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
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
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
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
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
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
Catholick Cause in England by making away the King whom there was no hope to turn from his Heresie which was answered affirmatively After which the same persons went to Rome where the Question being propounded and debated it was concluded by the Pope and his Council That it was both lawful and expedient for the Catholicks to promote the alteration of State What followed that Consultation and Sentence all the World knoweth and time the bringer forth of Truth will let us know But when that Horrible Paricide committed on the Kings Sacred person was so universally cryed down as the greatest Villany that had been committed in many Ages the Pope commanded all the papers about the Question to be gathered and burnt In obedience to which order a Roman Catholick in Paris was demanded a Copy which he had of those papers but the Gentleman who had refused to consider and detest the wickedness of that project refused to give it and shewed it to a Protestant Friend of his and related to him the whole carriage of this Negotiation with great abhorrency of the practises of the Jesuits In pursuance of that Order from Rome for the pulling down both of the Monarch and Monarchy of England many Jesuits came over who took several shapes to go about their work but most of them took party in the Army About Thirty of them were met by a Protestant Gentlemen between Roan and Deipe to whom they said taking him for one of them That they were going into England and would take Arms in the Independent Army and endeavour to be Agitators A Protestant Lady living in Paris in the time of our late Calamities was perswaded by a Jesuit going in Scarlet to turn Roman Catholick When the dismal News of the Kings Murder came to Paris this Lady as all other good English Subjects was most deeply afflicted with it and when this Scarlet Divine came to see her and found her melting in Tears about that heavy and common disaster he told her with a smiling Countenance That she had no reason to lament but rather to rejoice seeing that the Ca-Cholicks were rid of their greatest Enemy and that the Catholick Cause was much furthered by his death Upon which the Lady in great anger put the Man down the Stairs saying If that be your Religion I have done with you for ever Many Intelligent Travellers can tell of the great Joy among the English Convents and Seminaries about the Kings death as having overcome their Enemy and done their main Work for their settlement in England of which they made themselves so sure that the Benedictins were in great care that the Jesuits should not get their Land And the English Nunns were contending who should be Abbesses in England An understanding Gentleman visiting the Friars of Dunkirk put them on the discourse of the Kings death and to pump out their sence about it said That the Jesuits had laboured very much to compass that great Work To which they Answered That the Jesuits would engross to themselves the Glory of all great and good Works and of this amongst other Works whereas they had laboured as diligently and as effectually as they So there was striving for the glory of the Atchievment and the Friars shewed themselves as much Jesuited as the Jesuits In the height of Olivers Tyranny Tho. White a Priest and a right Jesuit in all his Principles about Obedience set out a Book Entitled The Grounds of Obedience and Government wherein he maintains That if the people by any Circumstance be devolved to the state of Anarchy their promise made to their expelled Governor binds no more That the people are remitted by the evil mannaging or insufficiency of their Governour to the force of Nature to provide for themselves and not bound by any promise made to their Governour that the Magistrate by his miscarriages abdicateth himself from being a Magistrate and proveth a Brigand or Robber instead of a Defender that word Defender he writes with a great D. that the Reader may take notice whom he means His Book is full fraught with Argumentations of this Nature All in barr and prejudice to His Majesties Restauration Of the same opinion was F. F. Bret when at St. Malo he was earnest with those Gentlemen that had so gallantly defended the Castle of Jarsey to take the Engagement from which they ought to be freed by the Articles of their Rendition maintaining that they were not to acknowledg any Supreme but the prevailing power Du Monlin Ibid. § Having dwelt thus long on this unpleasant Theme it is now time to wind up this Botton and therefore Admit the Papists had merited in these late troubles as much as they pretend they have from the King and his Father yet doth it not follow that they ought therefore to be rewarded with a Tolleration of their Religion or with any Mitigation of our Laws prohibiting the exercise thereof no more than it was fit Joseph for the good service done to his Master should be be gratified with the company of his Masters Wife Neither did his Master think this reasonable though he acknowledged the extraordinary good Service of his Servant much less did Joseph expect it In like manner the Papists must first satisfie us That the Tolleration of their Religion is not Tolleration of Idolatry which the Scripture calls Spiritual Adultery nor yet the exercise of a World of Impieties under the Mask of Religion before they can convince as whatever their Loyalty may otherways be that it is either lawful or reasonable for Magistrates whom the Scripture stileth Gods and who standing in Gods stead ought to be as jealous of his Honour in that case as a Husband would be of his Wife Nay as much as in them lies even as God himself who professeth himself to be a Jealous God to Authorize or connive at the Exercise of such a Religion or as to account very strict Laws too severe in that Case for which there is both Precept and Example in the Word of God It is a very great Truth That Kings neither can nor ought to give permission or allowance of any things which in their own Natures are evil and opposit to the Salvation of Mens Souls and which though they should permit them would nevertheless continue and remain sins and exclude them that do and practice them from obtaining Salvation And of such a Nature are many Popish Doctrins c. And certainly those Princes are most worthy of the praise of God and Men that endeavour to remove such Abuses and all things forbidden by God which remaining make it impossible for men to be saved or if saved yet so as by Fire very difticultly But in things not repugnant to the will of God all Princes have liberty to do that which the good and weal of their State requires I appeal to all the Oaesars in the World nay to all mankind if it be reasonable that the requital of the good Services of particular
