tongues and Crucifige in the depths of their Hearts And yet so Impudent as to style themselves the Kings best and most faithful Subjects They Addressed their Petitions to the Supreme Authority of this Nation the Parliament of the Common-Wealth of England First odrator f. 59. They affirmed that they had generally taken and punctually kept the Ingagement 2. Moderator f. 41. They promised that if they might enjoy their Religion they would be the most quiet and useful Subjects of England 1. Moderator f. 31. They proved it in these words viz. The papists of England would be bound by their own Interest the strongest obligation amongst wise Men to live peaceably and thankfully in the private Exercises of their Consciences and becoming gainers by such Compassions they would not so reasonably be distrusted as the Prelatick party that were loosers 1. Moderator f. 36. I have dwelt the longer on the practises and designs of the Papists of Ireland for that there was clear demonstration in pact of foot of their Affection and Adherency to the Pope before nay against their rightful King and Sovereign which hath been evidenced by their publick Acts and Monuments of which for a Teste take a part of one Translated viz. Vrban 80. ad futuram rei memoriam Having taken into our serious consideration c. Orerey f. 59 60. by their often Treaties their Acts of their General Assembly and of their Council by their Instructions to their Engineers to their Forrein Princes c. All which are excellently and much more largely Anatomized and descanted on by the Earl of Orerey in his answer to P. W. Into whose hands many of the Originals having fallen cannot be gainsaid and if they had not yet their Catholick and open rising in Arms and fighting on every occasion against His Majesties Armies and Comwands is a demonstration as evident as the Sun at noon that they were Rebels to the height to all intents and purposes for it was begun continued and ended by Papists only not one Protestant among them both Secular and Regular the Pope himself the Head of their Church in the person of his Nuntio Rinuccini generalissimo of all their Forces both by Sea and Land with all his Tribe of his Ecclesiastical Orders contributing all assistance and encouragement imaginable thereunto Whereby it is most manifest that the horrd Rebellion was not only a Crime of some in their Church but even a Crime of their Church I now pass to the Papists of England concerning whose Actions and Affections it cannot reasonably be expected that I should so clearly discover their more secret Designs and Machinations for that our Civil Wars here were not Papists fighting under the Popes Banner Countenance and Encouragement against Protestants as they did in Ireland But Protestants Jesuitically in that point principled against a Protestant King and his Liege-men that were more loyally minded and principled and so were never Embodied together apart and by themselves and therefore could never Assemble and Confederate together either in Battle to fight or in full and open Council to design and plot but what they did covertly and in the dark by foâ—â—enting dissentions and Intestine Wars according to Corzen the Moguntine Jesuit in the Second Book of his Politicks Ch. 18. and to Campanella's design de Monar Hisp Ch. 24. p. 204. c. I am vero ad enervandos Anglos nihil tam conducit quam dissentio discordia inter illos excitata perpetuoque nutrita quod cito meliores occasiones suppeditabit and that by putting the Parliament upon it ut Angliam in formam Reipublicae reducant ad Imitationem Holandorum and how near it was brought to this by our late Republicans is most notorious So confident were the Jesuits of their Plots and Designs taking effect that Campian in his Book printed 1583. at Trevers declares thus concerning the English in the name of his Holy Order viz. Our Will is That it come to the knowledg of every one so far as it concerns our Society that we all dispersed in great numbers through the World have made a League and Holy solemn Oath That as long as there is any of us alive that all our Care and Industry all our Deliberations and Councils shall never cease to trouble their quiet and safety we shall procure and pursue for ever their Ruine the utter destruction of their Religion and of their Kingdom It is long since we have taken this Resolution with the hazard of our lives 53.29 b. so that the business being already well begun and advanced it is impossible that the English can do any thing to stop our design or surmount it Faithful Men still no doubt they are yet unto the Mither and Red-Caps of Rome only but nothing less unto the Crown and Diadem of England And shall we after all such demonstrations dis-believe their own protestations and not take their own Wrods for it § Besides if we may guess at the Body of Hercules by his foot we may then by tracing some of the Footsteps of our English Catholicks as have casually come to light discover the main design of them and especially of those of their Clergy to have been for the ruine of the King of happy memory and of the Protestant Religion Yet I would not be mis-understood herein as if I meant every Individual Papist for some of them and those of Noble Families and
