CHAP. XLVI. They Hide themselves (in their Agents and new Converts:) The means: Our danger by the Hiders
CHAP. XLVI. They Hide themselves (in their Agents and new Converts:) The means: Our danger by the Hiders.
D etect. 37. Another Practical fraud of the Papists is, In hiding themselves and their Religion, that they may do their work with the more advantage.
I shall tell you briefly, 1. The way by which they do this, and 2. The advantage they get by it. And 3. Help you to detect them.
1. The principal means by which they conceal themselves is, By thrusting themselves into all Sects and Parties, and putting on the vizor of any side, as their cause requireth. It's well known that formerly we had abundance of them that went under the name of Protestants, and were commonly called by the name of Church-Papists: But there is great reason to think that there are more such now. Some of them are Prelatists, and some of them call themselves Independents: some creep in among the Anabaptists; and some go under the cloak of Arminians, and some of Socinians, and some of Millenaries, and all the other Sects before mentioned. They animate the Vanists, the Behmenists, and other Enthusiasts, the Seekers, the Quakers, the Origenists, and all the Jugglers and Hiders of the times: It is they that
keep life in Libertinisms, and in Infidelity itself. Among every one of these parties you may find them, if you have the skill of unmasking them.
2. Another way of Hiding themselves is, by having a Dispensation to come to any of our Assemblies, or join in worship with any party, good or bad: Or else they will prove it lawful without a Dispensation, where the Pope interdicteth it not. And their way is this: that all the old known Papists, especially of the poorer sort, shall be still forbidden to come to our
Assemblies, lest they bring the blot of levity and temporizing on their Religion and lest there should not be a visible party among them to countenance their cause. But the New proselytes, especially such as are of any power and interest in the world, and may do them more service in a masked way, and can fairly avoid the Imputation of Popery, these shall have leave to come to our Assemblies, when their cause may make advantage of it. That you may see I feign not all this of them, (besides the proof from certain experience which we daily see) let me lay before you the Decisions of one of their principal Directors, in this work of propagating their faith; and that is, Thom. à Jesu de Convers. Gentium. How far they are for favoring of Heathens and Infidels, and Liberty of Conscience for them (for all their cruelty to Protestants) you may see him, lib. 5. Dub. 4, p. 207.
Where he tells you that the sentence commonly received in the Schools is, that it is not lawful for Christian Princes to use any force against Infidels, for sins against the Law of Nature itself: and citeth Caject. Victoria,
Covarruv. Greg. de valent. And himself decides it in the middle way of Azorius, [That Pagans may not be punished for despising the honor and worship of God, though they may for not giving every man his own, and for theft, murder, false witness, and other sins that are against men's right]
Compare this with Sir H. Vane's doctrine of Liberty.
And lib. 5, part. 1. Dub. 6, p. 220, he teacheth that [A Catholic living among Heretics may (when the scandalizing of others forbids it not) for fear of death, go to the Temples of heretics, and be among them in their meetings, and assemblies, because of itself it is a thing indifferent; For a man may for many causes go to the Temples of heretics, and be among them in their assemblies, as that he may the easilier and more effectually and commodiously confute their errors, or on other just occasions, (unless accidentally it scandalize others.) Yea as Azorius saith, he may do it to obey a Prince, though he be an heretic, when he feareth the loss of his honor, maintenance or life: For in this he only obeyeth his Prince: especially if among the faithful (that is, the Papists) he openly affirm, that he doth it only to obey his Prince, and not to profess the heretical sect: For by that open attestation he avoideth the offense and danger of Catholics, and well declineth the unjust vexation of the Prince.]
And that Papists may eat flesh on days when their Church forbids it, to hide themselves among heretics, he determineth in Dub. 5, p. 218,219. So that the Papists are abundantly provided for their security, against such as would discover them when it stands not with their ends to disclose themselves.
