malice or revenge but meerly to repel an injury done him or prevent one that may be done him By which Maxim I know what account to give of Sir Edmund-bury Godfrey's death namely that though the Papists killed him yet they were far from murdering of him unless they who did it were such fools as not to know how to direct their intention to the securing the Popish Cause without designing revenge for his being so busie to defeat and obstruct them in their designs Thus by this directing of the intention it is no sin to calumniate another falsly or to charge him with Crimes which may both reach his life and his honour although you know him altogether innocent of what you accuse him of providing the end you purpose in doing so be some such good thing as the preserving your safety or the reputation of the holy Catholick Church and not the defaming or destroying the party whom you slander and accuse Thus the giving a false Testimony in Court upon Oath is no sin if you can but direct your intention in doing it to the saving of one that he hath a kindness for Thus one may say and swear that which is most false providing he do not direct his intention to the deceiving men but only to hinder them from doing hurt namely their preventing the Plot from going on or their hanging a Popish Lord or Jesuit who had conspired against the King the Protestant Religion and the Kingdom By this I think I 'm able to salve the St. Omers Youths from having sinned in their lying Testimonies at the Old-Bayley For the Striplings did not formally design the abusing the Judge or Jury or the discrediting Dr. Oats these things would have proved but accidental consequences of what they deposed had their Testimony been believed seeing alaz all that they intended was the bringing off their Friends and the supporting the Credit of their Church And the command of God forbids only a false Testimony against my Brother but not a false Testimony for him And thus we know easily how to vindicate the late Papal Martyrs from having sinned in their last lying Speeches for poor innocent men they did no ways intend to deceive but only to prop up the credit of the Popish Cause and hinder the Plot from being believed Welfare Diana who tells us in the third part of his Casuistical Divinity Tr. 6. Resol 3. That in his Casibus animus affirmantis aut jurantis non debet esse fallere proximum sed occultare veritatem quam manifest are non expedit 2. If they lye and forswear themselves from a custom and a habit which they have acquired of lying and perjury in that case to lye or swear falsly is not according to the greatest of our Modern Casuists any mortal sin and as some of them say any sin at all Consuetud blasphemandi ne vel peccatum nec falsa juramenta ita prolata Escobar Tr. 1. Ex. 3. N. 36. 48. Talis non peccat nec proprie blaspemat Laiman lib. 1. Tr. 2. cap. 3. So that for a Papist to acquit himself from sinning by lying Oaths and Asseverations it is but before hand to habituate himself never to speak or swear what is true And the more profligate and obdurate any person hath been in daily blasphemies and perjuries the more secure he is from sinning in doing so especially if the advantage of the Papal Church require such a curtesie at his hand as to blaspheme the name of God and perjure himself Nor is it strange that a Lord who had contracted as great custom of sinning as most men of this age had done should venture to dye with a lie in his mouth upon this blessed security of the supream Directors of Conscience that the custom of lying had made it no sin for him to do so 3. A Lye according to the Morality of the Romish Divines is in such cases no sin when he that delivers it though he confirms it with never so many Asseverations to be true is not bound to speak truth Sylvester Sum. verb. Mendacium with many others Now they assign several cases wherein those of their Communion are not obliged to speak truth 1. If the Pope should forbid them to speak what they believe and know and on the contrary command them to Lye In that case the Authority of the holy Father legitimates lying and to speak truth becomes a Crime Si Papa erraret praecipiens vitia prohibens virtutes Ecclesia credere tenetur vitia esse bona virtutes esse malas Bellarm. de Rom. Pontif. lib. 4. cap. 5. 