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A34432
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Carnal prudence display'd, or, The crafty contrivances of the Jesuits relating to the popish plot discovered by way of letter from Gaunt to Mr. Willmore in England.
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Ignatius Franciscus, Philo-presbyter.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing C604; ESTC R22951
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6,986
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8
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Carnal Prudence Display'd OR THE Crafty Contrivances OF THE JESUITS Relating to the POPISH PLOT Discovered by way of LETTER from GAUNT TO Mr. Willmore IN ENGLAND Jam saturati estis jam divites facti estis sine nobis regnatis Ep. I a Paull ad Cor. c. 4. Qui Conveniunt in aliquo tertio conveniunt interse LONDON Printed for B. Shirley under St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet 1682. Carnal Prudence Display'd WEE the Fathers of the Society now Convened at Gaunt having been advised of your late Proceedings thought it our Duty to express our Cordial thanks to you on that Subject we therefore desire you to believe our whole Body in Flanders as gratefully sensible of the last great service you have done our common Cause as any of our Brethren whom the Nighness of abode might have given the opportunity to prevent us in the like acknowledgment And indeed we cannot sufficiently admire and applaud the Christian constancy of those truly brave Jurors who in acquitting the Right Honorable Lord Shaftsbury have asserted the Right and Property of Englishmen as well in order to their Lives as Estates in spight of all the damnable Projections and Machinations of those Belials called Tories Oh! memorable Ignoramus Jury which well deserves Inscriptions on Monuments of everlasting Marble Now as our correspondency with you has hitherto been under the Rose so we desire that it may be still we keep all things of this Nature out of the cognizance of any of our Subs and have reason to believe that you do the like now to satisfie you we will demonstrate the possibility of setting our Horses together as you said nay it shall be made out from your own Confessions If you remember you said in your last Letter That if it could be made to appear that our Principles as well in Religion as in Matters of State did agree with yours the Business would soon be at an end To perform what I promised I shall lay before you such matter of fact concerning our Allegiance to Princes and Obedience to Prelates that if you are in your wits you must needs confess that all the difference betwixt us is de nomine and not de re FIrst then you must know that having through our indefatigable Intrigues discovered the Methods of the Romish Court we new-molded our rule so as it is now altogether agreeable to the Maxims by which they steer insomuch that they look on us as the most necessary to carry on their Designs and Contrivances In the beginning we were strangely serviceable and obedient to that degree that at length we carried all before us Being come to a height of Power and Riches we were courted by Kings and Princes into whose Cabinets when we had humbly crept in we so magnified to them the Pope's Power as well Temporal as Spiritual and the influence it gave him upon the Subjects of Christian Princes that we soon brought them on their knees and now so far prevail'd that no Catholick Prince thinks himself secure without taking some of ours for their Confessor Things now being by our unanimous endeavors brought to this pitch you must conceive we have a double game to play that is we must keep in with Pope and Princes a hard task you will say and so it is But however we have made a shift hitherto to play this game ay and ply it still To let you see this you must know that whenever there 's a Pope made of our Faction then we make it our whole business to cry him up for a Saint a learned and wise Pope to represent him to each Prince as one who espouses his the Prince's particular interest by our inducement it is suppos'd which obliges him to acknowledge his sence of the Service in glorious Encomiums of us to his Holiness by whom and the whole Court we are therefore judg'd the fittest Spiritual Directors for Princes in the World and consequently the main Pillars of the Church By this means as our Employs are twofold so are our Pensions double for Janus-like we have one face towards the Prince and another regarding the Pope Sirs believe me you cannot imagine in such a game as this is well play'd how many occasions there are to bring grist to our Mill. Now on the other side if it fall out that a Pope be chosen who though a holy and learned Man yet Si non pro nobis contra nos est then what do we do why we whisper in the ears of our Penitents and especially of the Ladies that 't is much to be fear'd that holy Father the Pope is too great a favourer of Jansenists and Blackloists and such-like Hetrodox men and how they ought to pray all such may be removed from his Holiness lest being led away by these Wolves in Sheeps-skins the Orthodox meaning our selves mought be forgot and Catholicity left in a tottering condition Now let the prejudice of Pope Bishops and Clergy be never so great against us all the devout Sex both Nuns devoted Women and Lay-women will buoy up our sanctity against them all and for this intent we have particular Prayers Fastings Meditations and Disciplines Sirs in good truth you cannot imagine how devout the Women are at all this and how they out-do even our selves in the performance of it By this means many Proselytes are got and our fame is spread abroad in such a nature that in some Cities we Monopolize all the Faithful except only the tagragg folks or rabble who if they are so impudent to approach our Confession seats we send them back with a powder to their Parish Churches and if they argue the case we tell them it is their Christian Duty but after all this if some one of them be found so wise as to distinguish then we admit him rather than he should instruct the Rabble against us and truly it is a great matter for a Community whose aim is at governing the whole to have the Rabble on their side especially when ad majorem Dei Gloriam it will be necessary for the carrying on the Cause to lay any one aside on point of good Name or Life according to the gravity of the Sin committed against the said Community besides this 't is very advantagious to have their good word were it only upon the account of the respect paid us by Children old Women in asking our Blessings and in putting off their Hats and such like honorary worship paid to our Reverences all this does undoubtedly distinguish us from all other Priests or Religious who though they may have the simplicity of the Dove yet they fall short of us in the prudence of the Serpent because they are so silly as not to know how to reconcile them the reason is because they understand Religion but not Government and consequently they are ignorant how sometimes Prudentia carnis is meant by Prudentia serpentis or that they are identified But after this If the Pope be such an one
