the stile Here is nothing proposed to be believed no Anathema fulminated no signification that the contrary is against the Scripture c. therefore at most it is a meer ecclesiastical ordinance touching external discipline and as such what is more ordinary and permitted than for Princes to refuse admittance therein we see some Churches of France reject the decrees of reformation made in the Council of Trent and also practised in England 8. Suppose it be an ordinance yet supream Princes and Kings are not named but excluded and only their Officers and Substitutes c. 9. No example can be produced in the Empire or other Catholick State that such an Oath in succeeding times was imposed or threatned But on the contrary we know Charls the fifth by a Law of the Empire publickly permitted Lutherans in several Provinces and all the Kings of France sinâ—e Hen. 3. permitted the Calvinists yet the Pope never threatned deposition or they feared it Therefore this doctrinal point of Faith is shamefully pretended to be involved on that or the like Decrees viz. the Popes power of deposing c. What State Kingdome or City received or taught the People this even as a probable Opinion It is well known in practice and doctrine other Sects and their accusers have been more faulty in this point then they as History and experience testifie of Princes actually deposed in Scotland Denmark Sweden Geneva c. and absolute rebellion following their doctrine in Poland Bohemia England France Hungary Germany c. Obj. Innocent the third who presided in this Council actually deposed King John and Otho the Emperour Resp Popes as private Doctors may err in matters of fact their Decrees and Bulls are not always held as infallible and may be opposed as often they have been by Papists nor will they scruple to do it especially about temporal affairs We do not approve whatsoever Popeâ— do in fact in deposing c. If some Popes have been exorbitant have not Papist themselves defended their Princes against all pretended illegal impositions of Rome If some Popes have transgressed and been passionate men it doth not follow all have as some Princes have been Tyrants not all This King John Protestant Histories conclude passing by his youthful Rebellion murthering his Nephew his Atheism c. they record he lost our whole interest in France discontenting all his people not defending their Rites and Priviledges c. So Heylin Daniel Martin Sir Robert Cotton Hist And Stow in his Chronicle 170. relates it thus King John being dissolute and perfidious and would not grant the Laws or Liberties of the Charter had as many enemies as Nobles Clergy and Layty petitioned against him for the Pope to depose him an opinion then in practice the Pope would not but sent Paendulph his Legate who comes over to Dover to King John to counsel the King's peace and reconcile him to God and the Church The King living then in great jeopardy to loose his Kingdome The King of France being invited by the Nobles and Clergy to invade the Kingdome saved the Kingdome by it after this the Clergy came over and all was in peace The Pope after this excommunicates the Barons for the disobeying the King and calling in the French King Lewis into the Realm And Gaule the Legate was sent from the Pope to forbid Lewis to go into or invade England to excommunicate him if he did But Lewis of France arrived in England whom the Barons assisted against King John John soon after died his eldest son Hen. 3. at nine years old was crowned King by the Bishops of Winchester and Bath c. and the Government of the King was committed to the Popes Legate the Bishop of Winchester and Earl of Pembroke The Legate maintained the King's part admonished prayed and commanded the disobedient to do as he did called a Council at Bristol caused the Bishops to incline to the King's part notwithstanding Lewis did what he could to the contrary Seeing Lewis and his complices were excommunicated every Sunday by the Legate though they had London and all the East parts of England Lewis had notice from Rome except he went out of England the sentence of excommunication of the Legate should be confirmed by the Pope For this cause saith Stow 175. a truce was taken between Lewis and King Henry Philip of France called his son Lewis to return he being passed over the Earl of Salisbury Earl Warren c. revolted to the Kings side and this by industry and virtue of the Pope's Legate Lewis being absolved from the excommunication went into France but his complices were by the Legate deprived of all benefit by their disobedience See Stow 170. Thus we see how for want of knowledge things are carried on and reported very frequently in the worst sense and construction it may be easily collected out of our own Authors and Chronicles that Popes have been great friends to our Princes and this Nation Take in short out of Stow 883. that Pope Adrian the fourth an Englishman invested Hen. 2. with the Dominion of Ireland and had it confirmed with an Assembly at Waterford Pope Vrbane who sent a Legate the Bishop Sabrine into England with sentence of excommunication against the City of London and Cinque-Ports and all those that troubled the King's peace King Richard of England being taken Prisoner unjustly by Leopold Duke of Austria in return from the Wars with the Saladine demanding a great ransome and misusing him The Pope excommunicated the Duke of Austrich and injoyned him to release the Covenants that he constrained our King to make and send home the Pledges The Duke refusing this Order shortly after broke his Leg and in great anguish ended his life and was kept unburied till his Son released the English Pledges Thus were the Pledges restored and the money behind released How oft did the Pope grant to the King of England the Tenth of all Ecclesiastical Goods as to Edward the first and second Sent the Abbot of Saint Denis Legat to request Edward the second to remove from him Pierce Gaveston without which the Kingdom could not be in peace nor the Queen injoy the Kings true love Vide Stow 213. Edw. 2. The Pope sent Ganelinus and Lucius de Flisco by the Kings request to make peace between England and Scotland and reconcile to the King Thomas Earl of Lancaster who brought Bulls from the Pope to excommunicate the Scots except they returned to peace with the King of England William Longshamp Bishop of Ely and Legate to the Pope and Chancellour of England was made Governour of the Realm by Richard the first Afterward the Archbishop of Roan was made Regent of England then being made Archbishop of Canterbury Then you see there was no jealousie of the Pope or his Clergy but on the contrary for many hundred years our Princes and Nation reposed as with just reason they might the greatest trust and confidence in their loyalty faith and
miles removed than in many thousand within his own Kingdom not all of them Angels The King of France esteems it a priviledg granted him in a Concordate by the Pope that no particular Bishop should have power in any case to excommunicate him Never was there greater supporters to the Crown than English Catholicks have been ever against the least encroachment offered by the Bishop of Rome himself as it is to be seen in the Statâ—t Laws of King Richard the Second wherein you find in many businesses the Pope was interessed the Roman Catholicks flatly denying the Crown of England to be subject to any immediately but to God yet acknowledged in the very same Parliament the Bishop of Rome's spiritual Jurisdiction And Bishop Bilson in his Defence between Christ and Antichrist brings in the Parliament consisting then altogether of Roman Catholicks expressing their loyalty to their Soveraign Prince in these words we will with our said Soveraign the King and his said Crown and Regality in cases aforesaid and in all other cases attempted against Him his Crown or Dignity in all points live and dye p. 3. p. 243. And in Holinshed 2. Volume of the last Edition p. 309. we find in the Reign of King Edward the First all the Catholick Lords assembled in Lincolne in Parliament in the name of all estates did answer the Popes right to judg c. that they would not consent their King should do any thing tending to the disinheriting of the Crown or right of England And that it was never known and consequently never practised that the King of this Land had answered or ought to answer for their rights in the said Realm before any Judg ecclesiastical or secular Yet at the same time they stiled Pope Boniface the high Bishop of the Roman universal Church and themselves his devout sons c. Therefore Catholick Religion hath no headship prejudicial to temporal Supremacy If this were a Check to the Glory of Kings why do the Kings of France Spain Poland Portugal the Emperour and other great Princes in Germany uphold it and glory in it the Duke of Savoy with the Florentine and the rest of Italian Princes living under the Popes Nose absolute and arbitrary in their Dominions dispute with Sword in their hand for their Temporalities And for the Catholick Church in England in Catholick times Stat. 25. Edward 3. Statut. 