Their very bread is poison. Their baptism,
though it be true, yet in their judgment is nothing. It is not the saving
water! It is not the channel of Grace! It brings not Christ's merits to
us! It is but a sign of salvation!" And again the writer cried to
Elizabeth to return to the ancient Religion, and to be in truth what she
was in name, the Defender of the Faith.
"'Kings shall be thy nursing fathers,' thus Isaiah sang, 'and Queens thy
nursing mothers.' Listen, Elizabeth, most Mighty Queen! To thee the great
Prophet sings! He teaches thee thy part. Join then thyself to these
princes!... O Elizabeth, a day, a day shall come that shall show thee
clearly which have loved thee the better, the Society of Jesus or Luther's
brood!"
What arrogance, thought Anthony to himself, and what assurance too!
Meanwhile in the outer world things were not reassuring to the friends of
the Government: it was true that half a dozen priests had been captured
and examined by torture, and that Sir George Peckham himself, who was
known to have harboured Campion, had been committed to the Marshalsea;
but yet the Jesuits' influence was steadily on the increase. More and
more severe penalties had been lately enacted; it was now declared to be
high treason to reconcile or be reconciled to the Church of Rome;
overwhelming losses in fortune as well as liberty were threatened against
all who said or heard Mass or refused to attend the services of the
Establishment; but, as was discovered from papers that fell from time to
time into the hands of the Government agents, the only answer of the
priests was to inveigh more strenuously against even occasional
conformity, declaring it to be the mortal sin of schism, if not of
apostasy, to put in an appearance under any circumstances, except those
of actual physical compulsion, at the worship in the parish churches.
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