I Have not that time I wish; to thank you particularly enough for your Discourse in a Letter to me, and writ to me when I was Lord Privy Seal, on the Occasion mentio­ned in your Preface.

I am so much a lover of my Country, that I would be content to have all the Dirt and Shamm again thrown on me by any such Infamous Witness as He was, [Page 2] if it might Occasion the En­riching it with the Treasure of such an other Discourse. I did not account it a Solamen, that not only the Earl of Peterburgh; but his Majesty were partici­pants with me in the Calumni­ous Affidavit Published against me; but was sorry and asha­med for the Effrontery of the In­famous Swearer, extending it self so far; and likewise glad, that after I was sufficiently vindica­ted by your Pen▪ you took the pains so Learnedly to State the Notion of Infamous Witnesses, for Illuminating the Age therein.

I know that in the Hot times of the Martyrocracy (as you call it) it would not have been for the Advantage of my self or others, so unworthily then treated by [Page 3] it, for you to have then used Personal Invectives to have ren­dred any Witness more odi­ous; and when likewise it would have proved more dangerous to you, than Scandalum Mag­natum. You having mentio­ned what Authority of Testimo­ny, or real Weight and Worth there should be to Convict a per­son of such Authority, and that Diamonds are not to be Cut, but with the dust of Diamonds, and that it is not for nothing, that the Scripture Cautions the not receiving an Accusation against an Elder, but by two or three Witnesses; and how the Canon Law requires 72 Witnesses to Con­vict a Cardinal Bishop, accused of any Crime but Heresie, and 26 to Convict a Cardinal Deacon, [Page 4] and 7 to Convict any Clerk; did afterward very justly com­mend our Iudges, for having at a known Tryal, acquainted the Iury that they are carefully to weigh the Credibility of Wit­nesses Pardoned for Perjury, and did learnedly shew out of the Canonists and Schoolmen, that the Pope himself with the plenitude of his pretended Monarchical Power, cannot by his Pardon, wash away the infamia facti, and thereby did sufficiently res­cue my self and other Honest Men from the foul Hands of Infamous Witnesses. And that one Notion of yours, though softly insinuated, and with the Gentleness of a Philosopher, that a Man Pardoned for Infamy, is to be allowed as a Credible Wit­ness [Page 5] only, after it hath been found that he hath acquired anhabit of Virtue by the Series of many Acti­ons in the following part of his Life, ( no Man being supposed able in a desultory way, to leap out of a rooted habit of Vice, into an He­roical Habit of Virtue; and so è contrà) was in effect a Thun­derclap against the Testimony of the Infamous Person, who Slandered me by his Affidavit, and which too might serve to Deter all Infamous Persons in that Conjuncture, from daring to try to run Men of probity down with the noise of Shamme: And your afterwards rendring such Persons capable of being Accu­sers in the point of Treason (and even as Hereticks are allowable by the Canonists, to accuse a Pope of [Page 6] Heresy) was enough pleasing to me: As were likewise the Curious and Soft strokes of your Rhetorick and Reason in the fol­lowing Page, when on the grounds of the dark Colours of such Persons in general, who cheated their Countrymen by Re­tail and who had long acted only Devils parts on the Stage of the World, and been Malefactors, you lay the bright ones of saving their Country by Whole-Sale, and being Benefactors &c. and where­by (as I may say) you have in effect, gilded the Pillory for them, and have added to the num­ber of the Spectators of their shame; and by those soft strokes provided for the Deletion of that Government of the Witnes­ses, better than the most bold [Page 7] touches could then have done.

That Empire of theirs which you then weighed hath been since naturally destroyed: And your having mentioned such, having long acted the Parts of Devils, brings into my mind, what I somewhere met with Cited out of Melchior Adam's Liv [...]s of the German Divines, (and with which I shall here Divert you, as you have me with some apposit pleasant pas­sages in your Letter) Namely that Bucholeer said by way of Counsel to one of his Friends going to live at Court, Fidem Diabolorum tibi commendo, &c. and take heed how you believe Men's promises there, otherwise than warily and with fear.

Your weighty Notion of the [Page 8] Incredibility of any things sworn, being to be much regarded in the Depositions of the most Cre­dible Persons, inclined me to a necessary Caution and Fear, as to the Truth of those Oaths as­sertory, when both Incredible Persons Swearing, and Incredible things Sworn, were in the Case.

I was therefore without any fear, (as I may say) an Atha­nasius against the World of our three Estates, when I did (as you mention) publickly give my Vote, that there was no such IRISH PLOT, as was Sworn by the Witnesses: And what my Sense was of any Irish or Eng­lish Papists PLOT, I shall not here take occasion to express; but yet as to some persons Con­victed of the Popish Plot in Eng­land, [Page 9] upon the Oaths of Wit­nesses, who appeared in the Eye of the Law then, probi & lega­les homines, I was so fearful of the Defects of some Witnesses, and their sayings, that I being then Lord Privy Seal, interceded as earnestly as I could with the King my Master, to grant his Pardon particularly in the Case of Mr. Langhorne and the Titular Arch-Bishop Plunkett; and was as Active as any in the House of Lords, in Exploding the Infa­mous Accusation of the most Vertuous then Queen Consort. And though in the unfortunate Lord Staffords Case, I going Se­cundum allegata & probata, I gave my Judgment as I did, yet his late Majesty did publicly acknowledge that I was an Im­portunate [Page 10] Solicitor with him for his Lordships Pardon, as well as for the Pardon of Langhorne and Plunkett above mentio­ned.

And you have done me but Iustice, in mentioning that I interceded with his late Majesty, for the Releasing of all Lay and Clerical Papists whatsoever out of the Prisons, who were not char­ged with the Popish Plot; And which I moved to his Majesty, in the warmest time of the late Hot Conjuncture. I was always of your Mind in what you men­tion, that 'tis easier to give our Account to God for Mercy, than Iustice; and do more thank you for the Representing my Habi­tual and Natural Inclination, to do all the good I can to all [Page 11] Mankind; and to make every miserable Man I know, and cannot help, yet sure of my Compassion; than for your having ventured by your kind Opinion, to Multiply or Magnifie any intellectual Ta­lents in me.

I easily foresaw at that time, that my then shewing the Hu­manity of a Man, the Frankness of a Gentleman, and Charity and Compassion of a Christian, to the Persons of many Papists and others, and doing as I did in the late Conjuncture, would occasion designing Papists, and some perverse Nominal Prote­stants (as you call them) to make a Papist of me, and did there­fore esteem it in you, (whom I never had opportunity to ob­lige) [Page 12] a Favour to do me Justice therein, as you have in the for­mer part of your Discourse; and of which (I think) the Sheets were sent me printed within a Month or two's time after the old Date they bear. But a long fit of Sickness afterward seising you, and you then signifying to me, that you resolved that the same should not be published, till you added the following part; wherein for the Encou­ragement of so many Prote­stants, who were so much Dis­pirited with imaginations of Po­pery's coming to be the para­mount Religion, and of Protestan­cy's being Extirpated, you en­deavor'd to shew the impossibili­ty of the same ( Humanly speak­ing) and till you had likewise [Page 13] finished your Casuistical Dis­course of the Obligatoriness of our Oaths as to the King, his Heirs and Successors: I was easily sa­tisfied, with your taking your own time for the Publishing the whole, as knowing that the Torrent of Shamm, and Calumny by which the Reputations of many Loyal Persons were born down, was too violent to be of any long continuance; and con­sidering likewise, that your in­corporating the Character of my Life, into a Work so full of various exquisite Learning of all sorts (and particularly of that now so much in request, Namely, the reducing Political Matters by Calculation ad fir­mam (as you call it) that by the Course of Nature, must be im­mortal, [Page 14] and probably pass Chri­stendom in some Language more general than the English) would in time Render me a sufficient gainer by the false Affidavit which an angry House of Com­mons, so unwarily dispersed with their Votes throughout this Kingdom.

The truth is, you having been the first Person who took the pains to find out by the Re­cords of the Pole Bills, and the Bishops survey, the Number of the People of England, have highly Merited the thanks of your Country thereby, as having necessarily rendred its Figure and Alliances in the World the more considerable. And it was the more proper to be done, by reason of De Leti having [Page 15] Published it, that that Learned Person, and my Worthy Friend Monsieur Van Beuninghen, had Judged the People here to be but two Millions; and because as you have Cited it out of Dr. Vessius his Book of various Obser­vations, Dedicated by him to his late Majesty, that the Doctor there hath Estimated the People in England, Scotland and Ire­land, to be but two Millions.

I remember not in all the Books I have read, to have found so much, and so various Political Calculation, as in this your Discourse: And because you intend a Review thereof, I think it will be in any who have the Custody of Records that may be of use to you; a kind­ness to the publick, to be [Page 16] communicative of them to you.

Though I need not observe to any Reader of your Discourse, the height of your Eloquence and great unaffected Wit, and the Nervous way of Argumenta­tion appearing therein, yet I am obliged to acquaint you, that in some particular passages therein, my Observations of Men and Things, have been different from yours: But all of which I hold my self like­wise obliged, not to trouble the World or you with at this time; for your having menti­oned your intended Review, to be Published in a Volum by it self: I who have received so much kindness from you, am to do you the Iustice to stay a [Page 17] while in expecting your Second thoughts, and without boding ill of your being any way par­tial therein; yet shall here at present acquaint you, that as I am a Member of the Church of England, as now by Law Esta­blished, I will not Recede a Iot from its Doctrine, by Judging the Papacy not to be Antichrist, or by judging the Worshipping the Host, not to be formal Idolatry, as my Ho­noured Friends, Dr. Hammond and Bishop Taylor (as you say) have done: And shall here ob­serve to you, that tho' Bishop Taylor in his Liberty of Prophe­cying, pronounced Worshiping the Host, to be not FORMAL Idolatry, yet afterward upon more Mature thoughts, he in [Page 18] his Disswasive against Popery, did make it FORMAL Idolatry.

I shall likewise tell you, that Bishop Sanderson, whom you so often quote, and whose Judgment you so deservedly Celebrate, doth amongst his Sermons printed Anno 1657. in the fifth Sermon, Ad Populum p. 287. in plain Terms call the Pope the Man of Sin; the Text of the Sermon is 1 Tim. 4.4. The Bishop there represents the Church of Rome as injurious to our Christian Liberty, whom St. Paul in this passage (saith he) hath branded with an indeli­ble note of Infamy; in as much as those very Doctrines, where­in he gives an instance, as Do­ctrines of Devils, are the receiv­ed Tenets and Conclusions of that Church, not to insist on [Page 19] other prejudices done to Christi­an Liberty by the intolerable Vsur­pation of the Man of Sin: where he refers in his Margent to 2 Th. 2, 3. who exerciseth a Spiritual Tyranny over Mens Consciences, as opposite to Evangelical Li­berty, as Antichrist is to Christ. Let us a little see how she hath fulfilled St. Pauls Prediction, in teaching Lying and Divelish Do­ctrines, and that with seared Consciences and in Hypocrisie, in the two Specialties mentioned in the next verse, viz. Forbidding to Marry; and commanding to ab­stain from Meats. And then the Bishop saith, Marriage, the Holy Ordinance of God, is yet by this purple Strumpet forbidden, and that Sub Mortali to Bishops, Priests, Deacons, &c. and he [Page 20] there for that Appellation of purple Strumpet, refers in his Margent to, Rev. 17.13.

And as I have here cited this great B. for this purpose; so I may likewise refer you to the work of our B. of Lincoln called Brutum Fulmen, as proving the Pope to be Antichrist, contrary to the Assertions of Grotius and Dr. Hammond and others: I never think of this Bishop, and of his Incomparable Knowledge, both in Theology and Church-History, and in the Ecclesi­astical Law, without applying to him in my Thoughts, the Character that Cicero gave Cras­sus, viz. Vir non unus é multis, sed unus inter omnes, propè sin­gularis: And I desire here to own my beholdingness to his [Page 21] communicative Disposition, for assisting me with quotations and his Judgment when I have occasion to Crave his Aid there­in, as you know I have late­ly done; and shall be glad that the learning in such Let­ters as I have received from him, wherein there are many excellent Notions, which I had no occasion to quote, may sometime see the light.

But I am in the next place with Justice, to acknowledge it to you, that you have in your Reflections on the Vsurpations of the late times, acquainted the World with several things use­ful to be inserted in the History of that Age, and could wish that such a Writer as your self, would undertake the writing of it.

[Page 22]Nor can I forbear to observe, that your occasional propping up the great Characters of ma­ny of his Majesties Ministers in your Discourse, in very warm Conjuncture, when a Factious Multitude was so busy in De­molishing their Reputations, was worthy your great thoughts and generosity: And your par­ticular painting the Character of the late Earl of Clarendon in such Noble Colours (and with Somewhat as bold strokes too of your Fancy and Judgment, as Aerodius shew'd in his penne's Nulling the Laws made above a thousand years ago, against the Heroical Men you have menti­on'd) was in you an adventu­rous piece of Justice. The course of Mortality hath car­ryed [Page 23] several persons off th [...] Stage, whom you mention'd as then living, and particular­ly the late Duke of Norfolk, of whom in p. 174. of your Dis­course you speak as one of the three Earls then Living, who went from the Church of Eng­land, to the Roman-Catholick Communion; and whom you since told me, you there intro­duced only with his Title of Earl (a Title that was due to him as Earl of Norwich, Arun­dell and Surry) making bold to Level him with the Title of the other two, ( viz.) the late Earl of Bristoll, and the late Earl of Inchiqueen, as intend­ing thereby, that if he had liv­ed to have read your Discourse, (of which you told me, you [Page 24] communicated several parts to him) he might by that little Obscurity, see the Reverence you had paid to that picture of your known great Friend, by your drawing a Curtain before it.

The Earl of Radnor, and the late Lord Keeper North, whose Characters you have so greatly painted to Eternity, left the World, without seeing the right that you had so gene­rously done them in Defiance of the vulgar Clamour.

I am moreover here to own my thanks to you, for giving me occasion by your so fre­quent quoting of D' Ossat, to re­new my Conversation in my Library, with that great Author.

His Excellent Letters were [Page 25] formerly fresh enough in my Memory; and time was here­tofore, when not to be well versed in him, was a Reproach to a Man employed in Affairs of the State, as you will see by my Lord Falkeland the Se­cretary of State's printed Let­ter, in answer to Mr. Walter Montagues Letter, where speak­ing of D' Ossat, he adds, viz. An Author which, I know, Mr. Montague hath read; because whosoever hath but considered State Matters, must be as well skill'd in him, as any Priest in his breviary.

You very well in p. 38. ob­serv'd how one Priest, that in his Book considered State Mat­ters and quoting D' Ossat about the same, was not so well [Page 26] skilled in him, as in his Brevi­ary; I mean, Mr. Browne the Franciscan, who in his ADVO­CATE of Conscience Liberty, Cited D' OSSATS Letter, to shew that the Gunpowder-Trea­son was contrived by CECIL.

But it was the ill fate of that Cardinal, on the account of his great Fame for the Politicks, to be falsely Cited, and even as to the point of the Gunpow­der-Treason, by several who ne­ver read him, and particularly by Mr. Osborne, in his works bound together, p. 487. among the Memoirs of King James, where he saith; And here I cannot omit, that after this hap­py Discovery, his Catholick Ma­jesty sent an Agent, on purpose to Congratulate King James his [Page 27] great preservation from the Gun­powder-Treason, a flattery so pal­pable, as the Pope could not for­bear Laughing in the face of Car­dinal D' Ossat, when he first told it him: Nor he forbear to imform his King of it, as may be found in his printed Letters.

You have truly shewn it out of the Cardinals Epitaph, prin­ted in the Edition of his Letters in Folio, that he dyed in the year 1604.

I am very glad, that for the Honour of the Reformation, you have with so much Candour, and likewise with Substantial Calculation, Confuted an Un­just insinuation against it, made by the Author of the Compendi­um, who there in p. 77. saith, can it be said that the Monarchy [Page 28] of England hath gotten by the Reformation (and what desperate Enemies that hath created, us may be easily imagined) that no­thing but Popery, or at least its Principles, can make it again emerge or lasting.

It was fit that the clearing of the truth in that matter, should be undertaken by some one or other of our Church; and it hath been by you very Satis­factorily performed: And your thus Confuting that Author, without naming him or his Book in that part of your Dis­course, where you were doing it, was the more Congruous to the measures of Charity and Candour; and the more for the advantage of your underta­king.

[Page 29]It was likewise fit, that the minds of so many People, whose Humour in the late Fermentati­on was desperare de Republicâ, should be fortified with Reason: And that the popular Nusance of FEARS AND IEALOV­SIES should be removed, and which you have so much ex pro­fesso (I think) beyond any of our late Writers done.

And while the vulgus of Wri­ters were entailing Fears and Iealousies upon us; your predict­ing, from Natural Causes, the Happy Future STATE of your Country; and that the Fermen­tation would be perfective to it, (as your words are) was an Attempt of a great Genius.

And I cannot but in Justice say to you, that your thoughts [Page 30] in p. 194, 195. of the Folly and Madness of any Republican Mo­dellers here, are new and great.

Moreover, as I always had a Just and High value and Ho­nour for the Endowments of his Present Majesty, that were in him Conspicuous to the World, when Duke of York; and was as much ashamed of the oppro­brious Calumnies, that his great Character was then exposed to, as any Man whatsoever; (and was likewise more con­cern'd for the ill usage he had, than for my own, when my poor Name was in the printed Affidavit, enforced to March round the Kingdom with his Great and Illustrious one;) so I was glad that in the late Con­juncture, I found by some prin­ted [Page 31] Sheets of your Discourse then sent me, your papers Re­presentation of his Character made him amends for the San­benito of the Affidavit.

And the Strictures of your great Fancy and Iudgment, with which you so apparently refer to his Character in p. 122.176.211.271. and others in your Casuistical Discussion, tho' they were but short, and seemingly en passant, yet they were like the slanting of Lightning, and like glances, whose quick Move­ments, might probably Create much more powerful Passions of Love and Admiration in a Reader; than if you had pen­ned his Character in Set formal Panegyricks, whose Hony soon cloys, and leaves no sting or [Page 32] Impression in the Mind.

But that which I may para­lel, with any Coup de Maitre in your, or perhaps any Discourse, and Writ with such great Ad­vantage for his present Maje­sties Service; and wherein the Mixtures of your great Co­lours is so Admirable, and wherin you have painted accor­ding to the height of a pittore, that the Italians say, must paint con diligenza & con amore & con fortuna, is what I find in your page 217, and 218. For 'tis there, that in your great pi­cture of His Late Majesty as an Agonist, and laying the Crown of Righteousness before him, eo no­mine, and as Contending for the Succession; You have inter­weaved the picture of your own [Page 33] Loyalty and Contention for it, with such bold Touches, as I shall not name; but refer the Reader to them, which it was pitty but your Index had done, with a hand in the Margent.

There is no doubt; but the very Curiosity of the Calculati­ons in your Discourse, would have brought it into the late Kings Cabinet, and to his peru­sal, had he lived till its Publi­cation; and your great Maje­stick Insinuations of perswasive Arguemnt, there brought ap­parently w [...]th a Design to fortifie his great Mind against any possible further Batteries from Members of any of the three Estates, to occasion his consenting to the Exclusion, must necessarily have been soon [Page 34] perceiv'd by so quick an Appre­hension as his Majesties; and could not but have made deep impressions on him, for the con­tinuance in his former pur­pose. And I will hereupon say, that if any Loyal Roman-Ca­tholick would not on the Ac­count of what you have said in those two pages, absolve you from his severe Censuring of the warmest passages against Popery, in your whole Discourse, he would injure his own Judg­ment. And the Truth is, Arch-Bishop Hutton's minding Queen Elizabeth so boldly from the Pulpit, though yet with a Salvo to the Rules of Modesty, and Decorum, of what in Justice concerned her as to K. Iames's Succession; which you have [Page 35] mentioned, and which was by her so well taken, was not a harder Task to be performed, than what you presented to the consideration of his Late Ma­jesty from the Press, in the Af­fair of his preserving the Line­al Succession of his present Majesty.

As it is natural to Men, on the sight of any Combatants or Wrestlers, whom they had never before seen, to wish bet­ter to the one, than the other; and to have their Fancy's by the Current of Nature constantly carryed along, to favour the Fortunes of this or that Con­tender, whom yet they never saw, so I have during the course of our long acquaintance, obser­ved in you on all occasions, a [Page 36] natural and constant tenderness in your Wishes of Happiness, and good Success to his present Majesty, when Duke of York. And had not you on grounds of Nature, and so like a Philoso­pher expressed the same, and from the Knowledg of things in particular, founded your Conjectural measures of Eng­lands future Happy State, if un­der his Government, but had only presaged well of his Reign in general; one might have thought that your natural Af­fection and Honour for his Per­son, might have byassed you that way, as a praedicter, rather than the natural knowledge of things; especially considering what you have well hinted, that the very praediction of things, is often a [Page 37] Natural cause, in some degree, of Men's being Animated to bring them to effect.

And indeed, I receiving ma­ny of your printed Sheets, du­ring our late Fermentation, when so many Writers seemed Associ­ated in the praediction of the worst of Events, under a Popish Successor, was the more plea­sed to find one Man that was not like a dead fish carryed down with the stream of the Times, as to the point of ill bo­ding to the publick; and the strength of whose fancy mixt with his great Reason and Judg­ment, might be able to help to turn that stream.

And God be thanked, that by his Majesties coming to in­herit the Throne of his Ancestors, [Page 38] with almost as equal Peace and Ioy of the People, as his Royal Brother was Restored to the same, (and for your Descripti­on of the Figure I made in which latter, or to speak more properly of my Duty I dischar­ged therein, I return you my Just Acknowledgments) and by his so early and voluntary Gra­cious Declaration, of his defend­ing the C. of E. and the Civil Go­vernment, as by Law Established; and so publickly owning the Loyalty of the Principles of that Church, and by his conti­nuance of the prosperity of that Church, and the Peace and Prosperity of the Kingdom, while the whole Creation (as I may say) groans under the pressure of some of our Protestant Bre­thren [Page 39] abroad, you have hither­to appeared so much a True Praedicter as you have.

I am likewise glad hereby, that another Learned Person of our Church, I mean Dr. Tho­mas Sprat, the Lord Bishop of Rochester, taking his view of the Future State of England, in his History of the Royal Society, and there saying, as you have Ci­ted it, that we may safely con­clude, that what ever vicissitude shall happen about Religion in our time, it will probably be neither to the advantage of implicit Faith, nor of Enthusiasm, has hitherto appear'd so fortunate in that praediction.

God be thanked that such as in the late Conjuncture, troubled us with the being Lachrymists in [Page 40] another, and the imagin'd nu­becula est, &c. as to persecution, have had some cause to be ashamed of their Fears: And that you have hitherto had no more cause to be ashamed of praedicting Englands future paci­fick State, though yet we have had a Monmouths. Re­bellion since. But as to that, it may be properly said, that, that persecution against the Throne, nubecula fuit, & transivit.

We have had presently after the Kings coming to the Throne, a little Cloud of Calum­ny cast on the Reputations of four of the most Eminent Di­vines of our Metropolis, by some of their fellow Subiects, sup­posed Roman Catholicks; but it soon passed off: And God [Page 41] brought forth their Righteousness as the Light, and their Iudg­ment as the Noon-Day: And the thing scarce deserves to be re­membred, that after they had thus misrepresented four such Protestant Divines with so much falshood, some others of those published a Book, called The Papist Misrepresented, and Represented, and which is late­ly answer'd with that Candour and Strength of Reason, that ought to be in Theological Wri­tings; and wherein as the Lord Falkeland who was then Secre­tary, was wont to say, it was as absurd to mingle angry reviling expressions, as to do so in a Love-Letter. There was a despicable Childish Pamphlet (and Writ with too much petulant inso­lence) [Page 42] called, An Address from the Church of England, to both Houses of Parliament; and which was by many of the Fathers of that Church, held not worth the taking notice of.

And because it is very Ridi­culous for any now to think to Re-Baptize the present Church of England, with the Name of ROMAN Catholick: I have here thought fit, in pursuance of what you mentioned in p. 70. to let you and others have a Copy of the Rescript or Iudg­ment of the Vniversity of Oxford, to Henry the 8 th. whereby the Bishop of Rome was pronoun­ced to have no more power here by the Word of God, than any other Foreign Bishop. I Judge that that Old Book of Dr. [Page 43] Iames's you refer to, is called A Manuduction or Introduction unto Divinity, containing a Con­futation of Papists by Papists, &c. by Tho. James, Doctor of Divinity, late fellow of New-Col­ledge in Oxford, and Sub Dean of the Cathedral Church of Wells, printed at Oxford. 1625.

