repine or complain some of those Nations might have done written and spoken as it had pleased them It little became either Master Saunders otherwise an excellent man or Master Parsons or any other of our own Nation to have intermedled with those matters or to write as they have very offensively done in divers of their Books and Treatises to what purpose we know not except it were to shew their malice to dishonour their own Country as much as lay in them and to move a greater dislike in the State of all that be Catholicks than before they had Kings ever have had and will have their plots and practices for their own safeties it being as inconvenient to their Policy for one Prince by his Might to over-top another as it is amongst the principal members of our natural bodies for one member to swell or grow too great above his due proportion Happy had we Catholicks been at this day if these men being Priests had never troubled themselves with State-matters which they have managed as Phaeton did his Fathers Chariot very greatly to our prejudice Let them pretend never so great skill in their disposing of Kingdoms ordine ad Deum they have certainly dealt with ours ordine ad Gehennam But this is not all which the State may justly challenge us for In the time of our said Peace and upon the coming into England of the Queen of Scots whilst her Majesty of England and the State were busied as partly you have heard before it pitieth our hearts to see and read what hath been printed and published out of Italy in the life of Pius Quintus concerning his Holiness endeavors stirred up by false suggestions to joyn with the King of Spain for the utter ruine and overthrow both of our Prince and Country Would to God such things had never been enterprised and most of all that they had never been printed We that have some skill with our Pens presume too much a great deal upon our own Wits What good the mentioning of these points can bring to the Church we see not but sure we are it hath done much hurt and given our common Enemies very great advantage against us For now it is usually objected unto us by every one of any reach when we complain of some hard dealings towards us Yea say they very well good Masters were you not in quiet Who then gave the cause that you were troubled When her Majesty used you kindly how treacherously was she dealt with by you Did not Pius Quintus practise her Majesties subversion she good Lady never dreaming of any such mischief Was not one Robert Ridolphi a Gentleman of Florence sent hither by the Pope under colour of Merchandize to sollicite a Rebellion Did not Pius Quintus move the King of Spain to joyn in this Exploit for the better securing of his own Dominions in the Low Countries Was not the Bull denounced against her Majesty that carrieth so fair a Preface of zeal and pastoral duty devised purposely to further the intended Rebellion for the depriving of her Majesty from her Kingdom Had not the Pope and King of Spain assigned the Duke of Norfolk to be the Head of this Rebellion Did not the Pope give order to Ridolphi to take 150000 Crowns to set forward this attempt Was not some of that Money sent for Scotland and some delivered to the said Duke Did not King Philip at the Popes instance determine to send the Duke of Alva into England with all his Forces in the Low Countries to assist the Duke of Norfolk Are all these things true and were they not then in hand whilst her Majesty dealt so mercifully with you How can you excuse these designments so unchristian so unpriestly so treacherous and therefore so un-prince-like When we first heard these particulars we did not believe them but would have laid our lives they had been false but when we saw the Book and found them there God is our witness we were much amazed and can say no more but that his Holiness was misinformed and indirectly drawn to these courses But to proceed it being unknown to the State what secret matters were in hand against them both at home and beyond the Seas the Catholicks here continued in sort as before you have heard till the said Rebellion brake forth in the North 1569. a little before Christmas and that it was known that the Pope had excommunicated the Queen and thereby freed her Subjects as the Bull importeth from their subjection And then there followed a great restraint of the said Prisoners but none of them were put to death upon that occasion the Sword being then only drawn against such Catholicks as had risen up actually into open Rebellion Wherein we cannot see what her Majesty did that any Prince in Christendom in such a case would not have done And as touching the said Bull many both Priests and Lay Catholicks have greatly wished that it had never been decreed denounced published or heard of For we are perswaded that the Pope was drawn thereunto by false suggestions of certain undiscreet turbulent persons who pretending to him one thing had another drift in their heads for their own advancement And therefore we have ever accounted of it as a sentence procured by surreption knowing it to be no