to the Church of Rome are equally guilty of High Treason and to suffer as in Cases of Treason And a second Act of Henry the VIII In which the Refusal of the Oath of Henry's Supremacy in Renuntiation of the Pope was also made High Treason Now if every Papist in England without lifting a Hand uttering a Word or imagining the least disloyal Thought against his Lawful Soveraign his Crown and Dignity or against the Peace of the Nation where he 's a Subject yet nevertheless out of a point of Conscience and meer Matter of Faith cannot be induced to believe a Temporal Prince capable of being Head of a Church but is invincibly perswaded how erronious soever that the POPE is Peter's undoubted Successour and Christ's unquestioned Vicar upon Earth and cannot without hazard of his Soul so much as consent to acknowledge otherwise yet notwithstanding by the Protestant Laws of the Land this Invincible Perswasion without any other Crime is interpreted High-Treason and punish't as such Now I say in this Case what wondrous Difference is there between the Rigour of a Popish or a Protestant Constitution This that makes a Defection from Their Church-Establish't TREASON and the other from Theirs HERESY This that punishes an Apostate with Hanging and Quartering at Tiburn and the other with Burning at Smithfield 'T is true that Branch of Queen Elizabeth's Statute that concerns the Popish Layman's High-Treason was never yet put in Execution and I hope for the Glory of the Reformation Establish't by that Illustrious Princess as so extreamly Sanguinary was never intended to be being severe enough to give our Popish Enemies a Matter of Recrimination though Enacted but in Terrorem But here I beg the Reader to be assured that I urge not this Comparison in Disparagement of our Protestant Laws but only to satisfie the Mistaken Part of Mankind that all such Judicial Severities under the Government of both Religions have ever been introduced by the most Awful and Sacred Authority of the rightful Law-Makers of the Nations and consequently in the English Constitution not only the King 's but the Peoples Acts and Decrees and so to convince them of the unreasonableness of that senseless Surmise that upon the Admission of a Popish Successour all the forementioned Cruelties though without any such Induction of Law and consequently with all the Injustice Rapine and Cold-blooded Murder even to that formal Solemnity of Butchery that humane Imagination would tremble at must and shall be introduced For alas how ridiculously extravagant must those Fears be that can aâ—dlâ— Men's Senses into a Dread of that prodigious Stroke from Popery that was never given by it since the Creation What Magnifying Glasses therefore must the Popular Fears see through to behold such Stupendious Visions of Popery as that THAT shall be that NEVER was whil'st a Popish Crown'd Head in England must be the first nay only Royal Savage of a Papist that ever Reign'd However for once let us suppose the Devil and Pope as familiar together as ever they were painted at a Queen Elizabeth's Night and that this Gospel Propagation were really the Doctrine of his pretended Infallibility and this Bloody Mandate to a Popish Successour the special Edict of the whole CONSISTORY what would the Execution of that Mandate make towards the Growth or Advancement of Popery God knows so far from promoting the Romish Religion that possibly there wants but that One Attempt to shame it almost out of the World For in the first place 't is so far from a way or means to convert even one Soul in England that 't is the only Course to increase their Abhorrence and Execration of that Religion and bring the very THOVGHT of Popery even below Damnation 'T would no more make Converts to Rome than the old Heathen Caldrons and Gridirons to Paganisme For as the greatest Prejudice of Englishmen against Popery lyes in their Horrour of the Cruelties of it so consequently nothing can contribute to the Advancement of it but the Clemency and Mercy of its Professours to reconcile us even into meer Charity with them whil'st the Exercising of the formentioned unexampled Barbarities would make us fall from our present Ill Opinion of Popery as a Corrupted Church to believe it no Church at all but rather an Association of Monsters and a Den of Cannibals and Tygers and the greatest Operation such unprecedented Cruelty could meet were at best but to force the frighted People into a superficial counterfit Complyance and make them Temporize a little only to compound for their Lives yet that Temporizing under so Villanous a Persecution would be so far from a True Conversion or any thing like it that they 'd only play the Highest of Hypocrites come perhaps to Mass to mutter Curses instead of Ave-Mary's or be hunted into the Popish Fold only to pray for a favourable Opportunity of having a pull at the Throats of the Wolves that drive them thither And Secondly Besides the Impotent Effects 't is certain to find towards the Heretick Conversion the Pope's Command nay indeed Connivance at any such Arbitrary Tyrannick Stake-burning or Throat-cutting from a Popish Successour instead of advancing of Popery by so excentrick a Motion will be enough to stagger half the Popish Hearts in Christendom for as Implicit as the Faith of the Romish Zealots is and as intirely devoted as they are to their Peter's Chair and Mother-Church undoubtedly there are Thousands of them that notwithstanding they can disgest a Wafer for a GOD can never be wrought to believe the Transubstantiation of such visible Tyranny and Butchery into Righteousness and Christianity how Zealous soever they may be for the Conversion of so Heretical a Nation as England And that this would be the Infallible Consequence of all such Barbarous Popish Measures they that will but look back to the Annals of Queen Mary will find Historians telling us That nothing so much advanced the Reformation as the Mistaken Conduct of Queen Mary and her bloody Counsellors in that Point And Dr. Burnet expresly assures us That the whole Body of the Nation grew to dislike the Cruelty of Rome Abridg. Book the 3 d. Pag. 275. to that degree that the Popish Bishops for their Apology threw it off from Themselves and openly laid it on the King's and Queen's Commands insomuch that King Philip for his Excuse made his Confessour preach a Sermon at Court against the taking of Peoples Lives for their Opinions in Religion and inveighed against the Bishops for doing it By which means a stop was put to it for some time But nevertheless as the same Severity soon after return'd again he tells us all along That the Nations Dislike of it was Universal and the repeated Acclamations and universal Transports of Joy at the Proclaiming of Queen Elizabeth proceeded from the People's Hopes of better Days under Her Scepter than her Sister 's By which it appeared how weary the Nation was of the Cruel and weak Administration
