^*^
 
 1^- 
 
 ROME'S TACTICS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 A LESSON FOE ENGLAND FROM THE PAST : 
 
 SHOWING THAT 
 
 THE GEEAT OBJECT OF POPERY SINCE THE REFOEMATION" 
 
 HAS BEEN TO SUBVERT AND RUIN 
 
 PROTESTANT CHURCHES AND PROTESTANT STATES, 
 
 BY 
 
 Dissensions and Troubles caused by Disguised Popish Agents : 
 
 WITH A BRIEF NOTICE OP 
 BY THE 
 
 Very Key. WILLIAM GOODE, D.D., F.S.A., 
 
 LATE DEAN OF RIPON. 
 WITH A PREFACE BY THE 
 
 Very Rey. HUGH McNEILE, D.D., 
 
 DEAN OF RIPON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 THE CHRISTIAN BOOK SOCIETY, 
 
 22, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C. 
 18L8.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 By the Council of the Christian Book Society, I am 
 requested to write a few lines, introductory to a Cheap 
 Edition of this admirable Tract. I rejoice in the opportunity 
 thus afforded me to bear my humble and hearty testimony 
 to the erudition, the accuracy, the Protestant zeal, the con- 
 troversial acumen, and the Christian charity, of my highly 
 valued and sincerely lamented predecessor. Dean Goode. 
 
 His was the watchful eye, and his the warning voice on 
 the walls of our Zion, and it is well that by the circulation 
 broadcast of the following pages, that voice should be heard 
 reverberating throughout the land, at this crisis in our 
 history. 
 
 Solomon said, " Surely in vain the net is spread in the 
 sight of any bird." Dean Goode tore off Home's mask, 
 and exposed " Eome's Tactics." And to England he says, 
 " Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and 
 as a bird from the snare of the fowler." 
 
 English Protestants are unsuspecting and uncombined 
 because they are free. Their responsibility is personal, and 
 the cultivation oi personal responsibility is inseparable from 
 a corresponding cultivation of independence of thought and 
 feeling. This is one inevitable result of the free and dutiful 
 exercise of private judgment ; and as every one, individually, 
 must give account of himself at the judgment-seat of Christ, 
 it is right and proper that every one, individually, should 
 
 a 2
 
 ir 
 
 think for himself now. As there will be no vicarious 
 religion then^ (except in Christ Himself,) so there ought to 
 be none now. ]No mortal can answer for another then, 
 therefore none should dare to do so now. This constitutes 
 the excellence of our condition, as self- examining Christians ; 
 but this very excellence constitutes a main part of our 
 exposure to the machinations of such a conspiracy as Ro- 
 manism. Its object is supremacy over the souls and bodies 
 of men. Its means are unscrupulous. Its organisation is 
 complete. Where force can be used with safety and effect, 
 it may — where fraud with better hope of success, it may — 
 where a combination of both, it may. The canon law lays 
 bishops, and through them, their priests, under an obligation 
 to endeavour by all means, to obtain ascendancy. For this 
 purpose, having brought their " subjects " into a state of 
 convenient vassalage, they employ them in divers disingenu- 
 ous missions among Protestants — to foment disunion, to 
 suggest doubt, to discourage reliance on the Bible, by in- 
 sinuating uncertainty as to its canon, and obscurity as to its 
 contents. 
 
 In a country like this, containing a teeming population, 
 to thousands of whom we have no adequate means of ex- 
 tending the blessings of true Christian teaching, there must 
 always be a large number of persons open to the machina- 
 tions of such a body as the drilled agents of a Romish 
 hierarchy. 
 
 Those agents are employed skilfully, according to their 
 several qualifications for fraud or force, for perfidy or 
 audacity, to unsettle the foundations of heretic society. 
 Noisy bullies are employed to interrupt Protestant meetings, 
 and prevent freedom of speech ; swearing before magistrates 
 that a breach of the peace is to be apprehended, a breach 
 which they themselves have prepared and are ready to 
 perpetrate. Sisters of charity are employed to commend 
 themselves to the good graces of unwary and indigent 
 Protestants, by visits of sympathy and invitations to cheap or 
 even gratuitous education for their children. AYriters of tales 
 
 o
 
 and catechisms are employed to captivate and indoctrinate 
 the youthful mind. Poets and musicians are employed 
 to gratify the taste, and entrance the senses. 
 
 Nor does the plan of the campaign end here. Witnesses 
 are suborned and party confederacy prevails, to defeat the 
 course of justice. And simultaneous combinations, with 
 intent to intimidate, act in divers localities, with all the 
 precision and punctuality of a disciplined army, while 
 no man sees the officers in command. 
 
 Romanism has seldom of late years been regarded steadily 
 under its genuine aspect of an unappeasable foe to civil 
 liberty. In many senses a cheat, it is in every sense a 
 tyrant. In vague and abstract terms, Rome professes to 
 confine her jurisdiction to things spiritual : but in practice, 
 by vigilant and subtle induction, by claims of relationship 
 between things spiritual and things temporal, she brings 
 all the affairs of this world within her constructive empire. 
 In the council-room, in the confessional, in the closet, in 
 the chamber, in the streets — ever watchful, ever menacing, 
 ever exacting, ever calculating; where Popery through her 
 ministers finds admission, there is no security, no confidence, 
 no free agency, no free speech, no bold nor independent 
 thought — all is unconscious, unvarying, irretrievable 
 bondage. 
 
 What Mr, Wise, in his "History of the CRoman) Catholic 
 Association" says of that most cunningly devised confederacy, 
 may with truth be said of the entire machinery by which 
 a Popish hierarchy assails a Protestant community : — ^^ It 
 was designed to tell ministers, in a language which could no 
 longer be misunderstood, that, whenever the Association 
 chose to call, there were the people ready to follow \ that 
 obedience to the Association was the paramount principle in 
 the heart of every peasant in the country ; that the power 
 of the Association was therefore absolute and universal ; 
 that it could not be got rid of by the law, because it never 
 infringed the law; that it could not be got rid of by brute 
 force, because it never rendered brute force necessary ; that it
 
 VI 
 
 was therefore unattackable and enduring — that unattackable 
 itself, it could attack others ; that, without injuring existing 
 institutions, it might make use of those very institutions for 
 every purpose of injury ; that it could wield the consti- 
 tution against the constitution ; introduce a sullen, perpetual 
 war into the bosom of peace ; disturb every relation of 
 society, without violating a single enactment on which such 
 relations repose ; and finally, produce such an order of 
 things as to compel the minister to choose between coercion 
 and conciliation." 
 
 This is frank, except the last word. Mr. Wise knew per- 
 fectly well that conciliation was out of the question. The 
 choice left to the British Government was, and is, coercion 
 or submission . It is on this issue that our senators should 
 learn wisdom. Self-defence by law against such a system, is 
 not intolerance. To treat such a system as if it were merely 
 a religious difference, and not also a political conspiracy, 
 is infatuation. To exclude from offices o{ power and trust in 
 the state all who refuse to abjure such a conspiracy, is nothing 
 more than common prudence. England may rest assured 
 that her choice is narrowed to the painful, but inevitable 
 alternative of exclusion or submission. Fair participation is 
 utterly impracticable. Equality, the beau ideal of Liberalism, 
 is spurned with supreme contempt by Rome. What ! equality 
 between the laws of the Vicar of Christ and the laws of a 
 mere layman, especially an excommunicated heretic ! The 
 very thought is profane. No ! supremacy there must he, and 
 England must either keep it for her otvn Sovereign, or yield 
 it to a foreigner. The foe are at the door ; and their archi- 
 episcopal leader has told us with a loud voice that the Royal 
 supremacy is no more, and has thereupon summoned us to 
 surrender. How long will England patiently endure such 
 msults, and continue to lick the hand that smites her I 
 
 But justice is the cry, justice between man and man; and 
 we are threatened with what continental nations say of our 
 injustice. In answer to what has been said, and ably said, on 
 that subject, by some of our (school) master spirits, I venture
 
 Vll 
 
 to think that justice between man and man in peace, is not 
 justice between Kome and England. Justice implies fair 
 play with reference to a common standard of right. Between 
 Borne and England there is no common standard. England's 
 aim is equal liberty to all. Rome's aim is absolute dominion 
 over all. There can be no peace between them, except on 
 one condition, and that to the utter exclusion of justice. 
 Eome's unalterable condition is unconditional submission. 
 Lord Arundel said truly in the House of Commons, (if 
 not in these words, yet certainly to this effect,) '^ The 
 antagonism is interminable, till one or other is subdued." 
 What then is justice between army and army in the 
 field? There must be victory before there can be peace. 
 And after victory, if peace is to be permanent, precau- 
 tions must be taken against mutiny and rebellion. England 
 gained a victory, and took precautions. The land had rest 
 two hundred years. England relaxed her precautions ; and 
 although the mutiny has begun, she refuses to defend her- 
 self, on the plea that it would be inconsistent in her to 
 resume her former attitude. For the honour of consistency 
 she is relaxing her precautions more and more, and dreaming 
 of conciliation and harmony, while the mutiny, aided and 
 abetted by traitors in the camp, is gathering strength for 
 a rebellion. At the last, in spite of all her love of peace 
 and offers of peace, and all her eloquent and learned 
 eulogiums on justice and equality, she will be compelled 
 either to fight or yield ; either to be grossly inconsistent, or 
 abjectly servile. 
 
 The issue, as Dean Goode has well said, *' seriously afiects 
 the interests of others besides members of the Church 
 of England." Eome, in the complicated struggle for ascend- 
 ancy, plausibly joins in the cry for justice and equality; and 
 gladly avails herself of auxiliaries in the non-conforming 
 communions of our country. These, let it be frankly ad- 
 mitted, have too much cause for irritation and complaint. 
 The tone concerning them, of some of our high Churchmen, 
 is as unchristian as that of Eome herself: and it is not
 
 Vlll 
 
 unreasonable that they should loathe and resent, as proof 
 of connivance in high places, the growth, the unchecked 
 growth, in our National Church, of superstitious novelties — 
 not primitive practices, long neglected and now revived; 
 but mediaeval corruptions and puerilities which should never 
 have been adopted. 
 
 In the face of all this, and deploring and condemning it as 
 sincerely and as loudly as they do ; we yet venture respect- 
 fully to remonstrate with any among them who feel tempted 
 to desert us in the contest. Look at the alternative. If 
 there be whips in the Church of England, there are scorpions 
 in the Church of Home. The whips are removable. The 
 Protestant people of England can do it. The millions still 
 sound in the National Church, and the millions still orthodox 
 in the dissenting communions, have but to restrain their 
 superficial jealousies which reach nothing vital, and speak 
 out with one voice, and the National Church can be cleansed. 
 But the scorpions are irremoveable. Rome in her infallibi- 
 lity is unchangeable, and in her supremacy, if attained, 
 would not endure any dissent. In the plenitude of her 
 power, her simple and only formula for all Nonconformists 
 is " ex nolentefjiat volens.^^ 
 
 Even as a choice of evils then, to which we are often 
 reduced in this world, you should all be with us. But this 
 appeal is made much stronger, and much more prevailing 
 with the best and noblest among you, when we remind you, 
 that notwithstanding all our practical defections, we still 
 hold, and hold fast, that precious deposit of Scriptural truth, 
 and the sufficiency of the Scripture which teaches it, in 
 defence of which our common forefathers bled and burned, 
 rather than adopt the traditions, or even connive at the 
 idolatries of the Church of Rome. 
 
 Eor the Christian Church, in the highest and best sense of 
 the term, we entertain no apprehensions. We know in whom 
 we have believed. We know Him who said, '^ Fear not, little 
 fiock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the 
 kingdom." And again, "All that the Father giveth to me
 
 IX 
 
 shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no 
 wise cast out." '^I give unto them eternal life, and they 
 shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of 
 my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than 
 all, and no man shall be able to pluck them out of my 
 Father's hand. I and my Father are one." 
 
 Yes, for the members of Christ's mystical body, the bride, 
 the Lamb's wife, the blessed company of all faithful people, 
 we fear nothing, and have nothing to fear. The promises of 
 God to them are all yea and all amen in Christ Jesus. 
 Neither the gates of hell nor the machinations of antichrist 
 can prevail against any one of them. Their hallelujahs shall 
 ascend before the Throne when the smoke of the torments 
 of the beast and the false prophet shall also ascend. '' Baby- 
 lon the great is fallen, is fallen ! And her smoke rose up 
 for ever and ever." " And much people in heaven sang 
 Halleluiah, salvation and glory and honour and power 
 unto the Lord our God!" 
 
 But we have no such promise for our beloved country. 
 The golden candlestick of pure and Scriptural Christianity 
 may be removed from England, as it has been from other 
 lands — and we confess we have not become so transcen- 
 dental nor so cosmopolitan as to have abjured all Christian 
 Patriotism. If this be a weakness in the eyes of abstract 
 philosophy, we must plead guilty to it. Patriotism is 
 permitted — nay, it is to be cultivated — in the followers 
 of Him who wept over corrupt and doomed Jerusalem ; and 
 England is called, and loudly called, to the decision and 
 energy essential to the present crisis, in the name, the sacred, 
 the animating name of Christian Patriotism. Christian 
 Patriotism ! the most touching and, next to the love of God 
 in Christ, the noblest passion of the human heart — the love, 
 the undying love of that country which protected the cradles 
 of our infancy, and encloses the ashes of our fathers ; the 
 happy scene of childhood, when all was hope and joy ; when 
 innocence was in every heart, and pleasure in every eye ; 
 when every smile was bliss, and every thought was buoyant 
 
 A
 
 rapture ; when a father's benignant encouragement, a 
 mother's aiFectionate embrace, a sister's softening and human- 
 ising companionship, conveyed to the ripening character 
 indelible impressions of philanthrophy — impressions asso- 
 ciated for ever with the walks, the trees, the rivers, the 
 mountains, amongst which the gentle influences twined them- 
 selves round the yet plastic soul. Christian Patriotism ! " the 
 holyromance of sensibility and virtue." Free-born Englishmen, 
 be wise, be firm. Ye thousands who are now for the first 
 time to be invested with a share in political responsibility, be 
 wise, be firm. Deliver your country, your beloved country, 
 unequalled on the globe — oh, deliver her, and keep her 
 delivered, decidedly, and no mistake, from the despotic grasp 
 of antichrist, from the snares and ambuscades of Kome's 
 Tactics, from the iron chain of Rome's Canon Law. 
 
 The Deanery, Eipon, 
 September J 1868,
 
 ROME'S TACTICS, 
 
 ^c, 8fc. 
 
 The subversion of Protestantism has been the great ob- 
 ject to which the efforts of the Church of Eome have been 
 directed,, from the Reformation in the sixteenth century to 
 the present day. And the mode in which it has been sought 
 to accomplish this object^ has been suitable to the character 
 of that corrupt system for whose defence it was required. 
 As soon as a purer form of faith and worship had taken such 
 firm root in Europe that no hope remained of extirpating it 
 by direct persecution, the resolution was immediately taken 
 at Rome to attempt its destruction, in the countries where it 
 prevailed, by sowing the seeds of disseusion among its ad- 
 herents, chiefly by sending among them teachers oiall hinds 
 of false and antagonistic vieivs and doctrines, both civil and 
 ecclesiastical, and thus producing a state of moral confusion 
 in the country, and preventing any harmonious action in 
 Church or State. Rome clearly saw that there was no surer 
 way of preventing the growth and influence of that teaching 
 that threatened her very life. So far as she could secure 
 mutual hostility among the various Protestant Communions, 
 and especially internal discord j so far would their power to 
 propagate those all-important doctrines of the Christian 
 faith, the light of which God had through their means re- 
 stored to the world, revealing the true character of the re- 
 ligion of the Church of Rome, be paralysed. And the hope 
 was cherished, that when a state of disquiet and dissension 
 
 A 2
 
 4 
 
 had been produced^ the voice of the Church of Rome Yv^ould 
 ]je recognized as alone able to restore peace,, and by its 
 authority terminate the strife. 
 
 For the accomplishment of this purpose no mode of action 
 has been more in favour with that corrupt politico-ecclesias- 
 tical body than the employment of disguised agents playing- 
 a double part and carrying on secret operations for the pur- 
 pose of producing confusion and discord^ and consequent 
 ruin^ in Protestant Churches and States. Dispensations 
 have always been freely to be had at Rome for the assump- 
 tion of any character^ and the prosecution of any scheme of 
 hypocrisy, frauds or even violence, by which Protestantism 
 was likely to suffer^ and the interests of the Church of Rome 
 might be promoted. 
 
 So little^ however, is generally known of the artifices of 
 Rome in this respect — artifices to ivMchj it must he recol- 
 lected, we are quite as Qnucli exi^osed at the present day as at 
 any former period — that I think it may be useful to bring 
 before the public a few evidences of the nature of her prac- 
 tices in this respect, drawn from the experience of former 
 times. We are indebted, of course, for all the knowledge 
 we have on the subject, to the occasional and fortuitous dis- 
 covery of particular cases, which, notwithstanding the studious 
 eftorts at concealment^ have through some peculiar contin- 
 gency come to light ; from which, however, our conclusions 
 as to the course deliberately and systematically pursued by 
 Rome are inevitable. 
 
 I shall confine myself, in the following pages, to what has 
 taken place in this country ; and limit the evidence adduced^ 
 so as to bring it within the compass of those who are too 
 much engaged to read larger works. 
 
 And I believe it to be of vital importance to the best inte- 
 rests of Great Britain, both in Church and State, at the pre- 
 sent time, that the dangers to which a Protestant country is 
 exposed from this cause should be known. 
 
 That the present state of things among us is greatly due 
 to the presence of innumerable Romish emissaries, many of
 
 tliem working nnder various disguises, and using lialf-hearted 
 and ill-informed and weak Protestants as tkeir tools_, can 
 hardly be denied by any one well-informed on sucli subjects. 
 One testimony may suffice for proof. Some years since, an 
 eminent foreign statesman stated to one from whom I had 
 the information, — We have got rid of the Jesuits as far as 
 human power mil enable any Government to get rid of such 
 a body of men, but England is swarming ivith themj and 
 before long you ivillfeel the effects of their presence. 
 
 The following pages will show what those effects are. And 
 if the circumstances of the times may give a less sanguinary 
 character to some of those effects, than they have had at some 
 former periods, it must be remembered that their object is 
 the same ; the re-establishment of a system of anti- Christian 
 superstition, in which the religion of Christ is turned into 
 blind submission to a human priesthood, the spiritual worship 
 of the Gospel Dispensation exchanged for a sensuous cere- 
 monialism, and the consciences of men are enslaved to the 
 dictates of one whose claim to infallibility is justly punished 
 by his being permitted to lapse into errors and follies which 
 the common sense of mankind repudiates. I shall give the 
 evidence in chronological order. 
 
 In 1549 the following letter was sent to the Bishops of 
 Winchester and Eochester. It was found by Sir Henry 
 Sidney among Queen Mary^s papers. 
 
 " Edward, son of Henry, the heretic King of England, by 
 his crafty and politic Council hath absolutely brought in 
 heresy, which if not by art or other endeavours speedily over- 
 thrown and made infamous, all other foreign heretics will 
 unite with your new heresies now amongst yourselves lately 
 planted, and so have bishops as you have ; and it is the 
 opinion of our learned men now at Trent that the schisms in 
 England by Edward^s Council established will reclaim all the 
 foreign sects unto their discipline, and thereby be one body 
 united. For Calvin, Bullinger, and others have wrote unto 
 Edward to offer their service to assist and unite, also to make 
 Edward and his heirs their chief defender, and so have bishops 
 as well as England; which if it come to pass, that heretic
 
 6 
 
 bisliops be so near and spread abroad. Borne and the Clergy 
 utterly falls. You must therefore mahe these offertures of 
 theirs odious to Edward and his Council. Eeceive N. S. and 
 E. L. from Rotterdam ; tJieir lessons are taught them ; taTze 
 you their ijarts, if cheched by the other heretics ; for tliese be 
 for rebaptising, and not for infant baptism. Their doctrine 
 is for a future monarchy upon earth after death_, which will 
 please the ordinary hind well, and dash the other that rageth 
 now amongst yon. Reverend fathers, it is left to you to assist, 
 and to those you know are sure to the Mother- Church. From 
 Delph the 4th Ide of May, anno Christi, 1549. D. G.'^* 
 
 Sir H. Sidney says, that he showed this letter to Queen 
 Elizabeth, " at the sight whereof she was startled, the letter 
 being amongst her sister^s papers, which caused her to ex- 
 press these very words : ' I had rather than a year's revenue, 
 that my brother Edward and his Council had seen this letter ; 
 nay rather than twice my revenue I had seen it sooner.^ ''\ 
 
 And in connection with this remark of Queen Elizabeth, 
 which clearly showed how she believed herself to have been 
 misled by similar practices, we may observe the remarkable 
 testimony of Bishop Burnet, in a sermon which he preached 
 in 1688 before the House of Commons. 
 
 " Here suffer me to tell you,^^ he says, " that in the begin- 
 ning of Queen Elizabeth's reign our adversaries saw no hopes 
 of retrieving their affairs, which had been spoiled by Queen 
 Mary's persecution, but by setting on foot divisions among 
 Protestants upon very inconsiderable matters. I myself have 
 seen the letters of the chief bishops of that time, from which 
 it appears that the Queen's stiffness in maintaining some 
 ceremonies flowed not from their Councils, but from the 
 practices of some disguised Fa%nsts.''X 
 
 In a Bull of Pope Paul the Third is granted the following 
 indulgence : — 
 
 * Foxes and Firebrands, pt. 2, 1682. 8vo. pp. 11—13. This book was 
 published by Eobert Ware, son of Sir James Ware, to whom some of Cecil's 
 papers came through the medium of Archbishop Usher, which supplied, 
 some of the most valuable documents he has here pu.blished. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 13. 
 
 X Bishop Burnet's Sermon before the House of Commons, January 31, 
 1688. London : 1689. 4to, pp. 14, 15.
 
 '^"Wliereas we find the heretics now concord in the ad- 
 ministration of the sacrament of the body of Jesus_, we grant 
 full remission of sins to those our sons of our Mother- Church 
 that shall stop or hinder tlieir union amongst heretics/^* 
 
 The following instructions were sent_, in 1551^ from the 
 Council of Trent to the Jesuits of Paris_, through Casa^ Arch- 
 bishop of Benevento. The report of these instructions rests 
 upon the testimony of a convert from Romanism in 1566, of 
 the name of Samuel Mason_, who had been bred up with the 
 Jesuits at Paris, and who, coming over to this country, was 
 after his recantation appointed by Archbishop Adam Loftus 
 to the cure of a parish near Dublin, where he died ; Dr. 
 Garvey, Dean of Christ Church, Dublin, and afterwards 
 Archbishop of Armagh, preaching his funeral sermon. He 
 
 
 The messenger between the Council of Trent and the 
 Jesuits of Paris, was Ludovick de Freake, formerly a priest 
 in England, who brought with him up to Paris, from the 
 Council, several kind of Indulgences and Instructions for the 
 Society to undertake and grant and teach. Part of the In- 
 structions were thus. To take notice of the confessions of the 
 people of France, especially of the nobles and gentry ; and 
 in case they suspect anything detrimental to the Holy See of 
 Home, then to confer with three or more Confessors of the 
 suspicion, and so to take memorandums of certain questions 
 to be asked of the party so suspected the next time. Also to 
 converse with the noblest, and to discourse variously until 
 they find which way he is inclinable most^ and to please them 
 accordingly in their discourse ; and in case any of you be, or 
 chance to be, any of their Confessors, ye are to take memo- 
 randums of things doubtful and suspicious, and at the next 
 Confession to urge them to those parties then confessing, by 
 which any three or more are to consult, and give the See of 
 Home and her Councils intelligence more or less, that the 
 Mother- Church might be informed, and all evil prevented 
 that is or shall be pretended against her, 
 
 " You are to associate with all strangers, heretical, as well 
 * FoxeSj &c., p. 24.
 
 8 
 
 as Christian Catliolic; if heretical, to be civil, and not to dis- 
 cover you7' jprofession; and for the better procurement of these 
 designs, designed or to be accomplished, ye may ivith leave of 
 any three of the Society he ^^ermitted to wear ivhat dress or 
 habit you thinh convenient, provided the Society hear from the 
 party so dispensed. Any of you thus dispensed ivith may go 
 ivith the heretic to any of their heretical meetings permitted by 
 Acts or Contracts of peace between princes. By this con- 
 trivance ye may both inform the Mother- Church, and in case 
 any of you be employed to assist her to go into any of the here- 
 tical villages or territories, you will be the more able to serve 
 the Holy See of St. Peter, and heep yourselves from suspicion. 
 
 ^^ In case any of you be thus employed, ye are dispensed 
 with either to go with heretics to their churches, or as you 
 see convenient. If you own yourselves clergymen, then to 
 preach, but with caution, till ye be well acquainted with those 
 heretics you converse with, and then by degrees a.dd to youj^ 
 DOCTRINE BY CEREMONIES, or otJierwise, as you find them in- 
 clinable. If ye be known by any of the lay Catholics, you 
 are to pacify them by saying secret Mass unto them, or by 
 acquainting other priests (who are not able to undertake this 
 work) with your intentions who doth [do] generally say Mass 
 unto them. If the Laymen be of any parts, or of wit, you 
 may dispense with them also, reserving the same provisoes, 
 and thereby he may acquire an estate, and be the more able 
 to serve the Mother- Church. 
 
 " In case they scruple in taking of oaths, you are to dis- 
 pense with them, assuring them that they are to be Icc/pt no 
 longer than the Mother -Church sees it convenient ; or if they 
 scruple to swear on the Evangelists, you are to say unto 
 them, that the translation on which they swear his Holiness 
 the Pope hath annulled, and thereby it is become heretical, and 
 all as one as upon an ordinary story -booh. 
 