The Book is full of great Learning, and Dedicated to the then Lord Keeper, Bishop of Lin­coln: And there under his third proposition, (viz.) the King is not Subject to any Foreign Iurisdiction, he tells us in p. 40. ‘that K. Henry the 8th. being at Variance with the Pope, a Parliament was called within two years, and a Motion was made therein, that the King should be declared Head of the [Page 44] Church. But his Majesty refused, till he had Advised with his Universities, of that point. And whilst the Parli­ament Sate, (God, in whose Hand the Hearts of Princes are, so disposing it) the King reflecting belike on Wickliffs former Articles, directing his Letters to the University of Ox. about Electing the Bp. of Lincoln, into the Chancellor­ship of the University of Ox­ford, in the room of Arch-Bi­shop Warham lately Deceased; After the Accomplishment whereof ( saith the King) our Pleasure and Commandment is, that ye, as shall beseem Men of Vertue and profound lite­rature, diligently intreating, examining, and discussing a [Page 45] certain question sent from us to you, concerning the Pow­er and Primacy of the Bishop of Rome, send again to us in writing, under your common Seal, with convenient Speed and Celerity, your mind, Sen­tence, and assertion of the Question, according to the mere and sincere Truth of the same, willing you to give Credence to our Trusty and Well-beloved, this bringer, your Commissary; As well touching our further pleasure in the premisses, as for other matters, &c. Given under our Signet, at our Mannor of Greenwich, the 18 th Day of May.’ 'Tis there said in the Margent, Ex Registro Act. in archivis Academiae Oxon. Ad [Page 46] Ann. Dom. 1534. p. 127, &c.

The Doctor then thus goeth on; ‘Upon the Receipt of these Letters, the University (at that time for ought we know, consisting all of Pa­pists) being assembled in Con­vocation, Decreed as follow­eth; That for the Examinati­on, Determination and Deci­sion of this question, sent unto them to be Discuss'd from the Kings Majesty; whether the Bishop of Rome had any great­er Jurisdiction Collated upon him from God in the Holy Scripture, than any other Fo­raign Bishop; that there should be Deputed thirty Divines, Doctors and Batchelors of Divinity to whose Sentence, Assertion or Determination, [Page 47] or the greater part of them, the Common Seal of the Uni­versity, in the Name thereof should be annexed: And then sent up to his Majesty. And the 27 th. of June, in the year of our Saviour 1534. this In­strument following, was made and sent up Sealed with the Common Seal of the Univer­sity. The Instrument it self is in Latin; but is in English thus: To all the Sons of our Mother the Church, to whom these present Letters shall come, Iohn, by the Grace of God, Chancellour of the Famous University of Oxon, and the whole Assembly of Doctors and Masters, Regents, and not Regents in the same, greeting. Whereas our most Noble and [Page 48] Mighty Prince and Lord, Hen. the 8 th. by the Grace of God, of England and France, King, Defender of the Faith, and Lord of Ireland, upon the continual Requests and Com­plaints of his Subjects, Exhibi­ted unto him in Parliament, against the intolerable exacti­ons of Foreign Jurisdictions, and upon divers Controver­sies had, and moved about the Jurisdiction and Power of the Bishop of Rome; and for other divers and urgent Cau­ses against the said Bishop then and there expounded and de­clared; was sent unto, and humbly desired, that he would provide in time some fit Re­medy, and satisfie the Com­plaint of his dear Subjects: He, [Page 49] as a most prudent Solomon, minding the good of his Sub­jects, over whom God hath placed him; and deeply ponder­ing with himself, how he might make good and wholsom Laws for the Government of his Common-Wealth; and above all things, taking care that nothing be there resolved upon against the Holy Scrip­tures; (which he is, and ever will be ready to Defend with Hazard of his Dearest Blood) out of his deep Wisdom, and after great pains taken herea­bouts, hath Transmitted, and sent unto his University of Oxon, a certain question to be Disputed, viz. whether the Bishop of Rome hath any great­er Jurisdiction granted to him [Page 50] from God in the Holy Scrip­tures, to be exercised and used in this Kingdom, than any o­ther Foraign Bishop; and hath commanded us, that dis­puting the question, after a di­ligent and mature Delibera­tion and Examination of the premisses, we should certifie his Majesty, under the Common Seal of our University, what is the true meaning of the Scriptures in that behalf, accor­ding to our Judgments and Apprehensions. We therefore the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters above Recited, daily and often remembring, and altogether weighing with our selves how good and godly a thing it is, and Congrous to our Profession, befitting our [Page 51] Submissions, Obediences and Charities, to foreshew the way of Truth and Righteousness, to as many as desire to tread in her steps; and with a good, sure and quiet Conscience, to Anchor themselves upon Gods Word: We could not but endeavour our selves, with all the possible care that we could devise, to satisfie so Just and Reasonable a Request of so great a Prince (who next un­der God, is our most Happy and Supream Moderator and Governor.) Taking therefore the said question into our Considerations, with all Hum­ble Devotion, and due Reve­rence (as becometh us) and Assembling our Divines toge­ther from all parts, taking [Page 52] time enough, and many days space to Deliberate thereof di­ligently, religiously, and in the fear of God, with zealous and upright Minds; first searching, and searching again the Book of God, and the best Interpreters thereupon dispu­ting the said questions, So­lemnly and Publickly in our Schools, have in the end, una­nimously, and with joynt consent, resolved upon the Conclusion; that is to say, That the Bishop of Rome hath no greater Jurisdiction given unto him in Scripture, than any other Bishop, in this King­dom of England: Which our Assertion, Sentence, or De­termination, so upon delibe­ration maturely and through­ly [Page 53] discussed; and according to the Tenor of the Statutes and Ordinances of this our University concluded upon publickly, in the Name of the whole University; we do pronounce and testifie to be sure, certain and consonant to the Holy Scripture. In wit­ness whereof, we have caused these our Letters to be writ­ten, Sealed, and ratified by the Seal of our University. Given in our Assembly House the 27 th. of the Month of Iune, in the year of Christ, 1534.’

I took care formerly to sa­tisfie the Curious, by my taking a Copy of this Rescript out of the Records, in the Registry of the Vniversity of Oxford; and which I not being able at present to [Page 54] [...] [Page 55] [...] [Page 50] [...] [Page 51] [...] [Page 52] [...] [Page 53] [...] [Page 54] find among my Papers, have sent you this English Translation of it, as Printed in that Book of Dr. Iames's.

That Book of his, any one may see in the Catalogue of the Bodleian Library, and of which Library, he was the Head-keep­er, And in that Office, very Diligent and Careful, and was a Person of great Learning and Probity.

The Knowledge of this Re­script of that Vniversity, and likewise of the other of Cam­bridge, is necessary to all who will be Masters of the Know­ledge of the History of those times. For the Author of a Book in Quarto, Printed in Ox­ford, in the year 1645. called, the Parliaments power in Laws [Page 55] for Religion, having there in p. 4. said that the third and Final Act for the Popes Ejection, was an Act of Parliament, 28. H. 8th. c. 10. entituled, an Act extin­guishing the Authority of the Bi­shop of Rome: Saith, it was usher'd in by the Determination first; and after by the practice of all the Clergy; for in the Year 1534. which was two years before the passing of this Act, the King had sent this Proposition to be agi­tated in both Vniversities, and in the greatest and most famous Mo­nastery's of the Kingdom, That is to say, An aliquid authorita­tis in hoc Regno Angliae Pon­tifici Romano de Jure competat plusquam alii cuicunque Epis­copo extero? By whom it was Determined Negatively, that the [Page 56] Bishop of Rome had no more pow­er of Right in the Kingdom of England, than any other Foraign Bishop; which being Testified, and return'd under their Hands and Seals respectively, ( the Ori­ginals whereof, are still remaining in the Library of Sir Robert Cotton) was a good preamble to the Bishops, and the rest of the Clergy Assembled in their Convo­cation to conclude the like. And so accordingly they did, and made an Instrument thereof Subscribed by the Hands of all the Bishops and others of the Clergy; and who afterward confirm'd the same by their Corporal Oaths: The Copies of which Oaths and Instru­ments, you shall find in Foxes Acts and Monuments, vol. 2. fol. 1203. and 1211. of the Edition [Page 57] of John Day, An. 1570. And this was semblably the ground of a following Statute. 35. H. 8. c. 1. Wherein another Oath was devised and ratified, to be imposed upon the Subject; for the more clear asserting of the Kings Supremacy, and the utter exclusion of the Popes for ever: Which Statutes, though they were all Repeal'd by one Act of Parliament, 1st. and 2d. of Phillip and Mary C. 8. Yet they were brought in force a­gain, 1 Eliz▪ c. 1.

My Lord Herbert, in his History of Henry the 8 th. under the year 1534. and the 26 th. year of his Reign, p. 408. tel­ling us, that it was Enacted, that the King by his Heirs and Suc­cessors Kings of England, should be Accepted and Reputed the Su­pream [Page 58] Head on Earth of the Church of Eng. called Ecclesia An­glicana, &c. saith that, that Act, though much for the manutention of the Regal Authority, seem'd not yet to be suddenly approved by our King, nor before he had consul­ted with his Counsel, &c. and with his Bishops; who having dis­cussed the point in their Convoca­tions, declared, that the Pope had no Iurisdiction warranted to him by Gods Word in this King­dom; which also was seconded by the Vniversities, and by the Sub­scriptions of the several Colledges, and Religious Houses, &c.

Most certainly Hen. the 8 th's. gaining this point, that the Bp. of Rome hath no more power here by Gods Word, than any o­ther Foraign Bishop, was of [Page 59] great and necessary use, in or­der to the effectual withstand­ing the Papal Usurpations; and was re verâ, the gaining of a Pass; and for which end, he made use of intellectual Detachments from his Vniversities.

And suitably to the Wisdom of our Ancestors here, in Henry 8 ths. time, any Popish Prince a­broad, who intends effectual­ly to Combat the Papal Usur­pations, must first gain that Pass: For the effect of the com­mon sayings in Natural Philoso­phy, that, Natura non conjungit extrema nisi per media, and that Natura non facit Saltum, must likewise obtain in Politicks, when the Nature of things is operating there toward a Re­formation of Church or State.

[Page 60]And this weighty Rescript of the Vniversity of Oxford, not be­ing Printed in Dr. Burnets ex­cellent Historical Books of the Reformation, nor yet in Fox his Martyrology; and now Publish­ed here, as set down in English, by Dr. Iames, may perhaps serve usefully to illuminate the World abroad, about the way of its Transitus from Popery.

But here I shall observe, that though I find, in Mr. Fox his Acts and Monuments Printed in 3 Volumes in London, for the Company of Stationers, An. 1641. the Iudgment of the Vni­versity of Cambridge is there set down, in p. 338. and relates to the same year with the Oxford Rescript, namely the year 1534. yet it doth not there appear to [Page 61] be a Rescript to King Henry 8 th. by way of return to a Let­ter from his Majesty; and it be­gins thus: Vniversis sanctae Ma­tris Ecclesiae filijs, ad quos prae­sentes literae perventurae sunt; Caetus omnis Regentium & non Regentium Academiae Cantabrigi­ensis, salutem in omnium Salva­tore Iesu Christo. Cum de Ro­mani Pontificis potestate, &c. And then follows the Transla­tion of the whole in English; and which makes about half of that page 338, and wherein the same Judgment for substance is given, with that of the Ox­ford Rescripts: That the Bishop of Rome hath no more State Au­thority and Iurisdiction given him of God in the Scriptures over this Realm of England, than any [Page 62] other extern Bishop hath. That Instrument hath not there the Date of any Month to it, as the Oxford Rescript hath: But in the Body of the Instrument 'tis mentioned, that the Iudgment of that Vniversity was therein required, though not by whom; and towards the Conclusion of it, 'tis Styled an Answer, in the Name of that Vniversity; and 'tis probable, that the Iudgment of that Vniversity might have been required by some of the Ministers of King Henry 8 th. and by his Order; whereas the Oxford Rescript, mentioned his Majesties having himself requi­red the Iudgment of that Vni­versity in that point.

What I have here mentioned of the Iudgment of our two Vni­versities, [Page 63] gives me occasion to take notice of an Oversight of my Lord Herbert, in this place of his History, by me Cited; For he in this p. 408. makes the Vni­versities Determining, that the Pope had no Iurisdiction warran­ted to him by Gods Word in this Kingdom; whereas he should have Represented their Sense of his not having more here, than any other Foraign Bishop. And thus you truly express the Sense of their Judgment in this Case, when you say p. 70 th. of your Book, that the Popes Cards were, by the Clergy that plaid his Game, thrown up, as to all claim of more power here by the Word of God, than every other Foraign Bishop had: And both our Vniversities sent their Iudgments about the same [Page 64] thing to the K. which, methinks, might make our Papists approach a little nearer to us, without any fear of Infection. For we allow the Bishop of Rome to have as much power by the Word of God here, as any other Foraign Bishop; and 'tis pity but that the Iudgment of our Vniversities, were shewn the World in Print, and sent to the French King; and particularly the Iudgment or Rescript of the Vniversity of Oxford, as not be­ing any where in Print as I know of; But in an Old Book of Dr. James's, against Popery.

But as to your thought of having that Rescript of the Vni­versity of Oxford, sent to the French King; I for my part, am disinclined to it. The printing of it here, may probably bring [Page 65] it to the notice of his Ministers, and so perhaps to his. I have heard how the French Em­bassador, not long ago ap­plyed to a Learned Friend of ours, of the long Robe, and of the Church of England; and one who is a great Antiquary, and desired him to furnish him with Copies of Records not prin­ted in Dr. Burnets Works, that related to Henry 8 th's ▪ withstand­ing the Papal Usurpation; and no doubt but the Copy of this Oxford Rescript, would have been as welcom to him, and as necessary to Compleat his Col­lection, as any could have been; and the publication of it, may perhaps be of use in some pla­ces of the Roman Catholick World abroad: But I fear, that [Page 66] the present French King, will never without some strange un­expected provocation, received from the Papacy, advance so far towards the confines of Re­formation, as Henry 8 th. did. I know it was but Congruous to Worldly Politicks (however contrary to Justice) for French Kings formerly to use very high Severities to their Protestant Subjects, in the Conjunctures of their quarrelling with the Pope; and this you well observe in p. 329. out of the Book cal­led, the Policy of the Clergy of France; Namely, that the French Kings never made any Assaults on the Papal Power; but what cost their Protestant Subjects very dear. And of the like Nature, were the Political Measures of Henry [Page 67] the 8 th▪ here, who at the same time, burn'd his Protestant Sub­jects, for what he called Heresy, that he hang'd some of his Po­pish ones, for what he called Treason, in abetting the Papal Supremacy.

I know we should not pre­sume to limit the most Holy God, as to what Instruments he shall, or shall not use in the Me­lioration of the Affairs of Church or State: But the French King is one, I never think of without Horror. Nor do I entertain any idea, of Gods making any right Lines in the World, by so crooked an Instrument. If Da­vid must not be allowed by the Course of Providence, to build the Temple; because his Ad­ministration of the Govern­ment, [Page 68] had been so much dipp'd in Blood; what good to Religion can we presage from such a Mo­narch, as has made all Christen­dom almost one great Acelda­ma? The great God will, I be­lieve, take his time to make this Monarch share in the usual fate of Persecutors, how prospe­rous soever he may be at pre­sent, according to what is com­monly observed out of the Hea­then Moralist: That the Divine Wheels are grinding, and will grind to powder, though they are slow in Motion. Nor did God think fit to use our Henry 8 th. as an In­strument to contribute towards the building his House here, further than by removing the Rubbish of the Papal Vsurpations, and by so Signally Acting there­in, [Page 69] by compassing the Popes power, to be here reduced to the level of that of every other Foraign Bishop. This was a Mo­mentous thing, and worthy the Sagacity and Politicks of King Henry, and his Ministers, and it must however be for his Ho­nour acknowledged in our English Story.

The truth is, that it having been so Customary for the Bi­shops of Rome, when they met with a weak King here, or one whose Affairs were Embarras­sed, to interlope in their Tem­poral Concerns; and to presume to dispose of their Crowns and Regalities; it was but Natural, for such a Magnanimous Mo­narch as Henry the 8 th. was, to Stake down the Popes Spiritual [Page 70] power, to that short tedder he did out of the Scriptures, and to allow it to go no further there, than any other Foraign Bishop's. And thus I for my part would never prefer any Divine to be my Spiritual Pa­stor, who claimed my Tempo­ral Estate: And, as I think, no Lords of Mannors, who had the right of Advowson, would present any one to a Living in their gift, who without Sense or Reason, did set up a title to the Mannor.

But the very thought of wa­ters not rising higher than their Springs, might well serve to mind Henry 8 th. and some of our former Roman Catholick Princes, that the Power of the Bishop of Rome in Temporals, [Page 71] however Claimed by Popes, was not allowed to rise higher than St. Peter's, nor St. Peter's higher than his, who said his Kingdom was not of this World, and that St. Peter's Successor, is not like Tamberlain, to tread on the Heads of Christians, nor like Alexander the Third▪ to Tread on the Neck of an Emperor and Burlesquing one of King Da­vids Psalms; Super aspidem & basiliscum ambulabis, conculcabis l [...]onem & Draconem; when it may be said, that the Holy Ie­sus did tread so gently in his passage through the World, that if he had trod on a bruised Reed, he would not have broke it, or if on smoking Flax, he would not have quenched it.

A Man cannot throughly [Page 72] Write of the Old Papal Usur­pations here, without being as voluminous as Mr. Prynne; and our Statute-Book doth suf­ficiently instruct us out of Hen. 8 th's Reign, and former ones in the Fact of the Papal Arro­gance, and in the Fact and Right of their being withstood. But I need not tell you of the com­mon Observation, that those Statutes in Henry 8 th's time, that were most warm against the Papal Usurpations, were but Declarative of our old Laws and Customs; and as for ex­ample, the dernier Ressort, that the Cannon Law gives the Pope, of Appeals from our Ecclesi­astical Courts, was an Usurpa­tion, long before the Statute of Henry the 8 th's. time for pro­hibiting [Page 73] all Appeals out of Eng­land, to the Court of Rome: And thus the Constitutions at Clarendon, plainly speak out, how our Old Laws and Cu­stoms were to be observed in this point, viz. That all Appeals must proceed regularly from the Arch Deacon to the Bishop, from the Bishop, to the Arch-Bishop; and if the Arch-Bishop failed to do Justice, the last Com­plaint must be to the King, to give Order for Redress ( i e.) by proper delegates: and Mathew Paris, A. 1164. thus tells us, that in the Reign of Henry the Se­cond, the Custom then about Appeals was, viz. Si emerserint ab Archidiacono, debet procedi ad Episcopum, ab Episcopo ad Archi­episcopum & si Archiepiscopus de­fuerit [Page 74] in justitiâ exhibendâ, ad Dominum Regem perveniendum est postremo, ipsius in Curiâ Ar­chiepiscopi controversia terminetur, ita quod non debet ultrà procedi absque assensu Domini Regis.

But as to the Ridiculousness of the Papal Usurpations by the Canon Law, giving the Pope a power to receive Appeals from the Dominions of Soveraign Princes and States, Mastertius in his Book de justitiâ Legum Ro­manarum in the Summaries of his 20 th. Chapter, sets it down, That,

• 1. Ridetur Pontifex ab ipsâ Romanâ Curiâ.
• 2. Credentes Constitutioni Pon­tificis, a Regibus, liberisque popu­lis laesae Majestatis damnantur.
• 3. Iterum dissentit a Pontifice Romana Curia.
• [Page 75]4. Mira pontificis caecitas no­tatur:
• 5. Intellectus L. à proconsulibus 19. Cod de appellat.
• 6. Ius Canonicum malè dam­nat in expensas tantum appellan­tem perperam.

Under which he saith, Infelix fuit Romanus Praesul in Cap. 7. Cap. de priore. 31. Cap. Ad audi­entiam, 34. Cap. dilecti. 52.— Ext. de appellat. quibus constituit ad­versus L. Imper. in princip. D. de ap­pellat. licere pulsatae parti, relictis medijs, pontificalem cognitionem invocare, nam ipsa Romana Curia id Iuris, tanquam omnem bonum ordinem invertens & ex merâ dis­sentiendi libidine promanans, ex­plosit; neque procedit Canonista­rum glossema, quo videtur id con­stituisse pontifex, ob specialem suae [Page 74] [...] [Page 75] [...] [Page 76] sedis praerogativam quâ fidelium omnium competens est Iudex, Cap. si duobus. 7. & ibi D. D. ext. de appellat. Concil. Trident. sess. 24. Cap. 20. de reformat. Nam cum id falsum sit, totius Christiani Orbis Reges liberi (que) populi, laesae Majestatis reos agunt, qui vel im­mediatè, vel ab ipsorum sententiâ ad pontificem praesumunt appel­lare.

Eodem candore defert appella­tioni rei minimae, iterum reluctan­te Romanâ Curiâ & requirente ut litis aestimatio sit ut minimum co­ronatorum decem. Praesec. in praxi Episcop. p. 2. Cap. 4. Art. 15. N. 8. Mechlinensi 50. Flor. D. Zypaeus de Iure Pontif. novo. tit. de ap­pellat N. 8. Mihi videtur quod pontifex de industria se voluerit risui propinare, nam hic defert ap­pellationi [Page 77] rei minimae, suprà reli­ctis mediis implorationi Pontifici­alis auditorij, evocando Belgam aut Anglum in Causâ aliquorum obolorum, ad urbem Romanam ex­periundi sui Iuris gratiâ.

But there is another use we may now well make of the publication of this Rescript of the Vniversity of Oxon; and that is to observe how awkwardly and unseasonably the Author of The Papist Misrepresented, and Repre­sented, hath thought fit to Re­present the Pope as now dedu­cing a Claim to a Higher Pow­er here by the Word of God, than what our Roman-Catholick Universities allowed him in Henry the 8 th's time. For in his 18 th. Chapter, he tells us, ‘That the Papist believes, that [Page 78] there is a Pastor, Governor, and Head of Christs Church under Christ, to wit the Pope, or Bi­shop of Rome, who is the Suc­cessor of St. Peter, to whom Christ committed the Care of his Flock, &c. and now be­lieving the Pope to enjoy his Dignity, he looks on him­self obliged to shew him the Respect, Submission and Obe­dience which is due to his place. And afterward, in this manner is he ready to behave himself towards his CHIEF PASTOR, with all Reverence and Submission, never scru­pling to receive his Decrees and Definitions, such as are issued forth by his Authority, with all their due Circumstan­ces, and according to Law, in [Page 79] the concern of the whole Flock,’

His Answerer doth well reply to him in that point, and with a Candour suitable to the Paci­fick State of the Realm you have predicted, under any Prince of the Roman-Catholick Communi­on; say, viz. ‘How doth it appear that Christ ever made St. Peter Head of the Church, or committed his Flock to him, in contradistinction to the Rest of the Apostles? This is so far from being evident by Scripture, that the Learned Men of their Church, are asha­med of the places commonly produced for it, &c. And af­terward saith, 'We need not in­sist on the Proof of this, since the late mentioned Authors of [Page 80] the Roman Communion, have taken so great pains not only to prove the Popes Supremacy to be an Encroachment and Usurpation in the Church; but that the laying it aside, is ne­cessary to the Peace and Unity of it. And until the Divine Institution of the Papal Su­premacy be proved, it is to no purpose to debate what man­ner of Assistance is promised to the Pope in his Decrees.’

It was (I think) an under­taking, that none but a very Sanguine Man, could suppose fesable to engage us to believe in this Age, that the Pope was by Divine Right, Head of our Church under Christ. I say in this Age, so generally Learned, and when a Layman furnished [Page 81] but with an ordinary Library, can shew that the Churches of the Brittish Islands, England, Scotland and Ireland (as my Lord Primate Bramhal shews in Chap. 5. of his Iust Vindication of the Church of England,) by the Constitution of the Apostles, and by the Solemn Sentence of the Catholick Church, are exempt­ed from all Foreign Iurisdiction, and that if it be objected, that the Bishop of Rome was ever our Patriarch, that all Patriarchal Jurisdiction is of Human Insti­tution; and by the Statute of 35 C. 1. it was declared, that the Holy Church of England, was founded in the State of PRE­LACY (not of Papacy) within the Realm of Eng. (not without it) by the Kings and Peers thereof (not [Page 82] by the Popes) and when in the time of our late Civil Wars, the Presbyterian and Independent Di­vines had by their Claims of Ius Divinum for their Models of Church-Government, so much exercised the understand­ing of the People in general, that at the time of his late Ma­jesties Restoration, restoring to our Church the best Constituted Government in the World, ma­ny of our Virtuosi and Latitu­dinarians could not be brought expresly to own its excellence, on an Universal Ius Divinum praeceptivum, and would say, that in any Church Government that by Divine Right would bind all Churches, there must be not only praxis; but insti­tutio apostolica.

