13 clergymen sitting around a table C. di Fionnza. ●3m●zifio di Barbarini. Antonio di Barbarini. Tutto ●ta mal; THE PASSIONATE Remonstrance Made by his Holiness in the Conclave at ROME: Upon the late proceed, and great Covenant of Scotland, etc. With a reply of Cardinal De Barbarini in the name of the Roman Clergy. Together with a Letter of Intelligence from the Apostolic Nuntio (now residing in London) to Pope Vrban the 8. Ridentem dicere verum nil vetat. Printed at Edingborough. 1641. To the Author his wellbeloved Friend. SPrings nigh their Source into a brook extended Prove Rivers great before their course be ended. Flowers which their beauty in the bud have shown Are found much fairer when they're fully blown The Lion's paw, a Lion's whelp descries; The great Alcides in his Cradle tries The Combat; And confounding his Assailour, Gives a Heroic Presage of his Valour. Thy Spring, Bud, Paw; This Cradle-Master-peece, Say, thy Ripe Age, shall yield a Golden fleece. Sub Foed. Sp. In gratiam Auctoris. NVlla Cupressus adest, dempta hic de Culmine Pindi est Laurus in Auctoris danda Corona Comam. Non opus est Elegis in funere Praesulis, ipsa Melpomene querulum nil tacitura sonat: Gratior huic Musae mage dia Urania, & illi Basia Castalio mista liquore dedit: Hinc, Velut Alcides Clavo, plura horrida monstra, Hic Vates calamo nobiliore necat. Ma●e fo●● decus Arcto●, nam funere ab isto Vita perenna tibi, fama perennis erit. DURAEUS: De Aureo Libello. MEllea quàm sit res oratio, quámque rotundo Agmine decurrat, blando glomerata susurro; Quàm veneranda novo nunc verrat syrmate terram, Nunc sublimè volans caput inter nubila condat, Aspectus fugiens terrena mole gravatos; Quàm rapido torrente fluat, quàm Suada venusta, Quam modulis numerosa suis facundia praeceps Abripiat celeri mentes super astra volatu, Audieram dudum: priùs at non cognita Pythûs Eximia & virtus & blandimenta fuêre, Ante oculos donec dederat Scintillula flammam, Claramque ingentemque simul; quae & purior illâ Quàm praebere solet Phoebus de vertice coeli. Quae simul emicuit, concusso vertice coelum Intremuisse putes, talesque dedisse sonores, Quales Pythagorae finxere orâcla renati; Angelica aut credas fudisse choreumata cantum, Cantum, quale melos mulsit terramque polumque Cùm cecinere Dei pueri praeconia, laudes Et cecinere hominis de aeterno patre perennis, Sponte suâ in terras qui coelo lapsus ab alto, posset miserans coeli reparare ruinas, Et nos mortales superas attollere ad arces. At nonnulla meam subit admiratio mentem, Qui potis Angelicas infernus reddere voces? Ni lateant furtim dulci sub melle venena: Sed latet, & gelidum sorbent cum melle venenum Aurea qui Scorti Babylonis pocula sugunt. V. A. De Vate, Authore Libelli. OMnia Samariae regi narravit Elisha, Quae Syrus occultâ gesserat in camerâ: Scotorum regi hic vates arcana revelat, Papanae celat quae penetrate domus, Elisham Syrii, vatem hunc papana requirant Agmina, sed pariles par quoque poena premet: Papanis pariter Syriisque scotomate caesis Lucida pro tenebris spicula solis erunt. V. A. In gratiam charissimi sui amici. PRaesulis Invisi jam infamis fama superbit Authoris Genio splendidiore coli. Strata jace● prorsus tam insurgens gloria, nulla Gente Caledoniâ nom●nis umbra foret; Si non hic vates celebrasset funera, Papam Illius Ambrosio dum facit ore loqui. Foecundo ingenio certat facundia linguae, Nobile materiam sic superavit opus. Materies Praesul te indigna est: praestat amatae Vraniae Roseis basia ferre genis; Aonidum immortale decus, tibi serta parantur Laurea, temporibus non peritura tuis. Inferiae tantae mittent per saecula famam Dum super aethereo volvitur axe Polus. Jo. Morus. On the same. THy dear Urania fits thy soaring Quill To nothing that's below the Arctic Wain: How comes it then that with such pretty skill Thou dost decipher Rome's infernal Train? 'tis that she may from Thee make spring a Rod To whip the Prelates, and their Mitred God. She'll spare some time (to thy Immortal praise,) To Ironize upon their damned Plot For thy Refreshment, that with purer Lays Thou mayst her sound from thy melodious throat: How can thy Muse, but choose to be divine, When sweet Urania's lips in-Nectar thine? Io. More. To his ever most esteemed friend, the Author. THis Pope here limned is said to flourish fair In his Nurse Idiom and the Latin Tongue: But here's the wonder, that a Spirit so young Should blow him North to breathe our Native Air, And personate his speech, as here is shown, That he and his Impostors must admire His Raptures and embellished grief to hear Poured forth in sweeter accents, nor his own. It He and all his consistorial Train Had in a Lymbic all their Brains distilled, It would outreach their skill, thus to have filled Those sugared Pages with so rare a Strain Of flowered speeches, so this Generous Spark, Hath made a light to shine throughout the dark. Da. primrose. J. C. To his all-beloved and hopeful friend the Author of this Book. THou hills so sweetly, with thy darest words, With powerful lightnings, & two-edged swords Which thou elances from thy thundering pen That those who challenge over souls of men A tyranny, must humbled all forbear To reach thy Garlands, or attain thy Sphere: All other relishes like aloes be Compared with those sweet flowers which here we see, Thine highbred Quill, which breathes so gentle fire, Drink with Elixir of Castalian Ire, Proclaims the honour of the Grace's love; But most thy sweet Urania, like a Dove Fraught with her purer raptures, doth take pleasure To nurse thee with the influence of her treasure, Yet here is but a flash; What can be said, When this Aurore her full beams hath displayed? T. C. The Author to Zoilus. BUt spare to martyr Ingenuity, Bold sons of Censure; Blest be Authority, I kiss the Sceptres shade, and stand in awe Rashly to dally with the Lion's Paw. 'Tis those base Tapers, whose Incendiary breathe Stifles the purer Light, poisons to death The nursing Raves of sacred Majesty, And kills our love sick souls with Jealousy, Which I blow at; Let Sovereignty appear The full delight of every Eye, and ear: 'Tis those usurping spots, which do profane The Moons sweet face, The Persians adored the Sun her comely beauty stain, I wish were wiped away, and every Ray Of Royal power, kissed by Persian Ey. THE PASSIONATE REmonstrance of the Pope in his Conclave at Rome, Upon the disastrous disappointments given to the Roman cause, by the late proceed and great Covenant of SCOTLAND. YOU that are the Light of the world, the Beauty of Truth & Zeal (Most holy Assembly, to which the title of Candour doth properly belong) You fathers of Integrity, sons and heirs, aswell of my Institutions, as Designs, whom my Holy Benediction hath erected to be the Ornament of the Church, throned in all Catholical graces; If natural compunction touch you truly, you have found how your most dear Primitive Mother's heart, hath received a late Wound from the Adversaries, and how a number of Impostors are risen up, preaching a new Sedition, and drawing her very Life-blood, her blood of Honour from her sweet tender Sides; The fearfullest Blow our Cause ever felt, the loudest Tempest that ever Heretical Schism could rouse, doth now rage's most furiously, and threatens to pull up our Sacred Throne by the very roots; It hath made S. Peter's tremble, Shook the very Altars and Statues, and affrighted the ashes of sleeping Popes: We have certainly gotten a Master-check, never felt extremity like this; Amazement covers us, our infallible staff doth fail us, and for very fear our Mysterious Mitre is turned Paralytic; Thick darkness dwells upon this Hour: Integrity, like one of Heavens bright Luminaries, by Errors dull Element interpose, suffers a black Eclipse; the Locusts of Hell are let lose, and if they be not swept away, we may resolve to make Bonfires of all the Books of the Vatican, and let all the Religious turn Knights errand; It is to be feared (my Disciples) lest this new-fangled Heresy, pervert Nations, and Realms, to an open Revolt from our spiritual Sceptre, and these Innovators, spread over the world, cover the Earth's face, and make dark the land like Egyptian Grasshoppers. The affront which our Holiness receives, doth the more afflict Us, because it comes from that Kingdom of Scotland, the most infortunate and inconsiderable Angle in the World, a people not worthy to be beloved nor sought after: Yet our conscience bears Us witness, how affectionately we have offered unto them our Apostolical Embracements, but they hated to be reform. And to the end that rebellious Nation, might be brought under, You know, how I have most laboriously bestirred the strength of Machiavelli, and diligently solicit Jgnatius subtleties, who, like a glittering serpent with his resplendent Poisons, can most divinely creep into the very Souls of the most impregnable Commonwealths and teach them how to derive Life and Motion from Us; What great proofs we have had of their dexterities in such Convoys, the whole Christian World can this day bear record; how nimbly likewise those Emissaries, (fraughted with the same Excellencies) went about the great work called The possession of the World, to make it Ours, you have learned by the informations of our Secretaries, and addresses of our Nunncio's, and may likewise judge by the Records of the Articles and assurances which they duly dispatch from these parts. The continual Current of that Primates Intelligence, who for his active zeal deserveth well to be called, The Genius of the distressed Church in England, did sweetly refresh our longing souls with glad tidings, and conceived fair Hopes in our Hearts. We have justly ripened him with the beams of our favour, and we must all confess, that howsoever We laid our Commands both thick and fast upon him, his allegiance notwithstanding was ever devoted to Us in a boundless obedience, the humblest, yet mightiest of all filial duties; full well he knew the language of my Intent, & moved by my Sanctimonious breath, He hath propined most abundantly to that Nation (and I hope effectually too) (for the business of the Universal Monarchy went well on, I saw it in an Egyptian Glass) the most Pure Waters which run from the threshold of S. Peter's Sanctuary: Which makes this good Ghostly Father, amongst those yet unhallowed Heretics, to be branded as great & Prime Incendiary of all Christendom, who with the French Cardinal, tosseth Kingdoms like Tenisbals: We heard he can negotiate most handsomely, & factiously, with pleasant subtlety, and bewitching Courtship, abuse the Infatuate State with delight; He muzles the barking Tongue-men of the Time; & as cunningly as ever the Florentine Monster could poison the fairest Commonwealth of Europe with his Politics, so hath he most Episcopally exalted our Church Hierarchy, & established a Spiritual Government there, & now happily, advanced the opinion of our Glory, to that Eminency, that the two Tutelar Angels of Cambridge & Oxford, stick not almost to maintain the Mitre, of equal dignity with the Sceptre; Nay, so good proficients were they in his Apostolical Canons, Two brethren; the one whereof maintained the Pope's honour above the Emperor: the ●ther sustained the Emperor's dignity above the Popes: whereupon they fought, and the one killing the other, their quarrel was spread throughout all Italy. that as boldly durst they kick against the one, as spurn at the other: Thus were we hopeful to see the old quarrel of the Gwelfes, and Gibellines, inflame the swords of Potentates, & die the Copes of English Cardinals, with the blood of Heretics. For the course which he ran, seemed to be infallible, as the prophecies of the old Testament, as Fate, & tollerat by Heaven's connivance: And thus like a cunning Catholic, burning with zeal of the great Cause, and desirous to bring that fatal, and Neighbouring Nation under our banner, and within the bosom of the Church Catholic, he fastened upon the most promising and apparent means, which our Conclave could teach him, & put the same to as assured execution, as if Ignatius spirit, had made Pythagorical Transmigration to his venerable brains For the truly aequivocal Father of that