did it because they that are in the flesh cannot please God which is in effect sending all married persons to Hell This was one part of the pretended mortification of false Teachers about Marriage the other was about Meats S. Paul knew no such holiness in one sort of Meat above another as though men could fast their bellies full of one but the least taste of the other destroyed it What a pleasant thing it is to account that fasting which the unmortified Epicures of old accounted their most delicious feasting viz. Fish and Wine This is not doing so much as the Pharisees did for they appeared unto men to fast but in the Church of Rome they cannot be said to do that unless fasting and eating be the same thing But may not the Church call not eating prohibited meat fasting No doubt it may as well as call that no bread which we see and taste and handle to be bread However I cannot understand but if their Church had so pleased the eating Flesh and abstaining from Fish might have been called fasting and so they might have made one entire Fast of a whole years eating and notwithstanding all the pretence of fasting and mortification in that Church I cannot see that any man is bound by the Laws of it to keep one true fast all the dayes of his life But if all the mortification required lyes only in a distinction of meats the false Apostles went beyond them in it for they utterly forbid some sorts saying touch not taste not handle not and not meerly to shew their obedience to the commands of the Church but that they might not gratifie the desires of the flesh and therefore the Apostle saith these things had on that account a shew of wisdom in them being in all probability taken from the severe precepts of the Pythagorean Philosophy which makes him bid them Beware lest they were spoiled through Philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men and the principles of the world and not after Christ. For if this sort of mortification were a thing so pleasing to God the Heathen principles were more agreeable to his nature than the doctrine of Christianity This only requires the subduing our inward lusts and in order to that to keep the body in subjection but in the mysteries of the Heaten Religion far greater severities were to be undergone in order to their participation of them And the hardships were so great in some of their initiations especially those of Mithras that some dyed before they could pass through them and yet for any to be admitted without them was present death to them They were to make confession of their sins shave their heads change their habits lye upon the bare ground fast for several dayes and when they eat it was to be only of some certain meats these and many other severities they were to go through in order to the purifying their souls as they thought and bringing them to the state they were in before they came into the body Some part of these hardships the Pythagoreans took into their Philosophy and from them the Colossians began to be infected with them but S. Paul calls them only vain deceits the commandments and doctrines of men things that made a fair shew but he looks upon them as corruptions of the doctrine of Christ. Yet afterwards the Montanists and Encratitae and others were much stricter and more frequent in these fasts and abstinence than the Catholick Christians but the Church thought fit to condemn them as corrupters of Christianity By all which we see how apt men are to be deceived by false Teachers when they pretend to so much Mortification above what Christianity requires from them 3. They pretended to know the mind of Christ better than the Apostles did they pretended that they had conversed familiarly with Christ upon earth and understood his meaning better than the Apostles did And therefore their Disciples in the Church of Corinth were neither for Paul nor Apollos nor Cephas but they were only for Christ and gave out that from him they understood that what he had said concerning the Resurrection was only to be understood of the state of Regeneration which doctrine it seems had gotten great footing in the Church of Corinth by their means They reported that the Apostles understood only some common and ordinary things but the deeper and more hidden mysteries were only made known to them which makes S. Paul in his Epistles to those Churches which they had corrupted speak so often of his understanding the mysteries of God But we speak the wisdom of God in a mysterie even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world to our glory having made known unto us the mysterie of his will whereby ye may understand my knowledge in the mysterie of Christ. The true Apostles declared that they kept back nothing of the counsel of God but delivered it openly and plainly to make all men see and understand what that mysterie was the false Apostles pretended that the Doctrine and Writings of the Apostles did not contain all the great mysteries of the Gospel but they were received from Christs own mouth and conveyed to others by a secret and oral tradition The things written by the Evangelists they could not deny to be true but they were dark and obscure and could not be understood but by the help of their Oral Tradition and upon this principle Cerinthus Basilides Valentinus and Marcion went as appears by Irenaeus For when they saw they could never make good their Doctrines by the writings of the New Testament they sought to blast the reputation of these and set up the Authority of an Oral Tradition above them Men do not use to pick quarrels with their Friends and therefore when we find any charging the Scripture with obscurity and imperfection we have reason to believe they hope for no comfort from it 4. They made use of the most subtle and crafty methods of deceiving To this end they were very busie and active watching every opportunity therefore S. Paul charges them with sleight and cunning craftiness lying in wait to deceive i.e. with using all the arts and tricks of deceivers as 1. By deep dissimulation and disguising themselves not appearing at first to be what they really are nor letting them understand what their true doctrine and design is If any of those they hope to gain object any thing against them how do they pity their ignorance and revile their Teachers that did so foully misrepresent their Doctrines to them Alas for them poor men they neither understand us nor our Religion They have taken up things upon trust their prejudice will not suffer them to examine things as they are Have you not been told thus and thus concerning us and not one word of it is true Never trust such men more come be perswaded by us and then you shall be truly
