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 True historical relation of the conversi 
 
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 1924 029 411 018 
 
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 The portrait of Sir Tobie Matthew is reproduced from the picture 
 
 given in Sir Tobie's posthumous book, "A Collection of Letters," 
 
 edited and published by John Donne, LL.D., son of the Dean of 
 
 St. Paul's, in 1660. The name is misspelt by the engraver. 
 
A TRUE HISTORICAL RELATION OF 
 THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 Sir Tobie Matthew 
 
 TO THE HOLVCATHOLIC FAITH; 
 
 WITH THE ANTECEDENTS 
 AND CONSEQUENCES THEREOF. 
 
 EDITED, AND NOW PUBLISHED FOR THE FIRST TIME, WITH A PREFACE, 
 BY HIS KINSMAN, 
 
 A. H. MATHEW 
 
 LONDON: BURNS & OATES, LIMITED. 
 
 New York, Cincinnati, Chicago : Benziger Bros. 
 1904. 
 
BURNS AND OATES, LTD., PRINTERS, LONDON, W. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 SIR TOBIE MATTHEW,* priest, Jesuit, and Knight, 
 was born at Salisbury, 3 October, 1577, and was 
 the eldest son of Dr. Tobie Matthew, then Dean 
 of Christchurch, Oxford, who subsequently became 
 Anglican Bishop of Durham, and finally Arch- 
 bishop of York. His mother was Frances Parker, 
 widow of the Rev. Matthew Parker, who was a 
 son of the Archbishop of Canterbury of that name. 
 Her father was William Barlow, Bishop of 
 Chichester, the reputed consecrator of Matthew 
 Parker, the founder of the new Anglican hierarchy. 
 Dr. Tobie Matthew, the father of Sir Tobie, was 
 the son of John Matthew, a Bristol merchant, a 
 member of the ancient family of the Mathews of 
 Glamorgan, who traced their descent from Cunedda, 
 the over-king of all Wales, ancestor of Gwaethvoed 
 Vawr, Prince of Cardigan, the progenitor of Sir 
 David Mathew of Llandaff, and of the Earls of 
 Landaff of Thomastown, Co. Tipperary. This 
 family, for many generations powerful in South 
 Wales, remained for the most part true to the 
 
 * The name varies in its orthography in the different 
 branches of the family. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ancient Faith all through the troublous times of 
 the Reformation, and the evil days that succeeded 
 it. John Matthew of Bristol and his wife, however, 
 conformed to the new religion, under pressure of 
 the Penal Laws of Elizabeth. Yet they were 
 strongly opposed to the ultra-Protestant opinions 
 embraced by their son, and did their utmost to 
 prevent his entry into the Anglican ministry. He, 
 however, followed the advice of clerical friends 
 and became a clergyman, later on to be noted for 
 his vigorous repression of Catholicism in the North 
 of England, his severity towards " Popish recu- 
 sants," and his activity in preaching, chiefly 
 polemical discourses, in every portion of his 
 extensive dioceses. Sir Tobie, son of this famous 
 Protestant divine, displayed remarkable intellectual 
 powers at an early age, for when only twelve years 
 old he matriculated from Christchurch, 13 March, 
 1 589-1 590, graduated B.A., 5 June, 1594, and 
 M.A., 5 July, 1597. Not long after this he 
 attracted notice by his skill as a disputant and his 
 abilities as an orator. Among others whose 
 acquaintance he made was Francis Bacon, with 
 whom he formed a life-long friendship, being 
 frequently described by the philosopher as his alter 
 ego. In 1595 he took the part of the Esquire in 
 Essex's " Device," the dialogue of which was com- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 posed by Bacon. The performance took place on 
 the Queen's Day, in the presence of Elizabeth and 
 her court. In 1596 he was taken seriously ill, and 
 was at variance with his father, then at Durham, 
 who was greatly blamed for his severity. Two 
 years later he went to stay with young Throck- 
 morton of Coughton, a good Catholic, residing in 
 France ; and in the same year was again in trouble 
 with his father on account of his debts. On 15 
 May, 1599, he was admitted at Gray's Inn, and 
 on 3 October, 1601, entered Parliament as M.P. 
 for Newport, Cornwall. In a letter written by 
 Bacon to James I. in March, 1603, he is described 
 as " a very worthy and rare young gentleman." 
 On 25 March, 1604, he was returned M.P. for St. 
 Alban's, vice Sir Francis Bacon, who elected to 
 sit for Ipswich. Shortly after his election he 
 determined to visit Italy, in fulfilment of a desire 
 he had long entertained. He had some difficulty 
 in gaining his parents' consent, for they feared 
 that his intercourse with Catholics might induce 
 him to change his religion. Finding it easier to 
 obtain his father's permission to go no greater way 
 from home than France, he solicited both parents' 
 consent to spend six months in that country before 
 the reassembling of Parliament. They reluctantly 
 complied, expressly stipulating, however, that 
 
 vii 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Tobie should not visit either Italy or Spain. He 
 agreed to these conditions, without intending to 
 abide by them. In after life he expressed deep 
 contrition for this act of duplicity. On 3 July, 
 1604, he sailed for France, but within a few weeks 
 returned secretly to England, for what purpose is 
 uncertain. His life up to this period was that of 
 a gallant and a courtier, much of his time being 
 devoted to pleasure and dissipation. Early in 1605 
 he again started for France, this time continuing 
 his journey to Florence, where he submitted to' the 
 Catholic Church. The " True Historicall Relation " 
 of his sentiments on that occasion is what is 
 here printed at length for the first time. During 
 his imprisonment in the Fleet, Bacon, who was at 
 that period strongly prejudiced against Catholicism, 
 endeavoured to persuade him to abandon the Faith 
 he had embraced at Florence. Finding his 
 arguments powerless to influence Tobie, he ceased 
 to employ them, but continued to exhibit the 
 same regard and esteem for him as before, and 
 showed his appreciation of Tobie's literary judg- 
 ment by submitting various literary compositions 
 for his opinion, a practice he continued to the end. 
 In April, 1607-8, Tobie obtained a permit from 
 James I. to travel abroad, and went first to 
 Flanders, and then, with Sir Robert Shirley, to 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Madrid. While there Bacon sent to him a copy 
 of his " Advancement of Learning," and the key 
 to his famous cipher, about which he requested 
 secrecy. In the following February he received 
 from Bacon his De Sapientia Veterum, and in 
 161 1 went to Venice with his friend, George Gage 
 (of the family of the Gages of Firle, Sussex), 
 through whom he made the acquaintance of 
 Edward Norgate, the illuminer. He was extremely 
 anxious to obtain permission to return to England, 
 but the King refused to listen to his importunities, 
 the only reason being that Tobie had become a 
 Catholic 
 
 He then proceeded with George Gage to Rome 
 to study for the priesthood at the Roman College. 
 They were ordained together by Cardinal Bellar- 
 mine in May, 1614, after which Tobie went back 
 to Madrid. On his way through France he met 
 Villiers, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, with 
 whom he formed a lasting friendship, and through 
 whose influence James I. consented to allow his 
 return to England. The fact of his being a priest 
 was not revealed even to his most intimate friends. 
 About the middle of May, 161 7, he landed at 
 Dover, staying first at the 1 house of Winwood, and 
 then going on a visit to Bacon at Gorhambury. 
 In August he was invited by Thomas Wilbraham 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 to meet the King at Townsend, near Nantwich. 
 By October he was settled in London, where he 
 formed the acquaintance of Gondomar, the cele- 
 brated Spanish Ambassador, to whose house he 
 paid almost daily visits. In 1618 a translation 
 into Italian of Bacon's Essays was issued from 
 London. This was not by Tobie, but the epistle 
 dedicatory to the Duke of Genoa, which prefaces 
 the) book, was from his pen. 
 
 In the same year, his constant refusal to take 
 the obnoxious oath of allegiance so angered James 
 that Tobie was ordered to quit the kingdom, and he 
 again departed for Flanders, where he interested 
 himself in the exiled English Religious then 
 resident in that country. The Earl of Bristol, how- 
 ever, pleaded his cause so successfully with James 
 that Tobie was once more allowed to re-visit 
 England, and on 29 December, 1621, he landed at 
 Dover, and proceeded to London. In May, 1622, 
 he was again with Gondomar, and in June he 
 sustained a disputation before the King at the 
 instance of Buckingham's mother, who had become 
 a Catholic. 
 
 At this period negotiations were in progress 
 with the Holy See for a dispensation for the 
 marriage of Prince Charles with the Spanish 
 Infanta, and Tobie was the first direct agent at 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 the English court employed in the matter, his 
 friend, Father George Gage, being also engaged 
 as special messenger between the courts of Rome 
 and England. 
 
 In the dispute which arose at this time between 
 some of the secular clergy and the Jesuits, with 
 reference to the restoration of episcopal juris- 
 diction, Tobie, though not a Jesuit himself at this 
 epoch, sided with the Society, and partially 
 defeated the intentions of certain secular priests 
 who had gained the ear of Pope Gregory XV. 
 Whilst crediting Tobie with the best motives in 
 this transaction, we have to conclude that the 
 tactics he employed to gain the desired end would 
 not commend themselves to a man of honour at 
 the present day. 
 
 At the time! of Bacon's fall, Tobie was wholly 
 sympathetic, and wrote a letter to the ex- 
 Chancellor, who compared it to " old gold." In 
 1623 Tobie was despatched to Madrid by James 
 to advise Prince Charles and the licentious 
 Buckingham, and proved himself to be a discreet 
 negociator, a prudent counsellor, and a skilled, 
 though finally unsuccessful, diplomat. After the 
 failure of the negociations, largely due to Bucking- 
 ham, Tobie returned to England, and met with a 
 highly flattering reception at Court ; and on 20 
 
 xi 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 October, 1623, the King knighted him at Royston. 
 These marks of the Royal favour appear to have 
 induced his parents to relent and invite their son 
 to York, where he stayed for some time with them. 
 In 1624 Sir Tobie was elected as one of the eighty- 
 four " Essentials " of Edmund Bolton's " Academe 
 Royal." The scheme proved abortive. In June, 
 1625, he went to Bologne, whence he wrote an 
 interesting description of the Princess Henrietta 
 Maria to the Duchess of Buckingham. In the 
 same year Bacon, at Sir Tobie's request, added his 
 " Essay on Friendship " to the series, in com- 
 memoration of their long intimacy, and on his 
 death in 1626 bequeathed Sir Tobie £30 to buy a 
 ring. During the next few years Sir Tobie was 
 much abroad. His father and mother, both of 
 whom died in affluent circumstances, bequeathed 
 him nothing beyond a small piece of plate, owing 
 to his change of religion, which they never forgave. 
 
 After the accession of Charles I., Sir Tobie 
 identified himself more openly with Catholics. He 
 has sometimes been confused with another priest, 
 who was known as " Fr. Price," but this pseudonym 
 was never " adopted by Sir Tobie," as has been 
 alleged. 
 
 Being much esteemed by the unhappy Went- 
 worth, Earl of Strafford, Sir Tobie, in 1633, 
 
 xii 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 accompanied him to Ireland in the capacity of 
 secretary. In July, 1636, he stayed with the Earl 
 of Salisbury at Hatfield, and was the object of 
 much venom on the part of the puritan party, who 
 circulated all kinds of false and injurious reports 
 concerning him, among others that he was an abettor 
 of the Gunpowder Plot. In consequence of the libel- 
 lous falsehoods published by Andreas Habernfeld, 
 Boswell, and the notorious William Prynne, and 
 the commotion created by these fanatics, Sir Tobie 
 was, in October, 1640, arrested, and both Houses 
 of Parliament actually petitioned the Crown for 
 his banishment. Sir Tobie was, however, released, 
 and withdrew to Raglan Castle as first chaplain to 
 thel Marquess of Worcester. The disturbed con- 
 dition of affairs, and the approach of the civil 
 wars, compelled him to quit the country, and he 
 returned to his beloved Flanders, spending much 
 time in the society of the English Carmelite nuns 
 at Antwerp and the English Jesuits at Ghent. He 
 was received into the Society at an uncertain 
 period before his death, possibly only upon his 
 death-bed. That he died a Jesuit at Ghent on 
 13 October, 1655, aged 77, is certain. His remains 
 were laid in the vault underneath the church, 
 whence they were removed and, with those of 
 other deceased fathers, thrown /into a fosse by the. 
 
 
 /!• 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Revolutionists, in 1798, when the church was razed 
 to the ground. Two wills of Sir Tobie's are pre- 
 served at the English College in Rome, dated, 
 respectively, 1614 and 1647. 
 
 The original MS. of the following narrative by 
 Sir Tobie Matthew, now published for the first 
 time, belonged for more than a century to Sir 
 Tobie's kinsfolk, the Catholic family of Mathew, 
 resident in County Tipperary. By them it 
 was lent to the Rev. Alban Butler, who- embodied 
 extracts from it in his " The Life of Sir Tobie 
 Matthews" (sic), published in 1795. After Alban 
 Butler's death the MS. disappeared, having, 
 apparently, been stolen. Some years later it was 
 discovered by the Rev. Dr. W. C. Neligan of 
 Cork, in the possession of a Catholic family in that 
 city, from whom he 1 purchased it. In 1852 Dr. 
 Neligan resigned his preferment and became a 
 Catholic, and sent many of his rare books and MSS. 
 to London, among them Sir Tobie's MS., which 
 was included by mistake in the sale. In 1868 Dr. 
 Neligan recovered the precious MS. He had 
 previously, in 1856, published extracts from it, 
 which were printed by W. H. Smith in " Bacon and 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Shakespeare." For some years it had been in 
 the possession of Mr. Joseph Lilly, the bookseller, 
 who valued it at a high price. On the death of 
 Dr. Neligan it appears to have come into the 
 market again, and, after passing through various 
 hands, became the property of Professor Edward 
 Dowden, who now kindly permits its publication. 
 In 1 86 1 the Surtees Society endeavoured to. obtain 
 a transcript of the MS., but failed to do so. In 
 1900 the late Mr. C. Kegan Paul also recommended 
 its publication. The spelling has been modernized 
 by Professor Dowden. 
 
 A. H. MATHEW. 
 
 Chelsfield, Kent. 
 
 24 Nov., 1903. 
 
 vv 
 
Note.— * The "friend" was Dame Mary Gage, O.S.B., 
 daughter of Sir Edward Gage, Bart., of Firle, Sussex. She 
 was a member of the exiled English Benedictine Order, 
 then refugees in Brussels. The Community is now repre- 
 sented at East Bergholt. A younger brother of Dame 
 Mary Gage was hanged on suspicion of complicity in 
 Babington's Conspiracy. Another brother was Fr. George 
 Gage, S.J., who took a prominent part in the negociations 
 between the Courts of Rome, Spain, and St. James's, 
 relating to the proposed alliance between Prince Charles 
 and the Infanta. Fr. Gage suffered much, and finally died 
 a prisoner in the Fleet, for the Faith. 
 
 Dame Mary Gage's kinsman, Thomas, joined the Order 
 of Preachers in Spain, and began by exhibiting more than 
 ordinary fervour and zeal. He was sent on a mission to the 
 Philippines in 1613, but stopped short, without permission, 
 on reaching the West Indies. Here he fell into habits of 
 dissipation, and lost his vocation and his faith. On return- 
 ing to England in 1637 he joined the Establishment, and 
 was made Protestant Vicar of Deal. His life, after his fall, 
 was devoted to the persecution of Catholics, several priests 
 being betrayed by him to the pursuivants, and thus gaining 
 the crown of martyrdom. Among these was Fr. Peter 
 Wright, S.J., chaplain to his brother, Sir Henry Gage. 
 This unhappy apostate died, apparently without repenting 
 of his iniquities. — Ed. 
 
 XVI 
 
TO A DEAR FRIEND. 
 
 At your request, or rather upon your command- 
 ment, I will here declare that, in brief manner, 
 which passed between God and me, in order to my 
 conversion to the Catholic faith. Remember you, 
 on the other side, the faithful promise, which you 
 have made me of keeping it wholly to yourself; 
 and upon that consideration I will instantly deliver 
 you from any further suspense. 
 
 When I came to have about seven and twenty 
 years of age I determined to put a purpose in 
 execution, which I had entertained long, of seeing 
 and spending some years in Italy, a country 
 whereof I had heard and read much, and knew to 
 be most remarkable for the delicacy of the situa- 
 tion, the fertility of the soil, the beauty of the 
 cities, and the policy and civility of the people. 
 Between me and this design many impediments 
 had formerly interposed themselves, sometimes of 
 studies, sometimes of diversion in court, sometimes 
 of suits in law, and sometimes of other and idler 
 entertainments ; when these were diminished, if not 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 wholly removed ; and I found them all to be 
 resolved into the only difficulty of obtaining the 
 consent of my parents. 
 
 I caused them to be moved first therein afar 
 off, by third persons, who found them so averse 
 from being content with this course, which I 
 intended to take, as that I wished that they had 
 not been acquainted with it, but that I had begun 
 my travels without their knowledge rather than 
 against their will. Yet then I took a middle way, 
 and prayed them to give me leave to spend some 
 six months in France, till the Parliament in 
 England (wherein I had a place) should be re- 
 continued, and in the meantime I might survey 
 divers cities which in a former short journey of 
 mine I had not seen; and might perfect the 
 language of that country which already I had but 
 even begun to learn ; with promises that I would 
 return at a prefixed time. 
 
 My father gave way at last to my earnest 
 solicitations, though withal he charged me, even 
 upon his blessing, that I should not transport 
 myself so far as Italy or Spain. And my mother 
 also was drawn to yield to my importunity, though 
 greatly against her inclination, by reason of the 
 great love which she bore me and the fervent 
 desires wherewith her heart was overflowed to see 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 me settled at home in marriage ; in which case she 
 had often assured me that her fortune, which was 
 no ill one, should be instantly mine. 
 
 I made a promise to my father that I would walk 
 within the limits which he had prescribed ; and to 
 my mother, that her desires concerning me should 
 not be frustrated long, for which purpose I 
 intended to return again after a short time, though 
 yet, I must confess, I meant nothing less than what 
 I said. But God hath', I hope, forgiven me both 
 that and greater sins, who afterward, with much 
 power and goodness, called my soul to the know- 
 ledge of his truth, by occasion of this dissimulation 
 of my tongue, and of the curiosity of my vain and 
 curious mind. 
 
 What the reason might be why my father should 
 so precisely interdict me the sight of those 
 countries which I named before, I could not 
 then resolve ; but since, I have been of opinion 
 that he thought me likely enough to lay hold upon 
 Catholic religion, if I should once find myself in 
 place where it were punctually professed and 
 practised. But for my part I had not. then any 
 other thoughts, wherewith I might be troubled at 
 that time; but how to pass the sea with speed. 
 
 I therefore leapt into the first boat I found, 
 which had no sooner delivered me into France than 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 I committed myself to the best commodity of that 
 country, which might conduct me soonest into 
 Italy. Soon after, I arrived there; and I rested 
 not till I came to Florence, a town whereof I can 
 never think without tenderness, since God, in his 
 good time, did there vouchsafe to call me to 
 the communion of his holy Catholic Church, by 
 opening the eyes of my dark soul, which had never 
 been able until then to see the fair face of Truth ; 
 so mightily had it been overshadowed by the 
 clouds of heresy and sensuality. His holy name be 
 praised for ever and for ever ! Amen. 
 
 But this conversion of mine succeeded not 
 instantly after my arrival there, nor for the space 
 of almost a year after. In the meantime I disposed 
 of myself in conformity to my former desires. And 
 first, you shall understand that I had not remained 
 in those parts above three months, when I was 
 unexpectedly found out by a letter from my father ; 
 the first sight whereof overjoyed me not, through 
 the fear I had to be reproved, and threatened and 
 peremptorily recalled home for having already 
 exceeded my commission. But I was deceived in 
 the better sense, for in all the days of my life his 
 pen had never drawn the copy of his countenance 
 towards me with a more agreeable and pleasing 
 air ; though yet withal I were quickly satisfied that 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 he wrote then to me rather out of discourse, and 
 upon design than out of nature and affection ; by 
 occasion of a violent and general report, or rather 
 rumour, of my being already grown a Catholic, 
 which had filled the best places of London, almost 
 as soon as I had found the way into Italy. 
 
 Now my father, for his part, either fearing this 
 to be true, or that perhaps it might prove so at 
 length, as, on the one side, he thought it incon- 
 venient to cast me upon extremities by calling me 
 then precisely home ; so, on the other, he advised 
 my return after some reasonable time, in a friendly 
 and familiar manner ; but yet conjured me strongly 
 withal to be constant to my Protestant religion 
 Upon which condition he offered himself to me in 
 terms, which might not only be extraordinary from 
 an indulgent father, but even from an affectionate 
 and equal friend. 
 
 The while, I was most glad to see that my fault 
 was not only remitted, but my leave to stay abroad 
 (and that in Italy) by a kind of connivance pro- 
 longed, and as for the matter of my being Catholic, 
 I was very well able to* make him set his heart at 
 rest ; for that God knows I had no more inclina- 
 tion at that time to profess that faith than now I 
 have to forsake it. No marvel therefore if to the 
 letters (which I weekly received out of England 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 with that news) I replied with often and serious 
 protestations of the untruth thereof ; though after 
 (when indeed I was once a Catholic) it was 
 eagerly objected against me as equivocating, which 
 they account to be lying. But I take God to 
 witness that I wrote at that time expressly and 
 clearly what I then was, and meant to be ; neither 
 will it ever be found that, after I was once a 
 Catholic, I denied myself to be such, either by word 
 or writing to any creature. 
 
 That general rumour of my conversion bred 
 nothing in me at that time but a care to purge, or 
 rather preserve, myself, according to such occasions 
 as might be offered. But now, when I am in my 
 wits, I consider and confess that even such reports 
 as those were accompanied with some kind of 
 Providence towards me, and betokened perhaps 
 the mercy of Almighty God, who bespoke me, as 
 it were, by that means to be his servant; and 
 ought, in all reason, to have awaked me, at least 
 so far as to make me consider what it was to be 
 a Catholic ; what were the differences between 
 that religion and the rest ; and what grounds it 
 also had, in virtue and strength ; whereof I might 
 so soon be thought likely to profess the same, in 
 prejudice) of my Protestant faith, to which I was 
 obliged by advantages of all imaginable kinds. 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 It was not long after this, when God stirred up 
 some English Catholic gentlemen of my acquaint- 
 ance in that country, who held discourse to me 
 sometimes in favour of Catholic religion. But I 
 would not hearken then to those inspirations which 
 God sent me by the diligence of his servants, 
 who were also my particular friends. For I 
 remember that two of them* were walking once 
 with myself into certain villas to see the manner 
 of the country, and to taste! theif fruits ; and by 
 accident we fell into a church, which chanced to 
 be, in our way ; and it was that of Fiesole. They 
 two did reverence to 1 the 1 Blessed Sacrament, and 
 performed some short devotion of prayers, whilst 
 I walked by. When they rose we went all 
 together; and so, in a certain dark chapel, which 
 stood behind the high altar, we found a country- 
 man, retired and all alone, at his prayers. His 
 countenance was very devout, and his words, 
 though spoken softly, seemed yet to be uttered in 
 great earnest ; and his eyes were not less busy 
 than his words, for the tears flowed down apace 
 from them. Upon this, one of my camerades took 
 occasion (with a serious mind, I think, but yet with 
 a smiling face) to say that a man might have 
 walked long enough amongst Protestants in 
 * Sir George Petre and Mr. Robert Cansfield. (MS.) 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 England, and especially in their country churches, 
 and upon a working day in the afternoon, and 
 in a retired and darkish kind of chapel, before 
 he should have found a poor country fellow so 
 earnestly at his prayers, which were accompanied 
 with such tears as those. I heard him ; and was 
 extremely troubled that he had so easily asked me 
 so hard a question, to which I was so unable to 
 give a good answer. But yet I made the best I 
 could of a bad game, which was by passing it over 
 with a kind of scorn, and so I told him, profanely 
 enough, that the old fellow had been chiding God 
 Almighty for suffering his eggs to be stolen, or his 
 coat or his staff, or I know not what of that kind. 
 But yet, really, it troubled me, and not a little, that 
 my friend had so much reason on his side; yea, 
 and I thought a little then, and very much more 
 afterwards when the blood was cool, that it would 
 not be a matter of much ease in England to find 
 such a person, in such an action as that for sub- 
 stance and for circumstance ; whereof, though I 
 saw then but one, yet I daily saw multitudes after- 
 ward. 
 
 Soon after I met also with another accident, and 
 it was this : there came an English gentleman* to 
 Florence from Naples, and he was not only a 
 
 * Mr. Partridge, Sir Henry Weston's nephew. (MS.) 
 
 8 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 Protestant, but of the purer sort. Now he, 
 meeting me one day at dinner, we fell to the occu- 
 pation of travellers, by asking many questions of 
 one another ; and so, in drift of speech, he told me 
 that he had lately seen a very strange kind of 
 thing at Naples ; which was the liquefaction of 
 certain hardened blood of one Januarius (who 
 in Italian is called San Gennaro) upon the ap- 
 proach, and when it was brought into the presence 
 of the head, which ordinarily was kept in another 
 church of that city, as a relic, forsooth of the self 
 same Saint. But he told me (as I was saying) 
 that he saw that blood as hard as if had been a 
 pumice-stone, with a straw which passed through 
 it; and that he saw it also' dissolve, and become, 
 to all purposes, as blood, when it was once brought 
 into sight of the head ; and that afterwards upon 
 removing it from the same head, it grew as hard 
 again as before. And the world said generally 
 there, that this was even done whensoever those 
 two relics were brought together. 
 
 I cannot easily express how I was troubled, and 
 half tormented with this. But I asked twenty 
 questions, whether or no he saw all that which 
 passed, very perfectly well ? Whether others made 
 the same judgment of it, when they saw it ? Who 
 the spectators were? What actions were per- 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 formed? What words they used? — and the like. 
 And he answered me very clearly to all : that he 
 saw it as distinctly as he saw mine eyes and my 
 nose ; that there were divers Protestants as well as 
 Catholics in the place, and that one of the 
 Protestants was a great English Earl's eldest son,* 
 of a most illustrious family, and then of mighty 
 hopes, many ways, and that he also acknowledged 
 it to be most true. But yet, said this relater, there 
 were priests, and surplices and candles and incense, 
 and crossing, and Papistical praying, and a great deal 
 of such foppery as that. And as it is, said he, most 
 certain that the thing which I relate was done, so 
 it is also not to be doubted but that it was by 
 charms and witchcraft, and works of the devil. 
 
 I heard him ; and withal I abhorred the historical 
 part of what I heard ; and was sorry with my whole 
 heart that the cause, which I hated so much, had 
 so good a piece of evidence as that ; and I rebelled 
 and chafed like a madman ; though, by times, it 
 made me think afterward that strange things were 
 done in the world, though we knew not very well 
 what they meant. But as for me, I was too in- 
 capable! of receiving any good at that time. For 
 whatsoever might chance to pass these mine eyes 
 and ears of flesh and blood, they of my soul were 
 * The now Earl of Suffolk. (MS.) 
 
 10 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 directly blind and deaf, through the noise of vanity 
 and sin ; and I laboured with much more ambition 
 to speak like an Italian than to believe like a 
 Christian. 
 
 For the purpose of that tongue I remained so 
 long at Siena (for thither I soon removed from 
 Florence, to attain it so much the better, as I 
 should be there more remote from the English) 
 till I were able to express myself so far as to 
 be able to converse in other places of my 
 travels ; though I intended but to touch there at 
 that time; and therefore I passed then as un- 
 known, taking the help of a name which was not 
 mine own — though yet I lost my jest therein, for 
 men knew that I was there as well as myself, as I 
 came to understand afterward; though they who 
 knew it then would needs be so civil asi to dis- 
 semble it. Yet for the present I resolved 1 quickly 
 to be gone, and to make a much longer stay in my 
 return. 
 
