water and the Sea and like that they are apt to be eating towards the Roots of the Powers of Soveraigns but while the Mountains of their Power are bottom'd on Natural Justice all the preying of the Sea of the People there makes but the promontory more surely guarded and appear more majestic as well as be more inaccessible And of this Sea of the Peoples as I would wish every Prince in the just observance of the Municipal Laws of his Country to espouse the Interest as much as the Duke of Venice doth his Adriatic yet should I see one for fear of Popular Envy or Obloquy forbearing to administer Iustice and to follow the real last Dictates of his practical understanding rightly informed and servily giving up himself to obey any mens pretended ones I should think it to be as extravagant a Madness as Hydrophoby or fear of water on the biting of a Mad Dog and while a Sovereign observes the immutable Principles of Justice he may acquiesce in the results of Providence and expect that the troubling of the waters may be like that of the Angel before the time of healing or a Conjuncture of the Peoples being possessed of healing Principles and in fine a King when he finds the Waters of Popular Discontent more tumultuous by Religionary Parties as two Seas meeting as for example Papists and Presbyterians he may depend on his being near Land that being always near where two Seas meet and let every Prince be assured that 't is not only Popery but Atheisme in Masquerade to do an unjust Act to support Religion I know that it hath been incident to some good men to strain pretences beyond the nature of things for justice Causes of War abroad in the World to advance the Protestant Religion And thus in the last Age the Crown and Populace of England being clutter'd with the Affair of the Palatinate the Prince Palatine had here many well-wishers to his Title for the Bohemian Crown and Rushworth tells us in his 1st Vol. Ann. 1619. That he being Elected King of Bohemia craved Advice of his Father in Law the King of Great Brittain touching the acceptation of that Royal Dignity and that when this Affair was debated in the Kings Council Arch-Bishop Abbot whose infirmity would not suffer him to be present at the Consultation wrote his mind to Sir R. Nauton the Kings Secretary viz. That God had set up this Prince his Majesties Son in Law as a Mark of Honour throughout all Christendome to propagate the Gospel and protect the Oppressed That for his own part he dares not but give advice to follow where God leads apprehending the work of God in this and that of Hungary that by the Pâ—ece and Peece the Kings of the Earth that gave their power to the Beast shall leave the Whore and make her desolate that he was satisfied in Conscience that the Bohemians had just Cause to reject that Proud and Bloody Man who had taken a Course to make that Kingdom not Elective in taking it by Donation of another c. And concludes Let all our Spirits be gathered up to animate this Business that the World may take notice that we are awake when God calls Rushworth saith that King Iames disavowed the Act of his accepting that Crown and would never grace his Son in Law with the Style of his new Dignity And in King Charles the Firsts time in the Common-Prayer relating to the Royal Family the Prayer runs for Frederick Prince Palatine of the Rhine and the Lady Elizabeth his Wife yet in the Assemblies Directory afterward as to the Prayer for the Royal Family that Lady Elizabeth is Styled Queen of Bohemia But our Princes not being satisfied it seems that the Palatine of the Rhine had a just Title to the Bohemian Crown thought it not just for them to assert it However that Arch-Bishop Abbot the Achilles of the Protestants here in his Generation thought that the English Crown ought to descend in its true Line of Succession whatever profession of Religion any Member thereof should own appears out of Mr. Pryns Introduction to the History of the Arch Bishop of Canterburies Tryal where having in p. 3. mentioned the Articles sent by King Iames to his Embassador in Spain in order to the Match with the Infanta and that one was That the Children of this Marriage shall no way be compelled or constrained in point of Conscience of Religion wherefore there is no doubt that their Title shall be prejudiced in case it should please God that they should prove Catholicks and in p. 6. Cited the same in Latin out of the French Mercury Tom. 9. as offered from England Quod liberi ex hoc matrimonio oriundi non cogentur neque compellentur in causâ religionis vel conscientiae neque leges contra Catholicos attingent illos in casu siquis eorum fuerit Catholicus non ob hoc perdet jus successionis in Regna Dominia Magnae Britanniae and afterward in p. 7. mentioned it as an Additional Article offer'd from England That the King of Great Brittain and Prince of Wales should bind themselves by Oath for the observance of the Articles and that the Privy Council should Sign the same under their hands c. He in p. 43. mentions Arch-Bishop Abbots among other Privy-Counsellers accordingly Signing those Articles and further in p. 46. mentions the Oath of the Privy-Council for the observance of those Articles as far as lay in them and had before given an account not only of Arch-Bishop Abbots but of other magna nomina of the Clergy and Layety in the Council that Signed the same and particularly of John Bishop of Lincoln Keeper of the Great Seal Lionel Earl of Middlesex Lord High Treasurer of England Henry Viscount Mandevile Lord President of the Council Edward Earl of Worcester Lord Privy-Seal Lewis Duke of Richmond and Lennox Lord High Steward of the Houshold James Marquess of Hamilton James Earl of Carlile Lancelot Bishop of Winchester Oliver Viscount Grandison Arthur Baron Chichester of Belfast Lord Treasurer of Ireland Sir Thomas Edmonds Kt. Treasurer of the Houshold Sir John Suckling Comptroller of the Houshold Sir George Calvert and Sir Edward Conway Principal Secretaries of State Sir Richard Weston Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Julius Caesar Master of the Rolls who had done the same Mr. Pryn afterward in p. 69. having mentioned the Dissolution of the Spanish Match gives an account of the bringing on the Marriage with France and saith It was concluded in the life of King James the Articles concerning Religion being the same almost Verbatim with those formerly agreed on in the Spanish Treaty and so easily condescended to without much Debate and referreth there to the Rot. tractationis ratificationis matrimonii inter Dom. Carolum Regem Dom. Henrettam Mariam sororem Regis Franc. 1 Car. in the Rolls The Demagogues of the old long Parliament who made such loud Out-cries of the danger of Popery
it saith Concessimus Deo hac praesenti charta confirmavimus pro nobis HAEREDIBVS nostris in perpetuum quod Ecclesia Anglicana libera sit habeat omnia jura sua integra libertates suas illaesas and whereby the British Churches are secured under a Prince of any Religion from Foreign Arbitrary impositions But indeed the Style current in Magna Charta is that our Kings for themselves and their Heirs forever did grant the Customs and Liberties contained in that Charter to our Ancestors and their Heirs for ever Our Ancestors had no occasion to spend time in seeking Knots in a Bull-rush or hidden Sense in the words HEIRS and the King's HEIRS when so anciently as by the Oath of Fealty which every Person above fourteen years old and every Tythingman was obliged to take publickly at the Court-Leet within which he lived they were sworn to the King and his HEIRS and that Oath was taken a fresh every year by all the Subjects under Edward the Confessor and William the first and is thus set down by Pryn in his Concordia Discors viz. I A. B. do swear that FROM THIS DAY FORWARDS I will be Faithful and Loyal to our Lord the King AND HIS HEIRS c. The instances are innumerable of Allegiance anciently Sworn to our Kings and their Heirs and this one for example occureth to me as Sworn in the time of Edward the 4th viz. Sovereign Lord I Henry Percy become your Subject and Leige-man and promit to God and you that hereafter I Faith and Troth shall bear to you as to my Sovereign Leige-Lord and to your Heirs Kings of England of Life and Limb and of Earthly Worship to Live and Die against all Earthly People and to you and to your Commandments I shall be Obeysant as God me help and his Holy Evangâ—lists 27. Oct. 9. Ed. 4. Claus. 9. Ed. 4. m. 13. in dorso Mr. Pryn likewise in that Book of his beforemention'd saith that there was an ancient Oath of Fealty and Allegiance both by the Subjects of England and Kings Bishops Nobles and Subjects of Scotland made to the Kings of England and Their Heirs as Supreme Lords of Scotland in these words viz. Ero fidelis legalis fidemque legalitatem servabo Henrico Regi Angliae haeredibus suis de vitâ membris terreno honore contra omnes qui possunt vivere mori nunquam pro aliquo portabo arma nec ero in consilio vel auxilio contra eum vel Haeredes suos c. which Oath he saith William King of Scots and all his Nobles Swore to King Henry the second haeredibus suis sicut ligio Domino suo and John Balliol John Comyn with all the Nobles of Scotland to King Edward the first and his Heirs He there likewise gives an account how the Nobles of England Swore Fealty to Richard King of England and to his Heirs against all men and how the Citizens of London Swore the like Oath and That if King Richard should die without Issue they would receive Earl John his Brother for their King and Lord juraverunt ei fidelitatem Contra omnes homines salva fidelitate Richardi Regis fratris sui as Hoveden relates And he moreover cites the Record of the Writ issued to all the Sheriffs of England soon after the Birth of Edward the 1 st Son and Heir to King Henry the 3 d. To Summon all Persons above 12 years old to Swear Fealty to him as Heir to the King and to submit themselves faithfully to him as their Liege Lord after his Death This form of the Oath in the Writ is there mention'd to that effect viz. Quod ipsi salvo homagio fidelitate nostrâ quâ nobis tenentur cui in vitâ nostrâ nullo modo renunciare volumus fideles eritis Edwardo filio nostro primogenito ita quod si de nobis humanitus Contigerit eidem tanquam Haeredi nostro domino suo ligio erunt fideliter intendentes eum pro domino suo ligio habentes And he there shews how they were Summon'd and Sworn accordingly and further how in the Parliament of H. 4. The Lords Spiritual and Tempâ—ral and Commons were Sworn to bear Faith and true Allegiance to the King to the Prince and his Issue and to every one of his Sons severally succeeding to the Crown of England And he there mentions more Oaths taken to our Kings and their Heirs of the like Nature The Consideration hereof would make any one wonder at the Confidence of a late Learned Lawyer and positive pretender to Omniscience in our English Antiquities and Records who in his Detestable Book called The Rights of the Kingdom and which contains a farrago of Impious Anti-monarchical Principles and Printed in London 1649. and there to the Scandal of the English and Protestant Name lately Re-printed by some Factious Anti-Papists hath averred That our Allegiance was of old tyed to the Kings Person not unto his Heirs and for the Kings Heirs saith he there I find them not in our Allegiance And he mentions the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance as enjoyn'd in Queen Elizabeth's and King Iames's time respectively to be the first that were made to the Kings Person and his HEIRS and SVCCESSORS But to return to the Cause in hand 'T is sufficient for the Obligation I press that HEIRS and SUCCESORS are so clearly expressed in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy And tho the Statute of 1 â— Elizabethae in the Clause of the Annexing Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to the Crown useth the style of Your Highness your Heirs and Successors Kings or Queens of this Realm shall have full Power c. as the Statue of the Supremacy 26o. Henry 8th runs in the Style of our Sovereign Lord his Heirs and Successors Kings of this Realms shall be taken accepted and reputed the only Supreme Head and tho the Oath in the 35 th H. the 8 th Cap. 1. that relates to the bearing Faith Truth and true Allegiance to the Kings Majesty and to his Heirs and Successors c. be further thus expressed viz. And that I shall accept repute and take the Kings Majesty his Heirs and Successors when they or any of them shall enjoy his place to be the only Supreme Head c. and tho' the old Oath of the Mayor of London and other Cities and Towns throughout England and of Bayliffs or other chief Officers where there are no Mayors runs in the style of Swearing That they shall well and Loyally Serve the King in the Office of Mayor in the City of L. and the same City shall keep surely and safely to the use of our Lord the King of England and of his Heirs Kings of England might give occasion for that great empty and big-sounding Sophism of Sir W. I. in his famous Speech wherein he said That we are Sworn to the King his Heirs and Lawful Successors but not Obliged to any during
THE HAPPY Future State of England OR A DISCOURSE by way of LETTER to the late EARL of ANGLESEY Vindicating Him from the Reflections of an AFFIDAVIT Published by the HOUSE of COMMONS Ao 1680. by occasion whereof Observations are made concerning Infamous WITNESSES The said Discourse likewise contains various Political Remarks and CALCULATIONS referring to many Parts of Christendom with Observations of the Number of the People of ENGLAND and of its Growth in Populousness and Trade The Vanity of the late Fears and Iealousies being shewn the Author doth on Grounds of Nature Predict the Happy future State of the Realm At the End of the Discourse There is a Casuistical Discussion of the Obligation of the KING His Heirs and Successors wherein many of the Moral Offices of Absolute and Vnconditional Loyalty are Asserted Before the Discourse is A large PREFACE giving an Account of the whole WORK with an Index of the Principal Matters ALSO The Obligation resulting from the Oath of SUPREMACY to Assist and Defend the Preheminence or Prerogative OF THE Dispensative Power Belonging to the KING His Heirs and Successors In the Asserting of that Power various Historical Passages occurring in the Vsurpation after the Year 1641. are mentioned and an Account is given of the Progress of the Power of Dispensing as to Acts of Parliament about Religion since the Reformation and of diverse Judgments of Parliaments declaring their Approbation of the Exercise of such Power and particularly in what concerns Punishment by Disability or Incapacity LONDON Printed MDCLXXXVIII To the Right Honorable the Earl of Sunderland Lord President of His Majesty's most Honorable Privy-Council and Principal Secretary of State and Knight of the most Noble Order of the GARTER MY LORD FOR one who is sensible how little he knows of things past or present to Dedicate a Discourse of the future State of his Country to your Lordship who are by the Age allow'd to be as Critical a Iudge of Men and Things as any it affords may seem to have in it somewhat of Presumption But when your Lordship shall have had leisure to consider the plain Grounds of Nature on which my Prediction in the following Papers hath gone I will not so much hope that what I have attempted may appear to have been no Presuming as I will expect that your Censure will cast the Presumption on the other side namely on such who were Predictors with a continuando of the Unhappy State of their Country and especially on the account of the Religion of our most Gracious Prince And were I now to have my Iudgment tryed only by that of the Mobile who measure all things by the Events I account I should be out of the Gunshot of Censure since the course of Providence after my writing of the following Work having Conducted His Majesty to fill the Throne of his Ancestors with so many Royal Virtues it has been Conspicuous to them that the Glories of his Reign have transcended the highest flights of my mentioned Expectation And indeed as I remember to have long ago heard one of the Fathers cited for a Passage to this purpose namely that on a Supposal that God recounting to him the Perfections of the Creation should ask him what he could name wanting and that he could wish he would answer Unum Laudatorem Domine so it might till of late be said that in this new Creation or Restoration of England under His Majesty's Reign the only thing we had with anxiety to wish and desire from God next to the ennabling us to Praise his divine Goodness was one whose Talent of noble thoughts and words might be adequate to the celebrating the many Talents of our Prince and their successful Improvement both for the Honour and Security and Ease of his People But neither is such one Praiser now wanting for he who shall read the many late Loyal Addresses from all Parts of the Kingdom will find the People of England to be the Unus Laudator My Lord as I in the following Discourse almost wholly Printed long ago in the last Reign during the freedom of the Press adventured on Grounds of Nature to predict such a growth of Loyalty as would make all England become one sober Party of Mankind and that the more ingenious sort of Iesuits would by natural Instinct throw off those Principles condemned in this Pope's Decree and with Iustice then acknowledged a Sober Party in that order and have at large in p. 322. particularly shew'd my Abhorrence of charging the belief or practice of those Principles on all Persons in that Order So I have likewise in p. 238. given my Iudgment that all Seditious Principles own'd by any who call'd themselves Protestants must naturally decay and have at large in my Preface opposed my measures of futurity to those of a late Father of the Church of England concerning the two Plots that he thought the Papists and Dissenters would be ever carrying on and without his Lordships excepting the Loyal in those religionary Parties But having said this I must likewise say that these happy births of Fate having been but as it were the Births of a Day under the Powerful Influences of His Majesty's Government or as I may say a Nation 's being thus born in a Day are beyond what I did expect and I did little think that with the suddenness of the motion of Lightning when it melts the Sword and spares the Scabbard His Majesty's Declaration of Indulgence to Dissenters would at the same time melt so many hearts and all hostile Principles of the Doctrine of Resistance wrapp'd therein as it spared the Persons of the deluded Opiners I account that any indifferent Observer of the extraordinary sweetness of the way of painting their Loyalty in their Addresses and which resembleth the way of Corregio and is as excellent in its kind as that of the Sons of the Church of England after the way of the bolder touches of Titian in their former Addresses with the Style of LIVES AND FORTUNES was in its must be very hard-hearted if he likewise be not melted into a new kind of Compassion toward such his Brethren and into a noble sense of a great and good Prince having made his Subjects of all Religionary Perswasions Lachrymists for Joy and turned all their hearts to invoke Heaven in wishing for him according to that old Style a long Life a secure Kingdom a safe House valiant Armies a faithful Senate loyal Subjects the world at Peace c. The comparatively narrow Idea's of Charity and Beneficence that Subjects Minds are capable of toward one another do incline them to think chiefly of particular Toleration and such as we call Dispensation and that too with the nicety of Caution and upon Persons making the notification of their Principles and their particular disclaiming of all Disloyal ones previous to their Toleration and beyond this pitch the flights of my poor thoughts have not gone in the following Work. But His Majesty having
that have been since augmented Yet however I doubt not but that if it had been Gods will further to have lengthen'd the last reign the Course of Nature would then have operated as I have mention'd And if it shall appear that those natural Considerations I have urged shall have the success of such further Parliamentary Supplies to His gracious Majesty as may tend to the further greatning of his Character and that of the Kingdom I shall account my claim the more equitable to have the pardon of my fellow Subjects of what Religionary Sect soever for any thing in this Discourse that may disgust them And as an eminent Protestant Divine hath in a Printed Sermon thus said viz. that man is not worthy to breathe in so good a Land as England is who would not willingly lay down his life to cure the present divisions and distractions that are among us I shall say that any Subject deserves not to live here under the Indulgence of so good a Prince who for the helping him to money by all due means for the defence of this good Land would not wish himself as well as his Bigottry a Sacrifice and who would not as to any Extravagant dash of a Pen lighting on his Party and bringing Money to his Prince cry foelix peccatum rather then such Divisions and Distractions and Diffidences of the Government and stifling of Publick Supplies should still live as were formerly known in some Conjunctures and when the Art of Demagogues appear'd so spightful in endeavours to frustrate the Meetings of Parliaments But our Prince having freed all his dissenting Subjects from their uneasiness under Pecuniary Mulcts for Religion and the Members of the Church of England from the uneasiness of imposing such Soul-Money will I doubt not when he shall please to Call a Parliament find from them such necessary Supplies for the support of the Body of the Kingdom as may ease him under the weight of his great Desires for it and that it will then appear to all as absurd to Crown such a Head with Thorns as hath taken the Thorn out of every man's foot in England and that his pass'd Sufferings for his Conscience and others of his Communion having too suffer'd for his Conscience bespeaking us in those words of the Apostle Fulfil ye my joy that both his and theirs will be then Consummated and as the Ioy of those of the Church of England and of all nominal Churches in England hath been fulfill'd by him and that as Luther was pleas'd in a Christian-like transport of good Nature to Profess in his Epistle to Jeselius a Iew Me propter Unum Judaeum Crucifixum omnibus favere Judaeis we shall for the sake of one of the Roman-Catholick Communion who hath formerly suffer'd so much for his Conscience and since done so much for the freedom of ours shew all those of that Communion our favour to such a proportion as may compleat his and their Ioy. My Lord I am here obliged to acknowledge that tho while the several Parts of the following Work were written in the times the Government charged both Papists and Anti-Papists with Disloyalty and Plots I express'd my sense of the Non-advisableness to have the Penal Laws against them repeal'd pending such Charge and Plots I desire the Reader to look on me as very far from insisting on any thing of that nature in this Happy State of England now that the Corner Stone and that some of the Builders rejected hath thus successfully united the sides of the Fabrick of the Government in Loyalty My Lord It is near a year since I writ my Thoughts at large concerning the Subject of the Repealing those Laws and they are in the Fourth Part of my Work about The Dispensative Power of which the two first Parts conclude this Volume ready for the Press and reserving my poor Iudgment in this great Point till the Publication of the whole I think I shall then set forth my Opinion as founded on Medium's that have not appear'd in Print from other Writers and which I believe will not only not give offence to any Member of the Church of England but be of general use in allaying the ferment the Question hath occasion'd And if as they who were long fellow-Passengers in a Ship among violent Tempests and Hirricanes do usually from their being Participants together in the danger and horror take occasion to raise a friendly esteem and well-wishes for each other such of the Loyal whose belief I referr'd to as imbarqued with mine in that of the Plot during the late Stormy Conjuncture shall be the more favourable to what I write I shall be glad both for their sakes as well as mine but do further judge that what I have so largely in the following Discourse asserted and by Reasons taken from Nature concerning the Moral impossibility of the belief of the Tenets of the Church of Rome gaining ground here considerably on the belief of the Doctrine of the Church of England will tend to secure any one from fears of our losing our Religion by any loss of the Test that may happen a thing that none I think will fear who are of the Iudgment of the House of Commons in their Address to the late King on the 29 th of November 1680. that I have referr'd to in my Fourth Part and where they say that POPERY hath rather gain'd then lost Ground since the TEST ACT and make that Act to have had little effect I have in the following Discourse referr'd to that Act as represented to have had its rice in the year 1673. from the alledged petulant Insolence of Papists in that Conjuncture and I took notice of a learned Lord since deceas'd as vouching somewhat in Print of such temper among some of them And a Proclamation that year charging the Papists therewith I was implicitly guided thereby to take the thing for granted and as to the which considering since the publick Passages in that Conjuncture I have otherwise judged But as I think no loyal Roman-Catholick should in that Conjuncture have suffer'd any Prejudice for any ill Behaviour of any other of that Communion then much less ought any such thing be now and when there appears so noble and general a spirit of Emulation among all men of sense in the Diffusive Body of the People about who shall make the Head and all Members of that Body most easie and for the doing which we may well hope that the People representative and the other Estates of the Realm will come with all due Preparation of Mind when it shall please His Gracious Majesty to assemble them My Lord I have nothing further to add but my begging your Lordship's Pardon for this trouble and my owning the many Obligations I am under to be My Lord Your Lordship 's most Obedient Servant P. P. THE PREFACE TO THE READER THE Earl of Anglesy having shewed me an Affidavit and Information against him delivered at the Barr
of the House of Commons on the 20 th of October 1680. and printed by Order of that House and in which Affidavit and Information he was Charged with Endeavours to stifle some Evidence of the Popish Plot and to promote the belief of a Presbyterian one and with encouraging Dugdale to recant what he had sworn and promising to harbour him in his House and that his Lordships Priest should there be his Companion and likewise watch him his Lordship being thereupon desirous that right should be done him by a printed Vindication was pleased to Command my Pen therein and I was the less unwilling to disobey his Commands because in that Conjuncture wherein so many Loyal and Noble Persons were sufferes by the humour of Accusation then regnant I held it a Patriotly thing to withstand its Arbitrariness Sir W. P. in an Excellent Manuscript of his called The Political Anatomy of Ireland hath one Chapter there Of the Government of Ireland apparent or external and the Government internal and he describes the apparent Government there to be by the King and Three Estates and with the Conduct of Courts of Iustice but makes the internal Government there to depend much on the Potent Influence of the many Secular Priests and Fryars on the numerous Irish Roman Catholicks and on those Priests and Fryars being governed by their Bishops and Superiors and on the Ministers of Foreign States governing and directing such Superiors and thus while England was blest with the best external Government namely of Monarchy and with the best Monarch and a Loyal Nobility and Commons yet after the detection of a Popish Plot several Persons under the Notion of Witnesses about the same made so great a Figure in the Government and were so Enthroned in the Minds of the Populace that the Office of the King's Witnesses was as powerful as ever was that of the high Constable of England and the internal Government of the Kingdom was then very much as I may say a Martyrocracy and by that hard name the Noisy part of Protestants Endeavoured to gain Ground as much as ever any peaceable ones did by the old known Name of Martyrology But as all external Forms of Government have some peculiar defects as well as Conveniences so did this internal Government appear to have and those too so dreadful that the Air of Testimony having sometimes got into the wrong place was likely to have made Earth-Quakes in the external Government and as the Militia that after the Epoche of 41 was called the Parliaments Army did before the fatal time of 48 produce the Revolution of the Army's Parliament so were we endangered after the Plot-Epoche of 78 to have heard of the Office of the King's Witnesses changed into another namely of the Witnesses Kings And whoever shall write the English History of that part of time wherein that Martyrocracy was so powerful and domineering will if he shall think fit to give a denomination to that Interval of Time and to found the same on most of the Narratives he shall read or the Sham-Papers that many Papists and Protestants after the Plot Attaqued each other with be thought not absurd if he gives the old Style of Intervallum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 incertum or of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fabulosum It was in the time of the most Triumphant State of this Internal Government that I undertook to weigh its Empire as I have done in p. 33 34 35. discussing the points of Infamous Witnesses and their Infamy and of their Credibility after pardon of Perjury or Crimes and Infany incurred and a bolder man than my self would hardly have dared in that Conjuncture to have sifted their Prerogative and as I may say to have put hungry Wolves into Scales and to have taken the dimensions of the Paws of Lions or to have handled the stings of Serpents without expressing against some of the Romanists Principles he thought Irreligionary all the zeal he thought consistent with Charity and Candour to the Persons of Papists which is so much done in the Body of this Discourse and without the expressing of which my Vindicating a Noble Person from being a Papist had been an absurdity However I have been careful in any Moot-points of Witnesses not to disturb in the least the Measures of the External Government about them and out of the tender regard due to the safety of Monarchs from all Subjects have in p. 205 asserted the Obligation of doing every thing that is fairly to be done to support the Credits of Witnesses produced in the Case of Treason and have there given a particular reason for it and have in p. 36. with a Competent respect mentioned Dugdale on the occasion of the Shamm sworn against the Earl of Anglesy as if his Lordship had undertook to have unjustly patronized him and have shewed my self inclined enough to belief credible Witnesses by the Concurrence of my thoughts with the Iustice of the Nation in Godfrey's Case and the fate of which Person and the Casuistical Principles that allowed it I had perhaps not mentioned but out of a just indignation against the infamous Shamms about it spread by some ill Papists to the dishonour of that Excellent Lord the Earl of Danby But there was another consideration that induced me to write with such a Zeal as aforesaid against such Romanists Principles and their effects and but for which the following Discourse had not swollen to a large Volume I observed that since the late Fermentation in England such a Panique Fear of the Growth of Popery and the numbers of Papists had been by Knaves propagated among Fools that made the English Nation appear somewhat ridiculous abroad and that during its Course many considerable Protestants were so far mis-led as to think the State of the Nation could never be restored to it self but by disturbing the Succession of the Crown in its lawful Course of Descent and therefore resolving to do my utmost to free the Land from the Burthen of another guess Perjury by the general Violence done to our Oaths Promissory I mean to those of Allegiance and Supremacy then that of any Witnesses in their Oaths Assertory I thought fit at large to shew the Vanity of any Mens fearing that Popery can ever humanly speaking be the National Religion of England and to direct them that they may not by the imaginary danger of Popery to come run with all their swelling Sails on the Rock of it at present by founding Dominion in Grace and out-rage those Oaths that do at present bind us without reserve to pay Allegiance to the King's Heirs after his demise And for any one who being concerned to see so many of his Country-men lying as it were on the Ground and dejected with unaccountable fears of the extermination of their Religion and themselves and besmearing themselves with the dreadful guilt of their great Oaths was resolved to endeavour to help them up and by perswasion gently to lead them
to such a high Prospect of thought from whence they might at once have a view of the past and present State of Popery here and abroad in former Ages and likewise of its probable future one a sight that might better entertain Curiosity than what the Traveller speaks of when from a high Mountain in the Isthmus of America he could view both the great North and South Sea not to have rendered himself an acceptable Perswader by his Discourse carrying with it Self-Evidence that he was no Papist had been a vain attempt And again for any one who would perswade the generality of Popish or Protestant Recusants that it is not their Interest by any Artifices to endeavour to make so great a Figure in the Internal Part of the Government as they have in some former Conjunctures without his Discourse carrying likewise Self-Evidence that his Advice was that of a Friend to their Persons as far as the publick Security would admit had been an attempt as insignificant as the former I have in this Discourse often took notice of this distinction of the Tenets of Popery and Presbytery viz. Such of them that properly are denominable by Religion and such that are not presuming in my private judgment to differ from the Measures took by the Government in King Iames his time when the printed Prayers for the Anniversary of the Gun powder Treason represented Papists Religion to be Rebellion and I under the Notion of Principles denominable by Religion have ranked Transubstantiation Purgatory Invocation of Saints and others and have judged none of their Principles Irreligionary but such as the late Learned Earl of Clarendon in his incomparable defence of Dr. Stilling fleet attributes to Popery as injurious to Princes and their Subjects and what King Iames in his Speech to both Houses hinted as such according to what is cited by me p. 172 viz. As it is not impossible but many honest men seduced with some Errors in Popery may yet remain good and faithful Subjects so on the other handâ—none that know and believe the Grounds and School-Conclusions of their Doctrine can ever prove good Christians or faithful Subjects and such as are apparently contrary to the Light and Law of Nature But there is nothing in this Discourse otherwise than en passant that impugns or confutes the old Religionary Points controverted formerly between the Church of England and that of Rome and all the passages throughout referring to those old points might I believe be comprized together in about a Page And if I were as in a Dictionary to express the sense of the words Popery and Irreligionary so often used in this Discourse I would say that generally by Poperâ— or as the Writers in Latin call it Papismus I mean the power of the Bishop of Rome in imposing Câ—eeds and Doctrines and Rules of Divine Worship on Men and his Jurisdiction interloping in that of Princes and their Laws and the doing this by the Charter of Ius Divinum and as he is Christs pretended Vicar and by the term of Irreligionary of often by me applied to Principles I sometimes mean such as are barely NOT religionary that is to say Principles that are not in truth and in the nature things parts of Religion whatever any Sanction of the Papacy or a Presbytery may term them and which do not religare or bind the Soul to God by Moral Obligations nor by any Band of Loyalty to our Prince or Charity to our Neighbour but do only tie men to a Party and to the owning with them several points of speculation and no more necessary to be believed in order to our improvement in Moral Offices that the Divine Law natural or positive enjoyns or conducing to the same than are the Hypotheses of the old or new Philosophy But I most commonly apply the word Irrâ—ligionary to Principles that are reverâ contrary to Religion and Justice and Morality and such as I would therefore dis-robe of the Name of Religion and under this term of Irreligionary not only all the Antimonarchical Principles of the Jesuites and Presbyterians are properly to be reckoned but those Principles of the Papacy that even in the times of our Roman Catholick Ancestors as I said were so injurious to our Princes and their Subjects and which were by them as Vsurpations on the Crown opposed and defied and especially by those of them who were in their tempers most Magnanimous and in this Case the Papal Principles that favoured those Vsurpations on the rights of our Princes might be said to be both Non-Religionary or things beside the matter of Religion and likewise Irreligionary or contrary to Religion as being unjust The Religio Officii as Tully calls the Conscience one hath to do his duty did bind those Princes of the Pope's Religion to impugne his Arbitrary Usurpations on their Realms and in the Case of the meanest Cottager of England the Pope's Excommunication was never allowed good in Westminister-Hall under our Roman Catholick Kings The latter end of the very Reign of Queen Mary was likely to have diverted our English World with the sight of as remarkable a Prize played between the two Swords I mean the Pope's Spiritual and her Temporal one as was ever played on its Stage and when Cardinal Pool her Kindsman who had reconciled our Nation to Rome was so far lost in the Pope's good Graces as that his Legantine Power was abrogated by the Pope and in affront to Pool given to Peito a poor Friar but whose red Hat by Queen Mary's opposition could get no further than Callis and She was so regardless of the Pope's Curses in the Case that his Bulls in favour of his new Legate were not permitted to Arrive here and the designed Legate was enforced to go up and down the Streets of London like a begging Friar without a red Hat. And more need not be here said to express the Principles that Usurp on Monarchs to be Irreligionary When I have in the former part of the Discourse once or twice mentioned the term of Apostates for some turning to the Church of Rome I did there speak Cum vulgo and likewise according to the Style of our Courts Christian which proceeding against some perverted to the Church of Rome impute to them the Crime of Apostacy but having observed in the Progress of this Discourse that that term was seditiously used by the Disciples of Iulian I have reprehended the further calling any men Apostates for the alteration of their judgments in some controvertible points of saith between Papists and Protestants and that may without absurdity be called Tenets of Religion As to the expression of the Extermination of Popery and likewise of Presbytery used in this Discourse sometimes and with allusion to the trite term of the Papacy viz. Exterminium haereticorum I have there in p. 283 sufficiently expressed my abhorrence of the Extermination of Persons and as is there said do only refer to the Extermination of Things
and Principles Religionary and indeed to speak more properly of that part of Mens Principles only that is Irreligionary and against Nature The words of exterminating and recalling are often used by Cicero as signifying the contrary and when Mr. Coleman's Letters shewed such an imperious design in him for the Revocation of Popery that had been driven away and banished or exterminated hence by so many Acts of Parliament and even for the Extermination of Heresie out of the North as occasioned such apprehensions in the Government of what was intended by other innocent and modest Papists that made the gentlest of Princes in a Speech in the Oxford Parliament say and if it be practicable the ridding our selves quite of all of that Party that have any considerable Authority c. none need wonder at the past warmth of Subjects expressed against the Recalling of the Exterminated Papal Power nor yet at the warmth of their Zeal against the Principles of the Iesuites propagating an Internal Power here when they had been exterminated from Rome it self and when the Lord Chancellors Speech to both Houses had mentioned the Proceedings against Protestants in Foreign Parts to look as if they were intended to make way for a general Extirpation They are poor Judges of things who think that Doctrines of Religion cannot be said to be exterminated out of Kingdoms and their Laws without the Banishment of the Persons professing them Who accounts not Protestancy sufficiently exterminated from being the State-Religion in Italy and yet Sandies his Europae speculum tells us That there were 40000 professed Protestants there Is not Iudaism sufficiently Exterminated from being the Religion at Rome tho thousands of professed Iews are there tolerated 'T is the publick approbation of Tenets or Doctrines and not any forbearance or indulgence to persons who prosess them that gives Doctrines a place within the Religion of a State for to make any State approve of a Doctrine contrary to what it hath Established is a Contradiction But the truth is the famous Nation of the Iews formerly Heavens peculiar People on Earth having not been more generally guilty of Idolatry during their prosperity than of Superstition during their Captivity and Oppression and Extermination from their Country hath taught the World this great truth that the readiest way to propagate Superstition and Error is by the Exterminium and Banishment of Persons Whatever Church any men call their Mother if the Magistrate finds them to own the Interest of their Country as their Mother and to honour their true Political Father they cannot wish their days more long in the Land than I shall do I remember under the Vsurpation there passed an Act of Parliament as 't was called for the banishment of that famous Boute-feu Iohn Lilburn and under the Penalty of the Vltimum supplicium and he shortly after returning to England and being tried in London where he was universally known and the only thing issuable before the Iurors being whether he was the same John Lilburn those good men and true thought him so much transubstantiated as to bring him in not guilty and when ever I find any Papist not only willing to change the Name Papist for Catholick but the thing Papistry for the Principles of the Church of Rome under its first good Bishops and before Popes beyond a Patriarchal Power aspired to be Universal Bishops and Universal Kings and that even a Iesuite instead of the Rule of Iesuita est omnis homo hath alter'd his Morals and Principles pursuant to the Pope's said Decree so far as truly to say Ego non sum ego I shall not intermeddle in awakening Penal Laws to touch either his life or liberty Nor can any Presbyterians with justice reflect on the Zeal of any for the Continuance of the Laws for the Extermination of Presbytery when they shall reflect on the Royal Family having been by their means as is set forth in this Discourse exterminated out of the Realm into Foreign Popish Countries and of which they might easily have seen the ill effects if their understandings had not been very scandalously dull But there is another happy Extermination that I have in this Discourse from Natural Causes predicted to my Country and that is of the fears and jealousies that have been so prevalent during our late fermentation concerning which the Reader will shortly find himself referred to in many Pages in this Discourse and to have directed him to all of that Nature would have made the Index a Book I have in this Discourse designing to eradicate the fears of Popery out of the Minds of timid Protestants by the most rational perswasions I could shewed somewhat of Complaisance in sometimes humouring their Suppositions of things never likely to come to pass I have accorded with them in the possibility of the Event of Arch-Bishop Vsher's Famous Prophecy tho I account the same as remote from likelihood as any one could with it and do believe that if that Great and Learned Man could have foreseen the mischief that Prophecy hath occasioned by making so many of the Kings good Subjects disquieted thereby and which by at once Chilling their Hearts and heating their Heads hath rendered them less qualified for a chearful and steady discharge of their respective Duties he would have consulted privately with many other Learned and Pious Divines about the intrinsick weight of the matter revealed to him before he had exposed it to the World for that in the days when God spake by the Prophets yet even then the Spirits of the Prophets were always subject to the Prophets and there is no Fire in the World so bad a Master as the Fire of Prophecy It is observable that there hath scarce since this Prophecy been a Conjuncture of time wherein men uneasie to themselves would make the Government so but this Prophecy hath been reprinted in it and cryed about and few Enthusiasts but are as perfect in it as a Sea-man in his Compass The substance of it was to foretel Persecution that should happen in England from the Papists in the way of a sudden Massacre and that the Pope should be the Contriver of it and that if the King were restored it might be a little longer deferred A person less learned than that Great Prelate could easily give an Account of the past Out-rages of Massacres that have been perpetrated by Papists and of the tendency of the Iesuites Principles to the very legitimating of Future ones but the most Pious and Learned Man in the World ought with the greatest Caution imaginable to pretend to Divine Revelation of Future Contingencies in a matter both so unlikely and so odious as this and which might probably occasion so much Odium to so many innocent Papists and so much needless trouble to so many timid Protestants That Pious and Great Prelate did not I believe foresee that at the time when his Prophecy should dart its most fearful influence St. Peter's Chair would be filled