of Latria or Divine Worship his Image is to be adored with the adoration of Latria also which induces me to believe that that in Jeremiah ch 10. is as truly applicable to the now Romanists as to the Jews of old All which seriously considered and that though Supreme Magistrates have power moderately and in measure by wholsom Laws not by Fire and Faggot Tortures and Inquisitions to compel and to secure the true Religion and undefiled and their Realms professing the same yet I find no warrant in Bibliis Sacris for any power to tollerate and indulge any false Religion in their Dominions § Concerning which I shall say thus in general That though no mortal man hath rightful power to forbid Christs Spiritual Duties the Worshipping of God Preaching his Word and Truth yet I say first that no Indulgence ought to be given by the Magistrate to any Sect whtsoever whose Doctrins and Principles are not known and therefore none to Quakers and Enthusiasts whose Rule is not the Scripture but the Light within them which is darkness to others if not to themselves and it may be Hosanna to day and yet Chucifige to morrovv Then the Principles by vvhich other Sects do worship being known the legislative Magistrares whether Monarchs or Free States are the Judges of them how confistent or inconsistent with Gods true Religion and Worship and with the peace and wellfare of their own Dominions and Subjects and accordingly may or may not Indulge or Tollerate their Religion and Worship And therefore Princes ought to use great Caution and to be very wary and circumspect herein for that sins committed by others through our Example Instigation Connivnace or Tolleration become ours by just Imputation In Naboths death the Judges and false Witnesses were the next Agents Jesabel the Plotter only and Instigator 1 King 21.7 13 23. Yet she is punished for shedding Naboths Blood though her hand was not upon him Even in Courts of ordinary Justice it seems just and is so in our Law that not only the Executioner but the Plotter Abettor Instigator and Concealer of Treason be punished with death Yea see how far a less degree of participation brings guilt upon our Souls The Rulers amongst the Jews that but tollerated the breach of the Sabbath are charged to have prophaned the Sabbath Nehem. 13.17.18 Yea the least Countenance given to Idolatry makes culpable of Idolatry 1 Cor. 10.18 21. To this agrees the Prohibition of St. Paul Communicate not with other Mens sins 1 Tim. 5.22 And that command Lev. 16.17 Thou shalt rebuke thy Neighbour plainly and not suffer him to sin It is a Gospel-Principle that Gods Children ought to be careful not only to eschewe evil in their own persons but also to prevent it in othrss A notable Example we have in the people of Israel who well knowing that God was a Jealous God Deut. 4.24 Isa 42.8 and would not have his Glory communicated to others nor his praise unto Graven Images out of their abundant caution minding the concerns of their Brethren as their own when they heard Tidings how the Rubenites Gadites and half Tribe of Manasseh had Erected an Altar not for Worshipping as they truly protested but for Memorial so fearful they grew of Gods Wrath that they presently dispatched an Embassy to their Brethren to prevent their sin And see how pithily they deal with them Is the Iniquity of Peor too little for us from which ye are not cleansed to this day that ye also must depart from following the Lord Josh 22.17 Thus they in a shew only and appearance of evil which we are commanded to abstain from 1 Thes 5.22 and to resist unto Blood striving against sin Qui non vetat peccare quum possit Jubet Heb. 12.4 The Conclusion is strong What sins of others we labour not within our Province Power and Compass to prevent are ours in the guilt as well as those of our own personal Commission The Reasons are many 1. We hazard our selves to infection 1 Cor. 5.6 A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump 2. Vnto wrath Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her Plagues Apoc. 4.3 We hazard the Delinquents to obstinate impenitency We blemish our own same and sinceâ—ity 5. Quantum in nobis we encourage others to like exorbitancy in sinful Worship even in our common Laws it is held maintenance when a great person only by his presence countenanceth a Cause Saints of old were regularly scrupulous and abstemious in this kind I have not sate with vain persons neither will I go in with distemblers I have heated the Congregation of evil doers and will not sit with the wicked Psal 26.4 5. Jer. 15.15.17 I sat not in the assembly of mockers nor rejoyc'd Did not Elias sharply repove King Ahab and the Commons of Israel for that error He did not say Why permit you not those that will to serve the Lord and those that lift to serve Baal But How halt you between Two opinions If the Lord be God follow him but if Baal then fallow him 1 Kings 18.21 Since it is confessed both by Protestants and Papists That there can be no God save the Lord Psal 18.31 and he never meant to surrender any piece of his Glory Isa 48.11 but is so jealous of it that he will be served and only served with all our Heart and with all our Soul Deut 10.12 I reckon it cannot stand with a Magistrates duty to reverse this Heavenly Decree Thou shalt Worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Mat. 4.10 Deut. 6.13 with establishing Two Religions in the Realm And the first precept forbiding more Gods than one barreth all other services of the same God save that which himself hath appointed for himself His commands relating to his own Worship are very severe very strict He that is born in the House and bought with thy Money must need be Circumcised i. e. Observe the whole Law Gen. 17.12 So the charge of Keeping the Sabbath is had upon the Father of the Family for all that are within his Gate Exod. 20.10 The Lord commandeth That if any person Brother Son Daughter the Wife of thy Bosom or thy Friend which is as thy own Soul shall intice to Idolatry or any City shall set up a new Worship the one shall be killed the other destroyed Det. 13.6 9 12 15. To this belongeth that precept to seperate the pretious from the vile Jer. 15.19 and this viz. Not to sow the Field with divers Seeds nor to wear a Garment of divers things Lev. 19. â—0 So Moses Deut. 22.10 Thou sha't not plough with an Oxe and an Asse together which St. Paul thus expoundeth 2 Cor. 6.14 Be not unequally yoaked with unbelievers Which the Apostle demonstrates to be as absurd and monstrous as that righteousness shall have fellowship with unrighteousness or light to have communion with darkness or that
