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book_n	common_a	prayer_n	sacrament_n	5,309	5	7.6348	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34212	A missive to His Majesty of Great Britain, King James written divers yeers since by Doctor Carier ; conteining [sic] the motives of his conversion to Catholike religion ; vvith a notable fore-sight of the present distempers both in the church and state of His Majesties dominions, and his advice for the prevention thereof.	Carier, Benjamin, 1566-1614.; Strange, N., 17th cent.; James I, King of England, 1566-1625.	1649 (1649)	Wing C572; ESTC R8830	50,068	94

old Bed-fellow that he might leave some heires male behind him for belike hee feared that Females would not be able to withstand the tile of Scotland and that the change was continued and increased by the posterity of his later wives I could not choose but suspect somthing but yet the love of the world and hope of preferment would not suffer me to believe but that all was well and as it ought to be 5. Thus I satisfied my self at School and studied the Arts and Phylosophy and other humane learning untill being Master of Arts and Fellow of Corpus Christi Colledge in Cambridge I was at the last by the Statutes of that House called to the studie of Divinity and bound to take upon me the order of Priesthood then I thought it my duty for the better satisfaction of my owne soule and the saving of other mens to look as farre into the matter as possible I could that I might find out the truth And having the oportunity of a very good Library in that Colledge I resolved with my selfe to study hard setting aside all respect of men then alive or of Writers that had moved or mainteined controversies farther then to understand the question which was betwixt them I fell to my prayers and be took my selfe wholly to the reading of the Church History and of the Ancient Fathers which had no interest in either side and especially I made choice of S. Augustine because I hoped to find most comfort in him for the confirming of our Religion and the confuting of the Church of Rome 6. In this sort I spent my time continually for many yeares and noted downe whatsoever I could gather or rather snatch either from the Scriptures or the Fathers to serve my turne But when after all my paines and desire to serve my selfe of Antiquity I found the Doctrine of the Church of Rome to be every where confirmed and by most profound demonstrations out of holy Scripture made most agreeable to the truth of Christs Gospel and most conformable to all Christians soules and saw the current opinions of our great Preachers to be every where confuted either in plaine termes or by most unanswerable consequence although my understanding was thereby greatly edified for which I had great cause to render immortall thanks to our Blessed Saviour who by these meanes had vouchsafed to shew himselfe unto me yet my heart was much grieved that I must be faine either not preach at all or else to crosse and varie from the Doctrine which I saw was commonly received 7. Being thus perplexed with my self what course I were best to take I reflected back againe upon the Church of England and because most of those Preachers who drew the people after them in those daies were Puritans and had grounded their Divinity upon Calvins Institutions I thought peradventure that they having gotten the multitude on their side might wrong the Church of England in her Doctrine as well as they desired to doe in her Discipline which indeed upon due search I found to be most true For I found the Common-Prayer Booke and the Catechismes therein contained to hold no point of Doctrine expresly contrary to Antiquity but only that it was very defective and contained not enough And that for the Doctrine of Predestination Sacraments Grace Free-will Sin c. the new Catechismes and Sermons of those Preachers did run wholly against the Common-Prayer Book and Catechismes therein and did make as little account of the Doctrine established by Law as they did of the Discipline but in the one they found opposition by those that had private Interest in the other they laid what they list because no man thought himselfe hurt 8. This truely was a great increase of my griefe for knowing divers of those Preachers to be very honest men and such as I did love with all my heart I was exceeding loath to discent from them in private much more loath to oppose them in publike And yet seeing I must needs preach I was loathest of all to oppugne my own conscience together with the faith wherein I was baptized and the soules of those to whom I preached Neverthelesse having gotten this ground to worke upon I began to comfort my selfe with hope to prove that the Religion established by Law in England was the same at the least in part which now was and ever had been held in the Catholike Church the defects whereof might be supplied whensoever it should please God to move your Maiesty thereunto without abrogating of that which was already by Law established which I still pray for and am not altogether out of hope to see and therefore I thought it my duty as far as I durst rather by charitable constructions to reconcile things that seemed different that so our soules might for ever be saved in unity then by malicious calumniations to maintaine quarrells that so mens turnes might for a time be served in dissention 9. In this course although I did never proceed any further then Law would give me leave yet I alwaies found the Puritanes and Calvinists and all the Creatures of Schisme to be my utter enemies who were also like the Sonnes of Zerviah too strong for David himselfe but I well perceived that all temperate and understanding men who had no Interest in the Schisme were glad to hear the truth honestly and plainely preached unto them And my hope was that by patience and continuance I should in the end unmaske Hypocrisie and gaine credit to the comfortable Doctrine of Antiquity even amongst those also who out of misinformation and prejudice did as yet most dislike it And considering with my