at the Court than Church of Rome witness the Act of the six Articles made by him defending the greatest and principlest Tenets of Rome by no less than Capital Punishments and a Parlimentary Reinforcement of the old Statute de Hereticis comburendis Ref. pag. 147. the Heretick Burning continuing through his whole Reign As these I say were all the Changes made by Henry the Eighth instrumental to the present Reformation and that too not without Obstructions witness several Rebellions occasioned by this Change the one of 20000 Strong in Lincolnshire another more formidable one in Yorkshire called by the Rebels The Pilgrimage of Grace attended with a general Insurrection in all the North. However as I said before here is no Motive or Inducement now for the like Parliamentary Compliance with a Popish Successour to make any the least Change Instrumental to the Romish Restoration For first supposing how notoriously false soever an equal Mutability or Disposition in the People now to return to Rome as then to depart from it Here 's no stigmatizing Brand of Murder or any other publick Perpetration or Avowing of any Villany whatever to taint the whole Protestant Clergy and thereby withdraw the People's Hearts from them Here 's no Holy-Cheats and Superstitious priest-Impostures practised to drein the People's Purses to gratifie a scandalous voracious Clergy Or any detected Abuses and Corruptions to disgust and exasperate the People against them Here 's no least Dormient Statute or Title whatever for a Popish Successour to lay hold of in favour of the Papacy's Return into England as there was for its Expulsion The Fence of our present Protestant Constitution being so strong against it and all Pretensions of Rome so utterly extinct and abolish't Neither is here any Premunire incurred by the whole Clergy and Nation to affright or dasterdize them into any sordid Condescencion or Grants in Diskindness to our Religion And lastly here 's no Fleeeing of an Overgrown Overrich Church in the Case The present Church Revenues under so many Impropriations being no more than will but just support its Dignity and Pastors but with Subsistence and Decency No Ecclesiastick Booty nor Prize to bribe or allure an Avaricious Parliament to weaken or impoverish their Church for the temptation of sharing the Spoyl But above all other Obstacles against Rome her 's an Absolute Impossibility of a Temporizing Clergy to favour Popery For supposing even the most barbarous Insinuation of their Fanatical Enemies True and that Mammon Interest Sycophantry how rascally soever that Infamous Suggestion were above Religion with them Yet nevertheless the utmost Influence of a Romish Prince could never warp them to any such Execrable Apostacy by reason the Indispensable Coelibacy of the Romish Clergy would totally exclude the present Members of the Church of England as being Marryed Men from any Share or Hopes under a Romish Government whil'st instead of Preferment or Interest nothing but Degradation and Beggery could attend them And for an unanswerable Dispurity between Henry the Eighth's Influence towards the present Protestant Religion and a Popish Successour's towards Popery The Protestant Religion with an inviting Face was in a State of Innocence untainted by any of its Corrupted Professours with any thing like Parisian Massacres Irish Rebellions or Gun-powder Treasons enough of themselves alone to open that uncloseable Chasme that never to be cemented Breach between Englishmen and Popery that Popery could not now gain three Proselites to a hundred gain'd in Henry the Eighth's Time to the Protestant Religion But here I cannot but take notice of one Gross Mistake that 's commonly receiv'd for Truth Viz. That Henry the Eighth hectored his Parliaments to what he listed Which is oftentimes made use of as an Argument that a Popish Successour with the same Courage may do the like with his when on the contrary they acted only by their own Inclinations and when any thing was proposed by the King that went against the Grain not all his Menaces could force them to a Submission For Example when a Bill had past the House of Lords for regulating a common Practice then in England of defrauding the King and several of the Lords of their Advantages made by Wards Marriages and Primier Seisin by Men's making such Settlements of their Estates by their last Wills and other Deeds to that purpose Yet notwithstanding the utmost pressure both of the King and Lords for redressing that Abuse the Commons rejected the Bill Ref. pag. 116. And as to the Reformation some part of it was of their own seeking For Example in his 22 d. Year the Commons complained to the King of the grievous and intolerable Severity of the Ecclesiasticks for calling Men before them ex Officio and laying Articles to their Charge without any Accuser and then admitting no Purgation but causing the Party accused either to abjure or burn Reform Pag. 116. And indeed in all the Reformation they rather drew with him than were driven by him And to shew the vast Difference betwixt the Operation of the Prince either by Edward or Mary towards the Change of the Religion and the working of a Change now In the first place