Church, with his Fellow-labourers, the Scottish Prelates, caused compile a Service book, (to the great service of our Church) wherein were most divinely couched, the true Orthodox Tenets, of the Ancient, Apostolic, and Catholic faith; but ever opposed by the Enemies of the Truth in that Land; And in this Web of their composure, they had so ingeniously interlaced, (for though the Generals were given out from Us, yet we committed the particulars to their own discretion, respectiuè in Times and States,) the sweet Embellishments of our Art, and the Majesty and Decency of our Missal, that none could well discover at the first glance, the girns of our Holy Treason, by which we would have surprised the Heretic Souls, nor the Mystery of the Work, unless they had the benefit of Gregory the Great, and Bedaes' Spectacles, or Calvines Perspective, by which he saw the Antichrist say Mass within the walls of Rome. S'il est uray peut bien est r● And those Reverend Presbyters of these Northern Churches, who sought not themselves, nor the glory of this present world, that they might elude the People always jealous of Novations, and dally with Princes, they advocate Authority, and caused animat the Book with the strong Influence of a Secular power. This drift walked a pace uncensured, never questioned but in thought, with a whifle, or whisper, & what ever disappointment it hath met with since, what ever misfortune hath stopped the current, & very spring of these Advancements, and overflowings; it ought not to be imputed to that never-enough-deserving Prelate who is of the true Champ, and perfectly sincere: But these other of Scotland, who were but his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and Neophytes, have given a little weak evidence of their good breeding in their profession. For the Politic institutor had shown them the true & Catholic paths, and mounted them on the Chariots of Dignity, and Power; But once elevate to a sphere too high, and not able to sustain such happiness, Powder was not more ambitious when the match met it, than their minds to mount: which emboldened them to press our holy will, a little immaturely; Their preposterous zeal, blown up with supererogation of obedience, did anticipate the maturity of our Designs, with an unlucky discovery, to the eternal disaster of those Politicians, and back-sliding of the great Cause; Had they gone more softly, they had come more swiftly to Rome; but (good souls) presuming on the fair Path of their meaning, went a little rashly on, and brought within the wilderness of an Heretical, though National Law, by some lines or words dropped unadvisedly out, did innocently hurt the good Cause, & gave the Adversary advantage by it; Had they with an insinuating distance, played a while with the Ear, and groped the People's minds, and found to what point their blood most inclined, & by strong Episcopal reasons violented their souls; had they prepared them with Purgatives, before they adhibited the Book of Missal, too strong for the Puritanical complexion of the Scots, this day we might have gone in Procession, and sung Te Deum, whereas we now shrink under an abortive wound, and are met to celebrate the Funerals of the most important Members of our Church, and most considerable soldiers of that Northern Conquest. The sooner they dispersed their Novations, and the more imperiously they urged obedience, the sooner they hastened to the displaying of all, and loosed the fair advantages of Times and Plots. If they had not tempted the Eye of Jealousy too much, they should quickly have gained, no question, the Laics, Sons and Daughters, of their meritorious Seducements. But when before the fullness of Time, the Book pointed out his unknown head, O how it was most profanely persecute, and how the sharp Invectives, like points of spears have rend & discovered his bowels! It was abhorred as a leprous brood, & every Parrot in the Land was taught to rail reproaches, the very Children to preach against it, and every mouth could most profusely vomit forth his blasphemies. The uncatholical multitude, like the spectacled inquisitors of Venice, durst pick out syllables of Heresy, against the Canonical liberties of our Church Discipline; The Laical Judgements durst canvas the Mysteries of our Conclave, & question our Infallibility: But if our Holiness had doubted their skill in cheating of souls; If we had not thought they had been more Spaniolized Gamesters, We should have taught them the Times and secrets of State, and wrought out our Holy purposes more softly, & at length found means to make them swallow it over as greedily, & with as implicit obedience, as ever the Turks did their Alcoran: but we thought, it was no matter of difficulty to reconcile that silly Lunatic Church with ours, especially since they began to have a Communion of words with Us, & used familiarly that Idiom, which once heard of before amongst them, would have made a whole Churchfal a swound, so much did we confide the continual assurances of our Attourneyes amongst them as the Cabinet of my Intelligences can well instruct: And therefore our diseased Prelates would have done well, sometimes to have thrown into the people's Ears, out of Pulpits, the authority of Counsels, and guilded over the Rudeness of their Pillules with the Homilies of Fathers; yet faithful souls, we know their Intentions were merely and purely Catholical; but the affectionate passion to approve themselves obsequious to our Holy desires, made them prove too Herculean, that offered to strangle Serpents in their Craddles; for sooner could the signory of Geneva, embrace the Missal, and the abject Valdenses assent to our Supremacy, than that cursed Crew, could be moved to welcome that book of Reformation, which we out of our Holy & Fatherly care, as supreme Head of the Church on Earth, conceived to be the Sovereign way to convey the beams of our purity, through the darkness of those Islands: but they had all drunk in such a Mortal dislike against it, as no authority was able to restrain the strong inward thoughts of the disloyal subjects, & the hot murmur, from coming to outward Resistances, which all the Ecclesiastical Canons could not beat down, nor Secular power overcome; Thus being a People without wisdom, given over to the spirit of Delusion, and Heresy, which wrought most powerfully in them, & laying aside all subjection of their Execrable wills and judgements, infected with that Leprosy which they sucked from the Arch-enemies of the Truth, with an Resolution, they combine against their own Anointed, & those likeways whom by the Oil of Punity we have consecrate to be the Bishops of their Souls; And not knowing the principles of Implicit Obedience, they begin to sift those undoubted Verities, which are as old as the Sun and Stars, and do arraign our Catholic Apostolic Truths, before their Tribunal, where our Venerable Clergy (being the Character of our own Image) in whose hands we have absolutely put the Reigns of Ecclesiastical and Secular Government, must stand to their determination, and wait upon the discretion of an usurped and Heretical Censure. O high Impiety! The last of all Nations, (whose Revenues could hardly afford Us Oil to our Salads,) Is it to them we own account of our Infallible ways? Shall not they take of our Hands, which Multitudes, Nations, People and Tongues, more regarded by Heavens than they, have kindly accepted? Shall they refuse to drink of that Cup wherewith we have inebriat the powers of the World? No, Counsellors & Rulers of the Earth, though hitherto we have sailed with a very prosperous wind, & were hopeful to arrive at the Port of our Desires, yet now certainly our Designs seem to be scattered by a Thing which they call, a COVENANT, Hinc dolor lachrymae. even as the fired Ship put in, severed the Fleet in the 88 For when this black Heresy had displayed the Ensigns of that Covenant, then whole Squadrons, Legions, and Numbers of Heretics, like Frogs, were so espoused in their Souls to the devotion thereof, that sooner might you blow away the light from the Sun, than pull them from their Covenant, or work up their festered Judgements to right reason. This accursed Covenant, the King of all Monsters in Religion (which is able to make all other Monsters to be unadmired, and draw all number to this only) out of whose womb, like the Trojane Horse, are like to come a furious Crew of Undaunted Heretics to brash the walls of Rome) gives name to a Sect, which no Nation ever heard of, and if we were to translate, we could not find a word to express the same in any Language, The strength of our confidence and life of our hopes, all those rank insinuations and alluring snares wherewith we had enlived, and informed that Book of Service, like a Serpent hath got his Head bruised with a bolt shot from that Covenant, Nature seems to debar us of all means of help, and if the sublimated Inventions of our policies, could serve to restore, yet fortune likeways seems to thunder all, and threatens to shiver our Machinations; for out of the Gates of Hell do all the Infernal powers rush like a River, whose current cannot be stopped, & who can stay their course? Indeed as the God of Truth in all the Exigencies of the Church, doth stir up the spirit of truth, to vindicat his purity from the aspersions of the wicked, who love Darkness better than Truth, so have we found a most gracious and true witness amongst themselves; for their own Countryman (in whom all courtly and Catholical graces do reign and throng most eminently) hath with a very good success, un brave homme tout a faict, & miroir qui ne flat point. drawn his victorious and triumphing Pen against them and their Covenant, We had sufficient hopes that his Magnific MANIFESTO should have kerbed the Insolences of these fanatic Covenanters, laid open their shame to the World, or restored their diseased Judgements; But he hath fallen so many Bows short of his Reforming Intentions, that like Oil thrown into the flame it hath begotten whole Generations of Covenanters, who will impeach the advancement of our Kingdom, more than ever Mahomet, and his fellow Sergius did obscure Boniface; Yet the man hath put forth great strength of wit, his Reward doth most duly attend him, he must have some round preferment and corpulent Dignity, that he may lead a Lordly life, Honour est praemium virtutis. and rail at ease; We must let a Beam fall upon him, by which our Highness useth to keep desert warm, and entertain the Life of a Holy Zeal to the great Cause. Certainly he must be Exalted, a Masterpiece of Man, This may turn Prophetical. composed by Heavens for a great Prince's favour, & Kingdom's Love: Exact Envy cannot find a place, to stick a blot on person or fame; We do ordain that never-enough admired-Book, the whip and shame of Covenanters, for the Glory of his most doctoral indewments, and reverence of his loyal pains in our Service, be translated in all Tongues and Languages, that his renown may pass from one end of Heaven to the other; for truly he hath most valiantly stood in the Gap to hold out this Schism and Heresy from encroaching and prevailing: But the practices of these Demoniaques are without exemple, and all Language is too narrow to express their virulent & aculeat Humour; for they have torn these Reverend names of Archbishops, Prelates, and Presbyters, which ought to be used with Holy Ceremony. They have libeled, arraigned, sentenced, banished, and O I'm drunk with rage, that their Impiety might appear in its perfect dye to all after-ages, they have Excommunicate the Right Reverend Fathers in God. Sic erat in satis. Now my Episcopal dignity lies panting at this Wound; Here Modesty suffers, all that's Virtuous blushes, and Truth's self like the Sun vexed with mist, looks red with anger, Mine honour is cast off as the Olive shakes off her flower; It is all swept away at one cast: My refined nostrils, do smell a distracted hurry, great things are a-working either in Heaven or Hell: Here is a State puzzle, this execrable Impudence hath given a damnable check to our Apostolic Designs; It hath Damped up the way of our Catholic Stratagems: And if our undaunted