Church there as an undue Act contrary to the Ancient Canons and all Primitive Constitutions For though saith the Historian the Bishop of Rome for the dignity of his Apostolical Seat be more venerable than other Bishops yet it is not lawful for him in any thing to transgress the Tenor of Canonical rules and as every Bishop of the Orthodox Church is the Spouse of his own See and represents the person of our Saviour so it cannot agree to any Bishop boldly to act any thing in the Diocess of another the like checks the Popes frequently received for medling in France from the Princes of that Nation About that Time also the Bishops of Italy complained of the Roman Vsurpation to the Patriarch of Constantinople as appears by Photius's Letter in answer to that complaint extant in Cardin. Baronius And there are many like Examples in the Historians of those Ages wherein this bold Jurisdiction began first to be exercisedin this Western part of Europe And to this very day the Churches of France do little value the Pope's Supremacy though in other Opinions they agree with the Roman Church as may be seen in the French Writers And it is not long since the King of France was about to take away his Nations dependence from Rome by erecting the Archbishoprick of Burges into a Patriarchate And now why should you be awed into the belief of Evil and inconvenient Doctrines by a pretended Supremacy not given by Christ not challenged by the best Popes not acknowledged by the first Christians not much regarded by some Catholick Countries Why should you be enslaved by an Authority gained by fraud and policy confirmed by force and cruelty enlarged by dividing Christian Princes by the undermining the Empire and oppressing many Ecclesiastical and Temporal persons in their just Rights Why should you fear to renounce an Usurped Jurisdiction since what is unjustly seized on at first can never be legally enjoyed nor is it confirmed by the longest prescription of Time as the Civil Law speaks I must confess I cannot see that any Christians without the Pale of his own Diocess are obliged to own him further than by the respect due to a Bishop of an Ancient Patriarchal See nor so far neither if he be not content with his own and keep not close to the Primitive Faith SECTION VI. Whether the Pope hath any Right to exercise a Jurisdiction over England BUt since my Discourse is directed particularly to the Catholicks of England it will be most considerable to enquire Whether the Roman Bishop can justly claim any Authority over them and if Prejudices were laid aside I doubt not but to make it evident that the Pope neither hath nor ought to have any Authority over this Nation For first let it be considered that Britain was the first of the Provinces which did publickly profess the Faith of Christ saith Sabellicus which is also attested by other more Ancient Writers So that it is agreed on all hands here was a true and perfect Church of Christ near five hundred years before they had any Communication with the Bishop of Rome or knew one syllable of this foundation-Article of the Modern Faith of that Church viz. of the Pope ' s Vniversal Supremacy It is also certain the Church of Britain was not subject to Rome at the time of the First General Council at Nice And in the Sixth Canon of that Council it is decreed concerning the three Patriarchs Jurisdictions That the Ancient custom should be established that Aegypt Lybia and Pentapolis should be subject to the Bishop of Alexandria because the Bishop of Rome had the like Custome and likewise so it was at Antioch and in other Provinces the Priviledges should be preserved to their Churches c. Now the Ancient Custom and Priviledge of this Church of Britain then was to govern it self without subjection to any Forreign Patriarch and the Pope could not usurp any Dominion here afterwards without transgressing this Canon of the most famous General Council especially if we consider how this Canon was expounded in Ruffinus's daies viz. That Rome should have the Government of the Suburbicarian Churches And the Ancient Survey of the Imperial Provinces will tell you what the Suburbicarian Region was viz. Three Islands Sicily Sardinia and Corsica and part of Italy from the East end to the border of Tuscany Westward And this was all the Ancient extent of the Roman Bishops Jurisdiction the rest of Italy being under the Metropolis of Millain which Church of Old paid no Subjection to Rome much less could any be due to him from Britain Again in the Third General Council of Ephesus An. 431. it was decreed That in all Dioceses and Provinces it should hereafter be observed That no Bishop should henceforward lay hold of another Province which had not formerly and from the beginning been under the power of their Predecessors which