selfe that your Right to the Crowne came only from Catholikes and was ancienter then the Schisme which would very faine have utterly extinguished it and that both your disposition by nature your amity with Catholike Princes your Speeches and your Proclamations did at the beginning all tend to peace and unity I hoped that this endeavour of mine to inforce Catholike Religion at the least as far as the Common Prayer Booke and Catechisme would give me leave should be well accepted of your Majesty and be as an Introduction unto farther peace and unity with the Church of Rome 10. But when after my long hope I at at the last did plainely perceive that God for our sins had suffered the Devill the Author of dissention so far to prevaile as partly by the furious practise of some desperate Catholikes and partly by the fiery suggestions of all violent Puritans he had quite diverted that peaceable and temperate course which was hoped for and that I must now either alter my judgement which was impossible or preach against my conscience which was untolerable Lord what anxiety and distraction of soule did I suffer day and night what strife betwixt my judgement which was wholly for the peace and unity of the Church and my affection which was wholly to injoy the favour of your Majesty

children whom I am so far from condemning and disliking as that I do account my selfe one of them and I desire nothing more in this world then in the toleration of Catholike Religion to live die among them And therefore I have had so great care in this point as before I did submit my self to the Catholike Church I received assurance from some of the greatest that if your Majesty would admit the Ancient subordination of the Church of Canterbury unto that Mother Church by whose authority all other Churches in England at the first were and still are subordinate unto Canterbury and the free use of that Sacrament for which especially all the Churches in Christendome were first founded the Pope for his part would confirme the Interest of all those that have present possession in any Ecclesiasticall living in England And would also permit the free use of the Common Prayer Book in English for Morning and Evening Prayer with very little or no alteration And for the contentment and security of your Majesty he would give you not only any satisfaction but all the honor that with the unity of the Church and the safety of Catholike Religion may be required which seemed to me so reasonable as being before satisfied of the truth of Catholike Religion I could ask no more So that I am verely perswaded that by yeilding to that truth which I could not deny I have neither neglected my duty and service to your Majesty and your Children nor my respect and honor to your Lords and Commons nor my love and kindnesse to my honest friends and brethren of the Clergy but rather that my Example and my Prayers shall do good unto all 47. But that which I must trust to when all the rest will faile me is the service of God and saving of my soule in the unity of that Church which was founded by Christ himselfe and shall continue untill his coming againe wherein all the Saints of God have served him on earth and do enjoy him in heaven without which Holy Catholike Church there is no Communion of Saints no forgivenesse of sinnes no hope of Resurection unto life everlasting I beseech your Majesty let not Calvins Ecclesia Praedestinatorum deceive you it may serve a Turk as well as a Christian it hath no faith but opinion no hope but presumption no Charity but lust no faith but a fancie no God but an Idoll For Deus est omnibus Religionibus commune Nomen All Religions in the world begin their Creed with I believe in God But homini extra Ecclesiant Religio sua est cultus phantasmatum suorum and error suus est Deus suus as S. Augustine affirmeth Epist. 64. 48. I have more things to write but the hast of answering your Majesties Commandement signified to me by Sir Thomas Lake his Letters hath made me commit many faults in writing this very suddenly for which I crave pardon and cut off the rest But for my returning into England I can answer no otherwise but thus I have sent you my soule in this Treatise and if it may find entertainment and passage my body shall most gladly follow after And if not I pray God I send my soule to heaven and my body to the grave assoon as may be In the mean time I will rejoyce in nothing but only in the Crosse of Christ which is the glory of your Crown And therefore I will triumph therein not as being gone from you to your adversary but as being gone before you to your Mother where I desire and hope for ever to continue Your Majesties true Servant and Beadsman B. CARIER Liege Decemb. 12. Anno 1613. Multum incola fuit anima mea Cum his qui oderunt pacem eram pacificus Cum loqucbar illis impuguabant me gratis FINIS

out I say of their Seas of Government their Seats in Parliament out of their meanes and liberty into poverty and prison Why not trench on all mens proprieties and violently despoile them of their fortunes as well as former times for Reformation sake impropriated to themselves the Church and Abby-lands from their first true owners casting the Monks Friers and vowed Nuns a begging into the world D. Carier observed nor did he alone that Church and Abbey lands did seldome thrive with their new holders If I tell you now that the present ruine of a flourishing Kingdome is but the naturall off-spring of the old injurious depopulations of the Churches and Abbies you will hardly know how to refute me Why may not this present Parliament damne the Common Prayer Book first invented in Edward the sixths daies and afterwards confirmed by Act of Parliament in Q. Elizabeths Raigne since the birth of many now alive no long prescription as well as those of their times damned the Masse which was as ancient in England and generally throughout the world as Christianity it selfe Why may not King Charles that now is whom I honour and love from my heart as it is the duty of all Subjects to do in whatsoever Countrey they live overthrow the