of God Jeremiah Ezechiel c. to the ruine of the City and Kingdom was the fault of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah And at this day it is the fault and folly of Christian Kings that suffer the grand Seignior of Rome to impose upon them and that the Church of Rome is not either reduced to her primitive truth and purity from which she is degenerated and brought to better confortymity vvith the truly Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church or else demolished as the Jewish Synagogue vvas § Gratian at his first entring finding all places full of Arrians and the Laws of Valence his Unkle making for them fearing some general Tumult if he should presently destroy so many gave leave That every Religion might have Churches and Oratories with Freedom and Immunity But being once settled and joyned with Theodosius he commanded that all Heresies should keep silence for ever as interdicted by the Law of God and Man That none should any longer teach or learn prophance Doctrin Cod. 1. Tit. 5. lege omnes The same prohibition did Arcadius and Honorius continue with great severity Let all Hereticks understand that all places must be taken from them as well Churches as other places and of private Houses also In all which let them be debarr'd from service both by night and by day the Lord Deputy to be fined 100 l if he permit any such thing in sight or in secret Ibid. lege cuncti Theodosius the younger and Valentinian his Cousin comprising a long Bed-roll of sundry sorts of Heresies appointed That no where within the Roman Empire their Assemblies or Prayers be suffered and that all Laws made to probibit their meeting should be revived and stand good everlastingly Ibid. lege Ariani The Papists in the time of Queen Elizabeth wrote divers Books and used many Arguments against the Oath of Supremacy and for a Tolleration of their Religion alledging the Examples of other Countries and admomshing Her Majesty that she must answer to God not only for things done by her command and knowledg but for whatsoever is done unjustly by her Name and Authority though she never knew thereof but Her Majesty respecting her duty and account that she was to make to God of all things done in the flesh whether they were good or evil denied to bear the burden of their wicked abuses and poisoned errors which no civil Magistrate can avoid that permitteth their sinful Masses and licenceth their wicked Rites because the seeing and suffering their Impieties having power to suppress and hinder them is a plain consent and in a manner an open Communion with their unfruitful works of darkness The downfall of Ely a dear Servant of God once a Judg in Israel for Connivence only and foolish Pity where even Bowels of Nature might seem if not to dispence with severeties yet to excuse his lenity Scriptures have Registred for our warning and terror And if Religion be not as meer a Fable as any in Aesop the greatest Governments in the World will one day be called to a most severe Account for their so doing § That other Countries and Kingdoms otherwise affected in Religion than themselves were nevertheless contented to suffer their service vvithin their Dominions prevailed not vvith Queen Eliz. she vvell considering that their doings could be no warrant nor discharge for her who was not to imitate the Vices but the Vertues of Princes Besides that in such tolleration they did well ought first to be proved before their Examples should be urged as they were in her days It being the duty of every Prince to consider and do what every Prince ought to do by Gods Law and not regard what other Princes please to do what seemeth best in their own Eyes And Her Majesty for so refusing to countenance their Religion deserved more countenance and protection with God and praise with Men for that in guiding her people she rather embraced Christian Piety than irreligious policie and chose rather to walk by Gods Precepts than by the ill Example of other Princes Besides Her Majesty well knew that amongst the Germans and Helvetians Examples in their Writings urged many Dukes Landt-graves Marquesses Counts yea Bishops Barons Abbots and Gentlemen had Regal Jurisdiction within their respective precincts And it is no news to see divers Laws under divers Lords and divers Religions under divers Regiments As for any other Countries or Kingdoms as Polonia Hungaria c. not able without Blood and War to reduce their Countries to the profession of the true Faith neither may we reprove them as negligent nor the Papists alledge them as warrantable Examples since not their own sault but other mens fore◠keepeth them from attempting any redress by thei◠Princely power which the Nobles restrain and th◠Commons receive with this Proviso that their accustomed freedom of conscience be no ways prohibited nor interrupted Other Examples of Turks Pagans Arrians and the like are unfit for Christians David Josiah and other Kings of Judah are to be imitated in this not Sarazins Moses and other Holy Writers are very plain and positive against this dawbing with untempered Morter Exod. 23.13 32 33. Deut. 12.2 3. Deut. 13.6 Jor. 15.19 Deut. 12.10 Come out from among them and be ye seperate and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my Sons and Daughters saith the Lord Almighty 2 Cor. 6.17 18. Levit. 