much borrow'd in the Character being little else throughout makes bold in another place point Blank to contradict this Passage and positively affirms That to set up Popery or Arbitrary Power by Law under the Laws we have already against them is wholly impossible and that our Laws will be but the Hedge to keep in the Cuckow For Papists and Slaves we must and shall be made as the inseperable Concomitants of a Popish Successour And to prove all this Breaking of all Laws whatever it says in haec verba How can the Force of Laws made by a Protestant Predecessour and a Protestant Parliament in any sort bâ—nd a Popish Successour When the very first Advance of the Pope's Supremacy a very nimble leap introduces that higher Power those Canonical Ecclesiastick Laws which no Secular or any other Temporal Court can or may Controul Laws that shall declare not only the Statutes and Acts of Parliament made against the Dignity of Mother-Church voyd and Null but the very Law-makers themselves as Hereticks wholly uncapable of ever having any Right of making any such Laws No doubt then but that Fire that burns those Heretick Law-makers shall give their Laws the same Martyrdom Here indeed the Affairs are alter'd and truly the Matter much mended This I confess says the Character and this at least three parts of the Fools of English Mankind believe for Oracles And though all our Records Histories Chronicles and the whole Series of all Ages since the Conquest to this day do notoriously prove the Contrary yet this Popular Maxime That the Romanists by their Ecclesiastick Laws pretend to anull and make void all Secular Laws against their Church and to incapacitate the very Prerogative and Authority of that Majesty and those Law-makers that made them though one of the most Impudent Falshoods in nature is nevertheless one of the most received Vulgar Traditions that ever startled Ideots For Example to begin with their very Heretici Comburendi The very Ax and Fasces of Rome was it not an Act of the Secular Power In the very highest Reign of Popery did or could the Pope punish an Heretick Apostate by Imprisonment Fire or Faggot any further than by Parliamentary Permission and excepting that the Clergy were made Judges of Heresy and that too by concession of the Secular Authority Was not the Execution of that Law kept in Temporal Hands Nay though 't is true the papal Power made many Vsurp'd Encroachments here through the Bigotry of the Government yet upon too hard Pressures from Rome did not several of our Kings many hundred years before the Reformation resume their own Original Right and expresly in the Statute against PROVISOES under Penalty of Forfeiture of Goods and Imprisonment for Life forbid the admitting of the Popes Legantine Power in England or making Appeals to Rome or taking Inductions to Episcopal Sees from the Pope And for Queen Mary her self was there one Syllable of the Laws Enacted by her Father Henry or her Brother Edward in favour of the Reformation that she ever pretended to Over-rule by any Ecclesiastick Law or Pretence whatever Nay and did not the Pope's Supremacy it self and that not till many a hard tug and two years after she came to the Crown come in by Act of Parliament under several Limitations of his Power with the Confirmation of the antient Statute against Provides c. and several other Boundaries as much as to say Move thus far and no Further. But alas what 's all this to the Author of a Popish Characterâ— Popery and Arbitrary Power in spight of Fate shall and must be set up And therefore what Laws shall or shall not get uppermost is ene as Mr. Scribler pleases For truly Malice put pen to paper and Truth and Reason were never minded and indeed there was no need of either of them for as that Pamphlet had the honour in the Title-Page of being humbly offered to the Consideration of the then HOVSES of Parliament both Truth and Reason were Immaterial to itâ— Recommendation For where an Oâ—es his Narrative past for Gospel the Devil 's in 't if a Popish Character could miscarry However to confute that sensless Fear that a Popish Successour will subvert the whole Foundations of the Government and erect his own Arbitrary Edict for the Supreme Standard of JVSTICE and that he shall find those Popish Judges Sheriffs or any other Officers or Ministers that under the Protection of a Standing Army shall make our Lives and Liberties wholly dependant upon the Caprichio and Pleasure of the Prince and persuant thereto shall furnish him with Jayls Gibbets and Smithfield Piles or any other Arbitrary though less Sanguinary Persecution to convert us to Popery First let us examine the Courage of all these Arbitrary Judges Officers and State-Ministers that embarque in this Arbitrary Undertaking They must be all those hardy popish Tools whether corrupted by Zeal or Interest that they must not value all their own Lives for notwithstanding whatever Protection or Impunity they may receive during the Life of their Royal Popish Driver no sooner shall the next Protestant Heir succeed him but every Mothers Son of them shall be answerable with their Necks for the least drop of Protestant BLOOD they have shed or Protestant Liberty they have invaded The Protestant Laws of the Land will not be so tamely overthrown without a certain Vengeance attending it insomuch that those bold Babel Builders these Arbitrary Popery Raisers must either be so generous to their King as the Indian Wives to their Husbands and make one glorious Funeral Pile upon his Grave or else resolve to live to offer up their Throats to the very Sword of Iustice in the Hand of a Lawful Authority which themselves before have so Vnlawfully abused in their own And that the Liberty of the Subject is so tender in the Eye of the English Government the very misusing and torturing of Hereticks in Prison though under that Attainder lyable to the most ignominious of Deaths and though done in a Popish predecessours Reign was sufficient to have taken the great