Canon the Pope must break also before he can assume a power over the Church of Britain which with the Island of Cyprus and some other places was its own head as those Times phrased it and subject to no Patriarch So that when Augustine the Monk coming over to convert the Pagan Saxons required the British Bishops to profess Subjection to the See of Rome They did by virtue of these Canons refuse it telling him They had a Patriarch of their own to whom alone they were subject in Spiritual things under God and Dionothus Abbot of Bangor by divers Arguments shewed they owed no Subjection to the Roman Bishop as an Old Historian informs us And accordingly the British Bishops retained their Old Rites different from Rome and kept their Old Priviledges being consecrated by the Archbishop of S. Davids and he by his own Suffragans making no Profession of Subjection to any other Church saith their Historian which continued till the day of King Henry the First The Saxons indeed shewed more Respect to Rome because it had assisted in their Conversion hence they sometimes asked Advice of the Pope as of an Eminent neighbour Patriarch but their Bishops never professed Subjection to Rome nor did they own his Supremacy or look on him as an Infallible Judge as appears by their not obeying the Pope's Decree made in a Roman Council about restoring Wilfrid to his Archbishoprick of York An. 680. And though the Pope had confirmed and recommended the Canons of the Second Nicene Council about Images the English Church rejected and despised them writing a Book to condemn Image-worship in the name of all the Princes and Bishops of England and sending it to Charles the Great of France by the learned Alcuinus as our Histories do attest And moreover it is evident that all Ecclesiastical Laws were then made by the Saxon Kings and Bishops in their Provincial Councils by their own Authority without ever so much as acquainting the Pope therewith or desiring his
own Liberty and men of an un-inslaved Understanding SECTION VII Advice to the English Catholicks to forsake the Opinions of Rome and embrace the Religion of the Church of England TO Conclude as my pity to see you so miserably imposed on hath moved me to endeavour by these plain and Cogent Arguments to rescue you from that yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear So my desire of your perfect Freedom and my unfeigned wishes for your Temporal Spiritual and Eternal welfare do prompt me to advise you to comply with the Religion of the Church of England and this Advice is not only grounded upon the foregoing considerations but may be further pressed upon these motives 1. If you consider the excellent method of our Reformation which was so necessary at that time that for some Ages before the wisest and best men of the Roman Church had not only confessed there was great need of it but had complained for want thereof and pressed the Pope earnestly thereunto witness the Judicious Epistle of Rob. Grosthead that pious Bish of Lincoln to Pope Innocent the Fourth yet to be seen in our Historians the publick complaint of the English Church in the Council of Lyons the private Writings of John Gerson Nich. Clemangis Aeneas Sylvius afterwards Pope and many others And at least One Hundred Years before Luthers time a Reformation was urged for in the Pisane Council and that so strongly that before the Election of a Pope the Cardinals solemnly promised Who ever of them should be chosen Pope that he would before the dissolution of that Council Reform the Catholick Church as well in the Head as the Members And when Alexander the Fifth was chosen He promised to take Care of a General Reformation and that pious and Learned Men should be chosen in every Nation to treat with the Cardinals about it But after all neither he nor his Successors would ever Reform either their Doctrines or Practices being more intent upon their private advantage than the general good and more moved with Cardinal Scombergs Counsel than by all the former complaints who told the Pope That by the Reformation it would be confessed that the things provided against were deservedly reproved by the Lutherans which would be a great abetting to their whole Doctrine Hist Counc Trent l. 1. p. 83. which is to resolve to Err always rather than to be thought to have once erred and herein the Roman Church is of the same humour with those Gentiles to whom Arnobius speaks What you have once done without reason ye defend lest you should seem formerly to have been ignorant and you account it better not to be overcome than to yield to plain and confessed Truth Wherefore since Rome resolved not to Reform England having first restored her King to his Ancient and just Supremacy resolved to reform it self without the Popes leave or consent