The Jesuit's memorial for the intended reformation of England under their first popish prince published from the copy that was presented to the late King James II : with an introduction, and some animadversions by Edward Gee ...

The Jesuit's memorial for the intended reformation of England under their first popish prince published from the copy that was presented to the late King James II : with an introduction, and some animadversions by Edward Gee ...

Table of contents

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Title page

To the Right Reverend Father in God, WILLIAM Lord Bishop of S. ASAPH, Lord Almoner to Their MAJESTIES.

THE INTRODUCTION.

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A MEMORIAL OF THE REFORMATION of ENGLAND: CONTAINING Certain Notes, and Advertisements, which seem might be proposed in the First Parliament, and National Council of our Country, after God, of his mercy, shall restore it to the Catholick Faith, for the better Establishment and Preservation of the said Religion.

THE PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR, SHEWING How and why these Notes were gathered, and the principal Parts to be treated.

A Table of the Chapters of this MEMORIAL.

The FIRST PART of this MEMORIAL OF THE Reformation of England: Wherein are touched Points that do belong to the whole Body of the Realm, as before in the Preface has been declared, and is the Ground of the other Parts that ensue.

CHAP. I. Some special Reasons why England, above all other Realms, ought to procure a perfect Reformation, when time shall serve.

Animadversions on Chap. I.

CHAP. II. What manner of Reformation is needful in England.

Animadversions on Chap. II.

CHAP. III. How this Reformation may best be procured, and what Disposition of Minds is needful for it in all Parties.

Animadversions on Chap. III.

CHAP. IV. How all sorts of People, to wit, Catholicks, Schismaticks and Hereticks may be dealt withal, at the next change of Religion.

Animadversions on Chap. IV.

CHAP. V. The forwardness that ought to be in all for the Restitution of Ecclesiastical Lands and Livings, and with what facility and ease it may be done.

Animadversions on Chap. V.

CHAP. VI. Of the many great and singular Benefits that would ensue to the Church and Realm of England, by this Restitution and Disposition of Abby-Lands.

CHAP. VII. Of a Council of Reformation to be ordained, and wherein they are principally to be occupied.

Animadversions on Chap. VII.

CHAP. VIII. Of divers other Points that will belong to the Council of Reformation to deal in.

CHAP. IX. There ensue more matters that appertain to the Council of Reformation.

CHAP. X. Of the Parliament of England, and what were to be considered, or reformed about the same, or by the same.

Animadversions on Chap. X.

The SECOND PART of this MEMORIAL Touching the CLERGY.

CHAP. I. Of the Clergy in general, what they are and ought to do at the next change.

CHAP. II. Of Bishops and Bishopricks in England.

CHAP. III. Of Deans, Canons, Pastors, Curates, and the rest of the Clergy.

CHAP. IV. Of Seminaries, Colleges, Vniversities, and Schools.

CHAP. V. Of Government, Discipline and manner of proceeding of English Vniversities.

CHAP. VI. How Fellowships, Scholarships, and other such places were to be proved.

Election of publick Readers, and other Officers.

CHAP. VII. Of Religious Men and Women, and matters appertaining unto them.

The THIRD PART of this MEMORIAL Appertaining to the LAITY.

CHAP. I. Of the Laity or Temporalty in general.

CHAP. II. Of the Prince and his Council, and matters belonging to them.

CHAP. III. Of the Nobility and Gentry of England, and matters appertaining to their Estate.

CHAP. IV. Of the Inns of Court, and study of the Common Laws of England, and of the Laws themselves.

CHAP. V. Of the Commons of England, and matters appertaining unto them.

Books lately Printed for Ric. Chiswell.

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[Page]THE JESUIT'S MEMORIAL, FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE Church of England.

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[Page]THE JESUIT'S MEMORIAL, For the Intended Reformation of England, Under their First POPISH PRINCE.

PUBLISHED From the Copy that was presented TO THE Late KING JAMES II.

WITH An INTRODUCTION, and some ANIMADVERSIONS, BY EDWARD GEE, Rector of St. Benedict Paul's-Wharf, and Chaplain in Ordinary to Their Majesties.

LONDON, Printed for Richard Chiswel, at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard. MDCXC.

To the Right Reverend Father in God, WILLIAM Lord Bishop of S. ASAPH, Lord Almoner to Their MAJESTIES.

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My Lord,

IT was a very easie thing for me to determine, to whom I should present the following Discourses; as it was from your Lordship's Sermon before Their Majesties the last 5th of November that I had the hint of your Lordship's having seen the Memorial, that we had sought, but in vain, so earnestly after in the late King's Time; so it was by your Lordship's Interest that I obtained not only the happiness of seeing it, but the permission to publish it from the most authentick, if not the only Copy in England, from that which had been presented by the Jesuits to the late King James himself.

[Page]And since, my Lord, Decency requires the concealing from whose hands your Lordship received this Copy of the Memorial, and the Leave for me to publish it; it was necessary for me to address it to your Lordship, from whose hands I received it, that thereby any Objections against my Fidelity or Truth herein may be prevented; as all will, when my Lord Almoner's Name is seen at the Head of it.

Some indeed will wonder to see a Jesuit's Book dedicated by a Minister of the Church of England to a Bishop, that hath been always most zealous against Popery, and especially against the Jesuits Order; to such persons I hope this Apology will be sufficient, I am sure it will be to your Lordship, that I publish this Jesuit's Memorial, because I am fully perswaded that I am by it doing a greater service to the Protestant Interest against Popery, than I was ever able to do by any thing I wrote against Popery during the Controversie in the late Reign.

In this Memorial we have naked Jesuitism, and the several Projects laid down, by which our Protestant Religion was not only to have been rooted out of England, but the very possibility of its ever reviving here prevented: and this I hope will teach some of the discontented People among us [Page] to acknowledge at least, that our danger from the Jesuits Faction in the last Reign was as great as we made it, and that our Deliverance by their present Majesties was a far greater blessing upon the account of our Protestant Establishment, than they have hitherto been pleased to believe it.

I have had so much experience of your Lordship's goodness towards me, that I do not in the least suspect your pardoning me the trouble of this Address. Had I had no other reasons to make it, the many favours I have received at your Lordship's hands, would have engaged me to make this publick acknowledgment for them, since I cannot but reckon it one of the greatest blessings of my Life, that I have the honour to be known to your Lordship, who are so eminent for your extraordinary Learning, Piety, Charity and Moderation; I mention your Lordship's Moderation, because some Men of late have been pleased to be very angry with your Lordship for it: had your Lordship, and those Eminent Persons that continued of your Judgment, been as willing to part with Episcopacy as with the Apocrypha, and as desirous to lay aside the whole Liturgy, as they were to improve it; I should have excused their anger against you, for which I can see no other reason in the World, [Page] but that your Lordship, and those of your Mind could not forget so fast and so entirely, as some others did their discourses, their promises and intentions about accommodating matters with the Moderate Dissenters, as well as giving ease to the rest of them.

That your Lordship may be blessed with a long continuance of health, and enabled thereby to finish those excellent Designs that you have under your hands; that you may long continue an Ornament to the Church of England, and to Protestant Episcopacy, and may be blest with success in your endeavours for the Establishment and Glory of both these, is the most sincere Prayer of,

My Lord, Your Lordship's most obliged, and most obedient Servant EDWARD GEE.

THE INTRODUCTION.

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SINCE the Jesuit, that was Author of the following Memorial, has made so much noise in the World, and was infamous for his Treasonable Practices during the Reigns he lived in; and has by his seditious writings laid the Foundation of perpetual trouble to the Kingdom of England as long as there are or shall be either Papists in England, or English Papists beyond Seas: it will not be improper to furnish the Reader with the History of him, that thereby he may be enabled to read and pass a truer Judgment upon the following Memorial for rooting out our Protestant establishment, and replanting again their Popish Religion in England.

The World is not agreed either about his Name or Parentage; for the Name of Parsons, or Persons as he writes it himself, they will have it to be given him upon a scandalous reason, while the true [Page] name of his supposed Father was Cowback or Cubbuck. He was born not at Stockersey in Somerset-Shire, as the Secular Priests affirm against him, but at Nether-Stowey in that County; and notwithstanding the meanness of his Parentage, had the advantage of a liberal Education, and was fitted for the University, whither he was sent, and admitted into Baliol College in Oxford; he was afterwards made Fellow of the same College, and entered into Holy Orders, and became a noted Tutor, having the greatest number of Pupils in the College.

But notwithstanding his setting out so very well, he was afterwards turned out of his Fellowship and the College with disgrace; he was not expelled indeed, but forced to resign, with leave to keep his Chambers and Pupils a while longer: but this grace was quickly crossed out; the occasion of which the Writers of those times, and of his own Society, are very much divided about. Father Morus the Jesuit, and Author of the History of the Jesuits Mission into England, will have it to be, because he was not only suspected of inclining to Popery, but as he will have it, palam de Religione aliter judicaret Morus Historia Missionis Anglicanae Soc. Jesu. l. 2. p. 39. & loqueretur, quam regni [Page]jura definierant, &c. both thought and spake openly for the Romish Religion, and therefore that it was an unfit and a dangerous thing to trust such a Man with the Education of so many Youth as he generally had under his care.

But this cannot be the true reason; since Father Persons behaved himself as a good Protestant, and conversed especially with such Men (Mr. Squire and Dr. Hide for example then famous Men and zealous Protestants) as might instruct and confirm him in the Protestant Religion, for which he was afterwards, when he was College-Bursar, so very zealous that he changed a great many old Books and Manuscripts for Protestant Books, and did first put Protestant Writers into their College-Library: and after his disgraceful putting out of the College, when an old Friend of his, a Gentleman of the Inner Temple, declared to him that he had doubts concerning his Religion, he did not only protest to the Gentleman, but offered to take his Oath upon it, That he was no Papist, nor did ever intend to be.

Others will have his turning out of his Fellowship to be occasioned by his being a turbulent and lewd Man, guilty [Page] of Forgery and Knavery and such-like crimes as made him unfit for a Society: and Dr. Bagshaw (who had been of the same College, and afterwards turned Papist also, and became a Seminary Priest) affirms, that he was accused of falsifying his College-Accounts by Stancliffe his Brother Bursar: and this is often objected to him by the Secular Priests, who have treated him with severity enough, though not with more than his Pranks after he became a Jesuit did deserve.

Others assign other reasons of his being discharged the College, but to set aside at once the reasons offered by his Brethren the Jesuits, and those objected by his severer Adversaries the Secular Priests, the matter may be truly decided by the Testimonies of two unexceptionable Witnesses, who both knew him, and one of them was Fellow of the same College with Persons; Archbishop Abbot, and Mr. Camden the Historian: the Archbishop hath written a large Letter about this very business, which I shall transcribe hither out of Mr. Foulis, who says he did transcribe it from the Original, with the marginal Notes upon it.

[Page]To my worshipful loving Friend, Mr. Dr. Hussye, at Mr. Haiden's House, who dwelleth at the Sign of the Tunn in Watlingstreet; give these.

‘YOU write unto me, to know what is in record any way against Mr. Parsons; and I return you here inclosed word for word, so much as is in the Register of Baliol College. In the Resignation, as you may see, he had written sponte & coactus, but now it is sponte non coactus [&] being blotted out, and [non] being set over Thus non &. Which I am deceived if it be not altered by some body else of late, in as much as I am verily perswaded, that since my coming to the College, I have seen it sponte & coactus; which although it carry a Contradiction, yet intimateth, that he resigned against his will. The particular reasons whereof no Man can tell better than Dr. Turner now dwelling in Fetterlane; or Dr. In the Proctor's Book I find one Tho. Hyde proceeded Master of Arts the same year with Rob. Parsons, viz. 1573. Hide of Sarum; for, as I take it, they were both present at his removing.’

[Page] ‘The causes and manner of his giving over, as far as I could ever comprehend, were these: Bagshaw being a smart young man, and one who thought his penny good Silver, after that he had his Grace to be Christopher Bagshaw admitted Fellow 1572. left the College 1582. was made Priest in France, lived a while in the English College at Rome; proceeded Doctor, some say, at Padua [A.P. Reply, p. 156.] others at Paris; and was one of the Faculty at Sorbonne. He was active against the Archpriest in the stirs at Wisbich: he lived to be very old. Batchelor of Arts, was with some despight swindged by Parsons, being Dean of the College; hoc manet alta mente repostum: And Bagshaw afterward coming to be Fellow, was most hot in Persecution against Parsons. It was the more forwarded by Dr. Squire's displeasure, who was then Master of Baliol College, and thought himself to have been much bitten by vile Libels, the Author whereof he conceived Parsons to be, who in truth was a Man at that time wonderfully given to scoffing, and that with bitterness, which also was the cause that none of the company loved him.’

‘Now Dr. Squire and Bagshaw being desirous of some occasion to trim him, this fell out: in the year 1572. Parsons had been Bursar: and being joyn'd in Office with one Stancliff, a very simple fellow, he took the advantage of the [Page] weakness of his Colleague, and falsified the Reckonings much to the damage of the College; as also deeply polling the Commoners Names, whereof there was store in the College; and withal, not sparing his own Scholars: by all which means it was thought, that he had purloin'd one hundred Marks.’

‘His Office expired at St. Luke's Tide, there were some that between that and February 1573. scanned over the Books, being moved thereunto by the secret complaints of some of the Commoners their Scholars; and finding it apparent, as also being now certified, that he was a Bastard; whereas it is the first quality there required by Statute, that every Fellow should be Legitimo Thoro natus; they proceeded to have his Expulsion solemnly. Where, by the way, you may add, that Parsons was not of the best fame concerning Incontinency, Dr. Sutclif's Blessings on Mount Gerizim, p. 288. as I have heard some say who lived in Oxon at that time; but whether that were then objected against him, I have not heard.’

‘Parsons being put to this push in the College-Chapel, and ways sufficient concurring to expel him, and in truth no Man standing for him, [Page] maketh humble request, That he might be suffered to resign, which with some a-do was yielded to him; and then he wrote as you have here inclosed.’

‘Afterwards, before the Assembly broke up, he intreated that his giving over might be concealed, by reason that it would be disgraceful unto him with all Men, but especially with his Scholars and their Friends; and for these causes humbly prayed, that he might keep his Scholars, Chamber, &c. and be reputed as a Fellow in the House, the matter being concealed from all the Boys and the younger sort in the House; which then in words was yielded unto, and that other Decree, which now you see razed, was enacted for the time, but afterwards was soon crossed, as you may behold.’

‘And soon after their coming out of the Chappel, by Bagshaw's means, a Peal of Bells was rung at Magdalen Parish-Church, being the Parish wherein Baliol College standeth; the reason of which ringing, as it was imparted to some few, to be to ring out Mr. Parsons; so generally it was not known to the World or in the College, which gave occasion to this farther Jest.’

[Page] ‘When Parson's was Expell'd, he was one of the Deans of the Colledge, and so by his Place was to keep Corrections in the Hall on the Saturdays. The next time therefore of Corrections, which was the day of Parsons his Exclusion, or soon after, Dr. Squire causeth Parsons to go into the Hall as Dean, and to call the Book and Roll, &c. And then cometh Dr. Squire himself in, and as if it had been in kindness to countenance him (but in truth, more profoundly to deride him) he calleth him at every word Mr. Dean, and desireth him often to have a strict care to the good government of the Youth, and not only for a fit, but all the time of his year that he was to continue in Office.’

‘Some of the Commoners knew all this Pageant, and laught the more sweetly; and Parsons in the end spied how he was scorned, and nothing concealed; nay, understanding all his Knell which was rung out for him, for very shame got him away to London; and there not knowing what course at first to take, at length resolved to try his Fortune beyond Sea, purposing, as it should seem at his departure, to study Physick; but afterward when he came into Italy, resolving rather to study the Civil [Page]Law; which he did for a time at Bononia, as himself in that place told Mr. Davers, Brother to the late Sir John Davers, as the said Mr. Davers hath himself told me; but afterwards belike, wanting means of continuance, he turn'd to be a Jesuit.’

‘Presently upon his departure out of England, he sent a Letter, or rather a notable Libel to Dr. Squire; and he had so ordered the matter, that many Copies of the Letter were taken, and abroad in the hands of others, before the Letter came to the Doctor; which was the true cause that many lewd things were falsly reported of Dr. Squire, although in truth, he was such a man as wanted not faults, &c.’

February 1. 1601. at University Where he was then Master. College.

Your very Loving Friend, George Abbot.

[Page]The inclosed Resignation mentioned in the Letter, runs thus:

Ego Robertus Parsons Socius Collegii de Balliolo, Resigno omne meum jus & clameum, quem habeo vel habere potero Societatis meae in dicto Collegio; quod non quidem facio sponte & coactus, die decimo tertio Mensis Februarii Anno Dom. 1573.

Per me Rob. Parsons.

The inclosed Decree [about keeping his Chamber and Pupils] mentioned in the Letter was this:

Eodem tempore decretum est unanimi Consensu Magistri & reliquorum Sociorum, ut Magister Robertus Parsons nuperrime Socius retineat sibi sua Cubicula & Scholares quousque voluerit, & Communia sua de Collegio habeat usque ad Festum Paschatis immediate sequentis.

[Page]In this Letter we find the true account of the Proceedings at Baliol College against our Parsons, that he was outed for falsifying the College-Accounts, cheating the Commoners, and for incapacity, being illegitimo Thoro natus as appeared it seems to the College by Certificate.

With the Archbishop's account Mr. Camden's does very exactly agree, who speaking of Parsons (when become a Jesuit) and Campian's coming privately into England in 1580. gives this Character of them both.Camden's Elizabeth Book 2. p. 246. This Parsons was of Somersetshire, a violent, fierce-natur'd man, and of a rough behaviour. Campian was a Londoner, of a sweet disposition, and a well-polished man. Both of them were by Education Oxford men, whom I my self knew, being of their standing in the University. Campian, being of St. John's College, bore the Office of Proctour of the University in the Year 1568, and being made Deacon, made a shew of the Protestant Religion, till he withdrew himself out of England. Parsons was of Baliol College, wherein he openly professed the Protestant Religion, until he was for his loose Carriage expelled with disgrace, and went over to the Papists.

[Page]From the account of this matter from such plain evidence, and such impartial unexceptionable Witnesses, one ought to learn what little regard is to be given to one Jesuit's History or Character of another. The Jesuit Morus in his account of Father Parsons leaving Baliol College says, it was for his Religions sake, and his honesty; and not for Sedition and a Contentious temper, which Morus says, others had made the Father's crime: and therefore that he had enlarged upon that business of the Resignation, to cut off that Calumny that had been raised long after against the Innocent Honest Father. Qua singillatim (says the Jesuit) à me percensenda fuerunt, quo calumniae praecidatur tela, quam multis Morus Historia Missionis p. 40. post annis eadem haec invidia contexuit, non Religionis ac probitatis defensae causa cessisse Personium, sed cum reus commotae (si Diis placet) Seditionis ferri diuturnius non potuisset.

It requires the Pen and the Face of a Jesuit to write, that a man was turned out of his College for being an honest man, and for standing up for Probity, when it appears from the authentick evidence of the College Books, and those who were upon the same place, that it was for direct knavery, for cheating the College and Scholars while he [Page] was Bourfer to the value of an hundred Marks: And the other branch of the Jesuit's account, is just as true about his owning and asserting the Popish Religion, whenas Mr. Camden, who was his Contemporary, and those who were of the same College, shew that he not only made profession of the Protestant Religion while he continued there, but was zealous for it; and another adds to this, That after he had so disgracefully left the College, he declared to him that he neither was, nor ever would be a Papist; and which was a very wise thing, offered to swear it too.

Quickly after this Resignation Parsons left Baliol College and Oxford also; notwithstanding the Liberty that was allowed him of continuing in his Chambers and at Commons, and having Pupils. It seems Guilt and Disgrace made that University too uneasie to him, to take the benefit of that allowance; and therefore he hurries up to London, but makes a very short stay there, finding it best for a man in his condition vertere solum, to travel beyond Seas, whither though the guilt of his false and unquiet behaviour would go with him; yet the disgrace might not get after him, and so his life might not be too great a Burden to him.

[Page]Beyond Sea his first design was to study Physick, but that soon altering, he betook himself to the Study of the Civil Laws at Bononia: and this also soon went off. For within a year after his going beyond Seas, we find him admitted at Rome into the Jesuits College by Mercurianus the General of their Order at that time. It is very probable, that as Vexation and Discontent (those great Reconcilers of People to the Catholick Faith and Church of Rome, then and now in fashion) made him to turn Papist, for all his Protestation to Mr. Clarke his Friend of the Inner-Temple to the contrary; so Poverty, and want of Conveniences necessary to the Study and Profession either of Civil Law or Physick, and his natural temper did make him enter himself into the Jesuits Order. This is certain, that he was by Nature and Inclination every way fitted to make a compleat Jesuit, he was fierce, turbulent, and bold, which are the three main Qualifications of a Jesuit: he had indeed one great fault, I cannot tell whether I should call it a defect, that he was too learned for that Society; but perchance Ignorance was not then in Father Parson's days so peculiar, and so essential to Jesuitism, as our Age, and especially our Nation has convinced the World that it is.

[Page]He was entred into the Jesuits College in July 1575. what progress in matters of Learning and Piety, or whether he made any at all, I do not find. The active politick part seems to have employed him wholly from the time of his writing Jesuit, and in that he has taken very large steps: he was quickly taken notice of as a man very promising in those affairs, and did not deceive their expectations, being fierce and zealous in promoting their Cause. He seems to have over-acted his part, since he quickly drew upon himself no very favourable Opinion from the General of their Order, who found him too turbulent, busie, and medling, and therefore complain'd, That he was more troubled with one English man (meaning our Father Parsons) than with all the rest of his Society.

He was however after having been but five years among them pitch'd upon to be one of the Jesuits that should be sent in their first Mission into England, and perhaps his unquiet and boisterous temper might be the best reason their General had to send him away. Cardinal Allen was the person that first motioned such a mission of Jesuits into England, and named Father Parsons not only for one, but to be the Superiour.

[Page]The picking out such a man does tell the World as plain as words themselves could, what the true business was, upon which these Jesuits were first sent into England. The great pretence, and what was published every where was, that they were only sent into Christ's Vineyard to serve the necessities of the remaining Catholicks in England, and to recover others from their Heresies and Schism; but Cardinal Allen knew other things, and another sort of a design, a design that required such men as Father Parsons himself was. Had their sending been only and purely about Spiritual matters, and the Salvation of Souls, of all men living he would not have singled out our Jesuit, whom he lookt upon to be a man very violent, and of an unquiet Spirit, and therefore more likely to cause Breaches and Divisions, than to heal them.

And therefore some people who were not let into the Secret, were very much disturbed when they heard that Father Parsons was sending amongst them, expecting no good, but a great deal of mischief to all the Catholicks left in England, from the management of such a violent, not, cholerick, and domineering Superiour; even Blackwel himself, that was afterwards [Page] Arch-Priest, and so much at Father Parson's Devotion, bewailed the coming of Parsons into England to a Friend of his, saying: That the President at Rhemes (meaning Dr. (after Cardinal) Allen) played a very indiscreet part to send him hither: as being an unfit man to be employed in the Causes of Religion. And being asked by that Friend, why Father Parsons was unmeet for that Employment, his answer was, because his casting out of Baliol College, and other Articles and Matters depending upon it betwixt him and Dr. Squire (then living) were very likely to be renewed; and so to work great discredit both to him and to the Catholick Cause.

And indeed one cannot but wonder how a man who had left England so lately, and upon such very scandalous accounts, should have the face not only to come, but to put himself forward upon such an Employment: It confirms the Character of Mr. Camden and others of him, that he was a man of confident boldness; but it does not prove either Policy or Discretion in hi [...] except he had brought himself to believe that the Absolution he got in the Church of Rome, when he turn'd Apostate, had blo [...] ted his false tricks and knavish pranks o [...] [Page] of all Peoples Memories, as well as out of Heavens Records.

However to do them justice who were for sending him into England against all those complainers against him and them, such a man as Father Parsons was necessary for such a work as he was sent hither upon; and what that work was we shall hear very quickly.

He and Father Campian were appointed for this Mission, and parted from Rome on the Sunday after Easter 1580. with the Pope's Benediction: Their Dispatches were given them there before they set out, by Everard Mercurianus the General of their Order, which Morus in his History of this Mission makes to be in short some Commands about faithfully discharging their Ministerial Function,Acceptis ab Everardo mandatis de re Catholicae per nostri instituti ministeria diligenter procuranda, atquo non minori diligentis vita [...]a [...] rerum quae ad regni publica negotia pertinerent seu verbo seu scripto trabatione. Mor. Hist. Min. l. 3. p. 61. and by no means, either by Word or Writing to meddle with the Publick Affairs of the Kingdom of England.

I was very careful not to omit the putting down these (dispatches for the two Jesuits according to Father Moor's [...]count of them, because I shall shew [Page] by and by how wonderfully these do agree with another dispatch (which, though Father Moor leave it out of his History, I will not leave out of mine) and with the Practices of both these Jesuits as soon as they were got into this Kingdom.

Father Moor tells us, that the two Jesuits, with their Companions, took Geneva in their way from Rome, and made a visit to Beza, with whom they had some Conference, but no victory it seems, because the poor ignorant Man took the advantage of the shutting in of the Evening to break off the Discourse, and to conceal his ignorance: a piece of History this that Father Moor ought not to expect to be credited in by any Body that hath ever heard of learning or learned Men, or by any one but a Jesuit and a Jesuit's Fellow.

First Parsons set sail from Calice, (the two Sparks being unwilling to venture two such Treasures in one Bottom) after Midnight, which was the properest time for such works of darkness, as he w [...] going about, and got safe to Canterbury (as Campian acquaints their General in his Letter to Rome) in the disguise of Soldier, but so gaudy, and so airy, th [...] he must be a very nice Man, that co [...] [Page] [...]hen suspect or find Piety or Modesty under such a dress and mien; ay, or without that dress I dare add, for who ever heard otherwise of Father Parson's Modesty or Piety either?

After this he got as safe to London, where he stayed for his Companion Father Campi [...]n, who likewise escaped the strict search that was made for them, their Pictures as well as the time of their setting out from Rome being got into England before them.

I must leave these Jesuits in their disguises for a while, and look back to the State Queen Elizabeth was in with the Bishops of Rome. Pius Quartus had a mind to attempt her by fair speeches, and to perswade her to submit her Sceptre to his Crosier by fair Promises, for which purpose by his Agent Parpaglia he wrote a very [...]mooth Letter unto her, giving her assurance of every thing she could desire from him. But Queen Elizabeth was too prudent to be caught by such a gilded bait, or to part with her Supream Power for a few good Words, and therefore would have nothing to do with the Bishops of Rome; so that all this Pope's hopes of her were lost. Pius Quintus seeing his Predecessor's mild ways unsuccessful, resolved upon harsher methods, [Page] and made it his chief business to contrive, and encourage Plots against her; and not content with this [...] slow and unsuccessful way of destroying her, he, without giving warning or sending Admonition to her, lets fly his Bull of Excommunication and Deprivation against her, and causes it by an impudent Wretch Felton, to be fixt upon the Bishop of London's Gates; the Title of which (to trouble the Reader with no more of it) is this: The sentence Declaratory of our holy Lord, Pope Pius Quintus against Elizabeth Queen of England, and the Hereticks adhering to her: wherein also all her Subjects are declared to be absolved from the Oath of Allegiance, and whatever other duty they owe unto her: and those which from henceforth shall obey her, are involved in the same Curse or Anathema.

But as terrible as this Title, and as much more terrible as the Bull it self was, it did no ways answer the Pope's Expectation: it was so far from raising all the Papists in the Nation against her which was his Expectation as well [...] his command, that it was contemned and slighted by most, and instead of alie [...] ting their duty and their affections from [Page] the Queen, it did alienate them both from him, who was so ill advised, as by such hasty, unreasonable and ridiculous provocations to bring the severity of Laws and Trouble upon them, who had hitherto been suffered quietly to enjoy in private the exercise of their Religion; but now had no reason to expect it any longer, being made every one of them so obnoxious and suspicious to the Government by reason of this his declaratory Bull against the Queen.

In this Condition the Queen and Realm were, when our two Jesuits were sent over, and as no wise Man, nor sober Man among the Papists themselves ever doubted that this Excommunication and Deposition of Queen Elizabeth was oweing to the false suggestions and traiterous and importunate solicitations of the Jesuits Faction; so it is as little to be questioned that the Jesuits undertook to make this Bull effectual, and to raise not only the Papists, but all others that they could buy into their interest to depose the Queen, and reduce the Realm to the Pope's Obedience; and that for this very purpose their first Mission came over hither.

[Page]They pretended indeed, that they came over only to minister in Spiritual things to the necessities of the remaining Catholicks in England, and to propagate their Catholick Religion, as they call it, for the saving of Men's Souls, and that their business was not to stir up Sedition against the Queen, or to meddle with matters of State: but whatever their pretences were, or whatever Father Moor has devised for them in his account of their Mission into England, this we are sure of, that the private Instructions (here following) given these two Jesuits by Pope Gregory XIII. for their coming hither, together with their practices immediately after their getting into England, prove the direct contrary upon them.

We must understand that as by the damnatory Bull of Pius V. Queen Elizabeth and all her Adherents were cursed, and deposed from all Power and Authority; so by the last clause but one of it, the Papists, themselves were put under the same Curse, and Anathematized, if they continued to obey her. Praecipimusque & interdicimus universis & singulis, &c. And we command and forbid all and every the Noblemen, Subjects, People, and others aforesaid, that they presume[Page]not to obey her, or her Monitions, Mandates, or Laws; and for those who shall do otherwise than here commanded, we do involve them in the same Sentence of Anathema.

This was very hard upon the Papists themselves, since how unable soever they might be to depose the Queen, and how certain soever their Ruine would be upon the least attempt towards it, yet attempt it they must, and disobey her and her Laws they must, or else be put into the very same Condition with the Heretical Queen her self: and therefore the Jesuits (or their Friends) who were to come over, foreseeing this great inconvenience that the English Papists were not allowed to wait a favourable opportunity of deposing the Queen, but must do it out of hand, though it was absolutely impossible for them, obtained faculties from this Pope's Successor Gregory XIII. to free the Romanists in England from the Curse of that Declaratory Bull for the present, till things were riper, and a more favourable Juncture offered it self, which Faculties were taken about one of these two Jesuits Complices, immediately after Campian's Execution, and run thus:

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[Page]

Facultates Concessae P. P. Roberto Parsonio, & Edmundo Campiano, pro Angliâ, die 14o Aprilis, 1580.

PEtatur à Summo Domino nostro Explicatio Bullae. Declaratoriae per Pium Quintum contra Elizabethum & ei adhaerentes, quam Catholici cupiunt intelligi hot modo, ut obliget semper illam & haereticos, Catholicos vero nullo modo obliget rebus sic stantibus, sed tum demum, quando publica ejus dem Bullae executio fieri poterit. Then followed (as my Lord Burleigh's now stand, but hereafter, when the publick Execution of the said Bull may be had or made, &c. The Pope hath granted these foresaid Graces to Father Robert Parsons, and Edmond Campion, who are now to go into England; the 14th. day of April, 1580. Present the Father Oliverius Manarcus assistant.

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[Page]

Faculties granted to the Two Fathers, Robert Parsons, and Edmond Campian, for England, the 14th of April, 1580.

LET it be desired of our most Holy Lord the Explication of the Bull Declaratory made by Pius the Fifth against Elizabeth, and such as do adhere to or obey her; which Bull the Catholicks desire to be understood in this manner, That the same Bull shall always oblige her and the Hereticks, but the Catholicks it shall by no means bind as affairs do Tract concerning Execution for Treason and not for Religion tells us Pag. 12, 13.) many other Petitions of Faculties for their further Authorities, which were all concluded thus: Has praedictas Gratias concessit summus Pontifex Patri Roberto Personio & Edmondo Campiano in Angliam profecturis, die 14o Aprilis 1580. Praesente Patre Oliverio Manarco assistente.

§

Thus furnished Father Parsons set out for England upon his true business, which was not to read Mass, and take Confessions and the like; but to put this Bull of Deposition in Execution against his lawful Queen, as soon as matters were a little riper, and when the Jesuits thought fit to speak out.

[Page]And as his Instructions were such, so his behaviour was every whit answerable to them; he made it his whole business to alienate the Papists he conversed with from their Allegiance, and went about the Kingdom in his several disguises upon the same traiterous errand, one while in the habit of a Soldier, another while in that of a Gentleman, sometimes in the habit of a Minister, again in that of an Apparitor, a very Proteus; Sedition and Treason was his business hither, and he presently upon his arrival in England fell to his Jesuitical courses: and so belaboured both himself and others in matters of State (which the Jesuit Moor would fain have the World to believe they were charged in their Dispatches not to meddle in neither by word nor writing) how he might set her Majesties Crown upon another Head (as appeareth by a Letter of his own Important Considerations, p. 40. to a certain Earl) That the Catholicks themselves threatened to deliver him into the hands of the Civil Magistrate, except he desisted from such kind of practices.

This Account of Father Parson's turbulent and seditious behaviour immediately upon his arrival in England, is confirmed [Page] by our great Historian Mr. Camden, who had it from some of the Papists themselves, and speaks it upon their own credit, that they had thoughts of delivering him into the Magistrates hands on this account.

But notwithstanding the Intentions and Threats of those more peaceable Papists, we see Father Parsons went on in his own way, wherein he made so good progress, that though he came into England but in June that year, viz. 1580. yet before Christmas all things seemed ready for an Insurrection, the Papists being taught (and that under pain of Damnation) to renounce the Queen, who had now no more Authority over them, being deposed by the sentence of the Infallible Pope at Rome; and the Popes and King of Spain's Countenance and Assistance promised them, if they would but rise and make a Rebellion.

That the Papists by that time were generally come over to Father Parson's Party, and lookt upon the Queen as no longer their Sovereign by reason of her Deposition by Pius the Fifth, and Gregory the Thirteenth, who sent the first Mission of these Jesuits into England, is plain from the Confession of Hart one of their [Page] Fellows, who was taken about that time wherein he acknowledged (to put it in his own words) That the Bull of Pius Quintus (for so much as it is against the Queen) is holden among the English Catholicks for a lawful sentence, Hart's Confession taken December 31. 1580. in Lord Burleigh's Tract, p. 14. and a sufficient discharge of her Subjects fidelity, and so remaineth in forte; but in some points touching the Subjects, it is altered by the present Pope [viz. Gregory XIII.] For where in that Bull all her Subjects are commanded not to obey her, and she being excommunicate and deposed, all that do obey her are likewise innodate and accursed, which point is perillous to the Catholicks: for if they obey her, they be in the Pope's Curse, and if they disobey her, they are in the Queen's danger; therefore the present Pope to relieve them hath altered that part of the Bulls, and dispenced with them to obey and serve her, without peril of Excommunication; which Dispensation is to endure but till it please the Pope to determine it otherwise.

This was a strange Alteration to be made in so short a time; that the Bull of Pius Quintus should be generally despised when it was first publisht among the English Catholicks; and that Parsons [Page] who came over to encourage and exhort to the putting that damnatory Bull in Execution against the Queen should be in danger of being delivered up into the Magistrates hands for his traiterous designs; and yet within half a year that the Bull of this Pope should be holden among those English Catholicks for a lawful sentence, and a sufficient discharge of the Subjects fidelity.

This shews that these Jesuits and the Seminary Priests did ply this matter very close, and made it their chief, if not their whole business to gain this point upon the English Papists, that so they might be in a greater readiness to joyn in any foreign attempts against their Countrey, or to rise here against her, whom (by these new Apostles) they were taught, and did now believe to have no authority at all over them.

And as these two Jesuits business was to fill their credulous Peoples Heads with this sort of Seditious Doctrine, so they themselves had the boldness to assert and maintain it publickly, when they thought it necessary for their purposes: Campian, our Father Parsons Brother-Missioner, was taken at Lyford-House in Barkshire the next year, and being brought to his Tryal, [Page] and Convicted of High-Treason, received his Sentence accordingly; after his Condemnation, being asked, Whether Queen Elizabeth were a Right and Lawful Queen? He refused to answer; and being a second time asked, Whether he would take part with the Queen, or the Pope if he should send Forces against the Queen, he openly professed, and testified under his hand, that he would stand for the Pope: and yet this Jesuit must be a Martyr in the Popish Calendar, and dyed purely for Religion, and for being a Priest of the Catholick Roman Church: whereas if there can be such a thing as Treason against any Government in the World, Campian was certainly guilty of it.

And so his Brother Robert Parsons, though he had not such an opportunity of testifying his Faith and making Confession of his Opinion in the face of Magistracy it self, Campian's Execution frighting him away out of England: yet by his writing he shewed to the World▪ that his Brother Campian and he were perfectly of the same mind, as to the Pope's power, and Queen Elizabeth's Authority in England.

[Page]In his Book written on occasion of a Proclamation of this Queen against them, and called generally Philopater from the feigned Name of Andreas Philopater, under which Father Parsons disguised himself, he does very frankly discover how much a Subject he lookt upon himself to be to his Lawful Queen even before the Pope's Sentence of Deposition against her. Hinc etiam infert Vniversa Theologorum & Jurisconsultorum Ecclesiasticorum (& est certum & de fide) &c. It is certain (says he) and what we ought to believe, and it is the Opinion of all Divines, and Ecclesiastical Lawyers, that if any Christian Prince fall from the Catholick Faith, and would have others to follow him, he himself thereby doth forthwith, [...]oth by Divine and Humane Law, yea though [...]he Pope the Supreme Judge hath not issued forth any censure against him, fall from all [...]is Authority and Dignity, and his Subjects [...]re freed from all their Oaths of Allegiance, [...]hich they sware to him as a Lawful Prince; [...]nd they may, nay, and ought (if they have [...]orce enough to overcome) to pull him down [...]rom his Throne as an Apostate, Heretick, a [...]orsaker of Christ, and an Enemy to the [...]ommonwealth Andreas Philopa [...] Responsio ad Edictum Reginae Angliae, p. 106, 107. in Fouli`s History of [...]pish Treasons, p. 77.. And so fond is Father [Page] Parsons of this Notion of the Lawfulness of Deposing Princes meerly for Religion, that to make it go down the easier with his Popish Friends he was dealing with, he makes it to be the certain, determined, and undoubted opinion of all Learned men, and plainly agreeable and consonant to the Apostolick Doctrine: After which he is not content with its being only lawful to Depose their Prince upon this account of falling from their Popish Religion, but will have it that they are all obliged and bound to do so (if they have strength and power) upon their Consciences, and utmost danger and pain of their Souls.

If this Jesuit was not a Doctor fit for a Papal Mission into England, I am very much mistaken; he that could in Print vent such Doctrine to the World, as well as teach it in private among his Followers and Confidents; what work, and what progress must be expected from him, when he came furnished also with the Pope's Thundring Sentence of Excommunication and Deposition against the already despised and deposed Queen.

