The primitive practise for preserving truth. Or An historicall narration, shewing what course the primitive church anciently, and the best reformed churches since have taken to suppresse heresie and schisme. And occasionally also by way of opposition discovering the papall and prelaticall courses to destroy and roote out the same truth; and the judgements of God which have ensued upon persecuting princes and prelates. / By Sir Simonds D'Ewes.

The primitive practise for preserving truth. Or An historicall narration, shewing what course the primitive church anciently, and the best reformed churches since have taken to suppresse heresie and schisme. And occasionally also by way of opposition discovering the papall and prelaticall courses to destroy and roote out the same truth; and the judgements of God which have ensued upon persecuting princes and prelates. / By Sir Simonds D'Ewes.

Table of contents

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Title page

TO THE READER.

THE PRIMITIVE PRACTISE For preserving TRUTH.

SECTION I.

SECT. II.

SECT. III.

SECT. IV.

SECT. V.

SECT. VI.

SECT. VII.

SECT. VIII.

SECT. IX.

SECT. X.

SECT. XI.

SECT. XII.

SECT. XIII.

SECT. XIV.

SECT. XV.

SECT. XVI.

SECT. XVII.

SECT. XVIII.

SECT. XIX.

SECT. XX.

SECT. XXI.

SECT. XXII.

SECT. XXIII.

SECT. XXIV.

SECT. XXV.

SECT. XXVI.

The Printer to the Reader.

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HAving with as much delight as diligence, read over this excellent Discourse, entituled, The Primitive practise for preserving Truth; and finding it richly furnished with variety of learned and select Story, eminently usefull for common information against persecution meerly for Conscience sake; I conceive it very worthy of the Presse.

John Bachiler

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THE PRIMITIVE PRACTISE FOR PRESERVING TRUTH.

OR AN HISTORICALL NARRATION, Shewing what course the PRIMITIVE Church anciently, and the best Reformed Churches since have taken to suppresse Heresie and Schisme.

AND Occasionally also by way of Opposition discovering the Papall and Prelaticall courses to destroy and roote out the same truth; and the judgements of GOD which have ensued upon persecuting Princes and Prelates.

By Sir Simonds D' Ewes.

The second Impression, more exact then the former.

LONDON, Printed by M. S. for Henry Overton, and are to be sold at his Shop in Popes-head Alley.

TO THE READER.

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JUDICIOUS READER,

THIS ensuing Discourse being penned by mee about eight yeeres since, not only for recreation amidst my severer studies, but as a Preparative also, by which I desired to fit my self, either for a voluntary exitement, or a necessary suffering; I intended it only for a private use: For I then residing in the County of Suffolke, which had newly groaned under the Prelaticall tyranny of Bishop Wren, as did all other parts of his Diocesse; did know that the Presse was then onely open to matters of a contrary subject. But now upon the perusall thereof, conceiving that it might be of some use, in respect of the many distractions amongst us at this present, when a blessed Reformation is so neere the [Page] birth, and yet the Church seems to want strength to bring it forth, I was content to yeeld to the publishing thereof. I did at first, purposely omit the citations of those many and select Authorities, out of which this ensuing Discourse was drawn, lest the margin thereby should have swoln to a greater proportion then the Discourse it self, some whole Sections or Paragraphs being almost entirely extracted out of the Records of this Kingdome: And I have through the whole Tractat chiefly laid down the matter of fact out of Story, not only extant in print, but yet remaining also in M. S. and have lest the debate of the dogmaticall part of it, to those, whose calling and leisure is more proper for it. My many present imployments, both publike and private, did scarce permit mee to supervise it, and to amend it in some few places, which puts mee almost out of all hope ever to transmit to posterity any one of those severall great and more necessary Works I had in part collected and prepared (for the good and benefit of this Church and Kingdome) in the time of my leisure and freedome.

S. D.

THE PRIMITIVE PRACTISE For preserving TRUTH.

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SECTION I.

IT is the undoubted Mark or Brand of the Church Antichristian and Malignant, to persecute; of the Church Christian Orthodox and truly Catholike, to be persecuted: For the Truth, if it have but equall countenance and safety, will not only prosper and flourish amongst the professors thereof, but will also in due time, sometimes by a sudden power, profligate and trample upon Heresie, as it did upon Pelagianisme, among the ancient Protestant Britains in Wales, about the yeer of our Lord, 466. and sometimes by insensible degrees waste and wear out falshood, as it did the contagion of the Arrians amongst the Eastern Christians; but Falshood, Heresie, mens Inventions, burthensome Superstitions intermixed with Gods Worship, and Idolatry, or any divine Creature-adoration, consisting in mens bowing to, or towards Images, Crosses, Altars, Communion-tables, Reliques, or the like, can never be generally and publikely established, without sharp and cruell persecution be exercised and practised upon the goods, estates, liberties and lives of the godly. The Pope and the Turk have both upheld and propagated their abominations by the sword, although no indifferent and impartiall judgement can deny, but that the Romish Antichrist, in this one particular, [Page] exceeds the Ottomanish Muphti, in that he makes it a part of the Tridentine Faith, and so a Tenet of his Religion, to persecute, destroy and root out all the Euangelicall party, under the false and personated names of Heretiques: Whereas the Turk acknowledgeth this Truth, that the Conscience neither can, nor ought to be compelled; and therefore they permit the free exercise, not only of the Protestant Religion in all their dominions, but of the Popish also, in many places of the same, whom yet they justly abhor, as the Jewes do also (led by the morality of the second Commandement) for setting up Images in the places of their publike Assemblies, and committing Idolatry by adoring them.

SECT. II.

A Protestant Church, if it desire to intermix any superstitious Ceremonies or Idolatrous actions, with the power and purity of the Gospel, must likewise be enforced to borrow some part of the other Characters also from the Church Malignant, by enforcing the observation of such additions with the persecution of Gods children in their estates, goods, and liberties, equalling in many respects the shedding of their bloods; and reckoned up together by the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrewes, for so many kindes or species of martyrdome. There are in all parts of the world, amongst the very Christians themselves, the greater number ignorant, prophane and vicious, who neither regard to know the truth, nor desire to suffer for it, but will alwayes run with the multitude, and be carried with the stream: They will of Protestants become Papists to morrow, rather then lose either goods, life or liberty; of Papists the next day Anabaptists with Sebastian Castellio, and James Arminius; of Anabaptists the third day (if by that means they may escape danger, and rise to preserment) become Turks or Abisens: For, doubtlesse, in running from truth to falshood, as in turning from the medium to an extreme, there is no essentiall, but only a graduall difference. As Constantine filled the Empire with Christians, so Julian with Atheists and Persecutors. The greater number with holy King Edward in England, even Harding and Boner, among others for company, embraced the Protestant truth; and as soone as hee died, all again generally licked up the old vomit under Queen [Page] Mary, whose bloody fires were scarce quenched by her death, and the royall Scepter throughly grasped by her blessed sister, but all again, for the most part, (as if Religion had been but a fashion, which commonly deriveth its frenzie into the countrey by the Court) changed with the new Prince, and especially the Churchmen, among whom, through the whole Realm, not twenty in a thousand did stick to their infallible Head, the Romish Antichrist.

SECT. III.

WHen learned and pious Luther lay on his death-bed, he Lutherus paulò ante mortem, age [...] cum Phil [...]ppo Melancthone, fatetur, in negotio Coenae [...]n mium esse factum, &c. Dr Rainoldus prelectione 4a. in lib. Apocryphos, p. 53. Col. 1. Et Orat. Isaac Bootii Vesalii de controversiis Sacramentariis Edit. Basilere Ao. Dm. 1601. ad Calcem Polani Analys. in Ho [...]seam, p. 405. acknowledged his errors, which coming but newly out of darknesse, had been embraced by him amongst his many truths, and obtruded from him upon the Church of God, especially those two monsters of Consubstantiation and Ubiquity; yet (taking counsell rather of men then of Gods Word) for feare, lest if hee retracted them, the people would suspect the rest, and so fall back again by an absolute recidivation to Popery, hee counted it more safe to declare his judgement in private, and to leave the rooting out of those weeds by insensible degrees to his Disciples. To effect which, the French and Helvetian churches did readily afterwards afford the Germanes divers publike conferences: But Doctor Andreas, John Brentius, and other Pseudo-Lutherans, having suckt in the poyson of the Anabaptists (the Devils Master-engine in this latter age, with the Jesuites, to restore Pelagianisme to the World) and having added those old blasphemies that concern the advancement of mans free-will above Gods grace, to Luthers new Masse, as the Papists then, and still in a bitter scoffe or sarcasme call it, grew into so extreme an hatred against the maintainers of Gods truth, both within and without Germany, as they became more bitter in their invectives against them, then against the Papists themselves, and did even then by their false and preposterous courses, threaten a ruine to themselves, and the whole Euangelicall party, which they have since most miserably effected and brought to passe in a great part of the Christian world; which drew the King of great Britain, in the yeer 1611. to remonstrate to the united States of the lower Germany upon the death of James Arminius the Anabaptist, or Pseudo-Lutheran, whom hee calls the Enemy of God, and their [Page] electing of Vorstius into his chaire, whom hee calls a blasphemer; that if they did not in time prevent the growing of that pestilentiall Sect, it would in the issue prove the utter ruine of their flourishing Common-wealth.

SECT. IV.

THe Electorall House of Saxonic, upon the devesting of that brave and pious Prince John Frederick the true heire by Charles the fifth, and the investing of the younger House, to usurp that honour, hath ever since proved a greater friend to the Popish party, then to the purer Churches of Christendome, of the French and Helvetick confession. Miurice that usurped that Dutchie and Electorate upon the incaptivating of the said Duke John Frederick his Cousin, first ruined the Princes of the Smalcaldick union, to which himself had subscribed, and then casting an ambitious eye upon the Empire it self, broke his faith with the Emperor that had raised him; and having patched up that defection by the means of Eerdinand of Austria, King of Bohemia, afterwards setled in the Imperiall Throne, he lastly perished by a violent death in a pitcht battell, sought against his fellow-Protestants, and left his brother Augustus to succeed him. This new Electorall family aided the Leaguers in France, against that victorious Prince, Henry the Great: They ruined and took prisoner their Cousin, the Duke of Saxon Weymar, (the principall branch of their House) in the Castle of Goth, in the time of Maximilian the Emperor, they put in their far-fetcht pretentions to the Dutchie of Cleeve and Juliers in our dayes, and joyned their Armes with the Archduke Leopold, against the Marquesse of Brandenburg, and the Duke of Newburg, the indubitate heires thereof, whose right also was asserted by the whole Protestant party besides of Christendome. These were the fruits of their miserable errors in doctrine brought in and established by James Andreas Osiander, and their fellow Pseudo-Lutherans, retaining still their Images and Altars in the places of their publique worship, although they confesse them to minister matter of offence to many of the better learned, and matter of superstition to most of the ignorant multitude. Nay, hence in the yeer 1580. did the Pseudo-Lutherans proceed to inforce the Ministers of Saxonie to subscribe, amongst other Articles, [Page] to that monstrous error of the Ubiquity of Christs body, exploded with just derision by Bellarmine, and all learned Papists: And from enforced subscription (which is ever for the most part the fore-runner of persecution) they fell in the yeare 1591. upon the death of Duke Christian, the best of all the Electors of the aforesaid Augustus line and race, to shed the innocent bloud of that brave Gentleman and faithfull servant of the State, Paulus Krelius, Chancellor of that Dutchy, for no other delict, but because he was a known friend to the purest doctrine, & a stout Protector of those whom they stiled Calvinists. After which followed the suspension and imprisonment of Urbanus Pierius, Professor of Wittenberg, and of divers other learned and godly Ministers; yea, within a yeare or two after, such was the furious virulencie of the Inhabitants of the Town of Leipsich, led by the Scholars of the Universitie there, (who have since, in these later Germane wars, fully tasted of the divine indignation) as they fell upon the houses and movables of such as embraced the Helvetick Confession, despoiled them of their goods, and committed divers other outrages upon them. But most fatall have been the effects of this last Duke of Saxonie's hovering neutrality in matter of Religion, when at first he refused to be comprised in the Protestant union, entred into by the Germane Princes in the yeare 1617. for their necessary safety, when secondly he sided the yeare following, with the Emperor Matthias, against the Protestant Bohemians. And thirdly, when in the yeare 1620. he joyned his Armies with those of the Emperour Ferdinand the second, (that but a few yeares before lay hid in obscurity, in his slender Patrimony at Gratz.) and so proved one of the chief causes of the utter subversion (for ought we yet see) of the Religion and Liberties of Germany. For had not Frederick the fifth, Prince Elector Palatine, rather aimed at the upholding of true Religion in Bohemia, then at any ambitious ends of his own, he had never hazarded the peace, plenty, and quiet he enjoyed at Heidelberg, to have accepted that controversall crown at Prague, and to have entred that Kingdome in a hostile manner, which for above the space of twelve moneths before had been filled with warre and misery.

SECT. V.

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I Doe not finde that any higher or greater punishment was inflicted upon Hereticks themselves in the Primitive times, though they remained obstinate after all other meanes used for convincing them of their errours, then exile or banishment. St. Austin writing to Proculianus the Donatist, acknowledgeth such as erre from the truth, must be drawn home by milde instruction, and not by cruell enforcement. And when Bishop Itacius, in the yeare 383. being a man of a turbulent spirit, and fierce nature, had caused Priscillian the Heretique, and divers of his followers to be put to death; he was first condemned for that bloudy act by Thcognistus: And St. Ambrose afterwards meeting with some Bishops at Triers, that had partaken with Itacius in that cruell execution, would not so much as entertain any communion with them. Theodosius the Emperour, in the Synod of Constantinople, in stead of bloud and irons, caused a publick dispute to be afforded the Arrians themselves, although they had been before condemned by the Councell of Nice: The like mercifull provision did Charles the Great, and Lewes the Good in France, ordaine for such as were counted Sectaries in their times. Neither did those three hundred and eighteen Fathers in the first Nicene Councell, those six hundred and thirty in that of Chalcedon, or those hundred and fifty in that of Constantinople use any other weapons against the same Arrians, Nestorians, and Macedonians, then the Word of God; nor stirred they up, or permitted the Christian Magistrate in their dayes to punish them by death. Paulus Aquiliensis, and Cedrenus, doe also both of them report, that when the Emperour Justinus used clemency towards the very Arrian Heretiques, Theodoricus the King of Italy being infected with the same poyson, did notwithstanding, led by that example, suffer the Orthodox Christians to have the free exercise of their Religion in all his Dominions. Wee shall need no further examples to prove this truth, when it is confessed by one of the most learned and best Romanists of our age, that there is no approved example in all the Monuments of Antiquity, of any execution done upon the Sectaries of those times; but that the Church of God did alwayes abhorre the shedding of bloud in [Page] matters that meerly concern Religion, Jac. Aug. Thuanus Prooem. in Histor. p. 5.

SECT. VI.

IT is likewise contrary to the practice of the best Princes, and the wisest States of this latter age of the world, to make matter of heresie it selfe a capitall crime. Francis the first of that name, King of France, having decreed a persecution against the poore Protestants of Merindoll, and Cabrieres, and being informed by William Bellay, Lord Langay, Governour of the Province, that they were harmless men, very laborious in their callings, just in their dealings, loyall to their Prince, charitable to the poore, and very frequent in their prayers to God, & their innocency being likewise cleared in a great measure by Cardinall Sadolet himselfe, he caused them to be freed from further persecution, till being falsly informed by one Minerius, a turbulent fellow, that there were fifteen thousand of them up in armes in rebellion, he rashly gave them over to the fury of their enemies, yet not as Heŕetiques, which he alwayes accounted them, but as Traytors, as he was then mis-informed of them. In Germany, Ferdinand the first, taught by the error of Charles the fifth his elder Brother, found no such meanes to make his Government happy, and his Empire flourishing, as to decree the liberty of Religion. Which course the good Emperour Maximilian his Sonne following, dyed as happy as he lived victorious. The Venetian State indure no Inquisitors in matters of Religion, nor if any of their Subjects be accused of Heresie, doe they suffer it to be questioned before any of the Clergy alone, who are thirsty after bloud, but before them joyntly together, with their Civill Judges. The first Monarch in England that made matter of Religion, a capitall crime, by a publick Act or Statute, was the usurper Henry the fourth, who having by the perswasion and assistance of Thomas Arundell, that traytor, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his fellow-Prelates, deposed and murdered his lawfull Soveraigne, Richard the second, to curry favour with those bloudy Canniballs, was forced to yeeld to the murdering of Gods Saints: since whose time the bloud of the Martyrs in England, have proved the seed of the Church, although by the short raigne of that Kingdomes unfortunate Mary, their number comes far short of those in France, and [Page] the seventeene Provinces; in which two Dominions, within the space of little more then five yeares, the curious searcher may finde by diligent inquisition, that Gods truth was sealed under Charles the ninth of France, and Philip the second of Spaine, with the bloud of near upon two hundred thousand Martyrs, amongst whom were slaughtered divers great and eminent personages of both sexes: a cruelty that very Mahumetans doe abhorre; as it appeared by that which the Ambassadours sent from Abas-Meriza the Persian Sultan, to the Emperour Rodolph, in the yeare 1604. did alledge to justifie the mercifull Government of that Empire, to wit, that all Christians had free liberty of Conscience in all their Soveraignes Dominions, and therefore they exhorted his Imperiall Majesty to joyn in a firme league with him against their common enemy the Turke.

