well come under the account of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to those Opiners hath for the honour of the Church of England's Principles in his 8th Lecture and there de lege paenali well taught us in what Cases Penal Laws oblige in Conscience and shewed that they may so bind where the Legislator did intend to oblige the Subject Ad culpam etiam non solum ad paenam and in that Case saith he Certum est eos teneri ad observandum id quod lege praecipitur nec satisfacere officio si parati sint poenam lege constitutam subire and where he further saith That the mind and intention of the Legislator is chiefly seen in the Proeme of his Law in quo saith he there ut acceptior sit populo lex solet Legislator Consilii sui de eà lege ferendâ causas rationes expoâ—eâ—e quà m sit lex iusta quam fuerit tollendis incommodis abusibus necessaria quà m futura sit Reip. utilis There is a particular Principle of moment worthy of the Magistrates Survey that relates to the Gathered Churches and that is a Principle made a necessary ingredient in the Constitution of of those Churches by a Divine of the same Authority among them as Bishop Saâ—â—erson is in the Church of England and whom I occasionally beforementioned and that is Mr. Iohn Cotton B. D. who in a Pamphlet of his printed at London in the year 1642 Entâ—tuled The true Constitution of a particular visible Church proved by Scripture wherein is briefly demonstrated by Questions and Answers what Officers Worship and Government Christ hath ordained in his Church and in the Title-page whereof is this place of Scripture viz. Jer. 50. 5. They shall ask the way to Sion with their faces thitherward saying Come let us joyn our selves to the Lord in a perpetual COVENANT that shall not be forgotten in p. 1st makes his first Question what is a Church And the Answer is The Church is a mystical Body whereof Christ is the head the Members and Saints called out of the World and united together in one Congregation by an holy COVENANT to Worship the Lord and to Edifie one another in all his holy Ordinances And in another Book of his printed at London in the year 1645 called The way of the Churches of Christ in New England his third Proposition is this viz. For the joyning of faithful Christians into the Fellowship and Estate of a Church we find not in Scripture that God hath done it any other way than by entring of them all together as one man into an holy COVENANT with himself to take the Lord as the head of the Church for their God and to give up themselves to him to be his Church and People which implies their submitting of themselves to him and one to another in his fear and their walking in professed subjection to all his Ordinances their cleaving one to another as fellow Members of the same Body in Brotherly Love and Holy Watchfulness unto Mutual Edification He there partly props up the Obligation of this Church Covenant on the Iewish Oeconomy mentioned in the Book of Deuteronomy and other places of the Old Testament The reasonableness of Subjects not entring into Religionary Covenants without the Consent of the Pater patriae may be inferred from the old Testament where in Numbers c. 30 the Parent hath a power given for the controuling of the Childrens Vows not enter'd into by his consent but since these Principles of a new Church Covenant may seem to introduce a new Ecclesiastical Law without the King's privity and consent a thing that if our very Convocation should presume to do would bring them within a Praemunire and since the whole power of reforming and ordering of all matters Ecclesiastical is by the Laws in express words annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm and particularly by the 1st of Elizabeth and since that it hath been said that even without an Act of Parliament a new Oath or Covenant cannot be introduced among the King's Subjects and moreover since all the famous Religionary Confessions of the Protestant Churches abroad assert nothing of any such Church Covenant and since Covenants and Associations have lately heard so ill in the Kingdom I think the nature and terms of this Independent Covenant ought to be laid as plain before the Eye of the Government as was the Scotch Presbyterian one Those words of Mr. Cotton of the entring them all together as one man into an holy Covenant carry some thing like the same sound of one and all and tho their thus entring into it to take the Lord as the head of his Church for their God and to give up themselves to him to be his Church and People may be a plausible beginning of this new Church Covenant in nomine Domini yet the following words of submitting themselves to him and to one another in his fear and their cleaving one to another as fellow Members of the same Body in Brotherly Love and Holy Watchfulness are words that I think the Magistracy ought to watch and to see that Dissenters have a very sound form of words prescribed to them in this Case if it shall think fit to have the same continued I have found the Assertion of a Church Covenant as Essential to the Form of a true Independent Church in many other of their Books and do suppose that this Covenant being laid as Corner-stone in the building of their Churches by Divine Right it must last as long as Independency it self and of its lasting still I met with an Indication from a Loyal and Learned Official of the Court-Christian who told me that tho several of the Dissenters called Presbyterians have been easily perswaded to repair to the Divines of the Church of England that they were admonished to confer with and had upon Conference with them come to Church and took the Sacrament yet he thought that some of another Class of Dissenters were possessed with a Spirit of incurable Contumacy by reason of their Principles having tied them together to one another by a Covenant And if it shall therefore appear to the Magistrates that they are thus Conference-proof and as I may say Reason-proof by vertue of their Covenant it will then be found that no one Mâ—mber of a gathered Church can turn to ours without the whole Hyena-like turning and perhaps some of the Lords the Bishops may think it hereupon proper humbly to advise his Majesty to null by a Declaration the Obligation of this Covenant as his Royal Father did that of the Presbyterian Covenant In the mean time the Consideration of the Principles of Independecy thus seeming to have cramp'd the Consciences of its followers with a Covenant that is at least unnecessary and must naturally be a troublesom imposition to men of thought and generous Education who love to perform Moral Offices without entring into Covenant or giving Bond so to do may serve to
let men see how the Pastorage of the Church of England treats them like Gentlemen and may serve to awaken their Compassion for their deluded Country-men whom they see frâ—ghtened by their Teachers into a fancy of the unlawfulness of a Ceremony and yet embolden'd by them into the belief and practice of a Covenant without the King's Consent and from which Persons we should perhaps quickly receive Alarms of Persecution if the Government should impose any Covenant or Test on them in order to Loyalty tho never so necessary for the publick Peace But the World is aweary of the umbrage Sedition hath found among denominations of Churches and of judging of Trees by their Shadows or otherwise than by their Fruit that is by their Principles and for the happiness of the present State of England after we have by many Religion-Traders been troubled with almost as many Marks of true and false Churches as there are of Merchants Goods Nature seems to have directed the People to agree in this indeleble Character and Mark of a false Church namely one whose Principles are Disloyal The Genius of England is so bent upon Loyalty in this Conjuncture that a disloyal Principle doth jar in the Ears of ordinary thinking men like a false string in the Ears of a Critical Lutenist and the which he knows that Art or Nature can never tune and upon any Churches valuing themselves on the intrinsic worth or the weight of their Principles as most opposite to Falshood men generally now take into their hands the Touch-stone and the Scales of Loyalty and do presently suspect any Church that refuseth to bring its Principles to be touch'd and weigh'd and they will not now allow the Reputation of a visible Church to any body of Men whose Principles relating to Loyalty shall not first be made visible Nor can it be otherwise thought by the impartial than that Mens Consciousness of somewhat of the Turpitude of some of their Principles restrains them from bringing them to appear in publick View and according as Cicero in his de fin bon mal answers Epicurus who said that he would not publish his Opinion lest the people might perhaps take offence at it viz. Aut tu eadem ista dic in judicio aut si coronam times dic in senatu Nunquam facies Cur nisi quod turpis est Oratio I who thus urge the Reasonableness and Necessity of mens being Confessors of their Principles of Loyalty have frankly exposed one of mine own in p. 131. and which I say there that I account the great fundamental one for the quiet of the World as well as of a Man 's own Conscience viz. That no man is warranted by any Intention of advancing Religion to invade the right of the Sovereign Power that is inherent in Princes by the municipal Laws of their Countreys and I have mention'd the same in p. 136. as owned by the Non-conforming Divines in King Iames his time Tho I believe as firmly as any man that the Christian Religion doth plainly forbid the Resistance of Authority and that his Majesties Royal Power is immediately from God and no way depends on any previous Election or Approbation of the people yet since the Sons of the Church of England are sufficiently taught both that Doctrine and likewise that human Laws in the point of their Allegiance do bind the Conscience and since other men who err in Principles of Loyalty may sooner be brought to see the Absurdity of their Error by the known Laws of the Land than by Argumentations from Scripture which may admit of Controversy and since his Majesty hath been pleased to expect the Measures of our Obedience from the Laws and that our English Clergy while in the late Conjuncture they have so universally preach'd up Loyalty have so religiously accorded with the Measures of the Laws and have therein as I may say shewed themselves Apostolical Pastours and since the persons whose Complaints of the danger of Popery are most loud do joyn therewith their Exclamations against Arbitrary or Illegal Power and seem to joyn Issue in the point that they are willing that the Power that is by Law inherent in the Crown should be preserved to it I thought it most useful in the present Conjuncture to assert the Principle in these Terms I have done and I the rather chose to do it because I thought that the security of the Crown is by some Laws well provided for whose Obligation admits of no Doubt I mean those whereby Men have been obliged to take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy But moreover as I consider'd it to be one great valuable Right inherent by Law in our Princes to secure the Continuance of the Succession in their Line so I likewise judged the legal Right of Princes to Succeed according to Proximity of Blood to be unalterable and therefore having my eye on the prevention of further Scandal to Protestancy from the Exclusion I introduced that Principle so worded as aforesaid that by dilating thereon as I have done I might bring the Reader the better prepared to my Casuistical Discussion of the Oaths The Reader will find at the end of this Discourse the Casuistical Discussion of the Obligation to the King's Heirs and Successors resulting from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy by me promised in p. 214 and the occasion of my writing which is likewise there mentioned It was wholly writ in the time that the Question of the Succession made the greatest noise among us and was then by me Communicated to several of my Friends in Terms as herewith printed without any thing since added or diminished and both it and the Discourse which contains so many things naturally Previous to the Consideration of that Question would have been long since published but partly for the various Accidents of Business and Sickness that necessarily interrupted me in the Writing of the latter And tho perhaps the Publication of the former in the time of the Sessions of our late Parliaments might have been more significant than after the Volly of Loyal Addresses shot of manifesting the general just zeal against the Exclusion of which Addresses I yet observed none to mention any thing of the Obligations to Allegiance to the King's Heirs and Successors from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy it may be said that the subsequent Births of Fate have not restrained the possibility of its usefulness in future times and tho Heaven may be propitious to our Land in the blessing it according to the Loyal Style of the Addresses namely in his Majesties Line continuing on the English Throne as long as the Sun and Moon endure yet many and many may be the Conjunctures when a supposed Heterodox Prince shining like the Sun in the Firmament of the English State and regularly moving in the Line of the Law and his own Religion may attract the dull Vapours of Fears and Jealousies again as another glorious Prince hath done and
defensive arms to hurtful animals by whom they often Suffered and sometimes by their very Shepherds who in Sheering them would cut their Skins Apollo told them that no Beasts were so much the Favorites of him and of men as they for that whereas others with great anxiety were forced in the Night the time of rest and sleep to seek their Food that they could not do with safety in the day Men the Lords of the Earth bought at dear rates pasture grounds for Sheep and that tho men did make Nets feed Dogs and lay snares for hurtful Beasts they employed Shepherds and Dogs to guard Sheep and that no Shepherds could deal ill with their Flocks without being chiefly cruel to themselves and that therefore their security lay in not being able to fright their Shepherds Thus every one is naturally abhorr'd who attacks a Naked man and from such a one Lions themselves either through fear or generosity have made their Retreat The holy Writ affords us a memorable Instance of the Divine displeasure in the 38 th of Ezekiels Prophesie against Gog and Magog who are there branded as the Invaders of a defensless City 'T is there mention'd in v. 10 th and 11 th Thus saith the Lord God it shall also come to pass that at the same time shall things come into thy mind and thou shalt think an evil thought and v. 11 th And thou shalt say I will go up to the Land of unwalled Villages I will go to them that are at rest that dwell safely all of them dwelling without walls and having neither Bars nor Gates and in v. 12 th to take a spoil and to take a prey to turn thy hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited and upon the people that are gather'd out of the Nations which have gotten Cattel and goods that dwell in the MIDST or navel of the land But it then follows v. 14. Therefore Son of man Prophecy and say unto Gog Thus saith the Lord God in that day when my people of Israel dwells safely shalt thou not know it that is thou shalt know it to thy sorrow and by thy bitter experience of my wrath what it is to disturb my harmless and quiet people in the World. The Comparing of the following 16 th and 18 th v. shew this to be the meaning of v. 14 th And I believe if any of the people of Gog and Magog were allowed by the Law to live apart by themselves they might in any defenceless City be as secure from danger or fear of the Protestant Israel as they pleased It hath been well observed by a great Enquirer into humane Nature That a restless desire of power after power that ceaseth only in death is a general inclination of all mankind and the cause of this is not alwaies that a man hopes for a more intensive delight then he has already attained to or that he cannot be content with a moderate power but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well which he hath present without the acquisition of more And from hence it is that Kings whose power is greatest turn their endeavours to the Assuring it at home by Laws or abroad by Warrs But as much as it is the inclination of the unthinking or brutish part of Mankind that power should be like the Crocodile alwaies growing the soberer few do know that power will destroy it self if it shall be still ascending and hath not a Center wherein to rest and be quiet just as fire would perish in nature and destroy it self if there were not an Element allow'd it wherein to leave burning And that therefore Augustus wisely designed a Law de cohibendis imperii finibus And that the experience of Antient and Modern times hath taught the teachable part of mankind That great Empires have sunk under their weight and have lost the length of their power by the widening it and that Kings whose power is greatest as was said sometimes turn their endeavours to the Assureing it at home by Laws which by giving it some bound are like letters about the edges of our coyn Decus tutamen to it the which makes it so Sacred that 't would be both Treasonable and Ridiculous to clip it and that as the Bees by their King have given the world an instance in Nature of Kingly power so they have likewise another of Kings governing by the power of Laws 'T is a common observation That tho Bees are little angry fighting Creatures upon occasion and leave their stings in the wounds they make Rex tamen apum sine aculeo est the King of the Bees is without any sting and the curious work of the Hive goes on with a great deal of Geometry and idle Drones are thence as it were legally expel'd who would there invade property Nor need the King of the Bees say the Naturalists have a sting for the whole Hive defends and guards him as thinking that they are all to perish if their King be destroyed And this would be the case of the Papists if they would be content so to part with the sting of their Power that it could not hurt either King or Kingdom and might not come to lose it self by so doing they would have the Posse of every County to defend them they would have the Laws and the whole Hive of English men to guard them the very Anger of the Protestants would be a defensive Wall of Fire round about them 'T is true that wild Animals are by their constant fears of danger habituated to more cunning then Tame ones of the same species but all their little cunning renders them not so safe as the great wisdom protection of the Law doth the other and ranging and out-lying Deer thrive not so well as those that are in the Forrests And here it falls in my way to observe that the Kings cautioning by the Law of the Forrests that the Mastiffs shall have the Power took from them of hurting the Deer may well insinuate into us the reason and equity of all our Laws that hinder its being in the power of a man to be a Wolf to another and of the Power inherent by the Law of Nature in all Soveraign Princes to restrain any undue Power of Subjects from violating the Public peace As the Law of God and Nature command both Iustice and Mercy to be shewn to Beasts so doth the Law of England provide that any mans person and Estate should be seized into the Kings hands in case of some wild cruelty to his Beasts for he would appear in the eye of the Law an Idiot or a Lunatic that should put his Horses or Asses to the Sword. That which I mention'd of the Laws providing that the Mastiffs of any Inhabitants in Forrests shall not have Power to hurt the Deer is called by the Forrest Law Lawing of Mastiffs or the Expeditating them that is the three Claws of their Fore-foot to the Skin
are to be cut off and thus they are to be law'd every three years for the preserving the Kings Game and the peace of his wild Beasts The Regarders of the Forrest are to make a TRIENNIAL enquiry about it tunc fiat per visum testimonium legalium hominum non aliter that is not Arbitrarily there must be legal Judgment upon legal Testimony and no Dog law'd without Judicial proceeding This Forrest Law made in the time of our Popish Ancestors did suppose that the Kings Game could not be preserved nor the Peace of his Wild Beasts by the Dogs being then either exorcised or their lapping a little holy water or any expedient as I may say without expeditation which did ipso facto destroy their Power of destroying the Kings Game and the Peace of his wild Beasts and therefore that 's the only valuable Garranty we can have from those who without Law and against Law would hunt down the King himself and his Tame Subjects that the excrescence of their power should be hambled or expeditated but the modus of this I do again say ought by them to be tendered to the Consideration of his Majesty and the Triennial Regardors of the Kingdom I am sure 't is worthy the consideration of us English what the Learned Frenchman Monsieur Bodin tells us in his Book de Republica Lib. 5. Cap. 6. Vna est tenuium adversus potentiores securitatis ratio ut scilicet si nocere velint non possent cum nocendi voluntas ambitiosis hominibus imperandi cupidis nunquam sit defutura And now my Lord to give your Lordship a home Instance of Jealousie taking Fire in some meerly from the power of another to do them hurt I will instance in your self at this conjuncture of time The nature of Iealousie renders it to be a troublesom weed and yet such an one that growes in the Richest Soil of Love my meaning is that 't is a fear of Love not being mutual when one doth love intensely with desire of being so loved My Lord in the picture of your mind that I have already drawn in this Letter I have only done you a little right and not at all favour'd you and 't is but Justice to you to acknowledge that the Protestant part of your Country hath a singular love for you with a desire of being so loved by you and 't is in this Critical conjuncture of time that your power makes them fear the love not to be mutual Your Lordship knows that fear in people is an aversion with an opinion of hurt from any object and they soon hate those things or persons for which they have aversion and fear of hurt by power disposeth men naturally to anticipate and not to stay for the first blow or else to crave aid from Society and from others especially whose concern may be the same or greater then theirs and who are their representatives and to wish ill to those who make them sleep in armour or to stand in the posture of Gladiators with their weapons pointing and their eyes fixed on another and to be still in procinctu and all those passions sprung from the Root of Jealousie as far as they exceed the bounds of reason are degrees of madness And tho mans life be a constant motion and for the most part in both a Rugged way and near Precipices yet during that madness men are still by their own Scorpions scourging it to make it move faster then the regular and intended pace of Nature and injuring themselves with their passions are content too to wound another through their own sides And thus my Lord give me leave to tell you That 't is a kind of a Complement from people to a great good man of whose power and of whom they are jealous when that it may be said of them that they are occasionally faln mad for love of him One part of your Power namely that wherein you are a Conduit-Pipe to convey the grants of Honour and profit from your Royal Master the Fountain of Honour 't is possible for you to quit and that with pleasure too that you may have time to quench your great thirst after knowledge in that great collection of waters into which so many Streams of learning have met from all ages and Nations I mean your vast and choice Library And I may well suppose that your Lordship hath now that sense of Greatness and of power by publick Employment that Cardinal Granvel expressed at his retirement from the same That a great Man is like a great River where many sorts of Creatures are still quenching their thirst but are likewise still muddying and troubling the Stream Your Lordship knows who said thâ—â— actio est conversatio cum stultis lectio cum sapientibus In the Scene of the busie World you are necessarily troubled with the affaires of men whose being born was unnecessary to the world and there you are usually put to play at hard games well with ill gamesters the jest that fortune playing in humane affâ—ires commonly puts on the wise to spoil their busie sport there you are sometimes deafen'd with Complaints of Mimick Apes and grave Asses of airy fools and formal fops one against another but in your noble Library you have the advantage of the still Musick of the Tomb you have the weight of many dead Authors making no noise you have Socinus and Calvin standing quietly by each other and some Authors content with the dust of your Library who thought one Christian world not enough to trouble 't is there you will avoid any trouble by Authors of gilded outsides intruding nor be molested as now by nonsense in fine clothes You cannot now quietly enquire after the fountain of Nile for the noise of its Cataracts nor appease your thirst after knowledge otherwise then tanquam canis ad Nilum for fear of the Crocodiles of the World devouring you nor have a view of the tree of knowledge without a Serpent of envy circled about it nor have time to look on the pieces painted for eternity nor to mind the Eclipses in the Heavens while you are preventing your own being eclipsed in the Earth But my Lord there is another kind of power inherent in you and that you cannot part with such a power as King Charles the first in his Eikon Basil. affixes to the Character of his favorite when he sayes he looked on the Earl of Strafford as a Gentleman whose great abilities might make a Prince rather afraid then ashamed to employ him in the greatest affaires of State. Your very Reputation for power is power for that engageth those to adhere to you who want protection Your Success in your past conduct of publick affaires is power for it makes men promise to themselves good fortune while they follow you Your eloquence that fastens mens ears to your lips is power Your great knowledge in the Law whereby you possess that Engine by which you can be
may give the least Addition of trouble to any Member of the Realm whose Principles and Practices are not justly suspected to threaten the disturbance of the whole and my being informed by some of my Correspondents who are very impartial observers of things that many of the Dissenters of this Age have made the Press send forth several of the Antimoniarchical Principles of the former and as if they designed to revive its Rebellion and that tho the same Laws that have secured our Religion have likewise secured the Power of the Militia solely to the King and Enacted that it is not lawful on any pretence to take up Arms c. yet that the Government is justly apprehensive of many Dissenters and their Pastors owning the former Doctrine of Resistance I could wish as I did in behalf of the Papists that they would themselves offer to his Majesty's Consideration such a way of a Test or Assurance of their being become sound parts of the State and that they aim at no power of disturbing it and as to his Royal Wisdom may appear substantial and satisfactory till they do so I wish that not only the Magistracy but all private loyal persons would have such a regardful eye on them as is had in Foreign parts on those that come for Prattiques from infected places and bring no Letters of Health and that they would have Prattique or Commerce with such of them which would soon enforce them to live by themselves I have in this Discourse already acknowledged it to your Lordships just praise that you are not of too narrow a Spirit or Principles as to Protestant Dissenters as supposing that you had such Sentiments of the usage fit to be afforded to some of them that our Learned Bishop of Winchester own'd in a Letter to your Lordship which you once shewed me and I was as ready to be their Excusator as any of the Church of England could be till I saw their ingratitude so instrumental in Cancelling the Declaration of Indulgence and still out of a natural inclination do as I said in the Case of the Papists wish them all that share of the Royal Favour that would not undo themselves and others and as I said in the Case of the Papists do suppose the continuance of the old Laws against Protestant Recusants necessary in this Conjuncture that the King in whom the Executive Power of the Laws is lodged may sharpen the edge against any one of the Party that should be an aggressor against the Peace of the Kingdom and especially considering how often many of the Puritans have took the advantage of the publick pressures of the Crown in former Ages and that while it was in procinctu to withstand a Foreign Invasion My Lord Keeper Puckering's Observation of their Temper expressed in his memorable Speech is known to all and the present apprehensions in the Government of danger from Dissenters have sufficiently evinced the Prudence of his Majesty's Measures in not repealing the Penal Clauses in our Statutes against Protestant Recusants When they who were regarded as weak Brethren do now fortiter Calumniari and Libel the Government and call whom they will Iulian 't is necessary that the Prince by having the power of the Penal Laws in his hand should be able to discriminate those who have not yet discriminated themselves and in the Case of Persons stupid and perverse 't is fitter that Children should be Lachrymists than old men When the Divines of the Church of England have of late from one end of the Land to the other alarmed the People with Exhortations against Disloyalty as loud as those in a late Conjuncture against Popery and the King's Ministers were informed of the Altum silentium in the Conventicles as to any making the English Bibles there support the Rights of our English Kings and that the Iulians there were Apostates from the Principles of the Non-Conformists in King Iames's time and had forgot how Reynolds Whitaker Cartwright Dod Traverse c. had in their Writings disowned the assigning it as a Cause of the Primitive Obedience Quia deerant vire and that a new Sect of false weak Brethren had learned to urge the deerant vires 't was time for the King to keep the strength of the old Laws in his hands and occasionally to arm them against the petulant insolence of any Seditious Protestant or Popish Recusants I have been far from recommending in this Discourse the Exterminium haereticorum or Extirpation of any Recusants but have endeavoured with the sedateness requisite in a Philosophical or Political Disquisition to give my Judgment of the Natural Causes that induce me to expect the Extermination only of things or Principles Relionary and indeed to speak more properly of that part of Mens Principles only that is irreligionary and against Nature and to expect such parts being luce delenda I expect not that all the Debates of the Religionary part of Presbytery should here among all men cease tho yet I have conjectured that they who should write professedly of that Subject here would want Readers and as I believe too Discoursers of the Latitudinarian Hypothesis would likewise and do think that many little Religionary Speculative Notions about the meaning of some obscure passages in Scripture may to some of our Dissenters seem great and employ their time in Debates and as when the famous Ainsworth and Broughton heretofore had before their Congregations of Dissenters who went hence to Holland many and fierce disputes about the Controvesie whether Aarons ephod were blew or Sea-green a Controversie that puzzled all the Dyers of Amsterdam as Fuller says of it in his Church History as well as it did our separatists there that took so much pains to be therein illuminated and which I think the light of a Farthing Candle brought in any night among them might have easily settled or as I may say deleted in regard that blew and yellow making a green the yellow of the flame of the Candle would have made what appeared blew by day to have seem'd green at night and prevented their further Anathematising one another as Schismaticks about the same And as I beforementioned it out of a late Book of a Divine of the Church of England that some of the Reliogionary parts of Popery he instanceth in viz. Invocation of Saints Transubstantiation Purgatory are and will be learnedly and voluminously defended to the Worlds end I believe the same may be so in Popish Countries abroad and that the same will be believed by many Persons here tho yet the voluminous discussion of the same hath long been and is like to be out of fashion here and reflections on the same en passant or only in short Treatises may be thought by our Divines sufficient to guide their Auditors from mistakes therein and effectually to confute and I believe that our English Church will never be troubled with the growth of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation under any Prince we
particular Law hath declared the Militia to be solely in the King I most humbly take my leave of your Lordship at present and am My Lord Your Lordships most Faithful Servant To the Right Honorable THE LORD MARQUESSE OF HALIFAX MY LORD ACcording to the Common Civility of Ships paying a Salute to the Forts on the Coasts they come near the Course of my handling the following Subject necessarily giving my Thoughts an approach to the Considering the great use that Providence not long ago made use of your Lordship's great Abilities as a Fortification for the Defence of the Hereditary Monarchy I have held it here but common Iustice to Congratulate to your Lordship your heroical Loyalty and great Success therein on one MEMORABLE Day It pleas'd God in whose Book the Members of Mens Bodies and Talents of their Minds are written then to call forth your Head and Heart and Tongue your flowing Elocution your fixt Iudgment your great Presence of Mind and Thought your comprehensive Knowledge of the past Publick Affairs at home and abroad and even the generous ferment in your Blood and to put them all to signal use in preserving the whole Body of the Kingdom Your Lordship's Goodness was herein the more God-like for that as the great benign Father of the Creation was pleas'd with being a Benefactor to such whose Ingratitude he foreknew and to some who would render him as negligent of the Concerns of his Creatures and to others who would represent him as unjust in his Prescriptions and cruel in his Designs and taking pleasure in the Destruction of Souls so your Lordship was resolv'd on your Beneficence to your Country in the black Conjuncture of our Fears and Iealousies and you were then Communicative of the brightest Beams and sweetest Influences of your serene and great thoughts to it when you knew that by some of the People for your so doing you would be maligned and mis-represented as an hostis Patriae I shall Presume to give your Lordship no further trouble then by the syncere Profession of my being My Lord Your Lordship 's most Obedient Servant P. P. THE OBLIGATION Relating to the King's Heirs and Successors In point of Conscience discuss'd As resulting from the OATHS of ALLEGIANCE and SUPREMACY and the Takers of those Oaths proved to be thereupon become bound to bear Faith and True Allegiance to those HEIRS and SUCCESSORS in the Due and Legal Course of DESCENT I Shall without Proem or Passions here approach to the Great Areopagus of the Court of Conscience and having stated the Question of what Obligation to the King's Heirs and Successors results from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy in point of Conscience shall deliver my judgment of the same in some Conclusions and answer Objections that may occur I shall here take Notice that the word Obligation from being Originally a Band or Ty of the Law for Payment of Debts hath been since frequently applied to the discharge of Moral Offices Obligatio est juris vinculum quo necessitate restringimur alicujus solvendae Rei Instìt de Obligationibus And pursuant hereunto men may be properly said to pay their Allegiance to Princes in discharge of their Natural Obligations and their Oaths But here I consider not the extent of the Obligation of the Natural Allegiance that English Subjects owe their Monarchs nor yet their Obligation to Allegiance from the Divine Law positive nor from the Lex terrae tho yet I account it very plain that we are on all those accounts bound to pay them Allegiance but do choose to confine my discussion of the Obligation to Allegiance as resulting from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and as mentioned in our Statutes in relation to our King's Heirs and Successors and most particularly from that CLAUSE in the Oath of Allegiance viz. I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to his Majesty his HEIRS and SUCCESSORS and him and them will defend to the uttermost of my power against all Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity c. And THAT in the Oath of Supremacy viz. And do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the King's Highness his Heirs and lawful Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Iurisdictions Privileges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and Successors c. And I here enquire how far the Obligation resulting from those Clauses in those Oaths in Relation to such Heirs and Successors may be judged in point of Conscience to extend As to the Question thus explained and stated I shall lay down these following Conclusions First That those Oaths and indeed all others do respect a Duty to be performed in the Future time that is at the least some time tho perhaps a very small one after the Obligation contracted as is well open'd by Sanderson in his first Lecture of the Obligation of Oaths and where he shews that this happens in every Oath assertory as well as promissory for whoever sweareth obligeth himself ipso facto to manifest the truth in that which he is about to say whether it be in a matter past or present by an Assertory or in a Future matter by a Promissory Oath Secondly That by that part of an Oath Promissory contained in the forementioned Clauses of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy as likewise by all other Oaths Promissory the Party swearing is bound to endeavour for the Future as much as in him lieth by his Deeds to fulfil what he hath sworn in words and this Sanderson in his second Lecture hath well asserted as to an Oath Promissory viz. That he who endeavours not to perform that which he hath promised is guilty of Perjury in the Court of Conscience 'T is plain that in an Assertory Oath if I took the same with a wellcompoâ—ed mind and have given my Testimony truely I have discharged my Duty and have my Quietus from my Conscience for the same But in an Oath Promissory and particularly in the Promissory part of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy I am not discharged by the sincerity of my intention in my promise I have engaged my self to Action and have lanched my self into a Sea of Business from that time forward till the end of my life and as there is occasion and opportunity I am to DO what in those Clauses I have promised to the King and his Heirs and Successors And thus the Style of DOING runs in Numbers 30. 2. If a man swear an Oath to bind his Soul with a Bond he shall DO according to all that procedeth out of his mouth Thirdly That those Oaths and all others are to be taken in the sense of the Imposer For the Oath being taken that the Imposer may be assured that the promise of the Person swearing shall be effectually made good to him there would be no assurance thereof in
