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A70694
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A narrative of the proceedings and tryal of Mr. Francis Johnson, a Franciscan, at Worcester last summer-assizes Anno Dom. 1679 written with his own hand as followeth.
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Wall, John, Saint, 1620-1679.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing N205; ESTC R1380
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36,113
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26
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hath promised we shall and have our lot among the Saints why should we now fear to be reviled of men or be reputed ignominious as our Saviour and his Apostles were If they have so will they do you also the Scholar is not above the Master nor the Servant above his Lord. If they call'd the Master of the Family Beelzebub so will they do his Servants therefore we must with the Apostles rejoice as you read in the Acts they did because they were accounted worthy to suffer contumely and reproaches If contumely and reproach seem so hard for us to undergo now for a good Cause as is our Conscience before a few Enemies what contumely must those undergo who for now acting against their Conscience shall undergo at the great judgment before God Angels Saints Devils and all the Damn'd in Hell if for our reproach now we hope that after a short sorrow God will honour us so as to wipe away with his own hand every tear from our eyes as he promiseth in the Revelations he will and that henceforth there shall be neither grief nor Labour nor pain or the like why should any now grieve either to see himself or others suffer It will not last this Tempest will soon be over and if now in this Storm the small vessel of my Body suffer shipwrack or some others the like vessels if our Souls can but carry off our goods of Faith Hope and Charity all is very well For as soon as the vessels of our Bodies sink our Souls will come to shore at the Land of Promise and we shall be secured in the Rock which is Christ and ever remain safe in the eternal Hills where neither winds nor waves of Persecution can ever reach to assault us then welcome shipwrack that sinks the vessel of the Body to bring the Passengers and their Goods so happily to the Haven the Heaven of Bliss Let us therefore weigh these things in a prudential Balance and see which Scale is the heaviest of present Fears or future Hopes of present Sufferings or future Glories Let us remember our Saviours words to his Apostles You are those that remained with me in my temptations or tryals for which said he their reward was he disposed the Kingdom of Heaven to them Partners in Sufferings Partners in Glovles which if well considered we shall say with St. Paul The sufferings of this present time are not condign or of equality to the future glory which shall be revealed in us and we shall with his joyful Spirit say 2 Cor. 4 17. Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh in us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 'T is a happy weight that lifts both Sufferings and Sufferers up as high as Heaven to eternal Crowns of which we are all assured of as a reward for our Faith if we will make good use of our Christian hope which that we may the better do let us endeavor to help our selves by the third and greatest Virtue that follows our Faith and Hope which is Charity This is that greatest Virtue of which all sorts of Christians speak much understand little and practise less though without the practice of it 't is in vain for any to pretend to have a saving Faith or Hope for as St. Paul saith 1 Cor. 13. Though he speak with the tongues of Men and Angels and have not Charity he is but as sounding brass and although he should know all Mysteries and have Faith to remove Mountains and though he should have such hope understand for reward that he should give all to the Poor and deliver his body to burn and yet not have charity it profiteth nothing Charity as he saith ver 7. suffereth all things believeth all things hopeth all things beareth all things Do all that pretend to Charity do thus If to speak with the tongues of Angels without Charity be nothing but vanity what Charity is there in those that speak with the tongues of Detraction Scandal Slander False-witness and Perjuries against their Neighbors If those that give all to the Poor may want Charity so that all which they give profits them nothing what Charity is there in those that take all from their Neighbors to force them to forsake their Faith If Alms profit nothing without Charity can such Injuries profit Persecutors that take all away-against Charity If a man may give his own Body to burn and yet be cold in Charity what Charity is there to kill others Bodies take away their Lives with ignominy and violence because they will not kill their own Souls by acting against God and their Conscience If Charity consists only in those that suffer all things believe all things hope all things what Charity is there in those who will make their Neighbor suffer all things of Persecution because they believe and hope according to their Conscience and profess their Faith and Hope as they are bound before God upon their salvation so to do 'T is certain that though men may pretend persecution of others for Gods sake to reduce others to him yet 't is evident that for any Kingdom to persecute any meerly for Conscience-sake is against the Law of God and therefore whil'st they would seem so zealously to keep the first Command of loving God above all and force others to conform to their opinions they break the second Command because they do not love their Neighbor as themselves because they persecute them and so they dash one Commandment against the other and so crack both Commandments together For wheresoever the second Command is broke by not loving our Neighbor as our selves the first is broke with it because did they love God above all they would do better by their Neighbor But I do not come here to beat down others pretence to Charity but endeavour to advance Charity in my self and others and the way to do this is not to reckon what others have not done according to Charity but to call to mind what others have done to raise Charity towards God and their Neighbors We read in Holy Writ that Moses love was so to God and his Neighbor that to repurchase a Peace and Charity 'twixt God and the People after they had offended he desired that his own name should rather be blotted out of the Book of life than that the Peoples names should not be put in by obtaining Forgiveness and therefore he saith to God Either spare the People or blot me out of the Book which thou hast writ How superlative a Motive is this to move Christians to a perfect Charity towards their Neighbors well may a Christian be willing to lay down his temporal life for good example sake rather than offend God and scandalize others by deserting his Faith since others could be willing to hazard their eternal lives to reduce their Neighbors to God by Charity The like examples of love to God and his Neighbors we have in St. Paul in
