for our constancy to the profession of our forefathers from which had we stincht but the breadth of a naile and taken upon us some new denomination we had been as hard to be found out as other Sectaries and as free from penalties as they which forefathers of ours living before Luthers dayes in communion with the Catholikes of France Spaine Italic and all the Christian world as we do now did deliver faithfully it stood upon their salvation so to do unto their children those of the rest of the Christian World did the like unto their children that Depositum of Christianity which they had received from their predecessors and they from theirs by a continued successive line of Tradition from the Apostles and Christ no reforming enemy being able to shew when the Catholike Faith now professed by us and persecuted in us began in the world nor when the successive Tradition we and all Catholikes pretend unto was intercepted an infallible argument of our persecuted Religions being from the Apostles Christ More then sufficient cause I say for all to return to the Catholike Church setled by Christ the divine Architect upon a rock never to be prevailed against by humane or Devills powers never subject to fall from her self in points of faith nor consequently to be reformed in them from which Church your first Reformers fell Ex nobis exeuntes one of the marks by which we are to discern Hereticks as the Apostles teach us in their Acts chap. 15. ver 24. going out from among us to gain sensuall liberty to themselves to be revenged on their superiors or for private by-ends troubling the world with words subverting mens soules without commission or mandate from any superior for their facts or pretended Reformations And finally cause enough for the world to reflect how ill advised they were in times past and what an ill president they shewed posterity in their former greedy acceptance of new reforming spirits so prejudiciall to saving truth to orderly government in Church and State and to particular mens properties And withall to take warning for the future not to remit the work of Reformation even in things subject thereunto as Ceremonies humane practices manners and the like to every giddy pretending spirit if you do so you shall certainly have more holes made then mended but to such as are lawfully ordered and commissioned for it by the visible Church the pillar and ground of truth that all things be done according to her prescript honestè secundum ordinem 1 Cor. 14. 40. But fearing lest I should make this Prefatory Discourse like the gates of the City Myndus or like a great portall to a little house I 'le first present you with the names of some late Converts and then deteine you no longer from my promised re-impression of Doctor Cariers learned Letter to King James which is here rendred verbatim according to the Originall excepting onely the addition of some few marginall Notes I desire you to read it with attention reflecting from those to these times and not permit your mind to bee so prejudicate as to give censure before you have well pondered the matter the scope of which mutato tempore is the same with this which comes from one who unfeignedly would have all men saved and come to the knowledge of and imbrace the truth N. STRANGE From Paris 1. Novemb. 1648. stylo novo PSAL. 2. Et nunc Reges intelligite erudimini qui judicatis terram Attendite disciplinam nè pereatis The names of some who have lately been Ministers or Vniversity men in England and Scotland and are now converted to the Catholike Faith Tho. Vane Doctor of Divinity of Christs Colledge Cambridge lately Chaplain Extraordinary to His Majesty and Parson of Crayford in Kent Hugh Paulin de Cressy of Cambridge lately Prebend of Windsore in England and Deane of Laghlin in Ireland now entred into the Religious Order of S. Benedict at Doway Hen. Ireson of All-Soules Oxford Doctor of the Civill Law N. Read of New Colledge Oxford Doctor of the Civill Law Mr. Rich. Nicholls Bachelor of Divinity of Peter-house Cambridge Mr. Rich. Crashaw Master of Arts of Peter-house Cambridge now Secretary to a Cardinall in Rome well known in England for his excellent and ingenious Poems Mr. William Rowlands Minister of S. Margarets Westminster Master of Arts of Exeter Colledge Oxford Mr. Tho. Normington Master of Arts of Pembroke Hall Cambridge now in Italy a very able man in divers Sciences Mr. Joyner Bachelor of Arts and Fellow of S. Mary Magdelens Colledge Oxford Mr. Blakiston Bachelor of Arts of Cambridge who died last yeare in the English Colledge at Rome Mr. Edward Barker of Caius Colledge Cambridge Bachelor of Arts. Mr. Eaton of Cambridge now Priest in the English Colledge at Rome Mr. Peter Glu Minister of Ballioll Colledge in Oxford now Priest Mr. Jackson Minister Mr. Cooper Minister Mr. Daniel Minister now entred into a Religious Order Of Scots Mr. John Chrighton a famous man in his Country late Preacher of Parson in Scotland afterwards eminent in Languedos and lastly Chaplain to the Marquesse of Ormond Mr. Andrew Youngston late Regent of Aberdein now in