thereof derived to the City and thence to the Countrey-Towns and Villages and so diffused through the whole Kingdom as could not but provoke the Holy Majesty of God to send down his judgments upon them This is the sum of their judgment only hē gives more particular instances in the sins of common Swearing Adultery and Fornication to which others add many more and tell us in general that then never was there any more vicious or more corrupted Court. And indeed those were such causes as being so obvious and notorious no serious Christian believing and instructed in the Sacred Scriptures but would readily assign in the case Rom. 1. For thus doth St. Paul inform the Romans of such as hold the truth in unrighteousness and our Romanists might do well to be admonished by it that because when they knew God they glorified him not as God their foolish heart was darkened and he gave them up to the lusts of their own hearts to vile affections and to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient being filled with all Injustice Fornication Murder Deceit breach of Faith c. What-ever be the profession which such men make of Religion most certain it is that there is either great error and corruption in their Religion or little sincerity and life in their profession or lastly such impotence in the professors that the prevalence of their sensual affections doth easily over-power and fascinate their reason which argues their desertion by that Sacred Spirit which infuses light and life and heat and power into humane souls as they are disposed to receive it no less than doth the Sun communicate its kind influences to the corporal and animal nature And as this doth maturate and sweeten crude and sour fruits and confirm and strengthen the tender plants so doth that where it is indeed heartily embraced admirably dispose mens minds to sweetness and tranquility in themselves to sweetness and devotion to God to sweetness kindness and benignity to men and makes these dispositions strong and powerful in them Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is power it informs the mind and understanding it reforms the will and affections and transforms the whole man into its own likeness These are the fruits of the Spirit by which we are to judge of the tree This is that whereby all true Christians have a real and internal not meerly external or political communion and union with their Head Christ Jesus and through him with the fountain from whom by him it is derived to all his true members of his fulness we all receive and one with another they are all partakers of the same Spirit a nearer alliance than that of bloud and are filled with a tender affection to all the children of the same Father and love to all the creatures of their great Lord and for his sake even to their enemies to those that persecute and injure them pitying their blindness and madness and desiring their conversion not destruction But no sooner or further is any man deserted by this blessed Spirit or devoid of his sweet influences but he presently becomes so much the more obnoxious to all the malevolent aspects of wicked spirits and is impregnated and filled with the poison of their infections which excites and exalgitates to exorbitancy his sensual affections dementates his understanding and continually foments and promotes the assimulation and likeness of their own nature in him cherishing and fructifying the roots which are in him of Pride Ambition Envy Malice Revenge Perfidiousness and all manner of lusts and wickedness according to his particular disposition And because there is so strong and powerful a propensity to Religion rooted and fixed in the very nature of man as is very difficult if not impossible utterly to extirpate or depress this in such a person is by the subtil operation of these agents either if more languid and remiss diverted by exciting him to an eager prosecution of his other more strong inclinations or if more intense and active perverted either into superstition or some other conceived heroick acts of a partial Religion consisting and concurring with the satisfaction of his other inclinations whence ordinarily proceeds much of that heat and zeal which we frequently see in men for their several parties for the shells and out-sides of Religion for opinions and notions no more necessary to be known and determined to make men compleat Christians than the speculations of Philosophers and often for pernitious and destructive principles especially in the Romanists and inconsiderate endeavours by fraud and injustice sedition or oppression and violent persecutions and such like most unchristian actions for the advancement of the cause which they espouse whereby they encourage themselves with secret hopes to expiate their licentiousness and indulgence to their own inclinations in other matters and easily perswade themselves that so long as they are such good Catholicks or well affected to the truth and the cause of God and his Church that all must needs be well with them And hence proceeded this not only unchristian but barbarous and inhumane perfidious bloudy action of Charles 9. Hence the suspition of his Brother and Successors Henr. 3. Hence all the licentiousness and wickedness which we see every where in the World And to all this is no small occasion given by the complying Conduct Commutations of Penances and other practices of the Jesuites and other Romanists But the same Apostle informs us of another cause near of kin to this and no less effectual to the provocation of this judgment of obduration of mens minds which is very likely to have had no little influence in this case and that is the resisting rejection or not receiving and embracing of the Truth when offered which he mentions in a passage which if I be not much mistaken concerns the defection of the Church of Rome and hath been so understood by the Christians in all ages though somewhat obscurely and imperfectly as is usual in the interpretations of prophetick writings before they be fulfilled as well agrees with the conjecture Because they receive not the love of the Truth saith he For this cause God shall send them strong delusions 1 Thes 2. And this 't is very likely had no small influence in this case For if out of the Roman Religion we take all that which the Protestants receive and profess which the Romanists must needs confess to be truly Catholick the greatest part of the rest hath been either introduced or so new modelled and accommodated to the secular interest and advantage of the See of Rome within this 600 years last past as hath not only given occasion to most of the troubles and mischiefs in Europe ever since but very much injured dishonoured and prejudiced Christianity it self And when it pleased God by his providence both long since and again of latter days to raise up a people in the Confines of France who retaining that which
the last Edict but that he might prevent the conspiracy made by Coligny and his confederates against the King the Queen the King's Brethren the King of Navar and other Princes and Nobles That it was the King's pleasure that his Edicts might be observed and that the Protestants every where taking forth Letters of security from the Presidents should live quietly and safely under the King's protection upon pain of death to any that should injure or molest them in any thing On the other hand he should admonish the Protestants that they should keep themselves quiet at home and because in their Meetings and publick Assemblies there used to be such Counsels among the Protestants as were suspitious to Catholicks and which might put them upon new stirs therefore that they should abstain from those meetings and expect the same favour and safety from the King's clemency and goodness as he doth exercise towards others But if they should foolishly neglect this advice command and promise of the King and should presume to meet publickly stir up troubles and take up Arms under colour of their own defence he would then proceed against them as against Rebels To the same effect were Letters sent to Melchior Monpesatus President of Poictou Pria President of Toures and the Presidents of other Provinces Chabolius managed his office with great prudence and moderation having learnt that the Protestants who had hitherto been exasperated by severity and cruelty of punishments might be better reduced to their duty by clemency and mildness And matters were ordered without almost any bloud-shed in Burgundy many returning either through fear or of their own accord to the Religion of their Ancestors renouncing the Protestant Doctrines Only Claromontius Travius of the prime Nobility whose Sister Helena Antonius Grammontanus had married was when the news was hot slain at Dijon in the absence of Chabotius by the people Those that were suspected at Mascon being by the King's command apprehended and cast into prison by Philibertus sustained no further damage 30. So foul a tempest in France being in some sort allayed and the liberty of killing and plundering repressed when the more prudent that yet no way favoured the Protestant party did upon the sad thought of the present state of things by little and little come to themselves and abhorring the fact did curiously enquire into the causes of it and how it might be excused they thus judged That no example of like cruelty could be found in all Antiquity though we turned over the Annals of all Nations These kinds of outrages had been confined to certain men or to one place and might have been excused by the sense of injury newly offered or their rage did only exercise it self upon those whom it was their interest to remove out of the way For so by the command of Mithridates King of Pontus upon one message and the signification of one Letter 40000 Romans were slain in one day throughout all Asia The Sicilian Vespers So Peter King of Arragon commanded 8000 French-men to be slain in Sicily who had seized upon it in his absence But their case was far different from this For those Kings exercised their rage upon strangers and foreigners but this King upon his own subjects who were not more committed to his power than to his faith and trust They were obliged no otherwise by their faith given than to the strangers themselves but he was bound in a late league with his neighbouring Kings and Princes to keep that Peace which he had sworn to They used no arts unworthy of royal dignity to deceive them he for a snare abused his new engaged friendship and the sacred Nuptials of his own Sister whose wedding garment was even stained with bloud These are the vertues that use to be commended in Kings Justice Gentleness and Clemency but savageness and cruelty as in all others so especially in Princes use to be condemned Famous through all ages was Publius Scipip who was wont to say he had rather save one Citizen than slay a thousand enemies and Antonius who was called the Pious did often use that saying Kings indeed have power of life and death over the Subjects of their Realm but with this limitation that