Reformation he swore at his Coronation to maintain as well as King Henry the eighth and Queen Elizabeth introduced their severall Reformations contrary to the old Religion which they found in the Kingdome and swore at their Coronations to preserve with all her Rights Liberties and Priviledges would King Charles be more perjured then they or his perjury worse then theirs why may not this Parliament yea particular Subjects rebell against their Soveraigne for a better Reformation as well as the Lutherans in Germany rebelled against their Soveraigne Charles the fifth to bring in their Reformation and to abolish Popery or to omit others all applauded justified and abetted by those of the reformed Churches as the Scots rebelled for the same end against Queen Mary our Kings Grandmother afterward beheaded in pursuance of the same cause you tell me I do C●me●in●m movere I desist with the proposall of one onely question more when the present Agitators of Reformation have purged themselves of all the pretended Religion they had eight or nine yeares ago and raised their work to a higher pitch then they have 〈◊〉 thought on will it not still be subject to a Babilonian confusion Why may not the children of the present Reformers cut the throats of their fathers and condemne them for ignorants or superstitious and rescind all the Acts of their predecessours for a better Reformation according to their new spirits as well as these present cut the throats of their forefathers undoing at a breath what bad been so long a doing in the Kingdome Damnosa quid non imminuit dies Aetas parentum pejor avis tulit Nos nequiores mox datura Progeniem vitiosiorem Joel ch 1. Where Grandsires Erukes are their issue may Wild Locusts prove next comes in Joels list The Bruke a plague of worse and greater sway And what comes then a blast or burning mist Thus men in tract of time from bad do fall To what is worse from worse to worst of all To pretend that what the present or past Reformers did was all done for the truth for the glory of the Lord for the light and liberty of the Gospell to abolish Idolatry and Superstition to ●nthrone Antichrist the whore of Babylon the Beast of the Apocalyps and the like is more then childish simplicity there is no Reformer so forgetfull or stupid but by his spirit pretends Scripture the glory of the Lord the light and liberty of the Gospell the planting of saving truth c. and whosoever is opposite to his spirit is Antichrist the Whore of Babylon the Beast of the Apocalypse and therefore must be pulled down whosoever he be Nor can it availe at any time to say that hitherto the work of Reformation hath been in fieri or in doing as some say Qu. Elizabeths broome did not sweep clean but now is in facto esse Now it is come to a Non plus ultra perfected beyond all addition or alteration this I say can never availe nor stop the confusions as long as the reforming private spirits for the pretences already specified which will never be at an end or the Calvinian Doctrine of Predestination sayes No. Perhaps the present pretended Bishops and the Party suffering with them may say The old Reformations against the Catholikes were good and necessary but the meanes used to begin and promote them naught and not to be imitated And that if there be any farther Reformation to bee made it must not be by prosecution of the old unlawfull meanes Their suffering by the meanes used for the present further Reformation makes them condemne the old This comes now too late they should have condemned them long ago before their testimony became invalidated by their private interest Certainly Luther and the first late Reformers never acknowledged the meanes they used to be naught or unlawfull And why should wee think the present or future Reformer will ever hold the meanes necessary for his ends unlawfull Endlesse then is the confusion of Church and State in England to be no end of sticklings and rebellions no end of our wounds and bloudshed no inheritance more intailed upon our posterity then violation of humane and divine Lawes nothing more certain then eternall damnation of mens souls as long as the first Reformers principles stand in force and their Reformations applauded Behold more then sufficient cause not onely not to wonder at the late conversion of divers learned Schollers to the Roman Fai●h but to admire that more do not follow their examples Behold more then sufficient cause for those that pretend to any feare of God or care of their own soules by regard to Religion or manners to the spirituall or politike weale utterly to anathematize all Reformation in Faith with the damnable principles of the late Reformers the sources of all the evills our Kingdome now groanes under Consequently behold more then sufficient cause for all to rank themselves into the number of Catholikes who have now the same unchanged Religion they had before this present Parliament and then had the same they had in the reigne of K. James ●u Elizabeth Qu. Mary K. Edward 6. and Henry the 8. in whose dayes the Reformation was commenced in Germany and through too generall a loosenesse in manners and desire of sensuall liberty began to creep into England as all Histories can evidence unto you Nor can any desire a more pregnant testimony of our being now and in former dayes of the same Faith without variation of one tittle then our reformed Adversaries are ready to afford us who have for the times past and still doe persecute us not as new Sactaries with old Lawes but with new Statutes for non-conformity to their new Reformation and

