Temporal Affairs by a supereminent and incoercible Authority none may depose him from or deprive him of his Temporals either directly or indirectly much less the Church or Pope whose Power is meerly Spiritual and therefore the behaviours of your Popes have been Rebellious and Scandalous against Reason and Religion against the Doctrine of the Scriptures and the Practice of the Ancient Christians especially since Gregory the 7th who seems to have been the first assertor and practicant in this intolerable presumption not only excommunicating though that be more than St. Augustine will allow him when he tells us nec Rex nec Multitudo Excommunicandi sunt ut-refert Glass in Mat. 23. but also dethroning and deposing the Emperor Henry the 4th whereof he thus complains Ignominiam sustinco ante inauditam I suffer a disgrace never before heard of Vide Albertum Stadiensem ad Annum 1106. Innocent the Third makes Otho although a Rebel to his Prince Emperor and afterwards deposeth him not because a Rebel but because unprofitable to himself Honorius the Third Excommunicates Frederick the Second and deposeth him which Sentence Gregory the Ninth confirms Innocent the 4th also Of the Pride and cruelty of the Popes against this Emperor Frederick the King of France thus complained as Mat. Paris tells the story in Hen. 3. Quo Spiritu vel ausu temerario Papa With what spirit with what daring rashness did the Pope disinherit and depose from his Imperial dignity this worthy Prince than whom a greater is not found among Christians nor yet his equal c. De transgressionibus ejus c. Concerning his Faults objected no credit is to be given to his Enemies among whom the Pope is known to be principal To himself he was always an harmless and good neighbor neither have we ever found him faulty in his fidelity concerning Secular Affairs or the Catholick Faith We know he was a gallant Souldier in the Holy War and boldly exposed himself to all dangers both by Sea and Land I find not so much Religion in the Pope who when he ought to have promoted his Interests and have defended him when he was abroad Fighting Gods Battels did yet in his absence wickedly endeavor to supplant and destroy him Boniface the Eighth threatens to depose Philip King of France absolving his Subjects from their Allegiance and afterwards subjects him and his Kingdom to Albert the Emperor John 23d excommunicates Ludovicus Bavarus Benedict the 12th confirms it and then Clement the 6th deposeth him I shall not trouble you with any more particulars although I might further tell you of the Kingdom of Navar given from the French to the King of Spain by the Pope of Our own Kingdoms of England and Ireland made feodatary to the Popes sometimes transferred to the Spaniard other while to the French of several of our Kings inthralled our Nation involved in bloody Wars by these Papal Usurpations But I shall conclude with a Copy of the Grant made by Pope Alexander the 6th Father to Caesar Borgia of the Indies to Ferdinando King of Spain and his Heirs for ever wherein you may read at large the pride of the Popes in the Power they pretend to Caco I protest you astonish me I pray be pleased to read it over Orthod I am ready so to do Now I begin Alexander Bishop Servant of the Servants of God To Our most Dear beloved Son in Christ King Ferdinando and to Our Dear beloved Daughter in Christ Isabella Queen of Castile Legion Aragon Sicily and Granata Most Noble Princes Greeting and Apostolical Benediction AMong other things acceptable to the Divine Majesty and according to our hearty desire this certainly is the chief That the Catholick Faith and Christian Religion especially in this our time may in all places be exalted amplified and enlarged whereby the health of Souls may be procured and the Barbarous Nations subdued and brought to the Faith And therefore whereas by the favor of Gods Clemency although not with equal deserts We are called to this holy Seat of Peter and understanding you to be true Catholick Princes as we have ever known you and as your Noble and Worthy Facts have declared in a manner to the whole World in that with all your study diligence and industry you have spared no Travails Charges or Perils adventuring even the shedding of your own Blood with applying your whole Minds and Endeavors hereunto as your Noble Expeditions atchieved in recovering the Kingdom of Granata from the Tyranny of the Saracens in these our days do plainly declare your Facts with so great Glory of the Divine Name for the whch as we think you worthy so ought we of our own free will favorably to grant you all things whereby you may daily with more fervent Minds to the Honor of God and the enlarging the Christian Empire prosecute your devout and laudable purposes most acceptable to the Immortal God We are credibly informed that whereas of late you were determined to seek and find certain Islands and firm Lands far remote and unknown and not heretofore found by any other to the intent to bring the Inhabitants of the same to Honor our Redeemer and to profess the Catholick Faith You have hitherto been