go hence for our Plantations do Contribute some way to the Trade of the Kingdom and many of them return hither again But Mr. Roger Coke in his Book called Englands Improvements pag. 21. saith It s believed above 12000. of the Kings Scotish Subjects yearly go out of Scotland into Poland Sweden Germany France Holland and other places and never after return into Scotland And that Author having before in the same page mentioned That 5 l. given with an Apprentice to be instructed in the Woollen or any Manufacture by which means be afterward earns 30 l. per annum this in 20. years becomes 600 l. c. which is more valuable to the Nation then if 600 l. had been given it and the People not employed Thereupon he afterward Computes That the benefit which might accrue to the Nation by employing so many thousands of the Scottish Subjects there might in 20. years time be above 6 Millions And according to the opinion of that Worthy Gentleman we may further be inclined to think the Number of the Scots removing into Forraign parts to be very great when we find among Sir Iohn Denhams Poems one with this Inscription or Title On my Lord Crofts and my Iourney into Poland from whence we brought 10000 l. for his Majesty by the Decimation of his Scotish Subjects there But moreover the satisfying the Inquisite genius of our People concerning the greatness of their Numbers may be of some importance to them and the publick quiet in satisfying them of the Vanity of the former Moddellers of a Republick here a form of Government tho easily supposed Practicable in large Cities yet not so in great and populous Nations and likewise of the Vanity of all fears of a Vniversal Monarchy bridling the world again a thing which though it was of old feasable when Mankind made not so mighty a Mass is now far from being so 'T was easie to imagine it possible and indeed to effect it in the days when Aristotle taught men that no City ought to have above 10000. Citizens and when however the Number of Citizens was grown at Athens to 20000. and when in the Roman Empire the number of the Citizens was not so vast as is by many imagined and so accordingly the Excellent Discourser de Magnitudine Romanâ Lipsius lib. 1. cap. 7. then Speaking of the Multitudo Romanorum under Augustus saith Ipse de se in Lapide Ancyrano clare hoc dicit In consulatu suo Sexto lustrum condidisse quo lustro Censita sunt Civium Romanorum Capita quadragiens Centum millia Sexaginta tria i. e. four Millions and a hundred thousand And Lipsius afterward mentioning that the Number of the Romans encreased under Claudius cites Tacitus for making it then Sexagies movies centena Sexaginta quatuor Millia i. e. about seven Millions There is no doubt but the People of the Provinces did vastly exceed that Number but since according to the estimate of Bodin in his de Rep. 't is probable that the Roman Empire when at its greatest extent in Trajans time scarce contain'd the thirtieth part of the World and that the prolifit North stiled generally by Authors officina vagina gentium by the encrease of its populacy so humbled the Roman Sword that within about 154. years afterward some of the Roman Emperors became their Allies and Gallus submitted to pay Tribute to the Goths t is no wonder that the thirtieth part of the World was since reduced to cease from domineering over all the other parts of it And notwithstanding Maximines boast to the Senate in the fragment of his account to them of his German Successes cited by Iul. Capitolinus in his Life tantum Captivorum abduxi ut vix Sola Romana sufficiant his Resvery of the Immortality of the Roman Power on the Stage of the World was liable to Confutation from the same way of arguing as his Conceit of his own Immortality was which having been observed to have tainted his fancy on the occasion of his great and robust Body the same Capitolinus in his Life saies was corrected by a Players reciting these Lines on the Stage in his presence Qui ab uno non potest a multis occiditur Elephans grandis est occiditur Leo fortis est occiditur Tigris fortis est occiditur Cave multos si Singulos non times But what I find by Lipsius in the second Book third Chapter there cited out of Tertullian is much more applicable to the present State of the World then to that wherein t was Writ He saith there At Tertulliani locum non insuper habeo qui egregie asserit Copiam hominum cultumque orbis in suo i. e. Severi Saeculo De animâ Cap. 30. Certè quidem ipse orbis in promptu est cultior de die instructior pristino Omnia jam pervia omnia nota omnia negotiosa Solitudines famosas retrò fundi amaenissimi obliteraverunt Sylvas arva domuerunt feras pecora fugaverunt Arenae Seruntur Saxa panguntur Raludes eliquantur Tantae urbes quantae non casae quondam Iam nec Insulae horrent nec Scopuli terrent ubique domus ubique populus ubque Resp. ubique vita Summum testimonium frequentiae humanae onerosi sumus Mundo Vix nobis elementa sufficiunt necessitates arctiores querelae apud omnes dum jam nos Natura non sustinet Then adds Lipsius Nihil impressius dici potest de pleno frequentique orbe And that strong and populous Nations Conspired to break their Chains hath nothing of wonder in it and the truth is the freedom the World has gain'd since the decay of the Roman Empire and even by means thereof hath hung out such a Picture before all mens Eyes of Populous Mankind drawn to the bigness of the Life as has made the Notion of erecting another Vniversal Monarchy seem but a Portraiture of Imagination containing nothing but bold Strokes of Colour without regular Proportion and Design and the Copying only a Landskip of the Devil's Mountain and his shewing thence all the Kingdoms of the World. How is the World ashamed now of its having been in the last foregoing Age amused with the thoughts of the King of Spain's being its Catholick Monarch and of having tormented it self with Jealousies about such a great Nothing And which I believe was never modell'd in the fancy of that Prince and was only projected by Court-Sycophants and Mercenary Writers and that he himself never enter'd any express claim to it one would think who reads the Duke of Buckingham's answer to the Spanish Embassador's Informations c. Anno 1624. where the Duke having aggravated some State-Practices the Spanish Minister adds And is not this a Proclamation to all the World that they aspired to such an absolute Monarchy as so many Books Stories Discourses and the general Complaints of all Princes and States have long charged them with But for such Writers as I last mention'd to
words in the Oaths altho it is a common sure Rule That Verba ubi sunt expressa voluntatis supervacanea est quaestio yet I shall ex superabundanti choose to corroborate such my Assertion by laying down this as my 9th and last Conclusion that it is manifest that it was the Law-givers intention to bind the Takers of these Oaths not only to bear true Faith and Allegiance to his Majesty but to his Heirs and Successors in the Due and Legal Course of Descent as I have before expressed It need not be much dilated on that Relations are Minimae entitatis but Maximae efficaciae and that Liberi sunt quasi partes appendices parentum not only Fictione Iuris but Naturâ â—ei veritate and that in the framing of the Oath of Allegiance and the designing the Obligations to arise thence the King had a necessary regard to natural affection and to the preservation of the Hereditary Monarchy in the Line of his Heirs and Successors and suitably to what is expressed in the Preamble of the Statute of 25 H. 8. c. 22. viz. That since it is the natural inclination of every man gladly and willingly to provide for the surety of both his Title and Succession altho it touch his only private Cause we therefore reckon our selves much more bound to beseech and instant your Highness to foresee and provide for the PRESENT surety of both you and of your most lawful Succession and Heirs Nor need it be much insisted on that 't is natural for every Government to defend and preserve it self and to this purpose the Author of the Exercitation cites Alsted a Lutheran Divine and likewise Grotius and Dudley Fenner for maintaining the lawfulness of what the old Athenian famous Oath enjoyned for the preservation of its Polity namely of any private Person killing any Usurper or one who without a lawful Title forcibly invaded the Government The Athenians had several Oaths of a high nature by the Religion of which they tyed themselves to defend their Government and one was the Iusjurandum epheborum which they took when 20 years old and which is set down in Petitus his Noble Commentary on the Athenian Laws and part of which as rendered by him into Latin is Patriam liberis non relinquam in deteriore sed potius in meliore statu Navigabo ad terram eamque colam quantulacunque illa sit quae habenda mihi tradetur Parebo legibus quae obtinent c. quod si quis leges abrogare velit populo non sciscente minime feram Vindicabo autem sive solus sive cum aliis omnibus Patria sacra colam c. ad mortem usque pro nutriciâ terrâ dimicabo But this Oath tho famous enough was not THE famous one I referred to but 't is the other of which the formula is set down in Petitus there p. 232 233. and which beginneth with Occidam meâ ipsius manu si possim eum qui everterit Rempublicam Atheniensium aut eâ— eversâ Magistratum gesserit in posterum c. That Oath of so high and strange a nature was made shortly after the driving out the thirty Tyrants and the Law made that Si quis Atheniensium Rempublicam evertat aut eâ eversê Magistratum gerat Atheniensium hostis esto impunèque occiditor c. To secure their Government forever from future Usurpation was the intent of that terrible Oath and to secure the Government of the Hereditary Monarchy here was the intent of our gentle ones and sufficiently favouring of the Mansuetudo Evangelii and which Oaths however binding the Loyal to defend the Government with their lives do yet strictly bind to the defence of the Rights and Privileges of the Crown one of which is both by the 13th of the Romans and the Lex terrae to be a terror to the Evil and to bear the Sword. But Sir E. Coke having told us in his Commentaries That the true Scope and design of our Statute Laws are oftentimes not to be understood without the knowledge of the Histâ—ry of the Age when the particular Statute was made I shall looking back on the Conjuncture when the Act for the Oath of Allegiance was made take notice that by many particular matters then obvious to all mens thoughts it appeared worthy of the wisdom of the Government then to provide for the security both of his Majesty and of the Succession Any who shall read D' Ossat's Letters will find the various deep designs there opened that related to several Foreign Princes and Potentates Jealousies of the Power that England would have in the balance of the World by the uniting of the strength of Scotland to it upon the rightful Succession of King Iames to the Monarchy and perhaps rather out of a design to amuse them than out of an humour to put by the thoughts of Mortality Queen Elizabeth did shew so much unwillingness sometimes to hear and speak of her Successor And during the constrained Altum silentium of the Succession then here a Book of the Succession was writ by Father Parsons and which made noise enough in the World as those Letters mention and by which Book the Author intended that our Hereditary Monarchy should be Thunder struck especially with the help of the Papal Breves that came here to obstruct the Succession King Iames at the end of his Premonition to all Christian Monarchs printing a Catalogue of the Lyes of Tortus i. e. Bellarmin with a brief Confutation of them refers to one Lye of Tortus p. 47 viz. In which words of the Breves of Clement the 8th not only King James of Scotland was not EXCLVDED but included rather and the Confutation is thus viz. If the Breves of Clement did not exclude me from the Kingdom but rather did include me why did Garnet burn them Why would he not reserve them that I might have seen them that so he might have obtained more favour at my hands for him and his Catholicks And that King in his Apology for the Oath of Allegiance p. 29. refers to the two Breves which Clemens Octavus sent to England immediately before Queen Elizabeth's Death debarring him from the Crown or any other that either would profess or any ways tolerate the Professors of his Religion contrary to the Pope's Manifold Vows and Protestations Simul eodem tempore and as it were delivered uno eodem spiritu to divers of his Majesty's Ministers abroad professing such kindness and shewing such forwardness to advance his Majesty to the English Crown Any one who reads in D' Ossat the inclination of that Pope to Principles and Practices of this kind will not wonder at his Majesty 's thus exposing his Vn-holyness and the nature of the Breves is sufficiently there explained and proved to be according to his Majesty's measures published of them That Great King was sufficiently acquainted with the Principles and Practices of the Papacy that had been so injurious to
mind in an House will bless him with these Effects and make him grow in favour with God and Man. My Lord I shall in the next place take occasion to acquaint your Lordship that in the Preface and which every Candid Reader of any Book will peruse before his reading of the Book I do explain my self more clearly about some things and words writt in the turbid times and which as one saith well are the worst times to write in tho the best to write of and I do not fear the wanting any mans pardon who shall read over the whole and which may well be expected before the allowance of his Exceptions tho it may seem as copious as one of the Bankers Bills in Chancery But because the former part of the Discourse necessarily requiring those courser Colours relating to Popery to be first laid on before the finâ—r ones and the gilding on the happy Future State of our Country and for that to trouble any ingenious men now with Notions of Popery were to hinder their repose in the state I foretold I have been at the pains of making a large INDEX and where I have directed the Reader how and where to enter into the New Heaven and New Earth of his Country without passing through the Purgatory of any expressions about Popery or the Plot and perhaps the more Loyal and Ingenious Recusants whether Roman-Catholick or Protestants there taking notice of some grateful passages relating to some who were formerly of their perswasions being placed near others that are less so may be the more pleased therewith accordingly as my Lord Bacon observes that a Rose set by Garlick is the sweeter Heaven having furnished your Lordships mind with so many Excellencies that are extraordinary I could wish that it had been my ability or fortune to have here provided for your Entertainment somewhat of value that was not vulgar But my essaying or offering here and there at some matter of thought which by receiving its Form from your Lordships great reason and particularly in p. 158. and the following ones in my making it a Fundamental Principle for the quiet of the World that men are neither to get nor lose by Religion and my distinguishing in mens Hypotheses between their Principles denominable as Religionary and such Complicated therewith that are not so and my having judged that none ought to be severe to any Recusant before he hath a Moral Certainty of such person having imbibed any of the Principles imputable to Recusancy that are irreligionary and unnatural and my defiance of the petulance of the Faction by my placing Lawrels on those Heads at which it was throwing dirt and my shewing how not only Christians of the Roman-Catholick Church in its great spreading Latitude but even those of the more particular Church of Rome and reverers of the Diocess or Court of Rome are under no obligation by the LATERAN Councel to be either Persecutors or disloyal may shew somewhat of my honest well wishes in this kind I am not so vaâ—n as to think that any thing relating to Numbers or Political Calculations in the Discourse can appear new to your Lordship who are so great a Master in that kind of Knowledge that the most Curious of the Age may therein beg instruction from you But I shall here presume to acquaint your Lordship that I observing that many in the late Conjuncture whom I looked on as honest loyal and learned and ingenious men and some who had formerly a gusto for the real Learning that refers to number weight and measure did render their Conversation so uneasie by talking of nothing but Popery Popery and which I looked on as unentertaining and nauseous as the Porke porke porke I thought it might be publickly useful to lay open a new Scene of Thought before such Persons by shewing them some Calculations relating to the numbers of the People of England founded on somewhat like Records and some to its gradual encrease in Trade as well as populousness and others relating to other parts of the World whereby their Souls having somewhat like a new intellectual World before them to expatiate in might no longer be confined to a perplext word Yet moreover considering how lately it was that they came out of that Conjuncture of Panic fears when so many who went to Bed without their Brains were afraid of rising without their Heads and that as our English World was emerging out of the late general DELUGE of Fears and Iealousies where omnia pontus erant c. the Curious beheld the several births of Mens Reasons attended with Imperfections like those of the Animals referr'd to in his quaedam modo caepta per ipsum Nascendi spatium quaedam imperfecta suisque Trunca vident humeris eodem corpore saepe Altera pars vivit rudis est pars altera tellus and thus saw the spectacles of mens various Vnderstandings gradually creeping into sense and reason and not suddenly likely to be perfected I shew'd so much Complaisance to them as in stead of hastily removing their Thoughts from the Course soil of Popery or the old Papal Vsurpations to build my Fabricks of Numbers and Calculations upon it and I may say that finding their vitiated Fancies rellish'd nothing at that time grateful but the thoughts about Popery I then chose to make that the Vehicle of the Notions I meant as Physick for their Cure. According to the way of judging of the Draught and Proportion in perspective Painting by their respect to the Eye being directed to the Center therein any ordinary Reader 's judgment will be carry'd by the Index to find what was principally aim'd at in the following Discourse namely to incline him to preserve the haereditary Monarchy And he will there find that my next aim to that was in a great part of the Work to dispose those who formerly had been diffident of their Prince to Promote the Public Supplies for the necessary Support of the Government And my judging that our most eminent Patriots would be inclined to value themselves as such on the promoting the same may to some appear as the most sanguine part of my Predictions But as I leave it to any indifferent man to judge of the grounds of Nature I went on in so doing so I may some way support the Credit of my measures of futurity in that Affair by the past event of the Loyal Confidence in His Majesty shewn by his late Parliament in their proceeding so far as they did in Supporting the Government and may add that His Majesty's vast Expences that have been since so Conspicuous to the World in his Naval Preparations and otherwise in the Providing for the Security and Honour of the Nation may well incline any one else to judge well of such Patriotly temper of any future Parliament and to allow of the Reasons by me urged as more Cogent for the present Reign then the former considering the Preparations of our Neighbors
Pontificiis censent affici nolunt ita nec bonorum confiscationem meo judicio concederent and Pellerus in his Notes on Klockius refers to Thuanus about Servetus his Case and saith of him Igitur comprehensus cum sententiam mutare nollet re prius ex Iohannis Calvini consilio cum Bernatibus Tigurinis Basileensibus Schafusianis Ministris communicatâ tandem ad mortem damnatus est Ejus doctrinam posteà Calvinus quòd ei ex illius invidia conflaretur proposuit publicato libro confutavit quo in haereticos etiam gladio à magistratu animadvertendum esse contendit But Beza who was a Calvinist and in the first Tome of his Works p. 85. asserts the lawfulness of punishing Hereticks with death cites not only Bullinger who was a Calvinist but Melanchton who was a Lutheran for the same opinion and Zanchius Operum Tome 4. Lib. 1. in tertium praeceptum expresly owns that opinion The fashion of the Iudicial Law of the Iews in that point was certainly most proper for the Body of their Polity as being thereunto adapted by the great Legislator but to say that all States and Polities are bound to observe it because God prescribed it to the Iews is as senseless as to say that all men are bound to go cloathed in Beasts Skins because God did Apparel Adam and Eve in that fashion I have in this Discourse thought it of some use to the publick to have mens understandings disabused as to the obligatory power of the Iudicial Law because mens erring therein hath very much encreased the fermentations in his Majesties Realms in several Conjunctures It is not unknown that Deuteronomy the 13th and the 6th was urged to Queen Elizabeth as an Argument for putting the Queen of Scots to death Our Kingdom hath likewise found by experience That the Fifth Monarchy men have not fired more Guns against us out of the Revelation than the Scotch Presbyterians have out of the Iudicial Law. An Excellent Discourse called Fair warning to take heed of the Scotish Discipline printed in the year 1649 and writ I think by Arch-Bishop Bramhall asserts in Chap. 6. That it robs the Magistrate of his dispensative Power and saith there Our Disciplinarians have restrained it in all such Crimes as are made Capital by the Iudicial Law as in the Case of Blood Adultery Blasphemy in which Cases they say the Offender ought to suffer death as God hath commanded And if the life be spared as it ought not to be to the Offenders c. And the Magistrate ought to prefer Gods strict Commandment before his own corrupt Iudgment especially in punishing these Crimes which he commandeth to be punished with death The Books of the Scotch Discipline are there particularly cited by the Author I have been expressly cautious in the following Discourse to exempt the Reformed Churches abroad from the Odium of those Principles of the formâ—er Scotch and English Presbyterians that I have impugned as Disloyal and Seditious and was a Concurrer with many loyal Persons after part of it was written in thinking that time had untaught those Principles to most of our present Non-Conformists and notwithstanding the many Seditious and Libellous Pamphlets published by some of them against the Government both of Church and State yet such was the continuance of the Candor of the Kings Ministers to them as that some at the Tryal of a poor seditious Nominal Protestant at Oxford occasionally declared before that wretch We know of no Presbyterian Plot. But as a Popish Ambassador sent to Queen Elizabeth began his Audience Speech wherein he was to complain of the Turks having unprovoked broke their League with his Master Erupit tandem Ottomannorum Virus it happened that about the time of the finishing of this Discourse the poyson of some pretended Protestants former Seditious Principles broke out again in a horrid Conspiracy before mentioned and which was confessed by several of the Conspirators at their Executions and another of whom owned the Doctrine of Resistance Our blessed Saviour cautioning the Christian World in the words of Beware of false Prophets saith You shall know them by their Fruits And our famous Whitaker hath in his Controversies well resolved us that these Fruits whereby false Prophets are to be distinguished from true are rather their Principles Interpretations and Doctrines than their Lives it being generally observed that the Founders of Sects are exemplary for the austerity of their lives and for coming in Sheeps clothing as our Saviours words are What the Principles of the Non-Conformists in King Iames his Reign were I have shewn in this Discourse with a Remark on the Political Consideration that after the aera of the Gun-powder Treason induced them to give a Scheme thereof voluntarily to the Government and namely that they might thereby avoid the receiving a Test from it and no doubt it was obvious to them that while their Principles were hid and concealed from the State the warding off of Faux his Dark Lanthorn would not have left the Government secure till it had likewise got the Non-Conformistâ— dark Lanthorn from them I mean by the publication of their Tenets Of their Principles shortly after 41 the Scotch Covenant was a sufficient Scheme And tho the Tenets of Presbyterians and Independents relating to their Forms of Church Government are enought known as is likewise the degree of their Complicating Principles of Sedition with the same between the years 1641 and 1660 yet from that last year to this present one they have not by the publication of any Confession of Faith or Scheme of their Tenets satisfied the Government that all their Principles are consistent with the Civil Polity thereof and that they have renounced those former Tenets of theirs that once destroyed it and particularly that intolerably seditious one viz. That if the Magistrate will not reform the World they may But because several of their Ecclesiasticks have not renounced the Irreligionary part of their former Principles and which were so destructive to the Sacred Persons of Princes and their State and Government and of all Humane Society the Vniversity of Oxford in their Convocation Iuly 21st Anno 1683. did to their great honour pass their Iudgment and Decree against certain particular Books of Non-Conformists and Iesuites and others wherein those Tenets and Principles were owned and the very shewing of those Tenets to the World by such learned and loyal hands hath been I believe useful in making many of the Loyal Lay Non-Conformists withdraw from others of them they thought therewith infected a thing that might well be supposed naturally to happen when those of them to whom the term of Sober Party was most due observed that the publication of the Dissenters Sayings and of the Censure of their Tenets had not occasioned their Leaders to publish other Dissenters Sayings or Tenets that impugned Disloyalty and Sedition and promoted obedience to Government and what several Writers of the Church of Rome have been
Guymenius shortly after in that year appearing in Print as a Champion for the Principles so damned the College of Sorbon shortly after that damned the Work of Guymenius in the 11th of May the same year and that in the latter end of Iune so shortly following in the same year the same Pope Alexander the 7th damned that very Sorbon Censure of Guymenius and that therefore 't is possible the great Scene of Vertue appearing in this Popes said Decree may with a short turn of Apostolical Power receive too the Fate of Pageantry and presently disappear and that the great Mountain which his Faith hath removed into the midst of the Sea may in little more than the twinkling of an Eye return to its old place But in Answer to which I shall do that right to the Papacy to clear the mistake in the objection and inform the Reader that tho Alexander the 7th did Ex Cathedra damn that Sorbon-Censure as aforesaid yet it appears out of the Condemnatory Bull it self that what that Pope there did was not out of favour to Guymenius or the Iesuites themselves or their Tenets and that to satisfie the World in that point he there gives the reason for his damning the Sorbonists Censure namely because it intermedled in Censuring some other Propositions or Principles of the Jesuites that concerned the Authority of the Pope the Iurisdiction of Bishops the Office of the Parish Priests and the Privileges granted by Popes and but for the Sorbons complicating which with their Censure of the other Scandalous Principles of the Iesuites no doubt but the Sorbon Censure had stood as a Rock unshaken Let therefore such who fear every thing fear that this great Pope will after his said Condemnatory Decree appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-Condemned while I observe it for the honour of his Iustice that he made that Decree and for the honour of his Prudence that before Nature had caused the detestable Principles therein censured silently to evaporate he gave the World this loud warming of them as it likewise may be for the honour of that great Seminary of the Divines of our Church of England our University of Oxford observed that before the Seditious Principles and Tenets of Iesuites and some Dissenters came to be naturally exterminated out of the English World by fear and shame they notified them to this Age and to Posterity There is no Subject that hath since the year 1641 more employed the English Press than that of Liberty of Conscience pro and con and the fiercest and sharpest of the Writings concerning it were what passed between the Independents and Presbyterians on the occasion of Presbytery's great Effort to make the English Nation by one short general turn Proselyted to its Model and when it pushed for the auspicious fate of former great Religionary Conversions happening as it were simul and semel and when Nations seemed to be like the Hyena which having but one Back-bone cannot turn except it turn all at once But the Independents observing the Kingdom and Presbytery frowning on one another thought they could do nothing more popular than to take the Arguments they found in the many Pamphlets of the Presbyterians lying on every Stall for toleration under the old Hierarchy and turn them upon Presbytery and every one then who had fears and jealousies of the Arbitrariness of Presbytery seem'd to be a well wisher to those Books for Liberty of Conscience and the destroying of the Credit of Presbytery by Books that had so much contentious fire in them was really an acceptable sweet-smelling Sacrifice to the Nation And after the King's Restoration tho some few Books were writ of that Subject and with much more Candour than the others yet the Yoke of the King 's Ecclesiastical Laws was so easie to the People as that the Writing of Books against it was not encouraged by Popular Applause The King's Declaration of Indulgence afterward appearing and as not gained by dint of Pen but ex mero motu was applauded by some few particular Writers among the Popish and Protestant Recusants discoursing in Print at their ease of Liberty of Conscience But as if Nature meant that Books of that Subject should no more here divert the curious World the Empire toleration had thereby gained did presently labour under its own weight and the Non-Conformists being jealous of that Declaration proving a President of the Prerogatives suspending Acts of Parliament in general and suspecting that the Popish Recusants would have the better of that Game as supposed to have many great Court-Cards here and abroad in the World and likely to have more while the Protestant Recusants had not so good in their hands tho yet they had here what amounted to the point in Picquet I mean the advantage of their Numbers did presently thereupon cause all the Cards to be thrown up but first had in Concert with the dealers provided for the packing them to their own advantage in a new Deal In plain English some Loyal Persons and firm Adherents to the Church of England in the House of Commons thinking that Declaration illegal and whether justly or no I here presume not in the least to question endeavoured tanquam pro aris focis to get that Declaration Cancell'd and knowing they could not effect the same without the help of the Dissenters Party in Parliament engaged their help therein by giving them hopes to carry an Act of Parliament for their Indulgence but what a little fore-sight would have made appear to them impossible to be gained for many Considerations too obvious to be named And the natural result of this Fact which is on all hands confessedly true cannot but be the making of the former fashion of Polemical writing for liberty of Conscience to pass away We have since seen some few Florid Sheets published by some of the Dissenting Clergy on that Subject but they have made no other Figure then that of the poor Resemblances of Flowers extracted by Chimical Art out of their Ashes and any little shaking them in the Glass of Time must make them presently fall in pieces I have in this Discourse expressly owned my having no regret against any due or Legal Relaxation of the Penal Laws against Recusants but what any due or legal way may be therein I enquire not The power of the King in dispensing with the Penalties in case of particular Persons was not that I hear of in the least Controverted in the Debates of the Commons about that Declaration And Fuller in his Church History relateth that when Bishop Williams was Lord-Keeper there was a Toleration granted under the Great Seal to Mr. Iohn Cotton a Famous Independent Divine for the free exercise of his Ministry notwithstanding his dissenting in Ceremonies so long as done without disturbance to the Church and the lawfulness of which particular Indulgence I suppose none in that Age controverted as I think none would any thing of that kind in this
