this man for it was he or some of the like Principles that out of malice against the late King wickedly divulged That his Majesty had underhand caused the Irish Rebellion that he had a mind to bring in Popery and to enslave the Nation had sent for an Outlandish Guard Thus cried the English Rebels against their glorious Prince and thus now invents this Minister Stories to mischief if he can his innocent fellow-Subjects and Country-men And who can be guiltless if assertions without any shadow of proof shall be received against him SECT XIV APOLOGY Little did we think when your Prayers and ours were offered up to beg a blessing on the Kings Affairs ever to see that day in which Carlos Gifford Whitgrave and the Pendrels should be punished by your desires for that Religion which obliged them to save their forlorn Prince and a stigmatized man for his offences against King and Church chief promoter of it Nay less did we imagine that by your Votes Hudlestone might be hanged who again secured our Soveraign and others free in their fat possessions that sat as Juddes and sealed the Execution of that Great Prince of happy Memory ANSWER XIV He says That many of my Church were not of my Party and that if some of them did the King eminent service in the Critical day of danger so did the Protestants too therefore it is not to be ascribed to our Religion Nor is it reasonable to requite particular men by having those Laws abandoned which secure us against as great a danger 'T is barbarity for any Christian but those of our Sect to question his life that exposed it for his Prince or to do this in any age except Queen Maries for then Sir Nich. Throgmorton was so dealt with But the Minister detests such times and such examples and he knows the King will reward deserving persons without trespassing on his Laws Lastly he desires me to be favourable to the stigmatized man whom I do not hate he knows for his offences because the King whom he formerly displeased bears with him for he contributed much against the Phanaticks to his Majesties restauration and would not willingly live to see the Pope turn him out again REPLY XIV What is the meaning of this distinction That many of my Church were not of my Party Have we not been all of the same Party or can there he named a Papist that was not for the King even in te worst of times But Good Mr. Parson have you all this while cut our throats and do you now come with your insignificant flatteries that there were some eminent among us for Loyalty I fear not the worst you can say and for the best I scorn it Did I ever say otherwise then that the Protestants were to be honoured for their wonderful service to the King Was not the Apology directed to them and have I not always declared that his Majesty ows as much to them as ever Prince can owe to Subjects Certainly 't is no lessning of their worth because we did our endeavours and have been fellow-sufferers with them in that Glorious Quarrel I never prest in the Apology to have any particular body exempted We only say there Little did we once think that the necessity of affairs would occasion the Royal Party to advise the punishment of us all and in the crowd those worthy Preservers of the King at Worcester Yet Sir with your permission it were not so unreasonable neither as you would have it for the service of some few to suspend the Laws against a Party You have read I know the Scripture and therefore may remember Mordecay's case who by saving the Kings life not only preserved himself and his Nation from Ruine but obtained also honour and freedom for them all But what do you drive at by Throgmortons usage Will you never leave perverting History or at best betraying your own ignorance First you must know Reader that Throgmorton by none of our Historians is mētioned to have done any service for Queen Mary Yet Hollins head has his trial at large which John Lilburn afterwards copied out to the life where no evasion is omitted and certainly it had been then a fit time to urge merits had he had any But suppose he was as eminent and faithful as Bedin field Jerningham c. Must that excuse a man from being fairly tried for Treason This Sir Nicholas Throgmorton you must know with others was accused as a Conspirator with Wyat for which he had a Tryal and was acquitted by his Jury Why distempered Sir 't is so far from our business that we do earnestly desire in the Apology upon the least offence against the State the Transgressour may die without mercy and this I 'le be bound Col. Carlos and the rest of those brave men shall willingly subscribe But will you worthy Country-man that know his Majesties thoughts so well engage that none of the factious shall murmure at him for rewarding those that have done well Now for the stigmatized I find Mr. Parson you pretend to be very well acquainted with their actions If they have done any thing which God knows is little and not to the hundreth part of their transgression let them thank God for the grace he has given them to do the King at length service but I am sure if they really meant well they would never promote the harassing of a faithful Party till they found them machinating against their Prince I have no particular spleen to any man yet cannot look on those men as either of wit or honesty who needlesly disoblige and who strive with violence to have Christians persecuted for Religion when as they themselves are the first that rail against all mankind if their own Consciences be toucht though it be by the establisht Laws of the Nation SECT XV. APOLOGY We confess we are unfortunate and you just Judges whom with our lives we will ever maintain to be so nor are we ignorant the necessity of affairs made the King and you do things which formerly you could not so much as fancy yet give us leave to say we are still Loyal nay to desire you to believe so and to remember how synonymous under the late Rebellion was the word Papist and Cavalier for there was no Papist that was not deemed a Cavalier nor no Cavalier that was not counted a Papist or at least thought to Popishly affected ANSWER XV. He will pass over our fawning on the Parliament and commending our selves and believes us as we did the Sectaries that called the Cavaliers Papists He wonders why these Royallists should be termed Popishly affected but if the Papists were judged Cavaliers they afterwards were ashamed of it In Ireland whole Armies were up against the King In England some came in voluntarily to serve him but more were hunted into Garrisons it being well known we should bring his Majesty more hatred then service The greatest part of us that
have viz. a Preist to assist her at her death she was again recomforted when she knew by the Earl of Kent that she died for her Faith for he told her that her life would be the destruction of their Religion Reader I must now here end and cannot but ask this Question If the Reformed have for defence of their Religion effected the death of their Queen or at least undoubted Heir and if they have set up Jane Gray that had no title because their lawful Prince was Catholick who have been I would fain know in England more faulty in this case they or we Pray what advantage has this Minister got by loading us with crimes of which we are innocent And if as he urges in the beginning we obey'd Q. Elizabeth ten years without stir it then shows that Papists can be obedient to a Prince of another Religion though they doubt their right whenas the former Protestants would do any thing rather then permit a Catholick to govern let the Title be never so just Judge now Reader whether it be not superlative injustice to incense the World against us as if our Religion taught nothing but blood and theirs all gentleness imaginable I must invoke both Angels and Men to consider our wrong who are termed trayterous in our Principles even to this day We in our own persons have shewed all the duty that men can fancy and for our Ancestors you have seen what their Plea is if it be bad they have justly suffred if other wise let them then feel your anger who would deceive you thus with lies and remember that 't is not possible a Religion which governed England with glory so many years can teach a Doctrine destructive to Princes or infuse Maxims that will breed commotions among the people SECT XXIII APOLOGY 'T was for the Royal House of Scotland that they suffered in those days and 't is for the same illustrious Family we are ready to hazard all on any occasion ANSWER XXII Sir We have found you notoriously false in that which you affirm Pray God you prove true in that which you promise SECT XXIV APOLOGY Nor can the consequence of the former procedure be but ill if a Henry the Eighth whom Sir Walter Rawleigh and my Lord Cherbury two famous Protestants have so homely characterized should after twenty years co-habitation turn away his wife and this out of scruple of Conscience as he said when as History declares that he never spared woman in his lust nor man in his fury ANSWER XXIV This Character he says agrees better with some Heads of the Church then with King Henry the Eighth of whom better Historians naming Thuanus say better things but if he were such a Monster 't was for want of a better Religion for he was of ours except in the point of Supremacy and therefore I have no reason to flurt at him except having undertaken to colour Treasons I think 't is something towards it to bespatter Kings I use he says the same Art in the next Paragraph to excuse the Powder-Treason calling it a misdemeanour the fifth of November a Conjuration all soft words but deal hardly with the great Minister of State whom I make the Author of it as if the State had conspired against the Traytors not the Traytors against the State Then he tells the old Story of the Gunpowder-Plot and how discovered by my Lord Mounteâ—gles Letter and also how the Jesuites Baldwin Hammond Tesmond and Gerrard were named by the Conspirators as privy with them The Narration is in any Book that treats of King James and well known by every body therefore for brevities sake I have omitted it here REP. to ANSW XXIV Reader If the Character do agree better with many heads of our Church then I say in Gods name let it be given them But I much admire how Thuanus comes to be esteemed a better historian in English affairs then Sir Walter Raleigh or my Lord Cherbury whom we poor English-men think very excellent But why do I trouble you wiâ—â— the extravagancies of this strange man wâ—â— when he finds as he fancies a present expedient cares not though he be forc'd to deny it again in the next page What I have said of Henry the Eighth these two famous men have said it and a thousand times worse though they were Protestants and the first of them the great admirer of his Mrs. the daughter of this very Prince Nay omitting the unexpressable foul Language of the Reformed at home and abroad especially of Luther himself the Bishop of Hereford a Member of the Church of England calls him unsatiable glutted with one and out of variety seeking to enjoy another I shall speak no more to this nor any thing separately to the next four Paragraphs for they all concern the Powder-Treason You shall see what he says to each of them and then my Answer shall follow in one intire discourse SECT XXV APOLOGY Now for the fifth of November with hands lifted up to Heaven we abominate and detest ANSWER XXV Here he asks Whether it be the Festival 〈◊〉 the Treason we abominate and detest If the 〈◊〉 he says he will believe us without lifting 〈◊〉 our hands If the Treason he asks why we do not call it so which while we cannot afford to do lifting up our hands will never perswad 〈◊〉 we abominate and detest it SECT XXVI APOLOGY And from the bottom of our hearts say that may they fall into irrecoverable perdition who propagate that faith by the blood of Kings which is to be planted in truth and meekness only ANSWER XXVI He says I should be cautious of throwing such Curses for fear of hitting our Father the Pope as the Philosopher told the son of a common-woman that threw stones among a multitude SECT XXVII APOLOGY But let it not displease you Men Brethren and Fathers if we ask whether Ulisses be no better known or who has forgot the Plots of Cromwel framed in his Closet not only to destroy many faithful Cavaliers but also to â—ut a lustre upon his Intelligence as if nothing could be done without his knowledge Even so did the then great Minister who drew some few ambitious men into this conjuration and then discovered it by a Miracle ANSWER XXVII Here he calls me Apostle and Poet full of Gravity and Fiction Then he says I would make the World believe they were drawn into this Plot by Cecil yet am so wise as not to offer to prove it but would steal it in by the example of Cromwel Again he says admitting this for true they were Traytors nevertheless in doing what they did had there been no Cecil in the World and therefore the excuse only implies they had not wit to invent it though they wanted not malice to execute it for according to my illustration as the Cavaliers whom Cromwel drew in had their Loyalty abused and were nevertheless faithful still so the Powder-Traytors whom Cecil
Indices against Catholiques he would have seen that let Rebels declare what they will they 'll soon find excuses and publickly make use of those very things when t is for their advantage against which in the beginning they openly profest Was not Godliness Godliness the cry of all the Saints yet because dexterity was needful they admitted into their league H. Martin and others who were then as notorious for their Vices as afterwards eminent in all the abominations of the Land Again if the Papists were pursued against Bishops there was as fierce a Chase and ever after Popery and Prelacy were continually plac'd in the same Parenthesis For my part I believe the English Episcopacie stuck more in their stomacks then we because Hereticks hate most that Religion which is but one remove above them and from which they are ever iustly taxt rebelliously to have gone out Besides the Catholikes being of a Faith for which the People had a prejudice could no ways obstruct the Reformation which they so earnestly intended 'T is plain then against Prelats they had as great if not a greater Pique yet when it conduced to the reducing of North Wales and subduing of Sir John Owen they made commander of their Forces not onely a Bishop but an Arch bishop also I mean that real Chimaera his graceless Grace of York But why do I trouble you with these probable arguments to prove the possibility of our reception when as the matter of fact is certain not done in a corner but in the Palace of a King and in the sight of all his Nobles Sir Arthur Aston a Catholick of Quality and Experience offered our late Souveraign his service and the service of many more upon the first preparations of War The good Prince sincerely gave him thanks but told him that by reason of their Religion he durst not admit them into the Army for the Rebels who never omitted a pretence would make use of this to discredit him among the people This Knight being refused thus rode in all haste to London and made the like tender to Essex The Earl upon the proposal consults the Cabal who presently advised him to accept the offer and so a formal Commission was given Sir Arthur He immediately posted back to the Court and there shewed the Commission to his Majestie which when he saw and together with it the Intrigue of these Juglers he not onely gave Sir Arthur a Command but from that time declared all Catholicks welcome who thereupon from every Quarter hastned to his help and succour The Designes which the Rebels had herein were many for by this they not onely hoped to get to themselves a Party well versed in War great in Bloud and of Estates answerable to that Bloud but also were sure at the same instant to weaken as much the King as they brought strength to themselves and besides they farther considered that this might adde a gloss to their proceedings abroad because all Neighbouring Princes being Catholiques would then probably look on their actions with a more partial eye Scripture also which is the stalking-horse of all Sects could not be wanting to them who had already with a Curse ye Meroz invited all to Rebellion That very Example might have been a Warrant that the Godly Profane may joyn in a Confederation At least 't was evident that the children of Israel who went to fight the battels of the Lord used Rahabs assistance a Harlot of Jericho for which service they shew'd favour to all her fathers house And why then might not the Elect when the Cause required it receive aid from us though children of the Whore of Babylon Doubtless in Conscience this advantage could not have been omitted by the Saints since it might have been a means towards our Conversion as Cromwel afterwards urged when he so passionately stickled to bring in the Jews My Lords and Gentlemen Thus stood our Case and thus are we now reviled by a Minister after such true and faithful Services Yes so Loyal have we been that I defie all mankinde to shew one that was false unless perchance those that renouncing their God and shaking hands with Religion were owned as Converts by the people Nay let any man read but the Account of the Pyrenaean Treaty printed by the Dutch and others and there he shall see that Cromwel esteemed us the greatest of his enemies for so he told the Duke of Crequi when he desired him as a request of his Mistress the Queen Mother of France to cease his notorious persecutions against us Certainly nothing can more fully proue the sincere and disinterested meaning of the Catholiques then the Kings miraculous Escape from Worcester for he fell not there into the hands of men of Qualitie onely but among Papists of all ranks and conditions There were Priests there were Trades-men there were Labourers there were old women there were young fully acquainted with his misery and though at the same time death was proclaimed to the Concealer and to the Discoverer a reward able to make a poor man Emperour in his own thoughts yet no danger no gain could make them betray him whom by their Faith they were commanded to conceal Men of education and parts may sometimes have by designes even in the best of their doings but they of low degree being unacquainted with the artifices of the World declare the full reality of their hearts having nothing lodged there but the religious Principles which from their youth they received from their Ghostly Father My Lords and Gentlemen I must here conjure you not to put any forc'd interpretation upon my words for I do not now Apologize for any Extravagancies done by our Predecessours in the beginning of the Reformation onely let me beseech you to look on their Case at that time with the gentlest aspect that may be Height of temptation may perchance move pitie in Magistrates though not pervert their Justice and let me desire him that will judge to lay his hand on his owne brest and truly examine there what he himself would do in this condition Suppose he were of a Religion which he thought the visible Church from age to age delivered which he knew his ancestors to have happily lived under and which he saw profest by all the Kingdoms about him suppose then on a sudden by the preaching of two or three men base in their rank and taxt in Moralities obyne another a flame should break out through all Europe and turn topsie-turvie this venerable Building to make way for divers unlike Fabricks every on of which each Architect affirmed was according to Gods own Word and Model I ask him then in such a devastation which to use Camden's own phrase The world stood amaz'd and England groan'd at what would flesh and bloud move him to 'T is an Article of my Faith that neither Heresie nor Turcism because ill must not be done that good may come of it can be opposed by
Apology believing there could not be found a man so inhumane that would charge a thing upon us which for 26 years together we were all acknowledged to be clear of though the late Enemies of the Kingdom had made strict inquisition about it and every body knows they wanted not will had there been probability to make us Partizans in all detestable and odious contrivances 'T was evident the English Catholicks abhorred it that several fought against the Rebels that we all decried their proceedings nor did I ever hear any of our Party in the least excuse the fact though to my knowledge Protestants have often done it My Lord Macquire who being a prime Actor knew the whole Conspiracy at his Execution at Tyborn was conjured as a dying man to declare if the English Papists had any knowledge or hand in the Design He took it on his death that not a man in England knew of it but one and he was an Irishman and a Protestant also But who is ignorant unless wilfully opinionated that that which produced this wickedness was both a National animosity and a particular hatred of the Conquered to the Conqueror Nor would less have been done had any English Catholique King been their Governour Religion is no tie between Nations when great hatreds arise or great advantages for freedom as they term it offer themselves as we experimentally find by the Sicilian Vespers abroad and at home by the total Massacre in one night of the Danes by the English The Protestant Irishman you see also was so willing to have the English out of Ireland that he never discovered the Plot though he knew what was intended against his own Religion For his Criticism about the word infinitie 't is as ridiculous as his poor quibble about Purgatory and for Queen Maries days I shal by and by speak of them at large in a more proper place SECT 2. APOLOGY We had spoken much sooner had we not been silent through consternation to see you so inflam'd whom with reverence we Honour and also to shew our submissive patience which used no slights or tricks to divert the debates of Parliament For no body can imagine where so many of the great Nobility and Gentry are concern'd but some thing might have been done when as in all ages we see things of Publick advantage by the managers dexterity nipt in the bud even in the very Houses themselves Far be it from Catholicks to perplex Parliaments who have been the Founders of their Priviledges and all Antient Laws Nay Magna Charta it self had its rise from us Which we do the less boast of since it was not at first obtained in so submiss and humble a manner ANSWER II. That men of the Popish Religion were the Founders of our good Laws and Priviledges of Parliament the Minister cannot allow for those of our Ancestors that stood for the Nation were he says of his Religion as much as ours but those particularly ours that sided with the Pope REPLY II. Judge whether this man be not madde then Fox for Fox never thought any fit for Kalendar-Saints and Martyrs but those that denied Popery as Roger Only aliâ— Bullingbroke whom Fox hath Canonized though condemned as Stow says to diâ— for Necromancy Sir Roger Acton also hanged for Rebellion and many score of the like Gang. Now the Minister by his Argument will have Protestant all the Parliaments that made Magna Charta and ouâ— other Priviledges all people that acknowledged them and all Officers that from time to time have executed these ancient Laws Yet these transactions were in the darkest times of Popery nor did the Waldenses Albigenses Wiâ—kliffians Lollards c. look on the Government then as Protestant as you may seè in Mr. Fox hiâ— voluminous Story And since I have named this famous Author who is call'd a sound new writer in the much celebrated Practice of piety in the eight reason for the morality of the Sabbath Mr. Heylin also rank's him as the prime modern Ecclesiasticall Writer I say since I have nam'd this once famous Mr Fox I cannot but condole his misfortune that instead of having his Book in Churches as formerly it was wont 't is now thought fit onely to cramp sleepers according to Mrs. Abigails Practice And truly a like fate attends all the first Champions of Reformation for in tract of time their Principles being found by theyr followers impossible to be maintained new ones sometimes opposite to the former are therefore invented which hereafter will also fail as the others did before them SECT III. APOLOGY We sung our Nunc. Dimittis when we saw our Master in his Throne and you in your deserved Authority and Rule ANSWER III. If we sang our Dimittis at the present Kings return he says some of us rejoyc'd and sang an Exultemus at the beheading of the former REPLY III. Who would now think that a man could be so abominable as to lay such a thing to our charge without any proof at all Reader this Godly Minister has done it and that he might show his utmost malice he cites only in the Margent the Answerer of Philanax as if we were undoubtedly found guilty of the fact But because my Minister durst not for shame set dowd Du Moulins words I will here present you with his Accusation verbatim nor will Christ himself be innocent if such evidence as this be sufficient When the business of the late bad times are once ripe for an History and time the bringer forth of truth 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 profest themselves Independents 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 King and Church they had their Spies and their Agents The Roman Priest and Confessour 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 Now Reader let me ask you when will the business of our times be ripe for History or what discoveries can there be made against us if in six and twenty years after the beginning of the War if in twenty years after the end of it and perpetration of that most accursed Murther we have not only been owned as Loyal Subjects but still embrac'd by the Protestant Cavaliers as true Partizans with them in all their glorious Sufferings I am sure the Press was free both in the Rumps and Olivers Tyranny and if it were possible to suppose those times had been unseasonable why have not the grave Historians since the Kings restauration made our late perfidiousness appear I am sure Protestants both Lay and Clergy for