knowing full well they had Authority sufficient among themselves to order the Affairs of Religion which had been Regulated many Hundred years in this Land by the King and his own Bishops without any dependence on the Pope at all Thus the Kings of Judah reformed their Kingdoms of Old Thus the King of Spain with Leander Bishop of Sevil reformed that Kingdom from Arianism without the Pope and thus King Edgar intended to proceed in the Reformation of the English Church of Old when he told his own Clergy I have Constantines Sword in my hands and you have Peters in yours That is we need no further Authority or power to reform Than what we have within our selves The Kings of this Nation with the advice and consent of their Bishops Barons and Commons had been always wont to order Ecclesiastical affairs as they thought meet not heeding whether the Pope were pleased or displeased thereat And accordingly this happy Reformation was made by the Supreme Power of this Kingdom upon mature deliberation in a Regular Orderly and Legal way and it was managed with so much moderation and prudence that the Romanists of England said little against it but Communicated with this Church after the Reformation till the Pope for his own ends forbid them so to do but I hope his Prohibition without any just reason shall not outweigh the Supreme Authority of your own Nation with you who profess your selves to be Loyal Subjects and for the interest of England and since there was such need of Reformation such obstinacy in Rome such Authority here and so orderly proceedings in this Reformation I think all Good Christians and sober men being Natives of this Land ought to submit unto it II. You will be further perswaded hereunto by considering the Doctrine of this Church which agrees with Primitive Christianity in that it obliges you to believe nothing as of necessity to Salvation but what may be plainly proved our of Holy Scripture and for this reason you must still hold the three Creeds of the Apostles of Nice and of Saint Athanasius all which the Church of England intirely believes And he only is a Heretick which follows not this Holy Rule say the Constitutions of Theodosius and Gratian but they are Catholicks that embrace it In this Church we give as much honour to and obey more Canons of the first Four General Councils than they of Rome do we approve of that Exposition of Scripture which hath the consent of the Fathers of the first three or four Centuries yea we hold all that the Church of Rome it self held as necessary to Salvation for Five or Six hundred Years together and it is very remarkable that a Romanist may turn Protestant without adding any one Article to his Faith but a Protestant cannot turn to Rome unless he embrace many new Articles for our Doctrines are generally confessed by both sides to be true but those of the Roman Church are rejected by our Reformers as Novel Additions and such as have no good foundation in Scripture nor Genuine Antiquity And therefore the Protestant Doctrines are the surer and safer as in which both sides agree For Example we and they both hold there are two States after this life Heaven and Hell but they add a third which is Purgatory and this we deny We and they both say that sins are to be remitted by the merits of Christs death but they add the merits of the Saints and their own satisfactions with the merit of their own good works which we deny to be Expiatory or such as can merit Remission for us We hold there be two Sacraments Baptism and the Eucharist these they confess are the Chief but add Five more to which we affirm the name of Sacraments doth not properly belong We say that God alone is to be worshipped they confess he is chiefly to be worshipped but then they say the Blessed Virgin Mary Angels and Saints are to be worshipped also which Additions we deny We say Christ is our only Mediator and Advocate
they confess he is principally so but add that Saints and Angels are so in an inferiour manner which we utterly deny We say Christ is really present in the Sacrament of the Altar this they confess but add he is corporally there by the Transsubstantiation of the Bread c. and this we deny We say the Scriptures are the Rule of Faith and they will not absolutely deny it but add their own Traditions which we reject We say there are XXII Books of the Old Testament Canonical and they confess these all to be so but they add divers and call them Canonical which we affirm to be Apocryphal I could give more instances but these may suffice to shew that the Protestant Doctrines look most like the Ancientest as being received by both Parties but the Roman Opinions are Novel Enlargements of Old Catholick Truths so that a Protestant becoming a Romanist must take up many Articles barely upon the credit of