But if this Question of Toleration had not here been at the end of its Race and if no such thing had happened as the Declaration of Indulgence and Dissenters thereby manumitted from Penal Laws saying Soul take thy ease and presently Acting the Part of felo de se by effecting the Cancelling of that Declaration and if the Controversy were now to begin to start forward I account it would cause but a very short fermentation among us For no Books need be writ to prove the lawfulness of what an Act of Parliament hath permitted to every private Family and to a certain number of other persons to participate therein with them And if Dissentership would now call for more Toleration it s very being called on to name its Tenets in order â—o the security of the Government in granting it to more persons to assemble together in enjoying it it s very naming them would I believe soon perimere litem in the Case and some of its Tenets would perhaps appear too little and others too great to require the formality of Debate It is even ridiculous to suppose that any Iesuites and Dissenters would now dare to demand Toleration for the Principles of the Crown-Divinity of each mentioned in the Oxford Censure None of them would now dare to be Confessors of Religionary Principles that would make Kings Martyrs And as I think that the Pope needed not crave Aid from his Vatican nor the Oxford-Convocation from their Bodleian Library to confute monstrous Tenets Condemned by either for in this Case according to the words of Tertullian advers Valent. Demonstrare solummodo destruere est so I likewise think that both Popish and Protestant Recusants will be ashamed to crave Aid of Toleration from the Magistracy for Principles they are ashamed to own or indeed for any but what they shall first own and the rather when our Protestants shall recollect with what vigorous Expedition the great Owners of that Name in Germany published their Religionary Confessions as Alsted tells us in his Chronâ—logia testium veritatis where he makes mention of the Augustan Confession tendred to Charles the 5th and the States of the Empire in the year 1530 and of the Confessio Suevica in the same year and of the Confessio Basileensis in the next year and of the Confessio Helvetica in the year 1556 and of all the other great Protestant Confessions exhibited severally to the World before the year 1573. Such of our Dissenters therefore who have to this year 1684 made it their business to be Anti-Confessors by hiding many of the particularities of their Principles and giving the World cause perhaps to say Difficilius est invenâ—re quà m vincere and who yet assume the name of Protestancy will perhaps hardly think it possible for them to gain Toleration for their further being called by that Name without shewing the Title of their Principles to it As on the account of what I have said it would be a Persecution to the World for the most ingenious men to trouble it with Discourses of the lawfulness of Toleration so it would too be to trouble it with Discourses of the unlawfulness of denying Toleration to men who either deny their Principles or deny to give an account of them a duty that can plead as clear a jus Divinum for it self as any Form of Church Government and by Vertue of which Christians are to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks them a reason of the hope that is in them with meekness and reverence There are some Principles to which it is by all agreed that 't is unlawful to give Toleration namely to those that disturb Civil Society nor would it appear otherwise than ridiculous to the hoodwink't sober Party of any Sect that when the Magistrates reprove them in those words of our Saviour yee worship yee know not what the Magistrates by tolerating them at that time should give cause to others to tell them yee tolerate yee know not what I have observed it in the Course of my reading that there is one great point of Religion on which the hinge of Loyalty doth very much turn that several Eminent Papists and Non-Conformists have not dared to speak their plain agreed sense of and as to which it may therefore seem very rational that they should and that is How far the Civil Laws of Princes or the Municipal Laws do bind the Conscience a Point that the Council of Trent could not be brought to Define and herein 't is obvious to consider that tho 't is on all hands granted that in any thing contrary to the Divine Law natural and positive those Laws do not bind the Conscience and that the jus Divinum of the Papacy Presbytery or Independency would not be caught with a why not on the holding the Question in the Affirmative that Humane Laws do bind the Conscience in things not contrary to the Law Divine yet are the Adherents to those Religionary Models conscious to themselves that in many particulars necessary to bring them into practice there must be a Sanction of thâ—m by Penal Municipal Laws and they hoping to have the Magistracy and its Power on their side and to Act in Concert with them according to that Saying of the Emperor to his Bishop Iungamus gladios and knowing that the Authority of the Magistrate to support both Religion and Loyalty and for the Custody of 〈◊〉 Tables hath as clear a jus Divinum as their Plat-forms can have and that therefore the Civil Power 〈◊〉 not let its jure-Divinity be taken too by any with a why not as it would be if the Question were held wholy in the Negative they have in their Writings been generaly obscure and short in that point and have hoped by their power and interest to keep the World from calling on them to explain But I have in my occasional Converse with some of the most learned of the Non-Conforming Clergy observed them in Discourse to speak out their minds plainly and Categorically enough that Humane Laws do not bind the Conscience and to account it an absurd thing to make any Penal Law bind the Conscience even in matters purely Civil and wherein there is no pretence of any things enjoyned concerning the Worship of God and yet where the things under Penalties enjoyned are of great importance to the State. The men of somewhat hot rather then distinguishing heads tho they know that Humane Laws are necessarily Penal and tho they believe that Oeconomics do best subsist by their Wives and Children and Servants being bound to observe those their lawful Commands by the Tye of Religion that they intended should be effectually obeyed have not considered that Politicks would likewise thereby be best preserved nor learned to distinguish the Penal Laws where the Magistrate intended to oblige the Subject in point of Fault and where only in point of the Penalty but our clear-headed and loyal hearted Sanderson who may
Antiochus or the Primitive Christians did under a Nero Domitian Dioclesian Maximinian or Julian and yet you see no end of this fury c. I would ask any Loyal Roman Catholick if a Clergy that could console such Lachrymists and preach Loyalty to them was not then necessary And I am sure he will say it was for that the Doctrine preached by the Author of that Book appeareth thus in the Contents of the Chapters after the end of that Epistle viz. Regal Power proceeds immediately from the Peoples Election and Donation c. By the Spiritual Power which Christ gave the Pope in his Predecessor St. Peter he may dispose of Temporal Things and even of Kingdoms for the good of the Church and the many Republican and Seditious Assertions in that Book are such that any Asserters thereof would in the judgment of our Loyal Populace be thought to merit what the Iews or Primitive Christians suffered as aforesaid And that no man dares now partly so fear of the Popular displeasure and being thought absurd say that the English Monarchy is otherwise than from God and not from Mens Election just as for fear of the People the chief Priests and Scribes and Elders durst not say that the baptism of Iohn was not from Heaven but of men is most eminently to be attributed to the late Loyal Sermons made expressly of Loyalty by the Divines of the Church of England But that I may draw toward an end of this long INTRODVCTION or PREFACE wherein yet if I have happened to acquaint any Reader with any valuable point of Truth it will be the same thing to him as the payment of a Bill of Exchange in the Portico or in the House I am necessarily to say that by the inadvertence of an Amanuensis employed in writing somewhat of this Discourse for the Press there happened to be several mistakes of words and names and one of them I shall mention here and not trust to its being regarded among the Errata viz. that whereas 't is said in p. 39 that Creswel a Iesuite writ for King Iames his Succession when Parsons writ against it it should have been said that Chricton a Iesuite then did so and so the latter part of the Volume of the Mystery of Iesuitism relates it and any indifferent man would think that Chricton writ not in earnest and that his Book appeared not on the Stage of the World but only to go off it since so necessary a Counterpoyson to Parsons his Book could never yet be heard of in any Library Some little Omissions and Errors about Letters and Pointing easily appearing by their grossness are not put into the Errata and some the Reader will find amended with the Pen. Moreover I am to Apologize for the carelesness of the Style and to acquaint the Reader that the Rule of any ones writing in any thing that is called a Letter being the way of the same Persons speaking I do thereby justify the freedom I have taken in not polishing any Notions or delivering them out with the care employed on curious Pictures and that require twice or thrice sitting and in using that colouring of words and such bold careless Touches as are to be used in the finishing up any piece at once and which the Nature of Discourse necessarily implies and in sometimes using significant expressions in this or the other Language for any thing as I do in my common Conversation with those who understand those Languages and by the same Rule I have exempted my self from the trouble of that nice weighing of things as well as of words that a Professed History or Discourse otherwise then in the way of a Letter would have required and the same excuse may serve for the Style of this Preface If the Date of this Discourse had not at the writing of the first Sheet been there inserted a later one had been assigned it but I thought it not â—â—nti on the occasion thereof to have that Sheet reprinted I hope to be able in my Review to gratifie the Readers Curiosity with somewhat more of satisfaction as to the Monastic Revenue and which in p. 92 I mentioned as not adequate to the maintenance of 50000 Regulars by my not considering how plentifully it was supported by Oblations of various kinds and other ways not necessary to be here enumerated In p. 1. I say I think it was St. Austin who said Credo quia impossibile est and have since thought it was Tertullian I care not who said it as long as I did not I have in p. 13 mentioned the Order of Iesuites as invented by the Pope in the year 1540 wherein I had respect to the time of its Confirmation from the Papacy and not of its founding by Ignatius There are other omissions and faults in the Press that the Reader is referred to the Errata for without his consulting which I am not accountable for them I am farther to say that there is one thing in this Preface that I need not apologize for and wherein I have done an Act of common Justice namely in Celebrating the Heroical Vertue and Morality of this present Pope that were signalized as I have mentioned Almighty God can make the Chair of Pestilence convey health to the World and can preserve any Person in it from its mortal Contagion But the truth is I was the more concerned to do the Pope the right I have done because I observed that after that Credit of the Popish Plot began to die that depended on the Credit of the Witnesses several Persons attempted to put new Life into it by their renewed impotent Calumnies cast on the Character of the Pope and as appeared by a bound 8 o printed in the year 1683 called The Devils Patriarch or a full and impartial Account of the Notorious Life of this present Pope of Rome Innocent the 11th c. Written by an EMINENT Pen to revive the remembrance of the aâ—most forgotten PLOT against the life of his Sacred Majesty and the Protestant Religion What AVTHOR was meant by that EMINENT PEN I know not in the least The Preface to the Reader concludes with the Letters of T. O. The vain Author having throughout his Book ridiculously accused the Pope of immorality and scandal and of being a friend to Indulgences and of favouring the loose Principles of the Iesuites and of contriving the Popish Plot and carrying it on in concert with the Iesuites concludes by saying in p. 133. This Pope had great hopes of re-entry into England by his hopeful Plot hereupon Cottington 's bones were brought to be buried here c. It was high time then for People to be weary of the Martyrocracy when the Plot came to be staruminated by Cottington's bones and the pretended immorality of so great an Example of severe Vertue as this Pope and when the belief of the Testimony against some men as Popish Ruffians was endeavoured to be supported by the Childish Artifice of
making a Ruffian of the Pope himself But indeed long before the Edition of that trifling Book many things had occurred so far to shake the testimony of the Witnesses as that it grew generally the Concordant voice of the Populace that on a supposal of several of the same Persons being again alive to be tryed on the Testimony of the same Witnesses before the same Judges it would not have prejudiced a hair of the heads that were destroyed by it and particularly in the unfortunate Lord Stafford's Case I have in two or three places of this Discourse speaking of the Papal Hierarchy called it Holy Church its old known term and by which I meant no reflection of scorn nor would I laugh at any Principle of Religion found among any Heterodox Religionaries that the dying groans of the holy Iesus purchased them a liberty to profess But 't is no Raillery to say that the Artifices of any dis-loyal Popish and Protestant Recusants that have so long made Templum Domini usurp on the Lord of the Temple and his Vice Gerents that is Kings and Princes will support no Church and that as it hath been observed of some Free Stones that when they are laid in a Building in that proper posture which they had naturally in their Quarries they grow very hard and durable and if that be changed they moulder away in a short time a long duration may likewise be predicted to the Arts and Principles of reason applied to support a Church as they lay in the Quarry of Nature and where the God of Nature laid them for the support of Princes and their People and è contrà In fine therefore since the Principles of the Church of England are thus laid in it as they were in that Quarry none need fear that they will be defaced by time or that a lawful Prince of any Religion here will accost it otherwise than with those words of the Royal Psalmist viz. Peace be within thy Walls and Prosperity within thy Palaces AN INDEX Of some of the Principal Matters Contained in the following DISCOURSE IN ALETTER TO THE Earl of ANGLESY HIS Lordship is vindicated from mis-reports of being a Papist and an account given of his Birth and Education and time spent in the University and Inns of Court and afterward in his Travels abroad Page 1 2 3. An account of his first eminent publick employment as Governor of Ulster by Authority under the Great Seal of England p. 4. An account of his successful Negotiation with the then Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the Surrender of Dublin and all other Garrisons under his Command into the Parliaments hands p. 5. An account of his being a Member of the House of Commons in England and of the great Figure he afterward made in the King's Restoration ib. Reflections on the Popular Envy against the Power of a Primier Ministre ib. and p. 6 7 8. Remarks on the Saying applied in a Speech of one of the House of Commons against the Earl of Strafford viz. That Beasts of Prey are to have no Law ib. Reflections on the rigour and injustice of the House of Commons in their Proceedings against the Earl of Strafford p 9. The Usurpers declared that tho they judged the Rebellion in Ireland almost national that it was not their intention to extirpate the whole Irish Nation p. 10. The Author owneth his having observed the Piety and Charity of several Papists p. 11. The Author supposeth that since all Religions have a Priesthood that some Priests were allowed by the Vsurpers to the transplanted Irish p. 13. An account of the Privileges the Papists enjoyed in Ireland before the beginning of the Rebellion there and of the favour they enjoyed in England before the Gun-powder Treason p. 14. Observations on the Pope's Decree March the 2d 1679. Condemning some opinions of the Jesuites and other Casuists in Pages 15 41 50 51 52 53 201. The great goodness of the Earl of Anglesy's nature observed and particularly his often running hazard to save those who were sinking in the favour of the Court p. 16. The Authors observation of the effects of the hot Statutes against Popery and Papists in Queen Elizabeth 's and King Iames his time shortly ceasing ib. The Authors Iudgment that a perfect hatred to Popery may consist with a perfect love to Papists p. 19. He expresseth his having no regret against any due relaxation of any Penal Laws against Popish Recusants p. 20. An account of the Earl of Anglesy and others of the Long Parliament crushing the Jure-Divinity of Presbytery in the Egg p. 29 30. The out-rage of the Scots Presbyterian Government observed p. 29 The People of England did hate and scorn its Yoke in the time of our late Civil Wars ib. Remarks concerning infamous Witnesses and their credibility after Pardon of Perjury or after Crimes and Infamy incurred p. 33 34 35. at large and p. 204 205. The incredibility of the things sworn in an Affidavit by such a Witness against his Lordship p. 35 36. The Principle in Guymenius p. 190. Ex tractatu de justitiâ jure censured viz. licitum est Clerico vel Religioso calumniatorem gravia crimina de se vel de suâ Religione spargere minantem occidere c. p. 37. Cardinal D' Ossats Letters very falsly and ridicâ—lously cited by an English Priest of the Church of Rome for relating that the Gunpowder Treason Plot was a sham of Cecils contrivance p 38. Father Parsons one of the greatest Men the Jesuites Order hath produced p. 40. D' Ossat in his Letters observed to have given a more perfect Scheme of the whole design to hinder King Iames his Succession then all other Writers have done ib. Observations on the Author of the Catholick Apology with a reply c speaking of his not believing that Doleman's Book of the Succession was writ by Father Parsons and that Parsons at his death denied that he was the Author of it and on Cardinal D' Ossat in his Letters averring that Parsons was Reverâ the Author of it and that Parsons made application to him in order to the defeating King James his Succession unless he would turn Catholick p. 41. D' Ossat's observing that Parsons in that Book doth often and grossly contradict himself ib. D' Ossat's commending our English Understandings for so soon receiving King Jame and so peaceably after the death of Queen Elizabeth ib. The Author grants that Papists may be sound parts of the State here as they are by Sir William Temple in his Book observed to be in Holland p. 44. The vanity of some Papists designing to raise their Interest by Calumny and Shamm ib. The Pope's said Decree of the 2d of March accuseth the Jesuites and other Casuists of making Calumny a Venial sin p. 45. The nature of a Venial sin explained ib. The Jesuites Moral Divinity patronizing Calumny is likely to be fatal to their Order p. 47. 49. The
Author's opinion that they can never recover the wounds given them by the publication of the les Provinciales c. ib. and that much less those given them by the Popes said Decree p. 50 51. Observations on that Notion of Moasieur Descartes and Mr. Hobbs That the faculties of the mind are equally dispensed and on the natural effects of that Notion p. 58. The Author remarks some Shamms and Calumnies used by some Protestants and their contending with Papists therein p. 59. An Antidote mentioned for Papists and Protestants to carry about with them in this Pestilential time of Shamms ib. A vile Shamm or Calumny used against Papists as if they intended to burn the Town of Stafford and other great Towns is referred to in one of Janeway's printed Intelligences p. 60. Animadversions on Parsons his Book of the Succession p. 60 61. 'T is for the honour of the Roman Catholick Religion observed that Harry the 4th of France after he turned Papist continued kind and just to his Protestant Subjects notwithstanding the Popes endeavours to the contrary p. 62. The Authors grand Assertion viz. That whatever alterations time can cause yet humanly speaking while the English Nation remains entire and defended from Foreign Conquest the Protestant Religion can never be exterminated out of this Kingdom p. 64. Mr. Hooker's Propliecy of the hazard of Religion and the service of God in England being an ill State after the Year 1677 p. 65. The defections of the ten Tribes from the time of David punished by a Succession of 10 ill Kings p. 66. The words in Hosea I gave thee a King in mine anger falsly made by Antimonarchical Scriblers to refer to Saul ib. Dr. Stillingfleet's Sermon cited about the uncertainty of what the fermentations among us may end in ib. Dr. Sprat's opinion cited That whatever vicissitude shall happen about Religion in our time will neither be to the advantage of Implicit Faith or Enthusiasm p. 67. Historical Oâ—servations relating to the Papacy from p. 67 to p. 77. The Papal Power formerly pernicious to the external Polity and Grandeur of England p. 77 78. Queen Elizabeth said by Townsend to have spent a Million of Money in her Wars with Spain and laid out 100000 l. to support the King of France and 150000 l. in defence of the Low Country and to have discharged a Debt of 4 Millions She found the Crown indebted in ib. How by her Alliances She laid the Foundation of the vast ensuing Trade of England whose over-balance brought in afterward so much Silver to be Coyn'd in the Tower of London p. 78. The Sums Coyn'd there from the 41 st year of her Reign to May 1657 ib. England alone till the Peace of Munster in the year 1648 enjoyed almost the whole Manufacture and best part of the Trade of Europe by virtue of her Alliances ib. The same Month of January in the year 48 produced the signing of that Peace and the Martyrdom of the best of Kings and the fatal diminution of our Trade ib. Queen Elizabeth had what praemium of Taxes from Parliaments She pleased ib. King James told the Parliament Anno 1620 that She had one year with another 100,000 l. in Subsidies and that he had in all his time but 4 Subsidies and 6 Fifteenths and that his Parliament had not given him any thing for 8 or 9 years ib. In Harry the 3 d's time the Pope's Revenue in England was greater than the Kings and in 3 years time the Pope extorted more Money from England than was left remaining in it ib. In Edward the 3 d's time the Taxes paâ—d to the Pope for Ecclesiastical Dignities amounted to five times as much as the People payed to the King p. 79. By a Balance of Trade then in the Exchecquer it appeared that the Sum of the over-plus of the Exports above the Imports amounted to 255214 l. 13 s. 8d ib. Wolsey's Revenue generally held equal to Harry the 8 th's ib. Why the Pope never sent Emissaries to Denmark and Sweden and some other Northern Countries for Money and why probably in no course of time that can happen he will send any to England on that Errand ib. and p. 80. In the 4 th year of Richard the 2 d the Clergy confessed they had a 3 d part of the Revenue of the Kingdom and therefore then consented to pay a 3 d of the Taxes ib. Bishop Sanderson mentions the Monastick Revenue to be half the Revenue of the Kingdom ib. The not providing for the augmentations of the poorer livings in England observed to be a Scandal to the Reformation p. 81. Of 8000 and odd Parish Churches in Queen Elizabeth's time but 600 were observed to afford a competent maintenance to a Minister and four thousand five hundred Livings then not worth above 10 l. a year in the Kings Books ib. During the late Vsurpation the Impropriate Tithes saved the other ib. A Million of Pounds Sterling commonly observed to accrue to the Popes per Annum from Indulgencies p. 87. An account of the Compact between some of the most eminent Presbyterian Divines and the long Parliament by which the Parliament was obliged to settle on the Ministry all the Church Lands and those Divines engaged to promote the Parliaments Cause and of the result thereof p. 88. Observations on the Calculations of the Monastick Revenue made in the year 1527 by Mr. Simon Fish in his Book called The supplication of Beggars and which Calculations were much valued by Harry the 8 th p. 90 91. Not only none of our Monkish Historians but even of our polished and ingenious ones made any Estimates of the Numbers of the People in the times they writ of ib. A Calculation of the Number of Religious Persons or Regulars in England at the time of the Dissolution of Monasteries p. 92. A Calculation of the Numbers of Seculars as well as Regulars that then lived in Celebacy ib. The Author's Calculation of the Number of the Levites and of their Quota of the Profits of the Land p. 93. A Calculation of the Ebb of the Coynage of England from May 1657 to November 1675 p. 102. A particular Account of Cromwel the Vsurpers depressing the Trade of the European World p. 103. The Kings of Spain impose Pensions on Ecclesâ—astical Preferments to the 4th part of the value p. 104. The proportion of Papists and Non-Papists by the Bishops Survey in the Year 1676 is 150 Non-Papists for one Papist ib. The People in the Province of Holland reckoned to be 2 Millions 4 hundred thousand ib. The People in Flanders in the Year 1622 reckoned to be 700,000 p. 105. Amsterdam in the Year 1650 reckoned to have in it 300000 Souls ib. An Account of what the Inhabitants of Holland in the Year 1664 did over and above the Customs and other Demesnes of the Earls and States of Holland pay toward the publick Charge namely to the States of Holland to the Admiralty of the Maze to the Admiralty of
