fall to challenge not only the infallibility but which were more dangerous the Authority of their Judge If it be thought better to leave scope to Opinions opposition it self profitably serving to the boulting out of the Truth If Unity in all things be as it seems despaired of by this your Gellius himself why are we not content with Vnity in things necessary to Salvation expresly set down in Holy Scripture And anciently thought to suffice reserving Infallibility as an honour proper to God speaking there Why should it not be thought to suffice that every Man having imbraced that necessary Truth which is the Rule of our Faith thereby try the Spirits whether they be of God or no. If he meet with any that hath not that Doctrine receive him not to House nor salute him If consenting to that but otherwise infirm or erring yet charitably bear with him This for every private Man As for the publick order and peace of the Church God hath given Pastors and Teachers that we should not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine and amongst them appointed Bishops to command that Men teach no other or foreign Doctrine which was the end of Timothy his leaving at Ephesus 1 Tim. 1.3 Then the Apostles themselves by their example have commended to the Church the wholesome use of Synods to determine of such controversies as cannot by the former means be composed but still by the Holy Scriptures the Law or Rule as you say well by which all these Iudges must proceed Which if they do not then may they be deceived themselves and deceive others as experience hath shewed yet never be able to extinguish the truth To come to Antiquity There is not any one thing belonging to Christian Religion if we consider well of more importance than how the purity of the whole may be maintained The Ancients that write of the rest of Christian Doctrine is it not a miracle had they known any such infallible Judge in whose Oracle the security of all with the perpetual tranquillity of the Church is contained they should say nothing of him There was never any Age wherein there have not been Heresies and Sects to which of them was it ever objected that they had no infallible Judge How soon would they have sought to amend that defect if it had been a currant Doctrine in those times that the true Church cannot be without such an Officer The Fathers that dealt with them why did they not lay aside all disputing and appeal them only to this Barr Unless perhaps that were the lett which Cardinal Bellarmine tells the Venetians hindred S. Paul from appealing to S. Peter Lest they should have made their Adversaries to laugh at them for their labour Well howsoever the Cardinal hath found out a merry reason for S. Paul's appealing to Caesars Judgment not Peter's lest he should expose himself to the laughter of Pagans what shall we say when the Fathers write professedly to instruct Catholick Men of the forepleadings and advantages to be used against Hereticks even without descending to tryal by Scriptures or of some certain general and ordinary way to discern the Truth of the Catholick Faith from the prophane novelties of Heresies Had they known of this infallible Judge should we not have heard of him in this so proper a place and as it were in a cause belonging to his own Court Nay doth not the writing it self of such Books shew that this matter was wholly unknown to Antiquity For had the Church been in possession of so easie and sure a course to discover and discard heresies they should not have needded to task themselves to find out any other But the truth is infallibility is and ever hath been accounted proper to Christs judgment And as hath been said all necessary Truth to Salvation he hath delivered us in his Word That Word himself tells us shall judge at the last day Yea in all true decisions of Faith that word even now judgeth Christ judgeth the Apostle sits Iudge Christ speaks in the Apostle Thus Antiquity Neither are they moved a whit with that Objection That the Scriptures are often the matter of Controversies For in that case the remedy was easie which S. Augustine shews to have recourse to the plain places and manifest such as should need no interpreter for such there be by which the other may be cleared The same may be said if sometimes it be questioned Which be Scriptures which not I think it was never heard of in the Church that there was an external infallible Judge who could determine that question Arguments may be brought from the consent or dissent with other Scriptures from the attestation of Antiquity and inherent signs of Divine Authority or humane infirmity but if the Auditor or Adversary yield not to these such parts of necessity must needs be laid aside If all Scripture be denied which is as it were exceptio in judicem ante litis contestationem Faith hath no place only reason remains To which I think it will scarce seem reasonable if you should say Though all Men are lyers yet this Iudge is infallible and to him thou oughtest in conscience to obey and yield thy understanding in all his Determinations for he cannot err No not if all Men in the World should say it Unless you first set down there is a God and stablish the authority of the Books of Holy Scripture as his voice and thence shew if you can the warrant of this priviledge Where you affirm The Scriptures to be the Law and the Rule but alone of themselves cannot be Iudges If you mean without being produced applied and heard you say truth Yet Nicodemus spake not amiss when he demanded Doth our Law judge any Man unless it hear him first he meant the same which S. Paul when he said of the High Priest thou sittest to judge me according to the Law and so do we when we say the same Neither do we send you to Angels or God himself immediately but speaking by his Spirit in the Scriptures and as I have right now said alledged and by discourse applyed to the matters in question As for Princes since it pleased you to make an excursion to them if we should make them infallible Judges or give them Authority to decree in Religion as they list as Gardiner did to King Henry the Eight it might well be condemned for monstrous as it was by Calvin As for the purpose Licere Regi interdicere populo usum calicis in Coena Quare Potestas n. summa est penes Regem quoth Gardiner This was to make the King as absolute a Tyrant in the Church as the Pope claimed to be But that Princes which obey the truth have commandment from God to command good things and forbid evil not only in matters pertaining to humane society but also the Religion of God This is no new strange Doctrine but Calvins and
