Royal Line from the Crown ib. and p. 222. The Protestants in France now about 2 Millions p. 222. Their Loyal Demeanor to Harry the the 4 th after he became a Papist ib. His condition after he became one ib. An account of the Apology for John Chastel the Scholar of the Jesuites assassinating himâ— and of the Positions in that Apology ib. The Aâ—ology affirms That Excommunication for Heresie doth quite take away any Regal Right and that Henry of Bourbon cannot be called a King by reason of his Conversion p. 223. An account of the Gun-powder Treason out of Thuanus and the Tenets that the Traitors had imbibed from their Confessors and particularly That Heretical Princes by being reconciled to the Church of Rome recover not a Title to their Crown and that by such reconciliation they only save their Souls and that Heresie barrs the Hereticks Line from the Succession c. p. 224. Observations on the Millenary Petition in the beginning of King James's Reign ib. Observations on the Papists Petition to him about the same time p. 225. Dr. Burnet's History of the Reformation commended p. 226. The reason why the Author would have more severity shewn to a Seditious Protestant than a Seditious Papist p. 231. Mr. Fox referred to about his Question Whether the Turk or Pope be the greater Anti-Christ p. 232. An account of the Popes being Pensioners to the Turk p. 234. The Author observes in the famous Hosius of the Church of Rome a viler Blasphemy than any he remembers in the Alcoran p. 235. Observations on the Loyalty of many Papists in France to Harry the 4 th when he came to inherit the Crown and remained a Protestant and under the Papal Excommunication p. 236. Harry the 4 th an expected Protestant Successor was Primier Ministre to Harry the 3 d a Papist ib. An Argumentative Speech of an Arch-Bishop of France to prove That Harry the 4th ought not for his Religion to be debarred from the Crown ib. Maimbourg reflects on Calvin for his instigating the Magistrates of Geneva to burn Servetus ib. and p. 237. Dr. Peter du Moulin cited for saying That in the time of the late Usurpation the Jesuites were the principal directors of the Consciences of the English Papists ib. A Book published Anno 1662 observes That of the Papists in England 7 parts of 10 were Gentlemen and People of great Quality ib. The Author believes that the more ingenious and modest sort of Jesuites will by Natural Instinct be more and more ashamed of the turpitude of the former Principles of the Iesuites and particularly of the 13 th 14th 15th 30th 32d contained in the Popes Decree before mentioned p. 238. The Author judgeth that all bloody and rebellious Principles owned by any who call themselves Protestants must naturally by shame and fear decay ib. Mr. Cranford a Presbyterian Divine cited for saying in a Printed Sermon at St. Pauls in the Year 1645 That in 80 years there did not arise among us so many Blasphemous Heresies under Episcopacy as have risen in these few years since we have been without a Government and that above 160 Errors have been here since broached and many of them damnable ib. and p. 241. A Speech in a late Parliament referred to for observing that according to the best Calculation the Dissenters could not in the last Elections for Knights of the Shire bring in above 1 in 20 into the Field ib. The present Gentlemanly temper appearing in the People of England observed as to the not having râ—sentments against any men or their Converse by reason of their asserting Controverted Points capable of the name of Religion p. 241. The great Controversy about Easter now slighted ib. The Terms of Omo-ousios and Omoi-ousios will make no more fermentation in the World p. 242. The word Heresy now generally here reduced to its quiet Primitive Signification of an opinion without reference to truth or falshood ib. Our Courts Christian do no more prosecute men for being Hereticks than for being Usurers ib. There is now a more valuable libera theologia in England then was under the Usurpation p. 243. The Obligation our Land hath received from the Royal Society mentioned ib. The knowledge of Anatomy enriched within this last Century a 3d part ib. There were in the Year 1599 reckoned in Christendom 2,25044 Monasteries ib. By Herods Infanticidium a Million and 44 Thousand slain in the account of Volzius p. 214. In 45 years the Spaniards in America put to death 20 Millions of Indians ib By the growing Populousness of Mankind we must naturally hear more and more of Wars and rumours of Wars p 245. In the beginning of the Reign of the Royal Martyr England not afraid to contend with both France and Spain ib. 2,50000 l. per Annum Calculated to have been formerly at a Medium for 76 years gained to England by the Balance of its whole Trade p. 246. The Author en passant Calculates that England hath for late years gained double that Summ by the fashion of Crape ib. Ten times as much spent on the Law or Physick here as on the Clergy p. 247. By the Calculations of Cardinal Pool there were more Colleges and Hospitals in England then in France which he said exceeded England by two 3ds in the numbers of People as in Lands p. 248. The Author observes that in the Code Loüis published in the Year 1667 the Method injoyned for the registring the Christenings and Burials in each Parish in France is better contrived than that used in London ib. 