a Colledge in Spain Mr. William Simple late Regent in Glascow now also in Spain Mr. Hugh Rosse late Regent in Aberdein now also in Spain Mr. Tho. Johnston c. Besides these there are divers both learned and unlearned lately entred into Communion with the Church of Rome whose names you may more easily learne then I discreetly publish Nor do I doubt but one more commerced with England Scotland and Ireland with other parts of France and with the promises of the low Countries might easily furnish you with a larger Catalogue of Convertites of as good fame for their learning and good parts in your Universities and in their respective countries as these I have been bold to name their understanding being now better disposed to discern and reflect upon their former errours by the palpable confusion and unconsciable effects they saw e-every where sprouted and sprouting out of the late Reformation begun by Luther Errata in the Preface PAge 6. line 13. read pretence of p. 12. l. 6. r. the bread l. ult r. of a little ERRATA PAge 3. line 28. read title p. 7. l. 13. dele one at p. 11. l. 15. dele in p. 21. l. 24. r. swinge over p. 23. l. 13. r. in these p. 39. l. ult r. reasonable Other lesse materiall faults with some false pointings the discerning Reader will easily discover and correct Most Excellent and renowned Soveraign IT is not unknown to all that know me in England that for these many years I have had my health very ill And therfore having from time to time used all the meanes and medicines that England could afford last of all by the advice of my Physitians I have made it my humble suit unto your Majesty that I might travell unto the Spa for the use of those waters
thing to think upon such exhortations and all one as if a phantasticall fellow finding a herd of young Cattell in a close should first break downe the hedges and then cry loud to the Cattell not to venture to go out nor to seek any fatter pasture for fear they be put into the pound and if they chance to feed where they are because they have no experience of other and to tarry in the Close for an houre or two then the unhappy fellow should run to the owner of the Cattell and tell him what great service he had done him and how he had kept his Cattell in the Close by his goodly charmes and exhortations Let them say what they list of their own honesty and of their exhortations to obedience as long as they do freely infect the peoples soules with such false opinions in Religion they do certainly sow the seeds of disobedience and Rebellion in mens understandings which if they be not prevented by your Majesties giving way to Catholike Religion will in all likelihood spring up in the K. Charles feels the sad effects of this predictioÌ„ next generation to the great prejudice and molestation of your Majesty and your posterity So that whether I doe respect heaven or earth my own soule or the service of your Majesty God or your Neighbours or your Subjects my assured hope is that by joyning my selfe to the Catholike Church I neither have done nor ever shall do any ill duty or service unto your Majesty 18. But perhaps there is such opposition both in matter of Doctrine and in matter of State as it is unpossible that ever there should be any reconcilation at all betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome of which I humbly pray your Majesty to give me leave to shew you what I have observed 19. It is true the breach hath continued now these many yeares and it is much increased by so long continuance so that it was never greater then it seems to be at this day nor ever more dangerous to deal withall For if a man do but go about to stop it there ariseth presently a great and fearfull noise and roaring of the waters against him but yet neverthelesse the greatnesse of the noise ought not to discourage us but rather to give us hope that although it be wide yet it is but shallow and not far from the bottome as proceeding from affection which is sudden and violent and not from judgement which is quiet constant and alwaies like it self for if a man ask in cold blood whether a Romane Catholike may be saved the most learned Church-man will not deny it And if a man aske whether a Romane Catholike may be a good Subject the most wise States-man will easily grant it May we be both saved then we are not divided in God May we be both good Subjects then we are not divided in the King What reason is there then that we should be thus hotly and unplacably divided 20. Truly there is no reason at all but only the violence of affection which being in a course cannot without some force be staied The multitude doth seldome or never judge according to truth but according to customes and therefore having of purpose been bred and brought up in the hatred of Spaniards and Papists cannot chuse but think they are bound to hate them still and that whosoever speaks a word in favour of the Church of Rome or of Catholike Religion is their utter enemy And the Puritannicall Preacher who can have no being in charity doth never cease by falsifications and slanders to