God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restraiz with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England The Lawes of the Realm may punish Christian men with death for heinous and grievous crimes It is lawful for Christian men at the Commandment of the Magistrate to wear weapons and serve in the Wars The XXXV Article appoints Homilies against Rebellion to be read in Churches The summary of these Homilies and the whole drift of them is contained First part page 2. of the first Homily against wilful disobedience and rebellion in these words In reading of the holy Scriptures we shall finde in very many and almost infinite places as well of the Old Testament as of the New That Kings and Princes as well the evil as the good do reigne by Gods Ordinance and that subjects are bound to obey them And that Doctrine of the Church of England which is that of the Word of God is fully demonstrated in these godly Homilies published and enjoyned to be read in Churches by Royal Authority CHAP. IV. Proving by the Bulls and Decrees of Popes That the Doctrine of the Roman Court in the point of Obedience to Sovereignes is a Doctrine of Rebellion HItherto we have stood upon the Defensive and have with no great labour wiped off the false and foul aspersions of Rebellion cast upon the Doctrine of the Protestant Churches Let us try whether we can use the Sword as well as the Buckler And we will use no other then the Popes own Sword For as David said of Goliah's sword There is none like that give it me In this Combate the enemies sword is the right weapon none like it The Adversary to disgrace our Doctrine hath objected to us some passages of our Authors most of them false or wrested and some actions of persons of the Protestant party But though he had proved all these to be true he had done no harm to our Doctrine which is not built upon private opinions or upon private or publick actions He should have taken our Confessions in hand and Indicted them of rebellious Tenets if he could have found any Or finding none he should have given glory to God and confessed the Truth of God with us But if I bring him the Bulls of his Popes and their Decrees can he scape as we do when he urgeth us with maxims of Buchanan or Goodman Can he say The Pope speaks Treason and prescribes Rebellion as we say of these men and my faith is not tyed to his authority Can he as freely go off from the Popes judgement as we do from the best of our party when their Tenet is represented to us aberring from the rule of Gods Word and dissenting from the Articles of Religion consented unto by the Provincial Convocations of the Church We will then object to him and his party that which they cannot disown unless they disown their Faith and Religion since their Faith and Religion depend upon the Popes Decrees and that so strongly and with such a spirit of delusion that the most pestilent opinions pass with them for Evangelical Truths and the most abominable actions for patterns of Holiness if they be once marked with that stamp according to Bellarmines sentence which no Romanist hath yet disallowed for any thing I know If the Pope did Bellarm. lib. 4. de Pontifice ca. 5. Si Papa erraret in praecipiendo vitia vel prohibendo virtutes teneretur Ecclesia credere vitia esse bona virtutes malas nisi vellet contra conscientiam loqui Idem cap. 31. in Barklaium In bono sensu dedit Christus Petro potestatem faciendi de peccato non peccatum de non peccato peccatum erre in commanding vices or prohibiting vertues the Church should be obliged to believe that vices are good and vertues evil unless she would speak against Conscience And to the same purpose he affirmeth That in good sense Christ hath given to St. Peter the power to make sin to be no sin and that which is no sin to be sin And he takes it for granted That the power which Christ hath given to St. Peter he hath ipso facto given it to the Pope his Successor If then we prove that sedition rebellion and murther of Kings is justified promoted yea and commanded by that Head of their Faith the Papists must either approve it as good and holy or cease to be Papists and learn to have the Faith of the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of glory without respect of persons Since the Roman Church stands much upon her Antiquity we will begin by the ancientest example of approving the murther of Kings that can be charged Ann. Chr. 611. upon the Roman See It is that of Gregory the I. who hearing that Phocas had slain the Emperour Mauritius his Liege Lord having first killed his children before his face and that he had invaded the Empire writ a gratulatory Epistle to that monster where these words are found We are glad that the benignity Greg. 1. lib. 11. Epist 36. Benignitatem pietatis vestrae ad Imperiale fastigium pervenisse gaudemus Laetentur Coeli exultet Terra de benignis actibus vestris universae Reip. populus hilarescat of your Piety hath attained to the Imperial Dignity Let the heavens rojoyce and let the Earth be glad and let the people of the whole Commonwealth be joyful for your gracious deeds The next example shall be that of Gregory the II. who rebelled against his Sovereigne the Emperour Ann. Chr. 726. Leo Isaurus and made Rome and the Roman Dutchy do the same And while the Emperour was sore afflicted with the wars of the Saracens in the East he made himself Lord of that part of his Masters Dominions in Italy for which Sigonius giveth an admirable Sigonius Hist de Regno Italiae lib. 3. Ita Roma Romanusque Ducatus à Graecis ad Romanum Pontificem propter nesandam eorum haeresim impietatemque pervenit reason That Rome and the Roman Dutchy were lost by the Grecians and got by the Pope of Rome by reason of their wicked heresie A strange kind of penance from a Pastor to turn the sinner out of his house and possess himself of it That wicked heresie of Leo Isaurus was That he prohibited the adoration of Images and pulled them down every where For that Heresie and Impiety the holy Father Gregory the II. imposed this penance upon the Emperour He made him lose his Estate and himself seized upon it This is the beginning of the Popes Temporal Principality This is the Title whereby he holds Rome and the Territory of it to this day even plain Rebellion and Tyrannical Invasion of his Sovereigns Estate and Dominion The next Successor of Gregory the II. was Gregory the III. of whom Platina writeth thus This Pope as soon as he attained to the Papal Platina in Greg.
