Militant in the communion of the church

After I came to years of discretion, by all the best means I could, to inform myself whether the religion of England were indeed the very same which being prefigured and prophesied in the Old Testament, was perfected by Our Blessed Saviour, and delivered to his Apostles and disciples to continue, by perpetual succession in the Visible Church until his coming again; or whether it were a new one, for private purpose of statesmen invented, and by human laws established. Of this I could not choose but make some doubt, because I heard men talk much in those days of the change of religion which was then lately made in the beginning of Q[ueen] Elizabeth’s reign…. But I cannot be altogether out of hope of better news before I die as long as I do believe that the saints in heaven do rejoice at the conversion of a sinner to Christ and do know that your Majesty by your birth hath so great an interest in the saints in heaven, as you shall never cease to have, until you cease to be the son of such a mother, as would rejoice more than all the rest for your conversion. Wherefore I assure myself that she with all the rest do pray that your Majesty before you die may be militant in the communion of the church wherein they are triumphant.

— from “A Missive to His Majesty of Great Britain King James…Containing the Motives of his Conversion to the Catholike [sic] Faith”

Benjamin Carier (1566–1614) was an English clergyman who became well known for his conversion to Catholicism. As a member of Chelsea College — a polemical school of higher learning established in 1609 specifically for the purpose of refuting Roman Catholicism — Carier converted to the enemy with all the notoriety that a high ranking faculty member at Oral Roberts University would garner were he to publically announce his entrance into the Church of Satan. Prior to his conversion, he was chaplain to the royal family — including chaplain-in-ordinary to James I, who granted him permission to visit the healing waters of Spa, Germany. But Carier sought spiritual rather than physical amelioration in Spa and became reconciled to the Church after visiting a nearby Jesuit house.