 I then went on towards Naples, but I had never 
 been able to arrive at that journey's end if God's 
 extraordinary and even most miraculous mercy 
 had not (as I may well conceive) commanded my 
 good Angel to save my life. For it was threatened 
 by a certain accident, wherewith I will acquaint 
 you now to> the end that you may assist me in 
 
 ii 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 giving thanks to his divine Majesty for so admir- 
 able a delivery. 
 
 Upon the [sic] of October in the year 1605, and 
 upon the day and almost at the very arrival of a 
 certain famous, great eclipse, at that time I was 
 riding between Velleti and Sermoneta, towards 
 Naples. Passing there, upon a bridge (the same 
 being of a good! height, over a torrent, which the 
 furious tempest of that day had made to grow 
 very much both in depth and strength) the hinder 
 foot of my mule, by stepping sideward upon the 
 wet and slippery stones of the bridge, fell down 
 backward into the river, and I with him. Behold, 
 and wonder at the manner of it. For I fell from 
 that part of the bridge) which answered below to 
 the first entrance of the river, by means whereof 
 my whole body lay under water, which saved me 
 from being pressed and bruised to death ; for the 
 river was underlaid with a kind of rock, and my 
 head remained above as it were upon a thick pillow 
 of reeds, growing in the water, which delivered me 
 also from drowning. Men came about me, to help 
 me, as soon as they could, though it were not 
 possible to be very soon, and we 1 found that one 
 of my spurs was broken, but my body, being made 
 of softer metal, had no harm at all. This demon- 
 stration of so extraordinary a mercy of Almighty 
 
 12 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 God was wondered at by all them who beheld the 
 spectacle, and they were very many. For the 
 Bishop of Malta, with divers Cavaliers of that 
 Order, passed then in our company towards their 
 island, or rather (to speak more properly) we in 
 theirst And this only accident was cause enough 
 in itself to have made me vow myself to the service 
 of his Divine Majesty for ever after ; whereas yet 
 I considered much more where I might find a fire 
 to dry my clothes, than how to secure myself from 
 the fire of Hell, wherein my soul was undoubtedly, 
 and instantly and eternally afterward to have been 
 tormented, if the infinite mercy of God had not 
 enabled me, by the prolongation of my life, to 
 become a member of the holy Catholic Church, 
 from which, at that time, I was a mere stranger at 
 least 
 
 But when I was come to Naples, there were also 
 some English Catholic gentlemen who were careful 
 to put good books into my hands. But neither 
 they nor the fresh memory of so incomparable a 
 benefit as I had there received of Almighty God, 
 was yet of power to lead me on to make even the 
 least pace towards any correspondence with him. 
 For the delights of that place drew me violently on 
 after them another way. 
 
 Yet there I had a certain odd encounter, and it 
 
 13 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 was this : Every day there passed once, and some- 
 times oftener, under my window, near a certain 
 hour, a procession of little boys, singing the litanies 
 of our B. Lady. And I know not by what 
 chance, or rather Providence of Almighty God, the 
 tune of that sweet verse, Sancta Maria, Ora fro 
 nobis, came so often in at mine ears, and contented 
 me so much that at length my tongue took it up ; 
 not indeed as a prayer (such was my misfortune 
 at that time ; for it is a misery to have been, at 
 any time, other than our B. Lady's most humble 
 servant) but as a song, whose ditty fell not un- 
 pleasingly to that air, and so, when I found myself 
 alone, my usual entertainment would be to sing 
 Sancta Maria, Ora pro nobis, in the tune of those 
 babes and sucklings, who showed forth her praise. 
 These would ordinarily fall out to be the last words 
 before my sleep, and the first after it. And though 
 I pronounced them, at that time, but like a parrot, 
 yet those words made me grow into some few 
 thoughts; and I considered now and then what 
 hurt there might be, or not be, in desiring the 
 Mother of God to pray for us ; and at least I was 
 enured thereby to pronounce them, not long after, 
 as now I do. 
 
 In Naples I took no pains but to give myself 
 pleasure enough. And so, when I had despatched 
 
 H 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 that business, and satisfied my curiosity with the 
 sight of that city and the confines (which for 
 delicacy I esteem to be, as it were, the very spring 
 and source of that whole world which I had seen), 
 I came back again to Rome, where I meant to 
 spend as much of that winter as might stand with 
 my convenience and safety. Now, by that time, I 
 had, by way of letters and other means begun a 
 kind of remote acquaintance with Father Persons ; 
 and so I had resolved to pass by mine own name, 
 and in a more public way, when I should return. 
 My chief reason for this acquaintance was to keep 
 that cunning dark man (for so I esteemed him at 
 that time) by that appearance of courtesy and 
 respect from doing me any ill office, whereof certain 
 persons (under the colour of much love to> me, or 
 rather perhaps, with the cloath [sic] of a little 
 malice towards him) had put me into a vehement 
 kind of fear. And next, out of a curious desire 
 which I had, not to take him upon mere trust of 
 others, but to know and converse a little, hand to 
 hand, with a person of so much reputation through- 
 out the world, for great experience and wisdom. 
 
 At length I came to Rome, and I visited Fa. 
 Persons, and made my excuses for not having done 
 it before, as I passed by. The worthy man received 
 me with all humanity, and fell, at first, upon speech 
 
 15 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 of some near friends of mine, whom he had 
 anciently known in England. After that, I well 
 remember, he grew quickly into a general kind of 
 discourse of the many journeys which I had made, 
 of the variety of the countries where I had passed, 
 of the customs which I might have observed, yea, 
 and of the several religions which I might have met 
 with, in divers places, and, finally of the beauty and 
 dignity and illustrious antiquity of that province 
 and place where then I was ; and this was all. 
 
 When I gave him a second visit, I remember also 
 well that he took occasion from somewhat which 
 was said of Savoy to speak much to me of the 
 hideous rocks and mountains of that country, and 
 with how extreme hazard and pains men were glad 
 to climb, or rather indeed, to creep up by those 
 inaccessible ways, to pick out handfuls of earth, 
 which they might either plant or sow, for the 
 getting of a miserable poor subsistence, and, as it 
 were, to venture even their lives in one kind, that so 
 they might save them, for some little time, in 
 another. And if this (said he) be discreetly done 
 for such a poor kind of life, as this is, how well must 
 it deserve another manner of labour and care, when 
 there is question of acquiring another kind of life, 
 which is to be infinite and eternal. 
 
 Before we parted at that time, there grew to be 
 
 16 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 some speech of the King; and I remember very 
 well that he spake with great respect of his 
 Majesty, and with much praise of has virtues and 
 parts ; and was also very glad to hear many par- 
 ticulars, which I was able to tell him, in order to 
 the same end. From thence he came, naturally 
 enough, to touch upon Q. Elizabeth, as well 
 in the way of her person, as of her government. 
 And, indeed it appeared plainly that he admired 
 not her very much ; though yet he praised her intel- 
 lectual parts in some kind. But he spake largely 
 enough of such things as he thought to be defects, 
 yea and public vices, in her. For my part I 
 thought what I listed, though I held it not to be 
 my business to convert him there. But he passed 
 on from Q. Elizabeth, and took occasion to 
 speak much of Q. Marie of Scotland, who had 
 suffered so barbarous a death under the reign of 
 that other Queen of ours, who yet indeed, said he, 
 had no right at all in blood to that crown, but that 
 it belonged ever wholly to the other. Upon that 
 he fell into a more abstracted kind of discourse 
 of the uncertainty and misery of this world, of the 
 variety and contrariety of men's fortunes, and the 
 success of their lives, &c. This he exemplified 
 particularly in the persons of those two Queens ; 
 and he showed how together with that contrivance 
 
 17 C 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 of Q. Elizabeth in all her vanity and vice, 
 from the very first to the last of her reign, she had 
 lived still in abundance of prosperity and felicity, 
 whereas yet Q. Marie of Scotland had spent 
 almost twenty years of all the latter part of her 
 life in the exercise of all Christian virtue, of 
 humility, patience, charity, and piety, and suffered 
 in that time so many disasters and sad accidents 
 of seditions, surprises, rebellions, and huge personal 
 indignities in her own country, and in ours of a 
 perpetual captivity, which every day grew straiter 
 than other, and was still accompanied with par- 
 ticular affronts, and scorns, and insolences, and 
 (which yet was far more) with most sensible 
 neglects; and finally with an abominable unjust 
 trial for her life ; and then, with the inflicting of a 
 most savage death which fell upon her, by order 
 of our state, from the hand of a base hangman ; 
 without their suffering her before to have so< much 
 as the comfort of a ghostly father ; which act was 
 yet (if it were possible) made both more odious and 
 more infamous, even after her death, by the de- 
 formity of that hypocrisy, which Q. Elizabeth used, as 
 if, forsooth, they had transgressed in the highest kind 
 for ordering and directing that to be done, which 
 the world knows very well to have flowed from her 
 own inveterate hatred, though yet it might spring 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 partly from her guilty fear. So that, said Father 
 Persons, since God is so perfectly just, and weighs 
 us all in a most exact balance, and permits the 
 accidents of this world to be carried ini so unequal 
 a way, and that here they many times suffer much 
 who live with greatest care and practise virtue 
 most ; and they also, on the other side, who are 
 most vain and vicious prosper best ; there must 
 needs be a Day of Judgment, when all accounts, 
 whether of Princes or private men, will not fail to 
 be cast up, and set straight, even to a hair. In such 
 discourse as this that hour or two passed away. 
 
 But here I must not omit to speak of a certain 
 diligence, which I held it fit for me to use in that 
 place for the greater security of my person. For 
 though already I had all cause to receive content- 
 ment in Fa. Persons, yet there wanted not some 
 in Rome who wished me not to make myself too 
 sure of him, and that he would, perhaps, play me 
 some trick in the end. Now, as I believed not fully 
 what they said, so yet could I not be sure that they 
 were deceived, and therefore I desired to do my 
 best to prevent the worst. So as then I resolved to 
 present myself to some one of the prime Cardinals 
 of the 1 Inquisition, in such sort as I will instantly 
 declare. And because I doubted much that I 
 should hardly be able so to do it that Fa. 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 Persons would not be sure enough to know of it 
 afterward, I thought that I might therefore proceed 
 best for myself if I put a kind of obligation upon 
 him, by telling him of it beforehand. I did so, 
 and he not only approved, but did also applaud 
 my conceit ; and said that I should do prudently in 
 it, and might thereby secure myself against the 
 whole world. The Father told me also that he 
 would give me, if I would, a guide and a companion 
 for that purpose (because, indeed, he was not very 
 well himself at that time) who should lead me to 
 Cardinal Pinelli, a very worthy man and the Chief 
 of the Congregation of the Inquisition, and who 
 vouchsafed also to be a friend and favourer of his 
 after a most particular manner. I thanked him ; 
 I accepted of the offer ; he gave me Mr. Sweet to 
 conduct me, and so, at the very instant, we went 
 to wait upon the Cardinal. I told him (when I had 
 performed my humble respects unto his Lordship) 
 that I hoped he would not find it strange if I, 
 being an Englishman, as I was, were of the same 
 religion whereof that Kingdom made profession; 
 that my occupation was to see countries, and 
 especially that renowned city; that, as long as I 
 lived there without committing any scandal, I would 
 humbly desire and hope to enjoy the favour and 
 benefit of his protection, and if that might not be 
 
 20 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 afforded, that he would yet vouchsafe to let me 
 know his pleasure, that so I might retire myself 
 without danger. 
 
 His answer was to this effect : that welcome was 
 due to me as a stranger, but that, as I was an 
 Englishman, I might expect and should receive a 
 double welcome ; both because that country had 
 been formerly one of the dearest children of God's 
 Church, as also for that it had not forsaken the 
 Catholic faith out of heresy and election, but only 
 by the imposition and power of temporal Princes, 
 who had misguided themselves ; that so long as I 
 would converse there, without scandal I might 
 promise myself the! same security which I could 
 expect at home, in any house of mine own ; that 
 if danger should be coming towards me (which yet, 
 he said, could not arrive without his privity) he 
 would be sure to enable me with means how to 
 avoid it; that if, in the meanwhile, I would pass 
 any part of my time with him, either within doors 
 or abroad, his palace should be ever open to me, 
 and his coach ever ready to attend me ; that 
 although he would oblige me to nothing, yet he 
 would make one request to me, for mine own sake — 
 namely, that, since I was a stranger, and a traveller, 
 and had suffered my curiosity to lead me thither, I 
 would be careful not only to view the antiquities of 
 
 21 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 the old decayed Roman Empire, but also of the not 
 decayed Catholic Roman Church, which were there 
 to be read in a fair letter, and in a large volume ; 
 that if men should endeavour to conceal the 
 antiquity and excellency of that Church, the very 
 stones might serve for preachers ; and not only the 
 buildings above ground, but even the very vaults 
 and caves under it ; and, in conformity hereof, he 
 recommended to me very particularly those of St. 
 Sebastian and St. Pancratius, to which I went soon 
 after, with an extraordinary kind of curiosity. 
 
 So, as I did in that what I desired, and I must 
 confess in the presence of God, that the sight of 
 those most ancient crosses, altars, sepulchres, and 
 other marks of Catholic religion, having been 
 planted there in the persecution of the primitive 
 Church (which might be more than fifteen hundred 
 years ago, and could not be less than thirteen 
 hundred) did strike me with a kind of reverent 
 awe, and made me absolutely resolve to repress my 
 insolent discourse against Catholic religion ever 
 after. 
 
 But for the present, I did reverence to the 
 Cardinal, and gave him most humble and entire 
 thanks for the nobleness and favour of his proceed- 
 ing towards me; and so I departed for that time, 
 and waited upon him often afterward, according 
 
 22 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 to the occasion. And, finally I took my leave of 
 him when I went away; and still he continued 
 towards me in the' self same way of civility ; only 
 he asked me if I had done what he had desired, by 
 visiting the holy places aforesaid ; and whether I 
 went not out of Rome with better thoughts of the 
 religion which was professed there than I had 
 brought thither. I told him that I had done what 
 he commanded, and, for the rest, that I was better 
 informed of some things than I had formerly been ; 
 and that I would carry my heart open to. the 
 inspirations which it should please God to send me. 
 In the meantime I professed myself to be ex- 
 tremely obliged to his Lordship for his great 
 favour ; and I humbly prayed him to behold me as 
 a most faithful servant of his. And so. we parted. 
 
 But the memory of his proceeding passed not 
 from me, when I considered, as I do still, that many 
 a High Commissioner or Justice of the Peace in 
 England would perhaps, and even without per- 
 haps, have looked upon a better man than myself 
 if he had been a stranger and of a strange religion, 
 and liable to his jurisdiction, after a much more 
 severe and surly manner. For the Cardinal would 
 never speak to me till I had put on my hat as soon 
 as he ; nor till I sat down in as good a chair as his ; 
 and whensoever I parted from him, he accompanied 
 
 23 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 me two or three rooms from his own, and with a 
 
 countenance if it were possible, which even made 
 
 the sauce better than the meat. By this means 
 
 I had procured to make it most perfectly safe for 
 
 me) to stay as long as I would in Rome, from 
 
 whence, when my occasions should call me (which 
 
 was not likely to be during three months at least), 
 
 I intended to go towards Florence, to make a much 
 
 longer residence there. 
 
 In the meantime, during my stay at Rome, my 
 
 pleasures and vain curiosities took up the greatest 
 
 part of my time ; though yet such hours as I could 
 
 spare I was glad to bestow upon Fa. Persons, 
 
 whom I thanked in most particular manner for 
 
 the address which he had given me to' the Cardinal, 
 
 wherein he also rejoiced. And daily he procured 
 
 to put new courtesies and civilities upon me, and 
 
 desired (upon my profession) that I would requite 
 
 the good will which he had to serve me, by casting 
 
 an eye at idle hours upon such a Catholic book as 
 
 he would send me, by the same friend of mine, 
 
 Mr. Sweet, who was a great dependent of his, and 
 
 to whom I had much obligation from much of his 
 
 good company at that time. Now this book is one 
 
 of them, which Mr. William Reynolds* wrote, and 
 
 ♦William Rainolds (1544 ?-i 594) a convert from the 
 Church of England. His Refutation of sundry Repre- 
 hensions, &>c. (the book referred to) was published at Paris, 
 1583.— Ed. 
 
 24 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 it is called, as I remember, his Reprehension of 
 Dr. Whitaker. I promised to read both that and 
 whatsoever else Fa. Persons should recommend 
 to me ; though my idle and worse courses made me 
 slack in my performance at that time. 
 
 Yet to keep my negligence from his knowledge 
 my custom was at the instant (whensoever I went 
 to visit the good Father) to open the book which 
 he had lent me, in three or four several places, 
 thereby to enable myself to propound some few 
 questions or doubts, that so he might conceive I 
 was not wholly careless of what he advised. And 
 thus I hoped that I had only circumvented him, 
 though I quickly found afterward that it was 
 myself whom I had deceived most. For besides 
 the hurt which I did myself, in order to mine own 
 soul, it deprived me for a time of reading one of 
 the most excellent books, even for wit and good 
 discourses, that ever I saw, and especially in 
 respect of the Preface, which is both very large 
 and perfect in the proof of that to which it drives ; 
 and I wish that the world would so peruse it as 
 thereby to make it wholly their own. 
 
 But the shift which then I made to cozen me 
 even of myself could not long serve my turn against 
 such a man as Fa. Persons was, in such a cause 
 as his ; and so, in after conferences (for by that 
 
 25 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 time he was grown to speak clearly to me) he con- 
 vinced my understanding in many things, wherein 
 yet I profess that I do not so much as mean to 
 praise him much or to flatter him at all. For the 
 truth and certainty of Catholic doctrine is such that 
 I hold it at this day the greatest miracle of the 
 whole world that a man who is in any way of a 
 judgment and will which is not mightily depraved, 
 can forbear to> subscribe entirely to the truth of 
 Catholic doctrine, and to acknowledge his obedi- 
 ence to the holy Catholic Church, upon that kind 
 of conference and proof, which he may easily hear 
 thereof, within the space of a very few hours, from 
 any Catholic learned man. 
 
 But now the Father proved to me, by a most 
 evident demonstration out of St. Thomas (as 
 evident as it is that two and two make four, though 
 at the first it may perhaps seem to some but a kind 
 of impossible and ridiculous paradox), that whoso- 
 ever believes not all the points of Catholic doctrine 
 hath no supernatural faith at all in any one of them. 
 Because such a person wants the true and formal 
 reason of faith, which only is and only can be, the 
 revelation of God's truth, propounded by the 
 Catholic Church to be believed ; which Church, if 
 it teach two doctrines or twenty or two hundred, 
 if a man will not believe any one of all that 
 
 26 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 number, it is evident that he believes not any of 
 the rest, upon the said formal reason of faith, which 
 is the revelation of God, propounded by that 
 Church, which Christ, our Lord, hath instituted and 
 established, since the same authority extends alike 
 to all the other articles which she propounds. But 
 he doth it, either upon the discourse of his own 
 reason, or spirit, which perhaps he will miscall the 
 Holy Ghost, or upon his own idle interpretation of 
 Holy Scripture, which he will not stick to call the 
 Word of God ; or else upon the credit which he 
 gives to some modern sectary, or other, which he 
 will needs conceive to be, forsooth, the Congrega- 
 tion of the elect, or faithful ; or, in a word, upon 
 some such fallible and false motive as one of those ; 
 which is a foundation so slippery or so sandy as no 
 article of faith (which must needs be certain, or 
 otherwise it can be no> true faith at all) is ever to 
 be established thereupon. 
 
 In the second place he showed me out of the 
 Fathers of the first four hundred years after Christ 
 our Lord (which I knew to be within that time 
 wherein the English Protestants confess the 
 Church to have been incorrupt) that prayers to 
 Saints, prayers and sacrifice for the dead, limbus 
 ■patrum, justification by faith and works, the pre- 
 ferring of virginity before matrimony, the necessity 
 
 2; 
 
THE CONVERSION OB' 
 
 of baptism, the sacrifice of the body and blood of 
 Christ our Lord, which is the mass, the Catholic 
 canon of Holy Scripture, the lawfulness and frequent 
 use of vows, and the other doctrines which are 
 controverted at this day between Catholics and 
 Protestants, were all embraced and believed by 
 the Catholics of those times, as they are now by 
 them of these. 
 
 And here he gave me also a most excellent rule : 
 that whensoever any writer or Father (either by 
 way of expounding Scripture, or else by way of 
 recommending or declaring the practice of the 
 Church of his time, or upon any other occasion 
 whatsoever) did set on foot any doctrine which was 
 contrary to the ancient tradition and judgment of 
 the holy Catholic Church of his time, he was pre- 
 sently rebuked and confuted, by the other Fathers 
 of that present age. And this proposition he 
 exemplified in the persons of Tertullian, St. 
 Cyprian, and the most learned Origen. And he 
 showed that whensoever any doctrine was 
 affirmed by any of the Fathers which was not 
 contradicted or controlled by any other of the 
 same, or the next succeeding age, it might serve us 
 for an assurance that the said doctrine was no 
 innovation, or particular opinion of that private 
 Father, but expressed by him upon such occasions 
 
 28 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 as then were ministered, in the sense and spirit of 
 the holy Catholic Church of Christ our Lord. Nay, 
 it is not only so, as he said, whensoever one of 
 the Fathers hath differed from another in any point 
 of doctrine, but even when they have earnestly 
 varied in the interpretation of some important part 
 of Scripture. For they were not then wont to fail 
 to express home enough what they thought, and 
 therein, said he, let that serve for good proof which 
 occurred between St. Hierome and St. Augustine 
 about the reprehensibleness of St. Peter by St. 
 Paul. 
 
 He represented to me also then in a third place, 
 how the Fathers of the aforesaid ages did not only 
 agree with the present Catholics in those articles 
 which are received at this day by the Protestants, 
 and which I have already pointed out, but did also 
 condemn all heretics in general, as incapable of sal- 
 vation, and consequently all such persons as either 
 in ancient, or any other times did obstinately profess 
 any one of those, or any other heresy at all. And 
 to prove that assertion he showed me (besides the 
 practice of those ancient Fathers) their express 
 authorities also, which are plentifully set forth in 
 many of their writings, to prove that not only 
 heretics but even schismatics also (who only refuse 
 Church discipline) can never be saved except they 
 
 29 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 do penance for that sin, although they should sell 
 and dispose of all their substance to the poor, yea, 
 and sacrifice their very lives for the exaltation and 
 honour of the name of Christ our Lord, in contra- 
 diction of the impiety of the Pagans. And he 
 showed me also divers catalogues, and namely 
 those of St. Epiphanius and St. Augustine, wherein 
 the heresies both of those and of the former times 
 were set down, amongst which there are divers 
 which are held by Protestants at this day, whereas 
 yet St. Augustine declares that whosoever holds 
 any one is not so much as a Christian ; and there- 
 fore that, without repentance, he cannot possibly be 
 saved. 
 
 I remember also that once he invited me to dine 
 with him at the College- Vineyard ; where, after he 
 had entertained me with other speech of several 
 kinds, he abruptly desired leave to let me see what 
 the judgment of St. Augustine was concerning 
 Purgatory. And he opened many clear and large 
 discourses to me, whereby it was not only apparent 
 that he taught this doctrine, but that, in the judg- 
 ment of this Saint, those pains were incomparably 
 greater than all the torments of this life. I won- 
 dered then at the reason why Fa. Persons should 
 press me so far (who was yet so very much 
 unprepared) with a point which ordinarily seems 
 
 30 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 to be of so much discomfort, and from the belief 
 whereof I had really ever found an extraordinary 
 aversion in myself. But the wise religious man did 
 partly work (as it should seem) upon the reverent 
 respect which I professed to carry unfeignedly 
 towards that mirror of grace and nature, the great 
 St. Augustine, and partly also, perhaps, upon his 
 own consideration not so much of what I was then 
 as what I was likely to be afterwards, when I 
 should give greater care to God's inspirations. 
 For, indeed, as the belief of Purgatory is a thing 
 which careless Protestants cannot endure, so men 
 who have grown to a. moderate conceit of Catholic 
 religion are easily brought to infer, by the pains of 
 Purgatory, which are inflicted sometimes upon men 
 of the most virtuous sort, that the torments of hell, 
 which are prepared for profane and' unrepentant 
 sinners, are not only beyond the power of man's 
 patience to support, but even of his conceit to 
 apprehend. And though, when I was a Protestant, 
 I often thought within myself that I would never 
 be a Roman Catholic, if it were but only in respect 
 of their believing the doctrine of Purgatory which 
 I accounted to be so discomfortable and severe, 
 yet afterward, when I meant to become a Catholic 
 indeed, and much more when I was entirely of that 
 profession, I really found the same to be of 
 
 3i 
 
THE CONVERSION OK 
 
 most extraordinary comfort, and one of the fittest 
 of all others to keep a fearful soul from despair. 
 For whosoever seriously considers his own weak- 
 ness and frailty, together with his wickedness and 
 malice, as also the infinite majesty and the 
 unspeakable purity of Almighty God, and that his 
 justice in the punishment of sin is no less infinite 
 than his mercy in forgiving it, will hardly be able 
 to entertain any lively hope that he may come to 
 enjoy the kingdom of heaven, unless, after this life, 
 there; be some place, established and believed, 
 wherein the souls of men may be purged from 
 those penalties which are due to such sins as are 
 committed, and were not expiated in this world. 
 For as in nature non datur transire ad extrema, 
 nisi per media, things cannot pass from one 
 extreme to another, without touching upon the 
 mean or middle way; so in things which are of 
 grace, and do supernaturally concern the soul, it 
 is a most profane and foolish gross conceit that 
 men may proceed from the carnal pleasures of this 
 life to the spiritual and immortal joys of heaven, 
 unless first they become subject to the state of 
 penances, which must be undergone, either in this 
 or in the other life ; and so may serve both for the 
 purification in respect of the sensualities, which are 
 past, and for a preparation and a disposition also 
 
 32 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 for the felicity and immortality thereof, which is to 
 come. 
 
 But to return at length to myself, the good and 
 prudent Father did work so powerfully by these 
 means upon my understanding, while I was yet at 
 Rome, that, if I had not wilfully drawn the curtain 
 between it and my will and made myself more 
 incapable of God's great mercy by so dissolute and 
 careless a life as I led, I am half persuaded that 
 perhaps I might have departed from thence as true 
 a Catholic, as it is certain that I was by that time, 
 grown, in my judgment, to be no very earnest 
 Protestant. And howsoever I found myself to be 
 in great obligation to esteem and honour Fa. 
 Persons for his other many courtesies and virtues, 
 and especially for his desire to inform' me of that 
 which did concern me most, yet the ingenuous and 
 noble manner, wherewith he endeavoured it, was 
 that which most affected me then ; since in all the 
 time of my abode there, he never urged me ex- 
 pressly to any alteration of my opinion ; no, nor yet 
 did he so much as importune me to know whether 
 my judgment was satisfied by his discourse or no, 
 but prayed me only that I would make the search 
 of true religion my greatest business ; and exhorted 
 me in a most grave and most prudent and a most 
 pious manner to resign myself wholly into the 
 
 33 D 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 hands of Almighty God, and to beseech him by 
 often and earnest prayers that he would enable 
 me to find and follow that Church, that faith, and 
 that religion, which alone he came to live and die 
 to plant ; and which would only be able to save my 
 soul. And upon this, with many assurances from 
 him of his prayers, and from me of my service, I 
 took leave. 
 
 But now God, who wrought upon me by his 
 unsearchable ways, and followed me on so close 
 with his endless mercies, instead of punishing all 
 my negligences and offences, vouchsafed to con- 
 descend to my infirmities, and permitted me still 
 to be nourished in that insatiable desire of the 
 perfection of the Italian tongue, and other idle 
 qualities, which I loved as well as any fool would 
 dote upon a fine bauble ; to the end whilst I 
 was laying hold upon no> more but the very bark 
 of the tree, he might secretly insinuate and distil 
 into my soul that juice and fruit, which should 
 afterwards direct, refresh and save it. 
 