with his whole power against Queen Elizabeth and had raised a great Army for that expedition But when Stukely came to Sebastian he found him possess'd with a new project to help a Moor King of Fez against another King who kept him out of possession and to get the Kingdome from them both To that War he invited Stukely promising that presently after that work done which he represented to him most easie they should go together to the War against England and Ireland So they sailed over into Africa where Sebastian and his whole Army were destroyed and with him Stukely and the Popes Italian Souldiers were cut in pieces A deliverance of England ever to be remembred with praise and admiration So let thine enemies perish O Lord. This Pope had a great hand in that unparallelled villany wrought by the marriage of Henry King of Navarra with the Sister of Charles the IX of France A marriage which Pius the V. would never consent unto by reason of their difference in Religion But when his Successor Gregory the XIII was told by the Cardinall of Lorrain that this marriage was intended as a trap to destroy Henry and his Protestant party he presently gave his dispensation for the celebrating of it and encouraged the design The horrible massacre which attended the jollity of that marriage was received at Thuanus Rome with triumphant expressions of publick joy And Cardinal Vrsin was sent Legat into France to praise the Kings piety and wisdom in that great action and to bestow blessings and spiritual graces upon the King and the Actors of that fearful Tragedy The Court of Rome might well praise what themselves had procured if not contrived and truly the plot hath an Italian garb and looks not like a production of the French soil Not long after this Pope sent to Henry the III. of France and to his people Indulgences for millions of years which were to be obtained by making processions to four Churches in Paris and by being zealous and diligent in the extirpation of heresies that is in his style to extermine the Protestants The male line of the Kings of Portugal being extinct this Pope laid a claim to the Kingdome as depending from the holy See and would have the Nation to have taken Arms for him against the heirs from the females But his claim was hissed out with great scorn In the year 1580. this Pope sent an Italian called San Iosepho with some Italian Troops into Ireland to joyn with the Irish Rebells When they were demanded by a message from the Lord Deputy who they were and what they came for they answered Some that they were sent by the most holy Father the Pope and some from the Catholick King of Spain to whom the Pope had given Ireland because Queen Elizabeth had justly forfeited her Title to Ireland by her heresie A doctrine which at the same time was preach'd in England and Ireland by Jesuites and other Seminary Priests with great boldness and vehemency till the Queen and her Councell perceiving what danger the State was running into by these mens activeness and impunity Campian and some others sent by the Pope on that errand were apprehended And being examined they obstinately defended the Popes authority over the Queen and maintained that she was no Queen as being lawfully deposed by the Pope upon which they were condemned and executed That Crown of Martyrdom the Pope procured to his Confessors And the greater the number is of those Martyrs that the Papists muster the more they exaggerate the Popes cruelty to his truest Vassalls For could the Pope expect that persons sent to perswade the people to dispossess and kill their Sovereign should have other dealing from the hand of Justice The principal Article of the late Papal Creed is that which Pius the V. sets forth in his Bull against the Queen that God hath made the Bishop of Rome Prince over all people and all Kingdoms But the English Papists are taught that besides that general right over all Kingdomes the Pope hath a peculiar right over England and Ireland as his proper Dominions This is Bellarmins doctrine which he hath made bold to maintain unto King James himself The King Bellarm. lib. cui Titulus Tortus pag. 19. Rex Anglorum duplici jure subjectus est Papae uno communi omnibus Christianis ratione Apostolicae potestatis quae in omnes extenditur juxta illud Ps 44. Constitues eos Principes super omnem terram Altero proprio ratione recti dominii of England saith he is subject to the Pope by double right The one by reason of his Apostolick power which extends over all men according to that Charter Ps 44. Thou shalt establish them Princes over all the earth The other proper by a right dominion Then he pleadeth that England and Ireland are the Churches dominions the Pope the direct Lord and the King his Vassal This then being become an Article of Religion in which the English Papists are instructed and this in consequence that if the Pope disallow the King he is no more King of England but an Usurper and must be used accordingly Let any man judge who hath some equity and freedome of judgement left whether a prudent Prince and Council of State ought to suffer such an instruction to be given to the people Truly the more Religion is pretended for that doctrine and the practice of Rebellion obtruded as a commandement of the Church the more it concernes the loyal Magistrate to oppose it vigorously Pope Sixtus the V. to favour the enterprise of Philip the II. upon England renewed the Excommunication of Queen Elizabeth pronounced by Pius the V. deprived her verbo tenus of her Kingdome absolved her subjects from all Allegiance to her and published a Croisada against her as against the Turk giving plenary Indulgence to all that would make warre against her But the Popes Curses provoked Gods blessings upon the Queen who might say as David when Shimei cursed him The Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day All the storms raised against England were blown over without harme The great preparations of Spain served onely to disable it and secure England And the many attempts against the Queens life upon that Bull contributed to her safety by manifesting to the World the wickednesse of Rome and the pernicious effects of the Roman principles For which I might produce the Examinations and Confessions of many that suffered for attempting to murther the Queen but I will bring but one for all William Parry acknowledged that he had promis'd at Rome to kill the Queen about which he was most troubled in his conscience till he lighted upon Dr. Allens book which taught that Princes excommunicate for heresie were to be deprived of Kingdome and life Which book saith he did vehemently excite me to prosecute my attempt This Popes Excommunications had more effect in France for after that he had excommunicated King Henry the
Article of the Catholick Roman faith that Princes excommunicated by the Pope are ipso facto deposed and their subjects absolved from all obedience and fidelity to them It is directly though not believed but by few You have that fundamental Law authentically pronounced by Gregory the VII and it is made a Canon of the Roman Church By Apostolical Causa 15. Qu. 5. cap. Nos Sanctorum Eos qui excommunicatis fidelitate aut Sacramento constricti sunt Apostolica authoritate a juramento absolvivimus ne sibi fidem observent omnibus modis prohibemus authority we absolve from their oath all them that are bound by fidelity or oath to excommunicate persons and by means we forbid them to keep faith unto such persons I would ask the Roman Catholicks Seriously do you believe this And are you ready to seal that faith with your obedience or sufferings upon occasions If you believe and will maintain it you are not good subjects but dangerous persons in the State If you deny faith and obedience to that Papal Decree you are not good Roman Catholicks for if you were you would acknowledge the Pope the Head of the Faith with Bellarmine and that the Pope cannot erre in his Canons and that it is in the Popes power to make Articles of faith according to the determination of the Council of Trent Now the Pope hath made this an Article of your faith the denying of it an heresie and the resisting of it a crime punish'd in the persons of Kings by the deprivation of Kingdom and life Open your eyes Christian souls that are so much blinded as to pin your faith upon the Popes Decrees And reading in your own Authors the histories of the Popes behaviour which I have here represented acknowledg that those Decrees for many hundred years have been the powerful stirrers of rebellion in Christendome and the ambition of Popes the first Intelligence that sets the great Orb of sedition on going After that the Popes have thus commanded and wrought rebellion by express Decrees and filled the Christian world with fire and blood these five or six hundred years have the Jesuites the face when we object this against the Head of their Faith to object unto us in exchange some passages out of books either false or disowned by us if true And the defensive Arms of a few persons living under the Cross and driven by themselves upon the brink of despair The evil which men of our Religion have said or done we condemn freely and openly Let the Romanists condemn also so many Decrees of the Popes which have been the Incentives of war and brands of rebellion But that they cannot as long as they remain Papists sworn to approve all that the Pope saith or doth The difference between the faults of the Pope and those of Protestants about the point of obedience is this That disobedience with us is a crime but with