it saith Concessimus Deo hac praesenti charta confirmavimus pro nobis HAEREDIBVS nostris in perpetuum quod Ecclesia Anglicana libera sit habeat omnia jura sua integra libertates suas illaesas and whereby the British Churches are secured under a Prince of any Religion from Foreign Arbitrary impositions But indeed the Style current in Magna Charta is that our Kings for themselves and their Heirs forever did grant the Customs and Liberties contained in that Charter to our Ancestors and their Heirs for ever Our Ancestors had no occasion to spend time in seeking Knots in a Bull-rush or hidden Sense in the words HEIRS and the King's HEIRS when so anciently as by the Oath of Fealty which every Person above fourteen years old and every Tythingman was obliged to take publickly at the Court-Leet within which he lived they were sworn to the King and his HEIRS and that Oath was taken a fresh every year by all the Subjects under Edward the Confessor and William the first and is thus set down by Pryn in his Concordia Discors viz. I A. B. do swear that FROM THIS DAY FORWARDS I will be Faithful and Loyal to our Lord the King AND HIS HEIRS c. The instances are innumerable of Allegiance anciently Sworn to our Kings and their Heirs and this one for example occureth to me as Sworn in the time of Edward the 4th viz. Sovereign Lord I Henry Percy become your Subject and Leige-man and promit to God and you that hereafter I Faith and Troth shall bear to you as to my Sovereign Leige-Lord and to your Heirs Kings of England of Life and Limb and of Earthly Worship to Live and Die against all Earthly People and to you and to your Commandments I shall be Obeysant as God me help and his Holy Evangâ—lists 27. Oct. 9. Ed. 4. Claus. 9. Ed. 4. m. 13. in dorso Mr. Pryn likewise in that Book of his beforemention'd saith that there was an ancient Oath of Fealty and Allegiance both by the Subjects of England and Kings Bishops Nobles and Subjects of Scotland made to the Kings of England and Their Heirs as Supreme Lords of Scotland in these words viz. Ero fidelis legalis fidemque legalitatem servabo Henrico Regi Angliae haeredibus suis de vitâ membris terreno honore contra omnes qui possunt vivere mori nunquam pro aliquo portabo arma nec ero in consilio vel auxilio contra eum vel Haeredes suos c. which Oath he saith William King of Scots and all his Nobles Swore to King Henry the second haeredibus suis sicut ligio Domino suo and John Balliol John Comyn with all the Nobles of Scotland to King Edward the first and his Heirs He there likewise gives an account how the Nobles of England Swore Fealty to Richard King of England and to his Heirs against all men and how the Citizens of London Swore the like Oath and That if King Richard should die without Issue they would receive Earl John his Brother for their King and Lord juraverunt ei fidelitatem Contra omnes homines salva fidelitate Richardi Regis fratris sui as Hoveden relates And he moreover cites the Record of the Writ issued to all the Sheriffs of England soon after the Birth of Edward the 1 st Son and Heir to King Henry the 3 d. To Summon all Persons above 12 years old to Swear Fealty to him as Heir to the King and to submit themselves faithfully to him as their Liege Lord after his Death This form of the Oath in the Writ is there mention'd to that effect viz. Quod ipsi salvo homagio fidelitate nostrâ quâ nobis tenentur cui in vitâ nostrâ nullo modo renunciare volumus fideles eritis Edwardo filio nostro primogenito ita quod si de nobis humanitus Contigerit eidem tanquam Haeredi nostro domino suo ligio erunt fideliter intendentes eum pro domino suo ligio habentes And he there shews how they were Summon'd and Sworn accordingly and further how in the Parliament of H. 4. The Lords Spiritual and Tempâ—ral and Commons were Sworn to bear Faith and true Allegiance to the King to the Prince and his Issue and to every one of his Sons severally succeeding to the Crown of England And he there mentions more Oaths taken to our Kings and their Heirs of the like Nature The Consideration hereof would make any one wonder at the Confidence of a late Learned Lawyer and positive pretender to Omniscience in our English Antiquities and Records who in his Detestable Book called The Rights of the Kingdom and which contains a farrago of Impious Anti-monarchical Principles and Printed in London 1649. and there to the Scandal of the English and Protestant Name lately Re-printed by some Factious Anti-Papists hath averred That our Allegiance was of old tyed to the Kings Person not unto his Heirs and for the Kings Heirs saith he there I find them not in our Allegiance And he mentions the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance as enjoyn'd in Queen Elizabeth's and King Iames's time respectively to be the first that were made to the Kings Person and his HEIRS and SVCCESSORS But to return to the Cause in hand 'T is sufficient for the Obligation I press that HEIRS and SUCCESORS are so clearly expressed in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy And tho the Statute of 1 â— Elizabethae in the Clause of the Annexing Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to the Crown useth the style of Your Highness your Heirs and Successors Kings or Queens of this Realm shall have full Power c. as the Statue of the Supremacy 26o. Henry 8th runs in the Style of our Sovereign Lord his Heirs and Successors Kings of this Realms shall be taken accepted and reputed the only Supreme Head and tho the Oath in the 35 th H. the 8 th Cap. 1. that relates to the bearing Faith Truth and true Allegiance to the Kings Majesty and to his Heirs and Successors c. be further thus expressed viz. And that I shall accept repute and take the Kings Majesty his Heirs and Successors when they or any of them shall enjoy his place to be the only Supreme Head c. and tho' the old Oath of the Mayor of London and other Cities and Towns throughout England and of Bayliffs or other chief Officers where there are no Mayors runs in the style of Swearing That they shall well and Loyally Serve the King in the Office of Mayor in the City of L. and the same City shall keep surely and safely to the use of our Lord the King of England and of his Heirs Kings of England might give occasion for that great empty and big-sounding Sophism of Sir W. I. in his famous Speech wherein he said That we are Sworn to the King his Heirs and Lawful Successors but not Obliged to any during
dâ—bent ut aliquid operentur and that verba cum effectu sunt accipienâ—a And as 't is said in the Civil Law Semper in stipulationibus in caeteris contractibus id sequimur quod ACTVM est and as actus is there taken for a general word sive re sive verbis quid AGATVR here is an ACT of the Swearer done in relation to such HEIRS and SUCCESSORS and he is promittendi reus in the Civil Law Phrase and as he is there called Reus qui debitor est omninoque obligatus ex quavis Causa and as he who hath promised any thing is said Reus debendi and so Reus constitutus dicitur qui se obligavit ff Quod met Caus. l. 14. § Labeo But on the whole matter our Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy contain in them nothing impossible and nothing ambiguous and do ipso facto or in plain English oblige us as soon as taken to be ready to pay our Allegiance to the King and afterward to his Heirs and Successors as respectively due according to the Legal Course of Descent And if any one be frightned with Sir W. I's Day-Dream of Treason viz. in being immediately upon the taking of the Oaths under some Obligation to the Kings Heirs and Successors let him repair to our Statute-Book and he will there find as good Bail provided for him in the Case as Heaven and Earth can give for in the Preamble of an Act of Parliament the King and three Estates tell him of the Duty that every true and well affected Subject not only by BOND of Allegiance but also by the COMMANDMENT of Almighty God OVGHT to perform to his Majesty his HEIRS and SUCCESSORS 7 o Iac. c. 6. In fine I shall hereupon affirm that should any English Subject who hath taken these Oaths live to the age of Nestor and in the course of Nature â—ee several of our Kings Heirs and Successors in the due and Legal course of Descent Succeeding one another and should such Subject be never call'd on to reiterate those Oaths in the Reign of any of them he would yet by these Oaths before once taken continue obliged to bear true Faith and Allegiance to them all Successively And thus in the first faederal Oath we read of the Father of the faithful obliged himself at once in relation to Abimelech and his SON and his SONS SON and we know how afterward God was pleased to oblige himself at once to Abraham and his SEED and how after that God was pleased to oblige himself by his Oath and Covenant made to David and his SEED as to their Succession in the Royal Throne of Iuda And 't was to this the words in the Psalms ONCE have I Sworn c. refer And therefore this Scriptural Representation of God after the manner of Men condescending in the Government of the world to bind himself ex gratiâ as aforesaid may well inculcate to us the reasonableness of our becoming ipso facto bound by our Oaths to pay the debitum Iustitiae to his Vice-Roys and their HEIRS and SUCCESSORS To proceed therefore I shall lay down this as a 6 th Conclusion and genuinely deducible from the former one viz. That by Virtue of those two Clauses the takers of those Oaths do particularly bind themselves not only against the Aiding and Assisting or Abetting any Rebellion or any Vsurpation of the rights of his Majesty's Heirs and Successors that can happen but to the aiding and assisting of the Crown and preserving its Inheritable Rights on all Emergent occasions Sanderson in his 4th Lecture of the Obligation of Oaths puts the Case concerning the Person to whom an Oath was made viz. Whether he who hath Sworn the performance of a thing to another the Party to whom he Sware being deceased be bound to make it good to the Heirs and Successors of the said Party And his words are I answer ordinarily he is It is certain that the Party Swearing is obliged if he express'd that he would perform the Oath unto the Heirs of the other It may also be taken for granted that he is bound tho he expressed it not if the Oath taken relates to DIGNITY because DIGNITY varies not with the change of Persons Whence if any Subject or Souldier Swear Fidelity to his King or General the Oath is to be meant to be made unto them also who succeed to that Dignity Yet Ames our Learned Non-conformist in his Case of Conscience 4th Book Chapter 22. viz. De Iuramento as to the 11th Question and about the Obligation of an Oath Ceasing saith Quum aufertur ratio juramenti juramentum cessat ratione Eventus qui casus est eorum qui jurarunt se obedituroâ— Domino aut Principi alicui qui postea cessat esse talis But perhaps had the Case of so strict an Oath as that of Allegiance to our Prince and his HEIRS and SUCCESSORS layn before him he would have writ otherwise of its Obligation For as the Consideâ—ation of the forâ—mentioned Clauses in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy did sufficiently prevail with the Ejected and Persecuted Divines of the Church of England and most of its Lay Members to avoid all sinful Compliance with the late Vsurpation and Vsurpers so it did likewise with many of the Presbyterians and others to avoid the same and particularly to refuse the taking the ENGAGEMENT set up by the Republicans and even to Publish in Print their holding themselves obliged by those Oaths so to do I shall instance in two that did so Mr. Pryn in his Book before cited mentions those OATHS as in direct words extending not only to the late King's Person mentioning King Charles the 1 st but his HEIRS and SUCCESSORS and Inviolably binding the Swearers in perpeâ—uity in point of LAW and CONSCIENCE so long as there is any Heir of the Crown and Royal Line in being and that upon many Vnanswerable Scriptural Precedents and Legal Considerations c. He had before charged those with apparent Perjury who had taken those Oaths to the King and his HEIRS and yet repute those few Reliques of the old Parliament then sitting forcibly secluding the Lords and Majority of their Fellow Members to be a lawful Parliament within the Statute of 17 Car. Cap. 7. or submit to any Oaths Taxes or Edicts of theirs as Parliamentary or Legal I refer the Reader to the Book and which because somewhat Scarce I think to have reprinted The other Person of the Presbyterian Communion I shall refer to for this is the Author of a learned Tract in 4 to printed in the year 1650 called An EXERCITATION concerning VSVRP'D POWERS wherein the Author very substantially proves that by virtue of the Obligation to the King's HEIRS and SUCCESSORS resulting from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy it is not lawful to give up ones self to the ALLEGIANCE of an VSVRP'D Power and saith very well in p. 16. If I should do that I should yield assistance to the
of the Moral Law Principles whereof are in all mens natures and attended in their actings by a natural Conscience 3. Gospel Duties directed and ordered by a supernatural Light no Principles or Footsteps whereof are found in us For the former Religion in the first sense as the knowledge of God Conscience of an Oath Iustice Righteousness in our dealings c. are such things wherein the well-being of Kingdoms and Commonwealths is much concern'd But Religion as it stands in exerting supernatural Principles and in Duties termed the Commands of Christ as the other the Commandments of God Jo. 15. Such as Faith Repentance Sacraments Discipline and the like Gospel Ordinances in the Duties under this Head considered and as distinct from Moral Duties there is little or nothing directly and immediately contributed by them to Mens civil interests further than where these supernatural Vertues are planted in Mens minds the Moral Duties of Piety and Honesty do more plentifully abound and are in exercise As these Moral Duties do more immediately concern the Common-wealth so the Laws thereof are principally drawn forth out of them especially the second Table Duties forming and building them into Municipal Laws under Penalties and Encouragements greater or less as in the Wisdom of a State is judged most conducing to the Well-fare thereof For these Gospel-mysteries it is otherwise For as they contribute to us in our Civil Government no otherwise than as before mentioned so is there little contributed by the Wisdom or Authority of any State advantageous to the Gospel but Protection or being a defence upon the glory of it If Adam had stood all Common-wealths had been prosperous and flourishing and yet no Faith no Christ no Repentance nor any Gospel-Worship known or professed And since the fall you have had well govern'd Kingdoms among Heathens and Turks that never received Christ or Gospel-Worship It is with States as with particular Persons in Commerce another mans Estate or Trade or Credit or any other Civil Concern with whom I have to do is not prejudiced or better'd by Omission or Practice of what is a mere Gospel Duty If a man I deal with be unjust lye steal c. my worldly Interest is prejudiced hereby but whether he repent or exercise faith in Christ for forgiveness of Sins and humble himself I am neither gainer nor loser in my Civil Concerns Now it is Gospel-Worship Gospel-Religion we profess in this Nation c. The Christian Religion having suffered so much by so many Pedantly and Bigottish Writers having mis-represented it as an Invader both of the quiet and business of Princes and Governors and as if the necessary different Sentiments in Religion according to mens several Capacities were still to give the Political Conduct of the World unnecessary trouble and as if God who was in Christ reconciling the World to himself design'd by any various Religionary Notions to render Christian Princes and their People irreconcileable to one another and 〈◊〉 I may say to make the World irreconcileable to it self I am glad when I find the Subject of Religion by falling into the hands of any man of large and noble thoughts to have right herein done it as particularly hath thus been done it by Mr. Ny who had made Religion and Politicks very much his Study and I can refer the Curious to a Great Man of the Communion of the Church of Rome with some of whose Notions in this Point Mr. Ny's were partly Co-incident as any may find who will consult the 2d Volume of the Memoires of Villeroy whose great Character is Recorded by the Bishop of Rhodes in his History of Harry the 4th of France and to whom he was Secretary and was so before to Charles the 9th and Harry the 3d and afterward to Lewis the 13th and the greatest part of D'Ossat's memorable printed Letters from Rome was to him with high respect Addressed In the beginning of that Volume we have his Discours de la vraye legitime constitution de l' estat que l' ordre y est encore que la Religion n' y fust and in p. 6 he discourseth of this Subject viz. L' estat la Religion n' ont rien de Commun and in p. 11. there his Subject is That l' estat n' est estably ny mainteny par la Religion ains la Religion conservée par l' estat and in p. 16. his Theme is That la difference de Religion n' empesche point la paix de l' estat and in p. 19. he discourseth of this Assertion That Le Prince ne doit etre consideré pour sa Religion mais pour ce qu'il est chef du peuple It may moreover be supposed that God in his Government of the World and in his care for the Church in particular Countries when he thinks not fit to incline a Princes mind to receive the same Religionary Sentiments that the generality of the People owns doth yet often endow him with those Moral Vertues and habitual inclinations whereby he is much better qualified for the Protection of the People than any can imagine him to be by Orthodoxy in the Speculative points of revealed Truth The Church we know is in Scripture represented as a helpless Minor and Kings are there mentioned to be its Nursing Fathers and thus the Canon Law tells us that Ecclesia fungitur vice minoris and the Canonists that à minoribus ad Ecclesiam valet argumentum It is here therefore obvious to consideration that Power and moral Honesty and Diligence and Courage and Discretion are the chief endowments requisite for the protection of an Orphans Person and Estate We find these sayings commonly used by the Roman Catholick Authors who treat of the Rights of Protection granted by Sovereign Powers viz. Religio cum protectionis jure nihil commune habet and Religionis communio propriè nulla homini cum homine sed homini cum Deo and Religioni cum juribus Gentium nulla est necessaria conjunctio and on these grounds Magerâ—s in his 8th Chapter of his Advocatia armata raising the Question whether Roman Catholick and Luther an and Calvinist Princes may lawfully protect and defend one another determines that they may and that they ought so to do pursuant to the agreements of the Interim and other pacta Conventa and in his 1â—th Chapter he refers to the settlement of the Confraternities in Germany between Princes of several Religions and particularly of that settled between the Dukes of Bavaria and the Count Palatines of the Rhine Tam quoad bonorum principatuum quà m dignitatis Electoralis successionem and which was not to be dissolved by either of those Electors changing their Relâ—gion And the same reasons are assign'd by him and other Writers of the jus Protectitium for the lawfulness of Christian Princes protecting Iews Turks and Infidels and it passeth among them as the common opinion of the Canonists and Civilians Infidelitatem non privare
THE HAPPY Future State of England OR A DISCOURSE by way of LETTER to the late EARL of ANGLESEY Vindicating Him from the Reflections of an AFFIDAVIT Published by the HOUSE of COMMONS Ao 1680. by occasion whereof Observations are made concerning Infamous WITNESSES The said Discourse likewise contains various Political Remarks and CALCULATIONS referring to many Parts of Christendom with Observations of the Number of the People of ENGLAND and of its Growth in Populousness and Trade The Vanity of the late Fears and Iealousies being shewn the Author doth on Grounds of Nature Predict the Happy future State of the Realm At the End of the Discourse There is a Casuistical Discussion of the Obligation of the KING His Heirs and Successors wherein many of the Moral Offices of Absolute and Vnconditional Loyalty are Asserted Before the Discourse is A large PREFACE giving an Account of the whole WORK with an Index of the Principal Matters ALSO The Obligation resulting from the Oath of SUPREMACY to Assist and Defend the Preheminence or Prerogative OF THE Dispensative Power Belonging to the KING His Heirs and Successors In the Asserting of that Power various Historical Passages occurring in the Vsurpation after the Year 1641. are mentioned and an Account is given of the Progress of the Power of Dispensing as to Acts of Parliament about Religion since the Reformation and of diverse Judgments of Parliaments declaring their Approbation of the Exercise of such Power and particularly in what concerns Punishment by Disability or Incapacity LONDON Printed MDCLXXXVIII To the Right Honorable the Earl of Sunderland Lord President of His Majesty's most Honorable Privy-Council and Principal Secretary of State and Knight of the most Noble Order of the GARTER MY LORD FOR one who is sensible how little he knows of things past or present to Dedicate a Discourse of the future State of his Country to your Lordship who are by the Age allow'd to be as Critical a Iudge of Men and Things as any it affords may seem to have in it somewhat of Presumption But when your Lordship shall have had leisure to consider the plain Grounds of Nature on which my Prediction in the following Papers hath gone I will not so much hope that what I have attempted may appear to have been no Presuming as I will expect that your Censure will cast the Presumption on the other side namely on such who were Predictors with a continuando of the Unhappy State of their Country and especially on the account of the Religion of our most Gracious Prince And were I now to have my Iudgment tryed only by that of the Mobile who measure all things by the Events I account I should be out of the Gunshot of Censure since the course of Providence after my writing of the following Work having Conducted His Majesty to fill the Throne of his Ancestors with so many Royal Virtues it has been Conspicuous to them that the Glories of his Reign have transcended the highest flights of my mentioned Expectation And indeed as I remember to have long ago heard one of the Fathers cited for a Passage to this purpose namely that on a Supposal that God recounting to him the Perfections of the Creation should ask him what he could name wanting and that he could wish he would answer Unum Laudatorem Domine so it might till of late be said that in this new Creation or Restoration of England under His Majesty's Reign the only thing we had with anxiety to wish and desire from God next to the ennabling us to Praise his divine Goodness was one whose Talent of noble thoughts and words might be adequate to the celebrating the many Talents of our Prince and their successful Improvement both for the Honour and Security and Ease of his People But neither is such one Praiser now wanting for he who shall read the many late Loyal Addresses from all Parts of the Kingdom will find the People of England to be the Unus Laudator My Lord as I in the following Discourse almost wholly Printed long ago in the last Reign during the freedom of the Press adventured on Grounds of Nature to predict such a growth of Loyalty as would make all England become one sober Party of Mankind and that the more ingenious sort of Iesuits would by natural Instinct throw off those Principles condemned in this Pope's Decree and with Iustice then acknowledged a Sober Party in that order and have at large in p. 322. particularly shew'd my Abhorrence of charging the belief or practice of those Principles on all Persons in that Order So I have likewise in p. 238. given my Iudgment that all Seditious Principles own'd by any who call'd themselves Protestants must naturally decay and have at large in my Preface opposed my measures of futurity to those of a late Father of the Church of England concerning the two Plots that he thought the Papists and Dissenters would be ever carrying on and without his Lordships excepting the Loyal in those religionary Parties But having said this I must likewise say that these happy births of Fate having been but as it were the Births of a Day under the Powerful Influences of His Majesty's Government or as I may say a Nation 's being thus born in a Day are beyond what I did expect and I did little think that with the suddenness of the motion of Lightning when it melts the Sword and spares the Scabbard His Majesty's Declaration of Indulgence to Dissenters would at the same time melt so many hearts and all hostile Principles of the Doctrine of Resistance wrapp'd therein as it spared the Persons of the deluded Opiners I account that any indifferent Observer of the extraordinary sweetness of the way of painting their Loyalty in their Addresses and which resembleth the way of Corregio and is as excellent in its kind as that of the Sons of the Church of England after the way of the bolder touches of Titian in their former Addresses with the Style of LIVES AND FORTUNES was in its must be very hard-hearted if he likewise be not melted into a new kind of Compassion toward such his Brethren and into a noble sense of a great and good Prince having made his Subjects of all Religionary Perswasions Lachrymists for Joy and turned all their hearts to invoke Heaven in wishing for him according to that old Style a long Life a secure Kingdom a safe House valiant Armies a faithful Senate loyal Subjects the world at Peace c. The comparatively narrow Idea's of Charity and Beneficence that Subjects Minds are capable of toward one another do incline them to think chiefly of particular Toleration and such as we call Dispensation and that too with the nicety of Caution and upon Persons making the notification of their Principles and their particular disclaiming of all Disloyal ones previous to their Toleration and beyond this pitch the flights of my poor thoughts have not gone in the following Work. But His Majesty having
formerly observed to do upon the Worlds minding how much the Principles of the Iesuites had shook the Thrones of Kings and as particularly Father Caron in his Remonstrantia Hybernorum hath done and there citing 250 Popish Authors who deny the Pope's Power to depose Kings And no doubt but Dissenters late Omissions in this kind and Commissions in another will awaken the Magistracy to require from all Protestant Recusants such an exact Inventory of their Tenets as hath not yet been given it and the rather for that it is not by any Dissenters denied that the Sovereign is so far Custos utriusque tabulae as to be allowed to require all Religionary Parties to give him an account of their Principles and to live according to the Rule of them Thus in the Dutch States the Magistrates of every place where any Sect of the Heterodox is tolerated are religiously careful first to inform themselves exactly of all their Tenets and Principles and to see that they hold no opinion prejudicial to the Constitutions of their Government and none doubts but that the entire Body of the Tenets or Principles of the Dissenters to the Gallican Church is as conspicuous to that Church and State and indeed to the World as can be desired the present agreement of which with the Measures of Loyalty I have shewn in this Discourse Who hath there read the Hugonots Sayings published with any stain to their Loyalty or hath seen any of their Tenets branded for Sedition by an Vniversity or College in France But our Protestant Recusants having had here the liberty by Act of Parliament to enjoy their peculiar ways of Religious Worship in their own Families with the toleration of four others of the same perswasion to be present before all their Principles and Tenets have been notified to the Government is an instance of greater Indulgence shewn by the Government here to such Heterodox than I believe can be parallel'd in any Country whatsoever All dangers are naturally multiplied in the dark and it is a diminution of our dread of the very Iesuites Principles that they are generally known but if the Body of their Principles were as much unknown as are those of Protestant Recusants yet would the publick be more immediately concerned in having first an accurate account of those of the latter as being more numerous It may be well thought a Bankrupt Church whose Principles are latitant and any mens begging from the Magistrate Indulgence to a Principle of Sedition would be as shameful as the Insolence of a Beggar not only begging twenty Pound as our Comaedian said but begging a Leg or an Arm and not like a mans asking me who stands in my way as I am travelling on the Road that I would not ride over him but that he may mount into the Saddle whose Principles direct him to ride over me It was well observed by Lipsius in his Notes in Seneca That Naturae quodam Instinctu ea maleficia coercent homines puniunt quae societatem convellunt But as to any Out-rages from any Religionaries which are either prejudicial to the Bodies of particular Persons or even Convulsive of the Bodies of States and Kingdoms and to which the Actors might be inclined by their particular heats and not the general light of their avowed Principles I account that Complaints against such will soon evaporate into Air or be buried in Earth and with some allusion to the words of Let the dead bury the dead I may say let Plots bury Plots and Shams Shams and let any Seditious Protestants and Seditious Papists on the Compensation of their Crimes forbear troubling others by calling one another Criminals and the Figure of the Body of their Parties can no more be altered by the unevenness and exorbitance of the actings of particular Persons than is the rotundity of the Earth by the ruggedness of Rocks or protuberance of Mountains And that where one Papist goeth out of the World at the back door of Justice for the Treason of Clipping and Coyning twenty of the more numerous body of the Protestants do so is not to be wondered at but the id ipsum to be regarded in any reflections made on a Religion by occasion of its Criminals is its Principles and if it could be proved that any Caetus of men were allowed by the Church of England to assert the lawfulness of that Treason as both Papists and Presbyterians have the lawfulness of the Doctrine of Resistance that indeed would have the weight of a just Reflection on our CHVRCH Tho several dissolute and nominal Protestants may possibly have invented and forged as many Shams and Calumnious Accusations against other Protestants and Papists as if they had believed the Practice of Calumny to be lawful yet hath any of them published in Print the Tenet of the lawfulness of it or its being a poor Peccadillo Who knoweth not that some particular Divines of the Church of England by the turbulence of their several dispositions have enflamed differences and divisions in our Church and State But who can charge them from doing this by Communication of Councils with their Superiors and by instruction from them Were any of them charged by Proclamations for doing any thing of that nature as some Popish Recusants were by his Majesty 's of Ian. 16. 1673. for chiefly occasioning the intestine divisions among us and by his Majesty's Proclamation of December 2d 1680. for fomenting of differences among his Loyal Protestant Subjects But yet this Fact tho thus by the Government charged on some ill men of that Religionary perswasion would not have moved me to reflect with the leaâ—t heat on the Order of Iesuites in this Discourse by whom so many of our Roman Catholicks are conducted but for their own Proclamations of their Principles in their Books and particularly as to the point of Calumny the only Engine by which Divisions could be wrought among Protestants and but for their setting up that Doctrine heretofore without leave from the Pope's Canon Law and backing it with another to fright any Fools or Knaves from disparaging or even calumniating them and for their making use and application of these Doctrines since the Pope had damned them by a Proclamation I mean his Edict of March 79 and but for Father Parsons having so scandalously exposed the narrowness of his Soul and the poor Ideas he had of Humane Nature and even of the Character of a Gentleman by saying what I have in p. 61. cited out of his Book of The Succession viz. That many Iealousies Accusations and Calumniations must needs â—â—ght on the Party that is of different Religion from the State and Prince under whom he lives As there is very little in this Discourse that reflects on any Principles of the Romanists that may be called Religionary so neither have I troubled my self to attacque the Tenets of the Society of the Iesuites and of other Casuists condemned by this Pope that do not hominum societatem
damnati antequam nati and that is this namely That the only substantial thing that could give weight to this Censure of these two Parties being their Principles and that the great allowance of this Bishops Opinion as Oracular by so many being likely to throw so much lasting Odium on the Principles of Popish and Protestant Recusants as Hostile to Church and State whereby any disloyal Practices charged on them by their Adversaries tho perhaps very unjustly will naturally be the sooner and more easily believed as I before hinted it may hence appear necessary for men to go or run and even fly from Principles of Disloyalty as soon and as fast and as far as they can But as I have here observed it to be the Interest of our Heterodox Religionaries to disclaim all Principles that I called Convulsive of Civil Society and the Concern of every Country to have those Principles notified and as fairly and particularly delineated and described as are the Beds of Sands and shoaly places and rocky Bars of its Harbours and Sea-Coasts by Hydrographers so I shall likewise observe that the sharp Execution of any of the Penal Laws hath not to the Factious among the Protestant Recusants appear'd so afflictive as the publication of the Principles and printed Sayings of their Pastors since 41 and the which seemed to be like the Doom of the Priests in Malachy namely to have the Dung of their Solemn Feasts spread in their Faces nor could they call such usage of their Tenets any Tryal of cruel mocking nor the Publishers any of The Mockers that should be in the last times since their very Sayings and Tenets have been plainly and briefly published in their Authors own words and without Addittaments As to the Papal Tenet in the Canon Law dilated on in the following Discourse I have there in p. 181. sufficiently shewed my Aversion to contribute any grief or trouble to Loyal Papists by the notifying the same in the hot time of the late Fermentation and while some factious Anti-Papists were so busy in senseless Narratives to load a great Body of them with the guilt of its Practice and when I had any inclination to shew my self unchristianly or ungenerously disposed as to the Persons or Religion of Roman Catholicks I might with the expence of an hour or two's time have easily gratified such a corrupt Humour by descanting on this Tenet among the Pamphleteers and Sheet-Authors whose feet were accounted beautiful by the Mobile for any dirt their hands threw at the Papists before the Epoche of the Declaration after the Oxford Parliament And after the restoring of the English Genius or as I may say of the English understanding to it self that thereby happened I account that the Notification of any Tenet chargeable on the Papacy or Presbytery referring to the Measures of Loyalty or preservation of the Rights of Civil Society could bring no damage in the least to any Recusants Person whatever it might to his Erroneous Principle And I having accounted it a kind of nauseous superfluity to confute at large any one of the old Religionary Controversies between our Church and that of Rome was willing thus to reserve the discussion of this Irreligionary Tenet how proper soever to be known till some healing Conjuncture of time and when I might hope by discussing the same and thereby effectually satisfying any Considerate Excluders that I was no Papist to bespeak their Approach with more Candour to my great Casuistical point discussed I have sufficiently shewn in this Preface how much it imports our Security and Loyalty to have the Fantome of the Iudicial Law exorcised out of mens understandings and am ashamed to think that Christians do yet no more know the certain time of the Burial of that Body of Moses's Laws than the Iews do the place where his deceased natural Body was laid I know that some of the old Schoolmen have told us that that Law was given only to the Iews but when so many Popish Vniversities and Casuists told our Harry the 8th That his Marriage was against the Law of God the World wanted teaching in this point and the Tutelar Angels even of Protestant Countries are still in effect put to it to contend with the Devil about the Body of Moses his Law and if any one hath a desire to see the dreadful impressions that that Law hath so lately made abroad in the World and here in England and that have much deâ—aced our Loyalty and Religion I shall refer him to Dr. Hicks his printed Sermon called Peculium Dei where he hath given us very Learned Remarks That many unsound Iudaising Christians have still dreamed that the Mosaic Code was yet in force and that Carolostadius and Castellio about the time of the Reformation asserted the Doctrine of the validity and indispensable Obligation of the leges forenses of the Jews and that many tho they did not assert the validity of the whole Mosaic Code have yet asserted the indispensable obligation of some particular Laws in it to the great scandal of the Protestant name and particularly that against Idolatrous Persons and Places the Mosaic Laws are still in force and that for want of distinguishing in the Decalogue and the Laws which follow after it many men have run into many gross unfortunate Errors and he hath there referred to the Ancient and Modern Sabbatarians the Writers against Vsury the Modern Iconoclasts the strict Divine Right of Tithes and Tithes of Tithes or Tenths to the Pope as the Christians high Priest and to the Asserâ—ors of the unlawfulness of the Supreme Magistrates pardoning Murder which God made unpardonable among the Jews and to Baronius and Bellarmine arguing thence for the Popes Supremacy and to Pope Adrian the 6th moving the Princes of Germany to cut of Luther and his followers because God cast Corah and his Company down to Hell and commanded that those who would not obey the Priest should be put to death and to the Promoters and Abettors of the Solemn League and Covenant which some have equalled to the Covenant of Grace and were wont to express themselves about it in the Text and Phrases of the old Testament which concerned the making breaking or renewing of that Political Covenant which God made with the People and afterwards with his Vice-Roys the Kings of the Jews and to the specious popular Arguments used by the former and later Rebels in Great Brttain for Deposing and Murthering Kings and to the Speech delivered at a Conference concerning the Power of Parliament which is nothing but Doleman alià s Parson ' s Title to the Crown transprosed And under this head we might refer to the Covenant mention'd among the Independent Churches Mr. Burroughs one of the best of our late Independents quoting Deut. 13. 6. If thy Brother the Son of thy Mother c. Chap. 5. of his Irenicum saith Let not any put of this Scripture saying this is in the Old Testament for we find the
same thing almost the same words used in a Prophecy of the times of the Gospel Zech. 13. 3. He saith indeed that by those words in Deut. the meaning is not that his Father or Mother should presently run a Knife into him but that they should be the means to bring him to condign punishment even the taking away his life Calvin likewise in giving his sense of that place of Zechary foresaw the Odium of having any killed without going to the Iudge and there saith Multò hoc durius est propriis manibus filium interficere quam si ad Iudicem deferrent But here Mr. Burroughs and Calvin have Categorically enough asserted what the Iudges duty is in the Case and I have said what Calvin effected by going to the Iudge about Servetus Gundissalvus doth not determine the lawfulness of burning an Heretical City without going to the Iudge and the lawfulness of Protestant Princes judging the Persons or Cities of Idolaters to be destroyed by the pretended Obligation of the Mosaic Law is chargeable on the Anti Papists I have mentioned and I believe there are few of our Presbyterian or Independent Enthusiasts but who think it as lawful to burn Rome as to roast an Egg. But the Church of England abhorreth this flammeum sulphureum evangelium and Dr. Hicks in the Preface to his Iovian taking notice of the Reasons which the Papists urge for putting Heretick and the scotising Presbyterians for putting Popish Princes to death saith thereupon I desire Mr. J. to tell me Whether he thinks in his Conscience the Bishops of the Church of England could argue so falsly upon the Principles of the Iewish Theocracy to the like proceedings in Christian States And saith if this way of arguing be true then the Queen meaning Queen Elizabeth was bound to burn many Popish Towns in her Kingdom and smite the Inhabitants with the Sword c. I have therefore thought it Essential to the advancement and preservation of Loyalty to endeavour to have the Papal and Presbyterian Error as to the Iewish Laws exterminated And the setling of this point is the more important to the Measures of Loyalty because the same Chapter in Deuteronomy viz. the 13 th that hath been the Popes Palladium for his power of firing Heretical Cities hath likewise been made use of by our deluded Excluders as theirs to recur to in a practice so scandalous to Loyalty and to the Protestant Religion and which hath too much appeared in the many Factious Pamphlets for the Exclusion and as I hinted that that Chapter of Deuteronomy was impiously applied in a former Conjuncture for putting the Queen of Scots to death so the pretended lawfulness of the Exclusion by arguing from the greater to the less was by the deluded generally inferred from that Chapter and the place I just now referred too in the Preface of Iovian mentions Mr. I's arguing from Deut. 13. 6. If thy Brother the Son of thy Mother c. in citing of which saith the Dr. it is evident on whom our Author did reflect The very exposing the absurdity of the Papal power of destroying Heretical Persons and Cities on the account of the Mosaic Law will I believe as by Consent of the sober of all Parties much help to exterminate the aforesaid Error which hath cost the Papacy so dear and naturally tempted so many Calvinists to own the same Error partly by way of retaliation and not altogether through defect of Judgment and I doubt not but if the Papacy were now to begin to claim the allowance of exercising the Jurisdiction over all Christians in the World as the High Priest did over all proselyted to the Iewish Religion and as appears by not only the Inhabitants of Palestine but others of the most remote Countries and particularly by the Aethiopian in the Acts of the Apostles owning subjection to the Iewish Priesthood it would stop at the Conquest of that Oecumenical Power and Tenths of the Levites thereby without demanding the Power to destroy Hereticks Towns and to exterminate the Persons of Hereticks by Crusado's as other dependencies on it But the Papacy hath long ago passed that bloody Rubicon of the Iudicial Law and cannot in Honour or Politicks go back nor will any Pope expressly renounce the Power of compelling Princes to exterminate their Heretical Subjects tho yet the Fashion of the exercise of this Power be thus as I have shewed tacitly passed away and as a thing necessarily impracticable in the more populous World. And no Iesuited Papist dares disclaim this Power in the Pope's behalf or impugn the same however it was a thing that the Pope could not but foreâ—ee that his quashing the Iesuites Power to kill men by retail would render the Iesuites averse from writing for his Power to kill Hereticks by whole-sale and by Crusado's or for the power to fire Heretical Cities if there were occasion to have any such power asserted in behalf of the Papacy as I believe there neither is nor ever will be But partly according to my Conjecture of the Result of the Fermentation about the Regale in France I suppose that tho the Papacy will no more be brought to disclaim its pretended Monarchy over other parts of the World in ordine ad spiritualia than the Dukes of Savoy will the Title of their being Kings of Cyprus yet it will be neither able or studious to prosecute its Claim of such power by disordering the World as formerly All the personal Vertue and Probity of any Popes will never incline them to pronounce against their Iurisdiction however they may thereby and by want of strength to execute it be kept from the old injurious ampliating it and on this slippery Precipice the Papacy still remains and from whence through the natural Jealousie of Crown'd Heads and States in the point of Power it will probably fall down to its tame principium unitatis and its Patriarchal Figure and in time to nothing But by many of the Anti-papal Sects and such as call themselves The only true Protestants still owning the Obligation of the Iewish forinsec Laws a Necessity is by God and Nature put on the Protestants of the Church of England to Combat such pretended Obligations by dint of Reason and thereby to support the Rights of their Princes without Condition and Reserve and which no Jesuited Papists or Protestants either can or will do Nor is it safe for other Papists to own Principles that touch the Pope's imaginary Monarchal Power For Power how fantastick soever would seem a serious thing and will endure no raillery and the honest Father Caron whom I have mentioned as citing 250 Popish Authors who denied the Pope's Power to depose Princes doth tell us that the Pope's Nuntio and 4 Popes condemned his Doctrine and the Inquisitors damned his Book and his Superiours his Soul I mean they very fairly excommunicated him for it There is another thing that may render the knowledge of this Papal Tenet worthy
