reservations in their minds they give instead of real satisfaction greater cause of jealousie because of the abuse they put thereby upon the Government For if men do aequivocate in renouncing aequivocation which it is very possible for men that hold that Doctrine to do they thereby forfeit their credit to so high a degree that they cannot be safely trusted in any Oaths or Protestations This therefore ought to be made sure that men use the greatest sincerity in what they do or else there is no ground to grant any favour upon their offers of satisfaction 3. Where there is sufficient ground to believe that the much greater number will not give sufficient satisfaction as to the renouncing the dangerous principles to Civil Government there is no reason for a total repeal of the Poenal Laws already established For if the Reason of the Laws was just at first and the same Reason continues it becomes not the Wisdom of a Nation to take off the curb it hath upon a dangerous and growing party and however cautious and reserved many may seem while the Laws are in force no man knows how much those principles may more openly shew themselves and what practices may follow upon them when impunity tempts them I do not plead for sanguinary Laws towards innocent and peaceably minded men whatever their opinions be and how hardly soever my Adversaries think and speak of me I would shew my Religion to be better than theirs by having more Charity and Kindness towards them than I â—ear they would shew me were I in their circumstances but I find that even some of themselves think fit not to have those Laws taken off from men of the Iesuitical Principles as appears by a Discourse written to that purpose since his Majesties Return by one of their own Religion Wherein he shews 1. That the Iesuitical party by their unjust and wicked practices provoked the Magistrates to enact those Laws and that their seditious principles are too deeply guilty of the Blood of Priests and Catholicks shed in the Kingdom ever since they came into it and that it is their principle to manage Religion not by perswasion but by command and force and then reckons up the several Treasons in Queen Elizabeth's time the Iesuitical design of excluding the Scottish succession and title of our Soveraign the Gunpowder Treason which if it were not their invention he confesses they were highly accessary to it by prayers before hand and publick testifications after the fact was discovered nay many years after they did and peradventure to this very day still do pertinaciously adhere to it 2. That their practices of usurping Iurisdiction making Colledges and Provinces in and for Enland possessing themselves of great summs of money for such ends are against the ancient Laws of the Land even in Catholick times it being the Law of England that no Ecclesiastical Community may settle here unless admitted by the Civil Power and those that entertain them are subject to the penalties ordained by the Ancient Laws 3. That it is no evidence of their Loyalty that any of them have been of the Kings side it being a Maxim or Practice of their Society in quarrels of Princes and Great men to have some of their Fathers on one part and others for the contrary which is a manifest sign they are faithful to neither 4. That there is no ground to trust them because of their doctrine of Probability and their General can make what doctrine he pleases probable for the opinion of three Divines is sufficient to make a Doctrine probable and whatever is so must be done by them when commanded by their Superiours so that the tenderness of their Consciences is only about doing or doing what their Superiours orders them besides their doctrines about deposing Princes Equivocations mental Reservations and divers other juggles 5. That they have never yet renounced the doctrine of the Popes deposing Princes that their Generals order against teaching this doctrine was a meer trick and never pretended to reach England that Santarellus his Book was Printed ten years after it teaching the power of deposing in all latitude and why should the peace of Kingdoms have no better security than their Generals Order Who knows how soon that may alter when good circumstances happen and then it will be a mortal sin not to teach this doctrine that the Iesuits have never spoken one unkind word against this Power of deposing Princes that when the Pope shall think fit to attempt deposing a King of England no doubt their Generals Order will be released 6. That by their particular vow of obedience to the Pope they are bound to do whatever he commands them as for example if the Pope should excommunicate or depose the Prince and command them to move Catholicks to take up Arms they are bound by their Vow to do it 7. That they make themselves Soveraigns over the Kings Subjects by usurping a power of life and death over those of their Order for pretended crimes committed in England which is High Treason for their Subjects