part of its Patrimony Queen Elizabeth alienated to secure the Protestant Religion ib. The fears of Popery further Censured p. 198. Ridly and Latimer Prophesied at the Stake that Protestancy would never be extinguished in England p. 198. Roger Holland prophesied at the Stake at Smithfield that he should be the last that should there suffer Martyrdom ib. Observations on the Natural Prophesying of dying men and its effects p. 199. The Vanity of Mens troubling the World by Suppositions ib. and p. 200. 'T is a degree of madness to trouble it by putting wanton impossible cases p. 200. The Author without any thing of the Fire of Prophecy and only by the light of reason presageth that the excessive fear of Popery as weâ—l as its danger will here be exterminated ib. The justice of the Claim of King Charles the first to the Title of Martyr asserted p. 201 202 203. The Author judgeth that some vile Nominal Protestants by the publication of many Seditious Pamphlets have given the Government a just Alarm of their designs against it p. 203. Of Papists and Protestants being Antagonists in Shamms p. 204. Mr. Nye cited for representing the Dissenters acted by the Jesuites in thinking it unlawful to hear the Sermons of the Divines of the Church of England p. 204. False Witnesses among the Jews allowed against false Prophets p. 205. The Earl of Anglesy's Courage and Iustice asserted in the professing in the House of Lords his disbelief of such an Irish Plot as was sworn by the Witnesses tho the belief of the reallity of such a Plot had obtained the Vote of every one else in both Houses ib. Above 2000 Irish Papists in the Barony of Enishoan demean'd themselves civilly to the English during the whole Course of the Rebellion ib. Several eminent ingenious Papists in England and Foreign parts celebrated for their avowed Candour to Protestants p. 206 207 208 c. D' Ossat's acquainting the Pope That if his Holyness were King of France he would show the same kindness to the Huguenots that Harry the 4th did p. 208. Cromwel being necessitated to keep the Interest of the Kingdom divided was likewise necessitated to keep up all Religions according to the Politicks of Julian p. 211. Of the Papists calling King James Julian ib. The Author inveigheth against the Calumny of any Protestants who call any one Apostate for the alteration of his Iudgment in some controvertible points of Faith between Papists and Protestants ib. The Author's Reason why 't is foolish to fear that any Rightful Prince of the Roman Catholick perswasion that can come here will follow the Politicks of Julian ib. 'T is shewn that any Protestant Vsurper here must act à la Julian ib. The Vsurper Cromwel shewn to be a Fautor of Priests and Jesuites by the Attestations of Mr. Prynn and the Lord Hollis p. 212 213. The danger of Popery that would have ensued Lambert's Vsurpation p. 213 214. How true soever any Vsurpers Religion is he must be false to the Interest of the Kingdom p. 214. Observed that the Kings long Parliament by the Act for the Test did enjoyn the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to be taken ib. Those Oaths lay on the Takers an Obligation to the Kings Heirs and Successors without any distinction of the Religion true or pretended of such Heirs and Successors ib. Mr. Prynn's Book called Concordia discors printed Anno 1659 to prove the Obligation by those Oâ—hs to the King's Heirs and Successors commended ib. The Author mentions the Reasons that induced him to write Casuistically concerning such Obligation and promiseth to send that his Writing to his Lordship ib. The Author judgeth that he ought not to be severe to any Papist before he hath a Moral certainty of such Papists having imbibed any of the Principles imputable to Pâ—pery that is unmoral or inhumane ib. The Author observes that few or no Writers of the Church of Rome have lately thought fit by their Pens to assert the Inheritable Right of Princes without respect to any Religionary Tenets they may hold p. 215. The Author thinks that for a Protestant at this time to write for the devesting any Roman Catholick Prince of his Property and Right of Succession when few or no Writers of the Church of Rome either do or dare for fear of offending the Pope employ their Pens for the preservation of such his property and right without respect to to any Religionary Tenets he may hold is like drawing against a naked man ib. D' Ossat affirms That the Pope and the whole Court of Rome hold it lawful to deprive a Prince of any Country to preserve it from Heresie ib. An Animadversion on a late Pamphlet concerning the Succession ib. Reflections on the House of Commons Proceedings in the Exclusion Bill ib. and p. 216. The Author gives an explanatory account of the tempus acceptabile he in p. 25 mentions p. 216. His Majesty's constant contending for the Protestant Faith celebrated and likewise his Iustice in preserving the property of the Succession in the Legal Course by all his Messages to the Parliament p. 217. The unhappy State of that Prince who shall for fear of the Populace do any Act of the Iustice whereof he doubts and much more of the injustice whereof he is fully convinced p. 217. at large The Caution to the Angel of the Church of Philadelphia applied to such a Prince viz. Hold fast that which thou hast that no man take away thy Crown ib. at large 'T is not only Popery but Atheism in Masquerade to do an unjust Act to support Religion p. 218. King James disavowed the Act of his Son-in Laws accepting the Title of King of Bohemia ib. An Observation that in the Common-Prayer in King Charles the 1 sts time relating to the Royal Family the Prayer runneth for Frederick Prince Palatâ—ine Elector of the Rhine and the Lady Elizabeth his Wife ib. The Author observes that in the Assembly's Directory the Lady Elizabeth is styled Queen of Bohemia p. 219. An Account of the Governments avowed sence in King James's time that any of the Princes of England ought not by becoming Roman Catholick to be prejudiced in their Right of Succession to the Crown ib. The same sense of the Government in the time of King Charles the 1 st ib. The Parliament during the Civil War projected not any prejudice to the right of Succession on the account of any Religionary Tenets p. 220. Mention of somewhat more to confirm the claim of King Charles the 1 st to the Title of Martyr beside his Adhesion to Episcopacy and its Revenue ib. An account of the Protestation of the Nonconforming Ministers in the year 1605 relating to the King's Supremacy wherein they assert the Royal Authority inseparably fixt to the true Line whatever Religion any Prince thereof may profess p. 221. The Author peâ—stringeth the Protestant would be 's and new Statists of the Age that would for Religionary Tenets barr any of the
is for Arbitrary Power they will say a Papist And in cases where the people do not think fit to begin with Execution Common Fame goes for proof against such a Minister and the political whispers of other Great Men who inspire them goe for demonstrations and they think knocking down Arbitrary Power with Arbitrary proof is a good baculiâ—um argumentum ad hominem or rather a Monster of power for as such they look on one of the People who is so by the head higher then themselves I know none to have observed the constitution and customes of the Government of Venice better then your Lordship and there any one that is but Arbitrarily affected as our term is here Popishly affected is taken volly before he comes to the ground or at furthest at his first rebound and his head made a Tennis Ball before he comes to be bandi'd among the people I mean he is first Sumonarily dispatcht or made away and his plenary process is dispatcht or made up afterward Your Lordship hath in the course of your travels been there in person but my eyes have only beheld it as a traveller in Mapps and Authors one of whom namely Boccaline in his Raggnagli di Parnasse Speaking of Venice saith that the dreadful Tribunal of the Councel of ten and the Supream Magistracy of the State-Inquisition could with three ballotting balls easily bury alive any Caesar or Pompey who began to discover himself in that well governed State. And according to the Lawes of that Country any aspirer of the first rate so sunk by the shot of the ballotting balls may be said to be kill'd very fairly though there was no more Citation in the case then in that of the Martyrdom of Sir Edmond Godfrey who yet according to the principles of the Canon Law was likewise killed very fairly I here allude to the Style of the brothers of the blade who when sworn at a Tryal about one murthered in a Duel usually depose that he was killed very fairly And indeed I have by a Neighbour of mine who is a Civilian been shewn it in a Civil Law Book called the Second Tome of the Common Opinions in folio Book 9. p. 462. Printed at Lions that Rebellis impunè occidi possit tunc demum probari declarari quod erat rebellis And the Canonists do as I am informed by him all agree that valet argumentum à crimine laesae Majestatis seâ— rebellionis ad heresim and with good reason according to the Popish hypothesis for that he that is a heretic is a Rebell or Traytor to the Pope and therefore a Heretic by that Law may be destroyed before his Process is made But the Kings of England like those of Israel are merciful Kings and in the Laws of England Iustice and Mercy are still saluting each other and with as much kindness as they can possibly shew without embracing each other to death and the meanest Commoners Life in England becomes not a forfeit to the Law but after a Tryal by his equals and in this our Law agrees with that gentleness and equity inculcated by Grotius de Iure Belli Pacis Book 3. Chap. 14. Temperamentum circa captos § 3. where he saith Cato Censorius narrante Plutarcho si quis servus Capital admisisse videretur de eo supplicium non sumebat nisi postquam damnatus esset etiam Conservorum judicio Quicum conferenda verba Iob. 31. 13. I must confess I was very much shock't with one expression used in a long Speech by one of the managers of the House of Commons in the Trial of the Earl of Strafford wherein the saying That Beasts of Prey are to have no Law was applyed to the Earl. I am sure that Wolfs and Boars are Beasts of the Forrest as well as Harts and Hinds and in the Kings Forrests where they are in his protection they are to have Law and so likewise Foxes To this Metaphor of hunting of men in Parliament there is an allusion in the printed Letter of Mr. Alured in Rushworths Collections 4 o. Caroli where 't is said That Sir Edward Cooke in the House protested that the Author and cause of all their miseries was the Duke of Buckingham which was entertain'd and answered with a cheerful acclamation of the House as when one good Hound recovers the scent the rest come in with a full cry So they pursued it and every one came on home and layed the blame where they thought the fault was But yet by this saying of Alured it seems they thought they were to give him Law and 't is a brutish thing to suppose that wild predatory Beasts have in the Kings Forrests more protection and more exemption from being arbitrarily hunted down than his Liege people to whom he is sworn have in the whole Realm in general and in his Courts of Justice in particular That time seemed not so much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But your Lordships knowledg in the Laws of the Land and in the Laws of Nations is so universal and profound that you can come to no Court in the World but will either find Law there or bring it and your great knowledg of the Parliamentary Transactions in all past Ages cannot but secure you against any apprehensions of not finding Law. For it hath been rarely seen that a House of Commons has gone to hunt any man down tho with the Law that was not a Nimrod a Mighty hunter of our Laws themselves and never was the House of Peers thought a Court of Rigor and Cruelty and as the Tribunal of Cassius was for its dire severity called Scopulus Reorum In the end of the famous Tryal of the Earl of Strafford the House of Commons foresaw that the Lords would acquit him and therefore they broke up the Judicial prosecution against him and proceeded by Bill of Attainder and shortly after broke in pieces on his Grave the Rule and Standard of Treason they proceeded by as Heralds break their Staffs at the Funerals of Illustrious Persons and cast them into their Tombes Had I been one of that Lords Judges I should have consented that after he had been hunted so long by the Prosecution for Treason and was not Judicially convicted of it he should have had the priviledg of a Hart-Royal proclaimed of which Manwood in his Forrest Law speaking saith That if the King doth hunt a Stag he is called a Hart-Royal and that if he doth hunt a Hart in the Forrest which by chacing is driven out and the King gives him over as either being weary or for that he cannot recover him then because such a Hart hath shewn the King pastime and is also Cervus eximius and that therefore the King would have him preserved he causeth Proclamation to be made in the adjacent Villages that none shall kill hunt hurt or chace him and hinder him from his return to the Forrest and ever after such a Hart is called a Hart-Royal proclaimed But
innocency which yet perhaps may be necessary to be done for the use of those who know you not hereafter when the heat of the day and your Services in this critical juncture shall be over and would now shew as meanly as if a General in the time of Battel having some dirt or dust lighting on his face should while he was among the bullets employ his barbers washballs to cleanse it and that too when the fate of the battel seems to totter and is near decision one way or other and while there is hardly room for the Quid agendum to wedge it self in and he that saith consider is almost a foe and therefore once when a great Commander had no way to save himself and his Army but by their swimming with their horses through a River to attack their Enemy he did only to that question of quid agendum put to him by his Officers suddenly eccho back the reply of agendum and with his horse took the River and while now 't is with us as on board a Ship in the time of Fight or of a Storm when they are Fighting with the Elements and the Master or Steersman orders any thing to be done the case will bear no dilatory answer of words and the answer there is Done it is I say after all this that there is a reason which in my opinion renders any mans writing unnecessary now either to the World or himself and that is this That words and Language the which formerly having the stamp of common usage and of reason on them passed as currant coine for the Signification of mens minds and as a medium of commerce are in this juncture as useless that way and of as little value as lether coine called in and this Age wherein both the word and thing called shamme hath been brought in use and shamme calls it self an answer to that great question What is wit tho with as little reason as if a lye should call it self an answer to that old great question What is truth hath inforced those that do not love to be shamm'd upon not to measure mens actions by their words but their words by their Actions And tho a mans written books are called his works yet have I observed an occasion of Sarcasme given thereby when one speaking of a particular Divines excellent writings said he loved his works but hated his actions And written works are now indeed but actings as when a man doth agree gestum in scena on the Stage of the World and for them he finds but only a Theatrical applause Nor so much as that when like the Actor crying O heavens he looks down on the Earth As he is alwaies accounted but a smatterer in knowledge who is a pedant or petty-Chapman in words so he playes but at small games in politicks who is a pedant or trader in words or who indeed will give any thing for them He who doth verba dare has bad morals and who gives any thing else for them has bad intellectuals and according to that old Monkish verse they said Res dare pro rebus pro verbis verba solemus The only real security therefore that the World hath for its quiet is mens only giving a seeming belief to seeming professions and protestations for as Ayr out of its place makes Earth-quakes so if the articulate air of mens words gets beyond my hearing into my belief it may there raise those commotions of passion that may make me trouble both my self and the World and particularly by the passion of jealousie before-mentioned on my desire where I have a kindness that it should be mutual and when positive words brought me into the fools paradise of believing it possible a thing perhaps not possible in nature that two bodies and minds whose faculties must needs be different should have an equal intenseness of love for each other no president of friendship particularly that of Ionathan and David having shewn it and in the conjugal love the passions of the weaker Sex being observed to be the strongest and that of jealousie as well as Love jealousie particularly being most potent in minds most impotent and in persons most diffident of themselves And this may in some sort console your Lordship after all your restless endeavours to merit the love of all your Countrymen if it be not exactly mutual But this by the way The great names of Protestant and Religion began to adorn each other in the year of our Lord 1529 when some of the Electors and Princes of the Empire with a protestation opposed the Decree relating to the Mass and Eucharist made at Spiers and when some of the Capital Cities of Germany joyn'd with them to protest the same thing But every one knows that a protestation is a revocable thing and that a Protestation contrary to actions revokes it self And that the word Protestant hath not been in the World as the Poets term is of calling grass green or the like otiosum epitheton I believe the Papists will grant and 't is not one Protestation made and not revoked either by words or actions that can make that term consistent with our Religion or render a man worthy to be call'd one 'T is not a good continual claim to our Religion that yet is for land we are disseis'd of that is made only once a year whilst we live No the Protestation that the Protestant Religion requires is such a continual one as is reiterated upon every fresh act and attempt of the Papal Religion against ours 't is not a going to our Cells and saying Lord have mercy upon us but 't is our watching in our Stations and our shewing no mercy to the principles of Popery that are alwaies attacking the quiet of the World either by Storm or Siege or undermining 't is like the Protestation required when the defendant hath declined a Judge that must be made toties quoties as any new Act is done by the Judge without which the first Protestation grows insignificant 't is not one Act of protesting the Popes Bills of Exchange for good money we paid him and his giving us bank-tickets upon purgatory or giving us some fantastick Saints pretended Hair or Nailes protested with so much scorn by our Popish Ancestors in Henry the 8th's time that a piece of St. Andrews finger covered with an ounce of Silver pawn'd by a Monastery for forty pound was left unredeemed at the dissolution of it which shewed that that commodity would even then yeild nothing and was a meer drug in Scotland of which Country he is call'd the Saint Protector but 't is further like a protestation against the Sea at the next Port made toties quoties goods in a Ship are damnified by its rage which the law requires the Skipper to make or else leaves answerable for the dammage And if a poor Tarpauling who must alwaies plough the Sea for his bread during life and there still contest with the angry Elements
Government admitted only to probation for three years and were no more hindered of the freedom of a Gentlemans Conversation thereby then by the Government of the foremention'd Presbyter Iohn in the East and England was then not only free from the charge of Peter-pence Legatine levys oblations contributions for the Holy Land and both charge and trouble from all the Papal Courts and Masses Anniversaries obits requiems dirges placebos Trentals lamps but from all contumacy fees in spiritual Courts and from those Courts themselves of which yet the yoke is very easie compared with either that of the Papists or Scotch Presbyters and our condition as to ecclesiastical discipline was like that time or conjuncture of liberty that Father Paul in the History of the Councel of Trent refers to speaking of the time when a certain custome prevailed saith il che come e un uso molto proprio diove si governa in liberta quale era all hora quando il mondo era senza Papa That it was a custome very proper where they governed with liberry which was when the world was without a Pope I never heard of any man that was gored with the horn of our Presbyters excommunication nor of any dissenter from them that was tyed up for them out of their horn of plenty of Church power to force a drench of Doctrine down his throat and much less of any dealt with in that way mentioned by Spotswood in his Observation that the Devil would not be feared but for his horn referring to the horning in Scotland that is the seisure of all a mans goods when the horn blew after he was excommunicated by the Presbytery There is no doubt but that some of the Divines of that persuasion were brib'd to it by an expectation of power to oppress when that the great Revenues of the Church were denied them And thus the Pope keeps his Guards in Rome only with the pay of priviledges but instead of their riding the People the Parliament rid them and with that caution as they of old did who rid on Elephants in battel which great animal being observed to be then unruely sometimes and to endanger both the riders and their camp and it being known that their receiving a Conâ—usion in one part about their head would presently dispatch them their riders had alwaies a hammer with them ready for that use on occasion He therefore that saith he loves popery better then the Government of Presbytery as it was de facto setled or rather permitted in England and when they that would have its maypole for them to dance about had it and those that would have none had none saith that he loves a fiery and tormenting furious Church-Government that would make Mount Sion to be still belching out fire like Aetna better then none at all that he loves a Hirricane better then being a while becalm'd that he loves the Church government that was like coloquintida in the pot rather then that of the Presbyter which was here but like Herb Iohn and that he fears a Mastiff who was not only hambled and whose jus divinum was lawd and whose spleen was cut out by the State Chirurgeons more then an incensed hungry Lion of Rome that he likes a Government better that at best is like a Peacock that is all Gaudery and damned Noise and nothing else except pede latro that is all Ceremony and devouring all with ceremony then a Government that with its looks can neither allure nor fright and which we could pinion as we pleased and play with till we could get a better in its Room Whether a Papist was to be loved better then a Puritan was a vex'd question in the time of Queen Elizabeth and 't was resolved then in the affirmative only by the Pensioners of Rome and their dependants The Learned Author of the Book called Certain considerations tending to promote Peace and good will among Protestants doth in p. 13. quote our famous Gataker for relating that Dr. Elmor Lord Bishop of London in Queen Elizabeths time when one in a Sermon at St. Pauls Cross inveighing against Puritans rendred them worse then Papists sharply contradicted that censure saying that the Preacher said not right therein for that the Puritans if they had me among them would only cut my rochet but the Papists would cut my throat and that his Successor Dr. Vaughan Lord Bishop of London when another in the same Pulpit too shew'd the same eagerness in representing the Puritans worse then Papists expressed the same sense with his predecessor concerning it and wished that he had had the Preachers Tongue that day in his Pocket It was it seems then the good fortune of London to be blest with Bishops renown'd for their great zeal for the Protestant Religion and with such a one it is at this time enriched and dignified I will not say Bishop of it only by divine permission but miseratione divinâ the Style I have seen of Bishops in some antient Instruments 't is out of the Divine Compassion that such an eminent Protestant City has such a Prelate Nor do I intend by the just praise paid to this great and good man to lessen the worth of others of the Fathers of our Church of which number I have the honour to be acquainted with others who endeavour the extermination of Popery with as couragious a zeal as can be wisht and no doubt but the text of Scripture in the Title of my Lord Bishop of Lincolns book namely Come out of her my People lest ye be partakers of her Sins and Plagues is by the whole Church of England lookt on as a seasonable alarm and no doubt many of this our Church who have writ with so much various learning and strong Reason against Popery know that if that ever be de facto and by law paramount the Church of England will be ipso facto crusht thereby out of all its visibility The thought of this brings that Scripture to my mind viz. Matthew 21 v. 44. and who soever shall fall on this Stone shall be broken but on whom soever it shall fall it will grind him to powder And if the Church of England by only falling super hanc Petram I mean heretofore by the Empty Project of some for the Uniting Rome to us was broken and disjointed therefore if ever it shall come under the Stone of the Roman Catholick Religion and it be thereby made possible for the Stone to fall on it the Church of Rome will then grind it to powder It s former falling on the Rock could only break it into the pieces of Presbyterian and Independent and other seperate Churches but that Rocks falling on it will not break it into pieces but grind it to powder as was said and perhaps Papists then from this place of Scripture would form as good a title by divine right to crush our Church as they did from the super hanc Petram in the 16 th of
3. dub 2. for asserting that per modum defensae ad infringendam contumeliosi authoritatem potest secundum quosdam absque lethali crimen falsum illi objici and that 't is only a venial Sin to object a false crime to an unjust witness and twenty Doctors are there mentioned for the making this a probable opinion And therefore if it be lawful for a man to make shamm-accusations where he hath only a private concern 't is meritorious to do it in the case of holy Church therefore he said very right according to the Popish hypothesis gaudeo sâ—ve per veritatem sive per occasionem Romanae ecclesiae dignitatem extolli Ioseph Stephanus de Osc. pr. in epist. ad lect Guymenius p. 190. extactatu de justitia Iure Propositio 1. Cites both Fathers Schoolmen Divines and Casuists of several orders and even holy Scripture for the asserting this proposition viz. Licitum est clerico vel religioso Calumniatorem gravia crimina de se vel de sua Religione spargere minantem occidere quando alius defendendi modus non suppetit A principle of Religion calculated only for Ballies Hectors therefore no marvel that such were observed to flock from so many parts of most Countries in England to London in and since the year 1678. like Ravens in expectation of the Carcases of Protestants and such miscreants are to the Jesuits their Triarian bands upon occasion and who in the Out skirts of London are a noysome Pestilence and not enduring nor being endured to live in the Countrey But from the said last Cited proposition of Guymenius the proposition that contained the enacting Law Sir Edmund Godfrey fell by I infer that since there is a par or proportion between a good name and life that such who account it lawful for a particular Clergy-man to Murder even a Popish Lay-man who shall but threaten to caluminate him will account it meritorious by Shammes to Murder the fames of those who shall threaten to accuse holy Church And it seems as men try experiments on Creatures they account vile they experimented both these propositions on Godfrey for after they had basely killed him they would have shammed off his blood and the guilt of it upon himself when they pierced his dead body with his own Sword a barbarous and infamous sort of cruelty and which brings to my mind what Dr. Donne in the preface to his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 referres to in the Notae Mallon in Paleot Part. 1. cap. 2. viz. that the Church in her Hymnes and Antiphones doth often salute the Nayles and Cross but the Spear which pierced Christ when he was dead it ever calles dirum mucronem And here because some of them drive an eternal trade of butchering and shamming and then in effect Stabbing their own Shamms of Plots I shall Entertain your Lordship with one egregious instance of a Priest of theirs being abandon'd to a reprobate or injudicious sence of shamming in making by a ridiculous Lye a famous Cardinal and profound States-man perhaps as the World has bred and one of singular Piety and great modesty to render the Gun-Powder-Treason a Sham Plot and thereby wounding the Fame of both the understanding and morals of their great dead Church Hero as barbarously as they did the Corps of Godfry And this instance I refer to is in a Book called The Advocate of Conscience liberty or an Apology for Toleration rightly stated and writ with Learning and Wit and Artifice enough ad faciendum populum by a Priest of Romes Church an English man and printed in the year 1673. In pag. 325. He represents the Gunpowder-Treason to be a Sham Plot contrived by Cecil and to prove this Cites D'Ossats Letters Book 2d Letter 43. And the date of that Letter was from Rome March the 29. 1596. And the date of the last Letter there is from Rome in December that year The Gunpowder-Treason Plot was to have been on the 5 th of November 1605. And on D'Ossats marble Tomb in Rome his Epitaph mentions that he dyed Anno 1604. so then he is made by that Author to have known that Treason to have been a Sham-Plot Eight years before it was to be executed and to have permitted many Papists for want of his sending a line of News of the Shamm to be shamm'd out of their lives and the Roman Church to be shammed and anniversaried out of its credit in England But if they reproach any as they did Cecil on the pretence of the persuading some of their wild principles into the decoy of a plot a thing I think detestable as what implies a tempting or inviting of a Man to degenerate from himself they have no reason to be angry with but only to pitty men that receive infection from their principles and from this particular one That 't is lawful for a good end to ensnare men into acts of Sin. Many Casuists and Divines are brought by Guymenius for this purpose p. 184. in the 9th proposition ex tractatu de Charitate and under which proposition he quotes Sotus de Sec. memb 2. quaest 2. a little before the fifth conclusion where he enquires an liceat expediat aliquando perditum hominem permittere in pejora prolabi crimina ut ignominiâ peccatorum confusus facilius resipiscat emendetur And he answers licet nobis aliquando permittere peccatorem ad tempus in pejus cadere ut cautius resurgat The 9th proposition there is Maritus qui uxorem adulteram suspicatur potest eâ— occasionem offerre ut in adulterio deprehensam corrigat Lay man. Iesuita lib. 2. tract 3. Cap. 13. num 5. But in p. 205. extractatu de justitia Iure Propositio 4. The correction that may be lawfully used is assigned it being there said that non peccat maritus occidens propria authoritate uxorem in adulterio deprehensam the which he saith Sa the Iesuit represents as a probable opinion And which Hurtado he saith positively defends Tom. 1. resol moral tr ulti res 5. § 7. n. 204. so that if a Protestant States-man had inveigled them into a plot and then hang'd them for it his politicks had squared exactly with their Morals And even as the calling of a Rat-catcher is a lawful calling tho some of that profession have had no certain way to take Rats but by the use of one experiment namely first to provoke them to fly in the Artists face according to the said principles is the calling of a States-man both lawful and laudable who deals so with such as he judgeth to nibble at Treason But this by the way And now to let your Lordship see how some of their Divinity is particularly but a laboured Sham in the case of Treason and even but a mocking at Sin I shall divert you with a known Author among them making men play with the bait of Regicide as he is hooking them into it And 't is Mariana the Iesuit