3. Another most effectual way of Hiding themselves is, by Equivocation or mental reservations, which we use to call Lying, when they are examined about their Religion, their Orders or their actions. Lying that hurteth not another, they commonly maintain to be but a venial sin, which say most of them, is properly no sin at all. And to equivocate or reserve one half of your answer to yourselves, say the Jesuits, is not Lying, nor unlawful, in case a man's interest requireth him to do it. See the words of their own Casuists cited for this by Montaltus the Jansenist. Were it a thing that needed proof, I
would give you enough of it. Thom. à Jesu the Carmelite, ubi sup. Dub. 4, p. 218, secureth them sufficiently: His Question is [Whether one that denieth it when he is asked of a Heretic whether he be a Priest, or a Religious man, or whether he heard Divine service, do sin against the confession of faith?] He answereth, [No: for that is no denying himself to be a Christian, or Catholic: For it is lawful to dissemble or hide the person of a Clergy man or a Religious man, without a lie in words, lest a man be betrayed and in danger of his life; and for the same cause he may lay by his
Habit, omit prayers, &c. —because (N. B.) human Laws for the most part bind not the subjects conscience, when there is great hazard of life, as in this case Azorius hath well taught. Just. Mor. Tom. 1, lib. 8, c. 27.] So that by the consent of most, there is no danger to a Papist in any such case from his own confession.
Another way of Hiding their Religion and themselves, is by false Oaths, which we called, willful perjury, but the Jesuits take for a Lawful thing, when a mental Reservation or Equivocation supplieth the want of verbal truth, as their words cited by the forementioned Jansenian, testify. And who will ever want so easy, so obvious, so cheap a Remedy against all danger of perjury, as a mental Reservation is?
Yea that the Pope can sufficiently dispense with any of their Oaths of fidelity or Allegiance, or the like, I shall show you under the last Detection.
The Parliament hath imposed on them an Oath of Abjuration, but do they not know how little the Clergy, and such as have their countenance will stick at that, such Nets are too wide to catch them in. Hear the words of one of their own Priests (Jo. Browns Voluntary Confess. in Prynne's Introduct. p. 203.) saith he, [Its strange to see the Stratagems which they use with their penitents concerning the Oath of Allegiance! If they be poor, they tell them
flatly, (when they are demanded to take the Oath) that it is damnable, and no ways to be allowed by the Church: If they be of the richer sort, they say they may do as their conscience will inspire them. And there be some of them that make no conscience at all, to have it taken so oft as they are demanded.] What would you have more, then such discoveries by themselves?
2. But what get they by this Hiding of themselves? Answ. 1. They hereby secure themselves from danger. 2. They do the more easily prevail for the multiplication of their sect: For worldly persons would not so easily flock into them without some such security from suffering. 3. They preserve those that are come over to them from revolting, by the discouragement of suffering, especially the Rich and Honorable. 4. They angle for souls with the less suspicion, when they stand behind the bush: Papists are become so distasted with the people by the Power-plot, and many other of their pranks, that they may take more with them, if they come masked under another name. 5. By this means they may openly revile and oppose the Ministry, and Ordinances, and Churches, and Protestant doctrine, without disturbance by the Magistrate. A Papist in the Coat of a Quaker, an Anabaptist, a Seeker, or the like, may rail at us and our doctrine in the open Streets, and Market place, and call us all to naught, and teach abundance of their own Opinions, without a control. And many a poor soul will take an Anabaptist Papist, or Seeker into their bosom, and familiarly hear them, and easily swallow down what they say, that would be afraid of them if he knew them to be Papists.
