to the Church of Rome are equally guilty of High Treason and to suffer as in Cases of Treason And a second Act of Henry the VIII In which the Refusal of the Oath of Henry's Supremacy in Renuntiation of the Pope was also made High Treason Now if every Papist in England without lifting a Hand uttering a Word or imagining the least disloyal Thought against his Lawful Soveraign his Crown and Dignity or against the Peace of the Nation where he 's a Subject yet nevertheless out of a point of Conscience and meer Matter of Faith cannot be induced to believe a Temporal Prince capable of being Head of a Church but is invincibly perswaded how erronious soever that the POPE is Peter's undoubted Successour and Christ's unquestioned Vicar upon Earth and cannot without hazard of his Soul so much as consent to acknowledge otherwise yet notwithstanding by the Protestant Laws of the Land this Invincible Perswasion without any other Crime is interpreted High-Treason and punish't as such Now I say in this Case what wondrous Difference is there between the Rigour of a Popish or a Protestant Constitution This that makes a Defection from Their Church-Establish't TREASON and the other from Theirs HERESY This that punishes an Apostate with Hanging and Quartering at Tiburn and the other with Burning at Smithfield 'T is true that Branch of Queen Elizabeth's Statute that concerns the Popish Layman's High-Treason was never yet put in Execution and I hope for the Glory of the Reformation Establish't by that Illustrious Princess as so extreamly Sanguinary was never intended to be being severe enough to give our Popish Enemies a Matter of Recrimination though Enacted but in Terrorem But here I beg the Reader to be assured that I urge not this Comparison in Disparagement of our Protestant Laws but only to satisfie the Mistaken Part of Mankind that all such Judicial Severities under the Government of both Religions have ever been introduced by the most Awful and Sacred Authority of the rightful Law-Makers of the Nations and consequently in the English Constitution not only the King 's but the Peoples Acts and Decrees and so to convince them of the unreasonableness of that senseless Surmise that upon the Admission of a Popish Successour all the forementioned Cruelties though without any such Induction of Law and consequently with all the Injustice Rapine and Cold-blooded Murder even to that formal Solemnity of Butchery that humane Imagination would tremble at must and shall be introduced For alas how ridiculously extravagant must those Fears be that can aâ—dlâ— Men's Senses into a Dread of that prodigious Stroke from Popery that was never given by it since the Creation What Magnifying Glasses therefore must the Popular Fears see through to behold such Stupendious Visions of Popery as that THAT shall be that NEVER was whil'st a Popish Crown'd Head in England must be the first nay only Royal Savage of a Papist that ever Reign'd However for once let us suppose the Devil and Pope as familiar together as ever they were painted at a Queen Elizabeth's Night and that this Gospel Propagation were really the Doctrine of his pretended Infallibility and this Bloody Mandate to a Popish Successour the special Edict of the whole CONSISTORY what would the Execution of that Mandate make towards the Growth or Advancement of Popery God knows so far from promoting the Romish Religion that possibly there wants but that One Attempt to shame it almost out of the World For in the first place 't is so far from a way or means to convert even one Soul in England that 't is the only Course to increase their Abhorrence and Execration of that Religion and bring the very THOVGHT of Popery even below Damnation 'T would no more make Converts to Rome than the old Heathen Caldrons and Gridirons to Paganisme For as the greatest Prejudice of Englishmen against Popery lyes in their Horrour of the Cruelties of it so consequently nothing can contribute to the Advancement of it but the Clemency and Mercy of its Professours to reconcile us even into meer Charity with them whil'st the Exercising of the formentioned unexampled Barbarities would make us fall from our present Ill Opinion of Popery as a Corrupted Church to believe it no Church at all but rather an Association of Monsters and a Den of Cannibals and Tygers and the greatest Operation such unprecedented Cruelty could meet were at best but to force the frighted People into a superficial counterfit Complyance and make them Temporize a little only to compound for their Lives yet that Temporizing under so Villanous a Persecution would be so far from a True Conversion or any thing like it that they 'd only play the Highest of Hypocrites come perhaps to Mass to mutter Curses instead of Ave-Mary's or be hunted into the Popish Fold only to pray for a favourable Opportunity of having a pull at the Throats of the Wolves that drive them thither And Secondly Besides the Impotent Effects 't is certain to find towards the Heretick Conversion the Pope's Command nay indeed Connivance at any such Arbitrary Tyrannick Stake-burning or Throat-cutting from a Popish Successour instead of advancing of Popery by so excentrick a Motion will be enough to stagger half the Popish Hearts in Christendom for as Implicit as the Faith of the Romish Zealots is and as intirely devoted as they are to their Peter's Chair and Mother-Church undoubtedly there are Thousands of them that notwithstanding they can disgest a Wafer for a GOD can never be wrought to believe the Transubstantiation of such visible Tyranny and Butchery into Righteousness and Christianity how Zealous soever they may be for the Conversion of so Heretical a Nation as England And that this would be the Infallible Consequence of all such Barbarous Popish Measures they that will but look back to the Annals of Queen Mary will find Historians telling us That nothing so much advanced the Reformation as the Mistaken Conduct of Queen Mary and her bloody Counsellors in that Point And Dr. Burnet expresly assures us That the whole Body of the Nation grew to dislike the Cruelty of Rome Abridg. Book the 3 d. Pag. 275. to that degree that the Popish Bishops for their Apology threw it off from Themselves and openly laid it on the King's and Queen's Commands insomuch that King Philip for his Excuse made his Confessour preach a Sermon at Court against the taking of Peoples Lives for their Opinions in Religion and inveighed against the Bishops for doing it By which means a stop was put to it for some time But nevertheless as the same Severity soon after return'd again he tells us all along That the Nations Dislike of it was Universal and the repeated Acclamations and universal Transports of Joy at the Proclaiming of Queen Elizabeth proceeded from the People's Hopes of better Days under Her Scepter than her Sister 's By which it appeared how weary the Nation was of the Cruel and weak Administration