they should not proceed against them till their cause was heard upon a fair tryal This rage and blindness of mind was sent by God upon the French as a judgment for the daily execrations and reproaches of the Deity from which the King himself ill educated by his Mother and by those Tutors that she appointed him did not at all abstain the example whereof proceeding from the Court to the Cities and from the Cities to the Country Towns and Villages they now at every third word swore by the head death bloud heart of God Moreover the patience of God was even wearied with their Whoredoms Adulteries and such lusts as are not fit to be spoken Lastly nature it self doth now expostulate as it were with God for his so long patience and forbearance nor could the Country of France any longer bear such prodigious wickedness For as for the causes which are pretended against Coligny they are feigned with such improbability that they can hardly perswade children much less can they be proved For how is it probable that Coligny should enter into such a conspiracy within the walls of Paris who though he were guilty before the Pacification to suppose that yet certainly after the Edict if indeed the publick Faith and the King's promises ought to be observed he came to the King guiltless altogether abhorring a Civil War and solicitous only about the Belgick War But whereas they say he conspired-after he had received his wounds this hath less colour of truth For how could Coligny that was indisposed by two such wounds now grown old disabled in both his arms one of which the Physitians talked of cutting off rise with three hundred young men that attended him against an Army of sixty thousand men that bare him deadly hatred and that were well appointed with Arms How could he in so little time consult concerning so great and vast a design for he lived hardly forty hours after he had received his wound in which all conference was forbidden him by his Physitians Then had he been accused of any crime was he not committed to Cossenius and his guards and the passages being every where secured was he not in the King's power that he might in a moment if it had so pleased the King been thrust into prison and witnesses being prepared after the manner of judicial proceedings might he not have been proceeded against in form of Law Moreover if Coligni with his Dependents and Clients had conspired against the King why must needs the rest that were innocent so many Noble Matrons and Virgins who came thither upon the account of the Marriage so many great-bellied women so many ancient persons so many bed-ridden persons of both Sexes and all professions that were
over of Thuanus for the Story of the Combination having perceived something of the unhappy issue of her Neighbours Persecutions of the Professors of that Reformed Religion which she happily established and defended I began to perceive something of that DISTINGUISHING PROVIDENCE which is very Observable and Remarkable in the ensuing part of the Discourse to Sect. 61. Wherefore having cursorily run over some of the principal parts of that Story and satisfied my self that it would make good what I undertook I thought it an unworthy piece of laziness or negligence not to add that part also so pertinent so remarkable and necessary but hoped to have done it more briefly than I found I well could when I again set my self to the perusal of the History Having finished this I made some Reflections upon the whole and thereupon added the OBSERVATIONS Inferences and the rest which make up the last part and conclusion And this was the Occasion this the Matter and Method of the Discourse Now for the Manner of writing it when I began I was wholly a stranger to the Story and to all or most of the Books I have made use of had never read two leaves in Thuanus save part of the History of the Powder-Plot had never seen Davila had only occasionally if at all looked into any other of Books I have made use of Besides being most of it written in the Countrey and my own stock being but short I could not have that assistance from variety of Books which I desired and yet it pleased God many things fell in my way beyond my expectation and the Authors I have generally used are such whose Authority is beyond all exception the incomparable Thuanus Davila Perefix and others of the Roman Communion for I have but rarely followed any Writers of the Reformed Religion and more rarely without the concurrent authority of others But what is most considerable the greatest part being sent away in single sheets by the Post as it was written I could neither my self have the perusal of the entire work together nor have it perused by my friends before it was printed This I mention for my excuse of such mistakes as possibly may occur in it For I did not design to injure the Truth in any particular nor have I to my knowledg done it in any thing material only Sect. 12. you will meet with Lovain in Flanders which perhaps is in Brabant though by Flanders I then meant than part of the Low-Countries which was then under the King of Spain or the Archdukes Obedience and I know the name Flanders is used in as large a sense by many and commonly by the Italians and Sect. 34. pag. 48. 't is said he made them amends for it afterwards whereas that excommunication there mentioned was before which I did not then observe when I wrote it Again Sect. 42. pag. 74. you 'l find the D. of Tuscany Father to the Qu Mother which is a mistake for he was of the same Family and succeeded her Brother but was not her Father and therefore the Reader may either amend it or quite strike it out But these are such mistakes as are rarely escaped by those who write at more leisure and are no prejudice at all the Story If any other mistake that is material shall come to my knowledge whether by my own observation or the information of any other whether friend or foe I will not fail God willing publickly to acknowledge the same and if this discourse shall be thought worthy of another Edition to reform it For I approve not the use of Piae Fraudes and think Lying and Slandering as always unlawful and unworthy of a Christian so where matters of Religion are concerned to be prophane and sacrilegious The God of Truth is able to defend his own cause the Truth without such wicked shifts and when be pleaseth to suffer it to be oppressed for a time he doth with great wisdom permit it but in the mean time allows not us to vindicate it by such indirect means whereby we do as much as in us lyes oppose the design and course of his Providence Numquid Deus indiget vestro mendacio ut pro illo loquamini dolos Job 13.7 But if my hast hath made me in any thing through mistake to mis-represent any actions of the Papists to their prejudice it is likely it hath made me overlook as much more which might have been said against them Nor have I thereby so much injured them as they have injured themselves and their cause by such indirect and wicked practises as are beyond all contradiction to the great scandal of the most Holy Christian Religion which is that which in some places hath made my expressions more sharp than what otherwise I should have used Nor had it not been for that and for the great danger I apprehend our Country to be in by their restless mysterious practices for the discovery and prevention whereof the discovery of their former Policies and Practices may be of good use should I have delighted in such an undertaking I have otherwise no prejudice against them and could heartily wish that all which I have written had been false but since it is not only too true but we are still in danger from the same principles though the manner and method of their operation and practice may in some respects be altered I cannot but think the undertaking both lawful and necessary Nor is the honour of Religion ever a whit secured by palliating the irreligious practices of spurious Professors but better vindicated by publickly detecting and condemning and where there is a just Authority condignly punishing or correcting them This is more agreeable to the will of God and the course and methods of his Providence who useth not to dissemble the most secret miscarriages of his dearest children but either to detect them and bring them to light to the end they may be punished by the Ministers of his Justice or if they through want of knowledge power or fidelity do fail therein to do it himself by his Divine Judgments upon the offenders unless they prevent the same by timely and seriously judging themselves But still it may be objected but why such haste If it must be published why not upon more mature deliberation Why not the Errata though never so inconsiderable first corrected and perhaps why not the stile first better smoothed and polished and some things removed to their proper places I answer If we must stay till we can be secure against all mistakes we should have very few books ever published but it is sufficient if we can be secure for the main whereof I am very well satisfyed as to this work and for the stile and ornaments which most concern my self they were not tanti with me who neither undertook it nor proceeded in it upon self-respect but besides I was beyond my first intention ingaged in it and the Press was at work and being so
blown over but the Spaniard also for divers years diverted by his wars with Portugal from molesting the Queen in that manner which otherwise 't is likely he would have done and from some such Invasion as though then intended was not actually undertaken till ten years after We might here also remember Don John of Austria in the heat of his eager designs upon England cut off by the Plague in the flower of his age Thuan. if his heart was not broken as was thought by the disappointment of his ambitious designs after he had fouly Raleigh by the Popes Dispensation falsified his Oath taken to observe the Treaty made with the States General And we might here likewise take notice not only of what some may think observable in the Death of the King of Spain Thu. l. 120. if not devoured yet in a great measure wasted and consumed by Lyce bred in his own body which in so great quantities issued out of four several tumours in his breast as that it was as much as two men by turns could do to wipe them off from him with napkins and cloathes but of that which others may think more remarkable in his Life which is that having twice most solemnly Sworn to the States General of the Low-Countries over which he held only a kind of Seigniory Raleigh to Maintain their Ancient Rights Priviledges and Customes which they had enjoyed under their thirty and five Earls before him and afterwards obtained from the Pope a Dispensation of his Oathes which Dispensation says Sir Walter Rawleigh was the true cause of the war and Blood-shed since when he sought contrary to his Oathes and all Right and Justice not only by new devised and intolerable Impositions to tread their National and Fundamental Laws Priviledges and Ancient Rights under his feet and both by Arts dividing their Nobility