have other Soveraigns besides the King 8. That there can be no sufficient security given by them who hold the Popes personal infallibility for whatever protestations or renunciations they may make at present they will be obliged to the contrary whensoever the Pope declares his judgement so and therefore no hearty Allegiance can be expected from those who hold it but such as must waver with every blast from Rome 9. That they not only renounce the doctrines of Equivocation and Mental Reservation without which all other protestations afford very little security but men ought to be assured that they do not practise them when they do renounce them and he desires them to find out some way for this which it seems came not into his head 10. That without renouncing those doctrines which are dangerous to the Civil Government there is no reason to expect favour from it for temporal subjection to Princes is the main ground of the peace and good Government of the Common-wealth and what is against that is against the Law of God and Nature § 24. I now come in the last place to consider the proposals made by Mr. Cressy for satisfaction to the Government and the repeal of the poenal Laws which are of two kinds 1. Subscribing the censures of the Faculty of Paris 1663. and 1626. 2. Taking the Oath of Allegiance if the word heretical were turned into Repugnant to the word of God But 1. It were worth knowing what Authority Mr. Cressy had to make these proposals in behalf of all the Roman-Catholicks of England he saith indeed that his Book is published permissâ— Superiorum and what he writes is not the inconsiderable opinion of one particular person only And what then It may be two or three more may be of his mind it may be his Superiours are it may be several Gentlemen not governed by the Iesuitical party aâ—e but is the
with that of the fifth of November and are purposely intended for that very thing which he denyes to be taken notice of by us in such a manner What must we say to such men who openly and to our faces deny that which the whole Nation knows to be true These stories might have passed abroad where they have been wont to lye for the Catholick Cause but to have the impudence to say such things here which every Boy can confute is not the way to advance the Reputation of their Church among us And what doth Mr. Cressy think the Renuntiation of the Covenant was intended for if not to prevent the mischief of the former Rebellion And is it possible for any man who knows the Laws of his Countrey concerning these matters to dare to say in the face of the Kingdom That it seems there is no necessity at all of requiring from any a Retraction of the principles of Rebellion or a promise it shall never be renewed If this be the way of defending the innocency of Roman Catholicks I had rather be accounted guilty than have my innocency thus defended 3. He saith We also confidently affirm so we have seen he hath done too much already that by vertue of the Spiritual Iurisdiction inherent in the Pope the Temporal Rights and Power of the King or even of the meanest of his Subjects are not at all abridged or prejudiced Which assertion he saith hath been alwayes maintained in France the Pope not contradicting it from whence it follows that it is agreeable to Catholick Religion After this I expected he should speak home to the purpose and say this is all the Power challenged by the Pope as to England or owned by any Roman Catholicks here which finding what he had affirmed about other matters I thought he would have made no scruple of but I see he durst not either for conscience or meer shame But how then doth he get over this difficulty Why English Catholicks saith he should be suspected not to be as tender of the just Rights and precious lives also of their Soveraign as the Catholick Subjects of any other Kingdom and why they should be thought to be willing to acknowledge any Temporal Power director indirect to be inherent in the Pope over the King or Kingdom to which not any Catholick Gentleman or Nobleman would submit I cannot imagine I am very much to seek for the sense of this and know not what the submitting relates to but I suppose something left out or struck out by his Superiours who did not take care to leave sense behind But is this indeed all the security Mr. Cressy offers that he cannot imagine it should be otherwise here than in France We find when he pleases he can imagine strange things and is this only out of the reach of his imagination What doth he think of the Kingdoms being under Excommunication at Rome as Cardinal Barbarine takes care to put the Irish Nobility in mind for some good end doubtless Is the Kingdom of France so What doth he imagine of Bulls from Rome prohibiting the taking the Oaths required Are there any such things in France What doth he think of the Popes Nuntio appearing in the Head of an Army and absolving the Kings subjects from their Allegiance I confess it was not much better in