Christianity seeks only to serve God and save his own soul can break Communion with this Church if he be within its Precincts Or will not rather judge it as much his duty to joyn with it as to separate from Rome A Government and Order and a Liturgy of necessity there must be all Christian all Reformed Churches have and maintain them to prevent Confusions Prophaness and Innovations such as are here amongst us established oblige to nothing that God hath forbid under them we may be vertuous and Religious in the highest degree and ought therefore to be meek and peaceable thankful to God that he hath graciously freed us from those Romish impositions before mentioned They that would break those Rules that are now fix'd and established either have little value for true Christian Religion or are willing to make way for Popish Innovations or will make it appear that some tempers are so ungovernable that nothing can hold them but that Yoke and Tyranny of which I am now to speak CHAP. III. How the Inquisition came to be established and first of the Oaths and Excommunications wherewith they tie the Consciences of men IT is not for denying any Article of the Christian Faith that we like our fore-fathers are bloudily persecuted where-ever the Popes power can reach Neither is it that we worship a False God or are any ways impious against the True one Father Son and Holy Ghost It is for rejecting that Romish Creed and Worship whereof I treated before And it was not to maintain Christianity but those corruptions that Inquisition was invented and used with so much rigour Any one that hath read the Life and Doctrine of our blessed Lord will easily judge that cruelties are destructive of her Religion and cannot be fit Instruments to propagate or maintain it But the maintaining of that formidable Empire and Dominion the Pope and his Clergy have got into their hands requires they should proceed with that inexorable severity they practise against them that dissent from those Doctrines on which is grounded their power therefore they oblige all that have any Jurisdiction among them by a strict Oath of Allegiance to be the Popes Subjects and to endeavour all possible ways to make others be so Thus Ego N. electus Ecclesiae vel Monasterii N. ab hac hora in antea fidelis obediens ero Beato c. I N. elect of such a Church or Monastery from henceforth will be faithful and obedient to blessed Peter the Apostle and to the Holy Roman Church and to our Lord Pope N. and to his lawful Successors I will give no counsel or consent that they should lose Life or Limb or be any way injured upon any account I will never to their detriment reveal to any what counsel they shall trust me with by their Nuncios or themselves I will help them against any man saving my Order to keep and maintain the Roman Papacy and the Regalities of St. Peter I will assist their Legates going and coming and contribute to their necessities I will endeavour to preserve defend and encrease the authority rights honours and priviledges of the Holy Roman Church and of our Lord the Pope and of his Successors And I will no way contribute but rather detect and hinder any thing that should be to their prejudice With all my strength will I observe and cause to be observed by others all the Rules of the Fathers and all Apostolick i. e. Papal Decrees and Commands Provisions and Reservations All Hereticks Schismaticks and Rebels to our said Lord the Pope and to his Successors will I oppose and persecute I will come when called to Synods and once in three years come to Rome And I will give an account to our Lord the Pope of my Pastoral Office and of all things that pertain to the state of my Church and Clergy All Papal Injunctions I will humbly receive and most diligently execute c. So help me God and these holy Evangils Here is a good hold already whereby all Secular and Regular Prelates are enslaved to the Papacy and to the Roman Doctrine and Worship From which if they or any other swerve then are the direful thunderbolts of Excommunication lanc'd against them with extinguishing of Candles and in the name of God and of his Saints shutting them out of the Church in heaven and in earth denouncing them to be cursed and anathematiz'd and adjudging them to be damned in eternal fire with the Devil and his Angels and all Reprobates As is to be seen in their form of Excommunication All we reputed Hereticks and all others that fall under this severe doom are good for nothing afterwards but to be destroyed any way possible as will be seen in what follows But if any by terror or hope or any other inducement are brought into their Church from among Hereticks he must climb over a high and difficult partition-wall and be tied so short that he shall hardly ever think of a return It is not as they represent to deceive the simple only going amongst them and be within the Pale of the Church and do what you will But after they have drawn you so far that you cannot go back then you must in earnest be reconciled to the Church And this is the manner of it as is prescribed in the Pontificale The penitent Schismatick or Heretick must kneel before the Church-door and there make a Confession of his Faith and have the Devil Exorcised out of him And being brought in and kneeling before the High Altar renounce all heretical pravity and promise to live in the unity of the Roman Faith and