Statesman Bonner's Head off but only that Queen Elizabeth's Mercy interposed as unwilling to stain the beginning of her Reign with Blood Reform Abridg. B. 4. pag. 357. And if his Illegal Compliance with his Prince was so Capital an Offence what must the more violent Irruptions of Arbitrary Rapines against the untainted Liberty of the Protestant Subjects now pull down upon the bold Invaders Heads 'T is no difficult matter to possess the overcredulous World the easy swallowing Multitude with what wondrous Atchievements the Zealots of Popery shall undertake and what indefatigable Labours and Hazards they will go through for the Re-building of their Faln Temples when animated and influenced by a Popish Soveraign I acknowledge 't is true there is no Courage more daring than that which Zeal inspires and no Zeal possibly more violent than that of the Papists and undoubtedly for Rome's Restoration there would be
Fires with the dragging of their Fathers their Wives their Children or their Kindred and possibly their own Turn next to a popish Stake will not equally if not more violently inflame them into as great or greater Outrages than the Gun-powder Plot could do But whether this certain Ruine should persue these Arbitrary popish Instruments either sooner or later and that it were really possible these or any other Illegal popish Measures might give us some Trouble and Disturbance during this popish Monarch's Reign How wretched a piece of Work must the Wisdom of the Pope and the whole Conclave undertake to make Popery and Arbitrary Power under a popish Successour those Feeble Serpents that shall but just bite our Heels to provoke our succeeding Vengeance to crush their Heads In the second year of Queen Mary after the Repeal of King Edward's Laws but before the Restoration of the Pope's Supremacy we are told in the History of the Reformation Abridg. B. 3. pag. 253. of a project proposed by the Spanish Ambassadour to the Queen of assuming the power of a Conquerour and ruling at pleasure by which she might restore both the Religion and the Abbey-Lands and be under no Restraint This she communicated to her Chancellour Gardiner and charged him to give her his Opinion of it sincerely as he would answer to God for it at the last day He read it carefully and told her it was a most pernicious Contrivance and begg'd her not to listen to such Platforms which might be brought her by base Sycophants Vpon that she burnt the Paper and charged the Ambassadour to bring her no more such proâ—ects This gave Gardiner great Apprehensions of the Mischiefs that Spanish Councils might bring upon the Nation and so he procured the Act to be made by which the Queen was bound by the Law as much as her Ancestors were Now if that Bloody popish Zealot Gardiner was so violently averse to the Thought of bringing Arbitrary power into England for what Service soever to the Romish Cause as in his Opinion so most pernicious when at the same time the Majority or Half of the Nation at least were of that perswasion And if popish Standing Armies could have done the Feat they were ten times easier to be rais'd for any Arbitrary popish purpose then especially too when the Queen lay in the Bosome of that potent Spanish Husband witness his Invincible Armada soon after against Queen Elizabeth that could have lent her a very considerable Helping Hand from Forreign Assistance to push on the project had her English Strength been Insufficient Now I say if nevertheless the Design was deem'd so pernicious then what popish State Councellours at this time of day will run their own and their Prince's Fingers so far in the Fire as to advise him to any such Arbitrary Projection now under so low a Wane of Popery that scarce the 200 th part of the Nation are of that Religion and therefore infinitely more pernicious than in Queen Mary's Case and consequently which nothing but the most abandon'd Lunacy can ever pretend to advise or attempt 'T is true indeed the popish Character lays down a most Expeditious Method of raising this dreadful Standing Army that are to accomplish the mighty Feat of Popery and Slavery under a Romish Successour which for the Reader 's Diversion take as follows To make the Pope Absolute there wants a Standing-Army and he shall have it For who shall hinder him Nay all his Commanders shall be qualify'd even by our present Protestant Test for the Employment He shall have enough Men of the Blade out of one half of the Gaming Houses in Town to Officer twice as many Forces as he shall want 'T is true they shall be Men of no Estates nor Principles But they shall fight as well as those that have Both. For people are ever as Valiant that have their Fortunes to raise as those that have them to defend Nay of the two they shall be the more Faithful For they have no Property to be concern'd for and will more zealously serve him by Reason their whole Interest and Estates lye in Him And that this Army may be more quietly raysed how many honourable Pretences may be found Perhaps the greatest and most important Preservation of his Kingdom shall call for it and then upon second Thoughts instead of defeating some Forreign Enemy they are opportunely ready to cut our Throats at Home c. This Projection I confess is the only passage through the whole Character that endeavours to make out the possibility of any part of the numerous popish Mischiefs denounced through the whole Pamphlet For all along it absolutely supposes the power of a popish Successour's doing whatever he pleases and after so fallacious a Petitio principii it leaps over all Mountains in the way and only labours to prove the Depravity of a popish Successour's Tyrannical Inclinations and give him the Will of putting that power into Execution But to examine the Depth of this Projection granting such a Set of Atheistick Officers could be found what then must their Army be Here 's a Forreign Invasion or some other Honourable Cause proposed and an Army raysed for that seeming Intent