Christ can have Concord with Belial or that the Temples of God can have agreement with Idols and such Temples are all good Christians whom Legions of Lusts and Devils do not pre-possess Vers 14 15 16 17. Besides it cannot be denyed but that they may and will be Snares and Traps if not Scourges in our sides and Thorns in our Eyes Josh 13.13 God fore-saw it and fore-told it and the refore made such strict commands against such Medly-mungril Christians like those of Samaria who feared God yet served Idols and like those of Israel who Swear by the Lord and Melchom to hear as Protestants but believe as Papists to cry the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord boasting of the high Priviledges the Gospel hath and doth afford us and yet not to walk by the Rules and Precepts thereof which in plain English is to talk indeed like Saints but in truth to do like Devils Why then should we hazard the Eternal wellfare of our precious Immortal Souls upon nice points of Logick upon Peradventures and come at last and when it is too late unto an Had I wish'd Remember Nehem. 13.23 26. Did not Solomon King of Israel sin by these things yet amongst many Nations was there no King like him who was beloved of his God and God made him King over all Israel nevertheless even him did strange Women cause to sin § Moreover it hath been the practise of the Church in all Ages to cast out the Leaven of contrary Doctrins and Profession In the time of Enos before the Flood the Servants of God began to worship God by themselves apart from the prophane Generation of Cain Ishmael was cast out of Abrahams House because he was a scorner of Isaack Jacob reformeth his House and putteth away the strange Gods Gen 35.2 Joshua maketh the Gibionites hewers of Wood and drawers of Water for the House of God Josh 9 13 David expelleth the Idolatrous Jebusites out of Jerusalem 2 Sam. 5.8 Asa put Maacha his Mother from her regiment because she was an Idolatress and brake down her Idols 2 Chron. 15.16 Josias put down the Chemarins a Sect of Idolatrous Priests 2 Kings 23.5 Zerubbabel would not suffer the adversaries of Judah to build the Temple with them but refused their service which they offered Ezech. 4.3 This was the Law Thou shalt make no Covenant with them nor with their Gods they shall not dwell in the Land lest they make thee sin against me Exod. 23.32 33. Deut 7.2 3 4. The Graven Images of their Gods shall ye burn with fire Thou shalt not desire she Silver and Gold that is on them nor take it unto thee lest thou be snared therein for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thy house least thou be an accursed thing like it but thou shalt utterly detest it and thou shalt utterly abhor it for it is a cursed thing Deut. 7.25 26. Neither shalt thou set up any Graven Image which the Lord thy God hateth Deut. 16.22 Where Gods Ark is there Dagon shall be thrust out of his place and fall down before it 1 Sam. 5. § One kind of vile and base Idolatry when Men Worship their own Fancies as Papists Ouakers and Enthusiasts amongst others now adays do observing that for a Religion which their deceived minds imagine then may not Princes wink at corrupt and vitious Religion which is an inward and ghostly worship of Idols seeing no man and therefore no Prince can serve Two Masters Mat. 6.24 Luke 16.13 And the Service that Princes yield Christ in respect of their Royal vocation consisteth in making Laws for Christ which if they do likewise for Antichrist it cannot be salved but that they serve God and Mammon or rather cease to be Servants of Christ in that they renounce their Master by serving his Adversary And they cannot but know that silence provoketh and sufferance imboldeneth their Subjects to forsake God and his Church Even as in civil Affairs the slacking of Justice doth maintain disorder the life of the Law is penalty when duly executed wherefore the great Law-giver to his own Israel useth such enforcements Every state and Kingdom hath Refractories whom nothing restrains but penalty indeed penalties executed do scarce reform yet is Treacle made up of such Vipers for preserving others All Israel shall hear and fear Deut. 17.13 and do no more presumptuously Servility is much in men of best inclination they are not always led by the Spirit of Ingenuity Psal 51.12 Draco his Laws are yet extant their severity is deemed over rigorous providing death for least offences lenities in some enormities is no less blamable whilst Adultery laughs at the white sheet or secures it self of redeeming that shame with purse or power As offences grow though but in circumstances so ought Penalties Num. 30.32.35 Maxima peccandi Hlecibra est impunitatis spes There is no greater encouragement or enticement to sin than hope of Impunity Some wise Men begin to think as that Sage Politician spake by occasion of Nerva's remissness in Government Praestat vivere ubi nulla quam ubi omnia sint cicita It 's better to live in that state where nothing than where all things are lawful David was so far from suffering the worship of any strange God within his Realm that he protesteth Their offerings I will not offer neither make mention of their names within my lips Psal 16.4 When would he think you confirm their Honour and Service with his Royal Authority that thus disdained them common civility he had a more Ennobled Spirit more Divine Principle Quo major suum eo plus laborabo as the Sun Josh 23.7 Deut. 12.3 Num. 32.38 and would shew it by the sublimity of his Actions scorned to know wicked persons or to let them tarry in his sight he was engaged to do something more than ordinary being called to be Gods own Anointed and that the observation of Gods Laws was the noblest Ornament of His Majesty and that the Law was express against it Make no mention of the names of other Gods neither let it be heard out of thy mouth Exod. 23.13 The good Kings of Juda were favoured and blessed of God for walking in the Ways of David their Father and purging the Land from all Sacrifices and Ceremonies not prescribed by Moses's Law Contrariwise Solomon was rejected for admitting other Gods to be erved within his Dominions besides the God of Israel though this tolleration was granted in respect of his own Wives that were strangers Nehem. 13.36 Jerohoams politick devise to Worship the same God in Dan and Bethel after a new manner turned to the destruction of himself and his Posterity Therefore Jehosaphat reproved by Jehu visited his Kingdom from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim and brought his people back unto the Lord God of their Fathers 2 Chron. 19 2 3. That the false Priests and Prophets did so over-bear the true Prophets
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
