Part 9
"1. It was _death_ to make a new Catholic priest within the kingdom.--2. It was _death_ for a Catholic priest to come into the kingdom from abroad.--3. It was _death_ to harbour a Catholic priest coming from abroad.--4. It was _death_ to confess to such a priest.--5. It was _death_ for any priest to say mass. 6. It was _death_ for any one to hear mass. 7. It was _death_ to _deny_ or _not to swear_, if called on, that this woman was the head of the Church of Christ.--8. It was an offence (punishable by heavy fine) _not to go to the Protestant Church_. This fine was L20 _a lunar month_, or L250 a-year, and of our present money, L3,250 a year. Thousands upon thousands refused to go to the Law-Church; and thus the head of the Church sacked thousands upon thousands of estates! The poor conscientious Catholics who refused to go to the 'most tolerant' Church, and who had no money to pay fines, were crammed into the gaols, until the counties petitioned to be relieved from the expense of keeping them. They were then discharged, being first publicly whipped, and having their ears bored with a red-hot iron. But this very great 'toleration' not answering the purpose, an act was passed to banish for life all these non-goers to Church, if they were not worth twenty pounds; and, in case of return, they were to be punished with death.
"I am, my Lord, not making loose assertions here; I am all along stating from Acts of Parliament, and the above form a small sample of the whole; and this your Lordship must know well. I am not declaiming, but relating undeniable facts; and with facts of the same character, with a _bare list_, made in the above manner, I could fill a considerable volume. The names of the persons put to death merely for _being Catholics_, during this long and bloody reign, would, especially if it were to include Ireland, form a list ten times as long as that of _our_ army and navy, both taken together. The usual mode of inflicting death was to hang the victim for a short time, just to benumb his or her faculties; then cut down and instantly rip open the belly, and _tear out the heart_, and hold it up, fling the bowels into a fire, then chop off the head, and cut the body into quarters, then _boil_ the head and quarters, and then hang them up at the gates of cities, or other conspicuous places. This was done, including Ireland, to many hundreds of persons, merely for adhering to the Church in which they had been born and bred. There were ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-SEVEN _ripped up and boiled_ in England in the years from 1577 to 1603; that is to say, in the last twenty-six years of Bess's reign; and these might all have been spared if they would have agreed to go to Church and _hear_ the Common Prayer! All, or nearly all, of them were racked before they were put to death; and the cruelties in prison, and the manner of execution, were the most horrible that can be conceived. They were flung into dungeons, and kept in their filth, and fed on bullock's liver, boiled but unwashed tripe, and such things as dogs are fed upon. Edward Genings, a priest, detected in saying _mass_ in Holborn, was after sentence of death offered his pardon if he would go to Church, but having refused to do this, and having at the place of execution boldly said, that he would die a thousand deaths rather than acknowledge the Queen to be the spiritual _head_ of the Church, Topliffe, the attorney-general, ordered the rope to be cut the moment the victim was turned off, 'so that' (says the historian) 'the priest, being little or nothing stunned, stood on his feet, casting his eyes towards heaven, till the hangman tripped up his heels, and flung him on the block, where he was ripped up and quartered.' He was so much alive, even after the bowelling, that he cried with a loud voice, 'Oh! it smarts!' And then he exclaimed, '_Sancte Gregorie, ora pro me_:' while the hangman having sworn a most wicked oath, cried, 'Zounds! his heart is in my hand, and yet Gregory is in his mouth!'
"The tolerance of the Law-Church was shown towards women as well as towards men. There was a Mrs. Ward, who, for assisting a priest to escape from prison (the crime of that priest being saying mass), was imprisoned, flogged, racked, and finally hanged, ripped up, and quartered. She was executed at Tyburn, on the 30th of August, 1588. At her trial the judges asked if she had done the thing laid to her charge. She said 'Yes!' and that she was happy to reflect that she had been the means of 'delivering that innocent lamb from the hands of those bloody wolves.' They in vain endeavoured to terrify her into a confession relative to the place whither the priest was gone; and when they found threats unavailing, they promised her pardon if she would go to Church; but she answered, that she would lose many lives if she had them, rather than acknowledge the heretical Church. They, therefore, treated her very savagely, ripped her up while in her senses, and made a mockery of her naked quarters.
