it is more easy for an Archbishop of Canterbury or any other in the Realme to make ill use of his supreme spirituall jurisdiction in England then it is for the Pope at so great a distance and with so little acquaintance Experience doth demonstrate that the Popes spirituall jurisdiction over all Christendome is not so dangerous as Protestant Lawes and petty Preachers doe pretend Histories doe testify that Popes have restored twenty Kings for one that they are said to depose neither did they ever pretend to depose any King untill his owne Subjects were weary of his tyrannicall government or all the world scandalized at his wicked heresies and in those very cases the Popes never tooke the Kingdome to themselves an evident argument that Religion not interest moved them to take so rigourous wayes whether warrantable or not let others dispute I cannot Yet this much I can assure Protestant Princes that Popes have exhorted their Subjects to obedience and patience when they were most persecuted In case any of his Ministers should be misinformed indiscrete or exceed his commission that fault cannot be attributed to his Master nor to the Religion of Catholick Subjects but rather to the ignorance of Catholick Tenets and of Canonicall Doctrine which commands Subjects to obey though their Soveraignes be not of their owne Religion 3 Kings and Princes by denying obedience to the Pope teach their Subjects to rebell against themselves and doe dispense with oath of alleageance The ground of fidelity and obedience due to hereditary Soveraignes is a constant tradition that he who actually resignes is lawfull successour to one whose right and jurisdiction was undoubtedly acknowledged and indeed there cannot be a more rationall and secure ground of obedience then tradition and a continuall succession of lawfull witnesses from one age to another Writings may be counterfeited Tradition cannot because its impossible to stop so many mouthes as deliver it to posterity or to contradict the testimony of whole Provinces and Nations This is the reason why Hereticks cannot gainesay the tradition of the Popes supremacy though they deny the supremacy it selfe and the truth of that Doctrine yet they are not so madly impudent as to deny what is evident to all Christendome to wit that there was a constant tradition when Luther revolted from the Church that the Bishop of Rome is Christs Vicar upon earth They onely pretend that this tradition is not a sufficient ground to oblige men to believe what it delivered or to acknowledge the Popes supremacy If it be not how can the tradition of one onely Nation be a sufficient ground to oblige Subjects to believe that their Soveraigne is lawfull King of France or Spaine or that they are bound in conscience to obey him There is not any King or Prince in Europe that hath so universall and constant a tradition for his temporall soveraignty as the Bishop of Rome hath to be Saint Peters lawfull successour and of Saint Peters being head of the Church under Christ by divine institution Pasce oves meas Feed my sheepe Joan. 21. and many other texts of Scripture have never beene otherwise understood in the Church by any but by declared Hereticks whose contradicting the tradition and ancient sense of Gods Word can as little prejudice the Popes right and supremacy as a declared Rebell can prejudice his Soveraigns right by calling in question his discent or royall authority When Saint Peters chaire is shaken by Protestant Princes their owne thrones must fall because it is not onely the fundation of the Catholick Church but the support of Christian Monarchy 4 Here I cannot omit to advertise my Reader what poore shifts some of the most learned Protestants are brought to they renew that so often and solidly refuted errour of making the Pope Patriarch onely of the West by misapplying the words of the Nicen Councell Baron an 325. Sirmondus Guther Card. Perron my râ—sp ad Object Reg. Brit. lib. 1 c. 32. 33. and concealing the true translation of the Canon as every man may see in the Authors cited in the margen The title of Patriarch of the West doth no more exclude the Popes supreme dignity of head of the Church under Christ then the title of Earle of Flanders doth exclude that of King of Spaine If the Bishops of Rome were not universall Patriarchs but Patriarchs onely of the West why did Saint Victor Pope in the second age of Christianity excommunicate all the Churches of Asia Euseb 5. hist 24. cap. 25. Spond 198. upon the difference of celebrating Easter for not accommodating themselves to the Roman Sea And though Saint Iretaeus did not approve of so great severity yet neither he nor any other called in question his authority They are also pleased to make the Pope Speaker in the generall Councells but not President they allowe him the place of first Bishop and call him exordium unitatis with Saint Cyprian but by no meanes will they grant him the title of infallible and supreme Pastor These are but weake and pittifull shifts whereunto Protestants are driven by the evidence of Councells Fathers Tradition and Catholick arguments contrary to the Tenets and Doctrine of their brethren of the late Church of England If the Pope be