have felt such signal marks of his Royal Clemency that they can have no colour to complain except it be because they cannot bear any Office in the Nation For what Noise soever they make of the severe Laws yet in force both against the Clergy and Laity of their Religion they cannot pretend that since his Majesties happy Restauration any Priest has died or any Family has been ruined for their Religion But I confess it is enough according to the Doctrine of their Church to discharge them of their Allegiance That the King is a favourer of Heresy and if upon this Reason they will still Plot and Conspire against his Person and Government we have no reason to wonder at it for they act according to their Principles Nor have these Islands been the only Scenes in which those Principles have produced such dismal Effects If we look abroad and reflect on what was done in France we shall find they have had the same Operation there I need not mention that perfidious and cruel Massacre that as Thuanus tells us was so much extolled in Rome and Spain and of which the Pope has a Memorial kept in the Hangings at the entrance of his Chappel to this day The Barricadoes of Paris the design of Deposing Henry the 3d only because he had made Peâ—…ce with the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde the whole progress of the holy League their taking Arms against that King when the Duke and Cardinal of Guise were killed by his Orders and at last his being stabbed by Clement a Dominican Friar are Instances beyond exception The prosecution of the Rebellion against Henry the 4th the attempt made upon his Person by Iohn Chastel which was more successful in Ravilliack's hands shew sufficiently That a Princes turning from that which they call Heresie over to their Church does not secure him unless he will extirpate Hereticks For tho Henry the 4th changed his Religion yet the favour he shewed the Protestants in the Edict of Nantes was a thing never to be forgiven These things were set on and encouraged from Rome and pleaded for by their Writers That the holy League was authorized from Rome that Sixtus the 5th by his Bulls declared the King of Navar incapable of the Succession that he intended to have Deposed Henry the 3d and that he rejoyced at his death and magnified the Fact preferring it to Eleazar's killing the Elephant and Iudeth's killing Hollofernes and ascribed it to a singular Providence and Disposition of the Almighty called it a great Miracle and appeared vain that a Friar had done it having been one himself tho no doubt he had liked it better if Clement had been of his own sute and would have had himself thought a Prophet for foretelling it and so he might well do perhaps and in the end concluded That unfortunate Kings favouring Hereticks to be the unpardonable Sin against the Holy Ghost These were all so publickly done that it were a needless labour to go about the proving them Francis Veronne wrote a Book to justify both the Facts of Clement the Dominican and Chastel as well he might from the Principles of their Church After all these dismal Facts was it not time for the States of France to think of some effectual Remedy to prevent the like for the future And they judged aright that without Condemning the Deposing Power it could not be done To which as was already hinted the Clergy made such vigorous Opposition that it came to nothing If these things had flowed only from the heat of some violent Spirits the danger were not so great but it is the Doctrine of their Church so Lessius under the name of Singletonus says That if the power of Deposing lies not in the Pope the Church must of necessity Err which has taught it and to assert that is Heretical and a more intollerable Error than any about the Sacrament can be And Becanus Confessor to Ferdinand the 2d says No Man doubts but if Princes are Contumacious the Pope may order their Lives to be taken away What security then can there be found out from Persons who give up their Consciences to the conduct of Men of such Principles and profess an Implicite Obedience and belief of all that their Church teaches and commands which possesses all its Votaries with such cursed rage against Hereticks that not content to adjudg them to eternal Flames in another Life they must needs Persecute and Burn without Mercy where they have the Power in their Hands and Plot and Conspire Kill and Massacre without relenting where they have not Power to do it with any colour of Law Men of Honour will not be easily drawn in to such Practices But in Conclusion when a fit Opportunity appears they must either forsake their Church or concur in the most mischievous Designs that the Masters of their Consciences will draw them into which I pray God make them see in good time before they are Involved in such Snares that Repentance will come too late to do them good or to preserve the Nation from those Miseries that they will bring upon it FINIS THE Unreasonableness AND IMPIETY OF POPERY IN A SECOND LETTER Written upon the Discovery of the Late PLOT Imprimatur C. Alston Nov. 12. 1678. LONDON Printed for R. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1678. The Unreasonableness and Impiety OF POPERY In a Second Letter written upon the Discovery of the Late PLOT SIR YOu are pleased to tell me that my last Letter has had some good effect and that many who were before carried away with the false colours of the Romish Religion are now a little awakned and seem not unwilling to examin things which they took formerly upon trust and therefore you desire me since you are not Master of so much spare time your self to set down the most material and convincing reasons and in as few words as may be that are most likely to open the eyes of honest and simple persons that have been hitherto misled and are now willing to be instructed In all such cases I first consider the temper of the persons to be dealt with Such as take up their Religion out of interest or humour and think it point of honour to continue in it and so will examine nothing are not to be spoken to Others that are naturally superstitious and credulous are very hard to be wrought on for they believe every thing that is said on the one hand and distrust all that is told them by any body else Some of those have a vanity in coming to talk with Divines but it is an endless labour to deal with them for at every time one must begin of new But the only persons to be dealt with are those that are sincere and inquisitive that having been bred in that Religion or brought over to it by some specious pretences are now willing to hear reason and resolved to follow it