 First, then, after my return to Florence, I re- 
 solved to live out of the company of all English, 
 and I did not so much as except the dearest friends 
 I had ; and I lodged myself in a kind of remote 
 quarter of the town, and in a house where no 
 countrymen of mine did ever come. I met them 
 
 34 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 sometimes abroad, but taught them not the way 
 home to me. I frequented plays, and worse places. I 
 went equally to the mountebanks and to preachers. 
 I read also books of all kinds, and very often such 
 as were of the lightest air ; as comedies whose 
 matter not affecting the mind much, the words 
 would both come quicklier, and stick closer to it. 
 For the language was that mistress which I re- 
 solved most to court at that time. But howsoever 
 I spent my days vainly, yet the evenings made a 
 kind of amends. For they put me more in mind 
 of myself, and my heart would be very sober, when 
 I came home, though it used to be half drunk when 
 I was abroad. The Carnival grew also then to an 
 end ; and Lent began, the very face of which time, 
 in those parts, makes men less dissolute than they 
 were. And so I had no longer been a few weeks 
 alone, but that by frequenting sermons, which I 
 continued to hear out of curiosity, and by settling 
 myself upon a more virtuous and recollected way of 
 life, or rather upon one that was less vicious ; and 
 my recommending my soul to God by prayer 
 (though it were but seldom and faintly made) it 
 pleased his Divine Majesty to alter the object of 
 mine eyes, which till then had wandered through- 
 out the corners of the world (for oculi stultorum in 
 -finibus terrae), and to turn them inward upon 
 
 35 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 myself. And so I began to consider what I was ; 
 how I lived ; what I believed ; what account I were 
 able to make, if then I should be called to 
 give it up. Withal he gave me grace to ponder 
 the extent of man's soul, to which all God's 
 creatures can give no full satisfaction at all ; the 
 miseries of this life ; the uncertainty of death ; the 
 strictness of the Judge ; the immutability of the 
 sentence ; and, in a word, the great danger wherein 
 I was to be tormented in the fire of hell, and not 
 only to be deprived of God, but to blaspheme him ; 
 and that eternally ; for ever and for ever, as long 
 as God himself was to be God. 
 
 These considerations cast me often into so great 
 perplexity, and anxiety of mind, as drew me, in 
 short time, to be half asking that question — Domine, 
 quid me vis facere ? I knew that religion was the 
 foundation of all Christian life ; that without true 
 faith it was impossible to please God. I con- 
 sidered that the world was so extremely divided 
 in the judgment which it made of true and false 
 religions in this age, every man pretending for his 
 own, and censuring, excommunicating, and even 
 damning such as differ from it. I knew that false- 
 hood might be infinite, but that truth could be but 
 One. And I reflected upon the novelty of the 
 Protestant faith, and the motive which Luther 
 
 36 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 had in Germany, and King Henry in England, and 
 how different they were both from one another. 
 And I was not then also to learn that till about 
 a hundred years before, the Catholic religion had 
 been embraced in all these Northern provinces of 
 the world, where now so many sorts are seen to 
 reign. 
 
 I examined in that good library of St. Mark's 
 in Florence (for that exquisite library of St. 
 Laurence is too strictly kept) those passages of 
 the ancient Fathers, which had been already 
 showed me at Rome, and whereof I had taken and 
 kept some notes. And I did not only find them to 
 be as they were! there alleged, but in looking for 
 them I met with many more unlooked for, which 
 gave me sufficient assurance that Protestancy was 
 not only a mere innovation, but a damnable kind 
 of novelty in the judgment of the whole primitive 
 Church. For though their names were not known 
 at that time, yet the heresies, which they now 
 profess, were condemned then ; and particularly 
 I was much taken by studying that excellent tract 
 of St. Augustine, De Unit ate Ecclesiae, where I 
 found that the Donatists pretended to defend their 
 errors, not only by texts of Scripture, as the Pro- 
 testants do, but even by many of the self same 
 texts of Scripture which are used by them now for 
 
 37 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 that purpose. And that, on the other side, that 
 holy Father did confute them, and prove the 
 Catholic to be the true Church of Christ our Lord, 
 by the universality thereof, with the same passages 
 and texts, which the Catholics bring at this day 
 against the Protestants. 
 
 The reading of that book and others of that 
 holy Father, wherein so honourable mention is 
 made of the Church of Christ our Lord, some- 
 times speaking of the continual visibility thereof 
 in her pastors and doctors, sometimes of her 
 miracles, sometimes of her conversion of Pagans, 
 of her sanctity, of her perpetuity, of her visi- 
 bility, and sometimes of her infallibility, gave 
 me reason then to think, yea and more than 
 think, that I might safely trust my soul in her 
 hands who Christ our Lord himself had made 
 the supreme judge of our controversies, and 
 protested that the very gates of hell should never 
 be able to prevail against her. So that my resolu- 
 tion was to pursue the search of that true Church, 
 and it was little sooner sought than found. So 
 truly it was foretold by the prophet Esay that the 
 ways of serving God in the days of the Messias 
 should be so very plainly discovered and so easily 
 discerned, ut stulti non errarent per earn, that even 
 fools should not be deceived in the search thereof. 
 
 38 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 And not only my understanding being shortly 
 then convinced, but my will beginning also to be 
 well inclined, I fell about that time into acquaint- 
 ance with some devout Italian gentlemen, and so 
 I made no difficulty to accompany them sometimes 
 to certain Spiritual Congregations ; wherein I saw 
 the exercise of such solid and massy virtue prac- 
 tised ; such devotions used ; and so great penances 
 performed ; and all carried with such secrecy and 
 absence of all ostentation, that I was filled with 
 admiration in respect of them, and with confusion 
 in regard of myself. 
 
 Upon these occasions and examples, the mercy 
 of Almighty God inspired me to become wholly 
 his; but my heart, by the long habit of sin, was 
 rusty, and would by no means learn how to walk in 
 the holy way of his will. But my resistance cost 
 me dear; for I grew thereby into an unspeakable 
 desolation of mind, and so I continued divers days 
 and weeks ; till, at length, the Devil, or else mine 
 own bad inclination (which was almost as much 
 mine enemy as he), suggested a conceit to me, 
 which for a while I took as current, but soon after 
 (as it were in despite almost of mine own very 
 heart) I was forced to confess that it was but 
 counterfeit. 
 
 For thus it said : that although I were then grown 
 
 39 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 to conceive the Catholic to be the true religion of 
 Christ our Lord, yet I was not bound at that time 
 to embrace and perform the same ; that my opinion 
 was grounded upon the information of one only 
 party or side; that the world would tax me of 
 indiscretion, if I should precipitate myself, in a 
 matter of so great importance ; that howsoever God 
 were delighted in the zeal of his servants, yet he 
 was also well content not to have them fools ; and 
 therefore I had heard that one of the ingredients 
 to the sacrifices to the old Law was salt, which is 
 the symbol of discretion ; that when I should 
 return either into France or England, I might hear 
 the learned men of both religions discuss the con- 
 troversies thereof; and so build a more solid and 
 permanent election thereupon. I gave most 
 grateful audience to this motion, and thought it to 
 be founded in all justice and reason ; and SO' my 
 mind was restored to his former peace for a while. 
 
 But Woe to them who cry Peace where there is 
 no peace. The enemies of my soul had a meaning 
 to betray me with a kiss, as Judas did his master. 
 For this pretence had nothing in it of reason but 
 only the appearance and mask, which the mercy 
 of Almighty God (who never abandoned me any 
 further" than only to let me see how little I was 
 able to do without him) did give help to enable 
 
 40 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 me to discharge. And so it represented to me by 
 way of answer : that I was not such a stranger in 
 the understanding of Protestant doctrine as the 
 objection did presume ; that although perhapsi I 
 might be ignorant of what could be pretended in 
 some particular controversy, yet I knew the grounds 
 and principles thereof well enough ; and my con- 
 science told me with a loud voice that they were of 
 no validity at all ; for they cannot so much as 
 pretend to have any lawful succession of priests 
 and pastors not interrupted, who have preached 
 and taught their doctrine from the Apostles 
 downward till these times ; that Luther and Calvin 
 professed to have been extraordinarily called by 
 Almighty God for the reformation of the Church, 
 and yet showed no miracles, which have always 
 been the seals, which must necessarily be! annexed 
 to such high commissions as those ; that although 
 the Protestants were all departed out of the Church 
 of Rome, yet the Lutherans continued in deadly 
 wars against the Calvinists, et e converse* ; differing 
 both in the canon of Holy Scriptures, the question of 
 the real presence in the Eucharist, and many other 
 most important articles of Christian faith, whereof 
 many books are full, and in conformity hereof, did 
 excommunicate one another as heretics ; that they 
 confess their Congregations not to be infallibly 
 
 41 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 assisted by the Holy Spirit of Almighty God ; and 
 that, if they may fall into error, men cannot be 
 assured but that they do; that some of them teach 
 that there is no necessity for the Church of Christ 
 to be always visible to the eyes of men ; and that 
 the rest, who hold it to be necessary, are yet not 
 able to show that visibility but only in the Church 
 of Rome, which they are forced to profess (though 
 most absurdly) to be the same Church with theirs ; 
 that the commandments of God are directly im- 
 possible to be kept, even with His grace; which 
 seemed to me to be a barbarous and blasphemous 
 opinion ; that the counsels of Christ our Lord 
 concerning voluntary poverty and abnegation of 
 the will, which I found not only to be professed 
 but practised by so many Fathers of the ancient 
 Church, were continued by the Roman Catholics at 
 this day, and rejected and derided by all Protes- 
 tants, as both unlawful and absurd ; that there was 
 no infallible judge of controversies in religion 
 amongst them ; and that, howsoever they would 
 seem to be ruled by Holy Scripture, yet in truth it 
 was but their own private interpretation thereof 
 which they received, and that, to crown both their 
 heresy and their folly, they protest men to have no 
 free will in accepting and rejecting that grace, 
 which is imparted to the soul of man by the liberal 
 
 hand of Almighty God. 
 
 42 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 These, and many other particulars did offer them- 
 selves at this time, so clearly to my understanding 
 and consideration, that, if ever my soul were satis- 
 fied in discerning the direct falsehood, and extreme 
 absurdity of their grounds, it was chiefly and most 
 expressly then. For then did I conceive myself 
 to see them even, as it were, more distinctly with 
 my understanding than I could visibly have seen 
 any sensible object with mine eye. For I saw 
 them not discursively one by one, but they were 
 represented to me all together, as in a most bright 
 glass, in such a manner as really I am not able to 
 express how very, very exact I found the thing to 
 be. And I saw, with extreme horror and abomina- 
 tion, of how unequal and deformed parts that other 
 monstrous body of heresy did consist 
 
 Now to those things which Protestants do most 
 improbably profess. I also laid the consideration 
 of some such qualities and conditions as I most 
 easily found to belong to the true Church of Christ 
 our Lord, which they could not, with any appear- 
 ance, apply to theirs ; and I will reflect upon them 
 here again, though partly they were touched before. 
 As namely ; that it was prophesied she was to 
 be universally spread over the whole world; that 
 she should be as visible as a mountain set upon a 
 plain ; that her light should never fail ; that she 
 
 43 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 was to be the converter of nations and Gentiles from 
 idolatry ; that kings should be her nursing-fathers, 
 and queens her nursing-mothers ; that eternally 
 there should be a clean and pure sacrifice offered 
 up to Almighty God in this Church. And I saw 
 with the very eye of my soul that all these pre- 
 dictions, and many others, had been and were 
 still most evidently fulfilled in and by the holy 
 Catholic Church, communicating from time to time 
 with the successor of St. Peter, the Bishop of 
 Rome, and not one of them by any other at all. 
 And I held myself therefore to be wholly inexcus- 
 able before Almighty God, if, upon the affectation 
 of such a dangerous, yea, and foolish kind of 
 wisdom, I should defer my conversion to his Divine 
 Majesty; and that if, in the meantime, he should 
 call me to give account of myself upon a short 
 warning, I might justly and most worthily fall into 
 the hands of his justice, for having neglected to 
 make better use of his unspeakable mercy. 
 
 So that now I proposed fully to become a 
 Catholic, and that with speed ; when the enemy 
 of my soul, who never slept, assaulted me yet in 
 another kind. For then he laid before me how 
 impossible a thing it would be for me to reform 
 that disordered life of mine ; the temporal vexa- 
 tions and afflictions which I was likely to incur by 
 
 44 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 this means ; the confiscation of what I then 
 possessed ; the most certain deprivation of whatso- 
 ever I might expect in future times ; the blasting 
 of my poor reputation, which ill tongues would take 
 from me at their pleasure ; the loss of my friends, 
 of my liberty, and peradventure also of my 
 country ; yea, and perhaps (as the times were then 
 set) an odious and ignominious death, when I 
 should return to England, for persuading some 
 man to be a Catholic, or perhaps for relieving some 
 priest. 
 
 These things, I say, he laid before me, and set 
 them out in so fresh and lively colours that they 
 seemed rather bodies than pictures in the eyes of 
 mine imagination. For I take the Blessed Trinity 
 and all the glorious Court of Heaven to witness 
 that, through the mighty and most powerful im- 
 pressions which were made upon my perplexed 
 mind by these temptations (though partly also they 
 proved to be predictions) I verily thought myself 
 and that at several times (through the uncontrolled 
 progress of my imagination) not to be 1 as I was 
 then, at Florence, and at liberty, but at London 
 and in prison ; and that from thence I was to be 
 carried at Tyburn, there to suffer death for the 
 confession and profession of my faith. 
 
 And at the issue out of these conflicts, which 
 
 45 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 were many, I was wont to find myself all overgrown 
 with sweats, and overlaboured with extreme and 
 most discomfortable palpitations of the heart ; 
 though yet, I humbly thank Almighty God, they 
 did my body much more hurt than my mind. For 
 the fits were no sooner past but I found myself, 
 through his grace, not only comforted but re- 
 integrated in my former resolutions, and I 
 rendered to his Divine Majesty most profound and 
 cordial thanks for giving me even then, rather a 
 desire than a dislike to suffer anything which could 
 happen for so great and so glorious a cause. 
 
 Neither did the circumstance of that time detain 
 me at all from making myself a Catholic, the! dis- 
 covery of the Powder-treason having succeeded 
 but four or five months before. For that happened 
 in November, and this in the February following. 
 But as, on the one side, I was not so very simple 
 as to translate the crime of men to the religion 
 which they professed, and which, I knew, had read 
 them no such lesson as that (and therefore whoso- 
 ever serves himself of such objections may be 
 thought rather to frame than find excuses for their 
 own faults), so, on the other side, I was far from 
 thinking myself too good to run the same fortune 
 with that Church, which was to be my mother; 
 and to take my part of that slander which is 
 
 46 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 raised against her, upon unjust occasions by foolish 
 and malicious persons, in making her the friend 
 and favourer of such bloody and barbarous designs. 
 The reformation of my life, whereupon I must 
 then be sure to resolve (for else, to become a 
 Catholic were to have called myself fool by craft, 
 and as good never a whit as never the better), did 
 through the mercy of Almighty God, not foreslow 
 my conversion to him at all. For I knew that he 
 gave sufficiency of grace to all men, for the amend- 
 ment of their lives, if they would not be extremely 
 wanting to themselves, I saw that even miracles 
 had been brought upon many others, who' yet 
 were formerly in most desperate case ; and I meant 
 not to disoblige Almighty God by despair, who, if 
 he fed even his very enemies with drops, would 
 not fail to> furnish his faithful servants and true 
 sons with full vessels of his holy grace. So that 
 now, being resolved to accept and cherish God's 
 assistance, through the same assistance it seemed 
 even to my understanding that the holy sacraments 
 of Christ our Lord, which are the conveyances of 
 the merit of his most precious blood and passion 
 to men's souls, would more easily be able to make 
 me chaste of carnal, than his inspirations had 
 already made me resolve to become Catholic of 
 Protestant. 
 
 47 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 But then, two main and mighty pieces of artillery 
 were brought by that enemy of God and man to 
 batter and beat down my good purposes — the love 
 of my parents, and the detestation which I had of a 
 great person in England,* who had long done me 
 the honour to hate me, and to express it upon all 
 occasions, and particularly to do me as I conceived, 
 injustice, in a part of my fortune. 
 
 By the first, he suggested to me what an ill- 
 conditioned a man I was, to keep so bad quarter 
 with them, to whom I was so closely bound by 
 nature, and who did so tenderly and dearly love 
 me ; that for me to become a Catholic was, after 
 a sort, to take life from them who were the authors 
 of mine ; nay, that it were more courtesy in 
 me to cut their throats when they were asleep than 
 thus to make them the example and instance of 
 misfortune, yea, and the very by-word and proverb 
 of all such as knew them ; that, at least, if I 
 were resolved to take this course, I was bound, in 
 all humanity, to do it gently and by degrees, and 
 not to cast them -per saltum into such extremity of 
 discomfort and desolation. 
 
 In the second place, he showed me the dis- 
 advantages which mine enemies would grow to 
 have upon me by this means ; and especially that 
 * Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury, as afterwards appears. — Ed. 
 
 48 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 great, person whom I touched before ; that he 
 would be able to hold that part of my estate from 
 me, with much ease, wherein I had told him (before 
 [ came out of England) that he usurped wrongfully 
 upon my right ; that he would also cast the rest 
 of my fortune before any beggar, who were desirous 
 to take it up ; that he would not only do me this 
 hurt, but take extreme contentment in crushing 
 me ; and how would my heart endure, without 
 swelling till it would break, to put my head under 
 his feet ; who would ask no better than to beat out 
 my brains ? and therefore that for my part I would 
 almost be rather damned afterwards than be so 
 insolently destroyed then ; that at least I should do 
 discreetly to continue a Protestant till I had settled 
 my affairs in England, whither I might do well to 
 make haste; and so provide for the saving of my 
 soul without any temporal ruin, and without 
 making myself a sacrifice to such a person as had 
 the fire of malice in his heart, and means enough 
 in his hand to consume me with it in an instant. 
 
 These were the arguments and temptations of 
 that old serpent, Satan, which howsoever they were 
 not in themselves so very subtle as some others 
 were, yet they wanted not force with me. And 
 really for argumenta ad hominem they were such 
 as my passionate and weak nature could least tell 
 
 49 E 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 how to answer or to overcome. I was easily able 
 to say to myself (though even that little was not 
 to be thought without the help of God's Holy 
 Spirit), Qui diligit patrem aut matrem plus me 
 non est me dignas ; and again, Qui non tollit 
 crucem suam non potest meus esse discipulus. But 
 it was one thing to discourse, and another to 
 practise so high and hard points of Christian doc- 
 trine ; especially for such a novice as I was. 
 
 But fidelis Deus, who suffered me not to be 
 tempted beyond my strength, which only consisted 
 in the knowledge of mine own weakness ; and the 
 conscience thereof made me fly to him for help, 
 which he gave me grace to beg with a sad, contrite 
 heart, to the end that he might not despise it ; 
 and not only to crave it by myself, but by the inter- 
 cession of the immaculate and ever-blessed Virgin, 
 to whom I was already grown to bear some little 
 devotion, and had resolved to become one man of 
 those generations of people which (by the prophecy 
 of the Holy Ghost, proceeding from her own 
 sacred mouth) were to magnify her most glorious 
 name. And I found incredible comfort in my 
 prayers to her ; and so, after some very few days, 
 God gave me grace to resign myself into his holy 
 hands ; and that not like an usurer, who would 
 put out his money into a bank, but as a Christian 
 
 50 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 ought, to the service of his God, without capitulation 
 or reservation. And (to his own eternal glory be 
 it spoken) I produced, by his grace, an act of 
 resolution, that, come life or death, riches or 
 poverty, honour or shame, the grief of friends or 
 the contentment of such as were not so, I would 
 instantly humble myself to the yoke of Christ our 
 Lord, renouncing all the errors of my belief, and 
 desiring to be received into the unity of the holy 
 Catholic Roman Church, and resolving also by 
 his grace to live his servant during life. And it 
 was strange to see (at best it seemed so to me) 
 how, immediately after this act, I was delivered 
 from all reluctation of mind. Only the next day, 
 when I went to put my purpose in execution, I fell 
 strangely into the street several times, which I 
 had never used to do, and having dirted my clothes 
 extremely (for it had rained much) a temptation 
 came upon me and said: That my action was not 
 likely to be happy, and, howsoever, that I should 
 do discreetly to put off the business till another 
 day. But my Good Angel, I think, forbade me to 
 allow of the motion ; and so I liked better to wear 
 a foul cloak upon my back than a filthy soul in my 
 body. 
 
 And so I went on to a good, religious, Italian 
 Father, of the Society of Jesus, called Padre Lelio 
 
 5i 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 Ptolomei, by whose sermons I had been greatly 
 edified that Lent ; and I told him that as I had 
 been bred in Protestancy, so now, by God 
 Almighty's grace, I had discovered the danger and 
 falsehood of that religion ; that I was resolved 
 already that the Catholic Church, communicating 
 with the Bishop of Rome, was the only true 
 Church, and Spouse of Christ our Lord, as being 
 purchased by his blood, adorned with infinite 
 privileges, and assisted by the infallible Spirit of 
 his truth, out of which there was no salvation. I 
 therefore craved at his hands that, with all con- 
 venient speed, he would inform me what I was to 
 do, before I might be incorporated into that 
 Church, and that he would satisfy me also in the 
 meantime about some few doubts, of less import- 
 ance, which I still retained. 
 
 The Father did first congratulate with me, in 
 dear terms, by reason of the great mercy, where- 
 with Almighty God had preferred me, in this 
 occasion, to the Catholic faith before so many 
 thousands of my country. He then exhorted me 
 to give most entire and humble thanks to his Divine 
 Majesty for so inestimable a benefit. He said, 
 moreover, that although I had a strong purpose to 
 become a Catholic, and that upon the day follow- 
 ing I might be received into the bosom of the 
 
 52 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 Church, yet I should do well in the meantime to 
 recommend myself with much instance to our 
 Blessed Lord, that so he might give me grace to 
 put my holy purpose in execution ; forasmuch as it 
 was ever the devil's use to assault men with his 
 most importunate and powerful temptations, when 
 he found them nearest to their conversion ; that 
 concerning those particulars wherein I desired to 
 receive satisfaction, he was ready to give it most 
 completely then, if I would needs persist in my 
 demand ; but yet that he rather advised me (since 
 I believed already, as formerly I had expressed, 
 concerning the Church of Rome — namely, that she 
 was the true Church of Christ our Lord, and that 
 she could not err, and it must therefore be neces- 
 sarily intended that she did not err in those 
 particulars, whatsoever they were) not to diminish 
 the virtue and merit of my faith by not fully 
 believing all her doctrines, till the reason of my 
 understanding were absolutely and particularly 
 convinced, but rather that I would Captivare 
 intellectum in obsequium fidei, according to the 
 counsel of St. Paul, till such time as I should be 
 received into the Catholic Church ; and that after- 
 wards I might with a curiosity less demeritorious 
 (and rather for the explicating than actuating of 
 my faith, or, indeed, for the instruction of others 
 
 S3 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 rather than for the settling of mine own conscience) 
 both seek and find solutions to all objections, both 
 concerning 1 those and whatsoever other articles, 
 which are professed and taught by the holy 
 Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church. 
 
 His discourse seemed so very reasonable to me 
 that I thought myself bound to yield to it. And 
 so I agreed to his appointment of a certain hour, 
 which he named, of the next day following. At 
 which time he conducted me to the Inquisitor, by 
 whom I was received and embraced, with all 
 charity and courtesy; and instantly I abjured all 
 my heresies, and he absolved me from them. 
 
 The Father of the Society conducted me then 
 immediately to the Annunciata, which is a church 
 of great devotion in Florence, and where our 
 Blessed Lady is much honoured and served ; and 
 there did he offer me up to her gracious inter- 
 cession and protection, and advised me very 
 earnestly to continue in her devotion till death. 
 And so, for that time, he dismissed me from his 
 presence, but not from his care. For I was almost 
 daily with him for ten days after, in which time I 
 prepared myself to make my general confession ; 
 and he admitted me soon after to the Blessed 
 Sacrament of the altar. And he conjured me, at 
 that very time, that for God's sake, and mine, and 
 
 54 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 his, I would dispose myself to grant his earnest 
 suit, of purposing, by God's grace, to confess and 
 communicate weekly whilst I lived. He assured 
 me that I might be happy by that means ; that 
 the chimney would be easily swept, and without 
 any trouble at all, if it might be so often done ; 
 and that I would thank him in heaven for giving 
 me so good counsel as that. I gave him most 
 humble thanks, and I made him that faithful 
 promise, and I have performed it, and I find that 
 hitherto he hath also been as good as his word. 
 He willed me also to hope for such a benediction 
 thereby as had happened by the same means to a 
 near and dear friend of his, who found himself free 
 by the space of very many whole years from so 
 much as the consenting thought of some one par- 
 ticular sin, to which (till he had been nourished by 
 that Bread of Angels) he was so desperately aban- 
 doned as to remember well that before, for a long 
 time together, he had approached it as a very sen- 
 tence of death, to be restrained from committing 
 it, I say not for the space of years or months, but 
 even of two or three days. 
 
 And this is that which you desired to know 
 touching my conversion ; but now you must not 
 refuse to go on with me, yet a little further, where 
 I will give you a clear view upon the extraordinary 
 
 55 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 mercy, which Almighty God showed towards me, 
 in that which followed, concerning those difficul- 
 ties, which threatened me before I was a Catholic, 
 and which afterwards were partly diminished, 
 partly altogether removed, and partly changed into 
 their contraries by growing to be my comforts in a 
 high degree. 
 
 About half a year after I became a Catholic, I 
 returned into England, and, passing both through 
 France and Flanders, I fell into the company of a 
 noble English gentleman, who was also a Catholic, 
 and disposed himself then, with a friend or two, 
 besides his servants, to go home ; as I myself did 
 with mine. We passed the sea together, and as we 
 went by Canterbury in our way to London we had 
 an equal desire to bestow a second view upon that 
 goodly church; for we both had seen it once 
 before. We did so ; and amongst other things we 
 were shown that very chair wherein St. Thomas of 
 Canterbury sat, when he was brought to that see. 
 It was not kept, as I conceive in memory of his 
 translation alone, but as having been used at the 
 consecration or translation of all the Archbishops 
 of that church. And it was covered with a kind of 
 cloth, though not by way of devotion, but of 
 decency. Now when my camerades were enter- 
 taining themselves otherwise, I passed from under 
 
 56 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 the cover into the chair, and there kneeling down 
 upon the seat, I recommended myself to Almighty 
 God, by the prayers of his dear servant, that great 
 Saint, with as much earnestness as, I think, I ever 
 used in my whole life ; beseeching him for his own 
 mercies' sake to lay the consideration of my great 
 sins aside, and to vouchsafe to take care of me, and 
 to protect me, and direct me in so great a business 
 as I was then going about, which was the profess- 
 ing of the holy Catholic faith in a country where a 
 contrary religion did so abound ; and by which the 
 Catholic was suppressed. And I earnestly (as I was 
 saying) interposed the intercession of the glorious 
 St. Thomas, towards the obtaining of that great 
 merey of Almighty God, that so I might rather die 
 a thousand deaths than do the least imaginable act 
 against the holy Catholic faith. And some such 
 thing did happen to me afterwards as made me 
 think I knew, my prayer was heard and granted 
 by that Saint, or rather by Almighty God through 
 his intercession. 
 
