exposition published vpon the 7. 8. 9. and 10. verses of the 20. chapter of the Reuel or lastly his subscription to the confession of his faith in the yeere 1581 assoon as hee came to yeeres of discretion you would haue had little reason to haue presumed so farre vpon him for hearkening to any peace with the Church of Rome as long as her whoredomes and witchcrafts râ—maine yet in such abundance and being offered cure â—hat we might know she is Babylon she hath and still doth wilfully refuse to be cured But the sandie ground of the vaine presumption will yet more liuely appeare if the forme of that subscription bee well considered in which hauing rehearsed and renounced the chiefe points of Popery as namely the Popes vsurped authoritie ouer the Scriptures ouer the Church ouer the ciuill Magistrate and the consciences of men his deuilish masse his blasphemous Priesthood his profane sacrifice for the quicke and the dead and in a word the erroneous and bloody decrees of the Councel of Trent hee promiseth and sweareth by the great name to the Lord God to perseuere in that faith and to defend it all the dayes of his life to the vtmost of his power vnder paine of all the Curses contained in the Law and the danger both of bodie and soule in the fearefull day of iudgement and further straightly chargeth and commandeth all his officers and ministers to make the same subscription themselues and to take it of others vnder their charge and lest we should thinke that arriuing to riper age hee altered his iudgement in his instructions to his sonne he giues vs this assurance As for the particular points of religion saith hee I neede not to dilate them I am no hypocrite follow my footesteps and your owne present education therein B. C. 10. But when after my long hope I at the last did plainely perceiue that God for our sinnes had suffered the deuill the athour of dissension so farre to preuaile as partly by the furious practise of some desperate Catholikes and partly by the fiery suggestions of all violent Puritans hee had quite diuerted that peaceable and temperate course which was hoped for and that I must now either alter my iudgement which was impossible or preach against my conscience which was vntolerable Lord what anxietie and distraction of soule did I suffer day night what strife betwixt my iudgement which was wholly for the Q peace and vnitie of the Church and my affection which was wholly to enjoy the R fauour of your Maiesty and the loue of my friends and Countrey this griefe of soule now growing desperate did still more and more increase the infirmities of my body and yet I was so loth to become a professed Catholike with the displeasure of your Maiestie and of all my honourable and louing friends as I rather desired to silence my iudgement with the profits and pleasures of the world which was before mee then to satisfie it with reconciling my selfe vnto the Catholique Church But it was Gods will that euer as I was about to forget the care of religion and to settle my selfe to the world among my neighbours I met with such humours as I saw by their violence against Catholikes and Catholike religion were like rather to waken my soule by torture then bring it asleepe by temper and therefore I was driven to S recoile to God and to his Church that I might find rest vnto my soule G. H. 10. Q Certainely for their sinnes it was that God suffered them to plot so barbarous a designe but for our good wee hope if in nothing else yet in working in vs a stronger hatred of that religion which produceth such effects and in awakening vs to beware of the like mischieuous plot againe if it be possible the like may be plotted we excuse not our selues but in this businesse we haue rather tasted of Gods mercy which we deserued not then of his iudgements which wee must acknowledge we deserued R Quis tulerit Gracchos deseditione querentes what patient eare can endure him talking of nothing but peace and vnity who did euer blow the coales of dissention both in Court and Countrey as well in the Colledge where he liued a fellow as in the Church where he was a Canon S So it may well be gathered out of your owne words that the chiefe ground of your griefe was that you saw your ambitious humour was now crossed in as much as you could not keepe the olde wont and withall rise to place of honour T Your apostasie and forsaking the faith and Church in which you were baptized you call a recoiling to God and to his Church neither will I much stand vpon it since we know that Antichrist must sit in the Temple of God bearing himselfe as God B. C. 11. And yet because I had heard often that the practise of the Church of Rome was contrary to her doctrine I thought good to make one triall more before I resolued and therefore hauing the aduise of diuerse learned Physitians to goe to the Spaw for the health of my body I thought good to make a vertue of necessitie and to get leaue to goe the rather for the satisfaction of my soule v hoping to find some greater offence in the seruice of the Church of Rome then I had done in her bookes that so I might returne better contented and persecute and abhorre the Catholikes at home after I should find them so wicked and idolatrous abroad as they were in euery pulpit in England affirmed to be For this purpose before I would frequent their Churches I talked with such learned men as I could meet withall and did of purpose dispute against them and with all the wit and learning I had both iustifie the doctrine of England established by Law and obiect their superstition and idolatrie which I thought they might commit either with the images in the Church or with the Sacrament of the Altar G. H. 11. That is a trueth to auouch the practise of the Church of Rome to be more grosse then her doctrine howbeit we must confesse her doctrine in many points to be very grosse appeares by this that the better and wiser sort among themselues both in their iudgements and writings condemne many fopperies vsually practised by the people and winked at by their guides as their hallowing of graines and medalls and beads by touching some supposed Relique with opinion of merit Their praying to fained Saints and beleeuing forged legends and miracles Their permitting of publique Stewes and a Priest to keepe his concubine vnder a yeerely rent which Espencaeus wisheth were falsly thrust in among the grieuances of Germany Their setting of certaine rates vpon the most grieuous sinnes before they bee committed as appeareth in their Taxa Camera Their allowing of Sanctuaries for wilfull murder Their ordinary buying and selling of soules in Purgatory as a man would buy an horse in
my Kingdomes was grounded vpon the plaine words of the Scripture without the which all points of Religion are superfluous as any thing contray to the same is abomination I had neuer outwardly auowed it for pleasure or awe of any flesh I take his meaning to be either for loue or feare of any mortall man or rather for any worldly and fleshly consideration whether it were to gaine and make aduantage by entertaining and embracing it or to loose and suffer disaduantage by reiecting and opposing the contrary I speake not this as if by Gods grace as much and more both honour and securitie did not waite vpon our Religion as vpon the Romish but onely to shew that these are no sufficient inducements to draw so much as a priuate man much lesse to mooue the diuine and noble spirit of a Christian prince specially such a prince as hath often shewed himselfe able to iudge of reasons of a higher straine to the accepting of a new beliefe and another forme in the seruice of God but only the plaine demonstration and cleare euidence of the truth of that beliefe and necessitie of that forme B. C. 3. The first reason of my hope is the promise of God himselfe to blesse and honour those that blesse his Church and honour him and to curse and confound those that curse his Church and dishonor him which hee hath made good in all ages There was neuer any man or Citie or State or Empire so preserued and aduanced as they that haue preserued the vnitie and aduanced the prosperitie of the Church of Christ nor any been made more miserable and inglorious then they that haue dishonoured Christ and make hauocke of his Church by Schisme and heresie G. H. 3. To grant that which you assume that the Church of Rome is the onely true Church this argument drawen from temporall blessings is sometimes false vncertaine alwayes and your assertion that neuer any man or Citie or State was preserued aduanced as they that haue presâ—rued the vnitie and aduanced the prosperitie of the Church of Christ is very broad and too large considering it extends euen to Solomon himselfe who though hee aduanced the Church yet can it not properly bee said that hee aduanced the Church of Christ nay out of the Church who were euer more prosperous succesfull in their affaires then Augustus and Traian Of the former of whom it is said that he found Rome of Bricke and left it of Marble of the later that hee raised the Romane Empire to the highest pitch of glory and spread the power of their Command vnto the farthest borders and largest circuit that euer before or since hath by them been possessed for the kingdome of Dacia hee subdued Armenia Parthia and Mesopotamia made subiect Assyria Persia and Babylon conquered passed Tygris and stretched the confines of the Romane Empire vnto the remotest dominions of the Indies which neuer before that time had seene the Romane Banners or so much as heard of their name besides his morall vertues were such that in the choyce of a new Emperour they euer wished for one more happie then Augustus better then Traian and yet this man with whom for outward prosperitie no Christian Emperour can bee balanced was not only out of the Church but an enemie to it raised against it the third and one of the hotest persecutions of the tenne For further proofe hereof I referre the reader for this point to S. Augustines first 10. bookes of the Citie of God and surely he that shal duely consider the flourishing greatnesse of the Assy rian and Grecian but especially the Romane Monarchy will easily discouer the lightnesse of this reason and the vanitie of the assertion I speake not to detract from the Christian and truely Catholike religion euen in regard of outward blessings but onely to proue that God bestowes them sometimes vpon the good thereby to shew that absolutely and in themselues they are not bad sometimes againe vpon the bad to shew that in themselues they are not good and takes them sometimes from both to shew that in their owne nature they are indifferent B. C. 4. If I had leasure and bookes it were easie for mee to enlarge this point with a long enumeration of particulars but I thinke it needlesse because I cannot call to mind any example to the contrarie except it be the State of Queene Elizabeth or some one or two others lately fallen from the vnitie of the Catholike Church or the State of the great Turke that doth still persecute the Church of Christ and yet continues in great glory in this world but when I consider of Queene Elizabeth I find in her many singularities she was a woman and a mayden Queene which gaue her many aduantages of admiration she was the last of her Race and needed not care what became of the world after her dayes were ended she came vpon the remainders of deuotion and Catholike religion which like a Bowle in his course or an Arrow in his flight would goe on for a while by the force of the first moouer and shee had a practise of maintaining warres among her neighbours which became a woman well that she might be quiet at home and whatsoeuer prosperitie or honour there was in her dayes or is yet remaining in England I can not but ascribe it to the Church of Rome and to Catholike religion which was for many hundred yeeres together the first mouer of that gouernment and it is still in euery setled kingdome and hath left the steppes and shadow thereof behinde it which in all likelihood cannot continue many yeeres without a new supplie from the fountaine G. H. 4. Why you should ioyne Queene Elizabeth with the great Turke I see no reason but onely for the iustifying of Rainolds his booke of Caluino Turcisme Otherwise a marueile it is that you would instance in her happinesse whom the Pope in his Briefe declared amiserable woman and yet her gouernement was not more happie then her sisters who notwithstanding shee submitted her necke to the Romane yoke was vnfortunate howbeit in her owne disposition she is reported to haue been a gracious and vertuous Lady instance may bee brought in the bringing in of a forreiner the frustrating of the great hope of her conception her short and bloody reigne extraordinary dearths and hurts by thunder and fire and lastly the losse of Calis the last footing wee had in France being held by her predecessors the space of about 250 yeeres whereas Queene Elizabeth oppugned and accursed from her very Cradle by the Church of Rome their thunderbolts returned vpon their owne heads and her selfe like a tender plant after a thunder shower prospered the more and being no lesse full of honour then dayes she was gathered to her fathers as a ripe sheafe of corne that is carried into the barne in so much that her Successour our most renowned SOVERAIGNE in admiration of