as I find him Cited by Dr. Donne in his forementioned book p. 135. He quotes there Mariana de Rege l. 1. c. 7. for cautioning against a King being a self-homicide by drinking poyson prepared and ministred by another he being ignorant for after he concluded how an heretical King may be poisoned he is diligent in this prescription That a King be not constrained to take the poison himself but that some other may administer it to him and that therefore it be prepared and conveyed in some other way than meat and drink because else saith he either willingly or ignorantly he shall kill himself so that he provides that the King who must dye under the Sins of Tyranny and heresie must yet be defended from concurring to his own death tho ignorantly as tho this were a greater Sin. Is not this pleasant to see any of them catching of Kings in a Theological Mousetrap and playing with them like Mice before they devour them to see them sweeten a Cup of poyson for a King with their damn'd Church Sophistry and to sham men as licorish Flies to be Swallowed up in the Cup I wish that some of the most considerable of the Grandees of the Church of Rome could Answer this accusation of their shamming otherwise than by committing it de novo for if they say that some of their Doctors write against this and other crimes as well as some for them as particularly some write against the use of equivocation And as Father Parsons the Jesuite writing against King Iames's succession another English Jesuite namely Creswel writ for it and so that when some of their Doctors break the Churches head others presently gave it Plaisters is not this a fearful shall I say or Contemptible sham Do we not know that the discipline of their Church is as exact as any Military discipline can be by which alone it hath preserved it self so long in being and that none among them can publish books without passing several Courts of Guards of Superiors nor contradict one another in rules of practice more than Trumpeters of an Army dare sound a charge or a retreat but when commanded to it And what a face of something like sham the present Popes declaration about some opinions of the Casuists carries with it I have already mentioned and doth not every one know their avowed doctrine de opinione probabili Namely that tho an opinion be false a man may with a safe conscience follow it by reason of the Authority of the teacher and that a Confessor is bound to absolve the penitent when there is but one opinion for his being absolved tho he believes that opinion not only improbable as to the principia intrinseca but false In Sum according to the old observation of Poperies prevailing by haveing that in it which may fit the temper and humor of every individual person and to be like Manna answering every mans tast whether he hath a gusto for miracles or even for starving or abstinence for business or retirement for Life or for death for Honor or for begging it may to these be added that if any one affects to be a Ruffian or one of the Popes Sheriffs as aforesaid there is a most ample field in the killing of Kings firing of Towns Massacring their Inhabitants for the talent of such a Pavure diable and indeed incarnate one to expatiate in and if any account it a luscious thing to be cheated or to be shammed as some few or to cheat or sham as many think it behold a Religion made for the nonce in that point too But while they are thus playing with all things Sacred and profane he that sits in the heavens has them in derision and leaves not the Protestants to fall finally as a portion to Foxes such who turned tail to tail carry firebrands between them and their shammes do only enter on the Stage of the World to be instantly hissed off My Lord I have not been rash in Censuring either the principles or practices of some Roman Catholicks as aforesaid And particularly I well know that even the most ingenious of our English Papists cannot now in this Conjuncture endure to hear of Father Parsons his book writ by him to Invalidate the Right of King Iames to succeed Queen Elizabeth principally because he was as Father Parsons thought an heretick A very great Man that Iesuite was and so Considerable that one of our eminent Divines in his Sermon in print gives him this Character That he was perhaps one of the greatest men that the order of the Iesuits has produced And methinks 't was pitty he should play at such small game of sham when he publisht that book as to entitle it to Doleman an honest secular Priest whom Parsons hated and to make him odious laid the brat at his door Moreover a kind of inglorious sham it was that Creswel who was Parsons his fellow Iesuite writ as I said at the same time for King Iames his Right to the Crown not out of any desire he should enjoy that Right but that on all events they might have something to say in apology for their Society and bring Grist to its mill For if King Iames had not come to the Crown of England the honour of hindring his Succession had been attributed to Parsons and Creswel the Jesuit expected the Credit for his writing on the Event falling as it did Thus I remember to have heard a Passage of two Astrologers who on the day before the former great Prince of Parma was to throw the die of War agreed together to predict luck to him perfectly contrary to one another that so they might save the credit of their art by one of the artists being in the Right The Author of the book called the Catholick Apology with a Reply c. and which book I think the Author of the Compendium mentions as one of the books writ by the Roman Catholicks of England since the Kings Restoration saith p. 366. speaking of Dolemans book For Dolemans book who wrote it God knows Parsons deny'd it at his death and I believe he was not the author because in several of his works he speaks very much to the advantage of King Iames. But as to Father Parsons having in that Conjuncture been of the Spanish faction and having apply'd his whole soul and strength to hinder King Iames's Succession and his having writ that book the Great foremention'd Cardinal namely D'Ossat who in several of his Printed Letters gives the World a more satisfactory and particular Scheme of the whole design to hinder that Kings Succession to the Crown of England than I know any or all else to have done saith among his letters printed in folio at Paris 1664. in that in book 7th Anno 1601. a letter to the King letter 131. what may be thus render'd in English viz. It may please your Majesty to remember that since the year 1594. there was a book printed in
business of England and in case of a Prohibition to any mans little Court of Conscience in that cause he will certainly give himself a consultation The very humour of the English Nation long hath and still doth run against what they think but like Popery or makes for it and that with such a rapid current of Antipathy as is never likely to be stem'd and nothing is more out of fashion then a kind of Sir-positive or Dictatorian humour in common discourse much less then will a dogmatical Popes infallibility ever be digested here while he makes himself a St. Positive The gentile humour of the Age here that abhorrs hard words as loathsom pedantry will never be reconcil'd to one certain long hard word in Popery namely Transubstantiation nor to another namely Incineration or burning men for not understanding the former word according to the style of the Historian Imperator aegrè tulit incinerationem Johannis Husse and people will account their Protestant Bibles more agreeable to them then the English one published by the Colledge of Doway where the Translator studied for hard words in the room of plain ones as for the Passeover phase for foreskin praepuce for unleaven'd bread azyms for high places excelses and other such words we have in the English Rhemish Testament viz. exinanite parasceue didragmes neophyt spiritualness of wickedness in the Celestials In our Busy English world while men are most yary after profit and pleasure and the study of things if very few or none can be brought to learn the universal real character and which would tend to the propagating Real Knowledge among the Nations of the World accordingâ—y as the excellent propounder of it in Print with great modesty saith in his Epistle dedicatory that he had slender expectation if its coming into common use our Ingeniosi or Witts which all men pretend to be now as they did in the Late times to be Saints tho yet as few are Witts now as were Saints then will not care for troubling their brains with the studying of the Religion whose pretended universality appears but a kind of universal character and not real and tending to obscure the knowledge of things in the World. If they should see here a Religion that was full of pageantry and seem'd to be wholly theatrical they would think it was as much their birthright to censure it as 't is to be eternal talking Critics in the Pit to damn Playes and would think two Supremes in a Kingdome to be of the low nature of two Kings of Branford and rather then part with their money and stake down their Souls for seing such a Moral Representation of an absolute spiritual and absolute temporal power on the stage of the Kingdom they would be too apt with Mr. Hobs to thrust the whole Nation of Spiritual Beings out of the world I mean rather then they would be to their faces cheated and harras'd by a spiritual power and our people inspir'd with witt as well as those with the zealous spirit of Religion would cry out conclusum est contra Manichaeos I and against the Schoolmen too I mean our Romanist Manichaei who make two summa Principia in every State. In this age where the lower or Sixth rate Witts do so over-value themselves on turning every thing into ridicule the Mass would have here a Reception according to what the gloss in the Canon Law observes that when a place had layen long under an interdict the people laughed at the Priests when they came to say Mass again Nor would any Papal interdiction unless it could interdict us from the use of Fire and Water be of any moment The World would now laugh at any Prize that should be play'd between the Two Swords the very glossator on the Clementines saying occasionly that resipiscente mundo the World being grown wiser there must be no longer striving for both Swords And any one that would obtrude on us gross exploded errors in Church or State will appear as ridiculous as St. Henry the Dane who as the Martyrology mentions when worms craul'd out of a corrupted Vlcer in his Knee put them in again My Lord I will further offer it to your Lordships consideration That if it be found so hard to keep up the external polity of the Church of England thô in it self so rational and so meriting the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the Twenty years discontinuance of it insomuch that Dr. Glanvile in the first page of his Book call'd the Zealous and impartial Protestant hath these words the first occasion of our further danger that I shall mention is the present diminution not to say extinction of Reverence to the authority of the Church of England c. and he p. 4. writes largely to that Effect what quarter can Popery expect here from an Age of sense and reason when it should break in upon both after the forementioned Hundred years discontinuance According to the foresaid Argument of the Bees for the Popes spiritual Monarchy we see it improbable for him ever to bring us to a Rendevouz in his Church again for the sad experience we have had of the Sects here that left the Hive of the Church of England not gathering together into any one new Hive but dividing into several swarms and hives and never returning to the old may shew the Hive of holy Church how little of our Company 't is to expect Having said all this about the mists of Popery being to contend with knowledge in its meridian I think I shall comply with the measures taken by our Philosophers in this Critical Age in founding their observations upon Experiments if I further add that the former Experiments England hath had of Poperies being pernicious to its external Polity and Grandeur will perpetuate and heighten the fermentation in the minds of our angry people against it All our Monkish Historians do attest the experience our Kings had in being bereav'd of great Sums of Money while they enrich'd the Pope here by giving him the Office to keep the Theological Thistle which he Rail'd in with so many censures and distinctions and non obstantes that our Kings could not pass to their Palaces but by his leave and on his terms An English King then was but the Popes Primier Ministre and yet paid great wages too for the being a Servant to the Servus Servorum King Iohn used to say That all his affairs in the World were unprosperous and went cross and untowardly after he had once subjected himself and his Kingdom to the Church of Rome His words were Postquam me mea Regna Romanae subjecâ— Ecclesiae nulla mihi prospera omnia contraria advenerunt And 't is obvious to consider on the other hand what a great figure Henry the Eighth made in the World after he had manumitted himself and his Kingdoms from the Papal Usurpation And how he held the Balance of the World in his hand and trod on
out of the Temple with as much ease almost as our Saviour did the Iewish Any one who shall consider the burden of Oblations that the devouteâ— Roman Catholicks in England lye under as to their Priests which we may suppose to be very heavy according to Mr. Iohn Gees account in his Book called The foot out of the Snare p. 76 where he saith That the Popish Pastors ordinarily had a fifth of the Estates of the Laity allowed them and that he knew that in a great shire in England there was not a Papist of 40 l. per annum but did at his own charge keep a Priest in his house some poor neighbours perhaps contributing some small matter toward it may well think our Laity will bid as high for English Prayers and for Wares they understand and see and weigh as the Popish Laity doth for Latine ones and Merchandize they are not allowed to examine and he who considers that the Priests of that Religion though thus pamper'd with Oblations yet knowing them burthensom to the Laity do feed themselves and them with hopes of the Restitution of Tithes to holy Church and even of that sort of Tithes alien'd from it in the times of Popery may reasonably conclude that our Divines whenever forced to fly to the asylum of Oblations will be restless in being both Heaven's and Earth's Remembrancers of their claim of Tithes appropriated to the Protestant Religion by the Laws in being and that a violent Religion and illegal Gospel will be but a Temporary barr against the collecting of Tithes from a Land only during an Earth-quake I shall here acquaint your Lordship with a passage in the late times relating to the Clerical Revenue in England worthy not only your knowledge but posterities and that is this A Person of great understanding and of great regard of the truth of the matters of fact he affirmed and one who made a great figure in the Law then and in the Long Parliament from the beginning to the end of it related to me occasionally in discourse That himself and some few others after the War was begun between the King and Parliament were employed by the Governing party of that Parliament to negotiate with some few of the most eminent Presbyterian Divines and such whose Counsels ruled the rest of that Clergy and to assure them that the Parliament had resolved if they should succeed in that War to settle all the Lands Issues and Profits belonging to the Bishops and other dignitaries upon the Ministry in England as a perpetual and unalienable maintenance and to tell them that the Parliament on that encouragement expected that they should incline the Clergy of their perswasion by their Preaching and all ways within the Sphere of their Calling to promote the Parliaments Cause and that thereupon those Divines accordingly undertook to do so And that after the end of the War he being minded by some of those Divines of the effect of the Parliaments promise by him notified did shortly after signifie to them the answer of that party who had employed him in that Negotiation to this effect viz. That the Parliament formerly did fully intend to do what he had signified to them as aforesaid and that the publick debts occasion'd by the War disabled them from setling the Bishops Lands on the Church But that however he was authorized at that time to 〈◊〉 them that if it would satisfie them to have the Deans and Chapters Lands so settled that would be done And that then those Divines in anger reply'd They would have setled on the Ministry all or none representing it as Sacrilege to divert the Revenues of the Bishops to Secular uses and that thereupon they missed both the Deans and Chapters Lands being sold. Those Divines it seems had a presension that the prosperous Condition of their Church would diminish the Charity of Oblations and therefore did not impoliticly try to provide for the duration of their Model by dividing both the Bishops Power and Lâ—nds among their Clergy And no doubt but in the way of a fac simile after this Presbyterian Copy the Popish Priests will in concert with the Pope even under a Popish Successor as well as now combine to lessen the King's power and advance the Pope's on promises from the Holy See that they shall have the Church Lands restored to them And I doubt not but a Popish Successor will support a Popish Clergy with what maintenance he can having a reference to the Law of the Land and likewise to the Law of Nature that binds him first to support himself and perhaps by keeping vacant Bishopricks long so a thing that by Law he may do he may have their Temporal ties to bestow on whom he shall please and perhaps by issuing out new Commissions about the valuation of the Clerical Revenue a larger share of First-fruits and Tenths legally accruing to him may enable him to gratifie such Ecclesiasticks as he shall favour But as I likewise doubt not that ever any accident of time will leave the disposal of such a great proportion of the Church Revenue at his Arbitrage as the Usurpers had at theirs so neither do I of his affairs ever permitting him to allow so large a share of that Revenue to his Clergy as the Usurpers did to theirs whom as those Powers durst not wholly disoblige and therefore unask'd settled on them toward the augmentation of their Livings the Impropriate Tithes belonging to the Crown and to the Bishops and Deans and Chapters though yet nothing of their Terra firma so neither durst those Presbyterian Divines who followed them for the Loaves and who once in a sullen humour resolved not to have half a Loaf rather then no Bread reject the Impropriate Tithes given them because they saw a new Race of Divines called Independent ready to take from those Powers what they would give and who were prepared by their Religion to support the State-government and some of whom had already acquired Church-Livings and others of whom in the great Controversie among all those Parties which was not generalrally so much de fide propagandâ as de pane lucrando would with the favour of the times easily have then worsted the Presbyterian Clergy in the scramble for that thing aforesaid that though Moreau in his learned Notes on Schola Salerni saith no Book was ever writ of yet I think few have been writ but for namely Bread. But herein on the whole matter the Vsurpers Policy was so successful as that ordering the great Revenues of the Church as they did and Appropriating the Bishops and Deans and Chapters Lands to the use of the State they by the augmentations arising from the Fond of the Impropriate Tithes to their Clergy and especially to those of them they planted in great Towns and Cities ty'd them to their Authority as I may say by the Teeth and kept them from barking against it or biting them which else they would have
been likely to have done being disappointed as to their gratiae expectativae of the Lands of the Bishops had they been let loose to have depended on maintenance by Oblations in such Towns and Cities and where they would have probably tryed with a diversified Curse ye Meros to fly in the faces of Masters who would not feed them I have before said how the Parliament sweetned them into obedience by the luscious power of oppressing their fellow Subjects But neither by any Revenue adequate to those Impropriate Tithes nor by any such power of oppressing that prerogative of Devils to torment can it be imagined that a Popish Successor will ever be able to ensure the obedience of his Clergy to himself His Bishops and Dignitaries will be like the Popes Trent Titulars without a Title I mean one to a Dignity or Benefice and the burden of the Clerical Papists maintenance lying still on the laity will make Popery soon visibly grow weary oâ— it self I shall here take occasion to observe that Tithes were first called Impropriate by the sarcasm of the dislodged Monks who thought that the Tithes Appropriated for that was the Antient Law-term for them were improperly placed on Lay-men but both the present possessors and all that know that 't is necessary for England's being a Kingdom and no Province that its Riches accruing by the number of its Inhabitants and by improvement of its Soil should keep its weight in the Balance of Christendom especially considering the growth of France will for ever think it very improper that so much of its Land and Wealth and Populousness should be sacrificed to Religious Idlers and that according to Bishop Sanderson's account almost half of the Land should be turn'd into Franks for Boares or as I may say Sties for such as are Epicuri de grege Porci or such as were call'd Barnevelts Hoggs he having called the Monkish Herd by that name of whom if any angers one they all rise against him and if he pleaseth them all there is nothing to be got but Bristles That Herd was not a little molested as Mr. Fox tells us by a private Gentleman one Mr. Simon Fish in the Year 1527. who writ a little Book called The supplication of Beggars addrest to the King and it had the honour to reach his Eyes and to be lodged in his Bosom three or four days and to bring its Author to be embraced by the King and to have long discourse with him as Mr. Fox affirms who Prints that Book wherein the Author with much laboured curiosity attaques the Revenue of the Monks with Arithmetick a Science necessary for the strengthening of Political no less Military Discipline He saith there in the beginning That the multitude of Lepers and other sick People and Poor was so encreased that all the Alms of the Realm sufficed not to keep them from dying for hunger And that this happened from counterfeit holy Beggers and Vagabonds being so much encreased These saith he are not the Herds but Wolfes c. Who have got into their hands more then the third part of your Realm The goodliest Lordships and Mannors are theirs Beside this he sets forth that They have Tithes Oblations Mortuaries c. And he therein saith That there being in England 52000 Parishes and Ten Housholds in every Parish and five hundred and twenty Thousand Housholds in all and every of the five Orders of Fryers receiving a peny a quarter that is Twenty Pence in all yearly from every one of these Housholds the Total Sum was 430333 l. 6 s. 8 d. Sterling He further sets forth That the Fryars being not the four hundredth Person of the Realm had yet half its profits There were in that little Book many things so pungent and so confirm'd by Calculation that the Clergy put no meaner a Person then Sir Thomas More on the answering it in Print and it occasion'd the Bishop of London's publishing an Edict to call in that little Book and the English New Testament and many Books writ against the excesses of the Priests Well therefore might Sir Thomas More be favour'd with a License to read Heretical Books when he was to be at the fatigue of answering them Sir Thomas in his Answer to it makes a just exception to Mr. Fish's estimate of the number of Parishes in the Realm But admitting there were then Ten Thousand Parishes in England and about Forty Houses in one Parish with another in the Country beside what were in great Towns and Cities he might modestly Calculate 520000 Housholds in all Nor is it to be much wondered at That a private Gentleman should err in the excess of the number of the Parishes when we are told in Cotton's Collections That in the 45 of E. 3. The Lords and Commons in Parliament granting the King a Subsidy of 50000 l. at the rate of 22 s. 4 d. for each Parish they estimated the Parishes then near that number but were afterward inform'd by the Lord Chancellour that by returns made into the Chancery on Commissions of Enquiry it was found there were not so many Parishes in the Realm It had been very acceptable to those who in this Age take their Political measures of the power and growth of Kingdoms from Numbers if either Mr. Fish or Sir Thomas More who answered his Golden little Book as I may call it for his endeavours therein to fix matters relating to the Oeconomy of the Kingdom by Calculation and for his being a Columbus to discover rich Mines without going to America nor yet further then home or if any of our Monkish Historians or even our Polish'd and Ingenious ones and particularly My Lord Bacon and my Lord Herbert had given the World Rational estimates of the Numbers of the people of England in the times they writ of or particularly of the Numbers of the Males then between the Years of 16 and 60 for if they had done that as on the publick Musters made by occasion of Warlike preparations they might perhaps well have performed we might now easily by the help we have had from the Observator on the Bills of Mortality conclude what the entire Number of the People then was and might likewise have better agreed on a stated Rule of the Period of Nations doubling a Curiosity in knowledge not unworthy the Genius of an Inquisitive or Philosophical States-man and which presents to his View as in a Glass the Anatocisme of the faetus populi resembling the Interest upon Interest of Money as for Example when we see that one pound in Seventy years the Age of a Man is at 10 per cent encreased to a Thousand But it is our misfortune that through the aforesaid omission of our Historians we are not so much illuminated about the encrease of the English Nation as we are about the gradual multiplication of the People of Rome so many hundred years ago And indeed by the help of the Writers of other European Countries we are
