whom the care of Religion is committed therefore it belongs to the Pope to judge a King to be deposed or not deposed You see here it is not Lawful for such Christians as the Papists to Tolerate you which may help your judgement in the point of their Toleration Si Christiani saith Bellarib olim non deposuerunt Neronem Valentem Arianum similes id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis You have your Government and we our Lives because the Papists are not strong enough They tell you what to trust to Saith Tollet one of the best of the Jesuites li 1. de Instruct Sacerd. c. 13. They that were bound by the bond of fidelity or Oath shall be freed from such a bond if he fall into Excommunication and during that Debtors are absolved from the obligation of paying to the Creditor that debt that is contracted by words These are no private uneffectual Opinions Saith Pope Pius the 5th himself in his Bull against our Queen Elizabeth Volumus mandamus We will and command that the Subjects take Arms against that Heretical and Excommunicate Queen But their crueltie to mens souls and the Church of Christ doth yet much more declare their uncharitableness It is a point of their Religion to believe that no man can be saved but the Subjects of their Pope as I have after proved and is to be seen in many of their writings as Knot and a late Pamphlet called Questions for Resolution of Unlearned Protestants c. and Bishop Morton hath recited the words of Lindanus Valentia and Vasquez Apol. lib. 2. c. 1. defining is to be of Necessity to Salvation to be subject to the Roman Bishop And would not a man think that for such horrid doctrines as damn the far greatest part of Christians in the world they should produce at least some probable Arguments But what they have to say I have here faithfully detected If we will dispute with them or turn to them the Scripture must be no further Judge then as their Church expoundeth it The Judgement of the Ancient yea or present Church they utterly renounce for the far greatest part is known to be against the Headship of their Pope and therefore they must stand by for Hereticks Tradition it self they dare not stand to except themselves be Judges of it for the greatest part of Christians profess that Tradition is against the Roman Vice-christ The internal sense and experience of Christians they gainsay concluding all besides themselves to be void of charity or saving grace which many a thousand holy souls do find within them that never believed in the Pope Yea when we are content to lay our lives on it that we will shew them the deceit of Popery as certainly and plainly as Bread is known to be Bread when we see it feel and taste it and as Wine is known to be Wine when we see and drink it yet do they refuse even the judgement of sense of all mens senses even their own and others So that we must renounce our honesty our Knowledge of our selves our senses our reason the common experience and senses of all men the Judgement and Tradition of the far greatest part of the present Church or else by the judgement of the Papists we must all be damned Whether such opinions as these should by us be uncontradicted or by you be suffered to be taught your Subjects is easie to discern If they had strength they would little trouble us with Disputing Nothing more common in their Writers scarce then that the Sword or Fire is fitter for Hereticks then Disputes This is hut their after-game Though their Church must rule Princes as the soul ruleth the body yet it must be by Secular Power excommunication doth but give fire it is Lead and Iron that must do the execution And when they are themselves disabled it is their way to strike us by the hands and swords of one another He that saw England Scatland and Ireland a while ago in blood and now sees the lamentable case of so many Protestant Princes and Nations destroying one another and thinks that Papists have no hand in contriving counselling instigating or executing is much a stranger to their Principles and Practices Observing therefore that of all the Sects that we are troubled with there is none but the Papist that disputeth with us with flames and Gun-Powder with Armies and Navies at their backs having so many Princes and so great revenews for their provision I have judged it my duty to God and his Church 1. To Detect the vanity of their cause that their shame may appear to all that are impartial and to do my part of that necessary work for which Vell. Paterculus so much honoured Cicero Hist lib. 2. c. 34. Ne quorum arma viceramus corum ingenio vinceremur And 2. To present with greatest earnestness these following Requests to your Highness on the behalf of the cause and people of the Lord wherein the Papists also shall see that it is not their suffering but only our Necessary Defence that we desire 1. We earnestly request that you will Resolvedly adhere to the cause of Truth and Holiness and afford the Reformed Churches