THE English Prelates Practizing the Methods and RULES OF THE JESUITS FOR Enervating and altering the Protestant Reformed Religion in ENGLAND and Reducing the People to POPERY Plainly Demonstrated by a Reverend and godly Divine Take heed to thy self that thou bee not snared by following them after that they bee destroyed from before thee and that thou inquire not after their gods saying how did these Nations serve their gods Even so will I do likewise Deut. 12.30 Though thou Israel play the Harlot yet let not Judah offend and come not yee unto Gilgal neither go yee up to Bethaven c. Hos 4.15 Printed in the Year 1661. The English Prelates practising the Methods and Rules of the Jesuits for enervating and altering the Protestant reformed Religion in England and reducing the people to Popery Quest HOw doth it appear that the English Prelates do design the alteration of Religion amongst us here in England Answ As face answers to face in a 〈◊〉 so the practices of the Prelates in England do symbo … with the Rules and methods of the Jesuits who hope to accomplish that by sleight of hand which they cannot effect by force and down-right Blows Adam Contzen a Jesuit of Mentz and a great Politician Contzen Politie lib. 2. cap. 18. in his second Book of Politicks hath laid a Plot for the cheating of a people of the true reformed Religion which should bee dearer to them than ten thousand worlds by sleight of hand and the serving in of Popery again upon them by art of Legerdemaine that they shall neither know nor see who hurts them till they be utterly ruined Neh. 4.11 The Method for accomplishing of this which certainly is one of Satans methods he laies down in certain Rules in his sore-mentioned Book of Politicks Let English-men and Protestants observe how exactly the late and present Prelates of England have moved and acted according to those Rules and then judge of their designs I. Rule The Jesuits first Rule is this To proceed as Musicians Do in tuning their Instruments who proceed gradually straining their strings with a gentle hand and setting them up by little and little Or as Physicians do in curing diseases who abate noxious humours by degrees and pauses This Rule hath been diligently observed and practised amongst us both for the destructive and adstructive way for the destruction of the true Religion and the advancing of the false The English Prelates though some of them are more violent and hot-headed than others have learned this policy to proceed by degrees and pauses 1. And first for the Destruction of the true Religion and cating out the vitals and power of godliness though that be their great design yet as to the execution of it they must go warily and gradually to work It would make too great a noise now that so much Gospel-light is broke forth to suspend all the Orthodox Powerful Preachers in the Land at once and therefore they will proceed by degrees And first suspend all Lecturers who boggle at the Service-book and P … Ceremonies then after a little pause put down all Lect … as an order of Vagrants not to be tolerated in the Chuâ—â—â— Some of our zealous Bishops have already presumed to suppress divers choice profitable Lectures When this is done they will forbid all faithful Ministers to preach in their own Parish Churches upon week-daies the Jesuits and Prelates being both bitter enemies to sound and powerful Preaching Next they will inhibit Preaching upon the Lords Day in the afternoon under pretence of advancing Catechizing by that means and yet within a little while after all Catechistical exposition shall bee inhibited by these Soul-destroyers and able men tyed to the bare words of the Primmer-Catechism Nay have they not forbidden all praying save in the words of the Canon and are they not of the same spirit still to wit enemies to the Spirit of God both in Preaching and Prayer What can any ingenious man think the design of all this should be but to rob us of true Evangelical Preaching and Praying and thereby at length of the Gospel and True Religion Onely these men will do it by degrees for fear of noise and Tumult they will do it so as we shall neither know nor see 2. And then for the Adstructive way the Rebuilding of the Romish Babel among us do they not proceed by the same steps as if the Jesuits and they were animated by one soul First They rigidly urge the practice of the old Ceremonies beyond the intention either of Law or Canon yea they bring in an Idolatrous fardel of new Popish Superstitions without warrant either of Law or Canon but their own paper Injunctions imposing them on Ministers and People but yet by pauses and degrees The Communion-Table must be first railed in Soon after it must be set in an Altar-posture Then all must be compelled to come and kneel before it or not receive the Sacrament Then it must be cried up as the Sanctum Sanctorum the place of Gods chief residence upon earth the seat and throne of Gods Majesty And upon this Consideration all mens faces in prayer must be turned towards it Men may yea must say some adore and bow before it c. What I pray you should the design of all this bee but after the Altar to bring in the Popish Sacrifice and with their woodden worship the Breaden God Onely they will do it by degrees