'T is supposed that the publishing the Observations on the Bills of Mortality about three years before in London might occasion the aforesaid exact registring of the Christenings and Burials in France and moreover the registry of the Marriages by the Code Loüis enjoyned p. 249. The Registring of the Births and Burials is as old as the ancient times of the Romans and introduced among them by Servius Tullius ib. The prudenâ—e of the Code Loüis remarked in the numbring of the Regulars and Seculars there enjoyned ib. Sometime before the year 1588 the number of men in Spain being taken by secret Survey there were returned a 11 hundred and 25 thousand and 300 and 90 men ib. A Computation out of Thuanus of the Expences and Receipts of Lewis the 13 th for the Year 1614 ib. The Expences and Receipts of that Crown were more than quadrupled in the year 1674 p. 250. A Calculation of about a 3d part of the Current Coyn of England yearly carried into France ib. A Descant on the saying so much in vogue viz. Res nolunt male adnimistrari and an account of its Original ib. The Author supposeth that a more important Linen Manufacture will here happen from the many French Protestants here lately planted than was the Woollen one here introduced by the Dutch whom Duke Alva's Persecution brought hither p. 251. Remarks about the general sowing of Hemp and Flax here and about the designed
by his dying breath to make it evaporate for ever There was no guile found in his mouth and his followers were only then wise as Serpents while they were innocent as Doves and the first Crying in the Cradle of the Puer Hebraeus of the holy child Iesus was as Thunder to strike the old Equivocating Oracles Dumb that had so long cheated the credulous World. When he branded the Scribes and Pharisees with sharper language he calls them Hypocrites He alarms us of false Prophets coming in the Masquerade of Sheeps clothing tells us That he who calls his Brother fool shall be in danger of hell fire and therefore he may much more fear that danger who makes a Fool of him and plays the Knave with him he Commands us not to Calumniate or kill but to bless those that curse us which is more than to praise them as I said before of blessing being the tribute due to Men heroically Virtuous To shew that he intended nothing of Artifice in the Propagation of his Doctrine a hated Publican and a few poor Fishermen and a Tent-maker are used in his Embassy to the World men not likely to be able Mentiri pro patriâ coelesti if such a Commission as Go Cheat all Nations had been given them And lest it might be thought that with Oratorical Harangues that he or they led Men by the Ears as an implicit faith is said to lead them by the Nose he us'd no hony of Phrase or sting of Epigram no Politic Remarks nor scarce more lenocinium of words than is in He that hath an ear to hear let him hear He tells us That for every Idle word we must give an account and therefore certainly abhorr'd Equivocation which makes all words and speech Idle and of no effect and since as I think 't was truly said Eloquentia non nisi stultos Movet Eloquence moves none but Fopps he did as I may say put that generous Complement on mens understandings not to Commission his Ministers to try to sooth men out of one belief into another by bribing their imaginations with the excellency of speech or the inticing words of man's Wisdom but the contrary He thought it worthy of God to be worship'd by the world in Spirit and in Truth and not to encrease the number of his Homagers by Lies Legends and Impostures It was for the honour of the Christian Religion that the Son of God chose to take flesh in the time when Augustus Reign'd when the Roman World being freed from a long Civil War had leisure to â—â—ltivate the Arts of Wit and Reason and had brought them to their highest Perfection and took not the advantage of a dark and barbarous Age to surprize the World in as afterward both Papism and Mahumetanism did and 't is therefore no Marvel if either of those two Hypotheses of Religion did in one Point so much resemble the Christian Religion in so soon with its ferment levening so Great a lump of the World. But the Christian Religion came not into the World like a Fireship with prepar'd smoke to blind mens eyes as it was assailing them No for to the end that the Christian reveal'd Doctrine might like a great Pyramid be conspicuous to the whole world and last together with it and reach from Earth to Heaven the Divine Providence was long laying its Foundation very deep in Nature and very wide in the world I mean Iustice and Reason so agreeably to Humane Nature then at their height appearing in the Laws of the Roman Empire and its subjugating the World and its reducing Mankind to the Law of Nature first imprinted on Man's heart were by the Care of Heaven used as previous in qualifying the World to receive the Glorious Superstructure of the Christian Religion the which would certainly not have been so much as res unius aetatis if at that time when the Roman Laws inculcating the Natural Cognation between all Mankind and placing Actions that wound Piety or Reputation or good Manners in the Number of things Impossible and intimating their abhorrence of Collusion Combining Circumvention and Disanulling things done thereby and branding of those acts that do fraudem facere legi and rendring that to be but a pittiful innocence that is but as good as the Law requires and making him in the eyes of the Law to be still in Possession of any thing who is actually trickt out of it quia pro possessione dolus est providing against Calumny by an Oath in all litigations and when a person is render'd to do a thing infamously expressing it by dolo facit having the regard of Pudor verecundia Humanitatis ac Religionis ratio and other such words of the like charming signification which were like Trees in the Body of the Roman Laws planted as thick by one another as they could well stand the Christian Religion had in the Congruity of its Precepts to Humane Nature come short of those of the Romans who as Cicero says did not Calliditate ac Robore sed Pietate ac Religione omnes gentes nationesque superare and especially if in those against Calumny Fraud and