Power, with the help of our Sons, and Executioners, the Princes of the Earth, do not obviate the Thunder cracks of this glorious Ostentation, and ushering storm of Truth's Triumph, it will certainly advance with a shrewd Insolency to our own Throne, and confound the Glory of our great Name: Nay, we may make ourselves ready for perdition, lay by our Purple Robes, let Kings and Emperors return to their own Sacrilegious Possessions, & drink in the honour of Martyrdom with open throat. They have placed also Prophetical confidence in that their Covenant, as David did in his little stone which he sunk in Goliahs' brains, and do certainly believe (such is the strength of the spirit of Delusion) that it shall prove like daniel's stone, hewn out of the Mountain without hands, which filled the Earth with the greatness thereof: We do not dissemble, but the fame of it hath made the whole members of our Hierarchy tremble and shiver. And if the adjacent parts to the affected places be not timely anointed with the Balm of Gilead, which flows most luxuriously (both for our service and pleasure) from all the Commonwealths of Europe, to our Cabinet, as the Centre of their Tribute; It may fortune to endanger the whole Body of the Church. For it is a most usurping poison, mortally searching into all the Veins: We do not esteem that desperate Church of Scotland, We abhor to waste a thought upon that loss, which we value no more, than the Carbuncle which Clement the fifth, transferring the Seat from Avignon, did lose by a fall from his Horse. But these our holy Children, Patterns of Piety and Sanctity, the hope of our Consolations in these Northern Lands, the Great Officers of our Church, ordained before time to propagate the saving Light to a Land that dwelled in darkness, these loyal and faithful Ministers of the Truth, who have devoted their lives, and neglected the World for our service; these We do justly bewail with our Apostolic tears: It cuts out hearts, that those Holy patriarchs, should have received the Crown of Martyrdom in so dangerous a way; for now We do, as it were, stand over a Vault of Powder, where the Match lies a-kindling below. And which is the bane of our grudge, we begin almost to apprehend, that the business of the Covenant shall prove a Leviathan scandal, to lie rolling and troubling the crystal waters of other Nations devotions, & to the English especially (which was wont to be our Puteus in exhaustus) prove as great a stumbling-block as the altars & Idols of Rome are to the Jews conversion. Here is the true matter of grief, and here lies equally engaged the life and state of our Church. These Tragedies will fill the Adversaries mouths, & blow the Lutherans cheeks till they crack again: Now the whole liberty of our Church doth suffer, Perniciosa consilia plerumque in: Authores redundant. the Hope of absolute Monarchy gins to be Eclipsed; all things move portentuously a strange way: For what ever gracious services, and worthy the fair reverences of their places these Venerable souls have done, yet have they nothing effectuate, but wrought out their own death, even as the blind Moall in casting his ambitious hills up, is often taken and destroyed in the midst of his advanced work. Thus while they were raising the Glory of the house of Candour, they are suddenly thrown down, and their building leveled to the dust; And that Iniquity might ruin them with a more plentiful confusion, Magni viri, & bene meriti de Republ. tandem obruuntur magnis procellis. and waste the treasure of revenge upon their harmless Souls, they have excommunicate them, & delivered them up to be buried under the heap of shame, never to appear again. Yet all peace be multiplied upon their most Episcopal Souls, We hearty accept their unfeigned zeal, and pronounce them the well beloved Children of the Roman Church, though they did not well know how to personate the business entrusted to them▪ and work out the Salvation of the Cause with subtility and patience. They ought not to lose their Souls in his Holiness service, though they have spoiled their fortunes. And here by the power given to Us from above, as the Universal Bishop of the Catholic Church, We do absolve them from all dangers of such Impious sentences gone forth against them, wherewith they would labour to stain the face of Truth, which they call Excommunication; And upon the contrary, as really and truly, as ever Constantine the great gave to Sylvester the City of Rome, with the Territories thereof; so in all sincere profession, fatherly and effectual love, do we most hearty bestow a free and plenary Indulgence, for all their Venial and Mortal sins, to their departed Souls, and ordain them by the Authority of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, to be related amongst the number of Canonised, who have lost their life, for the liberty of our Kingdom; And We do solemnly appoint days of Commemoration to be set apart, wherein a Requiem to be chanted in all the cathedrals of our See to their blessed Souls, though the whole Artezans of Italy should starve; never had the Calendar of Saints a more noble accession; never had the Adversaries more just reason to erect Trophies upon our Disasters; Let the spirit of division, of shame, and confusion, rage amongst them unmercifully. We do absolve that Indocile People, from all oath of allegiance, and proclaim a free liberty, to any Catholic King or Republic whatsoever, to invade that Kingdom securely. That it may be Primi occupantis; For certainly we have as just reason to power out the phials of our Indignation, and fulminate our extorted Excommunication, against both Prince and People, as ever Alexander the third our Predecessor of holy memory had, when he excommunicate his stubborn Vassal, Henry the second of England, and brought his Royal and haughty pride to that ebb, that he was constrained to receive his Crown and Confirmation thereof from Us. But what? (Invincible Soldiers in our spiritual warfare) though there be a deadly overthrow given to our best Resolutions; Though the King of that scurvy Covenanting Land, like a Lion Rampant, with a daring courage, hold out his inexorable sword for the advancement of that fatal Reformation (as they call it) though those wanton Heretics do now insupportably insult to see him an arrant Covenanter, & glory more therein then all the Gold of India; though now they triumph most profanely, and think they have victoriously banished all Novations and barred out all dislikes, with the Rampard of an everlasting Civil Sanction, and have enthroned their Heresy by a Municipal Law to be Idolised for ever: And though likeways it were almost as easy to blow up the whole I'll of Britain to the Moon with a Powder Train, as to divorce the Princes abused soul, Consiliariorum impetus, saepè abr piunt bonos & moderatos Principes. from those inward and malignant Heresies which have been propagate to him from his Uncatholicall Ancestors; though the most pregnant Insinuations have proved almost ineffectual; and though the dazzling pomp of the neighbouring Churches and Kingdoms of the World, can nothing invite him to be mollified, and, sweetened toward U●; but, like an Adder, he still stops his Ear at the voice of the charmer; And though the Alliance with the most Potent and Christian French King can nothing serve to inveigle the Eyes of his mind; Though (my dear beloved) all these heavy Verities discover to Us, many and huge mountains of Impediments, which will be hard to remove, let us gird up our loins notwithstanding. Let not Us, who are the Soul and Light of the World, submit ourselves and our Cause to the Tyranny of despair: Recover our Game: That handful of Heretics, are but as a Schismatic Pawn in the play: High Impiety & Blasphemy it were against the Apostolic seat, Omne malum ab Aquilone. to think the splendour and honour thereof could be interessed & clouded by any thing from these parts; for though ordinarily all evil flows from these turbulent Climates, and the Goths and Vandals have sundry times made inundation upon our Patrimony, and most profanely trodden under foot our Domicel, Italy, the Lady and Mistress of the World, though oftentimes Emperors and Kings of the Earth, have shaken their Sceptre upon Us, and offered to set bounds to our unlimited powers and desires, yet I hope, we are as able to wind about the sacrilegious designs of Secular and Heretical factions, as ever any of our holy Predecessors. We know perfectly how to beggar Kingdoms by dissimulation, unjoint the fair frame of peace, and traffic, poison allegiance too: And the transferring of Empires, the ruins of Kingdoms, the excommunication and deposition of Kings, and devastations by fire and sword, are the ordinary marks and characters (you know) of the great Statesmen of our Order, who do indeed most canonically hold, that these practices are most lawful for them, conducing to the growth of the Church, & vindicating our Temporal Jurisdiction over Princes. Let us not therefore faintly give over, but solace ourselves, with memory of great Policies past, wherewith we have chastised Emperors, Kings, and Princes, and redacted them to the Obedience of the Mother Church: What ever we shall happen to lose by battle (as Matchiavel records of the Venetians who know all the removes of their Game) Let us labour to recover the same by treaty, and be still labourers in the great Work; Let us assemble all the powers of our souls, and combat the Cause. I'll alambique the Sorbone Genius, and squize the substance of all the commonwealths of Europe, ere I find not a Catholicon, and Sovereign Elixir for this new sprung Poison, which, if the pride thereof be not counter-checked, is able to deflower the glory of our whole Church: No, no, those who will not gently resign themselves, to the embracements of the ancient Apostolic Truth, which we are sent to offer and preach to the World, as the great Pastor of the Church, must certainly be broken: And before our Mitre be not adored by all, amongst Nations, Tongues, and People, I will first thresh the Mountains and Islands of the world with a fleale, I will beat them to powder, and fan them before the wind of my wrath; I will arm the Princes of the Earth, and cause them overturn them, that they never appear more than the Monasteries which are sunk about Venice. Aliud. CHaron have o'er, BB. the Ghostly Fathers come To thy torn Boat, and their eternal Home. Who calls the Ferryman of Hell? BB. Ch. It's we Prime Statesmen of the Roman Prelacy; Bring not thy scurvy Barge which looks so thin As any Cloud, as old as Sun, and Moon, Di'lles in these Prelate's pride, Ch. left the Earth Into a fair combustion, after death They're come the very Hells for to confound, And our Infernal Commonwealth to wound. Enter right Reverend, many Catholic Kings, Popes, Monarches, which this nimble Vessel brings Each hour, into these fatal Mansions, do Embark without a scruple: what are you? Come, good my Lords, you must be ruled by me, You had your Time, now take your Destiny. Though your big-bellies could engross a Coach, Yet if your souls sink, I'll bide your reproach. To the Author of this Second most flowing, and praiseworthy Speech. I Thought dear Friend, that first Essay of thine, Which thou to me so kindly didst propine, Should prove the period of thy precious Pen, And pause, to which thou could not reach again. But higher still thou springst and I do find This Second Birth, the Model of thy Mind Like to a clear Spring pouring forth his drills, Which sweetly gliding through two neighbour hills, With fertile Motions Meadows overflow Till they turn streams, and streams to Rivers grow. So that transcending inexhausted vein, From forth the Treasure of a fertile brain Distils such Nectar's of renewed store, Are sweeter now, though sweetest of before. And so no doubt, these Rivulets so clear, Shall of full growth fair Rivers once appear. M. D. primrose. J. C. AN ANSWER To His Holiness Remonstrance: BY Cardinal Antonio Diego Barbirim in name of the rest of the Roman Clergy, in the Consistory at Rome. MOST HOLY FATHER, to whom we convert our humblest duties and sacrifices of our devotest