As to the Fruits of Father Parson's Doctrine in these points, and his restless and seditious Practices against his Native Countrey upon them, I will inquire after them [Page] by and by. Soon after his coming into England a Controversie was raised, and most probably by himself and fellow-Jesuit Campian, about the Catholicks frequenting the Protestant Churches, a thing which had been constantly and generally practised from the accession of the Queen to the Crown. It is certain that abundance of people were drawn from their Popish Opinions and Superstitions by it, and it is probable, that the remaining Roman Catholicks would in time have come over entirely into the Communion of the Church of England, and have brought their Hearts and Affections as well as their Bodies thither; for it could not have been otherwise, but that the Light, and Plainness, and Reasonable Service of the Protestant Church would have prevailed (by God's Blessing) upon every honest well-meaning Papist, and have saved the Pope the trouble of detaching his Incendiaries and Seminary Priests hither.

Since therefore this Practice would have made their Seminaries useless, and their whole Craft was endangered by it, it was these new Jesuits Interest, and they made [...]t their business to oppose and exclaim against it every where, and upon all occasions: And they pretended that they had [Page] very good Authority for it, no less than that of the Council of Trent, which tho' it did not in open Council decree against, and forbid all Catholicks the frequenting the Protestant Churches, because this would have alarmed the Government of England, and would have caused great mischiefs and disturbance to all the remaining Catholicks there, yet did appoint a Committee of twelve Bishops and others to consider, determine, and give answer in the Name of the Council of Trent, to the Petition that was either sent (but without Name,) or pretended to be sent to that Council from the Catholicks of England, wherein it was desired, that they might be resolved in this point, Whether the Laws enjoyning all Peoples going to their Parish Churches under a strict Penalty, they might do it without danger of their Souls, or offending God.

I put the sence of the Postulation in Father Moor's words in his History of the Mission, the answer to which, he makes to be, that after Commendations of the English Papists for their constancy in the Catholick Religion, and their having not (during those troublesome times in England) never bowed their Knees before [Page] Baal; (as if forsooth the Church of England had had Images, and Reliques, and a Wafer Host for their Members to bow to) they declared to them with one consent, that they ought not to be present at our Impious Worship, nor can appear there without Sin, and offending God, and giving Scandal to the Church of God every where. I know nothing worth the observing, in that tedious dull determination of these twelve Delegates out of the Council of Trent, which is so far from being worth transcribing, that it is not worth reading, except the good words they give our Protestant Worship throughout it, which is one while Impious, then most Profligate, then Nefarious, and, which is the best Jest of all, Idolatrous, and what not. It would be too great a disparagement of our Divine and Excellent way of Worshipping God, to enter the lists in defence of it against such Sottish and Wretched Calumnies; this I will only say concerning it, That if to put into the Mouths of Minister and People Devout and Fervent Prayers to God for his Grace to enable them to repent of their sins, to resist Temptations, and to lead true Christian Lives in Piety, Justice, [Page] and Sobriety, be Wicked and Nefarious, then I will own that our Church Service does deserve this hard Character of being Nefarious: That if to put the Prayers into such a Language, as that the Unlearned as well as the Learned part of the Congregation may joyn with understanding in them; and offer them up together with fervency of Spirit to God, be Impious, then I must again own that our Common-Prayer is Impious: that if to offer up all the Prayers and Praises in our Divine Service to God the Father, through the alone Merits and Mediation of Jesus Christ our alone Mediator as well as Redeemer be Idolatrous, and I know nothing else in our service so likely for those Delegates to fix the Idolatry upon, then I will own, and subscribe too that our Protestant Worship is Idolatrous, Impious, Profligate, and Nefarious, and what else, or worse, these Trent Fathers should have been pleased to call it.

It was very hard for men that did pretend to be Christians, and were some of them men of great Figure in the Romish Church, to give out such hard words against a Form of Divine Worship, which [Page] probably never a one of them had ever seen, or inquired into, they being all Foreigners, and perfect Strangers to this Church, that were employed in this Affair.

I would ask one of that Persuasion, Whether, if Queen Elizabeth had come to terms with Pope Pius Quartus that sent her a flattering Letter by Parpalia his Nuncio, and if that Pope (as he offered her) had confirmed the English Liturgy by his Authority, and granted the use of the Sacraments to us English under both kinds; this bare. Confirmation of the Pope would have made our Worship to be holy, pure, and Christian, which without it, as they said, was impure, wicked, and Idolatrous: If the Pope's power be so great as to make Wickedness, Innocence, and Vice Virtue, its the better for them who live under him; if it be not, either the Pope was grievously out in offering to confirm; or these doughty Delegates at Trent, in giving such a Character of our Church of England-Worship.

Whether this whole business of the Delegates and their Determination, be not an Invention of the Jesuits themselves, [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] I cannot affirm. But if it was a real thing, either it was not heard of much, or had little effect among the English Catholicks, since we see that eighteen years after its making, the English Papists went to Church when Father Parsons came over, and the thing was disputed among them in 1580, which it could not easily have been, had the Council of Trent by twelve Delegates determined so strictly against it, as the Jesuits say they did in 1562. eighteen years before.

Father Parsons laboured with all his might to break the Catholicks of that custom of frequenting the Protestant Churches, which he did easily foresee would be the ruine of Popery in England, and betook himself to his Pen, and under the seigned Name of Howlet published Reasons why Catholicks refuse to go to Church:Vertumnus Romanas. But a Brother Romish Priest tells us, That all this care and concern was meerly for Temporal ends and designs, and shews, that no body was a gainer by this Recusancy so violently urged by the Jesuits above all others, excepting that Society, whose rich Colleges and abundance of Treasure made [Page] it apparent quickly to the World, that some were great gainers, while the poor Lay-Catholicks were made great sufferers by that Recusancy.

Upon Campian's Execution, England grew too hot for our Father Parsons, and notwithstanding the mighty zeal he pretended for the Conversion of England, yet he was for saving one, and getting out of harms way, and therefore slips away back into France under the Pretext of conferring with Doctor Allen about the Seminaries, and of Printing some Books, which could not be done in England; and never returned hither, tho' he continued Superiour of the Jesuits Mission after this.

But though the Kingdom was delivered from such a Firebrand, yet he continued diligent beyond Seas in his Seditious Designs, and was to the last a constant Enemy to his Native Countrey. As he had laboured in the promoting the Popish Recufancy, and getting the English Papists to be governed by the Jesuits; so he now employs all his Arts and all his interest to get Seminaries erected for the supplying England from time to time with Priests to keep up that Recufancy, [Page] and to prepare the Papists here, to joyn with any Invasion that they abroad should procure against their own Countrey.

Assoon as he was got hence to Roan in France, he dealt with the Duke of Guise to erect a Seminary for such a purpose in Normandy; after which he goes into Spain, and prevails with King Philip to encourage and erect such in Spain, so that in a short time they could not only boast of their Seminaries at Rome, and at Rhemes; but of those at Valladolid, at Sevil, at St. Lucars in Spain, at Lisbon in Portugal, at Doway and St. Omers in Flanders, in all which their Youth were educated with violent Prejudices against their own Native Countrey, and their minds were formed to all the Purposes and Designs which this chief Incendiary Parsons had in his head.

Father Moor, the Author of the History of the Mission does indeed tell us, That Father Parsons was for having the Youth that were entered into these Seminaries to take an Oath about faithfully answering the End and Benefit of their Education there, but says not a [Page] word of their being forced to subscribe the Infanta of Spain's Title, against the True Title of the then King of Scots, King James the First.

The Oath was this,

IN. N. considering with how great benefits God hath blessed me, &c. do promise (by God's assistance) to enter into Holy Orders assoon as I shall be fit for them, and to return into England to Convert my Countrey-men there, whenever it shall please the Superior of this House to command me.

But when once Father Parsons (being puffed up with his Familiarity with the King and Court of Spain) had devoted his Soul and Body both to the service of that aspiring Crown, then he was for having the Youth in the Seminaries to subscribe to the Spanish Title (which was of his own inventing) to the Crown of England; then he was for speaking out his design against his Native Countrey.

[Page]And that he dealt in such traiterous designs, after his getting out of England is proved upon him by their own Writers. As touching the Colleges (says Clark the Priest concerning him) and Pensions that are maintained and given by the Spaniard, which he so often inculcateth, we no whit thank him for them, as things are handled, and occasions thereby ministred of our greater Persecution at home, by reason of Father Parson's treacherous practices, thereby to promote the Spanish Title to our Country, and his hateful Stratagems with such Scholars as are there brought up, enforcing them to subscribe to Blanks, and by publick Orations to fortifie the said wrested Title of the Infanta, meaning Isabella Clara Eugenia, Daughter to Philip the Second of Spain, whose Right to the English Crown was maintain'd in a Book by this Parsons made, but published by him under the false name of Doleman.

As this Priest gives us an account of the zeal of Father Parsons for the Infanta; so Watson, another Romish Priest, helps us to another of his knavery about the same affair; That Parsons earnestly moving the young Students in Spain to set their hands to a Schedule that they would accept [Page]the Lady Infanta for Queen of England after the decease of her Majesty (to wit, Queen Elizabeth) that now is; but finding them altogether unwilling to intermedle with these State-affairs belonging nothing to them, and most hurtful to both their Cause and Persons; used this cunning shift to draw on the innocent and simple youths, to pretend, forsooth, to them of Valladolid, that the Students in Sevil had done it already; no remedy then but they must follow. And that having thus craftily gotten their names, he shewed them to the Students in Sevil for an example of their fact and forwardness, which he required them to imitate.

Though these are sufficient Evidences of the use Father Parsons put the erected Seminaries to; yet I cannot but add that great and wise Cardinal, the Cardinal d'Ossat's account of these very Seminaries in his Letter to the King of France, Henry the Fourth,Lettres Card. d'Ossat, Part 2. l. 7. about the Spaniards and Father Parsons Design against England. ‘For this purpose also (says he) were the Colleges and Seminaries erected by the Spaniards for the English at Doway, and at St. Omers, wherein the young Gentlemen of the best Families in England are entertain'd, thereby to [Page] oblige them, and by them their Paren [...] and Kindred and Friends. The principal care which these Colleges and Seminaries have, is to catechise and bring up these young English Gentlemen in this Faith and firm Belief, that the late King of Spain had, and that his Children now have, the true Right of Succession to the Crown of England; and that this is advantageous and expedient for the Catholick Faith, not only in England, but where-ever Christianity is.’

‘And when these young English Gentlemen have finished their Humanity-Studies, and are come to such an age, then to make them throughly Spaniards, they are carried out of the Low-Countries into Spain, where there are other Colleges for them, wherein they are instructed in Philosophy and Divinity, and confirmed in the same Belief, and holy Faith, that the Kingdom of England did belong to the late King of Spain, and does now to his Children. After that these young English Gentlemen have finished their courses, those of them that are found to be most Hispaniolized, and most couragious and firm to this Spanish Creed, are sent into [Page] England to sow this Faith among them, to be Spies, and give advice to the Spaniards of what is doing in England, and what must and ought to be done to bring England into the Spaniards hands; and if need be to undergo Martyrdom as soon or rather sooner for this Spanish Faith, than for the Catholick Religion.’

In this Cardinal we find to what excellent purposes the Seminaries were erected, that Father Parsons laboured so much about, and of which he glories so much up and down his Writings. These Seminaries were the Nurseries of the Conspiracies and Treasons which were from time to time set on foot and carried on against the Queen and Realm of England; and Father Parson's whole Life from his leaving the Mission in England appears to me to have been one continued Act of Treason against his Natural Queen and Native Country.

To mention some of his Treasons that are come to light; he was very grateful to the Duke of Guise, whom he had perswaded to set up a Seminary in France for the English that should come thither, for with him he conspires against his own Queen, how to depose her, and set [Page] up in her room Popery and the Queen of Scots: He endeavoured for this purpose (as we are told Jesuits Reasons Unreasonable, p. 65. to make a List of Catholicks, which under the conduct of the Duke of Guise, should have changed the State of the Kingdom, using for it the pretence of the Title of Queen Mary of Scotland: But that her Council at Paris, which understood business better, were so sensible of his boldness, that they took from him the Queen's Cypher, which he had purloyned, and commanded him never more to meddle in her affairs.

But notwithstanding these People would not let our Father Parsons have any thing further to do in those treasons, which were really carried on at that time for the Queen of Scots; yet he pretended to mighty merit upon her and her Son's Account in his Letter to Father Chreyton the Jesuit Morus Hist. Miss. Jesuit. l. 4. p. 122. telling him how many long and tedious journeys he had taken for their sakes, and how much Mony he had procured for them; at one time twenty four thousand Crowns from the King of Spain, at another time the same summ; and from Pope Gregory XIII. four thousand Crowns: he confesses indeed that things had not [Page] succeeded for them as he had wished; but wonders that any body should make him to be an Enemy to the King of Scots, who had been so very serviceable to him and his Mother.

I suppose Father Parsons was disgusted at this sleighting of his faithful services to the Queen of Scots, by her Ministers, and to be revenged of her and them, betakes himself wholly into the Spanish Interest, which he espoused so far as not only to sollicite and encourage their open attempts by Invasion against England, but after the ill success of that, to set up their sham Title to the Kingdom of England. He and Cardinal Allen (whom Parsons had by his Interest with the King of Spain procured to be made a Cardinal) two Brethren in iniquity were mighty forward for the famous Spanish Invasion in 1588. and to make it more successful wrote in defence of it a Tract, which Allen was perswaded to own, though Parsons had as great, if not a greater hand in it than himself. In this Admonition to the Nobility and People of England the Queen's Government is called impious and unjust, her self an Usurper, obstinate, and impentinent; and it is affirmed, that for this [Page] reason Pope Sixtus Quintus moved by his own and his Predecessors zeal, and the vehement desire of some principal Englishmen, had used great diligence with divers Princes, especially with the Spanish King to use all his force, that she might be turned out of her Dominions, and her Adherents punished for a great many Reasons there laid together, after which it proceeds thus▪ Wherefore seeing these Offences, some of them rendring her uncapable of the Kingdom, others unworthy to live; his Holiness by the power of God and the Apostles reneweth the Censures of Pius V. and Gregory XIII. against her, excommunicates and deprives her of all Royal Dignity, Titles, Rights and Pretences to England and Ireland, declares her Illegitimate and an Usurper of the Kingdoms, and absolves all her Subjects from their Obedience and Oaths of Allegiance due to her.

And expressly commands All, under pain and penalty of God's Wrath, to yield her no obedience, aid or favour whatsoever; but to employ all their power against her, and to joyn themselves with the Spanish Forces, who will not hurt the Nation, nor alter their Laws or Priviledges, only punish [Page] the wicked Hereticks. And by the same Presents it was declared not only lawful but commendable to lay hands on the said Usurper, and other her Adherents; for doing of which they should be well rewarded. And lastly, to all these Roman Assistants is liberally granted a plenary Indulgence and Remission of all their Sins.

But this unerring Thunderbolt, as well as the Spanish Invincible Armado, did very shamefully miscarry, to the no small disappointment of our good Father Parsons; who was not discouraged at that defeat, though a worse Man than himself (if any such could be) would have seen the Finger of God plainly in it; but labours with the King of Spain a while after for a second Invasion, and after that for a third, plotting and devising all ways to bring the King of Spain, to it, and the Papists of England both those at home and the fugitives abroad, to joyn and assist the King of Spain in it; but all his pains was lost about these Invasions from abroad; and therefore he next sets himself to raise a Rebellion in England it self, and deals with Ferdinand Earl of Derby to appear in, and [...]ead it; which because he declined to do, he was poysoned, by Father Hesketh's procurement, who had been sent to him by Father Parsons. But failing here also, of the desired [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] success, the poor Father was now at a loss what to do with this Kingdom of England, and since he saw all miscarried that he had plotted against Queen Elizabeth, who descended to her Grave full of years, and honour; his next business was to keep out King James, who was a Protestant also from succeding her.

For this purpose he wrote his Doleman or Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England, the chief design of which was to exclude the Scotch Title, as well the Lady Arabella's as King James's, and to set up the Spanish Infanta. I know Mr. Camden will have Cardinal Allen and Sir Francis Inglefield to have their shares in this Book; but Cardinal d'Ossat, who had far better opportunities of finding out the Author, makes it to be Parson's own, and in one of his Letters to the King of France gives that King an account of it,Pitsaeus also makes him to be the Author of it. wherein he gives our Jesuit the true Character he deserved of being a fellow that regarded neither truth nor reason.

One thing I cannot but remark here, that though this Jesuit had the Impudence to meddle in these matters, and to set up forged Titles against the Royal Line of Scotland; yet when King James contrary to their Popish designs as well as Expectations, did [Page] quietly succeed to the Crown of England, he had the greater Impudence to deny his ever intending to exclude that King: this is in the Preface to his Three Conversions of England added upon the news of the Queens Death, and Succession of the King of Scotland to the Crown of England; And as for the person (says he to the English Catholicks) now advanced, I know most certainly, that there was never any doubt or difference among you, but that ever you desired his advancement above all others, as the only Heir of that renowned Mother, for whom your fervent zeal is known to the World, and how much you have suffered by her adversaries for the same. Yet do I confess, that touching the disposition of the person for the place and manner of his advancement, all zealous Catholicks have both wished and prayed, that he might first be a Catholick and then our King, this being our bounded duty to wish, and his greatest good to be obtained for him. And to this end and no other I assure my self hath been directed, whatsoever may have been said, written or done by any Catholick, which with some others might breed disgust.

Thus the Jesuit thought to pacifie King James's Court by a piece of Impudence to be met with only in a Jesuit, whoever will be at the pains to compare Parson's Doleman, [Page] with this Preface, cannot but declare him to be the greatest Villain that ever set Pen to Paper, and to have lost all sense of Modesty, Truth and Justice.

Amidst these his Projects for the Spanish Interest, he had hopes upon the death of Cardinal Allen to be made by the Spanish Interest a Cardinal for England, and there was set about in Flanders by Holt the Jesuit and Worthington, Watson's Quodlibet. p. 120. a Petition to the King of Spain for that purpose subscribed by the Common Soldiers, Labourers, Artizans and Pensioners, nay, Scullions and Laundresses, as well as by those of better rank and quality. Upon this Father Parsons makes haste out of Spain to Rome to hinder it, as the Jesuits say for him; when he came thither, upon a day set him, he waited on the Pope, and acquainted him how the City was full of the discourse of his being shortly to be made a Cardinal, and that Spain and Flanders rung with it too, and therefore begged of him that he would not think of making him a Cardinal, who might be more serviceable in the condition he was now in to the affairs of England. Morus Hist. Miss. Jes. l. 6. p. 234, 235. The Pope told him, That the King of Spain had not written, a syllable to him about any such thing, and that he must not mind foolish Reports, and bid him go and mind his studies.

[Page]I cannot but think that this neglect in the King of Spain lost him Father Parsons, who soon after, though he could not leave of plotting, went on other designs, four of which he seems to have had on foot together for the Exclusion of King James from the Crown of England. The most improbable one was that of the Peoples rising and setting up a popular Government, he had furnished them with Principles in several of his Books for this purpose. In the Second and Third he dealt with the Pope either about making (if his Purse and Interest were large enough) his Kinsman the Duke of Parma King, or in joyning with the Lady Arabella's Interest, and marrying her to the Duke's Brother the Cardinal Farnese (whom he had made upon the death of Cardinal Cajetan Protector of England, thereby to ingratiate him with the Clergy and Laity of this Kingdom.) Cardinal d'Ossat gives a very large account of both these Projects in the Letter whcih I have already quoted to the King of France.

And in another Lettres Card. d'Ossat Part 2. l. 8. n. 162. of his Letters he gives an account of the fourth Project wherein he himself had been dealt with by Parsons then Rector of the College of Jesuits at Rome, which was that the Pope, the King of France, and King of Spain, should agree among [Page] themselves of a Successor for England, that should be a Catholick, and that they should joyn their Forces to settle him in the Throne of England.

Thus we see how Plotting and Treason was the whole business of this Jesuit's Life, in which he was so notorious, that Pasquin set him forth thus at Rome: ‘If there be any Man that will buy the Kingdom of England, let him repair to a Merchant in a black square Cap in the City, and he shall have a very good penniworth thereof.’

While he thus filled his head with designs and hopes of a Popish Prince to be set up in England by some of these foreign Princes it was, that he drew up the following Memorial for that his Prince, his Directions to whom are like his other Counsels and Actions. I will trouble the Reader with no more of his History. As I take the Jesuits to be the very worst of Men, so I think the preceeding accounts have proved Father Parsons to be the very worst of Jesuits.

A MEMORIAL OF THE REFORMATION of ENGLAND: CONTAINING Certain Notes, and Advertisements, which seem might be proposed in the First Parliament, and National Council of our Country, after God, of his mercy, shall restore it to the Catholick Faith, for the better Establishment and Preservation of the said Religion.

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Gathered and set-down by R.P. 1596.

THE PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR, SHEWING How and why these Notes were gathered, and the principal Parts to be treated.

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THE Notes and Observations of this Memorative following, were gathered and laid together in time of Persecution, when there was no place to execute, or put them in ure: and it is no more than seventeen [Page] or eighteen Years past that the Gatherer began first to put some of them in writing, and having had the experience of the Years which have ensued since, and his part also in the Catholic affairs of his Country, and the Practice of divers other Catholic Nations abroad, he was desirous in case that himself should not live to see the desired day of the Reduction of England, yet some of his Cogitations and Intentions for the publick good thereof might work some effect after his Death, and that thereby other Men might be the sooner moved to enter into more mature Considerations of these and such like Points; yea, and also to descend unto many more particulars, than here are set down. For that the Gatherer's meaning was only to open the [Page] way, and to insinuate certain general and principal Heads that might serve for an awaking, and remembrance at that happy day of the Conversion of our Country, unto such Persons as shall be then able and desirous to further the common good, and to advance Almighty God's Glory with a Holy Zeal of perfect Reformation, who perhaps may be so entangled with multitudes of other business and Cogitations at that time, as they will not so easily enter into these, except they be put in mind thereof, by some such Memorials and Advertisements as here are touched. And what is said in this Treatise for the Kingdom of England, is meant also for Ireland, so far as it may do good, seeing the Author desireth as much benefit for God's Service, [Page] and the good of that Nation, to the one Country, as to the other.

And for that the principal Members and Branches whom this Memorial may concern, are Three, to wit, the whole Body of the Realm jointly, and then the Crgy, and Temporalty apart; Therefore the same order shall be observed for more perspecuity's sake, in treating matters that are to be handled, according to these three parts, First, of things that appertain to the whole Body of the Realm in general, and then to the Clergy and Laity in particular's dividing each one of these two latter Members, into his particular branches also, as namely the Clergy and Spiritualty into Bishops, Priests and Religious; and the Laity, and Temporalty [Page] into the Prince with his Council, the Nobility and Commons, making of every one of these chief Members, their particular Chapters also apart, as in Prosecution of this Treatise shall appear.

And to the performance of this, the Author was incouraged, especially by two points, which for divers Years he has been perswaded in.

The First, That God will most certainly at his time appointed restore the Realm of England to the Catholic Faith again, as may appear by the evident hand he holdeth now in the work.

The other, That England being once converted, may be made the Spectacle of all the World, and an Example of Perfection to all other Catholic [Page] Countries and Churches round about it, if want of Zeal and good will do not hinder it in those that God shall bring to that blessed day, which the Gatherer of this Memorial hopeth will not, and with this hope he setteth down the Notes and Advertisements ensuing.

A Table of the Chapters of this MEMORIAL.

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PART I. Touching the whole Body.

CHAP. I.

SOme special Reasons why England, above all other Realms, ought to procure a perfect Reformation, when time shall serve.

CHAP. II.

What manner of Reformation is needful in England after so long a storm of Persecution, which is declared by the Example of Gold coming out of the [Page] Furnace, and of a Garden newly planted, after the Weeds and Thorne are consumed by Fire.

CHAP. III.

How this happy Reformation may be best procured, and what Disposition of Mind is needful for it in all parts.

CHAP. IV.

How all sorts of People, to wit, Catholicks, Schismaticks and Hereticks may be charitably dealt withal to their most profit, at the neat change of Religion.

CHAP. V.

The forwardness that ought to be in all Men for the appeasing of God's Wrath, about the rapine of Ecclesiastical Lands and Livings, and with what facility and case a good Composition, and reasonable Satisfaction [Page] may be agreed upon without the overburdening of any Party, and how the said Livings may be disposed of.

CHAP. VI.

Of the many great and singular Benefits that would ensue to the Church and Realm of England, by this manner of Restitution Agreement, and Disposition of Ecclesiastical Livings.

CHAP. VII.

Of a Council of Reformation to be ordained by the Authority of the Prince and Parliament, with consent of the See Apostolick, and wherein they are principally to be occupied for the raising up of our Churches again, and first of all in gathering up, and profitably bestowing of these Church-Livings that shall be restored.

[Page] CHAP. VIII.

Of divers other great Points that will belong to the Council of Reformation to deal in for the bringing of our English Church to its former Perfection.

CHAP. IX.

There ensue yet more matters that appertain to the Council of Reformation for beautifying our Church above the beauty that it had before, and above the rest of all Christian Churches.

CHAP. X.

Of the Parliament of England, and what were to be considered, or reformed, about the same, both in it self and other.

[Page] PART II. Touching the Clergy.

CHAP. I.

OF the Clergy in general, what they are and ought to do, at the next change, and how soundly united with the Laity.

CHAP. II.

Of Bishops and Bishopricks of England; what is to be restored, and what continued, what reformed.

CHAP. III.

Of Deans, Canons, Pastors, Curates, and the rest of the Clergy; what is needful to make them flourish.

CHAP. IV.

Of Seminaries, Colledges, Vniversities, and Schools, for restoring and increase of our Clergy.

[Page] CHAP. V.

Of Vniversities more at large, and of the Government, Discipline, and manner of proceeding of our English Vniversities, and in what Points they do differ from other Vniversities abroad, and what is to be increased, added, and altered, or established, to make them absolutely the best in the World.

CHAP. VI.

How Offices, Preferments, Fellowships, Scholarships, and other said places were to be provided in our Vniversities, to avoid infinite inconveniences, and of divers other Points to this purpose.

CHAP. VII.

Of Religious Men and Women, and matters appertaining unto them, and their Estate; and how England may be furnished with them in far better sort than any other Catholick Nation in the World.

[Page] PART III. Touching the Laity.

CHAP. I.

OF the Laity and Temporalty in general, and of the agreement and concurrence with the Clergy for both their good; with the Difference of both their States.

CHAP. II.

Of the Prince and his Councel, and matters belonging to them for the publick benefit.

CHAP. III.

Of the Nobility and Gentry of England, and matters appertaining to their Estates, for the bettering the same every way.

[Page] CHAP. IV.

Of the Inns of Court, and Studies of the Common Laws of England, and of the Laws themselves; what is to be considered, amended, or bettered in each part.

CHAP. V.

Of the Commons of England, and of matters appertaining to them; how tenderly they are to be cared for, cherished and maintained, with divers Advertisements for their publick Commodity.

The FIRST PART of this MEMORIAL OF THE Reformation of England: Wherein are touched Points that do belong to the whole Body of the Realm, as before in the Preface has been declared, and is the Ground of the other Parts that ensue.

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CHAP. I. Some special Reasons why England, above all other Realms, ought to procure a perfect Reformation, when time shall serve.

IF ever Nation under Heaven were bound to shew themselves grateful to Almighty God, and to turn heartily and zealously unto him, and to seek his highest glory, by a perfect Reformation of their Country, when his Divine Majesty [Page] shall open the way; it is the English Nation, for the Reasons following:

First, For that no other Nation in the World, on whom God hath laid the scourge of Heresie, hath received so many helps and graces to resist the same, as England hath done,See Animadversions. which is evident by the (b) multitudes and valour of English Martyrs, by the fortitude and zeal of so many and such Confessors, by their Constancy, Patience and Fervour at home, by the store of Seminaries abroad, and by the Spirit of Priests brought up in them, and many other Favours and Priviledges used towards the English Nation in these our days; all which do require an extraordinary Demonstration of forwardness of English Catholicks, when the time shall serve, to be answerable in some sort to these extraordinary Benefits.

Secondly, We do both see and feel the inestimable damages that ensued to our Commonwealth, and to all Christendom besides, for that this perfect Reformation was not made in Queen Mary's time. All wise and Godly Men attribute the loss of Religion again in our Country to this error, and ingratitude towards Almighty [Page] God, which that it may not happen any more, Et ne postrema fiant pejora prioribus, most careful diligence is to be used by all, whensoever the Mercy of God shall offer occasion (c) the second time, that the former error be well amended.

Thirdly, It seemeth that as Almighty God in his Justice has used England for a scourge to the other Countries round about it, both for the infecting them with Heresie, as also by afflicting them by Sword, Sedition and other Infestations; so again in his mercy he meaneth to help and comfort them by means of England once reduced, as may appear by that which abroad he hath begun to work in Scotland and Ireland by Executions of English Catholick Priests sent unto those Kingdoms: wherefore to the end that this Holy Intention of our Saviour be not letted by us, and England may be a Light and a Lantern to other Nations near unto it, the Reformation must needs in reason be made first very exact and exemplar in England it self.

Fourthly, The (d) Facility and Commodity that there is and will be in England to make this perfect Reformation, [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] whensoever God shall reduce that Country, doth greatly conjure and oblige us to the same; for we shall not find that difficulty and resistance, by the grace of God, in England, which good Men do find in other Catholick Countries for bringing in of any Reformation, that is attempted, and that which the very Prophets ever found amongst the Jews, and that Christ himself did find amongst the Scribes and Pharisees; to wit, the repugnancy of corrupt Livers, and stubborn People, that will contradict and resist their own benefit: We are not like to find, I say, (the infinite mercy of our Saviour be blessed for it) either backward Bishops and dissolute Priests, or Licentious Religious Men or Women to oppose themselves against so Holy a designment as this our Reformation is; or if any one such creep in amongst the rest, he would not dare to shew himself, nor should he find followers: all is now zeal and integrity in our new Clergy (Almighty God be thanked for it) and no less in our Laity and Catholick Gentlemen of England that have born the brunt of Persecution for so many Years; so if we should want the effects of true and sound Reformation, at the change again, it would be for want of some zealous [Page] godly Men, to sollicite and procure the same: (d) For in the behalf of the Realm and Country, I perswade my self most certainly, that there will be no difficulty, which ought to convince such as feel the Zeal of God's Glory within their breast, to joyn hands together, as St. Luke saith, all Apostolical Men did in the Primitive Church, and each to seek above other to have a part in the happy Procuration of so holy and important a Work.

And, Lastly, for our more incouragement hereunto, it seemeth that the sweet and high Providence of Almighty God hath not been small, in conserving and holding together a good portion of the material part of the old English Catholick Church, above all other Nations, that have been over-run with Heresie, for that we have yet on foot many principal Monuments that are destroyed, in other Countries, as namely we have our Cathedral Churches and Bishopricks yet standing, our Deanries, Canonries, Archdeaconries, and other Benefices not destroyed, our Colledges and Universities whole, so that there wanteth nothing, but a new form to give them (e) Life and Spirit by putting good and vertuous Men into them, which is a great [Page] advantage before other Kingdoms, where all is ruined and desolate, and none, or [...] tle means left, by reason of poverty to raise them up or repair them again, but in many Years, and with repugnance of many potent Persons for their particular Interest: whereas in England, there are and will be less resistance, more easie and abundant means to restore and amend all that is wanting, without over-burdening of any Man, by the means that after shall be declared, which is a very great and important point, and a Token of God's sweet disposition for this effect, and ought to encourage every true Catholick Man to concur the more willingly to the work, and to help, wherein he may, to this holy and perfect Reformation that is pretended.

Animadversions on Chap. I.

A Memorial of the Reformation, &c.] This Memorial is a plain Instance to the World of what they have always changed the Order of the Jesuits with, that they have been much greater dealers in Politicks than in Divinity: and this Memorial is as clear a proof of the Jesuits being as great Bunglers at Politicks, as ever any that pretended to then. Notwithstanding the Author hereof was one of the most subtle Men the Jesuits ever had, and not only by his being born and having lived long in his Native Country; but by the Experience and Observations which his Converse and familiar access to the greatest Men in Foreign Countries did afford him, might [Page] he supposed to have studied and understood the Genius and Temper of the People of England: yet he appears to have been out in his measures, as will be easily shewed in the following Animadversions. He lays mighty stress upon some things, which can no way bear it, other things he takes to be most easie to his Popish Prince, which reason would have told him then, as Experience has told his Brethren since, to be insuperable difficulties: and his cruel and barbarous advices up and down the Memorial are so contrary to the temper of the honest Englishman, as if the Design of the Memorial had been more to shew the Politicks and the Spirit of the Jesuit's Order, than to convert England to Popery.

(b) Multitudes of Martyrs, &c.] If the worst of Criminals must be nick-nam'd Martyrs, we can then allow the Jesuit that there were some the later part of Queen Elizabeth's Reign; but how to make Multitudes of them, is beyond all the skill that I can obtain either from our own or their Historians. It is agreed on both hands, (striking off such Scandalous Writers out of the rank of Historians as Sanders) that for several Years in the beginning of that glorious Queen's Reign great Mildness and Clemency was used towards the Roman Catholicks, and that no manner of Severity was used towards them, till the Bishop of Rome by his Bull of Excommunication and Deposition of that Queen had justly incensed her and her Parliament to make several Laws against Popery; and even after that, most if not every one of those Roman Catholicks that suffered during her Reign suffered for Rebellion or Treason, and not for Religion. I will not vouch our Historians for the Truth hereof, but take it in the words of their own Secular Priests who writ the Important Considerations Anno Dom. 1601. which ought (to put it down in their own words Important Considerations: in a Collection of several Treatises concerning the Reasons and Occasions of the Penal Laws, p. 31.) to move all true and sound Catholicks, who are not wholly Jesuited, to acknowledge without all Equivocations, Ambiguities, or Shiftings, that the Proceedings of her Majesty, and of the State with them, Since the beginning of her Highnesses Reign, have been hath Mild and Merciful.

And what they say here by way of Preface, they prove more at large in their Book, It cannot be deny'd (say the Secular Priests) but that for the first ten years of her Majesties Reign, the State of Catholicks in England was tolerable, and after a sort in some good quietness. Such as for their Consciences were imprisoned in the beginning of her coming to [Page]the Crown, were very kindly and mercifully used, the State of things then considered. Some of them were appointed to rem [...] with such their Friends as they themselves made choice of. Others were placed, some with Bishops, some with Deans, and had their Diet at their Tables, with such convenient Lodgings and Walks for their Recreation, as did well content them. They th [...] were in the ordinary Prisons, had such liberty and other commodities as the places would afford, not inconvenient for [...] that were in their cases. p. 34. But that our Brethren of the more fiery and Jesuitial humour may not snuff here at: we have thought it meet to cool their heat, with some of Mr. Parsons, and his fellow Master Creswel more gentle delays (than are usual with them) who in one of their Books do confess as much is effect, as here we have set down, if not more: thus these Emperour-like Jesuits do speak to her Majesty. In the beginning of thy Kingdom thou didst deal something more gently with Catholicks: none were then urged by thee, or pressed either to thy Sect, or to the denial of their Faith. All things (indeed) did seem to proceed in a far milder course: no great complaints were heard of: there were seen no extraordinary contentions or repugnancies. Some there were that to please and gratifie you, went to your Churches. But when afterwards, thou didst begin to wrong them, &c. And when was that, our great Monsigneurs? Surely whensoever it was (to answer for you) we our selves (certain Catholicks of all sorts) were the true causes of it. Thus far have I been able to vindicate the beginning of Queen Eliz. Reign out of the Mouths of Romish Priests themselves, and by their help, out of our Jesuit's own Mouth, who has the face notwithstanding in this Memorial to talk of Multitudes of their Martyrs. For the Executions during the rest of her Reign, let us but see in short what those Papists died for, and we shall be far from believing them Martyrs whom the Jesuit falsly calls so and brags of in this Chapter. This we may learn from the Pen of the same Secular Priests, who thus conclude their Important Considerations p. 55.56.. We are fully perswaded in our Consciences, and as men besides our Learning, who have some Experience, that if the Catholicks had never sought by indirect means to have vexed her Majesty with their designments against her Crown: if the Pope and King of Spain had never plotted with the Duke of Norfolk: if the Rebels in the North had never been heard of: if the Bull of Pius Quintus had never been known: if the said Rebellion had never been justified: if neither Stukely nor the Pope had attempted any thing against Ireland: if [Page] Gregory the Thirteenth had not renewed the said Excommunication: if the Jesuits had never come into England: if the Pope and King of Spain had not practised with the Duke of Guise for his attempt against her Majesty: if Parsons and the rest of the Jesuits, with other our Countrymen beyond the Seas, had never been Agents in those traiterous and bloody designments of Throckmorton, Parry, Collen, York, Williams, Squire and such like: if they had not by their Treatises and Writings endeavoured to defame their Sovereign, and their own Country, labouring to have many of their Books translated into divers Languages, thereby to shew more their own disloyalty: if Cardinal Alane and Parsons had not published the Renovation of the said Bull by Xistus Quintus: if thereunto they had not added their Scurrilous and Vnmanly Admonition, or rather most prophane Libel against her Majesty: if they had not sought by false Perswasions, and ungodly Arguments to have allured the hearts of all Catholicks from their Allegiance: if the Pope had never been urged by them to have thrust the King of Spain into that barbarous Action against the Realm: if they themselves with all the rest of that Generation had not laboured greatly with the said King for the Conquest and Invasion of this Land by the Spaniards, who are known to be the cruellest Tyrants that live upon the Earth: if in all their Proceedings, they had not from time to time depraved, irritated, and provoked both her Majesty and the state with these and many other such like their most ungodly and unchristian practices — most assuredly the State would have loved us, or at least born with us: where there is one Catholick, there would have been ten: there had been no Speeches amongst us of Racks and Tortures, nor any cause to have used them; for none were ever vexed that way simply, for that he was either Priest or Catholick, but because they were suspected to have had their hands in some of the same most traiterous designments.

This is sufficient from the Mouths of Popish Priests to vindicate the Execution of Justice during Queen Elizabeth's Reign, and to convince the Reader that Father Parsons was very much in the wrong to make Martyrs of such Criminals, but much more to pretend to Multitudes. It is however somewhat pardonable in him to give such wicked Traitors the glorious name of Martyrs, since he had been the chief Incendiary, and Encourager of most of those Rebels and [Page] Traitors, and does deserve, according to the Secular Priests Character of him in these Important Considerations, the Title of Arch-traitor for himself.