16. Richard did not admit the Pope's deposing power in temporals made it a preeminence to appeal to Rome or to submit to a Legates jurisdiction without the Kings License or on the Popes summons to go out of the Kingdom or receive any mandates or brief from Rome or purchase Bulls for Preserments to Churches c. and the reason was given because the Crown of England is free from earthly subjection and immediately subject to God Our Catholick Lords of England have in the name of the whole Body made oft protestations of eternal fidelity to the King and renouncing all dependance of any forreign power that can any way be prejudicial to him Many Protestations Professions Declarations have been printed by several Catholicks that no authority on earth can absolve them from their necessary and natural Allegiance and that his fidelity was a duty of their Religion have made and will be ready to give all security of peaceable obedience and sincere integrity that any words or actions can confirm But you will object and say they allow a power in the Pope to excommunicate Princes and thence follows a train of pernicious consequences of deposing raising his Subjects against him c. Resp That the power of Excommunication is indeed necessarily annexed to the pastoral Function and therefore to be allowed in the cheife Bishop over his Flock But they deny and renounce any further extent of that power unto those things which appertain to Caesar 5 and therefore they declare as firmly that notwithstanding any such excommunication they will bear true faith to our Prince and him maintain and defend against all opposers whatsoever You may again object the Council of Lateran decreed Princes that savoured Hereticks after admonition given the Pope might discharge the Subjects from allegiance and give away the Kingdom to some Catholick to root out Heresie Resp 1. Councils are not infallible in every point even in matter of fact and other Constitutions not concerning faith or doctrine being but human Laws are changeable and oft admit exceptions 2. Council's Ordinations are to be taken according to the prudent meaning of the Legislators which bear another sense than the words taken lye In this case suppose the Emperours of the East and West Kings of England France Hungary Hierusalem Cyprus Arragon c. agree together to purge their Kingdoms of Heresies and upon forfeiture the Church should give their Dominions to another that will perform their Compact these Princes being present by their Embassadors at the Councils and what was there done was done by their consent The Albigensian Heresie beginning to be so numerous and even dangerous those Monarches thought themselves in no worse a condition for that decree nor did any Catholick King since complain or protest against this Council for it 3. Note the Decrees of some Councils not received or acknowledged universally by the Catholick Church are not obligatory but that which is principally to be considered is that in the Decree of this Lateran under Innocent the Third it is ordained not Supream Princes but temporales potestates dominos which bear Offices in States and Kingdoms to take Oaths to root out all Hereticks under the penalty of being denounced to be deprived of their Estates c. yet reserving the right of the supream Lord. 4. This pretended Article of Faith hath been disclaimed by a world of unquestionable Catholicks and all allegations confuted by learned Authors of our Nation Doctor Bistop writ a Book purposely against it 5. No proof can be given that it was ever received or executed by any Catholick Kingdom out of Italy The reason is because those decrees were never published by Pope Innocent nor a Copy of them extant either in the body of the Councils or Vatican Library or elsewhere till a certain German three hundred years after said he found them in a Manuscript compiled he knows not by whom 6. By testimony of all Historians at that time Pope Innocent suffered in Reputation having convoked so many Prelates to no purpose 60 Capitula were recited in the Assembly and many penned in a stile as if they had been concluded but nothing at all could plainly be decreed no Conciliary determinations made but one or two viz. about the recovery of the holy Land and subjection of the Greek Church to the Roman for a War began then between them of Pisa and Genua which called the Pope from the Council 7. Be it granted a conciliary decree it is so far from looking like an Article of Faith which saith Bellarmine and Canus may easily be discovered by
Nations to perswade people from Idolatry to be charged themselves with the same guilt Good Sir you may as truly say they worship an Asses head as the old Heathens accused the primitive Christians a wise man will as soon believe if you should affirm those that approve all things in the Alcaron are Christians or that England reaches as far as Greece This Web which you weave with so much earnestness will only catch dotterils and fools such as have shaked their hands with their reason or else enthralled or captivated it under tyranny and partiality and locked it down to the gallies of their own passions It is not my business to dispute this polemical Article at large which is better done by Doctor T. G. and V. C. I find his whole Book like that paralitick Discourse written rather Rhetorically ad captandum populum to insinuate into vulgar capacities then logically to evince the Hypothesis contended for strip it out of its multifarious fallacies ungrounded surmises and erroneous suppositions and it will not only be a massie body without bones and nerves to support it and join it together but sine succo sanguine a very Skelleton Pardon me good Reader if thou think me oversharp with this man who hath kindled my zeal and whetted my stile against him in that his procedure is unchristian that it tends to destroy all but settle no Religion The greatest heathen could never reproach Christians with more injurious slanders And shall it be lawful for a private person to condemn and deride on false grounds and surmises those duties which the most learned and major part of Christians ever admitted of and shall such a one be entreated to preach and print and others abler and honester forbid the Press and Pulpit are we not then partial to our selves and become judges of evil thoughts James 2. 1 4. When the Doctor proveth that they worship Idols together with God as the Kings of Israel did Or alone without him as the Pagans did or that they adored with Sacrifice the Sun the Moon c. and other inferiour Deities as he calls them we will grant him flat idolatry In the mean while all sober men must think These are devices to seduce the vulgar into strange opinions and unchristian thoughts of others to traduce honest men and their principles let them be fairly heard in a publick conference how far they can justifie themselves from being deservedly suspected of such abominations if our passion will not our charity ought to think better I intended here to have a lash or two at the late uncharitable Pamphlet called A seasonable Discourse but hearing it is already fully examined and corrected by a better Quill I will only give these Animadversions viz. that all or most of his material Arguments are sufficiently answered in this Treatise viz. concerning the Popes Power of Excommunication Deposing Supremâ—â—y the Inquisition Massacres disguised Jesuits opinions of Mariana c. as you may find in the Objections and Answers before as also that faith is not to be kept with Heretiks that dissimulation of Equivocations in Religion is permitted all these are confuted to be most manifest untruths and falshoods he cites also very insincerely many Authors and brings in for his best proofs for witness our enemies or partial Authors not to be credited as Thuanus Platina Myster Jesuiâ— Cornel. Agrippa Sleiden â—llâ—ry de Foulis c. The Pamphlet indeed rather indeed deserves a rebuke for his slanders and therefore the name is wisely concealed than for any man to take the pains to read or answer it It is but a cheating Drollery to delude the people whence he makes merry with the life of Saint Francis as fabulous though written by the hand of Saint Bonaventure a seraphical and holy learned man reputed amongst wiser Protestants he takes pleasure to rail at the Popes to whom all western Churches did ever bear a respect and ought to do as being the chief Patriarch of the West acknowledged by the adversaries themselves All men should speak honourably and reverently of Princes and Bishops the one being Gods Vicegerents in temporals the other in spirituals and Successors to the Apostles Suppose some Popes have behaved themselves too severe or haughty being Princes as well as Bishops it is not so strange all great mean should be Saints But the very name of a Pope is a scare-crow to this man as if he were one of the ignorant Herd credulous to believe any fabulous stories pick'd out of Legends like his own Pamphlet that have neither charity truth or civility Why cannot he if he were just and honest rehearse as well the pious acts and memories of good Popes where there be twenty to one famous in approved Authors and undeniable History but that like some venemous serpent he loves to suck only in poisoned places To speak of our own days as he doth at random without jugment or sincerity what can he say against the lives and the actions of the last three Popes have not they incessantly laboured for the peace and support of all Christian Princes among themselves and against the common enemy and now in particular uniting the Polanders and assisting them with money against the Adversary of Christianity Is it not then a weakness in this man worthy to be derided by all the moderate and wiser sort who would make the world believe Popes are so dangerous to Monarchy What Kings or States complain against them Are his neighbouring Princes jealous