thoughts, Great Monarch of the Church, to whose Glory do all our actions bend as the last scope of their advantage. We do most passionately condole the just anguish of your afflicted heart, certainly our Imaginations are so strongly seized, by the shaking of these turbulent times, that we have almost resigned the whole powers of our Soul to fear and wonder; Our tongues are captived, and chained up without a sound. We can bear record, that your Holiness, like Heaven's glorious Luminary, hath bountifully diffused the warm beams of Purity, through the whole Church Catholic, and every place thereof, You have not only guilded the tops of the Mountains and made the tall Cedars of Lebanon to laugh, swelling them with the graces of your nursing favours; but hath likewaise daigned to visit the humble Valleys, and made the Marjoline, and Myrrh find the benignity of your favourable aspect, and the influence of your Apostolic entertainments. Thus like the Sovereign Good, who delights to communicate his all embracing sweetness you would extend the skirts of your favour upon the most neglected parts of the World, even that fatal Kingdom of Scotland buried in darkness and ignorance. We that are the cabinet and Depositary of your secret workings in the Mystery of your Episcopizing, do well know how you have been (as it were) hotly courting that silly people, and with what a fatherly zeal you have wooed that rebellious and gainsaying Nation, which hath answered the hopes of your long-wished joy, with the high Anatheme of a cruel Covenant, and a furious Combination never to be dissolved against your Holiness, the great Officer of the Church, Christ's Vicegerent on Earth, and all the Mainetainers of the Articles and Ceremonies of the Roman faith. We wish our heads were waters, & our Eyes fountains of Tears, to weep for the calamities of our mother. The fears of Heresis increase & all our dissastrous disappointments, which your Holiness out of the plenitude of your wisdom, and spirit of sagacity, hath most divinely laid open to our weary souls. We are fallen into the ends of the world, and persecution must come for the elects sake. Now the wicked and Heriticks do hold the Church by the throat, and now we must move every Oar, strain all assistances, solicit all our devoted Crowns, and send forth the Kings of the Earth like victorious Hercules, to destroy the pullulating heads of this terrible and Herittical Serpent, & to suppress that al-spreding Covenant of Scotland, the most horrible Invention, and usurping Monster that ever hell hatched: It hath appeared like a blazing Comet in the North (with themselves may the event dwell of the portentous presage) & hath in many, who were otherways in a pretty aptitude, and maturity to be good Catholics, stirred the spirit of Curiosity, which may mar Implicit Obedience, Qui malè fa●it, odit lucem. the subversion of which Article, will make the whole frame of our Mystery to crack: A dangerous perspective for Laics to look into our Consistory Per Madonna santissima di Loretta. When we fall upon the business of that Northern League, and the Ensign of the Covenant displayed, we lose ourselves, and cannot plumb that deep, It hath affrighted us like a lightning, made all the Christian Kings start up on their feet with an, What is it? It is surely a Thunderbolt, broke upon the very head of S. Peter's, and proudly entering, hath overturned the Altars, thrown down the Images, dismantled the Beauty of the Church, astonished the whole Ligators of our Mosaic Works, and profaned the whole glory of the Temple. A spear it is, which thrust through the bowels of State Catholic, hath dared the very heart of Spiritual Monarchy. Your Holiness, whose Vigilant Eye, doth most laboriously survey the conditions of Times and States, and with a fatherly care watch over the crowns & Sceptres of Nations, hath in truth and strength of passion, most Episcopally discovered the Monster begotten by the nimblest witted devil, nursed up in these Northern deserts, & destinat to measure the world with his acquaint paces. We do fear that by the sting and tail of a Scorpion, it shall nail the tender Church throw with shame and torment. Let us provide it cast no venom beyond Seas, for than shall it mount over the Alps, and with his poisonable attempts, presume to assault your Holiness own Domestics: Neither shall the proud Pirennees keep it from thrusting in to Spain, the most intemerate and immaculate place of the Church body; It will mock the spectacled Fathers of Inquisition, and creep there invisibly like Fratres Roseae Crucis. And no index Expurgatorius (which like the Purgatory fire, we have ever with Cathollicall Lenity used, either for mollifying, or eradicating other Monsters) will serve to correct or banish this one. Truly, those diseased prelate's (Holy Father) have spun us no fair thread, nor have they proven grand Sophies, when by the conquest of that poor Kingdom (which would never make any considerable accession to your Revenues, but was like the drop to the Bucket,) and promoving immature Novations, they have occasioned too innocently the loss of our Game, and endangered the Mitres reputation. If these perturbations do once come unto a deep working, and begin to extend their profane Petulancies, We fear, your Holiness, whose all adored Mitre, made Prostrate Crowns to tremble, and Sceptres shake, may be glad to be sheltered in S. Angelo's Castle, or run to the horns of the Altar; And we the Suns of Harmony, who are the Carbuncles which add splendour to your Spiritual Crown, must betake ourselves to the favour of Times and Fortunes, and leave our goodly Dignities with the fat of their corpulent affluence, to the devotion of sacrilegious Soldiers. Nay certainly, if this swelling Combustion do but offer to stain the serenity of our Heavens with any smoke, and stifle our purity, we are all confounded, we are all blown up, and the Kings of the Earth, the powers of the World, and every Soul of Man, even the begging Capuchin, who can glory of nothing but his Venerable Beard, his Chappler, and torn breviary, shall regard your Holiness no more, shall give you no more bended knees, nor sacrifices of Real, & Spiritual Tribute, then to the man of the Moon. And you know, most Catholic Monarch of BB s, If those golden floods, which do most proudly play upon the Philosophal stones of your Vatican, be once withdrawn and called back to their Tributary Sources, By the right of merit, and the Salic law (to which you have as undoubted and irredeemable a right, as to those very omnipotent Keys, which you carry, and to the Monopoly of all Benefices, which you have happily engrossed to your most archiepiscopal person) We cannot but faint, who are fed by the refreshments of those streams: Our Cardinal Caps, bestowed upon us by your Holiness as Garlands of our Honour, and Eminency, must needs whither and fall away, and remove the Sun's beame●, where shall his glory be? If we, as so many Earth-treading Stars, who adorn the Sky of your State be stripped of our Beauty, if we shut and fall, in what Primum Nobile shall your Sanctity shine! We are set about the Seat of your Majesty, as Summer's speckled flowery Garment, and if we be blasted by the Jnjuries of tempestuous times, what shall embellish your Holiness? These are heavy truths: but under the Rose be it spoke Santissimo Padre. Some blows we have received, more are feared: Heavens and Earth do know, and all Courts, all Churches are filled with the fortune, Vno dato absurdo, mult● sequuntur. or misfortune of the great business; that abortive Service book, and those Canons, have shamefully disobliged the Church Catholic, and with their roaring, have awaked and disturbed all Christendom, and turned their sulphurous throats against their Makers. There are certainly some ungracious uncathollicall planets raging, who have poured forth the malignity of their venomous Influence upon your reforming and Fatherly Undertake. The Heavens distil their sterner frowns, and threaten us with their badst Aspects. We were ready to tear the clouds with Bells ringing, and priests singing, and thought the smoke of our Bonfires should shortly ascend to Heaven, Your bellement Messieurs. and stain the Sun's face: But holy Father, It's no time for acquaint speaking, we ought not dissemble nor use Jndulgence to our wound Let us mitigate and rectify our woes as cunningly and quietly as we may, the spate of disastrous calamity hath almost drowned our fair Hopes in despair. A cold fear sits black on each of our Hearts; We have not been well inward with the Mind of Destiny in the business of these Northern Negotiations. It seems we have not been sufficiently assisted, but deserted in this particular; Consult the Prophecies, Set your Astrologitians a work; may be you find, (but Heavens bless the Church Catholic, and avert) that some of these Northern Princes have Capricornum ascendentem in Horoscopo, which is, and hath ever been the most fatal and malevolent sign to the Roman Empire in all the Zodiaque: Imp Carolus 5. Frans. Rex Galliae Carolus Corbonius. Cosmus Med. Florentiae Dux. And for the truth hereof, We call the Times never to be forgotten, and Histories of all Ages, to witness: From thence indeed do the first clouds appear: And as in your Holiness Remonstrance was piously observed, all Propagations of Empyres, all Eruptions and Effusions of People, Assyrti vicerunt Chaldeos. Assyrios Medit Graeci Persas: Romani Poenos: Gothi Romanos: Turcae fregerunt Arabes: Tartari Turcas: Angli Gallos': Scot▪ Anglos. are ever found to have been from the North to the South. If this be the inclination of our averse Spheres thus unkindly to use Us: If this be the purpose of him who beholds the Ends of the World, to present this cup to the Roman Prelacy, and put our spiritual Kingdom, which we believe shall prosper so long as the Heavens cover the Earth, thus in jeopardy: Certainly those Uncircumcised Lions, will tear Us to pieces, and make Banners of our Catholic Skins, and scratch your Mitre, (whose shadow was reverenced by Princes of the Earth) to very contemptible and forgotten Atoms, and powder your Supreme self in Luther's Barrel: They will Sack Your City, the Queen of the Earth, tread upon the World's Trophies, and fill the Holiest place with Abomination of desolation. Where ever we send forth our enquiring Eyes, they report nothing from all the corners of the World, but sad entertainments of these fears, and appearances of mutations from that Kingdom of Scotland, (which is now most desperately diseased of a swelling Tympany or some Pleurisy, incurable but by the voiding of that prevailing blood which overrules or offends the Head, and chokes the Heart,) As the source of our reproach, the fountain of our shame, do we deryve, the streams of our injuries and calamities, and and to those all despised Heretics like ways do we justly impute the advancements of the same. Your Holiness ever solicit to gain that which is lost, had emitted your faithful labourers, & planted a Vine, The Service book, which produced most sovereign, and generos grapes which for the time was very luxuriant, and did proudly spring like jonas Gourd, but alas, that unexpected poisonable worm of the Covenant, hath encroached upon the Heart thereof, and vowed to suck out the very soul of it. Eheu quam levibus pereunt ingentia causis! Nay, this worm is like to be metamorphosed in a flying Dragon, and infest the whole Christian world. Your Holiness did mercifully elance a saving Beam upon that Cimmerian Land; which was kindly welcomed by those who had submitted themselves to be doctrinate by our fomenting suggestions, Their Eyes were anointed with omnipotent Balm. and it did most effectually animate them to great performances, We were made hopeful to see the day break forth gloriously, for the Cocks fell a crowing, which told us the night's departure, Light is sown for the righteous. yet have they maliciously closed their Eyes, rejected the lights comfort, and most bitterly banished those faithful Evangelists, nay with a more perfect hatred and meritorious violence than ever Loyala's Tribe was turned out from among the straight-laced