him it is a Law We punish rebels but the Pope rewards them We say to rebels after St Paul That they that So did Sixtus the V. of which before resist the higher powers shall receive to themselves damnation But the Pope promiseth eternal life to make subjects rebel against their King We abhor the murtherers of Kings but the Pope sets them on by his excommunications and after the murther committed makes panegyricks on their praise Can the Romanists produce among us a Priest that hath made himself a Temporal Prince by robbing his Master of his land who hath kickt down the Emperors crown trodden upon his neck with his foot deposed him from his Kingdom made his son rise in Arms against him absolved his subjects from their obedience and given his Dominions to another One that makes himself the absolute disposer of Kingdoms and Master of the Universe Such a Priest is no where to be found but at Rome After this true account of so many Emperours and Kings deposed and killed and so much rebellion slaughter and desolation wrought in Christendom by the Papal excommunications and factions let the conscionable Reader who is not altogether ignorant in modern History judge what truth there is in our Adversaries assertion That in this last Century of years there have been pag. 93. more Princes deposed and murthered for their Religion by those Protestants of Integrity then have been in all the others since Christ's time by the Popes excommunications or the attempts and means of Roman Catholicks He should have set down a list of those Princes deposed and murthered by Protestants and for their Religion For my part I have heard of none Indeed Charles the I. our holy King and Martyr suffered for his Religion and the Adversary may take that one for many because he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worth alone many Princes But they that murthered him were not Protestants they disavow that name And it was for the Protestant Religion that he suffered But since he speaks of the means and attempts made by Roman Catholicks against Princes he shall hear a little more of them CHAP. V. The Adversaries Defence of the Jesuites examined Their Doctrine and Attempts against the Crown and life of Kings THe Adversary who is commended in the Epistle to the Reader as a most observant Son of the Church of England takes upon him the defence of the Jesuite Mariana so infamous for his doctrine of killing of Kings and saith three things about that The one is That he handleth that matter only problematically page 94. But the Court of Parliament of Paris composed of grave heads did not understand it so when they condemned his book to the fire Neither doth he speak of the murther of Henry the III. of France problematically when he exalteth the murtherer in these words Making a shew of delivering Mariana lib. 1. de Rege Regis Iustitutione cap. 6. Specie litteras in manus tradendi cultro quem herbis noxiis medicatum manu tegebat supra vesicam altum vulnus inflixit Insignem animi confidentiam Facinus memorabile Caeso Rege ingens sibi nomen fecit letters to the King he gave him a deep wound above the bladder with a poysoned knife which he hid in his hand O admirable confidence of minde O memorable action by killing the King he got to himself a great name And in the same place he taxeth the Kings servants who presently killed that murtherer of cruelty and barbarousness The second answer for Mariana is That the question was not for killing of Kings but for killing of Tyrants page 94. This man shews himself a right scholar of the Jesuites for this is their distinction But if a King deposed by the Pope keeps his Kingdome in spight of him they account him no more a King but a Tyrant And whereas there are two sorts of Tyrants some by usurpation which they call Tyrannos in Titulo Tyrants in the Title some Tyrants by administration the Jesuites hold That a lawful King
all his false turns But both my Readers and I have better businesses then to heap up dung or search all the Impostures of a Novice of the Iesuites For the end he brings some rules of Law concerning the nature of the English Monarchy which if he had studied well he had never taken upon him to defend the doctrine of the Iesuites which is inconsistent with them For they allow not that which he affirmeth That the Monarchy of England can do no homage having no superiour and that the Crown of England is independent and his jura Regalia are holden of no Lord but the Lord of heaven Bellarmine saith the clean contrary and makes the Pope Sovereigne of England by double right as we heard before Yet this Scholar of the Iesuites may give Bellarmines sense to that assertion that the Crown of England is independent for holding with his Masters that the Crown of England belongeth to the Pope he will say also that it is independent and oweth homage to none but God meaning that the Pope the right Sovereigne oweth homage for it to none but God The man being evidently a Scholar of the Jesuites cannot but be instructed in the doctrine of equivocations about which Tolet Tolet lib. 4. Instruct Sacerd. cap. 21. Aliquando uti licet aequivocatione decipere audientem ut cum Iudex petit juramentum ab aliquo ut dicat crimen vel proprium vel alienum si omnino est occultum jurare cogatur utatur aequivocatione puta Nescio intelligendo intra se ut dicam tibi vel simile Et lib. 5. c. 38. lib. 4. c. 21 22. gives large instructions in his book of the Instruction of Priests saying expresly That it is lawful sometimes to use equivocations and to deceive the hearer And Sanchez tells us in what case it is lawful to equivocate There is a just cause saith he to Sanch. oper Mor. l. 3. c. 6. num 19. Causa jure utendi his amphibologiis est quoties id necessarium aut utile est ad salutem corporis honorem tes familiares tuendas use these equivocations whensoever it is necessary or useful for the preservation of body honour or estate Since then the sect and Religion of the Jesuites which subjecteth the Crown of England unto the Pope cannot subsist in England without palliating that criminal doctrine with equivocation They finde it necessary for the preservation of body honour and estate to profess that the Monarchy of England can do no homage having no superiour and that the Crown of England is independent but to whom that independant Crown belongs that they will reserve in their thoughts Or if they say they will be true to the King they will by the King understand the Pope or the King of Spain to whom the Pope gave the Kingdome of England fourscore years ago and never recalled that gift since Wherefore if this Gentleman appear in Print again or any of his confreres for him about this point of obedience we must desire him to speak more home before he can justifie himself to be a true Philanax Anglicus and a good English subject of his Majesty To that end let him declare that he acknowledgeth the following Articles as true and just and is ready to subscribe unto them I. The Kings Most Excellent Majesty Charles the II. hath no superiour on Earth de jure in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland and other His Majesties Dominions II. All Roman Catholicks born in these His Majesties Dominions are his subjects de jure and of none else although they have taken the Orders of the Church of Rome or have a General of some Religion to whom they have sworn obedience III. The Doctrine of Cardinal Bellarmine is false that the King of England is subject to the Pope by double right besides his pretended subjection in matters spiritual IV. The Pope hath no power to deprive Kings of their Kingdoms or any way to dispose of their Crowns or their Lives V. The Pope cannot absolve the subjects of His Majesty King Charles the II. or of any of His Successors from the Oath of their Allegiance Neither are they now absolved from it by any precedent Decree from the Popes VI. A King declared heretick or excommunicate by the Pope is not thereby disabled from exercising his Kingly jurisdiction VII The excommunicating or depriving of a King by the Pope doth not exempt that Kings natural subjects from the duty of their Allegiance VIII King John had no power to give his Kingdome to the Pope without the consent of his Peers and Commons Neither is that Contract of any validity IX A Priest having learned in Confession a Conspiracy against the Kings life ought to discover it to the King or his Councel X. The Peers and Commons of England and other His Majesties Dominions have no power to judge their King much less to depose him or put him to death or to choose another King or to alter the Government of the State He that will refuse to subscribe these Articles and openly profess his consent unto them cannot justifie his love and fidelity to the King and is altogether unfit to charge the Protestants with rebellious tenets Vacuum culpa esse decet qui in alium paratus est dicere He that is in an error cannot justifie himself but by forsaking it That yeilding is glorious and to be overcome by the truth is a great victory Without such a justification lessons of loyalty given by a Iesuite are unsuitable and of as little effect as a Lecture of Chastity preach'd by an allowed Curtizan of Rome JOH VIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CAROLE qui Latias artes fulmina bruta Et Capitolini contemnis Vejovis iras Macte manumissus coelesti lumine Princeps Lumine Romuleas tibi dispellente tenebras Assertamque sacro capiti firmante coronam Dum trepidi Reges sancti luminis orbi Serva Quirinali submittunt colla tyranno Tu liber specta stantes ad fraena Monarchas Stratorum officio succollantesque cathedrae Augustos lixas mox flexo poplite curvos Turpia purpureo libantes oscula socco Erige tu curvos rectus fratresque doceto Quos Regum Pater agnoscit Natosque Deosque Quà m male prostituat divum Rex sanctus honorem Tarpeiam lambens crepidam solosque pudendum Excussisse jugum libertatique litasse Gnaviter amplexos coelestia lumina Reges FINIS ERRATA PAge 8. line 17. Galileo p. 9. l. 5. put out which p. 11. in the margent l. 10. tenerentur p. 19. l. 12. matter p. 24. l. 14. Popes p. 26. l. 10. by the preaching l. 12. oppressing l. opposing p. 30. l. ult Francis the II p. 31. l. 7. Iesuites p. 33. l. 20. Henry the IV. l. 22. because p. 3â— l. â—4 the ordinary l. 13. any of five Kings p. 49. l. 28. unequitable l. equitable p. 53. l. 13. stonie the just p 87. l. 13. frequent l. pregnant p. 113. l. 24. Pope p. 115. in the margent 1. 6. non sine manibus p. 124. l. put out persons put letters p. 128. l. 25. Mutius p. 137. l. 26. depose