(c) Offer occasion the second time, &c.] This passage ought not only to be a warning to our Protestant Nation to provide by all ways lawful to keep Popery from gaining strength or power amongst us, but to be the occasion of many hearty thanksgivings to God for having delivered us out of the b [...] and danger of Jesuit Reformers, whose fury we see must not stop till we are clear rooted out, or, to speak more properly in the Jesuit's own Dialect, till we are burnt up. Who can without horrour read this Jesuit's complaint of the Imperfect Deformation, and the great coldness and lukewarmness in Queen Mary's Restorers of Popery, and recollect what numbers of innocent Protestants, Old and Young, Men and Women, Cl [...]ly and Laity were burnt at Stakes up and down the Nation during that short but bloody Reign?

(d) Fourthly, the facility, &c. and a little lower, For in the behalf of the Realm and Country, I perswade my self most certainly, that there will be no difficulty] Here our Jesuit was much out in his Observations, which are not only contrary to the Experience of our Age, but of his own; as for the late Attempts to replant Popery in England, I appeal to the Popish Priests employed in the Mission, whether it appeared or proved to be so very easie a thing to bring Popery into the good esteem of the English Nation; and for Father Parsons own Age, notwithstanding the Protestant Religion had so short a time as the Reign of the Young King Edward to spread it self in; yet when Queen Mary had a Mind to restore Popery, she was forced upon arts much below her Station in the World, to promise what she was far from performing, that none of her Subjects should be forced in Conscience, that she would in particular preserve to the Suffolk and Norfolk Men (who had been so great instruments in her advancement to the Throne) that Reformation begun in her Brother's days for which they were zealous, and never make any innovation or change of the then established Reformed Religion, but would content her self with the private exercise of her own Religion. Such assurances do not make the Restitution of Popery even then to be so easie a thing as the Jesuit things; and when the Queen broke her Faith with these Suffolk Hereticks, and was for setting up Popery again with all the haste [Page] she could, yet her first Parliament would not do her business for her, though very dishonourable and base practices were used to make them fit for the restoring Popery effectually, though in many places (as an Historian of that time informs the World) of the Country, some were chosen by force and threats; and in-other places those employed by the Court did with violence hinder the Commons from coming to chuse; in others false Returns, and after all, some unserviceable for such violent purposes were violently turned out of the House of Commons: So that that cunning Politician Gardiner was forc'd to dismiss this Parliament, and by Bribes and Corruptions buy and pension another, before they could get their Popery made the established Religion, but with such abatements and defects in the business of Abby Lands particularly, as make our Jesuit complain and be ashamed of them. Did such Experience then give any grounds for our Jesuit to be so confident of the facility of bringing in Popery again. This shews that a Jesuit can be very zealous both against Reason, and against even his own as well as all other People's Experience. God be thanked that upon a second tryal of their skill under a Popish King, and managed by Jesuits too, it is found that it is not only a difficult, but an impossible thing to replain: Popery in England.

(e) Life and Spirit by putting good and vertuous Men] We should be so far from angry, that we ought to thank the Jesuit for making this Reflection upon our Cathedrals and Universities. Had he commended them, I should have suspected them to have been such as himself was when he was turned out of his College at Oxford, for Immorality. Mr. Camden, our famous Historian, says our Jesuit was his contemporary in Oxford, that he was Fellow of Baliol College, and [...]de open Profession of the Protestant Religion, until he was for his loose carriage expelled with disgrace Camden. Elizabeth. B. 2. 150. and then went over to the Papists. It was great Pity therefore that when our Jesuit was in the Chapter providing that good and vertuous Men (upon the re-establishment of Popery) should be put into our Colleges, he took no particular care for his own College Baliol, that especial care might be taken there above all others, that if any of those ill Men were alive then, who had been so wicked as to expel out of their College, the sober, pious and chaste Mr. Parsons, they should be removed with disgrace, for an example to all other Colleges.

CHAP. II. What manner of Reformation is needful in England.

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HAving spoken of a perfect Reformation, if any Man would ask what manner of Reformation this is, I could answer him no better, to the purpose, considering the present State of England, under Persecution, than to say, That it ought to be as the Reformation or Purification of Gold is when it cometh out of the fiery Furnace, to wit, pure, simple, perfect, without corruption, dregs or rust: for so God himself compareth his True Church, and all his Elect after their probation by the Fire of Tribulation; And again, I may compare it to the State of a Garden which being over-grown with Weeds and Thistles, the Owner thereof putteth fire to the whole, and when all is consumed, then beginneth he to plant chosen and sweet Herbs at his pleasure. And the like is God's desire to do with this English Garden, if we will cooperate with his holy designment. Hereof then it followeth [Page] that the Reformation of England, Perfect Reformation. after this long and sharp Persecution, ought to be very perfect, full and compleat, not respecting so much what some cold Catholicks use to do in other Countries, where Spirit is decay'd, and Corruption crept in, as what may be done or ought to be done in England: or if we will needs cast our eyes upon the Example of others, let us look upon the Apostles and their Successors, and upon the Primitive Church that had the force of Christ's Spirit stirring and hot in them; which long continuance of time afterward did both weaken and cool, and in many a one has been quite extinguished.

And to come to some particulars,Council of Trent. the whole World knoweth how that the (1) late Holy Council of Trent, when it came to matters of Reformation of Manners, it was constrained to accommodate it self in many things to the capacity of that decay'd State of Christendom which then they found, and so to set down those Decrees, which they might suppose would be received generally in the Church; as the Physician does in tempering his Medicine, according to the strong complexion, and disposition of his Patient, though not so effectually many times as the Disease [Page] it self in rigour would require. Th [...] those Holy Fathers of the Council moderating many of their Decrees in this behalf of manners according to the weakness of this our Age, and omitting many other points of more rigour and perfection, suggested to them by divers holy and learned Men, and this yet notwithstanding we set with what difficulties, delays, unwillingness, cautels, protestations, restraints, and exceptions, this part of the Council touching Reformation has been received in divers Countries that otherwise are Catholick, by reason of the general Corruption grown into Men's Lives and Customs, for purging whereof even unto the quick, it is supposed that God hath sent this Fire of Heresie into Christendom, and is feared by many that it will never cease until all be cleansed.

England then having passed now this Fire, ought to make Declaration by her works, when time shall serve, how much she hath profited by this Purgation, and to receive not only the forelaid Council of Trent entirely and fully without Limitation or Restraint; but to embrace also, and to put it in ure, where occasion and place is offered such other points of Reformation, as tend to the perfect restitution of Ecclesiastical [Page] Discipline that were in use, in the ancient Christian Church, though afterward decayed for want of Spirit, and not urged now again, nor commanded for the Council of Trent for the causes before by me alledged: for better Declaration whereof we may consider, that the Council of Trent, touching Reformation of Manners, had to repair an old ancient House, whereof many parts were sore weakened by Corruptions, and some perished, but yet the whole could not be changed, nor built anew; but necessarily the reparation must be made according to the State and Condition of the other parts that yet remained, and so those good Fathers could not frame all points to their own likeing, nor yet according to the Rules of perfect Ecclesiastical Architecture.

State of England.But now in England no doubt but that the State of things will be far otherwise, whensoever the change of Religion shall happen: For then it will be lawful for a good Catholick Prince that God shall send, and (2) for a well affected Parliament, which himself and the time will easily procure to begin of new and to build from the very foundation the external face of our Catholick Church, and to follow the [Page] Model which themselves will chuse, and if that will be a good and perfect Model, it will endure at least for a time, and be a pattern of true Christianity to the rest of the World; but if it be but ordinary, and of the meaner sort at the beginning, it will quickly slide back to the old Corruptions wherein it was before, and so the benefit of this Probation and Tribulation will soon be lost both before God and Men: which Jesus forbid, for that it is and will be the greatest Crown that ever England hath had since her first Conversion to the Christian Faith, and according to this account must our purpose be of Reformation whensoever God shall restore us to Liberty and Peace, lest we lose in Peace that which we gained in War, as Eusebius Caesariensis saith, that some did in antient Persecutions, and it ought to be a warning to us to take heed by their Examples. And this is so much, as in this behalf seemeth needful to be remembred.

Animadversions on Chap. II.

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(1) THE late Council of Trent] The Jesuit in the former Chapter was complaining of the coldness and imperfect Reformation of Queen Mary's Reign, and here he is as severe upon the Council of Trent it self, which, notwithstanding its being directed and assisted by the Holy Ghost; (as this Jesuit as well as the rest of their Writers will have it to be when they are engaged in Controversie against the Reformed) and notwithstanding the Infallible Vicar at Rome presided in it by his Legates, and did from time to time influence and direct all its Consultations and Determinations; yet was so base and cowardly (according to our fierce Jesuit) as to truckle to the humours of the Age, and make a very lame and imperfect Reformation out of compliance with the lukewarmness and iniquity of that Age.

But the rest of the World were not of our Jesuit's Mind, but did easily see that no Temporal Prince could submit to that Council (which by the bye was nothing but a meer Western Conventicle of Italian Bishops, and the Pope's own Creatures, who had sworn to be true and faithful to him, and to preserve to him those which he and they call the Rights and Honours of S. Peter before ever they came within the Walls of that assembly) without wrong to himself, and to his People. However our Jesuit is for having his Popish Prince in England to receive the Council of Trent entirely and fully without Limitation and Restraint, though the Prince that does it makes himself feudatory to the Popes, and leaves his Country to their disposal, when they think fit to have it escheat to them; this no body can doubt of it, that will but examine what that Council at Trent hath determined about the Matter of Duels in any Princes Countries: and this without Question is one of the Reasons why the Gallican Church could not then, nor can be to this day perswaded to admit the Council of Trent entirely, but refuse it as to the Canons about Discipline, which encroach upon the Prince's Right, and the Churches Authority. By what I can observe from our Jesuit, he is for overdoing the whole World, and while he brands others with the name of Cold Catholicks, would, I suppose, [Page] have a Council of Jesuits to reform their Church, and then I am sure it will be done to purpose.

(2) For a well affected Parliament, which himself and the time will easily procure] Here is an Instance of a fatal mistake in our Jesuit's Politicks and Foresight. The Papists in England, by God's Permission, have had a Popish Prince, and a Prince governed by Jesuits too. and as zealous as our Jesuit himself could either imagine or wish him to be; and yet after all he was not able to get a well affected Parliament, that is, a Parliament that would have settled Popery effectually among us. That Prince came to the Crown with greater advantages than one of his Perswasion could well have been supposed to have done, he was no sooner fixt in his Throne, than he had the good success to break and suppress two very dangerous Rebellions, and appeared to the World to have the love of all his Subjects, who gratified him in his first Parliament with every thing, that they could either with Honour or Conscience give. But when tempted I am afraid by the reading of this Jesuit's Memorial, and by the strange success against the two Insurrections he began to pull off the Vizard, and was for breaking in upon the National Protestant security by keeping up a standing Army with a great many Popish unqualified Officers, and thought it would prove [...] easie matter to bring in his Popery, we see how miserably he was out in his Measures; that very Parliament that had been so kind as to settle a greater Revenue upon him than ever King of England had (by six hundred thousand Pounds a Year, as I have been informed, for some Years) and to give him great Supplies and to Vo [...] him more, and that did stand by him with their Fortune [...] and Lives, were yet for standing by their Religion and their Laws, and were neither so tame nor foolish as to be either complemented or hector'd out of either of them.

This dissolved that Parliament, and shewed how gra [...] ful a Popish Prince could be to the best and kindest Parliament. And when this Parliament was dissolved, and Popery made every day larger steps than before, and the whole Constitution was laid to sleep in favour of Fanati [...] and Papists, did he or time procure a more kind or well affected Parliament? Indeed all the care imaginable w [...] taken, all ways were tryed, and some very mean ones, [...] was forc'd to be (for so I cannot but in compa [...] [Page] word it) Ungrateful to his best Friends, to turn all the Honest Nobility and Gentry of the Nation out of all Commissions, of Trust or Profit, to discard his two Brothers who had been so faithful to his Interest in the worst of times, and serviceable to him at all times; to snatch away Charters, to regulate and model them by thrusting out honest substantial Men, and filling their Places with the Vilest and Off-scouring of all places, for so I must look upon all those Protestants to be (though they have wiped their Mouth since) that would engage to chuse such Parliament men as would take off the Penal Laws and Test; to undertake the mean Office himself of closetting Nobility and Gentry, and yet all would not do, he and our Jesuit were equally mistaken, he could not get a Parliament to his Mind.

CHAP. III. How this Reformation may best be procured, and what Disposition of Minds is needful for it in all Parties.

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FOR that the grace and good Motion to take in hand and to go through with so great a work as is this desired Reformation, must come from Heaven; therefore the first sure step unto it must be by (3) the true reconciliation of the Realm unto God and to his Church; and as the first of these two proceedeth, so will the second; and for that the first was hudled up in Queen Mary's Days (I mean the Reconciliation) by a certain general Absolution only, without due search and consideration of what had been committed, or what satisfaction was to be made to God and Man; so was the other shuffled up with like negligence, and only the external part was plastered without remedying the Root, the renewing the Spirit, which should have been the ground of all; many Priests that had fallen and married in King Edward's Days, were admitted presently to [Page] the Altar, without other satisfaction than only to send their Concubines out of Men's sight, and of some it is thought they did not so much as confess themselves before they said Mass again; Others that had preached against Catholicks, were admitted presently to preach for them; and others that had been Visitors and Commissioners against us, were made Commissioners against the Protestants, and in this Queen's time were Commissioners again of the other side against ours; so as the matter went as a Stage-Play, where Men do change their Persons and Parts, without changing their Minds or Affection: many or rather all that had Abby-Lands, the good Queen Mary herself and some very few others excepted, remained with the same, as with a prey well gotten, and he that was most scrupulous would but send for a Bull of Toleration to Rome upon false Information, to the end that he might not be troubled; and with this he thought himself safe in Conscience, and bound to no more; yea, he was taken for a great Catholick, that would so much as ask for a Bull. And matters passing in this manner, who will wonder that the Benefit of Religion remained so little a while; or that the second [Page] scourge of Heresie hath been so sharp and heavy since, as we have proved. To amend the error, the way must be, that our Reconciliation, and turning to Almighty God, be True, Sincere, Hearty, and as it ought to be, with Sorrow and Contrition for what is past, and with full purpose of amendment for the time to come, and to do that satisfaction both to God and Man, that shall be thought necessary, and lyeth in us conveniently to perform; for without this disposition, the matter goeth not well. This is necessary to be performed both by Clergy and Laity, and the more sincerely this business is wrought, the more permanent will it be. It will import also greatly, and is to be procured by all good means possible, That these two principal Members of our Commonwealth, I mean the Clergy and Temporalty, do joyn and unite themselves well in this greatest Action of all others, for the good and re-establishing of Religion and Piety in the Realm; and so much the more carefully is this to be sought for at this time, for that it is very probably presumed, that one principal cause of their ruine, hath been the Emulation and Disunion of these two Estates in England, which ordinarily is wont to follow, where [Page] Spirit and Charity waxeth cold. But now both Parties having tasted the smart of this error, and seen the deceit of the Devil therein, they may the easier be brought to detest it, and to note for wicked Men, and devilish Instruments, all such as any ways shall be known to favour, enkindle or nourish that Division.

And the best means to settle this Union substantially, and form the heart, will be for each Party with all Indifferency, to consider not only the harms that have and will ensue by this disunion to both sides; but also, and principally, how necessary and profitable the one of these two Members is to the other, as namely the Clergy to the Laity for Direction of their Souls, which without them must needs perish; and the Temporalty to the Ecclesiastical, for their defence and maintenance, so as the one without the other cannot stand, and God his Holy Ordination is, that both should joyn together in his Church, and one part help the other to his service, and to the attaining of Heaven and Eternal Salvation. And for that the Frailty of Man is great, and prone to fall into Emulation and Contention, (as brittle Vessels, (to use the Comparison of St. Austin,) that knock out one the others sides) great heed is to be [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] taken, as much as may be, at the very beginning of this our Reformation to remove all occasions that are wont to breed strife and breach between the Clergy and Laity, as namely about Jurisdiction, Possessions, Revenues, Duties, Prerogatives, Exemptions, and the like; all which are to be settled with consent and good liking of all Parties, as near as may be, and that which is said of this, may be understood also of taking away all occasions of jarrs and disagreeing between Bishops and their Chapters, Religious Men and Priests, one Order of Religion with another, and such like Persons or Communities of divers States, Condition or Habit, in whom the Law of Charity and True Zeal of God's Service, and help of our Country ought to prevail, more especially at this time, than any Passion, humane infirmity, or particular respect whatsoever.

This mutual Concord and hearty good will being once well settled between the Clergy and Temporalty, it will be a great Foundation for all good effects to follow, especially if both parties do rectifie also their Intentions, in this great Action, as they ought to do, to desire nothing but God's Glory, and this without any evil affection towards any, of [Page] Envy, Malice, Revenge, or the like; and without respect of particular interest. And for that there will be two sorts of People to be dealt withal by the better sort of Catholicks, to wit, (4) weaker Catholicks which are commonly known in England by the name of Schismaticks and Hereticks that have been Enemies to both these sorts, there is to be used true Love, Piety, and Christian Charity, with the Prudence and Direction that is also convenient. And for the first, since they are our Brethren, we ought to have sincere Compassion of their weakness and fall, animating them hereby to rise and stand hereafter; And unto the second, for that by God's Grace they may be our Brethren, we must use all Charity in like manner, seeking their true and sincere Conversion, with that Caution notwithstanding that is expedient for theirs, and the publick good; of all which I shall lay down some particular Notes in the Chapter following, though it must be the Direction of Almighty God, and Unction of the Holy Ghost, which must guide our Prince, Parliament, and Magistrates, and namely our Bishops in this point of dealing with Hereticks, which will be a point of great moment, and wherein will [Page] consist much for the True Reformation which we seek, and for the assurance of Religion, and wherein it is thought the error of Queen Mary's time was as pernicious, as in any other thing whatsoever, and therefore the more carefully to be remedied now.

Animadversions on Chap. III.

(3) THE true Reconciliation of the Realm unto God and to his Church] There is not only here but in several other places an appearance of Zeal for Piety and the Honour of God in this Jesuit; but that it is no more than a bare appearance without any thing of the substance of Godliness, will be more plain to him that will read the Memorial throughout: this is not my conjecture, but of several Writers of their own Church of Rome, who look upon the Jesuits generally as the greatest dissemblers and hypocrites upon the face of the Earth, that the obtaining more Wealth to their Order and Gain is all the Godliness that they have; and therefore when they meet with a Jesuit talking about Piety or the Glory of God, they treat him with Derision, as knowing that True Religion is the least part of that Society's business, and that the Piety they make shew of in their Writings is only for a cover to their politick designs, and like true Pharisees to devour and eat up silly Recusants Estates, and to ruine others, to make their Society rich and splendid. Thus in Queen Elizabeth's time our Jesuit himself that talks so gravely sometimes in this Memorial of the Glory of God and Reconciliation with God, was one of those that made such a pudder about restoreing their Catholick Religion, and rooting Heresie out of England, whereas their true business was to betray their Country to the Spaniards, to plot with them (as it was always this traiterous Jesuit's practice) to invade our Nation, and thereby to obtain, as they did from the Spanish King, Gifts and Benevolences to their Order, and Seminaries erected and endowed for them.

[Page]This was the Jesuit's true aim, which without some face of Zeal for God, and pretence of Piety could not be so easily compassed; it is that wise and great Man the Cardinal d'Ossat's Observation of Parsons in that Letter from Rome, wherein he gave the King of France an account of Parsons's Book about Succession, That Parsons was so passionately concerned in it for the Spanish Interest, that he made no conscience of contradicting himself grossly in it, nor had any regard to Truth and Reason. I think this ought to be a key to us to open the Jesuit's meaning, when he talks of the true Reconciliation of the Realm to God; I question not but the whole Reconciliation he drives at is, that we might all turn true Papists, and all Papists would fairly give up their Abby-Lands to their Council of Reformation, which he sets up in his VIIth. Chapter.

(4) Weaker Catholicks, which are commonly known in England by the name of Schismaticks.] How any Catholicks should be Schismaticks is worth our time to understand; to do which we must go back to the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign, when the Papists, notwithstanding the Alteration in Religion made by that excellent Queen and her Parliament in the beginning of it, went to Church to conform themselves (to put it in the words of one of their own Writers a Romish Priest Vertumnus Romanus published by Dr. Featly, Pref. p. 7.) to the State, as they did in King Edward the Sixth's time: keeping privately to themselves the exercise of their own Religion. This Practice of the Roman Catholicks continued for several Years here; my Lord Chief Justice Coke says upon his own knowledge for ten or a dozen Years: and had I suppose continued on, had not the upstart Faction of the Jesuits set themselves with all their might and their Interest to break it off.

They were aware that such Conformity of their Roman Catholick Friends would in a few Years have left not one Papist in England, and indeed it was morally impossible that it should have happened otherways, since we need not doubt but▪ that the great Truth and the Light, the Doctrine and the Liturgy of the Church of England so exactly conformable to the Word of God, and to the purest times of the Primitive Church, would, by God's Blessing, have shined into their Hearts, have enlightned them, and made them become true Church of England Christians by [Page] renouncing all those Reliques of Popery which they fostered privately in their breasts. And therefore the Jesuits and their Friends by the Interest they had in the Council of Trent got a little Cabal of that Council a dozen of Bishops and others (out of which number Pate the Bishop of Worcester the only English Popish Bishop in that Council was left out, though of all Men the fittest to have been consulted in this matter) favourers of their Society, to [...] up Reasons why the Catholicks of England ought not, and must not, under pain of Schism and Damnation, go to the Protestant Churches there, in which they load our Church with many calumnies, our Rites are made to be most wicked and accursed; all which though these Twelve Caballers knew in their own Consciences to be as false as Hell; yet to affright their People from our Churches they were forc'd to paint our Church as deformed as their own Church by her Idolatrous Rites and Superstitious Practices is; However all this, and the Pope's Rescripts to the same purpose would not hinder many Catholicks from going to Church, and their defence was, that this Decree, as well as the Pope's Rescripts, were surreptitiously gotten, that both Pope and Councel were imposed upon, and therefore they would not run themselves into needless danger; these are the Men, whom our Jesuit here does call Schismaticks.

CHAP. IV. How all sorts of People, to wit, Catholicks, Schismaticks and Hereticks may be dealt withal, at the next change of Religion.

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AFter Union and good Disposition of Mind in all, and a hearty Reconciliation of Almighty God, will be necessary, a sweet, pious, and prudent manner of dealing, and proceeding as well with Catholicks as Schismaticks, Protestants and Persecutors; And as for known Catholicks, which have been constant, and born the brunt in time of Persecution, though for their own parts they ought to follow the most holy and secure Council of our Saviour, Cum omnia feceritis dicite quia servi inutiles sumus, quod debuimus, fecimus, nothing presuming of themselves, or vaunting over others, but expecting their reward with humility at God's Hands; yet it is evident that in all Reason, and Justice, and Law of gratitude, they are to be used and employed by the Commonwealth in all Principal Charges, Rooms, [Page] and Offices, with special confidence, every Man according to his known Zeal, Ability, and Talent for the same, and according to the measure of his suffering for God's Cause, by which means both they and others, shall be animated and comforted, and the state of Religion much more assured, than if for particular Favours, Kindred, Bribes, Interest, any be preferred, or such as are not known to have any Zeal in God's Affairs, as in the late Queen Mary's time, in many places was seen, to the grief and discouragement of many, and to the infinite danger of the Realm, as after well appear'd.

As for Schismaticks, or close or weak Catholicks, that have fallen, denied, or dissembled their Religion, if they have done it of frailty, and have not been Persecutors, the more Compassion is to be had of their Estate, and the more sweetness to be used in restoring them to the Unity of God's Church again; But yet how far they are to be used in matters of the Commonwealth, especially at the beginning, and in rooms, where their weakness and inconstance may be in danger, the Law of Godly Wisdom, must determine; and the manner of their Reconciliation will give also great light to this [Page] Deliberation, which Reconciliation as well in these Men, as in all others that shall return to Catholick Union again, whether they have been Hereticks or no, ought to be made with great attention and deliberation, as in a matter of most high moment for all their future Life and Condition; For that most commonly, according to this first step of reentrance with Almighty God again, is the Sequel of all that ensueth, good or bad; so as he that maketh a good, and perfect, and sound Reconciliation proveth, for the most part, a sure and constant Christian afterwards, and he that huddleth the matter up in haste, without due measure of Consideration is where he was before within a few days after, and perhaps far worse for contempt of so great Accommodation. Wherefore, to the end that this so mighty a Foundation may be laid as it ought to be, the Commonwealth should take care, and especially the Bishops, that Men of Ability and Capacity only should be employed, in receiving of these Reconciliations at the beginning; and some particular form were to be prescribed how it should be done, especially in great Persons, and Subjects of great importance, and these perhaps not to be reconciled without special [Page] faculty or knowledge of the Bishop, or Prelate of the place; and by some able Person by him assigned; and this with giving to them space and due time of Deliberation, Recollection, Meditation, Instruction, and of any other means to help them in so great an affair. And this for them that will return; But as for Enemies, or obstinate Hereticks, whether they be of Malice or of Ignorance, another course seemeth to be taken for their Reduction and Satisfaction, which is to endeavour by all ways to convince them (if it be possible) of their Errors, and this by reason and sweet means, as far as may be, whereof I shall touch some Particulars in this place. And first of all, (f) Perchance it would be good, considering the present State of the Realm, and how generally and deeply it is, and has been plunged in all kind of Heresies, not to press any Man's Conscience at the beginning for matters of Religion, for some few Years; to the end, that every Man may more boldly and confidently utter his Wounds, and so be cured thereof, which otherwise he would cover, deny, or dissemble to his greater hurt, and more dangerous Corruption of the whole Body; but yet it may be provided joyntly, [Page] that this Toleration be only with such as live quietly, and are desirous to be informed of the Truth, and do not teach, and preach, or seek to infect others; and by experience it hath been seen, that this kind of suffering and bearing for a time hath done great good, and eased many difficulties in divers Towns rendred up in the Low Countries, which being mitigated at the beginning with this entrance of Clemency, never greatly cared for Heresies afterwards: yet do I give notice that my meaning is not any way to perswade hereby, that Liberty of Religion to live how a Man will should be permitted to any Person in any Christian Commonwealth, for any cause or respect whatsoever; from which I am so far off in my Judgement and Affection, as I think no one thing to be so dangerous, dishonourable, or more offensive to Almighty God in the World, than that any Prince should permit the Ark of Israel and Dagon, God and the Devil, to stand and be honoured together, within his Realm, or Country. But that which I talk of, is a certain Connivence or Toleration of Magistrates only for a certain time to be limited, and with particular Conditions and Exceptions, that no meetings, assemblies, [Page] preaching or perverting of others be used, but that such as be quiet and modest People, and have never heard perhaps the grounds of Catholick Religion, may use the freedom of their Consciences, to ask, learn and to be instructed for the space prescribed, without danger of the Law or of any inquiry to be made upon them to inform themselves of the truth. And I would hope verily, that by the grace of Almighty God, and by charitable diligence and industry of good Men, and especially of diligent Pastors, and Preachers, that many good effects would follow of this Toleration: For first there would be taken away that slander wherewith the Enemies are wont ordinarily to charge the Catholick Church, though perversly and falsly, that she persecuteth before she instructeth. And secondly, the Wounds would be opened and cured as before hath been said, that otherwise would be dissembled and more infested. And thirdly, there would be more liberty for Men to deal for the true Conversion of Hereticks; and they with more confidence, comfort, and alacrity would alter their Minds, and be more capable of the Truth; and I think it would be the gaining of thousands of Souls that otherwise would [Page] be lost: and finally by this means the Prince would come to know, at the end of the time prescribed, what Disposition of People he had within his Realm, which otherwise would be hard to do. And these are my reasons for my desires in this behalf, which I do remit, as all the rest that here or elsewhere I shall say, to the more mature judgment of them, which at the wished day shall be able to judge better, ex re praesenti, and determine the Cause.

There remaineth to say a word or two of the best ways how to Convert Hereticks to the Catholick Faith, whose Souls we ought to thirst and seek for above all other things of the World. And first of all, there is no doubt but that the chiefest and most principal means will be to give the battery to the Judgments and Understandings, though to gain first their good wills and affections, by the Clemency before mentioned, and other Points that after shall be touched, will be a great Disposition and entrance to the same. But for convincing of their understandings in matters of Controversie, I would wish that a plain contrary course were taken of us towards them, for that which they have used towards us, seeing that our cause doth [Page] bear it, which is of contrary State and Condition to theirs. For, whereas their cause being false, (g) they would never consent to come to any indifferent Trial or Disputation with the Catholicks; I would wish that seeing our Cause is true and substantial, and the more it is tried, the more it will appear, that once at least at the beginning full satisfaction were given by English Catholicks, to those, and all other Hereticks, of the World, by as full, free, equal, and liberal Disputation, as possibly could be devised, within our Realm, and this in London, Oxford, Cambridge, or some other fit place, where all the Heads of Heresies might most conveniently have recourse; and the particular Circumstances, which for the present do offer themselves to me for the profitable performance of this enterprise, are these that follow, other Men at that time will easily invent better; That sufficient warrant and warning be given to all sides to prepare themselves; That the Hereticks do chuse three or four of their most learned Men to dispute, and answer, and one other to be President, and another to be Notary; and that the like must be assigned of the Catholick Party for this Tryal; and that all be prepared for a certain day [Page] upon the particular Controversies that may be appointed, and all kind of Books allowed them to their contentment. There may be two high Seats, Stages, or Scaffolds appointed so as all may hear, and see, and on the one may sit the forenamed three or four Disputers of the one side together with their Furniture of Books about them, and so on the other side may be placed the Catholick Party, and in equal distance between them both may sit the two Presidents of the Disputation, with the two Notaries, and commodious Room left for all the lookers on, to behold and hear. The first day may Argue or Dispute the one side upon the Controversie that shall be set up publickly, and be known the day before, and the other part may defend, and answer; and so interchangeably the next day may answer and defend the other side that argued the day before, and upon the very same Doubt or Controversie; so as the ability of both sides, in opposing and answering in the same thing, shall be seen; which the Protestants never durst permit to Father Campion and his Company, in their feigned Disputations, nor yet to give them Books or time to prepare themselves, [Page] whereas all the contrary must be performed by ours.

The manner of arguing and answering may be that one of the three or four Disputers for each side, be appointed to be Proloquutor of the rest for that day, and that he only do speak, and be bound to answer and argue in form of School, and that others that be his assistants do not interrupt him but let him speak alone until he have proposed his Argument or Answer wholly, and repeated the same; and whether his assistants do allow the same without adding, or altering, and saying; yea, the two Notaries shall agree upon the writing, and then shall the other part answer, or reply, and having ended, to speak in form of School, the like shall be used in asking his assistants, whether they be content and satisfied with that he setteth down. And thus though the Arguments will go something slowly forward, yet in the end will great substance be drawn out of this bolting; for that the one Party or the other will come quickly to a plain exigent, and to have no more to say but only words, which will be easily discerned by all that are present; for that although the formal Speech of Disputations [Page] must be in Latin, yet may all be so easily declared, as few men of understanding will be present, that will not understand the substance of all. And for the two Presidents, or Moderators, though they be of different Religion, yet their Offices being only to speak, when need is, and to hold peace, and to make the Arguments, and Answers to be well understood only on both sides; it may be thought they will pass well enough for the purpose that is pretended, especially if there be another person of higher authority placed there by the Prince, as there ought to be, who may cause each Party to do their Office and Function, with Modesty, Peace and Edification, and remove away, without remission, whosoever should fall into disorder of words, and command now and then the two Notaries, or one of them at one time, and the other at another, to read out aloud the Arguments, Answer, Reply, or Distinction, that hath been given; and at the end of every day to recite all that hath been spoken that day, and this with the consent of both Presidents, and of all six Disputers. And if there be but one Week bestowed in this Work, with these and the like circumstances, and at last all these Disputations [Page] publickly shewed in Print, for the satisfaction of such as could not be present, and that all circumstances be declared, how and when, by whom and in what order they were done. I am of Opinion it would break wholly the credit of all Heresies in England, and that afterwards few Books would be needful on our part, as in truth it were to be wished, that few or none were written in the Vulgar Tongue, against Hereticks; but rather that Books of Devotion, and vertuous Life should enter in their place, and the memory dye of the other Wranglings. And the like course also may be taken by Preachers in their Sermons, which by little and little were to be freed from all mention of Heresies, to the end the People of God might come again to their old peace of Mind, and attention only of good Works, and Christian Vertues.

And this is so much as I have thought good to advertise, about this manner of (g) publick Disputation, which hath been often asked by the Catholicks at the Protestants hands, and could never be obtained; and no marvel, for, as Christ saith, Omnis qui malè agit, odit lucem, & non venit ad Lucem, ne arguantur opera ejus; but on the contrary side, Qui facit veritatem [Page] (saith he) venit ad Lucem, ut manifestentur opera ejus. And though I confess that in a quiet and establisht Catholick State, Disputation with Hereticks were not to be presumed profitable; yet our Condition is different now at the beginning, and will be for some Years in England; and all satisfaction must be given, that may be conveniently; and seeing our building is true at the Foundation, and our Mony with which we desire to enrich Men, is pure Gold, and tried, the more we rub it on the Touchstone, the better it will appear, and the more acceptable it will be to all Men. One other publick satisfaction also I could wish were given, for some days at the beginning, to certain principal Persons in London, or elsewhere; or rather that every Bishop should do it in his City or Diocess, for that in my Opinion it would be of very great importance; And this is, That some chief Man of Learning and Authority of our side, or the Prelate himself should take a certain hour in the day to confer openly the writings of some two of both sides, as namely of Juell and Dr. Harding in London, for that they write both in the Vulgar Tongue, the one against the other; and of Whitaker and Dr. Stapleton [Page] in Oxford or Cambridge, for that they writ in Latin, and the manner of this Conference might be, that one in Pulpit, or publick Audience, should read some Paragraph out of one of them, and confer presently the Authors which he citeth, and whether he citeth them truly or no; and to let the places be read publickly out of their own Authors; which may be prepared to be there present, and then the answer of the other might be read, and Authors also that he alledgeth; and for more indifferency of this Examination or Collation, there might be two Learned Men appointed, one of each side, a Protestant and a Catholick, to see that no fraud or injury be done to any Party, but only the Books examined sincerely: and seeing that the truth is but one, and cannot but appear by this Collation, (h) I perswade my self this Examination would do exceeding much good to all such of understanding as should be present, as indeed I suppose that all principal Protestants likely would be, for that the Exercise would be both pleasant and profitable; and I dare avouch that Juell will be discovered to make so many shifts, and to slide out at so many narrow holes and creeks to save himself, and to deny, falsifie, [Page] and pervert so many Authors, Doctors, and Fathers, as his own side, within few days, would be ashamed of him, and give him over; which would be no small blow, to overthrow Heresie even by the root in England, he having been their chiefest Pillar, to maintain the same in that Kingdom.

Besides these two publick satisfactions, I do perswade my self there will be need of little more; for that the private Industry of divers good and learned Men, and one Lay-man with another, and the vertuous lives and conversations of our Priests and Clergy-men, and the Example of all sorts of Religious People, both Men and Women, and the very outward face, show, and practice of Catholick Devotion, the wearisomness of Heresies, and of their Authors and Maintainers, will quickly work out all affection of People towards them, and plant it the contrary towards true Religion, Piety, and Catholick Christianity.

And thus much for gaining of those that have been deceived by error, and are of a good nature, and think they do well, and do hold a desire to know the truth, and follow the same, and finally do hope to be saved as good Christians, and do make [Page] account of an honest Conscience, though they be in Heresie; But for others that be either wilful Apostates, or malicious Persecutors, or obstinate Perverters of others, how they may be dealt withal, it belongeth not to a Man of my Vocation to suggest, but rather to commend their State to Almighty God, and their Treaty to the wisdom of such as shall be in authority in the Commonwealth at that day; admonishing them only that as God doth not govern the whole Monarchy but by Rewards and Chastisements; and that as he hath had a sweet hand to cherish the well-affected, so hath he a strong arm, to bind the Boysterous, Stubborn, and Rebellious; even so the very like and same must be the proceeding of a perfect Catholick Prince and Commonwealth; and the nearer it goes to the Imitation of God's Government, in this and all other points, the better and more exact and more durable it is, and will be ever.

And this answer may be given in general; for, in particular, what order is to be holden with such as before I named, Persecutors, Arch-Hereticks, false Bishops, Preachers, Ministers, Apostates, Traytors to the Cause, Strangers and Foreign Hereticks, that do oppress the Realm, [Page] and others of the like Crue and Condition, I leave to be determined according to the circumstance of time, occasion, and place, when opportunity shall be offered.

Animadversions on Chap. IV.

(f) PErchance it would be good—not to press any Man's Conscience at the beginning for matters of Religion, for some few Years] The perusal of this part of this Chapter I cannot but recommend to all those Dissenters in England, that did in the late Reign not only accept of the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, but give the King such extravagant thanks for it. They must not deny that they were warned of the snare, and that all the Kindness shewed them was but forced, and would in a little time have proved their own, as well as Ruine of the Church of England, which was too wise to be trickt by the Jesuitical Arts of that Court. They may see here what was the sole design of that grinning Toleration, and, which is more, how lasting it was to have been. Who can read the Jesuit's Instructions and Limitations here about it, as the late King questioness did? and remember the Cant that was set about then, that the Liberty of Conscience should be made as firm as Magna Charta, and established to all Posterity. It was indeed the Admiration of all wise Men, that the Dissenters who had believed that the Declaration of 1672. was designed to make way for Popery, and had seen it proved out of other Books as well as Coleman's Letters, that this was their most probable way to bring in Popery, should in the Reign of a Popish King himself, governed by Jesuits, and when Popery was barefac'd, be imposed upon to comply with, and (which was ten times more foolish) to address and thank the Popish King for that Declaration, which I do from my Soul believe would not have been continued to this Year 1690. so many are the Limitations, and Restraints, and Conditions in it, that it would have been the easiest thing in the World for them, when they pleas'd, [Page] to have taken the forfeiture of this Charter also for Liberty of Conscience. It was a Comical sight indeed to see Mr. Lobb the Presbyterian and Father Petre the Jesuit caballing and contriving together, and as great Intimado's as if they had been of the very same Society; to see Pen the Quaker and Brent, Mr. Alsop and Nevil Payn settling and securing Liberty of Conscience, and Father Warner as obliging to them as can be; but whatever Professions of Love and Sincerity were made to the Nonconformists by the Jesuits then, I can assure them that at the same time F. Warner the Jesuit, the late King's Confessor, lookt upon all the Dissenters together as the worst and vilest of Men, and insufferable in any Government, especially in a Monarchy: and this I have out of his History of the Popish Plot written with his own hand, which I have now by me, wherein his Characters of the Presbyterians (which is the name he gives to all Dissenters) are somewhat extraordinary, and I should desire Mr. Alsop and Mr. Lobb to recollect how far this following Character of themselves and their Friends does agree with the Discourse they were at the same time treated with by the late King, the Jesuits, and their Tools: Pervicacissima (says he Apparatus, p. 7.) ista factio, omni imperio adversa, populorum exitio nata, & Romae & Patriae communis Erynnis. Such Characters as this run through his Seven Books of the History of that Plot; which I could not peruse without astonishment, that any People that wear the name of Christians could be such abominable Hypocrites, as to court and caress with their Tongues those Men, whom in their writings they were at the very same instant representing to Foreign Nations and to Posterity as the wickedest and worst of Men, Furies and Firebrands of Hell: the least that such a practice can prove, is, that a Jesuit is a Scandal to the Christian Name.