apostata So then in Saint Augustines opinon God did not onely order those honours by his prouidence as you would haue it but conferre them by his bounty Neither haue we any reason to thinke but that he who called Cyrus his Shepheard and his Anointed and gaue him the treasures of darkenesse and assured Nabuchadonosor by his Propheâ— that himselfe had giuen to him a Kingdome and power and strength and glorie may as truely bee sayd to haue conferred that gouernment vpon the Turke which now he holds But it seemes you aime through the Turkes sides to strike at Queene Elizabeth and through her at King Iames Infidels and Heretikes being in the Roman language ranked together So that their king domes being not by Gods donation they might lie loose and by occasion fall as it were by excheate to his holinesse gift Your reasons of the largenesse and long continuance of the Turkish Empire are as farre from the purpose as your whole discourse is from any sound Diuinitie for not to stand vpon the sifting of the trueth of them which in some of them may not vniustly be questioned your inference is that such principles are of great importance to increase and maintaine a temporall estate But the point is whether any can be of sufficient importance to vphold any estate when God for the dishonouring of his CHRIST is purposed to ruine it and as the Psalmist speakes of a fruitfull land to make it barren for the iniquity of the people that dwell therein before you speake of a Supernaturall iudgement of God in destruction and here of a Naturall and humane inuention for preseruation which can hold no more proportion with the former then a Venice glasse with an yron pot or an earthen vessell with a brasen Lastly what states you should meane that are willing to become Turkish I know not but what they are that inioy their estates in capite Ecclesiae ad voluntatem Domini Papae and enioyne the greatest silence and outward reuerence in matters of Religion and withall are content to admit the toleration of Iewes and Turkes too in their Dominions rather then of Christians your selfe when you wrote this could not bee ignorant Nay some of the Popes themselues as namely Alexander the VI. and Paulus the III. if we may credite Thuanus had secret commerce with the great Turke against the Christian Princes and the former of them if Iouius and Guicciardin mistake not tooke vnder hand of the Turke Baiazets two hundred thousand Crownes to kill his brother Gemen And Alexander the III. wrote to the Soldan that if he would liue quietly he should by some sleight murther the Emperour Frederike Barbarossa and to that ende sent him the Emperours picture B. C. 6. It is most true which I gladly write and so giue out with all the honour I can of your Maiesty to speake that I thinke there was neuer any Catholike king in England that did in his time more imbrace and fauour the true body of the Church of England then your Maiesty doth the shadow thereof that is yet left and my firme hope is that this your desire to honour our blessed Sauiour in the shadow of the Church of England will moue him to honour your Maiesty so much as not to suffer you to die out of the body of his true Catholike Church and in the meane time to let you vnderstand that all honour that is intended to him by schisme and heresie doth redound to his great dishonour both in respect of his realla and of his mysticall body G. H. 6. You honour his Maiesty much indeed in giuing out that he imbraceth a shadow in stead of a substance as Ixion did a cloude in stead of Iuno and Iacob bleare-eyed Lea in stead of Rachel but in trueth of the Church of Rome wee may safely say that with Esops dog in snatching at the shadow she hath lost the substance of religion she hath so couered ouer all the parts of diuine seruice with the leaues of ceremonies that hardly is the fruit it selfe to be seene she hath so bepainted the face of Gods worship that not easily is the natiue complexion thereof to be â—ound The Poet spake it of the women of his time Pars minima est ipsa puellasui But we may more truely affirme it of the Romish religion her ornaments and apparell are such that a man may seeke Rome in Rome and her religion in her religion and not find either I will giue but one instance for all Bellarmine in the conclusion of his controuersies of the Sacrament of Baptisme maketh no lesse then twelue ceremonies to march before it fiue to assist and fiue to hold vp the traine of which some are profane the greatest part ridiculous and few or none wherein wee differ so much as knowen to the primitiue Church Now if the Church of England haue scowred off the drosse and pared away the superstition and nouelty retaining the substance together with the most comely and ancient ceremonies aswell in this Sacrament as in other parts of diuine seruice and his Maiesty follow her therein shall he therefore be sayd to imbrace the shadow and not the body whereas in truth if euer King of England embraced the body of religion without respect to the shadow of vaine and needlesse ceremonies it is his Maiesty which while he doth there is little feare by Gods grace of his dying out of the body of Christs true Catholike Church whose head is not the Bishop of Rome but Christ himselfe vnderstood in the 10. of S. Iohns Gospel and there shal be one sheepefold and one sheepeheard B. C. 7. For his reall body is not as the vbiquitaries would haue it euery where aswel without the Church as within but only where himselfe would haue it and hath ordained that it should bee and that is amongst his Apostles and Disciples and their successours in the Catholique Church to whom he deliuered his Sacraments and promised to continue with them vntill the worlds end So that though Christ bee present in that Schisme by the power of his dietie for so he is present in hell also yet by the grace of his humanity by participation of which grace onely there is hope of saluation hee is not present there at all except it be in corners and prisons and places of persecution and therefore whatsoeuer honour is pretended to be done to Christ in schisme and heresie is not done to him but to his vtter enemies G. H. 7. By the reall body of Christ I suppose you vnderstand the naturall his mysticall body being also reall but not naturall and I see not but this naturall body may as well bee euery where wherein you taxe the Vbiquitaries as in heauen and on earth and vpon earth in tenne thousand places at the same instant which the Church of Rome maintaines but it seemes by confining of him to the Church on earth your purpose is to exclude him from
state being now setled and a continuall posteritie like to ensue of one nature and condition God knoweth what that forcible weapon of necessitie may constraine and driue men vnto at length But thankes be vnto God the Father of our Lord Iesus CHRIST who hath so fixed and stablished the Royall heart of our gracious Soueraigne as that neither his bloodie threates nor your sugred promises can moue it one point from the center of that trueth which himselfe hath still professed and in which his posterity are trained vp And thus the weakenesse of the foundation vpon which the first reason of your vaine hope is grounded is discouered God in his promises is alwayes most sure but this your reason pretended to be grounded thereupon most vnsure since neither the true Religion is found at this day in that Church which you call Catholike neither are temporall blessings alwayes annexed to that Religion which is indeed true Thus much you might haue learned of Hall the Iesuite who after the discouery of the Powderplot recites vnto Littleton for his comfort certaine examples of Heretikes ouercomming Catholikes in battell and Infidels ouerthrowing Christians or of father Robert Parsons in his Replie to his MAIESTIE touching Queene ELIZABETHS happinesse outward felicities saith hee are worldlings arguments no necessary improuements of Gods blessing howbeit Father Robert Bellarmine makes it one of the 15. and Bozius one of his 100. notes of the true Church but much rather and better might you haue learned it of the Prophet Dauid who was so sorely perplexed with this point that till he went into the Sanctuarie of God and there vpon consultation with him vnderstood the reason of it hee was well nigh at his wits end saying to himselfe in a kinde of despaire Then haue I clensed mine heart in vaine in vaine haue I washed mine hands in innocencie Yet if the argument were infallible God hath approued the trueth of his Maiesties Religion by those manifold outward blessings and miraculous deliuerances which of his mercâ—e hee hath vouchsafed him So that his Maiestie might iustly take vp that of the same Prophet in another place Blesse the Lord O my soule and forget not all his benefits who redeemeth thy life from destruction who crowneth thee with louing kindnesse and tender mercies and our hope and vnfained prayer to God is that whiles his Maiestie ceaseth not in this maner to honour God God will not cease in like maner to honour him and his posteritie with many blessings in this world and in the next with eternall happinesse B. C. 10. The second reason of my hope that Catholike Religion may be a great meanes of honor security to your Maiesties posteritie is taken from the consideration of your neighbors the Kings and Princes of Christendome among whom there is no state ancient and truely honourable but onely those that are Catholike The reason whereof I take to be because the rules of Catholike Religion are Eternall Vniuersall and Constant vnto themselues and with all so consonant to Maiestie and Greatnesse as they haue made and preserued the Catholike Church reuerent and venerable throughout the Christian world for these thousand and sixe hundred yeres and those temporall states that haue beene conformable thereunto haue beene alwayes most honourable and so are like to continue vntill they hearken vnto Schisme And as for those that haue reiected and opposed the rules of Catholike Religion they haue beene driuen in short time to degenerate and become either tyrannicall or popular Your Maiestie I know doth abhorre tyrannie but if Schisme and Heresie might haue their full swinge ouer the Seas the very shadow and reliques of Maiestie in England should be vtterly defaced and quickly turned into Heluetian or Belgian popularity for they that make no conscience to prophane the Maiesty of God and his Saints in the Church will when they feele their strength make no bones to violate the Maiestie of the King and his children in the common wealth G. H. 10. Hauing opened your entrance to a second reason in shew but indeed the same with the former you tell vs that among all the Kings and Princes of Christendome there is no state ancient and truely honorable but onely those that are Catholike wherein you doe the King of Denmarke and Sweden specially the former great honour in consideration belike of his neere alliance to his Maiestie as also to all the secular Princes of Germanie the house of Austria and the Duke of Bauaria onely excepted and among the rest the Prince Elector Palatine of Rhine his Maiesties sonne in law is most bound to thanke you and it seemes you conceiued so much by intending your iourney to Hydelberg and good reason you should haue been welcome considering you make both him and all the rest of the Kings and Princes of Christendome that haue forsaken Communion with the Church of Rome to bee both base and tyrannicall wheras I may be bold to say it that at this day there are none more moderate in their gouernments then those whom you call Schismatikes and of them the greatest part were neuer so flourishing as since they renounced societie with that Church specially the Heluetians and Belgians in whom you instance being growen more rich more powerfull and politike in their affaires then euer before And for popularity the Heluetians had it long before any change of religion and those very Cantons which call themselues Catholike retaine that forme and none other vnto this day And for the Belgians it appeares by the Prince of Orenge his Apollogie that they euer challenged their freedome as due by the Capitulations betweene them and their gouernours the Dukes of Burgundy and now at last after so much Christian blood spilt as all the world knowes in the Articles of peace concluded betweene the King of Spaine and them they are declared a free State Now whether they make any conscience of profaning the Maiestie of God let their published Confessions which testifie and hee that compares their practise with that of the Italians may easily iudge of the tree by the fruits whether wee regard the prophanation of his Maiesty in the blaspheming of his Name or the disgracing of his word or the vnsanctifying of his day for his Saints they all agree I speake for the maine body of their guides and professours in giuing them as much honour as they are lawfully capable of or would themselues willingly receiue and if this bee the heresie you meane wee professe it hath had its full swinge ouer seas already but doe not yet perceiue that therâ—by the Maiestie of our King is any way violated but rather strengthened and increased Lastly whereas you tell vs that you take the reason of all this to bee because the rules of Catholike religion are eternall vniuersall and constant to themselues I graunt there is and ought to be a mutuall dependance betwixt religion and ciuill policie the one both giuing