exordium unitatis he must be infallible in deciding the controversy proposed otherwise he will be exordium divisionis because no learned persons will submit their judgements in matters of Faith to a Judge that may be mistaken they will be as farre from his sentence and thoughts as from any other and the unity of Faith whereof Saint Cyprian speakes consists more in an unity of thoughts of judgements then of speech or exteriour acquiescence Such a dumb unity of Faith hath its beginning from Policy not Religion 5 They excuse themselves from the guilt and crime of Schisme as ridiculously as they impugne the Popes supremacy They accuse us Catholicks for the fault themselves committed because forsooth they left not our communion untill we thrust them out of doores It may be as well said that the Judge and not the thiefe is the malefactour because the Judge pronounced sentence against the thiefe The Roman Catholick Church had no more part in the Schisme of England then to declare Henry the VIII and Queene Elizabeth Schismaticks and Hereticks They committed the crime and the Pope pronounced the sentence Therefore the Roman Church or Court is guilty of Schisme is an excellent Protestant consequence But such fopperies we must expect from obstinate Hereticks that with a perverse will oppose no lesse their owne understandings then Catholick verities The Pope say they imposed new articles of Faith upon their tender consciences he made a new Creed and declared it was necessary to believe the same Therefore he was cause of the Schisme The same argument that the Arrians made against the Councell of Nice and Saint Athanasius his Creed doe these Hereticks now object against the Councell of Trent and Pope
have evidence that his Law or Statute doth not contradict the Law of God his legislative power must be subordinate to Christian Religion Henry the VIII Edward the VI. and Queene Elizabeths penall Statutes are evidently against the Law of God and Christian Religion if we may credit antiquity and stick to the Faith and practise of the Church and Catholick Princes that went before them not onely in England but in all other Christian Kingdomes No persons living have any other evidence for the Law of God and Catholick Religion but the test mony of the immediatly precedent age confirmed with supernaturall signes all former ages speake to us by the mouth of the last with which we conversed we must cake their word for all the rest and for the sense as well as for the letter of Scripture The 14. age delivered to the 15. the Roman Catholick Faith which we now professe assuring that it was the true sense of Scripture which they had learned from the 13. age and so forth to the Apostles What evidence had Henry the VIII or his daughter Queen Elizabeth to oppose against the testimony of all former ages confirmed with so many miracles and to make Statutes against the knowne and practised Law of God and Christianity His luxury and his daughters bastardy are the onely evidence which Protestants can produce for the ground of penall Lawes against the Popes supremacy and other points of the Roman Catholick Religion an excellent foundation of Protestant Lawes Justice and Judicature 3 To pronounce sentence of death losse of goods or banishment against persons without any proose is rather tyranny then injustice The greatest crimes even that of treason require at least one lawfull witnesse let Protestant produce but one lawfull witnesse against the Religion of Catholicks and their sense of Scripture and we will not murmure against their penall Lawes and rigourous proceedings Antiquity affords them none because though in divers ages some odde men did testify sometimes one errour of theirs sometimes another they were in those very times contradicted by the whole Catholick Church and declared infamous Impostours and Hereticks In this present age no Protestants can be lawfull witnesses for their owne Religion or against ours because their testimony cannot be valid against so constant and universall a tradition as we Catholicks have for our Doctrine and sense of Scripture It s as ridiculous and unjust in a Judge to pronounce sentence against Roman Catholicks for their Religion upon the evidence and testimony of Protestancy as if he had in open Court condemned men to forfeit their estates and ancient inheritance upon the word of a mad fellow that produceth no other evidence to confirme his claime but interiour motions of the spirit of coveteousnesse and ambition or some obscure text of the Law appliable to all cases and subjects for all the Protestant evidence is reduced to the private spirit and the pretended clearnesse of Scripture If this be not to destroy the foundation of Justice and the forme of Judicature Protestants have a different way of proceeding from all other Nations and have altered the stile of naturall reason humane nature and the practice of all antiquity 4 They cannot excuse their persecution against Catholicks with the example of Christian Emperours and Kings that both for zeale of Religion and humane Policy to avoid the danger of rebellion made Lawes and Statutes against Hereticks and Innovatours of the ancient Faith and sense of Scripture which