meaning Nomen non facit Episcopum sed vita c. It is not the Name but the Life that makes a Bishop If a Man have the Name of a Prelate and does not answer the reason thereof in sincerity of Doctrine and integrity of Life but live scandalously in open Sin he is but a Nomine-tenus Sacerdos A Bishop or Priest in Name not in Truth Yet still Wickliff did not deny but that such an ones Ministerial Acts were valid for so in the same Treatise p. 138. he saith Unless the Christian Priest be united unto Christ by Grace Christ cannot be his Saviour Nec sine falsitate dicit verba Sacramentalia Nor can he pronounce the Sacramental words without Lying Licet prosint Capacibus The notwithstanding they are available so far that the worthy Receiver is thereby nothing hinder'd from partaking of the Grace signified Obj. 3. They pretend that Wickliff maintain'd That it was not lawful for any Ecclesiastical persons to have any Temporal Possessions or property in any thing Answ This is falsly imputed to him he only tax'd the Abuses of the Revenues given to so many Abbies Priories and Monasteries tending only to Superstition and the keeping so many Drones in idleness And therefore he was of opinion That our Kings might dispossess them thereof and give them Genti facienti Justitiam to good and godly Uses The Poverty he exhorted to was no other than that which St. Paul recommends viz. Having Food and Rayment therewith to be content He did not debar Ministers from actual having but from Covetous affecting the things of this World which are to be Renounc'd saith he Per Cogitationem Affectum in the Mind and the Affections Obj. 4. They charge him with asserting That God ought to obey the Devil Answ This is so senseless and improbable a Slander that no Man in his Wits can believe it And on the quite contrary Wickliff in his Commentary on Psal 112. Expresly affirms That the Devil can do nothing without God's permission Obj. 5. Well but if they cannot fix Blasphemy upon him they will charge him with Treason This is a frequent Stratagem of the Devils and his Instruments If thou suffer this Man thou art not Cesar ' s Friend said the Jews of old not that they cared for Cesar but only to gratifie their own Revenge Thus the Papists charge Wickliff as a Teacher of Sedition and an opposer of Magistrates and that if a Civil Magistrate be in a mortal Sin he is no longer to be obey'd Answ There is much craft and malice but very little truth and no reason for this Slander Wickliff indeed in several of his Works admonisheth the King and all other inferiour Officers and Magistrates that he beareth not the Sword in vain nor hath his Office for nought but to discharge well and truly the part and Office of a King by seeing wholsom Laws duly executed and Justice impartially administer'd And tells him That if he be defective in such his Duty by suffering the Sword of Justice to rust in its Scabard and his People to perish for want of good Governance then he is not properly and truly a King that is in effect and operation for so the words must necessarily be understood being spoken by way of Exhortation But otherwise so far was Wickliff from mutinying himself or persuading others to any act that was Rebellious that never any Man in those times did so stoutly assert the King's Supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil against all usurped foreign Jurisdiction for which amongst many others he gives this reason That otherwise our Soveraign should not be King over all England but Regulus parvae partis a petty Governour of some small parts of the Realm Nor does any thing tending to countenance Rebellion appear in any of his Works that are extant But the Friars and proud Clergy having an inveterate spleen against Wickliff and there happening to fall out about the same time a grievous Insurrection of the Commons under Wat Tyler occasioned chiefly upon a civil score about Taxes Commons and Servitude but much augmented by one John Ball a Priest and one of Baal's Priests too for ought I know for he does not at all appear to be any of Wickliff's Followers therefore in spight to Wickliff they cast the odium of that Frantic Tumult upon him and his Doctrine But indeed as Wickliff was a person of extraordinary Learning and Piety so that in substance he held and taught the very same Doctrines as are at this day maintained by the Church of England is demonstrated by the Learned Dr. James Oxford Library-keeper in his Book Intituled An Apology for John Wickliff shewing his Conformity with the now Church of England c. Printed Anno 1608. However to the end the vulgar Reader may better judge of this reverend man and his Works I shall here produce some few passages out of two of his Books Printed by the said James from the Original Manuscripts remaining one in Bennet Colledge Cambridge the other in the Publick Library at Oxford The English being excusable considering 't was wrote above 300 years agoe in his complaint to King Richard the Second and his Parliament Article 2. He hath these words Nothing ought to be damned as errour and false but if it favour errour or unrightewiseness against Gods Law And Article 4. He prays That Christ's teaching O beleave of the Sacrament of his own Body that is plainly tawght by Christ and his Apostles in Gospels and Pistles mayen be tawght openlie in Churches of Christen People and the contrary teaching and false beleave is brought up by cursed Hypocrits and worldlie Priests unkunning in Gods Law which say they are Apostles of Christ but are Fools And he concludes that Article with these words As Christ saved the wordle by writing and teaching of foure Evangelists so the Fiend casteth to Damme the wordle and Priests for letting to Preach the Gospel by these four by fayned Contemplation by Songs by Salisbury use and by worldly business of Priests And in his Treatise against the Orders of Friars Ca. 4. runs thus Friars sayen that if a man be once professed to their Religion he may never leave it and be saved though he be never so unable thereto for al time of his life and they wil nede him to live in such a state ever more to which God makes him ever unable and so nede him to be damned Alas out on such heresie that Mans Ordinance is holden stronger than is the Ordinance of God For if a man enter into the newe Religion against mans ordinance he maie lawfully forsake it but if he enter against Gods Ordinance when God makes him unable thereto he shall not be suffered by Antichrist's power to leave it And if this reason were wel declared sith no man wote which man is able to this new Religion by Gods dome and which is not able no man should be constrained to
which in hast was left or forgotten running with it to carry it to the rest in the Bonefire brake his Leg. Here was Lex Talionis Bone for Bone And to this day for a perpetual Monument in the very place where they burnt his Bones tho the Townsmen for their own profit have often essayed to bring the Water that way it never holds but still makes a Bank Thus far the Doctor I shall conclude this Weeks Task with a Copy of John Wickliff's Answer or Resolution to King Richard touching the Right and Title of the King and Pope which was as follows It being demanded whether the Kingdom of England may lawfully in case of necessity for its own defence detain and keep back the Treasure of the Kingdom that it be not carried away to foreign and strange Nations the Pope himself demanding and requiring the same under pain of Censure and by vertue of Obedience To which Wickliff return'd this Answer Setting apart the Minds of Learned Men what might be said in the matter either by the Canon Law or by the Law of England or the Civil Law It resteth saith he not only to persuade and prove the Affirmative part of this Doubt but the Principles of Christ's Law And first I prove it thus Every natural Body hath Power given it of God to resist against his Contrary and to preserve it self in due Estate as Philosophers know very well in so much that Bodies without Life are endu'd with such a kind of Power as it is evident unto whom hardness is given to resist those things that would break it and Coldness to withstand the Heat that dissolveth it For so much then as the Kingdom of England after the manner and phrase of the Scriptures ought to be one Body and the Clergy with the Commonalty the Members thereof it seemeth that the same Kingdom hath such Power given it of God and so much the more apparent but how much the same Body is more precious unto God adorned with Vertue and Knowledge For so much then as there is no Power given of God unto any Creature for any end or purpose but that he may lawfully use the same to that end and purpose it followeth that our Kingdom may lawfully keep back and detain their Treasure for the defence of it self in what case soever necessity do require the same Secondarily the same is proved by the Law of the Gospel for the Pope cannot challenge the Treasure of this Kingdom but under the Title of Alms and consequently under the pretence of the Works of Mercy according to the Rule of Charity But in the Case aforesaid the Titel of Alms ought utterly to cease Ergo the Right and Title of challenging the Treasure of our Realm shall cease also in the presupposed necessity For so much as all Charity hath his beginning of himself it were no work of Charity but of meer madness to send away the Treasures of the Realm unto Foreign Nations whereby the Realm it self may fall into Ruine under the pretence of such Charity It appeareth also by this that Christ the Head of the Church whom all Christian Priests ought to follow lived by the Alms of Devout Women Luke 7. 8. He hungred and thirsted he was a Stranger and many other Miseries he sustained not only in his Members but also in his own Body as the Apostle witnesseth 1 Cor. 8. He was made poor for your sakes that through his Poverty you might be made rich whereby in the first endowing of the Church whatsoever he were of the Clergy that had any Temporal Possessions he had the same by form of a perpetual Alms as both Writings and Chronicles do witness Whereupon St. Bernard in his second Book to Eugenius that he could not challenge any Secular Dominion by Right of Succession as being the Vicar of St. Peter writeth thus That if St. John should speak unto the Pope himself as Bernard doth unto Eugenius were it to be thought that he would take it patiently But let it be so that you do challenge it unto you by some other way or means but truly by any Right or Title Apostolical you cannot so do For how could he give unto you that which he had not himself That which he had he gave you that is to say Care over the Church but did he give you any Lordship or Rule Haâ—k what he saith Not bearing Rule saith he as the Lords in the Clergy but behaving your selves as Examples to the Flock And because thou shalt not think it to be spoken only in Humility and not in Verity mark the Word of the Lord himself in the Gospel The Kings of the Gentiles rule over them but thou shalt not do so Here Lordship and Dominion is plainly forbidden to the Apostles and darest thou then usurp the same If thou wilt be a Lord thou shalt lose thine Apostleship or if thou wilt be an Apostle thou shalt lose thy Lordship for truly thou shalt depart from the one of them If thou wilt have both thou shalt lose both or else think thy self to be of that number of whom God doth so greatly complain saying They have Reign'd but not through me they are become Princes and I have not known it Now if it do suffice to Rule with the Lord thou hast thy Glory but not with God but if we will keep that which is forbidden let us hear what is said He that is the Greatest among you saith Christ shall be made as the least and he which is Highest shall be as the Minister and for Example set a Child in the midst of them so this then is the true form and institution of the Apostle's Trade Lordship and Rule is forbidden Ministration and Services commanded Thus far St. Bernard as cited by Wickliff upon this occasion THE COURANT. Tory. NAY now all 's out I thought this 't would come to at last for D me if I did not always suspect as much I ever lookt upon Catholics as fine civil Gentlemen and for their Church I have a great Veneration because she is a true Church and a Mother Church and their Worship is very glorious and decent What an absurd thing 't is to imagine that ever such Holy Loyal Men as their Priests are should be guilty of Treason Yet I did but say a Twelve-month ago there was no Popish Plot and a Whiggish Son of a Whore gave me a slap i' th' Face and threaten'd me with Newgate for presuming to give the King and Three Parliaments the Lye But it should seem Tempora mutantur I hope e're long a Man may say and swear too That there never was any such Plot at all with Impunity and without Controul Truem. Prethee what makes you so merry about the Gills this Morning Hast thou been at Breakfast with the Painter at Aldersgate on his Whig-Pye whose Crust was made of Gammer Celier's Meal and baked in the red hot Oven of Dr. Tantivy's Skull Tory. No no but on a better
cases of Clergy-cheats were the Gloss yet Interest was the Text for Polydere Virgil one of the Pope's own Publicans or Peter-pence Collectors is not shy to insinuate l. 8. c. 2. tho he refers them to a more ancient Original That the first Rise of them was for the maintenance of the Pope's Grandeur and that this Income was one of the fairest Flowers in the Triple Crown But when once the payment of them had continued some competent time it was politickly done upon any questioning of the Right to refer them to a Divine Original which was sure to satisfie such as used in those times to take the Pope's bare word for far greater matters Yet the payment of these with others so much impoverisht the Kingdom of England for we are willing to sum up all here that we have to say occasionally on this matter that notwithstanding such Allegation of Divine Right the ancient Kings of England made no scruple sometimes to forbid the payment of them as King Edward the Third once discharg'd the Pope's Nuncio from Collecting the first Fruits c. and many Prohibitions were granted against the Pope's Collectors on Complaints made by the aggriev'd Commons in Parliament as appears in my Lord Coke's Jurisdiction of Courts c. 14. and several Statutes where it is termed once an horrible Mischief and damnable Custom and another time 't is call'd a very Novelty see the Acts 2. H. 4. c. 1. and 1. R. 2. But so subtle was the Court of Rome that when sometimes the Kingdom complain'd of these Burthens and withall the Kings in Exigencies press'd for aids from their Subjects they would in a frolic of Bounty yield or assign the First-Fruits c. for a certain time a year or more to the King whereby they both inur'd the People to the payment and the Prince to the continuance of it But in the 26 th of Henry the Eighth they were given to the King and his Heirs and Successors for ever and in the 32 d of his Raign a particular Court was erected for recovering them which being dissolv'd in the first of Queen Mary the thing was reviv'd again by 1. Eliz. c. 4. but the Court not restored only the First-Fruits were order'd to be within the Rule and Adjustment of the Exchequer and a new Officer viz. A Remembrancer erected of the First-Fruits and Tenths of the Clergy who both taketh all Compositions for them and maketh out Process against such as make default in payment So that every Spiritual person must pay or secure by Bond his First-Fruits before his actual possession of his Benefices which Bond is of like force with a Statute-Staple The mode of Composition now is for the Parson with Sureties to enter into four Bonds each condition'd for payment of the fourth part of the First Fruits according to the rate of his Living as it was Taxed anno 26. H. 8. for that 's the Standard which is call'd being so much in the King's Books but yet with a deduction of Tenths the first Bond payable at half a years end the second at a Twelve months end the third at a year and half 's end and the last at the expiration of two years This we thought fit to add out of the Respect we have to the young Clergy that are hankering after Benefices to whom this Discourse at least whatever our other Writings through sinister Informations may be will probably prove not unacceptable The COURANT. Trueman Solus NOw shan't I see my old Correspondent Tory for he was drunk last night at the Queens Head with toping Confusions to the City Charter But no matter here 's Ben. Tooks Goblin Heraclitus will do as well He dashes through thick and thin and flings durt on as good Scarlet as any i' th City Alas poor fool Their Reputations Crystal none of the filth will stick but Reverts to your own face and will one day infallibly sink the pittifull and already Crazy Shipp 't is squirted from However by this the World may take notice what respect the Tories pay to Authority if their Magistrates don't humour them presently they 'l affront them to their faces Hiss Revile slander and Libel them Having been thus sawcy to his Superiors 't is no news if he snarl at the Courantier who he says is much unacquainted with Guinnies poor heart I 'm sorry for 't but the truth is he has no Faction nor party to Bribe or Encourage him nothing but God and the King Truth and a good Conscience to protect and support him and so long he sings as to the Guinnies Nec habeo nec Careo Nec Curo let Pimps and flatterers and L'Estranges boast their hundreds of Guinnies sent 'um from the Divel knows who He has enough in being Honest Yet sure the Milk and Butter and Cheese was the conceit of some Hunger-starv'd Curate of the Club that lives on small Tyths and is fain to make shift with such Commons when every Monday morning he Trudges from near Dartford to London Popish Nat still drudges on but of late more bare fac'd what abundance of little Tricks have his managers been trying to raise some pretence of slâ—r in Dr. Oatses Evidence but I know not whether with more malice or folly Is not yesterdays Sham a rare one Mr. Oats swore He was Informed Parson Elliot was Circumcised yet upon a Commssion of Inspection a nice business I le promise ye It appears Nat says that the man's twigg of Life has all its apurtenances well but does it follow that the Doctor might not be Informed otherwise Away you ridiculous Scoundrels I' th' next place Godfry's Murder O that 's a bone in some peoples throats must be represented uncertain prethee dear Nat tell us if thou darest in thy next the inquisitive Gentleman of Sarum's true name I 'le warrant he 's as good a Protestant as thy self And now Enter Observator who fiddles to the old Tune For in earnest the fellow has not Compos'd above one sheet bating his Translations these 20 years tho he has blurr'd ten thousand Ream of Paper He 's much troubled that Mrs. Joan should be questioned and to bring in the Chat tells two or three notorious Lies in a breath viz. That Care was Cited as he call it to Guild-Hall that Janeway desired Joan might be sent for c. which is all utterly false But above all where is Rogers Wit or Modesty to Revive a sluttish story little to the Credit of the Parties Concern'd But since you now twice together have Rak'd it up I tell thee Roger once for all that the debauch in the Church you mention was favourably told in Janeway's Mercury and there are better men than you or I that are or may be satisfied of the Truth on 't Nor was it first Publisht for any such base end as you maliciously suggest but only to the Intent that the Actors might be brought to just Punishment For not a few good Churchmen think those Swine deserv'd to