Venetians; And now they think (reprobate souls) that they have reproachfully mounted them as it were on the Asses of Jndignitie, and send them to the land of Nod with an Echo la fico, Yet nothing so, but the pale Horse of a Civil, and Temporal death at worst; upon which, Triumphing Martyrs, they have entered Paradise, and necessary it was, blessed Father, that they should be removed from the Contagions, and conversation of the wicked, that when the deserved devastations and devourings shall break forth in the fullness of their rage, they might laugh at their persecutors in the day of their destruction: Thus was the good Josias called to his eternal home before Babylon's captivity, And the most Catholic Bishop S. Augustine's death, like a gentle stars fall, did fore run and point out the subversion of the city of Bone. Those are the rampards of the Church, which must be taken down, that the Inundation of desolation may burst in & swallow the Trophies of insulting Heresy. For even as the sagacious Swallow, doth retire her young ones, before the approaching fall of the crazy Vault: so are the blessed souls, Heaven's Mignons promiscuously confounded with the tumultuous Heretics, singled by, and lift above the reach of danger, before the public ruins. All these impieties and Oppressions have no more harmed, then if a man out of his fury and anger would think to afflict and drown the harmless captived fish by throwing it in a river; For we are bold to persuade in the courage of victorious spiritual Soldiers, that all these sentences, Excommunications, Extrusions and other furies, whereby sacrilegious Blasphemy hath exerced the height of Tyranny against Truth's Heralds, shall prove in end like Sampsons' Lion, Out of the strong shall come sweet, Their Righteousness shall spread as the morning, and their Glory shall be terrible as an Army with Banners: though they now sleep, yet it is not to the death. Indeed fortune for all this, hath dealt Us a very bad Game at this Tour, but yet a little, and the Cards shall be shiffled; they have refused our saving & Catholic courtesies, and kicked again, they have affrighted Us with Lightnings; But may be, we shall crush those Terrestrial Heads with Thunder and blow away their Designs as chaff before the wind; And though the Lutherans and our Adversaries do fatten themselves with their Insulting over Us, and think we have so deeply tasted the bitterness of that last Overthrow, which our Catholic friends, The Spaniards and Italians your Holiness nimble Executioners, & those like ways of your Holiness own Family did lately suffer by Sea, in advancing your Evangelical Intentions; and though they stick not to flater their abused souls, with this confidence, that now there are no more Constantine's to be found who dare hold up the banner of the Cross, nor any to march under the same, yet must we be espoused to new resolutions of recovery, and let the triumphing snakes duly find that our Arms are not shortened, our wings are not clipped, & that neither are the Kingdoms subjected to our two all commanding swords, exhaust of the true faiths defenders, Nor India, & Peru yet pompt of Red and white Earth; which shall produce Us Children to maintain Truth's Garland, even in the midst of our Enemies, for our Chemists are excellent Operators, and can extract the Sovereign Baulm, and very effectually apply it to the suspect places, which being cunningly adhibite with the concurrence of your Apostolic Benedictions & Encouragements, we have seen have such a powerful Operation, that it hath never ceased till awaking an Intestine discord, at length it hath cast out all redundant and noxious humours, and expelled the root of the disease. And as to that little sniffle which our Apostolic Navy hath received, partly by the Indiscretion of the Sea, and uncurtesie of the Winds, (for amongst these Hugenotes, the very air and water are Puritan) and partly by the neglect and connivance of Princes; Be it known we have already digest that little tickling Pill of misfortune, as clearly as we have eclipsed the memory of the Crescent in the 88 The Armado which came displayed in form of the Moon Crescent. But here we spare to stretch ourselves on these regrates, your Episcopal providence will smell the storm afar, look to the prevailing thereof, and find out the most powerful means to elude the dangers of these tumbling times, that the afflicted Church, as the Lily among Thorns, may look sweet and glorious as the Moon in her full pride: Yet by the presumptions of Times, one thing seems to be sure, If we might see Fates book, The Senate house of Planets hath at no time been more unfriendly set for the acting of some strange Tragicomedy in Europe. Which makes Us call to mind the pernicious prophecies of those Dames, those Sybilles', who like fanatic Syrenes, have intoxicate the world, and so strongly possessed the souls of those who are conversant with curiosity, that many good Catholics, and of high endowments, poisoned with their Greek Music, do entertain secret opinions and fears of a very fatal period, ordained for our spiritual Kingdom; for in those their profane Invectives, and hell-blowne Satyrs, wherewith they have persecuted your Holiness Throne (as the spirit of delusion doth cheat the world's belief) and your Seat, this City likeways, (which looks like the Moon amongst the lesser Stars) though she be stellified to Heaven, yet those unpure Spirits, with their usurping uncatholicall pens, In the second book of the Oracles of Sybilla●, at this part— hominum tum denique seclum, Existet decimum. have presumed to lay her horn in the dust; And they have presented the Map of aftertimes (to those who will Idolise their Oracles) so fare to the disadvantage and shame of your Holiness high Calling, that all the resplendent Rays of our dazzling pomp, wherewith we have obfuscat, even at a great distance, the rest of Nations, must be drowned for sooth in the smoke of an utter ruin and endless confusion, Your Holiness purple, and our scarlet robes wherewith we darkened the Eyes of beholders, and enamoured the admiring stranger, by a profane and poetical fury they have turned over our heads, and rejoice to have our nakedness displayed to the world. Surely a strange Enthusiasm in these Feminine Brains; yet these Times may fortune to renew the Ideas which those Chimerick Impressions have given to the more facile souls, who are easily carried about with every wind of belief; for now there is a great unconstancy and certain kind of Branktings in many parts, even amongst the sons of your Institutions, Heirs of your unmeasured Designs, expectants of the Blessed Chair, Spiritual and Temporal Counselors. and those on whom Ignatius & Matchiavell, the two Genius of the Mitre, had poured a double measure of their spirits. Every alteration in States, even to the better, your Holiness knows, is dangerous: And whether the news of this great Change, of a patriarch to be set up in France, have arrived at your Holiness Ghostly Ears, or not, we are ignorant: You may descend to view what face the purpose hath, and try the pedigree from whom it came, and whither it goes. Out of the profundity of your infallible judgement, your Holiness can obviate the impertinency of any Event, and devance the consequence of this springing. You best know, what conduceth both to the Glory, Growth, and Indemnity of the Church, and for the Honour and Majesty of your own Throne: But truly, We the Fathers of the Conclave, do think it to be a very strange Boutade, and a labouring design pregnant with many monstrous productions; And that his vehement and Polypragmaticke spirit, through the insolency and indulgence of a swelling fortune, cannot rest, but making eruption beyond the limits of his Vocation, with an inordinate appetite of Glory, shall aspire to the top of the Pyramid. Such exorbitant humours are most apt to confound the order of Geometric proportion, and being void of a Politic Mansuetude, indocile or blind Obedience, Lovers of Mutations, are most fertile of Emulations, and Civil Wars, and oftentimes involve all in a doleful conflagration. This (as many other Emergencies of these Times) seems to be the beginning of a deviation, which cannot end but in Apostasy, especially among that Nation, which doth ever please itself in changes: Can not (Holy Father all the Crowns in France serve, to stay his vast ambition, unless he had something above his Cardinal's Coronet likeways? Press into the inner Cabinet of these Designs, there your Holiness may well find, which cannot be consistent with your Mitre. For though your Holiness hath now obscured the brightness of the patriarchs of the East, and hath erected your Apostolic Crest to that unparrallelld height of preeminency, from whence you do stately overlook them, and all other Churches, even as the Mountains of Ararat, whereupon the Ark rested, lifted up their welcome, and triumphing tops, above the decreasing waters, yet the appearing of this Patriarch, as of a new unknown Star, may beget a desire in the Laics, to study the motion of our Heavens too officiously, and so run the hazard of revolting Heresies, in their Supererogatory contemplations. For your Holiness cannot forget to remember, that howbeit by the Florentine and Laterane Counsels it was unanimously and Canonically concluded, that the four patriarchs of Constantinople, Antiochia, Alexandria, and jerusalem should receive their mantle, the sign of plenitude of their pontifical dignity, from your Holy hands, and after the order of the assigned precedency, tender the Oath of allegiance to the Roman Prelate, at whose appearance in his fullest Grace, they must put up their beams and disappear; yet they have always had Protestations of reluctancy, and rebound to the title of their patriarchal Dignity, holding themselves iso-Presbyters, composed of that same stuff whereof Popes are said to be made, and can hardly be induced to humble themselves to the dependence of a derivation, or restrained from transcending the Category of subordination: Nay certainly, it doth relish too much of an exemption from the Roman Sea and study of Monarchy: We should not have wondered so profusely to have seen such hierarchical Ambition, point out his presumptuous head, in the remoter parts of Britain, and Ireland, being so fare distant from the Influence of your pacificke Sceptre, (the advancements being there but very green as yet) not attained their flourishing lustre. For even as the Winds and Rains do exerce a mutual rage, shooting forth their luxuries in the lower parts of the Air, where they reign in their turbulent Kingdom, but in the higher Regions thereof, nigh to the Fires Orb, and approaching the Sun, no motion, no agitation, but a gentle calm doth continually dwell: So certainly in those forgotten and barbarous places, not apt for the spirit of Obedience, the true Author of peace; No wonder there be commotion and scandals: but in France the very Mitres Eye to build Altars of offence, it may beget a storm, which will force Us pull down our Sails, If we escape shipwreck: And if the Pagan Soldiers, made scruple to use Christ's Reverend Robe so rudely, as to tear the same; how deservedly aught they to be redargued, who prepare the renting of his sacred Body, the Church, with their ambitiously swollen zeal? The crying necessities of these Times which look too sullen, and the Exigencies of the affronted Church, if there be pity amongst Us, and Holy zeal to vindicate her credit, would wring from us poison to kill all the policies of Europe. Yet (Holy Father) though the powers of Heresy should combine and concentrate their malice, though the frame of the Universe should be disjointed, we have a neverfailing promise, that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against us. Heaven's great Substitute, Absolute Father of the Church, if ever power did show a Mastery in you, let it now appear, and make the redacted World stand amazed. O nimium dilecte Deo cui militat aether, Et conjuratae curvato poplite gentes Succumbunt— Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito. There's Elixir of brain and spirit amongst Us, and