 In the meantime I went out of the chair, and 
 restored myself to the company, which either had 
 not missed me in that short time, or, at least, had 
 no cause to think that I had retired myself out of 
 any more than mere curiosity. For I was careful 
 to keep it from their knowledge that I was a 
 
 57 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 Catholic as if they had not been men of honour, 
 but even pursuivants. Nor had I ever, to my 
 remembrance, imparted it to any man of my nation, 
 but only in Italy ; and there but to a very few ; and 
 that also' both long after my conversion, and upon 
 very great trust. But when we were come up to 
 London, we went every one his way ; and I only 
 desired that favour of them, that till we should 
 meet afterwards, they would not take knowledge to 
 anybody that I was come over to England. 
 
 For my part I lodged myself for some days at a 
 private French ordinary at the East end of London, 
 near the Tower ; from whence I wrote a letter to a 
 noble and great friend of mine, Sir Francis Bacon, 
 a kinsman, and friend, and servant to my Lord of 
 Salisbury, who then was Secretary Cecil, though he 
 had not the title 1 of Salisbury at that time. This 
 letter was made monstrable by me of purpose, and 
 it went to this effect : that by his means I presented 
 my humble services to his Lordship ; that I knew 
 he was a great minister of State ; that he had long 
 hands wherewith to reach, and open ears wherewith 
 to hear from one end of the world to the other; 
 that it was impossible for me' to have done any- 
 thing of moment, in any kind, whereof he might 
 not have had notice ; that through the desire 
 which many would have to tell him, or else of 
 
 58 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 making, news, it was no impossible thing but that 
 he might have been misinformed concerning me ; 
 that therefore, if any man should have breathed 
 on me with him, as an ill-affected man to the State, 
 I would offer myself most humbly to his examina- 
 tion, to the end that so I might appear as innocent 
 before his Lordship as I knew myself to be indeed ; 
 that, for the rest, it was most true that I was 
 directly a Roman Catholic, and ever meant to be so ; 
 and that so, I most humbly begged the effects of 
 his Lordship's compassion and favour, and that he 
 would not procure me punishment for that which 
 even he could hold to be no more than merely a 
 matter of error in the understanding ; whereas that 
 will ought not to be offensive to anybody, which 
 applied itself to no other end but the saving of a 
 man's own soul, in his own way. His answer was 
 very noble and kind : that he took the civility well 
 at my hands, since I gave him so early an account 
 of myself, though yet he were not then to learn 
 that I was either come, or coming at least, into 
 England ; that he had often inquired of me with 
 some curiosity, and that he must, still do me so 
 much right as to say, that, in the way of State, he 
 knew nothing concerning me but well ; that he 
 was sorry to have heard before, and more to know 
 at that time, that I was perverted in my religion ; 
 
 59 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 arid he wished that I would recover myself; but 
 howsoever that I should do well to' secure myself 
 from others the best I could, but that from him. I 
 might safely expect, and assuredly should find, all 
 effects of favour and good will. 
 
 When I had provided for myself in this sort, by 
 removing that hurt which I feared most, I applied 
 myself within few days, to look a little, gently, 
 abroad. Now the very first thing I did was 
 to change my lodging into Fleet Street, and 
 immediately I presented my humble thanks to Sir 
 Francis Bacon, and easily answered the argu- 
 ments which he made against my change. From 
 thence I went one evening to wait upon my Lord 
 of Canterbury, Bancroft. I made my humble 
 excuses for presuming so abruptly upon him, but 
 I hoped that the honesty of my intention would 
 beg pardon for that which, perhaps, might look 
 like the indiscretion of an action ; though yet I 
 knew not how to avoid it without doing worse ; 
 that the very truth was that I had done a thing 
 which I knew would be ill taken, but in which yet, 
 I held myself so obliged, that it had no longer 
 been in my power to put it off. For I had resolved 
 to do the best I could to save my soul, and that, for 
 my part, I conceived that it could not be possibly 
 secured by me but by incorporating myself into 
 
 60 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 the Communion of the holy Catholic, Apostolic, 
 Roman Church, which I had done ; that yet I was 
 extremely desirous to carry myself so, in this 
 change, as that no manner of unnecessary offence 
 might be taken at it ; that, for my part, I was very 
 far from procuring to make any noise ; that it went 
 to my very heart to consider the grief of my 
 friends ; and that there was no lawful thing under 
 Heaven which I would not either do or suffer for 
 the assuaging thereof ; that I came then to him as 
 to a person who had great power with them, as he 
 should also have all authority with me ; and so I 
 most humbly desired that he would vouchsafe me his 
 opinion and advice ; and that, forasmuch as might 
 concern the manner and order of my ways, I might 
 be able so to address them as to give the least 
 offence to his Majesty, and the least disgust to 
 my friends, that possibly I could. 
 
 My Lord of Canterbury spake courteously to 
 me, and said that I was welcome to him, though 
 yet I came upon the worst errand of the world ; 
 that I was extremely to be blamed for having (my 
 education and relation considered) apostatized 
 from that faith wherein I had been born and bred ; 
 yea, and that I was even inexcusably to be con- 
 demned for having so precipitated myself therein ; 
 that whatsoever I might chance to have conceived, 
 
 61 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 yet I ought, even in all reason, to Have suspended 
 my resolution a while ; or, if not my resolution, yet 
 at least the execution of my purpose, in regard 
 that I did even, at least, owe an equal and indif- 
 ferent consideration of all that which could be said 
 on both sides ; but that now I had showed myself 
 to be as much in fault as the Judge who should 
 give sentence upon the only hearing of one part. 
 
 I answered him with humble thanks, not only 
 for the liberty which he gave me to speak, but 
 much more for the favour which he did me in the 
 use of his. But to the substance of what he said, 
 I thought I might very justly answer that I was 
 not then to seek concerning the grounds of Pro- 
 testant religion, but that I had been acquainted 
 with them well ; and that they are extant in many 
 books, and that I had learnt them also from many 
 mouths ; and that particularly I had objected them, 
 and even pressed them with a most earnest mind, 
 against the arguments which made for Catholic 
 religion, and which had wrought most upon my 
 heart before my conversion ; that if they moved me 
 not then, there would also be no cause why they 
 should move me now ; for the things are still the 
 same, and I must not hang my soul upon the 
 cunning or craft of a disputer; that I could take 
 God to witness, with much truth, that I parted 
 
 ' 62 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 from that religion most unwillingly, as having all 
 kinds of interests against any change; but that 
 really, when I came to see where truth was, and 
 is, and is still to be, I thought it too mean a thing 
 for a Christian to defer, even for one hour, the 
 paying homage and obedience to such a God, 
 as had so infinitely obliged me by his goodness; 
 besides the hazard of my eternal perdition, which I 
 might justly fear, by delay. 
 
 The Bishop told me upon this, that I talked I 
 could not tell what ; and that I showed myself to 
 be a young man ; and that still he must protest 
 that I was extremely to blame for condemning 
 mine own religion unheard. " But at least," saith 
 he, " you shall hear me now. For though it be 
 fitter for others to take this pains than me, who 
 have so many occasions of the King's service, which 
 call hourly upon me, yet I bear you so much good 
 will that I will satisfy you myself; and therefore 
 you shall promise to come to me twice a week, to 
 confer with me." 
 
 To this my answer was; that I would take it 
 for a greater favour if he would be pleased to save 
 his labour in that kind ; that, for my part, I needed 
 not confer, in any way of doubt concerning my 
 religion ; but yet to let him see that I was most 
 willing to gO' as far as I could possibly to content 
 
 63 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 and serve him, I would not fail to wait punctually 
 upon him (if he would needs have it so) to hear 
 anything which he would be pleased to say ; and to 
 say anything which I might hope that he would 
 not be displeased to hear. He thanked me and 
 embraced me close ; and looked as kindly upon me 
 as that face could tell how to do. And he told me 
 also, by way of farewell, that he would speak well 
 of me to the King, and that he would do me good 
 offices with my friends, and that I must come to 
 him, at such and such times, both for the days and 
 hours, and that he would show me after a 
 kind of visible manner, how and when my religion 
 had been contrived and framed, in all those points 
 and particulars wherein it differed from theirs; 
 and that then he would blow it down with as much 
 ease as a man might do a house of cards. I 
 humbly thanked him for the points of favour which 
 he promised, and I gave him my word (and he 
 would needs have me accompany it by giving him 
 also my hand) that I would attend him whensoever 
 he should appoint ; and as for that last great point 
 of gallantry of the house of cards, I told him that 
 if he would indeed blow my religion down, as he 
 said, it would betoken a stronger breath than ever 
 any enemy of the Catholic Roman Church was yet 
 found to have ; and that, if yet he should be able 
 
 64 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 to do it, I humbly prayed him to consider that 
 when he should have blown mine down he would 
 yet have, done but half his business, for that then 
 I must intreat him to try if he could build up his 
 own. " I warrant thee," said my Lord, " I will do 
 it, and thou shalt see it " (for by this time he was 
 grown pretty kind). And then he sought to make 
 me believe that I should be welcome to him at 
 all times, upon other occasions as well as these. 
 And so I, taking my assignation for the next 
 attendance, which I was to give, departed from him 
 at that time. 
 
 When I waited upon him next, he fell to speak 
 with me of the Supremacy, after he had first ex- 
 pressed kindness towards me. And though this 
 point of controversy were not a very safe one for 
 me to be free in, yet the questions which he asked 
 me were not very extraordinarily captious ; and I, 
 in my answer, was very considerately cautious, 
 though yet withal, we being alone, I thought it 
 not to be so very necessary for me to dissemble 
 all the truth of what I thought. And yet I re- 
 member well that when once he conceived that 
 I spoke too highly of the authority of the Church 
 of Rome, he told me that, before God, he thought 
 himself to be as good a man as the Pope; yea, 
 and that he could prove his succession from the 
 
 65 F 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 Apostles, as well as he, except only for the matter 
 of some two or three hundred years. And this, of 
 the two or three hundred years, I must confess, he 
 spake a little more softly, than the rest ; as, indeed,- 
 he had some cause. But thereupon I told his Lord- 
 ship that two or three hundred years, in such a 
 case as this, was not nothing ; and that I thought 
 he did himself wrong in not holding himself to be 
 as sure of the first two or three hundred years as 
 of the last thirteen or fourteen hundred. In fine, 
 we spake long upon this particular, and it is not 
 my business here to set down all the passages. 
 But howsoever this point of the Supremacy might 
 seem to touch harshly upon his freehold, yet he 
 endured the liberty of my discourse with so great 
 patience that made me wonder much the more to 
 find him so extravagantly transported upon another 
 occasion which was much less likely to have 
 provoked him. 
 
 For in the next repair which I made to him, he 
 spake of the invocation of Saints, and misliked it, 
 and derided it, and took his pleasure upon it. I 
 told him that the Church of God approved it, and 
 practised it, and that it had done so in all ages ; 
 and that howsoever he acknowledged not the 
 authority of the present Catholic Church whereof I 
 was a member, yet I thought that such a person as 
 
 66 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 he would be sure not to set light by the judgment 
 of so ancient, learned, holy and renowned Fathers 
 as had expressed themselves in this particular ; of 
 whom I cited some passages, which he denied, and 
 I desired leave to show them. Upon this he car- 
 ried me into his library, of which, by the way, I 
 am apt to think that it is one of the most excellent 
 which is possessed by any one single subject in the 
 whole world. And, indeed, it may well be so, for 
 the last age it was introduced that the see and suc- 
 cessors should still be the true proprietaries and 
 owners of the library, and not the incumbent 
 beyond his proper time. And besides, there are 
 many books of controversy in religion, which come 
 to loss by search; for they are taken from the 
 true owners, and the innocent books are wont to 
 perish, for the guilty's sake. And all do so devolve 
 to the Metropolitan that it is no marvel though he 
 abound in books. 
 
 But in the meantime as I was waiting upon my 
 Lord of Canterbury into his library, in speech 
 about the invocation of Saints, his heart grew to 
 be mightily inflamed ; and as we were turning the 
 books, his tongue also to be enraged ; and so he 
 broke away, when we' were in the very midst of 
 our business. But the end of that conference was 
 that, forsooth I must be looked to, and that I was 
 
 67 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 a dangerous man, &c. Upon this, he called for a 
 secretary, and commanded him to make a warrant 
 for my commitment ; and said that he could do 
 no less than lay me up. But yet, even whilst the 
 warrant wa9 drawing, he seemed a little to relent, 
 and told me that he would not be severe ; but 
 hoped that I would also for my part dispose myself 
 to some reason ; though yet, indeed, he had found 
 me more obstinate than he could possibly have 
 conceived. I thanked him still for his favour; I 
 was willing to ask pardon for any error; but I 
 besought him not to expect that I should forsake 
 my belief of anything concerning my religion, how 
 unable soever myself might prove to defend it; 
 for that I grounded not my belief of particular doc- 
 trines upon mine own reason, and otherwise than 
 as that reason should guide me to such a Church 
 and Judge of all controversies concerning religion. 
 In a third conference (and it was by five of the 
 clock in the morning, upon the day of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul) we fell upon divers controversies in 
 religion, after a more confused manner (though 
 indeed all were ever confused) and it was but talk 
 that came from him, sometimes chiding, sometimes 
 laughing, and now and then, a good tale. For 
 by that time in my conscience, I think he grew to 
 have noi hope at all of me, but was content with 
 
 68 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 acquitting himself as such a pastor was like to do, 
 who procured the good of souls after his fashion. 
 But no part of that day's work was so memorable 
 with me as that which now I shall relate. 
 
 It was at that hour of the day (the same being, as 
 I said, no less than the Festivity of the blessed 
 Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul) when we heard 
 one knock at the door, for the door was still shut 
 upon us ; and my Lord asked then " Who was 
 there ? " The man answered : " It is I, if it please 
 your Grace," and he spoke it with a very whining 
 voice ; but if that, which he had in his hand, had 
 been in his belly, it would have increased his 
 courage. For when his Grace bade him come in, 
 he brought a bowl of above a quart, one of those 
 which Kings give to Archbishops for their New 
 Year's gift. Now, thought I, shall I be drunk too ; 
 but the Bishop meant no such matter, but taking 
 the bowl into one hand, he lifted up the cover with 
 the other ; and, without taking it clean off, he 
 applied his mouth to the cup, between it and the 
 cover, for fear belike lest I should be scandalized 
 at the liquor, considering what day it was, and how 
 early. But he drunk up that whole huge bowl 
 full of that which his lip bewrayed and betrayed 
 him in. And it was not beer, nor wine, nor ale, 
 but a caudle, which showed me nutmeg and eggs. 
 
 69 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 It may here fall in fitly to be understood that 
 
 though ordinarily I attended my Lord in the 
 
 mornings, yet it happened also sometimes to be at 
 
 other hours. But whensoever his Lordship was 
 
 either interrupted with any precise, real business, 
 
 or else pressed by the visit of very great persons, 
 
 he would send for Sir Christopher Perkins,* who 
 
 was lodged in the great gate-house of his house, 
 
 and wish him to accompany and entertain me, and 
 
 be kind to me ; and still he sought to increase and 
 
 cherish that acquaintance which he had formerly 
 
 created between Sir Christopher and me. Now this 
 
 Sir Christopher Perkins loved music very much, 
 
 and had a boy whom he was yet suspected to love 
 
 more ; but at least he had a desire to make him 
 
 profit well in that art. And calling him one day to 
 
 sing and play before me, he asked me first whether 
 
 myself had not attended a little to music whilst I 
 
 was in Italy ; and then whether, if I did, I had not 
 
 also brought some songs from thence ; for, if I had, 
 
 he would desire me to let his boy copy them out of 
 
 my books. I answered him affirmatively to all his 
 
 demands and desires, and the honest man was so 
 
 honest as to pay me with false money for my pains, 
 
 For he gave out that, whatsoever I might pretend 
 
 * Sir C. Perkins (Dean of Carlisle 1595), i547(?)-i622 ; 
 in 1566 became a member of the Society of Jesus ; after- 
 wards employed on diplomatic missions; M.P. for Ripon ; 
 knighted 1604-5. — Ed. 
 
 70 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 from the teeth outward for religion, yet that cer- 
 tainly all was not right with me, within doors ; 
 and he gave it for shrewd evidence against me that 
 I had brought a world of beastly and most 
 abominable songs out of Italy, whilst yet really 
 they were neither, so, nor so ; but had many 
 spiritual and most excellent madrigals amongst 
 them ; though yet indeed withal it is true that the 
 far greater number were vain and foolish love 
 songs, such as men absurdly make in all countries, 
 but not one of them was odious or obscene. This 
 gallant man would oftentimes be talking to me, 
 and still after a very different manner in order to 
 that one wicked end of persuading me to forsake 
 my religion. Sometimes he would be trifling and 
 toying with me, and telling me that, upon his life, 
 I had fallen in love with some nun at Florence, 
 and that in contemplation of her I had made some 
 promise or vow not to profess any religion but 
 hers. " But if that," saith he, " be the business, let 
 your mind come back again with your body, for 
 you shall not want nuns here, who may deserve 
 you best respects beyond those others." To this I 
 told him that I would hope he was but in jest ; for 
 otherwise it would be too unworthy a thing even 
 for any inferior dull creature to tempt so much as 
 any prentice with such trash as that, and much 
 
 7i 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 more for a man of his authority and age to forget 
 himself in such a kind to me. 
 
 But sometimes he would be telling me what a 
 solemn kind of foolery it was to suffer for any 
 side, either for his religion or mine, since in effect 
 they were both the same, though Princes and 
 Prelates of the Church might think for to vary it 
 in circumstances, and in ceremonies according to 
 the conveniences of time and place ; and that, for 
 his part, if I should be obstinate, he would hold 
 me a great deal fitter for Bedlam than Bridewell, 
 who could not, as he said, but know enough to keep 
 me from such a madness as that ; especially since 
 it must also be evident to every man of common 
 sense that, if I continued as I was, I must embark 
 myself into an everlasting tempest, which would 
 carry me to some shipwreck in the end, by 
 engaging me either to be swallowed up in 
 quicksands, or torn to pieces by rocks; whereas, 
 if I would, I might be sure to have as prosperous 
 a navigation with wind and tide, through this 
 world into the harbour of plenty and pleasure, as 
 any man of his acquaintance could desire. 
 
 But to that I had my answer at hand ; for to the 
 point of the indifferency of our two religions, he 
 must pardon me if I believed him not so well as I 
 did the holy Fathers of the primitive Church, and 
 
 72 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 in particular St. Cyprian, St. Epiphanius, St. Basil, 
 and St. Augustine ; who not only agree all in this, 
 that no heretic can be saved, without repentance 
 in regard that he obstinately holds at least some 
 one little doctrine in contradiction to that of the 
 Catholic Church ; but if also he be only so far a 
 schismatic as obstinately to disobey it in the least 
 point of discipline ; and that no virtue either of 
 Christian fortitude or of Christian charity or any 
 other is able to save any creature who dies with- 
 out a repentance of that crime. Nay, both St 
 Epiphanius and St. Augustine go so far as to 
 declare divers of those doctrines, as namely those 
 of Aerius amongst others, to be expressly heretical 
 and damnable, for denying prayer and sacrifice 
 for the dead ; which are held by the Protestants 
 at this day. And as for his discourse of the 
 prosperity or adversity of this world, I held it for 
 a base and atheistical argument whensoever there 
 should be question of souls. 
 
 Sometimes he would also be talking to me in 
 the way of particular controversies concerning 
 religion. And I remember that once he asked me 
 upon what I grounded that great authority of the 
 Pope. And I told him upon some places of 
 Scripture, amongst other things, as Pasce agnos 
 meos, and Pasce oves meas, " feed my lambs," 
 
 73 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 " feed my sheep," which imply that the Christians 
 who will belong to Christ our Lord, as sheep are 
 wont to do to their shepherd, must be fed by St. 
 Peter and his successors, and not only fed but phy- 
 sicked and governed, and corrected, and supported, 
 as there should be cause ; and that the same must 
 be done, whether they were lambs, that is lay people 
 of the most ignorant sort ; or else grown sheep, 
 that is pastors and prelates, of the highest kind. 
 I put him also in mind of that other place : — Tibi 
 dabo claves regni coelorum, etc. ; " I will give 
 thee " (saith Christ our Lord to St. Peter) " the 
 keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatsoever thou 
 bindest upon earth shall be bound in heaven and 
 whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth shall be 
 loosed in heaven ; and the gates of hell shall not 
 prevail against that Church, etc." 
 
 But this gallant knight was not ashamed to say 
 against the first place, that they were not sheep, 
 but calves, who would be governed as the Pope 
 desires to govern. And as for the other place of 
 Tibi dabo claves, etc., he said that I understood 
 Latin, and therefore that he would ask me of what 
 tense dabo was ; and I told him, of the future. 
 " It is true," saith he ; " and Christ said / will 
 give the keys of heaven, but he never said / do 
 give them; and unless you can show that, you 
 
 74 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 show nothing." But I told him, by way of answer, 
 
 that Christ our Lord was Truth itself, and God, 
 
 and the Son of God ; and that by being but even 
 
 his mother's son, he would not fail but be a man 
 
 of his word. And therefore that since he said 
 
 that he would give him the keys of the kingdom 
 
 of heaven, I meant not to make it a question 
 
 whether he did it, or no. But so base, in the 
 
 meantime, and so profane was this man grown to 
 
 be in his old age, who in his youth had been of so 
 
 excellent education and profession ; for beginning 
 
 with virtue and learning, and being endowed with 
 
 many good natural parts, he grew first, by vanity 
 
 and immortifkation, to lose that excellent state 
 
 of life wherein he was ; he fell, in tract of time, 
 
 to be vicious more ways than one ; and withal to 
 
 be both light, and busy, and ridiculous. 
 
 But at length, when afterward I came again to 
 
 wait upon my Lord of Canterbury, he took up his 
 
 countenance after a very extraordinary manner 
 
 upon a sudden ; and (when first he had saluted me 
 
 drily) he directed Sir Christopher Perkins to be 
 
 called to him. Upon his coming, he willed me to 
 
 draw nearer, and asked me very abruptly if I 
 
 would take the oath of allegiance* But now, it 
 
 * This oath of allegiance was one devised by Bancroft 
 and Sir C. Perkins with a view to dividing the Catholics 
 and exposing them to persecution. — Ed. 
 
 75 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 seemed, that he would not ask me that question 
 but after a kind of legal manner, which was the 
 cause why he associated himself for that purpose, 
 and at that time, with another Justice of Peace; 
 for the law indeed prescribes that there should be 
 two, for the offering of that oath in form. But 
 I told him the question was very new and un- 
 expected by me ; that my allegiance was well 
 known to the world ; that I hoped not to be 
 interrogated after that manner, and that my Lord 
 should do me a great favour, though yet a just 
 one, if he would forbear to make doubt of me in 
 that kind. He told me that I must be offered it ; 
 and that I were best take heed how I refused to 
 take it. And indeed I understood afterwards that 
 he was commanded to press me in it by the King. 
 For his Majesty one day asking the Bishop what 
 became of me, upon the speech we had together, 
 he answered that he held me then for a kind of 
 obstinate man ; and that he thought me not very 
 likely to accommodate myself to reason. Where- 
 upon the King was pleased to direct him to put me 
 to the oath, with opinion that by no means I would 
 refuse it; and with resolution that if I took it, I 
 should quietly be let alone, and so the scandal of 
 my charge would be soon forgotten. 
 
 From hence it therefore grew that I was put in 
 
 76 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 this manner to the oath ; but the circumstance of 
 that time was the effect of another cause, or rather 
 occasion. For that very week Mr. Blackwell, who 
 was the Archpriest, was taken ; and the man, who 
 till then had been held to be both very virtuous 
 and very learned, was so handled in the beginning 
 of his captivity by those subtle men of State, that 
 by threatening the old weak-hearted man extremely 
 at some times, and by promising him extremely 
 fair at other, they put him, in effect, out of his 
 wits. And first, they brought him down to' a 
 consent, in taking the oath ; afterwards to a good 
 liking of it, and writing for it, and, finally, to a 
 not tolerating in any other man that he should 
 refuse it, whereof myself had either too good or 
 too bad experience afterward. 
 
 But in the meantime when my Lord Archbishop 
 saw that I made so great a difficulty to take it, he 
 advised me very seriously to think much better of 
 the matter, and to wait upon him again within 
 few days. I did so, and then declared that I was 
 but an ignorant man; that the oath contained 
 points of doctrine, which even the most learned 
 could scarce resolve, &c. He told me that this 
 excuse must not serve ; for the oath concerned but 
 the true allegiance of every loyal subject to his 
 lawful King ; and that, besides of all those reasons 
 
 77 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 which bound me to it, I was also obliged by 
 authority since my Archpriest * a worthy and a 
 learned virtuous man, had both taken it, and was 
 ready to assure all men that they were bound to 
 do so too. 
 
 To this I answered that the example of Mr. 
 Blackwell had taught me little more than that I 
 must not put confidence in myself ; that temporal 
 fear had made him do that now, which judgment 
 and obedience to his Supreme Pastor had made 
 him refuse to do before ; that subordinate 
 superiors were then to be reverenced and obeyed 
 by me, when they continued to yield obedience 
 to such others as were both their superiors and 
 mine ; but that when they went out of that way, 
 and wandered from that line of unity, they must 
 not be followed but forsaken. 
 
 The Archbishop upon this grew into a very 
 
 great rage, and told me that they would hamper 
 
 me well enough (for those were his words), and 
 
 that it was not for such a princox as I to teach 
 
 them what they were to do. I told him I was 
 
 very far from taking upon myself to teach 
 
 anybody but myself; that he had no cause to 
 
 be angry for my saying what I thought I 
 
 * George Blackwell, i545(?)-i6i3, was appointed by 
 Clement VIII. Archpriest over the Secular Clergy of 
 England in 1597-8. — Ed. 
 
 78 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 might say, nor yet for not doing that which I was 
 so very sure that I might not do; that, for my 
 part, the more I considered the oath, so much the 
 less I was able to take it if it were but because I 
 found it so full of universal propositions, which 
 were dangerous to be denied by oath, where any 
 one contrary particular would make a man for- 
 sworn. As for example ; that no Pope can have 
 authority, either of himself or from any other, 
 whereby he may absolve the subjects of any Prince, 
 for any cause, or upon any occasion whatsoever, 
 from the oath of allegiance, which he may formerly 
 have made. For this includes all cases, and all 
 persons, and all crimes, whatsoever, notwithstand- 
 ing that all possible fair means might formerly have 
 been used by all creatures, and notwithstanding 
 that the crimes were never so public and so 
 scandalous, and so incorrigible, and consequently so 
 very dangerous for the exterminating the faith of 
 Christ, or destroying the moral good of mankind, as 
 might possibly be, yea, and notwithstanding that 
 the forbearing to yield obedience to such a Prince 
 would evidently be the means of setting all things 
 straight again. Such universals I said as these 
 did even fright me from taking any such oath as 
 this. 
 
 I also desired my good Lord that he would give 
 
 79 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 me leave to put him a case, and he bade me say 
 on. And it was this : I told him that there was a 
 world of Moors in Spain, and that King Philip the 
 third, as I was told, had a desire to expel them 
 from thence for their damnable, and inveterate, and 
 universal hypocrisy in matters of religion, and for 
 their daily and desperate practices against that 
 Crown, in point of State, since daily they were 
 combining both with the Hollanders, and with the 
 Moors of Afric for the destruction thereof. This, I 
 say, was then conceived to be the design of that 
 King, who was a most Catholic, and most holy 
 Prince. But if perhaps he were as wicked as he is 
 good, and in his heart should be as much a 
 Mahometan as he is a Christian, and should carry 
 himself, a clean contrary course, and at the first 
 should privately take part with those Moors, and 
 should secretly convey his treasures and arms into 
 their hands, and then should put his forts and his 
 ports into their power, and afterwards run apace 
 towards the destruction of all Christianity ; and if 
 all possible fair means be used for the preventing 
 of so great a mischief, and all should be found to be 
 in vain save only the way of resistance and force ; 
 and if, by good use thereof, some Christian 
 Governor or two of some Provinces might perhaps 
 be able to preserve Christianity ; I asked my Lord 
 
 80 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 Archbishop whether such a Governor or Viceroy 
 as that might or should do well to take such an 
 oath of allegiance as this is? But all the answer 
 I could get of his Grace was to^ let me see by his 
 hard favour, that he was much offended, and to 
 make me hear what he was pleased to say, namely 
 that I had put a foolish and metaphorical case, and 
 that I was a dangerous man. 
 