without obtaining an Imprimatur from the Kings Council and how likely they are to obtain that is not hard to guess 29. Jan. 1663. Another ordaineth Parents to give Pensions to their Children who turn Papists although the Children will not dwell with them Declaration 24. Oct. 1663. and Acts of Council 30. Jan. 1665. As if paternal Authority were nulled by Childrens Apostacy forgetting that Christian Religion doth not absolve Slaves from their Subjection to their Masters yet Dominus Deus vester Papa can discharge Children of their obedience which they owe to their Parents of the Protestant Religion Another prohibits the Exercise of Charity towards their Brethren who have no sufficiency of their own for their livelyhood 5. Oct. 1663. Another dischargeth payment of Debts by those of the Commonalty who shall turn Papists The very Heathens never pretended that those Christians who did but Apostatize to them should be discharged from payment of their Debts Another prohibits Ministers to preach without the place of their residence thereby depriving them of the benefit of Annexation i. e. the priviledge of one Ministers supplying Two Churches which singly are not able to afford a compleat maintenance 22. Feb. 1664. Another giveth liberty to Priests and Fryars to enter their Houses and come unto their Bed-sides when sick or dying to sollicite them to change their Religion 18. Sept. 1664. 12. May 1665. Another maketh it criminal in Ministers to style themselves Pastors or Ministers of the Word of God Nay they have regulated the very Garments of Ministers forbidding them to wear a long Garment that they may have no Character of distinction from the peasants 30. Jan. 1663. In the Declaration of pretended Relapses 1663. ratified in Parliament 7. Jan. 1663. It is ordained that those of the Religion who have once embraced the Popish Religion shall never again return unto it under pain of perpetual Banishment A thing plainly contrary to the Edict Yet they have given it a retrospective and retroactive power to execute it against persons who became of the Religion long before the Declaration was in being and accordingly have proceeded against some whom they have imprisoned compelled to do penance by going Bare-foot and Bare-headed through the streets with a burning Torch to the place of Justice or person offended and there to ask forgiveness and then Banished the Kingdom I could cloy the Readers with like severities usque ad nauseam but I forbear having no other design by this brief Narrative but only to give a tast of the difference of severities which we use here and which are used against us abroad in our Neighbour Nations without going farther into Germany Hungary Poland and other Popish Countries Vide the Memoirs of the King of Sweden to the Emperour Let William Watson the Secular Priest conclude for our Justification viz That all the sufferings brought upon the Papists here in England was the due reward for their own demerits Which Axiome is as compleatly true now as it was in his days Now what hope can we have to speed better than our Neighbours who only want power to do as much for us but I proceed As in the days of Queen Eliz. so now they begin to play their old tricks over again and would fain perswade us that there is a Generation of them that are faithful and dutiful Subjects to this Crown whatsoever others of the same Communion are and therefore plead hard for Indulgence and Tolleration above their Fellows F. 5. As that they disown the Paramount and Omnipotent Powers attributed to the Pope in many particulars and look upon it as a grievance rather than a right belonging to him and complain and wish for remedy that they will stand with the King his Crown and Regality in some Cases by them named and in all others in all points to live and dye with them They farther conceive that it is the right of every National Church to provide for the particular concerns thereof and yet confesses that it is not for her safety to receive those who do not believe as she doth It is there owned F. 7. yet not without a Peradventure that the Church of England hath preserved the face of a continued Mission and un-interrupted Ordination that her moderation in Doctrin is great that her disciple preserves Episcopal Government that she abhors Phanaticisme and the wild Errors of a private Spirit that though she hold the Scripture to be the Rule of Controversie yet holds withall that it is not of private interpretation and that she is for Vincentius Lyrinensis Rule quod ab omnibus quod semper quod ubique that the Papists upon many occasions have been found as faithful to the State as any of their fellow Subjects At last this Diologist P. takes pet F. 15.33 that the seasonable discourse accounts the Protestant Religion excellent and the Popish full of stupidity which though granted yet he argues may we not therefore be permitted to say our Prayers in private which is all the Indulgence allowed us and that sure it is no part 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 A great Courtier I must confess and hath complemented us highly to his own ends and advantage yet with little Injury to us which though I cannot so courtly return in its own kind without flattering yet I modestly wish that all the Papists were no worse minded And yet if they were I do not know that this State were the more secure This very Scene was acted in Queen Eliz. days as I have shewed before and their own Books which are very numerous and very full of such acknowledgments and disclamours and yet some of the same Leaven for their unfaithfulness to her and this Crown came with the first unto untimely ends and that deservedly I will hope better of these of this Generation presuming they will take warning by other mens harms However I presume this State will be as wise now as they were in her days and trust to neither for that the more secure we are of the one the less safe we are from the other The Seculars and Regulars in her days confessed much more viz. That though they disliked the severity of her Laws yet could not but acknowledg that the State had great cause to make such except they should have shewed themselves careless and though the Laws were very extreme yet the occasions of them were very outragious and likewise that the Execution of them was not so Tragical as many did write and report Import Consider f. 11. A Letter from a Jesuited Gent. f. 65 66. Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay. Gent. sparing discovery and others sparsim In Queen Eliz. days such of the Papists who though they did not forbear to profess Loyalty and Obedience to Her Majesty and were ready to resist any
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
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
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