Neighbours This Prince Protestant Historians conclude to be the least deserving of all our Governours for passing by his youthful Rebellion the Murthering of his Nephew his Atheism c. which they record 't is he that lost our whole interest either by Conquest or Matches in France and discontenting all his People never obliged any body that I heard of unless the Mayor and Corporation of Lynne This yet is no excuse to the Pope but shews only the unhappiness of the Nation that it had not a more generous Prince for Sr. Rob Cotton call's him a licentious soueraigne to defend our Rights and Priviledges Now for Transubstantiation it is true that in this Councel the word was first made Authoritatively use of as in the Councel of Nice the word Trinity but the sence and meaning of both Trinity and Transubstantiation was in the Scripture and held from age to age Nay the word Transubstantiation it self was used by grave Authors in Writings before Object 2. Concerning the Decrees and Bulls of Popes he says that from Gregory VII they made such a trade of deposing Kings that no weak King could wear his Crown but at the Popes curtesie and that Boniface VIII declares in these words We say and define and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary to salvation for every creature to be subject to the Bishop of Rome To this I answer that in the next Century or a little more after K. John there were more weak Kings in England then eiher before or since viz. Hen. 3. Edw. 2. Ric. and yet the Popes did not offer to take away their Crowns or ever stirred to perplex them though their wicked Subjects gave the Pope opportunity enough Nay though Hen. 3. denied any acknowledgment upon the gift of King John yet the Pope assisted him against the Rebellious Barons And for the composition of Edward the Seconds troubles his Holiness sent him two Cardinals but the Rebels would not accept of their Mediation as knowing them too much of the Kings Party Besides I told you again and again that the Popes Decrees and Bulls are not alwayes held infallible and may be opposed as they often have been by stiff and Religious Papists nor will good Catholiques scruple to do it especially about Temporal affairs And if Popes should speak in such a Dialect as the Minister urges they mean subjection in Spiritual matters 3. Object Among the Divines that agree to the deposing of Kings he mentions some Jesuites as Bellarmine Suarez Valentia Parsons or Creswel Mariana also he names though he confesses him cōdemned Out of these he cites several places to this purpose viz. As Jehojada deposed Athaliah so may Popes deal with Kings To this I say Let the Jesuites answer for their own Doctrine for I am sure they are of age and able also neither did they ever tell me otherwise but that I might reject such and the like opinions they being only the private fancies of some of their Order It has never been my study to pore upon Schoolmen nor is it worth my pains now to search Libraries whether they have said so or no which truly I do very much doubt of For my part I cannot think Jesuites such King-haters because Kings would then hate them when as on the contrary we see all Princes caress them and make them their Confessors At this time the Jesuites are in this Office to the Emperor the Queen of England the King of France the Queen Regent of Spain the King of Poland and as I take it to the now King of Portugal for they belonged thus to the late old King and Queen of that Kingdom the Dukes of Bavary Newburgh and many other great Princes of Germany are also their Penitents all which considered I must look upon Jesuites in general to be faithfuller Subjects then Protestants imagine for Kings though Papists are not always fools But suppose Jesuites were Villains what is that to the Catholick Faith must Cambridge be Babylon and the English Religion false because the Mēbers of one Colledge suppose Emanuel were thought knaves and hypocrites The other Divines and Canonists whom the Minister urges are Baronius Bertrand Lancelotus Peron Rossaeus who say according to his citations things to the same purpose about deposing of Kings All this put together Reader is the force of his Argument The Objection about Councels and Bulls you see is nothing about Divines I have already given you a touch but now I will handle it a little fuller You must know the Soul of man being so sublime and towring there is no profession in the world but that the wits of it aim to resolve all difficulties that can be proposed in the Science This makes Philosophers Metaphysicians and Schoolmen run into those seeming odd subtleties with which their writings are cram'd In the like manner Casuists thinking it a disgrace not to be able to answer something to whatever can be proposed treat in their Books about all Cases which their nimble fancies can start Among many impertinent niceties and curious Questions this of deposing Apostatizing Princes comes to be handled some perchance are for it others in may be against it Now because some have adjudged That upon a notorious falling away the Church may give to the sound the Dominions of the infected sheep lest the whole slock might be tainted immediately the Minister and other Protestants declare that the dethroning of Kings is the Catholique Doctrine I am sure this was not so absolutely agreed to by the English Protestāts themselves at least in discourse that there could be none found among them who have favoured the opinion which we are said to hold how many well-meaning men fought against Charles the I only because they falsely thought him a Papist and I my self have heard those of condition say when the King was abroad that should the Pope and his crew peruert him they would oppose his return There was no danger of this because his Majesty like his Father and Grādfather has so great a veneration for Protestantism but yet this that I urge was frequently spoke of and no body that reads this but has heard such discourses often What has been done about Religion in this our Country I shall tell you hereafter and at present I shall shew you that we Papists are not the only Rebel-teachers but that there are Reformists that profess this Divinity also Luther says You complain that by our Gospel the World is become tumultous I answer God be thanked these things I would have be and wo me miserable if they were not Zwinglius If the Roman Empire or what other Soveraignty soever should oppress the sincere Religion and we negligently suffer the same we shall be charged with contempt no less then the oppressors themselves whereof we have an example in 15. Jer. where the destruction of the people is Prophesied because they suffered their K. Manasses being ungodly to be unpunisht
Calvin Earthly Princes do hereave themselves of Authority when they erect themselves against God yea they are unworthy to be accounted in the number of men therefore we must rather spit in their faces then obey them Passing by what Beza did in France Davila often mentions He writ a Book of the Power of Magistrates which Mr. Sutcliffe confesses armed Subjects against their Prince Sundry Englishmen writ wholly of this Argument That the Councellors and rather then fail the very people were bound to reform Religion whether the Queen would or no though it were by putting her to death I shall trouble you Reader with no more Citations of which our Books are full for I content my self with naming these of the greatest eminency and certainly the opinions of these Doctors may be more justly charged upon Protestants in general then the opinions of private Catholicks upon us because Luther Zwinglius Calvin and Beza were the first Reformers and if the Spirit of God taught them so much truth as they are said to preach why should this be more questionable then the rest Therefore the Pope being Pharaoh and Popery Egypt as Ministers daily affirm in their Pulpits we may well say These are thy Gods O Israel which brought thee out of the land of Egypt These Apostles rested not in the Theory but fell to the Practice also for whereas the Popes since the first rise of the Reformation never gave away evenby word but two Crowns viz. England and France the Reformed have actually deposed the absolute Princes of Scotland Denmark Swedeland and Geneva have ravisht also from their lawful Governours the Low-Countreys Transylvania and many Towns which are now called Free And for Rebellion and Tumults they have been eminent in Poland Boheme Hungary France Germany and in short in all places where this Gospel has been preacht This every Historian can tell you nay blind Mr. Heylin plainly saw it therefore did all he could when these Countries in his Geography were to be handled to purge the Reformed from the Rebellion truly laid to their charge but finding that washing a Blackmore was labour in vain he was forced with his Brother Sleidan to fly for shelter to this abominable and prodigious Argument viz. That Christ foretold that Fathers should be against their sons and brothers against brothers for his sake and that we find not in any Story the true Religion was induc'd or corrupt about to be amended without War and Bloodshed It is true the lawful Protestant Church of England teaches no such Doctrine but this I do not much wonder at for why should men the King being so absolute in Spirituals run the risk to be undone for venting such notions when as their Monarchs have been so strict Professors of their Religion The test of this would be if the Prince and people were different or like to be so in Faith and Worship 〈◊〉 what the English have done herein whâ—â— this has happened I will shew you 〈◊〉 said by and by For my part I look upon the English to be the most well-meaning and most Religious people in the World and it is that which makes them all so violent in what their Conscience tells them is true This made Papists so earnest for their Religion which had governed England so long in glory This made Protestants fierce to root out what they thought Idolatry This made Presbyterians desire to have Prelatick Superstition reformed and this made Independents and their brood cry down every thing standing stiffly as they imagined for the Kingdom of Iesus Christ I say this great sincerity and zeal makes all our Countrymen so violent which good intention wicked people taking advantage of have caused so many disturbances among us nor can Sectaries ever be quiet till they are convinc'd that some Church or other is infallible Thus Reader have I answered to this strange Calumny against us That our Principles are inconsistent with Govenment by shewing that deposing of Kings is no part of the Catholick Faith which Catholique Princes do very well know and also that in Doctrine and Practice the Reformed have been wheresoever they came far more faulty then we SECT VII APOLOGY My Lords and Gentlemen Had this been a new Sect not known before something perchance might have been doubted but to lay this at their doors that have governed the civilized World is the Miracle of Miracles to us ANSWER VII Here he says that they that have read most and have had the most experience can best cure â—s of the wonder and that K. Iames who had reason to know us said in the Parliament That there were some that might be honest of the Party being ignoraÌ„tly seduced but they that truly knew our Doctrines could never be good Subjects Then he asks when it was that we governed the civilized World For he says the Eastern and Southern Churches never were under our Government nor the Western neither but when ignorant and barbarous REPLY VII Now I plainly see the design of this Minister is to the end his flock may believe every thing answered to say something to each Paragragh let it be never so frivolous Who is it Reader that having read History is ignorant of the great power the Bishop of Rome had over the East as the Greek Fathers tell us for wee read in Eusebius that Pope Victor about anno 200. Excomunicated the Eastern Church for not keeping Easter the Roman way and this Grimston also has in his account of Popes Or who knows not of the Appeals from Africk when matters of moment arose even in the most acknowledged Primitive times But I ask your pardon for asserting this because in the Primitive times they say the Popes themselves were Protestants Yet though this were so I wonder the Minister should be so forgetful of the Great Antichrist Boniface the III who is baited by every Shoolboy This arrant Pope lived above 1000. years aago and not only called himself Universal Bishop but was owned so too by Phocas the Universal Emperor as all Protestants declare Might not then a man modestly say that Popery governed the civilized World when it governed the whole World But I d of willingly forgive a man this that has the confidence to say that we did not govern the Western World till it grew ignorant and barbarous It may be he means that those Parts have been so ever since Christs time otherwise till this late Reformation there was never any Government on this side Greece that denied the Popes Jurisdiction and Greece it self owned it in the Councel of Lateran and in Hen. 3. time also as Protestant Sir Richard Baker testifies Ever since Rome made het self Mistress of all Arts and Sciences the West took the name of the only civilized place Therefore had he understood civility he would not have made so simple a cavil and I dare say he is the first ProtestaÌ„t Writer though they have been as
all was done in the dark nor would they ever own otherwise then that they dyed without violence For t was given out that the death of the first of these Princes came by extreame Griefe That the other Starved himselfe and that the last died of a Naturall sicknesse But the execution of the Queen of Scots was bare-fac'd in the sight of the World and which was more under the cloak of Law My Lord of Leicester was sensible of the dishonour that would accrew to the Nation and therefore sent Walsinhham a godly Divine to satisfie his conscience that it was lawful to poyson her but the Minister could no more convince his penitent then the Saints could Harrison about the clandestine Murther of the Grandchild And doubtless the whole intrigue against Q. Mary gave precedent and boldness to our execrable Parricides openly to do their detestable villany in a formal method and manner This procedure against the Queen contrary as 't was imagined to the Law of Nations she being both a Guest and an absolute Princess drew an universal odium upon the Kingdom for the Reproach was entailed on the whole nation by the apparition of a mimicall and Counterfeit justice as Osborne call's it nor did any Englishman either Papist or Protestant ever misse to be upbraided with it abroad till the greatness of the abomination against King Charles made them leave off a little speaking of the first to remember us more piquantly of the last Is it to excuse the two unheard of 〈◊〉 that he tell me of four or five Kings since the Conquest made away by Papists It may be it is that I should again retort that since Hen. 8. Reign there were but b four Protestestant Monarchs and three of them were said to come to violent deaths But what is Ravillac's murther of Hen. 4. to us in England more then to Saxony the poysoning of Edw. 6. by the Lord Robert Dudly for so Sir Richard Baker conceives he hid I know Clement the Frier destroyed Hen 3. so did Judas his Master and yet neither the Disciples nor Christian Religion were ever thought the worse for it For the Murther of the Protestants in IrelaÌ„d I shew'd you in the beginning how we detested it CoÌ„cerning the Blood spilt in FraÌ„ce I shall speak at large in the Paragraph about that Massacre But I wonder the PiemoÌ„thusiness should be unged by Royallist for I remeÌ„ber when CroÌ„wel made a CollectioÌ„ for theÌ„ in pretence but for himself in reality the Cavaliers ever stiled them Rebels and said the Duke of Savoy was necessitated for his quiet to subdue them thus by Arms. Yet for all their hard usage I wish we had as much freedome as they Now for Queen Maries Reign which this man so often calls the Bloody days I will here speak a little eternally to stop his mouth hereafter First Reformed Historians agree that the Queen her self was a marveillous good woman therefore it was not she but her Bishops that were cruel Again every Englishman knows that no man can be put to death amongst us without Law therefore they were not the Bishops but the Laws that were cruel which Laws still continue and have been made use of since the Reformation by Q. Elez. K. â—ames to burne Hereticks Yet for all these Laws there died of Protestants in the whole but 277. as Baker and other Protestant Writers record Besides were these 277. now alive 200. at least in stead of pity would be thrown into prison and there rot for Non-conformists but all things were called Saints in the dawning of the light even so much as Collins and his dog for Fox in his Act 's and Monuments say's that Collins beeing mad and seeing a Priest hold up the Host to the people tooke a dog and held it up as the Priest did the Host for wch he and the dog were burnt Yet though this Collins be own'd by Fox to be mad never the less he places him as a Martyr on the 10. of Octob. as may be seen in his Calendar In the next place let me know whether a man may be executed for this Tenets in Religion or no If it be lawful why might not Papists put to death men who they thought deserved it as well as Protestants If no man ought to suffer for his Conscience why did Edward 6. and Q. Eliz. condemn so many Hereticks in their time all which were executed but some few that recanted and so saved their lives Or why did K. James put to death Legat and Wightman but because he religiously thought it was unfit they should longer live to blaspheme Over and above these that died for a Religion of their own making I saw a Roll at Doway wherein to the year 1632. there suffered out of that one House 105. Priests since which there died many out of the same Colledge Add to these many out of the Portugal Spanish and Roman Seminaries many of other Orders and many Laymen also who have been executed for owning the Pope in Spirituals or for having a Priest say Mass in their Houses according to the obligation of their Consciences If these were then all numbred I am sure there suffered many more Catholicks omitting the innumerable Confiscations by the Protestant Government then ever there did Protestants by the Catholick Nay if together with Catholicks I should reckon all sorts of people that died for their Conscience though enemyes to Popery which may be found in Fox Stow and others in the Reignes of Hen. 8. Ed. 6. and Queen Elizabeth it is evident there has been more Blood spilt on a Religious account under our Princes that disowned the Pope then by the Papists from St. Augustins Conversion to Luthers time Iudge then if Catholicks be so bloody as they are reported and thought SECT XII APOLOGY 'T was never heard of before that an absolute Queen was condemned by Subjects and those stiled her Peers or that a King was publiquely tried and executed by his own people and servants ANSWER XII Here he says That the Q. of Scots was beheaded under Elizabeth by the same colour of right that Wallis suffered under Edw. 1. whom I call he says a brave Prince namely that of Soveraignty which our Princes challenged over Scotland but that King James and King Charles never imputed this to Q. Elizabeths Religion Concerning King Charles's Murther he says that I would take it ill a Turk should charge the Ministers faults and his Parties upon me but I do worse then a Turk in charging these mens faults upon the Protestants for the Murtherers were neither then nor since of the Ministers Communion He sayes King Charles declared he died for the Protestant Religion and Laws of the Land that also in his Letter to the Prince he says none of the Rebels were Professors or Practicers of the Church of England which gives no such Rules REPLY XII Nay now I have