much occupied in the Expugnation and Recovery of the Kingdom of Granata by reason whereof you could not bring your said Laudable purpose to the end desired Nevertheless as it hath pleased the Almighty God the foresaid Kingdom being recovered willing to accomplish your said desire you have not without great Labor Perils and Charges appointed our well beloved Son Christopher Columbus a Man certes well commended as most worthy and apt for such a matter well furnished with Men and Ships and other necessaries to seek by the Sea where hitherto no Man hath sailed such firm Lands and Islands far remote and hitherto unknown who by Gods help making diligent search in the Ocean Seas have found certain remote Islands and firm Land which were not heretofore found by any other in the which as is said many Nations inhabit living peaceably and going naked not accustomed to eat Flesh and as far as your Messengers can conjecture the Nations Inhabiting the foresaid Lands and Islands believe that there is one God Creator in Heaven and seem apt to be brought to the imbracing of the Catholick Faith and to be indued with good manners by reason whereof we may hope that if they be well instructed they may easily be induced to receive the Name of our Saviour Jesus Christ We are further advertised that the forenamed Christopher hath now builded and erected a Fortress with good Munition in one of the foresaid principal Islands in the which he hath placed a Garrison of certain of the Christian Men that went thither with him as well to the intent to defend the same as also to search out other Islands and firm Lands remote yet unknown We also understand that in these Lands and Islands is great plenty of Gold and
cry'd aloud that Jesus was the Son of God that the Arms which Christians may use against Lawful powers in their Severities are only Prayers and Tears Thus far he speaks like a Protestant that is to say a Primitive Christian and it might have stood as a fair Character of his pretended Innocency had he not foully bespattered it in the Sequel with the Dirt he casts upon the face of Authority But first It would be considered what it is the Apologist would be at upon his frequent Compellation of his Lords and Gentlemen is it to draw them to a firm Combination with those of his Roman party against all such as should question the innocency of his Carriage and Intentions Nothing less it seems can satisfie or secure him unless my Lords and Gentlemen that is the old constant Royalists stand up for his Advocate he must fall under the heavy censure of his greatest Adversaries who to complete the mischief and misery of it are not only become his Accusers but his Insulting Judges as he complains And now it is high time for my Lords and Gentlemen to remember their often Vows to that party and Renounce all further Conjunction with them that have been the cause of so great Calamity to the Nation as he there tells them But is not this Davide Impera and though they did not nip the Plant in the Bud yet now being grown up and not likely to answer them in the expected Fruits they will endeavor so to dismember the parts as may manifestly endanger the whole For what else mean those words Let it never be Recorded in Story that you forgot your often Vows to us injoyning to them those insulting Judges as he terms them before that have been the cause of so great Calamity to this Nation Is not a Dis-union here manifestly endeavored and that in direct contradiction to what was before protested far be it from Catholicks to perplex Parliaments To reconcile this difference in the expressions will well become the Apologist before he answer the following Objections which he makes his next task And here first he presents his Catholick Party astonished even to admiration at that Calumny above the rest that their Principles are said to be inconsistent with Government and they themselves thought ever prone to Rebellion as if because they account themselves the only Orthodox Christians they must necessarily be very loyal Subjects at the least Indeed If they could make good the former we had reason to expect some compliance as to the latter Religio à religando seeing Religion hath its name from the Connexion and strick conjunction it works in its Professors as with each other so in all with that government and Governors under which they have their common protection .. But how Orthodox and united Roman Catholicks are in the grounds of their Belief the main Ingredient in the Essence of Religion hath sufficiently appeared in the Writings of many who have unanswerably evinced the nullity of the Romanists Faith whether ultimately resolved into their virtual Church the Pope with his Conclave as the Jesuites will have it or into the representative Church a General Council as others will have it or into both the former conjoyned as others contend or erranti nullus terminus into the new mode of Oval Tradition as it is lately and clamorously urged by others who abominate the former Yet though our Catholicks do thus stagger in the Grounds of their Faith are they not more