unusual thing with the Pope through indirect means and factious heads to be often deceived in matters of Fact as we now find it in the setting up of our new Arch-Priest Now upon all these occasions her Majesty being moved with great displeasure called a Parliament in the thirteenth year of her Reign 1571. wherein a Law was made containing many branches against the bringing into this Land after that time of any Bulls from Rome any Agnus Dei Crosses or Pardons and against all manner of persons that should procure them to be so brought hither with many other particularities thereunto appertaining Which Law although we hold it to be too rigorous and that the pretended remedy exceeded the measure of the offence either undutifully given or in justice to have been taken yet we cannot but confess as reasonable men that the State had great cause to make some Laws against us except they should have shewed themselves careless for the continuance of it But be the Law as any would have it never so extreme yet surely it must be granted that the occasions of it were most outragious and likewise that the execution of it was not so tragical as many since have written and reported of it For whatsoever was done against us either upon the pretence of that Law or of any other would never we think have been attempted had not divers other preposterous occasions besides the causes of that Law daily fallen out amongst us which procured matters to be urged more severely against us In the year 1572. out cometh Master Saunders Book de visibili Monarchia wherein he taketh upon him to set down how the Pope had
sent one Master Morton and Master Web two Priests before the said Rebellion to the Lords and Gentlemen in the North to excite them with their Followers to take up Arms. And the rather to perswade them thereunto they signified unto them by the Popes commandment that her Majesty was excommunicated her Subjects were released from their obedience and much more to that purpose Likewise the said Mr. Saunders doth justifie the said commotion and ascribeth the evil success it had to the over-late publishing of the said Bull it being not generally known of till the year after when Master Felton had set it upon the Bishop of Londons Gate affirming that if it had been published the year before or when they were in Arms the Catholicks would undoubtedly so have assisted them the said Rebels as that they must no question of it have prevailed against the Queen and had certainly executed the said sentence at that time for her deposition from the Crown Besides whereas the State in the said Parliament had confirmed the attainder of the chief persons by name that were as heads in the said Rebellion and had been in the field against her Highness Mr. Saunders building Castles in the Air amongst his Books doth too much magnifie the said Rebels to the great discredit of the Church of Rome and his Holiness actions in such matters they being men arraigned condemned and executed by the ancient Laws of our Country for high Treason This intolerable and very uncatholick course thus held by divers to the great offence of many good Catholicks of the graver and discreeter sort and to the great hinderance of our common Cause hath been since followed by Mr. Parsons and some of his sort with no good discretion or foresight God he knoweth brag these great States-men of their impregnable Wisdom and Policy never so proudly Furthermore about the coming out of the said Book of Mr. Saunders the whole Plot before mentioned of the Pope and the King of Spain with the Duke of Norfolk for the disinheriting of her Majesty and other intended mischiefs fell out to be fully disclosed Afterwards within some four or five years it was also commonly known to the Realm what attempts were in hand by Mr. Stukeley assisted with Mr. Saunders and other Catholicks both English Irish and Italian for an Enterprise by force in Ireland under pretence to advance the Catholick Religion which for that time through some defects succeeding not the Pope himself in the year 1579. abused still by false pretences did set forward that course and sending thither certain Forces Mr. Saunders too much Jesuited did thrust himself in person into that action as a chief Ring-leader and to perswade the Catholicks when he should come into Ireland to joyn with the Popes said Forces for the better assisting of certain Rebels then in Arms against their Soveraign Now whilst these practices were in hand in Ireland Gregory the Thirteenth reneweth the said Bull of Pius Quintus and denounceth her Majesty to be excommunicated with intimation of all other particulars in the former Bull mentioned which was procured we doubt not by surreption the false Jesuits our Country-men daring to attempt any thing by untrue suggestions and any lewd surmises that may serve their turns This Stratagem accomplished and ground laid whereupon they imagined to work great matters these good Fathers as the Devil would have it come into England and intruded themselves into our harvest being the men in our consciences we mean both