who was althogether governed by the House of Guise by reason of the great power they had in the late Kings Reign and more especially now because the Queen-Consort was the glorious Mary of Scotland daughter to the Sister of this ambitious Duke The House of Burbon being the first Princes of the Blood were greatly troubled they had no interest in affairs and tried all manner of ways to get into play The Prince of Conde a hot-headed man seeing he could not ruine the Guises by ordinary means calls all his partizās together `among whom Coligni was the Chief to la Ferte an Apennage of his and there he told them they must take Arms to free themselves from the slavery they were in by the ruling Party The fiery youth were all of the Princes opinion to begin the War without delay But Brave Coligni as the Minister calls him replied That this were to ruine them all seeing that though their pretences were fair yet few of the Nation would follow them and on the other side all forreign Princes were in amity with France by the late agreement of the Kings Father If they had a mind he said to do their business home the sole way were to pretend Religion which in it self had an honourable appearance and besides the Calvinists in France were many hating the Guises and wanting only a Head nor would the Princes of Germany or Q. Elizabeth fail to assist them on this score which otherwise could not be done on any account Thus the Brave man not only consented to Rebellion but put them in a holy method effectually to perform it All the Assembly applauded the Counsel of this Achitophel and there-upon Andelot his Brother a most turbulent man and the Vicedame of Chartres rich and debauch were apponted to execute their determinations The manner of the Plot was this To get a great company of unarmed Hugonots to go to Court and there clamour for Liberty of Conscience and free Temples these poor men they imagined should presently be ill treated by the Duke of Guise whereupon the Protestant Souldiers which for that purpose they were to provide would immediately come to their assistance and under pretence that the Hugonots were abused they might fall on the Court and wholly destroy their Enemies Besides this 't was reported that in the disorder the King and his three Brethren were to be made away and God knows whether this last part were not as true as the first seeing after the death of these Children the House of Bourbon Heads of the design should succeed in the Throne But now see how far the Conspiracy succeeded The Provinces were divided to several of the most considerable in each division who were to make ready their Levies against the 15. of March 1560. at Blois a Town unfortified where then the Court resided Godfry de la Barre a Gentleman of Perigort who had left his Country by reason of forgery in a Law-suit and turned Calvinist was made Commander in Chief and according to their success the Prince Admiral and the rest would order affairs The Kings Councel having at last notice of this carries the King without noise to Amboise the better to secure him on a sudden with the present little force they had in readiness On the day appointed the Conspirators come and finding the King gone follow him to Amboise and assault the Castle which being too strong to be presently their's they were by the Mareschal of St. Andrew and others wholly defeated and taken Upon this trayterous attempt the King summons an Assembly of the Nobles at Fountain-Bleau where the brave Coligni grave the King a Paper and said That the Protestants hearing by his Majesties Edict that every Subject might make known his Grievance in this Assembly did present that Petition to him though it were not signed yet when his Majesty pleased it should be by 150000. hands The Assembly for all this arrogance advised against a Toleration but the Hugonots encouraged by these proceedings rose in Arms in several places and filled the Court with complaints of their many insolencies and on the other side the Prince with his Complices set upon Lyons After this the three Estates met at Orleans where the Prince was condemned to be executed and in this disorder the King died Charles the 9 was about eleven years old when he began his Reign so that in his minority the faction of the Protestants being so great the Prince was acquitted and liberty granted for publike preaching Then the Hugonots became so insolent that they massacred many people in Paris burnt the Church of St. Medard rifled Monasteries and committed many such exorbitances The Prince would have seised on the Kings Person at Fountain-Bleau but the Duke of Guise got the King of Navar first Prince of the Blood and prime Commander of State to bring him and the Queen-Regent to Paris which when the Prince of Conde understood and saw himself defeated of his design he told brave Coligni that he had plunged himself so deep that now he must drink or drown and thereupon attackt Orleans and took it using all the inhumane barbarities that can be thought of After this as Rebels are accustomed a Manifesto is set out That he took up Arms to free the Kings Person from the slavery in which the Catholick Lords held him This was directed to the Parliament who again answered That they wondered how it could be said the King was prisoner being in his own Capital City of which Charles of Bourbon the Princes own Brother was Governour where was present the King of Navar Chief Administrator of the Kingdom where the Parliament sat and in fine where all the great Officers of the Crown resided But why do I go to the particulars of this notorious Rebellion To be short Coligni's own words a little before his death will sufficiently declare how great a Traytor he was for just before the Marriage like another Nebuchadnezzar in his pride he said to some of his confidents That neither Alexander nor Caesar could be compared to him because Fortune was their friend but that he dad lost four Battles yet by his wit he stil became more formidable to his Enemies If then this brave man that began the Rebellion as you have heard that lost four Battels against his Prince that seised on so many Towns that disswaded Peace so often when desired and that did so many infamous actions all along shall pass and not be thought a Rebel then I will aver there was never Rebel since the Creation of the World The things Reader which I have here laid down you many find disperst in the first five Books of Davila's History who is an Author thought by Protestants so Authentick and so impartial sparing no body of what Rank or Faction soever that among Historians none hath a clearer fame Having given you a short occount how these Potent Hugonots plagued these two Kings be pleased now to tell me whether it was
not their powerful Rebellion let their Religion have been what it would that drew them into this ill-machinated destruction And by the way see how simple the cavil of this Minister is who says I call it ill-machinated because it was done by halves The action was wicked and a Cabinet-Plot or else there is no such thing in Nature neither did it want condemning by several famous Catholiques themselves who would doubtless have been silent had the Pope so publickly rejoyced at the news as the Minister would fain have us believe The King in Vindication of the cruelty laid to his charge gives these Reasons to the World That though every body saw how horribly the Rebels had used him yet it was not his design to Massacre so many Hugonots but only to cut off some Heads of the Party who so highly fomented the Sedition this made him cause Coligni to be shot the chief Rebel of thē all but the bullet only breaking his arm his Partizans grew to such a rage that they threatned a present War and destruction to him and his therefore he was necessitated to what he did viz. immediately to destroy those that had vowed his ruine Now to demonstrate that is was not his intention the Kings friends farther said That had he intended a general Massacre from the beginning it had been folly to shoot the Admiral so many days before the total execution because this would have alarmed the Party and given occasion to many to get away as in truth not a few did the day before the bloody night Reader I know not whether this Declaration of the King be true or not but this I am sure the action was unchristian though there were never greater Rebels then these Hugonots for they not only fought many Battles with their Prince and fortified many of his Towns against him but besides all this brought forreign Forces into France as Ruyters from Germany and English from us and because all things are lawful to the Saints they delivered up Havre de Grace to Queen Elizabeth by which we had a new footing in France even we the profest enemies of the Nation Nay they began first to Massacre Catholiques in Paris and also Coligni and Beza got Poltrot to murther the Duke of Guise father to him that was Killed at Blois This the Assassine openly confest at his death being after executed for the fact By force then and such tricks tyring out their Kings they got several Priviledges and Edicts but God send me and my Relations to live for ever in servitude rather then to obtain liberty by such strange and dissalowable courses And truly I doubt not since this Minister can justifie these Agreements but he would if the Four Bills had passed at the Isle of Wight vindicate the proceedinghs and cite those Acts with as much confidence as if they had been obtained without Force in time of Peace and quiet Had King James lived in our days and seen how the same pretences with those of the Hugonots viz. Conscience and the Liberty of the Subject had like to have ruined his Family I do believe they would have found small comfort from any Vindication of his I do therefore openly affirm that if any Englishman who has considered the villany of our times does still justifie Brave Coligni and his Hugonots he has either been an apparent Rebel or is so in his heart and will shew his Teeth upon the first advantage that shall be offered SECT 19. APOLOGY May it not as well be said in the next Catholick Kings Reign that the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal Heads of the League were killed for their Religion also Now no body is ignorant that 't was their factious Authority which made the jealous Prince design their deaths though by unwarrantable means ANSWER XIX He says the Guises were not killed for their Religion for they were killed by one of their own Religion as much bent against Protestants as they That Papists hated Hen. 3. only for sparing the Blood of Protestants and not declaring his Protestant Heir uncapable of Succession That for these causes the Guises by the Popes consent who calls them the Macchabees of the Church entred into the Holy League and called in the Spaniards and Savoyards to maintain War against him and deprive him of his Kingdom and Life Whereupon the jealous Prince as I favourably call him dealt with them as they had done with the Protestants But their case he says was so different from the Protestants that he wonders I should mention it Then he tells us the Pope excommunicated the King for this action and gave nine years Indulgence to his Subiects to fight against him foretelling as a Pope might do without Astrology that ere long he should come to a fearful end and this he says hapned for the Subjects earned the Indulgence and a Frier fulfilled the Prophesie This action the Pope in a Speech called the work of God and for its wonderfulness compared it with the Incarnation or Resurrection preferring his courage before Eleazars or Iudiths and declaring the King who profest he died in the Faith of the Roman Catholick Church to have died in the sin against the Holy Ghost Lastly He asks whether it may not be said Papists cannot live without persecuting Protestāts whē a Popish King is stab'd and damned for not persecuting them enough REPLY 19. Here is a great deal of cry and little wool for I have often said the Pope may have his frailties as well as other men and does not the Minister know he is a Temporal Prince also and in that capacity may have intrigues with his Neighbours What is this to our Religion more then if the King of Spain should make use of the Politicks too far Again if the Pope as our Archbishop all Countries being in his Province should commit humane indiscretions Why were we to be more blamed for it then Durham Chester and Carlisle ought to be for their Religion because their Metropolitan Williams joyned with the Rebels against King Charles of happy Memory I never approved the procedure of the Guises in their League and have always said they were most insolent Ministers of State to Hen. 3. but when the Duke and Cardinal were murthered at Blois by the King their Successors learnt of the Hugonots to run into a formal and open War And truly my inference I conceive was pertinent concerning the Massacre of the one and murther of the other though the Parson thinks it something strange For in this Example the Outers and the Outees the Hugonots and Guises were killed by their Kings Now since both Parties were prodigious in power able to cope with the Prince 't would be as ridiculous to say that because the Hugonots were destroyed they suffered for their Faith as that the Heads of the League were killed for their Religion Davila tells us That the Pope only refused to absolve Henry the Third saying that he could not be
Rebellion though many of the Reformed Divines are as I shal shew you of another sentiment Yet even those that do agree with me will nevertheless confess that by reason of carnal passions Grace must be predominant to resist so strong a torrent Was it not strange in the beginning to behold Abbies destroyed Bishopricks gelded Chanteries Hospitals and Colledges turned to profane uses Nay after a change of Liturgies and Rites to see people renounce their pious Vows and out of Godliness grow more licentious and loose These and the like unexpected alterations it being a pitiful thing as Stow says to hear the lamentations in the Country for Religious houses spurred men forward to resist for people saw the Conflagration and none knew in what it would determine or end But now Noble Country-men the Scene is quite altered for now we know the full scope of your designe now we are inured to the gentle Yoak of Protestant Kings and now we are so incorporated by our long acquaintance and joynt sufferings that all humane proneness to contend which our Enemies called Principles of Faith is wholly eradicated and taken away Having thus shew'd you that our Principles are not dangerous to Kings that our actions have been zealous for Kings and moreover that it is impossible we should again fall into those misdemeanours into which natural frailtie and misusage drove the foregoing age I will now with your permission examine the Answer of our Minister to each particular Paragraph and by it shall still farther let you see as well his pernicious ill nature as his detestable Positions and Designes But my Lords and Gentlemen I shall beseech you first throughly to peruse the Apologie it self it being the ground of the whole Dispute and because it hath been mangled by him into many imperfect Sections I have thought fit to print it here entire to the end you might run it over with the more ease and that by the whole connexion and dependance which mutilation spoils you may the better consider the real integritie I had in putting out that true and submissive Vindication TO ALL THE ROYALLISTS that suffered for HIS MAJESTY AND To all the rest of the Good People of ENGLAND The Humble APOLOGIE of the ENGLISH CATHOLICKS My Lords and Gentlemen THe Arms which Christians can use against Lawful Powers in their Severity are only Prayers Tears Now since nothing can equal the infinity of those we have shed but the Cause viz. to see our dearest Friends forsake us we hope it will not offend you if after we have a little wip'd our eyes we sigh out our Complaints to you We had spoken much sooner had we not been silent through consternation to see you so enflam'd whom with reverence we honour and also to shew our submissive patience which used no slights or tricks to divert the debates of Parliament For no body can imagine where so many of the great Nobility and Gentry are concern'd but something might have been done whenas in all ages we see things of Publick advantage by the managers dexterity nipt in the bud even in the very Houses themselves Far be it from Catholicks to perplex Parliaments who have been the Founders of their Priviledges and all Ancient Lawes Nay Mâgna Charta it self had its rise from us which we do the less boast of since it was not at first obtained in so submiss and humble manner We sung our Nunc dimittis when we saw our Master in his Throne and you in your deserved Authority and Rule nor could any thing have ever grieved us more then to have our Loyalty called into Question by you even at the instigation of our greatest Adversaries If we must suffer let it be by you alone for that 's a double death to men of Honour to have their Enemies not onely Accusers but their insulting Judges also These are they that by beginning with us murthered their Prince and wounded you And shall the same Method continue by your approbation We are sure you mean well though their designe be wicked But let it never be recorded in Story that you forgot your often Vows to us in joyning with them that have been the cause of so great calamity to the Nation Of all Calumnies against Catholicks we have admired at none so much as that their Principles are said to be inconsistent with Government and they themselves thought ever prone to Rebellion My Lords and Gentlemen Had this been a new Sect not known before something perchance might have been doubted but to lay this at their doors that have governed the Civilized World is the Miracle of Miracles to us Did Richard the First or Edward Longshanks suspect his Catholicks that served in Palestine and made our Countries Fame big in the Chronicle of all Ages Or did they mistrust in their dangerous absence their Subjects at home because they were of this Profession Could Edward the Third imagine those to be Trayterous in their Doctrine that had that care and duty for their Prince as to make them by Statute guilty of death in the highest degree that had the least thought of ill against the King Be pleased that Henry the Fifth be remembred also who did those Wonders of which the whole World does still resound and certainly all History will agree in this that 't was Old Castle he feared and not those that believed the Bishop of Rome to be Head of the Church We will no longer trouble you with putting you in minde of any more of our mighty Kings who have been feared abroad and as safe at home as any since the Reformation of Religion We shall onely adde this that if Popery be the enslaving of Princes France still believes it self as absolute as Denmark or Sweden nor will ever the House of Austria abjure the Pope to secure themselves of the fidelity of their Subiects We shall always acknowledge to the whole World that there have been as many brave English in this last Century as in any other place whatsoever Yet since the exclusion of the Catholick Faith there has been that committed by those who would be fain called Protestants that the wickedest Papist never dreamt of 'T was never heard of before that an absolute Queen was condemned by Subjects and those stiled her Peers or that a King was publickly tried and executed by his own people and servants My Lords and Gentlemen We know who were the Authors of this last Abomination and how generously you strove against the raging Torrent nor have we any other ends to remember you of it but to shew that all Religions may have a corrupted spawn and that God hath been pleased to permit such a Rebellion which our progenitors never saw to convince you perchance whom for ever may he prosper that Popery is not the only Source of Treason Little did we think when your Prayers and ours were offered up to beg a Blessing on the Kings Affairs ever to see that
day in which Carlos Gifford Whitgrave and the Pendrels should be punished by your desires for that Religion which obliged them to save their forlorn Prince and a stigmatized man for his offences against King and Church a chief promoter of it Nay less did we imagine that by your Votes Hudlestone might be hanged who again secured our Soveraign and others free in their fat possessions that sat as Judges and sealed the Execution of that great Prince of happy Memory We confess we are unfortunate you just Judges whom with our lives we will ever maintain to be so nor are we ignorant the necessity of affairs made the King and you do things which formerly you could not so much as fancy yet give us leave to say we are still Loyal nay to desire you to believe so and to remember how synonymous under the late Rebellion was the word Papist and Cavalier for there was no Papist that was not deemed a Caualier nor no Caualier that was not call'd a Papist or at least thought to be Popishly affected We know though we differ something in Religion the truth of which let the last day judge yet none can agree with your inclinations or are fitter for your converse then we for as we have as much birth among us as England can boast of so our breeding leans your way both in Court and Camp And therefore had not our late Sufferings united us in that firm tie yet our like humors must needs have joyned our hearts If we erre pity our condition and remember what your great Ancestors were and make some difference between us that have twice converted England from Paganism and those other Sects that can challenge nothing but intrusion for their imposed Authority But 't is generally said That Papists cannot live without persecuting all other Religions within their reach We confess where the name of Protestant is unknown the Catholick Magistrates believing it erronious do use all endeavours to keep it out Yet in those Countreys where Liberty is given they have far more Priviledges then we under any Reformed Government whatsoever To be short we will only instance France for all where they have publick Churches where they can make what Proselytes they please and where 't is not against Law to be in any Charge or Imployment Now Holland which permits every thing gives us 't is true our Lives and Estates but takes away alle Trust and Rule and leaves us also in danger of the Scout whensoever he pleases to molest our Meetings Because we have named France the Massacre will perchance be urged against us But the World must know that was a Cabinet-Plot condemned as wicked by Catholick Writers there and of other Countries also Besides it cannot be thought they were murthered for being Protestants since 't was their powerful Rebellion let their Faith have been what it would that drew them into that ill-machinated destruction May it not as well be said in the next Catholick Kings Reign that the Duke of Guise ande Cardinal Heads of the League were killed for their Religion also Now no body is ignorant that 't was their factious Authority which made that jealous Prince design their deaths though by unwarrantable means If it were for Doctrine that the Hugonots suffered in France this haughty Monaroh would soon destroy them now having neither Force nor Towns to resist his Might and Puissance They yet live free enough being even Members of Parliament and may convert the Kings Brother too if he thinks fit to be so Thus you may see how well Protestants live in a Popish Country under a Popish King Nor was Charlemaign more Catholick then this for though he contends sometimes with the Pope 't is not of Faith but about Gallicane Priviledges which perchance he may very lawfully do Judge then Worthy Patriots who are the best used and consider our hardship here in England where 't is not only a Fine for hearing Mass but death to the Master for having a Priest in his house and so far we are from preferment that by Law we cannot come within ten miles of London all which we know your great Mercy will never permit you to exact It has been often urged that our misdemeanours in Queen Elizabeths and King James's time were the cause of our punishment We earnestly wish that the Party had had more patience under that Princess But pray consider though we excuse not their faults whether it was not a Question harder then that of York and Lancaster the cause of a War of such length and death of so many Princes who had most right Queen Elizabeth or Mary Stuart For since the whole Kingdom had crowned and sworn Allegeance to Queen Mary they owned her as the legitimate daughter to Henry the Eighth and therefore 't was thought necessarily to follow by many that if Mary was the true Child Elizabeth was the Natural which must needs give way to the thrice noble Queen of Scots 'T was for the Royal House of Scotland that they suffered in those days and 't is for the same illustrious Family we are ready to hazard all on any occasion Nor can the consequence of the former procedure be but ill if a Henry the Eighth whom Sir W. Rawleigh and my Lord Cherbury two famous Protestants have so homely characterized should after twenty years co-habitation turn away his wife and this out of scruple of Conscience as he said when as History declares that he never spared woman in his lust nor man his fury Now for the fifth of Novēber with hāds lifted up to Heaven we abominate and detest and from the bottō of our hearts say may they fall into irrecoverable perdition who propagate that faith by the blood of Kings which is to be planted in truth and meekness only But let it not displease Men Brethren and Fathers if we ask whether Ulysses be no better known or who has forgot the Plots of Cromwel framed in his Closet not only to destroy many faithful Cavaliers but also to put a lustre upon his Intelligence as if nothing could be done without his knowledge Even so did the then great Minister who drew some few ambitious men into this conjuration and then discovered it by a Miracle This will easily appear viz. how little the Catholique Party understood the design seeing there were not a score of guilty found though all imaginable industry was used by the Commons Lords and Privy Councel too But suppose my Lords and Gentlemen which never can be granted that all the Papists of that age were consenting Will you be so severe then to still punish the Children for their Fathers faults Nay such Children that so unanimously joyned with you in that glorious Quarrel wherein you and we underwent such sufferings that needs we must have all sunk had not our mutual love assisted What have we done that we should now deserve your Anger Has the Indiscretion of some few incenst you 'T is true that is
