Chap. II Shewing That the Indians Wealth Under a Pretence of Their Conversion Hath Corrupted the Hearts of Poor Begging Fryers, With Strife, Hatred and Ambition
It is a most true and certain saying, Odia Religionum sunt acerbissima, hatred grounded in points and differences of Religion (let me adde, if ambition blow the fire to that hatred) is the most bitter and uncapable of reconciliation. Nay, it is an observation worth noting of some (see Doctor Day upon the I Cor. 16. 9. Verse) that the neerer any are unto a conjunction in matters of Religion, and yet some difference retained, the deeper is the hatred; As hee observes, a Jew hates a Christian farre worse then hee doth a Pagan, or a Turke; a Papist hates a Protestant worse then hee doth a Jew, and a Formalist hates a Puritan worse then hee doth a Papist. No such hatred under heaven (saith hee) as that between a Formalist, and a Puritan, whereof our now Domestick and Civill Warres may bee a sad and woefull experience. A truth which made Paul burst out into a lamentable complaint, I Cor. 16. 9. saying, A great doore and effectuall is opened unto mee, and there are many adversaries.
And as when the doore of true Faith once is opened, then Adversaries begin to swarme and rage; so in all points of false and fained Religion where the entrance to it is laid open, hatred and enmity will act their parts. But much more if with such pretended Religion, Wealth and Ambition as counterfeit Mates thrust hard to enter at the opened doore, what strife, hatred, and envy doe they kindle even in the hearts of such who have vowed poverty and the contempt of worldly wealth? I may adde to what hath beene observed above, that no hatred is comparable to that which is betweene a Jesuite and a Fryer, or any other of Romes Religious Orders; And above all yet betweene a Jesuite, and a Dominican. The ambition and pride of Jesuites is inconsistent in a Kingdome or Common-wealth with any such as may bee equall to them in Preaching, Counsell or Learning. Therefore strive they so much for the education of Gentlemens Children in their Colledges, that by teaching the sonnes, the love of the fathers and mothers may bee more easily gained: and their love and good will thus gained, they may withall gaine to themselves whatsoever praise, honour, glory may bee fit to bee bestowed upon any other Ecclesiasticall Person. Which Policy and Ambition in them being so patent and knowne to all the World, hath stirred up in all other Religions a hatred to them uncapable ever of Reconciliation. This hath made them all to conspire against them, and to discover their unsatisfied covetousnesse in beguiling the rich widowes of what meanes hath beene left them by their deceased husbands, to erect and build those stately Colledges beyond the Seas, the sight whereof both outward and inward doth draw the ignorant people to resort more to their Churches and preaching then to any other. Thus whilest in Venice, they got the favour of one of the chief Senatours of that Common-wealth, they politickly drew him to make his will according to their will and pleasure, leaving to his son and heire no more then what they should think fit to afford him. But they appropriating to themselves the chiefest part of the young heires meanes, and with so proud a legacy thinking to overpower all other Orders, were by them opposed so, that the Will was called for by the whole State and Senatours of Venice, fully examined, and they commanded to restore to the heire the whole Estate as enjoyed by his Father. Well did that wise Senate conceive, that as one Noble man had been cheated by them of his fortunes, so might they one by one, and so at length the riches of Venice might become a treasure onely for Jesuites to maintaine the pride and pompe of their glorious fabricks. And though those vowed servants to the Pope obtained his Excommunication against the whole Estate of Venice upon non-complying with the foresaid Will and Testament; yet such was the preaching of all other Preists and Orders against them, that they caused the State to slight the Excommunication, and in lieu of making them heires of the deceased Senatours Estate, they shamefully banished them out of Venice. Thus also have the Preists and Fryers of Biscaya in Spain prevailed against the admitting of Jesuits into San-Sebastian, though by the favour of some they have in severall occasions obtained an house and erected a Bell to ring and summon in the People to their pretended Church and Colledge. Nay the very house wherein their Patron Ignatius Loiola lived, have they often seriously offered to buy for a Colledge; yet such hath been the opposition of the Preists and Fryers of that Countrey, that they have dashed to nought their often iterated endeavours to purchase that which they esteem their chiefest Relique. But to come neerer to our owne Countrey, what a combustion did this strife betweene Jesuites and other Preists of England cause among our Papists ten yeares agoe, when the Pope sending into England Doctor Smith pretended Bishop of Chalcedon to bee the Metropolitan head over all the Clergy and other Orders, how then was it to see the pride of the Jesuites as inconsistent with any one that might oversway them, or gain more