They will reconcile us to Rome by degrees and in a cunning way that wee may neither know nor see Secondly I may further add their making null and void the Ordination of so many godly Ministers who were ordained by Presbyters alone without a Diocessan Bishop and their ascribing more virtue to the Popish Antichristian Orders of the Church of Rome than to Ordination by Protestant Presbyters for Popish Priests when they turn Protestants are not re-ordained By this means our English Prelates do undermine and supplant all the reformed Churches in France Holland Scotland c. where they have no Diocessan Bishops to ordain Ministers and if their Ministers bee not lawfully called then they have no true Churches Baptism Ordinances c. And will not this think you contribute much to the rebuilding of Babel amongst us and reconciling of England to Rome whither at length men will be forced to go for a lawful Ordination according to these mens Popish principles and practices for if Ordination by Presbyters qua Presbyters be held unlawful which yet the most learned and judicious of the Protestant Bishops have proved to be lawful and therefore not to be iterated then we must have recourse to the Pope and Church of Rome for a lawful ordination from whom as from the fountain our Lordly Diocessans derive their exorbitant Ecclesiastical Power and Jurisdiction over the Ministers and Flock of Christ and not from the Scriptures nor the Church of Christ Again as the Prelates have practised the Jesuits Rule for altering
Religion in Discipline and Ceremonies so they have likewise observed it in Doctrine First they will bring in the Arminian Doctrine and the Cassandrian-Grotian Divinity and then they know that down-right Popish Doctrine will easily follow Let the Serpent but winde in his head he will soon work in his whole body Let Arminianism but obtain Countenance and Licence in the Kingdome our Universities Schools Pulpits Presses will soon be filled with Popish Doctrines Witness the publishing of so many points of Popery one after another especially those two which you may frequently meet with in the Books of Dr. Hammond Dr. Bramhall now Primate of Ireland and Dr. Jeremy Tayler now a Bishop in that Kingdome and of other High Prelatists namely That the Pope is not Antichrist And that the Church of Rome is a true Visible Church Altae sic surgunt maenia Romae Thus according to the Rule of their Masters the Jesuits they seek to re-establish Rome by degrees here in England and to do it so as wee may not know nor see So much for Contzâ—ns first Rule II. Rule propounded by the Jesuit His second Rule is this To press the examples and practises of some eminent men as a good means to draw on the rest And is not this Rule likewise well observed by our Prelatical men They dazle the eyes of the meaner and less judicious people with the practices of some noble and learned persons If any begin to startle or be troubled at the matter and cannot swallow down the Service-book and Popish Ceremonies and observations they presently answer My Lord Bishop doth thus and thus and my Lords Grace of Canterbury doth thus and thus The Knights of the most noble order of the Garter-bow versus Altare towards the Altar at their Instalment His Majesties Chappel is thus and thus adorned many honourable Lords do observe these Orders and Ceremonies A. C. Speech 〈◊〉 Star-Chamb p. 47. The learned Doctors of the Universities are conformable thereunto Such a zealous Minister is Re-ordained by a Diocessan Bishop and now reads the Service-book Such a strict Professor is present when the Service-book is read and the Ceremonies practised And what will you be wiser than so many noble persons so many reverend Prelates so many learned Doctors so many eminent famous Preachers and Professors By these and the like pretences they cast a mist before the peoples eyes and so dazle them that they cannot or will not see that Jesuitical design that is carried on for Altering Religion III. Rule of the Jesuit His third Rule is this That Arch-hereticks and such as are teachers of Heresie must be banished the Common-wealth at once if it may safely be done but if not by degreâ—s It is easie to know who are the Jesuits Arch-hereticks whom they would have banished even the most active orthodox conscientious Protestants the Calvinists as they call them who have eyes in their heads to discern and discover their Antichristian designs and will not be gulled by their sleights as the ignorant people are For the extirpating and rooting out of these the Jesuit prescribes a method of twelve or thirteen steps Contz Poll. l. 2. c. 18 sect 6. for which I refer the Reader to the Book it self such as will not Bow they must Break such as will not comply with the Popish Design must be crushed According to this Rule the Prelates have acted By them the Puritan Preachers have been counted the Arch-hereticks and teachers of Heresie in England though they teach nothing but what is consonant to Scripture and the publick Doctrine of the Church yet they are the teachers of Heresie And being too many to root out at once it must be done by degrees The Puritan party must be divided one from another and then they may be more easily suppressed It may be done with more case and