When I say the Protestants ought not to reprize themselves when they may, it is not from any such pitiful Reason as a French* Author gives us in a Book lent me since my Commentary was printed. ’Tis a reason so impertinent, that I cou’d scarce think they’d make use of it, and therefore did not propose it as an Objection. I was wrong tho in believing any thing too absurd for these Gentlemen; one wou’d imagine they had resolutely taken up the Character of being as ridiculous in their Apologys, as terrible in their Exploits: and one can never enough admire, that in a Country where there are so many good Pens, so many vile Justifications shou’d be suffer’d to pass. ’Twere much better not say a word, than defend themselves so wretchedly. Here’s this pleasant Author’s Thought. He introduces some Persons apprehending, that the Violences exercis’d on the Protestants in France may be prejudicial to the Catholicks in other Countrys.
Still it is to be fear’d, say some sort of People, that the Protestants, seeing how their Brethren are treated at this time in France, may think themselves warranted to treat the Catholicks in the same manner wherever they are Masters. But one must be abandon’d to all shame to pretend, that People, who have gone out of the Church within less than two hundred Years, and in a manner which all the World knows; People who have no kind of Authority but what they bestow on themselves, and what any one, who has a Mind to separate this hour, may give himself with altogether as <11> much color, shou’d be entitul’d to the same Privileges as the Catholick Church; which being founded by JESUS CHRIST and the Apostles, has continu’d in an uninterrupted Succession of all Ages, and shall abide to the end of the World in spite of all the Malice and Artifices of Sects and Schisms, and all their Endeavors to get her disown’d. … Once more then, he must be lost to all Shame who’l pretend, that rebellious Children have the same Power over their Mother which she has over them, or that they can take the same Methods for bringing those into their Communion who were never of it, as the Church has a right to take to reduce those to its Communion who cannot disown their going out from it. For which reason we have no Cause to apprehend, that what passes now in France can ever be drawn into a Rule in favor of Protestants. They may do the same thing in the Countrys where they are uppermost; but that which in the Church is a holy and regular Discipline, because founded on a lawful Authority, wou’d in them be a tyrannical Oppression, because destitute of a like Authority. As Kings punish those with Death who are taken in Arms against ’em, so Rebels have sometimes treated the faithful Servants of their Kings the same way when they have fall’n into their Hands. Whence comes it then, that the same Action is an Act of Justice with regard to the Sovereign, and a Violation of Right and Justice with regard to them? From hence, that of one side it’s done by a lawful Authority, and of the other without Authority. The Case is the same, when those who have revolted from the Church will force the Catholicks to come into their Communion, by the same Methods which the Church makes use of to bring them into hers. <12>
I ask my Reader’s pardon for troubling him with so long a piece of Impertinence. What! will these People ever be playing the fool? will they never leave arguing like Children, how great Abilitys soever they may have in other Matters? Shall we never beat it into ’em, that nothing in nature is more ridiculous than reasoning by always assuming the thing in question?10 The Dispute between them and us is, whether the Church of Rome be the true Church: Common Sense requires, that we on our parts shou’d prove from common Principles, and not from a bare Pretension, that she is not; and that they on their part prove she is the true Church, not by a bare Pretension (for that’s unpardonable in a School-boy) but from Principles common to them and us. This we have represented to ’em a thousand and a thousand times over; we have done it sometimes in a serious way, sometimes by turning ’em into ridicule: but nothing will open their Eyes; still they come about to their old Cant, We are the Church, you are the Rebels, therefore we have a right of chastising you, but you have none of returning us like for like. What stock of Patience is sufficient for such stuff?
There are some among ’em who tell us with the same compos’d Look, and with the same grave Air of Impertinence, that to find whether the Hugonots have just Cause to complain, we ought to consider what Judgment the Gallican Church makes of ’em; to wit, that she looks on ’em as rebellious Children, over whom she retains a right of Punishment, in order to reclaim ’em from their Disobedience. I own I can’t comprehend how these Men do to pick up all this <13> wretched Trumpery (give me leave to use this word to represent Impertinences, too ridiculous and vile to be fully exprest). Are they so blind as not to see, that the Pretensions of the Protestants, once suppos’d, give them a far more plausible Pretext for persecuting Popery, than that which Popery borrows from the Pretensions which it makes.
The Protestants pretend,11 that the Church of Rome, far from being that Spouse of JESUS CHRIST which is the Mother of all true Christians, is really an infamous Harlot, who has seiz’d the House, by the Assistance of a band of Ruffians, Cut-throats, Hell-hounds; who has turn’d the Father and Mother out o’ doors, has murder’d as many of the Children as she cou’d lay her hands on, forc’d others to own her for lawful Mistress, or reduc’d ’em to live in exile. These exil’d Children, these who are not able to bear the Infamy of living in a feign’d Obsequiousness for a Mother, whom they look upon as a Strumpet who has expel’d their true Mother, and slain their Brethren; these are the Protestants, or at least pretend to be. On one side then we see a Church which pretends to be the Mother of the Family, and that all who own her not as such are rebellious Children; and on the other side, Children pretending she is only an abominable Harlot, who has seiz’d upon the House by downright force, and turn’d out the true Mistress and the true Heirs, to make room for her Lovers, and the Accomplices of her Whoredom. To consider only the respective Pretensions of both Partys, the Rigor is more natural and more reasonable on the side of the Protestants than on that of the <14> Church of Rome: For the Church of Rome, by supposing her Pretensions, ought to preserve the natural Tenderness of a Mother for the Protestants, and make use only of moderate Chastisements to recover ’em to their Duty. We know how David commanded that they shou’d spare the Life of his Son Absalom, tho in Arms against him, and tho he had carry’d his Rebellion to the greatest Extremity;12 and there are very few Mothers who won’t put up the Affronts and Insolences of their Children, rather than arraign ’em before the criminal Judg, when they think their Lives may be in danger. So that the terrible Punishments which the Church of Rome has inflicted on Hereticks for so many Ages past, are a Rigor so much the more unnatural and monstrous, the more strongly one supposes her Pretensions.
But by supposing the Pretensions of the Protestants, their most extreme Rigors are in the order of human things. For when the case is no less than the revenging a Mother impiously turn’d out of her own House by a Strumpet, and resettling her in her Right, Nature does allow her Children to act with all imaginable Vigor and Vehemence; nor can it be thought hardly of, if they have no Mercy upon this wicked Prostitute who had usurp’d her place, or upon her Favorers and Adherents.
The Reader will easily perceive the Ridiculousness of the Passage which I have cited, without my taking it to task Period by Period; and comprehend, that nothing is more reasonable than the Apprehensions of some sort of People, did the Protestants think fit to imitate the Church of <15> Rome. Let any one but reflect a little on the State in which the two Religions liv’d together about twenty Years ago, supposing always their respective Pretensions. The Church of Rome, believing her self the true Mother of all Christians, thought it expedient for the good of those Children who did own her, not to exercise her Right over those who persisted in their Disobedience. The Protestant Church, believing the Romish an Adulteress, who in prejudice of her Rights acted the Mistress in the Family, suffer’d her for peace sake to injoy the finest Apartments in the House, and suspended her Right of punishing the Favorers and