Fact and so being taken 4 or 5 years after was upon that outlawry without any further Tryal or Judgment Hang'd and Burnt This is the Tale The Credit of which depends partly upon the Testimonies of Historians and partly upon that of the Records of the Commission and Indictment We shall consider each of these whereby the Reader will more clearly perceive how Improbable it is in all its parts and how ill laid together in the whole 1. As to the Historians Thomas of Walsingham is the first whom all latter Authors follow as a Flock doth the Bell-weather and when we have told you that he was a Benedictine Monk of St. Albans you may easily make Judgment of his Sincerity and what truth there is in those who take matters from him upon trust Amongst the rest I observe the Jesuite Parsons makes great use of John Stow's Testimony and indeed take notice of any Popish Author speaking of modern English History you shall find commonly Stow's Chronicle strutting his Margin this made me wonder why they should make choice of him who was but a mean Mechanic being by Trade a Tayler and ignorant of the Latin Tongue rather than so many other Learned Authors till I suppose at last I hit upon the reason in a Treatise of Dr. Matth. Sutclife afterwards Dean of Exeter Intituled A Threefold Answer c. to Parsons 3 Conversions Printed Anno. Dom. 1606. where p. 3. That Reverend Author who no doubt being Contemporary with Stow had good grounds for his Assertions saith John Stow is a simple Story-writer and a worse Protestant For 't is well known that certain crafty Companions and enemies of Relion were too much Conversant with him to write truely in these matters And p. 24. Stow hath the most part of his Lies concerning the Lord Cobham alis Sir John Old castle out of Walsingham which understanding he understood 〈◊〉 being Latin and he a meer English Tailer Now it was no difficult thing if he Imployed persons Popishly Affected to Translate for him for them to Impose upon his Ignorance what would make for their Cause and then twit us with the noise and pretended Testimony of a Protestant Author Secondly that which might lead some Historians into an Error was that in the second year of this King Henry the 5. an Act was made part of this we recited in our last That all Convicted of Hâ—resy should forfeit all their Lands and Goods wherefore since they were to lose both Life and Estate the noise went that Haeresy was then made Treason tho indeed it was not so I will give an Instance or two of such misled Authors Thomas Walden in the Prologue of his first Tome to Pope Martin has these words speaking of this very business Nec Mora Longa processint qui Statutum c. Nor was it long but it was publickly Enacted by a Statute that all the Wicklevists as they were Traitors to God so should also be accounted Traitors to the King So Roger Wall of the Acts of King Henry 5. Statuit et decrevit ut quot quot Illius Seâ—tu quae diciâ—â—r Lollardâ—rum invenirentaer aemuli et fautores eo facto Rei Proditorij Criminis in Majestâ—tem Regiam haberenter He establisht and Decreed saith he That all that should be found Embracers or favourers of the sect which is called Lollards should for that only Fact be Adjudged Guilty of the Crime of Treason against the Kings Majesty And Polidore Virgil in the 22 Book of his History harps upon the same string declaring that all the Followers of Wickliffes Doctrine were deemed Hostes Patriae Enemies of their Country which is all one as to say Traitors And yet all this while the Statute does not make them Traitors nor speak any thing of putting them to Death for in case of being Convict of Haeresy and refusing to Abjure they were already to be burnt by the Statute of 2 H 4. Ca. 15. But it being so vulgarly taken as appears by these Examples 'T is no wonder that knowing Sir John Old-castle to be convicted for what they call'd Haeresy and that he was Executed they delivered to posterity that he was Executed for Treason as Imagining Haeresy to be Treason by the Law In the next place as to the Records I willingly acknowledge there is no kind of humane Testimony that ought to challeng a greater Reverence Probant et non Probantur yet even Records themselves are liable to be falsisied and whether sometime of that kind is not to be suspected here may still be a question there being not a few Symptomes of Fraud and ill practice As 1. The Commission issued to Indict and Try them bears Date the 10 th of Jannuary 1414. which was on Wednesday next after the Epiphany or Twelfth day And by the Record of the Indictment it not only appears that they were the very same day Indicted and the Bill found which is very much that a Court should sit the very same day the Commission Authorising them bears date for what time was there then for summoning a Jury c. But also in the same Indictment it is averr'd that the very same 10 th of January too was the day on which the aforesaid Conspirators to the number of Twenty Thousand were so in Warlike manner assembled in St. Gilses-fields See both the Records in Foxe fol. 529. Which being so one would expect rather to hear of Commissions Issued not so much to try them as to raise Forces to suppress them Inter Arma silent Leges twenty Thousand Rebels got together where not like much to value a Commission of Oier and Termener 2. In the Record of the Indictment it is said per Sacramenta duodecim Juratorum exstitit presentatum by the Oaths of 12 Jurators it is presented But the names of the Jurors are ommitted whereas I humbly Conceive if any such Indictment had been really and bona fide framed and found the Jurors names as in all other cases would have been here particularly Inserted in the Record 3. The Crimes alleaged in this pretended Indictment are of several sorts some of them Extravagant and all very observeable for tho there be some matters Treasonable to colour the process yet the bottom of all appears to be that they were Enemies to the Church But take the very words of the Record and Judg of them your selves By the Oaths of 12 Jurors 't is presented that John Oldcastle of Coulingin the County of Kent Chevaleir Note tho he were styled Lord Cobham in Right of his Wife yet he was no Peer of the Land and others vulgarly called Lollards who long have rashly held diverse Heritical Opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith and other manifest Errors repugnant to the Catholic Law to maintain such their Errors not being able to Accomplish their design as long as the Royal power and Regal State of our Lord the King as well as the State and Office of the Prelatick dignity within the Kingdom of England
THE HISTORY of POPERY OR PACQUET OF Advice from Rome The Fourth Volume CONTAINING The LIVES of Eighteen POPES AND The most remarkable Occurrences in the Church for near One hundred and fifty Years viz. From the beginning of Wickliff's Preaching to the first Appearance of Martin Luther Intermixt with several large Polemical Discourses as whether the present Church of Rome be to be accounted a Church of Christ whether any Protestant may be present at Mass and other Important Subjects Together with continued Courants or innocent Reflections weekly on the Distempers of the times Cujus aures clausae Veritati sunt ut ab Amico Verum audire nequeat hujus salus desperanda est Cicero Rhet. 1. LONDON Printed for and are to be sold by Langley Curtis at the Sign of Sir Edmundbury Godfry near Fleet-Bridge 1682. THE PREFACE PRefaces are many times more for fashion-sake than necessity and being esteem'd rather as Complements than serious matters are as slightly passed over by the Reader as superfluously added by the Author More especially we might seem excusable if we should not comply with the Tyranny of Custom herein before this Volume having preambled at large to the other Three and given not only an account of the reason and design of this work but answered most of the Objections and Scandals commonly cast upon it This 4 th Volume 't is true is not large in bulk yet contains the History of a very remarkable period viz. From Wickliff's dawning to the day-break of Luther and exhibits not a few choice Occurrences and most fit to be known as by the Table may appear Especially it demonstrates us to what a desperate degree of Corruption the Roman Church was degenerated and what a Chaos of Errors Superstition and Impiety she was become insomuch that complaints were daily put forth by all those that had any Sparks of Grace and Virtue in them though yet joining with her in communion and as these abuses shew'd the need and necessity of a Reformation so they both led people to desire it and also did justify the same when effected But still some envious Carpers will come with Judas's Objection Quorsum perditio haec what need so much wast of Paper What occasion have we for your paltry Sheets 〈…〉 all these matters better and more copiousâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 by a multitude of diligent Historians 〈◊〉 accurately handled by many Learned Divine◠〈◊〉 â—â—nfess men of Letters and leisure are or may 〈◊〉 sufficiently accommodated with Books of that kind but many of them writ in Forreign Languages and either unintelligible to our common Country-men or too dear for their Pockets or too voluminous for their time to peruse 'T is to serve these that our Labours are design'd nor have they we hope been altogether unprofitable on that Account but have given the vulgar Englishman as much Insight into the Mystery of Iniquity perhap as any one single work whatsoever Besides though Nil dictum quod non dictum prius the matter be not new yet there may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a handling of the same things in another manner and when diverse persons treat of the same subject something may be found in one which is not in another and in one Pacquet you have many times the substance and choicest notes of several Authors like a Posy made up of several Flowers Before the late Troubles in England or the date of forty one several Godly learned men have either expressed as Mr. Archer of Christs personal Reign on Earth p. 50. and 55. or Intimated as Mr. Mede on Rev. 11. 7. That in their opinion Popery shall yet again for a while universally or very generally prevail in many or most of these Countrys and Nations out of which it hath been expell'd With whom as to this particular the most profound and Reverend Archbishop Vsher did dot only concur in opinion but seems to be very much assured or to have had a kind of particular foresight of the sharp persecutions that shall attend this last effort of Antichrists if that Paper call'd his Prophesy may be credited which I never yet heard disprov'd to which we may add that dismal prospect of affairs which our eyes behold it being certain that the Protestant Interest throughout Europe was never lower since the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign than it is at this Instant And therefore certainly since the danger is so near and so great it concerns all Protestants to Arm themselves for the Encounter to study the points in Controversy between us and the Papists as far as their Leisure and Abilities will give them leave and both to establish themselves in the truth and be acquainted with the Sophisms specious pretences and inticing Fallaces of the Romanists that they may the better avoid and confute them More especially to warn people from Hypocrisy and sinful compliances in case Superstition should ever prevail to a publick Establishment which God forbid we have at large in this Tome evinc'd the present Synagogue of Rome not to be a Church of Christ and the extream hazard all those run of their Eternal Salvation who continue therein as also the Sin of frequenting their Idolatrous Mass though only in formality and outward Complaisance or Curiosity There are too many Errors of the Press which thou may'st meet with in this Volume which I desire thee to Correct and pardon being generally very obvious to a Considerate Reader by the sense and words foregoing and subsequent And if there happen any more material mistakes I beg the same exercise of thy Candour our Books are like our selves Vitio sine nemo nascitur optimus ille Qui minimis urgetur I shall detain thee no longer but praying unto the Lord to preserve his Church from Errors without and to purge it from Errors within I rest Thy Friend and Servant In what I may HEN. CARE Some of the principal Contents of this Fourth Volume A. ABhorrencies of the Association considered p. 26 Academy a new one for correcting Grammar and Logick 249 Addresses Mr. L'Estrange's sentiments of them 87 Advice from Geneva a Libel so call'd censured 7 Aeneas Sylvius how he got to be Pope 250 Notable Sentences of His. 254 Amurath the Turk appeals to Christ against the King of Hungary for breaking his faith with him by the Popes Instigation and obtains a great victory 76 242 B. BAstards Pope Innocent the eighth had sixteen 262 Bazil The Council held there decree that the Pope ought to obey a General Council 220 Bohemians the Pope consents they shall enjoy the use of the Cup in the Sacrament 229 Burning of Hereticks the first Law for it in England 84 C. CAlvinists the Papists call the Church of England so 7 Calvin vindicated from Rebellion 175 Care the Author of this work Burnt in Effigie by the Tories at Norwich 207 Captains of the Blew-Apron complemented 263 Cardinals will choose a Protestant Pope and the Divan a Christian Grand Seignior a very significant allusion
the Rivers or as the Branches of the Frankincense-Tree in the time of Summer Touching Wickliff's Parentage all we can find is That he was born about the farthest part of York-shire and Mr. Birckbek who was Minister of Gilling in those Parts in his Learned Treatise Entituled The Protestants Evidence printed 1632. Centur. 