and Purpose an Army of papists they cannot be for there is not 40000 Men Women and Children of that perswasion in the whole Kingdom and consequently far short of 10000 Fighting Men amongst them all and possibly not one half of them neither such Foolhardy Desperadoes as to hazard their Lives so madly and so extravagantly in so unpromising a Cause so unaccomplishable a Design as Subjecting of England by the Hands of the papists So that an Army of Papists can be no part of a popish Successour's Thoughts And that the number of the papists in England is really no Greater The King's Indulgence formerly to those of that Religon in gratitude for their Loyal Endeavours at Worcester and indeed through all his Fathers Distresses has been so far from putting them to the Shifts of Disguises or Concealment of their Perswasions that before the late wakening of the Laws against them the papists were every where as visible and generally as distinguishable from the rest of Mankind as one Sex is from another insomuch that unless their Numbers have increased by Converts made since the popish Discovery and the Execution of the Statutes against them there 's scarce one papist in England that all his Neighbours round him cannot particularly point at And how thin sown those Papists are is notoriously manifest when in many and many a ten Parishes together in England there is not three Papists and the whole number computed through the Nation scarce the 200 th Man of that Perswasion Notwithstanding there have been many Fanatical Pretensions of wonderful popish Dispensations by vertue of which there are at least thirty or fourty thousand Church-papists as some old Oliverian Rebels shall tell you tolerated by the Pope to an Absolute Protestant Vniformity and ready
now This very King I say with so small a Party of Protestants could nevertheless lay the very Corner Stone that the whole Reformation was afterwards built upon and that too by Act of Parliament And why on the other side shall it be so impossible for a popish Prince with Henry the Eight's Courage and Conduct withal after not a hundred and fifty years Reign of the protestant Religion to be likewise able to do the same Favour for Popery and lay the very Basis of it even by Parliaments and Law And a protestant Parliament now as a popish one then be so managed or Influenced as to give a main Lift to the Work Besides why should the Change of the Religion be so wondrous or difficult a Deed under a popish Monarch now when upon every Change of the Prince's Faith since the Conquest the Establish't Religion of the Kingdom has been changed with it For Instance after Henry's good Stroke towards it Did not an Infant Prince Edward the Sixth in poor seven years time Establish the protestant Religion by Law And did not Mary his popish Successour subvert it again by Law and by Law restore the very Pope's Supremacy And lastly Did not the protestant Queen Elizabeth after her trample both Pope and Popery under Feet and confirm that very Protestant Religion that Reigns at this Day And why shall a Popish Successour now with as much Zeal and Industry as his Predecessours miscarry in that very work in which not one of them fail'd before him There is nothing that possibly passes for a more Authentick Confirmation of all our popish Dangers than this One Assertion so universally received for Currant Sterling by being only taken at a Lump upon Trust unweighed and unexamined But when considerately and throughly inspected all rational Men must blush to be deceived by so light and so drossy a Popular Tradition For to begin with Henry the Eighth In the first place here neither is nor can be the least Motive for the present Protestant People or their Representatives to make the least Change whatever in the present Church of England in any kind answerable to the several Inducements that wrought those Changes in Henry the Eighth's Time For first as no small Encouragement for the Reformation the People had then contracted a general and just Odium of the whole Clergy strangely occasion'd by the Murder of Hunn a Merchant of London in Prison This Hunn being sued in the Legates Court for Non-payment of a Mortuary to his Parish-Priest in return sued the Parish Priest in the Temporal Court for a Premunire for bringing the King's Subjects before a Forreign and Illegal Court This incensed the Clergy so much that they threw him into Prison for Heresy where having several Articles exhibited against him upon Confession of part of them and begging Mercy he was only enjoyn'd Penance But not being prevail'd upon to let fall his Suite in the Temporal Court the Bishop's Chancellour a Doctor and other of his Officers inhumanely Murdered him in Prison by breaking his Neck with an Iron Chain and other Wounds given him upon the Belly and then hanged him up in his own Girdle to possess the World that he hanged himself And what was yet worse upon a full Detection of the Truth of this Murder the Bishops of Durham and Lincoln to palliate the Guilt proceeded to charge him with new Heresies after Death and having sound a Wickliffs Bible in his House they condemn'd him as an Heretick and burnt his Body All which Proceedings being now looked upon as the Act of the whole Clergy they lost the Affections of the People to that degree that they could never recover them and nothing more disposed the People to the embracing of the New Preachers than the Resentment of so infamous a Murder committed and patronized by the whole Clergy Hist of Ref. pag. 14 and 15. And then for the Changes made in Parliament The Suppression of Monasteries one of their Acts was no more than what was design'd and begun in some Measure by Cardinal Woolsey and the Pope himself and that long before the Breach betwixt the King and Him who granted a Bull to destroy several of them to convert into Bishopricks Ref. pag. 22. the scandalous and lewd Lives of too many of the Monks and Fryars being obnoxious even to Rome it self Though 't is true the