 '^ In case in strange countries ye be known by merchants 
 or others trading or travelling thither, for to strengthen your 
 designs the more for your intention, you are dispensed with 
 to marry after their manner, and then ye safely may make 
 answer, that heretical marriage is no marriage ; for your Dis-
 
 9 
 
 pensation mollifies it so_, that at the worst it is but a venial 
 sin, and may be forgiven. 
 
 '' Ye are not to iireach all after one method, hut to observe 
 the i:)lace luherein you come. If Lutheranism be prevalent, 
 then preaclh Calvinism. ; if Calvinism, then Luther anisin ; if in 
 England, then either of them, or John Susses opinions, Anahap- 
 tism, or any that are contrary to the Holy See or [o/] St. Peter, 
 by U'hich your function luill not he suspected, and yet you may 
 still act on the interest of the Mother-Church ; there being, as 
 THE Council aee agreed on, no better way to demolish 
 THAT Church oi^ heresy, but by mixtures of doctrines, and 
 BY ADDING OF CEEEMONIES MORE THAN BE AT 
 PRESENT PERMITTED. 
 
 "Some op you who undertook to be of this sort op heretical 
 Episcopal Society, bring it as near to the Mother-Church 
 AS you can ; for then the Lutheran party, the Calvinists, the 
 Anabaptists, and other heretics will be averse thereunto, and 
 thereby make that Episcopal heresy odious to all these, and 
 be a means to reduce all in time to the Mother Church. 
 
 *^^You are further (during the time you take these shapes 
 upon you) to observe thus much of the rules of the Mother- 
 Church. The Mother-Church disowneth the Regal Power to 
 be her superior, especially the Heretical Powers Regal or 
 otherwise. Upon this ye are to take these measures : you 
 must bemoan your followers and auditors, saying, ^Are not 
 we persecuted for righteousness^ sake? What flesh and 
 blood can endure this ? We be more zealous against the 
 Pope than they, and yet we be persecuted.-' By these means 
 your contrivances will light on those ye lead along and not 
 on yourselves. This will advantage you much ; hang^ you or 
 burn you they dare not ; but their perpetual acts against the 
 party that follow you will take off the late severities they lay 
 on us in saying, we burnt the heretics their ancestors ; and 
 so at last bring that odium upon that heretical Church in 
 England, which they have thrown on us. And as you will be 
 more admired by the people, so the heretics will asperse that 
 heretical king and his church, as little differing from us.
 
 10 
 
 '^ These Instructions I am commanded to recommend unta 
 yon, as "being approved by his Hohness JuHus the Third,, 
 your Supreme Father, and his wholesome Council^ to be 
 handled and performed to the utmost of your powers, wealth, 
 parts, learning, and capacities, for the good of the Mother- 
 Church. Dated the fourth Ide of November, 1551/^* 
 
 During the reign of Mary there was of course no necessity 
 for Romish agents acting under any disguise in this country. 
 But almost immediately after the accession of Elizabeth we 
 find them again at work. 
 
 Among Cecil's (Lord Burghley^s) papers that came into 
 the hands of Sir James Ware was a letter from a confidential 
 agent of Queen Elizabeth, dated ''^Venice, April 13^ 1564/' 
 enclosing an account of '^ several consultations amongst the 
 Cardinals, Bishops, and others of the several Orders of Rome, 
 now contriving and conspiring against her gracious Majesty 
 and the Established Church of England,^^ from which I give 
 the following extracts : — 
 
 ^' Pius having consulted with the clergy of Italy and as- 
 sembling them together, it was by general consent voted, 
 that the immunity of the Romish Church' and her jurisdic- 
 tion is required to be defended by all her princes, as the 
 principal Church of God. And to encourage the same, the 
 Council hath voted that Pius should bestow Her Grace^s realm 
 on that Prince who shall attempt to conquer it. There was a 
 Council ordered by way of a Committee, who contain three 
 of the Cardinals, two of the Archbishops, six of the Bishops, 
 and as many of the late Order of the Jesuits, who daily in- 
 crease, and come into great favour with the Pope of late. 
 These do present, weekly, methods, ways and contrivances, 
 for the Church of Rome, which hold the great Council for the 
 week following in employment how to order all things for 
 the advancement of the Romish faith. Some of these con- 
 trivances coming to my hands by the help of the silver key, 
 be as follow : — 
 
 '' 1. The people of England being much averted from 
 
 * Foxes, &c., pp. 27—33.
 
 II 
 
 their Mother- CHurcli of Eome^, they have thought fit, sound- 
 ing out their inchnations how the common sort are taken 
 with the Liturgy in Enghsh, for to offer Her Grace to con- 
 firm it_, with some things altered therein, provided that Her 
 Grace and the Council do acknowledge the same from Rome 
 and her Council; which if it be denied, as we suppose it 
 will, then these are to asperse the Liturgy of England by all 
 ways and conspiracies imaginable. 
 
 " 2. A Licence or Dispensation to be granted to any of the 
 Romish Orders to preach, speak, or write against the new 
 Established Church of England, amongst other protesters 
 against Rome, purposely to make England odious to them 
 [i.e., to the other protesters against Rome], and that they 
 may retain their assistances promised them, in case of any 
 Princess invasion, and the parties so licenced and indulged 
 (dispensed with) to be seemingly as one of them, and not to 
 be either taxed checkt or excommunicated for so doing ; and 
 further, for the better assurance of the party so licenced and 
 indulged, the party to change his name lest he he discovered, 
 and to keep a quarternal correspondence with any of the 
 Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, or others of 
 the chief Monasteries, Abbies,&c. At [?A11] which quarternal 
 correspondence shall not only give the Pope intelligence of 
 heretical conspiracy, but be a full assurance of their fidelity 
 to Pome. This proposal was much debated in the Council, 
 which caused some of the Council to say, how shall we prevent 
 it, in case any of the parties so licenced fiinch from us, and 
 receive a good reward_, and fall off from our correspondency. 
 ^^3. It was then ordered that there should be several 
 appointed for to watch the parties so licenced and indulged, 
 and to give intelHgence to Rome of their behaviour, which 
 parties are sworn not to divulge to any of those so licenced 
 or indulged what they be, or from whence they came, but to 
 he strange and to come in as one of their converts, so that the 
 party shall be cautious how and which way he bendeth. 
 
 ^^It was afterwards debated how it should be ordered in case 
 any of the heretical ministry of England should become as
 
 12 
 
 tliey wlio liad tliese Licences,, and what should be done in 
 that case. 
 
 4. " It was then answered by the Bishop of Mens, that 
 that luas the thing they aimed at, and that they desired no 
 more than separation amongst the heretics of England, and 
 by so doing, in case any animosity be amongst them, the 
 Church estabhshed by the heretic Queen, (as they so termed 
 Her Grace,) there would be the less to oppose the Motlier- 
 Ghureh of Home, whenever opportunity served. This reason 
 of the Bishop pacified the whole Council. 
 
 "5. It was granted not only Indulgence and Pardon to 
 the party that should assault Her Grrace, either private or in 
 public ; or to any cook, brewer, baker, physician, vintner, 
 grocer, chirurgion, or any other calling whatsoever, that 
 should or did make her away out of this world, a pardon, but 
 an absolute remission of sins to the heirs of that party's 
 family sprung from him, and a perpetual annuity to them for 
 ever, and the said heir to be never beholding to any of the 
 Fathers for pardon, be they of what Order soever, unless it 
 pleased himself, and to be one of those Privy- Council, who- 
 soever reigned, successively. 
 
 " Q. It was ordered for the better assurance of further 
 intelligence to the See of Rome, to give Licences to any that 
 shall swear to that Supremacy due obedience and allegiance 
 to her powers to dispense ivith sacraments, baptisms, marriages, 
 and other ceremonies of our now Established Church in Eng- 
 land, that the parties so obliged 'may possess and enjoy any 
 office or employment, either ecclesiastical, military, or civil, and 
 TO TAKE SUCH OATHS as shall be imposed upon them, ptrovided 
 that the said oaths be taken ivith a reserve for to serve the 
 Mother-Church of Rome ivhenever opportunity serveth, and 
 thereby, in so doing, the Act of Council was passed, it was no 
 SIN, BUT MERITORIOUS, iintil occasion served to the contrary ; 
 and that when it luas so served for Rome's advantage, fke 
 party luas absolved from his oath.'' 
 
 [Here follow other directions to the Romish party in 
 England to do ^' what in them lieth for the promotion of the
 
 ]3 
 
 Romisli cause/^ to " propose a matcli for tlie Queen of the 
 Catliolic Princes/^ and pronouncing ^^ a perpetual curse ^^ on 
 all those who ^''will not promote^'' ^^Mary Queen of Scot- 
 land's pretence to tlie Crown of England/^ &c.] 
 
 ^''11. It is ordered that the See of Rome do dispense ivitJi 
 all parties of the Roman faith to swear against all heretics of 
 England as elseivhere, and that not to he a crime or an offence 
 against the soul of the party, the accuser tahing the oath with 
 an intention to promote or advance the Roman Catholic faith/' ^ 
 
 In 1566_, a Bull of Anathema against the Protestants was 
 issued by Pope Pius the Fifth^ in the first year of his ponti- 
 ficatCj in which he exhorts the wise and learned of his eccle- 
 siastics to ^' endeavour and devise all manner of devices to 
 be devised to abate^ assuage^ and confound those heresies 
 repugnant to our sacred laws, that thereby these heretics 
 might be either recalled to confess their errors, and acknow- 
 ledge our jurisdiction of the See of Rome, or that a total 
 infamy may he hrought upon them and their posterities hy 
 a perpetual discokd and contention" amongst themselves, by 
 which means they may either speedily perish by Grod^s wrath, 
 or continue in eternal diffeeence, to the reproach [scandal] 
 of Jew, Turk, heathen, &c/^t 
 
 Accordingly we find well - authenticated instances of 
 Romish emissaries coming to this country and acting upon 
 these principles. 
 
 In 1567, a man who went by the name of Faithful 
 Commin, afterwards found to be a Dominican friar, but 
 professing to be a zealous Protestant, and who had endea- 
 voured to promote religious dissensions in this country, was 
 brought before the Queen^s Council on suspicion of his being 
 a concealed Romanist. 
 
 An account of his examination before the Council is given 
 from Lord Burghley^s papers in the work already quoted, and 
 he pleaded that he had "spoken against Rome and her Pope 
 as much as any of the clergy had since they had fallen from 
 
 * iToxes, &c., pp. 51 — 58. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 41. See also Strype's Annals, cK 48, vol. i. pt. 2. p. 218. (Oxf. ed.)
 
 14 
 
 lier/^ and ^Svondered why lie should be suspected/^ But 
 having* been let off on bail^ he managed to escape^ telling his 
 deluded followers that '' he was warned of God to go beyond 
 the seas to instruct the Protestants there/^ getting thirty 
 pounds from them for his support on his travels. And hav- 
 ing made his way to I.lome and informed tlie Pope what he 
 had been doing, and that he had raised a spirit in some of 
 the people against the Church of England that would be '"'' a 
 sturahUng-hloch to that Ghurcli while it is a Church/' Vv^as 
 ^' commended ''^ by '' His Holiness '' for his labours, and re- 
 ceived from him '' a^ reward of 2000 ducats for his good 
 service/^* 
 
 In the following year (1568) a similar case was discovered 
 in the Diocese of Eochester ; an account of which is given in 
 the sam.e work, as copied from '^ the Registry of the Epis- 
 copal See of Rochester in that Book which begins anno 2 & 
 3 Phil. & Mary, and continued to 15 Eliz." 
 
 From this account it appears, that Thomas Heth, a con- 
 cealed Jesuit, brother of Nicholas Heth, who had been 
 Bishop of Rochester and afterwards Archbishop of York, 
 labouring to sow dissensions among the English Protestants, 
 having been allowed to preach in Rochester Cathedral, was 
 detected by a letter which he accidentally dropped in the 
 pulpit addressed to him by a leading Jesuit at Madrid. In 
 this letter, dated Madrid, Oct. 1568, after stating that "the 
 Council^'' of the Fraternity had sent him some books for 
 distribution, and adding, ^'' these mixtures with your ov/n 
 will not only a little puzzle the understandings of the 
 auditors, but make yourself famous,^^ the writer says, 
 '^Hallingham Coleman and Benson have set a faction among 
 the German heretics, so that several who have turned from us 
 have now denied their baptism, which we hope will soon 
 turn the scale and bring them back to their old principles. 
 This we have certified to the Council and Cardinals, That 
 there is no other way to prevent people from turning heretics 
 
 * Foxes and Firebrands, pt. 1. pp. 11 — 29. And t^trype's Life of Paiker, 
 vol. i. pp. 485—488. Oxf, ed.
 
 15 
 
 and for tlie recalling of others back again to tlie Motlier- 
 Cliurch. tlian by the diversities of doctrines,''^ 
 
 And upon searching Hetli^s lodgings, there was found '' a 
 licence from the Fraternity of the Jesuits_, and a Bull dated 
 the first of Pius Quintus to preach what doctrine that Society 
 pleased for the dividing of Protestants, particularly naming 
 the English Protestants by the name of heretics/^f 
 
 In 1580 came over to this country Parsons and Campian, 
 of whom our historian Fuller says : — '' These two effectually 
 advanced the Roman cause, appearing in more several shapes 
 than Proteus himself, in the disguised habits of soldiers, 
 courtiers, ministers of the word, apparitors, as they were 
 advised by their profit and safety ; and as if his Holiness 
 had infused an ubiquitariness into them, they acted in city, 
 court and country/^ J 
 
 Campian^s mode of proceeding is best testified by a letter 
 of his own to the General of the Jesuits, intercepted by 
 Walsingham, which is printed by Fuller, in which, after 
 giving an account how he deceived the parties who ques- 
 tioned him on his landing, he states how he secretly exer- 
 cised his ministry and administered the sacraments, adding, 
 — '"''In the administering of them we are assisted by the 
 priests, whom we find everywhere ;^^ and says, "I am in a 
 most antick hahit, which I often change, as also my name" 
 — "Eminent work we have efiected; innumerable number 
 of converts, high, low, of the middle rank, of all ages and 
 sexes/^ — "By wariness and the prayers of good people, 
 and (which is the main) by God^s goodness, we have in 
 safety gone over a great part of the Island/^ § 
 
 Our quaint but truthful historian Fuller, after giving a 
 particular account of the cases of Parsons and Campian^ 
 adds generally, under the same year, 1580, — "Now began 
 priests and Jesuits to flock faster into England than ever 
 
 * Foxes and Firebrands, pt. 1. 2nd ed., London, 1682, 8vo, pp. 37—39. 
 t Ibid. pp. 40, 41. The whole account is taken from the Episcopal 
 Registry of Rochester. 
 
 X FuUer's Church History, Book is. Sect. iii. § 41. 
 § Ibid.
 
 ]G 
 
 before ; having exclianrje of clothes and names and j^irof ess ions. 
 He wlio on Sunday was a priest or Jesuit, was on Monday a 
 mercliant^ on Tuesday a soldier^ on Wednesday a courtier, 
 &c. ; andj with, the shears of equivocation (constantly carried 
 about him), iie could cut himself into any shape lie pleased. 
 But under all their new shapes they retained their old 
 nature, being akin in their turbulent spirits to the mnd 
 pent in the subterranean concavities, which tvill never he 
 quiet until it hath vented itself with a State -quake of those 
 countries wherein they abide. These distilled traitorous prin- 
 ciples into all people wheresoever they came, and endeavoured 
 to render them disaffected to Her Majesty, maintaining, 
 that she neither had nor ought to have any dominion over 
 her subjects, while she persisted in an heretical distance 
 from the Church of Rome/^* 
 
 A similar case, occurring in the Diocese of Norwich in 
 1584, is related in the Book of Memorials of matters of this 
 kind kept by Cecil, Lord Burghley, that came into the hands 
 of Sir James Ware, as above stated. It was discovered 
 through a letter found in the possession of Francis Throg- 
 morton, a Papist apprehended for treason in London in 1584. 
 And among the papers found in Throgmorton^s chamber 
 ^* were Licenses and Pardons from the Jesuits^ Convent at 
 Seville : the undertakers were to be of what trade or calling 
 soever they pleased, to teach what doctrine, to he of what 
 opinion or religion soever, provided that they assembled quar- 
 terly together, and kept a monthly correspondence with that 
 Convent/^ This Francis Throgmorton ''''before his execution 
 confessed that there were in England above a dozen that he 
 knew who were permitted to preach by the Jesuits^ Licences, 
 purposely to breed a faction in these dominions.^^f 
 
 I pass over, as of a somewhat different character, the various 
 plots in which the Romanists were engaged during the whole 
 of Queen Elizabeth's reign to take away her life ; plots for 
 which they had the direct and express sanction and encourage- 
 
 * Fuller's Church History, Book ix. Sect. iv. § 6. 
 t Foxes and Firebrands, pt. 2, jip. 58 — 61.
 
 17 
 
 ment of the Court of Eome; and of which a full account is 
 given by Foulis in his ^^ Histoiy of Eomish Treasons and 
 Usurpations^^ (2nd edition_, London, 1681, fol.) Book vii. pp. 
 311 — 300. And on the same ground I shall omit any account 
 of the Gunpowder Plot at the commencement of the reign of 
 James !._, of which a description may be found in various 
 works, and among others in that just quoted. Book x. 
 
 These plots afford an awful illustration of the real charac- 
 ter and spirit of Popery. But I am now more particularly 
 directing attention to that species of Pa]3al agency which 
 was carried on through disguised agents working deceitfully 
 to effect their ends through the instrumentality of others, 
 by misleading the minds of men, and producing a state of 
 moral confusion in the country. 
 
 The efforts of Eome for the subversion of Protestantism 
 were unceasingly carried on in the same way during the 
 next century. Various cases of dispensed priests and Jesuits, 
 both in England and Ireland, accidentally discovered under 
 the disguise they had assumed, professing to be Protestants, 
 but labouring to discredit and divide the Church of England, 
 one as a shoemaker, another as a soldier, and others of a 
 similar kind, are given in the work from which I have so 
 largely quoted above.* 
 
 And it is clear, from the documents here adduced, that 
 their efforts to produce ecclesiastical dissensions went hand 
 in hand with similar efforts to cause discord and confusion 
 in the State. " Heretical '' Kings and Governments, as the 
 supporters of "hereticaP^ Churches, were equally the objects 
 of Papal hatred with the ecclesiastical systems which they 
 upheld. The agents of Eome, therefore, were as diligent in 
 their endeavours to undermine the one as the other, and the 
 great instrument they made use of for both was the excite- 
 ment of a spirit of strife and discord. Eegardless of the moral 
 nature of the doctrines and principles they advocated, their 
 
 * Foxes and Firebrands, Pt. 2, pp. 98—101; 102—104, &c. 
 3
 
 18 
 
 sole object was to break up botb Churcli and State into a 
 number of opposite parties^ all contending Avitli one anotlier, 
 and so producing a cliaos of confusion^ out of wliicli tliey 
 hoped to emerge triumpliant. And they were carefully 
 trained in their foreign seminaries to act under all sorts of 
 disguises in the carrying out of this nefarious project; some 
 acting their part more especially in strictly ecclesiastical 
 matters, others in matters affecting the State, and others^ the 
 more talented among tliem_, in both departments of labour. 
 
 An intercepted letter from a Jesuit in London to his corre- 
 spondent at Brussels^ from which the following are extracts, 
 was sent^ in 1627^ to Lord Falkland, the Lord Deputy of Ire- 
 land, by four of the leading members of the Privy Council in 
 London, to inform him of the secret doings of the Papists. 
 
 ^''Let not the damp of astonishment seize upon your ardent 
 and zealous soul in apprehending the sudden and unexpected 
 calling of a Parliament. We have not opposed but rather 
 furthered it. So that wo hope as much in this Parliament 
 
 as ever we feared any in Queen Ehzabeth^s days 
 
 You shall see this Parliament will resemble the Pelican, 
 which takes a pleasure to dig out with her beak her own 
 bowels. ^^ The letter goes on to state how Count Gondomar 
 deluded King James in order to further the projected Spa- 
 nish match for Prince Charles, and tried to persuade him 
 '' that none but the Puritan Faction, wliicli plotted nothing 
 but anarchy and his confusion, were averse to this most 
 happy union ;" proceeding thus, — '''' We steered on the same 
 course .... and have prejudicated and anticipated the Great 
 One, that none but the King's enemies and his are chosen of 
 
 this Parliament Now we have planted that sovereign 
 
 drug Arminianism, which we hope will purge the Protestants 
 from their heresy ; and it flourisheth and bears fruit in due 
 season. The materials which huild up our hulivarlc are the 
 projectors and beggars of all ranks and qualities. Howsoever^ 
 both these Factions co-operate to destroy the Parliament, 
 and to introduce a new species and form of government, 
 which is oligarchy. Those serve as direct mediums and
 
 19 
 
 instruments to our end^ whicli is the Universal Catholic 
 Monarchy. Our foundation 'must he mutation, and mutation 
 will cause a relaxation, ■which ivill serve as so many molent 
 
 diseases, Sfc Tliere is anotlier matter of consequence, 
 
 wliicli we take much, into our consideration and tender 
 care^ wliicli is to stave off Puritans, that tliey hang not in 
 the Duke^s ears; they are impudent subtle people. And 
 it is to be feared lest they should negotiate a reconcilia- 
 tion between the Duke and the Parliament at Oxford and 
 Westminster; but now we assure ourselves^ ive have so 
 handled the matter, that both Duke and Parliament are irre- 
 concileahle. For the better prevention of the Puritans, the 
 Arminians have already locked up the Duke's ears, and we 
 have those of our own religion, which stand continually at 
 the Duke's chamber to see who goes in and out. We cannot 
 be too circumspect and careful in this regard. I cannot 
 choose hut laugh to see hoiv some of our own coat have accoutered 
 themselves, you would scarce know them if you saw them. And 
 it is admirable how in speech and gesture they act the 
 Puritans. The Cambridge scholars, to their woeful experi- 
 ence, shall see we can act the Puritans a little better than 
 they have done the Jesuits. They have abused our sacred 
 patron St. Ignatius in jest ; but we will make them smart 
 for it in earnest.;''' * 
 
 Among the papers of Archbishop Usher it appears from 
 this workf that there were several documents showing the 
 various methods '''' contrived by the clergy and others of the 
 Romish Church to nullify the Reformation of the Church of 
 England,'^ some of which are there given under the title of 
 — '^ The Oath of Secrecy devised by the Roman Clergy, as it 
 remaineth on record at Paris, amongst the Society of Jesus ; 
 together with several Dispensations and Indulgences granted 
 to all pensioners of the Church of Rome, who disguisedty 
 undertake to propagate the faith of the Church of Rome, 
 and her advancement. Faithfully translated out of French.'^ 
 
 * Ibid. Pt. 2, pp. 118—128. Eusliworth's Historical Collections, vol. i. 
 pp. 474-476. t Pt. 3, p. 171. 
 
 b2 . '
 
 20 
 
 The '^ Oath, of Secrecy" " framed in the Papacy of Urban 
 VIII." about the year 1636_, was as follows : — 
 
 "Ij A. B., now in the presence of Almighty God_, the 
 Blessed Virgin Mary^ the Blessed Michael the Archangel, 
 the Blessed St. John Baptist,, the holy Apostles St. Peter 
 and St. Paul, and the Saints and Sacred Host of Heaven, 
 and to you my ghostly Father, do declare from my heart, 
 without mental reservation. That His Holiness Pope Urban 
 is Christ's Vicar- General, and is the true and only Head of 
 the Catholic or Universal Church throughout the earth ; and 
 that by the virtue of the keys of binding and loosing given 
 to His Holiness by my Saviour Jesus Christ, he hath power 
 to depose heretical kings, princes, states, commonwealths, 
 and governments, all being illegal without his sacred con- 
 firmation, and that they may safely be destroyed. Therefore 
 to the utmost of my power I shall and will defend this doc- 
 trine and His Holiness's rights and customs against all 
 usurpers of the heretical (or Protestant) authority whatso- 
 ever ; especially against the now pretended authority and 
 Church of England, and all adherents, in regard that they 
 and she be usurpal and heretical, opposing the sacred 
 Mother- Church of Rome. I do renounce and disown any 
 allegiance as due to any heretical king prince or state, 
 named Protestants, or obedience to any of their inferior 
 magistrates or officers. I do further declare. That the 
 doctrine of the Church of England, of the Calvinists, 
 Hugonots, and of other of the name Protestants, to be [is] 
 damnable, and they themselves are damned, and to be 
 damned, that will not forsake the same. I do further declare. 
 That I will help, assist, and advise all or any of His Holi- 
 ness^s agents in any place, wherever I shall be, in England 
 Scotland and Ireland, or in any other territory or kingdom 
 I shall come to ; and do my utmost to extirpate the heretical 
 Protestants' doctrine, and to destroy all their pretended power 
 rerjal or otherwise. I do further promise and declare. That 
 notwithstanding I am dispensed ivitJi to assume any religion 
 heretical for the iiropagating of the Mother -Church's interest,
 
 21 
 
 to keep secret and private all lier agents' counsels from time 
 to time, as they intrust me, and not to divulge directly or 
 indirectly, by word, writing, or circumstance, whatsoever, 
 but to execute all what shall he joroposed, given in charge or 
 discovered unto me, by you my ghostly Father, or by any 
 of this Sacred Convent \i.e. Assembly] . All which I, A. B., 
 do swear by the blessed Trinity and blessed Sacrament, which 
 I now am to receive, to perform, and on my part to keep in- 
 violably : and do call all the heavenly and glorious host of 
 heaven to witness these my real intentions to keep this my 
 oath. In testimony hereof I take this most holy and blessed 
 sacrament of the Eucharist ; and witness the same further with 
 my hand and seal in the face of this holy Convent this . . . 
 day of ... . an. Dom. &c."* 
 
 Among the same papers were various regulations and 
 orders proposed by the Jesuits and Sorbonists at Paris, and 
 agreed to by the Pope and Cardinals at Rome, after the 
 marriage of King Charles I. with the daughter of the King of 
 France, for the promotion of the cause of the Church of Rome 
 in England. Among these regulations were the following : — 
 
 '' Seeing that laws are made in England that none of the 
 Mother- Church members must be capable of great or small 
 employments, or places of any trust ; it is requisite to grant 
 dispensations to divers parties to go to church, yet to take 
 the oath as aforesaid, be he pensioner, be he officer, thus 
 dispensed with; the party confessing quarterly or monthly 
 as the confessor shall urge the party, and to receive the 
 eucharist at the confession during this dispensation ; and 
 secretly inform the Mother - Church' s agents of causes, matters 
 and affairs accordingly." 
 