to show that no Man can have a higher VENERATION of the Nation 's REPRESENTATIVES when TRULY Venerable I hope to see the Day when those Great State Pilots shall make JUSTICE and LOYALTY the only Stars they Steer by whil'st TRUTH the Child of TIME shall have the Honour of Their Haâ—ds to bring it into the World and when all our late Popish Trash that long unwinnowed Chaff shall be sifted away and the Security of our Religion and the Peace of Men's Minds shall be cleared from all such Dross and Rubbish the Disquisition of Truth being that indispensible Duty of the Nation in Parliament Assembled that without a Cordial and Impartial Inspection and Suppression of all Factions FRAUDS and all our FORGED Dangers all the National UNGROUNDED JEALOUSIES and the Violent and Fatal Effects of them lye at their OWN Door And therefore it ought to be the Prayers of all good Men for such a next Meeting of that Illustrious ASSEMBLY who under a true Sense of their DUTY both as Patriots Subjects and Englishmen shall so effectually provide for the Kingdom 's Safety as to hang out their Best Lights and Fairest Sea-Marks to warn a poor deluded People to avoid that old Treacherous Rock the False Fear of POPERY and SLAVERY on which so lately we so fatally split before And persuant to this Work I hope to see them so Zealous for Truth and the Unvizoring of all Impostures that they shall not only unravel the Negromancy of our SHAFTSBURIAN-PROTESTANTS and plainly discover that only the Old Republick Rump began to Flyeblow again and all our Fears and Dangers from ROME and POPERY were but the Corrupted Insects the Popular Maggots bred in that Carrion but likewise Retrive the sullyed Reputation of a Derided Kingdom by amending the Headlong ENGLISH Credulity and using even some unhappy RECORDS Themselves with almost as little Mercy as a NOBLE PEERS SPEECH or a Fitzharris his Libel as being indeed the more Unfortunate though possibly less wilful Incendiary of the Two And lastly shall do that Justice to the Memory even of the Top Evidence Otes himself as to Eternize his Due Glory of being Judas his SUCCESSOR only with this Difference Judas of the two was the more Innocent Imp of Hell For he ingenuously took the thirty pieces of Silver as a barefaced Traytor approach't and seized like one and neither acted nor pretended to any other than the visible Villain he was But this profligate Miscreant with Guilt of a yet deeper dye to the blackest of Forgerys and most diabolical of Murders added the fairest and most painted HYPOCRISY being the Disturber and Enflamer of a whole Distracted Kingdom under the most specious Mask of the Protectour and Saviour of it Nay and is yet the more hardened Desperado of the two as his Face is more Brazen'd and his Heart more Steel'd and that he has not all this while those Horrours of Conscience enough about him to make him fly to the same Medicinal Halter of his Predecessour However as the Fanatick Overfondling and too much Hugging of the late Beastly Popish Discovery gave the Government an occasion to suspect the True Father of the Dow-dye whil'st the greatest Outcrys of Popish Dangers being bawl'd LOUDEST and almost ONLY from the Geneva Throats warn'd us to look for the Old Serpent lurking under these New-Leaves And as accordingly never was a more accursed Legion of threatning Devils rais'd than from that filthy abominable piece of Enchantment insomuch that the whole Genius of the Nation was almost all turn'd Demoniack so no common Oblation of Thanks for a National Deliverance are due to Heaven and Heaven's Darling Vicegerent the BEST OF KINGS whose Wisdom and Princely Resolution alone stept Boldly and Timely forth to play the Mighty EXORCIST Which to his never dying Glory he has performed with that wondrous Success that succeeding Ages shall justly Record him in Chronicle of all our Crown'd Heads the greatest Founder of the CHURCH OF ENGLAND and even of MONARCHY it self whil'st the strongest Pillar of the First and Cement of the Last has been the peculiar Work of his OWN HAND Viz. By so great a Suppression of the dangerous Growth of FANATICISM and this ever memorable Defeat of the Machinations of those most Restless and most Formidable Enemies not only of the MITER but of the CROWN Yet nevertheless as the Popish Bugbears are not quite vanisht the dying Confession of the late Traytor Holloway lays the greatest Ferment of the late damnable Conspiracy on the yet too spreading Panick Fear of POPERY still coming in and indeed Sidney and the rest nay Russel himself in his highest Affectation of dying Innocence still concurs in that Point that their whole Uneasiness and Turbulency with the intended Stirs Anglicè Insurrections were only levell'd against that Danger whil'st in reality the Storm now seems to be a little clear'd up with them from the Valadoly'd and St. Jago Quarter the Pilgrim and Black-bill Region and the lowring Popish Clouds are now only engendring nearer home the Wild-House and White-Horse Consults and Caballings being by the Insolent Faction removed and most audaciously lodged in WHITE-HALL it self considering I say how Villany and Delusion still retain their POYSON and so