that Church and begin to believe many things anew questioned by the bigger part of Christendom but a Romanist turning Protestant retains all the Old Essentials of his former Faith and doth only become a Primitive Roman Catholick III. The Discipline and Government of the Church of England are more agreeable to Primitive patterns than those of the present Roman Church are Our King hath the same Power that the Religious Kings of Judah had the same which the great Constantine and the succeeding Emperors for many years enjoyed the same power which the Ancient Kings of this Nation exercised viz. A power to convene his Clergy and advise with them about affairs of the Church A power to ratifie that which the Bishops and Clergy agree upon and give it the force of a Law A power to chuse fit persons to Govern the Church A power to correct all Offenders against Faith or Manners be they Clergy or Lay-men And finally A power to determine all Causes and Controversies Ecclesiastical and Civil among his own Subjects by the advice of fit Counsellors so as there lies no Appeal from his Determination and this is that we mean when we call him Supreme Governour of this Church which our King must needs be or else he cannot keep his Kingdoms in peace Besides for Spiritual Jurisdiction and sacred Administrations we have a Patriarch of our own The Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Primate of all England whom Vrban the Second call'd the Pope of the other World And his See was usually styled The Chair of the English Patriarch and is reckoned among the Patriarchates by a Forreign Writer And now his Priviledges and Liberties are restored by Law and his Title and Authority confirmed so that there lies no Appeal from him but to the King we have also Right Reverend Bishops together with other inferiour Priests and Deacons the only Primitive and proper Orders of the Clergy who can prove their Ordination to be as goodas any of the Romish Priests can do And are now Consecrated and Ordained by a more excellent Form and more agreeing to the eldest times than Rome it self can shew and if you will Judge impartially it must be confessed that the Clergy of England are altogether as Learned and generally more painful and pious than in any Catholick Country whatsoever Our Canons for Ecclesiastical Government are all founded on the Canons of Ancient Councils as I could shew by particular induction if time would permit and for the Exercise of our Discipline it is managed with more moderation and ease to the People than that of the Roman Church is IIII. You may consider our Divine Service and Sacred Administrations which as far as ever God made necessary to Salvation may be had in this Church We have the Holy Scriptures plainly translated Learnedly interpreted and practically Preached We have daily Prayers by a Form so Grave and so Agreable to the undoubted parts of Ancient Liturgies that it may challenge all Christendom to produce any thing so consonant to the purest Primitive Devotions A Form which hath all those parts of the Roman Offices which were known and used in the first three Centuries but wants all the Innovations and Corruptions of the present Mass And is used in English for the benefit of the meanest Christian in our Assemblies We have also those two Sacraments which Christ ordained and many of the Elder and Later Doctors own no more As for the other five Rites falsly called Sacraments viz. Confirmation Matrimony Holy Orders visiting of the Sick Repentance and Satisfaction for wrongs done we retain these but not by the name of Sacraments keeping the Primitive and main part of them only attended with fewer Ceremonies We press and practice also Charity and good works as much as the Roman Church doth and it may be demonstrated that more and greater gifts have been given in England to pious uses by private persons since the Reformation than in two Centuries before And though we dare not say we shall merit Eternal life by them because that is the gift of God yet we believe none can come to Heaven without good works In a word the Church of England worships God as he hath prescribed in Holy Scripture She commands all that he enjoyns and forbids all that he prohibits and therefore wanteth nothing that is necessary to Salvation V. You may look upon our Ceremonies which are few and easie Ancient and Significant and though we do not place so much Religion in Externals as the Church of Rome doth yet here is prescribed all that is needful for decency and order viz. That the Clergy always wear Grave and distinct habits and have peculiar Garments in Divine Administrations that Churches be adorned and neat that the People be Reverent in Gods House that the memory of our Saviours chief Acts and the Festivals of the Holy Apostles be