The like Account of the Papists contriving the Old King's Denth, together with their under-hand Dealings, and joining with the Phanaticks, for the bringing to pass this Execrable Act, is given by Peter du Moulin, D. D. in his Answer to Philanax Anglicus (a Popish Book) pag. 58, 59, &c. which well agrees with Bishop Bramhall's Letter, and they mutually confirm each others Testimony. Editio quarta, Anno Dom. 1679.

WHEN the Transactions of the late bad Times (saith the Doctor) are ripe for History and Time, the preserver of Truth hath discovered the Mystery of Iniquity, and the Depths of Satan which hath wrought so much Mischief, it will be found that the late Rebellion was raised and foster'd by the Arts of the Court of the Rome; that Jesuits profess'd themselves Independants, Fifth Monarchy-men, &c. that they might pull down the English Monarchy and Church, and that in their Committees, for the Destruction of the King and Church, they had their Spies and Agents. The Roman Priest and Con­fessor is also known, who when he saw thefatal stroke given to our Holy King and Martyr, brandish'd his Sword, and said, Now the greatest Enemy we have in the World is gone.

When the News of that horrible Execution came to Roan, a Protestant Gentleman of good Credit was present in a Company of Jesuited Persons; where, after great expressions of Joy, the gravest of the Company spake much after this sort, touching the King's Promise, though it was false what he said: The King of England (said he) at his Marriage promised us the re-establishing of the Roman Catholick Religion in England, and when he delayed to fulfil his Promise, we warn'd him from time to time to perform it; we came so far as to tell him, That if he would not do it, we should bring him to his Destruction. We have given him lawful warning, and when no warning would serve, we have kept our Word to him, since he would not keep his Word to us.

That grave Rabbi's Sentence agreeth with this certain In­telligence, which shall be justified whensoever Authority will re­quire it, That the Year before the King's Death a select number of English Jesuits were sent from their whole Party into England; [Page 7]first to Paris to consult with the faculty of Sorbon, then altoge­ther Jesuited, to whom they put this Question in Writing, That seeing the state of England was in a likely posture to change Government, whether it was lawful for the Catholicks to work that change, for the advantage and securing of the Ca­tholick Cause in England, by making away the King, whom there was no hope to turn away from his Heresie? Which was an­swered Affirmatively. After which the same persons went to Rome, where the same Question being propounded and debated, it was concluded by the Pope and his Council, That it was both lawful and expedient for the Catholicks to promote that Al­teration of State. What followed that Consultation and Sen­tence, all the World knoweth; and how the Jesuits went to work, God knoweth; and Time the discoverer of Truth will let us know. But when this horrible Parricide committed on the King's sacred Person was so universally cried down, as the greatest Villainy that had been committed in many Ages, the Pope commanded all the Papers about that Question to be ga­thered up and burnt. In Obedience to which Order, a Roman Catholick in Paris was demanded a Copy, which he had of those Papers; but the Gentleman who had time to confider and detest the Wickedness of that Project, refused to give it, but shew'd it to a Protestant Friend of his, and related to him the whole car­riage this Negotiation, with great abhorrency of the Jesuits Practices.

At the first appearing of this Charge, it struck such a terror among the Gentlemen of Somerset-House, (where a Man of great Note was much concerned in it) that they cast themselves at the King's Feet to crave Justice against me; yet, upon another pre­tence, which was the mention I had made (after Mr. Prin and Mr. Foulis) of the Priest flourishing with his Sword when the King's head was cut off, and saying, Now our greatest Enemy is cut off: But, upon soberer thoughts, after Three or Four Days the great clamour was suddenly hush'd, only they won the Queen-Mother to beseech the King, that I might be forbidden to make any more Books, which was expressed to me in a Letter from the Secretary of State (yet in a gracious counselling way) from my Great and Good Master, that it was my wisest course to forbear writing Books in English, because it was not my Na­tive Language, which prohibition was taken away, when I [Page 8]caused the same Book to be Reprinted, Anno Dom. 1668.