descended to them by tradition from the Apostles Protestants take the quite contrary way they make Lawes and Statutes against the ancient Religion and knowne sense of Gods Word and persecute Catholicks for professing it whereas their Predecessours Emperours and Kings punished new Religions and Novelists This last was lawfull in secular Princes but the practise of Protestants is unjust and wicked because it destroyes Justice and the true Religion confirmed by the publike testimony and practise of the Christian world since the Apostles time to this present If the Roman Catholick Religion were not the true Apostolicall Faith but as new as Protestants pretend how is it possible that in history there should be no mention made of any person that suffered as an Heretick for broaching or maintaining any one point which we now professe If any Doctrine of ours were judged an heresy or a novelty by antiquity without doubt we had not all escaped the rigour of penall Lawes made against Hereticks and Novelists I am sure Protestants cannot brag nor say so much for their owne Doctrine many if not all the points whereof have beene condemned as heresy by the Church in ancient times and punished as novelties by Christian Kings and Emperours which was the onely reason that moved the first English Protestants to cause the young child Edward the VI. when he knew not what he did to repeale all the Lawes and Statutes that any Christian King of England and the Kingdome had made against Hereticks being convinced that themselves and not Catholicks were comprehended in that number All who suffered persecution or death for any point of the Roman Religion were looked upon by the Catholick Church in all ages as glorious Confessours and renowned Martyrs Amongst the most pretious jewells of the Easterne Church were accompted such as were put to death for defending the worship of Images against the Iconuclasts Baron an 723. Conc. Nicaen 2. Act. 5. who were the first that persecuted Christians for that Doctrine at the instance of one Serantapicus a Magician and a Jew that promised to Gizedo Prince of the Saracens he should live 30. yeares if he would command all Images to be taken away and not worshipped in his Dominions by the Catholicks But Gizedo dying within a yeare and a halfe his sonne Vlidus condemned the Jew to death as a perfidious lmpostour and the Images were worshipt as formerly untill three yeares afterwards Leo Isaurus the heretick Emperour at the instance also of Jewes Concil Nicaen 2. Baron an 726. raised that most terrible persecution against the Catholick Church for practising so pious a custome which had continued amongst Christians without the least danger of idolatry since the time of the Apostles to that present and t will not be interrupted untill the day of judgement notâ—ithstanding the clamours endeavours and vaine pretended feares of Protestant zealots in behalfe of Serantapicus their Patriarch and his Hebrew tribe their loving brethren 5 Their persecution against Catholicks can be no more excused by the proceedings of the Spanish and Italian Inquisition Of the Inquisition then their penall Statutes have beene by the Lawes of ancient Kings and Emperours against Hereticks 1. Because the Inquisition proceeds according to the rules and forme of Justice none is declared an Heretick or guilty by a new Law or oath made onely to the end that by them men may be intrapped both in soule body and estate it was no crime in England to be a Catholick before
in that excellent Booke The Protestants Apology for the Church of Rome 4 Whereas ceremonies be the object of phantasy and ours are so decent that no phantasy can except more against them then against those of the Law of Moyses instituted by God himselfe and approved by Protestants the aversion which they manifest against our Ceremonies cannot proceed so much from their fancy as from their understanding dissenting from that Doctrine to which the Ceremonies relate To kneele is not an object ridiculous or offensive to the fancy the most precise practise it out of Churches and at Court and yet all Protestants cry abomination against kneeling to our Lord Iesus Christ in the Sacrament or worshiping himselfe or his Saints in Images these ceremonies agree well enough with their fancy but their understanding cannot brooke them A weake understanding may occasion as great errours as a strong fancy 5 Some fantasticall and fanaticall fellowes call the Roman Catholick Religion an Apith Keligion because forsooth it hath so many odde ceremonies But the fault is not in the Roman Religion or ceremonies they have Apish understandings they looke as Apes upon our ceremonies without considering the mysteries All the ceremonies of the Masse relate to Christs Passion others to the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation If it was lawful and laudable in the old Law to practise ceremonies representing things that were to come why should we Catholicks be censured for ceremonies that put us in minde of past mysteries and mercies We ought not to be unmindfull or ungratefull and there is not a more efficacious way to preserve a gratefull memory of past benefits then by representing them in