multitude iudge according to custome is because that they beeing bred and brought vp in the hatred of Spaniards and Papists can not choose but thinke they are bound to hate them still Wee might giue the same reason with more shew of truth of your multitude trained vp in the hatred of those who you call Lutheranes and Caluinists whom they are taught to hate more then ours either a Spaniard or Papist which two what reason you haue to couple together I vnderstand not except it be to iustifie the front of Puentes his booke Chronicler to the King of Spaine which sets forth Rome as the Sunne with this inscription Luminare maius vt praesit vrbi orbi and Spaine as the Moone with this Luminare minus vt subdatur vrbi dominetur orbi ouer both is written Fecit Deus duo magna luminaria and in the midst betweene both are the armes of Rome and Spaine knit together with this motto In vinculo pacis vnder the one is set Rome as a conquerour and vnder the other Spaine as a warriour both supporting betweene them the ball of the world vnder which is this title Tomo Primero de la conueniencia de las dos Monarquias Catholicas la de la Iglesia Romana y la del Imperio Espanol c. Neither are we ignorant who they are that doe not whisper it in corners but publish it to the world in their bookes that GOD MADE TWO GREAT LIGHTS ☉ The greater to be the Soueraigne of the City and the World ☽ The lesser to be ruled by the City and to ouer-rule the World IN THE BOND OF PEACE THE FIRST VOLVME OF THE CONVENIENCIE OF THE TVVO CATHOLIKE MONARCHIES THAT OF THE CHVRCH OF ROME and the other of the Spanish Empire With a Defence of the Precedencie of the Catholike KINGS of SPAINE before all the KINGS of the World TO THE MOST GLORIOVS PHILIPPO ERMENIGILDO OVR LORD EMPEROVR OF THE KINGDOMES OF SPAINE AND SENIOR OF THE GREAtest Monarchie that euer hath bene amongst men from the Creation of the World to this age AVTHOR Mr. Fr. IVAN de la Puente of the Order of the Predicants Chronicler to the Catholicall Maiestie Calificador to the Inquisition and Prior of S. Thomas in Madrid 1612. We haue the true resemblances of royall linages ROME SPAINE IN MVTVALL AYDE At MADRID Out of the Kings Print P.P. fe FECIT DEVS DVO LVMINARIA MAGNA Luminare maius vt praesit Vrbi et Orbi Luminare minus vt subdatur vrbi et dominetur orbi In vinculo pacis TOMO PRIMERO DE LA conueniencÃa de las dos MonarquÃas CatolÃcas la de la Iglesia Romana y la del ImperÃo Espanol y defensa de la Precedencia de los Reyes Catolicos de Espanna a todos los Reyes del Mundo AL GLORIOSISIMO FILIPO Ermenigildo nuestro Sennor Emperador de las EspanÌ„as y SenÌ„or de la maior Monarquia que antenÃdo los hombres des de la creacÃon hasta el SÃglo presente Autor el Maestro fr Iuan de la Puente de la orden de Predicadores ChronÃsta de la Mag a CatolÃca CalÃfÃcador dela InquisicÃon y PrÃor de S to Tomas de MadrÃd 1612. as there is one head who guides all in spirituall so there should bee but one to doe well in all Christendome to gouerne all in ciuill affaires and not vnlikely Mr. Doctor when he thus ioyned Spaniards and Papists together might secretly ayme at some such matter and yet are not the Pope and the Spaniard so firmely vnited betweene themselues but that Charles the V. was content to winke at least at the sacking of Rome by Charles Burbon then vnder his pay and Phillip the II. his sonne being one of the pretenders to the Crowne of Portugall refused to stand to his Holinesse arbitrement in the decision of that controuersie and they both while they liued were and this present king yerely is accursed at least inclusiuely for withholding the kingdomes of Naples and Sicilie as being of right parts of S. Peters patrimonie But all that is obiected against the Papists or Spaniards are in your account the falsifications and slanders of puritanicall Preachers howbeit who they are that labour by that meanes to disgrace their opposites let the Pictures forged and printed of our fained persecutions in couering your Catholikes with Beares skinnes and baiting them with dogs testifie and your reports which my selfe haue heard from your Friers in their Pulpits of our strange barbarisme as well in manners as religion as if no sparke of ciuilitie or knowledge of God were left amongst vs. It is your practise if not your doctrine Calumniare audacter semper aliquid haeret Bee bold to lay on loade with slandering somwhat will alwaies sticke to though the wound be closed and cured some scarre will euer remaine though a man purge himselfe neuer so sufficiently yet such is the nature of slander that it runnes faster and spreads farther then the purgation Many who heard the one neuer heard of the other or if they heard it through malice and naturall corruption they more willingly hold fast and entertaine the one then the other I haue heard it credibly reported that a Spaniard comming to Oxford and seeing the Trinitie pictured long agoe in the Diuinitie schoole window he wondred at it considering hee had been taught by their Preachers that wee denied and blasphemed the Trinitie And here the Pamphlet written and published of Bezaes death and reuolt which himselfe liued to answere with Bezarediuiuus though it bee famously knowen yet it is not amisse to reuiue it being so notable and shamelesse an imposture Touching your motion to his Maiestie for the silencing of those Preachers vpon whom for speaking freely against the abuses of the Church of Rome you bestow the liuerie of Make-bates it is not vnlike for the manner of it to Philips capitulating with the Athenians that for the better negotiating of a peace they would be content for a while to deliuer ouer their Orators into his custodie But Demosthenes finding himselfe to be chiefly interessed in that businesse told his citizens that it was as much as if the woolues should desire to haue the dogs in their keeping that guarded the sheepe His Holinesse may permit and countenance and by rewards incourage his Iesuites and Friars to speake and write what they list of Kings Princes and namely of his Maiestie our most renowmed Soueraigne witnesse the railings and slanders of Pacenius Christanouie Becanus Coquaeus Eudaemon Schoppius Rebullus Parsons Coffeteau Peletier Gretser their pennes may walke at libertie their tongues are theirs they ought to speake what Lord shall them controll But his Maiestie shall doe well to bridle and restraine his most painefull and duetifull Ministers who stand in the watch-tower and keepe Sentinell to discrie the incursions of the enemie and to discouer such false Prophets as come to vs in sheepes clothing but within are rauening woolues or if
to wit Westminster Chester Peterborough Oxford Bristol and Gloucester whereof the fiue last are yet in being at which time hee also erected at Canterbury a Deane with 12. Prebends at Winchester another with 12. more at Worcester another with ten at Chester another with sixe at Peterborough another with sixe at Oxford another with eight at Ely another with eight at Gloucester another with sixe at Bristol another with sixe at Carlile another with foure at Durham another with twelue at Rochester another with sixe and lastly at Norwich another with sixe so that wee haue good reason to thinke he returned againe to the Church much out of the Abbey lands and if notwithstanding all this God blessed him not in his thriuing wee haue nothing else to answere but that of Salomon It is a snare to the man who deuoureth that which is holy and after vowes to make inquiry But in his wiuing hee so blessed him though in this too hee shewed himselfe a man and consequently subiect to humane passion and frailty that three of his children successiuely wore the Crown after him of which the first was renowmed for his vertue beyond his age and the last beyond her Sexe of the one and his mother it was written Phoenix Ianaiacet nato Phoenice dolendum Saecula Phoenices nullatulisse duas And to the other might bee applied Non decor effecit fragilem non sceptra superbam Sola potens humilis sola pudica decens And though they all died without issue yet doth his honour still liue in theirs Henry the II. of France died in the vnitie of the Church of Rome yet three of his sonnes reigning after him left the Crown to a neighbour Prince as the children of Henry the VIII heere with vs did yet none that I haue met with hold him in that regard accursed of God and if in that respect God cursed Henry because hee renounced the pretended authoritie of the Church of Rome then should hee by vertue of that reason haue blessed Henries eldest daughter with issue who with great submission and deuotion reconciled her selfe to that Church and married to the most Catholike King and though the world were for a while so borne in hand yet in the end the great and solemne expectation thereof vanished into smoake Now that Henrie was wearie of his title of Supremacie before he died it appeares not and that hee wished to bee reconciled to the Pope which you call being in the Church againe is as vnlikely since no doubt is to bee made but vpon notice giuen of his Contrition and desire of Satisfaction hee might as easily haue beene absolued as wished it But certaine it is that hee wished it not if we may make coniecture of his wishes from those speeches which a little before his death hee deliuered to Mounsieur de Hannibault Lord Admirall of France and Ambassadour to the French king being then at Hampton Court in the moneth of August and in the yeere 1546. in the hearing of Cranmer Lord Archbishop of Canterburie concerning the reformation of Religion and afterwards more neere his death and more openly to Bruno Ambassador of Iohn Frederike Duke of Saxonie vnto whom the King gaue this answere in the hearing of these foure sufficient witnesses the Lord Seymer Earle of Hartford Lord Lisley then Admirall the Earle of Bedford Lord Priuie Seale and the Lord Paget That if the quarrell of the Duke of Saxonie were nothing else against the Emperour but for matter of Religion he should stand to it strongly and hee would take his part willing him not to doubt nor feare and with this answere dismissed him Besides the manner of his sonne and heire Apparent Prince Edwards education the qualitie and disposition of those persons whom he named as the principall ouerseers of his Will from which number hee excluded the Bishop of Winchester the most busie and forward instrument in those times for the maintenance of the Romish Religion though hee had once admitted him and was earnestly solicited by some of his bed chamber to readmit him are to mee so many euident demonstrations that hee was so farre from wishiug reconciliation with the Church of Rome that hee rather desired and intended if God had spared him life a while longer some more full and perfect