Neighbours as those Doctrines he charges upon her really and heartily assented to must needs make them He hopes possibly that Humane Nature it self in some may check at their harshness and a particular sweetness of temper of others very much allay the Malignancy of their Poison and hinder them from having their full effect upon the Understanding at least such an effect as is justly to be dreaded from them when they seize upon the minds of melancholy Recluses or sink deep into the affections of her ignorant hot-headed Devoto's those Christian (a) A Sect of Religious Murderers among the Turkâ— See an Account of them in Tav … niâ—r's Six Voyages pag. 199. Faquirs For the Promise he makes us at last in imitation of the Bishop's (b) Compend pag. 79. That he himself will turn Protestant if the Bishop shows him but one single Paragraph in all his Book in relation to their dangerous Principles that he has not fully answer'd c. I will be so civil to him at parting to let him know be need not be in any pain about it for though the Condition of his Obligation be not in the least measure nor is ever likely to be perform'd yet I can assure him there 's no body intends to take any advantage of the Forfeiture Though he has been so far from answering every single Paragraph of the Bishop's Book that he has not in truth answer'd one single word of it to any purpose as I have already show'd him yet we will not be so unmercifully rigorous to require a Person of his Form of Parts to turn Protestant and force him to be a reasonable man and a good Christian against his Conscience no no let him stay where he is we are not at all fond of his Company and the Religion he has will best suit with his Wit I have now done with the Compendianist and shall enlarge this Preface no farther but to joine with all good English-men in offering up my hearty prayers to God Almighty that He would still preserve the Preotestant Religion among us and continue to render fruitless the contrary Endeavours and Contrivances of wicked and unreasonable Men fallacious Writers and Traiterous Plotters that He would keep the most knowing and best civiliz'd Nation in the World from falling again under the Barbarisme of Popery from being opprest by the Tyranny and cumber'd with the Weight of this huge unwieldly Masse of Nonsense and Puppetry This farce of Ceremonies this Counterfeit Christianity this Enemy to true Learning and free Philosophy this Discourager of Trade and useful Industry this Troubler of agreeable Conversation and reasonable Living this Prohibiter of good Sense and this Extinguisher of good Nature in a word this Un-Christian and this Immorall Religion or rather this new Species of Irreligion which by her Doctrines of dispensing with Oaths and absolving from all manner of Crimes upon slight and ridiculous Penances as well as by those the Bishop of Lincoln has convinc'd her of has not only overthrown the Foundations of real Goodness and true Piety but even of necessary Faith and common Honesty loosen the very Bands and Ligaments and undermining the Props of Civil Communities Errata in the Preface Page 1. Line 11. for grand read great Ibid. l. 17. for those r. these p. 3. l. l. 9. r. Compendianist and so in all other places where that word is us'd it being mistaken throughout the whole Preface p. 4. l. 17. after these words Does he expect to be believ'd upon his bare word the sence is left imperfect by omitting these which follow viz. Vpon the honour of a Popish Controvertist which the Reader is desir'd to add p. 10. l. 5. r. and Decretals Ibid. l. 30. for these r. those l. 36. for shew r. shame Many other Errors there are in the Printing which for their too great number I will not trouble the Reader with though in many places the Style is not onely prejudic'd by them but the sence corrupted and debas'd In the French Massacre p. 2. l. 5. for Son r. Cousin In the Irish Massacre p. 2. l. 25. dele not In Q. Maries Reign p. 2. l. 7. for hath r. had Ibid. l. antep dele by l. ult for Winchester r. Worcester AN ACCOUNT Of the Chief Passages of the MASSACRE IN The Valleys of Piedmont in the Year 1655. WHEN the following Sheets had passed the Press and the Preface was ready for it a certain Gentleman who had set me on work to collect and publish them signified his desire that I should add one Sheet concerning this Massacre but because it may be though most proper to conclude with Domestick Occurrences and because the notice of my Friends desire came too late for placing this Sheet next after the Irish Massacre where in reference to Time it should have been plac'd I was oblig'd to put it in the Front Before I come to treat of this Massacre in particular it will be necessary to give you an Account of the Antiquity of the Reformed Churches in the Valleys of Piedmont with the causes of this and other Persecutions which have been raised against them by the Bishops of Rome since the first Apostacy of the Roman Church As for their Antiquity I affirm that the Christian Religion which was planted in Italy by S. Paul has