 " That the parties employed to multiply the divisions 
 amongst heretics, there being no other way to confound their 
 heresies, seeing grace nor reason will not avert them from 
 the same, must he disptensed with to rail outwardly against 
 uSj yet against the heresies of the Church of England, comparing 
 ihem to us, and so rail against our Church, therehy only to in' 
 * Pt. 3, pp. 172—175.
 
 22 
 
 crease tJie division amongst licretics. Tliis alteration [or^ muta- 
 bility] of heresy will convert many to the Mother- Churcli, 
 beholding their inconstancy^ and also hinder weak Eomanists 
 from changing their faith to heresy, vje imderhand preaching 
 it as a judgment of God , fallen upon heretics, called Protest- 
 ants, to fall from the Mother -Church.'^ 
 
 " That the money raised for pensioners to keep of [off] acts, 
 Avars, to discover all counsels of heretic princes and states, to 
 infuse matters into their brains, and to carry on the Roman 
 interest, be considered/^ 
 
 " That it be dispensed with all Roman Catholic servants, 
 male and female, for to live under the service of heretics, 
 called Protestants, they swearing not to change their faith, 
 or to become of their masters' or mistresses' religion ; and to 
 give their confessor notice whenever they shall hear any plot 
 or matters against the Mother- Church or any of her clergy or 
 members ; also to help further and assist the cause of the Mo- 
 ther-Church whenever required by their Father Confessors.' 
 
 " That all Roman Catholic Counsels [counsellors] in the 
 law pleading for heretics against Roman Catholics, are to 
 give secret intelligence to some other party, if any flaw be in 
 his heretical client's writings, that the said party may thereby 
 inform the Roman Catholic, and the Counsel in the law not 
 to be suspected, but supposed the Counsel of the Roman 
 Catholic found it out by industry and learning in the law." 
 
 " That for encouraging all Roman Catholic servants to in- 
 form their Confessors with all matters that may prove pre- 
 judicial unto the Catholic cause, which may be practised or 
 spoken by their heretical masters and mistresses, as the}^ 
 hear the same from time to time, to tell it to the Confessors ; 
 so a pardon "inay he granted to such servants of all sins as oft 
 as they inform their Confessors^ and all penances talcen off such, 
 if any have heeyi laid on them; and in case the servant or 
 servants be poor or needy, the Confessor to encourage the servant 
 by giving some reward in money J'* 
 
 " That all Roman Catholics taJdng the oath of allegiance 
 unto any heretic Icing, prince or state, are to heep and observe
 
 ilie same no longer than for ilie MotJier-GJiurch's advantage, or 
 that there is urgent necessity ; and so to dispense with am/ 
 Mommi Ga.tholic as the Confessor shall see cause or reason ; 
 still the said Eoman Catliolic so taking the said oath, yet 
 vowing and swearing to the Confessor he takes the oath of 
 allegiance in no other meaning or sense hut to loreserve himself 
 from troiibles, or for some temporal gain and profit, and yet to 
 succour the cause of the Mother-Church, as occasion shall 
 serve, to the utmost of his power." 
 
 ^' That all Roman Catholics in offices, dispensed ivith (for 
 assuming any religion heretical), do not speedily issue out 
 writs, warrants, or attachments against any member of the 
 Mother- Church, luithout giving notice to the "party, that the 
 farty might thereby escape, shun or avoid the same; in so 
 doing he shall testify his fidelity and obedience to the Roman 
 faith and the Mother- Church." 
 
 " That all Roman Catholics in offices, thus dispensed with, 
 if a judge, sheriff, bailiflT, magistrate, or justice of the peace, 
 shall have any member of the Mother- Church brought before 
 them, they shall use their utmost to take off, qualify, or 
 nullify the accusation judgment or impeachment, and take 
 bail for that member, and take ofi" the fine, in case the 
 member so accused, indicted, or impeached, be in danger, 
 and forced to escape for safety of his life, estate, &c. 
 
 ^^ That all Roman Catholics thus dispensed with, if they 
 shall be elected members of Parliament, they are not to give 
 votes against Roman Catholics ; or in case any heretical 
 member shall start any proposal or question against the 
 Mother- Church or her adherents, then to start some other 
 question contrary to hinder the same, and to make under- 
 hand all friendship, as much as possibly can be, to oppose 
 such proposals. 
 
 ^' That against the sittings of Parliaments in England a con- 
 siderable sum of money be always in Bank, ready to he disposed 
 to several of the heretical memhers to hefriend the Mother- 
 Church's affairs ; and to be disposed of as the learned of the 
 Roman Catholics so entrusted with the same shall think con- 
 venient.
 
 24 
 
 '' That tlie parties thus dispensed with, before their sitting 
 in Parhanient_, be sworn by their Confessors to assure that 
 they will labour all that in them lies to succour and support 
 the Mother- Churches cause. Then these said parties so dis- 
 pensed with to receive their indulgences, and to he absolved 
 from all oaths that are to he talcen, or shall he tahen, during 
 the Session of Farlia^nent. 
 
 " That all Roman Catholics keeping taverns, inn-houses, 
 ale or victualling-houses, so all Roman Catholics letting lodg- 
 ings, shall discover to a holy Father of the Mother- Churck 
 all news, or whatever they shall hear, that is or may be pre- 
 judicial to the Mother- Church, or to her cause and affairs, 
 within twenty-four hours at farthest, upon pain of an 
 anathema or curse, or to their brother Catholic, to be related 
 immediately without delay.''^ 
 
 These licences, indulgences, and directions are stated to 
 have been ^^ copied out of a bundle of papers, sometime with 
 the Most Rev. James Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, and 
 supposed to be sent from beyond seas to him from the Rev. 
 Bishop of Derry, afterwards his successor in Armagh \i. e., 
 John Bramhall], heing written ivith the same hand as the afore- 
 said letter was, signed Jo. Derensis.^''* 
 
 Such were the instructions under which the agents of the 
 Papacy acted in this country in the earlier part of the reign of 
 Charles I. And no one who is able to estimate rightly the 
 effects which a large body of unscrupulous agents of this kind 
 can produce in any country, can be surprised at the state of 
 moral confusion and disorder into which England was thrown 
 at that period. And what added greatly to the magnitude of 
 the evil was the secret admission of a Papal agent through the 
 influence of the Queen and the tacit permission of the Eang, 
 by whom the interests of the Papacy were in various ways 
 promoted, and the chief persons, both in Church and State, 
 tampered with and misled. A most remarkable and instructive 
 account of the proceedings of this Romish agent, and their 
 effects, is to be found in a work entitled, " The Memoirs of 
 Gregorio Panzani, giving an account of his agency in Eng- 
 * Ibid. Pt. 3, pp. 175-188.
 
 25 
 
 land in tlie years 1634, 1635, 1636/^ translated from the 
 Italian original, and edited by tlie Rev. Joseph Berrington^ 
 Birmingham, 1793, 8vo. 
 
 A few extracts from these Memoirs will I think be found 
 both interesting and instructive under the present circum- 
 stances of this country. 
 
 The agent selected by the Pope and Cardinal Barberini 
 was Gregory Panzani, "a secular priest, of experienced 
 virtue, of singular address, of polite learning, and in all 
 respects well qualified for the business. The Queen was 
 first made acquainted with the design, and she communi- 
 cated it to the King, who gave his tacit consent : but at the 
 same time singular care luas taJcen that the matter should not 
 he divulged among the Catholics or Protestants, who from 
 different views might have obstructed its execution.-'^ (p. 132 .) 
 
 Panzani at first acted with great caution, and did not 
 **■ make himself known to either of the Secretaries of State/' 
 nor even to " the ambassadors of France and Spain^^ (p. 142) ; 
 but in January 1635, he thought it time to '"''have an inter- 
 view with Secretary Windebank/^ Windebank being a '^''Pro- 
 testant by profession, yet no enemy to the Catholics, and 
 prepared to go all the lengths of the King and the Court 
 party,^^ and having '' been made Secretary through the in- 
 fluence of Dr. Laud.'' (pp. 142, 160.) After this, ^'Panzani 
 and Windebank had frequent opportunities of conferring 
 together,'' and at last "" they resolved that it should be pro- 
 posed to the Queen and Cardinal Barberini, whether a mu- 
 tual agency between the Court of Eome and England would 
 not be very convenient." (p. 160.) 
 
 In the meantime, the presence of this Italian Papal agent 
 in this country had been discovered by Cook, the other 
 Secretary of State, a staunch Protestant, and of course, 
 therefore, stigmatized in these Memoirs as "a Puritan;" and 
 the Memoirs inform us, that '"'' while Windebank and Pan- 
 zani were carrying on their conferences, one Cook, a kind 
 of Secretary, and by sect a Puritan, desired to have an au- 
 dience of His Majesty," and '^told His Majesty with a great
 
 26 
 
 deal of concern, that tliere was a certain Italian priest, 
 named Panzani, sent secretly by tlie Pope, and who might 
 be of dangerous consequence to the State, as well as to His 
 Majesty^s private affairs. The King smiled, telling the gentle- 
 man that he was no stranger to Panzani^s arrival ; that he 
 was a person of worth and of unsuspected behaviour; that he 
 had fully explained himself as to the reasons which brought him 
 into England, and that he (Cook) needed give himself no further 
 trouble on that head. The King however thought it proper, 
 by the means of Windebank, to acquaint Panzani, that 
 though' he ivas discovered by the Puritanical party, he might 
 be easy ; that nobody should molest him." (pp. 153, 154.) 
 And so the Eoyal victim left himself and his kingdom a prey 
 to the subtle devices of the Papacy. 
 
 The next step, as might be expected, was an interviev^ 
 between Panzani and the King, in which compliments were 
 mutually exchanged, the King assuring Panzani that ^'he 
 had always received a very exalted idea of the merits of 
 Urban YIII.," and Panzani replying that " he knew it to be 
 His Holiness^s desire that the Catholics should be punctual 
 in their obedience to His Majesty." (pp. 161, 162.) 
 
 " This interview,'''' it is added, '^ encouraged Windebank 
 to treat more familiarly with Panzani, especially on the 
 head of religion. He told him that he really looked on 
 himself to be a good Catholic; otherwise that he should 
 make no difficulty to bid adieu to all that was dear to him in 
 order to purchase that name." And he remarked, '*' If we 
 had neither Jesuits nor Puritans in England, I am confident 
 an union might easily be effected.''^ He '^ afterwards pro- 
 ceeded further in his discourse concerning an union, assuring 
 Panzani that all the inoderate men in Church and, State thirsted 
 after it.'' And Panzani suggested that, while the terms 
 were being agreed upon, "a decree for liberty of conscience 
 would be a good expedient." (pp. 162 — 164.) 
 
 " Father Philip, the Queen's Confessor, had incidentally 
 some discourse with the King on matters of the same ten- 
 dency, in which he endeavoured to persuade His Majesty,
 
 27 
 
 tliat it was directly opposite to the wliole design of the 
 Gospel,, that there should be more Churclies than one i 
 whence he inferred flie necessity of a re-union.'' (p. 165.) 
 
 While these conferences were going on^ a Mr. Davenport, 
 a Franciscan friar, otherwise called i^ra?ic/scz(s a Sancta Clara, 
 published the work which has lately been again brought so 
 much under the notice of the public, entitled, " Deus, 
 Natura, Gratia,^^ in which an attempt is made to reconcile 
 the Thirty-nine Articles with the decrees of the Council of 
 Trent. '^ This book," it is said, ^^ was highly esteemed by 
 His Majesty, as being full of complaisance for the Protestant 
 systems in several points, .... but the work was far from 
 being liked at the Eoman Court, where it was considered as 
 a very dangerous production, far too condescending to 
 schismatics and heretics." (p. 165.) 
 
 The great object Panzani and Windebank had first* in 
 view was, to establish ^^a reciprocal agency" between the 
 Court of Rome and the Queen of England, " the design of 
 ivhich luas to mahe an experiment , hoiu far the two Churclies 
 could he brought towards a unionJ' And Father Philip, the 
 Queen's Confessor, '^ a person of great penetration, who had 
 made it his business ever since he came into England to ob- 
 serve the religious dispositions of the nation," sent Cardinal 
 Barberini the following account — an account the moral aspect 
 of which is well worth consideration at the present day : — 
 " That the King and several of his Ministry were far from 
 being adverse to an union : that it was an undertaking of 
 the most dangerous consequence, on account of the many 
 and severe edicts that were in force against the Roman 
 Catholic religion : that those who were most favourably in- 
 clined to the Catholic cause were frequently obliged to give 
 proofs of their zeal to the contrary for fear of notice ; in 
 which case it was difficult to form a just idea of their real 
 sentiments, seeing they found themselves under a necessity 
 of varying from themselves and acting incoherently. For 
 instance, he said, when there was any pressing occasion for 
 money, the King was obliged, contrary to his inclination, to
 
 28 
 
 let tlie laws loose against tlie Roman Catliolics_, otherwise 
 tlie Puritanical House of Commons would make no progress 
 in tlie money bills ; for tlie Government not being arbitrary, 
 no extraordinary levies would be granted without tlie people's 
 consent. That the hishojps in like manner [though several of 
 them luere disposed to enter into a correspondence with Rome) 
 when their temporalities were threatened hy the Puritanical 
 members {as they had frequently been of late), ivent into the 
 same persecuthig methods ; tliat sucli a conduct as tliis had 
 so much of contradiction in it_, that it was altogether uninteU 
 ligihle to those who ivere not perfectly acquainted with the in- 
 firmities of human nature, and particularly with the irreso- 
 lution of these islanders. Yet, after all, if Windebank's 
 project of a reciprocal agency could be set on foot, there 
 might be some hopes of a re-union.-'^ '' Then," it is added, 
 " Father Philip goes on and acquaints the Cardinal with the 
 qualities of the agents proper to engage on such an under- 
 taking; particularly he gives his opinion of the Italian 
 agent," who is to be about 35 years of age, " noble, rich, 
 handsome, and affable in conversation," "grave and re- 
 served, yet complaisant, especially to the ladies of the Court, 
 and still here very guarded," and skilful in various ways ; and 
 *^ everyone" is to be " accosted in their own way and enticed 
 hy proper baits.'' '^ Then," it continues, " he proceeds to 
 give his opinion how things ought to be managed, after the 
 goodwill of the Ministry and Privy Council shall have been 
 secm-ed, viz., ^ That none of the laws against Roman Catholics 
 be executed, without an express and written order from above 
 to every inferior office, ivhich will afford time to ward off the 
 blow, and amount to an interpretative liberty of conscience, 
 and at the same time be an encouragement to moderate 
 Protestants to speak their minds freely in favour of Roman 
 Catholics. This might be followed afterwards by more par- 
 ticular allowances for liberty of conscience, and so 07i gradually , 
 till it became general ; and then in a few years the leading 
 men of both Houses might he induced to thinh of an miionj' 
 (pp. 186—189.)
 
 29 
 
 ''After frequent consnltations^ the King was pleased to 
 name Robert Douglas to be tlie agent on the Queen\s part/^ 
 but on his death shortly after^ the King appointed a Mr. 
 Arthur Brett. '' The king in this affair was entirely under 
 the direction of the Queen; yet he enjoined the party to be 
 cautious and secret, for should such a corresijondence, he ob- 
 served, once get wind, it would he highly resented hy the gene- 
 rality of the nation J' (pp. 197 — 200.) It was, in fact, illegal. 
 
 The account of Mr. Brett^s mission was received with pecu- 
 liar pleasure at Eome, and the Pope took steps for appointing 
 an agent on his part to send to England; but through 
 Mr. Brett^s death, the matter was again delayed, and ulti- 
 mately a Mr. Hamilton was appointed the agent from Eng- 
 land to the Pope^ and Mr. George Conn, a Scotchman, who 
 had been resident some time in Rome, was sent by the Pope 
 to England, (p. 233.) 
 
 But before Mr. Counts arrival the project of a union be- 
 tween the Churches of Rome and England got wind, and 
 drew out an expression of the feelings of those to whom 
 such a scheme was attractive. And these Memoirs of Pan- 
 zani show hoiu tnuch 7nay he going on under the surface in a 
 matter of this hind, of luhich the pithlic mind is altogether 
 ignorant. " The persons employed,^^ it is said, " were often 
 enjoined secrecy," (p. 237,) but too many knew the secret 
 to allow of its being kept. And the following account will 
 I think be read with interest in the present day : — 
 
 '^ Among those that most suspected these proceedings 
 was Montague, bishop of Chichester, a person of remarkable 
 learning and moderation. This gentleman's curiosity led 
 him so far as to desire a private interview with Panzani. 
 When they met^ he immediately fell upon the project of an 
 union, as if he had been already acquainted with the whole 
 affair. He signified a great desire that the breach between 
 the two churches might be made up, and apprehended no 
 danger from publishing the scheme, as things now stood. 
 He said he had frequently made it the subject of his most 
 serious thoughts, and had diligently considered all the requi-
 
 30 
 
 sites of an union ; adding- that lie was satisfied both the 
 Archbishops^ with the Bishop of London and several others 
 of the Episcopal order^, besides a great number of the learned 
 inferior clergy, were prepared to fall in with the Church of 
 Eome as to a supremacy purely spiritual ; and that there 
 was no other method of ending controversies^ than by having 
 
 recourse to some centre of ecclesiastical unity 
 
 [Adding much more in the same strain^ though^ no doubt_, 
 Panzani's account of the matter is such as is the most 
 
 favourable to Rome.] Bishop Montague .... 
 
 told him at parting that he would tahe the first opportunity 
 to discourse the Primate on the subject^ but insinuated that 
 he was a cautious man, who would make no advances unless 
 he were ivell protected J' 
 
 '^ This conference between Bishop Montague and Panzani 
 being transmitted to Rome^ the Italians were extremely 
 
 pleased with it Panzani in return was ordered to 
 
 acquaint the bishop^ what a value they had for him at E-ome^ 
 and how much his learning and pacific dispositions were 
 applauded^ with an exhortation that he luonld continue the 
 qood luorh he had begun, and never cease till he had brought 
 that distracted nation back and directed them into the paths 
 of their ancestors. As for looking into particular contro- 
 versieSj or specifying the terms of communion^ it was too 
 soon to speak on those matters. At present it would be most 
 advisable to dwell upon generals: and especially the Pro- 
 testant bishops and clergy ought to examine the motives 
 which first occasioned the breach with Rome^ which being 
 found human and unwarrantable, it would be their duty to 
 come forward and sue for a reconciliation. Afterwards parti- 
 cular points might be debated with some hopes of an accom- 
 modation, when there ivas a Court of Judicature established to 
 pronounce upon them. They might assure themselves,, the 
 Bishop of Rome would make no unreasonable demands, but 
 content himself with the essentials of his primacy, and such 
 privileges as were annexed to it jure divino. 
 
 " Panzani is then directed l^y the Cardinal to inquire into
 
 31 
 
 the cliaracters of the Protestant bishops : for as they were to 
 loe employed in the projected scheme of union, it was requisite 
 to be fully informed what sort of men they were, and how 
 qualified as to learning, morals, religion, politics, &c., that 
 those who were to treat v^ith them might know hoiu to come 
 at them hy proper and suitahle addresses. But he had a strict 
 charge to be very cautious and secret in the inquiry. Above 
 all things Panzani was advised never to favour the discussion 
 of particular points, the issue of such conferences being 
 always fruitless. Besides, it was never the custom of the 
 Catholic Church to admit of such kind of disputes, till the 
 fundamental point of a supreme judge luere first settled, for 
 
 then other matters luoul.d come in of course In a wordj 
 
 authority and doctrinal points were the two capital objects ; 
 and the first ivas to he determined before the other could he 
 debated.^ 
 
 " Having received these instr actions from Rome, Panzani 
 took the first opportunity to wait on Bishop Montague. He 
 omitted not to acquaint him how much he was admired in 
 Italy on account of the many and excellent qualifications he 
 was master of. The bishop, who was not a little vain^ 
 relished the compliment, and returned it, as far as was con- 
 venient, upon his admirers. He repeated his former dis- 
 course concerning the union, adding that he was continually 
 employed in disposing men^s minds for it, hoth hy words and 
 writing, as often as he met with an opportunity. He then 
 again mentioned the Pope^s supremacy, whose feet he said 
 he was willing to kiss, and acknowledge himself to be one of 
 his children. He added that the Archbishop of Ganterhury 
 ivas entirely of his sentiment, hut with a great allay of fear 
 and caution. Then he renewed the proposal of appointing 
 deputies on both sides. 
 
 '^ Panzani replied, that he had orders not to touch upon 
 particulars, nor give encouragement that there should be 
 
 * The reader will observe how sitbjection to the Bisliop of Rome is the 
 prime fundamental ; and of course, when this is yielded, complete mental 
 slavery follows.
 
 32 
 
 any relaxation on the GatlioUc side as to the credenda or 
 fundamentals of religion^ observing that the union designed 
 was not only to be politic and ceremonial^ but real anH in 
 unitate jidei, without any mixture of creeds. The bishop 
 assured him that he aimed at a total union. 
 
 " The truth is^ Panzani was apprehensive the bishop still 
 entertained some opinions inconsistent with the fundamentals 
 of the Eoman Catholic religion 
 
 " From the whole it was pretty plain that there was a 
 great inclination in many of the eminent Protestant clergy 
 to re-unite themselves to the see of Pome: but they kept 
 themselves to themselves^ never imparting their minds to 
 one another_, much less to the king^ for they imagined the 
 spiritual supremacy was a prerogative he would not easily 
 
 part with Of the sentiments the great men of 
 
 those times had of the matter,, there was one instance. Dr. 
 George Leyburn assured Panzani^ in verho sacerdotis, that 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury encouraged the Duchess of 
 Buckingham to remain contented, for in a little time she 
 would see England re-united to the See of Eome.* 
 
 "It was not long before there was another interview 
 between Panzani and the Bishop of Chichester. . . . Pan- 
 zani being curious to know the characters of the chief of the 
 Protestant clergy, Montague told him, there were only three 
 bishops that could be counted violently bent against the 
 Church of Rome, viz., Durham, Salisbury, and Exeter, 
 (Morton, Davenant, and Hall) ; the rest he said were very 
 moderate. But Panzani received a particular character of 
 each bishop from another hand. It gave cm account of their 
 age, family, ivay of life, gualifications, natural and acquired, 
 moral and political, and, as far as could he guessed, how they 
 stood affected as to the present management of affairs at Court. 
 
 This account was carefully transmitted to Barherini 
 
 Panzani once more falling on the union, expressed 
 
 * These statements may not all be quite exact, but they illustrate the 
 state of things at this period, and show the tendency of certain minds.
 
 33 
 
 Mmself in a very desponding niannei% considering- the many 
 diflSculties with which they had to struggle. ' Well/ said 
 the bishop,, ''had you been acquainted with this nation ten 
 years ago^ you might have observed such an alteration in 
 the language and inclinations of the people^ that it would 
 not only put you in hopes of an union^ but you would con- 
 clude it was near at hand/ Then he solemnly declared^ that 
 both he and many of his brethren were prepared to conform 
 themselves to the method and discipline of the Galilean 
 Chm-ch^ w^here the civil rights were well guarded; ' and as 
 for the aversion we discover in our sermons and jprinted hooJvS, 
 they a.re things of fornix chiefly to humour the j^opulace, and 
 not to he much regarded.^ " 
 
 '''^ Among those of the Episcopal order who seemed to 
 desire an unioUj none appeared more zealous than Dr. Good- 
 man^ of Gloucester^ who every day said the Priest^s office^ 
 and observed several other duties as practised in the Church 
 of Eome.'^* (pp. 237—249.) 
 
 *' Soon after the arrival of Mr. Conn at London, Panzani 
 was recalled/^ and took leave of the king and queen, &c., 
 '' nor did he omit to pay his respects to some of the ladies 
 of distinction about Court, who, though Protestants, recom- 
 mended themselves to his Holiness, and desired his blessing. 
 It was the end of the year 1636.^'' On his return to Rome, 
 Panzani was rewarded with a rich canonry, and afterwards 
 made bishop of Mileto. (pp. 255—257.) 
 
 From these extracts, the reader will be able to judge of 
 the nature and effects of Panzani^s agency in this country, 
 and the extent to which the designs of Rome were promoted 
 by it. His mission was a dexterous expedient of the Court 
 of Rome, under the especial guidance of Cardinal Barberini, 
 to cajole and allure the leading men in Church and State to 
 recognize the supremacy of the Pope, and facilitate the reunion 
 of the two Churches ; while at the same time (in the apprehen- 
 
 * Dr. Goodman afterwards joined the Cliiircli of Rome, and died in its 
 Communion in 1655. The above statements, with every allowance for some 
 exaggeration, show what was going on in our Church at that period, and 
 read an instructive lesson to us at the present time. 
 
 C
 
 34 
 
 sion, probably^ of tlie failure of tbis scbeme) tbe more un- 
 scrupulous agents^ sent over cbiefly tliougb not solely by the 
 Jesuits^, tbrevv tbe wbole kingdom into confusion by breaking 
 it up into parties_, political and ecclesiastical^ bitterly hostile 
 to each other. And we shall find that when the hope of 
 gaining over the king and a sufficient number of the leading 
 men in Chm^ch and State to the Papal cause had ceased_, the 
 Jesuit agents redoubled their efforts^ and the Papal Nuncio 
 that succeeded Panzani was leao-ued with them in their 
 
 o 
 
 criminal attempts to involve a '' hereticaP^ king_, nation, and 
 Church in a chaos of confusion, out of v/hich they might risG 
 triumphant as the restorers of peace and order to a people 
 torn with internal dissensions. 
 