religiously observed That Lent with the Vigils of great Feasts the Ember weeks and all the Fridays in the Year be kept as days of Fasting or Abstinence and if some Protestants do not observe them yet others do and are commended for it and you may follow the best not the most you will have more liberty by turning to the English Church as to Circumstantials and greater helps as to the Essentials of Religion So that it is upon all accounts your wisest and safest course to embrace this so true so Primitive so Pious and so rational a Religion Let me therefore shut up my Charitable and Friendly Advice by Requesting you to consider all these things without prejudice or passion and then I hope you will perceive how much the Religion of this Church excells that of Rome in Antiquity Integrity and Usefulness and no longer suffer your selves to be so sadly imposed on and so miserably made to serve the ends of Avarice and Ambition And if you have taken such prudent and pious Resolutions you shall not only be freed from the inconveniences you complain of here but also have
the substance and nature of Bread and Wine The Schoolmen confess Transubstantiation is not Ancient And two of the most famous of them plainly deny it The Administring the Sacrament in One kind is no older than the Council of Constance as was noted before the practice of the whole Church and of Rome it self being otherwise till then Finally many things were never decreed and imposed as necessary to be believed till the late Council of Trent such as the equalling Apocryphal books and Traditions to the undoubted Canon of Scripture Justification by the merit of Good works c. Which Council of Trent was never fully owned by the Catholicks of France Nor was it ever received as a lawful Council by this English Nation It would be too tedious to run over all the rest of those Points wherein the Roman differs from the English Church or else it might be shewed that the Appeals to Rome and the Pope's Vniversal claim Veneration of Relicks Invocation of the Blessed Virgin Pilgrimages c. were wholly unknown to the three first Centuries as the ingenuous Romanists will confess and our Writers have largely proved By all which it appears that the Old Religion of Rome for the first three hundred years had no formal Invocation of Saints nor Angels no Purgatory nor Prayers to be delivered thence no Images no Transubstantiation no half Communion no Jubilees no Indulgences ' no constrained Coelibate no Prayers in an unknown Tongue no customary Auricular Confession no Apocrypha in her Canon of Scripture nor the rest Now if you strip your Church of these Doctrines she retains scarce any thing but the Protestant Articles of the Church of England But if you take Rome with these Additions her Religion is not so Old by far as the Religion of this Church Perhaps it will be pretended Though these Decrees were made in later Ages yet the Determinations were made by vertue of Apostolical Traditions preserved in the Roman Church from the very beginning and upon this Pretence your Late Writers of Controversie have generally laid aside all Arguments from Scripture and Ancient Fathers and resolve all into Oral Tradition and the Infallibility of the Roman Church But what is this but to confess that the Scriptures the Ancient Fathers and all written Records which are Impartial witnesses do make against them only these unknown Traditions which are only in their own keeping and may be of their own devising these they say bear witness for them which is to make themselves Judges in their own Cause and may justly occasion your enquiry whether the former Popes knew of these Traditions or no if not how then came the later Popes to the knowledge of them If they knew of them of old why did they let them sleep so long and suffer the Church to erre for so many years for want of them Did they discharge their Vniversal Headship well in this Concealment But in very truth it is Evident the first Popes knew of no such Traditions and the later Popes have invented them to support their New designs which appears by the Ancient Popes declaring directly contrary to these pretended Apostolical Traditions of which take a few Examples Pope Gaius writes That the Righteousness of the Saints avails nothing to our Pardon or Justification Pope Gelasius denies Transubstantiation as was noted just now The famous Gregory the Great saith He himself was the Emperors Servant and owed him obedience and declares That God had given the Emperor power over Priests as well as others The same Pope disowns the Title of Vniversal Bishop as unfit for him or any other He also determines that it is lawful for Priests who cannot contain to marry And he allows Images for History and Memory only A later than he also in the Canon Law Decrees that