wherever they find it And therefore in the first place their minds must be disingaged from these unjust prejudices that they conceive of our Religion and such just prejudices must be offered them against the Romish Religion as may at least beget in them some jealousies concerning it by which they may be brought so far as to think the matter suspicious If then there be such reasons offered them for susspecting foul dealing from their Priests and Church as would make them suspect an Attorney Physician or any other person with whom they were to deal they will be prepared to hear reason which is all that we desire and upon this Head these following Considerations may be laid before them 1. All people that pretend to great Power and Dominion over our consciences are justly to be suspected If any man designed to make himself Master of any of our other Liberties we would examine his Title and suspect all his other motions when we see they tend to subject us to him Therefore a Church that designs to keep all her Votaries under an absolute obedience is justly to be suspected and our Church that pretends to no such power is more likely to deal fairly 2. A Church that designs to keep her Members in ignorance is more to be suspected than a Church that brings every thing to a fair Trial. A Church that denies the use of the Scriptures in a known tongue except to a few and wraps up their Worship in a Language that is not understood is reasonably to be suspected more than a Church that gives the free use of the Scriptures to all persons and worships God in a Language which the people understand 3. A Church whose Opinions tend to engross the Riches of the world to its Officers is more to be suspected than a Church that pretends to nothing but a competent maintenance of the several Officers in it The Redeeming Souls out of Purgatory and the Enriching the Shrines or Reliques of Saints Pardons Jubilees and many more Tenets of the Church of Rome are so calculated for enriching their Societies that every cautious man must needs suspect some design in it which he cannot charge on a Church that has none of these Arts to get money 4. A Church that has carried on its Designs by the most dishonest methods possible the forging of Writings and Deeds of Miracles Visions Prophesies and other things of that Nature is more justly to be suspected than a Church that cannot be charged with any such practices The Forging so many Epistles for the Popes of the first Ages which are now by themselves confest to be Spurious with many other Forgeries were the Engines by which the Papal Power was chiefly advanced The Legends and Extravagant Fables of which they are now ashamed were the chief Motives of Devotion for many Ages And by these Saints and Images were so much magnified and Monasteries so enriched A Noted Liar after a Discovery is no more to be trusted 5. Any that considers the present State of Rome the manner of Electing Popes the Practices of that Court and the Maximes they move by must see that every thing there is secular corrupt and at best directed by rules of Policy But to fansie the Holy Ghost can come upon any Election so managed as their own Books shew that is is the most unreasonable thing that can be devised Therefore a Church that neither pretends so high nor can be charged with such proceedings is more likely to be the true Church 6. A Church that teaches Cruelty against poor Innocent people that differ in opinion and sets on Plots Conspiracies and Rebellion against Princes that are judged Hereticks is more likely to be corrupted than a Church that is so merciful as to condemn all capital proceedings for difference of Opinion and teaches an absolute Submission to the Soveraign Power even when it persecutes and oppresses them 7. A Church that is false to her own Principles is not so likely to Instruct her members aright as a Church that is in all things consistent to her self The great Foundation of their Doctrine is That there must be a speaking Judg to decide all Controversies Now they have no such Judg for it is not of Faith that the Pope is this Judg or is Infallible And for a general Council they have had none these 112. years nor are they like to see another in hast So they have no Speaking Infallible Judg among them And thus they deceive people by a false Pretence whereas we appeal to nothing but what we really have among us which are the Scriptures 8. A Church that appeals to Marks which are not possible to be searcht out is more likely to mislead people than a Church that pretends to nothing but what can be certainly proved The great thing they appeal to is the Constant Succession of the Bishops of Rome and their other Pastors This cannot be known no not by a probable conjecture But there are on the contrary as great grounds for History to deny it in the See of Rome as in any other Ancient See whatsoever but though they have it both the Greek Church and our Church has it likewise These are such plain things and the Truth of them is so notoriously known that I should ask any of that Communion whether upon the like reasons he would not be Jealous of any person or sort of persons whatsoever And if these grounds of jealousie would work in other matters it is much more reasonable that they should take place in matters of Religion In which as an Error is of far greater Importance So Impostors in all Ages have studied to make gain by Religion Therefore it is most just upon these violent presumptions to look about us and take care we be not cheated But before I would descend to particulars there is one General prejudice that works most universally on weaker minds to be removed which is that the true Church cannot Erre If then it be made appear unanswerably that the true Church may Erre and that in a most weighty Point all these Arguments fall to the ground That the Church of the Iews in our Saviours days was the true Church cannot be denied for our Saviour owned it to be such He joyned with them in their worship He sent the Lepers to the Priest He commanded them to hear the Doctors that sate in Moses Chair and himself acknowledged the High Priest This is sufficient to prove that it was the true Church and yet this Church erred in a most Important point whether Jesus Christ was the true Messias in whom the Prophecies were fulfilled or not they Judged falsly The High Priests with all the Sanhedrim declared him a Blasphemer and condemned him guilty of Death Here the true Church expounds the Scriptures falsly and erred in the Foundation of Religion And it is well known that the chief arguments which they of the Romish party bring to prove that a Church cannot
