Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A25455
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Animadversions upon the speech of William (late) Viscount Stafford on the scaffold on Tower-Hill, immediately before his execution, upon Wednesday, December, 1680 : plainly laying open the falacy of all his asseverations of his innocency : published to prevent the deceiving of Protestants.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing A3208A; ESTC R33119
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7,759
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14
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Equivocate And this very Doctrine of Equivocation was justified by Garnet in a Manuscript left by him which was communicated by King James to the famous Causabon Both the stories before named may be found at large in the History of the Gun-powder Treason and in the Proceedings against those Traytors By this we see that these things have been practised of old and justified by their Teachers as lawful even at the hour of death therefore we need not be surpriz'd to find any Papist using this art in his Last Speech But their Principles are further considerable of which take some Account First by their Doctrine they may lawfuly say what is false making use of a mental Reservation and tho it be a gross untruth in it self as exprest and they know it to be so and use it with an intent to deceive others yet they do not reckon it to be a lie and consequently no sin and so need not fear using it when going out of the world This is affirmed in distinct Treatises of this subject by Father Parsons Naver Sanche and others And here let the World be Judge what regard is due to the words of those tho they be the words of dying men whose Doctrine assures the most guilty persons in the world that if they persist in a false defence of their innocency even unto death yet by this method they teach them it will be no lie at all nor any sin This may be enough to satisfie us concerning the expressions whereby this Lord disclaims his guilt which are not a few as in the first Paragraph of his Speech I do most truly in the presence of the Eternall Omnipotent and All-knowing God protest upon my Salvation that I am as Innocent as it is possible for any Man to be so much as in a thought of the Crimes laid to my charge The old canting expression as Innocent as the Child unborn is here varied In the third Paragraph Since my long imprisonment I have considered often what could be the Original cause of my being thus accused since I knew my self not culpable so much as in a thought and I cannot believe it to be upon any other Account then my being of the Church of Rome In the forth Paragraph To my great and unspeakable grief I have offended God in many things by many great Offences but I give him most humble thanks not in any of those Crimes of which I was accused In the sixth Paragraph And if I had known of any Treason and should thus deny it as I do now upon my Salvation at this time I should have no hope of Salvation In the eleventh Paragraph I do now upon my Death and Salvation aver that I never spoke one word either unto Oats or Turbervil or to my knowledge ever saw them until my Tryal any for Dugdale I never spoke to him of any thing but about a Foot-boy or Foot-man or Foot-race and never was then alone with him In the twelfth and thirteenth Paragraphs I hope I have made it appear that I have some Conscience for if I had none certainly I would have saved my life by acknowledging my self guilty which I could have done tho I know I am not in the least guilty and I having some Conscience make very ill use of it for I throw my self into Eternal pain by thus plainly and constantly denying thus at my Death the knowledg of what I am accused of in the least I have said thus much in discharge of my Conscience and do aver upon my Salvation what I have said to be really true And in the very last Paragraph I do with my last Breath truly assert my Innocency and hope the Omnipotent All-seeing Just God will deal with me accordingly Let the Reader judge how true these Protestations of his Innocency are like to be after he hath considered the fairness of his Tryal the clearness and fulness of the Evidence against him and their Doctrines which thus allow them to go out of the world with Lies in their mouths Secondly They maintain that when they may lawfully speak what is false they may lawfully swear it thus Father Parsons Lessins Sanchez and Jo. Sanctius This is their Doctrine whereby it is evident that if a Person be Accused and Condemned for a Design to murther his Prince though he design it as much as any Assassinate ever did yet he may not only deny it and yet not Lye by vertue of a Mental Equivocation but though he be as guilty as any Person that ever was condemned in the World yet he may assert his Innocency with Oaths and notwithstanding by this Art he may free himself from all Guilt of Perjury and