2. If they be prohibited by their lawful Superior to speak truth and enjoyned by him to affirm a falshood the latter becomes thereby sanctified and the first commenceth an offence and is rendred a sin For whatsoever a Superior commands those under his conduct are bound implicitly to obey and how unlawful soever the thing which he requires may be in it self yet obedience in that case hallows the action See Ignatius Epist. de virtute Obedientiae ad Lusitanos Sect. 11. And what a door this sets open to lying if any Ghostly Father think it convenient either for his own safety or the interest of the Church to require may be easily imagined 3. It becomes legitimate for them to lye and they are not bound to speak the truth if any one Doctor or Casuist interpose his judgment that it is safe in the practick and for the advantage of the Church that they should aver a falshood This follows upon their Doctrine of Probability for according unto that whatsoever any one Casuist affirms to be lawful a person may venture upon it without running any hazard of sinning And is it to be conceived but that some Priest or other will in this juncture not only give liberty for a Member of the Roman Communion in England to lye especially when their Cause can not otherwise subsist but that he will frame lying Speeches for them which as occasion is others shall pronounce 4. They are not obliged to speak the truth when they are before an Uncompetent Authority And such are all Heretical Magistrates in reference to Roman Catholicks Or if they be speaking to Hereticks it is the same thing for they are not under any obligation to entertain them with what is true Alaz they may cheat such without dishonesty violate Oaths made unto them without perjury rob them without theft kill them without murder and surely much more may they lye unto them without the violation of the measures of Truth and Justice For they whom they may meritoriously destroy they may innocently deceive And by the same Principle that no faith is to be kept with Hereticks no faith nor truth are due unto them 4. Lying in a Papist is no sin when he hath beforehand a Dispensation for it For the nature of a Dispensation is that it doth not change the quality of the Fact but makes it cease to be sin to him
reason but believe that they who labour to suborn bribe and persuade others to swear falsly for the safety of Persons to whom they have no relation and the hopes of some small rewards which they propose unto them will be ready to perjure themselves for their own sake the advantage of their posterity and the interest of the Catholick cause and whole Papal party He that swears falsly or labours to have another to do so for the taking away of his neighbours life will not scruple to perjure himself in order to avoid infamy upon his name and to divert ruine from his own person and offspring For however offensive it be to God to preserve ones self by unlawful means it is both much more provoking to the Lord and prejudicial to the World first to frame and then support a Plot by Perjury wherein so many thousand innocent persons must have suffered as in all probability would have done in that which Mr. Dangerfield was suborned and imployed about § 9. As all the Conspirators have been ingaged in the same Treason and influenced thereunto by the same Principles So it is not unreasonable to conceive that they should be all instructed to act a like part in the denial of it for they that could enter into so bloody a design as to destroy their lawful King ruine their native Country and cut the throats of many of their Kindred as well as of their friendly and innocent neighbours may very well be supposed to reckon themselves discharged from all those ties of Divine Laws and Obligations of Conscience which should restrain them from lying and Perjury But the holy God who sometimes leaves men to such wickedness and obduracy for ends alwaies righteous but often hidden seldom fails to display his Power and Wisdom in affording such means and opportunities of detecting their Villanies as may be improved and managed to the preserving the Peace and securing the safety of Nations and Societies if Magistrates and People be not wanting to themselves And accordingly hath the allseeing Majesty over-ruled and strongly infatuated the minds of all the Traitors who have suffered for the late Plot that though they have had the impudence to deny their guilt yet they have left Evidences of it either in their own Papers which have come to light or in the very particulars which they have alledged for the asserting of their Innocency For to begin with Coleman it is to be rationally believed that having established a correspondence with the French King's Confessor in order to so mighty a work as the Conversion of three Kingdoms and the utter subduing of a pestilent Heresie which had domineered over a great part of this Northern World a long time should immediately give over all forreign Correspondence subservient to so blessed a work after the writing of those Letters 1675. Alas it was enough that he discovered what he knew his own hand attested by his Servants would betray and detect him in but this man of so seigned Candor and Ingenuity thought it meritorious as well as lawful to deny whatsoever he saw could not be proved against him by his own Papers And had not his former Letters been taken he would have denied all kind of Correspondence with the Confessor as well and with much more probability than that any such communication was afterwards maintained betwixt them Nor Secondly would the Consult April 24. 