the God of riches lies imprisoned in our Cabins and Monasteries. Eccleasist aevolunt esse Monarchae. Let Us do any thing to rule alone, though it be very rare to see the World ruled by one: The most proud and obstinate Resistances are aloft, and now a days women's soft souls are wrought up to a masculine malice and resolution; for persecuting Truth, and hugging Error: Therefore make your wrath likewise to swell. Extend your mighty Arms, call up the Princes of the earth, let the sounds of your Alarm be heard from one end of heaven to the other, and strait behold the Kings and potentates, like children of obedience shall forsake their palaces, out of a filial submission; and leave their stately Magnificence to be possessed of solitude, inhabited by Bats and Owls, and entrust their dearest Queens to the benevolence of Churchmen, and Eunuches; Then will they muster their forces, employ their Sceptres, and strain all the Nerves of their Kingdom for the well of the Cause Catholic. Let it always be the chiefest of our cares, the first of our desires, to hold up war immortal, ever to trouble the calm of peace, Flectere finequecunt superos Acheronta m● vebunt. to shut up the Seas, to disable, to disjoin, to inspire our Emissaries, and Incendiaries, with the spirits of dissimulation and division, to enfold all State policies in confusion, to choke all, to inflame all with a most Catholic combustion; for certainly some cruelties are better and more necessary, than silly improfitable Mildness, which like a cold and barren quality, can never mature the Church's growth. No, no, the braying of Canons, the daubing of Drums are good Catholic Music, by which our Apostolic expeditions use to advance the Spiritual kingdom, and go in procession through the world; Our motions must be restless & busy, like that of the heavens, every one bestirring himself in his own sphere. And your Holiness with most grave, and venerable alacrity, will give the strong impulse. We in the Consistory, and those ministering and subtle spirits of that rich seedplot of Sorbone, shall come such riddles, and shall so inveigle the Heretic souls and Churches, that Kings shall find themselves enough puzzled. From this holy Citadel, this impregnable Capit●ll, our spiritual Engineeres, who are most Canonically bred, and authentically practised, shall throw such fiery Balls among Nations and People, From the Conclave. as those that dare oppone Truth's Candour, shall be put in a terrible damp. Go to (holy Father) move strongly, as becomes the state of your courage, and in a high swelled Metropolitan confidence, blow down the strong holds of Error; Remove the Isles out of the sea, and shake the mountains that stand up so heretically against the promised, the prophesied Reformations to the faith Catholic; Never unbend your infallible Bow, till you have hit the conquered mark of your most evangelic Intentions, our adversaries must not erect the Trophies of their ambition upon the ruins of our reproaches. We will first fetch the compass of the World, and conglomerate our undaunted forces, like a destroying and inexorable tempest, to sweep away Truth's Enemies. All our Convents shall first be turned into Fenceschooles, before the Great Cause be disgraced. We will defend mainly, engage our very Crucifixes, and Hypothecat our Cardinal's Caps before the Mitres honour be any whit touched. But now because many Incumbencies advertise us to dissolve, and some strange Ambassadors attend your Holiness from whose bosom they come to receive Apostolic directions, to lead them as a Star in the way to the hill of Greatness, where the Laurels of triumph do condignly attend them: We forbear to presume on this Time's importance, only daring represent to your Holiness, how necessary it is to employ pens, policies, and power, to rack all our might for advancing our holy intentions, and breaking the clouds of Error and Heresy, which are like to overspread the whole World: Consider how the crying necessities of our bleeding Primitive Mother do implore the same: In the mean time (till your Holiness have more precious leisure to bestow upon further Catholic Resolutions) let let there be a grand Apostolic Nuncio dispatched upon the wings of speed to the Isle of Britain, (if there be any courtesy to receive him there worthily) Even strongly assisted with the spirit of Truth, which your Holiness Predecessors did usually send to the Tridentine Council for the actuating of those infallible members, and extirping of Heresy. Instruct him deeply how to proclaim to the world, Well blown Signior. and write it on the sky with Letters of gold never to be forgotten, and print it in the Records of Histories to all after ages, that though Religion be the common pretence of discontent amongst these untamed Heretics, wherewith they use to mask their unbridled licence, their affronted boldness, their high contempt of Sovereignty, and dare commit any Impiety, guilded with the lustre of Sanctity: Yet nothing is so strongly desired, nothing so truly intended by them, abhorring the order of subjection, than to shake off the yoke of Monarchy, & break the Cords of Spiritual and Temporal jurisdiction, with the swing of their desperate frenzy. It will not be inexpedient likewise to cause some others; who are enriched with the strength of more subtle abilities, and do cunningly know how to creep into the minds and Cabins of princes, and take dominion there, be sent forth with all convenience, for subverting the Machinations of these Matchiavilian Calvinists: Let Authority, Lords of Power, and Masters of Time be taught (for Clemency is the Nurse of Rebellion) how to press them down with weight, though the conspiring Crew that breathes nothing but fire, and vomits blasphemy, who hath consecrate their Estates, and espoused their neglected lives to the lust of Revolting, should cry out violence, and rigour, and cruelty, and tyranny, and craft, and malice; for those things have been the Sovereign and effectual ways of our enlarging, and it is the Mystery of greatness to hold the Inferiors still ignorant of it, and strike like Lightning and Thunder. Moreover, Because the seditious fury of unruly multitude (even as a tumbling flood acquiring strength to itself by moving, carries all it meets before it in a precipice) doth wax to such a prevailing strength as none can hold out against the bitterness of the tempest: Therefore let us work wisely, and as men use to disappoint the overflowings of undaunted Rivers, by branching them in little weak Rivulets, thus to extenuate the impetuosity of the main stream, by diverting the fullness of indocile waters, and turning them aside. So must we (in a degree more than becomes Supremacy to stoop) flatter a while, and nourish the hopes, and entertain the desires of Conspirers, distract the minds of the multitude, weaken them by the breach of Union, and delude them most egregiously; for so long as those Conventions rule, whereby the consent of the abused People receives most poisosonable Aliment, and they become fortified in their Error, than each provokes another, even as the Billows of the enraged Sea are driven forward by their urging and importune fellows. Therefore must it be amongst the first of the Articles of your Atourneyes' Instructions, exceedingly to labour this point, that those their great Counsels, infallible Assemblies, Well remembered. and unwarranted Synagogues of Hypocrites, be most divinely impeded; and that Parliaments be broke up, and crushed in the bud both in Scotland, and England for those confluences of demure devils, have ever given Us the greatest dash, and been the very bane of our agonies. We hope withal, your Holiness out of the bowels of pity, cannot forget the miserable prelate's, your faithful Labourers. It is indeed their fortune; (through too eager and unadvised zeal, to the glory of raising Altars to your Holiness purposes, in that land where they lived) and not their fault, that thus they are left in the wilderness of Times and Poverty, make them taste therefore of the sweetness of your Remembrances; for it were high indignity to your Holiness, the Prince of Bishops, to let those silly Souls engage their Surplis, and Service-books, for the maintenance of their laborious lives. Amongst all other expediencies, here is one likeways which cries extremely, that since we had very justly anchored our best Expectations upon the Northern Cities of that rigid and infortunate Island of Scotland, where indeed the Religion pretended was never perfectly welcomed, and that by our last intelligence we have learned they have likewise joined hand with Impiety, The City of Aberdene honoured by embracing the Covenant. and divorcing themselves from the loyalty of the great work, have entered the dance with the rest of the giddy Heretics, neglecting our resentments of most Catholic Services done, and our encouragements to persevere, that yet notwithstanding there might be some zealous Invention and spiritual stratagem found how to regain them, and to redeem them from that deserved perdition which follows Heresy. The Lords of the parliament And as to the Parliamentary stage-men, who do now personat so bravely, we hope before they come to the last Act of the Play, where they trust to bring in your Holiness as a mitred Boufone, if there be any soul amongst us, we shall do our best to make their dalliance Epilogue in a Tragedy, and overturn the Stage upon the Actors. THus spoke the Monstrous Beast, whose voice is thunder, Whose poison's Mystery, whose ways are Wonder: Thus Babel's Statesmen, and the purple train Did blow their fiery zeal, and did complain, Giving their Laws to times and destinies, Subjecting heavens will to their policies: But He that dwells betwixt the Cherubins, Doth look, and laugh, and mock their hid designs: Dear Israel's watchman, and the King of Kings, From whose fierce mouth an angry smiter springs, Shall incontrolled come inflaming Ire, Armed with just plagues, and pouring floods of fire: He knows his Church is torn, He sees her woe, He knows her griefs are full, Her tears o'erflow: Her renting cries have wound great Judah's Lion, Her heavy moans have moved the Lamb of Zion: Great treasures of revenge he hath in store, To waste upon his foes, who alas so sore Have bruised Her with a cruel Iron rod, And thrust Her thorough, and on Her glory trod. Vengeance descends from Heaven, she doth display Her angry fury; No, she cannot stay, Sh'hath brimmed her Vials full of bitterest wrath, That e'er annoyed the afflicted earth: Lo justice bows the heavens, and sweetly daignes T'espouse her cause, and hear what she complains, That Incense smoke, which from the Saints d●th rise Hath mounted up, and entered through the skies. And now the painted Monster who did ride Upon the Temple's Pinnacle, and guide Abused Republics Reins, she before whom The people of the earth did gladly come Prostrate to pay their Worship, must be thrown Into the Sea, great she must be cast down From that resplendent Thrones insulting glory, Which was the pride of times, and the world's story. she's drunk with laughter, and did tyrannize O'er all the parts where Phoebus casts his Rays. But now the fatal period comes, and those Who by the living God's seal do rejoice: (The Glorious Covenant, which distils a shower Of valiant Champions, girt with Heavenly power) The sons of wonder, lo they come, they come With threatening Banners to the walls of Rome; With Crowns upon their heads, Palms in their hands, They'll shake the seven hills where proud Babel stands. Tremble, O tremble, Quean of Nations, now Thy walls, which did disdain to stoop, and bow, Must humbled be at God's great Covenants call, Thy Crown is withered, now thy Garlands fall: Thy stately towers which did insulting rise To overlook the earth, and threat the skies, Do quake and hid their palsy heads for fear, When this triumphing splendour doth appear, As thou hast made all Nations to be drunk With thy debauches, so thou shalt be sunk. Upon the wings of speed thy ruin flies, Ripe are thy woes, ready thy miseries: Thou'lt bid the Alps and Apennineses fall on thee, And keep thee from the hills that