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religion_n	king_n	majesty_n	parliament_n	3,897	5	6.3360	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51531	The narrative of Lawrence Mowbray of Leeds, in the county of York, Gent., concerning the bloody popish conspiracy against the life of His Sacred Majesty, the government, and the Protestant religion wherein is contained I. His knowledge of the said design, from the very first in the year 1676, with the opportunity he had to be acquainted therewith, ... II. How far Sir Thomas Gascoigne, Sir Miles Stapleton, &c. are engaged in the design of killing the King and firing the cities of London and York, for the more speedy setting uppermost the popish religion in England, III. An account of the assemblings of many popish priests and Jesuits at Father Rishton's Chamber ..., IV. The discovery of the erecting a nunnery at Dolebank in Yorkshire ..., V. A manifestation of the papists fraudulent conveying of their estates, himself being privy to some of them, VI. A probable opinion concerning the Jesuits, the grand instruments in these affairs : together with an account of the endeavours that were used to stifle his evidence, by making an attempt upon his life in Leicester-Fields.	Mowbray, Lawrence.	1680 (1680)	Wing M2994; ESTC R10191	28,403	35

February the 5th 1679 80 I Do appoint Thomas Simmons and Jacob Sampson to Print this my Narrative and that no other Print the same nor any part of it Lawr. Mowbray THE NARRATIVE OF Lawrence Mowbray Of LEEDS In the County of YORK Gent. Concerning the Bloody Popish Conspiarcy against the Life of His Sacred Majesty the Government and the Protestant Religion Wherein is Contained I. His Knowledge of the said Design from the very first in the year 1676. with the opportunity he had to be acquainted therewith and the Reasons why he concealed it so long with the manner of his discovering the said wicked Project to His Majesty and His most Honourable Privy Council II. How far Sir Thomas Gascoigne Sir Miles Stapleton c. are engaged in the design of Killing the King and Firing the Cities of London and York for the more speedy setting uppermost the Popish Religion in England III. An Account of the Assemblings of many Popish Priests and Jesuits at Father Rishton's Chamber at Sir Tho. Gascoigne's House at Barmebow with their Consultations and Determinations IV. A Discovery of the Erecting a Nunnery at Dolebank in Yorkshire by the Popish Party especially by Sir Thomas Gascoigne with an Account of an Estate of ninety pounds per Annum settled thereupon by him V. A Manifestation of the Papists fraudulent conveying of their Estates himself being privy to some of them VI. A probable opinion concerning the Jesuits the grand Instruments in these Affairs With other Considerable Matters relating to the Plot. Together with an Account of the Endeavours that were used to stifle his Evidence by making an Attempt upon his Life in Leicester-Fields LONDON Printed for Thomas Simmons at the Princes Arms and Jacob Sampson next door to the Wonder-Tavern in Ludgate-Street MDCLXXX To the Right Honourable Heneage Lord Finch Baron of Daventry Lord High Chancellor of England and One of His Majesties most Honourable Privy-Council My LORD I Dare not permit the ensuing Papers to approach your Lordships presence without an Apology For had not your Lordship afforded some signal Encouragement to the poor Author nothing of This had presumed to interrupt your Lordships great Thoughts and Cares And yet the subject matter herein contained besides your particular Favours afforded to my self which I hope at least in my desires and design is contributory to the prevention of eminent dangers to King and Kingdom may plead my excuse as not unworthy of your Lordships Consideration who is so great a Lover of them both and hath so immediate a concern in their preservation If I had the Pen of a Demosthenes or a Cicero or to sum them up both in one your own I might then have adventured to enlarge on the Theme of your Lordships Merit which is able to inspirit the most jejune and barren Orator but in regard it Transcends the small pittance of my disused skill I shall rather be silent than speak too little of what I am never able to speak enough I have read in our Chronicles concerning Q. Elizabeth that never any Prince who swayed the English Scepter had more sapient and vigilant Councellors than Her Majesty Amongst whom I have heard it reported of Sir Francis Walsingham Secretary of State in Queen Elizabeths time that he was so prudently watchful over the designs of the Popish Emissaries and Priests that he maintained divers private Agents for that purpose in Rome it self who did so cunningly and dissemblingly carry the matter that the Pope himself in suae infallibilitatis opprobrium paid Pensions to some of those Setters who probably pretended to do service on both sides for no such Key to unlock the Apostolical Chamber nay the very Conclave as a disguised yet fugitive Privado It cannot be denied but those days were very critical when Parry Squire c. were suborned