 Of the credit due to the work from which I have quoted, 
 there can be no reasonable doubt. Mr. Berrington has ap- 
 pended to the ^^ Memoirs/^ ^^ Remarks subjoined to the M.S. 
 copy of the Memoirs, by Mr. Dodd,^^ who says, — " If the 
 author was not Panzani himself, he certainly was some 
 other who had his Memoirs a.nd private notes in keeping. 
 The original is in Italian, from which it was translated 
 by an ennnent prelate of singular candour and scrupu- 
 losity .''■' And to the possible objection of his co-religion- 
 ists to its being published, that '' it exposes too much the 
 intrigues of the Court of Pome against the Church of Eng- 
 land/^ he candidly replies, that "the whole affair of the 
 English Mission may be caUed an intrigue against the Esta- 
 blished Church, if we regard the end and purposes of it; 
 and of this we may be informed without Panzani's Memoirs.^^ 
 (pp. 258—261.) 
 
 How far the inclination to favour Popery, and support the 
 scheme of a reunion between the two Churches, actually ex- 
 tended among the leading men of that time, it is impossible 
 now to determine. But there can, I think, be no doubt, that 
 the 'ulnis of Popery had deeply affected many of them, and 
 that circumstances alone, and more particularly tlw strong 
 Protestant feeling of the great ruajoriti/ of the nation, pre- 
 vented their inclination towards Popery from issuing in some 
 direct efforts in its behalf.
 
 The account given in Panzani^s Memoirs receives consider- 
 able confirmation from tlie statements of a tract published in 
 1643, intitled " The Pope's Nuncioes/' ^^affirmed/' as HeyHn 
 tells us, '' to have been written by a Venetian ambassador at 
 his being in England/' (and therefore, it must be recollected, 
 a Eomish representation of the matter,) from which Heylin 
 gives some extracts, including the following; which, how- 
 ever, I quote from the original : — 
 
 '^^ As to a reconciliation belween the Churches of England 
 and Pome there were made some general propositions and 
 overtures by the Archbishop's agents, they assuring that his 
 Grace was very much disposed thereunto ; and that if it was 
 not accomplished in his lifetime, it would prove a work of 
 more difficulty after his death : that in very truth for the last 
 three years the Archbishop had introduced some innovations 
 approaching the rites and forms of Pome ; that the Bishop 
 of Chichester [Montague], a great confident of his Grace, 
 and the Lord Treasurer, and eight other Bishops of his 
 Grace's party, did most passionately desire a reconciliation 
 with the Church of Pome ; that they did day by day recede 
 from their ancient tenets to accommodate with the Church of 
 Pome ; that therefore the Pope on his part ought to make 
 some steps to meet them, and the Court of Pome remit 
 something of its rigour in doctrine, otherwise no accord 
 could be. And in very deed the Universities, bishops, and 
 divines of this realm do daily embrace Catholic opinions, 
 though they pro/ess not so much with open mouth for fear of 
 
 the Puritans In sum, that they believe all that is 
 
 taught by the Church, but not by the Court of Pome."* 
 " Both the Archbishop and Bishop of Chichester have said 
 often, that there are but two sorts of persons likely to im- 
 peach and hinder reconciliation, to wit, Puritans amongst the 
 Protestants and Jesuits amongst the Catholics. "f 
 
 And so far is Dr. Heylin, the friend of Laud and Chaplain 
 to Charles I., from denying the truth of this representation, 
 that he quotes the passage as to the Universities, &c. " em- 
 
 * The Pope's Nuncioes. London, 1643, 4to, pp. 11, 12. f lb. p. 16. 
 
 C2
 
 36 
 
 bracing Catholic opinions/^ as sliowing " liow far tliey liad 
 proceeded towards tliis happy reconcilicUion.''^^ 
 
 Tlie two Secretaries^ Windebauk and Cottington^ and Dr. 
 Goodman_, Bisliop of Gloucester_, afterwards openly joined 
 tlie Cburch of Rome. The King and Archbishop Land 
 alloY/ed themselves to be drawn some v/ay towards it^ but 
 on a nep.rer view shrank from committing themselves alto- 
 gether to it;, their consciences unwillingly detecting some 
 23oints to vihich they feared to give approval. 
 
 That Archbishop Laud looked favourably upon the project 
 of a reconciliation with Rome^, and acted in many respects 
 with an eye to the promotion of it^ (though_, it is to be hoped^, 
 with a considerable reserve in the extent to which his con- 
 cessions would have gone^,) can hardly be doubted even from 
 the sta^tements of his friend Heylin himself. Dr. Heylinj 
 referring to a tract called ^^ The English Pope/^ printed at 
 London in the same year 1643, says — "He well tells us 
 that after Con had undertooh the managing of tlie affairs, 
 matters began to grow toiuard some agreement ;^' and then 
 stating what it was supposed the Pope was likely to yield, 
 he adds_, — "And to obtain a reconciliation upon these advan- 
 tages the Archbishop had all the reason in the ivorld to do as 
 HE DID in ordering the Lord's table to be placed where the Altar 
 stood, and maMng the accustomed reverence in all approacJies 
 towards it and accesses to it; in beautifying and adorning 
 churcJies, oMd celebrating th,o Divine service 2vith all due solem- 
 nities; in talcing care that all offensive and exasperating passages 
 should be expunged out of such boohs as ivere brought to the 
 press and for reducing the extravagancy of some opinions to 
 an evener temper and if he approved auricular con- 
 fession, and showedhimselfwilling to introduce it into the use 
 of the Church, as both our authors say he did, it is no more 
 than what the Liturgy commends to the care of the penitent 
 (though we find not the word *" auricular^ in it), or what the 
 Canons have provided for in the point of security for such as 
 shall be willing to confess themselves.-'-'t 
 
 * Sec Ileylin's Life of Laud, bk. 4, under year 1G39. f Ibid.
 
 37 
 
 Sncli is tlie statement of Heylin himself. 
 
 But when, after raising the expectations of the Romanists, 
 the King- and Archbishop, impelled probably by various 
 motives, impeded their proceedings, they became doubly the 
 objects of their hatred, especially with the Jesuits ; to whose 
 views, indeed, however much they might be inclined towards 
 effecting, if possible, a union with the Church of Rome, they 
 were probably to a great extent opposed. And the object 
 of the Jesuits being, as expressed in one of the documents 
 already quoted, to bring about a "universal catJwlic mon- 
 archy" — an object vjJiich to this day theij have more at heart 
 than any other — they were as anxious to get rid of those who, 
 while they approximated to them in some points, opposed 
 their main scheme, as of more thorough opponents. 
 
 And I now proceed to show how the designs of Eome 
 were carried on by the successor of Panzani. 
 
 Of this we have indisputable evidence in some documents 
 found among Ai'chbishop Laud^s papers. They consist of 
 letters written by Sir W. Boswell, King Charles the First's 
 agent at the Hague, enclosing statements made by one who 
 had been in the confidence of the Romanists, but left them in 
 disgust,* of the secret plots and conspiracies of the Romanists 
 against both the King and Archbishop Laud. These letters 
 and statem.ents had all of them the Archbishop^s own endorse- 
 ment as to the party from whom they came and the time when 
 they were received, and among them was a letter from the 
 Archbishop to the King, calling his serious attention to the 
 matter, which had been returned to the Archbishop with the 
 King's notes on it in his own handwriting in the margin. 
 
 The last statement, of the date of Oct,, 1640, contains a 
 full discovery of the practices and objects of these Romish 
 agents, from which I give the folio vfing extracts. 
 
 Premising that ''* all those Factions with which all Chris- 
 tendom was at that day shaken" arose from the Jesuits, it 
 states that they are divided into " Four Orders,'' which 
 
 * The name assumed Avas, Andrew llabernfelcl ; but ifc is clear that this 
 was only an assumed name.
 
 38 
 
 " abound througliout tlie world/' and tlius proceeds^ — '^ Of 
 tlie iirst Order are ecclesiastics^ wliose office is to take care 
 of tilings promoting religion. Of tlie second Order are poli- 
 ticians;, wliose office it is by any means to shalie, trouble, re- 
 form tlie state of kingdoms and republics. Of tlie third 
 Order are Seculars^ wliose property it is to obtrude tlieni- 
 selves into offices witli kings and princes,, to insinuate and 
 immix themselves in Court-businesses^ bargains and sales^, and 
 to be busied in civil affairs. 0^ \hQ fourth Order are Intelli- 
 gencers (or Spies);, men of inferior condition wko submit them- 
 selves to the services of great men^ princes, barons, noblemen, 
 citizens, to deceive (or corrupt) tlie minds of their masters. 
 
 " A Society of so many Orders the Kingdom of England 
 nourisheth ; for scarce all Spain, France, and Italy can yield 
 so great a multitude of Jesuits as London alone, where are 
 found more than fifty Scottish Jesuits;* there the said 
 Society hath elected to itself a seat of iniquity, and hath 
 conspired against the King, and the most faithful to the 
 King, esjoecially the liord Bishop of Canterbury, and likewise 
 against both kingdoms. 
 
 ^' For it is more certain than certainty itself that the fore- 
 named Society hath determined to effect an universal Refor- 
 mation of the Kingdom of England and Scotland 
 
 ^' Therefore to promote the undertaken villainy, the said 
 Society dublted itself with the title of '' The congregation of 
 2')ro2Jagating the faith/ f which acknowledgeth the Pope of 
 Eome the Head of the College, and Cardinal Barberini his 
 substitute and executor. 
 
 ^^ The chief Patron of the Society at London is the Pope's 
 Legate, who takes care of the business ; into whose bosom 
 these dregs of traitors weekly deposit all their intelligences. 
 Now the residence of this Legation was obtained at London 
 ill the name of the Roman Pontiff, by whose mediation it 
 might be lawful for Cardinal Barberini to work so much the 
 more easily and safely upon the King and Kingdom ; for 
 
 * Tlie reader will observe to what extent the efforts of these secret agents 
 may be carried on while the public mind is utterly unconscious of them. 
 + The reader will observe here the origin and special object of this Society^
 
 39 
 
 none else could so freely circumvent the King^ as he who 
 should be palliated with the Pope^s authority. 
 
 ^Master Ouneus did at thai Unw mijoy the office of the 
 Pop«*« Legate^ »n loiiversal Instrament of the conjured 
 Sociefcy^ and tk seriotss promoter of fche business^ whose 
 eecretSj, as likewise tliosa of all tlsB ©ther intelligencers^ the 
 present good man, the communicator of all these tliingS; did 
 receive and expedite whither the business required. 
 
 ^' Guneus set upon the chief men of the Icingdom, and left 
 nothing unattemjoted by ivhat means he might corrupt them 
 all, and incline them, to the Pontifical Party. He enticed 
 many with various incitements_, yea, he sought to delude the 
 King himself with gifts of pictures, antiquities, idols, and of 
 other vanities brought froni Rome 
 
 ^^ In the meantime, Cuneus smelling from the Archbishop 
 most trusty to the King, that the King's mind was wholly 
 pendulous (or doubtful), resolved, that he would move every 
 stone and apply his forces, that he might gain him to his 
 party, certainly confiding that he had a means pre]3ared, for 
 he had a command to offer a Cardinal's cap to the Lord 
 Archbishop in the name of the Pope of E-ome.* .... 
 
 ^' Another also was assayed. Secretary Cook, who hindered 
 
 access to the detestable wickedness Hereupon being 
 
 made odious to the Patrons of the conspiracy, he was en- 
 dangered to be. discharged from his office; it luas lahoiired 
 for ahout three years and at last obtained 
 
 '^When Cuneus had understood from the Lord Arch- 
 bishop's party, that he had laboured in vain, his malice and 
 the whole Society's waxed boiling hot. Soon after ambushes 
 began to be prepared, luhereiuith the Lord Archbishop, together 
 with the King, should be taken 
 
 * It appears from the Archbishop's own Diary that this offer had been 
 made to him before, as it is there stated by himself: — " Aug. 4, 1633. At 
 Greenwich there came one to me seriously, and that avowed abihty to per- 
 form it, and offered me to be a Cardinal ;" and again, " Aug. 17. Saturday. 
 I had a serious offer made me again to be a Cardinal;" and. he himself states 
 that his answer was as follows, — " My answer again was, That somewhat 
 DWELT WITHIN ME, ivMcli woulcl not suffev that, till Rome were otherwise than 
 it is." No wonder that, with such an answer, E,ome still entertained, for 
 some time after, the hope of his reconciliation to her communion.
 
 40 
 
 ^^ In this heat a certain Scottish Barl^ called Maxfeld^ if 
 I mistake not^ was expedited to the Scots by the Popish 
 party^ with whom two other Scottish Earls^ Papists^ held cor- 
 respondency. He ought [? sought] to stir up the people to 
 commotion, and rub over the injury afresh, that he might 
 inflame their minds, precipitate them to arms, by which the 
 hurtful disturber of the Scottish liberty might be slain. 
 
 " There, by one labour, snares are prepared for the King ; 
 for this purpose the ^^resent business was so ordered, that 
 very many of the English should adhere to the Scots ; that 
 the King should remain inferior in arms, who (thereupon) 
 should be compelled to crave assistance from the Papists ; 
 which yet he should not obtain, unless he would descend 
 into conditions, by which he should permit universal liberty 
 of exercise of the Popish Religion; for so the affairs of the 
 Papists would succeed according to their desire. To which 
 consent if he should show himself more difficult, there should 
 be a present remedy at hand ; for the King's son growing 
 now very fast to his youthful age, [iiolio is educated from his 
 tender age that he might accustom himself to the Fajyish part g,) 
 the King is to be desjKotched ; for an Indian nut stuffed with 
 most sharp poison is kept in the Society (which Cuneus"^- 
 at that time showed often to me in a boasting manner) 
 wherein a poison was prepared for the King, after the ex- 
 ample of his Father. t 
 
 "In this Scottish commotion the Marquis of Hamilton, 
 often despatched to the Scots in the name of the King, to 
 interpose the Poyal authority, whereby the heat of minds 
 might be mitigated, returned notwithstanding as often with- 
 out fruit, and luithout ending the hiisincss. His Chaplain at 
 
 THAT TIME REPAIRED TO US, WHO COMMUNICATED SOME THINGS 
 SECRETLY WITH CuNEUS.J 
 
 * The Pope's Nimcio, Con. 
 
 t A rronfirmation of the rumours that got abroad at the time, of the mode 
 in which James I. met his death. 
 
 X The reader will observe here how the most important political interests 
 of tlie kingdom suffered from the unfaithfulness of a Popish agent under tho 
 disguise of a Protestant clergyman.
 
 41 
 
 " Sir Toby Matthew^ a Jesuited priest, of the Order of 
 
 Politicians^ a most vigilant man of the chief heads 
 
 flies to all banquets and feasts, called or not called, never 
 quiet, always in action and perpetual motion. Thrusting 
 himself into all conversation of superiors, he urgeth con- 
 ferences familiarly, that he may fish out the minds of men. 
 Whatever he observeth thence which may bring any com- 
 modity or discommodity to the part of the conspirators, he 
 communicates to the Pope^s Legate ; the more secret things 
 he himself writes to the Pope or to Cardinal Barberini. In 
 sum, he adjoins himself to any man^s company ; no word can 
 be spoken, that he will not lay hold on, and accommodp.te to 
 his Party. In the meantime, whatever he hath fished out, 
 he reduceth into a catalogue, and every summer carrieth it 
 to the general Consistory of the Jesuits Politicks, which 
 secretly meet together in the Province of Wales, where he is 
 an acceptable guest. There counsels are secretly licmimered, 
 luMch are most meet for tJie convulsion of tJie ecclesiastic and 
 jpoUtic estate of hoth kingdoms. 
 
 " Captain Read, a Scot, dwelling in Long-acre Street, 
 near the Angel Tavern, a Secular Jesuit, who for his detest- 
 able office performed (whereby he had perverted a certain 
 minister of the Church, with secret incitements, to the 
 Popish religion, with all his family, taking his daughter to 
 mfe) for a recompense obtained a rent or impost upon butter, 
 which the country people are bound to render to him, pro- 
 curedfor him from the King hy some chief men of the Society, 
 who never want a spur, w^hereby he ma}^ be constantly de- 
 tained in his office. In his house the business of the whole 
 plot is concluded, where the Society which hath conspired 
 against the King, the Lord Archbishop, and both kingdoms, 
 meet together for the most part every day. But on the day 
 of the Carriers (or Post^s) despatch, which is ordinarily 
 Friday, they meet in greater numbers ; for then all the In- 
 telligencers assemble and confer in common, what things 
 every of them hath fished out that week ; who that they may 
 be without suspicion, send their secrets by Toby Matthew, or
 
 42 
 
 Read himself, to tlie Pope's Legate ; he transmits the com- 
 pacted pacquet^ which he hath purchased from the Intelhgen- 
 cers^ to Rome. With the same Read the letters brought from 
 Rome are deposited_, mider feigned titles a-nd names_, who 
 [which] by him are delivered to all to whom they appertain^ 
 for all and every of their names are known to him. Upon 
 the veiy same occasion letters also are brought hither under 
 the covert of Father Philip _, (he notwithstanding being igno- 
 rant of things,,) from whom they are distributed to the con- 
 spirators 
 
 '^ Those who assemble in the fore-named house come fre- 
 quently in coaches, or on horseback in laymen\s habit, and 
 with a great train, wherewith they are disguised, that they 
 may not be known ; yet they are Jesuits and conjured mem- 
 bers of the Society. 
 
 '^ All the Papists of England contribute to this assembly, 
 lest anything should be wanting to promote the undertaken 
 design 
 
 '•^ Besides the foresaid houses, there are conventicles also 
 kept at other more secret places, of which verily they confide 
 not even among themselves, for fear lest they should be dis- 
 covered. First every of them are called to certain Inns, 
 (one not knowing of the other) ; hence they are severally 
 led by spies to the place where they ought to meet, other- 
 wise ignorant where they ought to assemJDie, lest peradven- 
 ture they should be surprised at unawares. 
 
 *' The Countess of Arundel, a strenuous she-champion of 
 the Popish religion, binds all her nerves to the Universal 
 Reformation ; whatsoever she hears at the King^s Court, 
 that is done secretly or openly in words or deeds, she pre- 
 sently imparts to the Pope's Legate, with whom she meets 
 thrice a day, 
 
 "Master Porter of the King's bedchamber, most addicted 
 to the Popish religion, is a bitter enemy of the King ; lie 
 r&veab all his greatest secrets to the Pope's Legate ; although 
 lie very rarely meets with him, yet his wife meets him so
 
 43 
 
 much the oftener ; who being informed by her husband^ con- 
 veys secrets to the Legate. In all his actions he is nothing 
 inferior to Toby Matthew ; it cannot be uttered how dili- 
 gently he watcheth on the business. Kis sons are secretly 
 instructed in the Romish religion; oiDenly they 'profess the 
 Reformed. The eldest is now to receive his father^ s office 
 imder the King luhich shall be; a Cardinals hat is provided 
 for the other^ if the design shall succeed well. 
 
 ^' Secretary Windebanke^ a most fierce Papist^ is the most 
 unfaithful to the King of all men ; who not only betrays and 
 reveals even the King^s secrets, but likewise communicates 
 counsels by which the design may be best advanced. He at 
 least thrice every week converseth with the Legate in noc- 
 turnal conventicles, and reveals those things which he thinks 
 fit to be known j for which end he hired a house near to the 
 Legatees house, whom he often resorts to through the garden 
 door; for by this vicinity the meeting is facilitated."^ 
 
 " Sir Digby, Sir Winter, Master Mountagae the younger, 
 who hath been at Kome, my Lord Sterling, a cousin of the 
 Earl of ArundeFs, a Knight, the Countess of Newport, the 
 Duchess of Buckingham, and many others who have sworn 
 into this conspiracy, are all most vigilant in the design. Some 
 of these are enticed with the hope of Court, others of Political, 
 offices; others attend to the sixteen Cardinal's caps that are 
 vacant ; which are therefore detained idle for some years, that 
 they may impose a vain hope on those who expect them. 
 
 " The Pope^s Legate useth a threefold character or cypher ; 
 one, wherewith he communicates with the Nuncios ; another 
 with Cardinal Barberini only ; a third, wherewith he covers 
 some greater secrets to be communicated." 
 
 This statement had '' the Archbishop^s indorsement with 
 his own hand. Eec. Octob. 14, 1640.''t 
 
 * In the December after this discovery, on a peremptory summons to 
 appear before the House of Commons, he fled beyond sea, and soon openly 
 joined the Church of Rome. 
 
 t Rome's Master-piece. London : 1643. 4to ; and from it in Foxes and 
 Fix-ebrands, Pt. 3, pp. 92—141, and Rushworth's Historical Collections,
 
 44 
 
 It may seem surprising tliat more notice was not taken of 
 this secret information by the King and Archbishop,, who, on 
 the receipt of the first letter from Sir W. Boswell^ evidently 
 took a serious view of the matter, as appears from the Arch- 
 bishop^ s letter to the King, and the King^s notes upon it, 
 alluded to above. But in Heylin^s Life of Laud we find the 
 explanation in a passage showing idUIl ivhat consiwimcde 
 duplicity some of the principal actors in tlie plot had played 
 I heir parts; a duplicity vfhich events had evidently led 
 Heylin to suspect even at the time he wrote, but which sub- 
 sequent revelations, especially in Panzani's Memoirs^ have 
 fully brought to light. 
 
 On the receipt of the first letter from Sir W. Boswell, 
 Heylin tells us, — " So far both the King and he had very 
 good reason to be sensible of the dangers which were threat- 
 ened to them. But when the large discovery was brought 
 unto him transmitted in Boswell' s letter of the 15th of 
 October, he found some names in it ivhich discredited the 
 ivhole relation as well in his Majestifs judgment as his own. 
 For besides his naming of some profest Papists .... of 
 whose fidelity the King was not willijig to have any suspi- 
 cion, he named the Earl of Arundel, Windebank^- principal 
 Secretary of State, and Porter, one of the Grooms of the 
 Bedchamber, v,diom he charged to be the King^s utter ene- 
 mies, and such as betrayed his secrets to the Pope^s Nuncio 
 upon all occasions ; all whicli his Majesty beheld as 'men of 
 most approved loyalty and affections to him ; by reason whereof 
 no further credit being given to the advertisement which they 
 had from Boswell, the danger so much feared at first be- 
 
 Pt. ii. vol. 2, pp. 1310 — 1323. It is also quoted by Heylin in his Life of Land, 
 anno 1639, and again 1640. All the docnments connected with this matter 
 ■were first published 'by order of a Committee of the House of Commons, by 
 W. Prynne (who found them among- the Archbisho]D's Papers), in the tract 
 above referred to, entitled " Eome's Master-piece." Habcrnfield's letters 
 are in Latin, and the original Latin is given by Prynne, together with the 
 translation which is cited above. The rcmai"k of the Archbishop in his 
 endorsement on the fii'st letter is, — " I conceive by the English Latin 
 herein, that he must needs be an Englishman with a concealed and changed 
 name. And yet it may be this kind of Latin may relate to the Italian. Or 
 else he lived some good time in England."
 
 45 
 
 came more sliglited and neglected than consisted with Ms 
 Majesty's safety^ and the condition of the times^ which were 
 apt to mischief. For though the party who first broke the 
 ice to this intelhgence might be mistaken in the names of 
 some of the accomphces .... yet the calmnities luhich soon 
 after fell upon them hotli, the deplorahle death of the Arch- 
 hishoj) first and his Majesty afteriuards, declare sufjiciently, 
 that there ivas soine greater reality in the plot than the King 
 ivas loilling to believe.''^ 
 
 Subsequent revelations, through the publication of Pan- 
 zani's Memoirs and other sources of information, have shown 
 that there was no such " mistake/'' and that the professed 
 Protestantism and ^^ approved loyalty and affection" of these 
 supposed friends were only the masks assumed by agents of 
 Eome the more effectually to carry on their designs, and 
 which rendered them far more dangerous than open Papists. 
 In fact, it appears from this statement of Dr. Heylin, that 
 the neglect with which this discovery of the plot was treated 
 was entirely due to the way in which the duplicity of these 
 j)arties had blinded the eyes of the King and Archbishop to 
 their real character and proceedings. 
 
 In the meantime the conspirators proceeded gTadually and 
 carefully but surely to the accomplishment of their schemes, 
 and the following letter, written from London, May 13, 1642, 
 from a Jesuit agent, using the name of J. Pagan, to " the 
 Sacred and Holy Society of Jesus at Paris,'^ which came 
 into the hands of Archbishop Usher in 1652, (several copies 
 of which he gave to his friends,) will show the nature of the 
 course they pursued. 
 
 "^ Eeverend Sirs, ^— We doubt not but to make a great 
 progress in what we have undertaken; we have put the 
 Mobile out of conceit with Canterbury, the head of their 
 heretical Episcopacy, and doubt not in time to perfect our 
 designs through fractions between themselves. It must not be 
 totcdly arm.s that can conquer heresy, as you have advised, 
 but SEPAEATiON, wMch hath lorevailed much of late. Many of 
 * Heylin's Life of Laud, lib. v., under the year 1640.
 
 46 
 
 tlie common sort are fallen from the heretic bisliops, and 
 are for a synod or assembly of presbyters_, who shall soon 
 eclipse their pomp. We he encoiirarjlng the IndejJeiidents 
 jmrposely to balance the scales, lest they grow too 20onderous, 
 high, and lofty. And as ive shall find them also, lue shall 
 encourage the Anahajjtists, hiowing all these are a distraction 
 
 to a heretical monarchy We shall hinder the heretics 
 
 by finding them work at home^ and thereby prevent their 
 sending aid for Ireland; for %ve have parties of great sJcill 
 and iDolicy on both stdes^ as ivell ivith the Parliament crew as 
 with the King ; so that if either take, we are safe, so we do 
 not discover our projects to our adversaries. We intreat 
 you to signify unto the Convent, that we want wise, learned, 
 and subtle scholars to come and assist these new sects, that 
 they may still he at variance, especially amongst the Parlia- 
 mentaries ; and for the other party with the King, we 
 have equality, and fear them not. The old cub Canterbury 
 suspects not the Church Catholic in the least, but is in- 
 veterate against the Puritan sort, and they against him; 
 which is a just judgment on him for his inveterate piece 
 written against Father Fisher. We seem very civil to him, 
 and cherish him against the Puritans, whilst we visit him ; so 
 
 that HE DREAMS NOT HOW THE NET IS SPREAD TO CATCH HIM. 
 