them and others of that Society with some of their adherents who have been the chief Instruments of all the mischiefs that have been intended against her Majesty since the beginning of her Reign and of the miseries which we or any other Catholicks have upon these occasions sustained Their first repair hither was Anno 1580. when the Realm of Ireland was in great combustion and then they entred viz. Mr. Campion the Subject and Mr. Parsons the Provincial like a tempest with sundry such great brags and challenges as divers of the gravest Clergy then living in England Doctor Watson Bishop of Lincoln and others did greatly dislike them and plainly foretold that as things then stood their proceeding after that fashion would certainly urge the State to make some sharper Laws which should not only touch them but likewise all others both Priests and Catholicks Upon their arrival and after the said brags Mr. Parsons presently fell to his Jesuitical courses and so belaboured both himself and others in matters of State how he might set her Majesties Crown upon another head as appeareth by a Letter of his own to a certain Earl that the Catholicks themselves threatned to deliver him into the hands of the Civil Magistrate except he desisted from such kind of practices In these tumultuous and rebellious proceedings by sundry Catholicks both in England and Ireland it could not be expected but that the Queen and the State would be greatly incensed with indignation against us We had some of us greatly approved the said Rebellion highly extolled the Rebels and pitifully bewailed their ruine and overthrow Many of our affections were knit to the Spaniard and for our obedience to the Pope we all do profess it The attempts both of the Pope and Spaniard failing in England his Holiness as a temporal Prince displayed his Banner in Ireland The Plot was to deprive her Highness first from that Kingdom if they could and then by degrees to depose her from this In all these Plots none were more forward than many of us that were Priests The Laity if we had opposed our selves to these designments would out of doubt have been over-ruled by us How many men of our calling were addicted to these courses the State knew not In which case the premises discreetly considered there is no King or Prince in the World disgusting the See of Rome and having either force or metal in him that would have endured us if possibly he could have been revenged but rather as we think have utterly rooted us out of his Territories as Traiters and Rebels both to him and his Country And therefore we may rejoyce unfeignedly that God hath blessed this Kingdom with so gracious and merciful a Soveraign who hath not dealt in this sort with us Assuredly if she were a Catholick she might be accounted the Mirror of the World but as she is both we and all other Catholicks her natural Subjects deserve no longer to live than we hereafter shall honour her from our hearts obey her in all things so far as possibly we may pray for her prosperous Reign and long life and to our powers defend and protect both her and our Country against any whatsoever that shall by force of Arms attempt to damnifie either of them For in the said Garboils and very undutiful proceedings how hath her Highness dealt with us From the time of the said Rebellion and Parliament there were few above twelve that in ten years had been
executed for their consciences as we hold although our Adversaries say for Treason and of those twelve some perhaps can hardly be drawn within our account having been tainted with matters of Rebellion The most of the said number were Seminary Priests who if they had come over into England with the like intents that some others have done might very worthily have been used as they were But in our consciences nay some of us do know it that they were far from those seditious humors being men that intended nothing else but simply the good of our Country and the conversion of Souls Marry to say the truth as we have confessed before how could either her Majesty or the State know so much They had great cause as Politick persons to suspect the worst Besides to the further honour of her Majesty we may not omit that the States of the whole Realm assembled in Parliament Anno 1576. were pleased to pass us over and made no Laws at that time against us The ancient Prisoners that had been restrained more narrowly in the year 1570. were notwithstanding the said enterprises in Ireland again restored to their former liberty to continue with their friends as they had done before Such as were not suspected to have been dealers or abettors in the said treasonable actions were used with that humanity which could well be expected But when the Jesuits were come and that the State had notice of the said Excommunication there was then within a while a great alteration For such were the Jesuits proceedings and with so great boldness as though all had been theirs and that the State should presently have been changed Her Majesty had seen what followed in her Kingdom upon the first Excommunication