Magistrate not to spare either Brother or Sister Son or Daughter Wife or Friend be he never so nigh if he seek to seduce the People of God from his true Worship c. But the late Queen of Scots hath not only sought and wrought by all means she can to seduce the people of God in this Realm from true Religion but is the only hope of all the Adversaries of God throughout all Europe and the instrument whereby they trust to overthrow the Gospel of Christ in all Countries And therefore if she have not that punishment which God in this place aforementioned appointeth it is of all Christian Hearts to be fear'd that God's just Plague will light both upon the Magistrates and Subjects but that by our slackness and remiss Justice we give occasion of the overthrow of God's Glory and Truth in his Church mercifully restored unto us in these latter days Constantinus Magnus caused Licinius to be put to Death being not his Subject but his Fellow-Emperor for that the said Licinius laboured to subvert Christian Religion And the same Constantinus is for the same in all Histories highly commended Much more shall it be lawful for the Queen's Majesty to execute this Woman who besides the subversion of Religion c. A Prince ought in Conscience before God by all the means he can to see to the Quietness Safety and good Estate of that people over which God hath appointed him Governour Therefore as the Queen's Majesty indeed is mereiful so we most humbly desire her that she will open her Mercy towards God's people and her good Subjects in dispatching those Enemies that seek the Confusion of God's Cause amongst us and of this noble Realm Object But haply it may be that some do discredit these Reasons by the Persons when they cannot by the Matter and will put in her Majesty's mind that we in persuading her respect our own danger fear of Peril coming to us and not right and true Judgment Yea and that it may appear very unseemly and worthy sharp reproof in a Bishop to excite a Prince to Cruelty and Blood contrary to her merciful Inclination Resp. As touching the first Branch surely we see not any great continuance of danger likely to come unto us more than to all good Subjects while this State standeth and the State cannot lightly alter without the certain Peril both of our Prince and Country Now if our Danger be joyned with the Danger of our Gracious Sovereign and Natural Country we see not how we can be accounted Godly Bishops or Faithful Subjects if in common Peril we should not cry and give warning Or on the other side how they can be thought to have true Hearts towards God and towards their Prince and Country that will mislike us for so doing and seek thereby to discredit us As touching the second Branch God forbid that we should be Instruments to incense a merciful Prince to Cruelty and Bloodiness neither can we think well of them or judge that they have true meaning Hearts that in the Minister of God and Officer do term Justice and right Punishment by the name of Bloodiness and Cruelty God I trust in time shall open her Majesty's Eyes to see and espy their cruel Puposes under the Cloak of extolling Mercy c. Here you see how urgent they are with the Queen contrary to her inclination to put Queen Mary to death who did not suffer till thirteen years after and how they mak thedangerousness of her Religion and the hopes which the Papists had conceived of ruining the Protestant Religion by her means not only sufficient but necessary Reasons for so doing A Bill of Exclusion is perfect Courtship to these Reasons Let those therefore that run down three successive Houses of Commons for that Bill turn their Fury and Reproaches with more justice upon these old 〈◊〉 and we have done And let them likewise give us but one Reason to provs a Bill of Exclusion to be unlawful which they will own to be a Reason a week after and not be ashamed of it and I do solemnly promise to joyn with them in renouncing these Old Reformers and will hereafter readily follow their new Guides and new Light In the mean time because I see hearty Protestants abused to their Ruin with shameful Sophistry I think it the part of every honest man to detect it And the most popular Argument is this You are preingaged and cannot consent to a Bill of Exclusion for if you do you are forsworn because you have long since sworn Allegiance to the King and to his lawful Heirs and Successors Now though the Lawyers tell them an hundred times over No man can have an Heir while he is alive yet this will not overcome that deceitful Prejudice which is occasioned by our common Speech where a man and his Heirs are contempory and familiarly live at once in the same House and eat and drink together every day Where likewise Heir Apparent sounds as a greater addition to Heir and Heir Presumptive sounds as somewhat a less addition and few are capable of considering them as terms of Diminution No more than on the other hand a