Behemoth: the History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England, and of the Counsels and Artifices By Which They Were Carried On From the Year 1640 to the Year 1660
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B.I see that a Christian king, or state, how well soever provided he be of money and arms, where the Church of Rome hath such authority, will have but a hard match of it, for want of men. For their subjects will hardly be drawn into the field and fight with courage against their consciences. A.It is true that great rebellions have been raised by Church-men in the Pope’s quarrel against kings, as in England against King John, and in France against King Henry IV. Wherein the Kings had a more considerable part on their sides, than the Pope had on his; and shall always have so, if they have money. For there are but few whose consciences are so tender as to refuse money when they want it. But the great mischief done to kings upon pretence of religion is, when the Pope gives power to one king to invade another. B.I wonder how King Henry the Eighth could then so utterly extinguish the authority of the Pope in England, and that without any rebellion at home, or any invasion from abroad. A.First, the priests, monks, and friars, being in the height of their power, were now for the most part grown insolent and licentious; and thereby the force of their arguments was now taken away by the scandal of their lives, which the gentry and men of good education easily perceived: and the Parliament consisting of such persons, were therefore willing to take away their power: and generally the common people, which from a long custom had been in love with Parliaments, were not displeased therewith. Secondly, the doctrine of Luther beginning a little before, was now by a great many men of the greatest judgment so well received, as that there was no hope to restore the Pope to his power by rebellion. Thirdly, the revenue of abbeys and all other religious houses, falling thereby into the King’s hands, and by him being disposed of to the most eminent gentlemen in every county, could not but make them do their best to confirm themselves in the possession of them. Fourthly, King Henry was of a nature quick and severe in the punishing of such as should be the first to oppose his designs. Lastly, as to invasion from abroad, in case the Pope had given the kingdom to another prince, it had been in vain; for England is another manner of kingdom than Navarre. Besides, the French and Spanish forces were employed at that time one against another: and though they had been at leisure, they would have found perhaps no better success than the Spaniards found afterwards in 1588. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the insolence, avarice, and hypocrisy of the then clergy, and notwithstanding the doctrine of Luther, if the Pope had not provoked the King by endeavouring to cross his marriage with his second wife, his authority might have remained in England till there had risen some other quarrel. B.Did not the bishops, that then were, and had taken an oath, wherein was, amongst other things, that they should defend and maintain the legal rights of St. Peter: (the words are, Regalia Sancti Petri, which nevertheless some have said are regulas Sancti Petri, that is to say, St. Peter’s rules or doctrine; and that the clergy afterward did read it, being perhaps written in short-hand, by a mistake to the Pope’s advantage regalia): did not, I say, the bishops oppose that Act of Parliament against the Pope, and against the taking of the oath of supremacy? A.No, I do not find that the bishops did many of them oppose the King; for having no power without him, it had been great imprudence to provoke his anger. There was besides a controversy in those times between the Pope and the bishops, most of which did maintain that they exercised their jurisdiction episcopal in the right of God, as immediately as the Pope himself did exercise the same over the whole Church. And because they saw that by this Act of the King in Parliament they were to hold their power no more of the Pope, and never thought of holding it of the King, they were perhaps better content to let that Act of Parliament pass. In the reign of King Edward VI the doctrine of Luther had taken so great root in England, that they threw out also a great many of the Pope’s new articles of faith; which Queen Mary succeeding him restored again, together with all that had been abolished by Henry VIII, saving that which could not be restored, the religious houses; and the bishops and clergy of King Edward were partly burnt for heretics, partly fled, and partly recanted. And they that fled betook themselves to those places beyond sea, where the reformed religion was either protected or not persecuted; who, after the decease of Queen Mary, returned again to favour and preferment under Queen Elizabeth, that restored the religion of her brother King Edward. And so it hath continued till this day, excepting the interruption made in this late rebellion of the presbyterians and other democratical men. But though the Romish religion were now cast out by the law, yet there were abundance of people, and many of them of the nobility, that still retained the religion of their ancestors, who as they were not much molested in points of conscience, so they were not by their own inclination very troublesome to the civil government; but by the secret practice of the Jesuits and other emissaries of the Roman Church, they were made less quiet than they ought to have been; and some of them to venture on the most horrid act that ever had been heard of before, I mean the Gunpowder Treason. And upon that account, the Papists of England have been looked upon as men that would not be sorry for any disorders here that might possibly make way to the restoring of the Pope’s authority. And therefore I named them for one of the distempers of the state of England in the time of our late King Charles. B.I see that Monsieur Mornay du Plessis, and Dr. Morton, Bishop of Durham, writing of the progress of the Pope’s power, and intituling their books, one of them, The Mystery of Iniquity, the other, The Grand Imposture, were both in the right. For I believe there was never such another cheat in the world, and I wonder that the Kings and States of Christendom never perceived it. Download 0.52 Mb. Share with your friends:
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