and the bitter ones of enraged Priests were also set on work to appear in Defence of it Of whose Writings Thuanus gives a full account One mercenary Protestant was also hired to excuse if not to defend it I have never been able to meet with any of these Books only Rosseus that wrote in defence of the Holy League calls it the Iustice of St. Bartholomews day And Andreas Eudemon Iohannes does also commend it The Arguments they used have been formerly glanced at The late Civil Wars the pretended Conspiracy of the Admiral the necessity of using desperate Remedies in extream Cases and the Sovereign Power of Kings were what the Lawyers could pretend But the Divines had a better Plea that by one General Council all Hereticks were to be extirpated And by another Faith was not to be kept to them And it cannot be denied but this is unanswerable according to the Principles of the Roman Church The Protestants were not wanting to their own Cause but answered these Books and sufficiently discovered the impudent Allegations of those shameless Persons who hired themselves out to defend so horrid an Action Maximilian the 2d the Emperor is the Person whose Judgment we have least reason to suspect He was the King of France his Father-in-Law and both by Blood and Alliance was joined to the Crown of Spain yet he in a private Letter writing to Scuendi his chief Minister in Hungary has delivered his sense of this Matter so sincerely and fully And that whole Letter is so excellently well written and shews so much true piety and so rare a temper of mind that I shall not fear the Reader 's censure for inserting it at its full length It is but in one Book that I know and that is very scarce Dear Scuendi I Received your Letter and took in good part your Christian and Friendly Condoleance for my late Sickness The Eternal God in whose hands are all things do with me according to his Will I bless him for every thing that befalls me He only knows best what is healthful and profitable and what is hurtful to me I do patiently and chearfully acquiesce in his Divine Pleasure And indeed Matters go so in this World that a Man can have little pleasure or quiet in them for every where there is nothing to be found but trouble treachery and foul dealing God pity us and deliver his Church from these mischiefs It were no wonder if from such a prospect of Affairs a Man should become stupid or mad of which I could say much to you I begin to recover and am now so strong that I walk about with a Stick God be blessed in all his Works For that strange thing which the French have lately acted most tyrannically against the Admiral and his Friends I am far from approving it and it was a great grief to me to hear that my Son-in-Law had been perswaded to that vile Massacre tho I know that others reign rather than he yet that is not sufficient to excuse him nor to palliate such a wickedness I would to God he had asked my advice I should have given him faithful and fatherly Counsel and he should never have had my consent to this Crime which has cast such a blemish on him that he will never wash it off God forgive them that lie under such guilt I apprehend within a little while they shall perceive what they have gained by this method For indeed as you observe well the Matters of Religion are not to be handled or decided by the Sword and no Man can think otherwise that is either pious or honest or desirous of Publick Peace and Happiness Far otherwise did Christ teach and his Apostles instruct us their Sword was their Tongue their Doctrine the Word of God and a Life worthy of Christ. Their Example should draw us to follow them in so far as they were followers of Christ. Besides that mad sort of People might have seen after so many years Trials and so many Experiments that by their Cruelties Punishments Slaughters and Burnings this Business cannot be effected In a word Their ways do not at all please me nor can I ever be induced to approve them unless I should become mad or distracted which I pray God earnestly to preserve me from And yet I shall not conceal from you that some impudent and lying Knaves have given out That whatever the French have done was by my knowledg and approbation In this I appeal to God who knows how deeply I am injured by it but such Lies and Calumnies are no new things to me I have been often forced to bear them formerly and in all such cases I commit my self to God who knows in his own good time how to clear me and vindicate my innocence As for the Netherlands I can as little approve of the Excesses committed there And I do well remember how often I wrote to the King of Spain Advices far different from those they have followed But what shall I say The Councils of the Spaniards relished better than mine They now begin to see their Error and that they themselves have occasioned all the mischief that hath since followed I had a good end be-before me that these noble and renown'd Provinces might not be so miserably destroyed And tho they would not follow my Counsel so that I may well be excused from medling any more yet I do not give over but am sincerely pressing them all I can to follow another method God grant I may see the wished-for effect of these endeavours and that Men may be at last satisfied with what they have done and may use no more such violent Remedies In a word Let the Spaniards or the French do what they will they shall be made to give an account of their Actions to God the Righteous and Just Judg. And for my part by the help of God I shall carry my self honestly christianly and faithfully with all candour and uprightness and I hope God will so assist me with his Grace and Blessing that I may approve all my Designs and Actions both to him and to all Men. And if I do this I little regard a wicked and malicious World How the rest of the World looked on this Action may be easily gathered from the Inclinations and Interests of the several Parties That all Protestants did every where abhor it and hold the remembrance of it still in detestation needs not be doubted All that were noble or generous in the Roman Church were ashamed of it but many extolled it to the Heavens as a work of Angels and others did cast the blame of it on the Protestants The Court of Spain rejoiced openly at it They delighted in the shedding of Protestant Blood and were also glad to see France again embroil'd and to be freed of the fears they had of a War in Flanders In which if the French King had engaged he had in all appearance conquered in one year that