ceremonies to the light 6 I must confesse that all Sectaries have as great cause to cry downe ceremonies as we Catholicks have to uphold them Because the strongest pillar of the true Church is a continuall tradition of Catholick Doctrine from the primitive times to this present and this pillar of Tradition is much strengthened by the practise of ceremonies relating to that Doctrine delivered from hand to hand which we now maintaine as Catholick against Heresy or pretended Reformation To adore the blessed Sacrament both in Church and Processions is a strong argument of Christs reall presence not onely in the act or use of Communion but also before and after What mervaile therefore that they who deny Christs reall presence or grant it onely in the actuall use of Communion should oppose the adoration whereby their false Doctrine is so clearly condemned by the practise of the faith full these and other Catholick ceremonies are not odious to Protestants because they are ceremonies but because they put them in minde of the ancient Faith and Doctrine of Christs Church To reject some of the ancient ceremonies and retaine others as the Nags-head Congregation doth is to furnish their adversaries Catholicks and Puritans with unanswerable arguments their choice of ceremonies doth prove their choice of Doctrine and their choice of Doctrine demonstrates them Hereticks an Heretick being he who chooseth out of the Doctrine delivered by the Church what he fancies rejecting what he thinkes not fit for his purpose Our Prelaticall Protestants must with the rest cast away their Bishops bonnet lawne sleeves he white surplise and black scarfe if not they may cast their cap and despaire of answering to Catholick or Puritan objections they must keepe all or nothing unlesse they can produce better evidence for their pretended Reformation then the fancy of 7. or 12. men in King Edward the Sixth his time confirmed by the authority of a yong head of the Church and a Parliament called by the Protector Seamour to establish in England Zwinglian fopperies and reject the Christian Doctrine and discipline of our Catholick Ancestors they must not rely upon Queen Elizabeths she supremacy or their Nags-head Ordination and Synod with their London Assemblies and Hampton-Court Conferences of lay Ministers God must be served his owne way and not by framing Religions â—o the humor of people or interests of Kings Queenes Parliaments and Protectors But before we goe further in censuring these Protestant wayes let us prove CHAP. IV. That to believe God and consequently to serve him his owne way its necessary to repaire to an infallible Guide which is no other but the Roman Catholick Church 1 THe first step in the way of Gods service is to believe God a step of no lesse difficulty then necessity Suppose there were a man dropt downe from the heavens graced with this singular privilege that the sound of his words could no sooner be at our eares then the evidence of their truth before our eyes whatsoever he said in the same instant we did see confirmed by the reall appearance of the objects and our own experience This singular privilege would deprive him of another common to all men of worth and integrity it would make him uncapable or being believed all who heare him would assent to what he said but for their owne evidence not for his veracity When any thing is evident to our understanding or to our eyes we believe our selves and not others though they should tell us the same we doe experience If God were pleased to manifest himself to men in such a manner that they had evidence it is he who speaketh to them he had deprived us of the merit of Faith and himselfe of that duty which we are obliged to give every honest man for though Divine Faith doth exclude all doubts and feares of falshood yet it supposeth in the subject a possibility of doubting if men will be obstinate and imprudent but there is none so obstinate and imprudent that can doubt of the truth of Gods words if it be evident to him that God spoke them Though we heare men speak we doe them a courtesie in believing them because they are fallible and we doe not read the truth in their words though we believe them but if we had evidence that God uttered any words the truth of them must be as cleare as it is that he can neither lye nor be mistaken and if the truth be cleare and evident to our understandings we believe our selves and not God though he should speake it To believe is to trust and he that hath evidence of any truth doth as little trust the speaker as we rely upon anothers credit for the money we have in our own coffers 2 Seeing therefore that either God must not be believed by men or that he must disguise himselfe and speake to them by others who can be so impudent as to deny that we deserve damnation if we doe not believe and obey God in that Church which he hath beene pleased to institute as his owne Interpreter Quod autem rogant unde persuadebimur à Deo fluxisse Scripturam nisi ad Eccleisae decretum confugiamus perinde est ac si quu roget unde discemus lucem discernere à tenebris album nigro c. lib. 1. Inst