eager Assertors of Legal Liberties Seven Chapters of his Treatise are against Papists and all taken out of the Answerer of the Apology therefore since I find it hath weight in the opinion of one lest more weak Brethren should fall I thought fit to take some pains thus to remove the cause I was forced to go the insipid way of Section by Section well knowing that some people not finding the Solution to follow the Objection would sooner haesitate and doubt Insipid I call this Method because there is no art or contrivance in it nor is it possible but the best Reply in the World must be then frigidly stiff when the Adversary in the Paragraph has no Spirit in him I have not Printed the Answer verbatim for that would be too tedious but have so contracted it that I challenge the Author himself to find any thing left out that might have added force to the Argument The Books I use in Citations are all Protestant except Davilah impartial as the reformed confess for though he is acknowledged to be a Creature and adorer of Katherine de Medices yet concerning her he speaks home even in many private intrigues which might have been well omitted Him only I quote about the Hugonots Rebellion but their actions are so villanously notorious that any Author shall be-sufficient for that purpose I must needs say I have had no little trouble in this Composition fearing the Bulk would be voluminous for by Nature I hate superfluities and always strive to crowd my matter into the narrowest room imaginable In this Work I had still the disgustful vexation how to omit and yet be still intelligible For I dare affirm had I writ all I could upon this Subject and followed to the utmost the disingenious digressions of the Answerer I should have swell'd to the bigness of any Folio extant I have nevertheless past by nothing material and hope this thin Octavo will be both useful and satisfactory to you since it contains the whole accusation in practice charged upon the English Catholicks I have urged nothing as I said before but what I prove out of the Record of a violent Protestant or a natural deduction from it and that you may upon occasion find each particular matter here follow the Contents themselves in order 1. Whether Papists were necessitated farther then in Duty to fight for their Soveraign Pref. 2. Concerning stirs by Papists in the beginning of the Reformation Pref. 3. Concerning the Irish Rebellion Rep. 1. 4. Mr. Du Molins Canonical french integrity in his allegations agains Papist's Rep. 3. He is endanger'd by his owne baite Rep. 35. 5. Whether Papists die in England for their Conscience or for Treason Rep. 4. 6. About the Oath of Allegeance and dispensing with Vows Rep. 5. 7. Whether their General Councils Decretals and Divines teach Papists Rebellion and deposing Kings And in the Theory and Practise whether Papists or Protestants have been most in fault Rep. 6. 8. Whither Papist's govern'd the civiliz'd world And of theire Ignorance Rep. 7. 9. Whether Protestant Princes are more absolute then the Popish Pref. and Rep. 9. 10. 10. About Q. Maries Persecution and whether she or the Reformed Government spilt most Blood for Religion Rep. 11. 11. Whither Papist's caus'd the war in the three Kingdomes Rep. 13. 12. Whether Papists were connivers in the late Troubles Rep. 15. 13. Whether Papists twice converted England from Paganism Rep. 16. 14. Whether Popish or Protestant Governments are kinder to their dissenting Subjects Rep. 17. Postscript 15. Concerning the French Massacre Rep. 18. 19. 20. 16. The Popish misdemeanors in Q. Elizabeths Reign and their then Plea Rep. 22. 17. How Protestants have used their Popish Princes here in England Rep. 22. 18. About the Powder-Treason Rep. 28. 19. About Hubert the Frenchman who was hang'd for burning London Rep. 35. 20. Concerning the Catalogue of the Papists that died for their King and of the Protestants also that died in that bed of Honour Rep. 48. 21. Of the Papist's that leave their Religion why Rep. 48. Sect. 5. Many other things of note are here handled in several places The Printer to the Reader I Had directions to add Figures to the Apology here before Printed intire which might correspond to each Answer to the end you might know what the Answerer strives to confute But because this would be no little trouble to you to turn and return in the reading of the Book I have therefore reprinted the Apology dividing it into several Sections corresponding both with the Answer and Reply This will be I am sure of no little conveniency to you and so farewel THe Title which the Minister has prefixt to his Book is The late Apology in behalf of the Papists reprinted and answered in behalf of the Royallists Now I beseech you Reader having read the Apology through what injury has any good man done him by it But besides how extravagant is that beginning for to write against Papists in Vindication of the Royallists is like the defending of King Charles by the opposing of Charles Stuart Did not the Protestants and Catholicks make up one Body viz. the Royal Party I am sure they that distinguish them at present hated both formerly and would willingly divide them now in hopes to weaken the King and put the whole Kingdom in new confusions He therefore that thus impertinently begins with wicked intentions can never without doubt end either well or wisely SECT I. APOLOGY The Arms which Christians can use against Lawful Powers in their Severity are onely Prayers and Tears Now since nothing can equal the infinity of those we have shed but the Cause viz. To see our dearest Friends forsake us we hope it will not offend you if after we have a little wip'd our eyes we sigh out our Complaints to you I. ANSWER The minister directs his Answer to the Author of the Apology and says thus to the foregoing words That in the Conspiracy of Babington against Q. Elizabeth such a Declaration was made about Prayers and Tears that the expression infinity of tears is in it self improper and the sence more applicable to Q. Maries days the Irish Rebellion or our own faboulous Purgatory But we Iesuites whether ranting or whining cannot speak like other men REPLY I. Is not this great malice to make a parity between them who considered Q. Elizabeth as an Usurper and us that in words and sufferings acknowledge no Prince had ever a more unquestionable Title then ours To this I need not say more having in the latter end of the Preface shewed that time and accidents have quite altered the Scene and doubtless our obedience to the Government is now apparently so great that t is as probable the Heptarchy may be revived or the Welsh rebel which were high folly to imagine as that disorders or tumults can be again occasioned by the Catholiques Concerning the Irish Rebellion I never so much as once mentioned it in the
their Treason in his Majesties absence have been convicted since his return when as no Papist could ever yet be suspected for the least defection from our Soveraing Can this man think himself Canon of Canterbury and dare say that the Priest is known who flourisht his Sword at the fatal stroke when as no body knows him no not he himsef Doubtless he means some Hugonot Minister for what Cavalier was ever in France and knows not how those Saints adored Cromwel hating from the beginning to the end both our King and his Party Let the World judge of this Story concerning this nameless Priest by him whom he names viz. Mr. White whose Book of Obedience and Government he lays as a blot on all of our Religion when as this Mr. White has not only been sharply used by the Catholicks of England but he and this very Book were openly condemned by the Pope himself nor durst he since shew his head in any Catholique Countrey Thus may be seen the Conscience of this Monsieur who would charge us with a crime which at the writing he knew was false from this son of Darkness has my Minister and others owned to have received their light and what kind of light it is pray be pleased farther to observe He tells us That a year before the Kings death a select Company of English Jesuits were sent from their whole Party to consult with the Faculty of Sorbon who you must know Reader are the greatest Catholick Enemies the Society has in France whether they might lawfully make away the King The Doctors answered affirmavely to the Question being then stated in writing but afterwards when the Pope saw that the Kings Murther was decried by every body he commanded tha Jesuits to burn all the Papers about the Question but one of them was shewed by a Papist to a Protestant Yet for all this secrecy commanded by the Pope Du Moulin tells us p. 58. that at Roan many Jesuited persons told a Protestant openly on the news of the Kings death That they having often admonished the King from time to time to remember his promise at Marriage of becoming a Papist were forc'd to take these courses for his destruction After this History he says p. 61. That the Friers at Dunkirk and by the way there was never in that Town a House of English Scotch or Irish Friers told a Protestant Gentleman that had a mind to pump them That the Jesuits would fain engross the Honour of the Kings death to themselves but the truth was they had laboured as effectually as the Jesuits to compass it Then he tells pag. 60. That thirty Jesuits neer Diep met a stranger a Protestant Gentleman on the Road and told him that they were going into England to be Agitators in the Independent Army Good Protestant Reader I am quite tired with this senceless stuff and if you think it false consider what a jewel you have got from France but if you can deem it true let me entreat you hereafter never to fear Jesuite or Priest for I am sure such prating fools can never do you harm Besides I wonder how it came to pass that all the Great Cavaliers caress't the Jesuits and always employ'd them in much business during the Kings exile neither were they then or the rest of the Popish Priests less welcome to the Royallists of England But pardon me I beseech you Reader if I use so many words about a matter that deserves so little yet I cannot but confess I am engaged to the Frenche Divine for being so notoriously malitious and foolish nor did I ever think that Sir Walters discovery of the Plot in 1641. of blowing up the Thames to drown the City could ever be parallell'd but here I now find it outdone Have we not seen Good Reader that such ridiculous Stories as these have lately ruined the Kingdom and can any man believe if they once come in fashion again they will end with Papists No doubtless for both Church and Court will soon find the smart as by experience we begin to feel For my own part I should never have taken notice of Sieur du Moulin or his Book had not my Minister owned him as I said for his informer and now I see he has imitated him also in his method for my worthy Answerer calls me a Jesuite and so the Dr. does Philanax though I am confident he knows him to be a Lay-man and a married man also But now Reader it will not be amiss to tell you why this Mr. du Moulin is so angry with the Jesuites You must know that Petra Sancta a famous Writer in the Society taxes the Drs Father for jugling viz. for being in France a Presbyterian and in England Episcopal and so complying for gain with those Ceremonies which his Calvinistical Brethren abominated as superstitious This old du Moulin his reverend father as the Dr. calls him writ a Letter forsooth as his son says to the Rebels at Rochel to exhort them to obey the King in breaking up their Assembly which was then hatching the Rebellion that presently after broke out and yet though it has been lickt and amended I doubt not by the Doctor you may find That a ground of his perswasion was because they were not strong enough to resist the King and besides the Reverend Divine in that perswasion to Loyalty concludes Notwithstanding all he had said they ought to look after their safety fort'was unreasonable for them to separate their Assembly with the peril of their persons Of the same Loyal judgment also I find the Dr. himself for after all his rayling against Jesuites for Sedition he confesses the Term was expired of the grant of the strong Places to the Hugonots Nevertheless he says they seem to be justified for keeping those Towns by the reason of the first Grant which was to preserve them from their bitter Enemies This was the Doctrine you see of this worthy Divine who also vindicated the actions of the Reformed in Geneva Holland Germany c. and therefore I wonder not at his aspersing us for our service to our King and Country 'T is not my business to run over all his Book in order having one of his Disciples already to deal with but this I must tell him and the rest of his Tribe That since they steal one from the other none of their Fopperies shall go unanswered and this they may find in some part or other of the present treatise SECT V. APOLOGY Nor could any thing have ever grieved us more then to have our Loyalty called into Question by you even at the instigation of our greatest Adversaries If we must suffer let it be by you alone for that 's a double death to men of Honour to have their Enemies not only accusers but for their insulting Iudges also ANSWER IV. His Objection here is Men of Honour have no cause to fear either single or double Deaths
and that Catholicks were never put to death in England for Religion but for Treason REPLY IV. Is not this pretty that no body died in England for Religion but for Treason and yet many hundred of Priests have been executed for no other crime but being Priests Nay Lay-men have been hanged for being converted and others for letting a Priest say Mass in their houses when as to hear Mass on Festivals every Catholique is in Conscience obliged if he can Besides have not many Catholiques also suffered for believing the Pope to be Head of the Church By this Argument then if the Parliament should make it Treason as who knows but they may to hold Episcopal Ordination only valid or that the King cannot give Orders it might then be as well said that they that are executed in pursuance of that Law died for Treason and not for their Religion But lest the Minister that has the boldness in almost every Paragraph to deny apparently known things might to deceive his Acquaintance still say I have not proved what I assert Not to trouble my Reader with many citations take this one example out of John Stow that downright plain Historian He tells us That fourteen Papists were at a clap executed six only for being made Priests beyond Sea and remaining here four Lay-men only for being reconciled and four more only for abetting or relieving the others Now if that be sufficient for the justice of the procedure to say there are Laws to this purpose enacted then most certain it is that the Primitive Christians were all Traytors being banisht by the lawful Magistrate from several places where they taught and knowing also many particular Injunctions against their Preaching and seducing the Emperors Subjects as the Ethnicks were pleased to call it Nay the Great St. Alban our famous Proto-Martyr was executed as may be seen in the Martyrology for being contrary to Dioclesians Laws converted to the Faith and abetting or entertaining in his House the Priest Amphibalus which Priest was his Spiritual Instructor according to Mr. Cambden in his famous Treatise of Brittain SECT IV. APOLOGY These are they that by beginning with us Murthered their Prince and wounded you And shall the same method continue by your approbation We are sure you mean well though their Design be wicked But let it never be recorded in Story that you forgot your often Vows to us in joyning with them that have been the cause of so great calamity to the Nation ANSWER V. He urges that by saying the Kings Murtherers began with us Catholicks we take liberty of bestowing Characters on whom we please so that no body must act against us lest they be thought to continue the Method of the Kings Murtherers For Vows he says we Catholicks are more sure of those of Protestants to us then they of ours to them because they want a Pope to dispence with them REPLY V. Pray Reader upon mature consideration tell me now whether they were not the Kings Murtherers that pursued Papists in the beginning of the War Their design afterward I am sure plainly appeared and pray God those were not of the same Tribe who first promoted our late troubles Let me ask also whether you find not us at home and abroad as strict to our promises as any other you converse with But since this Minister upbraids us with our dispensing with Vows be pleased to consider who has been most busy the Romish or Protestant Pope herein The Papists have from the beninning refused the Oath of Allegeance as 't is now worded but the Reformed took it in all the degrees of preferment viz. when graduated in the Universities when admitted into Orders when Justices of Peace when Parlimament-men and in short when any Dignity either in Church or State is conferred Yet for all the often repetition of it half the Kingdom were in Rebellion against the King even directly contrary to what they had sworn Now on the other side there was no Papist that declared not for the King though all the Party as I said refused the Oath and for this refusal severely suffered both in their Estates and Persons Besides if it were a Doctrine amongst us as the Protestants state it that the Pope can when he pleases absolve us from our Oaths why should we then do you think refuse the taking of this Doubtless a Dispensation if it could be granted might be procured at less charge then two thirds of our Estates omitting all corporal punishments Oaths by our Tenets are not in themselves unlawful nor can it be out of want of zeal for our Prince that we refuse them since 't is plain that we all like one man stood by him in his great affliction and misery You must know Reader this Oath was framed by one Perkins an Apostate Jesuite who knowing what we could take and what not purposely mingled certain truths with uncertain speculative points to make us fall within the Law of refusal T would be tedious to shew all the real exceptions we have to it nor do any of them truly relate to our obedience to the King for as to the Allegeance I would be bound to word an Oath which no Papist shall scruple at and yet it shall be more strong then this But Reader to give you my opinion of Oaths though nevertheless I am not for taking away that laudable Custome of swearing Subjects I think them really useless where without them as in Allegeance we are naturally bound for honest men will be punctual in duty though they never swore when as the wicked can at no time be obliged let the Bond be never so Sacred SECT 6. APOLOGY Of all Calumnies against Catholicks we have admired at none so much as that their Principles are said to be inconsistent with Government and they themselves thought ever prone to Rebellion ANSWER VI. On this short Paragraph he makes a wonderful long Discourse saying That 't is a calumny of ours to call that a calumny which is true for first our Councels secondly our Decretals thirdly our Divines teach that the Pope has Power to depose Kings and to discharge Subjects of their Allegeance which Doctrines are inconsistent with Government But every Papist is bound to beleive their Councels Decretals and Divines Ergo we may well be thought prone to Rebellion REPLY 6. To answer to these things perspicuously I shall treat of them singly Object 1. That our General Councels decree this he proves by the Lateran Councel under Innocent the III. which expresly ordains he says That in case any Prince be a favourer of Hereticks after admonition given the Pope shall discharge his Subjects from their Allegeance and shall give away the Kingdome to some Catholique that may root out these Heretiques I grant that the sense of the words is in the Councel and that in determinations of Faith Councels are infallible But as for other matters we say not that Councels are infallible in every point
bold as Hectors in their denials that has affirmed the Church of Rome never governed the civilized World But since this Minister mentions here Popish ignorance I must desire the Reader if he knows any of our Profession in the Country to tell me whether generally speaking they are not esteemed more learned then their Neighbours of the same rank and degree I am sure they that live at London are thought by their Protestant Acquaintance as well bred and as greate scholars as any of their condition with whom they usually converse Concerning our Priests consult their Books and tell me then whether they have been out done or no and if any English man would know how they are abroad let them go but to his next Neighbours the French and there in every Diocess he shall find a Clergy not only learned to admiration but so far outgoing the Hugonot-Ministers that one would think they lived not in the same Clime or Region Nay what is yet more there is neither private nor publick Library in this very Island but seven of ten of the choice Books in all Sciences were writ by Catholicks Is not this Good Reader strange ignorance for Protestants to be thus deceived and implicitly led on by their Pastors contrary to what they hear and see This I must say is incredible blindness and exceeds that of the silliest Papists who if they are cozened it must be in things beyond their capacity or by distance far remote from them But now in England nothing is more common then to have wise Protestants run into this and the like fond fancies and at last when they can say no more they are fain to shift it off with this Phanatical evasion That it is true Papists are carnally but not spiritually learned SECT V. APOLOGY Did Richard the first or Edward Longshanks suspect his Catholicks that served in Palestine and made our Countries Fame big in the Chronicles of all ages or did they mistrust in their dangerous absence their Subjects at home because they were of this Profession Could Edward the third imagine those to be Trayterous in their Doctrine that had that care and duty for their Prince as to make them by Statute guilty of death in the highest degree that had the least thought of ill against the King Be pleased that Henry the fifth be remembred also who did those Wonders of which the whole World does still resound and certainly all History will agree in this that 't was Old-Castle he feared and not those that believed the Bishop of Rome to be Head of the Church ANSWER VIII To this he says the Reigns of these Kings were in the dark times of corruption yet that Richard I. bequeathed his Pride and Lechery to the Clergy and Monks That Edward I. outlawed the Clergy for obeying the Pope in not paying Taxes That Edward III and Hen. V. made good Laws against the Popes usurpation and Becket vext Hen. II more then Hen. V feared Oldcastle Moreover that all these Kings did not differ so much from Protestants as the Papists now do and to conclude he asks did not the Pope force K. Iohn to do homage for England wrestle with Edward the first for Scotland and often lay claim to Ireland REPLY 8. Certainly Reader the Minister is besides himself since he can say the English differed not so much from the Protestants then as we do now Has the man railed all this while against the Tyranny of Popes and urged those times as the height of their Authority and then comes to this evasion I would fain know if the Clergy and Religious were since ever more in power then in those days was there ever more of Pilgrimages and all sorts of Devotion which Protestants call Superstitious were not Schoolmen then most in their splendor And lastly could any Publican Lollard Wickliffian or new Sect stir but the whole Kingdom presently detested them Who then will ever believe a word more he says when he is so strangely impudent to no purpose But these are the worthy tricks used to keep the poor people in ignorance and just with as much truth are the Fathers called defenders of the Protestant Religion for the Fathers stiled them always Hereticks that ran out of the visible Church For the Laws that have been made by any of our Kings if they made any against Ecclesiastical usurpations God reward them and to this all Catholicks will say Amen Concerning K. John we have already spoke enough And for the Popes claim to Scotland judge Reader whether any man can be fuller of falsity and malice then this Minister my Adversary For here he would have the World think by his placing this Accusation after King Johns business and by calling it the Popes wrestling with Edward I. for the Soveraignty of Scotland there was some notorious injustice done by the Sea of Rome In short the business was only this as you may find in Hollingshead the most violent English Historian against Papists that ever yet writ The Scots having always an animosity against the English and not knowing how to resist the Victorious Arms of Edward who was again coming with a great Army against them surrendred the Kingdom or so pretended to Boniface 8. He thereupon sent to the King to desist because the Crown belonged to the Church Edward immediately returned an Answer and so did all the Barons of England to manifest the Kings right and the invalidity of the new pretence The Pope says Hollingshead when he deliberately pondered the Kings Answer with the Letter from the English Barons waxt cold in the matter and followed it no farther Thus Reader you see how the case stood and how Catholiques are wronged by ill men nor is there any difference between a false aggravation and a downright lye In the same manner are we used in this Accusation of Ireland for the Pope never medled with Ireland but since the Reformation and so invaded it in the time of Queen Elizabeth of which you shall see farther in the Section of Popish misdemeanors in her Reign The parity between S. Th. Becket and Oldcastle is doubtless very odd the last being a Rebel with Complices in arms against Henry the fifth the other disputing only about Priviledges which he said were grāted to Priests Just as if our Peers should stād upon the freedome of their Persons were there a design to have them imprisoned as other Subjects or tried by a common Jury Besides all Princes of Christendome then owned Becket for a Saint when as no body unless such a man as Fox thought Oldcastle deserved any thing but the Gallows SECT IX APOLOGY We will no longer trouble you with putting you in mind of any more of our mighty Kings who have been feared abroad and as safe at home as any since the Reformation of Religion We shall only add this that if Popery be the enslaving of Princes France still believes it self as absolute as Denmarck or Sweden ANSWER IX He