A COLLECTION OF Several Tracts AND DSICOURSES Written in the Years 1678 1679 1680 1681 1682 1683 1684 1685. By GILBERT BURNET D. D. To which are added A Letter written to Dr. Burnet giving an Account of Cardinal Pool's Secret Powers The History of the Powder-Treason with a Vindication of the Proceedings thereupon An Impartial Consideration of the Five Jesuits dying Speeches who were Executed for the Popish Plot 1679. LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXV A TABLE of the TITLES MDCLXXVIII 1. A LETTER written upon the Discovery of the LATE PLOT 2. The Unreasonablness and Impiety of POPERY in a Second Letter written upon the Discovery of the LATE PLOT 3. A Relation of the Barbarous and Bloody MASSACRE of about an Hundred thousand Protestants begun at Paris and carried on over all FRANCE by the PAPISTS in the year 1572 Collected out of Mezeray Thuanus and Other approved Authors MDCLXXIX 4. A Decree made at ROME the 2d of March 1679. condemning some Opinions of the Iesuits and Other Casuists MDCLXXX 5. The Conversion and Persecutions of Eve Cohan now called Elizabeth Verboon a Person of Quality of the Iewish Religion who was baptized the 10th of October 1680. 6. A Sermon preached on the Fast day December 22. 1680. at St. Margarets Westminster before the House of Commons on Rev. 3. 2 3. 7. A Sermon preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London on September 2. 1680. being the Anniversary Fast for the Burning of London on Amos 4. 11 12. 8. A Sermon preached before the Aldermen of London January 30 1680. being the day of the Martyrdom of King Charles the first on Zech. 8. 19. MDCLXXXI 9. A Sermon preached at the Election of the Lord Mayor of London September 29. 1681. on Matth. 12. 25. MDCLXXXII 10. A Sermon preached at the Funeral of Mr. James Houblon Merchant June 28. 1682. Psal. 37. 37. 11 News from France in a Letter giving a Relation of the present State of the Difference between the French King and the Court of Rome to which is added the Popes Brief to the Assembly of the Clergy and the Protestation made by Them 12. An Answer to the Animadversions on Dr. Burnet's History of the Rights of Princes MDCLXXXIV 13. A Sermon preached at the Chappel of the Rolls November 5. 1684. being Gun-Powder-Treason day on Psal. 22. 21. 14. A Letter to Mr. Simon Lowth Vicar of Cosmus-Blene in the Diocess of Canterbury occasioned by his late Book Of the Subject of Church Power 15. An Answer to a Letter to Dr. Burnet occasioned by His Letter to Mr. Lowth 16. A Letter occasioned by the Second Letter to Dr. Burnet MDCLXXXV 17. A Letter written to Dr. Burnet giving an Account of Cardinal Pool ' Secret Powers From which it appears That it was never intended to confirm the Alienation that was made of the Abby-Lands To which is added Two Breves that Cardinal Pool brought over and Some other of his Letters that were never before Printed 18. The History of the Powder-Treason with a Vindication of the Proceedings and Matters relating thereunto from the Exoeptions made against it and more particularly of late years by the Author of the Catholick Apology To which is added A Parallel betwixt That and the present Popish Plot. 1681. 19. An Impartial consideration of those Speeches which pass under the Name of the Five Iesuits lately Executed viz. Mr. Whitebread Mr. Harcourt Mr. Gawen Mr. Turner and Mr. Fenwick In Which it is proved That according to their Principles they not only might but also ought to dye after that manner with solemn Protestations of their Innocency 1679. A LETTER Written upon the DISCOVERY Of the Late PLOT Licensed W. Jane Octob. 17. 1678. LONDON Printed for H. Brome and R. Chiswell both living in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1678. A LETTER Written upon the DISCOVERY Of the Late PLOT SIR I Heartily thank you for the News your last brought me of the discovery of that horrid Plot both against his Majesties Person and the whole Kingdom I doubt not but all good men are offering up their acknowledgments to God for so great a Blessing which is a fresh demonstration of his care of this Church and State and that all our Crying sins have not provoked him yet to abandon us of which I pray God make us all sensible that we may not continue to pull down such judgments as the malice of wicked men would readily become instrumental in if the Providence of God did not so wonderfully and seasonably interpose There is only one Passage in your Letter that I wonder at You tell me every body is surprized with this Plot now discovered I confess I am not of their mind for although I know there are persons of high Honour and untainted Loyalty of the Roman Religion who abominate the thoughts of all secret Assassinations much more of Murdering his Majesty yet such practices are so necessarily consequent to the Principles of that Church that no Member of it who throughly understands them can while they continue in that Communion avoid the being involved in Conspiracies as oft as a fit occasion presents it self These several years past they have boasted much of their Loyalty and their Services and Sufferings for his Majesty during the late Civil Wars All this was necessary to make the Government put confidence in them that so they might more secretly lay their designs which were to take effect when a Conjuncture was offered that seemed favourable But I must again and again repeat what I often told you in discourse That no Member of that Church can thorowly understand and believe the Principles of it and be a good Subject even to a King of his own Perswasion But he can be much less so to a Prince whom he looks on as an Heretick who thereby lies under a general Excommunication and may be brought under a particular and Formal one before he or any body else but such as are fit to be entrusted with the Secret shall know it And then the Prince is at the mercy of all his Popish Subjects who if they consider aright the Doctrine of their own Church must depart from their Allegiance to Him and be ready to do any thing that is laid on them by those who are either directly their Superiours if they have taken Religious Vows or at least have some authority over their Consciences This I shall open to you in as short and plain terms as is possible and the rather that you may communicate it to some persons of Honour of that Religion who I hope upon so fresh a Discovery of these practices may be now not unwilling to examine a Point the consideration of which they before rejected as an Imputation cast on their Religion This will now I imagine move them so far to demur as to consider impartially whether such practises flow only from the ill Tempers of particular Persons or from the received Principles