[Page 83]The Pryers into the Rabbini­cal Learning of the Iews, have not been forced more to ob­serve their Criticising on the Di­vinity of the Fire, which burn'd the Sacrifices on the Brazen Al­tar, as coming from Heaven, both when the Tabernacle was erected, and when the Temple was built, and making the fire in the first Temple, to be Divino-Divinus, altogether Holy, and the fire in the second Temple, to be Divino-Humanus, Human Holy, as being kindled as our fire, though still kept in, as the fire of the first Temple was; and the third fire that Nadab and Abihu offered to be Huma­nus, and likewise called by them alienus, as strange fire; then the Readers of the late Contro­vertists [Page 84] of the Ius Divinum of several Forms of Church-Go­vernment among us, have been forced to take notice of their▪ nicety in distinguishing it▪ And now after the Bishop of Rome had before Henry the 8 th's time made the figure of the fire, Divino Humanus, and whose Authority was then Ex­tinguished (for so the Style runs of the Act of Parliament I mentioned of 28 of H. 8 th. viz. An Act for Extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome and as to whose Autho­rity we are told by More, 463. that all the power of the Pope, was not by the 25 of H. 8th. given to the King, but was extinct; in Holy wells Case;) for any Writers without the Heat and Light of [Page 85] much clear Learned Argumen­tation, to rekindle that extin­guished ignis alienus: a strange fire of Foreign power in our Beliefs, will, (I may modest­ly say) be a strange Attempt, and not to be Effected by any Rhetorical Representer.

But here I cannot forbear observing, that the Author of the Papist Misrepresented, &c. doth in his Reflections upon the Answer to his Book in p. 13. re­fering to Dr. Hickes his Iovian, call him a Worthy Divine, and Cite him for saying, that in Case a Popish Julian indeed, should Reign over us, he should believe him uncapable of Repentance, and upon that Supposition, should be tempted to pray for his Destructi­on; and then in seeming Cha­rity [Page 86] to the Church of England deny that, because the Doctor used those Words, it is honest hence to blacken the Church of England, with this Disloyal Prin­ciple, as if she allowed her Mem­bers, though not to fight against, yet to pray for the Destruction of such a Prince.

The Doctor, whose great Learn­ing and Pains taken in doing right to the Succession you have so particularly Represented in your Preface, and whereupon if we reflect on the little or no­thing, ex professo, writ by any Romanists against the Exclusion, it will be no Complement to [...]ay that, he hath therein laboured more abundantly than THEY all, might if it had pleased this Re­presenter, have been deservedly [Page 87] referred to by him, with a high­er Character. And if in any expressions warmer than ordi­nary against the principles of Popery, he had erred by any little Transports in any of his Books, he sufficiently Merited from any Roman Catholick Criticks, their mildest Repre­sentation of them: And it had been but Justice in the Repre­senter, to have Cited the former part of the Doctors Sentence, viz. and if it should please God to plague the Church with such a Spightful Enemy of Christ, &c. And if he had done so, it would have invited the Reader to look back to what the Doctor had written, from the 140 th page, to the passage which he Cites, and then his Reflection would [Page 88] have come to nothing.

By what I have heard of the Doctors Loyalty, I believe him to be one who with Effectual Fervent Prayers, doth Importune Heaven, for his Majesties long and prosperous Reign; and doth his Duty of praising God for his Majesties being so far a Nursing Father to the Church of Eng­land; And I have that opinion of the largeness of his Christian Charity and Justice, that he is ready to retaliate with the Re­presenter, in not blackning the whole Church of Rome, with the principles lately held by some Iesuits and others Casuists re­ferred to in the Popes Decree of March 2 d. 1679. in §. 13, 14, 15. by the 1 st of which, it is rendred no Mortal Sin, to be troubled for [Page 89] the Life of another, so it be done with due Moderaton, and by the second, it is made Lawful to de­sire the Death of ones Father, by an absolute desire, and by the 3 d. Lawful for a Son to rejoyce at the same, and perpetrated by a Son in Drunkenness.

I suppose you could not but take notice how that Answerer of the Papist Mis-represented, &c. reflects on the unlucky instance there in Caiaphas, and saying was not Caiaphas himself the Man, who proposed the taking away the Life of Christ at that time? was he assisted in that Councel? Did not he determine afterward Christ to be guilty of Blasphemy, and therefore worthy of Death?

For you have well observed the ill Luck, that the Famous [Page 90] Hosius (as he is called by you) had in this case of Caiaphas, as to which Dr. Crackanthorp exclaims against Hosius, O Hominem Sa­crilegum ac Blasphemum! Illene reus Mortis, qui innocens & in­noxius vitam dedit? An & Blas­phemus etiam! Ea judicij pars.

You may in Bishop Iewels Apology, find this blot of Ho­sius hit, where speaking of the Pope, p. 151, 152. of the London Edition, in the [...]ear 1581. he saith, Petrus quidem á Soto, & ejus astipulator HOSIVS, nihil dubitant affirmare concilium illud ipsum, in quo Christus Iesus adju­dicatus est morti, habuisse spiritum propheticum, spiritum sanctum, spiritum veritatis: Nec falsum aut vanum fuisse, quod Episcopi illi dixerunt: Nos habemus Le­gem, [Page 91] & secundum legem de­bet mori, illos judicasse (Sic enim scribit HOSIVS) judicij veritatem: omninóque justum fuisse illud decretum, quo ab illis pronuci­atum est, Christum dignum esse qui moreretur. Mirum verò est non posse istos pro se dicere, & propug­nare causam suam, nisi uná etiam Annae Cajaphae (que) pratrocinentur. Nam qui illud ipsum concilium, in quo filius Dei ad crucem ignomi­niosissime condemnatus est, legiti­mum dicent fuisse ac probum; quod tandem illi concilium decernent esse vitiosum? Tamen qualia sunt istorum concilia ferè omnia neces­se illis fuit, ut ista de Cajaphae Annaeque concilio pronunciarent, &c. He there had Cited in the Margin Hosius contra Brentium. lib. 2.

[Page 92]But if so great a Divine as Hosius, who was a Polonian Bi­shop, and Cardinal of Rome, and one of the Popes Legates in the Councel of Trent, did thus err in this point; the mistake of an other therein, who was of an inferior Character, is not to be much wondered at.

However, as I am an Honou­rer of Learned Men, I Derogate not from the Talents of Wit and Learning, shewn in his Book; and do suppose that somewhat of the Moderation he shews therein, may be attributed to the Candour of that Church he was first Educated in: And am sorry that he should find any Cause in his Papist Misrepresen­ted, Chapter 31. Of wicked Principles and Practices, to say, ‘ [Page 93] take but a view of the Horrid practices, She ( i. e. the Church of Rome) hath been engaged in of late years, consider the French and Irish Massacres, the Murder of Hen. the 3 d. and 4 th. Kings of France, the Holy League, the Gunpowder Trea­son, the Cruelty of Queen Ma­ry, the Firing of London, the late Plot in the year 1678. to Subvert the Government, and destroy his Majesty, the Death of Sir Edmund Godfrey, &c. And then tell me whether that Church which hath been the Author and Promoter of such Barbarous Designs, ought to be esteemed Holy, &c. and let never so many pretences be made, yet 'tis evident, that all these Execrable practices have [Page 94] been done according to the known Principles of this Holy Church; and that her greatest Patrons, the most Learned of her Divines, her most Emi­nent Bishops, her Prelates, Car­dinals, and even the Popes themselves, have been the chief Managers of these Hellish Contrivances; and what more convincing Argument, that they are well approved, and conform to the Religion taught by their Church?’ And as to which in his Papist Repre­sented, he fairly saith, ‘Neither let any one pretend to De­monstrate the Faith and Prin­ciples of the Papists, by the Works of every Divine in that Communion, or by the Acts of every Bishop, Cardi­nall [Page 95] or Pope; for they extend not their Faith beyond the Declaration of General Coun­cils, and standing fast to these.’ He had before said there, against what was mentioned in the Papist Misrepresented, about fireing of London, the Late Plot in the year 78, &c. ‘And though he is not bound to believe all to be Truth, that is charged upon them by Adversaries, there being no NARRATIVE of any of these Divelish Con­trivances and Practices laid to them, wherein Passion and Fury have not made great ad­ditions, wherein things dubi­ous, are not improved into certainty, Suspicious into Re­alities; Fears and Jealousies, into Substantial Plots; and [Page 96] downright Lyes, and Recor­ded Perjuries, into Pulpit, nay, Gospel Truth; yet he really thinks, there have been Men of his profession of every rank and degree, &c. that have been Scandalous in their lives, &c. But what then, is the whole Church to be Condem­ned, for the Vicious Lives of some of her professors?’ &c. And in the Conclusion, he saith, ‘These are the Characters of the Papist, as he is Mis-repre­sented, and as he is Represen­ted: And as different, as the one is from the other; So dif­ferent is the Papist, as reputed by his Maligners, from the Pa­pist, as to what he is in him­self. The one is so absurd and monstrous, that 'tis im­possible [Page 97] possible for any one to be of that Profession, without first laying by all thoughts of Christianity and Reason. The other is just Contradictory to this, and without any fur­ther Apology, may be expo­sed to the perusal of all pru­dent and unpassionate consi­derers to examine, if there be any thing in it that deser­veth the Hatred of any Chri­stian, and if it be not in every point, wholly conform to the Doctrine of Christ, and not in the least contrary to Rea­son.’

I will readily accord with him, that Delictum personae non debet ad ecclesie detrimentum trahi: And do therefore sup­pose, that he likewise will not [Page 98] charge the Constitution of the Church of England, with any imperfections; because many of its Members have Mis-repre­sented or Calumniated any Pa­pist. Nor hath any one a great­er Compassion, then my self, for such Innocent and Loyal Papists, as have in the late Fer­mentation, been aspersed with the Shammes in Narratives.

Any one may easily Judge me not untaught, as to the Mo­ral Offices of such Compassion, from the Measures of, Non Ig­nara Mali, &c. I never in the Conjuncture, when we were so much deafned with the Noise of Narratives, thought otherwise of them, than as being partly like the River Euphrates, accor­ding to the known Description [Page 99] of it, in that Hymne of Calli­machus.

[...].

The Recorded Infamous Per­son, who in his Affidavit that made so much noise, and threw so much Dirt on me (and who by being so presumptuous there­in, as to Reproach his Majesty, with things that no Man of Sense could believe, thought to eternize his Name like him, who burn'd the Temple at Ephe­sus) [Page 100] hath Missed of that Aim, as far as in me lay, and so shall: And I think you have done well, in not naming the Profligate. But it having pleased God to permit him, while he was under the Course of his due punish­ment, and under the protection of the Law, to fall by the Hand of an Assassinate, (and at whose Hand, his Majesty required his Blood) that Signal instance of the Justice, inherent in his Ma­jesties Nature, hath sufficiently encouraged all his Liege Peo­ple, to think themselves safe by his being a Terror to Evil Do­ers, and not bearing the Sword in vain: According to the Mo­ral Offices you have so well des­cribed, of not Condemning whole parties, merely on the account of [Page 101] the immoral Actions of particu­lar Members of them; I howe­ver blame not any Religionary Caetus that either the profligate, or assassin referred to for their respective Outrages, did herd with. And as the Author of the Papist Mis-represented, &c. is very fairly desirous, that we should take our measures of the Church of Rome, from the Prin­ciples approved by it, I shall herein Comply with him. But here must say, that I am sorry to find that the Author is in a Church, where the DEPOSING Power, is so much as DE­LIBERATED: For as you have well cited it out of two Hea­then Authors, Dum deliberant, desciverunt; And, Ea deliberan­da omnino non sunt in quibus est [Page 102] turpis ipsa deliberatio. And I am glad, that in his 26 th. Chap. viz. of Mental Reservation, he was enabled to cite the present Pope's Decree, of the 2 d. of March 1679. for the Damning of the Doctrine of Equivocation of Oaths: And among the many Principles of the Iesuits and other Casuists, which may come under your Denomination of ir­religionary ones, that Sicarious one, as you properly call it, viz. It is lawful for a Person of Ho­nour to kill a Man, that intends to Calumniate him, if there is no other way to avoid that Reproach; was in that Decree, very justly Condemn'd: And but for that Principle, having till its Condem­nation been approved in the Church of Rome; there could [Page 103] be no more just cause to charge any Papist, except the Actors, with the Blood of Godfrey, than there was to cast the odium of the Execrable Murder of the Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews, on any of the Presbyterians, ex­cept the Ruffianly Actors.

And as to the case of God­frey, I remember you told me, that since your warm aggravations about it in your DISCOVRSE, you were a colder Concurrer with the Iustice of the Nation therein, and that you, thought there was still somwhat of the Intervallum [...], uncertain, or [...], fabu­lous, in the case of his Death.

And as to what the Author speaks of Papists, being Mis­represented, with relation to the late Plot, in the year 1678. To [Page 104] Subvert the Government, and de­stroy his Majesty: I who in the Conjuncture of the [...] made so little about it, shall not now make any at all. What I have read in a Pacificatory Discourse, of a Pious Divine, published in the year 1653. where speaking of a Spirit of Iealousie, and of envy, strife, Railings, and Evil Surmisings, and having quoted 1. Tim. 6.4. and that Strife and evil surmi­sings, are near of kinne; and that if Contentious Men can get nothing against their Brethren, they will surmise there is something, and if they can find nothing in their Acti­ons to Iudge, they will Iudge their Hearts: If there be nothing a­bove-board, they will think there may be something under-board; and [Page 105] from thinking there MAY BE something; they will think it is very LIKELY there is something; and from LIKELY THERE IS, they will conclude THERE IS, surely there is some PLOT working; hath still since inclined me to be cautious, how in my most private thoughts I charged any Men, and especially, any great Bodies of Men, with PLOTS:

And I think the Author of the Papist Mis-represented, &c. will find enough Protestants as rea­dy as you and my self, to avoid troubling them with the Wit­nesses Plot.

But since the Author hath in this case, thought fit to invite us to a view of the Principles APPROVED, and Conform to the Religion taught by his Church, I [Page 106] shall, reflecting on the Princi­ples approved by so many in that Church, tell him, I cannot but Judge them short of that unconditional Loyalty, you have so clearly asserted in your Dis­cussion; and shall judge, as the L. Falkland the Secretary did, in the Letter to Mr. Mountague I before referred to, where his Lordship on Mr. Mountagues making POPERY the way to O­bedience, having had these words, viz. ‘I cannot but say, that though no Tenet of their whole Church (which I know) makes at all against it; yet there are prevailing opinions of that side, which are not fit to make good Subjects, when their Kings and they are of different perswasions; and [Page 107] having quoted D' Ossat, for say­ing, that it is the Spaniards Maxim, that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks, and more, that the Pope intimated as much in a Discourse, inten­ded to perswade the King of France to forsake the Queen of England; and that they hold at Rome, that the Pope to avoid a probable Danger of the en­creasing of Heresy, may take away a Territory from the true owner, and dispose of it to another; and many also defend, that he hath power to Depose an Heretical Prince, and of Heresy, he makes him­self the Judge:’ His Lordship with a profound Charity and Iudg­ment, thus goeth on, viz. ‘So that though I had rather my [Page 108] Tongue should cleave to the Roof of my Mouth, than that I should deny that a Papist may be a good Subject, even to a King, whom he accounts an Heretick; since I verily be­lieve, that I my self know very many very good: Yet Popery is like to an ill Air, wherein, though many keep their Healths, yet many are Infect­ed, (so that at most, they are good Subjects; but during the Popes pleasure) and the rest are in more danger, than if they were out of it.’

Moreover, as to the firing of London; which the Author referreth to, in his Papist Mis­represented, as well as the Death of Godfrey, I was always as careful as you were, to charge [Page 109] no more Papists with the Odium of it, than such as the Justice of the Nation Criminated therewith. Moreover, if any one will have it, that Hubert and Peidelow were not Papstis, I shall not account it tanti, to contend with him about it, and as you told me lately, that you would not I remember when we were long since Discoursing of that fire, you shewed me a Book of Vigelius a Civilian, who treat­ing, de praesumptionibus quaesti­onum facti, laid it down as a particular Rule, viz. Si de cau­sâ incendij quaeritur, culpâ inha­bitantium praesumitur factum, and saith, quae regula approbatur l. 3. §. 31. ff de officio praefecti vigilum, ubi Paulus plerumque (inquit) in­cendia fiunt culpâ inhabitantium.

[Page 110]Moreover you once shew'd me it represented, as a Rule in Magerus his Advocatia armata, that damnum quod ignoratur à quo provenerit, ab inimico illatum esse praesumitur; which doth partly agree with the presumpti­on of the causer of the dam­age mentioned in the parable of the tares, an enemy, hath done this: And you have with Can­dour in the Papists behalf, in p. 180. to shew that the Pope was not the inimicus Homo, helped them to the Testimony of an ad­versary, I mean of Marvil, in his growth of Popery.

You have likewise done Iu­stice to the Papists, in p. 181. Exploding the great popular Ar­gument of London, being de­signedly [Page 111] fired, by many Popish Persons; because of the flames breaking out at once, in several places▪ distant from one ano­ther: An Argument, that the Au­thor of Pyrotechnica-Loyolana, printed in London, in the year 1667. doth in p. 130. lay great stress on, and saith, that as at Cracow in Poland (which he had before accused the Iesuits for having fired) the flames did break out there, in several places of the City, at the Tops of Houses, so here the fire did break first out at the Tops of several Houses, which were every way, at a consi­derable distance, from the conti­guous burning in the main Body, &c. And therefore on the Ac­count of the thing you menti­oned, and which is obvious e­nough [Page 112] in Nature, a fire first caused in London, or Cracow, cul­pâ inhabitantium, might after­ward appear, breaking out in several distant places thereof. And I have several times told you, how I was in the behalf of the Roman Catholicks, troubled at the Votes of the House of Commons, that threw the Guilt of the fire of London, on the Pa­pists in general; and likewise, at what was spoke by an Eminent Son of our Church, and Minister of his late Majesties, that at the Condemnation of the Lord Staf­ford, in effect did so, for there, as you have truly said in p. 179. the Evidence did not rise High and Clear enough; for the charging any Papist with it. Nor need I now tell you, that I was in the [Page 113] year 79 sorry to find that a Pam­phlet against Popery, that char­ged the Papists in general, with the Fire of London, and with that, particularly of the Tem­ple, caused by a Non-Papist De­bauchè, who was burn'd in it, was then Licenced by a very Loy­al and Learned Licenser.

But since our Roman-Ca­tholick Author, in his Papist Mis­represented, doth partly found the Mis-representation, on these execrable practices having been done according to the known Principles of the Church of Rome, I shall take this occasion he hath given me, to offer it to him, to consider how far any known principle, founded on the Papal Usurpations, and ap­proved either BY or IN that [Page 114] Church, might have Legitima­ted a practice of the like Na­ture: As for Example, the Fi­ring of the Heretical Villages at the Massacre of Merindol, af­firm'd by Heylin and Maim­bourg, and the designed one of the City of Westminster, in the Gunpowder-Treason: And shall leave it to the ingenious Author to Recollect, whether any Di­vines or Divine of the Church of England he withdrew from, and much more whither any of its Canons, approved any princi­ciple of that extravagant Na­ture.

Whatever Impressions it may make on his Thoughts, or those of the Gentleman you re­fer to in p. 173. (and there men­tion with Honour; and, as one [Page 115] though having forsaken the Communion of the Church of England; yet being a Pi­ous and Learned Roman Ca­tholick, and of a nice tender­ness of Conscience, and a lover of Truth as such, and whose Inquisitiveness in Religion, is not at its Journeys end in Rome, and whom you have found in­clined to return to the Church of England, if the Tenent I shewed you, discussed by Gun­dissalvus, and asserted in the gloss and Text of the Canon Law, can be charged on the Church of Rome, as approved by it) I know not; but shall here send you a Transcript of the same, and shall first observe, that the sedes materiae for this Tenet, that a whole City may [Page 116] be burned with fire, if the Ma­jor part thereof were Hereticks, is in the Body of the Canon Law, namely in the Text of the Decrets it self, Can. si audieris 23 Caus. Q. 5.

And if any one will consult the Body of the Canon Law, with the gloss and Case of the Edition at Turin, in the year 1620, he will find it there as followeth.

SI AVDIERIS. CASVS.

Cyprianus fuit interrogatus an mali post adventum Domini in hunc mundum, morte sint puni­endi; Et certe respondet quod sic: quia si ante adventum Christi hoc fuit; ut probabitur autoritate Deu­teronomij & exemplo Matathiae: Multo fortius post adventum Chri­sti hoc fieri debet: Autoritas du­rat [Page 117] a principio usque. ibi cujus praecepti. Postea sunt verba Cy­priani. SI AUDIERIS. Haec ver­ba sumpta sunt de Deuterono usque ad illum locum hujus prae­cepti.

Necabis] Tu quicunque sis: Et sic quandoque ille qui non est judex potest punire malesicos, &c.

OMNES QUI. si Ergo aliqui haeretici sunt in una civitate tota civitas possit exuri & sic eccle­sia vel civitas punitur pro delicto personarum ut 25. q. 2. ita nos, &c.

NVNC] id est in futurum, &c.

CVIVS] haec suntverba Cy­priani.

MATATHIAS] ut legitur in libro Machabeorum.

[Page 118] Item Cyprianus lib. de exhorta­tione Martyrij cap 5.

Principes saeculi pessimis par­cere non debent. 34.

§ Si audieris in unâ ex civita­tibus quas dominus deus tuus da­bit tibi inhabitare illic, dicentes, eamus & serviamus dijs alijs quos non novisti, interficiens ne­cabis omnes qui sunt in civitate caede gladij: Et incendes civi­tatem igni, & erit sine habitaculo in aeternum; non reaedificabitur etiam nunc, ut avertatur dominus ab indignatione irae suae; & da­bit misericordiam tibi & miseri­bitur tui & multiplicabit te, si exaudieris v [...]cem dom dei tui & observaveris praecepta ejus. Cujus praecepti & rigoris memor Mata­thias inte [...]fecit eum qui ad aram sacrificaturus accesserat. Quod [Page 119] si ante adventum Christi circa de­um colendum & idola spernenda haec praecepta servata sunt; quan­to magis post adventum Christi servanda sunt, quando ille veni­ens non tantum verbis nos horta­tus est, sed & factis.

To this place in the Canon Law, Gundissalrus refers in his Discourse against Heretical Pravity; and which I shewed you in my Study among the Tractatus Criminales, published by Franciscus Maria Passerus at Venice, in the year 1556. and where in p. 158. he hath discus­sed the Tenet at large, and ex professo. 'Tis among those Cri­minal Tractates called Tra­ctatus contra haereticam pravita­tem per Gundissalrum de villa diego Sacri Palatij Apostolici [Page 120] Auditorem. char. 158. and where it follows thus, viz.

Without troubling my self to make a formal Translation of this place, of Gundissalvus; I shall for the benefit of Common Readers, set down the Substance of it in English, omitting the References [Page 129] to most of the quotations out of Lawyers, which to the un­learned in the Laws, might seem uncouth, and which the Learned may Consult as they please in the Latin Transcript, viz.

If any one would know [Page 140] what figure Gundissalvus makes in the account of the Learned Papal World, you may tell him, that I suppose that Tra­ctate of his against Heretical pravity, was Printed long be­fore it was bound up with the Tractatus Criminales, before mentioned: For that by one whom I Employed to Consult the TRACTATES in 17 Volums, in the Edition of Lions, in the Year 1544. I am informed, that, that Work of Gundissalvus, is there in the Second Volume, fol. 267. (the which alone, would shew him to be a considerable Author) and in the course of my Cursory View of some Ci­vil Law Books writ of matters of State, I have read him res­pectfully cited by Magerus de [Page 141] Advocatiâ Armatâ, cap. 8. and p. 205. and by Klockius in his Book De Contributionibus. And as an Indication of his not being va­lued as a singular or Heterodox Author by Passerus, who pub­lished the Criminal Tractates a­foresaid, you may find som­what of the Famous Boerius his Tractatus de Seditiosis, publish­ed in the same Volume, viz. char. 57. n 18. asserted to the same purpose.

But none need wonder at Gundissalvus, giving his opini­on as he did, when he tells us, that Iohannes Andreas, and Lau­rentius, two Famous Canonists, seemed to be of opinion, that an Heretical City, might be de­stroyed by any one; and with­out the Judgment of the [Page 142] Church, particularly ordering it.

Yet here in this place, I have Cited out of Gundissalvus, it is worthy of observation, that some passages may render him appearing no Slave to Impli­cit Faith, or one as I may say that roweth in the Popes Galleys. His Judging of the Case, as he did with so much Horror, was very Commendable in him; as was likewise his reproof of the Cannonists by him Cited; and his saying that ones pen was to have been more tempered, and his differing from the measures of the Text and Gloss about the Canon Si audieris, and the In­terpretation of the 13 th. of Deu­teronomy and answering the ob­jection thence taken, and from [Page 143] the Authority of Cyprian, seems to have in it something of the Noble Berean. But after all he doth in reality shew himself an arrant Canonist, and with other Canonists by him cited, he founds the Papal power of de­stroying Heretical Cities, on the Popes being a kind of Prince or fifth Monarch over the World, and on Heresie being a rebellion against him: And that where the Major part of a City are Hereticks, the most mode­rate of the Canonists think the destruction of it is lawful, if there be the Judgment of the Church, that is to say, of the Pope in the case, as any could think the Destroying of a City, where the Majority were Rebels when decree'd by a Soveraign Prince.