14. assures us That some of the Family remain'd there then and probably may continue to this day his words are these Our Country-man John Wickliff was born in the North where there is near to the place where I live an ancient and worshipful House bearing the name of Wickliff of Wickliff But in what Year he was born is not Recorded only 't is certain that he was liberally Educated and became Learned beyond that Age and flourished about the year of our Lord 1371. in the Reign of King Edward the Third being then Fellow of Merton-Colledge in Oxford A happy Foundation Illustrious for breeding many most famous Men as Friar Bacon Burley Scotus Occham Peccham Bradwardine c. He was afterwards Master of Baliol-Colledge in Oxford where he commenc'd Doctor and was chosen Reader in Divinity In which public Lectures he shew'd himself a deep Schoolman as in his ordinary Sermons a faithful Pastor of the Church for whose Edification he spar'd no pains for he Translated the whole Bible into the vulgar Tongue one Copy whereof written with his own hand is or lately was extant in St. John Baptist Colledge in Oxford He was beloved of all good Men for his holy Life and admired even by his Adversaries for his Learning For we find Walden his profess'd and spiteful Enemy in a certain Letter to Pope Martin the Fifth forc'd to acknowledge That he was wonderfully astonish'd at his most forcible Arguments the various and pertinent Authorities he had gathered with the vehemence and smartness of his Reasonings Nor was he unacquainted with Humanity or polite Civil Learning especially he is observed to have been well read in our English Laws and wrote so many large Volumes as well in Philosophy as Divinity as the same is almost incredible He seem'd to follow in the course of his Studies the method of the Schoolmen and amongst them was a profess'd follower of Occham by reading of whose Works and sundry others who lived about the same time or not long before as Bradwardine Marsilius St. Amore Abelardus Armachanus and that great and godly Learned Man Rob. Grosthead and especially and above all by diligent perusal of the Holy Scriptures God gave him grace and understanding to see the truth of his Gospel and by seeing it to loath all superstition and the ill precepts and practises of the then pretended Rules of the Church In particular by Occham and Marsilius he was informed of the Popes Intrusions and Usurpations upon Kings their Crowns and Dignities Guido de S. Amore and Armachanus shew'd him the sundry abuses of Monks and Friars in upholding this usurped Power By Abelard and others he began to have a right Apprehension touching the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Bradwardine taught him the Nature of a true sole justifying Faith against Meritmongers and Pardoners Finally by Grosthead's Work with which he seem'd most conversant he descried the Popes to be the very Antichrist by hindering the Gospel to be preached and placing unfit and unworthy Men in the Church and in making all Religion subservient to his damnable Policy Being thus enlighten'd 't is no wonder if in his Writings and Preachings he delivered many things against the then corrupted Doctrine of the Church but his Positions were chiefly directed against the several Orders of Begging Friars who were his professed Persecutors and all Foreign usurped Jurisdiction of the Pope By which he purchased some favour or at least connivance at Court and got his other Complaints against them for other matters the more easily heard and regarded for at that time the Friars Orders by their manifold and notorious Disorders were become exceeding odious and the Popes pretences of Jurisdiction by Provisions Reservations and Collations not only grievous but utterly intollerable This made way unto those excellent Acts of Parliament of Praemunire against any that should appeal to Rome or draw the Subjects of England ad aliud Examen To any Foreign Jurisdiction as also against Provisors and the Abuses of Begging Friars which fobridled and restrained the Pope's Authority that he could but little prevail in England during the Raign of King Edward the Third or Richard the Second Towards making which Law Wickliff had no small Interest by disposing several of the Nobility and the Body of the Commons thereunto maintaining no less Loyalty and Magnanimously than Learnedly the King's Jurisdiction Crown and Dignity by the Laws Civil Canon and Common For which reason the Learned Dr. James in Wickliff's Life tells us That he was by one King sent Ambassador into Foreign Parts and by another consulted here at home But amongst all his Arguments he most insisted upon those drawn from the common Municipal Laws of England the best Bull-works for the Prerogative and Imperial Right of our Kings against all the Usurpations and Encroachments of any Exotic Claim for the maintenance of his Opinions and the better to enable him therein he had good Directions and Advice from time to time from the Reverend Judges and Sages in the Law He was not so much hated of the Monks and Clergy out of Self-interest because he opposed their lewd Practises but he was much indulg'd and favour'd by the Temporal State for his Piety Learning and Virtue For not only many of the Nobility but the City of London and the University of Oxford were his Friends which makes Walsingham the Monk angry who upon all occasions vomits out his Gall against poor Wickliff that that famous Academy where as he saith was the very height and top of Wisdom and Learning should so kindly entertain him Nor were they Freshmen or younger Fry of Students there that were his Admirers but even the Heads and Chief of the University for Mr. Robert Rigge Vice-Chancellor and the two Proctors took part with him as also Nicholas Herford John Ashton of Merton Colledge John Ashwarby of Oriel Colledge Minister of St. Maries Church these all being Preachers and Batchelors of Divinity joined with him and were put to Trouble for the same THE COURANT. Tory. NAY now I think you are met with what say you to that ingenious Piece publish'd last week Entituled A Postscript of Advice from Geneva Truem. I shall not say much to it let my Lords the Bishops look after it for as Governours under His Majesty of our Protestant Church I humbly conceive it concerns them abundantly more than me since 't is plain the Libel is the â—pawn of some rank invenom'd Popish Priest and whether Nat. Thompson or Gammer Turner a profest Papist or a masqueraded one Midwif'd it into the World is not much material It pretends indeed to fall soul on the Calvinists which possibly Striplings in
Divinity or some of the short sighted Laity may think at this time of day a mighty Service to the King and the Church But whoever is conversant in Roman-Catholic Authors cannot but know that they frequently Nickname the Church of England and her truest Sons with that opprobrious Title I appeal to all the Learned moderate Divines of our established English Church if this be not true nay I my self at two hours warning could give more than 100 Instances of it But I shall be content at present only with one but 't is of a Pope who you know is Infallible in his Rogueries in a Bull against Blessed Q. Elizabeth we have these words Impia Mysteria Instituta ad Calvini praescriptum c. The wicked Mysteries and Institutes according to Calvin ' s prescription by her received and observed she hath commanded to be embrac'd by her Subjects In a word 't is evident this skulking Author's business is to scandalize all the Learned pious Instruments which God hath made use of for the first Reformation As not only Calvin Zwinglius and Beza p. 1 2. but Luther Melancton Bucer c. p. 5. Therefore with what Notion would a Cranmer or a Ridley or a Latimer those glorious Martyrs or even Patient Hooper himself or Reverend Jewel and such-like famous Lights of our Church some of them the very Compilers of the Venerable Liturgy have beheld such a virulent Pamphlet Or can any Man that has a value for the Protestant Religion but feel his Blood curdle to see it sold with Impunity at the Royal-Exchange and through the Streets of a Protestant City which by the very same devilish Hands was within these 16 years laid in Ashes Tory. Come come you are hot and peevish I doubt 't is only because it presses you too close for only those that know not how to answer Books would stifle and have them suppress'd Truem. Nay then let it go on for I am sure the matter of it has been answer'd 150 times There 's nothing in this Pamphlet but Parsons that Bastard of a Jesuit 't is the Complement his own Brother-Priests gave him printed long ago You may find it too in a Book Entituled The Image of both Churches written by one Musket a Jesuit and printed in King James's time or you may have the effect of it in a Pamphlet Entituled Philanax Anglicus scribbled soon after His Majesty's happy Restauration by a Popish Doctor of the Civil Law to which the Reverend Du Moulin one of the Prebends of Canterbury return'd an Answer But if no such Refutations were extant as 100 are yet all the World knows your Bolsec was a most prostituted Liar and the rest of your Authors forg'd and Counterfeit Nor will I hope any that are truly of the Church of England be bubbled with such stale Shams but rather take notice who they are that thus blow these Coals and keep such a noise against Calvinists such a stir against Ignoramus Juries and are so overjoy'd at the prosecution of Conscientious Dissenters and if they find them at bottom no other than either Papists or Atheists or Debauchees who are half one half tother they may then competently judge whose Interest is promoted by these Intrigues Tory. Well there 's no talk to you now but I 'le warrant you L'Estrange will Crow bravely this fortnight for the other days work in the City Truem. What! because his old friend John Starkey is made one of the Common-Council I tell you Sir I value Roger's Observatorisms no more than I do Eustace Commyne's Narrativisms they both pretend to serve the Royal Family and the Bishops and in truth they both perform it at the same Rate Nor will you find much more reason upon the whole matter to thank St. Thomas than you have to Sacrifice to Madam Address who 't is forty to one when you come to try her will prove as Errand a Jilt and as Insignificant as an Irish Evidence Printed for Langley Curtis 1681. The Weekly Pacquet OF Advice from Rome OR The History of POPERY The Fourth Volume FRIDAY Dec. 30. 1681. Potentes in Clero qui Religionem Christi dissipant sub pallio Sanctitatis vel punientur hîc per praepositos suos aut Laicos vel destruentur per vastationes Hostiles vel congregant facinora in ultionem Divini Judicii Wickliff de verit Script p. 432. Objections against Wickliff answer'd An Example or two of his writing in his own ancient Style His Troubles The Vniversity like to reject the Popes Bull c. THE Papists who are most exquisite and ready forgers of Lies and Scandals on all that oppose or go about to detect their Villanies have raised several Aspersions and Calumnies against honest Wickliff As first they affirm That his Preaching was not out of Conscience but spite and desire of Revenge because forsooth he was put by the Bishopprick of Worcester which he aim'd at Therefore he declaim'd so fiercely against the Church Answ This is only the malicious suggestion of Parsons and Brerely and such upstart Pettifoggers for the Church of Rome There is no ancient Author tho most of them as being Monks rail horribly against poor Wickliff that mentions any such matter Nay Parsons himself gives himself the Lie for in his three Conversions Part 3. Cap. 5. Numb 14. he saith Wickliff condemn'd all temporal Goods How then should he so greedily affect the Bishopprick of Worcester And elsewhere he confesses That Wickliff was in great favour with the Duke of Lancaster who bore chief sway during the time of King Edward the Third so that if Wickliff had been so fond of a Bishopprick sure that Duke's Interest might have got him one 2. They object that Wickliff taught That so long as a Man is in deadly Sin he is no Bishop or Prelate neither doth truly Consecrate or Baptize Answ If Wickliff did say so what more did he say than what St. Ambrose had said before him Vnless thou embrace and follow the good works of a Bishop a Bishop thou canst not be Ambr. de dignit Sacerd. cap. 4. Nay there is a Vote of a Council if that will help the matter in a Case almost to the same effect Quicunque sub Ordinatione Presbyterii vel Episcopatûs mortali Crimine se dixerint esse pollutos à supradictis Ordinationibus submovendos esse Censuimus Whoever coming under Ordination of the Presbytery or Eiscopacy shall be polluted with mortal Sin we think it fit That such be removed from those Orders saith the Synod of Valentia held under Damascus cap. 4. It must be remembred that Wickliff lived in a most corrupt Age when the Clergy were so seared in Impiety that it required sharp Launcings and good store of Vinegar to make them sensible It was only their abuses he inveigh'd against so tartly for elsewhere he reproves those that would not obey their lawful Prelates and in his Book of the verity of the Scripture he thus explains his
the truth is How much a Sot soever he were he prov'd too cunning for them for having smoakt their Consult and Design next time they came according to Custom to Complement him he seiz'd seven of the most busie of them and without any colour of Law presently confiscated all their Estates and thereby so terrified all the rest that no man of them durst think any more of the Curatorship These seven that he had snapt he with a Cruelty suitable to a Pope thrust into a miserable Dungeon and without any respect to their Age or Quality put them to the Rack and all manner of Tortures his gracious Nephew Pregnan standing by to see Execution done and upbraiding them whilst in Torments But King Charles soon after by reason of some Insolencies offer'd to him by the said Pregnan coming to besiege Vrban himself in the said Castle of Lucera his Impietyship was forc'd to fly over the Mountains and with much ado got to Salerno carrying his Captive-Cardinals under a Guard along with him and one of them broken with Tortures not being able to follow him farther he commanded his Hangman to knock out his Brains and left his Body in the Fields without Burial the other six he dragg'd with him all but Cardinal Adam a poor Monk whom he gave to King Richard the Second of England First to Sicily and then to Genua and at last that he might not be troubled with them any longer he caus'd them saith the Author all in one Night to be beheaded But Platina saith they were sown up in Sacks and so flung into the Sea after the manner of punishing Parricides of old which is probable since no doubt the Pope would call their Crime Rebellion against their Spiritual Father But which way soever he dispos'd of them all Authors agree That they were never seen afterwards Lewis King of Hungary dying the before-mentioned Charles his Son was forc'd to go home thither to settle Affairs where by the Treachery of the Queen he was beheaded but had left two Sons Ladislaus and John Children very young at Ferrara whereupon the Pope thirsting after Revenge and to wreck his Spleen on these two innocent Babes for the Injuries he pretended to have received from their Father thinking he had a fit opportunity departs from Genua to Lucca then to Sena and Perusium with a desire as he pretended to see Naples but in truth with a design to defeat the young Princes of their Inheritance but by the prudence and faithfulness of some Counsellors to whose Charge they were left their Lives and Estates were preserved from his malicious Fury Then he return'd to Rome and made in one day 29 Cardinals of whom 26 were Neopolitans In the last year of his Popedom calling to mind of the vast Gain that the Jubilee had brought to Clement the Sixth in the year 1350. He would needs tho against all Reason except only that of private Lucre abreviate the Term and have it kept every 30 years yet so as that it should begin at Christmas Anno Dom. 1388. and continue a year Inclusive But tho he had laid his Bait for Money yet he did not live to see the Fish caught for being bruis'd by a fall of his Mule as he was riding to Perusium he was carried to Rome where after few days he died Paucis admodùm utpote hominis Rustici inexorabilis flentibus Hujus autem Sepulchrum adhuc visitur cum Epitaphio satis Rustico inepto Very few says Platina lamenting his Death for he was a clownish Fellow and inexorable His Tomb is seen to this day with a very Rustical and foolish Epitaph And there 's an end of one of our Popes and if he were as Roman Historians bear us in the hand the Right and most Legitimate of the two we may very well say Bad was the best for amongst other of his meritorious Feats he caus'd a Book to be written by one John de Therano his Chamberlain the beginning whereof is Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar ' s and to God the things that are God's wherein he affirms That these words of our Saviour have place only for a time namely until his Ascention but afterwards they were out of Date and of no force seeing that himself saith John 12. When I shall be taken up I will draw all Men after me that is Pray mark the Wit and Divinity of the Interpretation All Kings and Kingdoms shall be under the Empire of the Pope c. Likewise John the Ligni wrote a Book in favour of this Pope Vrban against his Rival Clement as on the other side the Abbot of St. Vast wrote one for Clement against Vrban wherein they call each Pope Heretic Schismatic Tyrant Thief wicked sower of Sedition Son of Belial and 't is believ'd they were not either of them much mistaken Pope Vrban you have heard left the hopeful Crop of his intended Jubilee to be reap'd by his Successor who was one Peter de Thomacellis a Neopolitan who was call'd Boniface the Ninth Ignorant he was saith our oft-quoted Author Theodoric a Nyem l. 2. c. 6. of writing and singing and so unfit for Administration of the Affairs of the Court of Rome that whilst he lived he hardly understood the Propositions made before him by the Advocates in Consistory in so much that in his time Inscitia ferè venalis fuit in ipsa Curiâ Ignorance was almost buyable as a main step to preferment in the Roman Court Yet in all kind of Simony so far he excell'd all his Predecessors that not one Cardinal or Bishop was promoted without extorting great Sums of Money from them And indeed such an unreasonable Griper had Vrban before found him who only for his Personage and goodly Stature had from a Vagabond Clerk preferr'd him to be a Cardinal That he for meer shame was about to degrade him if he had not been prevented by Death Of this godly Gentleman's Invention as some Authors report were the payments to the Pope call'd Annates concerning which it may not be wide of our mark to inform the vulgar Reader what by that word is understood Annates deriv'd from Annus a year are no other than Primitiae the first Fruits or profits of every Spiritual Living for one year to be paid by the Parson that is invested in it at his first entrance thereupon and near of Kin hereunto are Decimae Tenths take it in a strict sense viz. The Tenth part of the first Fruits or of one years value of all Spiritual Livings and these were anciently paid to the Popes not only in England but throughout the Western parts of Christendom for the Pope as Pastor pastorum claim'd Decimas decimarum and that Jure divino too tho never thought of 'till about or some small time before this year 1399. by Example forsooth of the Jewish High-Priest who Numb 18. 16. was to have Tenths from the Levites But tho Jure Divino as in many other