And now I have mentioned Father Warner's MS. History of the Popish Plot, I cannot but do the Earl of Castlemain the kindness to help him out of this History with a breviate of his Instructions for his Embassy to Rome. In his late printed account of what had been said by him before the late House of Commons, he makes his Embassy to have been just such as is between two Temporal Princes about Compliment and Commerce, and says he could prove it, but that he had indeed burnt his Papers. I am glad I can help his Lordship herein out of Father Warner's History, whom no body will question to have known my Lord Castlemain's true business to Rome, being at that time a [Page] chief managing Jesuit, and, which is more, the King's Confessor. This is his account of it, when he comes to speak of that Kings Accession to the Crown, and his suppressing the two Rebellions against him. Things being (says he Lib. 8. p. 153. 1685. Rebus intra Regnum utcunque stabilitis, concordia florentibus, proxima serenissimo Regi cura fuit suas ditiones cum Ecclesiae Catholicae Capite Romano Pontifice, sanctaque Sede Apostolica connectere, à qua haeresis eas ante sesquise ulum divulserat. Ad tentandum ergo Vadum anno 1685. Romam destinat Jodunem Carillum & stirpis claritudine & opulentia illustrem. Cui revocato, cunctis ex v [...]to gestis, Legatus extraordinarius eo destinatus est anno sequenti, nempe 1686. illustrissimus Comes de Castlemaine, Obedientiam Canonicam Jacobi & Catholicorum Regni nomine testaturus.) however settled within the Realm, and in a peaceable flourishing Condition, the next care his Majesty had, was to unite his Countries to the Obedience of the Bishop of Rome and the Apostolical See, which had been cut off by Heresie about an age and a half ago. To try the Pope's Inclination, in the Year 1685 he sent Mr. J. Caril, who succeding to the utmost of their desires, and being recalled, the Earl of Castlemain was sent the next Year, to wit, 1686. Extraordinary Embassador to the Pope, in the name of the King and the Catholicks of the Realm, to testifie their Canonical Obedience, or to make their Submission to the Holy See.

(g) They would never consent to come to any indifferent Tryal or Disputation with the Catholicks. and below—This manner of publick Disputation, which hath been often asked at the Protestants hands, and could never be obtained.] How very unprobable this is, which the Jesuit does so confidently affirm here, I appeal to the Papists who have read how warmly their Party did declare against any such Disputations in the beginning of Q. Eliz. and to what this Jesuit himself relates of the Conference in France betwixt du Plessis and Cardinal Perron, That the Pope's Nuncio declared against it, as a thing that did not belong to the King to appoint. And though this hot Jesuit is for such Conferences, yet those of his own Party, that have more learning and more moderation, have not been fond of such Tryals. In the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign, when she appointed a Conference to be managed with all the fairness that the Jesuit himself proposes in his Conference here, the Archbishop of York did, after [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] he had communicated the Queens Intentions about it to his Brethren, not without difficulty, consent to it. And what was the fruit of it? the very first day they met at the Conference they broke the Rules for it, and pretended their Paper (which they were to read first) was not quite ready, and that they had mistaken the order: The next day they met, the Conference ended, the Papists refusing to read their Paper first upon the second point, as had been agreed for them at the appointing the Conference:See Bishop Burnet's History of the Reformation, Second Part, p. 390. &c. and the Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln, who were two of the Disputants, were so far from approving such Projects as our Jesuit lays down here, that they declared, That the Doctrine of the Catholick Church being established, ought not to be disputed; and talked of Excommunicating the Queen and her Council for appointing such a Conference; which yet our Jesuit has the face to say the Protestants durst never grant.

(h) I perswade my self this Examination would do exceeding much good.] And I am as fully perswaded, that the Jesuit's Perswasion here had no other Foundation than Confidence, which he would have been cured of as to this thing, had he read either Bishop Juell or Dr. Whitaker's Works: and for all the Jesuit's assurance then, we see his own Gang, as well as the rest of the Missionaries that were to have converted us in the late Reign, durst never so much as think of this Project: they were for varnishing and painting, instead of disputing; and he was the cunningest Man that could make their Popery look likest the Protestants Doctrines: witness the Bishop of Meaux, and the Representers Writings. There was indeed a little venturing into antiquity by the Author of the Nubes Testium and Mr. Clench, but how they two came off, the World does already know.

CHAP. V. The forwardness that ought to be in all for the Restitution of Ecclesiastical Lands and Livings, and with what facility and ease it may be done.

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AMong other good Dispositions of Minds, and effects of a true and sincere Reconciliation with Almighty God, one principal ought to be at the time that his Divine Majesty shall shew mercy unto England, (k) that every one should have a special care, and fervent desire, to clear his Conscience well, and sufficiently about Abby-Lands, and Ecclesiastical Livings, which himself or his Ancestors by any pretence of Title whatsoever, shall have invaded or detained; to which thing we may apply that wholesome Admonition of God by the Prophet, as very peculiarly spoken to us at that day, expurgate vetus fermentum, cleanse your self throughly of the old Leaven: For that I take this to be the most principal old Leaven, that distained and distempered the other actions of our Catholick Realm at the last change, and [Page] offended the eyes of our Just God most highly, that they took no sound order at all for any reasonable satisfaction, in this great affair of Restitution to be made to God and his Church.

For which is to be noted, That albeit (the Times and State of England, and Condition of Men and Things there considered) it seemeth not possible, or at leastwise not expedient, that any rigorous or exact satisfaction should be required in these affairs; yet that some kind of moderate temperature and composition, according to some form of Justice or correspondence of Equity, should be taken in the matter, I would think it so absolutely necessary, as no good Christian Conscience can be secure without the same; And the reason hereof is, for that these Goods belong first to a third Party, which were the Owners and Givers, and by them taken from their Children, and Kindred, and Inheritors for a special Ecclesiastical use to be applied to God's Service, and the help of their own Souls by perpetual Prayer ordained to be made for them, cannot in any Reason, or Law of Justice, be taken wholly from those uses, and applied or permitted to be profane, but only by force; seeing it is directly against the [Page] intentions of the first Founders and Givers, and whereof it is to be presumed they would never allow, if they were alive again, but rather would say of the two, That their Heirs and next Kin should reenter and possess the same, rather than by violence they should be detained by other temporal Men that are meer Strangers unto them. Neither is it sufficient for the security of any careful Dan's Conscience to say, ☜ That the See Apostolick has tolerated with these things in Queem Mary's time; for that it is well known how times and matters went then, and how the See Apostolick, like a Prudent and Pious Mother, was content to take of her Children what she could get, rather than lose all; So that the Toleration then used (as in truth it may be said) was upon constraint, and fear of farther inconveniencies to follow, if the matter should have been greatly urged at that time; the covetous humours of divers principal Persons in Authority being well known, together with the cold Dispositions of the rest of the Realm, to do that which in equity and conscience they were bound in this behalf; and this appeareth by the very words themselves, of the general Bull of Absolution and Toleration, which Cardinal [Page] Poole, of Pious Memory, delivered to the Realm for this effect, wherein every Man in particular (notwithstanding this general plaistering up of things) is most earnestly exhorted to look unto his Conscience in these affairs, and to seek the security thereof by Direction of Vertuous and Learned Men.

And seeing Almighty God has declared his heavy displeasure, since the patching of matters at that time by the lamentable and most miserable fall both of Religion it self, and of these Persons also that were most backward in this Restitution; and that these corrupt affections of some worldly People may be presumed to be well purged before this day by the fire of Persecutions in these latter Years, I hope verily that it may easily be brought to pass at the next Reformation; That some such good and substantial order may be taken, in this weighty affair, as God's Justice in part may be satisfied, Men's Consciences quieted, their Estates at home for the time to come, assured, the World abroad edified and the Church of God, in some proportion of equity, satisfied; and thereby this great Petra Scandali, that hitherto has endured, and the strong brasen Wall, that has divided between [Page] God and us, may be removed; whereof I do conceive so much the more hope and confidence, for that the means to perform the same seem not to me very hard, but rather easie; supposing the good and pious Dispositions of Minds, which I suppose we shall find at that day, in those to whom the matter shall appertain. And therefore I shall lay down in this place the means that I have conceived for the easie performance of this point.

All Englishmen do know the peculiar ancient custom of letting Lands in England, after the rate of old rent of Assize, which by experience of many Countries, I can affirm to be the most commodious, honourable, and profitable Custom, both for Lord and Tenant, that is in the World, all circumstances considered, as afterwards shall be shewed; And no sort of People were wont to be more observant of this Custom, than were Religious and Ecclesiastical Land-lords, who besides that they were never wont lightly to raise their Rents, did use also commonly to take very small Fines; so that in very Deed if these old Rents of Assize were restored again to the Church, it might be said in effect, That the whole were restored, and thereby a certain proportion of equity in [Page] Restitution observed; and on the other side, if the possessions and the fee Farm of these Lands (which commonly do amount to double or triple the value of the old Rent, or may be made so good) be left, and made secure for ever unto the present Possessors of the same, as by the Prince, Parliament, and Pope's Authority they may be, I do not see, but that the Composition, and Temperature would fall out well for all Parties, and for all effects that can be desired.

For first God's Justice and the Church's Right in a certain sort should be substantially satisfied, and the Possessor's Conscience assured, which is the principal, and then his Ecclesiastical State also would not be over weakened or abated thereby, as is evident. And if it should happen out otherwise in some particular Men of special merit, to wit, that by this general Restitution he should be over much impoverished, it would be an easie thing to help and recompense the matter otherwise, as by giving him some Office or some Lease of fee Farm of other Lands, that shall return wholly to the Church, or the like; For it is to be understood, that albeit the Church do and may use this benign Compassion, with such as be her [Page]Children, and of particular deserts towards her for their Piety and Religion; yet no reason is there, ☜ but that such as be Enemies, Persecutors, or of notorious Impiety against her, should leave the Livings, which they possess of her wholly, and wish more rigour of Justice, than the other before named; so that the Church may dispose not only of the old Rents, but of Revenues also, Houses, Buildings, and other Emoluments.

For better understanding whereof, it is also to be noted, that (l) as well these Lands intirely restored, as the other old Rents before mentioned, to the end they may be imployed to the best and greatest glory of God, and publick profit of the Realm, were not to be turned presently at the first to any particular Owner that would challenge or lay claim to the same; but rather by Petition of the Prince and whole Realm, and approbation of the See Apostolick, were to be assigned to some common Purses and Treasury, and this to be committed to some certain Council of principal Bishops and Prelates, and others most fit for the purpose for certain Years to be limited, to gather up and dispose of all these Rents, Revenues, [Page] and Ecclesiastical Livings, during the time to them assigned for the greatest benefit of the English Church and Realm, and that at the end of the term allotted, which might be some four, five, or six Years, more or less as shall be thought best, they might be bound to give an account to the Persons that should be assigned by the Prince, Parliament, and Pope's Holiness for this effect, how they have disposed of this Treasury committed to their charge, and this Council might be called the Council of Reformation, as after shall be more particularly declared. And the reason why it were not convenient to return these Lands and Livings again to the same Orders of Religion, that had them before, is evident to all Men; to wit, for that the Times and State of England are far other, and different from that they were, when these Lands were given; and consequently do require different provision and disposition of things, conformed to the present necessity and utility of the Realm; as for example, the World knoweth that the most part of all Abby-Lands, appertained in the old time to the Religion of St. Bennet, of which Order at this time there are very few of the English Nation to occupy or possess the [Page] same, and to bestow them upon Strangers of that Religion, England having so many other necessities, were very inconvenient; and besides this it may be so that many Houses and Families of that Order of St. Bennet, or of St. Bernard, or of the Monastical Profession (though in it self most Holy) will neither be possible nor necessary in England presently upon the first Reformation; but rather in place of many of them, good Colleges, Universities, Seminaries, Schools, for increasing of our Clergy, as also of divers Houses of other Orders, that do deal more in preaching and helping of Souls, and for that respect will be more necessary to the Clergy of England, in this great work at the beginning, and for many Years after; though of the other also are not to be omitted to be planted and well provided for, according as it shall seem most expedient for God's glory, the Universal good of the Realm to this Council of Reformation, by whose hands their Lands, Rents, and Revenues may far more profitably be divided and imployed, and with much more peace and quietness, than if they should be returned to every particular Religion again.

Animadversions on Chap. V.

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(k) THat every one should have a special care and fervent desire to clear his Conscience well and sufficiently about Abby-Lands.] In this Chapter our Jesuit does very warmly press the Restitution of Abby-Lands, and I could heartily have wished that those that furnished Dr. Johnston with his Materials for writing his little Book about the Assurance of Abby-Lands to the Possessors here in England, had accommodated him also, as they might, with this Jesuits Memorial; I am confident it would have saved the Doctor something else besides his Pains.

How ridiculous his Attempts were then, was shewed by an Ingenious hand in a single Sheet of Paper entituled Abby and other Church-Lands not yet assured to such Possessors as are Roman Catholicks: And indeed our Jesuit has knockt their great Argument, from the Pope's Confirmation, in Q. Mary's days, on the head, when he declares, That it is not sufficient, for the security of any careful Man's Conscience, to say, That the See Apostolick hath tolerated [the Jesuit will not use the word Confirmed] with these things in Queen Mary's time; for that (says he) it is well known how times and matters went then. And how the See Apostolick was content to take of her Children what she could get, rather than to lose all;☞ so that the Toleration then used was upon constraint, and fear of farther Inconveniencies to follow.

As that Attempt to assure Abby-Lands was ridiculous, so I am afraid it was not the sincerest; whosoever has read this Jesuit's Memorial, and has any value for him, cannot but suspect the same with me.

One thing is a little peculiar in this Chapter, the Jesuit is for compromizing the business with the Possessors of Abby-Lands, and yet his Arguments for a Restitution of those Lands, if they prove any thing at all, prove that the Restitutions ought to be absolute: but let his Arguments be what they will, the Jesuit is for having half a Loaf rather than none at all.

[Page](l) That as well these Lands intirely restored, as the other old Rents—were not to be turned presently at the first to any particular Owner.] After the Jesuit has contended so earnestly, in the first part of this Chapter, for Restitution of Abby-Lands, upon reasons of Conscience, one cannot but wonder that he should not be for restoring them to their Primitive Owners; which I am sure Conscience and Justice do as much exact as the Restitution of them at all. The plain and true Reason of it is this, The Jesuits being an upstart Order since the Suppression of Monasteries by King Henry the Eighth, none of those Abby-Lands did belong to them, nor could be restored to them: and to have 'em all given up to the Benedictines and the other old Orders, is what a Jesuit could never bear; and therefore he is for having them all sequestred into a common stock for six and seven years, in which time no question need be made but that the Jesuits would have run down all the old Orders as useless to England, and would have swallowed the whole Morsel of Abby-Lands themselves.

CHAP. VI. Of the many great and singular Benefits that would ensue to the Church and Realm of England, by this Restitution and Disposition of Abby-Lands.

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FIrst of all would ensue the thing that we have most need of, and it importeth us of all other Points, which is that Almighty God's wrath would be pacified towards us, and towards the Realm, which may be presumed his Justice hath scourged and afflicted so grievously, as all the World seeth and wondereth at; for that infamous Sacriledge and Monstrous Rapine of King Henry the Eighth, whereby at once he destroyed and pluckt from God and his Church, and from all Saints and Souls deceased, all the pious Acts and Memories of Religion, that in more than a Thousand Years before him, his Ancestors had bestowed that way, and for that all, or the most part of the Realm, had their part and interest, either of that Sacrilege at that time, or of the Temporal gain afterward, and no convenient satisfaction [Page] hitherto has been made, no marvel if the hand of Almighty God has been heavy over us: For we read that God never ceased to beat and whip King Pharaoh until he had restored unto Abraham his Wife again; and that's a common Maxim among Divines, Non dimittitur peccatum, nisi restituatur ablatum.

Secondly, It would follow by this Restitution, and temperate Composition, That such as remain with the Possession of Abby-Lands and Ecclesiastical Livings in the manner aforesaid, might hold them securely, they and their Heirs, without scruple or danger to God or the World, which by no other means, it seemeth, can be assured them, either in respect of the one or the other. For in respect of God and their Conscience, I have already said that 'tis very hard to see how they may be assured any other ways. For as for the See Apostolick, though it may in certain cases dispose of Livings left to the Church from one use to another; yet to the end their disposition may be available, and the Possessor's Conscience free, there are required many Conditions and Circumstances which will hardly be found or verified in our case of England. For first the Disposition [Page] of Christ's Vicar must be free without all constraint, fear or respect of avoiding greater inconveniences, and then the commutation ought to be with consent of Parties interessed, or that have claim, if there be any, as here are many, to wit, all Religious Orders and other Ecclesiastical People, besides the Successors and Kindred of them, that gave the Lands, which would hardly agree to let the said Livings to be utterly alienated as they are; Moreover the Commutation to be good in Conscience, ought to be to so good an use, or better for the time present, and glory of God, than was the first Institution of the Givers and Founders; and which of themselves might be presumed, if they were alive again, and saw the circumstances of our Times, that they would allow, or not mislike of the same. All which is so far off from our English case, as all Men of judgment do easily see.

In respect of the World also, and of temporal Justice, there is no great security to the Possessors of these Lands, without some such sound Order and Agreement as this is; for that ever there will be murmuring and pushing at them and their Children; and as Religious Orders shall come to grow and [Page] wax strong in England again, they will have a saying to their old Tenants, Invaders, or Detainers of their Lands one way or other; and it would be a ground of infinite suits and troubles, and as the Prince should be affected for the present, or interessed in the matter one way or other, so would he favour or disfavour; all which would be matter of great inconveniences, and wholly cut off by this other way.

Thirdly, It would follow by this manner of Restitution, that the Church of England would be furnished again quickly, to wit, within the space of five or six Years (which might be the time allowed for the aforesaid Council of Reformation, to dispose of things) of more variety of Religious Orders, Houses, Abbys, Nunneries, Hospitals, Seminaries, and other like Monuments of Piety; and to the purpose for the present good of our whole Realm, than ever it was before the Desolation thereof, so as the words of St. Paul, in a certain sense, would be verified, Vbi abundavit delictum, ibi superabundavit & gratia. I say of more variety of Religious Monuments, and more to the purpose for the present good of England; for that they [Page] would not be so great perhaps, nor so Majestical, nor yet so rich, nor would be needful for the beginning, but rather in place of so great Houses, and those for the most part of one, or two, or three Orders, and those also contemplative, that attended principally to their own Spiritual good, and for that purpose were builded ordinarily in places remote from Conversation of People, there might be planted now, both of these and other Orders, according to the Condition of those Times, lesser Houses, with smaller Rents and numbers of People, but with more perfection of Reformation, Edification, and help to the gaining of Souls than before; and these Houses might be most multiplied, that should be seen to be most profitable to this effect. And in this manner might England, in small space, become again the most excellent and best furnished Country in the World, for variety and perfection of Religious Houses, and other like Works and Monuments of Piety.

Fourthly, would follow of this Restitution, the Stay, Pillar, and Foundation of all other good Works to be done, and of the whole external reparation of our English Church, which may be made or much [Page] holpen by this common Purse, and without this will hardly, or never be done. For that the necessity will be infinite, and Reparations wonderfully great, that will be needful after so long a Tempest, Storm, and Shipwrack. Catholicks will be poor for divers Years, and the Works will be many, great, and costly that must be done; as namely, The variety of Monasteries, and Religious before-mentioned, both for Men and Women; repairing, enlarging and multiplying of Churches, increasing of poor Benefices, restoring of Hospitals, provision of free Schools, erection of Seminaries both for the Youth of our Nation, as also for others round about us infected, of whose reduction we must also have care. The founding of publick Lectors in our Universities, and assisting many particular Colleges that lack Maintenance, and Rent, and a thousand particular wants, needs, and necessities more than are, and will appear in the beginning, for the new setting up of our Catholick Church again; for which if we have not some such common Purse, as this is, the matter will go very slowly forwards, and the Reformation never such as it ought to be. Wherefore this point of restoring Abby-Lands, with the moderation which I have said, [Page] is to be holpen, set forward, and urged, most earnestly, by all such as have God's Zeal in them, and desire a good Reformation in England. And whosoever should be contrary or backward in this matter, either for his own interest, or for his Friends, or of vain fear, policy, coldness, or lack of fervour, he were not to be heard, seeing the reason alledged for it; together with the facility to compass and perform the same, are so notorious and evident, and therefore not only the principal Persons of the Realm (who may farther or hinder the same) were to be disposed and dealt withal before hand, but even the Prince and Catholick King that God shall give us, and his Holiness also were to be prevented in this point, as the most principal and important for all our work. And of the Prince it were to be wished that he would promise or vow to Almighty God, by way of Oblation, That if he give him good success in the establishing of his Crown and the Catholick Religion, he will for his part restore in the manner before mentioned, all that he shall find invaded, or retained by the Crown, thereby to give example and encouragement for others to do the like. And in like manner of Hereticks, and [Page] Rebels Goods, which any way shall come to be confiscate, he will abstain his hands from the part of God and of his Church, which therein shall be found to appertain unto them, and by this pious and religious proceeding there is no doubt but God will prosper and aid him much the more. Of his Holiness also the like were to be required, that considering the many necessities that England shall have at the first beginning to set up, and restore the outward would vouchsafe not only to further and favour this designment of Restitution to be made, in manner aforesaid; but also as a bountiful Father,☜ remit some part of the temporal duties, which will be due to the See Apostolick from England as the first-fruits of Bishopricks and the like, for the certain space only of some Years after the next change for the setting of foot of our Church again; which will be of great Edification to all the World, and an infinite incouragement to our English Catholicks. And last of all, about this matter, may be remembred, that among Ecclesiastical Livings, that have been invaded by temporal Men, some have been taken from the Secular Clergy also, as from Bishops, Cathedral and Collegial [Page] Churches, Colleges, Deanries, Parsonages, Parish-Churches, and the like; though nothing so much as from Religious Orders. And these for that their true Owners are or will be quickly extant, and that present need will be of the same, for the uses to which they were first appointed; it is reason they should be returned to the same Uses and Churches again, and not to the common Purse, as the other; yet with the Limitation, Order, and Reformation, that the Council designed for this purpose, shall think best and most expedient.

About Impropriate Parsonages, Patronages, and Advowsons of Benefices, albeit for the part they come into Temporal Men's hands, at the beginning, as things either incorporated or annexed to Abby-Lands; for that these Revenues and Priviledges were given to Religious Orders in the old times, for the better maintenance, and with Obligation only to provide Preachers and Teachers to the Parishes; and that when Religious Houses were suppressed by King Henry, the said Parsonages, Tithes, Advowsons, and Patronages passed also to Lay-mens hands, as Members and Parcels of Abby-Lands; yet notwithstanding, for that in truth they [Page] were taken from the Livings and Revenues of Pastors and Curates at the beginning, and are part of the Revenues, it seemeth more reason that they should be accepted rather Ecclesiastical, than Monastical Livings; and consequently be returned back to the Church again, though with the Moderation and Qualification that shall seem most expedient to the Council, and not to be disposed of to any other uses, as Abby-Lands may be for the greater glory of God, and better setting up of our Church again. And for that I have divers times made mention of the Council of Reformation, I shall now set down some Notes about the same.

CHAP. VII. Of a Council of Reformation to be ordained, and wherein they are principally to be occupied.

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FOR the Execution of all these Notes and Advertisements that here are set down about the Reformation of England, nothing will be of so much moment, as to have certain, prudent, and zealous Men put in authority by the Prince, and Parliament, and Pope's Holiness, to attend principally, and as it were only to this affair, and to be bound to give a continual account what they do in the same. And for that and name of Inquisition may be somewhat odious and offensive at the beginning, perhaps it would not be amiss to name these Men a Council of Reformation, and that their authority might be limited for some certain number of Years, as four, five or six, as it should be thought most convenient and sufficient, for the setting up and establishing of the English Church; and that before the end of this term assigned, they shall give account [Page] to the Persons appointed for this purpose by the Pope, Prince, and Parliament, of all matters committed to their charge, and especially of the Ecclesiastical Rents received and imployed by them as after shall be declared. And for that the matters and affairs, which are to be laid upon these Men, are many and weighty, and of singular great importance, it is necessary, first, that the place of their ordinary residence should be in London near the Court, whereby they may have easie recourse and conference with the Prince and Council. And secondly, That their Persons be of great sufficiency and respect, and fit for the purpose; as for example, perhaps may the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Winchester, London, and Rochester, whose Diocesses lie near about the City, and will be no great lett to their ordinary charge to reside much in London, and be imployed in this affair also. And with these Men might be joyned, other principal and skilful, either Bishops or others, as should be thought best; together with all kinds of Officers, Secretaries, Notaries, Gatherers, Treasurers, and other helps, for better Execution of so great a charge.

[Page]The first and most principal thing that in Temporal matters should be committed to this Council, is the gathering of the said old Rents of Assize of Abby-Lands and other Ecclesiastical Revenues, which, by vertue of the Restitution above mentioned, are to return to the Church, and by these Men, as hath been specified, are now to be put in one common Treasury and thence to be spent and imployed within this time limited of their Commission, as they shall judge most needful, and to the most advantage of God's Holy Service and common benefit of the Realm.

The like charge also will be necessary to lye upon them for the Collection and Custody of all other Ecclesiastical Rents and Revenues throughout England; as of Benefices, Parsonages, Curates, and other such Livings, as cannot conveniently be provided of particular Owners, seeing that the English Clergy, which for the present we have, and are like to have for a great time after the next Reduction of England, will scarce be able to furnish the principal Dignities, and places alone of Jurisdiction and Government, as Bishopricks, Deanries, Archdeanries, Colleges and the like; and if besides these there be two or three Men left for Preachers to be given to every [Page] new Bishop to carry with him into his Diocess (a small store, God knows, for so great a Charge) it will be all, and how then think you will it be possible to furnish the least part of the residue of Benefices throughout England, for some number of Years? Wherefore, to remedy this inconvenience, it seems that the only way would be for this Council of Reformation to appoint Collectors of these Rents, and to be accountable for them, as for the rest; and allowing so much to be spent in every Parish as shall be thought needful, they may reduce the remnant to the aforesaid common Purse, for common necessities, until there be store of Priests to furnish all places, with particular Curates and Pastors, which may be by God's grace, and good diligence of this Council, in erecting and furnishing Seminaries, within the space of some five or six years, that is before this Council shall resign over their authority. And in the mean space, the best means of supplying the common Spiritual needs of England would be perhaps, that no Priests, besides Bishops, Deans, Archdeacons, and the like, (that are needful for the Government of the rest) should have any particular assignation or interest in any Benefice; but only a sufficient [Page] Pension allowed him by the Council of Reformation, or Bishop of the Diocess, for his convenient maintenance and his Commission to Preach, Teach, hear Confessions and all other Exercises of Priestly Function. And when the Council of Reformation were to leave their charge, then might they take a view of all the Priests in their times or before; and according to each Man's talent, and good account given of himself in this time of tryal, to place them in Benefices; But yet with this express Proviso and Condition, That they may be removed again from the same Benefices to a worse or to none at all, if they give not Satisfaction in their Function; which only Bridle may chance to do more good, than all the Laws and Exhortations in the World; and it would be good sometimes to put it in Execution, to promote some in higher Benefices, and thrust down others to lower, by way of Visitation, when cause is offered.

And one thing, before all others, will be of very great moment for this Council to put in practice, which is, That presently at the beginning they do publish an Edict or Proclamation, with all severity, commanding, under pain of great Punishment, That no Religious or Ecclesiastical [Page] Person whatsoever do enter into the Realm without presenting himself before the Council within so many days after his entrance, and there to shew the cause why he cometh, and the Licence and Authority by which he cometh, and to stand to the Determination of the Council for his aboad or departure again; for if this be not done, and observed with all rigour, many scandalous, light, and inconstant People, partly upon novelty, and partly upon hope to gain, will repair presently to England, and do great hurt by their Example.

And when this Door is once stopped, it will be easie for this Council to write to all the Heads of Religious Orders, that are in other Countries, to send them such a number of exemplar and reformed Men or Women to begin to plant the said Religious in England as shall be thought expedient, and be demanded. And for that Religious Orders have been more defac'd, dishonoured, and persecuted in our Realm than in any Christian Country in the World, perhaps it would be convenient to make such an amends and recompence, as is not besides in any other Kingdom; to wit, that all the approved Religious Orders that are in the Church of God should be called into England, and placed joyntly in the City [Page] of London; for that at least it is to be presumed that this City would be capable of all, and from thence they might be derived afterwards by little and little into other places of the Realm, as Commodities were offered, and as Men's Devotions should require, and as they should be proved to be most agreeable and profitable to the State of our Country, but altogether to be in London, and that in the perfection of their first Institution, would be a most excellent thing, and a priviledge above all other Kingdoms in the World, where all Religious Orders are not seen together, and much less in the perfection of their first institute and observance; which ought to be the Condition of admitting any Order into England, now at our next Reformation, be they Men or Women, to the end that the greater Glory of God be procured in all things.

And for more easie effectuating of this, there may be taken order, that Religious Men and Women be called, and admitted only from the Parts and Countries for beginning this great work of England where it is known that their Order is reformed, and hath some that observe the first perfection of their Rule, and in our days divers Countries have. And with this one Observation [Page] only about Religious Orders and People, England would be the most eminent Country of Christendom, as hath been said.

In the beginning of Religious Houses in England, care may be had that such be builded, and most multiplied as be most needful and profitable for the time present, and do apply their labours to action, and to the help also of others; and that before all the rest, Seminaries and Colleges be built and put in order, for the more ease of our Clergy.

And as for old and ancient Religious, that appertain most to Contemplation, though also they be not to be omitted, yet when in every Shire there were one of a sort planted for a beginning, and indowed with sufficient Rent for a competent number, that would observe their first institution, it were no evil entrance; for that quickly the Devotion of Good People would increase the same, and so would England come in small time to be furnished with more variety of Monasteries and Religious Monuments, and of much more edification, than when it flourished most. Nunneries also for refuge of Virgins, and of the devoutest sort of Womenkind, were to be set up, and [Page] the most of Observant Orders and of most edification were first to be planted, for example and encouragement of others.

It were also to be considered, whether some new Military Order of Knights were to be erected in our Realm, for exercise and help of our young Gentlemen and Nobility, as in other Countries we see it. And as for England, in times past, it had only the Order of St. John of Malta, wherein now perhaps there may be some difficulties at first, for that we have no Knights left of our Nation in that Order to train the rest; and to begin it only with strangers may seem hard.

And secondly, For that albeit their institute be good and holy to fight against the Turk and other Infidels, yet is Malta far off, and these Ages have brought forth many more Infidels and Enemies near home, to wit, Hereticks; and thereby the binding of young Gentlemen, which live abroad in the World, in Wealth, Liberty, Ease, and Conversation also with Women to perpetual Chastity by Vow, as Knights of Malta be, without giving them the means and helps that other Religious Men have to keep the same (which are Disciplines, and restraint from Company, and the like) has also his difficulties, as [Page] both reason and experience doth teach us, and the examples of some other Countries do prove, as namely of Spain, where, for avoiding of difficulties, they have procured Dispensation from the Pope that the Knights of the Military Order of St. James, Alcantara, Calatrava, and the like, may Marry.

Wherefore some are of Opinion, That it were good that other in place of this of Malta, or besides this some other new Order, were erected also in our Country of Religious Knights, and (m) that their Rule might be to fight against Hereticks, in whatsoever Country they should be imployed.

And when Heresies should fail, that they then keep our Seas of England from Pirats, and our Land from publick Theft, binding themselves for their probation to serve in their Exercises the time that should be limited; and for keeping the Land at home they might have other Companies and Confraternities under them, much like to that called the Holy Hermandad in Spain, which alone keepeth all these great and vast Kingdoms from Robberies. And this Order of new English Knights might quickly be made a very flourishing Order, being permitted also to Marry, and they [Page] might take the Name and Protection of some Holy King of England, or of all the Holy Kings joyntly, or of St. George; all which I leave to the Consideration of this Council to deal therein, with the Prince and Parliament.

Animadversions on Chap. VII.

(m) THat their Rule might be to fight against Hereticks.] In this Chapter our Jesuit treats of his Council of Reformation; he had great reason to avoid giving it the name of the Holy Council of Inquisition, since how fond soever Portugal or Spain may be of an Inquisition, it is odious to England, and abominable, and ought to be so to all Christians, there being nothing more barbarous, nor more diametrically contrary to the Religion of the Blessed Jesus, than the Popish Inquisitions. But this would have been very slender comfort to us in England, since it seems we were to have had the Thing without the Name, for the use the Jesuit would have had the young Popish Gentry of England put to in this Chapter, is to have them listed into a Fraternity, the business of which was to have been very honourable to them, to wit, to go a Dragooning about the Nation, and to have hunted down the Protestants (whom he here calls Hereticks) like wild beasts, and when they had thus Christianly rooted out all Protestants by this mild perswasive way, out of this Nation, then forsooth these wonderful valiant Knights were to have been sent abroad to purge the World of Heretie; and after all, our Seas of Pyrats, and the Land of Thieve, which if they had done, I am sure England would have been rid of the Jesuits as well as of Protestants

Nor is the Jesuit content with this, for after a few years England was to have Name and Thing; for when his Council of Reformation resign up their Authority, he makes it necessary See his 9th. Chapter. that they should leave some good and sound manner of Inquisition established for the Conservation of that which they have planted. And indeed the Jesuit is in the right of it, that a sound manner (by which I know the Jesuit means a most severe and bloody manner) of Inquisition is absolutely necessary, either for the planting or the preserving such an absurd and ridiculous Religion as Popery is in England.

CHAP. VIII. Of divers other Points that will belong to the Council of Reformation to deal in.

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HItherto only hath been treated of Abby-Lands and Ecclesiastical Livings to be collected, imployed, and disposed by this Council, and Religious Orders to be replanted; but many other Points do yet remain, for that the whole weight of Restitution, both of the External and Internal face of our English Church, and the perfect reparation both material and formal of the same, will depend principally of the Authority, Wisdom, Zeal, Magnanimity, and Piety of this Council; and for this purpose such principal branches as come now to my Mind, I will here set down.

First of all it will appertain to these Men to send Commissioners abroad into the Realm, and to have ordinary Correspondence in all the Shires of England, thereby to advise from time to time, what are the greatest wants, and what first is to be remedied or provided for: As for [Page] Example, here Preachers, here Confessors, here Priests to say Mass, here Seminaries, here Schools, here Monasteries, here Colleges, here Nunneries, here Hospitals, here building, or enlarging, or repairing of old Parish-Churches, with their Sacristies, or Revestries, Tabernacles, Church-Houses, publick Crosses, and the like; whereof I shall treat more in some particular Chapters afterwards in the Second Part of this Memorial. And for that the Reverence of Religion, and motive of Devotion to the People, doth greatly depend of these external things, it must be one principal care of this Council to have them well reformed, and practical Men sent about the same.

The like necessity will be also to augment the Livings of certain Curates and Pastors, in many places, and to increase in some others, where one is not sufficient, as commonly it will not be convenient for one only Priest to live any where alone, if it may be remedied in respect of wanting a Confessor for himself or others, when he should be sick, except the Parish lay so near to some other, as in all necessities they might give mutual help one to the other, as if they lived together.

[Page]For singing and hearing of Mass also at the beginning, order must be taken that divers Parishes repair to one upon Sundays, and great Holy-days, and that Priests be so distributed, as they may supply the best that may be, until better provision can be made, and perhaps it would not be amiss to call in some stranger Priests, for a time, Men of Edification and Vertue, such as might be procured by means of some Pious and Zealous Bishops of Foreign Countries, and by Commendation and Election of some Religious Orders, that keep Schools, and do know the Vertue of every one, and being requested by our Council of Reformation, would have care to direct only such Men unto us as should be for the purpose; who being divided about the Realm, and convenient Stipends appointed them, without appropriation of any Benefice (for that would have inconvenience) they would greatly ease and help our English Clergy, until it be increased and grown stronger; and these Strangers would serve to say Mass, and administer some Sacraments in Parish-Churches, and might supply also the Labour and Function of some Canons, for singing in the Quire and divers Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, where other [Page] Provision of our own Nation could not be so soon made. And it perchance would be less hurt to pass on with these Strangers for a time, who afterwards may be removed, if they should not prove well, than for haste and want to make up a number of unable or evil Priests of our own, who would be ever after a Seed of Corruption and Disorder to the whole Realm: of which point I shall say also more in the Second Part, when I come to speak of Seminaries; where no Priests at all could be planted at the beginning, there some honest and discreet Person or Persons of the Parish or of the next to it, though they be Lay-men, were to be assigned to have care of the Church Revestry, and Priest's House, and to see all dressed up, and kept in good order; and that presently such things as were to be redressed or builded up for the necessity or decent use of all, when Priests could be had, should be out of hand beginning to be put in order, and Mony to be allotted thereunto by the Council according to the Information given of the necessities; for which effect divers Visitors, Commissaries and Under-officials, should continually be imployed to advertise and see how matters go forward.

[Page]And as for the Church-service, if it may not be had as were to be wished every where at the beginning, nor that it can else be done in all places by a Priest or Deacon, or by one in Holy Orders, yet at leastwise some such discreet Lay-man, as before is mentioned, might be appointed to see some good order kept; and that the Bell be rung thrice a day to the Angels Salutation, and that upon Holy-days at least (if not more often) the People be called together to the Church by the common Bell, there to pray alone in private Prayer, if no publick can be said (as perhaps there may) at least wise the Service of our Lady may be said by some one or other, or many together, and some Homily or Spiritual Book read, and some Instruction given how to say every one the Beads, and other like helps; to the end that Prophanity, Atheism, or forgetfulness of God and Godliness enter not at the beginning before Priests may be had.

A Calendar is to be drawn out and agreed upon for the Holy-days that are to be observed in England; few and well kept were much better than many with hurt of the Commonwealth and Dissolution of manners. It is no small temporal loss for poor labouring Men, that live and [Page] maintain their Families upon the labours of their hands, to have so great a number of vacant days as in some Countries there be, whereby the poor are brought to great necessity, and the Realm much hindered in things that otherwise might be done, and Corruption of Manners by idleness much increased. For remedy of the first, which is the multitude of Holy-days, (I mean besides Sundays) let it be considered, whether this Moderation amongst others might not be admitted, that some days had only Obligation to hear Mass, and that afterwards Men should work, and that nothing should be taken from labouring Men's wages for this time spent in hearing of Mass; so that this loss would fall only upon the richer sort that are better able to bear it. Holy-days might be for half a day only, to wit, for the Forenoon, and that after Dinner, every Man should work, and that this should not be left to every Man's proper will to work or to make Holy-days at his pleasure; for that many out of idleness would play, and induce others to the same; but only the order set down should be inviolably kept.