SECT. VII.

AS it is against the practice of the Primitive Church, the course held by the Christian Emperours, and the observation of the wisest Princes and States of the latter age, though otherwise Pontifician, to make matter of heresie a capitall crime, to inforce the Conscience, and to put to death, for the cause of Religion meerly, so it is against the Rules of charitie and reason.

First, It is against the Rules of charity, if we had no other light to guide us, but the most wise answer of Englands last matchlesse Edward, being then but a childe, when he was pressed to yeeld his assent to the burning of an Heretique; What (said he) shall I send him to hell? By which he truly intimated, that whereas in all other offences, the Malefactors are punished with death, because it may be hoped they have repented the sinne; but to destroy an Heretick before conviction, is to be the Devils Catour, and to send him in provision even to Hell it selfe. For the very pertinacious holding of an Heresie is agreed on by all sides to be a damnable sinne, and then the cutting them off in that sinne, is to be the immediate Instrument of their perdition. This doth that virulent Romanist or monster of men, Nicholas Harpsfeild, in his Wiclevian History openly boast of, Cap. 16. p. 717. That those (blessed Champions [Page] of Christ whom he calls) Heretiques, did in the fires that consumed their bodies, taste the first-fruits of the eternall fire they endured afterwards. On the other side, if they suffer not but for feare of death, hope of preferment, or other base ends, turne from one Religion to another, especially from the truth to errour and Idolatry, without instruction, or reasonable conviction, they onely dissemble outwardly; as the Moores of Gran ido did under that bloudy Philip the second of Spaine, who being enforced to be present at the Masse in the morning, practised their own Mahumetanisme in the evening; or els their conscience being shipwracked by their Apostasie before conviction, with Francis Spira they are swallowed up of despaire, or with Peter Espinae, Archbishop of Lions, of the Henetick faction in Henry the fourths time of France, with lust and Epicurisme, who practised that emasculating sinne with his own sister. The Jews in England from Willian the firsts time, till the eighteenth yeare of Edward the first, were the onely Usurers of the Realme, and brought in large contributions and tallages to the Kings under whom they lived, and enjoyed here the freedome of their consciences: At their deaths their whole Estates escheated to the King, which their next heires commonly redeem'd for one full third part of three: But to incourage them to turne Christians, it was appointed in the Assize, by which they were govern'd under their own proper and peculiar Justices, that if any Jew dyed, whose heire became a Christian, he should inherit all the estate, of his Ancestors, without any further sine or composition with the Prince. The Master of the Rolls-house in London, and other places in other Cities of the Kingdome were appointed for the entertainment of those Christian converts, and were thence called Domus Conversorum: All which may clearly be gathered out of those Records of the Exchequer, commonly called, The great Pipe Rolles, and the Communi [...] Rolles: By which allurements some of the Jewes out of malice to their fellowes, or having committed some penall offence to escape the punishment practised amongst themselves, or els for lucre sake, (the sin of avarice being connaturall to most of them) were baptized and became Christians outwardly, without any due instruction in the Christian faith before-hand, and being convinced also that the Papists adoring or bowing to, and towards Images, Altars, Reliques, and the like trumpery, was absolute Idolatry against the [Page] second Commandement, they proved, as commonly the Jewes and Christians at this day do, when they turn Turks, the wretchedest varlets in the whole Kingdome. What were the poor Indians wont to say, when to avoid the Spaniards extreame and inhumane cruelties, they were drawn to their Masses, but that since they became Christians, they had learned to swear and drink? It was an excellent and just sentence which one of the Grand Seignienrs pronounced against divers hundreds of Christians, that falling down-before him, made declaration, that they had deserted their Sacra, and given up their names to Mahomet, he inquired of them why they did so; and they confessing plainly, that they did it to be freed from those many taxes, contributions and oppressions which they before groaned under; he rejected their enforced conversion for outward ends, and commanded their taxes and levies to be continued. This Heroick action of the Turkish Monarch, was not much short of that policie of one of the ancient Christian Emperours, who having his Army mixed of Christians and Pagans, and desiring to discover who of the first were little better then those of the latter, made, like another Jehu: a publike Declaration for the restoring of Paganisme, upon which, divers of the Christian Commanders shewing themselves forward to desert the truth, and to follow the stream and time, he presently reproved and cashier'd them; alledging, that all such were unworthy to serve any Prince that had proved unfaithfull to that divine Majesty, by which Princes rule.

SECT. VIII.

AS it is against the Dictamen of Christian Charity, to make matter of Religion a capitall crime, or to enforce the conscience, without a full and clear conviction, from the profession of one Religion to another, or to any new burthensome Ceremonies, to be superadded in the publick worship of God, although the Religion it self remain the same it was before in the generall; so it is against the rules of Reason it self. This was confessed by Henry 3. of France, one of the most impotent Princes that ever swayed that Scepter, and most inveterate enemy that ever the Protestants had, having been instructed to hate, betray, and persecute them, by Katherine de Medices his bloudy mother, even from his very Cradle; yet when James Clement a Jesuited Monk had sheathed a knife in his bowels, [Page] and that hee saw himself neer the minute in which hee was to give an account of all his cruelties to the supreme Judge of Heaven and earth, he made an effectuall speech to the chief Commanders of his Army, being most of them Romanists: To acknowledge and obey the King of Navar (then a Protestant) as their lawfull Soveraigne, and the lineall heire of the French Crown, and to know this undoubted truth for the future; That Religion which is distilled into the souls of men by God himself, cannot he enforced by man. The same truth likewise, and almost in these very words, did the Lord Brederode, and the other Protestants of the lower Germany alledge for their just excuse in their united Apologie, published in the yeere 1566. and further added; That if the Papists did conceive their Religion to be the truth, they should in sieed of blood, fines, imprisonments and exilings, follow the seasonable advice of wise Gamaliel, and try a while, whether the Protestants separation from them were of God or not; for otherwise, if by force and tyrannie they did compell them to professe and practice those actions in Gods worship which they accounted abominable, and did also restrain them from performing those holy duties towards God, wherein they were convinced the truth of his service consisted, their consciences must needs be shipwracked and undone, and so in stead of making them new Converts, they should leave them Atheists and Libertines. This very objection also (in the yeere 1572) did Katherine de Medices of Florence, then Queen mother of France, (though she little practised the truth of the Consequence) make in the Treaty of marriage of Francis de Valois her youngest sonne, with Queen Elizabeth of England. The great rub pretended on both sides, (though the match was never really intended by either Queen) was matter of Religion; in which that glorious Virgin Monarch, having given her Ambassador expresse instructions, not to yeeld so far as that the Duke of Alenzon should be permitted the celebration of his Masse in private. What Mr. Walsingham, saith the Queenmother upon his next audience, Will your Mistresse have my Son turn Atheist, and professe no Religion at all? For with your Church he cannot joyn, till he be further instructed; and you will not suffer him to continue those Sacra by which hee hath hitherto served God, what shall hee turn Heathen till you have converted him? Though this unfortunate Lady did by this her wise answer discover the true madnesse of all persecutors, yet did she not forbeare to bath [Page] her cruell hands for many yeers after, in the blood of Gods Saints, and caused many, as St. Paul witnesseth of himself, before his conversion, to blaspheme, by their ejuration of the known truth, and their subscriptions to the Popish trumperies; of which, some that persisted in Papistry, turned prodigious sinners and libertines; and others with the King of Navar, and Prince of Conde, as soon as they got loose, returned to the known truth. The heroick answer of that brave Prince, John Frederick Elector, and Duke of Saxonie, is worthy to be ingraven in leters of gold on pillars of brasse, who being taken prisoner by the Emperor, Charles the fifth, in the yeer 1547. and threatened with present death, except he would renounce and yeeld up his Electorate and Dutchie to his false and treacherous Cousin Maurice, and become a Romanist, yeelded readily to all the former conditions, but absolutely refused the latter: And when in the yeer following, that wicked interim was yeelded unto by all the Princes of Germany; some being driven by fear, and others drawn on by flattery, which was, That Popery should be restored in all places, till a generall Councell were called, and further order taken for the liberty of Religion; This godly Prince, though Ces [...]rs captive, could never be drawn to subscribe to it; and when those two subtile Perenots, Nicholas Cardinall Granvellan the Father, and Anthony the Bishop of Arras his son, had used many arguments to perswade him, What (saith hee) would you draw me to? I am convinced the Religion I now live in to be the truth, and should I outwardly make profession of any other, I should but dissemble with God and the Emperor, and so draw neer to that unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost: with which answer, Charles the fifth himself was so pleased, as he more respected and honoured the Duke ever after. What this pious Prince foresaw and avoided, too many by lamentable experience have found true, and repented, who having abjured the truth for fear, and felt but a while the horror of an afflicted and wounded conscience, have hasted to those Popish Officers, as divers in England did in Queen Maries time, where their abjurations and recantations remained, and having gotten sight of them, have rent them into many pieces, and joyfully imbraced, not only their Irons, but the stake it self, as a far more easie suffering then what they before felt and indured. Had Charles the 9th of France but followed the good counsell was openly given him in the Parliament at St. Germans the first yeer of his reign, That the differences [Page] of Religion neither ought, nor ever could be composed by blood and cruelty, but by Gods Word and seasonable conferences, he had never made his raign and memory so infamous to posterity as now it is, nor drawn the divine vengeance upon himself, by shedding so much innocent blood as afterwards he did. For as divers were butcher'd by him in that barbarous massacre at Paris, in the yeer 1572. so Henry de Clermont (commonly sirnamed Bourbon) Prince of Conde, was some days after the generall slaughter of the Protestants, committed there, appointed by him to die, but his pardon being obtained by Elizabeth (a name, it seems, only proper to gracious and excellent soveraignesses) his Queen, one of the daughters of the good Emperor Maximilian, (although Conde knew it not) hee comes to him, and tels him, of three things he must elect one: either to heare Masse, to die, or to suffer perpetuall imprisonment; the young Prince no whit abashed, makes him this sudden and brave answer: God forbid, Sir, that I should choose the first, but of the two latter, I am ready to submit to that which your Highnesse shall appoint. There is as rare a story of the Lady Jane Gray, eldest daughter of Henry Gray, Duke of Suffolk, not much inferiour in birth and extraction to Conde himself, by her mothers side, who was grandchilde and co-heire to Edward the 4th, King of England, related by a Gentleman, and a Courtier, as it seems (for I finde not his name) under Queen Mary, in the yeer 1553. who dined at Mr. Partriges house within the Tower with her, whilest she remained a prisoner there, which narration well deserving to be transmitted to posterity, doth here ensue out of a Manuscript History of a great part of that Queens time, the very Autograph it self being in my Library, written by the said Gentleman with his own hand, some few words being added, which were at first casually omitted by his haste, or inadvertency in penning of it, and some other words changed and written according to the manner of speech now used: On Tuesday, the 29th of August, I dined at Partriges house with my Lady Jane, &c. After that we fell in discourse of matters of Religion, and she asked what he was that preached at Pauls on Sunday before, and so it was told her to be one :::::::: I pray you (quoth she) had they Masse in London? Yea forsooth (quoth I) in some places: It may be so (quoth she) it is not so strange as the sudden conversion of the late John Dudley Duke of Northumberland. Duke, for who would have thought, said shee, hee would have so done? It was answered her, Perchance hee thereby hoped to have had his pardon. [Page] Pardon! (quoth shee) Wo worth him, hee hath brought me and our stock in most miserable calamity and misery by his exceeding ambition; but for the answering that hee hoped for life by his turning, though other men be of that opinion, I utterly am not: for what man is there living, I pray you, although hee had been innocent, that would hope for life in that case, being in the field against the Queen in person as Generall, and after his taking so hated and evill spoken of by the Commons, and at his coming into prison so wondred at, as the like was never heard by any mans time; who can judge that hee should hope for pardon, whose life was odious to all men? But what will yee more? like as his life was wicked and full of dissimulation, so was his end thereafter: I pray God I, nor no friend of mine die so; should I, who am young, and in the flower of my yeeres forsake my faith for the love of life? Nay, God forbid; much more hee should not, whose fatall course, although hee had lived his just number of yeers, could not have long continued: But life was sweet, it appeared so hee might have lived, you will say, hee did not care how; indeed the reason is good: for hee that would have lived in chains to have his life, belike would leave no means unattempted: but God be mercifull to us, for hee saith, Whoso denyeth him before men, hee will not know him in his Fathers Kingdome. How justly may the masculine constancie of this excellent Lady, whose many vertues the pens of her very enemies have acknowledged, rise up in judgement against all such poore spirits, who for feare of death, or other outward motives, shall deny God and his truth, and so crown the Trophees of the Antichristian or mongrill adversaries by their lamentable apostasie. For what shee here spake Christianly, shee within a few moneths after performed constantly, her life being taken from her on the 12th day of February, 1553. having lived first to see Mr. Harding her fathers Chaplain revolted to Antichrist, to whom she wrote an effectuall Letter of admonition and reproof, published by Mr. Fox in his Acts and monuments, p. 1291. not unworthy the perusall of the ablest Christians and greatest Doctors.

SECT. IX.

AS it is against the dictamen of reason, to make matter of Religion a capitall crime, so it is against the rules of policy it self, in respect that heresie and falshood, which would in time die of themselves, [Page] are thereby increased & propagated, and so the end for which force and violence are used, is no wayes obtained thereby. This was verified in the death of Prisciliian the heretique of old, by which his followers were mightily encreased, and having before but reverenced him as a holy man, did afterwards adore him as a Martyr. The present age verifies it in the death of Michael Servetus the Spaniard, and other Anabaptists, though most necessarily cut off by the sword of the Magistrate, for their blasphemous opinions and lawless Tenets, tending to the utter subversion of all Civill government. The Anabaptists in their Dialogues, published in the English tongue in Queen Maries dayes, though they craftily withdrew many of their Anarchicall Tenets (agreeing almost verbatim with the workes since penned by James Arminius, and the latter Anabaptists) doe extoll that Servetus as a Prophet of the Lord; and their numbers are at this day so increased, as they constitute or make a considerable party in divers parts of Christendome. But those cursed enemies of the truth, that thinke by persecuting it, to abolish it, as they fight against God himselfe in so doing, so have they heretofore, and shall still in despight of all their devillish policy for the time to come increase and propagate the same. This, if all other Instances wanted, would sufficiently appeare in that famous example of an English Schoolmaster, a most zealous Papist in the dayes of King Edward the sixt, who afterwards in the beginning of Queen Maries government, frequenting the fires of some of the Martyrs, was so convinced with hearing what they spake, and seeing how chearfully they suffered, as he himselfe relinquishing the former ignorance and idolatry he had so long embraced, at last witnessed the truth with his own bloud. Not he onely, but many thousands also besides, were doubtless inabled by the cleare shining of those fires, to discerne the foulnesse of those mysteries of darkness, under which they had been so long held captive. And after her short Raigne (infamoused by so much bloud-shed) was expired, it facilitated the way for her royall sister Elizabeth to restore the truth at an easie rate. When the Executioner came behind John Hus, to kindle the pile that encompassed him: Come hither my friend, (said he) and kindle it here before, for had I feared what thou bringest, I had not appeared at this Stake to day. His death brought so incredible progresse to the true Church in Bohemia, as did also that of Jerome [Page] of Prague his Contemporanie, that their bloudy persecutors had just cause within a few yeares after their decease, to acknowledge their own errour in having hastened their ends. As fruitfull a seed-time to the Church in France, proved the death of Annas Burgus, a Senator of Paris, in the yeare 1559. under Francis the second. A man he was so vertuous and innocent in his life, as some of the very enemies of the Truth laboured his delivery when he was in prison, and so resolute and chearfull in his death, as it incouraged thousands in that Kingdome, in the constant profession of the Reformed Religion. What better successe had all the bloudy executions of Ferdinand de Toledo, that merciless Duke of Alva, and of his new erected Bishops in the lower Germany, but that the Gospel at the last got the victory over hell, and all the powers of darkness? Neither indeed could those cruell Inquisitors have expected other issue, had they but truly considered what Religion had been; and that Princes and States may command the bodies, but not the soules and consciences of men; Which having been once perswaded by Instruction and Information to embrace and beleeve any opinions, though hereticall, and therefore much more the Truth it selfe, can never be driven from them, but by the same meanes of a further and more cleare Instruction. The godly have ever lookt upon chaines, prisons, racks, and fires, as the tryall and reward of their faith, more fearing to doe evill, then to suffer evill, well knowing that they shall neither suffer more, nor their cruell enemies be able to inflict more, then God shall turne to his own endlesse glory, and their everlasting good. Did the Heathen Poet desire to be sent back to the Mines (a life more tedious then that of the Gallyes) rather then he would commend a few bad Verses, contrary to his judgement? Could Epicurus, that impure Philosopher, say of a wise man, that if he were scorched in Phalaris Bull, he would not be moved with it, but onely cry out, Dulce est, & ad me non attinet? Or the young Stoick in Gellius, to maintaine the Apathie of his Sect, neither groane nor frowne in the midst of a burning feaver? And shall we thinke that Gods Saints who have their reason heightened and irradiated by grace, and their soules immoveably founded upon a lively and living faith, will feare to lose their estates, liberties, and lives for the Truths sake? No doubtless, but as the Gold is tryed by the Furnace, and cleared from the drosse, so in time of persecution they shall be discerned [Page] from all hypocrites, Atheists, Libertines, and Time-servers whatsoever.