And such was the violent Distraction of these guilty persons, who were between anger and fear, that when they seem'd most fervent to fall upon me, they were cowed by their own guilti­ness; and they were so prudent as to take Order among them­selves, that none should provoke me (by writing against me) to write again: For I heard nothing of them for Five or Six Years, till a young Nobleman, the Earl of Castlemain, took the Field against me. Mr. Cressy seeing the ice broken, followed him. The Earl added in a Third Edition, That I was defied by Papists, and sollicited by Protestants, to make good my words; and he says true; but I have now defied the Papists Seventeen Years to call me in Question before my Judges, and I do so still, but instead of calling me their Accuser, to bring forth my Proofs, they labour to silence me, and chose to lie under the Guilt, in­stead of taking the open legal way for their Justification.

As for the Sollicitations of Protestants, my request to them is, that they would consider the first line of my Charge; viz. This Intelligence shall be justified whensoever Authority shall require it, so that I cannot in Duty bring forth the most essential Testi­monies before I be bid by Authority. Should I do otherwise the fault would be as great in point of Prudence, as in that of Duty; for I should thereby make my Adversaries my Judges, who might detort the Testimonies. This then being of so high a nature, I will stand to this Resolution, to answer no Summons, but such as are back'd by publick Authority: And here, for to give them farther satisfaction, he prints a Letter he received from Sir William Morrice; part of it, which relates to this con­cern, followeth:

Mr. Pryn's Intelligence confirmed mine, who saith (in his True and perfect Narrative, pag. 46.) That our late Excellent King ha­ving assented in the Treaty of the Isle of Wight, to pass Five strict Bills against Popery, The Jesuits in France, at a general Meeting there, presently resolved to bring him to Justice, and take off his Head, by the power of their Friends in the Army, as the King himself was cer­tified by an Express from thence, and wished to provide against it but two days before his removal by the Army from the Isle of Wight to his Execution.

It were worth the Enquiry upon what Ground the Author of Fair Warning affirmeth, pag. 35, 36, 37. (in the Second Part of 120 Prophecies, concerning the return of Popery) That Father Sibthorp, in a Letter to Father Medcalfe, acknowledgeth the Jesuits to have contriv'd the Murther of the King, and that Sarabras was present, and triumphing at the Murther of his sacred Majesty.

In pursuance of the Order from Rome, for the pulling down both the Monarch and Monarchy of England, many Jesuits came over, who took several Shapes to go about their Work, but most of them took party in the Army. About Thirty of them, or their Disciples, were met by a Protestant Gentleman between Roan and Diepe, to whom they said, (taking him for one of the Party) That they were going into England, and would take Arms in the Independant Army, and endeavour to be Agitators. (This agrees with the Account Bishop Bramhall gave in his Letter to Bishop Ʋsher.)

In the Year 1640 there was discovered to the Archbishop of Canterbury a design, in which the Pope, Cardinal Richlieu, and many of the English Papists, but especially the Jesuits, were con­cerned in stirring up those Divisions that had just before broke out in Scotland for the Ruine of the King and of the Archbishop. This may be seen at large in the Histories of those times, and the very Papers themselves may be found in Mr. Rushworth's Col­lections, vol. 3. p. 1310. &c. Sir William Boswell likewise at the Hague, made the like Discovery in his Letter to the Arch­bishop.

Father Salmonet declares in his History of our Civil Wars, printed in France with the Allowance of the King, That after the Engagement at Egdehill, several Romish Papists were found among the slain of the Parliament Army. And adds, That the Parliament had two Companies of Walloons, besides others of that Religion in their Army. Salmonet Hist. des troubles d'Angleterre, liv. 3. pag. 165.

When the Rebellion also broke out in Ireland, it was we know bless'd with His Holiness's Letters, and assisted by his Nuntio, whom he sent on purpose thither for that service.