says the King of France will believe what he pleases For his Majesty well knows the Pope gave away France formerly fomented War against Hen. 4. and would do the same against him were it not for his Power and Religion REPLY IX I shewed you before in the sixth Reply that though the Reformed have actually taken away from their lawful Governours so many Dominions yet the Pope never gave away but England and France which nevertheless are still under their proper Soveraigns Consider then whether since the light of the Gospel appeared the Protestant or Popish manner of dealing has been most destructive to Princes and judge if this be an Answer to my demand which was Whether France acknowledging the Pope be not as absolute as Sweden or Denmark that are Protestants If so it follows then that Popery does not enslave a King We are beholden to the Minister for confessing the King of France is of the same Religion with the Pope for I have heard some in England say he was a Protestant Thanks be to God there is no danger of a breach between Rome and France in matters of Faith for as the very Gazets told us An. 1664 when the French Army was in Italy The King having owned the condemnation of Jansenius even then sent to the Pope to prosecute the Jansenists in France Henry the Eighth will be a warning to his Neighbours for revolting hereafter from the Church for instead of a little Ecclesiastical dependence on the Sea of Rome he has embroiled England in perpetual confusion about Religion millions of Sects daily dividing and subdividing each of which pretend they are in the right and each quote Scripture for their Opinions And by the way Reader be pleased to remember that had not this King of ours destroyed Religious Houses all the truly devout Sectaries at present would have voluntarily been cloister'd there who now distract both the Kingdom themselves for having no quiet place to vent that zeal which boyls within they become a prey to a few wicked men that blow up their well-meaning Piety into disorders and sedition Nay many of the discontented Factious themselves who now lie open to the sway and hurry of their own passions would have been glad of such a retreat honorable to all even from the Monarch to the Pesant Therefore I see now why Speed a Protestant when he made an end of his Catalogue of the destroyed Abbies spoke in this manner We have laid to your view a great part of King Henry's ill the waste of so much of Gods revenue however abused But Cambden is yet more tart for he says That many Religious places Monuments of our Forefathers Piety and Devotion to the honour of God and Propagation of Christian faith c. were in a moment prophaned and the Riches disperst which had been consecrated to God since the English Nation first profest Christianity SECT X. APOLOGY Nor will ever the House of Austria abjure the Pope to secure themselves of the fidelity of their Subjects ANSWER X. To this he says the Austrian Family being so linckt to the Pope by possessing Naples Sicily and Navar by his Gift and theire Subjects also being Papists it were a mad way to secure themselves by changing Religion But what is that says he to England where since the extrusion of that trash we call the Catholick Faith the King and people are no more Papists and having been often troubled by us have reason by experience to fear our designs REPLY V 10. To this I reply That the Spaniard being now in actual possession can as well defend these places were he a Protestant as Millan Flanders c. which are not the Popes gift or as well as other Reformed Princes have done their Countries And for the Subjects being Papists that is nothing For all subjects before Luthers time were Papists also The Minister therefore grants me here all that from the first I desired For if our former Kings were considerable abroad and as safe at home as since the change of Religion If the King of France be as absolute as Denmarck or Sweden and if the House of Austria cannot better secure the fidelity of their Subjects by becoming Protestants then by continuing Papists I say it must necessarily follow That Kings and Kingdoms by being Papists are not less absolute then if Reformed and by the same Consequence their Subjects not one whit faithfuller to their Lords by being Protestants then if they were Papists Tell me then where is the Temporal advantage of Reformation and whether our Answerer has not bauld long in vain since he now by this grants me that Kings may be absolute and Subjects faithful under Popery and yet lately he affirmed That Popery is inconsistent with Government by reason of Princes dependence on the Pope in Ecclesiastical matters and that all Papists are prone to Rebellion by the Determination of our Councels Bulls and Divines But the Minister says What is all this to England where Prince and people are Protestants I answer 't is thus much to England That now it is plain 't is an errour that Popery is inconsistent with Government and it also shews that Princes get no power in the long-run by reforming but on the contrary perpetual disorders follow How dangerous we have been to our Protestant Princes shall be discust in the Reflexion on the Popish misdemeanours in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James But how faithful and serviceable we were to King Charles the First and Second all Europe has sufficiently declared in our behalves SECT XI APOLOGY We shall always acknowledge to the whole World that there have been as many brave English in this last Century as in any other place whatsoever Yet since the exclusion of the Catholick Faith there has been that committed by those who would be fain called Protestants that the wickedest Papist at no time dreamt of ANSWER XI Here he asks what may that be for four or five of our Kings of our own Religion have been murthered by Papists that lately Hen. 4. of France was killed by Ravillac and. Hen. 3. by Frier Clement And besides this we have killed by whole Townships in England Ireland France and Piedmont REPLY 11. What a Volume might there be here writ if every matter mentioned were to be fully discust But these are the artifices of the Brethren that when they know not what to say run to another thing in hopes to puzzle an ordinary Reader who cannot imagine hearing so great a buzze but that there must be something at least of real My assertion in the Apology was That our former English Papists never did such villanies as have been committed since the Reformation To this he answers nothing but impertinently runs to the private Murthers of some of our Kings Is this proportionable Good Reader Who knows not that the Murtherers of Ed. 2. Ric. 2. and Hen. 6. were so conscious of their wickedness that
fought for him when his fortunes stood fell off when he declined Then he asks us where we were from that time forward in all those weak efforts of gasping Loyalty We were flattering he says and giving sugered words to the Rebels as now we do to the Royallists for we addrest our Petitions To the Supream Authority of the Nation the Commonwealth of England that we had generally taken and punctually kept the engagement We promist if we might enjoy our Religion we would be most faithful and useful Subjects of England We proved it in these words The Papists of England would be bound by their interest to live peacefully and thankfully in the exercise of their Conscience and becoming gainers by such compassions they could not so easily be distrusted as the Prelatick Party that were loosers Moreover the Minister on his own word says we farther proved all this by real testimonies which not to shame us toe much he will pass by in silence Now if after all this we were deemed Cavaliers we were much wronged REPLY 15. Good Mr. Parson speak truth and you will shame no body but your self have you bespattered us all this while with falsities and will you now do it farther by your Pedantick Rhetorick Pray Reader to speak moderately is not this man the archest wrangler that ever was for if he dares disown a thing which all men know how will he then cavil do you think at what is known but only to the Wise was ever any thing so evident as that the Rebels deemed all Papists Cavaliers and all Cavaliers Papists I do not infer that therefore all Cavaliers were Papists only I say they were generally so called nor is any body ignorant that the reason was to make them more hated by the people as this Minister by his false glosses would at this instant serve us Concerning our frankness to serve the King it is so fully treated in the Preface that no truth was ever more plainly made manifest But what made this mad man ask where we were in all those weak efforts of gaspink Loyalty Were not we where the rest of the Royal party were Some of us were in London some with the King some about dispatches some in the Tower some sold to the Islands and in fine was there any Plot but the Catholicks were as numerous in it proportionably as any other Subjects Was ever man so impudent as to deny this Yes the Minister does it and farther says we were flattering the Rebels wich Addresses and owning them the Supream Power of the Nation Reader lest this should be a stumbling-block to the weak I wille give you some account of the matter After the Rebels had trampled down Monarchy and enslaved the whole Nation by force it happened that a Lay-Gentleman with whom I have no manner of acquaintance but have heard him ever esteemed of much wit and integrity seeing the then ruling Grandees pretend by their Principles to be against all Persecution for Conscience thought it would not disoblige the Catholiques or any body else if he stickled a little for a private Toleration The Protestant Cavaliers had many daily Congregations at London which the constancy and courage of Dr. Wild Dr. Gunning Dr. Thriscross c. with some sweet words also forc'd the Rebels to a kind of connivence at but the Papists could not follow the same Method For whereas the Protestant Ministers if the Governement had on a sudden fell to severity knew they should be but carried to the White Hart or at most imprisoned for a day or two a Popish Priest was sure to be hanged and all his Auditory fineable also by the known Laws of the Land This Gentleman therefore to try the pulse of the Rebels that juggled in all their Professions writ two Books called the First and Second Moderators the thing in it self could not be discommended but for the wording he I mean the Author is to answer for it The Books I have not by me but you may be sure the Minister has quoted the worst things in them and I question not a little whether all be true he mentions having already found him false as you see in many particulars I need not vindicate the Gentleman for he can do it himself to the purpose My business at present only is to admire the folly of my Adversary who hand over head lays as a crime the indiscretion which is the most that can be said of it of a private man to all his Party Would not this Logick then make the whole Church of England guilty of Phanatick Principles because Dr. Taylor writ for liberty of Prophesie And if our Gentleman may be thought to have shewed his Papers to some Catholiques before they were published 't is every jot as probable the Dr. made Protestants acquainted with his Book before it was sent to the Press It is very severe doubtless if the inconsiderateness of one should not only be fathered on us all but urged against us equal to the Treason of the late Transgressors No people on Earth can be safe at this rate nay all the Protestant Cavaliers themselves those great patterns of Loyalty would be involved if such consequences were allowed Every body knows that some Great men got out of Decimation by favour and that many Gentlemen it may be out of prudence knowing the end of Plots refused to receive Letters much less Commissions from the King How many Souldiers also were there that served Cromwel at Jamaica and other Places neither failed there a compliance in Poets too as in Cowly and Cleveland themselves and for Lawyers there was no want of them in Westminster-Hall wsensoever a Cavalier had need The Ministry also of the Nation had some among them that were not able to resist Temptation for there were not a few that took the Covenant and Dr. Martin in his printed Letters taxes a great One for complying with the Presbyterians abroad But why does my Minister lay the taking of the Engagement as a crime against us seeing it was generally taken through the whole Kingdom no body being capable of Law that had not done it Nor did any body fail of calling the Parliament the Supream Authority of the Nation if they had Law-suits Petitions or any thing else of that Nature Is this a blemish to the Cavaliers in general No 't is so far from it that even the most of these I mention when occasion served were ever forward in the Kings concerns But all things perchance are lawful to all men so they be not Catholicks SECT XVI APOLOGY We know though we differ something in Religion the truth of which let the last day judge yet none can agree with your inclination or are fitter for your converse then we for as we have as much birth among us as England can boast of so our breeding leans your way both in Court and Camp And therefore had not our late Sufferings united us in that firm tie yet our
fellows in Germany For were the Government of that Country united an not so rent into factions with diversities of Religions as Sir Edwin Sandys observes breeding endless jealousies heart-burnings and hatred it needed no other help to affront the Great Turk and to repulse all his forces to the security of Christendom This therefore was one of the advantages which the Reformation brought Certainly I spoke plain enough and that without deceit viz. Where the name of Protestant is unknown that is where it has not been yet planted the Catholike Magistrates take care to keep it out But where their number or rebellion has moued their natural Prince to grant them terms in those places I say they live with more liberty then Catholikes under any Protestant Government Flanders was never compelled to let the Reformed have extraordinary priviledges Neverthelesse there are many Protestants in that Province and particularly in the Wallon Countries nor have they their Ministers hanged though these places are under the obedience of the most Catholike King What reason has the Minister to say I could name no other Country But France where Protestants have open Churches has he forgot Poland even Crakaw it self where theire Orthodox Socinian Cathechism was made Let him also think on Hungary both which are Popish Kingdoms under Popish Kings Nay in Piedmont it self they have open Churches yet a man may legally be hanged in England if he have but a private Chappel Besides this Reader there is much difference between Papists and Protestants because all Countries were possest by us and the Reformed had no pretence to Government except in England and in a small Province or two in Germany but what they got by Rebellion Therefore as a man that is turned out of his house by a stranger may expect more then the stranger being dispossest can do from the right oâ—ner so Papists may justly expect more liberty from Protestants then they can upon any pretence from Papists yet Protestants live to this day freer in Catholique Kingdoms then we do under them For Protestants may have employment in Poppish Countreys but Papists are debarred from Offices in all Countries I except none that are of the Reformed Faith I know not what the Minister would be at that the Low-Country Papists were the chief cause why the Spanish yoak was thrown off 'T is true there were many factious Catholikes there at that time stirr'd up by the insinuation of the Reformed as Saints enflame honest men now adays Yet for all this not only the first insurrections tumults were according to Strada acted by the Calvinists at Tournay Lisle and Valencien but also in the year 1581 as the Protestant Author of Europae Modernae Speculum will tell you by a publick Instrument they declared their King Philip to have rightfully fallen from the Dominion of those Provinces then united under the profession of the Reformed Religion neither would they ever afterwards suffer the Papists to have any share in the Government for fear they should bring all things back again to their true Lord an Master But now suppose Reader I had not proved the Dutch villany by the testimony of a Writer of the Protestant Religion I hope 't is no excuse to their Rebellion though some Papists did by accident facilitate their work For if so then the Murther of Charles the First by the Independents and their erecting a Government without King or Lords were not Rebellion because the whole body of the Presbyterians began the play which afterwards but 't was too late they seemed to detest and openly to exclaim against How the Edicts of France were obtained you shall hear in this next Section SECT XVIII APOLOGY Because we have named France the Massacre will perchance be urged against us But the World must know that was a Cabinet-Plot condemned as wicked by Catholick Writhers there and of other Countries also Besides it cannot be thought they were murthered for being Protestants since 't was their powerful Rebellion let their Faith have been what it would that drew them in to that ill-machinated destruction ANSWER XVIII Here he says the French Massacre was so horrid a cruelty that Thuanus tells us That considering men and having turned over the Annals of Nations he could find no example for it in Antiquity that it was cloakt with shews of Amity and a Marriage between the Houses of Valois and Burbon to which the chief Protestants being invited were after their jollity of mirth in the dead of night butchered in their Houses without distinction of Sex or Age till the channels ran with blood none escaping but the Bridegroom and the Prince of Conde who were afterwards the one poysoned the other stab'd by men of our Religion He proceeds that this which I say was condemned by Catholick Writers was also extolled as glorious by others of them and that one may guess at my meaning and that I am of their sentiment since first I call it a Cabinet-Plot a fine soft word for the Butchery of 30000. persons Secondly in answer to them that call it murther I seem to blame it as done by halves in terming it an ill-machinated destruction Lastly in saying that it was their Rebellion drew it on them let their Faith have been what it would when indeed it was their Faith let their Obedience have been what id would for the King never had better Subjects then those that were Massacred noâ— worse Rebels then the Massacrers Then he tells us that the brave Coligni was the first killed and his head was sent to Rome and his Body dragged about Paris and besides he says that the Duke of Guises factious Authority as I sweetly stile it was a black Rebellion and to decide whether they were massacred for Protestant Religion or Rebellion because both himself and I may be partial he desires to take judges between us To make it appear it was not for Rebellion they were massacred he cites K. James who says I could never learn by any good and true intelligence that in France those of the Religion took Arms against their King In the first Civil War they stood only upon their Guard c. To prove that they were massacred for their Religion since I will admit no judge but the Pope he undertakes to shew us that it was his judgment from Thuanus a Catholick Writer who tells us The Pope having an account of the Massacre read the Letter in the Consistory there decreed to go directly to St. Marks and solemnly give thanks for so great a blessing conferred on the Roman Sea and the Christian World That soon after a Jubilee should be publisht throughout the whole Christian World and these causes were exprest for at viz. To give thanks to God for destroying in France the Enemies of the Truth and of the Church That in the evening the Guns were fired at St. Angelo Bonfires made and all things performed usual in the greatest Victories of the Church