abroad the utmost of your help for their Concord and Defence and never be tempted to own an Interest that crosseth the Interest of Christ How many thousands are studiously contriving the extirpation of the Protestant Churches from the Earth How many Princes are consederate against them The more will be required of you for their aid The serious endeavours of your Renowned Father for the Protestants of Savoy discovered to the world by Mr. Morland in his Letters c. hath won him more esteem in the hearts of many that fear the Lord then all his victories in themselves considered We pray that you may inherit a tender care of the cause of Christ 2. We humbly request that you will faithfully adhere to those that fear the Lord in your Dominions In your eyes let a vile person be contemned but honour them that fear the Lord Psal 15. 4. Know not the wicked but let your eyes be upon the faithfull of the Land Psal 101. 4 6. Compassionate the weak and curable Punish the uncurable restrain the froward but Love and cherish the servants of the Lord. They are under Christ the honour and the strength of the Commonwealth It was a wise and happy King that professed that his Good should extend to the Saints on earth and the excellent in whom was his delight Psal 16. 2 3. This strengthening the vitals is one of the chief means to keep out Popery and all other dangerous diseases We see few understanding Godly people receive the Roman infection but the prophane licentious ignorant or malignant that are prepared for it 3. We earnestly request your utmost care that we may be ruled by Godly Faithfull Magistrates under you and that your Wisdom and Vigilancy may frustrate the subtilty of Masked Papists
we have but one Head Jesus Christ That they are two Churches besides what is said hear the words of Cajetane in the foresaid Oration in Bin. p. 552. This Novelty of Pisa sprung up at Constance and vanished At Basil it sprung up again and is exploded and if you be men it will nâ—w also be repressed as it was under Eugenius the fourth For it cometh not from heaven and therefore will not be lasting Nor doth it embrace the Principality of that One who is in the Church triumphant and preserveth the Church militant and which the Synod of Pisa ought to embrace if it came from heaven and not as it doth to rely on the Government of a multitude The Church of the Pisans therefore doth far differ from this Church of Christ For one is the Church of believers the other of Cavillers One of the houshold of God the other of the Errone us One is the Church of Christian men the other of such as fear not to tear the coat of Christ and divide the mystical members of Christ from his mystical body This was spoken in Council with applause And can there yet be greater divisions then these 4. They have been utterly divided about the very power of choosing their Pope in whom they must unite In one age the People chose him In another the Clergy chose him sometime both together For a long time the Emperours chose him At last only the Cardinals chose him And sometime a General Council hath chosen him Our Catholick Church hath no such uncertain Head but one that 's the same yesterday to day and for ever 5. They have often had two or three Popes at once and one part of the Church hath followed one and another the other yea as is said for forty years together none knew the true Pope saith Cajetane ubi sup Of the Schism of that time there were three so accounted Popes that none of them might be esteemed the Successor of Peter either certain or without ambiguity For many ages one part hath been running after one and the other after the other or striving about them But we are all agreed in our Head without Controversie 6. They have killed multitudes of persons in their divisions about the choice of their Pope as in Damasus choice And they have had many bloody wars to the dividing of the Church about their Popes and between Pope and Pope This was their Unity It would make a Christian ashamed and grieved to read of the lamentable wars and divisions of Christendom either between or about their Popes 7. Their Popes and Christian Emperor Kings and Princes have been in yet longer and more grievous wars 8. They have set Princes against Princes and Nations against Nations in wars about the Causes of the Popes for many ages together and it is too seldom otherwise 9. They have set Kings and their own subjects together in wars as England and almost all Christendom hath known by sad experience 10. They have Excommunicated Princes and encouraged their subjects to expell them and to murder them hence were the inhumane murders of Henry the third and Henry the fourth Kings of France and the Powder Plot and may Treasons in England This is their Unity 11. They center and unite the Church in an impotent insufficient Head that is not able to do the Office of a Head to the hundredth part of the Church and therefore cannot possibly preserve unity But our Head