and encouraged by the Jesuited party to Murther that Queen and upon that account extraordinary diligence was required in the Ministers of State to prevent any inconvenience which by the policy of the Romanists might accrue to their Queen Lady and Mistress And herein she was as happy in her Servants as they were prosperous in their success leaving her to expire in a good old age as a fruit of their vigilance and care next to Gods blessing and protection over her I know our times are as designing as theirs and the means used to accomplish their purpose of destroying our King and Government is suitable to what methods were then put in practise either by Poyson Assassination or the like And therefore it is Gods goodness to our King and Kingdom to raise up many Walsinghams I mean Honourable and Faithful Councellors who watch night and day for the preservation of His Majesties person and the true Protestant Religion amongst us Amongst these your Lordship is placed in the highest Orb and that not by a casual frolick by which yet some are advanced of blind Favour but by a just and acknowledged desert after several remarkable Gradations of Dignities and Offices which were but praevious to that Eminency wherewith your Lordship now shines It is therefore the happiness of His Majesty to be so served and secured and not his alone but all those concerned in the discovery of this wicked and hellish Design have reason to bless God for the acknowledged protection and encouragement which you are pleased to afford them and in particular to my self The Tribute I am to pay your Lordship is only my humble acknowledgment more I cannot less I may not the same which God is pleased to accept from thankful supplicants I had it first in my thoughts to have made my Epistolary Address to His Majesty himself and I was encouraged thereunto by some Instances wherein mean persons have addressed themselves unto great Potentates to forewarn them of their dangers I shall only cite two Examples both being of our Kings Predecessors one sitting on the Scotish another on the English Throne both which are now happily united in the person of our Royal Soveraign 1. When King James the 4th of Scotland was preparing his Army to fight against the English in the battel of Floddin being in the midst of his Nobles and Collonels at prayer a Grave ancient Country-man pressed in through the crowd to the Kings Chair and leaning familiarly thereon told him That he and his followers should not prosper in that War and therefore he wished him to desist Buchan Hist Scot. lib. 13. The King not hearkning to his counsel was slain in that Fight together with the Flower of the Scots Nobility and Gentry There are enough which will sow Pillows under the elbows of Princes and flatter them even in their evils for as one says as soon a hot May without Flies as Courts without Flatterers But 't were well if the Chambers of Kings were sometimes open to the persons of Loyal and well-affected Plebeians who being but standers by to speak proverbially yet many times may see more than the Gamesters and

be propounded to them The Laws against Dissenters and Nonconformists being in some things as severe as against the Papists But hitherto they have not been able to obtain their desired end but have lost all their solicitations in this matter And I have heard some Papists say They did dispair of ever doing any good that way For though civil respects may pass as to the common offices of humane Life between persons of different Religions yet when principles in which oppositions have their deepest root do fight against principles such parties can never heartily unite I mention this that a just regard may be had in all our Governors towards the peaceable and well-affected of that Class My Lord I have not in what I have done acted out of private malice or revenge against any mans person but have only been stimulated by the pricks of my own conscience to prevent those mischiefs which I knew were impending upon our King this City and the whole Kingdom And herein I confess a prize was put into my hands to have been the first Discoverer of this Bloody Plot in the year 1676. But I must acknowledg that through the power of contrary temptations I did succumb and yet I was not altogether unjustifiable in my thoughts in that I undertook a journey to London from the North on purpose to make this Discovery so that my early desires may somewhat atone for my slow and tardy actings For which as I have obtained His Majesties Gracious pardon so I hope your Lordship will be moderate in your judgment concerning me seeing the Impediments I was then to wrestle withal seemed to me Invincible as hereafter in the following Narrative is declared And the truth is I did quiet my conscience at that time by suggesting that I reserved my self for the disclosing the Conspiracy some other time when the danger was nearer hand and the design more ripe for execution Herein though I was prevented by others yet the scheme of my thoughts being thus laid open will I hope alleviate my censure amongst good men There are