Circumvention the Christian Faith had not reach'd as high as the bona fides of the Heathens and much more if the Model of Christian Morality had been in that Knowing Age like that of the Jesuits in this But certainly since it hath often proved fatal to the Ministers of Kings to be or seem wiser than their Masters the Iesuits by affecting in their Platforms of Morality to be wiser than him who in the style of the Scripture of God is made to us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption may easily take a prospect of their ruine and as the Serpents trying to out-wit Heaven and its Poisoning the Morals of our first Parents with its subtlety made the Scene of its motion to be in the Dust and it to be more accurs'd than any brute Animal such is likely to be the fate of this Serpentine Order after they have been by their subtle Casuistical distinctions so long nibbling at the Sacred word a thing the old Serpent did and tempting Men in a fool's Paradise according to their several Palates by their Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil I mean the Experiments of Vice by their pretended Moral Theology but what is so far from deserving the Name of Theology that if it were imagin'd that a general Counsel of Devils were by their Chief call'd to debate of a Model of credenda and agenda for the world 't is likely they would unanimously agree to set up this and no other for no doubt they would pass no Article to deny the existence of a God for they believe that and tremble nor yet any Article that might be controul'd by Natural light or of which any Matter of Fact would be over-rul'd by Authentic History but they would among the unwary Judges of things and such whose Judgments are choak't up with the fumes
innocency which yet perhaps may be necessary to be done for the use of those who know you not hereafter when the heat of the day and your Services in this critical juncture shall be over and would now shew as meanly as if a General in the time of Battel having some dirt or dust lighting on his face should while he was among the bullets employ his barbers washballs to cleanse it and that too when the fate of the battel seems to totter and is near decision one way or other and while there is hardly room for the Quid agendum to wedge it self in and he that saith consider is almost a foe and therefore once when a great Commander had no way to save himself and his Army but by their swimming with their horses through a River to attack their Enemy he did only to that question of quid agendum put to him by his Officers suddenly eccho back the reply of agendum and with his horse took the River and while now 't is with us as on board a Ship in the time of Fight or of a Storm when they are Fighting with the Elements and the Master or Steersman orders any thing to be done the case will bear no dilatory answer of words and the answer there is Done it is I say after all this that there is a reason which in my opinion renders any mans writing unnecessary now either to the World or himself and that is this That words and Language the which formerly having the stamp of common usage and of reason on them passed as currant coine for the Signification of mens minds and as a medium of commerce are in this juncture as useless that way and of as little value as lether coine called in and this Age wherein both the word and thing called shamme hath been brought in use and shamme calls it self an answer to that great question What is wit tho with as little reason as if a lye should call it self an answer to that old great question What is truth hath inforced those that do not love to be shamm'd upon not to measure mens actions by their words but their words by their Actions And tho a mans written books are called his works yet have I observed an occasion of Sarcasme given thereby when one speaking of a particular Divines excellent writings said he loved his works but hated his actions And written works are now indeed but actings as when a man doth agree gestum in scena on the Stage of the World and for them he finds but only a Theatrical applause Nor so much as that when like the Actor crying O heavens he looks down on the Earth As he is alwaies accounted but a smatterer in knowledge who is a pedant or petty-Chapman in words so he playes but at small games in politicks who is a pedant or trader in words or who indeed will give any thing for them He who doth verba dare has bad morals and who gives any thing else for them has bad intellectuals and according to that old Monkish verse they said Res dare pro rebus pro verbis verba solemus The only real security therefore that the World hath for its quiet is mens only giving a seeming belief to seeming professions and protestations for as Ayr out of its place makes Earth-quakes so if the articulate air of mens words gets beyond my hearing into my belief it may there raise those commotions of passion that may make me trouble both my self and the World and particularly by the passion of jealousie before-mentioned on my desire where I have a kindness that it should be mutual and when positive words brought me into the fools paradise of believing it possible a thing perhaps not possible in nature that two bodies and minds whose faculties must needs be different should have an equal intenseness of love for each other no president of friendship particularly that of Ionathan and David having shewn it and in the conjugal love the passions of the weaker Sex being observed to be the strongest and that of jealousie as well as Love jealousie particularly being most potent in minds most impotent and in persons most diffident of themselves And this may in some sort console your Lordship after all your restless endeavours to merit the love of all your Countrymen if it be