Religion under a Lutheran or Calvinian or Popish Successor and that all might be really afraid of dishonouring God and wounding their Consciences by prejudicing the Inheritable Rights of those Princes Successions it is thus further determined by the 7th Article of the Instrumentum pacis Caesareo suecicum § 1. viz. Vnanimi quoque Caesareae majestatis omniumque ordinum consensu c. 'T is likewise thought fit by the unanimous Consent of the Emperor and all the States of the Empire that whatever right or benefit both all the other Constitutions of the Empire and the Peace of Religion and this publick agreement and the decision of all Grievances therein do allow to all Catholick States and Subjects and to those addicted to the Augustan Confession the same shall likewise be allowed to those that are called the Reformed i. e. Calvinists with a Salvo to the States called Protestants i. e. Lutherans as to all things Covenanted and agreed between themselves with their own Subjects and as to all Privileges and other dispositions whereby Provision was made for Religion and its exercise and the things thereon depending by the States and Subjects of each place and with a Salvo to each for the freedom of their Consciences Now because the Controversies of Religion which are in Agitation at this time among the forenamed Protestants have not been hitherto reconciled but have been referred to a further endeavour of agreement so that they still make two Parties therefore concerning the right of reforming it is thus agreed between them that if any Prince or other Lord of the Territory or Patron of any Church shall hereafter change his Religion or obtain or recover a Principality or Dominion either by the right of Succession or by virtue of this present Treaty or by any other Title whatsover where the publick exercise of the Religion of the other Party is at present in use it shall be free to him to have his Court-Chaplains of his own Religion about him in the place of his Residence without any burthen or prejudice to his Subjects but it shall not be lawful for him to change the publick Exercise of Religion or the Laws or Ecclesiastical Constitutions which have been there hitherto in use or take from those their Churches whose they formerly were or their Schools or Hospitals or the Revenues Pensions and Stipends belonging thereunto or apply them to the men of their own Religion or obtrude on their Subjects men of another Religion under the pretence of a Territorial Episcopal or Patronal Right or under any pretence whatsoever or bring about any other hinderance directly or indirectly to the Religion of the other Party c. In fine here hath been a great Pacification and the same agreed on to be a perpetual Law and pragmatick Sanction and as strongly binding as any Fundamental Law or Constitution thereof comprhending in behalf of the Emperor all his Confederates and Adherents first the Catholick King and House of Austria the Electors and Princes of the Empire the Hanse Towns the King of England the King of Denmark and Norway and all the Princes and Republicks of Italy and the States of Holland and others and in the behalf of the Queen of Sweden all her Confederates the most Christian King the Hanse Towns the King of England the King of Denmark and the Dutch States c. Well but yet it may be by our timid Protestants objected that all these Roman Catholick Princes thus projecting the Peace of Germany and that of Christendom did in this great Instrumentum pacis and the pacta Conventa referred to but reckon without their Host I mean the Bishop of Rome and that one Bull against it from Rome would thunder it to nothing and render it voidable or void and that all the Concessions to Heresie and Hereticks and hindring their Extermination were nugatory and that such a written Treaty carried in it it s own deletion and that of Hereticks and that the Bulla Caenae every Maundy Thursday Excommunicates and Curâ—es all Lutherans Calvinists Hugonots and their Receivers Fautors and Defenders and that the many immunities granted to Hereticks by this Peace as likewise Lands and Territories and the Erecting of Bishopricks into Secular Principalities and settling them on Heretical Princes and their Heirs forever whereby so much prejudice accrued to the Roman Catholick Religion and the Apostolick Sea would probably engage the Pope some time or other to quash it as null and to damn both the Peace and all that made it I answer that within two days after the signing that Peace the Popes Nuntio at Munster protested against it declaring that he made that Protestation by the Pope's express Commands and on the 26th of November 1648 Pope Innocent the 10th issued out his Bull against it from Rome called Sanctissimi Domini nostri Innâ—centii divina providentia Papae X. Declaratio nullitatis articulorum nuperae Pacis Germanicae Religioni Catholicae sedi Apostolicae Ecclesiis aliisque locis piis ac personâ—s juribus Ecclesiasticis quomodolibet praejudicialium ad aeternam Rei memoriam And he therein blames the Emperor and his Confederates and the most Christian King on the account of the perpetual abdication of some Ecclesiastical Goods and Rights possessed by Hereticks and for their permitting to Hereticks the free exercise of their Religion by that Peace and their being further Authorized by it to bear Offices and enjoy not only Church Livings but Bishopricks and Arch-Bishopricks and in fine that Pope having made it null and void further declares That if any have sworn to observe the Articles of that Peace such Oath shall not bind them But what did this Declaration from his Holyness signify in that Case No more than one from Prester Iohn would have done The Emperor and Princes of Germaâ—y did gloriously stand to their Pacta conventa and took care to see the same solemnly ratified and executed notwithstanding the Papal Declaration of their Nullity They knew the Pope's Nuntio would soon protest and the Pope himself declare against the Peace and had therefore in Terms therein agreed That no Canons or special Decrees of Councils or Concordats with Popes or Protestations or Edicts Rescripts Mandates or Absolutions whatsoever should in any Future time be allowed against any Article of it And they likewise knew that the Pope's Declaration of the Nullity of that Treaty would contain no Threatnings of Excommunication or Damnation against their Persons but only Quelques choses or things of Course or to speak more properly Nullities of Course and that while all Christendom was embarqued in that Treaty and going with full Sail and favoured with a strong Gale of Nature into its Haven of Rest and being to pass by the Popes Fort and had resolved against lowering their Flag to it the Pope would of Course fire some Bulls of Nullity at them Charged with no significant Shot and as it is usual for the Forts of Princes to do to Ships that pass
let men see how the Pastorage of the Church of England treats them like Gentlemen and may serve to awaken their Compassion for their deluded Country-men whom they see frâ—ghtened by their Teachers into a fancy of the unlawfulness of a Ceremony and yet embolden'd by them into the belief and practice of a Covenant without the King's Consent and from which Persons we should perhaps quickly receive Alarms of Persecution if the Government should impose any Covenant or Test on them in order to Loyalty tho never so necessary for the publick Peace But the World is aweary of the umbrage Sedition hath found among denominations of Churches and of judging of Trees by their Shadows or otherwise than by their Fruit that is by their Principles and for the happiness of the present State of England after we have by many Religion-Traders been troubled with almost as many Marks of true and false Churches as there are of Merchants Goods Nature seems to have directed the People to agree in this indeleble Character and Mark of a false Church namely one whose Principles are Disloyal The Genius of England is so bent upon Loyalty in this Conjuncture that a disloyal Principle doth jar in the Ears of ordinary thinking men like a false string in the Ears of a Critical Lutenist and the which he knows that Art or Nature can never tune and upon any Churches valuing themselves on the intrinsic worth or the weight of their Principles as most opposite to Falshood men generally now take into their hands the Touch-stone and the Scales of Loyalty and do presently suspect any Church that refuseth to bring its Principles to be touch'd and weigh'd and they will not now allow the Reputation of a visible Church to any body of Men whose Principles relating to Loyalty shall not first be made visible Nor can it be otherwise thought by the impartial than that Mens Consciousness of somewhat of the Turpitude of some of their Principles restrains them from bringing them to appear in publick View and according as Cicero in his de fin bon mal answers Epicurus who said that he would not publish his Opinion lest the people might perhaps take offence at it viz. Aut tu eadem ista dic in judicio aut si coronam times dic in senatu Nunquam facies Cur nisi quod turpis est Oratio I who thus urge the Reasonableness and Necessity of mens being Confessors of their Principles of Loyalty have frankly exposed one of mine own in p. 131. and which I say there that I account the great fundamental one for the quiet of the World as well as of a Man 's own Conscience viz. That no man is warranted by any Intention of advancing Religion to invade the right of the Sovereign Power that is inherent in Princes by the municipal Laws of their Countreys and I have mention'd the same in p. 136. as owned by the Non-conforming Divines in King Iames his time Tho I believe as firmly as any man that the Christian Religion doth plainly forbid the Resistance of Authority and that his Majesties Royal Power is immediately from God and no way depends on any previous Election or Approbation of the people yet since the Sons of the Church of England are sufficiently taught both that Doctrine and likewise that human Laws in the point of their Allegiance do bind the Conscience and since other men who err in Principles of Loyalty may sooner be brought to see the Absurdity of their Error by the known Laws of the Land than by Argumentations from Scripture which may admit of Controversy and since his Majesty hath been pleased to expect the Measures of our Obedience from the Laws and that our English Clergy while in the late Conjuncture they have so universally preach'd up Loyalty have so religiously accorded with the Measures of the Laws and have therein as I may say shewed themselves Apostolical Pastours and since the persons whose Complaints of the danger of Popery are most loud do joyn therewith their Exclamations against Arbitrary or Illegal Power and seem to joyn Issue in the point that they are willing that the Power that is by Law inherent in the Crown should be preserved to it I thought it most useful in the present Conjuncture to assert the Principle in these Terms I have done and I the rather chose to do it because I thought that the security of the Crown is by some Laws well provided for whose Obligation admits of no Doubt I mean those whereby Men have been obliged to take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy But moreover as I consider'd it to be one great valuable Right inherent by Law in our Princes to secure the Continuance of the Succession in their Line so I likewise judged the legal Right of Princes to Succeed according to Proximity of Blood to be unalterable and therefore having my eye on the prevention of further Scandal to Protestancy from the Exclusion I introduced that Principle so worded as aforesaid that by dilating thereon as I have done I might bring the Reader the better prepared to my Casuistical Discussion of the Oaths The Reader will find at the end of this Discourse the Casuistical Discussion of the Obligation to the King's Heirs and Successors resulting from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy by me promised in p. 214 and the occasion of my writing which is likewise there mentioned It was wholly writ in the time that the Question of the Succession made the greatest noise among us and was then by me Communicated to several of my Friends in Terms as herewith printed without any thing since added or diminished and both it and the Discourse which contains so many things naturally Previous to the Consideration of that Question would have been long since published but partly for the various Accidents of Business and Sickness that necessarily interrupted me in the Writing of the latter And tho perhaps the Publication of the former in the time of the Sessions of our late Parliaments might have been more significant than after the Volly of Loyal Addresses shot of manifesting the general just zeal against the Exclusion of which Addresses I yet observed none to mention any thing of the Obligations to Allegiance to the King's Heirs and Successors from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy it may be said that the subsequent Births of Fate have not restrained the possibility of its usefulness in future times and tho Heaven may be propitious to our Land in the blessing it according to the Loyal Style of the Addresses namely in his Majesties Line continuing on the English Throne as long as the Sun and Moon endure yet many and many may be the Conjunctures when a supposed Heterodox Prince shining like the Sun in the Firmament of the English State and regularly moving in the Line of the Law and his own Religion may attract the dull Vapours of Fears and Jealousies again as another glorious Prince hath done and
ends therein contained I fully assent unto and have been as desirous to observe but the rigid way of prosecuting it and the oppressing uniformity that have been endeavoured by it I never approved This were sufficient to vindicate me from the false Aspersions and Calumnies which have been laid upon me of Iesuitism and Popery c. And recollect whether tho that Covenant was contrary to the Oath of Allegiance any thing yet could be more contrary to that Covenant than that House of Coâ—â—ons acting single or any thing could be more contrary to the plain literal Sense of the Covenant than that refined pursuit of the Cause owned by a person of such refined and real great Abilities and within the Prospect of Eternity and whether the owning of the same then contrary to the literal Sense of the Covenant was a proper Medium for him to use then whereby to clear himself from the aspersion of Iesuitism There was another person of great Theological Learning and strong natural parts who lived about that time I mean Mr. Iohn Goodwin the Divine I before mentioned and who in two Books of his the one called Redemption Redeem'd and the other of The Divine Authority of the Scripture hath signaliz'd his great Abilities but in the very Pamphlet where he presumes to vindicate the very Sentence against the Royal Martyr and to make the same Coherent with the Scotch Covenant he in p. 51 saith Evident it is that those Words in the Covenant in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom import a Condition on the Kings part without the performance whereof the Covenant obligeth no man to the preservation or defence of his Person or Authority and yet allowing the Words to speak for themselves they do not say in HIS Preservation and Defence c. but in THE Preservation and Defence c. plainly referring to the same Preservation and Defence of Religion and Liberties which is before promised and sworn to in this and the preceding Articles as evidently referring to the same Persons Preservation and Defence of them here who are to preserve and defend them in the former Clauses and who are to preserve and defend the Kings Majesty's Person and Authority in this namely the Covenanters If the Covenant had intended to ground the Preservation and Defence in this Clause upon another Person or Persons as the performers beside those to whom the same Actions are referred immediately before it would have pointed them out distinctly but when it expresseth no other the plain ordinary Grammatical construction will attribute them to the Parties before nominated and cannot put them on any other And the Premisses notwithstanding Mr. Goodwin concludes that if that his Anti-Grammatical Paraphrase were not the true meaning of those words beforementioned in the Covenant it was unintelligible by him and his Words are these If this be not the clear meaning and importance of them the Covenant is a Barbarian to me I understand not the English of it Thus naturally is it even for the learned and unstable to wrest not only the Scriptures but even their own subscribed Covenants where the words have no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to their own destruction and the destroying of common Sense when they recede from the common Principles of Loyalty and Allegiance There was likewise another Person reputed one of first-rate Parts and great Learning in the late times who published a Book called The lawfulness of obeying the present Government and in his 11th Page there directs the World to make this Enquiry viz. Whether there be any Clause in any Oath or Covenant which in a fair and common sense forbids obedience to the Commands of the present Government and Authority and referreth particularly to the Clause of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy in the former of which 't is said I shall bear faith and true Allegiance to his Majesty his Heirs and Successors and in the latter I shall bear faith and true Allegiance to the Kings Highness his Heirs and Successors He there goeth on very Childishly to sell the World a Bargain by trying to puzzle it with Questions viz. If it be said that in the Oath of Allegiance Allegiance is sworn to the King his Heirs and Successors if his Heirs be not his Successors how doth that Oath bind Either the Word Successors saith he must be superfluous or it must bind to Successors as well as to Heirs And if it bind not to a Successor as well as to an Heir how can it bind to an Heir that is not a Successor And if you will know the common and usual sense which should be the meaning of an Oath of the word Successors you need not so much ask of Lawyers and Learned Persons as of men of ordinary knowledge and demand of them who was the Successor of William the Conqueror and see whether they will not say W. Rufus and who succeeded Richard the Third and whether they will not say Harry the 7th and yet neither of them was Heir so in ordinary acception the word Successor is taken for him that actually succeeds in the Government and not for him that is actually excluded May we not to this Questionist who was as I may say such a Mountebank of a Casuist put the Question of Tertullian Rideam vanitatem an exprobrem caecitatem And may we not properly bring in St. Austin's Casuistical Decision as to things of this Nature Haec tolerabilius vel ridentur vel flentur i. e. A man is at liberty either to laugh at or lament them I have in p. 41 of this Discourse mentioned D' Ossat's Observation of Father Parson 's often contradicting himself and that very grossly in his Book of the Succession as it happens to all Persons in passion as able as they are who are not guided by truth and reason but transported by interest and passion and I shall here further remark out of the same Letter of D' Ossat by me there cited that to those words last mentioned he there adds this viz. I will here name two of his Contradictions He opposeth to the King of Scots among other things to exclude him from the Succession of England That he was born out of England of Parents not subject to the Crown of England He likewise opposeth to Arabella among other impediments That she is a Woman and that it is not expedient for the Kingdom of England to have three Women Queens successively and that often the Children of Kings have been excluded for being Women and yet not withstanding he adjudgeth the said Kingdom to the Infanta of Spain by preference even to the King of Spain her Brother as if the said Infanta were not a Woman as well as the said Arabella I had almost forgot to observe how the Author of The lawfulness of obeying the present Government that useth such thick paint of Equivocation in his sense of the word Successors having pushed on his Question
of the entertaining our Curiosity tho we are past its danger and that is what occurs to me that I lately mentioned in a Discourse I had with an intelligent Person of the Church of England who saying to me that there was one part of the barbarous Out-rage of the Gun-powder Treason which was very scandalous to Humane Nature and which he thought could not be pretendedly legitimated by any Papal Principles namely that part of the Out-rage that related to the designed destruction of so many Magnificent Piles of Building and of the adjacent City of Westminster and the life 's of thousands of Men Women and Children with one Cruel Fatal Blow I gave him an account of the Tenet in the Canon Law grounded on the 13th of Deuteronomy so fairly and fully discussed in the following Discourse and whereby I satisfied him about the Principle that pretended to legitimate that part of the Out-rage and do assure any man that as arbitrary as the Papacy ever was it yet was so just as to inflict no kind of punishment on Persons or Communities that was not in its Sanctions intimated and for what Crimes I have in this Discourse render'd some of our late Fift-Monarchy men Principled for all Villany imaginable and justly Convicted and Executed for a design to fire our Metropolis and in which design they had subtilly contrived to have backed their Out-rage with the terror of Armed Forces nothing of which appeared in the Case of the two poor French Papists charged with the Odium of the Fact and beyond which least of numbers it is not in this Discourse extended and as to those two Persons there being then open War between the English and French it may be said that the Religion of Popery might be out of the Case of any thing done by such as were justi hostes as the Laws term them however I yet think that none concerned in the Government of that Nation would then be so barbarous as to design us such an Out-rage Moreover I have in this Discourse said that I will not charge the allowance of this Tenet on the generality of Papists either at home or abroad and that no un-jesuited Papist nor perhaps some sober Party in that Order would think the worse of me for calling the Decretum of the Popes Canon Law by reason of its empowring him thus to burn Cities horrendum Decretum And because my knowing of this Papal Tenet as founded on the Iudicial Law made me after the beginning of this Discourse to surmize that more Papists might possibly be concerned in this Out-rage than really were and so in my balancing the actings of some Loyal Protestant Recusants in Ireland with some Dis-loyal ones of some Popish Recusants there and here I mentioned the Out-rage on the Metropolis as done by Papists i. e. by Papists and not by Protestants and as Sir W. Raleigh mentioned that Harry the 4th was murdered by the Papists that is not by the Huguenots I yet thought my self bound in Christianity and Moral Justice to shew my self so far from being in the least misled by the scandalous and incoherent Narratives that reflected on a great body of the Papists as concerned in such a horrid Fact and particularly by that whose Author in a Plot with Booksellers had stole his Fire of London out of old printed Examination before a Committee of Parliament that I have shewn the ridiculousness of the palmare argumentum of the Populace and cryed up as so unanswerable to prove that very many Papists designedly fired the City and which Argument I have not met with exposed to contempt by any other Person and which had so far happened to work on the understanding of an ingenious man who employed himself in writing the History of England since the King's Restoration that he had been likely but for my shewing him the Childishness of his Error to have sent it to Posterity with a Crown instead of a Fools Cap on its head And tho I have rendred the same Tenet of firing Heretical Cities that is in the Pope's Canon Law founded on Deuteronomy chargeable on our late Presbyterians I have exempted the Persons of such our Protestant Recusants from any guilt of an Out-rage against our Metropolis as Idolatrous for whatever their Principles are there is yet another sort of Idolatry prevalent among them as all Religionaries and which I have referred to namely Covetousness that would secure them from firing their own Nests But here while I am troubling my self to do right to Papists and Presbyterians I cannot without all the horror and detestation imaginable call to mind how a vile traiterous Subject of his Majesties who presumed to call himself the Protestant Ioyner was so far transported with Madness and Fury as to the scandal of Religion and Loyalty and common Sense with the guilt or that Fire to reproach his Prince whose Reign had so long signalized it self with such a Father-like tenderness for all his Subjects And yet in the TRYAL of that Monster of Calumny his slandering his Prince thus with so much desperate and ridiculous Molice was in proof And ridicuâ—ous it may well be called for what could be more remote from the least shadow of possibility than a Prince of such Eminent Wisdom and known great Abilities firing his own Chamber and destroying his Revenue and vastly impoverishing the People and thereby weakening himself in the Flagrancy of War between England and France and the States of Holland It is absolute dotage and Bedlam-madness to imagine that any one interested in the Government of England and its being a Kingdom could be in the least a well wisher to such an Out-rage The very Fift-Monarchy men who designed it were abject Paupers and the two French-men were no better But Justice found out that Shimei who thus outragiously slandered the Lord 's Annointed and may all such his incorrigible Enemies be cloathed with shame and let them see that tho Heaven doth not think fit always to hide Princes from the scourge of the Tongues of men of Belial yet at the same time it sheweth some tender regard of the honour of Crown'd heads by abandoning the dis-loyal to reproach them with impossibilities It was observed by the late Bishop of Winchester in his printed Sermon before the King on the 5th of November p. 18. That the Doctrines among the Dissenters that tend to Sedition and Rebellion seem to be derived and borrowed from the Church of Rome but his Lordship in the same Page having before spoke of those Doctrines said That if they are believed and practised they must necessarily produce Confusion among us Yet having a regard to the Piety and Peaceableness of some Dissenters and considering how long many of them had been trained up to Principles of Loyalty before they went off from the Church of England we may reasonably have the better hopes of their not being able to believe the Doctrine of Resistance and Principles convulsive of Civil Society But
making a Ruffian of the Pope himself But indeed long before the Edition of that trifling Book many things had occurred so far to shake the testimony of the Witnesses as that it grew generally the Concordant voice of the Populace that on a supposal of several of the same Persons being again alive to be tryed on the Testimony of the same Witnesses before the same Judges it would not have prejudiced a hair of the heads that were destroyed by it and particularly in the unfortunate Lord Stafford's Case I have in two or three places of this Discourse speaking of the Papal Hierarchy called it Holy Church its old known term and by which I meant no reflection of scorn nor would I laugh at any Principle of Religion found among any Heterodox Religionaries that the dying groans of the holy Iesus purchased them a liberty to profess But 't is no Raillery to say that the Artifices of any dis-loyal Popish and Protestant Recusants that have so long made Templum Domini usurp on the Lord of the Temple and his Vice Gerents that is Kings and Princes will support no Church and that as it hath been observed of some Free Stones that when they are laid in a Building in that proper posture which they had naturally in their Quarries they grow very hard and durable and if that be changed they moulder away in a short time a long duration may likewise be predicted to the Arts and Principles of reason applied to support a Church as they lay in the Quarry of Nature and where the God of Nature laid them for the support of Princes and their People and è contrà In fine therefore since the Principles of the Church of England are thus laid in it as they were in that Quarry none need fear that they will be defaced by time or that a lawful Prince of any Religion here will accost it otherwise than with those words of the Royal Psalmist viz. Peace be within thy Walls and Prosperity within thy Palaces AN INDEX Of some of the Principal Matters Contained in the following DISCOURSE IN ALETTER TO THE Earl of ANGLESY HIS Lordship is vindicated from mis-reports of being a Papist and an account given of his Birth and Education and time spent in the University and Inns of Court and afterward in his Travels abroad Page 1 2 3. An account of his first eminent publick employment as Governor of Ulster by Authority under the Great Seal of England p. 4. An account of his successful Negotiation with the then Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the Surrender of Dublin and all other Garrisons under his Command into the Parliaments hands p. 5. An account of his being a Member of the House of Commons in England and of the great Figure he afterward made in the King's Restoration ib. Reflections on the Popular Envy against the Power of a Primier Ministre ib. and p. 6 7 8. Remarks on the Saying applied in a Speech of one of the House of Commons against the Earl of Strafford viz. That Beasts of Prey are to have no Law ib. Reflections on the rigour and injustice of the House of Commons in their Proceedings against the Earl of Strafford p 9. The Usurpers declared that tho they judged the Rebellion in Ireland almost national that it was not their intention to extirpate the whole Irish Nation p. 10. The Author owneth his having observed the Piety and Charity of several Papists p. 11. The Author supposeth that since all Religions have a Priesthood that some Priests were allowed by the Vsurpers to the transplanted Irish p. 13. An account of the Privileges the Papists enjoyed in Ireland before the beginning of the Rebellion there and of the favour they enjoyed in England before the Gun-powder Treason p. 14. Observations on the Pope's Decree March the 2d 1679. Condemning some opinions of the Jesuites and other Casuists in Pages 15 41 50 51 52 53 201. The great goodness of the Earl of Anglesy's nature observed and particularly his often running hazard to save those who were sinking in the favour of the Court p. 16. The Authors observation of the effects of the hot Statutes against Popery and Papists in Queen Elizabeth 's and King Iames his time shortly ceasing ib. The Authors Iudgment that a perfect hatred to Popery may consist with a perfect love to Papists p. 19. He expresseth his having no regret against any due relaxation of any Penal Laws against Popish Recusants p. 20. An account of the Earl of Anglesy and others of the Long Parliament crushing the Jure-Divinity of Presbytery in the Egg p. 29 30. The out-rage of the Scots Presbyterian Government observed p. 29 The People of England did hate and scorn its Yoke in the time of our late Civil Wars ib. Remarks concerning infamous Witnesses and their credibility after Pardon of Perjury or after Crimes and Infamy incurred p. 33 34 35. at large and p. 204 205. The incredibility of the things sworn in an Affidavit by such a Witness against his Lordship p. 35 36. The Principle in Guymenius p. 190. Ex tractatu de justitiâ jure censured viz. licitum est Clerico vel Religioso calumniatorem gravia crimina de se vel de suâ Religione spargere minantem occidere c. p. 37. Cardinal D' Ossats Letters very falsly and ridicâ—lously cited by an English Priest of the Church of Rome for relating that the Gunpowder Treason Plot was a sham of Cecils contrivance p 38. Father Parsons one of the greatest Men the Jesuites Order hath produced p. 40. D' Ossat in his Letters observed to have given a more perfect Scheme of the whole design to hinder King Iames his Succession then all other Writers have done ib. Observations on the Author of the Catholick Apology with a reply c speaking of his not believing that Doleman's Book of the Succession was writ by Father Parsons and that Parsons at his death denied that he was the Author of it and on Cardinal D' Ossat in his Letters averring that Parsons was Reverâ the Author of it and that Parsons made application to him in order to the defeating King James his Succession unless he would turn Catholick p. 41. D' Ossat's observing that Parsons in that Book doth often and grossly contradict himself ib. D' Ossat's commending our English Understandings for so soon receiving King Jame and so peaceably after the death of Queen Elizabeth ib. The Author grants that Papists may be sound parts of the State here as they are by Sir William Temple in his Book observed to be in Holland p. 44. The vanity of some Papists designing to raise their Interest by Calumny and Shamm ib. The Pope's said Decree of the 2d of March accuseth the Jesuites and other Casuists of making Calumny a Venial sin p. 45. The nature of a Venial sin explained ib. The Jesuites Moral Divinity patronizing Calumny is likely to be fatal to their Order p. 47. 49. The
Author's opinion that they can never recover the wounds given them by the publication of the les Provinciales c. ib. and that much less those given them by the Popes said Decree p. 50 51. Observations on that Notion of Moasieur Descartes and Mr. Hobbs That the faculties of the mind are equally dispensed and on the natural effects of that Notion p. 58. The Author remarks some Shamms and Calumnies used by some Protestants and their contending with Papists therein p. 59. An Antidote mentioned for Papists and Protestants to carry about with them in this Pestilential time of Shamms ib. A vile Shamm or Calumny used against Papists as if they intended to burn the Town of Stafford and other great Towns is referred to in one of Janeway's printed Intelligences p. 60. Animadversions on Parsons his Book of the Succession p. 60 61. 'T is for the honour of the Roman Catholick Religion observed that Harry the 4th of France after he turned Papist continued kind and just to his Protestant Subjects notwithstanding the Popes endeavours to the contrary p. 62. The Authors grand Assertion viz. That whatever alterations time can cause yet humanly speaking while the English Nation remains entire and defended from Foreign Conquest the Protestant Religion can never be exterminated out of this Kingdom p. 64. Mr. Hooker's Propliecy of the hazard of Religion and the service of God in England being an ill State after the Year 1677 p. 65. The defections of the ten Tribes from the time of David punished by a Succession of 10 ill Kings p. 66. The words in Hosea I gave thee a King in mine anger falsly made by Antimonarchical Scriblers to refer to Saul ib. Dr. Stillingfleet's Sermon cited about the uncertainty of what the fermentations among us may end in ib. Dr. Sprat's opinion cited That whatever vicissitude shall happen about Religion in our time will neither be to the advantage of Implicit Faith or Enthusiasm p. 67. Historical Oâ—servations relating to the Papacy from p. 67 to p. 77. The Papal Power formerly pernicious to the external Polity and Grandeur of England p. 77 78. Queen Elizabeth said by Townsend to have spent a Million of Money in her Wars with Spain and laid out 100000 l. to support the King of France and 150000 l. in defence of the Low Country and to have discharged a Debt of 4 Millions She found the Crown indebted in ib. How by her Alliances She laid the Foundation of the vast ensuing Trade of England whose over-balance brought in afterward so much Silver to be Coyn'd in the Tower of London p. 78. The Sums Coyn'd there from the 41 st year of her Reign to May 1657 ib. England alone till the Peace of Munster in the year 1648 enjoyed almost the whole Manufacture and best part of the Trade of Europe by virtue of her Alliances ib. The same Month of January in the year 48 produced the signing of that Peace and the Martyrdom of the best of Kings and the fatal diminution of our Trade ib. Queen Elizabeth had what praemium of Taxes from Parliaments She pleased ib. King James told the Parliament Anno 1620 that She had one year with another 100,000 l. in Subsidies and that he had in all his time but 4 Subsidies and 6 Fifteenths and that his Parliament had not given him any thing for 8 or 9 years ib. In Harry the 3 d's time the Pope's Revenue in England was greater than the Kings and in 3 years time the Pope extorted more Money from England than was left remaining in it ib. In Edward the 3 d's time the Taxes paâ—d to the Pope for Ecclesiastical Dignities amounted to five times as much as the People payed to the King p. 79. By a Balance of Trade then in the Exchecquer it appeared that the Sum of the over-plus of the Exports above the Imports amounted to 255214 l. 13 s. 8d ib. Wolsey's Revenue generally held equal to Harry the 8 th's ib. Why the Pope never sent Emissaries to Denmark and Sweden and some other Northern Countries for Money and why probably in no course of time that can happen he will send any to England on that Errand ib. and p. 80. In the 4 th year of Richard the 2 d the Clergy confessed they had a 3 d part of the Revenue of the Kingdom and therefore then consented to pay a 3 d of the Taxes ib. Bishop Sanderson mentions the Monastick Revenue to be half the Revenue of the Kingdom ib. The not providing for the augmentations of the poorer livings in England observed to be a Scandal to the Reformation p. 81. Of 8000 and odd Parish Churches in Queen Elizabeth's time but 600 were observed to afford a competent maintenance to a Minister and four thousand five hundred Livings then not worth above 10 l. a year in the Kings Books ib. During the late Vsurpation the Impropriate Tithes saved the other ib. A Million of Pounds Sterling commonly observed to accrue to the Popes per Annum from Indulgencies p. 87. An account of the Compact between some of the most eminent Presbyterian Divines and the long Parliament by which the Parliament was obliged to settle on the Ministry all the Church Lands and those Divines engaged to promote the Parliaments Cause and of the result thereof p. 88. Observations on the Calculations of the Monastick Revenue made in the year 1527 by Mr. Simon Fish in his Book called The supplication of Beggars and which Calculations were much valued by Harry the 8 th p. 90 91. Not only none of our Monkish Historians but even of our polished and ingenious ones made any Estimates of the Numbers of the People in the times they writ of ib. A Calculation of the Number of Religious Persons or Regulars in England at the time of the Dissolution of Monasteries p. 92. A Calculation of the Numbers of Seculars as well as Regulars that then lived in Celebacy ib. The Author's Calculation of the Number of the Levites and of their Quota of the Profits of the Land p. 93. A Calculation of the Ebb of the Coynage of England from May 1657 to November 1675 p. 102. A particular Account of Cromwel the Vsurpers depressing the Trade of the European World p. 103. The Kings of Spain impose Pensions on Ecclesâ—astical Preferments to the 4th part of the value p. 104. The proportion of Papists and Non-Papists by the Bishops Survey in the Year 1676 is 150 Non-Papists for one Papist ib. The People in the Province of Holland reckoned to be 2 Millions 4 hundred thousand ib. The People in Flanders in the Year 1622 reckoned to be 700,000 p. 105. Amsterdam in the Year 1650 reckoned to have in it 300000 Souls ib. An Account of what the Inhabitants of Holland in the Year 1664 did over and above the Customs and other Demesnes of the Earls and States of Holland pay toward the publick Charge namely to the States of Holland to the Admiralty of the Maze to the Admiralty of
part of its Patrimony Queen Elizabeth alienated to secure the Protestant Religion ib. The fears of Popery further Censured p. 198. Ridly and Latimer Prophesied at the Stake that Protestancy would never be extinguished in England p. 198. Roger Holland prophesied at the Stake at Smithfield that he should be the last that should there suffer Martyrdom ib. Observations on the Natural Prophesying of dying men and its effects p. 199. The Vanity of Mens troubling the World by Suppositions ib. and p. 200. 'T is a degree of madness to trouble it by putting wanton impossible cases p. 200. The Author without any thing of the Fire of Prophecy and only by the light of reason presageth that the excessive fear of Popery as weâ—l as its danger will here be exterminated ib. The justice of the Claim of King Charles the first to the Title of Martyr asserted p. 201 202 203. The Author judgeth that some vile Nominal Protestants by the publication of many Seditious Pamphlets have given the Government a just Alarm of their designs against it p. 203. Of Papists and Protestants being Antagonists in Shamms p. 204. Mr. Nye cited for representing the Dissenters acted by the Jesuites in thinking it unlawful to hear the Sermons of the Divines of the Church of England p. 204. False Witnesses among the Jews allowed against false Prophets p. 205. The Earl of Anglesy's Courage and Iustice asserted in the professing in the House of Lords his disbelief of such an Irish Plot as was sworn by the Witnesses tho the belief of the reallity of such a Plot had obtained the Vote of every one else in both Houses ib. Above 2000 Irish Papists in the Barony of Enishoan demean'd themselves civilly to the English during the whole Course of the Rebellion ib. Several eminent ingenious Papists in England and Foreign parts celebrated for their avowed Candour to Protestants p. 206 207 208 c. D' Ossat's acquainting the Pope That if his Holyness were King of France he would show the same kindness to the Huguenots that Harry the 4th did p. 208. Cromwel being necessitated to keep the Interest of the Kingdom divided was likewise necessitated to keep up all Religions according to the Politicks of Julian p. 211. Of the Papists calling King James Julian ib. The Author inveigheth against the Calumny of any Protestants who call any one Apostate for the alteration of his Iudgment in some controvertible points of Faith between Papists and Protestants ib. The Author's Reason why 't is foolish to fear that any Rightful Prince of the Roman Catholick perswasion that can come here will follow the Politicks of Julian ib. 'T is shewn that any Protestant Vsurper here must act à la Julian ib. The Vsurper Cromwel shewn to be a Fautor of Priests and Jesuites by the Attestations of Mr. Prynn and the Lord Hollis p. 212 213. The danger of Popery that would have ensued Lambert's Vsurpation p. 213 214. How true soever any Vsurpers Religion is he must be false to the Interest of the Kingdom p. 214. Observed that the Kings long Parliament by the Act for the Test did enjoyn the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to be taken ib. Those Oaths lay on the Takers an Obligation to the Kings Heirs and Successors without any distinction of the Religion true or pretended of such Heirs and Successors ib. Mr. Prynn's Book called Concordia discors printed Anno 1659 to prove the Obligation by those Oâ—hs to the King's Heirs and Successors commended ib. The Author mentions the Reasons that induced him to write Casuistically concerning such Obligation and promiseth to send that his Writing to his Lordship ib. The Author judgeth that he ought not to be severe to any Papist before he hath a Moral certainty of such Papists having imbibed any of the Principles imputable to Pâ—pery that is unmoral or inhumane ib. The Author observes that few or no Writers of the Church of Rome have lately thought fit by their Pens to assert the Inheritable Right of Princes without respect to any Religionary Tenets they may hold p. 215. The Author thinks that for a Protestant at this time to write for the devesting any Roman Catholick Prince of his Property and Right of Succession when few or no Writers of the Church of Rome either do or dare for fear of offending the Pope employ their Pens for the preservation of such his property and right without respect to to any Religionary Tenets he may hold is like drawing against a naked man ib. D' Ossat affirms That the Pope and the whole Court of Rome hold it lawful to deprive a Prince of any Country to preserve it from Heresie ib. An Animadversion on a late Pamphlet concerning the Succession ib. Reflections on the House of Commons Proceedings in the Exclusion Bill ib. and p. 216. The Author gives an explanatory account of the tempus acceptabile he in p. 25 mentions p. 216. His Majesty's constant contending for the Protestant Faith celebrated and likewise his Iustice in preserving the property of the Succession in the Legal Course by all his Messages to the Parliament p. 217. The unhappy State of that Prince who shall for fear of the Populace do any Act of the Iustice whereof he doubts and much more of the injustice whereof he is fully convinced p. 217. at large The Caution to the Angel of the Church of Philadelphia applied to such a Prince viz. Hold fast that which thou hast that no man take away thy Crown ib. at large 'T is not only Popery but Atheism in Masquerade to do an unjust Act to support Religion p. 218. King James disavowed the Act of his Son-in Laws accepting the Title of King of Bohemia ib. An Observation that in the Common-Prayer in King Charles the 1 sts time relating to the Royal Family the Prayer runneth for Frederick Prince Palatâ—ine Elector of the Rhine and the Lady Elizabeth his Wife ib. The Author observes that in the Assembly's Directory the Lady Elizabeth is styled Queen of Bohemia p. 219. An Account of the Governments avowed sence in King James's time that any of the Princes of England ought not by becoming Roman Catholick to be prejudiced in their Right of Succession to the Crown ib. The same sense of the Government in the time of King Charles the 1 st ib. The Parliament during the Civil War projected not any prejudice to the right of Succession on the account of any Religionary Tenets p. 220. Mention of somewhat more to confirm the claim of King Charles the 1 st to the Title of Martyr beside his Adhesion to Episcopacy and its Revenue ib. An account of the Protestation of the Nonconforming Ministers in the year 1605 relating to the King's Supremacy wherein they assert the Royal Authority inseparably fixt to the true Line whatever Religion any Prince thereof may profess p. 221. The Author peâ—stringeth the Protestant would be 's and new Statists of the Age that would for Religionary Tenets barr any of the
Religion of the Church of England hath naturally pierced through the sides and roots of Protestant Recusancy ib. The numbers of the Non Conformists are daily decaying ib. There were in the Year 1593 judged to be in England 20000 Brownists ib. The Gross of the Numbers of Non-Conformists always consisting chiefly of Artisans and Retail-Traders in Corporations p. 281. They were very numerous there before the King's Restoration ib. A new way by which their Numbers and Potency may easily there be diminished ib. The Author judgeth the continuance of the old Laws against Protestant Recusants to be necessary p. 282. The Lord Keeper Puckerings Speech of the ill behaviour of the Puritans in 88 referred to ib. The prudence and justice of the King's Measures asserted as to the not repealing the Statutes against Protestant Recusants ib. The Peace of Munster observed to have removed the popular fears abroad in Case of the Successions of lawful Princes differing in Iudgment from the Religion Established p. 283. The Author of the Catholick Apology with a Reply cited for there not being one Priest one Mass one Conversion more in England in the year after the Declaration of Indulgence then in any year of trouble p. 284. The Author mentioneth the soft and gentle disposition of Bellarmine p. 284. The Authors reflecting on the Principles of the Iesuites with sharpness as the Pope and his Court of Inquisition have done ib. The Author disowneth all acerbity and rancour relating to the usage of any Papists ib. He observes that the putting Roman Catholick Priests here to death did propagate their Religion ib. The Author observes that an English Priest of the Church of Rome hath done him the honour to adopt as his own many passages of the Authors long since printed that were disswasive of the use of force in matters of Religion p. 284. Observed that if it be not lawful for every man to be guided by his private judgment in matters of Religion 't is hardly possible to acquit our separation from the Church of Rome of the guilt of Schism ib. The Author not inclined to be severe to any Papist for being in any Tenets that may properly be called Religion guided by his private judgment to receive the guidance of the Church of Rome ib. The Custom of Authors of large Discourses publishing together with them a REVIEW ib. He promiseth to the Earl of Anglesy a REVIEW of this Discoursâ— p. 285. The Author will in a short REVIEW explain some passages on occasion and add others ib. If he doubts of any thing or shall alter his opinion of any thing therein he will in the REVIEW acquaint his Lordship why he doth so ib. The Author thinks that as none but Cowards are cruel so none but Dunâ—es are positive ib. C2 R DIEV·ET·MON·DROIT HONI·SOIT·QVI·MAL·Y·PENSE Devon Jan. 27. 1680. My Lord AS to the Candour of the English Nation that was formerly so very extraordinary and the whiteness and sweetness of the temper of the People of England that did adde to the representing it a Land flowing with Milk and Honey and to the making it like the Galaxy to have one brightness from thousands of fixt Stars placed so high by Nature that they could not suffer the least Eclipse by the shaddow of the whole Earth we may well since the Publishing of the horrid Affidavit of the Infamous Person and so many valuing themselves as the best of Men upon their believing what was sworn by the worst lament the temporary decay of so great a part of the Glory of the English good Nature And they who knew your Lordship and consequently knew you to be a steadfast approver of the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England have reason more particularly to be sensible of what concern'd you in that calumnious Affidavit because the wretch presumed therein to fasten on your Lordship the Sanbenito of a Court of Rome Papist and to represent you as a favourer of Popery or the Papal Usurpations that were in Harry the 8th's time hence exterminated and as an endeavorer to stifle the Evidence about the Plot notify'd by the Government for the recalling that kind of Popery Altho I know no Christian more tenderly inclined then your Lordship to shew all Christian Indulgence to the Persons of Popish and Protestant Recusants and have sometimes observed your Lordship while you were wishing that none of the New Articles of Faith in the Tridentine Creed were by any believed yet out of tenderness to the Persons of Devout and Loyal Papists with great reason to wish likewise that no Odium might come to such from the Name of POPERY for their Profession of such Tenets as are held by the Greek and other Churches who yearly Curse the Pope and are so Curs'd by him yet none need doubt but that your Lordship will as much as any man account it the opus diei by all due means to oppose all plotted Designs whatsoever to retrive the Papal Power of Usurping over the Crown or Conscience My Lord there are some among us who would usurp on and appropriate to themselves the Name and Thing of Protestancy and would be thought the only true Protestants and would be Monopolists of all the heat and light against Popery But as I shall make bold to come in for my share with them so I shall yet acquaint your Lordship that if I may in any part of this Letter to you seem with any excess of Passion to reflect on Popery I shall before I take leave of you afford you such a Patriotly and Gentlemanly reason of my warmth against it as I think hath not by others been given nor particularly by some Pedantick Anti-Papists who render their Conversation nauseous by their eternal talking of nothing but Popery and while they are neglectful of all the due means to prevent its growth These things being therefore premised I shall in despite of the Affidavit say that I will be the last man in England who shall believe that my Lord Privy Seal can be such a Court of Rome-Papist I think it was St. Augustine who meaning well in a pang of Zeal cry'd out on one occasion Credo quia impossibile est But I shall both as to the truth of any deposing or imposing Doctrine and of your Lordships believing it ground my disbelief on the impossibility of either When I hear men say they look upon it as an exerting of a miraculous Power Divine that the Globe of the Earth hangs in the Air without falling I interrupt not their thoughts of devotion but know that the Earth which is ballanced by its own weight cannot fall but it must fall into Heaven Coelum undique sursum And should any one tell me of your Lordships falling into any gross erroneous doctrinal opinions I who have long observed the constant tendency of your understanding toward the Center of truth cannot apprehend any danger of your falling from it So likewise when I hear men impute it