besides the dayly Converts made to the Protestant Religion in Edward's Reign which added Strength and Vigour to the Reformation wrought by that Prince as the State of Religion then stood the Popish and Protestant Party were grown in a manner to be an Equal Division of the Nation and 't is not to be wondred that where the Weight's even the Soveraign Power added to the Ballance could turn the Scale as both in his and his Sister's Reign Either Party having an Easie Game to play whilst the Respective Monarch might with small Difficulty turn up his own Religion Trump when he had half the Cards in his hands Besides the Law had then so weakly provided for the true Settlement of either Religion that the greatest part of the Ecclesiastick Changes then lay almost wholly in the pleasure of the Prince For after the Parliament had fully invested Henry the Eighth with the Supremacy they impowered him as Head of the Church to dispose of all Episcopal Sees by Letters Patents during pleasure Abrid Ref. Book 2. pag. 4. and the Bishops by the same Authority had the like Jurisdiction over the Inferiour Clergy This unbounded Latitude of the Supremacy continuing through both the next Reigns a great part of the Changes was owing wholly to this Prerogative whil'st King Edward made choice of a Clergy of his own Perswasion and in like manner Queen Mary placed or displaced her Bishops and removed all the Inferiour Clergy ad Libitum turning out whom she pleas'd without any Form of Process or special Matter objected against them All which Abridg. B. 2. pag. 249. was done by virtue of the Queens being Head of the Church which though she condemned as a sinful and sacraledgious Power yet she now employ'd it against those Bishops whose Sees were quickly filled with Men for
to the Church of Rome are equally guilty of High Treason and to suffer as in Cases of Treason And a second Act of Henry the VIII In which the Refusal of the Oath of Henry's Supremacy in Renuntiation of the Pope was also made High Treason Now if every Papist in England without lifting a Hand uttering a Word or imagining the least disloyal Thought against his Lawful Soveraign his Crown and Dignity or against the Peace of the Nation where he 's a Subject yet nevertheless out of a point of Conscience and meer Matter of Faith cannot be induced to believe a Temporal Prince capable of being Head of a Church but is invincibly perswaded how erronious soever that the POPE is Peter's undoubted Successour and Christ's unquestioned Vicar upon Earth and cannot without hazard of his Soul so much as consent to acknowledge otherwise yet notwithstanding by the Protestant Laws of the Land this Invincible Perswasion without any other Crime is interpreted High-Treason and punish't as such Now I say in this Case what wondrous Difference is there between the Rigour of a Popish or a Protestant Constitution This that makes a Defection from Their Church-Establish't TREASON and the other from Theirs HERESY This that punishes an Apostate with Hanging and Quartering at Tiburn and the other with Burning at Smithfield 'T is true that Branch of Queen Elizabeth's Statute that concerns the Popish Layman's High-Treason was never yet put in Execution and I hope for the Glory of the Reformation Establish't by that Illustrious Princess as so extreamly Sanguinary was never intended to be being severe enough to give our Popish Enemies a Matter of Recrimination though Enacted but in Terrorem But here I beg the Reader to be assured that I urge not this Comparison in Disparagement of our Protestant Laws but only to satisfie the Mistaken Part of Mankind that all such Judicial Severities under the Government of both Religions have ever been introduced by the most Awful and Sacred Authority of the rightful Law-Makers of the Nations and consequently in the English Constitution not only the King 's but the Peoples Acts and Decrees and so to convince them of the unreasonableness of that senseless Surmise that upon the Admission of a Popish Successour all the forementioned Cruelties though without any such Induction of Law and consequently with all the Injustice Rapine and Cold-blooded Murder even to that formal Solemnity of Butchery that humane Imagination would tremble at must and shall be introduced For alas how ridiculously extravagant must those Fears be that can aâ—dlâ— Men's Senses into a Dread of that prodigious Stroke from Popery that was never given by it since the Creation What Magnifying Glasses therefore must the Popular Fears see through to behold such Stupendious Visions of Popery as that THAT shall be that NEVER was whil'st a Popish Crown'd Head in England must be the first nay only Royal Savage of a Papist that ever Reign'd However for once let us suppose the Devil and Pope as familiar together as ever they were painted at a Queen Elizabeth's Night and that this Gospel Propagation were really the Doctrine of his pretended Infallibility and this Bloody Mandate to a Popish Successour the special Edict of the whole CONSISTORY what would the Execution of that Mandate make towards the Growth or Advancement of Popery God knows so far from promoting the Romish Religion that possibly there wants but that One