rebellion is the enterprise of Amboise An. 1560. But the Protestant Religion had subsisted already forty years in France under the crosse And the Professors of the same though numerous had never fought for their Religion but by their constancy in asserting the truth and suffering for it The enterprise of Amboise was a 〈◊〉 quarrel of State not of Religion and â—â—…andâ—â— the Leader was a man most averse from the Protestant Religion The quarrel was this King Francis the II. being about sixteen years of age and younger in understanding then years was altogether governed by some Lords of the House of Guise then lookt upon as strangers and the Princes of the blood were excluded from the businesses of State These excluded Princes plotted to surprise the Court at Amboise and remove strangers from about the Kings person thinking themselves sufficiently warranted by their quality and interest that plot was cried Thuan. Hist lib. 24. Nullos ex conjuratis convictos fuisse alicujus molitionis in Regemaut Reginam sed tantuÌ„ in exteros sui in Aulâ tyrannicé omnia administrabant nempe Guisianos down as rebellious because it did not take effect and being discovered the House of Guise did not fail to make it a matter of High Treason although the great Thuanus depose for the conspirators that None of them was convicted of any attempt against the King and Queen but onely against strangers who governed all things about the Court in a tyrannical way Who so knoweth the interests of the Princes of the blood in France will never call that attempt treason And if they could do so much by the right of their birth their right was never the worse for their being Protestants Francis II. being dead soon after and his Successor Charls the IX being under age the Princes of the blood had more right then before to claim the management of the publick affairs being intrusted with them by the Laws of the Kingdome in the Kings minority at least in conjunction with the Queen Mother And being excluded from it again they raised an Army to recover their right That right is not considered at all by Jesuites that take upon them now a hundred years after to censure their actions but these Princes and their followers are represented onely as Hereticks and Rebels that made Warre against their Sovereigne After the King was out of minority the Princes and their party seeing that the King was much incensed against them and was of a dangerous and implacable nature durst not come neer him and the frequent Massacres made them keep themselves in a posture of defence and repel force by force To be rid of them at once the King used that famous and unparallelled treachery of a feigned peace with the Protestants sealed with the Marriage of his Sister with the Head of their party the first Prince of the blood next to his Brothers Henry King of Navarre and having invited them to the Wedding he slew them in their beds The number of the slain in cold blood on St. Bartholomew's Day and since within the space of three moneths amounted to about a hundred thousand An action publickly commended by the Pope and the Murtherers rewarded with many spiritual graces by his Holinesse That the relicks of the party after that general execution took defensive arms as it is not to be commended it is not to be wondred at neither Men are not Angels and there is nothing more natural then to strive for life The House of Guise having formed the League pretended for the destruction of Heresie but intended 〈◊〉 them for the pulling down of the Royal House King Henry the III. perceiving this too late made â—â—e of Henry King of Navarre then the apparent Heir of the Crown and of his Protestants Army to oppose the League That King being stabbed by a Monk soon after the Head of the Protestant party became lawful King and his Protestant Army the Royal Army yet their arms then though never so just were as much condemned by the Pope as before and as much taxed of rebellion But that praise cannot be denied to their arms that by them as Gods chief instruments the rebellion of the League was defeated and the lawful King preserved raised and setled upon his Throne whilest the Jesuited Zealots exprest their zeal of religion by attempting to stab him and were too good Catholicks to be good Subjects Since our Adversary alledgeth the words of King James of blessed and glorious memory and sets himself forth under the name of Philanax a Lover of the King he must in duty stand to the judgement of that great and judicious King This Sentence his Majesty pronounceth of that cause which this enemy calleth a Defence of the Right of Kings most unanswerable rebellion pag. 14. I never knew yet saith the King that the French Protestants took arms against their King In the first troubles they stood onely upon their defence Before they took arms they were burnt and massacred every where and the quarrel did not begin for Religion but because when King Francis the II. was under age they had been the refuge of the Princes of the blood expelled from the Court even of the Grandfather of the King now reigning and of that of the Prince of Conde who knew not where to take sanctuary For which the present King hath reason to wish them well It shall not be found that they made any other warre nay is it not true that King Henry the III. sent armies against them to destroy them and yet they ran to his help as soon as they saw him in danger Is it not true that they saved his life at Tours and delivered him from an extreme peril Is it not true that they