is all-sufficient 12. They set up not only a Controverted head which all the Churches never agreed to nor ever will do but also a false usurping Head which the Churches dare not and ought not to unite in Whereas Jesus Christ is beyond controversie the just and lawfull Head of the Church 13. Your Agreement and Unity is with none but your own sect and is this so great a matter to boast off you divide your selves from most of the Catholick Church and cast them off as Hereticks or Schismaticks and then boast of a Unity among your selves And so may the Quakers the Anabaptists the Socinians as well as you Or if you magnifie your Unity from the greatness of your number that agree the Greek Church also is numerous and yet in this we far exceed you For the true Catholick is in Union with all the Members of Christ on earth We lay our Unity on the Essentials of Christianity and so are united with all true Christians in the world even with many of them that reproach us when you laying your Unity on I know not how many doubtfull points yea on you know not what your selves can extend it no further then to your sect Which is the more notable and glorious Unity to be United to the truly Catholick body containing all true Christians in the world or to be at Unity with a sect which is the lesser and more corrupted part of the Church 14. With what face can Papists glory in their Unity that are the greatest Dividers of the Church on earth Who is it that condemneth the greatest part of the Church and prosecuteth that condemnation with fire and sword or so much vehemence as the Papists do when they have most audaciously divided themselves from all others and arrogated the title of Catholicks to themselves they call this abominable Schism by the name of Unity If you say that the Reformers have divided themselves from all others too I answer not as from Hereticks or no members of the same body with us as you do but only as from unsound mistaken Brethren And therefore properly we are not divided from them but only from their mistakes We think it not lawfull to join with the dearest Brethren in sinning or in that worship by personal local communion where we cannot keep our innocency But yet we hold the unity of the Spirit with them in the bond of Peace and are one with them in all the substance of Christianity and holy worship Even where distance of place or circumstantiall differences keep us from Communion in the same Assemblies yet our several Assemblies have communion in faith and Love and the substance of worship as to the kind so that our division from other Christians is nothing to the Papists 15. But yet when any differ from us in any point Essential to our Religion that is to Christianity they are none of us nor owned by us and therefore you cannot say that we are at difference among our selves because some Apostates have faln off from us You will not allow us to say you have many sects because some of you have turned Socinians or because thousands of yours have turned to the Reformers in the dayes of Luther Calvin c. And why then should those sects be numbred with us that are not of us but went out from us If men turn Infidels Seekers Quakers Socinians c. they are not of us no more then of you If you say that we bred them I answer no more than you breed
the Papists to call for express Scripture for these that are not Articles of Faith in proper sence CHAP. XLIV Detect 35. ONE of their Practical Deceits consisteth in the choosing of such persons to dispute with against whom they find that they have some notable advantage 1. Commonly they deal with women and ignorant people in secret who they know are not able to gainsay their falsest silliest reasonings 2. If they deal with a Minister it is usually with one that hath some at least of these disadvantages 1. Either with some young or weak unstudyed man that is not verst in their way of Controversie 2. Or one that is not of so voluble and plausible a tongue as others For they know how much the tonguing and toning of the matter doth take with the common people 3. Or with one that hath a discontented people that bear him some ill will and are ready to hearken to any one that contradicteth him 4. Or else with one that hath fixt upon some unwarrantable notions and is like to deal with them upon terms that will not hold And if they see one hole in a mans way of arguings they will turn all the brunt of the Contention upon that as if the discovery of his peculiar Error or weakness were the Confutation of his Cause And none give them greater advantage here then those that run into some contrary extream They think to be Orthodox by going as far from Popery as the furthest About many notions in the matter of Justification Certainty of Salvation the nature of Faith the use of Works c. they will be sure to go with the furthest And a Jesuite will desire no better sport then to have the baiting of one that holds any such opinion as he knows himself easily