[Page 144]No doubt but to all Loyal Roman Catholicks who are willing on all occasions to testify their Loyalty by the oppo­sing that Irreligionary part of Popery (as you call it) which re­fers to the Vsurpations of the Papaute, and to its pretended Universal Monarchy, the Pub­lishing of this or any Tenet that sheweth the Absurdity of the Popes claiming such a Power cannot be unwelcom. And as you have well urged it that the Canon Law was never in Gross received in Eng. in the time of our Roman Catholick Ancestors, so it would be a vain expence of time to shew that this parti­cular Canon, Si Audieris, never was, and that Malicious and Voluntary Burning of Houses [Page 145] being an Hostile Action, is presumed in our Law to be done for Revenge, and as by an Enemy, to Consume the same by Fire, in time of Peace. Any such For­aign power would by our Roman Catholick ancestors have been Presently Adjudged to come under the Notion of what I before referred to, as Ignis Alienus, and of outraging our Country Modo guerrino; and the very claim thereof in the Canon Law cannot but make all considerate and Loyal Roman Catholicks startle at the thought of the Extravagance of the former papal Vsurpations in the world abroad.

But you have from p. 259. to 265. with so much Candour and Fairness, discoursed of this [Page 146] Savage Tenet in the Canon Law, that you have saved any one else much of his Labour in do­ing it; and I could wish, that all Writers of Religionary Con­troversie, would proceed by such your Measures of thinking them­selves Morally obliged, to say all that the matter will fairly bear on both sides. And I accord with you, in Judging any wri­ter to be a kind of Falsarius, who doth not so: And am glad that you having so Justly branded that poor partial way of Writing, wherein too ma­ny Protestant, as well as Popish Authors, have appeared so defe­ctive, you have afforded the Age so fair a Specimen of Writing with Morality about a Tenet very unmoral, and in so Cool [Page 147] and Dispassionate a manner of a Tenet so fiery.

I am not now to tell you, what you have so long known of me, viz. That I never was a Lover of the Canon Law: And that though I always had a great Honour for the Princi­ples of Nature and Reason, ap­pearing in the Civil Law, yet as I never thought better of the Canon Law, than Albericus Gen­tilis did in his 9 th. Chapter, and Second Book, De Nuptijs, where he saith, sed hoc jus brutum & barbarum sanè est, natum in tene­bris Saeculorum Spississimis, pro­ductum a Monacho, Tenebrione, &c. So my finding particularly Cyprian so miserably abused in the Canon of Si audieris, hath made me the more to Nauseate [Page 148] it. For it is evident, that the place in Cyprian, doth not prove what Gratian proposeth, viz. That a whole City now under the Gospel, may be burned for a few Hereticks inhabiting in it.

'Tis plain, that Cyprian's de­sign there is to encourage all good Christians, rather to suf­fer Martyrdom, than to com­mit Idolatry, by Worshipping other Gods; that being the Ti­tle and Subject of the Epistle, De exhortatione Martyrij; and in order to this, he shews Gods great Hatred, and severe punish­ing of Idolatry, Namely, from Deut. 1 [...].6. (the which making nothing for that Monks pur­pose, he wisely leaveth it out of his Canon) and from v. 12 th. and [Page 149] 13 th. of that Chapter, viz. If thou shalt hear say in one of thy Cities, which the Lord thy God hath given thee to dwell there, certain Men, the Children of Be­lial, are gone from among you, and have withdrawn the Inhabi­tants of their City, saying, let us go and serve other Gods, &c. 'Tis therefore plain, that this severe Law▪ concerned only the Cities of Israel; the words in that Text being One of THY Cities, which the Lord thy God hath Given THEE. And as the Law under that penalty, was given only to the Iews in Cana­an, so it obliged them only, and not any other People of any other Country. Moreover as to the Words in the Text, viz. withdraw the Inhabitants of their [Page 150] City, and which Gratian thought fit to leave out, they may be said to be Indefinite, and may mean all the Inhabitants: And then it was evidently Just, to kill them all, according to the words in Cyprian, Etiam si uni­versa Civitas consenserit ad ido­lolatriam. But if the Major part be not indeed meant then, if you will consult Ainsworths ex­cellent Commentary, on Deut. 13. v. 12, 13. you will find, that the Doctors among the Iews, say, that if a Major part of the Ci­ty be drawn to Idolatry, then that Major part shall be slain, and the City be burned. But if the Minor part only be drawn to Idolatry, then they say, that Minor part shall be Slain; but the City shall not be burnt. This [Page 151] the Iewish Doctors, who un­derstood that Text, much bet­ter than Gratian or Iohn Se­meca his Glossator, took to be the meaning of that Text, and so likewise many Learned Chri­stians did.

Cyprian then having shewn how great a Sin Idolatry was; and how hateful it was to God, he adds, Si ante Adventum Chri­sti Circa Deum Colendum & Idola Spernenda haec precepta servata sunt, quanto magis post adventum Christi servanda sunt? But we know, Mosaical precepts ▪ are either De officijs, or de poenis. And as to the former, namely, Moral Offices, or Duty to God, and our Neighbour; Of precepts for these Cyprian says, that if they were observed before Christ, [Page 152] then quantò magis post adventum Christi, &c. who had in his Sermon on the Mount, fully ex­plained, and given us the true meaning of them. And the clearer understanding of any Laws, doth certainly in­duce a stronger Obligation from them: And hence it is, that Cyprian thinks truly that Christians are more strictly ob­liged to observe the Moral Law, than the Iews were. But the Laws de paenis & supplicijs, Cy­prian doth not at all mention, nor in that place intend or mean. For Christians are not bound to inflict the same punishments on the Transgressours of the Law, to which the Iews by the Mosaical Law were bound. For to the Iews Adultery, or breach [Page 153] of the Sabbath, were Capital Crimes: But not so among the Christians. Theft was not Ca­pital by Moses his Law: Yet by the Law of England it is. By the Iews Law, it was an Eye for an Eye, and a Tooth for a Tooth; but our Blessed Lord declares against that severity, as not to be used amongst Chri­stians. And yet our Monarchus Tenebrio, would have Cyprian understood de poenis; and against Truth and the Sense of Cyprian concludes, that because Idola­try was by the Iews Law pun­ished with Death, therefore it should be so punished, since Christ, under the Gospel.

Gratian ends his Quotation out of Cyprian, with these words, viz. Si ante adventum Christi [Page 154] haec praecepta servata sunt quan­to magis post adventum servanda sunt, quando ille veniens non verbis tantum nos hortatus est, sed & factis? By which words he would prove, that our Lord did both by Words and Deeds, exhort us to Kill Hereticks: Whereas there is not one word in Cyprian, or the Texts of Scrip­ture he Cites, which any way concerns Hereticks or Heresie; but only Idolaters and Idolatry, which are things of a far diffe­rent Nature. And had Grati­an considered what immediate­ly follows there in Cyprian (and which he there unluckily leaves out) he might have clearly seen that Cyprian neither said nor meant, that the Meek and the Holy Iesus, did, by Deeds or [Page 155] Words, Exhort Men to kill He­reticks. But that which Cypri­an truly saith, our Blessed Sa­viour did by Deeds and Words Exhort us to, was that Christi­ans should patiently suffer, and by no means renounce the Gospel by serving Idols, and by Idolatry. For as to those words with which Gratian ends his Ca­non, viz▪ Christus veniens non verbis tantum nos hortatus est, sed factis, there should have been only a Comma after factis, though Gratian makes a full point, as if it concluded the Sen­tence. It immediately follows in Cyprian thus, viz. Non ver­bis tantum nos hortatus sit, sed & factis, post omnes Injurias & contumelias passus & Crucifixus, ut nos pati & mori exemplo suo [Page 156] doceret, ut nulla sit homini ex­cusatio pro se (pro Christo) non patienti, Cum ille passus sit pro nobis, &c. In short, that which Cyprian saith, Christ taught us with Words and Deeds was not, that we should Kill Hereticks, as Gratian would have it; but that we should willingly suffer Death for the Gospel, rather than be Idolaters.

We know that in the case of the Samaritans (who were both Hereticks and Idolaters) when Iames and Iohn would have had fire from Heaven, to Con­sume them, our Blessed Saviour Rebuked them, and said, that the Son of Man was not come to destroy Mens Lives; but to save them.

Because I love to make no [Page 157] breach among Christians wi­der, and because in p. 260. you have, in general, mentioned Gratian's Misciting of Cyprian, and in p. 261. shewed that Gratian's founding a Tenet on Cyprian, or any places out of other Authors, giveth it only the weight that Cyprian and they had in their proper Works, &c. I have here thought it worth while, to shew that Papists are under no Moral Obligation by this Canon, Si audieris, and do believe, that the more Sagacious Persons of the Church of Rome, do (as is said in Pere verons Book, you in the page last ci­ted refer to) make Gratian's Decrees, and the gloss claime no­thing of Faith, and so even in the country's of the Pope, [Page 158] where the Canon Law is in force, this part of the Decrees, so wilfully mistaken by Gratian out of Cyprian, can bind none in Conscience.

And therefore as to what you mention of the Roman Catholick Gentlemans obser­ving, that the Council of Trent had gone far in the Confirma­tion of the Canon Law, &c. I account you have said enough to Answer that Objection: For though the Council of Trent hath it in the 25 th. Session C. 20. De Reformatione p 623, 624. of the Edition at Antwerp, in the year 1033 that Praecipit sancta synodus sacros canones, & conci­lia generalia omnia, necnon alias Apostolicas sanctiones in favorem Ecclesiasticarum personarum, li­bertatis [Page 159] Ecclesiasticae, & contra ejus violatores editas quae omnia praesenti decreto innovat, exactè ab omnibus observari debere; tho' other expressions in that Coun­cil, may seem to confirm some parts of the Canon Law, they cannot (I think) Rationally be extended to confirm any thing therein that was void, ab initio, and so not obligatory, and as this Canon, Si audieris, appears not to be, by Gratians falsificati­on as to Cyprian.

But how far a Tenet or Principle of this Nature, branded by no Index expurgato­rius, is yet chargeable on the Papacy as approved by it, I leave to consideration, and do think it great pitty, that when a Pope could find leisure by a Bull, that [Page 160] I find King Iames the I. men­tions in his Works, as begin­ning with, Exurge Deus, to Damn among other sayings, that of Luther, Nova vita est optima paenitentia; he did not find time to censure this thing in his Canon Law.

I thank God that I am Em­barqued in a Church, whose Ar­ticles and Canons contain no­thing inserted in them by any Falsarius; and by which no­thing is approved, or imposed on me to own, contrary to the Liberty purchased for me by my Redeemer. You have in p. 71. cited a late Author of the Com­munion of this Church, for say­ing that Image-Worship, invoca­tion of Saints, Transubstantiati­on, Purgatory are, and will be [Page 161] Learnedly and Voluminously defen­ded on each side, to the Worlds End; and perhaps in the World abroad, it will be so. But I agree with you, in believing that the Present State of Eng­land doth, and probable fu­ture one of it will here render Voluminous Writings of all The­ological Controversies out of Fashion.

Your p. 170. contains in it one Theological consideration, of more value in my Opinion, than many Tomes of Controver­sy, viz. that Papists as well as others of Mankind, have a right and title to the free and undistur­bed Worshipping of God, and the confession of the Principles of Re­ligion, purchased for them, by the Blood of Christ: And the very [Page 162] consideration of the Duty in­cumbent on all Christians, to stand fast in this Liberty, so dear­ly purchased for them, would, if I were in the External Com­munion of the Roman Catho­lick Church, prevail with me to leave it, though there were per­haps, no other Argument in the case.

I have here our great Dr. Iackson on my side, in thus Judging in his Treatise of the Church, 14th. Chapter, where having given two Reasons as just and necessary for which Men may, and ought to separate them­selves from any visible Church, and named this as the first ▪ ‘Namely, when they are urged and constrained to profess or believe some points of Do­ctrine, [Page 163] or to adventure upon some practices, which are contrary to the Rule of Faith, or Love of God,’ he mentions this as the Second, viz. ‘In case they are utterly deprived of Freedom of Conscience, in professing what they inwardly believe, &c. for which he quotes, 1 Cor. 7.23. ye are bought with a price, be not ye Servants of Men.’

‘Although ( saith he) we were perswaded that we could communicate with such a Church, without evident dan­ger of Damnation, yet in as much as we cannot Commu­nicate with it, upon any bet­ter Terms than Legal Servants or Bondslaves do with their Masters, we are bound in Con­science [Page 164] and Religious Discre­tion, when lawful occasions and opportunities are offered, to use our liberty, and to seek our Freedom, rather than to live in Bondage▪’

I am far from desiring to entrench on this liberty for Pa­pists, in matters or Tenets pro­perly denominable by the Term of Religionary ones (according to the expression by you fre­quently used) and do suppose, though there were no such thing in the World, as a Pope or Patriarch, that the Religio­nary Tenets of Transubstantia­tion and Purgatory, &c. may continue to be believed by ma­ny; and if any one shall con­trary to the Sense of the Go­vernment, and of Acts of Par­liament [Page 165] in Henry 8 ths time, be­lieve, as the Representer doth, that the Bishop of Rome hath here in Spirituals▪ more pow­er by the Word of God, than other Foraign Bishops; I shall not endeavour by any severity, to impose on him the contrary Belief: But yet shall still by virtue of that Sacred Word, think my self bound, and that particular passage in it cited by Dr. Iackson, not to be a Servant of Men, as to any Doctrinal Impositions; and to forbear external Communion with any Church, that would impose upon my Belief.

I know of none of the Church of England, who hath avowed the practice of more Indul­gence to Papists in the Confes­sion [Page 166] of their Religionary Princi­ples, than I have done: And I thank God, that my practice in this kind, hath not been by Fits or Starts, or Turns of Times or Humours; but that my Life hath in this Point of doing Just and Charitable Offices, to all Consciencious and Loyal Pa­pists been as (I may say) a Thred even spun upon every Wheel of Providence. Your self can tell of the Signal good Offices I did to many Papists, and to others, that a Cla­morous Common Fame would have run down as Popishly Af­fected, when you applyed to me then in their behalf, during the Season of some of the late Narratives; and I am able fur­ther to do you the Justice, as [Page 167] to remember what you have long ago told me (and what I had reason to believe) that when the figure you made in another of his Majesties Realms, allowed you Virtute officij, to have made many thousands of them groan under the Burden of the Penal Laws, you held your self, in Conscience ob­liged not to do it, but on the contrary, to rescue them from the least Hardship thereby.

But I shall here take occasion to tell you, that I have scarce in any thing more shewed my Friendliness to the Persons of some of my Roman Catholick Friends, than by my Advice to them that they would apply to the Writers of their Church, to forbear troubling our Eng­lish [Page 168] World with new Models of Reconciliation of Churches.

And indeed, Nature doth now Loudly enough tell us, that the Real Peace of Kingdoms ought not to be troubled by projects of a Chi­merical one between Churches. The best Men are Reconciled to one another, and the Recon­ciling of all the worst Men in the World together, would make their Association more troublesom to Mankind: And when we know that the Bigots of the Church of Rome can stir no further from the Coun­cel of Trent, than our Soldiers in Africa, could from their Gar­rison of Tangier before the Peace, there is no thinking of their Travelling far to meet [Page 169] us. And if any one suppose that they would meet us half way, yet notwithstanding he might likewise according to the Principles of Nature suppose that the other Moiety of the Theological Controversies not agreed in, would occasionally render Mens Spirits more Tem­pestuous toward each other, and the publick; as we usually see Storms to be most violent about the Season of the Equi­noctial. Moreover, they who give themselves the Office of Re­concilers general, or intrude in­to the Station of the Publick Mediators, appearing thereby hot and unquiet in their own tempers, & rendring themselves always liable to disquiet from abroad, by attacks from all par­ties, [Page 170] are of all Men the most unlikely to be universal Peace-Makers, or to gain any Blessing by being such And as you have in your Discourse Studi­ously declined the use of the little Names of Distinctions of three differing Parties in the State, so shall I likewise do; but can easily give you occasion to guess which of them refers to Men most Hated, and most Im­politick, by Minding you how the Systematical Writers of Politicks do often call neuters Middle Region Men, and such as being Lodged in the Middle Rooms▪ are annoyed with the droppings from above, and smoak from below.

You have expressed your self in your Preface and Discourse as [Page 171] so much agreeing with me in this Subject, that I shall be but Just to you, in owning my Be­lief, that your varying from some of the Measures of the Church of England in some Points tended not to encou­rage others to undertake the Thankless Office of being Match-Makers of Church­es.

I know very well, what my Lord Primate Bram­hall, in order to shewing that the Sons of the Church of Eng­land are not Slaves to its Arti­cles, saith, In his Iust Vindication of the Church of England; and how Mr. Chillingworth in his Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation, tells us, that by the Religion of Protestants, he [Page 172] understands not the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin, or Melanch­ton, nor the Articles of the Church of England, &c. But that where­in they all agree, and which they all Subscribed, &c. as a perfect Rule of their Faith and Actions, that is, the Bible, the Bible I say, the Bible only is the True Religion of Protestants, &c.

And therefore what ever freedom you justly claim, by the Charter of the Bible, to confess any Religionary Tenets howe­ver different from those I own, I am not to envy you: But do know, that I am bound to pit­ty you, or any else of Man­kind, that I shall think to err therein, though it should be in any Religionary Tenet of Pope­ry [Page 173] it self, or in the Power of the Bishop of Rome in Imposing Creeds or Rules of Divine Wor­ship on Men by Divine Right, as part of your Description of Popery runs; and as to which I think, there may be occasion in your Review of it, to avoid giving more Offence both to the Church of England, and that of Rome thereby, than you perhaps intended

I have observed a late French Writer to avoid the Censure of describing the Communion of the Church of Rome, or the Faith of that Church by a doubtful Name, having used the Term la Catho­licitè. But as to your Descrip­tion of Popery, I may mind you, that according to your [Page 174] Quotation in p. 318. out of Ames, of the Seven Venetian Divines, who, in that most Iu­dicious Tractate of theirs (as Ames calls it) of the Papal In­terdict, affirmed, that a Christi­an ought not to obey any Com­mand of the Popes, unless he had first examined the Command, as far as the Subject Matter required, whether it were convenient, law­ful and Obligatory, and that he Sins, who Implicitly obeys it; those Divines though adhe­ring to la Catholicitè firmly e­nough, did thereby throw off the Power of the Bishop of Rome, in imposing Creeds and Do­ctrines, and Rules of Divine Worship on Men, as much as your Description doth: And the Vene­tians particularly opposing the [Page 175] Popes Interloping in their Juris­diction, that other thing refer­red to in your Description, is sufficiently known. But if by your Description of Popery, you intend only to give us a Dictio­nary of your Sense of the word generally, as used by you; and that you intend by the Exter­mination of Popery, the Banish­ing only of those Principles of it, that are Irreligionary, out of Mens Minds; namely, the Principles that tend to the Popes Spiritual and Temporal Vsurpa­tions: I am not to quarrel with your expressing your own meaning, But as I Judge se­veral Roman-Catholick Writers using the Term Popery, to in­tend thereby, the Religion of the Church of Rome, as for ex­ample, [Page 176] the Author of the Compendium, saying what I be­fore referred to, that nothing but Popery or at least its Prin­ciples, can make the Monarchy of England again emerge or last­ing (yet as to which a Divine Sentence was in the Mouth of the King, when in his Gracious Ex­pressions in Council concern­ing the Church of England, he Judged otherwise, and said, I know the Principles of that Church, are for Monarchy, &c.) and meaning by Popery, what was called la Catholicitè, I shall say, that according to the com­mon acception of the Word Popery, were I to explain what I usually mean by it, I would declare, that I mean not only the Power of the Bishop of Rome; [Page 177] but of any General Councils in Imposing Creeds and Doctrines, &c. on me: And I desiring to have all Religionary Errors ba­nished out of my understand­ing, and Loving my Neighbour, as my self, will desire they may be so out of his, and particu­larly, if after he knoweth he is bought with a price, he shall think it lawful for him to be a Servant of Men: And will not only weigh the Commands and De­crees of any Bishop, But of any General Council whatsoe­ver: And if in Matters that Import my Salvation, I find them contrary to the Bible, with a Salvo to the Reverence I owe to all Lawful General Councils, I will desire them to excuse me from obeying them. Were it [Page 178] not for what you have so well in p. 48. said, that the Protestant Religion not making the intenti­on of the Preist essential to the Sacrament of the Eucharist, is more strongly assertive of the Real presence there, than the Popish Hypothesis, and for that great and excellent Notion of yours, in your Discourse, viz. That Papists and others being bought with a Price; that therefore they ought not to be the Servants of Men, and my Judging that according to what I have men­tioned out of Dr, Iackson, that you would separate your self from any Church, that impo­sed any thing Magisterially on Mens Faiths, I might think that perhaps, had you lived in the Reign of Henry the 8 th, you [Page 179] would not have separated from the Ecclesia Anglicana, as then by Law Established.

And therefore, when by your warm Expressions in p. 47. af­ter you have said, that the Pro­testation that the Protestant Re­ligion requires, is such a continu­al one, as is Reiterated upon eve­ry fresh Act and Attempt of the Papal Religion, upon ours; (and whereby it would impose Creeds and Doctrines on us, contrary to the Liberty of the Church of England, as now by Law Established) You tell us, that We are to shew no Mercy to these Principles of Popery, that disquiet the World, and on the several occasions offered, protest against the Damages, that both our King and Country, may have from [Page 180] the Rage of Popery, I may tell you; that this PROTESTANCY a­mounts to no more than what we read of in the Review of the Council of Trent, where in Book 1. and 12 th. Chapter, the Au­thor refers to the French King by his Embassadors, causing a PROTESTATION to be made against the Council of Trent, and as appeared by the Oration there made by Mr. Arnold de Ferriers, the 22 d. of September, 1563. where among other things▪ having mentioned ma­ny grievances, he saith, that according to the Commands of the most Christian King, they were constrained CONCILIO INTER­CEDERE VT NVNC INTER­CEDEBANT, by the same To­ken, that that Book relates, how [Page 181] thereupon a certain Prelate of the Council of Trent, not well un­derstanding the Propriety of the Word Intercedere, which the Tri­bunes were wont of Old to use, when thay made their Oppositions and Hinderances, asked his Neigh­bour, PRO QVO ORAT REX CHRISTIANISSIMVS?

But of the French Kings Embassadors protesting not only against Grievances in the Council of Trent; but against it self, as a Grievance, and of some occasions thereof, it will come in my way to speak here­after.

Nor was there ever any In­strument or Paper Writ with more sharpness of Anger and Scorn in the way of Defiance against Papismus or Popery, than [Page 182] H. the 8 ths Protestation against the Council of Trent; and yet in­clusive too of another Protesta­tion, I mean, of his Adherence to the Faith then called Catho­lick. That long Protestation calls the Pope by the Name of Bishop of Rome, and saith, sure­ly except God take away our right Wits, not only his Authority shall be driven out for ever; but his NAME also shall be forgotten in England.

Nor did ever any Protestant Writer in Queen Elizabeths, or King Iames the First's time, or in our late Fermentation, so zea­lously press the Exterminating of the Papal Power, as Henry the 8ths. Proclamation, about the Abolishing the same, Triumph at its being here done: And [Page 183] where he saith: We have by Good and Wholsom Laws and Statutes made for this purpose, EX [...]IR­PED, ABOLISHED▪ Separated and Secluded out of this our Realm, the Abuses of the Bishop of Rome, his Authority and Iu­risdiction, of long time Vsurped, &c. And the King there Or­ders, all manner of Prayers, Orai­sons, Rubricks, Canons of Mass-Books, and all other Books in the Churches, wherein the Bishop of Rome is NAMED, or his Pre­sumptuous and proud Pomp and Authority preferred, utterly to be Abolished, Eradicate, and Razed out, and his NAME and Me­mory, to be never more (except to his Contumely and Reproach) re­membred; but perpetually sup­pressed and obscured.

[Page 184]The Act of 28 of Henry the 8 th. before spoken of, called an Act for Extinguishing the Au­thority of the Bishop of Rome, was here referred to, and which Act, and other Acts of Parlia­ment Establishing the Kings Su­premacy, and Excluding the Pope for ever, I mentioned as revived in Queen Elizabeths time▪ after their being repeal'd in Queen Mary's.

I need not observe to you, how this present French King hath likewise lately shewn a ve­ry Commendable Zeal for the Exterminating the Vsurpations of the Papal Power in the Bu­siness of the Regalia, and that the Case of that Kings Power is much altered for the better, since D' Ossat Writ to Villeroy [Page 185] from Rome with so much Joy, for his having found out an ex­pedient, as to the difference be­tween Henry the 4 th. and the Pope, about the granting to one a Church- Dignity in France, Namely, to have the Words put into the Popes Bull thus, viz. pro quo Christianissimus Rex scripsit, instead of quem Rex Christianissimus nominavit.

I doubt not, but your Curi­osity hath led you to see a Co­py of the Letter, writ to the French King, on the 10 th. of Iuly, 1680. by the Arch Bish­ops and Bishops, and other Ec­clesiasticks of France appoint­ed by the Clergy there, about the last Breve of this Pope, upon the Subject of the Regale, in which Letter they take notice, [Page 186] how THIS POPE required him not to subject any of their Church­es to the right of the Regale, and threatned him, that he would make use of his Authority, if his Majesty did not Submit to the Paternal Remonstrances he had often made, and repeated to him about that point; and they there pass, as YOVR Protestants, so far, as to make a PROTESTATION, (as their word is) against the Papal Vsurpation designed by THIS POPE.