not exactly mutual But this by the way The great names of Protestant and Religion began to adorn each other in the year of our Lord 1529 when some of the Electors and Princes of the Empire with a protestation opposed the Decree relating to the Mass and Eucharist made at Spiers and when some of the Capital Cities of Germany joyn'd with them to protest the same thing But every one knows that a protestation is a revocable thing and that a Protestation contrary to actions revokes it self And that the word Protestant hath not been in the World as the Poets term is of calling grass green or the like otiosum epitheton I believe the Papists will grant and 't is not one Protestation made and not revoked either by words or actions that can make that term consistent with our Religion or render a man worthy to be call'd one 'T is not a good continual claim to our Religion that yet is for land we are disseis'd of that is made only once a year whilst we live No the Protestation that the Protestant Religion requires is such a continual one as is reiterated upon every fresh act and attempt of the Papal Religion against ours 't is not a going to our Cells and saying Lord have mercy upon us but 't is our watching in our Stations and our shewing no mercy to the principles of Popery that are alwaies attacking the quiet of the World either by Storm or Siege or undermining 't is like the Protestation required when the defendant hath declined a Judge that must be made toties quoties as any new Act is done by the Judge without which the first Protestation grows insignificant 't is not one Act of protesting the Popes Bills of Exchange for good money we paid him and his giving us bank-tickets upon purgatory or giving us some fantastick Saints pretended Hair or Nailes protested with so much scorn by our Popish Ancestors in Henry the 8th's time that a piece of St. Andrews finger covered with an ounce of Silver pawn'd by a Monastery for forty pound was left unredeemed at the dissolution of it which shewed that that commodity would even then yeild nothing and was a meer drug in Scotland of which Country he is call'd the Saint Protector but 't is further like a protestation against the Sea at the next Port made toties quoties goods in a Ship are damnified by its rage which the law requires the Skipper to make or else leaves answerable for the dammage And if a poor Tarpauling who must alwaies plough the Sea for his bread during life and there still contest with the angry Elements
Petition yet the Impartial Thuanus doth it and in Book 135. and on the Year 1605. going to relate the History of the Gun-powder Treason he saith Ad libellum supplicem pro libertate Conscientiarum à Majorum Religioni addictis i. e. the Papists in proximis Comitiis oblatum à Rege rejectum fama erat alium his proximis quae jam aliquoties dilata erant porrectum iri qui non repulsae ut prior periculum sed concessionis vel ab invito extâ—rquendae necessitatem adjunctam haberet Itaque qui regni negotia sub principe generoso ac minime suspicioso procurabant nihil pejus veriti in eo laborabant ut petitiones iis adjunctam necessitatem eluderent Verum non de gratiâ de quâ desperabatur decimò obtinendâ sed de repulsâ illà vel cum regni exitio quod minime rebantur illi inter conjuratos agebatur And as to the Puritans Petition to King Iames The Resolution of the Lords and likewise of the Iudges assembled in Star-Chamber shortly after doth I think refer to it in the 3d § viz. Whether it was an offence punishable and what punishment they deserved who framed Petitions and Collected a Multitude of Hands thereto to prefer to the King in a publick Cause as the Puritans had done with an intimation to the King that if he denied the Suit many thousands of his Subjects would be discontented where to all the Iustices answered that it was an offence finable at discretion and very near Treason and Felony in the punishment for they tended to the raising of Sedition and Rebellion and discontent among the People to which resolution all the Lords declared that some of the Puritans had raised a false rumour of the King how he intended to grant a toleration to Papists c. And the Lords severally declared how the King was discontented with the said false rumour and had made but the day before a Protestation to them that he never intended and would spend the last drop of Blood before he would do it I remember not in the Millenary Petition any such expression as the insolent intimation that thousands would be discontented if it were not granted but do on the occasion of this ruffianly way of petitioning by Papists and Puritans remember what Alexander ab Alexandro speaks of the Persians who worshipped Fire that they did once in their supplicating their God threaten him that if he would not grant their Request they would throw him into the water I was therefore no imprudent Act of the Nonconforming Divines who had been deprived of their Livings to publish voluntarily such a Protestation of their Tenets as aforesaid after the detection of the Papists Gun powder Treason Plot and by which Act the Government was diverted from putting such a Cautionary Test on their Party as was on the Papists by the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Certain it is that both the Parties appeared very rude in the manner of their Petitioning In the Decrets where the Text saith that a thing is done Contra fidem Catholicam the gloss explains it to be Contra bonos more 's and so it may be said that both the Petitioners for the Roman Catholick Faith and for the others alledged Catholick Faith were injurious to each by their unmannerly Petitionings as well as to their Prince and their being both such frequent Aggressors against his quiet gave occasion for the Question to vex his Reign viz. Which