 " Consider of these things, and consult the Cardinal with 
 them. Let a supply of money be sent for. We must encou- 
 rage the undertakers, and bribe others, otherwise it may not 
 only prolong but oppose causes. ...... In the meantime 
 
 acknowledging the authority of the Superior and power of 
 the Holy Society, I conclude always their true and faithful 
 slave and obedient member to advance the cause of the holy 
 Catholic and Mother- Church of Eome till death, J. Fagan.''* 
 
 The reader will observe that this letter was written just at 
 the commencement of the civil war, and after Laud had been 
 committed to the Tower. And it is clear from it that the 
 object of the party was to gain their ends partly by ^^arms,^'' 
 but more especially by the '^ separation ^' of the nation into 
 * Foxes aud Firebrands, Pt. 3, pp. 150—153.
 
 47 
 
 antagonistic parties, and that tliey liad cunningly managed 
 to •introduce '^ parties of great skill and policy on both, sides, 
 as well with the Parliament crew as with the King/^ so as 
 to prevent reconciliation between them, and at the same 
 time secure their own ends, whichever side might prevail; 
 and that they were secretly wor"king for the downfall of 
 Archbishop Laud, as one who, with all his leanings towards 
 a modified Popery, stood in the way of the accomplishment 
 of their schemes. 
 
 Such is the way in which the Church of Rome labours for 
 the promotion of the religion of Jesus Christ ! 
 
 And it is remarkable how little practical effect even the 
 publication by the House of Commons, in 1643, of the 
 documents above quoted, found among Archbishop Laud^s 
 papers, seems to have had ; though, as was pointed out at 
 the time by their editor, the course of events had been such 
 as strongly to confirm the truth of the revelations there made. 
 
 One more revelation of the workings of this " mystery of 
 iniquity" is afforded us by another letter from the same party, 
 a copy of which came at the same time (1652) into the hands 
 of Archbishop Usher. It is dated London, April 6, 1645, 
 three years after the former, and when Presbyterianism had 
 risen on the ruins of Episcopacy, and the Scottish army, 
 among whom probably were the '^ northern correspondents''^ 
 referred to in the letter, had gained considerable power, and 
 not long before the King adopted the extraordinary and fatal 
 step of taking shelter in that army. 
 
 ^^ Reverend Fathers, — We and our brethren (as our 
 brother in Jesu can inform you) have with all diligence 
 and art (as much as nature can afford or human rea- 
 son endow ns) perfected [fulfilled] the ordinances and 
 statutes of the Holy Society ; our adversaries the heretics 
 being neither the wiser, nor mistrusting our order or 
 function in the least ; so that our drifts will take, if con- 
 tinued as is begun ; they still in anywise not mistrusting our 
 CathoHc intentions. Be ye not dismayed nor jealous of our 
 Northern correspondents. Although they term you sons of
 
 48 
 
 the Whore of Babylon j at present tue cannot hel}^ it. Yet we 
 term tlie Episcopacy of the heretical tribe of this nation the 
 same,, purposely for our proper ends and assurance of perfect- 
 ing a toleration for consciences. 
 
 ''''We desire some able assistance from you and other 
 places : as from Italy, Portugal, and Spain ; and also your 
 counsel and theirs, especially whilst this heretical synod of 
 presbyters rule and govern ; truly we find them a perverse 
 sort of heretics to clash with ; for since they have become 
 masters, and conquered the heretical bishops, we find great 
 opposition and require more assistance. 
 
 " It is not ripe enough as yet to set Anabaptism a-madding 
 at this time, but rather set enmity and variance between Sir 
 John Presbyter (that tribe of John Calvin their Master) and 
 the Independant. Jesu Mary be praised, that tribe holds Sir 
 John tug. We have sent private intelligence unto Patience,^ 
 hearing he and that tribe have lately fallen out in New Eng- 
 land, encouraging [him] to return ; for here he may better 
 clash with a Presbyterian than with those, being bred up and 
 trained up for that sect, and there be less suspected. 
 
 '' I here send you a roll of the names who contend with Sir 
 
 John's tribe As for the rest of their names, how they 
 
 be qualified, what points they stand upon, and ivhat new doc- 
 trines they Jiave sj)read, the roll will inform the Society. 
 
 " The Anabaptists increase a-main ; and Peter Pain, who 
 was lately discovered, hath fled from these parts, and is gone 
 into Yorkshire, where he goetli now under the name of T. C. 
 Looh into the Licence booh, and you luill hiow under luhat 
 names he was to go in case of discovery, 
 
 "I suppose the Deputy-Provincial hath given you all 
 accounts at large, which causeth me to omit some passages ; 
 but you shall have shortly a larger description, as soon as we 
 proceed farther in our affairs, nothing hindering the same but 
 the damned stop which the heretical Synod put unto our late 
 Petition, against the toleration of tender consciences. 
 
 * ISTominally and by pi'ofession a BaiMst, or as tliey were then called, an 
 Andbajotist.
 
 49 
 
 ''We humbly conclude^ ever testifying our due and pro- 
 mised obedience to tlie Fraternity of the Holy Society of 
 JesuSj whose undertakings to the advancement of the 
 Mother- Church, his Holiness, and the propagation of the 
 faith thereof, we ever intreat the Blessed Trinity, the holy 
 blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, Archangels, 
 Angels, Cherubims and Seraphims, Patriarchs, Prophets, 
 St. Peter, St. Paul, the Apostles, Martyrs, Saints, and all 
 the heavenly host to assist and bless, &c. Amen. 
 
 " London, April 6, 1645." '' J. Pagan." 
 
 Important additional testimony as to the proceedings of 
 the Papists in England at this time is to be found in a letter 
 by Archbishop Bramhall (then Bishop of Derry) in 1654 to 
 Archbishop Usher, giving him an account of the information 
 that had come to him, upon induibitable evidence, as to the 
 large concern which the Papists had in jjromoting the civil 
 war and tlie death of the hing, and the way in which they 
 were then pursuing a similar course for similar ends. This 
 letter was first printed in Parr^s Life and Letters of Usher in 
 1685, and the whole impression of the book was seized by 
 order of James 11. on account of its insertion,* and the book 
 subsequently published without it. It is stated in this letter: — 
 
 "It plainly appears that in the year 1646, by order from 
 Rome, above 100 of the Romish clergy were sent into Eng- 
 land, consisting of English, Scotch, and Irish, who had been 
 educated in France, Italy, Germany, and Spain; part of 
 these within the several schools then appointed for their in- 
 struction. In each of these Romish nurseries these scholars 
 were taught several handicraft trades and callings, as their 
 ingenuities were most bending; besides their orders or func- 
 tions of that Chm-ch. They have many yet at Paris a-fitting 
 to be sent over, who t^vice in the week oppose one the 
 other; one pretending Presbytery, the other Independency; 
 some Anabaptism, and the others contrary tenets, dangerous 
 and prejudicial to the Church of England, and to all the 
 
 * See Evelyn's Diaiy, tinder date April 18, 1686. 
 D
 
 50 
 
 Keformed here abroad. But tliey [i.e. tlie Reformed] are 
 wisely preparing to prevent their designs ; whicli I heartily 
 wish were considered in England among the wise there/' 
 He proceeds to state that each emissary had several names 
 given him^ so that upon discovery in one place he might go to 
 another and assume a different name^ and all were to be in 
 constant correspondence with those who sent them ; and 
 that in England they were to pass themselves off as ^'' poor 
 Christians that formerly fled beyond seas for their religion's 
 sake, and are now returned with glad news [gladness] to 
 enjoy their liberty of conscience.-" The letter proceeds 
 thus: — "The hundred men that went over in 1646 were 
 most of them soldiers in the Parliament's army_, and were 
 daily to correspond with those Romanists in our late King's 
 army that were lately at Oxford, and pretended to fight for 
 his sacred Majesty ; for at that time there were some Roman 
 Catholics who did not know the design a-contriving against 
 our Church and State of England. But the year following, 
 1647, many of those Romish Orders, who came over the year 
 before, were in consultation together, knowing each other ; 
 and those of the King's party asking some, Wliy they took 
 with the Parliament's side, and asking others, Whether they 
 were bewitched to turn Puritans, not knowing the design ; 
 but at last secret Bulls and Licences being produced by 
 those of the Parliament's side, it was declared between them.. 
 There was no better design to confound the Church of Eng- 
 land, than hj pretending liberty of conscience. It was argued 
 then that England would be a second Holland, a Common- 
 wealth ; and if so, what would become of the King ? It was 
 answered. Would to God it were come to that point. It was 
 again replied. Yourselves have preached so much against 
 Rome and his Holiness, that Rome and her Romanists will 
 be little the better for that change. But it was answered. 
 You shall have mass sufficient for a hundred thousand in a 
 short space, and the governors never the wiser. Then some 
 of the mercifullest of the Romanists said. This cannot be 
 done unless the King die, upon which argument the Romish.
 
 51 
 
 Orders thus licensed^ and in tlie Parliament army_. wrote unto 
 tlieir several Convents,, but especially to the Sorbonists, 
 whether it may be scrupled to make away our late godly King 
 and his Majesty his Son^ our King and Master; who, 
 blessed be God^ hath escaped their Eomish snares laid for 
 him. It was returned from the Sorbonists^ that it was 
 lawful for Boman Catholics to work changes in Governments 
 for the Mother- Church's advancement, and chiefly in an here- 
 tical kingdom ; and so laivfully maJce away the Idng. Thus 
 much to my Jmoiuledge have I seen and heard since my leaving 
 your Lordship, ivhich I thought very requisite to inform your 
 Grace ; for myself would hardly have credited these things, had 
 not mine eyes seen sure evidence of the same.''^ 
 
 A confirmation of these accounts will be found in a work 
 of Dr. Peter Du Moulin^ first published soon after the Eestora- 
 tion, in which he says : — 
 
 " When the businesses of the late bad times are once ripe 
 for a history, and time the bringer of truth hath discovered 
 the mysteries of iniquity, and the depths of Satan, which 
 have wrought so much crime and mischief, it will be found, 
 that the late Rebellion was raised and fostered by the arts 
 of the Court of Rome ; that Jesuits professed themselves 
 Independent, as not depending on the Church of England, 
 and fifth-monarchy men, that they might pull down the 
 English monarchy, and that in the Committees for the 
 destruction of the King and the Church they had their spies 
 and their agents. The Roman priest and confessor is 
 known, who when he saw the fatal stroke given to our 
 holy King and Martyr, flourished with his sword, and said, 
 Kow the greatest enemy that we have in the world is gone.''^t 
 And he gives several proofs of the joy with which the intel- 
 ligence of the King^s death was received by the Romanists, J 
 
 * BramhaU's Works, Oxf. 1842, vol. i. p. xcv. et seq. The letter is also to 
 be found in " Foxes and Firebrands," pt. 3, pp. 164—169, and in the Har- 
 leian Miscellany, vii. 542, &c. 
 
 t A vindication >of the sincerity of the Protestant Eeligion in point of 
 obedience to sovereigns, in answer to Philanax Anglicus, by P. du Moulin, 
 D.D., Canon of Canterbury 4th edn. 1679. 4to, p. 58 
 
 X lb. pp. 58, 59 ; 66, 67. 
 
 d2
 
 52 
 
 and states tliat the friars contended witli tlie Jesuits for '' tlie 
 glory ^^ of having promoted " that great achievement.-'^* 
 
 And he declares himself able to prove_, ^''whensoever 
 authority will require it_,^'' " that the year before the King's 
 death a select number of English Jesuits were sent from their 
 whole party in England^ first to Paris, to consult with the 
 Faculty of Sorbon, then altogether Jesuited ; to whom they 
 put this question in writing : That seeing the State of 
 England was in a hkely posture to change Government, 
 whether it was lawful for the Catholics to work that change, 
 for the advancing and securing of the Catholic cause in 
 England, hy mahing muay the King, whom there was no 
 hope to turn from his heresy. Which was answered 
 affirmatively. After which the same persons went to Rome ; 
 where the same question being propounded and debated, it 
 was concluded by the Pope and his Council, that it was 
 hoth Icuufid mid expedient for the Catholics to promote that 
 alteration of State.'' f And in answer to the vague denials 
 of the charge by some Romanists he says, — " I have defied 
 them now seventeen years to call me in question before our 
 Judges, and so I do still," and testifies his readiness at any 
 time to justify his statements, when called upon by public 
 authority to do so.{ And he gives a letter from Sir W. 
 Morrice, Secretary of State to Charles II., written when he 
 first published this charge, in which that high officer of State, 
 after alluding to the necessity of caution in what he said in 
 his position, writes thus, — " But this I may say safely, and 
 will do it confidently, that many arguments did create a 
 violent suspicion, very near convincing evidences, that the 
 irreligion of the Papists was chiefly guilty of the murther of 
 that excellent Prince, the odium whereof they would now file 
 to the account of the Protestant religion. "§ 
 
 " Mr. Prynne's intelligence,'^ he adds, '^ confirmed mine. 
 He saith (True and Perfect Narrative, p. 46) that our late 
 excellent King ha^dng assented, in the Treaty of the Isle of 
 
 * " A Viudication, &c." p. 67. f lb. p. 59. 
 
 X lb. pp. 61, 62. § lb. pp. 64, 65.
 
 o3 
 
 Wiglit_, to pass five strict Bills against Poperj^ the Jesuits in 
 France, at a general meeting there, presently resolved to bring 
 him to justice and taJce off his head, by the power of their 
 friends in the army : as tlie King Hmself was certified by an 
 express from tlience^ and wished to provide against it^ but 
 two days before his removal by the army from the Isle of 
 Wight to his execution."* 
 
 " In pursuance of this order from Rome for the pulHng 
 down both the Monarch and the Monarchy of England, 
 many Jesuits came over who took several shapes, to go about 
 then- work, but most of them took party in the army. About 
 thirty of them or their disciples were met by a Protestant 
 gentleman between Roan and Dieppe, to whom they said 
 (taking him for one of their party) that they were going into 
 England, and would take arms in the Independent army, 
 and endeavour to be agitators.^f 
 
 One more testimony may be added to these : — 
 
 " When the late king [Charles I.] was murdered. Master 
 Henry Spotswood, riding casually that way just as his head 
 "was cut off, espied the Queen's Confessor there on horse- 
 back, in the habit of a trooper, drawing forth his sword and 
 flourishing it over his own head in triumph (as others then 
 did) ; at which Mr. Spotswood being much amazed, and being 
 familiarly acquainted with the Confessor, rode up to him, and 
 said, *■ father, I little thought to have found you here, or 
 any of your profession, at such a sad spectacle.'' To which 
 he answered, ^ That there were at least forty or more priests 
 and Jesuits there present on horseback, besides himself.' "% 
 
 Richard Baxter has dwelt at some length on the same 
 subject in his "Key for Catholics," 1659, 4to, in which he 
 devotes the 45th chapter to pointing out the fraud of the 
 Papists " in seeking to divide the Protestants among them- 
 selves, or to break them into sects, or poison the ductile sort 
 with heresies, and then to draw them to some odious prac- 
 
 * " A Vindication, &c.," p. 65. f lb. pp. 65, 66. 
 
 X Prynne's Brief Necessary Vindication, p. 45, as qiioted in Foxes and 
 Firebrands, Ft. iii. pp. 163- 164.
 
 54 
 
 ticeSj to cast a disgrace on tlie Protestant cause." (p. 313.) 
 In his remarks on tMs subject lie observes,, as one living at 
 the time and knowing well the general state of feeling in the 
 
 kingdom^ " I do therefore leave it here to posterity 
 
 that it w^as utterly against the mind and thoughts of Pro- 
 testants^ and those that they called Puritans^ to put the king 
 to death.-'^ (p. 323.) And to the question what the Papists 
 get by all this, he justly replies^ — "^J this means our 
 Councils, armies^ Churches^ have been divided or much 
 broken. By this trick they have engaged the minds and 
 tongues of many (and their hands if they had power) against 
 the Ministry^ which is the enemy that standeth in their way. 
 They have thus weakened us by the loss of our former 
 
 adherents By this they have got agents ready for 
 
 mischievous designs^ as hath been lately too manifest. By 
 this they have cast a reproach upon our profession^ as if we 
 had no unity or consistence^ but were vertiginous for want of 
 the Roman ^pillar to rest iijpon. By this they have loosened 
 and disaffected the common people^ to see so many minds and 
 ways, and hear so much contending, and have loosed them 
 from their former steadfastness, and made them ready for a 
 new impression. Yea, by this means they have the oppor- 
 tunity of predicating their own pretended unity, and hereby 
 have drawn many to their Church of late. All this have they 
 o-ot at this one srame.^^* 
 
 And in his " Life" he mentions a fact which confirms the 
 statements of Du Moulin, namely that a Mr. Atkins, brother 
 of Judge Atkins, when abroad, made the acquaintance of a 
 priest who had been Governor of one of the Eomish Colleges 
 in Flanders, and meeting this priest in London " a little 
 after the King was beheaded," was privately told by him, 
 '^Tliat there were thirty of them here in London, who by 
 instructions from Cardinal Mazarine, did take care of such 
 affairs, and had sate in Council and debated the question, 
 
 * Pp. 329, 330. See also his 46tli chapter on " Another practical fraud 
 of the Papists in hiding themselves and their religion, that tliey may do 
 their woi'k with the more advantage."
 
 55 
 
 Wlietlier the King should be put to deatli or not_, and that it 
 was carried in the affirmative_, and there were but two voices 
 for the negative,, which was his own and another^ s : and that 
 for his part he could not concur with them^ as foreseeing 
 what misery this would bring upon this country/^ " I would 
 not print it/^ adds Baxter, " without fuller attestation, lest it 
 should be a wrong to the Papists. But when the King was 
 restored and settled in peace^ I told it occasionally to a 
 Privy Councillor^ who not advising me to meddle any further 
 in it, because the King hneiu enough of Mazarine^ s designs 
 already, I let it alone. But about this time I met with Dr. 
 Thomas Goad, and occasionally mentioning such a thing, he 
 told me that he was familiarly acquainted with Mr. Atkins^ 
 and would know the certainty of him, whether it were true : 
 and not long after, meeting him again, he told me that he 
 spoke with Mr. Atkins, and that he assured him that it" was 
 true^ but he was loth to meddle in the publication of it.-'^* 
 
 It is clear from these documents that much of the blood 
 shed at that unhappy period of civil strife and religious dis- 
 sension lies at the door of the Church of Eome ; and we see 
 from them, that fraud, deceit, and crime of every kind are 
 instruments of which she unhesitatingly avails herself to 
 bring mankind under her yoke ; seducing her agents into 
 the belief that they are benefiting " holy Mother Church," 
 and doing God service. 
 
 After the death of the king, finding themselves probably 
 as far off as ever from the attainment of the object they had 
 in view, the Papists proceeded secretly in the same course 
 as before. And the following testimony was borne to their 
 proceedings in 1654 : — 
 
 " 1. That there are multitudes of Romish emissaries and 
 vermin now residing and wandering up and down freely 
 amongst us, to seduce and divide the people, by setting up 
 new sects and separate congregations in all places, and 
 
 * Baxter's Narrative of his Life. Published by Sylvester. Lond. 1696. 
 fol. Pt. 2, pp. 373, 374. The evident leaning of the Court towards Popery 
 quite accounts for the indisposition to " meddle" with these matters.
 
 56 
 
 broaching new notions and opinions of all sorts, or old 
 heresies or blasphemies 
 
 '' 2. That they are the chief speakers and rulers in most 
 separate congregations 
 
 '^ 3. That they have their several Missions and Directions 
 into all parts from their Generals and Superiors of their 
 respective Orders, residing commonly in London, [where tJiey 
 have a Consistory and Council sitting, that rules all the affairs 
 of the things of England) besides fixed officers in every 
 Diocese, and are all fore-acquainted both with the places and 
 times of their several Missions. ..... 
 
 " 4, That the Pope^s and these his Emissaries' chief 
 endeavours are to draw the people from our churches, 
 public congregations, ordinances, ministers and religion, and 
 to divide and tumble us into as ma,ny sects and separate con- 
 venticles as they have Popish Orders; and titer ehy into as 
 many Civil Parties and Factions as possibly they can, to ruin 
 us thereby. 
 
 '^ 5. That by this their new stratagem and liberty, they 
 have (under the disguises of being Quakers, Seekers, Ana- 
 baptists, Independents, Ranters, Dippers, Anti- Trinitarians, 
 Anti- Scrip turists, and the like) gained more proselytes aud 
 disciples, and done more harm in eight or nine years space 
 to the Church and Realm of England, more prejudice, dis- 
 honour and scandal to our religion and ministers, than ever 
 they did by saying Mass, or preaching, printing, or any 
 point of the grossest Popery in 80 years time heretofore. 
 And if not speedily, diligently restrained, repressed, will 
 soon utterly overturn both our Cliurch, Religion, Ministry, and 
 State too in coyiclusion, having already brought them to sad 
 confusions and distractions.^'^ 
 
 The restoration of the Stuart family in the person of 
 Charles II. inspired the Papists with fresh hopes. The 
 tendency of the King's mind, (even if he had not been 
 reconciled before his arrival in England to the Church of 
 
 * Foxes and Firebrands, Pt. 2, pp. 144—146.
 
 57 
 
 Home, wliicli is most probable^*) and tlie secret promises lie 
 tad made to his Popish, allies^ were all well known at Rome; 
 and the emissaries of Rome were diligent and active during 
 his reign in secretly paving the way for the re- establishment 
 of Popery in this country ; and but for the decided Anti- 
 Popish feelings of the Nation, the Church of Rome would 
 again have placed England under its yoke. The King well 
 knew what had been the plots of the Romanists against his 
 father, and his plan of action seems to have been, secretly 
 to aid and encourage the Popish conspirators against the 
 religion and liberties of the nation, and so secure himself 
 against their hostility, while outiuardly, for the preservation 
 of his crown, he professed Protestantism, and did what was 
 necessary, even in opposition to the Papists, to satisfy or at 
 least keep quiet his Protestant subjects. Such was the fruit 
 of the Popish teaching to which he had been exposed. 
 
 During the whole of this reign, therefore, the chief agent 
 of the Church of Rome, under the disguise of a profession of 
 Protestantism, was the king himself. And the first object 
 aimed at for the purpose of ultimately effecting the re- 
 establishment of Popery was what was called a general 
 toleration. This was to be the first step towards the attain- 
 ment of the end which we know from their own testiiiK-ny 
 the Papists had in view. 
 
 So far as respects the free exercise of their religion, I 
 offer no remark, still less censure, upon any open, holiest, 
 and straightforward efforts to obtain it. But what I wish 
 to point out is, not merely that this was sought for as a mere 
 instrument towards attaining the real object they h^d in 
 view, but what was their mode of action for accomplishifig tJieir 
 jpurjposes. This continued to be, as it had all along been, and 
 still is, the division of Protestants among themselves by all kinds 
 of subtle artifices, disguised agents, and faithless counsels. 
 
 The great effort therefore of the Papists at the commence- 
 
 * See Hallam's Const. Hist. 4tli ed. vol. ii. p. 41, note. Bp. Burnet (Hist. 
 ■of his own Times, i. 273) asserts that King Charles admitted his being a 
 Papist to the Prince of Orange (afterwards William III.) in 1669.
 
 5S 
 
 ment of this reign was to make the breach as wide as pos- 
 sible between the Church and the Protestant Nonconformists^ 
 and so increase the number of the latter as to enable the 
 Crown, without exciting public discontent_, to grant a dis- 
 pensation from the effects of the penal laws, which should 
 include the Papists within its scope. 
 
 " It was the strength of Popery/^ says Bishop Kennet, 
 " that now [i.e. in 1662] chiefly made the separation of Pro- 
 testants from the*Church of England. •'^-i^ The Act of Uni- 
 formity, he tells us, w^ould have prospered far better " if the 
 Ministers inclined to separation had not been encouraged in 
 it by the connivance of the Court and the promised indul- 
 gence of the king.^''t And Archbishop Tenison, in his Dis- 
 course concerning the Ecclesiastical Commission in 1689, 
 tells us, that " the mystery of Popery did even then \^i.e. in 
 1661] work^^ to prevent reformation and union. 
 
 The testimony of Bishop Burnet is still more full and ex- 
 press ; he says, — " Though he [the King] put on an outward 
 appearance of moderation, yet he was in another and deeper 
 laid design, to which the heat of these men proved subservient, 
 
 for bringing in of Pojperij It was thought a toleration was 
 
 the only method for setting it a-going all the nation over. 
 And nothing could make a toleration for Popery pass, but 
 the having great bodies of men put out of the Church, and 
 put under severe laws, which should force them to move for 
 a toleration, and should make it reasonable to grant it to 
 them. And it was resolved, that whatever should be granted 
 of that sort should go in so large a manner, that Papists 
 should be comprehended within it. So the Papists had this 
 generally spread among them, that theij should oppose all pro- 
 positions for comprehension, and shoidd animate the Church 
 party to maintain their ground against all the sectaries. And 
 in that point they seemed zealous for the Church. But at 
 the same time, they spoke of toleration, as necessary both for 
 the peace and quiet of the nation and for the encouragement 
 
 * History, 2nd ed., vol. iii. p. 267.' f History, vol. iii. p. 262.
 