folks at Farringdon without yet survey'd the Books Truem. Don't mention that affair you 'l get no Credit by it if ever a Factious Spirit appear'd there he was visibly on your side Tory. Well well prattle what you please I 'le wager Cock-pit Law that we Nick many of the Common Council Truem. Why man I believe there is not one in the whole City but is Legally Qualified you know Heraclitus and Observator upbraided them with receiving the Sacrament Tory. No matter for that the Statute of 25 Car. 2 C. 2. requires we say not only the receiving of the Sacrament But the certifying the same on Record withing three Months after their being Chosen into the Courts at Westminster or the Quarter Sessions on pain of being disabled as therein is order'd and forfeiting 500 l. Now if they have receiv'd the Sacrament never so oft yet unless they do so certify on Record the Term ending and no Quarter Sessions happening after within the three Months limmited we will pretend they are Excluded so shall we neatly turn them out and get 500 l. a Man to boot Truem. I have neither read the Statute you mention nor pretend to be capable of judging of Law But however those concern'd may no doubt find a Church in London where the Sacrament is Administered next Lords-day or I think no Minister can deny it to a Competent number then may they lodge their Certificates on Monday in the Courts above and so defeat your Malicious expectations who I perceive do not so much desire your Neighbours Conformity to the Church and Obedience to the Laws as their Ruin Tory. Nay Pax don't talk so low'd if you do for ought I know the Ten Guinnies we gave for this very Stratagem may prove of no advantage to us Printed for Langley Curtis 1681-2 The Weekly Pacquet OF Advice from Rome OR The History of POPERY The Fourth Volume FRIDAY Feb. 17. 1681-2 Fragenti fidem Fides frangatur â—idem A brief Account of John Hus and Jerome of Prague The Burning of those two Martyrs The Council of Constance declares That Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks VVE have told you how the Synod of Constance order'd their Triplicity of Popes but it was not only that they sat four years about For they likewise Condemn'd and Burnt those two Noble Servants of the Lord John Hus and Jerome of Prague of whose excellent Lives and Honourable Deaths it will be necessary to inform briefly the vulgar Reader In our last Volume we acquainted you with the Preaching of John Wickliff here in England Almighty Providence honouring this Nation so far as not only to have the first Christian King in the World viz. Lucius and to give Birth to the first Christian Emperor in the World viz. Constantine But also to lead the van in the Reformation and 't was from our Torch many other Regions that sat in darkness borrow'd their Light these two Bohâ—mians had embrac'd several of those Truths which Wickliff had reviv'd in the World For King Richard the Second's first Wife being Ann the Daughter of the Emperour Charles the 4th and Sister to the Emperour Wenceslaus a Bohemian by Birth diverse of her Country-men follow'd her into England whom some becoming Students at Oxford where Wickliff then flourisht they were not only hearers of his Preaching but carried when they went away several of his Books home with them into their own Country as these de Realibus Vniversalibus de Civili Jure Divino de Ecclesiâ de questionibus variis contra clerum c. It chanc'd about the same time a Noble Man of the City of Prague in Bohemia had founded a great Church Dedicated to Matthias and Matthew but commonly call'd Bethlem Endowing it with large Revenues for two Preachers every day Holy day or Working day throughout the year Of these two Preachers John Hus was one a Person of great Learning in those times and of excellent Wit but especially reverenc'd by the People for his blameless life and holy Conversation He happening on some of these Books of Wickliffs was presently convinc'd of the Truth of them and began to defend the same not only in the Schools but likewise in his Sermons At this the Pope and Clergy were mightily nettled and wrot Letters to the King of Bohemia to punish him whereupon he was for some time Banisht the City of Prague but the People murmuring that he was unjustly dealt withall and the King himself not finding in him any Crime he was restor'd and this general Council coming on to purge his Teritories from the scandalous suspition of being infected with Haeresy the Emperour who then was Sigismund Son of Charles the 4th would needs have Mr. Hus appear there and in order thereunto granted him his safe Conduct both in the Latin and Dutch Language in these words Sigismund by the Grace of God King of the Romans of Hungary and Denmark Croatia c. To all Princes as well Ecclesiastical as Secular Dukes Marquesses and Earls Barons Captains Burgoermasters Judges and Governours Officers of Towns Boroughs and Villages and in General to all the Subjects of our Empire to whom these Presents shall come Grace and Goodness We Charge and Command you all That you have respect unto John Hus who is departed out of Behomia to come unto the General Council which is shortly to be held at the Town of Constance which said John Hus we have received under our Protection and into the safe Guard of the whole Empire desireing that you would cheerfully receive him when he shall come towards you and that you treat him friendly and shew him in all things favour and good will for the expedition ease and safety of his Journey as well by Land as by Water Further ordaining That he and all his Company with their carriage and necessaries shall pass through all Ports Bridges Lands Liberties Towns c. Without paying any Custome Toll Tribute c. We will also that you suffer him to Pass Rest Tarry and Sojourn at Liberty without doing him any manner of hindrance trouble or molestation and that if need require you provide a faithful Company to Conduct him for the honor and reverence which you owe unto our Imperial Majesty Given at Spire the 18th of Octob. in the year of our Lord 1414. On the 3d. of Nov. 1414. Hus came into Constance of which two Noble Men of his Countrey gave notice to Pope John desireing his Protection who promised the same very freely adding that if Hus had kill'd his Brother yet no outrage nor hurt should be done him in that place Yet for all this he had not been there a Month before they seized upon him and put him in a base and loathsom Prison and this too before his cause was heard in the Council The substance of the Articles at last exhibited against him was as follows 1. That he had taught Error and Herisy about the Sacraments of the Church and especially about the
most Sacred Ties besides those of Interest and present opportunity are no more than Sampson's Bands Dissolvable whensoever their own Humour or their Ghostly Fathers Conveniency shall require it The COURANT. Tory. HOw Hodge concern'd in the Burning of London and Godfry's Murder Trum. No I never said he was nor do I believe it but this I say such a wild suggestion might be maintain'd by as good Logick as any he uses to make out the Protestant Plot. Tory. As how prethee a touch for Example I 'le engage not to believe the Consequence Truem. I take it for undeniable That London in Sixty six was designedly burnt by Papists the Law hath determined it in the Execution of Hubert who own'd the Fact and that he was hired thereunto by Piedelon a French Papist The Body of the City have Recorded it in the late Inscription of the Monument and that great and sagacious Minister of State the Right Honourable the Lord Chancellour in his Speech before Sentence on the late Lord Stafford makes no doubt on 't Tory. But you may remember that Hodge was a little disgruntled at That Inscription and has endeavoured to persuade the World that they were the Fanaticks caus'd that Fire But what if the Papists did do it and Kill'd Godfry too what 's that to him Trum. Nâ—thing that I know on But this one might infer according to Mr. L'Estranges modes of Arguing If they were Papists and Hedge should happen to be a Papist too then he may altogether as fairly be Charg'd with both these Exploits as all and every the Dâ—ssenters are by him Tax'd with all the Villanies of Forty odd when the greatest part of them were not born Tory. Well but what Colour is there for Hodges being a Papist Truem. As many Colours as there are in the Rain-bow 1. Two of the Kings Evidence have sworn his haunting of Mass and another Gentleman deposes That he own'd himself to be of that Church whereof the Pope is Head Now you that Rail and Ranâ— at Juries if they won't believe any lousie Witnesses though they swear Dâ—ggers and Impossibilitie ought methinks to Credit such unexceptionable Evidence 2 ly The Gentleman has been oft Challeng'd to prove that for Eighteen years after the Restitution of the Liturgy viz. till after the Discovery of the Popish Plot and that he was question'd as a Papist he ever usually frequented his Parish Church or receiv'd the Sacrament Tory. Oh he Answers that in his Preface to his first part of Dissenters Sayings referring people to one Mr. Gatford of St. Dionis Back Church for proof of his Receiving c. Truem. Call you that Sham an Answer 'T is but his nude Averment he produces no Certificate from that Gentleman Besides 't is known Mr. L' liv'd many years in St. Gileses Parish before the Plot why does he not produce some Testimony in all that time from thence can it be imagin'd so intelligent a person had he been so zealous for the Church of England as he now pretends would ever have liv'd Eight or ten years together without her Ordinances and in disobedience and despight to her Laws and Canons Tory. But in particular as to the Fire-Jobb Truem. Mr. L'Estrange some time before the Fire Printed a Pamphlet call'd A Memento wherein Chap. 6. speaking of some people put to death under Cromwel He uses these words London was made the Altar for these Burnt Offerings God grant that City be not at last Purged by Fire I mean before the general Conflagration Now since Roger I think pretends not to be a Prophet and no body takes him for a Conjurer Ill will might on this occasion suggest him to be a Conspirator for it has been prov'd That the mischief was intended long before it was perpetrated and if one would talk of him as he does of the Dissenters one might say his Prayer God grant is only to Cloak his Malice That here 's a plain Prediction It must needs be therefore that he was acquainted with the Design and so bigg with Expectation that he could not forbear Blabbing on 't and warming his fancy with the very Conceit of the Flames just as Del Rio the Jesuit in his Magical Disquisitions could not forbear giving a dark hint of the Gunpowder-Treason several years before it happen'd Tory. These are unjust and inconsequent Descants on such an Innocent Accidental passage Truem. I grant it But yet 't is at this very rate that L'Estrange Treats others wresting the most harmless Passages to odious and horrid meanings Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri ne feceris Printed for Langley Curtis 1681-2 The Weekly Pacquet OF Advice from Rome OR The History of POPERY The Fourth Volume FRIDAY March 2. 1681-2 Vmbrâque errabit Thynnus inultâ Of the first pretended Act of Parliament that ever was in England against professors of Religion how it was forg'd by the Prelates and soon after Repeal'd The bloody Statute of 4. Hen. 2. ca. 15. for Burning of Hereticks WE have pursued the Papal History beyond the Seas down to the Council of Constance and burning of Hus and Mr. Jerome that is to about the year of our Lord 1415. which answers to the Third year of the Raign of our King Henry the Fifth 'T will therefore now be necessary to look back and gather what Observables occurr'd in England relating to our Subject not already mention'd during the Raigns of King Richard the Second and Henry the Fourth We gave you before the Relation of Wickliff whose Doctrines spread so fast that the incens'd Prelates finding their Spiritual Thunders unable to repress them bethought themselves to pray in aid of the Secular Arm and to that purpose the King being young and dissolute so extravagant to his Favourites that he always wanted Money the Bishops either by fair words or the Bait of a Benevolence to be given him by the Clergy prevail'd with him in the Fifth year of his Raign to consent to an Ordinance of their framing in these words following For as much as it is openly known that there be divers evil persons within the Realm going from County to County and from Town to Town in certain Habits under dissimulation of great Holiness and without the License of the Ordinaries of the places or other sufficient Authority preaching daily not only in Churches and Church-yards but also in Markets Fairs and other open places where a great Congregation of people is divers Sermons containing Heresies and notorious Errors to the great emblemishing of the Christian Faith and destruction of the Laws and of the Estate of the holy Church to the great peril of the Souls of the people and of all the Realm of England as more plainly is found and sufficiently proved before the Reverend Father in God the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops and other Prelates Masters of Divinity and Doctors of Canon and Civil Law and a great part of the Clergy of the said Realm especially assembled for this
cause which persons do also preach divers matters of Slander to engender Discord and Dissention betwixt divers Estatés of the said Realm as well Spiritual as Temporal in exciting of the people to the great peril of the Realm Which Preachers cited or summoned before the Ordinaries of the places there to answer of that whereof they be impeached will not obey to their Summons and Commandments nor care for their Monitions nor Censures of the Holy Church but expresly despise them And moreover by their subtle and ingenious words do draw the people to hear their Sermons and do maintain them in their Errors by strong Hand and great Routs It is ordained and assented in this present Parliament That the King's Edmmissions be made and directed to the Sheriffs and other Miuisters of our Soveraign Lord the King or other sufficient persons Learned and according to the Certifications of the Prelates thereof to be made in Chancery from time to time to arrest all such Preachers and also their Faitors Maintainers and Abettors and to hold them in Arrest and strong Prison 'till they will justifie them according to the Law and Reason of Holy Church And the King wills and commandeth That the Chancellor make such Commissions at all times that he by the Prelates or any of them shall be certified and thereof required as is aforesaid This was the first pretended Statute that ever was in England for imprisoning Christians for Religious opinions and by colour thereof the Bishops committed great Cruelties I call it pretended Statute for tho it be enter'd in the Parliament Rolls yet it was no Legal Act for it never pass'd the Commons And therefore at the next Parliament in Michaelmas Term following the Commons preferr'd a Bill â—eciting the same and constantly affirmed That they never assented thereunto and therefore desired that the said supposed Statute be annull'd and made void for they protested That it was never their intent that either themselves or such as shall succeed them should be farther subject or bound to the Prelates than were their Ancestors in former times And to this the King gave his Royal Assent in these words Il plaist au Roy The King is pleas'd that it be so Cook 3 Instit fo 40. Foxes Acts and Monuments fo 406. But that you may more fully understand the fraud and subtlety of their Reverences in this Affair you must understand That before the invention of Printing the usual way of publishing Acts of Parliament was to engross them in Parchment and send them with the King 's Writ into every County commanding the Sheriff to proclaim them Now John Braibrook Bishop of London being then Lord Chancellor of England he by a Writ dated 26 May Anno Regni Regis R. 2. quinto sent down the before recited Ordinance of the King and Prelates amongst the Statutes that were then lately pass'd But no less knavishly left out in the next Parliamentary Proclamation the said Act of Revocation whereby the said supposed Statute was made void by which means afterwards the other still pass'd as an Act and was printed continually as such but the Act that disannull'd it was by the Interest of the Prelates from time to time kept out of the Prints the better to give colour to their imprisoning of the Laity at their pleasure And farther to make sure work Henry the Fourth having usurp'd the Crown to gratifie the Clergy who had chiefly assisted him therein in the second year of his Raign he at their Instigation procured the following cruel and wicked Law to be Enacted commonly call'd The Statute Ex Officio which that the Reader may the better observe the Spirit of Popery and Persecution and compare the Times and Actings of Men in past and more modern Times I hope it shall neither be thought tedious nor unuseful to recite the same at large Verbatim it not being now extant in Kceble or any of our Common Statute Books ITem Whereas it is shewed to our Soveraign Lord the King on the behalf of the Prelates and Clergy of this Realm of England in this present Parliament That altho the Catholick Faith builded upon Christ and by his Apostles and the holy Church sufficiently determined declared and approved hath been hitherto by good and holy and most noble Progeniâ—ors of our Soveraign Lord the King in the said Realm amongst all the Realms of the World most devoutly observ'd and the Church of England by his said most noble Progenitors and Ancestors to the honour of God and of the whole Realm aforesaid landably endow'd and in her Rights and Liberties sustain'd without that that the same Faith or the said Church was hurt or grievously oppressed or else perturbed by any perverse Doctrine or Wicked Heretical or Erronious Opinions Yet nevertheless divers false and perverse people of a certain new Sect of the Faith of the Sacraments of the Church and the Authority of the same damnably thinking and against the Law of God and of the Church usurping the Office of Preaching do perversly and maliciously in divers places within the said Realm under the colour of dissembled Holiness preach and teach these days openly and privily divers nâ—w Doctrines and wicked Heretical and Erronious Opinions contrary to the same Faith and blessed Determinations of the holy Church And of such Sect and wicked Doctrine and Opinions they make unlawful Conventicles and Confederacies they hold and exercise Schools they make and write Books they do wickedâ—y instruct and inform people and as much as they may excite and stir them to Sedition and Insurrection and maketh great strife and division among the people and other Enormities horribly to be heard daily do perpetrate and commit in subversion of the Catholick Faith and Doctrine of the holy Church in diminution of God's honour and also in destruction of the Estate Rights and Liberties of the said Church of England by which Sect and wicked and false Preachings Doctrine and Opinions of the said false and perverse people not only most great peril of the Souls but also many more other hurts slanders and perils which God prohibit might come to this Realm unless it be the more plentifully and speedily holpen by the King's Majesty in this behalf namely whereas the Diocesans of the said Realm cannot by their Jurisdiction Spiritual without Aid of the said Royal Majesty sufficiently correct the said false and perverse people nor refrain their Malice because the said false and perverse people do go from Diocess to Diocess and will not appear before the said Diocesan but the same Diocesans and their Jurisdiction Spiritual and the Keys of the Church with the Censures of the same do utterly contemn and despise and so their wicked Preachings and Doctrines doth from day to day continue and exercise to the hatred of Right and Reason and utter destruction of Order and good Rule Vpon which Novelties and Excesses above rehearsed the Prelates and Clergy aforesaid and also the Commons of the said Realm being in
