nation in one religion, if it were possible; and whatever was in the former liturgy that might exasperate or offend them', was taken out, by which compliances, (they are the words of the learned Dr. Heylin') and the expunging of the passages before remembred, the book was made so passable amongst the papists, that for ten years they generally repaired to their parish churches, without doubt or scruple, as is affirmed not only by sir Edward Coke in his speech against Garnet, and his charge given at the assizes held at Norwich, but also by the queen her self in a letter to sir Francis Walsingham, then being her resident or leiger ambassador in the court of France. The same is confessed by Sanders also in his book de Schismate. And there is a report recorded by Camden, that the pope offered by his envoy Parapalia to the queen, Liturgiam Anglicam sua authoritate confirmaturum, et usum sacramenti sub utraque specie Anglis permissurum, dummodo illa Romana Ecclesia se aggregaret, Romanæque cathedræ primatum agnosceret, &c. That he would confirm the English liturgy by his authority, and grant the English the use of the sacrament under both kinds, provided the queen would unite her self to the church of Rome, and acknowledge the primacy of the Roman see. Since that time nothing has been added that might in the least offend them. Why then do they act contrary to their ancestors? Why do they pretend more conscience than either their fore-fathers or the pope? Ten years was a sufficient time for them to have found out the heresie in, if there had been any in the establishment. And we all know their separation was not upon any scruple of conscience they had, but in obedience to the popes bull. The pope in the mean time did what he did

6 Or offend them.] Herbert held that "the sophism used to make people hate the church prayers was a solid reason to make men of understanding love them: namely, because they were taken out of the mass-book; taken out, but as gold from dross, the precious from the vile. The wise reformers knew Rome would cry "Schism, schism," and therefore they kept all they could lawfully keep, being loath to give offence; as our blessed Saviour, being loath to offend the Jews at the great reformation, kept divers old elements, and made them new sacraments and services: as the frequent washings he turned into one baptism, and the service of the passover into the Lord's supper.”— Barnabas Oley's Life of Herbert, signat. L 6.

7 Dr. Heylin.] [Hist. of the Reformation, p. 283.] or part 2d. p. 111. (2nd edition.)

8 Recorded by Camden.] Compare also Fuller's Church History, p. 68, 9, and particularly Twisden's Hist. Vindication, p. 175–9.

9 In obedience to the pope's bull.] A. D. 1569. 13 Eliz. c. 2. "This year

purely out of worldly interest and policy, to advance his own grandeur and wealth at their cost and trouble. If he could have

(1570) Pius V. caused a bull (more privately sent about 1569) to be publickly set up in London against the queen; which was daringly done by one Felton, upon the bishop of London's palace gates. In which bull the pope deprived her of all title to her kingdoms, and absolved her subjects from their oath of allegiance, and charged them not to obey her upon pain of his curse and excommunication." Strype's Annals, vol. i. p. 610. This bull was at the time thoroughly examined and confuted by bishop Jewel, and by Henry Bullinger: and afterwards by Barlow bishop of Lincoln in his Brutum Fulmen. Jewel's "View, &c." opens in the following manner:

"Whiles I opened unto you the words of the apostle, That day shall not come, except there come a departing first, and that man of sinne be disclosed, even the son of perdition, &c. (2 Thess. c. ii.), there came to my hands a copy of a bull lately sent into this realme by the bishop of Rome. I read it, and weighed it thorowly, and found it to be a matter of great blasphemy against God, and a practise to work much unquietnesse, sedition and treason against our blessed and prosperous government. For it deposeth the queenes majesty, (whom God long preserve) from her royall seat, and teareth the crown from her head: it dischargeth all us her naturall subjects from all due obedience : it armeth one side of us against another: it emboldeneth us to burne, to spoile, to rob, to kill, and to cut one another's throat: it is much like that box which Pandora sent to Epimetheus, full of hurtful and unholesome evils. Are you desirous to heare it? It greeveth me to disclose, and your godly eares will hardly abide his unseemly speeches." And then he proceeds to expose the malice and falshoods of which the bull is composed, running through the whole in a very animated and masterly strain of indignant eloquence.