and by Force to enslave their Persons and Estates and make himself Absolute but moreover by introducing among them the Exercise of the Spanish Inquisition to Tyrannize also over their Consciences and in pursuance hereof had committed many barbarous Murders and Massacres among them by the Just Providence of God he was thrown out of all and those Rights and Priviledges which he sought to abolish and that Religion which he sought to oppress were by that people retained and enjoyed with greater freedom and liberty than ever so that in conclusion the recompense of that oppression and cruelty which he exercised upon them was the loss of those Countries which says Raleigh for beauty gave place to none and for revenue did equal his West-Indies besides the loss of an hundred millions of money and of the lives of above four hundred thousand Christians by him cast away in his endeavours to enslave them If besides this we reflect upon his many and various attempts against the Queen of England Thu. l. 120. some of them with so great study and vast expense of his Treasure his unhappy Wars in aid of the Rebels in France which his ambitious hopes had no less devoured than they had England all of them unsuccessful and remarkably blasted and himself at last so weary of them that he was glad to desire peace with both his fruitless wasting of 5594. Myriads of Gold as himself confessed without any other profit than the acquest of Portugal which he thought might be as easily lost as his hopes of the Kingdom of France had suddenly vanished and however was sufficiently ballanced with his loss in Africa and elsewhere the death of his eldest son by his own command as the Iesuite * 9. Ration Temp. 12. Petavius saith expresly and the less of all his other sons save only Phil. 111. who succeeded him and was the only son of all his four wives who survived him If we seriously I say reflect upon all these we may look upon the prolongation of his life in respect of himself but as a continuance of trouble and misery to him and in respect of this blessed Queen to have been designed by God for an Exercise of her Faith and Virtue and a necessary means to render his Favour and never failing Providence over her the more Manifest Conspicuous and Exemplary to encourage others to Fidelity to him and Resignation to his most Wise Powerful and Gracious Providence But though these things do well deserve our notice yet that which I call a Distinguishing Providence is yet more admirable and remarkable in her nearer neighbours in France 39. When Queen Elizabeth began her Reign in England Henry 11. was King of France His Father Francis 1. who in the beginning of his Reign which was about the time of Luthers first appearing against Indulgences had unhappily entred into a league with the Pope Leo x. which in the judgment of many says Thuanus brought destruction upon his affairs and family though in many things unhappy throughout his whole Reign yet certainly was he in nothing more unhappy than in the guilt of so much innocent blood Thu. l. 6. as was shed in the barbarous and horrid murders and slaughters which were made upon the Protestants of Merindol and Cabriers condemned meerly for their Religion by a most rigid and severe Sentence of the Parliament of Provence after which he never enjoyed himself says Raleigh nor indeed his life long after his approbation of that Execution wherein their towns and villages to the number of two and twenty were burned and themselves without distinction of age or sex most barbarously murthered But being touched with remorse of Conscience and repenting of it upon his death bed he charged his Son that the injuries done to that people should be enquired into and their murtherers who in the cruelty of their execution had exceeded the severity of the Sentence to be duly punished threatening him with Gods judgments Thu. l. 3. Davil p. 14. if he neglected it And among other Admonitions which he then gave him this was one to beware of the Ambition of the Guises whom he foresaw if admitted to the administration of the Kingdom would reduce both his Children and the People of France to great miseries But Henry 11. no sooner came to his Fathers throne but he presently began to practise the contrary to his directions Davila p. 15. 19 displacing those that before had any part in the government and substituting in their room the same men whom his Father had discharged and Guise with the first and at length the three brothers of Guise got into their hands all the principal governments and chief dignities of the Kingdom together with the super-intendancy of all affairs both Martial and Civil the Consequence of which did afterwards make good the truth of his fathers prediction Nor did he much better perform his fathers charge in doing Justice upon the bloody offenders for though he gave the cause a long hearing Thu. l. 6. yet did not the issue of the judgment answer the great expectations which the so
upon them the issue of their so necessary undertakings if it pleased God to bless them in so just a cause would sufficiently clear them Upon which they changed their resolutions and agreed to take up Arms for their own defence which accordingly they did to the no little joy of the Cardinal of Lorain that the business was brought to the necessity of a War which Cardinali Lotaringus rem ad belli necessitatem deductam gaudens says Thuanus and a little before speaking of him Turbas consiliis suis opportunas existimans after several ineffectual treaties for an accommodation shortly ensued And these were the true causes and occasions of the second Civil War which after many Noblemen and Gentlemen of both sides slain at the Battel of St. Denis and among them the Constable the last of the Triumvirate and a principal Author of the late oppressions at least by protecting the actors in them from Justice and some other acts of Hostility was about six moneths after it began by a fraudulent peace rather intermitted than concluded for about six moneths after it broke out again upon the like causes and occasions 44. In the mean time that we may note it by the way Philip King of Spain a principal promoter and inventer of those oppressions and troubles to his neighbours escaped not a remarkable judgment of God upon him for at this same time Thu. l. 43. his eldest and then only son Prince Charles designed to kill him or at least he thought so or however suspecting that he favoured the Protestants in the Low-Countreys or for some other reason pretended so and therefore caused him to be taken out of his bed in the night and committed to custody Whereupon the young Prince falling distracted and often attempting to kill himself he was at last by Philip his Fathers own command having first consulted with the Inquisition poysoned Few months after his Queen whom he had employed in those bloudy consultations at the enterview at Bayonne died great with child and not without suspition of poison by his own means being as was thought jealous and suspitious of her too much familiarity with his own son whom he had not long before thus murthered And in her who was the eldest daughter of Hen. 2. of France married at the time of his death as hath been said and in this late consultation in France prosecuting his cruelties and so by her own act contracting a participation of his guilt we may take notice of the divine vengeance pursuing his posterity Nor was this divine vengeance upon King Philip thus remarkable only in those his domestick troubles but also in the Civil Commotions both in the Low-Countreys which by his bloudy consultations with the Inquisition the just judgment of God giving him up to be infatuated by them and the Jesuites and the the cruelties of Alva the same instrument whom he had employed to raise those troubles in France and now made Governor of the Low-Countreys produced there when he thought all things so safe and secure as that he might be at leisure to assist in the troubles which he had raised in France and besides these which as they at present afflicted him so afterward produced his loss of a great part of those Countreys in those Commotions even in Spain it self Thu. l. 43. by the Moors in Granada which for two years during those wars which he had caused in France made him feel the smart at home of such commotions and troubles as he had procured to others abroad And by these means as on the one side his pernitious counsels were justly punished so on the other was he diverted from prosecuting the same by sending those Forces against the Protestants in France which otherwise he had undoubtedly done And to these might be added his loss of Goletta in Africa an 1574. Thu. l. 58. and with it the Kingdom of Tunis which concerned him in point of safety and security for navigation as well as of reputation but that some few years intervene 45. But to return to France the War after six months intermission upon the like causes and occasions breaking out again like diseases upon a relapse was both more violent and of longer continuance Yet the counsels of the Queen-mother prevailing who according to the genius and mode of her Country sought all along rather by her Italian arts and surprizes to compass her ends than by the hazard of a Civil War which Spain and the Guises most desired as best accommodate to their designs it was within the compass of two years brought to conclusion Thu. l. 47. upon such conditions granted to the Protestants as were so much more fair and reasonable by how much with greater fraud and deep design to ensnare them they were granted and yet so qualified and limited as not to give cause of suspition by too great indulgence And now the King was grown up to a capacity of deriving upon himself his Fathers guilt and the guilt of all those murthers and cruelties acted indeed under his authority but yet in his minority by his own actual and voluntary management of affairs for the future whereunto he was in no mean degree disposed both by his natural temper and disposition and by his education by nature beyond measure cholerick says Davila and yet had from his Mother derived so great a share of the Italian genius of deep and subtil dissimulation as did most notably qualifie him for the most effectual execution of malice and revenge Nor was his Education less accommodate thereunto having from his childhood been inured to the effusion of his peoples blood for which purpose as was said it was that he and his brothers while yet children were by the Duke of Guise caused to be spectators of the slaughters at Amboise Thu. l. 24. where the River was covered with the dead bodies and the streets with the bloud of those who by precipitate condemnations without due process of Law were executed and slaughtered and the whole Town turned into a kind of grove of Gallowses and Gibbets with people hanged on them he was arrived to the age of twenty years and upwards in the midst of Tumults Oppressions and Civil Wars had imbibed as great a a prejudice against the Protestants as all the arts and calumnies of the Cardinal of Lorain and that Faction could infuse into him and that incensed by the foulest mis-representations of the late actions of the Protestants that could be devised and by his Mother was instructed in all the Italian arts of Government and Policy Thu. l. 50. Optimis a matre ad bene recteque regnandum monitis instructus says he of himself Being thus qualified for it he now of himself undertakes the execution of the conclusions at Bayonne and resolving to prosecute the same not after the Guisian and Spanish methods by the continuance of the Civil War but by the more subtil and safe Italian method of his Mother