36.12 Isa 52. n. Was not the Church of Thyatira otherwise beautified with many Graces highly blamed for suffering the false Prophetess to teach and to seduce I know thy Works and Charity and Service and Faith and Patience all excellent Graces notwithstanding I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that Woman Jezabel which calleth her self a Prophetess to teach and to seduce my servants to commit Fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto Idols Rev. 2.19 20. which fearful Effects made Constantine to decree That all Temples of Hereticks should without any denial be overthrown and in no place publick or private should their Assemblies be suffered Jovinianus resused to govern those that were not sound in Faith Socrat. lib. 5. c. 1. The privateness of the place when the fact is ill acquitteth not the doer from sin nor excuseth the permitter from negligence No corner so secret no Prison so close but their Impieties there suffered do offend God infect others and confirm their own frowardness Private permission of error is unlawful as well as publick if Popish Religion be good Why should it lack Churches If it be naught why should it have Corners St. Patil hath put in a Caviat against that slight of permitting which in truth is consenting Rom. 1. Ely reproved his Sons yet was sharply punished of God for his Indulgence which is all one with Connivance 1 Sam. 2.22 St. John saith He that receiveth into his house or biddeth an Heretick God speed is partaker of his evil deeds Eph. 2 10
special Argument and Motive I must confess and well becoming P. the Dialogist when he hath no better to perswade King and Parliament to give new and fresh Indulgence to the Papists that they might with the better Grace and more Authority impune peccare As to this pitiful begging Argument of this P. viz. That because many of them deny much of the Popes Authority therefore they should have Tolleration now I shall only apply matter of Fact viz. the chiefest and most of them that I have named had in the times of H. 8. and E. 6. either by preaching writing reading or arguing taught all people to condemn yea to abhor the Authority of the Pope for which purpose they had many times given their Oaths publickly against the Popes Authority and had also yielded to both the said Kings the Title of Supreme Head of the Church of England next under Christ and yet they refused to allow Queen Eliz. the Title of Supreme Governor though to gratifie them she omitted the very Title of Supreme Head at the begin of her Reign and this is demonstrable by many of their Books and Sermons against the Popes Authority printed both in English and Latin to their great shame and reproach to change so often but especially in persecuting such in Queen Maries days whom themselves had taught and established to hold the contrary in H. 8. days a sin bordering on the sin against the Holy Ghost scarce to be forgiven And shall we be gull'd again by such Sophisters Was Queen Eliz. ever the more safe in her person or her Dominions the more secure from Troubles Insurrections or Rebellions because some few protested Loyalty Let all Impartial Histories and their and our own Memories be Judg. Come out of their fellowship and you will not partake of their plagues else they that will ship themselves with the Devil must Sail with him But why trouble I my self or the Readers with this frivolous Argument when it cannot be the least dust in the Ballance to perswade That upon this Dialogist Warrant or only Intimation rather he and his Seculars and who those are we know not and not possible for us to distinguish shall use loyal and peaceable behaviours nay what if they should be as good as their Word deny the Popes Exorbitant powers and swear Allegiance maugre the Popes Mandates to the contrary Is this an Argument prevalent enough to perswade us to nurse and nuzzle up the Popes Imps whose Seeds-men and Legates are both Priests and Jesuits and suffer him that hath already cursed Her Majesties person and in her all her Successors removed her Crown discharged her Subjects invaded her Dominions * In the days of H. 8. the Earl of Desmond profered Ireland to the French King the Instrument whereof yet remains upon Record in the Court at Paris and the Pope afterwards transferred the Title of all our Kingdoms unto Charles the 5th which by new Grents was conâ—iâ—â—tect unto his Son Philip in the days of Queen Eliz. with a resolution to settle this Crown upon the Spanish Infanta Bishop Ushe s Spech at Dublin f. 12. and given them away to others and now to suffer them to steal from our Kings and Queens their peoples Hearts and reonile them to that Mother of Abominations that dares call light darkness and darkness light dock Communions and Decalogues and worship Idols whole Brow is Brass and whose Heart is harder