ours and S. Augustines in so many words And this is all the Headship of the Church we give to Kings Whereof a Queen is as well capable as a King since it is an act of Authority not Ecclesiastical Ministery proceeding from eminency of power not of knowledge or holiness Wherein not only a learned King as ours is but a good old Woman as Queen Elizabeth besides her Princely dignity was may excel as your selves confess your infallible Judge himself But in power he saith he is above all which not to examine for the present in this Power Princes are above all their Subjects I trow and S. Augustine saith plainly to command and forbid even in the Religion of God still according to Gods Word which is the touchstone of Good and Evil. Neither was King Henry the Eight the first Prince that exercised this power witness David and Solomon and the rest of the Kings of Iudah before Christ. And since that Kings were Christians The affairs of the Church have depended upon them and the greatest Synods have been by their Decree as Socrates expresly saith Nor did King Henry claim any new thing in this Land but restored to the Crown the ancient right thereof which sundry his Predecessors had exercised as our Historians and Lawyers with one consent affirm The rest of your induction of Archbishops Bishops and whole Clergy in their Convocation-House and a Council of all Lutherans Calvinists Protestants c. is but a needless pomp of words striving to win by a form of discourse that which gladly shall be yielded at the first demand They might all err if they were as many as the Sand on the Sea Shoar if they did not rightly apply the Rule of Holy Scriptures by which as you acknowledge the external Iudge which you seek must proceed As to your demand therefore how you should be sure when and wherein they did and did not err where you should have fixed your foot to forbear to skirmish with your confirmation That though à posse ad esse non valet semper consequentia yet aliquando valet frustra dicitur potentia quae nunquam ducitur in actum To the former whereof I might tell you that without question nunquam valet And to the second that I can very well allow that errandi potentia among Protestants be ever frustra This I say freely That if you come with this resolution to learn nothing by discourse or evidence of Scripture but only by the meer pronouncing of a humane external Judge's Mouth to whom you would yield your understanding in all his determinations If as the Jesuites teach their Scholars you will wholly deny your own judgment and resolve that if this Iudge shall say that is black which appears to your Eyes white you will say it is black too you have posed all the Protestants they cannot tell how to teach you infallibly Withal I must tell you thus much that this preparation of mind in a Scholar as you are in a Minister yea in a Christian that had but learned his Creed much more that had from a Child known the Holy Scriptures that are able to make us wise to salvation through the Faith that is in Christ Iesus were too great weakness and to use the Apostles Phrase childishness of understanding But at length you heard a sound of Harmony and Consent that in the Catholick Church as in Noah 's Ark was infallibility and possibility of salvation which occasioned you to seek out and to enter into this Ark of Noah The sound of Consent and Infallibility is most pleasing and harmonious and undoubtedly ever and only to be found in the Catholick Church to wit in the Rule of Faith and in the Holy Scriptures and such necessary Doctrine as perfectly concordeth with the same But as in Song many discords do pass in smaller Notes without offence of the Ears so should they in smaller matters of Opinion in the Church without the offence of judicious and charitable minds Which yet I speak not to justifie them nay I am verily of the mind That this is the thing that hath marred the Church Musick in both kinds that too much liberty is taken in descant to depart from the Ground and as one saith notae nimium denigrantur The fault of the Italians though they think themselves the only Songsters in the World But to return to you tell me I beseech you good Mr. Waddesworth was this the Harmony that transported you The Pope himself saith I cannot err and to me thou oughtest to have recourse for decision of doubts in matters of Faith And whereas this is not only denyed by Protestants but hath been ever by the French and anciently I am sure by the Spanish lately by some Italian Divines also unless he use due means to find the truth yea whereas it is the issue of all the Controversies of this age in this snare you fastened your Foot This was the Center that settled your Conscience this the solid and firm foundation of your Faith What and did it not move you that some limit this infallibility of the Pope thus If he enter Canonically if he proceed advisedly and maturely using that diligence that is fit to find out the Truth that is as you said before proceeding by the Rule the Scriptures Albeit to the Fathers of the African Council it seemed incredible as they write in their Synodal Epistle to P. Coelestine standing for Appeals to himself that God can inspire the right in tryal to one denying it to many Bishops in a Council Tell us then who made you secure of these things or did you in truth never so much as make question of them but hearing this harmonious sound The Pope is the Infallible Iudge you trusted the new Masters of that side Gregory de Valentia and Bellarmine that whether the Pope in defining do use diligence or no if he do define he shall define infallibly Alas Sir if this were the rest you found for the soale of your Foot instead of moveable Water you fell upon mire and puddle Or rather like to another Dove mentioned in Scripture columba seducta non habens Cor by the most chaffy shrap that ever was set before the Eyes of winged Fowl were brought to the door-fal Excuse my grief mixed I confess with some indignation but more love to you though I thus write Many things there be in Popery inconvenient and to my conceit weakly and ungroundedly affirmed to say no more but this is so absurd and palpable a flattery as to omit to speak of you for my part I cannot be perswaded that Paulus the Fifth believes it himself For consider I pray what needed anciently the Christian Emperours and sometimes at the request of the Bishops of Rome themselves to have gathered together so many Bishops from so divers parts of the World to celebrate Councils if it had been known and believed then that one Mans Sentence
quietly carried was made when the same Inquisition should have been put upon Millaine sixteen years after Yet these people were neither Geuses nor Calvinists Another great means to alienate the Minds of the people of the Low-Countries from the obedience of the Catholick Majesty hath been the severity of his Deputies there one of which leaving the Government after he had in a few years put to death 8000 persons it is reported to have been said The Country was lost with too much lenity This Speech Meursius concludes his Belgick History withal And as for France the first broils there were not for Religion but for preferring the House of Guise and disgracing the Princes of the Blood True it is that each side advantaged themselves by the colour of Religion and under pretence of zeal to the Roman the Guisians murthered the Protestants being in the exercise of their Religion assembled together against the Kings Edict against all Laws and common Humanity And tell me in good sooth Mr. Waddesworth do you approve such barbarous Cruelty Do you allow the Butchery at Paris Do you think Subjects are bound to give their Throats to be cut by their fellow Subjects or to offer them without either humble Remonstrance or flight to their Princes at their meeâ— wills againsts their own Laws and Edicts You would know quo jure the Protestants Wars in France and Holland are justified I interpose not my own Judgment not being throughly acquainted with the Laws and Customes of those Countries but I tell you what both they and the Papists also both in France and Italy have in such Cases alledged First the Law of Nature which they say not only alloweth but inclineth and enforceth every living thing to defend it self from violence Secondly that of Nations which permitteth those that are in the protection of others to whom they