and was therefore in all worldly Policy to prevent the like by the second The jealousie also of the State was much increased by Mr. Sherwins answers upon his examination above eight months before the apprehension of Mr. Campion For being asked whether the Queen was his lawful Soveraign notwithstanding any sentence of the Popes he prayed that no such question might be demanded of him and would not further thereunto answer Two or three other questions much to the same effect were likewise propounded unto him which he also refused to answer Matters now sorting on this fashion there was a greater restraint of Catholicks than at any time before Many both Priests and Gentlemen were sent into the Isle of Ely and other places there to be more safely kept and looked unto In January following 1581. according to the general computation a Proclamation was made for the calling home of her Majesties Subjects beyond the Seas such especially as were trained up in the Seminaries pretending that they learned little there but disloyalty and that none after that time should harbor or relieve them with sundry other points of very hard intendment towards us The same month also a Parliament ensued wherein a Law was made agreeable in effect to the said Proclamation but with a more severe punishment annexed For it was a penalty of death for any Jesuit or Seminary Priest to repair into England and for any to receive and entertain them which fell out according to Bishop Watsons former speeches or prediction what inischief the Jesuits would bring upon us We could here as well as some others have done shew our dislike with some bitterness of the said Law and penalty But to what purpose should we do so It had been a good point of wisdom in two or three persons that have taken that course to have been silent and rather have sought by gentleness and sweet carriage of themselves to have prevented the more sharp execution of that Law than by exclaiming against it when it was too late to have provoked the State to a greater severity against us And to confess something to our own disadvantage and to excuse the said Parliament if all the Seminary Priests then in England or which should after that time have come hither had been of Mr. Mortons and Mr. Saunders mind before mentioned when the first Excommunication came out or of Mr. Saunders his second resolution being then in Arms against her Majesty in Ireland or of Mr. Parsons traiterous disposition both to our Queen and Country the said Law no doubt had carried with it a far greater shew of Justice But that was the error of the State and yet not altogether for ought they knew improbable those times being so full of many dangerous designments and Jesuitical practices In this year also divers other things fell out unhappily towards us poor Priests and other the graver sort of Catholicks who had all of us single hearts and disliked no men more of all such factious enterprises For notwithstanding the said Proclamation and Law Mr. Heywood a Jesuit came then into England and took so much upon him that Father Parsons fell out exceedingly with him and great troubles grew amongst Catholicks by their brablings and quarrels A Synod was held by him the said Mr. Heywood and sundry ancient Customs were therein abrogated to the offence of very many These courses being understood after a sort by the State the Catholicks and Priests in Norfolk felt the smart of it This Summer also in July Mr. Campion and other Priests were apprehended whose answers upon their examinations agreeing in effect with Mr. Sherwins before mentioned did greatly incense the State For amongst other questions that were propounded unto them this being one viz. If the Pope do by his Bull or Sentence pronounce her Majesty to be deprived and no lawful Queen and her Subjects to be discharged of their allegiance and obedience unto her and after the Pope or any other by his appointment and authority do invade this Realm which part would you take or which part ought a good Subject of England to take some answered that when the case should happen they would then take counsel what were best for them to do Another that when that case should happen he would answer and not before Another that for the present he was not resolved what to do in such a case Another that when the case happeneth then he will answer Another that if such deprivation and invasion should be made for any matter of his faith he thinketh he were then bound to take part with the Pope Now what King in the world being in doubt to be invaded by his enemies and fearing that some of his own Subjects were by indirect means drawn rather to adhere unto them than to himself would not make the best tryal of them he could for his better satisfaction whom he might trust to In which tryal if he found any that either should make doubtful answers or peremptorily affirm that as the case stood betwixt him and his enemies they would leave him their Prince and take part with them might he not justly repute them for Traitors and deal with them accordingly Sure we are that no King or Prince in