"There was a Mrs. Clithero pressed to death at York, in the year 1586. She was a lady of good family, and her crime was relieving and harbouring priests. She refused to plead, that she might not tell a lie, nor expose others to danger. She was, therefore, pressed to death, in the following manner. She was laid on the floor, on her back. Her hands and feet were bound down as close as possible. Then a great door was laid upon her, and many hundred weights placed upon that door. Sharp stones were put under her back, and the weights pressing upon her body, first broke her ribs, and finally, though by no means quickly, extinguished life. Before she was laid on the floor, Fawcett, the sheriff, commanded her to be stripped naked, when she, with four women who accompanied her, requested him, on their knees, for the honour of womanhood, that this might be dispensed with; but he refused. Her husband was forced to flee the country; her little children who wept for their dear and good mother, were taken up, and being questioned concerning their religious belief, and answering as they had been taught by her, were severely whipped, and the eldest, who was but twelve years old, was cast into prison.
"Need I go on, my Lord? Twenty large volumes, allotting only one page to each case, would not, if we were to include Ireland, contain an account of those who have fallen victims to their refusal to conform to this 'most tolerant Church in the world.' Nay, a hundred volumes, each volume being 500 pages, and one page allowed to each victim, would not suffice for the holding of this bloody record. Short of death by ripping up, there were, _death_ by martial law, _death_ in prison, and this in cases without number, banishment and loss of estate. Doctor Bridgewater, in a table published by him at the end of the _Concertatio Ecclesiae Catholicae_, gives the names of about twelve hundred who had suffered in this way, before the year 1588; that is to say, before the great heat of the 'tolerance.' In this list there are 21 bishops, 120 monastics, 13 deans, 14 archdeacons, 60 prebendaries, 530 priests, 49 doctors of divinity, 18 doctors of law, 15 masters of colleges, 8 earls, 10 barons, 26 knights, 326 gentlemen, 60 ladies and gentlewomen. Many of all those, and, indeed, the greater part of them, died in prison, and several of them died while under sentence of death.
"There, my Lord, I do not think that you will question the truth of this statement: and if you cannot, I hope you will allow, that no lover of truth and justice ought to be silent while reports of speeches are circulating, calling this 'the _most tolerant_ Church in the world.' But, my Lord, why need I, in addressing myself to you on this subject, do more than refer you to the cruel, the savage, the bloody penal code? Leaving poor half-murdered Ireland out of the question, what have I to do, in answer to your praises of this Church, and your assertion as to its tolerance, but to request you to remember the enactments in the following Acts of Old Bess, the head and the establisher of this Church? Stat. i. chap. 1 and 2; Stat. v. chap. 1; Stat. xii. chap. 2; Stat. xxiii. chap. 1; Stat. xxvii. chap. 2; Stat. xxix. chap. 6; Stat. xxxv. chap. 1; Stat. xxxv. chap. 2? What have I to do, my Lord, but to request you to look at, or rather to call to mind those laws of plunder and of blood; _fine, fine, fine_; _banish, banish, banish_; or _death, death, death_ in every line? Your Lordship knows that this is true: you know that all these horrors, all this hellish tyranny, that the whole arose out of a desire to make this Protestant Church predominant. How, then, can this Protestant Church be called 'the most tolerant in the world?' I have here given a mere sample of the doings of this Law-Church. I have not taken your Lordship to Ireland, half-murdered Ireland; nor have I even hinted at many acts done in England during Bess's reign, each of which would have excited the indignation of every virtuous man on earth; but I must not omit to mention two traits of tolerance in this Church: FIRST, Edward VI. was advised to _bring his sister Mary to trial_, and, of course to punishment, for not conforming to the Law-Church; and she was saved only by the menaces of her cousin, the Emperor Charles V. SECOND, when Mary, Queen of Scotland, had been condemned to die, she, though she earnestly sued for it, WAS NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE A PRIEST TO PERFORM THE RELIGIOUS OFFICES DEEMED SO NECESSARY IN SUCH CASES. They brought the Protestant Dean of Peterborough to pray by or with her; but she would not hear him. When her head fell from the block the Dean exclaimed, 'So let our Queen's enemies perish!' And the Earl of Kent responded 'Amen.' Baker in his Chronicle, p. 273, says, that the death of this Queen was earnestly desired, because 'that if she lived, the religion received in England could not subsist.'