owe no more but an honourable acknowledgment in case they go about to make themselves absolute Soveraigns and usurp their Liberty to resist and stand for the same And if a lawful Prince which is not yet Lord of his Subjects Lives and Goods shall attempt to despoil them of the same under colour of reducing them to his own Religion after all humble Remonstrances they may they say stand upon their own guard and being assailed repel Force with Force as did the Macchabees under Antiochus In which case notwithstanding the person of the Prince himself ought always to be sacred and inviolable as was Sauls to David Lastly if the inraged Minister of a lawful Prince will abuse his Authority against the fundamental Laws of the Country they say it is no rebellion to defend themselves against Force reserving still their Obedience to their Soveraign inviolate These are the Rules of which the Protestants that have born Arms in France and Flanders and the Papists also both there and elsewhere as in Naples that have stood for the defence of their Liberties have served themselves How truly I esteem it hard for you and me to determine unless we were more throughly acquainted with the Laws and Customes of those Countries than I for my part am For the Low-Countries the World knows that the Dukes of Burgundy were not Kings or absolute Lords of them which are holden partly of the Crown of France and partly of the Empire And of Holland in particular they were but Earls And whether that Title carries with it such a Soveraignty as to be able to give new Laws without their consents to impose Tributes to bring in Garisons of Strangers to build Forts to assubject their Honours and Lives to the dangerous trial of a new Court proceeding without form or figure of Iustice any reasonable Man may well doubt themselves do utterly deny it Yet you say boldly they are Rebels and ask why we did support them It seems to some that his Catholick Majesty doth absolve them in the Treaty of the Truce An. 1608. of all imputation of Rebellion And if they were Rebels especially for Heresie why did the most Christian King support them As for Queen Elizabeth if she were alive she would answer your question with another Why did Spain concur in Practice and promise Aid to that detestable Conspiracy that was plotted against her by Pius V. as you may see at large in his Life written by Girolamo Catena It is you say an easie matter to pretend Priviledges But it is no hard matter to discern pretended Priviledges from true and Treason from Reason of State and old Corruptions from old Religion But to take Arms to change the Laws by the whole Estate established is Treason whatsoever the cause or colour be and therefore it was Treason in the Rebels of Lincolnshire and York-shire in King Henry's days and in the Earls of the North in Queen Elizabeths though they pretended their old Religion and the same must be said of all Assassinates attempted against the Persons of Princes as Parryes Somervilles Squires against Queen Elizabeth and the late Powder-Plot the eternal Shame of Popery against King James To your Argument therefore in form admitting that it is no true Church which is founded and begun in Malice Disobedience Passion Blood and Rebellion no nor yet a true Reformation of a Church for in truth the Protestants pretend not to have founded any The Assumption is denied in every part of it And here I must needs say you have not done unwisely to leave out the Church of England as against which you had no pretence all things having been carried orderly and by publick Counsel But you have wronged those which you name and either lightly believed or unjustly surmised your self touching Luther Calvin Knox the French and the Hollanders when you make them the raisers of Rebellion and shedders of Blood Whose Blood hath been shed like Water in all parts of those Countries against all Laws of God and Man against the Edicts and publick Faith till necessity as they plead enforced them to stand for their Lives Yet you presume that all this is evident to the World whereas it is so false and improbable yea in some parts impossible as I wonder how your heart could assure your hand to write it Give me here leave to set down by occasion of this your motive that which I profess next to the evidence of those Corruptions which the Court and Faction of Rome maintains hath long moved my self And thus I would enlarge your Proposition That Monarchy as now without lisping it calls it self which was founded supported enlarged and is yet maintained by Pride Ambition Rebellion Treason murthering of Princes Wars dispensing with Perjury and incestuous Marriages Spoils and Robbery of Churches and Kingdoms worldly Policy Force and Falshood Forgery Lying and Hypocrisie is not the Church of Christ and his Kingdom but the Tyranny of Antichrist The Papacy falsely calling it self the Church of Rome is such Ergo. The Assumption shall be proved in every part of it and in truth is already
Estate which has now descended to his Son his elder Brother dying without Issue After he had past through the common education at Schools he was sent to Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge and put under Dr. Chadderton's care the famous and long-liv'd Head of that House and here all those extraordinary things that rendred him afterwards so conspicuous began to shew themselves in such a manner that he came to have a very eminent Character both for Learning and Piety so that Appeals were oft made to him as Differences or Controversies arose in the University He was put in Holy Orders by the Bishop Suffragan of Colchester THâ— I met with this passage I did not think these Suffragans had been continued so long in England How they came to be put down I do not knâ—w it is probable they did ordain all that desired Orders so promiscuously that the Bishops found it necessary to let them fall For complaints were made of this Sâ—ffragan upon which he was threatned with the taking his Commission from him for though they could do nothing but by a Delegation from the Bishop yet the Orders they gave were still valid even when they transgressed in conferring them Upon that the Suffragan said a thing that was as insolent in him as it was honourable for Mr. Bedell That he had ordained a better Man than any the Bishop had ever ordained naming Bedell He was chosen Fellow of the Colledge in 1593. and took his Degree of Batchelour of Divinity in the year 1599. From the University he was removed to the Town of S. Edmondsbury in Suffolk where he served long in the Gospel and with great success he and his Colleague being of such different characters that whereas it was said of him that he made the difficultest places of Scripture appear plain it was said That his Colleague made the plainest places appear difficult the opening of dark passages and the comparing of many Texts of Scripture together with a serious and practical application of them being the chief subject of His Sermons Which method several other great Men at that time followed such as Bishop Vsher Dr. Iackson and Mr. Mede He had an occasion given him not long after his settlement in this charge to shew his courage and how little he either courted preferment or was afraid of falling under the displeasure of great Men For when the Bishop of Norwich proposed some things to a meeting of his Clergy with which they were generally dissatisfied though they had not resolution enough to oppose them He took that hard Province upon