some particulars illustrative of what is hereafter declared which may be spoken to when I am called upon to appear at any Tryal as an Evidence for His Majesty I shall say no more to your Lordship at this time but craving pardon for my boldness and recommending your Lordship with your great charge the Honourable City of London to the Divine Protection I humbly subscribe my self Your Lordships in all just and Christian service LAWRENCE MOWBRAY AN Introductory Preface I Think it not amiss before I mention my Informations to give the Reader some account of my self and the opportunity I have had of being acquainted with this black design and the methods I took to discover the same after I was convinced of the evil thereof which last clause I mention because being falsly principled by the Romish Priests at first I thought it a meritorious work The place of my Nativity was Worcestershire but my Father removing his whole Family into York-shire in my Infancy I there received my Education in my youth and that in the Protestant Religion as established in the Church of England I was brought up in a Grammar-School in order to the Vniversity but other circumstances not concurring and the times seeming not to look smilingly upon learned men my friends were diverted from those thoughts and I was to wait for a more favourable opportunity In this Interval being about 18 years of Age I was dealt with by some Papists in the North to reside a-while in Sir Thomas Gascoignes House not upon the strict terms of a servant but as an ingenuous attendant or rather expectant of a better fortune till the Clouds blowing over I might as my intentions were transplant my self into the Vniversity and I was inclined to Sir Thomas Gascoignes rather than to any other Family because he was represented to me as a sober and temperate person and a good Example for Youth to imitate I had not been long there but I was dealt with by Sir THOMAS himself the Lady TEMPEST but especially by Father RVSHTON Confessor to Sir THOMAS and his whole Family to turn to their Religion the Arguments they used were these the Truth of their Church and the certainty of Salvation therein whereas Protestantism as they alledged was but a Novelty risen up of late years and the Souls of its Professors were in great danger of Eternal Damnation except they did return to Rome the Mother-Church and withall they used many alluring provocations and flattering promises of great and large preferments if ever it pleased God to favour their Endeavours that the Roman Religion should again be established in this Kingdom which they told me they were in great hopes of and that many heads and hands were at work in order to the effecting thereof I being not able to see thorow those pecious pretences was insnared by them and accordingly yielding to their insinuations was admitted into their Church being thereupon in great favour with them and daily Assistant to Father Rushton at the Altar And here to note this by the way the Zeal of the Papists doth upbraid the coldness and indifferency of many Protestants who upon the entertainment of Servants and Attendants little heed their Principles in reference to Religion but suffer them to go on without any endeavour to rectifie their understandings in case any errour reside in them as if it were only lawful for them to use the labour of their Bodies as they do their Oxen and Horses without any regard to cultivate their minds whereas you shall hardly have a Servant admitted into a Popish Family but they will sift his Religion and Principles and if he be a Protestant they will endeavour to reduce him and they esteem themselves under a Religious Obligation so to do whose Zeal therein if it were according to knowledge might be instructive unto others who stand upon a truer Foundation and embrace righter Principles This by the by Being thus turned Roman Catholick as I have said I had opportunity to be admitted to the Privacies of Sir Tho. Gascoigne Father Rushton and others in whose frequent Consultations and Discourses both amongst themselves and also with me I soon found out the Intrigues of their Designs and my mind was so astonished at the thoughts of the King's Murder and the Great Alterations which were designed by them to be accomplished in this Land that I not only returned to the Reformed Religion in my heart which I formerly revolted from and since by God's goodness have re-made publick profession of but I resolved also to repair to London about the latter end of the year 1676. to make a Discovery of what I knew in those matters And I had then a fair opportunity to disengage my self from Sir Tho. Gascoigne's Family in regard the Laws being strict against Papists and at that time pressed to be put in execution Sir Thomas was willing to abridge the