of the world as Rebels by their very Religion and the Bane of all Governments The whole Work is purum putum mendacium right mettle of untruth in the main substance The Title is false for it picks a quarrel with the Presbyterians only whereas the Book declareth open war to all the Protestants under heaven The pretence false for the Author pretends to undertake that task out of love to the King whereas he works the Kings ruine by calumnies against his true Subjects and by maintaining the Jesuites the sworn enemies of his Crown and State The face he puts on is false many wayes for he pretends in his Epistle and Prefaces to publish the Book of a dead man whereas the uniformity or rather deformity of the affected broken Style and Billings-gate language in the Epistle Prefaces and body of the Book shews all that false coin to have been stampt in the same base Mint The Author is produced as a Priest of the Church of England whereas he speaks as a Priest of the Church of Rome The Publisher calls himself Bellamy whereas he is a false Friend and a true Enemy and most like it is that no such man as he names himself is to be found For such Vizards are borrowed by these children of darkness A wrong Name A contrary Profession A dead man that speaks out of his Grave three Vizards one over another lyes upon lyes in the Porch a right Entry into a Shop of Lyes But how much falshood is in the Epistle Was Bellamy or the pretended dead Author well acquainted with that venerable Prelate to whom the Book is dedicated Did Bellamy ever present the Book to his Lordship Did he chuse him for his Patron and stroak him with deserved praises to honour him or to betray him and make him odious as a Patron of Popery and Protector of Jesuites And lastly the accusations laid against the several Protestants even these that are true if any be are they not falsely imputed to the generality of the party And are not most of the alledged passages out of their writings maimed detorted or plainly forged O God of Truth who lovest Truth in the inward parts and lookest with piercing judicial eyes into the bottome of crafty projects through all the coverings of hypocrisie Is thy Truth to be defended with Falshood What followship hath the simplicity of thy Gospel with this heap of multiplyed Impostures And how can the zeal of Religion put a man that hath some sense of Ingenuity upon such false and crooked wayes Well I see my self engaged to fight with wilde Beasts as St Paul did at Ephesus Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered Let them also that hate him flee before him I did not see the Book but after the second Edition eight moneths after its first appearing And though I had seen it before I would have made no haste to appear upon the lists against this Adversary but expected of the Secular Power a more substantial and indeed the right Confutation But what the smalness of the Libel and the Libeller kept them hitherto from the Censure of Authority For those that stand in high places can hardly discern such strawes below But we that stand below may look neerer and see poyson in a straw and ought to represent unto our Superiours the mischievousness of this small yet dangerous thing Dangerous I say not for the strength of reason nor for the bitterness neither for the very extremity of malice in that Book makes it weak in reason as it is the natural effect of pride and choler to enervate the judgement and take reason off the hooks But that which makes the Book dangerous is the unparallell'd boldness and presumptuousness of the attempt Could we believe but that we see it that in England where the Law gives no Toleration to the Romish Religion a Papist durst appear in Print with his and his Printers name to the Book to tax not only the Protestant Reformers but the very Reformation of Rebellion and High Treason Put among Luthers crimes That he preached against the Tyrannie and Superiority Pag. 73. 74. of the Bishop of Rome and perswaded the people not to render him any Obedience Call the Reformation the New Gospel Excuse Mariana and justifie the Jesuites against those that charge them with the Doctrine of King-killing Cry down Protestants as persons not to be trusted with any part of the Government of the State or suffered to live in any Commonwealth Bestow upon them the most contumelious termes that he could devise Traytors Diabolical Cockatrices Infernal Spirits are the mildest words that he giveth them It is a silly colour to his malice to name them alwayes In his pa 109. his vizard falls down and he saith openly These rebel doctrines are backt by the generality of those that call themselves Protestants pag. 71. Protestants of Integrity as if he meant a different sort from other Protestants whereas under that name he persecuteth all the Reformed Christians of Europe following them from Countrey to Countrey And although he durst not so openly rail against the English Reformers yet can he not abstain to tax them of Rebellion under Queen Mary saying most falsely That there was more Rebellions in her poor five years then in the forty four of Queen Elizabeth thereby to shew that the Roman Catholicks are the far more loyal subjects But that which goes beyond all examples of the most superlative impudence that most virulent Libel against the Protestants of Integrity which is the Religion profess'd in England he makes bold to recommend to the Protection of that Eminent and Vertuous Prelate now our most Reverend Lord Archbishop of Canterbury then the second Ecclesiastical Person of all the Province and President of the Convocation I pray Sir Philopapa for Philanax Anglicus is too good a Title for you do you know who you speak to Do you think what you say Do you remember where you are In qua tandem Civitate Catilina arbitraris te vivere Do you think you are at Rome or Madrid where you may bring as you do all Protessants to the Inquisition Or do you hope that our loyal Clergie will mistake you for one of their side because you rail against Knox and Buchanan and make some profession of Obedience and declame against the late rebellion And when they know you once for the man you are do you presume that you can make them forget what Sovereigne you are sworn unto and what power the Pope claims over all Kingdoms and what particular Title he pretends to England and Ireland Certainly Sir Philopapa for the Pope is the King you love and whose Interest you promote among our Kings Subjects I hope you shall finde that your loud cryes at my Lords Grace of Canterbury's door for the putting down of all Protestants of Integrity will prove as improper and unseasonable as if you proclaimed at the Court gates the Ordinance of the Rebels
Parliament for putting down Monarchy and that you shall be helped with some personal interest to increase your hatred against the Protestants of Integrity for such shall you finde the Kings Majesty his Council his Parliament the pious Fathers of the Church and the wise Judges of the Land Could you not content your self to enjoy quietly your Sovereigns Clemency and forbearance but you must defame in Print all that are not of your gang which are no less then the King and the State From their Justice nothing can secure you but your obscurity But while you take an order that your person may lye undiscovered I will make bold to discover some of your Impostures All I cannot neither is it material for all that I need to do to provide an antidote against your poison is to do two things The one to wipe off the aspersions of Rebellion which you cast upon the holy Doctrine of the Protestant Churches The other to bring to the Bar the true Rebels which will be no recrimination but asserting the Pope in his ancient known possession of being the grand Patron and Architect of Rebellion of subjects against their Sovereignes and the especial directer of high Treason against the Kings of England Before I look to the body of his Book somthing must be said of his Epistle and Prefaces His Epistle is addressed to no less then the Right Reverend Father in God Gilbert Lord Bishop of London and Dean of His Majesties Chappel Royal since deservedly promoted to the highest Dignity of the Church of England A great Honour to his Book How far the great Patron which he chuseth is honoured with that Dedication and the due praises which he payeth unto him is obvious to any ordinary understanding Praise at the best is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but a light gift to a wise man And since praise Seneca Sit tibi tam turpe laudari a turpibus