ever since been retained in the Primitive Purity of its Fundamental Doctrines and Divine Worship in the Churches of Piedmont to this day And for the Proof of this Assertion I must acquaint you that though many of their most ancient Records and other Authentick Manuscripts were destroyed by Popish Perseeutors in the years 1559 and 1560 yet a great number no less Authentick divers of which are now to be seen in the University of Cambridge were most wonderfully preserv'd and give as full and clear a Testimony to this Truth Besides we have the concurrent Testimonies of the most eminent Popish Authors who were the bitterest Adversaries of these Churches and yet which is almost miraculous they have by a strange over-ruling Providence unwittingly confess'd in many places of their Writings this Antiquity for the concealing of which and to make the World disbelieve it those very Books were purposely written and design'd To demonstrate these Particulars by some Instances I must inform you that it is a Truth generally received by all those who profess to be vers'd in Ecclesiastical History that before the Year 800 the differences between the Roman and Reformed Christian Churches were not publickly establish'd by any General Councils or Decrees in any part of Italy As for the first 500 years after Christ there cannot so much as one clear Sentence be produc'd out of any one Father or Council for the Papists against the Protestants In the next Century viz. in the Year 600 Boniface the Third of that name Bishop of Rome with the consent and approbation if not instigation of the Usurper Traitor and Murderer Phocas the Emperour took upon him the Title
Ministers questionable for the Miscarriages in Government because he himself is in his own Person inviolable and sacred but this concerns not the present Business These men I say as bad as they were had not the Impudence to Interest the Protestant Religion or any Protestant Church whatever in the guilt of their impious Treason by pretending to derive any Warrant or Encouragement for it from them or if they had it would have signified nothing to the Compendionist's purpose since there is no King-deposing or King-killing Principle to be found in any Protestant Confessions of Faith or Articles of Communion which are the only proper Evidences to convince a Protestant Church of any Principle or Doctrine that is laid to her charge and so it would have amounted to no more than their particular mistaking or perverting the Principles of their Religion as grosly and as wilfully as they did the Laws of their Country But this is not the case for they did not so much as pretend any Warrant from the Protestant Religion for what they did How then can He charge Protestant Principles with the Personal Crimes of these men Or what does this Home-Blow and all his other Instances prove except this only viz. That several Protestants have been Rogues very great Rogues Murderers Rebels Traytors c. Does He not know that they are all mortal men too and subject to many other Vices which he might very clearly have prov'd upon them if he had pleas'd by undeniable Examples There 's not a Sin the Pope pardons of what Price soever but 't is too sadly true that Protestants have been guilty of it at some time or other if that will do him any service But now in the name of a little common sense Who or what does this Raver oppose in this strenuous Argument Did ever any of our Writers assert that all the Protestants in the world were good Men and pious Christians Or is there any sort of people among us besides Quakers i. e. mad men who hold a state of Absolute Perfection in this Life He has put himself into an extraordinary Heat and made strange violent Assaults and yet no Enemy appears near him What ayles the man he has sure been combating some Giant in imagination like Don Quixote when he hack'd down the Walls of his Chamber Well who ever he be though it were Malambruno himself I 'll warrant him he 's kill'd outright this La Mancha has so laid about him with Home-Blows Another great quarrel he has to the Bishop is that he does not answer four Books nam'd in the Compendium's margin writ it seems by the Catholicks of England since the King's Restoration about the Deposing Power of the Church * Compend pag. 78. His Lordship says he is so far from answering these Authors that he never so much as cites them to this purpose a great fault indeed so that we must conclude them unanswerable Well argued o' my word I see he deals in nothing but Home-Blows Mr. Bayes and this Compendionist would have made a couple of rare Disputants if they had not been spoil'd by their Tutors and ill grounded at first they have both an admirable natural talent at Reasoning all the difference between them is Bayes lov'd it in Rhime and this man 's altogether for it in Prose But without Raillery does he believe the Bishop of Lincoln oblig'd to take particular notice of every idle Pamphlet of theirs that keeps a Pudder about the deposing Power of the Church with design to make the business intricate and