31. 1679. wrote a Letter to Sir John Nicholas one of the Secretaries to His Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council then in waiting acquainting him amongst other things that there were divers circumstances relating to this discovery very material which were not inserted in my Information made before the said Justices but should be declared by me when ever the Honourable Council would be pleased to command a full account from me In Answer to which Letter I received the following dated and subscribed as followeth Council-Chamber in Whitehall Sept. 5. 1679. SIR VVHereas by your Letter of the 31th of August last directed to Sir John Nicholas which hath this day been read to the Lords of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council you make mention that there are divers circumstances very material relating to the Information you have given that are not therein inserted and that you are willing when ever the Council pleases to give a full account thereof I am by their Lordships command to pray and require you to make your repair hither by the 29th day of this instant September that you may be ready to give their Lordships such farther Information as you have to acquaint them with on the First of October next Their Lordships have promised that care shall be taken for the defraying of the charges of your Journey which being all I have in command to signifie to you I remain SIR Your very humble Servant THOMAS DOLMAN This noble Invitation and Summons was sent unto me by a Messenger on purpose superscribed To Mr. Lawrence Mowbray at his House in York-shire According to the tenor thereof I did as in Duty bound repair to London and by Order gave in a larger Information upon Oath before Edmund Warcup Esq one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Middlesex and City of Westminster a Copy whereof is hereunto annexed Middlesex and Westminster The Information of Lawrence Mowbray of Leeds in the County of York Gent. taken upon Oath the Second day of October 1679. before me Edmund Warcup Esq one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace in the said County and City THis Informant saith That when he was examined before Mr. Tindall and Mr. Lowther two of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace in York-shire in August last past he did not discover the whole of what he knew in Relation to the late horrid Conspiracy in regard he had some doubts of his safety in that County amongst those Papists whom he was to detect and who threatned such as they feared would discover the said Designs and for that this Informant conceived the danger he had run by concealment But now this Informant will tell his knowledge of the Plot beseeching His Majesty's gracious Pardon This Informant being now sent for up by Order of His Majesty's most honourable Privy-Council conceiveth himself under their protection hopes they will intercede for his Pardon to His Majesty and on that confidence saith That in the year 1674. he came to Sir Thomas Gascoign's and was with him in his Chamber till January 1676. and in that time he observed Mr. Thomas Addison then Priest to Mrs. Killingbeck and Mr. Fincham Priest to Sir John Savill Mr. Thomas Twhing Senior Mr. Thomas Twhing Junior two Romish Priests Mr. Lodge Dr. Stapleton Brother to Sir Miles Stapleton one Robert Killingbeck and divers other Romish Priests several times to invite and privately to confer with Mr. William Rishton Sir Thomas Gascoign's Priest and this Informant being desired to assist and be as obliging as he could to the said Rishton and to attend him at the Altar at Mass became in great favour with him and was permitted to continue in the said Mr. Rishton's Chamber when the Priests were in private with him And he very often heard them discourse of a Design laid for the setting the Popish Religion uppermost in England and how likely the same was to succeed in regard most of the considerable Papists had undertaken to act for it And that if the said Design was not to be compassed by fair and lawful means then it was to be done by Fire and Sword and particularly they declared That London and York were to be fired and then the same course was to be taken in other places And that being begun the same Design was to be prosecuted with the Sword also and that force was to be made use of for destroying the Heretics and Opposers of this Design And they several times farther said That the King when he was in his Exile had promised to Establish their Religion if ever he were restored but that hitherto he had not performed that promise and therefore he was adjudged a Heretic and was to be killed if he did not suddenly Establish the Catholic Religion which they now dispaired that he would do And this Informant further saith That Mr. William Rishton did one day acquaint Mr. Addison that he had according to agreement given the Sacrament of secrecy to Sir Thomas Gascoign and Thomas Gascoign Esq to Mr. Stephen Tempest and to the Lady Tempest and others in Sir Thomas Gascoign's Chappel and had thereupon communicated to them the whole Design and that they had severally engaged to be secret faithful and active to their utmost powers in carrying on the said Design and would thereto contribute as far as their Estates would permit And required an account of the said Addison and of as many other Priests besides those aforenamed