than the neather Mill-stone that hearing will not hear and seeing will not see nor understand charm the Charmer never so wisely never so sweetly and all this under the vizard of Catholick Religion and feigned Devotion which in truth is nothing less but is superstitious Idolatrous and Abominable the Tolleration and Allowance of which cannot possibly be Indulged without manifest breach of Gods Law against which there is no plea or excuse to be allowed joyned with the subversion of the Crown and Royal State For how is it possible that light should agree with darkness God and Belial Christ and Antichrist the same Moment any persons is reconciled to Rome the same Moment he is become a sworn Votary and Vassal to Rome subject to another head Were this humble Petition and desire only for Earthly and not Heavenly things and did it not concern Christs Glory but the Indempnity of our Kings and people what a pittiful toy is it for a few Friars well versed in the Arts of Equivocation to think themselves meet Pledges and Hostages for the security of so great a Prince and people Submission to God and your Prince would be more preswasive and authentique and would better become you It is not enough to renounce the exorbitant powers claim'd by the Pope except withall you renounce the idolatrous Worship of Rome and her Doctrins of Infallibility and of probability of Transubstantiation Demy-Communions praying in an unknown Tongue debarring the people the use of the Bible and a thrave of other false and Heretical Doctrins and practises having only lowd and bawling Impudence for their Justification without either Sense Reason or Scripture The most Honourable and Grave Sages of this Nation understand you so well that I believe you find they will not easily be cheated with kanting words or specious pretences made use of only to obumbrate and shadow the clearness of their long and grounded Experience purchased by clear demonstration and matter of Fact at the dearest rate and expence of Blood and Treasure I do heartily joyn Issue with this Dialogist and believe as he doth That it is not for the safety of our Church to receive those who do not believe as we do In this we are good Friends but I doubt he will be as angry with me as with the seasonable discourser for accounting the Popish Religion to be Superstitious Idolatrous and Absurd and the Protestant to be the True Antient and Apostolick Religion Neither shall I much differ with him in some other of his Concessions viz. That it is the right of every National Church to provide for the particular concerns thereof and and without his Peradventure that the Church of England hath preserved the face of a continued Mission and uninterrupted Ordination which is impossible for the Romanists to do their Doctrin of Intention being allowed for currant that her moderation in Doctrin is great that her Discipline preserves Episcopal Government He concludes may we not therefore because the Popish Religion is accounted stupid be permitted to say our prayers in private which is all the Indulgence allowed us and that sure it is no part of the goodness of the Protestant Church to hinder others from being as good as they can and the worse our Religion is the more need we have of praying to make us better § As it is no part of our Doctrin to hinder prayers and devotions that are in truth so according to Christs Constat or men to be as good as they can so it is no part of our practise and it
so it is certain they brought a very ill reputation upon them and where one fought against the Kings party upon a serious Examination of the State of the Quarrel Hundreds took the other party because they saw so many Papists on his side and possibly things had never grown to that height as to have broken out into a War had it not been for the Jealousies which were partly given and partly taken from the Insolent Carriage of that party both in England and Ireland And yet for all this and that they were so much concerned to quench the fire that had so far contributed to the kindling of it we shall find as little ground for their Works of Super-errogation in this matter as in point of Religion if the number of them that were slain or suffered for the King or his Father be compared with the Protestant profession Neither were they so Instrumental to the restitution of the King as those of the Protestant profession no not as very many of those that had formerly been of the contrary side and even where Interest might seem more to sway them another way and that in all probability might have promised themselves more favour under the powers that then prevaled for that is also considerable in that matter which was pleaded by many of the Papists to obtain favour from the powers that were from time to time uppermost when they were so that could they have lived quietly in their own Houses they had never repaired to the Kings Garrisons But the War being held forth to gain more credit to the party to be against Papists and their Adherents chiefly though all sorts of gther opinions found some Indulgence yet the Papists professing themselves Papists could not be