Nayls only that otherwise would crack our Crowns and seek our lives unless we will quantum in nobis sacrifice once more all that is near and dear unto us unto Romish Tyranny § I shall yet further Conclude That if Protestant Princes will but rightly consider that they like Gods own Sabbath were ordained for Kingdoms and not Kingdoms for them and that if they will follow but the very Dictates of right Reason and the very light of Nature they cannot without being felones de se establish or tollerate by Law Popery in their Protestant Dominions For as self-preservation by the very Law and Light of Nature is the Suprema lex of every Individual and consequently of every Prince considered only as a single person So Salus Populi wherein the Prince himself is also included and involved even politically and in respect of Magistracy considered is the Suprema lex also And the first and principal thing Magistrates are to look after is to preserve Magistracy and the Authorty they are intrusted withall for the good of the Governed in its full power and prerogative And for this great reason also it is wonderful absurd to suppose a Magistrate obliged to tollerate any thing destructive to the very being of the persons and Authority of him and his people for whose wellfare he is intrusted And of such a Nature is Popery and is the design of Papists and no pretence of Conscience whatsoever is in such a Case to be hearkned unto or endured it being against the very Light of Nature and in-truth nothing else but to pretend Conscience the better to enable them to destroy not Religion only but even Protestant Mankind For the very Light of Nature abandons all such principles from the least Tolleration they making men cease to be true Subjects to the State or good Common-Walthsmen in relation to others Though I have thus justified the Act of Parliament by the confessions of Papists themselves by matters of Fact Reasons of State and warranty of Scripture yet I can give no Vote or Encouragement for Sanguinary Laws meerly for matters of Religion abstract from treasonable and capital crimes and practises nor yet to imitate our Adversaries in Inquisitions fleaing with Stripes starving with Hunger Cold and Nakedness plunging into loathsom Dungeons full fraught with stinking Nastines and with Toads Serpents and other venomous Creatures nor yet for unnecessary pecuniary Mulcts And I am confident that such true English generous Blood runs in the Veins of English Parliaments that they naturally pity the distressed and abhor cruelties that they will not use Extremities not put in Execution the utmost of the Penal Laws but will mould them a gently as the peace and safety of the Nation will bear and permit And I am verily perswaded That if their over busie and fiery Priests had not been over Active the Review and Revival of any severities against them had never been though of and if any new Acts do ensue it is but what they have brought upon themselves and for which none may be blamed but themselves and their Layety only because they suffer themselves to be led blind-fold by their Noses by them who have no Authority so to do for which they are much very much to be commiserated there being a vast difference between the Seducers and Seduced But if any more severe Laws than other ought to be put in Execution certainly they ought to be inflicted on Idolaters and Blasphemers That the Papists are Idolaters hath been demonstrated by many Pens and that they are Blasphemers is as evident For according to the Notion of Blasphemy even in the New Testament He that assumes and appropriates to himself a property Divine is a Blasphemer and in truth a setter up of more Gods than one and of such a Nature is their Doctrin of Infallibility This is most Evident from Luke 5.20 21. when the Jews Taxed Christ himself for speaking Blasphemy who did not rayl but only said to the Paralitick Man Thy sins are forgiven thee Yet they not acknowledging him to be God did account it Blasphemy in him to take upon him to forgive sins which is a property meerly Divine For who said they can forgive sins but God alone so Rev. 2.9 I know the Blasphemy of them that say they are Jews and are not but are the Synagogue of Satan Much more he that says he is In allible a property Divine when he is not So John 10.33 For a good Work we stone tee not but for Blasphemy because thou being a Man makest thy self God What was this blasphemy even because he said I and my Father are one v. 31. Whereby it is apparent that the Popes assuming to themselves a property Divine make themselves guilty of Blasphemy and indeed of making more Gods than one which is undeniable Idolatry To which if their Luciferian Dogma's be added it will not mince the matter at all viz. Credere Dominum Deum nostrum Papam non potuisse statuere prunt statuit Haereticum censetur Extravag Johan 22. cum inter nonnullos gloss ibid. declaramus Idem est Dominium Dei Papae Augustus Ambonitanus q. 45. 35. Dominus Deus noster Papa Clement in proem in Gloss ibid 121. Rex Regum Dominus Dominantium Extravag de Majoritat obedientia But let these pass In the Church of Rome the Popes were the first Preachers of force and violence and that their St. Dominick was one of the first that I read of that preached the Doctrin of Death and Tortures for opinions in Religion He was the founder of the begging Order of Friars preachers and therefore in Honour of him the Inquisition is intrusted only to the Friars of his Order And if they will believe their own Legends his own Mother the night before he was born dreamed that she was brought to bed of a Mastiff Dog with a Fire-brand in his mouth The Hieroglyphick whereof I leave to every Reader to make Only his deportment towards the Albigenses is storied to be as mad as that of Dogs so that one saith of him That a Hundred Thousand of them were put to flight Aeo quidem ut Centum Haereticorum Millia ab Octo Millibus Catholicorum fusa interferta fuisse perhibeantur and slain by 8000 Catholicks and of those who became Captives 180 were burnt to death the first Example that I find in the Church of Rome of putting dissenting Brethren to death for Religion Though my particular Confession engages me Experimenta per mortes Agere yet I abhor to be of the Colledge of Blood-suckers whose Bellies like those Canes Sepulchroles of the Romans are never satisfied with the Blood of Saints I have learnt better things from Isa 27.4 Fury is not in me And from Psal 11.5 Him that loveth violence his Soul hateth lest God should return Blood upon me in fury and in jealousie Ezek. 16.38 I Conclude with St. Cyprian Quid facit in pectore Christiano Luporum feritas
death by breaking open his Chamber assaulting and wounding and leaving him for dead for which being Convic ted of Burglary and Condemned to dye the Queen most gratiously pardoned for which he most gratefully requited her according to the old Proverb Save a Thief from the Gallows and he 'l cut your Throat He was Indicted of Treason 22. Feb. 158â— by Commission of Oyer and Terminer held at the Kings-Bench Westminster before Sir Christopher Wray Lord Chief Justice of England and others where Miles Sands Esq then Clerk of the Crown read the Indictment viz. William Parry thou art here Indicted by Oaths of Twelve good and lawful Men of the County of Middlesex before Christopher Wray alias for that thou as a Traytor against the most Noble and Christian Princess Queen Eliz. the most Gratious Sovereign and Liege Lady not having the fear of God before thine Eyes nor regarding the due Allegiance but being seduced by the Instigation of the Devil and intending to withdraw and extinguish the hearty love and due obedience which true and faithful Subjects should bear unto the same our Sovereign Lady didst at Westminster in the County of Middlesex 1. Febr. in the 26. Year of Her Majesties Reign and at divers other times and places in the same County malitiously and traiterously conspire and compass not only to deprive and depose the same