now This very King I say with so small a Party of Protestants could nevertheless lay the very Corner Stone that the whole Reformation was afterwards built upon and that too by Act of Parliament And why on the other side shall it be so impossible for a popish Prince with Henry the Eight's Courage and Conduct withal after not a hundred and fifty years Reign of the protestant Religion to be likewise able to do the same Favour for Popery and lay the very Basis of it even by Parliaments and Law And a protestant Parliament now as a popish one then be so managed or Influenced as to give a main Lift to the Work Besides why should the Change of the Religion be so wondrous or difficult a Deed under a popish Monarch now when upon every Change of the Prince's Faith since the Conquest the Establish't Religion of the Kingdom has been changed with it For Instance after Henry's good Stroke towards it Did not an Infant Prince Edward the Sixth in poor seven years time Establish the protestant Religion by Law And did not Mary his popish Successour subvert it again by Law and by Law restore the very Pope's Supremacy And lastly Did not the protestant Queen Elizabeth after her trample both Pope and Popery under Feet and confirm that very Protestant Religion that Reigns at this Day And why shall a Popish Successour now with as much Zeal and Industry as his Predecessours miscarry in that very work in which not one of them fail'd before him There is nothing that possibly passes for a more Authentick Confirmation of all our popish Dangers than this One Assertion so universally received for Currant Sterling by being only taken at a Lump upon Trust unweighed and unexamined But when considerately and throughly inspected all rational Men must blush to be deceived by so light and so drossy a Popular Tradition For to begin with Henry the Eighth In the first place here neither is nor can be the least Motive for the present Protestant People or their Representatives to make the least Change whatever in the present Church of England in any kind answerable to the several Inducements that wrought those Changes in Henry the Eighth's Time For first as no small Encouragement for the Reformation the People had then contracted a general and just Odium of the whole Clergy strangely occasion'd by the Murder of Hunn a Merchant of London in Prison This Hunn being sued in the Legates Court for Non-payment of a Mortuary to his Parish-Priest in return sued the Parish Priest in the Temporal Court for a Premunire for bringing the King's Subjects before a Forreign and Illegal Court This incensed the Clergy so much that they threw him into Prison for Heresy where having several Articles exhibited against him upon Confession of part of them and begging Mercy he was only enjoyn'd Penance But not being prevail'd upon to let fall his Suite in the Temporal Court the Bishop's Chancellour a Doctor and other of his Officers inhumanely Murdered him in Prison by breaking his Neck with an Iron Chain and other Wounds given him upon the Belly and then hanged him up in his own Girdle to possess the World that he hanged himself And what was yet worse upon a full Detection of the Truth of this Murder the Bishops of Durham and Lincoln to palliate the Guilt proceeded to charge him with new Heresies after Death and having sound a Wickliffs Bible in his House they condemn'd him as an Heretick and burnt his Body All which Proceedings being now looked upon as the Act of the whole Clergy they lost the Affections of the People to that degree that they could never recover them and nothing more disposed the People to the embracing of the New Preachers than the Resentment of so infamous a Murder committed and patronized by the whole Clergy Hist of Ref. pag. 14 and 15. And then for the Changes made in Parliament The Suppression of Monasteries one of their Acts was no more than what was design'd and begun in some Measure by Cardinal Woolsey and the Pope himself and that long before the Breach betwixt the King and Him who granted a Bull to destroy several of them to convert into Bishopricks Ref. pag. 22. the scandalous and lewd Lives of too many of the Monks and Fryars being obnoxious even to Rome it self Though 't is true the King and Parliament proceeded to a total Suppression of them afterwards for the same Intent of erecting new Episcopal Sees though indeed the vast profits arising from their Sale through the Extravagant Profuseness of Henry the Eighth were not wholly converted to that Use notwithstanding part of his Promise was performed Viz. In his constituting six new Bishopricks and making Allowance for fourteen Deanaryes and Prebendariships to fourteen Bishop's Sees But to gain the Parliament to the King's Party in the Destruction of Monasteries there was that which Governs the World Interest in the Case which was no small Wheel in the Machine For the King selling of the Lands at easie Rates to the Nobility and Gentry by this Policy the Parliament Members as Purchasers by the Temptation of such good penny-worths were ingaged to assist the King in the Maintenance of the Changes made Ref. pag. 223. And for another part of Henry the 8 th's Reformation Viz. The censuring and condemning of Bulls Indulgenses Shrines Pilgrimages and Relicks with the pulling down of Images the scandalous Impostures of several of them by the fraud of the Priests being publickly discovered Ref. p. 242. created no little aversion in the People But besides all that here could never be a more pleasing Change to them than so beneficial a part of Reformation Viz. The freeing them from all those Ecclesiastick Romish Dreins that had so long swallow'd almost half the Wealth of the Kingdom in which too many of them had been too great Sufferers not only through their own but also the deluded Superstition of their Bigotted Ancestors and by which no less than whole Families had been Impoverish't and Undone through the pious Frauds and continual Suckings of those Church Horse-leeches And lastly for the Exclusion of the Papal Supremacy the above cited penalty of Premunire incurred both by the whole Clergy and Layty of England in submitting to the Pope's Legantine Power contrary to Law as against the Act of Provisoes contributed no little matter both to the Clergy and Commons Submission to the King in the point of that Supremacy Besides to facilitate the Assumption of it it was plainly proved by that Provisoe Act and other Substantial Records that the Pope's Encroachments in England were but Vsurpation and the Supremacy in reality ab origine de jure inherent in the Crown and therefore the Resumption of it by the King no more than a Challange and Reprizal of his own Invaded Prerogative As these were all the Changes made by Henry the Eighth the Popish Religion being so far from abolish't by him that he rather strook
