The Good Catholick no Bad Subject. OR, A Letter from a Catholick Gentleman to Mr. Richard Baxter.

SIR,
SInce, I presume, you desire an Adversary, who use the
diligence of a publick Challenge to procure one, and
that none will think it strange, you should be sollicited
to perform what you have so solemnly undertaken; All
I have to do, is, in few words, to acquaint my Reader, who, I
think, will see it reasonable you should be oppos'd, why you are
oppos'd by me.
I am a person, by the infinite Grace of God, bred up in the
Catholick Religion, from which I have learned, my Duty to
God cannot be complied with, without an exact performance of
my Duty to my Soveraign: To obey him, not for advantage,
or temporal concerns, but out of conscience; and because such is
the known will of him, the obedience to whose commands is
Religion, has always made a part of mine, being a point, as all
other which belong to my Faith, preached by the Apostles, and
from them derived to me by the ministry of those persons his sacred
wisdom has appointed to succeed them.
This Doctrine instill'd into my youth by Catechisms, confirm'd
to my riper years by Sermons and Conferences, and possessing
my soul with so setled a beleef, that I did not think any
body could pretend to know what Catholick Doctrine is, and
not know that this is a part of it, occasioned a strange surprize in
me, when Chance seconding my Curiosity, in giving me a sight