have some Prayers and Grosses made over him and then swear obedience to the Pope imprecating damnation to himself if ever he departs from the Communion of his Church and if he were a noted Heretick he is thus kneeling to damn all Heresies that especially which he leaves and pronounce all that still hold it worthy of an eternal Curse and upon his Oath profess to believe from his heart that Faith which is taught by the Roman Church and promise if ever he quits it to submit himself to the severity of the Canons This one would think should be judged sufficient by the Church of Rome to keep men in her obedience But she dares not trust to it as indeed experience hath shewn that long agon the exorbitant greatness of the Papacy had been reduced and a general Reformation effected if nothing but ties of Conscience or Excommunications had been used other means therefore have been found more violent but more effectual Inquisition managed with great rigour and great policy hath been as Pope Sixtus Quintus called it in a Bull I shall cite afterwards Firmissimum Fidei Catholicae propugnaculum The best and strongest Supporter of the Catholick Faith A truth which will manifestly appear when we have seen how it was at first established and hath proceeded ever since SECT I. Of the beginning of the
THE Holy Inquisition Wherein is Represented What is the RELIGION OF THE CHURCH OF ROME And how they are dealt with that Dissent from It. LONDON Printed for Joanna Brome at the Gun at the West End of St. Pauls Church-yard 1681. TO THE Right Honourable AND Right Reverend Father in God HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON One of the Lords of his Majesties Most Honourable Privy Council My Lord THough with great zeal and prudence you use all the power which your Birth and Dignities have given you for the defence of the true Christian Religion as it is amongst us professed and established yet I hope this short account of what is most contrary and most destructive to it will not displease you I know your Lordship understands what is here treated of far better than I do but so doth not the Common People they may receive information from these Papers and will likely do it the more freely if you shall permit them to go abroad under your Name For it is generally acknowledged that we owe much of our preservation to your Care and Christian Courage and that you did stand in the gap when our Enemies were pressing to come in upon us My Lord the watchfulness and labours of your Sacred Order to preserve the face of a Church and as much Order and Discipline among us as the iniquity of the times can permit is a greater service to the Protestant Interest than many are apt to believe For our Adversaries expect not to prevail but by breaking of us and dissolving those bonds of Government which keep us united well knowing that those sheep are an easie prey when scattered abroad which under the guidance of their proper Pastors are safe and impregnable I have therefore endeavoured by what I have said of the Superstitions and cruelties of Rome to persuade such as are averse to them that their duty and interest oblige them to joyn with our Church which professing nothing but the pure and Primitive Religion of our blessed Redeemer makes use of none of those bloudy and violent Methods wherewith the Papal Religion and Authority are preserved and whose dangers and persecutions on both hands are for the best Cause in the world even for her faithful Allegeance to God and the King I shall rejoyce if what I have designed for the common good be beneficial to any And if the humble offer I make of it to your Lordship be favourably accepted However I shall ever pray for the peace and prosperity of our Jerusalem And that God would long preserve you to advance his glory and be an Ornament and Support to this Church Remaining My Lord Your Lordships most dutiful and obedient Servant L. B. THE PREFACE IT cannot but grieve every Lover of peace that is every good man to see our distractions We fear many things and have reason to fear yet many more especially when we consider how grievously God is provoked to bring upon us the worst of evils I design not to represent those crying sins that call for destroying vengeance upon us or to make declamations against them but it is for my purpose to note that the deforming a most pure and pious Reformation and the disturbing and weakening an equitable and happy frame of Government doth not only call for ruin but actually brings it breaks down the fence of our safety and so makes way for those Erroneous and Tyranical impositions we fear and foresee There is cause enough to believe that the Romish Party hath all along since the Reformation and doth still continue to widen our breaches and to foment our divisions there are many instances of it related by several credible Witnesses and some of them sworn too but that which most of all confirms it is that it is much their interest to keep us from ever having a happy peaceable and well-setled Church a constant and beautiful Order amongst us and that they certainly will not sâ—â—ck at dissembling and acting the part of zealous and scâ—â—pulous Dissenters to promote the ruin of them whom they would out right massaâ—râ—e and burn had they power so to do Some of our Seperatists are so ungrounded and have so poor an interest in the wâ—rld that they must