were the worse of the two or whether they were not equally bad and so many may carelessly render them according to the saying Rustici res secant per medium What Bishop Elmore the Bishop of London thought in such a Case I have said and yet that Bishop as Fuller tells us in the Church History was a Learned Man and a strict and stout Champion for Disciplinâ— and on which account was more mock'd by Mar-Prelate and hated by the Nonconformists then any one And a great Son of the Church and Minister of the State hath judiciously in a publick Speech inculcated the different regard to be had to those who stray from the Flock and those who would destroy it Moreover a great Iustitiary of the Realm in the Tryal of one of the Popish Plotteâ—s took occasion to observe That Popery was ten times worse then the Heathen Idolatry And Dr. Burnet in a printed Sermon having said That in many places Lutherans are no less and in some tbey are more fierce against the Calvinists then against Papists adds like a strange sort of People among our selves that are not ashamed to own a greater aversion to any sort of Dissenters then to the Church of Rome I hope the Authority of that great Divine and excellent Person will in the point of this Comparison help to allay such a mistaken Aversion to some mistaken Dissenters I care not who knows the great deference I have to the judgment of that great Historian of our Reformation and whose History of which as the House of Commons has done right to by one of their Votes so likewise hath the highest Judicatory in England I mean the House of Lords by a late Order of theirs by which the Thanks of that House are given him for the great service done by him to this Kingdom and to the Protestant Religion in writing the History of the Reformation of the Church of England so truly and exactly and that he be desired to proceed to the perfecting what he further intends therein with all convenient speed c. As the words in the Iournal are My reading lately ten small printed Controversial Discourses between two Baronets of Cheshire near of kin to each other in which are many references to Historical Antiquities concerning the Illegitimacy of one Amicia Daughter to one of the Earls of Chester and my observing that one of those Authors blames the other for not better learning the duty to his deceased Grand-mother as his words are then by divulging the shame of her Illigitimacy and saith there is no Precedent in Scripture of any man that did divulge the shame of any person out of whose loyns he did descend except the wicked Ham and that the other Author thinks himself on the account of truth and for its sake to assert her Illegitimacy those many Tracts passed about that Controversy from the Year 1673 to 1676 occasioned my thinking that thus have some Writers that would take it ill perhaps not to be thought legitimate and true Sons of the Church of England took too much pains to prove the Birth of its Reformation to be illegitimate to the great Applause of the Papists and that our Reverend Historian of it did seasonably come in to Aid his Mother Church by publishing the very Records that would secure her from a blush on that account and leave that Mauvaise honte as the French call it to be Enemies and hath appear'd by his very laborious and judicious Writings to be a
mind was there in the Divines that governed our Church in the times of the late Vsurpation when those Triers of Ministers would allow none to have a Living or Cure of Souls that asserted the Tenets of Arminius in Religion which yet carry a face of so much probability to be maintained that a man who having used his utmost care in the investigation of truth therein asserts them may claim it as his due by the purchase of Christs Blood that when he is required to deliver his opinion about the same his asserting it that way should not expose him to punishment And there is no Controverted Religionary Speculative Point of that Nature wherein there is among Learned Men probabilis causa litigandi and in some Cases too where it may touch too close upon our Articles and Homilies in which liberty of differing in Judgment is here either prejudicial to their Interest or common Esteem Thus tho all the Reformed Churches make the Pope to be Antichrist and particularly our Church of England in its Homilies hath done so our Famous Dr. Hammond adventured as he thought himself obliged in Conscience to publish it that Simon Magus was the man. The most judicious Comparers of times are sensible that there is now a more valuable libera theologia in England then was during the Usurpation How glad would many of the Independent and Presbyterian Divines then have been of the liberty to have taught their Flocks the Notions they then thought of importance as to the Divine Decrees tho they had been allowed to have so done only in Surplices or in Vests of Indian feathers or any habits imaginable The old way of arguing about speculative points in Religion with passion and loudness and being tedious therein is grown out of use and a Gentlemanly Candour in discourse of the same with that moderate temper that men use in debating natural Experiments has succeeded in its room and 't is accounted Pedantry for any one in good Company to pass for a Victor in Notions by having the last word and seeming a Baffler in dispute And the truth is our Divines and the Lay Literati having since the King's Restoration been more addicted to the Study of real Learning then formerly which requires quiet of thought in its pursuit hath brought noise out of Request I need not again mention the Obligation our Land hath received from the Royal Society in making so great a Plantation of real knowledge in it 'T was high time at last when the Kingdom was settled on its proper Basis to improve it