Thu. l. 53. And though to the Pope and Spaniard he owned that he did it upon the score of Religion yet knowing that with others this would not so much excuse as aggravate and increase the odium of it some other cause was to be devised and pretended And therefore first to extenuate the fact V. l. 54. he pretends that his commands extended only to the cutting off of Colinius and his Confederates which thing being once undertaken the tumult at Paris proceeded further than he intended or was able so soon as he desired to restrain and that other Cities taking example from thence did the like without his license and to his great grief and trouble and then for the cause pretends a Conspiracy against himself his Mother and Brothers and Navar himself and to make Conde King and afterwards to kill him also and set up Colinius And though the causes pretended against Colinius in the judgment of the most prudent men who were not at all addicted to the Protestant party says Thuanus had not so much colour of truth as will perswade even children to believe them much less any sufficient proof yet to put some colour upon the business a Trial was ordered to be had in form of Law and two days after a Jubilee as hath been said was appointed and an Edict published wherein the King declares that what had happened was done by his express command but not out of hatred to the Protestant Religion or to derogate from the Edicts of Pacification which he still desired should be inviolably and religiously observed but to prevent the Conspiracy of Colinius and his Confederates c. and Letters to like purpose were sent to the Presidents of the Provinces declaring as was pretended the TRUE causes of the tumult and commanding them to treat the Protestants in all friendly manner Thu. l. 53. c. And that nothing might be wanting says Thuanus to the height of madness that they might seem to glory and triumph in so detestable an enterprise in emulation of the ancient Emperors Medals were coyned with the Inscriptions VIRTUS IN REBELLEIS PIETAS EXCITAVIT JUSTITIAM Divers other such like arts were used to put a face upon the business and make it look like a happy prevention of some terrible Conspiracy But what was the most detestable of all by the accumulating of sin upon sin as is usual in such cases was the gross abuse of Justice it self whereby the Courts of Justice were drawn into the participation of the guilt by an horrible and abominable Sentence not only against Colinius who was dead but his children who were alive and also against Monsieur de Briquemaut who had fled to the English Ambassadors and Arnald Cavagnes Master of Requests who had hid himself hard-by with a friend who admonished him of the danger but were both taken and imprisoned in the Palace and the same day that Sentence was given against Colinius were condemned to death which Cavagnes suffered with admirable constancy reciting Prayers out of the Psalms by heart in Latin for three hours together with his eyes steadily fixed towards Heaven but his companion at first affrighted with his approaching death made an unworthy offer for the redemption of his life to discover a means how to surprize Rochel yet afterwards when the King refused that condition but offered him another which was that he should acknowledg himself guilty of the crimes objected to him and confess before the people that there was a Conspiracy entred into by Colinius against the King he refused that and chose rather to suffer death which accordingly he did with Cavagnes While these such like arts were used to excuse and disguise the business at home to do it abroad besides the Queens Letters above-mentioned were several Ambassadors employed in Helvetia Germany England Poland and other foreign Countries where they either resided before or were sent on purpose for this service and Learned men suborned and perswaded to do it by printed Books But all these not having any certain ground of truth as a common foundation for all to build upon while each alledged not what he did know or believe to be true but what his own genius dictated as most plausible and likely to put some colour upon the business some extenuating the fact as to the King 's acting in it and others on the contrary justifying the same some excusing it only by way of recrimination for things done in the late Wars and others insisting upon the pretended conspiracy of Colinius were not only confuted by others who also in print answered their writings and speeches but of themselves betrayed and detected the vanity of their several pretences and allegations by their inconsistency and disagreement one with another The Learned Lawyer Fr. Baldwin was hereunto sollicited but was more ingenuous than to be retained in the patronage of so foul a cause and yet among those who undertook this office besides the Mercenaries were some persons otherwise of honour and repute who because what was done could not be undone partly to consult the credit of their King and Countrey partly to accommodate the present state of affairs endeavoured either by feigned praises or officious excuses to cover and palliate that fact which in their hearts they detected And some were therein so far transported and over-shot themselves out of zeal for the honour and good of their Countrey that our ingenuous author deplores their actings in it especially as to that foul business of the Trial and Sentence above-mentioned But generally the French Courtiers who were more ingenuous than to prostitute their reputation by asserting that pitiful pretence of the conspiracy yet used all their art to represent the case as a sudden accidental thing and not so long before contrived as the Italians and Spaniards relate 48. It is very usual and even natural to men especially to the more considering minds when any thing rare and extraordinary doth occur not to rest satisfied with the bare contemplation of the thing but also to reflect back and enquire into the causes of it And therefore since Thuanus relates that the more prudent of those Lib. 53. who being no way addicted to the Protestant party with good and honest meaning sought how to excuse this execrable fact yet in their heart detesting the same did also seriously consider the causes of it their sense and judgment in that respect may likewise deserve our observation They saw apparently that so infamous and pernitious counsels could not proceed but from minds so strangely infatuated and blinded and did seem to argue a special judgment of God upon them And of that the causes to which it might be reasonably attributed were very obvious and easy to be discovered For such was the profaneness debauchery and wickedness which prevailing in the King through his evil Education by his Mother and those Tutors to whom she committed him and in the Court were by the evil example
of all sides is confessed to be truly Catholick rejected those novel corruptions and abuses though perhaps with them some things which might be tolerated and thereby gave so fair occasion to the French upon further consideration and with more mature deliberation to reform the same as Queen Eliz. did here that a great part of the most sober and pious of the French Nation even Bishops and Cardinals being thereupon sensible of the need of it did earnestly desire and sollicit the convention of a National Synod to that purpose the French Kings were unhappily so far wrought upon by the arts of Rome as not only ungratefully to reject that benefit offered by the Divine Providence but at last to persecute those who were made the occasions of it And this seems to have been so manifest a cause of the troubles mischiefs and adversities which by the providence of God have befallen that Nation and their Princes since the beginning of that Century 1500. that it is strange but that the height of contentions then on foot might perhaps hinder it that neither those prudent considering men did take notice of it in this case nor yet our judicious and candid Author who relates their judgment and had himself observed almost as much in Lewis 12. If it be fit says he for a mortal man to speak his opinion concerning the eternal Counsels of God Lib. 1. I should say that there was no other cause why that most excellent Prince in so many respects commendable and worthy of a better fortune should meet with so many conflicts with adversities than that he had contracted so near alliance with Pope Alexander 6. and cherished the cruelties lusts perfidiousness and fortunes of that impure Father the Pope and of his Son Caesar Borgia a man drowned in all kind of wickedness and then relating the King's calling of a Synod upon his provocations by the next Pope Julius 2. undoubtedly so ordered for the same purpose by the Divine Providence first at Lions and then at Pisa for the reformation of the Church and his medals coined with this Inscription PERDAM BABYLONIS NOMEN and how after all this he renounced the Council at Pisa through the importunities of his wife and subscribed to the Lateran Council to gratifie the next Pope Leo 10. and adding that in the judgment of many he had done more advisedly if he had persevered in his purpose of reforming the Church he concludes These therefore were the causes both of the declination of our Empire and of the adverse fortune of Lewis who after all his other misfortunes died without issue male which he much desired to succeed him And in this King is very observable that as there was in him no want of magnanimity humane prudence or care for himself the glory of his Kingdom and prosperity of his affairs to which his misfortunes could be imputed which makes the judgment of God therein the more apparent so neither could any vice or other fault be noted in him which might be assigned as a cause of that judgment but what is here mentioned the neglect of that duty whereunto he was so fairly led and whereof he was so far convinced as that he began to put it in execution In the time of his successor Francis 1. all things seemed to conspire in giving occasion every where to the Reformation of the Church what through the Pope's differences with several Princes which produced the abolition and abrogation of the Papal Authority for some time in Spain and afterward in England what through that abominable imposture of Indulgences and other their gross wickedness and abuses which provoked Martin Luther and other learned men to search into and detect their mystery of iniquity and discover many