Attempt to shame it almost out of the World For in the first place 't is so far from a way or means to convert even one Soul in England that 't is the only Course to increase their Abhorrence and Execration of that Religion and bring the very THOVGHT of Popery even below Damnation 'T would no more make Converts to Rome than the old Heathen Caldrons and Gridirons to Paganisme For as the greatest Prejudice of Englishmen against Popery lyes in their Horrour of the Cruelties of it so consequently nothing can contribute to the Advancement of it but the Clemency and Mercy of its Professours to reconcile us even into meer Charity with them whil'st the Exercising of the formentioned unexampled Barbarities would make us fall from our present Ill Opinion of Popery as a Corrupted Church to believe it no Church at all but rather an Association of Monsters and a Den of Cannibals and Tygers and the greatest Operation such unprecedented Cruelty could meet were at best but to force the frighted People into a superficial counterfit Complyance and make them Temporize a little only to compound for their Lives yet that Temporizing under so Villanous a Persecution would be so far from a True Conversion or any thing like it that they 'd only play the Highest of Hypocrites come perhaps to Mass to mutter Curses instead of Ave-Mary's or be hunted into the Popish Fold only to pray for a favourable Opportunity of having a pull at the Throats of the Wolves that drive them thither And Secondly Besides the Impotent Effects 't is certain to find towards the Heretick Conversion the Pope's Command nay indeed Connivance at any such Arbitrary Tyrannick Stake-burning or Throat-cutting from a Popish Successour instead of advancing of Popery by so excentrick a Motion will be enough to stagger half the Popish Hearts in Christendom for as Implicit as the Faith of the Romish Zealots is and as intirely devoted as they are to their Peter's Chair and Mother-Church undoubtedly there are Thousands of them that notwithstanding they can disgest a Wafer for a GOD can never be wrought to believe the Transubstantiation of such visible Tyranny and Butchery into Righteousness and Christianity how Zealous soever they may be for the Conversion of so Heretical a Nation as England And that this would be the Infallible Consequence of all such Barbarous Popish Measures they that will but look back to the Annals of Queen Mary will find Historians telling us That nothing so much advanced the Reformation as the Mistaken Conduct of Queen Mary and her bloody Counsellors in that Point And Dr. Burnet expresly assures us That the whole Body of the Nation grew to dislike the Cruelty of Rome Abridg. Book the 3 d. Pag. 275. to that degree that the Popish Bishops for their Apology threw it off from Themselves and openly laid it on the King's and Queen's Commands insomuch that King Philip for his Excuse made his Confessour preach a Sermon at Court against the taking of Peoples Lives for their Opinions in Religion and inveighed against the Bishops for doing it By which means a stop was put to it for some time But nevertheless as the same Severity soon after return'd again he tells us all along That the Nations Dislike of it was Universal and the repeated Acclamations and universal Transports of Joy at the Proclaiming of Queen Elizabeth proceeded from the People's Hopes of better Days under Her Scepter than her Sister 's By which it appeared how weary the Nation was of the Cruel and weak Administration
Arbitrary Movements and Acquisitions of a Romish Prince as the Character it self affirms which indeed by Chance is the very Oracle of the Pamphlet will be totally crusht and destroyed under the next protestant Soveraign and all his popish Tools and Partizans nay the whole Romish Cause it self given up to the protestant Justice and Revenge that shall crush them to pieces so that in perfect Contradiction instead of inextricable Slavery universal protestant Ruine and a total Extirpation of Heresy prognosticated all along in the Character here 's at most but a Temporary Flourishing of Popery and so far from a real protestant Suppression either by Persecution or Massacres or the Devil knows what that we shall be strong enough to rise up under the next protestant Heir and to pluck up and demolish even Root and Foundation all the preceding Batteries and Machinations against our Religion and Liberties whil'st the True Ruine lies in fine not on the protestant but popish Side If so I say as the Character has unluckily started this undeniable Truth certainly we lye under no danger of a popish Successours ever attempting that irregular popish Atchievement and setting up that Short-liv'd Arbitrary popish Dagon which as has been proved before and is even confest here will be of so Calamitous a Consequence to the Interest and Safety even of his whole Party and Religion You see Reader what Incoherence Absurdities Contradictions and indeed Impossibilities the popish Character is fraught with and what notorious Stuff that is that Revenge and Malice obtrudes upon Mankind where popery is the Theme But truely 't is to be consider'd that that Pamphlet was written and publish't not for the Instruction of