A Discourse of the Religion of England, Section 3 – Section 4
SECT. III. That POPERY disposeth Subjects to Rebellion.
VVHat hath been the constant practice of the Popes, who are the Head of the Roman Faith, the Universal consent of History bears record. What continual thundering of Excommunications hath sounded throughout the Christian world in all Ages, since the beginning of the Papal Reign, against Kings, Emperors, and other Princes and States that presumed to dispute their Dictates, or cross their Designs, to the loosing of Subjects from the Bonds of Allegiance, and the deposing of Soveraigns? What unexampled Abasements hath the Imperial Majesty suffered in the Persons of sundry Emperors, by prodigious instances of Papal Pride; which, though enough to stir up the indignation of mankind, are applauded by famous Writers, Champions of the Court of Rome? The Popes Temporal Dominions began and grew up in Rebellion and Usurpation, for which cause they have nourished Factions, and filled the world with Warrs and Tumults, and maintained most outragious and tedious Conflicts with many Emperors, even till they had crippled and broke the back of the Empire it self.
And these practices are justified by their Decretals and Canons, and Divines of greatest Authority, and some of their Councils, ascribing to the Pope a Power of Deposing Princes that are Heretical, or favourers of Hereticks. The Jesuits Doctrine of KING-KILLING, hath made them odious; and if some passages can be alledged out of their Writings against taking away the Lives of Princes, their declared meaning is, That a King deposed by the Pope, becomes Tirannus titulo, and is no more a Lawful King, and then what follows, is easily understood. Those of the Church of Rome that disavow these things, should mind their contradiction to the Faith they own, in leaving their Popes, Divines and Canonists in a point of such importance. But how potent the influence of the Court of Rome, and the Agency of the Jesuits is for the diffusing of those Principles into the most and chiefest of the Roman-Catholicks, is not unknown.
If the undisturbed Government of the Emperor, and of the King of Spain in later times, be brought forth as an instance of the Loyalty of Popish Subjects, or an argument of the soundness of Popish Principles; it must be considered, That the House of Austria have made their devotion to the See of Rome, their grand and appropriate Interest, and that See hath a main dependance on those Princes; and both it and they have the same active Votaries throughout Christendom, the Jesuits and their Adherents. As for the Kingdom of France, the State of Venice, and others acknowledging the Popes Headship, they have had enough to do, and they would have more, if either themselves were weak, and less formidable to the Pope, or the Popes lightning and thunder were now as dreadful as in former Ages. Even in Popish Countreys the abuses of Papal Power, and the Intrigues and Interests of the Court of Rome are a little better discerned; therefore those Princes and States can make the better terms for themselves; yet if either the former degree of ignorance and stupid devotion to that See, shall return upon their people, or the like occasions of embroiling or breaking States, shall revive, they must accept the Popes conditions, and submit to the former yoke.
But if the Princes of that Profession can in this our more knowing Age, with much ado hold their Subjects in obedience, against the Acts of Rome; yet the question concerning England remains intire, Whether a Protestant Prince can with good reason confide or repose himself in the Loyalty of his Popish Subjects? and more especially, Whether the fore-mentioned Popish Claims do in any wise comport with the State of England, whose Basis is the Protestant Religion?
No other Religion gives the Priests such an Empire over the Conscience, as the Popish doth. The Principles of that Belief, and the Order and Frame of that Church, are directed to this end, and the people are miserably inthralled to the will of their Clergy. By Auricular Confession the Priests have a constant inlet into the hearts of men, by injoyning Penances and works of Devotion, they exercise a spiritual Dominion over them. Hereby they have dayly opportunity, and advantage enough to excite them to any notable Exploits for the Catholick Cause; unto which kind of services they fix an Opinion of the highest Merit, either for discharge from the pains of Purgatory, or for the acquest of a greater Reward in Glory: Yea, dissolute persons may be easily drawn to such Attempts, in hope of making compensation for a loose and lewd life; and when they suffer for Sedition or Treason, they are held to acquire the glory of Martyrs and Confessors. Add hereunto their Belluine hatred of Hereticks, and vile esteem of their persons: And in all this, their Church's supposed Infallibility warrants this blind obedience, and brutish confidence. And to make void all the security that can be given between Prince and people, the Pope under pretence of Equity and Necessity, undertakes to dispence with Oaths, and with all Laws both Civil and Divine. Besides all this, there is the Jesuits peculiar Discipline, most exquisite for blind obedience and resolution, and consequently, for any great and strange Attempts.