with such strong and nervous knowledge that would be like the strong man keeping Possession in mens understandings during which either Poperies or Presbyteries Kingdom of Darkness cannot overthrow our Quiet There were in the Year 1599. reckoned in Christendom 2,25044 Monasteries and from whence all the great Revenue there bestowed on men to think sent not perhaps one Notion of real Learning into the World. But their professed business was to extinguish the light of Knowledge and not to increase it and that which they made their real Study was to find out Artifices to make Mankind fit still and quiet in the dark and to invent torments and punishments for those that would not do so and to ridicule those who pryed into nature and but looked toward Arithmetick and Geometry by the Name of Students of the black Art and Conjurers a humour that was not quite exterminated hence from the time of Fryer Bacon to my Lord Bacon for our pious Martyrologer mentioning occasionaly Dr. d ee the Mathematician called him Dr. Dee the Conjurer Thus Almighty God tho the first thing he made for the World in general was external light yet one of the last things he hath made or so much blessed the World with is real Learnings intellectual Light and even that whereby we so knowingly converse with his works of Nature and so careless was Mankind in considering the frame of their own bodies that Dr. Henshaw a late Ornament of the Royal Society hath truely observed it in his Book of Fermentation That within the Compass of this last Century the knowledge of Anatomy hath been enriched by a full third part at least Mankind was so busie in murthering one anothers bodies of old under the Notion of Christians and afterward as Hereticks that it had no leisure to dissect them and was wholly taken up by studying experiments of Cruelty equal to the making of live Anatomies of each other And tho the Holy Iesus came into the World not to destroy mens lives but to save them and for that purpose tho the Divine Philanthropy chose that time for his coming into the World when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was arrived at a greater heighth then ever before yet by the depraved nature of man perverting and corrupting the use of Religion the fantastick vile sacrificing of men hath since encreased In the Infanticidium of Herod's that was presently after the Birth of the Holy Child Iesus Samuel Siderocrates saith that there were slain of Infants of 2 years old and under that Age 444000 and Paulus Volzius makes them to be a Million and 44 Thousand And afterward among the Heathens he was accounted the Magnus Apollo not who could find ways of saving but destroying Christian men No fewer than seven Books were writ by Vlpian to shew the several punishments that ought to be inflicted on Christians And tho Livy saith of the Romans in hoc gloriari licet nulli gentium mitiores placuisse paenas yet Tacitus tells us of the Christians in the 15th Book of his Annals Primo correpti qui fatebantur deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud perinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt Ea pereuntibus addita ludibria aut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent aut crucibus affixi aut flammandi aut ubi defecisset dies in usum nocturni luminis urerentur Several Authors relate it as a Decree of Nero ' s Quisquis Christianum se esse confitetur is tanquam generis humani convictus hostis sine ulteriori sui defensione capite plectitor Enough hath been already said to parallel the Cruelty of new Rome with that of old toward the Heterodox and how ingenious the Virtuosi of the Inquisition have been in finding out such torments for Heretics as can multiply one death into a thousand I with horrour think of How profound a submission and deference to the unaccountable Will of Heaven doth this Consideration require namely that Christs little Flock even in the Ark of his Church is not only endangered by a deluge from without but by one within and that of its own blood and that the Sheep of Christ appear to a common eye to be as it were made on purpose to feed the grievous Wolves that are entred in among them and as it may be supposed that thousands of harmless Sheep were in the Ark of Noah
they may be justly presumed to do whensoever opportunity serves and that they see it conducible to their Interest to do it Thus likewise Iudges of Ecclesiastical Courts when the consideration of the Nullity of a Marriage by reason of fear resulting from threatnings is before them do carefully regard this point concerning the Menacer an solitus est minas exequi a thing the Iesuites have not been wanting to do when Power and Opportunity have not been wanting and there is no doubt but the Iesuites by reason of their 4th Vow to the Pope over and above the Implicit Obedience they have sworn to their Superiors are to execute whatever he shall command nor is it doubtable but that when it is said by the Canonists that the Pope hath power to burn Heretical Cities he will reduce that Power into Act when he sees convenient and as Dr. Donne in his Pseudo Martyr well notes the Lawyers teach us that the word potest doth often signifie actum for which he quotes Bartolus on the Digests I believe the truth of his Computation where he saith in p. 228 of that Book That the Iesuites are in possâ—ssion of most of the Papists hearts in England but I likewise believe his other Computation in that Book where in p. 127. he saith quoting Rebadenira that in the Year 1608. the whole number of the Society of the Iesuites were 10581. and that tho their number is much encreased since there are not so many in England as were when the Book was printed viz Anno 1610. and the Dr. whose Style was as the Oxford Antiquities say of Mr. Foxes in Romanenses satis acerbus