gross errors and abuses crept into the Church whereupon ensued the Reformation happily begun and promoted by many Protestant Princes and Cities in Germany and other parts But Francis not only neglected the occasion and rejected and made himself unworthy of the common benefit of it but moreover contracted that * He married his Son Henr. 2. to Katharine of Medices daughter to Lawrence D. of Urbin who was Nephew to Leo 10. and Cousin to Clem. 7. alliance with the Popes and at last began those †V. 3. Sect. 39. pag. 56. persecutions the unhappy consequence of both which we are now relating Nor was the King of Spain much more happy in his persecutions of the Protestants in the Low-Countries the consequence whereof was the loss of the best part of them and all he got by the Inquisition in Spain was but the exclusion of light and truth from his people and his own slavery to the strong delusions and infatuations of the Jesuites who precipitated him into divers dishonourable unsuccesful and to his own affairs pernitious undertakings 49. But to return to the effects and consequences of that bloudy act whereof what hath yet been related was but the first fruits of those Counsels from which so much happiness tranquility and glory were so long expected instead whereof was reaped only horror shame and anxiety whereunto succeeded a plentiful harvest of other real troubles For the King and that Faction which prevailed at Court after so many former breaches of publick Faith by this so inhumane cruelty and foul breach of Faith so much the greater by how much the greater arts and deep dissimulation had been used before to raise a trust confidence of their sincerity had now driven those of the Protestants who remained alive to that distrust and jealousie the usual fruits of perfidiousness of what-ever Letters Promises Edicts or other means could be devised to satisfy them that nothing could give them any assurance of their lives and safety but retaining those places which by the last agreement of Peace were left in their possession for their security and were now had the agreement been performed Thu. l. 53. to have been delivered to stand upon their defence And though many of them not only doubting of their strength but making scruple of the justice of the cause now since not only the Princes of the blood to whom the administration of the Kingdom did belong were absent but moreover the King himself was grown a man did dispute against it and from both those grounds urged all the arguments they could yet against the first of these the horror of these slaughters which they had so lately seen and did foresee prevailed and despair made the most timerous couragious And this also made the answer which was returned by others to the latter more satisfactory to the rest that to take up Arms for their just defence not to offer violence to any but only to repel the injury and save themselves from slaughter was neither by the Laws of God or man unlawful that it ought not to be reputed a war against the King but a just defence against their enemies who abused the King's authority to destroy them who if
so powerful as to have proceeded so far in the late tumult beyond his consent or privity or prevalent with him as to work his assent to so unjust and foul an action they had the more reason to secure themselves against their power and treachery till justice should be done upon them nor ought they to doubt but in so just a cause upon their serious repentance trust in God and humble supplications to him he would graciously pity their misery and provide some unexpected means for their relief And therefore seeing La Charite was surprized at the time of the massacre and the same was attempted against Montabon Da. p. 377. and being further warned by what was lately done at * Castrum in Albigensi agro Castres which after great promises of safety by the King was notwithstanding permitted to be plundered and layed waste by the slaughters and rapines of Creuseta Rochel having for some daies kept a solemn fast with divers other places prepare for their defence And at last when arts failed especially after the massacre at Burdeaux in the midst of their treaties the King's Forces were sent to assault them And these says Thuanus after a more particular relation of them were the beginnings of the Fourth Civil War in France the more memorable because from so small beginnings beyond the hope and expectation even of those who through necessity rather than upon counsel and design did manage it when so many Commanders being slain the Nobility who remained dispersed abroad and the people in all places astonished all was thought subdued within the compass of a year without the foreign aid of any Prince and money every where after so great plunders failing them it restored the affairs of the Protestants to good condition again And yet this was only a defensive War on their part and as he says of necessity wherein those poor people fought only for their lives and safety and not to neglect the King's commands were willing to keep their meetings at Sermons only secretly in the night and not openly in the day-time which yet could not be denied them without manifest injustice and breach of publick Faith But such were their apprehensions of the perfidiousness and cruelty of their enemies and resolutions thereupon that they chose rather to suffer all the miseries and necessities that humane nature is able to bear than again to trust to the mercy or promises of them whom they had so often found perfidious and moreover at last so barbarously inhumane and cruel And therefore at Samerre it is almost incredible what they suffered Thu. l. 55. Having spent their stores they killed and eat their Asses Mules Horses Dogs and all other living creatures they could meet with and when that also was spent they devised ways to make Hydes Skins Parchment Bridle-rains and what-ever was made of leather edible and Bran Straw Nutshels the Horns and Hoofs of Beasts even dugg out of the dunghils and the very dung of Horses and such things as scarce any other creatures will feed on insomuch that whereas in eight moneths siege they had not lost 100 slain in forty days above 500 died of hunger and 200 more were famished almost to death Rochel indeed was not driven to that extremity Thu. l. 56. partly having made better provisions for themselves partly by an extraordinary supply little less than miraculous for all the time of the siege the tides it being a Sea-Town left the poor people such plenty of a kind of shell-fish as very well supplied them with food which when the siege was ended presently vanished and were not seen in such plenty much longer Yet did they testify as great abhorrence of the perfidiousness and cruelty of their enemies by their incredible courage and activity even of their women in the repulse of several fierce assaults and also in sallies and in conclusion the assailants seeking rather occasions how to raise the siege with credit than having any hope to obtain the City by force Thu. l. 56. they came to this agreement for themselves Montabon and Nismes Da. p. 392. confirmed by an Edict That free profession of their Religion should be permitted them according to the Edicts made in behalf of the Protestants their priviledges confirmed no Garrison imposed on them only the King should appoint them a Governor and they should be governed by the Laws and Customs which they had used even since they became Subjects to the Crown of France c. Some time after Samere obtained by agreement to enjoy the benefit of the Pacification made with Rochel but paying 40000 l. for the saving of their Movables And this end says our Author had this fourth Civil War after the tumult at Paris when the Courtiers thought all subdued by that slaughter begun and finished in the assaulting of certain Cities and especially in the siege of that one City of Rochel which for so many months did most stifly beyond the opinion of all men sustain and at last break the strength and force of the whole Kingdom raised against it besides Aumale Tular Cossens Goa his Brother and other 40000 Souldiers the very number said by Davila to have been slain in the massacre being slain and dead of sickness and among these 60 chief * Ordinum Ductores Commanders and as some say most of the actors of that tragedy besides a vast deal of mony and military provisions spent and at last things being reduced to those streights that the King contrary to what had before been falsly perswaded him thought himself a greater gainer by that Peace than by the Parisian slaughter Such were the effects whether of the Italian Policy or the Romish Doctrine of not keeping Faith with Hereticks 50. He had no sooner ended this War Thu. l. 57. but he began to be grievously afflicted with that fatal disease which in few months after put an end to his life not without suspition of poison by his Mother and Brother Anjou and besides in the mean time by her arts and the influences of the Guises upon her was presently involved in a fit of Civil War And this not only against the Protestants whom having sufficient cause from former experience to beware of the perfidiousness and cruelty of their enemies after other new occasions of suspition she forced again to provide for their security and stand upon their defence by a perfidious attempt to surprize Rochel by her emissaries who had corrupted some in the City to betray it to the Forces which for that purpose they had drawn near it but also against a considerable party of the Catholicks as they call them whom while she thought it necessary for the continuance of her power and authority in the government to keep up and foment factions among the chief Nobility she by over-doing what she designed forced for their own safety and security to joyn their complaints and forces with the Protestants Whereby considering the division of