And that the Papists had a flying Squadron in the Parliament Army. How boldly soever this may be denied by some, there is another proof beyond Exception in a Declaration of King Charles I. that he sent to the Kingdom of Scotland, dated A­pril 21. 1643. which hath been several times Printed. And as an Author that wrote the History of the late Civil Wars has as­sured us, the clean draught of it, corrected in some places with the King's own hand, is yet extant, so that it cannot be pre­tended that this was only a bold Assertion of some of the King's Ministers, that might be ill affected to their Party. In that De­claration the King studied to possess his Subjects of Scotland, with the Justice of his Cause, and among other things to clear himself of the imputation, that he had an Army of Papists about him. after many things said on that Head, these Words are added, Great Numbers of that Religion have been with alacrity entertained in that Rebellious Army against us, and others have been seduced, to whom we had formerly denied Employments, as appears by the Examination of many Prisoners, of whom we have taken Twenty or Thirty at a time of that Religion in one Troop, or Company. The Credit of this Testimony is not to be disputed; but no Discoveries, how evi­dent soever they may be, can effect some sort of Men, that have a secret against Blushing. This also plainly lets us see, how that under the dissembled Disguise of being of their Parties, the subtle Priests and Jesuits have crept in, and mix'd themselves among our dividing Sectaries, and cunningly made them the un­happy Tools and Instruments to effect their most pernitious De­signs and Contrivances, which otherwise, without their aid, they would not be able to compass; and that the same Method, not covertly but openly, is still practised, is too palpable to be gainsaid. God grant the Eyes of our Dissenting Brethren may [Page 11]be timely opened, for the seasonable preventing the Miseries and Evils that threaten our Government, that they may not only see, but follow the things that belong to the Peace and Prospe­rity of our Church and State, before they are hid from their Eyes.

A Protestant Lady living in Paris in the time of our late Ca­lamities, was perswaded by a Jesuit, going in Scarlet, to turn Roman Catholick; and when the dismal News of the King's Mur­ther came to Paris, this Lady, as all other good English Subjects, was most deeply afflicted with it; and when this Scarlet Divine came to see her, and found her melted in Tears, about that heavy and common Disaster, he told her with a smiling Countenance, That she had no reason to lament, but rather to rejoice, seeing that the Catholicks were rid of their greatest Enemy, and that the Catholick Cause was much furthered by his Death. Upon which the Lady put the Man down the Stairs in great Anger, saying, If that be your Religion, I have done with it for ever: And God hath given her the Grace to make her Word good hitherto.

Many Intelligent Travellers can tell of the great Joy among the English Convents and Seminaries for the King's Death, as having overcome their Enemy, and done their main work for their Settlement in England, of which they made themselves so sure, that the Benedictines were in great care that the Jesuits should not get their Land, and the English Nuns were contending who should be Abbesses in England.

An understanding Gentleman visiting the Friars of Dunkirk, put them upon the Discourse of the King's Death, and to pump out their Sence about it, said, That the Jesuits had laboured very much to compass that great Work; to which they answer­ed, That the Jesuits would Engross to themselves the Glory of all great and good Works, and of this among other Works; whereas they had laboured as diligently and effectually for it as they, so there was striving for the Glory of that Atchievement, and the Friars shew'd themselves as much Jesuited as the Jesuits. The same Gentleman who in his Travels hath found them in several places jealous of the Glory, which the Jesuits ascribed to their only Order to have promoted the King's Death, whereas other Orders had been as active as they, in that great Atchievement.

I cannot leave unobserved, that in the height of the late Usur­pation and Tyranny, two Heads of the Gun-powder Traitors [Page 12]that were set up upon the House of Lords, were taken down, not by high Winds, but by the same Zeal which had plotted that Treason, and with the leave of Traytors of another Fea­ther, which in time we may hear to be shrined up in Gold, as Holy Relicks, and working Miracles. By this we see, what a good Accord, and friendly Correspondence there was between these two Parties, that seemed so contrary to each other.

That Jesuits and other Romanists were the Hatchers of those miserable Broils and Troubles which befel our Church and State in the late Times of Confusion and Usurpation, and were the chief Causers and Fomenters of the Persecutions and Clamours against the King, Bishops, and the other Loyal Orthodox Clergy, appears by Father Sibthorp's Letter to Father Medcalfe; part of which is as follows.

This Politick Letter of Father Sibthorp being written some little time before the late Civil Wars, the Event and other Dis­coveries like this, shews to whom the contrivances of that abo­minable [Page 14]Rebellion and Usurpation is owing, and how much the Papists love to fish in our troubled Waters. This Letter was printed in the Year 1663. in the Book called, A Word in Season, or the great Plot for restoring Popery, by opposing Ʋniformity; a very useful Book, wherein several Discoveries are made of the Papists Intreagues, how much they have tamper'd with our Dissenters, fomented our Divisions, and thereby promoted the Growth of Popery in our Nation.

Mr. Richard Baxter's discovery and Confession, how much the Papists insinuated themselves among the several sorts of Sectaries, for the restoring of Popery, and the destroy­ing our Church and State, in his Key for Catholicks, pag. 326, 327, &c.