conjure up this Hideous Apparition to fright the deluded Multitude both out of their Wits and their Allegiance But not to insist much upon the Grosser Impostures of Fanatical Incendiaries such as the old most Impudent Cheat of turning both the Best of PROTESTANT-KINGS and a Protestant CHURCH it self into Popish and Antichristian hoping that the most Vulgar Eyes and Humblest Capacities have fully seen through so Diabolical a Delusion However as there still remains upon some weaker Understandings and unsatisfied Minds a Terrour yet unvanquish't the Business of this Treatise is to examine what National Operation or Influence a REAL Popish Crown'd Head can have over the Lives Liberties or Estates of Englishmen as now enjoy'd and the Religion of the Kingdom as at present Establish't and by confuting even the most Substantial of their Imagin'd Dangers dissipate those False Fears of Popery which no man possibly I mean in my humble Station has more unhappily rais'd than my self The wonderful State-Convulsions that Popery or rather the Sophistry of Scriblers upon that Theme seems to threaten are no where I confess more spightfully more venemously or indeed considering the weakness of the Cause more Artfully described than in that Libel called The Character of a Popish Successour But not to answer particularly to a Rapsody of Rhetorical Flourishes a Tautology of Gay Words and Big Sounds to little or no Signification which indeed is almost the whole Jargon of that Pamphlet being truly the Best Reason the Subject would bear I shall chiefly reply only to the Argumentative Part of it or at least that which was intended as such Therefore as this following Discourse will naturally fall under these two Heads Viz. If Popery be ever Introduced it can have only these two Doors for its Admission Presecution or Perswasion I shall accordingly examine First What Progress towards a National Conversion and the Establishment of Popery the CRUELTY and TYRANNY of it under a Popish Successour is able to make by an Assault on the Weak Side of Mankind their Cowardice And Secondly What Advance towards the aforesaid Conversion c. the SUBTILTY and ELOQUENCE of Popish Emissaryes and Jesuetical Seducers under the Vmbrage and Encouragement of a Popish Successour are likely to work by an Attacque on the Blind Side of Mankind their Ignorance To begin then with the First of the two as the more Horrible Horn of the Beast Persecution The Character is not a little prolix on that old Popular Arch-Devil Arbitrary Power whil'st POPERY and SLAVERY those always Twin Monsters those Never Seperable Feinds are so painted to the Life with all their Fire and Brimstone round them that it has little else from the Bâ—ginning to the End but the Ratling of Chains the Crackling of Flames the Blazing of Smith-Field Piles and in fine the universal Groans of Destruction and Desolation through the whole Land And for an unanswerable Demonstration of all those most certain Calamities from a Popish Successour The Character tells you that in the first Place the Romish Principles are such That they value neither their Word Promise Vows Oaths nor Sacraments but all their strongest Engagements are lighter than the very Breath that utters them Next That they so little consult either their Reputation or Glory that there is not the most Abject Thing that even Grown'd Heads themselves shall not undertake when Rome or Rome's Interest shall command And Lastly That the putting all this Barbarity into Execution is so highly meritorious in the Romish Church that the Pope will undoubtedly assign him no Common Diadem in Paradice for this Vndertaking But upon his Remissness or Tenderness in this Point bethunder him with so many Curses and Anathema's as an undutiful unactive Son of Holy Mother-Church a Scandal to her Glory a Traytor to her Interest a Deserter of her Cause One while accusing the Lukewarmness of his Religion another while the Pusillanimity of his Nature c. till in short To spare a Faggot in Smithfield he does little less than walk upon Burning Irons himself But how is it liâ—ely that Rome's continual Bâ—lls as the Character fancies shall bellow so loud against a Popish Successor for sparing a Faggot in Smithfield when under the Infamy and Execration of so Tyrannicâ—â—â— Murderer for what in Queen Mary's Days was the Sentence of Justice and the Legal Execution of the Law must now be the highest Subversion of Justice and Abrogation of Law he must expose himself to the whole World as a greater Monster than NERO so much a greater than He as Nero's Barbarities were committed under the Ignorance and Darkness of Infidelity and Paganism and this Man's Murders and Butcheries under the Light of the Gospel Nay the terrible Burning Broyling and Roasting denounced in the Character with the heating of Popish fiery Furnaces like Nebuchadnezar's seven times hotter than ordinary with all the rest of the Romantick Popish Throat-cutting will be ten times worse from a Popish Successour than the whole Ten Primitive Christian Persecutions For a Nero Caligula Domitian and the rest of them as they had the Law in their own Breath and a Sic volo sic jubeo was as much Authentick in old Heathen Rome as an Act of Parliament in little England and consequently how Barbarous soever the Christian Persecution was yet it had the Face of Law as being the Edict of the Absolute Prince and thereby the Ordinance of the very Government But such a Scheme of Cruelty here as being beyond the Reach of the Prerogative and notoriously contrary to the Establish't Constitution of the Kingdom would ipso facta be ten times more dreadfully flagitious as 't is the highest Violation of Law and Dissolution of Government And what ever Opinion the noysy Fools of Mankind may have imbibed of Jesuitisme Papisme and all the Chimerical Terrours from Rome how can that very Rome if it pretends but to Christianity that has Canoniz'd so many of those Suffering Primitive Martyrs at the same time likewise make Saints of really Worse Monsters amongst THEMSELVES than the very Heathen Butchers of those very Martyrs 'T is true Inquisition Houses and Lollards Towers and the Cruelty of Fire and Faggot we know have been frequent but all this while they were never erected by Standing ARMIES Arbitrary CUT-THROATS nor Military EXECUTION but Establish't by the Legislative Power of the Respective Governments that used them and consequently introduced with the solemn Institution of Law as a necessary Support of the Community neither has it been a Practice singular only to the Papists to secure the Establish't Religion and thereby the Peace of the Civil Government by Capital Punishments when the Protestant Government has done the like For Example Does not the Character instance two several Acts of Parliament one of Queen Elizabeth in which not only the Popish Priests that shall have taken Orders from Rome and afterwards return to England but likewise all Persons withdrawn by them from the Protestant Religion Establish't to a Reconciliation