in like sort with their hallowed baggages from Rome to poyson the senses of the Subjects pouring into their hearts malicious and pestilent opinions against her Majesty and the Laws of the Realm and also to kindle and set on fire the hearts of discontented Subjects with the flames of Rebellion and to search and sound the depths and secrets of all mens inward intentions either against her Majesty or for her and finally to bring into a Bead-roll or as it were into a Muster-roll the names and powers with the dwellings of all that should be ready to rebel and to aid the Foreign Invasion These kinds of seditious actions for the service of the Pope and the Traiters and Rebels abroad have made them Traiters not their Books nor their Beads no nor their Cakes of Wax which they call Agnus Dei nor other their Reliques nor yet their Opinions for the Ceremonies or Rites of the Church of Rome and therefore it is to be certainly concluded that these did justly deserve their capital punishments as Traiters though they were not apprehended with open Armor or Weapon Now if this latter repetition as it were of all the former causes reasons afore-recited may not serve to stop the boisterous mouths and the pestiferous tongues and venemous breaths of these that are infected with so gross errors as to defend seditious Subjects stirrers of Rebellion against their natural Prince and Country then are they to be left without any further argument to the Judgment of the Almighty God as persons that have covered their eyes against the Suns light stopped their ears against the sound of Justice and oppressed their hearts against the force of reason and as the Psalmist saith They speak lyes they are as venemous as the poyson of a Serpent even like the deaf Adder that stoppeth his ears Wherefore with charity to conclude if these Rebels and Traiters and their Fautors would yet take some remorse and compassion of their natural Country and would consider how vain their attempts have been so many years and how many of their Confederates are wasted by miseries and calamities and would desist from their unnatural practices abroad and if these Seminaries secret Wanderers and Explorators in the dark would imploy their travels in the works of Light and Doctrine according to the usage of their Schools and content themselves with their Profession and Devotion and that the remnant of the wicked flock of the Seed-men of Sedition would ease from their rebellious false and infamous railings and libellings there is no doubt by Gods grace her Majesty being so much given to Mercy and devoted to Peace but all colour and occasion of shedding the blood of any more of her natural Subjects of this Land should utterly cease Against whose malices if they shall not desist Almighty God continue her Majesty with his Spirit and Power long to reign and live in his fear and to be able to vanquish them and all Gods Enemies and her Rebels and Traiters both at home and abroad and to maintain and preserve all her natural good loving Subjects to the true service of the same Almighty God according to his holy Word and Will Many other things might be remembred for defence of other her Majesties Princely honourable and godly actions in sundry other things wherein also these and the like seditious Railers have of late time without all shame by feigned and false Libels sought to discredit her Majesty and her Government but at this time these former causes and reasons alledged by way of advertisements are sufficient to justifie her Majesties actions to the whole World in the cases remembred Important Considerations Which ought to move all true and sound Catholicks who are not wholly Jesuited to acknowledge without all Equivocations Ambiguities or Shiftings that the Proceedings of her Majesty and of the State with them since the beginning of her Highness Reign have been both mild and merciful RIght Worshipful and our dear Friends We your ancient Teachers and spiritual Fathers the secular Priests in England that sundry years for your sakes have endured many calamities but cannot frame our selves to the new Jesuitical Faction that beareth so great a sway with you are every where amongst you accounted simple persons men destitute of the Spirit of Government without all Policy and Providence ignorant Pilots how to cast about with our Ships in sudden gusts or storms not trained up in the managing of great Affairs and far unmeet God wot to take upon us the guiding of Souls All which disgraces in the sense they are imputed unto us we take in good part whether they proceed from your selves or from your Spanish Statists that can work wonders or from you both and we must acknowledge that if their courses either formerly taken or still intended for the re-establishing of the Catholick Faith in this Kingdom be good ours do come far short of that pitch and well you may think as already you have in your wisdoms censured our weakness and judged of us Howbeit as yet by your good patience we must be bold to rejoyce in our simplicity and to confess in direct