rush upon thee. All thy inveigling Rays, like clouds of error, Shall drowned be with lightnings and with terror Of that prevailing Beauty; whose sunlike face Doth all the world inflame, and sweetly chase Disloyal thoughts, this warms, The cardinals & the Roman clergy. and doth allure Our chaste desires unto a love more pure. Ah cruel Counselors and inhuman, Ye paint the Clouds, ye do combine in vain, Ye blow but at the Sun, while ye presume In vain to vex the truth, your souls consume. O spare th'afflicted Lily, O forbear Your cruel pungent thorns, which do the fair And Heav'n-blowne flower of Jesse wound: No pity Upon the harmless Dove, so sweet, so pretty? Great He that holds the Times, and the World's end, Doth hear your Blasphemies, He'll'gainst you bend The angry arrows of his Indignation, And recompense your high abomination. Your Rabbis, Sophies, Matchivilian Crew Forsake your Counsels: What think ye to do? Would ye confound the heavens, and people hell, Drown the poor world in blood, and trouble all? Must ye like Tennis-balls thus canvasse Crowns, Must Sceptres stoop t'usurping Mitres frowns? Shall flour'shing Kingdoms, shall proud Monarchies Be th'humble footstool of your Hierarchies? Are ye the Ocean unto which they pay Their tributary streams? Tell me I pray (You spirits of truth and meekness) why ye swell To such a furious tempest? I pray you tell. Is't'cause our Covenant shall Epilogize Your joys, and Fortunes in sad Tragedies? Are all the secrets of the Prophecies, Poured forth upon your naked Mysteries? Is dire destructions black hour come? Hath light Betrayed your shame unto the world's delight? So so it is: and hence do spring your fears: These days do speak, and multitude of Years Might teach you wisdom. Now the powers of heaven Are shaken, and our Redemption shall be seen. The glorious morning spreads upon the Mountains, Salvations Wells are , and all the fountains (Which ye, alas, had poisoned) now burst forth, With joys redundant floods to fill the Earth. Oh that ye would return! Oh that ye would Once tear the Mask of Error, and behold How superstitions face doth look awry, And so divorce you from Idolatry. To Us the light is sown, and you must yield, T'Eternall Truth: God's Sceptre wins the field. No, no, ye must give over. Can you but stay The sweet Aurore from giving us the day? Or hold the heavens? forbidden the winds to blow? Or stop the thunder? and the flowers to grow? Then may ye mock the dread Jehovahs' blast, And build your Glory when he down doth cast. His conquering sword shall valiantly control The Beasts designs, and reign from Pole to Pole: Even as the darkness all amazed retires When welcome and victorious light appears, So shall the Antichrist confounded be With brightness of this kill Majesty. Sperandum, & ferendum. Intelligence from the Apostolic Nuncio Il Conte di Rozzetti, now residing at London, to Pope Urban 8. May it please your Holiness, THe humble Zeal to acquit myself loyal to your Apostolic employments, and the perfection of that great work for which I was sent hither, made me hasten with my trembling Pen in hand to drop out some advertisements to you, in behalf of Truth's Candour, who never in greater extremity than this, doth make her pitiful address to your Holiness, by whose protection she is secured from the insolent affronts of the Vulgar: Being distressed, she makes you her fair sanctuary; being wounded, she makes you her sovereign balm. I know this infortunate Paper of Intelligence, shall swell your vexed soul mightily, and affright all Italy with fear, and wonder. Yet if your heart be not split asunder with grief, and terror; or if there be any counsel, or courage left in your Conclave, look to the Agony of the Mitre, which is now sick, even sick to the death: Lift up your weeping eyes, consider the Times, and Seasons; and let the spirit of Prudence preserve us from utter perdition, lest this reprobate indocile Island make us very quickly a reproach and opprobry to the world. It would certainly burn the hearts of all true Catholics with consuming anguish to look upon the present distempers, and to think how glorious your Kingdom had looked by this time, like a Colossus upon the columns of strength and policy; scorning Thunder, and outlasting tempests: if We had never angled in that abominable Kingdom of Scotland, nor solicit the return of that stubborn people to us so hotly: for surely belike they will awake all Christendom, and pervert the world. Your Holiness did behold them with the Eye of disdain, looked asquint upon them (as the Sun doth) and conceived these Northernes' to be but dull, and half spirited souls; who could not discover plots, resist the Majesty of your intentions, nor mount to their wishes in a direct line without stop, or hindrance; but let me tell your sanctity, They resolve to go on (armed with their Prince's smile) and destroy your very name, your memory, your ashes, with as easy a freedom, as rough winds demolish crazy buildings. Not content with that great disgrace they have done your Apostolic dignity, in their own Church, (now indeed deserted, and desperate) by that Covenant, (which We thought a silly shrub, but is now grown a sturdy Oak; and waxeth stately like the proud Cedar) They have moved a banner against the residue of our hopes in England: for the Episcopal expedition, and holy war against the Heretics, and Rebels most damnably succeeding (which will make a black, and shameful history to embellish the Vatican Library) they have come forward incensed, and with strange pretences (as brave men, who in their awful palms do bear about better destinies, and command even fate itself) advance our destruction strongly; for albeit We did little regard their harmless simplicity, and mocked all their say, which they distilled soft as Oil; yet We have now found their sting, sharper than two edged swords; for they have so poisoned the world, with their Pamphlets, their Papers, and new tricks of a Reformation (as they call it: a thing as contrary to the mystery of your kingdom, as light to darkness) that now nothing can compose the fury of the Obstinate people, nor smooth the commotions, unless Episcopacy first of all be thrown over board; and then having given the swinge to the wheel of their fancy, no hopes of rest. Your Holiness had wisely, and effectually too established your right, and continued your possession in those parts, by that Hierarchy: But now the glory is departed from those mighty Champions; They are chased too and fro as a forsaken leaf before the wind, and know not where to pitch; And he also that ere while was the great Primate of England, alterius Orbis Patriarcha, for a Throne of eminency, is like to be brought upon the Scaffold of delinquency; and the rest of the holy fathers of this Church, lovers of peace, and most religious observers of the old Apostolic eminency, for the honour of the Church, and glory of the Gospel, are likewise trembling, every day ready to be offered up as a sacrifice to the public hate. The valorous Pens of your Emissaries, and faithful labourers are now discouraged, lulled asleep, and turned against themselves. The Authors of the most meritorious Pieces are now arraigned before the heretical Tribunals, and shall hardly be brought off, if the strength of your policy, and assiduity of your prayers do not prepare their safety. Their shining virtues, by which they ought to have been so dear to the Church of Rome, are now wrapped in clouds of shame. All things move crossly; and now when our affairs were even ripening, and our just hopes pregnant with conceit of wreaths, and triumphs, behold We are filled with nothing but disappointments, and apprehensions of farther reaching woes. I know the portentous news of the Scottish and English treaty (which fills all Courts, and Kingdoms) hath long ere now afflicted your most sacred ears: for the estates of Scotland (which We can never name without shame and anger) have given order to their Commissioners (Ambassadors of our overthrow) to treat with the Peers of England for the production of an established peace betwixt the two Nations, and so consequently for preparing worse days to us, than the miseries of the most disastrous war: They are linked together like two malignant powerful Planets in conjunction, who have such forceable influence in the Times, that they cast forth a flood of fire, and animate every thing against us with a dangerous temper. By the conference of this treaty (which joins their interlaced minds in an individual league) and by the profane canvasing and supercilious, contrectation of the highest mysteries of State, We see how they have overdone us, and overwitted us in all our policies: It shall be found (most holy Father) true as the eternal Verities, that their union will prove our infallible confusion. And that ordinary remedy of a division, which has oftentimes proved so effectual, in such exigencies will likewise now forsake us: for all their purposes, their Judgements, their affections, (Like as a nimble smiling flame Meeting another, grows the same) Are now but all one, pointing upward with their heads, not to heaven, but to the top of their execrable hopes, being no other than to see your Venerable Mitre (which so long hath been the terror of Princes) buried in the dust; never did plots thrive like theirs; every day, and every circumstance of time adds a new degree of strength to their machinations; fortifying themselves against us most sensibly, even as by the continual revolution of the approaching Sun We find the day is enlengthned, and the summer begotten. There be greater considerations in hands then the curious rules of ceremonies, which I confess did multiply most egregiously, after the Majesty, and decency of the Italian splendour: certainly their actions do carry an unusual weight, and suitable to themselves do fly at an unusual height. Their progress is swift, and powerful, as is the progress of unlimited fire in a populous City; or like winds, whose force do at their birth rend open the stubborn womb of the dull earth. I have skrewed myself as cunningly as I could in the bosom of their intelligence, and found the pulse of the business, but I declare my sagacity fails me if they do not thirst after the very heartblood of your honour, and combine for your final fall; and all this under the gallant name of Loyalty to their King, and specious pretext of defending the faith. Oh the cunning Heretics the Scots! they have besieged us most subtly, and sprung a mine as it were under your Holiness own throne. Amongst other inveigling devices, they have coined such a blasphemous way of argumenting against Venerable Episcopacy, that it will prove most destructive of that heavenly Hierarchy, by which your Holiness had anchored on the beauty of this Church; and this malignancy is followed with congruity of humours so easily elemented, that I doubt the miserable torn thing can escape shipwreck in this hell-blowne tempest. They laugh at the authority of our Church, they scorn the arguments of antiquity, saying that Truth did precede error; and all the considerations of pomp and state, and external magnificence they hold lighter than vanity. As to the Assembly of the high Court of Parliament, here (upon which all heretic Churches do gaze more superstitiously than the Indians look upon the Sun which they adore) 'tis more terrible than many Armies with banners, and by unmerciful ways intends a mighty vengeance against the Romish and Prelate faction. They are in a strange motion, and run a tide clean contrary to our standing; some wonderful assistance must prompt the times dangerously, and the great body of this justly redoubted Parliament, is like to have a virtue too immense for one region to contain, and moves with greater Majesty then as it were resolved to confine its revolutions within the narrow limits of this Island; for the policies are so many and transcendent, their resolutions so firm and immovable, that they are easily powerful not only to banish the Catholics out of their own Land, but do violence to the Romish faith in the heart of Italy, and persuade the Turks and Barbares to