as the present Innocent 11. is Viz. Laying us aside condemning many of our Propositions and sodality Prayers to the Virgin Mary yet we keep fair still as to the Exteriors but under-hand we cut him out work enough for at this time we have set one of the most powerful of all our Kings upon his back in revenge to his prejudice against us and although he has a mind to destroy our Order yet he dares not attempt it The reasons are for that all our Brother Jesuits out of France remonstrate daily how they are concerned to see their French Brethren violating their most sacred fourth Vow by adhering to their King against his Holiness in the concern of the Regalis and they hope that he his Holiness will not punish the innocent for the faults of a few that they are ready to stand by his Holiness with all their Power and Interest with other Princes That the Jesuits of France as well as the rest of Catholicks there never were esteem'd right for the Interest of the holy See and a Hundred such reasons as these do they bring to amuse his Holiness from day to day till he has spun out the thread of his short life Then shall the Jesuits of France club again their Interest with all their foreign Brethren and bring along with them their powerful French King to set up another Pope who under pretence of the French Faction shall quell the dispute concerning the Regalis and the King in reality shall be in statu quo prius then I say shall all Suspensions and Excommunications be taken off from some of our French Brethren and from those they have engaged in the dispute and probably nay we have a moral certainty that his New Holiness will for his own quiet-sake make use of ours Then I pray what advantages of Church and State will accrue to our Order which through our prudential Morals growing greater and greater will in the long run gull both Church and State and then Good-night to Popes and Kings who will not be directed by us Another Objection in your last was That we allowed of Bishops which was contrary to the Presbyterian Institution we allow of them tacitly in those Countries where we cannot pull them down we grant we allow of them judiciously where we have Power to obstruct them 't is denyed For instance of this great truth in King James his days when His Majesty treated with Spain to Marry Charles the First to the Infanta the Tory Papists as we will believe inform'd the Court of Rome that the said King was disposed to a tacite Liberty of Conscience and that it would be necessary to give them a Bishop whereupon a Tory Bishop was made whose name was Smith he came into England with his Commission of totius Angliae Scotiae Ordinarius He was reverenced by all of his Faction insomuch that had he continued all we Presbyterians of the Society must have truckled to him to the loss of our liberty profit and power so as to have been subject to every Tory Priest whom that Anti-Presbyterian Bishop would have set over us In this conjuncture we not able to brook one man's Lording it over the rest Convened and it was Resolved with a Nemine c. That there must be an Association of Catholicks leaving out the words Jesuits or Presbyterians to carry on the Contrivance more Plausibly in order to the opposing this burdensom Tory Prelateship This was no sooner resolved then our Emissaries flew abroad like lightning to tell all the Wives and leading Women that it was known that a Catholick Bishop was come into England and that if he were not persuaded to retreat beyond Seas the Protestants would be alarm'd and a dreadful and most dismal Storm would fall upon us all and in fine that we should be ruin'd to all intents and purposes These and such-like Arguments we made use of to bugbear the pusillanimous but a Pox on 't it would not do their puny Tory Souls were oversway'd by Obedience to that thing call'd Prelacy We Convened a second time and romaging up our Morals of Prudence we at length found out an expedient that would do which was this we perused a Catalogue which we had of Protestant Bishops and amongst them we pitch't upon the Bishop of Lincoln who was in those days the greatest stickler for the Tory Protestancy Then we consulted whether a Member or Dependent of our Society should acquaint this Bishop that one Smith a Popish titular Bishop was come into England with a pretended Power over England and Scotland And it was Voted with a Nemine and a Member for that it was a concern too weighty for a Lay-man to be intrusted withal Then was a most prudent Member singled out and Commission'd for this great work and ordered to go immediately to Lincoln and acquaint the Bishop as aforesaid it was indeed thought convenient he should not take any notice of his quality as then to the Bishop but it 's probable he might have known shortly after who he was obliged to for the Intelligence However his Lordship immediately Posts to London and acquaints His Majesty with what had hap'ned and represents to him at large that His Majesty had better break off the Match with Spain then that the Papists should gain such advantages which mought capacitate them to destroy the Protestant Religion The King reply'd That he knew nothing of a Popish Bishop nor did he intend any more but a connivancy The Spanish Ambassador was sent for immediately and ordered forthwith to acquaint his Master That if the Pope did not cease to send Bishops hither he would break off the Match The King of Spain hearing this sent away one in Post hast to acquaint the Pope with what had past and how prejudicial his Holiness's proceeding were to the Crown The Pope made answer That nothing of all this was represented to him for he had made Smith a Bishop before ever the least mention was made to him of any such Treaty betwixt England and Spain and that he was so far from sending others that he never intended more than one there being neither Maintenance nor Business for more and if he thought this one would have caused any disturbance and thereby become prejudicial to Roman Catholicks he would have desisted Now you may object that we did not state the Story right It 's true we did not and we must tell you that in so doing we agree with you for you know full well that men of our Principles must state Matters so as to procure our ends for as the Tory Prelate said If we had been sincere we could never have routed him which by our prudent management was effected Now worthy Gentlemen Pray tell us if we are inferiour to your selves for Presbyterianism Verily Brethren we are of the Opinion that in reality there is none and to let you see that there is not let us most critically examine each others Motto Ad