France in the time of the Holy League but what opinion had they of the Popes temporal Power then Cannot Mr. Cressy imagine that there are such people in England as Iesuits and it is not many years since their Reasons were therefore shewed to be Unreasonable in pleading an exemption from the Sanguinary Laws because they did hold the Popes power of deposing Princes and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance And do not the Iesuitical party still plead that their opinion is the common doctrine of their Church confirmed by General Councils and approved by multitudes of Divines of all sorts and that the contrary is only asserted here by a very inconsiderable party whereof some are excommunicated at Rome for their zeal in this matter And do not we know how much greater sway the Iesuitical party hath among the Nobility and Gentry than the despised Secular Priests I do not at all question but the Nobility and Gentry of England would do as much to preserve the just Rights and precious lives of their Soveraigns as of any Nation in the World and have as great a sense of their own Honour as well as Interest and of the Duty they owe to their Countrey But ought not the Laws to take so much the more care to keep their Consciences untainted in these things they being such Persons whose Loyalty cannot be corrupted but under a pretence of Conscience and their Consciences being so much in danger by being under the direction chiefly of those who are the sworn servants to the Papal Power 4. He offers by way of satisfaction concerning their Fidelity that they will subscribe the French Declaration lately made by the Sorbon or the Censure of the Faculty of Paris A. D. 1626. and that very few if any at all would refuse subscription to that Form prescribed by the State in case that unlucky word heretical were left out As though all those who had hitherto refused to take that Oath had done it only upon this nicety that the word heretical were to be taken not in the sense of the Givers but of the Takers of the Oath whereas Mr. Cressy himself saith that common Reason teaches that all Oaths Professions and Promises are to be understood in the sense of those who frame and require them and not of those upon whom they are imposed But if this were all the ground of refusing this Oath among any of them Mr. Cressy therein charges them with the want of common Reason whereas I shall make it appear in the progress of this Discourse that this was far from being the true and only reason of Roman Catholicks refusing the Oath of Allegiance 5. That since Ordination abroad doth not in the least render English Priests defective in their duties to the Civil Magistrate it will follow that whatsoever penalty is inflicted on them on such an account is not inflicted according to the Rule of Iustice and by consequence that whatsoever blood shall be shed the guilt of it before God will be imputed to the whole Kingdom since it is shed by vertue of the whole Kingdoms votes and consent given long since upon motives long since ceased And therefore he charges it deeply upon my conscience to endeavour to free the whole Kingdom from such a guilt This is the substance of what Mr. Cressy saith upon this very important subject as himself calls it and by vertue whereof he hopes the poenal Laws may be repealed and those of their Religion may enjoy the Liberty of their Religion and all the Rights of Free-born Subjects Which are things too important to be debated in
Imprimatur Guliel Wigan R mo in Christo Patri ac D no D no Humphredo Episc. Lond. à sac dom Nov 14. 1674. AN ANSWER TO M r. CRESSY'S Epistle Apologetical TO A Person of Honour Touching his VINDICATION OF D r. Stillingfleet By Edw. Stillingfleet D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed by R. White for Hen. Mortlock at the Phoenix in S. Paul's Church-yard and the White Hart in Westminster Hall 1675. TO THE SUPERIOURS OF THE BENEDICTINS IN ENGLAND Gentlemen I Find it disputed among your Casuists whether a Book written by a Member of Your Order doth belong to the Author or to the Society the Arguments I confess are very weighty on both sides For in behalf of the Society it is pleaded with great reason that by the Rules of your Order no particular Member is to have property in any thing and in behalf of the Author that a Book being the proper issue of his own Brain cannot belong to any one else Caramuel finding the difficulties so great undertakes to resolve the Case by a very subtle distinction of the Paper and Ink of which the Book is composed and the Conceptions of the mind contained therein the former he gives to the Society and the latter to the Author which he proves ver◠substantially for saith he the conceptions of the Book being the outward images of what was only in the mind of the Author can belong to no other than to him that formed them but against this ariseth a shrewd objection that by this means every man hath right to the Picture that is made of