And moreover, YOVR sober party of the IESVITS, have in France adhered to the King against the Pope in this Contest about the Regale.

But how severe the same Arch-Bishops and Bishops in France, who made that PRO­TESTATION, [Page 187] have since been in their ADDRESS against the True Protestants there, who have been averse from the Re­ligionary part of Popery (as you call it) I suppose you cannot be ignorant. For undoubted­ly, the Acts of the general As­sembly of the French Clergy, in the year 1685. Concerning Re­ligion, together with their Com­plaint against the Calumnies and Injuries, which the pretended re­formed have, and do every day publish in their Books and Ser­mons against the Doctrine of the Church, presented to the King by the Clergy in a Body, July the 14 th. 1685. Cannot have esca­ped your view, the same having been since printed in London, Translated into English, and, as [Page 188] I suppose, by some of the Ro­man Catholick Religion, and will not trouble my self to guess for what intent of the Publisher. I have looked it over, and leave it to our Divines, to consider whether it deserves any Answer. I observed in it one Reference to Peter du Mou­lins Nouveaute de Papisme, of the Edition of Sedan, about Pro­testants rendring the Papists Ido­latrous, as invocating Saints, which was an Instance of the freedom allowed Protestants in that Realm, in Writing and Pub­lishing Books against the Reli­gion of Popery, as by Law Esta­blished in France, a liberty that the Publisher of that Translati­on hath likewise sufficiently ta­ken, in publishing it here with­out [Page 189] Licence; and whereby he hath brought our Famous Whit­aker and Downham, Rainolds and Ames ▪ into the Range of Calu­mniators and Publishers of Ca­lumny's against the Church of Rome.

Though the Course of my Studies, hath lain much more among Law-Books than in those of Polemical Divinity, yet the time I have spent on the latter, hath enabled me to observe one very Inauspicious passage under the first Article, and the Column of the Calumny of the pretended Reform'd about it; and where the French Clergy accuse them of Calumny, for saying, That with the Hereticks mentioned by St. Irenaeus, Roman Catholicks reject the Holy Scriptures, that [Page 190] with the Montanists, they accuse it of Imperfection, that they Con­temn it; and afterward that the Roman Catholicks call the Scripture a Dumb Rule, a Stum­bling Stone, a Nose of Wax, a Two edged Sword: And for that purpose, having begun with ac­cusing our Whitaker and Down­ham as Calumniators, and refer'd to their works to prove it, they afterward quote the Thesaurus Disputationum Theologicarum in Academiâ Sedanensi, &c. de summo controvers. Iudice. Tom. 1. p. 26. Onerant (pontificij) Scripturam plaustro convitiorum, vocando eam Regulam Mutam, lapidem scandali, nasum cereum, gladium ancipitem.

But without any undue Re­flections on that Clergy, I think [Page 191] it might have been more wor­thy of their great Learning and Hatred of CALVMNY, and their Tenderness for the Ho­nour of the Scripture, and their Obligation to handle Theologi­cal Controversie with the fair­est and softest hands they could, and in short, more worthy of the Honour of the Church of Rome, if they had quoted Tur­rian. cont. Sadel. p. 99. Canus. lib. 3. Loc. Theol. Cap. 2. Sect. [...]ec vero. Ecchius in ench. tit. de ecclesiâ. Hosius lib. 3. de Auth. Sac. Script. Sect. fingamus. p. 148. as I find them Cited by our Dr. Crackanthorp, under his De loc. arguendi ab Authoritate, that you have referred to, and whom you have Celebrated for being just in his quotations, and who [Page 192] there speaking of Papists slight­ing the Scripture, thus quotes these Authors, viz. HI Scrip­turam vocant gladium Delphi­cum, Nasum cereum ad sensum quemvis flexibilem, quae non nisi ecclesiae (suae) authoritate authen­tica sit, de quâ posse pio sensu dici volunt eam, si destituatur ec­clesiae authoritate, non plus valere quam Aesopi fabulas: And had further Cited some index expur­gatorius, for censuring the pro­faneness of those expressions in Roman Catholick Authors, and one of whom was a Legate in the Council of Trent, and ano­ther a Divine sent to that Coun­cil by the Pope.

There is another Eminent Father of our Church, whose Writings the French Clergy [Page 193] might if they pleas'd, have quo­ted, for the same purpose they did those of Whitaker and Down­ham, and that is Iewel in his Apolo­gy, who in p. 106, 107, 108. saith, Itaque Sacrosanctas Scripturas quas Servator noster▪ Iesus Christus non tantúm in omni sermon usurpavit, sed etiam ad extremum sanguine suo con­signavit, quo populum ab illis, tanquam à re periculosâ & noxiâ, minore ne­gotio abigant, solent literam frigi­dam, incertam, inutilem, mutam, occidentem, mortuam appellare: Quod nobis quidem perinde videtur esse, ac si eas omnino nullas esse dicerent. Sed addunt etiam simile quoddam non aptissimum: Eas esse quodammodo na­sum cereum, posse fingi flectique in omnes modos, & omnium instituto in­servire. An PONTIFEX ista à SUIS dici nescit? Aut tales se ha­bere [Page 194] patronos non intelligit? Audiat ergo quàm sanctè, quamque piè, de hac re scribat Hosius, quidam polonus, (ut ipse de se testatur) Episcopus, certe homo disertus, & non indoctus, & acerrimus ac fortissimus propugnator ejus causae. Mirabit [...] opinor hominem pium de illis vocibus, quas sciret pro [...]ectas ab ore Dei, vel tam impiè sentire po­tuisse, vel tam contumeliosè scribere, ita praesertim, ut eam sententiam non fuam unius propriam videri vellet, sed istorum communem omnium. Nos, in­quit, ipsas scripturas, quarum tot jam non diversas modo, sed etiam contrarias interpretationes afferri videmus, faces­sere jubebimus, & Deum loquen [...]em potius audiemus, quàm ut ad EGENA ista ELEMENTA nos convertamus, & in illis Salutem nostram constitua­mus. Non oportet legis & Scripturae peritum esse, sed à Deo doctum; vanus [Page 195] est labor qui scripturis impenditur. Scriptura enum creatura est, & ego­num quoddam Elementum. Haec Hosius. Eodem prorsus spiritu atquè animo, quo olim Montanus, aut Marcio, quos diunt solitos esse dicere, cum sacras scripturas contemptive re­pudiarent, se multo & plura, & Me­liora scire, quàm aut Christus unquam scivisset, aut Apostoli. Quid ergo hic di­cam? O columina religionis, O praesi­des Ecclesiae Christianae! An haec ea re­verentia vestra est quam adhibetis ver­bo Dei? And afterward saith, aut illud verbum, quo uno, ut Paulus ait, reconciliamur Deo, quodque propheta David ait sanctum & castum esse, & in omne tempus esse duraturum, ege­num tantum, & mortuum elemen­tum appellabitis?

I have not time to Consult the Works of Whitaker and [Page 196] Downham as Cited by the French Clergy: But do find that by Iewells Citing Pighius, and likewise Hosius to make good his Charge, the French Clergy knew why, and wherefore, to spare Iewell's Name in their Class of Calumniators▪ Iewell in his Margent Cites, Pighius in Hierarchia, and in his Margent referring to Hosius, saith very candidly, Haec Hosius in lib. de expresso verbo dei sed astutè, & sub alterius personâ: Quamvis & ipse aliàs eadem, in eodem etiam libro, disertis verbis affirmet.

They afterward referred to our Learned Rainolds, as a Ca­lumniator under their 6 th. Arti­cle, and Cite him for saying, that Roman Catholicks do call the Virgin Mary Queen of Hea­ven: [Page 197] And they might if they had pleas'd, have call'd to mind, that in the proper Mass of her seven Sorrows, she is called Caeli Regina & Mater Mundi, and that in an Office where the Te Deum is Travesty'd to her (and which Office the Present Pope hath worthily Suppress'd) she is called the Queen of Glory

But as to their charging our Ames under their Seventh Arti­cle with Calumny for saying in his Bellarminus enervatus the Pope was the ILLE Antichri­stus, I shall make no remark on their Charge; but let it pass.

There was however, ano­ther thing that I could not but take notice of in that Book of the French Clergy▪ that made their accusing the Writers of the [Page 198] Reformed Religion, as Calumni­ators and Falsifiers of the Do­ctrine of the Church, seem to me very severe: Namely, that Clergy's joyning the Decisions of the Council of Trent, with the Profession of their Faith, and noting in one Columne, that pro­fession and the Articles of the Council of Trent, and there ma­king the Doctrine of their Church a result from both, and opposing thereunto in ano­ther Columne the Calumny's in the Writings of the Reform'd; and yet by the Date of the Impres­sions of many of those Writings as mentioned at the end of that Book, it appears, they were Printed long before the year 1615. and some before the year 1579. in which latter year, [Page 199] Cressy in his Epistle Apologetical to the Late Earl of Clarendon voucheth (but to no effect, as I shall by and by shew) that De Marca in his Volume De Concordiâ Sacerdotij & Imperij, tells us the Definitions of Faith of the Council of Trent were admitted by a publick Edict concerning the same in France; and as to which former year, Cabassutius an Oratorian in his Notitia concil. declares out of the Records of the French Cler­gy, that in their General Assem­bly at Paris, in the year 1615. the Canons of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent, were unani­mously received by the whole Cler­gy. And in p. 6. of the Transla­ted Book of the French Clergy, a Book of Beza's is cited, as prin­ted [Page 200] in the year 1576, and one of Luther's, printed in the year 1558. and one of Melanchton's in the year 1552, to shew them Calumniators of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent, as the Received Doctrine in the Galli­can Church. And whether the many other Authors there cited as printed before the year 1615, and yet too Cited as Calumni­ating for injuring the Trent Do­ctrines, as being those of the Gallican Church, were not like­wise severely dealt with, is left to the impartial to Judge, and to whose view of that Book of the French Clergy, it will be obvious that the profession of Faith inserted at the end of the Council of Trent, is brought in, in the beginning of that Cler­gy's [Page 201] Representing the Doctrine of the Church.

I love not to be Curious in a­lienâ Republicâ, and much more, not to be so in alienâ Ecclesiâ: But since the Acts of that Cler­gy have been made to speak English here; and so without Licence to Travel about our Country, I cannot but occasi­onally make a further Remark on the Severity of that Clergy, in taking it ill of the Protestants there supposing that the Catho­lick Church Disguiseth or Condem­neth the most Essential verity's of Religion, and Representing her under the Hideous idea of a Society professing an impious Do­ctrine, and denying the chiefest Articles of Faith; since as I said, that it was but in the year 1615. [Page 202] that the Canons of the Council of Trent, were pretended to be una­nimously received by the whole French Clergy at Paris, and that it was but a year before▪ that the SAME Clergy (as I find it observ'd by the Author of The Difference between the Church and Court of Rome, p. 31.) re­ferred to the Account of what was done upon the meeting of the three Estates, and when Car­dinal Perron, being the Clergy's Spokes Man, told the King, that The Matter contested, was a point of Doctrine, &c. and that the Power of the Pope was full, nay, most full and direct in Spirituals, and indirect in temporals, &c. and that they would Excommuni­cate all those who were of a contra­ry Opinion to the Proposition, [Page 203] which affirm'd, the Pope could de­pose the King, &c. and for which 'tis there Cited, how the Pope by a Breve in that year 1615. return­ed his Solemn thanks to the Cler­gy of France, for what they had done against the Articles of the 3d. Estate, wherein his Power was concern'd. The use I make of this, is only to shew that the present French Clergy, who no doubt are Conscious of the Er­ror of their Predecessors in such a DOCTRINE, wherein Religi­on and Loyalty are concerned, were obliged to shew all the Tenderness and Compassion to their Frail and Fallible Brethren, not Erring in a Point of that Nature; but only in such as were Subject to Controver­sy.

[Page 204]I shall here observe that Cres­sy in the Book aforesaid reflects on the late Earl of Clarendon, for saying in p. [...]48. of his Vindication of Dr. Stilling-fleet, that the Council of Trent is not yet received in France, and in many other Catholick Country's; and saith to the Earl, ‘under favour Honoured Sir, you will, I suppose, grant that the late Famous and Learned Arch-Bishop of Pa­ris, Peter de Marca, was bet­ter informed in the Ecclesi­astical State of France, than your self a Stranger, and quotes the Volume of De Marca before mentioned, lib. 2. cap. 17. S. 6. for Writing expresly, that the Definitions of Faith of the Council of Trent, were admit­ted [Page 205] by a publick Edict made concerning the same matter, in the year 1579; but that the Decrees which regard dis­cipline, are not received in France, because they are not ratified by the Law of the Prince; although the Chief Heads which do not infringe the received Customs▪ and An­cient Rights of the Gallican Church, are Comprehended in Regal Constitutions several times published concerning that matter: Which thing how grateful and acceptable it was to Pope Clement the 8 th, is testified by the late King Henry the Great in his Rescript of the year 1606.’ And then he Quotes Cabassutius his Notitia Concil. in fine, for the pur­pose [Page 206] I have mentioned before, and declaring out of the Re­cords of the French Clergy, viz. that in their General Assembly at Paris, in the year 1615. the Canons of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent were unanimously received by the whole Clergy:

Father Cressy then farther addeth by way of Triumph over the supposed mistake in the said Earl, in p. 131. of that Epistle: And long before that, even from the rising of the said Council, each particular Bishop had received it in their Respe­ctive Diocesan Synods. Thus Sir you see a sufficient Recepti­on of the Faith delivered by the Council of Trent in France both by Authority Episcopal and Re­gal.

[Page 207]I must not here forbear to take notice, that if it were true what Cressy alledgeth, namely, that from the ri [...]ing of the said Council, the French Bishops did receive it in their Respective Dio­cesan Synods, before any PVB­LISHING of it by the French King, and not staying for the same, they made such a kind of Invasion of the Regal pow­er in France, Namely, by intro­ducing Religionary Establish­ments without ITS Authority, as was never practis'd by our English Clergy, since the Re­formation, nor perhaps before it; and such as the French Clergy, cannot charge the pretended Re­form'd with.

For their Petition to the King doth in p. 3. mention their ( i. e. [Page 208] the pretended Reformed) ha­ving been by Edicts, permitted the Exercise of their Religion, and the Freedom of Acting in their Synods, as they have done. But this by the way.

If we consider the time of the very Professio fidei (that the Acts of the French Clergy speak of) being first own'd, and that in the year 1564, the time like­wise of the Confirmation of the Trent Council, and which was not made nor Composed by the French Clergy, but by the Di­rection of the Trent-Fathers, and Published by Pope Pius the 4 th. in the year last mentioned, must it not seem hard, that Lu­thers Book printed, as was men­tioned, in the year 1558, and that of Melanchton's printed in [Page 209] the year 1562, and before the Date of their very Profession of Faith, should be brought in as Calumniating it?

When any had a Triumph Decreed them in the Old Com­mon Wealth of Rome, the Wri­ters of such Solemnities tell us, the Custom was, Vt à militibus & abjectissimis quibuscunque tri­umphalem currum sequentibus, diversis triumphantes Convicijs incesserentur, nè prosperâ illâ for­tunâ plus justo insolescerent. But the new Church of Rome, I mean the Tridentine one in France, will bear no Raillery, nor Calumny of Words, nor yet any to ask them when ▪ and by whom their Triumph was Decreed them, and if their Doctrine was Crown'd Lawfully. And methinks, as if [Page 210] Nature and its God meant that all should ludibrium debere, that would Triumph over Fallibility in what Church soever, Our Honest Monk whom I lately mentioned, as Decreeing him­self a Triumph over that great observer of all things he referr'd to, I mean the late Earl of Cla­rendon, had in his Triumphant Chariot the usual Compliment of that Solemnity, viz. Homi­nem te esse cogita, there put on him by Nature.

And one might to him Cite D' Ossats Letters, and with some Allusion to his Words to the Earl of Clarendon say, that he supposed that that Cardinal un­derstood the State of the Council of Trent, relating to France, as well as any one, and much better [Page 211] than De Marca, or any one else who would make its definitions of Faith admitted in France by an Edict in the year 1579.

Let any one for this purpose, who pleases, look on D' Ossats Letter from Rome, the 19 th of November 1596 to Villeroy, where he adviseth, that the Council of Trent might be Publisht in France, and mentions that the Clergy of France had often desired a Pub­lication of it, and saith, that the Huguenots by reason of the Edict of 77. would not be pre­judiced by such publication; and on another Letter to Villeroy from Rome, on the 19 th. of Fe­bruary 1597, where he again presseth for the publication of that Council, and saith of it, La publication sans l' observation, [Page 212] pourroit plus que l' observation sans la publication: and that the Courts of Parliament and others, would have no cause of complaint thereupon, and that a Salvo of two or three Lines, would be a re­medy against any complaints, and on his long Letter from Rome, the 28 th of March 1599. to Henry the Fourth, where he minds him from the Pope, that the Councel of Trent might be Published, and saith, Que la plus­part des Catholiques, & ceux qui plus peuvent Comme les Parle­mens, & les Chapitres, & les principaux Seigneurs, ne veulent point du dit Concile, pour n' avoir point à laisser les benefices incompatibles, les confidences & autres abus quae la Reformation portee par le dit Concile osteroit; [Page 213] and on his Letter from Rome the last of March, 1599. to Villeroy, Animating him to promote the Publication of that Council, and where he saith, I never knew that that Council prejudic'd any Regal Right, as some say it hath done; but though it might pre­judice it in some point, it might however be publisht, with adding thereto such a Salvo as we could have, Namely, as to the Preroga­tive and Preeminences of the Crown, the Authority of the King, the Liberties and Franchises of the Gallican Church, the Indults of the Court of Parliament, and the Edicts of Pacification, and all other things that we would have excepted, and on his long Let­ter to Henry the Fourth from Rome, of Iune the 11 th. 1601. [Page 214] where mentioning his excusa­tory replies to the Pope, about the not publishing that Council, he saith, that not only the Here­ticks, but a great part of the Ca­tholicks were against it; and that his Holiness might remember how Henry the Fourth's Predecessors, could never be brought to publish that Council.

I might here mention how Father Paul in his History of the Venetian Interdict, p. 4. and 48. tells us, that the Trent Coun­cil was not received in France, in the year 1616, and that Thuanus assures us, that the Trent Council was not received in France in the year 1588, and therefore not in the year 1579. according to De Marca. For that excellent and most [Page 215] Faithful Historian, Tome the 4 th. lib. 93. p. 361. of his History, tells us, that at that time (i. e. An. 1588.) Magno Caloris aestu contentio de Tridentinâ Synodo toties agitata denuô renovata est, and how stoutly the promulgati­on of it was opposed.

And there is the Work of ano­ther French Historian, that may be here referred to, viz. Histo­riarum Galliae ab excessu Hen. 4. Libri 18. Authore G. B. Gramon­do in Sacro Regis Consistorio Se­natore & in Parliamento Tolosano Praeside. Tolosae 1643. and where in p 57. the Author tells us, that in the year 1615. (the year in which Cressy out of Cabassu­tius says, the Clergy received the Trent Council) Proposita à Clero Concilij Tridentini promul­gatio, [Page 216] & molliendae invidiae ad­jecta est haec clausula sine prae­judicio Coronae Regiae, & Liber­tatum Gallicanae Ecclesiae, &c. and that Cardinal Peron spoke Elegantly and Learnedly for it; but that after long debate about the Reception of that Council (es­pecially between the clergy and the 3 d. Estate) the issue was, that the third Estate carryed it a­gainst the Clergy; and the Re­ception and Promulgation of the Trent Council, was absolutely re­jected, and (p. 69.) PRAEVA­LVITQVE CLERO POPV­LVS.

Where it is evident. 1. That what Cabassutius in his Notitia Conciliorum, p. 720. names only a Convention of the Clergy in that year 1615. (as if that had [Page 217] been all) was in Truth, Con­ventus trium Regni Ordinum, a Convention of the three Estates, the greatest and Supream Con­vention of France, and as Gra­mondus saith, p. 58. 2 dly. That whereas Cabassutius says, the Trent Council was received in that General Convention of the Gallican Clergy; De Marca saith, and evidently proves, that no such Convention of the Gallican Clergy had any Authority to Receive or Promulgate the Trent Council▪ or any other. Approve it they might; but receive it they could not. But it was so far from being recieved by the Convention of the French cler­gy, that it was absolutely re­jected by the Supream Conven­tion of the three Estates, and [Page 218] that after a long and free De­bate.

It is true and most Notori­ous, that not only in France, but in England heretofore, ma­ny of the Papal Clergy were generally more addicted to ad­vance the Papal Power, than the Just Prerogatives of their own Kings, or the Rights of the Laity: Because as by the Clergy's help and assistance the Papacy grew greater, their Jurisdiction and Revenues were thereby encreased. And thus Anselme and Becket being zea­lous for the Pope, and Disobe­dient to their King, found their account in the Pope's Assisting and Favouring them with his Power while they lived, and Canonizing them, and making [Page 219] them (what their Loyalty could not while they lived) Saints af­ter their Death. But as our Magnanimous Roman Catho­lick Princes did then bridle the Papal Power, so likewise those of France have done; and even where Cabassutius saith, that the Trent Council was received in the year 1615. à Clero Galli­cano sub Ludovico 13. he doth not say that the King received it, and thus De Marca tells us in his De Concordiâ Sacerd. & Imperij. Lib. 2. Cap. 17. S. 7. p. 33. Decreta Conciliorum legis vim in Gallià non habent, nisi recepta à Clero, & Regiâ Autho­ritate munita. But De Marca had in that Book informed us, that in the time the Trent Council Sate, when it evidently appear­ed [Page 220] by the Decrees of that Councel, the Liberty of the Gallican Church was in quam­plurimis apitibus destroyed, the Embassadors of Henry the 2 d. and Charles the 9 th. left the Synod, being called home by their Kings: And had com­plain'd in that Council, that the Liberty of the Gallican Church, & Regia dignitas erant immi­nutae; and their recesse from and leaving the Council was a good reason, as De Marca there proves, non admittendae Synodi (i. e.) of their not receiving that Council.

Father Paul likewise in his History of that Council saith, that the French Bishops left it on the same account.

But moreover De Marca in [Page 221] the same place tells us, that the whole Clergy of France did most frequently in their Sy­nods Petition their Kings, that they would Publish and Recieve the Trent Council (excepting those things which were repug­nant to the Liberty of the Gal­lican Church) and that they would never grant their Petiti­on, nor Publish or Recieve the Trent Council, though with that Exception. His words are, Totius Cleri Gallicani Conventus Con­cilij Tridentini promulgationem à Re­gibus nostris supplicibus libellis postu­laverit, eâ lege ut ea Capita excipe­rent, quae libertatibus Ecclesiae adversa­rentur: Quorum desiderijs Principes, toto hoc negotio saepe in Consilium prudentissimorum relato, se accommo­dare non potuerunt. From whence [Page 222] it is evident, if that great Arch-Bishop says true, that the Kings of France would never recieve any of the Trent Council, no not that part of it, which was not against the Liberty of their Church, or their Kings Rega­lities.

But after all this, I must not forbear to observe how here it appears, that the Learned De Marca doth contradict himself. For in the same page and Co­lumne, viz. p. 133. Col. 1. he saith, that the Definitions of the Council of Trent concerning Faith were admitted in France by a publick Edict, Anno 1579. (which must be in the 6th. year of Henry the 3 d. of France) and yet he tells us in this same page and Columne, that al­though [Page 223] the whole Clergy of France did most frequently Pe­tition their Kings to Promul­gate and admit only that part of the Trent Council, which was not against the Liber­ties of the Gallican Church, yet their Kings would never admit it. If these words of his mean any thing, I think they must mean the Definitions of Faith, which De Marca saith were re­cieved by the Edict 1579. But if their Kings would never ad­mit any of it, though the whole Clergy did Petition them to do it, then was it not admitted by any Publick Edict in the year 1579.

I remember the Learned Au­thor of the Nouvelles de la Republi­que des letteres, for the Month of [Page 224] March 1685. there mentioning the Histoire critique du Vieux Testa­ment par le P. Richard Simon Prêtre de la Congregation de l' Oratoire of the New Edition at Rotterdam that year, saith that that New Edition contains a Letter of a Protestant Doctor, who procured the 5 th. Edition of that Cri­tical History; and further quotes that Protestant Minister for giving an Answer to the ordinary Distincti­on, viz. that the Council of Trent hath been recieved in France, in what concerns Faith, but not in matters of Discipline; and he speaks of an Assembly of the Clergy held, which he saith, Deliberated how to present a Petition to the King, that that Council might be recieved as to what concerns Faith only, and that what­ever deliberation the Prelates made there upon, the Court would not grant [Page 225] their Request. And if that Council (saith he) hath been received, let them produce us the publication of it, or any Act that shews us that it hath been truly received and publisht; for according to the Rules of Right, a Council cannot Faire Loy, if it hath not been published.

