first took notice of as the chief ground of all his extravagant Raving against the Bishops Book viz. The concluding the Principles of a Religion from the Practices of her Professors Which is the very Dregs of Folly the last Running of Impertinence 'T is true the Protestant Religion i. e. the care of preserving it was no doubt the great Motive of doing what was done in every one of these three Cases but that is not here to the purpose for 't is not the Reason for which but the Authority by which a Prince is depos'd and the kind of Principle i.e. whether Civil or Religious 't is justifi'd upon that must condemn or acquit a Church of the Guilt of it though this man endeavour all along to insinuate the contrary by such a fallacious way of representing the Position charg'd on the Church of Rome as makes that seem to be the chief Point in the Controversy between her and the Bishop of Lincoln which is in truth no part of it viz. the Motive or end of deposing Princes But 't is not the Businesse of this little Pamphleter to state things fairly and reason clearly but to amuse the Reader and puzzle the Question a close way of arguing will not suit either with his Cause or his Understanding a good proof of which he gives us at the very first in these words If on the other-side sayes he the Bishop means that there have been Popish Doctors of the Opinion That Princes might be Depos d upon the account of Religion what Advantage I would fain know can that be to his Lordship or his Treatise since not only all the Prime Leaders of the Reformation c. Is it to be imagin'd now that a man should get so far out of his way unless he purposely design'd to ramble or write things so grossly impertinent to the matter he was treating of unless he studyed to confound it and render it as little intelligible as was possible This is properly playing at Cross Purposes which he very foolishly and very unjustly accuses the Bishop off when men talk what is foreign to the Question and wander from the business out of designe Never did any man take more true pains to understand a Discourse difficult in it self than he has to misunderstand the Bishop's which was plain and easy or at least to make his Reader do soe for he cannot be soe dull himself in this point as he would seem 'T is not possible that he or any man who has read the Bishop's Book should think it was the Bishop's meaning only to charge the popish Doctors with holding indefinitely That Princes might be Depos'd upon the account of Religion when 't is so palpably evident in a hundred places of his Book that he only brings their Opinions as a collateral proof of his Charge of their Church and Religion and that with a quite different Tenet as I have already show'd And as 't is the Roman Church and not the Doctors only or chiefly which the Bishop charges with holding that Princes may be Depos'd by her Authority not with holding indefinitely that they may be Depos'd upon the account of Religion So 't is the present popish Canon-Law the Bulls and Decretals of Popes and the Canons of General Councils which are the Testimonies he relies upon for the making good of his Charge and not the private Opinions of Popish Doctors though being cited out of Books licens'd and approv'd by that Church they are of considerable weight in the Argument Now what sayes the Compendianist to these strong and most convincing Proofs Why in fine as Mr. Bayes sayes upon another occasion he wont tell us He has not one word not one Syllable of Answer to them but passes them over with as deep a silence and as good a grace as if they were like most of his own not at all to the purpose This discreet and necessary Resolution being taken he bends all his little Wit and with a great deal of Chearfulnesse goes about to invalidate what the Bishop urges from the Writings of the Popish Doctors which yet the poor impotent Scribler is by no means able to do as I have made appear in my Answer to his Charge of Luther and Calvin The Attempt however was just as wise and as likely to satisfy reasonable men as if a General who had a great and well disciplin'd Army to fight with should neglect the Main Body and with his whole strength set upon the Forlorn Hope Before I proceed any farther I cannot but take Notice of a very extraordinary Passage which I meet with pag. 77. li. 12. Where the Compendianist would make the World believe That we our selves confess That our Monarchy is weaken'd by our Religion That Popery must be call'd back to support it and that Papists are hated by many on this Account all which is in it selfe so notorious a Falsehood and in him who could not but know the contrary so base a Slander of the Protestant Faith in general and of the People of England in particular that I am confident no true Protestant can read it without Indignation nor any sensible man without Astonishment at the strange Impudence of this prostitute Writer His Words are these Can it be said That the Monarchy has gotten by the