SECT. X.

BUt oh that Princes and Great ones would shake off those fleshflyes and Sycophants, who tell them the contrary, and know the Truth to be that nothing can more infamouze their raignes and memories to Posterity, nothing bring more inevitable ruine to their Persons, nothing finally prove so deadly a Consumption amongst their posterity, as to inforce the Consciences of their Subjects, by fines, imprisonments, subscriptions, recantations, depauperations, and death. Charles the fift having obtained the Imperiall Chaire, by the money and meanes of Henry the eighth of England, was the most potent Emperour that ever Germany had, as long as he maintained the peace of Religion, but having yeelded to the Popes instigations, and prospered a while in his intended extirpation of the Truth, he found at last by experience what his brave and valiant Generall Castaldus had foretold him; That these violent proceedings would in the end prove fatall to himselfe; For having first fled away at mid-night in a cold and rainy season from Onspruch, for feare of the Protestant Army, he was afterwards (in stead of setling his sonne Philip in his own Chaire, which he had fully intended) faine to surrender up the Empire to Ferdinand his Brother, who for divers moneths before had entred into a secret league with the Protestant Princes of Germany, and so having lived a few yeares after in a despised and disconsolate solitude, heat last ended his life very ingloriously. His sonne Philip the second, the most inveterate enemy of the Gospel that ever lived, did not onely set up Shambles and Butcheries for Gods Saints in most of his own large Dominions by his Inquisitors, but continually ayded the Rebells in France, England, and Ireland, against their lawfull Soveraignes, and plotted to invade all other Protestant Dominions in Christendome, that so at last by one generall carnage of them all, he and his holy Father the Pope, might have shared the Christian world by a double Monarchy of the Church and Empire between them. But did this bloudy Prince prosper in these his ambitious and cruell designes? Certainly, nothing lesse; for what got he by his invading France by land, England and Ireland by Sea, and by his large Pensions conferred on the traytors [Page] and secret enemies of either State; but that in the issue having wasted about thirty millions of money upon those fruitless designs, and not gained a foot of ground in either of those Realmes, he lost a great part of the Seventeen Provinces, with whom having broken the Oath solemnly sworne to them upon his Inauguration, they by assistance of England, and France, freed themselves from his unjust oppression and tyranny? Neither did the divine Justice let him so escape, but raised a fire in his own house, so as the Jeast of Augustus touching Herod, might well be verified in him, That it had been better to have been his swine then his sonne. For whereas he had issue by Mary his first wife, the daughter of John the third of that name, King of Portugall, one onely sonne called Charles, a Prince of admirable towardlinesse; he during the life of Englands unhappy Mary, his second wife, treated a marriage for his said sonne with Elizabeth the eldest daughter of Henry the second of France; During the treaty Mary his wife dying, he marries the Princesse Elizabeth himselfe, intended for his sonne: they both often in private after never forgetting their old affection, lament their unhappy losse each of other: the sonne also distasts his Fathers cruelties, and the butcheries of his Inquisitors. This enraged his jealous Father, who having in the yeare 1568. first imprisoned him, within a few dayes after poysoned him in a dish of broath. His Mother in Law followed him within a few moneths after, sent out of the world by the same kind hand and meanes, (say the French Writers) the violence of the poyson causing her to miscarry also by an abortion. And then was Philip the Father put to seek out a fourth wife, and having married Anne the daughter of Mary, his own naturall sister, he had issue by her, Ferdinand and James, both cut off by death in their Infancy, and Philip who being the onely issue of this incestuous Match, lived to inherit his Fathers Dominions, though not the full measure of his cruelties, having been perhaps forewarned by his sad and loathsome end, to pursue a more milde and peaceable Government. Rodolph the second of that name, Emperour of Germany, not following the steps of the wise Maximilian his Father, but of the foresaid Philip his Brother in Law, sought by all secret and hostile means to enervate and destroy Religion in the Empire. What got he by it, but to have the curse of the Scripture to fall upon him; That the Elder Brother should serve the younger? for Matthias [Page] the Arch-Duke of Austria, raising an Army in the yeere 1608. and joyning his Forces with those of the oppressed Protestants in Bohemia, hemmed up his brother Rodolph in Prague, got the Kingdom of Hungary from him in possession, the Empire in reversion, and left him only the robes and complements of Majesty; which notorious affront he did not long over-live, nor ever had the means or power to revenge.

SECT. XI.

IF wee passe out of Spain and Germany, from the House of Austria into France, to consider the sad successes of the Princes of the Valesian line, upon their hatred and persecution of Religion, wee shall see so many instances of Gods just indignation against them, as they may not only leave to all posterity a just ground of admiration, but save us the labour also of searching any further back into the elder Histories of Gods judgements powred out on the persecuting Emperours in the Primitive times. Henry the second of France, was meanly married to Katherine de Medices, the Niece of Pope Clement the seventh, during the life of Francis the Dolphine, his elder brother, afterwards poysoned. That prudent Prince, Francis the first, his Father deceasing, hee succeeded him in his Throne and Purple, and swayed the French Scepter divers yeers, with much tranquillity and happinesse, till loathing the coiture of his Queen, unfit indeed for a Princes bed, he grew highly enamoured on Pictavia of Valence, a woman of exquisite beauty and good extraction: with whom hee long after lived in continuall advowtrie, and was by her enticed to the persecution and slaughter of the Protestants, in the yeere 1553. that so by the confiscation of their lands and goods, shee might enrich her self and her kindred. This persecution set a period to all his former victories, and was followed the next yeere with the losse of the City of Senis in Italy to the Spaniard, the death of that gallant old Generall Leo Strozzi, by a base hand, and the overthrow of the French Army by James de Medices. In the yeer 1556. the violence of persecution was again renewed against the Professors of the Truth, and the very next yeer following, as before, God again gave up the French Army to the slaughter of the Spaniards, and the Dutch, at the fiege and battell of St. Quintins, in which there were about 3000. slain upon the place, and [Page] many of them signall men, and the Town soone after taken in by assault, Annas Duke of Memorancie himself, the Constable of France, Gasper de Colignie, Earle of Caestilion, Admirall of France, the Marshall of St Andrew, the Duke of Longevile, and a number of other great Peers were taken prisoners. In summe, the losse and slaughter was so great and fatall to the French, as it well-neer equalled that victory obtained by the Duke of Bourbon, at the battell of Pavia in Italy, against Francis the first his Father; yet Henry the second still shuts his eyes against the cause of all these losses, and having his heart already cauterized by lust, he not only caused the godly to be committed to the flames, but would needs view their torments himself, as a pleasing spectacle, and had conspired and combined with Philip the second of Spain, his new Sonne in Law, for the utter ruine and finall subversion of Geneva: Nay, but a few houres before his death, in the yeer 1559. Lodowick Faber, and Annas Burgus, two Senators of Paris, because they had spoken a little freely for the innocency and piety of the Protestants in the open Senate, were imprisoned upon his expresse command in the Bastile in the same City by Gabriel Earle of Mongomery, one of the Captains of his Guard; and the persecution against all others of the same profession grew hot and furious, when the King upon the 29th of June the same yeere, running at Tilt with that very Earle of Mongomery, and neer the very Baslile, where the Senators remained prisoners, was struck with a splinter of Mongomeries speare through his eye into his brain, and never had the happinesse to speak any one word after, though he survived the wound a few dayes, or to acknowledge his former lust and cruelty. Had the Papists but such an instance of Gods immediate providence in vindicating their cause, we should soon heare of one true miracle amidst so many false and adulterate. But if wee further looke to Gods hand that followed this Prince in his posterity, it will yet seem the greater Miracle; for of five sons hee had, all except one, died without lawfull issue to survive them, and three of them by violent deaths, and in his posterity ended the Valesian line, the Crown devolving thereupon to the royall branch of Clermont, commonly called Bourbon, whom his sons had most bitterly hated and persected. Of all his five daughters, three died issuless, and the eldest that had issue was cut off by poyson. Nay, his very Bastard son, Henry of Engolisme, a great actor amongst others in the [Page] massacre of Paris, perished also by the stab of Philip Altovit a Florentine, his old enemy, in the yeer, 1586. during the raign of Henry the third his brother.

SECT. XII.

FOr Charles the ninth (third son of Henry the second aforesaid) that succeeded Francis the second his brother, in the Kingdome of France, in the yeer 1560. had he continued his raign with as much mercy and wisdome as he began it, or followed the grave and seasonable advice of Michael Hospitalius his Chancellor in his latter yeers, as well as he did in his former, he had in all likelihood lived as vertuously as hee died miserably. Hee had scarce raigned two yeers in peace and plenty, when Katherine de Medices his mother, desiring to vest and settle the Regencie in her self, by raising combustions in the Realm, began to perswade her son to revive and renew those persecutions against the Protestants which his father had begun; shee reconciled her self to Francis Lorainer, Duke of Guise, whom but a little before she had justly feared and hated, being a secret enemy to Lewes de Clermont, Prince of Conde: He and the Marshall of St Andrew having gained Annas de Memorancy, Constable of France to their party, conspired all together for the utter ruine of the truth. The Protestants in the mean, seeing the King in his Infancy, to be held captive, as it were, by this Triumvirate, take up Arms by the Queenmothers own instigation, to maintain the Kings Edict of Pacification, published in the yeer 1561. and commonly called The Edict of January. The yeer following, by the instigation of the same Triumvirate, not only the Queen-mother, but Anthony de Clermont (usually sirnamed Bourbon) King of Navar also, (who yet died a Protestant) was drawn on to assail the said Protestants by open force, they in the mean time filling the Queen-mothers ears with these vain flatteries, that she should soon see the utter ruine of all the Heretikes in France; from which time that goodly kingdome, so rich, peaceable and flourishing, for neer upon forty yeers together, (some short times of truce and peace being interposed) was filled with cruelties, ravages, ravishments, blood-shedding, battels, sires, slaughters, and all other calamitous desolations that accompany intestine and civill broiles; in the issue of all which, the Protestants being increased in their [Page] strength and numbers, obtained a more firm and advantageous peace then ever they had before enjoyed: whereas those three Incendiaries of all these miseries perished within a few yeers after, by the just judgement of God, in the very act of their hostile pursuements of his children: The Marshall of Saint Andrew was slain at the battell of Dreux, Annas de Memorancie under the very walls of Paris, and Francis Lorainer, Duke of Guise, was pistolled by John Poltrot, at the siege of Orleance. King Charles seeing that open force could not destroy the truth, nor root out the Professors thereof, about two yeers before the hellish massacre began at Paris, and continued to the perpetuall infamy of France in divers other Cities in that Realm, held a secret Councell in the Castle of Blois with Katherine de Medices his mother, Alexander and Hercules (called also Henry and Francis) his two brothers, and Henry Lorainer, son and heir of the before pistolled Duke Francis, Duke of Guise; by what means they might best draw the Protestants into their toile to destroy and murther them. The same Councell was held again by King Charles in the house of Hieronimo de Gondy at St. Clou, and the time and order of the bloody marriage banquet to be served in at the nuptials of the King of Navar, with the Lady Margaret his sister, was there agreed upon, and resolved of, almost, in the same manner as it was afterwards put in execution upon the 24. day of August, being St Bartholomews day, in the yeer 1572. in which were most inhumanely slaughtered within the space of few dayes, of men, women and children, many of them also being great and honourable personages of either sex, about thirty thousand: And while the Duke of Guise was busie in prosecuting that mercilesse and inhumane execution, it was seriously advised upon, and disputed of, in the Queenmothers Cabinet-councell, whether it were not necessary that hee himself, and the rest of his family then there, should also be dispatched at the same time in that tumult: King Charles himself never saw good day after that bloody massacre, although his Court sycophants had promised him it should prove the first happy day of his absolute Monarchie; for though hee had been long drenched in lust, (a sin seldome separated from a Persecutor) by his ordinary advowtrie with a mean wench of Orleance, on whom hee begot Charles of Engolisme, after Earle of Auvergne; and though he had been trained up by his mother, to see the flaughter of beasts, and [Page] ever in the chases loved to both his hands in the bloud of the fallen game, (all which might have served to have stupefied his conscience, as they did enflame his sierce and cruell nature) yet so stinging a remorse in his inward man did ever pursue and haunt him after that mercilesse slaughter accomplished chiefly by his often swearing and forswearing himself, (by which the Queen of Navar, and the Admirall Chasrilion were deceived) as that his eyes rolled often uncertainly in the day with feare and suspicion; and his sleep was usually interrupted in the night with dismall dreams & apparitions, like R. 3. of England, after the murther of his two Nephews in the Tower of London; nay, though he survived not this inhumane slaughter sull two yeares, yet had he plotted and decreed the death of the said Henry Duke of Guise, and the removall of his Queen-mother & her instruments from the helm of State: But some of his agents that were to have acted these last feats, playing false with him, (as he had some few dayes before the said massacre poysoned that incomparable Princesse for learning and piety, Joan D'Albret Queen of Navar, Grandmother to Lewes the thirteenth, now King of France:) so did his mother or the Duke of Guise, by way of prevention or anticipation minister to him his fatall physick, of which, after many sharp and grievous torments, he deceased upon Whitsunday, having not then attained to the five and twentieth yeare of his age, in the yeare 1574. the violence of the venome leaving in his intrailes (as appeared upon his distection) many blew spots and swellings.

SECT. XIII.