much borrow'd in the Character being little else throughout makes bold in another place point Blank to contradict this Passage and positively affirms That to set up Popery or Arbitrary Power by Law under the Laws we have already against them is wholly impossible and that our Laws will be but the Hedge to keep in the Cuckow For Papists and Slaves we must and shall be made as the inseperable Concomitants of a Popish Successour And to prove all this Breaking of all Laws whatever it says in haec verba How can the Force of Laws made by a Protestant Predecessour and a Protestant Parliament in any sort bâ—nd a Popish Successour When the very first Advance of the Pope's Supremacy a very nimble leap introduces that higher Power those Canonical Ecclesiastick Laws which no Secular or any other Temporal Court can or may Controul Laws that shall declare not only the Statutes and Acts of Parliament made against the Dignity of Mother-Church voyd and Null but the very Law-makers themselves as Hereticks wholly uncapable of ever having any Right of making any such Laws No doubt then but that Fire that burns those Heretick Law-makers shall give their Laws the same Martyrdom Here indeed the Affairs are alter'd and truly the Matter much mended This I confess says the Character and this at least three parts of the Fools of English Mankind believe for Oracles And though all our Records Histories Chronicles and the whole Series of all Ages since the Conquest to this day do notoriously prove the Contrary yet this Popular Maxime That the Romanists by their Ecclesiastick Laws pretend to anull and make void all Secular Laws against their Church and to incapacitate the very Prerogative and Authority of that Majesty and those Law-makers that made them though one of the most Impudent Falshoods in nature is nevertheless one of the most received Vulgar Traditions that ever startled Ideots For Example to begin with their very Heretici Comburendi The very Ax and Fasces of Rome was it not an Act of the Secular Power In the very highest Reign of Popery did or could the Pope punish an Heretick Apostate by Imprisonment Fire or Faggot any further than by Parliamentary Permission and excepting that the Clergy were made Judges of Heresy and that too by concession of the Secular Authority Was not the Execution of that Law kept in Temporal Hands Nay though 't is true the papal Power made many Vsurp'd Encroachments here through the Bigotry of the Government yet upon too hard Pressures from Rome did not several of our Kings many hundred years before the Reformation resume their own Original Right and expresly in the Statute against PROVISOES under Penalty of Forfeiture of Goods and Imprisonment for Life forbid the admitting of the Popes Legantine Power in England or making Appeals to Rome or taking Inductions to Episcopal Sees from the Pope And for Queen Mary her self was there one Syllable of the Laws Enacted by her Father Henry or her Brother Edward in favour of the Reformation that she ever pretended to Over-rule by any Ecclesiastick Law or Pretence whatever Nay and did not the Pope's Supremacy it self and that not till many a hard tug and two years after she came to the Crown come in by Act of Parliament under several Limitations of his Power with the Confirmation of the antient Statute against Provides c. and several other Boundaries as much as to say Move thus far and no Further. But alas what 's all this to the Author of a Popish Characterâ— Popery and Arbitrary Power in spight of Fate shall and must be set up And therefore what Laws shall or shall not get uppermost is ene as Mr. Scribler pleases For truly Malice put pen to paper and Truth and Reason were never minded and indeed there was no need of either of them for as that Pamphlet had the honour in the Title-Page of being humbly offered to the Consideration of the then HOVSES of Parliament both Truth and Reason were Immaterial to itâ— Recommendation For where an Oâ—es his Narrative past for Gospel the Devil 's in 't if a Popish Character could miscarry However to confute that sensless Fear that a Popish Successour will subvert the whole Foundations of the Government and erect his own Arbitrary Edict for the Supreme Standard of JVSTICE and that he shall find those Popish Judges Sheriffs or any other Officers or Ministers that under the Protection of a Standing Army shall make our Lives and Liberties wholly dependant upon the Caprichio and Pleasure of the Prince and persuant thereto shall furnish him with Jayls Gibbets and Smithfield Piles or any other Arbitrary though less Sanguinary Persecution to convert us to Popery First let us examine the Courage of all these Arbitrary Judges Officers and State-Ministers that embarque in this Arbitrary Undertaking They must be all those hardy popish Tools whether corrupted by Zeal or Interest that they must not value all their own Lives for notwithstanding whatever Protection or Impunity they may receive during the Life of their Royal Popish Driver no sooner shall the next Protestant Heir succeed him but every Mothers Son of them shall be answerable with their Necks for the least drop of Protestant BLOOD they have shed or Protestant Liberty they have invaded The Protestant Laws of the Land will not be so tamely overthrown without a certain Vengeance attending it insomuch that those bold Babel Builders these Arbitrary Popery Raisers must either be so generous to their King as the Indian Wives to their Husbands and make one glorious Funeral Pile upon his Grave or else resolve to live to offer up their Throats to the very Sword of Iustice in the Hand of a Lawful Authority which themselves before have so Vnlawfully abused in their own And that the Liberty of the Subject is so tender in the Eye of the English Government the very misusing and torturing of Hereticks in Prison though under that Attainder lyable to the most ignominious of Deaths and though done in a Popish predecessours Reign was sufficient to have taken the great Statesman Bonner's Head off but only that Queen Elizabeth's Mercy interposed as unwilling to stain the beginning of her Reign with Blood Reform Abridg. B. 4. pag. 357. And if his Illegal Compliance with his Prince was so Capital an Offence what must the more violent Irruptions of Arbitrary Rapines against the untainted Liberty of the Protestant Subjects now pull down upon the bold Invaders Heads 'T is no difficult matter to possess the overcredulous World the easy swallowing Multitude with what wondrous Atchievements the Zealots of Popery shall undertake and what indefatigable Labours and Hazards they will go through for the Re-building of their Faln Temples when animated and influenced by a Popish Soveraign I acknowledge 't is true there is no Courage more daring than that which Zeal inspires and no Zeal possibly more violent than that of the Papists and undoubtedly for Rome's Restoration there would be