quam si lauderis ob turpia hath its price from the praiser that eminent Prelate is little obliged to this Gentlemans praises who justifies in his Book what he is and what he aimes at It is praising him with a vengeance to take him for a Protector of his mischievous attempt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He hath more obliged our late most Reverend Archbishop Juxon now a glorious Saint in heaven whom he hath not spared to blame though he doth not name him but he points at him with his finger And then tells My Lord of London From all these vanities your Lordships known Innocency and Piety hath alwayes defended you scientifically inferring that Innocency and Piety is inconsistent with the Character which he had given of that great Prelate Could this Epistles be so senseless as to expect thanks from a Bishop of London for raising his commendation upon the disgrace of his Metropolitan What needed he to go so far out of his subject to bring in that malicious exception For the blame of the one adds nothing to the praise of the other Does he not shew his hatred against Protestant Prelates which he could not but express even when he took one of them for his Patron And no wonder that a Jesuite should maligne an Archbishop of Canterbury seeing the Jesuites had no greater enemies then those that sate in that See That which he findes amiss in that rarely accomplished Prelate is commended in him by wise men his laudable curiosity fit for a great Naturalist as he was to keep several sorts of Animals about his house as Aristotle did before him Their Nature and Inclinations he would observe with a judicious eye and speak of them pertinently and delightfully Of these Natural Lectures he was pleased to make me hearer several times and to imploy me to finde him Books of that subject So serious were his Recreations when he would unbend among those whom he honoured with his Discourses and Table after his great Imployments about the Government of Church and State As that great person 's known Piety and Innocency cannot be blasted by such a weak enemy as this Jesuite so it needs not be defended by such a weak Champion as I am His admired Vertue shines in an Orb elevated far above the reach of the barking of envie and if he needed the approbation of any under God he had a Royal Testimony when his late Majesty our glorious Saint and Martyr had so much confidence in his Piety and Innocency and together in his Wisdome and Courage that of all his Divines he chose him for his second when he was to encounter the terrors of a violent and ignominious death And by the excellent use which he made of his godly counsel in the retirement of his last devotions he ended his combates in a victorious death over all his enemies spiritual and temporal and yeilded his great soul unto God with joy and comfort For one thing this Jesuite and his confreres had great reason to hate that godly Prelate That after His Majesty had spoken many divine words upon the Scaffold he put him in minde to make a profession of his Religion which he did and professed before God and the world that he dyed a Protestant according to the Religion established by Law in the Church of England A profession which gave great discontent to the Papists and the Fanaticks for both wish'd that he had dyed a Papist indeed It is known with what calmness of spirit prudence and magnanimity that vertuous Prelate went through the tryals which he was put to after the Kings death for he was as wise as a serpent though as harmless as a dove And among his many Vertues he was a great Master of two which seldome meet together a singular and Moses-like meekness and an invincible constancy They that have known him moderating in the Vniversity and have seen him since acting in the greatest businesses of the Kingdome admire the readiness and solidity of his judgement fitted alike for speculation and action and in both excellent His dexterity and patience overcoming the most difficult affairs His sincerity in declaring himself without Complements and his fidelity in keeping his promises without wavering were very remote from the imputation of vanity which this enemy would fasten upon the reputation of that truly great and good man I cannot leave I cannot part from the mention of him without that reverend and affectionate expression of the Jews when they speak of their vertuous friends departed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let his memory be blessed for so his soul is in heaven for all the good he hath done in earth to so many and to me for one for to his Graces goodness next to God I owe the greatest part of my well-being To return to our Adversary Many things in his Epistle and Preface shew him to be an Adversary indeed to the whole Protestant party and a sworn slave to the Court of Rome But as he takes no pains to prove any thing but that all Protestants are Rebels
by their Religion I will not take the pains to disprove any thing else All his Preface is verba voces Moralities far from his purpose interlarded with invectives without ground For who are those that will do no good works for fear of meriting by them And where are those Protestants among whom dulness and heaviness of spirit is taken up as a practise A character more befitting Monastical devotion God fetcheth light out of darkness but it is the Devils work to fetch darkness out of light This man labours to do the same Sententias loquitur carnifex But he goeth untowardly to work For he pulls his doctrines by the hair to bring them to his uses It seems the man had made some petty declamations when he was a Grammar Scholar in a broken boyish style made up of a thousand stollen shreds And now lest these pieces of wit should perish he brings them in by head and shoulders to decide controversies in points not controverted For to his silly commendations of devotion and humility one may say as that King to him that would commend Hector in his presence Quis vero illas vituperat What need you speak for these Vertues when no body speaks against them And what are these declamations to the matter in hand To give a taste of his learning in Greek he translates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an eloquent Oration He calls St. Austin the Oracle of the Latine Church But he never belonged to it but to the African And for a tast of his wit and eloquence barking at the Moon he saith to be the Divinity of Dogs This is of the same kinde The blessed eyes of Bats they have to mock at the greatest lights But if the Bats mockt at the great light they would out-face it whereas they hide themselves from it One more of these impertinencies out of the body of the book He gives these commendations to our late pag. 57. 58. excellent King a Prince as wise as Apollo valiant There wanted no more but animo prudens ut Homerus as it is upon the Tombe of Richard the 11. as Achilles vertuous as Socrates pious as Aeneas and beautiful as an Amazon O brave boy Well declamed for a Scholar of the second Form See what comes by being bred in the Colledges of the Jesuites of Flanders for such a gallant strain of Oratory could never have been learned in the Schools of Westminster or Eaton Yet me-thinks the first and the last of these comparisons have a reach quite beyond common sense Will he call holy King Charles a Prince as wise as Apollo It is a fit parallel for Julian the Apostate Had he no better comparison for that Saint then a Pagan God and a Devil who by reason of the uncertainty of his Oracles was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 crooked and winding How doth that fit such a pattern of Christian and Royal ingenuity so sincere in his words so real in his actions The last parallel is as incongruous as the first He calls the King as beautiful as an Amazon Where hath this Antiquary found those viragines the Amazons with their right breast burnt set out as Paragons of beauty And though they had been such Is a womans beauty fit to express the majestical presence of a King How do these two comparisons suit with the subject and one with another Velut aegri somnia vanae Finguntur species ut nec pes nec caput uni Reddatur formae This writer affords more occasions to make sport with him by his ignorance but more by his blind choler then which there is nothing that disarmeth a man more and exposeth him more to be a laughing stock Such another Pierochol and Cacafuego I never met with His style is a continual casting of firebrands and firing of Granado's to scatter among the Protestants in all the corners of the world What would become of the Ship of this Church if these men ruled upon the Deck and were masters of the Stern and the Sayls seeing they are so swaggering now they lye under the Hatches Let the Author of the book keep himself there for me and remain unknown The publisher will not acknowledge himself to be the Father but only the Godfather although the Epistle Preface and Book look like three brats of one venter We need not question who is the father since the godfather answereth for the childe Neither is it more material to search into the occasion of the writing of the book which he saith to be a Letter from a Protestant of integrity in answer to a letter from a person of quality These letters I never saw But if that Protestant of integrity will have the Presbyterians conformable to the Church of England in Ecclesiasticks as the Epistle seems to intimate we are of his minde neither is any more required of the Presbyterians for the blessed work of concord and for the comfort of