able to disgrace One unsound Opinion or Argument is a great disadvantage to the most learned Disputant Most of all the insultings and success of the Papists is from some such unsound passages that they pick up from some Writers of our own as I said before And they set all those together and tell the world that This is the Protestant Religion Just as if I should give the Description of a Nobleman from all the blemishes that ever I saw in any Nobleman As if I have seen one crook-backt another blind another lame another dumb another deaf another a whoremonger another a drunkard c. I should say that A Nobleman is a whoremonger and drunkard c. that hath neither eyes nor ears nor limbs to bear him c. So deal they by Protestants And what a Character could we give of Papists on these terms But I would intreat all the Ministers of Christ to take heed of giving them any such advantage By over-doing and running too far into contrary extreams you will sooner advantage them and give them the day then the weakest Disputants that stand on safer grounds Inconsiderate heat and self-conceitedness and making a faction of Religion is it that carryeth many into extreams when Judgement and Charity and Experience are all for Moderation and standing on safe ground A Davenant a Lud. Crocius a Camero a Dallaeus c. will more successfully confute an Arminian then a Maccovius a so it is here The world sees in the Answer of Knot what an advantage Chillingworth had by his Principles when the Jesuite having little but the reproachful slander of a Socinian name and cause to answer with hath lost the day and shewed the world how little can be said for Popery CHAP. XLV Detect 36. ANother of their Practical frauds is in seeking to Divide the Protestants among themselves or to break them into Sects or poyson the ductile sort with Heresies and then to draw them to some odious practises to cast a disgrace on the Protestant Cause In this and such Hellish practises as this they have been more successful then in all their Disputations But whether the Cause be of Heaven or Hell that must be thus upheld I leave to the considerate to judge What they have done abroad in this way I leave others to enquire that are more fit But we all smart by what they have done at home Yet this I may well say that if their own secular Priests are to be believed as Watson and many more It is their Jesuites that have set many Nations in those flames whose cause the world hath not observed And I may well set down the words of a Priest of their own John Brown aged seventy two in his Voluntary Confession to a Committee of Parliament as it is in Mr. Prins Introduct pag. 202. Saith he The whole Christian world doth acknowledge the prediction which the University of Paris doth foresee in two several Decrees they made Anno 1565. When the Society of Jesuites did labour to be members of that University Hoc genus hominum natus est ad interitum Christianae Reipubliae subvertionem literarum They were the only cause of the troubles which fell out in Muscovie when under pretence to reduce the Latine Church and plant themselves and destroy the Greek Church the poor King Demetrius and his Queen and those that followed him from Polonia were all in one night murdered by the monstrous Usurper of the Crown and the true progeny rooted out They were the only cause that moved the Swedes to take Arms against their lawfull King Sigismund and chased him to Poland and neither he nor his successors were ever able to take possession of Sweden For the Jesuites intention was to bring in the Romish Religion and root out Protestants They were the only cause that moved the Polonians to take Arms against the said Sigismund because they had perswaded him to marry two sisters one after the other both of the house of Austria They have been the sole cause of the war entered in Germany since the year one thousand six hundred and nineteen as Pope Paulus 15. told the General of their Order called Vicelescus for their avarice pretending to take all the Church lands from the Hussites in Bohemia to themselves which hath caused the death of many thousand by sword famine and pestilence in Germany They have been the cause of civil wars in France during all which time moving the French King to take Arms against his own subjects the Protestants where innumerable people have lost their lives as the siege of Rochell and other places will give sufficient proof For the Jesuites intentions were to set their society in all Cities and Towns conquered by the King and quite to abolish the Protestants They were the cause of the murder of the last King of France They were the only projectors of the Gunpowder Treason and their Penitents the actors thereof They were the only cause namely Father Parsons that incensed the Pope to send so many fulminate Breves to these Kingdoms to hinder the Oath of Allegiance and lawfull Obedience to their temporal Prince that they might still fish in troubled waters Their