blow the coales that he may burn them and warm himselfe But if your Majesty shall ever bee pleased to command those make bates to hold their peace a while and to say nothing but what they are able to prove by sufficient authority before those who are able to judge and in the mean time to admit a conference of learned and moderate men on either side the people who are now abused and with the light of the Gospell held in extreme ignorance are not yet so uncapable but they will be glad to heare of the truth when it shall be simply and evidently delivered by honest men and then they will plainly see that their Light of the Gospell which they so much talk of is but a counterfeit light in a Theeves lantern whereby honest mens eyes are dazzled and their Purses robbed And it will also appear that there is not indeed any such irreconcileable opposition betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome as they that live by the Schisme do make the world believe there is neither in matter of Doctrine nor matter of State 21. For matter of Doctrine there is no reason that your Majesty or the Kingdome should be molested or burdened for the maintenance of Calvinisme which is as much * Indeed a true Protestant and a Papist are now almost equally odious against the Religion of England as it is against the Religion of Rome and will by necessary consequence overthrow not only the Catholike Church the Communion of Saints and the forgivenesse of sinnes but also all the Articles of the Creed saving only so much as the Turk himselfe will be content to believe which will be easie to prove upon better leisure The Doctrine of England is that which is contained in the Common Prayer Book and Church Catechisme confirmed by Act of Parliament and by your Majesties Edict wherein all English men are Baptized and ought to be confirmed and therefore there is some reason that this should be stood upon But this Doctrine in most of the main points thereof as hath been touched before and requireth a just treatise to set down in particular doth much differ from the current opinions and Catechismes of Calvinisme or doth very neer agree with or at least not contradict the Church of Rome if we list with patience to hear one another And those points of Doctrine wherein we are made to be at warrs with the Church of Rome whether we will or not do rather argue the Corruptions of that state from whence they come then are argued by the grounds of that Religion whereupon they stand and the contradiction of Doctrine hath followed the alteraâ—ion of State and not the alteration of State been grounded upon any truth of Doctrine 22. For when the breach was resolved upon for the personall and particular ease of King Henry the eight and the Children of his later Wives it was necessary to give every part of the Common-wealth contentment for which they might hold out in the heat of affection and study to maintain the breach otherwise it was likely that in the clearnesse of Judgement it would quickly have grown together again and then the Authors thereof must have been excluded and given account of their practise 23. Therefore to the Lords and * In like manner the Members of Parliament and their Adherents have
objected as a great absurdity against the Arrians that they had annuas menstruas fides that they changed their faith once a yeare yea once a moneth an evident argument of their falshood If you will take the testimony of twice two or three and compare the weekly Sermons together you may perhaps finde some of your English reforming Doctrines brought to old age and funeralls in lesse then a moneth An evident demonstration that Reformation of Faith is not a city built on a mountaine Matth. 5. 14. nor a wise mans house seated on a rock Matth. 7. 24. but a wall raised and dawbed without tempering Ezech. 13. 11. or a fooles cottage erected upon sands Quae pendulum solutae Pondus ferre recusant In Heresies unstable ground No setled footing can be found And how reall that of S. Athanasius against the Arrian Heretiks Epist de Nicaena Synodo agrees unto all the Reformers of the later dayes I submit even to their censures Nunquam unam c. They never stand to one and the same opinion but run from one to another now praising now dispraising the same now condemning what they approved a little before a true character of hereticks and mark of falshood Things then being fallen to this unconcealable confusion in England without likelyhood of stop as long as the principles of the prime Reformers stand still in vogue can any man wonder at the conversion to Catholike Religion either of the men hereafter specified or any others for my own part I cannot but wonder that any man acknowledging the soule immortall and that either Hell or Heaven must be her eternall Domicil after this life and with all acknowledging that a false Religion cannot be the way towards beatitude should expect a second call for his deserting that of whose falshood in it selfe damnablenesse to mans soule and inconsistency with an ordered Church or State be hath so many and so pregnant