credit then themselves? who never left persecuting the Bishop, till by the Popes Letters they had banished him out of England. Which curtesie, the secular Preists gaining yet a head over them with title of Archdeacon, Doctor Champney, have ever since sought to repay home, by endeavouring alwayes to cast them out of England, as pernicious to the State of this Kingdome, more then Fryers or any other sort of Preists; Which they have sufficiently made known by discovering their covetousnesse in encroaching upon many Houses and Farmes, enriching themselves, as namely at Winifreds Well (so tearmed by them) where they had bought an Inne; and speedily fell to building there that they might make it a Colledge for Jesuites to entertaine there all Papists comers and goers to that Well, and so might win to themselves the hearts of most of the Papists of the Land, who doe yearly resort thither to bee washed and healed upon any light occasion either of Head-ach, Stomack-ach, Ague, want of children, where they blindly phansie a speedy remedy for all maladies, or wants of this World. Thus have the Preists discovered further our English Jesuites covetousnesse in the building of the Sope-houses at Lambeth under the name of Mr. George Gage their purse-bearer, and since projecting the Monopoly of Sope under Sir Richard Weston, Sir Basil Brooke, and many others names, who were but Agents and Traders with the Jesuites rich and mighty Stocke. Thus came out the discovery of the Levelling of Hils and Mountaines, cutting of rocks at Leige in the Low Countryes at the Colledge of the English Jesuites, a worke for Gardens and Orchards for their Novices recreation and pastime, which (as I have heard from their owne mouthes) cost them thirty thousand pound, which gift they squeezed out of one onely Countesse of this Land. Like to this may prove their Colledge at Gaunt, for which they have obtained already a faire beginning of eight thousand pounds from the Old Countesse of Shrewsberry, and from the greatest part of the Estate of Mr. Sackefield, whom whilst they had him in their Colledges, they cherished with their best dainties, and with hopes that one day hee should bee a Canonized Saint of their Religious Order. All these knaveries doe even those Preists of the same Popish Religion discover of them, and thereby endeavor to make them odious. And though of all, the Jesuites be the most covetous, yet may I not excuse the Secular Preists, Benedictine Monks, and the Fryers from this damnable sinne; who also strive for wealth and meanes for their Doway, Paris and Lisboe Colledges, and lose no opportunities at the death of their Popish favourites for the obtaining a Legacy of one or two hundred Pounds, assuring them their soules shall bee the better for their Masses. Thus doe those miserable wretches in the very heat of their zeale of soules seeke to suppresse one another, and having vowed Poverty, yet make they the Conversion of England the onely object of their Ambition and unsatiable Covetousnesse. But above all is this envy and hatred found between Dominicans and Jesuites, for these owe unto them an old grudge, for that when Ignatius Loiola lived, his Doctrine de Trinitate (which hee pretended was revealed to him from heaven, for hee was certainely past the Age of studying at his Conversion) was questioned by the Dominicans, and hee by a Church Censure publickly and shamefully whipped about their Cloisters for his erroneous principles. This affront done to their chief Patron hath stirred up in them an unreconciliable hatred towards the Order of the Dominicans, and hath made them even cracke their braines to oppose Thomas Aquinas his Doctrine. How shamefully doe those two Orders indeavour the destruction of each other, branding one another with calumnies of heresie in the Opinions especially de Conceptione Mariæ, de libero arbitrio, de Auxiliis? And of the two, the Jesuites is more bold and obstinate in malice and hatred. How did they some twenty yeares agoe, all Spaine over, about the Conception of Mary stirre up the people against the Dominicans, in so much that they were in the very streets tearmed Hereticks, stones cast at them, the King almost perswaded to banish them out of all his Dominions, and they poore Fryers forced to stand upon their Guard in their Cloisters in many Cities, especially in Sevill, Osuna, Antiquera and Cordova, to defend themselves from the rude and furious multitude. Much like this was that publike Conference and disputation betweene Valentia the Jesuite and Master Lemos the Dominican, before the Pope, concerning their altercation de Auxiliis; When the cunning Jesuite hoping to brand with heresie the whole Order of Dominicans, had caused Augustines Workes to bee falsly printed at Lions, with such words which might directly oppose the Thomists Opinion; and had prevailed, had not Lemos begged of the Pope that the Originall Bookes of Augustin might bee brought out of his Vatican Library, where was found the quite contrary words, to what the false Jesuite had caused to be printed; hee was forced to confesse his knavery, was harshly reprehended, and with the apprehension of that great affront, the next night gave up his ghost to his father, the father of lies and falshood.