of necessity yield and fall were they not supported by the power and policy of a stronger Party and the moderate sort of them are so near us that we could not but joyn and unite together were it not for their interposition whose great concern it is to keep us asunder that they may have room to come in at the void urguarded space betwixt both Whether or no it shall succeed as they would God alone knows they have great hopes and we cannot but have a dread upon us but however by breaking us to pieces they revenge our breaking of Communion with them and they likely tempt some to believe that we separated from the Church of Rome upon the same grounds as the Separatists have to leave the Church of England They will now and then draw a parellel betwixt both Cases and confidently assert that we can urge nothing against our Schismatick but what they may urge with as much reason against our Reformers It is no small advantage to their Cause if they can work in Dissenters as great an abhorrence for our Liturgy and Divine Service as for the Latin Mass and so bring them to an indifference as though there were hardly any choice betwixt both This will lessen the Odium under which they lie deriving part of it upon our Church and withal is a preity sure way to bring men bach again to Rome So that if I were a Jesuit I would as Lewis Moulin and some such as he so cry out upon the Superstitions bloudy Persecutions and Idolatries of the Church of England and by that means drive men so far from it that when things tend towards a change the people might either be undetermined what Party to take or even prefer Popery to so deform a Reformation as they should believe ours to be And accordingly it is easie to observe that those Sectaries are not far from Rome which are farthest from the Church of England The Jesuits Schools abroad are full of our Youth in the Low Countries in France in Spain and at Rome the English Seminaries are perpetually fitting up young men to carry on the great work of reducing this potent Island to the See of Rome Once every year they are sent over in numerous Sholes from those Colleges not directly and openly to preach Popery they are too wise to go that way to work but by other means to promote its restauration acting such parts bare-faced or in a disguise as they are enabled by their Genius and interest such to be sure as shall conduce to the disturbance and destruction of that Church and Government which now keeps them out Hence I make no question proceeds the beginning or the continuance of our divisions and the frequent insulting over us upon this
granted by our Predecessors to those Cardinals that are chosen for this Congregation and likewise all the authority and power communicated to them viz. to enquire proceed define and give sentence not only in all causes about manifest Heresie Schism Apostacie Witchcrafts Divinations abuse of Sacraments but also in all other causes any ways suspect of Heresie And this not only in this City and the Temporal state subject to this holy See but also throughout all the world where ever there is any thing of Christianity above all Patriarchs Primates Archbishops Bishops Inqusitors and all other inferiours as though here expressed by name whatever priviledge they may have or pretend And whatever hath been decreed by our Predecessors about this Congregation and the jurisdiction and power belonging to it we also decree and approve and renew all the Exemptions Immunities Privileges and Grants which hitherto have been granted to the Officers of the Inquisition or by custom enjoyed by them In the name of the Lord earnestly exhorting and adjuring by the bowels of the mercies of Jesus Christ and by his dreadful Judgment our most beloved Sons in Christ the Emperour Elect and all Kings with our beloved Sons all Nobles Magistrates Princes and Potentates of the Earth to whom God hath given the Sword of Secular power to take vengeance of the wicked by that Catholick Faith they have promised to defend that they would every one of them so fully do their part as we hope they freely will out of their pious disposition either by seeing the Sentence of the Church executed against Criminals or in so assisting the foresaid Officers that by their help they may duly and happily discharge their weighty and salutary Office to the encrease of Religion and to the glory of the eternal King And of this their pious and Christian obedience and service those Princes and Magistrates shall receive that most ample reward prepared to the Asserters and Defenders of the Catholick Faith in the enjoyment of heavenly bliss Now by these presents it is not our Intention that any thing without our special leave should be changed in that Office of the Holy Inquisition which hath brought and still brings a most plentiful harvest in the field of the Lord established heretofore in Spain by the authority of this Apostolick See Hereby we see how well affected the Pope is towards the Holy Office and how firm how well ordered how honourable he hath made it how earnest how solicitous he is to have it preserved and made universal if all Christian Princes would but be his dutiful Children and how in the name of God of his Religion and even of the mercies of our most charitable and gracious Redeemer we are all devoted to the merciless cruelties of the Inquisition of which as we see the Pope is