Demonstrations as it were to the eye The old Proverb of the Hebrews is Veritatem stabiles mendacium debiles habere pedes that truth hath strong stedfast sure footing but a lie onely weake unstedfast tottering foundations Whence the first is of a permanent perpetuall durance the other easily supplanted and overthrowne Were any of the Reformations that are so yearly monethly if not oftner forged true it would stand the same in it selfe firm and constant scorning chop and change but seeing there is none that doth not lose ground upon the first approach of a new spirit none that suffers not in her reputation by the credit of every gifted Preacher of the new Modell you know how frequently new spirits and new gifts are pretended certainly by the Hebreans Adage all Reformations are to be esteemed as weak grounded lies Nihil quod non manet in se ipso verum est omne quippâ— quod alteratur falsitas est non manens in scipso Nothing can be true saith that rare Prodigie of Nature Trismegistus that doth not abide the same constant in it selfe every thing subject to alteration is false That your Reformations in England are subject to alterations I need not tell you unlesse you be blind that therefore they must of necessity be false you may take as a sure truth from the pen of Trismegistus If according to the Wiseman in his Proverbs the later ends of some waies which seem to a man just and upright so outwardly masked with morality of life and good neighbourhood as hardly discernable especially by the unwary vulgar from waies really sure and good do yet lead to death how sure of eternall death and damnation must he be who runs the waies of the present Reformation which are so far from seeming just by any obducted disguise that every man even the greatest sticklers stick not to confesse it now and then among their friends sees them plainely full of injustice impiety oppressions rebellions against all sorts of humane superiours and blasphemies against God himselfe certainly it is more then high time for all men to abhorr the Sodom and Gomorrhe of Reformation in Faith with the inundation of vice and corrupted manners it hath brought with it into the world That you may yet farther penetrate the malignity of the confusion you are fallen into another argument that Reformation in Faith is of the serpent Hydras nature take this Corollary or addition to what is said already That it must be endlesse in Church and State and altogether remedilesse as long as the old laid principles of Reformation derived from Luther and Calvin stand uncontrolled there being now no way left to withstand the reforming decrees of the present Parliament from which is issued the main of your late alterations or condemne what most men now judge to be amisse without condemnation of what you have been approving abetting ever since your first revolt from the Pope and Roman Church For a clearer explication of my mind give me leave I pray with your patience to propose you some questions Sic volo sic jubeo sit pro ratione voluntas I so will have it so command My will must for a reason stand When others failed this was one of Luthers Lawes to set forward his fanaticall Reformation against the Pope and Catholike Church Why may not the Parliament the Representative Body of a Kingdome use it with more authority then Luther one single private man If you allow the Parliament the use of such a legislative Power you must not condemne the sequeâ—lâ— that do naturally flow out of it you must 〈◊〉 to all their Orders and Ordinances how irrationall 〈◊〉 they seem to private persons If you condemn it in the Parliament look well to it through their sides you condemne it à fortiori in Luther and so you crack the pate and credit of your grand Reformer who so insultingly used it and whom you have been so long upholding for a Saint But to insist no longer on that extravagant principle The specious pretence of Reformation will so justifie the present Parliaments actions seem they never so new or paradoxicall that you shall hardly question them without subversion of the whole Fabrick of your late Reformation For example tell me why may not this present Parliament cashiere the Ordination of Ministers invented onely in Edward the sixths daies as well as those of his time cashiered the manner of Ordination they then found in being and vigour without any knowne beginning of it since the Apostles Why may not this Parliament degrade the now pretended Bishops made onely according to that new Modell and onely authorized by Parliament why not devest them of their Peerage cast them out of their government and levell them to the rank of ordinary men as well as other Parliaments cast out the old Bishops consecrated after the manner of the whole Christian World and who were never pretended to have their spirituall authority from Parliament nor to be invested in their dignitie by usurpation of any other mans right cast them