Papist can be persuaded that Images are Idols because there common speech has made a distinction where really there is none as the Homily well observes Whereas here it has confounded an actual Heir with one that is only in possibility What is to be done then Shall we shew them that the Duty of Excise for instance is granted to the King his Heirs and Successors in which it is plain that Heirsand Successors have not any title to a Penny while his Majesty lives which God grant may be long to keep them a great while from it Why still it may be replied that Heirs and Successors may have this Law sense in an Act of Parliament but an Oath of Allegiance ought to be conceived in plain words and to be taken in the common sense of those words without any Jesuitical Equivocation Well if it be so then let them be sure to keep it in that sense in which they have taken it or should have taken it by sixteen Years of Age in the Court-Leet in these words This hear you the Steward and the Court that I shall swear That I will be true Liege-man and true Faith and Troth bear to our Soveraign Lord the King that now is and to his Highness Heirs and lawful Successors Kings or Queens of this Realm of England and other his Dominions depending on the same c. Whereby it is plain to every body that no one certain or known Person in the World has any interest at present in the Oath of Allegiance besides his Majesty that now is for who shall be King or Queen of this Realm of England hereafter none but God himself knows Another Argument I have heard which is fetch'd from the Common-Prayer That no Church of England-man can with a good Conscience be for
them he was a Roman And did not he in another place bring the Magistrates of Philippi one of the chief Cities of Macedonia upon their Knees when they had illegally beaten him without a fair Trial by telling them he was a Roman Although it is very plain that he and Silas who suffered with him had really offended as they were accused and were guilty of breaking the Roman Laws yet St. Paul insists upon this that they were uncondemned It were easie to produce many more passages to the same purpose And then as for the Laws of the Land That Doctrine overthrows Magna Charta Chap. 29. together with multitudes of Statutes and ruled Cases which as I cannot stand here to name so I need not they are so well known Only I will set down one Case for the 〈◊〉 of it which comprises in it more than all that I have said In the Circuit of Northampton when the Lord Anderson and Glanvile were Justices of Assize a Pursivant was sent by the Commissioners to arrest the Body of a man to appear before them and in resistance of the Arrest and striving amongst them the Pursivant was killed And if this was Murder or not was doubted and this depended upon the validity of Power and authority of the Pursivant for if his authority was lawful then in killing of an Officer of Justice in execution of his Office is Murder And advisement was taken till the next Assizes and upon Conference at the next Assizes it was resolved that the Arrest was Tortius and by consequence that this was not Murder The Pursivant was a proper Officer of the High Commission Court he was sent by the Court to make this Arrest it was one of the Powers of their Commission to send for any by Pursivant c. And yet because this Power had no foundation upon the Act 1. Eliz. upon which their Commission was grounded it could not justifie the Arrest and consequently the Pursivant's Blood was upon his own Head For as every Subject ought to be and therefore is supposed to be connusant of the Law much more ought they to be who have any part in the execution of it Now any man may see that my Discourse does not descend to any such petty Matters as false Arrests though a Man's Liberty is not to be despised neither but I have honest'y and legally parsued the end of our Saviour's coming into the World which as himself witnesses was not to destroy Men's Lives but to save them Of which the Laws of the Land are likewise very tender and have taken a particular care of all those who are put upon an inevitable necessity of defending themselves against the assaults of violent or evil-disposed Persons And to conclude That Doctrine quite alters our Oath of Allegiance and gives us new Measures of Obedience whereas the old ones are these I shall be obedient to all the King's Majesty's Laws Precepts and Process proceeding from the same And then after all that the case of a Pagan Successor might not seem remote and foreign and nothing of kin to Popery I found it necessary to make a short comparison of both those Religions which though an unfinish'd Piece I will be bold to say is very like wherein Popery may see her self neither flattered nor disfigured The Church of England reserves her Faith entire for the Canonical Books of Scripture her Reverence she divides betwixt the Ancient Fathers and the first