it was to take her life away, in case she would not turn Roman catholic."-" To achieve this, because no legate could come into England, nor any public messenger from the see apostolic, he employed a Florentine merchant to stir her subjects to a rebellion for her perdition."* Nothing but sollevamento,' 'rebellion,' perdition and destruction to the queen could be thought upon by his holiness. More yet; for when the duke of Alva had seized upon the English merchants' goods which were at Antwerp, the pope took the occasion, instigated the king of Spain to aid "the pious attempts of those who conspired against the queen :" they are the words of Cabutius.+ This rebellion was intended to be under the conduct of the duke of Norfolk, viro catholico,' a Roman catholic;' Gabutius notes it, for fear some heretic might be suspected of the design, and so the catholics lose the glory of the action. However Pius Quintus "intended to use the utmost and most extreme remedies to cure her heresy, and all means to increase and strengthen the rebellion." I durst not have thought so much of his holiness, if his own had not said it; but if this be not worse than the fiery spirit which our blessed Saviour reproved in James and John, I know not what is. I have nothing to do to specify the spirit of Paulus Quintus in the Venetian cause; this only, Baronius‡ propounded the example of Gregory VII. to him, of which how far short he came the world is witness. Our own business calls to mind the bulls of pope Clement VIII., in which the Catholics in England were commanded to see, that however the right of succession did entitle any man to the crown of England, yet, if he were not a catholic, they should have none of him, but with all their power they should hinder his coming in. This bull, Bellarmines doth extremely magnify; and, indeed, it was for his purpose, for it was (if not author) yet the main encourager of Catesby to the powder-treason. For, when Garnet would willingly have known the pope's mind in the business, Catesby eased him of the trouble of * Qui incolarum animos ad Elizabethæ perditionem, rebellione factâ, com moveret. foveret. Efflagitabat ab rege, ut Anglorum in Elizabetham piè conspirantium studia § Apol, adv. R. Angl. + Hildebrand. "I sending to Rome, since the pope's mind was clear. doubt not" (said Catesby) "at all of the pope's mind, but that he, who commanded our endeavours to hinder his coming in, is willing enough we should throw him out."* It was but a reasonable collection. I shall not need to instance in the effects which this bull produced; the treason of Watson and Cleark, two English seminaries, is sufficiently known; it was as a 'præludium' or warning piece to the great fougade,' the discharge of the powder-treason. Briefly, the case was so, that after the publication of the bull of Pius Quintus, these catholics in England durst not be good subjects till F. Parsons and Campian got a dispensation that they might for a while do it; and 'rebus sic stantibus,' with a safe conscience profess a general obedience in causes temporal: and, after the bull of Clement, a great many of them were not good subjects; and, if the rest had not taken to themselves the privilege which the popet sometimes gave to the archbishop of Ravenna, "either to do as the pope bid them, or to pretend a reason why they would not:" we may say, as Creswell, in defence of cardinal Allen, "Certainly we might have had more bloody tragedies in England, if the moderation of some more discreetly tempered had not been interposed." However, it is no thank to his holiness; his spirit blew high enough. But I will open this secret no farther, if I may have but leave to instance once more. If I mistake not, it was Sixtus Quintus who sometimes pronounced a speech in full consistory,§ in which he compares the assassinat of Jacques Clément upon Henry III. to the exploits of Eleazar and Judith; where, after having aggravated the faults of the murdered king, concluded him to have died impenitent, denied him the solemnities of mass, dirge, and requiem for his soul, at last, he ends with a prayer, "that God would finish what in this (bloody) manner had been begun."—I will not aggravate the foulness of the thing by any circumstances (though. I cannot but wonder that his holiness should say a prayer of such abomination); it is of itself too bad. If his holiness be wronged in the business, I have no Proced. agt. Traytors. + Innoc. Decretal. de rescript. cap. si quando. Philop. p. 212, n. 306. § Sep. 11, 1589. hand in it; the speech was printed at Paris,* three months after the murder of the king, and avouched for authentic by the approbation of three doctors, Boucher, Decreil, and Ancelein; let them answer it; I wash my hands of the accusation, and only consider the danger of such doctrines, if set forth with so great authority, and practised by so uncontrollable persons. If the disciples of Christ, if apostles, if the see apostolic, if the fathers confessors, prove boutefeus' and incendiaries, I'll no more wonder if the people call for fire to consume us, but rather wonder if they do not. And indeed, although it be no rare or unusual thing for a papist to be 'de facto' loyal and duteous to his prince, yet it is a wonder that he is so, since such doctrines have been taught by so great masters; and at the best he depends but upon the pope's pleasure for his loyalty, which upon what security it rests, you may easily guess from the antecedents. Thus much for consideration of the persons who asked the question; they were Christ's disciples, they were James and John. But when James and John "saw this." Our next inquiry shall be of the cause of this their angry question. This we must learn