That some days after there was a solemn Procession to St. Louis and an Inscription set over the Church-door by the Cardinal of Lorrain to congratulate his Holiness and the Colledge in the Kings name for the stupendious effects and incredible events of their Counsels given him and of their assistance sent and of their twelve years wishes and prayers Soon after he says the Pope sent Cardinal Ursini to congratulate the King to commend and bless them that had to do in the Massacre and to perswade the reception of the Councel of Trent by this Argument That the memory of the late glorious action to be magnified in all ages as conducing to the Glory of God and Dignity of the Holy Roman Church might be sealed by the approbation of the Holy Synod for so it would be manifest that the King consented to the destruction of so many not of hatred or revenge but ardent desire to propagate the Glory of God which could not be expected while the Protestants stood through all the Provinces of France The Answerer then concludes this Paragrah with commending the Head of the Church for his judgment in cutting throats not mincing the matter like me whom he is pleased to call an English limb of him who durst not say what I desired for fear of provoking the Protestants nor what the thing deserved for contradicting the Pope REPLY XVIII Can Thuanus or any man else look upon that action with more horrour then I Certainly no yet Reader I must tell you Thuanus is esteemed as malitiously partial a Writer as ever undertook the writing of a History Nay Heylin that other Hanibal that sworn enemy of Rome says That Thuanus savours more of the party then of the Historian Now for his professing to be a Catholick it adds nothing to his Authority because in every Religion there are those that write out of spleen and Faction To a stranger abroad Milton would go for a Protestant because he calls himself so yet in his Books the true matter of Fact is so perverted by his malice that it becomes at last as false as the rest of those damnable lies with which his Papers are stufft But though Thuanus be thus reputed yet this Minister will pervert the Divel himself to do us a mischief He has told us that the Pope ordered a Jubilee through Christendom to give God thanks for destroying in France the Enemies of the Church by which he would have the Reader believe that the Massacre was the cause of this Jubilee when as Thuanus tells us That the Jubilee was to thank God for the Victory at Lepanto against the Turk for the success of Spain against the Rebels in Belgium and to beseech God for the election of a Catholick King in Poland as well as for the business in France But truly I need not complain for such Preachers of Gods word may say any thing so it discredit the Papists let it be never so improbable in it self For my part I can believe not that the Pope and Consistory who are by Protestants reputed dexterous and subtle would make publike Procession and Triumph for Murther in cold blood which could bring them no farther good for the advantages were already obtained but might occasion much scandal which by reason it was the cause of Luthers revolt was the more carefully to be avoided for the future It may be they were not sorry in their hearts For what men are so at the death of their Enemies Yet we see often that those which have a titillation the thing being done would nevertheless loose rather their own lives then give the least consent to the fact Davila tells us in one place of his Fifth Book That the King and Queen-Mother contrived the destruction of the Rebels and communicated their design only to the Duke of Anjou the Guises and the Count of Rhetz and this resolution to Massacre we see there was a pretty while before Pius V. died In another place of this Book I find this Pope died some three months before the execution In another place of this Book I find that this Pope would never consent to the marriage of Margaret to the King of Navar by reason of his Religion and yet in the time of this Marriage Ch. 9. had determined this Butchery Therefore putting all this together it was plain the Pope had no hand in the wicked contrivance Gregory 13. who succeeded and before whose Election this Massacre was designed was at last brought to dispence with the Match it being made appear to him how dangerous it might be in those Schismatical times if the King should in anger solemnize the Marriage without leave for so this King had threatned the aforesaid Pius V. and daily gave more symptoms of his resolution in the Wedding and anger for being contradicted in it at Rome Reader We have no other way to discover the errors of Historians but by conjectures after we have compared times and circumstances The reasons that I have therefore last mentioned assure me that the Pope had no hand in the design yet suppose he had been of the Plot with the King as 't is plain he was not I am sure that can be no excuse to the Hugonots for their former Rebellion and unspeakable abominations as you shall presently see But let the Pope have what design he would 't is still evident according to the Apology that the King and Queen-Mother who could only perform this Murther were moved to this Massacre for Interest of State and not Religion For the King was not such a Bigot or Pious man upon a Spiritual account to draw such a hazard or at least a scandal on his own person and for the Queen-Mother that great intriguer she valued Religion little for sometimes she favoured Protestants sometimes again persecuted them Nay when it was for her advantage she gave great and suspitious signs that she would be of the Reformed Religion also as may be seen in Davila in the second Book My Minister will not perchance be yet satisfied that I call it a Cabinet-Plot but says they died for their Religion and that the King had not better Subjects then those that were massacred Brave Coligni being the first that fell Now Reader that you may see what kind of Subject our Minister is and such a one I always doubted him I will briefly shew you how these Hugonots behaved themselves among whom Coligni was a Principal and who is honoured with the title of Brave by this most Loyal Parson In the time of Francis the First Calvin appeared and dedicated his Institutions to him The preaching of this man pleased the changeable humor of many French but the Sect was kept under by the King and especially by his Son Hen. 2. who like wise Governours were unwilling to let an unheard-of Religion get root in their Country well knowing that Rebellion would follow as afterwards it happened to the purpose Francis the 2. succeeded Hen.
next for the Church of England is no Manna to relish in every palate and some wise men also think that a man may do very well though he has little Disputes with this his holy Mother Why does this Gentleman say we never knew the Laws executed I am sure there have died by these Laws at least 300 Priests besides Laymen and how often we have been rackt in prison and how infinitely our Estates have suffered for our Consciences no body I think is ignorant But I hope the brave people of England will intercede for us to his Majesty that since he the Messiah only expectation of the Nation is come we may not feel in his days what we suffered under Cromwel even by virtue of those Acts which have been formerly made Nor could Osborn a Protestant in his Memoires chuse but confess That against the poor Catholiques nothing in relation to the generality remains upon due proof sufficient to justifie the severity of the Laws daily enacted put in execution against them SECT XXI APOLOGY It has been often urged that our misdemeanours in Queen Elizabeths and King James's time were the cause of our punishment ANSWER XXI Your misdemeanors we cry you mercy if they were no more but that comes next to be argued whether they were misdemeanors or Treasons REPLY XXI Reader This is the subtlest Sophister that I ever met with for before this distinction I never knew but that Treasons were misdemeanors and therefore I think the word misdemeanour is not improper SECT XXII APOLOGY We earnestly wish that the Party had had more patience under that Princess But pray consider though we excuse not their faults whether it was not a harder Question then that of Yorck and Lancaster the cause of a War of such length and death of so many Princes who had most right Queen Elizabeth or Mary Stuart For since the whole Kingdom had crowned and sworn Allegeance to Queen Mary they owned her as the legitimate daughter to Henry the Eighth and therefore it was thought necessarily to follow by many that if Mary was the true Child Elizabeth was the Natural which must needs give way to the thrice-noble Queen of Scots ANSWER XXII He says that I wish the Catholicks had had more patience under Q. Elizabeth but he thinks they needed none for in the first ten years of her Reign though what the Papists had done in Queen Maries time was fresh in memory none of them fuffered death till the Northern Rebellion raised against her meerly upon the account of her Religion 't was she then that was persecuted and had occasion for patience and therefore I should have wisht them more Loyalty But it appears I account Rebellion no fault in saying 't was a hard Question whether the right lay in Queen Elizabeth or the Queen of Scots because many thought Queen Elizabeth illegitimate Here he asks Who thought so Or when the Question arose For says he First Archbishop Heath a Papist said in his Speech no body could doubt the justness of her Title Secondly the Kings of France Spain and the Emperour offered Marriage to her and thereby hoped to get the Crown Thirdly the Queen of Scots and King James acknowledged her and claimed nothing but to be her Heirs and Successours Then he tells that Paul the Fourth was the First that questioned her Title because the Kingdom being a Fee of the Papacy she had audaciously assumed it without his leave and secondly because she was illegitimate But his Successour Pius the Fourth would have owned her if she would have owned him which because she would not the next Pope Pius V. issued out his Bulls and deposed her not for Bastardy but for being a Protestant upon which the Northern-men and others of her Subjects rebelled and were every foot plotting against her 'T is true he says the Queen of Scots Title was pretended but he demands what would we have done if that Queen had not been Catholick or Queen Elizabeth not thought illegitimate He proceeds That Gregory the Thirteenth had occasion to consider this having a Bastard of his own and another of the Emperours to provide for to the first of which he gave Ireland and sent Stukely to win it for him and to the other England with leave to win it for himself But what was this to the Q. of Scots who he says might perhaps have been preferred to marry one of them upon condition her son Iames might have nothing to do with the Succession For when she was dead and her right in King Iames Sixtus V. not only took no notice of him but curst Queen Elizabeth again and gave her Kingdom to Philip the Second of Spain Pope Clement the Eighth seeing he could do no good upon Queen Elizabeth to take care another Heretick should not succeed her sent his Breves both to Clergy and Layity forbidding them to admit any but a Catholique to the Succession though never so neer in blood which was in plain words to exclude King James so that the Popes never stuck at the hard question And now he asks What our Country men did or suffered for it And answers himself that they acted for the Papal interest making use of the House of Scotland only for a cloak while the Title was in Queen Mary but when it was in King James none of them stirred or suffered for it yet they were not idle but as busie as Bees in contriving to hasten Queen Elizabeths death and to put him by the Succession To prove this he urges the Spanish Invasion presently after his Mothers death negotiated and defended by Papists That the Jesuites procured Huntly to rebel in Scotland That they persuaded the Earl of Darby to set up a Title to the Crown of England which he revealing was poysoned soon after as Hesket had threatned him That when their single shot failed F. Parsons gave a broad-side to the Royal House of Scotland in a Book published under the name of Doleman setting up divers Competitors and to provide a sure Enemy he found a Title for the Earl of Essex to whom he dedicated the Book being the most ambitious and popular man in the Nation But the the Book he says prefers the Title of the Infanta before all others Then he concludes from this his Discourse in which he says nothing material can be denied that it appears That this hard Question was not between the Parties themselves in one of whom we confess the right was For the Pope easily resolved it who denied both sides of the Question assuming the right to himself and as concerning the English Catholiques he says they sided with the Pope against Queen Elizabeth and Queen of Scots also and lastly that their misdemeanours were inexcusable Treasons if any Treasons befriended by such an Apologist can be inexcusable REPLY 22. 'T is strange to me that I must be denied the liberty which all people else have No man is forbid to declare their pretensions
when he speaks of the commotions of a Party yet here I am accused to think Rebellion no crime and to excuse their faults because I tell you what Papists in those days said for themselves The Minister can call himself a Loyal Subject and yet defend the Hugonots who were the most notorious and insolent Rebels that any History can shew nor had they any other pretence for the Massacres and continual ravages committed by them but Mr. Calvin and Mr. Beza's telling them God said thus and thus and therefore unless their respective Kings would suffer them to destroy a Religion in quiet possession since the Reign of Clouis they would bring Armies into the field and fortifie Towns against their Liege-Lords as every body knows they did till subdued in the time of Lewis the XIII I think good Mr. Parson I am as well known in England as your self and am sure can find more Protestants of Quality that shall engage for my Loyalty thē you can people of any sort 'T is not this Minister Reader only but others have called my narration of the matter of fact a questioning of Queen Elizabeths Title judge you by my words in the Apology whether it be so or no nor could I omit in honour the Plea of the foregoing age their misdemeanours being every day thrown in my dish But suppose I had questioned her Title there is no Treasonable intention in it I am sure because the Title of our King has no dependance upon that Princesse nor was she the first of our Monarchs against whose right Posterity has argued No body is blamed for saying King Stephen was an usurper or that Edward the Fourths Title was better then that of the three preceding Henry's What is 't then I beseech you were the fact proved against me I have committed that Protestant Authors have not done and worse Sr. Walter Rawley in his Preface of the History of the world has not only something to say against almost all the Kings of Englād but Buck in his Ric. 3 has bastardized Hen. 7 and all his offspring and thereby invalidates theire title to the Crowne either as Yorkists or Lancastrians Nor does Speed refraine from questioning the right of most of our Princes from the Conquest till Henry the fowrth's Reigne Yet none of these have been branded with the Character of ill Subjects 'T is he that is to be accounted wicked who sedititiously descants on Titles to breed Commotions and Disorders The Minister says I defend the calumny of those Catholicks in saying 'T was a very hard question whether the right to the Crown lay in Queen Elizabeth or in the Queen of Scots Reader that which I said was That this was a harder Question then the Dispute of York and Lancaster which cost so much Blood and Treasure and because I would know your opinion I will state these two Questions to you York had the interest of a third brother by Marriage Lancaster that of a fourth Brother and these two dispute about the Crown of England which women are capable of The second Question is this Henry the eighth married his brothers wife who was said to be a Virgin for Prince Arthur was but fifteene and a little more wen he died By this Princess K. Hen. had our Q. Mary and after he had lived with her 20 years he fell in love with a handsome young Lady whereupon he had in short time a scruple of Conscience that it was unlawful to live longer with his old wife because she had been-married to his brother His Conscience being still tender he caused the Scriptures to be searched and found not only there the Marriage to be void but that the Pope himself had no power in England and besides that rich Abbies were also contrary to the word of God Being thus truly informed he threw away Wife Pope and Monks and married the other by whom he had Queen Elizabeth while his first Wife lived 'T was thought by many curious wits that there could be but one of the daughters legitimate because both Mothers were contemporaries and that to Christians the Scripture permits but one wife at a time After the death of this King and his Son 't was put to the Kingdom to decide which of these children were lawfully begotten both Lords and Commons acknowledged Mary for their Queen which was as much to say she was born in true Wedlock Nor did Luther himself fail to disapprove of Queen Elizabeths birth I doubt not but the people were informed of the cause of the Kings scrupule as also that this brother Arthur had never known his wife Nay before K. Henry married Queen Katherine she protested she was a Virgin and offered to be tryed by Matrons The Bishop of Ely also deposed That the Queen whom all even the King himself esteemed for a Saint had often in confession told him she never carnally knew the Prince Nor in the whole examination was there any colourable pretence produc'd but the common vanity of all boys to be thought men before their time For 't was affirmed Arthur should say the next morning after Marriage that he had been in Spain that night Besides this there were those I believe that told the People that though St. John forbad Herod to take his brother Philips wife because his said Brother was then alive for Josephus sayes Herodias parted from her husband Philip in his life time and in contempt of the lawes married Herod yet he never prohibited by those words a Christian to marry his sister in-law if her Husband were dead The Case being thus fancied by the Papists in the time of Queen Elizabeth they argued that if Mary was the true Child then the other was the Natural but Mary was owned Legitimate And my Lord Bacon say's the ligitimation of Queen Mary and Elizabeth were incompatible Ergo the Kingdom not being Elective Mary Stuart the next Legal Heir must necessarily succeed her Yet suppose these Papists were wrong in their conclusion I am sure nevertheless I am still in the right viz. That it is a harder Question to resolve whether the Marriage be Null if a woman marries two Brothers then whether a third or fourth brother has the better Title to the Crown for that was the contest betwixt York and Lancaster But the Minister urges if the Papists thought Queen Elizabeth an Usurper why did not they stir sooner for there was no Rebellion he says in ten years and when after ten it broke out in the North there was not the least mention made of the Q. of Scots or her Title I wish the Catholicks had not only sat still ten years but forty five years also yet to shew you that this Minister will be wrōg in every thing I shall give you a most succinct account of this business Queen Mary of England in the latter part of her Reign was in open war with France and the Qu. of Scots was
then Wife to the Dauphin This Hostility and the private designs of Spain hindred all intrigues of the Queen of Scots friends to secure the Succession Things being in this condition our Queen dies nor did the Dauphin make any present claim which together with the natural coolness of Englishmen to all strangers especially the French moved Archbishop Heath to what he did About some six months after this the Dauphin takes upon him the Title and Armes of England and immediately also by the death of his Father the Crown of France fell to him which gave him the name of Francis the Second But by that time Q. Elizabeth was too well setled to be deposed without blows and before things could be ordered for such an enterprize the Hugonots lay so heavy on his shoulders that he was necessitated to the Treaty at Edenburgh by which he was to relinquish his former pretences in relation to England yet before these Articles were sealed the King himself died and so all things stood as they were before The Q. of Scots being now a widow returns with much ado to Scotland which was all in a flame by the seditious preaching of the new Reformists Assoon as she arrived there Q. Elizabeth having often sent to her to ratifie the Treaty with her Husband she after consideration returned answer That she was content to do so upon condition she were by Parliament declared her Heir This Proposition seemed not strange to her English well-willers because our Histories could tell them That Maud the Empress was necessitated to the like by King Stephen But Queen Elizabeth would not harken to those terms whereupon presently Margaret Niece to Henry the Eighth the Earl of Lenox her husband Arthur Pool and his Brother Grandchildren to George Duke of Clarence Fortescue and others were apprehended for intending to set up the Queen of Scots interest The fact they confest but as all malefactors find something to extenuate their crimet hey pitcht upon the weakest excuse that ever was heard of viz That they intended not to depose Queen Elizabeth but to be beforehand in Arms because Conjurers had told them she would dy that year After this the vigilancy of Q. Elizab. was such and the disasters of Scotland so great that the Catholiques were forc'd to sit quiet for a while Instead of Peace with the Rebels the Queen of Scots was necessitated to seek for shelter in England where had she been used as the Honour of the Nation required she would have concluded an inviolable agreement between the Queen and those Catholiques that stood for her Title But when this Royal Guest had once trusted her self among her Enemies she was both denied access to the Court and also refused the liberty of retiring into another Kingdom This inhumanity was quickly noised about the World whereupon Pius V. sent Ridulph a Florentine to consult with the Catholiques about the Interest of their Queen All Arguments were used which could possibly be thought of to persuade her Enemies to let her go and when no fair means would do the Rising in the North happened 'T is true the Declaration of those great Lords that were up mentioned no other motive but Religion because this could not shock either the Queen or People so much as the name of the Queen of Scots would have done for that implied ipso facto the altering both of Religion and Government also Who is ignorant that that Great man our General whose memory all ages shall for ever honor concealed at first what he had long determined well knowing that the once naming of the King would ruine that design which his wit so well laid and his conduct so happily executed Besides this Reader you must know before this Rebellion broke out Leonard Dacres second Son to the Lord Dacres of Gylsland undertook the delivery of the Queen being then in Darbyshire in my Lord Shrewsburie's custody Of this design my Lord Northumberland was complotter therefore 't was plain he being Chief in the Northern Insurrection intended her Title though there was nothing of it in his Delaration Consider therefore how notoriously false this Minister is there having been Claims Plots and endeavours by the greatest of the Land before the rising in the North and when it happened that also was on the Queen of Scots account 'T were tedious Reader to tell you how many attempts followed this Insurrection for there scarce passed a day till the death of the Queen of Scots but something was contrived to prevent the machinations of her unkind Kinswoman By all this you may see that while Queen Elizabeth used her distressed Guest with any kindness the piety of that Princess which moved her rather to be contented with the Succession then put England in a perpetual broyl caused her to command the English Catholiques to lie still whom according to the Ministers own confession the prohibition of their Religion forten years had not exasperated to Commotions But assoon as their Queen was imprisoned without hopes of liberty and they left to the dictates of their own Loyal inclinations they never ceased either at home or abroad to sollicite the destruction of their Enemies Consider also I beseech you the carriage of the Popes who used all fatherly and gentle means imaginable because they saw the Queen of Scots whose right they deemed it was of her self inclining like another Maud to expect till the death of her Cozen should put an end to all pretences These Popes were sufficiently urged by the Duke of Guise and others yet upon the former considerations being desirous of peace they never had practices against Queen Elizabeth till Mary Stuart was in prison nor ever publisht the Excomcommunication till the Queen absolutely refused her liberty even after the intercession of the French and Spanish Embassadours But the Minister says the Popes owned Queen Elizabeths Title and therefore Papists ought not to have disputed it 'T is true he says so and yet confesses that Paul the IV. who governed the Church when she came first to the Crown would not acknowledge her Legitimate But how comes the Gentleman to say that the other cause of his Holiness's not acknowledging her was because she audaciously assumed the Crown without his leave Does he find any such record in our Histories Did Queen Mary ask his consent Did any Pope send in this manner to Edward the Sixth Or lastly which of all our Kings used to entreat his favour to be Crowned Reader this is a pretty capricchio of the Parson as it had been unusuall if the Pope had made such a claim Pius the Fourth succeeding the said Paul for the reasons aforesaid shewed as much prudence and good nature as ever man did in hope to compose things without effusion of blood and certainly after his death as much had been spilt as ever was in any Reign had not Queen Elizabeth been the wisest woman that ever swayed Scepter Pius V.