But if any one were minded to speak Argumentatively, and shew that the French do not now receive the Trent Council, no not in rebus fidei, he might urge. 1. That the whole Cler­gy of France in their Assembly, March 19. 1682. declared that a Council is above the Pope. 2. That he hath no Power in Tem­porals in any Princes Domini­ons. 3. That he hath no Pow­er to Depose Princes. 4. Nor to Absolve Subjects from their [Page 226] Oaths of Allegiance. 5. That he is not infallible. And though the Pope declared by his Bull Dated at Rome Apr. 11 th. 1682. that those Acts of theirs were Null (the words of Improbamus, Rescindimus, Cassamus, &c. being in the Bull) yet the French King had before in his Edict of March 23. 1682. Registred in Parliament, Ratified and Con­firm'd them all. Nor is it de­niable, that these 5 Propositi­ons, contradict many things in the Trent Council, which are setled in it as Doctrinal Points.

And moreover 'tis obvious to any one to observe, that in the Acts of the General Assem­bly of the French Clergy in the year 1685. they Cite their new Trent Creed (i. e.) some PART [Page 227] of it: For the last of it they cite, is p. 38. of that Book, and leave out the LAST part of that Creed, which is contained in these words, Caetera item omnia Sacris Canonibus & aecumenicis Concilijs, ac praecipuè à Sacro-Sanctà Tridentinà Synodo tra­dita, definita & declarata, indubi­tanter recipio ac profiteor, simulque Contraria omnia atque haereses quascun­que ab Ecclesiâ damnatas & rejectas & Anathematizatas, ego pariter rejicio, damno, & Anathematizo. Hanc ve­ram Catholicam fidem, extrà quam nemo salvus esse potest, quam in prae­sente sponte profiteor & veraciter te­neo, eandem integram usque ad extre­mum vitae Spiritum Constantissimè re­tinere & confiteri, atque ab illis quo­rum cura ad me in munere hoc specta­bit, teneri, doceri & praedicari quan­tum in me est curaturum. Ego idem N. [Page 228] spondeo, voveo, juro, &c. These are the words which the French Clergy leave out in their Book above mentioned, and they knew the Preservation of the Li­berties of the Gallican Church, obliged them to such omission.

For by this part of the Trent Creed, they are bound to be­lieve and profess, Omnia à Con­cilio Tridentino tradita, definita, declarata, and so not matters of Doctrine and Definitions of Faith only: And 'tis most plain, that the Council intended both matters of Discipline and Do­ctrine. And in the aforesaid words of the Trent Creed, a firm Belief is required to be given, omnibus in Concilijs oecu­menicis traditis; and then a long farewel to all their Liber­ties [Page 229] of the Gallican Church would ensue, and their Sanctio Pragmatica, which is the Au­thentick Comprehension of them is Damned by Leo the 10th. approbante Concilio, in the General Lateran Council.

It may be moreover said, that the words above mentio­ned that the French Clergy left out of their Book are a part Fidei Catholicae extrà quam non est salus: and therefore if the French do not receive (as it seems they do not) this part of the Trent Creed, then it may ve­ry well be doubted, whether they receiv'd the Definitions of Faith of the Tridentine Coun­cil, as De Marca would have us believe.

The Trent Creed I have re­ferred [Page 230] to, is at the end of that Council in most of the Editi­ons of it; but in the Edition at Antwerp, which is the best, viz. Anno 1633, it is in the Body of the Council. Ses. 24. p. 450, 451.

It here occurs to my thoughts, to entertain yours out of Hoorn­beck's Examen bullae Papalis: Printed An. 1652. where in p. 42. speak­ing of the French Embassadors claiming the Honour of sitting before those of Spain, he saith, uti apparuit in Oratorum Galliae Regis Carol. 9. protestatione in Concilio Tri­dentino factâ An. 1563, quando secus fieret, & Oratores Hispan. Re­gis post Imperatoris, locum Caperent pri­mum: Cujus omnem Culpam in solum rejiciebant Papam Pium 4 tum, Cujus, aie­bant, imperium detrectamus, quaecun (que) [Page 231] sint ejus judicia & sententiae, reijci­mus, respuimus & contemnimus. Et quanquam, Patres Sanctissimi, vestra omnium Religio, vita & eruditio, ma­gnae semper fuit & erit apud nos aucto­ritatis; cum tamen nihil a vobis, Sed omnia magis Romae quam Tridenti a­gantur, & quae hic publicantur magis Pij 4 ti placita quam Concilij Tri­dentim decreta jure existimentur, de­nunciamus & protestamur, quaecunque in hoc conventu, hoc est, toto Pij nutu & voluntate decernuntur & publican­tur, ea neque Regem Christianissimum probaturum, neque Ecclesiam Gallica­nam pro decreto oecumenici Concilij habi­turam. Interea quot quot estis Galliae Ar­chiepiscopi, Episcopi, Abbates, Doctores, Theologi, vos omnes hinc abire Rex Christianissimus jubet, redituros ut pri­mum Deus opt. max. Ecclesiae Catholicae in generalibus Concilijs anttquam for­mam [Page 232] & libertatem restituerit; Regi autem Christianissimo suam dignitatem & Majestatem.

And he afterward in p. 192. desires that after those words dig­nitatem & Majestatem, may be ad­ded, what followeth among the addenda, there to his foregoing work, viz. In Concilio Tridentino ve­hementer illa inter Gallos & Hispanos agitabatur Contentio de praecedentiâ: Non solum illis primum à legato Im­peratoris locum petentibus, sed & no­lentibus ut Orator Hispani Regis alio quo singulari loco ab illis sederet, sed ordine post eos: aliter se protestari, non adversum legatos, aut Philippum Re­gem, aut Concilium, aut Ecclesiam Ro­manam, sed adversus ipsum Papam Pium, 4 tum, non pro legitimo illum habentes Papâ, & provocare se ad Concilium a­liud liberum in Galliâ Cogendum.

[Page 233] Ubi illud facetum accidit, quod quan­do adversus Oratoris Gallici expostula­tionem, diceretur cum Scommate, Gal­lus Cantat, hic Concinne protinus res­pondit, Vtinam illo Gallicinio Petrus ad resipiscentiam & fletum excitaretur. Illàque causa postmodum Gallis fuit inter alias quo minus Concilium Triden­tinum in Regno & Ecclesiis Gallicanis, vel ejus publicatio admissa fuerit.

This Book of Hoornbeck, was Printed at Vtrecht, and the Pa­pal Bull on which it very Learn­edly Animadverts, is that by which the Pope endeavour'd to Abrogate the Peace of Munster.

But to go on with my As­sertion of the Non-reception of the Council of Trent in France, I shall acquaint you that another considerable Author, Namely, My Lord Primate Bramhal, who [Page 234] was an Exile in France, in the time of the Vsurpation, and whose observation penetrated as far into the Constitution of the Gallican Church, as either F. Cressy's or any Mans else, ha­ving in p. 284. of his Iust Vin­dication of the Church of Eng­land, spoke of the Trent Coun­cil, saith, ‘We have seen here­tofore how, the French Embas­sador in the Name of the King and Church of France, protest­ed against it, and until this day, though they do not op­pose it, but acquiesce, to a­void such disadvantages as must ensue thereupon, yet they never did admit it. Let no Man say that they rejected the Determinations thereof on­ly in point of Discipline, not of [Page 235] Doctrine: For the same Cano­nical Obedience is equally due to an acknowledged General Council in point of Discipline, as in point of Doctrine.’

Monsieur Iurieu in his Hi­storical Reflections on Councils, and particularly on that of Trent, which were Translated into English, and Printed in the year 1684. Saith that the French Kings their Parliaments and Bishops dislike several things in the Decrees of the Council of Trent; and mentions as the Reasons why the Council of Trent is not received in France, these following. 1. ‘That the Coun­cil hath done and suffered many things that suppose and confirm a Superiority of the Pope over Councils. 2. It [Page 236] hath confirmed the Papal en­croachments upon ordinary's by exemption of Chapters, and priviledges of Regulars, who are both withdrawn from Episcopal Jurisdiction. 3. That it hath not restored to the Bi­shops, certain Functions ap­pertaining to their Office and taken from them, other­wise than to execute them as delegates of the See of Rome. 4. That it hath infringed the priviledges of Bishops, of be­ing Judged by their Metrapo­litan and Bishops of Provin­ces, by permitting a removal of great Causes to Rome, and giving Power to the Pope, to Name Commissioners to Judge the Accused Bishop. 5. That it hath declared, that [Page 237] neither Princes, Magistrates nor People, are to be consul­ted in Setling and placing of Bishops. 6. That it hath Em­powered Bishops, to proceed in their Jurisdictions by Civil pains, by Imprisonment, and by Seisures of the Temporal­ties. 7. That it hath made Bi­shops the Executors of all Do­nations, for Pious uses. 8. That it hath given them a Superintendency over Hospi­tals, Colledges, and Fraterni­ties, with power of disposing their Goods, notwithstanding that these matters had been al­ways managed by Lay Men. 9. That it hath ordained, that Bps. shall have the examining of all Notaries Royal and Impe­rial, with power to Deprive [Page 238] or Suspend, notwithstanding any Opposition or Appeal. 10. That it hath given power to Bishops, with consent of two Members of their Chap­ter, and of two of their Cler­gy, to take and retrench part of the Revenue of the Hos­pitals, and to take away feu­dal Tithes belonging to Lay-Men. 11. That it hath made Bishops the Masters of Foun­dations of Piety, as Churches, Chappels and Hospitals, so as that those who have the Care and Government of them, are obliged to be accountable to the Bishops. 12. That in con­firming Ecclesiastical Exemp­tions, it hath wholy ascribed to the Pope and Spiritual Judges, all power of Judging [Page 239] the Causes of Accused Bishops, as if Soveraign Princes had lost the right they had over their Subjects, as soon as they became Ecclesiasticks. 13. That it hath empower'd the Ordina­ries and Judges Ecclesiastick, in Quality of Delegates of the Holy See, to enquire of the Right and Possession of Lay-Patronages; and to quash and annul them, if they were not of great necessity and well founded. 14. That in Prohi­biting Duels, it had declared, that such Emperor or Prince, as should shew favour to Du­els, should therefore be Ex­communicated and Deprived of the Seignory of the place holding of the Church, where the Duel was fought. 15. [Page 240] that it hath permitted the Mendicant Fryars to possess Im­moveables. 16. That it hath or­dained an Establishment of Judges it calls Apostoles in all Dioceses, with Power to Judge of Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Matters, in prejudice of the Ordinary. 17. That it hath declared, that Matrimonial Causes, are of the Churches Jurisdiction. 18. That it hath enjoyn'd Kings and Princes to leave Ecclesiasticks, the free and entire possession of the ju­risdiction granted them by the Holy Canons, and General Councils, that is to say, usur­ped by the Clergy over the Civil Power. These are the Principal Points Disputed in France: These that tend to the [Page 241] Diminution of the Authority and Priviledges of Bishops, to enlarge the Roman power, are Rejected by the Bishops: And those that would extend the power of Bishops to the Prejudice of the Civil Autho­rity are Rejected by the Par­liaments. Between both, this Council, as enacting contra­ry to the Rights and Liberties of the Gallican Church▪ was never at all received in France, so as to obtain the force of a Law.’ He then shews, that the Popes Superiority over Councils, is a point of Doctrine, and was decided in the Council of Trent: And yet that the Gallican Church believes the contrary. ‘I know it will be said (saith he) that the Council of [Page 242] Trent hath not decided, that the Pope is Superior to Councils. Men may talk as they please; but things for all that, will continue as they are. It is true, that among the Decrees and Canons of the Council, there is none that saith in express Terms, that the Pope is Superior to Coun­cils, and can be judged by none: But the effect of such Decision is apparent in all the Acts, and through the whole Conduct of this Coun­cil.’ And he afterward saith, that the Clause of proponentibus legatis, was a plain Decision of the Popes Superiority over the Council.

But to these 18 Reasons of Mr. Iurieu, about the Recepti­on [Page 243] of the Trent Council in France; being neither practica­ble nor practised; I might add, that, according to what my Lord Primate Bramhal observes in another place of that Book of his, I Cited before, the Obe­dience promised to the Bishop of Rome, as Successor to St. Peter and Vicar of Iesus Christ, pursu­ant to the Trent Council, may seem to quadrate but ill with the liberty of the Gallican Church, to set up a Patriarch. For in p. 194. of that Book, he menti­ons that in Cardinal Richelieu's Days it was well known, what Books were freely Printed in France, and publickly sold upon pont neuf of the lawfulness of Erect­ing a new, or rather restoring an old proper Patriarchate in France, as [Page 244] one of the liberties of the Galli­can Church: And thereupon saith, It was well for the Roman Court, that they became more pro­pitious to the French Affairs.

And if we consider how in the 22 d. Session of the Council of Trent▪ Chapter the 11 th. all Kings and Emperors are Ana­thematized, who hinder any Ecclesiasticks from the Enjoy­ment of any of their feudal Rights, or other profits; and that it might well be supposed, that the Course and Vicissitudes of time would put Roman Catholick Princes on somewhat of that Nature, and which so eminently influenced the French King in the Munster Treaty; none need wonder at the Trent Councils not being received in France.

[Page 245]There was a Book called a Review of the Council of Trent, written by a Learned Roman-Catholick, and Printed A. 1600. and Translated by Dr Langbain and Printed at Oxon 1638. The Author is believed by Rivet in his Answer to Coeffeteau, and by Langbain, to be William Ranclin Dr. of Laws, fiscal Advocate in the Court of Aydes at Oua in Henry the 4 ths. time, and after­terward Attorney General in the Soveraign Court of Aydes at Montpellier, In ch. 1. p. 11. of the Translated Book he tells us, that being at Court, he saw ma­ny earnest Suits Exhibited to the French King, in behalf of the Pope, for the receiving that Coun­cil; and such as had been made to the preceding Kings; but which [Page 246] they would never grant, nor al­low the publication of what they conceived so dangerous to Church and State.

And in ch. 2. he gives us se­veral Instances, which were made to the late Kings, for re­ceiving the Council of Trent. Charles the 9th. was moved by the Embassadors of Pope Pius the 4th, the Emperor and King of the Romans, the King of Spain, the Prince of Piemont, soon after the year 1563. to Pub­lish that Council. The King said, he would have the Advice of his Lords: But it was Determined by them, that he should not hear­ken to their Requests. That in the year 1572. when Cardinal Alexandrino knew the Popes Ne­phew came out of Spain into [Page 247] France, with Commission to rein­force the Suit to Henry the 3d. both the Pope and the Clergy ur­ged him to publish it; but no­thing was done. The Request was renewed by the Clergy at Blois, and especially by Peter Espinoc Archbishop of Lions, in the year 1576; but without any ef­fect.

The Request was renewed by the Assembly of France, Assem­bled at Melun in Iuly 1579. The Speaker was Arnalt Bishop of Bazas. Nicholas Angelier Bi­shop of Brien, made the like In­stance to the same King, Oct. 3. 1579. and again July 17. 1582. Renald of Beaune, Arch-Bishop of Bourges, and Primate of Aquitaine, Delegate for the Cler­gy, made the same Request at [Page 248] Fountain-Bleau; but all in vain.

In the beginning of A. 1583. A Nuntio came from the Pope into France to Henry the 3d. but could not stir him from his purpose: and in a Letter to the King of Navarre Henry 4. who afterward Succeeded him, he pro­tests, that it was never in his thoughts to admit of it.

November the 19th. 1585. the aforesaid Bishop Nicholas Angelier renews this Request ve­ry earnestly to the King; and a­nother Assault is made on him October 14. 1585. by the Bi­shop and Earl of Nayan, who in his Speech is very Confident, that the Council of Trent was guided by the Holy Ghost.

He adds, though it was not re­ceived, [Page 249] yet several things in that Council, especially what concern'd the Clergy, were inserted in the Canons of some of their Provin­cial Councils held in France, at Rohan. 1581, at Bourges 1584. at Tours 1585. and at Aix in Provence the same year.

One of the Kings Lieutenants General for the Administration of Iustice, in an Assembly of the States particularly, An. 1588. makes a Suit to the King to pub­lish the Council; but to no pur­pose; Nay more, The King did not receive so much as those very Decrees of the Council, which were no way Repugnant to the Gallican Liberties. However, Sup­pressing the Name of the Council, they Decreed the very same things at Blois, An. 1579.

[Page 250]But after all that this Author hath mentioned of the Parlia­ment at Blois, Decreeing the same things in the year 1579. that were agreeable to the Ca­nons of the Council of Trent, and of the fruitless Request of the Arch-Bishop of Bourges in 1582. and of others after­wards for the Reception of that Council, I cannot but call to mind that Thuanus Hist. Tom. 4. lib. 94. p. 388. Edit. An. 1620. tells us, that in the year 1589. the same Arch-Bishop of Bourges in a Conven­tion of the [...] Estates, did a­mong other things propose, ut Concilio Tridentino tradita disci­plina ab omnibus recipiatur: But nothing was done; and the Speech of the Arch-Bishop and [Page 251] some others made in that Con­vention, are by Thuanus cal­led, Orationes intempestivae.

And I might add, that the Author of the Inventoire General des affaires de France, from the Death of Henry the 4 th. to the year 1620. tells us, that in the year 1615, on the 19 th. of Fe­bruary, the Clergy Deputed the Bishop of Beauvais, to pray the third Estate to agree to the pub­lishing the Council of Trent: And that Monsieur le President Miron in the Name of the 3d. Estate, Replyed, that they could not at present receive that Coun­cil: The which agrees with what I have before alledged contrary to the Measures of Cressy; and as doth likewise the Popes issuing out a Breve to the [Page 252] Cardinal of Ioyeux, An 1605. and mentioned in the Memoirs p. 391. after the Histoire du Cardi­nal Duc de Ioyeux par le Sieur Aubery Advocat en Parlement & aux Conseils du Roy, Printed at Paris An. 1654. and in which Breve, the Pope desires that Car­dinals earnest endeavours for the introducing the Constituti­ons of the Council of Trent into France; and acknowledgeth the Difficulty of that Work; but withal addeth that he confideth in the Cardinals Industry, as to the Labouring that point, and saith, that he had Writ to Hen. the 4 th. about it. And p. 931. there is another Breve of the Pope to that Cardinal, A. 1615. which beginneth thus, Venerab. Frater noster. Salut. & apostol. be­nedict. [Page 253] Planè dicere possumus, ex­pectavimus pacem & ecce turbatio: Superioribus namque diebus spem non levem conceperamus, fore ut SSti Concilij Tridentini decreta in Galliâ reciperentur, & dum animum nostrum varietate & mul­titudine pastoralium▪ Sollicitudi­num penè oppressum Sublevare hoc Solatio curabamus, repentè ad nos allatum est quod 4 to Nonas [...]ebr. in publico conventu isthic at­tentatum fuerit in detrimentum supremae Authoritatis hujus SStae Apostolicae sedis, &c. And where he afterward complains to this effect, that the King ( i. e. H. 4.) had several times abused him with promises and pretensions that he would publish the Coun­cil of Trent; but that nothing came of it.

[Page 254]If then any one will yet say, that the French Clergy not being able in the year 1615, to engage the 3 d. Estate, to agree to the Publishing the Trent Council, did then Publish it themselves, I shall leave him to consider both the Nature and the Event of such an Invasion of the Re­gal Rights, and shall further ac­quaint him, that according to the saying of, De facto factum potest de facto tolli, he may if he pleaseth, consult the Publi­cation of the Peace Relating to the French King, and the Prince of Conde first Prince of the Blood, Published in the Town of Loudun, the 14 th. of May A. 1616. and where he will find the 5 th. and th 6. Articles to be as followeth, viz. 5th. That the [Page 255] Authority of the French church be observed, and no allowance or Permission be granted for any En­croachment upon the Rights, Fran­chises and Liberties of the same. AGREED VNTO. 6th. That, that which was made by the Clergy for the Publication of the Council of Trent, without the Authority of the King, be Repaired and A­mended, and all such things for­merly done in the Estate, be Re­formed. AGREED VNTO.

Yet if any one wants further Confirmation, from Authori­ties about the Trent Council not having been received in France, I may send him to the Synopsis of [...]ouncils, Writ by Dr. Prideaux, sometime Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and afterward Bishop of Wor­cester, [Page 256] where the Bishop Writing Chap. 5. and p. 29. of the Trent Council, saith, This Council cryed up by so many Acclamations, and so Solemnly Confirmed by the Seal of of the Fisher, the French admit­ted not.

But after all this said of the Council of Trent's not having been Published and Received in France, if either by the Govern­ment or Clergy or Laity there, any of the Religionary or Do­ctrinal points of Faith contain­ed in that Council, are inwardly believed, and openly professed, I leave them and all Mankind to the Exercise of the Liberty wherewith christ hath made them free; and will suppose, that if after all the Old Prote­stations of the Government a­gainst [Page 257] that Council, Roman-Ca­tholicks in France having found the Doctrinal Points of their Faith, that were Stated and De­termined by former General Councils, to be more fully and clearly made out in the Triden­tine one, did prosess the belief of the same, and did refer to that Council, when they would give an exteriour Account or Reason of their Faith; and did think themselves obliged for the supporting the Vnity of the Roman-Catholick Church, to profess the same Doctrinal Points with these Countries, where that Council had been received and published: I will make this Charitable Construction, that they did and do intend no more Diminution of the [Page 258] Regal Rights and Liberties of the Gallican Church thereby, than the Nations of Europe did intend a Diminution of their Freedom, by receiving any part of the Civil Law of Rome, and still continuing the Use and Authority of the same in their Commerce, and in the Interpretation of their publick pactions, and of the Ius genti­um: Nor than the Romans did intend to lessen the Rights of their Government, by taking their Law of the twelve Tables from Athens, nor their Mari­time Law from Rhodes; and no more than our Roman-Catho­lick Ancestors did intend a Subjugating of our Laws to the Popes Canon Law (against several parts of which, they o­penly [Page 259] protested) by the receiv­ing of some other parts of it, they thought agreeable to the good of Church and State; or than the Government at pre­sent intends any Recognition of Foraign Power, by any parts of the Civil or Canon Law, be­ing still incorporated in our Laws, and continuing here to be a part of the Lex terrae QVOAD certain causes Eccle­siastical or Maritime.

And indeed it must be ac­knowledged, to be for the Ho­nour of the Trent Council, that in France and some other Coun­tries where it hath not been re­ceived and published, its Do­ctrinal Definitions have yet got ground in the Belief of many Roman-Catholicks, on the sup­posed [Page 260] Merits of the things themselves therein contained; and as it hath been for the Re­putation of some things in the Civil or Canon Law, that on their being thought reasona­ble, our Laws have Adopted them as their own.

But as with all due Tender­ness to all my fellow Christians in France or elsewhere, whether Lay or Clerical, I forbear to Censure or Reproach them in my most Secret Thoughts, for Embracing the Belief of any such Tenets as may be called Re­ligionary, though taken up from Trent by them, after they have used all the due means for the finding out Truth in the same (and do most earnestly pray, that God who hath been pleased in [Page 261] Scripture to express his Divine Philanthrophy by the Discreet Love of a Father, and the Ten­der Love of a Mother, would bestow the same Blessings on them, that I wish for my self, and my most near and dear Re­lations) so I should have been glad to have found the like Spi­rit of Charity Breathing in the Acts of the French clergy with Relation to their Christian Bre­thren differing from them in points Religionary, instead of pronouncing their breach made with them, to be founded only on Calumnies, after the Pastoral Advertisement of that Clergy to them in the year 1682, and instead of affording them their Compassion for not being able in the three following Years, to [Page 262] receive that Faith of that Trent Council, which I account from the year 1564. the time of its Confirmation to this Day, not to have been Published or Receiv­ed in that Kingdom, and whose Publication may be said to be there yet, but (as it were) in abbeyance, and instead of fur­ther charging them as Calumni­ators, because of the things Writ against the Romanists by our Whitaker and Downham, a hardship I have observed com­plain'd of in some late Writings of the French Protestants.

But the great Royal goodness of our Gracious King, and the fervent Zeal and Charity of the present Divines of England, have made them an amends for what they suffered on the account of [Page 263] those our former great Cler­gy-Men.

Yet must it be acknowledg­ed, that in one point that Cler­gy in their Petition to the King, doth the Huguenots this Justice as to say the pretended Reformed, how great so-ever their Blindness is, are not arrived to that height of Folly, as to maintain their lawful practice of the Crimes of Impu­tations and Calumny.

And I am glad that since the 2 d. of March. 1679. so much occasion hath been given by the Popes Condemning the Te­nets of the Iesuits, about the Doctrine of CALVMNY, and their Sicarious Principles, for the not charging them on the Church of Rome, as approved by it as formerly. But on the ac­count [Page 264] of the Horrid Calumnies against Fathers and Councils, still continued in the Decrets of the Canon Law, and forged with as much Falshood as any could have been by the French Clergy observed in the Case of the pretended Reform'd, as I have particularly enough shewn in the Case of Cyprian I may well urge it as an Argumentumad hominem, that neither the Pope nor French Clergy, should have been Authors of too much Se­verity to those Reformed, on the pretence of their Calumnia­ting the Doctrine of their Church: And have been careful not to charge on the Catholicitè (as the Term is) the Falshood of Gra­tian, and the lachesse of the Popes, that so long suffer'd so much [Page 265] Trompery in him to pass for Law: And were I at Rome now, while the Pope is so worthily busy'd in strengthening the preparations against the Turk in this Con­juncture, would not divert him from the same, by importuning him to make a better Canon Law for his Flock. Nor do I charge on the Gallican Church or State, what I have mentioned out of Boerius, a President of Parlia­ment there: If they hoped by the publication of their Book in France, to effect a Reconcili­ation of Churches there, or the Translators of it any such thing by their Printing it here, much good may their Design do them: But it seems an untoward way of beginning a Reconciliation by giving the [Page 266] lie, or accusing the pretended Reform'd of Calumnies and Falsities. But the Author of the Papist Represented and Misrepre­ted, hath outdone the French Clergy in Civility of Expres­sion to Protestants, and by ren­dring them only Misrepresenters of the Church of Rome.