making a Ruffian of the Pope himself But indeed long before the Edition of that trifling Book many things had occurred so far to shake the testimony of the Witnesses as that it grew generally the Concordant voice of the Populace that on a supposal of several of the same Persons being again alive to be tryed on the Testimony of the same Witnesses before the same Judges it would not have prejudiced a hair of the heads that were destroyed by it and particularly in the unfortunate Lord Stafford's Case I have in two or three places of this Discourse speaking of the Papal Hierarchy called it Holy Church its old known term and by which I meant no reflection of scorn nor would I laugh at any Principle of Religion found among any Heterodox Religionaries that the dying groans of the holy Iesus purchased them a liberty to profess But 't is no Raillery to say that the Artifices of any dis-loyal Popish and Protestant Recusants that have so long made Templum Domini usurp on the Lord of the Temple and his Vice Gerents that is Kings and Princes will support no Church and that as it hath been observed of some Free Stones that when they are laid in a Building in that proper posture which they had naturally in their Quarries they grow very hard and durable and if that be changed they moulder away in a short time a long duration may likewise be predicted to the Arts and Principles of reason applied to support a Church as they lay in the Quarry of Nature and where the God of Nature laid them for the support of Princes and their People and è contrà In fine therefore since the Principles of the Church of England are thus laid in it as they were in that Quarry none need fear that they will be defaced by time or that a lawful Prince of any Religion here will accost it otherwise than with those words of the Royal Psalmist viz. Peace be within thy Walls and Prosperity within thy Palaces AN INDEX Of some of the Principal Matters Contained in the following DISCOURSE IN ALETTER TO THE Earl of ANGLESY HIS Lordship is vindicated from mis-reports of being a Papist and an account given of his Birth and Education and time spent in the University and Inns of Court and afterward in his Travels abroad Page 1 2 3. An account of his first eminent publick employment as Governor of Ulster by Authority under the Great Seal of England p. 4. An account of his successful Negotiation with the then Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the Surrender of Dublin and all other Garrisons under his Command into the Parliaments hands p. 5. An account of his being a Member of the House of Commons in England and of the great Figure he afterward made in the King's Restoration ib. Reflections on the Popular Envy against the Power of a Primier Ministre ib. and p. 6 7 8. Remarks on the Saying applied in a Speech of one of the House of Commons against the Earl of Strafford viz. That Beasts of Prey are to have no Law ib. Reflections on the rigour and injustice of the House of Commons in their Proceedings against the Earl of Strafford p 9. The Usurpers declared that tho they judged the Rebellion in Ireland almost national that it was not their intention to extirpate the whole Irish Nation p. 10. The Author owneth his having observed the Piety and Charity of several Papists p. 11. The Author supposeth that since all Religions have a Priesthood that some Priests were allowed by the Vsurpers to the transplanted Irish p. 13. An account of the Privileges the Papists enjoyed in Ireland before the beginning of the Rebellion there and of the favour they enjoyed in England before the Gun-powder Treason p. 14. Observations on the Pope's Decree March the 2d 1679. Condemning some opinions of the Jesuites and other Casuists in Pages 15 41 50 51 52 53 201. The great goodness of the Earl of Anglesy's nature observed and particularly his often running hazard to save those who were sinking in the favour of the Court p. 16. The Authors observation of the effects of the hot Statutes against Popery and Papists in Queen Elizabeth 's and King Iames his time shortly ceasing ib. The Authors Iudgment that a perfect hatred to Popery may consist with a perfect love to Papists p. 19. He expresseth his having no regret against any due relaxation of any Penal Laws against Popish Recusants p. 20. An account of the Earl of Anglesy and others of the Long Parliament crushing the Jure-Divinity of Presbytery in the Egg p. 29 30. The out-rage of the Scots Presbyterian Government observed p. 29 The People of England did hate and scorn its Yoke in the time of our late Civil Wars ib. Remarks concerning infamous Witnesses and their credibility after Pardon of Perjury or after Crimes and Infamy incurred p. 33 34 35. at large and p. 204 205. The incredibility of the things sworn in an Affidavit by such a Witness against his Lordship p. 35 36. The Principle in Guymenius p. 190. Ex tractatu de justitiâ jure censured viz. licitum est Clerico vel Religioso calumniatorem gravia crimina de se vel de suâ Religione spargere minantem occidere c. p. 37. Cardinal D' Ossats Letters very falsly and ridicâ—lously cited by an English Priest of the Church of Rome for relating that the Gunpowder Treason Plot was a sham of Cecils contrivance p 38. Father Parsons one of the greatest Men the Jesuites Order hath produced p. 40. D' Ossat in his Letters observed to have given a more perfect Scheme of the whole design to hinder King Iames his Succession then all other Writers have done ib. Observations on the Author of the Catholick Apology with a reply c speaking of his not believing that Doleman's Book of the Succession was writ by Father Parsons and that Parsons at his death denied that he was the Author of it and on Cardinal D' Ossat in his Letters averring that Parsons was Reverâ the Author of it and that Parsons made application to him in order to the defeating King James his Succession unless he would turn Catholick p. 41. D' Ossat's observing that Parsons in that Book doth often and grossly contradict himself ib. D' Ossat's commending our English Understandings for so soon receiving King Jame and so peaceably after the death of Queen Elizabeth ib. The Author grants that Papists may be sound parts of the State here as they are by Sir William Temple in his Book observed to be in Holland p. 44. The vanity of some Papists designing to raise their Interest by Calumny and Shamm ib. The Pope's said Decree of the 2d of March accuseth the Jesuites and other Casuists of making Calumny a Venial sin p. 45. The nature of a Venial sin explained ib. The Jesuites Moral Divinity patronizing Calumny is likely to be fatal to their Order p. 47. 49. The
of the Papal Usurpations to expose himself to the fencing with two enraged Multitudes which would have produced the same effect as would a Iesuit's Preaching a Postilling Sermon here against the Yearly burning of the Pope to the Populace employed in that Solemnity My Lord I find my self her engulfed in writing a long Letter and the truth is having a great concern for your Lordship's Honour I am willing to take pains to satisfie my self exactly by thus tracing your Lordship's steps on the Stage of the World that I may satisfie others so about your being as averse as any one can be from supporting any Papal Power to invade the rights of Conscience or those of Princes The Roman Historian speaking of Nero saith Tyrannum hunc per quatuordecem annos passus est terrarum orbis And it may truly be said That England formerly has endured the Popes Tyranny and the Artifices of its Favourers for some Ages But the Patience of Man has bounds and the Propagators of such Usurpation who had so long maintain'd a separate Soveraignty here the which is like an Animal living within an Animal did find that as the lesser creature is evacuated by the greater or destroyed therein or doth else destroy the greater Animal it was so held to be in the case of such Power among us and as no doubt it always will be by your Lordship When your Travels were ended and you had with the help of the Education your Father gave you saved him by your knowledge of the Lex terroe from falling as a prey to Arbitrary Power and thereby shewed your self both a good Son and great Patriot the first Scene of publick Employment wherein your Lordship appeared with Eminency was as Governour of Vlster by Authority under the Great Seal of England a Charge of difficulty when the Forces from Scotland under the Command of Major General Munro had so long ruled absolutely there that the English Interest had suffered a great eclipse and diminution How you managed Affairs during your Government there and how by your Councils the most pernitious and potent Rebel Owen Roe O Neil was opposed and his design to swallow up that Province and the Province of Connaught disappointed and the Protestant Interest in both united and encouraged and under your Conduct and Command the Titular Popish Archbishop of Tuam taken and by the seisure of his Cabinet and Papers the Popish design upon Ireland discovered and broken in due time I doubt not you will more particularly inform the World. From that Service your Lordship was upon the ill success of those Commissioners who were first sent to the then Marquess of Ormond employed to make the Capitulation with the said Marquess then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the Surrender of the City of Dublin and all other Garrisons under his Command into the Parliaments hands for securing them from the Irish Rebels who had invested and streightned the same Which happy work was effectually accomplished by the Articles made with the said Marquess already published to the World And so the Protestants Interest in that Kingdom made entire and so considerable that they daily gained ground of the Confederate Rebels till at length they were wholly subdued and vanquished After those Articles concluded and reception of the said City and Garrisons your Lordship was called back into England where being a Member of the House of Commons you shewed your self no less useful to this Kingdom And have since in Parliament and Council and other great Imployments in both Kingdoms shewed your self an Eminent Instrument both in his Majesties happy Restoration who entirely trusted you with the Management thereof and in other great Affairs of State and Government to general satisfaction being never by those that knew you so much as suspected for Evil Council or want of Zeal and Faithfulness to your King or Countrey but every day gaining more the Love and Esteem of Protestants and Patriots as you had incurred the implacable hatred of the Popish and Arbitrary Factions I cannot here but observe That a little before the Kings Restoration the spirit of the people universally shewing its resentments so strong and vehement against Lambert and his Committee of Safety and against all the propounders of projects of Government that nothing but his Majesties return to the Throne of his Ancestors could quiet the people and your Lordship then as President of the Council by your great Wisdom Contributing highly to the dispatch of many arduous and intricate Affairs requisite to make that great Revolution without bloudshed when things near their Center were moving so fast it may well be reckon'd among impossible things that your Lordship should now espouse the Papal interest when the Vogue the Humour the Sense and Reason and Spirit of the People are bent against it with as keen and strong and general an antipathy as can be imagined And when I consider that great real power you had in the Kingdom at that time testify'd not so much by your signing all the great Commissions then for Military and Civil Employments as by both the King and the best and wisest of the people in the Three Kingdoms putting themselves in your hands and having their eyes chiefly upon you as to the management of the Political part of that mighty concern I cannot but thinking of your Lordship whom thus the King and Kingdom delighted to honour apply to you these words in Valerius Maximus where he speaks of Agrippa Menenius whom the Senate and People chose Arbitrator of their differences and to â—ompose matters between them Quantus scilicet esse debuit arbiter publicae salutis Yet as great as this Man was he could have no Funeral unless the people had by a pole given the sixth part of a penny to defray his Funeral Charges But your Lordships case in one particular seems harder then his for they who unjustly go to take away your good Name and to make a Papist of you go about to bury you alive Had your Lordship after the King's Restoration aspired after the power of a chief Minister or suffered any such to be committed to you you must have took it with the concomitance of universal envy that hath always in England been fatal to such power England having always thought such power fatal to it 'T is the power it self of such a Minister that is look't on as a popular Nusance and t is impossible for such a great Man by raising his power only to what he thinks a moderate height to keep it secure and lasting For tho a Steeple be built with firm Stone great Art and but with a moderate height yet are there Clouds charged with Lightning and Thunder and moving in the Ayr sometimes not higher than the top of such a Steeple and the Pryamid or sharpness of such a Steeple then as I may say tapping or broaching such a Cloud that comes that way is instantly Burnt and Thundered down And the Multitude of the
least one World of hereticks the author of the Compendium needed not by his Rhetorick to reflect on my Lord Bishop of Lincoln's Candour gentleness in saying yet if it be a breach of Christianity to crush the bruised reed and of generosity also to trample upon the oppressed I wish his Lordship may be found guilty of neither c. for behold any single Jesuite according to Campian tho but like a reed shaken with the wind is able to bruise all Protestant Scepters and any little toe of that Order can trample all Heretical crowned heads to dirt and the Number of the Papists in England if reduced to the least of Numbers is not according to Campian to be slighted if one of them be a Iesuite for that that one Jesuite will carry the advantage of odds against all Protestant Kings and Princes that one may say my Name is legion for we are many but as that legion-spirit could not without the Divine permission ruin a herd of Swine off from a Steep place so neither can all the legions of Iesuited evil Spirits in the World drive a King Kingdom from Precipices at their pleasure And Queen Elizabeth in spight of all the arts and power of Rome outlived eight Popes and lived to change all her Counsellors but one all her great officers twice or thrice some Bishops four times and died full of years and did see and leave peace upon Israel And now I shall Entertain your Lordship with a further Reason of my charging the present Popes declaration aforesaid about some opinions of the Casuists as carry with it a face of some thing like shamme and my reason is grounded on what was said in a publick Sermon before an honourable Audience namely that the propositions of the Casuists therein were not Condemned by the Pope in the Consistory which would have made the Censure more authoritative but by the Pope and Cardinals of the Court of the Inquisition upon which a remarkable thing follow'd the Iefuites in France who were much provoked at this Censure moved the Procureur de Roy or Attorney general at Paris to put in a Complaint against the publishing that Decree since it came from the Court of the Inquisition which not being acknowledg'd in France nothing Flowing from that authority could be received in that Kingdom upon which the decree was prohibited and suppress'd And may not the English Popish Priests say the same thing the Inquisition was never received in England and therefore that declaration of the Popes obligeth us not here and we will prohibit and suppress it as much as we can No doubt but the present Pope fearing that the Noysome and Infectious smell of those Opinions of the Casuists being more offensive to the minds of Men then any snuff of a Candle can be to their Nostrils they were ready to cry for the removing of the Candlestick of his Church out of its place went about to extinguish them in the most Summary Manner that he could and therefore attempted to do it by the Court of the Inquisition well knowing that in the Consistory of Cardinals all proceedings are so dilatory and the old magi there so used to do every thing pian piano that they would consume many pounds of new Candles in debating whether or no and how the old snuff should be removed and perhaps would have thought to have contented the World in the mean time with giving it some perfumes but the Pope being afraid of the Iesuites perhaps as sometimes the Grand Signior is of his Ianisaries doth not for fear himself should be extinguished by them so far as I may say follow the light within him as to throw away or tread out that snuff of those opinions as containing a malum in se or declare any of them to be ill as contrary to the principles of the law of nature in which case neither he nor God himself indeed could have dispens'd with them tho yet any honest and ingenious Heathen would on the least occasion given have declared them so As Cicero and Seneca and many others have done and which had the Pope done and the Iesuites or any Papists persevered in the making those principles the Rules of practice his Kingdom had thereby been ipso facto divided against it self and a diffinitive sentence had been thereby given by the Pope that all who had dy'd owning those principles and practices had been sunk for ever into the burning lake Therefore as I said before I hope this declaration of the Popes such as it is will give an alarm to our English Papists to deal seriously with their Souls and to consider as if it were for their eternities these and other Principles of their Religion and that if they will not be thereby perswaded to be almost Protestant Christians yet to be altogether Masters of as good Moral Principles as the Heathens I named and If any of them can but give us a Moral certainty of their Principles being but such I shall never repine at any favour that any new Law may afford to such of them If therefore any of our Lay Country men Papists not guilty of the late Plot shall desire to be heard and to say any thing toward this effect some of us have heard of these principles before mention'd as own'd by our Casuists and Priests and Confessors that are now thus condemned by the Pope and we did not believe that those our spiritual guides did own such Principles but now our Eye seeth by the condemnation thereof that they were before own'd and made rules of Practice Wherefore we hope that who ever do own them will abhor themselves and repent in dust and ashes and others of us did formerly think them Consistent with the Christian faith and the peace of Kingdoms and with humane Society but we now abhor those principles and repent in dust and ashes We are ready to let the King and Kingdom and the World have a moral certainty that we desire no power to change the Religion in England by Law establish'd and we are willing to receive Instruction from any that shall be appointed by publick Authority to give it to us concerning what other principles beside these Condemned by the Pope are inconsistent with Religion or the publick Peace and in case any shall offer to give us dispensations either for principles or practices contrary to those we renounce as inconsistent with the publick peace we shall be so far from accepting of such dispensation that we shall detect the offerer thereof before a Magistrate as much as we would an enemy to His Majesty We are ready to give active or passive obedience as to all the Laws in being We believe not the Bishop of Rome to have more power in His Majesties Realms by Gods word then any other forraign Bishop as was by Acts of Parliament and publick Recognitions declared in the Reign of Henry the 8 th We are willing to render the Kingdom as secure from
the head-ake the Pen-knife and Books of St. Thomas of Canterbury and a piece of his Shirt much reverenc'd by great belly'd women the coals that roasted St. Laurence two or three heads of St. Ursula Malchus his Ear and the paring of St. Edmund ' s Nails and likewise the trumperies of the Rood of Grace at Boxly in Kent and in Hales in Glocestershire things name◠as trumperies in p. 495 and 496 by Herbert in that History and as adjudged to be such by H. the 8 th And no doubt but the Number of such would be very great who having great Summs of Money given them would be content to offer small ones in Devotion to such Images and many Candidates for preferment among some that now look big for and among Dissenters that look big against the Church of England would produce Certificates of their Constant good affection and Zeal for the Roman Catholic Church and any Legate that came to reconcile us to the Church of Rome would be thought by many to have brought the Holy-Ghost in his Sumpters thô we know what the Inside of Campegius his was made of It is moreover possible that Protestant writers may come not to have that freedom of the Press that Popish now have and all the luxury and wantonness and humor of the Press in sending forth innumerable Pamphlets against Popery in this Conjuncture may perhaps prove but like the jollity of a Carnival to usher in a long melancholly Lent. I will grant that 't is possible the Writ de haeretico Comburendo being now Abolished that destroyed so many Protestants by retail certain bloody men may find some Invention to destroy them by wholesale and to something of that nature Bishop Vshers Prophecy referred of the Raging Persecution of Protestants yet to come and not lasting and when their enemies will ipsam saevitiam fatigare and in the violence of such predicted cruelty not being long lasting that great Prelate erred not from the Nature of things more then he did when he Prophecy'd of an Irish Rebellion Forty years before it hapned for that usually happens once in so many years through the force and numbers of the Irish within that time outgrowing the English and their allowing themselves the repossession of their Estates by that time as a Iubile I will further grant that the discipline of our Church of which I think the Constitution is the best that the world can shew may be Crusht as I said before and our Dissenters then in vain wish that they had the tolerabiles ineptiae as your Lordship knows who imperiously call'd them in the Room of the intollerable abominations of the Mass and 't is possible that divine Iustice and Power may permit the doctrine as well as discipline of our Church to be supprest totally and finally in this Realm and that the prediction of that Great Man of God whô since his death has been as generally styl'd the Iudicious as Lewis the Iust was elsewhere so vogued I mean Mr. Hooker may impress a deep horror and a too late repentance on us who in his 5th Book of Ecclesiastical Polity in the end of the 79th Paragraph p. 432. of the old Edition speaking of the ill affected to our Church saith By these or the like suggestions receiv'd with all Ioy and with all sedulity practiced in Certain parts of the Christian World they have brought to pass that as David doth say of Man so it is in hazard to be verify'd concerning the whole Religion and Service of God the time thereof peradventure may fall out to be Threescore and Ten years or if strength do serve unto Fourscore what follows is likely to be small joy to them whatsoever they shall be that behold it Mr. Hooker did first print his 5th Book in the year 1597. the first four of his Polity being before printed in the year 1594 and so the period of Fourscore Years in his prediction was in the Year 1677. Thô that good man pretended not to be a Prophet yet according to the old saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. he is the best Prophet who can guess well both our Church of England and the Dissenters and Papists too have found that Mr. Hookers prudence had so much divination and his divination so much prudence that the small joy with which they have beheld the external face of Religion here since 1677. hath shew'd us that he guess'd shrewdly I have only affirm'd that humanly speaking and according to the common course of nature Popery cannot be the overgrown National Religion of England but am not ignorant that the sacred Code hath given us instances of Omnipotent power punishing even Heavens peculiar people by the Course of Political and Ecclesiastical Power running out of the common Channel of the Nature of things and particularly by a succession of Ten evil Kings one after another For thô humane Nature is so inconstant and men generally so apt to reel from one extream to another that the World growes as weary of the prevalence of Vice as of Virtue and after a long age of Dissoluteness and Luxury a Contrary humour reigns as long in the World again a humour that then excludes all Voluptuaries from Public Trusts for an Age together and a humour of which I think we now see the Tide Coming in and thus ordinarily scarce any Kingdom hath more than two or three good or bad Princes successively for any considerable space of time Yet after the Ten Tribes had made their defection from the Line of the House of David they were punish't by a Succession of Ten Kings and not one good one in the whole number thô some of them were less ill than others so that no Marvel if the weight of the impiety of so many successive ill Princes sunk them into the power of the Assyrians and to this their doom that passage in the Prophecy of Hosea refers which the vulgus of the Scriblers against Monarchy so Miserably detort and wracke as I may say to their own destruction namely I gave thee a King in mine anger and took him away in my wrath for the Prophet there had not his Eye on Saul or on a particular Person but on the whole succession of Kings after their Rent from Iuda from Ieroboam to the Last under whom the Catastrophe of their Captivity was Such Kings were given them by Heaven as were proper Instruments of Divine wrath and when they were took away from the Stage 't was that other worse might enter and make their Condition more Tragical But secret things belonging to God I pry not into the Book of Fate but Confine my sentiments alone to the Book of Nature In an Excellent Sermon of the Dean of St. Pauls 't is with great Piety and Prudence said We have liv'd in an Age that has beheld strange Revolutions astonishing Iudgments and wonderful Deliverances What all the Fermentations that are still among us may end in God alone knowes I
Capite usque ad Calcem retexuerunt ex divina Sophisticam fecerunt aut Aristotelicam saith he in vitâ Hier. praefixâ ipsius operibus And Doctor Colet the Dean of St. Paules whom Erasmus often in his Epistles calls praeceptorem unicum optimum did as Erasmus saith in his life account the Scotists dull Fellows and any thing rather then ingenious and yet he had a worse opinion of Aquinas then of Scotus And tho Luther had angred Harry the 8th by speaking contemptibly of Thomas Aquinas whom that King so highly magnifyed that he was call'd Rex Thomisticus Collet was not afraid to Pronounce in that case as Luther did And here it may not by the way be unworthy of your Lordships observation as to the concert that is between the Genius of one great Witt and another that Erasmus and Mr. Hobbs had the same sense of School-Divinity and School-Divines For Mr. Hobbs in his Behemoth or History of the Civil-Wars speaking of Peter Lombard and Scotus saith That any ingenious Reader not knowing what was the designe of School-Divinity which he had before siad was with unintelligible distinctions to blind Men's eyes while it encroach'd on the Rights of Kings would judge them to have been two the most egregious blockheads in the World so obscure and sensless are their Writings The New Testament was no sooner open'd and read then in Erasmus his translation and in the English Tongue but the Popes Cards were by the Clergy that playd his game thrown up as to all claim of more Power here by the word of God then every other forreign Bishop had and both our Universities sent their judgments about the same to the King which methinks might make our Papists approach a little nearer to us without fear of infection for we allow the Bishop of Rome to have as much Power by the Word of God as any other Bishop and 't is pitty but that Judgment of our Universities were shewn the World in Print and sent to the French King and particularly the Rescript or Iudgment of the University of Oxford as not being any where in Print that I know of but in an old Book of Dr. Iames's against Popery Cromwel the Vicegerent to H. the 8th had as Fuller saith in his Church-history got the whole New-Testament of Erasmus his translation by heart but the sore Eyes of many of the Clergy were so offended with the glaring-Light the New-Testament in Print brought every where that instead of Studying it as that great Primier Ministre did they only study'd to suppress it and thus Buchanan in his Scotch History saith that in H. the 8 ths time â—antaque erat caecitas ut sacerdotum plerique novitatis nomine offensi eum librum a Martino Luthero nuper fuisse Scriptum affirmarent ac vetus testamentum reposcerent i. e. They look'd on the New-Testament as writ by Martin Luther and call'd for the Old Testament again And the truth is if Luther had then set himself to have invented and writ a model of Doctrines against Iustification by works and redeeming our vexation from wrath divine by Summs of Mony and against implicit Faith and many gross Papal Errors he could not possibly have writ against them in terminis terminantibus more expresly then the Writers of the New-Testament did But the New Testament was then newly opened and the legatees permitted to read the whole Will over translated into a language they understood after they had been long by fraud and force kept out of their legacies by the Bishops Court of Rome whose Artifice had formerly in effect suppressed that Will and that inestimable legacy of liberty from all impositions humane being particularly shewn to Mankind there was no taking their Eyes off from this Will nor taking it out of their hands nor suppressing the study of the Greek language it was originally writ in King Harry the 8 th had received his Legacy thereby who before was but a Royal Slave to the Pope and the triumph of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was eccho'd round his Kingdom like that of Archimedes when he had detected the Imposture that had mingled so much dross in the Sicilian Crown 'T is true he retained the profession of several Papal Errors and such as he being vers'd in School-Divinity knew would still keep themselves in play in the World with a videtur quod sic probatur quod non accordingly as the learned Dr. Iones has observ'd in his Book call'd the Heart and its Right Sovereign that Image-Worship Invocation of Saints Transubstantiation Purgatory are and will be learnedly and voluminously defended on each side to the World's end Harry the 8 th therefore did in his Contest with the Papacy Ferire faciem and did fight neither against small and great but the King of Rome as I may say He attaqued the Pope in his claim of authority over all Christians the authority that Bellâ—rmin calls Caput fidei the head of the Catholic Faith. ' T is therefore very well said in a Book call'd Considerations touching the true way to suppress Popery in England Printed for Mr. Broome in the Year 1677 Whatever notions we have of Popery in other things the Pope himself is not so fond of them but that to gain the point of authority he can either connive or abate or part with them wholy though no doubt he never doth it but insidiously as well knowing that whatever consession he makes for the establishing his authority he may afterward revoke c. And so the Author saith p. 12. That Harry the 8 th for having cast of his obedience to Rome was therefore judged a heretic and that was look't on by Rome as worse than if he had rejected all its errors together He was a thorough Papist in all points but only that of obedience in comparison of which all the rest are but talk I account therefore in Harry the 8 ths time Poperies most sensible and vital part viz. the Popes supremacy did end in England per simplicem desinentiam The radical heat and moisture it long before had was gone like a senex depontanus it was held useless in a wise Senate He establish't the doctrine of his own supremacy without a Battel fought nor did any Rebellion rise thereupon but what he confounded with a general Pardon Many of the Scholars of the University of Oxford did mutinously oppose the introducing the knowledge of the Greek Tongue there and were thereupon call'd Trojans and others of the Schollars were as rohust and loud for that Language who were therefore called Graecians but by a Letter wâ—it by Sir Thomas More to that University and by the Kings Command which Letter is extant in the Archives of the public Library there the Schollars being admonished to lay by those names of distinction and likewise all animosity against the Greek Tongue and to encourage the learning of the same it was there at last peaceably receiv'd The day-break of learning
by some accidents be made to cast Anchor or they may be sunk but they cannot be forced to go back When a man hath long been compell'd to creep with Chains on him through a toilsome dark Labyrinth and having extricated himself out of it and being come to enjoy his liberty in the light of the Sun the persuasion of words cannot make him go back again My Lord I lately mentioned the Motto of the Royal Society of England of which your Lordship is a Member and I look on the very constitution of that Society to be an inexpugnable Bulwark against Popery In which Society many of our choice English Witts have shew'd as much subtilty and curiosity in the Architecture of Real Science and such as tends to the edification of the world as any of our Countrey men heretofore did in those curious but useless Cobwebs of holy Church call'd School Divinity And the constitution of that Society hath not only been useful in encreasing the Trade of Knowledge among its members by a joyned stock but moreover hath tended to the raising in the Kingdom a general inclination to pursue Real science and to contemn all science falsly so call'd and the Raising of this inclination I will call a Spirit that can never be Conjur'd down nor can the knowledge that depends on number weight and local Motion be ever exterminated by Sophisms or Canting or terms of Art Nor will they who have from this Society learned to weigh Ayre give up their Souls to any Religion that is all Ayre without weighing it or notwithstanding any hard name that may come to be in vogue ever forget that bread is bread His Majesty by the founding of this great Conservatory of knowledge presently after his Restoration wherein his great Minister then the Earl of Clarendon was an honourable Member did convey real knowledge and a demonstration of his being an Abhorrer of Arbitrary Power to all that can understand Reason and affect not the ridiculous Treasonableness of Bradshaw's Court to say that they will not hear reason for had he like the Eastern King 's affected Arbitrary Power he would have used their artifice of endeavouring to cast mists before the understanding faculties of his Subjects and to detain them from knowledge by admiration and to deprive them of sight like horses that are still to drudge in the Mill of Government by blind obedience But to shew that he abhorr'd both such obedience and implicit Faith and that he intended to establish his Throne as well in the heads as in the hearts of his Subjects he presently setled this Great Store-house of Knowledge that shew'd it was his desire and ambition by the general Communication of Knowledge in his Dominions to Command Subjects whose heads were with the Rays of Science crown'd within And therefore I think His Majesties Munificence to the Royal Society in giving them Chelsey-Colledge at their first institution was very Consistent with the Primary Intention of the erecting that Colledge which was to be a Magazine for Polemical-Divinity wherewith to attaque the Writers for Popery for the very planting of a general disposition to believe nothing contrary to Reason is the cutting of the graâ—s under Poperies feet and His Majesty providing for the growth of reason did apparently check the growth of Popery as well as of Arbitrary Power without the prop of which Popery can never run up to any height more then the Sun-flower without a supporter and the setling in men an humour of Inquisition into the truth and nature of things is as I partly said before an everlasting barricade against the Popes darling Court of the Inquisition That great and noble notion of the Circulation of the blood took its first rise from the hints of a common persons enquiring what became of all the blood that issâ—â—d out of the heart seeing that the heart beats above Three Thousand times an hour thô but one drop should be pump'd out at every stroke and if any one shall tell me that he believes that Popery with its retinue of implicit faith and ignorance can over-run us I will ask him what will then become of all that knowledge the vital blood of the Soul that hath issued from the heads of inquisitive Protestants and been Circulating in the World for above a Hundred and Fifty years and I doubt not but it will be in mens Souls as long as blood shall have its Circular Course in their bodies and maugre all the Calumnies cast on the Divines of the Church of England for being fautors of Popery I shall expect that our learned Colledge of Physicians will as soon be brought to disbelieve the Circulation of the blood of our Royal Society to take down the Kings Standard that they have set up against implicit faith as our learned Convocation the learnedest that ever England had be brought to believe the principles of Popery I know My Lord ' tâ—s obvious against this my hypothesis of the unpracticableness of Popery being here the State-Religion to say that in little more then Twenty years time Four great changes in Religion happen'd in England and that the generality of the people then like dead Fishes went with the stream of the Times but I ask if the generality of the people had been throughly enlighten'd in the rationality of the Protestant Principles Twenty years together would they have return'd to the belief of the Popish Will they now do it after the establishment of a Rational Religion for above a Hundred years together Can Popery now find the way into most Mens brains here presently after the whole Nation almost were Preachers and when all our great and little unruly disagreeing Sects yet agreed in this as a fundamental that the Bishop of Rome is the Antichrist If Printing had been free in Turky for a Hundred years and a libera Philosophia and Theologia had been there in fashion for a Hundred years and every man had been allow'd his Judgment of discretion so long about the sense of the Alchoran or of the holy Scripture and of all Books of Religion could ignorance even there come into play again or if the Turkes had drank Wine for a Hundred years together could any one Conjure the glasses out of their hands by telling them there was a Devil in every grape If that Law in Muscovy that makes it death for any Subject to travel out of that Kingdom without the Emperors Licence lest his Subjects having seen the freedome of other Countreys should never again return to the Arbitrary Power in their own again I say if that Law had been repeal'd for a Hundred years and multitudes of oppress'd mankind had thence found the way to breath in the ayre of Liberty like men could they be persuaded to return to the Yokes of Beasts again When a floating Island has been a Hundred years fixt to the Continent can any teach it to swim again Consulitur de Religione is likely to be the eternal