tho I think neither of their Styles was so a jot too much doth in Chap. 10th of that Book very learnedly and largely shew that many Eminent and Popish Writers have bitterly inveighed against Gratian the Compiler of the Decretum of the Canon Law. No doubt that Law was never in gross received in England in the times of our Popish Ancestors and so neither did nor doth bind English Papists in the Court of Conscience more than the Council of Trent doth in some Popish Countries where it never was received and I find Bellarmine cited by the Dr. for saying that there are many things in the Decretal Epistles which do not make a matter to be de fide but only do declare what the opinions of the Popes were in such cases I believe that no un-jesuited Papist nor perhaps some sober Party in that Order will think the worse of me for calling the Decretum of the Popes Canon Law by reason of its empowering him thus to burn Cities hâ—rrendum Decretum and it may perhaps appear ridiculous as well as horrid in the Pope in that Law to rake in the Ashes of sweet St. Cyprian for fire to burn Heretical Towns and to make him who was in a manner Excommunicated by the Pope for rebaptizing such as were baptized by Hereticks to be the Founder of that wild Tenet of converting guiltless Lime and Brick and Timber to rubbish because they had afforded dwelling places to People that differed in judgment from Rome and to make him who in the Year 258. was a Martyr for not being an Idolater to be the Author of burning Cities that would not adore the Host. But moreover it may be said that in the Decrets made by the Pope to Ape the Pandects and to consist chiefly of Canons of Councils sayings of Fathers and Constitutions of Popes as the Pandects do of the responsa prudentum c. Gratian's founding a Tenet on Cyprian or any places out of other Authors giveth it only the weight that Cyprian and they had in their proper works and the Stream of Authority from their Writings in Gratian is not to be supposed able to rise higher than the Spring and thus the Canonists agree on this as a Rule that the things quoted in Gratian Vim legis habent quatenus reperiuntur illic unde depâ—ompta sunt and they tell us that if any things that are said to be impia hiulca barbara sine ratione falsa fideique Historicae adversa are found there they are to be passed by as Gratian Dreams ut nec confirmatio Pontificum generalis ad ea sese extendere possit And on this Account his Glâ—ssographer Andreas himself doth often turn his gloss into an Animadversion on his Master for that name he bestows on Gratian and saith sometimes Magister hic non tenetur meaning Observatur and sometimes Superficialis est magistri argumentatio and elsewhere with a strain of Ruffianism fateor te plane mentitum Gratiane And if any one will read Pere Veron's Book of the Rule of Catholick Faith Dedicated to the Lords of the Assembly general of the Clergy sitting at Paris in the Year 1645. he will find he saith as for Gratian 's Decrees and the Gloss they can claim nothing of Faith the Author being a particular Doctor and Subject to many mistakes even in the Citation of Authors nor doth he pretend to any such thing much less weight hath the Gloss than the Decrees where many silly and ridiculous passages are discovered As for the Papal Decrees contained in the body of the Canon Law or published since none of them do constitute an Article of Faith c. Bellarmine makes no difficulty to acknowledge Errors in several of them as for example where the Canon out of Gratian is objected quod proposuisti extracted out of Gregory the 3d where 't is said that if a Woman should be sick and by that means unable to render her duty to her Husband the Husband if he have not the gift of continency may take another Wife he replys thus that the Pope failed through ignorance which we do not deny may happen to Popes when they do not properly define but only declare their opinions as Gregory seems here to have done And no doubt but every Papist laughs at the definition of a Whore in the Decrets i. e. Quae multorum libidini patet and at the gloss there making by multorum to be meant 23000. My Lord I discoursed frankly of all these last mentioned matters to my Roman Catholick Friend who I said would joyn Issue in the Plea about Religion if the Pope's Power of firing Heretical Cities were a Tenet chargeable on the Church of Rome and have perhaps said as much to throw off the Obligation on any Papists to obey the Pope or his Canon Law in the infliction of such dire Vengeance on whole Cities as they would wish said and do think my self indispensably obliged when I discourse with any of Mankind about any Quaesitum relating to natural truth and much more to Theological with all possible candour to say what the matter will fairly bear on both sides as accounting any mans Judgment given ex parte to be of little or no value and esteeming him a falsarius who conceals any thing of truth But this Gentleman being a close pursuer of truth