as came to him how far they had proceeded therein who answered the said Rishton That they in the several Families and places they were interested in had given the like Sacrament of secrecy to their several Friends and had thereupon acquainted them with the Design and the ways and means intended to carry it on and that their Friends approved thereof and promised to contribute their utmost Interest Power and Estates for advancement of Catholic Religion And this Informant farther saith That by persuasion of the said William Rishton who was his Confessor he likewise received from his hand the Sacrament of secrecy And this Informant very well remembreth that about Michaelmas 1676. there was an Assembly of many of the Priests afore-named and others whose Names this Informant cannot remember at Mr. Rishton's Chamber where they did all agree and declare that the King should be killed for that the Pope had Excommunicated him and it was not lawful only but meritorious to destroy and kill any Heretic whatsoever and that when the King was killed Fire and Sword was to be imployed against all such as should oppose the advancement of the Catholic Religion in England and that all or most of the Catholics had ingaged themselves in the said undertaking After which discourse the said Mr. Rishton told the said Priests he had a List of many Papists who were engaged in the Design and did produce a List of Names containing about 4 or 5 hundred to the best of this Informant's Observation all whom he said were

engaged in the Design many of which Names he read unto them and amongst them this Informant very well remembreth he read the Names of Sir Thomas Gascoign Thomas Gascoign Esq Mr. Middleton Sir Miles Stapleton Mr. Sherburn Richard Townley and Francis Townley the Lady Tempest Mr. Stephen Tempest Sir Francis Hungate Sir John Savill Sir Walter Vavosor and his eldest Son Dr. Peter Vavosor Edward and Thomas Killingbeck Barney Robert Doleman Marwood Thomas Priscick and many others whose Names this Informant now remembreth not were contained in the said List And the Informant farther saith That Sir Thomas Gascoign did often bid this Informant to write Superscriptions to several Letters some whereof were directed to Mr. William Harcourt others to Mr. Corker others to Mr. Cornwallis in London and some of the said Letters to Mr. Cornwallis were directed to him by the Name of Pracid other Letters by like order this Informant directed to Mrs. Lassells Mrs. Twhing and Mrs. Beckwith who were to be Governesses or to have other Offices in the Nunnery erected at Dolbank to which the said Sir Thomas Gascoign contributed 90 l. per Annum and made a settlement of an Estate at Mauston the Tenant's name whereof was Alvery Lofthouse And this Informant farther saith That he often heard the said Priests in Mr. Rishton's Chamber say That they had Commission from the Pope to prosecute the said Design by all likely ways and that all the Jesuits were particularly engaged in the said Design and were to be the managers thereof And that the Priests through England were to assist therein and engage all the Families therein where they had any Interest And they did also tell one another that sums of Money was collected for buying of Arms for carrying on the Design and that several of their Friends had paid in 't their shares for that purpose And they sometimes said That they had Orders from the Pope to be as brief in their prosecution as possibly they could that they might proceed to Execution And that they did communicate their several Letters from their Friends beyond Sea to the persons whom they had persuaded into this Work And they also affirmed That the Pope would in a little time determin a settlement of both Ecclesiastical and Civil Preferments upon the Actors and Contributors of this meritorious Design as they termed it And that the Pope had Excommunicated the King and all other Heretics in England Scotland and Ireland and had granted a Plenary Indulgence of ten thousand years to those who should act either Personally or in Estate to kill the King or any other Heretic for promotion of their Religion besides a Pardon and other gratifications And this Informant farther saith That by the command of Sir Thomas Gascoign he went to Robert Bolron to direct him to go to Father Rushton to reconcile him to the Catholic Church which was performed accordingly And he farther saith That the Paper now produced dated the First of January 1677 8. hereunto annexed is all of this Informant's hand writing and is a Copy of a Letter which he directed to a Person of Quality at Whitehall and that he sent the said Letter by the Post from Leeds to London on the First of January on which day this Informant wrote the said Copy hereunto annexed Jurat die anno superdict Coram me Edmund Warcup Afterwards His Majesty having received Informations of several persons in the Counties of York Northumberland Lancashire and Bishoppric of Durham who were suspected to be Papists or favourers of Popery or who could give Information touching the Plot against His Majesty was pleased