"I must now tell you that if we please to examine The penal things calmly with unprejudiced reading and unbiassed laws aimed, reason, we may find without any peradventure not against the Romish tain intoler "I. That the rigour of so many laws, the severity of religion at so many edicts, and the cruel execution of both so many large, but times against even harmless people of the Roman Com against cermunion, have not intentionally or designedly from the able princibeginning aim'd, nor do at present aim so much at the ples of some renunciation of any avowed or uncontroverted Articles Romanists; of that Christian or [R] Catholick Religion you profess, as at the suppression of those doctrines which many of yourselves condemn as anti-Catholick, and for the prevention of those practises which you all say you abhor as anti-Christian. stantiation, "II. That it is neither the number of Sacraments, nor not against the real presence in, or Transubstantiation of, the conse- transubcrated host, nor the communion thereof in one kind only, justification nor... confession, nor extreme unction, nor the by works, . . . controversies . . . about faith, justification, good- &c. &c. works or those termed supererogatorie, or about the invocation of Saints, Veneration of reliques, worshipping of images, purgatory and pardons, &c. nor is it either a patriarchal power in the bishop of Rome over the Western Church . . . or (which is yet somewhat more,) an universal pastorship purely spiritual acknowledged in him... I say it is not any of all these articles or practices, nor all together (not even joined with some others, whether of lesser or greater note) that is the grand rock of scandal, or that hath been, these last 100 years the cause of so many penalties, mulcts, incapacities, of shameful deaths inflicted and more ignominious characters given us. trines and "III. That of our side the original source of all those but against evils, and perpetual spring of all other misfortunes and certain docmiseries whatsoever of the Rom. Catholicks in England, practices alIreland, Scotland at any time since the first change under together at Henry VIII. hath been a system of doctrines and prac variance with any tises, not only quite other than yourselves do believe to sortof Chris- have been either revealed in Holy Scripture or delivered tianity: some particular ones by Catholic tradition, or evidenced by natural reason, or so much as defined by the Tridentine fathers, but also quite contrary to those doctrines and practices which are manifestly recommended in the letter, sense, and whole design of the gospel of Christ, in the writings of the blessed apostles, in the commentaries of their holy successors, in the belief and life of the Christian Church universally, for the first ten ages thereof, and moreover in the very clearest dictates of nature itself, whether Christianity be supposed or not. "IV. That of those quite other and quite contrary doctrines in the most general terms, without descending of which are to particular applications of them to any one kingdom or people, &c. the grand positions are as followeth, viz : specified ; as, the foun tain of all "1. That by divine right and immediate institution of Christ, the bishop of Rome is Universal Monarch and governour of the World even with sovereign, independent, both spiritual and temporal authority over all Churches, Nations, Empires, Kingdoms, States, Principalities; and over all persons, Emperours, Kings, princes, prelates, Governors, priests and people, both orthodox and heterodox, Christian and Infidel, and in all things and causes whatsoever, as well temporal and civil, as Ecclesiastical or Spiritual. "3. That he is the fountain of all jurisdiction of either kind on earth, and that whoever derives not from him, authority; hath none at all, not even any the least civil or temporal jurisdiction. with power "6. That he is empowered with lawful authority, not to dethrone only to excommunicate but to deprive, depose, and deall princes kings and emperours; to trans kings, em perors, &c., throne late their royal rights to others, &c. &c. all Oaths of 7, &c. [That he may with full authority absolve from and to aball oaths of allegiance, command under penalty of excom- solve from munication, &c. to bear arms against princes so deposed, Allegiance, &c., dispense even against the Old Testamt. or the apos- &c. tles, evangelists, &c. That whoever kills a prince so deposed kills only a usurper, &c.] "11 That whosoever out of pure zeal to the Roman That men Church ventures himself, and dyes in a war against such dying in a tyrant (ie. against such a deposed or excommunicated support of prince) dyes a true martyr of Christ, and his soul flies to are martyrs heaven immediately." such claims of Christ. are inde &c. &c. &c. [That heresy ipso facto deprives of a crown, &c. ipso That all facto absolves all oaths of subjects, that he is a heretic ecclesiasti who even doubts one Tridentine definition, or one article cal persons of Pius's Creed; that inferior bps. acknowledging his pendent of holiness may do likewise in deposing kings, &c. That all secular all ecclesiastics whatsoever, men or women, from the authority, patriarch to the very porter