 59 
 
 of trade. And witli fcliis the Duke [of York] was so pos- 
 sessed_, tliat lie declared himself a most violent enemy to 
 comprehension and as zealous for toleration/^* 
 
 And speaking of a conversation he had with a secular 
 Romish priest^ Peter Walsh, who he says was the " honestest 
 and learnedest man I ever knew among them/^ and '''' knew 
 well the methods of the Jesuits and other missionaries/^ he 
 adds, — '^ He told me often, there ivas nothing which the ivhole 
 Popish party feared more than an union of those of the Church 
 of England luith the Preshyterians ; they knew, we grew the 
 weaker, the more our breaches were widened ; and that the 
 more we were set against one another, we would mind them 
 the less. The Papists had two maxhns,fromivhieli they never 
 departed : the one was to divide us : and the other luas, to 
 Tzeep themselves united, and either to set on an indiscriminated 
 toleration, or a general prosecution ; for so we loved to soften 
 the harsh word oi persecution. And he observed, not with- 
 out great indignation at us for our folly, that we, instead of 
 uniting among ourselves, and dividing them, according to 
 their maxims, did all we could to keep them united, and to 
 disjoint our own body.''-'t 
 
 Thus the influence of the Papists was exerted to increase 
 as much as they could the ranks of the Nonconformists, and 
 make them as formidable a body in opposition to the Church 
 as possible ; and then to induce the King to grant them 
 toleration by assuming a power of dispensing with the penal 
 laws, which it was hoped the Nonconformists would be thank- 
 ful to acquiesce in, and which would include a toleration for 
 the Popish party. But in this they were disappointed, the 
 Protestant spirit of the Parliament being too strong to allow 
 the King to carry out this design. 
 
 In the course of a few years, however, when the Parlia- 
 ment became more inclined than they had previously been 
 to measures of comprehension, the Court party with the Pa- 
 pists, foreseeing that if the Church and the Nonconformists 
 
 * Hist, of Ms Own Times, vol. i. p. 179. f Ibid. p. 195.
 
 60 
 
 €ame to a good understanding between tliemselves, both 
 would be united against them, and no chance would remain 
 of a toleration of Popery, changed their tactics and urged 
 the execution of the laws against Nonconformists. " The 
 Court/' says Hallam, ^' entertained great hopes from the 
 depressed condition of the Dissenters, whom it was intended 
 to bribe with that toleration under a Catholic regimen, 
 which tbey could so little expect from the Church of Eng- 
 land. Hence the Duke of York was always «^re?^^to'^^s against 
 schemes of compreheyisiony which luould invigorate the Protes- 
 tant interest and jpromote conciliation. With the opposite view 
 of rendering a union among Protestants impracticable, the 
 rigorous Episcopalians were encouraged underhand to prose- 
 cute tlie Nonconformists."^ 
 
 '^ As it had been formerly/^ says Kennet, " the interest 
 of the Papists to promote indulgence and toleration to the 
 Protestant dissenters, that under the effects of such a liberty 
 they might shelter themselves and weaken the Church of 
 England, so now, upon a turn of affairs, they changed their 
 opinion, or at least their measures, for that party now en- 
 couraged the severe prosecution of the Protestant dissenters, 
 thereby to take off the edge of the laws from themselves, 
 and to divert the zeal of the members of ih.Q Church of 
 England against their brethren in separation from them, and 
 so to irritate and alienate the hearts of all Protestants from 
 one another."t 
 
 And the better to carry on their designs, they managed, as 
 before, to get themselves appointed, under the profession of 
 Protestantism, to offices and employments of all kinds, and 
 even to ecclesiastical preferments. 
 
 " Under the Duke's protection," says Kennet, " many of 
 the Koman Catholics were publicly encouraged and pre- 
 lerred ; and some others of them acted a more secret part in 
 assuming the name of Protestants, and under that disguise 
 fhritsting themselves into places and employ merits. Among 
 
 * Hallam, vol. ii. p, 82. f Kennet, vol. iii. p. 381.
 
 61: 
 
 these one at least crept into a mire of souls, one Jolin Duffey, 
 a Scotcliman^ wlio obtained tlie Rectory of Eaile in Essex ; 
 and wlio, npon information of liis character given to tlie 
 Council Board_, was sent for into custody ; but on tlie 5tli of 
 December [1682] lie made his escape from one of his Ma- 
 jesty^s messengers/^* 
 
 But perhaps the most remarkable proof that occurs during 
 this reign of the extent of the duplicity and fraudulence to 
 which those who are under the influence of Popish principles 
 may be carried^ is in the secret Treaty concluded with France 
 in 1670. While the king was professing Protestantism and a 
 desire to uphold the Protestant faithand discourage Romanism, 
 he and the duke of York held a consultation with three leadins: 
 Papists (Clifl'ord_, Arlington, and Lord Arundel of Wardour) 
 on the 25th of January, 1669, ^'to discuss the ivays and methods 
 Jit to he taJceiifor the advancement of the Catholic religion in 
 these hingdoms. The King spoke earnestly, and with tears in 
 his eyes. After a long deliberation, it was agreed that there 
 was no better way to accomplish this purpose than through 
 Prance, the house of Austria being in no condition to give any 
 assistance.-'^ And accordingly a secret treaty, having this 
 object in view, was negotiated with France, and signed in the 
 course of the following year at Dover ; and the secret was so 
 well kept, that though the strongest suspicions were enter- 
 tained in Parliament and throughout the nation that some 
 plots of the kind were in agitation, and that the Court was not 
 to be trusted, the real text of the treaty was never published 
 till the latter end of the last century. In the treaty there is of 
 course no direct engagement that the Roman Catholic religion 
 shall be that of the National Church in England, but that this 
 was the object of it is undeniable, and the proofs are stated 
 by Hallam.f And if anything were wanting in the evidence 
 of this afi'orded by the correspondence and negotiations that 
 took place at the period, it would be supplied by Coleman's 
 letters, seized some years after. J 
 
 * Kennet, vol. iii. p. 398. f Constit. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 76—81. 
 
 X See State Trials, vol. vii.p. 1. Kennet, ed. 1719, vol. iii. pp. 327, 328 j 
 337 ; 351, 352. Burnet, vol. i. p. 427. HaUam, vol. ii. p. 116.
 
 62 
 
 It was believed by tlie Court (Mr. Hallam says) and pro- 
 bably with, reason, tbat many who were nominally Protestants 
 were secretly inclined to Eomanism, and would gladly em- 
 brace it if circumstances favoured its profession ; and that 
 even some of the clergy would without much hesitation take 
 the same course. " It was the constant policy of the Eomisli 
 priests to extenuate the differences between the two Churches, 
 and to throw the main odium of the schism on the Galvinistic 
 sects. And many of the Anglicans, in abhorrence of Protes- 
 tant Nonconformists, played into the hands of the common 
 enemy.''^* Such is Mr. Hallam's remark, written previous to 
 the recent rise of the Eomanizing party in our Church. 
 
 It is remarkable bow identical have been the tactics of the 
 Eomish party throughout all their various efforts for the re- 
 establishment of Popery in this country. 
 
 On the question of the credibility of the evidence for the 
 alleged plot of 1678, 1 shall not here enter. f The existence 
 of a secret Popish plot against the religion and liberties of the 
 country, in which the highest personages in the realm were 
 engaged, is (as already shown) a matter of history ; and this 
 is amply sufficient for our present purpose. 
 
 Speaking of the supposed plot of 1678, Mr. Hallam justly 
 remarks, — -" It is first to be remembered, that there was really 
 and truly a Popish plot in being, though iiot that which 
 Titus Gates and his associates pretended to reveal — not merely 
 in the sense of Hume, who, arguing from the general spirit 
 of proseljrfcism in that religion, says there is a perpetual con- 
 spiracy against all governments, Protestant, Mahometan, 
 and Pagan, but — one alert, enterprising, eff^ective, in direct 
 operation against the established Protestant religion in England. 
 In this plot the King, the Duke of York, and the King of 
 Prance were chief conspirators ; the Eomish priests, and 
 
 * Ibid. pp. 81, 82. 
 
 t The plot was one that threatened the life of the King, who, though ho 
 secretly favoured the Eomanists, was too careful of his crown and his plea- 
 sures to do anything likely to put them in peril. The Romanists therefore, 
 knowing that they could rely upon the open and direct aid of his successor, 
 were very probably desirous enough of getting rid of him, and hastening the 
 accession of James II.
 
 68 
 
 especially tlie Jesuits^ were eager co-operators. Tlieir ma- 
 cMnations and tlieir liopes^ long suspected and in a general 
 sense known^ were divulged by the seizure and publication 
 of Coleman's letters. ' We have here/ he says in one of 
 thesOj '' a mighty work upon our hands,, no less than, the con- 
 version of three kingdoms^, and by that perhaps the utter 
 subduing of a pestilent heresy^ which has a long time domi- 
 neered over this Northern world. There were never such 
 hopes since the death of our queen Mary as now in our days. 
 God has given us a prince^ who is become (I may say by 
 miracle) zealous of being the author and instrument of so 
 glorious a work j but the opposition we are sure to meet 
 with is also like to be great ; so that it imports us to get all 
 the aid and assistance we can.-' These letters were addressed 
 to Father la Chaise^ confessor of Louis XIV.^ and displayed 
 an intimate connection with France for the great purpose of 
 restoring Popery."^ 
 
 It pleased God^ however^ that the hopes of the Papists 
 should be again disappointed. The great body of the nation 
 and of its representatives in Parliament were sincere and 
 earnest Protestants, and though there might be among the 
 clergy those who used language which indicated a greater 
 sympathy with some of the doctrines of the Church of Rome 
 than was strictly consistent with the Formularies of our 
 Churchy the general feeling among them seems to have been 
 of a contrary kind ; and when the controversy fairly com- 
 menced on the accession of James II., it was sustained by the 
 leading clergy of our Church with a zeal, ability, and per- 
 severance which have made the anti-Popish publications of 
 that day a complete armoury for subsequent combatants in 
 the same field. The efforts of the Romanists, though secretly 
 aided by the King himself and the Duke his brother, were 
 successfully counteracted and nullified by the strong Pro- 
 testant feeling of the country ; and Charles II. died leaving 
 to his brother the task of carrying out their design of re- 
 establishing Popery among us as the national faith. 
 * Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 115, 116.
 
 64 
 
 The efforts of James II. to accomplisli tliis objectj I need 
 not here describe. A¥hatever their character may be con- 
 sidered to be^ as far as the legaHty of them is concerned, they 
 are certainly a shade better than those we have been con- 
 templating, as they were far more free from the guilt of dis- 
 simulation and hypocrisy. He professed himself a Papist, 
 and openly gave all the protection and encouragement he 
 could to the Popish party, who under such circumstances 
 needed no disguise to enable them to carry on their designs. 
 
 Again the Protestant feelings of the Nation enabled it to 
 triumph over the assaults of the Popish faction, and the 
 Revolution placed upon the throne a sincere Protestant, and 
 established the Protestant faith and Protestant principles 
 upon a secure and lasting basis. 
 
 The agents of Eome were no doubt at work to a certain 
 extent in this country, throughout the whole of the last 
 century, especially the former part of it ; but, com- 
 paratively speaking, their efforts were of a partial and 
 languid kind. The theological storms which were so rife 
 throughout the whole of the preceding century seem to have 
 been succeeded by a kdl, in which the vessel of the Faith 
 was becalmed, and remained almost motionless. Popery and 
 Protestantism were both to a great extent sleeping at their 
 posts. The dawn of the present century, whatever may have 
 been the cause, roused both into renewed life and action. 
 As far as Popery is concerned, the impulse was probably 
 given to it in this country by the discussions caused by the 
 Act of Union mth Ireland, which was said to have been 
 rendered palatable to its opponents by promises of what was 
 called Roman Catholic Emancipation, and which certainly 
 led to earnest efforts to effect such emancipation. The hopes 
 of the Romanists were thus again roused j and from the com- 
 mencement of this century, they have laboured steadily and 
 with gradually increasing strength and success to propagate 
 their views, and obtain for themselves an advantageous 
 political position in the country. For some years I believe 
 this was done by open and avowed Papists, and^ so far, fairly
 
 65 
 
 and honestly whatever we may think of the controversial 
 artifices by which the real tenets of the Church of Rome were 
 disguised and " explained'' to give them a plausible appear- 
 ance to a Protestant nation. But from the period of the 
 passing of the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act^ if not 
 before,, the old mode of action of the Jesuits has been renewed 
 in this country, and we have been exposed to the arts and 
 intrigues of a body of men scattered over the face of the 
 land, under various disguises, thoroughly unscrupulous, 
 and capable of every fraud, deceit, and iniquity by which 
 they may imagine that the cause of ^'^ Mother- Chur cli '' is 
 likely to be promoted. 
 
 How just the warning given by Southey, when the ques- 
 tion of Roman Catholic Emancipation (as it was called) was 
 under discussion : — "It would be a solecism in policy were we 
 to entrust those persons with power in the State, who are 
 bound in conscience to use it for subverting the Church, for 
 undoing the work of the Reformation and of the Revolution, 
 for bringing us again into spiritual bondage, and re-esta- 
 blishing that system of superstition, idolatry, and persecution, 
 from which the sufferings of our martyrs, and the wisdom of 
 our ancestors, by God's blessing, delivered us. Far as we 
 may think them from it, this is the consummation upon 
 which their designs, as well as their desires, are bent."* 
 
 To look upon Popery as if it was a harmless form of 
 Christianity, deserving equal privileges ivitli every other form, 
 is a fatal delusion, which must be destructive to the peace 
 and welfare of every Protestant nation that acts upon it. 
 
 The first reflection which naturally forces itself upon the 
 mind, in reviewing the practices of Popery in this country 
 since the Reformation, is. What a proof is here afibrded 
 us of the corrupt character of the Papal system of Chris- 
 tianity. The practices of which we have been giving an 
 account, were not those of unauthorized individuals, inflamed 
 
 * Southey's Vinclicise Eccles. Anglic, Preface. 
 E
 
 66 
 
 by an indiscreet zeal, for wliich tliey alone were responsible, 
 to promote tlie interests of their Cliurch, but efforts patronized 
 by the highest Authorities of that Church, the result of 
 counsels deliberately planned and directed by the Pope and 
 his chief cardinals. Earnest vehemence in defence of what is 
 believed to be the truth is intelligible. Even violence in its 
 behalf, utterly opposed as it is to the precepts and example 
 of our Blessed Lord, may be reconcileable, in consideration 
 of the infirmity of human nature, with sincere belief and a 
 desire to promote the cause and kingdom of Christ. But 
 the iniquitous deceit by which doctrines known to be false 
 and dangerous are widely disseminated, and the divisions 
 of Christendom multiplied and exasperated; the deliberate 
 dissimulation and falsehood practised by men assuming a 
 lying exterior for the purpose of deception ; the faithless and 
 fraudulent counsels instilled into the ears of confiding and 
 unsuspecting parties, suited to their respective stations, 
 offices, and capacities, to lead them to acts productive of 
 consequences which they would deprecate — all done for the 
 sake of damaging a rival Church, and throwing a kingdom 
 that will not own the authority of the Pope into a state of 
 confusion, are practices which I will boldly affirm are irre- 
 concileable with the existence of any degree of fellowship with 
 Christ, or membership among those whom He will own at a 
 future day. 
 
 And it must be remembered, that, according to her own 
 testimony, the Church of Rome is in all her tenets and 
 principles uncliangeahle. What she was in the 17th century, 
 that she is now, and that she will be, if permitted to con- 
 tinue, in the 20th century. Any apparent change is due 
 only to her being fettered by circumstances, and will last only 
 vv'here and as long as those circumstances remain. The 
 delusion of there having been any change in her exclusive, 
 intolerant, and persecuting principles is opposed to her own 
 testimony respecting herself. 
 
 The destruction of the Reformed Church of England has 
 been, as the evidence above given shows, the great object
 
 67 
 
 of lier ambition ever since it first started into existence. 
 Could she but bring that Churdi again into subjection to 
 the Pope_, and make it the supporter and propagator of 
 Eomanism. the chief bulwark of the Reformation would be 
 destroyed^ and the cause of the Papacy obtain a vantage 
 ground which would give it reasonable hope of a triumph 
 throughout the world. 
 
 It is a matter of no little importance to the welfare of our 
 country both in Church and State_, that public attention 
 should be directed to this subject. For he must be bhnd 
 to the signs of the times who can doubt^ that the same prac- 
 tices are now^ and have been for some years^ carried on 
 among us_, as were prevalent in this country in the 17th 
 century. It is a fact which no one who knows anything of 
 the state of things in this country can question^ that we are 
 " swarming with Jesuits." And all history tells us, what 
 are the great objects they have in view^ what the means 
 used to accomplish them^ and what the inevitable effects^ if 
 not count eracted_, in a Protestant State. 
 
 It is impossible,, I think^ to contemplate the present con- 
 dition of our Church without seeing the remarkable resem- 
 blance which it bears to that which existed here about two 
 centuries ago, though^ alas ! much more ominous of evilj and 
 also how its characteristics point to the identity of the causes 
 from which it springs. 
 
 If we look at the secret directions issued to the emissaries 
 of Pome in former times^ — as for instance to preach doctrines 
 of all kinds^ and then ^^ by degrees to add to the doctrine hy 
 ceremonies/' and ^^ by mixtures of doctrines and by adding 
 of ceremonies more than he at loresent permitted '' to bring 
 the '"''heretical Episcopal Society'^ of England "as near the 
 Mother-Church as 'possible/^ to be '' more zealous against 
 the Pope" than others^ while secretly supporting his 
 cause^* to produce internal discord in the Churchy so that 
 there may bo "the less power to oppose the Church of 
 
 * See pp. 8, 9, above. 
 
 .:. e2 ■•"-.. ;^
 
 68 
 
 Kome/^* and all the other smiilar counsels we find in the 
 documents given above,, — and then compare them with what 
 has been taking place in our Church during the last few 
 years^ we can have, I think, little doubt, judging even from 
 this consideration alone, of the causes that have been at work 
 among us to produce the results we now see. 
 
 The first part of Eome^s work has been already accom- 
 plished, in the production of a degree of strife, discord, and 
 confusion, both in Church and State, which threatens con- 
 sequences of serious import to the peace and prosperity of 
 the country. And already we hear the voice of Eome taking 
 advantage of the state of things it has itself caused, and 
 alluring us to herself by proclaiming the blessings of the 
 peace and unity we should enjoy under her shadow, in the 
 following syren strains : — 
 
 ^' It seems to me that the happiest and the most blessed 
 condition of a people is to be ijerfectly united in religion. If 
 there could be one faith, one heart, one mind, one worship, 
 one altar, round which the whole population is gathered, as 
 I see it in Ireland, with very little to disturb it, such would 
 be the happiest condition of a people. Eeligious unity, or 
 unity of faith, is the greatest gift of God to men ; and that 
 because, first of all, it is a ]jledge of trutJi, iiniversally hioivii 
 and believed, and that one truth which admits no division 
 and no contradiction ; next, because it is a guarantee of uni- 
 versal peace — no controversy and no conflict, and no divisions 
 of Jwuseholds, no intestine and domestic strife ; and lastly, 
 because it insures the inheritance of truth and of faith to 
 posterity to be hereafter born. Wliereas, where the reli- 
 gious unity of a people is divided and fractured, truth 
 escapes, and children are born, generation after generation, 
 disinherited of the heirloom of Christianity. For these rea- 
 sons, I do desire from my heart to see the unity of faith 
 spreading more and more among us. This I believe to be 
 the best state of a people. I believe the worst state of a 
 ■people to he 07ie of conflict, controversy, religious strife, tlieO" 
 * See p. 12 above.
 
 69 
 
 logical h'dterness. It seems to me that tlie plagues of Egypt 
 are tlie types of sucli a state/^* 
 
 Beautiful picture of tlie harmony and peace whicli Popery 
 brings with it^ where it is allowed to reign triumphant ! 
 And the speaker tells us, that we have only got to go 
 to Ireland to see it. We are obliged to him for pointing us 
 to an example, because we may hence judge somewhat of the 
 true nature of the Paradisiacal state to which Popery would 
 introduce us. And I doubt whether Englishmen will much 
 care for further information as to the happy condition in 
 which they would thus be placed, when told that it is like 
 that enjoyed by the Roman Catholics of Ireland, — so much 
 love and knowledge of the truth, so much true spiritual 
 worship, so marked a manifestation of the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity in all the practical duties of life, such delightful peace 
 and harmony, such well-grounded tranquillity of mind in the 
 prospect of death and eternity. Who would not be a Papist, 
 and wish his country to be under the rule of the Pope as 
 Christ^ s Vicar, to obtain such blessings ! 
 
 I fear, however, that there are many among us, in high 
 position and of great influence, who are quite unconscious, 
 and in truth hide from themselves the fact, of the dangers 
 to which we are exposed from the machinations of the 
 Church of Rome. Acting themselves according to the prin- 
 ciples they profess, and not realizing the presence of men 
 whose real objects are at variance with their professions, 
 they argue upon the events that are taking place around 
 them, and draw conclusions as to their probable results, in 
 a way which^ if all others were acting in a similar manner, 
 and there were no unscrupulous agents and marked emis- 
 saries of superstition working deceitfully for the overthrow 
 of a pure faith, would have much weight. Their whole train 
 of reasoning is founded upon notions that completely ignore 
 the fact of there being scattered among us a set of men> 
 
 * Di\ Manning's Address at the Thirteenth Annual Reunion of the Roman 
 Catholics of Birmingham, on January 15th, 1867, as reported in the Tines 
 of Jan. 17.
 
 70 
 
 exteriorly of tlie most religious kind (like the Pharisees of 
 old)_, and perhaps themselves imbued with the notion that 
 they are doing God service, whose end and object is to up- 
 root the pure faith and worship of Christ_, as re-established 
 among us at the Reformation, and who believe it to be con- 
 sistent with Christian duty, and even meritorious, to use 
 any means likely to accomplish this end ; and that among 
 those means is the employment of disguised Eomish agents^ 
 making their way into offices and employments of various 
 kinds, even in our Church, and using weak and ill-informed 
 and indifferent and disaffected Protestants, clergy and laity, 
 as tools for the accomplishment of their designs. When a 
 body of men of this kind are insidiously working under the 
 surface throughout a kingdom, no judgment can be formed 
 as to what course events may take. All ordinary calculations 
 are baffled by the difference between apparent tendencies 
 and real designs. And tlw character and interests both of 
 individuals and the commimitij at large are almost at the 
 mercy of Rome. 
 
 I have often thought, when reading the remarks of some 
 simple-hearted and ingenuous Protestant upon the present 
 state of things among us, how the wily followers of that cor- 
 rupt Church, which has been for three centuries struggling 
 to regain its lost ascendancy in this country, would laugh at 
 the simplicity of their Protestant opponents; and when they 
 saw how completely the lessons of history and the discovered 
 arts of former times were ignored and forgotten, would re- 
 double the crafty machinations by which they sought to 
 accomplish their objects. 
 
 The truth is, a Protestant Church is no match for a body 
 of men of this kind. The principle of action in the former 
 is one which leaves it exposed in various ways to the in- 
 sidious assaults of the latter. In the former, every man who 
 is true to his principles avoids everything like deceit and 
 underhand dealing, even if they might seem likely to ad- 
 vance what he believes to be the cause of truth. Among 
 the latter, in a Protestant country, these are the chief
 
 71 
 
 weapons of tlieir warfare,, and weapons against whicli their 
 Protestant opponents liave no defence. They disdain to use 
 thenij and almost disbelieve the use of them by others. The 
 influence which the agents of Rome had here in the middle 
 of the 17th century, in propagating erroneous doctrines, in- 
 stigating to strife and bloodshed, and misleading in various 
 ways the minds of the people, was, we noiv know, enormous. 
 But, at the tune, scarcely anytJdng ivas hioiun of the secret 
 iniiuences that were at work, producing the discord, confa- 
 sion, and disorder that reigned at that unhappy period. 
 
 So it will ever be when a body of men like the Romanists, 
 and especially the Jesuits, are at work in a country to whose 
 faith they are opposed. 
 
 Another cause why Protestants are always at a disadvan- 
 tage when opposed by Romanists, and especially Jesuits, is, 
 that their comparative independence of one another, and 
 their not being united under one directing head, prevent 
 their com.bination even for the defence of their own prin- 
 ciples. No course of united action, requiring and obtaining 
 universal co-operation, and having the maintenance and 
 advance of Protestant principles in view, is ever adopted. 
 This, it must be admitted, is especially the case with a 
 Church in connection -with the State. Its official leaders 
 are not real leaders, and practically prevent others from act- 
 ing as such. And when Popery has obtained such a position 
 in the State as to give it influence in, or with_, the Govern- 
 ment, effects are discernible, indirect it may be, and perhaps 
 more negative than positive, but of a very real kind, in the 
 Church, far from favourable to its Protestant action. And 
 lience unity of action, even in its own defence, and in the 
 presence of its enemies, is almost hopeless. 
 
 Must it not be added, that from our want of acquaintance, 
 as a nation, with all the superstitious mummeries, ignorance, 
 and vice which Popery brings in its train, and the neglect of 
 religious instruction in the education of the young", there is 
 a degree of indifference on the subject which strongly con- 
 trasts Tvith the earnestness of former times, when the tradi-
 
 tions of the corruptions of Popery and its degrading rites 
 and superstitions were fresh in the minds of the nation ? 
 
 To the 23resent generation among tis Popery is presented 
 only in its most attractive garb. Its form of worship, 
 pleasing to some from its very novelty, is elaborately adapted 
 to the gratification of the senses. Its doctrines are toned 
 down and '"'' explained " in the style of Gother and Bossuet 
 and Francis a Sancta Clara, to entrap the unwary or ill- 
 instructed Protestant into a belief of their being substan- 
 tially identical with those of the Church of England. Its 
 language is that of the most ardent piety and devotedness 
 to the cause of God and His Church. Wlien acting in 
 defiance of the first principles of Christian morality, incul- 
 cating and practising deceit and falsehood, injustice and 
 violence, its adherents adopt a phraseology which tacitly 
 claims for them the highest place among God\s earthly 
 saints. Look to their words only, and the forms and cere- 
 monies with which they burthen themselves, and you would 
 suppose you had got holy men of God to deal with, whose 
 precepts and example must be the very best standard you 
 could adopt. What wonder is it that many are misled ? 
 