the same Parliament praying our Soveraign Lord the King That his Royal Highness would vouchsafe in the said Parliament to provide a convenient Remedy the same our Soveraign Lord the King graciously considering the premises and also the laudable steps of his most noble Progenitors and Ancestors for the Conservation of the said Catholick Faith and sustentation of God's Honour and also the safeguard of the Estate Rights and Liberties of the said Church of England to the land of God and merit of our said Soveraign Lord the King and prosperity and honour of all his said Realm and for the eschewing of such Dissentions Divisions Hurts Slanders and Perils in time to come and that this wicked Sect Preachings Doctrines and Opinions should from henceforth cease to be utterly destroyed by the Assent of the States and other discreet Men of the Realm being in the said Parliament hath granted stablished and ordained from henceforth firmly to be observed that none within the said Realm or any other Dominions subject to his Royal Majesty presume to preach openly or privily without the License of the Diocesan of the same place first required and obtained Curates in their own Churches and persons hitherto priviledged and other of the Canon granted only except Nor that none from henceforth any thing preach hold teach or instruct openly or privily or make or write any Book contrary to the Catholick faith or determination of the holy Church nor of such Sect and wicked Doctrines and Opinions shall make any Câ—nvenâ—â—cles or in any wise hold or exercise Schools And also that none from henceforth in any wise favour such Preacher or maker of any such or like Conventicles or holding or exercising Schools or making or writing such Books or so teaching informing or exciting the people nor any of them maintain or any wise sustain and that all and singular having such Books or any Writings of such wicked Doctrine and Opinions shall really with effect deliver or cause to be delivered all such Books and Writings to the Diocesan of the same place within 40 days from the time of the Proclamation of this Ordinance and Statute And if any person or persons of whatsoever kind estate or condition that he or they be from henceforth do or attempt against the Royal Ordinance and Statute aforesaid in the premisses or in any any of them or such Books in the form aforesaid do not deliver then the Diocesan in the same place in his Diocess such person or persons in this behalf defamed or evidently suspected and every of them may by the authority of the said Ordinance and Statute cause to be arrested and under safe custody in his Prisons to be detained 'till he or they of the Articles laid to him or them in this behalf do Canonically purge him or themselves or else such wicked Sect Preachings Doctrines and heretical and erronious Opinions do objure according as the Laws of the Church do require so that the said Diocesan by himself or his Commissaries do openly and judicially proceed against such persons so arrested and remaining under safe custody to all effect of the Law and determine that same business according to the Canonical Decrees within three months after the said Arrest any lawful Impediment ceasing And if any person in any case above expressed be before the Diocesan of the place or his Commissaries canonically Convict then the same Diocesan may do to be kept in his Prison the said person so Convict for the manner of his default and after the quality of the Offence according aud as long as to his discretion shall seem expedient and moreover to put the same person to the Secular Court except in cases where he according to the Canonical Decree ought to be left to pay to our Soveraign Lord the King his peculiar Fine according as the same Fine shall seem competent to the Diocesan for the manner and quality of the Offence in which case the same Diocesan shall be bound to certifie the King of the same Fine in his Exchequer by his Letters Patents sealed with his Seal to the effect that such Fine by the King's Authority may be required and levied to his use of the Goods of the same person so convict And if any person within the said Realm and Dominions upon the said wicked Preachings Doctrines Opinions Schools heretical and erroneous Informations or any of them be before the Diocesan of the same place or his Commissaries after the Abjuration made by the same person pronounced fall into Relapse so that according to the holy Canons be ought to be left to the Secular Court whereupon Credence shall be given to the Diocesan of the same place or to his Commissaries in this behalf then the Sheriff of the County of the same place and Mayor and Sheriffs or Sheriff or Mayor and Bayliffs of the City Town or Borough of the same County next to the same Diocesan or the said Commissaries shall be personally present in preferring of such sentences when they by the same Diocesan or his Commissaries shall be required And they the same persons and every of them after such sentence promulgate shall receive and them before the people in an high place do to be burnt that such punishment may strike in fear to the minds of others whereby no such wicked Doctrine and heretical and erroneous Opinions nor their Authors and Fautours in the said Realm and Dominions against the Catholick Faith Christian Law and determination of the holy Church which God prohibit be sustained or in any wise suffered in which all and singular the premises concerning the said Ordinance and Statnte the Sheriffs Mayors and Bayliffs of the said Counties Cities Boroughs and Towns shall be attending aiding and supporting to the said Diocesans and their Commissaries The COURANT. Tory. I Have read that passage we talkt of t'other day in Mr. L'Estranges Memento by the same token in the same page he gives an account of Addresses in these words And now from all parts are to be procur'd Addresses Sweet London leads the way The Commission Officers of the Militia in Suffolk Leicester Sussex and my Country-men of Norwich c. These numerous and pretending Applications were but false Glosses upon his Power and Cromwell was too wise to think them other gain'd by Contrivement Force or at least Importunity half a score pitiful wretches call themselves the people of such or such a County and here 's the Total of the Reckoning Thus far L'Estrange Momentop 30. Truem. I marry and he talks like a South-sayer But hang 't let 's prorogue the Discourse of him and his Atchievements Have you seen Father Dowdal's just and sober Vindication Tory. No what 's he Truem. Even a worshipful Roman Catholick Priest very lately if not still a Prisoner in the Gate-house for Religion forsooth 'T is a small Treatise of five or six sheets bound printed 1681. and to be sold by William Downing in Bartholomew Close The design on 't is
Hundred Authors as any unbiass'd Learned Reader cannot but observâ— Thirdly He notes several Passages in the Two last Pacquets that are in Foxe 'T is very true What then Do not I there Cite Foxe for them where is the Plagiarism I Write to the Common People and Publish it thus in Successive sheets that so it may fall into the more Hands I pretend not to Instruct the Learned but to give the Vulgar such as perhaps never read Foxe and know nothing of the Magdeburgh Centuries a general Prospect of Popery that they may know and Abhor it Those things which in Foxe are tediously told I abridge what is less material I omit Remarkables I Transcribe and fairly tell the Reader where I have them and what Felony and Treason is there in all this Fourthly Why may not I furnish my Matter from Foxe and the Centuriators I doubt the Observator has some particular spite at them The first continues the Memory of many Glorious English Martyrs barbarously Butcher'd even since the Reformation under a Popish Princses of excellent Vertues setting aside her Blind Bloody Zeal which perhaps the Observator would have had forgot And the Second's Learned Labours and Industrious Researches into Antiquity have wrested one of the Church of Romes boasted Weapons out of her hands and taught us to distinguish the real Testimonies of the Fathers from Spurious Suborn'd Knights of the Post though in Gray Perriwiggs and Venerable Names I wonder what Authors the Gentleman would Advise us to perhaps his friend Father Cressy's Church History or the Golden Legend But he that regards every bark of Cerberuâ— may quickly be Deaf Let us proceed in our intended Work and let Mr. Observator be never so angry at it we will again make use of Mr. Foxe and from thence observe to the Reader That though the Church was already over-burthen'd and almost suffocated with a vast Mass of vain Superstitious Ceremonies yet Tho. Arundel Bishop of Canterbury in the days of King Henry the 4 th about the Year 1410. took upon him to encrease them by Commanding That in all Monasteries and Collegiate Churches there should every Morning be Bells Rung in Honour of the Virgin Mary which commonly was call'd Toling of Aves For the promoting of which he sent his Mandate stuft full of Wicked and Blasphemous Expressions to the Bishop of London and towards the Close thereof used these Words We therefore desiring more earnestly to stir up the Minds of all Faithful People to so devoâ—â— an Exercise c. do grant to all and every Person that shall say his Pater Noster and the Angels Salutation Five times at the Morning Peal with a Devout Mind as oft as he shall do it for each time forty days of Pardon by these Presents Given under our Seals in our Manner of Lambeth the 10th of February in the 9th Year of our Translation Now we appeal to the Reader if this were not a Lumping Pennyworth to have Forty days Pardon of all Sin whatsoever Villany a man should in that time Commit meerly for Muttering over Five Pater Nosters and Five Aves what a kind good humour'd pleasant delicate inviting Religion is Popery Yet now I think on 't my Country-men of Wengham did not find it so under his Predecessor William Courtney Archbishop of the same Province when they were forc'd to do a scurvy scandalous Pennance for the horrid Sin of not bringing Litter for his Graces Horses decently and in order The Sentence against whom being very notable I shall here Recite it and to spight the Observator it shall be out of Fox too Erroris Mater Ignorantia c. Ignorance the Mother of Error hath so blinded certain Tenants of the Lord of Wengham viz. Hugh Penny John Forestall John Boy John Wanderton William Hayward and John White That at the coming of the Lord Archbishop to his Pallace at Canterbury on Palm-Sunday-Eve in the Year 1390. being warn'd by the Bailiff to carry Hay Straw and Littor Foenum Stramen sive Literam 't is in the Original which may be noted from an Archi-episcopal Elegancy to the aforesaid Pallace as by the Tenure of their Lands which they hold of the See of Canterbury they are bound refusing and disdaining to do their due Service as they were accustomed brought their Straw not in Waines and Carts publickly and in sufficient quantity but sneakingly in Sacks and hugger-mugger to the undervaluing of the Lord Arch-bishop and derogation of the Rights of his See of Canterbury For which being call'd and personally appearing before the said Lord Arch-bishop on Thursday in Easter week sitting on his Tribunal in his Castle of Statewode they did humbly submit themselves to his Judgment devoutly craving Pardon and Mercy for those Crimes which they had committed in this behalf And then having sworn them to stand to the Commands of Holy Church and to perform the Pennance that should be Enjoyn'd them his Grace did Absolve them imposing on them and each of them a wholsom Pennance after the manner of the Fault viz. That on the Sunday next the said Penitent should leisurely go bare-footed and bare-headed in an Humble and Devout Manner a Procession to the Collegiate Church of Wengham each of them bearing on their shoulders openly a Sack full of Hay and Straw with the mouthes of the Sacks open so as the Hay and Straw may appear hanging out And to perpetuate the Memory of this Foolery the Pictures of these poor men doing this Ridiculous Pennance were entred in his Graces Register a Copy of which taken from the Original you have in Foxe with this Superscription being as 't is probable the Words they were to say in their Procession This Bagful of Straw I bear on my Back Because my Lord's Horse his Litter did Lack If you be not good to my Lord Grace's Horse You are like to go Bare-foot before the Cross In the 11 th Year of King Henry the 4 th The Commons of England in Parliament perceiving how abominably the Clergy Monks Fryars c. abused those vast Revenues which they Enjoyed to all kind of Pride and Licentiousness Preferr'd a Bill to the King to take away their Temporal Lands and to Imploy the same to the better Advantage and Safety of the Kingdom Alledging that the Temporailties then in the Possession of Spiritual Men amounted to Three hundred and twenty three thousand Marks by the Year But as the Clergy had mainly Assisted that Prince to Usurp the Crown so he did not think it safe to disoblige them at that juncture and therefore put off this Bill with a Le Roy S'avisera And about Two Years after the said King Henry dyed viz. the 2 d. of March 1413. in the 46 th Year of his Age to whom succeeded his Son then near 30 years of Age by the name of Henry the Fifth By the Preaching of Wickliff and his Followers the Eyes of great numbers of the People were in some measure enlightned to see the Errors
Baker in his Chronicle fo 177. says but Twenty eight were Executed for the pretended Treason And to push home the matter in a Parliament held the next Year They obtain an Act of Parliament 2 Hen. 5. Ca. 7. with this frightful Preamble For as much as great Rumours Congregations and Insurrections here in the Realm of England by divers of the Kings Liege-people as well by them which were of the Sect of Heresie commonly call'd 〈◊〉 as by other of their Confedracy Excitation and Abetment now of late were made to the Intent to Annul Destroy and Subvert the Christian Faith and the Lâ—w of God and Holy Church within this same Realm of Eâ—gland and also to destroy the same our Soveraign Lord the King and all other manner of Estates of the same Realm of England as well Spiritual as Temporal and also all manner of Policy and finally the Laws of the Land The same our Soveraign Lord the King to the Honour of God and in Conservation and Forâ—ification of the Christian Faith and also in Salvation of his Royal Estate and of the Estate of all his Realm wâ—â—ling against the Malice of such Hereticks and Lollâ—rds to provide a more open Remedy and Punishment c. hath Ordainâ—d That the Chancellour Treasurer Iustices of each â—ench Iustices of the Peace Sheriffs c. shall take an Oath to Root out and Destroy all manner of Heresies and Errours commonly called Lollardries And that all persons Convict of Hâ—â—esie by the Ordinary shall forfâ—it all their Lanâ—â—s and Tenements Goods and Chattels So that by this Law the poor People were in as bad ease for Heresie as if they had Committed Treason or Murder they must lose both 〈◊〉 and â—state only here was no Corruption of 〈◊〉 and 't is oâ—sâ—rvable that pursuant to this Act there waâ— even since the Reformation this Clause in the Sheriff Oath viz. Ye shall do all your pain and diligence to Destroy and make to Cease all manner of Heresies and Errours â—â—mmonly call'd Lollers within your Bayliffwick See Book of Oathes p. 27. And so it continued to the beginning of the Reign of King Charles the First and then viz. the Fourth of December 1625. it was by direction of the Kings Council Reformed and that Clause omitted But now 't is time to return to speak of Sir John Old-Castle he had now sheltred himself about Four years in Wales and though the King at the Prelates Instigation had set forth A Proclamation Promising a Thousand Marks to any that should bring him in yet says Baker so generally was his Doctrine favour'd that the Kings offer was not much regarded till at last he was taken by the Lord Powis and sent Prisoner up to London and being in the Interim Outlaw'd for the aforesaid pretended Treason he was drawn to the Place since call'd Tyburn and as his Crime