himself and did it with so much strength of reason as well as discretion that many of those things were let fall upon which when his Brethren came and magnified him for it he checkt them and said He desired not the praises of Men. His reputation was so great and so well established both in the University and in Suffolk that when King Iames sent Sir Henry Wotton to be his Ambassadour at Venice at the time of the Interdict he was recommended as the fittest Man to go Chaplain in so critical a conjuncture This Imployment proved much happier and more honourable for him than that of his fellow Student and Chamber-fellow Mr. Wadsworth who was at that time beneficed in the same Diocese with him and was about that time sent into Spain and was afterwards appointed to teach the Infanta the English Tongue when the match between the late King and her was believed concluded for Wadsworth was prevailed on to change his Religion and abandon his Countrey as if in them those Words of our Saviour had been to be verified There shall be two in one Bed the one shall be taken and the other shall be left For as the one of these was wrought on to forsake his Religion the other was very near the being an Instrument of a great and happy change in thâ— Republick of Venice I need not say much of a thing so well known as were the quarrels of Pope Paul the V. and that Republick especially since the History of them is written so particularly by him that knew the matter best P. Paulo Some Laws made by the Senate not unlike our Statutes of Mortmain restraining the excessive Donations extorted from superstitious Men and the imprisoning two lewd Fryers in order to the executing Justice on them were the grounds of the quarrel and upon those pretences the Ecclesiastical Immunity from the Secular Tribunals was asserted to such a degree that after that high spirited Pope had tryed what the spiritual Sword could do but without success his Interdict not being observed by any but the Iesuites the Capucins and Theatines who were upon that banished the State for the age of the Anselms and the Beckets could not be now recalled he resolved to try the Temporal Sword next according to the advice Cardinal Baronius gave him who told him in the Consistory That there were two things said to S. Peter the first was Feed my Sheep the other was Arise and kill and therefore since he had aâ—â—eady executed the first part of S. Peter's duty in feeding the Flock by Exhortations Admonitions and Censures without the desired effect he had nothing left but to arise and kill and that not being an Age in which Croisades could pass upon the World and the Pope not finding any other Prince that would execute his Bulls he resolved to make War upon them himself hoping to find assistance from the Crown of Spain who he believed would be willing to enlarge their Dominions on that side but when all help failed him and he saw that his Censures had not created any distractions in the Republick and found their Treasure and Fâ—rce like to prove a match too hard to the Apostolical Chamber and to such Forces as he could levy and pay he was at last willing to accept of a mediation in which the Senate though they were content to deliver up the two profligate Fryers yet asserted their Right and maintained their Laws notwithstanding all his threatnings nor would they so much as ask pardon or crave absolution But without going further into matters so generally known I shall only mention those things in which Mr. Bedell had some share P. Paulo was then the Divine of the State a man equally eminent for vast learning and a most consummated prudence and was at once one of the greatest Divines and of the wisest Men of his Age. But to commend the celebrated Historian of the Council of Trent is a thing so needless that I may well stop yet it must needs raise the Character of Bedell much that an Italian who besides the caution that is natural to the Countrey and the prudence that obliged one in his circumstances to a more than ordinary distrust of all the World was tyed up by the strictness of that Government to a very great reservedness with all people yet took Bedell into his very Soul and as Sir Henry Wotton assured the
the Ambassadour to present King Iames's Premonition to all Christian Princes and States then put in Latine to the Senate and they were confident it would produce a great effect But the Ambassadour could not be prevailed on to do it at that time 〈◊〉 pretended that since S. Iames's day was not far off iâ— would be more proper to do it on that day If this was only for the sake of a Speech that he had made on the conceit of S. Iames's Day and K. Iames's Book with which he had intended to present it that was a weakness never to be excused But if this was only a pretence and that there was a design under it it was a crime not to be forgiven All that Bedell could say or do to perswade him not to put off a thing of such importance was in vain and indeed I can hardly think that Wotton was so weak a Man as to have acted sincerely in this matter Before S. Iames's day came which I suppose was the First of May and not the Twenty fifth of Iuly the difference was made up and that happy opportunity was lost so that when he had his audience on that Day in which he presented the Book all the answer he got was That they thanked the King of England for his good will but they were now reconciled to the Pope and that therefore they were resolved not to admit of any change in their Religion according to their agreement with the Court of Rome It may be easily imagined what a Wound this was to his Chaplain but much more to those who were more immediately concerned in that matter I mean P. Paulo with the Seven Divines and many others who were weary of the corruptions of their Worship and were groaning for a Reformation But now the reconciliation with Rome was concluded the Senate carried the matter with all the dignity and Majesty that became that most seâ—ene Republick as to all civil things for they would not ask Absolution but the Nuncio to save the Popes credit came into the Senate-House before the Duke was come and crossed his Cushion and absolved him Yet upon this they would not suffer any publick signs of joy to be made nor would they recal the Jesuites But in all these things greater regard was had to the dignity of their State than to the interest of Religion so that P. Paulo was out of all hopes of bringing things ever back to so promising a conjuncture upon which he wisht he could have left Venice and come over to England with Mr. Bedell but he was so much esteemed by the Senate for his great Wisdom that he was consulted by them as an Oracle and trusted with their most important Secrets so that he saw it was impossible for him to obtain his Congè and therefore he made a shift to comply as far as he could with the established way of their Worship but he had in many things particular methods by which he in a great measure rather quieted than satisfied his Conscience In saying of Mass he past over many parts of the Canon and in particular those Prayers in which that Sacrifice was offered up to the honour of Saints He never prayed to Saints nor joyned in those parts of the Offices that went against his Conscience and in private Confessions and Discourses he took people off from those abuses and gave them right Notions of the purity of the Christian Religion so he hoped he was sowing Seeds that might be fruitful in another Age and thus he believed he might