all other Sin And this quite destroys their Credit as to all their Asseverations and Oaths how many and horrid soever they be when they think themselves concerned to Equivocate He that would be believed against such Evidence as convicted this Lord had need be a Man of more than ordinary Credit But Men of his Lordships Principles are quite broke as to this for their Credit is blasted by their Doctrine Thirdly They may use such Mental Reserves or Equivocations when they are urged by others not to use any or when themselves profess and swear they use none So De Secund. Bonacina Sanchez and Fa. Parsons in his Treatise of Equivocations approved by Garnet and Blackwell One passage whereof I will here give you If saith he the Incompetent Judge shall further ask whether you do not Equivocate you may answer no but with another Equivocation if again suspecting you he urges whether this third time you do not Equivocate then the third time also say no but with another secret Equivocation and so as often as he shall ask the like likewise by Equivocating say you do not Equivocate Fourthly By their Doctrine they may Lawfully use such Mental Reserve or Equivocation which in their Account makes their Speaking or Swearing falsly to be innocent Thus Fillincius saith That Equivocation in Rigour is no Lye nor Perjury So Toleno Equivocation may be used especially when it is expedient to conceal a thing So Bonacina It is not saith he unlawful to Equivocate as often as any Inconvenience or Injury is like to befall us by speaking Plainly Can therefore any Persons be more highly concerned to keep any thing secret than these Men are to conceal the Plot both for the dangerous Consequences of the Discoveny and the Advantage of concealing it They cannot more effectually promote the Plot than by perswading us there is none and somaking us the more secure they think hereby to stagger weak minded Protostants who cannot think that any Christian dares go out of the World with a Lye in his Mouth They think also hereby to weaken the Credit of the Witnesses and to disparage the Justice of the Nation And Lastly his Lordship and the rest of the Plotters executed before him may think to die as Martyrs in the Account of the Papists
and as Innocent in the Judgment of many others But on the other hand if his Lordship or those executed before him had been so ingenuous to have confessed what they knew of this Hellish Plot they had broke the Neck of their own Design which seems dearer to them than their Lives or any other Concerns they had encouraged others of the Conspirators to have followed their Leaders herein and so the Plot had been wholly dissected and Popery it self in danger to be rendred odious to the whole Christian World and for ever hereafter to be abhorred and renounced by all that own the Christian Name as utterly repugnant to Christianity and to be abhorred by Mankind as that which bids Defiance to Humanity it self Having thus sufficiently answered those Passages in his Speech that assert his Innocency come we next to his false Commendation and Character of their Church In the third Paragraph saith he I have no reason to be ashamed of my Religion for it teacheth nothing but the right worship of God Obedience to the King and due Subordination to the Temporal Laws of the Kingdom And I do submit to all Articles of Faith believed and taught in the Catholick Church believing them to be most consonant with the Word of God And whereas it hath so much and often been objected that the Church holds that Sovereign Princes Excommunicated by the Pope may by their Subjects be Deposed and Murdered as to the Murder of Princes I have been taught as a matter of Faith in the Catholick Faith that such Doctrinâ— is Diabolical Horrid and Detestable and contrary to the Law of Godâ— Nature and Nations and as such from my heart I renounce and abominate it As for the Doctrine of Deposing of Princes I know some Divines of the Catholick Church hold it but as Able and Learned as they have writ against it but it was not pretended to be the Doctrine of the Church that is any Point of Catholick Faith Wherefore I do here in my Conscience declare that it is my True and Real Iudgment that the same Doctrine of Deposing Kings is contrary to the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom Injurious to Soveraign Power and consequently would be in me or any other of His Majesty's Subjects Impious and Damnable That their Church teacheth the contrary to the right Worship of God and Obedience to Kings is very easie to prove But it is a Work that hath been so often done already that here we shall wave it To come then to the nice Point viz. the King-killing Doctrine This is a Charge upon them of so horrid a nature that I do not wonder that they all use their utmost endeavours to perswade the World that they hold no such Doctrine That Mariana held it Gavan himself owned Sanctarelius his Book was a little more favourable to Kings than Mariana's and yet this was