many weaker Constitutions of Fear and Ignorance have not yet thrown off the INFECTION this following Subject cannot come unseasonable Besides not only my Service to my Country but likewise my own Vindication demands it of me For since the petulant Whiggs are angry with so open a Deserter amongst their many Snarlings against me there 's none so common with them as Hang him Rascal he turn'd only with the Tide and in spight of all his Recantations his Popish Character has that Sense and Truth in it that not He nor any Man will ever be able to Answer and in spight of his Teeth will stand a perpetual Record against the Baseness of so vile a Turncoat As this is the general Clamour against me 't is high time publickly to clear my self from that Calumny and by engaging my Pen in a GOOD Cause lay open the naked Impotence of a BAD One by unravelling the false Positions throughout that feeble Pamphlet And though indeed much better Pens than my own have long since chastized that Licentious Libel yet 't is absolutely necessary my own Handy-work should give it this last Stroke And Gentlemen the better to recommend it to your Patronage I shall not spare my self a tittle but lash my own Faults as heartily as any other severest hand would do it for me Which Integrity in this Treatise makes it the more presume to throw it self at your Feet and the Author more confidently aspire to subscribe himself GENTLEMEN Your most Humble and most Obedient Servant ELKANAH SETTLE THE Present STATE OF ENGLAND In Relation to POPERY c. GReat and Terrible have been the pretended Dangers of Popery especially for some late years and Indefatigable have been the Arts and Sorceries of Faction and Villany to
conjure up this Hideous Apparition to fright the deluded Multitude both out of their Wits and their Allegiance But not to insist much upon the Grosser Impostures of Fanatical Incendiaries such as the old most Impudent Cheat of turning both the Best of PROTESTANT-KINGS and a Protestant CHURCH it self into Popish and Antichristian hoping that the most Vulgar Eyes and Humblest Capacities have fully seen through so Diabolical a Delusion However as there still remains upon some weaker Understandings and unsatisfied Minds a Terrour yet unvanquish't the Business of this Treatise is to examine what National Operation or Influence a REAL Popish Crown'd Head can have over the Lives Liberties or Estates of Englishmen as now enjoy'd and the Religion of the Kingdom as at present Establish't and by confuting even the most Substantial of their Imagin'd Dangers dissipate those False Fears of Popery which no man possibly I mean in my humble Station has more unhappily rais'd than my self The wonderful State-Convulsions that Popery or rather the Sophistry of Scriblers upon that Theme seems to threaten are no where I confess more spightfully more venemously or indeed considering the weakness of the Cause more Artfully described than in that Libel called The Character of a Popish Successour But not to answer particularly to a Rapsody of Rhetorical Flourishes a Tautology of Gay Words and Big Sounds to little or no Signification which indeed is almost the whole Jargon of that Pamphlet being truly the Best Reason the Subject would bear I shall chiefly reply only to the Argumentative Part of it or at least that which was intended as such Therefore as this following Discourse will naturally fall under these two Heads Viz. If Popery be ever Introduced it can have only these two Doors for its Admission Presecution or Perswasion I shall accordingly examine First What Progress towards a National Conversion and the Establishment of Popery the CRUELTY and TYRANNY of it under a Popish Successour is able to make by an Assault on the Weak Side of Mankind their Cowardice And Secondly What Advance towards the aforesaid Conversion c. the SUBTILTY and ELOQUENCE of Popish Emissaryes and Jesuetical Seducers under the Vmbrage and Encouragement of a Popish Successour are likely to work by an Attacque on the Blind Side of Mankind their Ignorance To begin then with the First of the two as the more Horrible Horn of the Beast Persecution The Character is not a little prolix on that old Popular Arch-Devil Arbitrary Power whil'st POPERY and SLAVERY those always Twin Monsters those Never Seperable Feinds are so painted to the Life with all their Fire and Brimstone round them that it has little else from the Bâ—ginning to the End but the Ratling of Chains the Crackling of Flames the Blazing of Smith-Field Piles and in fine the universal Groans of Destruction and Desolation through the whole Land And for an unanswerable Demonstration of all those most certain Calamities from a Popish Successour The Character tells you that in the first Place the Romish Principles are such That they value neither their Word Promise Vows Oaths nor Sacraments but all their strongest Engagements are lighter than the very Breath that utters them Next That they so little consult either their Reputation or Glory that there is not the most Abject Thing that even Grown'd Heads themselves shall not undertake when Rome or Rome's Interest shall command And Lastly That the putting all this Barbarity into Execution is so highly meritorious in the Romish Church that the Pope will undoubtedly assign him no Common Diadem in Paradice for this Vndertaking But upon his Remissness or Tenderness in this Point bethunder him with so many Curses and Anathema's as an undutiful unactive Son of Holy Mother-Church a Scandal to her Glory a Traytor to her Interest a Deserter of her Cause One while accusing the Lukewarmness of his Religion another while the Pusillanimity of his Nature c. till in short To spare a Faggot in Smithfield he does little less than walk upon Burning Irons himself But how is it liâ—ely that Rome's continual Bâ—lls as the Character fancies shall bellow so loud against a Popish Successor for sparing a Faggot in Smithfield when under the Infamy and Execration of so Tyrannicâ—â—â— Murderer for what in Queen Mary's Days was the Sentence of Justice and the