terms and so tell you plainly and wish you all to mark it well that posteriores cogitationes solent esse sapientiores Experience is said to be the Mistress of Fools but she is no foolish Mistress The Jesuitical Plots for the restoring of Religion in this Land by Treasons or Invasions are not sanctified or blessed by the hand of God Some of us the ancienter sort of Priests have ever misliked their courses herein and many other we know are of the same Judgment The old approved paths of our Forefathers when men have beaten their brains to the uttermost will always prove the best Novelties and fine devices of busie and unquiet heads are but as May-flowers that are gone in June they may carry a fair shew but they will not continue The ancient manner of planting the Catholick Faith hath been by Preaching Prayers private Instructions Confessions Absolutions and by the exercising of other Priestly Functions given ad aedificationem non ad destructionem to teach Obedience not Rebellion to fill mens hearts with joy and peace by the inward working of the Holy Ghost and not to feed them with hopes of Invasions and Treacheries with the Moon-shine in the water and follies or with preposterous cogitations to think they may expect for figs from thistles or that men may do evil that good may come of it As simple Priests as you esteem us yet this we tell you that we are not ignorant of the Machiavilian Rules which your Rabbies practise nor of their Wild-geese Races wherein they have run themselves out of all honest breath But we know them not to embrace them we thank God but to disclose them or rather to acknowledge them for wicked being disclosed too apparently already to our hands that you in time might eschew them if you will be advised by us and all
the World at the length may bear us witness how much we detest them from our hearts and abhor them Whilst we had any hope that these Political Fathers as they joy to be termed would at the last have reclaimed themselves and grown more tractable and moderate in their designments against our Soveraign and Native Country we were silent in respect of the common Cause and very well content to undergo many inconveniences and miseries which we might have avoided as we are perswaded if we had sooner opened our selves and professed our said detestation of such their no way Priestly but very irreligious courses whereby the State hath been most justly irritated and provoked against us For when we consider on the one side what we know our selves concerning the Laws made of later years with the occasions of them and likewise as touching the proceedings of the State here since the beginning of her Majesties Reign as well against us that are Priests as also against other Catholicks of the Laity and do find on the other side what practices under the pretence of Religion have been set on foot for the utter subversion both of the Queen and of her Kingdom and therewith further call to mind what sundry Jesuits and men wholly for the time or altogether addicted to Jesuitism have written and published to the World in sundry Treatises not only against the said Laws and course of Justice but in like sort against her chief Counsellors and which exceedeth all the rest against the Royal person of her Majesty her Honour Crown and most Princely Scepter it may in our opinions be rather wondred that so many Catholicks of both sorts are left alive in the Realm to speak of the Catholick Faith than that the State hath proceeded with us from time to time as it hath done It may seem strange to some that these things should proceed from us that are Priests but divers of you can bear us witness that they are no new conceits bred in us by reason of the opposition we have with the Jesuits and besides no small number of Catholicks as we are perswaded have long expected this duty at your hands that thereby our Allegiance and Fidelity to our Queen and Country might be the better testified the hard opinion of us mitigated our actions and profession of duty better credited the cause we stand for more regarded and we our selves for our plain dealing and for the good of the Church might be the better reputed of and esteemed or at the least in some sort born with and tolerated as men that do distinguish between Religion and Treason We wish with all our hearts and groan every day at the contrary that her Majesty had continued in her obedience to the See Apostolick as Queen Mary her Sister of famous memory had left her a worthy Example but seeing that God for our sins would have it otherwise we ought to have carried our selves in another manner of course towards her our true and lawful Queen and towards our Country than hath been taken and pursued by many Catholicks but especially by the Jesuits And therefore as well to discharge our own consciences as to satisfie many of you of the moderater sort of Catholicks according to the old saying Better late than never we have thought it our parts being her Highness natural born Subjects to acknowledge the truth of the carriage of matters against us and the