in such Diocess where there be people of Divers Languages The Bishop shall provide fit men to celebrate Divine offices and Minister the Sacraments of the Church according to the diversity of Rites and variety of their Languages Decretal Greg. l. 1. Tit. 31. cap. 14. The aforesaid Pope Gregory the First affirms that the Book of Maccabees is not Canonical And as well the Ordinary Gloss as the Old Editions of the Bibles which were allowed by the Roman Bishops and used in that Church before the Council of Trent do all distinguish between the Canonical Books and those which the Protestant Church now call Apocrypha Yet the contrary to all these hath been afterwards decreed upon pretence of being Apostolical Traditions By which account you may see if your Prejudices hinder not that the present Roman Church as it differs from the Church of England retains neither the Old Religion of the Scriptures nor that of the Primitive Church in general nay nor that of the Ancient Church of Rome for they have omitted some Points added others and altered so many that though Rome keep the Old Name it doth not keep the Old Faith We may now seek Rome in the midst of Rome as Juvencus Vitalis said Nor can it be denied saith Another but the Roman Church is not a little different from its Ancient beauty and splendor There is not the Faith the Manners nor the Worship of the Primitive Roman Church and therefore according to S. Ambrose They that have not Peter ' s Faith cannot succeed to Peter ' s Inheritance and as S. Hierome observes They are not the Sons of the Saints who possess their places but they which follow their Works And That only saith Lactantius is the Catholick Church which retains the true Worship of God You might have seen and heard in Rome of Old a Bishop without a Triple Crown or the Title of Vniversal Churches without Images Priests under no Vows of Single life Litanies without any names of Saints or Ora pro nobis the Mass celebrated in a known Tongue Bibles calling divers books Apocrypha which are now reckoned Canonical Scripture People not enslaved by Auricular Confession not debarred of the Cup not frighted with Purgatory nor impoverished with purchasing Prayers and Indulgences to save them from thence c. To conclude therefore Why may you not justly desert them who have in so many things departed from the Old Religion taught by Christ and his Apostles believed by the Ancient Fathers and received by the first and best Bishops of that same Church If you desire to be really of the Old Religion nay if you would hold the Faith of the Primitive Roman Church you may come much nearer to it by embracing the Religion of your own Country than by retaining the Opinions of the Modern Church of Rome which are most of them meer Innovations And though you have reverenced them while you supposed them Ancient and Apostolical yet we hope you will now renounce them when they are evidently discovered to be Gibeonites disguised on purpose to deceive and
with Oblations of Houses and Lands Plate Vestments Jewels Images and Ready mony And it is very remarkable that the fear of losing this Income was one main Impediment to restrain the Pope from yielding to a Reformation To these may be added the Doctrines of Images and Invocation of Saints with the reports of Miracles done at certain places and the Device of Canonization by the Pope an Honour that none of the Saints for the first five or six Centuries ever had but certain it is that people being perswaded of Miracles wrought on Earth and Intercession made in Heaven by these Saints do undertake Pilgrimages to these places and make Oblations there or else send their Offerings if they cannot go And this in so excessive degrees that there have been and are some Shrines which cuâ—vy the Treasuries of the greatest Princes of Europe we may instance in Tho. Beckets at Canterbury and the still famous Lady of Loretto The Relicks also of all other Saints yea such as are said to belong to Jesus himself have been formerly carried about to collect Mony yea sold for great sums and are accounted Marketable ware and very gainful Commodities in the Roman Church The Year of Jubilee and distribution of Indulgences are used as devices to get mony as your own Writers complain The Pope's pretences to a power of Dispensing with Vows and Oaths Leagues and Contracts Marriages in prohibited degrees c. fill his Coffers with Silver and his Court with Suitors The taking mony for Penances and granting Absolution upon it for Notorious sins is so known an Infamy that we have the very book in our hands copyed out of the Original in the Apostolick Chamber setting down the rates and sums to be paid for Absolution from the most horrid wickednesses And to convince us that Mony is the only thing sought by the Church in these