THE persecuted Nonconformists of the Protestant Party, tho' they were most averse to Papists, yet had some of the Popish Brood at last crept in among them; not only to spy out their Minds and Ways, but to head the Party, and sow among them the Seed of further Discontent and Errour, and to make them a Nursery of various Sects. For every where, by their good Will, the Jesuits will have some. If you ask me for proof of this, I shall at this time give you the words of the Jesuit's Letter recited by Mr Pryn, In­trod. pag. 90. I cannot chuse (saith the Jesuit) but laugh to see how some of our own Coat have reincounter'd themselves, you would scarce know them if you saw them, and it is admirable how in Speech and Gesture they act the Puritans. The Cambridge Scholars, to their woeful Experience, shall see we can better act the Puritans then they have done the Jesuits. They have abused our sacred Patron St. Ignatius in jest, but we will make them smart for it in earnest; I hope you will excuse my Merry digression, for I confess it to you, I am at this time transported with Joy, to see how happily all Instruments and Means, as well great as lesser, co-operate to our purposes, &c.

How far they crept into all Societies under the name of Inde­pendants is opened by so many already in Print as there needs no more be added to it. And it is a thing notorious, that they have crept in among the Anabaptists, and fomented that Sect. The story of the Scotish Missionary that pretended himself a Jew, [Page 15]and gave the Anabaptists the glory of his conversion and rebap­tizing, who was afterwards discovered at New-castle, is publi­shed and commonly known; and too many others have more neatly play'd their game. And though many of the more sober Anabaptists, would not be so usefull to the Papists as they have ex­pected, Yet multitudes of them too far answered their expectations. —

I shall tell you next, of some of those Heresies, or Parties among us, that are the Papists own spawn, or progeny, either they laid the egg, or hatch'd it, or both. And it is most certain that Li­bertinism, or Freedom for all Religions, was spawned by the Jesuits, who hate it in Spain, Italy and France, but love it in England. I have met with the masked Papists my self that have been very zealous and busie to promote this Liberty of Conscience (as they deceit­fully call it;) for by this means they may have liberty for themselves, and liberty to break us in pieces by Sects; and also liberty under the vi­zour of a Sectary of any tolarated sort, to oppose the Ministry and Doctrine of Truth. —

There are also some juggling Papists, especially in our Councils, Civil and Ecclesiastick, that play their game by over-doing, and making everything to be Popish and Antichristian, to drive us into extreams, and into opinions, in which we may be easily baffled, and its not a little that they have won of us at this game. [In this book of Mr. Baxter a great deal more to this purpose may be seen; how much the Papists work their designs by the means of our Sectaries, whom they decoy.]

And farther Mr. Baxter in 1671. a little before the Indulgence then came forth, was so sensible of the mischief of Separation, that he saith in his Preface to the defence of the cure of Church Divi­sions, p. 17. That our Divisions gratify the Papists, and greatly ha­zard the Protestant Religion, and that more than most of you seemeth to believe or regard, where he speaks to the separating people; and among other great inconveniences which he mentions, this is one; That Popery will get by it so great advantage as may hazard us all, and we may lose that which the several Parties do contend about. And p. 52. &c. He saith, that two ways Popery will grow out of our divisions.

First, By the odium and scorn of our disagrements, in consi­stency and multiplied Sects, they will perswade people, that we must come for unity to them, or else run mad and crumble into dust and individuals. Thousands have been drawn to Popery or confirmed in it by this argument already, and I am perswaded that confirmed in it by this argument already, and I am perswaded that [Page 16]all the arguments else in Bellarmine, and all other books that ever were written, have not done so much to make Papists in En­gland as the multitude of Sects among our selves; yea, some Pro­fessours of Religious strictness, or great esteem for Godliness, have turned Papists themselves when they were giddy and wearied with turnings, and when they had run from Sect to Sect and found no consistency in any.

Secondly, Either the Papists by increasing the divisions would make them be accounted seditious, rebellious and dangerous to the publick peace, or else when so many parties are constrain'd to beg and wait for Liberty, the Papists may not be shut out alone, but have toleration with the rest. And, saith he, shall they use our hands to doe their works, and pull their freedom out of the sire? We have already unspeakably served them both in this, and in abating the Odium of the Gunpowder-plot, and their otehr Trea­sons, Insurrections and Spanish-invasion.

