Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name | Page 4

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.
THE "DECEM RATIONES."
Like a wise general, Father Persons at once bethought himself how best
to follow up the good beginning already made. Accordingly, when he

and Campion met at Uxbridge (for it was not safe for Campion to come
to London), he suggested that the latter, seeing that his memory was
still green at Oxford, should compose a short address on the crisis to
the students of the two Universities. Campion met the suggestion as he
had met the suggestion of Pounde, with a gentle disclaimer, "alleging
divers difficulties," but soon good-humouredly assented on the
condition (not a usual one with literary men) that someone else should
propose the subject. The company therefore made various suggestions,
none of which met with general