think them the fittest to express their Notions Secondly They were divided into two famous Schools among whom there were great heats the Scotists and Thomists So that if either of these had asserted any thing that was not the received Doctrine of the Age they lived in the other Party had such Emulation against them that they would not have failed to have laid them open as they did in the matter of the Immaculate Conception of the B. Virgin Whereas the Fathers writing only against Hereticks or other Enemies to Christianity they might have mistaken somethings without so publick a discovery as was likely to happen among the Schoolmen 3dly The Schoolmen wrote on purpose to deliver the Doctrine of the Age in which they lived to those who were to succeed them Their Books being generally the Divinity Lectures they read either in Colledges or Religious Houses to their Scholars whereas the Fathers wrote upon Emergent Occasions either Letters or Treatises to private Persons regarding more the present than the succeeding Age. In which we cannot expect that exactness that is to be looked for in a Publick Lecture Upon all which I assume That allowing the Church to have the same Authority in all Ages the Schoolmen are more competent Witnesses of the Tradition of the Church in their Ages than the Fathers were in theirs By the second Rule for judging of Traditions from the Conveyance of the See of Rome it does undeniably follow That the Popes from Gregory the Sevenths time downward were as sure Depositories of the Traditions of the Church as were the Popes from Gregory the First his time upward They were both alike Christ's Vicars and St. Peters Successors So that all the high words that the Fathers bestow on the See of Rome were either Complements in which they are not wanting or were said because of the worth of the Bishops whom they had known in that See But if they be to be understood in that sence in which the Writers of Controversy obtrude them on us then it will follow manifestly that as to the Conveyance of Tradition P. Gregory the 7th is as much to be believed when he says any thing in the Name of St. Peter or of Christ as any of the Popes are For in the Preamble of Bulls and Breeves the Reasons are given of what follows which are most commonly vouched from Apostolical Authority and Tradition So let the Pope be ever so ignorant or so corrupt in his Manners what he asserts to be Apostolical Tradition must be either received as such or the authority of that See is overthrown therefore they must either cease to press us any more with tht Authority of the See of Rome or acknowledg that all the Popes Declarations which they make about Traditions are to be received It is an Answer to be made use of only to ignorant Persons to say These Depositions were the Deeds of some Popes who might be ill Men and the Church is not concerned to justify them I confess whether this or that Deposition was justly or lawfully made is a personal thing in which only the Pope who decreed it is concerned But if he declares in the Preamble that the Power of deposing upon those reasons is grounded on an Apostolical Tradition then the See is concerned in it for either he declares true or false if the former then that Power of deposing comes from Apostolical Tradition if they acknowledge he declares false then we are not any more to be urged with the Authority of that See as the certain Depository of the Traditions of the Church By the third Mark to judge of the Tradition of any age from the Decision of a General Council it appears that the Decisions of the fourth Council of Lateran are as Obligatory as the Decrees of the first Council of Nice the Church having the same power in all Ages If it be said it was only a Council of the Western Church the like may be objected against the first General Council which were generally made up of Eastern Bishops and very few of the Western Bishops sat in them And if we esteem a Council General because it was received by the Church then the whole Church of Rome having received that Council it must be acknowledged to be General as much as any ever was But to this others answer That a Council is only Infallible when a thing is decreed by it according to the Tradition of the Church If this be true the whole Controversie between the Roman Church and us about the authority of Councils is decided on our Side For if a Council has only authority to declare Traditions then it is free for every Person to examine whether this Declaration be according to truth or not And if it be found that it is not so they may lawfully reject such Decisions For instance in the second Council of Nice the worship of Images was established upon a mock-shew of Tradition and yet all the World knows there were no Images allowed in the Church the first four Ages after Christ and even in the sixth Age P. Gregory declared That though they might be in the Church yet they ought not to be worshipped Nor was there any contest about it before the eighth Century This being thus examined and found to be True then according to the foregoing Answer that Decision was of no force though made by the second Council of Nice In a word if this Maxime be true That Councils are only to be submitted to when they decree according to Apostolical Tradition then they have no Authority in themselves and their decisions can have no more force than this That it may seem probable that they were not mistaken and in an Ignorant Age even this probability will vanish to