to employ my self and Robert Bolron Gentleman to repair into those parts and to execute that Commission which is contained in the following Order of Council VVHereas Information hath been given to His Majesty in Council upon Oath That the several persons in the List annexed mentioned are suspected to be favourers of Papists and to harbour and lodge Popish Priests and Jesuits and to have in their keeping Writings and Papers relating either to the horrid Plot against the Life of His Sacred Majesty and his Government or to Collusive conveyances of Lands to superstitious uses His Majesty was thereupon pleased to command and accordingly We do hereby Will and Require all and every of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace to whom the Bearers hereof Laurence Mowbray and Robert Bolron or either of them shall make Application to receive in due form of Law the Informations they shall exhibit against all or any of the said persons in the List mentioned or any others which the said Laurence Mowbray and Robert Bolron shall justly suspect to be concerned in the aforesaid Practices and thereupon to proceed according to Law for the more speedy and effectual discovery of the Offenders and bringing them to condign Punishment And the said Justices of Peace are hereby further required to issue out their Warrants if they see occasion for searching the respective Houses of the several persons in the said List mentioned or any other suspected Houses as well for Popish Priests and Jesuits as for Papers Letters Crucifixes Agnus Dei's Popish Books and Vestments and other superstitious Trinkers and to proceed according to Law against such Popish Priests and Jesuits as shall be apprehended And also to dispose of such Papers Letters Crucifixes Agnus Dei's Popish Books and Vestments and other superstitious Trinkets as shall be found in the said search as the Law directs except such Papers or Writings as relate to the said Plot which are to be safely conveyed unto us with all speed And of what the said Justices of the Peace or any of them shall do in pursuance of this His Majesty's Pleasure they are to return unto us from time to time an exact account For all which this shall be unto them and every of them a sufficient Warrant Dated at the Council-Chamber in Whitehall the 17th day of October 1679. Anglesey Lauderdale Henry Coventry Bridgewater Fra. North. Sunderland J. Ernle John Nicholas According to which Order Mr. Bolron and my self with the assistance of some of His Majesty's Messengers repaired into the Northern Parts where in obedience to the said Commission and in pursuance thereof I made the two following Informations Civitas Ebor. The Information of Lawrence Mowbray taken upon Oath the 27th day of October 1679. who saith and deposeth THat about Michaelmas Anno 1676. there was an Assembly of several Priests or Jesuits at the House of Sir Thomas Gascoign at Barmbow in the County of York and that the said Assembly did then generally conclude and agree That the King meaning the King of England was to be kill'd for that he was a Heretic and Excommunicated by the Pope and that it was not only lawful but meritorious to kill the said King or any other Heretic and that they likewise said That all or most of the Catholics in England were engaged in the same Design After which discourse one William Rushton Priest

England though few of the Actors therein in comparison have been called forth to suffer 2. It was the viciousness of their lives say they which was the cause of their dissolution and not their Attempt against the Cardinal Answ The Bull it self speaks to the contrary where although the looseness of their lives be instanced in yet all is summ'd up into that Bloody Undertaking against their Patron grounded on their Impenitency and Hatred of the Instrument of their Reformation I judge that the Jesuits are as much concerned to be reproved regulated and reformed by Princes or Prelates as any of the Humiliati unless perhaps they disguise themselves more and work more under ground in their Contrivances Arg. 4. In Scripture Decision Pride goeth before Destruction and a haughty look before a fall This Increpation will much concern that Order of men if we may believe many Writers of their own Church For who more aspiring Who more supercilious than they VVho greater undervaluers and underminers of others even of their own Religion Neither are these faults objected to them by the Envy of a Contrariant but they are alledged by Members of the Roman Communion if it were fit for me to enlarge the number of Quotations I could cite many Authors to this purpose but I shall content my self with one or two Instances 1. In the year 1640. they printed a Book in Flanders entituled The Image of the first Age of the Society of Jesus wherein they represent all the differing Events happening to their Society since their establishment in 1540. which they pursue with so much Affectation Vanity and Pride that as the Prefacer to the Moral Practice of the Jesuits doth speak We cannot open the Book without abhorring the Impudence of these