for complying with this blessed Doctrine called the Commons or Deputies of the third Estate Nebulones ex faece plebis a pack of Knaves of the very dregs of the People Very obliging language from the Head of the Church When all that the Commons desired was only to have this Opinion condemned That the Pope hath power to depose Princes and that killing of Kings is an act Meritorious to the purchase of the Crown of Martyrdom but this by all their instances and arguments they could never obtain but the Nobility and Clergy over-ruled them in it For the Clergy King Iames saith He did not wonder so much because they look on themselves as properly Subjects to the Pope and therefore are bound to advance that Monarchy to which they belong But for the Nobility saith he the Kings right arm to prostitute and set as it were to sale the Dignity of their King as if the arm should give a thrust unto the head I say for the Nobility to hold and maintain even in Parliament their King is lyable to deposition by any forreign Power or Potentate may it not pass for one of the strangest Miracles and rarest Wonders of the World For that once granted this consequence is good and necessary that in case the King once lawfully deposed shall stand upon the defensive and hold out for his right he may then be lawfully murthered Which consequence is very well understood at Rome and allowed to be good by the Roman Casuists and yet the eloquent Cardinal calls that Doctrine which makes Princes indeposable by the Pope A breeder of Schisms a gate that makes way for all Heresie to enter and a Doctrine to be held in such detestation that rather than he and his fellow Bishops will yield to the signing thereof they will be contented like Martyrs to burn at a stake Blessed Martyrs the mean while and fit to be put in the same Calendar with the Gunpowder Traitors who suffered as I shall shew presently on the same principle methinks they might have chosen a better Cause to have dyed Martyrs for But surely it must be an Article of faith and a main point of their Religion which makes men Martyrs who suffer for it And such no doubt it is accounted among them when the same Cardinal saith That it leads men not only to unavoidable Schism but manifest Heresie to deny it and that it obliges men to confess that the Catholick Church hath for many ages perished from the earth for he confidently avows it that all parties in the Catholick Churh have held it and the whole French Church till the time of Calvin that if this Doctrine be not true the Pope is so far from being Head of the Church and Vicar of Christ that he is a Heretick and Antichrist and all the parts of their Church are the Limbs of Antichrist And if they be so we cannot help it but think we have great reason to secure our selves against the infection of such pernicious principles both to Christianity and the Civil Government And what can be more opposite to the design of Christianity when that requires men to obey even Infidel and Heathen Governours for conscience sake this Doctrine makes it lawful to depose destroy and murder Christian Princes for the Pope and the Churches sake This is the first thing we are to examine false Teachers by viz. the design of their Doctrines 2. By the means made use of to accomplish this design If things in themselves evil repugnant to the principles of humane nature and those of civil societies as well as to the precepts of Christianity are made lawful only for the carrying on their design we need not go farther to examine them for by these fruits we may know them There are three things which mainly uphold Civil Societies Truth Obedience and a care of the good of others but if men fall not through any sudden infirmity or surprize but openly and avowedly justifie the lawfulness of falshood treason and cruelty when they are intended for the carrying on their design what could they invent more contrary to the Laws both of God and man where in could they better discover themselves notwithstanding their Sheeps clothing to be meer ravening Wolves 1. Falshood and that both in their words and dealings 1. In their words by asserting the lawfulness of aequivocation and mental reservation in their most solemn Answers as Father Garnett when the Lords asked him Whether he had any conference with Hall denyed it upon his Soul and reiterated it with such horrible execrations as wounded their hearts that heard him and immediately upon Hall 's confessing it he excused himself by the benefit of aequivocation which being objected against Garnett after his Execution the Roman Jesuite Eudaemon Iohannes defends him in it and saith it is lawful for a man to swear and take the Sacrament upon it when he knows in his conscience what he saith to be absolutely false if he doth not help himself by a mental reservation And Tresham a little before his death in the Tower subscribed it with his own hand That he had not seen Garnett in sixteen years before when it was evidently proved and Garnett confessed they had been together but the Summer before and all that Garnett had to say for him was that he supposed he meant to aequivocate Lord that men going into another world should think thus grosly to impose upon God and men What was speech intended for if not that others might understand our meaning by it Did ever any man tell a lye to himself Truth in words consists in an entire proposition and not of one half-spoken and half-concealed and if it be lawful thus to abuse mankind it was to no purpose ever to forbid lying for any but meer fools may help themselves in their most solemn protestations by some secret reserve in their own minds and so this principle makes way for all the lyes or perjuries in the world if a man thinks that he is not bound to betray himself or if he judges his own damage will be greater by discovering the truth than the others damage will be by concealing it 2. Falshood in dealings and that notwithstanding the most solemn Promises nay the Safe-conducts of Princes For notwithstanding all their shifts and evasions in this matter no man that regards his safety will ever put his life into their hands for the sake of the Council of Constance All that they have to say is that The Emperour did as much as lay in him to do but it belonged to the Council to proceed upon Hereticks and the Emperour could not hinder that And what is this but plainly to say that Princes are to keep their words with Infidels and Catholicks but they have nothing to do to keep their words with Hereticks And if this be their principle we must have a care how far we trust them 2. Treason It is the honour of our Church of