nothing No Body will reject the Decision of a Council when the Decrees are just and right But if iâ—… be upon that score alone that they are to be submitted to then none are bound by them before they have examined them And if upon a Search it appear they decreed against Tradition then their Decrees are to be rejected So it is apparent this Answer does plainly according to their Principles lay the foundation of all Heresie since it gives every Man a right to question the Decrees of a General Council Besides How can those Persons be assured that the fourth Council of Lateran did not decree according to Tradition The Acts of that Council are lost so we cannot know upon what reasons they made their Decrees And it cannot be said that because there is no mention made of any Tradition in the Decree that therefore they considered none It is seldom found that the reasons of any Decree are put with it But we may reasonably enough believe that they followed the Method in this Council that had been used in some former ones particularly in the second Council of Nice which was this a Writing was read penned perhaps by the Pope or a Patriarch in which
the Tradition of the Church was confidently alledged and some Quotations were brought and very oft out of some later Writers The Paper was no sooner read than a loud and often repeated Shout of applause followed without any further search or canvasing about these Authorities And upon that the Decree was made This was the practice both of the second Nicene and of some more ancient Councils whose Journals are hitherto preserved and where the Journals are lost we have reason to believe they followed the same method so that it is very probable there might have been some such Writing read in the Council of Lateran And if they did not found their Decree upon Tradition they were much to blame for they had as venerable a Tradition as either the second Council of Nice or some other Councils had a practice about 150 years standing from the days of Pope Gregory the VII so that it is not to be denied but they had as good authority from Tradition to make this Decree as to make most of the other Decrees on which they insist much in the Books of Controversies that are written by them By the fourth Rule of judging about Tradition the matter is yet much plainer for if the generally received Belief of any Age of the Church is a good Thread to lead us up to the Apostles times then there needs no more be said For it is certain that for near four Ages together this was the universally received Doctrine of the Church of Rome And the opposition that some Princes made to it was condemned as Heresy Rebellion and every thing that was evil And it is remarkable that both Oâ—…kam that wrote much for the Emperors cause against the Pope and Gerson and Almain no great favourers of Papal power are cited by Cardinal Perrow as acknowledging the Ecclesiastical power of deposing if a Prince were guilty of spiritual crimes So that the Controversies in this matter that were managed between the Writers for the Popes and Emperors were not whether the Pope in cases of Heresy might depose a Prince but were concerning two things very remote from this The one was whether the Pope had a direct Temporal power over all Kings by which as being Lord of the Feâ—… he could proceed upon any Cause whatsoever against a King and take his Dominions from him To this indeed Gregory the 7th pretended tho more covertly and Boniface the 8th more avowedly There was great Opposition made to this by many Writers but at the same time they all agreed on it as an undeniable Maxim That the Pope had an indirect Power over Princes by which in the Cases of Heresy he might excommunicate and depose them nor was there so much as any Debate about it A second thing about which there was some Controversy was whether the Particulars that fell under debate came within the Head of Heresy or not So in the Case of Princes giving the Investitures into Bishopricks the Pope brought it in within the Head of Heresy and condemned those Persons as Simoniacks The Writers on the other side denied this pretending it was a Civil Matter and a right of the Crown The like Debates fell in when Princes were sentenced on any other account The Authority of the Sentence in the Case of Heresy was not controverted all the Question was Whether the Point under debate was Heresy or not And concerning these things any who have read the Writings in the great Collection made of them by Goldastus will receive an easy and full Satisfaction By which it appears that the Popes Power of deposing Kings in the Case of Heresy was the received Doctrine of the Church for several Ages and by consequence it must be looked on as derived down from the Apostles If the Doctrine of any one Age of the Church can lead us backward in a certain Track to discover what it was in the Apostles days By the first Position about the Nature of Supreme Power it is apparent that in the Case of Heresy a Prince deposed by the Pope if he stands out against the Sentence may be as lawfully killed as any Tory or Moss-Trooper or Bantito may be for he is a Rebel against his Lord and an Usurper over the People from that day forward And therefore tho Mariana told a Secret too publickly yet it cannot be denied to be a certain Consequent of their Principles It had been indeed more discreetly done to have ordered this only to be infused unto Peoples Consciences by their Confessors in secret And for Mariana tho the Book in gross is condemned as they give out yet the Opinions set down in it are not censured But Suarez writing against K. Iames tells him in plain Terms That a King who is canonically deposed may be killed by any man whatsoever This was not only published with an ordinary License but the whole University of Alcala declared every thing in it to be according to the Doctrine of the Church Valentia tho he disguises it a little yet says That an Heretical Prince may by the Popes Sentence be deprived of his Life Foulis cites ten more Doctors for the same Opinion of killing Kings by private persons I do not build upon the Assertions of these Jesuits as binding Authorities in that Church but make use of them to shew that some of their own eminentest Writers acknowledg the force of this Consequence which is indeed so evident that nothing but good Manners and some small Care not to provoke Princes too much by