him and the Painter only to the Canvas and Colours To which he answers very gravely that the Picture is not properly th◠immediate representation of the Person but of that Idea of him which was in the fancy of the Painter But upon this another Controversie arises as we find every day that one doth beget another whether that propriety which the Author hath in the Conceptions of his Book can be disposed of by way of Legacy or no and all the resolution I can meet with is that it is probable he may but on the other side the Superiours of the Order may make use of the contrary probability and challenge the Book for their own It is very well known to You that Mr. Cressy was lately a Member of Your Order who was the Author of the Book to which this following Answer is made What Right You have challenged in it I know not but I think it not likely he should dispose of it to any but to Your selves since he saith his first writing against me was by his Superiours command and in this Book he declares that what he writes was not his own opinion alone and therefore it is probable you may have 〈◊〉 right to the conceptions 〈◊〉 as to the Paper and In◠〈◊〉 Since his death which I knew not of till I had undertaken this Service and Duty in behalf of a Person of Honour to whose Kindness I am so extreamly obliged I know not to whom so properly to address my self as to You who were his Superiours especially since there are so many things in it wherein the Honour of Your Order is concerned to which I assure you I bear no malice no more than I do to Your Persons or to Mr. Cressy's memory If I am guilty of mistakes I beseech you to correct them with the same civility that I writ them I have of late been somewhat used to writing but I am yet to learn the Art and terms of Railing and I hope I shall not find that any such Legacies are bequeath'd to you by any of your Order I am Gentlemen Your humble Servant Edw. Stillingfleet London Nov. 14. 1674. THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. OF Mr. Cressy's Apologie for the sharpness of his Style pag. 1. CHAP. II. Of the Charge of Fanaticism and Mystical Divinity p. 19. CHAP. III Of the Monastick Orders in the Roman Church and particularly of the Benedictin 136. CHAP. IV. Of the Conversion of England and the difference between the Brittish and Saxon Christians p. 257. CHAP. V. Of the Poenal Laws against Papists p. 327. To my L D. C. My Lord SInce Your Lordships going from London Mr. Cressy's Epistle Apologetical to a Person of Honour touching his Vindication of D r. Stillingfleet came to my hands and bears date from his Cell March 21. A. D. 1674. being the Anniversary day of S. Benedict And he is not only thus punctual in the date of his Epistle but he begins it with a very particular account in what manner the Person of Honour's Book was sent to him viz. by the Letter-Post but partly to abate charges and likewise to disguise the shape of a Book it was folded up in loose sheets with all the Margins close pared to the very quick After I had observed so much niceness in these not very material circumstances I could hardly expect that the least line of the Book should escape without numbering the words syllables and letters in it and giving every one a distinct and punctual confutation But I soon found several considerable parts gently passed over and indeed by the very bulk of his Book I presently perceived that he was more curious to give the World an account how the other came to him than careful to answer it For if he had treated every thing that was of like moment with equal exactness it might very well have passed for the Second Tome of his Ecclesiastical History And in truth the matter of some part of it is not much unlike for he tells so long a story in the middle of it of the Kindness of some and the unkindness of others in England to him and of the Books he had written that it looked very like a Legend of himself only I do not find any Miracles he had done in any of them Before he comes to his Apologie for himself he takes great care to make me understand the mighty obligation laid upon me by that Person of Honour who was pleased with so much Kindness to undertake my Vindication from the impetuous assaults of an enraged Adversary Which I was so justly sensible of before that Mr. Cressy might have spared his pains for surely it was no small Favour to be delivered from the paws of so fierce a Creature as he appeared to be in his former Book but to have it done in so obliging a manner by a Person of so great Honour and Abilities was as much beyond my presumption to hope for as it is now above my Power to requite I with I were a Person of that Credit and Interest to be able to express my Gratitude in that very way Mr. Cressy directs me to for of all things I desire to avoid the odious character and brand of Ingratitude But since I make so small a Figure in publick affairs the utmost I can do is to save that Honourable Person the farther trouble of making