[Page]For the Second Point, which is to keep well these Holy-days that are commanded, it will import much that certain good Exercises be appointed to occupy and entertain the People upon these set days; and these may be partly Spiritual, as Service said, or singing the Church-mattins, Mass, Even-Song, Preaching, reading of Homilies, Catechisings, or teaching the Christian Doctrine to the People, wherein great care and special labour should be employed at the beginning, and some other Exercises may be of honest entertainment, and Relaxation of Mind, which may keep the common sort from more disorderly Games; and amongst other things, the going of one Parish to another in Procession, upon their Festival days, is not the worst, if some little abuses be taken away, which were crept in, and might be remedied by teaching them to go with Devotion, saying their Beads, the Litanies, and the like, and some Men appointed to repeat the principal points of the Saints Lives, which they celebrate; and by this means also one poor Parish helpeth another for the maintenance of their Church, albeit the Council of Reformation may take order, amongst other points, that every Parish-Church have some particular Rent in a [Page] common Purse for their maintenance without asking Alms of the People. Order may be taken also to bring in certain Brotherhoods and Societies in every Parish that shall be capable thereof, whose peculiar profession may be to treat upon Holy-days of all good works, and reforming of such abuses or wants as shall be discover'd. And these Societies must have certain Priviledges, Preeminences, and Exemptions for them that do their Office well, and Chastisement for the contrary; but all must be subject and subordinate to the Ordinary: For of Exemptions of Confraternities from Visitation of their Bishops, many disorders and inconveniences have been seen in other Countries.

And above all other Confraternities or Societies, one of the Christian Doctrine would be the most necessary in every Parish at the beginning, whereof the Curate may be the head, and some other of the graver sort and principal Men of the Parish may be adjoyned, and their Office may be to be present on Holy-days, when Disputation is held amongst the Children publickly in the Church, and procure that none be away. And it should be good, that some particular emolument should result to these Men for their diligence, and [Page] that there were some particular Rent also to buy rewards for their Children that shall prevail in this Disputation, which would animate greatly both them and their Parents, and others to be present, and perfect in the Doctrine. And to this Confraternity of Christian Doctrine might be joyned, in the beginning, the Society also of the Blessed Sacrament in the little Parishes where more Societies could not be put in ure, whose principal charge 'tis (I mean the Confraternity of the Sacrament of the Altar) to accompany the Body of our Saviour with Lights and other Actions of honour, when it is carried abroad to the Sick, and in other occasions.

And for that in no other thing God hath been more dishonoured in England than in matters touching this heavenly Sacrament, it will be reason that particular recompence be made therein at the very first entrance of Religion again.

Some such Officer as the Romans called their Censor to look that no Man lived idly, nor brought up his Children without some Exercise and means to live, would be of importance for this Reformation. And this man might call to account also such Men as lived suspitiously [Page] or scandalously, as by Carding and Dicing, or spent riotously any way his own Goods or his Wives. And the like Commissioners were to be sent to the Universities to reform them to the best utility of the Commonwealth, and of those that study in them, and for drawing of strangers to frequent them, as in other Countries.

And the like Visitation and Reformation may be made of the Universities of our common Laws; to wit, of the Inns of Courts and Chancery in London. And this concerning both Manners and Learning; and certain skilful, prudent and pious Men, may have Commission to consult what were to be redressed about the common Laws, either for learning, teaching, or practice of the same, to the end the Prince and Parliament might afterwards determine thereof.

And the like about our Colleges, Halls, and manner of reading both of Philosophy and Divinity, Physick, Civil and Common Laws, and other Sciences in the Universities.

And amongst other Points, to consider whether a Third University were not necessary in the North parts of England, as at Durham, Richmond, New-Castle or the like place in these quarters, for the better [Page] polishing of those parts towards Scotland, and planting learned Men in the same, seeing they have need; and that the other two Universities which we have already, are both of them far towards the South, and many of the North parts cannot so conveniently send their Children unto them.

And divers other Countries have three Universities, within much less circuit than these three would be. A like Consideration also might be, whether it were not expedient to have a third Archbishoprick in England; for example, at Bristol or thereabouts, which might have for his Suffragant Bishopricks, those of the West Country, and more parts of Wales, that lye near about. And hereby might the Archbishoprick of Canterbury's charge and labour be eased much, and the Metropolitan Visitations from three Years to three Years, more commodiously performed, and yet sufficient priviledges and preeminence left to the said Archbishop and Primate of Canterbury, according to the ancient dignity of the said Church.

In like manner it may be put in Deliberation, whether the number of Bishops, in some part of the Realm, were not to be increased, for the better governing of [Page] the Clergy, or at leastwise that their circuits were better divided, some of them being, at the present, very ample and laboursome, as Lincoln, York, and some other; and in some other places, perhaps the Livings of some other Bishopricks were to be augmented for better maintaining of the Dignity, though ordinarily this is the least want of our Bishops in our Realm; and the authority of the Place is better maintained by opinion of Gravity, Learning, Wisdom, and Holiness, than by much abundance of Riches.

CHAP. IX. There ensue more matters that appertain to the Council of Reformation.

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THough I have touched divers points, yet follow there more belonging to this Council, among which one very special is as hath been signified before, the particular care that ought to be had of erecting of Seminaries at the very beginning for the encrease of the Clergy, and this in every Bishoprick, according to the Order of the Council of Trent. And before that Men be interessed in the Livings either of Bishopricks or Benefices, all the Ecclesiastical Livings of the Realm might be searched what each one might contribute to the erections and maintenance of these Seminaries, which may be at such an easie rate, as none had need to feel it; and yet may the Furniture for Education of English youth be such, by these means, as no Realm in the World will have the like; and all these Seminaries may be divided into two or three parts, according to the number of the Universities or Archbishopricks; [Page] and every University have one great Seminary, wherein only the course of Divinity and Philosophy may be read, and in the other abroad that are subordinate to these may be read Grammar, Humanity and Rhetorick alone, and as the Scholars shall grow fit they may be transferred to the great Seminaries of the Universities.

The like care must be had for well ordering of Grammar-Schools, what Books are to be read, and what manner of Masters are to be allowed, as also for other Schools for Children, Writing, Reading, and casting of Accounts by Arithmetick, which greatly doth awaken and sharpen the wits of young Children, and make them the more able Men for their Commonwealth, if it be taught with care and good order as in other Countries it is, where Children are wont to be examined in publick, and made to Compose, Divide and Multiply numbers upon the suddain, and without Book, and rewards proposed to them that do best. And in all Schools must there be particular order also for teaching of the Christian Doctrine, and divers proofs appointed for the same. Publick and private Libraries must be searched and Examined for Books, as also all Book-binders, [Page] Stationers, and Booksellers Shops, and not only heretical Books and Pamphlets, but also prophane, vain, lascivious, and other such hurtful and dangerous Poysons, are utterly to be removed, burnt, suppressed, and severe order and punishment appointed for such as shall conceal these kind of Writings; and like order set down for printing of good things for the time to come. It would be of great importance, that in every City or great Shire Town, there should be set up a certain poor Man's Bank or Treasury that might be answerable to that which is called Monte della Pieta, in great Cities of Italy; to wit, where poor Men might either freely or with very little interest have Mony upon Sureties, and not to be forced to take it up at intolerable Usury, as oftentimes it happeneth, to the utter undoing and general hurt of the Commonwealth; and for maintenance of these Banks, some Rents or Stocks of Mony were to be assigned by the Council of Reformation, out of the common Purse at the beginning, and afterwards divers good People, at their deaths, would leave more, and Preachers were to be put in mind to remember the matter in Pulpits, and Curates and Confessors in all good occasions, either of Testaments [Page] when they are made, or of cases of Restitution when they should fall out, and other such occasions. The like good use were to be brought in, that Ghostly Fathers in hearing Confessions and otherwise should admonish their Spiritual Children, among other works of Piety, to visit Hospitals and sick People, as also publick Prisons, and enjoin it some times for Penance and part of Satisfaction, especially to principal People whose Example would do much good to others, and by the Fact to themselves. And to the end there should not be so much repugnance therein, as commonly is wont to be in delicate Persons, the Hospitals were to be kept fine, cleanly, and handsome; and publick Prisons were to be inlarged with Courts and open Halls for People to visit them by day, and relieve them with their Alms; though by night they were kept more strait. And above all other things, convenient place is to be made in all Prisons to say and hear Mass, and for Spiritual Men to make Exhortations to the Prisoners, seeing that besides the chastisements of their Bodies, the salvation of their Souls is also to be sought; and oftentimes they are in better disposition to hear good Council, and profit themselves thereby, [Page] standing in the Prison, than when they were abroad.

And for this effect only (that is to say) for looking to Prisoners, and procuring the comfort, relief and instruction of such as be in necessity therein, divers Societies and Confraternities are seen to be instituted in other Countries, where Charity doth flourish, and ought to be also in ours, and the publick Prisons for this respect (of the Shires) were to be put in principal Towns and Cities where these Societies might be erected, and an extract or summary of all the charitable works, accustomed to be done in other great Cities, by the Confraternities and other ways, as namely in Rome, Naples, Milan, Madrid, and Seville, were to be had and considered by our Council of Reformation, and put in ure, as much as might be conveniently in England.

A general Story of all the most notable things that have hapned in this time of Persecution, were to be gathered, and the matter to be commended to Men of Ability, Zeal, and Judgment for doing the same. And when time shall serve to procure of the See Apostolick, That due honour may be done to our Martyrs, and Churches, Chapels, and other memories [Page] built in the place where they suffered, and namely at Tyburn, where perhaps some Religious House of the third Order of St. Francis, called Capuchins, or some other such of Edification and Example for the People, would be erected, as a near Pilgrimage or place of Devotion, for the City of London, and others to repair unto.

Before this Council make an end of their Office, or resign the same, which (as before has been signified) may be after some competent number of Years, when they shall have settled, and also secured the state of Catholick Religion,☞ and employed the Lands and Rents committed to their charge (and this were to be done with the greatest expedition that might be) it would be very much necessary that they should leave some good and sound manner of Inquisition established for the conservation of that which they have planted: For that, during the time of their authority, perhaps it would be best to spare the name of Inquisition at the first beginning, in so new and green a State of Religion, as ours must needs be, after so many Years of Heresie, Atheism, and other Dissolutions, may chance offend and exasperate more than do good; [Page] but afterwards it will be necessary to bring it in either by that or some other name, as shall be thought most convenient for the time; for that without this care, ☜ all will slide down and fall again.

What form and manner of Inquisition to bring in, whether that of Spain (whose rigour is misliked by some) or that which is used in divers parts of Italy, (whose coldness is reprehended by more) or that of Rome it self, which seemeth to take a kind of middle way between both, is not so easie to determine, but the time it self will speak, when the day shall come, and perhaps some mixture of all will not be amiss for England; and as for divers points of the diligent and exact manner of proceeding in Spain, they are so necessary, ☜ as without them, no matter of moment can be expected, and some high Council of Delegates from his Holiness in this affair, must reside in the Court, to direct and to give heart and authority to the other Commissioners abroad, as in Spain is used, or else all will languish. Their Separations of their Prisons also from concourse of People that may do hurt to the Prisoners, is absolutely necessary, as in like manner is some sharp execution of Justice upon the obstinate and remediless. Albeit [Page] all manner of sweet and effectual means are to be tryed first to inform and instruct the Parties by Conference of the Learned, and by the Labour and Industry of Pious and Diligent Men, for which effect some particular method and order is to be set down and observed; and more attention is to be had to this, for that it is the gain of their Souls, than to the execution only of punishment assigned by Ecclesiastical Canons, though this also is to be done, and that with resolution, as before hath been said, when the former sweet means by no way will take place. And finally this Council of Reformation is to leave the Church of England, and temporal state, (so far forth as appertaineth to Religion) as a Garden newly planted, with all kind and variety of sweet Herbs, Flowers, Trees, and Seeds, and fortified as a strong Castle, with all necessary defence for continuance and preservation of the same, so as England may be a spectacle for the rest of the Christian World round about it; And Almighty God glorified according to the infinite multitude of dishonours done unto him in these late Years. And for better confirmation of all points needful to Religion, it would be necessary that either [Page] presently at the beginning, or soon after, some National Council of the English Clergy should be gathered and holden, and to consider in particular what points of Reformation the Council of Trent hath set down, and to give order how they may be put in execution with all perfection. And finally besides these points touched by me for the Council of Reformation, and this National Synod to look upon, many more will offer themselves when the time shall come, no less necessary and important perhaps than these, which their charity, and wisdom, and quality of their Office will bind them to deal in for God's Service and the publick weal; And I have only noted these, thereby to stir up their memory to think of the rest.

CHAP. X. Of the Parliament of England, and what were to be considered, or reformed about the same, or by the same.

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FOR that the English Parliament, by old received custom of the Realm, is the Fountain, as it were, of all publick Laws, and settled Orders within the Land, one principal care is to be had that this high Court and Tribunal be well reformed and established at the beginning, for a performance whereof, certain Men may be authorized by the Prince and Body of the Kingdom to consider of the points that appertain to this effect, and among other, of these following. First, of the number and quality of these that must enter and have Voice in the two Houses: And for the higher House, seeing that Voices in old time put also divers Abbots, as the World knoweth, it may be considered, whether now when we are not like to have Abbots quickly, of such greatness and authority in the Commonwealth, as the old were, it were not reason to [Page] make some recompence by admitting some other principal Men of these Orders that had interest in times past; as for example, some Provincials, or Visitors of St. Benet's Order, seeing that the said Order, and others that had only Abbots in England, are now reformed in other Countries, and have therein Generals, Provincials, and Visitors, above their Abbots; and with the same Reformation it will be convenient perhaps, to admit them now into our Country, when they shall be restored, and not in all points, as they were before. Secondly, about the Lower House it may be thought on, whether the number of Burgesses were not to be restrained to greater Towns and Cities only. And for that in this House, as well as in the Upper, matters are handled that belong to the Realm in general, whether some mixture of Ecclesiastical and Religious were not to be admitted, as well as in the higher House, as namely of some Deans, or Archdeacons, or of some heads of Colleges or Universities, and some Provincials, or Visitors, or special Men to be chosen of some Religious Orders to be intermixt amongst the Burgesses and Knights of the Shires, as Bishops and Abbots were amongst the Temporal Nobility [Page] of the higher House, seeing that these Men both for Piety, Prudence and Learning, and for their experience in the Commonweal, and practice abroad, especially some of them that might be pickt out for the purpose, may be presumed to be able to give as good advice in all points, belonging to the good Laws and Ordinations for Manners and Government, as Burgesses and Knights of the Shire, that ordinarily are gathered for furnishing of this House, and in particular they would have a special eye to the assurance and preservation of Catholick Religion, which is a principal consideration.

For chusing of Knights of the Shires, as also Burgesses, a more perfect and exact Order were to be set down, and less subject to partiality and corruption; and Information were to be taken of their names and Religion. And for Knights of the Shire perhaps it would not be amiss to give some hand in the matter, at leastwise for a time to the Bishop of the Diocess to judge of their vertue and forwardness in Religion, and to confirm their Election, or to have a negative Unice, when cause should be offered, and that they made publick Profession of their Faith before their Election could [Page] be admitted, or they take their way towards the Parliament.

At the first meeting the first consideration ought to be whether it be a full and lawful Parliament or no, and that in both Houses; and whether all Parties be there; and whether any present have any impediment to be laid against him why he should be removed, or not have Voice; or whether such or such as be absent, and may come, shall have Voice when they come; and such other like circumstances, and all to be set down in writing by the Notaries or Secretaries of Parliament. Men may be appointed to examine with what Authority old Priviledges or Pre-eminences have been taken from the Parliament in these latter Years, especially since the entrance of Heresie; to the end the Catholick Prince that God shall give us may be dealt withal to restore the same, seeing it is for the good and service of the Realm.

After the first Decree, whether it be a lawful Parliament or no;☜ the second should be, (n) That every Man be sworn to defend the Catholick Roman Faith; and moreover, That it be made Treason for ever for any Man to propose any thing for change thereof, or for the Introduction of Heresie. [Page] And for more Peace, Concord, and Liberty of Voices, it were good perhaps to use the custom of Venice and other Countries, where Suffrages are given in secret by little Balls of different colours, signifying Yea, or No, to the matters that are proposed.

A good manner of proposing in Parliament. It hath seemed to some Men, that a good manner of proposing matters in the Parliament might be first to appoint four or five Commissioners, together with the Speaker, to view and examine the Bills that are to be exhibited, and to reject such as be impertinent; and for the other to propose so many in one day as time permitteth, to open and lay down the reasons on the one side, and on the other; and if the matter be of doubt, or of great importance, then may the House award, That the next day two Persons may speak upon the Proposition exhibited, the one in favour, the other against it; to the end that upon the Third Day Men may give their Voices, with more light and deliberation: and if the thing be of small importance, and easie, it may be concluded the second Day upon the first Days Discussion only, but not sooner. And the days and matters appointed to be discussed, should be registred and read publickly [Page] in the Parliament-House by the Secretary, to the end that every Man might know what he were to deliberate or determine of the day following. And thus much for the Order of proceeding: But now for making of new Laws and Decrees in our Catholick Parliament, these Notes following may be remembred among other.

New Laws to be made or thought on.To abrogate and revoke all Laws whatsoever have been made at any time, or by any Prince or Parliament, directly or indirectly in prejudice of the Catholick Roman Religion, and to restore, ☜ and put in full authority again, all old Laws at ever were in use in England, in favour of the same, and against Heresies and Hereticks.

The Law of Mortmain,Mortmains whereby Men are forbidden to imploy their Goods upon pious works that be perpetual, without particular Licence of the Prince, is not in any other Kingdom, where yet no such inconvenience is seen to ensue of overmuch to be given as is pretended by the motive of that Law. And therefore seeing all pious works must begin again in England, it were necessary perhaps that this restraint should be removed for a time at leastwise, and Men rather animated than prohibited to give that way.

[Page]It may be examined by the Parliament, whether Lady Elizabeth entered by good right or no to the Crown, or at leastwise, whether she were true and lawful Queen,☞ since the Declarations and Depositions published by Pius Quintus: and if not, then (albeit for quietness sake and security of the Commonwealth, it may be Decreed, That all matters past, by order of common Justice, shall be ratified, except only such open acts of manifest injustice as are notorious to all the World to have been done against Religion, by manifest wrong, as the injurious Condemnations of divers Catholicks, and evident oppressions of some other Persons) yet that all other Acts of Grace, and matters of Gifts, and Donations of Livings, Titles, Honours, Offices, and the like (which she did as true Queen) be ipso facto void and of no effect, where notwithstanding may be a Proviso, That whatsoever such benefit or grace she bestowed upon any known Catholick, or Man of publick merit, shall be holden for good, in favour of the Catholick Religion, so much persecuted under her Government; And for all other her said gifts or graces to be either void, or at leastwise suspended, until they be confirmed again by the next [Page] Prince to ensue, and some such Distinction and Declaration to be made, seemeth necessary for many reasons.

Again,Whether the first Parliament of Q. Elizabeth were good. it may be considered whether the first Parliament holden in this Queens days were a good and lawful Parliament or no, by reason of the want of Bishops, and of the open violence used unto them by the Laity. And if it were not lawful, that then all other Parliaments since that time depending thereon, and wanting true Bishops, may be declared in themselves to have been of no force, nor yet the Laws therein made; and consequently to be frustrate, and to be put out of the Book of Statutes, except such as this Parliament shall think necessary to confirm and ratifie or make anew.

The Decree and Law for the faithful restitution of Abby-Lands and Ecclesiastical Revenues, with the Moderation before specified, is to be determined of among the very first points of importance; and it were to be performed with a great alacrity and promptness of minds in all Men, thereby to bind Almighty God to deal the more liberally also with us, in all the rest that were to be done, as no doubt but he would, and after this many other particular Commissions and Subdelegations [Page] are to be given forth by the Prince and Parliament to particular Troops and Companies of Men for setting good order in divers matters, as namely one very ample to the Council of Reformation before-mentioned, for the reestablishing of Religion, and for gathering up and disposing of the Ecclesiastical Rents and Revenues aforesaid.

And other were to be given out to certain principal Lawyers and others, to reform the points that shall seem needful about our Common Laws,☞ Inns of Courts, and the like, as hath been mentioned; another for the Universities, another for the planting of Seminaries as well of our Nation, as of our Neighbours, Strangers for their Conversion, and divers other such like weighty affairs are to be committed by different Commissions to able and fit Persons, for putting our Commonwealth in joynt again, except it shall seem best to commit the most of these matters by a general Commission to the Council of Reformation in form as hath been declared, all which being confirmed by our Catholick Prince, and See Apostolick, may be executed sweetly and securely by the grace of God to his most high glory, and everlasting good of our Realm. And this is [Page] so much as I have to note for the present about this First Part, concerning the whole Body of the Realm in general. Now shall I speak somewhat of the two principal Members, which are the Clergy and Temporalty in particular.

Animadversions on Chap. X.

(n) THat every Man be sworn to defend the Catholick Roman Faith, and moreover that it be made Treason for ever for any Man to propose any thing for change thereof.] In the late Popish Reign every one does remember what abundance of pains was taken to ridicule the Penal Laws and Test, but especially the Test; for the decrying of which all Mouths were opened, all Pens employed, even one of our own, if we can with truth call our own that Scandal of Protestant Episcopacy Dr. Parker of Oxford; and yet we see that how abominable soever a Test was in favour of the Church of England, the Jesuit is for having one, and that no body be admitted to suffrage in Parliament till he hath taken a swearing Test for Popery. And just so it is with Penal Laws, though those made against Papists (which by the bye were made not against their perswasion in Religion, but against the Treasons and Plots (which as Papists) they were ever and anon running into) be abominable, yet against Hereticks they are absolutely necessary. When I first read this Chapter I could not but wonder at the Impudence of the Romish Priests in the late Reign that made such tragical Exclamations against Penal Laws, but especially of the Jesuits, who having this Memorial in their hands, and admired by them, should exclaim against sanguinary Laws, when yet they were resolved as soon as they could get a Popish Parliament, to have all the Laws that were ever made against Hereticks, those for burning them at Stakes restored, and put in full Authority. God hath delivered us out of the hands of such abominable and bloody Hypocrites, and may He ever preserve us from them, who [Page] gave good words to the Protestant Dissenters that would be cajoled by them, with their Mouths, while they had destruction and ruine in their hearts against all Protestants whatsoever.

And at the same rate were too many Dissenters gull'd about the promised Liberty of Conscience, that was to be established in Parliament, to be made as firm as Magna Charta, and it should have been made Felony or Treason, and I know not what, for any one in Parliament ever to have motioned a Repeal of it; but now we see in the Memorial found in the late King's Closet, what it was that was to be so firmly established, we find that immediately it was to have been made Treason for ever for any Man to propose any change of Popery in England.

The SECOND PART of this MEMORIAL Touching the CLERGY.

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I noted in the beginning, the Clergy might be divided into Three principal Branches, which are, Bishops, Priests, and Religious Orders, both of Men and Women; and so according to this Division shall I prosecute this Memorial.

CHAP. I. Of the Clergy in general, what they are and ought to do at the next change.

HAving to speak of the Clergy in general, which God from the beginning of his Church vouchsafed to name his own Portion,The name of the Clergy. for that they were dedicated more particularly than other Men to his Divine Service; and our [Page] Saviour to call them by the most honourable name of the light of the World, and Salt of the Earth. The first point of all to be remembred unto them seemeth to be, that if ever there were a time, wherein the effect of these names were needful to be shewed, and put in execution, it will be now at the beginning of our Countries next Conversion, whose Fall and Affliction, may perhaps in great part be ascribed to the wants of these effects in former times past. And furthermore, it may be considered, that the State of the Clergy in England, after a long desired Reduction, and happy entrance of some Catholick Prince over us, and after so long and bitter a Storm of cruel Persecution, will be much like unto that which was of the general Church of Christendom in time of the first good Christian Emperor Constantine the Great, after the bloody Persecutions of so many Infidel Tyrants that went before him for three hundred years together, at what time as God on the one side provided so many notable, zealous, and learned Men for the establishing of his Church, as appeareth by the three hundred and eighteen most worthy Bishops, gathered together in the general Council of Nice; so on the other side the Devil ceased not to stir up amongst [Page] the Clergy of that time, divers and sundry Divisions, Emulations, and Contentions, some of indiscreet zeal against such as had fallen and offended in time of Persecution; and some other grounded upon worse causes of Malice, Emulation and Ambition tending to particular interest, whereby both that good Emperour in particular, and all the Church of God in general, were much troubled and afflicted, and many good Men scandalized, and God Almighty's Service greatly hindered, and the common Enemy comforted.

And considering that the Times, Men, Matters, and Occasions may chance to fall out very like or the same in England, whensoever it shall be reduced to the Catholick Faith again, great and special care is to be had lest semblable effect should also follow, to the universal prejudice of the common cause: wherefore this ought to serve as a preparative,A Consideration both for Prince and People. both for our Prince and People to put on the same pious and generous mind that Constantine the Great did, to bear patiently with the infirmities of Men, and remedy all matters the best he may, and the People, but especially Priests to beware of like deceit of the Devil; and amongst other things, if perchance, in time of Persecution, cause has been given or [Page] taken of offence or disgust between any person whatsoever, that have laboured in God's Service, and do tend all to one end, to procure effectually now that it be altogether cut off and put in oblivion, and this especially amongst the Clergy, and by their means amongst others; and if there should be any unquiet or troublesome Spirit found, that under any pretence would sow, or reap, or maintain divisions, that the Holy Apostles Counsel be followed with him, which is to note and eschew him, to the end that all may join chearfully and zealously to the setting up of this great and important work of Reformation. And so much for Concord.

But as concerning example of good Life, and to be Lanterns of the World, I hope in Jesus there will be no great need at that day, nor for that day now to call much upon our Clergy, or at leastwise for some years after our Reduction, they having received so abundant grace of Almighty God in this time of Persecution, and so excellent a kind of Holy Education in our Seminaries,The Education in our Seminaries. as never perhaps any Clergy had in the World, which Benefit of God ever ought to be a Spur unto them to be answerable to the same in their lives and [Page] works, and to fear the most terrible sentence of St. Paul to the Hebrews, about the hard and miserable case of such as after much and special grace received, slide back again to their everlasting and most intolerable Damnation.

A blessed Servant of God,The cry of Mr. John Avila. in these our days, cried out in a certain Memorial of his to the Council of Trent, about matters of Reformation, saying, Take from us once, if it be possible, the shame and reproach of Israel, which is the Evil and Idle Life of Clergy-men, which cry ought ever to found in the Ears of our Clergy, also for a watch-word, and jointly to remember the Admonition of St. Paul no less necessary than this, for them that are to labour in God's Vineyard, which was, That having meat, and competent maintenance, they should seek no farther, but be content to labour willingly and liberally for so worthy a Master as is to pay them above all expectation, or desire, in the next Life. Which Admonition is most important for moderating our appetites, and avoiding of ambition, greediness, and contention, when the day shall come, though in England there will not want to give contentment also with abundance in temporal matters to all godly Men that shall [Page] labour there, if his Divine Majesty vouchsafe to restore the same from his Enemies hands; so as my hope is that our Clergy in every degree from the highest to the lowest will endeavour, at that day, to conform themselves to all rules of Reason, Piety and Religion, and to hearken gladly to any good Counsel, or remembrance of Order and Discipline that shall be offered, for theirs and the common good, and with that I may presume to set down the Notes that hereafter do ensue.

CHAP. II. Of Bishops and Bishopricks in England.

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BIshops and Prelates be Heads of the Clergy, and if all ought to be Light and Salt, how much more they that must lighten and season not only the Temporalty and Laity, but all the rest of their own Order also, who according to the example given them by their Prelate, are wont to proceed. And on the other side, the best means for a Bishop to do much good in his Diocess, is to have good Priests about him: for that a Prelate without good Priests to help him, is a Bird without Feathers to fly; and to have good Priests, he must make good Priests, both by his Life, Doctrine and other good means, and especially by Seminaries; for that Figs grow not on Thorns, as our Saviour says; and to have so great a Treasure, it must cost both Labour, Industry and Mony.

[Page]The Authority and Jurisdiction of Bishops in England is commonly more than in divers other Countries, and more respected; and their ordinary inquiry upon dishonesty of Life or suspicion thereof is peculiar to England alone, and of very great importance for holding Men in fear of carnal sins, and for this cause to be continued and increased. And albeit, in some other Counties, simple Fornication be not so much punished, or pursued and inquired upon, and that the Stews also be permitted for avoiding of greater inconveniences, in respect of the different natures and complexions of the People; yet by experience we do find, that the same necessity of liberty is not in England, and consequently in no wife to be brought in again; for that it is an occasion of fall, and of grievous temptations to many that otherwise would not have them.

That English Custom also of often Visitations by the Bishop, and by his Councellors, Officials, and other Ministers, and Probats of Testament to be made before them, and the use of often administring the Sacrament of Confirmation to Children, is very laudable and to be honoured; and any other thing that may belong to the authority, credit, or good estimation [Page] of the Bishop, or of his Function and Office; and if for a time after the next change, some hand were given to Bishops also in Temporal affairs, as to be principal in all publick Commissions within the Shire, it would greatly authorise Religion, and assure the Country much more to the Prince.

It will appertain to the Council of Reformation to consider of the Revenues of each Bishoprick,Bishops Livings. and where there wanteth sufficient to bear out decently that State, then to add so much as shall be necessary; yet are Bishops to be admonished, saith Mr. John Avila, that Christ willeth them to be Lights of the World, and Salt of the Earth by their fervour of Religion, Prudence, and Vertues, and not by abundance of great Riches and Pomp; and he alledgeth a Canon of the first Council of Carthage, which saith thus: Episcopus habeat vilem supellectilem, mensam, & victum pauperem, & dignitatis suae authoritatem, fidei & vitae meritis quaerat. And upon this he addeth, That much more hurt hath come to the Church of God by overmuch Wealth of Bishops, than by their Poverty, albeit he wisheth notwithstanding that they have sufficient with Moderation.

[Page]And he beseecheth the Council of Trent, that as well of Bishops Livings, as of Deanries, Archdeaconries, Rich Benefices, and all other Ecclesiastical Livings which can bear it, that there be a certain Portion allotted for the Poor, whereof he would not have the Incumbents to have Possession or Interest, but only that they with some other assigned for that purpose to be joyned with them, to have the Distribution, and be accountable yearly for it, as if it were not theirs.

And his reason for this is, for that each Ecclesiastical Person being bound in Conscience to give part to the Poor, it were good their Consciences were eased herein by help of some others also, and that the Poor were assured of their Portion: which Holy suggestion might easily be put in Execution at the beginning in England; and it would be a goodly Treasure for the Poor in every Diocess, and a singular Example to all other Nations in Christendom; and those that are good Prelates and Priests, would be contented therewith, and give besides also of their own, and such as are otherwise, at least would be forced to give this to their own benefit and others.

[Page]For the Bishop's own Person, as also his Houshold, it shall not be needful to say how far off it ought to be not only from vanity, pomp, and lightness, which is crept into many to the ruine and scandal of the World; to wit, of gorgeous Apparel, great troops of Servants, rich Furniture of Houshold-stuff, and other Ostentation of this quality; but also and much more from the prophanity and secularity of others, as Hawking, Hunting, Dicing, Carding, Banqueting, inriching of Kindred, and the like; which Corruptions do easily insinuate themselves, partly by corrupt Nature, and partly by inticements of others, as by experience we have seen in former times, if our Bishops and Priests do not stand watchfully upon their own Actions, and resolutely cut off the Serpents Head, and all Serpentish allurements to these things at the beginning.

The Bishop's Person ought to be as an Angel of Peace, Joy, Comfort, Ayd, Compassion, and Encouragement amongst the People; and his House to be a School of all Vertues, and a Shop or Store-house of all vertuous Men, to take out as need shall be, for the furnishing of other Places. Silks, Velvets, Chains of Gold, Feathers, Hawks, Hounds, and the like in his House [Page] or Houshold is great vanity. Idleness, Swearing, Gluttony, loose Life, Unlawful gains in his Servants, is Impiety. Well it were that Prelates Servants should be the better provided for, than any other, to the end that many might desire their Service, and bear the Discipline of their Houses more willingly, to wit, that they should be both better paid, and have more ways for their present Services, and more hope of certain recompence for the time to come; but with this also it were reason, that they should be known from all other Mens Servants by their Vertuous Behaviour, Modesty in Apparel, Temperance in Dyet▪ Sweetness and Humility of Speech, Courteous Conversations. No less care ought to have the Bishop of the Souls of his Servants, but rather more than any other of his Flock; which the Holy Apostle St. Paul did so far exaggerate to his Scholar Timothy that was also a Bishop, as he said; If any man have not care of his own, and especially of those that be his Domesticals, he is without Faith, and worse than an infidel.

The principal Point that good Prelates do use, and may use, about Reformation of their Families, are, first, to keep no more than they have need, and are well able to [Page] maintain of themselves, without permitting them Shifts, Bribes, or other unlawful or suspicious means to help themselves, under colour and countenance of their Master's Coats, which all redoundeth to their Masters hurt and discredit. And, Secondly, if more do offer themselves to service, than the Bishop can thus maintain, or hath need of, more merit and edification will it be to help to place them otherwhere, and to assist them also with Alms abroad, if his ability be for it, than to hold great Troops of Servants under pretence of Piety and Alms, which oftentimes is Oftentation and Vanity, or at leastwise great occasion thereof.

Thirdly, such as be admitted to the Bishop's Family, and dwell in his House, ought to be governed with all kind of care and good Discipline fit for such a place, and not disagreeing to the State and Concition of the Men; and namely, That they confess themselves every Month at the least with known and approved Confessors; and that the Bishop himself upon high Feasts, or some other, may, by his appointment, administer unto them the blessed Sacrament; that whilest they dine or sup in the Hall, they have some Spiritual good Lecture read unto them, that a certain [Page] competent space be appointed them to rise and go to Bed, and some Exercise of Prayers in the Mornings, and that in the day time, such as have no particular charge or offices to occupy themselves in, but to attend and wait, have some thing devised for their Exercise, if it may be to keep them from idleness: and among these may enter some honest kind of Disports also at certain times, and store of good Books to be laid in publick places for them to read, and entertain themselves at other seasons.

No access of Women to be permitted.All kind of access and ordinary residence, or traffick of Women within a Prelate's House for any occasion whatsoever, whether they be kindred or not, is indecent, suspicious, and full of disedification, except it were only upon some known cause, suit, or particular business without stay, which yet ought to be avoided the most that may be.

Occupations of a good Bishop.The occupations of a good Bishop, which lie upon him, by obligation of his office, are so many and weighty, as it cannot be imagined how he can have spare time and leisure for idleness, or vain and secular entertainments, if he have a good Conscience: but rather it is needful that he devise the time very well, and [Page] exactly, for to be able to fulfil his duty, in preparing, saying Mass, preaching, teaching, visiting his Diocess, hearing and determining of causes, attend to his particular Houshold, conferring with his Officers, and a thousand other Occupations, Cares, and Obligations that will fall upon him, and take from him both his time by Day, and sleep by Night; if he be such a Father as he ought to be, and have a tender heart towards God's Service, and his own Salvation, and towards the good of his People and Country; which being so, there needeth no other Advertisement in this behalf, but that he be a good Man, and look well to his Conscience, and divide well the hours of the day that every thing may be done in its time, and Men find space and facility to negotiate with him. Let him visit his Diocess often by himself, if he can, to know his own Sheep nominatim, as Christ commandeth; and if he cannot, let him do it by his Officers, and see that it be done with diligence, and gratis, without Bribes; and let the Visitations be examined well afterwards, and some Declaration ever made of them, by punishing or promoting of such as deserve, to the end it may appear that they are not made only for [Page] fashion sake. The custom of England is to call the Curate, with the two Church-wardens to every Visitation, and two principal Men more of the Parish; and to exhibit Interrogations to the one Party concerning the other's demeanour, is a very effectual order, if it be well observed, as is also that every Archdeacon should make his Visitation apart at his due times, and communicate them after with the Bishop.

In all good works that are to be done within the City where the Bishop resideth, or within his whole Diocess, whether they be for setting up of Religious Houses, Schools, Seminaries, Hospitals, Colledges, Prisons, bringing up of Orphans, Marrying of poor Maids, helping of Widows, repairing, enlarging, and furnishing of Churches, redeeming of Captives, setting forward of Confraternities, and the like; the Bishop as the Common Father and Treasurer of the poor ought to have his part more or less according to his ability. And when he were able to give no Mony, yet should he animate others, shew the way, give the designment, remove difficulties, and make much of them that were doers therein, whereby only (I mean by his authority, consent and incouragement) he should be able to bring [Page] many good things to pass, even without Mony, if he had it not to give; but if he have wealth and will not spend, words will do little.

It is reported of certain godly Prelates, That besides the bestowing of their own Goods in pious works, God gave them force to draw out great store of other Men's also, and so to have the merit of both; For which cause, first they used to be very familiar with all such Men as had this Spirit, to go up and down, and attend to these works, willing them never to be dismayed, but to come to them in all their difficulties, for that Mony and Council should never want. And, Secondly, they used to have a lift of all the rich Men within their Diocess, whom they sought also to gain before hand, by courteous entreaty, and often inviting of them; and when any work of Piety was offered, then would the Bishop first set down all his own Contribution, and then perswade the rest by his Exhortation and Example to do the like. And by this means they brought to pass infinite great works, that otherwise seemed altogether above their powers.

[Page] What Men ought to be chosen Bishops.Many good Men of our time are of Opinion, That the first quality and condition, which the Prince ought to consider, in choosing, or presenting a good Bishop, should be whether he be liberal, and a good Alms-man, or no; for if he have this grace, it is impossible almost but that together with this, he is a good Man of Life also. And albeit he should want a great degree in learning, or some other such part, yet this one of Alms-giving would supply for all, and by his liberality he would make learned Men, though he were none himself; and so supply the want by others. But if he want this part of Piety, all the rest will do little good with the People. And Mr. John Avila noteth to the Council of Trent, that not only Christ himself, but his Apostles also after him, laid hands rather of vertuous Men to make Bishops, though they were Married, than of great learned Clerks. And so do the two Descriptions made by St. Paul to Timothy, and to Titus, of good Bishops, declare, though learning also be necessary, but more the other.