Legal Execution of the Law must now be the highest Subversion of Justice and Abrogation of Law he must expose himself to the whole World as a greater Monster than NERO so much a greater than He as Nero's Barbarities were committed under the Ignorance and Darkness of Infidelity and Paganism and this Man's Murders and Butcheries under the Light of the Gospel Nay the terrible Burning Broyling and Roasting denounced in the Character with the heating of Popish fiery Furnaces like Nebuchadnezar's seven times hotter than ordinary with all the rest of the Romantick Popish Throat-cutting will be ten times worse from a Popish Successour than the whole Ten Primitive Christian Persecutions For a Nero Caligula Domitian and the rest of them as they had the Law in their own Breath and a Sic volo sic jubeo was as much Authentick in old Heathen Rome as an Act of Parliament in little England and consequently how Barbarous soever the Christian Persecution was yet it had the Face of Law as being the Edict of the Absolute Prince and thereby the Ordinance of the very Government But such a Scheme of Cruelty here as being beyond the Reach of the Prerogative and notoriously contrary to the Establish't Constitution of the Kingdom would ipso facta be ten times more dreadfully flagitious as 't is the highest Violation of Law and Dissolution of Government And what ever Opinion the noysy Fools of Mankind may have imbibed of Jesuitisme Papisme and all the Chimerical Terrours from Rome how can that very Rome if it pretends but to Christianity that has Canoniz'd so many of those Suffering Primitive Martyrs at the same time likewise make Saints of really Worse Monsters amongst THEMSELVES than the very Heathen Butchers of those very Martyrs 'T is true Inquisition Houses and Lollards Towers and the Cruelty of Fire and Faggot we know have been frequent but all this while they were never erected by Standing ARMIES Arbitrary CUT-THROATS nor Military EXECUTION but Establish't by the Legislative Power of the Respective Governments that used them and consequently introduced with the solemn Institution of Law as a necessary Support of the Community neither has it been a Practice singular only to the Papists to secure the Establish't Religion and thereby the Peace of the Civil Government by Capital Punishments when the Protestant Government has done the like For Example Does not the Character instance two several Acts of Parliament one of Queen Elizabeth in which not only the Popish Priests that shall have taken Orders from Rome and afterwards return to England but likewise all Persons withdrawn by them from the Protestant Religion Establish't to a Reconciliation
many venturous and bold Champions amongst them in so Meritorious a Cause But alas every Heroe is not a Sampson There are no doubt those of them that would spare neither pains nor study to propagate their own Religion though never so indirectly those possibly that would have it in their Power if they could come handsomely by it to use their Heretick Adversaries with as little Mercy as HE did his Philistian Enemies but alas not with his Hardiness too as like Him to pull down that Roof upon their Heads to their own inevitable Destruction only to have the pleasure of crushing some of VS with them We read I confess that pro Aris Focis men will venture far Yes truly for their Religion and Estates together they will do so But in the Popish Case where the Founding of the One will be the Destruction of the Other where the Setting up of their Religion will be the Forfeiting not only their Estates but Heads too 't is more than a hundred to one betwixt these two so directly opposite Interests but that the keeping of their Skin and Bones warm on the one side may make their Zeal a little the cooler on the other For let me tell you where the Erecting of the Altar will at long run make the Builders the Sacrifice in all humane probability that Popish Temple will go but slowly up whose Stones are to be dug out of so fatal a Quarry 'T is very remarkable in Queen Mary's Reign when by the Majority of her Parliament the Protestant Religion then but in its Minority was abolish't and the Romish Government and Papal Supremacy Re-establish't and indeed the Grandure of Rome even to Haeretici comburendi maintain'd Yet that Parliament that had it absolutely in their power to gratifie the Pope's utmost Wishes refused the returning his Church-Lands again Nay the Parliament were so averse to the thought of such a Restitution that they had never been wrought up to the restoring of the very Supremacy it self and of making of all those favourable Acts towards the re-installing of Popery again but by much pains used as Burnet in his Abridgement pag. 268 says by the policy of Bishop Gardiner to ensure the Kingdom from the Fear of coming under such Tyranny from Rome as their Ancestors had groaned under and likewise from the Loss of the Abbey-Lands Insomuch that Gardiner promised them for Removal of all such Jealousie that all the old Laws against Provisions should continue in Force and to shew them that Legates should exercise no dangerous Authority in England he made Pool take out a License under the Great Seal for his Legantine Power and for the other Viz. the Abbey-Lands he promised both an Act of Parliament and Convocation confirming them and undertook that the Pope himself should ratifie the Alienation of the Church-Lands which History tells us was accordingly done Nevertheless as this Papal Dispensation came very unwillingly from Rome being only a Forced Compliance and Temporizing with the English Obstinacy in that point The Queen her self restored all the Church-Lands in her Possession and proceeded so far as to the Re-building of several Religious Houses declaring to her Treasurer and some of her other Officers that she thought her self bound in Conscience to restore all the Church-Lands as being unlawfully acquired and not to be held without a Sin as Baker in his Chronicle tells us Nay the Pope himself set out a Bull excommunicating all that kept any