Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A31557
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The Cabal of Romish ghosts and mortals, or, The devil deceiv'd and the sick pope
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1680
(1680)
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Wing C180; ESTC R5721
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17,620
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16
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have prescribed to you I had been freed from the Calamities I endured as well out of the World as in it Adieu As a Cloud of Mists and Vapours hanging in the middle Region of Air does by degrees dissolve and disappear from the Eye of the Beholder even so did this bodiless Cardinal from the view of the Pope whom he left rather more disconsolate than he had found But the entrance of a Jesuit his particular Friend of the same Society with those that lived in the City of Rome did something mitigate the troubles of his mind who held the ensuing Discourse with him Jesuit I come to thank your Holiness in the Name of the rest of the Society for the Bull you granted us against Great Britain It was well meant and in time I hope we shall draw that People from their Allegiance to their Prince and make them pay Homage according as their Duty binds them to none but you Pope I granted it to you freely though at that instant a Prophetick Fancy did almost seem to tell me that something beyond the reach of Sense or Nature wou'd obstruct our noble Design I have summon'd all the infernal Crew to our assistance not a Devil either on the surface or in the entrails of the Earth but by my toilsom Endeavours and your Necromantick Policy doth put a helping hand to forward so great a Work Jes And there is nothing we leave untryed to perform our Duty to the holy See We have set our Instruments at work to deprive England of its Crown and Dignity that thereby they may own you for their supream Head as well in temporal as spiritual Affairs That word was scarce out of his mouth when they heard a Voice as from under the ground crying as loud as it could bawl If you are for such Handiwork take me into your Council The Jesuit being well skilled in Conjurations obliged the Thing that spoke to appear before them it was a rough-hewn ill-faced Fellow in a Priest's Garb. Jes From what Countrey art thou Ghost I am a French Ghost a vostre Service I was called Ravilliack when I lived with Mortals and my Name must needs inform you that it was I murdred my King and Master Henry the 4th It was your Reverend Society set me to work and hearing you have now some such Business in hand to be executed in England I took a flight from Hell to know the certainty of it and whether or no it is so exquisitely Diabolical as our Monarch King Lucifer told us when he spoke to us in commendation of the Deed applauding the Contrivance both for the advancement of your Honour and Interest and for the propagation of his infernal Dominions However I thought time had made you weary of these Actions but I see the World must first be weary of you I stabb'd my King bravely was it not a noble Act And had not your Fraternity cheated me of my Soul I should have had a good conceit of it still I thought to have gone as directly to Heaven as I did to be executed I was obstinate and relyed wholly upon the Absolution I had from the Pope for that famous Deed which I thought was enough and more than enough to keep me from the broad Road nay I denied upon my death that any one counselled me to perform that Act but owned it as done by my own Inclination and did manfully say like a true Roman Catholick that if it were to do again I would do it Thus I died and thus I have received my Reward Jes Thou art a very foolish Ghost why shou'd you care where you go when you are dead provided you are true to the Church upon Earth Can you think Fool that you are that you can endure too much be it where it will in the World or out of it for the sake of the Church Fie fie I wonder a Ghost of your Parts will talk so Rav. 'T is true I went Nobly to be damn'd led by the Rule of your devout Maxims and I esteemed the Murther I committed a meritorious Act and I think it hath proved so For as your Society doth most piously instruct all your Pupils that Protestant Princes should be cut off and that he or they that shall accomplish their Death do merit Heaven thereby I esteeming my Master King Henry inclined that way and that he did design to send his Forces against his Holiness egged on by the Fire of Devotion and receiving Encouragement from you I at length most happily accomplished this heroick Act which hath rendred my Memory as superlatively famous as it is possible for the deepest Infamy to render to after-Ages My Name was most ingloriously extirpated the Realm of France and those I judged that wou'd have been my Friends and have extolled the Deed did most worthily to my everlasting shame fill the whole World with bitter Invectives and Exclamations against a thing I thought so just Jes Thou hast been an honest well-meaning Fellow in thy life-time to the Church and did boldly undertake to be damned like a valiant Souldier of his Holiness and therefore I will deal plainly with so worthy a Ghost and reveal to thee some Secrets which were not perhaps invented when thou wert among Mortals and I believe thou art as honest a Ghost as thou wert a Man and wou'd if thou could live upon Earth again be still devoted to serve us Ra. I fear I should not more especially if I should be in the least sensible that the Torments I now suffer should be my Reward again Jes Art thou still for this impertinent Talk I thank Lucifer we don't want thee for we have those in the World that are as bold nay rather bolder than ever thou wert that will drudge and take as much and more pains to be damn'd than ever thou didst But to come to the purpose We design first since the King of Great Britain will be no Roman Catholick to remove him out of the way as an Obstacle to our Design Ra. How out of the way As I did my Master Jes Even so Then having furnished with Arms and Ammunition all the English Romanists and that is not a few besides many Foreigners that be at our beck the time being appointed and the sign given they shall rise helter-skelter cut Throats merrily and make three Meals in a day of those Hereticks which as it will be to the great Comfort of us Catholicks in general so your Holiness will more particularly relish the Sweets of such Transactions in a more savoury manner especially when you begin once more to receive Peter pence sell Absolutions and redeem Souls from Purgatory in that Island with innumerable many more Benefits which will from thence accrue to the holy See whereby you will treble your Revenues Pope There 's life in this Discourse Methinks the power of it hath almost stopp'd my Loosness Oh how I wou'd hug thee if this day were come to pass Ra. I doubt