to serve him I beseech God to bless the Parliament that is now in Election that they may determine nothing but what they themselves do hope to be judged by at the last day I beseech God to bless all that suffer under this Persecution and to turn this our Captivity into Joy that they who now sowe in tears may reap in joy I beseech God to accept the death of my Body and to receive my Soul I have no more to say Mr. Sheriff I give you no interruption but only whereas you said that you dyed for the Faith that is not so you do not dye for that but because you being His Majesties Subject received Orders from the Church of Rome Beyond the Seas and came again into England contrary to the Law Mr. Johnson That was pardoned by the Kings Act of Grace Mr. Sheriff That Act pardoned onely Crimes committed before the making of it but not those done since as your continuance in England was Mr. Johnson I am sorry if I have given offence in any thing I have said my â—â—ason for it was because when I was sent for to the Judges upon Sunday night â—â—dge Atkins told me I dyed not for being concerned in the Plot but for being a Priest Mr. Sheriff No but for your continuance in England against the Law being a Priest Mr. Johnson God receive my Soul Mr. Sheriff Sir You may take your own time and you shall have no interruption Sir will you be pleased to have your own time Jaylor Sir pray give the Sign when you please to be turned off Mr. Johnson I will give you no Sign do it when you will And so he was Executed Mr. Johnson was of an Honourable Family in Norfolk born to an Estate of 500 l. per Annum All which he left for the sake of Religion his third Brother now enjoys the Estate FINIS Mr. Johnson's Speech Which he deliver'd to his Friend to be Printed as he mention'd at the place of Execution ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Johnsons's Tryal and what he spoke at his Execution being finisht there came to the Printers hands his Speech at large of which his foregoing words are only the heads as the Reader will see and as Mr. Johnson also mentions viz. I would have said more but that I gave my Speech to a Friend to be Printed therefore his Friend has now faithfully publisht it accordingly being written by Mr. Johnson himself as followeth GOD Almighty honoured Friends having been pleased of his infinite mercy through the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ to bestow oâ— all Christians the Theological vertues of Faith Hope and Charity by vertue of Faith all are to believe whatever God hath revealed to us in this world by hope all are to expect what he hath promised we shall receive in the world to come And because where God bestows such a Faith and Hope it is in order to bring all to a true charity and love of him for who can have Faith to believe an Infinite Goodness in which he hopes but he must love that Infinite Goodness in whom he hopes which bestows on him such gifts therefore all ought to honour God and shew their love to him by a due profession and a due practice of this Faith this Hope and this Charity otherwise they cannot be saved because as St. Paul saith With thâ—â—â— art it is believed to righteousness but with the mouth confession is made to salvation Romans 10. For those that will not shew their Faith which is a light not to be hid under a bushel but to be set in a Candlestick to give light to all such can never have neither true Hope for themselves nor true Charity towards God or their Neighbour nor God to them because our Saviour saith Luke 12. He that confesseth me before men him will the Son of man confess before the Angels of God but he that denieth me before men as those do that act or swear against their conscience him will the Son of Man deny before the Angels of God And as all are bound to confess him and his Faith so likewise all are obliged to own and profess that this Faith can be but one only Faith as we are taught Ephes 4. where St. Paul declares There is one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God even as you are called saith he in one hope of your calling This being most true let every rational Christian in his most retired thoughts consider how this Unity of Faith and this Hope of our Calling can stand with such multiplicity of Sects and Opinions all so divers one against the other with which the Nation now so abounds For according to the Text a man may as well say there are diversities of Gods or diversities of Christs as that there are diversities of Faiths because Faith is nothing but the truth of one God which Truth or Faith he hath revealed which none can alter We are all therefore bound to believe alike in one Faith and in one holy Catholick Church as our Creed teacheth us we are all obliged to believe in one Catholick Faith as the Creed of St. Athanasius in the Protestant common-prayer-Common-Prayer-Book declares saying Whosoever will be saved it is necessary before all things that he believe in the Catholick Faith which Faith unless every one keep whole and undefiled he shall without doubt perish everlastingly All and every one are to keep this Faith whole because as it is writ St. Jam. 2. v. 10. Whesoever keeps the whole Law and yet offends in one point is guilty of all All are to keep the whole Faith because our Saviour saith Matth. 16. 15. Go ye into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature All are to believe alike the whole Faith of the Gospel else they shall perish everlastingly because our Saviour saith in the same place v. 16. He that believes shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned We all must keep the Unity of Faith whole and undefiled because our Saviour also saith St. Matth. 5. 16. Heaven and Earth shall pass but one jot or one tittle of the Law shall in no wise pass till all be fulfilled as well the Law of Faith as the Law of Works In confirmation of this I appeal to the Faith and Works and Sufferings of all the Saints from the beginning who to keep their Faith whole and entire have made such profession and practice of it and confirm'd it by such works as are recorded in St. Paul Heb. 11. where first he registers the Faith and Deeds of the Believers in particular and then in general of what they did and suffered by vertue of their Faith as there you read By faith they stopt the mouths of Lions extinguished the force of the fire repelled the edge of the sword they were racked they were tryed by mockings and stripes they were in chains and prisons they were stoned they were hewed they were tempted they died in