Reforformation when Protestants themselves acknowledge and what desperate Enemies that has created us may be easily imagin'd that nothing but Popery or at least its Principles can make it again emerge or lasting Was there ever such a complication of Malice and Folly as this Period affords us There is a veine of impertinent arguing contrary to the known Rules of Discourse and shamelesse affirming contrary to the knowne Truth of Fact which runs through the whole Masse of his crude and indigested Pamphlet But this is a Nompareillo to use Mr Bayse's Phrase of want of Modesty and want of Sence one of his bold Strokes 'T is usual with him to tell Tales for Arguments and lay down confident Assertions in stead of Proofs but let him now rake together all the Dirt he can meet with and practise himself in Compendiums i. e. in lamentable ill reason'd lying Discourses Let him make Extracts of the Lives of popish Saints and abridge the Legends of Monks let him take short Heads of Mr. Cressy's Mystical Divinity in his Sancta Sophia and write Epitomes of the Controversies of the Schoolmen he shall never again be able to crowd so much Nonsence Libel and Untruth into so few Words as long as he lives Can it be said sayes he That the Monarchy has gotten by the Reformation c Prodigious Impudence Can any thing else be said with the least colour of Reason or Truth He cannot but know too that this has alwayes been said by Protestant Writers and prov'd beyond all contradiction except that of absurd and illogical men from whom Saint Paul pray'd to be delivered However since he will needs make a New Question of it I shall
and so weak an Adversary Let us suppose then for once That Luther Calvin and as many more as he has a mind to take into his c. have held That Princes may be depos'd upon the Account of Religion By what new Logick can he make this pertinent to the present Discourse Does he thinke it the same thing to hold indefinitely That Princes may be depos'd upon the Account of Religion and to hold That the Church has a Right to depose them upon that Account To hold that they may be deposed by an Authority Civil and to hold that they may be depos'd by an Authority Ecclesiastical Let him now speak his Conscience without a Dispensation Does he in good earnest think these two Propositions equivalent or at least equivalent as to the point in controversie between him and the Bishop of Lincoln and that they equally disgrace the profess'd Religion of him who affirms them He cannot sure be so void of the ordinary reason of a Man though he has swallow'd down never so many Roman Catholick Doctrines as not to perceive a palpable difference between them 'T is not but that the former of these Positions is a very bad Principle dangerous to Princes and destructive to the Peace and Settlement of a Nation though not so much as the latter because it wants the Enforcement of Conscience and Religion to fix it in the Mind and thrust it out upon occasion into action with that Violence which usually accompanies a pretended Zeal for the Honour of God But how bad soever it may be still 't is a Civil not a Religious Principle and though it may be Sedition in the highest degree it can never be Heresie a mans Life and Estate who maintaines it is answerable for it not his Religion To make this a little clearer I say 'T is one thing to hold That Princes may be dedepos'd by the State though upon the Account of Religion i. e. for being of a Religion different from the establish'd grounding this Opinion upon the Laws and Customs of some particular Civil Constitutions or upon the ends of Government in general and quite another thing to hold that they may be depos'd by the Church grounding this Opinion upon the Laws of Religion and a Power suppos'd to be delegated to her by Christ This last is the Principle we charge and the Bishop of Lincoln has prov'd upon the Church of Rome which makes her Religion it self dangerous to Princes On the other side though Luther Calvin or any other Protestant Divines should hold the first though it be a false and a bad yet as I said before 't is a Civil Principle and their holding it could no more reflect on the Protestant Religion than an Error they might be guilty of in History or Mathematicks The Protestant Religion therefore remaines clear from any suspicion of allowing the Doctrine of Deposing Princes the point I undertook to make good though it should be granted the Compendianist that Luther and Calvin c. have had ill Principles in Relation to Civil Governments If he could prove indeed That Luther and Calvin or any other Protestant Divines have held The Lawfulness of Deposing Princes as a Principle of their Religion and plac'd the power of doing it the Church he would say something that were to the purpose and parallel to what we accuse the Church of Rome off but in the Method he has taken he does but beat the Air and fight with Shadows I shall explain this Distinction a little further by some famous Examples in