King and Parliament proceeded to a total Suppression of them afterwards for the same Intent of erecting new Episcopal Sees though indeed the vast profits arising from their Sale through the Extravagant Profuseness of Henry the Eighth were not wholly converted to that Use notwithstanding part of his Promise was performed Viz. In his constituting six new Bishopricks and making Allowance for fourteen Deanaryes and Prebendariships to fourteen Bishop's Sees But to gain the Parliament to the King's Party in the Destruction of Monasteries there was that which Governs the World Interest in the Case which was no small Wheel in the Machine For the King selling of the Lands at easie Rates to the Nobility and Gentry by this Policy the Parliament Members as Purchasers by the Temptation of such good penny-worths were ingaged to assist the King in the Maintenance of the Changes made Ref. pag. 223. And for another part of Henry the 8 th's Reformation Viz. The censuring and condemning of Bulls Indulgenses Shrines Pilgrimages and Relicks with the pulling down of Images the scandalous Impostures of several of them by the fraud of the Priests being publickly discovered Ref. p. 242. created no little aversion in the People But besides all that here could never be a more pleasing Change to them than so beneficial a part of Reformation Viz. The freeing them from all those Ecclesiastick Romish Dreins that had so long swallow'd almost half the Wealth of the Kingdom in which too many of them had been too great Sufferers not only through their own but also the deluded Superstition of their Bigotted Ancestors and by which no less than whole Families had been Impoverish't and Undone through the pious Frauds and continual Suckings of those Church Horse-leeches And lastly for the Exclusion of the Papal Supremacy the above cited penalty of Premunire incurred both by the whole Clergy and Layty of England in submitting to the Pope's Legantine Power contrary to Law as against the Act of Provisoes contributed no little matter both to the Clergy and Commons Submission to the King in the point of that Supremacy Besides to facilitate the Assumption of it it was plainly proved by that Provisoe Act and other Substantial Records that the Pope's Encroachments in England were but Vsurpation and the Supremacy in reality ab origine de jure inherent in the Crown and therefore the Resumption of it by the King no more than a Challange and Reprizal of his own Invaded Prerogative As these were all the Changes made by Henry the Eighth the Popish Religion being so far from abolish't by him that he rather strook
of Affairs under the former Reign And the Ioy in this Change he says was so Great and Universal that but a Sad Look was thought Criminal So that to ballance Cases if the Severity of Burning of two hundred and sixty Protestants in Queen Mary's Five Years Reign under the Legal Sentence of the Then Law of the Land and in that Respect by the Hand of Justice begat such a Hatred of Popery and made so many Converts to the Reformation that possibly 't was one of the Greatest Lifts to the Downfall of the Romish Religion in England insomuch that 't is the Opinion of all wise Men that a Bonner and a Gardiner did more towards the Propagation of the Protestant Religion than a Cranmer and a Ridley How much infinitely more therefore must the Exercise of such Popish Cruelties from the Hand of the most Arbitrary Tyranny under the visible Monstrous Face of the most notorious Illegality and the blackest Injustice increase our Irreconcileable Detestation of Rome and by making more Apostates Proselytes to their Cause heap up but fuel for the Popish not Protestant Confusion and so at best this Arbitrary Bloody Tyranny can have no higher prospect than of committing Murders for meer Murders sake But to silence all Dangers of such stupendious papal Excursions This barbarous Model of Gospel Propagation is at this present Age of the World wholly unpractised in all the Popish Nations in Europe and excepting the Spanish Inquisition and that too seldom rigorous against any but the Open Seducers of the People from their Religion to prevent the Disturbance of the settled Peace of the Kingdom under so general and unanimous a Conformity of the Roman Religion in Spain There is now no Popish Government whatever that proceeds against Heresy with Fire and Faggot or any other Sanguinary Punishment whil'st on the contrary the Reformers are more or less Indulged or Tolerated through almost all the Popish Kingdoms in the World though 't is true that Indulgence or Toleration in the publick Exercise of their Religion is sometimes more enlarged and other times more curtil'd according to the more or less generous Temper of the Respective Kings that grant them which though magnifyed at a prodigious rate by the present Dreaders of Popery such as the Tender-hearted Condolers of the true Protestant Dissenter Count Tekely c. is no more than what is dayly done even by Protestant Princes in the same Nature whil'st the Immunities and Priviledges of all Dissenting Perswasions against the Establish't Religion of the Land as being but the Donation of the Governments Discretion and Curtesy are increased or diminished as the Favour of the Soveraign shall extend or the Policy of the Nation shall require However as all Sanguinary Persecutions of Heresy are now so universally left off and that too considering the Popes Influence over the Royal Sons of his own Church undoubtedly with his own Prâ—vity and Consent 't is certain that both He and his Crown'd Heads are by Experience convinced of the Fatallity of such Rigorous Ecclesiastick Extremities as wholly ineffectual to the Great Work Designed the Intended Propagation of Religion And consequently the Pope must be strangely out of his Right Senses to put a Popish Successour and that in England of all the Countreys of the Universe upon a Projection so long out of Fashion in all the World beside nay and to a more Monstrous height of