Thus freely did Mr. Baxter write at that time, and even after that Indulgence, he hath these remarkable passages, concerning the separating and dividing humour of their people in his sacrile­gious desertion, &c. Pag. 103.

It shameth and grieveth us to see and hear from England and New-England, this common cry, We are indangered by Divisions, because the self-conceited part of the Religious people will not be ruled by their Pastours, but must have their way, and will needs be Rulers of the Church and them. And soon after, he saith to them, You have made more Papists, than ever you or we are like to recover. Nothing is any whit considerable that a Papist hath to say till he cometh to your case, and saith, Doth not experience tell you that without papal Unity and Force, these people will never be ruled or united? It is you that tempt them to use Fire and Faggot, that will not be ruled, nor kept in con­cord; And must you, even you, that should be our confort, be­come our shame and break our hearts, and make men Papists, by your Temptation? Woe to the World because of offences, and woe to some by whom they come. To shew yet farther what Inslu­ence the Jesuitical Counsels have had upon some people, as to the course of Separation, I shall produce the Testimony of a very considerable Man among them, who understood these affairs as well as any Man; viz. Mr. Philip Nye, who not long before his Death, foreseeing the mischievous Consequence of these extrava­gant [Page 17]heats the people were running into, wrote a Discourse on purpose to prove it lawful, to hear the Conforming Ministers, and answers all the Objections against it; and towards the Conclusion he wonders how the differing Parties come to be so agreed, in thinking it unlawful to hear us preach; but he saith, He is perswa­ded, it is one constant design of Satan, in the v ariety of ways of Religion he hath set on foot by Jesuits among us; let us therefore be more aware of whatsoever tends that way. Here we have a plain Confession of a very leading Man among the Dissenters, that the Jesuits were very busie among them, and that they and the Devil joined toge­ther in setting them at the greatest distance possible from the Church of England; and that those who would countermine the Jesuits, must avoid whatever tends to that height of Separation the People were run into.

And as the Reverend and Learned Doctor Stilling fleet in the Pre­face to his excellent Book Entituled, The unreasonableness of Sepa­ration, saith, ‘If we trace the foot-steps of our Separation, we shall sind the Jesuitical Party had a great insluence on the very first beginnings of it, for which we must consider, that when the Church of England was restored in Queen Elizabeth's Reign, there was no open Separation from the Communion of it for several years, neither by Papists nor Nonconformists: At last the more zealous Party of the Foreign Priests and Jesuits finding this compliance would in the end utterly destroy the Popish in­terest in England, they began to draw off the secret Papists from all Conformity with our Church, which the old Queen Mary's Priests allow'd them in. This raised some heat among themselves, but at last the way of Separation prevail'd as the more pure and perfect way. But this was not thought sufficient bu these busie Factors for the Church of Rome, unless they could under the same pretence of Purity and Perfection draw off Pro­testants from the Communion of this Church too. To this pur­pose persons were imploy'd under the disguise of more zealous Prote­stants, to set up the way of more spiritual prayer, and greater Purity of worship than was observed in the Church of England, that so the people under these pretences might be drawn into separat meetings.’ Of this we have a considerable Evidence lately offer'd to the World, in the Examination of a Priest, so imploy'd, at the Council-Ta­ble, in the ninth Year of Queen Elizabeth, 1567, (published from the Lord Burleigh's Papers, which were in the hands of Archbishop [Page 18] Ʋsher, and from him came to the hands of Sir James Ware, whose Son brought them into England, and caused them to be Printed under the Title of Foxes and Fire-brands, A. D. 1680.)