subject that are equal to great Parishes c. Moreover the Grants from the Crown of Extraparochial Titles in several Counties may serve for an indication of great numbers of people that are not Inhabitant in Parishes and so likewise may the Multitudes of those people who live in Forrests and which places are generally accounted by the Law to be Extraparochial The Number of Parsonages and Vicarages in Edward the 1 sts valuation whereof there is a Manuscript Copy in the Bodleian Library was about 8900 and into that number the Chappels are not accounted but of the Chappels many since have grown up into Parsonages and this would likewise induce one to think the number of our Parishes at this time to be greater then the common Estimate especially when according to the Kings Books which respect the valuation in Harry the 8 ths time the number of them is considerably above 9000. But what may seem more strange is that some men of Thought and Learning have attempted even by Calculation to prove that the people of England have for a very long space of time decreased in their numbers and particularly the Author of a Book in Quarto called An account of the French Vsurpation on the Trade of England and the great damage the English yearly sustain by their Commerce Printed in the Year 1679 and Writ with excellence of Calculation in some parts thereof and yet that Author doth p. 16 say And I can easily believe that 1000 years since this Nation had a much greater stock of people then now it hath for the Rome-Scot or Peter-pence which was but one Penny a Chimney granted by Offa and Ina Saxon Kings to the Pope did amount to 50000 yearly and the Hearth-money which is two Shillings the Hearth and one Stack of Chimneys may have many Hearths doth not amount to 300,000l yearly whereas if the number of Chimneys charged with the Romescot had been two Shillings a Chimney it would have amounted to 1,200,000 l. yearly So that we may conclude there were then more Buildings and Chimneys and so by consequence more people But had that Author considered that the Romescot or denarius sancti Petri was only an annual Penny from every Family or Houshold and that it amounted to 300 Marks and a Noble yearly as Blunt says by that reckoning it would have appeared that there were not then in all England 50000 Families liable to that Duty whereas there are now above a Million of such Families so that now the people and Families of England are twenty times as many as they were then which agrees pretty well with my Lord Chief Iustice Hales's reckoning That great person in his Primitive Origination of Mankind yields that the people of England are at least 6 Millions and doth too in Page 205 say That he doth not know any thing rendred clearer to the view then the gradual encrease of Mankind by the curious and strict Observations on the Bills of Mortality and doth very elaborately make a comparison between the numbers of the people in Glocestershire and particularly some great Towns and Burroughs there as Thornbury and Tedbury as they were at the time of the making up of Domesday Book and as they now are and shews That there are very many more Vills and Hamlets now then there were then and few Villages or Towns or Parishes then which continue not to this day and that the number of Inhabitants now is above 20 times more through the general extent of the Country then at that time and afterward saith if we should institute a later Comparison viz. between the present time and the beginning of Queen Elizabeth which is not above 112 years since and compare the number of Trained Soldiers then and now the number of Subsidy men then and now they will easily give us an account of a very great encrease and multiplication of people within this Kingdom even to admiration It would be no difficult thing to fortifie the observation of the great gradual encrease of the people and particularly of those in the Parishes of Glocestershire by the shewing the encrease of their worth and riches in the several publick Valuations and their present real value from whence their growth in the numbers of their Inhabitants may be well inferr'd as for example in Edward the 1 sts Valuation Tedbury is valued Ecclesia de Tedbury 36. m. i. e. Marks and in Harry the 8ths Valuation is valued at 36l 13 s 2d and is now worth about 100 l. per Annum Thornbury in Edward the 1 sts valuation is valued at 47 Marks and a half and in Harry the 8 ths to 32 l. 14s 8d and is now worth about 120 l. per Annum Berkley in Edward the 1 sts Valuation comes to 36 Marks and a half and in Harry the 8 ths to 32 l. 14s 8d and is now worth about 100 l. per Annum I have instanced in these places as referred to by Hales and shall here as to Gloster only further observe that there are more places in the Decanatus Glocestriae in Harry the 8 ths valuation then were in Edward the 1 sts as for instance Edward the 1 sts Valuation doth in the rural Deanry of Glocester comprize 6 Churches and a Chappel but Harry the 8 th doth in the Deanery contain above 20 Churches and a Chappel I shall here corroborate his Lordships remark of the encrease of Families in another Town in Glocestershire which he calls Dursilege and which is in Edward the 1 sts Valuation called Dursly and valued as a rectory there at 10 Marks per Annum and in Harry the 8 ths as a Rectory at 10 l. 14s 3d. and is now let for 72 l. yearly I have observ'd a suitable difference between the former valuations of other Livings in that County and their present real values His Lordship having before justly acknowledged that it was a laborious piece of work to make a Calculation of the number of Inhabitants at this day throughout England did however in a way very worthy of his great judgment adapt his Estimate to the extent of one entire County for had he gone less and restrained it to this or that Parish the gradual encrease of the People there might have fallen short by particular accidents and to this purpose we have it in Mr. Bentham's Christian Conflict p. 322. that 11 Mannors in Northamptonshire have been enclosed with depopulation and have vomited out their former desolate owners and their posterity Many ingenious persons have applyed their thoughts to several ways of Calculation whereby to discover the total of the number of the People in England and in the Investigation thereof some concern'd in the management of the Hearth-money have reckon'd that in England and Wales the number of Hearths of rich and poor is 2 Millions and 6 hundred thousand and that at a Medium there are between 4 and 5 persons to a Hearth and accounting but 4 persons to a Hearth they suppose that at that
in that Quarter to put an end to that which begins in Nomine Domini and that they will not be the rather willing so to do in regard that the North made the World feel the Malignity of both those Proverbs by its old well-meant charity to the Bishops of Rome And since in the days of Popery here in Harry the 8th's time it did pass in Rem Iudicatam that the Pope had no more power over us by the Scripture then any other forrain Bishop it cannot now but seem ridiculous to scruple whether he can thence claim more authority here than any other forrain Prince and he who was exploded here formerly when the Critical Spectators were not so many for having ill acted the part of a King on our stage of the World would be thought mad for personating one after the Play is over Thus too in a less people World Bartolus the famous Lawyer pronounced it to be Haeresie to deny the German Emperor to be King of the Vniverse the which any one would now account Madness to affirm And if in France hundreds of Years ago its Monarch greeted the Pope with the terms of fatuus amens for claiming a Supremacy in Temporals there 't is impossible he can be otherwise thought there now prosecuting a claim to Supremacy in things Ecclesiastic for even his pretensions to that the Clergy of France have damned in their Declaration by setting a General Council above him and which Declaration the great Monarch hath there ratify'd by a perpetual and irrevocable Edict And 't is but with a Consonancy to the nature of things that the Papal Infallibility should be concluded against in that Declaration and since as the Author of the Policy of the Clergy of France relates the Roman Catholick Church there doth so much swarm with New Phil sophers there call'd Cartesians and Gassendists whose new Philosophy has been there by Zealous Catholics observ'd to have ruin'd the mystery of the Real Presence for so the words are in that Book 't is no wonder if the growth of the Messieurs les scavants encreasing with the Populacy of that Realm makes any man's belief of his infallibility pass for a degree of madness accordingly as Mr. Hobbes Chap. 8. Of Man well observes that excessive opinion of a man 's own self for Divine Inspiration and Wisdome becomes distraction and giddiness and this probably may be the final result there of the late fermentation about the Regalia c. and the Pope be tacitly thought so as aforesaid and his Power there insensibly evaporate and without any visible distrubance given to it by the ratio ultima Regum for no prudent person would declaim reproachfully against any of a quiet Phrensy or molest and vex such a one tho living near him and would much less project the disgrace or mischief of such an one living at a great distance tho he should assume to himself bigger Titles than ever the Kings of India or Persia did and call himself Son of the Sun or Lord of the Sea and Land or like some of the Roman Emperors challenge Divinity or be styled Dominus Deus noster Papa And thus may the Pope quietly go on longer to call himself Monarch of the World without being call'd Names for it in France just as the Dukes of Savoy style themselves Kings of Cyprus without any gainsaying from the Turk who likewise did not menace the Pope for causing the Brother of the Vice-Roy of Naples to be in Rome proclaim'd King of Ierusalem nor when that Gentleman in Requital of that favour from his Holiness caused the Pope to be in Naples proclaimed Caliph of Bandas was the Mogul aggrieved thereby And thus probably too will the Enthusiast's who assert a Millennium or Universal Reign of Christ on earth with that quietness and gentleness that the ancient Fathers before the first Nicene Council did pass off the Stage of the World but it will seem ridiculous not to bind such Fifth Monarchy Men in Chains as Mad-men who have in England and Germany endeavoured to biâ—d Kings so and Nobles with Fetters of Iron and who would again make Convulsions in the State by the Diseases of their minds as once Mahomet's Epileptic Fits shook the World and who by promising us a new Heaven and a new Earth would confound the old and only give us a new Hell broke loose But the World will not now be blunder'd into Confusion by such wild Reformers In the Book of the Apocalypse of which Bodin tells us in his Methodus ad facilem Historiarum Cognitionem that Calvin's Opinion being ask'd he answer'd Se penitùs ignorare quid velit tam obscurus scriptor it must be confessed that the Majesty of the Style is agreeable to that of the rest of the holy Text and that the predictions of the future State of the Church and of its splendor in the World are not grosso modo utter'd or attended with any irregularity but on the contrary that God appears there as the God of Order and applying all the exactness of proportion and number and its very fractions to the great things foretold After one Verse hath accounted the number of the Beast to be 666 the next mentions St. Iohn's Vision of a Lamb standing on Mount Sion and with him an hundred forty and four thousand The Bodies of the Witnesses are mentioned to be unburied three days and an half The 4 Angels were loosed which were prepared for an hour and a day and a Month and a Year for to sâ—ay the third part of Men. The Woman was to be in the Wilderness 1260 days and to be nourished there for a time and times and half a time Blood came out of the Wine-Press by the space of 1600 Furlongs There were Seal'd of all the Tribes of Israel 144000. And in the State of Babylon mentioned in Cap. 18th where the voice from Heaven is heard Come out of her my People though all the various Sects of Religion that thrust one another into Babylon will admit of no proportion in their revenge yet it is there say'd Reward her even as she rewarded you and double unto her double according to her works in the Cup which she hath filled fill to her double But near the end of that Book where the great Scene of The New Heaven and the New Earth opens and the Vision of the New Ierusalem is described a Golden Rod was given the Angel to measure the City and the Measures thereof are particularized And tho I pretend not to understand the meaning of any of these obscure passages of Scripture yet one thing seems to me there as Conspicuous as the Meridian Light namely That as the Divine Providence did found the Old World in Number Weight and Measure so it likewise will the foretold New One. The exactness of the Numbers described by St. Iohn in that Prophetick Book written in the Island of Pathmos hath assured us that his imagination was much above the Vapors that
a flame of Zeal reflected in these words on the Queen her self Our posterities shall rue that ever such Fathers went before them and Chronicles shall report this Contempt of learning among the Plagues and Murrains and other Punishments of God they shall leave it written in what time and under whose reign this was done If the good Bishop had considered the vastness of Queen Elizabeth's Expences before mention'd in desending the Protestant Cause contra gentes he would have given her day to have built and endowed some Churches and to those expences before mention'd it comes into my memory here to add what I then forgot which is related in the Travels of Mr. Fines Moryson who was Secretary then to the Chief Governor of Ireland in her Reign viz. That she expended in 4 years time on that Kingdom a Million and one Hundred Ninety Eight Thousand Pound Sterling which Sum so laid out then on Ireland will seem the more considerable when by a late Report of the Counsel of Trade in that Kingdom drawn by Sir W. P. The currant Cash of that Kingdom is made to be but Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Pound Sterling But this by the way and to resume my discourse of our Clergies neither getting nor losing by Religion I shall say that as the acceptable free restoration of the Church as well as the Crown to its Lands shewed that there was no fear of its injuring the Ballance of the Kingdom or hurting Religion by its weight so hath the following acquiescence of all dis-interested men in the same evinced that weight to be no gravamen In a Pamphlet called a Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country Printed in the Year 1675 generally supposed to be writ by the Earl of Shaftsbury and which asserts the Justice of the Declaration of Indulgence the Author in p. 5. speaking of the Church of England becoming the head of the Protestants at home and abroad saith For that place is due to the Church of England being in favour and of nearest approach to the most powerful Prince of that Religion and so always had it in their hands to be the Intercessors and Procurers of the greatest good and protection that Party throughout all Christendom can receive And thus the Archbishop of Canterbury might become not only alterius orbis but alterius Religionis Papa and all this Addition of Honour and Power attain'd without the least loss or diminution of the Church it not being intended that one Dignity or Preferment should be given to any but those that were strictly conformable The natural inclination in all ingenious Men not to cast an evil Eye on the Church Revenue appears in Mr. Marvel 's Second Part of the Rehersal transpos'd p. 146. where he saith I am so far from thinking enviously of the Revenue of the Church of England c. That I think in my Conscience it is all but too little and wish with all my heart that there could be some way found out to augment it And our ingenious and great Lord Chancellor Bacon in his certain Considerations touching the pacification of the Church of England hath with great equity decreed our Parliaments to be in some sort indebted to the Church Moreover that Gentlemanly way of writing used by our great Divines in a late Conjuncture against Popery and so suitable to the refinement of Wit and Reason in the Age and wherein without the Pedantry of unnecessary Words or Quotations or raising a dust out of the Learned Rubbish of the Schoolmen they generally with a manly Style and clear reason and skill at that weapon got the Sword out of their Enemies hand by the Argumentum ad hominem and shewed us that Popery and Implicit Faith were not Calculated for the Meridian of this Age hath I think made all ingenious Men Conformists in this opinion that if their Genius had been cramp'd with the res angust a domi their thoughts had not in their Books appeared so great and therefore I hope that all the well writ works of their hands and seasonable discourses against Popery at that time when it was ready to curse us and to rise up against our Religion will make all thinking Protestants to say Amen to that Prayer of Moses Bless O Lord Levi 's substance accept the work of his hands smite through the Loyns of them that hate him that they rise not again It will I doubt not appear to rational and thinking men that our little interloping Churches or Congregations that set up with their precarious Power and small stock of Learning or Revenue will no more be able to break the great Compacted Body of the Papal Church that hath the Monopoly of the Religion-Trade in so many parts of the World then a few interloping Merchant-men to break the Opulent Dutch East-India Company who have engross'd so much of the Spices of the World that sometimes they cause several Ships loadings of them to be at once consumed as knowing what quantity and no more will be useful to the World. And somewhat like that thing too the Polity of the Anglican Church in Harry the 8 th's time perform'd while it drove a Religion-Trade with Rome and yet consumed a great quantity of its superfluous Merchandize and the same thing hath been done by our National Church as to remaining parts of the Romish Superstition in succeeding times and indeed Superstition which is a kind of Nimiety of Religion is so incident to Humane Nature and is so destructive to the Polity of Churches and the substantial Commerce of Nations that it is worthy the Power and Care of Nations to consume it And considering that the Church of Rome hath still valued it self for being terribilis sicut castrorum acies ordinata it is a vain thing to contend with such a Regular Church Militant without our having of general Officers and as exact a Conduct or to think to have such Officers without Honourable Maintenance from the Publick For none doth go a Warfare at any time at his own charge When I think how in the Primitive times while a Cloud of Persecution was always over the head of the Christians that yet they strain'd themselves so much in Contributions for the Pastorage of their Souls that all the Pastors then were so far from losing by Religion that some were tempted to that Office for filthy Lucre as we may see out of Peter Ep. 1. Ch 5. Vers. 2. tho yet too so little comparatively was to be gain'd by all thereby that others probably undertook that Office by constraint as the same place intimates and that therein the Apostolick Prudence was conspicuous in ordering it upon the whole matter that the generality of Pastors then should not get or lose by Religion I may reasonably conclude that we who live in the flourishing and prosperous State of Christianity ought to provide that the meanest Pastor of Souls in England may live competently and decently by that
to believe it will ever suffer such real madness and real dangers as formerly from Suppositions and Fictions not of Law but of Injury and when some injurious Demagogues did often acquire both Popular Air and bread by their but seeming to suppose what they seduced the people really to do and to be really thereby impoverished When I think how some men by false Alarmes of suppositions would for the lengthening their Interests lengthen the fears of any persons and among Mortal men make the dangers of Plots immortal I call to mind that 't is not very long ago that a Forraigner who was Physician to King Charles the First I mean Sir Theodore Mayerne occasioned an Universal Out-cry of the Disease of the Spleen here and was observed in many Cases where the Disease proceeded from the fowlness of the Stomach or other Causes yet to attribute it to that part of the Body which tho all Animals have yet most if not all may live without I mean the Spleen but however he got his Living thereby and so plentifully that it may be said that he as it were made the Spleen and the Spleen made him And thus doth a Spleen of some Popish Sham-Plots and the continuance of the fears and danger from a true one make some persons perhaps who made the former and the continuance of the fear of the latter and such State Empyricks would be as much impoverished by the utter abolishing of the same as some of our great Merchants who Trade in Companies and with Convoys would be if there were no Argeer but as the swelling of the Spleen proves the emaciating of the other parts of the Body so hath the swoln Spleen of the Popish-Plot particularly not more enriched some Merchants that Traded therein than it hath impoverished the Kingdom in general and I do believe that a Tax of a Million of Money raised in England in the way before mentioned would not have been universally so heavy a burthen as the Popish-Plot in its Effects and Consequences hath been But what by the bravery of the English Genius to which as was said the continuance of any sort of fear is unnatural and despair which generally grows from Sloth and Cowardize appearing so dull a thing humane Nature being apt easier to descend into it than to ascend by presumption and what by Peoples being Convinced of the smallness of the Papists numbers here comparatively and of the ridiculousness of the rumour'd greatness thereof in particular places as for example of there being 60,000 Papists in St. Martins Parish where there dying ordinarily about 2000 in a Year there cannot be judged to live 60000 Souls of Men Women and Children according to the Rule of 1 in 30 dying each year and what by the late great divulsion of the double bottom of the Pope and the Iesuites appearing by his Decree of March the 2 d before mentioned which makes all thinking People as much to expect its Shipwrack as do the throngs of the Plebs resorting to the shore in Tempests expect the Ruine of Navigating Vessels and to look on Papisme as saying in effect to Iesutisme nec tecum nec sine te and what by the Notion so much in Vogue and so likely to be more that 't is as improper to call some of the Tenets of Popery by the Name of Religion as 't would be professedly to mis-call any thing obvious as for example to call Musick the Art of Rhetoric or Grammar Logic or to call Astronomy or Dyalling by Surveying or Gawging and that 't is only that that is Religion indeed that is to be honoured according to that expression in the Scripture honour Widows that are Widows indeed and what by the urging Fate of Christendom now so loudly as with the voice of Thunder repeating it to us that this Nation must either now be quiet or that the World abroad can never be so and that the hand of this Realm must be steady if ever it will keep the Ballance of Christendom so and what by the Nations having outlived all the Malignant Symptomes of the Plague of its Fears I think on the whole matter we may without any thing of the Fire of Prophecy and only from the Light of Reason presage that the excessive fear of Popery as well as its danger will here be exterminated I doubt not but the former as well as later experiences of the Papists here concerning the Inconveniences of their Artifice of making or increasing Dissensions in the Kingdom the dividing of which by them as well as other Religion-Traders hath prejudiced it more than the so much talk'd of Division of the Fleet will in the present Conjuncture of Affairs incline the sober Party of them to joyn with the Body of the People of England in being sharp Abhorrers of the Principles of the Iesuites for they can hardly go any where now in the Land without seeing a Cain's Mark set on those who cause divisions or still drive the old Trade that the Bohemian Nobleman Andreas ab Habering field in his Detection of the Popish Practices mentions that Sir Toby Mathews Maxwel and Reade those Jesuited Political Interlopers did in the Reign of the Royal Martyr namely to mis-represent the Court and the Puritans to one another and to endeavour to perswade male-contented People that that Pious Prince designed their Slavery a thing so false that he was Reverâ their Martyr as he with great Justice said of himself on the Scaffold and which great name he might challenge even on the account of Natural Justice if there had been nothing relating to reveal'd Religion in the case to entitle him to it for St. Iohn the Baptist was a Martyr and yet died for no Article of the Christian Faith. It may be justly said that our Monarch fell a Martyr for the People by not violating the lex terrae that he was by his Oath bound to maintain and by his therefore not owning the Jurisdiction of the Vile Court over him and moreover the Law of Nature obliging him indispensably to do nothing that by his exemplary abdicating any Right Inherent in the Crown would have incapacitated him and his Successors from protecting their Liege-People in their Inheritance of the Laws and it being a thing certain that the Law of Nature is as much the Law of God as is the Law positive or his written Word and indeed as Gataker saith well in his Book of Lots The Law of Nature written in Mans heart is the very same so far forth as 't is yet undefaced with the Law of God revealed in the Word it may be with reason averr'd that any Member of Mankind whether Prince or Subject who is put to death by any Court of Justice or Armed Force or by the hands of Russians or Bravos on the account of his discharging his Obligations to the Law of Nature may enter his just Claim to the Name of Martyrdom I have therefore supposing that Godfrey lost his life by vile
Plot that caused the Vote of its reallity to pass with a Nemine Contradicente there What Fautors of false Testimony the Jesuites principles are I have shewn and at the same time afforded my Testimony to the Heroic Vertue of many others of the Church of Rome and think it great and pedantical kind of Injustice to charge all Lay-Papists with a readiness to obey their Priests Commands by being ministerial in Cruelty to Protestants I remember I have read it in a printed Speech of Sir Audly Mervin the Speaker of the House of Commons in Ireland a Speech glowing with anger enough against the Papists where yet 't is said p. 24. In the Barony of Enishoan there are above two thousand Irish Papists can bring hundreds of Protestants to witness their Civil demeanor through the whole course of the distemper in this Kingdom And as the bloody Sect of the Zealots grew at last so odious among the Iews and another Order of such sicarii among the Turks so I suppose that of the Jesuites will naturally do among Christians and the Jesuites writ de haeretico Assassinando grow obsolete and especially in places where the Scene of Mr. Coleman's Northern Heresie lies it being an old observation that Northern Countries are more hospitable and less cruel than Southern In the very time of the dawn of Learning ushering in that of the Reformation it presently grew odious to the first-rate Ingeniosi to draw Heretics blood Our Famous Countryman Tunstal Bishop of Durham who had imbibed so much of the Mathematical Sciences that Vossus de Scientiis Mathematicis saith p. 40. Ante annos Centum quod excurrit magnâ cum laude praecipue ob sermonem purum perspicuum de arte supputandi egit Cutbertus Tunstallus and whose Book of Arithmetick writ with such pure Latinity is commonly extant was of such a temper that as Fuller tells us in his Church History the Bishopric of Durham had halcyon days of Peace and Quiet under God and good Cutbert Tunstal the Bishop thereof Sir Thomas Moor of whom 't is said that 't was writ on his Tomb that he was furibus haereticisque molestus yet in his Vtopia rouls neither of them in Blood and in his Chapter there concerning the Religions in Vtopia he makes divers kinds of Religion not only in sundry parts of the Island but also in divers places of every City some worshipping the Sun and some the Moon and some other of the Planets and the wisest of them worshipping God Almighty and some embracing the Faith of Christ at first without the help of a Priesthood and minding to choose a Bishop among themselves without sending out of their own Country for the Order of Priesthood and makes them affrighting none to or from the Christian Religion And that that Book of his may rather be thought an Original of his Mind than a mere Copy of his Countenance we have the Suffrage of Dr. Danne in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where having said That Sir Thomas Moor was a man of the most tender and delicate Conscience that the World hath seen since St. Austin and citing of his Vtopia l 2. c. de servis he saith He was not likely to write there any thing in jest mischievously interpretable And if a man would quote things of Erasmus his great Humanity to all humane kind he must quote almost his whole Works But how far his Genius led him from any brutal ferity toward Heretics your Lordship will see by this passage in his Supput error Bedae Dic ecclesiae quod si non audierit sit tibi velut ethnicus publicanus quasi hic ulla sit incendii mentio Rursus Apostolum Post unam alteram correptionem devita An devitare est in ignem conjicere Iterum Auferte malum ex vobis ipsis Num auferte valet idem quod occidere He had said before Quas autem mihi narrat ecclesiae leges An leges ecclesiae sunt quenquam ultricibus tradere flammis And afterward at episcoporum est quod quidem in ipsis est docere corrigere mederi Qualis autem est episcopus qui nihil aliud possit quam vincire torquere flammis tradere Quod si qui tractant hoc negotium tales essent qualem se declarat in hoc libello Beda hoc est si tantum spirarent odii si tantum haberent impudentiae tam impotens calumniandi studium tam corruptum judicium ut videatur citius decem propulsurus in haeresim quam unum revocaturus nonne belle ageretur cum delatis Nisi fallor primum designare cui male vellet eum curaret clam rapiendum in carcerem ibi quaererentur articuli tales quales plurimos objicit mihi partim falsos partim depravatos Disputatio si qua fieret perageretur in carcere si quidhisceret contrà mox accersitis tribus dilectis monachis pronunciaretur sententia diffinitiva Quod reliquum est perageret carnifex Vbi theologus defert rapit in carcerem urget accusationem damnatum tradit judici profano Iudex non ex suâ cognitione sed ex theologi praejudicio tradit flammis Our Martyrologist Mr. Fox could not have expressed more anger against a Bishop Bonner than Erasmus a Papist hath here against Popish Persecuting Prelates Had Erasmus then known of one practice enjoyn'd constantly by the Canons to Popish Bishops at their Condemning of Heretics to salve the Phoenomena of their irregularity by intermedling in Causâ sanguinis and about which your Lordship shewed me once some remarkable quotations in a Letter writ to you by the Lord Bishop of Lincoln and of which quotations I beg a Copy from you by the first opportunity namely efficaciter excorde to intercede with the secular Judge to whom they deliver the Heretic over to bring no pain of death or mutilation of member to him I believe the great Wit of Erasmus would after his ingenious account aforesaid of the Tragedy of the Condemned Heretic pleasantly entertained himself and Posterity with the wanton cruelty of that Farce that ensued it and let us see how the Popish Bishop then using the Speech familiar to some Tooth drawers just before their operation I will do you no harm and put you to little or no pain did at the same time make use of the power of the secular Magistrate but as the Linnen Clout or Silk to wrap and hide the tormenting Pincers of Holy-Church in But to return to my observation of all Popish Canonists themselves not allowing that wanton mode of the cruel usage and interceding with the Magistrate Efficaciter ex corde to do the Condemned Heretic no harm I think the same quotations mention how the famous Panormitan did brand the Hypocrisie of that Practice and the truth is 't is very abominable that Heretics neither living nor dying can be free from suffering Shammes by some Papists But again on the other hand 't is with Justice to be said that