business of England and in case of a Prohibition to any mans little Court of Conscience in that cause he will certainly give himself a consultation The very humour of the English Nation long hath and still doth run against what they think but like Popery or makes for it and that with such a rapid current of Antipathy as is never likely to be stem'd and nothing is more out of fashion then a kind of Sir-positive or Dictatorian humour in common discourse much less then will a dogmatical Popes infallibility ever be digested here while he makes himself a St. Positive The gentile humour of the Age here that abhorrs hard words as loathsom pedantry will never be reconcil'd to one certain long hard word in Popery namely Transubstantiation nor to another namely Incineration or burning men for not understanding the former word according to the style of the Historian Imperator aegrè tulit incinerationem Johannis Husse and people will account their Protestant Bibles more agreeable to them then the English one published by the Colledge of Doway where the Translator studied for hard words in the room of plain ones as for the Passeover phase for foreskin praepuce for unleaven'd bread azyms for high places excelses and other such words we have in the English Rhemish Testament viz. exinanite parasceue didragmes neophyt spiritualness of wickedness in the Celestials In our Busy English world while men are most yary after profit and pleasure and the study of things if very few or none can be brought to learn the universal real character and which would tend to the propagating Real Knowledge among the Nations of the World accordingâ—y as the excellent propounder of it in Print with great modesty saith in his Epistle dedicatory that he had slender expectation if its coming into common use our Ingeniosi or Witts which all men pretend to be now as they did in the Late times to be Saints tho yet as few are Witts now as were Saints then will not care for troubling their brains with the studying of the Religion whose pretended universality appears but a kind of universal character and not real and tending to obscure the knowledge of things in the World. If they should see here a Religion that was full of pageantry and seem'd to be wholly theatrical they would think it was as much their birthright to censure it as 't is to be eternal talking Critics in the Pit to damn Playes and would think two Supremes in a Kingdome to be of the low nature of two Kings of Branford and rather then part with their money and stake down their Souls for seing such a Moral Representation of an absolute spiritual and absolute temporal power on the stage of the Kingdom they would be too apt with Mr. Hobs to thrust the whole Nation of Spiritual Beings out of the world I mean rather then they would be to their faces cheated and harras'd by a spiritual power and our people inspir'd with witt as well as those with the zealous spirit of Religion would cry out conclusum est contra Manichaeos I and against the Schoolmen too I mean our Romanist Manichaei who make two summa Principia in every State. In this age where the lower or Sixth rate Witts do so over-value themselves on turning every thing into ridicule the Mass would have here a Reception according to what the gloss in the Canon Law observes that when a place had layen long under an interdict the people laughed at the Priests when they came to say Mass again Nor would any Papal interdiction unless it could interdict us from the use of Fire and Water be of any moment The World would now laugh at any Prize that should be play'd between the Two Swords the very glossator on the Clementines saying occasionly that resipiscente mundo the World being grown wiser there must be no longer striving for both Swords And any one that would obtrude on us gross exploded errors in Church or State will appear as ridiculous as St. Henry the Dane who as the Martyrology mentions when worms craul'd out of a corrupted Vlcer in his Knee put them in again My Lord I will further offer it to your Lordships consideration That if it be found so hard to keep up the external polity of the Church of England thô in it self so rational and so meriting the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the Twenty years discontinuance of it insomuch that Dr. Glanvile in the first page of his Book call'd the Zealous and impartial Protestant hath these words the first occasion of our further danger that I shall mention is the present diminution not to say extinction of Reverence to the authority of the Church of England c. and he p. 4. writes largely to that Effect what quarter can Popery expect here from an Age of sense and reason when it should break in upon both after the forementioned Hundred years discontinuance According to the foresaid Argument of the Bees for the Popes spiritual Monarchy we see it improbable for him ever to bring us to a Rendevouz in his Church again for the sad experience we have had of the Sects here that left the Hive of the Church of England not gathering together into any one new Hive but dividing into several swarms and hives and never returning to the old may shew the Hive of holy Church how little of our Company 't is to expect Having said all this about the mists of Popery being to contend with knowledge in its meridian I think I shall comply with the measures taken by our Philosophers in this Critical Age in founding their observations upon Experiments if I further add that the former Experiments England hath had of Poperies being pernicious to its external Polity and Grandeur will perpetuate and heighten the fermentation in the minds of our angry people against it All our Monkish Historians do attest the experience our Kings had in being bereav'd of great Sums of Money while they enrich'd the Pope here by giving him the Office to keep the Theological Thistle which he Rail'd in with so many censures and distinctions and non obstantes that our Kings could not pass to their Palaces but by his leave and on his terms An English King then was but the Popes Primier Ministre and yet paid great wages too for the being a Servant to the Servus Servorum King Iohn used to say That all his affairs in the World were unprosperous and went cross and untowardly after he had once subjected himself and his Kingdom to the Church of Rome His words were Postquam me mea Regna Romanae subjecâ— Ecclesiae nulla mihi prospera omnia contraria advenerunt And 't is obvious to consider on the other hand what a great figure Henry the Eighth made in the World after he had manumitted himself and his Kingdoms from the Papal Usurpation And how he held the Balance of the World in his hand and trod on
the Basilisc of the Papal Supremacy and notify'd it to the Nations of the Earth that England is an Empire that being the Style of the Statute of the 24 th of H. 8. c. 12. Viz. That this Realm is an Empire and that the Crown thereof is an Imperial one And the words of Kings and Emperours of this Realm being then attribued in our Statutes to the Monarchs of England and as the great expression in the Prophesie of Ezekiel c. 16. v. 13. is applyed by God to the Iewish state And thou didst prosper into a Kingdom it may be justly said that Harry the Eighth's defying the Popes Usurpation made England prosper into an Empire 'T was his doing that made him hors de page and 't is only the doing it that will make the French King truly so too For 't is only Air that any feed a Monarch's fancy with who would amuse him with an Vniversal Empire abroad till he hath obtain'd one first at home as no Man is to expect to govern his Neighbours Family who is Control'd in his own And like a Master who imagines himself great while he is feared by none but some of his own Servants so how little terrour did Queen Mary's Reign give to any parcel of Mankind but a few of her own Subjects of which the number that she burnt and made to languish in Prisons and such as left her Kingdom by migration to forreign parts would easily have kept Callais for her and prevented the ignominy of her Politics in losing the Real Key of France while she was finding the Imaginary Keys of the Church But 't is a truth not contestable That Queen Mary's Reign in which her persecution of her Subjects was so barbarous and such a scandal to Government That Dr. Heylin himself applyes to it in the Title Page of his History of Queen Mary that passage in Paterculus Hujus temporis fortunam ne deflere quidem quispiam satis digne potuit nemo verbis exprimere potest served only as a foile to the lustre of Queen Elizabeth whom all Generations since have called blessed and who was not more lov'd by the English then she was feared by the French and was offered Calice if she would but have connived at the continuing of the French forces in Scotland and who sent to the great Henry the Fourth a Mandamus to build no more Ships and had more money offered her by her Subjects then she would accept and yet as is said in Towsend's Historical Collections had spent a Million of Money in her Wars with Spain and laid out 100000 l. to support the King of France against the Leaguers and 150000 l. in defence of the Low Countries and discharged a debt of Four Millions she found the Crown indebted in Nay our Historians tell us that She payed the very Pensions that were in arrear in her Father's and Sister's time to divers of the Religious persons ejected out of Abbeys It was Queen Elizabeth who by all her Alliances and especially her Offensive and Defensive one with the States of the Vnited Provinces in the Year 1578. laid such a deep and sure foundation for a vast trade of the English Nation to be built on that it 's overbalance is said to have brought to be Coined in the Tower of London from the first of October 1599 in the 41 st Year of her Reign to March 31st 1619 being 19 years 4,779 314 l. 13 s. 4 d And from March 31st 1619 to March 31st 1638 being 19 years 6,900,042 l. 11 s. 1 d And from March 1638 before May 1657 being 19 years 7,733,521 l. 13 s. 4 d England alone by verture of that her Alliance having till the Peace of Munster 1648 enjoyed almost the whole Manufacture and best part of the Trade of Europe And it was but just for Heaven to punish in England the greatest villany that could be wrought on Earth I mean the murder of the best of Kings by suffering the Trade of England to have its fatal decay in that year 1648. For then I count our over-balance of Trade for the last mentioned Nineteen years had its Period and 't was by the effect of that Peace that both Holland and France and Spain cantonized the power of our Trade and the most Soveraign of our Manufactures Till that black year 't was to be ascribed to the result of Queen Elizabeth's politics and not to the conduct of the Long Parliament that England did as to Trade both do its business and play and as to its Commanding the Trade of the World did Sail with a Trade-wind and during that Wind it could not happen that any should meet us or overtake us in our motion whatever mean Pilots were at the Helm It was for the completing the last ternary of the Coinage that I mentioned the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or nineteen years ending in 1657. For I believe that both Astrea and Trade left our Land in that fatal Crisis of 48 of which the Mâ—nth of Ianuary produced the Signing of that Peace at Munster and the horrid Arraignment and Martyrdom of that matchless Prince 'T is therefore not to be admired That Queen Elizabeth's provident Ensuring such a plenty of Traffick and Riches to her Kingdom both for her own and future time she had what praemium of Taxes from her Parliaments she pleased accordingly as King Iames tells the Parliament Anno 1620 That Queen Elizabeth had one year with another above 100000 l. in Subsidies and in all my time I have had but four Subsidies and six Fifteenths and he said his Parliament had not given him any thing for Eight or Nine years England did thrive apparently while it was to Queen Elizabeth a Puteus inexhaustus But while it was such an one to the Pope was in a miserable and consumptive state as any one must necessarily conclude who considers that the nutritive juyce of the wealth of the Kingdom was diverted from cherishing its own Head to pamper the Bellies of Forreigners Deplorable then was the condition of the English Crown when as we are told by the Antiquitates Britan. f. 178. in the Reign of Hen. 3d. Repertus est Annuus reditus Papae talis quem ne Regius quidem attigit And when according to Matthew Paris f. 549 in the Reign of that King Anno 1240 it was complained of That there remained not so much Treasure in the Kingdom as was in three years extorted from it by the Pope But what is more strange we are told in Cotton's Collections p. 129 of the times of Edward the Third That the Taxes paid to the Pope for Ecclesiastical dignities did amount to five times as much as the People paid the King per annum One would wonder that so martial a Prince the Scene of whose Reign lay almost in continual War should be so careless of the Sinews of it as to permit so much of the wealth of the Kingdom to be mis-applyed and that too while all manner
out of the Temple with as much ease almost as our Saviour did the Iewish Any one who shall consider the burden of Oblations that the devouteâ— Roman Catholicks in England lye under as to their Priests which we may suppose to be very heavy according to Mr. Iohn Gees account in his Book called The foot out of the Snare p. 76 where he saith That the Popish Pastors ordinarily had a fifth of the Estates of the Laity allowed them and that he knew that in a great shire in England there was not a Papist of 40 l. per annum but did at his own charge keep a Priest in his house some poor neighbours perhaps contributing some small matter toward it may well think our Laity will bid as high for English Prayers and for Wares they understand and see and weigh as the Popish Laity doth for Latine ones and Merchandize they are not allowed to examine and he who considers that the Priests of that Religion though thus pamper'd with Oblations yet knowing them burthensom to the Laity do feed themselves and them with hopes of the Restitution of Tithes to holy Church and even of that sort of Tithes alien'd from it in the times of Popery may reasonably conclude that our Divines whenever forced to fly to the asylum of Oblations will be restless in being both Heaven's and Earth's Remembrancers of their claim of Tithes appropriated to the Protestant Religion by the Laws in being and that a violent Religion and illegal Gospel will be but a Temporary barr against the collecting of Tithes from a Land only during an Earth-quake I shall here acquaint your Lordship with a passage in the late times relating to the Clerical Revenue in England worthy not only your knowledge but posterities and that is this A Person of great understanding and of great regard of the truth of the matters of fact he affirmed and one who made a great figure in the Law then and in the Long Parliament from the beginning to the end of it related to me occasionally in discourse That himself and some few others after the War was begun between the King and Parliament were employed by the Governing party of that Parliament to negotiate with some few of the most eminent Presbyterian Divines and such whose Counsels ruled the rest of that Clergy and to assure them that the Parliament had resolved if they should succeed in that War to settle all the Lands Issues and Profits belonging to the Bishops and other dignitaries upon the Ministry in England as a perpetual and unalienable maintenance and to tell them that the Parliament on that encouragement expected that they should incline the Clergy of their perswasion by their Preaching and all ways within the Sphere of their Calling to promote the Parliaments Cause and that thereupon those Divines accordingly undertook to do so And that after the end of the War he being minded by some of those Divines of the effect of the Parliaments promise by him notified did shortly after signifie to them the answer of that party who had employed him in that Negotiation to this effect viz. That the Parliament formerly did fully intend to do what he had signified to them as aforesaid and that the publick debts occasion'd by the War disabled them from setling the Bishops Lands on the Church But that however he was authorized at that time to 〈◊〉 them that if it would satisfie them to have the Deans and Chapters Lands so settled that would be done And that then those Divines in anger reply'd They would have setled on the Ministry all or none representing it as Sacrilege to divert the Revenues of the Bishops to Secular uses and that thereupon they missed both the Deans and Chapters Lands being sold. Those Divines it seems had a presension that the prosperous Condition of their Church would diminish the Charity of Oblations and therefore did not impoliticly try to provide for the duration of their Model by dividing both the Bishops Power and Lâ—nds among their Clergy And no doubt but in the way of a fac simile after this Presbyterian Copy the Popish Priests will in concert with the Pope even under a Popish Successor as well as now combine to lessen the King's power and advance the Pope's on promises from the Holy See that they shall have the Church Lands restored to them And I doubt not but a Popish Successor will support a Popish Clergy with what maintenance he can having a reference to the Law of the Land and likewise to the Law of Nature that binds him first to support himself and perhaps by keeping vacant Bishopricks long so a thing that by Law he may do he may have their Temporal ties to bestow on whom he shall please and perhaps by issuing out new Commissions about the valuation of the Clerical Revenue a larger share of First-fruits and Tenths legally accruing to him may enable him to gratifie such Ecclesiasticks as he shall favour But as I likewise doubt not that ever any accident of time will leave the disposal of such a great proportion of the Church Revenue at his Arbitrage as the Usurpers had at theirs so neither do I of his affairs ever permitting him to allow so large a share of that Revenue to his Clergy as the Usurpers did to theirs whom as those Powers durst not wholly disoblige and therefore unask'd settled on them toward the augmentation of their Livings the Impropriate Tithes belonging to the Crown and to the Bishops and Deans and Chapters though yet nothing of their Terra firma so neither durst those Presbyterian Divines who followed them for the Loaves and who once in a sullen humour resolved not to have half a Loaf rather then no Bread reject the Impropriate Tithes given them because they saw a new Race of Divines called Independent ready to take from those Powers what they would give and who were prepared by their Religion to support the State-government and some of whom had already acquired Church-Livings and others of whom in the great Controversie among all those Parties which was not generalrally so much de fide propagandâ as de pane lucrando would with the favour of the times easily have then worsted the Presbyterian Clergy in the scramble for that thing aforesaid that though Moreau in his learned Notes on Schola Salerni saith no Book was ever writ of yet I think few have been writ but for namely Bread. But herein on the whole matter the Vsurpers Policy was so successful as that ordering the great Revenues of the Church as they did and Appropriating the Bishops and Deans and Chapters Lands to the use of the State they by the augmentations arising from the Fond of the Impropriate Tithes to their Clergy and especially to those of them they planted in great Towns and Cities ty'd them to their Authority as I may say by the Teeth and kept them from barking against it or biting them which else they would have
taught to know the Numbers of all people but our own But in this State of improvement that the World is arrived at I do account that all who shall hereafter employ their Pens about that greatest exercise of humane Wit and Judgment call'd History and shall not found the weight of their Remarques upon the Numbers of the People they write of will no more be termed grave Authors or indeed ought but grave nothings and such who deal irreverently with a World that is weary of trifles and from which they are to expect no other Doom then that of the Annales Volusi And though as to the faetus populi as well as to the faetus pecuniae called faenus accidents may happen that may cross the Rule of encrease in both Cases as in the latter by Bankrupts and in the former by Plague or War c. and thus once as to the Romans Censa sunt Civium Capita 270 Millia and in the following enrollment but 137 Ex quo numero apparuit saith the Historian quantum hominum tot praeliorum adversa fortuna populi Romani abstulisset as if he would infer that the losses they received from Hanibal had swept away 133000 Citizens yet do such exceptions but confirm the Rule the which may be made out by continued mean proportionals But this by the way If my Lord Herbert who mentions pag. 121 of his History That in the Year 1522 Warrants were issued out Commanding the Certificates of the Names of all above sixteen Years old had set down the total number of the persons certified he had much more obliged the World then by many things in his History I do not remember that any of our Historians of those times do relate the Numbers of the Religious Persons that all the suppressed Monasteries contain'd We are told by Godwin in his Annals That the number of the Abbies that were in England is not easily cast up and the Names of the chiefest and whose Abbots had voices among the Peers in Parliament he thereupon enumerates But Weaver in his Funeral Monuments p. 104 mentioning That all the Religious Houses under the Yearly value of 200 l. being given to the King and that they were all worth per annum 20941 l. saith That the Religious Persons put out of the same were above Ten Thousand My Lord Herbert p. 441 speaking of that sort of Monasteries being dissolved in the 27 th year of the King's Reign makes Thirty or Thirty two Thousand pound yearly thereby fall into the King's hand And p. 507 makes the total yearly value of all the Religious Houses suppressed to be 161100 l. It may therefore be thence infer'd that if Thirty Thousand pound yearly maintain'd 10000 Religious Persons that there were maintain'd by the 161100 l. above 50000 Religious Persons or Regulars And according to the aforesaid rate of the yearly value of the Land viz. 161100 l. the allowance to each came to somewhat above 3 l. per annum the which shews that those Lands were not sold to half the value because less then double that Sum cannot be imagined to have maintain'd such a person then I do account that supposing the Parishes to have been then in England and Wales as Cambden in his Britannia says 9284 that the Secular Clergy added to the Number of the Regular only the last said Number For then the Canon Law which requires that Orders shall not be given to Men without Titles being strictly executed there were perhaps not more Parish Priests in England And the adding to those Numbers the Dignitaries viz. Two Archbishops and 24 Bishops and 26 Deans and 60 Arch-Deacons and 544 Prebendarys and several Rural Deans doth enlarge the Sum to another Thousand of Persons who lived by the Altar Moreover there being then estimated to live in Oxford and Cambridge about Sixty Thousand Students who in expectation of Church-preferment as either Regulars or Seculars abstain'd from Marriage I account that the Number of Persons then ty'd by Caelibate from encreasing and multiplying the people to be above 120000 as at present above double that Number are in France What accrued to the Secular Clergy then or since by Tithes ought not to have been looked on by any one with an evil Eye as I suppose by Mr. Fish it was not For as to the nature of the payment of Tithes according to the judgment of Sir W. P. in his Book of Taxes and Contributions p. 58 It may be said to be no Tax or Levy in England whatever it might have been in the first age of its Institution And this notion of his may be extended even to that which is called a Tenth but is revera a Fifth I mean the Tith of arables in regard of the charge of Culture and Seed which is ordinarily at least as much as the Rent of the Land because it is a charge equally incumbent on all proprietors of such Land and for that the true notion of Wealth and Riches depends on comparison and 't is only the inequality in the proportion of the Tax that is the sting thereof But that which Mr. Fish chiefly level'd his Calculations at was the excessive share in the Wealth of the Kingdom the Monks and Fryars had who did so little for its preservation and the encrease of its Numbers What an infinite number of people saith he might have been encreased to have peopled the Realm if this sort of Folk had been married like other Men Instead of using his Rhetorical Expression of infinite I shall affirm that these 120000 adult able persons living in Celibate might according to the notion of the Observator of the Bills of Mortality That every marriage one with another produceth four Children viz. Two apiece for each Sex have more then doubled their number in the same age by which any one may well conclude that as the number of the people of England is now vastly encreased by the dissolution of Abbies so it would likewise be so diminished by their re-establishment To effect therefore to lessen thus the number of the people of England when the French King with great wisdom has by the Revival of the Roman Immunity of the Ius trium librorum and the application of others laid so a great Foundation for the growing populousness of France would too much expose us to his power and derision The Divine Wisdom's allotting to the Levitical Tribe the affluent quota it enjoy'd is very justly took notice of by those who discourse of the Clerical Revenue The Author of the Present State of England saith That our Ancestors according to the pattern of God's ancient people the Iews judged it expedient to allot large Revenues to the English Clergy and that the English Clergy were the best provided for of any Clergy in the whole World except only the Nation of the Iews among whom the Tribe of Levi being not the Fourth part of the twelve Tribes as appears in the Book of Numbers yet had as Mr. Selden
of Cattle by pasture hindred that encrease of Men that the advancement of Tillage would have produced and the furnishing the Crown with more Subsidy Men and Soldiers But this supineness of our Kings was not only caused by Superstition and a vitiated fancy in Religion an Idol to which Philip the Second sacrificed his Son and therefore might be well supposed prevalent with others to wish the generation of their Children or Subjects restrained but our Kings were not then stimulated by necessity to promote the populousness of their Realm for that their riches and strength depending on comparison the same Religious Orders did by Celibate and Depopulation equally obstruct the Wealth and Power of the neighbouring Kingdoms as well as this and by that means they were not our over-match But the course of encreasing Generations having operated so far as to awaken the World and Men for not having so much Elbow-room as they had jostling one another by the violence of War the politics of Statutes against Depopulation were forced and reinforced on this Realm And like as Men so too will such Statutes beget one another as I may say to the end of the Chapter Nor is the power of the Kingdom ever likely again to be really emasculated by such as pretended To make themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake and honoured not the Founder of Christianity of whom since he for the good of Mankind made his first Disciples fishers of Men it may seem unworthy that he should intend the hurt of States and Kingdoms by making the following Doctors of his Church Pastors of Sheep Sir Thomas Moor in the first Book of his Vtopia doth with a sharpness worthy his excellent wit tell us That certain Abbots holy Men God wot not profiting but much damnifying the Common Wealth leave no ground for Tillage they enclose all in pastures they throw down Houses they pull down Towns and leave nothing standing but only the Church to make of it a Sheep-house And afterward saith That one Shepherd is enough to eat up that ground with Cattle to the occupying whereof about husbandry many hands were requisite And he in that Book calls the Fryers errones maximos and desires they might be treated like Vagabonds and sturdy Beggars And in the Second Book contrives a Model of the Priesthood so as not to make it such a Nusance to the Civil Government as the Papal one was accordingly as has been before discoursed For one of his fundamentals there is That the Priests should be very few and that they should be chosen by the people like other Magistrates and with secret voices and enjoyns to his Priests marriage and makes them to be promoted to no power but only to honour Sir Thomas More it seems was far then from Writing at the Pope's Feet the Character that was afterward given to Bellarmine's style and there was as little occasion for a peace-maker's interposal between him and Fish as is between two wrangling Lawyers at a Bar. But the matter is well mended with our English World since the time of the Supplication of Beggars as appears by the multitudes of the healthy and robust Plebs of our Nation that Till the Earth and Plough the Sea and who by the proportion of the Mony Current coming to their hands having fortify'd their Vital Spirits with good diet there is finis litium and an end of such Lamentations as the beginning of that Supplication to the King in part before referred mentions viz. Most lamentably complaineth of their woful misery to your Highness your poor daily Beads-men the wretched hideous Monsters on whom scarcely for horrour any eye dare look the foul unhappy sort of Lepers and other sore people needy impotent blind lame and sick c. How that their Number is daily so sore encreased that all the Alms of all the well disposed people of this your Realm is not half enough to sustain them There is no doubt but their indigence was extream when they were to glean not only after the Reaping of the Monks but after the Ecclesiastick Beggars the Fratres Mendicantes or as they were then called Manducantes had been satiated in diebus illis and when Holy Church almost engrossed not only the wealth but the begging in the Kingdom And he who now looks on our English infantry when they turn their Plough-shares into Swords will see nothing of the horrour of starvelings in their faces and the Writ de leproso amovendo is in effect obsolete in nature as that too de haeretico comburendo is abrogated And within the Term of about twenty years that the Observator of the Bills of Mortality refers his Calculations to he mentions but six of 229150 dying of the Leprosie What the Bills of Mortality in France may contain about deaths by the Leprosie happening there in late years I know not but do suppose that the general Scurâ—e appearing in the skins of the Pesantry there condemned to Sell their Birth-right of nature for no Pottage and to eat little of the Corn they Sow and to drink as little of the Vines they Plant and to taste little of Flesh save what they have in Alms from the Baskets of the Abbies and who are Dieted only for Vassalage may be an indication of the Leprosie having still its former effects among them But our English Husband-men are both better fed and taught and the poorest people here have so much of brown Bread and the Gospel that by the Calculations on our Bills of Mortality it appears that for so many years past but One of Four Thousand is starved 'T is therefore I think by instinct of Nature That our Yeomanry in the Country though not addicted to mind niceness of Controversie in Religion nor to be dealers in the Protestant Faith by Retaile are great Whole-sale Traders in it and will as soon suffer their Ploughs to be took out of their Hands as their Bibles from under their Arms And they have been generally observed since the Plot and some years before to manifest in common discourse their robust abhorrences of Popery as supposing that under that Religion they could neither save their Souls nor their Bacon Doleman alias Parsons in the Second part of his Book of the Succession speaking of the Numbers of the Papists here makes it very considerable In that the most part of the Country people that live out of Cities and great Towns in which the greatest part of the English forces are wont to consist are much affected ordinarily to their Religion meaning the Popish Religion by reason the Preachers of the contrary Religion are not so frequent with them as in Towns c. But were he now alive he would find the Scene of things changed in our Country Churches since Queen Elizabeth's time in whose Reign a Book was printed Anno 1585 called A lamentable complaint of the Commonalty by way of Supplication to the High Court of Parliament for a learned Ministry He would find
longevity of Popery if ever it should call it self here the State-Religion for it can naturally be but a short dull Parenthesis of time in an Age of Sense and the Eye of Reason can see through the duration of it as well as through its absurdities and it can naturally be but like an angry Cloud that with the Eye of Sense we shall see both dropping and rowling away over our heads and shall behold the Sun playing with its Beams around the Heavens near it at the same time and nothing can be easier to you then to dye in the Faith that Popery cannot live long in England and to know that you are not to be compared to an Infidel though you should have provided for your surviving Family nothing but Abby Lands the which I believe may by a bold instrument of Eternity drawn by a small Scriveners Boy be effectually Conveyed to any Lay-man and his Heirs for ever I know that the present State of that part of the Land of England that was aliend from the Church is such that it bears not the price of years purchase it did before the Plott and that it is according to the common expression become a drug as to Moneys being taken up on it in comparison of other Lands and it is obvious to consider how much herein the Plott hath prejudiced the Wealth and Trade of the Kingdom in making so great a part of the Land in some regard comparatively useless to the Possessors but I likewise know that hereby Popery will be no gainer for that 't is apparent that the owners of it will be indefatigable in the use of all means lawful to bring Popery to such a State as shall make any men ashamed to say they fear it Tho Holy Church that everlasting Minor that Minor like Sir Thomas Mores Child that he said would be always one will be still labouring the Resumption of what was alien'd from it and hence I believe it hath proceeded that our Kings thô in the eye of the Law always at full Age have thought fit to learn from Holy Church the Priviledge too of being reputed Minors or Infants in Law for so the Books call them that upon occasion they may resume what was alien'd from the Crown and thô the hopes of such resumption would be a bait to help Popery to Multitudes of Proselytes yet the people imagine a vain thing who think such resuming practicable in England and especially at this time if the Calculation of the Ebb of the Coinage of England be as is contain'd in Britannia languens viz. from the foremention'd period of May 1657 to November 1675 near another nineteen years 3 238 997 l. 16s ¾ a Calculation that I think cannot be disproved but by the Records in the Pipe Office where annual account of the Money Coined in the Mint are preserved or by Ballances of Trade made up from that time whereby the exportations eminently preponderating what is imported would evince what considerable quantities of Bullion have been Coyned or by our knowing that since that time Sterling Silver has not still obtain'd the Price of 5 s 2d an Ounce a price that it has not indeed fall'n short of in England about these twenty years past and therefore before the late Act for the Coynage could never be entertain'd by the Mint to be Coyn'd which was by its Law and Course necessarily restrain'd from giving for Sterling Silver above 5 s. the Ounce and which Rate and no more it did afford when the Ballance of Trade favouring us caus'd that vast Coynage mentioned in the former Ternary of nineteen years But in fine his Majesties Royal Goodness to his People in not only quitting what did accrue to him for Coynage but being at the expence of the Coyning the most exquisite sort of Money in the Known world and such as in Curiosity does equal Meddals is an indication of the Ballance of Trade not having employed the Mint sufficiently in making for his Subjects the Medium of Commerce and for the depression of the Trade not only of the English but of more then the European World the Usurper Cromwel is to be justly blamed who not long after the wounds England had felt by the Munster Peace did harrass us by his fantastick War with Spain which not only impoverish'd England but the Trading World and forcibly obstructing the Returns of the Spanish Plate Fleets did particularly put both Spain and France under a necessity of making that Peace that gave the French Crown its leasure to trouble the World. But let any one judge then how ridiculous it is to suppose that the Trade of the Nation must not as I may say shut up Shop if half its wealth should be again juggled into the hands of a few Ecclesiasticks and the old Trade between England and Rome be renew'd of giving the Pope Gold for Lead It must indeed be acknowledged by all who have conversed with History that the absolute and unbounded Power with which the Eastern Monararchs Governed their Kingdoms did not more require an excessive share of the publick Revenue to feed standing Armies then Priests who with their Idols and Superstitions and Crafts did awe and delude People into obedience but as in orderly Commonwealths there is no need of such an immense Charge for Artifice to make men obey themselves so in our Constitution of the English Government it being justly to be supposed that we have all the desireable solid and substantial freedom that any Form of Government can import besides the insignificance of the name of it and insignificant we may well call it who remember that our late real Oligarchists took not only the name of God but the name of a Commonwealth in vain and are to the envy of Forraigners and shame of our former Domestick Propounders blessed with the Soveraign Power of a Great and Glorious King over a free and happy People as the words of the Royal Martyr are in one of his Declarations it may be well said to any one who shall talk of giving half the profits of the Realm to use Art and Imposture to make Members obey their Head so constituted quorsum perditio haec But in a word to come closer to the Case of Popery any one that would have half the Revenue of the Kingdom given to Impostors for the making a Monarch only half a King or King but of half his People and for the tricking both him and them into a blind obedience to a Forraign Head and for the making a Forraign Power Arbitrary and absolute is a very bad Land-Merchant and knoweth not the use or value of the soyle of England and will never find the half of 25 Millions of Acres sold for Chains and Fetters and will be put to the trouble of taking out the Writ de idiota inquirendo against at least three Millions who have already out-witted him and will never think a Forraign Minor and whose concessions are resumable fit to be
Millions of Souls But there scarce needs any other Medium whereby to evince that the Progress of the Reformation hath vastly encreased the value of our Land and proportion of our Commerce then that it hath so vastly encreased the number of our People a Fact that I have already proved and have shewn what Depopulaors or dispeoplers of the Kingdom the Monks were and have made some Calculations of the numbers of the Religious Persons living in Celibate and the effects thereof in restraining formerly the growth of the Numbers of the People but do find that I was extremely short in assigning the number of those whom Popery made to live in Celibate to be but 120000. I was glad to gain a rise for somewhat like an Estimate of the numbers of all the Religious persons in Monasteries by finding it in Weavers Monuments that the Religious Persons put out of the Religious Houses under the yearly value of 200 l. were above 10000 and that therein Weaver agrees with Sanders de Schismate c. but I made no Estimate of the numbers of Friers Mendicant the which were very great and I was too short on the accounting that there were perhaps no more Secular Priests then Benefices in England for thô the Rule of the Canon Law allows not Orders to be given to Men without a Title yet it admits an exception in the Case of Men who can live on their own patrimony and it still took the Title to be a Curate as current Coyn for one to a living and moreover the livelihoods that many unbeneficed Secular Priests acquired by saying particular Masses did pass for Titles and thus in France it being conceived that the Secular Priests unbeneficed are about 6 times as many as the beneficiaries we may thence guess what the proportions of their numbers were in England But yet further to discourse of the growth of the numbers of the people of England before and since the Reformation I shall acquaint your Lordship that you may easily find among the Records of the Exchequer what the number of the people of England was in the Year 1522 when Harry the 8 th as I cited it out of my Lord Herberts History p. 121 Caused Warrants to be Issued out Commanding the Certificates of the number of all above 16 years old to be returned and by an Index or Repertory of the Matters of State in the Exchequer that I have I can readily direct the finding it out there and moreover by the accounts of the Pole Acts in former times a considerable indication of the numbers of the people in those days may be had And if we may guess at the encrease of the people of England from that of London I can easily satisfie any person about the prodigious growth of that City in numbers of people and consequently in wealth since the abandoning of the Papacy I have by me an account of the proportions of the Shires of England City of London in a Tax of 50000 l. long since in Edward the 3 ds time and in which Surry bore the same proportion with London and in which London and Surry and Middlesex paid but about 1500 l. which was but about a 16 th part And in Harry the 8 ths times it hapned that Cardinal Pool excited divers Princes of Christendom to invade England a fit man he was who had been then a Traytor to come here and absolve Hereticks but Holling shead in his Chronicle of Harry the 8 th p. 947 tells us That the King having heard of the Treasonable practices of the Cardinal did Anno 1539 make a Survey of his Naval Strength and did ride to the Sea-Coasts and that Sir William Foreman Knight then Major of London was commanded to certifie the names of all the Men within the City and liberties thereof between the age of 16 and 60 whereupon the said Mayor and his Brethren each one in his Ward by the Oath of the Common-Council and Constable took the number of Men Arms and Weapons and after well considering of the matter by view of their Books they thought it not expedient to admit the whole number certified for apt and able men and therefore assembling themselves again they chose forth the most able persons and put by the residue especially such as had no Armour But when they were credibly advertised by Thomas Cromwel Lord Privy-Seal to whom the City was greatly beholden that the King himself would see the People of the City Muster in a convenient number and not to set forth all their power but to leave some at home to keep the City c. then he saith the number beside the Whifflers and other Waiters was 15000. But the Observator on the Bills of Mortality hath in his last Observations on that Subject told us That there are in London about 6 hundred and 70000 Souls and thô I know that some Parishes are included within the Bills of Mortality for the said City that formerly were not yet the said Observator having told us that there are in London more Males then Females and it being true that there are as many above the Age of sixteen as are under it and that the Sexagenarii are but a 6 th part of Mankind and the Quota of the numbers resulting from the Parishes added being likewise shewn us by that Observator let any one judge how vast the number of able Men certifiable between 16 and 60 is grown to be since that year of Harry the 8 th before mentioned It must be acknowledged that the thanks of the Age are due to the Observator on the Bills of Mortality for those solid and rational Calculations he hath brought to light relating to the numbers of our people but such is the modesty of that excellent Author that I have often heard him wish that a thing of so great publick importance to be certainly known might be so by an actual numbring of them and the truth is it is much to be pittied that by the care of Magistrates an exact number of the people as well of London as of all other places in the Realm hath not with diligence been made and preserved the knowledge whereof is the Substratum of all political measures that can be taken as to a Nations strength or riches and the part thereof that is spareable for Colonies and the value of the branches of the publick Revenue and the equality in proportioning any Taxes or Levies by Act of Parliament and the satisfying the World about the value of our Alliances a thing one would think somewhat necessary when 't is published in Print that a Forraign Minister who hath spent much time here and is deservedly famous for being a Critical Judge in the Politicks and in many sorts of Learning makes the people of England to be but two Millions and when a late famous French Author of la Politique Francoise who sets up with his Goose-quill to be a Governor of the World reproacheth us
