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tament, as well as Jesuits; whose name one of their own by good hap hath found; Num. xxvi. 24: like as Erasmus found Friars in St. Paul's time, inter falsos Fratres*.

But it were better, if this man's word were as true as it is idle. Some of ours have heard to their cost, whose loss joined with the grief of the Church, and dishonour of the Gospel, we have sufficiently lamented. How many have we known stricken with these asps, which have died sleeping!

And, in truth, whosoever shall consider this open freedom of the means of seducement, must needs wonder that we have lost no more; especially, if he be acquainted with those two main helps of our adversaries, importunity and plausibility. Never any Pharisee was so eager to make a proselyte, as our late factors of Rome.

And, if they be so hot set upon this service, as to compass sea and land to win one of us, shall we be so mad as to pass both their sea and land to cast ourselves into the mouth of danger? No man setteth foot upon their coast, which may not presently sing, with the Psalmist, They come about me like bees. It fares with them, as with those, which are infected with the pestilence: who, they say, are carried with an itching desire of tainting others. When they have all done, this they have gained, that, if Satan were not more busy and vehement than they, they could gain nothing. But, in the mean time, there is nothing wherein I wish we could emulate them, but in this heat of diligence and violent ambition of winning. Pyrrhus did not more envy the valour of those old Roman soldiers, which he read in their wounts and dead faces, than we do the busy audacity of these new. The world could not stand before us, if our truth might be but as hotly followed as their falsehood. Oh, that our God, whose cause we maintain, would enkindle our hearts with the fire of holy zeal, but so much as Satan hath inflamed theirs with the fire of fury and faction! Oh, that he would shake us out of this dull ease, and quicken our slack spirits unto his own work! Arise O North, and come O South, and blow upon our garden, that the spices thereof may flow forth!

These suiters will take no denial; but are ready, as the fashion was to do with rich matches, to carry away men's souls whether they will or no.

We see the proof of their importunity at home. No bulwark of laws, no bars of justice (though made of three trees) can keep our rebanished fugitives from returning, from intermeddling. How have their actions said, in the hearing of the world, that, since heaven will not hear them, they will try what hell can do!

And, if they dare be so busy in our own homes, where they would seem somewhat awed with the danger of justice, what, think we, will they not dare to do in their own territories, where they have not free scope only, but assistance, but encouragement? Never ge neration was so forward as the Jesuitical, for captation of wills amongst their own, or of souls amongst strangers. What State is

* Serar. in Joshuam lib. i. c. 2. q. 19. Getser contra Lernæum, cap. 1 et 2. Verè ait quidam hæreticus Jesuitas in sacris literis reperiri.

not haunted with these ill spirits? yea, what house? yea, what soul? Not a Prince's Council-Table, not a Lady's Chamber can be free from their shameless insinuations. It was not for nothing, that their great patron, Philip the Second, King of Spain, called them Clericos negociadores; and that Marcus Antonius Columna, General of the Navy to Pius Quintus in the battle of Lepanto, and Viceroy of Sicily, could say to Father Don Alonso, a famous Jesuit, affecting to be of the Council of his conscience, Voi altri padri di Jhesu havete la mente al cielo, le mani al mondo, l'anima al diavolo.

SECT. 16.

YET were there the less peril of their vehemence, if it were only rude and boisterous, as in some other sects; that so, as it is in cannon-shot, it might be more easily shunned than resisted: but here, the skill of doing mischief contends with the power. Their miszealous passions hide themselves in a pleasing sweetness; and they are more beholden to policy, than strength.

What gentleman of any note can cross our seas, whose name is not landed in their books beforehand, in prevention of his person? Whom now arrived, if they find untractable through too much prejudice, they labour first to temper with the plausible conversation of some smooth Catholic of his own nation. The name of his country is warrant enough for his insinuation. Not a word yet may be spoken of religion; as if that were no part of the errand. So have we seen a hawk, cast off at a hernshaw, to look and fly a quite other way; and, after many careless and overly fetches, to tour up unto the prey intended. There is nothing, wherein this fair companion shall not apply himself to his welcome countryman. At last, when he hath possessed himself of the heart of his new acquaintance, and got himself the reputation of a sweet ingenuity and delightful sociableness, he finds opportunities to bestow some witty scoffs upon those parts of our religion, which lie most open to advantage.