our Sovereign Lady of Her Royal Estate Title and Dignity but also to bring her Highness to death and final destruction and sedition in the Realm to make and the Government thereof to subvert and the sincere Religion of God established in her Highness Dominions to alter and subvert And that whereas thou William Parry by thy Letters sent unto Gregory Bishop of Rome didst signifie unto the same Bishop the purposes and intentions aforesaid and thereby didst pray and require the same Bishop to give thee Absolution that thou afterwards that is to say the last of March 26. Year aforesaid didst traiterously receive Letters from one called Cardinal de Como directed unto thee William Parry whereby the said Cardinal did signifie unto thee that the Bishop of Rome had perused the Letters and allowed of thine intent and that to that end he had absolved thee of all thy sins and by the same Letter did animate and stir thee to proceed with thine Enterprize and that thereupon thou the last day of August in the said 26. Year at St. Gyles in the Fields in the same County of Middlesex didst traiterously confer with one Edmund Nevil Esq uttering unto him all the wicked and traiterous devises and then and there didst traiterously move him to assist thee therein and to joyn with thee in those wicked Treasons aforesaid against the peace of our said Sovereign Lady the Queen her Crown and Dignity Which being Read and William Parry being asked whether guilty of these Treasons whereof thou standest here Indicted or not guilty He confessed that he was guilty of all that is therein contained both in matter and form as the same is set down and all the Circumstances thereof Which being Recorded and though confessed willingly by Parry yet because the Justice of the Realm had been of late very impudently slandered That such like Traytors were Executed for Religion and not for Treason the Justice of that Court deemed it necessary to satisfie the World more particularly that though his Confession in Court served sufficiently to have proceeded thereupon to Judgment yet Parry's Confession taken the 11 and 13. Feb. 1584. before the Lord Hunsdon Mr. Vice-Chamberlain and Mr. Secretary and Cardinal de Como's Letter and Parry's Letter to the Lord Treasurer and Lord Steward should be openly read to which also Parry himself agreed so readily that he offered to read them himself for the better satisfying of the people All which Letters and his own voluntary confession written and subscribed with his own Hand he acknowledged to have Confessed freely without any constraint and that it was all true and more too And that there is no Treason that hath been sythence 1 Eliz. any way touching Religion saving receipt of Agnus Dei and perswading others wherein he hath not much dealt but he had offended in it And that he had demanded his opinion in writing who ought to be Successor to the Crown which he said to be Treason also All which Letters and Confession being first shewed to him Leaf by Leaf were openly and distinctly read by the Clark of the Crown Which done Parry having obtained favour of the Court to speak in discharge as he pretended of his Conscience assuring them that he would not go about to excuse himself and that he intended to utter more He said my Cause is rare singular and unnatural conceived at Venice presented in general Words to the Pope undertaken at Paris commended and allowed of by his Holiness and to have been Executed in England I have committed many Treasons for I have committed Treason in being reconciled and Treason in taking Absolution and yet never intended to kill Queen Eliz. Which said Mr. Vice-Chamberlain retorted upon him in that he both in Court and else where under his Hand voluntarily confessed That he did mislike Her Majesty for that she had done nothing for thee how by wicked Papists and Popish Books thou were perswaded that it was lawful to kill Her Majesty how thou wert by reconciliation become one of that wicked sort that held Her Majesty for neither lawful Queen nor Christian and that it was Meritorious to kill her And didst thou not signifie that thy purpose to the Pope by Letters and receivedst Letters from the Cardinal how he allowed of thine intent and Excited thee to perform it and thereupon didst receive Absolution And didst thou not conceive it promise it vow it swear it and receive the Sacrament that thou wouldst do it And didst not thou thereupon affirm that thy Vows were in Heaven thy Letters and Promises on Earth to bind thee to do it And that whatsoever Her Majesty would have done for thee could not have removed thee from the intention or purpose unless she would have desisted from dealing as she hath done with the Catholicks as thou calledst them And didst thou not confess besides that which thou didst set down under thine own Hand that thou hadst prepared Two Scottish Daggers fit for such a purpose Notwithstanding all these and more Demonstrations of his Bloody Intentions against the Queen by Sir Christopher Hatton Lord Hunsdon and others of the Lords Commissioners he thereupon in a furious manner cry'd I never meant to kill Her I will lay my Blood upon Her and you before God and the World and so fell into a great rage and rayling Which madness of his the Lord Hunsdon thus rebuked This is but thy Popish pride and ostentation which thou would have to be told to thy Fellows of thy Faction to make them believe that thou dyedst for Popery when thou diedst for most horrible and dangerous Treason against Her Majesty and the whole Countrey Thus you see what little Faith is to be given to such who flatter with their Lips and dissemble with their double Hearts These things rightly considered I do not doubt but that all good Subjects will clearly see and all deluded and wavering persons will perceive how they have been seduced to wander out of the right way and that all strangers especially Christian Princes having Sovereign Estates being hereby acquainted with the true just and necessary Grounds and Reasons of His Majesties late Act of Parliament for preventing dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants made purely for the desence of His Majesties Crown Religion and People and for prevention of Intestine Jars that otherwise might be occasioned through different Religions Religions as discrepant as light and darkness good and evil which naturally occasions disputes and somewtimes btows that all the World perceiving upon how great Reasons of State and Grounds of Religion that Act was made may be satisfied that no prudent State could do less especially the concern of Religion being a considerable Ingredient therein which often sets variance between nearest Relations And I cannot doubt but that this His Majesties just Act will have the like happy entertainment and success as had King James of ever blessed memory his Monitory Preface unto his Apology upon the coming forth of which Book there were no States that disavowed the Doctrin of it in the point of the Kings power the Venetians justified it both by Pen and Practise the Sorbons maintained it and Bellarmine and Suarez their Books to the contrary were burnt in France with scorn and disdain Passus damna semel cautior esse solet Roman vade liber sed Nescis Heu neseis Dominae fastidia Romae Majores nusquam Ronchi Juvenesque Senesque Et pueri Nasum Rhinocerotis habent I fuge sed poveras tutior esse domus ERRATA PAge 11. Line 16. r. potest l. 21. r. sentiamus p. 2. l. 19. r. that p. 18. l. 4. r. Domini p. 29. l. 2. r. against p. 37. l. 12. r. if it had taken p. 44. l. ult r. Houses p. 58. l. 15. r. stories l. 31. r. discretion p. 74. l. 3. r. thou shall not plough p. 112. l. 3 r. likes of one bread l. 28. r. and add 14 new p. 127. l. 5. for Confession r. profession FINIS