Extravagance as being positively against any Law or Right whatever than was ever practised in the World before Nevertheless laying Policy Prudence nay Common Reason aside for once we 'll dispense with all manner of Incoherencies and Absurdities whatever and put the Supposition That the Pope should be stung with that strange Tarantula as to begin this Frantick Dance and a Popish Successour that Madman to follow him The next Question that arises will be How he shall set this Arbitrary Machine agoing And which way he shall find Hands Tools and Materials to build this Terrible COLOSSUS called Arbitrary Power 'T is true indeed the Character tells us the way of doing it as follows Let us but rightly consider how far the Foundations of Popery Viz. Arbitrary Power may be layed in England First then if a Papist Reign we very well understand that the Judges Sheriffs Justices of the Peace and all the Judiciary Officers are of the King's Creation And as such how far may the Influence of Preferment on Baser Constitutions culled out for his purpose are vail even to deprave the very Throne of Iustice her self and make our Judges use even our Protestant Laws themselves to open the First Gate to Slâ—very Alas the Laws in corrupted Judges Hands have been too often used as barbarously as the Guests of Procrustes who had a Bed for all Travellers but then he either cut them shorter or stretcht them longer to fit them to it And after all this the Character proceeds and tells you that to crown the Work and make the Pope Absolute this Popish Successour wants a STANDING-ARMY and he shall have it c. This True Blew Protestant Scheme of Introduction for Arbitrary Power by the way of distorting of our very Protestant Laws to bring it in the History of the Popish Plot only excepted is one of the most Comical Whimms that was ever invented I confess indeed some intricate Cases in Meum and Tuum may occur where the most Impartial Judges may be divided in their Opinions even in Matter of Law and the diversity of various and almost absolete Records and Statutes in several lesser Law-Matters may sometimes admit of Disputes diverse Interpretations and a corrupt Judge under such a Latitude may lean or turn as Inclination shall guide But that part of our English Law that concerns our Religion and Liberties the long and labour'd Work of so many Successive Parliaments nay and after the very Lopping of the Prerogative to secure the Subject by the Abolition of Oaths ex Officio Star-Chamber Courts Court of Wards and by the Benefit of Habeas Corpus Acts c. the continued Care and Industry of our Law-makers for a hundred years together stands so strongly fortifyed against all Romish or Arbitrary Invasions that there 's not the least Cranny in the Law left open for the Admission of the One or the Other However this part of the Character was very well timed for the Season 't was writ in For when the very Protestant Clergy and Bishops of the Land the whole Court nay and the KING himself not excepted were all helter skelter just upon being turn'd into downright Papists in Masquerade 't was not at all unseasonable to improve upon the Fiction and bring in the Protestant Laws too in the Crowd for Popish Masqueraders among their Fellows However notwithstanding this Pretended Dangerous Inlet to Arbitrary Power the Character by a certain Fault which I have read in a Treatise called Richard and Baxter a Figure of Speech much used by that Eloquent Divine and truly
many venturous and bold Champions amongst them in so Meritorious a Cause But alas every Heroe is not a Sampson There are no doubt those of them that would spare neither pains nor study to propagate their own Religion though never so indirectly those possibly that would have it in their Power if they could come handsomely by it to use their Heretick Adversaries with as little Mercy as HE did his Philistian Enemies but alas not with his Hardiness too as like Him to pull down that Roof upon their Heads to their own inevitable Destruction only to have the pleasure of crushing some of VS with them We read I confess that pro Aris Focis men will venture far Yes truly for their Religion and Estates together they will do so But in the Popish Case where the Founding of the One will be the Destruction of the Other where the Setting up of their Religion will be the Forfeiting not only their Estates but Heads too 't is more than a hundred to one betwixt these two so directly opposite Interests but that the keeping of their Skin and Bones warm on the one side may make their Zeal a little the cooler on the other For let me tell you where the Erecting of the Altar will at long run make the Builders the Sacrifice in all humane probability that Popish Temple will go but slowly up whose Stones are to be dug out of so fatal a Quarry 'T is very remarkable in Queen Mary's Reign when by the Majority of her Parliament the Protestant Religion then but in its Minority was abolish't and the Romish Government and Papal Supremacy Re-establish't and indeed the Grandure of Rome even to Haeretici comburendi maintain'd Yet that Parliament that had it absolutely in their power to gratifie the Pope's utmost Wishes refused the returning his Church-Lands again Nay the Parliament were so averse to the thought of such a Restitution that they had never been wrought up to the restoring of the very Supremacy it self and of making of all those favourable Acts towards the re-installing of Popery again but by much pains used as Burnet in his Abridgement pag. 268 says by the policy of Bishop Gardiner to ensure the Kingdom from the Fear of coming under such Tyranny from Rome as their Ancestors had groaned under and likewise from the Loss of the Abbey-Lands Insomuch that Gardiner promised them for Removal of all such Jealousie that all the old Laws against Provisions should continue in Force and to shew them that Legates should exercise no dangerous Authority in England he made Pool take out a License under the Great Seal