many venturous and bold Champions amongst them in so Meritorious a Cause But alas every Heroe is not a Sampson There are no doubt those of them that would spare neither pains nor study to propagate their own Religion though never so indirectly those possibly that would have it in their Power if they could come handsomely by it to use their Heretick Adversaries with as little Mercy as HE did his Philistian Enemies but alas not with his Hardiness too as like Him to pull down that Roof upon their Heads to their own inevitable Destruction only to have the pleasure of crushing some of VS with them We read I confess that pro Aris Focis men will venture far Yes truly for their Religion and Estates together they will do so But in the Popish Case where the Founding of the One will be the Destruction of the Other where the Setting up of their Religion will be the Forfeiting not only their Estates but Heads too 't is more than a hundred to one betwixt these two so directly opposite Interests but that the keeping of their Skin and Bones warm on the one side may make their Zeal a little the cooler on the other For let me tell you where the Erecting of the Altar will at long run make the Builders the Sacrifice in all humane probability that Popish Temple will go but slowly up whose Stones are to be dug out of so fatal a Quarry 'T is very remarkable in Queen Mary's Reign when by the Majority of her Parliament the Protestant Religion then but in its Minority was abolish't and the Romish Government and Papal Supremacy Re-establish't and indeed the Grandure of Rome even to Haeretici comburendi maintain'd Yet that Parliament that had it absolutely in their power to gratifie the Pope's utmost Wishes refused the returning his Church-Lands again Nay the Parliament were so averse to the thought of such a Restitution that they had never been wrought up to the restoring of the very Supremacy it self and of making of all those favourable Acts towards the re-installing of Popery again but by much pains used as Burnet in his Abridgement pag. 268 says by the policy of Bishop Gardiner to ensure the Kingdom from the Fear of coming under such Tyranny from Rome as their Ancestors had groaned under and likewise from the Loss of the Abbey-Lands Insomuch that Gardiner promised them for Removal of all such Jealousie that all the old Laws against Provisions should continue in Force and to shew them that Legates should exercise no dangerous Authority in England he made Pool take out a License under the Great Seal for his Legantine Power and for the other Viz. the Abbey-Lands he promised both an Act of Parliament and Convocation confirming them and undertook that the Pope himself should ratifie the Alienation of the Church-Lands which History tells us was accordingly done Nevertheless as this Papal Dispensation came very unwillingly from Rome being only a Forced Compliance and Temporizing with the English Obstinacy in that point The Queen her self restored all the Church-Lands in her Possession and proceeded so far as to the Re-building of several Religious Houses declaring to her Treasurer and some of her other Officers that she thought her self bound in Conscience to restore all the Church-Lands as being unlawfully acquired and not to be held without a Sin as Baker in his Chronicle tells us Nay the Pope himself set out a Bull excommunicating all that kept any Lands belonging to Abbeys or Churches which gave such an Alarm to the Nation that Gardiner was forced to pacifie them by telling them that Bull was intended only to the people of Germany and not England However the Pope continued his high Resentments against the Undutifulness of England that he could not forbear telling the Queen's Ambassadours Abridg. pag. 221. That it was beyond his power to confirm Sacriledge and all were obliged under the pain of Damnation to restore to the last Farthing every thing that belong'd to the Church he said likewise that he would send over a Collectour to gather the Peter-pence for they could not expect that St. Peter would open Heaven to them so long as they denied him his Rights upon Earth Yet all this made so little Impression on the Commons of England that whatever Conscience might dictate their Priests insinuate their Popish Successour Solicite or their Pope himself endeavour so powerful was Interest above Conscience and all other Motives whatever that several of the Commons in Parliament lay'd their hands on their Swords and declared that they would not part with their Estates but defend them And every Motion that way was always carryed in the Negative Abridg. of the Reform B. 3. pag. 309 Now pray for once let us compare Cases If the Papists in her Reign with the highest Papal Dominion and Soveraignty in their own Hands under an Establish't Roman Church against both their Priests and their Prince nay a Prince too with her Hereticks under her Feet and her Religion in the very Saddle could refuse both their Pope and their popish Successour so Just and so Sacred a Right and so important to his Church's Interest and that too when with all Safety round them they might have confirm'd their Oblation even by the strongest Bonds of Law so on the other side how shall it be suppos'd that the more prodigal Papists in our Age in the quite contrary extream shall gratifie the unjust Demands of a more Impotent popish Successour under the lowest Ebb of Popery against all Law or Pretence of Law whatever by launching out into the most notorious .075 Violation of all the highest sanctions of Right and Justice and the most openfaced Tyranny and most impudent Barbarity in the world and all forsooth for the Establishing of Popery and all God wot too little for the Work and this too to the running themselves into unavoidable Iayls and Halters and not only to the ruining of their Estates but to the cutting off of the Lives of Themselves and even the very RACE of Papists under the next immediate Crown'd-Head that succeeds Besides as boldly as the Roman Zealots stand up for the Interest and Dignity of Mother-Church and the Grandure and Dominion of their Peter's Successour not only the Papists but the very Priests themselves are not so overcouragious in this Cause as the World suspects them For Instance in Henry the Eighth's Reign the whole Clergy of England by a State-surprize upon them were found guilty of a Premunire by submitting to Cardinal Woolsy's Legantine-power as derived only from the Pope's Authority and thereby expresly against the Statute of PROVISOES an old dormient Law made several King's Reigns before though rarely or never put in Force by reason of the Remissness of the Government and the Supiness of the Nation and Kings Submission to Rome and therefore unwarily transgrest by the Clergy now By vertue however of which they had forfeited their Goods and Chattels to the King and their