THE CABAL OF ROMISH GHOSTS AND MORTALS OR THE DEVIL DECEIV'D AND THE SICK POPE LONDON Printed for Norman Nelson at Grays-Inn-Gate in Holborn 1680. TO THE Jocose or Serious READER MOst moderate Papists I imagine as they believe so they abhor the Transactions of this Age When the simple Vulgar of that Sect being egg'd on by the florid Documents of the Romish Clergy are so wedded to their Opinions that they dare not trust their Eye-sight nor Sense in what they actually and really behold and comprehend They do not look through magnifying Glasses but rather through such Glasses as make Objects appear less than they in reality are They will more safely believe an Image spoke or that the consecrated Wafer in the Eucharist leapt out of the Priest's Hands because he was a wicked Fellow than to give credit to the abominable Births brought lately forth from their Church in this Age. This Dialogue I believe because it is a little Drolling may by some be disliked Some will say perhaps 't is only a Flash in a Pan that it is no serious Argumentation against the Romanists but like the burning of a Paste-board Pope on a Gunpowder-Treason To that I Answer That from this Dialogue a serious Argument might be made and that though it may be Drollery yet there may be some Truth in it It is I confess a Medley of Ghosts and Mortals but by an impartial Reader some Reason may be picked from it and a Man may easily create to himself a belief that it is a Religion grounded altogether upon Policy to fatten the Clergy impoverish the Laity and fill the Pope's Exchequer As for Example A Priest shall come to you when you are almost at the point of Death shall terrifie you by a subtil Eloquence with the dreadful pains of Purgatory and if you are a Man of an Estate and of a weak-believing Capacity you will willingly give half your Estate to the Church to be freed from those dreadful Torments This is one way they greaze themselves by besides by many more Exactions Pardons Absolutions c. which would be too long to insert in an Epistle or Preface I shall conclude with Democrates Junior in the old Edition Page 648. Above all others saith he that High-Priest of Rome the Dam of that monstrous and superstitious Brood the Bull-bellowing Pope which now rageth in the West that three-headed Cerberus hath play'd his part whose Religion at this day is meer Policy a State wholly composed of Superstition and Wit and needs nothing but Wit and Superstition to maintain it that useth Colledges and Religious Houses to as good purpose as Forts and Castles and doth more at this day by a company of scribling Parasites zealous Anachorites hypocritical Confessors and those Pretorian Souldiers his Janizary Jesuits than by any thing more sound and substantial The Names of the Persons contained in this Dialogue are here under inserted The Ghost of Cardinal Woolsey The Ghost of Ravilliack The Ghost of England's Guardian-Angel The Ghost of Lucifer Mortals The Pope A Jesuit A Traveller The DEVIL Deceived OR The Sick POPE HIS Holiness was in private and in a melancholy Disposition censuring the long stay of his Infernal Envoy whom he had sent for England to collogue that perverse Nation to return to Mother-Church when an unexpected darkness o'respread the Air and thereupon came one immediately into his presence habited like a Cardinal with whom the Pope had the ensuing Conference Pope Who art thou and whence dost thou come Cardinal When I lived in the World England was the Soyl of my Nativity and Residence where I was a Cardinal and my Ambition had almost raised me to the Dignity thou enjoyest I had hoarded being withal Husband good enough to keep what I stole from the King my Master and the Common-wealth against I came to the Popedom And as I had Ambition enough in me to aim at a Mark so high so was I not without the excellent Qualities of Pride Vain-glory and Hypocrisie nay all or rather more than all the Perfections that are requisite to make a compleat Pope I brought my self withal to that incomparable pitch of Pride as to contemn my Lord and Soveraign He was titularly King while I began to make my self actually so thereby shewing my self to have had some skill in the Art of Ingratitude he that will be a Pope can never be esteemed infallible without that excellent Quality When at length my too insolent Behaviour made my Design have a very ill scent insomuch that most of the Courtiers begun to stop their Noses when I was near any of them till at length that sneering jesting Rogue Will. Summers with some more of his Confederates made not only a full Relation of my whole Plot to the King but discovered likewise all the Treasure I had been so many years hoarding Whereupon I was immediately cast out of his favour and banished the Court when I broke my heart and with me all my high Designs Plottings and Contrivances died Pope Oh ho Thou art the rich English Cardinal that through an holy as well as self-interessed zeal had almost moulded thy Plot to its most perfect form when an adverse Fate broke thy pious Intentions I love and honour thy Memory for the great reach thou hadst in all humane Affairs and for the Care thou didst take to propagate the Interest of the Church Card. I am your Holiness's most humble Servant and in this bodiless Being am come from the shady Territories to pay you my most dutiful Respects having withal understood from some Infernal Ministers imployed in my Service how affectionate your Intentions are at this Juncture of time to our Stygian Prince manifested in your Endeavour on Earth to advance yours and your Creatures Interests by extirpating Root and Branch with the Trap of Dissimulation and the edge of a well-prepared Sword the abominable Hereticks of Great Britain The Care of his Infernal Majesty in this Affair I doubt not but you have sufficiently experienced since he hath condescended to set all the Engines in his diabolical Dominions at work to encourage so worthy a Design Pope My Thanks are too poor an acknowledgment of this kind and unexpected Visit from you more especially now my Head is filled with the Fumes of so dark a Melancholy expecting the Return of your Black Monarch who was pleased to stoop to so low a step of Humility a Quality I dare be bold to say not agreeing with his Nature as to Post my Envoy into England where I sent him knowing him to be a fleet Messenger to see if the Plot was near accomplished He had been there five or six times before but did not make a stay so long as he hath now done but at those times with the best Documents of Vertue he had he did by my Instigation and my Cabal of Jesuits held there and at St. Omers corrupt not only a great many of the Vulgar whom he pollished with the