Lands belonging to Abbeys or Churches which gave such an Alarm to the Nation that Gardiner was forced to pacifie them by telling them that Bull was intended only to the people of Germany and not England However the Pope continued his high Resentments against the Undutifulness of England that he could not forbear telling the Queen's Ambassadours Abridg. pag. 221. That it was beyond his power to confirm Sacriledge and all were obliged under the pain of Damnation to restore to the last Farthing every thing that belong'd to the Church he said likewise that he would send over a Collectour to gather the Peter-pence for they could not expect that St. Peter would open Heaven to them so long as they denied him his Rights upon Earth Yet all this made so little Impression on the Commons of England that whatever Conscience might dictate their Priests insinuate their Popish Successour Solicite or their Pope himself endeavour so powerful was Interest above Conscience and all other Motives whatever that several of the Commons in Parliament lay'd their hands on their Swords and declared that they would not part with their Estates but defend them And every Motion that way was always carryed in the Negative Abridg. of the Reform B. 3. pag. 309 Now pray for once let us compare Cases If the Papists in her Reign with the highest Papal Dominion and Soveraignty in their own Hands under an Establish't Roman Church against both their Priests and their Prince nay a Prince too with her Hereticks under her Feet and her Religion in the very Saddle could refuse both their Pope and their popish Successour so Just and so Sacred a Right and so important to his Church's Interest and that too when with all Safety round them they might have confirm'd their Oblation even by the strongest Bonds of Law so on the other side how shall it be suppos'd that the more prodigal Papists in our Age in the quite contrary extream shall gratifie the unjust Demands of a more Impotent popish Successour under the lowest Ebb of Popery against all Law or Pretence of Law whatever by launching out into the most notorious .075 Violation of all the highest sanctions of Right and Justice and the most openfaced Tyranny and most impudent Barbarity in the world and all forsooth for the Establishing of Popery and all God wot too little for the Work and this too to the running themselves into unavoidable Iayls and Halters and not only to the ruining of their Estates but to the cutting off of the Lives of Themselves and even the very RACE of Papists under the next immediate crown'd-Crown'd-Head that succeeds Besides as boldly as the Roman Zealots stand up for the Interest and Dignity of mother-Mother-Church and the Grandure and Dominion of their Peter's Successour not only the Papists but the very Priests themselves are not so overcouragious in this Cause as the World suspects them For Instance in Henry the Eighth's Reign the whole Clergy of England by a State-surprize upon them were found guilty of a Premunire by submitting to Cardinal Woolsy's Legantine-power as derived only from the Pope's Authority and thereby expresly against the Statute of PROVISOES an old dormient Law made several King's Reigns before though rarely or never put in Force by reason of the Remissness of the Government and the Supiness of the Nation and Kings Submission to Rome and therefore unwarily transgrest by the Clergy now By vertue however of which they had forfeited their Goods and Chattels to the King and their
persons to be imprisoned Upon the King's Menace of executing which Law Reformat Book the 2 d. pag. 112. the Convocation of Canterbury in tenderness to their Skins and Estates brought a Petition to his Majesty acknowledging him in the Title Protectour and Supream Head of the Church and Clergy of England Which was agreed to by nine Bishops 82 Abbots and the majority of the Convocation in the Province of Canterbury praying him to accept of 100000 l. in leiu of the Punishments incurred And the Province of York soon afterwards consented to the same Submission with the Offer of 18840 l. for obtaining the same pardon Insomuch that we find the very popish Clergy themselves so servilely compounding for their Mammon and their Carcases not so much in the Voluntary Tribute of their Purses as with the Renunciation of the Pope's Ecclesiastical Supremacy the very brightest Iewel in the Tripple Diadem and consequently by this sordid Compliance even the Priesthood it self by their own Leading Act gave the fatal Original precedent to the succeeding Act of Parliament to confirm that Supremacy in the Crown and so struck the first main Blow towards the shaking of the Romish Prerogative in England and thereupon Conspired to the greatest part of the ensuing Fatalities to their Religion it self And therefore if the Ecclesiastical Sons of Rome could ward themselves from the Stroke of Law due to that less Capital Transgression THEN by denying their very Pope Why must the Sons of Rome be so prodigiously Fool-hardy NOW as to run themselves into a more Dangerous and more Mortal Noose of Law for his Vindication 'T is very easie preaching to Fools and Madmen as the popish Character has very Rhetorically done what miraculous Fire and Faggot Feats or other Arbitrary Extravagancies the wonderful Papists under a popish Successour shall do But as great a Deity as the Romanists make of their Keeper of the Keys of Heaven as the Devil speaking of Job makes answer to God Almighty put forth thine hand and touch him in all that he hath and he will curse thee to thy Face So let his Holiness put these Zealots upon that Hard Task where their Necks are sure to stretch in the Service and Obedience will be so little a part of the Sacrifice they 'l make his Divinityship in such a Command that all his Bell Book and Candle will be too little to conjure up half hands enough for so ungrateful and so cursed an Employment Whatever pleasure they may take in bringing Vs to Stakes and Gibbets they are not overfond of Martyrdom themselves And though Great is their DIANA of