is for Arbitrary Power they will say a Papist And in cases where the people do not think fit to begin with Execution Common Fame goes for proof against such a Minister and the political whispers of other Great Men who inspire them goe for demonstrations and they think knocking down Arbitrary Power with Arbitrary proof is a good baculiâ—um argumentum ad hominem or rather a Monster of power for as such they look on one of the People who is so by the head higher then themselves I know none to have observed the constitution and customes of the Government of Venice better then your Lordship and there any one that is but Arbitrarily affected as our term is here Popishly affected is taken volly before he comes to the ground or at furthest at his first rebound and his head made a Tennis Ball before he comes to be bandi'd among the people I mean he is first Sumonarily dispatcht or made away and his plenary process is dispatcht or made up afterward Your Lordship hath in the course of your travels been there in person but my eyes have only beheld it as a traveller in Mapps and Authors one of whom namely Boccaline in his Raggnagli di Parnasse Speaking of Venice saith that the dreadful Tribunal of the Councel of ten and the Supream Magistracy of the State-Inquisition could with three ballotting balls easily bury alive any Caesar or Pompey who began to discover himself in that well governed State. And according to the Lawes of that Country any aspirer of the first rate so sunk by the shot of the ballotting balls may be said to be kill'd very fairly though there was no more Citation in the case then in that of the Martyrdom of Sir Edmond Godfrey who yet according to the principles of the Canon Law was likewise killed very fairly I here allude to the Style of the brothers of the blade who when sworn at a Tryal about one murthered in a Duel usually depose that he was killed very fairly And indeed I have by a Neighbour of mine who is a Civilian been shewn it in a Civil Law Book called the Second Tome of the Common Opinions in folio Book 9. p. 462. Printed at Lions that Rebellis impunè occidi possit tunc demum probari declarari quod erat rebellis And the Canonists do as I am informed by him all agree that valet argumentum à crimine laesae Majestatis seâ— rebellionis ad heresim and with good reason according to the Popish hypothesis for that he that is a heretic is a Rebell or Traytor to the Pope and therefore a Heretic by that Law may be destroyed before his Process is made But the Kings of England like those of Israel are merciful Kings and in the Laws of England Iustice and Mercy are still saluting each other and with as much kindness as they can possibly shew without embracing each other to death and the meanest Commoners Life in England becomes not a forfeit to the Law but after a Tryal by his equals and in this our Law agrees with that gentleness and equity inculcated by Grotius de Iure Belli Pacis Book 3. Chap. 14. Temperamentum circa captos § 3. where he saith Cato Censorius narrante Plutarcho si quis servus Capital admisisse videretur de eo supplicium non sumebat nisi postquam damnatus esset etiam Conservorum judicio Quicum conferenda verba Iob. 31. 13. I must confess I was very much shock't with one expression used in a long Speech by one of the managers of the House of Commons in the Trial of the Earl of Strafford wherein the saying That Beasts of Prey are to have no Law was applyed to the Earl. I am sure that Wolfs and Boars are Beasts of the Forrest as well as Harts and Hinds and in the Kings Forrests where they are in his protection they are to have Law and so likewise Foxes To this Metaphor of hunting of men in Parliament there is an allusion in the printed Letter of Mr. Alured in Rushworths Collections 4 o. Caroli where 't is said That Sir Edward Cooke in the House protested that the Author and cause of all their miseries was the Duke of Buckingham which was entertain'd and answered with a cheerful acclamation of the House as when one good Hound recovers the scent the rest come in with a full cry So they pursued it and every one came on home and layed the blame where they thought the fault was But yet by this saying of Alured it seems they thought they were to give him Law and 't is a brutish thing to suppose that wild predatory Beasts have in the Kings Forrests more protection and more exemption from being arbitrarily hunted down than his Liege people to whom he is sworn have in the whole Realm in general and in his Courts of Justice in particular That time seemed not so much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But your Lordships knowledg in the Laws of the Land and in the Laws of Nations is so universal and profound that you can come to no Court in the World but will either find Law there or bring it and your great knowledg of the Parliamentary Transactions in all past Ages cannot but secure you against any apprehensions of not finding Law. For it hath been rarely seen that a House of Commons has gone to hunt any man down tho with the Law that was not a Nimrod a Mighty hunter of our Laws themselves and never was the House of Peers thought a Court of Rigor and Cruelty and as the Tribunal of Cassius was for its dire severity called Scopulus Reorum In the end of the famous Tryal of the Earl of Strafford the House of Commons foresaw that the Lords would acquit him and therefore they broke up the Judicial prosecution against him and proceeded by Bill of Attainder and shortly after broke in pieces on his Grave the Rule and Standard of Treason they proceeded by as Heralds break their Staffs at the Funerals of Illustrious Persons and cast them into their Tombes Had I been one of that Lords Judges I should have consented that after he had been hunted so long by the Prosecution for Treason and was not Judicially convicted of it he should have had the priviledg of a Hart-Royal proclaimed of which Manwood in his Forrest Law speaking saith That if the King doth hunt a Stag he is called a Hart-Royal and that if he doth hunt a Hart in the Forrest which by chacing is driven out and the King gives him over as either being weary or for that he cannot recover him then because such a Hart hath shewn the King pastime and is also Cervus eximius and that therefore the King would have him preserved he causeth Proclamation to be made in the adjacent Villages that none shall kill hunt hurt or chace him and hinder him from his return to the Forrest and ever after such a Hart is called a Hart-Royal proclaimed But
I think that an eximious man impeacht in Parliament and there acquitted will need no Herald to proclaim his worth nor his deserving to be restored in integrum to the Royal Protection and Favour when that his own works have praised him in the gates that is in the Jurisdiction where they were so strictly scann'd My Lord if any could prove your Lordship to be a Papist he need not call that accumulative Treason in you nor need he go about by torturing the Law to make it confess many Felonies to be one Treason many Rapes to be one false coming But Popery in you would be plain down-right palpable and rank Treason by vertue of the Statute of 23 of Elizabeth Ch. 1. which makes it High Treason for any person in the Dominions of the Crown of England to be withdrawn from the Religion then established to the Romish Religion That your Lordship hath been bred a Protestant and been so as it were ex traduce there needs no other evidence then the contents of this Letter and that you have not been withdrawn to the Romish Religion you have declared by the Series of your actings against it that shew your Mind beyond the power of words and 't is by the help of that great Wisdom God has given you that our English World expects that a way may be found how to make it more clearly appear to the eye of the Law when any others have been or are withdrawn to the Romish Religion a thing perhaps at present of somewhat difficult proof For without supposing that the Pope can or will give them dispensations to take all Oaths and Tests that can be devised doth not a reserving some fantastic sense to themselves make nonsense of all Oaths and that one word Equivocation make them proof against all other words Doth not that with them sanctify or at least justify all other words they can use May they not on these terms safely swear there is neither God nor Man nor Hell nor Devil that is meaning not in a Mathematical point or in Vtopia and that they saw not such a Man such a day that is not with the eyes of a Whale And have not the late dying Speeches of some of these Imposters and particularly Father Irelands shewn us that in the points of mental reservation and equivocation they persevere in the impudent owning of that which would unhinge the World and turn humane Society into a dissolute multitude And do we not believe many to be Papists who we know have taken the Oaths and Tests Hath not a Papist some Years since writ of the lawfulness of the taking of the Oath of Supremacy I speak not this my Lord to derogate from the Wisdom of our Ancestors that appointed these discriminations nations and do think that when we have used all the lawful means we can to know who among us are Papists as certainly as we do what is Popery and to keep Papists from hurting us and themselves we ought to acquiesce in the Results of the Providence of God. But what all those means are tho I know not yet I am apt to believe that your Lordships comprehensive knowledg of men and things and of the true interest of the Kingdom hath qualified you to tell your Royal Master and His Houses of Parliament nor do I believe that the difficulty of either finding out such means and making practicable things be practised will blunt but rather whet the edg of your Industry in this case as being of Quintilians mind who Judged that there was Turpitude in despairing of any thing that could be done I think his words are Turpiter desperatur quicquid fieri potest â—Tis certainly the interest of the King and Kingdom that the numbers of the Papists here and especially of those withdrawn from Protestancy to the Church of Rome should be known in the case of which Apostates tho it be impossible without seizing on the Papers and Archives of one certain Priest to see the Original Acts of their Recantation of Protestancy yet is it most certain and on all hands confessedly true that Eminent Overt-Acts of abhorrency of Protestantisme are alwayes required at the admitting one who was of that Religion into the bosome of the Roman Catholic Church which any one will be convinced of who reads the Letter of Cardinal D'Ossat to Villeroy of the 20 th of Octob. 1603. from Rome where he gives his Opinion against the Queen of England being made Godmother at the Baptism of Madam That Cardinal who had incomparable skill in the Canon Law and the knowledg of all the Customs of the Papal See and who had lived at Rome above 20 Years saith in that Letter I account it my duty to write to you freely that that cannot be done without very great Scandal to good Catholicks nor without the extream displeasure and offence of the Pope You presuppose that the Queen of England is a Catholic but Here we know the contrary tho some believe that she is not of the worser sort of Heretics and that she has some inclination to the Catholic Religion And I will tell you moreover that tho she were in her heart of the Catholic Apostolic and Roman Religion as much as the Pope himself so it is that she having been bred up in Heresie and outwardly persisting in it as she doth she cannot according to the Canons be held for a Catholic in public acts of Religion till she hath first both viva voce and by writing under her hand abjured all Heresie and made profession of the Catholic Faith. Nor was it ever known that in the case of any Protestants Apostacy to the Church of Rome any Pope ever dispensed with those Canons and therefore it may well hence be inferr'd That if evidence just so much as the Law requires as to such Apostacy be given that no superpondium or proof of overt-acts more then necessary ought to be expected for that overt Acts almost impossible to be proved may yet necessarily be presumed but this by the way And therefore now further my Lord if fas est ab hoste doceri be adviseable in the case as strict Circumstances may be required in the conversion of Papists to our Church as are in the withdrawing of any from our Church to theirs Indeed if I were a Member of Parliament and any one there should be so happy as to invent a way and propound it whereby the present Lay-Papists in England might let us have a Moral Certainty that they neither consented to nor concealed the late Plot and likewise that they did really detest all those desperate Popish Principles that are fundamentally destructive to the Safety of the King and Kingdom and that they would harbour no Priests born in the Kings Dominions nor send any of their Children to be bred in Forrain Seminaries and on the contrary that on occasion they would discover to a Magistrate any such Priest or one who sent his Children to such Seminary
defensive arms to hurtful animals by whom they often Suffered and sometimes by their very Shepherds who in Sheering them would cut their Skins Apollo told them that no Beasts were so much the Favorites of him and of men as they for that whereas others with great anxiety were forced in the Night the time of rest and sleep to seek their Food that they could not do with safety in the day Men the Lords of the Earth bought at dear rates pasture grounds for Sheep and that tho men did make Nets feed Dogs and lay snares for hurtful Beasts they employed Shepherds and Dogs to guard Sheep and that no Shepherds could deal ill with their Flocks without being chiefly cruel to themselves and that therefore their security lay in not being able to fright their Shepherds Thus every one is naturally abhorr'd who attacks a Naked man and from such a one Lions themselves either through fear or generosity have made their Retreat The holy Writ affords us a memorable Instance of the Divine displeasure in the 38 th of Ezekiels Prophesie against Gog and Magog who are there branded as the Invaders of a defensless City 'T is there mention'd in v. 10 th and 11 th Thus saith the Lord God it shall also come to pass that at the same time shall things come into thy mind and thou shalt think an evil thought and v. 11 th And thou shalt say I will go up to the Land of unwalled Villages I will go to them that are at rest that dwell safely all of them dwelling without walls and having neither Bars nor Gates and in v. 12 th to take a spoil and to take a prey to turn thy hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited and upon the people that are gather'd out of the Nations which have gotten Cattel and goods that dwell in the MIDST or navel of the land But it then follows v. 14. Therefore Son of man Prophecy and say unto Gog Thus saith the Lord God in that day when my people of Israel dwells safely shalt thou not know it that is thou shalt know it to thy sorrow and by thy bitter experience of my wrath what it is to disturb my harmless and quiet people in the World. The Comparing of the following 16 th and 18 th v. shew this to be the meaning of v. 14 th And I believe if any of the people of Gog and Magog were allowed by the Law to live apart by themselves they might in any defenceless City be as secure from danger or fear of the Protestant Israel as they pleased It hath been well observed by a great Enquirer into humane Nature That a restless desire of power after power that ceaseth only in death is a general inclination of all mankind and the cause of this is not alwaies that a man hopes for a more intensive delight then he has already attained to or that he cannot be content with a moderate power but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well which he hath present without the acquisition of more And from hence it is that Kings whose power is greatest turn their endeavours to the Assuring it at home by Laws or abroad by Warrs But as much as it is the inclination of the unthinking or brutish part of Mankind that power should be like the Crocodile alwaies growing the soberer few do know that power will destroy it self if it shall be still ascending and hath not a Center wherein to rest and be quiet just as fire would perish in nature and destroy it self if there were not an Element allow'd it wherein to leave burning And that therefore Augustus wisely designed a Law de cohibendis imperii finibus And that the experience of Antient and Modern times hath taught the teachable part of mankind That great Empires have sunk under their weight and have lost the length of their power by the widening it and that Kings whose power is greatest as was said sometimes turn their endeavours to the Assureing it at home by Laws which by giving it some bound are like letters about the edges of our coyn Decus tutamen to it the which makes it so Sacred that 't would be both Treasonable and Ridiculous to clip it and that as the Bees by their King have given the world an instance in Nature of Kingly power so they have likewise another of Kings governing by the power of Laws 'T is a common observation That tho Bees are little angry fighting Creatures upon occasion and leave their stings in the wounds they make Rex tamen apum sine aculeo est the King of the Bees is without any sting and the curious work of the Hive goes on with a great deal of Geometry and idle Drones are thence as it were legally expel'd who would there invade property Nor need the King of the Bees say the Naturalists have a sting for the whole Hive defends and guards him as thinking that they are all to perish if their King be destroyed And this would be the case of the Papists if they would be content so to part with the sting of their Power that it could not hurt either King or Kingdom and might not come to lose it self by so doing they would have the Posse of every County to defend them they would have the Laws and the whole Hive of English men to guard them the very Anger of the Protestants would be a defensive Wall of Fire round about them 'T is true that wild Animals are by their constant fears of danger habituated to more cunning then Tame ones of the same species but all their little cunning renders them not so safe as the great wisdom protection of the Law doth the other and ranging and out-lying Deer thrive not so well as those that are in the Forrests And here it falls in my way to observe that the Kings cautioning by the Law of the Forrests that the Mastiffs shall have the Power took from them of hurting the Deer may well insinuate into us the reason and equity of all our Laws that hinder its being in the power of a man to be a Wolf to another and of the Power inherent by the Law of Nature in all Soveraign Princes to restrain any undue Power of Subjects from violating the Public peace As the Law of God and Nature command both Iustice and Mercy to be shewn to Beasts so doth the Law of England provide that any mans person and Estate should be seized into the Kings hands in case of some wild cruelty to his Beasts for he would appear in the eye of the Law an Idiot or a Lunatic that should put his Horses or Asses to the Sword. That which I mention'd of the Laws providing that the Mastiffs of any Inhabitants in Forrests shall not have Power to hurt the Deer is called by the Forrest Law Lawing of Mastiffs or the Expeditating them that is the three Claws of their Fore-foot to the Skin
Matthew for the building of theirs But this by the way And now putting the Question who are to be loved best either the Popish Priest and Levite that help'd to wound Ireland formerly when it fell among Thieves and Rebels or those compassionate Samaritans who put it on their own Beast and poured Oyl into its Wounds and took care of it till it was restored to its true Owner I suppose a Protestant will say the latter and will account that no fire should be called to fall on the heads of such hospitable Samaritans and that others should be spared who instead of powring Oyl into our Wounds did it into our flames when they burnt our Citie Your Lordship hath shewn your self a compassionate Samaritan to Two Kingdoms to which your healiâ—g principles and practices have been beneficial and in this you have out done him in the Parable who did not stay to see the effects of the gentle Medicaments of Oyl and Wine he bestowed on his Patient's Wounds but your Lordships long attendance on the affairs of the Public brought you to see the Languishing Kingdom revived and to have at once both its Head and Senses restored when Providence made our Sovereign to be his repenting Peoples choice But my Lord these Kingdoms have not yet done with your Skill and may have Wounds that require your Wine and Oyl the Lyons Heart and Ladies Hand I mean such Tenderness and such Courage and so great Judgment as you have formerly shewn A Raging Acute Disease that hath been long not only besieging but storming a mans vital parts and with extream difficulty at the long run repell'd by Nature doth yet commonly leave such dregs in his spirits that depress and enfeeble them in the remainder of Life and a man come to himself after a long madness labours still under a dejection of his spirits both by grief and shame thinking of the arrear that he is in to God the World and himself by his former madness and this is the present state of England after its former state of distraction and men with shame now look on their former Physitians and some are apt with that Merry Mad-man in the Poet to be angry with those that took pains about their being cured 'T is true indeed the Kings Restoration cured us of our Civil Wars yet may a man be cured of his Wounds and afterward dye of the Feaver his Wound put him into and our condition is such that 't is some degree of Heavens Mercy to us that our Feaver is continuing for no man can dye in a Feaver as no man can dye without one And our spirits are so sunk under the weight of the Disease we have long languisht under that our Stomach cannot endure any Cordials or especially the same long certainly that strong Physic that would at first have cured us would now kill us Yet now in this conjuncture several of our Political Physitians seem by their retirement to have given us over as if they were of Hippocrates his mind who said that a Physitian should not discredit his generous Medicaments by employing them on a desperate Patient Methinks 't is pity that any of our Pilots should quit the Helm in a Storm and that they should not as Cicero's expression is Sententiam tanquam aliquod navigium ex Reip. tempestate moderari Those words in Prov. 1. A man of understanding shall attain to wise Councels some read Vir saepiens gubernacula possidebit I presume not to Censure any man but I hope that no cross Winds will ever make your Lordship leave the Helm but rather invite the continuance of your Skill in beating and tiding it out as the Sea phrase is and in not overshooting the Port. Your pacific Genius and great Wisdom have in several angry conjunctures produced an unexpected calm by your offering unexpected Expedients a Talent that is indeed very rare and conducive to the quiet of the World as leading Potent Parties from their declared Opinions without the shame of a seeming retreat It happens still in Navigation that what makes the Passenger merriest makes the Steers-man most thoughtful Namely the sight of Land And therefore tho I and others who make no figures in the government of the Kingdom seem to be glad at our sight of land that is the extermination of Popery from England after we have been so long nauseated and Sea-sick with it yet 't is now our occasion for the skill of such a Pilot as your Lordship is greatest when we are endanger'd by some Protestants of narrow Spirits and Principles as by Shelfes or brevia syrtes shallow waters and by little Rocks or breaker's just covered with water and which are only to be discovered by the swelling roughness of the water they occasion It has pleased Divine providence to cast your Lordships whole life of Action into difficult times such as are called in the New Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and translated perilous times And such as Cicero calls Maxima Reipublicae tempora and difficillima Reip tempora Your life hath been a continual contestation with principles pernicious to man-kind and you have been under your Prince a Nutritius pater for the most part to men who have like froward and unquiet Children been crying for each others properly in things civil and in Religion and have thought themselves persecuted when they could not persecute others Nor have you been too much a Latitudinarian as to Church discipline Nor of too narrow a Spirit or principles as to any Protestant Dissenters And I think Envy never charged you for giving any advice that tended to the injuring the ballance of Christendom or the power of England in setling it or the persuading us to love some of our Neighbours better then our selves You who are so far from offending any weak brother That you are ready with the Apostle rather to abstain from eating flesh while the World stands and therefore will much less kill or devour him and lest of all will you offend a weak Brother-Protestant Country or help any else to devour it and will not injure any of those Countreys that you visited abroad when the world and you saw one another by projecting their Mischief And therefore as I find in the Prolegomena of Grotius de jure belli pacis that Themistius speaking to Valens the Roman Emperor he told him that Kings if they would be guided by the Rule of true wisdom they must non unius sibi creditae Gentis habere rationem sed totius humani generis esse non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tantum aut 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it may be justly said that the Counsellors of Kings should alwaies advise them not to take care only of the concern of their own people but of the happiness and quiet of all man-kind and not only to be lovers of the Macedonians or lovers of the Romans but to be lovers of Men. I never
of which there is rarely any detection made but by participants in the Crime one who would be repell'd from being a Witness is welcome as an accuser and the barking of a dog is allowed to alarm us of thiefs and as we say against Pirates omnis homo miles est much more may every man be an accuser against Traitors Thus I have heard that in the case of heresie in the which as I said before the Canon Law orders the same proceedings and rules as in Treason a Lay-man is allowed to be a competent accuser of a Clergy man And as by all Laws any man is allow'd to be an accuser who prosecutes an injury done to himself or his Kindred so I am told that by the Canonists Haereticum accusans dicitur suam suorumque injuriam prosequi and in that case a notorious enemy is allowed to be an accuser for that a heretick is said to strike at the Foundation of all Lawes divine and humane Nay according to the Canonists the Pope who cannot be accused of any crime but heresie may be accused of that and even by a heretick and that with good reason according to their hypothesis for that the Pope being a Bankrupt in the Faith by heresie attempts to break all the innumerable Priests Monks Friers Nunnes c. that get their bread by that Religion No wonder therefore that the Canonists agree that heresie is to be cut off in the beginning and they cite out of Timothy that it doth eat as a Cancer and the eating of heresie even in the breast of a Pope must needs be troublesom to the whole body of Clerical and Monastical Papacy as a Cancer or Wolfe that would eat up all their bread and therefore in the single case of heresie the Pope himself according to his own law may be convicted by two Witnesses and be thereupon deposed But tho it may be supposed that as the Civil and Canon Laws do leave the credibility of witnesses very much to the Judges so our common Law does to Juries and that in many actrocious Criminal causes every man is not allowed to be an accuser of an illustrious person and that we ought to be very tender and reserved in the taking up an ill report against the meanest of any of our Neighbours of mankind yet it s otherwise as I said before in the case of Treason which is like a pestilence walking in the dark and seldom known before t is incurable and before 't is ploughing up the whole Land of a Country into graves We are not to quarrel with the birds of the Air who tell who in his Bed-Chamber curses the King because they are not Eagles We are to be glad of the happy Augury and to thank God and them for their saving the Imperial Eagle and to be well pleased with either Tame or Wild-geese that save our Capital If any Fleet comes to invade us we are not to be very nice in diffecting the Morals or outward estate of him who fired the Beacon Your Lordship hath heard how Owen o Conally an obscure person as Sir. Iohn Temple styles him in his History of the Irish Rebellion came to the Lord Iustice Parsons about nine of the Clock at Night before the intended seising of Dublin Castle that was to be on the following day and discovered the detestable Conspiracy to him with the names of the chief Conspirators when the disguise of wine had made him seem hardly intelligible or credible And when it falls out that a Country is faved by wholesale through a detection of Conspiracies presented by persons who cheated their Country-men formerly by retail that is by persons who had been vile and infamous it ought to be accounted as an instance of the divine benignity to some of the most wretched and sinful Members of Mankind who have been long industrious in tearing out of their hearts what reliques they could there find of the divine image and who had long acted only Devils parts on the Stage of the world in punishing and being punished then to invite them to an opportunity of changing the Name of Malefactors into that of being blessings to the World and not only of being their Countries benefactors but as it were founders and to gain good Consciences and good names and what rarely happens to others to have an after-game allowed them to play for Reputation and to have it said of such an one on the occasion of the shame of his past life stimulating him to bring both glory and safety to his Country si non errasset fecerat ille minus By the account that I had sent to me from London of Matters in some affidavits relating to your being called Papist your Lordship hath the greatest advantage that any man can desire who has any things sworn against him by persons how credible soever namely the incredibility of the things themselves For can it be thought that your Lordship would out of your own Mouth judge your self a Traitor that is one reconciled to the Church of Rome and forfeit your Life and Estate and attaint your blood in the presence of a young man you had never seen before and is it likely that the Irish Papists who as Sir Iohn Temple observes in his said history have such a kind of dull and deep reservedness as makes them with much silence and secresie to carry on their business and whereby the design of the last Rebellion which was so generally at the same time and at so many several places to be acted and therefore necessarily known to so many several persons was without any Noise brought to such maturity as to arrive at the very point of Execution without any notice or intimation given to any two of that huge Multitude of persons who were generally designed as most of them did to perish in it And the Irish Papists having been then as he saith tongue-tyed by an oath of Secresie I say is it likely that they now designing Mischief if they did hope by your Lordships help to promote it that they would trumpet forth your Lordships name in their publick Masses and use such speaking trumpets about your name and their enterprise as should be heard all over Ireland and England And who can believe it to have the shadow of Veri-similitude that your Lordship should give Commission to any to offer one of the Kings witnesses and particularly Mr. Dugdale your house as an Asylum to retreat to after they had for the turpitude of lucre retreated from their Principles their Consciences their Oathes I never see any man sworn as a Witness in a cause but I think of the saying of St. Austin upon those words of St. Iames Above all things my Brethren swear not Namely Falsa Iuratio exitiosa est vera Iuratio periculosa est Nulla Iuratio secura est and I have as it were a little cold shivering on me while I see a man about what he knoweth of the property of a tenement
as I find him Cited by Dr. Donne in his forementioned book p. 135. He quotes there Mariana de Rege l. 1. c. 7. for cautioning against a King being a self-homicide by drinking poyson prepared and ministred by another he being ignorant for after he concluded how an heretical King may be poisoned he is diligent in this prescription That a King be not constrained to take the poison himself but that some other may administer it to him and that therefore it be prepared and conveyed in some other way than meat and drink because else saith he either willingly or ignorantly he shall kill himself so that he provides that the King who must dye under the Sins of Tyranny and heresie must yet be defended from concurring to his own death tho ignorantly as tho this were a greater Sin. Is not this pleasant to see any of them catching of Kings in a Theological Mousetrap and playing with them like Mice before they devour them to see them sweeten a Cup of poyson for a King with their damn'd Church Sophistry and to sham men as licorish Flies to be Swallowed up in the Cup I wish that some of the most considerable of the Grandees of the Church of Rome could Answer this accusation of their shamming otherwise than by committing it de novo for if they say that some of their Doctors write against this and other crimes as well as some for them as particularly some write against the use of equivocation And as Father Parsons the Jesuite writing against King Iames's succession another English Jesuite namely Creswel writ for it and so that when some of their Doctors break the Churches head others presently gave it Plaisters is not this a fearful shall I say or Contemptible sham Do we not know that the discipline of their Church is as exact as any Military discipline can be by which alone it hath preserved it self so long in being and that none among them can publish books without passing several Courts of Guards of Superiors nor contradict one another in rules of practice more than Trumpeters of an Army dare sound a charge or a retreat but when commanded to it And what a face of something like sham the present Popes declaration about some opinions of the Casuists carries with it I have already mentioned and doth not every one know their avowed doctrine de opinione probabili Namely that tho an opinion be false a man may with a safe conscience follow it by reason of the Authority of the teacher and that a Confessor is bound to absolve the penitent when there is but one opinion for his being absolved tho he believes that opinion not only improbable as to the principia intrinseca but false In Sum according to the old observation of Poperies prevailing by haveing that in it which may fit the temper and humor of every individual person and to be like Manna answering every mans tast whether he hath a gusto for miracles or even for starving or abstinence for business or retirement for Life or for death for Honor or for begging it may to these be added that if any one affects to be a Ruffian or one of the Popes Sheriffs as aforesaid there is a most ample field in the killing of Kings firing of Towns Massacring their Inhabitants for the talent of such a Pavure diable and indeed incarnate one to expatiate in and if any account it a luscious thing to be cheated or to be shammed as some few or to cheat or sham as many think it behold a Religion made for the nonce in that point too But while they are thus playing with all things Sacred and profane he that sits in the heavens has them in derision and leaves not the Protestants to fall finally as a portion to Foxes such who turned tail to tail carry firebrands between them and their shammes do only enter on the Stage of the World to be instantly hissed off My Lord I have not been rash in Censuring either the principles or practices of some Roman Catholicks as aforesaid And particularly I well know that even the most ingenious of our English Papists cannot now in this Conjuncture endure to hear of Father Parsons his book writ by him to Invalidate the Right of King Iames to succeed Queen Elizabeth principally because he was as Father Parsons thought an heretick A very great Man that Iesuite was and so Considerable that one of our eminent Divines in his Sermon in print gives him this Character That he was perhaps one of the greatest men that the order of the Iesuits has produced And methinks 't was pitty he should play at such small game of sham when he publisht that book as to entitle it to Doleman an honest secular Priest whom Parsons hated and to make him odious laid the brat at his door Moreover a kind of inglorious sham it was that Creswel who was Parsons his fellow Iesuite writ as I said at the same time for King Iames his Right to the Crown not out of any desire he should enjoy that Right but that on all events they might have something to say in apology for their Society and bring Grist to its mill For if King Iames had not come to the Crown of England the honour of hindring his Succession had been attributed to Parsons and Creswel the Jesuit expected the Credit for his writing on the Event falling as it did Thus I remember to have heard a Passage of two Astrologers who on the day before the former great Prince of Parma was to throw the die of War agreed together to predict luck to him perfectly contrary to one another that so they might save the credit of their art by one of the artists being in the Right The Author of the book called the Catholick Apology with a Reply c. and which book I think the Author of the Compendium mentions as one of the books writ by the Roman Catholicks of England since the Kings Restoration saith p. 366. speaking of Dolemans book For Dolemans book who wrote it God knows Parsons deny'd it at his death and I believe he was not the author because in several of his works he speaks very much to the advantage of King Iames. But as to Father Parsons having in that Conjuncture been of the Spanish faction and having apply'd his whole soul and strength to hinder King Iames's Succession and his having writ that book the Great foremention'd Cardinal namely D'Ossat who in several of his Printed Letters gives the World a more satisfactory and particular Scheme of the whole design to hinder that Kings Succession to the Crown of England than I know any or all else to have done saith among his letters printed in folio at Paris 1664. in that in book 7th Anno 1601. a letter to the King letter 131. what may be thus render'd in English viz. It may please your Majesty to remember that since the year 1594. there was a book printed in
the English language that the Spaniards caus'd to be made by an English Iesuite call'd Parsons and 't was by the way of the low Country dispersed about England c. And further in the 7 th book p. 301. in the letter to Villeroy letter 133. what he saith of that book of Parsons may be thus made English and from that book of Father Parsons one might draw reasons in favour of his Majesty which would be more weighty then those he deduceth for the King of Spain and his Sister the said Father Parsons does contradict himself very often and very grosly as it happens to all persons in passion as able as they are who are not guided by truth and by reason but transported by Interest and by passion And in the last letter of the 8th book and to Villeroy from Rome the 30th of December 1602 he speaks of Father Parsons having made application to himself to desire that there might be a treaty prepared from Rome between the Pope the King of France and the King of Spain to agree among themselves of a Catholick that may Reign in England after the Queen be it the King of Scots if he will turn Catholick or be it some one else c. But there in p. 367 year 1603 letter 174. from Rome to Villeroy and on April 21st it appears that all the Machinations of the hot Iesuitical heads against King Iames his Succession were overturn'd by providence for he there saith that the Queen was no sooner dead then that the King of Scotland was in England peaceably received and the Controversie of King Iames his title evaporated and for the honour of our English understandings he there saith Les gens de cet Isle là ont bien Monstrè qu' ils scavoient faire leurs affaires entr ' eux tost seurement que ceux de dehors se sont fort mescontez en leurs desseins esperances i. e. the people of England have well shewn that they knew how to do their own business among themselves quickly and safely and that others abroad took very wrong Measures in their designs and hopes I have here said enough to entertain your Lordship with the View of their unreasonableness who would impose on us That Father Parsons wrote not that Impious and Treasonable Book and likewise with the more pleasant View of Gods Confuting it as I may say by the happy determination of his over-ruling Providence And Now because I would make it appear to your Lordship that I have not been unjustly severe to the Jesuitical Principles in rendring them such as are the sturdy extravagances of those offals of Mankind call'd Bullyes and Hectors I shall entertain you with one Instance of a Bravado of threatning from one English Iesuite to all Protestant Crown'd Heads a bravado that is like the High Water Mark to shew in words how high 't is possible for the foam of the raging Sea of Anger to reach and 't is in a Letter of Campian the Iesuite to Queen Elizabeths Privy Councellers printed afterwards at Triers 1583. as I find it Cited in that most learned Preface of my Lord Bishop of Lincoln's to the Book concerning the Gunpowder Treason in the Year 1679 and 't is thus in English viz. That all the Iesuits throughout the World have long since enter'd into a Covenant to kill heretical Kings any manner of way and as to our Society know That we Iesuites who are spread far and wide throughout the whole World have enter'd into an holy Covenant that we shall easily overcome all your machinations and that we shall never despair of it as long as any one of us remains in the World. Lo here a Drawcansir that will not only snub all Protestant Kings and take the bowles from their mouths and beat out their Brains with them himself but he saith there is a Society or Corporation of such brethren of the bladed Ecclesiastical who have enter'd into a Covenant or Association to murder all Protestant Kings and that every single Member of the Corporation should have that dead-doing talent of Valour that should awe and subjugate the Protestant World. And here then my Lord every Jesuite values himself on being a Mutius Scaevola and more than Three hundred of these new Romans or so many thousands of them I mean all of them according to Campian have Covenanted to destroy every Porsenna that lays siege to Rome but in that time of Queen Elizabeth there was an industrious Gentleman who fear'd not the terror of these Huffes but with his secrecy and silence did reduce these mad dogs into the Condition of neither barking nor biting in England I mean Sir Francis Walsingham of whom 't is said in Cotton's Posthuma That his bountifull hand made his intelligences so active that a Seminary could scarcely stir out of the Gates of Rome without his privity And no wonder then if Campian was soon brought to the end of a Traytor here in England by the Care of one of Queen Elizabeths Privy Councellers in the Year 1581. who did both defie and scorn that Rhodomantado address wherein the Iesuite did Goliah-like defie All Protestant Kings and their Armies and as if he would give their flesh to the Fowls of the ayr but the event shew'd his own flesh was so given as a Traytors to that use here in England It was a kind of a bravado in the great Archimedes to say Give me where to stand and I 'le shake the Earth He well knew no such place could be found The Iesuits it seems would have every one of their Order to be an Archimedes and able to shake the Earth as he pleas'd and the hypothesis of Popery they know offers them a place divided from the Civil and Imperial Government where to stand with their Engines namely the Ecclesiastical but things will not be ill administred and holy Church it self will sink into the Earth if its Foundation be not laid as God and Nature would have it and the Man who stands for the place to be an Archimedes and to Move the Earth will soon find his fate of being dissolv'd into his own little dust and that among the artificial lines he is making It seems that boasted association or Covenant of the Jesuites did help to occasion another among the Protestants in Queen Elizabeths time which was ratify'd by Act of Parliament in the 27 th of Eliz. which was about three years after the death of Campian who was Convicted of High Treason by vertue of the Statute made in the time of our Popish Ancestors namely in the 25 of Edward the Third and thereupon executed and yet by the Romish Church made a Martyr tho as I said convicted on that Statute But according to this thundring denuntiation of War against all heretical Kings by Campian as the Jesuites Herald and his boasting when he did put on his armour that every one of his Order should be like an Alexander an adequate match for at