Massacre Lastly when we see after all imaginable injuries and indignities offered him his murder not only plotted and counselled by the chief of the Grand Council at Paris but also executed by an Emissary sent from thence by a religious Zealot of that Religion for which himself had been so barbarously cruel and in that * Thu. l. 51. Serres p. 789. very place at St. Cloud where some time the Council of the Massacre had been held This we may not without reason look upon as the just judgment of God upon him for his wicked dealings in that barbarous Massacre Again when we see his Popish Subjects every where break faith with him and all bonds and oaths of Obedience and Fidelity to him and teach and hold it to be their duty so to do when we see them through whose importunity he had violated the publick faith given to the Protestants to rage and storm and furiously exclaim upon his breach of faith with themselves when we see him brought to need and desire the assistance of the King of Navar and his Protestants with whom he had broken faith against those for whom to comply with their perfidious and rebellious humours he did it and by them notwithstanding thus brought to his end and murthered with whom he had so basely complied in that perfidious dealing this we may likewise with great reason look upon as a just judgment of God upon him for that his perfidious dealing with the Protestants And certainly if all the circumstances of the History from that barbarous Massacre of the Protestants at Merindol and Cabriers under Francis 2. to the death of this his Grand-son Henr. 3. the last of his race for almost 50 years be duly considered it will be hard to find in any History a more eminent example of Divine Vengeance prosecuting a Family to the utter extirpation of it than this an example wherein the judgment of God is more conspicuous and remarkable or the causes of that judgment more manifest and apparent wherein the sin and the punishment do more exactly agree or of a more remarkable distinguishing providence if with this the hapy reign and actions of their neighbour Prince Queen Elizabeth be impartially compared This was a judgment not upon one person alone nor upon a Family so as to involve all in one sudden destruction as is sometimes seen but a continued prosecution of vengeance against a whole Family for three generations without intermission V. Sect. 39. the Grand-father Fran. 1. not long enjoying himself or his life after he had authorized that fatal persecution His Son Henr. 2. having time to repent and reform and admonished so to do by his dying Father but persevering in his Fathers sin cut off by a violent death in the height and heat of his persecutions against the Protestants and upon his consummation of an agreement for a War against them His four Sons all living to be men but not to half the age of men three of them coming successively to the Crown but so as rather only to wear the Crown than by a just and peaceable exercise of their authority to sway the Scepter being at first over-ruled by the deceitful and pernicious counsels of their Mother and her Italians and the violent courses of the Guisian Faction to destroy their subjects and at last necessitated by the bold attempts of the Guisians and fury of the Leaguers to fight for Crown Liberty and Life against them whereby they and their Kingdom were continually embroiled in Civil Wars and miserable confusions each of them succeeding other as in their access to the Crown so in their unhappy reign if they might be said to reign while so obnoxious to the wills of others and continually imbroiled in such confusions and exit and catastophre of it the first Francis 2. cut off by a death remarkable though not for the kind yet for the time and season of it both in respect of his years and of those who were preserved by it V. Sect. 40. p. 63 64. the next Charles 9. living some years longer and thereby more capable by his own personal management of the affairs of the Kingdom to derive the guilt of his Ancestors miscarriages upon himself and increase it by his own which accordingly he did in no mean degree being likewise cut off by a death every way remarkable in respect both of the time and all other circumstances and lastly the third Brother Hen. 3. coming likewise to that unhappy end which hath been but now related all of them with their Brother Alancon dying without issue to succeed them Nor did this fate attend only the succession but light also upon those who were incapable to succeed in the Government their bastard Brother Angolesme who had been a forward actor in the Massacre being also as hath been said cut off by a violent death and of their Sisters Elizabeth the eldest * V. Sect. 39. p. 60. married to Phil. 2. of Spain a Marriage concluded with an agreement between him and her Father of a War against the Protestants but solemnized with the otherwise untimely death of her Father and by Philip her Husband first employed in the * V. Sect. 42. p. 74. Consultation at Bayonne and at last brought to that †V. Sect. 44. unhappy end when great with child and in the 23 th year of her age which hath been mentioned before and is more fully related in the late French History of Dom Carlos and Margaret the youngest first forced by her Mother and Brother Charles to a Marriage with the King of Navar that unhappy Marriage which was made the introduction to the Massacre afterwards for her * V. Busbeq ep Aug. 27. 1583. Da. p. 599. Thu. l. 80. lewdness and incontinency reproachfully turned from the Court by her next Brother Henr. 3. and at last divorced from her Husband when King of France without issue by him unless she had any by any other which was kept secret as her Brother objected to her If their other Sister Claud married to Charles Duke of Lorain was less unhappy in this respect she seems less to have merited the like misfortune for we meet with no mention of her in all the story of these confusions in France Thus were five Kings in a continued succession cut off besides three others of the same line the youngest son of Francis 1. in few months after the beginning of those persecutions at his age of 23. and the second and youngest of Hen. 2. who never came to the Crown and their whole line and posterity extirpated in France while they sought the extirpation of the Protestants there whereby the Crown at last notwithstanding all opposition and endeavours to hinder it descended to a Protestant Prince and all this by a constant course of Divine Vengeance upon that Family for about 44 years for so long it was from the execution of the Decree of the Parliament of Province Apr. 1545. and
the death of the King 's youngest son Sept. 8. following to the murder of Henr. 3. Aug. 1589. the very same space of time which Queen Elizabeth happily and prosperously reigned in England and most of it contemporary Wherein it is very plain and observable a triple difference between her and them viz. a different cause or end and aim of their actions a different manner of proceeding and a different success As to the Cause they designed and endeavoured the suppression of the reformed Religion and extirpation of the Professors of it in their territories she established and promoted it in her Dominions As to their manner of proceeding they fought to attain their ends by fraud and violence slaughters and inexecrable severity either without Law or contrary to Law or by executions exceeding in severity the very rigour of the Decrees Laws or Edicts against the Protestants and all for no other cause but their Religion a Religion which teacheth nothing dishonourable to God or Christ or injurious to man which embraceth all that can reasonably be proved to have been taught by Christ or his Apostles receiveth honoureth and commends to the diligent study of all the sacred Scriptures such a Religion as they who persecute it confess to be true in what it affirms and is the most essential part of their own only believes not what they are not sufficiently convinced to be true and with no little reason suspect to be false or not proposed to their belief by Divine authority She did nothing without Law or contrary to the Laws was very moderate in making and no less in executing any Laws against Papists The first she made in the first and fift years of her Reign being so far from introducing any new severity that they take off from the harshness of what was in force before and those and the rest not being made against their Religion in general but upon special and particular necessary and urgent occasions for the necessary asserting and preservation of her own just authority against those who endeavoured to set up a pretended foreign jurisdiction against her to absolve her subjects from all duty and obligation of obedience to her and excite them to rebellions and to joyn with foreign enemies or by assassination to destroy her whereby she was necessitated and forced through their continual wicked seditious and rebellious practices for the curbing and restraining of them to proceed contrary to her own disposition to more and more severities of Laws which though none of them made without just cause and some special provocation yet were executed with admirable moderation the next after those above mentioned which was made in the thirteenth year of her Reign V. Camd. an 1577. p. 286. being occasioned by the Northern Rebellion and the Pope's Bull to absolve her subjects from their obedience yet notwithstanding in six whole years after was not put in execution against any one though there were those apprehended who had offended against it and in ten years after that rebellion were there but five executed till the further provocations before mentioned in the 29 th and following Paragraphs necessitated the execution of the Laws then in force and the enacting of some others in the 23 27 29 and 35 years of her Reign and yet did not the severity which was exercised in all her Reign against Papists equal what was done against the Protestants in two years of her Sisters Reign and oftner than once in few days in France and professedly for their Religion only whereas it cannot be proved * Sir Fr. Bacon in his Observations upon the Libel point 3. and Collection of the Queens Felicities and the late Treatise of the Grounds Reasons and Provocations necessitating the Sanguinary Laws Edit Lond. 1664. quarto that throughout her whole Reign there was any one executed meerly for their Religion Such certainly was her lenity and moderation in this respect considering the daily and high provocations against her as plainly argues an admirable magnanimity and piety in her and is scarce to be parallell'd in any History not to be denied but by such as have cast off all ingenuity and sense of their own credit and reputation and hath extorted the †V. Watson Widdrington c. apud Foulis l. 7. c. 2. The Jesuits Reasons unreasonable confession and provoked the free acknowledgment of her more candid and ingenuous adversaries There might also be observed a great difference between the actions of the Protestants in France and the Papists both here and there too but that for brevity sake shall be left to the Readers own observation from what hath been related of each Therefore lastly as to their success they while by fraud and violence they sought the utter extirpation of the Reformed Religion and Professors of it in France were themselves extirpated there and the last of their race cut off by his own Subjects of that same Religion which by those wicked courses was sought to be established and the Religion which they sought to suppress and extirpate took deeper root and flourished more notwithstarding all their opposition and persecutions She while with rare moderation and a generous plain-dealing constancy and resolution established the Reformed Religion both easily and happily attained her end and was her self established in her Throne and in a long happy and prosperous Reign as long as all theirs from the beginning of their persecutions preserved from all the secret plots and machinations and open rebellions and assaults of her enemies made victorious over all and at last brought to her grave in peace and in a good old age leaving her Kingdoms in peace and in a flourishing condition and a blessed and glorious memory behind her while they were cut off in the flower or middle of their age and left their Kingdom embroiled in Civil Wars Confusion and Misery and an infamous memory of their no less unsuccesful than perfidious and barbarous actions 55. Nor was this distinguishing Providence thus visible only between her and those who persecuted the Reformed Religion but also between her and those who deserted the same as is to be seen in the next succeeding King of France Henr. 4. the greatest part of whose Reign was contemporary with her 1561. See before Sect. 41. p. 67. and in his Father before him Antony King of Navar who being drawn in by the Pope's Legate and Guises in hopes to recover his Kingdom of Navar or satisfaction for it to desert the Protestants and become Head of the Popish party within the space of about one year after ended his life by a shot before Rouen Had he lived longer says * P. 22. Perefix the Hugonots had without doubt been ill dealt with in France But having received his deaths-wound he became more †Thu. l. 33. solicitous for his own salvation than for his Kingdom for which he had thus wavered in his Religion and at last declared that if he recovered he would