the penall Lawes were enacted but it was a crime to be an Heretick or Apostata before the ancient Emperours and Kings made penall Lawes against heresy The Law supposed and did not make the crime as penall Statutes doe in England making a crime of Christian Religion 2. Hereticks are never condemned by the Inquisition without the testimony of many lawfull witnesses both living and dead all the ancient Fathers Councells and the whole Catholick Church of former ages testify that their errours are new and contrary to the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles no Rebell was ever more evidently convicted of rebellion against his Prince then Hereticks are by the Inquisition of heresy against God and the Apostolicall Church We Catholicks cannot obtaine so faire play at their hands we are condemned by a new Law because we are not Hereticks and our Judges are convicted of the crime they lay to our charge Surely this is to turne upside downe Justice and Judicature 3. The Inquisition medleth not with those who never were Catholicks but the penall Lawes comprehend them who never were of their Church or communion 4. The Inquisition condemns no Hereticks to death but onely declares their heresy to the end the faithfull may avoid their conversation its true the secular power executeth the secular against them notwitstanding that the Inquisition doth protest against that rigour and desireth that Hereticks may not be punished with death or effusion of bloud this protestation and petition is now and hath alwayes beene the continuall practise of the Roman Church but the penall Lawes of Protestants are written with bloudy caracters all their Courts are stained with the innocent and noble bloud of many learned and loyall Subjects onely because they would not take an oath against their conscience and abjure the Faith of their Christian Ancestours 5. Though the Inquisition were as unjust and rigorous as some of the ignorant Protestants pretend it could be no blemish to the Catholick Religion because it is not an universall practise but limited to Spaine and Italy at the instance of secular Princes who looke upon it as a necessary meanes to keepe their Subjects of those Nations in the feare of God and in awe of their Soveraignes But the penall Lawes of England are spread as farre as their Protestant Church and communion 6. The Inquisition doth seriously wish and endeavour the conversion amendment of Hereticks employing learned Divines to convince them of their errours and instruct them in the way of salvation but the penall Lawes and the oathes of supremacy alleageance and abjuration are like so many nets cast out by Protestants to fish estates in troubled consciences a farre different method from that of the Apostles who were fishers of men and not of estates Protestants fish for estates though not alwayes with successe In King Iames his reigne a Scot begged of his Majesty an English Catholicks estate to whom he procured that the oath of supremacy might be tendered never imagining that the Gentleman would take it or goe to Church and damne his soule to save his estate the Gentleman offered the Scot a faire composition but nothing would satisfy this beggar if he had not made the Catholick also a beggar who at length resolved to shew himselfe in the Church whereupon the Scot made him a most devout and learned exhortation dissuading him from all Protestant assemblies often repeating and explaining the words of our Saviour What doth it availe a man if he games all the world by the losse of his sale Yet the English man remained obstinate and resolved rather to give his soule to the Devill then his estate to a Scot. I believe there are many such beggarly Preachers now adayes in England if they consider well the text of the Scots Sermon they may apply it better to themselves then to Roman Catholicks 6 The last pretext for persecuting of English Catholicks is the massacre and murther of Protestants in Ireland in the beginning of the late troubles and this must be a preamble to all Proclamations and Oathes of abjuration What hath an English Catholick to doe with an lrish massacre I am sure he doth not thirst by nature after the bloud of his owne Nation and his Religion doth neither incline him to murther or rebellion That is a privilege of Protestancy we have a setled sense of Scripture which none can alter without breach of Catholick Faith and we are not Judges of our owne Controversies but must submit to a third and indifferent person But as for the murthers and massacres of Ireland so much and so often exaggerated in Protestant Pamphlets and Pulpits I onely say that Protestancy had a greater hand in them then Catholick Religion because our Tenets arc contrary to cruelty and bloudshead and though Catholicks may be as guilty of murther as other men the Religion cannot Is it not notorious that the Protestants in Ireland signed a bloudy Petition offered to the Parliament of England that all Irish who would not goe to Church might be extirpated or banished This was done before the Irish Catholicks did stirre But suppose that in Vlster some of the rascality or kernes being exasperated by so many and continuall injuries done to them by Protestants had murthered some persons must that reflect upon the English Catholicks