least one World of hereticks the author of the Compendium needed not by his Rhetorick to reflect on my Lord Bishop of Lincoln's Candour gentleness in saying yet if it be a breach of Christianity to crush the bruised reed and of generosity also to trample upon the oppressed I wish his Lordship may be found guilty of neither c. for behold any single Jesuite according to Campian tho but like a reed shaken with the wind is able to bruise all Protestant Scepters and any little toe of that Order can trample all Heretical crowned heads to dirt and the Number of the Papists in England if reduced to the least of Numbers is not according to Campian to be slighted if one of them be a Iesuite for that that one Jesuite will carry the advantage of odds against all Protestant Kings and Princes that one may say my Name is legion for we are many but as that legion-spirit could not without the Divine permission ruin a herd of Swine off from a Steep place so neither can all the legions of Iesuited evil Spirits in the World drive a King Kingdom from Precipices at their pleasure And Queen Elizabeth in spight of all the arts and power of Rome outlived eight Popes and lived to change all her Counsellors but one all her great officers twice or thrice some Bishops four times and died full of years and did see and leave peace upon Israel And now I shall Entertain your Lordship with a further Reason of my charging the present Popes declaration aforesaid about some opinions of the Casuists as carry with it a face of some thing like shamme and my reason is grounded on what was said in a publick Sermon before an honourable Audience namely that the propositions of the Casuists therein were not Condemned by the Pope in the Consistory which would have made the Censure more authoritative but by the Pope and Cardinals of the Court of the Inquisition upon which a remarkable thing follow'd the Iefuites in France who were much provoked at this Censure moved the Procureur de Roy or Attorney general at Paris to put in a Complaint against the publishing that Decree since it came from the Court of the Inquisition which not being acknowledg'd in France nothing Flowing from that authority could be received in that Kingdom upon which the decree was prohibited and suppress'd And may not the English Popish Priests say the same thing the Inquisition was never received in England and therefore that declaration of the Popes obligeth us not here and we will prohibit and suppress it as much as we can No doubt but the present Pope fearing that the Noysome and Infectious smell of those Opinions of the Casuists being more offensive to the minds of Men then any snuff of a Candle can be to their Nostrils they were ready to cry for the removing of the Candlestick of his Church out of its place went about to extinguish them in the most Summary Manner that he could and therefore attempted to do it by the Court of the Inquisition well knowing that in the Consistory of Cardinals all proceedings are so dilatory and the old magi there so used to do every thing pian piano that they would consume many pounds of new Candles in debating whether or no and how the old snuff should be removed and perhaps would have thought to have contented the World in the mean time with giving it some perfumes but the Pope being afraid of the Iesuites perhaps as sometimes the Grand Signior is of his Ianisaries doth not for fear himself should be extinguished by them so far as I may say follow the light within him as to throw away or tread out that snuff of those opinions as containing a malum in se or declare any of them to be ill as contrary to the principles of the law of nature in which case neither he nor God himself indeed could have dispens'd with them tho yet any honest and ingenious Heathen would on the least occasion given have declared them so As Cicero and Seneca and many others have done and which had the Pope done and the Iesuites or any Papists persevered in the making those principles the Rules of practice his Kingdom had thereby been ipso facto divided against it self and a diffinitive sentence had been thereby given by the Pope that all who had dy'd owning those principles and practices had been sunk for ever into the burning lake Therefore as I said before I hope this declaration of the Popes such as it is will give an alarm to our English Papists to deal seriously with their Souls and to consider as if it were for their eternities these and other Principles of their Religion and that if they will not be thereby perswaded to be almost Protestant Christians yet to be altogether Masters of as good Moral Principles as the Heathens I named and If any of them can but give us a Moral certainty of their Principles being but such I shall never repine at any favour that any new Law may afford to such of them If therefore any of our Lay Country men Papists not guilty of the late Plot shall desire to be heard and to say any thing toward this effect some of us have heard of these principles before mention'd as own'd by our Casuists and Priests and Confessors that are now thus condemned by the Pope and we did not believe that those our spiritual guides did own such Principles but now our Eye seeth by the condemnation thereof that they were before own'd and made rules of Practice Wherefore we hope that who ever do own them will abhor themselves and repent in dust and ashes and others of us did formerly think them Consistent with the Christian faith and the peace of Kingdoms and with humane Society but we now abhor those principles and repent in dust and ashes We are ready to let the King and Kingdom and the World have a moral certainty that we desire no power to change the Religion in England by Law establish'd and we are willing to receive Instruction from any that shall be appointed by publick Authority to give it to us concerning what other principles beside these Condemned by the Pope are inconsistent with Religion or the publick Peace and in case any shall offer to give us dispensations either for principles or practices contrary to those we renounce as inconsistent with the publick peace we shall be so far from accepting of such dispensation that we shall detect the offerer thereof before a Magistrate as much as we would an enemy to His Majesty We are ready to give active or passive obedience as to all the Laws in being We believe not the Bishop of Rome to have more power in His Majesties Realms by Gods word then any other forraign Bishop as was by Acts of Parliament and publick Recognitions declared in the Reign of Henry the 8 th We are willing to render the Kingdom as secure from
the causing each of them to be with the darts of Calumny and obloquy forever stuck round like the figure of the man in the Almanac but how foolish Father Parsons was to write this when the Protestants had the Ball at their foot and when he could not be sure that the Papists would ever arrive at the state to have it alwayes at theirs let any one Judge He had before used that rhetorical expression that so the Ship be well and happily guided I esteem it not much important of what Race or Nation the Pilot be but he was extremely impolitic by so early and public an alarm to notify it to many who thought that embarqued in the Civil Government of a Prince of any Religion they might be safely transported from this World to the Next that Popish Masters of the Ship have determin'd before-hand to throw all heterodox Passengers overboard and their own Oaths and engagements to them likewise But what ever person takes a promissory Oath with an intent of not keeping it may well be Concluded as actually guilty of perjury in the Court of Heaven as he who knowingly takes a false assertory Oath They have both equally presumed to try by solemn lying to weather the fear of Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence and both their assertory and promissory Oaths are of equal weight in the ballance of humane judgment And because I think the Argument will hold from the falsity of their Oaths promissory in this their dernier Resort aforesaid to the obtaining the Worlds Sentence against the truth of their Oaths assertory I shall entertain your Lordship with an instance of one of the Church of Rome of whom it may be said that a Greater than Father Parsons is here to vindicate the making of Oaths promissory with an intent of breaking them and 't is Pope Clement the 8 th of whom Danaeus saith in his Chronology of Popes that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ' O Politician as I may say of whom D'Ossat in his Third Book Letter 81 viz. to Villeroy in the Year 1597 speaking there how he had discover'd the Popes Inclinations that the King of France should break with England and that he told his Holiness that the King 's making a particular profession to keep his word would not suffer him to break that Alliance that had been so lately renew'd and sworn saith that the Pope thereupon reply'd That that Oath was made to a heretic and that his Majesty had made another Oath to God and the Pope And further mentions what the Pope had told him at other times and in the precedent audience That Kings and Soverain Princes did permit to themselves all things that turn'd to their profit and that none blamed them for it or took it ill from them and alledged to that purpose a Saying of Francisco Maria Duke of Urbin who was wont to say That if a plain Gentleman broke his word he would be dishonour'd by it but that Soveraign Princes for Reason of State without any great blame might make Treaties and break them and Mentir trahir toutes telles autres choses i. e. Ly and betray and do all things of that nature whereupon saith D'Ossat I had but too much to reply to that but I did not think it my duty there to stay my self in a place so slippery But toward the close of the Letter he adds By what is abovesaid you see tho the Pope has no disrespect for the King of France nor any love for the King of Spain yet the hatred that he has for Heretics transports him so far that he lets fall from his Mouth tho under the Name of another some pernicious Maximes unworthy of an honest man and that the Pope accounts all ways good for his Majesty to break with his Allyes because they are not Catholics altho those ways are infamous I am so far a Concurrer with that Pope as to think that according to the Law of Nature and Nations the Oath and Promise to the first of any Prince's Allies is most obligatory and therefore the Pope doth very honestly notify his opinion that Harry the 4 th intended not to keep any promissory Oath Contrary to that made to God and himself But the Pope mistakes the factum of that Great Prince's Oaths and 't is for the honour of the Roman Catholic Religion that it has left to Posterity so great an instance of a Protestant Prince turn'd a Papist and Continuing kind to the persons of Protestants But they owed no thanks to the Pope or Iesuites for his making or keeping Promises and Alliances with Protestants The Bohemian History tells us how Ferdinand about the Year 1617 before he was possest of that Crown did by Oath bind himself that Matthew being alive he would not meddle with any of the affairs of Bohemia much less with Religion but immediately after his Coronation he going into Moravia to receive homage the Iesuites erected at Olumacium a Triumphal Arch and painted on it among the Arms of Austria the Lion of Bohemia tyed to it with a Chain and the Eagle of Moravia with a sleeping Hare lying with open Eyes and this Emblem writ under it I have practiced But the Year following a new erected Academy of Iesuites spoke out in Print that tho Ferdinand at his Coronation took an Oath to the Heretics yet first he left it in the Vestry of the Church that he would not suffer Heretics to prejudice the Rights of holy Church But I believe I may without offending any Candid Papists say of that Pope that when he discours'd as that Letter mentions the glory of his Infallibility shined not out of his Mouth as Porphry said that Plotinus his Soul did when he spake The Story is trite concerning a Popes Excommunicating a Bishop of his Church for owning that there were Antipodes but there is a sort of greater Excommunication that any Jesuited Papists are to expect that are the Antipodes to ingenuous Mankind and who make Assertory or Promissory lying to be venial or lawful and that is thus to be excluded from the Communio fidelium tho without the Ceremony of lighting Torches and extinguishing them namely by Gentlemens forbearing to keep them Company and esteeming them worse than Publicans or Heathens and accounting it neither safe nor honorable to Correspond with the Enemies of Mankind and this is the Sentence namely that of a kind of Civil Excommunication or seclusion from ingenuous mens Conversation that they are likely to obtain in England after all their charge and pains in their dernier Resort and the having seen the birth of their Plott confounded and the after-birth of it namely its Shams thrown away Since No injury wounds so much as a Contempt and since they by trampling on our Understandings with More pride than ever Bajazet walk'd over the dead heads of Christians affect to try to bring us implicitly to believe their Shammes they are to thank themselves for our not
the head-ake the Pen-knife and Books of St. Thomas of Canterbury and a piece of his Shirt much reverenc'd by great belly'd women the coals that roasted St. Laurence two or three heads of St. Ursula Malchus his Ear and the paring of St. Edmund ' s Nails and likewise the trumperies of the Rood of Grace at Boxly in Kent and in Hales in Glocestershire things name◠as trumperies in p. 495 and 496 by Herbert in that History and as adjudged to be such by H. the 8 th And no doubt but the Number of such would be very great who having great Summs of Money given them would be content to offer small ones in Devotion to such Images and many Candidates for preferment among some that now look big for and among Dissenters that look big against the Church of England would produce Certificates of their Constant good affection and Zeal for the Roman Catholic Church and any Legate that came to reconcile us to the Church of Rome would be thought by many to have brought the Holy-Ghost in his Sumpters thô we know what the Inside of Campegius his was made of It is moreover possible that Protestant writers may come not to have that freedom of the Press that Popish now have and all the luxury and wantonness and humor of the Press in sending forth innumerable Pamphlets against Popery in this Conjuncture may perhaps prove but like the jollity of a Carnival to usher in a long melancholly Lent. I will grant that 't is possible the Writ de haeretico Comburendo being now Abolished that destroyed so many Protestants by retail certain bloody men may find some Invention to destroy them by wholesale and to something of that nature Bishop Vshers Prophecy referred of the Raging Persecution of Protestants yet to come and not lasting and when their enemies will ipsam saevitiam fatigare and in the violence of such predicted cruelty not being long lasting that great Prelate erred not from the Nature of things more then he did when he Prophecy'd of an Irish Rebellion Forty years before it hapned for that usually happens once in so many years through the force and numbers of the Irish within that time outgrowing the English and their allowing themselves the repossession of their Estates by that time as a Iubile I will further grant that the discipline of our Church of which I think the Constitution is the best that the world can shew may be Crusht as I said before and our Dissenters then in vain wish that they had the tolerabiles ineptiae as your Lordship knows who imperiously call'd them in the Room of the intollerable abominations of the Mass and 't is possible that divine Iustice and Power may permit the doctrine as well as discipline of our Church to be supprest totally and finally in this Realm and that the prediction of that Great Man of God whô since his death has been as generally styl'd the Iudicious as Lewis the Iust was elsewhere so vogued I mean Mr. Hooker may impress a deep horror and a too late repentance on us who in his 5th Book of Ecclesiastical Polity in the end of the 79th Paragraph p. 432. of the old Edition speaking of the ill affected to our Church saith By these or the like suggestions receiv'd with all Ioy and with all sedulity practiced in Certain parts of the Christian World they have brought to pass that as David doth say of Man so it is in hazard to be verify'd concerning the whole Religion and Service of God the time thereof peradventure may fall out to be Threescore and Ten years or if strength do serve unto Fourscore what follows is likely to be small joy to them whatsoever they shall be that behold it Mr. Hooker did first print his 5th Book in the year 1597. the first four of his Polity being before printed in the year 1594 and so the period of Fourscore Years in his prediction was in the Year 1677. Thô that good man pretended not to be a Prophet yet according to the old saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. he is the best Prophet who can guess well both our Church of England and the Dissenters and Papists too have found that Mr. Hookers prudence had so much divination and his divination so much prudence that the small joy with which they have beheld the external face of Religion here since 1677. hath shew'd us that he guess'd shrewdly I have only affirm'd that humanly speaking and according to the common course of nature Popery cannot be the overgrown National Religion of England but am not ignorant that the sacred Code hath given us instances of Omnipotent power punishing even Heavens peculiar people by the Course of Political and Ecclesiastical Power running out of the common Channel of the Nature of things and particularly by a succession of Ten evil Kings one after another For thô humane Nature is so inconstant and men generally so apt to reel from one extream to another that the World growes as weary of the prevalence of Vice as of Virtue and after a long age of Dissoluteness and Luxury a Contrary humour reigns as long in the World again a humour that then excludes all Voluptuaries from Public Trusts for an Age together and a humour of which I think we now see the Tide Coming in and thus ordinarily scarce any Kingdom hath more than two or three good or bad Princes successively for any considerable space of time Yet after the Ten Tribes had made their defection from the Line of the House of David they were punish't by a Succession of Ten Kings and not one good one in the whole number thô some of them were less ill than others so that no Marvel if the weight of the impiety of so many successive ill Princes sunk them into the power of the Assyrians and to this their doom that passage in the Prophecy of Hosea refers which the vulgus of the Scriblers against Monarchy so Miserably detort and wracke as I may say to their own destruction namely I gave thee a King in mine anger and took him away in my wrath for the Prophet there had not his Eye on Saul or on a particular Person but on the whole succession of Kings after their Rent from Iuda from Ieroboam to the Last under whom the Catastrophe of their Captivity was Such Kings were given them by Heaven as were proper Instruments of Divine wrath and when they were took away from the Stage 't was that other worse might enter and make their Condition more Tragical But secret things belonging to God I pry not into the Book of Fate but Confine my sentiments alone to the Book of Nature In an Excellent Sermon of the Dean of St. Pauls 't is with great Piety and Prudence said We have liv'd in an Age that has beheld strange Revolutions astonishing Iudgments and wonderful Deliverances What all the Fermentations that are still among us may end in God alone knowes I
by some accidents be made to cast Anchor or they may be sunk but they cannot be forced to go back When a man hath long been compell'd to creep with Chains on him through a toilsome dark Labyrinth and having extricated himself out of it and being come to enjoy his liberty in the light of the Sun the persuasion of words cannot make him go back again My Lord I lately mentioned the Motto of the Royal Society of England of which your Lordship is a Member and I look on the very constitution of that Society to be an inexpugnable Bulwark against Popery In which Society many of our choice English Witts have shew'd as much subtilty and curiosity in the Architecture of Real Science and such as tends to the edification of the world as any of our Countrey men heretofore did in those curious but useless Cobwebs of holy Church call'd School Divinity And the constitution of that Society hath not only been useful in encreasing the Trade of Knowledge among its members by a joyned stock but moreover hath tended to the raising in the Kingdom a general inclination to pursue Real science and to contemn all science falsly so call'd and the Raising of this inclination I will call a Spirit that can never be Conjur'd down nor can the knowledge that depends on number weight and local Motion be ever exterminated by Sophisms or Canting or terms of Art Nor will they who have from this Society learned to weigh Ayre give up their Souls to any Religion that is all Ayre without weighing it or notwithstanding any hard name that may come to be in vogue ever forget that bread is bread His Majesty by the founding of this great Conservatory of knowledge presently after his Restoration wherein his great Minister then the Earl of Clarendon was an honourable Member did convey real knowledge and a demonstration of his being an Abhorrer of Arbitrary Power to all that can understand Reason and affect not the ridiculous Treasonableness of Bradshaw's Court to say that they will not hear reason for had he like the Eastern King 's affected Arbitrary Power he would have used their artifice of endeavouring to cast mists before the understanding faculties of his Subjects and to detain them from knowledge by admiration and to deprive them of sight like horses that are still to drudge in the Mill of Government by blind obedience But to shew that he abhorr'd both such obedience and implicit Faith and that he intended to establish his Throne as well in the heads as in the hearts of his Subjects he presently setled this Great Store-house of Knowledge that shew'd it was his desire and ambition by the general Communication of Knowledge in his Dominions to Command Subjects whose heads were with the Rays of Science crown'd within And therefore I think His Majesties Munificence to the Royal Society in giving them Chelsey-Colledge at their first institution was very Consistent with the Primary Intention of the erecting that Colledge which was to be a Magazine for Polemical-Divinity wherewith to attaque the Writers for Popery for the very planting of a general disposition to believe nothing contrary to Reason is the cutting of the graâ—s under Poperies feet and His Majesty providing for the growth of reason did apparently check the growth of Popery as well as of Arbitrary Power without the prop of which Popery can never run up to any height more then the Sun-flower without a supporter and the setling in men an humour of Inquisition into the truth and nature of things is as I partly said before an everlasting barricade against the Popes darling Court of the Inquisition That great and noble notion of the Circulation of the blood took its first rise from the hints of a common persons enquiring what became of all the blood that issâ—â—d out of the heart seeing that the heart beats above Three Thousand times an hour thô but one drop should be pump'd out at every stroke and if any one shall tell me that he believes that Popery with its retinue of implicit faith and ignorance can over-run us I will ask him what will then become of all that knowledge the vital blood of the Soul that hath issued from the heads of inquisitive Protestants and been Circulating in the World for above a Hundred and Fifty years and I doubt not but it will be in mens Souls as long as blood shall have its Circular Course in their bodies and maugre all the Calumnies cast on the Divines of the Church of England for being fautors of Popery I shall expect that our learned Colledge of Physicians will as soon be brought to disbelieve the Circulation of the blood of our Royal Society to take down the Kings Standard that they have set up against implicit faith as our learned Convocation the learnedest that ever England had be brought to believe the principles of Popery I know My Lord ' tâ—s obvious against this my hypothesis of the unpracticableness of Popery being here the State-Religion to say that in little more then Twenty years time Four great changes in Religion happen'd in England and that the generality of the people then like dead Fishes went with the stream of the Times but I ask if the generality of the people had been throughly enlighten'd in the rationality of the Protestant Principles Twenty years together would they have return'd to the belief of the Popish Will they now do it after the establishment of a Rational Religion for above a Hundred years together Can Popery now find the way into most Mens brains here presently after the whole Nation almost were Preachers and when all our great and little unruly disagreeing Sects yet agreed in this as a fundamental that the Bishop of Rome is the Antichrist If Printing had been free in Turky for a Hundred years and a libera Philosophia and Theologia had been there in fashion for a Hundred years and every man had been allow'd his Judgment of discretion so long about the sense of the Alchoran or of the holy Scripture and of all Books of Religion could ignorance even there come into play again or if the Turkes had drank Wine for a Hundred years together could any one Conjure the glasses out of their hands by telling them there was a Devil in every grape If that Law in Muscovy that makes it death for any Subject to travel out of that Kingdom without the Emperors Licence lest his Subjects having seen the freedome of other Countreys should never again return to the Arbitrary Power in their own again I say if that Law had been repeal'd for a Hundred years and multitudes of oppress'd mankind had thence found the way to breath in the ayre of Liberty like men could they be persuaded to return to the Yokes of Beasts again When a floating Island has been a Hundred years fixt to the Continent can any teach it to swim again Consulitur de Religione is likely to be the eternal
business of England and in case of a Prohibition to any mans little Court of Conscience in that cause he will certainly give himself a consultation The very humour of the English Nation long hath and still doth run against what they think but like Popery or makes for it and that with such a rapid current of Antipathy as is never likely to be stem'd and nothing is more out of fashion then a kind of Sir-positive or Dictatorian humour in common discourse much less then will a dogmatical Popes infallibility ever be digested here while he makes himself a St. Positive The gentile humour of the Age here that abhorrs hard words as loathsom pedantry will never be reconcil'd to one certain long hard word in Popery namely Transubstantiation nor to another namely Incineration or burning men for not understanding the former word according to the style of the Historian Imperator aegrè tulit incinerationem Johannis Husse and people will account their Protestant Bibles more agreeable to them then the English one published by the Colledge of Doway where the Translator studied for hard words in the room of plain ones as for the Passeover phase for foreskin praepuce for unleaven'd bread azyms for high places excelses and other such words we have in the English Rhemish Testament viz. exinanite parasceue didragmes neophyt spiritualness of wickedness in the Celestials In our Busy English world while men are most yary after profit and pleasure and the study of things if very few or none can be brought to learn the universal real character and which would tend to the propagating Real Knowledge among the Nations of the World accordingâ—y as the excellent propounder of it in Print with great modesty saith in his Epistle dedicatory that he had slender expectation if its coming into common use our Ingeniosi or Witts which all men pretend to be now as they did in the Late times to be Saints tho yet as few are Witts now as were Saints then will not care for troubling their brains with the studying of the Religion whose pretended universality appears but a kind of universal character and not real and tending to obscure the knowledge of things in the World. If they should see here a Religion that was full of pageantry and seem'd to be wholly theatrical they would think it was as much their birthright to censure it as 't is to be eternal talking Critics in the Pit to damn Playes and would think two Supremes in a Kingdome to be of the low nature of two Kings of Branford and rather then part with their money and stake down their Souls for seing such a Moral Representation of an absolute spiritual and absolute temporal power on the stage of the Kingdom they would be too apt with Mr. Hobs to thrust the whole Nation of Spiritual Beings out of the world I mean rather then they would be to their faces cheated and harras'd by a spiritual power and our people inspir'd with witt as well as those with the zealous spirit of Religion would cry out conclusum est contra Manichaeos I and against the Schoolmen too I mean our Romanist Manichaei who make two summa Principia in every State. In this age where the lower or Sixth rate Witts do so over-value themselves on turning every thing into ridicule the Mass would have here a Reception according to what the gloss in the Canon Law observes that when a place had layen long under an interdict the people laughed at the Priests when they came to say Mass again Nor would any Papal interdiction unless it could interdict us from the use of Fire and Water be of any moment The World would now laugh at any Prize that should be play'd between the Two Swords the very glossator on the Clementines saying occasionly that resipiscente mundo the World being grown wiser there must be no longer striving for both Swords And any one that would obtrude on us gross exploded errors in Church or State will appear as ridiculous as St. Henry the Dane who as the Martyrology mentions when worms craul'd out of a corrupted Vlcer in his Knee put them in again My Lord I will further offer it to your Lordships consideration That if it be found so hard to keep up the external polity of the Church of England thô in it self so rational and so meriting the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the Twenty years discontinuance of it insomuch that Dr. Glanvile in the first page of his Book call'd the Zealous and impartial Protestant hath these words the first occasion of our further danger that I shall mention is the present diminution not to say extinction of Reverence to the authority of the Church of England c. and he p. 4. writes largely to that Effect what quarter can Popery expect here from an Age of sense and reason when it should break in upon both after the forementioned Hundred years discontinuance According to the foresaid Argument of the Bees for the Popes spiritual Monarchy we see it improbable for him ever to bring us to a Rendevouz in his Church again for the sad experience we have had of the Sects here that left the Hive of the Church of England not gathering together into any one new Hive but dividing into several swarms and hives and never returning to the old may shew the Hive of holy Church how little of our Company 't is to expect Having said all this about the mists of Popery being to contend with knowledge in its meridian I think I shall comply with the measures taken by our Philosophers in this Critical Age in founding their observations upon Experiments if I further add that the former Experiments England hath had of Poperies being pernicious to its external Polity and Grandeur will perpetuate and heighten the fermentation in the minds of our angry people against it All our Monkish Historians do attest the experience our Kings had in being bereav'd of great Sums of Money while they enrich'd the Pope here by giving him the Office to keep the Theological Thistle which he Rail'd in with so many censures and distinctions and non obstantes that our Kings could not pass to their Palaces but by his leave and on his terms An English King then was but the Popes Primier Ministre and yet paid great wages too for the being a Servant to the Servus Servorum King Iohn used to say That all his affairs in the World were unprosperous and went cross and untowardly after he had once subjected himself and his Kingdom to the Church of Rome His words were Postquam me mea Regna Romanae subjecâ— Ecclesiae nulla mihi prospera omnia contraria advenerunt And 't is obvious to consider on the other hand what a great figure Henry the Eighth made in the World after he had manumitted himself and his Kingdoms from the Papal Usurpation And how he held the Balance of the World in his hand and trod on
the Basilisc of the Papal Supremacy and notify'd it to the Nations of the Earth that England is an Empire that being the Style of the Statute of the 24 th of H. 8. c. 12. Viz. That this Realm is an Empire and that the Crown thereof is an Imperial one And the words of Kings and Emperours of this Realm being then attribued in our Statutes to the Monarchs of England and as the great expression in the Prophesie of Ezekiel c. 16. v. 13. is applyed by God to the Iewish state And thou didst prosper into a Kingdom it may be justly said that Harry the Eighth's defying the Popes Usurpation made England prosper into an Empire 'T was his doing that made him hors de page and 't is only the doing it that will make the French King truly so too For 't is only Air that any feed a Monarch's fancy with who would amuse him with an Vniversal Empire abroad till he hath obtain'd one first at home as no Man is to expect to govern his Neighbours Family who is Control'd in his own And like a Master who imagines himself great while he is feared by none but some of his own Servants so how little terrour did Queen Mary's Reign give to any parcel of Mankind but a few of her own Subjects of which the number that she burnt and made to languish in Prisons and such as left her Kingdom by migration to forreign parts would easily have kept Callais for her and prevented the ignominy of her Politics in losing the Real Key of France while she was finding the Imaginary Keys of the Church But 't is a truth not contestable That Queen Mary's Reign in which her persecution of her Subjects was so barbarous and such a scandal to Government That Dr. Heylin himself applyes to it in the Title Page of his History of Queen Mary that passage in Paterculus Hujus temporis fortunam ne deflere quidem quispiam satis digne potuit nemo verbis exprimere potest served only as a foile to the lustre of Queen Elizabeth whom all Generations since have called blessed and who was not more lov'd by the English then she was feared by the French and was offered Calice if she would but have connived at the continuing of the French forces in Scotland and who sent to the great Henry the Fourth a Mandamus to build no more Ships and had more money offered her by her Subjects then she would accept and yet as is said in Towsend's Historical Collections had spent a Million of Money in her Wars with Spain and laid out 100000 l. to support the King of France against the Leaguers and 150000 l. in defence of the Low Countries and discharged a debt of Four Millions she found the Crown indebted in Nay our Historians tell us that She payed the very Pensions that were in arrear in her Father's and Sister's time to divers of the Religious persons ejected out of Abbeys It was Queen Elizabeth who by all her Alliances and especially her Offensive and Defensive one with the States of the Vnited Provinces in the Year 1578. laid such a deep and sure foundation for a vast trade of the English Nation to be built on that it 's overbalance is said to have brought to be Coined in the Tower of London from the first of October 1599 in the 41 st Year of her Reign to March 31st 1619 being 19 years 4,779 314 l. 13 s. 4 d And from March 31st 1619 to March 31st 1638 being 19 years 6,900,042 l. 11 s. 1 d And from March 1638 before May 1657 being 19 years 7,733,521 l. 13 s. 4 d England alone by verture of that her Alliance having till the Peace of Munster 1648 enjoyed almost the whole Manufacture and best part of the Trade of Europe And it was but just for Heaven to punish in England the greatest villany that could be wrought on Earth I mean the murder of the best of Kings by suffering the Trade of England to have its fatal decay in that year 1648. For then I count our over-balance of Trade for the last mentioned Nineteen years had its Period and 't was by the effect of that Peace that both Holland and France and Spain cantonized the power of our Trade and the most Soveraign of our Manufactures Till that black year 't was to be ascribed to the result of Queen Elizabeth's politics and not to the conduct of the Long Parliament that England did as to Trade both do its business and play and as to its Commanding the Trade of the World did Sail with a Trade-wind and during that Wind it could not happen that any should meet us or overtake us in our motion whatever mean Pilots were at the Helm It was for the completing the last ternary of the Coinage that I mentioned the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or nineteen years ending in 1657. For I believe that both Astrea and Trade left our Land in that fatal Crisis of 48 of which the Mâ—nth of Ianuary produced the Signing of that Peace at Munster and the horrid Arraignment and Martyrdom of that matchless Prince 'T is therefore not to be admired That Queen Elizabeth's provident Ensuring such a plenty of Traffick and Riches to her Kingdom both for her own and future time she had what praemium of Taxes from her Parliaments she pleased accordingly as King Iames tells the Parliament Anno 1620 That Queen Elizabeth had one year with another above 100000 l. in Subsidies and in all my time I have had but four Subsidies and six Fifteenths and he said his Parliament had not given him any thing for Eight or Nine years England did thrive apparently while it was to Queen Elizabeth a Puteus inexhaustus But while it was such an one to the Pope was in a miserable and consumptive state as any one must necessarily conclude who considers that the nutritive juyce of the wealth of the Kingdom was diverted from cherishing its own Head to pamper the Bellies of Forreigners Deplorable then was the condition of the English Crown when as we are told by the Antiquitates Britan. f. 178. in the Reign of Hen. 3d. Repertus est Annuus reditus Papae talis quem ne Regius quidem attigit And when according to Matthew Paris f. 549 in the Reign of that King Anno 1240 it was complained of That there remained not so much Treasure in the Kingdom as was in three years extorted from it by the Pope But what is more strange we are told in Cotton's Collections p. 129 of the times of Edward the Third That the Taxes paid to the Pope for Ecclesiastical dignities did amount to five times as much as the People paid the King per annum One would wonder that so martial a Prince the Scene of whose Reign lay almost in continual War should be so careless of the Sinews of it as to permit so much of the wealth of the Kingdom to be mis-applyed and that too while all manner
Populum on 1 Cor. 7. 24. pag. 195 and 196 speaking of the Monks saith It is well known in this our Land how both Church and Common-Wealth groan'd under the burden of these heavy Lubbers The Common-wealth while they becamâ— Lords of very little less by their computation who have travelled in the search â—hen one half of the temporalties of the Kingdom and the Church while they engrossed into their hands the fruits of the best Benefices of the Realm allowing scarce so much as the Chaff to those who tread out the Corn. This profession is God be thanked long since suppressed There is nothing of them now remains but the rubbish of their Nests and the stink of their memories unless it be the sting of their Devilish Sacriledge in â—â—bbing the Church by damnable Impropriations He had before said they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Slow-bellies Stall-fed Monks and Friars who liv'd mew'd up in their Cells like Boors in a Frank pining themselves into Lord and beating down their bodies till their Girdles crackt But though it hath been truly observ'd That the not providing for the augmentations of the poorer Livings in England was a scandal to our Reformation in that it made so many scandalous Livings and consequently so many such Ministers and it has been in one of Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments notify'd by Dr. Iames as Townsend's Collections mention that of Eight Thousand and odd Parish-Churches then in England but Six Hundred did afford a competent Living for a Minister And it has been publickly aver'd by Archbishop Whitgift That there were Four Thousand Five Hundred Benefices which are not worth above Ten Pound a Year in the King's Books yet the dispersing of so much of the Church Revenue among the Laity hath had this effect namely to engage the possessors of so great a proportion of the Land of England to be Champions against Popery and one other good effect within my own observation it produced in the late times when Tithes themselves were thought Delinquent namely that the Impropriate Tithes saved the others And the not augmenting the poorer sort of Livings the which mostly were in Cities and Corporations in the Countrey hath not however prov'd any augmentation to the interest of Popery For though the Reliques and Images and Shrines of Saints there that brought a concourse of Offerers and Offerings thither enrich'd those places and the Churches and had the effect of Staple Ecclesiastical Commodities and Harry the Eighth's abolishing them reduced the value of the Livings there almost to nothing they grew by occasion thereof afterward to be receptacles for heterodox Divines who seiz'd on the Livings there in a manner derelict and finding the Genius of Trading people averse from Ceremonies did represent the few and innocent and indeed decent ones of the Church of England as odious to them and therefore were sure of pleasing their auditors by constant declaiming against those of Popery that were so many and cumbersome and had caused so much blood-shed and were known to be Ceremonies both mortuae mortiferae And as Doleman alias Parsons observed in his time that the strength of the Puritans lay in those Corporate Towns and Cities there will the hatred of the Principles of the Papists probably for ever encrease I have for this purpose found it truly observed in a Discourse in octavo concerning Liberty of Conscience Printed for Nath. Brooks at the Angel in Cornhil That the Puritan Preachers by their disesteem of Ceremonies and external Pomp in the worship of God were the more endeared to Corporations and the greater part of persons engaged in Trade and Traffic who hate Ceremonies in general and what does unnecessarily take up time And that persons who nauseate Ceremonies in Civil things will loath them likewise in Religious as a man who has an antipathy against Muscadine in his Parlor cannot love it at the Sacrament And that if we reflect on those who did most love Ceremonies heretofore in our Nation we shall find them to have been persons of the greatest Rank and Quality who did effect Ceremonies in Civil things or of the poorest sort who did get their daily bread by the Charity of the other So natural is it for men to Paint God in Colors suitable to their own fancies that I do not wonder at Trading Persons who hate Ceremonies that they thus think God in respect of this hatred altogether such as themselves That Discourse had before set forth That 't is natural to Men who live by Trade and whose being rich or beggars depends much on the honesty of their Servants to be enamoâ—â—â—â— on that Preaching that is most passionate and loud against what looks like luxury and is apt to occasion unnecessary expences to them And therefore no humane Art will ever Reconcile them to one Casuistical Tenet that is so so branded in the Pope's said Decree of the second of March viz. Servants of either Sex may secretly steal from their Masters for the value of their service if it is greater than the Salary which they receive The Mystery of Iesuitism letter 6 pag. 80 cites for this Tenet Father Bauny's Summary p. 213 and 214 of the sixth Edition viz. May Servants who are not content with their Wages advance them of themselves by filching and purloining as much from their Masters as they imagine necessary to make their Wages proportionable to their services On some occasions they may as when they are so poor when they come into service that they are obliged to accept any proffer that 's made to them and that other servants of their quality get more elsewhere At the rate of this Moral Theology no Tradesman knows what Mony he has either in his Pocket or Compter or what Cash in his Closet nor indeed any King what Treasure he has in his Exchequer But notwithstanding the aversion of many persons of high Birth and Breeding and who are lovers of Pomp and Ceremony in matters Civil and likewise in Religious from the contrary humour of Trading Men yet is there one thing that hath and always will in spight of all differences in Religion occasion an entercourse of Civility between the former Class of Mankind here and the latter and 't is that necessity of nature that makes the Borrower a Servant to the Lender namely that the expensive former Classe taking up Mony at interest from the more frugal latter obligeth them to give the Lenders the respect of fair quarter And thus according to that Bull in Tacitus That in some parts of Scotland the Sun shines all night long there will still during the contrariety of their tenets and humours and which are as opposite as light and darkness occasionally arise a clear understanding between them And of the Redundance of Money the Puritans party had in the late times and of their designed employing it for the greatning the interest of their party the establishment of Feoffees by them for purchasing Impropriations is a great