order to meet with the other Cavils of this idle wrangler and make the Inconsequence of his Arguings if it be possible yet more apparent He may remember then That here in England Edward the II. and Richard the II. were actually depos'd in times of Popery and by Papiits yet did our Writers never charge the Church of Rome though she held then the same doctrines and had the same Pride to trample on Princes that now she has with those two disloyal and unjust Usurpations upon the Sovereignty of the Kings of England And for what imaginable reason but this only viz. because they were both acts of the Civil Power and carried on by men who grounded what they did upon Principles though grosly false and mistaken drawn from the Constitution of the English Government and the Rights of the two Houses of Parliament and the Church of Rome contrary to her Custom upon such occasions was only a bare Spectator neither her Authority nor her Principles being made use of to further or justifie those proceedings I would now a k this Collector of Impertinences this teadious Compendianist whether he thinkes this a good reason to clear the Church of Rome from being concern'd in the deposing of these two unfortunate Princes If he sayes T is as no doubt he will with what face can he pretend to charge the Church of England as he would be understood to do pag. 76 lin 38. with the Endeavours that were us'd to keep Queen Mary from the Crown the Death of the Queen of Scots and the Bill of the late House of Commons against the Duke of York's succession since the Cases are directly parellel I mean parallel in all that concernes the present Question Were they not every one of the Acts of the Civil Power and carried on by men who grounded what they did on Civil not Religious Principles Was not the setting up of the Lady Jane Grey and the raising an Army to oppose Queen Mary an Act of the Privy Council in persuance of King Edward's Will and a Law made in the Reign of Henry the VIII for the Illegitimating of this Princess as the Lords of the Council themselves declare in their Answer to her Letter writ from Framingham Castle Was not the Death of the Queen of Scots most notoriously an act of the State and justified by the Laws of the Land Was she not indicted for Treason and known to pretend a better Title to the Crown than Queen Elizabeth Lastly was not the Bill against the Duke of York grounded on a suppos'd Legal Power in the King and the Two Houses to alter the Course of the Succession when they think fit Have not all the Pamphlets that have been writ in Vindication of that Bill argued the Lawfulnesse of it from the Constitution of the Civil Government and wholly disclaim'd the Interesting of Religion at all in the businesse as to the justifying of it in the least degree endeavouring with great paines to prove That true Religion does not meddle with the Civil Rights of Princes but leaves them to be determin'd by the Laws and Customs of particular Countries By what strange consequence then can he entitle the Church of England or the Protestant Religion to things that are so perfectly of a Civil nature unless he will make them answerable for all the Actions of Protestants of what kind soever and resolve to maintaine that childish Sophisme I
if they had it would have signified nothing to the Compendianist's purpose since there is no King-Deposing or King-Killing Principle to be found in any Protestant Confessions of Faith or Articles of Communion which are the only proper Evidences to convince a Protestant Church of any Principle or Doctrine that is laid to her Charge and so it would have amounted to no more than their particular mistaking or perverting the Principles of their Religion as grosly and as wilfully as they did the Laws of their Country But this is not the Case for they did not so much as pretend any Warrant from the Protestant Religion for what they did How then can He charge Protestant Principles with the Personal Crimes of these men Or what does his Home-Blow and all his other Instances prove except this only viz. That several Protestants have been Rogues very great Rogues Murderers Rebels Traytors c. Does He not know that they are all mortal men too and subject to many other Vices which he might very clearly have prov'd upon them if he he had pleas'd by undeniable Examples There 's not a Sin the Pope pardons of what Price soever but 't is too sadly true that Protestants have been guilty of it at some time or other if that will do him any service But now in the name of a little common sense Who or what does this Raver oppose in this strenuous Argument Did ever any of our Writers assert that all the Protestants in the World were good Men and pious Christians Or is there any sort of people among us besides Quakers i. e. mad men who hold a state of Absolute Perfection in this Life He has put himself into an extraordinary Heat and made strange violent Assaults and yet no Enemy appears near him What ayles the man he has