live innocent in a Church that he thought so defiled And when one prest him hard in this matter and objected that he still held communion with an Idolatrous Church and gave it credit by adhering outwardly to it by which means others that depended much on his example would be likewise encouraged to continue in it All the answer he made to this was That God had not given him the Spirit of Luther He expressed great tenderness and concern for Bedell when he parted with him and said that both he and many others would have gone over with him if it had been in their power but that he might never be forgot by him he gave him his Picture with an Hebrew Bible without Points and a little Hebrew Psalter in which he writ some Sentences expressing his esteem and friendship for him and with these he gave him the unvaluable Manuscript of the History of the Council of Trent together with the History of the Interdict and of the Inquisition the first of these will ever be reckoned the chief pattern after which all that intend to succeed well in writing History must copy But among other Papers that P. Paulo gave him some that were of great importance are lost for in a Letter of Mr Bedells to Dr. Ward he mentions a Collection of Letters that were sent him Weekly from Rome during the contests between the Iesuites and Dominicans concerning the efficacy of Grace of which P. Paulo gave him the Originals and in his Letter to Dr. Ward he mentions his having sent them to him These very probably contained a more particular relation of that matter than the World has yet seen since they were writ to so curious and so inquisitive a Man but it seems he did not allow Bedell to print them and so I am afraid they are now irrecoverably lost When Bedell came over he brought along with him the Archbishop of Spalata and one Despotine a Physician who could no longer bear with the corruptions of the Roman Worship and so chose a freer air The latter lived near him in S. Edmundsbury and was by his means introduced into much Practice which he maintained so well that he became eminent in his Profession and continued to his death to keep up a constant correspondence with him As for the Archbishop of Spalata his Story it is too well known to need to be much enlarged on He was an ambitious Man and set too great a value on himself and expressed it so indecently that he sunk much in the estimation of the English Clergy by whom he was at first received with all possible respect but after he had stayed some years in England upon the promotion of Pope Gregory the XIV that had been his School-fellow and old acquaintance he was made believe that the Pope intended to give him a Cardinals Hat and to make great use of him in all aâ—fairs so that he fancied that he should be the instrument of a great Reformation in the Church his Pride made him too easie to flatter himself with these vain Hopes and the distaste some of the English Clergy had taken at him for his ambition and covetousness gave Gundamor the Spanish Ambassadour great advantages in the conduct of that matter for his mind that was blown up with vanity and sharpned with resentment was easily wrought on so that he believing that the Promises made him would not only be performed but that
granted them for consulting their Divines in Germany And at last Letters were brought from thence concerning their Exceptions to Communion with that Church Because the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament was not explained in such a manner as agreed with their Doctrine The Archbishop of Dublin sent these to our Bishop that he might answer them and upon that he writ so learned and so full an answer to all their Objections and explained the matter so clearly that when this was seen by the German Divines it gave them such entire satisfaction that upon it they advised their Countreymen to join in Communion with the Church For such is the moderation of our Church in that matter that no positive definition of the manner of the Presence being made Men of different sentiments may agree in the same acts of Worship without being obliged to declare their Opinion or being understood to do any thing contrary to their several Perswasions His moderation in this matter was a thing of no danger to him but he expressed it on other instances in which it appeared that he was not afraid to own it upon more tender occasions The Troubles that broke out in Scotland upon the account of the Book of Common Prayer which encreased to the height of the swearing the Covenant and putting down of Episcopacy and the turning out of all Clergy Men that did not concur with them are so well known that I need not inlarge upon them It is not to be denyed but provocations were given by the heats and indiscretions of some Men but these were carried so far beyond all the bounds either of Order in the Church or Peace in the State that to give things their proper names it was a Schismatical rage against the Church backt with a rebellious fury against the State When the Bishop heard of all these things he said that which Nazianzene said at Constantinople when the stir was raised in the second General Council upon his account If this great tempest is risen for our sakes take us up and cast us into the Sea that so there may be a Calm And if all others had governed their Diocesses as he did his one may adventure to affirm after Dr. Bernard That Episcopacy might have been kept still upon its Wheels Some of those that were driven out of Scotland by the fury of that time came over to Ireland among these there was one Corbet that came to Dublin who being a Man of quick Parts writ a very smart Book shewing the parallel between the Jesuites and the Scotch Covenanters which he printed under the Title of Lysimachus Nicanor The Spirit that was in this Book and the sharpness of the stile procured the Author such favour that a considerable Living falling in the Bishop of Killala's Gift he was recommended to it and so he went to that Bishop but was ill received by him The Bishop had a great affection to his Countrey for he was a Scotchman born and though he condemned the courses they had taken yet he did not love to see them exposed in a strange Nation and did not like the Man that had done it The Bishop was a little sharp upon him he played on his Name Corby in Scotch being a Raven and said it was an ill Bird that defiled its own Nest. And whereas he had said in his Book That he had hardly escaped with his own life but had left his Wife behind him to try the humanity of the Scots he told him He had left his Wife to a very base office Several other things he said which in themselves amounted to nothing but only expressed an inclination to lessen the faults of the Scots and to aggravate some provocations that had been given them Corbet came up full of wrath and brought with him many Informations against the Bishop which at any other time would not have been much considered but then it being thought necessary to make examples of all that seemed favourable to the Covenanters it was resolved to turn him out of his Bishoprick and to give it to Maxwell that had been Bishop of Rosse in Scotland and was indeed a Man of eminent parts and an excellent Preacher but by his forwardness and aspiring he had been the unhappy instrument of that which brought on all the disorders in Scotland A Pursevant was sent to bring up the Bishop of Killala and he was accused before the high Commission Court for those things that Corbet objected to