or portress of a cloister, nay the very scullion of their kitchen, and all their churches, lands, goods, &c. &c., and much more their persons, are exempt by all laws, the law of God, &c. from all secular, civil and temporal authority on earth, that therefore in no case even murdering a king, could a churchman be called justly a traitor, nor punished without special permission from the pope. That nevertheless all ecclesiastics from the highest to the lowest may be summoned to Rome, all laws and orders of men, &c., notwithstanding, &c. &c. That he alone may suspend, alter, rescind, &c. all laws, imperial or other, all canons of faith of the most certain councils,-can alone bestow all benefices from patriarchal to parochial, translate bps. erect, divide, unite, bpks. &c. That in fine "he hath owing to him from all That "the mortals such a perfect, nay such a blind obedience, that pope" may if he define virtue to be vice and vice to be virtue, they define virought to believe him: and if they do not they cannot be vice, and saved unless peradventure invincible ignorance excuse v.v., and tue to be that he is in fine a god. All these tenets cher ished by au thorities of the highest class in the Church of Rome. Penal acts fore have aimed at them. And lastly to sum up all in a word he is Dominus Deus noster papa, our Lord God the pope, as the Glossator, (b) of his own canon law stiles him." (b) Zenzelinus de Cassanis, in fine Glossæ extravag. cum inter, de verb. sig. . . . . ] "V. That notwithstanding the incredibility of these and some other such vain positions... yet they all and especially the monarchical or despotical or rather indeed tyranical . . . powers ascribed in them to the pope, are every one (with no lower pretence than of divine right and immediate institution of Christ) maintained either in formal or in virtual terms, (nay in formal the chiefest of them and such as infer the rest) not only by too many of our most famous and most classical authors of all sorts, canonists, historians, and divines, since the schools began, but also by the far greater authority of the Roman bishops themselves since pope Hildebrand's time. And 3 only but wretchedly abused texts of the gospel, viz. Luc. 22, 38, Mat. 16, 19, and Joan. 21, 27, must serve the turn, however against the plain design of the whole gospel itself to drive directly by such positions at the proper scope of the Alcoran, and establish in the Church of Christ a worser tyranny than that of Mahometans and Mamelukes." [It is incredible, he says, to believe that so many judimust there- cious princes, parliaments and convocations, would enact so many grievous punishments, yea of death itself in some such princi- cases against mere religious tenets, or rites for so many ples, rather ages held without disturbance to the public, having bethan at in fore their eyes at the same time those positions and practices which they must see to be of the greatest Danger, Insolence, Pride, Injustice, Usurpation, Tyranny and Cruelty imaginable.] noxious rites. The opposi tion to the "XII. We have no cause to wonder at the protestants jealousy of us when they see all the three several a sufficient Protestants. Tests, hitherto made use of for trying the judgment or Oath of Alaffection of Roman Catholicks in these kingdoms in rela- legiance, &c. tion to the papal pretences of one side, and the royall occasion for rights of the other, I mean the Oath of Supremacy first, jealousy on the Oath of Allegiance next, and last of all that which I the part of call the Loyal Formulary, or the Irish Remonstrance of the year 1661, even all three one after another to have been with so much rashness and wilfulness, and so much vehemency and obstinacy declined, opposed, traduced, and rejected amongst them: albeit no other authority or power not even by the Oath of Supremacy itself [marg. Art. 37 of Ch. of Engd. and admn. after the injunctions of Q. Eliz.] be attributed to the king, save only civil or that of the sword, nor any spiritual nor ecclesiastical power be denied therein to the Pope, save only that which the general council of Ephesus under Theodosius the younger, in the case of the Cyprian bishops, and the next Ecumenical Synod of Chalcedon, under the good Emperor Martianus, in the case of Anatolius Patriarch of Constantinople, and the 217 bps. of Africa (whereof St. Augustine was one) both in their canons and letters too denyed unto the Roman bps. of their time: and albeit the Oath of Allegiance was of mere purpose framed only to distinguish 'twixt the loyal and disloyal Catholicks, or the honest and loyal party of them from those of the powder treason principles; and albeit the Remonstrance of 1661 was framed only at first by some well meaning discreet and learned Roman Catholicks of the English nation, and was now lately signed by so many and such persons of the Irish nation as we have seen before; and was so far from entrenching on the Catholic faith, or canons, or truth, or justice in any point, that saving all these it might have been much more home than it is (though indeed as from well meaning honest men it be home enough) nay and albeit neither of these two later tests, (the Oath of Allegiance or the Irish Remonstrance) |