WE have seen the gain and advantage that King Charles the ninth of France made by his barbarous persecutions, 'tis likely that those very flatterers which assured him those cruelties should make him an absolute Monarch, did help to absolve him of his Monarchy. He had his punishment first, his mother, his two brethren, the Cardinal & Duke of Guise, that had not only joyned with him in it, but encouraged him to it, they still survived him, and for ought men saw, were firmly stablished in much safety and prosperity; though Guise might have been warned by the death of Claude, Duke of Aumale his brother, slain at the siege of Rochel, in the yeare 1573. The first act by which Henry the third (the new French King, [Page] and brother and heir of Charles deceased) discovered his impotency of spirit, and want of judgement, was his clandestine and sudden stealing out of Poland, where he had been but a few moneths before elected and crowned King: This was the first unfortunate step of his following his mothers weak Dictates, and rejecting the able advises of his own Councell. But her next instructions which shee as fatally gave him, as he weakly pursued, being to root out the Professors of the truth with fire and sword, involved him and his kingdome into innumerable miseries. The good Emperour Maximilian the second, in the Kings passage out of Poland through Germany, and the Venetian State, during his stay there, gave him both of them more faithfull counsell, earnestly advising him to maintain the former Edicts of Pacification, and not to enforce the consciences of men in matter of Religion: The same opinion was generally held by his wisest Counsellers, and by all sober and discreet Romanists at home, who saw plainly, that the Protestants encreasing was the onely meanes now left under heaven, in time at length, to draw the Pope and his Conclave to yeeld to some reformation of the Church, which it exceedingly needed. But other Papists there were of loose and Atheisticall lives, as Lewes Lorainer, Cardinall of Guise, Henry Lorainer his elder brother, Duke of Guise, Renate Villoclare, (a man, saith incomparable Monsieur de Thou, fatally preferred to this Kings attendance by his mother) and divers others, who perswaded the King to break the former Edicts of Pacification, and never to sheath his sword, till he had utterly ruined the Protestants of France, whom some of their foul-mouthed fellow-brethren, Protestants of this age, have stiled French Puritanes, and would, perhaps, had they lived in his time, have joyned their ghostly advices with those of the Cardinall of Guise for the utter extirpation of all such as dissented in judgement or practice from themselves in matter of Ceremony. I have often wondred in the perusall of the story of this King, whose troublesome raign did necessitate his frequent consultations; that when divers advices were propounded, he ever pitched upon the worst and most fatall to himselfe: But I found the two main causes of it to be; first, his blind and inveterate hatred of the truth: and secondly, his weak and degenerate spirit, by which the House of Guise, the Arch-enemies of the Gospel, became at the last so potent, and triumphed so notoriously over his impotency, as [Page] they forced him to seek to those very Protestants for support, against whom himself had taken a most wicked and solemn oath, as the head of a faction amongst his own Subjects, for their utter subversion. Infinite almost, was the treasure he spent upon his Minions and pleasures, (his very expences for maintenance of his dogs onely in that age, amounting unto twenty thousand pounds yearely at least) but most was exhausted in the prosecution of his civill wars against the Protestants, and his servile ancillating therein to the ambition of others. Guise and his faction now grown strong, (and assured of support from Philip the second of Spain,) after his expelling the King out of Paris, and heaping a world of other insolent affronts upon him, was drawn by him in the yeare 1588. to the Assembly then held at Blois; he came thither with Lewes Lorainer, Cardinall of Guise his brother, and Charles Prince of Jenvile his son, upon the same royall assurance of safety with which Charles the ninth had (by his advice) deceived the Protestants before the inhumane massacre in the yeare 1572. And now let all Popish and Popishly addicted, Pseudo-Lutherans, who make it a sport to fine, imprison, suspend, vex, and impoverish their fellow-Christians for the lightest matter, draw neer and stand amazed at Gods secret judgements: For during this Assembly at Blois, was this Henry, Duke of Guise, slaughtered, against the publike faith given him, not onely within the Castle of Blois, but in that very room in which sixteen yeares before he had advised the bloudy massacre of Paris to be committed and executed. Two circumstances also that attended his fatall minute, do adde much horror to the punishment it selfe: The first, that he was but new risen from the bed of his adulterate lust, the very morning he was murthered, having not been able to conquer the chastity of a Gentlewoman attending the Queen-mother before that night; and therefore was so eager upon reaping the fruits of his long fiege, as he repaired not to the Councel-chamber till he was often sent for, and scarce ready. The second, in the manner of his first wound, which was given him in his throat, and caused immediately the bloud so abundantly to stream out of his mouth, as he never had time once to call on God for mercy or forgivenesse, but spent the last minute of his life, in the revenging himself on his murtherers. A little after the Cardinall of Guise his brother, a great gamester at Cards and Dice, perished likewise in the [Page] same Castle of Blois, by a violent death. Katherine de Medices, the Queen-mother, who had been the chief cause, for neer upon thirty yeers before her death, of the shedding so much innocent blood in France, being present at the same time, in the Castle of Blois, stormed secretly, that so great an action should be entred into, and gone through without her advice; and (when she understood that Charles Lorainer, Duke of Maine was escaped, being the younger brother of the murthered Duke of Guise;) presaged to the King her son, the sad issue of that rash attempt, which he interpretting (as it seems) to be rather the expression of her wishes then her fears; and having, by many wosull experiences, seen the effects of her Italian revengefull spirit, took a course to pacifie her wrath; for not long after, she there ended her unhappy life by poyson, (saith Elias Reusner) in the same Castle also, where she held the first secret and bloody Councell for the execution of the foresaid inhumane massacre. Francis her youngest son, died before her, upon the tenth day of June, 1584. in the one and thirtieth yeer of his age, of so violent a poyson ministred to him, doubtlesse by some of the Hispaniolized Guisards, as it caused his very blood to gush out of his body in severall places; the sight of which purple streams, might well call upon him to remember with what inhumane triumph he trampled on the bloody streets of Paris, in the great slaughter committed on Gods Saints and Martyrs, about twelve yeers before. There now only remained Henry the third, the French King alive, of all the first contrivers and principall executioners of that inhumane massacre, which no age, no time, no action of the most barbarous nations of the world could ever pattern; neither believe I, can any ancient or modern History parallel the following punishments of the chief actors therein in all respects: who not only all of them perished by violent and bloody ends, but proved also the murtherers one of another. Charles Lorainer Duke of Maine was presently upon the death of his brother, made Generall of the holy League; Paris it self, and in a manner, all the Popish cities beyond the Loire, giving up their names and forces to the Henotick faction, supported by Pope Sixtus the fifth, from Rome, and Philip the second from Spain. When the King saw that neither his acting the Monk with the Flagellators, nor his playing the Persecutor against the Protestants would secure him from a speedy ruine, by the violent hands [Page] of the rebels: He sends to the victorious King of Naver, his brother in Law, and to the Euangelicall Army, before whose known valour the Popish Forces hastened back from the Loire to the Seine; Henry the third pursues them, and pitched his royall Pavilion at St Clou, not far from the gates of Paris. But his old cruelties and persecutions of the godly, were doubtlesse the Remora of his new expected victories; and the divine providence so ordered it, that in the very place where the last resolution was taken by himself, his Mother, his brethren, and others, for the speedy execution of the beforementioned belluine Massacre, about seventeen yeers before, nay, in the very same house of Hierome de Gondy, and in the very same roome or chamber (saith John de Serres) was he murthered by James Clement, a Jesuited Monk, in the yeer 1589. and in the thirty and ninth yeer of his age. The assassination was furthered by the authority of Pope Sixtus the fifth, by the seditious preachings of the Jesuites, Priests, and Friers, in Paris, (who had secretly drawn infinite numbers into open rebellion before, by their auricular confession) and by the perswasion of the Lady Katharine Mary, Dutchesse of Mompensier, sister of the deceased Duke of Guise, whose horrible transport with malice against the Protestant party, and desire of revenge against the King himself, did so far excaecate and blind her nobler endowments, as she prostituted her body to that Jesuited wretch (as impartiall de Thou himself relates) to incourage him the more in the accomplishment of the murther, and so to stupefie and harden his soul by that fatall sin of lust, that it might not startle at the commission of any other wickednesse whatsoever. Yet as this King some moneths before his death altered his former bloody resolutions against Gods servants, so did the Divine providence at his death afford him some hours of repentance and sorrow, after the bloody knife had been sheathed in his belly: In which he acknowledged his error and sin; his error, in having been so long mis-led by his ambitious and factious Vassalls; his sin, in having persecuted his Protestant Subjects, and inforced the consciences of many to submit to Popery against the known truth by cruelty and threatning.

SECT. XIV.

IN this fifteenth age also (within the compasse of which wee shall confine our discovery of Gods Judgements upon persecuting [Page] Princes) the truth began to spread forth its beames in this other world of Great Britain, in a more resplendent lustre then formerly: not but that I dare undertake to prove by some select, and perhaps, fearce known monuments of Antiquity, that the Gospel was planted here in the Primitive time, that the Protestants Religion flourished here neer upon four hundred yeers, before Austine the Monk, the first Popish Archbishop of Canterbury, poysoned the purity of Gods worship with his burthensome Trinkets and Ceremonies. Finally, that it was from the first plantation preserved amongst the Welsh and Scots, to the dayes of John Wickleffe, without any interruption, and was secretly practised also in England from Henry the seconds time, at the least, to the begun Reformation of King Edward the sixth. But this requiring a reasonable Volume of it self to be at large deduced, I must passe over, as improper for this place. We may begin in England with Henry the eighth, in whose raign no Papist can deny, but that divers Protestants were not only hunted after, fined, imprisoned, compelled to abjure, and otherwise disciplined; but were likewise consumed in the merciless flames, as Heretiques. And therefore when the Papall side take so much pains to recount either the ill successes of his own raign; or the dying issulesse of all his posterity, as the signes and characters of Gods indignation against him, they do but furnish the Orthodox party with weapons against themselves. For the truth is, he did only abolish the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome, not the Pontifician or Papall Church, which to this day, as also in the former ages in France, hath been so hedged up and incircled under certain restrictions and limits, as it is of small consequence to help the Prelates, and of little power to hurt the King; So that Cuffetellus the Dominican proved it at large in an elaborate Work, published in the yeer 1609. and the Sorbonists determined it in the yeer 1611. that the Pope had no power or Jurisdiction in that Kingdome in matter of Temporalities. Neither did Henry the eighth in England proceed any further in this particular of abolishing the Popes power, then those his two coaetaneous Princes, Francis the first, and Charles the fifth, did at sundry times in their severall Dominions, upon lesse provocations: So the same Charles the fifth, writing to the Councell assembled at Bononie, superscribed his Letters only, Conventui Bononiae, as did afterwards Henry the second of [Page] France, writing to the Tridentine Conspirators, fule it only the Convention of Trent; who also in the former and better part of his raign fairly cut shorter a great-part of the Popes Ecclesiasticall authority in France. And how little Philip the second himself of Spain, the sworn enemy of the godly, regarded the Pope further then he did ancillate to his ambitious ends, appeares plainly in this one particular, that when upon the unfortunate death of Sebastian, King of Portugall there were divers competitors for that kingdome, and that Don Antonio had already assumed the title thereof, he would not admit the Popes intercession to have the matter composed by Treaty, or referre the cause to his decision: Nay, that bloody Charles of France, of whose fatall end we have but a while before discoursed, when Pius the fourth, in the yeer 1563. had cited Odetus de Coligny, Cardinall of Chastillion, John de Monluce, Bishop of Valence, and others of his Subjects, to appeare at Rome before his Inquisitors, he sent him a stout Message by Henry Clutinius his Ambassador then at Rome, That if hee did not speedily withdraw that citation, hee would no longer acknowledge him for Pope. At which bold Declaration, the Pope and his Conclave being affrighted, the prosecution of that businesse ceased by the very withdrawing of the Citation it self, and by the Popes future silence. All which open affronts, the Popes in this fifteenth age after our bleffed Saviours incarnation, endured from these Kings; not because they were more deare to their Subjects then their Predecessors, or the Popes lesse potent then in former times, (for their strength in Italy was more encreased in that age, then in ten fore-going) but indeed it was the light of the Gospel that began about these times to dawn every where, that made way for dispelling those chains of darknesse, with which both Prince and people had in those former ages been enfettered; So as the Pope fearing, lest all should fall from him, as some Germane Princes, Republiques, and Cities had already done, was fain to comply with the French King, to submit to the Emperor, and to Court the King of England, by the intercession of foraine Princes for a reconcilement. But to proceed from Henry the eighth of England, the Father to Mary Queen of the same Realm, his daughter, of whom, and her wisdome, the Pontificians so much boast. It is certain that she entred her raign with the breach of her publique faith; For whereas the Crown was set on her head by the German [Page] and Commons of Suffolk, although they knew her to be a Papist, (which shewes that the godly Protestant usually nicknamed by those that are prophane, lustfull, and Popishly affected, is the best Subject any Soveraign can be happy in) yet she in one of her first acts of Councell, took order for their restraint, long before the Masse and Latine Service were generally received in London it self, and caused that Diocesse to taste the sharpest Inquisition and persecution that raged during her raign, which was happily shortened by her husbands contemning her person, and her enemies conquering her Dominions; neither of which she ever had power to revenge, or recover; so as though the cause of her death proceeded from no outward violence, yet was her end as inglorious and miserable, as her raign had been turbulent and bloody. She might have taken warning by the sudden and immature death of James the fifth King of Scotland, her cousin Germane, who raising persecution in Scotland against his loyall and innocent Protestant Subjects, in the yeere 1539. burning some, exiling and imprisoning others, and forcing many to blaspheme, in abjuring the known Truth, by the advice and procurement of James Beton, Archbishop of St Andrews, and David Beton, Abbot of Arbroth his brother, never saw good day after: two brave young Princes his sons were the yeer following cut off by abortive ends in their cradles. Wars to his great losse and disadvantage were raised between himself and his Uncle Henry the eighth King of England, and all things fell out so crosse to his haughty and vast minde, as it hastened his death, which fell out in the yeere 1542.

SECT. XV.

WEre the Histories of Popish Prelates worthy to be joyned to those of Kings and Princes, wee might fill up a large Tract with Gods judgements powred upon them: For as most of them have been given up to lust and crapulositie, so have many of them been bitter enemies of the truth, and stingie persecutors. We have seen the fall of the Cardinall of Guise, and all ages have cause to admire the exemplary judgements of God powred out upon that bastard-slip, Stephen Gardner, Bishop of Winchester, in the very instant of his plauditees and caresses for the vivicombury of [Page] reverend Latimer, and learned Ridley. But I shall content my selfe to have abstracted, as a taste for the rest, the notorious punishments inflicted by a higher hand upon two Arch-Prelates, the one of England, the other of Scotland: Thomas Arundell Arch-bishop of Canterbury, having been the successefull traytor, by the help of his reverend fellow-Bishops, to establish Henry the 4th in the Throne of R. the second his liege Lord, and Cousin-German, pressed the new King (whose broken title needed his Prelates supportment) to use his temporall sword for the destroying the disciples of John Wicklesse, whose numbers were so increased at that time, as they even filled the kingdome; the King assents, and having by their mercilesse instigation shed the bloud of Gods Saints, he raigned neither long nor happily: H. 5. a brave and martiall Prince, his son, succeeding him, the Protestants began to meet more publikely, and to professe the truth more openly then before; the Archbishop thereupon renews his former suit to the son he had before pressed with successe upon the father, and prevailed. In particular, he first aimed at the destruction of Sir John de Old Castle, Knight, commonly called the Lord Cobham, who had most affronted him. This noble Gentleman was extracted from an ancient Family of Wales, where he had large possessions, and much alliance, by whose means he after lay long-hidden there, notwithstanding all the search his bloudy enemies made after him: he had issue by Katherine, daughter of Richard ap Yevan his first wife, John, who died before himself, and Henry de Old Castle, who survived him, and to whom King Henry the sixth, in the 7th yeare of his raign, restored divers Mannors and Lands which had been entailed upon him; he married to his last wife, Joan, the sole daughter and heire of Sir John de la Pole, Knight, whom he had begotten upon the sole daughter and heire of the Lord Cobham of Kent, which Joan had been first married to Sir Robert de Hemenhale a Suffolk Knight, and was secondly the wife of Sir Reginald de Braybroke, Knight, by whom shee had onely issue that survived her; the said Sir John de Old Castle her third husband, in her right enjoyed the Castle of Couling in Kent, and many other large and great possessions; and by the marriage of her also he was neerly allied to the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Devonshire, and many other great Peers of the Realme at that time, and did doubtlesse enjoy the stile and title of Baron Cobham, as is infallibly proved by severall Writs of [Page] Summons sent unto him, being all entred upon Record in the Close Rolls, by which he was summoned to assist in the House of Peers in Parliament by that name, in the time of H. 4. and H. 5. All which I have thought fit to transmit to posterity touching this noble martyr, being no where to be found in any publike story, not onely to shew how many supportments he had, besides the favour of King Henry himself, to have retarded the Clergie from questioning him, but also, how easily he was destroyed by the bloudy Prelates of those endarkened times, when the Soveraign had but permitted them the use of his power to ancillate to their cruell resolutions; of which impotent act of the Kings, saith Archbishop Parker himselfe, Rex virum clarum sibi (que) familiarissimum Episcoporum potestati, & carnificinae permisit, who yet overlived that excarnificating Arch-Prelate two yeares at the least: For the Archbishop having murthered divers godly martyrs in H. 4. time, and been a great stickler in State-affaires, when long before he procured himself to be made Lord Chancellor of England; and lastly, in a Synod held by himself at Rochester, having forbad the reading of the Scriptures in English, and limited Preachers under a heavie censure what they should treat upon in the Pulpit, was soon cut short himself by the immediate hand of God, after he had condemned that warlike Gentleman, Sir John de Old Castle, Lord Cobham, before he could see him executed, his tongue being so benummed and swoln, that he could neither swallow nor speak, as Thomas Gascon relates in his Theologicall Dictionary, for a few dayes before his death, it being, faith another, the just judgement of God upon him (and may be a faire warning to all other wicked Popish Prelates) that as he had muzled up the mouths of Preachers, and kept the Scriptures from the knowledge of the people being their spirituall food; so he should neither be able to speak nor to swallow from that very minute this judgement fell first upon him, but died within a few dayes after in great torment and extremity, by a languishing silence and famishment. The last example is of later dayes, and concernes the admirable punishment of David Beton, Archbishop of St. Andrews in Scotland, being also a member of the purpurated Conclave at Rome, he had continued divers yeares an inveterate enemy of the Gospel in that Kingdome, under James the fifth, and after his death taking advantage of the infancy and pupillary age of the Princesse [Page] Mary, the hereditary Queen of that Realme, he thought it a work worthy of himself to double-die his Cardinall robes in the bloud of the Saints; and therefore, to make a sull and cleare way for that his sanguinary project, he forged a Will of the deceased King, establishing himself chief Regent there during the young Ladies incapability to govern; from which, upon the discovery of his false play, he being removed, and a while committed to safe custody, he was no sooner delivered, but he presently enterprised to raise a new and fatall war between England and Scotland, and to root out the professors of the truth, by a violent and bloudy persecution. Amongst others, cited and imprisoned, or exiled in the yeare 1545. he seized on George Wischart, a very eloquent and learned Preacher, who by the Latine Writers of that age, is surnamed Sophocardius, and contrary to their own Popish Canons, adjudged him to present death himself, (which is never done, except in the merciless Inquisition of Spain, by those bloudy Wolves themselves, but by delivering the martyrs into the power of the lay-Magistrate) and in the Court before his Castle of St. Andrews, caused the same to be executed, the said George being first strangled, and his body afterwards burnt to ashes, the Cardinall in the mean time had a chamber prepared for him, with Carpets and Cushions on the windows, out of which to be a triumphant spectator of this godly mans murther, from which he departed not more delighted then (as he himself thought) secured, beginning to fortifie his said Castle against all assaults: But Gods judgement from eternity awarded against him for this latter as well as his former cruelties exercised upon his faithfull servants, slept not; for within a few weeks after, the Cardinall having falsified his promise to the Lord Norman Lesle, son of the Earle of Rothsey, a devout Romanist, he upon the thirteenth day of May, the same yeare, with some fourteen resolute Gentlemen in his company, entred the same Castle of St. Andrewes, where the Cardinall lay; and having first assured himself of the command within, and the gates without, he executed that bloudy Prelate in his bed, without law or justice, who had but a little before, most unjustly condemned and murthered the aforesaid George Wischart; and willing to expose the dead carcasse of that purpurated persecutor, as it were, all weltered and besmeared with bloud to the view of the people, who abhorred his cruelties, and rejoyced at his fall; they casually and contingently [Page] laid it along to be seen of all men upon that very window out of which a little before, leaning at his ease upon rich Cushions, he had proudly beheld the butchering of that godly martyr. The Cardinals end, 'tis likely, had neither been so sudden nor so shamefull, had he followed the wholsome counsell and seasonable advice of John Viniram a learned Priest and moderate Papist, who by his command preaching before him and divers others of the Romish Clergie then assembled together, for the condemnation of that godly martyr, George Wischart, told them plainly, That nothing did more encrease the number of Heretiques, then their own stupid ignorance and wicked lives; and that there was no other sword to be used for their extirpation then that of Gods Word, by which they were to be tryed and convinced, because every error which might properly and truly be called an Heresie, was directly and flatly against the same written Word.