thing to think upon such exhortations and all one as if a phantasticall fellow finding a herd of young Cattell in a close should first break downe the hedges and then cry loud to the Cattell not to venture to go out nor to seek any fatter pasture for fear they be put into the pound and if they chance to feed where they are because they have no experience of other and to tarry in the Close for an houre or two then the unhappy fellow should run to the owner of the Cattell and tell him what great service he had done him and how he had kept his Cattell in the Close by his goodly charmes and exhortations Let them say what they list of their own honesty and of their exhortations to obedience as long as they do freely infect the peoples soules with such false opinions in Religion they do certainly sow the seeds of disobedience and Rebellion in mens understandings which if they be not prevented by your Majesties giving way to Catholike Religion will in all likelihood spring up in the K. Charles feels the sad effects of this predictiō next generation to the great prejudice and molestation of your Majesty and your posterity So that whether I doe respect heaven or earth my own soule or the service of your Majesty God or your Neighbours or your Subjects my assured hope is that by joyning my selfe to the Catholike Church I neither have done nor ever shall do any ill duty or service unto your Majesty 18. But perhaps there is such opposition both in matter of Doctrine and in matter of State as it is unpossible that ever there should be any reconcilation at all betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome of which I humbly pray your Majesty to give me leave to shew you what I have observed 19. It is true the breach hath continued now these many yeares and it is much increased by so long continuance so that it was never greater then it seems to be at this day nor ever more dangerous to deal withall For if a man do but go about to stop it there ariseth presently a great and fearfull noise and roaring of the waters against him but yet neverthelesse the greatnesse of the noise ought not to discourage us but rather to give us hope that although it be wide yet it is but shallow and not far from the bottome as proceeding from affection which is sudden and violent and not from judgement which is quiet constant and alwaies like it self for if a man ask in cold blood whether a Romane Catholike may be saved the most learned Church-man will not deny it And if a man aske whether a Romane Catholike may be a good Subject the most wise States-man will easily grant it May we be both saved then we are not divided in God May we be both good Subjects then we are not divided in the King What reason is there then that we should be thus hotly and unplacably divided 20. Truly there is no reason at all but only the violence of affection which being in a course cannot without some force be staied The multitude doth seldome or never judge according to truth but according to customes and therefore having of purpose been bred and brought up in the hatred of Spaniards and Papists cannot chuse but think they are bound to hate them still and that whosoever speaks a word in favour of the Church of Rome or of Catholike Religion is their utter enemy And the Puritannicall Preacher who can have no being in charity doth never cease by falsifications and slanders to blow the coales that he may burn them and warm himselfe But if your Majesty shall ever bee pleased to command those make bates to hold their peace a while and to say nothing but what they are able to prove by sufficient authority before those who are able to judge and in the mean time to admit a conference of learned and moderate men on either side the people who are now abused and with the light of the Gospell held in extreme ignorance are not yet so uncapable but they will be glad to heare of the truth when it shall be simply and evidently delivered by honest men and then they will plainly see that their Light of the Gospell which they so much talk of is but a counterfeit light in a Theeves lantern whereby honest mens eyes are dazzled and their Purses robbed And it will also appear that there is not indeed any such irreconcileable opposition betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome as they that live by the Schisme do make the world believe there is neither in matter of Doctrine nor matter of State 21. For matter of Doctrine there is no reason that your Majesty or the Kingdome should be molested or burdened for the maintenance of Calvinisme which is as much * Indeed a true Protestant and a Papist are now almost equally odious against the Religion of England as it is against the Religion of Rome and will by necessary consequence overthrow not only the Catholike Church the Communion of Saints and the forgivenesse of sinnes but also all the Articles of the Creed saving only so much as the Turk himselfe will be content to believe which will be easie to prove upon better leisure The Doctrine of England is that which is contained in the Common Prayer Book and Church Catechisme confirmed by Act of Parliament and by your Majesties Edict wherein all English men are Baptized and ought to be confirmed and therefore there is some reason that this should be stood upon But this Doctrine in most of the main points thereof as hath been touched before and requireth a just treatise to set down in particular doth much differ from the current opinions and Catechismes of Calvinisme or doth very neer agree with or at least not contradict the Church of Rome if we list with patience to hear one another And those points of Doctrine wherein we are made to be at warrs with the Church of Rome whether we will or not do rather argue the Corruptions of that state from whence they come then are argued by the grounds of that Religion whereupon they stand and the contradiction of Doctrine hath followed the altera●ion of State and not the alteration of State been grounded upon any truth of Doctrine 22. For when the breach was resolved upon for the personall and particular ease of King Henry the eight and the Children of his later Wives it was necessary to give every part of the Common-wealth contentment for which they might hold out in the heat of affection and study to maintain the breach otherwise it was likely that in the clearnesse of Judgement it would quickly have grown together again and then the Authors thereof must have been excluded and given account of their practise 23. Therefore to the Lords and * In like manner the Members of Parliament and their Adherents have