or fearful of his power or encroachments and cannot more potent Princes and Commonwealths at a distance better secure themselves by their own power Are not Catholicks in all places obliged to stand to their Soveraign in defence of their Countrey against the Pope as effectually as against any other Have not the English Catholiks long ago in open Parliament declared that the Imperial Crown of England is and hath been at all times free from all sabjection to the Pope and provided a Statute of praemunire against any abuses as they thought might happen Look on the English Catholicks in 88. when the Pope was excited and backed by the power of a great Prince Her Title being disputable and urged by some abuses aud continued severities to excommunication c. Do not our own and forraign Writers notwithstanding testifie the Catholicks stood firmly to their Allegiance and the most learned Priests by an authentick Writing acknowledged the Q. though excommunicated to have still the same authority as her Predecessors and chearfully offered to hazard their lives in defence of her Dignity and Country Suppose eight or ten men talk at random in Schools of the deposing power c. must that be the Doctrine of the Church Did the Church ever approve or teach any such maxims or were they ever tolerated as he most falsely would have it Have not all other numerous learned men contradicted them did not all the Universities of a great Kingdom condemn such opinions and their Books to be
and dust as every one hath received a several external figure of Face and every one a diverse internal form of mind every one a Cogitation and fancy distant from whence it cometh that there is so great diversity of Opinions so strange a contrariety of inclinations so different affections and passions in mortal men that no ordinary means is forcible enough to perswade them to any thing to which their private Spirits or imaginations are not inclined Hence so many Scripture interpretations so many quarrels and divisions in Religion even to Massacres Evils unknown to the very Heathens Hence we have often seen good by false representations may pass for abominable in the sight of sober men Hence the inconsiderate multitude prejudiced by education passion interest or false Teachers representing the Roman Church to them as a Monster composed of all sort of abomination having their Ears perpetually beaten with seven Hills Antichrist Idolatry Superstition by many unchristian aspersions false pretences by private forgeries and publick impressions wounding most Christian and innocent men How can they otherwise but hate them they know no better and even suck from their first Milk such an ill Opinion or odium of them as if they were Turks or Jews and had principles destructive to common Society Peace and Concord What a Wonder and what a Lamentation is it that those men who cry out so much for forbearance to Magistrates should themselves be so rigid and can less forbear dissenters or see the same sin in themselves So justifie all their Cruelties and think persecution to be their Duty Whence is persecution but from thinking ill of others abhorring and not loving them condemning them without hearing bearing them down not with sincere and plain dealing becoming Christians with inveterate malice filling Books with trivial Stories and Fables pickt up out of Authors without discretion make it their business to seek calumnies and reproaches in the Sepulchres and Common-shores of Schismaticks with untrue reporting of Doctrins false and unjust Criminations and other indirect wayes unseemly and unworthy the Cause of Truth to the dishonour of God and disparagement of Christian Religion Reading a Treatise lately Printed against Toleration by an university Schollar Had this Dilemma if Liberty or Toleration may be granted either an universal Toleration or particular not an universal for then saith he Papists may be tolerated which is against all As if all the Monsters of Aegypt may be admitted so the Papists be excluded Yet we must know if there had been no Papists in the World no other Sect among us had ever heard of Christianity If we knew all the Evils may ensue we should then be forced to Check the People from railing and let them feel our anger who would deceive us with Lies Nor can we look on those men as either of wit or honesty who are ever promoting the harassing of a faithful party needlesly to disoblige their fellow Subjects and Sufferers Wherefore to undeceive the so long abused and deluded multitude I will endeavour in the ensuing discourse to wipe of the Paint and Fucus that so things may appear in their true complexion unadulterated with the slights and subtilties of deluders I have chosen rather to expose these lines to Censure than to forbear to speak or be silent in the Cause and Defence of the Innocent Silui a bonis saith the Prophet dolor meus renovatus est in the following lines shall be shewed that the Law of God Christian Religion nature reason and our own principles doth oblige us to more charitable censures of the Roman Religion And that they are as highly if not more entitled to the true Christian Liberty of Conscience than any other Sect or Religion whatsoever all objections to the contrary cleared and evinced to any rational or impartial Reader If it remains as a Probatum est that no Christian ought to be compelled in matters of Faith or Religion provided it broacheth forth no new Sects or Schisms or that it be not in Case of Scandal or open blasphemy And if the Fundamental Laws and Government were established as a Defence and Protection to all sober peaceable Christians that immunity and freedom of Conscience ought to be indulged to Dissenters in this sense it being their due right and not only granted in policy to some persons or to oblige a party or to be enjoyed by the strongest and subtilest only to curb and subiect the rest as is shewed before there can be no ground able to convince any rational man why Papists should be excluded this priviledge unless we infringe the Laws and Government by not distributing equal and impartial justice nay the truth of this assertion is more evident and convincing for them then any Primo It is against reason and all examples of antiquity for men to be punished for adhering to the Religion of their Fore-fathers Now the Roman-Catholick Religion was the first Christian Religion planted in our native Country from whom we had and have our very Christianity the first universally spread and preached by Government permitted and encouraged by Counsels and Parliaments confirmed and approved a thousand years there continued even by our deceased kindred and parents not long since professed by our Universities established and defended against all Adversaries From whence we derive even the Scripture â—t self our ordinations most of our material Churches Colledges Inns of Court Hospitals c. and shall Charity ever be so buried in Oblivion in England that the Posterity of those from whom we must confess to have received these and other great advantages never be remembred and used with equity and common Justice They are linked in Religion to all Catholick Princes and Countries about us who will be more loving Neighbours if they see their Brethren find favour from us To persecute this Religion is to War against our Progenitors It is this Church in which so many Martyrs have dyed so many Doctors have taught and preached so many Virgins have lived in flesh like Angels so many Saints wrought wonders and miracles so many Councils called so many Ecclesiastical Laws enacted so many Nations converted so many Kings and Emperors lived and died and hope to be saved against which so many persecutors Machiavels and Tyrants in vain have used torments and contrived all imaginable force wicked policy or cruelty could invent This Faith hath the best evidence as taught and instituted by Christ his Apostles and Successors in an uninterrupted series and delivery down to us Set before your eyes those glorious Champions of Christs Church Constantines Theodos Pepines Charles all sirnamed Great more Glorious for Victories over Heresies and Idolatries than for conquests of Countries more renowned for propagating Catholick Religion than enlarging their Dominions See the Catologue of noble Kings of England Lucius Ethelbert Egbert Oswald Oswine Alfred Edgar before the conquest William the Conqueror and so many Henries Edwards Richards after the Conquest mighty of force rich of