6. By this means they have easier access to a greater number then openly they could have. 7. And by this means they may insinuate into our
Counsels, and know all our ways, and how to resist us. 8. But above all, by this means they may be capable of any office and trust among us. They may
be Ministers, or Justices of Peace: They may be Parliament men, and Leaders in our Councils, and have the conduct of our affairs: They may have a great influence on the rest that know them not; They may come to have power in our Armies. And if once the Masked Papists come to make our Laws, or guide our Councils and Affairs, and influence or command our
Armies, you may soon know what would become of Protestants: Kings and Parliaments, Prelates and Presbyters shall all go one way, if they can accomplish it: Its easy therefore to discern that their principal Artifice lieth in Hiding themselves (so be it still there be a visible body of their open professors.) And for my own part, I think I have good reason to fear lest the Papists are far stronger at this day in England that are unknown, then that are known: and that wear the Vizard of Seekers, Vanists, and other Sects, then that appear bare faced: Yea I believe that our danger of the open
Papists is nothing in comparison of our danger from these Jugglers. And I confess I think an ingenuous open Papist should have a great deal more gentle dealing from our Magistrates, then these Deceivers that have such stretching Consciences. For my own part I must confess I feel a great deal of charity in my heart for a conscientious plain dealing Papist; and I would never be guilty of cruelty or rigor to them. But this juggling in the matters of God and Eternal life, my very soul abhors. I have been set upon by these
Jugglers myself, and by some of the most renowned of them; but as soon as I perceived any of them purposely choose the dark, and hide themselves in affected cloudy terms or methods, I was more a verse from their documents, and took them for men that were either enemies to truth, or else had not received it into honest hearts themselves. Truth is most beautiful in its nakedness; It loveth plain dealing, and abhorreth fraud. It takes that for its greatest friend, that lays it most naked to the view of all, and that for its
enemy that purposely obscureth it. We have all such a natural inclination to truth, that he scarce deserves the name of a man, much less of a Christian, that would not embrace it if he knew it. Did I think that the Papists had the truth, the Lord knows I would run after them, and follow them till I had learned it: If ever any of them would work on me, they must come bare faced: for I naturally abhor a Juggler in Religion, and a friend of darkness.
3. But how shall these Hiders be Detected? Answ. 1. You have cause to suspect all that use a Mask, and purposely hide their minds. To suspect them I say, to be Papists or worse: They walk not in God's way that walk in Darkness: It is the Kingdom of Satan that is the Kingdom of Darkness, and it is he that is the Prince of Darkness, and his servants that are the sons of Darkness. Me thinks a man that intendeth Deceit, whatever his end be, should not take it ill to be suspected for a deceiver, God is so good a master that nobody should be ashamed of him. Truth is so amiable, that the genuine sons of Truth are not ashamed of it. Its no true Religion that assureth not men of that which will save them harmless, and bear them out against all the malice of earth and hell, and repair all losses that they can sustain in the defending of it. Qui non vult intelligi, debet negligi. He that would not be fully understood, shall never be my Teacher, nor be much regarded by me.
And therefore the Vain and Sterile language of Paracelsian Behmenists, and Popish Jugglers, doth serve with me for no other use but to raise me into suspicion of their Designs and Doctrines, and to signify a Vain and Sterile mind. Who will not suspect that Tradesmans wares that chooseth a dark
Shop, and refuseth to open his wares in the light? I know that Scripture hath its difficulties, and strong meats. But that is from our incapacity of understanding higher points, till we are prepared by the lower: It is from the altitude of the matter, and not that God doth envy us the truth, which he
pretendeth to reveal: If a Prophesy be purposely obscured, which concerneth not the world so nearly, yet so are not the Doctrines that our life or death lieth on. But saith Clem. Writer to me, (recited in his late Book against me) [Would you not hide your mind or Religion in Spain? Answ. 1.
No: I would not; whenever I found myself capable of serving God most by the discovery; which is the common case. 2. Till then, I would not put on the vizor of anything that I knew to be false; and make use of Positive
Juggling and Dissembling to hide my Religion. 3. If Christians against Infidels, or Protestants among Papists, had thought this dissimulation lawful, there had not been so many thousands of them martyred or murdered as were. 4. What Opinion is it that brings men in England into any great danger at this day? Either your Opinion must be Atheistical, or at least Infidelity, if you suppose it will bring you now into any great suffering: or if it be some small matter that you fear, it seems you think not your Religion worthy to be openly owned in so small a danger. I will never be of a Religion that is not worthy my openest confession, even to the death, when there is so much danger.
2. The Juggling Papists may be known by this, that they are always loosening people from their Religion, and leading them into a dislike of what they have been taught; that they may be receptive of their new
Impressions. And therefore of any one Sect in England, there is none to be so much suspected of a spirit of Jesuitism, as the Seekers of all sorts.