 I told him that I was not dangerous to others ; 
 for I meant no hurt at all to any man alive ; and 
 that because I would also procure to be no dan- 
 gerous man to myself, I could not resolve to take 
 the oath ; though yet I still besought him to be 
 pleased to be my good Lord, and not to mis- 
 interpret, and much less to misreport, my good 
 meaning. And as for the metaphysicalness of my 
 case, I desired leave to tell him that I had read and 
 seen so much of mankind that nothing which any 
 man could possibly do was metaphysical now with 
 me ; especially when I considered how sure we are 
 of the truth of what King Solomon was, and what 
 he did, he who was the most wise and most learned 
 man of the whole world, a person to whom God 
 vouchsafed to appear, and with whom he spake 
 divers times, a mighty king, a most illuminated 
 prophet, a pen of Holy Ghost, and a type of Christ 
 our Lord himself. And yet this man, this more 
 
 81 G 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 than man, grew to be such a kind of not only 
 monster but devil, that at the instance of his Pagan 
 concubines he fell flat from the service and worship 
 of Almighty God, who had sought to bend that heart 
 by innumerable and most admirable benefits and 
 graces towards his Divine Master, and yet he ap- 
 plied himself diligently to adore and offer incense 
 with his own pernicious hands to as many idols as 
 they would set before him. 
 
 I also represented to his Lordship the example 
 of Judas in the New Testament, who, having been 
 chosen by the very wisdom of God himself, out of 
 the mass and bulk of the whole world, to be one of 
 twelve Apostles, who had been a spectator of the 
 sovereign beauty and majesty, and auditor of the 
 incomparable wisdom, of Christ our Lord, who had 
 with his own eyes seen him work such millions of 
 miracles and perhaps had wrought some with his 
 own hands ; and yet this man, this devil, was grown 
 to such a darkness of mind as to hate this Lord of 
 life, and to betray him to death, and to do it by a 
 kiss ; and that, as a man may say, for six year, and 
 finally to despair and hang himself. And now, after 
 these two cases, I would fain know of your Lord- 
 ship what can be accounted metaphysical, or what 
 man, in his wits, will ever presume by way of oath 
 to undertake that no other single man, nor ever 
 
 82 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 any other of his whole posterity, can possibly prove 
 to be wicked in the very highest degree. 
 
 If my Lord of Canterbury were angry before, he 
 was enraged now, and spake of nothing but prisons, 
 and other punishments of the worse kind, and de- 
 clared that he would presently commit me ; and so 
 commanded one of his men to draw the warrant. 
 Yet even then he grew to say that he was sorry that 
 he must proceed with me after that manner, but 
 that my obstinate and dangerous spirit obliged him 
 to it. " And yet," saith he, " I will do you one 
 favour, which is to let you choose your prison, 
 because I desire not to db hurt to your health. I 
 humbly thanked his Lordship, though yet I said, I 
 knew not how to choose any of those things, 
 whereof I thought I deserved none. And so he 
 sent me to the Fleet, and it was upon the very day 
 of the translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury, in 
 that very chair wherein I had offered my earnest 
 prayers to him when I came into England, and I 
 have carried a particular devotion to him, after my 
 poor manner, ever since in memory of that favour 
 which I received there. 
 
 I continued in that prison some six months, and 
 I was committed close prisoner for some part of 
 the time, with a very unheard of example, though 
 yet, as I used the matter with the Warden of the 
 
 33 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 Fleet, it was not very strictly observed ; nor had I 
 
 any otherwise merited disfavour in any kind than 
 
 either by the many visits which were given me 
 
 (whereof I was in no fault, since most of them grew 
 
 against my will), or else by the mere spleen of my 
 
 Lord Archbishop against me. For he was not able 
 
 to endure that I should be so much content as I 
 
 was, and particularly that I should take pleasure in 
 
 a certain Irish lawyer, who served me then, and 
 
 whom he strangely made me dismiss for the time. 
 
 During my restraint in the Fleet, I was visited 
 
 divers times by Sir Christopher Perkins, who still 
 
 was touching upon the old strings, but they made 
 
 no good music in my ear. I was often visited 
 
 also by Doctor Morton,* who was made a Bishop 
 
 afterwards, and I was much vexed by him in 
 
 person, and much abused by his ill reports of me, 
 
 till such time as I took the boldness to speak to 
 
 him about the points of falsification, wherewith Fa. 
 
 Persons had charged him home, and whereof he 
 
 had convinced him about that very time as I took 
 
 the boldness to speak to him, which I was bold to 
 
 make the Doctor see, and feel ; and so he grew to 
 
 trouble me every day less than other. I was also 
 
 then tormented much with Mr. Crawshaw. For 
 
 * Thomas Morton, 1564-1569, Bishop of (1) Chester, (2) 
 Litchfield, (3) Durham, a man of great learning, with a high 
 repute for his skill in disputations with Catholics. — Ed. 
 
 84 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 there is not a more intolerable kind of man than 
 an ignorant, audacious, loud, and false undertaker, 
 such as he ever was. 
 
 I had very many friends, who, out of courtesy, 
 and much acquaintance, and some others also, who, 
 out of curiosity, came to visit me very often ; and 
 particularly Sir Maurice Barkley* Sir Edwin 
 Sands, Sir Henry Goodyear, Mr. Richard Martin, 
 and Mr. John Dunne, besides a thousand others. 
 I lived with them all in great love ; and ordinarily 
 there was no set discourse of religion. But Sir 
 Maurice Barkley, who was my dear friend, coming 
 once to take his leave of me, as he was going into 
 the country for a long time, told me in very clear 
 manner that he had so great an opinion both of my 
 understanding and good disposition that it would 
 be impossible for me not to return to be again of 
 the same religion with him, if ever God would be 
 so merciful as to send me some great mischance 
 before I died. I told him I had not heard that 
 crosses had ever made Catholics turn Protestants 
 at their death, but that many Protestants had 
 
 * Sir M. Berkeley (see Index to Gardiner's History). 
 Sir E. Sandes, the eminent statesman, an important figure 
 in the early history of Virginia. Sir H. Goodyear, Donne's 
 friend and patron. Mr. R. Martin, to whom Ben Jonson 
 dedicates " The Poetaster." John Donne, Junr., son of the 
 Dean of St. Paul's, who in 1660 edited Sir Tobie Matthew's 
 " Collection of Letters."— Ed. 
 
 85 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 grown to be Catholics upon such occasions, and at 
 such times; and therefore that if he would turn 
 the tables, I thought he might be sure to win. That 
 was all I said ; but whatsoever he thought of me, I 
 am sure I thought him hugely out of the way, 
 though otherwise he were a gallant, noble, witty 
 gentleman ; and withal a most honest man, if 
 Puritanism would have let him alone. 
 
 Sir Henry Goodyear was ever pleasant and kind, 
 and gave me much of his sweet conversation ; and 
 he would ingenuously confess, whensoever in dis- 
 course he thought I had the better reason of the 
 two. But if his constancy had been as great as his 
 nature was good, he had been much happier in both 
 worlds. Both Dunne and Martin were very full of 
 kindness to me at that time, though it continued 
 not to be hearty afterward. By their discourses 
 with me, when I was in prison, I found that they 
 were mere libertines in themselves ; and that the 
 thing for which they could not long endure me 
 was because they thought me too saucy, for pre- 
 suming to show them the right way, in which they 
 liked not then to go, and wherein they would 
 disdain to follow any other. 
 
 Sir Edwin Sands came often to me, and dwelt 
 much with me, but yet prevailed not much upon 
 me. For though he were a man of a very great wit, 
 
 86 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 and of good learning, and flowing speech, yet the 
 tediousness of his discourse, the solemness of his 
 understanding, the visible delight which he had to 
 be extremely admired, and his resolution to reduce 
 all religion to human reason, made me apt to fear 
 him a little, and to like him less. 
 
 One day, I remember, when he came to me, his 
 discourse of religion was such as led me to speak of 
 the nature of faith. Wherein, upon some question 
 that fell between us, I resorted to a book, which I 
 had then in my lodging ; and it was written by an 
 Irish Jesuit, whose name I understood afterwards 
 to be Holywood, but he called himself in Latin de 
 Sacrobosco. The title of it, as I remember, is 
 Defensio ConciliiTridentini, concerning the vulgar 
 translation and edition of the Bible. This book 
 had been much commended to me by Mr. Roger 
 Witherington, who was my fellow-prisoner, and 
 next neighbour ; and indeed I was much bound to 
 him for comfort in many kinds, and particularly for 
 much lights in many things which concerned 
 Catholic religion. But there is a sixth chapter in 
 that book, as I remember, which treats de regula 
 Fidei exactly well, and shows the difference be- 
 tween probabilities and certainties, and between 
 human and divine faith ; the knowledge of which 
 truths came luckily to me in those times, for Sir 
 
 87 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 Edwin Sands went upon weaker grounds, and did 
 as good as declare that he had no other kind of 
 certainty that Christ our Lord died in Jerusalem 
 than he had that Julius Cassar lived and governed 
 in Rome ; wherein that tract, which I had got him 
 to read, did so unbeguile him, that it made him take 
 the less pride in troubling himself with me after- 
 wards. 
 
 About that time came often to me Doctor 
 Albericus Gentili* the Doctor of the chair in 
 Oxford for Civil Law. He had been of ancient 
 and great acquaintance with my father, for whose 
 sake he loved me also very much. He gave me 
 several visits, when I was in prison ; and, by what 
 I understood afterward, he was employed to use 
 some diligences by my father. He dealt with me 
 divers times to forsake those foolish opinions, as 
 he called them, which made me hold it for unlawful 
 for me, who was a Roman Catholic, to communi- 
 cate with the Protestants of England in the service 
 and sacrament of their Church. But I quickly made 
 him see upon what reasons I must rather die than 
 do so. From that endeavour he came to another, 
 as namely that, forsooth, I must needs take the 
 
 * He was Professor of Law at Oxford, and a freethinker. 
 He wrote Lectiones Virgiliance and De Jure Belli. He died 
 1611, aged sixty-one, without reconciliation to the Church, 
 which he had abandoned. — Ed. 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 oath of allegiance. I told him that I was ready to 
 die for my allegiance to the King ; but that yet I 
 was not able to take the oath of pretended alle- 
 giancei which contained very different things from 
 allegiance, and had been censured by the supreme 
 Pastor of God's Church, from whom it was un- 
 lawful for me to swerve in such cases. He said I 
 should do discreetly to take it in such sort as he 
 had taken his oath of believing the Council of 
 Trent before he came out of Italy in his youth. I 
 asked him how that was ; and he made me this 
 answer in direct words (for we spoke Italian) : 
 " Giusto come figliarei un scudello di brodetto!' 
 — Just as I would take a mease of broth ! Upon that 
 I began to tell him that, for my part, I durst not be 
 so- easy in swearing to things concerning religion, 
 which were against my conscience ; that I had been 
 all that week extremely subject to> the torment of 
 the toothache ; that I found I was not good at 
 enduring bitter pain ; that I should never be able 
 to find courage in myself to hold my finger in the 
 flame of a candle for one hour ; and much less 
 endure hell-fire both as to body and soul for all 
 eternity ; and that therefore, if I should be damned, 
 I were utterly undone. The man grew to look 
 upon me with a countenance between smiling and 
 scorning; and asked me whether I was one of 
 
 89 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 them who believed that there was any fire in hell. 
 I told him that I believed it, and knew it, as a thing 
 which God had taught to be a most certain truth, 
 and both revealed it in Holy Scripture, and 
 delivered it by the holy Catholic Church of all 
 ages. To which he made no answer but this : That 
 it was very well done of me, if I had a mind to it ; 
 but that, for his part, &c. : and there he ended, 
 without concluding the sentence, which gave me 
 no great loss towards the believing of anything 
 that he could say. 
 
 Captain Whitlock* came 1 also often to me, 
 and would be talking to me like a madman, as he 
 was, both profanely against piety, and licentiously 
 against modesty; though he did it after so jolly 
 and witty a manner that he would tempt a man 
 almost to forgive him even in spite of his heart. I 
 answered as I thought fit, and asked him once 
 withal what security he could have that the earth 
 would not shrink under him, that so he might be 
 swallowed up into hell, as he went drolling, and 
 fooling, and blaspheming, up and down the world, 
 both against the Catholic faith, from which he was 
 not wholly a stranger, as having been long bred 
 
 * Captain Edmund Whitelocke, adventurer on the con- 
 tinent, and courtier. He got his captaincy, when fighting in 
 France, from the Governor of Provence. Suspected in 
 connection with the Gunpowder Plot. — Ed. 
 
 90 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 in France, as also against the modesty of virtuous 
 minds. He asked me then, where I found that men 
 were to be damned for certain sins of the under- 
 standing part, which made one man differ from 
 another in belief ; and certain other sins which 
 pleased some, without doing others any wrong ; 
 and that, for his part, he maliced nobody, but loved 
 them lustily that loved him. Upon that I cited St. 
 Paul to him, who condemns sects and heresies, as 
 also the works of the flesh, and saith that such as 
 commit them shall never inherit the kingdom of 
 God. But Whitlock replied that to me St. Paul 
 was a widgeon, and I -pray thee leave flaying 
 the fool. 
 
 There came to me also one Mr. Cooper, who 
 was a practiser and counsellor at law ; and he held 
 also a kind of office under my father. This man 
 would still be telling me how the law of England 
 stood at this day, and what mighty dangers a man 
 incurred by taking those unlawful courses wherein 
 I was. To which the answer might be easily made 
 by one who considered eternity more than time, 
 and who knew and was able to tell him that the 
 laws which oppose my religion came very lately in ; 
 and how they destroyed, and rooted up, the belief 
 and practice of all ancient times. After that, he 
 would needs play the divine, and would prove to me, 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 forsooth, out of St. Paul, that he condemned the 
 belief of the Papists by censuring such as, he said, 
 would forbid marriages, and eating of meats in the 
 later ages of the world. But I showed him clearly 
 out of St. Augustine that those sentences of St. 
 Paul were directly fulfilled upon the Manichees, 
 who condemned marriages, and eating of flesh, as 
 unlawful and naught ; but not the Catholics, who 
 condemned them not as naught, but commended 
 to all Christians, who are in health, abstinence from 
 some meats, and continency to all ecclesiastical 
 persons, from all pleasure of women, as more excel- 
 lent and good. " Doth St. Austen," said the lawyer, 
 " write this ? " " Yes," said I ; " and I can show it 
 you, when you will." " St. Austen," said he, 
 " was a villain." By that time this lawyer was near 
 my stairs, and, I confess, I was half tempted to 
 throw him down, and break his neck. 
 
 But that which gave me a more perplexed care 
 was the commandment which I received from my 
 Lord of Canterbury that, upon a certain day and 
 at a set hour, I should go wait on Doctor 
 Andrews, who then was Bishop of Chichester. 
 Now, though the order came from my Lord of 
 Canterbury, it was negociated and procured by 
 some nearer friends of mine, who had also sent a 
 certain chaplain of theirs to be in place where he 
 
 02 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 might hear, without being seen ; that so he might 
 afterwards make relation of the issue of that day's 
 work. 
 
 Upon my arrival with my Lord of Chichester, he 
 welcomed me after a grave and good manner, and 
 told me how glad he was to see me, and that he 
 would be more glad of a more particular acquain- 
 tance ; and that, if it pleased me, we might often 
 meet. And so, after some few usual civilities, he 
 desired to know of me what I commanded. I told 
 him that it was not my part to command but to 
 obey, when he was in place, and therefore that I 
 would be glad to know his pleasure. He sought, 
 perhaps, to put the offer of conferring upon me. 
 But I, on the other side, was resolved that I would 
 be upon the defensive, whensoever there should be 
 question of any conference. 
 
 But when he saw that there was no remedy, he 
 began with me after this manner : " I understand, 
 Sir, that you have embraced the Popish religion, 
 and forsaken that of English Protestants, wherein 
 you were born and bred. For my part, I am an 
 old man, and I have been a lover of books, ever 
 since I was born; and I understand so much of 
 God's goodness that I desire so to believe in him, 
 and so to serve him here, as that I may enjoy him 
 hereafter. And certainly if in all this time J had 
 
 93 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 been able to find just cause why I should hold 
 myself to be unsafe where I am, I should not have 
 failed to choose the best way to the next world, 
 whatsoever it might have cost me in this. But it 
 seems, Sir, that you have met with this better way, 
 and you know upon what ground you are gone to 
 it ; and you are bound even by common charity 
 to tell me in this case what your motives were." 
 
 I told him that I was far from being so vain as 
 to compare myself any way with him; or so 
 ignorant as not to know how eminent a man he 
 was, even amongst very eminent men ; that it was 
 true that I had changed my religion, and that I 
 had not done it lightly, but upon great motives, 
 and yet that perhaps they were no greater than 
 such as might have often occurred to him ; but that 
 it was, in this case, concerning divinity as it is in 
 philosophy, from whence we learn that Quic- 
 quid recipitur, fermodum recifientis recipitur — it 
 depends not always upon a man's wit or learning 
 that he either admits or resists such considerations 
 or reasons, as may import to the good or ill of his 
 soul, in order either to salvation or damnation ; but 
 rather that the disposition of the party may be 
 either better or worse ; or the interest or passion 
 either more provoking or less ; or the degree of 
 God Almighty's grace either more intense or 
 
 94 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 remiss, which may make very much to the matter, 
 whether such a motive may work more or less with 
 such a man, at such a time. And as we see it is in 
 visible objects, that if the eye look through a green 
 glass the object will seem green to the eye ; and 
 red, if the glass be red, and so in the rest ; SO' also 
 doth it occur with the eye of the mind ; for if that 
 eye look through a passion, the object will have a 
 tincture thereof, and it will hardly see anything 
 as indeed it is. But that, for my part, I conceive 
 myself to have seen those things so very clearly 
 which concerned me in the way of religion, that my 
 conscience would inexcusably have condemned me 
 if I should have refused to admit them. As for him, 
 perhaps he thought that he had no reason to con- 
 ceive himself to be bound to change upon these 
 motives ; and whether he did well therein or no, 
 it was not my business to consider, and much less 
 to judge, I being far from so dangerous an ambition 
 as to take God's office out of his hands. 
 
 But yet still he thought fit to insist that he might 
 know what had wrought most upon me. And then 
 I told him, without further ceremony, that they 
 were the qualities and plain marks of the Church 
 of Christ our Lord, which were most evidently fore- 
 told by the prophets of the Old Testament, and 
 were palpably declared also by Christ our Lord, 
 
 95 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 and his holy Apostles, of the New, in a multitude 
 of clear passages and texts ; which I showed to have 
 been interpreted by the Fathers of the holy, 
 primitive Church in that sense to which we apply 
 them now. I cited many of them to his Lordship 
 which spake of a continual visibility, of a per- 
 petuity, of an infallibility, of sanctity, of unity, of 
 universality, of converting nations from idolatry, of 
 having kings for nursing-fathers, and queens for 
 nursing-mothers, of the fortitude of her martyrs, of 
 the learning of her doctors, of the piety of her 
 confessors, of the purity of her virgins, of the 
 penance of her eremites and innumerable other 
 saints, both in the secular and religious state of 
 life. And I besought him to let me say, because 
 I thought it, and conceived also that I could prove 
 it, if need were, that all these signs and marks did 
 most absolutely belong to the Catholic Church, 
 communicating everywhere with the Bishop of 
 Rome, and in no kind of imagination with the 
 Protestant Church, either of England, or any other 
 place of the world. 
 
 He told me that my discourse was rather im- 
 pertinent than untrue. For it was true that the 
 Church of Christ was such as I had showed, but 
 that it was not pertinent for him to be told so then 
 by me, who neither would deny it, nor could doubt 
 
 96 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 thereof ; and that the belonging of these marks to 
 the Church, and their having been fulfilled both 
 therein and thereby, made as much for him as me, 
 since my Church and his were the same. And when 
 I chanced afterward to pitch further upon the neces- 
 sary visibility of the Church, as a reason why I had 
 departed from his, because his could not possibly 
 be proved to have been always visible, he expressed 
 himself to me after a large manner, and with much 
 appearance of gravity and good will, telling me how 
 very heartily he was sorry that a man, forsooth, 
 of my condition and good parts should forsake the 
 communion of their Church upon a mere miscon- 
 ceipt of what they held, as if they, forsooth, 
 believed that the Church was not always to be 
 visible, which he pretended to be utterly mistaken. 
 I made a double answer to this : that first if he held, 
 as few other Protestants do, that the Church must 
 be always visible, I should put his Lordship to as 
 much trouble, to show where the Protestant Church 
 had been visible through all the ages since Christ 
 our Lord, and in all those parts of the world where 
 the Church of Christ our Lord was to be spread. 
 And secondly that his Lordship stood single, or else 
 at least very solitary, in respect of his whole party, 
 by what he said ; for that all the Protestant parts of 
 Germany, and Poland, and Denmark, whether 
 
 97 H 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 they be Lutheran or Calvinist, and of Scotland, 
 Holland, and France also, yea and a far greater 
 part of England, protest clearly against the neces- 
 sity of having always had a visible Church. And 
 though perhaps his Lordship might produce some 
 few passages either of Luther or Calvin themselves, 
 and of some also of their followers, which incline 
 some time to show that the Church must be visible, 
 yet that would make little against me, who declare, 
 and am ready to show, that they frequently and 
 usually denied the perpetual visibility of the 
 Church; and that the most constant grounds of 
 their religion lie that way as is apparent to the 
 whole world. And, indeed, they cannot so hand- 
 somely pretend to justify their rebellion both 
 against God and man by departing out of the 
 true visible Church, but only upon the strength of 
 that poor and weak broken reed. And whensoever 
 they chance to say any little word to the 1 contrary, 
 though it be both very rarely and very darkly, yet 
 even that is upon mere necessity, and when they 
 are in argument with certain Anabaptists, and 
 Familists, and the like, whom they take to be more 
 fanatical than themselves ; for then they triumph 
 as with victory upon them, in the strength of those 
 very arguments and reasons which we bring against 
 these men, when we are in any dispute with them. 
 
 98 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 But as for me, my good Lord, it is not my business 
 to show that your great Lutherans and Calvinists 
 are not contrary, and very contrary, to themselves, 
 in the several parts of their writings ; but only to 
 affirm this most certain truth, that they all believe 
 and declare that there is no necessity at all for the 
 Church of Christ our Lord to be always visible, 
 because indeed they were either so ingenuous and 
 not so foully impudent (which Fox and others 
 were) as even so much as to' pretend, though with- 
 out all colour of truth, that their Church could be 
 proved to have been always visible, and therefore 
 they resolved rather to rely upon certain extra- 
 ordinary vocations and illuminations, than to cast 
 themselves into worse straits. 
 
 My Lord of Chichester replied to me here that 
 my time was lost in showing what the judgment of 
 Luther and Calvin was, for that the Church of 
 England esteemed them no more than she found 
 cause ; that in England no one learned man, 
 except Dr. Fulke, had declared that there was no 
 necessity of a continual visibility in the Church ; 
 that, for his part, he was far from submitting to any 
 other Reformed Church than that of England ; 
 that he held the English Protestant Catholic 
 Church, and the Roman Catholic Church, to be one 
 and the same Church of Christ, forasmuch as he 
 
 99 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 might conceive the fundamental points of faith, and 
 the substantial worship and service of God ; that 
 we. were both the same militant army, the same 
 sheepfold, and the same house of God ; and that 
 the only question between us both was, in very 
 deed, and might justly be, whether that part of 
 the house wherein they dwelt, or else that other 
 part which we inhabit, were the better swept, and 
 more cleanly kept, and more substantially repaired. 
 My answer was to his Lordship much after this 
 manner: that when his Lordship said to me We 
 teach or hold this or that, I should be glad he 
 would tell me particularly, and that he would 
 also tell me constantly, whom he meant by We 
 and We; for I thought that he would find little 
 company to be of the same mind with him ; and if 
 he had much to-day he would not perhaps have 
 much to-morrow, for the morn is not more variable 
 than the minds of many of them both were and 
 are ; that in the meantime it is indeed as true, as 
 it was confessed to be so by his Lordship, that they 
 can show no' manner of distinct Church from ours, 
 which was always visible ; that it seems to be fully 
 as strange that a man of his great learning should 
 say that the Roman Catholic Church and the 
 English Protestant Church should compose and 
 constitute one Church ; that if this indeed could be 
 
 TOO 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 true, the whole current of the Doctors and Fathers 
 of the holy primitive Church, and indeed of all the 
 ages since Christ our Lord, were no less than out 
 of their wits ; when they made distinct catalogues 
 of all the particular heresies, both of their own and 
 of the then precedent times since Christ our Lord, 
 and when they also taught that every single point 
 of doctrine which was held in disobedience to the 
 Church was damnable; that not only all heresy, 
 which relates to points of doctrine, destroys sal- 
 vation ; but that all schism also, which only implies 
 a disobedience in point of discipline, is yet so 
 detestable a crime, that no virtue, no alms, no 
 prayer, no penance, no nor even death, which is 
 suffered for the name of Christ our Lord, can purge 
 it, without repentance of that particular sin, from 
 incurring the eternal torments of hell-fire. Yea, 
 and St. Basil goes so far as to profess that even a 
 single word, when it contradicts anything which 
 belongs to faith, must not be missed for the main- 
 taining of a thousand lives. And much more I 
 said to that purpose. 
 
 My Lord of Chichester was then a little troubled, 
 and, in my conscience, would not have been sorry 
 to be free of the bargain, which he had then in 
 hand ; but he replied thus : that those things were 
 not ill said, so that they were rightly understood, 
 
 IOI 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 but yet indeed that there might be error therein ; 
 and howsoever that they were general, and that we 
 might do well to come to particulars ; and accord- 
 ingly to that proposition, or rather occasion, he 
 wished me to propound somewhat, wherein there 
 were difference between him and me, that so it 
 might be considered whether the English Protes- 
 tants, or Roman Catholics, were in the right. 
 
 My answer was: that I saw not how this could 
 serve to good purpose ; for whatsoever he should 
 say by way of impugning the faith of the holy 
 Catholic Church, would be little credited by me ; 
 that my soul must not rely upon the speech of any 
 man, for being uttered by one who had more wit 
 and learning than myself ; for so I should believe 
 one thing to-day, and another thing to-morrow ; 
 but because it was spoken by Almighty God, and 
 propounded by his holy Catholic Church to be 
 believed ; and that otherwise it would not be able 
 to breed faith, but only opinion, in me. 
 