Treasure so noble of birth so fortunate in Wars zealous in Religion who builded so many Hospitals founded so many Monasteries enacted such wholsome Laws and Statutes got so many Victories in Fâ—ance c. even to Palestine it Self all professed Roman Catholicks Secundo It deserves one observation that when Christianity became the ruling Religion of the World under the great Constantine and Emperours his immediate Successors the very Heathens themselves were exempt from all manner of severity upon the score of their Religion Because they were in possession of it by discent from Father to Son and not by usurpation or intrusion And we have the like president in our own Country For when King Ethelbert had embraced the Christian Faith by the preaching of Saint Austin he would not force his own Subjects though Pagans to receive it Bedâ— l. 1. c. 260. For this reason it was that the great Apostles treated the Synagogue whose Religion at that time was vacuated and consequently void of Truth with so much respect and condescendency and that afterwards the most primitive Fathers used so often this expression that the Synagogue ought to be buried with honour Whence one of our Protestant Divines saith even by the Law of Seniority Catholicks might exspect some favour For what priviledges or immunities have we but the old Church gave us whence had we our Bible Creed Honors Donations commendable Ceremonies charitable Foundations had not they preserved them faithfully we never had found them The first possession of a man is a good title by the Law of Nature until an elder or the Law of Reason which with mankind is to have pre-eminence dispossesses it The Roman Church had a possession unquestionable for above a thousand years and the Pope enjoyed jurisdiction a longer time than any succession of Princes can pretend to and submitted to by all our Ancestors In Catholick Religion they stand as defenders others as invaders they as possessors others as disseisors they seek to keep what de jure they had Calvin and others what they had not There is a vast difference in these two Cases to oppose by force the introducement of innovations and to attempt by force the extinguishment of an ancient Religion of which the People are universally in a quiet and immemorial possession The one drives others out of possession the other maintains himself the one invades his neighbours rights the other defends his own Apostacy and innovation with some colour of right have been oft in several ages persecuted by rigour of Laws even by Protestants and the reason is because innovation in Religion most commonly breeds disturbance in the Common-wealth Natural reason teaches that no particular man is to be condemned much less deprived of what he stands possessed till his cause be judiciously heard and sentenced Nor ought any man to be Judg in his own Cause But penal Laws and Oaths made in contempt and derogation of that Religion which through all Christendom abounds with learning civility and loyalty whose Doctrin amongst the primitive greatest and most learned societies hath been and is avouched in most Nations and Kingdoms allowed and more freely exercised and permitted established by the Laws in which our Predecessors were born and continued wherein all our Progenitors all the Peers Ecclesiast Nobles and Princes of our Realm in precedent ages thought themselves happy and honourable If they had imagined that in future times their Posterity would revile that Religion with Epithets unbeseeming humane much less Christian Ears what an opinion would they have preconceived of us It was said by King James one of the most learned Princes not in private but in open Parliament represented I acknowlege the Roman Church to be our Mother Church although defiled with infirmities and corruptions Is it not then a kind of Spiritual Parracide in the Daughter not only to revile the Mother or which is worse scratch her by the Face call her Whore Superstitious Idolatrous c. on whose Knees you have been dandled nourished by her Breasts and carried in her Womb Hear O you Heavens and give ear O earth I have nourished and brought up Children and they have rebelled against me Isa 1. 2. Let it be allowed some corruptions be of our aged Mother this should be no warrant for cruelty but rather a motive of compassion especially considering that by confession of all her adversaries those pretended failings are of no modern date but such as they are now such likewise they were when first Christianity was received by English-men under King Ethelbert The Church of England who Glory in their succession of Bishops and in this is singular from other Reformers acknowledge they immediately derive their true and lawful Ordination and mission and from whom their first Mininistry viz. Cranmer Baker c. were Consecrated and consequently that the Roman Church conveyed divine right and authority from Christ to them the very essence and being of Religion Which Church notwithstanding they call Antichristian Idolatrous c. abusing tender Consciences sâ—â—press that which themselves confess to be divine Truth condemn as Trayâ—â—rs and persecute to death with pâ—â—munire loss of fortunes c. those from whom such Apostolical Graces and Functions proceed and were continued and preserved If our succession from the Roman be the glory of the English Church it s our scorn and ignominy to persecute and revile them Tertio Penal Laws and Statutes against the Catholick Religion destroyes the ground and foundation of Justice and the form Judicature Because the Witness can have no evidence for their Testimony the Judges not any for their sentence and the Legislator as little for the Law Primo There must be evidence of lawful Witnesses In matters of Faith we go by hearing Rom. 10. The best evidence then of any Religion is the testimony of our deceased Predecessors and Ancestry whose Faith and Doctrine is fresh in the memories and testimonies of the Christian posterity of the present Church For besides the Authority of the present Church we can have no greater evidence in foro externo for the Law of God and Religion then the testimony of precedent ages confirmed with supernatural Signs v. g. the fourteenth Age delivered to the fifteenth the Roman Faith which now they profess assuring them that it was the true sense and Letter of Scripture which they had learned from the thirteenth age and so forward to the Apostles No reformers can produce one lawful Witness against Catholick Religion and their sense of Scripture yet the Greatest Crimes require at least one lawful Witness For what evidence had the first Reformers to oppose the testimony of all former Ages confirmed with so many miracles and to make Statutes against the known practiced Religion at least for nine hundred years Antiquity affords them none because though in diverse Ages some odd men did testifie sometimes an errour they were in those very times contradicted by the Church and declared impostors and innovators In this
present Age no Sectaries can be lawful Witnesses for their own lately modelled Religion or against the ancient Catholick because their testimonies cannot be valid against so constant an universal Tradition and practice Secundo It s ridiculous and unjust in a Judge to pronounce sentence against Roman Catholick upon the evidence and testimony of Calvin Luther c. as in open Court to condemn men to forfeit their Estates and ancient inheritances upon the word of a mad fellow that produceth no other evidence to confirm his claim but interior motions of the Spirit or some obscure Text of Law appliable to all Cases and Subjects for all the Protestant evidence is reduced to the private Spirit and the pretended clearness of Scripture Tertio The Legislative power ought to be subordinate to Christian Religion but Statutes against Catholicks are evidently against the Law of God and Christian Religion if we may credit Antiquity and stick to the Faith and practice of the Church and Princes that went before us not only in England but all other Christian Kingdomes This way therefore of proceeding is different from all other Nations and altereth the Stile of natural reason humane nature and the practice of all Antiquity and consequently destroyes the foundation of justice and form of Judicature Quarto The common temporal Municipal Laws which Science above all others next to Divinity doth confirm and evince unto the understanding of an Englishman the Truth of Catholick Religion Forasmuch as from our first Christian Kings and Queens which must needs be the origin and beginning of all Christian Common Laws in England unto the reign of Henry the eight all our Princes and People being of one and the same Catholick Religion their Laws must needs be presumed to have been conformed to their sense and judgment in that behalf and our Lawyers to our Laws So as now to see an English temporal Lawyer to impugn the said Catholick Religion by the antiquity of the common Laws throughout the times and reigns of the said Kings and Queens to favour and countenance Luther Calvin c. or any new Opinions not known before is as great an absurdity novelty and wonder as to see a Philosopher brought up in Aristotles School to impugn Aristotle by Aristotles learning in favour of Petrus Ramus Descartes or some other new Adversary Catholick Religion never prejudiced any Nation or State where it had free passage in the least degree but hath ever been their safety happiness and honour No People or Church in the World so great a friend to loyalty and obedience they have the repute of honest men patient and charitable carry themselves civilly and religiously nothing is heard from their mouths of Blasphemy or Atheism or that may have ground of not believing or adoring God alone or of not hoping to be saved by the merits of Jesus Christ They have lived without just complaint sociable and amicable If they meet you not at Church they meet you at Market Do they not buy and sell with you Are ready to perform all Offices of good neighbourhood and civility Do they refuse any kind of temporal duties or payments Do ye not find them at home and abroad as strict to their promises as any others you converse withall They cannot be persecuted by any Government that understands its own interest unless first abused by false Teachers nor can we deny them what ancient and good Laws have ever allowed theâ— being no innovators but Professors of the same Religion which made this Nation Christian If there were no other Apology for peaceable