SECT. XVI.

IT may somewhat amaze the reason and judgement of any moderate man, though an Atheist, why the Pope himself or his Prelates and Clergie should so extreamely hate and violently persecute (even more cruelly then they doe Jewes or Turks) the Evangelicall partie, and especially those of the French, Scottish and Helvetick confession, who doe commonly joyn eminency of piety and godlinesse, with a most sound and absolute body of doctrine agreeable with that of the Primitive Church. But if wee consider that the Pope himselfe, all Popish or popishly affected Prelates, and all the Romish rabble, like the Scribes and Priests in our Saviours dayes, ayme nothing at all at Gods glory, or the salvation of mens soules, but onely at the maintenance of their wealth, pride and tyranny, not intending to yeeld an inch or haires breadth to any the least reformation: wee cannot but see that their self-love, and wallowing in all sensualitie, is the cause of the hatred of the godly, who both by their lives and writings condemne and oppose their wickednesse and errors: For as the persecutions of the Arrians against the Orthodox Fathers exceeded the cruelty of the Heathen Emperours, so hath that of the Romish Babylon far surpassed and out-stript them, both being joyned together, they feare not [Page] the diminution of their Votaries by the perswasion of Jewes or Turks, but onely by the sound reasonings of the Protestants, whose Religion hath already gained from them, not onely Cities, Republickes, and Provinces, but whole Kingdomes also; and therefore seeing the truth it selfe is against them, they count it high time to fall from reasoning to policy, and from institution to cruell persecution, as a ready meanes to carry through their bad cause. Incomparable Monsieur de Thou (who is a glory to the Romish Synagogue it selfe, and whose History the most exact and excellent that ever was written by a humane pen, ought alwayes to be deare to the Christian world) discovers plainly to us this truth, in setting downe the bloudy Legacy Pope Paul the third left to his Conclave when he died in the yeare 1359. For having called divers of the Cardinalls into his bed-chamber, he exhorted them by all meanes to maintaine and continue the office of the Inquisition, as the onely meanes left upon earth to establish and support the Romish Religion: then which Confession there can none be more cleare of the falshood of their pretended Catholick Church; for if no other way remaine but bloud and butcheries for them to establish and repaire the lofty and proud Towers of their Babylon, then have they doubtlesse no part left in the Church founded by our Saviour and his Apostles; for that was at first reared up and finished by the preaching of the Gospel, and may certainly be continued and supported to the worlds end by the same meanes. It is not for Christians, but for Pagans and Infidells, who know not the way of instruction, to propagate their Gentilisme and Idolatry by fire and sword. Besides, that epidemicall sinne of lust, both naturall and against nature, being peculiar to the Popish Prelates, and the rest of their Clergie, is a maine ground of their stupefied Consciences, and so prepares and fits them for the shedding of innocent bloud, or any other sinne whatsoever. Peter Espina [...], Archbishop of Lyons in France, was a great persecutor, and a prodigious incestuator with his own sister; John Archbishop of St. Andrewes in Scotland spent the greater part of the revenues of his Sea, and the seizure of the Protestants estates (whose mortall enemy he was) upon his harlots and revellings; the Cardinall of Granvellans veneries were so manifest and numerous, as when in the yeare 1574. the Kingdome of Tunis, and the Fort called the Gulet, before [Page] accounted impregnable, were wonne by the Turke; the Spaniards made a jest of it, and said openly, that the Cardinalls breeches had occasioned that losse; meaning thereby that Philip the second relying chiefly upon his advice in that and most of the rest of his important affaires; his lust so tooke him up, as he had not time to give seasonable counsell. The reckoning up of all these lustfull Priests and Prelates, who have been persecuters of the truth since the last Reformation begun by learned Luther, would desile all modest eares to heare, or any Christian tongue to relate. It may justly be said of them all, what one delivered of the before-mentioned Cardinall Beton; That he wallowed at home in pollution with his harlots, and raged abroad with the bloud and slaughter of the innocent. Ockam himselfe in the first part of his Dialogues, lib. 5. cap. 16. confesseth that a wicked and an Atheisticall life blinds the understanding, and prepares a way for the entertainment of the vilest heresies: How true is this of the Romish Prelates, who could not possibly swallow down those prodigious errours, and severall kinds or species of Idolatry, abhorred of the very Moores and Turks; That taking from the Commandements one; that adding to the Articles of the Creed twelve; that robbing the people of the Cup; that depriving God of his honour, by praying to men and women departed; that trampling of Christs infinite merits under their prophane feet, by their own merits, and a number of other falshoods, were not their judgements poysoned by their horrible lusts, and other crying sins? The Turks themselves boast at this day, that they first learn'd their Sodomie from the Italians, and that disorderly brood in Italy, may as truly vaunt, that they first learn'd that abomination from those amongst them in orders. Was there ever, or shall there ever be, not onely amongst the Papists, but amongst the Lutherans and Pseudo-Lutherans, any Prelate, or other Ecclesiasticall person, that did or shall violently cite, accuse, suspend, fine, imprison, deprive, or murther any godly Minister, or other pious Christian, who was not, or will not be amongst other vices, guilty of that brutish sin of lust? And 'tis possible, though the back-door be kept never so secret, yet God shall at last, in his judgement, reveale it to the world, as he doth often punish them with that loathsom and infamous disease commensurate to that sin, with which that notable persecutor Doctor Weston in Queen Maries dayes in England was so unconcealably [Page] smitten, as he was ordinarily branded by a beastly nickname, not beffiting modesty to expresse.

SECT. XVII.

THe fruitfull seed-time of severall vices, and of lust especially in the Popish Prelacie and Clergie, brings in a large encrease in the Laity also, to fill up the reaping time, or harvest; and not onely their lust and Epicurisme, but their malice against the truth, and thirsting after the bloud of the professors thereof, like a contagious gangrene, hath likewise infected, especially, since the yeare 1500. the vicious and prophane lay-Papists themselves. What was Escovedo the great Instrument of the King of Spains cruelties against the Evangelicall party in the lower Germany, but a lump of lust, which in the end proved fatall to him? But as the horrible massacre committed in France, in severall places, in the yeare 1572. is not to be paralleld, in respect of the treachery and inhumanity of it in any Story of the most barbarous Nations of the world: so it will not be amisse, seeing the examples of this kinde would else prove endlesse, to confine our selves, with taking a summary view of the chief undertakers in that master-piece of hell, which was never in any possibilitie to be equalled since, but with the Romish Powder-plot in England, had it succeeded. To begin with Paris it selfe; the murtherers The late inhumane ma [...] sacre and bu [...] chery in Ireland hath since excee [...] ed it. there, were for the most part, brutish and lustfull souldiers, or prophane varlets of the scumme of the Citie, their leaders were indeed more noble, but lesse vertuous: The Dukes of Guise and Aumale, Albert Gondy, Earle of Rets, Tavanne, and others of them, having been bred up in lusts, revellings, and other Aulicall deviations. The place that came neerest to Paris in the cruelties of their murthers, was the Citie of Lyons, where the numbers of the slaine and massacred were so great, as their bodies being cast into the river Rosne, corrupted and stained the streame, the violence whereof carrying them downe upon heaps to Tornou, and the inhabitants not knowing what they were, but fearing an invasion by enemies or robbers, assembled themselves in armes together for their mutuall defence. The chief abetters and ring-leaders of which butchery, Monsieur de Thou himselfe confesseth to have been Boidon, Mornieu, and Clou, three of the most wicked and vilest varlets that a Kingdome [Page] could harbour: which Boidon was after executed at Clermont, in Auvergne; and if Merniue escaped a shamefull end, yet doubtlesse he deserved it as well as his fellow-persecutor, having before, as witnesseth Serranus, procured the murther of his own father. At Tholouse also, a few dayes after, there was a great slaughter of the godly committed, but by whom? not by the better sort of Citizens, or sober and morally vertuous men, but one Turry, and a number of other infamous lewd persons like himself, joyned themselves together, for the effecting of that bloudy execution: The like villany was accomplished at the great city of Roane in Normandy by one Maronie, a most infamous Ruffian, and a great many other base varlets, who assembled themselves to him as their ring-leader; but in none of them were these two hellish sins of advoutrie and bloud more adaequately coupled together, then in one Ruygaillard the masterbutcher at Angiers, who having long continued an Adulterer, was at last enticed by his harlot, to murther his own wife. Thus we see that it is not the sober and vertuous, but the lustfull and vicious Papist, that inveterately and irreconciliably hates the godly and sober Protestant; not but that common experience teacheth us how the loose and debauched persons of either Religion, do as well agree together in their plots and excesses, as if there were no difference of opinion between them; but that there should be such prodigious malice in the looser and erroneous Protestant against the more strict and Orthodox, as to wish their extirpation, rather then the conversion of the Romanists, nay, to joyn their armes with those of the vassals of Antichrist, for the eradication and subversion of them, is such a mystery of the lower region, as the horrible and vast desolation of Gods true Church in our dayes, gives us as much cause to lament it, as the ages to come will have abundant occasion to admire it. Amongst the Turks, Jewes, Indians, Persians, and the Papists themselves at this day, the most zealous and holiest as they conceive them in their Religion, are most esteemed and honoured, and onely in the greater part of the Protestant Churches, the most knowing and tenacious of the Evangelicall truth, and the most strict and godly in their lives are hated, nicknamed, disgraced, and vilified; and grace which should onely adde a lustre to learning, riches, honours, noble extraction, and all other outward gifts, either naturall or acquisite, that alone obscureth all the rest, and brings the contempt, not onely [Page] of great ones, but even of the scum and dregs of the multitude upon the persons so qualified. Doubtlesse, this shewes that the Protestant Religion, where the Gospel is maintained in the power and purity of it, is the very truth it self. And that the Prince of darknesse seeing the greatest zealoters amongst the Turks, Jews, and Papists hasten on in a false and fatall course, never opposeth them, no more then he doth the debauched, loose and Atheistical Protestant, but only stirreth up all he may the hatred, scorn and persecution of all sorts against those pious Christians, who are convinced of the truth, and by their innocent lives and godly conversations, maintain and demonstrate, that it undoubtedly is the true Religion which they professe.

SECT. XVIII.