damnable doctrine to destroy and depose Kings hath been the cause of the Civil wars likely to befall these Kingdoms if God in mercy do not stop it So far the Popish Priest You see here if their own pens are to be credited those very Actions of the Swedes Germans French which they cast as a reproach in the face of the Protestant as you may see in a Book called The Image of the two Churches were indeed their own and to be laid at their own doors I omit abundance of better proof because I will give them the words of none but themselves in this How far they were the causes of the old broils in Scotland Knox and Spotswood and all their later Histories will tell you How busie they were in England in Queen Elizabeths dayes the Popes Bulls and the many Treacheries committed signifie Even in King James his dayes who wrote against them they so far prevailed as to cause him to swear to those Articles for Toleration of Popery in order to the Spanish Match which you may read in Prins Introduct pag. 44 45. Yea so far as to prevail with King James before the Lords of his Council to say that His Mother suffered Martyrdom in this Realm for the profession of the Catholick Religion a Religion which had been publikely professed for many ages in this Realm confirmed by many great and excellent Emperours and famous in all Ecclesiastical Histories by an infinite number of Martyrs who had sealed it with their blood that the Catholicks well knew that there was in him a grand affection to the Catholick Religion in so much that they believed at Rome that he did but dissemble his Religion to obtain the Crown of England That now he had maturely considered the penury and calamities of the Roman Catholicks who were in the number of his faithfull subjects and was resolved to relieve them and therefore did from thenceforth take all his Roman Catholick subjects into his protection permitting them the liberty and entire exercise of their Religion and liberty to celebrate the Mass with other Divine offices of their Religion without any inquisition process or molestation from that day forwards And so he goes on restoring them to their estates commanding all Officers to hold their hands and for what cause so ever it be not to attempt to grieve or molest the said Catholicks neither in publick or private in the liberty of the excercise of their Religion upon pain of being reputed guilty of high Treason c. Prin ubi sup p. 30. Mercur. Gal. To. 9. p. 485. So far prevailed they with Prince Charls our late King as to cause him to write that Letter to the Pope which you may read Mercur. Franc. To. 9. An. 1623. p. 509 510. and in Prins Introduct p. 38. which I have no mind to recite and also they prevailed with him to swear to the Spanish conditions and also that he would permit at all times that any should freely propose to him the Arguments of the Catholick Religion without giving any impediment and that he would never directly or indirectly permit any to speak to the Infanta against the same What a hand the Papists had in the late Innovations and wars in England and Scotland and Ireland is too evident How they designed the reducing of England to the Pope in the Spanish and after in the French match and how in prosecution of it they had their Nuntio's here at London and erected their houses of Jesuites Capuchins and Nuns how far they instigated the Court and Prelates to silence and suspend and banish Godly Ministers and to ensnare them by the bowing to Altars by the Book for dancing on the Lords dayes and many such things how far they urged them on against the Scots I had rather you would read in Mr. Prins Works of Darkness brought to Light and Canterburies Tryall and his Romes Master piece and his Royall Favorite then hear it from me And if any reader be disaffected to the reciter of it let them at least peruse impartially the Evidences produced by him It was one of their own Religion who in remorse of Conscience opened the Plot in which they were engaged to Andreas ab Habernfield Physitian to the Queen of Bohemia who told it Sr. Wil. Boswell the Kings Agent at Hague which was to subvert the Protestant Religion and set up Popery and reconcile us to Rome and to that end to attempt the perverting of the King and to engage us in a war with Scotland and if the King would not be perverted then to poyson him The Jesuites of whom four sorts were planted in London and had built them a Colledge having Cardinal Barbarino for their Protector crept into all Societies and acted all parts save the peace-makers and being a foreseeing Generation they lookt further before them then the short witted men whom they over-reacht When they had by the Countenance of the Queen got so considerable a strength at the Court and so much interest in the Prelates and influence on all Ecclesiastical affairs they set afoot the foresaid innovations in worship against the Lords Day c. and the foresaid persecutions of faithfull yea and