the being of a Deity saith Nec sanè multum interest uâ—rum id neget an Deos omni procuratione atque actione privet mihi enim qui nihil agit esse omnino non videtur He there moreover acquaints us with the origine of the word Superstition saying that Non enim Philosophi verùm etiam Majores nostri superstitionem à Religione separaverunt nam qui totos Dies precabantur immolabant ut sui liberi sibi superstites essent superstitiosi sunt appellati quod nomen patuit posleà latiùs qui autem omnia quae ad Deorum Cultum pertinerent diligenter pertractarent tanquam relegerent sunt dicti Religiosi ex religendo c. But those things that those antient Heathens carefully discriminated many Modern Christians as carefully Confound namely Superstition and Religion and by the innate pride of Humane Nature leading men to worship the Gods that they make rather then the God that made them and which enslaved the ancient Jews almost with a Continuando to the Adoration of stocks and stones and to the neglect of the worshiping the God that delivered them from the House of Bondage degenerate Christians adore the Births of Religion in their own fancies and having there Model'd a Deity do Act over the old Superstition with Anxious wishes and Formal Prayers that those their monstrous Births may out-live them and do outgo all examples of the heathen World in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immolating Nations by War to those Children of their imagination and thus Popish Superstition within our Memory turn'd Ireland into one Akeldama and Enthusiastick Superstition converted England into another and as Lipsius tells us that the gladiatory Combats did in some one Month cost Europe 30000 mens lifes to divert the old Romans so fanatical have some that call themselves Protestants been as to afford sport and diversion to the new Romanists and even the very Iesuits by Superstition having made so many of us Gladiators against one another and as if we were Brute Animals we give them the recreation of seeing us like Cocks attacking each other with the keenest anger when they please and give the Arbitrary Power to the Iesuits to make our Land their Cock-Pit But the set time humanly speaking for the extermination of the superstition of Popery here being come and the worst thing in Popery being its Fanaticism and Holy Church being the great Asylum of that as our Learned Dr. Stilling fleet hath taught the World in his Book of the Fanaticism of the Church of Rome 't is in vain for Popery or Jesutisme to save-themselves from the blow of Fate by standing behind Presbytery The Conclusum est contra Manichaeos before mention'd that is now the Vox populi doth with its full cry pursue Presbytery as well as Popery for the making duo summa Principia in States and Kingdoms and claiming an Ecclesiastick Power immediately derived from Christ and not dependant on the Civil and 't is in vain for any Principle that an awaken'd World pursues as a Cheat to try to save it self by changing its name There is no observation more common then that Popery and Presbytery that seem as distant as the two Poles yet move on the same Axle-tree of a Church Supremacy immediately derived from Christ and Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan might have passed through the World with a general Applause if no Notion had been worse in it then in Chap. 44. The making his Kingdom of darkness to consist of Popery and Presbytery The measures that the Genius of our Nation inclines it to take of things from experiment will Naturally Perpetuate its aversion from Presbytery as well as Popery For tho the Divines of the Protestant Churches abroad that are fautors of the Presbyterian Form of Church Government own not the doctrine of Rebelling for Religion and tho thus on the occasion of a Iesuite's formerly Printing somewhat in defence of his Order and alledging that several Protestant Writers had allow'd the Rebelling of Subjects against their Princes and instanceth in Buchanan and Knox yet Rivet the Professor of Divinity at Leiden in his Answer to that Jesuite saith that all other Protestant Writers Condemn that doctrine and he ascribes the Rashness of Buchanan and Knox praefervido Scotorum ingenio ad audendum prompto and tho the persons who in Holland and France live under that Form of Church Government have pretended to no authority from Christ to resist Soveraign Powers and that the Loyalty of the French Protestants hath been so signal under all their Pressures that D'Ossat in his Letter to Villeroy from Rome Ianuary the 25 th 1595 having discoursed of the horrid attempt against the Life of Harry the 4 th acknowledgeth Concerning the Hugonots il's n'ont rien attenté de tel ny contre lui ny contre aucun de cinq Roys ses predecesseurs quelque boucherie que leurs Majestez ayent faite des dits Huguenots i. e. They have attempted nothing of this Kind either against him or against any of the five Kings his Predecessors notwithstanding the butchery or slaughter that their Majesties made of those Huguenots yet is it too notorious to be denyed that that sort of Church-Government having in Scotland in the time of our former Princes been accustomed continually to hold their Noses to Grind-stones which was a preparatory way to have brought their Heads to Blocks and that Nation invading us with a Covenant the very entring into which and the imposing it without leave from the King so to do and much more against his Command was a thing that perhaps to the Associators themselves seemed illegal and contrary to the Petition of Right which provides against the administring of any Oath not warrantable by the Laws and Statutes of this Realm there was by that means a Coalition between the Presbyterian Divines of our Nation and theirs in principles of Enthusiasme and Rebellion Principles that our Nonconformist Divines in King Iames's time here abhorr'd for in the Protestation of the Kings Supremacy made by those Ministers and Published Anno 1605 the conclusion of their 4th Tenet is That the Supremacy of Kings is not tyed to their Faith and Christianity but to their very Crown from which no Subject or Subjects have power to separate or disjoyn it and their 9th Tenet is We hold that though the King should command any thing contrary to the Word unto the Churches that yet they ought not to resist him therein but only peaceably to forbear Obedience and sue to him for Grace and Mercy and where that cannot be had meekly to submit themselves to the Punishment and their last Tenet is We hold it utterly unlawful for any Christian Churches whatsoever by any Armed Force or Power against the will of the Civil Magistrate and State under which they live to erect and set up in publick the true worship of God or to beat down or suppress any Superstition and Idolatry that shall be
Chesible and other pretended holy Vestments and see him use Crossing Turning Ducking Lifting Whispering Gaping mingling of Wine and Water Lickings and other variety of Gestures and to hear Prayers in Latine and to the Saints and for the Dead and to have our Bells Baptised to have Vailes Holy-Water Holy-Ashes Palms c. Erasmus saith in his Epistles p. 108. Ep. 10. An hic sacrificulum illum malâ—unt imitari qui suum mumpsimus quo fuerat viginti usus annos mutaâ—e noluit admonitus à quopiam sumpsimus esse legendum The Verse of Scripture in which he read that word was Iosua 9. 12. En panes quando egressi sumus de Domibus nostris ut veniremus ad vos Calidos Mumpsimus nunc sicci facti sunt vetustate nimia Comminuti no other Verse appearing to me by the Concordance of the Vulgar Latine to have Sumpsimus in it And the folly of the Priest in so reading was so famous as to come to the knowledge of our Harry the Eighth and to occasion his saying as my Lord Herbert tells us Some of the Clergy are too stiff in their old Mumpsimus others too curious in their new Sumpsimus But that Verse in Iosua was as unlucky and as ill boding a one to Popery for a Priest thus to signalize en ridicule as any he could have found in Holy Writ and carries in it self a revenge for its barbarous usage For it naturally suggests to People that the Antiquity of the Doctrine of Popery is but a Gibeonitish or meer pretended one and that even its Transubstantiated Bread is not brought from so far a Country as is pretended and that it was no longer ago then Anno 1212 that Innocent the Third in the Lateran Council brought in Transubstantiation as an Article of Faith and Decreed those to be Exterminated who did not believe it And that Kings were to be compelled to Exterminate them and that the Pope had power to depose Kings an effectual way to put not only the nature of Things but Men on the Wrack and then make them say they believe any thing But we having been used to the New Sumpsimus these hundred years shall be so Curious in it as to make what is barbarous the object of our Mirth as much as Harry the Eighth and Erasmus did and the Novelty of Popery coming again here in the Masquerade of Antiquity would appear as nauseous as would the moudly Bread of the Gibeonites to the Men of Israel if they had come to treat them with it a Second time From what hath been in this Historical way glanced at concerning the gradual decreasing Popery here in the several past Conjunctures we may without the Amentia Prophetiae as Tertullian calls it say That in any Conjuncture that can hereafter come it will more and more decrease and that under any new Prince Protestancy will be the Rising Sun whose light will be then encreasing and Popery acquire no more lustre then the short one of a parelius Doleman alias Parsons in his Book Of the Succession publishing his thoughts how ponderous the Papists would be in the Ballance of State in the Conjuncture of time attending the next Successor speaks thus as if it were before him in Vision With these many others do joyn Et omnes qui amaro animo sunt cum illis se conjungunt as the Scripture saith of those that followed David ' s Retinue 1 Kings 12. pursued by Saul and his Forces which is to say that all that be offended grieved or any way discontented with the present time be they of what Religion they will do easily joyn with these Men. And when I consider how many there are qui amaro sunt animo by reason of their Condition being embitter'd by Poverty and that it hath pursued them like an Armed Man and is likely so to do when I consider that the Multitude of Free-Schools in the Kingdom diverting the Education of the poorer sort of our Youth from useful laborious Trades to the uselesly appearing Scholars and Gentlemen or according to the Dutch word Idlemen hath at last brought them but to fragments of knowledge and likewise of Bread and tho wearing better Habits then their Ancestors yet to be little better than Thiefs in a handsome disguise robbing the World of their Labour and its own quiet by their being Sollicitors Make-bates Informers proulers into the rights of other Mens Estates Tamperers with Witnesses Tales-men Promoters of Office Suers of others in the way of qui tam c. quam c. And when I consider what is so truly observ'd by the Author of Britannia languens That of all other employments we have the greatest questing after Offices that Men will almost give any thing say any thing do any thing for an Office so that some Offices that were thought hardly worth the medling with of late years will now yield near Ten years Purchase for one Life And when I every where behold the tâ—rn Limbs of the Estates of so great a Party among us as may be call'd the Luxuriants and who have sold the same Estates and Consciences three or four times over and do likewise recollect the Number of all such Idle men who have been observed of late years in Shoales so much to depopulate the Country to plant themselves about London insomuch that tho according to the Observator of the Bills of Mortality there usually did come out of the Country to live in London but 6000 yet there dying within those Bills 17249 in the Year 75 and 18732 in the Year 76 and 19064 in the Year 77 and 20678 in the Year 78 wherein the Popish Plot was discovered and 21730 in the Year 79 whence according to the Rule of one in 30 Yearly dying and there having dy'd gradualy above a 1000 a year since the year 75 to the year 80 altho all years of ordinary health so the remaining part in London did thence appear gradually encreased proportionably that is as a 1000 dy'd each year more than other so 29000 lived there each year more than in the other and that there lived in the year 79 in London 120000 more than did in the year 75 and that many of these People having broke in the Country through the Poverty that the Plot occasion'd came to London to hide themselves and their shame I say when I consider all these things I may well conclude that all these Indigents will be ready to hope for a Golden Age and call any thing a Religion that will bring it them And by a new shuffling of Religion will be indeed hoping for better Cards in this World. Some of those who have been Trumpeters to the Puppet-Shows of little Enthusiastick Religions and movers of the Wyres there would if ever the great one of Popery should come on the Stage be glad to be sharers or quarter sharers in it and to be either Actors or Ministerial to them and especially to be applauding Spectators
the World will never be quiet till its allay from the true Silver be separated by melting it down and it takes the name of Religion only when it deserves it What is more ordinary then for Clamour to raise this question Will you punish any man for his Religion and will you have any man lose by his Religion and I see no end in the disputes of the question but by this Answer and by this it must find a Period viz. I punish no man for his Religion for that Tenet that I quarrel with him about is not and indeed cannot be Religion It is pure and rank Sedition and Rebellion and if any Papist or Presbyterian shall write or speak to make the Kings Power a bubble blown up by the breath of the People and so dissolvable I shall esteem him fit to be proceeded against by the new Statute of the 13 th of this Kings Reign against Sedition and as a Subverter of the Fundamental Laws and do suppose 't will be ridiculous for any one to plead his Religion in bar of that Indictment and he doth moreover deserve to be punish'd as a Cheater for abusing the World and himself and Religion too by calling such a particular Tenet Religion or a Complication of many Tenets by that Name where the vertue of them all is not strong enough to correct the Poyson of one The Scripture doth punish those with a denunciation of a Wo who call evil good and good evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness and in this particular Point of the calling any of the Idolatries or Impostures of the Heathens or others by the name of Religion I remember not any instance in holy Writ tho yet in other Cases 't is not infrequent for the inspired Pen man to speak cum vulgo I observe that in the New Testament the name of Religion is several times applyed to the Iewish after the World was freed from the Obligation of it but one of the holy Pen-men speaking in one Chapter of false Apostles useth the Style of hating the Deeds of the Nicolaitans and of holding the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans and of holding the Doctrines of Balam And another of the Amanuenses of the Holy-Ghost speaks of Doctrines of Devils If any man shall offer to my consideration a Scheme of Doctrines that relate to Theology and I find it is too subtle for my understanding to penetrate I shall yet be so evil as to allow the Propounder to call it a Religion and thus if Papists or Protestants would agree to call Dr. Gibbon's Scheme a Religion or demonstration of it I would not oppose theit calling it any such thing and the rather since it enjoyns not to me any thing that would break my own or the Worlds quiet but when Popery doth enjoyn so many Tenets to be believed that are incredible to a rational Man and some things that are clearly impossible to a Moral Man I will call Popery in the gross any thing rather then Religion just as Tully saith of those Law-givers who did perniciosa injusta a populis praescribere that they did quidvis potius ferre quam leges I find not that since the year 1605. Popery hath so discriminated it self by any alteration for the beter as to overthrow the weight of King Iames's saying then to both his Houses of Parliament viz. That as it is not impossible but many honest men seduced with some Eâ—rors in Popery may yet remain good and faithful Subjects so on the other hand none that know and believe the grounds and School conclusions of their Doctrine can ever prove good Christians or faithful Subjects There is one Tenet in the Doctrine of Popery that your Lordship shewed me once discust in Print by a Canonist and by whom I was directed to trace it both to the Gloss and Text in the Canon Law that I having discours'd of to a Pious and Learned Neighbour of mine who is a Roman Catholick he obliged me to write to your Lordship that you would please to let any of your Amanuenses transcribe and to send hither to me the Resolution of that Lawyer and determination of the Pope in his Law about it and hath declared to me that he will joyn issue with me in the Plea about Religion in that being a Tenet or Principle approved by the Church of Rome and your habitual inclination to afford any one tho a stranger to you lumen de lumine will I doubt not make it easie to you to gratifie my request in his behalf He grants to me that if that Tenet can be shewn to be one approved by the Church of Rome that he believes there will be no occasion for disputants any more to attaque the Roman Catholick Religion and that as an Independant Author in the late times writing a Pamphlet against Presbytery had this Title for it An end of one Controversy it might be supposed that a Sheet of Paper that without strain'd Inferences could fasten that Tenet on the Doctrine of Popery would with better success make an end of that Controversy My Lord this Point discussed in Print that I refer to is as I find it in the Notesâ— I took thereof in your Lordships Study in Gundissalvus his Tractatus de Haereticis Question 24. before which the Summarium is thus 1. Civitas in quâ aliqui insunt haeretici an tota possit igne exuri aut alias destrui 2. Civitas quando dicatur haeresim committere ut universa destrui possit 3. Vniversitate punitâ de haeresi an singuli quâ—que puniti videantur ita ut amplius puniri non possint The Gentleman being of a nice tenderness of Conscience and having a quick sense of any thing that looks like gross impiety was at the very nameing of the first and second Question surprized with a kind of trembling and was somewhat more discomposed when I told him that upon consideration of the whole matter it appear'd even from the most moderate of the Canonists that a whole City might lawfully be destroyed with Fire if the Majority of it were Hereticks and that there were the Judgment of the Church in the Case and like a Man of a large and candid Soul he said that he was sorry that Humane Nature could in any men so far degenerate as to deliberate about such their destroying a whole City by Fire but would reserve his judgment on the Point till he saw it before him in the Quotations out of the Canon-Law as well as Canonists What the Event of his Judgment will be I know not and I confess I have been very sparing of my time in discoursing with Roman Catholicks about any Point of the Doctrine of their Church since I read it in Cardinal Tolets Inst. sacerdotum lib. 4. cap. 3. and 7. p. 612. and in our Countryman Holcot a Famous Schoolman in lib. 1. Sententiarum Quest. 1. ad sextum principale in replica That if he hears his Prelate Preaching
against Wars and Rumors of Naval Wars when we are dejected with the shame of our Civil Wars having occasioned the Neighbouring World to augment its Naval Force and consequently too our own vast perpetual Charge in the augmenting ours is that by the necessary encrease of our industry we are capable of defraying it and herein Providence is but just in treating us in the Confinement to our Island as the Dutch do Idlers sent to their Work-houses where care is taken that if they do not the Work appointed them the Sea will come in upon them and 't is well for us that accordingly as is shewn in the 8th Chapter of Sir W. P's Political Arithmetick there are spare hands enough among the King of England ' s Subjects to earn Two Millions per Annum more then they now do and there are employments ready proper and sufficient for that purpose His expression of the spare hands of the English minds me how we who did before our Commotion only pay to our Kings the 6 th part of the spareable part of our Estates for that was what Mr. Vaughan afterward Lord Chief Iustice declared in the House of Commons to be the proportion that men were to be taxed in the old gentle way of Assessments called Subsidies were forced upon those manifold payments to the Usurpers that amounted to one entire Subsidy in each Week of the Year when as what we payed before exceeded not usually one Subsidy or 15 th in two or three years space And afterward when instead of the demanding of Five Members from the Parliament above 400 were forcibly secluded from it most Exorbitant Taxes were Levyed in the Name of a House of Commons in which instead of 508 Members as the legal Complement of its number and of 78 Knights of Shires for England and 12 for Wales there were no Knights of the Shire at all sitting in that House for these 26 English and 11 Welch Counties following viz. Bedfordshire Cornwal Cambridgeshire Derbyshire Devonshire Dorsetshire Essex Glocestershire Hartfordshire Herefordshire Lincolnshire Lancashire Middlesex Monmouthshire Norfolk Northumberland Oxfordshire Surry Shropshire Southampton Suffolk Somersetshire Sussex Westmerland Warwickshire Yorkshire Anglesey Brecknock Cardiganshire Carmarthinshire Carnarvanshire Denbighshire Flintshire Glamorganshire Pembrokshire Montgomeryshire Radnorshire and but one Knight of the Shire in each of the 9 following Counties Berkshire Cheshire Huntingtonshire Kent Leicestershire Northamptonshire Staffordshire Wiltshire Worcestershire and only the full number of Knights of the Shire in Buckinghamshire Nottinghamshire Rutlandshire Merionethshire And York Westminster Bristol Canterbury Chester Exeter Oxford Lincoln Worcester Chichester Carlile Rochester Wells Coventry had no Citizens in the House and London had only 1 instead of 4 and Glocester and Salisbury alone of all the Cities in England had their full Number and by a parcel of about 89 permitted to sit was the whole Clergy as well as Layety of England Taxed Nor is it to be forgot that after the great Usurper by his own Authority only laid a Tax of 60,000 l. per Month on us he afterward found a giving Parliament that Calculating the Charge of the Nation judged it in the whole to amount to 1300,000 l. per Annum whereof 200,000 l. for the Protectors support 400,000 l. for the maintenance of the Navy and Ports and 700,000 l. for the Army as we are told out of the History of the Iron Age printed in the year 1656 and that they who grudged the best of Kings the ordinary yearly Revenue of less then half a Million were brought to settle more then double that Sum on the worst of Usurpers viz. 1,300,000 l. per Annum and that by their helping him into the Power to break the Ballance of Christendome as he did they have entailed on us and our Heirs a necessity of labouring hard for ever to expiate the Guilt and Folly of their idle Politicks The Plenty and Pride and Idleness here that occasioned our Civil Wars and the Tessera of one of the Roman Emperors Militemus and the various discriminating words and signs of Religion have brought us to the Tessera of another of them which will stick by us namely Laboremus But as 't is to be seen in Scobels Collection of Acts Anno 1656. cap. 6. in the humble Petition and advice of Cromwel's Parliament the 7th Paragraph which Enacts the Revenue mentions nothing in particular of the 1,300 000 l. yearly to be settled for the Protectors support but provides that as a constant yearly Revenue for the support of the Government and the safety and defence of these Nations by Sea and Land 1000000 l. be settled for the Navy and Army and 300,000 l. in general for the support of the Government I should not dilate on the Subject of those past Calamitous Times of our Country but that so great a Number of those who experimented them and were Actors or Sufferers therein is now dead that this Age wants the Poize or Ballast of their experiences to keep it steddy and secure from being overset by Waves of Sedition or Winds of Doctrine There are several Latine Sayings about War of which the Pedantly Citation is nauseous as was particularly Sorbiers valuing himself on the Motto of Pax bello Potior but there is another saying familiar to Grammar Schools whence the most Oracular Men in Cabinets of State may and indeed ought to take their Measures and Estimates of the probable Continuance of the publick Peace in any Country and that is from the Consideration of the Numbers of the Inhabitants that never felt the misery of War and that saying is Dulce bellum inexpertis a saying that was thought to give an Ornament to the Monumental Inscription of our Harry the 3 d among the Westminster Monuments the Epitaph of which Prince whose Reign moved so much in the bloody Track of War being there thus Tertius Henricus jacet his pietatis amicus Ecclesiam stravit istam quam post renovavit Reddat ei munus qui Regnat Trinus unus Tertius Henricus est Templi conditor hujus 1273 Dulce bellum inexpertis And long before that obtained as a Latin Adage it was one in Greek viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it is well said in Vegetius De Re militari lib. 3. cap. 14. Nec confidas satis si tyro praelium cupit Inexpertis enim dulcis est pugna And in Pindar 't is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. dulce bellum inexpertis ast expertus quispiam horret si accesserit cordi supra modum the sense of this weighty Adage Horace applyes to the Contracting Friendship with Great Men Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici Expertus metuit And no doubt but the reason that induced the Romans to place their Tyrones in the Van of the Battel was that their not knowing all the uncertainties and horrors of War would contribute to their eagerness in the onset Partly to this purpose Mr. Hobs in his Behemoth or History of our
swarming of the Iesuites then in England and transforming themselves into several shapes among the divided Sects here and saith What liberty the Priests and Iesuites take how far they prevail on the People what Countenance they receive from this Government is apparent enough by not proceeding against them in Iustice as if no Laws were in force for their punishment Your private Negotiations with the Pope and your promises that as soon as you can â—stablish your own greatness you will protect the Catholics and the insinuations that you will countenance them much further are sufficiently known and understood and of their dependance upon and devotion to you there needs no Evidence beyond the Book lately written by Mr. White a Romish Priest and dedicated to your Favourite Sir Kenelm Digby Entitled the Grounds of Obedience and Government in which he justifies all the Grounds and Maximes in your Declaration and determines positively that you ought to be so far from performing any promise or observing any Oath that you have taken if you know that it is for the good of the People that you break it albeit they foreseeing all that you now see did therefore bind you by Oath not to do it and that you offend both against your Oath and Fidelity to the People if you maintain those limitations you 〈◊〉 sworn to and sure what you do must be supported by such Casuists And afterwards speaks how Cromwel in distrust of the whole English Nation was Treating to bring over a Body of Swiss to serve him as the Ianisaries do the Turk The Declaration here referred to was Cromwels Declaration of October 31 Anno 1655 and which was supposed to have been worded by his Lord Keeper Fiennes wherein all the measures of Justice toward the Cavaliers and particularly the Public Faith of the Parliament for the punctual and exact performance of Articles with them after the vast gain that had accrued to the Parliament by their Compositions and an Act of Grace and Oblivion afterward granted to the Royal Party are avowedly broken and in p. 36. of that Declaration 't is said If the Supreme Magistrate were tyed up to the ordinary Rules and had not liberty to proceed upon the illustrations of reason against those who are continually suspected there would be wanting in such a State the means of Common Safety c. and before in p. 12 and 13. the Iesuites are out-done as to the keeping of no faith with Heretics by the asserting in effect in general that nulla fides est servanda and the humour of Pope Paul the 4th is Repeated who as the Author of the History of the Council of Trent tells us declared it in the Consistory That 't was Heresie to say the Pope can bind himself And we are assured out of Mr. Peter Walsh his History and Vindication of the Irish Remonstrance that Edmund Reilly the titular Popish Primate of Ireland who at a public Dinner boasted that he never had been friend or well wisher to the King and his two Brothers and the Duke of Ormond did yet write Precepts under his Seal to all the Province of Armagh to pray for the Health Establishment and Prosperity of Cromwell Protector and his Government More need not be said of the danger of Popery and Arbitrary Power to the Nation if God and man had not hindered Lamberts Usurpation over it I have mention'd how some of the Plot-Winesses have deposed somewhat thereof and some of his Countrymen have in discourse affirm'd his having been there a Fautor of Papists and my self observing it to a worthy Gentleman of Yorkshire that one of the Popish Lords in the Tower did in February 1662 pass a Grant from the Crown of several Mannors in Yorkshire forfeited by the Attainder of Iohn Lambert he averr'd to me that Lamberts Son enjoys that Estate at this day It had been just for the Almighty to have punished the extravagance of the Fears and Jealousies that Reigned in the time of the Royal Martyr about his not being a Protestant a Character of Religion he had constantly own'd in the view of the World both by his publick Devotions and Alliances and particularly that with Holland which chiefly his Zeal for that Religion made him to ensure by the Marriage of his Daughter with the Prince of Orange in the time that the War between the Crown of Spain and the States was depending by permitting a private Gentleman whose name perhaps had not come to public knowledg but for the figure he made in illegal Arms so far to march with his Religion undiscern'd through the Quarters of all the gathered Churches and the Classical ones too that he deceived in that point so many that called themselves the very Elect and who were as well vers'd in the business of all Religions as Iews are in Coines and in the way of adulterating them and who after that Religion had always been the Staple Commodity of England as much as Wooll did almost nothing else but Weave and Dye and Tenter the same with all subtilty of Art possible to them and as the Israelites marched out of Egypt without the farewel of a Dogs barking at them we were then near the point of being driven back to Egypt to Civil and Spiritual Slavery without the least â—arm given us by any of our best and deep mouth'd Dogs against Popery But the extreme danger to Protestancy from that intended Usurpation hath been long since over nor do I expect that any fatality of that kind can ever happen to it from any Prince of the Right Line how much a Papist soever he may be that is to say from one who was swathed with the Laws in his Cradle and will be Circumscribed with them in his Crown According to that great severe truth I observed before of the fate of the ten Tribes after they had made a defection from the Line of David that they were punished with a Succession of 10 Kings and not one ' good one in the whole Pack and their falling at last as a Prey to Forraigners it was the Lot of England justly to suffer what has been here described from various Governments and Governors for its defection from the Royal Line and the experience of our disastrous past Calamities must needs convince all men of serious thought and sense that we can have no Usurper how true a Religion soever he may own but will be false to the Interest of the Nation and that particularly by diving it and thereby as much depretiating it in the view of all Christendom as a great Diamond would be if cut in two for tho Diamonds or Pearles be equal and like in their Figures Waters Colours and Evenness yet if they differ in their Weights and Magnitudes those are the Roots of their Prices and a Diamond of Decuple weight is of Centuple value I therefore think the Kings Loyal long Parliament did consult the public Security when in the great Act of the Test they enjoyn'd
the taking the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and thereby the laying on the takers an Obligation to the Kings Heirs and Successors that was to outlast the Life of the King and without any distinction of the Religion true or pretended of such Heirs and Successors Of the Obligation to the Kings Heirs and Successors arising from those Oaths Mr. Pryn in his Concordia Discors Printed in the Year 1659. hath writ usefully but because since the time of the late fermentation many Pamphlets have been writ pro and câ—n of the Political part of the Question relating to a Popish Successor and none that I have heard of has professedly writ of the Casuistical Part thereof and particularly with relation to those Oaths and because I have heard that in some discourse about the same in some good Company where the Obligation by those Oaths to the Kings Heirs in point of Conscience hath been asserted some good men have been blundered but of their apprehending the same by mistaking the saying in the Civil-Law that nemo est haeres viventis and likewise some things obvious in the Common-Law and I did fear that it might thence grow a common and vulgar error that there is no such Obligation resulting from those Oaths and that as a Supine neglect of the use of means to find the true sence of the same would be very culpable so that a serious and dispassionate representing the same would to all men that regard the weight of an Oath be very acceptable I have with as much recollection of thâ—ught as I could faiâ—ly and impartially writ my opinion thereof Casuistically and shall very shortly send it your Lordship for your perusal And indeed as I should not think I dealt candidly with any person of the Popish perswasion if I should be severe to him before I had a Moral Certainty of his having imbibed any of the Principles imputable to Popery that may be called unmoral or inhumane so it would especially seem to me somewhat like the drawing on a naked man for a Protestant at this time to write for the devesting any Popish Prince of his legal Property when few or no Writers of the Church of Rome either do or dare for fear of offending the Pope draw their pens for the preservation of such his property without respect to any Religionary Tenets he may hold What the Pope did to obstruct King Iames's Succession I have mentioned and what favour any Protestant Prince can hope for from the Holy See may appear out of D' Ossat's Letter to Villeroy in the Year 1598. Book 4th where having spoke of the Artifices used to the Pope to make him believe that if Harry the 4th recovered the Marquisate of Salusium it would be Commanded by Hugonots he thereupon adviseth the King to declare the Contrary to the Pope and adds I would not interpose to write this to you if I did not know that the Pope and all this Court hold that to maintain the Catholic Religion in a Country and to preserve it from Heresie his Holyness may and ought to deprive the true Lord and Possessor of it and give it away to any other who hath no property therein and who shall be more able and willing there to preserve the Catholic Faith. I met with some passages lately in a Pamphlet that concerned the Succession where the Author having liberally descanted on the words Heirs and Successors in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy saith as I will not take up Arms without the Kings Commission nor enter into any Association to commence in his life time against his Consent c. so any one by whom or for whom any resignation of his Majesties Power shall be extorted shall not reign over me and there was another very course expression there applyed to a very fine Person and one so every way truly great that every Age doth not produce viz. That the House of Commons conned little thanks to George Earl of Hallifax c. but according to the licence of Speech used by that Author I shall venture to declare that where ever I have a Suffrage in the Choice of a Parliament-man if any Candidate shall tell me that he served in the place before and was for an Exclusion Bill rather then the Kings Offers and without advising with his Country would have any one of the Royal Line Secluded from his Title to the Throne on the account of any Religionary Tenet for our English Antiquities afford Footsteps of Parliament-men on some weighty matters consulting their Towns or Counties that chose them such a one if I can help it shall never represent me and moreover he who doth not with acknowledgments of Honour and Gratitude to the Earl of Hallifax mention that Bill that he brought into the House of Lords in order to the extermination of Popery that I spake of before and with it lodged in our Statute Book that man if I can help it shall never represent me I am not so rash in my efforts against Future time as perhaps that Author was and can cite a great Name for the reasonableness of Representatives advising with those they represent in matters of great moment to the State and to this purpose the Lord Viscount Falâ—land Secretary of State in a Printed Draught of a Speech concerning Episcopacy c. saith p. 4. Mr. Speaker Tho we are trusted by those that sent us in Cases wherein their opinions were unknown yet truely if I knew the opinion of the Major part of my Town I doubt whether 't were the intention of those that trusted me that I should follow my own opinion against theirs and thereupon his Lordship advised the House of Commons not to do any thing against Episcopacy and at least to stay till the next Session and consult more particularly with their Electors about it And if according to the example of that great man any of our Contenders against Popery had thought fit to consult with those they represented about the meeting those Royal and Frank offers with hearty embraces they would perhaps have found the generality of those they represented zealous for their so doing and if they that perhaps with a well intended Gallantry of Courage and scorn of Popery threw out the Bills that came from the Lords in the Year 1677 should ask those they represented if they do not now wish those Bills had then passed into Laws I believe they would say they did and if they were asked whether that Bill I mentioned before that was brought in by the Earl of Hallifax had not likewise passed into a Law I believe they would wish it had I presume not to inveigh against any of our late Loyal Parliaments whatever slips in Politics were by any there made or Arbitrary Votes there passed against particular Persons and am as impatient when I hear any inveigh against our Representatives who in the contention of Popery exerted all the strength of the faculties of their minds what