their Protestant brethren and their own The Title of Philanax Anglicus whereby the Author makes a profession to love the King is his passport into the patience of the Reader And he makes of it a Fort under the shelter of which he thinks he may boldly shoot upon whom he pleaseth to take for his mark But what advantage this lover of the King alloweth to him is much like the gift of Juglers his Majesty may hold it fast and finde nothing in his hand as we shall see afterwards A Vindication of the Protestant Religion in the point of obedience to Sovereigns opposed to the doctrine of Rebellion authorized and practised by the Pope and the Jesuits In answer to a Jesuitical Libel intituled Philanax Anglicus CHAPTER I. Of the Objections out of the Books of Protestant Writers THe Book of this Adversary consisting of stale Objections which have been a thousand times answered would put me and any man that would answer him to the unavoidable necessity of saying over many things that were said before but that all his Objections may be reduced into one and therefore one answer will serve for them all For from the beginning to the end he objects unto us some passages out of Protestant Writers which savour of disobedience as he dresseth them and some faults in that kinde of those that have embraced the Protestant party whence he inferreth That both the Doctrine and the Practise of Reformed Religion is Rebellion He labours especially to pick faults in the first Reformers but coming short of his end he quarrelleth with others that came long since the Reformation But though he had brought the Reformers to plead guilty he hath done nothing against us For to all these allegations we answer that our Belief depends not upon the doctrine of any particular person or persons much less upon their actions But that to know the true belief of our Churches one must look upon their publick Confessions of Faith The Law was received by the disposition of Angels saith St. Steven Act. 7. 53. and
of the Court of Rome but Luther continued till death about thirty years destroying the Popes interests in Germany and all parts of Europe and neither Pope nor Caesar could touch him Wonderfull are the ways of Gods justice that the Pope by fomenting factions in the Empire and breaking the Emperours power did prepare safety and facility for his enemies in the following ages to make that great breach in his Kingdome and give that mortal wound to his power of which it shall bleed till it dye of it Against the Helvetian Reformation the Adversary saith nothing onely he arrayeth Zuinglius in a swaggering Pag. 3. swash buckler habit as if he had wrought Reformation with sword and buckler yet it was made quietly the preaching of the Gospel and began at Zurick in the year 1522. When Zuinglius was censured by the Bishop Sleidan of Constance his Ordinary for oppressing the Romish errours he set sorth Theses containing his doctrine and the Senate of Zurick called together all the Clergy of the Canton to confer about Religion and requested the Bishop to be present or send some authorized by him The Bishop sent Johannes Faber his Vicar General in whose presence the Consul invited all the assistants if they had any thing to oppose unto the Theses of Zuinglius that they would speak And Zuinglius having addrest the same invitation to the Vicar in particular the Vicar answered that treating of Controversies was not fit for that place and that it belonged to the Councel which should assemble shortly After that many words had past between them when none appeared that had any thing to oppose the Senate made an Edict that in all their dominions the Gospel should be purely taught out of the Books of the Old and New Testament and that humane traditions should be banisht This was obeyed and Reformation was established without either sword or buckler Neither do I read that Zuinglius was in armes till eleven years after that five Gantons of contrary Religion suddenly invaded that of Zurick and put Zurick men to a necessary but disorderly defense in which Zuinglius was slain The Switzers had cantoned themselves in the year 1315. which was 200 years before the Reformation Were I as unsincere as my Adversary I should charge the Roman Religion which then reigned with that change of State From Zuinglius the Adversary passeth to Calvin as the head of the French Reformation wherein he sheweth his great ignorance for the Reformed Religion was spread in France twenty years before Calvin was settled in Geneva and well nigh assoon as in Germany The beginning of which must not be ascribed to one Hugo whom our Adversary knowsnot nor any body else But the truth is that it was in France long before it was in Germany ever since the errours and tyranny of the Court of Rome began to be opposed by the Valdenses whose relicks after long persecutions by fire and sword remained in the Vale of Cabrieres and Marindol in Provence It was from thence that Reformation was propagated incouraged by the happy progresses of Luther and Zuinglius Wherefore the Popes creatures perceiving whence that blow came upon the Roman Court never left solliciting Francis the I. of France till they got an Edict for the extirpating of them which was executed with the utmost rigour And it was not for Religion that they were thus butchered but meerly to make a sacrifice to the pride and cruelty of Rome For as for their doctrine that excellent King Lewis the XII liked it so well that to some that represented it to him and would incense him against them He answered that they were better Christians then he and his Kingdome This was then the true Origine of the Reformation of France the doctrine of the Valdenses preserved in the relicks of their descent a doctrine perfectioned since into a more Orthodox Confession conformable to the Confessions of other Protestant Churches So Calvin had no hand in that Reformation and no more had he with that of Geneva or in turning that State into an Aristocracy as this Adversary upbraids him My business being to vindicate Reformation from the charge of rebellion I must take from the Reformers of Geneva that aspersion that they expelled their Bishop and that they altered the constitution of that State and both these ascribed unto Calvin It is a tradition received in England for a currant and undoubted truth And upon that ground many fine and judicious inferences are built But it is like the stories of the Phenix and the singing of Swans before their death never the truer for the curious similies and ingenious moralities that have Epistola Benedicti Turretini ad Scultetum in Annal. reformationis An. 1529. been spun out of that stuffe What credit can we give to Histories of things happened in the Indies two thousand years ago if in things done to lately and so near us gross mistakes go for uncontrollable truths I say it is utterly false thar Calvin was one of the planters of Reformed Religion at Geneva False also that he or the Reformers of Geneva turned their Bishop out of doors And false also that the Bishop went away upon the quarrel of Religion Farel Froment and Viret were they that wrought under God the conversion of the City by their Sermons and by a publick conference with the Friars and Clergy of Geneva there being then no Bishop in that Town who was fled eight moneths before seeing his conspiracy discovered to oppresse the liberties of the City by the help of the Duke of Savoy for which his Secretary was hanged after he was gone the said Bishop being hated before for the rape of a Virgin and many adulteries with Citizens Wives And it is most to be noted that they who after his flight See the book entituled A view of the Government c. by Iohn Durel reformed the Civil Government were strong Papists and mainly opposed the Reformation of Religion To which something like was seen in England not far from that time For the same English Bishops that most earnestly served Henry the VIII to make him acknowledged the Supreme Head of the Church of England Tonstal Gardiner Bonner c. were afterwards the greatest opposers of the Work of Reformation and the fiercest persecutors of the Protestants That the Church Discipline of Geneva was constituted without a bishop is a matter of another nature Their Successors that continue it so to this day are of age let them speak for themselves It is enough for my present purpose that I have vindicated the Introduction of Reformation into that State from the crime of rebellion As long as their Bishop lived they could not have another and durst not receive him being manifestly convicted of selling the Cities liberty to the Duke of Savoy And when the Bishop died they had used themselves to live without a Bishop The first proof of our Adversary to indite the French Reformation of
