of this Baron Hene one of his Majestie 's Justiciaries in Ireland assured a Person of Honor that one John Curphy a Papist Condemned for a Burglary in the Year 1671. at the time of his Execution did peremptorily Deny the Fact and made solemn Appeals to God of his Innocency Yet the Contrary was thus Discovered After he had Hung some little time the Rope by Chance brake so he fell down a little Stunned Yet some Seed of Life remaining in him he was brought to his perfect Speech Hereupon Terror was so deeply imprest upon his Conscience for Lying though counted a Venial Sin before that he was forced to Confess the Fact and after some time given him for Repentance he was Executed as he deserved Thus you see that Impudent Impenitent Malefactors at different Seasons have different Sentiments of God's Omniscient Justice for Forging Lies deliberately to make the World believe that they are Innocent God is concerned in the Honor of his Justice to Vindicate his Omnisciency in some strange Discovery of such Matchless Impostors who can hardly Repent in the time of Dying Indeed it is not probable they should who Entayl upon themselves a Voluntary Curse by their pertinacious Dissimulation and their Lying Artifices These Men are of late Commenced such profound Doctors in all Treason Rebellion Cruelty and what not which may destroy a Protestant Government that they out-strip all former Monsters of Impiety Had this Unparellel'd Villainy been Effected it would have been Celebrated for a Meritorious Act in Contriving a Speedier and more Effectual Method for the Propagation of the Romish Perswasion This is not the Truly Antient Apostolical Faith but a Mushrom of Fancy started up out of an Affectation of Superstitious Novelty and cherisht or spred by the Boundless Ambition of Earthly Pomp and Grandeur How can any Man who hath not quite Extinguisht all Sparks of Reason and Ingenuity Embrace such a Religion which any Idiot may be Ashamed to Live in and Afraid to Dye in For it is a Miscellany of Blasphemies and all Absurd Opinions yea of all Impieties Hereby it comes to pass that at last they are not able to put any Difference 'twixt Light and Darkness Truth and Falshood nor to distinguish Righteousness from Violence and Injustice nor Piety it self from the Extremity of Prophaneness I have done with the Discovery of the Falseness of their Appeals Let us now see whether their Faith and Charity in Dying were of any Better Stamp The Jesuits False-Faith in Dying Detected to be Fancy and Presumption HOw many False Martyrs hath the world afforded who while they Courted Death Sacrificed only a Sturdy Body to a Stubborn Mind to keep up some Heresy in Repute Jesuits count this a brave Resolution yet it flows from the Inconsiderateness of a Sleepy secure Conscience They weigh not the after-claps of Death nor Dread the future Assizes of the Universal Judgment Hypocrits will as confidently commit and commend their Spirits into the Hand and Bosom of Christ as if they had been Washt in his Blood and changed into his Image Jesuits who are a Faithless Generation cannot really make use of the Sheild of Faith to Blunt the Sting of Death or to Quench the Fiery Dartings of Despair into their Hearts For that Faith which they pretend to is rather Carnal fancy and presumption than any well regulated Resignation of their Souls to the Conduct of the Scriptures as imbraced by a firm Belief Such Resignation flowing from a Right-bred Faith is Divinely grounded on the Sacred Authority of God Alone who is the Architype of Truth But Jesuits do not believe the Scriptures to be a perfect Rule of Faith and of the practicals of Christian Self-denyal If they esteemed the Sacred Records able to make the Man of God Compleatly wise unto Salvation then Consequently they must needs be the strongest and only Sheild to overcome the Inordinate Love of Natural Life and the Slavish fear of a Violent Ignominious Death Such a frame can never be attained unless the Purity of the Scriptures which are Divine in their Original and Authority be Assented to and Imbraced with a Faith Divinely subjected to them I must receive and defend Divine Truth to the very Death not because I believe it with an Humane Faith as giving more credit to the Churches Tradition which Consignes the Scriptures to be Canonical than to the Authority of Divine Revelation If so I ground my Faith for Eternal Life upon an Vncertain Opinion or at best upon the Rash and bold Assertion of some Pope or Council who say and unsay Decree and Abolish the same Constitution in a Breath Thus the Jesuits-Faith which is meerly or chiefly Humane in the very essence and formality of it because the Church or Pope determines So or So can never reach to the Spiritual pitch and excellency of that Divine Faith which being grounded on the Sole Authority of Divine Revelation can only Justify and Save a mans Soul and Consequently can only afford true courage and comfort in Dying But Jesuits never had their Hearts purified by believing and obeying the Truths of Christ as such for then they would have their Affections more in Heaven But