 It must be added, that the success which the agents ofRome 
 have met with in our Church, has been such as to increase 
 largely the danger arising from the operations of her direct 
 and commissioned emissaries. These operations have for 
 some years been aided and supplemented (as in former times) 
 by those among us who, though not direct agents of Rome, 
 are almost equally faithless in heart to the doctrines of our 
 Church, and labouring as zealously for its destruction as a 
 Protestant Church, and the abrogation of its Reformed 
 Formularies. I am afraid there is more than one ''Montague'^ 
 among us.* We are plainly told by high Romish authority, f 
 that our own clergy are saving the priests of Rome the 
 
 * Spo pp. 29—33, fibove. Tlic name should be spelt, Mountagu. 
 t Dr. Mauuiug, calling himself Archbishop of Westminster.
 
 73 
 
 trouble of endeavouring to spread their doctrines among us 
 by doing so themselves. 
 
 The verbal reimdiation of Bomish doctrine by those who 
 are zealously teaching it in our Protestant Church is quite 
 what the documents given above would lead us to expect, 
 not merely from Rome's own disguised agents, but from 
 many others ; in some cases from want of knowledge and 
 discrimination between Romish and Protestant doctrine, and 
 in others from motives less creditable. We know from the re- 
 cords of former times, that there maybe those, high m^^ositioiv 
 and character, who may think themselves justified in avowing, 
 secretly, — "/Is /or the aversion we discover \_to Romanisni] in 
 our sermons and 'printed hoolcs, they are things of form, chiefly 
 to humour the loopulace, and not to he much regarded.''^ 
 
 Nor have we any reason, I think, to suppose, that the 
 present generation are less likely to produce those who will 
 take such a method of advancing their doctrines than that 
 which existed here two centuries ago. The most eminent 
 perhaps of the first leaders of the Tractarian party, — on whose 
 memory, though he has now for some years been a member 
 of the Church of Rome, they seem still to dwell almost with 
 rapture, especially for his services for teaching them in 
 Tract XC. to give a Romish interpretation to our Protestant 
 Articles, — started on his career for unprotesfcantizing the 
 Church of England with the following deliberate statement 
 of his views on the subject of truthfulness. Advocating the 
 "^^ economy^' that " sets the truth out to advantage,^' he tells 
 lis, that the Alexandrian father [Clement] ^'accurately de- 
 scribes the rules luhicJb should guide the Christian in speaking 
 and acting economically. '^ " Towards those who are fit re- 
 cipients, both in speaking and living he harmonizes his pro- 
 fession ivith his opinions. He both thinks and speaks the 
 truth, EXCEPT when consideration is necessary, and then, as a 
 Ijhysician for the good of his patients, he will be false, or 
 UTTER A falsehood, as the sophists say Nothing how- 
 ever but his neighbour's good will lead him to do this. He 
 gives himself up for the Church/' &c.t 
 
 * See p. 33, above. f Newman's Arians of the 4th Century, p. 72.
 
 74 
 
 And some years after, wlien obliged to account,, in some 
 way, for the language lie had used respecting the Church of 
 Rome, he admits, — ^' If you ask me how an individual could 
 venture, not simply to hold, but to publish, such views of a 
 Communion so ancient, so widespreading, so fruitful in 
 saints, I answer, that I said to myself, ^ I am not siwahing 
 my oivn words, I am but following almost a consensus of the 
 
 divines of my Church Such views too aee necessary 
 
 EOR OUR position/ Yet I have reason to fear still, that such 
 language is to be ascribed, in no small measure, to an impe- 
 tuous temper, a hope of approving myself to persons^ respect,, 
 
 and A WISH to repel the charge op RoMANISM.f^* 
 
 Can we be surprised, that the author of these statements 
 should also be the author of Tract XC. ? 
 
 Is it unfair to estimate others by the standard of their 
 cherished leader, and take these avowals as a measure by 
 which to judge of the value of their professions ? 
 
 Dr. Pusey certainly has himself so identified his views- 
 with those of Mr. Newman before his reception into the 
 Church of Rome, especially as it respects Tract XC, which 
 he has recently republished, that he at least must be con- 
 sidered as occupying the same position as Mr. Newman did 
 before he left us. The light indeed in which Dr. Pusey has 
 from the commencement of the Tractarian movement re- 
 garded those Formularies of our Church to which he has- 
 given, and is still obliged to profess, his "ex anhno con- 
 sent,^^ may be judged from his Letter to the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, and other publications issued by him more than 
 twenty years ago ; in which he complains of our " impaired 
 Pormularies,^^t ^^'^^ admits his " longing to re-appropriate '^ 
 from ^^the Roman Communion ^^ what our Reformers re- 
 jected. J 
 
 Sixteen years ago, 7nemhers of his ovm p)arty, and zealous 
 friends, addressed him in the following terms : — 
 
 " Both by precept and example you have been amongst 
 the most earnest to maintain Catholic principles. By your 
 
 * Letter, dated Dee. 12, 1842. 
 
 t Letter, p. 24; or, 3rd ed. p. 20. % I^i^., p. 15 ; or, 3rd cd. p. 13.
 
 7a 
 
 constant and common practice of administering the sacra- 
 ment of penance ; Iby encouraging everywhere, if not en- 
 joining, auricular confession^ and giving special priestly 
 absolution; by teaching the propitiatory sacrifice of the 
 Holy Eucharist,, as applicatory of the one sacrifice on the 
 cross, and by adoration of Christ really present on the altar 
 under the form of bread and wine ; by your introduction of 
 Eoman Catholic books *" adapted to the use of our Church / 
 by encouraging the use of rosaries and crucifixes, and 
 special devotions to our Lord, as e.g. to His Five Wounds ; 
 •by adopting language most powerfully expressive of our 
 incorporation 'into Christ, as e.g. ''our being inebriated by 
 the blood of our Lord;^ by advocating counsels of per- 
 fection, and seeking to restore, with more or less fulness, 
 the conventual or monastic life ; I say, by the teaching and 
 practice of which this enumeration is a sufficient type and 
 indication, you have done much to revive amongst us the 
 system which maybe pre-eminently called ' sacramental.' '' 
 And the writer, honestly urging open avowals consistent with 
 this conduct, goes on to plead, — " Let us no longer have any 
 concealments. We are now past the time for reserve and 
 economy in such matters/''* But the impatient disciple, 
 having but half embraced the economical principles of Trac- 
 tarianism, and longing to make an honest profession of his 
 true creed, was travelling too quickly for his master, who 
 was in no haste to spoil the game, which he saw was suc- 
 ceeding so admirably, by acting so that his post of advantage 
 within the camp for betraying it ultimately to the enemy 
 might be taken from him. The master therefore remained, 
 to carry on his purposes as before, within the camp, and the 
 impatient disciple, urged by the stings of conscience, passed 
 over to Kome. 
 
 Another, who had previously taken the same step, ad- 
 dresses him in language of a similar kind, and thus gives 
 his testimony on the practices adopted with respect to con- 
 fession and absolution, which may throw some additional 
 
 *Dod8worth's Letter to Dr. Pusey, as quoted in Maskell's Letter, 1850, p. 7.
 
 76 
 
 light on a matter vjhlch has reccntli/ hccii tlie suhject of corres- 
 pondence in the Times newspaper : — 
 
 '' In p. 6 of your letter to Mr. Eicliards you blame Mr. 
 Dodswortli for having said, in his published letter to you, 
 that you have ' enjoined^ auricular confession ; and you say 
 that you could not enjoin auricular confession. Suffer me 
 to say, that in connexion with the other words of the same 
 sentence, Mr. Dodsworth's use of the word, enjoin was just 
 and reasonable. He does not use it sim^^ly and without 
 limitation ; he says that you have ^ encouraged, if not en- 
 joined' auricular confession : by which it is evident that, in 
 the sense of compulsion, he knew, as well as yourself, you 
 could not possibly enjoin auricular confession. And he Imeiv 
 also, AS I KNOW, that to say merely that you have encouraged 
 it, ivoidd fall as far short of luhat your actual practice is, as 
 the word enjoin, in the sense of compelling, luoidd exceed it. 
 He hiew that you have done more than encourage confession 
 in very many cases : that you have ivarned peovle of the 
 danger of deferring it, have insisted on it as the only remedy, 
 have pointed out the inevitable dangers of the neglect of it, 
 and have promised the highest blessings in the observance, 
 until you had beought penitents in peak and teembling upon 
 
 THEIE KNEES EEFOEE YOU. 
 
 ^' There are some other parts of your letter to Mr. Richards, 
 which, I must own, have somewhat more than startled me. 
 I have begun almost to doubt the accuracy of my memory, 
 or that I could ever have understood the commoyiest rules of 
 'plain- speaking upon very solemn mysteries and duties of the 
 Christian faith. I mean such passages as these: 'We are 
 not to obtrude, nor to offer our services ; not to set up our- 
 selves as guides, or depreciate others ; we are to be passive, 
 ready to minister to any who ' come' to us, but not to cause 
 confusion and heartburning by intruding, through any act 
 or word of ours, into the ministry of others.' . . . . ' In like 
 way, when residing elsewhere,' — from which of course no one 
 would suppose that you go from home into other dioceses for 
 the express purpose of receiving auricidar confessions — ' when 
 any came to me, I ministered to them. But not having a
 
 77 
 
 parochial cure I have not led others to confession/ * 
 
 Now pray do not misunderstand me ; far be it from me to 
 say that I suppose that^ in your own hearty you do not be- 
 lieve every word of these sentences to be strictly and. ver- 
 bally true : what I do say ls, that, so far as I have known 
 
 IT, THEY DO NOT IN ANY ADEQUATE OR REAL WAY REPRESENT YOUR 
 
 PRACTICE The Bishop of Exeter would repudiate (I 
 
 think) with horror the system of particular and detailed 
 inquiry into every circumstance of sin, which, in correct 
 
 IMITATION OF THE EoMAN CatHOLIC RULES, YOU DO NOT FAIL TO 
 
 PRESS What, then, let me ask, do you conceive that 
 
 the Bishop of Exeter would say of persons secretly received 
 
 AGAINST THE KNOWN WILL OF THEIR PARENTS, OF CONFESSIONS 
 HEARD IN THE HOUSES OF COMMON FRIENDS, OR OF CLANDESTINE 
 CORRESPONDENCE TO ARRANGE MEETINGS, UNDER INITIALS, OR IN 
 
 ENVELOPES ADDRESSED TO OTHER PERSONS ? and, morc than this, 
 when such confessions are recommended and urged as a part 
 of the spiritual life, and among religious duties; not in order 
 to quiet the conscience before receiving the communion.f 
 Think not that I write all this to give you unnecessary pain : 
 think not that I write it without a feeling of deep pain and 
 sorrow in my own heart. But there is something which tells 
 me, that, on behalf of thousands, this matter should now 
 be hrouglit before the ivorld iilainly, liovestlij, and fully. I 
 Imow lioiu heavily the enforced mystery and secret corre- 
 spondence REGARDING CONFESSIONS, ^^i youT Commuuion, has 
 weighed down the minds of many to ivhom you and others 
 have 'ministered^ : I Icnoiv hoiu bitterly it has eaten even as a 
 canher into their very souls : I knoiu how iitterkj the specious 
 
 ARGUMENTS WHICH YOU HAVE URGED, HAVE FAILED TO REMOVE 
 THEIR BURNING SENSE OF SHAME AND OF DECEITFULNESS.''''J 
 
 Such is the testimony wrung by the voice of conscience 
 from a devoted friend. 
 
 * I liave omitted much for the sake of brevity. 
 
 t The writer adds here the following note : — " A case came within my 
 own knowledge nearly two years ago, in which a young person who hesitated 
 to go to Communion, without previous confession, was directed by Dr. Pusey 
 to go to Communion, and he would receive her confession the following 
 week. This person was in the habit of confessing." 
 
 X Maskell's Letter to Pusey, 1850, pp. 17—21.^
 
 78 
 
 Dr. Pusey has liimself given us a very remarkable speci- 
 men of the practical operation of the principles of Tracta- 
 rianisni;, affecting both himself and Mr. Keble, when giving 
 a reason for Mr. Keble not having himself made the altera- 
 tion in the ^' Christian Year'^ which has been made since his 
 deathj and^ as is alleged,, by his direction^ changing the 
 words ^^ present in the heart, not in the hands/^ into ''''pre- 
 sent in the heart, as in the hands.-'^ Dr Pusey says — "■ The 
 words in their strict literal meaning contradict what had been 
 his belief so long as I have heard him speak on the subject. 
 So tahen they affirm that our Lord gives himself to tJie soul 
 of the reeivcr only, and is not jpresent objectively. This was 
 not John Keble^s belief. He himself (as is explained in the 
 posthumous editions) understood his own words in the same 
 way as when Holy Scripture says, ' I will have mercy and 
 not sacrifice^ (-j^.e., not sacrifice without mercy), that the ob- 
 jective presence was of no avail unless our Lord was received 
 within, in the cleansed abode of ^ the heart.-' '''' " This,^^ 
 adds Dr. Pusey, '"' is plainly not the obvious meaning of the 
 WORDS, BUT IT SATISFIED HiM.''^ — [Times, Doc. 13, 1866.) 
 
 It would be easy to add a hundred-fold to these proofs of 
 the true nature and character of Tractarian principles and 
 practices. But such evidence has been so often placed before 
 the public, that I shall not here repeat it. 
 
 It is gratifying to know, that there have been some of the 
 party who, after having been for a time misled, have ])een 
 enabled to break through the net which an ingenious so- 
 phistry had woven around them. 
 
 A remarkable pamphlet* was published some years ago 
 by one of these — a pamphlet which clearly manifests how 
 ingenuous and truthful minds writhe under the consciousness 
 of the real character of the system they have been taught — 
 from which I will here give a few extracts. 
 
 The author, who tells us tliao the thoughts he expresses 
 have " pressed on his mind for months, it might be almost 
 
 * The Morality of Tractarianism : a Lottei* froiri one of the people to one 
 of the Clergy. London : W. Pickering. 1850.
 
 79 
 
 said for years past/^ and that tliey were " not new to many'' 
 of his party^ thus describes his experience of Tractarianism : — 
 '^ If it should turn out_, that this system_, instead of having 
 so universally elevating an effect^ tends to make those who 
 adopt it uiicandid and 'prevaricating ; if it gives them 
 sophistry for faith ; if it destroys the principle of honour, and 
 is contrary to that childlike guileless simplicity^ that hmo- 
 cence and openness of mindj which surely must be felt to be 
 the one most lovely and distinctive mark of God's children 
 in Christ; then the assertion that Tractarianism is true 
 because its fruit is holiness^ does not seem quite unanswer- 
 able. Whatever force exists in arguing from its good moral 
 results^ neither more nor less must be granted^ if we discover 
 its moral effect to be had. This is what disturbs thousands 
 whom logic and controversy would never disturb. It is a 
 feeling which has lurlced unexpressed in the hearts of its 
 IV armest followers. Not one of us but must own it : not one 
 :but has weithed undee the toetuee of doubting^ whethee, 
 on the theeshold of this system^ which he embeaces to 
 make him holyj theee eests not the stain and semblance op 
 A LIE. Is this too harsh a term ? But what is the fact ? 
 Do we not as Catholics claim to believe doctrines which yet 
 we dare not avow in their plain unmistakeable words ? We 
 dare not ; for, alas ! the Church of England does not give us 
 plain and unmistakeable words in which to avow them : and 
 if we convince ourselves that she does not rather intend us to 
 avow THEiE VEEY EEVEESB, it is Only hy a course of explanation 
 which tvjists her apparently most Protestant statements into a 
 positive sanction of Catholic truth.'' (pp. 8, 9.) " The ques- 
 tion of subscription does not belong to those who have 
 nothing to subscribe; doubtless the knowledge that our 
 teachers, who deliver to us the various Catholic doctrines 
 which we have regained, have all pre^dously given their ex 
 animo consent to articles whose obvious intention, to un- 
 learned minds, was to oppose such doctrines, does accustom 
 us to the principle of ingenious interpretation, and to a 
 similar mode of thinking and acting, which are the evils I
 
 80 
 
 complain of." ^' If then we first acknowledge that the only 
 way of holding such truths in the English Church is by the 
 use of non-natural interpretation, and then also acknowledge 
 that these truths are the heritage of the people, not the ex- 
 clusive privilege of the educated classes,, we must begin by 
 spreading tlie spirit of casuistry among our village schools 
 and labourers' cottages ; we must make our wives and 
 daughters students in scholastic niceties ; and in a degree 
 we have done so. Where we have not, ive have left them 
 Protestant ; where we Jiave, lue have made them false." (pp. 
 10, 11.) ^^ We tread the aisle with faltering steps, trying to 
 do as we were bid, and to drown our doubts with clever p>re- 
 varications. We see the priest standing before the altar, 
 
 It is as if he said, ' I am here offering up the unbloody 
 
 sacrifice of the very Body and Blood of Christ for the remis- 
 sion of quick and dead. This is what as Catholics we claim 
 to believe. But it is a secret between you and me : I could 
 not teach the people so ; it would give oSence, seeming con- 
 trary to the Prayer Book, though in reality it is not, because 
 the Article ivhicli denies it is not aimed at the doctrine itself y 
 hut at the particular ivay in luhich once it was taken hy the 
 vulgar. The difference between our doctrine and that re- 
 ceived by the Eoman branch of the Church Catholic is 
 entirely verbal : a distinction of terms ivas all that the JRe- 
 formers died for, no real distinction of belief . .... You may 
 adore, for you see everybody kneels ; and tliourjh the Church 
 ofljngland says it is idolatry to do so, she meant exactly the 
 reverse; or, if she did not actually command it, she at any 
 rate permits her children to do what her language calls 
 idolatrous.'" (pp. 16, 17.) "Wonderful sophistry! most 
 solid ground of faith ! excellent school for guilelessness and 
 sincerity ! admirable preparation for making men holy, and 
 good, and saintly, and everything that is Christian ! except, 
 perhaps, maldng them true ! Can we any longer believe 
 with the fulness of faith, or is not every article of belief chohed 
 and poisoned with a sophism ?'' (p. 19.) ''^ Oh, it is agony 
 enough to have felt or seen such things ; . . . . setting the
 
 81 
 
 seal of falselwod on forelieads once open and pure and true, 
 .... We prevaricate and evade and get out of difficulties, 
 in a manner luortliy of those wjiose rule of faith is the Catholic 
 interioretation luhich Tractarianism puts on the Prayer-hooh 
 and Article.^ of our Reformed Church/' (p. 26.) 
 
 JSTow these are not, it must be observed, my words. They 
 are the expressions extorted by the upbraidings of conscience 
 from warm adherents of the party ; wrung from them by the 
 agonized feehngs that resulted from a comparison of their 
 real principles with their professions, their secret views and 
 practices with their pubKc avowals. And there can hardly, 
 I think, be more genuine and striking evidence as to the 
 true character of Tractarianism than is afforded by this 
 spontaneous outburst of feeling respecting it from one of its 
 disciples.* 
 
 * I am quite aware tliat an endeavour lias been made to raise a tu qtwque 
 argument against the Evangelical party on this ground, on account of their 
 denial of the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, which theii" opponents 
 hold that the Prayer Book teaches ; and that this argument has also been 
 Txrged against them in other quarters. The only reply which it seems to 
 me at all necessary no^v to make to such accusations, and a veiy sufficient 
 reply to all the lucubrations of newspaper editors, and writers in reviews, 
 the dogmatism of Romanizers, the anti-church prejudices of dissenters, and 
 the ignorance of historical theology (to which the question belongs) in some 
 members of our Church, lay and clerical, is to point such cavillers first to the 
 known views of the compilers of our Formularies, and more especially to the 
 Judgment pronounced, after a long, careful, and elaborate investigation of 
 the matter, by some of the ablest legal minds in the kingdom,— known to 
 have been previously somewhat inclined in the opposite direction, — in the 
 case of Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter ; followed up, it may be added, by 
 the frank and public admission of one who was an earnest adviser of the 
 movement on the part of the Bishop, that the course of the discussion had pro- 
 duced in him the conviction that the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, for 
 which he had been contending, was not that of the Church of England. 
 
 After an elaborate settlement of the question of this kind, to see second or 
 third-rate writers or speakers laying down the law on the subject, and uttering 
 denunciations against those who do not view the matter in the light in 
 which it appears to them, is only calculated to raise a smile. In such a 
 case it is a work of supererogation to re-argue the matter. It is enough to 
 ask such parties one question,— Are you better able to pass a judgment on 
 this matter than those who, after a long and elaborate investigation of it, 
 delivered the above-mentioned Judgment ? And I may add, that this seems 
 to me a sufficient reply to all the pulpit denunciations and newspaper 
 articles which appeared not long since upon the subject, and which, being 
 as uttei'ly powerless to shake that Judgment as the spray of the ocean to 
 move the rocks, it would have been a waste of time to notice. 
 
 In connection with this point, I may add a remark on the recent boast of 
 Dr. Pusey, echoed by others of his party, that those who " disbelieve in 
 baptismal regeneration, or in their orders, have for some time been steadily
 
 82 
 
 For my own part^ I am satisfied to let the party be judged 
 by the principles which they themselves have openly avowed. 
 And all I say to the public is, Observe that their teaching 
 is founded upon the doctrine of " economy/' that speaks the 
 truth EXCEPT when the interests of supposed orthodoxy re- 
 quire the contrary. They can belong, therefore, outwardly 
 to a Protestant Church, while in heart they are Romanists ; 
 proclaim their ex anitno consent to Protestant Formularies, 
 and explain them as meaning Romish doctrines ; and by 
 means of their subscription to those Formularies, use the 
 revenues and privileges of a Protestant Church for the 
 purpose of effecting its overthrow, and bringing about its 
 re-incorporation into the Church which those Formularies 
 proclaim to be apostate and corrupt. It is for the public to 
 judge whether this form of Christianity, which we may, 
 without giving reasonable cause of offence, denominate the 
 " economicaP' form, commends itself to their approval, and 
 whether they are willing to allow its supporters to w^ork out 
 the ends they have proposed to themselves. 
 
 I do not for a moment deny their zeal or piety or reli- 
 
 diminisliing." (Letter to the " Litei'aiy Churchman.") The bolder spirits of 
 liis party, indeed, are assuring the public that Evangelicalism is comparatively 
 dead, almost a thing of the past. Nothing is more easy than to make such 
 assertions, and of course the doctrine of " economy" allows them to be 
 made ad lihiUtm ; and Dr. Pusey and his party have from the first largely 
 availed themselves of the privilege. I will venture, however, to remind 
 Dr. Pusey of a fact which he may have forgotten, and which I will avail 
 myself of this opportunity of leaving on record. After the delivery of the 
 Gorham Judgment^ the Tractarian Journals, burning with indignation, repre- 
 sented the clergy as with very few exceptions resenting and reprobating^ 
 the Judgment with a feeling of wai'm disapprobation. Under the circum- 
 stances of that period, it seemed worth while to shew the public how far this 
 statement was correct, and accordingly a Declaration was issued testifying 
 " thankfulness for the Judgment" as " a wise and just Sentence, in accordance 
 with the principles of the Church of England," and this Declaration, although 
 (nily partially distributed among the clergy, was signed by more than three 
 thousand two hundred and sixty of them, including seven Deans, thirteen 
 Archdeacons, and more than twenty Canons. A Declaration of an opposite 
 kind, sent to every name on the Clergy List, and to a large mimher of the laity, 
 received only, I was informed, about seventeen hundred signatures, including 
 both clergy and laity, and was very frudenthj never suffered to appear before 
 the public ; and for a time the Thrasonic boasts of the party were hushed. 
 JBut it seems that the weapon is too valuable to be permanently disused, and 
 everything is allowable that tends to advance " Catholic" doctrines, and 
 promote the interests of " Mother Church."
 
 S3 
 
 giousiiess^ according to their form of Christianity : but I do 
 deny, tliat their form is Chrlsfs form of Gliristianity , the 
 Christianity of the New Testament^ either in its moral or its 
 dogmatic aspect. I agree with a remark I recollect meeting 
 with somewhere,, (though I cannot at this moment recall the 
 exact placCj and therefore attach no authority to the refer- 
 ence^) made by a Roman Catholic prelate at the time of the 
 Reformation, on first perusing the New Testament, to tJds 
 effect, — If this is Christ^s rehgion, ours is not so. The 
 *' sacramental system,'^ as held by the Church of Rome and 
 the Romanizing party in our Church, to say nothing of the 
 dogmas of saint-worship, prayer for the dead, and other simi- 
 lar corruptions of the faith that generally in time grow out 
 of it, is as alien to the Christian faith, as taught by Christ and 
 His Apostles in the New Testament, as the precept of ^' speak- 
 ing falsely^^ for the sake of promoting the interests of Christ's 
 Church is opposed to the purity of its morality. But I repeat, 
 that I agree in all the encomiums passed in certain quarters, 
 which I need not name, upon the earnestness of their reli- 
 giousness, provided that they be understood to apply to their 
 form of Christianity. But I must at the same time add, — 
 God forbid that their form of Christianity, either as respects 
 its morals or its dogmas, should be that adopted by the 
 people of this country. And in so speaking I am using 
 language far less strong than that which is applied to por- 
 tions of that system by the Articles and Homilies of our 
 Church; whose declarations all the clergy of our Church, 
 t^^ Bishoios especially, are bound to uphold. 
 