Yet since both these Books do agree in Representing Roman-Catholicks as owning the Do­ctrine of the council of Trent, I standing fast in the Liberty I have, not to be imposed on by those Doctrines, intermeddle not here with others liberty, to own any Religionary Tenets of the same.

And our Excellent and Learn­ed Clergy-Men will no doubt, both by Preaching and Wri­ting [Page 267] occasionally, secure the Souls of their Congregations, from any danger that they shall apprehend from any of the Papal Clergy, propagating such Tenets among them.

But here I shall occasionally say, that I think that few of the Religionary or Doctrinal Tenets of the Council af Trent either do, or in the time of our Fears and Iealousies, have so much Animated the Aversion of ma­ny of the Populaae here against that Council, as their apprehen­sion of the exterminium of Hereticks designed long ago by the calling of that Council. The benefit of the peace, and rest the Protestants had obtain­ed by the Interim, A. 1548. and its formula inter [...]religionis, was [Page 268] but to last to the end of the Council of Trent: And I have some where met with Iohn Paul Windec, cited for boasting in his Book, de Haeretic extir­pand. that nothing was accorded for the Protestants by that Edict or Formula; but a Dilatory Re­prieve and Toleration, till the end of that Council. And moreo­ver we know, that in that Coun­cil there is an express Confirma­tion of former General Councils, and of the Terrible Lateran one in particular. For though you mention some Popish and Protestant Writers as denying the Lateran Council to have been a General one, and that Pro­testant Authors are somewhat put to it, who would prove it so to have been, yet if you had con­sidered [Page 269] what the Bishop of Lin­coln in his first Book about Po­pery saith in p 51. that the Coun­cil of Trent in Sess. 24. cap. 5. calls that Lateran one a Gene­ral Council, and confirms one of its Canons; you would have thought it a very easie task, to have satisfied any Reverers of the Council of Trent, with the others having been a general one. And the Trent Council having, as that Learned Bishop shews there in p. 43. Commanded Emperors, Kings and Princes to observe the Sacred Canon, and all General Councils and Apostolical Sanctions in favour of Ecclesia­stical Persons, and the Liberties of the Church; and where the Title to the Chapter is said to be, Cogantur omnes Principes Catho­lici [Page 270] conservare omnia sancita, &c. and those words which in p. 57. the Bishop refers to the Council of Lateran for, viz. Catholici qui Crucis assumpto charactere ad haereticorum exterminium se ac­cinxerint, illâ gaudeant indul­gentiâ quae accedentibus ad terrae sanctae subsidium Conceditur, and that Councils having so threat­ned Princes with Deposition, and the absolving of their Subjects from their Allegiance, in Case they do not Exterminate Here­ticks, hath really been the most Considerable and [...]perative Ob­jection that any Protestant Wri­ters have brought to shew the dread of that part of the Prin­ciples of Popery, that you term Irreligionary: And few of the Writers against the same, in our [Page 271] late Fermentation, but instanced in that Objection: And to which none of the Roman Catholick Writers then, that I read, did Attempt to apply the least An­swer.

The Author of the Compendi­um (whom you mention with the Title of Ingenious) doth there in p. 79. tell us, That there is not one single Paragraph in that Book of the Bishops; but what was either fully Answered, or what doth not at least wound the whole Protestant Party by its Conse­quence more than us: But was so Ingenuous, as to answer not a word that I can find there, to the Objection of the Lateran Council, and which omission in him proceeded not from inad­ventence; for in that one leaf [Page 272] where he insinuates, that he hath fully Answered the Bishops whole Book, he tells us twice, that no Council ever imposed the Deposing Power on our Belief. And I obser­ved, that my Good and Learned Friend Father Walsh, where in the Preface to his Causa Vale­siana, printed in the year 1682. he endeavours to answer that Book of the Bishop, did not think fit to take notice of the Objecti­on of the Lateran Council.

But after your common way in all your Writings I have seen, namely to fortifie Objections, before you answer them, thus (as I may say) to Deck and Crown the Victim you intend to offer to the World, as I find you have done right to the con­siderableness of this of the La­teran [Page 273] Council, and have in your discourse Termed that Learned Bishops Book both un­answered and unanswerable, it is by all Ingenious and Loyal Pro­testants and Papists, to be ac­knowledged to you, that you are the only Person, who hath appeared in Print, to give the Objection the Answer that it will bear; and for which none I believe will thank you more than that excellent Prelate. For after you had taken the freedom in your Introduction or Preface, to Reflect as you have done on Arch-Bishop Vshers Prophecy, and the Predictions of Bishop Morly, you with great Curiosi­ty set forth the factum of the Munster Peace, whereby the Age may learn, that as with God, [Page 274] all things are possible, so by his having influenced the under­standings of Roman-Catholick Princes, and by their having shewed much better than by Words I mean, by their pacta Convenia really observed, that they think not themselves obli­ged by the Lateran Council, and the Deposition there threatned to exterminate their Heretical Sub­jects, and you Candidly shew the Artifice of the Objection in a great Measure answered by the God of Nature, and by Natu­ral Causes inclining the great Roman-Catholick Crown'd Heads of Christendom to permit the dire passages in that Council, to be in a manner Abrogated by Desuetude.

You have fairly related it, [Page 275] how the Roman Catholick Princes agreed in their Treaty, that no CANONS or DE­CREES of COVNCILS or ABSOLVTIONS what­soever, should in future times be allowed against any Article of it, and consequently that the Canons or Decrees of that Council, Threatning Princes with DEPOSITION, and the Absolving of their Subjects from their Allegiance, for the not Exterminating their Hereti­cal Subjects from their Allegi­ance, were by all those Roman-Catholick Crown'd Heads, Con­temned and defy'd; and you have shewn how the Papacy hath since Acquiesced therein, and since lex currit cum praxi, and that Peace hath been so long [Page 276] observed, your account of it hath been of much more Im­portance to the Papists, as to the helping to bring them off in some Measure from the Odi­um of the Disloyal Doctrine of the DEPOSING Power, than any thing said by their Writers hath been, and no doubt but when any more such close At­tacks shall be made upon them by our Writers, as have been since his Majesties Reign, to charge the Allowance of the De­posing Power on their Church, they will not neglect to Crave Aid from what you have said in that your Historical Account of that Peace.

I assure you it was no easie Task to give so Critical and so Impartial an account of the fa­ctum [Page 277] of that Peace, as you have done, and so much for the Ad­vantage of the Papists, and whereby you have Merited much more from them, than their Favorite of our Church, Dr. Heylin did by Writing of the Outrages that accompanyed the Reformation. And your oc­casional rectifying the Mistake of a considerable Writer of the Church of Rome, and of such another of the Church of Eng­land here in the Negotiation of that peace, hath shewed the Niceness and Difficulty of stating it exactly as you have done.

The Author of the Novelles de la Republique des Lettres, for the Month of November last past, giving an account of Dr. [Page 278] Burnets 2d. Part of the Hist. of the Reformation, being Beyond-Sea lately Printed in French, doth there in p. 1250 give the World a fresh view of the Horrour of the Lateran Council▪ by rendring our Queen Mary as prompted by that Council, to the Perse­cution of her Protestant Sub­jects.

But you having in your Dis­course with the Exquisite Arti­fice of Oratory, mentioned some Passages in her Reign, not com­monly known, and that on the Foundation you lay'd so low in the Rubbish of her Reign, you might with more Advantage support the whole Super structure of your Judging that any Roman Catholick Prince that should inherit the Throne [Page 279] here, would perfectly Decline her politicks, and likewise in your Preface particularly forti­fied the Minds of People a­gainst the Fears and Jealousies of such a Prince, that might be Occasioned by the Lateran Council, did very seasonably thereby advance the measures of Loyalty and Mens more chearful adherence to the Lineal Succession.

And the Truth is, that among the many Pamphlets Writ, with most Artifice and ill ap­ply'd Learning ad faciendum po­pulum, and to pervert them to the Exclusion, I observing the Lateran Council so much in­sisted on, cannot but Judge your undeceiving them in that point, to have been the more [Page 280] necessary. The Pamphlet you shew'd me in 4 to, Pr for Ianeway in the year 1681. and called A Moderate Decision of the Point of Succession, humbly proposed to the consideration of the Parlia­ment, doth harp much on that Council: And another Pam­phlet Printed in the same year for the same Person, and called The Case of Protestants in Eng­land, under a Popish Prince, &c. did there among the many Quotations out of the Canon Law and Canonists, councils, and Popish Divines and School-Men making for its purpose in p. 5. and 27. trouble us with the Lateran Council, and mentions Bellarmines calling it the Papists great and most Famous Council. Your having in your Discussion, [Page 281] so succesfully combated the ob­ligatoriness of that Council up­on Papists, was of great use for the unblundering many no­minal Protestants (as your term is) in their fancying it so neces­sary for the quiet of Christen­dom, that Princes and their Subjects should agree in the Be­lief of the Speculative points of Religion, as your expressions are, and whereupon you pro­mise the Age your publication of the fact of the Munster Peace and its Consequences, and which promise you have in your Preface, so well and fully perform'd.

The Author of the Answer to the Book call'd, A Papist Mis­represented, doth refer to Lessius his Discussio decreti magni Concil. [Page 282] Lateran. and saying that the Churches Authority would not be maintain'd without the Deposing Power, and in p. 104. making the Councils of Lateran under Alex. 3. and Innocent 3. to be general ones. And in the Re­flections on the Answer, nothing is mentioned to deny it. But your having in your Discussion cited Cardinal Peron, for ha­ving so strenuously asserted that Councils being a general one, and yet not thinking it Obligatory for the Exterminating the Persons of Hereticks from France, where their number was so great, and your having cited Cardinal D' Ossat partly to the same effect, and further shewing this their Doctrine In­carnate in the Lives of so many [Page 283] Roman-Catholick Crown'd Heads, and their Empires after all the dismal effects that the contrary practices produced, and that the Voice of Nature did, in the Storm their Country's were in, and when it was so necessary to have many Hands, speak it as plainly concerning Heretical Subjects continuing with them, as St. Pauls words were to the Centurion, and to the Soldiers, viz. except these abide in the Ship, ye cannot be saved, and your shewing that pursuant to the Munster Peace they did a­bide in the Ship, and thereby saved themselves and it, was time by you very nobly spent, in your helping Men to See, how far Nature had by its pow­erful Hands, effectually deli­vered [Page 284] People from their Fears of the Lateran Council, and which time was to much better pur­pose spent, than that of some Roman-Catholick Apologists, for any harsh thing Decreed by Ge­neral Councils, and saying that they are not declared as Doctri­nal points, and that the Decrees relating only to Discipline and Government, come short of being Articles of Faith, as the Author of the Reply to the Reflections upon the answer to a Papist Mis­represented and Represented, o [...]erves, and as to which he there further in p. 54. quotes the Vindi­cation of Dr. Sherlocks Sermon, for saying, that to Decree what shall be done, includes a Virtual Definition of that Doctrine, on which that Decree is founded.

[Page 285]But such little Arts the great Cardinal you mentioned, for­bore to use in the point of the Lateran Council: And 'tis not Art but Nature, that can satisfie the Curious in this inquisitive Age, and by the great prospect of Nature you have shew'd Men appearing in the Munster-Peace, they will be naturally untaught their Fears of that Council, now they know its Sting is pluck'd out, what ever humming about their Ears it may still make by the help of any Writers.

The Learned Author of the Seasonable Discourse in his other Book of the difference between the Church and Court of Rome consider'd in p. 21. speaking of the Lateran Council, and how his Roman-Catholick Antagonist [Page 286] had Cited one Iohn Bishop, who in a Book Written in the time of Queen Elizabeth, affirmed, that the Constitution of the La­teran Council, on which the whole Authority of Absolving Subjects from their Allegiance, and Deposing Princes is founded, is no other than a Decree of Pope Innocent the 3 d, and was never admitted in England: Yea, that the said Council was no Council at all, nor any thing at all there Decreed by the Fathers, doth in the following Pages, substantially Confute his Ad­versary, and sets up the Autho­rity of Cardinal Peron, and of the Council of Trent against that Iohn Bishop, and refers to Dr. Vane's Vindication of the Council of Lateran, and shews [Page 287] how and when the Canons of that Council were allowed and confirmed in the National Synod held at Oxford, 1222.

When therefore I consider how one said, that Custom ha­ving once through Continuance, Naturalized it self into any sub­lunary things, it is then (to speak properly) no more Custom, but Na­ture; and that Custom accor­ding to Galen, is a kind of ad­scititious Nature, and that Ori­gen tells us, that of all Customs, none stick so fast in the mind, when once setled there, and none so hard to be wiped and washed off as those, which he calls [...] i. e. the Customs of Opinion and Doctrine, be they right or wrong, and have found Gregory the Pope [Page 288] Cited for ascribing to Custom a power to make things that are bad in themselves, to become Iust and Legal, viz. Si pravae rei aditus antequam diu patescat, non clau­ditur, usu fit latior & erit consu­etudine licitum, quod ratione Con­stat esse prohibitum. Greg. Reg. Epist. P. 7. Ind. 2. Ep. 120. and do consider how far, and how long your instances were extended of the La­teran Council, having lost its Nature by the Customs of Opi­nion and Doctrine contrary thereto, obtaining much in the Papal World, any Philoso­pher or indifferent Man must say, that you have said some­thing of Substance, and indeed, the best thing that can fairly be said to shew Men the vanity [Page 289] and illogicalness of their former fears of Roman Catholick Prin­ces ▪ being bound by their Re­ligion to Exterminate their He­terodox Subjects, by your shew­ing the Treaty when, and place where and named the Year and Month, in which that Irreligi­onary Principle of Popery, was it self Exterminated by them; and a custom contrary to the Lateran Laws, been there firm­ly Naturalized, 'Tis said in Ie­remiah 2.24. concerning the Wild Ass: all they that seek her, will not weary themselves; in her Month they shall find her; alluding to the Hunters being able to take her in her Month, when she was burdened, and so near Foaling: And the endea­vours of the Wise to Hunt [Page 290] down that Foolish and Cruel thing called Bigotry, were not ineffectual when its Month was come and when it grew so Burthensom to it self; and you have led us to the Month in which the Monarch of Spain was put to it to Relinquish his Right and Soveraignty in those Provinces, from whence so many Nominal Hereticks had been formerly exterminated.

You have in your Discussion, been very kind to the Chara­cter of a very Pious and Loyal Gentleman, on the account of what you had been informed of as to his Signalising the Weight of his Political Remarks and Learning, as well as of his Loy­alty (as your words are) by his Speech he made against the Ex­clusion, [Page 291] and his instancing in some Princes and their Subjects of dif­ferent Religions, living very hap­pily together. But whether you have not over-acted your part of praising that performance of his, I am to leave you to con­sider; for if that Speech of his was truly related in the Printed Collection of the Debates of the House of Commons, at the Parli­ament held at Westminster, on October 1680. there was no­thing to justifie the Learning of his Political Remarks to the purpose you spake of, but his saving, that it was no such strange thing, to have the Prince, of one Re­ligion and People of another; and his instancing, that the late Duke of Hannover was a Papist, and yet lived in Peace with [Page 292] his People, though Lutherans.

It was pitty but on that oc­casion, he had open'd the pros­pect of a larger Scene, than what the Case of the quiet living of that Duke, and his Subjects could import; and that both he and all the Speakers and Writers against the Exclusion, that I took notice of, omitted the referring to the happy ef­fects of the Treaty of Munster, that provided for so many great Popish Princes, and the vast Numbers of their Protestant Subjects living well together, though yet it happened, that there was an occasion fair enough in all Conscience, for all Mens taking notice of it, who mind the Affairs of Christendom; and that was, that in the first pro­ject [Page 293] or platform of Conditions of Peace made by the French King in order to the Peace at Nime­ghen, and in which project (as Dated at St. Germans the 9 th of April 1678.) 'tis said expresly, that as to what concerns the Em­pire, that he will insist only on the restoring of the Munster Treaties in all their points, and to have them once more to be the means of restoring Peace to Germany; and in the Peace between the Empe­ror and the French King Signed at Nimeghen (and which men­tions the Settlement of that Peace, as Resulting from the Successful Mediation of his Majesty of England) there are these words in the Second Article, viz. and for as much as the Peace concluded at Munster in West Phalia, is [Page 292] [...] [Page 293] [...] [Page 294] to be the Foundation and basis of this present Treaty, and publick Tranquillity, the said Peace shall from henceforth be restored in all and every its points, and remain in full force and vigour, as if the same were word for word inserted herein, except in such points as are Derogated from it by this pre­sent Treaty.

And as to that we know, that exceptio firmat regulam, and thus too in the Articles between the Emperor and the King of Sweden, Signed at Nimeghen on the same Day with the former Articles▪ viz. February 5. 1679. The third Article runs thus, According to this Foundation of an Vniversal and Vnlimited An­mesty, and to the end a more certain Rule of Friendship and [Page 295] Peace, may be setled between the Parties, it hath been by mutual consent agreed on between them, that the Peace Concluded in West-Phalia, shall remain the Basis, and Rule of the pre [...]ent pacifica­tion in such manner, that it shall be restored to its first Force and Vi­gour, and inviolably kept hereafter, and continue as it was before the present War, a Pragmatick Sancti­on, and Fundamental Law of the Empire, &c. And in the Arti­cles between the Emperor and the French King, as likewise in those between the Emperor and the King of Sweden, there are some to include the King of Great Brittain in the Treaty af­ter the best and most effectual manner that may be, and to ad­mit his Guaranty for the Execu­tion [Page 296] and Performance of the Pac­ta Conventa herein: And his present Majesty hath in the past time of his Reign, appeared as tender of the Performance and Stabiliment of them, as of the Apple of his Eye, and on an Emergent occasion, was (as I am informed) heard to say to a great Foraign Minister; but I WILL have the Nimeghen Peace OBSERVED, and with a paralel bravery to that in those words of Henry the Fourth, you have mentioned; but I WILL have my own.

Thus is the Munster Treaty, and the Liberty thereby given to Protestants and Calvinists, both as to the Enjoyment of their Religion and their Estates (and many of which Estates [Page 297] were Church-Lands) notwith­standing the Popes Declaration of the Nullity of that Peace supported by his Present Maje­jesty, and as I doubt not, but it always will be, as well as by other Roman-Catholick Crown'd Heads. And the figure the present French King made in the Munster Treaty, in the year Forty Eight, and in the Restau­ration of its effects, and Vigor in Christendom in the year Se­venty Nine, is a sufficient De­monstration of his thinking it lawful for the Lateran Council, to be Disobey'd by Popish Prin­ces, as to the point of Exter­minating their Heretical Sub­jects.

I do therefore account this your Manly way of Confuting [Page 298] the Fears and Iealousies foun­ded on that Council, to have been at this time the more op­portune, and the more worthy of your Loyalty; because (as you have mentioned it after the End of your Discussion) It may seem the Design of some People in the World abroad, to encrease our Divisions, and the popular hatred against Papists and Popery here, by the usage that Protestants meet with there, as if the Religion of Popery did necessarily Cause the same. You have therefore well reputed it the opus diei here in England, to shew the contrary, and have done it more effectu­ally, than any late Writer of the Church of Rome, I know, here hath done, or perhaps was able to do: And your quoting [Page 299] for this purpose in p. 208. D' Ossats Speech to the Pope, and wherein he so Argumentatively both like a Divine and a States-Man, asserted the Law [...]ulness of Henry the 4 th's of France ob­serving the EDICTS in favour of his Protestant Subjects, and wherein he mentioned how o­ther Roman Catholick Princes had done what was tantamount to it, and how that the Pope made no Reply to him thereup­on, may much help to shew our Timid and Iealous People, that the Religionary part of Po­pery or Doctrine of the Church of Rome, doth not oblige Ro­man-Catholick Princes to make the Lives of their Protestant Subjects uneasie to them.

It here falls in my way, [Page 300] to acknowledge to you, that the great Instances you have given in your Discourse con­cerning the Consummat Loy­alty of great numbers of Hen­ry the 4ths. Popish Subjects to him while a Protestant, and un­der the Popes Excommunicati­on, have been very useful for the enlarging Peoples Charita­ble Thoughts, as to the Per­sons of some Papists, and the tendency of their Principles to Loyalty, and to the shewing, that though in the Great Lateran Council (wherein were 1215 Fathers) it was Synodically and Categorically concluded, that the Pope might absolve Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance, that yet great Numbers of Hen­ry the 4ths. Roman-Catholick [Page 301] Subjects knew, and Practised better things, and that their great Absolute and Unconditio­nal Loyalty to him, lives in the Records of the Impartial Thu­anus: And that notwithstand­ing any principles Chargeable on the Church of Rome, the Faith of many particular per­sons in it hath by its Works shewn it self very perfect for Loyalty.

But here I am likewise obli­ged to gratifie you by my Com­plaisance with your Temper in differing somwhat in Opinion from you (for you say, you are better pleased in Conversation with those who in many points dif­fer from you, than with those who in all agree with you) and am frankly to tell you, that tho' [Page 302] I am sufficiently satisfied with your discharging of the Moral Offices of Honouring all Men, and giving Honour particularly to some Roman Catholicks to whom it was due, and particu­larly where in p. 360. You have with so great a Height of Ex­pression Celebrated the Virtue of the Queen Dowager (and from whom I had the Honour to re­ceive Thanks, by the late Earl of Ossory for the Justice I did her Majesty in a late Conjuncture.) Yet there is one thing at the end of your Discourse, and ano­ther after the end of your Dis­cussion, wherein you are pleas­ed to give your Judgment con­cerning the Papists here in ge­ral, as I would not have given mine in the Case. You say in [Page 303] p. 285. ‘That after the Various Intervals in which the Dis­course was Written, it having happened that the Papists are to the General Satisfaction of Impartial Judges of Men and things, become as sound a part of this Nation, as they were and are of the Dutch States, and as throughout the Discourse you always suppo­sed them Capable of being, and in p. 361.’You say, ‘that it is with Justice to be by all Men to our Popish Fellow Subjects acknowledged, that what ever petulance some of them were formerly guilty of, or of any Ambitious Design of making too great a Figure in the Internal Government of the Nation, yet that the De­portment [Page 304] of the Generality of them, hath lately appeared with such a Face, not only of Loyalty, but of Complaisance with his Majesties Measures, in imploying the Hands and Heads of Protestants of the Church of England, in the Management of great Matters of State, as is necessarily Attra­ctive of our Christian Love and Compassion, &c.’

But tho' I account my self Morally obliged to Judge se­veral Papists of my Acquain­tance to abound in Loyalty, and to be such whose Moderation is known to all Men, and to be no Exorbitant Affecters of making too great a Figure in the Inter­nal Government of the King­dom; and do hope that many [Page 305] others are so with whom I am not acquainted, and will Judge no particular Papist to believe or practise Principles of Disloy­alty, without particular grounds, and tho' on the account of the Trite Rule that Interest never lyes, I will hope that the generality of them will in his Majesties Reign and afterward be neither Disloyal, nor Heady nor High-Minded, nor affecters of Pre­heminence: Yet if I were requi­red to give my present Judg­ment in short of the present Temper of the generality of them, as to the Qualifications about which you have given your Judgment in the Case, and that too relating to future times, I considering the Formu­lary of the Letters denoting [Page 306] Judgment, given in the Mode of the Old Roman Laws, viz. A. and C. and N. L. would not presume either to Absolve or Condemn the gross of their Num­bers as to those Qualifications; but would interpose the Non Liquet in their Case; and much less will I Condemn your Judg­ment of Charity to them, and say, that some of your Sharp Reflections on Popery, and some Papists, have favoured of the Common way of some Partial Judges Byassed with an intent to bring off some Criminals, Namely, to make some disob­liging rough Language previ­ous to the obliging them with their Sentence at last: But ta­king every thing in the best Sense it will bear, shall suppose [Page 307] that your Information of the Temper of the Generality of them, might be what arrived not at my Knowledge, and that therefore you pronounced there­of as you have done. And moreover, your Discourse be­ing Writ before the Late Kings Death, I shall account it was for several Reasons, a strength­ening of Loyalty, and weaken­ing of the Fears of Timid Pro­testants, for you both in the Close of your Discourse, as well as your Discussion, to do the Persons as well as Tenets of Pa­pists all the Justice you could.