because the English have a reluctancy at first to the thoughts of a stranger Nay some Members of Parliament after his admission said openly in the House Thâ—t no people endued with Natural desire of Preservation would admit a Prince of a beggerly Nation to Reign over them how just soever his claim were for fear of loosing their propriety as dear as life it self and as vigorously to be defended By this therefore Reader may be seen the rancour of the Reformed against the Kings coming in since they durst say such things even after his reception and had not the last Earl of Pembrook wisely pocketted up Ramsey's switching at Newmarket when the people cried Let us break-fast with the Scots here and dine with the rest at London 't was feared that day would have been as fatal to the King as the fifth of November might have proved Papists therefore it seems were not his only Enemies Concerning Huntly's Rebellion I am sure the man is doubly mad in mentioning it for first according to Cambden whom he cites The rising was to help the Spaniards against Queen Elizabeth who had put to death their Queen nor was there ever a formed insurrectioÌ„ so gently punisht by a King which argues they had no malice against him Nay his Majesty is pleased to say in his Basilicon Doron That the Puritans had put out many Libellous Invectives against all Christian Princes and that no body answered them but the Papists by which he said the scandal was doubled for they were the Reformed who calumniated and the Catholiques were the only Vindicators Secondly If the Rebellion suppose it as bad as may be of these Lords of another Country of another age must touch us the present Catholicks of England what a blow would this be to the Reformed Religion should I repeat the Scots unparallel'd actions against their Queen The protecting of Bothwel who would have destroy'd King James by the English And lastly omitting the continual slavery he was in the downright Conspiracie of the Gowries against his life Having thus gone through the Paragraph I must come to the nicest Question of all and nice I may call it because it is conjectural only The proposal by the Minister is this Whether if the Queen of Scots had been a Protestant we should have stickled for her and if Queen Elizabeth had not been thought illegitimate whether nevertheless we had not rebelled against her To the first I say viz. We had sided with the Q. of Scots had she been Protestant To the second No That the Papists would not have opposed Queen Elizabeth had they thought her legitimate and of the Ministers own assertions I will make this plainly appear For if according to him the Papists would have set up two Protestants the Lords Darby and Essex who in reality had no right then I say 't is certain they would willingly have embraced the Title of the Stuarts that carried so fair a shew To the second I answer That they would never have opposed Queen Elizabeth had she been thought Legitimate For if as the Minister urged in the beginning they obeyed her whom they thought an Usurper for ten years though she had utterly destroyed their Religion 't is then more then probable had her Title been good in their opinion they had submitted let her Faith have been what it would These doubts being thus resolved by the very Gentleman that proposed them who cares not if he can wound us for the present into what contradictions at last he runs himself I may I hope since he hath shewed me the example propose a Query also and I shall thank him if out of my Reply he gives the Solution I will not urge my Question so far as to suppose the Queen of Scots had been a Protestant but my demand shall be singly this Whether the Reformed in those days would have quietly obeyed Queen Elizabeth had she stood up for the Catholick Religion Reader because the Parson is not ready to give his determination I will tell you my opinion which is that I think they would not and doubtless this coÌ„jecture is not rash when we consider what has been done here and recorded by our Protestant Historians themselves Have we not seen that for the safety of Religion Edward the Sixth gave away by the advice of his Councel the Kingdom to Jane Gray and what Bees could be so busie as Cranmer and Ridley with many thousands more to set up against their lawful Queen Mary that poor Lady who had not right enough by blood and much less if she depended wholly upon the Will for that was void from the beginning according to the known Laws of the Land How many treasonable Books were written against this Queen after she came to the Crown by Mr. Goodman and others asserting That she ought to be put to death as a Tyrant Monster and cruel Beast Will Thomas also conspired to murther her and when he was to be hanged for his Treason he said he died for his Countrey By all which may be gathered the Duke of Suffolke also with many more protestants being ready and Wiat actually in an open and dangerous rebellion how dangerous it was then in England for a Prince to be a Papist though to that day there had never sat but one through Protestant upon the Throne and he a Child about sixteen when he died But now I must descend to a far more tragical example even to the death of the so often mentioned Qu. of Scots who lost her life barely upon the account of her Religion 'T is true Queen Elizabeth considered her own safety but the fury of the Nobility and people without whose incitement she durst not have been beheaded was purely for fear she might have survived Queen Elizabeth and being then the undoubted Successour might have changed Religion as the former Queen Mary had done before If I should urge this barely upon my own word I might be mistrusted therefore what I say shall be out of Cambden who was not only a Protestant but the acknowledged true Annalist of those times He will tell you that after Babingtons Conspiracy in the consultation what should be done with the Royal Prisoner some were for holding her in safe custody but others out of care of Religion would have her tried and exexecuted In pursuance then of this advice she was condemned and the next Parliament the House petitioned for the execution of her Sentence The first reason in their supplicate was for the preservation of the true Religion of Christ and after they had told Queen Elizabeth also of her own danger they harpt again upoÌ„ the former string desiring her to remeÌ„ber Gods fearful judgments upon Saul and Ahab for their sparing Benhadad and Agag two wicked and profane Idolaters In fine when the fatal day came though they were so very severe as to deny her being a Guest and a free Princess what all Embassadours
of the best account in England pass for a toy I am sure it is my belief to think they shall die eternally if they repent not who defamed and did wrong even to those that crucified Christ If then a woe be pronounc'd against such what will become of them that asperse his Members and therefore if this Minister be a Christian be must know that without satis-factiō there is no forgiveness Nay the effects of his crimes have risen to this to encourage other men to do the like for not long after there was publisht as I just now mentioned a libell call'd the Committee of Parliaments enquiry about the firing the City and at last the wickedness of the Author laid it at the doors of the King Duke General L. Craven Chief Justice and others of the chiefest account in the Nation All that he said against Papists was in truth to justifie them for no better Accusation could be found then that several Frēchmen were busie about the fire that a supposed Jesuite with a Bishop-sattin Suit over which was a frock came and firied a House the fire it self being as the Libeller confesses within six doors of it and when he was apprehended he spake Latine without any necessity Then he tells that one Carpenter who is an Apostate Priest spoke for the Pope that one or tws poor women were sollicited to be Papists and told Now was the time for if they neglected this opportunity they should not be regarded hereafter Nay when nothing could be found against Papists the Author cites Verses only found as he confesses in Westminster-Hal to threaten Protestants into Popery And another Paper writ by a Papist as he says newly turned Protestant and found in a Pew by a Templer in which he desired all Protestants to pursue Papists for they had a design to cut their throats This is the effect of the Pamphlet which I would have every body read for nothing can be a greater Vindication to us then such inconsiderable and senceless Lies And truly when I consider these with the Stories against Papists in the Answer to Philanax and how both are exactly made in the same mode and figure I should not doubt but that Sieur du Moulin was the Author were not the Libel so severe against his Countrymen the French And pray Reader consider here the Justice of God who is a God of retaliation always for as the Dr. strove to incite the people by his malitious falsities which have not the least probability of truth and which would involve all the Loyal Catholiques of England with one or two guilty men if there had been any such so now there are spread such a number of Lies about our danger from the French that people are ready to stone all they meet and should the rabble run into a sudden fury as God knows but they may Mr. du Moulin and his Family may perchance also go sharers with his Countrymen for his being a free Denizon would be thought a weak Argument by the outragious and overheated multitude Concerning the Fire it self Reader I could never as I said think it a design notwithstanding a Protestant Hugonot confest the fact and my reason was because no body in his Senses would be so foolish with deliberation to venture his life when 't was not only odds he should be found out but the fire would be stopt before it came to the third house How often have we seen it in the narrow places of London how often in the ill-building of Kings-street how often in the Paper-houses of Charing Cross the Strand c. and yet for all this whether it happened by night or by day it was quencht without any remarkable spoil Besides 't is impossible if either Protestants Papists Presbyterians or Phanatiques had effected so great a work but we should have seen some prosecution of their design as either to be in Arms or inviting in our forreing Enemies or at leastwise raising tumults in the hurry But on the contrary there has not been since any preparation for a rising in England nay which is more for all that thirteen thousand Families were to seek new habitations and all the rest of the Town disordered yet there was not the least riot though the accident it self might have occasioned a sedition without being animated by Conspirators In short after a strict enquiry by the Parliament of England that Supream Court of the occasion of this dismal fire 't was concluded to be the hand of God alone and therefore I shall never think otherwise of it though Hubert the Hugonot acknowledged himself the Author and Trig a Protestant brag 's that he foretold it in his Almanack printed almost a whole year before Now because the Minister hath mentioned Garnet I shall desire you Reader to peruse his last words and confession as you shall find them in How who continued Stows History He acknowledged his foul offence in concealing the Treason was sorry for it asking God forgiveness for the same beseeching a blessing for the King and his Issue and then exhorted all Catholiques never to attempt Rebellion Treason or violent practises against his Majesty for all such courses were utterly against the Catholick Faith If then Reader a Jesuite known to be learned and therefore not ignorant of the Doctrine of our Religion if also a Jesuite on the point of death and so necessitated to speak truth hath publiquely owned as a Protestant records that Rebellion is incompatible with Catholique Doctrine to affirm this still to be our Principle is certainly a very high injustice and if the practice of some few shall yet be urged against me as a Proof then I must affirm that the Church of England teaches Theft because so many of their Members are monthly hanged for it at Tyborn Reader from hence to the end I shall still continue my first method of setting down the Ministers Answer to every Section of the Apology but I shall seldome Reply because the poorness of the matter carries a cōfutation in it self and therefore it would be a needless trouble both to you and me if I should say something to each Paragraph SECT XXXVI APOLOGY We must a little complain finding it by experience that by reason you discountenance us the people rage and again because they rage we are the more forsaken by you Assured we are that our Conversation is affable and our Houses so many hospitable receipts to our Neighbours Our acquaintance therefore we fear at no time but it is the stranger we dread that taking all on hear-say zealously wounds and then examines the business when 't is too late or is perchance confirmed by another that knows no more of us then he himself 'T is to you we must make our applications beseeching you as subjects tender of our King to intercede for us in the execution and weight the Dilemma which doubtless he is in either to deny so good a Parliament their request or else
run counter to his Royal inclinations when he punishes the weak and harmless ANSWER XXXVI He says he desires only to be safe and against our dangerous Principles neither our affability nor hospitality can defend them for the Irish never treated Protestants better then the year a fore they cut their Throats The best means of security is the execution of the Laws by which those that renounce their disloyal Principles will be distinguisht and the disloyal and seditious only kept weak REPLY XXXVI I have sufficiently treated the Irish Rebellion in the first Reply neither have I bin wanting to shew you that a Protestāt Author viz. Heath lays the cause of it on the English Long-Parliament which occasioned so many mischeifes by their wicked beginings against that good Prince encouraged the designes of the rest of his seditious subjects Nor had the Scots themselves bin then wanting by their actuall levying warr against their King corresponding with his forrain Enemies to prick forward seeing they were successefull all those who studied commotions disorders Judge then whither they were the Papists of England or the Reformed in both Kingdomes of Great Brittain that farthered the Irish Rebellion But now that the Irish never treated Protestants better then the yeare before they curt theire throats is a foolish invention of this shamelesse Minister nonsense in it selfe Nor was it practicable unlesse the English had like the Israelites in Egypt bin sojournours at will had nothing to doe with the Government For would it not be a mad expression to say that the Hugonots of France better treated this yeare the Papists there then they had done before or that the Round-heads treated the Cavaliers more kindly then they had done since the Kings Restauration But this is un Coup d'esprit a peice of witt of the Worthy Minister truely so great a one that I admire it should doe it much more were it not soe common SECT XXXVII APOLOGY Why may not we Noble Country-men hope for favour from you as well as the French Protestants find from theirs A greater duty then ours none could express we are sure Or why should the United Provinces and other Magistrates that are harsh both in mind and manners refrain from violence against our Religion and your tender breasts seem not to harbour the least compassion or pity These neighboring people sequester none for their Faith but for transgression against the State Nor is the whole party involved in the crime of a few but every man suffers for his own and proper fault Do you then the like and he that offends let him die without mercy And think always we beseech you of Cromwels injustice who for the actions of some against his pretended Laws drew thousands into Decimation even ignorant of the thing after they had vastlie paid for their securitie and quiet ANSWER XXXVII He says he has answered our instances of French Protestants and Dutch Papists When we governed the civilized World he says we hanged and burnt men for no cause but Faith which proves Protestant Barbarity better then Popish civility yet these were little for their credit unless they could say that none of us suffered but by the known and necessary Laws of the Kingdom 'T is necessary to maintain the Kings Authority and Peace of the Nation and if we call Religion any thing contrary to these whether ought they to alter their Laws or we our Religion He says as Inquisitors bedress one with Pictures of Devils that is to be burnt for an Heretick so I put Cromwel on any thing I would render odious but they are weak that see not the difference betwen Cromwels Edicts that ruined men for Loyalty and Laws that restrained them from Treason and Rebellion REPLY XXXVII How childishly rediculous is this Ministers Allegation That none of us suffered but by known Laws What does he mean Did we ever when we governed England put any to death but by the known Laws established many hundred years before the Malefactors were born and which are still on foot and used to this day by Protestants against Hereticks But fully to reply to this Answer I cannot better do it then by beseeching you to read over this short Section of the Apology again and then tell me whether any request can be more reasonable and Christian or whether this way of involving the whole in the crimes of a few be not exactly the Procedure of Cromwel SECT XXXVIII APOLOGY We have no studie but the Glory of our Soveraingn and just libertie of the Subjects ANSWER XXXVIII Sir If we may judge by your works there is nothing less studied in your Colledge SECT XXXVIIII APOLOGY Nor was it a mean argument of our dutie when every Catholique Lord gave his voice for the Restauration of Bishops by which we could pretend no other advantage but that 26. Votes subsisting wholly by the Crown were added to the defence of Kingship and consequently a check to Anarchy and confusion ANSWER XXXVIIII This is no argument of your Duty for sure you are it no Lord. Nor is it likely that these Lords followed your direction in the doing of this Duty REPLY to ANS XXXIX Good Mr. Parson 't is more then you know but that I am a Lord yet whether I am or no the Catholick Lords and I are of the same Loyal Principles and what they did any other Catholick would have done had he been Member of their House SECT XL. APOLOGY 'T is morally impossible but that we who approve of Monarchy in the Church must ever be fond of it in the State also ANSWER XL. If you mean this of Papists in general that which you mean morally impossible is experimentally true For in Venice Genoa Lucca and other Popish Cantons of Switzerland they very well approve of Monarchy in the Church yet they are not fond of it in State also But if you mean this of the Jesuitical Party then it may be true in this sence that you would have the Pope to be sole Monarch both in Spirituals and Temporals REP. to ANSW XL. I think I have been as lately at Lucca Genoa and Venice and know the places as well as the Minister 'T was not therefore my meaning that there were no Popish States but that generally Popery tends to Monarchy and on the contraty Calvinism from which the Church of England differs only in Bishops leans altogether to a Democratical Government Heretofore in the Civil Wars of our Country there was never the least mention of a Commonwealth but still the Rebels would have a King and rather then fail one of another Kingdom I beseech God that the present Principles have no other tendency but to Monarchy for Reader you must know that Principles may blindly lead men to a thing which not only their judgments but their inclinations loath as for example the Reformed both in judgment and inclination desire unitie but their Principles in spite of all endeavours will