Ephesus whil'st Profit and Safety go along with her and upon Reasonable Terms much might be done to exalt her yet ther 's that Vniversal Charm in that thing call'd OVR ALL and that strange superseding Quality in those potent Operators Self and Self-preservation that it over-rules the highest Excursions even of the most daring Zeal and the very biggest Devils of Outrage and Tyranny are laid by no other Spell But perhaps it may be objected That to incourage the bold Labourers in this Harvest this popish King to prevent the Ruine both of his Cause and his Party will take Care in case of a protestant Heir to divert the Succession and continue the Crown upon some other popish Head and so by a longer Usurpation of this Arbitrary Supremacy and a more lasting Persecution of the Protestants provide as much as in him lyes that the propagation of the Romish Faith may be compleated in succeeding Ages upon so good a Foundation lay'd in his Own This foolish Supposition is so lewdly ridiculous that ther 's scarce a shadow for such a Feaâ— For alas there will be so little Hopes of a popish Vsurper's mounting the Throne after so notorious a Tyranny under a Lawful popish King before him as nothing can scarcely be more impossible 'T is possible indeed the Duty of our Christianity and the Bond of Passive Obedience as having the Lawful Power of no other Weapons but our Prayers and Tears against the Tyranny of our Lawful Prince may tye up our hands and keep us in the Bounds of Peace and Resignation during his Reign But the setting up of a popish Vsurper after him in wrong to the Imperial protestant Right Heir will undoubtedly ingage all the Protestant Hands and Hearts against so impudent an Invader and if Occasion require his Protestant Royal Neighbours in such a Cause whil'st the taking up Arms in such a Quarrel which had been Rebellion against his Predecessour before would be the work of their highest Duty and Allegiance now And as the Remembrance of their past Yoke to all true English Spiâ—its would certainly double Edge their very Swords so in so just a Cause 't would infallibly spur them to so perfect and so unanimous a Revenge as to cut off their popish Enemies even to the last Man Now what popish Vsurper shall venture to pass such an Ordeal to a Throne Or what hopes a popish King can have of such a Successour or of accomplishing his own popish Designs on such a Basis let common Reason judge And therefore the Pope must have a very little Paternal Care of his Royal Son of Rome and indeed of all his Catholick Sons in England as to imbark them in a Cause so apparently Derstructive whil'st by misleading them into such sanguinary illegal Cruelties against the Protestants and all for an impossible Conversion of a Nation he runs his own darling people Root and Branch into an inevitable Fate under the next Protestant Successor exposed not only to the highest popular Swords and Fury but even to Cords and Axes and the severest Stroke and Vengeance of Law it self But possibly their Fate shall not wait so long as the next King's Coronation but overtake them in the first Onset of their popish Barbarity For let ut but look back to the Gun-powder Treason a Plot where Faux's Powder-Barrels were neither like Otes his Teuxbury Mustard-Balls nor his Black Bills Invisible A Plot too where the Conspirators dyed not Tongue-tyed but confessed their Guilt without that wonder-working Dispensation of asserting a Counterfeit Innocence to the stretch o their Salvation and Renuntiation of their God on the very Brink of Eternity Let us look back I say to the Discovery of that Plot and History informs us that 't was as much as the King Court and Government could possibly do to restrain the peopl's Rage from Butchering all the Papists in England the Guilty and Innocent together in the Revenge of so barbarous a Machination though uneffected tho by Providence detected and frustrated And if the Genius of England was so highly exasperated and so furiously transported in Zeal for their Prince's and their Representativ's Danger though past and escaped What Security shall the Pope or his popish Successour promise themselves that the people's Zeal for their own Dangers Approaching will not be as much transported too And that the Eruption of Smithfield
at the Court than Church of Rome witness the Act of the six Articles made by him defending the greatest and principlest Tenets of Rome by no less than Capital Punishments and a Parlimentary Reinforcement of the old Statute de Hereticis comburendis Ref. pag. 147. the Heretick Burning continuing through his whole Reign As these I say were all the Changes made by Henry the Eighth instrumental to the present Reformation and that too not without Obstructions witness several Rebellions occasioned by this Change the one of 20000 Strong in Lincolnshire another more formidable one in Yorkshire called by the Rebels The Pilgrimage of Grace attended with a general Insurrection in all the North. However as I said before here is no Motive or Inducement now for the like Parliamentary Compliance with a Popish Successour to make any the least Change Instrumental to the Romish Restoration For first supposing how notoriously false soever an equal Mutability or Disposition in the People now to return to Rome as then to depart from it Here 's no stigmatizing Brand of Murder or any other publick Perpetration or Avowing of any Villany whatever to taint the whole Protestant Clergy and thereby withdraw the People's Hearts from them Here 's no Holy-Cheats and Superstitious priest-Impostures practised to drein the People's Purses to gratifie a scandalous voracious Clergy Or any detected Abuses and Corruptions to disgust and exasperate the People against them Here 's no least Dormient Statute or Title whatever for a Popish Successour to lay hold of in favour of the Papacy's Return into England as there was for its Expulsion The Fence of our present Protestant Constitution being so strong against it and all Pretensions of Rome so utterly extinct and abolish't Neither is here