A 2

of your Sermon preached before the Honorable House of Commons,
Apr. 30. 1660. of which I had heard somthing before,
I found in it a plain Challenge, and undertaking to prove against
my Adversary, That a Papist must cease to be a Papist, if he
will be truly or fully loyal to his Soveraign. Had you said onely,
Loyalty were no part of his Religion, and that he performed his
allegiance by the help of some other Virtue, though an indifferent
Judge would wonder you should have better intelligence
of their Religion, then themselves, who certainly know, and
from that certain knowledge profess it teaches Loyalty to be a
Divine indispensable Command the Assertion, however it
would have been altogether as false, would perhaps have appear'd
not altogether so exotick. But to deny Loyalty not onely
an admittance into, but a consistence with his Religion, and
put an unavoidable necessity upon him, of being either a Traytor
to God, by renouncing his Faith, or a Traytor to his Soveraign,
by renouncing his Allegiance, is a Paradox of that wonderfull
excess, that I know not whether is greater, the confidence
to assert, or impossibility to maintain it. How, Sir, will
you undertake to prove, A Catholick must necessarily desert either
God, or his King, who, I think, cannot, I am sure, should
not be ignorant, that to render what is Cæsars to Cæsar, does as
truly belong to his Religion, as to render what is Gods to God?
That he makes no distinct Duties of these, but beleeves his Obedience
to Cæsar is so much a part of his Obedience to God,
that the later cannot be perform'd without the former? In fine,
you, who, with that strong iudgment Fame, and I think Desert,
gives you to be Master of, cannot but see, were there nothing
to intercept the prospect, that a Papist, who is not truly
loyal, is not a truly Papist, if the not being faithfully obedient
to what is taught by a Religion, make a man cease to be of it.
But, as it is not for me, to pry into what it was that mov'd
you to assert this Paradox, so your care in publishing it, suffers
none to be ignorant that you have asserted it, and by doing so
cast an aspersion upon a sort of people, whose try'd Loyalty in
all vicissitudes of dangerous troubles, as it should have altered
your judgment, so their long and grievous sufferings, whereof
their Loyalty was one, and perhaps the onely cause, should, from
the charity of your profession, have found, rather pity for their
afflictions, then aspersions upon their innocence.
And yet, in the small Sphere of my acquaintance, I finde
little forwardness to use any other defence, then silent patience
hitherto their onely shield, against the many, and heavy blows,
which to borrow the mildest expression the condescendence of
charity affords me, mistaken Zeal has so long given their Fames
and Fortunes; and a greater disposition to have recourse to heaven
for an increase of strength, as the blow grows heavier, then
to endeavour to lighten the burthen they groan under. But for
my part, I must confess the value I set upon Religion and Allegiance,
makes me not endure to be deprived of either of them
at any rate; and however I may be reconcil'd to all other miseries,
I am not able to bear that of deserving to be miserable.
Besides, I apprehend silence in this case would amount, or at
least be mis-interpreted to a confession; and that a Charge accompanied
with such circumstances, would, if not cleer'd, be
look'd upon as a Sentence, and the world take it for granted,
nothing could be pleaded to it, but Guilty. I know I am Minimus
inter Tribus Israel, little known even among those of my
own Religion; but as loyal as any, and as certain of my Obligation
to be so. I know also the concern is general, and greater
then to be trusted to any one mans ability, especially such a one
as is truly conscious of his own insufficiency; Neither do I
undertake this Demand of Satisfaction vainly, or without just
occasion offer'd, but as I have may share in the injury, I have
also a title to be righted; and, since no better Champion appears
to defend me, think, I both may and ought to defend my
self.
In the face of the world therefore, I require you to perform
your undertaking, and desire you to reflect, and every body take
notice, That if you prove not what you profess you are ready to
do, viz. That a Papist must cease to be a Papist, if he will be
truly and fully loyal to his Soveraign, you are guilty of the
breach of charity to your Neighbour, in as great a height as circumstances
can improve a sin to. For to say nothing of the time,
when the joyful and long pray'd for Victory of Right over Ambition
and Tyranny fils the Kingdom with comfortable hopes,
That the priviledges of Birthright shall no more be forfeited,
but by real and really proved misdemeanors: to say nothing of
the Great Auditory before whom you preacht, persons, of whose
Wisdom the Nation has given so signal a Testimony, and of
whose Counsels his Majesty has expressed so tender a regard:
Be pleased to consider, 'tis no one you asperse, but many, and
those who, of all that lay claim to so regarded a Title, give the
best evidence of being truly tender Consciences, since for them
they suffer so generally, so constantly, so deeply. Neither is it a
small fault you charge them with, but that Monster of sins,
Treason, and that not onely by the violence of passion once committed,
but such as is impossible not to be alwaies committed.
And all this with so notorious a publickness, that none can be ignorant
of your charge, as I hope none will be ignorant of our innocence.
Now I beseech you joyn all these together, and see if yours
do prove an offence whether Chance could light upon, or Industry
contrive greater aggravations. Consider therefore, Sir,
what you have done, and what you are to do; and either prove
what you have so solemnly undertaken, or practise what you
have as solemnly taught; give an example to the world of that
serious and true Repentance you so excellently delivered to your
Auditory. But prove it effectually, and let not the Question,
when we come to grasp it, vanish away by the artifice of some
deceitful word. You have raised in the hearts and thoughts of as
many as have either heard or read your Sermon, I conceive, an
uncharitable; and unjust apprehension: If it prove so, I hope
the reparation you will make, shall not be by the fallacy of some
term, to which your Art may perhaps give another sense, then
you have caused by it in others, to save your self from the obligation
of making any.
And yet, to deal plainly, I cannot but be jealous of the expressions
you use. For why do you call us Papists? You know
we have another name, and are not perhaps such men as you
make us pass for by that Term: We ow no blind servile obedience
to any upon earth, that can ensnare our Judgments to any
thing contrary to those Divine Truths brought from Heaven by
our Saviour, to bring us up to Heaven, planted by his Apostles,
and preserved by his Spouse the Church. I presume you intend
by it a Name of Religion, not Opinion; for 'tis the Faith of
Christ I am to lay down my life for, but know no Obligation to
lose a Pins head for the fancies of any private man.
Then again what mean you by a true and full Loyalty? Those
Epithetes seem to me no more then the issue of a fruitful fancy;
since a Loyalty which is not a true one, is truely no Loyalty
as false mony is no mony; and as half a pint is not a pint; so
if any thing want of full Loyalty, how near soever you approach
it, is not Loyalty. I do not therefore see any necessity of those
termes; Loyalty in the natural acception of words, saying both
true and full Loyalty: as a shilling signifies both Twelve pence
and good Silver.
Under your tearm of Loyalty too, I conceive you do not comprehend
any obligations contradictory to the great one to which
all others ought to be subservient; neither of us being, I hope,
guilty of that impious flattery, to imagine any duty can be a
duty, which is inconsistent with that first and chiefest duty we
owe to our Maker and Preserver. I beseech you therefore let
all these Terms be defin'd, that the Question may not vanish
from us in the mist of the words we use in treating it. That
which I, and I think every one else, apprehends by your words,
is that this Kingdom holds a sort of people, whose Birth-right
indeed gives them a title to the Protection of the Laws and priviledges
of Community, but whose Religion, by misteaching
them in their duty to their King and Country, renders them
unworthy of those advantages. This is what I apprehend, and what
you are to prove.
Now if you should mean by Papist something which I am
not; by True and Full Loyalty, something which I either do
pay, or which none are bound to pay: Your words indeed
would be innocent, but the artifice of wresting them to oppose
innocence, little suitable to your Condition. And that as I desire
not to be mistaken in your meaning, none may be so in my
sentiments, I conceive my self comprehended in your assertion,
but know no reason why I should deserve the name you express
it in, more then that I am of the Communion of those men
whose Faith and Government was taught and instituted by Christ
and his Apostles, and by their successors in an uninterrupted
Delivery down to us. I believe, and what I profess to you in
the face of the world, I am ready by Oath to confirm to all
men in the face of heaven, That my Loyalty to my Soveraign
is an indispensable duty from which no power Spiritual, or Temporal,
Domestick or Forreign, under any pretence of Excommunication,
Deposition, or any other whatsoever, can free me
either wholly or in part; and till I am call'd upon to do it
more solemnly, I here do in the mean time renounce heartily
all Dispensations, Absolutions, and whatsoever to the contrary
which may raise jealousie in my Soveraign, or dissatisfaction in
my fellow Subjects, professing that notwithstanding any such
pretext, if any should happen to be, I will by the grace of God,
perform my Allegiance truly and fully as every good Subject is
bound to do. This is my Religion; this is what I have been
taught in It concerning Loyalty; and what occasion has prompted
me to disgress into: since however the Confession I make
be impertinent to the business I have in hand my task being
to oppose what you say, not to say all I know my self it will
not I hope be unwelcome to the Reader, at least to such an one
as desires his judgment should be built upon the unmoveable
foundation of Truth, of which in things of this nature, there is
no greater evidence then the testimony of such as certainly know
what they say, and faithfully say what they know.
But to return to our work; I utterly deny your Assertion, professing
to all the world tis not true, That a Papist must cease to be
a Papist, if he will be truely and fully Loyal to his Soveraign; and
before all the world demand of you to prove it, as you have undertaken.
If you shew me disloyal, I acknowledge I ought, and seriously
profess I will repent: if you cannot, lay your hand on
your heart, and consider what tis to make an innocent man,
nay, so many innocent men pass for guilty, and guilty of so execrable
a crime as Treason; in which case I hope you will need
no admonition to repent your self.
FINIS.