former subjection From Holland the Adversary saileth into Scotland and objects to us the Maxims of Knox and Buchanan and the disorders of that time Of which I have said enough in the Chapter before Of the Work of Reformation in England and the publick actions of that age upon that interest he speaks very scornfully saying that the Sect of Wicleff lay pag. 71. strangled in the cradle till King Edward the VI. his dayes when some ends of it were taken up again and set out with more ostentation then ever in that Princes minority and what rare effects of obedience were by that means produced in Queen Maries time who brought them up again to the test may be easily read in our Chronicles Wherein it is plain that in the poor five years of her Reign there was de facto more open and violent opposition and rebellion made by her own subjects then Queen Elizabeth had in forty five years or any Prince before or since the Wicleffian doctrine till the same smothered fire broke out at last in good King Charles his time to his utter ruin and the shaking of the very foundation of his Monarchy Is this spoken like a most observant Son and in every honest mans esteem a pious reverend and learned Priest of the Church of England as this Author is tearmed in the Publishers Epistle to the Reader Certainly a Son and a Priest of the Church of England would never have derived from Wickleff but from the Holy Scripture the Religion of the Church his Mother nor ascribed to her Religion the cause of the late horrid rebellion We see what a Son and Priest of the Church he is the tree is known by his fruit What better figs can be gathered from such a thorn What better grapes from such a bramble And what is that doctrine of Wickliffe which he imputes to the Protestants to the English especially Impios nullum dominium habere That the ungodly pag. 70. can have no right of dominion Was that the doctrine set out with ostentation in Edward the VI. his dayes Or was any of the Protestants found tainted with that doctrine when Queen Mary burnt them which this man calls bringing them to the test Sure it was not upon that ground that some oppositions were made against that Queen It is a wonder that she met with no more considering how her Father had declared by Act of Parliament her Mothers Marriage unlawful and her self incapable of the Crown and had miserably incumbred the Title and Succession of his Children That there was more open and violent opposition against her in her five years reigne from her own Subjects then Queen Elizabeth had in forty five years it is because they that went to question her Title went to work plainly above boord but no secret Jesuitical conspiracies to stabbe or poyson her as against Queen Elizabeth The means she made to reduce her dissenting subjects in Religion when they made no opposition against her was to make bon-fires of them Three hundred of those burnt-offerings she sacrificed unto God A farre greater number in her poor five years then that of the Popish Martyrs of disobedience since the death of that Queen now above a hundred years For no Papist was executed for his Religion all for disobeying the Laws of the Land and many of them for High Treason It is known that Queen Mary got the Crowne by the assistance of the Protestants of Suffolk and what recompence she gave them for it And whereas no fewer then eight rebellions did rise in Henry the VIII his dayes I find not that the Protestants had a hand in any of them All were raised by Papists and upon the score of Popery The principal colour of our Adversaries malice is his detestation of the late rebellion of England and the execrable Murther committed in the sacred Person of our gracious Sovereigne Upon this he makes several Panegyricks which are very ill sorted with his Apology for Mariana and justifying of the Iesuites doctrine Especially seeing that those actions were copied out upon their principles Felicia tempora quae te Moribus admorunt Belike the curious pens of the wise States-men and learned Scholars of England had need to be supplied by the boyish theames of a petty Novice of Doway to learn the duty of Subjects and to abhorre the guiltinesse of rebellion The venome that lieth under that oratory of invectives is that all the mischief is imputed to the Protestants of Integrity a term which he useth like a stirrup-leather longer or shorter according to his occasions yet alwayes treacherously to cast the faults of some particular person or some heretical Sect upon the generality of the Protestants But let him know that the King the Church and the State are Protestants of Integrity and that the parricides and troublers of our Israel will never give him thanks for calling them Protestants Also that we acknowledge them not for such unlesse it be upon a new score because they protest against the Kings power and the duty of their obedience When Jesuits or their Scholars as this Gentleman is charge our Fanaticks with High Treason they do but act that which they had prepared to do if the Powder-Plot had taken For they had a Declaration ready to indite the Protestants of that Treason For these men would story the just clamor against them for their doctrine of rebellion and parricide by laying the same charge with loud words upon others We have great reason to call upon the Justice of God and Men to condemne the unsincerity of this clamour With what face or conscience can the Jesuits passe a hard Sentence upon the late Rebels and King-killers seeing that these furious Zealots have neither taught nor done any thing in that horrible defection but what they had learned of the Jesuits For what do they blame them for Is it for teaching that the Sovereigne Power lieth in the Commons and that they may alter the Government of a State Did they not learn Bellarm. de Laicis lib. 3. cap. 6. Potestas immediate est tanquam in subjecto in tota multitudine si causa legitima adsit potest multitudo mutare regnum in Aristocratiam aut Democratiam è contrarie that of Bellarmine The Power saith he is in the whole multitude as in its subject and if there be a lawful cause for it the multitude may alter the Royal State into an Aristocracy or Democracy and so on the contrary Is it for saying that the people makes the King and may unmake him and retains still the habit of power Did they not learn of the same Bellarmine that In the Kingdomes of Bellarm. de Concil lib. 2. cap. 19. In regnis hominum potestas Regis est à populo quia populus facit Regem Ibid. cap. 19. sect ad alteram In Rebusp temporalibus si Rex degeneret in tyrannum licet caput sit Regni tamen à populo potest
Pope and have learned no further of your maximes then will serve them to kill the King and keep rhe crown for themselves And by their gross dealing with their King beheading him upon a Scaffold whereby they have spun a halter for their own necks they have shewed themselves not skilled in the mysteries of King-killing set forth by your Mariana who to put a King to death with less danger to the Actours Mariana lib. 1. cap. 7. Hoc temperamento uti in hac quidem disputatione licebit si non ipse qui perimitur venenum haurire cogitur quo intimis medullis concepto pereat sed exterius ab alio adhibeatur nihil adjuvante co qui perin endus est Nimirum cum tanta vis est veneni in sella eo autveste delibuta ut vim interficiendi habeat Qua artè à Mauris Regibus invenio saepe alios Principes mislis donis veste pretiosa linteis armis ephippiis suisse oppressos then to stab him will have him taken away by poison Yet so mercifull he is to such a King that least he should be accessary to his own death by taking the poison himself in his meat or drink he will have a strong and subtile poison put in a garment or saddle which may spread its mortiferous quality into his body And for that he propounds the example of Moore Kings who have killed their enemies with poisoned presents These Jesuitical curiosities about a murther are too fine for our Northern Fanaticks but for going so far with you as they have done you have reason to cherish them When the businesses of the late bad times are once ripe for an history and time the bringer of truth hath discovered the mysteries of iniquity and the depths of Satan which have wrought so much crime and mischief it will be found that the late rebellion was raised and fostered by the arts of the Court of Rome That Jesuites professed themselves Independent as not depending on the Church of England and Fifth-Monarchy-men that they might pull down the English Monarchy and that in the Committees for the destruction of the King and the Church they had their spies and their agents The Roman Priest and Confessour is known who when he saw the fatal stroke given to our Holy King and Martyr flourished with his sword and said Now the greatest enemy that we had in the world is gone When the newes of that horrible execution came to Roan a Protestant Gentleman of good credit was present in a great company of Jesuited persons where after great expressions of joy the gravest of the company to whom all gave ear spake much after this sort The King of England at his Marriage had promis'd Which is most false us the re-establishing of the Catholick Religion in England and when he delayed to fulfill his promise we summoned him from time to time to performe it We came so far as to tell him that if he would not do it we should be forced to take those courses which would bring him to his destruction We have given him lawful warning and when no warning would serve we have kept our word to him since he would not keep his word to us That grave Rabbies sentence agreeth with this certain intelligence which shall be justified whensoever Authority will require it That the year before the Kings death a select number of English Jesuits were sent from their whole party in England first to Paris to consult with the Faculty of Sorbon then altogether Jesuited to whom they put this question in writing That seeing the State of England was in a likely posture to change Government whether it was lawful for the Catholicks to work that change for the advancing and securing of the Catholick Cause in England by making away the King whom there was no hope to turn from his heresie Which was answered affirmatively After which the same persons went to Rome where the same question being propounded and debated