the Seven Wise Men but of the seven thousand Ill-natured Knaves and the seventy thousand credulous unreasoning Fools of that Age the REPRESENTATIVE Patron to whom that Libel was Dedicated not excepted from the Number that would have swallow'd every Syllable of it had it been ten times more lewdly ridiculous than ' t was Now as not only the Character but the unpondered and groundless Apprehensions of Men have so dreadfully predicted such a terrible bloody Revolution under a popish Successour without one Jota of proving or examining how that wondrous Change is possible to come to pass that the Reader may not be surprized at that weak sort of arguing in the one and that headlong Credulity in the other 't is remarkable that not one Pen that ever wrote upon Popery and Arbitrary-Power ever scribbled otherwise For as the HOW and WHICH WAY they can be introduced into England are not in posse those Essential Circumstances are always slubber'd over and nothing but a Huddle and Jingle of general Notions of Fire and Faggot Assassinations and Massacres Popes and Devils c. And a Declamatory Discant upon those Tragical Heads are ever the whole Contents of the Chapter and whil'st the peoples Fears are set a tingling by this sort of Din and Gibberish they are babled out of their Senses and transported into Frenzy it self without looking farther or searching deeper for the Grounds of their Fears For Example let us trace up the first Alarum of Popery and Arbitrary-power even to the Fountain Head In all the venemous Libels in the late blest Martyr's Reign for there were popish Character Writers in those Days too though in other Names in all the Licentiousness of that Villanous Age and the highest Encouragement of Rebellious Senates there were neither those Pens nor Tongues within the Parliament House or without it that could ever go further than to a bare general 〈…〉 and Outcry of Popery and Arbitrary Power for in all the hideous Roarings against popish 〈…〉 as 't is not the Councellers but the Councel put in Execution that can hurt us was there 〈◊〉 Man of them all that did or indeed pretended to particularize those popish Counsels or form the least Draught of any Dangerous popish Machinations whatever under the least probability of shaking our Laws Liberties or Religion 'T is true there were strange and wondrous popish Incendiaries represented at work but about doing of what The Devil a word they inform us Not all the Republick Rhetorick nor all the Eloquence even of counterfeit Fears and Jealousies could lay down one tolerable Demonstration of the fatal Compositions of those popish Fireballs those Incendiaries were to use or the Conbustableness of what they were to set on Fire Nay those very Devils that had Impudence enough not only to murder the best of Kings but to bring him to a Scaffold with a solemn Pageantry of Iustice were nevertheless so far from the Confidence of pretending the popish Strength or Numbers in England to have the least Shadow of Ability to erect their Romish Altars and subvert the Protestant Religion that to carry on the popular Fears by that Forged Sham of Popery and give Body and Bulk to the Gorgon they were forced to help out one damn'd Imposture by a Greater and bring in the very Church of England for Popish and Antichristian to joyn in the Plot. Nor were our later true Protestant Rome-dreaders much short of the same Artifice to crutch up the same Cripple Nay for want of any Substantial Pretext of the Introduction of any of the Real Fundamental Superstitions of Rome they were put to the wretched Shift of making the harmless Book of Sports licensed by Bishop Laud and an after-Service Game at Coyts or Stool-Ball no less than all over Rome and Antichrist yes and to push the Jest a little farther the old Kings tolerating half a score of Priests in Indulgence to his Queen to wear the Habit of their Order though in Reality an Object more for the Hooting of Boys than the Converting of Men was screwed up to no less than a Plot upon the whole Reformation Now as the Characterizing of such a Tyrannick popish Successour in England is but Mounting that Chimerical Jehu in the Chariot where neither his Wheels can move him nor the Ground will bear him and all the Pretensions of Fears from Popery are only Suppositions and Delusive nay and considering that those most violent Asserters of Romish Dangers in that very Age when they had this Advantage to help out Viz. To alledge the Old King was a Papist in Disguise by which Villanous Supposition they had ten times a fairer Field for the pretended Introduction of Popery than can be under a Visible popish Prince could nevertheless urge so little to the purpose and so weakly support the Cause of such Fears The Contradictions Noyse Rumble and Nonsense in the Character on the worse side of the Hedge are a little more Excusable Having I may with Confidence say fully answered and confuted all Appearances or Suppositions of Danger from a Popish Successour yet as the Minds of some People are so strangely possest and infatuated with those Brainsick Fancies and Visionary Specters of Popery and Slavery that scarce the most apparent Truth the most substantial Reason not Oracles nay