detorted those texts of scripture which are not neceffary to falvation, to the damnable uses of fedition, difturbance and deftruction of the civil government. To begin with the papifts, and to fpeak freely, I think them the lefs dangerous, at leaft in appearance to our present ftate, for not only the penal laws are in force against them, and their number is contemptible; but also their peers and commons are excluded from parliament, and confequently thofe laws in no probability of being repealed. A general and uninterrupted plot of their clergy, ever fince the reformation, I fuppofe all proteftants believe; for it is not reasonable to think but that fo many of their orders, as were outed from their fat poffeffions, would endeavour a re-entrance against those whom they account hereticks. As for the late defign, Mr. Coleman's letters, for ought I know, are the best evidence; and what they difcover, without wire-drawing their fenfe, or malicious gloffes, all men of reafon conclude credible. If there be any thing more than this required of me, I must believe it as well as I am able, in fpight of the witneffes, and out of a decent conformity to the votes of parliament; for I fuppofe the fanaticks will not allow the private spirit in this cafe. Here the infallibility is at leaft in one part of the government; and our understandings as well as our wills are reprefented. But to return to the roman catholicks, how can we be fecure from the practice of jefuited papifts in that religion? For not two or three of that order, as fome of them would impose upon us, but almoft the whole body of them are of opinion, that their infallible master has a right over Kings, not only in fpirituals but temporals. Not to name 2 Mariana, Bellarmine, Emanuel Sa, 2 Not to nam: Mariana, Bellarmine, &c. All Jefuits and controverfial writers in the Roman Catholick church.

Molina, Santare, Simancha, and at least twenty others of foreign countries; we can produce of our own nation, Campian, and Doleman or Parfons, befides many are named whom I have not read, who all of them atteft this doctrine, that the pope can depofe and give away the right of any fovereign prince, fi vel paulum deflexerit, if he shall never fo little warp : but if he once comes to be excommunicated, then the bond of obedienee is taken off from fubjects; and they may and ought to drive him like another Ne→ buchadnezzar, ex hominum Chriftianorum Dominatu, from exercifing dominion over Chriftians; and to this they are bound by virtue of divine precept, and by all the ties of confcience under no lefs penalty than damnation. If they answer me, as a learned prieft has lately written, that this doctrine of the jefuits is not de fide; and that confequently they are not obliged by it, they must pardon me, if I think they have said nothing to the purpose ; for it is a maxim in their church, where points of faith are not decided, and that doctors are of contrary opinions, they may follow which part they please ; but more fafely the most received and most authorized. And their champion Bellarmine has told the world, in his apology, that the King of England is a vassal to the pope, ratione directi Domini, and that he holds in villanage of his Roman landlord. Which is no new claim put in for England. Our chronicles are his authentic witneffes, that King John was depofed by the fame plea, and Philip Auguftus admitted te-nant. And which makes the more for Bellarmine, the French King was again ejected when our King fubmitted to the church, and the crown was received under the fordid condition of a vaffalage.

It is not fufficient for the more moderate and wellmeaning papifts, of which I doubt not there are

many,

many, to produce the evidences of their loyalty to the late king, and to declare their innocency in this plot: I will grant their behaviour in the first, to have been as loyal and as brave as they defire; and will be willing to hold them excused as to the fecond, I mean when it comes to my turn, and after my betters; for it is a madness to be fober alone, while the nation continues drunk: but that saying of their father Cref. is ftill running in my head, that they may be difpenfed with in their obedience to an heretick prince, while the neceffity of the times fhall oblige them to it: for that, as another of them tells us, is only the effect of christian prudence; but when once they fhall get power to fhake him off, an heretick is no lawful king, and confequently to rife against him is no rebellion. I should be glad, therefore, that they would follow the advice which was charitably given them by a reverend prelate of our church; namely, that they would join in a publick act of disowning and detefting thofe jefuitick principles; and subscribe to all doctrines which deny the pope's authority of depofing kings, and releasing fubjects from their oath of allegiance: to which I fhould think they might eafily be induced, if it be true that this prefent pope has condemned the doctrine of king-killing, a thefis of the jefuits maintained, amongst others, ex cathedra, as they call it, or in open confiftory.

Leaving them therefore in fo fair a way, if they please themselves, of fatisfying all reasonable men of their fincerity and good meaning to the government, I fhall make bold to confider that other extreme of our religion, I mean the fanaticks, or fchifmaticks, of the English church. Since the Bible has been tranflated into our tongue, they have used it fo, as if their business was not to be faved but to be damned

by its contents. If we confider only them, better had it been for the English nation, that it had ftill remained in the original Greek and Hebrew, or at leaft in the honeft Latin of St. Jerome, than that feveral texts in it fhould have been prevaricated to the deftruction of that government, which put it into fo ungrateful hands.

How many herefies the first translation of 3 Tindal produced in few years, let my lord Herbert's hiftory of Henry the Eighth inform you; infomuch, that for the grofs errors in it, and the great mischiefs it occafioned, a fentence paffed on the first edition of the Bible, too fhameful almoft to be repeated. After the fhort reign of Edward the Sixth, who had continued to carry on the reformation on other principles than it was begun, every one knows that not only the chief promoters of that work, but many others, whofe confciences would not dispense with popery, were forced, for fear of perfecution, to change climates: from whence returning at the beginning of queen Elizabeth's reign, many of them who had been in France, and at Geneva, brought back the rigid opinions and imperious discipline of Calvin, to graft upon our reformation, Which, though they cunningly concealed at first, as well knowing how naufeously that drug would go down in a lawful monarchy, which was prefcribed for a rebellious commonwealth, yet they always kept it in referve; and were never wanting to themselves either in court or parliament, when either they had any profpect of a numerous party of fanatick members

3 William Tindal, a zealous Lutheran, finished a translation of the New Teftament in 1527, and afterwards one of the five books of Mofes, with prefatory expofitions. They were published in , England, but fupprefled, and the fale and reading of them prohibited, anno 1546, by an act of parliament, as being erroneous, and contributing to turn people's heads.

of

of the one, or the encouragement of any favourite in the other, whofe covetoufnefs was gaping at the patrimony of the church. They who will confult the works of our venerable Hooker, or the account of his life, or more particularly the letter written to him on this fubject, by George Cranmer, may fee by what gradations they proceeded; from the diflike of cap and furplice, the very next step was admonitions to the parliament against the whole government ecclefiaftical: then came out volumes in English and Latin in defence of their tenets: and immediately practices were fet on foot to erect their difcipline without authority. Thofe not fucceeding, fatire and railing was the next: and Martin Mar-prelate, the Marvel of those times, was the firft prefbyterian fcribler, who fanctified libels and fcurrility to the use of the good old caufe. Which was done, says my author, upon this account; that their ferious treatifes having been fully answered and refuted, they might compass by railing what they had loft by reafoning; and, when their cause was funk in court and parliament, they might at least hedge in a fake amongst the rabble: for to their ignorance all things are wit which are abufive; but if church and state were made the theme, then the doctoral degree of wit was to be taken at Billingsgate: even the most faintlike of the party, though they durft not excuse this contempt and villifying of the government, yet were pleased, and grinned at it with a pious fmile; and called it a judgment of God against the hierarchy. Thus fectaries, we may fee, were born with teeth, foul-mouthed and fcurrilous from their infancy: and if spiritual pride, venom, violence, contempt of fuperiors, and flander, had been the marks of orthodox belief; the prefbytery and the reft of our fchifmaticks,

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