firm in their Fealties and Loyalties Surely their Principles are every way consisting with the Government under which they live Nothing less and it will plainly appear if we consider the Doctrine of their Church and their frequent practice to the former much need not be said that the Pope the acknowledged Head of their Church hath a plenary power to Excommunicate all Christian Kings that will not close with Papal Perswasion and when they are Excommunicated that they cease to be Kings that their Subjects are absolved from all Fealty and Allegiance to them yea may take up Arms against them and so murder them All this is so notoriously known that as no real Roman Catholick will deny so it were needless to urge further proof of it He that hath leisure may find enough of this Becanus Bellarmine Rossius Molina Campion Stapleton c. in Alvarez Mariana and others that speak expresly enough at this rate and hath it not been sufficiently verified in the Roman Catholicks practice 't is well known who encouraged one Parry to Murther Queen Elizabeth what Pope it was that issued out his dreadful Excommunication animating the Subjects of England against her and if you will allow of Cardinal Perron's positive Sentence he will tell you that that Doctrine which renders Kings indeposable opens a gap to no less than Schism and Heresie and hereby as if it were not only Lawful but necessary to suppress whatever they be that will not Conform to the Popish Hierarchy He that should see a Sovereign Prince holding the Bason whilst the Pope washeth his Hands and another no less Sovereign holding his Stirrup though unfortunately mistaken in the side whilst he mounts up on Horse-back yea he that should see that Bishop of Rome treading on a great Princes neck and abusing that of the Psalmist for justification of his usurped power Super Leonem aspidem c. cannot but conclude that Dominus Deus noster Papa as the Canonists stile him will be Supream Prince of the Christian World and that all other Potentates must limit their Authority and Jurisdiction according to the measure of his Placet And now the Premises considered that upon the Popes excommunication Kings cease to be such and stand lawfully exposed to all insolencies of their Subjects as hath already appear'd I cannot but very much wonder that the Romanists should be so angry with Cromwel Bradshaw and the rest of that hellish Crue for Murthering our late Sovereign of Blessed Memory were they not taught by those Romish Fathers above cited to Murther Charles Stuart and yet not kill the King I dare boldly say that our late Republicarians have not one Tenet that is destructive to Civil Government and the Sovereignty of Kings that was not first broached by the Romanists to whom we owe our late Confusions which hath answered the Predictions of Gondamore the Spanish Embassador who when he returned to Spain gave out that he had kindled a Fire in England which would burst out Forty Years afterwards Not to insist upon those several disguises presented by the Romanists in the late Troubles under the habit of all sorts of Mechanick Artists Soldiers and others so to Preach up and foment the Rebellion with our home-bred Sectarians this may suffice to demonstrate how ill-consistent their Principles are with our English Government and consequently how weakly they acquit themselves of that Calumny they complain of even to Admiration but the Apologist hath his other pretences and
will clear all Objections that may encounter him in his way it will be necessary to take a brief view of them And here first our Author accuseth us with a pretended Submission to Lawful Powers begins then to boast how patiently their party did bear with the proceedings of the present Parliament how they used no tricks and subterfuges to nip their proceedings in the bud this is his expression and I would be glad to know what they could have done more than they did what means he by this nipping in the bud would he have another Gun-Powder Treason to what purpose is all this enumeration of our several Kings Richard the First Edward Longshanks Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth their Opinions of their Popish Subjects in the first place it may be said that were not so clear-sighted as Princes are in these days that the Roman Writers were not altogether so insolent plain and positive against the Sovereignty of Kings as now As for the French Kings they did very roundly maintain their Rights and Sovereignties having been sufficiently tormented by their Popish Subjects in the time of the League that what the Jesuites were inventing to the prejudice of Kings was by cunning and insinuation Writing one thing and making the French Kings believe another as is usual with that kind of people As for the House of Austria they have the greatest dependences upon the Pope imaginable and the Pope hath a very great tie upon that House for by their Incestuous Marriages authorized by the Popes they make it impossible for them to throw off the Authority of the Pope for should they do so all of the Houshold would prove Bastards