[Page]The Bishop ought to have a Roll of all the Preachers, Pastors and Priests within his Diocess, with the Names, Surnames, Parentage, Ages, Talents, Manners, Merits, and Occupations, and to study and go them over often, and to add every Year, that which his Officers do bring in their Visitations, of their Merits or Demerits; and besides this, to have some special Men of confidence and zeal in every place to advertise him of that which passeth for his better Instruction, to the end that when Benefices, or other Charges shall fall void, he may provide them with more facility, and commend also to the Prince, such Persons as deserve to be preferred to higher Rooms; and put back, deprive, or chasten them that behave themselves evil.

The like Lifts ought the Archbishops to have over all the Bishopricks, under their Charges: And the same ought to have the Prince and his chief Counsellors over all the Realm; so all good Men should not need to sue and labour to be imployed, nor the ambitious greatly profit themselves by their sollicitude and negotiation; but the one should be fetched out of their corners, when they thought not of it, to Promotion, and the other [Page] sent home empty from the Court and other places, which they troubled by their importunity, until they were of better Merits. No one thing would so much profit the Commonwealth, as if these punishments and rewards were sure and certain.

Benefices to be provided by opposition.It is thought also, that it would be a matter of great importance, for the preservation of a good English Clergy, that the providing of Priests for Benefices within every Diocess should be reduced to the Bishops and to certain of the Chapter or chief Men about him, to be assigned for that effect, and that the preferment should go by Opposition and Tryal, both for learning and manners; and certain Examiners to be appointed for the Determination, who should give their Determination upon their Oaths; and that the Patrons of Benefices, that now are in England, should be recompenced with some other Priviledge or Honour to be done to them in their Parishes, where they are Patrons; but not to present the Persons, nor give Advowsons; or at leastwise, if all were not to be taken away, the most should be, that they presented some three or four able Men together, both for learning and manners, and that the Bishop with his [Page] Examiners may take whom of those they judged most worthy.

After Examination made of Men's learning, by Opposition and Disputation, the like Examination, or rather much more stricter, ought to be made of Life and Manners, either by the self same Examiners, or rather by others to determine also upon their Oaths, as the former: And this second Examination ought to be made by Testimony of Letters, and Witnesses concerning the behaviour of the Pretenders; and ever the Merit and Vertue ought to be preferred before Learning; and to the end Men be not disgraced by this second Examination, after they have passed the first of learning, perhaps it will be best, that this go first; and if any Man be found defective in this, he may, with less discredit, desist from the other; and let the Tryal and Opposition be published some Weeks or Months before, as shall be thought necessary. And greatly it will import that all Benefices be given and taken in England with this express Condition, That upon Merit or Demerit, they may be changed, or taken away, and the Parties removed either to higher or lower Benefices, or to none at all, if he deserveth it. And that the Condition also be put by [Page] the Prince and Pope, in providing of Bishopricks, to wit, that when ever the Prince or Archbishops shall require Visitors of His Holiness to visit any Bishop, or Archbishop, and shall find just cause to deprive him, or put him down to a lower Bishoprick, that it shall be lawful, and that each Prelate may enter with this express Condition, as also Deans, Archdeacons, Canons and the rest. And that sometimes it be put in Execution, for that this will be a continual Bridle and Spur to them, when they know they have no certainty, or perpetuity; and as to the good, it will be an occasion of perpetual promotion, so to the other it will be a motive to look about them.

Order must be given by the Bishops for often meeting of the Clergy in Provincial Synods; or otherwise to confer their doubts, and to take light and incouragement the one of the other. And for the better keeping of Unity both in Mind, and Spirit, and Actions; and the old Canons, Customs, and old Ecclesiastical Ordinances of our English Church are to be brought in ure again, as much as may be, and as they serve profitably to our Times.

[Page]Whether it be convenient to have a Third Archbishop in England, and some Bishopricks increased, enlarged, diminished or divided, I have put it in Consideration before the Council of Reformation, and so have no more to note in particular about this Chapter of Bishops, but only to refer my self to that which in general the Holy Council of Trent has ordained, about Reformation of Bishops, which I do suppose ever as a Foundation to all, that here or elsewhere is added for England alone at its next change to Catholick Religion.

CHAP. III. Of Deans, Canons, Pastors, Curates, and the rest of the Clergy.

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AFter Bishops do follow the other inferiour Order of the Clergy, to which may be apply'd so much of that which I have spoken before in the Chapter of Bishops, as doth concern them. And furthermore you may add the Advertisement and Ordinations of the Holy late Council of Trent, about Reformation of Priests, which were convenient should be put in Execution in England above all other Catholick Countries, with Zeal and Devotion: and what else I can remember that is particular to our Country, or not touched by the said Council, I shall endeavour to suggest in this place.

All Men will confess that Deans, and Canons, and other Ministers of Cathedral Churches at their first Institution, and many years after, did live in common, and did eat together in one Hall, or Refectory, and that their Life and manner of Discipline, was a community of one [Page] good and well ordered College, as we read of those that lived under St. Augustin, as their Bishop, in the City of Hippo in Africa; and of those that long after lived under St. Dominick, as their Prior in the City of Osma in Spain; and for this effect were the Closes, or Cloisters built in every Cathedral Church for Canons to live together under one Lock and Discipline, as hath been said, and for this cause were they called Regular; and the very name of Canon signifieth a Rule; and in divers places yet of other Countries, the same is observed, though not with so great Exaction, as from the beginning it was. But now in England it might be restored to the first perfection again, so as our Canons might live in common, and be Exemplar Men of Life. And if there should be any difficulty to obtain this of all, yet at leastwise that no Man live abroad, or alone, but by particular leave and Dispensation. And that such as will live in Community, may have some priviledges above the rest; and that ordinarily of these Men, may be chosen Deans, Archdeacons, Heads of Colleges, Bishops, and other Dignities, so as to live Exemplarly may have some priviledge and enlargement above the rest; for [Page] which cause also it would be good, that some ordinary degrees and steps were known in the Commonwealth for Ecclesiastical Men to ascend, and to go up by. And first Seminaries and ordinary Colleges in the Universities, and from thence to be Heads of Houses, and Fellows of the exempted and priviledged Colleges, of which I shall speak more in the Chapter following concerning Universities; and from those to be Canons in the Cathedral Churches, and after to pass to other Dignities, Prelacies, and Bishopricks. Among which Degrees of Promotion, no one is more fit to try Men, and to make them sufficient for higher places, than Canonneries, if they were used to this effect, and Men ordinarily taken from thence to other preferments; and this according to their Merits only, and behaviour in the same, and not for favour, kindred, and other respects. And still the most virtuous, wise and orderly, is to be preferred, and especially those that are pious, and Men of Alms, though they were somewhat inferiour to the rest; and that no troublesome, unquiet, idle, vain, heady, proud, or dissolute Men should be preferred, though he were never so qualified otherwise, but rather know certainly he [Page] should be put back from that place, and with that express Condition to take his Canonry or other Dignity, when he entereth, as before hath been noted.

Of helping our selves by Strangers.I have suggested before in the Chapter belonging to the Council of Reformation, how that the scarcity of good and able English Priests being so great, as it is like to be at the next change, when so many places will be to fill, as the greatness of such a Kingdom requireth; the first care must be in all reason, and good Law of prudence, to furnish Bishopricks, Deanries, Archdeaconries, and some such other principal charges of Jurisdiction and Government, where only the English Men will be able to discharge the Office, by reason of the Language, and not Strangers; But yet where no convenient provision can be made of the English Nation, there to help our selves rather with some discreet and vertuous Men of other Countries for a time, and those to be chosen and sent us only upon our Petition, by zealous and good Bishops abroad, than to leave the People wholly unfurnished, namely for saying of Mass, singing in the Quire of Cathedral Churches, and Collegial, and other such like Priestly Functions, as by Men of other Languages may be performed, with [Page] Condition that this shall be used only for a space, until our Clergy shall be increased; and no propriety of Benefices to be given to them,No Appropriation of Benefices at the beginning. but only competent Pensions and Allowance, during their aboad in England, which may be so long as they behave themselves well, and give Edification to the People. I have spoken also of English Preachers to be sent over the Realm, alloting to every Bishop so many as may be had for that purpose, and that he divide them, as he shall think most needful, and that for some few years at least, it would be more commodious for the Publick, and more liberty for the Preachers, and Priests themselves to have no Appropriation, or Obligation to any particular Benefices, but ample Commission rather for all with a sufficient stipend to live upon until things be better settled.

Churches, Chancels, and Sacristies.I have also signified how needful it will be that Commissioners be sent abroad to visit Churches throughout the Realm, and all things belonging thereunto, and to enlarge the material part in many places, for that the People are much increased; and that the Chancel in particular be more capable, decent, and commodious for the Priests; and the Sacristies and Revestries for the Furniture of the Altar, and the [Page] rest of God's Service; and that they be made much bigger and more handsome, as well for service of the Priests, as for principal Men sometimes to retire themselves thither for Confession, and other such occasions; and that the provision and furniture of Vestments, and other necessaries for the Churches, be such as may edifie and increase Devotion, and not the contrary, as at other times it hath been; and discreet and able persons be chosen to have care of these things, and competent maintenance allowed them for the same, and not to be committed to most impotent, ignorant, and contemptible of the Parish, as it hath been accustomed; For that they will do the Office for little or nothing, but yet so as it were better undone. It is to be considered whether Catholick service may be said again in our old Churches before they be consecrated of ☜ new, or hallowed publickly from the Profanation of Hereticks, and this for more Detestation of Heresie. And in like manner it may be considered, whether such known Hereticks, or notorious Schismaticks, or Persecutors, as shall return to the Union of the Catholick Religion, should presently be admitted to come to our Churches, or rather that some part [Page] of the old Ecclesiastical Canons should be put in ure for their restraint for a time, so as though they be reconciled, absolved, and admitted also to the Sacraments in private, yet for publick satisfaction, they should not be admitted to enter our Churches, but by little and little, and with the Moderation, Humiliation, and other reverent Ceremonies appointed for that purpose; which the sooner also is to be thought on, thereby to shew the different proceeding between them and us, they pressing us to go to their Church against our Wills and Consciences, though it were with open and known Dissimulation, and we do not admit them to enter our Churches out of hand, though it be desired by them, and that they made Profession both inwardly and outwardly of our Religion.

And if such care and circumspection be to be used in admitting Hereticks to our material Churches, as in truth there ought to be; then much more must be had in admitting them to be Priests and Ministers of the same, except it be upon great and long probation and satisfaction given,☞ and in some rare case, as all the World may see and confess. And whether it shall be fit at that day to disable some great [Page]and able Hereticks, and their Posterity, especially if they have been principal Authors in the overthrowing of the Catholick Religion, or known Persecutors of the same, not only from Priesthood and Ecclesiastical Dignities, but also from other honours and Preferments temporal of the Commonwealth, for warning and deterring of others, and for more security of the said Weal Publick, the wiser sort of that time may put in Consideration.

As for the good Life of Priests and Clergy-men, whereof all dependeth, that great Servant of God Mr. John Avila layeth a very prudent Consideration before the Council of Trent, saying, That it is not enough for making of good Priests to multiply good Laws, and appoint punishments to the Transgressors, as many Prelates do, for that it costeth them little: and the reason is, for that it being a painful thing to punish often, as well for him that punisheth, as for him that is punished, it wearied out the one and the other, and oftentimes sooner the Punisher than him that is punished, if he be perverse; and so no good ensueth thereof at all. Wherefore he saith the true remedy is to procure that Men [Page] be induced to love good Laws, and observe them without punishment, and then good Laws will profit them. And such are they who are virtuously brought up, and trained in godly Discipline from their youths; and for that this doth ask both care, and labour, and cost, few Prelates will take it upon them. But ours of England ought to do otherwise, and to take the Water from her Fountain, which is to train up the youth of their Diocess from their tender years in Schools, Seminaries and Colleges of Piety and Learning. And this godly Man would have no Priests made at all, but only out of these Seminaries and Colleges; and if any did offer themselves that had not been brought up in them, he would have them put into some other Colleges, or Seminaries to be errected for this purpose, there to live, and be tryed for a time upon their own charges, to make proof, not only of their ability in learning, but also and much more of their humility, patience, obedience, conformity of manners, and other like vertues fit for Clergy-men.

Preferment for those of Seminaries.Moreover his Opinion is, that the best Ecclesiastical Livings, and Church-Dignities should be laid upon these Men that [Page] are taken out of Colleges and Seminaries; and that in all things, caeteris paribus, they should be preferred, and this according to the Testimony of their Superiors, concerning their vertue, which ever he would have more to be respected than their learning: and if any should behave themselves evil in the Seminaries, or be expulsed for their Demerits, he would have them incapable of Holy Orders thereby, if already they be not in Holy Orders; and if they be, then to be incapable of any Ecclesiastical Promotion, until they have given large and substantial satisfaction of their change and amendment. And finally he saith, That he would have the life of Clergy-men to be so full of labour, as idle People should not desire it; and so full of vertue,Directions and often Meetings for the Clergy. as Crewes would not come to live among them. For which cause perhaps it would not be amiss, that some particular Instructions should be given by the Bishop of the Diocess, or by the Archdeacon of that Circuit, or by some other Superiour to all the Priests within his charge, what they should do, how to proceed and behave themselves, in all occasions, how to distribute and divide the time, and wherein most to labour, and most to avoid, and [Page] other like particularities, for their help and direction. And to be bound to yield an account of all these points, at the Bishop's, Archdeacon's, or Official's Visitation, or at the ordinary times of their meeting together, I mean the Priests of each Circuit among themselves, which days of meeting ought to be somewhat often, and frequent at least, at the beginning, as namely every second and third Month, or as often as shall be appointed, and thought convenient for those times. And at these meetings, Priests may be examined of these and like points, and take direction of their Superiours, and propose their doubts or difficulties, which they have found in the course begun of setting up Religion, and gaining of Souls. And there might be ordained Sermons, Conferences, and Exhortations to be made at these meetings, and certain learned Men appointed to examine and resolve their doubts, which would be a great light and incouragement for them all to go forward in this Holy Work.Of Priest's and Clergy-men's Apparel. And this is so much as at this time cometh to my Mind about these matters needful to be remembred, except I should add, That the form of Apparel of our new English Clergy is to [Page] be reduced also to the measure and proportion of that Perfection and Edification which we desire to see in our Priests at the next change, and that both vanity and novelty be avoided then, and above all, lightness and dissolution; for which effect perhaps the best means will be to bring in use again, as near as may be, the old grave custom and fashion of Apparel that our Clergy-men used in ancient times, whereof such as at that day shall be appointed to consult and treat of this matter, will better be able to set down the particulars.

CHAP. IV. Of Seminaries, Colleges, Vniversities, and Schools.

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AS concerning Seminaries and Colleges for Institution and Increase of our Clergy-men, at the beginning of the next change, and how they ought to be erected in every Diocess or Bishoprick, founded and provided for by Contribution of Ecclesiastical Benefices, established with good Laws, and necessary Priviledges, provided of good Governors, divided into divers Members or Parts, according to the number of our Universities in England; and that the lesser Seminaries abroad be subordinate to the greater of the said Universities,Proof of such as desire to be Priests out of Seminaries. and how that none commonly should be admitted to Priesthood, but such as have been brought up, and given good proof of themselves in these Seminaries, or other Colleges of like Discipline. Of all these points, I say, there hath been sufficiently spoken before in divers Chapters of this Memorial, which need not be repeated in this place, only I add, that these great [Page] Seminaries, which in the First Chapter of the Second Part of this Memorial I said were to be erected in the University for Heads of the other, that were to be subject unto them abroad in every Diocess, may serve also for that effect, which Mr. John Avila required in the former Chapter, which is for these to enter, and be proved for a time, who pretend to be Priests, and that before they take Holy Orders they do dispose themselves duly by making the Spiritual Exercises, and using of other means, whereby to know and consider well what they take in hand; and that such as be of best wits, be applied to preaching, and those of meaner to hear Confessions, and those of Prudence, Activity, and sound approved Vertue, to be imployed in Government; and thus much of Seminaries of our own Country.

But now for help of other Countries also we ought to have some special care, considering the Benefit that we have received by Seminaries to procure their Conversion, so much as lies in us, by the same means; and for this purpose it would be a work of great Piety and Edification, and partly also due, that we should erect in our Country, and namely in [Page] London, where most concourse of Merchant Stangers are, some number of Seminaries for the help of our Neighbours oppressed or infected with Heresie, as namely, Denmark, divers parts near to us, of Germany, Poland, Gothland, Sweedland, Scotland, Muscovy, and the Isles of Zeland; from all which places store of youth might be had, by reason of the concourse and Contraction of Merchants that daily come to London from those parts. And by the Industry of some good Catholick Men that may be found or made in the said Countries, by such zealous English Priests of our own as would be willing to employ themselves in this work, and go thither also if need be; among which most gladly the Writer of this Memorial would offer himself for one. And so procuring and setting a certain sure manner of correspondence from these Kingdoms for their youth to come to us, and putting in Spirit to them, when they be with us, together with learning, for aiding of their Countries, the like effect would follow in the end, which we have seen, and proved in England. And Almighty God would be greatly glorified thereby, and we should revive again the old glorious Piety and Zeal of our Ancestors the Saxons, who [Page] after their own Conversion were Converters almost of all Nations round about them: and this for this matter.

As for the Universities,Of Universities and Colleges. it is well known that they are the Fountains of all good Learning, Policy and Government in the Commonwealth, and therefore to be favoured, nourished, increased, and those also which England hath, are the most fair, and best furnished for the material part, which is for the number of Colleges, and manner of Building, Foundations, and Commodities of Rents that be to be seen in all Christendom, as they can testifie, who have seen the one and the other, though in other Countries also, there be many goodly Universities in like manner, which in the formal and more essential part do greatly exceed ours, to wit, in their good order of Discipline, Number, Quality, Variety, and Diligence of Readers, abundance of Students, and the like; all which points also might be brought easily into ours, and so make them absolutely the best of Europe, and to be frequented also by multitudes of foreign Scholars, seeing that maintenance is better cheap with us, than any where else. And this would be a point of much honour to our Nation.

[Page]And to bring all this to pass, the first thing must be, that large and ample Commission be given by the Prince and Parliament, and confirmed also by the Pope, to certain Men of Experience, Learning, and Wisdom, for that purpose, to see what is convenient to be ordained for those effects and times, and for reducing of our Universities to the best utility of our Commonwealth, having yet respect so far forth as no great inconvenience do ensue thereof, to the old ancient Statutes, Customs, and Orders of the said Universities and Colleges, and especially that the Founders be not deprived of any substantial part of their Holy Intentions. And for that he that writeth this Memorial, hath seen and informed himself of the chiefest Universities that be in Christendom, and has had experience also of our own, the principal parts he hath noted, and seen to be worthy to be considered, for the reforming, or bettering of our English Universities, are these which ensue.

Multitude of Oaths to be restrained.First, That the exceeding great multitude of Oaths, which are wont to be given to them that take degree of School in our Universities, be moderated, or taken away, for the easing of Men's Consciences, and that some few principal [Page] and substantial Points only be given by Oath, and the rest commanded under pain of Temporal Punishments. The reading of Sciences in particular Colleges doth greatly hurt and hinder the publick profit of Students in their Learning; for neither so learned and substantial Readers can be had in private Colleges, as were necessary to be publick Masters; nor can the number of Schools be so great, and chosen in every particular College or Hall, as were convenient, to furnish a course of any Science, with reputation and profit; whereof also ensueth, that neither the Master nor his Scholars are able, or much animated, to go forward in the same.

For remedy of this, the use of most Universities in foreign Countries is very good, which is to have publick Lectures only in publick Schools that are fair and largely builded for the purpose, and in them to have chosen publick Readers of great sufficiency for all Universities, and that their wages be such, and so honourable, as they might well be able to live upon them, without seeking of other shifts; and that in no particular College there should be publick Lectures permitted, except it were in time of Vacations, or [Page] of some particular things that are not read in the publick Schools, as of some points of Mathematicks, the Languages, or the like; but rather that all Students of every College, should be bound to hear their ordinary courses of Arts, Sciences, and Faculties, in the common Schools, or else not to have Licence to proceed, or take Degree within the University; and that in place of private Readers, in particular Houses, there should be appointed repetitors in every College, whose Office should be to hear the daily Repetitions of such Lectures, as are read in the publick Schools, and to moderate and proceed in all Conferences and Disputations about the same; and by experience it is found that this manner of study doth profit more in few Years, than any other in many.

Competent Stipends.The ordinary wages of a publick Reader ought to be such, as will move the principal part of learned Men to sue and stand for the same, and to persevere in it when they have it. At least some few Lectures ought to have this commodity annexed unto it, though others may be of far less value, to the end that upon hope to come at length to these greater Lectures by degrees, learned Men be content to pass [Page] with the other of less moment for a time.

It might be considered whether it should not be good to have concurrence in every principal Lecture that is read in the common Schools, as divers foreign Universities have, to wit, that two learned Men should read jointly Divinity; and the like in Law and Physick in different Schools at the self same hour, and upon the self same matter and subject, so that Scholars be left free to go to which of the two they shall like best; for by this means the two Concurrents will try who shall read best, and have the most hearers. And as for the number of Lectures that are to be read every Year, or Quarter, by the publick Master, they may be set down, and the portion of wages that answer them to every Lecture, and how many Lectures soever the said Master shall fail to read by himself, or by a sufficient substitute to be allowed by the University, so much of his wages is to be deducted presently, every Month, or Quarter, without all Remission, and to be bestowed upon poor Scholars, or other good uses, as shall be most expedient. And this is the only way to make publick Readers diligent and careful.

[Page]Touching the number of Lectures to be read publickly, in best Universities they are these, First, For Divinity there can be no less than four at the least, which are, two in School-Doctrine, one of the Scriptures, and one of the Moral part alone, commonly called Cases of Conscience. In the Civil Law three are the least, to wit, one of the Institutes, another of the Digests, and a third of the Codex. And in like manner in Physick, one at least must be of the Speculative part, and another of the Practical, besides two other at certain seasons, to wit, of the Herbal and Anatomy. All which Lectures are either wanting, or very weak in our English Universities at this day.

And besides this, since Heresie came in, we have had no Lectures at all of Canon-Law, which are to be reduced again, though it may be put in Consultation, whether it shall be needful to make it a distinct Science and Faculty from the Civil Law in England, as it is in other Countries (for Men may study it alone, and take degree therein apart) or rather that both the Civil and Canon-Law be made but one Faculty; for that the Realm of England being not governed by the Civil [Page] Law, as other Realms about us be, there is very little use thereof but only in the Admiral's Court, and in some other few cases. And whatsoever besides is decided by none of these two Laws in England, but is commonly done by Rules of the Canon-Law, as in the Court of Arches, and in all other particular Courts and Tribunals of Bishops, Commissaries, Officials and the like; so as these two Faculties may easily be joined in one in our Universities, and be learned by the self same Men for the use of England. And to the end that such as do study these two Faculties, be better founded and furnished with variety of learning, for Argument and Reason, than commonly they are wont in some other places, where Men study the Common Law alone without the help and furniture of all other Sciences. It shall be good perhaps that such as mean to take degree in this Science of the Canons, be not only bound first to have studied Humanity and Rhetorick, but also their course of Logick and Philosophy, as well as those that are to study the Faculties of Divinity and Physick; and that no Man be permitted to take degree in these two Laws, without having [Page] passed first his foresaid course of Philosophy; and by this means the time and labour of study, in these three principal Faculties, of Divinity, Laws, and Physick, will be equal.

Lectures also of lower Sciences must be provided for in the publick Schools, with publick and sufficient Stipends, as namely three Masters for the course of Philosophy, one of Logick, another of the Natural part, and the third of Metaphysick, and these three to go on successively, every one reading out the whole course of the forenamed three Sciences, so as every year they may begin one course of Logick, for the whole University, and another end with the Metaphysicks.

Mathematicks and Tongues.The Mathematicks also must have one Lecture, if not more than one, as also the Hebrew and Greek Tongues. And to the end Scholars may not want to be hearers of these Lectures, wherein sometimes there is difficulty, the matter may be so tempered as those of the second and third Year of Philosophy, may be bound to hear the parts necessary for them of Mathematick Sciences, and those of the first and second Years of Divinity may [Page] have the like bonds to hear the publick Lecture of the Hebrew Tongue, if they mean to take degrees, as those also that study Rhetorick and Humanity may have Obligation to understand the Greek. And that is to be noted, that the common Grammar-Schools in England, though there were many and great in divers places, yet are they defective in many points for the sound attaining of the Latin Tongue, which now may be amended partly by the Seminaries, which are to be in every Shire, and are to profess only Grammar, Humanity and Rhetorick, and partly by our Universities also, where the study of the Latin Tongue may be setled in more perfection than it was wont to be.

Defects of Grammar Schools.The defects also of our Grammar-Schools are commonly these; First, That they have but one Master, or at the most a Master and an Usher, who cannot possibly read so different Lectures, as the different Capacities of so great a multitude of Scholars will require, wherefore in other Countries, wheresoever good order is kept, they do divide the whole compass of Grammar into four or five distinct classes or forms, and do assign a particular Master [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] to every one of them, and above these do appoint another form for Humanity, and another for Rhetorick, so as they be six or seven distinct forms in all, ordaining moreover that from the second or third form of Grammar, the Scholars begin also to learn the Greek Tongue, so as when they come to Rhetorick, they have it very perfectly. Moreover they appoint that none may pass from one of these forms to another, upon will and favour, but only upon strait Examination, and Proof made by indifferent Men; and that none be admitted to begin the course of Logick and Philosophy with intent to proceed and take degree therein, and in other higher Faculties afterward, except he first have passed these inferiour forms, and in particular have bestowed one Years study in Rhetorick for the more perfection of the Latin Tongue, which is the ground of all the rest. Which order, if it were well observed in our Universities and Schools of England, and fit Masters appointed for the purpose, and the inconvenience of over much beating of Children taken away, which is another disorder of our Grammar-Schools, wherewith divers of the best wits, and especially such are best brought [Page] up, and are of best Parentage, are dismayed and terrified from study, I would think that in few other places of the World, studies would go better forward than among us. The ordinary times and spaces appointed for reading and hearing courses of Sciences and Faculties in foreign Universities,Time and spaces of courses in Faculties. are of great utility, and to be brought into ours; as namely three years to end the course of Logick, Natural Philosophy, and Metaphysicks; four years for the course of Divinity, Law or Physick, and after the fashion of English, French and Flemish Universities, which therein are somewhat different from others, our Scholars might take degree of Batchelors of Art, at the end of Logick, or Natural Philosophy, such I mean, as should be able to defend the same in publick Disputations, and no other; and in the end of hearing the Metaphysicks, or a year after to be allowed them for Repetition, or going over again the whole course, to such as were to take degree, they might be made Masters of Art, upon the like publick Tryal of Disputation, and Examination, as before.

[Page]The degrees of our Batchelors also, or Licentiate in Divinity, Law, or Physick, were not to be given to any but after the full study of their courses; to wit, of four years hearing each course, and one or two years more to be allowed, to repeat, or look over the said courses again, and after often publick Exercises and Tryals to be made upon him in the mean space; and that after this degree of Licentiate, or Batchelor, other three years to be assigned of like Tryal for them that will pretend to proceed Doctors; and that all these points of tryal for taking degrees be observed with rigour, and not dispensed with and changed into many Contributions, as is now accustomed, but very rarely and upon some great and extraordinary occasion; for that by this the same and estimation of our Universities would be exceeding great in the World abroad, and our degrees of learning would be holden in great account, and our Country would be full of learned Men, with fewer titles void of substance. And among other things, provision must be made that such degrees as are taken abroad, in some foreign Universities of less moment, for Mony only or Favour, without Merit, may be [Page] called to Examination again, and not allowed of in England without new approbation.

The order of dictating used in all foreign Universities, to wit, where the Master, besides a brief Declaration of his Lesson by Discourse, either before or after, useth to dictate soft and fair, so as all his Scholars do write his words, is no doubt a most profitable order, and holdeth both the Master and Scholar in attention, the one not to speak any thing, but well studied and thought upon, for that it is to come to the view of others by the witness of so many as do write and take his Lectures, and the other which are his Scholars are held also in attention, by writing, and for that they must give an account afterwards of the whole in time of repetition, who otherwise would have their Cogitations in other matters whilest the Master readeth; and therefore this order is also to be settled in our Universities, and the precise number of days, wherein Lectures or Vacations were to be had, is to be established so far forth as may be, and the matters, that each Master is bound to read in every year, are to be assigned under pain of forfeiture; [Page] and the less that is left to Men's proper Wills or Arbitrement, is the best both to profit and keep peace amongst Scholars. And this so much as about matter of study and learning, offereth it self to me for the present. Other Men that shall be appointed to visit and reform our Universities at that day, will see more. These points are only for a remembrance. And now will I speak also somewhat in the Chapter following about the manner of Government, and proceeding of the said Universities.

CHAP. V. Of Government, Discipline and manner of proceeding of English Vniversities.

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IF our English Universities have need of Reformation touching matters of Learning, Masters, Readers, and Lectures, as hath been declared; much more is the same necessary in points of Government, Manners, and form of Life, and proceeding. Wherein, albeit our old Founders and Governours of English Universities, left many good Laws and Orders, conform to the times, wherein they lived, and to that which then was used; yet the said times being now changed, and matters standing far otherwise in the World, and many things learned by experience, which then were unknown, and the rigour of old Discipline being wholly dissolved, broken, and loosed by the Heresies of our time: it will be needful in this behalf, to make a great Reformation. And albeit that all respect and reverent regard be to be had, and born unto the old Laws and Ordinances of Universities and Colleges, where [Page] no inconvenience is seen to the contrary; yet must the Commission and Faculty of such as come to reform, be very ample and large, both from the Realm and See Apostolick.

Beginning of establishing Discipline.And first of all for settling of common Discipline, most evident it is, that all habitation, concourse, and negotiation of Women, which heretical Dissolution hath brought in, is utterly to be removed from all Colleges and communities of Students, and herewith all junkets, all lascivious banqueting, excess of Apparel, Dancing, Fencing-Schools, and the like; that no Man have leave to go forth, but by knowledge and licence of his Superiour, and this to known honest parts and Persons, at Houses lawful, accompanied with his fellow, or more if need be, in decent Apparel;Order of Apparel. Which Apparel, for use of the whole University, may be divided generally into two or three sorts, as in other best Universities of foreign Countries is to be seen; to wit, that Graduates, Fellows, and Scholars of particular Colleges, may have one sort of Apparel distinct from the rest of the whole Body of the University, and those of one College to be known from those of another, by some distinction of Collars, or other like difference [Page] in their habits; and that after these Collegials, all the rest which are Students of the University, may have a certain general and modest kind of Attire, without permitting any man to differ from the same which is a Student, except in some rare and extraordinary case, as of some Prince, great noble Man, or the like. And that this common habit be divided only into two sorts, the one for Divines only more grave, which yet ought to be as near to old English custom, and form of ancient Catholick times, as may be; and square Caps with Cassocks down to the Knee, as in Lovain, Doway, Paris, and other Universities of France and Flanders, now also is used. And the other sort of Apparel may be for Lawyers and Physicians, and such as study Philosophy, and inferiour Sciences, or are Commoners in the Halls or Colleges; which sort of Apparel may be long Cloaks, with Hats, as it is used in Spain and Italy, if it shall be so thought convenient. Which points I do touch the sooner in particular, for that great exactness will be necessary in this behalf at the beginning, both to cut off the liberty and superfluity brought in by Hereticks, as also to prevent the Novelties, which some of ours may chance [Page] bring home from other Countries, if care be not had. And this point of Apparel, is a principle of much good or evil in the Commonwealth.

Porters that be discreet, honest, and faithful men must be appointed to the Gates of every College; Heads of Houses also must be chosen at the beginning rather according to their vertue and love toward Discipline and good order, than of any other quality. For that without such men it will be hard in the beginning, to raise up, and establish again, vertuous Life and Conversation, after so universal a Flood of Enormities, as hath overflowed all; And for this respect perhaps, it will be needful that not only all interest to Headships of Houses, but Fellowships also, ☞ and Scholarships, and all other Officers, of particular Colleges, and of the Vniversities in general, be made void at the beginning, and new men planted and placed again upon choice as they shall be thought fit for this new beginning, and perfect Reformation; and that the overplus of Rents and Revenues of Colleges for the mean space be gathered and put in a common Purse by order of the said Council of Reformation, not to be disposed of to any other uses, as other Eclesiastical [Page] Rents before mentioned, but to be reserved for better furnishing of the same Colleges and Universities, as need shall offer it self, when a number of Students shall be increased:Wants of divers Colleges. for more reason whereof, it may be considered that not only our Universities in common, will have need of great and publick reparations and expences at the beginning, in building publick Schools, founding of common Lectures, and the like; but every particular Hall also, and College the like: For that the most of them are very defective in their building, and other things necessary to their furniture, as of their Chappels, Churches. and publick Halls and places for Disputations, Repetitions, and other such exercises of learning, as are in other Countries, and are to be provided in ours. And besides this, divers of them do lack infirmaries for sick-men, Rooms of Hospitals, for Strangers, Comers and Goers, and Novices that enter of new, or are in their first probation, and divers such other buildings, reparations and accommodating of their Houses, both for common and private uses. Many of them also do want Rents sufficient for maintenance of a sufficient number of Fellows and Scholars to uphold the credit of the House, divers [Page] of them are in debt, and other difficulties, and wants, without provision of sufficient Libraries, and Books, and other furniture necessary for learning, all which particular needs of private Colleges, as also the wants before mentioned of publick Schools, Lectures, Masters, Readers, must be now holpen, with the common Purse of the Universities Lands laid together for some years at the beginning, I mean the over-plus that shall remain above the maintenance of some few fit and chosen men, to be Heads and Fellows of Houses for bringing in of this perfect Reformation.

Heads of Houses.And as for Heads and Governors of Colleges it may be thought upon, whether it were not best, that some moderation should be established for their expences, state and manner of Life in the Colleges, otherwise than now it is. For, seeing that England hath so many other places of Prelacy for men of merit to be preferred unto, as divers Archdeacons, Chancellorships, and the like; many men are of Opinion, That it were much better that the Heads of Houses in Universities, should never be given for time of Life, nor have so great allowance of men, houses, and wages, as some of them have, [Page] that use it only to pomp, and to no profit of Students, but rather that it should be, as it is in other foreign Universities, a matter of dignity and honour, than of wealth and gains; and that it should endure but for a certain time, to wit, two or three years, whereby more Men by succession of time might obtain the same, and thereby made fit to govern afterwards in other places; whereas now those that once get the Rooms, accounting themselves sure thereof, during their lives, are made more careless, and are much absent from their charges, lying commonly in the Court, and making this Headship of the College but a step of Ambition to a higher promotion. And the allowance of their expences are so great, that it outeth almost a third part of the Fellows and Scholars, which otherwise might be maintained more, if the Head's Portion were moderate, as in other places it is. And the going forward in studies would be much better attended unto. Wherefore this point in all reason is to be remedied, and no more to be allowed to the Head during his Government, than a reasonable portion for himself, and for a Man or two whilest he governeth, and that the same Government endure not ordinarily [Page] more than three years; and that he may be elected out of any College, or House of the University, without prejudice of losing his place, or commodity that he had before, if after his Headship ended he will return to the same again. And to the end he be more vigilant in his Office, the order of other Countries seemeth very good that a Month before his said Office is to end, there should ordinarily a Visitor be sent to examine how he and his Officers have behaved themselves, and in what state they leave the Colleges, and that the said Visitor should assist afterwards in the Election of a new Head; and Officers to be chosen at the same time, and that done, might the Visitation be confirmed, with such assistance, as shall be appointed thereunto, and so sentence be given for the praise or punishment of the said Head, and the rest of the Officers for their years past.

With this vigilance it may be presumed that the Government of Houses would go much better, especially if there were some one Man in or near each University that had eminent authority over all to determine causes, and to send ordinary Visitors to every College and Hall, every third year at the change of their Head-Officers, as [Page] is aforesaid, himself remaining, high, sole, and perpetual Visitor of the said University during his Life.

It were to be wished also, if it could be brought to pass, that young men in the Colleges, during time of their studies, though they be Fellows, had no Voices in setting, or letting of their Lands, buying or selling, choosing of Officers among themselves, and the like; for that most certain it is, both by reason and experience, that these things do greatly distract the wits of young-men, and especially of students, and do hinder their learning, and put them in continual broyls, disquietness, contention, and dissention, both amongst themselves, and with their Superiors. For remedy whereof, it seemeth that some two or three, at the most, within every College, of the most ancient, and fittest for the purpose, that have ended their studies, or are very near to the same, might be appointed to have a hand in the Temporalties. Therefore, together with the Head, without troubling the rest, whereunto may be joyned some wise or discreet Procurator abroad; and all these might be bound not to lett or set, buy or sell any great thing of importance, without the consent of other two or three Heads of [Page] Religious Houses, or other Colleges within the said University, who might be immediate Patrons, and Over-seers of this College, or Hall, and might be bound to come or send every quarter of the year once to view and see the accounts, how they pass; and at the end of each year to subscribe them with their hands, and at the end of three years, when the Head, and other ordinary Officers of the College were to be changed, for to avoid Elections, it would be best no doubt for every College to choose their Head, and all other principal Officers at one time together for to endure for three years, as before hath been said. These Patrons and Overseers, after the Visitation ended by him that shall be sent by the chief Visitor, be he Chancellor, or Bishop, that shall have this supreme authority, they may, I say, join with the said Visitor, to overlook his Visitation, as also assist him in the Election of the Head, and Officers that are to follow, and have their Voices also in the same, and this may be observed in every College, over which both particular Patrons and Overseers may be appointed, as hath been declared, for their better Direction and Government. And besides these, a general Visitor may be [Page] over the whole University, and be respected and obeyed by all; which no doubt would be far better, and more commodious, than one College to depend, as now they do, of one Bishop, as their Visitor, and another of another, which Bishop lying oftentimes far off, cannot have so great care or knowledge of University matters, as was needful, and consequently of less authority with the whole. For that the Bishop which is respected by one College, for that he is their Visitor, is nothing cared for by others, over whom he hath no jurisdiction at all. But by the means which I have proposed, of being general Visitor, and lying in or near the University, he shall be respected by all, and his Ordinances will be observed, for that he is present to over-look the same. And again, if two or three Heads of Houses be appointed immediate Patrons, and over-lookers of every particular College, there will be much matter of Government, and Authority to exercise all Heads, and one College will respect another, and help to hold up Discipline, and good order, one in the other, which now is not done.

CHAP. VI. How Fellowships, Scholarships, and other such places were to be proved.