and all the Irish Nation It is most certaine and evident that the murthers and massacres done in Ireland by Protestants exceeded without comparison those committed by Catholicks as well in respect of their brutishnesse as numerousnesse Witnesse their marches about Dublin where the Inhabitants were all of English extraction and spoke no other language but the ancient Saxon. There are very few of that populous Countrey called Fingale left alive all perished by fire and sword being a most innocent people and having nothing I rishlike in them but Catholick Religion In the march of the Protestant Army to the County of Wicklo man woman and child was killed a Gentle woman big with child was hanged at an arch of a bridge and the poore Catholick that guided the Army for reward of his service at parting being commanded to blow into a pistol was shot therewith into the mouth though there had beene no murther committed on the Protestants in that County In another march into the same shire one Master Comain an aged Gentleman who never bore armes was roasted alive by one Captaine Gines yea they murthered all that came in their way from within two miles of Dublin In a march into the County of Kildare in or about February 1641. some of the Officers going into Mrs Eustate of Cradogstons house a sister to Sir William Talbot of eighty yeares of age who being unable to shunne entertained them with meate and drinke after dinner her selfe and another old Gentlewoman and a girle of eight yeares of age were murthered by the said Protestant Officers Walter Evers Esquire aged and sickly and of a long time before the warre bed-ridden being carried by
chastity They are beholding to her for their Ordination which she made good and valid by her supreme authority notwithstanding any matter or nullity of forme to the contrary as you may see by an Act of Parliament Act of Parliam 8. Eliz 1. in the 8. yeare of her reigne which relates to the Records of her Letters Patents but not to any of her Bishops consecration at Lambeth as our Nags-head Ministers would faine make poore seduced soules believe and cite for a witnesse of the solemne Ordination of Parker at Lambeth so honourable a person as Charles Howard Earle of Nottingham and Lord Admiral of England but they durst not name him in Masons first edition because he was then living and would have contradicted so notorious an untruth eight or nine yeares after in the second edition they name this noble person When he was dead and yet not as an eye witnesse of the imaginary Ordination but as a guest at the banket I doubt not but Master Parker might invite the Earle of Nottingham to dine with him at Lambeth many times especially if he was his kinsman as Masons pretends but its evident he never assisted at his consecration if his Lorship was not at the Nags-head in Cheapside when Scory made him a Bishop with a knock of his Protestant Bible bidding him to take authority to preach the Word of God sincearly SECT VIII Of the English Protestant Church in King Iames and his Sonnes reigne 1 KIng Iames had too much wit to be of Calvins Religion though his education was committed to Calvinists he did perceive that it was not invented for the good of Princes but rather for their ruine and that petty Ministers and poore Elders might beare the sway in Christian Commonwealths Being called by the English Councell and Nobility to the possession of that Crown which descended to him by the evident right of his mother Mary Steward his first thoughts in England were bent against the Puritanicall discipline as one who had beene sufficiently disciplined by the Kirk of Scotland Therefore he commanded a Synod to be celebrated in London wherein himselfe was declared spirituall Head of the Church and 141. Canons made for the suppression of Puritanisme the Bible was corrected in such places onely as seemed to condemne the Puritanicall discipline and doctrine Traditiones was translated Tradition and not Ordinances or Documents as in Queene Elizabeths dayes Idols were not translated Images nor their worshippers Idolaters as formerly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was not interpreted now Ordination by election but by imposition of hands because all this was necessary to confute Puritans Yet all other corruptions that seemed to condemne Catholick Relâ—gion were applauded as much as before in Queene Elizabeths reigne Though Hell was not translated grave nor soule carcasse yet other devices were found to divert mens thoughts from a third place betweene heaven and hell and therefore Saint Peters words wherein he declares that Christs soule did descend to Limbus Patrum 1. Pet. 3. v. 18.19 were translated thus Quickened by the spirits by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison c. whereas the true translation is Quickened or alive in his spirit or soule in which spirit or soule he coming preached to them also that were in prison 2 The new translation which King Iames caused to be made Knot in his Protestancy condemned pag. 89. was overseene corrected and altered by Doctor Abbats of Canterbury and Smith of Glocester as Sir Henry Savill told Master Richard Montague afterwards pretended Bishop of