become heretical Impostors. It is able to make your Ancestors break their mabre lodgings, come forth and quarrel this superlative fury, which riots so boundlessly. He that would discompose this Parliament, must first overthrow a Kingdom, a Prince, a Law; nay else as easily might he commix with lightnings, or call bacl a Thunderbolt, as offer to restore it: for it is diseased in mind, diseased past recovery. All the Canons, and constitutions of that sacred Synod (which were truly the Magazine of our spiritual strength) are here bitterly pestered, and swept away; and the children of Policy, who made the advancement of your estate and honour the greatest part of their study, are now most dangerously censured, and made the deplored subject of the times. They take as little notice of your offspring, the reverend Prelates, as the surly North does of the Snow; which when it has engendered, its vild breath scatters through the earth forgotten. If business take so hot a working, truly for what I can conjecture by the purposes of heaven, or earth, all the Laurels growing on your Holiness Crest will be turned to Cypress, serving to no use but to adorn your funerals; and the Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishops of Italy shall be shortly sent to visit their cold Urns, and the Nuns left to keep warm their ashes with their dearest tears. Your Arch-officers, and friends, can be no more useful to your Holiness; though they were indeed your ministering and faithful spirits, yet are they now shut up in prisons, and groan under the martyring hand of impious and corrupt Justice; resolve to compose their funeral Anthems, and make ready condign places for them in the Calendar: for the blackest crime in their charge is, that they have befriended the Romish cause (trusty souls!) and laboured to rectify a stubborn State too imperiously. The persecution is so hot here, and the winnowing of men so exact, that sundry (out of conscience of humbling, and weakening the State, to make it more capable of alterations, and and apt to obey) not able to stand before such a sophisticat light, as is their Parliament (which notwithstanding of our light esteem, has melted them as Snow) have embraced a voluntar banishment, and transplanted themselves beyond sea, where they may enjoy the safety of a more gracious shade, and under your Holiness beams grow fat. We have not yet seen all the links of this chain of providence, till the unwearied spheres, the dispensers of time, spin them out one after another; but if your Holiness will cast your eyes about you, and look to the commotions, and earthquakes in Kingdoms, and Commonwealths; We dare almost be bold to say that your Kingdom is now at the age of consistence, and can grow no further. Your Sunbeams have passed the meridian, and chased with the stifling mists of error, like smoke out of the pit, are swiftly declining, and that without hopes to arise again; so they take it universally for granted, and believe with strong confidence that now upon the stage of Europe, there is a strange Comedy acting, whose Epilogue shall be in Rome; for matters cannot stand at this point, but our enemies who have their desires strengthened, will strive to encompass what yet remains. May it not well be feared that the English Majesty with his two puissant armies in the fields (ready for all undertake) shall espouse the cause of the Huguenots in France, and now when the French King is offering to set his foot upon that little republic of Geneve, shall appear most terribly for their relief, and lift up the Heretics horn now lying in the dust, and finally confound all the pioning policies of the Cardinal Richilieu, who has so prosperously triumphed in his garlands of Lillyes, and Floures-de-luce. What should hinder him from becoming the head of all these pretended reformed Churches? and display an uncontrolled banner, till he have sprung over the Alps upon the wings of renown, and as full of success, as hopes spread fear and love through the world; and having forgotten your right to the Patrimony of the Church, by the benevolence of Constantine the Great, he strip you naked of all your riches, and eminence; making you miserable as the poorest Capuchin: and armed with zeal, tear down the walls of Rome like a ramping Lion? I think We should be sufficiently puzzled, and the most generous Armies your Holiness could command, would take them to their last abilities, and have use of all their Counsel, and strength, if these motions should be followed. It is here likewise reported to the great encouragement of our enemies, that there be strange and dangerous Novations in France, which lead to an open revolt, and the powerful prevailing of heresy; for if their Church Service be received in a known tongue against the practices, and constitutions of the Church (as the same flies) and that by the advice of the Huguenots, who will never move beyond their Line, to meet us (not a hair breadth) certainly you may then make the Mitres Epitaph, and persuade yourself of greater inundations of evils then ever was thought to have sprung from the Covenant of Scotland, or the Triennial Parliaments in England; You may see then the combustion which began in Scotland, and threatened but weakly at a great distance, is now come to the skirts of the Holy Land almost, and that you had need to look to your own building. Our evils multiply, as the heads of Hydra; for what consequence may We apprehend from the Marriage of the daughter of England, with those who be Arch-enemies to your most Catholic Son, the right hand of your execution? and can the Prince Palatine be arrived here for any thing which will bring either happiness to the common cause, or divert the calamities which are daily emergent, like swollen clouds of infection arising upon the Horizon and darkening the sky? No, our evils are preparing as the Arrows are ready to be sent from the bended bow. Through this belief, the profane world do glory in most sacrilegious insolences; for the dis-mantling of Churches, the pulling up of the rails (which make the comely distance from the holy place) nay, the overturning of Altars, (which in all the corners of the Kingdom did rise most bravely after the Italian mode) are but the daily practices of the undaunted, and undistinguishing vulgar. We are come to such height of contempt, that Boys sing our scandal in the streets; they tune Ballads to our infamy: and he that can reproach us most handsomely, and deeply inform against us, has most strongly demerited Church and State. I like not the complexion of our affairs; strange symptoms of a most dangerous consumption, and many pregnant reasons for the increase of our fears. The Pulpits have forgotten that gracious sound, with which they were of late most entirely acquainted; the Books dare not appear in the Romish dye, but come forth in squadrons; in strange habit, and heretical colours. Our possession here is gone, it seems; and our hopes to recover it, wholly blasted: nay if the pernicious Counsels, and the opinions of the daring Scots prevail, We may as easily think to entice the Sun from his Ecliptic, as work an alteration of their humours, or shake them from these new grounds to which they are now so miserably wedded. I dare not forget to show your Holiness, what great expressions of joy have been here in the City of London, tearing the clouds with the music of their Bells, and condensing the air with the smoke of their Bonfires, as if they had already seen their furthest desires crowned, and had been ringing our funeral kneels; because the Prince has granted to the Estates a Triennall Parliament, wherewith the people have been as strongly affected, as if they had been delivered from Pest or Famine; or had received the spoils of most important conquest: by this means they resolve to hammer us so flat, that We shall never set up our heads, nor bud again. If ever affliction could awake the Sons and Daughters of the Roman Church, 'tis now, when the angry winds are let lose from the corners of the earth. We have not indeed slept our time here, but practised very laboriously, and according as the Church's exigency did call us to a double care, so likewise have We attempted all expediencies for deluding the purposes of our enemies, and strengthening ourselves. We have stretched our wit, and studied fitting policies in all the latitude of a Catholic conscience; there remains nothing in the treasure of invention which We have not solicit, and now in these bleeding times with greater strength of wit; but I know not what has interposed betwixt your Holiness influence, and a good effect: some thing of late has made obstructions in the effectual derivations of your Apostolic Benedictions; all has proved unprofitable: And (not to offend your Holiness) I fear lest the tide of your sorrows be but yet growing; for whereas We have ever magnified, and exalted tradition above the Scripture, yet we know not how to fasten on these Impostures, for they adhere so close to their Scriptures, in their reasons, and opinions, that sooner may you divorce the light from the Sun, then pull them from their ground slighting the traditions, and customs of the Romish Church with as much disdain, as we neglect the Koran; and ever when they oppone Scripture to our Traditions, We know not what to say, and have not been acquainted with other Authority than the Churches: therefore your Holiness would do well to hearken to this, and consider that the times in likelihood are coming, when the Scriptures (which have been so highly esteemed by the simplicity of that pretended Religion) will be the rule of faith, and Church-Government, and overthrow our subtleties: I hope your Holiness, as the great Ghostly Father of the Church, will see that your building be firmly seated upon permanent foundations; for if they be not sure and able for all assaults, it may happily fall, and crush us all: and I assure your Holiness, if your affronts increase, your strength do not convalesce, and this bad fortune of the Mitre continue, a panic fear will invade all your devoted Kings, Princes, and Cardinals; they will betake them to the strongest side, and leave you in the mire. It is now therefore high time to summon up all that is virtue about you; What ever any of the great Monarches of the Church could ●oe, let it now appear by your power most eminently displayed: your Holiness would do well to call a Counsel, and consult with heavens, and learn how to stop these Heretics mouths; convince them of the Truth, and heap coals on their heads: seek out the end of these troubles that afflict the world; for it is indeed to be feared, if Heresy become so insolent, and swell with so good fortune, that shortly their Truth shall shine glorious as the Sun, and become as it were the Idol of the world, extinguishing the life of our mysteries, under which We have had such Haltionian days. Since then all the fabric of our Religion, the standing of the Apostolic Empire, and all that is dear and splendid to the glory of the Mitre is now shaking; Rise up from your throne, put to your saving hand to the Helm, and do not neglect one day, one hour, one minute to wear out with toil of plot, and practise of conceit, your busy and fruitful wit; bestir like the first mover, your inferior, and obedient Spirits, every one in their own sphere; never take rest, nor force a smile which is not borrowed from a sacred, and Papal vengeance, such as becomes the state of your disgrace, and unbounded fate, till your Holiness know what way to satisfy fury and revenge; till you and your successors, the undoubted Inheritors of the world's Metropolitical throne, have touched the ends of the earth with your all conquering Sceptre, and hath led Truth in Procession, triumphing over the ruins of error. FINIS. Pope's mitre The Daughter of Mystery, the child of Error, Mother of Tyranny, of Wars, of Terror, The Idol of Reproach, Rock of offence To jew and Gentile, Source of Indulgence For all Impieties, and th'usurping Crest 'Bove Diadems, the State, the Church's Pest Is now discov'red, and all the world awake. Makes proud Rome, and th'opprobrious Mitre shake.