Absolutions the said book tells us that These acts of Grace cannot be granted to the Poor who have nothing and therefore cannot be comforted And though the Priests and Fryers have these and many more ways to draw Mony from the people yet the Pope uses them but as Spunges to suck in wealth from others that he may squeez it into his own Coffers afterwards For it is scarce within the reach of Arithmetick what sums the Roman Church receives from the Inferior Clergy and Bishops for Institutions Confirmations Investitures Palls First-fruits Tenths c. The very Tenths and First-fruits formerly enjoyed by the Pope amounting in this Nation as we now compute them to above 20000 l. per An. And in the time of the Roman Jurisdiction here the Clergy paid him a fifth part of their Livings sometimes for two or three years beside and for the English Bishops their subjection to Rome cost them dear Walter le Grey Archbish of York paying Ten thousand pound sterling for his Pall And it was complained in the 23 d of Henry 8 th that the Papacy had received out of England in about forty years past for Investitures of Bishops only Threescore thousand pounds And the Doctrine of sorcing all Priests to renounce Marriage is maintained by the Policy of the Roman Court that they may not only profit by them living but be their Heirs when they die there being no other good Reason to be given for this rigid Imposition for sure they will not say it is simply unlawful for Priests to marry since two Popes S. Gregory the Great and Pius the Second affirm They may be allowed to marry and their great Canonist saith There is as great reason to allow Priests marriage now as ever there was to restrain it What then do they forbid it that Priests may be more pure that cannot be the Reason because S. Paul saith Marriage defiles not Heb. xiii 4. And Fornication which certainly doth defile is tolerated if not allowed and called a Venial sin However reputed by their Casuists a lesser sin in the Priest than Marriage And how pure this Doctrine makes your Clergy let Experience and your own Writers teach you There are many saith S. Bernard who cannot be hid for their multitude nor do they seek to be concealed through their Impudence who being kept from Nuptial Remedies run into all filthiness There are few free saith Another in these days from the crime of Fornication The Pope thinking it almost a Miracle some Ages since to hear a Candidate for a Bishoprick attested to be a pure Virgin The true Reason therefore of this Doctrine which occasions so much wickedness we may learn from the Canon Law which allows not Regular Bishops to dispose of their Estates by Will nor others of the Clergy to be too free of their Alms in their sickness how earnestly soever they exhort the Laity thereunto And thus the Church becomes their Heir And these Spoyls of the Clergy as they very significantly term them which fall to the Church at their deaths amount to a good round sum as a judicious Author observes I cannot express one half of those Arts which the Roman Church hath to drein both Clergy and Laity But certain it is they do draw a Mass of Treasure Annually from the Countries under their yoke insomuch that it was complained of to the Council of Spain that Pope Pius 5th had got fourteen Millions out of that Kingdom in a short space And in the time of Henry 3 d of England it was computed that the Popes Revenue out of this Nation exceeded the Kings And another time complaint was made by the English that there went Threescore thousand Marks yearly out of this Land to Rome I shall not mention the Frauds and Cruelties used in Collecting this Mony only noting that Johan Sarisburiensis a great Bigot of the Popes and a hot stickler in Beckets Cause assures us That the Legates of the Apostolical Seat did Tyrannize over the Provinces as if the Devil saith he were gone out from the presence of the Lord to scourge the Church yet to oppose these Officers of the Pope is reckoned at Rome the most mortal sin No wonder then can it be that Pope Sixtus 5 th in five years time got together Five Millions of Crowns as Ciracella informs us Four Millions of which his Successor Gregory 14 th wasted in Pomp and Riot in less than Ten months time Europ Spec. p. 263. And indeed they spend these Sacred Treasures as badly as they get them the very Popes themselves of late designing only to swallow all the little neighbouring Principalities and to make themselves Temporal Princes to raise their Nephews and Neeces if not Sons and Daughters and advance their Families to the highest Dignities and Fortunes So that there is little of Holiness left in them but in an empty Title it being a little above a hundred years since one said No man at this day looks for Holiness in the Popes they are accounted excellent