reformation of Religon But the secret working of Gods holy prouidence which disposeth all things after his owne wisedome and purpose thought it good rather by taking that King away to reserue the accomplishment of that worke as he did the building of his Temple to Solomon to the peaceable time of his sonne Edward and Elizabeth his daughter whose hands were vndefiled with any blood and life vnspotted with any violence or crueltie Lastly not content to rippe vp the disgraces of his life you dogge him to his very graue bearing vs in hand that he was accursed of God in as much as hee wanted a Tombe which was the want also of Queene Mary his daughter But if the want of a Tombe be a token of Gods Curse vpon Henry then the hauing of it must consequently be a token of his blessing vpon Elizabeth whom notwithstanding you wrappe in the same Curse Nay how many of your Bishops of Rome then are Cursed of God of whom a number are not onely without Tombes but some in the first age of the Church by the fury of their persecutors and some in latter times by the malice of their Successors without Graues also Indeed wee reade of Dauid a man after Gods owne heart His Sepulchre is with vs vnto this day But of Moses a faithfull seruant in all the house of God No man knoweth of his Sepulchre vnto this day And yet in my remembrance we read it no were that either Dauid was more blessed of God for the one or Moses cursed for the other the heathen Poet could tell vs Coelo tegitur quinon habet vrnam And S. Augustine that these kinde of Monuments and Memorials are Solatia viuorum not suâ—sidia mortuorum comforts only for the liuing no helpes for the dead and many noble spirits may be of Catoes minde desirous rather that after their deaths it should be demaunded why they haue no statue erected to their memory then why they haue one This I speake onely to shew that had hee had no Tombe yet were it no great dishonor to him But if we may credite the last but not the worst compiler of the Historie of our Countrey hee was with great solemnitie buried at Windsor vnder a most costly and stately Tombe begun in copper and guilt but neuer finished In the inclosures of whose grates is curiously cast this Inscription Henricus Octauus Rex Angliae Franciae Dominus Hiberniae Fidei defensor And that it might appeare to posteritie how Artificiall and Magnificent this worke was intended he there sets downe the seuerall parcels and pieces of the Modell thereof as he found it described in a Manuscript receiued from Mr. Lancaster
first Tome of the Councils If Mr. Doctour I say had well coâ—â—â—ered this together with that famous resistance made by the sixt Councill of Carthage in which S. Augustine was a member to the vniust claime of three succeeding Popes Zozimus Boniface and Celestine in the high businesse of Appeales hee might in good discretion haue forborne to presse his Maiestie to the triall of the most ancient Fathers Now touching the question of Antichrist it is not discussed by his Maiestie as an hypotheticall proposition but as his opinion his Maiesties words are these As for the definition of Antichrist I will not vrge so obscure a point as a matter of faith to be necessarily beleeued of all Christians but what I thinke herein I will simply declare Cardinall Peron indeed makes the proposition of deposing Kings to bee problematicall and yet withall a part of the Catholike faith but his Maiestie though he make his opinion of Antichrist no part of his faith yet beeing his opinion in regard of his apprehension you cannot make it hypotheticall which hee also declared to bee his iudgement before his comming to the Crowne of England by his Commentarie on certaine verses of the 20th Chapter of the Reuelation of S. Iohn neither is his Maiestie the onely King that hath been of that opinion You may remember not long since one of the French who stamped on his coyne Perdam Babylonem vntill then his Maiesties substantiall and weighty reasons touching that point bee disprooued I see no reason hee hath to recall what hee hath written in the meane time his Maiestie may more iustly take vp that then the Author of it what I haue written I haue written lest hee should incurre the censure of changing as the Moone Lastly for the example of Henry the VIII it is both false and impertinent false in that you say he contradicted his booke whereas his booke as I haue already shewed is onely touching the seuen Sacraments which he held to his dying day impertinent in that you take it as granted that his Maiesty by recalling himselfe should alter from lesse good to much better which is the thing alwayes by vs denied but neuer was or euer can be proued by you Indeed we find that S. Augustine made his Retractations from naught or lesse good to better and Bellarmine in his Recognitions from bad to worse and Dr. Carier to haue fallen from a formall Protestant to a professed Papist and as our Sauiour speakes to Saint Peter thou being conuerted strengthen thy brethren So hee contrariwise being himselfe peruerted labours to weaken his Maiesties faith but it is grounded on that Rocke against which the gates of hell with their power much lesse the instruments of Rome with their foisting and cogging shall neuer be able to preuaile B. C. 37. The other and the greatest obiection that howsoeuer your Maiesty before your comming to the Crowne and in the beginning of your reigne were indifferent yet after the Gun-powder treason you were so angred and auerted as now you are resolued neuer to be friends and therfore he is no good subiect that will either himselfe be reconciled to the Church of Rome or perswade any of your subiects thereunto I confesse your Maiesty had good cause to bee throughly angry and so had all good men whether Catholikes or Protestants but if your Maiesty will hearken to those that worke their owne purposes out of your anger you shall bee driuen to liue and die out of charity which although it bee not so horrible to the body yet is it much more harmefull to the soule then violent or sudden death It is hard I confesse for a priuate man to asswage his anger on the sudden and there is as much difference betwixt the anger of a priuate man and the indignations of a Prince as betwixt a blast vpon the riuer which is soone downe and a storme vpon the sea which hauing raised the billowes to the height is nourished by the motion thereof and cannot settle againe in a long time but there is a time for all things and seuen yeeres is a long time When a man is in the midst of his anger it pleaseth him not to bee intreated by his neighbours much lesse by his seruants but when a man hath chidden and punished vntill he is weary hee will bee content to heare his seruant speake reason and though he be not the wisest yet he is the louingst seruant that will venter to speake to his master in such a case God himselfe is exorable and it pleaseth him to be intreated by his seruants for his enemies I am perswaded there is no good Catholike in the world that can be your Maiesties enemy and therfore I doe assure my selfe that God will be pleased with you to heare them speake and not bee angry with me for mouing you thereunto And if your Maiesty doe but vouchsafe so much patience as to giue equall hearing I doubt not but yoâ— shall receiue such satisfaction as will giue you great quiet and contentment and disquiet none of your subiects but those onely that doe for their aduantage misinforme your Maiesty and misleade your people And if your Maiesty haue no such vse of the Schisme as King Henry the VIII and Queene Elizabeth had and that it doth neither increase your authority nor your wealth nor your honour but rather hinder them all and depriue you of that blessing which otherwise you might expect from CHRIST and his Church from your Catholike neighbour Princes and subiects and from the Saints in heauen in whose Communion is the comfort of euery Christian both in life and death then whatsoeuer some great Statesman may say to the contrary I do verely beleeue they doe but speake for themselues And that there is no true reason that may concerne your Maiesty to hinder you from admitting a toleration of Catholikes and Catholike Religion that those who cannot command their vnderstanding to thinke otherwise may find the comfort they doe with so great zeale pursue in the vnitie of the Catholike Church amongst whome I confesse my selfe to be one that would thinke my selfe the happiest man in the world if I might vnderstand that your Maiesty were content that I should bee so G. H. 37. You come at last to the greatest obiection as you terme it which is the Gun-powder treason but doubtlesse in the iudgement of any indifferent reader you say least in the clearing of it seeming rather in conclusion to referre it to a farther hearing then for the present to answere the obiection or excuse the plot That which you haue to say is that there is a time for all things and God himselfe is exorable as if his Maiesty were mercilesse and inexorable whereas hee proceeded vpon the discouery of that most barbarous designe with such rare clemency and singular moderation that iustice was onely taken vpon the very actors and offenders themselues
AN ANSWER TO A TREATISE WRITTEN BY Dr. CARIER By way of Letter to his MAIESTIE WHEREIN HE LAYETH DOWNE SVNDRY POLITIKE CONSIDERATIONS By which hee pretendeth himselfe was moued And endeuoureth to moue others to be reconciled to the Church of ROME and imbrace that Religion which he calleth CATHOLIKE By GEORGE HAKEWIL Doctour of Diuinity And Chapleine to the PRINCE his Highnesse B. C. Mine heart will vtter foorth a good matter I will intreat in my workes of the King G. H. Giue thy iudgements to the King O God and thy righteousnesse to the Kings sonne IMPRINTED AT LONDON by IOHN BILL 1616. Cum Priuilegio TO THE KINGS MOST EXCELLENT MAIESTIE DREAD SOVERAIGNE HAD this Letter of Dr. Carier beene imparted or the drift of it onely reached to your Maiestie it would haue deserued none other answere then your Maiesties priuate censure and might well haue beene buried in silence with the Author of it But now that it not only aymes in particular at all the members of the bodie Politike First the Nobles then the Commons and lastly the Clergie but withall is published to the view of the World and spread through all the quarters of your Land for the better effecting of that it aymes vnto and is not a little magnified by the Romish faction It must needs argue in vs either want of wisedome in preuenting a mischiefe or of power in prouiding for our owne safetie or of zeale and sinceritie in our loue to the Trueth if it should passe without some discouery aswell of the malicious scope to which it tends as the weakenesse of the arguments by which it endeuours to perswade The maine end which it driues at is either a totall reconcilement to the Church of Rome or if that cannot be a partiall toleration of the Romish Religion The generall meanes by which it striues to compasse this end are first by working a destraction euen amongst those your Subiects who euery way conforme themselues aswell to the doctrine as the discipline of the Church of England established by publike allowance in making some Puritanes and some Protestants who in his language can endure the state of the Church of England as it is but could be content it were as it was implying thereby the rest to be Puritanes some Caluinists and some temperate men who cannot but in iudgment approue the trueth of that Religion which he calles Catholike thereby implying the rest to bee Caluinists the one he termes the greatest enemies of the Clergie the other his honest and louing brethren wherof he professeth he knew many and himselfe to be one whereas in trueth if any such there be the difference should rather haue beene made betwixt Protestants and Papists English and Romish Catholikes since they who could be content the Church of England were as it was before the Reformation can in my iudgement bee none other then Papists and those that in their iudgement approue the doctrine of the pretended Catholike Religion can as farre as I apprehend it been none other then Romish Catholikes Thus those whom we call Papists he calles Temperate Protestants and those whom we call Protestants he calles State Puritanes The second generall meanes for the compassing of his desired end is an indeuour to worke an vtter seperation betwixt our Church and other reformed Churches specially those of France and the Netherlands whom therefore in contempt hee calls