Whereas I have come out of Germanie and Boemeland, being sent by
my Superiors, and adventured myself into this noble Realm, my
deare Countrie, for the glorie of God and benefit of souls, I
thought it like enough that, in this busie watchful and
suspicious worlde, I should either sooner or later be intercepted
and stopped of my course. Wherefore, providing for all events,
and uncertaine what may become of me, when God shall haply
deliver my body into durance, I supposed it needful to put this
writing in a readiness, desiringe your good Lordships to give it
ye reading, for to know my cause. This doing I trust I shall ease
you of some labour. For that which otherwise you must have sought
for by practice of wit, I do now lay into your hands by plaine
confession. And to ye intent that the whole matter may be
conceived in order, and so the better both understood and
remembered, I make thereof these ix points or articles, directly,
truly and resolutely opening my full enterprise and purpose.
i. I confesse that I am (albeit unworthie) a priest of ye Catholike
Church, and through ye great mercie of God vowed now these viii
years into the Religion of the Societie of Jhesus. Hereby I have
taken upon me a special kind of warfare under the banner of
obedience, and eke resigned all my interest or possibilitie of
wealth, honour, pleasure, and other worldlie felicitie.
ii. At the voice of our General Provost, which is to me a
warrant from heaven, and Oracle of Christ, I tooke my voyage
from Prage to Rome (where our said General Father is always
resident) and from Rome to England, as I might and would have
done joyously into any part of Christendome or Heathenesse, had
I been thereto assigned.
iii. My charge is, of free cost to preach the Gospel, to
minister the Sacraments, to instruct the simple, to reforme
sinners, to confute errors--in brief, to crie alarme spiritual
against foul vice and proud ignorance, wherewith many my dear
Countrymen are abused.
iv. I never had mind, and am strictly forbidden by our Father that
sent me, to deal in any respect with matter of State or Policy of
this realm, as things which appertain not to my vocation, and from
which I do gladly restrain and sequester my thoughts.
v. I do ask, to the glory of God, with all humility, and under
your correction, iii sortes of indifferent and quiet audiences:
_the first_ before your Honours, wherein I will discourse of
religion, so far as it toucheth the common weale and your
nobilities: _the second_, whereof I make more account, before the
Doctors and Masters and chosen men of both Universities, wherein
I undertake to avow the faith of our Catholike Church by proofs
innumerable, Scriptures, Councils, Fathers, History, natural and
moral reasons: _the third_ before the lawyers, spiritual and
temporal, wherein I will justify the said faith by the common
wisdom of the laws standing yet in force and practice.
vi. I would be loth to speak anything that might sound of any
insolent brag or challenge, especially being now as a dead man
to this world and willing to put my head under every man's foot,
and to kiss the ground they tread upon. Yet have I such a
courage in avouching the Majesty of Jhesus my King, and such
affiance in his gracious favour, and such assurance in my
quarrel, and my evidence so impregnable, and because I know
perfectly that no one Protestant, nor all the Protestants
living, nor any sect of our adversaries (howsoever they face men
down in pulpits, and overrule us in their kingdom of grammarians
and unlearned ears)[2] can maintain their doctrine in
disputation. I am to sue most humbly and instantly for the
combat with all and every of them, and the most principal that
may be found: protesting that in this trial the better furnished
they come, the better welcome they shall be.
vii. And because it hath pleased God to enrich the Queen my
Sovereign Ladye with notable gifts of nature, learning, and
princely education, I do verily trust that--if her Highness would
vouchsafe her royal person and good attention to such a
conference as, in the ii part of my fifth article I have
motioned, or to a few sermons, which in her or your hearing I am
to utter,--such manifest and fair light by good method and plain
dealing may be cast upon these controversies, that possibly her
zeal of truth and love of her people shall incline her noble
Grace to disfavour some proceedings hurtful to the Realm, and
procure towards us oppressed more equitie.
viii. Moreover I doubt not but you her Highness' Council being, of
such wisdom and discreet in cases most important, when you shall
have heard these questions of religion opened faithfully, which
many times by our adversaries are huddled up and confounded, will
see upon what substantial grounds our Catholike Faith is builded,
how feeble that side is which by sway of the time prevaileth
against us, and so at last for your own souls, and for many
thousand souls that depend upon your government, will
discountenance error when it is bewrayed, and hearken to those
who would spend the best blood in their bodies for your
salvation. Many innocent hands are lifted up to heaven for you
daily by those English students, whose posteritie shall never
die, which beyond seas gathering virtue and sufficient knowledge
for the purpose, are determined never to give you over, but
either to win you heaven, or to die upon your pikes. And touching
our Societie be it known to you that we have made a league--all
the Jesuits in the world, whose succession and multitude must
overreach all the practices of England--cheerfully to carry the
cross you shall lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery,
while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn, or to be racked
with your torments, or consumed with your prisons. The expense is
reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God, it cannot be
withstood. So the faith was planted: so it must be restored.
ix. If these my offers be refused, and my endeavours can take no
place, and I, having run thousands of miles to do you good, shall
be rewarded with rigour, I have no more to say but to recommend
your case and mine to Almightie God, the Searcher of Hearts, who
send us His grace, and set us at accord before the day of
payment, to the end we may at last be friends in heaven, when all
injuries shall be forgotten.
* * * * *
"Direct, true, and resolute," Campion's words certainly are, and
they are calculated in a remarkable degree to reassure and
animate his fellow Catholics and their friends, and it is for
them in reality, rather than for the Lords of the Council, that
the message is composed. If the composition has a fault it is its
combativeness; and in effect, though this drawback was not felt
at the time, it was later. Subsequent missionaries found it best
to adopt a policy of far greater secrecy and silence. If,
however, we remember that Campion intended his paper to be
published under quite different circumstances, we can see that he
at least hardly deserves the reproach of being contentious, or if
he does, his failing was venial when we consider the tastes of
the age. The immediate result of the publication was without
question a great success.