the Head and the most careful Director CHAP. VIII Of the proceedings of the Inquisition THe proceedings of this dreadful Court being terrible and odious much maligned by the People and against the very propensities of humane nature are therefore secret and silent there is nothing that makes a noise or that appears abroad except it may be once a year when they make a brave shew and Pageant of the act of Faith which is the day of publick execution all the rest is remote from witness and observation saving what is previous to the imprisonment There is with some difference in every Kingdom or State where Inquisition is set up a General of it who in his Precinct is supreme but is accountable to the great General of all who resides at Rome and to that Congregation wherein the Pope presides as is before said This Inferiour General with other Inquisitors deputed and authorized by the Pope manageth all the affairs within his District that belong to the Cognizance of the Holy Tribunal which is erected but in few places though it commands all the Country Here and there in the great Cities some of the Inquisitors reside in the Monastery of their Order which is commonly a strong and stately House for the purpose half a Castle and half a Goal fitted with all conveniences requisite Dungeons instruments of torture Officers of all sorts and two or three of the Holy Fathers Dominicans Franciscans or Jesuits of late who are the Judges of the Court and many other Friers of the same Order Herein men are brought several ways by a Citation which they call Verbalis when the party hath a good Estate which sometimes is his guilt and being really no Heretick is not likely to run away Then they send to him one of their Officers to tell him that the most Reverend the Inquisitors will speak with him about some things that concern his soul and this is the verbal Citation But if he be really tainted or strongly suspect of Heresie and like to abscond then they begin by a Citation which they call real that is by seizing upon him The Captura or apprehension is that which they call Realis Citatio as Caesar Carena a late Author and many others before him tell us When they appear who are brought in either way the Inquisitors who always look and speak grave and serious tell them with a demure countenance and in soft and godly language that they are obliged by the duty of their holy Office to search into the Truth of some things which much concern the honour of God and his eternal happiness and then after several questions and grave exhortations that they would examine themselves and find out and confess wherein they are guilty they commit them to custody or it may be he that had the Verbal Citation is sent home and ordered to return within so many days and soberly admonished to look to himself and to do what becomes a good Catholick SECT I. Of the Accusations IT is to be supposed before a man be thus cited that he hath been accused and sometimes it is true though by some other means he may be brought into that evil net out of which no man can ever wholly free himself But accusations are the most frequent beginnings of the Tragedy and whether true or false there is no fence against them It is not here as in the Secular Tribunals of Princes where you make your legal defence and know what witnesses and accusations are against you and are confronted before your Accusers and every thing is transacted publickly But in the Inquisition your Judge generally is your enemy who designs you an ill turn your defence signifies nothing you can have no friend in that horrid Den to hear or see what is said or done and you never know who accuseth you or of what It is a rule in the practice of that Court Nunquam sunt publicandi testes That the Witnesses must never be published or declared And A Paramo tells us p. 159. that when Charles V. yet young was mightily prest to enterpose his authority that the Witnesses in the Court of Inquisition might be
of them What hapned in the Low Countries where Philip II. by fire and sword and great violence for the establishing of the Spanish Inquisition provoked the People in their own defence to undertake that long and bloudy War which cost him seven Provinces Thuanus What was done in France against the two Henries by that rebellious League which the Pope abetted and which undertook to set up his authority Inquisition and Tridentine Council These two memorable attempts in the behalf of Papal Inquisition against Heretical pravity have shed so much Christian bloud that nothing but that very power and Tribunal they were designed to promote have ever made greater effusions of it And I am of opinion that were all things duly considered and compared it would clearly appear that there have been as great slaughters outrages inhumanities committed as many Martyrs made by Rome Papist since Dominic and the Inquisition appeared as was done by Rome Pagan in the Ten Persecutions for three hundred years Rev. xvii 6. And I saw the Woman drunken with the bloud of the Saints and with the bloud of the Martyrs of Jesus and when I saw her I wondered with great admiration SECT II. Of the prohibiting of Books and the Indices expurgatorii AMong the many priviledges of the Inquisitors it is none of the least that the Censure of Books belongs to them whereever they have a Tribunal by which means they keep the People in as much