LVther had scarce planted the Cospel in Germany, in the yeere 1517 but within the space of some five yeers after, Melchior Hofman, Thoms Muncer, Bernard Rotman, and other Anabaptists, planted there also, as may be strongly collected, divers Pelagian blasphemies of free-will, recidivation from grace, and the rest, to which they joyned community of goods, and the extirpation of all Monarchie and Magistracie, saying, Luther and the Pope were two false Prophets; but of the two, Luther was the worst, because Luther especially laboured to advance Gods grace, and to beat down the hereticall tenet of mans free-will. Michael Servetus the Spaniard, and Bernardin Ochinus, as may probably be gathered, did succeed Muncer and Rotman, as the chief Doctors of that pestilentiall Sect; but as may easily appear, upon diligent search, did cunningly conceal their dangerous doctrine, of not allowing temporall Princes and Magistrates, because they saw it inevitably drew upon them the necessary opposition of all Kings, and well governed States. Theodore Bibliander, and Sebastian Castellio the Savoyard, grew famous amongst their fellow Anabaptists after Servetus death: and the same Castellio translated into Latin the Dialogues which the said Ochinus had written in the Dutch or German tongue, which Dialogues are ordinarily at this day imprinted with the rest of Castellio's Works: And in the last age from the time this Sect took its first beginning in Holland, till about the yeer 1611. they knew no other name or appellation, but of Anabaptists only, which title also, with much alacrity and confidence, [Page] they assumed and appropriated to themselves in their own books they published: James Arminius, a flashie and shallow Divine of Leyden, (as may easily be evinced) was so taken and overtaken with the perusall of Castellio's Dialogues, and the secret conferences of some of the Anabaptists themselves, as it clean turned his judgement from the truth to falshood; and therefore to justifie his own apostasie, and to perpetuate the memory of his new Masters labours, without once doing honour to his name; he re-prints his said Dialogues, and other Works, almost verbatim, altering only the frame of them, and patching them out also with some pieces he had borrowed from the Jesuites polemicall volumes against the Dominicans, the latter opposing, and the first defending the hereticall tenets of Pelagius, the Britain, as learned de Thou himself freely acknowledgeth. After the death of Arminius, in the yeer 1611. the name of Anabaptists, by which the maintainers and asserters of those errors had for above fourscore yeers last past, been known and called by (as in the Articles of the Church of England, published in the yeer 1552. Article 8. and elsewhere) and sometimes also Anabaptists or Servetians, from Michael Servetus, as by the same de Thou in his story, lib. 34. p. 239. began to be deserted, as too odious and grosse for this learned age, and by the ignorance of the Orthodox Divines, who saw not the admirable use of story in their polemical Tractates, they have atchieved the senslesse and new name of Arminians, when poor Arminius himself took up his errors upon trust at the third or fourth hand, stealing that out of Castellio, which he had borrowed from Ochinus, the scholar of the Spaniard Servetus: And Barnevelt himself in his Apologie confesseth, that he had learned those points in Germany many yeers before he knew Arminius; nay, as men extracted from base beginnings, and advanced to high honours, do commonly pretend by an adulterate and a false descent to noble ancestors: so these impudent fellows are not ashamed to father their forgeries on judicious Luther himself, as if there were no other difference between them and the Orthodox Protestants, then was between Luther and Calvin; whereas it appeared plainly, in the yeer 1560. by the very confession of the Papists themselves, that upon a strict inquiry then made, it was found, that the Protestants dissented from the Romanists in forty points of doctrine. But those of the Helvetick and Augustane confessions amongst themselves but in two, whereas if these new [Page] coiners do but daily increase their dangerous errors for the time to come, as they have done for the time past, since Sebastian Castellio's death, they will dissent as much from learned Luther, as he did from the Papists themselves. And how little coherence there was between Luther and those Anabaptists of his time, whom Castellio followed, is apparently expressed in the very Preface it self prefixed before his Dialogues, and other his Latin Works, printed in the yeere 1613. where the Author of the said Preface (a stout Anabaptist) freely acknowledgeth, that Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Martin Barrha, did all defend Gods absolute and eternall Decree, and the Power of his Grace, following therein St. Augustine; and falsly addeth, That a way is thereby opened to a secure and loose life: which inconvenience, saith the same Prefacer, Erasmus Roterodamus, Theodore Bibliander, and Sebastian Castellio, fore-seeing and desiring to prevent, did oppose the said doctrine, and maintained free-will to be in man, or an ability in and from himself, without the assistance of Gods grace, to do good. The Pseudo-Lutherans, or Anabaptists in Germany, that had even overspread the whole Dominions of the Elector of Saxonie, before the Enangelicall Jubilee was there celebrated in the yeer 1617. were within two yeers after, the direct Instruments of ruining the Gospel it self: For they mistake themselves ignorantly, or are wilfully blind in the passages of that time, who impute all the miseries that Germany hath now for these eighteen yeers last past groaned under, to Frederick the fifth, Prince Elector Palatine, his accepting of the Bohemian Crown, in the yeere 1619. in respect that the Protestants of that Kingdome, after the election of Ferdinand of Gratz, for the King thereof, in 1617. finding that he was wholly swayed by the Jesuites themselves, or his Jesuited Counsellors, and began to infringe the liberty of Religion there established, they acquainted the Emperor Matthias therewith, during whose life, the said Ferdinand was not to intermeddle with the affaires of that Realme. But the Emperor, whether hee feared that his said Cousin of Gratz should supplant him, as he had formerly done his own brother, Rodolphus the second; or whether out of immoderate love to him, I know not, neglected the Bohemians, just Petitions and Romonstrances; whereupon, in the yeer following, there being a great Assembly of them in the Chancerychamber, within the Castle of Prague, and some sudden alteration [Page] happening, they threw out three of the Emperors Counsellors at the windows, and though none of them were slain or maimed with the fall, yet the Bohemians themselves took this outrage to be an offence so unpardonable, as they presently prepared themselves for an offensive and defensive war, elected thirty Directors to govern the Kingdome, and raised two Armies to be in readinesse, the one under the Earl of Thurne, and the other under Ernest, Count of Mansfield. The Emperor also, and his Cousin Ferdinand, made great preparation for war, nominating the Counts of Dampetre and Buequoi for the Generalls, upon which there presently followed divers hot skirmishes, between the forces on both sides, the miserable Inhabitants of Bohemia proving already a lamentable prey to the licencious Souldier. And now let any indifferent and impartiall man judge, what fault or error all this time, did the said Prince Elector Palatine commit; Nay, on the contrary, the Jesuite himself confesseth in his Austrian Laurel, pag. 104. that the said Prince Elector laboured by all means to have composed this difference in a Treatable and amicable way by his letters and Internuncio's, till seeing the Emperors Armies, notwithstanding all his intercession to have entred and wasted Bohemia, their aime to be chiefly at the extirpation of Religion; and himself as the prime Prince of the new Union, to be obliged in honour and conscience to have a care of the Euangelicall cause, hee was necessitated to joyn his Armes to theirs, not refusing also the Crown, being, for ought hee knew, most justly laid at his feet, after a generall and unanimous election: Could he fore-see that any Euangelicall Prince should be so Pseudo Lutheranized, as to betray the whole body of the Protestant Religion, and the fundamentall liberties of the Empire in Germany to the Antichristian adversary? In all humane reason, had the Elector of Saxonie but looked on, and done nothing, much more had he but assisted the Bohemians, professing the same Gospel with himself, that fair branch of the third family in Christendome had now flourished in those ancient regalities their Ancestors enjoyed, and the Church and Empire had been as glorious and happy as now they are desolate and miserable. But God that decrees all most justly and wisely for his own glory, and the good of his children, will, I doubt not, by some means, though yet hidden, replant again the royall branches of this Imperiall Vine, as to the admiration of the whole Christian [Page] world, both enemies and friends, he hath hitherto supported the Royall root of those branches with patience and alacrity.

SECT. XIX.

AS the vicious and Atheisticall Popish and popishly affected Prelates and prophane Christians hate and persecute the pious Protestants more then they doe adulterers, swearers, perjurers, or any other notorious delinquents; so the moderate and vertuous Papists of both Orders, abhorre their slaughters, and desire their peace and freedome. Sir John de Old-Castle, in the time of Henry the fifth of England, being convented before Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, and divers other lustfull and bloudy Prelates; Whilest I was (saith he) a swearer, a rioter, and every way else vicious, you never reproved me or questioned me, but since I have imbraced this despised doctrine of Wicklesfe, which hath taught me how to conquer my sinnes, and to lead a godly and an honest life, now you are enraged against me with malice, and seek my destruction. The same true observation was made by Annas Burgus, that brave Senator of Paris in the yeare 1559. under Henry the second of France; That there were many adulteries, perjuries, oaths, and other infamous offences, daily committed, and already punishable by the Lawes, and yet such as were guilty of all or any of those crimes were countenanced and advanced; but against the Protestants all cruelty was practised, who were guilty of no other offence, but of imbracing the truth of the Gospel revealed unto them by the Spirit and Word of God, and of discovering by the same light, the horrible vices and errors of the Popish power, that so there might follow an emendation. To this purpose also tended that Christian advice which a person of noble extraction David Hamilton gave to his Cousin James, Earle of Arran, then Regent of Scotland, in the yeare 1545. when Cardinall Beton would have perswaded and drawn him to have joyned with himselfe in the persecution and slaughter of the godly in that Kingdome. I cannot but wonder, saith he, that you should give up the innocent servants of God himself, against whom no crime is objected, but the preaching of the Gospel, into the hands and power of men most infamous for lust, cruelty, and all other wickednesse, when in the meane time those very enemies of the truth themselves cannot deny, but that the lives of such as professe this doctrine they hate, are full of integrity and vertue. [Page] And therefore, although the prophane and bloudy Prelates could never be drawn to pitie Gods children, much lesse to love them for their piety and innocency, being therein more inhumane then divers of the Heathen Emperours themselves, who upon information of the vertuous and harmlesse deportments of the Christians by their governours of Provinces under them, did cause their persecutions to be slackned and ceased. Yet have divers Princes and other moderate Pontificians in the fore-going age, been moved by the upright and honest lives of Gods children, to further their libertie of conscience, and to abhorre the cruelties of their fellow-Romanists practised upon them. Maximilian the Emperour, sonne of Ferdinand the second, and Francis the first, the French King, were hence drawn to permit unto their own Subjects freedome of conscience: The Earles of Egmont and Horne, (though zealous Papists) laboured with the Dutchesse of Parma, that the low-countrey Protestants might be free from fines, imprisonments, and all other persecutions in respect of Religion. Under Francis the second, the French King, in the yeare 1560. by the elaborate and learned speeches of Charles Marillack Archbishop of Vienna, and John de Mon [...]e Bishop of Valence freely pronounced before the King himselfe, in behalfe of the French Protestants, all persecution against them was for a time remitted; the said Bishop amongst other particulars, not fearing to affirm plainly, That a great increase of the Sectaries did proceed from the ignorance and evill lives of the Bishops, who having cast away the cares of their flocks, had for many yeares studied to inhaunce their fines and rents, and to live deliciously and loosly; so as sometimes there were seene fortie of them at once together mouldering and wasting themselves in Paris in luxury and idlenesse: the care of their Churches being in the meane time delegated over to young and ignorant fellowes; and so the Bishops themselves becoming blind and uselesse, the Parish Priest also following the example of their Diocesans, were onely carefull to spoile and vex the people for their tythes, and wholly unskilfull and negligent in preaching to them; and that therefore it was no wonder, though divers of the Nobilitie, as well as of the common people, did readily hearken to new opinions and doctrines. The same counsell, That the conscience ought not to be forced, nor any to be persecuted for Religion meerly, did Michael Hospitalius Chancellor of France, give unto Charles the ninth, the same yeare upon his new [Page] succession to the Crown after the decease of the said Francis his brother; and Paulus Foxius to Henry the third, in the yeare 1574. very copiously, and most eloquently, couched in two severall Orations, inserted at large by Monsieur de Thou, in his unparallel'd History in their due places, who was himselfe nineteen yeares old when that horrible massacre was committed in Paris, in the yeare 1572. on Saint Bartholomenes day, which fell out that yeare on the Lords Day, and did in his very soule abhorre the crueltie and savagenesse thereof, when in his passage through the streets to Mattins that morning, he encountred with divers villaines, dragging along the dead body of Hierome Grolote, late the Governour of Orleance, all weltring with gastly wounds in his own bloud; at which sight his heart relenting, and mourning inwardly, not daring to shed teares publickly, he hastened home to the house of Christopher de Thou his father, at that time the chief President of the Court of Parliament at Paris, there freely to deplore and execrate that Heathenish butchery; as did also the said Christopher his father. Vidus Faber Pibracius, John Merviller, Belieureu, all eminent men, with all the judicious and morally vertuous Papists in the Citie, who Christianly hid up, and so preserved many Protestants secretly in their houses from a wretchlesse massacring; nay, Arman Guntald the old Marshall Biron (father of Charles Duke of Biron, that was beheaded in Henry the fourths time) when the Deputies of Rochel repaired unto him some few weeks after that bloudy execution, to treat of a peaceable accommodation of their affaires with him, he shed many teares in their presence, upon his execrating the authors of that cruelty, and acknowledged it the great blessing of God upon him, that he neither knew of it, nor had any hand in it. At the City of Lions also, where the inhumanity of the murtherers almost equalled that of Paris, Mandelot the Governour there, did his best to have prevented it, and in his heart, with many other grave and sober Citizens of the Romish Religion, utterly detested it. And when the slaughtered bodies were tumbled into the River Rosne, and carried down with the stream to Tornou, Valence, Vienne, and Burg, contiguous to the same River, the Papists generally detested the cruelty. And at Arles, where for want of springs and ponds, they had most use of that river-water; they so much abhorred that butchery, as they would neither drink thereof, nor yet eat any of the fish taken [...] [Page] [...] [Page] [Page] therein, for divers dayes after; and generally, in all Provence, those of the Romish Religion drew out the mangled bodies out of the water, and with great humanity interred them. Monsieur Carragie, a noble Gentleman the Governour of the great city of Robin in Normandy, did likewise oppose the massacres there to the utmost of his power, as did also James Benedict Lagabaston the prime Senator of Burdeaux, who thereby became himself in danger to have been slain by those seditious varlets, who had been at first stirred up to commit those murthers by the wicked sermons of a lustfull Jesuite, named Enimund Auger. Claudus, Earle of Tende, a descendent of the illustrious House of Savoy, Governour of Provence, Monsieur de Gordes, Governour of Daulphinie, Monsieur Sauteran, Governour of Auvergne, and Francis Duke of Memorancie, particularly and absolutely refused to suffer any massacres to be committed in such places as were under their severall government; so as the Rochellers in their Declaration set out the same yeer, do acknowledge and confesse, that all such Rom mists, who had but any humanity left in them, did in their hearts abhor, and with their mouths detest those hellish outrages and cruelties. And it well appeared, what base varlets they generally were in most places, who were the executioners of those villanies, because their Religion consisted chiefly in robbing and spoiling the Protestants houses, suffering many of them in the mean time beyond their cruell resolutions to escape safely away. Nay, whereas the furious people of Paris already inraged with a blinde zeale, came to a certain white Thorne-tree that blossomed the day of the massacre in St. Innocents Churchyard, in that city, as if God by a miracle had approved their barbarous and sanguinary action; the more judicious Papists, conceived this to have happened by powring of hot water upon the root of that tree, or by some other secret imposture; or if it were a true miracle, then the Protestants alledged, that it might much more justly be interpreted to the advantage of the Protestant Church then of their own: That first the place where the tree grew, being dedicated to the memory of Innocents, argued the innocency of those who were martyred; and that as the same tree at that season of the yeere, being in August, though it shewed life, yet could not have blossomed without a miracle: So the Protestant Church and Religion in France, which seemed by this blow to be utterly extinct and ruined, should again [Page] revive, blossome forth and flourish, by the miracalous power of God, in as great splendor and beauty, as over it had done formerly; which the event and issue notwithstanding all the great Processions and high Masses of Pope Gregory the thirteenth and his Conclave at Rome, did accordingly verifie.

SECT. XX.

HOw shall these sober minded and moderate Papists rise up in judgement at the last day against all loose, ignorant and prophane Protestants of both orders, who for the smallest offences and for the very tendernesse of conscience it self, vex, molest, cite, sue, imprison, fine, suspend, deprive, and utterly undo their innocent, godly and peaceable fellow Christians? For if it be neither warranted by the practice of the Primitive Church, nor consonant to reason, policie, or the property of the true Church, to kill an Heretique by a long and noysome imprisonment, or to adjudge and put him to a violent death. If persecution for conscience sake be accounted, and that justyl, a brand of the Antichristian Church, and that Luther and his followers had even necessary cause in the yeer 1517. in that respect only to depart out of the Romish Babylon, as from a Malignant Synagogue; how is it possible that Protestant Prelates should persecute any at all with imprisonment and despoiling them of their goods, though convicted of Schisme it self, but much more such sober and innocent Christians, who by their own confession hold nothing in matter of doctrine contrary to the truth, live inoffensively and vertuously in respect of their conversation, and are ready in all humility to submit to any particulars in matters supposed to be indifferent, which they shall be convinced out of Gods Word to be so? It is confessed on all hands, that it is a most dangerous sin to do any thing, yea, a lawfull act, against the dictate and perswasion of Conscience; and shall pious Christians in all other respects, for this alone be persecuted, and followed with greater violence, then Adulterers, Swearers, or Fornicators themselves? The authority and glory of a Prince had been as fully extended in removing those particulars which made the breach, as in retaining them, it being acknowledged on all hands, that the removall of them is, and was alwayes as lawfull as the retention of [Page] them; but if the wisdome of any Church conceive it self upon great and sound motives rather obliged to retain them, and to adde new burthens rather then to abolish or change the old; yet doubtlesse withall some course may be considered of, how those who in all main and fundamentall truths are the true servants of God, the humble and obedient children of the Church, and of innocent and vertuous lives, might in the mean time enjoy the Ordinances of God in peace and quiet: For doubtlesse, if one Protestant may lawfully vex, cite, fine, suspend, deprive, excommunicate, and imprison another (which in some cases necessitates a lingring death) for things accounted by themselves no way essentiall to Gods worship normans salvation: then is all we have said against the Romists Synagogue of no validity at all; nay, there being no Magis and Minus in persecution, it will follow necessarily, that for the same causes one Protestant may as well put to death another, as imprison him; and so Samaria shall of necessity justisie her sister Sodome. That the supreme Magistrate in things lawfull ought to be obeyed for Conscience sake, is a certain truth: But yet it is too apparent that such as are more violent for these lesser matters, so to ravage and trample on the weaker and more humble Christians, by pressing obedience to the Magistrate, are commonly themselves the most outrageously disobedient; for though they seeme most eager to obey him in these formall and outward commands, yet where the commands of God himself and the Magistrates meet together, forbidding Adultery, Fornication, swearing, blaspheming, unlawfull gaming, starving of souls, maintaining erroneous doctrines, and divers other horrible and Atheisticall offences; here neither God nor Prince, Law nor Gospel, heaven nor hell, can restrain their lustful practices or scandalous lives. Did Cardinall Sadolet himself intercede with Francis the first the Grandfather, and the Arcbishop of Vienne, and Bishop of Valence, with Francis the second, the Grandchilde, two of the French Kings, for the Protestants of their times, whom yet they accounted Heretiques; and is it possible any Protestant Prelate or Divine, should stir up any Protestant Prince or State to ruine their Protestant-fellow-Ministers, and other Christians, because they cannot submit to such particulars, as in themselves can no way hinder or impeach the unity of faith, nor could breake (if Gods glory were only aimed at) the bond of love? [Page] The Apostle Paul having left the true Church that incomparable Catholike Rule; That the stronger Christians should beare with the weaker, and that the weaker Christians should not condemn the stronger.

SECT. XXI.