dark and to think them as considerable as his Party always do their own Books No doubt he takes it monstrous ill too that the Bishop has not thought him worth his Answering and perhaps concludes himself unanswerable But I hope I shall hinder him from falling into that mistake and make him sensible what an Impar Congressus Achilli what a poor contemptible thing he is when he appears in the Lists against so great a Scholar as the Bishop of Lincoln For the Pamphlets he mentions they are more than answer'd in the Bishop's Book though it does not particularly name them and when he or any other Factor for Popery gives a tolerable Answer to those clear Testimonies I told him of before and which he never so much as cites to this purpose by which the Bishop does so plainly prove the Doctrine of Deposing Kings upon the Church of Rome I here engage my word to him these Pamphlets shall be made ridiculous by name and their Authors shew'd to the people in the Fools Coats they deserve In the next place be tells us * Compend pag. 78. That the Venetians have openly in their very writings denied this Deposing Power of the Church without Censure And That several Authors have been censur'd in France and elsewhere for writing for it In answer to which First we know very well that the Church of Rome does always accommodate her Allowing and Condemning of Books to the circumstances of her present condition and as Princes are sometimes forc'd by the necessity of their Affairs to disavow the Actions of their Ministers though done by their most express command so is this interested Church frequently reduc'd to connive at Books which she does by no means like and to Censure others which she does not onely approve but underhand directs A good Instance of this we have in the case of Sanctarellus's Book one of those he mentions which though at first printed by the Approbation and special Licence of * See Sanctarellus himself Mutius Vittellescus then General of the Jesuits and by the Order of the Master of the Pope's Palace yet when the Pope found it would not be endur'd in France but that both the Sorbonne had condemn'd it and the Parliament of Paris had order'd it to be burnt he thought fit after it had been out so long that the Copies were almost all bought up to forbid the Sale of it at Rome but without any manner of Censure either upon the Author or Doctrine * See more of this in the Preface to the Jesuits Loyalty which is generally their way of condemning those kind of Books when Civil Considerations at last oblige them to it viz. a bare Prohibition of them after every body has read them that cares for them Such a Condemnation as this did Mariana meet with in Spain and of this gentle nature was Becanus's Correction at Rome not for the Doctrines he maintain'd but for Overlashing as Bishop Montague expresses it in his Preface to King James's Works i. e. for speaking the mind of their Churchmore plainly than was at that time convenient For Secondly we know well enough that these Principles of Deposing and Killing Kings and Extirpating Hereticks are thought too precious Truths and too high Points to be ordinarily expoâ—'d to the â—ulgar and pross'd upon all occasions they are the Arâ—â—na Imperii of their Kingdom of Darkness and kept like Warrants Dormant among
of Universal Bishop in which he was confirm'd by a Council held at Rome the Year following After this Corruptions and Heresies crept apace into the Church of Rome which were still opposed by some famous Writers of these Churches both in this and the seventh Century about the end of which viz. in the Year 794 the Emperour Charles the Great having called a Council at Franckfurt did with the Western Churches joyntly endeavour to have drawn Pope Adrian and the Church of Rome out of that gulph of Superstition and Idolatry into which it was fallen by persuading them to embrace the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles But this design proving then ineffectual Lewis the Emperour Son and Successor to Charles undertook and prosecuted the same in the eighth Century and in order thereunto amongst other things he preferr'd to the Archbishoprick of Turin of which the Valleys of Piedmont are part one Claudius a chief Counsellour to Charles the Great and one of the most renowned men of his Age as well for Piety as Learning in the Year 815. But this good man finding that he could not resist that mighty torrent of Superstitious and Idolatrous Blasphemies which were taught and practis'd in the Church of Rome endeavour'd to keep his own Dioceses from being infected with them and to this end he told his People That they ought not to run to Rome for the Pardon of their Sins nor have recourse to the Saints or their Reliques that the Church is not founded upon S. Peter much less upon the Pope but upon the Doctrine of the Apostles that they ought not to worship Images nor so much as have them in their Churches c. These words we find in a Book written by a grand Adversary of his Also the same Author and others of the same stamp confess That