for his Legantine Power and for the other Viz. the Abbey-Lands he promised both an Act of Parliament and Convocation confirming them and undertook that the Pope himself should ratifie the Alienation of the Church-Lands which History tells us was accordingly done Nevertheless as this Papal Dispensation came very unwillingly from Rome being only a Forced Compliance and Temporizing with the English Obstinacy in that point The Queen her self restored all the Church-Lands in her Possession and proceeded so far as to the Re-building of several Religious Houses declaring to her Treasurer and some of her other Officers that she thought her self bound in Conscience to restore all the Church-Lands as being unlawfully acquired and not to be held without a Sin as Baker in his Chronicle tells us Nay the Pope himself set out a Bull excommunicating all that kept any Lands belonging to Abbeys or Churches which gave such an Alarm to the Nation that Gardiner was forced to pacifie them by telling them that Bull was intended only to the people of Germany and not England However the Pope continued his high Resentments against the Undutifulness of England that he could not forbear telling the Queen's Ambassadours Abridg. pag. 221. That it was beyond his power to confirm Sacriledge and all were obliged under the pain of Damnation to restore to the last Farthing every thing that belong'd to the Church he said likewise that he would send over a Collectour to gather the Peter-pence for they could not expect that St. Peter would open Heaven to them so long as they denied him his Rights upon Earth Yet all this made so little Impression on the Commons of England that whatever Conscience might dictate their Priests insinuate their Popish Successour Solicite or their Pope himself endeavour so powerful was Interest above Conscience and all other Motives whatever that several of the Commons in Parliament lay'd their hands on their Swords and declared that they would not part with their Estates but defend them And every Motion that way was always carryed in the Negative Abridg. of the Reform B. 3. pag. 309 Now pray for once let us compare Cases If the Papists in her Reign with the highest Papal Dominion and Soveraignty in their own Hands under an Establish't Roman Church against both their Priests and their Prince nay a Prince too with her Hereticks under her Feet and her Religion in the very Saddle could refuse both their Pope and their popish Successour so Just and so Sacred a Right and so important to his Church's Interest and that too when with all Safety round them they might have confirm'd their Oblation even by the strongest Bonds of Law so on the other side how shall it be suppos'd that the more prodigal Papists in our Age in the quite contrary extream shall gratifie the unjust Demands of a more Impotent popish Successour under the lowest Ebb of Popery against all Law or Pretence of Law whatever by launching out into the most notorious .075 Violation of all the highest sanctions of Right and Justice and the most openfaced Tyranny and most impudent Barbarity in the world and all forsooth for the Establishing of Popery and all God wot too little for the Work and this too to the running themselves into unavoidable Iayls and Halters and not only to the ruining of their Estates but to the cutting off of the Lives of Themselves and even the very RACE of Papists under the next immediate Crown'd-Head that succeeds Besides as boldly as the Roman Zealots stand up for the Interest and Dignity of Mother-Church and the Grandure and Dominion of their Peter's Successour not only the Papists but the very Priests themselves are not so overcouragious in this Cause as the World suspects them For Instance in Henry the Eighth's Reign the whole Clergy of England by a State-surprize upon them were found guilty of a Premunire by submitting to Cardinal Woolsy's Legantine-power as derived only from the Pope's Authority and thereby expresly against the Statute of PROVISOES an old dormient Law made several King's Reigns before though rarely or never put in Force by reason of the Remissness of the Government and the Supiness of the Nation and Kings Submission to Rome and therefore unwarily transgrest by the Clergy now By vertue however of which they had forfeited their Goods and Chattels to the King and their
persons to be imprisoned Upon the King's Menace of executing which Law Reformat Book the 2 d. pag. 112. the Convocation of Canterbury in tenderness to their Skins and Estates brought a Petition to his Majesty acknowledging him in the Title Protectour and Supream Head of the Church and Clergy of England Which was agreed to by nine Bishops 82 Abbots and the majority of the Convocation in the Province of Canterbury praying him to accept of 100000 l. in leiu of the Punishments incurred And the Province of York soon afterwards consented to the same Submission with the Offer of 18840 l. for obtaining the same pardon Insomuch that we find the very popish Clergy themselves so servilely compounding for their Mammon and their Carcases not so much in the Voluntary Tribute of their Purses as with the Renunciation of the Pope's Ecclesiastical Supremacy the very brightest Iewel in the Tripple Diadem and consequently by this sordid Compliance even the Priesthood it self by their own Leading Act gave the fatal Original precedent to the succeeding Act of Parliament to confirm that Supremacy in the Crown and so struck the first main Blow towards the shaking of the Romish Prerogative in England and thereupon Conspired to the greatest part of the ensuing Fatalities to their Religion it self And therefore if the Ecclesiastical Sons of Rome could ward themselves from the Stroke of Law due to that less Capital Transgression THEN by denying their very Pope Why must the Sons of Rome be so prodigiously Fool-hardy NOW as to run themselves into a more Dangerous and more Mortal Noose of Law for his Vindication 'T is very easie preaching to Fools and Madmen