Two Years after the Examination of the said Priest, one Heath a Jesuit was summon'd before the Bishop of Rochester on a like account, for disparaging the Prayers of the Church, and setting up extemporary or spiritual Prayers above them; and he declared to the Bishop, That he had been six Years in England, and that he had labour'd to resine the Protestants, and to take off all Smacks of Ceremonies, and make the Church purer. When he was seized on, a Letter was found about him from a Jesuit in Spain, where­in he takes notice how much he was admired by his Flock, and tells him. They looked on this way of dividing Protestants, as the most effectual to bring them all back to the Church of Rome; and in his Chamber they found a Bull from Pope Pius the fifth, to follow the instructions of the Society for the Dividing the Protestants in En­gland, as also a Licence from the Fraternity. There is one thing in the Jesuits Letter, which the late Publisher of it did not under­stand, which is, that Hallingham, Coleman and Benson. are there mentioned as persons employ'd to sow a Faction among the Ger­man Hereticks, which he takes to be spoken of the Sects in Ger­many; but by the German Hereticks, the English Protestants, that is, Lutherans, are meant; and these very men are mention'd by our Historians, without knowing of this Letter, as the most active and busie in the beginning of the Separation. Of these (saith Fuller) Coleman, Button, Benson, and Hallingham, were the chief: And Heylin saith, That Benson, Button, Hallingham, Coleman and others, took upon them to be of more ardent Zeal than others, &c. that time is 1568, which agrees exactly with the date of the Jesuits Letter writ from Madrid, October 26,1568, and both these had it from Cambden, Who saith that while Harding, Saunders, and others, attack'd our Church on one Side, Coleman, Button, Ben­son and Hallingham were as busie on the other; who, under pretence of a purer Reformation, opposed the Discipline, Liturgy and Calling of our Bishops, as approaching too near the Church of Rome; and he makes these the beginners of those quarrels, which afterwards brake out with great Violence. Now that there is no improbability in this account, will appear by the suitableness of these pretences about spiritual or extempore Prayer, to the Doctrine and Practice of the Jesuits; for they are profess'd despisers of the Cathedral service, [Page 19]and are excused from their Attendance on it, by the Constitutions of their Order. And are as great admirers of Spiritual Prayer, and an Enthusiastick way of preaching, as appears by the History of the first Institution of their Order by Orlandinus and Maffeius. This is sufficient to shew there is no Improbability, that the Jesuits should be the first Setters up of this way in England. And it is ob­servable, that it was never known here, or in any other reformed Church before this time, and therefore the beginning of it is un­justly father'd on Thomas Cartwright; but by whomsoever it was begun, it met with such great success in the zeal and warmth of Devotion, which seemed to appear in it, that no charm hath been more effectual to draw injudicious people into a Contempt of our Liturgy, and admiring the way of Separation.

And, what is it, which the Papists have more envied and maligned than the Church of England? What is it, they have wished more to see broken in piece,? as the late Cardinal Barberini said, (in the bearing of a Gentleman who told it to Dr. Stillingfleet) He could be conten­ted, there were no Popish Priests in England, so there were no Bi­shops; for then he supposed their work would do it self. What is it they have used more Arts and Instruments to destroy, than the Constitution of the Church of England and its Government? Did not Cranmer, Ridly, Hooper, Farrar and Latimer, all Bishops of our Church, suffer Martyrdom by their means? Had not they the same kind of Episcopacy which is now among us, and which some are so busie in seeking to destroy, as unlawful and inconsistent with the primitive Institution, as if it were Popish and Antichristian? Is all this done for the honour of our Reformation? Is this the way to preserve the Protestant Religion among us? to sill mens minds with such prejudices against the first Settlement of it, as to go about to make the World believe, that the Church-Government then established, was repugnant to Christ's Institution; and that our Martyr'd Bi­shops exercised an unlawful authority over Diocesan Churches. But whither will not mens indiscreet Zeal, and love of their own Fancies carry them? If such men are not set on by the Jesuits, they do their work as effectually, by blasting the credit of the Refor­mation, as if they were.

In the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, that Great and good Man, Arch-Bishop Whitgist, in his defence of the Answer against Cart­wright, pag. 605. tells the Puritans, That the Papists could not have not with better Proctors than they. And Pag. 55. he tells them, That only [Page 20]did the Pope very good Service, and that he would not miss them for any thing; for what is his desire, but to have this Church of England, (which he hath accursed) utterly defaced and discredited; to have it by any means overthrown; if not by foreign means, yet by domestical Dissention? and what fitter and apter instruments could he have had, for the purpose, who under pretence of zeal, overthrow that which other men have builded, under colour of purity seek to bring in Deformity, and under the cloak of Equality and Hamility would usurp as great Tyranny and losty Lordliness over their Parishes, as ever the Pope did over the whole Church? And in another place he saith, They were made the Engines of the Roman Conclave, whereby they intend to overthrow this Church, even by these mens folly, which they could not compass by all their policy.