never forsook neither him nor his Successour in the midst of the revolt and rebellion of most part of the Kingdome raised by the Pope and the greatest part of his Clergy Is it not true that they have assisted him in all his battails and helped much to raise the Crown again which was ready to fall Is it not true that they which persecuted the late King Henry the II. enjoy this day the fruits of the services done by the Protestants who are now maligned not for controversies of Religion but because that if their advice was followed the Crowne of the French Kings should no more depend on the Pope there would be no Frenchman in France that is not the Kings Subject there would be no appeal to Rome of beneficial and matrimonial causes and the Kingdome should be no more tributary under colour of Annats and the like impositions Even Cardinal Perron cleareth them from that imputation of rebellion when he saith that the doctrine of the deposition of Kings by the Pope was received in France till Calvin He doth then silently acknowledge that Kings were ill served before and that those whom he calls hereticks having brought forth the Holy Scripture to the publick sight
am not without suspition that when those places of safety were granted to them by Henry the IV. their enemies in the Kings Counsel suggested or furthered that grant for their undoing in the time to come for they might well foresee that on the one side a wise King would not suffer long such a disease in his own bowels as a party of his subjects armed with places of security against him and that on the other side the party so secured would not part with that security for their Religion Liberties and Lives without committing such actions as would make them obnoxious to their Sovereigns anger and their ruine Three or four years after the rendition of all those places to the King the Duke of Montmorancy raised a party against him in Languedock of which he was Governour hoping to find the Protestants which are numerous there prepared subjects for an insurrection yet neither his solicitations nor the resentment of their sufferings could move them to assist him But they joyned universally with the King and did rare service in a battel where that Duke was defeated and taken and with him a Jesuited Bishop And it is to be noted that old Marshal de la Force a Protestant that hardly escaped the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was one of the chief Commanders of the Kings Army The Adversary gives a touch of the wars begun in Germany Bohemia and Hungary in the year 1619. of which he imputes the whole cause to the Protestants I undertake not to justifie their errours I say onely that whoso had looked with an ordinary judgement upon the face of those Countreys as they were then divided and ballanced between the Papist and the Protestant party might have foretold without a spirit of prophecy that they should not enjoy a long peace there being so many free spirits animated to liberty and revenge by the severity of the superstitious house of Austria towards their Protestant subjects If Bethlem Gabor was a prodigious man and a demi-Turk as this man makes him it is nothing to us as Religion justifieth no mans faults no mans faults can condemn Religion The notion under which I fancy that man is that of a cannon-shot without bullet which makes a great and short crack and no effect All that the Adversary saith of his dealing with the Turk sheweth that the Protestants of Hungary were so opprest by the Emperour that they wisht themselves the Turks subjects I pray God they do not so still and with them the other Protestants belonging to the Emperours hereditary Countreys seeing their brethren that live under the Turk enjoy the freedome of their Religion The same reason might make the Protestants of the Empire slow to contribute towards the war against the Turk yet I hear they are as forward as any It is not declaiming against them as the Adversary doth but using them like Christians that will make them joyn heartily with the Emperour in that war The Spanish branch of the house of Austria hath lost great part of Netherlands by the inflexibleness of Philip the II. of Spain to grant liberty of Religion to his Protestant subjects Let the German branch of Austria which useth the like hardness take heed of the like loss The Reformation of Religion in the United Provinces is that upon which the Adversary triumpheth most it being very apparent to his thinking that they brought it in by shaking the Yoke of the King of Spain But there is great difference between reforming and establishing the Reformation The first was done by the Word the second by the Sword and the first forty years before the second The Reformed Religion was spred over the Seventeen Provinces many years before there was any thought of making an Union against the Spaniard neither was that Union made upon the score of Religion but of State for maintaining their Franchises against the oppression of Spain as it was sufficiently justified by their choosing of Francis Duke of Alenson a Roman Catholick for their Prince An. 1583. which they would never have done if the Union had ever marched under the notion of Religion as our Adversary pag. 32. affirmeth or if the Protestants had been the greater number And that Religion was not that which knit the party and that there was no such thing in the Articles it appeared again when some Provinces forsook the Union because the Prince of Orange had put Religion among the causes of their