"This Church has been no _changeling_; she has been of the same character from the day of her establishment to the present hour; in Ireland her deeds have surpassed those of Mahomet; but it would take a large volume to put down a bare list of her intolerant deeds. She at last, however, seems to be nearly at the end of her tether; the nation has always been making sacrifices to her haughty predominance. Boulogne and Calais were the first sacrifices; _poor-rates_, and an _enormous debt_, and a _standing army_, and a _civil list_ have followed; all, yea all, to be ascribed to the predominance of this Church, and her haughty spirit of ascendancy. But now the nation has made so many and such great sacrifices to her, that _it can make no more_. It cannot venture on _another civil war_ (about the _twentieth_), in order to support the ascendancy of this Church; and be you assured, my Lord, that that hierarchy in Ireland, to uphold which you seem so very anxious, is not much longer to be upheld by any power on earth, seeing that all the miseries of Ireland, all of them, without a single exception, are to be traced directly to that hierarchy: and in these miseries _England sees terrific danger_.
"The case is very plain. The opponents of the Catholic Bill say, We dislike it, because it exposes the Church, and especially the _Irish Church_, to imminent _danger_. The answer of the Duke is, I cannot prevent this danger without _risking a civil war_; and the State _cannot afford that_. The Law-Church might reply, Why there have been many, many civil wars carried on for the purpose of upholding my ascendancy; but to that the Duke might rejoin, Very true; but we have now a paper-money-system (also made to uphold you) _which cannot live in civil war_, and the death of which may produce that of the State itself; and, therefore, you must be now left to support your ascendancy by your talents, piety, zeal, charity, humility, and sound doctrine. This is the true state of the case, my Lord, and, therefore, unless the Church can support itself by these means, it is manifestly destined to fall.
"I am your Lordship's most humble and most obedient Servant,
"WM. COBBETT."
Most Reverend Gentlemen, after reading the above letter, (and mind, the writer informs you, that what he there asserts, is proved by acts of parliament,) after reading the above letter, can it for a moment be thought strange, that England should have left the Catholic, and embraced the Protestant faith? Nay, is it not more strange, with all the above _incontestible_ facts before us, is it not, I repeat, more strange, that there should have been left, a single Catholic, or a single fibre of Catholicity, in this country? And had it not been for the providence of God, this would certainly have been the case; but the Scripture beautifully informs us, "that to them, who love God, all things work together unto good." (_Rom._ viii., 28.)
But, Most Reverend Gentlemen, I have ranged over so much spiritual ground, and have been so busily occupied in bagging black game, that I have nearly forgotten the famous text, "extraordinary and presumptuous movement," which your meeting were so kind as to give me to preach from. Really, I must not forget _my text_, otherwise you will begin to conclude, I must be a very _bungling_ preacher. Let us, then, now return to my famous text. I think, that you must have been already convinced, from what I have stated, in the first part of this address to you Clergy, that your scriptural Church, has been for a long time, making a most "extraordinary and presumptuous movement," on the _pockets_ of Englishmen. By _now_ recapitulating what I have just said in the latter part of this address, I think it will be also plain, that your Church has been making, for a long time, a most "extraordinary and presumptuous movement" on the _intellects_ of Englishmen.