THere were in all ages, even in the first and purest times, Confessions set out by the Primitive Christians, to be a Guide and a Rule for all Conditions to walk by: and when the Nicene Creed was penned by the learned Fathers of that Councell, it was all that was required of any to be publikly confessed, that had been either accused or suspected of Heresie. The Protestants in all ages, when they were questioned, (and especially since the yeere 1500. that the differences about Religion have even filled Europe with the sharp disputes of the sword and pen) have not only offered to do whatsoever the ancient Fathers required as an act sufficient to cleare and acquit such as were in their times suspected of heresie, but further to put their cause to the triall of the Scriptures, the best and surest Rule; nay, to admit the Decrees of the first Generall Councels, and the united Tenets of the Orthodox Fathers for the first five hundred yeers. But the Romish Synogogue degenerating, first in manners, and then in doctrine; first introducing innumerable Trinkets and Ceremonies, to pester Gods publique worship, and afterwards severall Idolatries, absolutely to kill and poison it, could not satisfie themselves with pressing upon the Protestants the confession of those Truths they yet maintain'd an I held; but that not a grain of corn might remain in their great heap of chaffe, nor one true Professor be hidden amongst the multitude, they invented four manner of unchristian and tyrannicall courses, whereby to insnare and illaqueate not only the most innocent, but even the most prudent and sagacious man alive. First, they proceeded against any person they suspected, without accuser, witnesse, or proofe, and fettered his eares with so many Questions to be answered unto upon oath, and with so many severall examinations at severall times, that at last, as John de Monluce, Bishop of Valence, well observed of the Spanish Inquisition, in the yeer 1562. that it was Decipula ad vexandos bonos & illa [...] queandas conscientias: Though hee came into their clutches unjustly suspected, yet he was sure never to escape their griping talons justly [Page] acquitted. A second invention was to adde many new matters to be confessed as matters of faith, which were before left as matters of liberty and fact, either to hold or not to hold; and in this particular did that fatall Conventicle of Trent so blasphemously transcend the bounds of all sobriety, as to adde twelve new Articles of faith to the ancient Creed, to be believed upon pain of damnation; and to this they commonly adjoyned, as a slip or branch of it, adjuration of all former truths, or at least a Recantation. Miserable experience hath taught the Lutherans and Pseudo-Lutheran, in Germany, the tyrannie of the Romanists in this particular, who having assisted them to ruine those godly Protestants in the Empire, of the most sound and Orthodox Helvetick or French confessions, did, as a reward of their treacherie, finde them more implacable against them, inforcing upon them a most dangerous and blasphemous abjuration, then against the others. These two former wayes of Inquisition went yet no further then the tongue, but the next that followed included the hands also, and compelled subscription to many false blasphemies, and dangerous heresies. Thus the Lutherans of Saxonie desiring to root out all the godly Ministers amongst them of the purer Confessions, would have them subscribe to those two portentuous and monstrous errors, of Consubstantiation and Ubiquity. And it was a notable Machiavilian policy of charles the ninth of France, who having enforced the consciences of the King of Navar, and Prince of Conde, in the yeer 1572. by the cruell murther of divers in their sight, and by threatning death to themselves, to cause them to write to Pope Gregorie the thirteenth, by their Letters under their own hands, that both their conversion to Popery, and abjuration of the truth, had been gratefull and voluntary. But the fourth and last invention is a downright and never failing way, either of discovering the godly, or of shipwracking their consciences, being one of those sins Divines call Peccata vastantia Conscientiam, and that is their enforcing them to adore their severall Idolls, by bowing to and towards their hee-Saints and shee-Saints, Altars, Reliques, Crucisixes, and their great Moloch of the Masse. This skill they learnt from the Heathens themselves, who to avoid multiplicitie of Interrogations, with the first holy and Primitive Christians, who abhorred the placing of Images in their publique Temples and Oratories; they [Page] asked them in a few words, Will you sacrifice to the Image? Charles the ninth of France never demanded of Henry de Clermont Prince of Conde, whether he would turne Papist; but, will you goe, (said he) to Masse? He knew raw flesh to be harder for a true Protestant to digest, then all the other parts of Popery. And doubtless, he that will adore and bow unto or towards an Image, the Sacrament, an Altar, a Communion Table, or any other creature, where the bowing is not meerly Civill, will never stumble at any other part or point of Popery, but may safely passe to Rome, or Rhemes. Oh that the Papists could but see their own vanity in bowing to and adoring the Wafer Cake as God! For they confesse it is not transsubstantiated into Christs flesh, unlesse the Priest that consecrate intend to turne and change it. And what then if the Priest be so ignorant, as many be, that he know not the words at which his quu or turne is come by his imagination onely to worke a miracle? what if his minde be roving about his necessary affaires, or more unnecessarie and vainer thoughts, usuall with them that reade one particular often over, and so inadvertently he forget to joyne his intention to the words of Consecration? Doubtless, these cases and divers besides, might be instanced; in which the Priest hath often and doth daily faile to create his Saviour (blasphemy I confesse positively to affirme) for want of meere advertency and premeditation within the rules of the Romish Synagogue it selfe. And then what follows, but formall and materiall Idolatry, by their owne confessions, when they adore it? So as should the Papists themselves see a Protestant Prelate or Minister bowing to and adoring the Elements of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper, before or after Consecration, he could not but account him a Poishly affected Priest belonging to his owne Church, or an absolute Idolater; For in the 29th Article of Religion, published by the Church of England, agreeing expresly with the Helvetick and French Confessions, it is plainly let downe; That Transubstantiation or any change of the substance of Bread and Wine, is repugnant to the plaine words of the Scripture, overthroweth the nature of the Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions; That the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper of the Lord onely after an heavenly and spirituall manner; And that the meane whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is [Page] faith; And that the Sacrament was not by Christs Ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped; So the Article of the Church of England. When therefore any Papist shall see his Masse celebrated by any English Divine, with Elevation and Adoration, or bowing to and towards it, both gestures being condemned by the doctrine of that Church, he must either within, and by the rules of his own Church give him up for an adaquate Idolater, in giving adoration to the substances of Bread and Wine, which action the Romanists abhorre and condemne, or else in charitie suppose howsoever in outward shew he seem an heretick, yet in truth he is a good Catholick; and did intend in and by the words of Consecration to make his Saviour; and so supposing his body to be really there before him, doth adore and bow to it. The Lutherans condemne the Popish Transubstantiation; the Jesuites deride the Lutherans Consubstantiation and Ubiquitie, and both justly. But should they heare of any subtle wittall, that hath in theso dayes found out a third and more sublime invention out of the Bush that the man in the Moone carries at his back, and can finde Christs body in the Sacrament as really and naturally as it was in the Virgins wombe; but yet will not say, he is bodily there either Con, Sub, or Trans, they would most justly hisse him out of their Churches and Schooles. Doubtlesse, the Popish Transubstantiation is of the three the most rationall and profound error, because that being accompanied with a supposed Miracle, and may be at any time excused by the inadvertent default of the Priest, admits the losse opposition. And I have often wondred why some of that active rabble could not as well and as secretly on the sudden have supposited true flesh instead of the Hostia, as they have by an insensible legerdemaine sprinkled pure and lively bloud from a lancinated singer upon the Wafer Cake it selfe. Certainly, there is no truth in Scripture more plainly set down then that doctrine of the Church of England, and of the more Orthodox reformed Churches, in which they maintaine and teach, that Christs body is ascended into heaven, and there remaineth as visibly and circumscriptively as it did upon earth before it ascended, that it is onely present given and taken in the Sacrament, after an heavenly and spirituall manner, and that to worship it, or make it a sacrifice, are blasphemous and dangerous deceits, from all which it will undoubtedly and necessarily [Page] follow, that Christs body is no more present at the Sacrament really and carnally after the words of Consecration, then it was present with the Bread before it was brought into the Church, or with that which is left after the administration of the Sacrament ended, and is carried againe out of the Church, where also it may as lawfully be adored, as at any time during the holy administration it selfe, each adoration being grosse Idolatry. Were the ignorantest men and silliest women able in Queene Maries dayes to assert this truth, even by dispute against those bloudy Bishops and Idolatrous Priests, that would have obtruded Christs reall presence in the Sacrament, and their blasphemous sacrifice of the Masse upon them, and after to die for it; and shall wee not thinke thousands will be now ready also in all humilitie and patience to lay downe their lives for the same Truth? How dangerous in all ages this idolatrous adoration or bowing to Images, Altars, the Hostia, Reliques, and such other trumpery, hath been to the very moderate Papists themselves, appeares by a pretty relation in the History of learned De Thou; That Francis the second in the yeare 1559. being perswaded by the Cardinall of Lorraine, and some others of his faction, that there was no way to discover and irretiate the Protestants like that of their Images, did cause them to be erected and set up with Candles burning before them in severall streets and eminent places of Paris, to which there assembled divers tankardbearers, scullions, and other such like of the dregs and scumme of the people, who to the shame of the Priests and all Church-Discipline, prophanely chanted and sang before them: And when any passed by, were he Papist or Protestant, if he did not presently deliver them money towards the maintenance of those Tapers, and adore the Idoll, they fell upon him; and not contented to make him tast of their fists and handy-blowes, or to throw him into the dirt, and trample on him, did after all those grosse abuses carry him to prison, there to be further questioned; many sober Papists having hast of businesse, not seeing the Images, or otherwise not regarding the disorderly carroling of such a company of Varlets, were by them basely assaulted, beaten, and spoiled, to the great distaste, and open repining of the best and discreetest Citizens, though otherwaies truly caec-obedient and zealous Romanists.

SECT. XXII.

[Page]

YEt must we not think that Heresie or Heretiques ought so to be indulged, as thereby to be confirmed, and made more pertinacious in their heresies. They ought to be instructed, reproved, and discountenanced, and if they prove irrecoverably obstinate, exiled. Wee see God himself commanded the Jewes to put an Idolater and a blasphemer to death; and though I do not conceive that to be an Evangelicall precept, but onely a judiciall law, proper and peculiar to that people and Church, yet doubtlesse it may thence by the rule of Analogie be concluded, that where Idolatry and Heresie are mixed together, as amongst Papists and Montanists or Altar-adorers, or where blasphemy and heresie meet in one, as amongst the Arrians, Pelagians, or Anabaptists, the followers of Sebastian Castellio, and James Arminius, there a more severe course may be warrantably practised to stop the dispersing of that poyson, then for the suppressing of any other Heretiques, who are not guilty of those two abominations, but onely hold some lesser errours. Incomparable Monsieur de Thou, saith in the Preface before his History, dedicated to Henry the Great of France, that exile or banishment was the first and greatest punishment that ever the ancient Church inflicted upon Heretiques, (which on all sides is acknowledged to have been a true Church) as wee see in the banishment of the Manichees, under those two pious Emperors, Theodosius & Valentinian; and in the exilement of divers kinds of Heretiques under Constantine and Marcianus: But when men have joyned, either open rebellion and treason, or proditorious positions to their Religion, as the Papists, or have maintained Anarchicall Theses as a part of their doctrine, condemning Monarchie, Magistracie, and all civill government, as the Anabaptists: In these cases, although they did absolutely defend dogmaticall and fundamentall errors, yet were their exilement or a greater punishment justly inflicted on them, because the case is now altered from matter of conscience to matter of offence & crime. Had the Protestants been but once guilty of such an unmatched villanie, as the Powder-plot was, in any part of the world where they are tolerated, they had doubtlesse been for ever rooted out from thence; for though some desperate Romanists only were ingaged in the execution, yet in the generall, questionlesse, all the Recusants of England knew, that a great action was in [Page] hand, against Church and State; and that their Romish Synagogue was to be erected in Great Britain, upon the ruines of them both: And for the prosperity of it, as Henry Garnet himself confessed, they all prayed. Nay, when divers English Papists, admonished by the guilt of their own conscience, fled upon the discovery thereof into France, and were kindly received there by the Governour of Callis, and he comforting them, in respect they had left their countrey, estates and friends; No, saith one of them to him again, Wee grieve not at all for those losses, but that so brave and excellent an action (meaning the Powder-treason) had no better successe. At which answer, the said Governour was so extremely incensed (as hee often after himself related to the same de Thou, who delivers the Story) that hee verily thought to have precipitated the varlet headlong into the sea. And as for their Romish doctrines, manifestly tending to treason, conspiracy and rebellion, they were so exactly collected together into one bo ly by learned Bishop Morton, and published in the yeere 1605. a little after the discovery of that treason, as wee shall need a great deal of charity to believe they can be good subjects in and under any Protestant Prince or State. Neither do the Anabaptists come much short of the Papists in their dangerous tenets or practices, although they exactly imitate their old master Pelagius in one particular, which Vossius himselfe confesseth of him, teaching many of their desperate doctrines, as he did, privately, which yet they conceale and suppresse in their published Tractates, which have given so many fatall wounds to the true Church of God in this and the last preceding age; for the proofe whereof, wee shall need to produce no other witnesses then those two sincere and impartiall Historians, John Sleidane, and the same Monsieur de Thou, from whom wee may learne, that after Melchior Hofman had broached his wicked Tenets in Germany, about the yeere 1520. and with his disciples, Thomas Muncer, Bernard Rotman, and John Leyden had assumed to themselves the name of Anabaptists, and drawn many of the baser sort after them, whom they perswaded not to suffer any of Noble blood to remain; and that there could be no other lawfull Magistrate, but one of their Sect: they easily drew them to take armes, and possessing themselves of the city of Munster in Westphalia, had like to have proved the utter ruine of it, had it not been delivered by the armes of some of the Germane [Page] Princes, after which followed the execution of divers of those rebels. After these men succeeded as chiefe propagators of their errours, John Cerdo, hanged at Brussels, Michael Servetus the Spaniard burnt at Geneva, and Cornelius Apelman executed at Vtrecht in the yeare 1570. all three of them, though guiltie of divers grosse heresies, yet were condemned and put to death for blasphemie, and other notorious crimes. John Williams their successor, finding their treasonable and Anarchicall positions to afford them no safety in any well governed Monarchie or Republique, got him to Ruremund, in the Dutchie of Guelders, and there having drawn to his partie some three hundred varlets and mean sellowes, hee told them no goods could rightly appertain to any man but of their own Sect, and therefore assured them, whatsoever they could get by pillaging and robbery, was a lawfull gain: by which means many horrible and grievous thefts and spoiles were committed in Guelderland, and in the Dutchie of Cleve adjoyning. The said Williams also being taken, was for his many abominable offences and villanies burnt at Buslaken in the Dutchie of Juliers, yet died so courageously, like Servetus his fellow Anabaptist, as that their Sect was exceedingly confirmed and increased thereby; so as had not their other portentous crimes justly necessitated their capitall punishment, it had been much better for the true Church of God, their lives had been spared: For whereas before ignorant men had for the most part presidented their Church and kingdom, (for their chief Prophets commonly governed all the rest after their own wills) these mens sufferings drew on, as may be easily gathered, Theodore Bibliander and Sebastian Castellio, to give up their names to the maintenance of the same blasphemies, who cunningly defended only in their publique writing those points which Pelagius had formerly broached, whom Arminius, Vorstius, and the other Anabaptists of the nether Germany have since followed; but for those dangerous and unsafe doctrines of condemning Magistracy, extirpating Nobility, and permitting robberies, howsoever they may still in private teach and adhere to them, and would, perhaps, if they could once make the stronger partie in any State, soon enough practise them, yet they have most politickly omitted, not onely the maintenance, but the very mention of them also, in the said published Works and Tractates. Thus also the Papists themselves, upon occasion, being [Page] pressed with any of their seditious tenets, will deny them; as Peter Cotton the Jesuite did their allowing of the murther of Kings after Henry the fourth of France was stabbed by that wicked Jesuited varlet, Ravaillac; and Henry Garnet, at his execution protested, that he ever abhorred the Gunpowder-plot. The Pelagians, in the time of the ancient Britaines were the undoubted instruments of the ruine of England, then called Britaine, of murthering Constantine the father and Constans the son, both successive Kings there, and of setting the Royall Crown upon the head of Vortigern, Duke of Cornwall, a Pelagianized traytor against his Soveraign, who in lieu thereof to gratifie them, soon filled up, as may be probably collected, the Bishops Seas, to which neither Baronies nor Sericality were then, nor for five hundred yeares after annexed, with hereticall and lazie droanes, who had well-neere ruined the true Church of God in those dayes. All the world may know what warning King James of England, that learned Prince, gave to the united States of the Netherlands, by his published Works upon the death of the Anabaptist Arminius, and succession of that blasphemous Vorstius in his roome and chaire at Layden, that if they did not in time look to the suppression of those blasphemous Heretiques, they would in the end prove the ruine of their Church and State. God of his infinit mercy grant that they may never be able to bring desolation or subversion to them; nor to any other Church, Kingdome, or State of Christendome, where the Gospel and the truth are established, by the increasing of their numbers and powers to an excessive and formidable proportion.

SECT. XXIII.