defensive Warre If then the Union was unjust the injustice must not be cast upon Religion since it was not made upon that interest and if it was just it could not become unjust by the accession of the interest of Religion to the other interests So that which way soever the Adversary takes it the Roman Catholicks bear an equal share with the Protestants in the right and wrong of the cause Flanders and Brabant were as guilty as Holland and Zealand The difference is that Flanders and Brabant were beaten to obedience by the Duke of Parma but Holland and Zealand proved too strong for him The World beholds with amazement the successe of that Union that these little Provinces should bring their Prince to be their suppliant that he might be allowed to quit his right over them and acknowledge them Free States yea and to justifie their armes It is that successe not their guilt that makes our Adversary so vehement against them for ill Gamesters will be angry when they are loosers Whether it be out of wilfulnesse or ignorance this Gentleman mis-represents that businesse speaking of the King of Spain as of an absolute Sovereigne of the Low Countries and of the people as of meer Subjects Philip the II. was not their King but their Count. But I have said something of that in my Clamor Regii Sanguinis ad Caelum it is besides my businesse to inquire how the rights of Sovereignty were divided between the Prince and the People which ought to be known before the case be stated If the cause of Religion made the quarrel irreconcileable Philip the II. may thank himself for it Strada the great friend of the Spaniard tells us that the Great Council of Spain represented to the King that unlesse he granted liberty of conscience to his Subjects of the Netherlands the Countrey would be lost and the Warre perpetual whereupon the King fell on his knees before a Crucifix and vowed that he would choose to lose his Dominions rather then to permit heresie so he called the Protestant Religion If many years after they were offered to be secured for their Religion as our Adversary saith which I never heard before it was pag. 39. too late It is an unequitable motion and more advantageous for the Roman party than ours that excesses happening by the ordinary course of humane businesses be not imputed to Religion Oppression will make subjects to shake off the yoke And the prosperity of their defection keeps them from returning to their
quarrel of which something must be said before he and I part For Paraeus we are against him about the point of obedience as much as our Adversary His son seeing what Philip. Paraeus Append. ad Rom. 13. Loquitur D. parens meus cum Politicis Iurisconsultis non de Rege absoluta potestate induto sed sub conditione admisso Pag. 23. general opposition his Doctrine found among the Protestants and that the Book was burnt in England by authority made this excuse for his father Valeat quantum valere potest My father speaks with the Politicks and Iurisconsults not of a King invested with absolute power but admitted upon conditions Paraeus considerd not how the world was abroad but how it was in his countrey The Adversary quarrelleth also with Gracerus but hath nothing else to say against him but that he is against the Antichrist Coercenda gladio est Antichristi ambitio which he expounds thus That Antichristian ambition is to be cut off with the sword that is all Princes and Prelates It seems the man taketh part with Antichrist since he taxeth Gracerus for being against him But that Gracerus would cut off Princes and Prelates because he would repress the ambition of Antichrist is a great inconsequence Observe this Gentlemans learning the Verb coercere signifieth repress which is a modest term of Gracerus But our Adversary translates it cut off shewing himself to be as great a scholar in Latine as he approved himself to be in Greek when he translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an eloquent Oration And that his head is much like that upon a clipt sixpence it is a little head without letters His objection of the rebellious Maxims of some Scots Pag. 47 seq as Knox and Buchanan is now stale and out of season since they have been generally condemned and exploded by Protestants both on this and the other side of Rivet Castiga Not. in Epist ad Balsac cap. 13. num 14. sub finem the sea The judgement of the learned Rivet to this purpose is ingenuous and prudent that these things must be imputed to the hot and audacious brains of the Scots then heated again by persecution Let me adde that when the persecution was pretty well overcome they were kept in their heat by sharp contention There being then a Royal Bastard who pretending that his Father had once a designe to make him King followed that designe very close yet closely raising all the troubles he could against the Kings Widow and his legitimate Heir for which the difference of Religion happening about that time gave him fair play for all his ambitious projects were cloaked with the furtherance of the cause of the Gospel This was the man that countenanced that divinity of rebellion Which that it may not be imputed to the Religion I desire all judicious heads maturely to ponder Dr. Rivet's wise observation That the Scots of a hundred and five Kings which they reckon till Queen Mary had deposed three expelled five and killed thirty five I demand then whether all those excesses must be imputed to the doctrine and zeal of Religion If so let the Roman Catholicks look how they shall defend