persons to be imprisoned Upon the King's Menace of executing which Law Reformat Book the 2 d. pag. 112. the Convocation of Canterbury in tenderness to their Skins and Estates brought a Petition to his Majesty acknowledging him in the Title Protectour and Supream Head of the Church and Clergy of England Which was agreed to by nine Bishops 82 Abbots and the majority of the Convocation in the Province of Canterbury praying him to accept of 100000 l. in leiu of the Punishments incurred And the Province of York soon afterwards consented to the same Submission with the Offer of 18840 l. for obtaining the same pardon Insomuch that we find the very popish Clergy themselves so servilely compounding for their Mammon and their Carcases not so much in the Voluntary Tribute of their Purses as with the Renunciation of the Pope's Ecclesiastical Supremacy the very brightest Iewel in the Tripple Diadem and consequently by this sordid Compliance even the Priesthood it self by their own Leading Act gave the fatal Original precedent to the succeeding Act of Parliament to confirm that Supremacy in the Crown and so struck the first main Blow towards the shaking of the Romish Prerogative in England and thereupon Conspired to the greatest part of the ensuing Fatalities to their Religion it self And therefore if the Ecclesiastical Sons of Rome could ward themselves from the Stroke of Law due to that less Capital Transgression THEN by denying their very Pope Why must the Sons of Rome be so prodigiously Fool-hardy NOW as to run themselves into a more Dangerous and more Mortal Noose of Law for his Vindication 'T is very easie preaching to Fools and Madmen as the popish Character has very Rhetorically done what miraculous Fire and Faggot Feats or other Arbitrary Extravagancies the wonderful Papists under a popish Successour shall do But as great a Deity as the Romanists make of their Keeper of the Keys of Heaven as the Devil speaking of Job makes answer to God Almighty put forth thine hand and touch him in all that he hath and he will curse thee to thy Face So let his Holiness put these Zealots upon that Hard Task where their Necks are sure to stretch in the Service and Obedience will be so little a part of the Sacrifice they 'l make his Divinityship in such a Command that all his Bell Book and Candle will be too little to conjure up half hands enough for so ungrateful and so cursed an Employment Whatever pleasure they may take in bringing Vs to Stakes and Gibbets they are not overfond of Martyrdom themselves And though Great is their DIANA of Ephesus whil'st Profit and Safety go along with her and upon Reasonable Terms much might be done to exalt her yet ther 's that Vniversal Charm in that thing call'd OVR ALL and that strange superseding Quality in those potent Operators Self and Self-preservation that it over-rules the highest Excursions even of the most daring Zeal and the very biggest Devils of Outrage and Tyranny are laid by no other Spell But perhaps it may be objected That to incourage the bold Labourers in this Harvest this popish King to prevent the Ruine both of his Cause and his Party will take Care in case of a protestant Heir to divert the Succession and continue the Crown upon some other popish Head and so by a longer Usurpation of this Arbitrary Supremacy and a more lasting Persecution of the Protestants provide as much as in him lyes that the propagation of the Romish Faith may be compleated in succeeding Ages upon so good a Foundation lay'd in his Own This foolish Supposition is so lewdly ridiculous that ther 's scarce a shadow for such a Feaâ— For alas there will be so little Hopes of a popish Vsurper's mounting the Throne after so notorious a Tyranny under a Lawful popish King before him as nothing can scarcely be more impossible 'T is possible indeed the Duty of our Christianity and the Bond of Passive Obedience as having the Lawful Power of no other Weapons but our Prayers and Tears against the Tyranny of our Lawful Prince may tye up our hands and keep us in the Bounds of Peace and Resignation during his Reign But the setting up of a popish Vsurper after him in wrong to the Imperial protestant Right Heir will undoubtedly ingage all the Protestant Hands and Hearts against so impudent an Invader and if Occasion require his Protestant Royal Neighbours in such a Cause whil'st the taking up Arms in such a Quarrel which had been Rebellion against his Predecessour before would be the work of their highest Duty and Allegiance now And as the Remembrance of their past Yoke to all true English Spiâ—its would certainly double Edge their very Swords so in so just a Cause 't would infallibly spur them to so perfect and so unanimous a Revenge as to cut off their popish Enemies even to the last Man Now what popish Vsurper shall venture to pass such an Ordeal to a Throne Or what hopes a popish King can have of such a Successour or of accomplishing his own popish Designs on such a Basis let common Reason judge And therefore the Pope must have a very little Paternal Care of his Royal Son of Rome and indeed of all his Catholick Sons in England as to imbark them in a Cause so apparently Derstructive whil'st by misleading them into such sanguinary illegal Cruelties against the Protestants and all for an impossible Conversion of a Nation he runs his own darling people Root and Branch into an inevitable Fate under the next Protestant Successor exposed not only to the highest popular Swords and Fury but even to Cords and Axes and the severest Stroke and Vengeance of Law it self But possibly their Fate shall not wait so long as the next King's Coronation but overtake them in the first Onset of their popish Barbarity For let ut but look back to the Gun-powder Treason a Plot where Faux's Powder-Barrels were neither like Otes his Teuxbury Mustard-Balls nor his Black Bills Invisible A Plot too where the Conspirators dyed not Tongue-tyed but confessed their Guilt without that wonder-working Dispensation of asserting a Counterfeit Innocence to the stretch o their Salvation and Renuntiation of their God on the very Brink of Eternity Let us look back I say to the Discovery of that Plot and History informs us that 't was as much as the King Court and Government could possibly do to restrain the peopl's Rage from Butchering all the Papists in England the Guilty and Innocent together in the Revenge of so barbarous a Machination though uneffected tho by Providence detected and frustrated And if the Genius of England was so highly exasperated and so furiously transported in Zeal for their Prince's and their Representativ's Danger though past and escaped What Security shall the Pope or his popish Successour promise themselves that the people's Zeal for their own Dangers Approaching will not be as much transported too And that the Eruption of Smithfield