The facts of the conformity of the generality of the Roman catholics who then remained in England, till the æra of the publication of this bull, and that from thenceforth they began to cease to repair to their parish churches, are admitted on all hands.-But perhaps there were other causes which contributed to this unhappy event, besides the thunders of the Vatican; the declension for example, of that zeal among the Protestants which blazed out on the re-establishment of their religion at the accession of Elizabeth; the lamentable divisions amongst themselves, occasioned by the puritanical controversy, which now began to turn aside the heads and hearts of so great a portion of the best men of the nation, from real and unfeigned religion, to the agitation of the merest trifles, in which the folly and the deceitfulness of man's heart ever led him to be zealously engaged; and the uncharitable and unreasonable intolerance in which the Puritans indulged themselves against every thing which bore any relation to the Romish religion.

The reader will not be displeased to see here a virtual confession by a zealous Roman catholic of the general attendance at the reformed service, previously to the promulgation of the papal anathema, even of those who were still considered to retain an attachment to the old religion, as they called it: and he will see at the same time, what the spirit and temper was in which their

secured this, the liturgy and doctrine of the church of England should have been owned for catholic, and have been confirmed by

preachers and controversialists sought to second the effects on the minds of the people of the pope's denunciations. The authority cited is the famous treatise of Richard Bristow, entitled A brief Treatise of divers plain and sure ways to find out the truth in this doubtful and dangerous time of heresie: or (running title), Motives to the Catholic Faith. It was written in 1574, four years after the issuing of the bull. Had it not been for this bull, seconded by efforts such as these, it may fairly be presumed, that in a generation or two the papal schism in England would have been almost, or altogether extinguished. This was discerned at Rome, and from these forebodings the Vatican gave out its thunder.

"And here doth charity compel me, to admonishe certain priestes of their duetie, who will of us be counted catholiks, and yet doe for the penny give themselves to the ministerie of this new service, and flatter themselves therein, as though it were no sin. But that in so doing they damnably deceive themselves, they may consider by this little which I have said of such as come only to heare that service. For the hearers sin being so grievous, who can thinke how detestable is the sin of the ministers? If they lived under Turkes or Jewes, and should there either for worldly feare, or filthie lucre, doe as they now doe living under heretikes, would they thinke that they did not sinne? And most certainely no reason nor colour there is to excuse them more in this than in the other.

"Howsoever therefore they flatter themselves, or also be flattered of others, one, or two, or three, that seeme learned, who having a singular opinion in this matter, contrary to all truth and reason, and learned catholikes of all nations, and to themselves also, we doubt not, if they lived in the free and open aire of the catholike churches practice, doe speake placentia unto them, (Isai. xxx.), doing themselves as they may doe, and yet telling there that they should doe otherwise, to the heavy judgment both of the counsel-givers, and the counsel-takers; yet no doubt for all this, as the lay ministers were figured in the priests of Jeroboam, of whom it is written, Fecit fana in excelsis, et sacerdotes de extremis populi, qui non erant de filiis Levi; He made loft-houses, and priests of the rascall people, who were not of the house of Levi; (1 Kings xiii. 33.) so were these ministering priests plainely figured in that covetous worldly Levite (Judges xvii. 18), that first for a little monie served new-found idoles in the house of Michas, and afterward for more lucre and honour did the same in the tribe of Dan. Plaine it is that our Saviour in the Gospel maketh but three kinds of ministers: two, that minister after the right manner, one for God's glorie, the other for his owne commoditie, which are there called pastor, and mercenaries, the shepherd and the hireling: the third, whose ministration is wrong and the shepes destruction, which is there termed lupus, fur, et latro, the wolfe, the stealer, and the robber.

"Whereby these flatterers of themselves of whome I speake, who seeing the wolfe come, did neither stand constantly in the right ministration, until they should have been thrust out of all by the wolfe; or cleane forsaken of the sheepe, as the shepheard; nor did not forsake the sheep and runne away,

his holinesses authority. But what is this to them? Are they bound to promote his temporal interest with their ruin, and the

as the hireling; but did, and doe abide still, and joyne with the wolfe, and minister after his tradition, may see most evidently, in what part of our Saviours just division they have placed themselves : and therefore if they list, unsensibly, desperately and damnably to holde on with the wolfe, as they doe, and to take no charitable holesome warning, the sheep must notwithstanding mark well this foresaid division made by the good shepheard, and prince of shepherds, and consider that what he hath said of wolves, the same hee hath said of these also . . . .