printed at Rome and approved by Mutius Viâ—ellescus the General of the Jesuits Ribadinera Scribanius under the name of Bonarscius Becanus Oresterus do partly praise and partly defend Mariana And wherein doth Emanuel Sâ— come short of Mariana in that particular or Becanus in his English Controvorsies which are approved of not only by divers Bishops but by the Provincial Jesuits of Portugal and Germany Yea a whole Vniversity approves of it To which add Fa. Campian who may be in stead of all he declares That all the Jesuits spread far and wide through the whole World have entred into a League to 〈…〉 they despair of effecting it so long as one Jesuit remains in the World In Epist ad Concâ—l Reg. Angl. p. 22. The Church of Rome doth declare that the Pope hath power to depose Kings especially for Heresie This is not only the Opinion of all sorts of their Authors but is especially determined by their Popes and the Decrees of General Councils They do also declare that Kings being Deposed any one may kill them at least by the Pope's Order For this we have the declared Sense of the whole Body of the Jesuits in France than whom 〈…〉 Society in any part of the World were more favourable to Kings in an Apology for their Doctrine on this Subject to Henry the Fourth yet there they declare in the words 〈…〉 to the Doctrine of Aquanis 〈…〉 and others That a 〈…〉 Authority may be killed by any one Now there is none of them who have the use of Reason will deny but a King deposed by the Pope is such a Tyrant a meer Usurper without such a just Title and therefore they cannot deny but it is their Doctrineâ—â— That a King Deposed by the Pope may be killed by any one In the Seventh and Sixteenth Paragraphs he prays for the King acknowledging him His Lawful King and Soveraign and denying that any Power on Earth can Legally allow him or any Body else to lift up a Hand against his Legaâ—â—uthority and then Praying for him that he may enjoy all Happiness in this World and the World to come He would undoubtedly have it thought that he had no design to kill the King who can pray for his prosperous Reign But it need not seem strange that any of them should Equivocate in their way of Praying since their Church allows of plain Lyes in their publick Liturgies which divers of their own Authors express themselves sensible of To give one instance of this in Fâ— Garnet he composed some Prayers for the good Success of the Powder Plot which he used amongst his Party and being charged with it answered like such a Jesuit He said He made not those Prayers with that meaning that the thing might fall out according to the mind of the Conspirators but rather cross to their desires that so the Safety of King and Kingdom might be provided for So that when he prayed for the Ruin of the King and Kingdom his meaning was that they might be preserved and prosper So when any of this sort of Men I mean Romish Zealots pray for the King 's prosperous Reign why may not their meaning be his utter Destruction For this is altogether as likely as the other One thing is observable that in his Prayer for the King he twice comes in with the word Legal So in the sixth Paragraph He would discover if he knew of an Illegal Dangerous Plot. But the Question will here be what he means by Legal and Illegal By their Principles if the King be Excommunicated his Authority is not Legal and therefore the Plot against him not Illegal This Artifice though the thing be false in it self yet it may be innocently asserted by him His Temper at Death was none of the most Christianlike for he could not forbear though he pretendedly forgave them villifying the Witnesses against him by calling them Perjured Fellows But what better can be expected from such Men. And he seems designedly to intimate that his Tryal was Illegal by this subtil Insinuation I shall say little to my Tryal and whether it were all according to the known Law I am too much a Party to say much of it If it were not so God forgive him or them that were the Cause of it Certainly never Man had a more Honourable Just and Legal Tryal and consequently less Cause for such a Malicious Insinuation To conclude We have great reason to believe that this Speech was contrived for the promoting of their grand Plot upon which as a true Be-Jesuited Zealot his Heart was so much set the Catholick Interest being so deeply concerned in it that the thoughts of Death could not divert him Now if we are found so Weak and Fragile as to believe these fraudulent Expressions of this Lord and others that were Executed before him against so much Rational Evidence then their Work is in a manner done and they will do more at their Deaths by putting out our Eyes than they could in all their Lives We cannot in Justice Reason or Charity believe them against Such Evidence who think they may Lawfully deceive us when dying and apprehend it to be the great Interest of their Cause so to do FINIS LONDON Printed for R. Baldwin near the Bull in the Old Baly 1680.