apparent causes of it that the blame may indeed from point to point light and lie where it ought to do and both sides bear no other than their own burthens as the Laws both of God and man do require If hereby her Majesty may in any sort be appeased and the State satisfied our own former courses bettered and the Realm secured that the like shall never hereafter be attempted or favoured by any of us but be revealed if we know them and withstood if they be enterprised with all our goods and our lives even to our uttermost ability be their pretences never so fair for Religion or what else can be devised we shall think our selves happy and will not regard what all the malice and spite of the Jesuits can work or effect against us It cannot be denied but that for the first ten years of her Majesties Reign the state of Catholicks in England was tolerable and after a sort in some good quietness Such as for their consciences were imprisoned in the beginning of her coming to the Crown were very kindly and mercifully used the state of things then considered Some of them were appointed to remain with such their friends as they themselves made choice of Others were placed some with Bishops some with Deans and had their diet at their Tables with such convenient Lodgings and Walks for their recreation as did well content them They that were in the ordinary Prisons had such liberty and other commodities as the places would afford not inconvenient for men that were in their cases But that our Brethren of the more fiery and Jesuitical humour may not snuff hereat we have thought it meet to cool their heat with some of Master Parsons and his Fellow Master Creswels more gentle delays than are usual with them who in one of their Books do confess as much in effect as here we have set down if not more thus these great Emperour-like Jesuits do speak to her Majesty In the beginning of thy Kingdom thou didst deal somthing more gently with Catholicks none were then urged by thee or pressed either to thy Sect or to the denial of their Faith All things indeed did seem to proceed in a far milder course no great complaints were heard of there were seen no extraordinary contentions or repugnancies Some there were that to please and gratifie you went to your Churches But when afterwards thou didst begin to wrong them c. And when was that our great Monseigneurs Surely whensoever it was to answer for you we our selves certain Catholicks of all sorts were the true causes of it For whilst her Majesty and the State dealt with the Catholicks as you have heard which was full eleven years no one Catholick being called in question of his life for his conscience all that time consider with us how some of our profession proceeded with them Her Highness had scarcely felt the Crown warm upon her head but it was challenged from her by some of her Neighbours as Master Saunders noteth The French were sent into Scotland to do somewhat you may be sure which concerned her Majesty the circumstances consisidered to look unto Afterwards certain matters were undertaken by her Majesty in France and the Affairs in Scotland did so proceed as that the Queen there was compelled 1567. to flie into England where for a great time she was very honourably entertained her liberty only excepted But with these matters what had we to do that were either Priests or private men If either France or Scotland had cause to
true and jealous love in Christ Jesu Thirdly we desire you by the mercies of God to take heed of Novelties and Jesuitism for it is nothing but treachery dissimulation ambition and a very vizard of most deep hypocrisie When other Kingdoms begin to loath them why should you so far debase your selves as to admire them Give us not occasion to say with the blessed Apostle You foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you Fourthly never give ear to any private Whisperers or Jesuitical perswasions that shall tend to allure you from your duties and allegiance unto her Majesty or your native Country All arguments that can be brought to corrupt you in either assure your selves are false and unlearned sophistications The Catholick faith for her stability and continuance hath no need of any treachery or rebellion The promise made to S. Peter is her sure ground and is more dishonoured with treasons and wicked policies of carnal men than any way furthered or advanced The word of the spirit and not the sword of the flesh or any arm of man is that which giveth life and beauty to the Catholick Church We are fully perswaded in our consciences and as men besides our Learning who have some experience that if the Catholicks had never sought by indirect means to have vexed her Majesty with their designments against her Crown if the Pope and King of Spain had never plotted with the Duke of Norfolk if the Rebels in the North had never been heard of if the Bull of Pius Quintus had never been known if the said Rebellion had never been justified if neither Stukeley nor the Pope had attempted any thing against Ireland if Gregory the Thirteenth had not renewed