less noise And therfore first they did cast all those out of the Minister that were not punctual and full Conformists to the old Ceremonies This was the practise of Prelats Next because there was a company of conformable Puritans as themselves stiled them they procured an Edict for Recreations upon the Lords day and this must be published by Ministers that such as could stand under the Ceremonies though groaning under that burthen might fall and be broken in peeces under this And yet because some men suspected of Puritanisme might have a latitude here beyond their brethren they had a third Engine and that was the enjoyning now Ceremonies and Adorations that if any could swallow the Book yet they might discover and cast them out by straining here To this they added a fourth Prayers and Proclamations to be read against the Anti-prelatical party in Scotland And their last and greatest Engine which was like the Powder-plot against the godly Ministry of the Nation to blow up the Relicks of them at once was the Oath for Episcopacy the Oath Etcaetera By these successive Stratagems they made account utterly to extirpate those Arch-hereticks As it was sometimes said to Elijah Him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay and him that escapeth the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay 1 King 19. So had they said Him that escapeth the dint of the Ceremonies shall the Book of Sports slay and him that escapeth the Book of Sports shall the new Injunctions slay and him that escapeth the new Injunctions shall the Proclamations slay and him that escapeth the Proclamations shall the Oath slay And this by degrees and pauses that they shall neither know nor see till we slay them and cause the work to cease If one snare do not intangle them another shall If one Engine do not batter down this party another shall The Prelates have variety of means and engines to ruine conscientious Ministers and Professors IV. Rule of the Jesuit The fourth Rule is this That those which are adversaries to the true Religion which with him is Popery be put by their Dignities places and offices and not trusted with power or publick Imployment I think none is such a stranger in England but from his own knowledge can witness this The bestowing of all Offices the collating of Benefices the election of Masters and Fellows of Colledges in both Vniversities who have had the over-ruling hand in them all the power of Mandamus but the Prelats and their faction and whom were they conferred upon usually but upon men infamous for and impudent in Arminian and Popish opinions protested Arminianisme and bold-faced Popery hath been the onely speedy way to Church preferment These have been and are still confided in as to publick trust and imployment whilst the soundest and most zealous Protestants are discountenanced by our high Prelatists whose practice suits well with the Jesuites Rule V. Rule of the Jesuit His fifth Rule is To make the Protestant Religion odious by laying load upon such tenents as are most subject to harshest constructions and rendring the persons of those who maintain them
dayes is but a weak plea to compass a Benefice Fiery Calvinisme once a Darling in England is at length accounted Heresie yea and little less than Treason men in word and writing willingly use the once fearful names of Priests and Altars nay if one do but mutter against the placing of the Altar after the old fashion for a warning he shall be well warmed with a Cole from the Altar c. That aspiring Prelate Dr. Laud in his Letter to Bishop Hall concerning Episcopacy hath these words You do extreamly well to distinguish the Scottish business from the state of the foreign Churches but yet to those Churches and their Authors you are a little more favourable than our case will now bear What should bee the intendment of this word Now Bishop Carleton in his Examination of Mountagues Appeal page 62. What greater pleasure saith he can a man procure to the exemies of the truth than to speak evil and odiously of those men whose service God hath used and made them excellent Instruments to make the truth known to us Some take it for a sign of such as are looking towards Popery when they offer such a service to the Papists as to speak evil of them who have been the greatest enemies to Popery the greatest Propagators of the truth Dr. Robert Abbot Bishop of Sarum in a Sermon preached before the University of Oxford 1615. Men under the pretence of truth and preaching against the Puritans saith he strike at the heart and root of faith and Religion now established among us This preaching against the Puritans was but the practise of Parsons and Campians counsel when they came into England to seduce young Students and when many of them were afraid to lose their places if they should professedly be thus the counsel they then gave them was That they should speak freely against the Puritans and that should suffice And they cannot pretend that they are accounted Papists because they speak against the Puritans but because they are Papists indeed they speak not against them If they do at any time speak against the Papists They do beat a little upon the Bush and that softly too for fear of troubling or disquieting the Birds that are in it They speak of nothing but that in which one Papist will speak against another as against Equivocation the Popes temporal Authority and the like and perhaps against some of their blasphemous speeches but in the point of Free-will Justification Concupiscence being sin after Baptisme inherent Righteousness Certainty of salvation the Papists beyond the Sea can say They are wholly theirs and the Recusants at home make their brags of them And in all things they keep themselves so near the Brink that upon all occasions they may stop over them The University of Cambridge in a Letter March 8. 