conformable Ministers and still they went Dilemmatically to work thinking to make sure which way ever things went to effects their ends They see that either their first attempt would prevail without opposition or not If it do then the Calvinifts and Puritan and Protestant Preachers will be removed and the places filled with Arminians and masked Papists and ignorant men unable to resist them and ductile worldlings that will alway be on the stronger side and their ends will be easily attained But if there be any Opposition Murmuring Discontents either it will provoke the Discontented to open Defence and Resistance or not If not their Discontents will hurt none but themselves If it do then either they will be crusht in the beginning or able to bring it to a war If the first then we shall have the Day and this to boot that they will lie under the Odium of Rebellion and be trod the lower and be the less able ever to rise and we shall be able with ease to drive on the change to a higher degree in Opposition to so odious a party But if they he able to make a war of it either they will be conquered or conquer or make Peace The last is most unlikely because Jealousies and Engagements will presently be multiplyed so that an apparent necessity will seem to lie on each party not to trust the other And the flames are easier to be kept in then kindled And if so unlikely a thing should come to pass yet it must needs be to our advantage For we will openly all appear for the King and so in England and Ireland we shall be considerable He will remember that he was helpt by us and look on the Protestants and Puritans as Rebels and take his next advantage against them or
succession of the Catholick Church for the defection of Henry the eighth who forcibly separated himself and his people from the communion of Christians which was promoted by Edward the sixth and Elizabeth who being pertinaceous and impenitent in the same Rebellion and Usurpation therefore the Pope incited by the continual perswasions of many and by the suppliant prayers of the English men themselves N. B. hath dealt with diverse Princes and specially the most potent King of Spain to depose that woman and punish her pernicious adherents in that Kingdom Read the rest there for though wicked its worth the reading The Pope there saith that Pope Sixtus before him prescribed the Queen and took from her all her Dignities Titles and Rights to the Kingdom of England and Ireland absolving her subjects from the Oath of fidelity and obedience He chargeth all men on pain of the wrath of God that they offord her no favour help or aid but use all their strength to bring her to punishment and that all the English join with the Spaniard as soon as he is landed offering rewards and pardon of sins to them that will lay hands on the Queen and so shewing on what Conditions he gave the Kingdom to Philip of Spain This and more you may see in Thuanus And yet some of our Juglers that say they are no Papists perswade the world that Papists hold not the deposing of Princes nor absolving their subjects from the Oaths of fidelity and that the Spanish invasion was meerly on Civil accounts and that they expected not any English Papists to assist them with other such impudent assertions Even Dominicus Bannes one of the best of them in Thom. 22. qu. 12. art 2. saith that Quando adest evidens notitia c. i. e. When there is evident knowledge of the crime subjects may lawfully exempt themselves from the Power of their Princes before any declaratory sentence of a judge so they have but strength to do it Adding to excuse the English Papists for being no worse that Hence it follows that the faithfull Papists of England and Saxony are to be excused that do not free themselves from the power of their Superiors nor make war against them because commonly they are not strong enough to manage these wars and great dangers hang over them Princes may see now how far the Papists are to be trusted Even as far as they are sufficiently disabled And their August Triumphus saith de Potest Eccles qu. 46. art 2. Dubium non est quin Papa possit omnes Reges cum subest causa rationabilis deponere i. e. There is no doubt but the Pope may depose all Kings when there is reasonable cause for it Is not this a Vice christ and a Vice-god with a witness Add but to this that the Pope is Judge when the cause is Reasonable for no doubt but he must judge if he must execute and then you have a Pope in his colours even in his Universal Soveraignty Spiritual and Temporall And as I said before from Suarez and others when the Pope hath deposed a King any man may kill him I will not trouble you with Mariana's directions for poysoning him or secretly dispatching him de Reg. instit lib. 1. cap. 7. Suarez his moderate conclusion is enough Defens fid Cathol li. 6 c. 4. sect 14. Post sententiam c. After sentence past he is altogether deprived of his Kingdom so that he cannot by just title possess it therefore from thence forward he may be handled as a meer tyrant and consequently any private man may kill him O Learned Suarez No wonder if you and your Profession be dear to Princes and if Henry the fourth of France took down the Pillar of your infamy and received you into his Kingdom and Heart again No wonder if the Venetians at last have re-admitted you to procure some aid against the Turk I will conclude with one Testimony of a Roman Rabbi cited by Bishop Usher who knew his name but would not do him the honour to name him It is B. P. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epistol J. R. impresan 1609. Who hath excused the Powder-Plot from the Imputation of cruelty because both Seeds and Root of an evil herb must be destroyed and doth add a derision of the simplicity of the King in imposing on them the oath of Allegiance in these most memorable expressions worthy to be engraven on a Marble Pillar Sed vide in tanta astutia quanta sit simplicitas c. But see what simplcity here is in so great craft When he had placed all his security in that Oath ho thought he had framed such a manner of oath with so many circumstances which no man could any way dissolve with a safe conscience But he could not see that if the Pope dissolve the Oath all its knots whether of being faithfull to the King or of admitting no Dispensation are accordingly dissolved Yea I will say a thing more admirable You know I believe that an unjust Oath if it be evidently known to be such or openly declared such obligeth no man That the Kings oath is unjust is sufficiently declared by the Pastor of the Church himself You see now that the Obligation of it is vanished into smoak and that the bond which so many wise men thought was made of iron is less then straw These are the words of Papists themselves From their published writings we tell you their Religion I know they will here again tell us abundance of false accusations of the Protestants such as the Image of both Churches heapeth up and they will tell us of our war and killing the King in England But of this I have given them their answer before To which I add 1. The Protestant doctrine expressed in the Confessions of all their Churches and in the constant stream of their writers is for obedience to the Soveraign Powers and against resisting them upon any pretenses of Heresie or Excommunication or such like 2. The wars in England were raised between a King and Parliament that joyned together did constitute the Highest Power and upon the lamentable division occasioned by the Papists the people were many of them uncertain which part was the Higher and of greatest Authority some thought the King and others thought the Parliament as being the Representative body of the people in whom Polititians say is the Majestas Realis and the Highest Judicature and having the chief part in Legislation and Declaration what is just or unjust what is Law and what is against Law Had we all been resolved in England which side was by Law the Higher Power here had been no war So that here was no avowed resisting of the Higher Powers None but a Parliament could have drawn an Army of Protestants here under their banner 3. And withall that very Parliament consisting of Nobles Knights Gentlemen and Lawyers who all declared to the people that by Law they were bound to obey and assist them
in their teeth for they will leave none alive and at liberty to do it When we see in good sadness that it is Navies and Armies and stabbings of Kings and Powder-plots and Massacres that we have to dispute against it 's time to be able to Answer them in their own way or we lose the day It is not a good Cause or wit or learning or honesty that will then serveturn I know God is al-sufficient for his Church and in him must be our Trust But he requireth us to expect his blessing in the use of lawful probable means He can give us Corn without plowing and sowing but we have little reason to forbear these and expect it He can Convert men without preaching But yet the blessing of God doth presuppose Pauls planting and Apollo's watering He can Rule and Defend us without Magistrates but it is not his appointed way And he can save us from deceitful bloody men without our care and vigilancy and resistance but it is not his ordinary appointed course in which he would have us look to him for deliverance And therefore in the Name of God let Princes and Parliaments be vigilant for they watch for the outward security of the Church and Common-wealth as Ministers do for our spiritual wel-fare as those that must give account And let the people take heed what Parliament or Magistrates they choose And let all that love the Gospel and the prosperity of the Christian world and of their posterity have their eyes in their head and take heed of that bloody hand that hath in England Scotland Ireland France Savoy Low-countries Germany Bohemia c. already spilt so many streams of Christian blood If the Wise the Learned