swarming of the Iesuites then in England and transforming themselves into several shapes among the divided Sects here and saith What liberty the Priests and Iesuites take how far they prevail on the People what Countenance they receive from this Government is apparent enough by not proceeding against them in Iustice as if no Laws were in force for their punishment Your private Negotiations with the Pope and your promises that as soon as you can â—stablish your own greatness you will protect the Catholics and the insinuations that you will countenance them much further are sufficiently known and understood and of their dependance upon and devotion to you there needs no Evidence beyond the Book lately written by Mr. White a Romish Priest and dedicated to your Favourite Sir Kenelm Digby Entitled the Grounds of Obedience and Government in which he justifies all the Grounds and Maximes in your Declaration and determines positively that you ought to be so far from performing any promise or observing any Oath that you have taken if you know that it is for the good of the People that you break it albeit they foreseeing all that you now see did therefore bind you by Oath not to do it and that you offend both against your Oath and Fidelity to the People if you maintain those limitations you 〈◊〉 sworn to and sure what you do must be supported by such Casuists And afterwards speaks how Cromwel in distrust of the whole English Nation was Treating to bring over a Body of Swiss to serve him as the Ianisaries do the Turk The Declaration here referred to was Cromwels Declaration of October 31 Anno 1655 and which was supposed to have been worded by his Lord Keeper Fiennes wherein all the measures of Justice toward the Cavaliers and particularly the Public Faith of the Parliament for the punctual and exact performance of Articles with them after the vast gain that had accrued to the Parliament by their Compositions and an Act of Grace and Oblivion afterward granted to the Royal Party are avowedly broken and in p. 36. of that Declaration 't is said If the Supreme Magistrate were tyed up to the ordinary Rules and had not liberty to proceed upon the illustrations of reason against those who are continually suspected there would be wanting in such a State the means of Common Safety c. and before in p. 12 and 13. the Iesuites are out-done as to the keeping of no faith with Heretics by the asserting in effect in general that nulla fides est servanda and the humour of Pope Paul the 4th is Repeated who as the Author of the History of the Council of Trent tells us declared it in the Consistory That 't was Heresie to say the Pope can bind himself And we are assured out of Mr. Peter Walsh his History and Vindication of the Irish Remonstrance that Edmund Reilly the titular Popish Primate of Ireland who at a public Dinner boasted that he never had been friend or well wisher to the King and his two Brothers and the Duke of Ormond did yet write Precepts under his Seal to all the Province of Armagh to pray for the Health Establishment and Prosperity of Cromwell Protector and his Government More need not be said of the danger of Popery and Arbitrary Power to the Nation if God and man had not hindered Lamberts Usurpation over it I have mention'd how some of the Plot-Winesses have deposed somewhat thereof and some of his Countrymen have in discourse affirm'd his having been there a Fautor of Papists and my self observing it to a worthy Gentleman of Yorkshire that one of the Popish Lords in the Tower did in February 1662 pass a Grant from the Crown of several Mannors in Yorkshire forfeited by the Attainder of Iohn Lambert he averr'd to me that Lamberts Son enjoys that Estate at this day It had been just for the Almighty to have punished the extravagance of the Fears and Jealousies that Reigned in the time of the Royal Martyr about his not being a Protestant a Character of Religion he had constantly own'd in the view of the World both by his publick Devotions and Alliances and particularly that with Holland which chiefly his Zeal for that Religion made him to ensure by the Marriage of his Daughter with the Prince of Orange in the time that the War between the Crown of Spain and the States was depending by permitting a private Gentleman whose name perhaps had not come to public knowledg but for the figure he made in illegal Arms so far to march with his Religion undiscern'd through the Quarters of all the gathered Churches and the Classical ones too that he deceived in that point so many that called themselves the very Elect and who were as well vers'd in the business of all Religions as Iews are in Coines and in the way of adulterating them and who after that Religion had always been the Staple Commodity of England as much as Wooll did almost nothing else but Weave and Dye and Tenter the same with all subtilty of Art possible to them and as the Israelites marched out of Egypt without the farewel of a Dogs barking at them we were then near the point of being driven back to Egypt to Civil and Spiritual Slavery without the least â—arm given us by any of our best and deep mouth'd Dogs against Popery But the extreme danger to Protestancy from that intended Usurpation hath been long since over nor do I expect that any fatality of that kind can ever happen to it from any Prince of the Right Line how much a Papist soever he may be that is to say from one who was swathed with the Laws in his Cradle and will be Circumscribed with them in his Crown According to that great severe truth I observed before of the fate of the ten Tribes after they had made a defection from the Line of David that they were punished with a Succession of 10 Kings and not one ' good one in the whole Pack and their falling at last as a Prey to Forraigners it was the Lot of England justly to suffer what has been here described from various Governments and Governors for its defection from the Royal Line and the experience of our disastrous past Calamities must needs convince all men of serious thought and sense that we can have no Usurper how true a Religion soever he may own but will be false to the Interest of the Nation and that particularly by diving it and thereby as much depretiating it in the view of all Christendom as a great Diamond would be if cut in two for tho Diamonds or Pearles be equal and like in their Figures Waters Colours and Evenness yet if they differ in their Weights and Magnitudes those are the Roots of their Prices and a Diamond of Decuple weight is of Centuple value I therefore think the Kings Loyal long Parliament did consult the public Security when in the great Act of the Test they enjoyn'd
the taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and thereby the laying on the takers an Obligation to the Kings Heirs and Successors that was to outlast the Life of the King and without any distinction of the Religion true or pretended of such Heirs and Successors Of the Obligation to the Kings Heirs and Successors arising from those Oaths Mr. Pryn in his Concordia Discors Printed in the Year 1659. hath writ usefully but because since the time of the late fermentation many Pamphlets have been writ pro and câ—n of the Political part of the Question relating to a Popish Successor and none that I have heard of has professedly writ of the Casuistical Part thereof and particularly with relation to those Oaths and because I have heard that in some discourse about the same in some good Company where the Obligation by those Oaths to the Kings Heirs in point of Conscience hath been asserted some good men have been blundered but of their apprehending the same by mistaking the saying in the Civil-Law that nemo est haeres viventis and likewise some things obvious in the Common-Law and I did fear that it might thence grow a common and vulgar error that there is no such Obligation resulting from those Oaths and that as a Supine neglect of the use of means to find the true sence of the same would be very culpable so that a serious and dispassionate representing the same would to all men that regard the weight of an Oath be very acceptable I have with as much recollection of thâ—ught as I could faiâ—ly and impartially writ my opinion thereof Casuistically and shall very shortly send it your Lordship for your perusal And indeed as I should not think I dealt candidly with any person of the Popish perswasion if I should be severe to him before I had a Moral Certainty of his having imbibed any of the Principles imputable to Popery that may be called unmoral or inhumane so it would especially seem to me somewhat like the drawing on a naked man for a Protestant at this time to write for the devesting any Popish Prince of his legal Property when few or no Writers of the Church of Rome either do or dare for fear of offending the Pope draw their pens for the preservation of such his property without respect to any Religionary Tenets he may hold What the Pope did to obstruct King Iames's Succession I have mentioned and what favour any Protestant Prince can hope for from the Holy See may appear out of D' Ossat's Letter to Villeroy in the Year 1598. Book 4th where having spoke of the Artifices used to the Pope to make him believe that if Harry the 4th recovered the Marquisate of Salusium it would be Commanded by Hugonots he thereupon adviseth the King to declare the Contrary to the Pope and adds I would not interpose to write this to you if I did not know that the Pope and all this Court hold that to maintain the Catholic Religion in a Country and to preserve it from Heresie his Holyness may and ought to deprive the true Lord and Possessor of it and give it away to any other who hath no property therein and who shall be more able and willing there to preserve the Catholic Faith. I met with some passages lately in a Pamphlet that concerned the Succession where the Author having liberally descanted on the words Heirs and Successors in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy saith as I will not take up Arms without the Kings Commission nor enter into any Association to commence in his life time against his Consent c. so any one by whom or for whom any resignation of his Majesties Power shall be extorted shall not reign over me and there was another very course expression there applyed to a very fine Person and one so every way truly great that every Age doth not produce viz. That the House of Commons conned little thanks to George Earl of Hallifax c. but according to the licence of Speech used by that Author I shall venture to declare that where ever I have a Suffrage in the Choice of a Parliament-man if any Candidate shall tell me that he served in the place before and was for an Exclusion Bill rather then the Kings Offers and without advising with his Country would have any one of the Royal Line Secluded from his Title to the Throne on the account of any Religionary Tenet for our English Antiquities afford Footsteps of Parliament-men on some weighty matters consulting their Towns or Counties that chose them such a one if I can help it shall never represent me and moreover he who doth not with acknowledgments of Honour and Gratitude to the Earl of Hallifax mention that Bill that he brought into the House of Lords in order to the extermination of Popery that I spake of before and with it lodged in our Statute Book that man if I can help it shall never represent me I am not so rash in my efforts against Future time as perhaps that Author was and can cite a great Name for the reasonableness of Representatives advising with those they represent in matters of great moment to the State and to this purpose the Lord Viscount Falâ—land Secretary of State in a Printed Draught of a Speech concerning Episcopacy c. saith p. 4. Mr. Speaker Tho we are trusted by those that sent us in Cases wherein their opinions were unknown yet truely if I knew the opinion of the Major part of my Town I doubt whether 't were the intention of those that trusted me that I should follow my own opinion against theirs and thereupon his Lordship advised the House of Commons not to do any thing against Episcopacy and at least to stay till the next Session and consult more particularly with their Electors about it And if according to the example of that great man any of our Contenders against Popery had thought fit to consult with those they represented about the meeting those Royal and Frank offers with hearty embraces they would perhaps have found the generality of those they represented zealous for their so doing and if they that perhaps with a well intended Gallantry of Courage and scorn of Popery threw out the Bills that came from the Lords in the Year 1677 should ask those they represented if they do not now wish those Bills had then passed into Laws I believe they would say they did and if they were asked whether that Bill I mentioned before that was brought in by the Earl of Hallifax had not likewise passed into a Law I believe they would wish it had I presume not to inveigh against any of our late Loyal Parliaments whatever slips in Politics were by any there made or Arbitrary Votes there passed against particular Persons and am as impatient when I hear any inveigh against our Representatives who in the contention of Popery exerted all the strength of the faculties of their minds what
verò muneribus honorat amplissimis augustissimis in toto regno alibi tum bello tum pace c. Quartò consilium suum è puris putis haereticis stabilit c. So that after he had with St. Peter denied his Lord the followers of St. Peter's pretended Successor call'd him in effect a Galilean and said that the Speech of his Actions bewrayed him and after his absolution he continued in effect what the Pope styled him in his Bull of Excommunication filius â—rae and after as a Prodigal having fed among heretical Swine he returned to his Romish Ghostly Fathers house and had cryed peccavi and abjured and his Father had compassion on him he experimented the contrary to for this my Son was dead and is alive again and himself was the fatted Calf that was slain and so much wantonness was shewed by the contrivers of his dire fate that Gassendus in his life of Peiresk Book 2 d shews how in the beginning of the Year 1610. An Almanack or yearly Prognostication was brought out of Spain in which the Accidents of Harry the 4ths death were foretold and that it was sent to his Majesty to read who slighted it as Gassandus did likewise all judicial Astrology but yet supposed that the figure-flinger might possibly be acquainted with the Plot against that Kings Life and saith sure I am it could not be perfectly conceal'd either in Spain or Italy for even the Kings Ambassadors and particularly the most excellent Johannes Bochartus Lord of Champigny then Agent at Venice had already preadvertised his Majesty thereof and it was sufficiently proved that all the Sea-faring Men of Marseilles who for two Months before came from Spain brought word that there was a report spread abroad in Spain that the King of France was already or should be killed by a Sword or Knife Poor Harry the 4 th He who while a Protestant had Dominion over his own Stars and his Enemies Stars too for they were his Enemies who made him first be call'd Great and their designing to ruine him by embroiling France in Civil Wars tended to the advancement of his Interest and his Glory and the Artifices by which they thought to have chased him out of Guyen brought him into the heart of France and their former by unjustifiable practices urging the King his Predecessor to have prosecuted him with more violence then he had done were the causes of his being reconciled to that King and who then in the most dark and stormy night of his Affairs never wanted that Illumination from above which was like a Star to him and not only a sign of fairer weather but a mark of direction in the foul and which would have furnished his Portraiture in Story with another guess Star than that usually engraved on Coesars Image and which by its blazing seven days ore the Games consercrated to Coesar by Augustus did make him inter Divos and did awe the World as being thought his Soul which vouchsafed from Heaven to visit it with its lustre this Harry the 4 th was at last grown the ludibrium of Star-gazers And if any one shall say that Franciscus de Verona Constantinus the Author of the Apology for Chastel was not a Voucher good enough for the spreading the Belief of the Doctrine that Heretical Princes by their absolution from the Pope are not restored to their Regal Rights let him consult the Great Thuanus and he will find that in his Book 135 and on the Year 1605 where he gives an account of the Gun-powder Treason here he saith that the Conspirators therein Ante omnia conscientiam instruunt eâque instructâ ad facinus audendum obfirmant animum sic autem à Theologis suis disserebatur That Hereticks are yearly excommunicated by the Pope in the bulla coenae and are ipso facto fallen into the punishment of the Law and that thence it followeth that Christian Kings if they fall into Heresy may be deposed and their Subjects released immediately from their Princes Dominion nec jus illud recuperare posse etiamsi ecclesiae reconcilentur Ecclesiam communem omnium parentem cum nemini ad eam redeunti claudere gremium cum dicitur adhibitâ distinctione interpretandum esse modo non it ad damnum periculum ecclesiae Nam id verum esse quoad animam non quoad Regnum Nec solum ad Principes hac labe infectos paenam extendi sed etiam ad eorum filios qui à Regni successione ob vitium paternum pelluntur haeresim quippe lepram morbum haereditarium esse atque ut disertius res exprimatur Regnum amittere qui Romanam Religionem deserit diris illum devoveri nec unquam ipsum aut illius posteros in Regnum restitui quoad animam à solo Pontifice posse absolvi His se rationibus cum satis tutos intus existimarent munimenta externa conjurationi quaerere coeperunt c. ita ad facinus non solum licitum laudabile verum etiam meritorium à Theologis suis auctorati accesserunt They thought it seems that by the Authority of the Doctrines of those Divines they might blow up the King and three Estates with Gun-powder very fairly It is a thing that cannot have escaped your Lordships curious Observation that both the Nonconformists and Papists were sturdy Petitioners to King Iames in the beginning of his Reign that he would be a Fautor to them and their Hypotheses In April in the Year 1603 a Petition was presented to him call'd the humble Petition of the Ministers of the Church of England desiring reformation of certain Ceremonies and Abuses of the Church and there they particularly desire that Ministers may not be urged to subscribe but according to the Law to the Articles of Religion and the Kings Supremacy only and that none migat be excommunicated without the consent of his Pastor and therein they complain of Ministers being suspended silenced disgraced imprisoned for Mens traditions This Petition was commonly called the Millenary Petition the Petitioners averring themselves to be more then a thousand and an animadverting Answer was made to the same by the Vice-Chancellor and Doctors and Proctors and Heads of Houses in the Vniversity of Oxford and printed in the Year 1604. Methinks a Humble Petition with a thousand hands is a kind of Contradictio in adjecto But the Vniversity in their Animadversions on the Petition do observe that the two contrary Factions of Papists and Puritans did shew themselves by their Petitions discontented with the present State and Ecclesiastical Government They mention particulars as parallels wherein their Petitions agreed and resemble them to Samsons Foxes c. I had occasion before to mention to your Lordship the Supplication of the Papists to King James that was Contemporary with that of the Puritans and printed too in the same year and tho I remember not any of our Historians to have given the World an account of that memorable
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bounty and Goodness together with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ought to be reckoned up And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just and kind men are convertible terms in Aristophanes and joyn'd both together iâ— Plâ—â—arch and Aristotle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moderation or Clemency is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a piece of Iustice better then all Iustice. And if a man would not wish his Soul yet he would his Body among Heathens of that temper or Mahumetans rather then such fiery Canonists There was one thing that I told the Gentleman who was the Papist in the Close of this Discourse that much surprized him namely that those two Anti-Christs the Turk and the Pope have sometimes held a good Correspondence together and that the Pope has been a Pensioner to the Turk King Iames in his Apology for the Oath of Allegiance doth in p. 74 mention how Alexander the 6 th took of Bajazet two hundred thousand Crowns to kill his Brother Gemen or as some call him Sisimus whom he held Captive at Rome and how he accepted of his Conditions to poyson the Man and had his pay King Iames voucheth for the History of this Fact Paul. Iovius and Guicciardine and Cuspinian It was a vile Ministry to the Turk that that pretended Vicar of Christ then engaged in King Iames mentions not there how that Popes predecessor Innocent the 8 th was likewise Bajazets Pensioner in the same detestable Affair for 't was in his time that Sisimus having rebell'd against his Brother and retired to Rhodes was brought to that Pope to whom Bajazet sent the Title of our blessed Saviours Cross in Hebrew Greek and Latin as a present and effectually obliged him to detain his Brother in Custody during his Pontificat and that Pope had a yearly Pension of 40,000 Ducats from the Turk for the continuing his Brother a Prisoner and it seems that Charles the 8 th King of France making War against Pope Alexander who was not able to resist him the Pope was constrained to conclude a Peace and one Condition was that he should set the Turks Brother at liberty But then his Holiness being thereby to lose the said yearly Pension of 40,000 Ducats received from the Turk the gracious offer of 20,0000 Crowns to cause Geme or Zizimus to be poysoned and so he was These faults are particularly set down in Cyprian Valera of the lives of the Popes writ in Spanish and translated into English by Iohn Golbourne and printed at London Anno 1600 Pag. 130 131 136. and many other Popish Writers accord herewith and particularly Sabellicus Tome 2d of his Works Ennead 10. Book 9 says that Bajazet promised that Pope Magnam auri vim si fratrem veneno tolleret and that fuerunt qui crederent cum veneno sublatum fuisseque Alexandrum pontificem ejus consilii non ignarum p. 781. ib. King Iames in p. 74. of that Apology mentions another of Christs Vicars namely Alexander the 3 d that writ to the Soldan that if he would live quietly he should by some slight murther the Emperor and to that end sent him the Emperors Picture That Emperor King Iames says was Frederick Barbarossa and it seems to have been extraordinary ill nature in that Pope Alexander after he had not without ridiculing that piece of Scripture Conculcabis leonem draconem trampled on that Emperors neck to write to the Pope to cut his Throat And that the Greek Church refusing to submit to the Pope was betrayed by him to the Turk is a thing enough known as it likewise is that the Pope has often effected it that Arms raised in Christendom against the Turk should be employed against Heretics I believe there is none thinks that the Pope by all the Treasures that the Souls or Sins of any Christians yield him could have hired the Turk so far to have degenerated from Natural Conscience as to practice any base Art of killing the body of any of his Vassals contrary to the Law of his Prophet or of the Empire and I acount nothing more ridiculous than to believe that the Grand Seignior doth employ for his Spies in the Europaean World a wretched sort of Mankind that appear within the Class of Monsters and are call'd by the Italian and German Writers of Politics Cingari and by the Spanish Hittani and the French Egyptii and by our People Gypsies and who are foolishly imagined by any to have come from Egypt and more foolishly by Reinkingk de Regim Saecul Eccles. lib. 2. class 1. cap. 7. n. 10. and the generality of the Grave Political Authors to be exploratores proditores qui Germanorum consilia negotia Turcis produnt and he saith further nulla in imperio securitate gaudent sed impune à quovis offendi possunt Magerus de Advocatiâ armata p. 299. saith of them Nihil aliud sunt quam manipulus furum colluvies pessima otiosorum fraudulentorum hominum ex variis nationibus non ita remotis sed vicinis collecta qui extra civitates in agris in triviis tentoria erigentes proditionibus latrociniis furtis deceptionâ—bus permutationibus atque ex chiromanticâ oblectantes homines iis fraudibus victum mendicant but renders them no Commissaries or Spies for the Grand Seignior or Correspondents with his Visier and saith that Nonnullorum magistratuum animos vana superstitio velut lethargia adeo invaserit ut hoc hominum genus violare nefas putent eosque grassari furari subditis imponere passim impune sinunt And if not only Magistrates but private persons too spare them for according to Reinkingk every man is a Magistrate against them 't is an Indicium that they are but inconsiderable Extravagants in the World and 't is therefore I think pity that our Learned Country-man Brown in his vulgar errors where he shews the error of their being thought to come from Egypt doth yet represent them as Spies employed by the Grand Seignior I shall here observe to your Lordship one thing that occurred to me not without sharp regret and that is that I read lately in the Works of Crackanthorp one of the most learned men in Oxford in his time and a most faithful Citer of Authors the famous Hosius of the Church of Rome cited for a more intolerable Blasphemy against the holy Iesus then any I remember in the Alcoran Crackanthorp arming his Logick against the errors of Popery doth in his Chapter De loco arguendi ab authoritate say that ipsi primarii sacerdotes quos maximè ab errore immunes fecit Mosis Cathedra promissio illa Dei Math. 26. 65. Ipsi indicabunt tibi judicii veritatem illi inquam Christum blasphemasse reum mortis esse judicarunt Pudeat vos Hosii vestri cujus haec sunt verba Hos. lib. 2. Con. Brent fol. 54. Veritas indicii hic judicata vera
sententia hic pronuntiata fuit Quaenam illa Reus est mortis Hanc sententiam à spiritu sancto profectam esse non est dubium O hominem sacrilegum blasphemum Ille ne Reus mortis qui innocens innoxius vitam dedit But as inhumane as any Principles of Papists or Mahumetans or any Enthusiasts or as desperate as the very Iesuites beforementioned ones are supposeable to be and as much as any of Mankind can strive to delude others by Implicit Faith yet as it is in no mans power presently to believe what even his own and much less what his Guides appetite would have him notwithstanding any Ecclesiastical Association he may have prosessedly linked his Faith in so no man can ensure the continuance of his Belief or its holding for a Moment and therefore the more absurd and inhumane any mens Tenets are I shall expect them to be the less believed and for the less time and it is more then Holy Church can know that any one at all believes as it believes how great soever the number that pretends so to do appears Of all Papists not professing themselves bound to withdraw their Allegiance from Heretical Princes and even from such as by a particular Bull were Excommunicated by the Pope History affords many Examples and particularly of the many Loyal Papists who when the inheritable Right of the Crown of France was devolved on the King of Navarre a Protestant and as such Excommunicated with their Lives and Fortunes asserted his Title to the Crown Any of the Readers of Thuanus know that in Book 93 't is related how when many Papists would have debarred him from the Succession and that the minds of those qui in Castris erant were in that point variously affected yet Major sanior pars sic existimabat nullam publicae salutis spem superesse nisi servato legitimae successionis ordine and so were for Harry the 4 ths Right therein and whom they believed was late reconciled to the King his Predecessor for that he did per eum res administrare as the Historian's words are i. e. Harry the 4 th a Protestant Successor was Primier Ministre to Harry the 3 d a Papist And not only the Major part and the sober Party of the Popish Souldiery i. e. in Thuanus his words sanior pars was loyally addicted to the Right of the Protestant Successor but several of the Grandees of the Popish Clergy were so and particularly the Arch-Bishop whose Speech for that purpose Thuanus Book 106. sets down wherein 't is said Neque verò aut Regis personam aut subditorum robur debilitatemque heic considerandum esse quando Reges lege ad regnum vocantur Neque exemplis doceri posse quicquid contrajactetur in priscâ lege populum Israeliticum ob Religionem regibus suis defecisse c. sed totum id Deo dijudicandum reliquisse in cujus manibus regum corda sunt quae ille pro arbitrio quo vult inclinat Quid in Christianâ Ecclesiâ Nonne Christum generis humani redemptorem ejusque beatissimam matrem nomina sua apud censum Augusto imperante Gentilium sacris addicto professos esse Nonne Caesari suo Petri nomine tributum pependisse Quod verò de legibus civilibus imperialibus constitut affertur quibus Manichaei Arriani à dignitatum magistratuum ac publicorum munerum participatione excluduntur id intelligi de magistratibus inferioribus non de principalibus qui nisi cum excidio populorum Reip. eversione jure suo privari non possunt de quibus decernere ad solius Dei Omnipotentis Iurisdictionem pertinet The whole Speech is argumentative to that purpose out of the old and new Testament and Fathers c. and that Noble Loyalty of those Papists to a Protestant Successor met with a requital as to their Religion and thereby I may say in the Scripture expression that they did at once heap both a Crown and Coals of Fire upon his head Any one may be rather apt to think me less sanguine as I may say in my belief of Shame 's operating more and more among both Lay and Clerical Roman Catholicks and even among our Jesuited Protestants I mean many of our Non-Conformists that have had sanguinary and disloyal Principles transfused into them by Jesuites to the making them out of love with such Principles when he shall consider how the ingenious Maimbourg doth in the 6 th Book of his History of Calvinisme reflect on the great Calvin for his opinion and practice relating to the punishment of Heretics with death and instanceth in the Case of Servetus who was burn'd by the Magistrates of Geneva as an Heretick on Calvin's instigating them so to deal with him as Maimbourg tells us and concludes his Historical Account of the Parisian Massacre with the mention of the said opinion and practice of Calvin and doth with great Judgment and Candour thus observe viz. On á veu neanmoins de tout temps que le moyen le plus efficace quand l' heresie est deja puissamment etablie n' estoient point les supplices beaucoup moins la violence le trop de Rigueur Bien loin que le massacre qu' on fit a Paris entant d' autres villes ait aneanti ou du moins affoibli le Calvinisme qu' au Contraire il en devint plus enracinè plus puissant plus formidable qu' auparavant Les Huguenots ne voulurent plus se fier aux declarations que l' on fit pâ—ur les rasleurer c. Alsted in his Chronology of Heresy tells us that Michael Servetus Hispanus docuit nullam esse in Deo realem generationem aut distinctionem and Calvin in his Opuscula saith of Servetus vel sola modestia potuisset vitam redimere but I believe the World will grow more modest then to burn men for immodesty and 't is most certain that as the World grows the nearer to its Period and growing more and more populous that populousness will naturally tend to unite all Countries at home by preparing them to resist Invasion from abroad and make the fantastical squandring away the Members of the Common-wealth more and more ridiculous and insensibly to grow out of fashion Thus 't was with the increase of the People among the Jews and Turks that the Sicacious Zealots among the former and Dervices among the latter did gradually decrease and at last insensibly grew obsolete And thus of old did Draco's Laws evaporate Aulus Gellius tells us in his Noctes Atticae that Draco Atheniensis vir bonus multáque esse prudentia existimatus est jurisque divini humani peritus fuit Is Draco leges quibus Athenienses uterentur primus omnium tulit In illis legibus furem cujuscunque modi furti supplicio capitis puniendum esse alia pleraque nimis severe censuit sanxitque Ejus igitur leges quoniam videbantur impendio acerbiores non