any Premunire incurred by the whole Clergy and Nation to affright or dasterdize them into any sordid Condescencion or Grants in Diskindness to our Religion And lastly here 's no Fleeeing of an Overgrown Overrich Church in the Case The present Church Revenues under so many Impropriations being no more than will but just support its Dignity and Pastors but with Subsistence and Decency No Ecclesiastick Booty nor Prize to bribe or allure an Avaricious Parliament to weaken or impoverish their Church for the temptation of sharing the Spoyl But above all other Obstacles against Rome her 's an Absolute Impossibility of a Temporizing Clergy to favour Popery For supposing even the most barbarous Insinuation of their Fanatical Enemies True and that Mammon Interest Sycophantry how rascally soever that Infamous Suggestion were above Religion with them Yet nevertheless the utmost Influence of a Romish Prince could never warp them to any such Execrable Apostacy by reason the Indispensable Coelibacy of the Romish Clergy would totally exclude the present Members of the Church of England as being Marryed Men from any Share or Hopes under a Romish Government whil'st instead of Preferment or Interest nothing but Degradation and Beggery could attend them And for an unanswerable Dispurity between Henry the Eighth's Influence towards the present Protestant Religion and a Popish Successour's towards Popery The Protestant Religion with an inviting Face was in a State of Innocence untainted by any of its Corrupted Professours with any thing like Parisian Massacres Irish Rebellions or Gun-powder Treasons enough of themselves alone to open that uncloseable Chasme that never to be cemented Breach between Englishmen and Popery that Popery could not now gain three Proselites to a hundred gain'd in Henry the Eighth's Time to the Protestant Religion But here I cannot but take notice of one Gross Mistake that 's commonly receiv'd for Truth Viz. That Henry the Eighth hectored his Parliaments to what he listed Which is oftentimes made use of as an Argument that a Popish Successour with the same Courage may do the like with his when on the contrary they acted only by their own Inclinations and when any thing was proposed by the King that went against the Grain not all his Menaces could force them to a Submission For Example when a Bill had past the House of Lords for regulating a common Practice then in England of defrauding the King and several of the Lords of their Advantages made by Wards Marriages and Primier Seisin by Men's making such Settlements of their Estates by their last Wills and other Deeds to that purpose Yet notwithstanding the utmost pressure both of the King and Lords for redressing that Abuse the Commons rejected the Bill Ref. pag. 116. And as to the Reformation some part of it was of their own seeking For Example in his 22 d. Year the Commons complained to the King of the grievous and intolerable Severity of the Ecclesiasticks for calling Men before them ex Officio and laying Articles to their Charge without any Accuser and then admitting no Purgation but causing the Party accused either to abjure or burn Reform Pag. 116. And indeed in all the Reformation they rather drew with him than were driven by him And to shew the vast Difference betwixt the Operation of the Prince either by Edward or Mary towards the Change of the Religion and the working of a Change now In the first place besides the dayly Converts made to the Protestant Religion in Edward's Reign which added Strength and Vigour to the Reformation wrought by that Prince as the State of Religion then stood the Popish and Protestant Party were grown in a manner to be an Equal Division of the Nation and 't is not to be wondred that where the Weight's even the Soveraign Power added to the Ballance could turn the Scale as both in his and his Sister's Reign Either Party having an Easie Game to play whilst the Respective Monarch might with small Difficulty turn up his own Religion Trump when he had half the Cards in his hands Besides the Law had then so weakly provided for the true Settlement of either Religion that the greatest part of the Ecclesiastick Changes then lay almost wholly in the pleasure of the Prince For after the Parliament had fully invested Henry the Eighth with the Supremacy they impowered him as Head of the Church to dispose of all Episcopal Sees by Letters Patents during pleasure Abrid Ref. Book 2. pag. 4. and the Bishops by the same Authority had the like Jurisdiction over the Inferiour Clergy This unbounded Latitude of the Supremacy continuing through both the next Reigns a great part of the Changes was owing wholly to this Prerogative whil'st King Edward made choice of a Clergy of his own Perswasion and in like manner Queen Mary placed or displaced her Bishops and removed all the Inferiour Clergy ad Libitum turning out whom she pleas'd without any Form of Process or special Matter objected against them All which Abridg. B. 2. pag. 249. was done by virtue of the Queens being Head of the Church which though she condemned as a sinful and sacraledgious Power yet she now employ'd it against those Bishops whose Sees were quickly filled with Men for