the said Excommunication if the Jesuits had never come into England if the Pope and King of Spain had not practised with the Duke of Guise for his attempt against her Majesty if Parsons and the rest of the Jesuits with other our Country-men beyond the Seas had never been Agents in those traiterous and bloody designments of Throckmorton Parry Collen York Williams Squire and such like If they had not by their Treatises and Writings endeavoured to defame their Soveraign and their own Country labouring to have many of their Books to be translated into divers languages thereby to shew more their own disloyalty if Cardinal Alane and Parsons had not published the renovation of the said Bull by Xistus Quintus if thereunto they had not added their scurrilous and unmanly admonition or rather most prophane Libel against her Majesty if they had not sought by false perswasions and ungodly arguments to have allured the hearts of all Catholicks from their Allegiance if the Pope had never been urged by them to have thrust the King of Spain into that barbarous action against the Realm if they themselves with all the rest of that generation had not laboured greatly with the said King for the Conquest and Invasion of this Land by the Spaniards who are known to be the cruellest Tyrants that live upon the earth if in all their proceedings they had not from time to time depraved irritated and provoked both her Majesty and the State with these and many other such like their most ungodly and unchristian practices but on the contrary if the Popes from time to time had sought her Majesty by kind offices and gentle perswasions never ceasing the prosecution of those and such like courses of humanity and gentleness if the Catholicks and Priests beyond the Seas had laboured continually the furtherance of those most Priest-like and divine allurements and had framed their own proceedings in all their works and writings accordingly if we at home all of us both Priests and people had possessed our souls in meekness and humility honoured her Majesty born with the infirmities of the State suffered all things and dealt as true Catholick Priests if all of us we say had thus done most assuredly the State would have loved us or at least born with us where there is one Catholick there would have been ten there had been no speeches amongst us of Racks and Tortures nor any cause to have used them for none were ever vexed that way simply for that he was either Priest or Catholick but because they were suspected to have had their hands in some of the said most traiterous designments none of her Majesties enemies durst so readily have attempted her State and Kingdom we had been in better friendship with those that seek now most to oppose themselves against us and to all men as we are perswaded bonus odor Christi odor vitae ad vitam whereas by following the said new violent Spirits quasi turbae impellentes parietem we are become odor mortis ad mortem non solum iis qui pereunt sed etiam iis qui salvi fiunt And therefore let us all turn over the leaf and take another course than hitherto we have done To conclude we do also further intreat and beseech you to consider with your selves the state of the Seminaries beyond the Seas as now they stand at the disposition of the Jesuits and joyn together with us that the said Jesuits may be removed from the government and direction of them It is too well known how hotly they are addicted to the pursuing of a Spanish Monarchy for the advancement whereof because it tendeth to their own glory being altogether Hispaniated and transported into those humors the better to resemble and imitate their Founder and Father Ignatius Loyola a Spaniard they will certainly never cease to put in practice all the mischief they can either devise themselves or learn amongst their company which is as they consort themselves the very School of Machiavellism In the which our joynt suit if we cannot prevail it remaineth then that you would be pleased to be intreated by us not to send or suffer your children or friends to go beyond the Seas unto them that so they may be driven if needs they will train up Youths to make them Traiters to gather them up in other Countries whereby they shall not be able so much to infect or endanger us Besides we are fully perswaded that by this course although at the first we be not heard by reason of the might that the Jesuitical faction are grown unto yet his Holiness when he shall perceive it and in the depth of his singular wisdom consider what inconvenience may come thereof will easily be drawn to hearken unto us Or howsoever as our Saviour Christ saith in another case potens est Deus de lapidibus istis suscitare filios Abrahae though you never send your Sons or Friends beyond the Seas to the ruinating both of your selves and of your Country if the Jesuits shall still have the direction of them so say we that the Church lived before they were born and needeth not for the advancement of her glory any of their traiterous practices but is able of her self by the assistance of God to raise