and now even in these our days the present King of Poland in the life-time of his Brother known by the name of Cardinal Casimir did Marry his said own Brothers Wife and this was the Policy of the Pope with our Henry the Eighth in dispensing with his Marrying his own Brothers Wife that he might have as great Dominion over the Kings of England as of Spain As for the Authors branding this last Century that what was perpetrated now was never done before as to Mary Queen of Scots and Our late Sovereign I very much wonder at the Impudence of the Man to mix these two actions the first was done by Lawful Authority for her being Queen of Scotland did not bereave Queen Elizabeth of her Sovereignty and I have heard it averr'd by Learn'd and knowing Men that the King of Scotland hath sate in an English Parliament in former ages as a Peer of England and then no wonder nor Injustice neither that the Queen of Scotland suffered Death for her Treasons against the Queen As for the latter the Murther of our late Sovereign of Blessed and Glorious Memory the action is without Example such and so hainous a thing was never acted upon the Theatre of the World And as I said before so I will again that the Murther of that good King may properly enough be said to be the abominable product of that accursed Doctrine of the Popes Infallibility and his Sovereignty over Kings for those accursed Regicides and Murtherers of that Glorious King did but a little alter the Argument for that Power which the Romanists lodged in the Pope these wicked Miscreants placed in the People They had heard there was a Power above Kings and instead of giving it to the Pope they gave it to the Peoples Representative and so fell that Great King to the Consternation of the whole World and for a Memento to all Kings to awake them out of their Lethargy and be an Exhortation to them to Vindicate their Supreme Authority We do all of us much commend the Fidelity of Carlos Whitegrave and the Penderels and Huddlestone and this Author is much mistaken if he think we wish any of them ill We have said enough already to evidence that they effected that glorious and happy action happy I say to these Nations through some other instigations than the Principles of the Romish Religion they were led thereto certainly by a hand Divine as well as assigned by it they carried English hearts about them at that time but if they will Apostatize 't is none of my fault for my part I am well content they be dispensed with as a Mark put upon them for their miraculous preserving our Good King As for the stigmatized person I must needs say for him that he labored in the Vineyard before the last hour of the day and was very ready both with Hand and Pen to promote the Interests of the King for his Restauration and therefore that word of reproach might well have been left out That we differ in Religion is but too true and we dare as boldly as your selves appeal to the day of Judgement something you say we differ I say very much else why does Your Church Damn ours But this is not a place either to Dispute about Religion or express wherein we vary We are assured our Religion is the best free from Superstition free from too much homeliness God and the King are best served in our way Our Church is Monarchical as well as yours but still with a Subordination to Our Sovereign Temporal Prince what our great Ancestors were we shall not be ashamed to remember nor the Conversion of England from Paganism which possibly as all the World besides Converted from the like Errors did retain some few Pagan Ceremonies from which the Church of England was purified in the Reformation of Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth He does well to put us in mind of Romish Persecutions Are not we justified thereby if we do the same to you France forsooth is instanced where the Reformed Religion is permitted which I shall leave indifferent whether to attribute that toleration to their vast numbers or to the innocency of their Tenets not at all prejudicial to Kings This I am sure they own no Sovereign above their natural King they have no Forreign Jurisdictions in their Spirituals and as little in their Temporals Let this be remembered they assisted their King Henry the Third against his Popish Rebels even after the Massacre at Paris and Henry the Fourth in his Siege of Paris when the Duke of Parma reliev'd it But as for the French King he is no competent instance in this case had you singled out some Trent-Catholick such our English Catholicks would be acknowledged there had been a fairer colour for your Argument When you have found some Roman Catholick of the Trent-Perswasion allowing the same favours to known Protestants you may more plausibly plead for the like allowance till when by their Inquisitions and such like entertainments of Protestants they have prescribed the Law for other Princes towards those that no less differ from them in matters of Religion We will wave the Massacre at Paris to come nearer home What think you of the Massacre in Ireland As a fore-runner of the Enlish Troubles Was