from the foregoing story. Christ was going to the feast at Jerusalem, and passing through a village of Samaria, asked lodging for a night;† but they, perceiving that he was a Jew, would by no means entertain him, as being of a different religion. For although God appointed that all of the seed of Jacob should go up to Jerusalem to worship. ἀνηρέθη γὰρ ἐν ἑνὶ τόπῳ προσκύνησις, yet the tribes of the separation first under Jeroboam, worshipped in groves and high places; and after the captivity, being a mixed people, half Jew, half Gentile, procured a temple to be built them by Sanballat, their president,§ near the city Sichem, upon the mountain Gerizim, styling themselves "pertinentes ad montem benedictum," by allusion to the words of God by Moses, "they shall stand upon the mount Gerizim to bless the people, and these upon mount Ebal to curse." And in case arguments should fail to make this schism plausible, they will make it By Nichol. Nivelle, and Rollin Thierry. Postellus de Linguis, lib. xii. deut. 27. † Ver. 50. § Josephi Antiq. lib. xi. c. 6. good by turning their adversaries out of doors: they shall not come near their blessed mount of Gerizim, but fastening an anathema on them, let them go to Ebal, and curse there. And now I wonder not that these disciples were very angry at them, who had lost the true religion, and neglected the offices of humanity to them that kept it. They might go near now to make it a cause of religion ; σεμνότερον ὄνομα τῆς εὐσεβείας, as Nazianzen✶ speaks, might seem to apologize for them; and so it might, if it had not led them to indiscreet and uncharitable zeal. But men care not how far they go, if they do but once think they can make God a party of their quarrel. For when religion, which ought to be the antidote of our malice, proves its greatest incentive, our uncharitableness must needs run faster to a mischief, by how much that which stopped its course before, drives it on with the greater violence. And, therefore, as it is ordinary for charity to be called coldness in religion, so it is as ordinary for a pretence of religion to make cold charity. The present case of the disciples, and the same spirit, which, for the same pretended cause, is taken up by the persons of the day, proves all this true; with whom fire and fagot is esteemed the best argument to convince the understanding, and the inquisitors of heretical pravity, the best doctors and subtlest disputants, determining all with a' viris ignem, fossam mulieribus.'+ For thus we had like to have suffered; it was mistaken religion that moved these traitors to so damnable a conspiracy, not for any defence of their own cause, but for extirpation of ours, For else what grievances did they groan under? "In quos eorum populum exæstuantem sollicitavimus? quibus vitp ericulum attulimus ?" it was Nazianzen's question to the apostate. Give me leave to consider it as applicable to our present case, and try if I can make a just discovery of the cause, that moved these traitors to so accursed a conspiracy. 1. Then there was no cause at all given them by us; none put to death for being a Roman catholic, nor any of them punished for his religion. This hath been the constant attestation of our princes and * Orat. 12. + Decret. Carol, quinti, pro Flandris. state, since the first laws made against recusants; and the thing itself will bear them record.* From 'primo of Elizabeth to undecimo,' the papists made no scruple of coming to our churches; recusancy was not then so much as a chrisom, not an embryo. But when Pius Quintus sent forth his briefs of excommunication and deposition of the Queen, then first they forbore to pray with us, or to have any religious communion. This, although everywhere known, yet being a matter of fact, and so as likely to be denied by others, as affirmed by us, without good evidence, see it therefore affirmed expressly by an act of parliament in 'decimo-tertio of Elizabeth,' which specifies this as one inconvenience and ill consequence of the bull; "whereby hath grown great disobedience and boldness in many, not only to withdraw and absent themselves from divine service, now most godly set forth, and used within this realm, but also have thought themselves discharged of all obedience," &c. Not only recusancy, but likewise disobedience; therefore both recusancy and disobedience. Two years, therefore, after this bull, this statute was made, if it was possible, to nullify the effects of it, to hinder its execution, and, if it might be, by this means to keep them, as they had been before, in communion with the church of England, and obedience to her majesty. This was the first statute that concerned them in special, but yet their religion was not meddled with; for this statute against execution of the pope's bulls, was no more than what had been established by act of parliament in the sixteenth year of Richard II. by which it was made præmunire' to purchase bulls from Rome; and the delinquents in this kind, with all their "abettors, fautors, procurators, and maintainers, to be referred to the king's council for further punishment." There was indeed this severity expressed in the act of decimo-tertio of the queen, that the putting them in execution should be capital; and yet this severity was no more than what was inflicted upon the bishop of Ely, in Edward III.'s time, for publishing of a bull against the earl of Chester, without the king's leave; and on the bishop of Carlisle, in the time of Vid. L. Burleigh's book called "Execution for Treason, not Religion.” King James's Declaration to all Christian Kings and Princes, and the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury's Speech in Star-chamber in Burton's case. |