mind was there in the Divines that governed our Church in the times of the late Vsurpation when those Triers of Ministers would allow none to have a Living or Cure of Souls that asserted the Tenets of Arminius in Religion which yet carry a face of so much probability to be maintained that a man who having used his utmost care in the investigation of truth therein asserts them may claim it as his due by the purchase of Christs Blood that when he is required to deliver his opinion about the same his asserting it that way should not expose him to punishment And there is no Controverted Religionary Speculative Point of that Nature wherein there is among Learned Men probabilis causa litigandi and in some Cases too where it may touch too close upon our Articles and Homilies in which liberty of differing in Judgment is here either prejudicial to their Interest or common Esteem Thus tho all the Reformed Churches make the Pope to be Antichrist and particularly our Church of England in its Homilies hath done so our Famous Dr. Hammond adventured as he thought himself obliged in Conscience to publish it that Simon Magus was the man. The most judicious Comparers of times are sensible that there is now a more valuable libera theologia in England then was during the Usurpation How glad would many of the Independent and Presbyterian Divines then have been of the liberty to have taught their Flocks the Notions they then thought of importance as to the Divine Decrees tho they had been allowed to have so done only in Surplices or in Vests of Indian feathers or any habits imaginable The old way of arguing about speculative points in Religion with passion and loudness and being tedious therein is grown out of use and a Gentlemanly Candour in discourse of the same with that moderate temper that men use in debating natural Experiments has succeeded in its room and 't is accounted Pedantry for any one in good Company to pass for a Victor in Notions by having the last word and seeming a Baffler in dispute And the truth is our Divines and the Lay Literati having since the King's Restoration been more addicted to the Study of real Learning then formerly which requires quiet of thought in its pursuit hath brought noise out of Request I need not again mention the Obligation our Land hath received from the Royal Society in making so great a Plantation of real knowledge in it 'T was high time at last when the Kingdom was settled on its proper Basis to improve it with such strong and nervous knowledge that would be like the strong man keeping Possession in mens understandings during which either Poperies or Presbyteries Kingdom of Darkness cannot overthrow our Quiet There were in the Year 1599. reckoned in Christendom 2,25044 Monasteries and from whence all the great Revenue there bestowed on men to think sent not perhaps one Notion of real Learning into the World. But their professed business was to extinguish the light of Knowledge and not to increase it and that which they made their real Study was to find out Artifices to make Mankind fit still and quiet in the dark and to invent torments and punishments for those that would not do so and to ridicule those who pryed into nature and but looked toward Arithmetick and Geometry by the Name of Students of the black Art and Conjurers a humour that was not quite exterminated hence from the time of Fryer Bacon to my Lord Bacon for our pious Martyrologer mentioning occasionaly Dr. d ee the Mathematician called him Dr. Dee the Conjurer Thus Almighty God tho the first thing he made for the World in general was external light yet one of the last things he hath made or so much blessed the World with is real Learnings intellectual Light and even that whereby we so knowingly converse with his works of Nature and so careless was Mankind in considering the frame of their own bodies that Dr. Henshaw a late Ornament of the Royal Society hath truely observed it in his Book of Fermentation That within the Compass of this last Century the knowledge of Anatomy hath been enriched by a full third part at least Mankind was so busie in murthering one anothers bodies of old under the Notion of Christians and afterward as Hereticks that it had no leisure to dissect them and was wholly taken up by studying experiments of Cruelty equal to the making of live Anatomies of each other And tho the Holy Iesus came into the World not to destroy mens lives but to save them and for that purpose tho the Divine Philanthropy chose that time for his coming into the World when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was arrived at a greater heighth then ever before yet by the depraved nature of man perverting and corrupting the use of Religion the fantastick vile sacrificing of men hath since encreased In the Infanticidium of Herod's that was presently after the Birth of the Holy Child Iesus Samuel Siderocrates saith that there were slain of Infants of 2 years old and under that Age 444000 and Paulus Volzius makes them to be a Million and 44 Thousand And afterward among the Heathens he was accounted the Magnus Apollo not who could find ways of saving but destroying Christian men No fewer than seven Books were writ by Vlpian to shew the several punishments that ought to be inflicted on Christians And tho Livy saith of the Romans in hoc gloriari licet nulli gentium mitiores placuisse paenas yet Tacitus tells us of the Christians in the 15th Book of his Annals Primo correpti qui fatebantur deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud perinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt Ea pereuntibus addita ludibria aut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent aut crucibus affixi aut flammandi aut ubi defecisset dies in usum nocturni luminis urerentur Several Authors relate it as a Decree of Nero ' s Quisquis Christianum se esse confitetur is tanquam generis humani convictus hostis sine ulteriori sui defensione capite plectitor Enough hath been already said to parallel the Cruelty of new Rome with that of old toward the Heterodox and how ingenious the Virtuosi of the Inquisition have been in finding out such torments for Heretics as can multiply one death into a thousand I with horrour think of How profound a submission and deference to the unaccountable Will of Heaven doth this Consideration require namely that Christs little Flock even in the Ark of his Church is not only endangered by a deluge from without but by one within and that of its own blood and that the Sheep of Christ appear to a common eye to be as it were made on purpose to feed the grievous Wolves that are entred in among them and as it may be supposed that thousands of harmless Sheep were in the Ark of Noah
into the Field of Time have yet grown up and how many even of the higher Class of understandings have been tempted to believe the predictions of the illiterate and that such could read the Book of Fate who yet could read no other as appeared by Sir Thomas Moore and Bishop Fisher being tainted with some belief of the holy Maid of Kent's Sayings or at least seeming so to be and that the prediction of things as I partly before hinted may help as a Natural Cause to give them Birth I wishing so well to my Country and its Religion by Law Established have however adventured from Natural Causes to give my judgment for the future State thereof as I have done not despairing of its influences on some present Despairers And moreover the Class of Magna nomina who have faulter'd in their measures of Prophecy is so great that an obscure mistaken person may well hope to hide himself among them Father Parsons aliâ—s Doleman in his Book of the Succession doth p. 258. give his final Conjecture of the great future Event of the Succession after the death of Queen Elizabeth saying My opinion is that this Affair cannot possibly be ended by any possibility moral without some War at leastwise for sometime at the beginning and gives his reasons for that his opinion And how all our hot Apocalyptick Men and Teazers of Anti-Christ have erred in the times of the great Changes they have predicted in the World is obvious and therefore the most sagacious of that sort of Expositers have made the things they have foretold to be far distant in time and before which they knew they should long be in the number of Non entes doctores as one calls the Schoolmen and thus likewise the ingenious Author of the Treatise of Taxes and Contributions printed in London 1667 doth p. 23. say that Before five hundred years we may be all transplanted from hence into America these Countries being over-run with Turks and made wast as the Seats of the famous Eastern Empires at this day Mr. Herbert our pious Vates made Religion standing a tiptoe to take its flight thither many years ago And the ingenious Author of the Zelanders Choice hath therein told us that the French would never part with Vtrecht and that our King's Declaration of Indulgence would never be recalled but the contrary happened in both Cases and the Vote of the House of Commons in order to his Majesties recalling the latter was carried by the Party there favouring the Nonconformists and could not have been without them which that Author did not foresee and that those Nonconformists would be well neither full nor fasting and therefore their reflections on the King's Ministers for denying Indulgence to them since ought to be very gentle Mr. Fox in his Martyrology in one Volume p. 694. gives us this conjectural prediction that the Turk will seize Rome and founds one of his reasons for it on the 18 Ch. of the Rev. and that he shall consume it with fire and Ribera the Iesuite in Chap. 14th of the Rev. saith Romam igitur non tantum propter priora peccata conflagratarum esse magno incendio sed etiam propter illa quae extremis illis temporibus commissura est ex hujus Apocalypsis verbis adeo perspicue cognoscimus ut ne stulâ—issimus quidem negare possit Neither Mr. Fox nor the Iesuite name any particular time when Rome shall be consumed with Fire but many whose Enthusiastic fancies have played with the fire of Rome adventured to lay the Scene of its ruine in the Year 1666 and to assert this a Latin Book was professedly writ and called Romae ruina finalis Anno Dom. 1666. and printed in London in the Year 1663. in the Title whereof 't is said that Rome shall be incendio delenda in the Year 1666. And no doubt our many Prophetic Writers that read that Sentence as from Gods Tribunal that Rome shall be destroyed that year angered the Conclave there and they might well think that to such hot heads there belonged incendiary hands and accordingly as it was before cited out of the Pampâ—let called The Arts and pernicious designs of Rome wherein is shewn what are the Aims of the Iesuites c. the Author makes the Conflagration of London in case it were a practice of Humane Contrivance to have been caused by Rome and the Consistory there and the Iesuites as being willing to signalize that year of 666 with some remarkable mischief done to Protestants in check to the fancies of some that predicted Romes utter destruction then 't is possible that they might grant against our City the reprisal of performances for our Prophecies against theirs which if they did was a Revenge very disproportionate for according to that rule of the Pharisees revenge namely an Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth they should only have equipped Airy Prophecies against us and not Fire-ships and by a little obvious Art have hounded the number of the Beast 666 upon us And though I am sufficiently convinced by the Quotations out of the Canon Law and the Canonists referred to in Gundissalvus that the Tenet of burning whole Cities if the Majority thereof are Hereticks is chargeable on the Church of Rome as approved by it and tho the Lord Chancellor and two Houses of Commons and the Magistrates of London have given their judgment of the Causers of that Fire as aforesaid and tho one of our great Divines and whose Name all Protestants in our Land must mention with great honour Dr. William Lloyd Dean of Bangir hath in his Funeral Sermon of Sir Edmund Godfrey p. 38. speaking of the incredible patience found in the Citizens of London at the time of its Conflagration as an effect of the Protestant Religion further said Tho so many believed and very few much doubted whence it came that it was from the same hands which we justly suspect for this wickedness meaning the Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey yet was there no Tumult rose upon it no violence done that extended to the life of any Person yet shall I never without the knowledge of convincing proofs of such a Fact projected or modelled by some in Authority in the Church of Rome and the Spiritual Guides of our Lay-Papists charge the Odium of the Fact on more of them than make the least of numbers nor yet the allowance of this Tenet on the generality of Papists here at home or abroad in the World and would say that as infallible as the Pope was he knew not what spirit he was of when he thus in his Law called for fire on Heretical Cities I allude to our Saviour's words to the Disciples that importun'd him to call for Fire from Heaven to burn the Samaritans I know the Roman Catholick Author of the forementioned Pamphlet called the Arts of Rome c. in the Epistle of it saith of the Jesuites and Fryars that what they hold lawful to be done
told me he knew well enough that the Canon Law did not as such bind all Papists in foro conscientiae but he would stay in no Church that he should find to be built in any Akeldama or Field of Blood that is a Church that approved of Tenets destructive of Civil Societies or condemned not Tenets that where any other Religion than the Popes was would Condemn men like Nebuchadnezor to grasing and to solitude or if they would live in Towns or Cities make them live there in Houses under Ground as Dr. Browne in his Travels saith He saw some Towns in the Turkish Dominions where Christians so lived like the Troglodytes and subterraneous Nations about Egypt and which might be occasioned by many Armies marching that way and burning of Towns en passant and that till the Pope disclaimed this power and damned such Tenet in his Canon Law that hung up there a Light conspicuous to the World for the lawful kindling of the Torches that should set fire to Heretical Cities such Cities as he called Heretical would be in fear of their being incendio delendae and that in the mean time the Iesuites who assert the plenitude of his power would implicitly obey his Commands and their Emissaries execute theirs without considering whether Gratian as a Fool or a Knave misapplied Cyprian and he granted that if as an Universal Censor morum the Pope did Command the Iesuites or others to inflict spiritual Censures in Cases of Sin or Non-belief of any Religionary Notion and those Censures were not to operate beyond the Soul that Civil Societies might yet be maintained but to give the Pope power to issue out Orders to burn the Cities and Towns where the Roman Catholick Religion is not professed is said he to give him Arbitrary Power over a great part of the World and to leave it to his Arbitrage whether there shall be any Political Government and Commerce in the States and Kingdoms of Hereticks and the World might suffer Confusion by the Papacy's having this power de facto as much as if it had it de jure and that several places have been burned as Heretical and when certainly they had a right not to be so served and particularly the Heretical Villages at the Massacre of Merindol of which Dr. Heylin in his Geoghraphy in Folio makes mention saying that in the Year 1560. there were above 1250 Churches of the Hugonots in France which cannot in such a long time but be wonderfully augmented tho scarce any of them have scaped some Massacre or other Of these Massacres two are most memorable viz. that of Merindol and Chabiers as being the first and that of Paris as being the greatest That of Merindol happened in the Year 1545. the instrument of it being Minier the President of the Council of Aix for having Condemned those poor people of Heresy he mustered a small Army and set fire on the Villages He directed me further for the proof of that Fact to Maimbourg's History of Calvinism Book 2d where he mentions the Decree of the Parliament of Aix to which Heylin refers and saith Maimbourg of it Par le quel il Condamn ' par Contumace dix neuf de Ces Heretiques à estre brasléz c. ordonne que toutes les Maisons de Merindol qui sont toutes remplies de Ces Heretiques soient entierement démolies renverses de fond en comble c. He further said that there was another guess Fire projected by the Jesuites as was before mentioned out of Thuanus and which was abetted by the Pope which shewed there was another Pope beside Eugenius that thought the burning of Heretical Cities lawful and meritorious and he referred it to the Consideration of the Criticks in Gun-powder how far so great a quantity of it lodged in a strait Vault might have tended to the demolishing of the Heretical Cities of Westminster and even of London if the experiment of the Gun-powder Treason had took effect for said he the utmost power of Gun-powder was never yet tryed He told me that Osborn in his King Iames having spoke of the Gun-powder Treason saith I never met two of the like conceit concerning any effect or extent this Powder might have reached had it not failed of success some men confining it to the Circle it lay in and no farther whereas the judgment of others no less experienced delivered at least the whole Isle to the fury of it and then he quotes it as the more probable Conjecture then that it could not but work dire effects on the City it self He further discoursed that in this Case of securing Protestant Cities from Fire at the Popes pleasure Pere Veron's artifice in making the Church of Rome chargeable with nothing to be believed but what is proposed by the Catholick Church in her general Councils or by her Vniversal Practice to be believed as an Article or Doctrine of Catholick Faith or any Papists in this Case joyning with Protestants to decry the Canon Law is but trifling away time as to any giving light to our understandings or keeping Fire from our Cities for if each Pope believes he hath this power and the Jesuites too believe it the Notion of a things not being de fide will not be sufficient to save our Cities when the Incendiaries even by the Doctrine of probability may save their Souls and when they shall have such Doctors as the Pope and Gratian and as they may think Cyprian for the opinion of burning the Nests of Heretical Hornets He moreover mentioned how Bellarmine as to the Tenet of all Christian Monarchies owing subjection to the Pope said the contrary to it is Heretical tho he well knew that no definition of the Church ever made it Heresy and might as well have called the denial of this Incendiary Power of the Pope against Heretical Cities to be Heresy Moreover he told me he had read Bellarmine cited in that Book of Donne p. 277. for writing against a Doctor who had defended the Venetian Cause against the Popes Censures and reprimanding that Doctor in these words viz. It is a grievous rashness not to be left unpunished that he should say the Canons as being but Humane Laws cannot have equal Authority with divine for this is a Contempt of the Canons as tho they were not made by the direction of the Holy Ghost and yet saith Donne citing that Doctor that impugned the Canons those Canons that he referred to were but two and cited but by Gratian. And that Donne further in that Page observed that when Parsons is to make his advantage of any Sentence in Gratian he uses to dignify it thus that it is translated by the Popes into the Corps of the Canon Law and so not only allowed and admitted and approved but commended and commanded canonized and determined for Canonical Law and authorized and set forth for Sacred and Authentical by all Popes whatsoever Treat of Mitag ca. 7. ◠42. That moreover tho we
may have who shall believe it nor of the Doctrine of Consubstantiation under any Prince of the Lutheran perswasion nor of Calvin's horrendum decretum relating to reprobation as 't is call'd under any Prince that may believe the Doctrine of Calvin tho yet till the Peace of Munster the timid People of the Lutheran and Calvinian Religions hating one another more than they did Papists abroad in the World were so much imposed on by fears and jealousies in Case a Lutheran or Calvinian Prince should by the right of Lineal Descent come to rule them But the Munster Peace has taught them better things and should I ever hear that any Roman Catholick Prince here did according to the power by Law reposed in him relax some of the Penalties of the Law in Case of Recusancy that as things now are Recusancy would not be thereby rendered considerably prolific with Converts Tho I have given my opinion as beforementioned concerning the Fact of the encrease of the number of the Papists in the Conjuncture of the Declaration of Indulgence and do not think fit to alter it yet I can tell your Lordship that a Person of great Sagacity who I believe considered the State of their Numbers here then very carefully and entirely believe what he published thereof in Print I mean the Author of the Catholick Apology with a reply c. there saith that during the Year 1672. and which he calls a year of Peace there was not one Priest one Mass one Conversion more in England than in the Year 1663 1666. or any other time of trouble I have in this Discourse spoke of such a perfect hatred against Popery as may always consist with a perfect love to Papists and cinge not a hair of their heads more than a Lambent fire I have acknowledged the great mortifications austerities and zealous devotions not only among many of the Religious Orders of the Church of Rome but of the common People and have allowed a sober Party to the Iesuites themselves and have reason to believe that Bellarmine himself that hammer of Heretical Princes as his Works shew him was yet of so soft and gentle a disposition as would not permit him to hurt a Fly or tread on a Worm and I have reflected on no other Principles of the Iesuites with any sharpness than what the present Pope hath done and which the Court of Inquisition at Rome or elsewhere would have allowed me to do and I have been as I still am so free from any thing of rancour or acerbity in my Principles relating to the usage of the Papists that an English Priest of the Church of Rome the Author of the remarkable Book beforementioned called the Advocate of Conscience Liberty or an Apology for toleration rightly stated published in the Year 1673. and the most considerable Book that had for several years been writ in favour of the Roman Catholicks and a Book our Learned Dr. Stilling fleet refers to in a very excellent printed Sermon of his p. 43. and called The Reformation justified and Preached before the Lord Mayor of London doth me the honour there to adopt as his own several Sayings of mine he found in a printed Discourse of mine that was disswasive of the use of force in matters of Religion and gave me occasion when I read some passages in his 14th 25th 26th 34th 43d 54th 55th 62d 94th Pages there to call to mind that I had read them elsewhere and much good might any thing in my Writings do that Author and he was as welcome to them as if they had been his own and I am sorry that his not citing an Author where he should have done it was accompanied with another misfortune of citing one where he should not I mean his in p. 225. citing of D' Ossat He might have cited another passage of mine against Hereticide as being impolitic if he had pleased to have took notice of it among its fellows and where I observed that the putting of the Roman Catholick Priests here to death did propagate their Religion and that that Faith was given to the Assertors of Popish Opinions because they were dying which they could not have drawn from me but by raising the dead I still own what in p. 93. he partly cites of mine as said by another Author That if it be not lawful for every man to be guided by his private Iudgment in things of Religion 't will be hardly possible to acquit our separation from the Romish Church from the guilt of Schism c. and if any Papist shall as to any Tenet that can properly come within the denomination of Religion tell me that his private Judgment guides him to receive the guidance of the Church of Rome and that therefore I a Protestant ought not to be inclined to bear hard upon him on the account of such adhesion to his private Judgment I shall own the Argumentum ad hominem so far as to tell him that I am not inclined eo nomine to he severe to him And now my Lord because it hath been so â—ustâ—mary in the Authors of large Discourses to bestow on them a short REVIEW that it would appear sullenâ—ess in me not to follow them and because it would be an irreverence to your great Judgment in me to present any thing for you to view once that I had not resolv'd to view twice I intend to improve some Intervals of leisure hereafter in reviewing of this Discourse and shall explain some passages therein on occasion and add others and if I doubt of any thing particularly in the various matters of Calculation herein contained and of many of which few or none perhaps have written or shall alter my opinion therein or in any thing else I shall acquaint your Lordship why I do so and do as much value my self on my natural temper of acknowledging a quick and ready assent to any proposition of Reason that convinceth my understanding how contradictory soever the same may be to any former Notion of mine as any man can value himself on his thinking he never erred or on his Abilities either by Eloquence or Sophisms to make others think so and to make them erre with him and do still account this to be one of the best properties in the best Ship namely the soonest to feel its Rudder and do think that as none but Cowards are cruel so none but Dunces are positive My Lord after the Efflux of the various Intervals in which this Discourse was written it having happened that the Papists are to the general satisfaction of impartial Judges of Men and Things become as found a part of this Nation as they were and are of the Dutch States and as throughout this Discourse I always supposed them capable of being and that the Body of them is as Loyal as can be wished and likely forever so to continue and that none but the Factious would have them now to groan under the Penal Laws