speak Tragically this does rather seem a piece of Drollery But you have your design either way for no man can read it but he must either laugh or shake his Head SECT XXXXVII APOLOGY We know My Lords and Gentlemen that from your hearts you do deplore our condition yet permit us to tell you your bravery must extend thus far as not to sit still with pity only but each is to labour for the distressed as far as in reality his ability will reach some must beseech our Gracious Soveraign for us others must again undeceive the Good though deluded Multitude Therefore all are to remember who are the prime raisers of the Storm and how through our sides they would wound both the KING and You for though their hatred to our selves is great yet the enmity out of all measure encreases because we have been yours and so shall continue even in the fiery day of trial Protect us we entreat you then upon all your former Promises or if that be not sufficient for the sakes of those that lost their Estates with you many of which are now fallen asleep But if this be still to weak we must conjure you by the sight of this Bloody Catalogue which contains the Names of your murthered Friends and Relations who in the heat of Battail perchance saved many of your Lives even with the joyful loss of their own ANSWER XLVII In answer to this last he has nothing to say but that the Rebels harrassed the Papists to make the King odious and enrich themselves That we were necessitated to what we did either for Subsistance or Protection but the Protestants had no such necessity Concerning the Estates we lost the sum of his answer is That after the Rebels had devoured ours they fell upon the Protestants with more colour and nevertheless appetite REPLY to ANSW XLVII For our necessity other then our Duty to engage for his Maiestie I have answered it at large in the Preface For the loss of our Estates I say here is an excelent encouragement for Subjects according to this mans Doctrine But I see by the whole manner of his writing that he is some inconsiderable man whose name would be as little known if prefixt as it is now being concealed and therefore there is no wonder if what he writ be inconsiderable also Concerning the Catalogue of those brave Catholicks that laid their lives down for their King the Minister saith thus ANSWER XLVIII That he can reckon a far greater number of Protestants then I can pretend to do Papists Secondly that I have omitted many in my List which he could name but this he thinks was out of design that I might more excusably reckon some names which I ought to have omitted viz. My Lord of Carnarvan who he says in his extremities refused a Priest and ordered the Chaplain of his Regiment to pray with him REPLY to ANSW XLVIII For my Lord Carnarvan Reader you must know he was a Ward taken by my Lord Pembroke from his Catholique Mother and then married to his Daughter In the Army my Lord never marched without a Priest whē he was wounded to death he sent for his Brother in law the Lord Herbert late M. of Worster and desired him to go tell the King That he could do no more then die in his Quarrel and if he would grant him but this request he would think his Majesty sufficiently recompenced him for his life His petition was That his Mother might have the breeding up of his Son and the end of this he said was That the Child might be educated in the Catholick Religion After this he received all the rites of the Roman Church and died in the arms of a Priest now alive that belonged to many of my Lords Relations Concerning my Catalogue in general you must know Reader I have been often chid at London for omitting so many considerable Catholicks but this I could not help for the Catalogue was collected by Mr. Blunt as I take it who is to be much commended for his pains When I printed the Apology I was in such hast that I had not time to examine it nicely among my friends I am now Reader also a great way from London and therefore am forc'd to print it again without amendmēts all that I can do at present is to desire a leaf or two of white paper be added in which we may write down as we shall from time to time be informed the names of those Heroick men that died in defence of their King and Country I wonder very much that this Minister is not ashamed to urge such a foolish thing viz. That more Protestants dyed in this War then of our Religion This no body doubts of and may well be seeing we are not the hundredth part of the Nation and yet by my imperfect List it appears that there were killed 190. Catholiques of Quality when as by the List called the Royal-Martyr and printed by Thomas Newcomb 1660. there died in the War but 212. Protestants the rest there named being Papists as you may see if you compare their names with my Catologue Let the Word then judge whether we ought not to have some compassion shewed us and not to be thus calumniated by every impertinent Scribler Reader those that follow are the Ministers exhortations which are so like the Pedantry of his pulpit that they alone without the rest would have assured me of the Authors calling That you may see what they are I have divided them into eight several Advices or Desires for so he is pleased to call them First Sect. He desires us to be content with our condition and not under value the Liberty we now enjoy if it exceed what was granted our Fathers To this I say Reader that we are contented with any favour yet 't would be no arrogance if we require more them our Fathers had because it seems the Minister counts them all Traytors when as we as all the World knows have shewn the utmost duty that Subjects can do Second Sect. Not to proclaim about the World for the paring of our nayls that we are persecuted To this I will give a larger Answer in the Postscript and will only say here that I defie any man to shew me in Christendome a Party that bears their misfortunes with more submission then we Third Sect. To abhor them that wish disturbances or Invasions to settle Popery To this I say I think that nothing can make it more manifest that we do abhor such men then to see that all catholicks detested the French evē then when we were forsakē by our friends and they as most thought upō the point of landing Fourth Sect. To keep our Religiō to our selves and not expect such harvests as we had in the late confusions I say Truly we are like to keep it to our selves for 't is too severe to be embraced by Worldlings and if care be not taken the same times will come again
to the right or via juris determine the nice pretensions of each party yet this does not argue but that he would side as to action or via facti with his Prince against any person whatsoever And thus we daily see the French do who swear they cannot tell whether the Law called Salique be forged or whether in Justice the now Male-Line or the English because descended from the Heirs general ought to have the Kingdom but still they declare they will fight for their present Monarch against all Mankind This I say is the sense of the Author of the Exhortation and this I dare ingage he shall subscribe to Now concerning Philanax how poorly it is answered I believe the Minister would be ashamed to confess and yet how poorly soever he has made use of it Nay of the most contemptible and groundless follies in the whole Book I am sure the man needed not to have challenged us into the fair field of Controversie having there-in been more then Combatants ever since the breaking out of Luther Nor can there be any Argument of more generous bravery then this That though our Priests in England have been hunted from hole to hole their Papers often seized some in the midst of their works hanged no Library no Press and if to day well settled perchance forc'd on the morrow to flie yet for all these disavantages which no Protestant feels they never omitted to write things of use or to answer all sorts of Books that durst appear against our Religion or manners Fear not therefore good Minister that either Clergy or Laity will be behindhand with you in this affair and I think Dr. Pierce will tell you he found it to some purpose from both Nor shall you Sir whilst I live be ready again as soon as you please want an humble Servant to shew you your many willful errors and mistakes THE POSTSCRIPT My Lords and Gentlemen YOu have now had a short view of the malice of the Answerer and of our condition nor have I troubled you with points of Divinity it being out of my Road and more particulary belonging to them who are called to be Guides and make it their Profession to studie Controversie The search into History and Annals of Nations is the fit employement of men of Quality for by it having a view of all that is past we presently find what profits your Country and how good men by false representations may pass for abominable even in the thoughts of sober people In this sort who have ever suffered more then we for often the best of our fellow-Subjects having drawn in with their first milk an ill opinion of our manners have continued in the same sentiment till by long experience they plainly found the contrary How opposite is Popery noised to the Grandeur of Kings and yet we see That Kings were never greater than then What exclamations are there to this day against us for our stirs in the beginning of Reformation though it is evident it proceeded not from precepts of Faith but from a natural impulse to oppose Novelties Nay the efforts of our Ancestors for the Royal House of Scotland are laid to our charge as High-Treason but the putting up of Iane Gray for the ProtestaÌ„t Interest was justice even by the preaching of Dr. Ridley And moreover though but thirteen Papists were drawn into the powder Treason by the dexterity of our Enemies yet we all even the Children of many of the great Catholiques that were to have been destroyed by the Traytors are still held guilty of this Original sin After our proneness to Rebellion in which how little we are faulty and how much others have been let the World judge there 's no Principle possesses the imagination of Englishmen so fully as that we delight in Blood and that persecuting of men is a part of our Doctrine What cries therefore have been against they days of Queen Mary as if her cruelty were unparallell'd when as I have made it appear that more Catholiques have died by Protestants then of them by us and that since the exclusion of the Pope there has been a greater quantity of Blood iudicially spilt amongst us then from the Conversion of England to the Reign of Henry the Eighth The Massacre of France is prov'd you see to have beeÌ„ no effect of ReligioÌ„ but an indirect endeavour to suppress RebellioÌ„ Nor are we in England abominating the fact more guilty of the Irish Cruelties then is the Protestant Faith for what was done at Amboyna For my own part I not only detest Blood but find all Catholicks do for if in many Countries where the Prince and people as I shewed you before are Catholicks the Protestants have not only open Churches but also publick employments and in no place this is granted by the Reformed to Papists then must it needs follow that we are much kinder to you then you to us even in the matters of Religion Besides this Catholicks are so tender that the Inquisition it self is permitted in no Kingdom where Heresie is numerous nor ought we to be blamed if in a Country wholly obedient to the Church we strive to keep out all other Sects and opinions This cannot be jniustice because to all Mankind we grant the same liberty Who is it that morally blames the Moors of Affrick being of one Profession for keeping out even the Gospel it self Or who is it that says the Swedes ar inhumane because none except Lâ—therans shall live among them God alone is to judge hereafter of mens neglecting means In England therefore where all fell not from Popery there is not the same just motive for punishment and certainly it is severity in the highest degree to prosecute us with fire and sword as if we were an upstart people that brought in a strange Religion not finding it here before Ethelbert the first English King that profest Christianity and converted also by a Monk never persecuted his Pagan Subjects because their Religion was in possession and yet no consideration is thought fit for Papists though our most fundamental Laws have establisht this Faith and the maintenance of it sworn unto since the Conquest by at least twenty of our Monarchs Catholicks consider Sectaries as Magistrates do Rebels for where they are but very few they may perchaÌ„ce all suffer according to the establishtt Laws of a NatioÌ„ but if they grow numerous pity causes us now to punish nobody with death but theÌ„ prayers theÌ„ preaching then Books c. are the fittest Arms to destroy theÌ„ This makes us severe in Spain and Italy and this merciful in FraÌ„ce Germany c. yet here in our Country there are Sanguinarie Laws against Lay-men and our Priests have been handled with more seuerity then Iames Naylor or any of his Disciples What advaÌ„tage will PersecutioÌ„ bring but to make us glory that we suffer for Christ nor has it ever yet lessned our nomber No
good therefore I am sure can come to Protestants by it much harm perchance may since it will stir up Catholique Governours to use the like severity to dissenting Subjects who otherwise might live in greater tranquillity and ease 'T is not we that proclaim our persecution as this Minister taxes us in forreign parts but the Agents of Princes who comment as they please on things and fill Europe with noise that the English of all people are most ungrateful being earnest to have that done against their tried friends which Cromwel was almost ashamed to do though we were his profes't and sworn Enemies I shall never omit to render my thanks to Almighty God that I know not one who staggers the least in duty for all this our reproach and suffering Who is it that now loves the Dutch one whit the more or who is it that contemns not a Frenchman whilst he is an Enemy to England Nor did ever any Party in this Isle That deemed it self opprest by Laws before fail of favouring those that were in hostility with the Kingdom The Presbyterians in Scotland were up actually in Arms when two the powerfullest Nations of Europe assisted also with Denmark made the last War upon us And for the Independants all who were in pay in Holland openly abjured their Countrey and many of them headed by Doleman did us the mischief at Chattam for forreign Nations must never hope to foil the English without the additional courage of English Just contrary to this has been the procedure of Catholicks for not only the Scotish Papists with their Commander my Lord Douglas left France upon the breach but valiantly also fought with the loss of many of their lives when those Traytors as I said at Chattham assisted the Dutch last summer I need not repeat how zealous the Popish Guards were in all these three years Wars every body being an eye-witness of it and for the Papists abroad I am sure they have been so earnest for the Honor of the Nation that at Paris Flandres Rome Liege c. they were still detecting the Dutch forgeries and proclaiming our Victories to all People Nay the HollaÌ„ders were ever so sensible of the fervour of the English Catholicks in behalf of their Country that when De Wit was solliciting for a Guard he caused it to be published in the Gazzets of Amsterdam that he was in danger of his life for that two of our Jesuits had undertaken to kill him Consider therefore Loyal Sirs our services and though in themselves they are but Duties yet Duties may sometimes merit a reward at least for the inciting of others Nothing assuredly can ever settle more our Country in peace then the free liberty of Religion and if the tenderness of the Kings heart as all the world knows him merciful should move him to hear the cry of his late Enemies and grant them the enjoyment of their Consciences certainly no body could think it straÌ„ge if he gave the same freedom to us his friends who never yet deserted him or his Father in their greatest misfortunes and sufferings Nay moreover if there be still pity left amongst mankind upon that score also had Papists no other Plea we might more justly pretend to Indulgence then any Nonconformist whatsoever For none of the Sects can in reality alledge more then that the Protestant manner of worship is nauseous and of no edification to them my Reason is because we see â—t least the Rich in all Countries go often to Church and yet are owned still members by the Party Now such a Conformity is diametrically opposite to the Conscience of a Catholick and any such Communion is a deadly sin We are not here to Dispute whether Papists are not too scrupulous for this Argument may be used against any one of a contrary JudgmeÌ„t But supposing such and such things are the points of a Religion and favour desired in the suspension of Laws I say Mercy is fitter for them that according to the profession of their Faith cannot comply without sinning then for those that do it without such offence and truly I am not so disingenious as to believe that were this Conformity in their own Opinion a sin that so many persons of all Orders amongst the Presbiterians and Independents would have gone to Church or that their respective Congregations would have still received them as theirs This favour I crave I wish for all people as well as for my self for I cannot be so partial as to think my Conscience ought not to be forced and yet that my Neighbour may dispence with the scruples he finds in his Punishment never lessens the ResolutioÌ„s of ChristiaÌ„s but always heightens Zeal and draws sometimes wellmeaning men into those Leagued Factions which ease and favour would assuredly have prevented What thoughts can men have when they find not themselves opprest but the publick interest of their Country It follows not also that Toleration prejudices the establisht Religion of a Nation for experimentally we see the Calvinists of France never had fewer Proselytes then when they were securest from Massacres and the like Whilst the House of Valois was in being which used the great rigour they speake of their History declares how numerous they grew but since those of Burbon were Kings who toucht neither Life nor Estate only took away Garisons the Nests of Rebellion I never found they much vaunted in theire Conversions and increase My Lords and Gentlemen Religion is God Almightie's own Cause and for manifestation of the Elect Heresies are permitted 'T is he only and that at the last day also that shall satisfactorily convince us all who is in the right Persecution therefore may easily disioint a Kingdom but can never destroy this Hydra when she is fully rouz'd But now afore I end I must here declare if any other ill men such as this Minister and his Momentous friend who writ the Discourse of the Religion of England hope by Persecution of Papists to make us the less passionate for the Government when their Plots are ripe they cozen themselves and reckon without their Host for the Travellers-Cloak which is our tried Allegeance to lawful Power can never be blown up by a Wind. And if Papists were so fleeting as for affliction to renounce a duty which they hold be the Command of God why should they do you think suffer for Conscience since by going to Church or taking Oaths they may when they please enjoy the ample Priviledges of their Birthright Take this therefore for a certain Maxime That be who is faithful to God can never be unfaithful to his Country and I am sure in all kinds of disorders about ReligioÌ„ here at home the Reformed in each of their respective Sects have been far more faulty then we if we consider as I said what was done against QueeÌ„ Mary the usage of the QueeÌ„ of scots or the late unparallel'd RebellioÌ„ neither for these many years have the Papists