was represented double so likewise was his Punishment being both Hang'd and Burnt the first as a Traytor and the last as an Heretick and 't is said several others in those times were serv'd in like manner insomuch That some have deduced the Etymology of Tyburn from those two Words Ty and burn the Necks of Persons being tyed thereunto whose Leggs and lower Parts were Consumed in the Flames Having given this Succinct Relation of this Affair of Sir John Old Castle I am not Ignorant what rubbs have been thrown in the way and Scandals raised upon his Memory by Parsons the Jesuit and others which are reducible unto Two sorts viz. 1 st That he was a Traitor to his Soveraign 2 ly That he was a Drunken Companion or Debâ—uchee As to the First being a very material and heinous Charge we shall refer the Confutation thereof to our next Pacquet But this last being as groundless as Trivial wee 'l dispatch it at present That Sir John Old-Castle was a Man of Valour all Authentick though prejudic'd Histories agree That he was a Gentleman both of goâ—d Sense sober Life and sound Christian Principles is no less apparent by his Confession of Faith delivered under his own hand Extant in Foxe and his Answers to the Prelates But being for his Opinions hated by the Clergy and suffering such an Ignominious Death Nothing was more obliging to the then Domineering Ecclesiastick Grandeeâ— than to have him represented as a Lewd Fellow in Compliance thereof to the Clergy the Wits such as they were in the succeeding Ages brought him in in their Interludes as a Royster Bully or Hector And the Painter borrowing the Fancy from their Cozen Poets have made his Head commonly an Ale house Sign with a Brimmer in his hand and so foolishly it has been Tradition'd to Posterity Nor is this our private Conceit but the Observation of that Learned and Ingenious Divine the Reverend Doctor Fuller who in his Church History of Britain Lib. 4. fol. 168. has these words Stage-Poets have themselves been very bold with and others very merry at the Memory of Sir John Old-Castle whom they have fancied a Boon Companion a Jovial Royster and yet a Coward to boot contrary to the Credit of all Chronicles owning him a Martial Man of Merit The best is Sir John Falstaffe hath relieved the Memory of Sir John Old Castle and of late is substituted Buffoon in his place but it matters as little what petulent Poets as what malicious Papists have Written against him The spightful Calumnies of the Latter we shall wipe off in our next The COURANT. Truman and Tory. Truman THe Business I was about to tell you was this After the Discovery of the late Popish Plot a Gentleman at the desire of an Eminent Bookseller in Fleet-street Wrote a Brief History of all the Papists Bloody Persecutions Plots and Massacres throughout Europe This Manuscript was carryed by the Bookseller to Mr. L' Estrange to License which being unwilling to do he Cavill'd at it after he had kept it some time in his hands that the Author had not Quoted the Authors or Books whence he had taken the Relations and unless that were done he would not License it The Gentleman at the Booksellers desire made all the Quotations punctually and set them in the Margent and the Copy was again carried to L'Estrange who nevertheless Resolving not to License it put off the Bookseller with many delays near Three Months and at last told him in plain termes It was not fit to make the Breach wider betwixt the Papists and Vs and there were too many of such kind of Books already Neither could he get the Copy out of his hand Tory. Perhaps L'Estrange kept it that he might prevent its being Licens'd by any body else Trum. This I 'm sure The Bookseller lost his Season Copy and Charge of Writing it for this Man 's Aâ—britary Pleasure Tory. But what then did the Author of the Book do Trum. The Gentleman followed the business so Close threatning to take his course at Law that at last he got the Copy and without any Alteration
shortly to present his Majesty with the story too of its utter extirpation The Northern Heresie must down They say 't is an excellent piece and will Claw off the Whigs confoundedly Truem. Yes yes a very suitable Subject for such a Pen our Churchmen have great cause to thank him and give him Guinneys for Blowing up the Church with Jesuites Powder under pretence of shooting Phanaticks 'T is mightily no doubt for the Advancement of our Religion at home and must be a most charming invitation and encouragement to Protestant Princes and States abroad to Love and Honor England if such Books shall be so kindly entertain'd amongst us and those Holy Men whom God raised up to be the First Reformers of his Church publickly exposed and ridicul'd by the prophane Buffonery of every mercinary Rascal But no matter for that till we see the Book abroad where do'st think I was to'ther night Tory. I 'le be hang'd if 't were not some damn'd Conventicle or Treason-whispering Club. Truem. Had Gadbury to solve the Question Try'd That Louse-killer could not have guess'd more wide No! no! Man I was even at the Academy of Non sense S's Coffee-house Tory. I am glad of that however for since peoples going to Church though driven thither in the Devils name passes for a laudable Conversion the very entring into S's must be esteem'd so many steps of Loyalty But prethee how didst like the Conversation Truem. Why the Room was large and crowded and there was Fire and Smoak and Hobgoblings in black and swearing and cursing and gnashing of Teeth Tory. Why thou describ'st it like the bottom of Hell Truem. No no Sir only an Antichamber an 't please ye The Universal Buzz was against the Whigs and Shaftsbury one magnify'd Craddock for an Hero another Painted Wilmore blacker than the Devil a third was telling who should be Poculiz'd to and a fourth who should be Hang'd first after that man entred into his Office a fifth was arguing how expedient it was to make a Bonefire of the City Charter c. when all on a sudden entred the Observator Bless us I shall never forget it what cringing and complementing and Sir-reverencing was there It put me presently in mind of the Play call'd The Lancashire Witches where in one Scene the Haggs being Assembled at Sabbatt when the Foul Fiend makes his appearance they all start up and cry Now now our Great Master 's come Arise prepare salute his Bum. And so they go and each reverently kisses the Tail of the Goat Tory. Leave your fooling and tell us what said the Oracle Truem. Nay you may now have all his Discourse in Print for Twopence he and the Company only predicted a brace or two of Observator-sheets to us Tory. Now thou talk'st of predicting Sheets I 'le tell thee how thou shalt get to predict next Tuesday 's Heraclitus Truem. Though 't is grown so horrid silly of late that 't is hardly worth a Stratagem and the attempt will not bring half so much honor as attacking the Smyrna Fleet yet let us hear it however Tory. Go but on any Sunday Night to the Sun in Aldersgate-street and send up Half a dozen Bottles of Claret to the Select Cabal and tell them a Gentleman below drinks the Duke's health to 'um you shall presently be admitted and hear the whole Manuscript read canvass'd debated and corrected Truem. Well! I do not know any body so fond of a Goose Egge That Paper had formerly some Witt with its malice a little Salt now and then as well as Roguery but now 't is become a meer Caput Mort The very Dreggs of Impertinence Printed for Langley Curtis 1682. The Weekly Pacquet OF Advice from Rome OR The History of POPERY The Fourth Volume FRIDAY May 19. 1682. Ite truces Animae Letho Tartara vestro Polluite totas Erebi consumite poenas Whether Salvation may be obtain'd in the Church of Rome The uncharitableness of Papists towards Protestants The desperate Hazards ran by Roman Catholicks c. IN our Pacquet N. 18. We stated Three Questions which we proposed to treat of in Order 1. Whether the Church of Rome were a Church of Christ 2. Whether Salvation were therein attainable And 3 ly Whether a man may be present at Mass without sin The First of these in that and Three other Pacquets since we have dispatcht Now we proceed to the Second a point nice and difficult and which ought warily to be handled That neither excess of Zeal consume our Charity nor conceits of Charity violate Truth and encourage Error The Papists look upon it as a Ruled Case extra Ecclesiam non est salus out of the Pale of the Church there is no Salvation and He that hath not the Church for his Mother neither hath God for his Father which Axioms are very true if by Church they would suffer us to understand the universal Church of Christ but they restrain that Term to the present Ecclesia malignantium the Apostatiz'd Congregation of Romanists united to the Pope as their Head and guided in their Faith according to the Canons of the Conventicle of Trent and averr that all are Damn'd eternally that do not joyn with them therein 'T is a notable Rant to this purpose of one of their Tribe in a Book called The Reconciler of Religions Printed Anno 1663. and Dedicated to Mr. Laurence Dibusty of London Merchant p. 51. The Sacrilegious Illicit and Invalid Ordination saith he of or by Story which was the first pretended Holy Mission of Protestants and from whence they hitherto derive their Orders was not worth a straw and consequently their pretended Holy Orders he speaks of the Church of England are not worth a Pins head therefore they are no true Preachers What are they then Forsooth Intruders Thieves and Robbers Hypocrites Ravenous Wolves and Murderers Sons of Belial false Prophets and Priests of Baal which is their Heresie Rebellion and stubbornness against the Church Now if the Protestant or Sectarian Preachers pray observe he makes no distinction between Church-men and Presbyterians be such what must the Protestants and Sectaries themselves be If the Blind lead the Blind shall they not fall both into the Ditch Sure enough they shall even into the Ditch of everlasting burning Brimstone and Fire But yet more remarkable is that of Costerus the Jesuite in his reply to Osiander Proposit 8. p. ult Fieri nequit ut Lutheranus moriens salvetur Gehennam evadat ex Aeternis Ignibus eripiatur Si mentior damner ipse cum Lucifero 'T is impossible that any person that is a Lutheran should be saved when he dyes or can escape Hell and be snatcht from Eternal Fire If I lie in this assertion let me my self be damn'd with Lucifer Nay in the Irish Massacre and during the Bohemian Persecutions The Papists several times told the Protestants that they kill'd their Bodies in pure kindness to their Souls for say they since we know all you Hereticks must
nothing remains but the Ordinance or Decree of God to appoint Damnation as a punishment of this sin according to the desert thereof But that was passed long since by the Lord himself You shall put nothing to the word which I command you Deut. 4. 2 11. 30. There 's the Precept and the Penalty is express'd Rev. 21. 18. If any man shall add to these things God shall add to him the Plagues that are written in this Book But more plainly 2 Thes 2. 11 12. The Lord shall send them strong delusions that they should believe lies that all they might be damned which believe not thâ— truth Here we see the Lord wrappeth them up in Damnation by his Sentence that believe Lies that is false and erroneous Doctrin nor agreeable to the Truth which they ought to believe What then is wanting to them to make the Faith of the Church of Rome damnable and the Professors thereof liable to Damnation when both the thing it self deserveth it and the Lord hath decreed that they which believe it should have according to their desert Since therefore it thus plainly appears that every man is bound upon pain of Salvation to refuse the Faith of the Church of Rome in what a desperate case are those that continue in it 'T is not for nothing that the Almighty God of Love and Compassion makes Proclamation by his Sacred Herauld Rev. 18. 4. Come out of her people lest ye perish with her and partake of her Plagues We have a famous example in that depravation of the true Religion and setting up of Idolatry under Jeroboam 2 Chron. 11. 14. The Levites that dwelt amongst those Revolted 10 Tribes left their Suburbs and their Possessions that belonged unto them a great Act of self-denial and came to Judah and Jerusalem to do the Service of the Lord in the Temple there And after their example many people out of all the Tribes of Israel that abhorred Jeroboam's Idolatry came thither also for the true worship of God They knew to abide amongst Idolaters would bring them to destruction But if such wrath attend those that continue in that Communion wherein perhaps they were Born and Educated and to which sinkt by so many Chains of prepossession and hardned against truth with a thousand prejudices what Indignation may those expect who were born in Goshen within the daily sound of the Gospel and free tenders of the word of Life in a Land of Bibles baptized into a Reformed Church engaged for by Protestant Sponsors Educated by Religious Parents and under the sweet distillations of Divine Manna from the Lipps of sound and able Preachers If such as these I say will be trudging back to the Garlick and Onyons of Egypt if these Apostatize after so much light and embrace Popish darkness What remains But a certain fearful looking for of Judgment and fiery Indignation which shall devour the Adversary He that despised Moses Law died without Mercy under two or three witnesses of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under Foot the Son of God in his Soveraignty Laws and Ordinances and hath counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith he was Sanctified an unholy thing imperfect without the Virgins Milk and Saints Intercessions and hath done despite unto the spirit of Grace As the Apostle argues in the same Case Hebr. 10. 27. It is reported by Ireneus cont Haeres L 3. Ca. 3. And by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History L. 3. Ca. 25. That Holy and Beloved Apostle St. John when he spied Cerinthus the Heretick in the Bath where he was made all the haste he could possible to be gone apprehending it dangerous to be under the same Roof with him Yea the very Heathen as Tully de natura deorum L 3. witnesses being at Sea in a violent storm were much afraid of being Ship-wrackt because they had Diagoras the Atheist abord amongst them I would to God some Protestants were but as careful for their Souls as I say not the Apostle but the Heathen were for their Bodies and used the same discreet caution to provide for their Eternal Salvation as they had to procure their Temporal safety Neither was the Apostle any thing concern'd in the Impiety of Cerinthus or these Heathens with that of Diagoras and yet both He and They doubted some evil might befall them because they were in the Company of such profane wretches And can any Protestant Imagine that he may be free from danger though he joyn in Faith with the Pope that great Anti-christ though he harbour those Locusts Priests and Jesuites and converse daily with them and hearken to their Syren Musick and Imbibe their gilded poyson out of that Cup of Fornication wherewith they have Intoxicated the Kings of the Earth No No touching of Pitch always defileth It cost Jehosaphat dear though he were otherwise a good King for going to War with Idolatrous Ahab against a common enemy For what said Hanani the Seer 2 Chron. 19. 2. Wouldst thou help the wicked and love them that hate the Lord Therefore for this thing the wrath of the Lord is upon thee What then may they look for who like the Laodiceans are lukewarm neither hot nor cold altogether indifferent whether they be Papists or Protestants prepared to shift their Religion as the humour of the Successor shall happen such as are not asham'd to declare beforehand that they had rather be Papists than joyn with any of the Reformed Protestant Churches beyond the Seas that scoff at the very name Protestant and make it the best part of their Religion to swear and damn and rail against and persecute all those pious peaceable Protestants that cannot suppose it be through the error or weakness of their Conscience come up to the usage of some insignificant Ceremonies acknowledged to be indifferent though otherwise sound in their Faith Loyal to their King readily paying all Taxes useful to the publick and peaceable to their Neighbors whilst at the same time these high soaring Nominal Sons of the Church of England as they love to stile themselves though there is scarce one in forty of them but either is ignorant of or does not believe her Articles shall speak well of applaud and caress Papists and argue for their Principles and extenuate for their Treasons c. what shall we say of such people The Lord Rebuke them But least we should seem Fanatical in this assertion that the Faith of Rome is to be refused on pain of Damnation we shall here add some Testimonies of the Reverend Fathers and Divines of the Church of England 1. The famous Jewel in the defence of his Apology part 6. Ca. 22. Div. 2. We have departed saith he speaking of the Church of Rome from them who have utterly forsaken the Catholick Faith 2. Dr. Reynolds Conclus 5. The Church of Rome is not distemper'd with a little-Ague such as hindreth not greatly the functions of life