their Religion which then was prevalent But if that must be imputed to the bold and stirring Genius of the Nation why shall the troubles risen under the Queen Regent of Scotland and her daughter Mary be ascribed to Religion and Reformation supposed the cause not the occasion by the managing of crafty self-seeking men of the distempers of the State and the intemperance of pens Yea it shall be found as Dr. Rivet observeth and we find it now that the light of the Evangelical truth did very much mitigate the fierceness of the Nation and that those disorders as turbulent as they were are not comparable to those that were in former times in Scotland which as we are too ingenuous to ascribe to the Religion of those dayes the Papists ought to shew the like ingenuity about the excesses of wits and swords since the coming of the Reformation It were to no purpose to follow all the objections of this Gentleman out of Protestant Writers since whether they be well or ill alledged our belief is not ingaged in their ill opinions nor our reputation concerned in the wrong done to them by perverse and unfaithfull allegations I have discovered so many of them that the Reader may well mistrust his other citations If all were as they are represented they are but so many Doctours opinions strengthened with no approbation of persons authorized for it And to speak after our Most Excellent King JAMES in his Defense of the right of Kings I would not defend all that some private men could say It is enough that in our Religion there is no rule to be found that prescribeth rebellion nor any thing that dispenseth subjects from the oath of their allegiance nor any of our Churches that receive that abominable doctrine This is spoken with a Royal brevity and an imperious weight which both confutes all objections in that kind and together silently retorts upon the Roman Catholicks that among them they have rules that prescribe rebellion and an authority dispensing from the oath of allegiance and that their Church is commanded to receive that abominable doctrine Blessed be God our doctrine about the point of obedience never gave yet jealousie to Kings though of contrary Religion Whereas the Sovereign Courts of the same Princes have expelled the Jesuites for teaching and practising the murther of Kings and condemned the Popes Bulls to be torn for sowing rebellion among the people Is it not a matter for no lesse patience then that of God to see those that teach rebellion by the publick expresse laws of the head of their Church now to charge our Churches with rebellion for some words of private men either falsly imputed unto them or disallowed by the generality of the Protestant Churches Is it for him that hath cut the purse to cry stop the thief Must the Doctors of high treason lay an action of rebellion against us in effect because we will not be rebels with them and acknowledge a King above our King for when all is said that is the ground of the quarrel and we can buy our peace with them at no other rate But before I lay the charge against them at which I long to be I must make an end of answering the charge which they lay against us CHAP. II. Whether the Reformation of Religion ought to be charged with Rebellion Reflections upon the actions of the Protestant party THe Charge of Rebellion which the Adversary layeth against us consisteth in two things The Doctrine of our Divines and the actions of our party especially in the beginnings of the Reformation I have answered the first part of the Charge and shewed that either the Charge is false or it is nothing to us because we have no dependance upon the Authors charged with it
former subjection From Holland the Adversary saileth into Scotland and objects to us the Maxims of Knox and Buchanan and the disorders of that time Of which I have said enough in the Chapter before Of the Work of Reformation in England and the publick actions of that age upon that interest he speaks very scornfully saying that the Sect of Wicleff lay pag. 71. strangled in the cradle till King Edward the VI. his dayes when some ends of it were taken up again and set out with more ostentation then ever in that Princes minority and what rare effects of obedience were by that means produced in Queen Maries time who brought them up again to the test may be easily read in our Chronicles Wherein it is plain that in the poor five years of her Reign there was de facto more open and violent opposition and rebellion made by her own subjects then Queen Elizabeth had in forty five years or any Prince before or since the Wicleffian doctrine till the same smothered fire broke out at last in good King Charles his time to his utter ruin and the shaking of the very foundation of his Monarchy Is this spoken like a most observant Son and in every honest mans esteem a pious reverend and learned Priest of the Church of England as this Author is tearmed in the Publishers Epistle to the Reader Certainly a Son and a Priest of the Church of England would never have derived from Wickleff but from the Holy Scripture the Religion of the Church his Mother nor ascribed to her Religion the cause of the late horrid rebellion We see what a Son and Priest of the Church he is the tree is known by his fruit What better figs can be gathered from such a thorn What better grapes from such a bramble And what is that doctrine of Wickliffe which he imputes to the Protestants to the English especially Impios nullum dominium habere That the ungodly pag. 70. can have no right of dominion