His worthy Predecessour also, Arch-Bishop Grindall, express'd (in a Letter of his) his great fear of two things, viz. Atheisin and Popery, and both arising out of our needless Divilions and Differences. He doubts not by Satan the enemy of mankind and the Pope the enemy of Christendom, by these means &c. the enemies of our Religion gain this, That nothing can be established by Law in the Protestant Religion, whose every part is not opposed by one or other of her own Professours: So that things continuing loose and confused, the Papists have their opportunity to urge their way which is attended with Order and Government. And our Religion conti­nuing thus distracted and divided; some vile wretches lay hold on the Argument on one side to confute the other, and so hope at last to destroy all. See this Letter in Fair Warning, second part, printed 1663.

Dr. Sutcliff, Dean of Exon, said also long ago, that wise men apprehended these unhappy questions about indifferent things, to be managed by the subtle Jesuits, thereby to disturb the peace and settlement of our Church, untill at last they enjoy their long expected opportunity to set up themselves, and restore the ex­ploded Tyranny and Idolatry of the Church of Rome.

Among Mr. Selden's Manuscripts there is mention'd an odd pro­phecy that Popery should decay about the Year 1500, and be re­stored about the Year 1700, which is there said to be most likely by means of our Divifions, which threaten the Reformation upon the Interest of Religion, and open advantages to the enemies of it; and nothing, is there said, more likely to prevent it, than a sirm establishment of sound Doctrine, Discipline and Worship in [Page 21]this Church.— And had not some misguided Zealots, out of a too great Affection to those models they had seen abroad, run into unreasonable Oppositions at home, which are still as unrea­sonably continued by obstinate, headstrong People, the Church of England would now be the most flourishing, as it is the most primitive and pure Church in the World.

Who was it, but a St. Omer's Priest that confessed (as we are credibly informed in Foxes and Firebrands, part. 1. p. 7.) That they were Twenty Years in hammering out the Sect of the Quakers? And indeed (as a very learned and good Man obseryes) the principle they go upon, to refuse all Oaths, is a neat Contri­vance for Priests and Jesuits to avoid the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, without a possibility of being discovered.

King Charles I. in the very first breaking out of the Wars, observed rightly, that the Fanaticks proceeded upon Popish Prin­ciples against him. ‘Their Maxims (saith he) are the same with the Jesuits. Their Preachers Sermons have been deliver'd in the very Phrase and Stile of Becanus, Scioppius, and Eudaemon Johannis. Their poor Arguments Printed or Written, are taken almost verbatim out of Bellarmine and Suarez; and the means which they have used to induce a Credit of their Con­clusions with their Proselytes, are purely and merely Jesuitical Fables, false Reports, false Prophecies, pretended Inspirations and Divinations of the weaker Sex, as if Herod and Pilate were once again reconciled, for the Ruine of Christ and of his true Religion and Worship.’ See the King's large Declaration a­bout the Scotch Troubles, p. 3, 4. and his Declaration after the Battel of Edgehill, in the King's Works, Part II. p. 213. And it is as observable, that the Arguments which President Brad­shaw made use of for the calling to an Account Sovereign Princes, and subjecting of them to the People, were borrowed from Par­sons and other Jesuits, who laid down these republican and treasonous Principles.

Votes of the Honourable House of Commons, Feb. 5. 1662. upon reading his Majesty's gracious Declaration and Speech, &c.

Resolved nemine contradicente,

These impregnable and unanswerable Reasons did the excellent Members of that House alledge against Toleration; Reasons full and clear, carrying with them all the advantages of strength and evidence, and, as Dr. Tompkins said deservedly of them, in his Pleas for Toleration discussed. These renowned Gentlemen did then shew, that they were able with their Pens to give an account of that Cause, for which very many of themselves, and Fathers did honourably draw their Swords, and knew very well how to assert that Church by all the Rules of Christian Prudence, as well as they did formerly set inimitable patterns of Christian Courage in suffering for it. In these we may see and admire how those glorious Worthies came up to the Greatness of them­selves, and of the Argument; and indeed they were both wor­thy of one another, they to defend, and that to be defended. And as nothing was ever better penn'd than those Reasons, so there was scarce ever a better occasion. The best Church in Europe was then bore witness to by the best House of Com­mons which ever sat in this Nation. And these Votes shall ever remain as a lasting Monument, not only of their Zeal and Reli­gion, but of the incomparable Endowments and Abilities of those who drew them up.