to their General who is always chosen by the King of Spain and whom they profess to respect as God present upon earth and promise a blind Obedience as they call it to him absolutely in all things and to the Pope to whom because they are so obsequious they ought so much the more to be suspected by the French who indeed acknowledge the Pope as Head and Prince of the Church but so as that he is bound to obey the sacred Decrees and Oecumenical Councils as inferior to them that he can decree nothing against the Kingdom or their Kings or contrary to the Decrees of the Court of Parliament or in prejudice of the Bishops within their limits and therefore to admit those new Sectaries would be to nourish so many enemies within the bowels of the Kingdom who if it should happen that the Popes in a fury should raise arms against us would denounce war against the King and Nation of France also in respect of their unreasonable and exorbitant priviledges contrary to the Common Law and of their ambitious Title their Practice for corrupting of youth and ruining of Families and lastly addressing himself more especially to the Senators he admonished them to beware that they did not when too late condemn their own credulity when they should see through their connivance that the publick tranquility not only in this Kingdom but through the Christian World should be endangered by the craft guiles superstition dissimulation impostures and evil arts of these men But the Senate whether through security or hatred of the Protestants whom these men were believed born to subdue determined to deliberate further on the business in the mean time granting them liberty publickly to open their Schools and instruct the youth And here we may take notice by the way 5 Apr. 1565. who were the first and chief favourers and introducers of the Jesuites and thence further observe whose Scholars they were who were the chief actors in those troubles in France But thus hung the cause till Apr. 1594. Thu. l. 110. after the discovery of Barrieres conspiracy the University with unanimous consent nemine reclamante renewed their Suit and prayed Judgment by their supplication to the Parliament wherein they set out that the Estates in the Senate had long since complained of this new Sect that great confusions were then raised by them in the discipline of the Schools that from that time they have given occasion of greater troubles since the factious did openly addict themselves to the Spaniards party and have confounded not only the City but the whole Kingdom with horrid seditions that this was prudently foreseen from the beginning by the Colledge of Divines who by their Decree declared this new sect to have been introduced to the destruction of all Discipline as well Civil as Ecclesiastical and namely denying the obedience of the University as well to the Rector of it as moreover to the Arch-Bishops Bishops Curates and others the Prelates of the Church that notwithstanding those Jesuites made supplication to the Senate to be incorporated into the University and the cause being heard the Senate suspended the the Suit Salvo partium jure so that nothing in the interim should be innovated in the cause in prejudice of the Decree that yet the Jesuites have not only not at all obeyed the Decree of the Court but forgetting their sacerdotal profession have thrust themselves into publick businesses carried themselves as spies for the Spaniards and managed their concerns and therefore pray that since all these things are openly and publickly known the Senate will interpose their authority and by their Decree command that Sect to depart not only from the University of Paris but out of the Kingdom and exterminate them thence Hereupon after various delays by the Jesuites the cause came again to an hearing in the Parliament not openly but at the instance and through the importunity of the Jesuites and their friends the dores being shut And Ant. Arnald of Counsel for the University deploring the condition of France heretofore formidable but of late become despicable to all through factions which factions have been caused by the Jesuites largely confirmed from experience of what had since been acted the truth of what was wisely foreseen and foretold so many years before That the Emperor Charles 5. when fortune favouring him he conceived hopes of obtaining and transferring to his Family a universal Monarchy and by his own sagacity and long experience found that many were tied up by scruples of conscience could not devise a more effectual means to work upon them than by introducing men of the Spanish design the Jesuites to the destruction of others under shew of Religion who in secret at confessions and openly also when occasion should be offered in their Sermons alienating the credulous and simple people from the obedience of their lawful Governors should insensibly draw them to his party That the principal Vow of these men is to be absolutely and in all things obedient to the General of their Order who for the most part is a Spaniard or subject of Spain as appears from the series of those who for these 50 years from the beginning of their Society have been their Generals for such were 1. Ignatius Loiola their founder 2. Jac. Lain 3. Enaristus 4. Fr. Borgia and 5. at present Cl. Aquanina that to their vow these horrible words are annexed in which they profess to acknowledge Christ as present in their General that their Sect whereas in Italy and France at the beginning it was generally opposed was with great applause approved in Spain they pray day and night for the safety and prosperity of the pious prudent vigilant Catholick King of Spain who opposeth himself as a wall of defence for the house of God the Catholick Faith but for the most Christian King of France never and let the F. General say the word that the King of France should be killed the command of the Spaniard must ex voti necessitate be obeyed That though upon their petition at Rome for the Popes Confirmation an 1539. they were at first opposed yet at last obtained it this fourth vow being added to it that they should be ready to obey the Pope at a beck which is that which doth so much ingratiate them at Rome but ought to make them so much the more suspected in France And that their Counsels tend to the subversion of the Kingdom is hence manifest that when ever the Popes exceeding their authority have sent out their censures against the Kingdom of France there have not been wanting pious men who with the common suffrage of the Gallican Church have couragiously opposed such their rash attempts as he shews more at large from divers instances in the times of Carolus Calvus Ludovicus Pius Philippus Pulcher Carolus vi and Ludovicus xii but now in these late tumults it hath fallen out quite contrary the sacred Order being corrupted with the venom
all kind of crimes even those which are not comprehended in Bulla Coenae Dominicae and from those also which the holy See hath reserved to it self and pro tempore to commute vows and pilgrimages c. by Jul. 3. to give indulgence from fasts and prohibited meats Lastly by Greg. 13. to converse with sectaries and for that purpose to wear secular habits viz. for a disguise a thing prohibited by the S. Canons and to correct all kind of Books and so to mend the writings of the Fathers wherein what Plagiaries they have been is known to them who converse with Books that from thence have great confusions been brought into the Church and the Discipline generally been dissolved for by the Breve of Paul 3. the people are allowed to leave their own Pastors and run after them and to receive the Sacraments from them to whom Greg. hath committed authority to animadvert as well upon the Clergy as the people that all may be done rightly and after the Roman mode so that from Priests whether regular or secular it is uncertain they are suddenly become universal Pastors of the people or rather wandering vagabond Bishops Periodentas circumcelliones hamaxarios Episcopos that there is nothing which they cannot now do at Rome where they are called the Popes eyes mentis Pontificiae oculi that their Principles are inconsistent with the French that it is certain that to them is principally given in charge that they should oppress the Gallican liberty at first by guile and afterwards with open force even as in these last wars they have endeavoured to do that with them they are reckoned anathema who take the Kings part but that the French think the contrary and that not to obey the King is as to resist God and to fight against Heaven that they think that the Pope may excommunicate Kings and People when he pleaseth but the French on the contrary hold them for Sectaries who think that the Pope may interpose his authority in any difference of State that they attribute to the Pope an infinite power over all Kingdoms and set him above the Church above Councils and in fine make his power equal to his will to do what he please but the French hold his power to be finite or limited And for their good deeds and practices that Claud Matthew a ring-leader of the faction whom Henr. 3. had familiarly used in his private devotions and who therefore was well acquainted with his piety and devotion to the Rom. Cath. Religion with great impiety and ingratitude went to Rome and would have perswaded Greg. 13. to have excommunicated him unless he would comply with the leaders of that pernitious faction which being denied by him was after his death obtained of his successor Sixtus that Varada of the same society confirmed Barriere in his purpose to kill the King when he made some scruple at it that they confess as much but with frivolous cavillation seek to excuse it Nor are these the faults of single persons among them forasmuch as it is a usual thing or constant custom with them when they have any enterprize