3. The Juggling Papists may be much detected by this, that they are all upon the Destructive part in their Disputes, and very little on the Assertive part. They pull down with both hands, but tell you not what they will build up, till they have prepared you for the discovery. They tell you what they are against. But what they are for, you cannot draw out of them. As if any
wise man will leave his house or grounds till he knows where to be better: or will forsake his staff that he leaneth on, or the food that he feedeth on, till he know where to have a better provision or support. Do they think wise men will be made irreligious? They deal by the poor people, as one that should say to passengers on Shipboard [What fools are you to venture your lives in such a ship that hath so much encumbrance and danger, and so many flaws, and but a few inches between you and death, and is guided by such a Pilot as may betray you, or cast away your lives for ought you know?] They know now that none but mad men will be persuaded by such words as these to leap into the Sea to scape these dangers: and therefore they do this but to make men willing to pass into their ship, and take them for our Pilots. If you are wise therefore hold them to it, and leap not overboard, but keep where you are, till they have shown you a safer Vessel and Pilot: which they can never do.
When I did but privately desire of Cl. Writer that he would acquaint me with that truth that he thought me ignorant of, and that we might privately and lovingly consider how far we were agreed, and where we differed, that we might debate the case, and try who was in the right, he resolutely denied to have any debate with me, or to open any of his judgment, but p. 46, reproacheth this very motion, as proceeding from [my aims of a monstrous shape and ugly looks] so monstrous a thing doth it appear to these deceiving
Jugglers, to tell men what Religion they are of, and would have us to receive, when they will freely reproach the Religion which we profess.
4. And you may strongly conjecture at the quality of these Jugglers, by their constant opposition against the Ministry. It is Ministers that are their eye-fore; the hinderers of their Kingdom: Could they but get down these, the work were done, the day were their own: And therefore their main
business, whatever vizor they put on, is to bring the people into a dislike or contempt of the Ministry. If they seem Quakers, they will rail at them: If they seem Seekers, they will dispute against their calling: If they seem the gentlest Behmenists, they have their girds at them, to acquaint the world that they are misguided by them. But at first, they will not let you know which is the true Ministry, if ours be not; or which is the true Church, if ours be not: Here they leave you.
5. The Juggling Papist, what vizor soever he wears, is commonly putting in for his own opinions, of the Necessity of a Judge of Controversies, an Infallible Church, a state of perfection here, the magnifying of our own inherent Righteousness, without any great esteem of Justification by the forgiveness of sin: and many such like.
6. Papists have still an aching tooth at the Authority and sufficiency of Scripture; and therefore on one pretense or other, are still disgracing and impugning it, and leading men aside to some other Rule.
7. Papists have still an enmity against the Power of the Magistrate in matters of Religion: For in such matters their Vice-christ must be the only
Judge. Whereas indeed, by that time the Magistrate hath judged, Who is Punishable by the Sword, and the Pastors and Particulars Churches have judged, Who is excommunicable, (which are their undoubted works) there is nothing left for a Pope to do. Suspect them that are for a Liberty for all; or at least for all that are no worse than Papists. They that set open this door intend to creep in at it themselves at last.
8. And it is a suspicious sign when you find men enemies to the Unity, Peace and Settlement of our Churches, but would still keep us in division and distraction. And yet some of these men will lament our Divisions, and cry up Unity, but they will secretly hinder it, or do nothing to attain it.
9. And it is somewhat suspicious to see men hang loose from all our Churches in their practice, and join with none, nor communicate in the Sacraments. If they know not Sacraments and Church-communion to be both our Duty, and the Means of our strength and comfort, it is doubtful whether they are Christians or Infidels. But if they know this of the Necessity and use of Sacraments, and Church-communion in general, and yet join not with any of our Churches herein, it's a shrewd suspicion that they have an eye upon some other Church. For sure a tender conscience would not be many years in resolving of so great and practical a point, no more than he would live many years without prayer, on pretense of being unsatisfied in the mode of Prayer.
10. And yet on the contrary side, there are some Juggling Papists, especially in our Councils, Civil and Ecclesiastic, that play their game by over-doing, and making everything to be Popish and Antichristian, to drive us into extremes, and into opinions in which we may easily be baffled. And it's not a little that they have won of us at this game.