water and the Sea and like that they are apt to be eating towards the Roots of the Powers of Soveraigns but while the Mountains of their Power are bottom'd on Natural Justice all the preying of the Sea of the People there makes but the promontory more surely guarded and appear more majestic as well as be more inaccessible And of this Sea of the Peoples as I would wish every Prince in the just observance of the Municipal Laws of his Country to espouse the Interest as much as the Duke of Venice doth his Adriatic yet should I see one for fear of Popular Envy or Obloquy forbearing to administer Iustice and to follow the real last Dictates of his practical understanding rightly informed and servily giving up himself to obey any mens pretended ones I should think it to be as extravagant a Madness as Hydrophoby or fear of water on the biting of a Mad Dog and while a Sovereign observes the immutable Principles of Justice he may acquiesce in the results of Providence and expect that the troubling of the waters may be like that of the Angel before the time of healing or a Conjuncture of the Peoples being possessed of healing Principles and in fine a King when he finds the Waters of Popular Discontent more tumultuous by Religionary Parties as two Seas meeting as for example Papists and Presbyterians he may depend on his being near Land that being always near where two Seas meet and let every Prince be assured that 't is not only Popery but Atheisme in Masquerade to do an unjust Act to support Religion I know that it hath been incident to some good men to strain pretences beyond the nature of things for justice Causes of War abroad in the World to advance the Protestant Religion And thus in the last Age the Crown and Populace of England being clutter'd with the Affair of the Palatinate the Prince Palatine had here many well-wishers to his Title for the Bohemian Crown and Rushworth tells us in his 1st Vol. Ann. 1619. That he being Elected King of Bohemia craved Advice of his Father in Law the King of Great Brittain touching the acceptation of that Royal Dignity and that when this Affair was debated in the Kings Council Arch-Bishop Abbot whose infirmity would not suffer him to be present at the Consultation wrote his mind to Sir R. Nauton the Kings Secretary viz. That God had set up this Prince his Majesties Son in Law as a Mark of Honour throughout all Christendome to propagate the Gospel and protect the Oppressed That for his own part he dares not but give advice to follow where God leads apprehending the work of God in this and that of Hungary that by the Pâ—ece and Peece the Kings of the Earth that gave their power to the Beast shall leave the Whore and make her desolate that he was satisfied in Conscience that the Bohemians had just Cause to reject that Proud and Bloody Man who had taken a Course to make that Kingdom not Elective in taking it by Donation of another c. And concludes Let all our Spirits be gathered up to animate this Business that the World may take notice that we are awake when God calls Rushworth saith that King Iames disavowed the Act of his accepting that Crown and would never grace his Son in Law with the Style of his new Dignity And in King Charles the Firsts time in the Common-Prayer relating to the Royal Family the Prayer runs for Frederick Prince Palatine of the Rhine and the Lady Elizabeth his Wife yet in the Assemblies Directory afterward as to the Prayer for the Royal Family that Lady Elizabeth is Styled Queen of Bohemia But our Princes not being satisfied it seems that the Palatine of the Rhine had a just Title to the Bohemian Crown thought it not just for them to assert it However that Arch-Bishop Abbot the Achilles of the Protestants here in his Generation thought that the English Crown ought to descend in its true Line of Succession whatever profession of Religion any Member thereof should own appears out of Mr. Pryns Introduction to the History of the Arch Bishop of Canterburies Tryal where having in p. 3. mentioned the Articles sent by King Iames to his Embassador in Spain in order to the Match with the Infanta and that one was That the Children of this Marriage shall no way be compelled or constrained in point of Conscience of Religion wherefore there is no doubt that their Title shall be prejudiced in case it should please God that they should prove Catholicks and in p. 6. Cited the same in Latin out of the French Mercury Tom. 9. as offered from England Quod liberi ex hoc matrimonio oriundi non cogentur neque compellentur in causâ religionis vel conscientiae neque leges contra Catholicos attingent illos in casu siquis eorum fuerit Catholicus non ob hoc perdet jus successionis in Regna Dominia Magnae Britanniae and afterward in p. 7. mentioned it as an Additional Article offer'd from England That the King of Great Brittain and Prince of Wales should bind themselves by Oath for the observance of the Articles and that the Privy Council should Sign the same under their hands c. He in p. 43. mentions Arch-Bishop Abbots among other Privy-Counsellers accordingly Signing those Articles and further in p. 46. mentions the Oath of the Privy-Council for the observance of those Articles as far as lay in them and had before given an account not only of Arch-Bishop Abbots but of other magna nomina of the Clergy and Layety in the Council that Signed the same and particularly of John Bishop of Lincoln Keeper of the Great Seal Lionel Earl of Middlesex Lord High Treasurer of England Henry Viscount Mandevile Lord President of the Council Edward Earl of Worcester Lord Privy-Seal Lewis Duke of Richmond and Lennox Lord High Steward of the Houshold James Marquess of Hamilton James Earl of Carlile Lancelot Bishop of Winchester Oliver Viscount Grandison Arthur Baron Chichester of Belfast Lord Treasurer of Ireland Sir Thomas Edmonds Kt. Treasurer of the Houshold Sir John Suckling Comptroller of the Houshold Sir George Calvert and Sir Edward Conway Principal Secretaries of State Sir Richard Weston Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Julius Caesar Master of the Rolls who had done the same Mr. Pryn afterward in p. 69. having mentioned the Dissolution of the Spanish Match gives an account of the bringing on the Marriage with France and saith It was concluded in the life of King James the Articles concerning Religion being the same almost Verbatim with those formerly agreed on in the Spanish Treaty and so easily condescended to without much Debate and referreth there to the Rot. tractationis ratificationis matrimonii inter Dom. Carolum Regem Dom. Henrettam Mariam sororem Regis Franc. 1 Car. in the Rolls The Demagogues of the old long Parliament who made such loud Out-cries of the danger of Popery
in p. 702 and in the following Pages viz. Whether the Turk or the Pope is the greater Antichrist and at last saith p. 710. In comparing the Turk with the Pope if a Question be asked whether of them is the truer or greater Antichrist it were easie to see and judge that the Turk is the more open and manifest Enemy against Christ and the Church But if it be asked whether of them two hath been the more bloody and pernicious Adversary to Christ and his Members or whether of them hath Consumed and Spilt more Christian Blood he with Sword or this with Fire and Sword together neitheer is it a light matter to discern neither is it my part here to discuss who do only write the History and Acts of them both And I then telling the Nonconformist that the Iews for many obvious reasons did prefer the Doctrine of Mahumetanisme to that of Popery some Papists beforemention'd had prefer'd it to Protestancy and as he the Nonconformist had preferred it to Popery he mention'd his fears that a sort of Enthusiasts among us called Seekers might hereby be in great danger of stumbling on the Religion of Mahumetanisme accordingly as of old when one went to demand of the Philosophers of the several Sects which was the best of them every one named his own Sect or Party in the first place but all of them in the second place granted Plato to be the most eminent that is the next best whereupon those Seekers preferred Plato because setting aside prejudicate Affection and Self-Love Plato's Philosophy had thus carried the Garland I then took occasion to tell the Company that I thought 't was extremely unjust to prefer Mahumetanisme with the many ridiculous and senseless things it comprehends to Christianity in Papists blended with many erroneous Tenets which yet are capable of the name of Religion and such as those great pious Papists beforementioned viz. Father Paul Thuanus D'Ossat Erasmus Peiresk perhaps own'd the belief of as many thousands of others may still likewise do but frankly interposed my opinion that I thought that Popery complicated with the real belief of the Iesuites Morals and their vile Casuistical Tenets branded by the present Pope was as unworthy of God and Humane Nature as any Hypothesis of Religion could be and I as frankly told the Nonconformist whom I looked on as one who would not outrage the Law of the Land to advance the Gospel that tho some erroneous points relating to Nonconformity might without absurdity assume the name of Religion yet among whomsoever those Tenets should be incorporated with the real belief and practice of the lawfulness of the Doctrine of Resistance and of any persons Reforming the World by Arms without Warrant from the Municipal Laws so to do yet such a Faith would be Faction and such a Nominal Religion would be a real Rebellion and much worse then Mahumetanisme I farther acquainted the Company that according to the discreet Motto of the House of Ormond Commâ— je trouve and the Mode of the Age to take the measures of knowledge by experiment the usage that the better sort of Christians have found under Turcisme hath been by very many degrees milder then under Popery Erasmus indeed was of a contrary opinion for in his Vtilissima Consultatio de â—ello Turcis inferendo printed in the Year 1530 he saith that Exaudiuntur interim 〈◊〉 voces abominandae qui jactant esse tolerabilius agere sub imperio Turcâ—â—orâ—â—â— quam sub Christianis Principibus ac sub Pontifice Romano and there he goes on at large to prove the inconvenience of living under the Turkish Government but the order of the Iesuites was not then invented and after a hundred years observation since Protestants have judged as they did in Erasmus his time And in a Popish Book called the Right of the Prelate and the Prince I find Luther de soecul potestat cited p. 55. for saying that the Turk is decies probior prudentiorque nostris principibus And I think it may seem greater wisdom in him to sell such Heterodox People for slaves that he takes by force than to burn them But in the Year before that Book of Erasmus was printed I find in Magerus his Advocatia Armata Laurent Surius in Comment rer in orbe gestar ad annum 1529 cited for the Hungarians throwing themselves on the protection of the Turk rather then they would be deprived of their Right to chuse their King and it seems under Popery in that Kingdom they had a greater kindness for the Turk then the Emperor of Germany And the great Observer Thuanus on the Year 1597 in his 3 d Tome discoursing how the Germans being under apprehensions of the Power of the Turk and of Spain at the same time were thoughtfully weighing their danger Et Comparatione Alchorani cum inquiâ—itione Hispaniensi factâ an potius cum Orientali quam occidentali Turco sibi rem esse velint thereupon saith si quidem res merito suo ac semoto omni affectu privato aestimetur haud dubium esse quin optione datâ— orientalem eligant quippe ut viribus praepollentem sic victis tolerabiliorem faturum c. Dr. Heylin likewise seems to favour that opinion for in his Geoghraphy in Folio he saith The Turks compel no man to abjure the faith in which he was born I have heard many say that 't is better for a man that would enjoy Liberty of Conscience to live in the Countries professing Mahumetanism than Papistry And I think I have read it in the Author of the Zealanders Choice that if he were to lay the Scene of his life any where with respect chiefly to the freedom of owning any Religious Sentiments it should be either in Amsterdam or Constantinople As I was reading the other day in an old Canonists Tractate of Heresy I found this Position asserted there that 't is unlawful for a Master of Requests to deliver a Petition for Mercy to be shown to a Heretic but then I occasionally thought of a more manly and god-like temper shining in part of the Alcoran as Mr. Gregory relates it in his Opusc. where he saith The Mahumetans have another Lords Prayer called by them the Prayer of Jesus the Son of Mary and that endeth thus And let not such an one bear rule over me that will have no mercy on me for thy mercies sake O thou most merciful He who separates Mercy from Justice is unjust to the very name of Justice and robbeth it of the better half of its signification leaving its Teeth and Claws and taking away its Heart and Bowels Iarchas the Indian and chief of the Brachmans in Philostratus is brought in finding fault with Apollonius Tyaneus and others of the Greeks for that they confined and applied the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to those only who do no wrong to one another and telling them that they were in an error for saith he among the chiefest Offices of Iustice 〈◊〉
feed sleep in them they must work for it and that no Papists and Presbyterians will in their sleep cry out of Persecution as formerly and that no Papist will hereafter applaud either the Justice or temper of Mr. Coleman in writing as aforesaid to the Inter-Nuncio of the Execution of the Penal Laws against the Papists and saying Which are so insupportable that 't is impossible any that is reach'd by them to have wherewithal to eat Bread if they be executed according to the said Proclamation Nor I believe will such Complaining be heard in our Streets from any of the Non-Conformist Divines as I have read in Print from one Learned Divine of them viz. some of the ejected Ministers are so reduced and find so little succour that they live upon brown Bread and Water some have died through the effects of want we will be thankful to be under no severer usage than Colliers and Barge-men and Sea-men than begging Rogues and Vagabonds have But as among the Augurs of old the Poultreys not eating their Meat or Bread served as an indication that the Roman Army was not then to fight so I hope that the same thing was meant by the sullenness of Mr. Colemans Augury and the others Complaint and that both Papists and Protestants will here eat the Bread of Quietness with Thanksgiving And considering the great number of Attorneys and Sollicitors and Dealers towards the Law that hath long over-spread the Land and planted in the same such a general proneness to litigation and over-ran it so with Briars and Thorns of the Law that our Country is not more famous for our Wooll than infamous for our so much fleecing one another and considering how another thing hath occasionally put so many men to be skilful Masters of the Science of Defence with the Weapons of the Law I mean the farming of so much of the publick Revenue I may well predict that if such a wild probability should happen as any Princes hereafter endeavouring by any illegal Course to advance Popery that tho good and loyal people would be Lachrymists to him they would be soon apt to make all ministerially concerned therein to be Lachrymists to them Altho England had a King namely Harry the 1 st of whom 't is recorded that reforming the old and untrue measures he made a measure after the length of his Arm yet as we have one who hath graciously measured the Arm of his Power by the Laws so I may safely adventure to foretel what his lawful Successors will do and it is to this purpose in some of the most subtle seditious Pamphlets notified in Print by the ill wishers to the next Heir to the Crown viz. that they fear more mischief from him as Chief Favourite and Minister to his Prince than they would from him if ever he should live to wear a Crown for then say they we shall know how to be provided against him by the Course of the Law. Nor is it to be doubted but that he who never was known to advise his Prince to incommode any one contrary to the Law will never employ his own power to the illegal detriment of any man. During this time that his Prince hath so justly placed so much of the Royal Favour on him may he not as to his administration thereof say with the same Justice as the great Prophet Whose Ox or Ass have I taken May it not be asked whom of the mad sort of Cattle that with an infinity of Calumnies and Shams gored his reputation or wild Asses that kick'd at the same did he hurt with power or yet take the fair advantage of the Law against till his many loyal friends who were secret true Lachrymists for the publick false misreports spread against him did importune him so for the Kingdoms good to defend his honour and that they might no more be punished by seeing the limbs of his reputation lie torn and mangled in every Coffee-house who had so often exposed those of his Body to Bullets and Chain-shot in Sea Fights for the saving the life and honour of their Country Those therefore that could in earnest write to the effect abovemention'd in such seditious Pamphlets let them talk or look as gravely as they will I shall yet think but in jest while at other times they are amusing any with questions about their being Lachrymists under such a Prince and they put me in mind of a famous Musician we had in the Court in King Iames's time Dr. Iohn Dowland who printed a Book of Songs and Pavans for the Lute with the Title of Lachrymae and Dedicated it to Queen Anne and in the Table of the Book several of them are thus remarked viz. Lachrymae antiquae Lachrymae gementes Lachrymae verae and he observes there in the Epistle what is obvious enough that Tears are not always shed in sorrow but sometimes in joy and gladness But there is another thing of more weight that occurs to my thoughts from the remembring that Mr. Henry Peacham in his Book called the Compleat Gentleman doth on the name of this Lutinest Iohannes Dowlandus bestow the Anagram annos ludendo hausi and that is that many in several Parliaments who thought they could do no right to Protestancy but by doing wrong to the next Heir did too much and too long play with the Royal Offers and when they might if they pleased have effected as quick a prevention of the growth of Popery under any Roman Catholiek Successor as was took care of in Scotland Yet however I have said enough for my continuing to think that as in that Kingdom there are are few or none that fear that the belief of Popery can ever there gain much ground and ever be the Paramount Religion there and who think not that the words of arise Peter kill and eat will sooner bring the Scots to eat Hogs Flesh and believe there is a Divine Right for their so doing St. Peters Sheet from Heaven in the Vision having had that Animal in it than to swallow the belief of Popery or of the Iure-Divinity of the Pope so the fears of its growth in England or of any occasion for the Virtue of the Lachrymae antiquae of the Primitive Christians will daily grow more and more moderate and in time be extinguished The late Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews estimated the number of Papists and their Children in Scotland to be but about a thousand but their number in the States of the Vnited Provinces is vastly more insomuch that the ingenious Author of the Policy of the Clergy of France to destroy the Protestants of that Kingdom mentions that there are in Holland a Country of small extent ten times more Popish Ecclesiasticks than there are Protestant Mâ—nisters in all France which is very large There is a compleat Clergy and Hierarchy Amsterdam and all the other great Cities have their Bishops Those Bishops have their Chapter and their Priests There are even religious houses They
Vsurper in his wrong Doing and Vsurpation and so become a partaker of his Sin. Obedience to one as the Supreme Magistrate is a Comprehensive thing and includes many duties toward him as a Power viz. of receiving Commission from him for Offices or Acts otherwise not competible to me maintaining and defending him in his Power by Pay Counsel and Intelligence Arms and Prayers all which I am bound to yield the Usurper to my power if I resign my Allegiance up to him and how shall I do these things and not 1. Support and have Communion with him in his wickedness 2. Combine against betray and resist the right of the injured dethroned Magistrate 3. And make my self uncapable of Obedience or being a Subject to the lawful Power hereafter The Author doth in p. 19 and many other places in this Book assert the forementioned Clauses in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy as binding clearly plainly and in terminis to an Allegiance over-living his Majesties Person and pitched upon his HEIRS and SUCCESSORS so that the Swearer is not free from the Oaths at his Majesties decease c. and that those Oaths intend by his Majesty's HEIRS and SUCCESSORS the same Persons joyning them together with the Copulative AND and not using the Discretive OR and the former Oath twice comprising both in the following Clauses under the said Term or Pronown viz. THEM THEIRS so that according to these Oaths his HEIRS are of right his SUCCESSORS and none can be HIS SUCCESSOR but HIS HEIR while he hath an HEIR and that if any Conspiracy or ATTEMPT be made to prevent his HEIR from being and continuing his SVCCESSOR or to make any one HIS SVCCESSOR that is not HIS HEIR if he hath one the subject is sworn by this Oath to continue his Allegiance to HIS HEIR as the right SVCCESSOR and to DEFEND HIM in that HIS right to the uttermost and that the Term LAWFUL annext to SVCCESSORS in the Oath of Supremacy manifestly excludes all CAVIL of a distinction between HEIRS and SVCCESSORS the word LAWFVL whether you interpret it of LEGITIMATION of BIRTH or PROXIMITY of SVCCESSION in regard of LINE according to the Law of the Land entailing the Crown on his Majesty's Issue or rather both the latter including the former restraining SVCCESSORS from meaning any other than HIS HEIRS and that both these Oaths bind the Swearer to assist and defend to his uttermost Power against all Attempts the Course of SVCCESSION in the Race of his Majesty expressed by many-Terms to wit THEIR Crown and Dignity all Iurisdictions Privileges Preheminences and Authorities granted to the King's Highness HIS HEIRS and SVCCESSOR and united to the Imperial CROWN of this Realm How then can he yield Obedience to them that are not HIS HEIRS nor LAWFUL SVCCESSORS c. how can he not oppose and withstand them in the assistance and defence of the right of his Majesty's HEIRS and LAWFVL SVCCESSORS That judicious Author did like a substantial Confessor of the Obligatoriness of those Oaths relating to the King's HEIRS and SUCCESSORS during that Vsurpation very satisfactorily shew that the SAME Persons were meant by both and held himself obliged in Loyalty the rather so to do because in that Conjuncture the plain Sence of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy were usurp'd upon and particularly by the Book called THE LAWFULNESS OF OBEYING THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT then published and the Fallacies in which he Learnedly Confuted and shewed how ridiculously that Book outraged the sense of the Law-givers in those Oaths whose end was to support the Crown in a just Lineal Succession and could therefore intend by Successors only such as were de jure so and that therefore that Book 's taking Successors for such who were so de facto tho very unjustly was 1. Inconsistent with the nature of an Oath which must be taken in Righteousness Jer. 4. 2. That is to oblige only to that which is just 2. With the word HEIRS which being placed first in the Oath must first be served 3. With the Oath of Supremacy which binds us to the lawful Successor 4. With the Law of the Land which appointeth Succession to the Heir 5. With a possibility of keeping the Oath for if Heirs and Successors mean divers Persons how can the Oath of Allegiance and defence of the Regal Dignity be observed Thus it seems as the Fantome of haeres viventis hath frighted many out of their Natural Senses and the Natural sense of their Oaths in the present Conjuncture the word SUCCESSORS did formerly and when they who interpreted it of actual Succeders as saith my Author that it might favour the USURPERS forgot what was the Object of that Succession viz. a CROWN and Regal Dignity wherein by virtue of that Oath those Successors are to be defended whereas those or the Republicans for whom the Book pleads have not only put by the rightful Successor but abolished the CROWN and Regal Dignity it self May this instance of Heavens uncrowning the understandings of those Republicans of common reason and sense and when in the Course of their injudicious minds they were abandoned to the most despicable sort of Counterfeit Witt called Quibbling and to the vilest sort of Quibbling and double entendre of words I mean in that which concerns the tremendous Obligation of an Oath after they had Dethroned their Prince and excluded his Heirs and Successors serve in all Future times as a Monument of the Divine Dereliction and of Heavens scattering the Proud in their reasons and imaginations of their hearts and rendring them unfortunate beyond the fate of the common saying of Eventus stultorum magister I mean by condemning them to a stated infatuation and let none hereafter value any Vsurpation on the Credit of the last as Mr. Ienkins in his famous Petition to the Vsurpers did and set Gods Seal to it on the account of the Event when the Event was what I have now mentioned Any one who will cast an Eye on the Title de verborum significatione in the Civil Law will there find the word Heir to be necessarily made Comprehensive of SUCCESSORS viz. Haeredis significatione omnes signifiâ—â—ri SUCCESSORES â—redendum est etsi verbis non sint expressi and Succession is under that Title of the Law made a part of the definition of inheritance viz. Nihil est aliud haereditas quam successio in universum jus quod defunctus habuit And the identity of the thing in the words of Heirs and Successors doth quadrare with that saying so frequent among the Civil Law Writers that Plura quando copulantur ad unum effectum loco unius habentur and with another that the word sometimes stat declarative inter duo idem importantia I should account it somewhat like Pedantry to cite any Latine Authors about Heirs and Successors signifying as here in our Case the same thing but that other Seditious Books beside that impugned by the Exercitation have endeavoured to sow
Contention between the words Heirs and Successors tho with as little sense as was in Sir W. I's fancy of Treason whereby he would have set the Assertory and the Promissory Clauses in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy at variance nay the Promissory Clause at variance with it self There was a Book writ by a late Lawyer called Historical Discourses of the Vniformity of the Government of England first printed in the Year 1647 and reprinted by some Factious Anti-Papists since the Epoche of our Fears and Iealousies of Popery and with that former year in the Title which was an ill ominous sign of the fatal time such Persons would have driven us back upon if they could where in p. 279 of the 2d part ill reflections are made on the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy which Oaths saith the Author do make much Parly concerning Inheritance and Heirs but that they do not hold forth any such Obligation to Heirs otherwise than as supposing them to be Successors and in that Relation only His design is too plainly express'd viz. to strike at the Rights of our Hereditary Monarchy and to invite Parliaments to interlope in controuling the Succession of the Crown and he saith That the Doctrine he there insinuates doth not go down well with those that do pretend to Prerogative aided by the Act of Recognition made to King James and the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and I shall say that I hope it never will and 't is pity but a Book that in so many places of it impeacheth the old known Rights of the Crown should in this Conjuncture of Loyalty find some Person at leisure ex professo to make Animadversions on it and the rather for that the Author doth in the Vehicle of somewhat like Witt and his affectation of which is by People of middling Capacities who generally make the greater part of Mankind judged to be Witt dispense his Poysons Yet as to the signification of HEIRS and SUCCESSORS he had before in his first part saved any one the labour of shewing their Identity for there in p. 109 and in his Chapter of the Laws of Property of Lands and Goods under the Saxons he quoted Tacitus about some of the Customs of the Germans which he judged remain'd here with them and which shewed that HEIRS and SUCCESSORS passed then as current Coyn for the same thing according to the words of Tacitus HAEREDES SVCCESSORES cuique liberi nullum est testamentum and thus Englished by that Author viz. the HEIRS and SVCCESSORS to every one are his Children and there is no Testamentary Power to DISHERIT or ALTER the COVRSE of DESCENT which by CVSTOM or Law is setled And as was shewed the Term of LAWFVL annexed to SUCCESSORS hath nailed the Canon of that Sophism and exposed the ridiculousness of any Cavilling or Calumnious Interpretation about Heirs and Successors tho yet without the interposal of the word LAWFVL the plain sense of the words Heirs and Successors in the Oaths would clearly enough have obliged us to the same Persons We say that id possumus quod jure possumus and none are to be construed Heirs or Successors but such who are so in the Eye of the Law and with reference to Proximity of Blood i. e. they who are meant for such by the Law in the Due Course of their Descent But I hope that England's happy Future State will so far influence Loyalty as to incline all Conscientious Protestants to leave of all senseless Cavilling about the sense of the plain words in those Oaths and to agree to employ their most serious and constant thoughts about the extent of the Moral Offices that relate to their bearing True Faith and Allegiance to the King his Heirs and Successors and other very important matters in the Promissory Clauses most clearly expressed in order to the discharge of their Allegiance and the duties of Loyalty viz. DEFENDING him and them to the uttermost of our Power against all Conspiracies that shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity as the Oath of Allegiance runs and to our ASSISTING and DEFENDING to our Power all Iurisdictions Privileges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and Successors There are no unweigh'd and idle words in the Promissory Clauses and we are to make it our business with the judgment of discretion to consider the sense of the same and to retain it in our Memories and mens not doing which hath been the Cause of the Ebb of Loyalty in some Conjunctures According to the Degrees of mens intellectual Talents and particularly the Talent of understanding beyond other men the Laws natural and positive and the Lex terrae some are beyond others morally bound to defend the particular momentous points relating to all Iurisdictions Privileges Preheminences granted or belonging to the King and his Heirs and Successors and therefore a disloyal Divine and a disloyal Lawyer are things that do particularly hear very ill But as there is a great part of the Moral Offices expressed in these Oaths sufficiently plain and obvious to vulgar Capacities and which with their Native Light do strike common understandings so the extent of these Offices ought to employ the Meditations of all the Takers of these Oaths and how low soever their Talents lie they are to use all the means they can and particularly that of the Consilium peritorum as any occasion shall offer it self for their defence of any of the Privileges or Preheminences belonging to the Crown Our duty in this kind is very well expressed by Sanderson in his third Lecture where speaking of the Subjects Obligations by Oaths of this Nature he saith Doubtless the Subject to his Power is obliged to defend all Rights which appear either by Law or Custom Legitimate whether defined by the written Law or in force through the long use of time or Prescription that is so far as they are known or may Morally be known But he is not equally obliged to the Observation of all those which are controverted Thus therefore as to any Iurisdiction Privilege or Preheminence of the Crown that might seem doubtful the swearer is many times bound to the use of means that it may be Morally known to him as Sanderson's words are Yet what I have urged in this sixth Conclusion as Obligatory to us by virtue of the Oaths is sufficiently plain and there is no occasion for employing a great Genius and penetrating Understanding and Witt to discover that it is one of the Privileges of the Crown to be Hereditary and that the Taker of the Oaths is indissolubly bound to defend that Right There are several explicatory Notions of the word DEFEND and its extent that often occur in the Authors that treat expressly of the Ius Protectitium seu defensorium among whom I account Magerus de Advocatiâ armatâ or of the Right of Protection given by Sovereign Powers to be instar
that Parents and Children were made for one another and to defend one another and to this purpose the Psalmists words are Lo Children are an Heritage of the Lord and the Fruit of the Womb is his Reward as Arrows are in the hand of a mighty man so are Children of the Youth happy is the man that hath his Quiver full of them they shall not be ashamed but they shall speak with the Enemies in the Gate But in my further enquiry into the Obligation relating to his Majesty's Heirs and Successors that results from those Oaths my 7th Conclusion shall be that the Takers of these Oaths are bound thereby against attempting or endeavouring by any new Law or Constitution to interrupt the Succession of the Crown in its Due and Legal Course of Descent I do account that the foregoing Conclusion hath cut the Grass under the Feet of any who have taken those Oaths and yet would have thus interrupted the Succession and makes such interruption of its Course not only unlawful but to be a nugatory ridiculous and unaccountable thing For since by the known Rights of the Crown the next Heir to the Crown is in the next Minute after my King's decease actually King and I am necessarily and indispensably bound to pay actual Obedience or Allegiance to him then and have already sworn that I will then expose my lise in his defence and the defence of his Crown and Dignity it is manifest folly in me to attempt the interrupting the Succession by excluding the Right Heir whom I have thus indispensably bound my self to defend and to obey and who perhaps by the Course of Mortality and Kings who are nominal Gods coming to die like men may within a few Minutes after my having taken the Oaths be entituled to my born and sworn Allegiance Dolo facit qui petit id quod mox redditurus est But a sorry and pitiful trick it is and as remote from the subtility of the Serpent as the innocence of the Dove that any Swearer would put on himself who attempted to injure any Prince by going to exclude him from the Allegiance that he is to pay him perhaps the next Moment We are well minded by Sanderson in his second Lecture That simplicity becomes an Oath and that the Swearer is to endeavour to perform what he hath promised without fraud deceit double dealing or simulation and he elsewhere questioning whether the words by my faith are an Oath saith That tho by the Custom of some Countries or the intention of him who speaks they may be an Oath yet necessarily by virtue of those words an Oath ariseth not but only an asseveration or an â—btestation and he had before mentioned how Soto did judge the words by my faith to be an Oath but the words in faith to be none But others have judged that when on the word fides the which is justitiae fundamentum the word CHRISTIAN is built as an Addition the compleat Fabrick of an Oath is thereby raised and with the weight of those great words before referred to the Oath of Allegiance concludes viz. And I do make this Recognition and Acknowledgment heartily willingly and truly upon the true FAITH of a CHRISTIAN So help me God which sheweth that those words did not casually nor indeed without profound deliberation there come in When the true faith or the bona fides of a Roman did so much scorn to put a trick upon a Law doth not the true faith of a Christian more abhor to put one upon an Oath I have in my second Conclusion asserted it in general that the Taker of all Promissory Oaths is bound to endeavour for the Future as much as in him lieth by his Deeds to fullfil what he hath sworn in words and here applying the same particularly to the King's Heirs and Successors I will ask if it be congruous to bona fides i. e. Common honesty if I am bound by Law to pay a Debt and have promised and sworn to pay it for me to endeavour by any new Law to evade its payment I have heard of a Will made void by Act of Parliament but after the Executor had sworn to execute it well and truely and to pay the Debts and Legacies of the deceased as far as the Estate extended could he bonâ fide and with a Salvo to Conscience endeavour to quash it by the Legislative Power Nihil ita fidei congruit humanae quà m ea quae placuerant custodii i. e. Nothing is so sutable to common honesty as that those things that have been once assented to should be observed is a known saying in the Civil Law and so is that of Vlpian in the Digest Bonae fidei non congruit de apicibus juris disputare and it being a Rule of Law there that Cum quid unâ viâ prohibetur alicui ad illud aliâ viâ non debet admitti i. e. that which cannot be done one way or directly must not be done indirectly or by another and it being construed that whoever acted contrary to this did fraudem facere legi do I to the uttermost of my Power and on the true faith of a Christian defend his Majesty his HEIRS and SVCCESSORS against all Attempts which shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity and assist and defend all Iurisdictions Privileges c. belonging to the King's Highness his HEIRS and SVCCESSORS if afterward to the uttermost of my Power I endeavour to dis-inherit the lawful Heir and to exclude him from the benefit of his inherent Birth-right by an extraordinary means Is not the attempt or endeavour to effect this to be accounted fraud according to that Rule of Law viz. Fraudis interpretatio semper in jure Civili non ex eventu duntaxat sed ex consilio quoque desideratur and which follows after the Rule viz. Generaliter cum de fraude disputatur non quid habeat Actor sed quid per adversarium habere non potuerit considerandum est 'T is a true old saying that fallacia pactorum dolum semper habet adjunctum and omnis calliditas fallacia machinatio ad circumveniendum fallendum decipiendumve alterum adhibita are made to integrate the definition of dolus malus by Labeo in the Digest And is it not a known Rule among all the Writers of Defence that Defensio bonâ fide praestari debet and that Promittens aliquid facere quod contrarium illius non sitâ—facturus promittere censetur and that defensionem promittens non tam laesionem illatam avertere quam inferendam praecavere debet And can I without outraging the true faith of a Christian and the Christian simplicity and sincerity and singleness of heart and the Apostles Precept that no man go beyond and defraud his Brother project any Law to exclude those from their Birth-right whom I have promised in express words to defend When the Morality of Cicero extended to the inclucating it in one of