spending their Conversation chiefly among Machivilians of their own Tribe and Order to promote a Secular Interest rather than to Subject themselves to the Rules of the Blessed Jesus whose name their Society Blasphemously pretends to they cannot have any Experimental Tast of the powerful joys of the World to come Their confidence therefore in Dying cannot be Hearty and Ingenuous It flows cheifly from the Effort and vigor of natural courage not from a Super-elevated Principle of Unfeigned Faith which takes a prospect of Eternal Life not only beyond the pleasing Accomodations and Advantages of this present World but also beyond the Torments of Death that so God himself may be Glorified All in All and not only a Saint-like Cannonization be Ambitiously aspired unto which without real Holiness is but the Dream of a Fools-Paradise Are not such men under the delusion of a strange Phrency and Spiritually bewicht who put on an Artificial courage and zeal in sealing a false Religion with their Blood only out of a fond Ambition to avoid Purgatory on the left hand and that the Pope may immediately Canonize them for Heroical Champions in defending the pride of his Tripple Crown Jesuits account this to be justifying Faith to Eternal Life firmly to Assont to all the Popes determinations as Infallible when oftentimes Popes have been persons neither of common Truth nor Honesty but Atheists Hereticks Conjurers Sodomites yea Incarnate Devils Platina in the Life of John the 13th Constan Concil Sess 11. Art 5. Benedict 9. vide Baronium anno 1034. N. 3. Yet the unwritten Traditions or Fancies rather of these wicked Monsters must be Imbraced as Objects of justifying Faith by all such who expect not to be sent to Purgatory when they Dye But Can Jesuitical Martyrs for the Pope's
the same Society Thirdly I shall Demonstrate how deep-dyed a Sin it is how great mischief it doth and what exemplary remarkable punishment God usually inflicts on such false Appellants First IT is very likely these Jesuits were Induced to make Equivocating Appeals when dying because so many Doctors of their Church assert these to be Venial nay Lawful in many Cases Soto who was a Principal Divine in the Council of Trent He acknowledges Perjury to be a greater Sin than Murther Notwithstanding he maintains the Violation of Promissory and Assertory Oaths to be only Venial not Mortal Sins how habitual and enstomary soever they be So that thereby the dint of the Magistrates just Sentence may be avoided or the Catholick Cause promoted Now if rash Appeals be in the right Construction of them a great Contempt of God False Ones must needs be an high degree of Blasphemy and Atheism These joyned with self-Imprecations are a Mocking of the Divine Majesty and the sending up of a Challenge to the God of Truth to damn the Appellant if he speaks what is False or any way Conceals the Truth Yet in the Jesuits account not only Officious Lyes but downright Perjuries are Lawful when they may serve the Interest of their Church maintain their false Doctrine or Conceal their Hellish Designes It is a great poice of Piety to make Lies for the promoting of their Religion So Ludavious Vives and Espencaeus Comment in Tim. lib. 1. cap. 11. pag. 156. Here it is to be Observ'd that the third Lateran Council decreed it Lawful to Depose and Kill any Prince Infected with Heresy that is to say being a Profest Protestant Hereupon these Jesuits thought They needed not the help of an Equivocation in asserting of their Innocency because by the Maxims of their Bloody and Hellish Divinity they affirm that it is better to suffer a King to be Slain than to reveal the Consession of such a design intended So Eudaemon in Apolog. Garneti ch 13. And Suarez Tractatu de Panitentia That the Lord gave to St. Peter and Consequently to the Pope Power to make that which is sin to be no Sin So Bellarm in Barklaium ch 31. That to Kill a King who is deposed is not to Kill a King but only a private Person So Tolet lib. 4. De Instructione Sacerdotali ch 58. That he is not a Murtherer who Kills an Excommunicated Person being possest with Zeal towards our Mother the Catholick Church So Pope Vrban in the 23d Cause and 5th Questions That the Sentences Decrees and Judgments of Judges who are Excommunicated as all Protestants are by them are Voyd and of no Authority So Tolet lib. primo De Instutione Sacerdotali cap. 13. That the Pope is Lord of all the Temporal Possessions of Kingdoms So Bellarm. in Barklaium cap. 21. Cardinal Du Perron in his Oration made to the States in Paris upon the 15th of January 1615. doth not think it fit that a King should be Killed but only Deposed which is all one as to Condemn him to Dye Because as they say from the time of his Deposing he is no more a Lawful King but an Vsurper Now every Vsurper of a Kingdom may Lawfully be Killed The said Cardinal Equivocates in his Advice For he speaks to this Effect Let us not Kill an Heretical King but Depose him That is Let us however Disarme him of his Authority that he may be Killed Let us take his Title from him which is a Means to preserve his Life