 He said he would affirm nothing but that which 
 should be as evident as that two and two made 
 four. " As for example," saith he, " it is better to 
 pray both with the understanding and with the 
 will than with the will alone " — alluding by that 
 speech to the question of praying, or not praying, 
 in an unknown tongue. To this I answered that 
 
 1 02 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 1 thought it was much better to pray with both 
 those faculties of the mind than with one alone ; 
 provided always that there were a parity of cir- 
 cumstances in both cases ; and therefore the 
 Church advises her children to pray with both those 
 faculties, and to do it also with much attention and 
 devotion, and the more the better. But now, if 
 his meaning were to strike at the custom, which 
 sometimes is used in the Church, of praying in an 
 unknown tongue, when Christians are not learned, 
 and who may yet perhaps desire to accompany the 
 Church sometimes in her holy prayers, and to 
 recite the same in Latin with her, to declare in 
 some sort, even thereby, amongst other reasons 
 that they are not heretics by condemning that 
 which the Church permits ; in that case it would be 
 better, at that time, to pray after that manner than 
 after another. Besides that, it is most certain that 
 the pious affection of any man, whatsoever that 
 affection may chance to be, either love of God, 
 grief of sin, desire of grace, and the like, is much 
 less distracted, whilst the mind is not perplexed 
 by any doubtful or glimmering conceit of what 
 such hard words may mean (which is the case of 
 men very often when they recite the Psalms, and 
 other Scriptures) than when they have no under- 
 standing at all of the words, whereby their minds 
 
 103 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 at least may be distracted, and perhaps their wills 
 disordered, and their humility tempted. And there- 
 fore, in such cases as these, it would not fall out 
 to be two to one on the Protestant side against 
 the Catholic, but ten to one on the Catholic side 
 against the Protestant. As he, who prays some- 
 times in the prayers and language of the Church, 
 may exercise perhaps more virtues, at that very 
 time, than when he prays in his own language ; 
 more humility, more reverence, more conformity to 
 the practice of the Church, together with a kind of 
 tacit protestation that he is a Catholic in that 
 point. And so, that which caeteris paribus, and of 
 itself, is less excellent may, by circumstance, fall 
 out to be more excellent, and whether it be so, 
 more or less, it is clearly no error to permit it, and 
 as clearly it is an heresy to impugn it. 
 
 We fell also, by an accident, to touch upon the 
 point of invocation of Saints ; where, against the 
 opposition, I took the boldness to tell him, that 
 besides the authority of the Church, which makes 
 the denial of it to be heresy, the holy and learned 
 Fathers of the more primitive times were clear both 
 in the belief and practice of that doctrine. And I 
 know not with what kind of sincerity, or at least 
 of memory, he most confidently affirmed to me that 
 it was not so ; that indeed the Saints prayed for 
 
 104 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 us, but that we were not warranted, by our prayers, 
 to beg those prayers at their hands. I told him, 
 with no less confidence, that the Fathers prayed 
 diligently to them, and I cited such few places as 
 occurred at that time to my remembrance, yet 
 would he not by any means admit thereof; but 
 some of the places, forsooth, were spoken by 
 exaggeration, and therefore must not be built upon 
 in the way of doctrine ; others were taken out of 
 books, which were not very authentically belonging 
 to the supposed authors, and, in a word, they must 
 not be of force to evict that point ; and that St. 
 Paul, forsooth, showed very clearly in his first 
 chapter to the Romans how unlawful a thing it was 
 to pray to any but to God. And then he told me 
 much of the nature of the word, whereby the 
 Apostle expressed himself — invocare, epicalein, 
 which is proper, saith he, to be done to God alone, 
 in whom alone we believe; for the Apostle saith 
 How shall men invoke but him in whom they 
 believe? But I told him that rather than he should 
 be much troubled at my invoking the Saints, I 
 would not tell him that I would invoke them ; but 
 it should serve if I might pray to them to pray for 
 me ; for the Church directed me but to that. So 
 that still I persisted, and said that I was sure, the 
 Church approved and recommended that doctrine 
 
 105 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 to us, and therefore that I was safe, and I would be 
 so. Then he told me that the Church, whereof I 
 spake, was grown a little too imperious upon the 
 souls of men in these later ages, and prescribed too 
 fast upon their belief. I replied that I believed the 
 Church to be everlastingly the same; and that, 
 as it had ever been directed by the Holy Spirit of 
 Almighty God, which had kept it from being pre- 
 vailed upon by error and heresy, which are the gates 
 and power of hell, so, I assured myself, that it 
 would be so for ever, and that if any man should 
 disobey it, he would deserve to be no better than 
 a very publican and pagan might be, according to 
 that brand, which was fastened upon him by no 
 less than the very mouth of Christ our Lord 
 himself. 
 
 By occasion of that text, I desired leave to unfold 
 myself a little. And really I remember well, and 
 God himself may vouchsafe to be a witness, that I 
 discoursed thus : Let the case, if it please your 
 Lordship, be thus put : suppose that I had lived, an 
 unlearned Catholic, in Luther's time, and had been 
 kneeling before an image of our B. Lady ; and that 
 Luther had passed by me, and had overheard me 
 say that part of my Ave Maria — Sancta Maria, 
 mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in 
 hora mortis nostrae, Amen — " Holy Marie, Mother 
 
 1 06 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 of God, pray for us sinners, now, and in the hour of 
 our death, Amen " ; and suppose that he had then 
 desired to speak with me a little apart, and had 
 told me that he was scandalized both to see and 
 hear me ; for he had seen me idolatrously worship 
 images, and had heard me heretically pray in Latin, 
 I being ignorant of that tongue, and withal that I 
 had blasphemously robbed God of his honour, by 
 praying to Marie, after a most unchristian manner, 
 and very contrarily to the word of God ; that, for 
 my part, I made him know, that though he might 
 perhaps have taken scandal, yet I was sure that I 
 had given him none; that, on the other side, he 
 had scandalized me extremely, by affirming those 
 doctrines to be erroneous, which were ever both 
 believed and practised by the holy Catholic 
 Church ; that I besought him not to presume to 
 prefer his own opinion before the doctrine of the 
 Spouse of Christ our Lord ; that the pretence 
 which he made of Scripture was indeed but his 
 own fancy and conceit, and that the Church knew 
 better than he what was agreeable, more or less, 
 to the holy word, and will of Almighty God ; that 
 Luther was still obstinate and refused to be satis- 
 fied by me ; that then I sought and found two or 
 three able and devout Catholic men, who were 
 common friends to us both, and that I made them 
 
 107 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 know in good manner what had passed between 
 Luther and me ; and that I entreated them to do 
 good offices for the recovering and settling of his 
 soul ; that they tried, but lost their labour, because 
 Luther was more insolent than ever; upon this, 
 that I resorted to the Church, that is, to the 
 pastors and prelates of the Church, who were 
 assembled at that time in a Council ; and that I 
 declared the whole process of this business to 
 them, and committed the matter to their care ; 
 that they required him to appear before them ; 
 that they took notice, and examined his opinions ; 
 and, upon a serious consideration thereof, that 
 they rejected them as unlawful ; condemned them, 
 as heretical ; and excommunicated all such persons 
 as maintained them ; that Luther was still where 
 he had been before, and protested against the 
 Church more and more ; and blasphemed it with 
 an open and most impious mouth. And now, I 
 ask your Lordship, in what case both I, and 
 Luther, am? As for me, I have done just that, 
 which the holy Church appointed, and I have 
 done it in the same manner, and by the very same 
 degrees, which he prescribed : Si peccaverit in te 
 f rater tuus, &c. — " If thy brother offend against 
 thee " (and by the way, what offence can ever be 
 greater than to pervert me in point of religion?) 
 
 1 08 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 " admonish him thereof, hand to hand ; and if that 
 serve not the turn, do it before two or three wit- 
 nesses, and if that also serve not, tell the Church, 
 and, if he will not hear, that is if he will not obey, 
 the Church, let him be to thee as a publican and 
 as a pagan." Now, therefore, the mouth of Christ 
 our Lord himself, that mouth of extreme pity and 
 mercy, hath yet none for Luther, but directs me 
 to hold him for no belter than a very publican and 
 pagan ; which signifies both the greatest infamy, 
 and the greatest impiety also, which can be con- 
 ceived. And certainly, if that were so>, then, it 
 will not fail to be so now ; and if then I should 
 have been a good Christian for doing this duty 
 after this manner, and if Luther had been an 
 heretic, and must have been by me then as a very 
 publican and a pagan, I must now learn some 
 great reason from your Lordship why the case 
 concerning us both must not be still the same. 
 
 Upon this, I protest upon my faith, my Lord of 
 Chichester was very much altered in his very 
 aspect, and much also in the manner of his 
 words, yea and much more than in the words 
 themselves. But in conclusion, when I pressed 
 him much, and very much, he made me, in fine, this 
 answer : that if Luther had been proceeded with 
 thus, he would have been obliged not to profess 
 
 109 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 and publish the doctrines, to which he had for- 
 merly been inclined, against the judgment of the 
 Catholic Church of that time. But whether, upon 
 that warning, he should have been bound to 
 renounce his interior belief, his Lordship affirmed 
 to be a very different question ; and that it would 
 perhaps require a much more serious deliberation 
 than the lateness of that evening would admit. 
 
 In the meantime I saw that he was troubled at 
 it ; and I replied again and again, but still could 
 never get other answer. And I am sure that, for 
 my part, I was glad to have done my cause no 
 more hurt ; and I believe the chaplain in the blind 
 corner did not brag so much as he hoped he 
 should, in the news which he was to carry to his 
 lord. I knew nothing of his being there at that 
 time ; but I understood it afterwards. In the 
 meantime his Lordship and I parted after a very 
 friendly manner, and I heard afterwards that he 
 used my name very well upon some such occa- 
 sions as occurred. And I blessed Almighty God, 
 with my whole heart, for advancing me to the 
 communion of his holy Catholic Church, the 
 strength of whose cause is so great as that an 
 ignorant novice, like myself, needed not lose his 
 wits for fear (whilst he had that doctrine, which 
 it teaches, both in his heart and in his hand) to 
 
 no 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 show himself, when he was commanded in the 
 presence of one of the most eminent adversaries of 
 his time. But I heard not, either then or at any 
 time afterwards, the least word about my being 
 to attend him any more, though you have seen 
 how, when I waited upon him first, he bespoke 
 me for a more particular acquaintance, and for 
 having many meetings afterwards. 
 
 And this was the last for discourse and confer- 
 ence in this kind, wherewith I was troubled during 
 my restraint. 
 
 The plague was then hot in London, and yet it 
 was in no power of mine to get released from that 
 prison for any time, though I offered great 
 security for returning to make myself prisoner 
 upon all warnings. But my Lord of Canterbury 
 Bancroft's zeal (if it were not rather somewhat 
 else) was so great that it would by no means give 
 way at that time. Yet Sir Francis Bacon, my 
 noble and true friend, was so very earnest with 
 many of the great ones, to get me leave to wait 
 upon him with my keeper, as often as he should 
 desire it, that at length, he made the Bishop more 
 flexible, and obtained that kind of liberty for me. 
 I was informed afterwards that he got it with the 
 less difficulty by promising that he would deal 
 earnestly with me about my return to Protestant 
 
 in 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 religion ; but, for my part, I was not of the plot. 
 It is true that now and then he would be speaking 
 some little thing to me of that kind ; but he was 
 quickly and very easily to be answered; for he 
 was in very truth (with being a kind of monster 
 both of wit and knowledge also in other things) 
 such a poor kind of creature in all those which 
 were questionable about religion, that my wonder 
 takes away all my words. I remember that once 
 he talked to me of the invisible Church, and of 
 Elias, who was the only prophet, and the only true 
 worshipper of God of his time, and I know not 
 what more of that kind. Now I could not upon 
 that occasion but turn a little quick upon him, and 
 say : " Jesus, sir ! are you but there yet ? And are 
 you gotten no further yet than to the objection 
 of Elias, and the like ? I much wonder to find such 
 a doubt in you as this, which hath been answered a 
 thousand times; and no man replies upon our 
 answers ; but they are fully still as fresh with the 
 same objection, as if still they were in the first day 
 of their dreams." He was then very much pricked ; 
 and told me with more feeling than ordinary that 
 my wonder was rather a wonder of ignorance and 
 pride than a show either of any good desire to be 
 instructed in his religion, or of any great ability 
 to uphold mine own ; for that we all could not 
 
 112 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 tell bow to make any good answer to that one 
 objection. We seldom met after upon such argu- 
 ments, but I passed my time with him in much 
 gust ; for there was not such company in the 
 whole world. 
 
 But within a while after I was first restrained, 
 I omitted not to be often sending the assurances of 
 my humble service to my Lord of Salisbury* And 
 I informed him early enough that I remembered 
 very well upon what terms we had formerly been, 
 about some little thing which was mine, and which 
 I had desired him to free out of his hands, before 
 I then had departed last out of England ; that now, 
 upon my return, I had found myself to be un- 
 oppressed in my poor fortune through his great 
 favours ; that the notice which men took of his 
 goodness towards me had saved me out of the 
 worst part of the storm ; for now I was sitting, 
 well clad, and well fed, and by a good fire ; and 
 esteemed it to be all long of him that I was worse 
 treated than to starve. And therefore I humbly 
 prayed him to> receive some such testimony of 
 homage at my hands as I was ready to lay at his 
 feet, and namely, that he would be pleased to 
 accept that very thing, as a poor present from me, 
 
 * " My Lord of Salisbury " is, of course, not the Bishop 
 of Salisbury (as Dr. Neligan supposed), but Robert Cecil 
 Lord Salisbury.— Ed. 
 
 113 I 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 about which I had been so unhappy as to contest 
 with his Lordship in former times. 
 
 He made me this most noble answer: that he 
 took this overture very well at my hands ; that it 
 would greatly accommodate him in somewhat, 
 which he had taken much to heart ; that he 
 accepted of the offer, though not in any such 
 manner as I had made it ; but that how much 
 soever he desired and affected the thing, he yet 
 was absolutely resolved never to have it but upon 
 returning me the full value thereof. In a word, I 
 was as proud as he, and my importunity was 
 extreme that he would accept thereof as a present ; 
 but, at length, he would needs be obeyed, and I 
 was fain to be so mean as to set a price, though 
 indeed I made it as moderate as handsomely and 
 probably I could. But he, on the other side, 
 understood the art of it very well, and would needs 
 give more, and yet more; insomuch as that at 
 last he brought it, I think, almost at the just 
 price. 
 
 During all the time of my imprisonment, this 
 great and gallant man would needs be putting 
 daily favours upon me, sometimes by giving me 
 lights concerning mine own condition, sometimes 
 by way of advice how to carry myself in order to 
 my addresses and estate ; and besides out of his 
 
 114 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 great desire to obtain me some little part of the 
 King's favour, he was earnest with me to write 
 him some letter, which might be monstrable by 
 him to the King, and which might be so cast, both 
 for matter and form, in order to the oath of 
 allegiance, as that his Majesty might take con- 
 tentment in it, and so lessen, if not remove, his 
 displeasure towards me. 
 
 I despaired, at that time, of being able to give 
 his Majesty satisfaction, and therefore I much 
 desired to decline all such occasions as might put 
 me in hazard. But in fine, there was no remedy, 
 and I must needs do it ; for Sir John Dackombe, 
 and that other rare man Sir George Calvert,* who 
 then had very near relation to him, were often 
 employed by his Lordship to me, both about 
 this particular, and many other also at that time. 
 And so I wrote a long letter to him, upon that 
 argument, and I made it as full of temper as T 
 could possibly without disadvantage to truth. But 
 he, who knew the King's humour, observed that 
 it might be 1 likelier to do me hurt than good ; and 
 therefore he thought fit to return it to me, in a 
 paper under his own hand and seal, that so it might 
 be sure to do me no harm. 
 
 After this, he grew extremely desirous to see 
 * Sir G. Calvert, first Lord Baltimore.— Ed. 
 
 "5 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 if it were possible for me to be satisfied in point 
 of conscience concerning the oath. For this 
 purpose, he had a design that I should speak with 
 Mr. Blackwell, the Archpriest, about it. I confess 
 that, for my part, I had no mind at all to that 
 business ; for I was sure that I would never take 
 an oath, which, so punctually and precisely, had 
 been condemned and prohibited by the See 
 Apostolic. And I feared, on the other side, that 
 Mr. Blackwell's importunity, without success upon 
 me, would make my case much the worse. But my 
 Lord of Salisbury had other thoughts, and con- 
 ceived that I would perhaps be persuaded ; and 
 then, he knew, I might be safe. And he 1 had most 
 particular desires to make the world perceive men 
 whom I named before, and there was no remedy 
 but I must go to the Clink, to speak with Mr. 
 Blackwell there. 
 
 I went, and spoke with him at large ; and he 
 spake also more largely with me. In substance, 
 I take God to witness, I conceive not that he said 
 anything at all, which ought to make a Christian 
 believe but that there is as much power in the 
 Church over all persons, in certain enormous, 
 scandalous, and incorrigible cases, as the oath 
 would make a man forswear ; but only he affirmed 
 that this power might perhaps be exercised unduly 
 
 116 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 at some times, and by some Popes, and rather ad 
 ruinam than ad aedificationem Ecclesiae; and 
 that it was not in such cases to be obeyed. Now, 
 there is no man who doubts of this ; and therefore 
 it neither served by way of instruction and satis- 
 faction to make me yield to any such thing, as I 
 had no mind to do; nor yet by way of excuse 
 for that which he had already done. He drew 
 that discourse of his into great length ; but this 
 was certainly the sum of all the real part thereof. 
 The rest was a great deal of insatisfaction in him 
 that both myself and others would not take the 
 oath. And, for my part, he told me plainly that he 
 knew me better by report than to think that I had 
 not wit and knowledge enough to understand that 
 I might take it lawfully, yea, and, indeed, that I 
 ought to do it ; but that he thought I conceived 
 that he followed that opinion which was less 
 plausible abroad ; and that a man must lose credit 
 by it ; and that so I rejected it upon that reason. 
 I heard as much as was said, and I pitied the 
 poor old man ; and I pardoned his great fear, his 
 desire of life, and, in a word, all his frailty much 
 more easily than I could do his not permitting 
 that a man might forbear, with a good conscience, 
 to take that oath, which had' been condemned over 
 and over by the See Apostolic ; which oath he 
 
 11/ 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 would yet needs think that both himself and others 
 might take without any offence to a good con- 
 science, upon no other reason (for aught I know) 
 but only because 1 it might seem a better thing to be 
 safe than subject to any trouble, with great danger. 
 And whereas I remember I told him that I had 
 heard how formerly himself had forbidden Catholics 
 to take the oath, when once the Pope's Breve had 
 been published, and when himself had not been 
 yet apprehended ; and that now I must therefore 
 needs find it strange to see that a prison could not 
 only teach him how to take it, but make him 
 declare also that all men were expressly bound to 
 do it. His answer was this : that which you say 
 of me is true ; but you infer, like a young man, 
 upon it ; for Vexatio dat intellectum. This he 
 said, and this was in effect all that I also said ; 
 and I take God to witness that I say true ; and I 
 can do no less than protest it, because the' answer 
 was so silly, and so contrary even to all common 
 sense, that it cannot be very easily believed. For 
 as I told him, so it is most true and most clear 
 that crosses are wont to bring men into their wits, 
 when they draw them to forsake the conveniences, 
 delights, and commodities of flesh and blood, 
 which tend to the offence of Almighty God ; but 
 that usually, when men are brought, by the fear 
 
 118 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 of greater crosses and afflictions, to seek for tem- 
 poral safety, and liberty, and life, that kind of 
 vexation should never be thought or said to bring 
 men back into their wits, but to carry them further 
 off from thence. But howsoever we parted then, 
 and though it were not uncivilly on either side, yet 
 I believe we were very little pleased on both. I 
 judged it by what I saw and heard of him, and I 
 know it by what I felt in myself ; for, indeed, I 
 came much not only unsatisfied by him, but 
 averted also from him in my very heart. 
 
 But now my Lord of Salisbury, who was so 
 careful to procure this conference, would not be 
 slack to know the issue thereof, and, indeed, he 
 was so desirous, that there was no remedy but he 
 would have it from myself. I attended him there- 
 fore at Whitehall ; and he asked me, in cheerful 
 manner, if the Archpriest had given me any satis- 
 faction. And I told him that, if it pleased him, I 
 would most faithfully relate the whole story, and 
 that himself should then be judge whether I had 
 reason to be satisfied by him, or no. He both 
 accepted and liked the condition, and so, com- 
 manding the doors to be shut, he desired me to 
 relate what had passed. I did so 1 , most particu- 
 larly. My Lord thanked me, and protested that 
 he believed me ; that he was sorry that the Arch- 
 
 119 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 priest had not persuaded me ; but yet that really 
 he must confess that his discourse gave me no 
 cause to change my mind. 
 
 After this the clouds came thick upon me; 
 needy persons were looking after me ; and I was 
 advised by some friends rather to retire myself 
 handsomely out of the way, for the safety of the 
 poor fortune which I enjoyed, than still to be shut 
 up in prison, and to expose my whole estate to the 
 first beggar. I gave way to be so disposed of, and 
 though I went over with a fair licence, yet I was 
 directed in mine ear not to return, till the King's 
 further pleasure were first known. 
 
 I cast therefore my estate into money; and I 
 parted, upon the hasty sale, with a loss of a great 
 part of the true value ; and when I had put it into 
 my purse, I was to make it over, with a very great 
 deal of disadvantage, by reason that the exchanges 
 abroad were all so very high at that time. I there- 
 fore endured the loss of above ten in the hundred 
 upon that occasion, though my Lord of Salisbury 
 (who kept a continual watch upon me, to do me 
 all honour and favour) pressed me much that he 
 might do me the courtesy of remitting all my 
 moneys at his charge, which would have cost him 
 no inconsiderable sum. But I was not poor enough 
 to need, and much less to accept, so great a 
 
 1 20 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 favour of such a kind ; and so my hands received 
 it not, though my heart did. 
 
 But now, before I passed the sea, I was delivered 
 out of the Fleet, and committed for some two 
 months to the house of a most noble, civil friend 
 of mine^ Mr. Edward Jones, for the more easy 
 despatch of my domestical affairs. I was visited 
 there daily by a multitude of persons, and, now 
 and then, I was vexed a little (and it was but a 
 little) by men who would be talking to me of 
 religion. 
 
 But when once I had made an end of my other 
 businesses, I disposed myself to begin my journey 
 into foreign parts, where I continued above twelve 
 years together. And having about the end of that 
 time made an acquaintance in France with Mr. 
 Villiers, who grew afterwards to be the King's 
 favourite and Duke of Buckingham ; and he, re- 
 membering, when he was come home, the civilities 
 which had passed between him and me at Paris, 
 and how it had been my fortune to bid him return 
 quickly into England, and to bespeak him, and to 
 tell him, that he should prove the favourite of 
 the time (which he published afterwards to all the 
 world), he resolved to press King James that he 
 would permit me to return into my country ; to 
 which, after great difficulties, his Majesty was con- 
 
 121 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 tent to give way. But because when he obtained 
 the leave, he had done it with giving hope that I 
 would be brought to take the oath, when I came 
 home ; and that I, being urged to take it, did still, 
 though with good manners, refuse ; the King held 
 himself to be offended, and withal gave such way 
 to the malice of two or three back-friends of mine, 
 who were both great men and great Puritans, that 
 I was fain, after staying in England almost two 
 years, to retire myself once again beyond the seas. 
 But within one year after, the times grew a little 
 more easy, and a noble, and effectual real friend 
 and favourer of mine, my Lord of Bristol* had 
 both so much good will, and so much power, as 
 to obtain my absolute return home ; where I have 
 continued ever since ; saving only when I went 
 by the direction and commandment of King James 
 to wait upon our present King, when he was in 
 Spain. 
 
 When we all returned from thence, King 
 James was pleased to put a visible mark of par- 
 ticular honour upon me, at the instance, as I think, 
 of his Majesty that now is,t and partly also by 
 means of the late Duke of Buckingham, who 
 testified to King James how honestly I had 
 
 * I.e., John Digby, first Earl of Bristol. — Ed. 
 t Charles I. 
 
 122 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 carried myself in that journey. King James spake 
 very graciously to me, but showed a more than 
 ordinary trouble that the business then in hand 
 had taken no better effect. But the Spaniards in 
 the meantime suspected rashly, and concluded 
 unjustly, against me, as if the favour, which I had 
 received from the King, upon the motion of the 
 Prince and Duke, had been a fruit, forsooth, of 
 some ill office, which I, amongst many others, had 
 applied myself to do them, at that time ; a conceit 
 both very foolish, and very false. 
 
 But upon this, the honours and favours which 
 were done me at court, in the eye, as it were 
 of my parents, made them grow on apace in being 
 good to me many ways ; for they were not 
 only kind but careful too. And being once at my 
 father's house, it fell out that there came by acci- 
 dent, if it were not rather by design, a kind of 
 lusty knot, if it might not rather go for a little 
 College, of certain eminent clergymen, Arch- 
 deacons, Doctors and Chaplains, into a good large 
 room of the house, where both my father and my 
 mother were ; and so was I also myself, with many 
 others of their great family. And first, after a 
 little preface, some one of them grew to persuade 
 me, and then some other; and they all came in, 
 sooner or later, to fill up the cry, for making me 
 
 123 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 return to my former religion, upon such pretences 
 as they called reasons for what they said. It would 
 cost no less than a volume to set all their foolish 
 motives down, which had been made by others 
 both in books and sermons and discourse, a hun- 
 dred thousand times over ; and which had been so 
 often answered, and fully satisfied by Catholics ; 
 saving that Protestants have made some vow to 
 be generally still making the same objections, and 
 still and still the same, as if they had never been 
 made before, both by no means so much as to 
 take knowledge that we have given them any 
 answers ; and much less to have made reply upon 
 them. But my answer to their discourse was, to 
 thank them much for their good will which they 
 seemed to bear me, since they persuaded me to 
 nothing but that which themselves professed to 
 believe and embrace. I put them also in mind of 
 the many favours, which they had received of my 
 parents ; that I would presume that they were 
 honest and grateful men, and that they would 
 omit no diligence to do the uttermost of what they 
 could, for the compassing and contriving of that 
 which they professed to conceive to be my 
 greatest good. I told them that as there was but 
 one God, and one Saviour of the world, and one 
 Church wherein he would be believed and served, 
 
 124 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 so was it evident by several places of Holy Scrip- 
 ture that this one Church must be continually 
 visible to the eyes of men ; that this Church was 
 to be a visible and even a kind of glorious Church 
 in this world ; and that therefore I might well ex- 
 pect at their hands that they should show me some 
 such Church of their religion, as had continued 
 ever since Christ our Lord, and had been derived 
 down to this age ; whereby I might be assured 
 that some mighty parts of the world had professed 
 their religion ever since that time. But yet, that 
 I would not tie them to so hard conditions as to 
 produce such Monarchies and Empires, no, nor 
 yet any great provinces, or so much as shires, yea, 
 or even cities, which had continually believed and 
 professed their religion ; nay, that I would not so 
 much as oblige them to show me any one single 
 town or city, which professed in all former ages 
 as now they did ; but let them only bring me any 
 one village, yea, or even one single family alone, 
 where there was but even some one pastor, and 
 some one single sheep, a hundred years ago, and 
 so upward for as long or little time as they would, 
 who had preached and professed as they do now, 
 and I protested that I would go upon the Sunday 
 following to their sermons. And for fear lest they 
 should say that some former professor of some of 
 
 125 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 their doctrines (whom I call heretics for many 
 other most impious opinions, which they obstinately 
 held in difference even from Protestants them- 
 selves, but whom they will needs call Protestants, 
 as agreeing with themselves in some things) did 
 conceive with them in all substantial and funda- 
 mental points, and that they were but toys 
 wherein they differed (whereas yet, in very truth, 
 any one point of doctrine, being obstinately held, 
 in disobedience to the holy Catholic Church is 
 able to damn a soul by the judgment of the holy 
 Fathers of the most primitive times), I offered to 
 become one of theirs, if they could show me any 
 such men as believed but even the self same canon 
 of Holy Scripture, and the same number and nature 
 of sacraments, which were received by them at this 
 day. And I hoped they would not affirm but that 
 the Holy Scriptures and the holy Sacraments are 
 of the most important and essential things of all 
 Christian religion. 
 