And now it is time to invite him, after other rarities, to see the Monastery of our English Benedictines; or, if elsewhere, those English Colleges, which the devout beneficence of our well-meaning neighbours, with no other intention than some covetous farmers lay salt-cats in their dove-cotes, have bountifully erected. There, it is a wonder if our Traveller meet not with some one, that shall claim kindred or country of him in a more entire fashion. The Society welcomes him with more than ordinary courtesy: neither can he refuse, except he will be uncivil, to be their guest. He cannot mislike the love of his countrymen: he cannot fault their carriage.

And, now that they have mollified the stiffness of his prejudice, and with much tempering fitted him for their mould, he is a task meet for one of their best workmen; who, willingly undertaking it, hath learned to handle him so sweetly, as if he would have him think it a pleasure to be seduced. Do ye think this Doctor will be

gin first with the infallibility of their Great Master; and persuade him that a necromancer, a heretic, an atheist, cannot err in Peter's Chair? or tell him, that he may buy off his sins as familiarly, as he may buy wares in the market? or teach him, that a man may and must both make and eat his God to his breakfast? This hard meat

is for stronger maws. He knows how first to begin with the spoon; and to offer nothing to a weak stomach, but discourse of easy digestion. As, first, That a Catholic, so living and dying, by our confession, may be saved: That there is but one Church, as but one Christ; and that, out of this ark, there is no way but drowning: That this one Church is more likely to be found in all the world, than in a corner; in all ages, than in the last century of years; in unity, than in division. And now comes in the glorious brag of the Roman Universality, their inviolate antiquity, their recorded successions, their harmonious unity, their confessed magnificence: That theirs is the mother, Church; as to the rest of Christendom, so especially to the English: how well a monarchy, the best form of government, beseems the Church: how unlikely it is, that Christ would leave his Spouse in the confusion of many heads, or of none: and, how that we are but a rag torn from their coat: and, where was our religion before Luther lay with Bora? and, what miserable subdivisions are there in our Protestancy! and, what a gleaning are we to the harvest of Christendom; with infinite suggestions of this nature; able, as they are plausibly urged, to shake an ungrounded judgment: which if they have so far prevailed, as that the hearer will abide himself hood-winked with this vail of the Church, how easily shall time lead him into those hatefuller absurdities!

SECT. 17.

IN all which proceeding, these impostors have a Double Advantage.

First, that they deliver the opinion of their Church with such mitigation and favour, as those, that care to please, not to inform : forming the voice of the Church to the liking of the hearer, not the judgment of the hearer to the voice of the Church.

Wherein it is not hard to observe, that Popery spoken and written are two things.

In discourse, nothing is more ordinary, than to disclaim some of their received positions, and to blanch others. It is the malice of an adversary, that mis-reports them. They do not hold, that images should be adored; that the wood of the cross should be worshipped, with the very same devotion, that is due to Christ himself; that the Church is the judge of God's writings; that Paul the Fifth cannot err; that a man may merit of his Maker, much less supererogate; that a mouse can run away with that, which either is or was God Almighty; that it is lawful to kill a heretical king; and all other those monsters of opinion, which their most classic authors have

both hatched and shamelessly thrust into the light of the world. They defy those ridiculous legends, which we father upon their Church and how much do they scorn S. Francis's bird, or his wolf, or his wounds, or his apostles of Assize! Pope Joan was but a fancy. Never Pope was a heretic.

If now we cry out of impudence, and call their allowed writers to witness; lo, even they also are forged by us, and are taught to play booty on our side.

Thus resolved to outface all evidence, they make fair weather of their foulest opinions; and inveigh against nothing, so much as the spitefulness of our slanders.