old Bed-fellow that he might leave some heires male behind him for belike hee feared that Females would not be able to withstand the tile of Scotland and that the change was continued and increased by the posterity of his later wives I could not choose but suspect somthing but yet the love of the world and hope of preferment would not suffer me to believe but that all was well and as it ought to be 5. Thus I satisfied my self at School and studied the Arts and Phylosophy and other humane learning untill being Master of Arts and Fellow of Corpus Christi Colledge in Cambridge I was at the last by the Statutes of that House called to the studie of Divinity and bound to take upon me the order of Priesthood then I thought it my duty for the better satisfaction of my owne soule and the saving of other mens to look as farre into the matter as possible I could that I might find out the truth And having the oportunity of a very good Library in that Colledge I resolved with my selfe to study hard setting aside all respect of men then alive or of Writers that had moved or mainteined controversies farther then to understand the question which was betwixt them I fell to my prayers and be took my selfe wholly to the reading of the Church History and of the Ancient Fathers which had no interest in either side and especially I made choice of S. Augustine because I hoped to find most comfort in him for the confirming of our Religion and the confuting of the Church of Rome 6. In this sort I spent my time continually for many yeares and noted downe whatsoever I could gather or rather snatch either from the Scriptures or the Fathers to serve my turne But when after all my paines and desire to serve my selfe of Antiquity I found the Doctrine of the Church of Rome to be every where confirmed and by most profound demonstrations out of holy Scripture made most agreeable to the truth of Christs Gospel and most conformable to all Christians soules and saw the current opinions of our great Preachers to be every where confuted either in plaine termes or by most unanswerable consequence although my understanding was thereby greatly edified for which I had great cause to render immortall thanks to our Blessed Saviour who by these meanes had vouchsafed to shew himselfe unto me yet my heart was much grieved that I must be faine either not preach at all or else to crosse and varie from the Doctrine which I saw was commonly received 7. Being thus perplexed with my self what course I were best to take I reflected back againe upon the Church of England and because most of those Preachers who drew the people after them in those daies were Puritans and had grounded their Divinity upon Calvins Institutions I thought peradventure that they having gotten the multitude on their side might wrong the Church of England in her Doctrine as well as they desired to doe in her Discipline which indeed upon due search I found to be most true For I found the Common-Prayer Booke and the Catechismes therein contained to hold no point of Doctrine expresly contrary to Antiquity but only that it was very defective and contained not enough And that for the Doctrine of Predestination Sacraments Grace Free-will Sin c. the new Catechismes and Sermons of those Preachers did run wholly against the Common-Prayer Book and Catechismes therein and did make as little account of the Doctrine established by Law as they did of the Discipline but in the one they found opposition by those that had private Interest in the other they laid what they list because no man thought himselfe hurt 8. This truely was a great increase of my griefe for knowing divers of those Preachers to be very honest men and such as I did love with all my heart I was exceeding loath to discent from them in private much more loath to oppose them in publike And yet seeing I must needs preach I was loathest of all to oppugne my own conscience together with the faith wherein I was baptized and the soules of those to whom I preached Neverthelesse having gotten this ground to worke upon I began to comfort my selfe with hope to prove that the Religion established by Law in England was the same at the least in part which now was and ever had been held in the Catholike Church the defects whereof might be supplied whensoever it should please God to move your Maiesty thereunto without abrogating of that which was already by Law established which I still pray for and am not altogether out of hope to see and therefore I thought it my duty as far as I durst rather by charitable constructions to reconcile things that seemed different that so our soules might for ever be saved in unity then by malicious calumniations to maintaine quarrells that so mens turnes might for a time be served in dissention 9. In this course although I did never proceed any further then Law would give me leave yet I alwaies found the Puritanes and Calvinists and all the Creatures of Schisme to be my utter enemies who were also like the Sonnes of Zerviah too strong for David himselfe but I well perceived that all temperate and understanding men who had no Interest in the Schisme were glad to hear the truth honestly and plainely preached unto them And my hope was that by