admitted upon any tearms though happily they were admitted nay favoured under disguises of Quakers and the like and therefore no marvel if they were on the Kings side that they might play their Game the better on both sides when they could not be on the other side professedly § The Truth is prudence and necessity together with their Loyalty made them serve the King in his Wars they well knowing that the Parliament was professedly and desperately bent against them and therefore could have little hopes of comfort from them which Induced them to adhere to the King who was Pater Patriae and from whom they might justly challenge protection as Subjects though not as Papists in which capacity His Majesty received them neither did he ever own their assistance but as Subjects and as justified by necessity And now that the differing parties being weary of endless Broyls were willing to come to a Closure those that had done so much to occasion the War and so little to make it successful and less to bring about His Majesties happy return and union between him and his people would make such a vertue of necessity as to deserve such Indulgences and Rewards which neither can be expected with modesty nor granted with a good Conscience towards God no nor yet with safety to the Crown if the Intrinsick Interest thereof be justly weighed and considered and without all Colour or Ground of Reason Conscience or prudence For indeed all things principles and practises considered I cannot Imagine what good and indeseasable security they can possibly give to any Protestant Prince or State that they will be and continue Loyal and Faithful Subjects Therefore until they reverse and nullifie their Oaths and Principles of Obedience to the See of Rome their claims and pretensions of Jurisdiction over Temporal Princes their Doctrins of Infallibility and of blind Obedience nay their Doctrins of probability also they must excuse me if I differ in opinion with them and make it an Article of my Creed and believe that no protestant Prince or State can ever be undoubtedly secure of the Loyalty and Fidelity of their Popish Subjects if the Pope command the contrary It being according to their Doctrin of probability a Maxim amongst them that that which 1 2 or some few Roman Catholick Doctors say is lawful may in the Judgment of Papists be done without mortal sin This is Mr. Knots Charity maintained c. 4. Sect. 25. as also Valentias Vasques Lessius Euriques Sa Cellot de Hier. l. 8. c. 16. p. 714. But not only one but many Popish Doctors nay Popes Cardinals and Councils say That it is lawful to murder or depose a Supreme Magistrate that is guilty of Heresie or suspected of it and such according to their Tenets are Protestant Princes Nay J. E. in his Book Entitled The Right and Jurisdiction of the Prelate and the Prince printed with the Licence of Superiors 1617. maintains the same not only by the opinions of very many Doctors but also by the Popes and the Authority of General Councils as that of Lateran under Innocent the Third Anno 1215. c. 3. and that of Lyons c. 5. de homicidio in 6. and another General Council of Lyons Anno 1245. and affirms That many other Councils he could alledge for the same as Bellarmine and Schulkenius have done Ergo Cavete Principes Conclusionem Princes beware your Crowns beware your Heads and of giving any Indulgence Countenance and power to that Generation of Men who are Sworn Vassals to the Bishop of Rome and make it a part of your Letany viz from such ill kind of Men Labera nos Domine Having thus Summarily manifested to all the World that will read and understand the Doctrins and practises of Papists to be so desperately pernicious and destructive to our Protestant Kings and Kingdoms and withall will consider what most precious Golden Aples England Scotland and Ireland with all their Forrein plantations and Dominions are to gratifie Cardinalisme Nepotisme or any incestuous Brood of any Donna Olympia It is very reasonable to believe That what they have done that they will re-iterate again and again if not wisely and timely prevented were it not then admiral discretion in us to give this Generation of Men yet more power and liberty the only things they want to put the same practises in Execution again when they have given us from Age to Age successively such Demonstrations and Assurances that they will do as they have done when ever they have power a neat opportunity and are so commanded by their universal Monarch But I Conclude That if we have any love or regard for that Religion which is pure peaceable undefiled and which is truly Antient Catholick and Apostolick or any abhorrency to that Inchanting City full of all pollutions uncleaness Idolatry Superstition Blasphemy what not or any concern for the safety of His Majesties person for liberty of our Consciences property and freedom of our Estates and lastly any care to preserve King and Kingdom from Parisian Vespers Inquisitions Fire and Faggot and from a Six-knotted-whip of Articles it will wonderfully concern us by all wholsom Laws and means to prevent the growth of this Crudele Genus by paring their