Fathers in turning all things to their advantage and labouring to draw glory from that which ought rather to humble and confound them 2. There is a Book written Originally in the Spanish Tongue by a Bishop of that Nation which contains an Apology for other Orders of Religion against the Jesuits addressed to Pope Innocent the Tenth and printed at Conimbre in the year 1654. called The Theatre of Jesuitism which if it were commonly to be had it would so display the Haughtiness Avarice and other Enormities of that Order that the time of their expiration without Repentance may be judged to be near at hand especially considering Arg. 5. The high disgust they have raised against themselves amongst most of their other Ecclesiasticks which is a great Prognostick of their fall I have given an hint of this before it is not to be questioned but that other Religious Orders of the Roman Church were in being long before the Jesuits were thought of neither are they now so fond of them but they can as easily part with their Society for no man in his right wits would court that which is a prejudice and inconvenience to himself yea that which would labour to supplant and ruine him This is the present case the Seculars have been put to defend themselves against the Jesuits and to evince their own usefulness in the Church that was the design of Watson's Quodlibets and also of the aforementioned Book called the Theatre of Jesuitism certainly then they look'd on the Jesuits as their Supplanters and Underminers so that unless they are willing to court their own diminution yea total Abolishment they cannot have much respect for that Order I say total Abolishment because Parsons the Jesuite in a Book published heretofore entituled The Reformation of England concludes with this saying That if England ever return to the Romish Religion all Ecclesiastical Estates must be put in common and the care of them committed to seven Sages of the Society of Jesus to distribute them as they shall think fit and that no Fryer of any other Order must be permitted to pass into England and the Pope himself for five years at least must not present to any Benefice but refer himself wholly to those seven persons of that Company If that Project of his aspiring mind had taken place then farewell all Seculars in England yea and all other Orders of Regulars too unless such as would have turn'd Pensioners to the Jesuits and have truckled under them To close this Argument he that shall consider what is said in the beginning of the Preface to the Book called The Moral Practice of the Jesuits in these words There 's do doubt but all who love the purity of the Moral Doctrine of Christ are very sensible of the corruption the Jesuits labour to introduce thereunto by the Opinions they have invented but it may be said That nothing is more dreadful in the Conduct of these Fathers than to see them pursue those corrupt Maximes in their practice and that of the many things they allow in others contrary to the Law of God and the principles of the Gospel there is not any they commit not themselves to satisfie their Avarice or to promote the Grandeur and Glory of their Society And a while after All the Catholick Universities particularly those of Cracovie Lovanie and Padua those of Spain and France the Bishops the Clergy all the Orders of Religion and the Courts of Parliament almost every where opposed their Establishment as contrary to the good of the Church and the security of States I say he that shall consider these passages will conclude that Order not to be very acceptable to that Church of which they are Members and consequently that other Orders would be glad to rid their hands of them if they knew how These Reflections made upon the Jesuits have reach'd the hearts of some of their own Members for though in that Book which I mention'd before call'd The Image of the first Age c. they crown themselves with many glorious Epithets discovering a self-esteem even to the Nauseation of the sober yet Mariana the Spanish Jesuite he who is most criminated for his King-killing Doctrines hath written an express Treatise of the faults and defects of their Society which he says was so much changed that if Ignatius himself came again into the World he would not know it And in ch 14. he says That their Conduct is in some things capable to precipitate the Society into the Abyss of destruction Hence also it was that Mutius Vitteleschi their sixth General reflecting upon that Criminal facility wherewith those of his Congregation embraced all the new Opinions that tended as his Phrase is to corrupt and ruin the Piety of the Faithful says in a Letter addressed to the Superiors of all their Houses That there was reason to fear the latitude and liberty of Opinion of some of the Society especially in the matter of Manners would not only utterly ruine the Company but cause very great mischiefs in the whole Church of God The impressions which the matter of the former Arguments or at least some equivalent considerations have made upon the two last mentioned Members of their Society