I have shown you, as above, what a beautiful Church Christ built, which, erected on an infallible and imperishable foundation, was to be the Church of all ages, with the world for its boundaries, and time for its duration. I have shown you, how your first Reformers, and your Protestant scriptural Church, had the barefacedness to assert, that this Church of Christ once fell into error, although _God_ had pledged his solemn word, that this Church _never should err_; I have also shown you, how this assertion of Christ's Church falling into error, was the _mere_ ipse dixit of the _first_ Reformers, and of your scriptural Church; and that they had both unfortunately forgotten to prove, _when_, _where_, and _how_, this _infallible_ Church of Christ had fallen _into error_. Now, I appeal to you, if this was not, a most "extraordinary and presumptuous movement," of your scriptural Church, on the _intellects_ of Englishmen. I have also shown you, the characters of the first Reformers, who the spiritual instructor of some of them was, and what strange, paradoxical, and new ideas, they advanced, and how, by forgery and lies, they contrived to palm their new-fangled religious ideas, on the minds of the people. Really, Gentlemen, was not this, a most "extraordinary and presumptuous movement," of these Reformers, and of your scriptural Church, on the _intellects_ of Englishmen? I have likewise shown you, how your scriptural Church, assures her people, in her Thirty-nine Articles, that the Scriptures are the only means of their salvation; and I have also shown you, how the first Reformers and your scriptural Church, have falsified, and mutilated, those sacred volumes. On the one hand, it is declared, that the Scriptures are the _only_ means of salvation, and on the other hand, it is plain, that these sacred volumes, have been falsified, and mutilated. What, then, are the people to do in this awful fix? Really, Gentlemen, is not this, another most "extraordinary and presumptuous movement" of your scriptural Church, on the _intellects_ of Englishmen? I have shown you, also, with what kind of a book of Common Prayer, your Church honoured the people. I have shown you, how, _at first_ it was declared, to be the work of the Holy Ghost; how then, it is declared _not_ to be the work of the _Holy Ghost_, but the work of _schism_; how it is then recalled, and adopted, as a most fit means of devotion for the people. I have shown you, how artfully God's holy Word, and man's human inventions, are there mixed up together; and that, when they come in contact with each other, in what strange and paradoxical situations they place your scriptural Church. Really, Gentlemen, is not this also a most "extraordinary and presumptuous movement" of your scriptural Church, on the _intellects_ of Englishmen? Our Saviour declared, that his kingdom was not of _this_ world; and hence, neither he, nor his apostles, endeavoured to propagate, and support his doctrine, by force, cruelty, and persecution. But does not the above letter, and do not acts of Parliament prove, that it was by bribery among the great ones, and by force, and cruelty, and persecution, and death, on the middle and lower classes, that your scriptural Reformation was introduced, and forced on England? Really, Gentlemen, was not this, a most "extraordinary and presumptuous movement" of your scriptural Church, on the _consciences_, and on the _intellects_ of Englishmen?
Now, most Reverend Gentlemen, you and many of your reverend body, have been lately calling public meetings, in which you have unjustly endeavoured, to rouse the indignation of the people, against the Pope for making, "an extraordinary and presumptuous movement" on the Protestants of England. Now I have plainly proved, in my first address, that the Pope has _not_ made an "extraordinary and presumptuous movement" on the Protestants of England; for, by the spirit of the English law, as I have shown, the Pope is _perfectly justified in all he has done_. But Gentlemen, is your Protestant Church, justified _in all_ the "extraordinary and presumptuous movements," which, I have shown, she has been making so long on _the pockets_, and on _the intellects_ of Englishmen? Certainly not. Thus you see, you have unfortunately thrown your Scriptural Church (which feeds you so well with more than nine millions a-year) into the very grave, which you have been so charitably, and officiously, unjustly digging for the poor Pope. Really, most Reverend Gentlemen, I think every one, will conclude, that this is a most extraordinary and presumptuous movement, of _you_ and _your_ reverend body, on your good, and kind mother the Church. May they not justly apply to you, the words of the old proverb, "Physicians, cure yourselves?" Most Reverend Gentlemen, to those clergymen, who have adopted the above inconsistent conduct, I can only say, I may applaud their intentions, but I must condemn their bigotry. They may indeed, be friends to their Church in their hearts, but their mouths, and pens, are her most dangerous enemies.