Hugonots and Geux and their doctrine Caluinisme intending thereby as I conceiue either to weaken our strength by leauing vs to stand single or which is worse to inforce vs at length to relapse vpon Rome And to this purpose is hee bold to affirme that their doctrine makes as much against the Religion of England as that of Rome whereas the writings of the most learned men aswell on their as on our side our harmonies of Confessions the testimonie of our aduersaries nay the Pope himselfe in his Bull against Queene ELIZABETH your Maiesties Bookes and practise in the matching of that Noble Ladie your daughter and in permitting those Churches the free exercise of their Religion within your dominions so plainely euince the contrarie that I wonder hauing let fall so foule a blot from his pen he durst present it to your Maiesties view and yet I neede not wonder considering hee was not ashamed to tell your Maiesty that for any thing you haue written in your Apologie or Premonition you may when you please admitte the Popes Supremacie in spirituals which must needes argue either that he was meerely ignorant what your Maiesty had written or cared not at all what himselfe wrote regarding rather the euennesse of his Stile and the cadencie of his sentences then the trueth of his assertions like false windowes bearing proportion with the rest of the building but without light By the trueth of these assertions your Maiestie may make an estimate of the whole piece in which if I can iudge any thing I haue not met within the narrow compasse of so short a treatise so formally pend and carrying so faire an outside so many weake arguments so many grosse mistakes so many notorious falshoods so many irreconciliable contradictions so many sandie and disioynted consequences howsoeuer were his proofes neuer so strong so sure so true so consonant so coherent yet was hee a man most vnfit to intermeddle in a businesse of vnion and pacification who was so farre ingaged to one partie as by his owne acknowledgement hee was perswaded that all the Religion at this day prescribed and practised by the Church of Rome is the true Catholike Religion and promiseth particularly to iustifie it from point to point when time and opportunitie should serue and your Maiestie together with vs of the same profession he rangeth among Iewes and Infidels and heretiques for refusing to ioine with them in the worship of Christ in the Sacrament But God blessed not his vaine proiect Mr. Henrie Constable dying within fortnight after he came from Paris by Cardinall Perrons appointment to Leidge to conferre with him and himselfe a while after in Paris within a moneth of his comming thither to conferre with the Cardinall yet as the Apostle speakes of Abel being dead he yet speaketh though in a different manner and the speach of dead men commonly prooues more effectuall more profitable or more dangerous then that of the liuing For your Maiesty there is God be thanked no feare at all the obligations by which you haue tied your selfe to the Religion established amongst vs being so many and so strong and withall his motiues for inducement to the contrary so weake dealing with your Maiesty as the deuill did with our Sauiour who being beaten from Scripture fell to the promising of the glory of kingdomes which notwithstanding was not in his power to performe onely for their sakes some Replie seemed not vnnecessary of whom it may truely be sayd which hee falsly affirmes of your Maiesty that they imbrace shadowes
who iudge of matters onely by euents as Geometricians measure the height of towres by their shadowes and are ready to turne euery accident to an argument for their owne purposes but such as iudge of euents by looking into their causes which not many loue much to busie their braines about nor are indeed capable of and frame not arguments to their opinions but contrariwise submit their opinions to the soundnesse and force of argument such I â—ay I am sure it cannot much moue AN ANSWERE TO D. CARIERS LETTER TO THE Kings Maiestie CHAP. I. The meanes of my conuersion to Catholike Religion BENIAMIN CARIER 1. I Must confesse to Gods honour and my owne shame A that if it had bene in my power to choose I would neuer haue bene a Catholike I was borne and brought vp in schisme and was taught to B abhorre a Papist as much as any Puritane in England doth I had euer a great desire to iustifie the religion of the state and had great C hope to aduance my selfe thereby neither was my hope euer so great as by your Maiesties fauour it was D at the very instant of my resolution for Catholike Religion and the preferment I had together with the honour of your Maiesties seruice was greater by much then without your Maiesties fauour I looke for in this world But although I was aâ— ambitious of your Maiesties fauor and as desirous of the honours and pleasures of my Countrey as any man that is therein yet seeing that I was not like any long while to enioy them and if I should for my priuate commodity speake or write or doe any thing against the honour of Christ his Church and against the euidence of mine owne conscience I must shortly appeare before the presence of the same Christ in the presence of the same his Church to giue an account thereof Therefore I neither durst any further to pursue my owne desire of honour nor to hazard my soule any farther in the iustifications of that religion which I saw was E impossible to bee iustified by any such reason as at the day of iudgement would goe for payment and that it may appeare that I haue not respected any thing so much in this world as my duetie to your Maiesty and my loue to my friends Countrey I humbly beseech you giue me leaue as briefly as I can to recount vnto you the whole course of my studies and indeuors in this kind euen from the beginning of my life vntill this present GEORGE HAKEWIL 1. A In saying you would neuer haue bene a Catholike if it had bene in your power to choose you seeme to fall vpon that opinion which is wrongfully thrust vpon Caluin that wee are conuerted as it were by constraint whether we will or no and consequently you ouerthrow both the freedome of will and the merit of worke B It seemes then your father who brought you vp did much abhorre a Papist and yet you confesse in the next Section that he was a learned and deuout man and that he seasoned you with the principles of piety and deuotion C Your great hopes were indeed alwayes beyond your iust deâ—â—rts yet his Maiestie might be drawen to fauour you the raâ—her for that hypocriticall sermon which you made last before him in his â—happell at White-hall D So it seemes you resolued for the pretended Catholike religion before your parting from hence howbeit before you beare vs in hand that you got licence to trauell to the Spaw onely for your health and afterward you tell vs that you went hence hoping to finde some greater offence in the seruice of the Church of Rome then you had done in their bookes that so you might returne better contented to persecute and abhorre the Catholikes at your pleasure Thus for your aduantage you turne your tale as Mariners doe their sailes E No reason at the day of Iudgement in all likelâ—hood shall better goe for payment then that which the Iudge as a rule to be iudged by himselfe hath left vs and of which we may say if we be deceiued thou Peter thou Paul or thou Christ hast deceiued vs. But whether on the other side your humane inuentions or as the Apostle cals them voluntary religion and will-worship will then passe for currant pay a iuster doubt may be made of which hee might iustly say as he doth to his people by his Prophet Who hath required these things at your hands B. C. 2. I was borne in the yeere 1566. being the sonne of Anthonie Carier a learned and deuout man who although hee were a Protestant and a Preacher yet did so season me with the principles of pietie and deuotion as I could not choose but euer since bee verie F zealous in matters of religion Of him I learned that all G false religions in the world were but policies inuented for the temporall seruice of Princes and States and therefore that they were diuers and alwayes changeable according to the diuers reasons and occasions of State H But true Chrâ—â—â—ian Religion was a trueth reuealed of God for the eternall saluation of soules and therefore was like to God alwayes one and the same So that all Princes and States in the world neuer haue beene nor shall be able to ouerthrow that Religion This to me seemed an excellent ground for the finding out of that Religion wherein a man might find rest vnto his soule which cannot be satisfied with any thing but eternall trueth G. H. 2. F A zealous man indeed your selfe confessing in your Preface that you then began to looke to the health of your soule when you were out of hope to enioy the health of your bodie And in the very Section going before that you were as ambitious of his Maiesties fauour and as desirous of the honours and pleasures of your Countrey as any man that is therein But it seemes you dwelt by bad neighbours who are thus inforced to commend your owne Zeale or else they hold it of none other kind then that of which the Apostle speakes hauing strife for her companion and sedition for her daughter and if wee should graunt that you had Zeale though not according to knowledge I rest well assured that this Epistle in the iudgement of the wisest would not euince the contrary G Your father being as you say a Protestant and a Preacher in all likelyhood by False Religion vnderstood the Romish being indeede the deepest policie inuented by men for their own purposes that euer was in the world the children of darkenesse being in their generation wiser then the children of light and is in that regard rightly termed by Saint Paul the mysterie of iniquitie which began to worke in his dayes but since hath fullie weaued those threeds which were then begunne to be spunne the Cockatrice is now hatched which was then onely in the egge And surely I thinke not without great
not some reason here to sweare that Garnet was not put to death for Religion but for Treason The like might bee verified of Campian who in the yeere 1580. came couertly into England in the company of Robert Parsons with a Facultie obtained of Gregorie the XIII conceiued in these very words Petatur à summo Domino nostro explicatio Bullae declaratoriae per Pium Quintum contra ELIZABETHAM ei adhaerentes Quam Catholici cupiunt intelligi hoc modo vt obliget semper illam haereticos Catholicos verò nullo modo rebus sic staÌ„cibus sed tum demum quando publica eiusdem Bullae executio fieri poterit Has praedictas Gratias concessit summus PoÌ„tifex Patri Roberto Parsonio Edmundo Campiano in Angliam profectur is die 14. Aprilis 1580. praesente Patre Oliuerio Manacro Assistente Let Petition bee made to our highest Lord that some explication be made of the declaratorie Bull of Pius Quintus against ELIZABETH and her adherents which the Catholikes desire so to be vnderstood that it may bind her and heretikes but Catholikes by no meanes as the case now stands but then onely when the said Bull may publikely be put in execution These Faculties the Highest Bishop granted to Robert Parsons and Edmund Campian being bound for England the 14. of April 1580 in the presence of Oliuer Manacar Assistant Here againe I would demaund of Mr. Dr how many of the Romish profession are ready to sweare solemnely as the olde Romans did in the Deifying of their Emperours that hee is now a Saint and that hee died a glorious Martyr not for treason but for religion But were not Harte and Horton Rishton and Bosgraue of the same religion Priests by their order and some of the same societie and yet died not for it Are there not at this present diuers Seminary Priests at Wisbich and Baldwin the famous Iesuite in the Tower Certainely if there bee any fault in their vsage it is that they find too much mercie their mercilesse disposition toward vs hauing so lately so fully and so often been tried I will conclude this point with a case of conscience wherwith your Romish Priests were to arme themselues their disciples in the reigne of Q. ELIZABETH in case they should be apprehended and examined to the 55. Article when thâ— question is demaunded Whether notwithstanding the Bull of Pius the 5th that was giuen out or any Bull that the Bishop of Rome can hereafter giue foorth all Catholikes bee bound to yeeld obedience faith and loyaltie to Queene ELIZABETH as to their lawfull Prince and Soueraigne this