Moderate Lord du Plessis was so zealous for the Lawfulness of Necessary Defence as Grotius chargeth him as to put it into his Testament whom he makes also the Author of Junius Brutus I know not on what ground doubtless he knew with whom he had to do and thought that every Guisian League was not a Law of God or of the King Some Princes think that it is their safest way to please the Pope and Jesuites and so will be Papists on the terms as some of the Indians worship the Devill because he is so naught that he may not hurt them But these men were wiser if they understood that the malice of Infernal Spirits is not to be avoided by pleasing them but by resisting them They are too bad to be ever pleased by any means but what will be your utter ruine And they are not stronger then the Devil himself who will flie if we resist him If the best were not the most Powerful what would become of the world And if God be stronger then the Devil he should rather be pleased then the Devil for he is able to defend you from the Devils displeasure and he is most able to hurt you if you be dispisers of his power which Justice will effect more certainly on the bad then Satans malice can do upon the good Men think themselves wise that shift for their safety by carnal and unlawful means But they shall all find at least that plain honesty is the best policy and the favour of God the best security and a life of faith the most prudent life and that shifting for your selves in unbelieving ways is the greatest folly It is the design of the Papists by the strokes of Clements Ravilliacks Vauxes and such others to terrifie Princes that they may not dare to resist them but may see that they have no hold of their lives while they are under their displeasure But yet such as have most displeased them have scaped best It is recorded by one that the great King Henry of France being perswaded to stand it out against the Jesuites answered Give me security for my Life then And what a security did he find in his unbelieving way A thousand pitties it is that Protestant Princes should not be united among themselves that they might be strengthened for their joynt Defense But that the envious man should be able so far to over-wit them as to sow among them the seeds of war while they sleep or selfishly mind their own affairs and interests And a greater pitty and shame it is that the Ministers of the Gospel of peace should be the causes of these divisions or should not do their best to heal them But it is the greatest shame of all to us that so many years experience of the calamitous effects of our Divisions and so much industry of many worthy peaceable men should do no more to a fuller Reconciliation then yet is done The names and pacifying Labors of such as Duraeus Davenant Hall Morton Usher Hayne Dr. Morin Amyraldus Hottonus Conradus Bergius Johannes Bergius Georgius Calixtus Jerem Burroughs and many more that have laboured for peace do live as Monuments of their honor and our dishonor and do reflect much shame upon the faces of those Reformed Ministers and Churches that after all this are so much unreconciled yea that are not by the strongest motives and perswasives so much as excited to zealous endeavours for the healing of our sad division no nor some of them restrained from the passionate prosecution of their increase If yet any Papist believing such false Histories as the Image of both Churches doth contain or really finding any Protestants culpable shall say that we are as bad as they in wars or cruelty and that Illiacos intra muros peccatur extra I again reply 1. That true History and experience tells the world that there is no comparison between their excessive cruelties and ours 2. Yet it is none of my desire or intent to defend any person or people that have been truly guilty in the least degree 3. Our doctrine is against that which theirs doth own 4. If either our Doctrine or practise have been amiss we desire reproof and information and are willing to reform them The Word of God being our only Rule if it appear that we have in any point misunderstood it we desire nothing more then to be rectified and then we shall confess our former faults before the world and promise reformation For our Principles fix us not in Sin or Error But the Papists are fixed in their Errors and think there is a necessity lyeth on them never to amend Now the Pope and a General Council hath already decreed that the Pope may depose Princes and Absolve their subjects and give their Lands to others to amend this abominable error is with them to give away all their cause and to cease to be Papists So that all Princes and People must necessarily despair of their amendment CHAP. L. Some Proposals for a hopeless Peace IT is A Defensive conflict that I have been hitherto managing This work is put upon us by our adversaries But in the conclusion I will add a few words of that whith enticeth by its amiable aspect and which we gladly follow