11. How then can Kings bear with your Sacrilegious prophaning of the Lords Supper and forbidding Gods own Word to be read and licence the rest of your Impieties and Blasphemies and hope to be free from your plague When Valentinian the younger was requested to wink at the renewing of an Alter for the Pagans in Rome St. Ambrose disswaded him in these words All men serve you that be Prmces and you serve the Mighty God He that serveth this God must bring no dissimulation no Connivance but saithful zeal and devotion be must give no kind of consent to the worship of Idols or other superstitious or prophane Ceremonies for God will not be deceived nor mocked who searcheth all things even the secrets of our Hearts Ambrose lib. 5. Ep. 30. Now what account will God exact for his Name blasphemed his Word exiled and wrested his Decalogue dockt his Sacraments curtal'd and prophaned And what answer must be made for the ruine of Faith harvest of sin murder of Souls consequent always to the publick freedom of Idolatrous and Superstitious Worship and Heresies which ought to be fully considered and wilely prevented by Christian Magistrates who must as well as the meanest of their Vassals give an account of their Stewardships when called thereunto at the day of their Account § When Mary afterwards Queen of England earnestly besought her Brother King Ed. 6. both by her own Letters and by the mediation of the Emperour That she might have the free use of Mass in her Family alledging her Conscience for it that her House was her Flock c. The King by his Council made answer that it was well liked that her Grace should have her House or Flock but not exempt from the Kings Laws and Orders neither may there be a Flock of the Kings Subjects but such as will hear and follow the voice of the King their Shepherd God disalloweth Law and Reason forbiddeth it Policy abhorreth it and her Honour may not require it However at her earnest intreaty and desire made in the Emperors Name thus much was granted and no more that for his sake and hers also it should be suffered and winked at if she had the private Mass used in her own Closet for a season until she might be better informed whereof was some hope having only with her a few of her own Chamber so that for all the rest of her Houshold the Service of the Realm should be used and no other After this was granted in Words the Emperors Ambassador desired some Testimony of the Promise under the Great Seal which being denied he desired to have it by a Letter which was also denyed but not without shewing sound reasons that he perceiving it to be denyed with Reason wight be the better contented with the answer But when there was ill use made of this Indulgence and Connivance her Chaplain taking too great a liberty by publick Celebration of the Mass out of her Presence was sent for by the Council imprison'd c. for whom though her Grace mediated by many carnest Letters both to the King and his Council yet did his Majesty signifie to her by a Letter dated 24. January 1550. That though he had for a while connived that she might be brought as far towards the Truth by Brotherly love as others were by Duty and in hope of her amendment yet now if there be no hope why should there be sufferance Alledging also That his charge was to have the same care over every mans Estate that every man ought to have over his own And that in her own House as she would be loath openly to suffer one of her Servants being next her most manifestly to break her Orders so must she think in his state it would prejudice him to permit her so great a Subject not to keep his Laws that her nearness to him in Blood her greatness in Estate and the condition of the Time made her fault the greater The Example is unnatural that our Sister should do less for us than our other Subjects the Case standerous for so great a person to forsake our Majesty And therefore 24. Aug. 1551. He sent Commissioners to signifie to her That His Majesty did resolutely determine it just necessary and expedient That her Grace should not in any ways use or maintain the private Mass or any other manner of service than such as by the Law of the Realm was authorized and allowed So resolure was this young Josiab this Noble pious Prince though his dear Sister and the next Heir of the Crown had divers times offered her Body at the Kings Will rather than to change he rconscience § Queen Eliz. as in other things so in Religion was according to her assumed Motto semper endem never suffering the least Innovdtion thereof and therefore as in the first Year of her Reign she took great care that those Protestants which then began to frame a new Eeclesiastical Poliey being transported with a humour of Innovation should be repressed betimes and that but one only Religion was to be tollerated Angli Bello in trepidi nec mottis sensu deterentur lest diversity of Relig ons amongst the English a stout and Warlike Nation might minister continual Fuel to Seditions So in the Second Year of her Reign when the Emperor and Catholick Princes by many Letters made earnest inter cession that the Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks displaced for refusing the Oath of Supremacy which notwithstanding most of them had Sworn unto and taught in their Sermons and writ in defence thereof in the Reign of King H. 8. might be mercifully dealt withall there being as themselves had written and calculated above 9400. Ecclesiastical orefer ments and not above 189. displaced whereof 14 were Bishops that Churches might be allowed to the Papists by themselves in Cities she answered That although those Popish Bishops had insolently and openly repugned against the Laws and Quiet of the Realm and did still obstinately reject that Doctrin which most of them under H. 8. and E. 6. had of their own accord with heart and hand publickly in their Sermons and Writings taught unto others when they themselves were not private Men but publick Magistrates yet would she for so great Princes sakes deal favourably with them though not without some offence to her own Subjects But to grant them churches wherein to celebrate their divine Offices apart by themselves she could not with the safety of the Common-Wealth and without wrong to her ovvn Honour and Conscience neither vvas there any cause vvhy she should grant them seeing England embraced no nevv or strange Doctrin but the same vvhich Christ commanded the Primitive and Catholick Church received and the ancient Fathers vvith one Mind and Voice approved and to allovv Churches with contrary Rites and Ceremonies Besides that it openly repugned the Laws established by Authority of Parliament were nothing else but to sow Religion out of Religion to distract good Mens minds