as the popish Character has very Rhetorically done what miraculous Fire and Faggot Feats or other Arbitrary Extravagancies the wonderful Papists under a popish Successour shall do But as great a Deity as the Romanists make of their Keeper of the Keys of Heaven as the Devil speaking of Job makes answer to God Almighty put forth thine hand and touch him in all that he hath and he will curse thee to thy Face So let his Holiness put these Zealots upon that Hard Task where their Necks are sure to stretch in the Service and Obedience will be so little a part of the Sacrifice they 'l make his Divinityship in such a Command that all his Bell Book and Candle will be too little to conjure up half hands enough for so ungrateful and so cursed an Employment Whatever pleasure they may take in bringing Vs to Stakes and Gibbets they are not overfond of Martyrdom themselves And though Great is their DIANA of Ephesus whil'st Profit and Safety go along with her and upon Reasonable Terms much might be done to exalt her yet ther 's that Vniversal Charm in that thing call'd OVR ALL and that strange superseding Quality in those potent Operators Self and Self-preservation that it over-rules the highest Excursions even of the most daring Zeal and the very biggest Devils of Outrage and Tyranny are laid by no other Spell But perhaps it may be objected That to incourage the bold Labourers in this Harvest this popish King to prevent the Ruine both of his Cause and his Party will take Care in case of a protestant Heir to divert the Succession and continue the Crown upon some other popish Head and so by a longer Usurpation of this Arbitrary Supremacy and a more lasting Persecution of the Protestants provide as much as in him lyes that the propagation of the Romish Faith may be compleated in succeeding Ages upon so good a Foundation lay'd in his Own This foolish Supposition is so lewdly ridiculous that ther 's scarce a shadow for such a Feaâ— For alas there will be so little Hopes of a popish Vsurper's mounting the Throne after so notorious a Tyranny under a Lawful popish King before him as nothing can scarcely be more impossible 'T is possible indeed the Duty of our Christianity and the Bond of Passive Obedience as having the Lawful Power of no other Weapons but our Prayers and Tears against the Tyranny of our Lawful Prince may tye up our hands and keep us in the Bounds of Peace and Resignation during his Reign But the setting up of a popish Vsurper after him in wrong to the Imperial protestant Right Heir will undoubtedly ingage all the Protestant Hands and Hearts against so impudent an Invader and if Occasion require his Protestant Royal Neighbours in such a Cause whil'st the taking up Arms in such a Quarrel which had been Rebellion against his Predecessour before would be the work of their highest Duty and Allegiance now And as the Remembrance of their past Yoke to all true English Spiâ—its would certainly double Edge their very Swords so in so just a Cause 't would infallibly spur them to so perfect and so unanimous a Revenge as to cut off their popish Enemies even to the last Man Now what popish Vsurper shall venture to pass such an Ordeal to a Throne Or what hopes a popish King can have of such a Successour or of accomplishing his own popish Designs on such a Basis let common Reason judge And therefore the Pope must have a very little Paternal Care of his Royal Son of Rome and indeed of all his Catholick Sons in England as to imbark them in a Cause so apparently Derstructive whil'st by misleading them into such sanguinary illegal Cruelties against the Protestants and all for an impossible Conversion of a Nation he runs his own darling people Root and Branch into an inevitable Fate under the next Protestant Successor exposed not only to the highest popular Swords and Fury but even to Cords and Axes and the severest Stroke and Vengeance of Law it self But possibly their Fate shall not wait so long as the next King's Coronation but overtake them in the first Onset of their popish Barbarity For let ut but look back to the Gun-powder Treason a Plot where Faux's Powder-Barrels were neither like Otes his Teuxbury Mustard-Balls nor his Black Bills Invisible A Plot too where the Conspirators dyed not Tongue-tyed but confessed their Guilt without that wonder-working Dispensation of asserting a Counterfeit Innocence to the stretch o their Salvation and Renuntiation of their God on the very Brink of Eternity Let us look back I say to the Discovery of that Plot and History informs us that 't was as much as the King Court and Government could possibly do to restrain the peopl's Rage from Butchering all the Papists in England the Guilty and Innocent together in the Revenge of so barbarous a Machination though uneffected tho by Providence detected and frustrated And if the Genius of England was so highly exasperated and so furiously transported in Zeal for their Prince's and their Representativ's Danger though past and escaped What Security shall the Pope or his popish Successour promise themselves that the people's Zeal for their own Dangers Approaching will not be as much transported too And that the Eruption of Smithfield