resolution is framed Qui hoc modo interrogat illud quaerit Anid potuerit S. Pontifex facere cui quaestioni quid debeat Catholicus respondere clarius est quà m vt à me hâ—c explicetur sirogatur ergo Catholicus Credis Romanum pontificem ELIZABETHAM potuisse exauthor are respondebit non obstant e quouis metu mortis credo questio enim haec ad fidem spectat exigit confessionem fidei Hee that demandeth this question asketh in effect Whether the Pope might doe it or no to the which demaund what a Catholike ought to answere it is plainer then neede here be further expressed if therefore a Catholike bee asked Doe you beleeue the Bishop of Rome may depriue Queene ELIZABETH of her Crowne hee must answere not regarding any danger of death I beleeue hee may for this question is a point of faith and requireth the profession of our faith If any such Cabale onely the names changed runne yet as current among such as bee reconciled to the Church of Rome at this day as I know nothing to the contrary but it may if Mr. Dr. had returned vpon his returne endeuoured to haue framed his Proselites to those or the like conditions he might iustly haue suffred for it without any aspersion either of persecution vpon his Maiesties gouernement or cruelty vpon his Lawes howsoeuer it hath been discouered by the Missiues of of some such reconcilers sent to their Generall that for so many as they haue reconciled they dare sweare vpon what occasion soeuer may fall out they will bee ready to side with them and for such for mine owne part I dare not sweare being conuicted and sentenced that they die for religion But yet I commend Mr. Doctors witte aboue the zeale hee boasteth of that hee thought it fitter to stay there and dispute the matter with his pen then by comming ouer and practising put his person in hazzard And herein as through his whole discourse hee playes the Polititian chusing rather to sleepe in a whole skin then to resist vnto blood and to indanger his body for the gaining of soules CHAP. II. The hopes I haue to doe your MAIESTIE no ill seruice in being Catholike B. C. 1. MY first hope is that your Maiesty will accept of that for the best A seruice I can doe you which doth most further the glory of our blessed Sauiour and mine owne saluation B Indeed there are kingdomes in the world where the chiefe care of the gouernour is non quà m bonis praesit sed quà m subditis Such were the heathen kingdomes which S. Augustine describes in 2. de Ciuitate Dei Cap. 20. In such Common wealths the way to be a good Subiect is not to be a good man but to serue the times and turnes of them that beare the sway whatsoeuer they are C But if it be true that as some holy and learned Fathers teach in a well ordered gouernment there is eadem foelicitas vnius hominis ac totius ciuitatis then I am sure it must needes follow that in a Common-wealth truely Christian there is â—adem virtus boni viri ac boni ciuis And therefore being a Minister and Preacher of England if I will rather serue your Maiesty then my selfe and rather procure the good of your kingdome then mine owne prefâ—rment I am bound in duety to respect and seeke for those things aboue all other that may aduance the honour of God and the saluation of my owne soule and the soules of those which do any way belong to my charge And being sufficiently resolued that nothing can more aduance the honour of our Sauiour and the common saluation then to be in the vnity of his Church I haue done you the best seruice I could at home by preaching peace and reconciliation and being not able for the malice of the times to stand any longer in the breach at home I thinke it safest in this last cast to looke to mine owne game by my dayly prayers and dying to do your Maiesty the same seruice in the vnity of the Church which by my dayly preaching and liuing I endeuoured to doe in the midst of schisme G. H. 1. A In furthering the glory of God you shall doe others as much and in sauing your owne soule your selfe more seruice then his Maiesty but
and receiuing life and strength vnto and from the other yet true religion medleth not so much with the temporal state as to hinder or further the proceedings of it otherwise then by the force of the word and the power of Ecclesiasticall censures but that which you call the Catholike religion hath like the Iuie that growes into the wall so incorporated and intwisted it selfe into the bowels of those States where it is setled that it can hardly bee rooted out or remooued without endangering the bodies of the States themselues which cannot but giue vs iust occasion to suspect that it is for the most part in the points controuersed betweene vs nothing else but a policie inuented of men to serue their owne turnes And consequently according to your owne rule set downe in the second Section of your first chapter a false and counterfeit religion And in trueth when wee shall come to examine the rules of that Church wee shall finde that they are not so consonant to the Maiestie and greatnesse of temporall Princes as you pretend but rather tend to the trampling of their Maiestie vnder foote and laying their honour in the dust and to the aduancing and raising of the greatnesse of the Bishop of Rome to the vtmost pitch and possibilitie of height Some of these rules which make so much for the Maiestie of Kings are brought by Bellarmine and by his Maiestie truely obserued and quoted in the latter end of his Apologie for the Oath for Allegeance which because they are so pat to this present purpose I will craue pardon to borrow and annexe hereunto they are twelue in all a fit number for the Iesuites Creede or to make vp a full Iury to passe a verdict vpon Mr. Doctors Assertion That Kings are rather slaues then Lords That they are not onely subiects to Popes to Bishops to Priests but euen to Deacons That an Emperour must content himselfe to drinke not onely after a Bishop but after a Bishops Chaplen That Kings haue not their authority nor office immediatly from God nor his Law but onely from the law of nations That Popes haue degraded Emperours but neuer Emperour degraded the Pope nay euen Bishops that are but the Popes vassals may depose Kings and abrogate their lawes That Churchmen are as farre aboue Kings as the soule is aboue the bodie That Kings may be deposed by their people for diuers respects But Popes can be deposed by no meanes for no flesh hath power to iudge of them That obedience due to the Pope is for conscience sake But the obedience due to Kings is onely for certaine respects of order and policie That those very Churchmen that are borne and inhabite in Soueraigne Princes countreys are notwithstanding not their Subiects and cannot bee iudged by them although they may iudge them And that the obedience that Churchmen giue to Princes euen in the meanest and meere temporall things is not by way of any necessary subiection but onely out of discretion and for obseruation of good order and Custome His Maiesties inference hereupon is this These contrarieties saith hee betweene the Booke of God and Bellarmines bookes haue I here set in opposition each to other vt ex contrarijs iuxta se positis veritas magis elucescere possit and thus farre I dare boldly affirme that whosoeuer will indifferently weigh these irreconciliable contradictions here set downe will easily confesse that Christ is no more contrary to Beliall light to darkenesse and heauen to hell then Bellarmines estimation of Kings is to Gods by whom they are called as his Maiestie noteth before The sons of the most High nay Gods themselues The Lords annointed Sitting in his throne The angels of God The light of Israel The nursing fathers of the Church with innumerable such stiles of honor wherwith the old Testament is filled and as for the New Testament Euery soule is commanded to be subiect vnto them euen for conscience sake All men must be prayed for but specially Kings and those that are in authoritie The Magistrate is the minister of God to doe vengeance on him that doth euill and reward him that doth well yea we must obey all higher powers but specially Princes and those that are supereminent Giue vnto Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is Gods So that wee may iustly conclude out of his Maiesties true collections and iust inferences that the rules of holy Scripture which wee make our principall and onely infallible leuell aswell in matter of manners as of doctrine are indeed most consonant to the maiesty and greatnesse of Kings but the rules of that religion which you call Catholike as they are reported by Bellarmine next his Holinesse the chiefe pillar and Proctor thereof this age hath aforded most disconsonant and repugnant thereunto I cannot but wonder then what Mr. Doctor meant to write thus to his Maiestie who hauing so particularly and exquisitely published his mind to the world in this point it must needs argue grosse ignorance and negligence in him not to haue read or obserued what was by him written or a strong presumption of his owne abilitie with one breath of his mouth or blot of his pen to perswade his Maiesty to the contrary B. C. 11. I knowe well that the Puritans of England the Hugonots of France and the Geuses of Germany together with the rest of the Caluinists of all sorts are a great faction of Christendome and they are glad to haue the pretence of so great a Maiestie to be their chiefe and of your posteritie to be their hope But I cannot be perswaded that they euer will or can ioyne together to aduance your Maiestie or your children further then they may make a present gaine by you they are not agreed of their religion nor of the principles of vniuersall and eternall trueth and how can they be constant in the rules of particular and transitory honour where there is nullum principium ordinis there can bee nullum principium honoris such is their case there is a voyce of confusion among them as well in matters of State as of Religion their power is great but not to edification they ioyne together only against good order which they call the common enemie and if they can destroy that they will in all likelihood turne their fury against themselues and like deuils torment like serpents deuoure one another in the mean time of they can make their Bourgers Princes and turne old kingdomes into new States it is like enough they will doe it but that they will euer agree together to make any one Prince King or Emperour ouer them all yeeld due obedience vnto him further then either their gaine shal allure them or his sword shall compell them that I cannot perswade myselfe to beleeue and therefore I cannot hope that your Maiestie or
either of them of so much greatnesse as to afford vs any great countenance Yet for Geneua may truly thus much bee said euen out of the mouth of Bodin a professed enemie in religion that neither drunkennesse nor idlenesse nor professed Beggerie nor open wantonnesse were to be found in that Citie and that it flourished not so much in riches and power as in piety and vertue which God himselfe by strange and miraculous deliuerances of them at sundry times hath in some fort testified to the world Howbeit as a worthy Knight hath well obserued the Friars would make their followers beleeue that it is aboue all other places a professed retreat and sanctuarie of Roguerie giuing harbour to all the runnagates traytors rebels and wicked persons of all other Countries by which speech very generally in Italy spread and beleeued some memorable accidents haue at some time happened sundry of their picking and loose Friars hearing Geneua to bee a place of good fellowship and thinking the worse prankes they plaied with their owne ere they came thither to finde the better welcome at their comming robbed their Couents of their Church-plate and other repositaries and brought away the bootie in triumph to Geneua vnder the colour of being reformed in their religion where their aduancement hath beene straight to the gibbet for their labour a reward vnexpected and such as caused them to complaine pittifully of their wrong information For such is the extraordinary seuerâ—ty of this Citie as to punish crimes committed without their estate with no lesse rigour then if they had beene amongst them And not many yeeres since it was the lot of a Spanish Gallant who stood vpon his state and caried a Mint about him to repaire thither to haue stamps made him for the coyning of Pistolets being apprehended and charged with it his defence was that he vnderstood their Citie was free and gaue receite