ignorance as they please and furnish the learned with none but such Books as tend to establish the Roman Faith and their own Authority For these two there being in those Popish Countries so very many Books so fierce and positive and none appearing to contradict them it is no wonder if persons of all ranks lie under great invincible prejudices in those Points that are disputed betwixt us and the Church of Rome whether such as concern the Faith or the Power of the Magistrates or those common Rights of humanity which belong to all mankind where we and our opinions are represented as very monstrous and pernicious and there are publick Schools and Lectures of cruelty against us and a great part of the learning is to know the accurate and established methods of destroying Hereticks and men are acquainted with nothing but what makes for the Papal Power and Dominion and these things are inculcated and taught with great assiduity and great industry and a very strict watch is had against all Persons Books or Opinions that could any ways thwart or oppose those received Maxims it must needs have a mighty influence upon the minds and persuasions of men The Officers of the Inquisition who have nothing else to do are so numerous powerful inquisitive and diligent that it is matter of the greatest danger and difficulty to print or import any Books that should savour of what they call Heresie or maintain the just rights of Temporal Princes against the Spiritual Monarch For this last saith the Judicious Padre Paolo When a Potentate hath not the favour of him that commands in Ecclesiastical causes Religion is made a pretext to oppress him Of which he gives instances Chap. 1. and amongst them that when the Pope was fallen out with the Venetians any Books that came out in Favour of the Republick were forbidden by the Papal Inquisitions under colour of Heresie It is but giving any thing hard and terrible names and forbidding all things that can be said in the defence of it and then it will be easie to impose on the People Relating to this I shall transcribe out of the last mentioned Author part of Chap. 29. The matter of Books seems to be a thing of small moment because it treats of words but through these words come opinions into the world which cause partialities Seditions and finally Wars they are words it is true but such as in consequence draw after them Hosts of armed men By forbidding Books which at Rome are not liked of although they be good and godly because they maintain Temporal Power great wrong is done to Sovereign Princes to such especially as would rule with the Arts of Peace who use Books as a chief Instrument to cause people to believe as a firm truth that the Prince is Ordained by God and Ruleth with Divine Authority and the Subject consequently in Conscience is bound to obey him and not doing it offendeth God because that the Prince by the Law of God is above every person that is within his Dominions and may lay burthens on mens Estates as publick necessities require Where these things which are most true are believed a State may easily be governed but where contrary opinions are held great disorders must needs happen But as there was always in Gods Church those who made use of Religion for worldly ends so the number of them is more full These under a spiritual pretence but with an ambitious end and desire of worldly wealth would free themselves of the obedience due unto the Prince and take away the love and reverence due to him by the people to draw it to themselves To bring it to pass they have newly invented a Doctrine which talks of nothing but Ecclesiastical greatness liberty immunity and jurisdiction This Doctrine was unheard of until about the year 1300. Neither is there any Book concerning it before this time then did they begin to write of it scatteringly in some Books but there were not above two Books which treated of nothing else but this until the year 1400. and three until the year 1500. After this time the number encreased a little but it was tolerable After the year 1560. this Doctrine began to encrease in such manner that they gave over writing as they used before of the Mysteries of the Most Holy Trinity of the Incarnation of Christ of the Creation of the World and other Mysteries of the belief and there is nothing Printed in Italy but Books in diminution of Secular Authority and exaltation of the Ecclesiastical and such Books are not Printed by small numbers but by thousands Those people which have learning can read nothing else the Confessors likewise know none other Doctrine neither need they any other Learning to be approved of Whence comes in a perverse opinion universally that Princes and Magistrates are human Inventions yea and Tyrannical that they ought only by compulsion to be obeyed that the disobeying of Laws and defrauding the publick Revenues doth not bind unto sin but only unto punishment And contrariwise that every beck of Ecclesiastical persons ought to be taken for a divine Precept and binds the Conscience and this Doctrine is perhaps the cause of all the inconveniences which are felt in this Age. Here we may see as I noted before whence the disloyal and factious Principles of our Dissenters come and by whose instigation they likely have been moved to act as they have done Our Author adds That as they condemn and persecute Books that come out in the