Reformers of this Church who partly were Martyrs that died for 〈◊〉 Protestant Religion and partly were 〈◊〉 that afterwards setled it as it is now 〈◊〉 How much the Fathers would have been for a Bill of Exclusion we have seen already I shall in a word or two shew you the sense of the other Every Body knows that King Edward the Sixth to prevent his 〈◊〉 Sister from succeeding and not having time to call a Parliament bequeathed his Kingdom by Will to the Lady Jane Gray which was confirmed by the Privy Council It signified nothing indeed because it could not make void an Act of Succession in Henry the Eighth's Time but by doing that nothing they shewed what they would have done if they could I need not 〈◊〉 what Bishops were concern'd nor how far they were concerned in that Business But to pass by that the Bishops in Queen Elizabeth's Time to whom under God and that Queen we owe the settlement of our Church concurred to the making of that Statute 13. Eliz. Ch. 1. which makes it High Treason in her Reign and forfeiture of Goods and Chattels ever aster in any wise to hold or 〈◊〉 That an Act of Parliament is not of sufficient Force and Validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the Descent Limitation Inheritance and Government thereof And when you see their Names you will find that very many of them were Confessors Canterbury Matt. Parker London Edwyn Sands Durham James Pilkinton Winchester Robert Horne 〈◊〉 John Scory Worcester Nicholas Bullingham Lincoln Tho. Cooper Salisbury John Jewel St. Dabids Richard Davies Rochester Edmund Guest Norwich John Parkhurst Carlisle John Best Chester John Downham Alaph Glocester Richard Cheyney Bangor Nicolas Robinson Landaff Hugh Jones And that these Bishops were active and zealous for such Acts as these and were not concluded by a majority of the other Lords appears by what they did accor ing to some this Parliament but as Sir Simon D'Ewes will have it the next Year in relation to the Queen of Scots I am not satisfied with Sir Simon 's Reason which is That there was nothing moved about the Queen of Scots in the 13th of Eliz. For Cambden says There was a Bill for making her lyable to be tryed as the Wife of a Peer of England if hereafter she offended against the Laws which the Queen hindred from passing into an Act. I should not have mentioned this but by Sir Simon 's Account we lose John Jewel who died in the Interval betwixt this and the next Parliament But still there are Worthies enough left who were excluders with a witness for they were for excluding Mary Queen of Scots the next Heir to the Crown not only from the Succession but out of the World As you may see by their Writing intituled Reasons to prove the Queen's Majesty bound in Conscience to proceed with severity in this Case of the late Queen of Scots Some of which I will here set down only to invite the Reader to peruse the whole Paper Every good Prince ought by God's Commandment to punish even with Death all such as do seek to seduce the people of God from his true Worship unto Superstition and Idolatry For that Offence God hath always most grievously punished as committed against the First Table Deut. 13. His words are these If thy Brother the Son of thy Mother or thine own Son or thy Daughter c. Here you may perceive that God willeth his
Son of God and laid all the fault upon his Followers because they had done it of their own Heads but likewise he repeats and inculcates it all over his Alcoran that there is but one God only and no more And in one place I remember he gives this reason for it There is but one God and no more and he has no Son for he never had a Wife But now there 's an end of that Turkish Argument And now likewise the Secret is out For I confess it has often amazed me to see the extravagant Blasphemies which are used in their prayers to the Virgin Mary as when they call her the Fountain of Mercy which is the brightest and loveliest apprehension of God that can possess the minds of Creatures when they call her Empress of Heaven who upheld the Cherubim and Seraphim from falling there I thought them mad whom all the Angels worship that methought was but reasonable supposing the former whom the Sun Moon and Stars and the whole Creation are called upon to praise and magnify as if she had been the Maker of them all and who threw Pharaoh and his Host into the Red Sea there thought I they make old Time go back a thousand years for this piece of Flattery Whereas this unthought of Relation entitles her to every thing that is was or can be in the Universal World Methinks such rank Blasphemy as this should poyson the Air into which it is breathed forth and blast the whole Creation round about I am sure it will make the Ears of all Christians to tingle and raise their Blood against such an horrid Religion And thus I have proved the Papists out of their own blasphemous mouths to be Polytheists in setting up Saints and Angels