Things past may afford prognosticks of thing to come. May Englands constant Experience be taken for Evidence in the case*In the Reign of Edward the sixth▪ a formidab'e Rebellion was raised for recovery of the Mass.. The Reign of Queen Elizabeth, after the Protestant Reformation had gotten the stated possession of this Kingdom, was infested with a continued succession and series of Treasons, for the re-introducing of Popery, carried on by the English Papists with an indefatigable and implacable Spirit, proceedings from Causes peculiar to that Religion.
During the first ten years, they conformed to the Church of England; but afterwards, to testifie their union with the Pope, they became a divided party in this State. For them the Queen being found unmoveable, the Pope published his Declaratory Sentence against Her, by which all Her Subjects were absolved from the Oath of Allengiance, and an Anathema denounced against those that thence forth obey Her. The Popish Rebellion in the North breaks out. Many horrid attempts of Violence upon Her Majesties Person, were plotted one after another for many years together, as that of Dr. Story, of Parry, of Arden and Somervile, of Throgmorton, of Babington and his Complices, besides the concurrent Commotion in Ireland *Dr. Parry confessed, that having promised at Rome to kill the Queen, he was troubled in Conscience about it, till he had read Dr. Allen's Book, which taught, That Princes excommunicate for Heresie, were to be deprived of Kingdom and Life; which Book, he said, did vehemently excite him to prosecute his Enterprise.. In these several Treasons, many of the Seminary Priests were forward and active. The great and setled Design, was the advancing of the Queen of Scots, to the Crown of England; wherein were ingaged the Pope, and Spaniard, and French King, and Duke of Guise, in conjunction with the English Papists, making use of her Title to set on foot those many desperate Enterprises against the Queen.
After the death of the Queen of Scots, they raised a new Title to the Crown in the House of Spain. The memory of Eighty Eight, will be an everlasting Monument of Papistical Cruelty and Treason. Cardinal Allen the first founder or procurer of the Foreign Seminaries, a person admired as well by the Secular Priests, as Jesuits, penned a Treatise with all the Rhetorick he had, to excite the English Catholicks to joyn with the Spaniards. Among the Forces in the Low-Countries prepared for this Invasion, were seven hundred English Fugitives. After the Spanish Armado was dissipated, the Jesuits had not done. They would have stirred up the Earl of Derby to assume the Title of the Kingdom; they plotted the poysoning of the Queen by Lopez her Physician; they excited Villains to dispatch her by bloody hands, and they never left soliciting the King of Spain, till he twice attempted another Invasion. In those times Parsons his Book of Titles was famous, wherein he set up divers Competitors for the Crown, preferring the Infanta before all others, and slighting King James his Title, as having but few Favourers, and little accounted by Catholicks.