 When I had expressed myself thus, it was 
 strange enough to see how they wrung their hands, 
 and how their whites of eyes were turned up, and 
 their devout sighs were sent abroad to testify 
 both their wonder and grief that I would utter 
 myself after that manner. And they also talked 
 much to me (though it were very little to the pur- 
 
 126 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 pose) of Wicliff, the Waldenses, and John Huss, 
 to all which I answered at great ease, as, indeed, 
 any child might have done. For who knows not 
 that they were all notorious heretics, not only in 
 our opinion, but even in theirs, if they would but 
 well consider what abominable doctrines they 
 held, which I cited to them at the same time. I 
 prayed them also* to reflect upon a multitude of 
 those most important doctrines, wherein both those 
 former men and we agree, which yet the Protes- 
 tants detest. And thirdly, I made them see that if 
 those heretics had been as strict Protestants as 
 these men pretend, yet would not that humour be 
 found to have continued in the world any long 
 time ; but might seem to' have rather been but 
 like some bubble of water, or else like some squib 
 of fire, which is wont to come and go at an 
 instant, but not like the light of God's Church, 
 which is to 1 be as the sun, and that no less con- 
 stant than it is clear ; and therefore theirs ought 
 to have appeared sooner and lasted longer, and 
 been always more consonant to itself, than theirs 
 ever was. 
 
 But then divers of them thought fit to wonder 
 at me still, and yet they did but say in general 
 terms that they were very able to show 1 not only 
 some few families or little towns, which had 
 
 127 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 always professed their religion, but many cities 
 also and provinces and kingdoms, in divers parts 
 of the world, and this not only a hundred years 
 ago, but five hundred, and a thousand, and ever 
 since the first founding of a Christian Church. 
 But they seemed, indeed, to wonder at me so> very 
 much that so they might abuse the hearers, 
 thereby, who were many; and I held myself 
 obliged to take them a little short, in these words : 
 " I protest before Almighty God, I have said noth- 
 ing to you but what I thought ; and, indeed, I do 
 not only think it, but know it. As for you, I 
 humbly pray you not to talk any longer, but to 
 prove. Let me know what the men were that 
 believed a hundred years ago as you do now. 
 What were their names? where dwelt they? who 
 was the pastor? who, the sheep? with whom did 
 they communicate? what was the confession of 
 their faith? what the canon of their Scripture? 
 what the number and nature of their sacraments? 
 I hear you say and say, but let me see when you 
 will say and prove ; for it is then, and not till then, 
 that you shall have me as good as my word. But 
 I know you can never do that ; and so you will 
 never be able to give me cause to do this. I will 
 believe you, as I said before, to be morally honest, 
 and well-meaning men ; and that you are grateful 
 
 128 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 for the great benefits which you have received 
 from my friends ; and that you desire my conver- 
 sion to you very much ; and that you would be 
 glad to buy it at a good rate. And, therefore, 
 if you can show and prove, according to that 
 which I have desired, do it soundly, and do it 
 quickly ; and, upon my faith, I will be at a sermon 
 with you on Sunday. If therefore I hear not from 
 you, I am resolved what to think, and so the world 
 may easily take knowledge that, since you would 
 so fain say somewhat, you are all extremely un- 
 able to do it, if you do it not." They heard, and 
 still, I think, resolved to be wondering at me, after 
 the same manner, but (otherwise than by fair 
 words and great protestations) not to let me hear 
 of them any more ; for neither did they ever come 
 nor send to me afterwards. 
 
 But yet, even after this, my parents would some- 
 times be touching upon me concerning matter of 
 religion, though still they would rather do it by 
 sighs, and short wishes than long discourses. And 
 my father would ever choose rather to put some 
 fit book into my hand than to enter into any 
 express discourse ; though when he chanced to 
 speak and tell me what a cross and disadvantage 
 it was to him, in all respects, that I should be of 
 that religion which I professed, and what a comfort 
 
 129 K 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 to him it would be if I returned to his ; my custom 
 was to excuse myself by saying to him after this 
 manner : that my body and my fortune, and what- 
 soever I might care for of this world, were his, and 
 to be his ; but my soul, which was immediately 
 and only created by Almighty God, and infused 
 into this body, was only God's and mine ; that it 
 was I who must give a strict account thereof, and 
 that, in my judgment, I had seen so many un- 
 answerable reasons for the truth of that religion 
 which I then professed, that I durst not upon any 
 terms either formerly forbear to embrace it, or 
 else presume them to forsake it. And so, under 
 the only reason of not daring to renounce the 
 Catholic Roman faith, for fear of the displeasure 
 of Almighty God, and the utter damnation of my 
 soul, I made it most decent for myself to set forth, 
 after a very exact manner, all those arguments and 
 motives which, indeed, prevailed most upon me, 
 and which I thought were also the fittest to work 
 upon and put scruple into him. And really, as in 
 the sight of God, I protest, we seldom parted but 
 that, I thought, he was full of difficulty, about 
 knowing how to proceed between that which he 
 found to be easiest, and that which he judged to 
 be best, which Best, not only in my conscience, 
 but in his own also (as I verily think) was to 
 
 130 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 embrace my belief ; though yet withal, he would 
 needs, I think, make himself hope that the course 
 wherein he was might fall out to be excusable in 
 some sort ; partly by reason of those common 
 grounds of Christianity, which stand, or seem to 
 stand, between us both ; but especially by the 
 establishment of Protestant religion in this 
 Kingdom, by the Parliament and Convocation- 
 house here. In regard whereof, I have particular 
 reasons to conceive that he thought he might, with 
 a kind of no great unlawfulness, press me still in 
 earnest manner to carry myself in religion as him- 
 self did ; which yet, in my very conscience, I think 
 he did not resolve, himself, to be the best. But 
 his age was then very great ; and his interests sat 
 close upon him ; and so he came shortly afterward 
 to die in the self same manner as he had lived; 
 leaving matter of much grief to my heart, for I 
 doubt his case is not the better now for his having 
 seen and heard that from me, which I presumed 
 to declare to him then. 
 
 My mother was much more fervent towards the 
 Puritanical sole-Scripture way, and was ever upon 
 all occasions wont to be as busy with Scripture as 
 if it had been some glove upon her fingers' ends ; 
 and, accordingly, she was held in a mighty kind of 
 opinion with that sort of people. With me she 
 
 131 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 would speak little of religion, because she had not 
 found that she was likely to gain much by that 
 bargain. But yet she would be telling me often 
 how much she prayed to the Lord for me, whilst I, 
 on the other side, would also be far from failing 
 to let her know whatsoever I conceived to import 
 her for the good of her soul. Yet it wrought no 
 effect at all upon her ; for she died, not long after, 
 in a most miserable manner. For when her last 
 sickness assaulted her, she could not, with all her 
 Scriptures, find in her heart to think of dying, by 
 any means, nor ever almost be persuaded so much 
 as to pray at all, though she were much called 
 upon, and though, during her health, she could be 
 still talking of it. And, which makes her case 
 fit to be lamented much the more, she continued, 
 to all purposes, of perfect sense and understand- 
 ing throughout her whole sickness. And yet, 
 instead of disposing herself for God, and preparing 
 herself to die, she would be still diverting and 
 entertaining herself otherwise, and still be calling 
 for her silks, and works, with other toys and 
 trinkets of that kind, so that finally she went out of 
 the world more like an ignorant child of four years 
 old; than like a talking Scripturist of almost four 
 score. And I have learnt the truth of these things 
 from such as were present with her at that time, 
 
 132 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 and who were of her own religion, and were scan- 
 dalized and afflicted to see her death, and how 
 hardly she could be drawn to pray. And the God 
 of heaven sees my heart, and how afflicted and 
 wounded it is to reflect upon the misery of her 
 end ; but he knows that I relate it merely in the 
 nature of paying an homage to his Divine Majesty, 
 and to the truth of his religion in the holy Catholic 
 Church, whilst I show how the most forward and 
 talking Protestants and Puritans have but the 
 bark of the tree, without the juice ; and the shell, 
 without the kernel; and that indeed, how warm 
 and well-wrapped soever they think themselves 
 to be, whilst the fair cold weather lasts, and are 
 here at home, yet their cloak hath as many holes 
 in it as a sieve, which is far from being able to 
 keep out a storm. 
 
 Now this is the historical part of that which con- 
 cerned my conversion, as also of such accidents 
 as had the greatest and nearest relation to me 
 upon that occasion. And now before I grow to a 
 final period thereof, I must needs tell you, though 
 in very few words, of that which is the cause why 
 I have troubled you with so tedious a discourse, 
 about many things, which, perhaps, you will not 
 otherwise have very much cared to know. But you 
 commanded me to set down the story ; and there- 
 
 133 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 fore you must have it as it is; and you must 
 undergo the trouble of taking it in such sort as 
 I show it, like a pension wherewith the land is 
 charged. 
 
 You must therefore be content to consider that 
 unspeakable kind of mercy, wherewith it pleased 
 Almighty God to overshadow me, after my con- 
 version, even in all temporal respects also as well 
 as others ; that so you may discern how gracious 
 and good a master God Almighty is, and how 
 worthy he is to be served by the whole world ; 
 since he vouchsafes to deal so tenderly with them, 
 who, by his holy grace (without which they cannot 
 think a good thought), proceed not mechanically 
 and upon conditions and capitulations with him, 
 but cast themselves totally, and even, as it were 
 blindfold, and bound hand and foot, into the arms 
 of his protection and good pleasure. For you 
 have seen how it stood with me in the beginning ; 
 and how the enemy of mankind taking the advan- 
 tage of mine own corrupt nature, sought to stay 
 me from being converted to the holy Catholic 
 religion, upon many fears and frights, which he 
 laid before me. And here you may see also how 
 the mercy of Almighty God vouchsafed, as a man 
 may say, to reward himself, for it was only his 
 great goodness which enabled me to overcome the 
 difficulties which threatened me. 
 
 134 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 My parents grew kind towards me, yea and 
 careful of me, and bountiful to me ; and expressed 
 not only their love, but such a particular kind of 
 respect as was very extraordinary for parents to 
 show towards a son. And though it grew at 
 length to be less tender in my mother than 
 formerly it had been, I impute it but to the craft 
 of certain persons, who, distracting her mind from 
 me by other motives, sought to fasten that wound 
 upon my person for the hatred which they bore to 
 my religion. 
 
 That great man* who had formerly borne a 
 most particular hatred against me, when I was of 
 the same religion with himself, grew to be of the 
 noblest and greatest friends that I ever had in my 
 whole life, upon my being a Catholic declared. 
 And particularly I conceive that Almighty God 
 was pleased to allow me unexpected comfort in 
 these two kinds, because they were my greatest 
 temptations ; and his mercy made me able to 
 overcome them. 
 
 It is true that my temporal means was lessened 
 almost to the one half by a very hasty sale, which 
 I was fain to make thereof, for fear of worse. But 
 yet still, that which was left was abundant, and 
 afterwards my parents themselves gave also good 
 * Cecil, Lord Salisbury. — Ed. 
 
 135 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 supplies ; yea, and formerly I had received some 
 such light from a certain Catholic, in the sale of 
 some lands, as it is probable I should have wanted 
 in Protestancy. I acknowledged that kindness in 
 him, who did me thd courtesy, with much bounty, 
 though afterwards he fell into some miseries, 
 whereby he was loaden with wants, which kept him 
 from being so constant in acknowledging my kind- 
 ness to him, as I had showed myself for his to me. 
 And upon the whole matter I can, without vanity, 
 and may, with much gratitude to God, affirm that 
 I have never been either in want or near it ; but 
 my hands have always been full of money, and my 
 fortune far superior to my expense; and so my 
 mind at ease. And, in fine, I have been ever the 
 more able to lend my friends my service in that 
 kind than obliged to expect it from them. 
 
 My country I lost many years, which yet God 
 gave me life and health to expect ; and he also 
 raised me friends, whereby I recovered it ; and 
 amongst whom I enjoy it with as much honour and 
 advantage of many kinds, as any man of my poor 
 condition hath received ; yea and, in my con- 
 science, I think, with more than I should have been 
 admitted to, if I had been a Protestant. So that 
 these things may well be able to teach that part of 
 the world, which shall hereafter come to understand 
 
 136 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 of my little story, how they are to cast themselves 
 headlong into the hands of God ; and especially 
 to instruct myself that I am ever to be kept 
 in fresh memory of how infinitely I have been 
 obliged to his Divine Majesty, and how carefully 
 I am bound to serve him all the days of my life : 
 Amen. 
 
 * I take God humbly to witness that all this 
 relation aforesaid is entirely true. 
 
 TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 London, the 8th of 7ber 1640. 
 
 * Down to "Amen" the original MS., though corrected 
 throughout by Sir Tobie, is in another hand. From " I take" 
 is in his own handwriting. The nine signatures on the 
 next page are autograph. — Ed. 
 
 13; 
 
THE CONVERSION OF SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 We here underwritten affirm that we have heard 
 Sir Tobie Matthew declare and take it upon his 
 soul, that both the relation of his conversion, which 
 is here set down in this book, as also the follow- 
 ing short discourse which he calls by the name of 
 Postkumus, or the Survivor are entirely true, to the 
 best of his understanding and memory. Both 
 which are signed by his own hand. He also holds 
 the following five-and-twenty considerations in 
 order to Religion to be very considerable and true. 
 
 . Elizabeth Mordaunt. 
 Anne Mordaunt. Elizabeth Petre. 
 George Wintour. ffran. Petre. 
 Edward Gulyard. Edward Young. 
 Edward Guldegorde. 
 Thos. James. 
 
 139 
 
POSTHUMUS, 
 
 OR 
 
 THE SURVIVOR. 
 
 WITH CERTAIN CONSIDERATIONS, 
 WHICH FOLLOW. 
 
 141 
 
POSTHUMUS, 
 
 OR 
 
 THE SURVIVOR. 
 
 I FIND myself so daily subject to indispositions 
 and infirmities, and so full also of years, which now 
 pass three-score, as to give me good assurance that 
 my life is not to last very long. So that it imports 
 me enough to consider well what things I may 
 esteem it fit for me to deliver myself of, before I 
 die ; and to execute them also with speed, if I 
 desire to be sure not to be surprised. 
 
 Now one of those in particular upon which 
 I have fully resolved is to leave behind me 
 a Protestation of some things concerning my- 
 self, which I must needs know much better than 
 any other ; and of some other things also concern- 
 ing others, wherein my declaration may at least 
 be as probable and fit to be believed as the opinion 
 of some other men may be. And to this end, that 
 I may be credited the more, in what I am about to 
 say, I take Almighty God to witness for the truth 
 
 143 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 of it all, so far as that if I shall say such or such 
 a thing is true ; or, such or such a thing I know ; 
 or, such or such a thing I conceive; that thing 
 shall be true, and shall be known, and so con- 
 ceived of by me, as I shall answer the contrary 
 thereof to God himself at the day of Judgment. 
 And though, when I am now writing this, I am (I 
 humbly thank God) in perfect health (at least as 
 good as in this evening of my day I may ever hope 
 to have in this world), yet to make the sin more 
 criminal, yea and more capital, to me, if I should 
 be so very wicked as to deliver any untruth in this 
 paper, I humbly beseech God even now, that my 
 soul may so find him merciful to me, in the hour of 
 my death, more or less, as I shall, more or less 
 sincerely and truly express myself here. 
 
 My purpose also is, that, if it please God to call 
 me to him by the way of sickness, and if that 
 happen to me at home, and if [I] shall then remem- 
 ber that I have written such a paper as this, to 
 call for the said paper into my hands, and then 
 and there to protest upon my death-bed that I 
 have spoken nothing in it but truth, and that I ask 
 so much right of the world as to be believed 
 therein. 
 
 I declare therefore, in the first place, that I live 
 in the profession of the Roman Catholic faith, 
 
 144 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 wherein, by God's holy grace, I fully purpose to 
 die. But I know it hath been doubted by many 
 whether really, when I professed it first, I were 
 indeed a Catholic, or no ; and whether also I had 
 not left my Protestant religion upon discontent- 
 ments and ends. 
 
 In answer I affirm most truly that when I became 
 first a Catholic, I did it with all sincerity of mind, 
 and so far I was from being wrought by it, by 
 any temporal respects, that I found they were all 
 directly cross to my intention. And as, for my part, 
 on the one side, I went to make that change upon 
 a precise necessity of conscience (wherein I con- 
 ceived myself to be) to acknowledge and confess 
 the Catholic Church, communicating over the whole 
 world, with the Bishop of Rome, to be the 
 only true Church of Christ our Lord ; so, on the 
 other, I had extreme difficulty and aversion from 
 making myself a member thereof, in regard of the 
 great disadvantages, displeasures, and dangers, to 
 which I must be obnoxious thereby. Besides that, 
 I had even then some little doubts in my under- 
 standing part. But at length it pleased Almighty 
 God to give, out of his infinite mercy, more light 
 to my understanding, and to add more and more 
 heat to my will, for the working through those 
 frights, and sweats, and agonies of perplexity and 
 
 145 L 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 desolation wherein I found myself at that time, 
 through the deadly desire which I had of not 
 embracing the Catholic Roman faith. These con- 
 flicts were so much the more painful to me, and 
 they lasted so much the longer with me, and re- 
 turned so much the fiercelier upon me, for that 
 I fought all these combats against the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil hand to hand, without any 
 help of this world ; since no creature of any coun- 
 try, and much less, in this case, of mine own, was 
 made privy, in the least kind, to my purpose. But 
 I thought, and studied, and considered, and prayed, 
 and hoped, and feared, between God only and my- 
 self ; till at length it was his pleasure to make me 
 victorious by his grace (upon such motive as I will 
 here set down), and to receive me as a weak, un- 
 worthy member of his Church ; for which I humbly 
 offer him the praises of all thoseJ-.Blessed Spirits, 
 who are reigning with him now in his glory. But 
 the story of my whole conversion is drawn particu- 
 larly and exactly by myself ; and as, if it ever come 
 to public view, it will perhaps be the less unpleas- 
 ing to any reader in regard that it opens a fair 
 way to many passages of several kinds, so I can' 
 and do affirm, upon my conscience, as in the sight 
 of Almighty God himself, that all the parts of it 
 are most perfectly and 1 precisely true. 
 
 146 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 I have since met, in process of time, with divers 
 great objections against Catholics; and amongst 
 the rest, with this, as if we were pensioners to 
 foreign Princes ; as not being good subjects to 
 the King; and as if we had designs against the 
 State, &c. 
 
 By way of answer, I take God to witness that I 
 have never, in my whole life, known any one sub- 
 ject of the King's, in this kingdom, receive any one 
 pension, or any other pecuniary profit, of any 
 Prince in Europe ; for I mean not to make it my 
 business now to consider whether any of our 
 seminaries or monasteries have any pensions from 
 Popes or Princes, or no, towards the breeding of 
 priests for the mission of England. But as for all 
 particular men, who live here and in obedience 
 under this Crown, I never knew any one, in my 
 whole life, who received pension or profit from any 
 foreign Prince in the world. And let God so be 
 good to my soul, when I shall die, as he knows I 
 speak nothing but truth. 
 
 And as for our not being good subjects, and 
 carrying disaffections, or having ill designs against 
 the King or State ; I take God most solemnly to 
 witness that I never knew, or so much as probably 
 heard (to the very uttermost of my remembrance), 
 of any disloyal purpose, which was harboured by 
 
 147 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 any subject of the King's, either at home or abroad, 
 against his person or crown, his prosperity or his 
 safety, in any kind at all, or in the least degree ; 
 except only such few as were publicly known, and 
 were convicted, and suffered for it in the sight of 
 the world. I deny not (because it is absolutely 
 impossible for any creature to know) but that there 
 may also perhaps have been diver9 other ill sub- 
 jects to the King, who may have had some ill 
 design against his Majesty ; but that which I here 
 affirm (and upon which I renounce God's mercy if 
 I say not true) is that I never knew of any other 
 than such as I spake of before. And when I say it 
 is I who affirm it, I conceive that the circumstance 
 of the person is considerable enough. For I have 
 many and many years upon my back ; I have spent 
 above twenty of them in foreign parts, and divers 
 of them in such places as were not most improbable 
 for temptation and danger ; and I have conversed 
 with multitudes of people of several nations and 
 conditions ; and it would not have been easy for 
 very much of this kind to have been stirring but 
 that in likelihood I must needs have met with some 
 air of it, whether I would or no, in so many years 
 of a life spent like mine. And yet, I take God to 
 witness, that even I, with being the man whom I 
 have here described, did never, in my whole life, 
 
 148 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 understand or come to know of any one such 
 thing. 
 
 I have also met with another objection, as if 
 there were strange differences, even amongst 
 Catholics themselves, concerning certain doctrines ; 
 and particular about these — the doctrine 1 of equi- 
 vocation, and that of obedience to Princes, and 
 thirdly, concerning the question of keeping, or not 
 keeping, faith with heretics ; and finally, they 
 charge as deeply that some of us, here in England, 
 are much more blameable than the rest for being 
 more opposite than others to the ways of temper 
 and moderation ; whereas they inform the world 
 that the sweeter and milder spirits, both of the one 
 belief and the other, dispose themselves with much 
 civility to meet in some good agreement concern- 
 ing religion. Now these objections are made not 
 only by a multitude of Protestants, but (as I have 
 just cause to believe) by some few Catholics also, 
 who, upon the price of picking a thank with the 
 State, for their own supposed temper, are content 
 to let some words fall, which tend to the charging 
 others with a contrary humour; and I pray God 
 it be not laid heavily to their charge. As for me, I 
 have waded, as often and as deeply as I could, so to 
 meet with the very bottom of the business ; and I 
 take Almighty God to witness that I have been 
 
 149 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 able to discover no other thing than that which 
 shall follow here, and the words of a dying man 
 may well deserve to be believed. 
 
 Concerning the doctrine aforesaid, I find no dif- 
 ference at all between the judgment of the clergy 
 of England and that of other place's abroad ; or 
 of the secular clergy and that of the regular in this 
 kingdom ; and no difference also at all between 
 the regulars in general of any one Order and the 
 regulars in general of any other. And I think it 
 will be hard to find any one such proposition in 
 any author of any one Order as may not be well 
 matched with the like in some author of the other 
 Orders ; and, if I be deceived, let what I say here 
 be confuted. 
 
 And as for that other charge of being too 
 rigorous, and, as it were, inflexible towards all 
 temper : I . have but this to say, which my heart 
 thinks, namely, that some one priest or two of the 
 secular clergy, or some one religious man or two 
 of some regular Order (they being perhaps less 
 exact and recollected for their particulars than the 
 rest of their own bodies are, and perhaps also con- 
 tenting themselves to have a little of the flatterer 
 and time-pleaser in them, yea and peradventure 
 not being wholly free from envy against some 
 others, who are more strict and punctual in doing 
 
 150 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 their duties to God and to his Church than them- 
 selves) may, with art enough, have let fall some 
 such discourse as this, in the ears of some of the 
 greatest and most considerable Protestants of this 
 kingdom; as if, forsooth, some Catholics were 
 rather furiously than fairly bent against those 
 steps towards moderation, which those others will 
 needs pretend to draw on. 
 
 But in this I can also most truly take God to 
 witness that upon the strictest inquiry that I have 
 possibly been ever able to make, I could never 
 come directly to find what that temper and modera- 
 tion was ; and upon what distinct articles and 
 terms it was to stand, which was pretended to be 
 so much desired by some, and was said to be so 
 bitterly rejected by others. And the further I went 
 in their search, the more able I found myself to 
 discern that even those very men, who wanted 
 themselves to be of the most temperate, would 
 never touch in public upon the moderating of any 
 one point, in the way either of doctrine or prac- 
 tice, which the men accused of most rigour were 
 not also as fully willing to accept as they. Pro- 
 vided always that nothing were to be done which 
 might derogate in the least degree from the nature 
 and duty of being true and sincere Catholics, and 
 of obeying the See Apostolic entirely in all things 
 
 151 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 which concern our faith ; and especially when it 
 reiterates the same orders ; for that shows that it 
 was not formerly surprised ; and it must not, in 
 some cases, be disobeyed for the gaining of a 
 thousand worlds, and the saving of a million of 
 lives. 
 
 This is most certainly true ; and the rest is a 
 most slanderous untruth. The self same I also 
 affirm (as I was saying before) forasmuch as may 
 relate to the doctrine of obedience to secular 
 Princes, as also to that other of equivocation ; and 
 finally also that which concerns the holding faith 
 with heretics. For I clearly find and directly know 
 that there is no difference at all in the generality 
 of English Catholics of any condition or of any 
 Order from any other. But because some par- 
 ticular men must ever be more eminent, and exact, 
 and exemplar than the rest, and therefore more 
 apt to be envied, and others also are more large, 
 and remiss, and therefore more apt to malign ; 
 from hence we come to find that there are such 
 misreports given out. Wherein they are very 
 likely to make so much the more shift to get credit, 
 because the men whom they charge with distemper 
 are the most watchful in defence of that which 
 goes for the known Catholic doctrine ; and do both 
 speak most, and write most, for support thereof, 
 
 152 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 according to the occasion. And from hence it is 
 no uneasy step, by which this popular and ill- 
 grounded opinion may get up, and therefore they 
 are of the more strict in propounding different 
 doctrines from others, because generally they are 
 indeed of the most diligent to instruct men to 
 embrace those doctrines which the Catholic Church 
 propounds to be believed, whether they be penal 
 here, or no. So that really, and as in the sight 
 of God, there is no division of opinion at all be- 
 tween the branches of the English Catholic body 
 about these things. And moreover and in par- 
 ticular concerning that last point, of keeping or 
 not keeping faith with heretics, I esteem (if it be 
 possible) that it is a greater calumny than any of 
 the rest; for the contrary is so expressly and 
 clearly taught, that there is not the least colour for 
 this slander. And Becanus shows and proves in 
 print the truth of what I say. 
 
 This was then the substance of that which I was 
 desirous to relate, or rather, as it were, to sign 
 and seal with my last blood, since I write it as 
 with the hand of a dying man, concerning all those 
 particulars which I have touched ; and I am in 
 good hope that it may be pleasing to Almighty 
 God for me to have testified my knowledge and 
 belief of these things. For all such as will do me 
 
 153 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 the right to believe that I am not most infamously- 
 wicked and false must at least be much less violent 
 in continuing their own misconceits ; and will per- 
 haps be more inclined to look into these things 
 with their own eyes, and so grow to live and move 
 in the way to heaven, according to the pulse of 
 their own instructed and well-informed hearts. 
 And as, in the beginning of this short discourse, 
 I declared and protested that the motives of my 
 conversion to Catholic religion were no way 
 temporal, or laid upon any worldly design, so now 
 in the very end both of this paper and of my life, 
 I will declare to my survivors not only what the 
 motives were not, but what they also were, which 
 wrought most upon me ; and I will do it after a 
 summary manner; for I must but touch and go. 
 These heads I put together heretofore, but I have 
 communicated them to some friend, upon a certain 
 occasion, though independently upon any such 
 discourse as I have held in this paper hitherto. But 
 now I will annex them here to this ; and they shall 
 last after me, as long as it may please Almighty 
 God to give them life, for his own immortal glory 
 and the good of souls. And though formerly they 
 were reflected upon by me as reasons and motives 
 but to myself, yet here I send them out in form of 
 a funeral advice to the reader, that he may vouch- 
 
 154 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 safe to look upon them with a careful eye. For so 
 both he and myself will have the less cause to be 
 sorry, for having taken this little pains. 
 
 * Signed by me in London, as in the 
 presence of Almighty God, for 
 most certainly and entirely true ; 
 upon the 8th day of /ber 1 640. 
 
 TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 [seal] 
 
 * The text, as in the first part, is in the handwriting of a 
 scrivener. From the word "signed" is in Sir Tobie's hand. 
 
 155 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 A Protestant Soul which is 
 piously affected, and procures 
 to be saved, must not fail to 
 consider, and consider well, the 
 Particulars, which follow here. 
 
 i. Consider in the first place, and do it daily, 
 more and more, how certain death is, and how 
 uncertain the hour of death, and to what a strict 
 account we shall all be called at that hour, for* all 
 the deeds, and words, and thoughts of our whole 
 life. And that both the writer and reader of this 
 very paper shall then be most severely examined, 
 about the use which we shall have made thereof, 
 whether it be good or bad. 
 