1595. to their Chancellor subscribed unanimously by the Heads of the Colledges They desire his Lordship to use some effectual remedy for suppressing of Baroes Arminian opinions lest say they by permitting passage to these errors the whole body of Popery should by little and little break in upon us to the overthrow of our Religion And a little after Vouchsafe your Lordships aid and advice both to us wholly consenting and agreeing in judgement and all others of the University soundly affected and to the suppression in time not only of these Errours but even of gross Popery like by such means in time easily to creep in among us as we finde by late experience it hath dangerously begun Declaration of the House of Commons to his late Majesty The hearts of your subjects are perplexed when with sorrow they behold a daily growth and spredâ—â—â—g of the faction of the Arminians that being as your Majesty well knows but a cunning way to bring in Popery And the professors of those opinions the common disturbers of the Protestant Churches and Incendiaries of those States in which they have gotten any head being Protestants in shew but Jesuits in opinion and practice The Noble Lord Falkeland in his excellent speech to the House of Commons printed anno 1641. pag. 3 4 5.6 7. Master Speaker hee is a great stranger in Israel who knows not that this Kingdome hath long laboured under many and great oppressions both in Religion and Liberty and his acquaintance here is not great or his ingenuity less who doth not both know and acknowledge that a great if not a principal cause of both thâ—se hath been some Bishops and their adherents Mr. Speaker A little search will serve to finde them to have been the destruction of Unity under pretence of Uniformity To have brought in Superstition and scandal under the titles of reverence and decency to have defiled our Church by adorning our Churches to have slackned the strictness of that Union which was formerly between us and those of our Religion beyond the Sea an action as unpolitick as ungodly And again p. 7. As Sir Thomas Moore saies of the Casuists their business was not to keep man from sinning but to inform them quam prope ad peccatum sine peccato liceat accecere so it seemed their work meaning the Prelates was to try how much of a Papist might bee brought in without Popery and to destroy as much as they could of the Gospel without bringing themselves into danger of being destroyed by the Law Mr. Speaker to go yet further some of them have so industriously laboured to deduce themselves from Rome that they have given great suspition that in gratitude they desire to return thither or at least to meet it half way some have evidently laboured to bring in an English though not a Roman Popery I mean not the outside onely and dress of it but equally absolute a blinde dependance of the people upon the Clergy and of the Clergy upon themselves And have opposed Papacy beyond the Sea that they might settle one beyond â—â—e Water Nay Common fame is more than ordinarily false if none of them have found a way to reconcile the opinions of Rome to the preferments of England be so absolutely directly and cordially Papists that it is all that 1500 l. per annum can do to keep them from confessing it And again p. 9. Wee shall finde of them to have o th kindled and blown the common fire of both Nations to have both sent and maintained that Book of which the Author hath no doubt long since wished with Nero Utinam nescissem literas and of which more than one Kingdome hath cause to wish That when he writ that he had rather burned a Library though of the value of Prolomies Wee shall finde them to have been the first and principal cause of the breach I will not say of but since the Pacification at Barwick Wee shall finde them to have been the almost sole Abetters of my Lord of Strafford whilest hee was practising upon another Kingdome that manner of Government which hee intended to settle in this where hee committed so many so mighty and so manifest enormities as the like have not been committed by any Governour in any Government since Verres left Sicily And after they had called him over from being Deputy of Ireland to be in a manner Deputy of England all things here being governed by a Juntillo and that Juntillo governed by him to have assisted him in the giving of such Counsels and the pursuing of such courses as it is a hard and measuring cast whether they were more unwise more unjust or more unfortunate and which had infallibly been our destruction if by the Grace of God their share had not been as small in the subtilty of Serpents as in the innocence of Doves FINIS