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AS for choosing of Fellows and Scholars into every House, where places are vacant, and that with indifferency and good order, without partiality and bribes, as now is used, this method following may be observed, which is used also in foreign Universities: When any place is void in any College, it should not be provided and filled again before the end of the year, in which it falleth void, to wit, until the next festival day of the same College; and this to the end both that the College may help, and better it self by the saving of the Fellowship, or Scholarship for the remnant of that year, as also to the end there be time to give notice abroad in the University, or farther off also if need be, that such and such places are void, to the end that fit men may prepare themselves, to oppose for the same. And so when the time cometh, or some three or four days before [Page] the Feast, that the Head, with his principal Officers, as also that the Patrons before mentioned may joyn together, and make publick examination of the Opponents, as well for their manners, as learning; and this in such sort, as there may be no place for corruption; or partiality. And then taking first a publick Oath to do uprightly according to their Consciences, they may give their voices, and he that hath the more part clearly of all the Electors, to be accounted for lawfully chosen, and none else; which point only if it might be observed in our Engl [...]sh Universities, and the foul corruption and bribery removed, that Heresie hath brought in, in our days, that would be sufficient to animate all the youth in England to follow their studies with carefulness.

Ordinary Jurisdiction.As for the ordinary Government and jurisdiction over each University, it may be considered, at that time, what way will be best to take, and the manner of other Universities in foreign Countries, may be weighed by the Council of Reformation, and their Commissioners, as namely whether this ordinary Jurisdiction shall be only in the Chancellor, as now is used in England, and whether any Bishop may over-look them, or the like; [Page] as also whether the Offices of the Proctors and Clerks of the Market be to be committed to young Men that study, as now is accustomed, seeing that oftentimes it is occasion not only of distraction and loss of time unto them, but also of dissolution of life, and corruption of their manners, by reason of the liberty that is given them thereby of conversation with loose and dissolute people.

Election of publick Readers, and other Officers.

The Officers that are to be given by the University, as also the publick Lectors, and other such Preferments, as are not so well given in other foreign Universities in my opinion, as they might be, where they are bestowed by the popular voices of the common Students in every Faculty, who being less able to judge of the fitness of the Persons that stand for the same, and more easie to be corrupted, and drawn into factions, mutinies, and other disorders, to trouble both themselves and others about such Elections, and oftentimes also indanger their own Consciences in following passion in the choice made by others: and therefore no doubt, but the more quiet, grave, and [Page] sure way would be that these Elections should be made by the major part of the Heads of Houses only upon publick examination of the Persons that do stand for the Preferment, and oath given by themselves, to do uprightly; and when it is for any publick Lecture the Doctors and Batchelors only of that Faculty, might have their voices with them.

And for more gravity, honour, and renown of our Universities, let it be considered, whether it were not good to have more eminent and priviledged Colleges in the same for learned and grave Men only to enter, as in divers Universities of Spain is used, besides the ordinary Colleges we have for Students only, in which no Man may study longer conveniently than the ending of his course, in the Faculty he studieth: and if he should, he would rather be a burthen to the House, and trouble to the rest, which are Students, than any thing else, seeing he can have no exercise of learning convenient to his degree among them. And for that cause the order hitherto observed is good, no doubt, and ought to be observed, that Men that have ended their courses after some reasonable time given them also to repeat, and look over the same again, should [Page] depart, and give place to others. But yet to the end that such as would remain, and go forward in studies, might have commodity to do the same, it would not be amiss perhaps, that some such greater and more principal Colleges as are in other Universities should be erected also in ours, for learned Men to enter, and live therein, to wit, that none should be admited but such as have taken Degree of Doctor, Licentiate, or Batchelor of Divinity, Law, or Physick, and that in the same Colleges there should be continual exercises of learning, discipline, and order, together with settled maintenance fit for such Men; conform to the orders of such-like Colleges, as are in other Countries, whose Rules and Laws might be viewed and brought into ours; and out of these Colleges might be chosen both publick Readers, Heads of Houses, Canons, Deans, Chancellors, Archdeacons and Bishops, as also Doctors of Law for the Arches, and other such Tribunals, Physicians for the Court, and other principal Cities of England. And finally these Colleges would be as it were principal Store-houses of learned, approved, and eminent Men, for the Prince and Commonwealth to lay hands on for all chief Functions within [Page] the Realm. And albeit that by means of these principal and bigger Colleges, great perfections of learning would grow quickly within the Realm, both in the Faculties of Divinity, Law, and Physick; for every one whereof there might be appointed one, or more of these Colleges, or at the leastwise for Law and Divinity; yet moreover, and besides this, for better preparation to the same in other lesser Colleges, divers Men are of Opinion, That it would be a matter of much importance, if all the Colleges of the Universities were sorted out unto the peculiar studies of these Faculties distinctly, so as one Faculty only should be studied in one College, and not all mixed as now in divers places: as for example, That some one or two Colleges among the rest were appointed out for only Lawyers, and other two for Physicians, and all the rest for Divines; and that particular Halls and Convictories might be appointed and made subordinate unto these Colleges for Students of the same Faculties only, to the end that the exercise of learning in every Faculty might be more frequented, better maintained by living of many together, that do profess one and the self [Page] same thing, than by living straggling abroad, in different Colleges, as hitherto they have done, where they have neither company, help, or comfort in their studies, nor sufficient practice and exercise in the same, especially Lawyers and Physicians that have solitary places, in separate Colleges, and by this other means should live together, and profit more, and be better known: whereof also would ensue that all such causes of consultation, as should come from abroad to be consulted, either in the one, or in the other of these two Faculties, might be better done, and with more credit and reputation in a Community of learned Men, that live together, than by particular Men that live asunder.

As for the College or Colleges of the Physicians, that by this order should be established, they might have their Gardens also a-part for all sort of chosen Simples from all parts of the World, and some learned Men to attend only thereunto, and to shew them unto Students of that Faculty, and to read particular Lectures thereof at certain seasons, as another might also of Anatomies apart, according as before has been touched, and is used in the [Page] University of Padua, and some other such principal Schools beyond the Seas, where this Faculty of Physick doth flourish most.

And if any Man would make a doubt,How Founders Intentions for Masses may be satisfied. and ask here, how the Founders Wills and Intentions may be satisfied by these means, in such Colleges as these Faculties of Law and Physick are to be settled in with Divines, for that their meaning was to have Priests in their Colleges, and Masses to be said for their Souls, it may be answered, That in other Colleges, where all are to be Priests and Divines, so many Masses may be appointed to be said every day for these Founders, as they had appointed to be said in their own Colleges; and as the places of Lawyers and Physicians were also before in other Colleges, whence they are removed. And more than this also there may be some certain number of Priests and Chaplains established in these Colleges, now occupied by Lawyers and Physicians, to say Mass daily for the Founders; which with Dispensation of the See Apostolick, seemeth would be a reasonable and sufficient Compensation. And this is so much as for the present occurreth to my mind, to be [Page] suggested, about the reforming and perfecting of our English Universities, whereof would follow no doubt great honour and profit to our Commonwealth, if it might be done, as it should be; and if besides all this a third University might be added to the two which we have already, and be placed in the North Parts of England about Durham, New-Castle, or Richmond, as before hath been mentioned in the Chapter appertaining to the Council of Reformation, where reasons also were alledged for the same. The utility, no doubt, and honour thereof would greatly import the benefit of our Weal publick, and principally the parts near about, where it should be placed, which I leave to the wisdom of them, who shall have authority to dispose thereof at the wished day that we expect and pray for.

CHAP. VII. Of Religious Men and Women, and matters appertaining unto them.

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IN divers former Chapters there hath been mention made of Religious Orders, both Men and Women, which being the third principal part or member of the Clergy, as before hath been signified, should have in this place some peculiar Treatise also, but that there has been so much spoken thereof already upon different occasions, as little remaineth to be added here.

The principal point that seemeth needful to be remembred, is, That this part of the Clergy, I mean Religious People, is or ought to be the ornament of all the rest, and that by the height of their Vocation, they should participate in a more ample and eminent sort, of those excellent names of Lights of the World, and Salt of the Earth, which our Saviour vouchsafed to attribute to all his Portion and Clergy; but yet are they more due unto the State of Religious Persons, which [Page] bind themselves by Vow to a life of greater perfection than the rest, and consequently ought to be clearer Lights, and more excellent Salt than any other. And he that would consider of Religious Orders, as he should, seeing them intermixed among other People in a Catholick Commonwealth, he should imagine them as Veins and Arteries spread throughout Man's Body to give Blood and Spirit to the fleshy parts that lye about them. And again, as Wells, Springs, Brooks, and Rivers divided all over the Earth, to minister moisture and life to the Fields, and pasturages adjoyning unto them: and so consequently as when the Rivers of any Country, or Veins or Arteries do wax dry, or are corrupted, or give evil moisture, nourishment, or infection, all the rest must needs perish and putrifie; so when Religious People themselves be corrupted, and do infect, or scandalize others, by their evil example, or do dry up, and fade away, all the rest must needs come to desolation. This hath been tryed in no Country more for times past than in ours; and for that cause is the greater care and desire of good Men to have it well remedied at the next change; and that as on the one side it is desired, as [Page] before hath been noted, that all the approved Religious of God's Church should be admitted again into England for more honourable satisfaction of impieties committed against them in times past; so on the other side is there no less desire of good Men, that none should be admitted, but called for and chosen, and such as will promise the perfect observation of their first Institution and Rule, so as they may be true Lights, and Salt indeed.

The Edict, or Proclamation, whereof I spoke before, to be made at the very first beginning against the entrance of any Religious People, but only upon Licence and Approbation of the Council of Reformation will help greatly to this effect, if it be observed, as it ought to be, with exactness. For otherwise, all idle and wandring People, and such as best may be spared in other places will flock to us.

All Emulation and Contention,Emulation to be avoided. among Religious Orders, must be carefully avoided at that day, whereunto it seemeth that two things will greatly help, first, That no Religious be admitted but reformed, as hath been said; for that between good and perfect Men there is never Emulation, or Contention, both Parties being united in Christ, Qui fecit utraque unum, [Page] as the Apostle saith, & non est exceptor personarum, and so the nearer that each part is united to Christ in Holiness and Perfection, the nearer are they united with others also: then can there be no difference between them, according to the Rule most certain of Euclides, that such things as are united in a third, are united also between themselves, so as wheresoever there is Contention or Emulation between Religions, that profess both of them to serve Christ, the off-spring is Imperfection in one or both parts, and the more Contentious is ever the more imperfect, and this is the first point.

The second help or remedy may be, That the Council of Reformation, with Faculty of his Holiness, do take upon them the Distribution of all Ecclesiastical ☞ Livings and Lands which shall be restored, according to the present necessity, conveniency, and utility of the time present, without respect of former Possessors. Great and special care must be had of erecting Monasteries for Women, which are like to be far more in number than Men that will enter into Religion at the beginning, having been violently debarred thereof all the Reign of this Queen. And no one Impiety of our Hereticks perhaps [Page] hath been greater, or more barbarous, than the forcing of Virgins to break their holy purposes, or not permitting to execute the same, by entering into Religion. And for that the scarcity of able Men will be such at that time, and so many other things wherein to employ them, as they shall be hardly able to attend to the Government of the Nunneries for a time, which yet cannot well go forward without the Direction and oversight of some such grave, vertuous, and discreet Men. For this cause it behoveth to consider well what Orders of Religious Women are to be admitted at the first, and how they may best be governed, to the end, that such strifes may be avoided as oftentimes in Catholick Countries about these and the like affairs do fall out.

In divers Parts and Provinces of Christendom, there are some Religious Orders in these our days more reformed than others, and of these ought our Council of Reformation to call before the rest. For as the first Foundation shall be laid in England, so will the rest follow, and go suitable to that; and as the Clock is first set with us, so will the wheels walk afterwards, and the hours follow accordingly. [Page] And for that all other points of importance have been touched by me elsewhere concerning these matters, as also about the new Militant Order, that may be erected and brought in, I shall here make an end, both of this subject, and of the Second Part of this Memorial appertaining to the Clergy.

The THIRD PART of this MEMORIAL Appertaining to the LAITY.

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The Third and last that treateth of Laity, or Temporalty, hath three principal Heads or Members no less than the former, to wit, the Prince with his Council, the Nobility, and Commonalty; of every one of which we shall speak in order, as in the former Parts hath been done.

CHAP. I. Of the Laity or Temporalty in general.

BY that which I have spoken in the First Chapter and Second Part of this Memorial about Clergy-men, the difference and distinction may appear, that is betwixt these two principal branches of a Christian and Catholick [Page] Commonwealth, to wit, the Clergy and Laity, which is a distinction observed from the very beginning of Christian Religion and the Primitive Church, as may appear by the first, second, third, eight, seventy, and divers other Canons of the first general Council of Nice, where often mention is made of this distinction. And before that again Tertullian, a most learned and ancient writer, not only setteth down the same distinctly of Clergy and Laymen as received generally in his time, but sheweth also, and reprehendeth earnestly, the Emulation and Envy, that even then began by art of the Devil to be in divers of the Laity against the Clergy, using the same objections that Luther and Calvin, and other Hereticks of our time set on foot again now against the same sort of Men. ‘When we Lay-men, saith Tertullian, 'in his Book de Monogamia, become proud, and are inflamed against the Clergy, then we say we are all one, and that all Men be Priests, for that Christ made all Priests, and unto God his Father; but when we come to be exhorted and provoked to observe Priestly Discipline equally with them, then we lay down our Vomits, and confess that we are different and inferiour to them.’ By which [Page] words of Tertullian we learn not only the great antiquity of this Distinction, between Lay-men and Clergy-men, but also the antiquity of that hatred and emulation which our times have received between these two States, to the infinite hurt and prejudice of God's Catholick Church; and in like manner the antiquity of that heretical Objection, which Calvinists and Lutherans make against Clergy-men, saying, That all Men are Priests as well as they: by which is seen that as God's Church hath been ever one from the beginning, holding always this distinction of these two Members; so hath also the Devil's malice been one from that time hither, in setting divisions between the same. The Derivation and Original of these two names is known to all the World, being deducted of the Greek, wherein Clergy signifieth Inheritance, Lot, or Portion, which the holy ancient Father St. Hierome, in a certain Epistle to one Nepotian, saith, may be understood in two ways, and both of them true; to wit, for that either Clergy-men be the peculiar Inheritance, Lot, or Portion of God; or for that Almighty God is the peculiar Inheritance, Lot, or Portion of Clergy-men, above the rest of other People, [Page] which People in the Greek Language is called Laity. And we in England, from the first time that we were Christians, to explicate more the matter, and to make the distinction betwixt these two sorts of Men more full and plain, have used to call them the Temporalty, and Clergy-men the Spiritualty, and so we say in all the Acts of our Parliaments, to wit, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in this present Parliament gathered together. And the very Hereticks themselves that first envied so much against this distinction of Laity and Clergy, are now come to use the very same speech and phrase in their Parliaments, that is to say, the Spiritualty and Temporalty: for better understanding of which distinction of Spiritualty and Temporalty, for that it is, as I have said, most ancient in our Realm, it is to be considered, that as in Man there are two parts, first, and principally, the Soul, which is a Spirit, and endureth for ever, and consequently the matters belonging thereunto are Spiritual and Eternal. And, Secondly, the Body which endureth but for a time, and therefore the things appertaining thereunto are called Temporal; Even so for that the Office of the Clergy-men is principally about the Soul [Page] and Life to come; and of Lay-men, about matters appertaining to the Body, and to the life present, therefore the former are called Spiritual, and the other Temporal; whereof ensueth, that as much as the Soul exceedeth the Body, and Spirit excelleth Flesh; and as much as the Life to come passeth the Life present, and Eternity excelleth Time, so much excelleth the State and Vocation of Clergy-men, the State of Temporal men, as St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Chrysostome, and St. Ambrose, three worthy Doctors of Christ's ancient Church, in their several Treatises about Priesthood, do declare, notwithstanding that in their particular Lives a Lay-man may be better than a Clergy-man, and be preferred before him in matters of his Salvation.

The Ordaining of a new Clergy by Christ.For more Explication whereof it is to be understood, that Christ at his being upon Earth, shewing his coming to be only for gaining of Souls, would not meddle in Temporal Government, but framed unto himself a new Order of the Clergy for this purpose, choosing first Apostles, and giving them authority, to ordain others for their Successors by Imposition of Hands, by the name of Bishops, and besides these, other inferiour Orders [Page] also by the name of Priests, Deacons, and the like; and to this sort of People which he called the Light and Salt of the Earth, he committed the managing of Souls, and all authority and jurisdiction necessary for the same, as to Teach, Preach, Baptise, Administer Sacraments, to bind and loose from Sin, to correct and reprehend, to make intercession by Prayer, and finally the opening and shutting of the Gates of Heaven. Which heavenly jurisdiction over Souls, to the end he might shew how high and worthy a thing it was, and not depending any way of the Temporal Jurisdiction and Government of Emperours, Kings, and Princes, which respected Temporal ends, but much higher, and far more eminent, he did ordain it and caused to be in practice for many Years together; when all Temporal Princes of the World were Infidels and Enemies, and knew not of this. But yet on the other side, was not this Government of Secular Princes impeached, taken away or hindered by this other and different Spiritual Government of the Clergy, but rather confirmed and established by the same; so far forth as they tended to common Justice, Peace, Equity, and Vertue, which this Spiritual Government [Page] of Christ did principally procure, as means, as well to their ends, that is to the Salvation of Souls, as to the Temporal end of the Weal publick. And therefore when afterwards Princes began to be Christians, and to subject themselves also to this Spiritual Government, and Jurisdiction of Souls, and to be Sheep of these Spiritual Pastors, among the rest, they were admitted without detriment or diminution of their Temporal State and Government, so far forth as it concerned the Temporal good of the Commonwealth, which is Peace, Wealth, Justice, and the like; but yet so as they should not meddle, or challenge power in the Spiritual Jurisdiction of Souls, but be subject therein, and leave that Government to Clergy-men, and Spiritual Governors appointed by Christ, and put in authority for that purpose, long before Temporal Princes came to be converted, as hath been declared. And therefore came the distinction of Spiritual Governors, and Temporal Governors, of Clergy-men and Lay-men, of Christian Pastors, and Christian Sheep, in which number of Christian Sheep and Subjects, all Princes of the World are to be accounted in respect of their Souls, and in all points appertaining thereunto, [Page] and in respect of their Spiritual Pastors. And albeit here in this life, among Flesh and Blood, where matters of this World and Life present are more respected commonly, being present, and the object to our Senses, than Spiritual matters are of the life to come which are not seen, but believed only: though, I say, the external shew, power, and terror of Temporal Princes be much more respected, reverenced, and feared, than is the authority of Priesthood, or Jurisdiction of Spiritual Governors; yet in themselves there is no comparison, as by the reasons before alledged doth evidently appear, but that the authority of Priesthood, is much more great, high, and worthy, and more principal and ancient in the Church of Christ, for that it was before the other many Years, and is over and above the other, and that so far forth, as St. Paul in his first Epistle, and fourth Chapter to the Corinthians hath these words▪ If you have secular Judgments among you, appoint for Judges the contemptible that be in the Church of Christ, for that function, which yet I speak, saith he, to your shame; for that none of the wiser sort among you do end or take up these temporal strifes, but one Christian accuseth another, and that [Page]before secular Tribunals even of Infidel Princes.

Christ himself,Temporal authori [...]y far inferiour to Spiritual. when he was requested to judge between two Brothers, in a Temporal matter, he refused the same, as also fled when the People would have made him a Temporal King; and finally he said his Kingdom was not of this World, which was not to disallow, or contemn Judgment or Temporal authority of this World, or that he was not in truth most lawful King also of this World, being the Judge, Author, and Creator thereof; but all this was to shew the small account he made of all this Temporal power in respect of the power Spiritual over Souls, which properly he came to exercise, and to plant and settle in the Church after him; unto which all Kings and Emperors that would be saved, should subject themselves and their Sceptres, as we read that our Great Constantine before named, and first Christian Emperor of the World did, and after him the most renouned of the rest, as Valentinian, the two Theodosius's, Justinian, Charles the great, and others, in the occasions that were offered, did humble themselves unto their Pastors and Governors of Christ's Church, shewing themselves thereby to be the true Nurses and Foster-Fathers [Page] of Christ's Church; which Isaiah the Prophet had foretold should come, and succeed in Temporal Christian Kingdoms and Monarchies. And yet by this did they not lose, or diminish one jot of Temporal authority, height, or Majesty, but rather did greatly confirm and increase the same; for that Spiritual Pastors and Governors of Souls do teach, and command all due reverence, and obedience to be done in Temporal matters to Temporal Princes, and do exhibit the same also themselves, and do punish the contrary by Spiritual and everlasting punishments, as well as by the Temporal, upon such as are wicked, or rebellious therein; so as both these Governments joyned together in a Christian Commonwealth, and one not disdaining or emulating the other, but honouring rather, respecting, and assisting the same, all goeth well both for the Temporal, and everlasting felicity of all. And such as do set division betwixt these two States, are very Instruments of Sathan;The old Temporal honour of English Clergy. such as are the Hereticks, Politicks, Atheists, and other seditious People of our days. And for that in no other Country of the World, whilest ours flourished, hath there been more union, love, honour and respect born betwixt these two Orders [Page] of Spiritual and Temporal Men, than in England, as may appear even to this day, by the many Temporal Honours, Prerogatives, and Dignities given to our Clergy in the Parliament, and other Temporal affairs; and that the Emulation and breach between the same enkindled, and set on by the Devil and wicked Men, hath been a principal cause of the ruine both to Country and both Parts, that were Catholick in times past, as hath been said, and seen: for this cause I thought it not amiss to speak somewhat more largely of the matter in this place; and by this occasion having mentioned the same, in divers other places of this Memorial before, as a matter of no small importance, to be throughly remedied, and reformed at the next change, if God say Amen; which remedy will be, if the Clergy considering their high Vocation, and Estate, be not proud thereof, nor ambitious, but endeavour to conform their lives to so great worthiness of their Profession. And if Lay-men, on the other side, considering the very same, to wit, the dignity and reverence due to such as have Jurisdiction and Government over their Souls, and must open and shut the Gates of Heaven unto [Page] them, do not malign and envy their Estate, as miserable Chore, Dathan, and Abiron did, but do seek rather to profit themselves thereby, and willingly joyn with them to the procuring their own, and other Men's Salvations.

And this is so much as is needful to be spoken in this place of the Laity, or Temporalty in general; for that afterward there will be place to speak of all particularities that shall occur in the several Chapters that shall ensue.

CHAP. II. Of the Prince and his Council, and matters belonging to them.

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AS the Prince in every Commonwealth is the Head and Heart from whence all life and vigour principally cometh unto the same; so above all other things is it of importance, that he be well affected and disposed, and so much the more in England above other Countries, by how much greater and eminent his authority is, and power with the People more than in divers other places; by which means it hath come to pass that England having had more store of holy Kings in ancient times than many other Countries together, came to have Religion and Piety more abundantly settled by their means, than divers Realms about them; and on the contrary side her Kings and Princes of later years having been perverted by dissolution of Life and Heresie, they have brought her into more misery, infamy, and confusion, within the compass of few years, than all other Christian [Page] Kingdoms round about us together.

The importance of a good Prince, and the account that he must make.Wherefore the principal help and hope next under God, which our poor afflicted Country hath, or may have of her redress, is by means of her good Catholick Prince that God of his Mercy shall vouchsafe to give us, who also considering the great work whereunto he is called, shall in no wise be able better to satisfie his Obligation and Duty to God, and the Expectation ☞of all good Men, and to assure his own Possession and Estate, than to make account that the security of himself, his Crown, and Successor, dependeth principally, of the assurance, and good establishment, of the Catholick Roman Religion within his Kingdom; and whatsoever is done or permitted against this Religion, is not only against Jesus Christ our Saviour, and his Spouse his Catholick Church, but also against every Catholick Prince as his supream Minister; and much more against the King of England (as things do now stand) both for Religion and Estate.

First of all then is to be recommended, with all humility, and earnest suit unto his Majesty that shall be established, the singular care, and holy zeal of restoring [Page] perfectly the Catholick Religion in our Realm, and to employ his whole endeavour and authority therein, and to concur, and assist with his Princely favour, and special Protection, all such Men as principally shall labour therein, and above other the Council of Reformation, the Prelates, Preachers, and Clergy of his Realm, and by example of his own Royal Person, in frequenting the Holy Sacraments, and other pious Actions of Religion, and Devotion, to animate all other his Subjects and foreign Princes also, and Countries about him to whom he will in these our times be a remarkable mirrour, to imitate the same, and this for his own Person.

But concerning his Majesty's Council, both in Spiritual and Temporal affairs, it will import also exceeding much, that he make choice of fit and worthy persons. And for the first which is in matters concerning conscience, the pious custom of some Catholick Kings,A Council of Conscience. and namely those of Portugal, in times past, is greatly to be commended, who besides their Temporal Council, had also another of learned Spiritual Men, named the Table of Conscience, in taking any thing in hand, and execution of the same. And for this [Page] Council they were wont to make choice, as I have said, of some number of eminent and learned Men, and also notorious for their Piety and good Consciences, whether they were of Religious Orders or no, and the head or chief of these, commonly the King's own Confessor, who might with more security, by council and assistance of these able Men, direct the King's mind with safety of Conscience. And whatsoever Prince shall take this course, no doubt but he shall find great help, light comfort, security, and quietness of Mind thereby. And as for the World abroad, it must needs be ☞ The quite contrary has happened very lately in England. a singular great justification of all his acts, intention, and attempts, in the eyes and tongues of all Men, seeing he doth them by the direction of so irreprehensible a Consultation. His Temporal Council shall be needful to be made with great choice and deliberation, especially at the beginning in England; for that if any one person thereof should be either infected with Heresie, or justly suspected, or not fervent, nor forward in the Catholick Religion, and in the Reformation necessary to be made for good establishment of the same, it would be to the great prejudice of the cause, and of his Majesty and Realm.

[Page]And seeing Heresie and Hereticks could be so vigilant for overthrowing of true Religion, at the beginning of this Queen's Reign, as they admitted no one Man to govern, whom they might suspect to favour true-Religion, how much more zealous and jealous ought our new Catholick Prince to be in excluding from his Privy Council, and other places of chief charge and government, not only Men known or justly feared to be favourers of Heresie and Hereticks, that will never be secure to God or his Majesty, but also [...]old and doubtful professors of Catholick Religion, until they be proved by long tract of time. And seeing that his Majesty shall have so great choice at that day of approved, constant Catholicks within the Realm, as never was seen the like since our first Conversion, who have suffered so constantly at the hands of Hereticks, in these Persecutions, it is to be hoped and expected that his Majesty will serve himself first, and chiefly of these men above all others, according to their merits; and after these, of such other known Catholicks, as albeit God gave them not fortitude and constancy to suffer so much as the others did for Religion; yet were they ever [Page] secret favourers, and never Persecutors or open Enemies to the truth.

Restoring of Liberties and Priviledges.It is to be commended with like submission and instance to his Majesty, that after he shall have taken the Crown upon him, and embraced this Realm, as his loving Spouse, he will confirm first of all, the Laws, Customs, Priviledges, Dignities, and Liberties of the same, and to take away all such burdens, servitudes, and unjust oppressions, as have been any way laid upon us in former times, but since the entrance of Heresie. And as this is to be done to all the Realm, as to the Nobility, and to the Commonalty, so principally and above others it is reason that it should be performed to the Church and Clergy-men, who beyond all others have been injured in these latter times, so that, at the least, it will be just that the Church of England be restored to the same state of Priviledges, Possessions, Dignities, and Exemptions, wherein it was when King Henry the Eighth began to Reign. And for that the external face and material part of our Churches hath been so much defaced, spoiled, and broken down by King Henry the Eighth, and his Children, as all the World seeth, it will be one principal part of our new [Page] King's Piety and Religion to concur effectually to the rebuilding and restoring of the same again, by the means touched by me before, of that moderate and temperate manner of restitution, whereof I have spoken largely in the First Part of this Memorial. And it is to be hoped that his Majesty will be the first, and most fervent fartherer of the same, according to the Holy Obligation, ☜ Vow, and Offer, that he will make to Almighty God, for that Heroical enterprise, to his eternal honour, and infinite benefit, and beautifying of our Commonwealth. Which sound Foundation of Religion and Piety being once laid, it may be suggested to his Majesty, with like sollicitude, touching the execution of Justice to all Men with indifferency, which is the principal point of a true Catholick Prince's Office next after God, and Religion,Restitution of Justice. and is so much the more necessarily to be looked to now in England after so long a storm of injustice and iniquity, by how much the more all parts and joints of equity, both towards God and Man, have been wrested, and wronged therein, by Hereticks and Atheists.

[Page]And first of all are to be redressed the open wrongs which have been done to our Catholicks for their Faith and Religion, whether it were by shew or colour of Laws, or by manifest Tyranny. And secondly are to be remedied the known publick oppression of the common People by some that have been in authority, as namely incroachments upon their Lands, Tenements, or the like; as also the corrupt manner of proceeding of certain Quests, and Juries, both in matters of Life and Lands, that in later days, by the infection of Heresie, have been accustomed to apply themselves to the favour of Magistrates in authority, without regard of Right or Conscience.

Multitude of Thieves in England.One thing also in particular, for very honour of our Realm, and saving the Lives and Souls of infinite Men, is greatly wished might be recommended to his Majesty, and effectually redressed, which is the multitude of Thieves that rob and steal upon the High-ways in England, more than likely in any other Country of the World; they being also oftentimes of no base Condition, or Quality, that do it; but rather Gentlemen, or wealthy Men's Sons, moved thereunto not so [Page] much of poverty and necessity, as of light estimation of the fault, and hope of Pardon from the Prince; whereby it cometh to pass, that albeit the English Nation, as by experience is found, he not so much inclined to steal in secret as some other Nations are, and that more are put to Death in England, for punishment of that Fact, than in many other Nations together; yet is this enormity of robbing upon the High-ways much more frequent and notorious in England, than any where else in Christendom; which is a great infamy to our Government, and hurt to the Commonwealth.

For remedy, though divers means may be suggested, whereof I shall have occasion to speak in the two Chapters following; yet one principle is thought to be, if it were once known, that the Prince would hardly or never dispense or give pardon in that offence, but upon great, rare and extraordinary occasion; For albeit many obtain not this pardon, yet the very hope thereof encourageth others to attempt the Fact. And we see that in some Countries, and especially in Spain, above all other that I have seen, though the Realm be much bigger, [Page] and have many more fit places to commit such offences than ours; yet very rarely it is heard that publick robberies are committed upon the High-ways, though in private and secretly is no Country perhaps more: which principally is attributed unto the certain and constant publick Justice that is done upon them without remission that commit the Fact, if they be found, and to the great diligence used for finding them out by the particular pursuit of a certain Company and Confraternity of Men appointed for the purpose, and peculiarly dedicated to this work, named the Holy Brotherhood, which is endued with many priviledges, and sufficient authority for the same. The which thing is wished also might be brought into England, and made subordinate to the new Religious Order of Knights to be instituted both for the defence of Sea and Land, which I have spoken of in the First Part of this Memorial. And albeit the strictness of the Prince be necessary in giving Pardons, for cutting off all hopes to the Malefactors, yet were it to be wished that the rigour of our Temporal Laws, for putting Men to death, for theft of so small quantity, or value, as is accustomed [Page] in England, were much moderated, and some lesser bodily punishments invented for that purpose, as also that some means of moderation wherein the manner of quick dispatch of Men's lives, by Juries impanelled in haste, and forced to give Verdict of Life and Death upon the suddain, without allowing space, either for them to inform themselves, or for the accused to think duly upon his defence, or to help himself by any Proctor, Attorney, contrary witness, or other such aides, as both reason, and other Country Laws, and equity it self seemeth to allow; whereof I shall speak more when I shall come to speak of our Common-Laws of England, in the Fourth Chapter of this Part.

And for that it will not be enough to plant only Religion, Justice, and other such parts of a true Christian Commonwealth, but also it will be needful to uphold, maintain, and defend the same: It must appertain also unto a Catholick Prince, whom God shall bless with the Crown of England, to shew himself a continual Watch-man over the same, and with his vigilance provide for the perpetuation thereof, and first of all to assure the Succession of the Crown [Page] [...] [Page] [...] [Page] by good provision of Laws, which Hereticks, of later years, have so much confounded, and made so uncertain; This Principle does not only justifie an Exclusion-Bill, but a worse Practice, that I will not name. and in such manner must be link the state of Catholick Religion and Succession together, as the one may depend, and be the assurance of the other.

Moreover his Majesty must see due execution from time to time done of such good Laws and Ordinances, as to these and like purposes by himself and the Realm shall be at the beginning determined and set down; for which effect it seemeth, that the custom of some other wise Catholick Princes of foreign Countries is much to be commended, who do use both ordinarily, and at other times unexpected, to send Visitors, to divers parts of their Realms, as namely to Universities, and to all Courts of Law, and Justice, and other places, where any great abuse, and excess may be committed touching the Prince's Service, or other State of the Commonwealth; which Visitors, being Men of great integrity, skill, and wisdom, and furnished with sufficient Authority and Commission to fear no Man, do return back true Information of that which is well, or amiss to the Prince and his Council, [Page] who, after diligent view and deliberation, do cause the same to be published, and all Parties to be punished, or rewarded, according to their merits, which is a great Bridle to hold things in order. Furthermore, for that it is of great moment for the Prince to know and be truly informed of the quality and merit of such of his Subjects,Lists of Mens names and merits. as he is to prefer to Offices and charge in the Commonwealth, either Spiritual or Temporal; it were necessary his Majesty from time to time (as for Example, from three years to three years, or the like, according as some other godly Princes also use) should cause certain Lists and Catalogues to be given him of Men's names by divers secret ways, and by Persons of credit, discretion, and good Consciences, touching all such Subjects in every Country, Province, Universities, Cathedral Churches, Houses of Law, and particular Colleges, as for their learning, wisdom, and other good qualities were fittest to be imployed, and preferred by his Majesty; and that these Lists and Memoires should be often viewed by the Prince himself, and by his Council, and be registred in some Book by some Men of Confidence, about [Page] his Majesty, free from all suspicion of Interest or Corruption, and appointed only to attend unto this affair, and to take the Memoires that shall be sent from all places; which Memoires, Lists, and Catalogues might be renewed from time to time, as before hath been mentioned, and hereby would come to pass, that the Prince by tract of time should come to be perfectly informed of the merits and abilities of all his principal Subjects: and therefore again would ensue, that worthy Men, without seeking and labouring for it, as commonly they are more modest than others, should be sought out, and preferred; and that ambitious and unworthy, which ordinarily are the most importunate suiters, should be restrained, and put back to the comfort of all good Men, and to the inestimable benefit of the Commonwealth, and singular help of God and the Prince's Service.

And as this would be one great means to advance worthy Men, so is there another, of no less importance or piety, for the amending of such as run awry, which easily might be performed by a careful Catholick Prince to the great benefit of many, and to his own singular commodity [Page] both with God and Man. And this is that some special good Man about his Majesty, which is discreet, pious, and learned, as for example, his Confessor or the like, should be appointed to take the Relations and Informations, which do come, and would come in such a case, of principal Men's behaviour through his Realm, both Ecclesiastical and Temporal, especially of such as are in Government and Authority; and that when any evil fame or report should come of any Man's bad proceeding, or notorious negligence in his duty, or manner of life, and were confirmed by many ways (for light of credit he ought not to be, considering the natural inclination of Men to speak rather evil than good of such especially as are in authority) then should this person confer the same with his Majesty, and by his Licence, though as of himself by the way of Friendship admonish the said Party of the opinion and report that is of him, to the end he might look about him, and amend that which were amiss before the Prince should be forced to take knowledge thereof, or put his hand in the matter. And I am of opinion, That this only Art of Brotherly Correction, which is commanded straitly [Page] by God to all Men, but especially to Governors, and such as have care over others, though little used now in the World, if this one means, I say, were brought into England, among other good Orders now at the beginning, and put some times in Execution by our Catholick Prince's commandment, it would remedy more evils, and procure him more hearty good-will with the People, and merit with Almighty God, than any thing else that could be devised for this purpose. Many other such-like things might be here suggested for the happy day that we expect, when God shall please to send us this Catholick Prince: but that both these, and all other points besides that are treated in this Memorial, if any shall be judged worthy of Observation, will appertain principally unto him, as the head of all, to see them set forward, established, and preserved. I shall descend to no more particulars in this place, but remit me to that, which in other Chapters also is recorded, recommending the whole to his Majesty's Protection, and zealous furtherance, so far forth as they shall be found to tend to the greater glory of God, and advancement of the Weal publick.

[Page]And for that divers good Books, and notable Discourses are abroad also in Print about this Subject, and do lay before good Princes Eyes many excellent points for their better help, light, and direction in Government. I do remit my self also in many points, and among other, to a notable Treatise come forth this very year in the Spanish Tongue, written by a grave and learned Man, of the Society of Jesus, named Father Ribadeneira, the Title whereof is, Of the Religion and Vertues that a Christian Prince ought to have, for the well governing and preservation of his Estates: which in my Opinion is a right excellent piece of work, and worthy to be read by all good Princes, for that it will put them in mind of many rare and necessary points, fit to be remembred, embraced, and put in execution; and whatsoever Prince would read it diligently, or appoint every day, at his best leasure, but some little part thereof to be read unto him, with attention, and he would continue this Exercise with desire to please God, to discharge his Conscience, and to govern well his Commonwealth, he would hardly do amiss, in my Opinion, and should have need of little other Counsel for taking the right way in all his occasions, purposes, and affairs.

CHAP. III. Of the Nobility and Gentry of England, and matters appertaining to their Estate.

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BY the Nobility of England we do understand, according to the fashion of other Countries, not only Noblemen of Title, but Gentlemen, Esquires, Knights, and other degrees that be above Yeomen, Husbandmen, and the Commonalty. In which inferiour sort of Nobility beneath Barons, I mean of Knights, Esquires, and Gentlemen, there is not that distinction observed betwixt their degrees in foreign Countries, as is in ours; and I take ours to be far better, and the more laudable Order.

This Nobility then and Gentry being the chief Members of our Realm, are carefully to be preserved by our Catholick Prince, in their ancient honours, dignities, & priviledges; and whatsoever injury, or disestimation hath been laid upon them, these later years, by some base Heretical Persons in authority; it is to be removed, and particular inquiry made by Commissioners appointed by the Parliament for this purpose, [Page] wherein, and in what points the Nobility of England have been injured, dishonoured, or oppressed, in these later years of Heresie, to the end that supplication may be made to the Catholick Prince for remedy thereof. And as the ancient Nobility of England, in times past, came to that dignity in the Commonwealth, and to their credit and estimation both with Prince and People, first for their Piety and Zeal in Christian Religion, and secondly for their Fidelity and Valour in Service of their Prince and Country; so their Heirs and Posterity must conserve the same by the self-same means. And first of all it will behove them greatly to take it for a point of chief honour, greatness, and Nobility, at this next Conversion of our Realm, to shew their eminent zeal in furthering Religion, and the Reformation before-mentioned, in all they can, both by their authority, credit, power and zeal; and edifying also other Men by their Example of Life, as by frequenting the Holy Sacraments, in their own Persons publickly and often, and by joyning chearfully and piously, as their fore-Fathers were wont to do, with the Clergy and other good Men, to further the advancement of God's cause, in all points, and in particular by yielding, and [Page] agreeing willingly to the order that shall be taken, for the moderate restitution of Ecclesiastical Lands before mentioned. And this for Religion.