 2. Consider that Christ our Lord, being both 
 true God and man, came to redeem and save the 
 whole world by his doctrine, and the example of 
 his blessed life, and by the torments and passion 
 of his bitter death. All which neither ever did, nor 
 ever will, bring any one soul to heaven of itself 
 alone, nor by any other way at all unless it be 
 applied to the soul by the very self same means, 
 which the infinite wisdom and goodness of 
 Almighty God himself hath appointed and 
 ordained. 
 
 156 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 3. Consider that some of those religions which 
 profess the name of Christ our Lord are wont to 
 pretend and teach that the only means of applying 
 the merit of our Blessed Saviour's life and death 
 to our souls is faith. But the Catholic Church 
 decrees and declares that besides our faith in be- 
 lieving all the mysteries of Christian religion, and 
 our hope in relying upon the power and promises 
 of God's mercy, there must be also charity, for the 
 keeping of his commandments and laws. For, as 
 St. John the Evangelist affirms,* he that saith he 
 loves God, and doth not keep his commandments, 
 is a liar. And whensoever they are broken by us, 
 there must be a. reversing and taking away of the 
 offence which was committed by thought, word, and 
 deed by the penance both of thought, word, and 
 deed ; and namely by the sorrow and contrition of 
 the heart, by the confession of the mouth, and by 
 the satisfaction of the hand, or work. 
 
 4. Consider that if the means of applying the 
 precious blood of Christ our Lord to the cleansing 
 and forgiving of our sinful souls be obstinately 
 mistaken, all is lost. And therein we must not rely 
 upon our own deceivable opinions and fancies, but 
 upon the directions and decrees of God's true 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 *Jo. 14, 15. 1 Jo. 2,4. 
 
 157 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 5. Consider what visible marks are delivered by 
 the prophets of the Old Testament, whereby to 
 foretell what kind of body or congregation the 
 Church of Christ our Lord should be afterward. 
 As also what is affirmed of the same true Catholic 
 Church by the mouth of Christ our Lord and by 
 his blessed Apostles in the New Testament 
 
 6. Consider that in the Old Testament it is fore- 
 told :* that the true Church of Christ our Lord 
 should be the converter of Pagan nations from 
 idolatry ; that it should be spread to the very ends 
 of the whole earth ; that kings should be the 
 nursing-fathers and queens the nursing-mothers of 
 this Church ; that God would so espouse himself to 
 this Church as that he would never be divorced 
 from it ; that continual watch and ward should be 
 kept by God's servants over this Church; that a 
 clean and pure sacrifice should daily be offered up 
 to Almighty God in this Church ; that the Princes 
 and Potentates of the earth should do reverence 
 and homage to this Church, and even lick the very 
 dust of her feet ; and that this Church should ever 
 be a visible Church, even as a mighty and huge 
 mountain is visible with many other attributes, and 
 expressions, and significations of this kind. 
 
 * Isa. 18, 19 et 66, 20. Psal. 2, 23; 60, 11. Ose. 2, 12. 
 Isa. 62, 6. Malach. 1, 11. Isa. 49, 23. Zach. 8, 3. 
 
 158 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 7. Consider that in the New Testament both 
 divers of the same advantages and divers others 
 also are set down* For St. Paul declares ex- 
 pressly: that the Church was both the pillar and 
 foundation of truth ; that the Doctors and Pastors 
 of this Church were to continue so visible to the 
 world's end, as that they were to keep men from 
 error, and from floating up and down into uncer- 
 tainties, either upon the erroneous or malicious 
 persuasion of wicked men. Christ our Lord with 
 his own blessed mouth declares : that he would 
 remain with this Church to the very consum- 
 mation of the world ; that whosoever should hear, 
 that is y obey his Apostles and disciples should be 
 accounted to hear and obey himself ; and who- 
 soever should despise them, should be esteemed 
 to despise him ; that his Church was to be 
 as a city upon a hill, and as a light upon a 
 candlestick, and not under a bushel ; that he would 
 give the keys of heaven's-gates into the hands of 
 his Apostles, and most eminently, and by name, 
 to St. Peter, whom he commanded as he loved him 
 to feed both his sheep and his lambs, that is, both 
 clergymen and laymen, and whom he required 
 (after himself should once be thoroughly converted 
 
 * 1 Tim. 3, 15. Ephes. 4, 11 et 14. Math. 28, 20. Luc. 
 10, 16. Math. 5, 15. Jo. 2i, 15. Math. 16, 18; 18, 17; 
 ibidem. 
 
 159 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 and established) to confirm the rest of his brethren, 
 and whom he also assured that the gates of hell 
 (whereby error and infidelity is signified) should 
 never be able to prevail against this Church ; that 
 by giving these keys into their hands, for the 
 opening and shutting of heaven's-gates, it is clear 
 that men must confess their most secret sins to 
 them ; for else how should they know when they 
 are either to open or to shut? that finally our 
 Blessed Saviour commands all Christians both to 
 hear and to obey this Church ; and declares that 
 if they do not, they must be held for no better 
 than publicans and pagans. And he addresses 
 them not to the Scripture', but to the Church ; and 
 he limits them not, in this recourse, to this or that 
 particular occasion, with exclusion of the rest, but 
 wherein soever any one Christian may scandalize 
 and sin against his brother, which can no way be 
 done so much as if he offer to destroy his soul by 
 seeking to persuade him to a false religion. And 
 he allows him no manner of appeal to any person 
 or thing whatsoever from the sentence of this 
 Church ; neither to the private spirit of the 
 Puritans, nor to the natural wit and reason of the 
 Socinians, which indeed, in several terms, is no 
 better than the self same thing ; but in all ques- 
 tions, which concern the service of God, that 
 
 1 60 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 the Church must be obeyed, and the Church 
 alone. 
 
 8. Consider that by this last direction of our 
 Blessed Lord and Saviour, who commands every- 
 body, and at all times, and in all ecclesiastical 
 causes, to hear and obey this Church, he plainly 
 and undoubtedly implies :* that this Church must 
 be always visible ; or else' how can this command- 
 ment be always obeyed? — that it must be always 
 infallible ; for else how can we 1 be sure that even 
 Christ our Lord himself may not be the very 
 leader of us into error, by our act of resolving to 
 obey him? And finally, that it must be always 
 One, and only One ; for else we might perhaps, 
 even whilst we were obeying the express com- 
 mandments of Christ our Lord, commit an error 
 or an idolatry, and so be damned ; because, if there 
 were diverse Churches opposite to one another, 
 one Church might perhaps teach us immaculate 
 truth, and the other at the same time teach us un- 
 pardonable error, whereof yet we could not be able 
 to judge. But in the meantime consider you that 
 the maintaining of Unity in God's Church is a 
 great mark of being the true Church of God. And 
 this helps to give a great evidence for the Catholic 
 Roman Church, which is ever at unity with itself ; 
 * Math. 26, 18. 1 Tim. 3, 15. 1 Pet. 3, 20. 
 
 161 M 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 and that Christian who obstinately differs from it, 
 in any point of doctrine or discipline, is instantly 
 and ipso facto no Catholic. Men may differ in all 
 such things as are yet undetermined by the Church, 
 without any breach of unity; because all such 
 things are permitted as arbitrary till the Church 
 decide them. But this consideration of unity tells 
 also a very ill tale for all Protestants, who daily go 
 differing from one another, as Calvin went from 
 Luther, and Servetus from Calvin, and the Ana- 
 baptists from him and others, since that time, who 
 all curse and excommunicate one another. Nay, 
 not only Protestants have no unity, but it is 
 absolutely an impossible thing that they should 
 ever have and keep any, because they rest not upon 
 any one infallible Judge, but rely upon their own 
 particular opinions and fancies, in the admitting, 
 translating, and interpreting of Holy Scriptures, 
 wherein daily they are found to differ, not only 
 from all others, but also from their very selves. 
 
 g. Consider that these places both of the Old 
 and New Testament are clearly declared by the 
 most holy and learned Doctors and Fathers of the 
 Catholic Church,* and those of the most perfect 
 primitive times to belong to the same Catholic 
 Church, which communicates throughout the whole 
 * St. Augustin, St. Hierom, etc. passim. 
 
 162 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 world with the Bishop of Rome* who is the suc- 
 cessor of St. Peter, and the Vice-Gerent of Christ 
 our Lord in all ecclesiastical causes. 
 
 10. Consider that St. John the Evangelist pro- 
 fesses in one of his Epistlest that it is a particular 
 mark of apostates, and heretics to have formerly 
 been members of the Catholic Church, and most 
 of them votaries and priests, and then to have 
 departed out of that communion, and to have 
 framed some sect, or coined some heresy, upon 
 some pretext and passion, or other, by which they 
 were and are called and known, as from Arius, 
 Marines, Pelagius, Aerius, Luther, Calvin, and the 
 rest of that rabble were and are. And that 
 Catholics cannot truly, or even so much as pro- 
 bably be assigned to have forsaken and left the 
 other remaining communion of any other Church, 
 wherein they were before, to be that thing which 
 they are now. 
 
 11. Consider that since the way to heaven is 
 narrow,* that Church is more likely to be the true 
 Church, which puts a man to the more pain and 
 
 * Vide Jod. Coc. torn I., fol. 826. St. Aug. to 7, super gest. 
 cum Emerit ultra medium ; Iren. de Unit. Eccles. c. 16, ultra 
 med. Tom 3 de fide et Symb. c. 10. Tom 7 de Bapt. cont. 
 Donat. 14, c. 18. Tom 41 de Serm. Dom. in Monte c. 7. 
 
 t 1 Jo. 2, 19. 
 
 X Luc. 13, 24. Math. 7, 13, 14. 
 
 163 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 care in following the directions thereof. And 
 whatsoever may be ignorantly said to the contrary, 
 the writer of this paper protests that he will pawn 
 his life and his soul that Protestants cannot truly 
 show any one doctrine of theirs which doth not 
 bind a man to less difficulty and which doth not 
 endow him with greater liberty than Catholic 
 doctrine doth. 
 
 12. Consider and compare such persons as 
 having been Catholics are become Protestants ; and 
 such Protestants, on the other side, as have grown 
 to be Catholics ; and most particularly consider 
 such Catholic priests as have turned Protestants, 
 and much more if they have proved ministers, and, 
 on the other side, such Protestant laymen as have 
 either proved Catholic priests or Religious men. 
 And to weigh with an equal hand whether the 
 Catholics who became Protestants did not live 
 notoriously worse than they had done before ; and 
 the Protestants who became Catholics much 
 better. 
 
 13. Consider whether you have heard of any 
 Catholics who, at the point of death, have, merely 
 through the desire of saving their souls, renounced 
 Catholic religion to become Protestants; and, on 
 the other side, whether you have not heard that 
 many who have lived Protestants all their life did 
 
 164 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 yet, when they came to die, renounce that religion 
 to become Catholics, through the only fear which 
 they had left, lest otherwise their souls would be 
 lost Which shows that when men are in earnest, 
 and that then they have either to be saved or 
 damned, they are not very ignorant what they 
 ought to do. 
 
 14. Consider that the whole race of men is apt 
 enough of itself to be wicked in a high degree ; 
 and that they may be very sure to prove the worst 
 of all whom God forsakes, and abandons most. 
 And therefore that Catholics, when they will needs 
 be, and continue, vicious, are many times the most 
 vicious in the world, because God forsakes them 
 most, as persons who have served themselves 
 worst of the greatest helps which he gives to man 
 towards his salvation ; as namely, the holy sacra- 
 ments of the Catholic Church, which are the very 
 channels and conduits of the blood of Christ our 
 Lord to man's soul. So that it is no good argu- 
 ment, whereby to prove the corruption of Catholic 
 religion, because Catholics are said by Protestants 
 to be the most vicious many times ; when yet them- 
 selves are so indeed, rather more than less. But 
 this argument on the other side is most undoubtedly 
 sound and good : that wheresoever there are the 
 most of the best men, most perfect in humility, in 
 
 165 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 purity, in patience, and in charity, and besides in 
 performing those heroical, high acts of renouncing, 
 by vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, all 
 the most sensible delights of this world, even when 
 they are not unlawful in themselves; in imitation 
 of that most perfect, blessed life of Christ our 
 Lord, and merely for the love of his Divine 
 Majesty, and for the shame which generous minds 
 will have to entertain that sinful body of theirs 
 with delicacy, when the mystical and true head 
 thereof, which is Christ our Lord himself, was 
 overloaden with a crown of thorns ; that is certainly, 
 and without colour of any question, the best, and 
 the purest, and the truest religion, or rather, 
 indeed, that religion which may only be accounted 
 good, pure, and true. And this perfection of these 
 men is indeed a most excellent argument for the 
 truth of Catholic religion, because it is only God 
 who can enable men, even with gust, to renounce 
 the glory and pleasure of this world, as we see he 
 makes millions of gallant, beautiful, powerful, 
 learned people do, in the holy Catholic Church, for 
 the mere love of him. And it were blasphemous for 
 anybody to affirm that the Divine wisdom and 
 goodness could anyway co-operate and concur by 
 his grace towards the countenancing and corro- 
 borating any religion or profession, which were 
 
 1 66 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 not both most perfectly holy and undoubtedly 
 true. 
 
 15. Consider how Holy Scripture* declares in 
 divers places the damnableness of heresy and 
 schism ; and how by forbearing to put a difference 
 between one kind of heresy or schism and another, 
 it shows clearly that all heresy and schism is very 
 damnable. 
 
 16. Consider that the holy Doctors and Fathers 
 of the primitive Churcht express their judgment 
 clearly that all heresy and schism is wholly in- 
 capable of salvation, without repentance ; and that 
 no one point of truth concerning religion must be 
 abandoned for the saving of a thousand lives. In- 
 somuch as they declare that although a man should 
 give all he had to the poor, yea, although he should 
 lose his life for maintaining the faith of Christ our 
 Lord against infidels ; yet if obstinately he 1 should 
 profess any one point of doctrine against the judg- 
 ment of the holy Catholic Church, which makes 
 heresy, or obstinately refuse to submit to the 
 discipline of the same Church, which makes schism, 
 he cannot possibly be saved, without repentance. 
 
 17. Consider that divers of the Fathers, as 
 
 namely St. Epiphanius, St. Augustine, and Philas- 
 
 *Tit. 3, 10. 
 
 t See the quotations which are put under the 9th Con- 
 sideration. 
 
 167 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 trius,* who all made express catalogues of the 
 heresies of their time, have mentioned divers 
 which are held by the Protestants at this day, and 
 particularly (to omit the rest) that doctrine to 
 be heretical which denies praying and offering 
 sacrifice for the dead. And St. Augustine saith 
 expressly in his book Ad Quod vult deum (which is 
 unquestionably his, and from which he never 
 made any retractation), that whosoever holds that 
 doctrine is no Catholic Christian, and cannot there- 
 fore consequently be saved. 
 
 1 8. Consider that St. Augustine gives also another 
 verdict, which is for Catholics against Protestants. 
 For in that admirable work of his, De Civitate Dei, 
 which is undoubtedly his, and of which also he 
 never retracted any point, he affirms the practice 
 clearly of the holy Catholic Church, t in a multitude 
 of Catholic doctrines, against the adversaries 
 thereof, as namely, about the sacrifice of the mass, 
 prayers to saints, veneration of saints' relics, going 
 on pilgrimages, carrying relics in procession, the 
 use of miracles, the making vows of chastity by 
 nuns, the making graces before 1 altars, the laying 
 flowers upon them, the fetching of holy earth from 
 Hierusalem, and keeping it with reverence in their 
 
 * Aug. haeres 53. Epiph. haeres 75, and Philastr., known 
 to St. Augustine and familiar to St. Ambrose, verbo. Aeriani. 
 t St. August. 1. 22, c. 8 De Civ. Dei. 
 
 168 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 houses, the frequent making the sign of the holy 
 cross, the taking their Bishop's blessing, and the 
 like ; just as if they were done by Papists at this 
 day. Consider, I say, these things, and consider 
 them well. 
 
 19. Consider that when any of the Fathers of 
 the primitive Church declares any doctrine of the 
 Church of their time, and especially when they 
 show the practice of the Church concerning that 
 doctrine, the same not being contradicted by any 
 other Doctor of the same, or the next succeeding 
 age, that doctrine must not be esteemed to be the 
 only judgment of that single Doctor, but of all the 
 other Doctors also of that age, and consequently 
 of the whole Church of their time. For else they 
 would infallibly as well have contradicted him in 
 that, as they did others in other things ; as occurred 
 between Tertullian and the Fathers of his time ; 
 between St. Cyprian and St. Stephen ; between 
 Rufinus, upholding the doctrine of Origen and St. 
 Hierome, and many others. Nay, St. Hierome and 
 St. Augustine, who of themselves held each to other 
 so great respect, fell yet foul enough upon one 
 another, when there was but any great difference 
 between them, upon the interpretation of certain 
 passages of Holy Scripture. And much more would 
 they have done it, if either of them had differed 
 
 169 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 from the other in any article of controversy con- 
 cerning religion. 
 
 20. Consider that the nature both of heresy and 
 schism consists not so much in the particular 
 quality, or rather quantity (as a man may say) 
 either of the doctrine which is denied, or of the 
 discipline which is disobeyed, but in the obstinate 
 and presumptuous doing it against the judgment 
 of the Church, whether the point itself in question 
 be greater or less. For that kind of pride is the 
 thing which sends the soul posting to hell. 
 
 21. Consider that Protestants can say nothing of 
 moment in defence of any doctrine of theirs, which 
 any other adversary of the Church may not also 
 say as probably as they. For whether it be private 
 spirit, with the Puritans, or strength of natural 
 reason, with the Socinians, or, finally, the 1 pretence 
 of Scripture, which is pretended by all the adver- 
 saries of the Catholic Church ; it all resolves itself 
 at last into this : that there will none of them be 
 tried by any other Judge in the whole world, with- 
 out appeal, who can both hear and speak, and may 
 have authority to instruct, direct, exhort, and 
 punish, but only by themselves, who vent their 
 own opinions under such holy words and names as 
 they list. 
 
 22. Consider that Holy Scripture cannot possibly 
 
 170 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 be the judge of controversies in religion. For 
 besides that no creature can possibly ever be a 
 judge, without being able to speak, and hear, and 
 reprove, and the like ; all men cannot read, and 
 most men cannot understand, Scripture ; nor do 
 they possess the original tongues wherein it was 
 written ; nor can they interpret it and understand 
 it right. And therefore if Scripture were or could 
 be the judge of all controversies in religion, without 
 appeal, the learned man must needs have one 
 judge, and the unlearned man must have another. 
 And besides, there must also, in that case, be one 
 judge of controversy in religion, at one time, 
 namely, when the Holy Scripture is already 
 written, and another judge, at another time, 
 namely, before the writing of the Holy Scripture. 
 But this were most impertinent and absurd. 
 
 23. Consider that amongst those religions, which 
 profess themselves to be so judged by Holy 
 Scripture, there is, and can be, nothing but dis- 
 union ; disunion between them and others ; nay, 
 disunion between them and even their very selves 
 at different times. For to say, as they do, that 
 Holy Scripture teaches them this point of doctrine 
 or that, is indeed but to declare that they hold this 
 or that ; because in their opinion the Scripture 
 teaches this or that. And whensoever that opinion 
 
 171 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 alters, the Scripture shall be the thing which must 
 alter too. Experience therefore shows what a 
 multitude of sects* there grew daily amongst them, 
 who tread upon such quicksands as those ; whereas 
 they who rely upon the Church, which is built (as our 
 Blessed Saviour said) upon a rock, stand fast for 
 ever, in perfect union amongst themselves. For as 
 for that which some allege, by way of showing 
 difference of opinion also amongst Catholics, the 
 answer is shortly and clearly this: those points 
 wherein Catholics differ be merely arbitrary, as 
 being yet undecided by the Church ; but in such 
 as are decided there neither is, nor yet can be, any 
 difference between us more than between any 
 one man and himself. For whosoever shall 
 obstinately differ from the rest becomes instantly 
 no Catholic. 
 
 24. Consider that since Protestants hold that 
 Catholics, dying so, may be saved, and. Catholics 
 declare with grief that Protestants, if they die so, 
 must be lost.t what a senseless and foolish thing it 
 is that a man should rather venture his soul, in a 
 
 * Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Trini- 
 tarians, New Arians, and a hundred others. 
 
 t Sir Tobie does not accurately state the Catholic doctrine 
 in this paragraph, which is that all persons who faithfully 
 act up to the dictates of conscience, and are invincibly 
 ignorant of the truth of Catholicism, are guiltless in God's 
 sight, and are in the way of salvation. — Ed. 
 
 172 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 way where all his adversaries (who make the 
 greatest, and wisest, and learnedest part of the 
 world) hold clearly that a man cannot be saved, 
 than in that other which is the Catholic, and of 
 itself is so huge- a portion of mankind, where not 
 only themselves profess their hope to be saved, but 
 even their adversaries, who are the Protestants, 
 confess as much. 
 
 25. Consider that it is no want of charity for 
 a man to fear, and show the danger wherein 
 souls are ; but rather that it is sincere' charity to 
 declare their danger, that so they may avoid it. 
 And consider also that sincere charity, which is 
 indeed the very life of true religion, is showed 
 daily by great multitudes of Catholics, who are glad 
 to adventure their lives, in all the parts of the 
 world, for the saving of the souls of their neigh- 
 bours. And that Protestant ministers make little 
 proof of this virtue, since not one of them who is 
 well beneficed, or indeed any other of them at all, 
 doth forsake his commodities and country, for con- 
 verting any one soul from Paganism in foreign 
 parts ; or doth so much as venture to Rome, to 
 incur death or any danger there, by seeking to 
 reduce the Pope or Cardinals from that belief 
 which they esteem to be idolatrous here. 
 
 These are the considerations which I have 
 
 173 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 thought fit to represent to the reader, and to assure 
 him with all sincerity that nothing hath been said 
 in this paper, which shall not, upon the life of him 
 that wrote it, be made good by express and clear 
 proof of Holy Scripture itself, and of Fathers also ; 
 in such sort that it shall not be capable of any 
 reply, save only in those considerations which are 
 subject to gross experience and to the sight of 
 every ordinary eye ; as will indeed be confessed by 
 every ingenuous man. And so the writer hereof 
 undertakes that if anything in this paper be con- 
 tradicted by any one, who will civilly, and briefly, 
 and clearly declare his denial, under his hand, the 
 truth of what is said here shall quickly, by God's 
 help, be made appear by a much better pen than 
 mine. 
 
 These also were the considerations and motives 
 which wrought upon my heart, towards the making 
 me first resolve to quit my then Protestant 
 religion, and become a Catholic ; and now I have 
 presented them here ; but in the form (as I was 
 saying) of an humble advice, that so others may 
 dispose themselves to do the like. And I have 
 always been so well satisfied therein, that I here 
 think fit to conclude with protesting the truth of 
 two things, wherein if I mean not what I say, I 
 pray God it may cost the perishing of my soul. The 
 
 174 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 one is that, since I was a Catholic, I never enter- 
 tained one thought, during so much as any one 
 minute of time, of repenting that I was a Catholic, 
 or inclining to be a Protestant again. The other, 
 that I so highly value God's blessing in his having 
 made me a, Catholic, as I take all his holy attri- 
 butes to witness, and with reverence am bold to 
 protest them all, that I would not be a Protestant 
 again but for one hour (though I were sure God 
 would forgive it me afterward) for the obtaining 
 of all the honour, riches, and pleasures, which 
 might be imparted to me by this whole world 
 from this instant of my life till doomsday. This, I 
 say, I protest ; and God, who sees my heart, knows 
 best that he sees nothing in it against this. For 
 Eternity, in fine, is the great business ; and Time, 
 if it be but Time, is to shrink itself finally into 
 nothing. And (besides all danger of drowning, by 
 departing, though but for a minute out of the 
 Noe's Ark of the Church, to be tossed by the 
 swelling and stormy waves of heresy and schism) 
 to quit the communion of Saints in the holy 
 Catholic Church, though it were but for that only 
 minute, upon the perishing motives of flesh and 
 blood, I hold to be an indignity to a true 
 Catholic Christian soul that it might well deserve 
 a kind of hell apart, if there were any more than 
 
 one. 
 
 175 
 
THE CONVERSION OF 
 
 Myself am now going into the other world, and 
 as I shall quickly be sure to render a most strict 
 account before that Sovereign Judge, of whatsoever 
 I shall have affirmed in this paper, so will the 
 reader also ere long be called to the like most 
 strict account for the use which he will have made 
 thereof, more or less. Our Lord have mercy upon 
 my soul, as also upon all those who shall vouchsafe 
 to read and consider this short writing well. 
 
 But for the present I content myself with pre- 
 suming to give this last word of advice, as it were 
 by way of postscript, to such as need it (for in a 
 case which imports so very much even an unneces- 
 sary repetition may be endured) ; that men shall 
 do well to think justly both of the innocency and 
 loyalty of English Catholics towards others, as also 
 of their unity and good agreement amongst them- 
 selves. For concerning the loyalty of us Catholics 
 to our several lawful Princes throughout the world, 
 I know and here declare and protest, with the 
 words and heart of a dying man, that we know our- 
 selves to be all bound by our very religion to be 
 ever, and that inviolably, their most loyal and their 
 most devoted subjects ; and to employ our for- 
 tunes and lives for their service, and upon their 
 commands. On the other side, I take now upon 
 my death this most certain truth which follows: 
 
 176 
 
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 that (besides those tumults, and rebellions, and 
 conspiracies, and murders, and wars, which have 
 even over-wrought divers great parts of Christen- 
 dom by the furies and resolves of Luther, and 
 Calvin, and their followers in the way of fact) the 
 very maxims and doctrines of those mad apostles 
 are such roots of faction, and dissension, and 
 sedition, and are indeed so very destructive of all 
 monarchy, that it seems to be totally impossible for 
 any other thing to grow from them than those 
 bitter and sour fruits, which have in this last age of 
 the world so intoxicated and even poisoned these 
 Northern parts thereof. 
 
 And as for that other pretence of our division 
 amongst ourselves here in England, I declare also 
 in the word of truth, that howsoever there 1 be some 
 differences amongst us, yea and between us, in 
 certain arbitrary, and indifferent, and undecided 
 things (as there were even in St. Paul's days, 
 alii sic, alii autem sic, and afterwards in the 
 primitive Church, amongst the Christians of that 
 time, in matters of very great moment ; for we see 
 what happened sharply between St. Cyprian and 
 St. Stephen, Pope, wherein all men find plainly 
 now that St. Cyprian was extremely in the wrong), 
 yet we perfectly agree together in all things which 
 are decided and commanded by the Church. And 
 
THE CONVERSION OF SIR TOBIE MATTHEW. 
 
 much more evidently do we all communicate most 
 uniformly with one another, both in matter of faith 
 and sacraments, and in all things concerning the 
 public service of Almighty God. This union is 
 not resembled by that which is found amongst the 
 Lutherans and Calvinists in their several con- 
 gregations and conventicles, who both in their 
 pulpits and books, which lie open to the view of 
 the world, do so bitterly rail at, and curse, and 
 damn their fellow-Protestants to the very pit of 
 hell; and will no more communicate with one 
 another than the Pope would be glad to do with 
 the great Turk. 
 
 Now I leave these points to be weighed by Protes- 
 tants with as much care as I mean it to them with 
 kindness; beseeching them for God Almighty's 
 sake to make good use thereof. Which if they 
 shall be pleased to do, they will both forgive me 
 now for that which they will now call importunity, 
 and grow hereafter to love my memory for that 
 which they will then esteem to have been true 
 charity. 
 
 (signed) JAMES LOUTH. 
 
 July 29th, 1641. 
 
 I doubt that this signature is part of the original MS. 
 The same writer seems to have inserted an irrelevant word or 
 two, and Jam (part of James) on the preceding page. — Ed. 
 
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