From your having in that Discussion occasionally so much dilated on the Moral Offices of Loyalty to our Princes, without respect to their Religion, and [Page 308] what ever Religion they may profess different from that by Law Established, I shall be glad if the thoughts of all his Ma­jesties Protestant Subjects, will Receive deep Impressions of the peculiar Duties we owe to him our Great and Gracious Sove­raign, particularly eo nomine. When ever we pray for him at the Prayers of our Church, or our private Devotions, let us think of him, with the Honour due to a King, and Gods Vice­gerent; Let us not Slander the Footsteps of Gods Anointed, in what ever way to Heaven he hath placed the same, nor yet by Reproaches make the few of this great populous Nation unea­sie, who as Viatores attend him in the same way; but be the [Page 309] more Civil to them, for being part of his retinue therein. Since it is Rudeness for any Man to be Curiously Inquisitive into the Speculative points of Religion held by Subjects, it may be thought both that and Profana­tion of Gods more than ordi­nary Care over the Hearts of Kings, to be prying and in­truding into the Sentiments of our Soveraign As there are peculiar Moral Offices that con­cern Subjects, when the Prince is not in the External Commu­nion of the same Church with them, so there are such like­wise incumbent on those Sub­jects, that are in the External Communion of the same Church with their Prince, and which oblige them particular­ly [Page 310] to promote the Ease and Tranquillity of his Reign.

It having pleas'd God by the Course of the Executive power of the Law in his Majesties Hands, to free them from ma­ny Hardships to which they were before liable, and to put a great price into their Hands (if they have Hearts to make use of it, and to give them an oppor­tunity by their Moderation, and by their Complaisance with his Majesties Measures in the De­fence and Supporting of the Church of England, and by their knowing in this their Day, the things that belong to their Peace, to compass an Universal and lasting Tenderness in the great Body of the English People to­ward their Persons, and ma­king [Page 311] the Laws and the whole Hive of the English People to guard them, and the very Anger and Zeal of the Protestants to be a Defensive Wall of Fire round about them, (as your words are) it becomes them to contribute to the ease of his Majesties Royal Cares, by their being what you say they generally are, and by their not Misrepre­senting or Calumniating those who are of the Religion diffe­rent from theirs, which yet you have shew'd Father Parsons predicted they must necessarily do, and by their not affecting such an excessive internal Pow­er in the Government, as you say in the distant Reighnes of some of our Protestant Princes they did.

[Page 312]It concerns them by their Reverently using their present Temporary Indulgence, to ef­fect for his Majesty, that in the Case of his easing their Con­sciences and their Estates from some Penal Laws▪ it may be as was in the Reign of David, viz. that whatsoever the King did, pleas'd all the People.

There is none desires more than my self, that among the various Opinions in Religion, all exasperations against each o­thers Persons, and Misrepre­sentations of each others Do­ctrines, may for ever cease.

And therefore according to the expressions us'd in the Acts of the General Assembly of the French Clergy, complaining of Calumny publish'd against the [Page 313] Doctrine of the Church, and the Faith of the Catholick Church, and their seeming there to re­strain that Doctrine and that Faith, to the Decisions of the Council of Trent, and such as are of the Nature with those printed in one Column apart, I in what I have Written in my private Papers concerning the Religion of the Church of Rome, have observ'd the Measures that our great Writer Mr. Chilling­worth hath done in his Book forecited, and where he saith, Chap. 6. N. 56. I do not vnder­stand by your Religion, the Do­ctrine of Bellarmine or Baroni­us, or any other private Man a­mong you, nor the Doctrine of the Sorbon, or of the Jesuits or Do­minicans, or of any other parti­cular [Page 314] company among you; but that wherein you all agree, or pro­fess to agree, the Doctrine of the Council of Trent.

And tho in your Explication of what you mean by Popery, you seem to restrain your aver­sion to it, as comprising only the Papal Usurpations, or what is Congrous to the known Di­stinction of the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome, and profess to follow the Measures of the late Earl of Clarendon, of whom Cressy in p. 101. of his Epistle Apologetical, saith that he makes the Popes Tempo­ral power to be the Hinge, upon which all other Controversies be­tween Protestants and English Ca­tholicks do hang and depend so entirely, that if that only were ta­ken [Page 315] off, all the rest would quickly fall to the ground; I am pleas'd with his Lordship or yours, ha­ving gone so far with me in my way against Popery (for if any Friend bears me Compa­ny good part of my way in a­ny Journey, I shall be pleas'd therewith, tho he accompany me not to my Journeys end) I am yet to tell you, that in my way to Heaven, I have further to go, than merely so far as the leav­ing that Temporal Power of the Pope behind me: And must freely pass the bounds of Trent, but yet strictly observing the Moral Offices of not injuring or troubling, or Misrepresent­ing or Miscalling any Man for not going my way; and if I find the profess'd observers of [Page 316] the Doctrines of the Council of Trent seeming but tacitly to reject the Disloyal Principles propp'd up formerly by the Council of Lateran, and owning expresly only the Doctrines of the Council of Trent, I shall not trouble my self or them to charge them with the Odious Matter of the former Council, or to Recant by Words what you say so many and so great Pa­pists have done by Actions.

And if the Roman Catholicks who were suppos'd to have pub­lish [...]d that Translated Book of the Acts of the French Clergy, intended only thereby to cau­tion us against the Misrepre­senting them and the Doctrine of their Church, I shall be glad if the Caution may be justly pur­sued by all Men.

[Page 317]But some Criticks on that Translation have presumed to Judge their publishing the French Kings Edict of the 14 th. of Iuly last, for Restraining the French Protestants former Li­berty of Writing and Speaking a­gainst the Doctrines of the Council of Trent, or as the words there are, from speaking directly or indirectly after what manner soever of the Catholick Religion, was perhaps done with an ill intent by some who with an Evil Eye look'd on the Kings goodness to the Church of Eng­land.

I am far from Attributing the Heat or Indiscretion of par­ticular Persons, to the Body of any Religionary Party: And do Judge, that when our Ex­cellent [Page 318] Divines of the Church of England shall be of Opi­nion that the Emissaries of Rome are not more than or­dinarily busie in endeavouring to pervert any of their Flocks from their Religion, they will naturally throw off Debates of Speculative Controversial Divi­nity. For granted it must be, that both Protestants and Papists do stand more in need to be taught what were the Moral Pra­ctices of the Primitive Christians than what were their Specula­tive Assertions: And as a late Divine hath well remark'd, Six­teen Hundred Years are run out, since the Son of God came down to Sanctifie and Save the World, which are so many Degrees, where­by we are Descended from the first [Page 319] Perfection. We are more di­stant from them in Holiness than in time; so universal and great is the Corruption, that 'tis almost as difficult to revive the dying Faith of Christians, and to Re­form their Lives according to the Purity of their Profession, as the Conversion of the World was from Heathenism to Christianity.

And when I consider how much the Christian Religion hath been Debased to a Religi­on-Trade, as your Term is, and and a project to advance Mens Ambition or profit, and by ways and Artifices contrary to the Law of Nature, and below that generous Contempt of Sordid Actions and below the fides, verecundia, honestas, and the Simplicity of Manners that [Page 320] Adorn'd the Minds and the Conversations of the Antient Heathens, and how much the Old pietas in patriam, you have referr'd to in Cicero, is evapo­rated among Christians, and the very ideas of Heroical Acti­ons lost, that is, such Actions as were term'd so as respecting the good of our Prince and Country, and when I consider how by that Cruel Revenge­ful implacable Spirit, rendring Christians worse Enemies to one another, than even ever Iulian was (for he in one of his Epi­stles to Iamblichus profess'd that he thought then was not fit for him to persecute the Christians, [...]. i. e. I think it fit to teach, but not to punish [Page 321] Fools) & seeing some Christians to apostatise from that which was commendable in the temper of Iulian the Apostate, I cannot for­bear thinking of those severe words of my Friend Dr. Ham­mond, in the Epistle to his practi­cal Catechism, viz. As Machiavel, thought Religion would emasculate and enfeeble Common wealths, we have more reason to complain, that it hath Debauch'd and Corrupted Lives: And were it not that God hath been pleas'd to preserve a scat­ter'd Remnant, a few in every Na­tion to be the Records (as it were) from whom it may be seen what Christianity is able to do, if it may be hearken'd to: Were it not that there are a few Antient primitive Spirits, by whom as by a Standard others may, and ought to be reform­ed, [Page 322] we have reason to think, and say that Christian Men are the impu­rest part of the World: That Sa­tans after-game hath proved more prosperous and lucky to him, than his first designment did; that his Night-walk hath brought him more proselytes, than his unlimited range of going up and down, to and fro over the face of the Earth: that as Sin by the Law, so Satan by the Faith of Christ, hath taken occasi­on, and so deceived and ruined us more desperately, more universally, than by all the National Idolatrous Customs of Heathenism he hath been able to do.

There is one noble Virtue of the Primitive Christians, that hath indeed by the Successful labours of the Divines of the Church of England been lately much Pro­pagated [Page 323] in this Land; and that is, Loyalty to our Princes, and God be thanked that we have many thousands of the Layety of that Church who have been better instructed in that Primi­tive virtue▪ then ever Bellarmine was ▪ as appears by his Quia dee­rant vires.

And I wish that for the ease of his Majesties Cares and Safe­ty of his Government, all Mens Ideas and Practices of Loyalty, may grow both more refined and firm. And that according to your excellent quotation out of Seneca, Quanto latius officio­rum patet quam juris Regula, all his Majesties Subjects may pra­ctise the Primitive Obedience to the Height of all Moral Offices, & not to think that their being [Page 324] barely legales homines, in doing what the Law compells them to for his Service, is all the Loy­alty or Obedience requisite.

The obvious thought of Chil­dren, as well as Parents being Morally bound to be helpful to each other beyond what they are constrained to by the Law, may shew us the reasonableness of the extending our Obedience to our Political Father, to all the Noble heights of Virtue.

I-am very well pleas'd with the passages in your Discourse, that brand Mercenary Loyalty in p. 274. and the I opeans you sing to the Crowns victories ob­tained over Mercenary loyalty. And here I cannot omit being so just to your self, as to ac­knowledge that you have as [Page 325] good a warrant, as any Subject of the Crown I know, to repre­hend Mercenary Loyalty; since on your modest Application to the late King upon the impor­tunity of your friends, for a Compensation of your varicus Services done him almost ever since his Restoration, and the Re­inbursment of your expences in his Service, and on his Ministers by reference consulting my Judg­ment about your Case, I found several thousands of pounds due to you on that account, and do Judge that you never since ap­ply'd to his late Majesty, nor any of his Ministers about the same. But one instance more of your unmercenary Loyalty I shall not conceal, that I was assured of from a Lord in High Favour [Page 326] with his late Majesty, Namely, that when in his late Majesties Reign, he knowing your Abili­ties to serve the King, did of his own accord offer to you his readiness to move his Majesty to afford you a fair Pension, you Over-Modestly requested his Lordship to move no such thing in your behalf, professing to his Lordship that it should be the business of your life, to promote all his Majesties Just Measures in what you could, without any expectation of other reward than what the pleasure of all Actions of Loyalty necessarily included in the doing of them. And to this too I might add, that in the time when the late Western Rebellion was most con­siderable, your having with o­ther [Page 327] Gentlemen appear'd to his Majesty, as ready at your own expence, to be then in Arms to serve the Crown at an Hours warning, was a further fair ex­ample of your unmercenary Loy­alty.

And the truth is, that in the Present State of England, when it so much imports us to restore England to its Old Office of bal­lancing the World, Mercenary Loyalty would be now a kind of Monster In morality.

It here falls in my way to ob­serve that you have in p. 156. and 157. very usefully shewn Mercenary Religion to be a thing both senseless and odious. And therefore tho you may seem the only person of the Church of Eng. who hath in print vary'd [Page 328] from its Homilies or Articles since his Majesties Reign in any Reli­gionary point: Yet as to your self, I have had reason to guess that you long ago in the late Kings Reign had some Theolo­gical Sentiments some what dif­fering from what I took for our Churches Articles, and that I speaking to you thereof, you re­ply'd out of Bishop Bramhalls Iust Vindication of our Church, that our Articles are not penned with Anathemas, or Curses against all those even of our own, who do not receive them; but used only as an help or rule of unity among our selves.

Nor have I forgot how you once discoursed to me your o­pinion of the Tenet, that the Souls of good Men, do not immedi­ately [Page 329] after Death go up into Hea­ven, nor the Souls of bad Men then immediately down into Hell: But that the former than go into a good [...], and the latter into a bad one, and that such place was called [...] i. e. inconspicuus as be­ing so not in regard of it self, but of us, and that our Saviours Soul went [...], and that this Tenet was more particularly Tertulli­ans, and that he describing the [...] said 'twas a place ubi bonis benè erat & malis malè, and that good Men did there in Candidâ expectare diem Judicij, and that the Expression of aeternitatis Candidati, was first taken occasio­nally from those words of Ter­tullian, and that it seemed suita­ble to the Measures of Divine Iustice, not to give the great Sen­tence [Page 330] concerning eternal rewards, and punishments, before the Trial of the Day of Iudgment, and that as a Thousand years with God, are said to be but one Day, the time of that Trial might possibly last so long, and that it might else seem a diminutio capitis, for Saints to be brought from the Caelum beatorum, to the Bar, and that somewhat like this notion of the State of Souls after Death the Iews had, and likewise all the Fa­thers for the first four Centuries, and when some of them encoura­ging Men to be Martyrs, said that such did uno saltu get up into Heaven, and that our Saviour say­ing in my Fathers House are many Mansions, &c. and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive [Page 331] you unto my self, tho therefore the good will not be received by Christ into those Mansions, till he comes again, yet their condition will be much better in the good [...] then in the most prosperous State here below, where they are conti­nually exposed to the Contagion of Sin: And as you have in p. 317. mentioned that some of our Protestant Divines owning this Tenet, have not been therefore Censured as Popishly affected or maintainers of Purgatory, so nei­ther shall I therefore thence in­fer your owning the Notion of a Purgatory or Limbus, nor the usefulness of Praying for any Souls in the Hades, and much less, that your favouring this notion of Hades by publishing it now, as what some of our [Page 332] Protestant Divines favoured, was in the least designed by you as any humouring of a Project to reconcile Churches, a project that you have expressed to be so in­effectual, when some well mean­ing Men had it in their Heads in a Conjuncture long ago, and when Withers a dull Poet of the Age, yet a favorite of the vulgus, did in his Emblems p. 3 of his ep. dedicat. (as you once told me) amuse them with his fancies of the Vnion of Religion.

And as you have in your pre­face observed it that the few flo­rid Sheets lately published on the Subject of Toleration, have made no other figure than that of the poor resemblances of flowers extra­cted by Chymical Art out of their ashes, and that a little shaking [Page 333] them together in the glass of time, must make them presently fall in pieces, I have observed likewise, that the perhaps well meant Vel­leities or Wishes or little Essays of some few private Persons that since his Majesties Reign, amused any by propounding a Reconciliation of Churches, have appeared but like extracted re­semblances of the flowers of pri­vate Mens proposals of that kind in the Conjuncture before the year 1640; and since his Majesties happy Reign, they have been easily shaken in pie­ces.

Mr. Prynne in his History of the Tryal of Arch Bishop Laud, in p. 191. tells us what a ferment Mr. Adams his Case made in the Vniversity of Cambridge, in the [Page 334] year 1637. who Preaching in St. Mary's, and there asserting the necessity of Auricular Confes­sion, was by Dr. Brownrig the Vice-Chancellor enjoyned to Re­cant that Doctrine, and about which great Heats arose among the Heads of Houses there.

But the Sharpness of the ca­nons of 40 against Popery, shew­ing the zeal the Arch-bishop ex­pressed in the making of those Canons, and of that Clause in the Oath there for the abjuring Po­pery, viz. and that I will not Sub­ject the Church of England, to the Church of Rome which Oath the Arch-Bishop in his Defence saith, was a more strict Oath, than ever was made against Popery in any Age or Church, may easily Convince the Sagacious, of the [Page 335] Church of Englands Sense then, about any Project of Reconci­ling the Church of England to that of Rome, being altogether vain.

The Arch-Bishop had it seems by long and deep observation found the project of the reconci­ling of our Church and Romes, a thing utterly unpracticable; however, as to his having been formerly a Visionaire about the possibility of the same I remem­ber I have seen some angry re­flections of Dr▪ Williams Bish­op of Lincoln against him, and Writ with that Bishops own Hand in the Margent of the Arch-Bishops Printed Star-Cham­ber Speech, where over against those passages that seemed to be somewhat trimming in favour of [Page 336] the Church of Rome, Bishop Wil­liams wrote the nearer you come to the Church of Rome, the fur­ther she will fly from your Court­ship and Caresses, and will tell you that Rusticus es Corydon, nec mu­nera curat Alexis.

But what thing the Reconci­lers would be of Churches mean, to themselves is sufficiently plain. As to the natural mean­ing of any thing of that nature, I call to mind, that a Presbyte­rian Minister speaking to you once of Comprehension, and of the Divines of his perswasion, and that of the Church of Eng­land being that way Reconci­led, you told him you wished a Coalition of such with the Church of England as were for­merly of his Perswasion: But [Page 337] that you supposed by his com­prehension, he desired to be a Comprehensor of some of the Livings of the Divines of the Church of England, and that therefore when you found any Divine speak of the Essaying to Reconcile Churches, you naturally thought of those Words in the Acts of the Apo­stles. C. 17. v. 18. What will this Babler say? and Rendring the word [...] there by Church Robber, Altar Robber, and Sa­crilegious Person as our Brough­ton did, and justifying that your Critical Acception of the word out of the Greek Classick Authors, viz. Demosthenes and Aristophanes, whom you had said, you had found Cited for that Sense of the word, at the [Page 338] end of Cloppenburg de Sacrificiis, and who Citing Aristophanes his Comedy of [...] aves where the Birds threaten Iupiter with a Holy War, shews that by [...] was meant, Avis Se­minilega, and that the Athe­nians thought St. Paul would despoil the Altars of the Gods of the Provisions of their Of­ferings: And in Fine you said, that such various readings of that word, would certainly meet in any ones being thought a Babler by those of the Reli­gion Established, if he would interlope in their Maintenance.

I doubt not but you have heard of the late Candidate Beyond-Sea, for the Office of the Reconciler of Churches, I mean the Author of TVBA [Page 339] PACIS, ad universas Dissiden­tes in Occidente Ecclesias, seu Discursus Theologicus, de unione Ecclesiarum Romanae & Protestan­tium, nec non amicâ Compositi­one Controversiarum sidei inter hosce Caetus, per Matheum Prae­torium Memela Prussum. Prin­ted at Collen, An. 1684. and which that Author Dedicates to the Emperor, and to the Kings of Poland, France, Eng­land, Denmark, Sweden, seve­rally, and to the Electors and other Princes of the Em­pire: And just before he blows his Trumpet, he warne thus of the two Old Pronouns, that have so long troubled the World, viz. Meum and Tuum, and which will always continue so to do, [Page 340] till all Men shall be of St. Fran­cis his mind, whom when a Fryar told that he came à cellâ tuâ, St. Francis when he heard the word tuâ, said he would Lodge no more there. The Author tells us in his 10. Chap­ter, Tentavit quidem Compositi­onem Vir ob studium pacis a plu­rimis & principibus viris Longè Laudatus Georgius Cassander, sed non fausto Successu, Contradi­centibus partim Romanis, partim & protestantibus, and tells us there of the like Event, that Marcus Antonius de Dominis, and his Work for that purpose had. But our Author had the For­tune to Catch a Tartar of an Objection in the last Paragraph of his Book save one, viz. At [Page 341] dicet aliquis si unio nostrarum Ecclesiarum Cum Romanâ Eccle­siâ sieret, Romanus Pontifex jus suum repeteret▪ tot▪ bona olim Ec­cliastica quae jam per pacta & transacta in manus serenissimo­rum principum Cessere quae nun­quam principes in aerarij sui dam­num adimi sibi patientur. And to this Objection, he returneth this Answer, viz. Respondetur, Omninò aequum est Ius suum Cui­que tribuere, nec Romano Ponti­fici illud derogandum quod ipsi legitimè Competit. Bona Ec­clesiastica quae olim fuerunt, nunc autem aerario principum adscripta, jure gladij & pactorum acquisita NON PVTAMVS Romanum Ponti ficem pro suâ quâ pollet pru­dentiâ repetiturum. Frui Conce­det [Page 342] ijs ad qua [...] admissi sunt pos­sessionibus. Nihil ijs vel dece­dere vel adimi cupiet. This the good Man in his Embassy Speech to the World, as its Re­conciler tells us of this Pope; but without shewing his Credentials either from the Pope, or any one else: And I believe on the account of what you have shewn of the Munster-Treaty, the Princes and Electors of the Empire, to whom he hath De­dicated his Book, will not fear this Popes being either able or willing to give them any di­sturbance in their Church-Lands. Nor need any of us in England more fear the Popes being able or willing to hurt our possessi­ons of the Church-Lands. We [Page 343] are sufficiently shewn it out of Mores Reports, f. 1.282. that the Popes Bulls giving Monaste­ries to Wolsy, with the consent of the King, and the Surrender of the Priors to Wolsy, would not serve the turn: and that nothing but an Act of Parliament would alter the Property.

You have here an instance of our present Foraign Recon­cilers of Churches, being very poor Middle Region Men, in Comparison of Cassander and Antonius de Dominis, and o­thers; as our late little Recon­cilers likewise have been, Compared with the unfortu­nate ones of the Old Con­juncture. The question of what will this Babler say, is proper­ly [Page 344] applicable to them from all Parties.

But one thing I cannot but here observe to you, that as I was very well pleased with your Design, that you Com­municated to me after you had begun this long VOY­AGE of your THOVGHTS (as I may call it) and writ the former part of your Dis­course, namely, that ‘because in your occasional Conver­sation with People of all sorts, you have found that Mens Fancies were (as you said) Nail'd to POPERY, and their Tongues Ty'd up as to any thing but PO­PERY, and that they could not go beyond the Tedder [Page 345] of that in their Discourse; and that POPERY's Mo­nopolizing so much of their Discourse, had been one of its VSVRPATIONS, you intended to try to divert them from it, and make them pass ad au­tres, by laying before them such various Matters of Cal­culation, relating to their own Country and many places of Christendom, as might give them somewhat beside POPERY and PLOTS to think and speak of in Company;’ So I am much better pleased with your Performance of that your Curious Enterprize, and do think that your Book [Page 346] by containing in it so many MISCELLANEA, must eo nomine, prove highly use­ful to our English World in this Conjuncture.

It here occurs to me to observe to you, that after an Erratum of the Press in Page 38. of your Discourse, Namely, where you referred to P. 325 in the Advocate of Conscience Liberty, instead of Page 225, you make the last Letter of D'Ossats to be from Rome An. 1596, and I sup­pose you happened to do so, by casting your Eye on the Old Date of the last Letter but one Printed in the Volume of his Letters in Folio of the Paris Edition, An. 1625. and [Page 347] finding it to be An. 1596. But it came not into your Mind then, to observe that the last of his Letters as they are Ranged in Order, was the 199 th. and in the End of Book 9 th. and which was to Ville­roy from Rome, March the 6 th. An. 1604, and in which Year he dy'd, as you right­ly refer to his Epitaph to shew. But it seems after that last Letter in Book 9 th. of the Paris Edition, the Pub­lisher saying that he had re­covered some others of his Letters, Prints them with­out respect to the Order of time; and there makes the Date of the last Letter save one in the Volume, to be in [Page 348] the Year 1596. as you have there done. But however this Derogates not from the Iustice of your Animadver­sion in page 38. on the Ro­man-Catholick English Priest, for making D' Ossat to have known the Gun-Powder Trea­son Plot to be a Sham one, Eight Years before it was to be Executed. For the Letter of D' Ossat that that Priest alledged to prove what I now mentioned, was Dated as you justly say from Rome, March 29 th. An. 1596, and he ne­ver read the Letter that can find any thing of the Gun-Powder Treason in it.

I shall here take occasi­on to make my Excuse to [Page 349] the Reverend Divines of our Church assuring them, that by adding Observations on the Writings of the Author of the Papist Misrepresented and Represented; I intended not to Derogate from the Sufficien­cy of the Learning and Rea­son they have shewed in their Answers thereunto. But the [...]ruth is, though as in our Parliaments, frequently when [...]ny have moved for some Additional Branch to be set­ [...]ed on the Revenue here af­ [...]er the Example of some­what of the like Nature in France, the Naming of France [...]n the Case then for a Pre­ [...]ident, hath been observed [...]o make many speak against [Page 350] the Vnseasonableness of the Mo­tion, who otherwise would not have done it; so the wri­ting of any thing that was contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England, and after the Mode of the Bish­op of Condom and the Acts of the French Clergy, just at this time of Day, was a thing that I could not but shew my Resentment against, as very much unseasonable. And moreover according to the saying that one ought not t [...] be Patient under charge of He­sie, I may justifie the warmth of my Resentments, against the Acts of the French Clergy charging some of ours both with Heresie and Calumny [Page 351] and bringing up our Whit­aker and Downham there in the Van of the Calumniators under the first Article, and our Raynolds under the Sixth.