Fires with the dragging of their Fathers their Wives their Children or their Kindred and possibly their own Turn next to a popish Stake will not equally if not more violently inflame them into as great or greater Outrages than the Gun-powder Plot could do But whether this certain Ruine should persue these Arbitrary popish Instruments either sooner or later and that it were really possible these or any other Illegal popish Measures might give us some Trouble and Disturbance during this popish Monarch's Reign How wretched a piece of Work must the Wisdom of the Pope and the whole Conclave undertake to make Popery and Arbitrary Power under a popish Successour those Feeble Serpents that shall but just bite our Heels to provoke our succeeding Vengeance to crush their Heads In the second year of Queen Mary after the Repeal of King Edward's Laws but before the Restoration of the Pope's Supremacy we are told in the History of the Reformation Abridg. B. 3. pag. 253. of a project proposed by the Spanish Ambassadour to the Queen of assuming the power of a Conquerour and ruling at pleasure by which she might restore both the Religion and the Abbey-Lands and be under no Restraint This she communicated to her Chancellour Gardiner and charged him to give her his Opinion of it sincerely as he would answer to God for it at the last day He read it carefully and told her it was a most pernicious Contrivance and begg'd her not to listen to such Platforms which might be brought her by base Sycophants Vpon that she burnt the Paper and charged the Ambassadour to bring her no more such proâ—ects This gave Gardiner great Apprehensions of the Mischiefs that Spanish Councils might bring upon the Nation and so he procured the Act to be made by which the Queen was bound by the Law as much as her Ancestors were Now if that Bloody popish Zealot Gardiner was so violently averse to the Thought of bringing Arbitrary power into England for what Service soever to the Romish Cause as in his Opinion so most pernicious when at the same time the Majority or Half of the Nation at least were of that perswasion And if popish Standing Armies could have done the Feat they were ten times easier to be rais'd for any Arbitrary popish purpose then especially too when the Queen lay in the Bosome of that potent Spanish Husband witness his Invincible Armada soon after against Queen Elizabeth that could have lent her a very considerable Helping Hand from Forreign Assistance to push on the project had her English Strength been Insufficient Now I say if nevertheless the Design was deem'd so pernicious then what popish State Councellours at this time of day will run their own and their Prince's Fingers so far in the Fire as to advise him to any such Arbitrary Projection now under so low a Wane of Popery that scarce the 200 th part of the Nation are of that Religion and therefore infinitely more pernicious than in Queen Mary's Case and consequently which nothing but the most abandon'd Lunacy can ever pretend to advise or attempt 'T is true indeed the popish Character lays down a most Expeditious Method of raising this dreadful Standing Army that are to accomplish the mighty Feat of Popery and Slavery under a Romish Successour which for the Reader 's Diversion take as follows To make the Pope Absolute there wants a Standing-Army and he shall have it For who shall hinder him Nay all his Commanders shall be qualify'd even by our present Protestant Test for the Employment He shall have enough Men of the Blade out of one half of the Gaming Houses in Town to Officer twice as many Forces as he shall want 'T is true they shall be Men of no Estates nor Principles But they shall fight as well as those that have Both. For people are ever as Valiant that have their Fortunes to raise as those that have them to defend Nay of the two they shall be the more Faithful For they have no Property to be concern'd for and will more zealously serve him by Reason their whole Interest and Estates lye in Him And that this Army may be more quietly raysed how many honourable Pretences may be found Perhaps the greatest and most important Preservation of his Kingdom shall call for it and then upon second Thoughts instead of defeating some Forreign Enemy they are opportunely ready to cut our Throats at Home c. This Projection I confess is the only passage through the whole Character that endeavours to make out the possibility of any part of the numerous popish Mischiefs denounced through the whole Pamphlet For all along it absolutely supposes the power of a popish Successour's doing whatever he pleases and after so fallacious a Petitio principii it leaps over all Mountains in the way and only labours to prove the Depravity of a popish Successour's Tyrannical Inclinations and give him the Will of putting that power into Execution But to examine the Depth of this Projection granting such a Set of Atheistick Officers could be found what then must their Army be Here 's a Forreign Invasion or some other Honourable Cause proposed and an Army raysed for that seeming Intent and Purpose an Army of papists they cannot be for there is not 40000 Men Women and Children of that perswasion in the whole Kingdom and consequently far short of 10000 Fighting Men amongst them all and possibly not one half of them neither such Foolhardy Desperadoes as to hazard their Lives so madly and so extravagantly in so unpromising a Cause so unaccomplishable a Design as Subjecting of England by the Hands of the papists So that an Army of Papists can be no part of a popish Successour's Thoughts And that the number of the papists in England is really no Greater The King's Indulgence formerly to those of that Religon in gratitude for their Loyal Endeavours at Worcester and indeed through all his Fathers Distresses has been so far from putting them to the Shifts of Disguises or Concealment of their Perswasions that before the late wakening of the Laws against them the papists were every where as visible and generally as distinguishable from the rest of Mankind as one Sex is from another insomuch that unless their Numbers have increased by Converts made since the popish Discovery and the Execution of the Statutes against them there 's scarce one papist in England that all his Neighbours round him cannot particularly point at And how thin sown those Papists are is notoriously manifest when in many and many a ten Parishes together in England there is not three Papists and the whole number computed through the Nation scarce the 200 th Man of that Perswasion Notwithstanding there have been many Fanatical Pretensions of wonderful popish Dispensations by vertue of which there are at least thirty or fourty thousand Church-papists as some old Oliverian Rebels shall tell you tolerated by the Pope to an Absolute Protestant Vniformity and ready