him and every Man being ready to push a Man down that is falling under disgrace many designed to merit by aggravating his faults But when it came to our Bishop's turn to give his Sentence in the Court he that was afraid of nothing but sinning against God did not stick to venture against the Stream he first read over all that was objected to the Bishop at the Barr then he fetched his Argument from the qualifications of a Bishop set down by S. Paul in his Epistles to Timothy and Titus and assumed that he found nothing in those Articles contrary to those qualifications nothing that touched either his Life or Doctrine He fortified this by shewing in what manner they proceeded against Bishops both in the Greek and Latin Churches and so concluded in the Bishops favour This put many out of countenance who had considered nothing in his Sentence but the consequences that were drawn from the Bishop's expressions from which they gathered the ill disposition of his mind so that they had gone high in their Censures without examining the Canons of the Church in such Cases But though those that gave their Votes after our Bishop were more moderate than those that had gone before him had been yet the current run so strong that none durst plainly acquit him as our Bishop had done So he was deprived fined and imprisoned and his Bishoprick was given to Maxwell who enjoyed it not long For he was stript naked wounded and left among the dead by the Irish but he was preserved by the Earl of Tomond who passing that way took care of him so that he got to Dublin And then his Talent of Preaching that had been too long neglected by him was better imployed so that he preached very often and very much to the edification of his Hearers that were then in so great a consternation that they needed all the comfort that he could minister to them and all the Spirit that he could infuse in them He went to the King to Oxford and he said in my Author 's hearing That the King had never rightly understood the innate hatred that the Irish bore to all that professed the true Religion till he had informed him of it But he was so much affected with an ill piece of News that he heard concerning some misfortune in the King's affairs in England that he was some hours after found dead in his Study This short digression I hope may be forgiven me for the person was very extraordinary
participant each of other Rather I concluded that seeing many of the best learned Protestants did grant The Church of Rome to be a true Church though peradventure faulty in some things And contrarily not only the Catholicks but also the Puritans Anabaptists Brownists c. did all deny the Church of England to be a true Church therefore it would be more safe and secure to become a Roman Catholick who have a true Church by consent of both parties than to remain a Protestant who do alone plead their own cause having all the other against them For the testimony of our selves and our contraries also is much more sufficient and more certain than to justifie our selves alone Yet I resisted and stood out still and betook my self again to read over and examine the chiefest Controversies especially those about the Church which is cardo negotii and herein because the Bearer stayes now a day or two longer I will inlarge my self more than I purposed and so I would needs peruse the Original quotations and Texts of the Councils Fathers and Doctors in the Authors themselves which were alledged on both parts to see if they were truly cited and according to the meaning of the Authors a labour of much labour and of travel sometime to find the Books wherein I found much fraud committed by the Protestants and that the Catholicks had far greater and better armies of evident Witnesses on their sides much more than the Protestants in so much that the Centurists are fain often to censure and reject the plain testimonies of those Ancients as if their new censure were sufficient to disauthorize the others ancient sentences And so I remember Danaeus in Commentariis super D. Augustin Enchirid. ad Laurentium Where S. Augustin plainly avoucheth Purgatory He rejects S. Augustines Opinion saying hic est naevus Augustini But I had rather follow S. Augustine's Opinion than his Censure for who are they to control the Fathers There are indeed some few places in Authors which prima facie seem to favour Protestants as many Hereticks alledge some Texts of Scriptures whose sound of Words seem to make for their Opinions But being well examined and interpreted according to the Analogy of faith and according to many other places of the same Authors where they do more fully explain their Opinions so they appear to be wrested and from the purpose In fine I found my self evidently convinced both by many Authorities and by many Arguments which now I do not remember all nor can here repeat those which I do remember But only some few Arguments I will relate unto you which prevailed most with me besides those aforementioned First therefore I could never approve the Protestants evasion by Invisibility of their Church For though sometime it may be diminished and obscured yet the Catholick Church must ever be visible set on a Hill and not as Light hid under a Bushel for how should it enlighten and teach her Children if invisible or how should Strangers and Pagans and others be converted unto her or where should any find the Sacraments if invisible Also the true Church in all places and all Ages ever holds one Vniformity and Concord in all matters of Faith though not in all matters of Ceremony or Government But the Protestants Church hath not in all Ages nor in all places such uniform concord no not in one Age as is manifest to all the World and as Father Parsons proved against Fox's Martyrs Wickliffe Husse and the rest Ergo the Protestants Church not the true Church Again by that saying Haereses ad originem revocasse est refutasse and so considering Luther's first rancor against the Dominicans his disobedience and contempt of his former Superiours his vow-breaking and violent courses even causing rebellion against the Emperour whom he reviles and other Princes most shamefully surely such arrogant disobedience Schism and Rebellions had no warrant nor vocation of God to plant his Church but of the Devil to begin a Schism and a Sect. So likewise for Calvin to say nothing of all that D. Bolsecus brings against him I do urge only what Mr. Hooker Dr. Bancroft and Saravia do prove aganst him for his unquietness and ambition revolving the Commonwealth and so unjustly expelling and depriving the Bishop of Geneva and other temporal Lords of their due obedience and ancient inheritance Moreover I refer you to the stirs broils sedition and murthers which Knox and the Geneva-Gospellers caused in Scotland against their lawful Governours against their Queen and against our King even in his Mothers Belly Nor will I insist upon the passions which first moved King Henry violently to divorce himself from his lawful Wife to fall out with the Pope his Friend to marry the Lady Anne Bullen and soon after to behead her to disinherit Queen Mary and inable Queen Elizabeth and presently to disinherit Queen Elizabeth and to restore Queen Mary to hang up Catholicks for Traytors and to burn Protestants for Hereticks to destroy Monasteries and to pill Churches Were these fit beginnings for the Gospel of Christ I pray was this Man a good Head of Gods Church for my part I beseech our Lord bless me from being a Member of