 The comparative impunity with which the Tractarian party 
 have been allowed to introduce their doctrines and prac- 
 tices into our Church, has, as might have been expected, 
 produced a state of things which seriously threatens the 
 peace of the country. The attempts to explain away our 
 Formularies, to secretly encourage Romish views and prac- 
 tices, to stealthily introduce Popish fittings into our churches, 
 and stigmatize the doctrines restored to the Church by the 
 Keformation as ^' extreme vieius/' have been succeeded by opea 
 
 F 2
 
 84 
 
 abuse of those Formularies and of those who give them the 
 meaning they (as it is admitted) were intended to bear^ and 
 a bold adoption of Romish rites and practices and ser\^ces 
 that have changed the appearance of many of our Protestant 
 churches so that they are scarcely distinguishable from those 
 of Rome.* Finding that the reins of Church government were, 
 as it were_, flung over their necks_, they have adopted their own 
 will as their law ; and by the flimsy device of a pretended 
 obedience to imaginary supreme laws of the " Catholic 
 Church/' have set at defiance those of their own Church, 
 which their own vows and promises bound them to observe. 
 
 To judge of their regard for the Prayer-book, especially 
 the Communion Service, (which indeed was long ago said b}' 
 one of the party to be '^ a judgment on the Church/'f) we 
 need not go further than the Essays of the Rev. S. Baring- 
 Gould and the Rev. Orby Shipley, in the volume entitled 
 " The Church and the World,'' recently published under the 
 editorship of the latter. It is painful to have to add, that 
 this volume was presented publicly in Convocation by the 
 Bishop of Oxford to the Archbishop of Canterbury, with, to 
 say the least, no words of disapprobation of its contents. 
 
 The language, indeed, which has been used by some of the 
 Tractarian party with respect to parts of the Prayer-book^ 
 strongly reminds one of the direction given to the Romish 
 
 * This is broadly avowed. Thus writes the Eev. E. L. Blenkiusopp, in 
 " The Church and the World" : — "Anglicans are reproached by Protestants 
 with their resemblance to Romans : they say a stranger entering into a 
 church where Ritual is carefully attended to, might easily mistake it for a 
 Roman service. Or course he might ; tlie ivliole ^jurpose of the great revival 
 lias been to eliminate the dreary Protestantism of the Hanoverian 'period, and 
 restore the glory of Catholic tvo7-ship. Our churches arc restored after the 
 medicBval pattern, and our Ritual must accord with the Catholic standard. . . . 
 Ritual, like painting and architecture, is only the visible expression of Divine 
 truth. Without dogma, without an esoteric meaning, Ritual is an illusion 
 and a delusion : a lay figure without life or spirit, a vox et pircvterea- nihil. 
 The experience of the last century shows, that it is impossible to preserve 
 the Catholic 'faith excepting by Catholic Ritual ; the experience of the pre- 
 sent century equally makes manifest the fact, that the revival of the Catholic 
 faith must be accompanied by the.revival of Cathol-ic Ritual; and still more, 
 that the surest way to teach the Catholic faith is hy Catholic Ritual." (2nd 
 ed. pp. 212, 213.) 
 
 t Fronde's Remains. See also Newman's Letter to Fausset, 2nd ed. pp. 
 46, 47 ; and Mr. Keble's Preface to Hooker, p. Ixii.
 
 8,5 
 
 emissaries in tlie beginning of Queen Elizabetli^s reign^ that 
 if tlie offer to confirm tlie Liturgy^ '"'' ivith some things altered 
 therein/' and witli tlie acknowledgment that it was used 
 under the Pope^s authority^ was not accepted_, then they were 
 '*■ to asperse the Liturg}^ of England by all ways and con- 
 spiracies imaginable/^* 
 
 As a specimen of the language now used respecting the 
 Thirty -nine Articles^ I content myself with the following ex- 
 tract from a recent number of the Christian Remembrancer : — 
 
 *''' When it is considered that the Articles were drawn up 
 at a time when theology had reached nearly its lowest level in 
 the Church of England, and were remodelled after the ac- 
 cession of Elizabeth, when the tone of religious belief was 
 still lower, one is really tempted to ask with wonder. How 
 is it that men have placed such implicit belief in them ? And 
 no other answer can be given than that they have been neg- 
 lected and ignored. Of course there has been a large party 
 who swear by them, and the existence of ivhose form of helief 
 in the Church of England is guaranteed by their being retained ; 
 but it is impossible to deny, that they contain statements or 
 implications that are verbally false, and others that are very 
 difficult to reconcile tvith truth. In the times that are coming- 
 over the Church of England, the question will arise. What 
 service have the Articles of the Church of England ever 
 done ? and of what use are they at the present day ? The 
 latter question must be answered very fully and satisfactorily, 
 if the answer is to be any make -weight against the condem- 
 nation of them virtually pronounced by the Eirenicon [i. e, 
 
 of Dr. Pusey] We venture to go a step beyond any 
 
 suggestion contained in this volume, and boldly proclaim 
 our own opinion, that before union with Rome can be ef- 
 fected, the Thirty-nine Articles must be luholly luithdrawn. 
 They are virtually withdraiun at the present moment.'''t 
 
 These are the words of one of the leading organs of the 
 
 * See jD. 11 above. 
 
 t Review of Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon, in the Christian Remembrancer for 
 Jan. 1866, p. 188.
 
 86 
 
 Tractai'ian party ; and tliey are but a specimen of tlieir pre- 
 sent tone. 
 
 Sucli are the allies wliicli the Church of Rome now pos- 
 .sesses in our own Church. For more than thirty years they 
 liave been allowed, almost without let or hindrance from the 
 Authorities of our Church, (for mere ivords of rebuke and re- 
 monstrance are valueless when it is known that they will 
 under no circumstances be followed by ads,) to indoctrinate 
 the public mind with their views, to train up a set of 
 '^ priests^' openly claiming all the sacerdotal powers as- 
 sumed by the Romish priesthood, and so steeped in that 
 system of morals which from the first has characterized 
 Tractarianism that they can sign tlieir ex animo consent to 
 Protestant Formularies, drawn up, as is admitted, for the 
 maintenance and defence of Protestant doctrine, in order to 
 get a locus standi in a Protestant Church, with the intention 
 of teaching the opposite doctrine, and on the first oppor- 
 tunity abolishing those Formularies and transforming the 
 Church into which they have thus stolen from a Protestant 
 to a Popish Church. 
 
 The mask under cover of which Tractarianism commenced 
 its labours has now been torn from it. It was, I admit, but 
 a transparent mask, a flimsy veil, to those who knew any- 
 thing of the real principles of Popery. But it accomplished 
 its end — the deception of the multitude, until it could boast 
 a party that made it safe to act with less disguise. And 
 now it stands forth as Rome^s staunch ally. It may for the 
 present be shy in its advances, and pretend to haggle about 
 the conditions of reconciliation ; but no one except a willing 
 dupe can be deceived by this. 
 
 We have been lately warned against a ^' self-satisfied Cal- 
 vinism,^^ and asked to admire the piety and zeal of those who 
 are thus promoting the cause of Popery among us. But I think 
 there are some, who are not Calvinists, who will hold, that such 
 men as Archbishops Whitgift and Usher, and Bishops Hall, 
 Davcnant, and Morton, are not much inferior to the examples 
 to wliifh v/e are here pointed ; and who will at least think it
 
 87 
 
 unfortunate, tliat one wlio is contented thus to rebuke the 
 views and spirit of such theologians, should select for his 
 special reproof their supposed spirit of self-satisfaction. 
 
 I commend to the consideration of the author of this warn- 
 ing the admonition once addressed by one whom I am sure 
 he will consider entitled to his respect. Dr. Phillpotts, now 
 Bishop of Exeter, to a celebrated statesman who had spoken 
 slightingly of " Calvinists^' : — 
 
 "To the peculiar tenets of that denomination of Chris- 
 tians, to which you appear to allude, I am very far from sub- 
 scribing ; but thus much I will say, that no man, who Icnows 
 ivhat they really are, luill ever treat them with contempt. You, 
 Sir, do not appear to have yet risen above the vulgarest 
 PREJUDICES on this subject; else you vjould have Icnown, that 
 opinions tuhich have commended' themselves to the full and 
 firm conviction of some of the ablest as well as holiest men 
 WHO have ever adorned our Church, are not to he th,us blown 
 down by ' the whiff and vjtnd' of the smartest piece of rhetoric 
 ever discharged in your honourable House."^ 
 
 The term, however, as used in the quarter to which I 
 have referred, is simply a term of reproach taken up as a 
 controversial weapon against those of a different school of 
 theology, as the name Puritan was applied in former times ; 
 for it is a complete misnomer in the case of many of those 
 against whom it is directed. 
 
 There is, I fear, an erroneous notion entertained in some 
 quarters respecting this movement in our Church, which the 
 evidence given above will I trust suffice to remove. It is 
 imagined that it has arisen from a mere accidental and tem- 
 porary outburst of Eomish proclivities on the part of certain 
 zealous members of our Church, of a peculiar idiosyncrasy, 
 which may have its day and then subside. There cannot 
 be a greater fallacy. It is a revival of a movement, the 
 fruit of Romish intrigue, which is only part of a conspiracy 
 against our Church as the chief bulwark of the Reformation, 
 
 * Dr. Phillpotts's Letter to the Eight Hon. G. Cauning. Lond. 1825 j 
 pp. 106, 107.
 
 88 
 
 ha.ving its root and centre of operations at Eome^ and its 
 ramifications^ consisting of agencies of various kinds and 
 dcscriptions_, pervading tlie land — a conspiracy tliat has been 
 in existence almost from tlie Reformation to the present day, 
 varying in activity and strength according as the circum- 
 stances of the times favoured or not its development. The 
 view taken of it by those who look at it merely as an indi- 
 vidual and local effort^ apart from the great movement of 
 which it forms but a branchy must necessarily be of the most 
 superficial and inadequate kind. 
 
 The dangers of the present times are greatly increased by 
 their being so much overlooked ; and any attempt to make 
 the public conscious of them is resented by many as a false 
 alarm. For what above all things is desired by the Tractarian 
 party is^, to be allowed quietly to leaven the Church with their 
 views^ as teachers of the genuine doctrine of the Church of 
 England, " the principles of the Church.^^* And therefore, 
 though they boast of the " mighty movement^f they have 
 originated^ the " struggle" J in which they are engaged, 
 they complain of being dealt with as agitators,, and plaintively 
 exclaim, ^^ "What we long for is at the least peace." § 
 
 It now remains to be seen how far the country is prepared 
 to allow the efforts of Rome, and her allies in the Church of 
 England, to bring our Church and nation once more under 
 subjection to the Pope, to be crowned with success. 
 
 Let it not be supposed, that Rome will ever be satisfied 
 with anything less than what she has all along been con- 
 tending for; supreme dominion over the faith of the country. 
 And how that dominion would be used, we have been lately 
 told by the Pope himself. It must never be forgotten 
 by those who would not shut their eyes to the real prin- 
 ciples and objects of the Church of Rome, maintained at the 
 present day equally as at any former period, that the Pope 
 
 * Pusey's Letter to Abp. of Cant., p. 29. X Tb. p. 84. 
 
 t lb. p. 136. § lb. p. 136.
 
 89 
 
 liimself, in liis Encyclical Letter of Dec. 8_, 1864, lias formally 
 condemned_, as one of the "^ principal errors of our time/^ tlie 
 proposition that '''' in the present day it is no longer ex- 
 pedient that the [Eoman] Catholic religion should be con- 
 sidered as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of 
 <ill otlier forms of ivorshi^J.'''^ And for a fuller explanation 
 of his meaning on this point, he referred to an ''' Allocution^' 
 lie had delivered July 26, 1855, in which, speaking of Spain, 
 lie had said, — ^^ You know that in the year 1851 we con- 
 cluded a convention with our dear daughter in Jesus Christ, 
 the Queen of Spain, and that among its various provisions 
 which affected the Catholic religion we especially stipulated, 
 that this holy religion should continue to be the only religion 
 of the Spanish nation, to the exclusion of all other ivorship, 
 ^nd that in all schools, ivhether public or private, the instruction, 
 should he entirely conformed to Catholic doctrine.'' 
 
 The advance of Popery, therefore, among us is a matter 
 which seriously affects the interests of others besides members 
 of the Church of England. The absorption of the National 
 Church into the vortex of the corrupt Church of Eome 
 could not fail to have a vast influence upon the state of the 
 Dissenting Communions in this country. The Nonconform- 
 ists may flatter themselves that they are too numerous and 
 powerful to be injured by the re-establishment of Popery as 
 the National Church. But it would be well for them to 
 recollect, that in such an Establishment they would have a 
 very different sort of rival to deal with than what they now 
 have; and that the active agency of Pome, enjoying the 
 advantages of such a position, would subject them to dangers 
 and difficulties of which they have now no experience. To 
 say nothing of the treatment that would be accorded to them, 
 the moment that the Pomish party felt itself strong enough 
 to carry out its principles and accompHsh its designs, the 
 very presence, side by side with them, of a National Church 
 presenting to their members every attraction by which the 
 
 * -<5]tate hac nostra non amplius expedit, religionem catholicam haberi 
 tamquam unicain Status religionem, ceteris quibuscumque cnltibus exclusia. 
 Alloc. Nemo vestrum. 26 Julii, 1855.
 
 90 
 
 senses of mankind can be allured, utterly unscrupulous in 
 its mode of gaining proselytes, and bent upon bringing the 
 whole nation under its sway, would be an ever-present 
 danger constantly imperilling their very existence. Certain 
 it is, that Rome has always believed, that if the National 
 Church again became hers, she could make comparatively 
 short work with the sects. I am not so sure of this, because 
 I believe she would reap the fruits of her own wickedness in 
 scattering discord and false doctrine over the land, and find 
 that it is easier to produce strife and variance, than force upon 
 mankind a constrained concord. But this much at least is 
 clear, that the restored ascendancy of Popery in this country 
 would bring manifold dangers upon every Protestant Com« 
 munion existing within it. 
 
 There is much in Popery, especially as presented to the 
 view of a Protestant nation whom it desires to conciliate, 
 that is attractive to the minds of the generality : — the splen- 
 dour and beauty of its ceremonial, the power it claims to 
 decide all controversies, and thus deliver the Church from 
 all the strifes and divisions by which its peace is disturbed, 
 the right it assumes to itself as a Divine gift to restore 
 peace to the troubled conscience of the penitent, on the con- 
 fession of his sin, by an authoritative absolution, and open 
 the gate of heaven to the dying — all these are recommenda- 
 tions for its acceptance which, when brought home to the 
 very doors of families, many of whose members are neces- 
 sarily but imperfectly grounded in the faith, can hardly fail 
 to influence many minds. 
 
 It comes moreover to many in this land at the present 
 day with all the charms of novelty. The form which it 
 assumes in a Protestant country so conceals many of its 
 worst features, that the minds of the great mass of the com- 
 munity, especially of the young and inexperienced, hardly 
 recognize in it what they had expected. The lessons of 
 history, if known, (and few comparatively do know them,) 
 are forgotten or ignored. And it is hastily concluded, that 
 Popery has either been very much misrepresented, or is very 
 much chanfred.
 
 91 
 
 All the various Protestant Communions,, therefore^ have a 
 common interest in preventing Eome^s designs being crowned 
 with success. 
 
 It may be expected, that, before I conclude, I should make 
 a few remarks on the way in which the dangers with which 
 we are threatened should be met. But my object in these 
 pages is rather to call attention to the light which our past 
 history affords as to the nature of those dangers, and the aid 
 it gives us to read the signs of the present. times. The 
 question as to the best mode of meeting those dangers, is 
 one the jjuhlic discussion of which is not likely to be of 
 much service. And past experience makes it but a melan- 
 choly task to repeat the oft-urged warning as to the peril 
 in which our Church is placed by the wiles of Home and her 
 allies among ourselves. 
 
 Let us look at what has been taking place in our own 
 Church. 
 
 It is now more than a quarter of a century since the 
 leaders of the Eomanizing movement in the English Church 
 warned the nation of the object they had in view. Mr. 
 Newman, in Tract XC, lately republished with high com- 
 mendations by Dr. Pusey, while affirming that the Thirty- 
 nine Articles were ^^the offspring of an iin-Gatliolic age,^' 
 and admitting that they were ^'' drawn up by Protestants, and 
 intended for the establishment of Protestantism,^-' at the same 
 time urged their not being interpreted according to " the 
 known opinions of their framers," but in a " GatJwUc " 
 sense. Dr. Pusey, in his Letter to the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, intimated, that our Church had been possessed of 
 an evil spirit ever since the Reformation, which it would be 
 their endeavour to cast out ; that what, in imitation of the 
 unscrupulous policy of Rome, he designated as the '^ Genevan 
 scheme of doctrine,^-' introduced into our Church by our Re- 
 formers, was to be rooted out to make way for the " GatJwlic 
 scheme of doctrine ;" and that the '' struggle" for effecting
 
 these objects would be continued by tliem until it liad a 
 decisive issue ; and lie likened it to tlie struggle wliicli takes 
 place in a demoniac, wlien tlie evil spirit is cast out of "the 
 body it has possessed.^' 
 
 What has been done to vindicate the principles of the Refor- 
 mation, and rescue our Church from the dangers with which 
 it has thus been threatened ? Nothing ! Words of admoni- 
 tion, indeed, have not been wanting. Eli's warning to his 
 sons may have been administered by many, and is still heard 
 in some quarters, mixed with the language of sympathy and 
 praise. But what is most wanted, and what alone can be 
 effectual, — the legal prevention of the inculcation of such 
 doctrine by Ministers of our Church — has not only not been 
 attempted, but, when attempted by others, has been resisted. 
 The simple reply to those who fear to bring the matter before 
 our tribunals is. If the Formularies of our Church are not 
 distinct enough to condemn the doctrines of the Tractarian 
 party, we have no right to find fault with them for teaching 
 those doctrines. But 1 know by experience that what 
 above all things that party deprecate is, to have their 
 doctrine brought to the test of judicial investigation.* 
 They know well that the mode of explaining away the 
 Articles taught by Tract XC, and by which alone they are 
 enabled to retain their position in the Church of England, 
 would not be listened to in a court of law. The case of 
 Archdeacon Denison gave full proof of this. Every possible 
 effort was made to prevent that case coming before a 
 court of law. Influences of all kinds, high in Church and 
 State, were put in motion by leaders of the party, to stop 
 its progress. The Bishop of the Diocese, refusing to act 
 
 * No sucli feeling has existed on the other side. On the contrary, such 
 a test of the consistency of the doctrines of what is called " the Evangelical 
 party" with the Formularies of the Church of England has been courted. 
 So far from there being any desire to shrink from sxibmitting their doctrine 
 on the effects of Baptism (their opponents' chief charge against them) to 
 judicial investigation, the opportunity of doing so was gladly embraced; 
 and an overture of better preferment made for the purpose of stopping the 
 legal appeal declined, from the resolution to have the question legally 
 ^settled.
 
 93 
 
 on the advice of liis Ecclesiastical Superior,, and send the 
 case to the Court of Arches^ illegally constituted himself 
 the Judge, and with a mockery of justice pretended to 
 pass sentence on it himself. His successor repeated the 
 refusal to let the case be fairly tried.* The Archdeacon 
 himself, when obliged to appear before a Commission, re- 
 fased to acknowledge himself to be the author of sermons 
 which he had preached in the cathedral, and which had 
 been published and circulated by himself. And through 
 the delay thus caused, chiefly by the refusal of the Bishops 
 even to let the case be tried, though at the expense of other 
 parties, when the condemnatory sentence of the Lower Court 
 came up to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for 
 confirmation, it was found that the case had been delayed 
 beyond the time prescribed by the Act. 
 
 The reason for this shrinking from a Judicial Sentence is 
 obvious. A legal Judgment delivered by those accustomed 
 to weigh evidence and give sentence accordingly, grounded 
 upon the Formularies of our Church drawn up by the 
 divines of the Eeformation, must, as thej^ well know, go 
 against them. And therefore they wish to keep all such 
 matters in the hands of clerieal partisans , who, instead of 
 acting with judicial impartiality upon the documents that 
 ought to be their supreme and sole guide, attempt to force 
 upon Reformation Formularies a doctrine which they pro- 
 fess to derive from what tJiey call '' Catholic consent^^ and the 
 tradition of the early Church, but which is, in fact, a Romish 
 corruption of Apostolic doctrine, and which they at times 
 admit that those Formularies were not intended to teach. 
 
 A secret guiding principle of the moveinent for many years 
 lias been to prevent legal decisions upon its doctrines, until, by 
 
 * It is a remarkable fact, tliat at the time when tlie new school of doctrine 
 •was rising in our Church, the Bishops got an Act passed, called the Church 
 Discipline Act, by which a power was placed in their hands that had never 
 before been given to them, and which I believe the laitj under present 
 circumstances would not have granted to them, namely, that do proceedings 
 capi be taken against any clergyman but through them and with their 
 sanction. And the ^oiver ivas inimecliaiely ahused, SbS stated above.
 
 1)4 
 
 tlie aid of earnest adherents and noisy agitators acting 
 tlirougli tlie various cliannels of tlie Press, well-organized 
 Societies, and such like instruments, a step in advance can 
 be gained, either by getting the XXXIX. Articles altered, or 
 by subscription to them being relaxed in such a wa}^ that the 
 Ecclesiastical Courts will be powerless for maintaining Pro- 
 testant doctrine in our Church. It is of essential importance 
 to the success of any efforts to counteract the movement, to Iceep 
 this in view. 
 
 The subtle influences that are at work in our Church in all 
 directions to effect a change in its doctrine and worship, are 
 more dangerous enemies to its welfare than even the opera- 
 tions, open or secret, of the Papists. And the public little 
 know, how wily and indefatigable are the efforts of man}^ 
 influential parties in high position, apparently keeping them- 
 selves aloof from the Tractarian movement, and even admi- 
 nistering occasionally to its partisans certain prudent and 
 harmless reproofs, to undo the work of the Keformation and 
 re-found our Church on what Dr. Pusey would call the 
 '' Catholic Scheme of doctrine.''^ 
 
 Among the suggestions that have lately been made for 
 meeting the difficulties of the present crisis, one is, that 
 application should be made for a Royal Commission to give 
 advice on the subject. I confess that, to say nothing of the 
 delay thus caused, my hopes of a satisfactory result from the 
 deliberations of such a body would be very small. 
 
 So far, indeed, as concerns a Royal Commission for the 
 purpose for which some have recently desired it, namely, the 
 revision of tlie Prayer Book in some of its Services, I can 
 imagine nothing more undesirable, except perhaps f/iere^wes^ 
 for it. 
 
 Anything more suicidal, under the circumstances in which 
 our Church has been placed for the last thirty years, than to 
 be putting a Romish interpretation upon passages in the 
 Prayer Book, which we know was never meant by our Re- 
 formers who compiled it, and agitating for their revision, 
 can hardly be conceived. I know nothing, indeed, that has
 
 95 
 
 done more damage to tlie cause of Protestantism in our 
 Cliurcli tlian this unwise movement. It was, in fact, a 
 favourite -weapon with the disguised agents of Rome. One 
 of the chief topics in the discourses of the concealed Jesuits in 
 the beginning of Queen EHzabeth's reign, referred to above,* 
 for the purpose of producing disaffection to the Church, and 
 consequent division and strife among the people, was, that 
 the Prayer Book was not sufficiently reformed. 
 
 Whether some phrases in the Prayer Book best express m 
 the present day what our Reformers intended to be under- 
 stood by them, is an abstract question which men may hold 
 their own opinion about ; but to damage the peace and wel- 
 fare of the whole Church for the sake of carrying out a 
 private opinion on this subject, is to sacrifice the interests oi" 
 thousands for the satisfaction of individual feelings and 
 scruples. It is hardly fair, indeed, for a small subdivision of 
 a large body to attempt to subject the interests of that body 
 to an influence which it would deprecate and by which it 
 might be seriously damaged. 
 
 The wisdom of an application to Parliament depends alto- 
 gether upon considerations and circumstances which it would 
 be undesirable to discuss in these pages. Would that we 
 had there the Protestant feeling which, as we see from the 
 foregoing pages, was, under God, the means of saving this 
 country in former times from the curse of Popery. I would 
 fain hope, however, that there is enough of the feeling left in 
 that body to make it unwilling to see the National Church 
 again overspread with the corrupt doctrines and practices 
 from which the Reformation delivered us. 
 
 As concerns the efforts of individuals, much no doubt may 
 be done through the pulpit, the press, and the platform. 
 But if any effectual opposition is contemplated to the 
 advances of Popery, it must be by united, steady, per- 
 severing, general, and well-organized efforts, very different 
 from the timid, desultory, spasmodic, individual movements 
 
 * See pp. 13 — 15 above.
 
 96 
 
 ^ 
 
 witliin whicli our Protestantism lias as yet confined itself. 
 We may take a hint on tliis point from our opponents^ 
 policy, while we repudiate its concomitants. Their rule is^ 
 Little talk and much action ; little noise and commotion,, 
 much quiet organization, arrangement, and influence ; unity 
 in the source of action, sacrifice of individual feelings, co- 
 operation with one object in view, and a host of different and 
 widely-scattered agencies simultaneously at work to accom- 
 plish it. Such a movement, originating in a centre of action 
 and counsel, possessing judgment and experience, working 
 by affihated agencies pervading the country, and co-ope- 
 rating to a common end through mutual consultation and 
 correspondence, can do more than all the efforts of isolated 
 individuals, or of bodies guided by the discordant counsels 
 of members of different views and feelings, can ever effect. 
 
 But it can no longer be doubted, that if a vigorous 
 national effort is not at once made to arrest the course of the 
 movement which Rome and her allies among ourselves have 
 raised in this country, the aspect of our Church will be alto- 
 gether changed, and its Protestantism be a thing of the past. 
 
 Are we willing quietly to permit this result to be achieved ? 
 Are we ready to drop the Protestant banner, and calmly 
 allow Ichahocl to be inscribed on our Pteformed Church ? 
 Surely not. The inheritance of a pure form of faith and 
 worship, obtained for us, through God^s mercy, by the blood 
 of our martyred forefathers, is a trust committed to our 
 keeping by One who will hold us responsible for casting it 
 away from us. 
 
 They were not, let us hope, vain, h\it]jroplietic, words that 
 flowed from the lips of our noble Latimer, as he stood at the 
 stake, — " Be of good comfort, Master Pddley, and play the 
 man ; we shall this day light such a candle by God^s grace 
 in England, as, I trust, 
 
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