Was that the doctrine set out with ostentation in Edward the VI. his dayes Or was any of the Protestants found tainted with that doctrine when Queen Mary burnt them which this man calls bringing them to the test Sure it was not upon that ground that some oppositions were made against that Queen It is a wonder that she met with no more considering how her Father had declared by Act of Parliament her Mothers Marriage unlawful and her self incapable of the Crown and had miserably incumbred the Title and Succession of his Children That there was more open and violent opposition against her in her five years reigne from her own Subjects then Queen Elizabeth had in forty five years it is because they that went to question her Title went to work plainly above boord but no secret Jesuitical conspiracies to stabbe or poyson her as against Queen Elizabeth The means she made to reduce her dissenting subjects in Religion when they made no opposition against her was to make bon-fires of them Three hundred of those burnt-offerings she sacrificed unto God A farre greater number in her poor five years then that of the Popish Martyrs of disobedience since the death of that Queen now above a hundred years For no Papist was executed for his Religion all for disobeying the Laws of the Land and many of them for High Treason It is known that Queen Mary got the Crowne by the assistance of the Protestants of Suffolk and what recompence she gave them for it And whereas no fewer then eight rebellions did rise in Henry the VIII his dayes I find not that the Protestants had a hand in any of them All were raised by Papists and upon the score of Popery The principal colour of our Adversaries malice is his detestation of the late rebellion of England and the execrable Murther committed in the sacred Person of our gracious Sovereigne Upon this he makes several Panegyricks which are very ill sorted with his Apology for Mariana and justifying of the Iesuites doctrine Especially seeing that those actions were copied out upon their principles Felicia tempora quae te Moribus admorunt Belike the curious pens of the wise States-men and learned Scholars of England had need to be supplied by the boyish theames of a petty Novice of Doway to learn the duty of Subjects and to abhorre the guiltinesse of rebellion The venome that lieth under that oratory of invectives is that all the mischief is imputed to the Protestants of Integrity a term which he useth like a stirrup-leather longer or shorter according to his occasions yet alwayes treacherously to cast the faults of some particular person or some heretical Sect upon the generality of the Protestants But let him know that the King the Church and the State are Protestants of Integrity and that the parricides and troublers of our Israel will never give him thanks for calling them Protestants Also that we acknowledge them not for such unlesse it be upon a new score because they protest against the Kings power and the duty of their obedience When Jesuits or their Scholars as this Gentleman is charge our Fanaticks with High Treason they do but act that which they had prepared to do if the Powder-Plot had taken For they had a Declaration ready to indite the Protestants of that Treason For these men would story the just clamor against them for their doctrine of rebellion and parricide by laying the same charge with loud words upon others We have great reason to call upon the Justice of God and Men to condemne the unsincerity of this clamour With what face or conscience can the Jesuits passe a hard Sentence upon the late Rebels and King-killers seeing that these furious Zealots have neither taught nor done any thing in that horrible defection but what they had learned of the Jesuits For what do they blame them for Is it for teaching that the Sovereigne Power lieth in the Commons and that they may alter the Government of a State Did they not learn Bellarm. de Laicis lib. 3. cap. 6. Potestas immediate est tanquam in subjecto in tota multitudine si causa legitima adsit potest multitudo mutare regnum in Aristocratiam aut Democratiam è contrarie that of Bellarmine The Power saith he is in the whole multitude as in its subject and if there be a lawful cause for it the multitude may alter the Royal State into an Aristocracy or Democracy and so on the contrary Is it for saying that the people makes the King and may unmake him and retains still the habit of power Did they not learn of the same Bellarmine that In the Kingdomes of Bellarm. de Concil lib. 2. cap. 19. In regnis hominum potestas Regis est à populo quia populus facit Regem Ibid. cap. 19. sect ad alteram In Rebusp temporalibus si Rex degeneret in tyrannum licet caput sit Regni tamen à populo potest