Chichester and of Norwich For Master Montague wondring that Sir Henry to whose care was committed the translating of Saint Peters Epistles would pervert the sense of the Apostle about Christs descent into hell Sir Henry answered that the forenamed Bishops corrupted and altered the said Translation made by King Iames his order This was to transforme the very Scripture into Policy and slight both conscience and Religion Let any sober person judge how scrupulous would Master Abbots be and the other pretended Bishops in his time to forge and falsify Masons Records to the end they might make good imposition of hands at Lambeth when so impudently and wickedly they corrupted Gods Word fearing that by force of the text they should be forced to admit of Limbus Patrum and from thence be lead into Purgatory but none who dyes in the Protestant Religion needs feare going thither In the same Translation they have translated Gal. 5.17 The flesh lusteth against the spirit so that ye cannot doe the things ye would whereas the Greeke and Latin is Ye doe not de facto the things ye would And to prove their heresy averring a necessity and Divine precept for all persons to receive both kindes 1. Cor. 11. v. 27. They falsely translate thus Whosoever shall eate this bread and drinke this cup of the Lord unworthily c. Whereas both in the Latin and Greeke it is Whosoever shall eate this bread or drinke this chalice c. which disjunctive or cannot inferre the necessity of both kindes as the conjunctive and might seeme to doe both here and in other places if by this they were not so clearly interpreted And because the Protestant Clergy even in King Iames and his Sonnes reigne were loath to depart with their wives though they pretended to be as true Priests as the Apostles they did not correct the false translation of 1. Cor. 1. Have not we power to lead about a wife as if Saint Paul had one and the rest of the Apostles they notwithstanding put in King Iames his Translation woman in the margen but wife remained in the text They did not correct the corrupting of 2. Pet. 1. Labour that by good workes you make sure your vocation and election they leave out good workes as they have done also in Queene Elizabeths translations though it be in all the Latin and in the most authentike Greeke copies 3 It were tedious to mention all the falsifications of the English translations of Scripture and these I hope are sufficient to prove that in King Iames and King Charles reigne there was as little Religion in the Church of England as in Queene Elizabeths Scripture was made speake whatsoever Courtiors and Polititians fancied and desired It was ridiculous to see how the Church did on a suddaine accommodate it selfe to the Court and how Bancroft pretended Bishop of London after of Canterbury did write and preach for Episcopacy as a distinct order of Priesthood in King Iames his reigne whereas a little before he answered Master William Alabuster when he objected that no Bishop laid hands Holiwood lib. de investig Christi Ecclesia cap. 4. or ordained Parker and his Camerades that a single Priest might ordaine Bishops in case of necessity Truly he was put to a necessity of giving this answer because the Nags-head Ordination could not be contradicted nor Masons forged Records produced 4 Before King Iames was in
France now with Spaine because they are not able to stand upon their owne legs When the petty Church of England cannot defend it selfe against Catholick arguments then they side with Puritans or any others that will take them into protection and when Puritans and other Hereticks reject them then they pretend to be the same thing with us and goe by the name of Catholicks which becommeth them as ill and no lesse ridiculously then Spanish attire doth a Frenchman The title of supreme Head of the Church so spiritualized in Queene Elizabeths that she dispensed with all invalidities of Ordination and in King Iames that he dispensed with Abbats of Canterbury his irregularity when shooting at a Buck he killed a man was in King Charles his dayes limited onely to temporall affaires and all spirituall functions declared to he out of the supremacies reach and clement But rather then it shall be restored back againe to the Pope some of their chiefe Doctors bestow it upon the Sea of Saint David or some other Welch Bishoprick by reason of their obstinacy against Saint Augustin the Apostle of the Saxons who commanded the ancient Brittans to accommodate themselves to the Roman Church in celebrating Easter wherein alone they differed from it And the maine argument now alleaged for the old Brittains or Welchmens independency of the Sea of Rome is a Welch proverbe which for my ignorance of the language I cannot explaine but onely assure you that it was no more then a Welch proverbe and in all likelyhood of late date since the beginning of moderne heresies 7 Other Doctors of the English Church thinking it more for their honour and interest to have an independent Patriarch rather at Canterbury then in Wales were eager to comply with Master Lauds ambition by whom they might be exempted from dependence of Rome whence for themselves they could expect no preferment and exalted above