England that it asserts the Rights of Princes so clearly and fully without tricks and reservations and all that mean honestly love to speak plainly But how many cases have they in the Church of Rome wherein men are acquitted from their duty from their Princes If a Toy comes into the Popes head or upon some Pique or jealousie he falls to the censures of the Church excommunicates a Prince what a case is this poor Prince in as to all those Subjects that think themselves bound to obey the Pope They may lawfully in their own opinion rise against him fight with him assassinate and murder him And which is very observable all this while they are not bound to believe the Pope infallible in these censures so that right or wrong if a Prince chance to fall under the Popes censures we see what a liberty is left to all his creatures to ruine and destroy their Soveraign The frequent attempts upon Q. Elizabeth the murder of Henry the Third of France after their excommunications by Pius the Fifth and Sixtus the Fifth are sufficient evidences of the danger of Princes in these cases By which last instance we see it is not only the case of Heresie which renders them obnoxious to the Popes censures but particular piques and quarrells or if the Pope chance to think a man unfit to govern as in the case of Chilperic of France or if they detain Church-land belonging to Monasteries in which case Becanus saith expresly Kings and Princes are to be excommunicated and deprived and Pope Paul the Fourth was perfectly of his opinion and declared They were in a state of damnation that held them But so far some of them are kind to Princes to say That they ought not to be deposed till they are excommunicated and yet Gregory the seventh before excommunication deprived the Emperour Henry the Fourth for the damnable Heresie of defending his own Rights But since they are lyable to these horrible censures upon so many causes we may see how very ticklish and uncertain the doctrine of Obedience must be among them and that mens being guilty of Treason depends upon the Popes pleasure And methinks herein the case of Princes deserves hugely to be pittyed that when no man thinks it lawful to cut another mans throat or put him out of his house and estate because he is excommunicated yet if a Prince falls under excommunication he loses presently his right to the Crown and his Subjects may take away Crown liberty and life from him 3. Cruelty And by this they fully discover themselves to be ravening wolves when they have lost all the tenderness and love and good nature of men or Christians when no design can be so horrible or bloody so mischievous and treacherous so base and cruel but persons will be found to undertake it and that under a pretence of Conscience and Religion I need not here tell the long dreadful stories of the Roman Inquisition the numbers of those in other Countreys who have been butchered on the account of Religion but the Fact I mean the Conspiracy for God be thanked it went not farther which we bless God for the discovery and defeating of this day doth abundantly manifest the fruits of those doctrines which they had sucked in from the Roman Church If only a few desperate persons upon personal provocations had been engaged in so villainous a design we should have had never the less reason to thank God for our deliverance but since it doth appear that those persons who undertook it pretended nothing in it but conscience and Religion we have not only reason to abhorr the undertaking but the principles which animated them to it I know very well what Sheeps clothing hath been of late cast over the most barbarous cruelty of these ravening wolves and men by their impudence would endeavour to bear us down that it was only a project of some few male-contents drawn in by the subtilty of a crafty Statesman in those dayes and that it ought not in justice or honour to be imputed to the principles of their Religion Therefore to lay open before you the just and true circumstances of this horrible Conspiracy I shall proceed upon these three particulars 1. That the persons engaged in it had no personal provocations to move them to it 2. That all the motives they had to it were from the principles of their Religion 3. That the Church of Rome hath never since detested the principles upon which they acted or set any mark of infamy on the Actors in it 1. That the persons engaged in it had no personal provocations What injury had Catesby or Percy or Tresham or Digby received from the King or Parliament to stir them up above thousands of others to be the great managers of so hellish a Plot Did not they enjoy their estates and places and one of them at Court too Why should these men venture lives estates honours families and all that was dear to them Were their estates confiscated before and themselves every hour in danger of having their throats cut This might make men of high spirits grow desperate But not the least tittle of all this was pretended by the most enraged of them nothing but Zeal for Religion and the Catholick Cause was ever pleaded by them To which purpose these are remarkable words of King Iames in his Speech in Parliament upon the discovery For if these Conspirators saith he had only been bankrupt persons or discontented upon occasion of any disgraces done them this might have seemed to have been but a work of revenge But for my own part as I scarcely ever knew any of them so cannot they alledge so much as a pretended cause of grief and the wretch himself in hands doth confess that there was no cause moving him or them but Meerly and Only Religion And the King himself again avowed it to the whole Christian world That the Papists had not before this horrible design the least colour of any discontent from him that he had so far suspended penalties and abated the rigorous execution of Laws against them to such a degree as gave great suspicion to his best Subjects who told him what would be the fruit of all his kindness to them Nay he saith they grew to that height of pride in confidence of his Mildness as they did directly expect and assuredly promise to themselves Liberty of Conscience and equality with his other Subjects in all things that he had shewn particular Favours to many of them gave them free access to him eased them of their payments set their Priests at liberty granted a general Pardon to them after conviction Now after all this what colour or pretence in the world can there be to say that only discontent and despair brought these men to it O but it might however be the cunning of a great Minister of State to draw a few Gentlemen and others into such a