It is not possible, that any wise stranger should be in love with the face of their Church, if he might see her in her own likeness; and, therefore, they have cunningly masked one part of it, and painted another: so as those features of hers, which are ugly and offensive, shall not appear to any but her own eyes. And, because books are dangerous blabs, and will be telling the generations to come, how strangely that face is altered with age and art, therefore their tongues are clipped also, and made to speak none but her own words.

Out of this licence, and hope to win, they can fit their dishes to every palate; and are so saucy, as to make the Church belie itself. Hence it was, that a Spanish Father could teach *, That it is not of the necessity of faith, to believe that the present Pope is the Vicar of Christ, and the successor of Peter: that Hostius, the Jesuit, could say, That the Pope abused his keys, and the authority of the Church, in receiving Henry the Fourth: that another of his fellows, in a discourse with a French Bishop, could disparage the decision of his Holiness in comparison of a General Council: that Menas, the Reader of Divinity at Valladolid, following Salas the Jesuit, could affirm the lawfulness of the marriage of religious persons, upon a doubtful revelation: that more than one of that Order have dared to broach Confession by letters, against the Bull of Clement the Eighth.

And, if these men be not sparing of their contradictions to that Vice-God of theirs, whose vassals they are by peculiar profession, how much more boldly will they swim against the stream of any common opinion, that may concern the body of that head!

SECT. 18..

THEIR Second Advantage is, that they regard not with what untruths they make good their own assertions. It is all one, with what mortar or rubbish they build up a side.

Exemplar. Epist. Scriptæ ad Dominum Paulinum, quondam datarium sub Clementis viii, beate memoriæ Pontificatu.

From hence flow the confident reports, both of their miracles to convince us, and their slanders to disgrace us.

Father Hayndius, a Jesuit of thirty-three years' standing, amongst fifty-two complaints, which, out of an honest remorse, he put up against his own Society, to their General Aquaviva, finds this not the least, that his fellows shamed not to seek the honour of their Order by cogging of miracles. What packets fly about daily of their Indian wonders! Even Cardinal Bellarmin can abide to come in as an avoucher of these cozenages; who dares aver, that his fellow Xavier had not only healed the deaf, dumb, and blind, but raised the dead: while his brother Acosta *, after many years spent in those parts, can pull him by the sleeve, and tell him in his ear, so loud that all the world may hear him, Prodigia nulla producimus, neque verò est opus. Of the same stamp are the daily-renewed miracles, revelations, visions, wherewith any man's ears must needs be beaten amongst them. Africk was, at the best, but barren of novelties, in comparison of Rome; and yet the world is incredulous, if it will not suffer itself to be gulled with these holy frauds.

And no fewer are those lewd calumniations, the stuff of all their invectives, whereby they labour to make us loathsome to the world: our persons, our doctrines are loaded with reproaches; neither matters it how just they are, but how spiteful. What other measure can be expected of us, when their best friends have thus, upon some private dislikes, smarted from them? Their own holy Fathers, Clement the Eighth, and Sixtus Quintus, and with them (the honour of the Jesuitical Order) Cardinal Tollet, can all shew bloody wales in their backs, from their lashes. Their late patron of famous memory, whose heart they well merited, and keep it (as their dear relique) enshrined in their La Flesche, was, after his death, in their pulpits proclaimed Tyrant and worse t: no marvel, then, if after the virulent declamations of our Gifford (their Gabriel), and the malicious suggestions of others of that viperous brood, we have much ado to persuade our neighbours, that we have any Churches, Baptism, Liturgy, Religion.

appeal then to all eyes and ears, how easy it is for a man, that will take leave to himself of making what truths he lists, and defending them by what untruths he pleaseth, to lead a credulous heart whither he pleaseth.

SECT. 19.

BUT if the power of falsified reason prevail not, these desperate factors of Rome, as I have been informed, have learned, out of their acquaintance in the Court of the Prince of Darkness, to employ

* Lib. iv. de Salut. Ind. c. 12. &c.

Exemplar Epist. sup. cit.

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