present French Arbitrary Stretch being little more than a Fleabiting to our total Abolition of our Laws Libertyes and Religion But to make this French Goblin more monstrous still there are some People that go a Bowes Shoot farther yet and will tell you that by the aforesaid almost Omnipotent Things called Standing-Armyes a popish Successour shall not only crush our Protestant Laws and Liberties to pieces Himself but likewise hectour our very parliaments to that degree as to force them to the giving up our very Birthrights to him nay to the very passing of at once both Popery and Slavery into Law it self and then Lord have Mercy upon poor lost England For alas the same Absolute uncontroulable Soveraignty that the French King has over his Parliaments is they 'll tell you the intended Scheme of a popish Dominion in England And then where Oh where is our Religion and Liberties when that black Day once comes Now in the Name of Lucifer what Infernal Impudence reigns in the World when such Rank such Nonsensical Stuff as this can be asserted by Rogues and credited by Fools For besides the most infamous Calumny that this execrable Imputation throws upon the whole Body of the Nation Viz. That Englishmen shall be such tame such abject such despicable Wretches and Cowards as out of any personal Fear whatever to yield up their Laws Rights and Religion to the Ruine of themselves and their Posterity and thereby offer as it were even their own Throats to the Slaughter What Relation has the present Management in France to that of Popery in England or the French King 's Parliamentary Influence to that of a popish Successour's For whatever extraordinary Obedience or Subjection the French Parliaments may yield to their King in the grant of any Oppressive Impositions upon the Subject to advance their King 's Exorbitant Power and Greatness are the French King 's Arbitrary Endeavours to root up the Foundations of his popish Laws and the Establish't Religion of France which vice versa is the Case in England so that if a popish Successour can hector our English Parliaments to no farther a Complyance than the French King does His the Devil an Inch of Ground will Popery get in England for as I take it the French Parliaments are all popish and as such are in so little danger of their Religion that truly their Prince in the other Extream is in the highest Extravagance of Advancing it So that unless we state the Parrallel between the two Kings Thus Viz. Supposing the French King a Hugonot which is but turning our Tables that then both his popish Armies and popish Parliaments would nevertheless be awed and bullyed into that intire Submission to him as to abolish the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and thereby subject themselves and all their Brethren Papists to the self same Persecution and Slavery under the Hugonots that the Hugonots suffer under Them without which Supposition his Tyranny is wholly alien to our popish Successour's and nothing but the most Villanous Phanatical Sophistry dares cant at this wretched rate to pretend to make the French Tyranny a Model for English Popery to work by But put the Case there were a French Hugonot King and that had the forementioned purpose in Agitation either by Armies or Parliaments as plyable as the French Genius is supposed to be his Ill Success in such an Exploit might be soon guest by the Difficulties and Obstructions of their Hugonot Henry the 4 th in his way to the Throne under but a suspition of inclining that way And consequently what worse Success would attend the like popish Changes in England under the manifest disproportion of the English Papists to the French Hugonots is past dispute However if neither English Armies nor English Parliaments can do the popish Feat there 's one last Expedient yet to vanquish all Obstacles and that I assure you if no small Authors may be believed a most puissant one Viz. If the popish Hands in England are too weak to enslave us this popish Successour shall borrow the Assistance of popish Neighbours to help out and so what cannot be done by Domestick Forces shall be perform'd by a Forreign Army call'd over on purpose This Expedient I confess is so much the more remarkable as it has some little Affinity to Bedlow's St. Jago Expedition and truly has sometimes had the Honour to be harangued upon even in a House of Commons as no small Danger from Popery But notwithstanding the Authority and Veracity this Projection may seem to arrogate from its Admission into an Honourable House of Parliament upon due Examination I am half afraid 't will prove but one of the Observator's downright Twangers For if this popish Successour be for setting up Popery by pitch't Battles and plain Conquest and that too by Outlandish Ayde in the first place he must have far more than tenfold as many Forreign popish Hands as he has of his own to pretend at least to a strength able to subdue England nay and in truth here 's one unlucky Circumstance attending that is if he can borrow popish Neighbours 't is odds but the protestants may borrow protestant Neighbours too upon occasion for Princes have as often lent Armies to succour opprest Subjects as to assist Oppressing Tyrants But let that pass But supposing the best face of the thing that there were some Chance for him in this bold Cast and that after his setting of Honour Life Empire all at a Throw upon the hazard of War there were only an even Lay of Keeping or loosing them a Caesar aut nullus 't were a little more pardonable Venture But as the Devil would have it there 's not one syllable of this in the Matter For if overthrown he 's so irrevocably lost that possibly not only his own Ruine but that of all his Royal Family and of Monarchy it self goes together But admitting he Conquers the Question is whether the Caesarship on the other side be so secure or no For truly what if the aforesaid tenfold Majority of Forreign Conquerours should make bold to pass a Civil Complement upon this Successour Militant and the rest of his popish Remnant and fairly keep the Victory when they have got it For I assure him little England is a pritty Parcel of Terra firma and 't were no small Temptation to popish or no popish Fingers to be a little tenacious with so fortunate a Prize And when those Triumphant Forreigners have tasted the sweet Air of so delicate a Spot as England 't is fourty to one whether They or at least the Crown'd Head that lends them will be overhasty of resigning so inviting a Trophy as the English Diadem and truly cosidering the Blackness of the Cause they came over to ingage in if any Forreign Prince can lend an Army for so Dishhonourable a Quarrel which indeed all Nations and all Religions must cry Shame against with much less Dishonour may he wear the Lawrel he wins