Claudius and his Disciples and Successors were People of good Lives and Principles and that nothing could be objected against them for says one whereas all other Sects render themselves horrible by reason of their Blasphemies against God this hath a great appearance of Piety in as much as they live justly before men they believe aright concerning God in all things and hold all the Articles of the Creed there is onely one thing against them viz. that they deny the Church of Rome to be the holy Mother Church and will not obey her Traditions Another saith That these men did own the Christian Church in all other points and that he reckon'd and esteem'd them true Members of it I shall quote one Popish Writer more who was very famous in his time he in a Book published in the year 1632 with approbation and privilege saith That the aforesaid Doctrine which he calls Heresie continu'd throughout the ninth and tenth Centuries And afterward in another Book printed at Turin in the year 1649 dedicated to the Duke of Savoy speaking of the Doctrine which the Churches of the Valleys then held he saith It is the same which Claudius Archbishop of Turin and consequently of the Valleys being within that Diocese maintained in the eighth Century And thus you have seen the constant and uninterupted Succession of the Doctrine of these Churches from the times of the Apostles to that of Claudius and so through the ninth and tenth Centuries till the Waldenses came into these Valleys which was in the eleventh Century where they have profess'd and taught the same ever since I need not take the pains to prove the continued Succession of this Doctrine in those Churches from the eleventh Century till now because all Popish Writers do unanimously confess it but seeing divers of them have had the impudence to tell the World that the Waldenses who escaped the Massacre in France in the year 1165 and came from thence into the Valleys of Piedmont were the first Founders of that Religion which the Inhabitants there own and profess at this present I cannot but answer such Writers by telling them that it is not at all probable that the Waldenses who knew that the Seat of their grand Adversary was in Italy could have been so void of all sence and common prudence as to have undertaken so long and tedious a Journey over the Alps had they not been well assured beforehand that tho Natives of those Valleys had professed the same Religion with them and would receive and embrace them as Brethren I shall conclude this subject with a passage mention'd in the Preface of a French Bible which these Inhabitants caused to be printed at their own charge in the year 1535 and dedicate it to God himself where speaking as it were to him they say That they had always fully enjoy'd that Heavenly Truth contained in the Holy Scriptures ever since they were enriched with the same by the Apostles themselves I now come to give you the Causes of the Massacre in the Year 1655 and though many might be assign'd I shall mention two onely viz. the one general and the other particular the general Cause was the implacable Hatred and Malice of the Bishop of Rome and his Clergy against the Reformed Churches in the Valleys of Piedmont and in truth this hath been the Cause of all the other Massacres and Persecutions which have happen'd not onely in those Valleys but in all other parts of Europe ever since the Apostacy of the Romish Church has taken place and her tyrannical and usurped Power prevail'd in the World The particular Cause of this and other Massacres and Persecutions that have happen'd in these Valleys is the yearly allowance of Pensions Prebends Bishopricks Abbeys and Priories by the Court of Rome to the most eminent persons of the Duke of Savoy's Court upon condition of doing their utmost to destroy the Protestants and their Religion The principal means made use of by these Courtiers for effecting their designe were the same which had always prov'd successful formerly viz. they incensed the Duke of Savoy against his Protestant Subjects by many calumnies and false suggestions too tedious to be here inserted in so much that he publish'd an Order dated the 25th of January 1655. by which he commanded all his Protestant Subjects of what age sex or condition soever inhabiting certain Valleys therein mention'd to depart to other Valleys therein also nam'd in three days upon pain of death unless they should turn Papists within twenty days c. And though these poor Christians endeavour'd by their humble Addresses and Supplications to have oblig'd him to revoke this unjust and tyrannical Order yet he utterly refused to do it However he was not able to answer one of those many Arguments urged in their Petitions to induce him to grant their desires I shall name three First They urge the several Concessions made to them and their Ancestours by the Duke and his Predecessours for the free exercise of the reformed Religion in the Valleys of Piedmont and the quiet and peaceable enjoyment of their civil Rights and Priviledges Secondly They urge that