Let us not Kill him while he is a King but let us Depose him And then who ever Kills him shall not Kill a King These Sayings are full of Contradiction and very Weakly yea Wickedly set together By such Popish Principles the very Foundations of the English Government are quite blown up as if they had been at the Mercy of Faux They hold That the Nation being Heretical because It will not stoop to the Yoke of Anti-Christian Tyranny hath no Government properly Its Own No King no Subjects no Parliament no Laws Liberties or Propriety in any thing They think they may deal with Us as Monsters of Mankind who have forseited all into their Hands and nothing shall hinder them from taking Possession any longer than till they can Master the Power of our Severeign Lord the King and his Laws They deny we can have any Legal Parliament because the Peers they alleadge are Infamous as Hereticks And Free-holders to Choose and be Chosen for Commonners have no Propriety None have Power they say by Consequence to Make Laws to Require or Grant Subsidies For no Order of Men among Hereticks have any thing of their Own to Give or Grant All is Forfeited from them for their Heresie They hold That our Laws are of no more Force than the Agreement of a Company of Robbers Because being Excommunicated we are Ipso Facto Divested of all Civil Right and Propriety in our Laws Estates Liberties and Municipal Priviledges So that these Jesuits pleaded Innocency because they Acted By and Vnder the Pope's Commission which is Presumptively-Constructive for Depraedation of our Goods and the Destruction of our Lives upon his Issuing out the Sentence of Excommunication though no Declaration should expresly injoyn the Execution of Rapine and Murther To be sure He who will Regulate himself by Their Maxims may Act any Wickedness in the World without any fear of Deadly Guilt Yet That Church pretends to a Monopoly of All the Holiness upon Earth They may persist till Death in all Perfidiousness to God and Man in Breach of Promises and Compacts in all Lying and Perjuries in Slandering or Detraction yea in all Unmercifulness and Cruelty to Protestants and yet Not fall short of Salvation if these Impostors may be trusted upon their Own Maxims These abominable Practices are but Specks or Motes not Against the Law of God the End of which is Charity but only Beside It. So Durandus Vega Rada Herrera Estius Becanus All these afore-mentioned Crimes are but Peccadilioes in Their account when Committed against Protestants For they owe These No Charity and therefore may justly Contrive their Destruction as Hereticks If an Atheist had a mind to render the Christian Name Odious and the Gospel a Licentious Doctrine tending to Debauch Mankind He could need no greater Argument but only This viz. To perswade Men that the Maxims of the Roman Divines are Conformed to the Rules of Christ and Christianity For Do not Popish Doctors Reverence Hypocrisie as an Holy Art A Lye though very Gross is only Venial in Their account unless it do Much Mischief not so when it is only against Truth it self Thus it may be as Innocent to tell Lies as Truth and as Criminal to speak Truth as Lies There will be no Difference in their Own Nature unless by accident they do Hurt Alike Thus Soto ibid. Lib 5. Quest 7. Artic. 4. Pag. 168. Yea Antonius Corduba determins that a Person Interrogated by a Judge whether such a Crime
were Committed by him may stifly Deny It although he Did It with this Reserva I am not bound to Discover It though he be upon his Oath to declare the whole Truth He may Equivocate in usual Form sayes Lopez cap. 51. pag. 264. Angel Sum. V. Confess N. 1. Yea Popish Doctors have Devices to Legitimate the worst Wickedness Bellarmine sayes If the Pope should forbid Vertue and command Vice the Church must practice Vioe or sin against Her Conscience If the Pope can dispense with Vows which are Solemn Promises made to God why not with the Guilt of False Appeals So Canus pars Sexta Relict de Paenitentia Some affirm That the Pope can Legitimate Incest If so by the same Reason he may pardon False Appeals For What are such but a Spiritual Incest committed 'twixt the Heart and Tongue which ought to agree in speaking Truth for this is the Souls-Chastity They count it better than Innocent to abuse the VVorld with Lies even in point of Religion Surely if the Injury be not Great there wherein can it be Small Yea they allow of Lies in their very Devotion Peter Abbot of Cluny declares That in one Church-Hymne in the Praise of St. Bennet he found Twenty-four Lyes at least They affirm That they may safely Lye in Confessing that they abhor the Sin confest Yet themselves look upon the Confessors Chair as the Divine Tribunal So Angelus Sylvester Navar. Cap. 21. Num. 37. Covarruvius Soto Bannes Now if they may lawfully Lye in doing Penance when or wherein will they speak Truth If such a Sacred Part of their Religion be thus Prophaned we may well conclude that wheresoever they find any Liberty for speech they must have License to Lye and that ex Officio Nor can we rationally expect from Jesuits that they will