it was concluded by the Pope and his Council that it was both lawful and expedient for the Catholicks to promote that alteration of State What followed that Consultation and Sentence all the World knoweth and how the Jesuites went to work God knoweth and Time the bringer forth of truth will let us know But when the horrible parricide committed in the Kings Sacred Person was so universally cried down as the greatest villany that had been committed in many ages the Pope commanded all the papers about that question to be gathered and burnt In obedience to which order a Roman Catholick in Paris was demanded a Copy which he had of those papers but the Gentleman who had had time to consider and detest the wickednesse of that project refused to give it and shewed it to a Protestant friend of his and related to him the whole carriage of this negotiation with great abhorrency of the practices of the Jesuites In pursuance of that Order from Rome for the pulling down both the Monarch and the Monarchy of England many Jesuites came over who took several shapes to go about their worke but most of them took party in the Army About thirty of them were met by a Protestant Gentleman between Roan and Diepe to whom they said taking him for one of their party that they were going into England and would take Armes in the Independant Army and endeavour to be Agitators A Protestant Lady living in Paris in the time of our late calamities was perswaded by a Jesuit going in scarlet to turn Roman Catholick When the dismal newes of the Kings Murther came to Paris this Lady as all other good English Subjects was most deeply afflicted with it And when this Scarlet Divine came to see her and found her melting in tears about that heavy and common disaster he told her with a smiling countenance that she had no reason to lament but rather to rejoyce seeing that the Catholicks were rid of their greatest enemy and that the Catholick Cause was much furthered by his death Upon which the Lady in great anger put the man down the stairs saying If that be your Religion I have done with you for ever And God hath given her the grace to make her word good hitherto Many intelligent Travellers can tell of the great joy among the English Convents and Seminaries about the Kings death as having overcome their enemy and done their main work for their settlement in England of which they made themselves so sure that the Benedictins were in great care that the Jesuites should not get their land and the English Nunnes were contending who should be Abbesses in England An understanding Gentleman visiting the English Friars of Dunkirke put them upon the discourse of the Kings death and to pump out their sense about it said that the Jesuites had laboured very much to compasse that great work To which they answered that the Jesuites would engrosse to themselves the glory of all great and good works
York Squire Hesket Lopez Babington with his associates and how many more All were assisted and prompted by Jesuites as the judicial examinations will justifie And now we speak of Babington and his associates I find two brothers Bellamy's both apprehended for hiding them after they were openly proclaimed traitors in their house neer Harrowhill where they were kept ten dayes and clothed in rustical habits There they were all taken and thence carried to prison where one of the Bellamies strangled himself the other was executed with the conspirators his name Hierome Bellamy From which of the two brothers our Adversary Thomas Bellamy is descended and whether from either or neither himself best knows But it seems by his behaviour that the crime of hiding and disguising traitors runs in the blood For what is his covering of the parricidial doctrine of Jesuites with falfe constructions but hiding and disguising traitors whose doctrine is declared treasonable by sundry Acts of Parliament Let him take warning by the crime and the ill successe of these men of his name and apply to himself that Sentence of Tully which he misapplyeth to the Protestants of Integrity Mirror te Antoni quorum facta imitere corum exitus non pertimescere Since you imitate the actions of men of your name Sir Bellamy I wonder you are not frighted with thinking of their ends The Devil and the Jesuites having been so often disappointed of their attempts against England in the end contrived the foulest plot that ingenious cruelty did in any age imagine the Gunpowder-Treason which shall be to the Worlds end the wonder of succeeding ages and the shame of ours This was the godly product of the English Seminaries abroad and the Roman education It is easie to judge that the plotters of it had been bred long in another Climate then the middle aire of England for it looks like one of the feats of Caesar Borgia Non nostri generis monstrum nec sanguinis Of that attempt to cut off King and Kingdome with one blow none could be capable but such as had many years breathed the same aire where he reigned who wished that the Romans had but one neck that he might cut it off with one stroke But a Jesuite is capable of devising and the Romish zeal of executing any mischief though never so prodigious to promote the Papal interest And they have law for it even the Roman Decree the Oracle of the Pope himself We do not account them for Causa 23. qu. 5. Can. Excommunicatorum Non enim eos homicidas arbitramur quos adversus excommunicatos zelo Catholicae Matris Ecclesiae ardentes aliquos eorum trucidasse configerit murtherers saith his Holinesse who burning with the zeal of our Catholick Mother the Church against exmunicate persons shall happen to kill some of them Now England was lying under many excommnnications when the Gunpowder-Treason was plotted and lyeth under them still for they never were repealed Truly so far we must excuse Campian Garnet Hall Hamond and other Jesuites who have plotted or incouraged rebellions and treasons in England They have done no more then they were commanded or allowed by the Pope And here I must be a suitor to all the conscionable Roman Catholieks who abhorre these wicked wayes to acknowledge ingenuously that the Actors were grounded upon the fundamental Laws of the Court of Rome And that the Pope the Head of their Faith is he that commands by his Canons and Bulls the slaughter of those that displease him the breach of faith the deposing of Kings and the rebellion of the people as I have sufficiently demonstrated before If after that they adhere to the other points of the Roman Religion upon this main ground of the Roman Faith That the Pope cannot erre they blinde themselves wilfully and building their faith upon an unsafe ground they may come short of the end of their faith the salvation of their souls This power of deposing Kings and exposing them to the attempts of their enemies so peremptorily assumed by the Pope and so boldly executed by his zealous agents ought to be grounded upon some proof out of holy Writ In all the passages which I have alledged out of Jesuites books I finde but two of those proofs The one of Bellarmine who proveth Bellarm. lib. cui Titulus Tortus p. 19. Rex Anglorum subjectus est Papae jus omnibus Christiadis communi ratione Apostolicae potestatis juxta illud Ps 4. 4. Constitues eos Principes super omnem terram that the King of England is subject unto the Pope by a right common to all Christians by reason of the Apostolick power according to this Text Psal 44. Thou shalt make them Princes over all the earth In that Psalm which with us is the 45. this promise is made to the Kings Spouse which is the Church the Spouse of Christ our King Instead of thy Fathers house shall be thy children whom thou mayest make Princes over all the earth Answerably to that we learn Rev. 1. 6. That God hath made us Kings and Priests unto God our Father That blessing then to be understood and fulfilled in Gods good time belongs to all the true children of the Church The ingrossing of it to the Pope alone to the exclusion of all Christians is a bold and indeed a ridiculous inclosing of Commons without any warrant Suarez brings a proof of the like validity After that horrid assertion alledged before that after that a Prince is excommunicated he may be dispossess'd or slain by any persons whatsoever He prevents the objection out of Rom. 13. 1. Let every soul Suarez adversus sect Anglic lib. 6. c. 6. sect 24. 〈◊〉 Paulus his verbis Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdi a sit Rom. 13 nunquam addidit etiam potestatibus excommunicatis vel deprvatis a Papa omnes subditisint be subject to the higher Powers and saith that the Apostle never added Let all be subject also to the Powers excommunicated and deprived by the Pope A recreative proof which would make but a poor enthymema The Apostle addeth not that we must be subject also to the higher Powers deprived by the Turk Ergo if the Great Turk pronounce a sentence of deprivation against a Christian Prince the Subjects of that Prince are free from their allegiance and may dispossess and kill him when they think good But what These proofs are as concluding as those that the Popes themselves bring to prove their power Nicholaus 1. Epist ad Michael Imp. Constant Petro specialiter ostensum est ut ea mactaret manducaret Illi soli jussum est ur rete plenum piscibus ad littus traheret as when Pope Nicholas the I. proveth the Papal power because it was said to Saint Peter Kill and eat and because to him alone was granted that power to draw a Net full of Fishes to Land Likewise Bonifacius the VIII proveth his primacy Bonifac. VIII