not you after you have thrown off the Papal Power of Excluding Kings make your Reformation an empty Name if you at last reform your selves into Popery and after all your imagined Conversions from Popery we shall see your natural Conversion to it and as Natural as the Common Hieroglyphick of the year shews us and how in se convertitur annus The truth is that as to the Case of many of our Nominal Protestants and some real ones being thus deceived as aforesaid in the business of the Exclâ—sion there lyes a Pudet haec opprobriâ— nobis c. and a worse opprobrium than that of another common Latine saying Stulti dum vitant vitia c. for here they have run but from Popery to Popery from a Popery more genteely clad to a second-haâ—d Popery and even into a frippery of Antimonarchial notions and they have run into the Substance of the worst part of Popery and what I account worse then Transubstantiation while they have been pursuing the magni nominis umbria I mean the shadow of the Great Name of Protestant And I will still call it a great and noble name however abused by Schismaticks and tho not used in our Canons and Articles c. and wherein we soar above the dictates of Luther and Calvin and the distinctions of Names they occasioned and for which purpose our great-Souled Bramhall in the title page of his Iust Vindication of the Church of England hath the quotation of My Name is Christian my Sirname is Catholic by the one I am known from Infidels by the other from Hereticks and Schismaticks but yet doth often in that Book and his other writings use the word Protestants for such who have laudably opposed the Papal Usurpations and Impositions And in the mentioning of the Protestant Churches beyond Sea that word is justly and properly applicable Moreover our Great Chillingworâ—h's writing of The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation hath endear'd that Name as well as his own to us thereby The adherents likewise of the Church of England are often put to it to use the distinction of Protestant Recusants to speak Intelligibly But 't is the Church of England-Protestant that the Orthodox and Loyal generally mean by that name when they speak of Protestants alone here according to the Rule of analogum per se positum c. It is for the honour of these Protestants who have not so learn'd Christ and Christianity as to be untaught their unnatural Allegiance and natural obligation of their Oaths that it may be observed of them that tho many within the pale of that Church have been tempted a while to extravagant thoughts and actings in the point of Exclusion yet they have through the Divine influences on their understandings soon come to themselves again and tho the Loyalty of some of these like Steel hath been bent yet it hath not like lead stood and continued bent And notwithstanding that being Transported a while with the Passion of Anger against Papists and Plots they said in their haste that Dominion was founded in Grace I observ'd so many of them by their second thoughts so averse from the second-hand Popery as I call'd it that they might merit an exemption from being censured by Papists as aforesaid and that by virtue of the Rule of Law viz. Quidquid calore iracundiae vel fit vel dicitur non prius ratum est quam si perseverantiâ apparuit judicium animi fuisse ideoque brevi reversa uxor nec divertisse videtur And here I am likewise to observe that tho many who have been members of the Church of England because it was by Law Established and have for fashion-sake gone to our Common-Prayer with no more concernment than the Monk went to Mass who said Eamus ad communem errorem yet such of this Church whose Devotion hath been deep rooted in their heads and hearts and who have seriously thought of those words in the Collect viz. So rule the Heart of THY Chosen Servant Charles our King and Governor c. did not long say Amen to any mens thoughts or motions of Choosing their King. Let Rome and the Conventicles thus like lead stand bent as I said but the Doctrine of the Church of England and its Prayers have sufficiently told us whose chosen Servant our King is I have here occasion to refer to an Illustrious Son of this Church and whose whole life hath been as perfect a Comment on the Oath and Moral Offices of Allegiance and of absolute and unconditional Loyalty as any could be and more useful to the World than any Written one I mean the Duke of Ormond and therefore it is but Iustice to him and the Subject I have been treating of for me here to cite him in what was published by the Loyal and Learned Father Walsh in Answer to what was by the Nuntio's Party pretended as a Scandal namely That one of a different Religion from those Irish Papists should be MADE CHOICE OF to Govern them and that that Party did fear the Scourges of War and Plague to have justly falâ— so heavy on them and some Evidence of God's Anger against them for putting God's Cause and the Churches under such a hand whereas the trust might have been managed in a Catholick hand under the Kings Authority but to which the Answer was thus with great Loyalty and Judgment viz. Now at length they are come plainly to shew the true ground of their Exception to us which they have endeavoured all the whole to disguise under the Personal Scandals they have endeavoured to cast upon us They are afraid of Scandal at Rome for MAKING CHOICE as they call it as if they might CHOOSE their Governor of one of a different Religion If this be allowed them why they might not next pretend to the same fear of Scandal for having a King of a different Religion and so the Power of CHOOSING one of their own Religion we know not and concludes with an Observation of that Party 's having infamously practised the Doctrine of Calumny in relation to the then Queen And all Papists therefore owning the Disloyal Principles of that Party have thereby the Pudet haec opprobria c. put on them Nor can it be by any Impartial Relaters of News either told at Gath or published in Ascalon that any Sons of the Church of England were actually 〈◊〉 in thinking they might choose their future King but it must likewise there be said how the Fathers and Divines of that Church did in that Conjuncture so universally and with such an Impetus of Reason and Scripture propagate the Doctrine of Passive Obedience and of the Loyalty that the 13th of the Romans and our Oaths require whereby the Popery of founding Dominion in Grace hath been so much Exterminated from that Church and the Realm that the very sense and reason and humor of the People of England is bent against it and is likely to be so