sordid covetousness and other pranks before-mentioned Angelus de Clavasio a Friar Minorite in his Book call'd Summa Angelica in the word Pope affirms that this very Martin after long consultation gave a man leave to marry with his own Sister dispensing with the Positive Law of God and Nature This Pope likewise was a very busie stirrer up of persecutions and bloody wars against the poor Bohemians as Hereticks they having sometime before embraced Wickliffs Doctrine But of this and the other troubles of those people for the sake of the Gospel we shall take another opportunity to discourse The COURANT. Truem. MEthinks you look Cloudily to day Monsieur Tory does Tuesdays Verdict stick in your Gizzard would not the Sham take Could not poor Nat get a Christian Jury as he call'd it that might believe the Sun was a Bottle of Ink and that Sir Edmondbuâ—y Godfrey Killed himself 4 days after he was Murthered Tory. Prethee why dâ—ee talk so you know I never justified that story I think 't was very ill done and the Contrivers of it deserve to be punisht Truem. Why this 't is for a man to be unfortunate and down the wind his friends streight abandon him as vermine run from falling Houses All the while bonny Nat was towring upon the wing alarming the world with his Regiments of Five-Hundreds and his Troops of Sixty's that should Swear Canon-pooof and drive the Nail home and Clench it then you and all your party appeared openly in favour of the welcome News I know not what to think on 't says one I was never satisfied in that business of Godfrey's Murder Nay quoth a second there are shrewd Circumstances in these two Letters to Prance they are ingeniously Pen'd and a great deal of weight in them Alas Sir adds a third 't is not to be doubted but he can make it all out and by such a number of Protestant Witnesses too not so much you see as a suspected Papist is concerned else you must think he would never write so confidently I fancy here will be a notable discovery and then what will become of Madam Plot when she has lost one of her main Crutches Damme concludes the fourth man that story of Godfrey's being Killed at Sommerset-house was all Bubble why the Divel should the Papists meddle with him the three poor fellows were meerly sworn out of their Lives and so were all the rest that noise of a Popish Plot was nothing in the world but an intrigue of the Whigs to destroy the Kings best Friends and the Devil fetch me to Hell in a Hand basket if I might have my will there should not be one Fanatical Dog left alive in the three Kingdoms This Gentlemen was wont e're while to be the stile of Discourse at Sam 's and Margarets and now when the Oracle Nathaniel's 600 and 60 witnesses are dwindled to half a dozen and they only serv'd to prove him and his associates impudent lying villains and that he is like to scour a Pillory do you desert the Cause and come sneaking like a Quaker and Cry Friends never own'd it Tory. A Pillory never fear it Nat I le promise you has friends in a Corner what he did was only to Print the Papers for money in the way of his Trade and he has discover'd his Authors what would you have more of the honest man Truem. I will not presume to prejudge his doom I doubt not but the Reverend Judges will do him and the Nation Right but for what you alleadge that he did it for others in way of his Trade will for him be but a vain excuse for he has made it his own Act he did not do it Ignorantly or by surprize not imposed upon by false Information or mistake but willfully and with a malicious design as appears 1. For that it was contrary to his own personal knowledge he himself view'd the Boâ—y at the White-house as is proved by Affidavit and from the Testimony of his own Eys he himself then Printed that there was no Blood that it was evident he was strangled c. 2 When he first publisht his pretended Sarum-Letter which was only to sound the waters there was presently a satisfactory answer return'd yet soon after he Printed his first Letter to Prance and that too being solidly refuted he flung out a second and has himself all along in his Intelligence and by word of mouth espoused the thing and boasted he would prove it sometimes by 500 sometimes by 60 witnesses Nay since the very last Term has vapored in Print at the same rate and endeavoured before hand to cast a scandal on any Jury that should try him Now if such a man in such a cause wherein the honor of the King and of the Justice of the Nation and the whole Protestant Interest is so highly concern'd and so impudently arraigned and aspersed shall escape without some exemplary mark from that Justice which he has so daringly affronted it might prove an unaccountable precedent Tory. But what should be his design in all this Truem. We need not go to Gaâ—bury to discover that 't is plain it was to sham off the belief of the Popish Plot that it may still proceed to excuse the Papists from that barbarous murder and fix the Odium of being guilty of innocent blood on the King and his Judges and all the Protestants in the Nation for putting Green Berry and Hill to death wrongfully And this alone methinks should open your eyes to see through the boasted Loyalty of Thompson all such fellows and their kindless forsooth to the Church of England and what interest it is that under that disguise they serve And to shew all the world that the Popish Plot is still working on for it can never be imagined that three such little inconsiderable fellows would ever have troubled their heads with such a business or dar'd to have broach'd it in that audacious manner had not men of wiâ—er heads and greater figure abetted them Though Pâ—in and Farwell own'd themselves Authors of the Letters yet if ever the matter can be throughly sifted Tâ—e wager that a Jesuitâ— or Priest was the Composer of them Printed for Langley Curtis 1682 The Weekly Pacquet OF Advice from Rome OR The History of POPERY The Fourth Volume FRIDAY June 30. 1682. Infanda Tellus quáque vix pejor stygem Vehit profundis apta suppliciis humus Quousque sae vos misera lassabis Deos Experta Fulmen An excellent discourse of Clemangis that we ought to depart out of Babylon The story of Pope Eugenius IV. who is deposed in the Council of Bazil IN our last we mentioned the Complaints of Clemangis the Reverend Arch-Deacon of Baior touching the lamentable corrupt state of the Church and shall now add another notable discourse of his in an Epistle to Gerrard Market a Doctor of Paris which though somewhat long we chuse to recite not only for the Excellency of the matter and to shew what
but the Pope refus'd to Crown him unless he would first promise to Ratify the pretended donation of Constantine and also grant all those things de novo and swear forthwith to depart Italy All which Valla cannot mention without Indignation what saith he would be more absurd than to be crown'd Emperor and at the same time renounce Rome to be Crowned of him who he confesseth and as much as in him lieth maketh Lord of the Roman Empire And to Ratify a donation which if it be true leaveth to the Emperor nothing of the Empire which I think Children would not have done I shall not mention all the quarrels of this Pope the greatest part of whose times was spent in Wars and Bloodshed insomuch that the Romans not able to endure his Cruelties once drove him out of the City making him run away in the habit of a Monk and pelting him with durt and stones whence he retired to Florence and remained there some time but having by his friends again reduc'd Rome to his obedience he used greater severities than ever and notwithstanding he had so approv'd of the Council of Basil yet now will needs dissolve it and accordingly recalls Cardinal Julian his Legate from thence on the other side the Fathers of the Council by their Letters first intreat and afterwards admonish him to come thither himself or at least not to disturb the peace of the Church by offering to obstruct their proceedings but he persisting and appointing another Anti-Council at Ferrara they formally Cite Accuse Adjure suspend and at last depose him from the Popedome and in his room Elect Amades Duke of Savoy by the name of Felix the Fourth who before led an Hermits Life on the Banks of the Lake of Lausanna However Eugenius still swagger'd as Pope in Italy and having got together a Conventicle of Cardinals most of their own making and others in Ferraria in the year 1438. and next year by reason of the Pestilence removed to Florence John Palaeologus the Emperor of the East and several Bishops of the Greek Church upon a treaty that had been advanc'd for a Reconciliation between the two Churches resolved to have a personal Conference and being at Sea upon his Voyage for Italy Charles the 7 th King of France who sided with the Council of Basil sent forth a Fleet of Gallies into the Ionick Sea to meet him and acquaint him that the lawfull Council was held at Basil not at Florence and therefore to perswade him to Land in France whence he should be honourably Conducted to Basil But the Pope understanding this design by large Bribes Corrupts the Admiral of the French Gallies who willfully steering a wrong course misses the Emperour and so he Lands in Italy The presence of this Emperour and the noise of an Vnion like to be patcht up between the Two Churches added not a little lustre to the Popes Council yet the proceedings of the Council of Basil extreamly troubled him and against them he and his Council published several Bulls and writings wherein they blush not to affirm That it was so far from truth That he ought to obey general Councils that he then most merited when he contemn'd the Decrees of the Council and that this proposition The Council is above the Pope is Heretical although both then and ever since it was and has been held and affirmed by all the Universities of Christendome whence it will follow that whilst the Roman Church boasteth her self superior to all other Churches and the Roman Bishop above all other Bishops by this Decree of Eugenius the Bishop of Rome is made superior to and of higher Authority than the universal Church and consequently the pretended Infallibility of the Church should be derived not now to the Romish Church but to one only man which shews him evidently to be the Antichrist according to that Interpretation of St. Augustine de Civitate Dei Lib. 18. Cap. 2. That Antichrist should not not only sit in Templo Dei in the Temple of God but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Templum into the Temple As if he himself were the Temple it self and he alone the Church Besides by these Translations let the Christian Reader judge of that Infallibility of the Church represented in a Council since here he sees these Two Councils at one and the same time in one and the same question do decree things directly contrary But 't was not with Paper pellets and spiritual Thunders that this stouthearted Pope Attaqu'd the Council of Basil for a truce being concluded between the Kings of England and France whereby the Soldiers on each part were dismiss'd Eugenius subtlely Inveigles the Dauphin of France afterwards Lewis the 11 th who gathers up near 30000 of those disbanded Troops and marches towards Basil Colouring the Expedition with many remote pretences but indeed with a design to unroost the Fathers there and force them to break up But they were no sooner entered the Territories of Basil but the Cantons of Switzerland hastned to its succour and relief And 4000 Switzers with incredible Valour stood the Shock of all the great Army and continued the Battel all night scarce 150 of them escaping but thereby they put a stop to the enemies advance and preserv'd the City and Council The COURANT. Inter Serpentes et scorpiones Nemo securus Ingreditur St. Hierom. Tory. FOr all your Tatling Catholick Nat tho unhapily Cag'd since I saw you last yet defies the Wooden Ruff and the Whipping-post The good man avows to all the World He has done nothing to be asham'd of Truem. I told you then I should not meddle with the success of his present Adventures Nor will I dispute whether hebemore meritorious better be friended less Guilty or born under more indulgent Stars than his Sister Cellier 'T is certain their ends were the same though they pursued several means her story of Prances being Racks and his of Sir Edmondbery Godfrey's Killing himself being a like design to Sham that Murder from the Papists and load the Justice of the Nation with scandal But all I shall say is that he had long since a prior right and Title to the Pillory for if he be not belied this very Loyal Protestant was the Gentleman that besides some Cart-loads of bare fac'd Popery first Printed and Publisht a certain Libell the Reprinting of which from his Publique Copy after it had many days haunted the Town brought another to that Ignominious stand Tory. Prethee let Nat alone he 's safe enough and I think at this juncture your Faction have little cause to boast Truem. I know not what you mean by Faction for some Folks of late have got new Dictionaries and they call Religion Sedition the Nine and Thirty Articles Fanaticism drunken madness Loyalty horrid damming and swearing zeal for the Church Traiterous Papists good confiding subjects moderate Churchmen the worst sort of Whigs asserting liberty and property though in never so dutifull and legal away
defiance to their Indentures for breach of which the Law and prudent necessary Custom of the City has awarded Little-Ease and Bridewell they shall dare be Scaperloytering to a right Honourable Feast Nor is it any answer to say they do it to shew their Loyalty for that 's demonstrated in being obedient to the Law and their Masters not in Drinking Healths Swearing roaring and Huzza-ing Tory. Well for all your slighting of Health-drinking I conceive it a most necessary thing in these times for you see what Loyal Nat-Pillory Thomson saith last Saturday how one Saunders a supposed Whigg being Indicted at Hereford Assizes the Court gravely put it to him whether he used to Drink the King and the Dukes Health who answer'd He could Eat the Kings as well as any man in England but it seems had a great Fine laid upon him Truem I verily believe this another of his impudent Scandals on the Government and doubt not but the worthy persons concern'd will vindicate themselves from his Libel for can it be Imagin'd that any of the sage Judges would so far forget themselves their Dignity and Gravity as to ask such a pitifull ridiculous question is Health Drinking an Hellish Custome condemn'd by the Law of God Habakkuk 2. 15. and Mortaâ—ity and his Majesties Proclamation now become the Shibholeth of Loyalâ— Tory. Well well I 'm sure they are all Whiggs and Phanaticks and Traitors that wont Drink the â—ukes Health for the Kings of late is somewhat out of fashion but prethe tell us what is that place in Habakkuk for I do not oft trouble my head with the Bible Truem. The words are these Wo unto him that giveth his Neighbour Drink that puttest thy Bottle to him and makest him Drunk also that thou may'st look on their Nakedness thou art filâ—ed with shame for Glory the Cup of the Lords right hand shall be turned unto thee aud shamefull Spewing shall be thy own Glory Printed for Langley Curtis 1682. The Weekly Pacquet OF Advice from Rome OR The History of POPERY The Fourth Volume FRIDAY August 18. 1682. Dubium nullum est iis quos spiritus Christi tangit quin sciant sese Offerre summum gratissimum Laudis sacrificium quicquid contra hanc Cruentam Blasphemam Sacrilegam Meritricem Diaboli legere dicere scribere possunt Luther in Epist ante R. Barius M. De vitis pontificum Pope Alexander Poison'd by a mistake with Wine prepared to Poison a Cardinal Thirty Thousand years pardon granted Julius the second a Tory-Pope flings St. Peters Keys into Tybur Pope Leo the X. sends out extravagant Indulgences which Luther opposes and so we are brought to the beginning of the Reformation THe Pope was so far from punishing his base begotten Caesar Borgia for murdering his Brother mention'd in our last that he not winked at it but resolves still to advance him to Riches and Honour in order to which the said Caesar flung off his Cardinals Robes and openly delar'd he would be no longer a Priest but a man of Warr then he married Charlotte nearly related to the French King who was willing to bestow her on him because he had a mind to change his Bedfellow and concluded by sweetening the Pope by this match to obtain a Divorce Caesar being return'd into Italy designs the ruine of all the Governours or Lieutenants of the Cities of Romania and to take the Government and profits all to himself for effecting which there was no kind of Treachery or Cruelty which he left unpractised Stabbing some Poisoning others and Strangling diverse whilst the Father striving as it were to exceed the Son in wickedness was playing the same Game with the Cardinalls and chief Barons of the City insomuch that Volateran and Guiccardine are weary with relating their Barbarities and the politick Florentine Nick Matchiavil when he would give the World the Character or true figure of a Tyrant does it in the person of this Caesar Borgia as Zenophon describes an excellent Prince in the name of Cyrus Amongst other devises both Father and Son were exquisite Practioners in Poyson and had thereby taken off several of the Richest Cardinals But Non Lex est Justior ulla Quam Necis Artifices Arte perire sua 'T is Just such witty Engineers of Death By their own Arts should lose their hated Breath The manner of this Popes death both Onuphrius Volateran and Guiccardine relate as followeth He Supping one night in a Vineyard near the Vatican to enjoy the coolness of the Air was suddenly carried desperately sick into the Pallace and the next morning he died black swoln and beyond all credit deform'd which happened as it is credibly reported by Poyson in this manner Caesar Borgia his Son Duke of Valentia had resolv'd to Poison Adrian Cardinal of Corvoto in whose Vineyard they were to Sup that Night he sent before certain Bottles of Wine which he caused to be delivered to a Servant of his with a strict charge that no body should tast or touch it it happen'd before Supper time the Pope came and being very hot and thirsty called for Wine and because his Supper was not yet brought from the Pallace the fellow thinking this to be some more excellent sort of Wine than usual willing to gratify his Holinesses Pallate gave him some of it and just as the Father was drinking in came the Son and not imagining it to be of the Wine he had so prepared drank of it too but he being young and using present Remedies escaped with his Life but not without great Languishment which incapacited him for Actions for the future This Pope had Raign'd or rather Rag'd 11 years and the people were so pleas'd they were rid of him that Guiccardine tells us Multitudes ran from all parts of the City to glut their eyes if they could with the dead Carcase of this Serpant who with such unbridled Ambition perfidious Treachery horrible Cruelty monstrous Luxury Insatitae Avarice and selling without difference or respect all things holy and profane had Infected the whole World Nor does Onuphrius the Popes own Historiographer give him a better Character His Treachery says he was more than punical his Cruelty Barbarous his Covetousness and Extortion unmeasurable his desire to enrich his Children whether by Right or by wrong unsatiable He was strangely given to Women by whom he had four Sons and two Daughters His principal Where was Vanoccia a Roman whom for her Beauty rare meen pleasant wit and Eloquence in the time of his meaner Fortunes he liv'd with after the manner of a Wife Now was not this a rare fellow to be Christs Viccar Peters Successor Head of the Church Infallible c. Yet this was the pretious Pope who in the year 1494. Publisht with his own mouth a pardon for Thirty Thousand years to as many as would say a certain Prayer before the Image of St. Anne the Mother of the blessed Virgin Beginning Benedicta sit Sancta Anna Mater tua ex