Swear the Truth at Death You will say Then Conscience is more awakned made quick and serious in the Directive and Corrective Part of its Office So that the most profligate sort of Sinners when Dying will not dare but to declare the Truth I reply Yet Jesuits are Errant Designers upon Mens Consciences to seat themselves as Over-awing Demi-Gods therein while they dictate Cheats and Dotages unto them Yea How do these Seducers Instruct their Novices to believe such strange Absurdities which Themselves deny at Death Then they detest all Lying Doctrines and Miracles as also all Dispensations for Equivocating This they pretend to do when they have a Prospect of Damnation at Death and to make the World believe that Protestants Charge them with False Imputations Yet I cannot suppose them to be Serious in Renouncing their False Tenets at Death For if they did heartily do it How could they averr that they Dyed in the Profession of the Romish Church What Contradictions are these Asseverations If they spake the Truth when Dying then were they Apostats from that Religion which themselves style Catholick and Apostolick These Jesuitical Impostors dread not Damnation it self while they turn themselves into all Forms and for their Interest affirm and deny the same thing in a Breath whereas Truth is the same Eternally and Alters not Yet these Men live by a false Religion for Earthly Interest and Grandeur But after all their Dissimulation and Intrigues seem to Dye in the right Religion Instituted by Christ Hence it was That they Disclaimed the Merit of Good Works and at their Execution did not so much as Touch upon any Thing grosly different from the Purity of the Protestant Religion Hence it was that they Pray'd not Audibly to any Saint or Angel For had they Grosly Contradicted the Scriptures at their Death their Appeals they thought would not so Cleverly have been Believed by Credulous Vulgar Minds It may be in their Appeal to God they Equivocated and meant that they Appealed to the Pope whom they style Their Lord God as seated High in the Veneration of their Hearts For they give little less than Divine Honour to Him in presuming that his Vnholyness-Absolution is an Immediate Ticket to Challenge Heaven by and to wash them clean from the Guilt and Reproach of the Greatest Villanies Doubtless these Appealers were so well known to and Approved by his Holiness as it was a Wonder that he did not work a Miracle for their Impunity However It is likely that he so far honored these Eldest Sons in the Mystery of Iniquity that they escapt Purgatory by some rare Contrivance and were Dignifyed Saints immediately after Death for being Knights of the Post Doubtless they were hardned in this presumption that the Pope hath power to Dispence with the Sentiments of right reason yea can make void the positive Duties of the Divine Law Hence it is the common Doctrine of their Church That it is not Lawful to keep Faith with Hereticks in promissory Oaths or Assertory Justifications of their Integrity Romish Doctors affirm that if the Pope constitute and declare Virtue to be Vice and the most abominable Crimes to be Innocency they are bound under the Penalty of Damnation to believe him Now this is to Arrogate a Power above God himself who cannot alter the Eternal Nature of Moral Principles which are such Fixed Truths that what is Right and Just or Wicked and Unjust in the Nature of the thing it self was such before any declaration of the Will of God concerning it was superadded Therefore to change the Measures of Good and Evil which are Originally founded in the Essential Intrinsecal Goodness and Badness of Principles is to give a Dispensation to Sin It is to Exautorate or Invalidate the Eternal Principles of Virtue although these be Establisht on the very Dictates of right Reason This is to Supersede and make void the Authority of God himself who hath Implanted those common sentiments of what is right or wrong in the Hearts of all Men. They who draw all Appeals to the Pope for the Decision of what we are to believe or practise though contrary to Divine Revelation which is to make God himself a Lyar how can such Miscreans be credited in the most solemn Asseverations of their Integrity Had these Imposters turned their Eye with an Holy Awful Reverence upon God the Prototype of Truth had they had any regard of his Omniscient Inquisition after false Appellants they durst not have Challenged his Justice to detect and punish their Impudent Assertions Surely they dreamt of being weighed in Saint Michaels Ballance which is a Popish invention to deceive dying persons as if their Meritorious Treasons for promoting the Catholick Religion should Out-weigh their Lying Appeals that so they might not bind a Curse upon their Souls but directly go to Heaven Thus they did not weigh themselves in the Even Ballance of Gods Sacred Law but flattered themselves in the Contrivances of a deceitful Heart because any one grain of Sin makes all real Good works of no value at all in Gods account when he makes a Righteous disquisition of the Nature of our Actions All the Wayes