such a Head or such a Church I come to France and Holland where you know by the Hugonots and Geuses all Calvinists what Civil Wars they have raised how much Blood they have shed what Rebellion Rapine and Desolations they have occasioned principally for their new Religion founded in Blood like Draco's Laws But I would gladly know whether you can approve such bloody broils for Religion or no I know Protestants de facto do justifie the Civil Wars of France and Holland for good against their Kings but I could never understand of them quo jure If the Hollanders be Rebels as they are why did we support them if they be no Rebels because they fight for the pretended liberty of their ancient Priviledges and for their new Religion we see it is an easie matter to pretend Liberties and also why may not others as well revolt for their old Religion Or I beseech you why is that accounted Treason against the State in Catholicks which is called Reason of State in Protestants I reduce this Argument to few Words That Church which is founded and begun in Malice Disobedience Passion Blood and Rebellion cannot be the true Church but it is evident to the World That the Protestant Churches in Germany France Holland Geneva c. were so founded and in Geneva and Holland are still continued in Rebellion ergo They are not true Churches Furthermore where is not Succession both of true Pastors and of true Doctrine there is no true Church But among Protestants is no succession of true Pastors for I omit here to treat of Doctrine ergo no true Church I prove the minor where is no consecration nor ordination of Bishops and Priests according to the due Form and right intention required necessarily by the
of your induction though it matters little whether you do or no since Father Parsons will needs aver that he lived and dyed of your Religion Here first you mention his violent divorceing himself from his lawful Wife We will not now debate the Question How his Brothers Wise could be his lawful Wife You must now say so Whatsoever the Scriptures Councils almost all Universities of Christendom determined Yet methinks it should move you that Pope Clement himself had consigned to Cardinal Campegius a Breve formed to sentence for the King in as ample manner as could be howsoever upon the success of the Emperours affairs in Italy and his own occasions he sent a special Messenger to him to burn it But what violence was this that you speak of The matter was orderly and judiciously by the Archbishop of Canterbury with the assistance of the learnedest of the Clergy according to the antient Canons of the Church and Laws of the Realm heard and determined That indeed is more to be marvelled at What moved him to fall out with the Pope his Friend in whose quarrel he had so far engaged himself as to write against Luther of whom also he was so rudely handled as you mention before having received also for some part of recompence the title of The Defender of the Faith having been so chargeably thankful to the Pope for it All these things considered it must be said this unkindness and slippery dealing of Clement with him was from the Lord that he might have an occasion against the Pope and that it might appear that it was not Humane Counsel but Divine Providence that brought about the banishment of the Popes Tyranny from among us His marriage with the Lady Anne Bullen her death and the rest which you mention of the abling or disabling her Issue to inherit the Crown I see not what it makes to our purpose The suppression of the Monasteries was not his sole Act but of the whole State with the consent also of the Clergy and taken out of Cardinal Wolsey his example yea founded upon the Popes Authority granted to him To dissolve the smaller Houses of Religion on pretence to defray the charges of his sumptuous Buildings at Oxford and Ipswich wherein if it pity you as I confess it hath sometimes me that such goodly Buildings are defaced and ruined we must remember what God did to Shiloh yea to Jerusalem it self and his Temple there And that Oracle Every tree that beareth not good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire You demand If this Man King Henry were a good Head of Gods Church What if I should demand the same touching Alexander the Sixth Iulius the Second Leo the Tenth or twenty more of the Catalogue of Popes in respect of whom King Henry might be canonized for a Saint But there is a Story in Tullies Offices of one Lucatius that laid a Wager that he was bonus vir a good Man and would be judged by one Fimbria a Man of Consular Dignity He when he understood the case said He would never judge that matter lest either he should diminish the reputation of a Man well esteemed of or set down that any Man was a good Man which he accounted to consist in an innumerable sort of Excellencies and Praises That which he said of a good Man with much more reason may I say of a good King one of whose highest excellencies is to be a good Head of the Church And therefore it is a Question which I will never take upon me to answer Whether King Henry were such or no unless you will beforehand interpret this Word as favourably as Guicciardine doth tell us Men are wont to do in the censuring your heads of the Church For Popes he saith now a-days are praised for their goodness when they exceed not the wickedness of other men After this description of a good head of the Church or if ye will that of Cominaeus which saith he is to be counted a good King whose vertues exceed his vices I will not doubt to say King Henry may be enrolled among the number of good Kings In special for his executing that highest duty of a good King the imploying his Authority in his Kingdom to command good things and forbid evil not only concerning the civil Estate of Men but the Religion also of God Witness his authorizing the Scriptures to be had and read in Churches in our Vulgar Tongue enjoyning the Lords Prayer the Creed and ten Commandments to be taught the people in English abolishing superfluous Holy-days pulling down those jugling Idols whereby the people were seduced namely the Rood of Grace whose Eyes and Lips were moved with wires openly shewed at Pauls Cross and pulled asunder by the people Above all the abolishing of the Popes Tyranny and Merchandise of Indulgences and such like Chafer out of England Which Acts of his whosoever shall unpartially consider of may well esteem him a better Head to the Church of England than any Pope these thousand years In the last place you come to the Hugenots and Geuses of France and Holland You lay to their Charge the raising of Civil Warrs shedding of Blood occasioning Rebellion Rapine Desolations principally for their new Religion In the latter part you write I confess somewhat reservedly when you say occasioning not causing and principally not only and wholly for Religion But the Words going before and the exigence of your Argument require that your meaning should be they were the causers of these disorders You bring to my mind a Story whether of the same Fimbria that I mentioned before or another which having caused Quintus Scavola to be stabbed as Father Paulo was while I was at Venice after he understood that he escaped with his life brought his Action against him for not having received the Weapon wholly into his Body These poor people having endured such barbarous Cruelties Massacres and Martyrdoms as scarce the like can be shewed in all Stories are now accused by you as the Authors of all they suffered No no Mr. Waddesworth they be the Laws of the Roman Religion that are written in Blood It is the bloody Inquisition and the perfidious violating of the Edicts of Pacification that have set France and Flanders in combustion An evident Argument whereof may be for Flanders that those Genses that you mention were not all Calvinists as you are mis-informed the chief of them were Roman Catholicks as namely Count Egmond and Horne who lost their Heads for standing and yet only by Petition against the new Impositions and the Inquisition which was sought to be brought in upon those Countries The which when the Vice-roy of Naples D. Petro de Toledo would have once brought in there also the people would by no means abide but rose up in Arms to the number of fifty thousand which sedition could not be appeased but by delivering them of that fear The like resistance though more