1678. have ever been acknowledged but that it was mentioned in a Letter written by one Peters a Jesuite to one Tonstal of the same Society to meet at the said Consult which Letter was taken among Harcourt's Papers when his Chamber was searched For had it not been for the finding of that Letter they would have confidently denied the whole thing and I am sure with more reputation to their wisdom than by the endeavouring now to impose upon the World that the said Consult was only upon the score of a trivial Meeting For had that been all the reason for their Assembly what necessity was there for these words Every one is also to be minded not to hasten to London long before the time appointed nor to appear much about the Town till the Meeting be over lest occasion should be given to suspect the design Finally secrecy as to the time and place is much recommended to all those that receive summons as it will appear of its own nature necessary The whole strain of the Letter intimates that there was more then to be transacted than it is for their Interest to have known What less doth the Judication of design which was to be industriously concealed and the giving an account that the nature of the thing which they were to meet about required the utmost secrecy impart and signifie to all Impartial men than what Dr. Oats had declared to be the business of that Consult long before this Letter was found Thirdly When some things which men have affirmed with the highest Asseverations shall be found notoriously false it is a just ground of suspecting their Truth and Integrity in other things though the Evidence upon which we disbelieved them be not so apparent and palpable Now did not Gavan acquit all the Jesuits save Mariana from allowing King-killing Doctrine and that in near as positive and emphatical as those wherein he expressed and declared his own Innocency with reference to the Plot because the Jesuits saith Gavan are so falsly charged for holding King-killing Doctrine I think it my duty to protest to you with my last dying words that neither I in particular nor the Jesuits in general hold any such Opinion but utterly abhor and detest it And I do assure you that amongst the vast number of Authors which among the Jesuits have Printed Philosophy Divinity Cases or Sermons there is not one to the best of my knowledge that allows of King-killing Doctrine or holds this position that it is lawful for a private person to kill a King although a Heretick although a Pagan although a Tyrant there is not I say one Jesuit that holds this except Mariana the Spanish Jesuit and he defenas it not absolutely but only problematically for which his book was called in and that Opinion expunged and censured Let us now joyn Issue with Gavan on this point and refer it to the Readers to judge of this Jesuits sincerity and truth in all the rest that he said by his falshood in this particular What! not one Jesuit that allows the King-killing Doctrine when Father Campian tells us expresly That all the Jesuits have entred into a Covenant to destroy all Heretical Kings by whatsoever waies and means they are able best to effect it What! not one Jesuit but Mariana that maintains this and that his Book was called in upon that account whereas that Book of Mariana was never called in by the Authority of the Church And that Sanctanellus is known to have written a Book containing the same principles which was therefore
expressed to his Prince and of the Compassion and Duty which he hath testified to his Native Countrey which had it not been for him would not only have been involved in blood but buried in its own ruines And in the mean time the Credit which not only a great and impartial Prince but the whole Kingdom in its Representatives in four successive Parliaments and the highest as well as the lowest of the judicial Courts of the Kingdom have after the strictest and most critical Enquiry given unto him is enough to vindicate his sincerity and to leave an indelible Stamp of Truth upon all his Depositions Nor can the asseveration of any Papist whose Conscience allows him and whose safety makes it needful for him to protest his Innocence tho he know himself guilty lessen the Reputation of this honest and plain hearted Doctors Testimony who in the face of a thousand Temptations to the contrary and in the prospect of innumerable hazards swears that they are horrid Criminals § 14. Having dispatched all I intend from matter of Fact towards the convincing the World that there is no faith in Papists and that we bewray a very great weakness in giving any credit unto them I shall in the last place enquire into those Maxims of their Religion by which Lying and Perjury are legitimate and made lawful unto them And here I shall premise two things whereof the first is this that in whatsoever cases they may lawfully speak that which is false they may likewise without the hazard of making themselves guilty of Perjury swear it The Parsons Mitig. cap. 11. sect 9. Lessius de jure Justit cap. 42. dub 9. Sanctius Select Disput. 