There was another knight also, more rich in worldly substance than furnished with spiritual money to maintain the war against his spiritual enemies. This man, seeing persecution to come against him with double forces to the strength of grace which he had provided to resist, “rogavit ea quæ pacis erant,”[525] and did it in such manner as that “omnes qui viderunt, inceperunt illudere ei.”[526] For, thinking to give double satisfaction if he could bring his wife to church with him, he laboured to overthrow her constancy in that kind, and when he found she would not yield unto his desires therein, the poor gentleman, out of his too much desire to seem conformable, went unto the Commissioners and complains of his wife's obstinacy in that point, desiring them to help him to reform his wife, or rather, indeed, to deform her according to his ill example. But she remained constant, and he, poor knight, was laughed at for his labour, even by his very enemies, with whom he sought to gain much credit with that double diligence.
A third example I heard, of a gentleman of good estate, who, preferring darkness before light, and seeking to make a convention or union between God and Belial in his soul, offered himself to go to their heretical conventicles for the saving of his worldly substance; and so he did, and escaped the punishment of the law: “sed [pg 310] nunquid Deum fallere aut fugere potuit?”[527] No. “Qui voluit animam suam salvam facere, perdidit eam.”[528] He went to church: he thought to preserve his goods for the provision of many years, “et stultus non prævidit quod illâ nocte repeterent animam suam;”[529] he was stricken with sudden death, leaving his goods to the fruition[530] of others, and this dreadful example to the admonition of all.
So merciful hath God been unto us in these times of our greatest needs and trial, as to encourage us by the worthy example of many that stand, and to terrify by the example of these few that have fallen; for I have not heard of any other examples of any men[531] of note; which, if we compare with that which St. Cyprian recordeth of his times, when great numbers did run to offer themselves before they felt the force of persecution, upon the only fame and fear that an edict was to be published against the Christians, this may give us great hope that God neither is nor will be wanting with His graces, if we be not wanting to ourselves, but will give us abundance of spiritual forces answerable to the measure of that trial He will put us unto, “nec patietur nos tentari ultra[532] id quod possumus, sed faciet cum tentatione proventum ut possimus sustinere.”[533]
The Parliament presently ensued, against which time the Puritans had provided two pestilent books, as hath been touched before: the one to prove all recusants to be traitors, the other that the rules and precepts of the Catholic doctrine, yea, the very fruit of the whole tree [pg 311] of the Catholic Roman faith, was to teach men disobedience to Princes, yea, to deprive Kings of their temporal estates, and, finally, to kill, murder, and destroy their persons. And all this to the end that both the King himself and all the Peers of the realm might be so incensed against Catholics and their religion, as to proceed by laws against the one, as against traitors proved and convinced so to be, and to seek by all means possible, not only to cut down the other as a tree bearing in their opinion such poisoned fruit, but rather wholly to root it out of their earth of England, that there might be no memory left of the name of a Catholic in the land. And they prevailed so far with the false reasons set down in these malicious books, and with their most[534] subtle and manifold subornations exhibited unto His Majesty and the Peers in the Parliament House, taking occasion to blow the coals that already were kindled in dislike taken against Catholics for the late attempt, that they easily prevailed to get those laws passed which before they were resolved of, and which in particular were known to be a breeding when those gentlemen ran so heady a course to prevent so great a deluge of persecution, which they feared, and we have felt to light upon us.
For although they now intitle this new increase of persecution to be occasioned by that temerarious conspiracy, which is disliked by us as much as by themselves, yet certain it is (as I have showed before) that these laws were intended and prepared before either they or we knew anything of this intention of conspiracy. And many of the Puritans themselves, “ex abundantiâ cordis,”[535] could not choose but utter how fully they were resolved in that Parliament to seek the utter extirpation of the Catholics, and what things in particular they would procure and were prepared to be enacted against them. [pg 312] And truly the laws which they then intended, and which they afterwards in the Parliament procured to pass against us, were very sufficient in the likelihood of human reason to work the effect which they most wished, and to root out Catholic religion and all that professed the same out of the land, if God did not stand in defence of His servants,[536] against Whom neither wit nor force of man, “imo nec portæ inferi prævalebunt.”[537] How cruel and afflictive the laws are in themselves, and how grievous and intolerable it is for Catholics to live where they are put in execution, I will leave to the judgment of the prudent reader, meaning in the next chapter to set down a catalogue of them, that he may see in one place collected together a sum of those afflictions unto which we are continually subject, that he may not hereafter permit himself to be deceived with such false reports, as are of purpose given out by the politics of England, that forsooth the persecution is not great and that none are there punished, especially not with death, but for matter of State and treason against the Prince; which to be most untrue his own eyes shall be judge, when he reads the very words of the statutes enacted, which I will truly but briefly set down as they lie in the statute-book, which is printed and in every man's hands through England, so well known that it cannot be contradicted.
And now, after the Parliament in which all these laws were passed against us, to add unto the weight of our heavy burthen, two other new afflictions were devised, not specified in the laws: the one to punish the bodies of Priests, the other to afflict and wound the minds of all sorts of Catholics.
The first was a proclamation of banishment to all Priests, that by such a day, which was there limited within a short compass in the edict, all should depart [pg 313] the realm; if not, to expect no mercy but present death upon their taking. By which banishment, as they pretended, on the one side, to do it in show of favour (as though they sought not their deaths, but rather wished they would draw themselves out of danger by their voluntary departure). And, indeed, it is true they do not so much seek their deaths as their departure, knowing on the one side, by experience, what force the blood of martyrs is of, both for the confirmation of Catholics and conversion of heretics; and withal that there is no means so effectual to scatter St. Peter's sheep, and to make them a prey unto the wolf, as to take their Pastors from them: for, as St. Bernard wisely saith, “Væ illis qui assumuntur ad opera fortium, et non aluntur cibo fortium.”[538] So that with this counsel, this seeming favour, but indeed a slow consuming fire of persecution was put in practice, and many Priests that were in prison in several places of England were, according to the same edict, put into ships and banished the realm by the day prefixed. Knowing withal what misery and want they were like to suffer in foreign countries, where they were not capable of benefices or cure of souls for want of language, and where their wants must needs be exceeding great, having no friends nor acquaintance nor means to furnish themselves even with necessaries, unless it please Almighty God to move the hearts of Princes to impart some temporal relief unto them, that they may be partakers of their spiritual riches and the merits of their sufferings. And this was hoped by the heretics would not be very plentiful, in respect of the seminaries and the wants of other afflicted Catholics in those parts, who have also continual need of their charitable helps. And hitherto, as I understand, their wants are very great and the provision very small which is made for them, and the [pg 314] hopes and desires of the heretics too much followed. But God will raise them friends, I trust, and send them provision in due season, “qui recordatus est Danielis in lacu leonum et pascit etiam pullos corvorum invocantes eum;”[539] and though sometimes He will try His servants far, yet doth never forget the least of them, “quorum etiam capilli numerati sunt.”[540]
The other more universal affliction, and the same so much more grievous as it was more internal and piercing even to the very souls of those that did accept it, was a new oath devised for the distinction, as was pretended, between faithful and faithless subjects to their Prince, but indeed to distinguish the true subjects of the See Apostolic from those that would renounce the power thereof for the pleasing of their Prince.[541]