quâ sine maculâ peccato processisti c. Blessed be St. Anne thy mother of whom without spot or sin thou didst proceed c. Where are now the Dominicans who Preached the contrary Doctrine the most Holy most infallible Monster you see has concluded the point against them Next came Pius the 3 d in the year 1503. he was an Old decripite fellow and lived not above a month then upstarts that Hector Julius the second for before ever the Cardinals met he had made his Party by Bribes and fair promises and so without ever shutting the doors of the Consistory was declared Pope his first business was to Marry a Bastard Girle he had named Felix to one of the Vrsini and his next was to drive the French out of Italy he took Cesena and Forolivio from Caesar Borgia the Son of Pope Alexander the 6 th Expell'd the Family of Bentivogli with their Wives and Children out of Bononia Excommunicated the Venetians and gave their Lands to the first that could take them Interdicted Alphonso Duke of Ferrara and made open War against him because he took part with the French and went in person to the seige of Mirandula And passing once over the Bridge of Tyber with a naked sword in his hand he flung the Keys into the River which gave occasion to that Epigram Hic Gladius Pauli nos nunc defendit ab Hoste Quandoquidem Clavis nil suvat ista Petri. Since Peter's Keys with Foes can not prevail This sword of Paul to save us shall not fail And Monstrelet the Historian thus describes him He left the Chair of St. Peter and took upon him the Title of Mars the God of War displaying in the field his Triple Crown and spending his Nights in the Watch. What a goodly sight was it to see the Mitres Crosses and Crosier staves Flying up and down the Field sure no Divels could be there where Benedictions were sold so cheap Upon this Lewis of France and Maximilian the Emperour resolve to call a Council at Pisa and to summon this Pope thither as being notoriously scandalous incorrigible a Fomenter of Wars and altogether unfit for the Popedome and though the Pope used means to take off the Emperour yet Lewis persisted and caused certain Medals to be Coyned upon which was Inscribed these words Perdam Babylonem I will destroy Babylon and on some of them perdam Babylonis nomen I will destroy the Name of Babylon By which 't is evident he meant Rome so that the notion of its being Babylon is neither new nor set on foot by Protestants though 't is true his Holiness was herewith so much offended that by his Bull he took away from the French King the Title of Most Christian and offer'd the same to Henry the 8 th of England then one of the Popes white Boy 's on whom afterward was bestow'd that of defender of the Faith but God be thanked our Protestant Brittish Monarchs as they yet usually retain the one so they may justly when they shall think fit assume the other without being beholding to a raskally Divels Priest for either of them In opposition to the Council of Pisa Pope Julius sets up a Conventicle under that name in the Lateran at Rome who Excommunicate the other folks and damn all their proceedings but â—n the heat of their Carier Julius dies on whom those that knew him bestow'd these Epigrams Fraude capit totum Mercator Julius Orbem Vendit enim Caelos non habet Ipse tamen By fraud that Huckster Julius scrapes up pelf For Heaven he sells yet hath it not himself And again Genui tui Patrem Genitricem Graecia Partum Pontus unda dedit nunc Bonus esse potest Fallaces Ligures mendax est Grecia Ponto Nulla fides in te haec singula Jule tenes From Genua and Greece his Parents blood At Sea he had his Birth can he be good The Genoe's alway false Greeks Liars be Faithless the Sea all Julius meet in thee In a word the Popedome of Julius was so imperious and barbarous that the Cardinals were upon the point of â—â—â—ding the next that should sucâ—eed in that See to the good behaviour and prescribing certain Râ—les whereby â—e should Act but what a pretty Torisme is it to hedge in a Cuckow guide Infallibility and bound the perrogative of the Chair which according to modern Casuists is unliâ—iâ—table he dyed in the year 1513 in the 10 th year of his pontificate and the greatest Enology that Ouuphrius himself can bestow on him is that he was Bellicâ Gloriâ plusquam pontificem deceret Clarus More famous for war like Glory than became a Pope The next was John de Medicis a very pretty forward Child for he got to be an Archbishop almost before he had left his Go-Cart and at Thirteen years of age was made a Cardinal and at 37 arriv'd at the Popedome by the name of Leo the 1â— th On his Coronation day he spent an Hundred Thousand Dâ—â—â—tes and in one morning the Colledge of Cardinals câ—nsenting say our Author for fear not of free will he Created one and Thirty Cardinals amongst whom were two of his Nephews He continu'd the Council of Lateran conven'd by his Predecessor and extinguisht that of Pisa he exacted great summs of mony throughout all Europe by his Legates under pretence of making War against the Turks and his Prodigality causing continual want he used saith Guiccardine very licentiously the Authority of the Holy See and spread abroad throughout all the World without any difference of times and places most ample Indullgences not only to succour the Living but also to deliver the Souls of the departed out of the pains of Purgatory And it being notorious that such Indulgences were granted only to rook people of their mony there arose thereby many scandals especially in Germany where his Ministers for a very small price sold these braided Wares and in Taverns play'd away at Dice the power of delivering Souls out of Purgatory and the money thus raised he gave to his Sister Magdalene who appointed the Bishop of Arembauld her Commissary for that business which place he executed with exceeding great Covetousness and Extortion so that Preachers were not asham'd to publish in their Pulpits that at the sound of the mony as it was cast into their Bason the Souls skipp'd for joy amidst the flames and presently flew out of Purgatory and that whoever gave 10 Soulz might deliver thence what Soul he pleased but if there was but one farthing less they would do nothing These horrible abuseâ—s being thus daily without all shame committed it pleased God to raise up Martin Luther who first began to inveigh only against such exorbitant Indnlgences about the year 1516. but afterwards the Pope instead of Reformation sending forth his Thunderbolts against him he grew more wearily to scan the Doctrines of the Roman Church and so open'd a way for the Reformation which hence may properly bare date and therefore here as an happy and very proper period we shall give a Conclusion to this 4 th Volume SOLI GLORIA SOLA DEO The COURANT. Tory. THe truth is 't was a great disappointment and has utterly spoil'd the wit of an Health to Blewcap but are not your Whiggs at Chichester most abominable Varlets to Massacre our Reverend Father's Jades at this rate Truem. Yes indeed Nat Thomson and L'Estrange I see resolve to make Martyrs of the poor Beasts one of the Roman Emperours made his Horse Lord Mayor and an Ass you know tutor'd the Prophet why then may not an Episcopal Steed be Sainted We men of Kent I remember got long-tails by being uncivil to Bishop Beckets Nag and who knows what heavy Judgments may befall these Clowns of Sussex for such a damnable Plot against Old Roan or sorrell Ecclesiastick but the truth is all the whole story is a Ly the Phanaticks kill'd my Lord the Bishops Horses no more than they burnt London and yet Roger L'Estrange has charg'd them with both Tory. Well! let the Horses go to the Dogs oâ—ly as long unburied as the fellow did a few years ago but in the mean time what can you say touching the man that was slain there the other day Truem. There was a fellow fit for the Imployment that took upon him to be an Informer but staying too long after the Brandy bottle the Meeting it seems was broke up this loss of a Jobb and the Liquor together enrag'd him to that degree that he must needs break a worthy Gentleman's Windows whose Coachman going out to enquire the cause of that Burglary the Informer not only abus'd his Master with vile Language but assaulted the Coachman who in his own defence laid him in the Kennell but no sooner had he recover'd his Leggs but away he runs to the Man 's you wot on to make his sad Complaint how he had suffer'd by the Whigs for serving the Church Into the Celler he is carryed for a Cup of Benediction and Consolation and being Drunk before adds to the debauch and so good Night Now this accident is to be fill'd to the Dissenters account and you must needs believe that he dyed by means of the scuffle between him and the Coachman But pray tell us what makes Squire Hodge so desparately mad with the Parliaments and fall so foul on their priviledges at this juncture I hope we are not like to have one this Winter Tory. No no Hang 'um we all hate the very name the Popes Holiness himself would be as well pleas'd to hear of a General Council as we of a Parliament You see Roger aforesaid makes it Rebellion and half seas over to Forty one to expect an annual Parliament though there are a Brace or two of as fair laws for it as any in the Statute Book Truem. I never wonder to hear naughty Boys rail against Birch no doubt the Gentleman's Journey to Holland cost him Mony and he may be allow'd now to swagger don't you remember how the Collier huffâ— against the Mayor when he was got out of the Liberties Tory. Yes but his saying 'tother day that Rebellion always attended the Reformation was a little to broad I left a note last Night at Sam 's to caution him to more prudence for if he go on at this rate the people will conclude him a Papist though Prance should never make a word on 't Printed for Langley Curtis 1682.
should continue in prosperity falsly and Treasonably Contriving as well the State of the Kingdom as the State and Office of Prelates and the Religious Orders within this Kingdom utterly to Annul and our Lord the King his Brothers the Prelates and other great men of the Realm to Kill And to compel the Religious Orders to leave divine Worship and the Observation of Religion and to follow worldly Occupations and demolish both Cathedrals and Religious houses and spoil them of their Goods and to appoint the said Sir J. O. Regent of the Realm and to set up many Governments in the Realm as a people without an Head to the final destruction as well of the Catholic Faith and Clergy as of the State and Majesty of the Royal dignity did falsly and Trayterously order and propose that he with many other Rebells unknown to the Number of 20000 men from diverse parts of England Arrayed in Warlike manner should Privately Rise and on Wednesday next after Epiphany in the first year of the King at the Parish of St. Gileses c. in a great field they unanimously came together and met to fulfill such their wicked Intent persevering therein to Kill the King and his Brothers viz. Tho. Duke of Clarence John of Lancaster and Humphrey of Lancaster and also the Prelates and great men aforesaid as likewise to disinherite the King of his Realm they came Riding into the said Field Array'd after the manner of an Insurrection against their Allegiance to subdue our Lord the King unless by him with a strong hand they had Gratiously been hindered These are the very words of the Indictment which we the rather have repeated because the same was not Translated by Mr. Fox The COURANT. Truman and Tory. Tory. And how fares our Friend Nat Truem. Why truly the Lords of the Council to use his own insolent Expression have put him in a way to prove his Letters about Sir E. B. G. murdering himself Tory. As how prethee Truem. By justly sending him and his two Vouchers to Newgate Every thing you know naturally tends to its Center hence no doubt the impudent lie first came begot by the Stallion Popish Priests and Midwif'd by Dame Celier and thither 't is now return'd Tory. I 'l tell you this is a great disappointment There were Te Deums intended to have been Sung by our Catholic friends and Hundreds of us were got to the Tavern to be drunk for joy and now to be thus Balkt verily as Monsieur Coleman said There is no Trust in Man Will not this fadg then what shall we do now What sham is next O Roger where art thou Truem. Never trouble thy head with Roger he is playing at Cross purposes For Example The Question is Mr. L'Estrange why did not you for eighteen years together come to Divine service and receive the Sacrament according to the Establisht Church of England The Answer is the Parson of Dionis Backchurch The Question is M. L'Estrange why did you refuse to License a Narrative touching the manner of Sir Edmundbury Godfreys being found and say you did not know but you might offend some great people at White-hall The Answer is 't is not the first time The Question is Mr. Le' Estrange is you are no Papist why did you go to Mass and own your self to be a Member of that Church whereof the Pope is the Head The Answer is Brass Screws The Question is Mr. L'Estrange why did you refuse to Licence an Innocent Copy of Verses meerly because therein it was said That from the Cells of Jesuits and Monks there proceeded a brood to Riffle Subjects and to Murder Kings The Answer is Original Copy The Question is Mr. L' Estrange why did you refuse to Licence both an harmless and usefull Historical Collection of Popish Massacres and Cruelties and say 't was not fit to make the breach between us aud the Church of Rome wider and this since the Discovery of the present Plot The Answer is Forty Eight and pordage The Question is Mr. L'Estrange with what face could you affirm such a notorious lie that there were never above 50 Quakers at a time in the noisome Little-Ease of Bristol The Answer is Sir John Knight and 300 Horsmen The Question is Tory. Prethee leave thy fooling I wonder you dare talk at this rate at this time of day a Catholick friend of mine sent me a Copy of Verses last post out of Lancashire I 'l read a stanza or two of them We must not Blabb but only hint If all things fail the Divel 's in 't Wait but a little longer Our Plot will prove that 't is no wonder For Bones well sett if broak asunder After do grow the stronger For mark ye well altho our Plot In its first Tract succeeded not Yet much we have got by 't The Haereticks by shams and fears Are set together by the Ears Whilst Whigg and Tory fight The Tory he Swagâ—gers and Sings Drinks the Dukes health before the Kings And damns to be Emphatick When he expresseth wish and hope To Kiss the Gouty Toe of Pope Ere he 'l endure Fanatick Then for our hot Tantivy Boys That more with Oaths than pray'rs make noise They 'r Birds deâ—ile their Nest Whose Priest-Craft is preferment meerly Which or to get or save they clearly Will pass through any Test Our Friends are numberless to think on The Dammee Blades and those that drink on And Whore without all shame The Crack-farts Hectors Atheists Bulleys The Bankrupts Poets Sots and Cullies And some I dare not name Printed for Langley Curtis 1682 The Weekly Pacquet OF Advice from Rome OR The History of POPERY The Fourth Volume FRIDAY April 14. 1682. Livor post Fata quiescat Tum suus ex merito quemque tuatur Honos Some further Remarks on the Story of Sir John Oldcastle An Epitaph offered to his memory The miserable death of his persecutor Thomas Arundel Archbishop of Canterbury who made a Constitution against Reading the Scriptures LEt us go on to Examine the Matter of Treason charg'd on Sir John Oldcastle c. And must request the Reader to Remind the Record of the Indictment recited in English in our last in which besides the unaccountable omission of the Jurors names and the improbability that the supposed Fact should be Committed and Commission to the Judges and their Session and the Conviction should all bear date and happen upon one and the same Numerical day there are these other Observables that present themselves 1. 'T is therein alleadged that the design of these Imaginary Traytors in St. Gilses Thickets was to make Sir John Oldcastle Regent and why not rather King since the same Indictment charges him with design to kill the King And yet if he had a mind to be Regent why should he design to kill the King for then presently his Regency must needs expire The truth is this very expression renders it suspicious that this pretended Indictment was â—obbled up afterwards