"By which admonition of our Saviour, the doubt also of certaine shepe is answered, who thinke it lawful for them to heare the wolves sermon, though not his service. But our Saviour telleth them, that the true shepe know not neither the voice of the wolfe, but that they will flee from him. . . .

...

"And besides that admonition, and this ensample, also very good reason there is so to do: because those sermons are, as no catholike will denie, most blasphemous against all persons and thinges most holy and most honorable, both in earth and heaven . . . and therefore solemnly to heare such sermons must needes be horrible sinne .

....

"Good folke which love Christ, when they see so much as one word about to be spoken against him, will be readie to swound and to die for feareWhat then are they which will go to the place, where they know that he is blasphemed, there to stand so quietly, so long, so often, to heare such blasphemies? Certainely they are more senselesse and more dead, than was that foresaid Lazarus. I pray Christ to call them likewise forth of their stinking graves, Lazare veni foras, Lazarus, come forth; and so to give them to his ministers, to be loosed; Solvite eum, et sinite abire; Loose ye him, and let him goe.

"And againe, let them tell me, whether a sermon be not part of the service? which is so evident, that they see the puritans have no other service but a sermon. And therefore, looke for what causes it is unlawful to heare their service, for the same unlawful it is also to heare their sermons! ...

"No man is so mad, as to let poison into his bodie, be it never so little. These then that goe to the places where most soules are poisoned, and all in danger to be poisoned, unlesse they thinke themselves more safe and sure than was our mother Eve in paradise itselfe, do playnly shew, that they care lesse for their soules than for their bodies; and therefore lesse for the world to come, than for this world; lesse finally for God, than for ourselves. . . . "Much more might be here said to this purpose, in commendation of catholike and detestation of heretical, both service and sermons. But for my brevitie thus much shall suffice.-Proceed we therefore to other motives." fol. 136-41. edit. 1599. 12mo.

With respect to the facts of the Roman catholics frequenting the Protestant service, see also Christian Institutes, vol. iv. p. 251 and n.

Lastly on the authority of sir Robert Naunton, we may here date the origin and usage of the term "Recusant."

"The name of recusant, began then first to be known in the world. Till then, the catholics were no more than church-papists; but were commanded (now) by the pope's express letters to forbeare church-going, as they tender

disquiet of their country? Or how come they to be more obliged to separate from the church, than to rebel against the crown, seeing the same pope commanded both, and for the same ends, and is as infallible in the one as in the other?

But this is not our only calamity. About the same time another sort of men separated too upon direct contrary pretences. Why, it is our antiquity, our decency, our too great resemblance to the church of Rome that offends them. We are not sufficiently purged for these pure men to join with: we have too little of the primitive church cryes the one, too much says the other; too few ceremonies, too much simplicity say the papists; too many of the first, too little of the latter cry the dissenters. Thus was truth ever persecuted on both sides, Christ crucified betwixt two thieves, the primitive church persecuted by the Pagans on one side, and the Jews on the other. I venerate thy truth and moderation, O dear and holy mother, who dost so exactly resemble thy God and saviour, and the primitive church, both in thy truth and piety, and in thy sufferings too, which are thy glory!

But what shall I say for our dissenters, who have run into such horrible crimes as schism and rebellion, only on pretence to avoid that popery, that superstition that was only in their own fancies and prejudices? How can one and the same church be persecuted justly for being too much and too little reformed? Why have you separated from her liturgy and rites, who pretend to imbrace her doctrines? Or if you must needs separate, why yet should you imbrue your hands in the blood of your soveraign and fellow subjects on that account? Supposing you were in the right, this would not justify you. Christ never propagated his church by blood and treason, but by sufferings and obedience.

The truth is, this church hath been persecuted because she alone of all the churches in Europe, has had the blessing and singular favour of God to reform with prudence, moderation, and an exact and regular conduct, after great and wise deliberations, by the consent of our bishops, convocations, states, and princes,

their holy Father, and the holy catholic church their mother. So that, it seems, the pope had then his aim to take a true muster of his children. But the queen had the greater advantage; for she likewise (thus) took tale of her apostate subjects, their strength, and how many there were that had given up their names unto Baal." Fragmenta Regalia; Observations on q. Elizabeth, her times, and favourites. Phoenix, vol. i. p. 195.