her Purpose So that nothing could make a greater Turn of Church Affairs in the Kingdom in those Days when under such a Total Alteration of the Clergy and all ready at hand to step into their Seats the whole Interest of the Adverse Religion through the forementioned Equality of Parties could not but be extreamly shaken and the Prevalence in Parliament be highly mov'd by no other Spring Besides the Act De Hereticis comburendis was then unabolish't and as the Determination of Heresy lay in the Breast of the Clergy here was an easie leap into all the foregoing Severities of Rome even by the Law it self Insomuch that either of the Religions could not properly be call'd by Law Establish't whil'st our Pastors and our Fold were in a manner at the Will of the Soveraign and there wanted but little more than the Royal Breath to drive us to the Right or the Left the Sheep or the Goats But all this is so prodigiously remote from the present State of England and the Religion now Establisb't that Light and Darkness can be scarce more dissonant For besides the infinite Disproportion of the Popish Numbers in Queen Mary's Reign to Ours enough of it self to silence all Dispute a popish Successours Removal of the present Protestant Clergy and the Introduction of Priests and Jesuits in their Room as Head of the Church is no more in his Prerogative than the Government of Transylvania The present Bishops and Clergy holding for Life and only to be displaced or silenced upon Crimes or Insufficiencies adjudged or condemned by the Protestant Censure and Sentence And all the popish Clergy so incapable of their Places that they are Aliens to the Nation under an attaint of Treason upon the very Assumption of their Sacerdotal Orders and so shut out from our Church-Ministry by Parliamentary Oaths Tests and Abjurations that nothing but the most Diabolical Papal Dispensation and a Conscience even Brimstone Proof could introduce them were there really Room for their Admission But alas considering in what Equilibrium Religion then hung whatever Concurrence the Prince could then obtain from his People in Parliament in favour of his own Perswasion The Genius of England is now quite another thing All our Parliaments for almost a hundred years last past have been so far from granting even the least Concession to the Crown in favour of popery that on the contrary all their Study Votings Labours and Endeavours even to a Nemine Contradicenâ—e have been levell'd at the very Root of it so far from countenancing of it that the very sound of it has made them fly out into the most rapid Torrent of Contradiction even beyond the Duty of Subjects and instead of Complimenting either Pope or Popery they have tyed up their very Hands even from the best of Protestant Crown'd Heads and in their highest Extremities denyed them their most reasonable Demands in the most pressing Necessities of the Crown and all for the Apprehension of popish Designs and for keeping the least String of their Purses from popish Fingers I need not instance what Load of Miseries attended the late Royal Martyr from this Fatal Original Neither do I urge this in Relation to those detestable Regicides the corrupted Limbs of that Exetrable Senate that under the Vizor of Religion were plotting the most Infernal of Mischiefs and so from the false Alarum of popery denyed their Soveraign All Things only to make him Nothing No as All Men are not Monsters and even in that Accursed Parliament there were some honest Men yet those very honest Men those that by the universal Delusion were inchanted into False Fears and so design'd nothing but Truly the Prevention of popery were yet under that Terrour so Jealous of their Prince so Deaf to his Interest and so inexorable even to his most Crying Wants and all for battring these fancy'd Ayry Castles that in the vehemence of their Zeal they contributed to the very Designs of his Murderers and how ignorantly soever heap'd together the very Coals to the universal Conflagration so far too that they had only Time to detect the Infernal Imposture and deplore the dire Effects of their miserable Mistake too late Besides to come a little nearer home What dismal Consequences were the late Malignant Conjunction of Fears and Iealousies in the same Fiery Trigon producing again What Demi-Gods and Nation-Saviours did the whole Vox populi nay the very sensible Men of the Nation make of those very Varlets which now their Opened Eyes and waken'd Senses I appeal to their own Consciences tell them are those flagitious unparallel'd Villains that would shame a Gibbet And yet the very Loyallest of all our late Members of Parliament for they were not all Shaftsburys nor all Sidneys neither such that were for Associating to Kill-Kings to keep out Popes nor answering of Filmers out of Buchanan's and Miltons nor seating the Good Old Cause at the Right Hand of GOD. Not those that made popery the pretence alone to manage their own Hellish Republick Machinations But only those that alas and well a day had been Beuk-Blawd a little out of their right Wits by the aforesaid Nation-Saviours and so were for combating of Popery possibly for the Real Preservation of the King and Kingdom Yet the very Loyallest of these Men I say were wrapt up to that height of perverseness that to use the gentlest Terms I can find they thought they could never do little enough even for that very King attested by their own unanimous reiterated Acknowledgments to be the very Isthinus that kept POPERY from Surrounding Us and on whose Only Thread of Life the whole FATE of the Protestant Religion depended I shall not trouble my self with the Repeating the Diversity of Statutes recited in the Character to instance the various Bandying of the Succession of the Crown in Henry the Eighth's Reign designed there as an Argument of Justice for a Parliamentary Bill of Exclusion against a Popish Heir For whatever different Settlements of the Descent of the Crown that King and his Parliaments were pleased to make occasioned by the Intricacy of his Daughter's Titles grounded upon that long controverted Point the Divorce of Queen Katherine the Mother of Queen Mary and therefore not at all enacted as an Exclusion but a Confirmation of the Right Heir However as far soever as a Parlimentary Power may pretend to extend in that Case all these Statutes make nothing to the purpose for Justification of an Exclusion for matter of Religion For had those Parliamentary Proceedings been a Warrant or Precedent for any such Exclusion never was a more urgent Necessity than in Queen Mary's Reign of laying hold of such a Pretension For considering the State of Religion in her Time when looking back to the two last King's Reigns so formidable a Progress had the Protestant Perswasion made and the Inclinations of the People lean'd so much towards the Reformation that the very Change of the Prince was enough to turn