WE have seen the greatest and uttermost punishment that the Primitive Church thought fit to be inflicted on the Heretiques of those times was exilement, in which case they had alwayes a competent time allowed to provide conveniences before they receded, safe conduct for their departure, and a full power given them, either to retain their praediall and fixed estates they left, and to receive by their deputed agents the yeerly revenues of them, or else sell them. And if wee do seriously peruse the Histories of later times, we shall finde the cruellest Tygres, and most Wolvish Prelates that ever miscarried the affaires of any Kingdome or State since the yeare [Page] 1500. never to have grown to that senslesse and belluine height of malice against the godly, as neither to suffer them to enjoy their liberty and quiet of their consciences at home, nor yet peaceably and innocently to leave their deare and native countrey, and to plant themselves in such parts of the world as they may enjoy their inward peace without offence or scandall to any. Philip the second of Spain, who was one of the most prodigious offenders against God, in his time, having vitiated women of the noblest rank, violated contracts of the deepest nature, murthered his eldest son, and third wife, unjustly detained the Kingdome of Navarre, broken his oath with Arragon, Naples, and the Netherlands, and the most resolved and premeditated persecutor of Christendome, being wholly actuated & precipitated to it by Nicholas Perenot, Cardinall of Granvellan, and the bloody Inquisitors, yet in the yeer, 1575. he set out a publick Declaration touching all the Inhabitants of the Netherlands, that it should be lawfull for any that would not embrace the Rom m Religion, to depart from thence whither soever they would, and to sell their estates, or else to. retain them, and to receive the profits of them: And not many yeers after, he gave liberty also to the very Mahometan Moores in Spain, amounting to divers thousands, to depart freely thence, into any Province of Africa, there to enjoy freedome from the bloody Inquisitors, and with his own shipping conveyed many of them safe into France, through which, by the graclous permission of Henry the Great, they had safe and free passage. Charles the ninth also, the French King, did by his Agents earnestly sollicite Lewes de Clermont, Prince of Conde, and Gaspar de Colignie, Earle of Cistillion, Admirall of that Kingdome, being the chief Commanders and Directors of the Protestants affaires, to depart the Kingdome, with the rest of the Religion; and that they might begin a Plantation in the Island of Florida in America, hee not only gave leave to the first expedition, which was undertaken by John Ribald, in the yeer 1562. but also, at the same Admirals intreaty, did contribute very largely himself to the second navigation, which was entred upon, not long after the first, by Renate Laudonere, and divers other Protestants. But it pleased God, that this fair occasion, not only of enlarging the French Empire, but also of planting a blessed Church amongst those Heathen people, was in the very bloome and infancy prevented and brought to nothing by the precipitation [Page] of Luidonere himself, and by those factious Romanists about the King, who occasioned new civill wars and tumults in the Realme. After the horrible and inhumane massacre of Paris, in the yeer 1572. which was partly resolved upon, because the Protestants would not upon any terms remove out of France, and so desert and leave their deare and native countrey: Charles Duke of Loraine intending to take that occasion, to extirpate the true Religion out of his own Dominions, which he might have done by their slaughters, yet gave them liberty to depart whithersoever they would in safety, and full time to sell and dispose of their goods and estates. Nay Queen Mary of England, whose bloody persecutions shall make her raign infamous to the worlds end, yet in her first yeer expressed so much mercy, as having publikely declared, that she meant to restore the Romish Religion; shee further permitted to all her subjects that would not professe the same, free liberty to depart out of her kingdome; by which the lives and ravagings of many hundreds were saved, and amongst them divers of the Clergie; for the first sensible persecution began then in St. Johns Colledge in Cambridge, where the Idolatrous bowing to the Masse and Altar, being wickedly practised and pressed, divers immediatly left the same Colledge thereupon. Now if the Popish Prelates of those times, who accounted the Protestants arch-heretiques, and mortally hated them, did yet perswade the Kings and Princes they served, and too often misadvised, to permit the Protestants freedome of departure, with liberty and time to sell their goods and estates; is it possible that there should live in and under any Protestant Church, such inveterately hating Prelates, against the weaker and humbler Christians, who dissent from them, as themselves pretend, only in matters of form and order, arbitrary to be abolished or retained by the supreme Magistrate, as neither to suffer them to live quietly at home without vexation, suites, fines, suspension, deprivation, and imprisonment, which in many cases occasioneth their immature deaths, nor yet suffer them to depart quietly, to plant a Church amongst the very Heathens themselves, to the honour of God, and the inlargement of their Soveraignes Empire and profit? Is it possible that so many miles distance should not abate and asswage the very malice of Rome it self against them? Were their departure like that of the fugitive Romanists a few yeers since, to joyn with the publike enemies [Page] of the Kingdome, to invade it, and to be more forward to subdue it to a cruell and barbarous Nation, as they were in eighty eight, then the adversaries themselves, then might there be some colourable reason to use all extremity and cruelty against them for their ruine and extirpation; but when their hearts and soules breath forth nothing but loyaltie and innocencie, the throne and kingdome fare the better for their prayers and humiliations, and the worst they desire, is but the quiet of their own consciences; how is it possible they should be so prodigiously hated of any, that would but pretend truly to love the Gospel, and heartily to vote the flourishing of it? Certainly it is impossible they should be so transported with barbarous rage, as some of the Popes have been, who rather desired to see the ruine of those innocent Christians, then of the very Turks and Mahometans, unlesse they will yeeld themselves to be as deeply toxicated with the dregs of that Romish cup as the Jesuites are, who in the yeere 1578. began to preach and teach publikely, that it was a more acceptable work to God, for Christian Princes to root out and persecute all Sectaries and Schismatikes amongst themselves, then for them to joyn their forces against the Turks and Infidels; A doctrine, saith Monsieur de Thou, (one of their own Historians) contrary to all Christian pietie and mansuetude, who with the rest of the sober and moderate Romanists, by their charitable and advised censures, given of the strictest and most tender conscienced Christians, (notwithstanding they most abhor any the least intermixtures and additions in Gods Worship, which have been introduced by the Papists) shall at the last day rise up in judgement against the invectives of many seeming Protestants, of both orders, against the same persons, endeavouring thereby to prepossesse the eares and fascinate the judgements of the greatest Princes, that so they may obtain license and power under them, utterly to ruine and destroy their humble and pious fellow-Christians, who are notwithstanding permitted quietly and safely to enjoy the publike liberty of their conscience in those Kingdomes and States where the Romish Religion it self flourisheth.

SECT. XXIV.

[Page]

UNder Henry the fourth, the late great and victorious French King, the major part of the Papists of that kingdome continued in a most obstinate and furious war against him, during the first four yeers of his raigne, calling into their succours the Spaniards the sworn enemies of that Crown and State, and yet he offered them, not only to permit all his Romanized subjects the publike exercise of their Religion, but also to continue it in all places in the same forme and freedome as it had been used at the time of the murther of Henry the third his predecessor, by a Jesuited assassinate. And further implored his own Subjects, Not to endeavour to force him to the change of his Religion, which he knew to be the truth, being a cruelty hee desired not to practise upon the meanest of them. The Protestants will yeeld up their Religion as false and wicked, if ever such an example can be produced against them, where they had libertie of conscience sincerely afforded them, and yet took up armes against their lawfull Soveraign. But those unreasonable French Papists, being true limbs of the Romish Synagogue, whose faith was then faction, and whose Religion was then rebellion, would embrace no conditions of peace, no offers of pacification from their own undoubtedly lawfull and warlike King, as long as he continued in the open profession of that truth, in which he had been educated under Joan D'Albret, hereditary Queen of Navarre, his royall and godly mother; who also upon her death-bed had expresly charged him never to recede from it. This brave Prince seeing nothing but an utter ruine threatened to his kingdome of France, either by cantonizing it into Provinces, or setting a forainer on the Throne, (which Charles Lorainer Duke of Maine had out of some ambitious and self-respects of his own, a while opposed and prevented) in the yeer 1593. submitted himself to a publike recidivation, which though it brought on an outward peace to that Realme, yet was the King himself never freed from continuall Treasons and Conspiracies, hatched against him in the dens and nests of the Jesuites, till at the last he perished under one of them to the irreparable losse, not only of France, but likewise of all Christendome. Neither did the Papists cease to vilifie his very act of reconciling himself to their Church, saying, as Monsieur de Thou himself confesseth, that either [Page] his conversion was fained, as it had been before in the yeer 1572. and that a false Catholike would do more hurt in their Church then a true Heretique, or else that he loved the Crown of France better then he did the kingdome of Heaven, that to gain that without any inward convincement, would turn from one Religion to another.

SECT. XXV.

AFter this martiall Prince had deserted the Protestant Religion to the great astonishment and excessive griefe of all the Professors of the Gospel, both at home and abroad; What did his French Subjects of the Helvetick Confession instantly rebell against him, and deny him due and lawfull obedience, as his Popish Subjects had done before? Nothing lesse; but all the disobedience they shewed to him, or expressed towards him, consisted in humble supplications and Remonstrances, that they might still enjoy the publique libertie of their Consciences; and he as graciously yeelded to their just and Christian Petitions; and all the time he raigned, never forgat their cause or prayers, or suffered any of his bloudy Prelates, or Jesuited Counsellors, to molest, vex, cite, fine, suspend, deprive, or imprison any of them, and much lesse to butcher them, or draw bloud from them; because he knew every one of those acts are essentially true and down-right persecution, as well as shedding their blouds; onely there is a graduall difference in the Martyrdomes of the sufferers as well as in the cruelty of the destroyers. As strange was the example of Henry the eight of England, who led by the advice of some of his Sycophanticall Popish Prelates, thought to have established the Romish Religion, without admitting the influence of the Papacy, whose unerring spirit is to that Synagogue like the soule to the body, or the Sunne to the firmament. But he soone saw his error, and would doubtless, had he lived, have made that integrall and saving Reformation, which his Royall Sonne so piously finished; for he himselfe and his new Popery, were more abhorred by the Bishop of Rome, and his Vassalls, as a monstrous and inconsistent Church, then the Princes of Germanie themselves, who had made a rationall and intire defection from that man of sonne. For the Pope and his Conclave employed Cardinall Poole [Page] (Henry the Eighths neare kinsman) as their Ambassadour to Charles the fifth the Emperour, to exhort and perswade him instantly to invade the King of Englands Dominion, rather then to make warre against the Turke himselfe. And the reason why the Pope was so vehement in his prosecution against that King, doth palpably and fully appeare from the very words ensuing of the Decree of Pope Boniface the eighth, in his Extravagants set forth by himselfe in the eighth yeare of his Papacy, about the yeare 1300. Subesse Romano pontifici (saith he) omni humanae creaturae declaramus, dicimus, definimus, & pronunciamus omnino esse de necessitate salut is: We declare, define, and pronounce, that it is necessary for every one that is to be saved, to be subject to the Pope of Rome. The same doctrine doth the Bull of Pope Pius the fifth, bearing date there in the yeare 1564. & the Romish Catechisme set out a little after, doth maintain and confirme in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth Sections thereof, in their exposition of the twentieth Article of their new Creed, (to which Creed their Prelates and other Ecclesiasticks are compelled to sweare, that they hold it to be the true Catholick faith) it being strongly disputed for also by Suarez in his first booke and twelfth Chapter against the Lutherans, by Gregorie de Valentia in his Analysis, lib. 6. cap. 1. and by Bellarmine in his third booke and fifth Chapter of the Church Militant; That though any Prince, Prelate, Priest, State, or Church, should receive all the other parts of the Romish faith & Religion, abolishing the doctrine and discipline of the Protestants, and should onely deny the Popes Supremacy and subjection to him, yet they should still remaine damnable and wicked hereticks; So as the light of the Sunne is not more cleare then that the Pope in this one particular imitates God himselfe, hating more a linsey-woolsey mungrell halting Popish Protestant, then a true and zealous one. Blessed therefore are those Monarchs, Princes, and States, who preserve the Evangelick truth, without the least intermixtures of false doctrine and Pontificall additions; for to halt between light and darknesse, and to intermix Idolatrous actions, or Popish errors, with saving truths, will necessarily draw on the ruine of the godly, and the hatred of the Papacy, and bring downe Gods judgements as causally as an absolute, entire, and plenary defection and recidivation. And then if the Popes headship be once admitted, a volume would [Page] not suffice, how not onely every proud Prelate, but even every Popish Priest; might trample on the Soveraignes Crowne and Dignitie, murther their fellow-subjects, and be guilty of a thousand other villanies, without dreading or regarding the punishment of the Temporall sword.

SECT. XXVI.

MAtthew Paris, the Monke of St Albanes, (a witnesse without exception) doth truly relate a pithy Story, to shew the ancient deplorable and base state and condition of the English Kings under the Papall tyranny; That Pope Innocent the 4th in the year 1253. in the 37th yeare of Henry the third, being set in his Conclave, in the middle of his Cardinalls, after mature deliberation and advisement upon a very small and trifling occasion, brake out into this vehement Interrogation; Nonne Rex Anglorum (saith he) noster est vafsallus, & ut plus dicam, mancipium, qui possumus eum nutu nostro incarcerare & ignominiae mancipare? That is, Is not the King of England our vassall, or to say more, is he not our slave, who have power as often as wee please, either to mue him up in prison, or to expose him to ignominy? Justly therefore did Henry the eight of England free himselfe from this Papall Tyranny: and if he had been possibly sensible of those bodily pangs, or inward remorses and horrors upon his death-bed, which the Papists mention, yet could not these divine flagellations be imputed to his defection from Rome, and error, as they pretend, but to his shedding of so much innocent bloud of Gods Saints, by the instigation of his sanguinary Prelates. For in France after that barbarous and cruell Massacre in the yeare 1572. upon the eighth day of November the same yeare, there appeared a dreadfull Comet, touching which some learned Protestant immediately published an elaborate and exquisite Poem, presaging that it was Gods Herald or Messenger to denounce his judgement shortly to ensue upon that Kingdome, for their newly perpetrated inhumane butcherie. His verses were [...] dispersed, when there suddainly broke out in Poitou a new [...] and before unknowne disease commonly called the Poit [...]vin Cholick, which wasted that goodly Kingdome for above thirty yeares after It was accompanied with so many extreame paines and torments, not onely in the outward [Page] parts of the body, but in the inwards and vitals also, as it drew on divers horrid convulsions, and in many blindnes it self before they dyed. The strange originall, the hidden nature and those unparalleld torments it produced, sometimes resembling the very stabs and gashes made with swords and poygnards, gave all impartiall judgements just ground to conclude it to be the finger of God himself, in punishing the mercilesse murthers of his dear Saints. And a blessed warning it may be to all Christian Kingdoms and States, that a seasonable remedie to stop the growing of the plague, pestilence, and other severall diseases and judgements may questionlesse be applyed, by inhibiting and abolishing the power and malice of such Popish Prelates as count it their chiefest solace to waste and persecute the pious and godly Protestants, that so the true Catholick Church might againe flourish, as it did in the Primitive times under learned, religious, sober, faithfull, preaching Pastors and Ministers. Which incomparable blessing, the Divine Providence vouchsafed to the Scottish, French, and Helvetick Churches upon their first Reformation.

The Printer to the Reader.

I Am here courteous Reader, instead of troubling thee with an Index of the Errata, to give thee notice, that so great care hath been used, in this second Impression, as it needs none; neither was it my fault, but my mis-fortune, that the first had so many greater errours as well as lesser slips; for I had the use of a very imperfect Copie, transcribed from the Originall by two or three severall hands in some hast; by which I was mis-led almost in every Section. Those errours, and such as escaped the Presse, are now amended to thy hand.

FINIS.

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Title statement

The primitive practise for preserving truth. Or An historicall narration, shewing what course the primitive church anciently, and the best reformed churches since have taken to suppresse heresie and schisme. And occasionally also by way of opposition discovering the papall and prelaticall courses to destroy and roote out the same truth; and the judgements of God which have ensued upon persecuting princes and prelates. / By Sir Simonds D'Ewes.

D'Ewes, Simonds, Sir, 1602-1650.

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1645

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Text Creation Partnership,

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2003-11 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

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A67894

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Wing D1251

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ESTC R200135

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99860940

ID [PROQUEST]

99860940

ID [VID]

50931

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(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A67894)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 50931)

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— The primitive practise for preserving truth. Or An historicall narration, shewing what course the primitive church anciently, and the best reformed churches since have taken to suppresse heresie and schisme. And occasionally also by way of opposition discovering the papall and prelaticall courses to destroy and roote out the same truth; and the judgements of God which have ensued upon persecuting princes and prelates. / By Sir Simonds D'Ewes., D'Ewes, Simonds, Sir, 1602-1650..

Extent

[6], 65, [1] p.

Printed by M.S. for Henry Overton, and are to be sold at his shop in Popes-head Alley.,. London, :: 1645.. (Annotation on Thomason copy: "June 28".) (Reproduction of the original in the British Library.)

Creation

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Editorial practices

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