instance Of their great progress wherein we have an account in Pryn's Compleat History of the Tryal of Arch-bishop Laud where he saith And had they not been interrupted in this good work they would probably in very few years have purchased in most of the great Towns and noted Parishes Impropriate in England in Lay-mens Lands And which had they effected they might have settled such a Bank of Land on the Fond whereof to have brought into their possession the greatest part perhaps of the mony Currant in England and that party without any but Silver weapons have acquired such an arbitrage of the interests of all others in England as to have usurped Harry the Eighth's Motto of Cui adhaereo praeest But though the Livings in these great Corporate Towns are so small and the value they had by oblations be evaporated every where but in the King's Books where it remains still to enhance their payment of first Fruits and Tenths the heterodox Divines there find Harvests of oblations rich enough and so will the Divines of the Church of England if ever a storm of Popish Persecution shall drive them there for shelter to be Pastors of the Monied Men and if the worst comes to the worst they will there find some â—at gathered Churches better then lean Bishopricks as perhaps some heterodox Pastors do now there experiment them and the ambient heat of State-favour that call'd out some of the inward one of Religion being abated they will probably grow more exemplary in austere vertue and thereby attract so much reverence from their flocks as to become Confessors as well as Preachers to them for so the Non-conformist Divines there now in a manner are and as Confession under Popery proved the only Guaranty to the Priests for their being paid their Personal Tithes and as then people at their deaths expiated their omissions in the payment of their Tithes by valuable Legacies thus too will it probably happen to the Ministers of Christ's New Testament and often to be Executors or at least Legatees in Christians Wills the very dust of whose feet is thought beautiful by all Men generally when their return to their own dust is approaching And the persecution design'd them will but reduce their state in the Eye of the World to look and be like that of the Primitive Christians who made the Apostles their Bankers and the depositaries of their wealth and whose Successors likewise in the administration of the Gospel during the following Ages of Persecution had good livelihoods on the Fond of Oblations And as for Tithes we hear nothing of them for many Ages in the Primitive Church In the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Universae published by Iustellus the most authentick Book in the World next the Bible and which contains the Canons received by the Universal Church till the year 451 there is not one word of Tithes The Clergy were then liberally maintained by the free oblations of the people which were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And there was no such Proverb heard of in the World abroad as laâ—ci semper sunt infensi Clericis till there was another unlucky one Ecclesia peperit divitias c. and till the Goths and Vandals being Proselyted to Christianity exprest the natural zeal of new Converts by vastly endowing the Clergy 〈◊〉 Lands who had as I may say setled Heaven upon them and whoâ—e greâ—â— proportion in the balance of Land necessarily made them aâ—terward one of the Three Estates in the Christian World. And most worthy of Christian Princes care it was to endeavour to secure the profession of Christianity in future times as well as their own by providing that the Clergy should not be of the meanest of the people nor depend on benevolence which in the prosperous condition of Christianity might perhaps grow cold as under Popery the Charity of Oblations had done but for the Aâ—tifices before mentioned of Saints Shrines c. and Reliques and the fear of Purgatory Of the Oblations of the people here in England decreasing toward the Pastors of Independent Churches when Independency became the Darling Religion of the State we had an indication in the late times when some of the most eminent of them obtain'd the possession of great Livings and their Tithes and others of them retreated from their Churches to Headships of Colledges Nor has there been any failure of the return of the old Exuberance of Oblations from such Churches to such Divines who have again returned to them when they were dislodged from those preferments I find not that the Piety of our Ancestors had established any Revenue to the Church from Tithes in England till about the end of the Eighth or middle of the Ninth Century nor was the division of England into Parishes before the time of Honorius Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 636 till which time there could not be Parochial Tithes About that time as 't was said that the measure of donations to the Church was immensitas so was the modus of their Artifices to preserve them sine modo it being incident to humane Nature to be restless in the acquiring of riches for without the perpetual acquiring of more no Man is sure to preserve the Quota of what he hath 'T was thence that Sacriledge of the Monks arose that tore the Bread out of the Mouths of the Parish Priests by the Name of Appropriations which shewed the President to Wolseys alienation of Religious Houses that was the President to Harry the Eighth's And it may well be supposed that the Design of the Monks in robbing the Parochial incumbents by Appropriations was to propagate ignorance among the Laity thereby and to leave the Age as dark as they found it or rather to be able generally to let in or keep out what quantity of light they pleased Yet had those Appropriations been made in an Age of knowledge they would then have met with that Nick-name of Impropriations that was born many years afterward and it would then have appeared improper to all that the Monks should Muzzle the mouth of the Ox that did tread out the Corn and that old natural Zeal for Religion so anciently radicated in English minds that Popes have formerly complained they were addrest to with more questions about Religion from England than from all the World beside would have inclined the respective Parishioners according to their abilities to contribute a liberal maintenance to their Parish Priests and even in St. Paul's words To have plucked out their own Eyes and have given them but that they saw that devotion that brought the fore-mentioned concourse of Spectators and Offerers to the Images and Shrines and to the Altars there made the Vicars at least competently to live by the Altar And if that Classe of heterodox Pastors in Corporations who as to skill in Theology and the Encyclopaedy of Arts and Sciences requisite to Crown a Divine are generally but Images in comparison of the excellent
taught to know the Numbers of all people but our own But in this State of improvement that the World is arrived at I do account that all who shall hereafter employ their Pens about that greatest exercise of humane Wit and Judgment call'd History and shall not found the weight of their Remarques upon the Numbers of the People they write of will no more be termed grave Authors or indeed ought but grave nothings and such who deal irreverently with a World that is weary of trifles and from which they are to expect no other Doom then that of the Annales Volusi And though as to the faetus populi as well as to the faetus pecuniae called faenus accidents may happen that may cross the Rule of encrease in both Cases as in the latter by Bankrupts and in the former by Plague or War c. and thus once as to the Romans Censa sunt Civium Capita 270 Millia and in the following enrollment but 137 Ex quo numero apparuit saith the Historian quantum hominum tot praeliorum adversa fortuna populi Romani abstulisset as if he would infer that the losses they received from Hanibal had swept away 133000 Citizens yet do such exceptions but confirm the Rule the which may be made out by continued mean proportionals But this by the way If my Lord Herbert who mentions pag. 121 of his History That in the Year 1522 Warrants were issued out Commanding the Certificates of the Names of all above sixteen Years old had set down the total number of the persons certified he had much more obliged the World then by many things in his History I do not remember that any of our Historians of those times do relate the Numbers of the Religious Persons that all the suppressed Monasteries contain'd We are told by Godwin in his Annals That the number of the Abbies that were in England is not easily cast up and the Names of the chiefest and whose Abbots had voices among the Peers in Parliament he thereupon enumerates But Weaver in his Funeral Monuments p. 104 mentioning That all the Religious Houses under the Yearly value of 200 l. being given to the King and that they were all worth per annum 20941 l. saith That the Religious Persons put out of the same were above Ten Thousand My Lord Herbert p. 441 speaking of that sort of Monasteries being dissolved in the 27 th year of the King's Reign makes Thirty or Thirty two Thousand pound yearly thereby fall into the King's hand And p. 507 makes the total yearly value of all the Religious Houses suppressed to be 161100 l. It may therefore be thence infer'd that if Thirty Thousand pound yearly maintain'd 10000 Religious Persons that there were maintain'd by the 161100 l. above 50000 Religious Persons or Regulars And according to the aforesaid rate of the yearly value of the Land viz. 161100 l. the allowance to each came to somewhat above 3 l. per annum the which shews that those Lands were not sold to half the value because less then double that Sum cannot be imagined to have maintain'd such a person then I do account that supposing the Parishes to have been then in England and Wales as Cambden in his Britannia says 9284 that the Secular Clergy added to the Number of the Regular only the last said Number For then the Canon Law which requires that Orders shall not be given to Men without Titles being strictly executed there were perhaps not more Parish Priests in England And the adding to those Numbers the Dignitaries viz. Two Archbishops and 24 Bishops and 26 Deans and 60 Arch-Deacons and 544 Prebendarys and several Rural Deans doth enlarge the Sum to another Thousand of Persons who lived by the Altar Moreover there being then estimated to live in Oxford and Cambridge about Sixty Thousand Students who in expectation of Church-preferment as either Regulars or Seculars abstain'd from Marriage I account that the Number of Persons then ty'd by Caelibate from encreasing and multiplying the people to be above 120000 as at present above double that Number are in France What accrued to the Secular Clergy then or since by Tithes ought not to have been looked on by any one with an evil Eye as I suppose by Mr. Fish it was not For as to the nature of the payment of Tithes according to the judgment of Sir W. P. in his Book of Taxes and Contributions p. 58 It may be said to be no Tax or Levy in England whatever it might have been in the first age of its Institution And this notion of his may be extended even to that which is called a Tenth but is revera a Fifth I mean the Tith of arables in regard of the charge of Culture and Seed which is ordinarily at least as much as the Rent of the Land because it is a charge equally incumbent on all proprietors of such Land and for that the true notion of Wealth and Riches depends on comparison and 't is only the inequality in the proportion of the Tax that is the sting thereof But that which Mr. Fish chiefly level'd his Calculations at was the excessive share in the Wealth of the Kingdom the Monks and Fryars had who did so little for its preservation and the encrease of its Numbers What an infinite number of people saith he might have been encreased to have peopled the Realm if this sort of Folk had been married like other Men Instead of using his Rhetorical Expression of infinite I shall affirm that these 120000 adult able persons living in Celibate might according to the notion of the Observator of the Bills of Mortality That every marriage one with another produceth four Children viz. Two apiece for each Sex have more then doubled their number in the same age by which any one may well conclude that as the number of the people of England is now vastly encreased by the dissolution of Abbies so it would likewise be so diminished by their re-establishment To effect therefore to lessen thus the number of the people of England when the French King with great wisdom has by the Revival of the Roman Immunity of the Ius trium librorum and the application of others laid so a great Foundation for the growing populousness of France would too much expose us to his power and derision The Divine Wisdom's allotting to the Levitical Tribe the affluent quota it enjoy'd is very justly took notice of by those who discourse of the Clerical Revenue The Author of the Present State of England saith That our Ancestors according to the pattern of God's ancient people the Iews judged it expedient to allot large Revenues to the English Clergy and that the English Clergy were the best provided for of any Clergy in the whole World except only the Nation of the Iews among whom the Tribe of Levi being not the Fourth part of the twelve Tribes as appears in the Book of Numbers yet had as Mr. Selden
their Guardian and account it a very preposterous thing that since our Saviour refused to divide an Inheritance his pretended Vicar should do nothing else Moreover Holy Churches resuming all its Lands out of Lay hands would appear the more strange in England when we see as my Lord Primate Bramhal saith in his vindication of the Church of England p. 212 that the very Kings of Spain impose Pensions usually on Ecclesiastical preferments to the 4th part of the value and particularly one Pension on the Arch-Bishoprick of Sivile in favour of an Infant of Castile of greater value then all the Pensions there imposed by the Pope and when we know that the French King doth for the behoof of so great a number of Lay-men impose so many and great Pensions on the Abbeys without saying to the Abbots more then Car tel est nostre plaisir Sir Edwyn Sands in his Europae Speculum writ in the Year 1599 and in the time of Harry the 4 th of France speaking of that Kingdom saith That there the Church Prelacies and other Governments of Souls are made the Fees and Charges of meer Courtiers and Soldiers and our excellent Animadverter on Monsieur Sorbier reflecting on that Country Intimates in effect how there the chiefest spiritual dignities are entailed upon Families and possest by Children They who unjustly cry out of the Constitution of the Church of England for interrupting the Trade of the Kingdom would be loud enough in their Complaints of Omnia comesta à Belo under Popery He who knows not that the Revenue of the King now depends in a manner solely upon Trade and that Trade depends on populousness and that the encouragement of people to live under any Government is that great thing call'd Property in their Estates Religion and Laws and that therefore any thing that calls it self Religion that goes to exterminate above a hundred and fifty persons for every one it leaves for so the Proportion between Non-Papists and Papists by the Bishops survey made about the Year 1676 was return'd to be and to call them Hereticks and which makes their Goods and life ipso facto a forfeit of the Law will not ipso facto exterminate Trade is fitter for the Galleys or a Trading Voyage to the Anticyrae then for any discourse of Trade and Commerce Your Lordship hath in your Travels sufficiently seen it long since exemplified that the Protestant Countries for the quantity of Ground exceed the Popish in Trade and numbers of People and that thus the Protestant Hanse Towns have eclipsed their Roman Catholick Neighbours and Amsterdam Antwerp and the Vnited Provinces Flanders and that in Flanders where the Ecclesiasticks are Proprietors of seven parts of ten of the whole Country Levies of Men and Money for the defence thereof have been made with so much slowness and difficulty and been so inconsiderable as not to have secured themselves against Invaders Nor did the Ecclesiasticks there think it worth their while to strain themselves in Contributions to resist an Invader who is of their own Religion the which made the French Kings Victories there flie like Lightning more then our over-rich English Regulars did to oppose William the Conqueror when he came here under the Popes Banner And thus were they here and in Flanders are like Wenns in the Body which draw to themselves much nourishment and are of great trouble and no use and thus ridiculous is it that so over great a part of the property of the Land should be linked to persons who are no way linked to the interest of the Country more then professed Gamesters and Empyrics and Soldiers of Fortune and are no more damnified by Popish Invaders then Fishes of the Sea are by Earth-Quakes But on the other hand in the United-Provinces how easily and soon are vast Taxes raised when their All is at Stake to what a prodigious encrease of the numbers of their People have they attain'd since the Reformation insomuch that the Author of a Political discourse of the Interest of Holland Printed in Dutch in the Year 1669 and Licensed by Iohn de Witt and by Van Beaumont makes the People in the Province of Holland to be 2 Millions and 400 thousand and so likewise doth Pellerus in his Learned Notes on Klockius de Aerario p. 300. and there cites that Book of the interest of Holland when as Gerard Malynes in his Lex mercatoria makes the People in Flanders in the Year 1622 to have consisted of a hundred and forty thousand Families and he reckoning each of them one with an other at 5 persons makes the Total of the people in Flanders to have then amounted but to seven hundred thousand Souls And yet as that Author of the interest of Holland saith the Province of Holland can hardly make 400 thousand profitable Acres or Morgens of Land Down and Heath not put in and that the 8 th part of the Inhabitants of Holland cannot be nourished with what is growing there but tells us what prodigious Granaries they there have and that Amsterdam that in the Year 1571 was about 200 Morgens or Acres of Land was in the year 1650 enlarged to 600 Morgens or Acres of Land in Circumference and to have in it three hundred thousand Souls And the defence of the Zelanders Choice Printed in the Year 1673 mentions Aitsmas Liere to have reckon'd the publick Incomes of Holland alone in the Year 1643 to have amounted to 1100 thousand pound Sterling and the Author of the Interest of Holland saith that in one Year in a time of Peace viz. In the Year 1664 the Inhabitants of Holland did over and above the Customes and other Domains of the Earls or States of Holland pay towards the publick Charge as follows viz. To the States of Holland 11 Millions of Gilders To the Admiralty of the Maze 472 898 Gilders To the Admiralty of Amsterdam 2 Millions of Gilders To the Admiralty of the Northern Quarter 200 thousand Guilders Which comes to in all about 14 hundred 87 thousand Pounds Sterling How meanly do the Atchievements of Venice and their Efforts to aggrandize their Republick compared with Hollands shew in story for the quantity of years many times doubled since the Dutch threw off the Yoke of the Papacy History hath recorded the longevity of the Venetian Government as it has of Methusalem of whom we read not 〈◊〉 great thing he said or did or attempted but a few days of the short life of Alexander in the Ballance of same weighs down the 999 years of the other The very Religion of Popery makes the Venetians more narrow in their principles and even in their Rules of Traffick then are the Inhabitants of Protestant Countries The Popish Religion doth hamper its devout Professors as to Trading with Hereticks and holding Communication with such as are ipso jure ipso facto excommunicated and giving any Quarentine to men said to be infected with Heresie insomuch that we are told in D'
Ossat's Letters Part. 2d That the Republick of Venice would not suffer the Ambassador of Henry the 4 th to them thô a Catholick to be admitted to their Chappels with other Ambassadors because they did not know his Master to be reconciled to the See of Rome And Bodin de Rep. says That the number of the Inhabitants of Venice was taken Anno 1555 and was then in all but one hundred and eighty thousand and four hundred and forty Sir William Temple in the 5th Chapter of his Observations on the United Provinces makes one of the great Causes of the first Revolt in the Low-Countries to be the oppression of Mens Consciences or Persecution in their Liberties Estates and Lives on the pretence of Religion and it may be truly said that by their buying the truth at the Rate of such high Taxes as they now pay and not selling it either to France or Spain they have been no losers for many good Artists and wealthy Fugitives have brought their Persons and Families and Estates to them for shelter from the Storm of Papal Persecution and daily continue so to do insomuch that the Author of the Zelanders Choice in Sect. 3. Observes that of late years some of the Wise Men of the Reformed Religion in France being fearful of its being there utterly supplanted have required their Children by their last Wills and Testaments to leave France and settle themselves in the Vnited Provinces and in so doing they bestowed rich Legacies on Holland each head of any new comer being judged to add at a Medium 3 l. per year to the riches of the State. The late great late accession of Protestant strangers to Amsterdam hath caused many new houses to be there built and hath raised the Rents of the old ones a 5 th part whereas they are sunk a 4 th in Cheapside in London 'T is there that Men of every Nation under Heaven Parthians and Arabians Iews Papists Calvinists Lutherans and the Christians of the Subdivisions of all Sects do hear Men speak in their own Language and what they think most Musical to them the wonderful works of God. Nor are the Enemies to Monarchy to ascribe the flourshing State of Holland to its former throwing the Power of the State-holder and Captain General out of the Ballance of their Government Their breaking down the Banks of his Authority introduced the sudden inundation of the French Power among them that they had else been more secured against then the Assaults of the Ocean and not have so perfectly forgot the Art and Nature of Defensive War in their Frontiers and thô it may seem plausible that an Animal supposed to have most heads will have most brains and that Republicks are more apprehensive of their true interest then other Governments yet to the Reproach of such Politicks it appear'd that when the Regnant Faction in Holland were no more headed by a Captain General or State-holder and had thrown the poise of his Power out of the Scales they grew so vain as thô they had no Capital Ships yet to become aggressors in a Naval War against England that had Ships enow of that kind to affright the World and of which War the Result was the abolishing their great Navigation 〈◊〉 England from whence their forced frequenting of our Harbours still occasions their exporting more of our Commodities then we import of theirs But this by the way However so vast yet is their Navigation and the number of their Marriners that thô we need them not for our Carriers both Spain and France do and to which Kingdoms they have and probably will for some Ages to come have the honour and profit to be Carriers how much soever France is or seems to be fear'd by us and thus that Book of the Interest of Holland tells us viz. That the French have very few Ships and Marriners of their own so that almost all their Traffick for Holland some few English Ships of Trade excepted is driven by Dutch Ships and that when any Goods are transported from one French Haven to another they are laden on Board Dutch Vessels and that as to Spain that it hath so few Marriners and Ships that since the Peace between them and Holland they have used to hire Dutch Ships to sail to the Indies And therefore when I consider what that ingenious Author hath thus discoursed and that Sir W. P. in a Manuscript discourse in the Year 1671 2 hath Calculated the number of the Total of the Seamen who are Subjects of France to be 15000 and that a great and fatal diminution of the number of them since happen'd in the Year 1678 by so many of their then perishing under D' Estre in the West-Indies and that as the Author of Britannia languens saith The Dutch have at least 10 times as many Seamen as the English I shall venture to conclude that more then all the Millions of Mankind now living will be dissolved to Ashes before humanly speaking it will be possible for France to over-ballance either the Dutch or 〈◊〉 at Sea and whoever they are that pretend to fear the Contrary I think they do but pretend to fear it But at once to return to the consideration of the gain Holland hath from fresh Advenae and to take my leave of it all old Trades being there fully improved such new comers are forced to dig up a new Soile of Trade and Industry as I may call it for their subsistance and thus at the Charge of their Experiments the Country is enriched and many new Artists there bring with them their old experimented Arts and thus 't is known that an English-man from Yarmouth coming to be an Inhabitant among them taught them the rich Arcanum of the Fishing Trade and since they disused to pray to dead Saints in the way of Popery they have found living Saints praying to them to be admitted to live with them and have not only had the honour to entertain Saints but by being not forgetful to entertain Strangers they have unawares entertain'd Angels as the Scripture expression is and such who have proved tutelar ones to their Country and Religion No marvel therefore if the Learned Divine the Author of the Defence of the Zelanders Choice doth there so pathetically pronounce his opinion that if ever the Protestant Religion shall leave Holland that Country may be called Ichabod i. e. the Glory is departed from it And here I should be injurious to the Political Energy of the Reformation in England if I should not observe how vastly it has contributed to the encrease of the value of our Land and the number of the people and the extent of our Commerce and indeed of Commerce it self It was not long before the Reformation that the Kings and People of England maintained themselves chiefly by Sheperdry and the Kings and people of France by Tillage and their great improvement in Manufacture bears Date but from Harry the 4 ths time The great
Millions of Souls But there scarce needs any other Medium whereby to evince that the Progress of the Reformation hath vastly encreased the value of our Land and proportion of our Commerce then that it hath so vastly encreased the number of our People a Fact that I have already proved and have shewn what Depopulaors or dispeoplers of the Kingdom the Monks were and have made some Calculations of the numbers of the Religious Persons living in Celibate and the effects thereof in restraining formerly the growth of the Numbers of the People but do find that I was extremely short in assigning the number of those whom Popery made to live in Celibate to be but 120000. I was glad to gain a rise for somewhat like an Estimate of the numbers of all the Religious persons in Monasteries by finding it in Weavers Monuments that the Religious Persons put out of the Religious Houses under the yearly value of 200 l. were above 10000 and that therein Weaver agrees with Sanders de Schismate c. but I made no Estimate of the numbers of Friers Mendicant the which were very great and I was too short on the accounting that there were perhaps no more Secular Priests then Benefices in England for thô the Rule of the Canon Law allows not Orders to be given to Men without a Title yet it admits an exception in the Case of Men who can live on their own patrimony and it still took the Title to be a Curate as current Coyn for one to a living and moreover the livelihoods that many unbeneficed Secular Priests acquired by saying particular Masses did pass for Titles and thus in France it being conceived that the Secular Priests unbeneficed are about 6 times as many as the beneficiaries we may thence guess what the proportions of their numbers were in England But yet further to discourse of the growth of the numbers of the people of England before and since the Reformation I shall acquaint your Lordship that you may easily find among the Records of the Exchequer what the number of the people of England was in the Year 1522 when Harry the 8 th as I cited it out of my Lord Herberts History p. 121 Caused Warrants to be Issued out Commanding the Certificates of the number of all above 16 years old to be returned and by an Index or Repertory of the Matters of State in the Exchequer that I have I can readily direct the finding it out there and moreover by the accounts of the Pole Acts in former times a considerable indication of the numbers of the people in those days may be had And if we may guess at the encrease of the people of England from that of London I can easily satisfie any person about the prodigious growth of that City in numbers of people and consequently in wealth since the abandoning of the Papacy I have by me an account of the proportions of the Shires of England City of London in a Tax of 50000 l. long since in Edward the 3 ds time and in which Surry bore the same proportion with London and in which London and Surry and Middlesex paid but about 1500 l. which was but about a 16 th part And in Harry the 8 ths times it hapned that Cardinal Pool excited divers Princes of Christendom to invade England a fit man he was who had been then a Traytor to come here and absolve Hereticks but Holling shead in his Chronicle of Harry the 8 th p. 947 tells us That the King having heard of the Treasonable practices of the Cardinal did Anno 1539 make a Survey of his Naval Strength and did ride to the Sea-Coasts and that Sir William Foreman Knight then Major of London was commanded to certifie the names of all the Men within the City and liberties thereof between the age of 16 and 60 whereupon the said Mayor and his Brethren each one in his Ward by the Oath of the Common-Council and Constable took the number of Men Arms and Weapons and after well considering of the matter by view of their Books they thought it not expedient to admit the whole number certified for apt and able men and therefore assembling themselves again they chose forth the most able persons and put by the residue especially such as had no Armour But when they were credibly advertised by Thomas Cromwel Lord Privy-Seal to whom the City was greatly beholden that the King himself would see the People of the City Muster in a convenient number and not to set forth all their power but to leave some at home to keep the City c. then he saith the number beside the Whifflers and other Waiters was 15000. But the Observator on the Bills of Mortality hath in his last Observations on that Subject told us That there are in London about 6 hundred and 70000 Souls and thô I know that some Parishes are included within the Bills of Mortality for the said City that formerly were not yet the said Observator having told us that there are in London more Males then Females and it being true that there are as many above the Age of sixteen as are under it and that the Sexagenarii are but a 6 th part of Mankind and the Quota of the numbers resulting from the Parishes added being likewise shewn us by that Observator let any one judge how vast the number of able Men certifiable between 16 and 60 is grown to be since that year of Harry the 8 th before mentioned It must be acknowledged that the thanks of the Age are due to the Observator on the Bills of Mortality for those solid and rational Calculations he hath brought to light relating to the numbers of our people but such is the modesty of that excellent Author that I have often heard him wish that a thing of so great publick importance to be certainly known might be so by an actual numbring of them and the truth is it is much to be pittied that by the care of Magistrates an exact number of the people as well of London as of all other places in the Realm hath not with diligence been made and preserved the knowledge whereof is the Substratum of all political measures that can be taken as to a Nations strength or riches and the part thereof that is spareable for Colonies and the value of the branches of the publick Revenue and the equality in proportioning any Taxes or Levies by Act of Parliament and the satisfying the World about the value of our Alliances a thing one would think somewhat necessary when 't is published in Print that a Forraign Minister who hath spent much time here and is deservedly famous for being a Critical Judge in the Politicks and in many sorts of Learning makes the people of England to be but two Millions and when a late famous French Author of la Politique Francoise who sets up with his Goose-quill to be a Governor of the World reproacheth us
after his manner with the fewness of our people and saith How insolent soever the English are they must confess that all the Brittish Islands laid together do not equal the half of our Continent either in extent c. or number of Men in Wealth in Valour Industry and Vnderstanding Mr. Iames Howel in his Londinopolis Printed Anno 1657 saith That in the Year 1636 King Charles sending to the Lord Major of London to make a Scrutiny of what Roman Catholicks there were in London he took occasion thereby to make a Cense of all the people and that there were of Men Women and Children above 7 hundred thousand that lived within the Barrs of his Iurisdiction alone and this being 21 years ago 't is thought by all probable computation that London hath more now by a third part then it had then In his Parallel of London there with other great Cities in the World he observes that the weekly Bills of Mortality in Amsterdam come but to about 60 a week whence saith he It may be inferr'd that London is about 5 times as populous more dying in a week commonly in London then 300. And as to the quantity of the people in London there is no doubt to be made but that if in the year 1636 there lived 700,000 within the Barrs of the Lord Majors Iurisdiction there lived then so many more in the other Parishes within the Bills of Mortality and that there live in this year within the Bills of Mortality more then double the number that did in the year 1636 and at that Rate their number would now amount to near two Millions But I am to suspect that there was no such return of any Cense of the people within the Barrs of the Lords Majors Iurisdiction in the year 1636 as is before mentioned and do suppose that Mr. Howel did in that point mistake partly for that I think him mistaken in his Allegation before as to the people of Paris being returned as above a Million of Souls at the last Câ—nse made there and do as to their number give more credit to the Bishop of Rhodes who in his History of Harry the 4 th written since the year 1660 saith in part 2d That there were in Paris when 't was block'd up only 200000 persons and that there were then retired thence 100000 of the Inhabitants so that in those times there were no more then 300,000 Souls in Paris whereas 't is now believed there are twice as many and partly because I find it mentioned by the curious Observator on the Bills of Mortality p. 113 and 114. That Anno 1631 Ann. 7. Caroli 1. The number of Men Women and Children in the several Wards of London and Liberties taken in August 1631. by special Command of the Lords of his Majesties Privy-Council came in all but to 130178 and finally because the said curious Observator for that name I give that Author after my Lord Chief Iustice Hales hath given or adjudged it to him in his Origination of Mankind having by rational Calculations proved that their dyes within the Bills of Mortality a thirtieth part or one in thirty yearly and that there dyes ordinarily there 22000 per Annum that if there were there according to Howel a Million and an half of people it would follow that there must dye but 1 out of 70 per Annum and that they must live one with another 70 years There is an ingenious Author and that is the Author of the present State of England who tells us in his 2 d part That in 1588 there went forth from the Queen Commissions to Muster in all parts of England all Men that were of perfect Sence and Limbs from the Age of 16 to 60 except Noblemen Clergy-men Vniversity Students Lawyers Officers and such as had any publick charges leaving only in every Parish so many Husbandmen as were sufficient to Till the Ground In all those Musters there were then numbred three Millions but of those fit for War about 600,000 I would scarce desire better Evidence for an Opinion that the people of England were in all 12 Millions then that 3 Millions of Males between 16 and 60 were then returned for the said Observator having by Calculation assured us that there are about as many Females as Males and about as many people under the Age of 16 as are above it the said opinion would stand firm and unshaken There is too another Author who much enlargeth the number of the people of England and that is Gerard Matynes in his Lex Mercatoria first Printed in the year 1622 and there in Cap. 46. he makes them to be 16 Millions and 800,000 but any one will hardly take his word for it who considers that he there makes the people of Scotland to be 9 Millions who are but about one Million and reckons 5500 Parishes in Ireland where there were never more then 2 thousand 2 hundred Parishes But 't is the fate of Nations to have their numbers sometimes inconsiderately Assigned by considerable Authors and thus it happened particularly to France from an error of Campanella who in his discourse of the Spanish Mochy C. 24. saith that France hath in it 27000 Parishes and 100 and 50 Millions of Souls At this rate there would be in the Parishes in France one with another 5555 Souls whereas Sir W. P. in a Manuscript discourse of his saith That a substantial Author in his Treatise concerning France sets it down as an extraordinary Case if a Parish in France hath in it 600 Souls We have too an Author of great Vogue for the Politicks Sir Robert Cotton who in his Abstract of the Records of the Tower touching the Kings Revenue hath these words viz. That London which is not the 24th part in people of the Kingdom had in it found above 800,000 by a late enquiry by the Order of the late Queen meaning Queen Elizabeth But so far have we been from enabling our Political Writers to satisfie themselves in the Numbers of our People that we have not done it yet as to the very Numbers of Parishes wherein Blunt tells us in his Law Lexicon that our Authors differ and we generally reckon them as they were before many new ones have been built One late writer has accounted the Parishes in England and Wales to be 10260 and Mr. Adams sayes in his Villare Anglicum p. 408. That he is of opinion that there are about 1500 Parishes in England and Wales not valued in the Kings Books and of which he can get no account so as to make the same perfect and 't will be difficult for him to do it unless the several persons concern'd in the particulars give an account of it Cambden in his Britannia Printed Anno 1607 when he reckons the Parish Churches in the Bishoprick of Durham and in Northumberland to be 118 adds praeter sacella plurima and saith in Yorkshire Parishes besides Chappels and Parishes to which many Chappels are
under whom they be Born some for Heresie some for Murther Treason Robbery and are there further represented as such whose secret practices have not fail'd to stir her Highnesses Subjects to a Rebellion against God and her Grace c. But secret Traitors they were found by the Realm and secret they were left by it Two of them were Iohn a Lasco Uncle to the King of Poland and Peter Martyr that were thus sent out of the Realm with Sanbenitos on and so far were our Popish Ancestors from Hospitality to Strangers and thereby unawares entertaining Angels that they made Devils of them and as such used them and to make amends to the multitude of Forraign Artists for the Gold they brought here they had the Dirt of Shams thrown at them by a Proclamation And as if not only the Biting but the very Barking of Mad Doggs had power to make others Mad she grew so enraged by the Books of Heresie and Sedition Printed in Forraign Parts and here Imported that she Publish'd a Proclamation Printed likewise in Fox wherein she Declared to all her Subjects that Whoever shall after the Proclaiming hereof be found to have any of the said Wicked and Seditious Books or finding them do not forthwith Burn the same without shewing or reading the same shall in that Case be Reputed and taken for a Rebel and shall without delay be Executed for the Offence according to the order of Martial Law. But nothing can palliate the Arbitrariness of Queen Mary's Proclamation for the Exercising of Martial Law but that she thought her Reign a time of War and perhaps not altogether Improperly for that Hereticks have the Title of Hostes given them by Popish Masters of Ceremonies There was another reason that induced Queen Mary to use the Arbitrary Power that her Popish Predecessors did not and that is this The People of England in the days of Popery were like to the three Fools in Lipsius that being ty'd together by a twine Thread went Whining about the House and consenting that they who would unty the Knots of it should have what Money from them they pleas'd And thus were our Foolish Ancestors innodated with Papal Censures and the Priests did but Arbitrarily ask and have their rewards to Absolve them But that Queen finding that the Reformation begun had proved Physick to Cure those Idiots of their dull Stupidity she therefore supposed that the Fools who before were held by the twine Thread must then be bound to the good Behaviour with Chains In fine by these three Important Acts of Arbitrary Power the which presently occurred to my remembrance out of her Story and without my troubling my self to rake for more she gave the alarm to her Subjects newly after their Eyes had been opened and their Hands unty'd by the Reign of K. Edward that they were to expect no free Trading where there was no free Living and to hear nothing but the dying Groans of Liberty and Religion So very exact indeed is the Frame of our English Government and of the Soveraignes Power and Peoples Liberty therein that as in an Arched Building if one Stone be removed from it the whole is immediately endanger'd and nothing could probably have saved it from ruin but the Restoration of our Law as well as Gospel by such a Reign as Queen Elizabeths who was so far from the exercise of Arbitrary Power on her good Subjects and Friends that she did it not on the worst nor on her Enemies One would have thought that after the many attempts against her Life and after the forementioned threatning Letter of Campians which notifies that the Iesuits had entred into a Covenant or Association to Kill Heretical Princes c. that she might have been provoked to have declared that Order by a Proclamation to be Hostes a thing that she or any Protestant Crown'd Heads might do without Violating the Laws of Nations in reference to those Forraign Princes that were their Allies and to whom any of that Order were Subjects a thing not only Consonant to the jus gentium but to our Lex terrae as it was resolv'd in Cambden's Elizabeth by the Lord Chief Justice Catelin who being ask'd Whither the Subjects of another Prince Confederate with the Queen might be held for the Queens Enemies Answer'd That they might and that the Queen of England might make War with any Duke of France and yet in the mean time hold Peace with the French King and a thing that if done would have tended more to their Extermination out of this or any Country perhaps then all other Laws against them in regard that it would have more effectually bereav'd them of the benefit of Correspondence Aids and Assistance from thence all Subjects being every where by the Law rendred Traytors who Correspond with or give Aid and Assistance to declared Enemies Nor would the term of Hostes bestow'd on such be more then a Retaliation and to this purpose Mariana makes the people authoriz'd to Proclaime a King upon occasion to be a Publick Enemy and so likewise Lessius even in his Book de Iustitiâ jure saith That a Tyrant is to be declared an Enemy by the Common-welth and thus Parsons alias Doleman in his Book of the Succession Part 2. Cap. 4. terms an Evil King an Armed Enemy The term I mention'd before of inimicus homo is certainly proper enough for those that sow such Tares in the World as the Iesuites do and make not only Lollards of ordinary Hereticks but as the Commenter on the Epitome of Confessions otherwise the 7 th Book of Decretals tells us in Commendation of all the Iesuits in these words Tyrannos aggrediuntur lolium ab agro Dominico evellunt I shall here observe how in the year 1596. the Hollanders and others of the States of the Vnited Provinces did Publish an Edict That none of the Bloudy Sect of the Jesuits or any that gives himself to Study at this time among the Professors of that Sect whether he be Bâ—rn in any of the Provinces that are Confederate or be a Forraigner crept secretly into the same Province should longer remain there then the time prescribed under the pain of being accounted and kill'd for an Enemy But that Magnanimous Queen did as much think it Inglorious for her to employ her Anger in such a Proclamation on such firy pedants as I believe our potent Neighbouring Monarch whose Name will look as great in all â—uture Story for mighty dilligence and for exact prudence in the Conduct of his Affairs of State as for the Success of his Arms would to Honour with the Title of Enemies such little great talkers who here in the Coffee-Houses Arraign his Political Measures And the truth is as it is not worthy the Grandeur of Princes who are Heavens Vice-gerents to squander away its thunder in experiments on Shrubs and Mushrooms or on slight grounds to call any of slight mankind and who are of no Name by that dreadful one
go hence for our Plantations do Contribute some way to the Trade of the Kingdom and many of them return hither again But Mr. Roger Coke in his Book called Englands Improvements pag. 21. saith It s believed above 12000. of the Kings Scotish Subjects yearly go out of Scotland into Poland Sweden Germany France Holland and other places and never after return into Scotland And that Author having before in the same page mentioned That 5 l. given with an Apprentice to be instructed in the Woollen or any Manufacture by which means be afterward earns 30 l. per annum this in 20. years becomes 600 l. c. which is more valuable to the Nation then if 600 l. had been given it and the People not employed Thereupon he afterward Computes That the benefit which might accrue to the Nation by employing so many thousands of the Scottish Subjects there might in 20. years time be above 6 Millions And according to the opinion of that Worthy Gentleman we may further be inclined to think the Number of the Scots removing into Forraign parts to be very great when we find among Sir Iohn Denhams Poems one with this Inscription or Title On my Lord Crofts and my Iourney into Poland from whence we brought 10000 l. for his Majesty by the Decimation of his Scotish Subjects there But moreover the satisfying the Inquisite genius of our People concerning the greatness of their Numbers may be of some importance to them and the publick quiet in satisfying them of the Vanity of the former Moddellers of a Republick here a form of Government tho easily supposed Practicable in large Cities yet not so in great and populous Nations and likewise of the Vanity of all fears of a Vniversal Monarchy bridling the world again a thing which though it was of old feasable when Mankind made not so mighty a Mass is now far from being so 'T was easie to imagine it possible and indeed to effect it in the days when Aristotle taught men that no City ought to have above 10000. Citizens and when however the Number of Citizens was grown at Athens to 20000. and when in the Roman Empire the number of the Citizens was not so vast as is by many imagined and so accordingly the Excellent Discourser de Magnitudine Romanâ Lipsius lib. 1. cap. 7. then Speaking of the Multitudo Romanorum under Augustus saith Ipse de se in Lapide Ancyrano clare hoc dicit In consulatu suo Sexto lustrum condidisse quo lustro Censita sunt Civium Romanorum Capita quadragiens Centum millia Sexaginta tria i. e. four Millions and a hundred thousand And Lipsius afterward mentioning that the Number of the Romans encreased under Claudius cites Tacitus for making it then Sexagies movies centena Sexaginta quatuor Millia i. e. about seven Millions There is no doubt but the People of the Provinces did vastly exceed that Number but since according to the estimate of Bodin in his de Rep. 't is probable that the Roman Empire when at its greatest extent in Trajans time scarce contain'd the thirtieth part of the World and that the prolifit North stiled generally by Authors officina vagina gentium by the encrease of its populacy so humbled the Roman Sword that within about 154. years afterward some of the Roman Emperors became their Allies and Gallus submitted to pay Tribute to the Goths t is no wonder that the thirtieth part of the World was since reduced to cease from domineering over all the other parts of it And notwithstanding Maximines boast to the Senate in the fragment of his account to them of his German Successes cited by Iul. Capitolinus in his Life tantum Captivorum abduxi ut vix Sola Romana sufficiant his Resvery of the Immortality of the Roman Power on the Stage of the World was liable to Confutation from the same way of arguing as his Conceit of his own Immortality was which having been observed to have tainted his fancy on the occasion of his great and robust Body the same Capitolinus in his Life saies was corrected by a Players reciting these Lines on the Stage in his presence Qui ab uno non potest a multis occiditur Elephans grandis est occiditur Leo fortis est occiditur Tigris fortis est occiditur Cave multos si Singulos non times But what I find by Lipsius in the second Book third Chapter there cited out of Tertullian is much more applicable to the present State of the World then to that wherein t was Writ He saith there At Tertulliani locum non insuper habeo qui egregie asserit Copiam hominum cultumque orbis in suo i. e. Severi Saeculo De animâ Cap. 30. Certè quidem ipse orbis in promptu est cultior de die instructior pristino Omnia jam pervia omnia nota omnia negotiosa Solitudines famosas retrò fundi amaenissimi obliteraverunt Sylvas arva domuerunt feras pecora fugaverunt Arenae Seruntur Saxa panguntur Raludes eliquantur Tantae urbes quantae non casae quondam Iam nec Insulae horrent nec Scopuli terrent ubique domus ubique populus ubque Resp. ubique vita Summum testimonium frequentiae humanae onerosi sumus Mundo Vix nobis elementa sufficiunt necessitates arctiores querelae apud omnes dum jam nos Natura non sustinet Then adds Lipsius Nihil impressius dici potest de pleno frequentique orbe And that strong and populous Nations Conspired to break their Chains hath nothing of wonder in it and the truth is the freedom the World has gain'd since the decay of the Roman Empire and even by means thereof hath hung out such a Picture before all mens Eyes of Populous Mankind drawn to the bigness of the Life as has made the Notion of erecting another Vniversal Monarchy seem but a Portraiture of Imagination containing nothing but bold Strokes of Colour without regular Proportion and Design and the Copying only a Landskip of the Devil's Mountain and his shewing thence all the Kingdoms of the World. How is the World ashamed now of its having been in the last foregoing Age amused with the thoughts of the King of Spain's being its Catholick Monarch and of having tormented it self with Jealousies about such a great Nothing And which I believe was never modell'd in the fancy of that Prince and was only projected by Court-Sycophants and Mercenary Writers and that he himself never enter'd any express claim to it one would think who reads the Duke of Buckingham's answer to the Spanish Embassador's Informations c. Anno 1624. where the Duke having aggravated some State-Practices the Spanish Minister adds And is not this a Proclamation to all the World that they aspired to such an absolute Monarchy as so many Books Stories Discourses and the general Complaints of all Princes and States have long charged them with But for such Writers as I last mention'd to