An other reason of this mortall enmity between these two Orders, is for that the Jesuites surpasse all others in ambition or honour, credit, and estimation, whence it is they cannot indure to behold the Dominicans to exceed them in any preferment. Now it is that by the Laws of Arragon and the Kingdome of Valencia, the Kings of Spain are tied to have a Dominican Fryer for their Confessor or ghostly father; which could but the Jesuites obtain, how would they then rule and govern Spain and the Kings heart? But though they could never yet prevail to alter this established law, yet have they prevailed now lately so that Antonio de Sotomayor the King of Spains Confessor should lie at rest in the Court of Madrid, with a pension and dry title only; and that Florencia that grand Statist should be Confessor to the Count of Olivares, the Royall Issue, the Queen, and should hear the Kings confessions oftner then his chosen and elected Confessor Sotomayor. Secondly, the Dominicans as first Authors of the Inquisition (which they prove from their Martyr Peter of Verona) still enjoy the highest places of that Court, which is a wofull sight to the Jesuites to see their Religion affaires handled, their Church kept pure from what they call heresy by any but themselves. O had they (as they have often strived for it) in their hands the judicature of that tribunall, how should all Dominicans, nay all sorts of Preists but their own, presently by them be branded with heresy? Thirdly, in Rome there is an other preferment successively due to Dominicans, from the time of Dominicus de Guzman founder of that Religion, to wit, to be magister Sacri Palatii, the Popes Palace master, instituted to this purpose that about him there may be some learned Divine (for commonly the Popes are more Statists, and Canonists, then Divines) to read a daily lecture of Divinity to such as will be instructed therein, and to resolve the Pope himselfe of whatsoever difficult points in Divinity may be questioned. This is the Dominicans due with a pension to maintain Coach and servants within the Palace of St. Peter. Which the Jesuites have often by favour and cunning Jesuiticall trickes endeavoured to bereave the Dominicans of; but proving labour in vain, they continue still in their unplacable enmity and hatred against them. And thus you see the fountaines of their strife; which as here in Europe hath been well seen, so hath this contentious fire overpowered the fire of their zeal of soules in the East and West-India’s; and the wealth and riches of those Countries, the ambition of honor in their Gospel function hath more powerfully drawn them thither, then (what they pretend) the Conversion of a barbarous and idolatrous nation. This was well published to the view of the whole world by a most infamous libel which in the year 1626 fryer Diego di Colliado a missionary Fryer in Philippinas and Japan set out of the unheard of passages and proceedings of the Jesuites in those Eastern parts. At that time the Jesuites pretended that mission to themselves only, and petitioned the King of Spain, that only they might go thither to preach, having been the first plantation of Franciscus Xavier, and since continued successively by their Preists. To this purpose they remembred the King of the great charges he was at in sending so many Fryers and maintaining them there; all which should be saved, might they only have free ingresse into those Kingdomes. All which charges they offered themselves to beare, and further to bring up the Indians in the true faith, to instruct them and civilize them, to teach them all liberall sciences, and to perfect them in musick and all musicall instruments, and in fencing, dancing, vaulting, painting and whatsoever els might make them a compleat, and civill people. But against all this was objected by Diego Colliado, that not zeal only and charity moved them to this offer, but their ambition and covetousnesse, which would soon be seen in their encroaching upon the silly and simple Indians wealth, bringing instances of many thousand pounds which they had squeezed from the poore Barbarians in the Islands of Philippinas; And that their entring into Japan was more to enrich themselves, then to convert the Japonians to Christianisme; that whensoever they entred into that Kingdome they conveyed from Manila whole ships laden with the richest commodities of those Islands; that their trading was beyond all other Merchants trading, their Bench for exchange mony farre more accustomed then any other whither for China, for Japan, for Peru and Mexico; and that the Viceroy himselfe made use of none other, but theirs. That to keep out all other orders out of Japan, they had ingratiated themselves so farre, under pretence of trading, into the Emperours favour by gifts of Watches, Clocks, Dials, Lockes, and Cabinets, and such like presents of most curious and artificiall Workmanship, that they had got free accesse to his Court, and counselled him to beware of Fryers, which cunningly crept into his Kingdome to preach a new law, perswading him by rigorous search and enquiries to root them out: thus politickly for their own ends hindering the increase of Christianisme by any means or instruments save themselves; and blinding the Emperors eyes with their cunning insinuations, that he might not see in them, what they desired he might discover in others, that they might appear in sheep skins, and others clothed with wolves skins; and so the Fryers might have little heart to trade, but enough to doe to save themselves from the stormy persecution, whilst they freely might enjoy the liberty of rich trading. This brand upon these cunning foxes was commanded to be printed, thankes given to Diego Colliado for discovering to the Estate their crafty proceedings, with not a few tenents maintained by them in Japan even against their owne Soveraigne; a fat Bishoprick was offered to the Fryer, which he refusing, commission was given unto him for the raising of forty Fryers out of Spain, and the conducting of them to the Islands of Philippinas, and that it should be free for all Preists and Fryers, as well as Jesuites, to passe to those parts for the preaching of Christ and the extending of Christianisme among the Heathens and Barbarians. O that this my discovery made to England of those dissembling and false Preists, would make us wise to know and discover under the ashes of their pretended Religion, the fire of strife and contention which they kindle in Kingdomes, and to rake up that covetousnesse, which we may easily find in them; tending to the ruine of many fair estates, and to the temporall and spirituall danger of this our flourishing Kingdome!