particular Law hath declared the Militia to be solely in the King I most humbly take my leave of your Lordship at present and am My Lord Your Lordships most Faithful Servant To the Right Honorable THE LORD MARQUESSE OF HALIFAX MY LORD ACcording to the Common Civility of Ships paying a Salute to the Forts on the Coasts they come near the Course of my handling the following Subject necessarily giving my Thoughts an approach to the Considering the great use that Providence not long ago made use of your Lordship's great Abilities as a Fortification for the Defence of the Hereditary Monarchy I have held it here but common Iustice to Congratulate to your Lordship your heroical Loyalty and great Success therein on one MEMORABLE Day It pleas'd God in whose Book the Members of Mens Bodies and Talents of their Minds are written then to call forth your Head and Heart and Tongue your flowing Elocution your fixt Iudgment your great Presence of Mind and Thought your comprehensive Knowledge of the past Publick Affairs at home and abroad and even the generous ferment in your Blood and to put them all to signal use in preserving the whole Body of the Kingdom Your Lordship's Goodness was herein the more God-like for that as the great benign Father of the Creation was pleas'd with being a Benefactor to such whose Ingratitude he foreknew and to some who would render him as negligent of the Concerns of his Creatures and to others who would represent him as unjust in his Prescriptions and cruel in his Designs and taking pleasure in the Destruction of Souls so your Lordship was resolv'd on your Beneficence to your Country in the black Conjuncture of our Fears and Iealousies and you were then Communicative of the brightest Beams and sweetest Influences of your serene and great thoughts to it when you knew that by some of the People for your so doing you would be maligned and mis-represented as an hostis Patriae I shall Presume to give your Lordship no further trouble then by the syncere Profession of my being My Lord Your Lordship 's most Obedient Servant P. P. THE OBLIGATION Relating to the King's Heirs and Successors In point of Conscience discuss'd As resulting from the OATHS of ALLEGIANCE and SUPREMACY and the Takers of those Oaths proved to be thereupon become bound to bear Faith and True Allegiance to those HEIRS and SUCCESSORS in the Due and Legal Course of DESCENT I Shall without Proem or Passions here approach to the Great Areopagus of the Court of Conscience and having stated the Question of what Obligation to the King's Heirs and Successors results from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy in point of Conscience shall deliver my judgment of the same in some Conclusions and answer Objections that may occur I shall here take Notice that the word Obligation from being Originally a Band or Ty of the Law for Payment of Debts hath been since frequently applied to the discharge of Moral Offices Obligatio est juris vinculum quo necessitate restringimur alicujus solvendae Rei Instìt de Obligationibus And pursuant hereunto men may be properly said to pay their Allegiance to Princes in discharge of their Natural Obligations and their Oaths But here I consider not the extent of the Obligation of the Natural Allegiance that English Subjects owe their Monarchs nor yet their Obligation to Allegiance from the Divine Law positive nor from the Lex terrae tho yet I account it very plain that we are on all those accounts bound to pay them Allegiance but do choose to confine my discussion of the Obligation to Allegiance as resulting from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and as mentioned in our Statutes in relation to our King's Heirs and Successors and most particularly from that CLAUSE in the Oath of Allegiance viz. I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to his Majesty his HEIRS and SUCCESSORS and him and them will defend to the uttermost of my power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity c. And THAT in the Oath of Supremacy viz. And do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the King's Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Iurisdictions Privileges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and Successors c. And I here enquire how far the Obligation resulting from those Clauses in those Oaths in Relation to such Heirs and Successors may be judged in point of Conscience to extend As to the Question thus explained and stated I shall lay down these following Conclusions First That those Oaths and indeed all others do respect a Duty to be performed in the Future time that is at the least some time tho perhaps a very small one after the Obligation contracted as is well open'd by Sanderson in his first Lecture of the Obligation of Oaths and where he shews that this happens in every Oath assertory as well as promissory for whoever sweareth obligeth himself ipso facto to manifest the truth in that which he is about to say whether it be in a matter past or present by an Assertory or in a Future matter by a Promissory Oath Secondly That by that part of an Oath Promissory contained in the forementioned Clauses of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy as likewise by all other Oaths Promissory the Party swearing is bound to endeavour for the Future as much as in him lieth by his Deeds to fulfil what he hath sworn in words and this Sanderson in his second Lecture hath well asserted as to an Oath Promissory viz. That he who endeavours not to perform that which he hath promised is guilty of Perjury in the Court of Conscience 'T is plain that in an Assertory Oath if I took the same with a wellcompoâ—ed mind and have given my Testimony truely I have discharged my Duty and have my Quietus from my Conscience for the same But in an Oath Promissory and particularly in the Promissory part of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy I am not discharged by the sincerity of my intention in my promise I have engaged my self to Action and have lanched my self into a Sea of Business from that time forward till the end of my life and as there is occasion and opportunity I am to DO what in those Clauses I have promised to the King and his Heirs and Successors And thus the Style of DOING runs in Numbers 30. 2. If a man swear an Oath to bind his Soul with a Bond he shall DO according to all that procedeth out of his mouth Thirdly That those Oaths and all others are to be taken in the sense of the Imposer For the Oath being taken that the Imposer may be assured that the promise of the Person swearing shall be effectually made good to him there would be no assurance thereof in
Contention between the words Heirs and Successors tho with as little sense as was in Sir W. I's fancy of Treason whereby he would have set the Assertory and the Promissory Clauses in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy at variance nay the Promissory Clause at variance with it self There was a Book writ by a late Lawyer called Historical Discourses of the Vniformity of the Government of England first printed in the Year 1647 and reprinted by some Factious Anti-Papists since the Epoche of our Fears and Iealousies of Popery and with that former year in the Title which was an ill ominous sign of the fatal time such Persons would have driven us back upon if they could where in p. 279 of the 2d part ill reflections are made on the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy which Oaths saith the Author do make much Parly concerning Inheritance and Heirs but that they do not hold forth any such Obligation to Heirs otherwise than as supposing them to be Successors and in that Relation only His design is too plainly express'd viz. to strike at the Rights of our Hereditary Monarchy and to invite Parliaments to interlope in controuling the Succession of the Crown and he saith That the Doctrine he there insinuates doth not go down well with those that do pretend to Prerogative aided by the Act of Recognition made to King James and the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and I shall say that I hope it never will and 't is pity but a Book that in so many places of it impeacheth the old known Rights of the Crown should in this Conjuncture of Loyalty find some Person at leisure ex professo to make Animadversions on it and the rather for that the Author doth in the Vehicle of somewhat like Witt and his affectation of which is by People of middling Capacities who generally make the greater part of Mankind judged to be Witt dispense his Poysons Yet as to the signification of HEIRS and SUCCESSORS he had before in his first part saved any one the labour of shewing their Identity for there in p. 109 and in his Chapter of the Laws of Property of Lands and Goods under the Saxons he quoted Tacitus about some of the Customs of the Germans which he judged remain'd here with them and which shewed that HEIRS and SUCCESSORS passed then as current Coyn for the same thing according to the words of Tacitus HAEREDES SVCCESSORES cuique liberi nullum est testamentum and thus Englished by that Author viz. the HEIRS and SVCCESSORS to every one are his Children and there is no Testamentary Power to DISHERIT or ALTER the COVRSE of DESCENT which by CVSTOM or Law is setled And as was shewed the Term of LAWFVL annexed to SUCCESSORS hath nailed the Canon of that Sophism and exposed the ridiculousness of any Cavilling or Calumnious Interpretation about Heirs and Successors tho yet without the interposal of the word LAWFVL the plain sense of the words Heirs and Successors in the Oaths would clearly enough have obliged us to the same Persons We say that id possumus quod jure possumus and none are to be construed Heirs or Successors but such who are so in the Eye of the Law and with reference to Proximity of Blood i. e. they who are meant for such by the Law in the Due Course of their Descent But I hope that England's happy Future State will so far influence Loyalty as to incline all Conscientious Protestants to leave of all senseless Cavilling about the sense of the plain words in those Oaths and to agree to employ their most serious and constant thoughts about the extent of the Moral Offices that relate to their bearing True Faith and Allegiance to the King his Heirs and Successors and other very important matters in the Promissory Clauses most clearly expressed in order to the discharge of their Allegiance and the duties of Loyalty viz. DEFENDING him and them to the uttermost of our Power against all Conspiracies that shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity as the Oath of Allegiance runs and to our ASSISTING and DEFENDING to our Power all Iurisdictions Privileges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and Successors There are no unweigh'd and idle words in the Promissory Clauses and we are to make it our business with the judgment of discretion to consider the sense of the same and to retain it in our Memories and mens not doing which hath been the Cause of the Ebb of Loyalty in some Conjunctures According to the Degrees of mens intellectual Talents and particularly the Talent of understanding beyond other men the Laws natural and positive and the Lex terrae some are beyond others morally bound to defend the particular momentous points relating to all Iurisdictions Privileges Preheminences granted or belonging to the King and his Heirs and Successors and therefore a disloyal Divine and a disloyal Lawyer are things that do particularly hear very ill But as there is a great part of the Moral Offices expressed in these Oaths sufficiently plain and obvious to vulgar Capacities and which with their Native Light do strike common understandings so the extent of these Offices ought to employ the Meditations of all the Takers of these Oaths and how low soever their Talents lie they are to use all the means they can and particularly that of the Consilium peritorum as any occasion shall offer it self for their defence of any of the Privileges or Preheminences belonging to the Crown Our duty in this kind is very well expressed by Sanderson in his third Lecture where speaking of the Subjects Obligations by Oaths of this Nature he saith Doubtless the Subject to his Power is obliged to defend all Rights which appear either by Law or Custom Legitimate whether defined by the written Law or in force through the long use of time or Prescription that is so far as they are known or may Morally be known But he is not equally obliged to the Observation of all those which are controverted Thus therefore as to any Iurisdiction Privilege or Preheminence of the Crown that might seem doubtful the swearer is many times bound to the use of means that it may be Morally known to him as Sanderson's words are Yet what I have urged in this sixth Conclusion as Obligatory to us by virtue of the Oaths is sufficiently plain and there is no occasion for employing a great Genius and penetrating Understanding and Witt to discover that it is one of the Privileges of the Crown to be Hereditary and that the Taker of the Oaths is indissolubly bound to defend that Right There are several explicatory Notions of the word DEFEND and its extent that often occur in the Authors that treat expressly of the Ius Protectitium seu defensorium among whom I account Magerus de Advocatiâ armatâ or of the Right of Protection given by Sovereign Powers to be instar
his Orations that Est aliquid quod non oporteat etiamsi licet and when he in his Offices renders it to be inhonestum injuriam alteri non propulsare and when the Rules of Law could tell us that Non omne quod licet honestum est and when Seneca could contemn the innocence as poor that was not more than the Law required and thereupon say Quaâ—to latiùs officiorum patet quam juris Regula Multa pietas humanitas liberalitas justitia FIDES exigunt quae omnia extra publicas tabulas sunt and when that St. Paul hath ennobled the Moral Offices of Christians by enjoyning in his Epistle to the Philippians the practice of whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report c. it may well be expected that the true faith of a Christian should prevail on Christians not to attempt the compassing of any thing by a new Law contrary to what they have by their Oaths promised to defend and contrary to the old Fundamental Laws of the Land. And having thus far proceeded my 8th Conclusion shall be that our Obligation thus relating both to the King and his Heirs and Successors doth clearly arise from those Oaths without any Condition on his or their part to be performed and particularly without any respect had to what Religion they shall profess We know that Iuramentum limitatè praestitum limitatum producit consensum effectum but 't is likewise as notorious that there is nothing of limitation no IFS or AND 's in these Oaths and therefore that known Rule of Non est distinguendum ubi lex non distinguit must here take place in the Court of Conscience Sanderson in his 4th Lecture saith If two oblige themselves mutually in promises of different kinds or not at the same time or otherwise without mutual respect Faith violated by the one absolveth not the others Obligation but each is bound to stand to his Oath tho the other hath not performed his part For example A King simply and without respect to the Allegiance of his Subjects sweareth to administer his Government Righteously and according to Law. The Subjects at another time simply and without respect to the Duty of the Prince swear Allegiance and due Obedience to him They are both bound faithfully to perform their several Duties nor would the King be absolved from his Oath if Subjects should not perform their due Obedience nor Subjects from theirs tho the King should turn from the Path of Iustice. Mr. Ny doth therefore in a printed Treatise of his very well for this purpose cite Bishop Bilson and saith That Bishop Bilson a great Searcher into the Doctrine of the Supremacy of Kings giveth this as the sense of the Oath viz. the Oath as saith the Bishop expresseth not Kings duty to God but ours to them as they must be obeyed when they joyn with truth so must they be endured when they fall into Error Which side soever they take either Obedience to their Wills or Submission to their Swords is their due by God's Law. And tho some ill Anti-Papists have ridiculed Passive Obedience after they had given the Cautio juratoria against their owning the Doctrine of Resistance Mr. Ny doth very particularly in p. 138 of that Book inveigh against that Doctrine and saith Nor if they were able i. e. to resist is it lawful for a Church to compel by the Sword more than the Magistrate may by the Keys or what is peculiar to the Sacred Function Uzza erred in the latter and Peter in the former The Primitive Rule and Practice was this Being persecuted in one City to fly into another and pray that their flight may not be in the Winter I have read a Manuscript Book of Mr. Ny called A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Laws and Supremacy of the Kings of England in dispensing with the Penalties thereof where he asserts throughout the Legality of his Majestie 's Declaration of Indulgence and the Book was writ professedly for that purpose and he there doth very rationally inculcate the unlawfulness of Exclusion as in his other Book he did the unlawfulness of Resistance and saith That Civil Rights and Claims and Temporal Things are the immediate and intrinsic Concern and Interest of all States Dominium non fundatur in gratiâ The just Claim of a Prince may not be interrupted upon account he is of this or that Religion or Perswasion Nor may a Subject be justly banished imprisoned confiscated or ruined on the mere account of Religion or because his Conscience is not cast into the same Mould with the Prince or present Establishment It is POPERY to deny Allegiance to a Prince or Protection to a Subject upon the account of any such difference It is therefore no wonder that our Ancestors framing the Oath of Allegiance would have no Principle of Popery therein favoured by a side Wind which according to Mr. Ny's Sense must have happen'd had there been any distinguishing reserves or limitations or restrictions in the Oath respecting the Religion of our Princes And because many men have been in this Conjuncture of time tempted to strain their Oaths and their Consciences by excessive Fears and Jealousies relating to Religion and as if God could not Govern the World but by Princes and their Subjects being of the same Religion and because Mr. Ny's judgment is of great Authority among many of our Religionary Dissenters I shall here insert somewhat more out of that Manuscript of his that falls under this Consideration and which is indeed writ with great Weight and Authority of reason and worthy the Writers great Abilities He having there put a Question relating to Religion and the Worship of God being the great Concern of a Nation and to the trust of dispensing with the Penalties of Ecclesiastical Laws saith In answer to it I endeavour to unfold 1. In what sense Religion is the Concern of the State. 2. The nature of this Trust and as to the first he saith The moment and weight of a matter in our deliberation hath its proportion as either under an absolute or respâ—ctive Consideration Wisdom is better than Riches in it self absolutely but not in respect to the support of this present life The knowledge of God and Divine Things is better than to know the Virtue of Drugs and Plants but not in respect to the Study of Physick so Religion and the Worship of God is the chiefest and better part in it self considered but in its respective Considerations as to the Family of a particular Person or Community of men for the advancement of Civil Affairs there are OTHER qualifications and inducements of greater Consequence and more directly and immediately tending to the being or well-being thereof That there be no mistake in this great Concernment I further distinguish There comes under the Notion of Religion the Holyness and Righteousness that is
same purpose That internal Communion is due always from all Christians to all Christians even to those with whom we cannot communicate externally in many things whether Opinions or Practices But external Communion may sometimes be suspended more or less c. and he doth afterward in p. 18 assert That Christian Communion implies not an Vnity in all Opinions and shews That the Roman and African Churches held good Communion one with another while they differ'd both in Iudgment and Practice about Rebaptisation As for any projected Universal Vnity of Opinions I look on it to be as impracticable as our levelling Republicans EQVAL Division of Lands in the late times by their wild Agrarian Laws for the Birth of the next Child would necessarily break that their Model and the same fate might be expected to happen the same way to this Model of Vnity of Opinions or perhaps by the birth of the next hour But this Internal Communion is a thing most possible and our Duty tho without hope of Unity in all Religionary Opinions to ensue thereby according to the Doctrine of this Great Primate If then we are Morally bound to have this Internal Communion with all Foreign Roman Catholick Princes and their Subjects as before described how can we without horror think of the excluding any Heir to the Crown for fear of his believing the same Religionary Notions that they do from the Catholick Communion and of excluding him from his Birth-right on such an account whom we must always have this Internal Communion with and rejoyce in his good successes and condole with him in his ill and to hold an external Communion with him and any Church he is of in votis in our desires and to endeavour it by all means that are in our Power Did any endeavour it who would by depriving him of his Birth-right on that account and holding the same Tenet with Papists of Dominium fundatur in gratiâ gave him such a just Cause of Scandal as without the Divine Spirit assisting him might endanger his withdrawing from the whole Christian Communion And tho the honest Heathen could tell us That Cavendum est ne poena major sit quam culpa and all Casuists agree That Poena non debet excedere delictum and tho Magna Charta tell us That Ex quantitate poenae cognoscitur quantitas delicti quia poena debet esse commensurabilis delicto yet attempted to punish him by the loss of his Birth-right of the Crown when it could not be certain to us that he had committed any fault at all and when by the judgment of Charity we were bound to believe that he had committed none To many of our Nominal Protestants whose thoughts and Ideas of Christian Communion are too narrow to extend not only to a National Church but to a Parochial one this Notion of the incomparable Primate for whose august Charity one Christian World of Religionary differences was not enough to overcome about internal Communion will I believe seem new Doctrine and Duras Sermo but if they would be true Christians instead of being called true Protestants this Duty of Internal Communion from all Christians to all Christians must be practised by them and if this Duty hath a Divine Right for it as to the Persons of Papists abroad it must be operative as to those here at home He who loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen I may ask how can he love either his God or his Brother that he hath not seen The sham-war among any Protestants and Papists must not only be lest off but they must honour the Persons of one another and Protestants are not only to forbear robbing Papists of their Goods on pretence of carrying away their Images and Pictures but are to honour the Image of God shining in the lives of or the Gifts of God dispensed to any Papists Mr. Burroughs in his Irenicum p. 38. saith We accounted it Tyranny and Persecution in the Bishops when they would not suffer such as could not conform to their Church Discipline and Ceremonies to teach Grammar or practise Physick and saith That there was no dependance between their Errors if you will call them so and these things To deny the Church and Commonwealth the benefit of the Gifts and Graces of Men on such a pretence that they will abuse their Liberty we thought it was hard dealing yea no less than a Persecution Suppose a man differs from his Brethren in point of Church Discipline must not this man have a place in an Army therefore Tho he sees not the reason of such a Discipline in the Church yet God hath endued him with a Spirit of Valour and he understands what Military Discipline means c. Ought not then Persons of his Principles to revere the Heroical Endowments of an Heir to the Crown which do much preponderate as to the continuance of the being and well-being of the Kingdom to supposed Orthodoxy in some Mysteries of the Gospel as was shewn out of Mr. Ny King Iames had great Talents in Polemical Divinity to prove by words that the Pope was Anti-Christ but will not these latter Endowments necessarily prevent the Pope's being Anti-Christ in Deeds if he were inclined to hurt us by shewing himself such Ames in his Puritanismus Anglicanus giveth this as the chief Reason why the Puritans hold the Bishop of Rome to be THE Anti-Christ viz. For that he being an Ecclesiastical Ruler doth arrogate and exercise the chief Power over Kings and Princes And doth any one fear that he can exercise such Power over a Prince of these Endowments And I may add have not many Factious and Republican Nominal Protestants here compleated that Figure of Anti-Christ How many Vertues must any indifferent man overlook in this Pope who thinks he would outrage our Civil Government and how many Vices must he wink at in such Persons who thinks they would not do it And by Virtue of our blessed Lords having decided it that he was the better Son who said he would not do the Will of his Father and did it may it not be said That those Papists who say they will not take these Oaths and yet perform their Natural Allegiance are more loyal than such Nominal Protestants who have took the Oaths and observe them not As much an Abhorrer as I am of the Principles of the Iesuites Condemned by this Pope I shall yet think my self bound by the Moral Offices beforementioned out of Ames not to charge the belief or practice of them on all Persons in that Order For when I consider the Devotional Books of some Iesuites writ with such strong and lively expressions of the Practick part of Religion as any Person of Candor will think to be founded on a real deep sense of all Moral Offices lying warm at their hearts I account it impossible for them to have believed some of those Tenets and as I once observing at the Anatomy of a poor Malefactor that his Stomach
the King's Heirs and lawful Successors by Virtue of these Oaths must remain uncancelled in the Court of Conscience and however any Act of Parliament supposed to be made against the Law of God may a while be de facto received in any Courts of Law yet is it in the Court of Conscience to be looked on as a poor Escrole and as not worthy the name of a Law. It is most manifest that by these Oaths there is jus alteri acquisitum I mean to the King's Heirs and Successors as well as to the King and that therefore any supposed relaxation of the Oaths without the consent of all Parties for whose behoof they were made is a thing Nugatory and not allowable in the Court of Conscience And as I have speaking cum vulgo called some Anti-Papists whose Principles tend to Faction in the State and Schism in the Church Nominal Protestants tho yet I should be still as much content with any Law that made it Penal to call them Protestants as with one that should be so to call Quacks Physicians so I should in the Court of Conscience call any Acts of Parliament that are contrary to the Eternal and Natural Rules of indispensable Iustice only Nominal Laws suitably to what is said in the admirable Preface of Aerodius his Rerum Iudicatarum Pandect viz. Quod si quid iniquè malo more sordibus adversus illâ—m sempiternam legem atque immutabilem hic aut illic judicatum tranaâ—ctum sit qualis fuit apud Graecos Socratis Phocionis apud Romanos Mâ—telli Numidici Rutilâ—i Rufi M. Ciceronis damnatio in ecclesiâ Flaviani Johannis Chrysostomi contrà absolutio P. Sexti Clodiorum atque adeo Gabinii quam proptereà legem impunitatis appellarunt non magis judicata aut decreta debent appellari quam Seiae Apuleâ—ae Liviae leges Leges non sunt inquit Cicero But Thirdly The just allowance of the Rebus sic stantibus that can be in this Case is this there being nothing of pretence of relaxation from all Parties supposeable these Oaths bind us to the King's Heirs and Successors as long as there is any ONE of them remaining in the World and without the insertion of the words in the Oath of Allegiance viz. I do believe and in Conscience am resolved that neither the Pope NOR ANY PERSON WHATSOEVER hath Power to absolve me of this Oath or any part thereof its indispensableness to those who know the Obligation of Oaths to be jure Divino naturali would have sufficiently appeared In fine there are Rationes boni mali aeternae indispensabiles and to stand to promises is one of the things that are simply and in their own nature good and it is impossible as the Scripture saith That God should lye and therefore man made after God's image must therein answer the Archetype and hereby our Princes have the Garranty of our Allegiance sworn to them their Heirs and Successors being indispensable by Popes or Acts of Parliament or by God himself for he cannot dispense with the Law of Nature Humanâ naturâ manente eadem Lastly It is most manifest from what I have already said that any such Tacit Condition in these Oaths as before mentioned was contrary to the sense of the Imposer as well as to the Words and was therefore not allowable in the Court of Conscience in this Case and I believe that the Consciences of such who have made this Objection must tell them that when they took these Oaths their sense of them was then contrary to any such condition being allowed And therefore any such After-birth of a strained Interpretation being so contrary to the Law of God and the Land and the sense of the Imposer as well as the words of the Oaths and to the sense in which they actually took them must be thrown away There hath been a third Objection if it may be called one or if yet it may be called a Scruple for I think it hardly deserves the name of that However it having got under some mens feet or into their heads it hath made them so uneasie as frowardly to trample on the Rights of Crown'd Heads and it hath troubled us by the name of Haeres viventis and as if that were a Chymaera when as indeed the Objection is altogether Chymerical When Sir L. I. had with so much clear reason shewed much to this purpose viz. That the Exclusion-Bill was against the Fundamental Iustice as likewise the wisdom of the Nation and that it would induce a CHANGE in the Government and that was likewise against the Religion of the Nation which teacheth us That Dominion is not founded in Grace and that we are to pay Obedience to Princes whether good or bad as accordingly the Primitive Christians did and that it was against the Oaths of the Nation namely of Allegiance and Supremacy and that his R. H. is the King 's lawful Heir if he hath no Child and in the Eye of the Law we are sworn to him and when he had further signalized the weight of his Political Remarks and Learning in that Speech as well of as his Loyalty so as on the account of both to merit a place for it in the English Story and had instanced in some Princes and their Subjects of different Religions living very happily together it may perhaps be a blot in that Story that Sir W. I. in an answer to that Speech granting That we are sworn to the King his Heirs and Successors said further That we are not obliged to any during the King's life but to himself for it were Treason if it were otherwise The King hath no Heirs nor Successors during his life for according to his Law meaning Sir L. I's and ours Nemo est haeres viventis In answer to which I shall say that that Proverbial Latin saying in the Law Books doth amount to no more in nature and hath no more influence on Humane Affairs nor particularly on Moral Offices than that kind of Proverbial Sayings in the New Testament viz. For where a Testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the Testator or a Testament is of no strength while the Testator liveth Every one knoweth that a Will is in its own nature revocable and Legatees and Executors may be altered by the Testator and for any one to quote it as a Maxim Nemo est Executor viventis and for a Legatee or in effect an Executor in a Will the word haeres iâ— often used in the Civil Law and by the Writers of it will be no more significant than the telling the Legatee or Executor is that they must not meddle in the Testators Goods till he be dead and it may usefully operate to divert People from the slothful Omissions of making their Wills in due time out of a fond imagination that their Legatees or Executors would have a Title to any thing before the Testators death But after what hath been said