sure been combating some Giant in imagination like Don Quixote when he hack'd down the Walls of his Chamber Well whoever he be though it were Malambruno himself I 'l warrant him he 's kill'd outright this La Mancha has so laid about him with Home-Blows Another great quarrel he has to the Bishop is that he does not answer four Books nam'd in the Compendium's margin writ it seems by the Catholicks of England since the Kings Restoration about the Deposing Power of the Church His Lordship says he is so far from answering these Authors that he never so much as cites them to this purpose a great fault indeed so that we must conclude them unanswerable Well argued o' my word I see he deals in nothing but Home-Blows Mr. Bayes and this Compendianist would have made a couple of rare Disputants if they had not been spoil'd by their Tutors and ill-grounded at first they have both an admirable natural talent at Reasoning all the difference between them is Bayes loved it in Rhime and this man 's altogether for it in Prose But without Raillery does he believe the Bishop of Lincoln oblig'd to take particular notice of every idle Pamphlet of theirs that keeps a Pudder about the Deposing Power of the Church with design to make the business intricate and dark and to think them as considerable as his Party always do their own Books No doubt he takes it monstrous ill too that the Bishop has not thought him worth his Answering and perhaps concludes himself unanswerable But I hope I shall hinder him from falling into that mistake and make him sensible what an Impar Congressus Achilli what a poor contemptible thing he is when he appears in the Lists against so great a Scholar as the Bishop of Lincoln For the Pamphlets he mentions they are more than answered in the Bishops Book though it does not particularly name them and when he or any other Factor for Popery gives a tolerable Answer to those clear Testimonies I told him of before and which he never so much as cites to this purpose by which the Bishop does so plainly prove the Doctrine of Deposing Kings upon the Church of Rome I here engage my word to him these Pamphlets shall be made ridiculous by name and their Authors shew'd to the people in the Fools Coat they deserve In the next place he tells us That the Venetians have openly in their very Writings denied this Deposing Power of the Church without Censure And That several Authors have been censur'd in France and elsewhere for writing for it In answer to which First we know very well that the Church of Rome does always accommodate her Allowing and Condemning of Books to the Circumstances of her present condition and as Princes are sometimes forc'd by the necessity of their Affairs to disavow the Actions of their Ministers though done by their most expresse Command so is this interested Church frequently reduc'd to connive at Books which she does by no means like and to Censure others which she does not only approve but under-hand directs A good instance of this we have in the case of Sanctarellus's Book one of those he mentions which though at first Printed by the Approbation and special License of Mutius Vittellescus then General of the Jesuits and by the Order of the Master of the Popes Palace yet when the Pope found it would not be endur'd in France but that both the Sorbonne had condemn'd it and the Parliament of Paris had order'd it to be burnt he thought fit after it had been out so long that the Copies were almost all bought up to forbid the Sale of it at Rome but without any manner of Censure either upon the Author or Doctrine which is generally their way of condemning these kind of Books when Civil Considerations at last oblige them to it viz. a bare prohibition of them after every body has read them that cares for them Such a Condemnation as this did Mariana meet with in Spain and of this gentle nature was Becanus's Correction at Rome not for the Doctrines he maintain'd but for Oveâ—lashing as Bishop Montague expresses it in his Preface to King James's Works i. e. for speaking the mind of their Church more plainly than was at that time convenient For Secondly we know well enough that those Principles of Deposing and Killing Kings and Extirpating Hereticks are thought too precious Truths and too high Points to be ordinarily expos'd to the Vulgar and press'd upon all Occasions that they are the Arcana Imperii of their Kingdom of Darknesse and kept like Warrants Dormant among the Cabala of their wicked Mysteries to justifie Rebellions Assassinates and Massacres when the Church has very great need of them and finds it her Interest to own these Doctrines of Devils at other times it may suit better with her Designs to preach up Loyalty and Obedience to Princes and universal Charity to Mankind Lastly we know that the Venetians and the French have been always Opposers of the Pope's Encroachments upon civil Sovereigns and that they do not submit to these sort of Doctrines which are so directly calculated for