46. p. 330. And therefore Father Garnet gave it under his hand that every Speech which by Equivocation might be saved from a Lye the same Speech might without Perjury be confirmed by an Oath or by any other way though it were by receiving the Sacrament See Casanbons Epist. ad Front Duc. p. 202. The second thing I would premise is this That howsoever a matter may be unlawful and sinful if measured with respect to the Rule it is nevertheless safe in the practick and may be done without sin if it be but justified or countenanced by the Opinion of one Doctor And this they stile the Doctrine of Probability avowing That whatsoever is supported by the Authority of any one Catholick Writer is good and lawful for any man to venture upon the practice of though both the generality of other Casuists and the Person who is concerned immediately in the case depending be otherwise minded See Layman lib. 1. Tract 1. cap. 5. Escobar in Praefat. Theologiae Problematicae Filutius Mor. Quest. Tract 21. cap. 4. Bonacina Tom. 2. Disp. 2. § 4. Accordingly if any Priest pronounce it lawful to kill the King or to swear falsely to take away the life of a Protestant or to call Heaven and Earth to witness that he himself is innocent of a matter whereof he knows he is guilty all these and a thousand such things may be done upon the Authority of our Father and that without deriving any guilt upon the conscience of him that doth them Now these two things being suggested I shall in the first place enquire by what Maxims they have provided that a man may speak dissonantly to what he knows and believes and yet not lye Secondly I shall call over some of their Theological Principles by which a person may lie and yet not sin And thirdly I shall recount some of the blessed provisions of the Catholick Church by vertue of which in case one hath both lied and perjured yet he doth no ways endanger his salvation § 15. There are various Maxims provided by the Roman Casuists according to which those in the Papal Communion may speak otherwise than they believe and yet not to be chargeable with Imposture or Lying or to have transgressed any command of God whereby one man is obliged to speak truth to another 1. When a Person expresseth himself in words significant of things and thoughts but yet intends not to signifie any thing by them Thus say they One may pronounce a whole Oration articulatly and yet properly not at all speak and if he do not formally speak he doth not saith their Casuists lye Praeter modos AEquivocandi supra positos addunt aliqui quartum ut nimirum si quis de re aliquâ interrogatus verba exterius proferat in quibus plena integra continetur responsio qui tamen haec verba profert intendit vel per aliqua illorum vel etiam per omnia non loqui Unde inquiunt qui his utitur quantumvis verba illa sunt falsa non tamen mentitur quia non loquitur nec quidquam intendit per ea significare sed mere illa profert materialiter animi gratia seu ad exercendam vocem aut quid simile Citante Comptono Tom. Poster Disput. 24. Sect. 3. These aliqui or some whom our Author citeth though he pretend to differ from them are sufficient according to the Doctrine of Probability to justifie this in the practick and to acquit him that doth it from sin As if words were not invented to be the signs of things and the conveyancers of the thoughts of him that useth them How shall we know but by mens speaking proper and significative words that they intend to represent things and communicate their minds unto us And if once men may be justified in speaking words without designing to intimate any thing by them all converse among men is rendred cousenage and meer cheat And if when any one uttereth words which are apt to be declarative of such a matter and proper to represent his mind who speaketh concerning it and which the hearer can no otherwise construe than as expressive of such a thing and purpose I say if the speaker may salve himself from lying by pretending that he designed not to signifie any thing by those words there is not that abuse imposeable upon men by speech that here is any way left for them to escape or avoid For example suppose that one charged with a Crime make a long harrangue in terms materially fit to vindicate his innocency and which in the acceptation of every hearer can not be otherwise interpreted than as a justification of the speaker from the Crime charged upon him and though he be highly Criminal and his Hearers meerly abused by believing him guiltless he hath not according to this Maxim of Jesuitical Morality told a lye because he never designed that the words which he used should signifie any thing but only pronounced to exercise his lungs and make a noise 2. When one tells a falsehood and knows it to be so but supposeth that none will believe him in this case say some of our Papal Casuists he doth not lye For a lye say they is Verbum falsum cum intentione fallendi A falsehood uttered with an intent to deceive