such bare-faced Positions keeps others from asserting it Few Princes are so tame as Childeric was to go into a Monastery after they are deposed Therefore this Doctrine is but a lame provision for the Churches Security from Heresie if the Lawfulness of killing does not follow that of deposing Kings And it was so generally received that it is told of Gerson that he was at great pains to get it declared that no private Cut-throat might kill a King and that by consequence it was only the Popes Prerogative to order them to be destroyed By the second Position about the Nature of Supreme Power that in extraordinary Cases Forms of Law may be superseded It is also clear that tho we know nothing of any Sentence of Deposition given out against the King yet he is not a whit the safer for he lies under an yearly Curse every Maundy Thursday The Notoriousness of his Heresy will sufficiently justify a particular Sentence without any further Process or Citation according to the Maxims of the Canon Law And there may be for ought we can know as valid a Deposition as Parchment and Lead can make it already expeded And if it be not yet done we are sure it may be done very suddenly and will be done whensoever they see any probability of Success Bellarmine hath very sincerely told us the Reason why Heretical Princes are not deposed because the Church has not strength enough to make such
is certain that the Design of Revealed Religion was to give men clearer Notions of these Moral perfections to press them by stronger Arguments and encourage our Endeavours by suitable Rewards and punishments So that if any Religion contradict these Moral Duties we are sure it is false for the Revelation of God's will must be designed to make us better than we would otherwise be following barely the Light of Nature and not worse If then the Church of Rome over-throws Morality and contradicts any of the Ten Commandments we are sure it is not of God And how far it has done this they may judge by these Particulars First Whatever Church offers cheap and easie pardons for sin does take off so much from our sense of the evil of sin We cannot have a very ill opinion of any thing that is easily forgiven Now what are the Popes Pardons Indulgences Jubilees Priviledged Altars the going of Pilgrimages the saying of some Collects the wearing of Agnus Dei's Peebles or other such like trash but so many Engines to root out of mens minds any deep horrour or great sense of sin Is not this the very thing which the People of the Iews of old offered at to bring Thousands of Rams Ten Thousand Rivers of Oyl their First born or the fruit of their Body to offer for their sins All which were rejected in the name of God in these words I will shew thee O man what is good and what our Lord requireth of thee Verily to do Iudgment and to love mercy and to walk solicitous with thy God This is a Moral matter and unchangable therefore whoever go to beat down the sense of sin by the offer of Pardon on any other terms but the sincere change of a mans life destroy Morallity which is the Image of God in man If from this general Consideration we descend to Examine the Commandments in particular we shall find matter enough for a severe Charge against their Church Is not the First Commandment broken when Devotions are offered to Saints which Import their being Omniscient Omnipresent and Almighty that are the Incommunicable Attributes of the God-head and when pardon of sin preservation Grace against Temptations and Eternal life are immediately begged from Saints It is true they say the sence of these prayers is only that we desire their assistance at Gods hands for these blessings But the words of their Offices import no such matter And though for above One Hundred and Sixty Years these things have been complained of and in the Correction of their Offices some of them were cast out yet many of them do still continue In which the plain sence of the words of their Offices is Idolatrous Only they make a shift with another and forced sence put on them to defend themselves from that charge And for such Devotions they can shew no Warrant for the first Thousand years after Christ. The Second Commandment is so openly and confessedly broken by them that many of them maintain it does not all oblige Christians but belonged only to the Jewish Dispensation And in all their Catechisms it is left out which was done very wisely with what honesty let them answer for it was not fit the people should look on that as a Commandment which they saw so notoriously broken throughout their whole Church A great trade being also driven by the breach of it That this was not in the Primitive Church themselves confess all the Books the Fathers wrote against the Idolatry of the Heathens demonstrate this Nor were Images so much as set up in Churches before the Sixth Century And then care was taken that they should not be worshipped and not before the Eighth Century were they worshipped in any place of the Christian Church The Doctrine of the Popes power of Relaxing of Oaths and discharging men from the Obligation of them joyned with the practice of their Popes for above 800 years is as formal an Opposition to the Third Commandment as can be Imagined This was also begun in the Eighth Century The vast multiplication of Holy-days made the Observation of the Lords day of necessity slacken They have destroyed the Order of Societies established in the Fifth Commandment by the Power they allow the Pope to Depose Princes and absolve Subjects from their Alleageance They teach the murdering and burning all Hereticks that is to say all that will not submit to their Tyranny by which Infinite numbers of Innocent persons have been murdered against the Sixth Commandment And these two Doctrines of deposing Princes and putting Hereticks to death were abhorred by the Church for the first Eight ages and were brought in by the Popes since that time The frequent practice of the Court of Rome in granting Divorces on the pretence either of Spiritual kindred or of Degrees not forbidden either by the Law of Nature or the word of God and allowing second Marriages to both Parties upon such Divorces is an avowed breach of the Seventh Commandment The setting on some Princes to Invade other Princes in their just Rights is the Doctrine as well as it has been the practice of their Church for some Ages And as their Popes have wrested many