the despicable and miserable tribe of Puritanicall pensionary Ministers Whereupon they framed a new Idea of a Nationall Faith as we see of Nationall fashions endeavouring To perswade the ignorant that a Nationall Synod of England alone was sussicient to frame a Faith and to shew the way for English men to take in their journey to heaven but this appearing ridiculous that Faith being universall to mankinde should be shaped to the severall fashions fancies customes and interests of different Nations they were forced for meere shame to appeale to Oecumenicall or universall Councells yet finding themselves in many of them plainely condemned they appealed to the foure first not as discovering in them any more ground of assurance then in others following bâ—t because they treated of matters that are not disputed in these times or at least amongst such as they regard For in those time there was no man so fond or foolish as to call our present controversies in question But upon further instance made against them that Christ had left meanes to confute errours emergent in ages following as well as in former and consequently it being no lesse possible that Luther Calvin Tindal and Fox might as well broach Heretick doctrines as Arrius Eutyches Eunomius and Nestor they were forced to admit the necessity of generall Councells in these our present and future ages Whereupon seeing themselves engaged to fall under the Censure of the Councells of Lateran and Trent which were as universall as by all humane industry could possibly considering the circumstances of time be procured and were as universally accepted as to points of doctrine as can be required and with much lesse opposition then some of the first foure which Protestants themselves are pleased to accept of there was no other remedy left to shuune their returning to Rome where they knew there was more wit then to trust men of no Religion in Ecclesiasticall government but to frame a Chimaera of a Councell morally impossible consisting of a joynt Assembly of those Patriarchs and subordinate Churches which for their long education in confessed heresy and strict subjection to the Turkes tyranny a jealous enemy of Christian Assemblies were sure never to be got together in the meane time which time they confided would serve their turne they perswaded the people to a superficiall acquiescence in the publick government and thereby in themselves without any regard to the substance of interiour intellectuall Faith and submission of judgement whereupon the worke of our salvation is built 8 They were no lesse cautious in avoyding the Censure of generall Councells then in determining that Doctrine which they pretended might onely be censured being resolved to have two strings to their bowe Upon this score they admit and absurdly apply the distinction of articles of Christian Religion into fundamentall and not fundamentall and to call that alone a fundamentall article of Faith which no Heretick ever denyed Whosoever say they doth confesse that IESVS is the Sonne of God is a Catholick and hath as much Faith as is necessary for salvation provided he doth professe to believe the Apostles and Athanasian Creed which he may interpret as he thinks most for his conveniency As for all other articles of Faith controverted betweene the Roman Catholick Church and Sectaries they looke upon them as we Catholicks doe upon some schoole speculations rather impertinent then profitable or necessary Hence you may gather that the Protestant Church of England is more beholding to their Neighbours for the little they yet retaine of Christian Religion then to their owne Doctors and Preachers the multitude and consent of believers in some generall points of Christianity is the motive of their beliefe and therefore it s meerly historicall grounded upon humane persuasion and not upon supernaturall inspiration If Protestants had conversed as frequently and familiarly with Turkes and Jewes as with Christians the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation would be esteemed no more necessary or fundamentall then that of Transubstantiation Truly Mahomets story of his familiar commerce with the holy Ghost in the shape of a Dove is every jot as probable as Luthers extraordinary vocation to reforme the Doctrine of the Church or Calvins fantasticall private spirit and would be no lesse credited by Protestants if to them it were as frequently and advantagiously recounted they would content themselves with believing that there is but one God Creator and Remunerator of mankinde 9 This want of supernaturall Faith and Christian Religion was not discovered by many who were much taken with the exteriour formalities and splendour of the English Protestant Church which looked as fresh and faire as the aples of Sodome and Gomorrha thougb in the inside all was trash and ashes it was a well adorned sepulchre of dead soules without Faith stuffed with stinking Atheisticall principles and abominable corruptions the Court seemed to be zealous for the Church and the Church for the Court but neither for God and true Religion policy and ignorance had the greatest share in their designes and decrees Heresy being thus raised to