gence of those laws which are purposely made against them, who are by the lenity and charity of the church connived at from paying those penalties which might be exacted from them, who are not called in question, and prosecuted for their secret malice and combinations; and yet, in all this quiet and tranquillity, cannot forbear publicly and avowedly to traduce and reproach this church and state, and to declare that all who live and die in the communion thereof are incapable of salvation; and therefore refuse to pay that subjection and obedience to either which the laws require, and profess to have a dependence upon a foreign prince and power, and refuse to give security, or to declare that foreign power cannot apply them against the happiness and peace of that state; that men who have no other title or pretence to come into the kingdom, or to remain there, but their being sent by the authority of him who hath absolved all subjects from their obedience to the crown, and declared all the oaths by which they are obliged to it to be void; (for all those bulls are, in the judgment of that church, in as full vigour as they were the first day they were published:) I say, that these men should in all their discourses, and -in print, in this manner renounce and defy both church and state, and be only looked upon and considered as conscientious catholics, who are in

evitably bound by the principles of their religion to undergo all these hazards and dangers, and to lay down their lives for the truth, is so stupendous a presumption on the one hand, and toleration on the other, that neither Christian charity nor Christian policy requires or permits; and for which great mischief may be undergone and sustained: and no doubt this mischief is very much impro. ved, in that these men meet with no opposition, find no contradiction but upon those particulars, which equally concerns all who communicate with the church of Rome, and are vital branches of their religion. Learned men look upon it only as a contest in religion, and think whatever is of state in it should be considered and treated by other more competent doctors; they hope to withdraw the reverence of the people from the pope, by finding out arguments that he is Antichrist; and since the charity of the church of England (which cannot be abolished or lessened by any passion of theirs) hath wrought so contrary effects, they think it just to pay them in their own coin; and so they take great pains to make it believed, that the very principles of their religion, their opinion of purgatory, of transubstantiation, of images, and other particulars, are not consistent with their salvation; that the worship they pay to images, and the adoration which they practise in the Eucharist, is for

mal idolatry, against which God himself hath denounced and executed so many terrible judgments, and which excludes them from any hope of Hea

ven.

It may be, some learned men of the present age, upon the provocation they have received from their confident adversaries, who would persuade the world, that all the opinions of the present Roman church are the same, and no other than have been held from our Saviour's time, have handled and enlarged upon those particulars, with much more clearness and evidence, than hath been done before; and beaten them from some fortresses, which here. tofore they defended more obstinately; so that infallibility is either quite deserted by them, or there is a difference between themselves where it resides; and possibly more hath been said towards the evincing these last-mentioned particulars, than they will be able to answer: yet, I say, let what is urged be true or not true, it is not the method that is necessary, to reform and convert those against whom it is urged, and increases the prejudice against the church of England, and the number of its enemies, who find the war brought into their quarters, and the church of England the aggressor, as if it would drive them from all those doctrines which constitute their religion: whereas we have nothing to say against the Roman catho

lic subjects of the king's dominions, but what doth distinguish them from all other catholics, who may be innocent, and possibly in the right, when the other are criminal, and apparently in the wrong. Why should we contribute to their strength, by making the case conformable to that of all other catholics? and that ought to convince and convert those in England, which hath no force with the French or the Spaniard. I know not how it comes to pass, but a man who would in his discourse seriously mention the policy of religion, and religion of state, must be very wary in his expressions, to escape the censure of being without religion; nor can there be a more opprobrious thing to Christianity, than the customary profession of many young and loose men, that they are and will be of the king's religion, when in truth they have no other notion of religion than by going to church at the hours and times appointed; and it is not strange that such Christians are easily induced to quit that church they were going to, for another in which they may find more company: yet this distinction being well understood (as it is worthy to be) would be the best expedient to reconcile many great controversies, since, as hath been said before, there be very few Christian churches in the world, which, in the exercise of religion and the worship of God, do not govern themselves by some rules, and prac

tise many things, which have no other foundation than the constitution and prescription of the government under which they live, and in the determination whereof they acquiesce with innocence and tranquillity. If I endeavoured to convert a French catholic, who understood as much of his religion as most of them do, and would hear me with more patience and attention than any of them are naturally inclined to, and would begin with that which is the monstrous corruption in religion, and the cause of most of the rest, and hath the least foundation in religion, the power of the pope, and should make it manifest that he hath no authority derived to him in scripture, nor submission paid to him by antiquity; when his usurpation begun, and how it was improved by the foulest acts and arts that have ever been invented; and therefore how dishonourable it is for France, and insecure for himself, to be imposed upon in matters of fact by his dictates; he answers me very roundly, that France neither submits to, or considers his dictates, otherwise than as they are agreeable to their own sentiments, and he makes it evident to me by the arrests of state, and the determinations of the Sorbonne in matters of religion, and the king's supremacy, above any power or jurisdiction of his; that for himself he pays no other reverence or submission to the pope, than he is enjoined to do by the