Territories from Temporal Princes so for many Ages they set on Publick Robbery against the Eighth Commandment The Doctrine of Equivocating both taught and practised the breaking of safe Conducts and publick Faith decreed by their General Councils is also against the Ninth Commandment For the Tenth I shall say nothing of it because the meaning of it is not so generally agreed on But thus we see all the Rules of Morality are contradicted by that Church It might be justly added to swell up this Charge that of late there have been Doctrines published to the world by the approved Casuists of that Church with Licence which subvert all Justice destroy all security and take away the most sacred ties of mankind By the Doctrines of Probability and of Ordering the Intention aright there is no crime how black soever but a man may adventure on it with a good conscience These things were long and openly taught amongst them without any Censure And when many of the French Clergy complained of these at the Court of Rome perhaps more out of spite to the Jesuits than zeal for the Truth it was long before these so just Remonstrances were heard And in conclusion a trifling Censure was past on them by which they were declared Scandalous neither Impious nor Wicked and all were forbidden to teach them any more but they stand yet in the Books formerly published with Licence After all these particulars is it to be wondered at if the morals of the men of that Church be vitiated when their Doctrine is so corrupted for peoples practices are generally worse than their Opinions And thus the Second point is made good that in our Church we teach the same Rules of Living that are in the Scriptures which are grosly corrupted by their Doctrines
for which his Successors have been since fighting a whole Age. But let us next examine how the tidings of this Massacre were received at Rome by which we may judg how fitly that part of Antichrist's Character of being drunk with the Blood of the Saints agrees to it The News was brought thither the 6th of September upon which a Consistory of the Cardinals was presently called and the Legate's Letter that contained a Relation of the Massacre being read they went straight in a Procession to St. Mark 's Church where they offered up their solemn thanks to God for this great Blessing to the See of Rome and the Catholique Church And on Monday following there was another Procession made by the Pope and Cardinals to the Minerva where they had high Mass and then the Pope granted a Jubilee to all Christendom And one of the Reasons was That they should thank God for the slaughter of the Enemies of the Church lately executed in France Two days after that the Cardinal of Lorrain had another great Procession of all the Clergy the Ambassadours Cardinals and the Pope himself who came to St. Lewis Chappel where the Cardinal celebrated Mass himself And in the King of France his Name he thanked the Pope and the Cardinals for their good Councils the help they had given him and the assistance he received from their Prayers of which he had found most wonderful effects He also delivered the King's Letters to the Pope in which he wrote That more Heretiques had been destroyed in that one day than in all the twelve years of the War Nor did the Pope think there was yet Blood enough shed but that which all the World condemned as excessive Cruelty he apprehended was too gentle Therefore he sent Cardinal Ursin his Legate in all haste to France to thank the King for so great a Service done the Church and to desire him to go on and extirpate Heresie Root and Branch that it might never grow again In order to which he was to procure the Council of Trent to be received in France and as the Legat passed through in his Journey to Paris he gave a Plenary Absolution to all that had been Actors in the Massacre The best Picture-drawers and workers of Tapistry were also put to work to set off this Action with all possible glory and a Sute of these Hangings are to this day in the Pope's Chappel So well do they like the thing that they preserve the remembrance of it still even in the place of their Worship Such a representation does indeed very well agree with their Devotion whose Religion and Doctrine led on their Votaries to the thing so expressed By this we may easily gather what is to be expected from that Court and what we ought to look for when-ever we are at the mercy of Men whose Religion will not only bear them through but set them on to commit the most Treacherous and Bloody Massacres FINIS a a In regiam Majest Bâ—… l. 6. c. 4. sect â—…0 à quocunque privato poteris interfici In Thom. Tom. 3. Dâ—…sp 151. q 12. p. 2. b b Romish Tre sons l. 2. cap 4. The Life of Gerson before his Works and Tom. 1. p. 375. Recog in lib. 5. de Rom. Pont. e e Philopater p. 106 107. l Greg. M. l. 2 post Ep. 38. lib. 11. Ep. 10 11 12. Siquis Regum c. contravenire tentaverit potestatis honorisque sui dignitate careat in alio honore suo privetur g g Baron aâ—… An. 730. n. 5. h h Bellar. de Trans Imperii Romani i i Dictatus l. 2. post Ep. 55. k k Lib 2. Ep. 5. ad Ep. France l l Liv. 8. Ep 21. m m Extra de Major Obed. cap. 1. n n Bellar. de Pont. Rom. lib. 5. c. 151. o o Cuspiman in vita Albert. p p Cap. de Major ut Obâ—…d Exter b b In Vandal l. 8. c. 2. r r Chron Hâ—…saug in vita Abb. Hartiingi s s Bar. ad Ann. 593. Num. 86. t t Bar. ad An. 730. Num. 5. u u 〈◊〉 his Diâ—…â—… Oevres and Râ—…ueil General des Affaires du Cierge de France Conc. Late 3. Chap. 27. anno 1287. Tom 28. Conc. Later 4. Can. 3. Tom. 28. The same Council that established Transubstantiation Math. Paris ad An. 1253. Conc. Lugd. Tom. 28. Conc. Const. Tom. 29. Sess. 19. Sess. 15. Sess. 17. Sess. 15. Con. Sien Tom. 29. Con. Basil Tom. 29. Conc. Trid. Sess. 25 c. 19. Bud de Asse lib. 5. Diseuss Decret Con. Lateran p. 46. Bec. Controv. Angl. p. 115. Acts 20. 21. Micha 6. 8. 1 Cor. 14. Matt. 28. 19. Matt. 26. 26 27. 28. ver Heb. 9. 26 28. Acts 8. 17. Morinus Heb. 13. 4. 1 Tim. 3. 2. 4. 11. Eph. 1. 22 23. Matt 18. 7. 2 Cor. 3. 3. Can. 3. Sess. 19. Thuanus The abstract of the Books written upon the Head is in the Voluminous but Anonymous Historian of these Wars printed at Paris An. 1581. Thuanus lib. 16. Thuanus Mezeray Davila lib. 3 Thuanus lib. 49. Caten vita dâ—… Pio Quinto Printed at Edingburgh 1573. Mezeray Hist. Hen. the 4th Comingii Collectio p. 278. Historie de France An. 1581.