The Roman party could be provoked to these mischiefs by no other impulse then the impetuous zeal of their Superstition. Some of their own did then publsh to the world their important Considerations, to move all true Catholicks to acknowledg, That the proceedings of Her Majesty and the State, with them, since the beginning of Her Reign, had been mild and merciful. In the several times of those mischievous designments, though some priests were executed, yet those that were found moderate in their Examinations, obtained Mercy, and a great number of them that by Law were obnoxious to death, were spared from that extremity, and only banished. It is true, that certain Secular priests did impute all those Treasons to the Jesuits and their Adherents, and fully charged them with all the aforefaid matters of Fact, in terms of highest aggravation, acquitting all other Catholicks. But it must be noted, that the Jesuits were in greatest reputation, and had the predominant influence upon the English Papists in general, and (as appears by the Seculars loud Complaints) had such a power of disposing the Alms collected for their prisoners, and other sufferers, that such as complied not with their purposes, were debarr'd of relief, and pined for want. And by their counsels, the Foreign Seminaries, those Nurseries of Disloyalty were wholly swayed. And 'tis observable, That the agrieved Seculars never published their pretended abhorrency of these Treasons, till they were over-past, and themselves, being driven to despair by the Jesuits potency, were forced to take shelter under a great Prelate of the Church of England.
The same Spirit of Disloyalty was as active and vigorous in that Kings time, who at his first entrance, found himself excluded from Title to the Crown, by two Papal Breves, the ground-work of that Infernal Plot of matchless Villany and Cruelty, the GUNPOWDER-TREASON. After the defeat of which horrid Conspiracy, the Projects of Rome proceeded not in such down-right Rebellions, which always miscarried; but in ways more secretly undermining Religion, and as truly destructive to the Interest of King and Kingdom.
SECT. IV. That it Persecutes all other Religions within its reach.
THE second Branch of the Charge against Popery, is, That it persecutes all other Religions within its reach. In the Church of Rome, for many by-past Ages, the Meekness of Christ, and the Dove-like nature of his Spouse hath not appeared, but the Cruelty of that great Whore that was drunken with the Blood of the Saints, and of the Martyrs of Jesus. All that cast off her yoke, and disown her pretended Infallibility, are with her no better then Hereticks, though they intirely own all the Articles of the Christian Faith received by the ancient Church. And Hereticks are esteemed more vile then dogs; and it is held meritorious to abuse and torment them. Her Laws have made their punishment to be the sharpest kind of death, Burning alive inexorably inflicted. By this Romish Wrath and Fury were Three hundred Martyrs sacrificed in Queen Maries time, for not believing the Sacramental Bread to be turned into the Substance of Christs Body, against the most clear and distinct perception and reason of all Mankind.
But can humane Nature hear, without horror, the report of that direful Consistory, called the Holy Inquisition, established in those Countries where Popery is in full sway. Doubtless that Church whose Religious Orders in a solemn and Sacred Judicatory, shall commit such horrid Outrages as are indeed acted by those Infernal Judges, upon pretence of Justice and Piety, must needs be a School of Universal Cruelty for all her Adherents.
The Popish hath outgone the Pagan Cruelty. What Treachery and Villany hath been acted! What barbarous Indignities have been offered in ways as immodest and shameless, as outragious and merciless, upon pretence of zeal against Hereticks! What varieties of strangely-devised Torments have been inflicted upon the Servants of Christ, without sparing Age, Sex, or Condition! Nor hath such work been done onelyonly in our Age or Country, but in all Ages successively, and Countries universally, that were imbued with Romish Principles: Witness the huge slaughters of the Waldenses, the persecutions of the Bohemian Brethren, and of many others throughout Christendom in the former Ages: And since Protestant-Reformation, how have the Romish Zealots filled Europe with the slaughters of Christians within their reach, in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, England, Scotland, the Netherlands. In Ireland, Piedmont and Poland, their Cruelty is fresh in memory. And the slain cannot be numbred for multitude; they were killed by Thousands, Ten thousands, Hundred thousands, at one and the same Persecution. And the Tragedies have been acted where the Name of Protestant was well known, yea, where Protestants were under the shelter of the Law. For the Jesuits uncessantly stir up the Princes to fall upon their people against Law, and without provocation given, and after things have been setled, to break their Agreements with them. And the Pope himself is the Contriver or Applauder of these Mischiefs, and the succesful execution thereof, is received at Rome with joy and triumph, as the Murtherers in the Parisian Massacre were highly extolled by the Pope, and rewarded with such spiritual Graces as his Holiness useth to bestow.