men but only those Pleas of Conscience tendered to publick view those ought not to be unconsidered by such as profess Christianity Never any Acts of Vniformity could expel Papists out of heretical Countries Do ye know what you ask when you are still urging the execution of pressures against Catholicks even their blood life and fortunes can any Christian zeal be so irregular Can this come from the Spirit of the Gospel Is this wisdome from above Whence comes all this anger What evil have they done What maximes have they so rough and unreasonable that they must be taken away by the Sword Why should we be so bloody in our Tenets How can our passions be so intemperate Our mercies so cruel To them whose Faith was established by our Fundamental Laws and maintenance of it sworn to at least by twenty of our Monarchs even by Queen Elizabeth her self Why must the Papists be thus singled out from all the rest and forced to forfeit all advantages or forsake his Conscience They only exposed to publick hatred and rigour though they only least deserve it Shall we extinguish all considerations of equity and charity towards them of whose honesty we are assured by their Long and Patient Sufferings rather than they would renounce their Conscience towards God who are ready to abjure what is or may be objected as only dangerous in their Religion who have given evidences already they will perform those Oaths and that they cannot be absolved from them If we apprehend their principles and doctrines are inconsistent with the Gospel or Civil Government grant them a free Conference about the points in question which are those Tenets carry an opposition to either and if upon impartial enquiry they are found so Heterodox as represented then inflict penalties If their Ecclesiasticks are not able to justisie both their Religion and Principles let them renounce all mercy This offer is very fair and equal a Vindication of Justice and a legal proceeding against the Criminal And the contrary how plausible soever represented pretending thereby to do God good service is most injurious to the Peace Christian meekness Reason Religion or Charity and destructive to that prudential Ballance the wisest and best States have ever carefully observ'd Who always after questions of Religion freely discussed relieved the distresses of tender and innocent Consciences We must not judge of them or any other by the private and perhaps misinterpretable assertions of some particular Doctors but by the avowed principles of their belief This is the basis on which they build the rule by which they walk in point of obedience to God and man or if you would judg of them by their proceedings and addresses their frequent petitions professions protestations of all just obedience will sufficiently clear them If by their practice and manner of lives their quiet deportment and manner of living and conversing with all men yea even their prayers and wishes which they dayly make unto Almighty God in behalf of their Prince and Country do shew how innocent they are and how little they deserve those black aspersions and calumnies some rash Satyrists are so diligent to cast upon them In charity we are bound to believe the best of others and also to think they speak true when we cannot prove the contrary Some destine them to destruction and extirpation as Agapete did the Jews Are so eager declaimers
Bohemia and Poland That imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots That authorized Mountebank and Rochel to stand in defiauce against their King That begot so many conspiracies against Queen Mary of England as appears in our Chronicles That ravished from their lawful Governours the Low Countries and Transylvania and many Towns now called free Was it from any of their Books you have drawn these vile Maximes viz. that the authority of the Soveraign Magistrate is of humane right That the People are above the King That the People can give Power to the Prince and take it away That Kings are not anointed of the Lord That if a King fail in performing his Oath at Coronation the Subjects are absolved from their allegiance That if Princes fall from the grace of God the people are loosed from their subjection Do not these doctrines proceed from Wickliffe Waldenses and other Sectaries Doth not Belforrest sufficiently prove the like maximes from Luther Calvin Melancton Peter Martir c. What Buchanan and Knox did against Queen Mary their lawful Soveraign is evident in History and Beza in Epist 78. ad Buchanan approves their actions Calvin l. 4. c. 3. Instit from his high Consistorian gives this absolution to all Oaths of that nature Quibuscunque hujus evangelii lux effulgeat ab omnibus laqueis juramentisque absolvitur And the famous Minister Surean called Rosiers writ a Book expresly that it was lawful to kill Charls the ninth and the Queen Mother if they would not obey the Gospel Belforrest is sufficient witness See more in Althusius Politicks c. 35. Dausus l. 6. Polit. c. 3. In all the Councils Synods writings of any Roman Divines no such matters are found and allowed but only such as teach Subjects loyalty humility obedience More Princes have been deposed by Sectaries in sixty years than by Papists in six hundred years and that deposing of Kings is no doctrine nor practice of Catholicks shall be proved hereafter and that others have been more faulty in each of their respective Sects in all kind of disorders at home or abroad History and experience testifie In no Country or City in Christendome but Catholick Religion ever entred by meekness and suffering in no Country of Christendome but other Sects entred by sedition rebellion disobedience or murdering of great Princes or Persons by vast destruction of Cities Countries Kingdomes As in France Holland several States in Germany Scotland twenty years in England c. Consider what was done against France Holland several States in Germany Mary Queen of Scots or the late unparallel'd Rebellion In Catholick Religion I find they learn their duty towards God cannot be complied with without an exact performance of their duty towards their Soveraign to obey him not for advantages or temporal concerns but out of Conscience For no Roman Catholick can be true to his Religion who is not true to his Prince Whom they obey for Conscience sake whose Person they love and honour and whose prosperity they always pray for Though stript of their Estates or loaden with stripes It is in the power of great ones to make them suffer but not to make them guilty Their Religion tells them that Caesar's due ought not to be kept from him be he of what religion he pleaseth This is the will of God in Scripture preached by the Apostles and from them derived to us this doctrine is instilled in their Catechisms confirmed by their Sermons and conferences Insomuch that a Papist that is not truly loyal is not truly a Papist if to believe not what they are taught by the Church makes a man cease to be of it From the Saxons to Edward the sixth to be a Catholick was never taken as a bar to loyalty Nor doth it seem possible a Religion which governed England with glory so many hundred years can teach a doctrine destructive to Princes or infuse Maximes that will breed Commotion in the People They are ready by Oath in the face of Heaven to profess loyalty a divine command and an indispensable duty and any who pretend to know what Catholick doctrine is must know this to be a part of it In matters of fact their actions have given indubitable testimonies even by their Enemies own Concessions If Catholicks had been disloyal either the King or his Council or at least the States-men under Cromwel or the Rump must know it They appeal to the Council in all discoveries of their Treacheries against the King whether ever any constant Catholick was accessary or concurred in any design against his Majesty They appeal and challenge all the black Catalogue of Cromwells favorites and the whole Rumpists to discover if they can any Papist who concurred in any plot or action If Catholicks refuse to go to Protestant Churches in respect of Conscience They will far more refuse for Conscience sake to commit Treason a sin of a higher degree will hardly attempt or consent to any desperate act against their State and Country and commit such Crimes as hazard Body and Soul Nay what other Sectaries will boggle at If the King should be a Heathen and make Laws against them they hold it not lawful to resist but peaceably to endure During the time of the late King of France there was proposed by an Assembly of Catholick Divines and Bishops this question or Probleme If it were supposed the King of France became a Mahometan and by his Power endeavoured to force his Subjects to that infidelity whether they might lawfully according to the Principles of Christianity by arms resist him to which question the unanimous consent of the Assembly was that such a resistance would be unlawful since Christian Religion allowed no other way of maintaining Faith against lawful Soveraigns but prayers tears and sufferings When shall we find such a result from a Synod of Presbyterians Compare these primtive Doctrines with new the Evangelists and we shall find them quite contrary to the rules of Wiâ—liffians Waldenses Paraeus Knox and Buchanan c. who teach that Subjects may not only defend by Arms their Religion but offend also And lately Baxter in lib. of Rest p. 258. saith we may fight against Kings if it were for cause of Religion to purge the Church from Idolatry and Superstition The Genova Notes of the Bible 2 Chron. c. 5. allow the deposing of Queen Macha See more in Belforrest On the contrary the Doctors and Casuists of the Roman Church hold it as an Article of Faith that neither Heresie nor Turcism can be opposed by Rebellion Belloy in Apol. part 2. plainly saith Arms against Princes have no warrant Orationibus tantum pugnandum Navar Cunerus and all other Catholick Doctors agree in the same as most conformable to the doctrine and practice of the Primitive Fathers The General Council of Constance Sess 5. concludes it an error in Faith to maintain Subjects may kill their Kings being Tyants nuper accepit Synodus c. Cardinal Tolet in his Summolies l. 3. c. 6. affirms