patience and continuance I should in the end unmaske Hypocrisie and gaine credit to the comfortable Doctrine of Antiquity even amongst those also who out of misinformation and prejudice did as yet most dislike it And considering with my selfe that your Right to the Crowne came only from Catholikes and was ancienter then the Schisme which would very faine have utterly extinguished it and that both your disposition by nature your amity with Catholike Princes your Speeches and your Proclamations did at the beginning all tend to peace and unity I hoped that this endeavour of mine to inforce Catholike Religion at the least as far as the Common Prayer Booke and Catechisme would give me leave should be well accepted of your Majesty and be as an Introduction unto farther peace and unity with the Church of Rome 10. But when after my long hope I at at the last did plainely perceive that God for our sins had suffered the Devill the Author of dissention so far to prevaile as partly by the furious practise of some desperate Catholikes and partly by the fiery suggestions of all violent Puritans he had quite diverted that peaceable and temperate course which was hoped for and that I must now either alter my judgement which was impossible or preach against my conscience which was untolerable Lord what anxiety and distraction of soule did I suffer day and night what strife betwixt my judgement which was wholly for the peace and unity of the Church and my affection which was wholly to injoy the favour of your Majesty
children whom I am so far from condemning and disliking as that I do account my selfe one of them and I desire nothing more in this world then in the toleration of Catholike Religion to live die among them And therefore I have had so great care in this point as before I did submit my self to the Catholike Church I received assurance from some of the greatest that if your Majesty would admit the Ancient subordination of the Church of Canterbury unto that Mother Church by whose authority all other Churches in England at the first were and still are subordinate unto Canterbury and the free use of that Sacrament for which especially all the Churches in Christendome were first founded the Pope for his part would confirme the Interest of all those that have present possession in any Ecclesiasticall living in England And would also permit the free use of the Common Prayer Book in English for Morning and Evening Prayer with very little or no alteration And for the contentment and security of your Majesty he would give you not only any satisfaction but all the honor that with the unity of the Church and the safety of Catholike Religion may be required which seemed to me so reasonable as being before satisfied of the truth of Catholike Religion I could ask no more So that I am verely perswaded that by yeilding to that truth which I could not deny I have neither neglected my duty and service to your Majesty and your Children nor my respect and honor to your Lords and Commons nor my love and kindnesse to my honest friends and brethren of the Clergy but rather that my Example and my Prayers shall do good unto all 47. But that which I must trust to when all the rest will faile me is the service of God and saving of my soule in the unity of that Church which was founded by Christ himselfe and shall continue untill his coming againe wherein all the Saints of God have served him on earth and do enjoy him in heaven without which Holy Catholike Church there is no Communion of Saints no forgivenesse of sinnes no hope of Resurection unto life everlasting I beseech your Majesty let not Calvins Ecclesia Praedestinatorum deceive you it may serve a Turk as well as a Christian it hath no faith but opinion no hope but presumption no Charity but lust no faith but a fancie no God but an Idoll For Deus est omnibus Religionibus commune Nomen All Religions in the world begin their Creed with I believe in God But homini extra Ecclesiant Religio sua est cultus phantasmatum suorum and error suus est Deus suus as S. Augustine affirmeth Epist. 64. 48. I have more things to write but the hast of answering your Majesties Commandement signified to me by Sir Thomas Lake his Letters hath made me commit many faults in writing this very suddenly for which I crave pardon and cut off the rest But for my returning into England I can answer no otherwise but thus I have sent you my soule in this Treatise and if it may find entertainment and passage my body shall most gladly follow after And if not I pray God I send my soule to heaven and my body to the grave assoon as may be In the mean time I will rejoyce in nothing but only in the Crosse of Christ which is the glory of your Crown And therefore I will triumph therein not as being gone from you to your adversary but as being gone before you to your Mother where I desire and hope for ever to continue Your Majesties true Servant and Beadsman B. CARIER Liege Decemb. 12. Anno 1613. Multum incola fuit anima mea Cum his qui oderunt pacem eram pacificus Cum loqucbar illis impuguabant me gratis FINIS