But for the other points of Chivalry, and acts of Arms, our Nobility is by all means to be incouraged to exercise themselves, and their Children therein, according to the laudable example of their Ancestors, who for the same were renowned both at home and abroad. And in particular it were to be wished, That they should shew their valour against hereticks, and Enemies of God, and his Church, of these our days, seeing they are so many, and so pernicious, as well at home among us, as also in divers Kingdoms round about us; whereas their Ancestors, to fight against Infidels, less dangerous and odious to God than these Hereticks, undertook long, costly and perillous journeys into Asia and other Countries.

And for better performance hereof, I mean of fighting against Hereticks, it may be considered, as before I have noted, whether it shall not be more convenient for the exercise of our Nobility, and for the better provision for their younger Sons, that some new kind of Religious order of Knights were appointed in England, [Page] instead of the other of St. John of Malta, whose Seat and Residence is very far from England, and the observance of the Rule, much fallen from the first perfection, and hard to be reduced or kept by younger Gentlemen that live at liberty abroad, especially touching the Vow of Chastity, as hath been before declared.

As for other private Exercises, and Customs ordinarily used by the Nobility and Gentry of England, wherein they do exceed much the custom of other Countries, as namely in the much use of Hawking, Hunting, keeping of great Houses, many Servants, much Hospitality, and the like; it is to be noted, that as in it self they are things honourable and fit for Nobility, being used with moderation that is convenient; so, for many reasons they being old customs of their Ancestors, are not to be disswaded nor left off, but rather continued for avoiding of greater inconveniences, though with such Reformation as is needful for taking away, or lessening of such excesses, as sometime creep in. As for example, that those exercises before-mentioned of Noblemen's pass-times be not hurtful, either to poor Men, their Neighbours, or to their own Devotion, and acts of Religion, [Page] whereunto they are bound, as of hearing of Mass, Sermons, and the like; and that their Housekeeping be moderated from gluttony, dissolution, and excess of drinking; and that their keeping of many Servants be limited with these Conditions; first,Nobility's Servants. That no Man keep any more than he can well maintain of himself, and that wholly, giving them sufficient whereon to live, without necessity to attempt any other unlawful shifts or means for their maintenance, as often doth happen in such Servants, as being otherwise poor, do take only Livery-Coats of their Lords and Masters, for to shift thereby, under their countenances and authority.

The second Condition is, That these Servants be kept from idleness with some honest exercise, either of labour or recreation, and that they be taught the necessary points of Catholick Religion, and Christian Doctrine, and that some good Books be provided for them in places where they wait, wherewith to entertain themselves, and be moved to vertue, and diverted from sin, and that some peculiar account be taken of their Christian demeanour, and of their going to Confession, and the like; for unto all this, and more too, is a good Catholick Lord and Master bound concerning; his Servants.

[Page]A third Condition of keeping Servants, or rather an advice to good Lords and Masters may be, that they have care to provide for their Servants according to their merit, not only for the time of their present service, but some stay of certain living afterwards, to the end that having spent their youth in their Lord's and Master's service they fall not afterwards into misery, and being forced to seek their living by unlawful and dishonest means, to dishonour both their Masters and themselves: wherein also may be considered, that if their Lords and Masters should die without providing for them at all, or recompensing their service; whether it were not convenient they should have Actions by our Law against his Heirs for some honourable satisfaction, as the Civil Law and Statutes of other Countries do allow. And thus much for Servants.

Nobility's Children.For Noblemen's and Gentlemen's Children it were greatly to be wished that such care were taken for their Education first in Piety, and then in learning, and other qualities fit for their Estate, that their Prince and Commonwealth might afterwards imploy them worthily in occasions and affairs that shall be offered, and not be forced to prefer other of far meaner [Page] birth for the defects and insufficiency of the Nobility.

And first of all, to speak in order, though it be not necessary for Heirs, and Elder Brothers, to study so much as the Younger, for that they are to live on their Lands; yet for sustaining the place wherein they are to live, some learning is necessary, but much more that they be brought up in Order and Discipline, and that they be taught to know God and themselves, seemeth may best be done either in the Seminaries and Convictories whereof I have spoken before, or in some Colleges of the Universities, when they shall be reformed and brought in order again; and some part of this also may be taught at home by private Masters, if their Parents be discreet and careful; though this be somewhat hard, and seldom taketh great effect by the overmuch indulgence of the said Parents, as also by the flattery of Servants that ordinarily are wont to instil nothing but pride and vanity into their young Masters that are brought up among them; so as the Education of Nobility and Gentry is much more effectual abroad than at home.

[Page] Wards.As for the manner of their Wardships begun in England with very good intention, though different from all other Nations, and of late years perverted by Heretical Governors, against all equity, to the Wards and Pupils, both in their Livings and Educations, and Match of Marriage, that some good remedy and moderation may be had in this matter, by dealing with the Catholick Prince which shall be as the Deputies of the Parliament shall best devise and suggest.

Younger Brothers.About the younger Sons of Noblemen and Gentlemen, it is to be considered, That the Common-Laws of England, are much less favourable and beneficial unto them. The Civil and Imperial observed in other Countries are such as do allow them equal Portions with their eldest Brethren of all the Goods, Chattels, and Lands of their Fathers, which be not intailed, as of all that also which has accrued or been augmented by means of the said intailed Lands, or otherwise; whereas the Laws commonly of England leave all to the elder Brother's disposition and pleasure, if the Father chance to dye without taking particular order in the same himself, whereby many younger Brethren of good birth are driven [Page] oftentimes to great extremities, and to undecent shifts for their maintenance, to no small inconvenience to the whole Commonwealth. Wherefore it may be thought upon, whether some moderation in this point were not convenient to be put, whereby younger Children might have some occasion to a reasonable Portion at least of their Parents Substance, whereby to maintain themselves somewhat conformable to their Birth, State, and Condition.

In foreign Catholick Countries the younger Children of Nobility and Gentry are greatly helped and advanced by the Church, wherein they are preferred before others in authority and dignity, if their merits of learning and vertue be equal; whereby it cometh to pass, that these younger Brethren, giving themselves to study, upon hope of these preferments, do come in time to be excellent Men, and of more authority and living than their Elder Brothers; which is a great stay for the Nobility, and no less for the defence of Catholick Religion by the union of these Noblemen of the Clergy, with others of their Lineage, Kindred, Acquaintance, and Friendship of the Temporalty, and consequently the [Page] custom is to be brought into England, if Noblemen's Sons would make themselves fit. Wherein there will be much less difficulty than in times past, when that sweet, and clear manner of teaching the Latin Tongue, and other Sciences shall be brought into England, which is used in other places, and that other hard, dark, and base custom of so much beating of youth be removed and taken away.

Noblemen's and Gentlemen's Daughters and Dowries.About Noblemen's and Gentlemen's Daughters, it is also to be considered, that as many of them, by all likelihood, when Catholick Religion shall be restored, will betake themselves to Religious and Monastical Life, as in other Countries we see; so shall their Parents be much eased thereby, and the better able to provide for the Marriage of their other Daughters, remaining in the World, in which point notwithstanding, seeing that the excesses of our times, in giving great Dowries, is grown to be at such a height, that it impoverisheth oftentimes the Parents; it seemeth a point worthy the consideration, whether it were not expedient that the Parliament should limit the quantity of Dowries according to the State and Condition of every Man; which no doubt would greatly ease the [Page] Nobility and Gentry of England, and be profitable for many respects. And touching the assurance of these Dowries, as also for the Jointures of Lands, the Laws of other Countries, and ours are far different, and good it were for us to take the best of them both. And first for Dowries in other Countries they are more assured unto the Wife than in ours; for that there the said Dowry never entreth into the Husband's Possession in propriety, but only is put out to Rent, and assurance given for it, of which Rent only the Husband may dispose, during his Wive's Life, but no ways spend, or diminish, or impawn the Principle; which seemeth a better order, and more sure for the Wife, than to leave all free to the Husband's Disposition, as in our Country, where oftentimes an unthrift matches with a rich Woman, spendeth all she hath without remedy or redress. The Wife also in other Countries, if she has no Children, may dispose of all her Dowry to good works, or to any other uses that she will, by her Testament in secret, and sealed, and not to be opened before she be dead. And this may she do without obligation to leave any part to her Husband, except she list: which is [Page] some motive also for her Husband to use her well while she liveth, upon hopes to be her Heir, or Executor; and if she hath Children, then may she dispose only of the fifth part to good works, whereof nothing is allowed by our Laws of England; and it seemeth a great defect, and may be considered, whether it be not to be amended.

But on the other side, touching Jointures, the Condition of Women is better in England than in other places: for that whether they bring Dowries or not, by our Laws of England, they may claim a Third of their Husband's Lands; which in other Countries is not so, where if they bring no Dowry, they can claim no Jointure at all, neither any part of their Husband's Goods, except he please of his free-will to leave them any thing: and if they bring Dowry, then shall they have their whole Dowry again at their Husband's Death, and more than this, the half of all such Goods, and Moveables, as were gained since their Marriage by reason of the said Dowry, or otherwise; which is less prejudicial to the Son and Heir, than the other of England; but yet which of them be absolutely better, may be a matter [Page] perhaps disputable. And thus much for Noblemen's and Gentlemen's Children. It shall not be amiss to pass to their Servants, whom also they ought to have in place of Children, and to comfort, defend, and cherish the, desiring to see them wealthy, and well able to live according to the ancient Love and Charity of English Land-Lords towards Vassals, Subjects, and Tenants; which Love and tender care having been greatly broken and diminished, in these later years, by the impiety, avarice, riotousness, and other disorders brought in by Heresie, is to be restored again by Catholick Religion, and Land-lords are to be taught to make such account of their Tenants, as of them by whom they live, and also by the Sweat of their Brows do suck, and draw out of the Earth Commodities, whereby Noblemen and Gentlemen are maintained at ease.

Setting the Lands at the old Rent of Assize.And for that many Landlords of these times have begun to raise their Rents, and to impeach that old and most laudable tenure of England, of old Rent of Assize, it is to be understood that no one thing among the Customs of England seemeth to divers Men that have seen also other Countries, of more importance to be [Page] kept, observed, and to be brought back again to the old use, than this manner of letting, and setting Lands for term of Life, after the rates of the old Rents; and that no one thing in times past hath been a greater ground of abundance, and felicity in our Commonwealth, both to Nobility and Commonalty, than this honourable custom of Leasing their Lands; for that it is generally profitable, both to the Landlord, and Tenant, and Commonwealth in particular; to the Landlord, for that he setting down his Houshold, and framing his Expences according to the rate of his old Rent, which is certain, may easily still be before hand, and hold himself in abundance with the extraordinary incomes that shall enter by Leases, Fines and other such casualties, and in like manner the charges of Subsidies, Tenths, Loanes, and other publick Impositions laid upon him by Parliament or other means, they are ever according to his Rents in the Queen's Book which are far less, and more easie, than if he were charged according to the Portion of rack Rents. To the Tenant also this way of taking Leases after the rate of old Rent is very commodious, for that albeit he pay sometimes a [Page] good fine at his first entrance, yet liveth he at an easie Rent afterwards, and leaveth a certain and sure provision for his Children: and commonly the Father payeth the Fine of his Son, so as the Son entreth without any burthen at the beginning. And if one Landlord take great Fines, which also were to be moderated, yet another will come of a better Conscience, who will take less, and so the Tenant liveth always in hope: and if the worst happen, he is sure to be preferred ever before others, paying as another Man doth, which is a great preferment, and very honourable also to the Landlord to have Families continue in his Lands for divers Ages; whereby they are more knit unto him in hearty good will, and true Allegiance: and being wealthy, their Riches are his at commandment, both for his own service and his Prince: which is not so, where Tenants are rackt, and changed often, and made so poor, both in love and substance, as they are neither willing nor able to do any thing at all for their Landlords when need requireth.

[Page] Old Rents commodious to the Commonwealth.To the Commonwealth this manner of tenure is wonderful beneficial, for that by this means the Lands come to be well manured, tilled, plowed, planted, fertile, and abundant. For that every Tenant holdeth the same as good as for his own Lands, and knoweth that neither he nor his Posterity shall be deprived thereof: where on the contrary side in divers Countries, for that Lands are let only from year to year, or for very few years together, and that all Rents are raised, and rackt to the uttermost; it is pitiful to see how bare and needy common Husbandmen be, and how miserably the whole Land lyeth open and naked without Hedge, Ditch, or Tree, every Man only endeavouring to draw out the heart and substance thereof for the small time he hath to use it, being well assured that if he should manure, or cherish the same, another would give more, and take it from him the year following, where they neither love the Lands nor the Landlords, but only follow their present Commodity, and both the Commonwealth, the Prince, the Landlords, and themselves, receive great damage thereby, as hath been declared.

[Page]Wherefore it may be considered, both by the Prince and Parliament, whether it were not good, that so honourable, ancient, and so profitable a custom of letting Lands after the old Rents be restored to our Country again, and that all rackt Rents be brought back to the old proportion, or somewhat near the same, with some reasonable recompence to the Landlord by way of Fine, and that from henceforward no Man may raise his yearly Rents but with a certain moderation to be limited; which thing, no doubt, would wonderfully concern the Wealth, ease, and contentment of all the Realm, for that every Realm is so much the better, and more prosperous, by how much the more indifferently, the substance thereof is divided into the hands of many according to each Man's Estate and Condition: and not as in some Countries, where one sort of Men are very rich, and the other sort extream poor, the one sort of Lords having all in their own hands, the other sort seeming to be Bond-men, and meer Servants, having only to eat that which the other sort giveth them from day to day: whereby it cometh also to pass, that little good can be done with them in matters of [Page] their Souls, by reason of their continual labour, ignorance, rudeness, and extream poverty. From which misery God hath hitherto delivered the Commonalty of England, by reason of this kind of Tenures, Leases, Bargains, and Copyholds, by which most of the common People are able to maintain themselves decently, and bring up their Children in Civility; and will be able to do the same still, and much better, if the former custom be brought back again, continued, and established. And for that I take this point to be a great and substantial foundation of the publick, and particular weal of our Country, I have been the longer in treating thereof.

And now therefore to make an end, having spoken of the Nobility and Gentry, both in their own Persons as also of their Housholds, Servants, Children, Wives, and Tenants, there seemeth little remaining to be added, except I should say, That whereas the English Nobility seemeth in other things to be the most prosperous in the World, in one thing only which concerneth them most of all, which is, the safety of their lives, they are thought to be most unfortunate, miserable, and subject to injuries [Page] of any other Estate of Men that live; for that upon any least suspicion or displeasure of the Prince, or every of their Enemies, they may be brought in danger, and made away, as we have seen that the greatest Men commonly of our Realm have been, and few eminent Men above the rest, as Dukes, have dyed in their Beds; and no marvel, for that the Kingdom being but little, and the sway of a Duke great among the People, especially when there is but one, or few of that Title, and the way to cut them off so easie as to put him upon a Quest of his Peers, whether they be Friends or Enemies, and that in one day only, he shall be tryed, and the most of that time spent, by the Princes learned Council, in amplifying and exaggerating Enemies or suspicions of Enemies against him, and no Lawyer or Attorney given or allowed to defend, or speak for him, which should be granted, if the matter concerned but ten Shillings, of Lands or Goods only. These things, I say, being so, which to Strangers seem wonderful, and almost incredible; no marvel, though our Nobility be cut off many times upon small occasions, and that their Estates by others be judged very slippery, and miserable; for remedy [Page] whereof, some are of Opinion, That for avoiding of jealousie in the Prince and Commonwealth against great and powerful Men, it were a good means to have many equal in the self same degree, as for example, many Dukes, Marquises, as there are of Earls; For that hereby every one would come to be less respected, and to be of less power with the People: for the Dignity would be divided amongst many, and consequently less eminent in one. And if any one should go about to be insolent, the other would be able to repress him; and we see that in old time it was so in England. Another means will be, that all such Dignities, Prerogatives, publick Emoluments, Offices and Preferments, as are to be in the Countries, where these great Men dwell, should depend on the Prince immediately, and not of them; and that some other Men also of Dignity, that are made and set up by the Prince, and depend only of him, as namely Bishops, should have sway with them, and Commission in all matters belonging to the publick; and when any poor Man were injured by a great, he might be heard easily, and remedied, and so taken into the Prince's peculiar Protection, as he durst complain, and [Page] not fear afterwards the others power and violence, by all which means it would come to pass, that the People would only depend on the Prince, and great Men come into less suspicion and danger, and the Commonwealth and Prince stand more assured from troubles, and commotions, and each part live more safely and contentedly.

And for that I am to speak afterwards more in particular of the Common-Laws of our Realm, and among others, of this, concerning the proceeding in matters of Death and Life, by way of Quests and Juries, as well for the Nobility, as also the Commonalty: I shall speak no more, in this place, but remit my self to that which I shall set down there.

CHAP. IV. Of the Inns of Court, and study of the Common Laws of England, and of the Laws themselves.

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FOR so much as it is a custom now in England, and hath been much increased these later years, that either all, or the most part of Noblemen's Children do repair to the Inns of Court, and Chancery, under pretence of studying the Common Laws of England (tho' some do nothing less in effect) it shall not be amiss perhaps, after the Treaty of the Nobility, to say somewhat of the Inns of Court, and manner of studies.

And first of all it seemeth necessary, that, as before I said of the Universities, some ample Commission should be given to certain wise, godly, and learned Catholick Men in the Laws, to consult what manner of Reformation were best for the said Inns of Court, and Chancery, both touching learning and Piety: which Houses, by the liberty and dissolution of Heretical times, have been [Page] brought to great disorder, and so become Schools of meer vanity, pride, and looseness.

The principal points that seem may be reformed are, first, about their order of Life, Discipline, form of Apparel, Conversation, and the like; as in other Universities and Colleges of Laws is accustomed abroad in the World, where the Nobility also do study the Laws of those Realms, without any such notable disorders, as in England are seen. And, secondly, about the manner of study in these our Common Laws, as for example, That they may have ordinary Readers, Lecturers, and set Causes for their profiting in learning, as in other Sciences is accustomed; and as hath been noted before in the Chapters belonging to our Universities, out of which may be taken and applied to this also, so much as shall seem for the purpose, seeing these Houses and Schools do make in like manner a certain University for study of this one Faculty of the Common Law; and consequently may very well participate of orders insinuated before for Universities, and the Readers be bound to dictate, and the Students to write, and to make repetition of their Lessons, [Page] and to have Exercises, Conferences, and Disputations, times limited, wherein to end their courses of Law, and to proceed, and take Degrees, in manner and form, and with the circumstances that shall be appointed and thought most convenient. All which points may be set down distinctly, as well as in other Universities, and some order may be thought on also for the reducing of the huge Mass, and Book of our Common Law, to some more clear order and method, so as it may be learned with clearness and distinction, as other Faculties are: and perhaps it will not be amiss to bind such as will make profession thereof, and take degrees therein, to study first the Latine Tongue with some perfection,Reformation of the Common Law. as also to pass the course of Philosophy, thereby to be the more able Men afterwards to judge and treat matters in their own profession.

Moreover it may be thought upon, whether it were not convenient, that some Commissioners appointed for the same purpose, should suggest and give up such points as shall seem wanting and defective in our Common Laws, to be remedied by Act of Parliament, or Decrees of grave and learned Lawyers, [Page] or be supplied by the Civil, Canon, or Imperial Laws, and among other points they may determine of Lawyer's Fees, as also of their manner of proceeding, and remedy such abuses as have crept in during the time of Heresie or otherwise; among which one principal seemeth to be the multitude of infinite Suits increased in these our days, partly by the wrangling natures, covetousness, and little Conscience of some People; and partly also by the incouragement of the Lawyers themselves, that either buy or set forward bad titles for private gain.Remedy for bringing Suits to London. For remedy whereof, and for a thousand inconveniencies, which hereof do ensue, it may be considered by the Commissioners, whether it were not good to limit the number and quality of Suits that may be brought to London, to which place every poor Man cannot follow; to wit, that the matters to be tried in London, must be of such, or such value, and importance; and that other affairs of lesser be heard first by some certain Men of the Shire, where the Controversie riseth, and be composed or decided by them, either by way of peace, or friendship, or by sentence of Law, and Justice; and that if it cannot be so [Page] ended, but that the Party, or Parties will need appeal to London, that then it be remitted with these Men's Judgment upon it, or with their sentence given first in the matter. And perhaps it would not be amiss in divers cases to bring in the custom of Spain, for depositing mily quinentos doblones, which is about three thousand Crowns value to be deposited presently by him that will appeal to the King and his Council, from the ordinary sentence of Law given against him in other Lower Courts; which Mony is to be divided, the one part to the Prince, the other part to the Judges that gave the first sentence, and the third part to his Adversary in the suit for his Charges, if the said first sentence be confirmed again by the five new Judges, which the Prince upon his appeal is to give them for the final determination of the cause. Some such Bridle, I say, were to be devised against troublesome and contentious People, that will not stand to any order or composition, which composition ought first to be sought for; and that the Parties that are to go to Law, should first be bound to have their matter heard, as I have said, by good and skilful Men [Page] of their Country, before they pass any farther. Some lower Tribunal were also to be appointed throughout the Realm in more places than in York, and in the Marches of Wales (as now it is) where Men might have Justice, without repairing immediately to London. Visitors upon Lawyers and Judges. The custom of other Countries is very laudable, where from time to time, certain Visitors, Men of great Integrity and Justice are appointed by the Prince and his Council to visit all Judges, Lawyers, Sollicitors, Councellors, Proctors, Attorneys, and other Officers belonging to Justice in all Courts throughout the Realm, and to examine how they have behaved themselves in those Charges, what riches they have gotten, and in how little time, what Bribes and Corruptions may be proved against them, and other such-like points; all which being returned by the said Visitors, and reviewed by such as the Prince and his Council shall appoint to be Overseers of the said Visitation, sentence may be given, and published for the honour of the good, and punishment of the wicked. And the punishment which is used in Spain, among other things, seemeth very [Page] good, to wit, that he that shall be found to have done evil in a higher Court or Tribunal, be for penance put back to a Lower Court again: as for example, from London to York, or the like. And contrariwise, he that hath done well in a Lower Court, be preferred to be a Judge, Councellor, or of a Degree in a higher Tribunal, and that ordinarily may be not promoted to a higher Court, without having first passed by a lower.

And as for the Common Laws of England themselves, though most Men, I believe, will be of Opinion, That being settled now, and having endured more than five hundred years in our Realm, it were troublesome and dangerous, and no way convenient to have the whole course thereof changed; (and no doubt but in divers points, especially for brevity, they may be preferred before the Civil and Imperial Laws, which give more space to Suits) yet can it not be denied, but that it was a form of Law brought in in haste, and by a Conqueror of a foreign Nation, with especial eye to keep down, afflict, and extirpate the English People. And the [Page] Normans themselves, that laid these Laws upon us, have long ago, in their own Country, forsaken them, and betaken themselves to the Government of the Civil Law, tempered with National Statutes, whereby the residue of the Countries of France are governed.

The Common Laws of England unjust in matter of Life and Death. And for England it is evident, that divers points of our Common Law, brought in by the Normans, touching Life and Death, (which is the dearest treasure that Man hath in this World) do favour much of Tyranny, and seem to be against not only all Laws of other Countries, but also against very Reason and Justice it self, and against all Law of Nature also; which Law of Nature doth permit to every Man a just and reasonable defence of Life and Innocency: Neither can any Prince, Country, or humane power take away that defence, albeit they may determine the particular manner how to make the tryal. But in England it seemeth that the defence it self is taken away, or at least the true liberty, means, and possibility thereof. For how is it possible, for example sake, that a Man standing at the Bar for his Tryal upon Life and Death, [Page] feared on the one side with terrour of that may happen unto him; and on the other side, astonished with the sight of such a Court and Company set against him, and with the many Accusations, Exaggerations, and Amplifications of the Prince's Attorneys, and other Officers that plead against him: how is it possible, I say, that such a Man, especially if he be bashful, and unlearned, in so short a time, as there is allotted him for answering for his Life, without help of a Lawyer, Proctor, or other Man, that may direct, counsel, or assist him in such an agony; how can he see all the parts or points that may be alledged for his defence, being never so Innocent?

The Equity and Piety of Imperial Laws in matter of Life and Death.The Imperial Laws confirmed by Justinian, and other Emperors, after many hundred years of proof, and received since by all Christian Nations saving ours, do allow to every Man that is accused for his Life, all lawful and reasonable means of defence, with sufficient time and deliberation for the same: and no marvel, for if it be reason to give freedom of defence for any parcel of a Man's Goods and Lands impugned [Page] by another, how much more reason is it the same should be given for the defence of a Man's Blood, wherein goeth Goods, Lands, Life, Honour, Children, Kindred, and all the rest? all which in England is shuffled up in haste, put upon the verdict, malice, ignorance, or little Conscience, or care of twelve silly Men, who presently also are forced to give verdict without time, or means, to inform themselves further, than that which they have heard there at Bar; which, oftentimes, is nothing but Confusion, Partiality, and Rhetorical amplification on the King's behalf by his Lawyers that talk for their Fees, that accuse, and no Man is suffered to defend, instruct, or speak for the accused: which is the greatest injustice that can be devised; and no doubt but infinite innocent Blood is shed by this means, and lyeth upon the heads of our Judges, Juries, and Quests, and upon all the Commonwealth besides.

Whereby for remedy of so great inconveniences, both before God and Man, for that all foreign Nations do cry out of this our manner of Judgment, it should be good at least that before the [Page] Assizes, or Arraignment be made upon Life and Death, the Prisoner's Process should be made by some Men of Conscience and learning, appointed for that purpose in every place, where the common Gaols be; and that sufficient time be allotted them to examine the matter throughly, first, what the Accusers, and Witnesses do say, and to give a Copy thereof to the Prisoner, with a Lawyer or Proctor to help him, and to see what he can truely answer to the same, and what Exceptions he hath against the Parties his Adversaries. And if his poverty be such, that he cannot pay the Fees of a Lawyer, or Attorney, to answer for him, there should be a publick Attorney appointed unto him upon the Prince his Charges, as in all other Catholick Countries is used, not only in matters of Life and Death, but also in all other suits concerning Justice, wherein all such as do give Petitions that they are poor, and cannot pay Lawyer's Fees, and do prove the same, they have presently both Lawyers and Attorneys appointed unto them, at the King's cost, and all writing, and other helps given them, free from all charges for prosecuting [Page] their Justice; which is, no doubt, a notable pious Order, and ought to be brought into our Country, with restoring true Religion. And as on the one side, Christian Charity moveth to wish that to Men accused for their lives, all lawful and reasonable liberty of defence, and Tryal should be given; so on the other side the same charity requireth that those that shall be found culpable, should without remission, or hope of pardon, be punished, for the example of others, and for avoiding the great Infamy of our Nation, whereof I spoke before in the Second Chapter of this Part, touching robbing upon High-ways. Perhaps it would not be amiss for this purpose, that some distinction of punishments should be made for that crime, from some other common theft, and of less offence and hurt to the Commonwealth: and albeit the kind of Death upon the Wheel in France and Flanders, for Murders and Thefts upon the Way, do seem over rigorous, and horrible, and no ways to be brought into our Country; yet some other less aggravation might be used with us, as it is in other Countries: as namely, that their Bodies might be left unburied in [Page] the place of Execution, for a memory and terrour unto others, as in all other Christian Nations commonly is accustomed. The use also of the Romans to whip certain Malefactors somewhat rigorously before their death, did terrifie many at that time, which otherwise would not much have esteemed hanging only: and the like effect it would work also by likelihood with us, if it were put in use. Some other punishments also should be devised for many thefts of little quantity, for saving of Man's Blood; for that the custom of hanging in England for so small a sum, and quantity, as our Laws appoint, is much reprehended in all other Nations. But above all other things, good and effectual means are to be sought to divert Men from these offences, and to make them hate and shun them; and this ought to be the greater care of a Commonwealth, than to punish only such as do offend, though this also ought not to be omitted: and what means may be used to prevent the youth of England, and avert them from this vice of stealing, I have shewed by divers occasions in some Chapters before; and surely it is great pity to see so many consumed by [Page] Gallowses in England, more perhaps than in half Christendom besides. And yet the sin not remedyed thereby for want of cutting off the root by good Education, and by fear of Justice, equally and constantly administred.

Divers other points of our Common Law might be touched, wherein perhaps some Reformation, or little Alteration might be used with the great good of our Commonwealth, though for the whole course thereof, as before I have signified, being so established as it is, I would not give Counsel to make great Mutation; but rather endeavour to perfect that which is settled, and supply the defects that may be of great inconvenience. And this is all I remember to be suggested at this time about these affairs.

CHAP. V. Of the Commons of England, and matters appertaining unto them.

[Page]

THE Commonalty being the Body and Bulk of the Realm, and those that sustain the labour of the same, they are greatly to be cherished, esteemed, and conserved, and next after the planting of true Religion, and Knowledge of God, great care is to be had of their enriching. For that as Constantius the Emperour was wont to say, The Prince's true Treasure, are the Coffers of his Subjects, and especially of the Commonalty, who, if they be poor and needy, can neither pay their Landlords, nor till or manure the ground, nor help the Prince in his necessities.

And by the Commonalty I understand, in this place, Labouring-men, Serving-men, Husbandmen, Yeomen, Artificers, Citizens, and Merchants, all which labour, and toil, to the end that [Page] others may live in rest. And in England, as before I have touched, their Condition was wont to be more prosperous and happy, than in any Country else of the World besides, and may be again, by the grace of God, with the restoring of true Religion; the loss whereof brought not only Spiritual, but also Temporal misery upon our Realm.

First then is to be enquired upon,Inquiry upon Injuries done to the Commonalty. by such Commissioners as for this purpose may be appointed, what Oppressions, Injuries, Vexations, Losses, or other injuries have been laid upon the Commonalty, or any part thereof, by the Heretical Estate of these later Years, or by bad Landlords, Noble, or Gentlemen of Puissance, to the end it may be remedied; also what Landlords principally have most raised, or racked their Rents, to the end they may be dealt withal [...] for some Moderation. The Priviledges also both of the Commonalty in general, or of any community within any Country, Province or Circuit, whether it be about Commons, Woods, Freedoms, or the like, that may have been broken, taken away, or injuriously violated, may be considered, [Page] restored, and confirmed again. And among other things necessarily to be lookt to among our Commonalty will be to reduce them again to their old simplicity, both in Apparel, Diet, Innocency of Life, and plainness of Dealing, and Conversation, from which Heresie hath distracted many. The Distinction also peculiar unto our Country of divers States of the Commonalty, as Labourers, Husbandmen, Yeomen, Farmers, and the like, is to be conserved, and Men are not lightly to be permitted to pass from these States, to the State and Condition of a Gentleman, without particular Merits to be allowed of by the Prince, or by some priviledge of learning, Chivalry, or the like; and not only by way of wealth, as of late years hath been accustomed.

Order must be taken that the Commonalty may not be vexed with suits in Law, by troublesome Men, but that certain Men in every Shire, as namely Justices of Peace, and such-like, may hear matters first, and compose and take them up, with the consent of both Parties, or otherwise favour him that hath the most right, and sheweth most modesty, and desire of Peace.

[Page]The Law used in some foreign Countries, that no Tenant may be surety for his Landlord, or if he be, that it be of no force in Law, is very good, and profitable oftentimes for both Parties.

Honest Recreation of the Commonalty. The old exercise of England for Parishes to meet together upon Holy-days at the Church-houses, Church-yards, and other such places, and there to disport themselves honestly, for avoiding idleness or worse Occupations at home, is not evil, but to be continued, avoiding only the excesses, or abuses, that may be therein, which were not commonly accustomed to be great; but the thing it self, I mean that meeting and entertainment of mirth worketh divers good effects, as by the want thereof in some other Countries has been noted; for it holdeth the People in Contentment, and maketh friendship of one Man with another, and of one Parish with another; and when they are joined together, any good Instruction, or exhortation may be made unto them, if the Curate or any Spiritual Man will take the same in hand.

Corpus Christi Feast. The custom also of going one Parish to another, upon their Week-days, with the Banner of their Saint, is commendable, [Page] and much more the Festival mirth wont to be used in Celebration of Corpus Christi Feast, which were to be restored with all solemnity of honouring that Divine Sacrament, which our Hereticks have sought so much to dishonour.

The means also of frequent Conversation, and Contraction between the People of England, by often Markets and Fairs, wherein the Commodities of one Town are imparted with another, is a thing more used in our Country than in any other in the World, and much to be commended, as also conserved, and increased, with immunities, and priviledges for the many good effects that do result thereof. The calling in of base Mony in this Queen's days, and bringing all to Silver, was an Act to gain to them that were Authors thereof, and great incommodity it is to the Commonalty, both in respect of traffick, buying and selling, and exchange, as also of helping the poor with Alms, that no Brass Mony at all hath been permitted, as in all other Countries is used, where yet there is much more store of Silver, than in ours. For without this, neither can the poor live, [Page] nor small traffick be maintained; wherefore of necessity it must be thought on, that some Brass Mony be brought in correspondent to our Farthing, Half-penny, and the like.

I have spoken also before of a certain Common Treasure, or bank to be erected in every great Town for poor Men to borrow Mony upon sureties, with very little or no interest, which would be a great help and stay for many poor People.

Divers Companies and Societies also, and Confraternities are to be erected among the common People for their exercise in Piety, and works of Charity: as for example the Confraternity, or Brotherhood of the blessed Sacrament, of the Christian Doctrin, of visiting Prisons, or the Sick. All which Brotherhoods and Societies, must have their particular Statutes, Rules, and Ordinances for their good directions in their holy purposes.

Divers Schools. Though the number of Grammar-Schools in English Towns, Cities, and Villages, be more frequent commonly, than in any other Countries; yet are they now to be increased: and no Village lightly should pass without a Master in [Page] it, to teach the Children to write and read at the least, and to cast accounts, and to know the Christian Doctrine; and when good wits are discovered, they should be sent to higher Schools, and thence to the Seminaries to go forward in learning. And particular care ought to be had, as before hath been noted, that Men be not suffered to bring up their Children idly, without some Talent of Study, Art, Science, or Occupation. And of this the Bishops ought to make inquiry of the Curate and Church-wardens, in their Visitations, and the Secular Justices in their ordinary Quarter-sessions, to the end that this fountain of evil in the Commonwealth may be avoided.

The Conclusion.And albeit many things more may be noted, especially out of the godly Customs of other Catholick Countries; yet not to enlarge any further this Memorial, which is grown much greater, than at the beginning I had purposed, I mean to stay here, leaving the Consideration, and suggesting of the rest, to them that shall know more, and live at that happy day, which we pray for, of the Conversion of our Country. And if only these few Notes, or the principal of them, which [Page] we have laid together, in this Memorial shall be put in Execution, I do not doubt, by the help of Almighty God, to whose Glory all tendeth, but that our Country, in small time, would flourish more than ever again: So as we may justly take that comfortable saying of Esaiah the Prophet to be spoke to us, which he spoke to Jerusalem after a mighty storm of Purgation past, Consolamini, consolamini, Popule mens; Dimissa est iniquitas Hierusalem, suscepit de manu Domini duplicia pro omnibus peccatis suis.

FINIS.

Subscribed by the Author's own hand this that followeth: This I had to suggest to the Honour of Almighty God, and good of our Country.

ROB. PERSONS.

Books lately Printed for Ric. Chiswell.

[Page]

THE Fifteen Notes of the Church, as laid down by Cardinal Bellarmin examined and confuted, by several London Divines. 4o. With a Table to the whole, and the Authors Names.

An Exposition of the Ten Commandments, By Dr. Simon Patrick, now Lord Bishop of Chichester.

The Lay Christians's Obligation to read the Holy Scriptures, by Dr. Stratford now Lord Bishop of Chester.

The Texts which the Papists cite out of the Bible for proof of the points of their Religion, Examined, and shew'd to be alledged without Ground. In twenty five distinct Discourses, by several London Divines, with a Table to the whole, and the Authors Names.

The Case of Allegiance in our present circumstances considered, in a Letter from a Minister in the City, to a Minister in the Country. 40.

An Examination of the Scruples of those who refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance. By a Divine of the Church of England.

A Dialogue betwixt two Friends, a Jacobite and a Williamite; occasioned by the late Revolution of Affairs, and the Oath of Allegiance.

The Case of Oaths Stated. 40.

A Letter from a French Lawyer to an English Gentleman, upon the present Revolution. 40.

The Advantages of the present Settlement, and the great danger of a Relapse.

A short View of the Unfortunate Reigns of these Kings, William the 2d. Henry the 2d. Edward the 2d. Richard the 2d. Charles the 2d. and James the 2d.

Dr. Sherlock's Summary of the Controversies between the Church of England and Church of Rome.

The Plain Man's Reply to the Catholick Missionaries.

[Page]Dr. Wake's Tracts and Discourses against Popery, in 2 Vol. [...]rto.

Some Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont. By P. Allix. DD. 40.

Geologia: Or, A Discourse concerning the Earth before the Deluge, wherein the Form and Properties ascribed to it, in a Book intituled [The Theory of the Earth] are excepted against: And it is made appear, That the dissolution of that Earth was not the Cause of the Universal Flood. Also a new Explication of that Flood is attempted. By Erasmus Warren, Rector of Wor [...]ington in Suffolk.

The Present State of Germany; or, a [...] Account of the Extent, Rise, Form, Wealth, Strength, Weaknesses, and Interests of that Empire: The Prerogatives of the Emperour, and the Privileges of the Electors, Princes, and Free Cities, adapted to the present Circumstances of that Nation. By a Person of Quality. 40.

[Page]

Information about this book

Title statement

The Jesuit's memorial for the intended reformation of England under their first popish prince published from the copy that was presented to the late King James II : with an introduction, and some animadversions by Edward Gee ...

Parsons, Robert, 1546-1610.

Edition statement

1690

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) :

Date

2005-12 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A56469

ID [STC]

Wing P569

ID [STC]

ESTC R1686

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

12368986

ID [OCLC]

ocm 12368986

ID [VID]

60501

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This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal. The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

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Early English books online.

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(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A56469)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 60501)

Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 219:7)

Source

— The Jesuit's memorial for the intended reformation of England under their first popish prince published from the copy that was presented to the late King James II : with an introduction, and some animadversions by Edward Gee ..., Parsons, Robert, 1546-1610., Gee, Edward, 1657-1730..

Extent

[4], lvi, [16], 262, [2] p.

Printed for Richard Chiswel ...,. London :: 1690.. ("Subscribed by the author's own hand" signed: Rob. Parsons.) (Title of original manuscript, "A memorial of the reformation of England ... gathered and set down by R.P. 1596." Cf. NUC pre-1956.) (Advertisement: p. [1]-[2] at end.) (Reproduction of original in British Library.) (Marginal notes.)

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