to all offenders but withall said they when they were come they punished their offences a distinction which the poore Gentleman neuer before studied and the learning of it then cost him no lesse then his head-peece And for Caluin I marueile that hauing so diligently read S. Augustine and so highly esteeming him you should haue such a tooth against Caluine who professeth of S. Augustine in the latter end of his Chapter of the Sacraments in generall that he often quoted him vt optimum ex tota antiquitate fidelissimum testem as the best and soundest witnesse which antiquity afforded and he might wel say he quoted him often there being no Tome scarcely any one booke of Augustines out of which Caluine through the foure bookes of his Institutions cites not many passages to the number of 280. if my computation faile not and for the greatest part so iudiciously to the purpose that I may well doubt or rather indeed not doubt at all whether Mr. Caluin or Dr. Carrier had read S. Augustine with the greater attention and iudgment And for their knowledge in Scriptures I am sure malice it selfe will easily acknowledge there was no comparison Dr. Stapleton who was not otherwise very fauourable to Caluin yet sends this testimony after him in the Preface of his Antidote against Caluins exposition of the Acts of the Apostles that his Commentary on that booke was most elaborat and his disputations acute and accurate and in another place for the literall sense hee is a diligent interpretour so morall so elegant so sweet that hee is read greedily of the Catholikes themselues whom I haue heard sometimes wishing that those thinges beeing cut out which make against our Church and beliefe hee might come abroad gelded and that by that meanes his Commentaries might proue â—xceeding profitable Thuanus doubts not to testifie of him that he was acrivir acvehementi ingenio admirabili facundia praeditus a man of a smart and strong wit and endued with admirable eloquence who when hee had spent seuen yeeres saith he in wrestling with diuers diseases yet was his diligence in his vocation thereby nothing lessened neither did hee spare himselfe in the continuall course of his writing but Panig yrolla his testimony is yet more obserueable in as much as he was an Italian and a Friar and purposely preached many bitter Sermons against Caluin at Thurin in Sauoy His words in effect are these Caluin to speake the trueth was a man of a quicke vnderstanding and cleare iudgment of great variety of reading and rare indowments of nature Salmeron one of the first ten of Loyolaes foundation of whom Ribadeneira in his Catalogue of the Iesuiticall writers witnesseth that by his speaking in the Councill of Trent hee bred admiration and an opinion of great learning in his hearers being a professed and perpetual enemy of heretikes whoÌ„ he persecuted and quelled by his disputations his lectures his writings yet â—his very man as eager and stout a champion as he was for the Church of Rome and against the Caluinists makes no bones to borrow almost whole pages from Caluin as may appeare to any that please to compare their expositions on the second chapter to Titus the 11. and 12. verses a taste whereof I will here present vnto the readers view Apparuit enim gratia Dei salutaris omnibus hominibus Caluin A fine redemptionis argumentatur quem docet esse studium piè rectè viuendi vnde sequitur boni Pastoris officium esse potiùs hortari ad sanctam vitam quà m vanis quaestionibus occupare hominum mentes Redemitnos inquit Zacharias in suo cantico vt in sanctitate innocentia seruiamus illi omnibus diebus vitae nostrae Eiusdem rationis est quod dicit Paulus Gratia Dei apparuit nos erudiens significat enim vice institutionis esse nobis debere ad vitam rectè formandam Salmeron vpon the same words Dicendumest Apostolum argumentari à fine redemptionis quae docet studium sobriè iustè piè viuendi nam praestat Doctorem ad honestam vitam homines adhortari quà m vanis quaestionibus mentes hominum occupare nam ad id sumus redempti vt in sanitate iustitia seruiamus Deâ— omnibus diebus nostris ob id apparuit gratia Dei vt per eam instituamur ad vitam rectè formandam From this collation we cannot but inferre as one doth of Plato and Philo the Iew vel Philonizat Plato vel Platonizat Philo and another of Ramus and Viues aut Ramizat Viues aut Viuizat Ramus so of Caluin and Salmeron aut Salmeron Caluinizat aut Caluinus Salmeronizat either Salmeron borrowes from Caluin or Caluin from Salmeron it beeing in my apprehension without the helpe of a miracle vtterly impossible and consequently incredible that two men should fall so neere vpon the same conceptions and wordes without the sight one of anothers writings now that Salmeron is the borrower and not Caluin it appeares from hence that in his exposition of the 10. verse of the third Chapter
one of the Heralds at Armes the title whereof was this The maner of the Tombe to be made for the Kings Grace at Windsor So that I cannot but woonder how either our Historiographer and our Herauld should be so much mistaken or which I rather thinke how Mr. Doctor so great a Polititian should be so sowly deceiued and so confidently leade others into the same errour I will conclude this Section with the conclusion of ourfamous Annalist touching this Prince Princeps Magnanimus in cuius maximo ingenio inerant confuso quodam temperamento virtutes magnae vitia non minora A stout and gallant Prince he was in whose braue spirit a man might obserue blended and tempered together by a rare kinde of mixture great vertues and no lessevices But had he honoured the See Apostolike as much at last as hee did at first his vices had beene buried in silence and his vertues highly extolled whereas now by opposing himselfe against it his vertues are suppressed and his vices racked vpon tenterhookes and set vpon the Stage which course were enough to make the best Princes nay the best men to appeare monsters to the world B. C. 32. Queene ELIZABETH although she were the daughter of Schisme yet at her first comming to the Crowne shee would haue the Common Prayer Booke and Catechisme so set downe that shee might both by English Seruice satisfie the Commons who were greedie of alteration and by Catholike opinions gaue hope to her neighbour Princes that she would her selfe continue Catholike and all her life long she caried herselfe so betwixt the Catholikes and the Caluinists as shee kept them both still in hope But yet being the daughter of the breach-maker and hauing both her Crowne and her life from the Schisme it was both dishonourable and dangerous for her to hearken to Reconcilement And therefore after she was prouoked by the Excommunication of Pius Quintus shee did suffer such Lawes to be made by her Parliaments as might cry quittance with the Pope and Church of Rome This course seemed in policie necessary for her who was the daughter of King Henrie the VIII by Anne Bulleine borne with the contempt of Rome the disgrace of Spaine and the preiudice of Scotland G. H. 32. From Henry the father you descend to Elizabeth the daughter as you call her of Schisme howbeit she were indeed the Nursing mother of the Church And for the Common prayer Booke which she allowed it was the same with very litle alteration which was current by publike authority during the reigne of her brother King Edward So that it was no inuention of hers to satisfie the Commons as you falfly suggest but an imitation of her renowned brother for the satisfying of her owne conscience and the furtherance of the seruice of God in a knowen language You adde that by Catholike opinions she gaue hope to her neighbour Princes that she would continue a Catholike wheras the world knowes that her mother was otherwise affected being brought vp in France vnder the Lady Margret Alençon a principal fauouresse of the Protestant religion there after shee had a while waited vpon Q. Mary yonger sister of king Henry the VIII and wife to Lewes the XIII the French king and as long vpon Claudia sister to the Guise and wife to Francis the first and in regard she was this way affected the holy maide of Kent was by Clergie men suborned to prophecie against her and as one writes it seemeth very plaine that the crimes supposed against her were matters contriued by the Pope and his instruments her chiefest enemies none of them all that were accused in the same treason confessing the acte euen vnto death but haue left direct testimonies in writing to the contrary one meane groome excepted namely Marke Smeton who made confession vpon some promise of life belike but was executed before he was aware or had time to recall what he had said Now the mother being thus affected and that before king Henry cast his affection towards her or disaffected Rome in likelyhood the daughter had beene that way also affected whether the breach with Rome by her mothers mariage had bene made or no. It was S. Pauls argument to Timothie that the faith first dwelt in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice and therefore he was well perswaded of him also He argues not from his father and his grandfather but from his mother and his grandmother so may we by the same reason from the faith which dwelt in the mother of Queene Elizabeth make some coniecture of her faith that it was not different from her mothers But her education vnder Roger Ascham who was himselfe that way affected to cōtinue her so read vnto her among other authors for her diuinity exercise Melancthons common places will yet farther cleare this matter but the suspition cast vpon her though most vniustly as hauing a finger in Wyats conspiracy and Stories damnable aduise to leaue lopping at the branches and strike at the roote will put it out of doubt and doubtlesse as in that regard shee suffered much hardenesse during the raigne of her sister so had shee not suruiued to haue worne the Crowne had not God in his prouidence mooued the heart of the Spaniard to preserue her aliue not so much out of any loue of her person or pittie of her ruefull estate as out of reason of state lest she being taken out of the way and her sister dying as she did without issue the Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland might in time be vnited and annexed to the Crowne of France by meanes of the Lady Mary Queene of Scotland next heire in right after Queene Elizabeth then affianced to Francis Dolphin of France and heire apparent to Henry the second the French King then which the Spaniards thought nothing could happen more disasterous to their affectation of greatnesse Besides all this being as she was the miracle of her sexe and ranke for wit and learning it is not improbable that as the knowledge of the Arts and Languages and the light of the Gospell brake forth both together so in her person the one might haue prepared and as it were beaten out a way for the entrance of the other though neither her Mother had beene that way affected nor her Father made any breach as wee see his Maiestie that now is to the glory of God and our great comfort though his Father were slaine before his birth and his Mother liued and died in that Religion in which shee was brought vp yet by the excellencie of his naturall parts and learning but especially by the working of Gods holy spirit hath attained to such a light of Religion that he hath not only discouered the trueth but chosen and professed it being discouered and with his Penne maintained and defended that which he professeth True indeede it is that Queene Elizabeth during the raigne of her sister tender both by sexe