Lords of their due obedience and antient inheritance When as the Bishop and Clergy of Geneva upon the throwing down Images there by popular tumult departed in an anger seven years ere ever Calvin set Foot within the Gates of that City A thing not only clear in Story by the Writers of that time and since Sleidan Bodine Calvins Epistles and Life but set down by those whom ye cite Mr. Hooker in his Preface speaking of Calvin He fell at length upon Geneva which City the Bishop and Clergy thereof had a little before as some do affirm forsaken being of likelihood frighted with the peoples sudden attempt for the abolishment of Popish Religion And a little after At the coming of Calvin thither the form of their Regiment was popular as it continueth at this day c. Dr. Bancroft The same year that Geneva was assaulted viz. by the Duke of Savoy and the Bishop as he had said before pag. 13 which was Anno 1536. Mr. Calvin came thither If Calvin at his coming found the Form of the Government Popular If he came thither the same Year that the Bishop made war upon Geneva to recover his Authority being indeed either affrighted or having forsaken the Town before how could Calvin expel him And in truth Bodine in his second Book De Repub. Chap. 6. affirmeth That the same Year Genoa was established in a State Aristocratical which was he saith Anno 1528. Geneva was changed from a Monarchy Pontifical into an Estate Popular governed Aristocratically although that long before the Town pretended to be free against the Earl and against the Bishop c. What Saravia hath written touching this point I cannot tell as not having his Book But in Beza his answer to him there is no touch upon any such thing He joyns with his complaint of the sacrilegious usurping Ecclesiastical goods in answer to his Proëme He dissents in that Saravia accounts the Seniors of the reformed Churches like to that kind which Saint Ambrose speaks of brought in out of wisdom only to rule the disorderly Beza saith they were not introducti but reducti Cap. 12. For the rest in all that answer there is nothing of Calvin or any such revolving of the state as you accuse him of Which makes me think that herein your memory deceived you It may be that in your younger time falling upon these Authors by occasion of the question of Discipline which was then much tossed ere ever your judgement were ripened you formed in your mind a false impression of that which they say of Calvin You conceited them out of your zeal in the cause to say more than they do and thus possible unawares received the seeds of dislike of the doctrine of Calvin as well as his discipline which have since taken root in you But you shall do well to remember the difference you put a little before of these two Christian doctrine is uniform and ever the same government is changeable in many circumstances according to the exigence of times and persons And even the same men that write somewhat eagerly against Master Calvin yet give him the praise of wisdom to see what for that time and state was necessary Master Hooker saith of him That he thinks him incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did enjoy since the hour it enjoyed him and of his platform of discipline after he hath laid down the summ of it This device I see not how the wisest at that time living could have bettered if we duely consider what the present state of Geneva did then require But be it and for my part I think no less that herein he was mistaken to account this to be the true form of Church policy by which all other Churches and at all times ought to be governed let his error rest with him yea let him answer it unto his Judge but to accuse him of ambition and sedition and that falsly and from thence to set that brand upon the Reformation whereof he was a worthy instrument though not the first either there or any where else as if it could not be from God being so founded for my part I am afraid you can never be able to answer it at the same Barr no nor even that of your own Conscience or of reasonable and equal men For the stirrs broils seditions and murthers in Scotland which you impute to Knox and the Geneva Gospellers they might be occasioned perhaps by the Reformers there as the broils which our Lord Jesus Christ saith he came to set in the world by the Gospel Possible also that good men out of inconsiderate zeal should do some things rashly And like enough the multitude which followed them as being fore prepared with just hatred of the tyranny of their Prelates and provoked by the opposition of the adverse Faction and emboldened by success ran a great deal further than either wise Men could foresee or tell how to restrain them Which was applauded and fomented by some politick Men who took advantage of those motions to their own ends And as it happens in natural Bodies that all ill humors run to the part affected so in civil all discontented people when there is any Sorance run to one or other side and under the shew of common Griefs pursue their own Of all which distempers there is no reason to lay the blame upon the seekers of Reformation more than upon the Physicians of such accidents as happen to the corrupted Bodies which they have in Cure The particulars of those affairs are as I believe alike unknown to us both and since you name none I can answer to none For as for the pursuing our King even before his birth that which his Majesty speaks of some Puritans is over-boldly by you referred to Master Knox and the Ministers that were Authors of Reformation in Scotland Briefly consider and survey your own thoughts and see if you have not come by these degrees First from the inconsiderate courses of some to plant the pretended Discipline in Scotland to conceive amiss of the Doctrine also Then to draw to the encreasing of your ill conceit thereof what you find reported of any of the Puritans a Faction no less opposed by his Majesty in Scotland than with us in England So when we speak of Religion though that indeed be all one you divide us into Lutherans Zwinglians Calvinists Protestants Brownists Puritans and Cartwrightists whensoever any disorder of all this number can be accused then lo are we all one and the fault of any Faction is the slander of all yea of the Gospel it self and of Reformation Judge now uprightly if this be indifferent dealing From Scotland you come to England Where because you could find nothing done by popular tumult nothing but by the whole State in Parliament and Clergy in Convocation you fall upon King Henry's Passions you will not insist upon them you say and yet you do as long as upon any one member