Parliament and chief Secretary printed at that time and neither could any noted or known Catholick by any device be drawn into this matter Those that were up in tumult with Catesby were by our Prot. Hist Howes never full fourscore and those made up with servants horse-boys and houshouldattendance as Saunders and Speed confirm For if Priests and Recusants so many thousands then in England would have entertained it no man can be so malitious and simple to think that there would not have been a greater assembly to take such an action in hand and the Council could not have been so ill-sighted but that they would have found some other culpable as some by all imaginable craft and industry endeavoured and desired But to confirm their innocency King James in his own Declaration saith that the generality of Catholicks did abhor such a detestable Conspiracy no less than himself And he was so kind to Catholicks the last half of his Reign of which Wilson complains in several places Wils K. of 193. which was impossible he should have been so favourable had he not been convinced they never had had any design of destroying him or his Secondly the King in his second Proclamation 1605. and in his third Proclamation 1605. when they were all discovered in which Proclamation we plainly see the King and Council knew the Complices and partakers of that villanie yet never taxed any Priest or Papist therewith Thirdly the King in publick Parliament did free Catholiks as much as Protestants when he plainly saith as truth is if it had taken effect Protestants and Papists should have all gone away and perished together The King in his second Proclamation against the Conspiracy calleth the Confederates Men of lewd life insolent dispositions and of desperate estates And to demonstrate from the publick Act their innocency as well Protestants he declares by Proclamation Proclamatione die 7. Novemb. 1605. We are by good experience so well perswaded of the loyalty of diverse Subjects of the Romish Religion that they do as much abhor this detestable conspiracy as our self and will be ready to do their best endeavours though with expence of their blood to suppress all attempters against our safety and the quiet of our State and discover whomsoever they shall suspect to be rebellious This by good experience he pronounceth Priests and Catholicks notwithstanding were upon this pretence persecuted though besides all these reasons aforesaid by publick consent both of their Clergy and Layety Catholicks presented and offered to maintain their cause and innocency in many humble Petitions whereof two were printed to the King The first begins To the most excellent and mighty Prince our gracious and dread Soveraign James King of England c. justifying of Catholicks and the Truth of their Religion against their Adversaries Most Gracious Soveraign THe late intended Conspiracy against the Life of your Royal Majesty the Life Vnion Rule and Direction to these united Kingdoms was so heinous an impiety that nothing which is holy can make it legitimate no pretence of Religion can be alleadged to excuse it God in heaven condemns it men on earth detest it innocents bewail it and your dutiful Subjects Catholicks Priests and others which have endured most for their Profession hold it in greatest detestation and horror c. Yet this is the miserable distressed state of many thousands of your most loyal and loving Subjects dread Leige for their faithful duty to God and Religion taught in this Kingdom and embraced by all your Progenitours and our Ancestors so many hundred years that every adversary may preach and print against us and make their challenge as though either for ignorance we could not or for distrust of our cause we were not willing to make them answer or come to trial when quite contrary we have often earnestly and by all means we could desired to have it granted c. And at this time when your chief Protestant Clergy Bishops and others is assembled we most humbly entreat this so reasonable a placet that although they will not as we fear ever consent to an indifferent choice opposition and defence in questions yet at least to avoid the wonder of the world they will be content we may have publick audience of those Articles Opinions ond Practises for which we are so much condemned and persecuted If we shall not be able to defend or prove any position generally maintained in our Doctrine to be conformable to those rules in Divinity which your Majesty and the Protestant Laws of England we can offer no more have confirmed for holy Canonical Scripture the first four General Councils the days of Constantine and the primitive Church let the penalties be imposed and executed against us c. in fine Your Royal person and that honourable Consistory now assembled are holden in your Doctrine to be Supream Sentencers even in Spiritual businesses in this Kingdome we therefore hope you will not in a Court from whence no appeal is allowed and in matters of such consequence proceed to Judgment or determine of execution before the arraigned is summoned to answer hath received or refused trial is or can be proved guilty c. Deny not that to us your true and obedient Subjects in a Religion so ancient which your colleagued Princes the King of Spain and Archduke do offer to thee so many years disobedient Netherlands upon their temporal submittance in so late an embraced doctrine That which the Arrian Emperors of the East permitted to the Catholick Bishops Priests Churches toleration What the Barbarian Vandals often offered and sometimes truly perforformed in Africk what the Turkish Emperour in Greece and Protestant Princes in Germany and other places conformable to the example of Protestant Rulers not unanswerable to your own Princely piety pity and promise no disgust to any equally minded Protestant or Puritan at home a Jubilee to us distressed a warrant of security to your Majesty in all opinions from all terrors and dangers from which of what kind soever we most humbly beseech the infinite mercy of almighty God to preserve your Highness and send you your children and Posterity all happiness and felicity both in Heaven and Earth Amen Another Petition to the King and Parliament from the Cath. in Eng. allowed by the Priests was presented by Sir Franc. Hastins and Sir Richard Knightly which urged likewise for a Disputation Another to the same tenure was then with the same assent subscribed with three and twenty hands of the greatest Catholick Gentry of England and presented to the chief Secretary of State potent in those times in Court and Council and as Recusants feared not equally affected towards them though never so innocent And the same Recusants were more than jealous that this practice of Conspiracy was no great secret to that Secretary long before divers of them that were actors in it by him named Catholicks were acquainted with it an invention to entrap those he did not
affect Whence Master Howes in his Hist makes relation A great Protestant had more or not much inferiour knowledg of it than some that were put to death for concealing it Thus the crimes of a few miserable wretches necessitous and loose persons are perpetually objected to the innocent and made their guilt though by none more detested than themselves but how unreasonable and how great a solecism it is in Christianity to conclude all guilty of every horrid crime which some few are known to have perpetrated none but injudicious furies and such as in some measure may deserve to be ranged in the categories of fools or mad-men but must needs acknowledg And unless we will renounce all charity justice and humanity we must not impute particular mens actions either of this or other matters to Catholick Religion and for their faults expose them to common hatred and violence For in common sense if Catholicks refuse to go to Church in respect of Conscience they will far more refuse Treason to attempt or consent to any desperate act against our Countrey or State or commit such sins as hazard both body and soul O but bloody Queen Mary O what cries against the days of Queen Mary as if her cruelty were unparallell'd when it plainly appears to any impartial inquirer that more Catholicks have died by Protestants than of them by Papists and that since the exclusion of the Pope there hath been a greater quantity of blood judicially spilt among us on the score of Religion than from the Conversion of England to Hen. 8. Why do we then cry out like men in the fit of fury of the bloody Papists It s suspition some radicated hatred obfuscates our intellect as the Poet saith Impedit ira animum nec potest cernere verm Queen Mary put none to death but by the known Laws established many hundred years before the malefactors were born and which