in hand to confer together about it c. that by their occult art of prying into secrets they have by little and little insinuated themselves into the minds of the simple and acquired a dominion in their consciences Whereof there is a fresh example in the five Popish Cantons of the Switzers whom when the Jesuites had in vain attempted to draw them from their League with the other Cantons of the Protestants made for their common safety they leaving the men like the serpent which deceived our first Parents set upon the women and perswaded them not to lye with their Husbands till they had broken off the League But the Switzers discovering the fraud shewed themselves men and handled the Conspirators according to their desert The Venetians likewise whose Justice and Prudence the duration of their State doth easily evince saw as much Yet they since did it an 1607. v. l. 137. and being warned by our example they did not indeed thrust them out of their Territories for how could they do that being so near neighbours to the Pope but did maturely shut them up within their own inclosures and interdicted them the hearing of confessions And how powerful they are among us by these means they openly profess and glory in it in their letters to their General But thus is the discipline of the Church overthrown and contrary to the prudent prohibition of the Council of Nants the saying of St. Aug. Neminem digne poenitere posse quem non sustineat unitas Ecclesiae the judgment of the ancient Christians who condemned Audius for making separation in the Church the people seduced from their own Pastors are adulterously allured to communion in sacris with them apart from others and at last stirred up to rebellion against their Prince and emissaries suborned to murder him Their conspiracies are well known against Prince Maurice which at last took effect and in England those of Parry Cullen York Wikiams in Scotland those of James Gordon and Edmond Hay and with us that so often mentioned of Barriere But among the ancient Christians these monsters were unheard of Of the Christians was no Cassius no Niger no Albinus as Tertullian speaks Nor was that crime ever heard of in France till the coming in of the Jesuites For it was brought in by them from Spain whence they had their original where the Gothes as an ancient Author informs us took up this detestable custom that if any of their Kings pleased them not they put him to the sword and set up whom they pleased in his place On behalf of the Jesuites Cl. Dureus rather pleaded in bar of the action than spoke to the merits of the cause but P. Barnius answered more copiously in writing But as much of what was spoken by the others is here purposely omitted for brevity sake so those things particularly which I find answered by him except that of Portugal which notwithstanding his answer seems very probable as well agreeing with their principles and actions though such mysterious practices are not easy to be fully proved And thus stood the case with the Jesuites in France when the King was about to * Which was done 17. Jan. proclaim war against their great Patron the King of Spain and whether the particular consideration of these or either of these to prevent what they feared might be the consequence of them †V. Perefix 229. did produce that attempt of their Scholar Chastel or not for he was more deeply seasoned with their principles and instructions than to make a full confession yet certain it is that that attempt did produce a more speedy determination of the cause than could otherwise have been expected by a Decree 29 Dec. 1594. Thu. l. 111. whereby the Court did ordain that the Priests and Students of the Colledge of Clermont for
that part to which his peculiar employment engageth him and usually men in great place have of all others least leisure for this particular study 3. But were their judgment never so considerable yet could it not in this case be certainly concluded from their actions For 1. It is agreed by all sorts of men Christians and Heathens and daily experience confirmeth the same that men frequently act contrary to their setled judgment and who may not often truly say Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor Nor is the thing it self more apparent than the reasons of it But I shall not here trace it to its first and original causes but only shew it in its next and immediate causes which are Surprize Impotence and Presumption From Surprize there is certainly no man whose care and caution can always secure him that he may not sometimes through the heat of passion or suddenness of a tentation be * Gal. 6.1 overtaken This we may all observe in our selves and in most we familiarly converse with Nay our very caution it self in many things makes us apt to be surprized by fear and thereupon to do those things we otherwise would not or neglect what we would otherwise do And though there be not a like Impotence in all yet is there more or less in every one whence men often do themselves contrary to what they would advise their children or dearest friends We daily see those who doubt not the directions of their Physitians to be good and necessary to be observed yet frequently overcome to transgress them to the hazard of their health and life it self nay Physitians themselves do the same whereof I could give a late notable instance in one of the most famous of his time Nor are we to think great Statesmen Polititians and learned men more exempt from all impotence than others are It is sufficient that they be well qualified for the places they hold to which their very impotence in some respects may sometime be a special qualification and they who are not easily overcome by one passion or affection may yet be perfectly enslaved to another What is wanting to these two causes is frequently made up by Presumption whether upon God's mercy in general and hope of pardon upon an intended repentance afterward or upon the priviledg of being within the pale of the Church by profession of Christianity or being members of the Catholick Church or zealous for the party they espouse that is as the Prophet saith Trusting in lying words saying The Temple of the Lord Jer. 7.3 The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord a Presumption so powerful heretofore that notwithstanding that reproof and after a notable experience of the vanity of it we find it in our Saviour's days still continued and again reproved by John Baptist Think not to say within your selves we have Abraham to our Father c. Mat. 3.9 And yet after all this as experience sheweth still prevalent in our days and very common among the Romanists and the Disciples of the Jesuites especially their new Proselytes who seem to hope for indulgence in their sinful courses or to expiate the same by their zeal for the Church whereunto great occasion is given by their abominable abuse of Absolution Commutation of Penance Indulgences and complying Conduct 2. These actions may proceed from error in the understanding and ignorance or mistake about some particular Christian Doctrine through an erronious Conscience thinking that to be lawful or a Christian duty which is absolutely unlawful So our Saviour telleth his Disciples that they who should kill them would think they do God service Jo. 16.2 and Saul thought that he ought to persecute the Christians Act. 26.9 and this may be consistent with a firm belief of the Christian Doctrine in general And this I take to be in truth the case of the Romanists and that they are given up to believe a lye through strong delusions wherein they do not more deceive their disciples than they are themselves deceived for do but admit me one or two of their Principles and there is nothing so monstrous in their actions but I think I can easily prove it lawful I had therefore intended to have shewed from what Principles those actions have proceeded that those Principles are mistaken and are no Christian but rather Antichristian Doctrines what hath been the cause occasion and progress of that mistake and lastly that this defection from the Christian Doctrine and Manners hath been foretold by the first Propagators of the Christian Faith in that manner as I think would not only do much to the removing of the scandal but moreover afford no inconsiderable evidence to the truth of Christianity it self but that I see would be too long for this place and time but I am well assured of the truth of what I say and doubt not but ere long it will be made manifest 3. There is one cause more from whence men may act contrary to Christianity and that in the highest degree and yet without the disbelief of the Truth of it in general or of any particular Doctrine of it and that is through desperation the case of some who believe and tremble Ja. 2.19 When men by frequency and long continuance in sin against the light and checks of conscience have sinned themselves into this desperation this is often an occasion to them to a further progress in wickedness even to the height of the most enormous sins though they neither do nor can doubt of the truth of the Christian Religion no more than do the Devils who believe and tremble for there is no sin which is not consistent with a full perswasion of it in such as are once become desperate indeed Even scoffing at and abuse of Religion to evil ends are no certain arguments of unbelief in such as use them There may be and are false Professors of Atheism and Infidelity as well as of Religion it self There is more or less of humane frailty in all Too many sin against knowledg and some thereby sin themselves into despair and then run on into all wickedness against that Belief which they would fain cast off if they could And there are so many causes and occasions of sins besides unbelief that they cannot in reason be attributed to it alone 4. And lastly considering the strange wild fancies which we often see men learned men and otherwise sober men fall into considering the great force prevalence that the will affections have to byass blind and corrupt the judgment considering the power and malice and subtilty that according to the Scriptures the God of this World hath to blind mens minds that they should not believe the Gospel of Truth it is not to be doubted but such there are who do not believe it but then the very same reasons may satisfy us what little credit there is to be given to the opinions of such men without better reason and yet I know and have found by experience that some professors of Infidelity have no better reasons than this they are like men in a panick fear where every one is afraid but none knoweth the cause only he supposeth the rest do and is so much the more afraid by how much the more in number they are whom he supposeth to be in the same passion with himself so many who have no reason at all for their unbelief yet suppose others have and would fain be thought as wise as they This I thought necessary to add as an Antidote against that poison which some might suck from those scandalous Practices and Actions which have been here related FINIS