same purpose That internal Communion is due always from all Christians to all Christians even to those with whom we cannot communicate externally in many things whether Opinions or Practices But external Communion may sometimes be suspended more or less c. and he doth afterward in p. 18 assert That Christian Communion implies not an Vnity in all Opinions and shews That the Roman and African Churches held good Communion one with another while they differ'd both in Iudgment and Practice about Rebaptisation As for any projected Universal Vnity of Opinions I look on it to be as impracticable as our levelling Republicans EQVAL Division of Lands in the late times by their wild Agrarian Laws for the Birth of the next Child would necessarily break that their Model and the same fate might be expected to happen the same way to this Model of Vnity of Opinions or perhaps by the birth of the next hour But this Internal Communion is a thing most possible and our Duty tho without hope of Unity in all Religionary Opinions to ensue thereby according to the Doctrine of this Great Primate If then we are Morally bound to have this Internal Communion with all Foreign Roman Catholick Princes and their Subjects as before described how can we without horror think of the excluding any Heir to the Crown for fear of his believing the same Religionary Notions that they do from the Catholick Communion and of excluding him from his Birth-right on such an account whom we must always have this Internal Communion with and rejoyce in his good successes and condole with him in his ill and to hold an external Communion with him and any Church he is of in votis in our desires and to endeavour it by all means that are in our Power Did any endeavour it who would by depriving him of his Birth-right on that account and holding the same Tenet with Papists of Dominium fundatur in gratiâ gave him such a just Cause of Scandal as without the Divine Spirit assisting him might endanger his withdrawing from the whole Christian Communion And tho the honest Heathen could tell us That Cavendum est ne poena major sit quam culpa and all Casuists agree That Poena non debet excedere delictum and tho Magna Charta tell us That Ex quantitate poenae cognoscitur quantitas delicti quia poena debet esse commensurabilis delicto yet attempted to punish him by the loss of his Birth-right of the Crown when it could not be certain to us that he had committed any fault at all and when by the judgment of Charity we were bound to believe that he had committed none To many of our Nominal Protestants whose thoughts and Ideas of Christian Communion are too narrow to extend not only to a National Church but to a Parochial one this Notion of the incomparable Primate for whose august Charity one Christian World of Religionary differences was not enough to overcome about internal Communion will I believe seem new Doctrine and Duras Sermo but if they would be true Christians instead of being called true Protestants this Duty of Internal Communion from all Christians to all Christians must be practised by them and if this Duty hath a Divine Right for it as to the Persons of Papists abroad it must be operative as to those here at home He who loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen I may ask how can he love either his God or his Brother that he hath not seen The sham-war among any Protestants and Papists must not only be lest off but they must honour the Persons of one another and Protestants are not only to forbear robbing Papists of their Goods on pretence of carrying away their Images and Pictures but are to honour the Image of God shining in the lives of or the Gifts of God dispensed to any Papists Mr. Burroughs in his Irenicum p. 38. saith We accounted it Tyranny and Persecution in the Bishops when they would not suffer such as could not conform to their Church Discipline and Ceremonies to teach Grammar or practise Physick and saith That there was no dependance between their Errors if you will call them so and these things To deny the Church and Commonwealth the benefit of the Gifts and Graces of Men on such a pretence that they will abuse their Liberty we thought it was hard dealing yea no less than a Persecution Suppose a man differs from his Brethren in point of Church Discipline must not this man have a place in an Army therefore Tho he sees not the reason of such a Discipline in the Church yet God hath endued him with a Spirit of Valour and he understands what Military Discipline means c. Ought not then Persons of his Principles to revere the Heroical Endowments of an Heir to the Crown which do much preponderate as to the continuance of the being and well-being of the Kingdom to supposed Orthodoxy in some Mysteries of the Gospel as was shewn out of Mr. Ny King Iames had great Talents in Polemical Divinity to prove by words that the Pope was Anti-Christ but will not these latter Endowments necessarily prevent the Pope's being Anti-Christ in Deeds if he were inclined to hurt us by shewing himself such Ames in his Puritanismus Anglicanus giveth this as the chief Reason why the Puritans hold the Bishop of Rome to be THE Anti-Christ viz. For that he being an Ecclesiastical Ruler doth arrogate and exercise the chief Power over Kings and Princes And doth any one fear that he can exercise such Power over a Prince of these Endowments And I may add have not many Factious and Republican Nominal Protestants here compleated that Figure of Anti-Christ How many Vertues must any indifferent man overlook in this Pope who thinks he would outrage our Civil Government and how many Vices must he wink at in such Persons who thinks they would not do it And by Virtue of our blessed Lords having decided it that he was the better Son who said he would not do the Will of his Father and did it may it not be said That those Papists who say they will not take these Oaths and yet perform their Natural Allegiance are more loyal than such Nominal Protestants who have took the Oaths and observe them not As much an Abhorrer as I am of the Principles of the Iesuites Condemned by this Pope I shall yet think my self bound by the Moral Offices beforementioned out of Ames not to charge the belief or practice of them on all Persons in that Order For when I consider the Devotional Books of some Iesuites writ with such strong and lively expressions of the Practick part of Religion as any Person of Candor will think to be founded on a real deep sense of all Moral Offices lying warm at their hearts I account it impossible for them to have believed some of those Tenets and as I once observing at the Anatomy of a poor Malefactor that his Stomach
appeared not able to contain above the Quantity of a Quart would easily have thence inferred had I heard him accused of being wont in his life-time to debauch by ingurgitating vast quantities of Liquor that there could be no such thing so shall I think it not possible that this sober Party of the Iesuites who are really devout can swallow such Irreligionary Principles as too many others of them have done We know that not many eminent Popish Writers but particularly Azorius the Iesuite hath writ against the Iesuites Doctrine of Equivocation and Mental Reservation and Crackanthorp and Ames and other Protestant Writers in their Writings impeaching that Doctrine of the Iesuites have quoted Azorius as on their side in that point I doubt not but many Pious Persons of that Order are glad of this Pope's having damned such Tenets which they never did or could believe and I will now upon the Popes having condemned them judge no particular Papist to believe them till I find cause so to do And notwithstanding the hard usage our Learned Lord Bishop of Lincoln's Book had from the Author of The Compendium saying That the Title of the Book confuted the whole because it mentioned the Principles approved by the Church of Rome pernicious when really believed and practised I shall still think the Pleonasm or exuberance of the Charity in so qualifying the danger of the Tenets he confutes to be worthy a Prelate of the Church of England and do think the like of the Charity of the Bishop of Winchester expressed in his printed Sermon of the 5th of November where having spoke of the Doctrines of Dissenters tending to Sedition and Rebellion that seem to be derived from the Church of Rome he saith if those Doctrines are believed and practised they must necessarily produce Confusion among us and do think that if the Papists could gain the point namely to be looked on by Protestants as not to believe several parts of the Tenets of Popery that are Irreligionary and particularly that about the Exterminium of Hereticks enjoyned by the Lateran Council to be not believed by them it would be a point very well gain'd and any one who could gain it for them would be a more useful friend to them than ever Bellarmin was To give a man the Lye is the greatest dishonour and therefore when any Papist shall tell me that he believes not the Lateran Council as obliging or other Tenets chargeable on the Papacy I shall not tell him that he doth but shall pass my judgment of Charity that he doth not believe the same and shall account him still a Roman Catholick tho perhaps erroneously denying that to be a General Council as I account Luther a Christian and Owner of the Authority of the Bible tho he erroneously denied the Divine Authority of the Epistle of St. Iames. The Learned Author of The Advocate of Conscience Liberty printed in the Year 1673. and said to be Mr. Brown a Franciscan in his 8th Chapter viz. Of Roman Catholicks being not guilty of Practices or Principles destructive to Government and reproaching the ENGLISH and Foreign Protestants with such Principles saith Was it from any of their Books meaning the Books of the Papists you have drawn those wild Maxims That the Authority of the 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 if a King fail in performing his Oath at Coronation the People are loosened 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 Wicliff Waldenses and other Sectaries And then mentioning Calvin for owning such Maxims saith That Calvin l. 4. c. 3. Instit. from his high Consistory giveth this Absolution to all Oaths of that Nature Quibuscunque Evangelâ—i hujus lux effulgeat ab omnibus laqueis juramentisque absolvitur But that Loyal Franciscan there happened to injure Calvin by a false quotation which I believe he had took up on the Credit of the Romanist Author of Monarcho-machia or Ierusalem and Babel who had cited the 4th Book of Calvin's Institutions for that purpose but very falsly for Calvin in all that Chapter hath not a word of such Oaths of Allegiance as Subjects take to their Sovereigns but treating only of Monastick Vows he saith Nunc postquam veritatis notitiâ sunt illuminati simul Christi gratiâ liberos esse dico c. i. e. from those Monkish unwarrantable Vows that they had made and out of Error and Ignorance held themselves obliged by But I doubt not if Parsons alià s Doleman and the Book of The Prelate and the Prince had been shewed to this Franciscan he would have answered to this effect viz. These men and many Roman Catholick Authors by them cited held those disloyal Trayterous Principles beforementioned but I fall will a Sacrifice rather than hold such I honour the spirit of Zeal against Disloyalty that runneth through his Book and in p. 204 205 206 207 208. he very learnedly endeavours to answer the objection about the Lateran Council and saith thereupon what the matter will bear and he and many other Roman Catholick Writers have disown'd the Authority of that Council as obligatory and therefore the judgment of Charity will incline any one to think that such Roman Catholicks would not disorder the World by it Moreover some Protestant Writers have judged that Council to be invalid and Dr. Donne who was very well studied in the Learning that relates to the Canon Law and General Councils doth particularly in his Pseudo-Martyr p. 377 378 379 380. take a great deal of pains to shew the invalidity of that Council and that it was never meant to oblige Sovereign Princes But the Author of The Prelate and the Prince doth in p. 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236. with much Learning statuminate the Authority of that Council and asserts it to have been a General one as the Cardinal Perron and the Bishop of Lincoln have done yet what I have mentioned of that Famous Cardinal 's not believing the Principle of the Church of Rome founded on that Council for Princes exterminating their Heretical Subjects as always Obligatory nor promoting the practice thereof in France where the Huguenots were then about a 7th part of the whole People hath justified the reasonableness of the Charity of our Bishops in qualifying the danger of some Papal Principles with the restriction of their being really believed and practised and the same Rule in my Notion of their danger shall always guide me that is to say when the Poyson of such Principles is really swallowed it must then be pernicious The poyson may lie in the Boxes of the Canon Law or a General Council and yet not poyson the minds of pious Catholicks nor foul their fingers I having found just cause so far to honour all the Roman Catholicks of my
Acquaintance as to judge them free from any Complication of the belief and practice of any irreligious Principles with the Principles of their Religion and particularly from the owning any Principle of Disloyalty or the Iesuites Doctrine of Calumny or the Obligatoriness of the Lateran Council will not rashly pronounce any other particular Papist guilty of the belief or practice of such Principles Nor is it any great honour that I have done to any men of extraordinary Vertue in thus judging that they cannot believe or practise such Principles for that it being true in the Course of Nature what Machiavel said that next to the being perfectly good 't is the most difficult thing to be perfectly bad the World hath had thereby some Garranty against the belief and practice of such Principles and by necessity of Nature must still have But since Mankind in general may expect to find in our esteem the benefit of the presumption of Law viz. That every man is presumed to be good and that the high Births and Educations of Princes and the great Examples of their Magnanimous Ancestors may well pass as strong presumptions of Nature against their doing any low ungenerous Acts of Cruelty and since in Gods great Ordinance of Magistracy an especial Divine presence may by Virtue of Holy Writ be presumed to accompany the very Magistrates appointed by Sovereign Prinâ—es according to that in 2 Chron. 19. 6. where after it was said to the Judges Take heed what you do for yee judge not for man but for the Lord the following words are Who is with you in the Iudgment and that therefore as Christ is said to be present with those Officers he appointed in the Church because there is a special Virtue and Efficacy of Christ manifest in their Ministry there may likewise be expected a special presence Divine in the Administration of Magistracy from the like manifestation of God in his Wisdom Power Goodness c. for the Well-fare of Societies as Mr. Ny observes and since Kings and Princes are an Oâ—dinance of God or Medium by which in a more special and peculiar way he communicates his Goodness to Christians according to the Style of the 13th of the Romans the great Sedes materâ—ae of Loyalty for he is the Minister of God to THEE for good it may well be thought profaneness and Sacrilege for men to bode and presume ill of the future Acting of any Heirs to Crowns and particularly as to their believing or practising any thing pernicious to their Realms What Roman Catholick Prince doth not deride Innocent the 3d under whom the Lateran Council was held for telling it in the Canon Law that the Papal Power is as much greater than the Imperial as the Sun is greater than the Moon and at the Marginal Note there for saying That the Papal Power exceeds the Imperial no less than 7744 There is a Prince whose Emblem is the Suâ— and whose Power exceeds the Papal in every ones account to more than that Proportion And is it not therefore but according to reason and common sense that we should believe that of all men in any Realm the Prince will be the latest brought to the belief of that Papal Power so categorically asserted by that Council That Kings may be Excommunicated by their own Bishops for not obeying the Pope and their Subjects in such Case be absolved from their Oaths of Allegiance Do not all the French Kings notwithstanding that Council claim the liberty of so much freedom from the Papal Power that Popes can neither directly nor indirectly command or ordain any thing concerning Temporal Matters within their Dominions and that neither the French King nor his Realm nor his Officers can be Excommunicated or interdicted by the Pope nor his Subjects absolved from their Oath of Allegiance As I have therefore in my Writing to a Noble Lord one of his Majesty's Ministers who was barbarously accused by one of the Plot-Witnesses for being a Papist and designing to advance the Papal Power said that I would be the last man in England who would believe he could be a Papist meaning it as impossible that he could believe or practise any irreligionary Tenet of Popery I will account it more impossible that any Roman Catholick Prince now living in the World should favour the Usurpation of the Papal Power however any of the Popish Clergy or Layety in his Realms might perhaps be addicted to favour the same That great Affair of the Munster Pâ—ace wherein so many great Roman Catholick Crown'd Heads agreeing perhaps in the Lateran Council being a General one did yet certainly agree together in the Year 1648 for Lutheran and Calvinistick Princes and States and their Subjects quietly possessing forever their Properties both in their Religions and Estates hath afforded the World an important Instance of Heavens so far influencing the understandings of those Crown'd Heads that they thought not themselves obliged to put the Decree of that Council in practice by exterminating Hereticks but to the contrary And because the Affair of that Peace and the great Pacta Conventa therein for the effect aforesaid have been scarce more taken Notice of here than the Transactions in China and that the notification of the same may advance the measures of our Duty by Internal Communion and help to un-blunder some of our Nominal Protestants in their fancying it so necessary for the quiet of Christendom that Christian Princes and their Subjects should agree in the belief of the Speculative points of Religion I intend to take an opportunity to publish some Account of the same I account my having thus largely dilated on the Moral Offices as aforesaid hath tended to corroborate this my 8th Conclusion I am here conversants in the great Court of Conscience the Court whose Seat is in the Practical and not Speculative intellect and the great things of which it holds Plea are as Sanderson tells us Actus morales particulares proprii and therefore particular urging of Records against which lies no averment is not more pertinent in Courts of Law than of Moral Offices in this And moreover I observing in this Conjuncture when many mens zeal hath been so hot against the Speculative points of Popery which disturb not Civil Society that yet they have believed the more pernicious Tenet of it and would have practised the same viz. The founding Dominion in Grace and that tho they have been altogether neglectâ—ul of their Actus morales particulares proprii they have both presumed to judge dishonourably and rashly of the Actings of others and to trouble the World not only with their Anxiety about the Acts of Kings and Princes but the Actus Dei and his illuminating Princes understandings with the Heavenly Mysteries I have thought this discoursing of our Moral Offices as aforesaid the more a Propos and seasonable as tending to fortify the rationality of this 8th Conclusion by exposing the absurdity of a respective or conditional Loyalty a
that I affirm therein we have obliged our selves to by our Oaths is so incomparably asserted in a long Speech of that Great Man of the Church of Rome Reginaldus Belnensis Arch-Bishop of Bourges in France I shall refer any one to it as printed in â—huanus The Speech was spoke in a Famous Assembly and on a great occasion for to make way for the quiet Reception of Harry the 4th of France while a Protestant into the Throne and it was framed with such profound thoughts of Loyalty and with such extraordinary Learning referring both to the old and new Testament and to Fathers and Church History and Civil and Canon Law and with such close and nervous argumentation to evince the Divine Right of Allegiance due to Princes and particularly without any respect had to their Religion that it may pass for one of the best Bullwarks of absolute Loyalty I know of next to the 13th of the Romans and other things contained in Holy Writ And because I think no serious Christian who reads â—t will ever find in his heart afterward to ridicule passive oâ—edience or make ridiculous Platforms of Conditional Loyalty I do intend to Translate and Publish it Moreover because there is in that Speech one Noble peculiar Character of the Moral Offices of Loyalty wherein it is pity that the proverbial English good nature should in any men come short of that of the French Civility and any Protestants Loyalty of a Roman-Catholicks I mean that Arch-Bishops honouring the Mind and Soul of his Prince who was not of the Communion of his Church and even then vindicating him from Heresy and saying That he ought not to be thought a Heretick and propping up his honourable thoughts of his Prince with a Quotation out of St. Austin viz. That he was not to be reckon'd among Hereticks who without pertinacy defended his opinion tho erroneous c I think the hanging up so great a Picture in publick view wherein that Man of God did with such exquisite draught design and colour thus paint his Princes Character and that of his own Loyalty to Eternity may be variously useful and the very sight of the great Colours in which cannot methinks but raise the little ones of Blushes in any Nominal Protestants who do with such foul and hard hands handle the Religionary Concernments of Kings who are Nominal Gods and make no difference between the danger of Heterodoxy in Subjects and in Princes I have mentioned it that there is less danger of any Princes believing or practising what may favour the Papal Usurpation than of such Belief or Practice in a Subject and it were an easie matter to instance in many erroneous Religionary Tenets which as held by Parties among Subjects may cause general apprehensions of danger but from which as held by a Prince it would be ridiculous to fear any ill or to imagine that the Prince can imbibe the dregs of those Tenets as they discriminate discontented Parties as for example how can any one fear that a Prince by believing that Personal Reign of Christ on Earth for a thousand years would hurt his own Government or that a Prince by â—eing a Socinian â—ould hold the Tenet of the unlawfulness of Defensiâ—e War or that a Prince who favoured the Order of the Iesuites would approve of their Teâ—ets of Calumny and Equivocation c. and several of their vile Casuistical Tenets or that any Magistracy would permit some of their Apologies and particularly that of Guymenius to be so much as published in the Laâ—guage of the Country But the truth is we are Morally bound to make a great difference in our Demeanor toward our Princes when supposed to erre in opinions about Religion from the Measures we are allowed to take in relation to our â—ellow Subjects so erring Error is a part of Humane frailty and Subjects are Morally bound to conceal the frailties of their Kings and not to censure or publish them to their dishonour and are to be more ready to Apolâ—gize for their Princes on all occasions than for their Parents Sâ— Peter in that Verse where the Duty of honouring all Men and loving the Brotherhood is mentioned subjoyns a particular Precept of honouring the King. We are never to think of the hearts of Kings but as being in the hâ—nds of God nor of any Mists of Errors that may be in their heads without thinking of the Rays of the Divine Power that like a Glory surrounds theirs and which in the usual Concourse of Providence do dissipate all danger from any Errors within them Tho in mens beliefs who are Subjects Religionary Errors are often complicated with Irreligionary ones yet we are to think of the Oyl of the Lords Annointed as uppermost and appearing above such latter Errors and suppressing the Fumes of them in the minds of Princes and are to fear no more harm from the Persons of our Princes than from our Guardian Angels differing from us in many great Religionary Speculations and are to think with honour of our King as an Angel of God to discern between good and bad Religion and Irreligion and it is an absurd thing for any not to imitate the Popish Arch-Bishop aforesaid in clearing his Prince tho of another Communion from Pertinacy since such a Moral defect is a humour of positiveness that of all men Kings are most naturally free from and whose becoming dissidence of their own understandings how great soever is Conspicuous by the wearing away so much of their lives in hearing the advise of their Council And when ever Passive Obedience is called for by Princes and must be readily payed as a due Debt we are even then to strain our most improved thoughts to find an honourable Interpretation of our Princes Actions in like manner as some of the Loyal Non-Conformists to the Gallican Church have done as appears by a Great Observation in their Book called the Policy of the Clergy of France a Book that Maimbourg in print hath acknowledged to be the best lately published by their Party viz. That their Princes never made any great Assault on the Papal Power but what cost their Protestant Subjects dear This This is Loyalty worthy the name of Christian and after all if yet any men will make wanton Suppositions of the beliefs or practices of Sovereigns being never so contrary to Religion let those know that an absolute and irrespective Loyalty is that which by these Oaths they have obliged themselves to and that therefore it is an absurd thing to attempt to exclude any Heir of the Crown from his Birth-right on any pretence of his Religion or other pretence whatsoever since we must pay an absolute Obedience and Allegiance to him immediately on the Descent of the Crown to him and accordingly as by these Oaths we have obliged our selves to do Having thus in these Conclusions asserted the Obligation relating to our Kings Heirs and Successors as resulting from the plain and genuine Sense of the
41 I shall answer him that its weight hath in this present Conjuncture of 81 afforded Loyalty so great a Compensation by that late Act of Parliament there acknowledging and asserting the Right of the Succession c. and which begins thus viz. The Estates of Parliament considering that the Kings of this Realm deriving their Royal Power from God Almighty alone do succeed lineally thereunto according to the known Degrees of Proximity in Blood c. that as Historians tell us how in the dark barbarous times many hundreds of years since men repaired from all Countries to Ireland to learn the Liberal Arts and Sciences I shall say that they may now profitably go to Scotland to learn Loyalty and I doubt not but that Kingdom which is so notorious for its mortal or immortal hatred of Popery call it which you will and even of that very part of it which I call the Religionary one of it having thus by the Exterminium of that irreligionary part of it viz. That Dominion is founded in Grace taught us Loyalty in the establishing the Hereditary Lineal Succession may be as instrumental in giving Loyalty in the Body of the People here its temperamentum ad pondus as it was formerly in oppressing us with its weight as a gravamen and be an occasion of blessing our Land with such a joyful Conjuncture of time as ensued after King Iames's Succession as I have before mentioned and to the Consideration of which I shall return England that had formerly by reason of the uncertainty of the Succession being like the Erratica Delos a floating Island and that too in Seas of Blood and did then appear like it afterward fixed and blessed with a Pacifick and Oracular King and as strong a Foundation for the Hereditary Monarchy as could be wished was shortly after in danger of being again unfixed by the Outrage of the Gun-Powder Treason and the Principles that legitimated that practice being really believed and practised and an account of the practice of which Treason we have in the Statute of 3 o Iacobi c. 2. as likewise of the fiery Principles that animated the Actors to it in Thuanus and in King Iames his Premonition to all Christian Monarchs p. 10. a general reference is made to the violent bloody Maxims that the Powder-Traytors maintained and by occasion whereof after the designed outrage against the Lineal Succession of the Prince and the Hereditary Monarchy being in danger while such bloody Principles and Maxims were not exterminated it was in ordinary prudence requisite to apply the extraordinary Remedy of the Oath of Allegiance to rivet that Fundamental Maxim of the Crown the stronger in Nature viz. That the King never dies And the Addition of those words in the Promissory Clause of the Oath of Allegiance viz. HIS or THEIR Persons THEIR Crown and Dignity and which words were not in the Oath of Supremacy was a plain indication of the intention of the Law-givers to tye Mens Souls to the Hereditary Monarchy in the Due and Legal Course of Descent And moreover with a prospect to mens having a conscientious regard to the King's Heirs and Successors the Fathers of our Church then probably in the Preface of the Collect in the Common-prayer for the Prince and the King's Children as overjoyed with the sight of King James 's being enriched with a most Royal Progeny as the words in the Act of the Recognition are did cause these words to be inserted Who art the Father of thine Elect and of their SEED The Preface to the Act requiring the Oath of Allegiance hath in it the expression of Loyalty and Allegiance unto the King's Majesty and the CROWN of England and mentions the design of the Gun-powder Treason as tending to the subversion of the whole State and therefore if in the ancient times of Popery and when the Pope was generally revered here as a 13th Apostle upon any emergent Papal Usurpations which gave just cause of apprehending future ones intended and particularly in the Case of the Pope's Mandates or Bulls which were called Gratiae expectativae or provisiones and pretendedly issued out of the Pope's pious care to see a Church provided of a Successor before it needed our Kings did think themselves obliged to provide Statutes against Provisors whereby the Ius patronatus was secured to them and their Subjects and by Statutes of Praemunire did as it were build Forts before the Enemies coming the Premuniment of the Hereditary Monarchy by the Oath of Allegiance was most necessary to prevent any Papal Gratiae expectativae of the Crown and the Popes impious care to provide a Successor to its Hereditary Rights The Premuniment of some Laws by others is no new thing nor yet a new word however some idle Criticks have accounted the word praemunire in our Statutes to be barbarous for Grotius in his De jure belli c. l. 2. c. 5. § 14. speaking of some Laws of the Iews saith In quarum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut Hebraei loqâ—untur praemunimentum additae sunt leges caeterae and according to the sense of some taking praemunire for praemonere the constant premonition of Heavens great Monitor called Conscience and which is the pulse of the Soul and like the Pulse is Fidelis nuncius vitae aut mortis to warn men by this Oath to defend the Lineal Succession of the Crown was no less necessary and King Iames's setling the Premonition in the minds of his own Subjects was but naturally previous to his Premonition sent abroad to Foreign Princes and States And how far Harry the 7th's Statute by which no Person who should serve the King for the time being c. should therefore be attainted or impeached might induce the Government to secure the undoubted Rights of Succession by the Oath of Allegiance being framed as it was and rooting our Loyalty thereby the deeper into our Consciences and by the fear of our being justly impeached in the Court of Conscience in omnem eventum if we defended not those Rights of Succession is obvious to Consideration As I have thus in this Conclusion shewed that it was the Law-givers intention particularly in the Oath of Allegiance to oblige us to pay our Allegiance not only to the King but to his Heirs and Successors in the Legal Course of Descent so I might here further Ex superabundanti dilate on such intention being to secure the same without any respect to the Religion of such Heirs and Successors A Prince of such profound Learning and Observation as King Iames could not be ignorant of what hath been since by the Loyal Writers of the Succession so clearly and strongly asserted viz. That the Succession to the Crown is inseparably annext to the Proximity of Blood by the Laws of GOD and NATVRE and That Statute-Laws contrariant to those are null and void and That the Hereditary Monarchy was indisputably founded on inherent Birth-right according to the Style of the Act of Recognition
to belong to the Pope's Authority and their own School Doctors are at irreconcileable odds and jarrs about them He had then his Eye on the Lateran Council as appears by the other words there in the Margent viz. Touching the PRETENDED Council of LATERAN See Plat. in vitâ Innocen 3. and by which Council the King knew that all except two or three of those Conclusions were concluded and defined If therefore many of the poor petty School-Doctors were so searless of the Papal Thunder as in Cases when they were perhaps unconcerned to impeach the Papal Usurpation there was no cause of apprehension in that our wise Monarch that any of his High-born Heirs and Successors would ever favour the Usurpations of that Authority When Queen Elizabeth was so firmly satisfied concerning the Loyalty of the Roman Catholick Lords Temporal and of their great Quota in the balance of the Kingdom securing their abhorrence of all Papal Usurpations as not to impose the Oath of Supremacy on them tho yet She took care to have it imposed on the Popish Bishops can we imagine that the great Interest of an Heir of the Crown in the Hereditary Monarchy did not give a Plerophoâ—y of satisfaction to that Great Monarch that such an Heir would never permit any Usurpation to prejudice his Crown Imperial Moreover if in the Case of the device of an Inheritance by Will on the Condition of the Legatees not holding this or that Philosophical or Religionary Tenet the absurdity of such Condition would not frustrate the device but would be taken as Pro non adjectâ and that thus in that known Case in the Digest viz. Of an Heir made on an absurd Condition namely On Condition he should throw the Testators ashes into the Sea the Heir was rather to be commended than any way questioned who forbore to do so how can we think in the Inheritance of the Crown which is from God and by inherent Birth-right any such supposed absurd Condition of a Prince's not believing this or that Speculative Religionary Tenet and for his professing of which he hath a dear bought Liberty by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the New Testament of Iesus Christ should be intended to operate to his prejudice But that I may in a word perimere litem about that Kings never intending the least prejudice to the Succession by any of his Successors being Roman Catholicks I shall observe that that Kâ—ng who was so great and skillful an Agonist for the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England did yet in the Articles of the proposed Match with Spain and afterwards with that of France agree that the Children of such Marriage should no way be compelled or constrained in point of Conscience or Religion and that their Title to the Crown should not be prejudiced in Case it should please God they should prove Roman Catholicks and that the Laws against Catholicks should not in the least touch them And that the sense of the Government then was likewise to that effect avowedly declared is manifest from the Passages of those times and the needless quarrel therefore that our late Excluders would have exposed us to with France was a thing worthy their considering But enough of this Conclusion if not too much for where the Tide of the Words of any Oath runs strong and clear we need not to regard the Wind of any Law-givers intention however yet I have made it appear for the redundant satisfaction of the scrupulous that while they have embarqued their Consciences in thâ—se Oaths they have had such Wind and Tide both together on their side and that therefore any Storms which the Takers of these Oaths relating to the Lineal Succession of the Crown may have raised either in their Consciences or the State must be supposed to be very unnatural Having thus in the foregoing Conclusions asserted and proved the Obligation relating to the Kings Heirs and Successors as resulting from the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy I shall briefly answer such objections thereunto or rather Scruples for they deserve not the name of Objections as some noisy Nominal Protestants have troubled themselves and others with and so end this Casuistical Discussion The first Objection or Scruple then I shall take notice of that some have raised against the Obligation of these Oaths as above asserted is that they were made in relation to Papists only and were enjoyned to be taken for the discovery of those that were suspected to be so As to which it will be sufficient to say that it is most plain that all Persons who have taken these or any other lawful Oaths are bound by Deeds to fullfil what they have sworn in Words and it is an absurd thing to doubt whether the Law intended that those Persons should observe the Oaths whom it hath enjoyned to take them And to this purpose we are well taught by Bishop Sanderson in his 6th Lecture of Oaths That tho Papal Vsurpation was the cause of the Oath of Supremacy the arrogating to himself the exercise of Supreme Iurisdiction in spiritualibus throughout this Kingdom yet the Oath is Obligatory according to the express words in the utmost Latitude the reà son is that the intention of a Law is general to provide against all Future inconveniences of the like kind or nature c. I refer the Reader to him there at large By the Measures of that Bishop as to the Oath of Supremacy we likewise may direct our selves in the Oath of Allegiance being Obligatory according to the express words in the utmost Latitude tho that Oath was made by occasion of the Gun-powder Treason And as to the intent of the Oath of Supremacy King Iames tells us in his Apology for the Oath of Allegiance p. 108. That it was to prop up the Power of Christian Kings as Custodes utrâ—usque tabâ—ae by commanding Obedience to be given to the word of God and by reforming Religion according to his prescribed Will by assisting the spiritual Power with the Temporal Sword c. by procuring due Obedience to the Church by judging and cutting off all frivolous Questions and Schisms as Constantine did and finally by making Decorum to be observed in every thing and Estaâ—lishing Orders to be observed in all indifferent things c. whereby his Majesty doth clearly denote the intention of that Oath to have been to extend against any Non-Conformists continuing their Schism in the Church And as to the Oath of Allegiance being intended against Protestants as well as Papists making a Faction in the State the Book called God and the King compiled and printed by King Iames's Authority sufficiently shews throughout by the Notification of the particular Moral Offices required by the Oath of Allegiance and likewise by his Subjects natural Allegiance and which Moral Offices are there strengthened with passages out of the Scriptures and Fathers and the Doctrine of absolute Loyalty is there well Established and likewise the Doctrine of Resistance
overthrown and the Scope of the Book is to plant Loyalty throughout the Kingdom and to make the Oath of Allegiance be re vâ—râ a Premuniment in all mens Consciences against Faction and Rebellion The Sect of King Iames's old Enemies in Scotland the Puritans and whom he said he found there more dishonest than the Highlanders and Border Thieves is not named in that Book and he having cleared them from being participants in the Gun-powder Treason did with Justice as well as perhaps with hopes of their emendation after the Tenets of Loyalty that had been then lately published by the English Non-Conformists order that Sect not to be in that Book marked Nigro carbone But he could not but know their former Principles as well as Practices here as exactly as any one and in his Canons here published a Year before the Gun-powder Treason The impugners of the Rites and Ceremonies in the Church of England were variously censured the Authors of Schism in the Church of England were censured by the 9th Canon and the maintainers of Schismaticks by the 10th and by the 27th Schismaticks were not to be admitted to the Communion The maintainers of Conventicles were censured by the 11th and the maintainers of Constitutions made in Câ—nventicles censured by the 12th and it refers to the wicked and Anabaptistical Errors of some who outraged the King's Supremacy and Regal Rights and who did meet and make Rules and Orders in Causes Ecclesiastical without the King's Authority and therefore as the King knew that such Persons who had made Schisms in the Church had thereby made Factions in the State and would make more the Church being necessarily included in the State and would be as dry Tiâ—der ready to take the Fire of Rebellion from such Republican Tenets as were in Parson's Book of the Succession and the Writings of Bellarmine and other Romanists and being justly apprehensive that such Antimonarchical Principles as had infected the Scotch Puritans might in time infect the English ones as well as that the Principles of the Powder-Traitors might infect other Loyal Papists he applied the Oath of Allegiance as a general necessary Antidote to the Consciences of his Subjects to prevent such infection In p. 109. of his Apology for the Oath of Allegiance he cited Bellarmine for the Tenets That Kings have not their Authority nor Office immediately from God and that Kings may be deposed by their People for divers respects and when such Writers did so spitefully with the Papal Power endeavour likewise to bring in the Sea of the People to overwhelm Kings it was time to raise the Bank of that Oath the higher against the same and for the Takers of that Oath to be obliged to bear Faith and True Allegiance to his Majesty his Heirs c. and him and them to defend c. against all Conspiracies c. which shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity by reason or colour of any such Sentence or Declaration or OTHERWISE and to declare that neither the Pope NOR ANY PERSON WHATSOEVER hath Power to absolve them of this Oath When therefore I see any serious man disloyal who hath took the Oath of Allegiance and whom Necessity as we say doth not draw to Turpitude I still attribute much of his disloyalty to his not with intense and recollected thought dwelling on the view of his Moral Obligations in the clear Mirror of that Oath but to his cursory viewing them and as St. Iames's words are like a man beholding his natural face in a Glass but beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straitway forgetteth what manner of man he was How many outragious Acts of Disloyalty after 41 had been avoided if the Law of the Oath had been writ in the hearts of the Takers of it as it ought to have been As for Example since to Prorogue or Dissolve Parliaments was ever a known Right and Privilege belonging to the Crown could any Person who had sworn to defend its Rights and Privileges endeavour to retrench that particular one by the Act for the perpetuating the Parliament of 40 How easie would Princes find their Reigns and Subjects their Consciences if these would think of all the Royal Rights they have sworn to defend and how they are to defend them I have mentioned the great Law of Athens against any ones bearing Office under an Usurpt Power and the terrible Oath for the confirmation of that Law and I have likewise mentioned the Author of the EXERCITATION and Mr. Prynn as asserting the unlawfulness of bearing Office under our late usurp'd Powers by reason of the Oath of Allegiance having before obliged them to the King his Heirs and Successors The Author of the Exercitation doth very appositely to strengthen that his Loyal Assertion cite an excellent passage out of Tully's Epistles ad Atticum viz. of his doubting the lawfulness of his bearing the Office of a Councellor of State in such a Case Ec magnum sit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 veniendumne sit in Consilium Tyranni si is aliquâ— de re bonâ deliberaturus sit Quare si quid ejusmodi evenerit ut accersamur quid censeas mihi faciendum utique scribito Nihil enim mihi adhuc accidit quod majoris Consilii est And the truth is the great thing that inclineth so many to desire Changes in Governments being the hopes of the Acquest of Offices it was but natural for the Athenian Wisdom to fence with sharp precaution against the lusciousness of Authority under an Usurper and to let every man know as I may say in terrorem that in the day of his eating the forbidden fruit he would die the death by the hand of every man and for the wisdom of the Government in King Iames's time by the effect and necessary Consequences of the Clauses in the Oath of Allegiance to tye mens Consciences from supporting any Vsurpation by bearing Office under it That Law and Oath of Athens were no doubt as almost all other matters of Learning known to King Iames and could he have foreseen how the guest after Offices occasioned the Demagogues to promote the â—ebellion of 41 for 't is known they were then mighty Nimrods after mighty Offices in the State and after what particular ones and how the several Vsurpations supported themselves here afterward through mens supporting themselves by Offices under them and how in this present Fermentation men have been tempted to Faction by hopes of Offices and in pursuit of which men were never generally so wary as iâ— this Conjuncture I am apt to think that in uberâ—orem cautelam for Loyalty and the making men appear perjured even to all of the grossest understandings who should bear Office under any Vsurper and consequently deterring them from projecting to altâ—r the Hereditary Government he would have inserted into the Oath a particular express Clause of not bearing Office here under any other But further to illustrate the intent of the Government