her Purpose So that nothing could make a greater Turn of Church Affairs in the Kingdom in those Days when under such a Total Alteration of the Clergy and all ready at hand to step into their Seats the whole Interest of the Adverse Religion through the forementioned Equality of Parties could not but be extreamly shaken and the Prevalence in Parliament be highly mov'd by no other Spring Besides the Act De Hereticis comburendis was then unabolish't and as the Determination of Heresy lay in the Breast of the Clergy here was an easie leap into all the foregoing Severities of Rome even by the Law it self Insomuch that either of the Religions could not properly be call'd by Law Establish't whil'st our Pastors and our Fold were in a manner at the Will of the Soveraign and there wanted but little more than the Royal Breath to drive us to the Right or the Left the Sheep or the Goats But all this is so prodigiously remote from the present State of England and the Religion now Establisb't that Light and Darkness can be scarce more dissonant For besides the infinite Disproportion of the Popish Numbers in Queen Mary's Reign to Ours enough of it self to silence all Dispute a popish Successours Removal of the present Protestant Clergy and the Introduction of Priests and Jesuits in their Room as Head of the Church is no more in his Prerogative than the Government of Transylvania The present Bishops and Clergy holding for Life and only to be displaced or silenced upon Crimes or Insufficiencies adjudged or condemned by the Protestant Censure and Sentence And all the popish Clergy so incapable of their Places that they are Aliens to the Nation under an attaint of Treason upon the very Assumption of their Sacerdotal Orders and so shut out from our Church-Ministry by Parliamentary Oaths Tests and Abjurations that nothing but the most Diabolical Papal Dispensation and a Conscience even Brimstone Proof could introduce them were there really Room for their Admission But alas considering in what Equilibrium Religion then hung whatever Concurrence the Prince could then obtain from his People in Parliament in favour of his own Perswasion The Genius of England is now quite another thing All our Parliaments for almost a hundred years last past have been so far from granting even the least Concession to the Crown in favour of popery that on the contrary all their Study Votings Labours and Endeavours even to a Nemine Contradicenâ—e have been levell'd at the very Root of it so far from countenancing of it that the very sound of it has made them fly out into the most rapid Torrent of Contradiction even beyond the Duty of Subjects and instead of Complimenting either Pope or Popery they have tyed up their very Hands even from the best of Protestant Crown'd Heads and in their highest Extremities denyed them their most reasonable Demands in the most pressing Necessities of the Crown and all for the Apprehension of popish Designs and for keeping the least String of their Purses from popish Fingers I need not instance what Load of Miseries attended the late Royal Martyr from this Fatal Original Neither do I urge this in Relation to those detestable Regicides the corrupted Limbs of that Exetrable Senate that under the Vizor of Religion were plotting the most Infernal of Mischiefs and so from the false Alarum of popery denyed their Soveraign All Things only to make him Nothing No as All Men are not Monsters and even in that Accursed Parliament there were some honest Men yet those very honest Men those that by the universal Delusion were inchanted into False Fears and so design'd nothing but Truly the Prevention of popery were yet under that Terrour so Jealous of their Prince so Deaf to his Interest and so inexorable even to his most Crying Wants and all for battring these fancy'd Ayry Castles that in the vehemence of their Zeal they contributed to the very Designs of his Murderers and how ignorantly soever heap'd together the very Coals to the universal Conflagration so far too that they had only Time to detect the Infernal Imposture and deplore the dire Effects of their miserable Mistake too late Besides to come a little nearer home What dismal Consequences were the late Malignant Conjunction of Fears and Iealousies in the same Fiery Trigon producing again What Demi-Gods and Nation-Saviours did the whole Vox populi nay the very sensible Men of the Nation make of those very Varlets which now their Opened Eyes and waken'd Senses I appeal to their own Consciences tell them are those flagitious unparallel'd Villains that would shame a Gibbet And yet the very Loyallest of all our late Members of Parliament for they were not all Shaftsburys nor all Sidneys neither such that were for Associating to Kill-Kings to keep out Popes nor answering of Filmers out of Buchanan's and Miltons nor seating the Good Old Cause at the Right Hand of GOD. Not those that made popery the pretence alone to manage their own Hellish Republick Machinations But only those that alas and well a day had been Beuk-Blawd a little out of their right Wits by the aforesaid Nation-Saviours and so were for combating of Popery possibly for the Real Preservation of the King and Kingdom Yet the very Loyallest of these Men I say were wrapt up to that height of perverseness that to use the gentlest Terms I can find they thought they could never do little enough even for that very King attested by their own unanimous reiterated Acknowledgments to be the very Isthinus that kept POPERY from Surrounding Us and on whose Only Thread of Life the whole FATE of the Protestant Religion depended I shall not trouble my self with the Repeating the Diversity of Statutes recited in the Character to instance the various Bandying of the Succession of the Crown in Henry the Eighth's Reign designed there as an Argument of Justice for a Parliamentary Bill of Exclusion against a Popish Heir For whatever different Settlements of the Descent of the Crown that King and his Parliaments were pleased to make occasioned by the Intricacy of his Daughter's Titles grounded upon that long controverted Point the Divorce of Queen Katherine the Mother of Queen Mary and therefore not at all enacted as an Exclusion but a Confirmation of the Right Heir However as far soever as a Parlimentary Power may pretend to extend in that Case all these Statutes make nothing to the purpose for Justification of an Exclusion for matter of Religion For had those Parliamentary Proceedings been a Warrant or Precedent for any such Exclusion never was a more urgent Necessity than in Queen Mary's Reign of laying hold of such a Pretension For considering the State of Religion in her Time when looking back to the two last King's Reigns so formidable a Progress had the Protestant Perswasion made and the Inclinations of the People lean'd so much towards the Reformation that the very Change of the Prince was enough to turn