Before I conclude, I beg leave to say a few words about the Puseyites, a few words to the dissenters, and a few words to the English people; and then, I must drop the curtain, and beg leave to retire for the present.
There is a circumstance, connected with the Whitby meeting, upon which I have as yet made no remark. You came together, on that occasion, both ministers and people, obedient to the trumpet call of Lord John Russell. Now, that trumpet blew two blasts, which gave "no uncertain sound." The _first_, was to denounce the papal aggression; the _second_, was to warn you of "a danger, which alarmed him (Lord John Russell) much more than any aggression of a foreign sovereign; alarmed him more, than Pope and Cardinal Archbishop, and territorial titles put together, more than the hierarchy, with all its mapping, and parcelling out of the land, nay, more to be dreaded, than an invasion of England, by the fleets and armies of any earthly power!" In the name of all that is terrible, what is this danger, that is impending over us? He says that it is a danger, "_already within the gates_." What does he mean? Why, Gentlemen, he means (and you all know it) Puseyism, and Popery, which have long been spreading, in the _very bosom_ of the _Protestant_ Church of England. Lord John proclaims to you, _this latter_ danger, even more loudly than _the former_; and yet, upon _this latter_ "extraordinary and presumptuous movement," _you_ were silent at _your_ meeting, _each_ and _all_; you heard him proclaiming, that the abomination of desolation, had got possession of the holy place; and that the bewitching fascination, of the Harlot of Rome, had reduced even some of the Protestant Bishops, into dalliance with her; and yet, _not one_ word, from _any_ minister among _you_, Protestant, Independent, or Wesleyan, _not one word_ either _to deny_ the existence of the danger, or to propose means to _ward_ it off. You _readily_ flocked together, to repel the _lesser_ danger, but, the _much more_ alarming danger, (according to Lord John) the danger "within the gates," it seemed touched _you not at all_. Really, _in this_ you appear, to be worthy disciples of Lord John Russell, who sat nearly seven years, under the Rev. Mr. Bennett, with all this danger staring him in the face, and yet, blew not _then_ a _single_ blast of his _warning_ trumpet. Really, Gentlemen, what was the cause of your silence, on this occasion? Was it lack of zeal, or lack of courage on your part? We shall, perhaps, be better able to judge of this, when I have told you, what sort of Puseyite enormities, Lord John has detected in the Church, and how, he takes upon himself, to chastise and correct them. Never, since the days of Cromwell, the Vicar-General of Henry VIII., has any layman, or churchman either, dared to play such tricks, or brandish such a rod, in the face of the Church of England, as this imperious minister has done! Mark, how this leader of the House of Commons, this lay Metropolitan of all England, superseding both York and Canterbury, see, how he calls to account his venerable brother, the Bishop of Durham. "Clergymen of our Church, who have subscribed the thirty-nine articles, and acknowledged the Queen's supremacy, have been the most forward, to lead their flocks, step by step, to the very verge of the precipice." Well, sad shepherds these, to lead their flocks, to the very verge of the precipice, and _sadder still_, that one thousand, eight hundred of these Church of England Clergymen, have signed a protest, _against the Queen's supremacy as recently_ exercised; thus rebelling, against the acknowledged, and sworn head of their Church. Well, Lord John thus describes the danger, "within the gates."
(1.) The honour paid to saints; (2.) the claim of infallibility for the Church; (3.) the superstitious use of the sign of the cross; (4.) the muttering of the liturgy, so as to disguise the language, in which it is written; (5.) the recommendation of auricular confession; (6.) the administration of penance, and (7.) absolution.