in that Quarter to put an end to that which begins in Nomine Domini and that they will not be the rather willing so to do in regard that the North made the World feel the Malignity of both those Proverbs by its old well-meant charity to the Bishops of Rome And since in the days of Popery here in Harry the 8th's time it did pass in Rem Iudicatam that the Pope had no more power over us by the Scripture then any other forrain Bishop it cannot now but seem ridiculous to scruple whether he can thence claim more authority here than any other forrain Prince and he who was exploded here formerly when the Critical Spectators were not so many for having ill acted the part of a King on our stage of the World would be thought mad for personating one after the Play is over Thus too in a less people World Bartolus the famous Lawyer pronounced it to be Haeresie to deny the German Emperor to be King of the Vniverse the which any one would now account Madness to affirm And if in France hundreds of Years ago its Monarch greeted the Pope with the terms of fatuus amens for claiming a Supremacy in Temporals there 't is impossible he can be otherwise thought there now prosecuting a claim to Supremacy in things Ecclesiastic for even his pretensions to that the Clergy of France have damned in their Declaration by setting a General Council above him and which Declaration the great Monarch hath there ratify'd by a perpetual and irrevocable Edict And 't is but with a Consonancy to the nature of things that the Papal Infallibility should be concluded against in that Declaration and since as the Author of the Policy of the Clergy of France relates the Roman Catholick Church there doth so much swarm with New Phil sophers there call'd Cartesians and Gassendists whose new Philosophy has been there by Zealous Catholics observ'd to have ruin'd the mystery of the Real Presence for so the words are in that Book 't is no wonder if the growth of the Messieurs les scavants encreasing with the Populacy of that Realm makes any man's belief of his infallibility pass for a degree of madness accordingly as Mr. Hobbes Chap. 8. Of Man well observes that excessive opinion of a man 's own self for Divine Inspiration and Wisdome becomes distraction and giddiness and this probably may be the final result there of the late fermentation about the Regalia c. and the Pope be tacitly thought so as aforesaid and his Power there insensibly evaporate and without any visible distrubance given to it by the ratio ultima Regum for no prudent person would declaim reproachfully against any of a quiet Phrensy or molest and vex such a one tho living near him and would much less project the disgrace or mischief of such an one living at a great distance tho he should assume to himself bigger Titles than ever the Kings of India or Persia did and call himself Son of the Sun or Lord of the Sea and Land or like some of the Roman Emperors challenge Divinity or be styled Dominus Deus noster Papa And thus may the Pope quietly go on longer to call himself Monarch of the World without being call'd Names for it in France just as the Dukes of Savoy style themselves Kings of Cyprus without any gainsaying from the Turk who likewise did not menace the Pope for causing the Brother of the Vice-Roy of Naples to be in Rome proclaim'd King of Ierusalem nor when that Gentleman in Requital of that favour from his Holiness caused the Pope to be in Naples proclaimed Caliph of Bandas was the Mogul aggrieved thereby And thus probably too will the Enthusiast's who assert a Millennium or Universal Reign of Christ on earth with that quietness and gentleness that the ancient Fathers before the first Nicene Council did pass off the Stage of the World but it will seem ridiculous not to bind such Fifth Monarchy Men in Chains as Mad-men who have in England and Germany endeavoured to biâ—d Kings so and Nobles with Fetters of Iron and who would again make Convulsions in the State by the Diseases of their minds as once Mahomet's Epileptic Fits shook the World and who by promising us a new Heaven and a new Earth would confound the old and only give us a new Hell broke loose But the World will not now be blunder'd into Confusion by such wild Reformers In the Book of the Apocalypse of which Bodin tells us in his Methodus ad facilem Historiarum Cognitionem that Calvin's Opinion being ask'd he answer'd Se penitùs ignorare quid velit tam obscurus scriptor it must be confessed that the Majesty of the Style is agreeable to that of the rest of the holy Text and that the predictions of the future State of the Church and of its splendor in the World are not grosso modo utter'd or attended with any irregularity but on the contrary that God appears there as the God of Order and applying all the exactness of proportion and number and its very fractions to the great things foretold After one Verse hath accounted the number of the Beast to be 666 the next mentions St. Iohn's Vision of a Lamb standing on Mount Sion and with him an hundred forty and four thousand The Bodies of the Witnesses are mentioned to be unburied three days and an half The 4 Angels were loosed which were prepared for an hour and a day and a Month and a Year for to sâ—ay the third part of Men. The Woman was to be in the Wilderness 1260 days and to be nourished there for a time and times and half a time Blood came out of the Wine-Press by the space of 1600 Furlongs There were Seal'd of all the Tribes of Israel 144000. And in the State of Babylon mentioned in Cap. 18th where the voice from Heaven is heard Come out of her my People though all the various Sects of Religion that thrust one another into Babylon will admit of no proportion in their revenge yet it is there say'd Reward her even as she rewarded you and double unto her double according to her works in the Cup which she hath filled fill to her double But near the end of that Book where the great Scene of The New Heaven and the New Earth opens and the Vision of the New Ierusalem is described a Golden Rod was given the Angel to measure the City and the Measures thereof are particularized And tho I pretend not to understand the meaning of any of these obscure passages of Scripture yet one thing seems to me there as Conspicuous as the Meridian Light namely That as the Divine Providence did found the Old World in Number Weight and Measure so it likewise will the foretold New One. The exactness of the Numbers described by St. Iohn in that Prophetick Book written in the Island of Pathmos hath assured us that his imagination was much above the Vapors that
countenanced and maintained by the same And I believe none will imagine that those Nonconforming Divines would take any Oath but in the imposers sence or Casuistically advise others so to do 'T is therefore no marvel if our later Presbytery being so unconformable to the Law of the Land and to the Tenets of the former Nonconformists soon grew weary of it self and did with its horrid Visage only face us and march off Your Lordship found that in another thing it resembled Popery namely in that it would be all or nothing and you helped it to the latter part of the Alternative Mr. Nye who made a great Figure in the Assembly of Divines hath in that Book of his forementioned p. 98 helped this Age to know how Arbitrary they would have been in delivering men to Satan for saith he there the exercise of Discipline in our Congregations was ordered by the Parliament but limited likewise to an enumeration of the Sins for which we might excommunicate exempting other Sinners that were as much under our charge This was looked on by the Assembly as a great Abridgment of their Ministerial Liberty and so great as they professed it could not with a good Conscience be submitted to as not being able to perform their trust which they receiv'd from Iesus Christ and must give an account of to him resolving to stand fast in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free So ridiculous were those Divines that tho no Pope ever arrogated a power to Excommunicate one but for the Crimes nominated in his Canon-Law and tho our Church of England never claim'd a power of excommunicating but for a Crime express'd in the Kings Ecclesiastical Laws yet those froward Disciplinarians would have been allow'd to shoot their Thunderbolts of Excommunication upon a Capricio But not only the Parliament but the whole Nation in a manner pronounced them Contumacious the people saw how Arbitrarily they would have interdicted the whole Land from the use of the Cup and Bread too in the Sacrament and have rail'd in the Communion-Table with fantastick Qualifications and they soon judged those Clergy-men guilty of Irregularity and the rather for that they had engaged so far in Causâ sanguinis and the same Sun of Reason and Knowledge that with the strength of its Beams had here put out the Popes Kitching Fire of Purgatory did soon without noise and insensibly confound their Dominions in the Kingdom of Darkness and those Divines themselves found that their destroying Episcopacy here had in effect by the Parliaments being their Superintendants enthroned Erastianisme that which indeed their Principles led them to hate more then Episcopacy it self Mr. Baxter in the Preface to his second part of the Nonconformists Plea speaking of Presbytery saith I do not hear of many out of London and Lancashire that did ever set up this Government and I know not of one Congregation now in London of Englishmen that exerciseth the Presbyterian Government nor ever did since the King came home c. And saith they have no National Assembly no Classes no Coalition of many Churches to make a Presbytery and I hear of none unless perhaps some Independants that I know not that have so much as ruling Lay-Elders Alluding to some expressions before applyed to Papists and Popery I may say that the Cato's of Presbytery came here on the Stage tantum ut exirent and that Government soon had its period here per simplicem desinentiam 'T was obvious that Presbytery as well as Popery directed men where to stand in a place divided from the Civil Government and so to shake the Earth and it appear'd very inauspicious to the Model of the Covenant that in its first Paragraph it should stumble upon implicit Faith by swearing to a Government and Reformation that shall be and to the preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government the particulars whereof the Lay-Covenanters of England if not the Clerical also were far from understanding And tho in that Paragraph the Covenant binds its takers to endeavour to advance the Reformation of Religion according to the word of God a Clause that Sir Harry Vane declared to a very worthy Gentleman now living that he caus'd to be inserted into the Covenant after much debate about the same and opposition from the Scotch Commissioners with whom he was interested in the making of it and thereupon said That â—e was three days in getting the word of God into the Covenant yet that Covenant having almost extirpated Root and Branch those spiritual Guides from whom the people might expect a more Rational and Learned Interpretation of the Sense of the word of God then from the Presbyterian Divines they were soon sensible of their danger both as to the perverting of the Scripture and subverting of the Church from the new Correctors of Magnificat and found that such an Inundation of Vile Religionary Tenets was got into the Church that the Houses of Parliament ordered the 10 th of March 1646. To be set apart as a solemn day of humiliation to seek Gods Assistance for the suppressing and preventing of the growth and spreading of Errors Heresies and Blasphemies and that Mr. Vines on that day Preaching before the Commons p. the 4 th of his Sermon printed acknowledged That that day was the first that ever was in England on that sad occasion and p. 67 of that Sermon mentioned a most detestable thing then broach'd by the Press though yet in the way of Query namely what is meant by the word Scripture when it is asserted that the denying of the Scriptures to be the word of God should be holden worthy of death for saith the Author either the English Scriptures or Scriptures in English are meant by the word Scriptures or the Hebrew and Greek Copies or Originals the former cannot be meant with reason because God did not speak to his Prophets and Apostles in the English Tongue nor the latter for the greatest part of men in the Kingdom do not understand or know them Mr. Vines declared his just Abhorrence of that insinuation and saith If this dilemma be good what is become of the certain foundation of our hope or faith or comfort how can we search the Scriptures without going first to School to learn Hebrew and Greek And 't was obvious to every one to consider that if the English Scriptures are not the word of God there was an end not only of the Reformation according to it mentioned in the Covenant but the substantial one promoted by the Protestant Religion that help'd us to the Treasure of our English Bibles and that we should soon be stranded on the Shore of Implicit Faith. Nor could it long be hid from common observation that those Divines who exclaim'd so much against the Ceremonies of the Church of England as an oppressive Yoke would have imposed on us such a rigid observation of the Sabbath the great Scene
of Father Parsons about the Succession part 2 d where he weighs the several parties of England in the Ballance of State and saith It is well known that in the Realm of England at this day there are three different and opposite Bodies of Religion that are of most bulk and do carry most sway and power which three Bodies are commonly known by the Names of Protestant Puritants and Papists and afterward speaking of the Great Power of the Protestant Party for wealth and force He saith p. 140. A chief Member of the Protestant Body is the Clergy of England especially the Bishops and the other Men in Ecclesiastical Dignities which are like to be a great back to this Party at that day c. meaning the time after the death of Queen Elizabeth when her Successor should enter on the Stage and then having weighed the Puritan Party and its interest he saith The third Body of Religion which are those of the Roman who call themselves Catholicks which is the least in shew at this present by reason of the Laws and Tides of the time that run against them yet are they of no small consideration in this Affair to him that weighs things indifferently and this in respect as well of their Party at home as their friends abroad for at home they being of two sorts as the World knows the one more upâ—n that discover themselves which are the Recusants and the other more close and privy that accommodate themselves to all external preceedings of the time and State so as they cannot be known or at leastwise not much touch'd we may imagine that their Number is not small throughout the Realm c. The Vigour of the hopes that Popery had in that Conjuncture appears out of that great Historical Letter of D'Ossat to his King Anno 1601 where he makes such a judicious abstract of this goodly Book of Parsons for so he calls it Ce beau livre and Animadversions on it and saith 'T is about four years ago that the Pope did Create in England a certain Arciprestre to the end that all Ecclesiasticks and Catholicks of the Realm should have one to whom to go and have recourse about the things relating to the Catholick Religion and by means thereof to be united among themselves and to understand what shall be good to be done for their preservation and the re-establishment of the Catholick Religion and some have given his Holiness to understand that by that means he would make a great Party of the Catholicks in England for what he would effect and then acquaints the King That the Pope had sent three Briefs to his Nuntio in the Low-Countreys for him to keep till the death of Queen Elizabeth and after that to send them to England one to the Ecclesiasticks another to the Nobility and another to the third Estate by which the said three Estates are admonished and exhorted by his Holiness to remain united together to receive a Catholick King that his Holiness shall name and such a one who shall appear acceptable to them and honourable and all this for the Honour and Glory of God and for the restoring the Catholick Religion c. Here was it seems one Brief more sent to England then Mr. Marvel mentions in his Growth of Popery where he saith That the Pope sent two Briefs in order to exclude King James from the Succession to the Crown In fine Popery was in a Storm during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and in it the Papists were sometimes carried up to the Skyes and then down again and in their Enterprizes with variety of success in some conjunctures their fortune was to reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and as in a Storm many hands are necessary so on the whole matter they found need of the numbers of more hands then they could command and their Numbers decreased in the ballance of the people here as much by the King of Spains Ambition as did the numbers of the Papists in the United Provinces thereby And as they look'd big on the account of their numbers in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's Reign so they did in the beginning of King Iames's and as D'Ossat said in that Letter to Villeroy of April 2d 1603. You will find that the Spaniards who are most troubled about this Event meaning of the Succession will be the first to Congratulate the King of Scotland so it happen'd here with the Papists as appears by a Book in 4 to Printed for Ioseph Barnes at Oxford Anno 1604 called A Consideration of the Papists Reasons of State and Religion for toleration of Popery in England intimated in their supplication to the Kings Majesty and the States of the present Parliament where in their Supplication at large Printed they in the beginning thereof in a profession too as inauspicious as was possibly say that His Majesties direct Title to the Imperial Crown of the Realm both by Lineal Descent and Priority of Blood and your Highness most quiet access to the same do exceedingly possess and englad our hearts The Tide of the Succession against which they had striven was made by Fate to run smooth and clear and they were resolved to appear on the Surface of it with a nos poma natamus Gabriel Powel of St. Maryhall in Oxford the Publisher of that Book saith in his Animadversion on the said beginning of that supplication How can Papists without blushing acknowledge his Majesties Title to the Crown of England to be direct seeing they have heretofore most indirectly and most unjustly oppugned the same which Traiteâ—ous Parsons confesseth albeit for excuse he assureth himself that whatsoever hath been said writ or done by any Catholick against his Majesty which with some others might breed disgust hath been directed to this end to make his Majesty first a Catholick and then our King as if Treason and Treachery against his Highness could make him a Catholick and impugning of his direct and just Title tended to make him King. Rob. Parsons in his Treatise of three Conversions in the dedicat Addition to the Catholicks But tho they gave themselves as it were an Act of Oblivion as to the many Treasons of Parsons his Book of the Succession yet in this supplication they forgot not again in effect to use Parsons his division of the people of England into three parts and so to shape the Estimates of their Numbers and they say in their first reason of State the World knows that there are three Kinds of Subjects in the Realm the Protestant the Puritan and the Catholicks affected and by general report the subject Catholickly affected is not inferiour to the Protestant or Puritan either in number or alliance c. And saith Powel in his Notes on that Clause If by Catholickly affected you mean plainly Papists the World knows that in comparison of the Protestants they are but as it were a handful of Thieves among honest Subjects however
Reign of the Royal Martyr their Numbers decreased faster in many active Conjunctures of time then they encreased in any lazy one The Author of the Regal Apology and supposed to be Doctor Bate the Physitian saith in p. 39. It is well known there are not 24000 Papists Convicted in all England and Wales And if we should suppose the Number of the Papists then not Convicted to be double to that of the Convicted yet would such their number appear considerably dwindled from what it was swoln to in any Conjuncture before in King Iames's Reign And I believe if our Civil Wars had not happen'd one Canon even of the Convacation of 1640 as ill as that Convocation heard among many I mean the third Canon would have effected the extermination of Popery from England in the Reign of the Royal Martyr The Title of the Canon is for Suppressing of the growth of Popery No doubt but a little before that time Popery did again lift up his head as if its Redemption were to draw nigh in Ireland and England and therefore the Convocation then with great conduct and skill did lead up our Ecclesiastical Hierarchy to confront its growth and I do not remember to have found that Phrase of the growth of Popery which has in later days so filled our Mouths used in any Author before the writing of that Canon and do think that all the Committees that have been appointed to prevent the growth of Popery or Books of that Subject have not produced to the World any means or expedient so likely to make Popery have done growing here as is the excellent Scheme for that purpose drawn in that Canon and which when ever it shall be with vigour executed will make our fears grow out of fashion either of the number of the Arguments of the Papists or of the Argument of their Numbers That since that Restoration of our King and Laws and of the discipline of our Church a Conjuncture hap'ned that made the barren Womb of Popery here fruitful of Numbers none will deny who consider how all our great Divines of the Church of England did so lately lift up their voices like a Trumpet against it as I before observed In the account of the Numbers of the perswasions in Religion in the Province of Canterbury that Dr. Glanvile said he had seen and which is contained in a Sheet of Paper among the nine Preliminary Observations the first is That many left the Church upon the late indulgence who before did frequent it I believe by the many there are meant those that veer'd toward Popery and I suppose that few had for several precedent years repaired thither from fear of the Penal Laws We have a Remark given us by that Learned States-man and Noble Confessor of the Church of England the Earl of Clarendon in his judicious Animadversions printed Anno 1673 on Cressy ' s Book against Dr. Stillingfleet That the rude and boisterous behaviour of some of the Roman Catholicks here disturbed the happy Calm they all enjoyed and the vanity and folly of others made that ill use of the Kings bounty and generosity toward them that they endeavoured to make it believ'd that it proceeded not from Charity and Compassion toward their persons but from affection to their Religion and took upon them to reproach the Church of England and all who adhered to it as if they had been in a condition as well as a disposition to oppress it and to affront and discountenance all who would adhere to it and so alienated the affections of those who desired they should not be disquieted and kindled a jealousie in others who had believed that they were willing to attempt it and had more power to compass it then was discerned c. and this mischief the wisest and soberest Catholicks of England have long foreseen would be the effect of that petulant and unruly Spirit that sway'd too much among them and did all they could to restrain it c. And afterward saith As if they could subdue the whole Kingdom and so care not whom they provoke A friend of mine in the Kings Loyal long Parliament wrote to me for News after one of their Sessions that the Speaker of the House of Commons Mr. Seymour opening according to the customary manner in a publick Speech to his Majesty in the House of Lords the nature of the Bills then ready for the Royal Assent spake thus concerning that sharp one that will forever here cut Popery to the quick viz. And for the severity of this Bill to the Papists they may thank their own petulant insolence The word petulant being very significant and importing sawcy malepert impudent reproachful ready to do wrong one would suppose that those two great observing persons would not apply it to any body of men without just occasion It seems the House of Commons at their next Session in an Address to the King October 31. 1673. had this Clause That for another age at the least this Kingdom will be under continual apprehensions of the growth of Popery and the danger of the Protestant Religion and in an Address to his Majesty November the 3 d 1673. Speaking of the Popish Recusants they have these words whose numbers and insolencies are greatly of late encreased c. It was then high time for that Great Minister of the King the Earl of Danby when he saw that of all Dissenters chiefly the Popish ones had sascinated so many with a belief of their Numbers to cause that great enquiry into them to be made and it was his fortune by the very enquiry to strip the Papists of many of their valued number for the very next observation to that I before mentioned is this The sending forth these Enquiries has caused many to frequent the Church Alsted in his Chronology ventures to say p. 112. David ex merâ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 numerat populum and the thing perhaps done with an ill intent was punish'd with a Plague from God but the Fact of our Noble and Profound States-man did abate the Plague of the late Conjuncture of pragmatical insolence and too the Plague of the fear of Papists that was then so epidemical among Protestants and did in effect console us as with the words of Elisha viz. Fear not for they that be with us are more then they that be with them and indeed the numbering of people in the Bills of Mortality who dye of the Plague is not more necessary to the State then is the numbring of the Souls infected in any Conjuncture with destructive opinions and the omission thereof in a publick Minister when ever it should be as necessary as at that time it was would appear in him a Lethargy that would be as Penal as a Plague to a Kingdom That useful undertaking of his Lordship as it was worthy of his very great abilities and vigilance for the publick so was it of the great power he had in the Government and
to have wherewithal to eat Bread if they be executed according to the said Proclamation It was but about October 1673 that the House of Commons in an Address to the King took occasion to say It is now more then one Age that the Subjects have lived in continual apprehensions of the encrease of Popery and the decay of the Protestant Religion but what Mr. Coleman's apprehensions were of the Growth of Popery on the 5th of February 1674 I have shewn before and am of opinion That though possibly in the following course of time to the birth of the Popish Plot the coming of many Romish Missionaries here might make some accession to the Number of the Papists that however the Laity of them here Inhabitants hath in its Numbers sensibly decreased and will do so more and more till the most timid Protestants shall be no more aggrieved at their Number then of that of the Muggletonians or of the Sweet Singers of Israel That the discovery of the Popish Plot hath had a natural Tendency to the abating the Number of their perswasion must be granted by all who believe there was one and who know that the blustring attempts of the Conspirators to subvert the Protestant Religion and which have therein failed must end in the better settlement of it as all Storms that do not overthrow a Tree confirm its growth Mr. Care in his History of the Popish Plot mentions That the Iesuites and Seminary Priests in England at the time of the Plot were about 1800 a Number far inferior to that in the Conjuncture in King Iames ' s time before mention'd And short of the Number mention'd by Prynne in a Book of his Printed Anno 1659 called A True and Perfect Narrative of what was done spoken by and between Mr. Prynne the old and new forcibly Secluded Members and those now sitting c. where he saith p. 44 That an English Lord return'd from Rome about four years since averr'd that the Provincial of the English Iesuites when he went to see the Colledge in Rome assured him That they had then above 1500 of their Society of Iesuites in England able to work in several Professions and Trades which they had there taken upon them the better to Support and Secure themselves from being discovered and infuse their Principles into the vulgar People Mr. Coleman complains of a Conjuncture as to Popery that he writ in that tho the Harvest was great the Labourers were very few but Mr. Prynne supposeth the Labouring Jesuites who wrought in the Trade of Religion and in other Trades too were here after the year 50 above 1500 and it may therefore be well conceived that there were many Jesuites here beside who could only manage their Tools in the former Trade and perhaps as many Seminary Priests as Jesuites And no doubt without some hint of notification from some one of the Iesuits Provincials their Number in any Protestant State can hardly be conjectured in regard of their Proteus-like varying their Shapes accordingly as a Description of them is given in the Book called The Emperor and the Empire betray'd where 't is said There are in the Society of Iesus Men of several sorts some of which are dispens'd with not only to lay aside the Habit but to marry and bear all sorts of Dignities and he further presumes to say That the Emperor was thus in this Order in his younger days Mr. Prynne in p. 42. of that Book averrs That Oliver Cromwel declared to his Parliament Anno 1654 That the Emissaries of the Iesuites then came over in great swarms and that they had then fixed in England an Episcopal Power with Arch-Deacons and other Persons to pervert the People a thing they never since the Reformation I think attempted in any Conjuncture till Quarto Caroli and then as appears out of Rushworth ' s Collections in a Conference between the Lords and Commons and managed by Secretary Cook he said There was at that time a Popish Hierarchy established in England that they had a Bishop Consecrated by the Pope and that Bishop had his subalternate Officers of all kinds as Vicars General Arch-Deacons Rural Deans Apparitors and that they were not Nominal or Titular Officers only but they all Executed their Iurisdictions and made their ordinary Visitations throughout the Kingdom kept Courts and determin'd Ecclesiastical Causes But it appears not that they had any such Hierarchy here at the time of the Plot or that they have any thing like it at this time in this Realm Mr. Prynne tells us in p. 49. of that Book That in that Conjuncture in Cromwel's time above 30000 Popish Pamphlets were permitted to be Printed and Vended in England and that of this the London Stationers complain'd in Print But 't is very little that they have Printed here since the King's Restauration and the same private Presses which gave Birth to the few Pamphlets they printed would have done it to as many Volumes as ever Tostatus as Mr. Prynne writ if they had pleased The great Number of the Protestants must still be naturally attractive of the lesser to it for the preservation of their Persons tho at the price of the diminution of their Numbers as a drop is best preserved in the Sea tho it be there swallowed up This Notion is well confirm'd by Edmund Spencer in his Observations of the History of Ireland in former times where he shews in what course of time a handful of English planted among the Numerous Irish must of necessity become Irish as indeed his own Family there did as I am told and that Cromwel speaking to the Grand-child of Spencer in English that on the account of the Fame of his Ancestor he should enjoy his Estate was not by him understood And there is no doubt but time will illuminate the Papists as to the Pope's Politicks being inconvenient to them and only convenient to himself For the same Principle in Politicks that makes every lesser State have a regret against being United to a greater namely for fear of its being absorbed thereby a Notion lately in vogue when the Union of England and Scotland was agitated engageth the Pope to keep the Papists from a Coalition with the Protestants here that would drown the visibility of their Numbers and consequently the appearance of the Numbers of his Subjects in this Realm for so in effect they are The true Cause therefore in Nature that made the Pope by his Bull in Queen Elizabeth's time prohibit the Papists from continuing to come to our Churches and to our Common-Prayer a thing they would else still have done was the Pope's being enabled by such Prohibitions to put Marks on his Sheep whereby to know them and their Numbers And which had he forborn there had probably been no Number of them returnable in the Bishops Survey 'T is therefore not to be wondred that our Church got nothing but the destruction of its Hierarchy in the last Age by the Policy
the Invention of the double bottom'd Vessel and a rude Description of it being sent me for News into the Country I easily guessed that such a Ship bearing much more Sail then other Ships must needs go a great deal faster before the Wind but I was not inform'd of the Provision that the excellent Artist had made against the danger of Divulsion it being obvious that in some Tempests 't is as much as one entire body can do to preserve it self against the â—ury of the Sea. This hath been the condition of Popery with its double bottom of Principles namely to bear a great wide spreading Sail and it has heretofore in a quiet World sail'd apace before the Wind and in fair weather but the Tempestuous Debates its Principles have raised here and abroad in the Sea of the People have made this old double bottom'd Ship of St. Peter in such danger of Divulsion that especially with such Pauls Marriners as it employs it can hardly escape I doubt not but the Papists as well as others of Mankind have a Right and Title to the free and undisturb'd worshiping of God and the Confession of the Principles of Religion purchased for them by the Blood of Christ for Religion being Mens Priviledge as well as Duty just as the Romans did account that they endowed any place with a Priviledge when they gave them their Laws they may thank their great Redeemer for being restored to it By the vertue of his Blood the Papists stand seiz'd of a good and indefeisable estate of Christian Liberty and they are bought with a Price and are therefore not to be the Servants of Men and one is their Master even Christ who is the Lord that bought them and they are therefore to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free Socinus saith he went on his Knees to God to find out the meaning of the 58th V. of the 8 th of St. Iohn And should I chance to over hear any one Member of Mankind at his Private Devotions and importuning Heaven to illuminate his mind with the knowledge of some point in Religion that he conceived necessary to his Salvation and acknowledging it to the praise of the Divine Goodness that excited him to the use of all means whereby to discover it that he had so far through the Efficacy of assisting Grace practised the Truths his understanding was possest with as to satisfie his mind that he was a serious Supplicant for its being the depositary of more I should be so far from wishing this man delivered over to Satan from differing for me in any controverted Point of Religion that I should think that if the truth he was in quest of imported his Salvation God would send an Angel to explain it to him But as to one part of the double bottom of Popery tho we should grant it laden with fundamental truths yet 't is notorious that the other is overladen with Fundamental Errors and such as are apt to undermine the Foundations of States and Kingdoms and there is no need of an extraordinary Messenger from Heaven to tell one embarked therein that the Pope is not to absolve Subjects from the obedience of their Princes nor to cause an eternal fermentation and inquiâ—tude in the World through his Kingdom that should not be of it at all yet being unbutted and unbounded by him in all the parts of it I will likewise tell any Soeinian that his great Master Socinus made such a double bottom of his Systeme of Notions that it hath forfeited its right to the Name of Religion by one Tenet complicated therewith and that he ought to throw that off and simplificare se ipsum Let any one if he pleaseth call the Socinians denying of the Trinity in Unity and Original Sin and the Baptism of Infants or the Divine Prescience and many other of their Notions by the Name of Religion but there is own of their Tenets that their Master needed no long wrestling with Heaven as a Supplicant to find out the truth of and which Notion when really believed is as pernicious to Crown'd Heads and their Subjects as the lawfulness of any ones sometime killing the next man he meets and that is that my Prince and I may not defend our lives against the next Invader who comes to take them away for as to that great Question An bellum offensivum vel defensivum fit licitum the Socinians answer is negatur which any one may see who pleaseth to consult the Themata F. Socini de officio Christi p. 7. Inter breves tractatus F. Socini and likewise his Epistle to Christopher Morstias p. 498. among his Epistles And thus let the well-willers to Presbytery call that erroneous opinion of their Church Government being founded on that Divine Right and the immediate Command of Christ and his Apostles a Tenet of Religion but to confront the Laws of Kingdoms in the settling it and to eradicate any part of those and especially to root the inheritable Monarchs Power in popular Election or Approbation and to make him but the Peoples Attorny and his Authority as revocable by them as a Letter of Attorney is abusively call'd Religion and is only properly to be term'd Sedition or Rebellion I have been so copious in insisting on the necessary separation of all Tenets that are denominable as Religious from those that are really Irreligious and Seditious under the gross name of the Religion in any Party as a thing perfectly just in it self and necessary for the quiet of the World and do hope that the Age that is so much addicted here to the improvement and polishing of our Language will incline it to do it self that right as not to give false Names to Things and Names of a contrary signification We know that the Standard of England in the Mint refers both to weight and fineness and tho a piece of Money may have the Royal Stamp on it engraven with all possible curiosity yet if it be not standard 't is so far from being allow'd the Name of any Species of the Kings Coyn that 't is instantly to be broken in pieces and as this is but just so is it but necessary for the quiet of the People who else detecting it would suspect the whole credit of the Mint as well as of that Species of Money and would either not take it or else with a Clamour raise the price of their Commodities for it And thus it is too a thing unreasonable and troublesome to the World for Men to Coyn false words or false denominations for any Tenet in Religion intrinsecally defective what curious stamp of the artifice of any Party soever it may bear its reprobate Silver is not to be call'd Religion and it makes Religion it self lyable to suspicion among the inquisitive it will trouble every hand it passeth to and from and in giving a value to it the People will raise the price of their tolerating it and
man certainly apprehended no reason of an additional Commandment Thou shalt not fire thy Neighbours house and had he been convinced that the Pope in his decrepit Age had made a Commandment for the firing of it and whole Cities and had so pronounced è Cathedrâ would probably have imputed the lingua dolosa and the caâ—bones desolatorii to his Doctrine and the smoak from that fiery Doctrine would have had the effect of opening his Eyes But as for Mr. Cressy's Idea of the Massacring any Incendiaries tho they had been tooâ—â— in flagranti if he had staid in his old Church I mean that of England he would have found any such thing sufficiently stigmatised by its Doctrine which makes the King to bear the Sword and that not in vain and allows not the Rabble to be a Terror to Evil Doers nor Hell to break loose for the support of Heaven and which inculcates Obedience to the Law of the Land for Conscience sake and even that Law permits none to Assemble in Arms against a declared Enemy but by the Kings particular Commission and he must therefore go to China or to Rome that will have a Street or a Town or the Vniversitas or Community therein punish'd for the pretended or real faults of particular persons Moreover the English Genius hath not in Story that I know of been tainted with Infamy for penetrating any thing of that horrid Nature except in the old days of Popery in relation to the Iews and the Lay-Rabble was then put upon it by the Rabble of Fryars and Monks who owing Money to the Iews were that way willing to confute their Creditors And since the time that that Great and High Judg of Reason as well as Equity and to whom the Custody of the King's Conscience was Committed and who hath held the Scale of Equity with as steady an hand and tender heart and as discerning and watchful an Eye as any of his Predecessors did place the dreadful Guilt of the Firing of London where he did at the Condemnation of the Lord Stofford and probably had satisfied his Judgment for the doing of it by Observations or Examinations of Passages that occured elsewhere rather then at that Tryal for there the Evidence did not rise clear and high enough for the occasioning that part of his Sentence and since the time that the People of England by their Representatives threw the Guilt of that Fire on the Papists and the Magistrates of our Metropolis inscribed it on the Monument the populace have been as calm and temperate in their judging of it and as perfectly free from resentments of Revenge against all the Papists in general or any one Papist in particular as if none but that poor angry Antiquary Mr. Prynn had censured them for it and whose Thunder the World being so long used to did so much despise that his popularity could scarce have obtain'd an out-cry for the killing of a single Mad Dog. I must confess tho by the reiterated Confession and by the Execution of Hubert a Papist it appear'd that he did set Fire to the House in London from whence its rage began and tho his Confessing of Peidelow to be one of his Accomplices in the Fact exempts it from being doubted that Papists burn'd London and tho after I had heard of that judgment of the Lord Chancellor and of the House of Commons and of the Magistrates aforesaid and was shewn that Papal Tenet by your Lordship I doubted not of the Justice of attributing in my thâ—â—ghts one part of the Guilt of the Fire to some Jesuited Papists and that it might be said with the same propriety of Speech that London was Fired by the Papists as 't was by Sir Walter Raleigh that Harry the 4 th of France was kill'd by the Papists yet I never thought any considerable number of the Gentry among our Lay-Papists would have practised any thing of that kind tho the Pope himself should have Commanded it There was a Book containing Observations on our late Affairs of Church and State Printed in the Year 1680 called the Arts and Pernicious Designs of Rome wherein is shewed what are the Aims of the Iesuites and Fryars c. by a person of their own Communion who turn'd Romanist about thirty years since and throughout that Book as he in general fortifies my observation of a Protestant when turn'd Papist not being able to abandon all Candour his mind was first nourished in so he doth it particularly p. 25. where having in Proposition 4th spoke of the Mischiefs we havâ— received from some Popish Orders and particularly that of the Iesuites he saith as followeth in Proposition 41 viz. Amongst which the late sad disaster happening to the City of London not to mention divers others of like nature happening in divers other places since if it were a Practice of any Humane Contrivance and not a meer judgment of God from Heaven upon us cannot reasonably be thought to have been the Project or Practice of any other Men then these and to have come originally from Rome and the Consistory there who beside the bad Principles already mentioned which legitimate such doings at all times that they judge it convenient for their ends were without doubt willing to signalize that year 1666 with some remarkable mischief done to Protestants in check to the fancies of some in that Party who have had the confidence to affirm and as it were to predict that in this year Rome and their pretended Antichrist the Pope should be utterly destroyed That it appear'd a Practice of Humane Contrivance by the very Confession of the Incendiary is plain and that it was by the People in the City then suspected so I have said but so far were our plain English natures from charging it on any Lay English Papist that Mr. Marvel in his Growth of Popery Printed Anno 1677 having said That we may reckon the Reigns of our late English Princes by a Succession of the Popish Treasons against them adds And if under his Majesty we have yet seen no more visible effects of the same Spirit then the Firing of London acted by Hubert hired by Peidelow two French Men which remains a Controversie it is not to be attributed to the good Nature or better Principles of that Sect but to the wisdom of his Holyness who observes that we are not of late so dangerous Protestants as to deserve any special Mark of his Indignation I presume not to charge or discharge any sort of men about this Fact further then the Law hath done whether Papists or Priests or Fifth Monarchy-men for of a Conspiracy to Fire the City on the day it was fired on several of that latter Sect had been before Convicted and deservedly Executed for it as we must either Grant or Arraign the Justice of the Nation and therefore Mr. Cressy had reason to blame Mr. Prynn in some measure for concluding that the Papists were the only Incendiaries of the City