are still used to this day by Protestants against Hereticks None were then put to death but by virtue of antient Laws of Christian Emperours and Kings of England therefore not the Queen nor Bishops but the Law was cruel yet the said Laws are still in force still continue and were made use of since the Reformation by Elizabeth and King James to burn Hereticks in their time as Stow and Baker note Why did King James put Legat and Wightman to death but because he religiously thought it unfit they should live any longer to blaspheme why did Queen Elizabeth 1587. hang Coppinger and Thacker at Saint Edmundsbury for publishing Brown's Book saith Cambden which saith Stow p. 1174. was written against the Common Prayer I will not apologize for any extravagancies done by our predecessors in the beginning of Reformation He that will judg let him lay his hand on his own breast and examine what he would do in this condition Suppose he were of a Religion he thought the whole visible Church from age to age delivered to his ancestors and saw Profess'd in all Kingdoms Suppose then the preaching of two or three men base in rank and taxt in moralities broaching forth new and dangerous opinions to Church and State obstinately and would not be silenced by any satisfactory means would he think it then cruelty to put Laws in execution against such novelties the consequences whereof proved seditious and rebellious as is seen in History There died of the Reformists in the the whole but two hundred seventy seven as Baker in Queen Mary p. 467. and Speed in Queen Mary p. 833. and other Protestant Writers record And were there two hundred of those now living they would suffer for extravagancies and perpetrated villanies as most of those did in the voluminous Legend of Fox stuffed with Wicliffians and Waldenses whom Philip Melancton and other Protestants disown with Tinkers Coblers Butchers Taylors and prating Wives very few of them put to death on the score of Religion as the Records testifie Cranmer and Ridley so much spoken of were attainted of Treason defending the Title to the Lady Jane Cranmer being a Counsellor in the business and Ridley Bishop of London preaching a Sermon for it at St. Pauls Cross the Sunday after King Edward died So Cranmer was condemned of Treason and arraigned with the Lady Jane He was also an Instrument of divorce to bring Anna Bullein to the Kings appetite and afterward he and Cromwel the chief actors for her death as p. 3. Statut. 28. Hen. 8. c. 1. where Cranmers Sentence is recorded judicially as of his own knowledg convincing her of the foul fact Or if there were some at that time put to death for their conscience only which can hardly be proved and that there was no faction exteriour disobedience or innovation in the case yet they could not be properly Protestant Martyrs because they suffered before the thirty nine Articles or Church of England was established Reformed Historians viz. Bishop Goodman Baker Speed c. do agree Queen Mary was a marvellous good Woman had many troubles Cranmer and Ridley with a thousand more set up as busie as Bees against her when she was to be invested in her Rights Reformists would not receive her as their Queen but upon condition as Suffolke people nor assist her without Indentures Stow annal p. 1064. nor acknowledg her but upon such and such terms yet her Right was indubitable How Wars were waged against her by the Dukes of Northumberland and Suffolke Bills spread abroad and several treacherous practices contrived against her and her Dignity by Archbishop Cranmer see Stow Annal. printed 1592. p. 1039 1042 c. What great commotions and insurrections were made against her by Wiat on the score of Religion How Towns and Castles were taken and held out against her by Stafford p. 1047. ibid. How Daggers were throâ—n and Guns shot off at Priests of her Religion whiles they were preaching at Pauls Cross viz. Doctor Pendleton and Master Bourne How many treasonable Books writ against her after she came to the Crown by Goodman insomuch that more open rebellion and insurrection was in five years of her short Government from such as were not affected to her Religion than Queen Elizabeth had from Catholicks in forty years vide Stow 1039 1058. How plain and sincere her Government was how free from tricks and such strains of Policy as were afterward used is manifest to all the world How just was she if severe for a time that severity was necessary not only by the judgment of Parliament which a little before had enacted the Laws on which she proceeded and before which she acted nothing in that kind but also in respect of her own safety and of the State And to vindicate their Clergy let all the Canons of the Church be examined and searched if there be one to be found that justifies the shedding of blood simply on the account of Religion That She was withal a merciful Princess is evidenc'd by the compassion shew'd to such as deserved not
Laws nor made by the principles of Catholick Doctrine The Arrians were the first introducers of persecution they were not I say enacted by Ecclesiasticks but by civil Governours only We know that by the Canons of the Church ever in force their Clergy under the penalty of irregularity are forbidden to have any hand in blood And whatsoever civil Laws have been made by Catholick civil Governours were but as prudent means to prevent Sedition or Rebellions justly apprehended And though for some later ages civil Magistrates in some Countries exercise greater severities than anciently were used must England imitate the rigidest of other Countries Neither can our hatred or persecution against Catholicks be any more excused by the proceedings of the Spanish or Italian Inquisitions than our penal Statutes have been by the Laws of ancient Kings and Emperours against Hereticks First Because the Inquisition proceeds according to the rules and forms of justice none is declared an Heretick or guilty by any new Law or Oath made only to the end that by them men may be entrapped both in Soul in Body and Estate It was no crime in England to be a Roman Catholick before the penal Laws were enacted but it was a crime to be an Heretick or an Apostate or broacher of new Doctrines before the ancient Emperors and Kings made penal Laws against Heresie The Law supposed and did not make the crime As penal Statutes do in England making a crime of Christian Religion Secondly Hereticks are never condemned by the Inquisition without the testimony of many lawful witnesses both living and dead All the ancient Fathers Councils and the Christian Church of former ages testifie their errors are new and contrary to the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles No Rebel was ever more evidently convicted of Rebellion against his Prince then Hereticks are by the Inquisition of Heresie against God and the old Apostolical Church Catholicks cannot obtain so fair a Plea they are condemned by a new Law because they are not Hereticks and separate from the ancient Faith Thirdly The Inquisition practiceth all imaginary means towards the accused to reduce his judgment Fourthly The Inquisition it self is permitted in no Kingdome where Heresie is numerous nor can it be in justice they strive to keep out Sects and new Opinions in Countries totally of one Belief We do not morally blame the very Moors in Africa being of one profession for keeping out the Gospel it self In England where all fell not from the Papacy there is not the same just motive for severity as if it brought an upstart Religion never heard of or spread over the Nation Fifthly The Inquisition medleth not with those who never were Catholicks but the penal Statutes comprehend them who never were of their Church or Communion Sixthly The Inquisition condemns no Hereticks to death but only declares their heresie to the end the faithful may avoid their conversation its true the Secular power executes the sentence of death against them notwithstanding the Inquisition doth protest against the rigour and desireth that Hereticks may not be punished with death Seventhly Though the Inquisition were rigorous and unjust as adversaries pretend it is not a blemish to Catholick Religion because it is not an universal practice but limited to Spain and Italy at the instance of secular Princes looked upon as a necessary means to keep their Subjects in awe of their 〈◊〉 Eighthly The Inquisition â—oth seriously wish and endeavour the conâ—ersion and amendment of Hereticks imploâ—ing learned Divines to convince them and by fair ways and reason to win them Neither can the Muthers or Massacres in Ireland so much and so often exaggerated in Protestant Pamphlets and Pulpits be any pretext of rigour or austerity to English Catholicks What hath an English Catholick to do with an Irish Massacre Can we our selves excuse all the extravagancies by some of our natives and party Doth Catholick Religion either incline him to or teach murther or rebellion Have they not a setled sense of Scripture for loyalty and obedience Which none can alter without breach of his Catholick Faith And they are not their own interpreters and and judges in points controverted that 's the priviledge of others I only say and wish from my soul that some indiscreet Zealots had not a greater hand in them than Catholick Religion whose tenets are contrary to cruelty and murther on any pretence whatsoever Is it not notorious that the Reformed Zealots in Ireland signed a bloody Petition offered to the Parliament in England that all Irish that would not go to Church might be extirpated or banished This was done before the Irish Catholicks did stir Suppose that in Vlster some of the rascality or Kerns being exasperated by so many and continual injuries had murthered some persons must that reflect upon the English Catholicks and all the Irish Nation or what is the Irish Râ—â—ellion to English Catholicks who detest it more than the Amboyna to Reformists it is too much ascertained that the Murthers and Massacres done in Ireland by Reformists furious zeal against Catholicks exceeded those committed by Catholicks witness their murthers about Dublin the County of Wicko and Fingcole by the transplantation of them into Canaught and by the transporting them into the Plantations of America forcing them to the Oath of Abjuration and almost starving them in those places contrary to the Publick Faith given them by printed Declarations in the Name of the English Parliament to Irish Catholicks Anno 1649. 