looks too like a slander to intimate it and it is our belief that the worse the men and their Religion are the more need they have of their own and other mens prayers to make them better but then they must be made to God and his Son and not to Pictures and Images nor yet to Stocks and Stones and those in a Language to themselves Intelligible It is is indeed the desire and design of our Souls that being converted our selves to strengthen our Brethren and to hinder some scabbed Sheep from infecting the rest of the whole Flock to hinder the traficking of your private Idolatrous Masses or the feeding His Majesties best Subjects with Fragments of Communions or to mock the weaker Brethren with prayers not understood or weary them with ridiculous Gestures and to binder the giving the Glory that is due to God unto Stocks and Stones Prayers understood or not understood to Saints Pictures and Idols Ave Maries and Beads Agnus Dei's and such Abominations which will never prevail with God for Blessings but will rather pull down his Curses and Judgments upon you Prayers to God and his Son are by God commanded and are acceptable to him without dispute to Wafers Saints and Pictures are not so it being indisputable Idolatry to give Divine Honour to a Creature to a Wafer God that Dogs Mice and Rats may eat Do but what our Saviour undeniably did viz. break and give to all Mat. 26.26 27 28. that all may be partakers one Bread 1 Cor. 10.16 17. Divide the Cup that all may drink thereof Do that which he commanded to be done who first ordained this Mystery Do that which St. Paul received of the Lord and delivered to the Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 11.23 24 25. Do that I say which the Primitive Church of Christ always did and you need not doubt of publick Allowance nor of publick places and oratories Do not make your selves wiser than God himself by putting a Padlock on the Scriptures which Christ hath commanded every man to search for in them ye think to have Eternal Life and they are they which testifie of me John 5.39 and which was taught Timothy from a Child and are able to make wise unto Salvation through Faith which is in Christ Jesus and is profitable for Doctrin for Reproof for Correction for instruction in Righteousness that the man of God may he perfect throughly furnished unto all good Works 1 Tim. 3.15 16 17. Do not go about to rob God of his Glory by denying the Work of his own hands and the Redeemed of his own Blood the Efficacy of the Scriptures with the assistance of his Spirit not us of our Senses as if we could not distinguish Bread from Flesh or the Juice of the Grape from the Blood of Christ Do not substract from Gods own Decalogue one of his own Commandments under the pain of Eternal Damnation add 14 new Articles to the Apostles Creed which squint more at belief in the Pope and Papal Definitions than towards God and his Word lest ye Incur the plagues denounced against such Arithmetick and your part in the Book of Life be taken away Rev. 22.18 19. Neither be of those many which corrupt the Word of God but as of sincerity but as of God in the sight of God speake and write in Christ 2 Cor. 2.17 These few of many are sins so gross that they go open before to Judgment and are as manifest as the Deeds of the Flesh which are Adultery Fornication Vncleanness Lasciviousness Idolatry Murders Revelings c. Gal. 5.19 20 21. which both God and Nations abhor and make Laws against and Prohibitions so that none can be deceived but such as are given up to a reprobate sense and unto strong delusions to believe Lies 1 Thes 2.11 § It is true you have reconciled some Proselytes unto your Church which hath made both King and Parliament so Industrious to preserve the rest from Infection and Seducements and by so doing you have made them two fold more the Children of Hell than they were before meer Samaritans Worshippers of they know not what whereby we have lost little and you have not got much For indeed it matters little what Religion Men profess if they live not according to to the Decalogue It is neither Circumcision nor Vncircumcision Gal. 〈◊〉 9. but a new Creature that availeth Gal. 6.15 For no man either knows or believes in God otherwise than the Devils do that doth not keep his Commandments And God knows the love of men towards him only by their keeping of his Commandments and by abstaining from that black Catalogue of sine Recorded Gal. 5.19 〈◊〉 without Holiness it is impossible ever to see the face of 〈…〉 comfort I know no medium between a Saint and 〈…〉 Purgatory bâ—tween Heaven and Hell 〈…〉 so it lies Heaven and Hell will divide the whole World at last As it hath been the unhappiness of former Ages so of this also that they that depart from evil make themselves a Prey and they that live Holily Godlily and Righteously in this present evil World are jeered and accounted but the off-scowring of the World Penitentiarii Asini Formal Fops But I fear when the King of Terrors shall Attacque the Copyholds of such Flowters and Magor-Missabib Fear and Terror shall be round about them and when they are drawing near to the Chambers of Death that then their Groans will be like the Groans of a deadly wounded man and their Hopes like the giving up of the Ghost and that then the 'l wish that both their lives and their deaths had been like those Formal Fobbs Therefore my hearty desire is That both this Dialogist and all the perverted reconciled Proselytes to Rome would return from whence they are fallen and repent and come out of that Inchanting City and Sink of sin that hath spawned more false Doctrins of a Scarlet Dye than all the Christian Churches in the World and be seperate and no doubt but this Church will receive them and our Kings and Queens will be their nursing Fathers and Mothers and you will become their Sons and Daughters else What fellowship can righteousness have with unrighteousness what Communion can Light have with Darkness What Concord can Christ have with Belial and what agreement can the Temple of God have with Idols Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate and God and this Church will receive you and God will be a Father unto you and ye shall be his Sons and Daughters 2 Cor. 6.14 15 16 17 18. § Reasons are as strong and convincing against Tolleration if the case be considered upon a Politick Account and Interest as well as upon a Religious for tordraw away Subjects to depend upon a Forrein Prelate or power from their Natural or Lawful Sovereign is in a Politick Consideration as the defiling of the Kings Bed and debauching of his Consort from him and this is that which makes Popery