against Wars and Rumors of Naval Wars when we are dejected with the shame of our Civil Wars having occasioned the Neighbouring World to augment its Naval Force and consequently too our own vast perpetual Charge in the augmenting ours is that by the necessary encrease of our industry we are capable of defraying it and herein Providence is but just in treating us in the Confinement to our Island as the Dutch do Idlers sent to their Work-houses where care is taken that if they do not the Work appointed them the Sea will come in upon them and 't is well for us that accordingly as is shewn in the 8th Chapter of Sir W. P's Political Arithmetick there are spare hands enough among the King of England ' s Subjects to earn Two Millions per Annum more then they now do and there are employments ready proper and sufficient for that purpose His expression of the spare hands of the English minds me how we who did before our Commotion only pay to our Kings the 6 th part of the spareable part of our Estates for that was what Mr. Vaughan afterward Lord Chief Iustice declared in the House of Commons to be the proportion that men were to be taxed in the old gentle way of Assessments called Subsidies were forced upon those manifold payments to the Usurpers that amounted to one entire Subsidy in each Week of the Year when as what we payed before exceeded not usually one Subsidy or 15 th in two or three years space And afterward when instead of the demanding of Five Members from the Parliament above 400 were forcibly secluded from it most Exorbitant Taxes were Levyed in the Name of a House of Commons in which instead of 508 Members as the legal Complement of its number and of 78 Knights of Shires for England and 12 for Wales there were no Knights of the Shire at all sitting in that House for these 26 English and 11 Welch Counties following viz. Bedfordshire Cornwal Cambridgeshire Derbyshire Devonshire Dorsetshire Essex Glocestershire Hartfordshire Herefordshire Lincolnshire Lancashire Middlesex Monmouthshire Norfolk Northumberland Oxfordshire Surry Shropshire Southampton Suffolk Somersetshire Sussex Westmerland Warwickshire Yorkshire Anglesey Brecknock Cardiganshire Carmarthinshire Carnarvanshire Denbighshire Flintshire Glamorganshire Pembrokshire Montgomeryshire Radnorshire and but one Knight of the Shire in each of the 9 following Counties Berkshire Cheshire Huntingtonshire Kent Leicestershire Northamptonshire Staffordshire Wiltshire Worcestershire and only the full number of Knights of the Shire in Buckinghamshire Nottinghamshire Rutlandshire Merionethshire And York Westminster Bristol Canterbury Chester Exeter Oxford Lincoln Worcester Chichester Carlile Rochester Wells Coventry had no Citizens in the House and London had only 1 instead of 4 and Glocester and Salisbury alone of all the Cities in England had their full Number and by a parcel of about 89 permitted to sit was the whole Clergy as well as Layety of England Taxed Nor is it to be forgot that after the great Usurper by his own Authority only laid a Tax of 60,000 l. per Month on us he afterward found a giving Parliament that Calculating the Charge of the Nation judged it in the whole to amount to 1300,000 l. per Annum whereof 200,000 l. for the Protectors support 400,000 l. for the maintenance of the Navy and Ports and 700,000 l. for the Army as we are told out of the History of the Iron Age printed in the year 1656 and that they who grudged the best of Kings the ordinary yearly Revenue of less then half a Million were brought to settle more then double that Sum on the worst of Usurpers viz. 1,300,000 l. per Annum and that by their helping him into the Power to break the Ballance of Christendome as he did they have entailed on us and our Heirs a necessity of labouring hard for ever to expiate the Guilt and Folly of their idle Politicks The Plenty and Pride and Idleness here that occasioned our Civil Wars and the Tessera of one of the Roman Emperors Militemus and the various discriminating words and signs of Religion have brought us to the Tessera of another of them which will stick by us namely Laboremus But as 't is to be seen in Scobels Collection of Acts Anno 1656. cap. 6. in the humble Petition and advice of Cromwel's Parliament the 7th Paragraph which Enacts the Revenue mentions nothing in particular of the 1,300 000 l. yearly to be settled for the Protectors support but provides that as a constant yearly Revenue for the support of the Government and the safety and defence of these Nations by Sea and Land 1000000 l. be settled for the Navy and Army and 300,000 l. in general for the support of the Government I should not dilate on the Subject of those past Calamitous Times of our Country but that so great a Number of those who experimented them and were Actors or Sufferers therein is now dead that this Age wants the Poize or Ballast of their experiences to keep it steddy and secure from being overset by Waves of Sedition or Winds of Doctrine There are several Latine Sayings about War of which the Pedantly Citation is nauseous as was particularly Sorbiers valuing himself on the Motto of Pax bello Potior but there is another saying familiar to Grammar Schools whence the most Oracular Men in Cabinets of State may and indeed ought to take their Measures and Estimates of the probable Continuance of the publick Peace in any Country and that is from the Consideration of the Numbers of the Inhabitants that never felt the misery of War and that saying is Dulce bellum inexpertis a saying that was thought to give an Ornament to the Monumental Inscription of our Harry the 3 d among the Westminster Monuments the Epitaph of which Prince whose Reign moved so much in the bloody Track of War being there thus Tertius Henricus jacet his pietatis amicus Ecclesiam stravit istam quam post renovavit Reddat ei munus qui Regnat Trinus unus Tertius Henricus est Templi conditor hujus 1273 Dulce bellum inexpertis And long before that obtained as a Latin Adage it was one in Greek viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it is well said in Vegetius De Re militari lib. 3. cap. 14. Nec confidas satis si tyro praelium cupit Inexpertis enim dulcis est pugna And in Pindar 't is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. dulce bellum inexpertis ast expertus quispiam horret si accesserit cordi supra modum the sense of this weighty Adage Horace applyes to the Contracting Friendship with Great Men Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici Expertus metuit And no doubt but the reason that induced the Romans to place their Tyrones in the Van of the Battel was that their not knowing all the uncertainties and horrors of War would contribute to their eagerness in the onset Partly to this purpose Mr. Hobs in his Behemoth or History of our
Oxford Antiquities said to be Dr. Bate the late Eminent Physitian in p. 49 estimates That the Revenues of King Queen Bishops Deans and Chapters and Delinquents in the hands of those Vsurpers were almost one Moiety of the Kingdom besides many rich Offices c and as to the multiplicity of Offices then a very ingenious Pamphlet written in those days call'd the City Alarum with a Treatise of the Excise mentions in p. 33. That 't was easie to demonstrate that more then 200,000 l. per Annum was then consumed by superfluous Officers which by the way sufficiently shews the ill Managery of the publick Treasure in those days and tho I have put the rate of the Heirs of such above that of common Inexperts yet I am not without hopes that possibly some what like a sort of Experience that many of those Heirs have from the latest Histories and Traditional Accounts had of the breath of the People having blown away that mighty Ballance of Land out of the hands of the unjust Possâ—ssors and all their Models of Government built thereon and of many of their Ancestors who had by their Swords acquired ample shares of the Spoyles of the Crown and Church and Cavaliers Estates growing ashamed of their unjust Victories and the Yoke they have brought upon themselves and the Kingdom and affraid of their Estates and Liberties not being ensureable under a fluctuating Military Oligarchy thought it the best of their Game to aspire with their All to the feet of their Lawful Soveraign and to be his Restorers without Capitulation may incline a considerable part of such and who are not desperate in their Fortunes and have perhaps inherited the Blessiing of their Ancestors penitence by their Peaceable Morals to make such an exception in this case as may confirm the Rule and make them according to the expression before used become sound parts of the State. Another momentous thing cannot but be obvious to the thoughts of the Considerate among them and all Orders or Parties of men here that if the devesting the unjust Proprietors of about half the Land of England by the necessary Course of the Law at the Kings Restoration did in making so many persons and their dependants Paupers and useless in the improvement of the Land and many to be Nusances in it as troublesome Sollicitors and Barrettors and many likewise to withdraw to our Forraign Plantations and to our insula Sanctorum call'd Ireland unavoidably make the price of our Land sink to the proportion it hath since done that if any Sons of Belial and disloyal persons should be ever able by a new Commotion to introduce the old Confusions among us and dispossess the Proprietors of about half our Land as formerly that England it self would turn Ireland and our Land perhaps be valuable but at ten years purchase And tho the Experts now in being among us are comparatively few yet is the work of the Loyal part of them so easie to demonstrate to their Vicinage every where the dreadful inconvenience of essaying to mend the World by War that one Harvy could not more easily among the judicious propagate a general Notion of the Circulation of the Blood then may a thousand of these shew to Millions of others the impious folly of Blood guiltiness again incircling our Land and especially when all our Blood and our Treasure is necessary to be preserved for the Defence of the Realm in a Conjuncture that hath put Christendom in procinctu and therefore 't is but according to the Course of Nature that in such a season the generality of Peoples minds here should manifest such an Abhorrence of both the Irish and English in 41 and that the Religion-Trade which had us at its feet being now at ours if it should again struggle to get uppermost as formerly is to expect from so many to find the salute of the rising blow And as I love to think of these things without asperity or offering the least Violence to the Sacredness of the great Established Amnesty so do I observe the same inclination to be very prevalent among the weightier persons of the several Parties The smalness of the Number of Persons now living that wanted that Amnesty makes men generally concur in not esteeming it taâ—ti to wish it broken but tho most of our former Empirical State-Physicians are covered with Earth their Errors are not and People seem generally sensible that both the present and in likelyhood the future State of England will not allow of Political Physicians trying more Experiments on us and particularly the former churlish ones that succeeded ill and especially in a Conjuncture when nature is by necessity leading us to a Convalescence As in Boccalines Politick Touch-stone Where the Monarchy of Spain is represented throwing her Physician out of the Window and Apollo desiring to know the Cause of it she told him how about 40 years ago she asking Counsel of her Physician he prescribed her a tedious and chargeable Purge of divers Oyls of Holy Leagues of Insurrections of People of Rebellions of Cauteries and other very painful Medicines that had wasted and weakened her spirits and that he prescribing just such another Purge as before was therefore thrown out at Window so would such Purges and such Purgers as we were troubled with forty years ago be here deservedly dealt with now How ridiculous will any Demagogue now appear that should in an English Parliament harangue it against supplying the King in such a manner as Sir Iohn Elliot and Mr. Pym did 4 to Caroli who then as Rushworth's Collections tells us moved in the House of Commons not to yield the King Tunnage and Poundage till they had first settled Religion touching the Points of Ariminianism They might as well have moved that the King might have no Money till they had found out the Longitude and likewise discovered the Quadrature of the Circle and they by that motion would have ensured to him the name of Pochi-Dinari that my Lord Herbert in his Harry the 8 th says was given to Maximilian the Emperor for his famed want of Money But that wantonness of Popularity did shew the worse in those two great Demagogues of their Age for the ingratitude it carried with it they moving so in the House of Commons as they did so soon after the great Royal Concessions as to the Petition of Right and might well excuse the Great Earl of Strafford's then quitting their Company But I shall here observe to your Lordship that after the discovery of the Gun-powder Treason viz. 3 Iacobi the Parliament gave him three Subsidies and six Fifteenths and Tenths of the Layety and four Subsidies of the Clergy all which by estimation amounted to 453000 l. and it was but just in them then so to supply the Crown after the detection of that Conspiracy because it appeared by several Examinations That if it had taken effect an Association of Forraign Roman Catholick Princes by a Solemn Oath
verò muneribus honorat amplissimis augustissimis in toto regno alibi tum bello tum pace c. Quartò consilium suum è puris putis haereticis stabilit c. So that after he had with St. Peter denied his Lord the followers of St. Peter's pretended Successor call'd him in effect a Galilean and said that the Speech of his Actions bewrayed him and after his absolution he continued in effect what the Pope styled him in his Bull of Excommunication filius â—rae and after as a Prodigal having fed among heretical Swine he returned to his Romish Ghostly Fathers house and had cryed peccavi and abjured and his Father had compassion on him he experimented the contrary to for this my Son was dead and is alive again and himself was the fatted Calf that was slain and so much wantonness was shewed by the contrivers of his dire fate that Gassendus in his life of Peiresk Book 2 d shews how in the beginning of the Year 1610. An Almanack or yearly Prognostication was brought out of Spain in which the Accidents of Harry the 4ths death were foretold and that it was sent to his Majesty to read who slighted it as Gassandus did likewise all judicial Astrology but yet supposed that the figure-flinger might possibly be acquainted with the Plot against that Kings Life and saith sure I am it could not be perfectly conceal'd either in Spain or Italy for even the Kings Ambassadors and particularly the most excellent Johannes Bochartus Lord of Champigny then Agent at Venice had already preadvertised his Majesty thereof and it was sufficiently proved that all the Sea-faring Men of Marseilles who for two Months before came from Spain brought word that there was a report spread abroad in Spain that the King of France was already or should be killed by a Sword or Knife Poor Harry the 4 th He who while a Protestant had Dominion over his own Stars and his Enemies Stars too for they were his Enemies who made him first be call'd Great and their designing to ruine him by embroiling France in Civil Wars tended to the advancement of his Interest and his Glory and the Artifices by which they thought to have chased him out of Guyen brought him into the heart of France and their former by unjustifiable practices urging the King his Predecessor to have prosecuted him with more violence then he had done were the causes of his being reconciled to that King and who then in the most dark and stormy night of his Affairs never wanted that Illumination from above which was like a Star to him and not only a sign of fairer weather but a mark of direction in the foul and which would have furnished his Portraiture in Story with another guess Star than that usually engraved on Coesars Image and which by its blazing seven days ore the Games consercrated to Coesar by Augustus did make him inter Divos and did awe the World as being thought his Soul which vouchsafed from Heaven to visit it with its lustre this Harry the 4 th was at last grown the ludibrium of Star-gazers And if any one shall say that Franciscus de Verona Constantinus the Author of the Apology for Chastel was not a Voucher good enough for the spreading the Belief of the Doctrine that Heretical Princes by their absolution from the Pope are not restored to their Regal Rights let him consult the Great Thuanus and he will find that in his Book 135 and on the Year 1605 where he gives an account of the Gun-powder Treason here he saith that the Conspirators therein Ante omnia conscientiam instruunt eâque instructâ ad facinus audendum obfirmant animum sic autem à Theologis suis disserebatur That Hereticks are yearly excommunicated by the Pope in the bulla coenae and are ipso facto fallen into the punishment of the Law and that thence it followeth that Christian Kings if they fall into Heresy may be deposed and their Subjects released immediately from their Princes Dominion nec jus illud recuperare posse etiamsi ecclesiae reconcilentur Ecclesiam communem omnium parentem cum nemini ad eam redeunti claudere gremium cum dicitur adhibitâ distinctione interpretandum esse modo non it ad damnum periculum ecclesiae Nam id verum esse quoad animam non quoad Regnum Nec solum ad Principes hac labe infectos paenam extendi sed etiam ad eorum filios qui à Regni successione ob vitium paternum pelluntur haeresim quippe lepram morbum haereditarium esse atque ut disertius res exprimatur Regnum amittere qui Romanam Religionem deserit diris illum devoveri nec unquam ipsum aut illius posteros in Regnum restitui quoad animam à solo Pontifice posse absolvi His se rationibus cum satis tutos intus existimarent munimenta externa conjurationi quaerere coeperunt c. ita ad facinus non solum licitum laudabile verum etiam meritorium à Theologis suis auctorati accesserunt They thought it seems that by the Authority of the Doctrines of those Divines they might blow up the King and three Estates with Gun-powder very fairly It is a thing that cannot have escaped your Lordships curious Observation that both the Nonconformists and Papists were sturdy Petitioners to King Iames in the beginning of his Reign that he would be a Fautor to them and their Hypotheses In April in the Year 1603 a Petition was presented to him call'd the humble Petition of the Ministers of the Church of England desiring reformation of certain Ceremonies and Abuses of the Church and there they particularly desire that Ministers may not be urged to subscribe but according to the Law to the Articles of Religion and the Kings Supremacy only and that none migat be excommunicated without the consent of his Pastor and therein they complain of Ministers being suspended silenced disgraced imprisoned for Mens traditions This Petition was commonly called the Millenary Petition the Petitioners averring themselves to be more then a thousand and an animadverting Answer was made to the same by the Vice-Chancellor and Doctors and Proctors and Heads of Houses in the Vniversity of Oxford and printed in the Year 1604. Methinks a Humble Petition with a thousand hands is a kind of Contradictio in adjecto But the Vniversity in their Animadversions on the Petition do observe that the two contrary Factions of Papists and Puritans did shew themselves by their Petitions discontented with the present State and Ecclesiastical Government They mention particulars as parallels wherein their Petitions agreed and resemble them to Samsons Foxes c. I had occasion before to mention to your Lordship the Supplication of the Papists to King James that was Contemporary with that of the Puritans and printed too in the same year and tho I remember not any of our Historians to have given the World an account of that memorable
which in so short a space have broach'd or entertain'd above 160 Errors many of them damnable And therefore I do not wonder that in a Pamphlet called The exact Collection of the Debates in the House of Commons in the last Parliament one Member is there brought in observing in his Speech concerning the Dissenters that 't is not probable that ever they will have a King of their opinion nor yet a Parliament by the best discoveries they had made of their strength at the last Election For according to the best Calculations that I can make they could not bring in above 1. in 20. The present Gentlemanly Temper appearing in the People of England as to the not having Aversion or Resentments of Anger against any Mens persons or their Converse by reason of their asserting controvertible points that are capable of the name of Religion must naturally make any ashamed to vex their patience and disturb their security by asserting Principles that really are Irreligion If any one did rake in the dust of Libraries for Names of absolete Heresies to render the Papists or any else the fouler thereby he would in effect but needlessly foul his own fingers as for example if any one should say the Papists have borrowed their Practice of extreme Unction from the Valentinians and Heracleonites their Notion of the Orders and Quires of Angels from the Archonticks the use and worshipping of Images from the Carpocratians the praying to the Virgin-Mary from the Colliridians the Veneration of the Cross from the Armenians the Baptism by Women from Marcion the Baptizing in an unknown Tongue from the Marcosians and the voluntary Poverty and single Life of Priests from the Apostolici the using of small Bells in Celebrating the Mysteries of Religion from the Meletians Nor would any be much concern'd whether any old or new unheard of Hereticks communicated the Disease of these Notions to the weak minds of the erring since it doth not infect Humane Society And there are several Traditions mentioned in some of the Ancient Fathers as Apostolical which tho the Papists do not observe yet the World would not make any angry Exclamations against them if it heard they did as namely the mixture of Milk and Honey given to them that are newly Baptized the abstaining from washing a whole Week after Oblations for the Birth-day yearly not to fast or kneel in Prayer or worshipping of God on the the Lords Day nor between Easter and Whitsuntide all which are mentioned in Tertullian Nor would any be now angry with another that held either part of the Question viz. If the Hallelujah may be sung in Lent The great Controversy about Easter that heretofore put all the World in a Rattle and almost shook it to pieces what a Toy is it self now reputed insomuch that our latest Ascertainers here of the time of its Celebration seemed not to think it tanti to be awake when they were about it and tho our lately having in our Almanacks two Easters in one year easily awakened the Non-Conformists to take notice of it and to say that therefore they could not give their unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book intituled the Book of Common Prayer c. And tho thereupon a person of the Royal Society very profoundly knowing in all the Mathematical Sciences and likewise in the knowledge of Theology and of the Canon Law and the Ecclesiastical Law of England hath published an infallible way of fixing Easter for ever and that it may be no longer a Fugitive from the Rule of its Practice as it often is at present nor dance away from it self as I may say in allusion to the vulgar error of the Suns dancing on Easter day and fixing it so as perhaps none else could have done nor possibly himself any other way yet hath this great right done to that great day been by the generality of people not so much regarded as would an Advice to a Painter or such like Composure have been Any one that would design to make another fermentation in the World by the terms of Homo-ousios and Homoi-ousios would no more effect it than by the Criticks Controversy in Boccaline whether Consumptum should be spelled with a p or no to which purpose I heard one cite it out of Luther that he said anima mea odit terminum istum Homo-ousion tho yet he knew Homo-ousios was the right opinion and Homoi-ousios the wrong And that one word Heresy that hath produced such furious Tempests in the World that have torn up States and Kingdoms by the Roots how is it now generally among men of ingenuity and wit here reduced to its quiet and primitive signification viz. the taking of an opinion or a private opinion without reference to truth or falshood and to import nothing more of affront then when used by Tully as Non sum in eadem tecum haeresi I am not of your opinion and the common Vogue of Heretics amounts to opiniátre and Heresy to opiniátrete and as a Whirl-wind may be supposed to have blown some one thing into its place as each other thing out of it so have the Whirl-winds Heresy hath disturbed the World by happened at last to blow its signification into its right and original State. Our Courts Christian which in order to the Salus animae might still prosecute Men for Heresy as well as Vsury have given no Heretics or Vsurers any Cause of Complaint for molestation tho yet in the Articles of Visitation this is one is there any person a known or reputed Heretick or Schismatick But as in the Diocesess in the Country and even in the Cities there the Church-wardens having not troubled themselves to know what Animal a Heretick is so neither is our Layety in our Metropolis in the humour to mind the Genus and Differentia in the definition of a Heretick Nor will they be ever likely to make any such Presentment as Mr. Nath. Bacon said in one of his printed Discourses he hath seen made formerly by some of St. Mary Overies Item we saine that John Stephens is a man we cannot well tell what to make of him and that he hath Books we know not what they are Our English Genius is so improved by the excellent temper and discourses of that breed of rational Divines our Church of England hath been blest with since the King's Restoration that it generally abhors the thoughts of punishing a Heretick as such with death as a severity that hath in it the turpitude of injustice and cruelty And since the very Fathers and Schoolmen could never agree about the point who are formally Hereticks and that the acutest among them make the formality of Heresy to consist in Pertinacy or Contumacy which are inward Acts of the Mind and which none but the Scrutator renum can know it may well seem shameful for any to agree in punishing it with death What a shameful narrowness of
feed sleep in them they must work for it and that no Papists and Presbyterians will in their sleep cry out of Persecution as formerly and that no Papist will hereafter applaud either the Justice or temper of Mr. Coleman in writing as aforesaid to the Inter-Nuncio of the Execution of the Penal Laws against the Papists and saying Which are so insupportable that 't is impossible any that is reach'd by them to have wherewithal to eat Bread if they be executed according to the said Proclamation Nor I believe will such Complaining be heard in our Streets from any of the Non-Conformist Divines as I have read in Print from one Learned Divine of them viz. some of the ejected Ministers are so reduced and find so little succour that they live upon brown Bread and Water some have died through the effects of want we will be thankful to be under no severer usage than Colliers and Barge-men and Sea-men than begging Rogues and Vagabonds have But as among the Augurs of old the Poultreys not eating their Meat or Bread served as an indication that the Roman Army was not then to fight so I hope that the same thing was meant by the sullenness of Mr. Colemans Augury and the others Complaint and that both Papists and Protestants will here eat the Bread of Quietness with Thanksgiving And considering the great number of Attorneys and Sollicitors and Dealers towards the Law that hath long over-spread the Land and planted in the same such a general proneness to litigation and over-ran it so with Briars and Thorns of the Law that our Country is not more famous for our Wooll than infamous for our so much fleecing one another and considering how another thing hath occasionally put so many men to be skilful Masters of the Science of Defence with the Weapons of the Law I mean the farming of so much of the publick Revenue I may well predict that if such a wild probability should happen as any Princes hereafter endeavouring by any illegal Course to advance Popery that tho good and loyal people would be Lachrymists to him they would be soon apt to make all ministerially concerned therein to be Lachrymists to them Altho England had a King namely Harry the 1 st of whom 't is recorded that reforming the old and untrue measures he made a measure after the length of his Arm yet as we have one who hath graciously measured the Arm of his Power by the Laws so I may safely adventure to foretel what his lawful Successors will do and it is to this purpose in some of the most subtle seditious Pamphlets notified in Print by the ill wishers to the next Heir to the Crown viz. that they fear more mischief from him as Chief Favourite and Minister to his Prince than they would from him if ever he should live to wear a Crown for then say they we shall know how to be provided against him by the Course of the Law. Nor is it to be doubted but that he who never was known to advise his Prince to incommode any one contrary to the Law will never employ his own power to the illegal detriment of any man. During this time that his Prince hath so justly placed so much of the Royal Favour on him may he not as to his administration thereof say with the same Justice as the great Prophet Whose Ox or Ass have I taken May it not be asked whom of the mad sort of Cattle that with an infinity of Calumnies and Shams gored his reputation or wild Asses that kick'd at the same did he hurt with power or yet take the fair advantage of the Law against till his many loyal friends who were secret true Lachrymists for the publick false misreports spread against him did importune him so for the Kingdoms good to defend his honour and that they might no more be punished by seeing the limbs of his reputation lie torn and mangled in every Coffee-house who had so often exposed those of his Body to Bullets and Chain-shot in Sea Fights for the saving the life and honour of their Country Those therefore that could in earnest write to the effect abovemention'd in such seditious Pamphlets let them talk or look as gravely as they will I shall yet think but in jest while at other times they are amusing any with questions about their being Lachrymists under such a Prince and they put me in mind of a famous Musician we had in the Court in King Iames's time Dr. Iohn Dowland who printed a Book of Songs and Pavans for the Lute with the Title of Lachrymae and Dedicated it to Queen Anne and in the Table of the Book several of them are thus remarked viz. Lachrymae antiquae Lachrymae gementes Lachrymae verae and he observes there in the Epistle what is obvious enough that Tears are not always shed in sorrow but sometimes in joy and gladness But there is another thing of more weight that occurs to my thoughts from the remembring that Mr. Henry Peacham in his Book called the Compleat Gentleman doth on the name of this Lutinest Iohannes Dowlandus bestow the Anagram annos ludendo hausi and that is that many in several Parliaments who thought they could do no right to Protestancy but by doing wrong to the next Heir did too much and too long play with the Royal Offers and when they might if they pleased have effected as quick a prevention of the growth of Popery under any Roman Catholiek Successor as was took care of in Scotland Yet however I have said enough for my continuing to think that as in that Kingdom there are are few or none that fear that the belief of Popery can ever there gain much ground and ever be the Paramount Religion there and who think not that the words of arise Peter kill and eat will sooner bring the Scots to eat Hogs Flesh and believe there is a Divine Right for their so doing St. Peters Sheet from Heaven in the Vision having had that Animal in it than to swallow the belief of Popery or of the Iure-Divinity of the Pope so the fears of its growth in England or of any occasion for the Virtue of the Lachrymae antiquae of the Primitive Christians will daily grow more and more moderate and in time be extinguished The late Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews estimated the number of Papists and their Children in Scotland to be but about a thousand but their number in the States of the Vnited Provinces is vastly more insomuch that the ingenious Author of the Policy of the Clergy of France to destroy the Protestants of that Kingdom mentions that there are in Holland a Country of small extent ten times more Popish Ecclesiasticks than there are Protestant Mâ—nisters in all France which is very large There is a compleat Clergy and Hierarchy Amsterdam and all the other great Cities have their Bishops Those Bishops have their Chapter and their Priests There are even religious houses They
Crescent there should so powerfully dâ—ive away the Cross. And thus too when Italy was over-run with the barbarous Nations partly of the Pagan and parâ—ly of the Arrian Belief Pagâ—nism and Arrianism being then Dotard Trees in the World the Seed of the Christian Doctrine falling on them from the Pious and Learned hands of Gregory the Great did easily work through them and for the Conversion of them and likewise of our English Nation about the Year 600 from Heathenish Idolatry the greatest Celebrations are due to him and no wonder if the Papacy then yielding so good Fruit did then cast so venerable a shade in the World. But that Tree afterward being observed to degenerate and decay within Six Years as the general Observation of our Apocalyptick Men is Valeat quantum valere possit and who thus tells us of the aetates Antichristi viz. Nascentis in Bonifacio circa Ann. 606 Iuveniliter exultantis in 2. Consilio Nicaeno Anno. 787. Regnantis in Hildebrando successoribus post An. 1075. Triumphantis in Leone Decimo Ann. 1517. Vltima senescentis est and say that shortly after it began to be consumptive and the decays of it being obvious to the view of the gazing World and the Branches of the Lutheran and Calvinistick Tenets appearing through its sides the quiet and gentle Order of Capuchins was invented for the praying for its growth and flourishing in the Year 1530. and ten years afterward the Active Fiery Order of the Iesuites was invented to extirpate the Men that wished ill to its growth and after that the Fathers of the Oratory were set up to extoll and preach up the Tree but Nature would not be extirpated the Potent Seminal Virtue of the Rational Religion dropt on the Tree of the other hath passed its roots through and through and as I may say transubstantiated it self through them and rooted it self deep both into the intellectual World and into States and Kingdoms and their Laws and will in time probably leave not one Fibre or Capillamentum of the Roots of the Irreligionary part of the Tenets of Popery remaining in Nature and shew the World that the Schisma Anglicanum that Sanders and other Papists cry out of as so unnatural was a mere natural Scissure or Rupture of the parts of the decaying Tree of the Church of Rome that came to pass from the Seed of the Protestant Religion being cast thereon And such a Natural Scissure hath the Religion of the Church of England made through the sides and roots of Protestant Recusancy and the Seeds that by the hands of Non-conformists probably guided by Iesuites have been laid on the Royal-Oak of the Church of England which they vainly thought decay'd were in effect thrown away and as the old Prophetic Fiction represents it that every great Tree included a certain Tutelar Genius and still living with it it may be said that Nature it self is the Tutelar Genius of that Plant of Renown that according to the Scripture expression we may call the Church of England and will ever live with it The Numbers of our Non-conformists are daily decaying and the names of their Tenets will probably be in a short time forgotten We are told in Townsend's Collections that Sir Walter Raleigh mention'd it in one of the Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth viz. in Anno 1593. That there were then near 20000 Brownists in England a number somewhat near as great as that of the Papists to be estimated from the Bishops Survey The name of those Schismaticks is evaporated and their Tenets are not more known or enquired into by the Populace then are the Heresies of the Bardesanistae the Aquei the Abelonitae the Messaliani and some others As was remarked concerning the late Non-Conforming Divines not having bred up their Sons to Non-Conformity the same thing is much observable among the Lay-Dissenters and that their Children do not generally imbibe their Parents principle of Dissentership but rather the contrary The Gross of their Numbers always consisting chiefly of Artisaâ—s and Retail-Traders in Corporations where before the King's Restoration they were numerous and naturally hating Popery and its Parade of Ceremonies cannot but be sensible of the sharp hatred against the same in the Professors of the Religion of the Church of England as by Law Established and how vastly such Professors do every where over-shoot the Dissenters in numbers and how the Seed of the Church of England hath as naturally and with as much ease pierced through the Body of theirs and dissolved its Roots as doth the Seed of an Oak often growing in the Body of a decayed Willow The times were known in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth King Iames and King Charles the first and likewise since till within these late years that some States-men when their Court-Interest was decaying and in danger of Extirpation could by wheadling Dissenters into a belief that they would plant their perswasion in the Church plant themselves the better in the State but humanly speaking such Conjunctures of time will come here no more and the seeming Eradication of such a Religion-Trade in Church and State is a strong Indication That our Heavenly Father or as I may say the God of Nature never planted it But if there were no Laws in being to extirpate any Dissenters Schism or separation from our Church or to Mulct or Excommunicate the obstinate Separaters or if any of those Laws were never Executed as through the vigilance of our Magistrates they have been yet is there one apparent way whereby the Conformists to the Church of England could now as easily lessen their numbers and consequently extirpate their Potency every where as they can frame a thought or resolution to do it and by no other Engine than that with which our Universities of Oxford and Cambridge batter the Contumacy of particular Towns-men namely not by Excommunicating but by discommuning them that is to say by forbidding the Scholars to Trade with them Their own forbearance of buying from Conformists the Wares that those of their own Sect do sell may reasonably invite such a reâ—aliation While heretofore they were so numerous in England their Congregated Churches helped many of the mean Artists and poor Traders thereof with the pretence of Liberty of Conscience to force a Trade by Combination among themselves and their doing it then turn'd to some account but would now be altogether insignificant in this wane of their Numbers And thus without sweat or blood or one Information brought on Penal Statutes or the least occasion or colour for their Out-cry of Persecution may the many Millions of Conformists here humble the Comparative handful of Popish and Protestant Recusants both in Corporations and out of them too when they please and in effect reduce them to the Condition the many Empericks in our Land would be in if they only sold Physick to one another I affect not to be a Propounder of any new Law or of the execution of any old that
may give the least Addition of trouble to any Member of the Realm whose Principles and Practices are not justly suspected to threaten the disturbance of the whole and my being informed by some of my Correspondents who are very impartial observers of things that many of the Dissenters of this Age have made the Press send forth several of the Antimoniarchical Principles of the former and as if they designed to revive its Rebellion and that tho the same Laws that have secured our Religion have likewise secured the Power of the Militia solely to the King and Enacted that it is not lawful on any pretence to take up Arms c. yet that the Government is justly apprehensive of many Dissenters and their Pastors owning the former Doctrine of Resistance I could wish as I did in behalf of the Papists that they would themselves offer to his Majesty's Consideration such a way of a Test or Assurance of their being become sound parts of the State and that they aim at no power of disturbing it and as to his Royal Wisdom may appear substantial and satisfactory till they do so I wish that not only the Magistracy but all private loyal persons would have such a regardful eye on them as is had in Foreign parts on those that come for Prattiques from infected places and bring no Letters of Health and that they would have Prattique or Commerce with such of them which would soon enforce them to live by themselves I have in this Discourse already acknowledged it to your Lordships just praise that you are not of too narrow a Spirit or Principles as to Protestant Dissenters as supposing that you had such Sentiments of the usage fit to be afforded to some of them that our Learned Bishop of Winchester own'd in a Letter to your Lordship which you once shewed me and I was as ready to be their Excusator as any of the Church of England could be till I saw their ingratitude so instrumental in Cancelling the Declaration of Indulgence and still out of a natural inclination do as I said in the Case of the Papists wish them all that share of the Royal Favour that would not undo themselves and others and as I said in the Case of the Papists do suppose the continuance of the old Laws against Protestant Recusants necessary in this Conjuncture that the King in whom the Executive Power of the Laws is lodged may sharpen the edge against any one of the Party that should be an aggressor against the Peace of the Kingdom and especially considering how often many of the Puritans have took the advantage of the publick pressures of the Crown in former Ages and that while it was in procinctu to withstand a Foreign Invasion My Lord Keeper Puckering's Observation of their Temper expressed in his memorable Speech is known to all and the present apprehensions in the Government of danger from Dissenters have sufficiently evinced the Prudence of his Majesty's Measures in not repealing the Penal Clauses in our Statutes against Protestant Recusants When they who were regarded as weak Brethren do now fortiter Calumniari and Libel the Government and call whom they will Iulian 't is necessary that the Prince by having the power of the Penal Laws in his hand should be able to discriminate those who have not yet discriminated themselves and in the Case of Persons stupid and perverse 't is fitter that Children should be Lachrymists than old men When the Divines of the Church of England have of late from one end of the Land to the other alarmed the People with Exhortations against Disloyalty as loud as those in a late Conjuncture against Popery and the King's Ministers were informed of the Altum silentium in the Conventicles as to any making the English Bibles there support the Rights of our English Kings and that the Iulians there were Apostates from the Principles of the Non-Conformists in King Iames's time and had forgot how Reynolds Whitaker Cartwright Dod Traverse c. had in their Writings disowned the assigning it as a Cause of the Primitive Obedience Quia deerant vire and that a new Sect of false weak Brethren had learned to urge the deerant vires 't was time for the King to keep the strength of the old Laws in his hands and occasionally to arm them against the petulant insolence of any Seditious Protestant or Popish Recusants I have been far from recommending in this Discourse the Exterminium haereticorum or Extirpation of any Recusants but have endeavoured with the sedateness requisite in a Philosophical or Political Disquisition to give my Judgment of the Natural Causes that induce me to expect the Extermination only of things or Principles Relionary and indeed to speak more properly of that part of Mens Principles only that is irreligionary and against Nature and to expect such parts being luce delenda I expect not that all the Debates of the Religionary part of Presbytery should here among all men cease tho yet I have conjectured that they who should write professedly of that Subject here would want Readers and as I believe too Discoursers of the Latitudinarian Hypothesis would likewise and do think that many little Religionary Speculative Notions about the meaning of some obscure passages in Scripture may to some of our Dissenters seem great and employ their time in Debates and as when the famous Ainsworth and Broughton heretofore had before their Congregations of Dissenters who went hence to Holland many and fierce disputes about the Controvesie whether Aarons ephod were blew or Sea-green a Controversie that puzzled all the Dyers of Amsterdam as Fuller says of it in his Church History as well as it did our separatists there that took so much pains to be therein illuminated and which I think the light of a Farthing Candle brought in any night among them might have easily settled or as I may say deleted in regard that blew and yellow making a green the yellow of the flame of the Candle would have made what appeared blew by day to have seem'd green at night and prevented their further Anathematising one another as Schismaticks about the same And as I beforementioned it out of a late Book of a Divine of the Church of England that some of the Reliogionary parts of Popery he instanceth in viz. Invocation of Saints Transubstantiation Purgatory are and will be learnedly and voluminously defended to the Worlds end I believe the same may be so in Popish Countries abroad and that the same will be believed by many Persons here tho yet the voluminous discussion of the same hath long been and is like to be out of fashion here and reflections on the same en passant or only in short Treatises may be thought by our Divines sufficient to guide their Auditors from mistakes therein and effectually to confute and I believe that our English Church will never be troubled with the growth of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation under any Prince we
Loyalty that any Christian who hath taken these Oaths shall think sufficient doth most certainly take the name of Loyalty and Protestancy and of Christianity and even of God in vain and as the Scripture implies that there is a Repentance to be repented of I shall say that such a mans Protestancy is to be protested against And when we consider that the Presbyterian Author of the EXERCITATION beforementioned hath in p. 41. with so much Loyalty and Reason told us in terms That Obedience is owing to Princes without condition of Religion or Iustice on their part performed and the Scripture is clear for an irrespective and in regard of the Rulers Demeanor absolute subjection Exod. 20. 12. 21. 25. Rom. 13. 1 2 c. Tit. 3. 1. 1 Pet. 2. 13. 1 Sam. 24. 6 7. 26. 9 10 11. Jer. 27. 12. 29. 7. Matth. 22. 21. and hath told us in p. 56. That our Oaths put no condition on the Prince but are all absolute and irrespective and run without ifs or ands in like manner as the Obligation of Subjects Allegiance to their Sovereign is irrespective according to Divine Institution methinks it should make any Son of the Church of England to start at the thought of his being out-done in Loyalty and sworn Allegiance by a Covenanting Presbyterian for such that Author was and at the thought of any ones having taken those Oaths relating to the King his Heirs and Successors and afterward interlining the interpretation of them with ifs and ands and at the thought of such an interlineation not appearing as ill in the Court of Conscience as any would do in a Court of Law. But the truth is the Church of England appearing in this late Religionary Fermentation to have so incorporated this Doctrine of absolute and irrespective Loyalty into its Constitution beyond any other Church in the World and likewise the Doctrine of Charity and Moderation toward all Christians whether Foreigners or Domesticks whether whole Churches or single Persons as Primate Bramhal's words are that the same doth now as I may say strike the Eyes of all indifferent men and enforce it self on the thoughts of any who do but for Curiosity walk about this Sion and go round about her and tell the Towers thereof I mean do consider its Prayers Homilies Articles Canons and Ecclesiastical Constitutions it hath hereby been necessarily made like the Eagle to renew its youth and to be invigorated as with a new Soul after its Enemies thought it dead or asleep and after Mr. Hooker's shrewd guessing that after the Year 1677. That what followed would be likely to be small joy to them who should behold it For the Doctrine of absolute and irrespective Loyalty being Essential to the Peace of Kingdoms and likely to be so more and more to the Worlds end and the Church of England appearing as by consent of Parties to be THE Church that overtowers all others in the Principles for THAT Sort of Loyalty as well as in the august Principles of Charity for all Christians according to the saying of Magnes amoris amor it must naturally attract the love of thoâ—e in other Churches and supposing that any Church or People love themselves and cannot be preserved but by Loyalty Nature will direct the World to a growing love for the Church of England and therefore I am no Visionaire in predicting from natural Causes That what shall follow to the Church of England will be great joy to those who shall behold it to the very end of time And nothing could possibly in my opinion have brought it to this firm State of its Glory but the disloyal Principles and Practices of some of its Competitors and particularly the just and dreadful apprehensions given to considerate men upon some Nominal Protestants and Nominal Property-men having founded Dominion in Grace and yet having reproached the Church of England and its Divines with Popery and invited the Protestant Mobile to make a Schism from it on such an account and printed many Seditious Pamphlets for the Establishing the IF or AND-Loyalty or indeed which is all one an absolute Disloyalty and in such a Conjuncture when it would have been not more pernicious to the particular Souls of the Disloyal than to the Body of the whole Nation and to the State of Christendom Thus through the Divine Omnipotence which can bring good out of evil hath our late Fermentation been made perfective to our Church as well as the Hereditary Monarchy and the Rule of God's governing the World by the Prayers of his Church and Lusts of his Enemies been here exemplified and as the Air that is the Steem of the dull Earth or the Textura halituum terrae as Gassendus calls it is made by nature to be the Vehicle of those Beams of the Sun that dazle our Eyes thus have the Fumes exhaled by such mens Lusts of Disloyalty and Malice that darken'd their own understandings and would have obscured the glory of the Church of England been made instrumental in dispersing its brightness through the World and even in the opening of the Eyes of many to behold it with amazement and that service hath been done our Church thereby which by all the Pens of its Iewel and Hooker and Sanderson could never be effected England that had so much the Carriage and the Trade of the World till the Munster Peace of 48 could bear the Civil War after 41 and breathe under it and flourish after it but as the State of the World abroad and at home now is and likely to be our ALL must depend upon the Principles and Practice of Loyalty and therefore this new Soul I spake of as now animating the Church of England must be immortal and it may well say to it self under any Prince that can come Soul take thy ease thou hast Loyalty and the Principles of it laid up for many years and England did not before 48 more excel other Realms in Trade than its Church doth now other Churches in absolute and irrespective Loyalty That great Iudge of Churches and their Principles Arch-Bishop Laud having in p. 36. of his famous Star-Chamber Speech remarked the dangerous Consequence of avowing That the Popish Religâ—ion is Rebellion saith That some Principles of theirs teach Rebellion is apparently true c. and I shall add that some Principles of our late Covenanting Dissenteâ—s have taught it is apparently true and for such of the latter who believed and practised these Principles to reproach any Papists with Disâ—oyalty is as apparently ridiculous as was Mr. Prynn's writing two Voluminous Tractates of The Disloyalty of Papists at the time when he was making so great a Figure in the late Rebellion But however suitably to the Moral Offices urged by Ames of not condemning whole Parties of men on the account of the guilt of some Persons I have under this Conclusion cited the loyal Principles of some Recusants of all sorts pertinent to my Scope and because the irrespective Loyalty