1652. that the Oath of Abjuration shall not be administred to any in Ireland Baxter in his Cure of Church-Division confesseth and saith they put the Irish to death that went to defend themselves and stand for the King and Country yet they who seemed so godly themselves Massacred millions of their own Country that were for the Country and King and gave God many humiliation days and thanks for their success killing after so many Scots in cold blood after they were taken at Worcester Fight See Baxter But whosoever desires to be better satisfied in this of Ireland let him read the printed Remonstrance of the Irish Confederate Catholicks delivered by their Commissioners the Lord Vicount Preston and Sir Robert Talbot the seventeenth of March 1642. to his Majesties Commissioners at Trim. There he will see how the Irish desired the murthers on both sides might be punished and how they were forced to take up arms by the wicked practices of Sir William Persons Sir Charls Coot and other fiery Protestants who governed the Kingdom Therefore whatsoever may be said in passion of the Irish war its evident that the Calvinistical Zealot had great influence upon their injurious provocations murthering seven or eight hundred women children Ploughmen and labourers in a day in the Kings Land whensoever the Army went abroad the poor Country-people did betake themselves to the Firrs where the Parliament Officers did besiege them and set the Fâ—rrs on fire and such as escaped that element were
Title of Constantinople was but intruded and usurped and when the Council of Nice gave such honour to the Church of Rome there was not so much as mention made of Constantinople Doctor Sutcliffe subver p. 51. is witness Irenaeus saith that every Church ought to have respect to the Church of Rome for hâ—â— eminent principality and Subvers 19. telleth how Saint Gregory commanded in England instituting Saint Augustine Archbishop of Canterbury a See of that preeminency Downam lib. Antich c. 3. doth not deny but that Justinian the Emperor and the general Council of Chalcedon did attribute to the Pope of Rome to be head of the Church For the real presence Jacobus Accontius a learned Protestant saith though one part err yet both are in the way of Salvation Whitaker Bucer and Hooker say the Body is really given to the Mouth of the faithful So Doctor Reynolds in his Conference 722. Prayer for the dead and free will Cartwright Fulke and Sparke say are not so necessary Worship of Images is indifferent saith Master Bunny and Bilney and is defended by Protestants in Germany as Beza relates Bowing at the Name of Jesus is affirmed and commanded by Queen Elizabeths Injunctions By Doctor Whitgift in defence Musâ—â—lus in loc com Zanchius in Epist ad Ephes c. But if bowing at thâ— Name of Jesus being read or heard be lawful it followeth the honouing of Christs Image is also lawful since the Name of Jesus is to the Ear as his Image is to the Eye Communion in one kind Luther in Epist ad Bohem. saith is of indifferency That the present Roman Church and Religon continued and flourished during the whole time of the primitive Church in the first six hundred years after Christ from Christ and his Apostles to Constantine the great and from Constantine to Gregory the great Calvin Zuinglius Zâ—nchius Danaeus Beza Brocord Nâ—pper Perkins Whitaker Powel Fulke Reynolds Cartwright Field Willet Whiteguift Midleton Morton the most renowned Protestant Writers acknowledg in their Words and Books as I could easily shew and cite their words and places to that purpose if it were not for brevitys sake you may find it at large in a Treatise dedicated to Dr. Morton of the Progeny of Catholicks and Protestants And the continuance of the Roman Religion those last 1000 years is acknowledged by Oslander Danaeus Magdeburgenses Holinshed Stow Cambden Fox Bale Bilson Whitaker Mason Cartwright Godwine Martin c. it being evident to all that do not stupidly deny whatever was said or done in former ages To conclude I propose this Dilemma either with extream impiety you damn the Souls of the whole race of your Progenitors who till the later end of Henry the Eighth lived and died Roman Catholicks or else with no less cruelty you punish them for professing the Religion of your forefathers in which by your own Concessions Salvation may be attained Whence a learned Protestant saith The wrong which Protestants commit in afflicting Catholicks and unnaturally trampling upon their dejected Estates only for matters of Religion Alas by our own Doctrine they are neither Babylonians nor Egyptians but they and we as we teach being Israelites Why then should Israel thus persecute Israel are we not become a gaze of Christendom thus to fight without an Enemy for kindred to wound his own kindred inciting our Governours to great severity in Religion in which we our selves teach they may be saved I speak sincerely I hold morally it s most improbable that such as have been conversant in Study of Controversies must have a respect to Catholick Religion unless they break with all Authority humane and divine Bishop Gauden in the Sighes of the Church p. 202. saith The Dilemma and distressed choice of Religion is now reduced to this that peaceable and well-minded Christians wise c. so long harassed and wearied with novel Factions and pretended Reformations would rather chuse their posterity should return to the Roman Party which hath something among them setled orderly uniform becoming Religion than to have them ever turning and towring upon Ixius Wheel catching in vain at fanciful reformations as Tantalus at the deceitful waters rowling the reformed Religion like Sysiphus his Stone sometimes asserting it by Law and power otherwise exposing it to popular liberty and loosness then to have them tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine with the foedities blasphemies animosities Anarchies danger and confusions attending fanatick fancies and quotidian Reformations which like Botches and Boyls from surfeited and unwholsom bodies so daily break out among those Christians who have made no rule of Religion but their own humour and no bounds of reformation but their own interests The first makes them ridiculous the second pernitious to all sober Christians whereas the Roman Church however tainted with errors yet it cannot be denied without a brutish blindness and injurious slander which only serves to gratifie the gross Antipathies of the gaping vulgar that the Church of Rome amongst its tares and cockles hath many wholesom hearbs and holy Plants growing much more of Reason and Religion of good Learning and sober Industry Order and Polity of Morality and Constancy of Christian Candour and Civility of common Honesty and Humanity becoming grave men and Christians by which to invite after-ages and your posterity to adhere to it and them rather than to be everlastingly exposed to the profane bablings endless janglings miserable wranglings childish confusions atheistical indifferencies and sacrilegious furies of some later spirits which are equally greedy and giddy making both a play and a prey of Religion who have nothing comparable in them to the papal party to deserve yours or your posterities admiration or imitation but rather their greatest caution and prevention CAP. VIII Roman Catholicks are not guilty of Practices or Principles destructive to Government PRotestants have set it down as a Decree against Catholicks and labour to imprint it as an eternal scandal in the hearts of the People that Catholick Doctrine and Religion is dangerous to the State and Soveraignty and therefore not allowable This being a matter of great importance I will endeavour not so much to justifie them as to inform my self in a point which hath made so many stagger Being one that desires to defend the loyalty of innocent men rather than their Opinions or Doctrins which they are best able to defend themselves In this grand charge and Hyperbolical accusation I find the contrary is proved by evidence of Fact that the Treasons Seditions factions tumults which have filled all Christendome with blood and calamity sprung not from the doctrine of Catholicks but from the Opinions and practices of Reformists not from Rome but from Wittenberg Smalcald Geneva c. Was it the Papists that induced them of Geneva to expel their Lord and Bishop That moved them of Swedeland to deprive their lawful King That procured Holland to depose their Soveraign That sollicited Subjects to depose their Emperour King of