wherewith you being kindled haue no lesse constantly and couragiously then wisely and religiously withstood so great rashnesse wee had been vtterly ouerwhelmed with intolerable griefe and indeed this had been a fearefull token seeing wee may not without cause suspect lest into France haue flowen sparkes of the lamentable fire of England to the consuming and destruction of all true Pietie and Religion in that most Christian Kingdome which wee trust relying on Gods helpe shall alwayes more and more increase vnder the patronage of so godly a King trained vp with so great vigilancie to this end principally by a most religious and truely most Christian mother you thereunto diligently yeelding your helpe as you alwayes commendably haue done but although such hopes doe not a little comfort vs yet are wee not for all this free and voide of all affliction and trouble yea wee are vehemently anguished considering with our selues in how crosse and stormie a time wee by the secret dispensation of God vndertooke the guiding of S. Peters Barke standing doubtfull and perplexed lest happily through our negligence the sinke of vices increase and consequently the nauigation growe more dangerous and difficult for this cause wee dayly flie vnto him and implore his helpe who as without any merit of ours so also when wee thought nothing lesse was pleased we should sit at the sterne and guide the helme whom wee pray that while the waues rush against the Prow and heapes of foming Sea swell on each side and tempest follow in the Sterne hee not suffer any wracke notwithstanding so violent shaking of the shippe meane while we giue the greatest thankes to his infinite goodnesse that in the greatest danger which hitherto happily wee haue been in hee hath relieued vs with most seasonable succours to wit by your singular vertue and prouided for the safetie of the Kingdome of France by the counsell industry and religious fortitude of the Ecclesiasticall order of that Kingdome and on the other side wee gratulate you much and withall greatly praise you that your France nowe beholdeth flourishing againe in you the zeale pietie learning and magnanimity of her holy Fathers Denis Hilary Martin Bernard and the rest whose memorie is blessed for their care of Gods honour and the Churches dignity yea and all the holy Church of God may acknowledge of your company Cardinals of such eminence as become so worthy members of the holy Apostolike Sea and Bishops and Prelats and Pastours who are good seruants and faithfull and truely worthy of their Master hauing really shewed that they loue his glory more then themselues true Pastours of the sheepe of Christ who for the saluation of their flocke haue not doubted to lay downe their owne life while by shedding of their owne blood they haue with so great feruencie of minde shewed themselues ready to maintaine the fences of the Lords folde that is the Churches Rights Highly therefore doe wee praise you and gratulate you againe for what is more laudable what more glorious then for the Priests of God setting aside respect of all humane commoditie constantly to haue defended the dignity of holy Church and through zeale of maintaining the Catholike trueth to neglect their owne life As also it is to bee ascribed to the greatest happinesse that it so fell out this noble triall of your Priestly vertue should be made the Pietie and Religion of holy King Lewis his Progenitour no lesse reigning in your King then the memory of his glorious name reuiues in him wherefore wee doe the more exhort you that you alwayes more earnestly persist in your most laudable enterprise God verely will perfect the worke hee hath begun in you acknowledge his hand wonderfully moouing the hearts of Kings which hee holdeth and with one accord beare vp against the violence of the raging Sea stirred with the storme of humane pride and the whirlewind of secular wisedome seuered from the feare of God doubtles the tempests that are risen he will allay who failed not his wauering disciples indeed hee suffereth vs to bee tempted but giues an issue with the temptation therefore bee of good courage knowing that the Iudge standeth aboue and beholdeth the combate of his seruants to giue vnto euery one a reward worthy of his labour and he that fighteth valiantly shall be worthily rewarded Now we whose charitie hath been alwayes great toward you in the Lord vehemently louing you and highly esteeming your excellent vertue doe most willingly promise to afford you whatsoeuer helpe or Comfort in the Lord vpon this occasion we can yeeld being exceedingly bound to you for your so glorious and admirable exploit not ceasing in the meane time daily to pray vnto God the Father of mercies that by the increase of his holy grace hee would vouchsafe alwayes to keepe and strengthen you in his holy seruice and because wee cannot sufficiently according to our desire manifest vnto you by writing this most louing affection of our heart vnto you wee haue giuen in charge to our Venerable Brother Robert Bishop of Montpellier our Apostolike Nounce that what hee hath receiued in Commission touching this businesse more at large from vs hee carefully by word of mouth impart vnto you who will also further declare vnto you what wee thinke fitting for the full perfecting of the businesse To him therefore shall yee giue altogether the same credence which yee would to our selues speaking vnto you God confirme you in euery good worke and direct alwayes your Counsels and endeuours according to his holy pleasure and we from the inmost bowels of our charitie bestow vpon you our Apostolike benediction Yeuen at Rome at S. Mary the greater vnder the Signet of the Fisherman the last of Ianuary 1615. the 15th yeere of our Popedome Petrus Strozza Now as long as such griefe such ioy such hope such feare such loue such ielousie is so passionately expressed in the main businesse about which his Maiesties personall and publique quarrell with Rome first beganne what likelihood is there of perswading his Maiestie that no Roman Catholike in the world can bee his enemie except first hee bee perswaded that the Pope of Rome is no Roman Catholike yet how farre hee was mooued to anger vpon occasion of the Powder-treason against the body of that profession his owne wordes deliuered in the next session of Parliament after the discouery of that bloody designe shall testifie as for mine owne part sayth hee I would wish with those ancient Philosophers that there were a Christall window in my brest wherein all my people might see the secretest thoughts of my heart for then might you all see no alteration in my mind for this accident further then in these two points The first caution and warinesse in gouernment to discouer and search out the mysteries of this wickednesse as farre as may beâ— The other after due triall seuerity of punishment vpon those that shall bee found guilty of so detestable and vnheard of a villenie This was
too enuious that seeing will not acknowledge how extraordinarily God hath blessed this our Realme with all kind of benedictions more then in former times since it held the Pope to bee Antichrist and Rome Babylon and departed from them When the late Queene Elizabeth of blessed memorie vndertooke the protection of the Low-Countreys against so mightie a Prince as the King Catholike all the world wondred at the greatnesse of her spirit and the King of Sweden said that so doing she had puld the Crowne from her owne head yet so prosperous was she in all that she tooke in hand so victorious in her wâ—rres so beloued at home so feared abroad and in a word blessed with so continuall a course of happie successe in all things euen to her liues end that it hath forced euen from those who almost hold it a sinne to giue the least commendation of Protestant Princes an ingenuous and free acknowledgment thereof A man may truely say of this Princesse saith Florimond Raemond otherwise a bitter enemie to these of our Religion that excepting the matter of Religion and for the world she had as great glorie in her kingdome continuing in all her affaires so well authorized and carried matters with as great wisedome as any Prince that hath liued these many yeeres But suppose we though we haue sufficiently proued it to be otherwise that the defenders of the Roman Sea haue had temporall prosperitie and felicitie and that wee haue seldome thriued and prospered against them what would your Doctor hereupon inferre That therefore we should forsake the Church whereof we are members and with him retire our selues into the bosome of the Romish Church where temporall prosperitie and felicitie is to be found Indeede it may bee that this was the Doctors chiefest motiue vnto his Apostacie and that perceiuing his ambitious hopes to quaile at home hee would trie his fortunes there where Abbeyes and Bishoprickes and perhappes also Cardinalshippes are promised to such as with more diligence then others negotiate for the Pope But I would faâ—e know of him how this agreeth with that which he saith elsewhere that the Crosse is the most precious iewell of our Sauiour Christ and that of this iewell hee alwayes giueth the greatest portion to his dearest friends For if the dearest friends of Christ be those of whom the Church consisteth and they haue the greatest portion of his Crosse then is not temporall prosperitie and felicitie a note of your Church and if it be then is not the Crosse the portion thereof But to conclude all although Pietie hauè the promise euen of this life and the Church of God sometime abound in these worldly blessings yet is it with condition of the Crosse as God shall in his deepe wisedome thinke it fittest and â—uch a blessing as euen the Church of the malignant may be and euer hath been partaker of For the Sunne riseth and the raine falleth indifferently vpon both And no man knoweth either loue or hatred by all that is before him Yea euen the Iesuits of Rhemes on the place of Mathew before alledged confesse as much We see say they that temporall prosperity of persons countryes is no signe of better men or truer Religion but as S. Austin saith Temporall goods and euils are common both to the iust and wicked which God therefore dispenseth in this sort that neither we too greedily couet those goods which wee see the wicked haue nor basely auoide those euils which light vpon the good Wherfore all this discourse of the Dr. is impertinent and friuolous As touching the Storie of Burden and his associates with which he concludes his vnsauorie collections how they went in Procession from Douer to Canterbury in dirision of Catholikes and how grieuously God punished it vpon them I hold it for no better then a meere Canterburie tale or to speake in the Romish dialect a godly fraud or lie deuised for the aduantage of his holy Mother such as is the baiting of Catholikes sewed vp in Beare-skins with Mastiues in Douer And further answere then this I vouchsafe it not Soli Deo immortali sit gloria FINIS Errata THe Authour being farrâ— from the Presse whiles the Booke was in it the more faults in printing must needs escape whereof the chiefe obserued are these Pag. 22 and 23. the letters of reference in the Doctors text are mistaken Pag. 47. lin 6. marg for Chapt. 2 45. reade Chap. 1. Sect. 19. Pag. 59. lin 27. for Paâ—ilian readâ— Petilian Pag. 72. lin 17. for estate from readâ— estate in her conceit from Pag. 73. lin 6. for was not more reade was more Pag. 99. the quotations are disorderly placed Pag. 100. lin 11. for of his booke reade of his 5. booke Pag. 109. lin 17. for more that reade more but that Pag. 164. the marginall note to bee set against the 27. line Pag. 191. lin 33. for Stanley reade Stucley Pag. 197. lin 32. fâ—r his owne reade his owne neece Pag. 219. lin 12. marg for is not reade is Pag. 235. marg wants distance betwixt Suarez and Beaumanoir Pag. 256. lin 2. marg for your Preachers readâ— our Preachers Pag. 275. lin 4. marg for Monsieur Seruius reade Monsieur Seruins Pag. 277. lin vlâ— for alteration reade Altercation Pag. 279. lin 35. for enuie reade inueigh * I cannot but marueile that M. Doctour in inueighing so much against that which hee cals the new religion should in quoting thereof forsake the old translation 1 Cap. 2. Sect. 41. 2 Cap. 2. Sect. 45. 3 Impia mysteria instituta ad Caluini praescriptum a se suscepta obseruata etiam a subditis seruari mandauit circa med bull 4 La charité que nous portons aux sieurs estats nos voisins confederezfaisants profession de la mesme religion auecques nous Declaration toâ—chant le faict de Conradus Vorstius pag. 6. Messieurs les estats doncques estants non seulement nos alliez mais le principallion de nostre coniunction estant nostre vniformité en la vraye religion pag. 40. Mais la religion dont moy eux faisons profession nâ—a esté iugée â—n aucun concile ou nous ayons esté ouys speaking of those of the reformed religion in France desense du droit des Rois pag. 82. Ce qu'â—l dit que les heretiques de France font leur profit de ceste diuision est fondée sur ceste proposition que ceux de la religion Christienne reformee cest a dire repurgée du papisme sont heretiques ce qui se prouuera quand vn aura fait vn autre euangile ou forgé vn auâ—re bible ib. p. 109 5 Cap. 1. Sect. 20. 6 Cap. 1. Sect. 13. 7 Cap. 2. Sect. 6. 1 Discours de la mort du Sieur Carter c. 2 Britannom minist lib. 3. cap. 5. part 8. 3 This can ill be applyed to D. Carâ—â—r who often tooke the oath of Supremacie