words in the Oaths altho it is a common sure Rule That Verba ubi sunt expressa voluntatis supervacanea est quaestio yet I shall ex superabundanti choose to corroborate such my Assertion by laying down this as my 9th and last Conclusion that it is manifest that it was the Law-givers intention to bind the Takers of these Oaths not only to bear true Faith and Allegiance to his Majesty but to his Heirs and Successors in the Due and Legal Course of Descent as I have before expressed It need not be much dilated on that Relations are Minimae entitatis but Maximae efficaciae and that Liberi sunt quasi partes appendices parentum not only Fictione Iuris but Naturâ â—ei veritate and that in the framing of the Oath of Allegiance and the designing the Obligations to arise thence the King had a necessary regard to natural affection and to the preservation of the Hereditary Monarchy in the Line of his Heirs and Successors and suitably to what is expressed in the Preamble of the Statute of 25 H. 8. c. 22. viz. That since it is the natural inclination of every man gladly and willingly to provide for the surety of both his Title and Succession altho it touch his only private Cause we therefore reckon our selves much more bound to beseech and instant your Highness to foresee and provide for the PRESENT surety of both you and of your most lawful Succession and Heirs Nor need it be much insisted on that 't is natural for every Government to defend and preserve it self and to this purpose the Author of the Exercitation cites Alsted a Lutheran Divine and likewise Grotius and Dudley Fenner for maintaining the lawfulness of what the old Athenian famous Oath enjoyned for the preservation of its Polity namely of any private Person killing any Usurper or one who without a lawful Title forcibly invaded the Government The Athenians had several Oaths of a high nature by the Religion of which they tyed themselves to defend their Government and one was the Iusjurandum epheborum which they took when 20 years old and which is set down in Petitus his Noble Commentary on the Athenian Laws and part of which as rendered by him into Latin is Patriam liberis non relinquam in deteriore sed potius in meliore statu Navigabo ad terram eamque colam quantulacunque illa sit quae habenda mihi tradetur Parebo legibus quae obtinent c. quod si quis leges abrogare velit populo non sciscente minime feram Vindicabo autem sive solus sive cum aliis omnibus Patria sacra colam c. ad mortem usque pro nutriciâ terrâ dimicabo But this Oath tho famous enough was not THE famous one I referred to but 't is the other of which the formula is set down in Petitus there p. 232 233. and which beginneth with Occidam meâ ipsius manu si possim eum qui everterit Rempublicam Atheniensium aut eâ— eversâ Magistratum gesserit in posterum c. That Oath of so high and strange a nature was made shortly after the driving out the thirty Tyrants and the Law made that Si quis Atheniensium Rempublicam evertat aut eâ eversê Magistratum gerat Atheniensium hostis esto impunèque occiditor c. To secure their Government forever from future Usurpation was the intent of that terrible Oath and to secure the Government of the Hereditary Monarchy here was the intent of our gentle ones and sufficiently favouring of the Mansuetudo Evangelii and which Oaths however binding the Loyal to defend the Government with their lives do yet strictly bind to the defence of the Rights and Privileges of the Crown one of which is both by the 13th of the Romans and the Lex terrae to be a terror to the Evil and to bear the Sword. But Sir E. Coke having told us in his Commentaries That the true Scope and design of our Statute Laws are oftentimes not to be understood without the knowledge of the Histâ—ry of the Age when the particular Statute was made I shall looking back on the Conjuncture when the Act for the Oath of Allegiance was made take notice that by many particular matters then obvious to all mens thoughts it appeared worthy of the wisdom of the Government then to provide for the security both of his Majesty and of the Succession Any who shall read D' Ossat's Letters will find the various deep designs there opened that related to several Foreign Princes and Potentates Jealousies of the Power that England would have in the balance of the World by the uniting of the strength of Scotland to it upon the rightful Succession of King Iames to the Monarchy and perhaps rather out of a design to amuse them than out of an humour to put by the thoughts of Mortality Queen Elizabeth did shew so much unwillingness sometimes to hear and speak of her Successor And during the constrained Altum silentium of the Succession then here a Book of the Succession was writ by Father Parsons and which made noise enough in the World as those Letters mention and by which Book the Author intended that our Hereditary Monarchy should be Thunder struck especially with the help of the Papal Breves that came here to obstruct the Succession King Iames at the end of his Premonition to all Christian Monarchs printing a Catalogue of the Lyes of Tortus i. e. Bellarmin with a brief Confutation of them refers to one Lye of Tortus p. 47 viz. In which words of the Breves of Clement the 8th not only King James of Scotland was not EXCLVDED but included rather and the Confutation is thus viz. If the Breves of Clement did not exclude me from the Kingdom but rather did include me why did Garnet burn them Why would he not reserve them that I might have seen them that so he might have obtained more favour at my hands for him and his Catholicks And that King in his Apology for the Oath of Allegiance p. 29. refers to the two Breves which Clemens Octavus sent to England immediately before Queen Elizabeth's Death debarring him from the Crown or any other that either would profess or any ways tolerate the Professors of his Religion contrary to the Pope's Manifold Vows and Protestations Simul eodem tempore and as it were delivered uno eodem spiritu to divers of his Majesty's Ministers abroad professing such kindness and shewing such forwardness to advance his Majesty to the English Crown Any one who reads in D' Ossat the inclination of that Pope to Principles and Practices of this kind will not wonder at his Majesty 's thus exposing his Vn-holyness and the nature of the Breves is sufficiently there explained and proved to be according to his Majesty's measures published of them That Great King was sufficiently acquainted with the Principles and Practices of the Papacy that had been so injurious to
Hereditary Monarchs He knew that a Popish Parliament in England had shewed their Abhorrence of the Pope's being somewhat like an Excluder-General of Kings and an Arbitrary one too as appeared by the Words in the Statute of 25 H. 8. viz. The Pope contrary to the inviolable Grants of Iurisdictions by God immediately to Emperors and Kings hath presumed to invest who should please him to inherit in other mens Kingdoms and Dominions which we your Loyal Subjects Spiritual and Temporal abhor and detest and the practices at Rome for King Iames's Exclusion had made deep impressions in his thoughts As he was a Prince of great Reading he could not but know particularly the many Anti-Monarchical Tenets that were published by many Popish Commentators positive Writers School-men Canonists and never censured by any Index Expurgatorius tho yet several Popish Authors who asserted the Power of Kings were so censured and particularly Bodin de Republicâ and he could not be ignorant of Popes having required several Crowned Heads to swear Fidelity to them and their Successors and that particularly the Pope sent Hubertus to require William the Conqueror â—o swear Allegiance and Fidelity to Him and his Successors and who magnanimously refused so to do and that the Papacy endeavoured to root its Power in the World by obliging men in their Oaths of Fidelity to any particular Pope to swear the same likewise to his Successors according to the common Style in those Oaths viz. Fidelis obediens ero Domino Papae c. suis successoribus and that thus too the Oath of all Popish Bishops at their Consecration runs and that the Great Austrian Family had not more carefully secured to it self the Scepters of the Empire by the Constitution of a King of the Romans than the Papacy had made Provision of that King 's being sworn that he would from that time be a Protector and Defender of the Pope and Church of Rome according to those words in the Oath as I find it set down in Magerus viz. Ego N. Rex Romanorum FVTVRVS Imperator promitto spondeo polliceor atque juro Deo leato Petro me de caetero protectorem atque desensorem fore summi Pontisicis sanctae Ecclesiae Romanae c. He had moreover considered the great Fermentation in the minds of so many Loyal People in England by Queen Elizabeth's being so reserved as She was in the business of the Succession and which as Dr. Matthew Hulton Arch-Bishop of York mentioned in a memorable Sermon he preached before her at White-Hall Gave hopes to Foreigners to attempt fresh Invasions and bred fears in many of her Subjects of a new Conquest and who thereupon very loyally said then The only way in Policy left to quell those hopes and asswage those fears were to Establish the Succession and at last intimating as far as he durst saith my Author the nearness of Blood of our present Sovereign he said plainly That the expectations and presages of all Writers went Northward naming without any Circumlocution Scotland There is an Abstract of this Loyal and Learned Sermon and which throughout pointed at the Succession in the History of some of the Bishops of England in the time of Queen Elizabeth printed in the Year 1653 and the fate of the Sermon was such that tho perhaps it tickled not the Ears of that Queen it so far touched her Conscience that the Historian saith She opened the Window of her Closet and gave the Arch-Bishop thanks for it No doubt but Parsons saying in his Book of the Succession That he thought the Affair about it could not be ended without some War did much heighten the Popular Fears of War happening thereupon and 't is most probable the long fear of War in that Fermentation did variously weaken the Kingdom Nor is it a new thought for the long fears of War to be held to bear some proportion to the mischief of War it self in obstructing Trade and Commerce insomuch that several Writers of the Regalia and fiscal matters among the Tractatus Illustrium have told us That Quando timor belli idem operatur quod ipsum bellum remissio sit conductoribus i. e. of the Revenue and hath Entituled them to defalcations We may imagine by the just effects of our late Fermentation what the state of the Body Politick was in that namely like the state of long tormenting anguish in the Body natural upon the pricking of an Artery and importing often more trouble and danger than the cutting of one And by the great triumphant Flame of joy appearing in the Act of Recognition in King Iames's time and which appears in our Statute-Book as I may say lâ—ke a Pyramid of the Fire of Zealous Loyalty and greater and higher than any former Act of that nature we may judge how overjoyed all the Loyal People of England were on his coming to the Crown and as Pliny in his Panegyrick saith of Nerva's adopting Trajan It was impossible it should have pleased all when it was done except it had pleased all before it was done the same might be applied to the Case of King Iames's Succession to the Crown The very Title of the Act speaks the Triumph of the Hereditary Monarchy viz. A Recognition that the Crown of England is lawfully descended to King James his Progeny and Posterity There was an end of all the dreadful inconveniences of the uncertainty of the Succession and of the fears of the People of what was worse than being torn in pieces by wild Hâ—rses I mean the rending their Consciences by contrary Oaths about the Succession as in Harry the 8th's time There was an end of the â—ears from the growing greatness of France and fears of any Foreign Fremuerunt gentes England was restored to it self and Scotland added to it and tho Boccaline like an airy Iâ—genioso in his Politick Touchstone makes England weigh less on the throwing Scotland into the Scales any one will find that in him but grave Romancery who shall consider what with Oracular Wisdom another-guess Statos-man than Boccaline told Harry the 4th I mean D'Ossat in his long Letter to him from Rome Book 7th and Anno 1601. where he saith That the Pope desisted not to hope that his Maiesty might be perswaded by reason of State to endeavour that the Kingdoms of England and Scotland may not be joyned in the Person of one King considering the great mischiefs that the English alone have done to the French more than all other Nations put together c. And indeed that England is at this day preserved not only from the danger of being overbalanced by France but from the loss of its ancient figure of balancing the World must highly be attributed to the Hereditary Monarchy being fixt in the Line of King Iames and to Scotland being thrown into the Scales as was said and if any one shall tell me by the way that the weight of Scotland was prejudicial to Loyalty in
41 I shall answer him that its weight hath in this present Conjuncture of 81 afforded Loyalty so great a Compensation by that late Act of Parliament there acknowledging and asserting the Right of the Succession c. and which begins thus viz. The Estates of Parliament considering that the Kings of this Realm deriving their Royal Power from God Almighty alone do succeed lineally thereunto according to the known Degrees of Proximity in Blood c. that as Historians tell us how in the dark barbarous times many hundreds of years since men repaired from all Countries to Ireland to learn the Liberal Arts and Sciences I shall say that they may now profitably go to Scotland to learn Loyalty and I doubt not but that Kingdom which is so notorious for its mortal or immortal hatred of Popery call it which you will and even of that very part of it which I call the Religionary one of it having thus by the Exterminium of that irreligionary part of it viz. That Dominion is founded in Grace taught us Loyalty in the establishing the Hereditary Lineal Succession may be as instrumental in giving Loyalty in the Body of the People here its temperamentum ad pondus as it was formerly in oppressing us with its weight as a gravamen and be an occasion of blessing our Land with such a joyful Conjuncture of time as ensued after King Iames's Succession as I have before mentioned and to the Consideration of which I shall return England that had formerly by reason of the uncertainty of the Succession being like the Erratica Delos a floating Island and that too in Seas of Blood and did then appear like it afterward fixed and blessed with a Pacifick and Oracular King and as strong a Foundation for the Hereditary Monarchy as could be wished was shortly after in danger of being again unfixed by the Outrage of the Gun-Powder Treason and the Principles that legitimated that practice being really believed and practised and an account of the practice of which Treason we have in the Statute of 3 o Iacobi c. 2. as likewise of the fiery Principles that animated the Actors to it in Thuanus and in King Iames his Premonition to all Christian Monarchs p. 10. a general reference is made to the violent bloody Maxims that the Powder-Traytors maintained and by occasion whereof after the designed outrage against the Lineal Succession of the Prince and the Hereditary Monarchy being in danger while such bloody Principles and Maxims were not exterminated it was in ordinary prudence requisite to apply the extraordinary Remedy of the Oath of Allegiance to rivet that Fundamental Maxim of the Crown the stronger in Nature viz. That the King never dies And the Addition of those words in the Promissory Clause of the Oath of Allegiance viz. HIS or THEIR Persons THEIR Crown and Dignity and which words were not in the Oath of Supremacy was a plain indication of the intention of the Law-givers to tye Mens Souls to the Hereditary Monarchy in the Due and Legal Course of Descent And moreover with a prospect to mens having a conscientious regard to the King's Heirs and Successors the Fathers of our Church then probably in the Preface of the Collect in the Common-prayer for the Prince and the King's Children as overjoyed with the sight of King James 's being enriched with a most Royal Progeny as the words in the Act of the Recognition are did cause these words to be inserted Who art the Father of thine Elect and of their SEED The Preface to the Act requiring the Oath of Allegiance hath in it the expression of Loyalty and Allegiance unto the King's Majesty and the CROWN of England and mentions the design of the Gun-powder Treason as tending to the subversion of the whole State and therefore if in the ancient times of Popery and when the Pope was generally revered here as a 13th Apostle upon any emergent Papal Usurpations which gave just cause of apprehending future ones intended and particularly in the Case of the Pope's Mandates or Bulls which were called Gratiae expectativae or provisiones and pretendedly issued out of the Pope's pious care to see a Church provided of a Successor before it needed our Kings did think themselves obliged to provide Statutes against Provisors whereby the Ius patronatus was secured to them and their Subjects and by Statutes of Praemunire did as it were build Forts before the Enemies coming the Premuniment of the Hereditary Monarchy by the Oath of Allegiance was most necessary to prevent any Papal Gratiae expectativae of the Crown and the Popes impious care to provide a Successor to its Hereditary Rights The Premuniment of some Laws by others is no new thing nor yet a new word however some idle Criticks have accounted the word praemunire in our Statutes to be barbarous for Grotius in his De jure belli c. l. 2. c. 5. § 14. speaking of some Laws of the Iews saith In quarum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut Hebraei loqâ—untur praemunimentum additae sunt leges caeterae and according to the sense of some taking praemunire for praemonere the constant premonition of Heavens great Monitor called Conscience and which is the pulse of the Soul and like the Pulse is Fidelis nuncius vitae aut mortis to warn men by this Oath to defend the Lineal Succession of the Crown was no less necessary and King Iames's setling the Premonition in the minds of his own Subjects was but naturally previous to his Premonition sent abroad to Foreign Princes and States And how far Harry the 7th's Statute by which no Person who should serve the King for the time being c. should therefore be attainted or impeached might induce the Government to secure the undoubted Rights of Succession by the Oath of Allegiance being framed as it was and rooting our Loyalty thereby the deeper into our Consciences and by the fear of our being justly impeached in the Court of Conscience in omnem eventum if we defended not those Rights of Succession is obvious to Consideration As I have thus in this Conclusion shewed that it was the Law-givers intention particularly in the Oath of Allegiance to oblige us to pay our Allegiance not only to the King but to his Heirs and Successors in the Legal Course of Descent so I might here further Ex superabundanti dilate on such intention being to secure the same without any respect to the Religion of such Heirs and Successors A Prince of such profound Learning and Observation as King Iames could not be ignorant of what hath been since by the Loyal Writers of the Succession so clearly and strongly asserted viz. That the Succession to the Crown is inseparably annext to the Proximity of Blood by the Laws of GOD and NATVRE and That Statute-Laws contrariant to those are null and void and That the Hereditary Monarchy was indisputably founded on inherent Birth-right according to the Style of the Act of Recognition
and not any Religionary Regeneration and That the accession of the Crown purgeth all Obstructions And that that Prince did by the Oath of Allegiance design only to twist the Band of our natural Allegiance the stronger an Allegiance tyed not to Princes Faith of the Cross but to their Crown appears throughout his Apology for the Oath of Allegiance He likewise in his Premonition to all Christian Monarchs p. 9. doth with some warmth of words reflect on the Malice of some who impudently affirm That the Oath of Allegiance was devised for deceiving and entrapping of Papists in point of Conscience and saith That tho the House of Commons at the first framing of the Oath made it to contain That the Pope had no Power to excommunicate me which I caused them to reform only making it to conclude that no Excommunication of the Popes can warrant my Subjects to practise against my Person or State c. so careful was I that nothing should be contained in this Oath except the profession of Natural Allegiance and Civil and Temporal Obedience with a promise to resist to all contrary uncivil violence From thence it appears that what looked like the Religionary part of Popery namely the Pope's exercising a Spiritual Power against him or the Notion as Aquinas delivers it That there is Potestas in summo Pontifice puniendi omnes mortales ratione delicti he intended not to whet the sharpness of the Oath against but only against the Irreligionary part of Popery beforementioned and as to which he might rationally depend on the Zeal of any Heir or Successor tho Roman Catholick concurring with his therein He having in the foregoing Page mentioned how that Parliament that was to have been blown up made some new Laws against Papists saith So far hath my Heart and Government been from any bitterness as almost never one of those sharp Additions to the former Laws have ever yet been put in Execution The Execution of some Laws of pecuniary Mulcts on Papists who in that Conjuncture believed the irreligionary part of the Papal Power might seem to carry such a Face of Justice with it as the practice of the Custom-house doth pursuant to the 13th and 14th of Harry the 8th c. 4. Whereby any English man or born Subject of England who shall swear Obeysance or live as Subjects to any Foreign Prince shall pay Aliens Customs but 't is a madness to think of any Prince's abdicating his Temporal Power and swearing Temporal Obeysance to any one and no man but he who has Laesa principia can suppose that King Iames who avowed in his Premonition That no man in his time or the late Queens ever died for his Religion nor yet any Priests after their taking Orders beyond Sea without some other guilt in them than their bare coming home and who p. 16. of his Apology avows and maintains to his own knowledge that Queen Elizabeth never punished any Papists for Religion but that their punishment was ever extorted out of her hands against her will by their own mis-behaviour could ever intend that by the withdrawing of Allegiance from any of his Heirs in the Course of their Lineal Succession on the pretence of any of their Religionary Notions or other pretence or ground whatsoever there should be a solutio continui or political death inflicted on the Hereditary Monarchy by the preserving of which the lives of all the People of England could only be preserved He in his Premonition and Apology discharged the Moral Offices of honouring all men with relation to Papists his Subjects and judgeth some of them to be of quiet dispositions and good Subjects and in p. 3 4. 46 47 48. of his Apology he makes a difference between many of his Popish Subjects who retained in their hearts the print of their naturâ— l Duty to their Sovereign and those who were carried away with that Fanatical Zeal the Powder-Traytors were and useth the expression of quietly minded Papists and Papists tho peradventure zealous in their Religion yet otherwise civilly honest and good Subjects and acknowledgeth That his Mother altho she continued in that Religion wherein she was nourished yet was so far from being superstitious or jesuited therein that at his baptism tho he was baptized by a Popish Arch-Bishop she sent him word to forbear to use the spittle in his Baptism which was obeyed and in his Premonition speaking to Roman Catholick Princes and wishing them to search the Scriptures and ground their Faith upon their own certain knowledge and not on the Report of others since every man must be safe by his own Faith but leaving this to God his Merciful Providence in his due time he further wisheth them to imitate their Noble Predecessors who in the days of greatest blindness did divers times courageously oppose themselves to the encroaching Ambition of Popes and acknowledgeth That some of their Kingdoms have in all Ages maintained and without interruption enjoyed their liberty against the most ambitious Popes c. and saith That some of those Princes have constantly defended and maintained their lawful freedom to their immortal honour and concludes his Premonition with earnest Prayers to the Almighty for their prosperities and that after their happy Temporal Reigns on Earth they may live and Reign in Heaven with him forever This Learned King did sufficiently thereby Proclaim himself an Enemy to the Papal Tenet of founding Dominion in Grace as to those Foreign Popish Princes and could not therefore but more abhor the effects of it in the Case of his Hereditary Successors and he having judged that those Foreign Princes who owned the Religionary Tenets of Popery did yet constantly defend and maintain their lawful freedom from all Papal Vsurpations to their immortal honour and with so devout a Charity pray'd for their happy Temporal Reigns on Earth and that they may live and reign in Heaven afterward could not but suppose that any of his Heirs who might be of the Roman Catholick Communion would yet disown any Tenet of Popery that was irreligionary and would Exterminate all Papal Vsurpation and that they might here expect a happy Reign on Earth and a happier in Heaven hereafter leaving it to God to open their Eyes as aforesaid in matters Religionary and to render them fafe by their own Faith. King Iames in his Apology for the Oath of Allegiance doth incidenter prop up the Justice of the Oath of Supremacy and in p. 49 50 51. doth insert 14 contrary Conclusions to all the Points and Articles of which the Oath of Supremacy consists to denote the absurdity of the opposing that Oath and which Conclusions tho many Clerical and Lay-Papists among his Subjects might maintain yet he might well think it Morally impossible for a Roman Catholick Prince here to do so and he gives a very good reason for the inducing any one so to judge of his measures viz. That those Conclusions were never concluded and defined by any compleat General Council
whatsoever It is a certain Rule about Oaths That Iuramentum non extenditur ad ea de quibus cogitatum non est and so is this other viz. Non licet nobis interpretatione taciâ—â comminisci conditiones nisi quae vel publico jure receptae sunt vel ex re ipsa aut verbis quibusdam manifestè colliguntur and I may add another That Minimè mutanda sunt quae interpretationem certam semper habuerunt But as it hath appeared to all a superfluous thing ever to have the Judges consulted about any being Heirs to the King in his life-time and wherein there is no Dignus vindice nodus so likewise tho Contra captiones ex actu ambiguo nascentes remedio est protestatio quae declaratione intentionis actum madificatur jusque in posterum competens conservat yet no man was ever found so ridiculous as to make any Protestation at the time of his taking these Oaths concerning this new sense of the word Heirs and what is a greater reflection on our Excluders as to their Non-observance of the Promissory Clause relating to the King's Heirs is that the Excluders were embarqued in their Exclusion and half-Sea over in their prosecution of it and had thrown away their Compass of the common sense of the Oaths before the new one of Haeres viventis was found or heard of an interpretation that I believe the very Author of the Sheriffs Case would have held scandalous and which indeed amounts not to so much as a Scruple of Conscience or to more than a Quirk of Law. It hath long been the Custom of Spain not to make any men Iudges who have been Advocates as supposing that their straining the Law as Practitioners for their Clients might make them the less Candid in their Judgment of the Law on the Tribunal but the truth is the giving Judgment in the Court of Conscience that this new-found interpretation of the word Heirs would in that Court indemnify the Takers of the Oaths may well seem unworthy of the dignity of any Iudge or Counsellor or conscientious Attorney and any one of those whom the old Comaedian calls the Leguleiorum faeces decemdrachmariâ— not wholly steer'd by Trick As great a Iudge in that Court as ever our Nation or perhaps Christendom bred I mean our Bishop Sanderson having in his 2d Lecture of Oaths said That we become guilty of the hainous Crime of Perjury if a milder interpretation of an Oath chance to deceive us doth well mind us of the profitable Rule which in doubtful matters commands the choice of the safer part And thus the Casuists generally giving us that Rule that in all doubtful matters we are to incline to the safer side and that therein 't is safer to think a thing to be Sin than not and in order to the great EXCLVSION of Perjury telling us That Cum de ancipiti perjurio in futurum quaeritur illa est benignior sententia quae Conscientiae tutior atque ita quae crimen interpretatur ut excludat and that when ever we recede from the literal sense of an Oath to the intention of the Law-giver we ought to be very sure of that intention if we will be saâ—e from the danger of Perjury I think that new interpretation so clearly contrary both to the literal sense of the Oath and the intention of the Law-giver as I have shewn was a very unsafe trick for men to put upon their Consciences But as the word Heir is a plain word so it is likewise as plain that some men by the Haeres viventis would put a Trick on the State for let any one go to dissect all the meaning that can be in the Haeres viventis in plain English and it will be neither better nor worse than to make the sense of the Imposer of the Oaths be that men should observe the Promissory Clauses relating to the King's Heirs and Successors only on the terms of the Objection of Rebus sic stantibus which I have before mentioned and fully answered Nor can any men evade their being by the Oaths obliged to defend the Rights of the Hereditary Monarchy and thus prop up such their new interpretation of Heirs by Virtue of the expired Statute of the 13th of Elizabeth which some have raised such dust with that made it Treason to affirm That the Laws and Statutes do not bind the Right of the Crown and its Descent Limitation Inheritance or Governance It is not an expired Statute nor any one in being can make the Obligation of our Oaths to the King's Heirs and Successors to expire We were in Conscience and by the Law which is by some termed Communis sponsio Regni obliged before our Oaths taken to defend the Rights of the King's Heirs and Successors in all just ways but if any men should be so vain as to think that we were not before obliged to them on the account of the Hereditary Monarchy yet it is most certain that an Oath doth often induce an Obligation where there was none before and we are not now considering what WAS Treason but what IS Perjury An Act of Parliament may inflict the Vltimum supplicium on that which perhaps is not Malum in se as for example The Exportation of Wooll tho when we have a glut of it nay by the 28th of Harry the 8th c. 7. touching the Succession of the Crown the not taking of the contrary Oaths is made Treason But I need not here say more than that if any in the 13th Year of Queen Elizabeth had took the Oath of Supremacy enjoyned in the first Year of her Reign and did not observe the Promissory Clause therein they did offend God and their Consciences thereby But I have mentioned it that Arch-Bishop Hutton notwithstanding that 13th of Elizabeth made it a Praemunire to speak of any Person being her Heir and Successor except the same were the natural Issue of her Body did publickly in his Sermon before her discharge that Promissory part of the Oath by asserting King Iames his Right to succeed her and was publickly by her thanked for it On the whole matter we are not bound by these Oaths to look backward on other mens actings but to look forward on our own Enough has been said of too much that was done to oppose King Iames's Succession and of the necessity of the Oath of Allâ—giance to secure England to the Royal Line and by it and the providing of the fortius vinculum on the emergency of the Gun-powder Treason was but sutable to the general prudence of all States and the expression of Allegiance to be paid to the King's Heirs and Successors when Kings and Queens of this Realm which was in some former Oaths was not in this necessary nor yet in the Oath of Supremacy because of the great Fundamental Clause in both before mentioned viz. The King IS the only Supreme Governor c. he IS ONLY Supreme and so none co-ordinate or equal to
not you after you have thrown off the Papal Power of Excluding Kings make your Reformation an empty Name if you at last reform your selves into Popery and after all your imagined Conversions from Popery we shall see your natural Conversion to it and as Natural as the Common Hieroglyphick of the year shews us and how in se convertitur annus The truth is that as to the Case of many of our Nominal Protestants and some real ones being thus deceived as aforesaid in the business of the Exclâ—sion there lyes a Pudet haec opprobriâ— nobis c. and a worse opprobrium than that of another common Latine saying Stulti dum vitant vitia c. for here they have run but from Popery to Popery from a Popery more genteely clad to a second-haâ—d Popery and even into a frippery of Antimonarchial notions and they have run into the Substance of the worst part of Popery and what I account worse then Transubstantiation while they have been pursuing the magni nominis umbria I mean the shadow of the Great Name of Protestant And I will still call it a great and noble name however abused by Schismaticks and tho not used in our Canons and Articles c. and wherein we soar above the dictates of Luther and Calvin and the distinctions of Names they occasioned and for which purpose our great-Souled Bramhall in the title page of his Iust Vindication of the Church of England hath the quotation of My Name is Christian my Sirname is Catholic by the one I am known from Infidels by the other from Hereticks and Schismaticks but yet doth often in that Book and his other writings use the word Protestants for such who have laudably opposed the Papal Usurpations and Impositions And in the mentioning of the Protestant Churches beyond Sea that word is justly and properly applicable Moreover our Great Chillingworâ—h's writing of The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation hath endear'd that Name as well as his own to us thereby The adherents likewise of the Church of England are often put to it to use the distinction of Protestant Recusants to speak Intelligibly But 't is the Church of England-Protestant that the Orthodox and Loyal generally mean by that name when they speak of Protestants alone here according to the Rule of analogum per se positum c. It is for the honour of these Protestants who have not so learn'd Christ and Christianity as to be untaught their unnatural Allegiance and natural obligation of their Oaths that it may be observed of them that tho many within the pale of that Church have been tempted a while to extravagant thoughts and actings in the point of Exclusion yet they have through the Divine influences on their understandings soon come to themselves again and tho the Loyalty of some of these like Steel hath been bent yet it hath not like lead stood and continued bent And notwithstanding that being Transported a while with the Passion of Anger against Papists and Plots they said in their haste that Dominion was founded in Grace I observ'd so many of them by their second thoughts so averse from the second-hand Popery as I call'd it that they might merit an exemption from being censured by Papists as aforesaid and that by virtue of the Rule of Law viz. Quidquid calore iracundiae vel fit vel dicitur non prius ratum est quam si perseverantiâ apparuit judicium animi fuisse ideoque brevi reversa uxor nec divertisse videtur And here I am likewise to observe that tho many who have been members of the Church of England because it was by Law Established and have for fashion-sake gone to our Common-Prayer with no more concernment than the Monk went to Mass who said Eamus ad communem errorem yet such of this Church whose Devotion hath been deep rooted in their heads and hearts and who have seriously thought of those words in the Collect viz. So rule the Heart of THY Chosen Servant Charles our King and Governor c. did not long say Amen to any mens thoughts or motions of Choosing their King. Let Rome and the Conventicles thus like lead stand bent as I said but the Doctrine of the Church of England and its Prayers have sufficiently told us whose chosen Servant our King is I have here occasion to refer to an Illustrious Son of this Church and whose whole life hath been as perfect a Comment on the Oath and Moral Offices of Allegiance and of absolute and unconditional Loyalty as any could be and more useful to the World than any Written one I mean the Duke of Ormond and therefore it is but Iustice to him and the Subject I have been treating of for me here to cite him in what was published by the Loyal and Learned Father Walsh in Answer to what was by the Nuntio's Party pretended as a Scandal namely That one of a different Religion from those Irish Papists should be MADE CHOICE OF to Govern them and that that Party did fear the Scourges of War and Plague to have justly falâ— so heavy on them and some Evidence of God's Anger against them for putting God's Cause and the Churches under such a hand whereas the trust might have been managed in a Catholick hand under the Kings Authority but to which the Answer was thus with great Loyalty and Judgment viz. Now at length they are come plainly to shew the true ground of their Exception to us which they have endeavoured all the whole to disguise under the Personal Scandals they have endeavoured to cast upon us They are afraid of Scandal at Rome for MAKING CHOICE as they call it as if they might CHOOSE their Governor of one of a different Religion If this be allowed them why they might not next pretend to the same fear of Scandal for having a King of a different Religion and so the Power of CHOOSING one of their own Religion we know not and concludes with an Observation of that Party 's having infamously practised the Doctrine of Calumny in relation to the then Queen And all Papists therefore owning the Disloyal Principles of that Party have thereby the Pudet haec opprobria c. put on them Nor can it be by any Impartial Relaters of News either told at Gath or published in Ascalon that any Sons of the Church of England were actually 〈◊〉 in thinking they might choose their future King but it must likewise there be said how the Fathers and Divines of that Church did in that Conjuncture so universally and with such an Impetus of Reason and Scripture propagate the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and of the Loyalty that the 13th of the Romans and our Oaths require whereby the Popery of founding Dominion in Grace hath been so much Exterminated from that Church and the Realm that the very sense and reason and humor of the People of England is bent against it and is likely to be so
of Enemies a name that the Impotent passion of Subjects makes them so familiarly vex one another with and thereby shews them not such fit depositaries of Heavens Artillary as Soveraigns are so is it extremely unbecoming the Glorious height to which the Doctrine of the Cross hath exalted humane Nature for men as I may say to deâ—cend from Heaven to Earth for Dirt and to Hell for Fire-brands to throw at one another and petulantly to call those that were sometime Aliens and Enemies in their mind c. always such after the Divine reconciliation or even to manage the most lawful and just War Sine quadam bene volentiâ as St. Austines words are or to think that they can justly assume the great Name first used at Antioch and yet retain a Constant and Stated enmity against any Person whatsoever For according to the Excellent saying of Tertullian Christianus nullius est hostis But the Bosome of that wise Princess was no resting place for Anger and all the Popes Thunder could not discompose her and as in all Games they who in their play retain a Constant Equabillity of mind are generally most Successful so was she in the great Political Game she play'd by being Semper eadem and the Papal Excommunications seem'd to her as despicable as the Curses of loosing Gamesters and I doubt not but by her Prudent and just Administration of the Government of Church and State she hath laid the Foundation of the English Nations being Semper eadem in the Royal Line and of the Protestant Religions being so too and that no delendam fore can Issue out against either humanly Speaking and that any Popish Successor that can come here will find it his interest to use the Politicks of Queen Mary as a Sea Mark to avoid and Queen Elizabeth's as a Land Mark to go by and it being clear accordingly as Sir W. P. in his Manuscript discourse called Verbum Sapienti demonstrates it Cap. 2. of the Value of the People that each Head of Man-kind is as certainly valuable as Land that the many Strangers who have Transplanted themselves hither need never fear that they will be so undervalued as in the Marian days The Families of French Protestants that have lately come here have filled 800. of the Empty New Built Houses of London and have given us too an occasion of entertaining Angels in those untenanted Houses whose Ruinous appearance before made them seem to the vulgar such as they call haunted but from which no Prince can ever think of exorcising the inhabitants without Conjuring away his own Revenue of which about one moity depends on that City and where the Rents tho fallen as I say would yet have been much lower but for the Tenancy of these Forreigners and the expectation of others There is a very great President in our English Story and that is of a Prince of the Popish perswasion and yet one who was a sharp persecuter of the Extravagances of the Power of the Pope and his Clergy and one who by the Introducing of Forreignors here to Manufacture our Wooll saved the Life or Being of the Nations Trade which his Predecessors had left in a Gasping Condition and one who by his Patronizing of Wiclif sufficiently shew'd that if those Forreigners had been Wiclifists he would yet have been a Fautor of those Hereticks and one who more disoblig'd the Pope by seizing on the Lands of the Alien Oâ—thodox Clerical Idlers then he could have done by the entertainment of many Heterodox lay Alien Manufacturers 'T is needless to say that I here mean our great Edward the third of whom and of Queen Elizabeth the prudence was as memorable as of any Princes that ever Sate on the English Throne And I will never despaire of any Heroick Prince here of the Roman Catholick perswasion with his Scepter upholding the trade of the Kingdom as those two great Names did and that too by the same methods if ever he shall come to find it in the tottering Conditon that they did and it may be well supposed that the experience the Kingdom hath since gained under King Iames and the Royal Martyr and His Present Majesty of the publick benefit that hath arisen from the reception of Forraign Artists who have been Heterodox in some ritual points about our Religion will make their expulsion seem a Solecisme And every Sagacious Person will I believe accord with me that the Spider hath done much more good to humane kind by furnishing it with the Invention of Weaving then harm by any thing of Poyson I shall be glad to know from your Lordship whether on your search among the Records of State either in the Exchequer or Paper-Office you can find Foot-steps of any thing like those returns of the Numbers of the People in London mentioned out of Howel and Cotton I am sure that the knowledge of the Numbers of our People ought by Statesmen to be accounted their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in this conjuncture as the opus diei and to pass no longer for a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that those of them who take their measures either of the publick Strength or Revenue without respect to this are but State-Eâ—thusiasts and such who in their reckonings do according to our Common Phrase reckon without their Host and do not govern their Politicks by the Arithmetick the Scripture suggests in the question of What King goeth to make War against another King sitteth not down first and Consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand Bodin in his de Republicâ speaking of the Numbering of the People saith That the benefit that redounds to the Publick thereby is infinite and that thereby Princes and States know what Souldiers they may have and what Numbers they may send abroad to Collonys I have been informed by a Person belonging to the Custom-house that near 10000. Persons have had their Names entred as gone out of the Ports of London and Bristol for our Plantations in a years time And no doubt but the Number was great that then went away thither from other Ports and likewise of such that went from London and the out-Ports whose Names were not entred But I was not a little surprised of late when I read it in a Book newly Printed called The Negros and Indians Advocate and Dedicated to the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury where the Author pag. 171. Speaking of the Kidnappirs trade or mistery saith A Trade that t is thought Carrys off and Consumes not so little as 10000. out of this Kingdome yearly which might have been a Defence to their Mother Country c. 'T is certainly a sign that we are very rich in the number of our People when we can endure such a quantity of them to be yearly stolen without the pursuit of a Hue and Cry. Yet in this point Scotland is reported to be somewhat more unhappy then England for those who