in King Iames's time for making the Oath of Allegiance a Praemuniment in our Consciences against Popular as well as Papal Usurpations I shall here call in Testimonium adversarii I mean the publisher of Cardinal Perron's long Oration made in the Chamber of the 3d Estate or Commonalty of France upon the Oath of Allegiance exhibited in the General Assembly of the three Estates of that Kingdom and in his long Preface to which he calls our Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance detestable but saith That the greater number of the Deputies of the 3d Chamber did frame the form of an Oath which they wished might be ministred in that Kingdom as that which bears the name of ALLEGIANCE in ours whereby the same principal Article is abjured namely That no French King can be deposed for any Cause whatsoever and that the contrary Opinion is Heretical and repugnant to the Doctrine of the Scriptures But this difference is found between the two Oaths that whereas the English one in one of the Clauses seems to exclude not only the Authority of the CHVRCH over Kings but even of the COMMON-WEALTH also yea tho it should be accompanied even with that of the Church that of France shoots only at the abnegation of the Churches Authority The Author however in that Preface and which was Permissâ— superiorum contrary to the Loyal Sentiments of the Majority of that 3d Chamber inserts very impiously and disloyally That Kingly Authority cannot come immediately from God to any man but by Miracle and that all the Kings whom we know do either rule by force of Conquest and in that Case the Authority of the Common-wealth if it be Vsurped may be resumed or by Donation Election Marriage or Succession of Blood in which Cases Kings forfeit by not performing the Conditions under which either they or their first Ancestors did enter whether they were expressed or necessarily implyed But neither that Author nor any other Roman Catholick Writer hath writ with greater Contempt of and Spight against the Power of Kings than some Nominal Protestant Authors have to the scandal of Christianity done and that I may shew how necessary it was that the Oath of Allegiance should be levelled at the outragious Principles of Disloyalty in Protestants as well as Papists I shall conclude my Answer to this Objection with a reference to a Book of some vile Nominal Protestants who having according to the Bishop of Winchester's Expression aforesaid derived Doctrines of Sedition and Rebellion from the Church of Rome 's Writers were I may add grown therein perhaps more learned than their Masters It was printed in 8 o beyond Sea in the Year 1556. and called A short Treatise of Politick Power and of the true Obedience which Subjects owe to Kings and other Civil Governors with an Exhortation to all true English men Compiled by D. I. P. B. R. W. Who the Authors of it were I know not nor the meaning of those initial Letters of Names but do judge it to be in Principles of Sedition and Treason as bad as Doleman of the Succession or Mariana and to have startled King Philip and Queen Mary as much as the Book of Killing no Murder did Cromwel I never in the Course of my viewing Books saw but one of them and the Reader will quickly see why no Library durst in the Reign of those Princes harbor it 'T is there asserted That the Body of every State may redress and correct the Vices of their Governors and ought so to do And the Book endeavours to prove the lawfulness of killing Tyrants by the Law of Nature and prophaneth the Book of God by citing for a desperate use some extraordinary Acts of private Persons there recorded and indeed a loyal man cannot read the Book without horror and especially when he shall consider what were the effects of this detestable Book It helped to provoke the fury of Philip and Mary to flie out into the Arbitrary Proclamation several Months before her death for the declaring of any one a Rebel and being without delay executed by Martial Law with whom that and other Books of that Nature printed beyond Sea should here be found And another effect of the publication of that and those other Books was to irritate the Government against those poor Innocents who were here martyr'd and who sufficiently abhorred such Treasonable Books for this Book was published beyond Sea and probably imported here about two years before her death But for the honour of our English Exiles then I judge that none of them had a hand therein I having observed many Words and Idioms and Phrases there to have been Scotish It is probable that King Iames and his Ministers had heard of this execrable Book wherein some Nominal Protestants trumpetted out their Principles of real Rebellion and no wonder then if the Oath of Allegiance was therefore framed with Clauses to secure the Government from all irreligionary Principles of Protestants as well as Papists It hath been objected in the second place against our being become bound to the Kings Heirs and Successors by Virtue of those Oaths that it is by all Casuists agreed that among the Tacit Conditions that are presumed to be in all Oaths and which are to be regarded as much as if they were express'd Rebus sic stantibus is one and that that therefore as none of the King's Heirs was then excluded from the Privilege or Right of his Lineal Succession by the Legislative Power so if things thus stood with him at the time of the Descent of the Crown that is at the time of the Kings decease the Oath obliged to the payment of absolute and irrespective Loyalty to him then and that thus when the King's Heirs and Successors were Kings and Queens of this Realm according to the Style of some old Oaths they would be Entitled to our Allegiance and not otherwise In Answer to this Objection I shall say first that if we should admit that which is not true that the Rebus sic stantibus were so to be applied in this Case yet it is most clear that the Takers of these Oaths who were any Members of the Three Estates in Parliament were thereby ipso facto and actually bound as I have said in the 7tâ— Conclusion not to do any Act there to exclude the Succession according to proximity of Blood and moreover any of the People who took these Oaths were thereby Morally bound not to choose any to represent them in Parliament from whom they might fear their endeavouring of such Exclusion Secondly Premising that there was somewhat of irreverence in supposing that the Legislative Power would ever afterward make a Solutio contiâ—ui as I called it in the Hereditary Monarchy yet it must be said that any supposed Act of that kind would be Null and Void as the Loyal and Learned late Writers of the Succession have shewed and to whose Writers of that Subject I refer and therefore our Obligations to
the King's Heirs and lawful Successors by Virtue of these Oaths must remain uncancelled in the Court of Conscience and however any Act of Parliament supposed to be made against the Law of God may a while be de facto received in any Courts of Law yet is it in the Court of Conscience to be looked on as a poor Escrole and as not worthy the name of a Law. It is most manifest that by these Oaths there is jus alteri acquisitum I mean to the King's Heirs and Successors as well as to the King and that therefore any supposed relaxation of the Oaths without the consent of all Parties for whose behoof they were made is a thing Nugatory and not allowable in the Court of Conscience And as I have speaking cum vulgo called some Anti-Papists whose Principles tend to Faction in the State and Schism in the Church Nominal Protestants tho yet I should be still as much content with any Law that made it Penal to call them Protestants as with one that should be so to call Quacks Physicians so I should in the Court of Conscience call any Acts of Parliament that are contrary to the Eternal and Natural Rules of indispensable Iustice only Nominal Laws suitably to what is said in the admirable Preface of Aerodius his Rerum Iudicatarum Pandect viz. Quod si quid iniquè malo more sordibus adversus illâ—m sempiternam legem atque immutabilem hic aut illic judicatum tranaâ—ctum sit qualis fuit apud Graecos Socratis Phocionis apud Romanos Mâ—telli Numidici Rutilâ—i Rufi M. Ciceronis damnatio in ecclesiâ Flaviani Johannis Chrysostomi contrà absolutio P. Sexti Clodiorum atque adeo Gabinii quam proptereà legem impunitatis appellarunt non magis judicata aut decreta debent appellari quam Seiae Apuleâ—ae Liviae leges Leges non sunt inquit Cicero But Thirdly The just allowance of the Rebus sic stantibus that can be in this Case is this there being nothing of pretence of relaxation from all Parties supposeable these Oaths bind us to the King's Heirs and Successors as long as there is any ONE of them remaining in the World and without the insertion of the words in the Oath of Allegiance viz. I do believe and in Conscience am resolved that neither the Pope NOR ANY PERSON WHATSOEVER hath Power to absolve me of this Oath or any part thereof its indispensableness to those who know the Obligation of Oaths to be jure Divino naturali would have sufficiently appeared In fine there are Rationes boni mali aeternae indispensabiles and to stand to promises is one of the things that are simply and in their own nature good and it is impossible as the Scripture saith That God should lye and therefore man made after God's image must therein answer the Archetype and hereby our Princes have the Garranty of our Allegiance sworn to them their Heirs and Successors being indispensable by Popes or Acts of Parliament or by God himself for he cannot dispense with the Law of Nature Humanâ naturâ manente eadem Lastly It is most manifest from what I have already said that any such Tacit Condition in these Oaths as before mentioned was contrary to the sense of the Imposer as well as to the Words and was therefore not allowable in the Court of Conscience in this Case and I believe that the Consciences of such who have made this Objection must tell them that when they took these Oaths their sense of them was then contrary to any such condition being allowed And therefore any such After-birth of a strained Interpretation being so contrary to the Law of God and the Land and the sense of the Imposer as well as the words of the Oaths and to the sense in which they actually took them must be thrown away There hath been a third Objection if it may be called one or if yet it may be called a Scruple for I think it hardly deserves the name of that However it having got under some mens feet or into their heads it hath made them so uneasie as frowardly to trample on the Rights of Crown'd Heads and it hath troubled us by the name of Haeres viventis and as if that were a Chymaera when as indeed the Objection is altogether Chymerical When Sir L. I. had with so much clear reason shewed much to this purpose viz. That the Exclusion-Bill was against the Fundamental Iustice as likewise the wisdom of the Nation and that it would induce a CHANGE in the Government and that was likewise against the Religion of the Nation which teacheth us That Dominion is not founded in Grace and that we are to pay Obedience to Princes whether good or bad as accordingly the Primitive Christians did and that it was against the Oaths of the Nation namely of Allegiance and Supremacy and that his R. H. is the King 's lawful Heir if he hath no Child and in the Eye of the Law we are sworn to him and when he had further signalized the weight of his Political Remarks and Learning in that Speech as well of as his Loyalty so as on the account of both to merit a place for it in the English Story and had instanced in some Princes and their Subjects of different Religions living very happily together it may perhaps be a blot in that Story that Sir W. I. in an answer to that Speech granting That we are sworn to the King his Heirs and Successors said further That we are not obliged to any during the King's life but to himself for it were Treason if it were otherwise The King hath no Heirs nor Successors during his life for according to his Law meaning Sir L. I's and ours Nemo est haeres viventis In answer to which I shall say that that Proverbial Latin saying in the Law Books doth amount to no more in nature and hath no more influence on Humane Affairs nor particularly on Moral Offices than that kind of Proverbial Sayings in the New Testament viz. For where a Testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the Testator or a Testament is of no strength while the Testator liveth Every one knoweth that a Will is in its own nature revocable and Legatees and Executors may be altered by the Testator and for any one to quote it as a Maxim Nemo est Executor viventis and for a Legatee or in effect an Executor in a Will the word haeres iâ— often used in the Civil Law and by the Writers of it will be no more significant than the telling the Legatee or Executor is that they must not meddle in the Testators Goods till he be dead and it may usefully operate to divert People from the slothful Omissions of making their Wills in due time out of a fond imagination that their Legatees or Executors would have a Title to any thing before the Testators death But after what hath been said
not you after you have thrown off the Papal Power of Excluding Kings make your Reformation an empty Name if you at last reform your selves into Popery and after all your imagined Conversions from Popery we shall see your natural Conversion to it and as Natural as the Common Hieroglyphick of the year shews us and how in se convertitur annus The truth is that as to the Case of many of our Nominal Protestants and some real ones being thus deceived as aforesaid in the business of the Exclâ—sion there lyes a Pudet haec opprobriâ— nobis c. and a worse opprobrium than that of another common Latine saying Stulti dum vitant vitia c. for here they have run but from Popery to Popery from a Popery more genteely clad to a second-haâ—d Popery and even into a frippery of Antimonarchial notions and they have run into the Substance of the worst part of Popery and what I account worse then Transubstantiation while they have been pursuing the magni nominis umbria I mean the shadow of the Great Name of Protestant And I will still call it a great and noble name however abused by Schismaticks and tho not used in our Canons and Articles c. and wherein we soar above the dictates of Luther and Calvin and the distinctions of Names they occasioned and for which purpose our great-Souled Bramhall in the title page of his Iust Vindication of the Church of England hath the quotation of My Name is Christian my Sirname is Catholic by the one I am known from Infidels by the other from Hereticks and Schismaticks but yet doth often in that Book and his other writings use the word Protestants for such who have laudably opposed the Papal Usurpations and Impositions And in the mentioning of the Protestant Churches beyond Sea that word is justly and properly applicable Moreover our Great Chillingworâ—h's writing of The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation hath endear'd that Name as well as his own to us thereby The adherents likewise of the Church of England are often put to it to use the distinction of Protestant Recusants to speak Intelligibly But 't is the Church of England-Protestant that the Orthodox and Loyal generally mean by that name when they speak of Protestants alone here according to the Rule of analogum per se positum c. It is for the honour of these Protestants who have not so learn'd Christ and Christianity as to be untaught their unnatural Allegiance and natural obligation of their Oaths that it may be observed of them that tho many within the pale of that Church have been tempted a while to extravagant thoughts and actings in the point of Exclusion yet they have through the Divine influences on their understandings soon come to themselves again and tho the Loyalty of some of these like Steel hath been bent yet it hath not like lead stood and continued bent And notwithstanding that being Transported a while with the Passion of Anger against Papists and Plots they said in their haste that Dominion was founded in Grace I observ'd so many of them by their second thoughts so averse from the second-hand Popery as I call'd it that they might merit an exemption from being censured by Papists as aforesaid and that by virtue of the Rule of Law viz. Quidquid calore iracundiae vel fit vel dicitur non prius ratum est quam si perseverantiâ apparuit judicium animi fuisse ideoque brevi reversa uxor nec divertisse videtur And here I am likewise to observe that tho many who have been members of the Church of England because it was by Law Established and have for fashion-sake gone to our Common-Prayer with no more concernment than the Monk went to Mass who said Eamus ad communem errorem yet such of this Church whose Devotion hath been deep rooted in their heads and hearts and who have seriously thought of those words in the Collect viz. So rule the Heart of THY Chosen Servant Charles our King and Governor c. did not long say Amen to any mens thoughts or motions of Choosing their King. Let Rome and the Conventicles thus like lead stand bent as I said but the Doctrine of the Church of England and its Prayers have sufficiently told us whose chosen Servant our King is I have here occasion to refer to an Illustrious Son of this Church and whose whole life hath been as perfect a Comment on the Oath and Moral Offices of Allegiance and of absolute and unconditional Loyalty as any could be and more useful to the World than any Written one I mean the Duke of Ormond and therefore it is but Iustice to him and the Subject I have been treating of for me here to cite him in what was published by the Loyal and Learned Father Walsh in Answer to what was by the Nuntio's Party pretended as a Scandal namely That one of a different Religion from those Irish Papists should be MADE CHOICE OF to Govern them and that that Party did fear the Scourges of War and Plague to have justly falâ— so heavy on them and some Evidence of God's Anger against them for putting God's Cause and the Churches under such a hand whereas the trust might have been managed in a Catholick hand under the Kings Authority but to which the Answer was thus with great Loyalty and Judgment viz. Now at length they are come plainly to shew the true ground of their Exception to us which they have endeavoured all the whole to disguise under the Personal Scandals they have endeavoured to cast upon us They are afraid of Scandal at Rome for MAKING CHOICE as they call it as if they might CHOOSE their Governor of one of a different Religion If this be allowed them why they might not next pretend to the same fear of Scandal for having a King of a different Religion and so the Power of CHOOSING one of their own Religion we know not and concludes with an Observation of that Party 's having infamously practised the Doctrine of Calumny in relation to the then Queen And all Papists therefore owning the Disloyal Principles of that Party have thereby the Pudet haec opprobria c. put on them Nor can it be by any Impartial Relaters of News either told at Gath or published in Ascalon that any Sons of the Church of England were actually 〈◊〉 in thinking they might choose their future King but it must likewise there be said how the Fathers and Divines of that Church did in that Conjuncture so universally and with such an Impetus of Reason and Scripture propagate the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and of the Loyalty that the 13th of the Romans and our Oaths require whereby the Popery of founding Dominion in Grace hath been so much Exterminated from that Church and the Realm that the very sense and reason and humor of the People of England is bent against it and is likely to be so
more and more And it was natural for our Divines in this Conjuncture thus to do when so many factious counterfeit Protestants were by their outcries making Papists of them and publishing infamous Pamphlets that expressly shook the Rights of the Hereditary Monarchy and of the Church by Law Established and with an intent to shake the same in that time when the Exclusion was designed and as appeared particularly by the reprinting for that purpose the Pamphlet of the Rights of the Kingdom and in which the Author did endeavour to prove the Peoples Right to choose their Bishops The Clergy therefore seeing such Nominal Protestants by that real part of Popery of founding Dominion in Grace thus bent on the ruine of Church and State were concerned to bend all their forces of reason in permonishing People of their danger from that part of Popery Thus as when a Light-house is set up to warn Navigators of a Bank of Sand if yet by the force of the Sea and Wind such Bank happens to be removed the Light-house must be removed likewise the same thing was accordingly done by the Justice and Prudence of our Divines giving us a notification of the Sands of Popery having shifted their place The late Experience that our Church had of its usage under the Great Vsurper and of his putting it out of his Protection as knowing the born and sworn Allegiance of its Church-men and likewise its Doctrine must necessarily make them true Adherents to the King's Heirs and Successors hath necessarily taught them that they cannot externally flourish under any Vsurper whatsoever They know that the Oath that Cromwel's Parliament Enacted to be taken by him was a Canting Oath and to which he was sworn to the uttermost of his Power to uphold and maintain the true reformed Protestant Christian Religion in the Purity thereof as it is contained in the Holy Scriptures of the old and new Testament to the uttermost of his Power and his understanding The Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England was not to expect to be upheld and maintained by him nor can it be upheld or maintained by any Vsurper Dr. Gibbon the Author of the Theological SCHEME averred to me that Mr. Nye and he attending a Committee of Parliament in the times of the Vsurpation that Mr. Nye being desired by the Committee to give them a definition or description of a Minister of the Gospel then answered A Minister of the Gospel is one sent forth by the State to preach the Gospel receiving protection from them and maintenance under them and all others restrained and we know that he and others then treated the Church of England in words and things like an Ecclesia maligrantium and how they were then RESTRAINED ab Officio c. and just as the Faction and Schism of many Nominal Protestants began about 41 to call our Divines Names as I have observed so lately the Popish Plot was made the Vehicle of the Poyson of some Mens Calumny and neither Machiavel nor Iesuit did ever more sledfastly practise the Divide Impera than such men in that Conjuncture did that by weakening us with our Divisions they might at once destroy the Lineal Succession of our Hereditary Monarchs in the Realm and the Succession of Bishops in the Church and our Kings in their Coronation Oaths swearing to keep Peace and Agreement to the Holy Church the Clergy and People Factious and Schismatical Persons having broke their own Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy may be said to have endeavoured to break the King's Oath according to the old known form of the Indictment of some of our Iudges for Bribery in which it was said that our Kings being bound by their Oath to do Iustice to their People such Judges did Violare Sacramentum Domini Regis It hath pleased God by the fierce Zeal of several Non-Conformists for the Exclusion to open the Eyes of many Conscientious and Loyal People among them and to bring them thereby to the Bosom of the Holy Church of England for they seeing such Doubts and Objections as some had raised against the Obligations of our Oaths to be but Scruples and that considerate serious and devout Persons of the Church of England had soon thrown the Scruples away were naturally thereby induced to throw off other Scruples and it was likewise but natural to them to think that their very Doubts and Objections for their having separated from the Church of England were but Scruples And as to doubts tho the Rule is Quod dubitas ne feceris yet not only Sanderson but Ames hath told us that Scruples are not to be regarded for Ames in his Cases of Conscience l. 1. c. 16. viz. Of a scrupulous Conscience having said That a Scruple is a fear of the Mind about what one is to do which vexeth the Conscience as a little Stone in ones shooe troubles the foot he wisely concludes That Multi scrupuli cum non possint commodè tolli contrariâ ratione deponi debent quasi violentiâ quadam dum excluduntur ab omni consultatione and that Scrupulus est formido temeraria sine fundamento atque adeo non potest obligare He there mentions A man being said to be scrupulous in discussing his past Actions or in ordering his futuâ—e ones and I am confident that many of the Loyal late Non-Conformists when they consider their past Actings will now accord to say that many of the clamorous pretences they were tempted to urge for Liberty of Conscience ought to have been as Ames's words are laid aside with violence and I do likewise believe that many of the Pious Members of the Church of England who while the Formido temeraria and sine fundamento carried them to incline to think it lawful to shake the Foundation of the Hereditary Monarchy and the super-structures of their Oaths by new interpretations do with a pious horror think of the poor Vapours pent in their Imaginations that made such Temporary Earthquakes in their Moral Offices of Loyalty and might have made perpetual ones in the Kingdom And that because some of our English Princes long ago whose Titles were cloudy did de facto make use of the Legislative Power to render them clear to the People for any to think that therefore the Monarchy was not then de jure and jure Câ—ronae Hereditary and that therefore after the Liquid Oath of Allegiance made to statuminate the most clear Title of a Crown that can be supposed it could since be lawful for any Parliamentary Power to disturb the Succession and dispense with our Oaths can appear to the Considerate to be nothing but a Scruple unworthy their thoughts And moreover because some of our Princes heretofore desired their Parliaments to intermeddle in setling the Succession for any therefore after the Oaths to think it might be lawful to disturb their Prince with renewed importunities again and again to alter the Course of the Descent after his various Declarations
here and of their strenuous endeavours to free the Kingdom from it had nothing in their Famous 19 Propositions to bar the right of any Heir to the Crown for the being a Papist The exact Collections afford many instances of their declaring That they would provide for the greatness of his Majesty and his Royal Posterity in future times and in which there was no Proviso respecting any Religionary Tenets they should profess It appears in Mr. Pryns memorable Speech in that House of Commons on Monday the 4th of December 1648. touching the Kings answers to the Propositions of both Houses whether they were satisfactory or not in the Isle of Wight Treaty that that Parliament that was concern'd for the saving of their own Credit as well as the Souls of the People to make that Treaty to end with the extermination of Popery from England did not in the application of the most proper means for that purpose judge the debarring any Popish Prince here from his Inheritance of the Crown any proper or necessary one For in p. 58. of that Speech ' t is said As to any danger to our Church from Religion there is as good Security and Provision granted us by the King as we did or could desire even in our own terms First He hath fully consented to pass an Act for the more effectual disabling of Iesuites Papists and Popish Recusants from disturbing the State and deluding the Laws and for the prescribing of a new Oath for the more speedy discovery and Conviction of Recusants Secondly To an Act of Parliament for the Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion Thirdly To an Act for the due Levying the Penalties against Recusants and disposing of them as both Houses shall appoint Fourthly To an Act whereby the practices of the Papists against the State may be prevented the Laws against them duely executed and a stricter Course taken to prevent the saying or hearing of Mass in the Court or any other part of the Kingdom whereby it is made Treason for any Priests to say Mass in the Court or Queens own Chappel Fifthly To an Act for abolishing all Innovations Popish Superstitions Ceremonies Altars Rayles Crucifixes Images Pictures Copes Crosses Surplices Vestments bowings at the name of Jesus or toward the Altar c. By all which Acts added to our former Laws against Recusants I dare affirm we have far better Provision and Security against Papists Iesuites Popish Recusants c for our Churches and Religions Safety and States too then any Protestant Church State and Kingdom whatsoever so as we need not fear any future danger from Papists or Popery if we be careful to see those Concessions duely put in Execution when turned into Acts and our former Laws And afterward in that Speech p. 110. he shews how dear the Kings consenting to pass five such Acts cost him for saith he The Iesuites understanding that the King beyond and contrary to their expectation hath granted all or most of our propositions in the Isle of Wight and fully condescended to five new Bills for the Extirpation of Mass Popery and Popish Innovations â—ut of his Dominions and putting all Laws in Execution against them and for a speedier Discovery and Conviction of them then formerly c are so inraged with the King and so inexorably incensed against him as I am credibly informed that now they are mad against him and thirst for nothing but his Blood. Mr. Pryn had mentioned in that Speech before that some Jesuites and Jesuited Agitators had engaged the Army to dissolve that Treaty with the King and 't is no wonder if that prying Order who knew the Kings Aversion to Popery as well as the most stupid of his Enemies did when they saw him consenting to pass five such Bills was the more brisk in executing its Designs against him and that as Mr. Pryn saith in his perfect Narrative a Priest present at the Kings death flourished his Sword with an exclamation That now the greatest Enemy we had in the World was gone But this by the way I had not mentioned how dear the consenting to those Bills that would have been so fatal to Popery and have prevented the Phrase of its growth from being used at this time of day but that some persons not vers'd in the passages of those evil days seem to think that there was nothing of Religion to support that Kings Title to Martyrdom but what concern'd his Adhesion to Episcopacy and its Revenue In the very solemn League and Covenant its takers declared they had before their Eyes the honour and happiness of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity And I have seen a printed paper of the Presbyterian Divines of one of the Associations in the late times wherein they do expresly affirm and argue it that any of the Royal Posterity here ought not to be debarr'd from their Hereditary Right to the Crown by being either Papists or Idolaters If we look so far back as the great Conjuncture in the beginning of King Iames ' s Reign namely in the year 1605. we shall find that there was then a Paper before mentioned published in Print called a Protestation of the Kings Supremacy made by the Nonconforming Ministers which were suspended or deprived that year and that the first Paragraph or Tenet in that Protestation is this We hold and maintain the same Authority and Supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons Civil and Ecclesiastical granted by Statute to Queen Elizabeth and expressed and declared in the Book of Advertisements and Injunctions and in Master Bilson against the Iesuites to be due in full and ample manner without any limitation or qualification to the King and his Heirs and Successors for ever c. And the 4 th Paragraph in that Protestation part whereof I have before recited is viz. We hold that though the Kings of this Realm were no Members of the Church but very Infidels yea and Persecutors of the Truth that yet those Churches that shall be gathered together within these Dominions ought to acknowledge and yield the same Supremacy to them And that the same is not tyed to their Faith and Christianity but to their very Crown from which no Subject or Subjects have power to separate or disjoyn it And in the 18 th Paragraph they say That if the King subjecting himself to Spiritual Guides and Governors shall afterward refuse to be governed and guided by them according to the Word of God and living in notorious sin without repentance shall willfully contemn and despise all their Holy and Religious Censures that then these Governors are to refuse to Administer the Holy Things of God to him and to leave him to himself ond to the secret Iudgment of God and wholy to resign and give over that spiritual Charge and Tuition over him which by calling from God and the King they did undertake And more then this they may not do And after all this we
hold that he still retaineth and ought to retain entirely and solidly all that aforesaid Supreme Power and Authority over the Churches of this Dominion in as ample a manner as if he were the most Christian Prince in the World. If therefore any shall think it reasonable to pronounce that the substantial Interest of Protestancy and of the Kingdom doth Stare moribus antiquis virisque I have pointed them to Arch-Bishop Abbot to Bishop Andrews the Antagonist to Bellarmine under the weight of whose Arguments Bellarmine fell in the Certamen and to others of our old Counsellors of State and particularly Arthur Baron Chichester of Belfast Lord Treasurer of Ireland your Lordships Noble God-Father in comparison of many of whom when we look on some of our great Politic and Protestant-would-be's of this Age and who would let none be Protestants but themselves we may well cry out In qualem paulatim fluximus urbem and have shewn how those great Confessors by their Overt Acts provided against the belief of the Doctrine of Popery without the barring any of the Royal Line from the inheriting the Crown And when I see some of our till of late unheard of Statists so eager to dispossess the Land of the Evil Spirit of Popery by illegal means and the use of the great Name of Protestancy as a Spell I fancy to my self that they may be call'd on by it as the Iewish Exorcits were in the Acts of the Apostles who taking on them to call over them which had evil Spirits the Name of the Lord Iesus saying we adjure you by Iesus whom Paul preacheth the evil Spirit answered and said Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are ye Thus to any who shall say that there is no way possible to secure English Mens continuing Protestants but by breaking in on the Succession in the Right Line may it be returned by Popery the old Protestants of the Church of England I know and the old Nonconformist Protestants and the old Covenanting Presbyterian Protestants I know who knew otherwise to secure Protestancy and likewise the French Protestants I know who never practised any Out-rage against the Great Harry the 4th of France's Government after he had left Protestancy but who are ye The truth is the Protestants in France so vastly numerous in his time which any one may imagine who considers that the most careful thinking men in that Realm make them now to be two Millions and that a judicious French Author hath writ that the Iesuites have lately computed them to be above a Million and a half have shewn the World a great example of their Protestant Loyalty in that they were ready as chearfully to obey their Prince when he was a Papist as when they served him in set Battles against the Power of the holy League and the majority of his Nobles and of his Metropolis and of the chief Cittadels in his Realm After they saw him go to Mass they never call'd him Iulian or Lampoon'd him in Hymns or demurred to his Beard or had any fears or jealousies of his touching a hair of their heads nor threatned him that the Galilean would foil him and no Language could have more truly expressed their Sentiments then that of the Famous Pierre du Moulin in his defence of the Faith Nous sommes prests d' exposer nos vies pour la defence de nos Rois contre qui que ce soit fust-il de nostre Religion Quiconque feroit autrement ne defendroit point la Religion mais serviroit son ambition attireroit un grand blame sur la verite de l' evangile i. e. We are ready to expose our lives for the defence of our Kings against whomsoever it be although of our own Religion And whosoever should do otherwise should not defend Religion but serve his own ambition and would draw a great reproach on the truth of the Gospel Considering the indeleble Character of Hary the 4 ths Protestant Good Nature his Subjects of that Religion did prepare their thoughts to be Lachrymists for him rather then themselves and knew that by his Coversion to Popery if in this life only he had hopes he was of all men most miserable and that his absolution left him only in the State of a Crown'd Victime I have before mentioned the Apology for that Scholar of the Jesuites Iohn Chastel which endeavours to prove that Harry the 4 th was by that Assassin not only wounded very fairly according to the Language of the Brothers of the Blade but in the Style of their Honour according to the Iesuites Morals very heroically and as the Contents of Cap. 1. Part. 3 d of the Apology expresses it Actus Castelli heroicus est in substantiâ suâ He moreover tells us in plain terms Part. 2. Cap. 7. that Excommunicatio quae â—b haeresim irrogatur remedium potius est ecclesiae quam excommunicato c. and that Excommunication for Heresie doth quite take away any Regal Right And in Cap. 8. before mentioned viz. Neque etiam à Papa absolutus Rex esse potest he asketh Quod si quaeratur quid ergo absolutio praestet si jus amissum non redeat And it followeth Quòd si absolutus impaenitens existat effectus alius non foret quam is de quo supra ita si quod Deus velit paenitentia foret vera certe effectus propterea non exigâ—us esset futurus utpote in spiritualibus remittendo illum in ecclesiae gremium regni Caelorum Capacem reddendo temporalium vero respectu quicquid illa operari posset foret ad reddendum eum compotem novi juris per electionem auferendo impedimentum in foro fori quo durante is ille esse non posset And then he saith The Pope cannot confer such new Right to the same Kingdom on him for that it depends not simply on the power of the Keys so to do and in fine makes the Right to the Crown irrevocably devolv'd on the next person capable who has a right to it quum saith he ratum sit inter jurisconsultos incapacem haberi ut mortuum non impedire sequentes In the 3d Chapter of the 2d Part namely That Henry of Bourbon cannot be called King by reason of his pretended Conversion the vile Apologist derides the Conversion of this Great King and labours to prove by fifteen Instances That after his Conversion he did favour the Cause of Heresy more then ever and particularly by his observance of his Leagues and Agreements with the Queen of England and other Hereticks ut experientia saith he per novas ejus actiones locupletissime testatur Etenim primò faederum pacta cum haereticis sarta tectaque servat quibus ut hactenus nondum renunciavit ita neque dum renunciare cogitat Secundò ipsi haeritici in Germaniâ Genevae alibi ejus actiones comprobant Tertio contemnit Catholicos promovet haereticos illos repudiat atque rejicit hos