for Gods and in giving Divine Honour to them I have employed no other Argument at present to prove this than only their prayers to them whereas I might have used very many others as he that will read the Homily against Peril of Idolatry may easily see Against certain truth I know there cannot possibly be any material Objection but I would answer all trifling ones if I could foresee them It may be the Papists will say They do not make the Angels and Saints Gods because they make them in many respects inferior to God Were the Heathen Gods no Gods because Jupiter was King of them Was Vulcan no God because he was only armed with an Hammer and not with the Soveraign Thunderbolt What difference the heathens made betwixt Jupiter and the other Gods you may in part see by this following passage taken out of Maximin's Edict upon a Pillar in Tyrus The highest and greatest Jupiter who presides over your famous City and delivers the Gods of your Country your Wives and Children and Houses from all destructive Calamity c. These poor helpless Gods were so far from being Omnipotent that they needed the protection of Jupiter as much as the meanest of their Votaries Or it may be they will say They reserve peculiar Worship and Services to God which they do not communicate to Saints For they tell us They celebrate the Mass indeed in memory and honour of the Saints but the Priest never uses to say I offer Sacrifice to thee Peter or Paul namely this Sacrifice of the Mass. For that they offer all other Sacrifices if it please God to give me Life and Health I shall hereafter fully prove and then they shall hear more of this deceitful Juggle too and of the Tricks they have played with St. Austin's words We grant they do not offer the Sacrifice of the Mass to the Saints but to the Trinity So that they offer the Son of God to himself and according to the usual decorum which they constantly observe in that awkerd Religion which is made to spite the Reason of Mankind As our Saviour once heretofore sat at the Table discoursing and lay sowering in twelve several mens Stomachs at the same time so now he is every day in person both the Sacrifice it self upon Earth and the God in Heaven to whom it is offered None but such a Fool as I am would stand arguing and disputing with these men whom all the Reason upon Earth can never distress by reducing them to Impossibilities or Absurdities when they own and profess these Absurdities and Contradictions of their own accord it would certainly be more wisdom to go and preach as Venerable Beds once did to a heap of stones But to proceed nevertheless are not we to take it for a great favour that they do not offer the Great God of Heaven in Sacrifice to Thomas of 〈◊〉 The Gentiles Idolaters were so far from offering Jupiter in Sacrifice to any petty God that I never yet read that they offered him in Sacrifice to himself There is no consequence at all in this reasoning The Papists do not offer the Sacrifice of the Mass to Saints and Angels but only to the Trinity therefore they do not make Saints and Angels Gods For had not the Heathens proper Sacrifices for Jupiter which were sacred only to him and yet this did not destroy the Divinity of the other Deiries It makes no more difference amongst the Gods nor affects their God-head any more to have this or that particular Sacrifice offered or not offered to them than it did for 〈◊〉 to have a great Beard and his Father Apollo to have none at all Lastly The Papists may possibly say That there is great difference betwixt the Gods of the Pagans and the Saints which they honour and worship the former having been lewd men and sometimes feigned persons the latter being such as we Hereticks pay some respect to though not enough I shall not now enter into the merits of that Cause but refer them to a great Prelate of our Church who has told them That they Worship Saints in Heaven and Saints in Hell and Saints that are in neither place nor ever were in being Though by the way I cannot find any such great difference betwixt Romulus and Ignatius Loyola the one having been in his time the Governour of a Den of Thieves and the other the Captain General of the Modern Banditi and it is all one to me whether they worship the Nine Muses or the Seven sleepers for still the Polytheism remains the same they have indeed chang'd their Gods but not their Religion CHAP. XI Their Idolatry ACcording to my former Method I shall 1. shew that the Church of England has all along charged the Papists with Idolatry And 2. I shall make good that Charge upon them out of their own Mouths 1. The Church of England has all along charged the Papists with Idolatry The Homilies I am sure charge them with it above an hundred times over out of which I shall make choice of some few Instances Speaking of the Ages of Popery It is evident that Images Superstition and worshipping of Images and Idolatry have continued many hundred