formation of religion; but when that great king found the pope's weakness so wrought upon, that, for the support of a secular rival interest, he was by the threats and menaces of the Emperor Charles the Fifth compelled to issue out a bull of excommunication against the king, and shortly after by another bull to absolve all his subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and from being longer subject to him, it is no wonder that he would no longer connive at the exercise of such a jurisdiction, that would contain itself within no modest bounds, and forbid his subjects any longer to pay any reverence to that tribunal. And in this he did no more than many of his predecessors, most catholic kings, Edward the First and Edward the Third, had done in the most catholic times, upon other excesses and provocations from the Roman chair; so far was the subjection to it believed then to be of the essence of religion that was called catholic: and Lewis the Twelfth of France did no less, when Julio the Second had so absurdly excommunicated him, but contemned that excommunication, and the pope that emitted it, and forbade his subjects to have any commerce with Rome, till his prudent successor Leo the Tenth, without any application from France, made up that breach. And after all this, Henry the Eighth never separated himself from the church catholic, but lived and died as

much of that religion as he was when he writ against Luther; and caused more men to be put to death, for opposing those opinions which were afterwards exploded, than suffered in the reign of his daughter Queen Mary.

We owe our Reformation (God be thanked) to a better time, and to better motives. We do not justify nor excuse the excesses of that king, which were vitia temporis, as well as vitia hominis, not a prince that reigned with him having been of less inordinate affections; and he had sure some very great virtues, at least equal to theirs, which ought to procure him a more reverend testimony than he usually receives from those of his own faith and religion. With what temper, and peace, and quiet, and therefore by what spirit it was reformed, is before truly related. We censure not those who chuse to continue as they were, who yet owe us for much of the quiet they enjoy, by another kind of temper and compliance than the popes formerly exercised towards them; nor do we commend all those who desire to be thought to have followed our example. We do not condemn those amongst us, who, enjoying the benefit and protection of the laws, ought to be subject to them, for being catholics; we do not prosecute them for believing purgatory, or transubstantiation: if they will renounce their own reason and their senses, which

we cannot do, we reproach them not, nor believe that they will be damned because they have no better understandings; and we know that many learned and pious men think as they do. That which we blame them for, and think them worthy of punishment, is, that, under pretence of religion, and being catholics, they entertain and avow opinions dangerous to the peace of the state in which they live, and which are no part of catholic religion that the religion professed by them who would be thought catholics in England, and for which they undergo any prejudice there, consists only of the pure dictates of the bishop of Rome; and for which they have no other foundation in scripture, fathers, or councils, but only his dictates. Nobody asks them what they think of the sacrament, or of prayer to saints; it is probable they held the same opinions they have now, during those eleven or twelve years in which they communicated with the church of England after queen Elizabeth came to the crown; nor did they pretend any excuse for declining it afterwards, but only the bull of pope Pius, who forbid them so to do; and who likewise absolved them from their fidelity to the queen, and from all oaths which obliged them thereunto, and deprived her majesty of the crown; and their yielding obedience to this bull was the ground of the first penalties imposed upon them

and the exercise of their religion. What council hath established or owned any such authority to reside in the pope? or what catholic kingdom doth at this time acknowledge it? and therefore we may well and truly say, that whatever part of their religion is penal to them in England, hath no other ground or foundation but the pope's dictate. If they allege some decrees or canons of the council of Trent, as obligatory to them, they allege that which no catholic subjects in any catholic kingdom dare urge, for their submitting to any canon that is not received and approved by the sovereign power of that kingdom. It is a catholic doctrine, that the most general councils do not bind, except in those countries where they are received. If they say, which amongst other foreign catholics gives them greatest reputation, and moves most compassion, as for their fellow members, that all exercise of their religion is prohibited to them, since going to mass and receiving the sacrament is not lawful for them, they know (besides the indulgence that is given them in that respect by the connivance of the magistrate) whose subjects they are; who they would have permitted to administer their sacraments, and to govern their consciences; what oaths they have taken to the pope, when they will take none to the king; that they are men who enter into his dominions expressly

[against his consent, and being his own subjects, are expressly sent by the pope to corrupt the affections of his people: and that there should be any jea lousy of those so necessary assistants of their devotions seems to them to be very unreasonable. This is then the case; these men, the king's subjects, will live in his dominions, and will acknowledge a foreign power to be superior to that of their own sovereign in his own kingdoms; a power that pretends and practises a right to depose kings, and to absolve subjects from their obedience; the king and the law requires that these men shall declare that this foreign prince hath no lawful power to do the one or the other, either to depose their natural king, or to absolve them from their allegiance, or the oaths of fidelity which they have taken, and that they do abhor and detest this damnable doctrine; and the conscience of those good catholics will not suffer them to make or subscribe this declaration are there any other catholics in Christendom, who avow to have this conscience, or who - refuse to give their prince this security for their obedience, if they are required thereunto? hath not the parliament at Paris, and the catholic university of the Sorbonne, solemnly declared and determined that there is no such power or authority in the pope, in as full terms and expressions, as any which are contained in the oaths of allegiance and