Pope and have learned no further of your maximes then will serve them to kill the King and keep rhe crown for themselves And by their gross dealing with their King beheading him upon a Scaffold whereby they have spun a halter for their own necks they have shewed themselves not skilled in the mysteries of King-killing set forth by your Mariana who to put a King to death with less danger to the Actours Mariana lib. 1. cap. 7. Hoc temperamento uti in hac quidem disputatione licebit si non ipse qui perimitur venenum haurire cogitur quo intimis medullis concepto pereat sed exterius ab alio adhibeatur nihil adjuvante co qui perin endus est Nimirum cum tanta vis est veneni in sella eo autveste delibuta ut vim interficiendi habeat Qua artè à Mauris Regibus invenio saepe alios Principes mislis donis veste pretiosa linteis armis ephippiis suisse oppressos then to stab him will have him taken away by poison Yet so mercifull he is to such a King that least he should be accessary to his own death by taking the poison himself in his meat or drink he will have a strong and subtile poison put in a garment or saddle which may spread its mortiferous quality into his body And for that he propounds the example of Moore Kings who have killed their enemies with poisoned presents These Jesuitical curiosities about a murther are too fine for our Northern Fanaticks but for going so far with you as they have done you have reason to cherish them When the businesses of the late bad times are once ripe for an history and time the bringer of truth hath discovered the mysteries of iniquity and the depths of Satan which have wrought so much crime and mischief it will be found that the late rebellion was raised and fostered by the arts of the Court of Rome That Jesuites professed themselves Independent as not depending on the Church of England and Fifth-Monarchy-men that they might pull down the English Monarchy and that in the Committees for the destruction of the King and the Church they had their spies and their agents The Roman Priest and Confessour is known who when he saw the fatal stroke given to our Holy King and Martyr flourished with his sword and said Now the greatest enemy that we had in the world is gone When the newes of that horrible execution came to Roan a Protestant Gentleman of good credit was present in a great company of Jesuited persons where after great expressions of joy the gravest of the company to whom all gave ear spake much after this sort The King of England at his Marriage had promis'd Which is most false us the re-establishing of the Catholick Religion in England and when he delayed to fulfill his promise we summoned him from time to time to performe it We came so far as to tell him that if he would not do it we should be forced to take those courses which would bring him to his destruction We have given him lawful warning and when no warning would serve we have kept our word to him since he would not keep his word to us That grave Rabbies sentence agreeth with this certain intelligence which shall be justified whensoever Authority will require it That the year before the Kings death a select number of English Jesuits were sent from their whole party in England first to Paris to consult with the Faculty of Sorbon then altogether Jesuited to whom they put this question in writing That seeing the State of England was in a likely posture to change Government whether it was lawful for the Catholicks to work that change for the advancing and securing of the Catholick Cause in England by making away the King whom there was no hope to turn from his heresie Which was answered affirmatively After which the same persons went to Rome where the same question being propounded and debated it was concluded by the Pope and his Council that it was both lawful and expedient for the Catholicks to promote that alteration of State What followed that Consultation and Sentence all the World knoweth and how the Jesuites went to work God knoweth and Time the bringer forth of truth will let us know But when the horrible parricide committed in the Kings Sacred Person was so universally cried down as the greatest villany that had been committed in many ages the Pope commanded all the papers about that question to be gathered and burnt In obedience to which order a Roman Catholick in Paris was demanded a Copy which he had of those papers but the Gentleman who had had time to consider and detest the wickednesse of that project refused to give it and shewed it to a Protestant friend of his and related to him the whole carriage of this negotiation with great abhorrency of the practices of the Jesuites In pursuance of that Order from Rome for the pulling down both the Monarch and the Monarchy of England many Jesuites came over who took several shapes to go about their worke but most of them took party in the Army About thirty of them were met by a Protestant Gentleman between Roan and Diepe to whom they said taking him for one of their party that they were going into England and would take Armes in the Independant Army and endeavour to be Agitators A Protestant Lady living in Paris in the time of our late calamities was perswaded by a Jesuit going in scarlet to turn Roman Catholick When the dismal newes of the Kings Murther came to Paris this Lady as all other good English Subjects was most deeply afflicted with it And when this Scarlet Divine came to see her and found her melting in tears about that heavy and common disaster he told her with a smiling countenance that she had no reason to lament but rather to rejoyce seeing that the Catholicks were rid of their greatest enemy and that the Catholick Cause was much furthered by his death Upon which the Lady in great anger put the man down the stairs saying If that be your Religion I have done with you for ever And God hath given her the grace to make her word good hitherto Many intelligent Travellers can tell of the great joy among the English Convents and Seminaries about the Kings death as having overcome their enemy and done their main work for their settlement in England of which they made themselves so sure that the Benedictins were in great care that the Jesuites should not get their land and the English Nunnes were contending who should be Abbesses in England An understanding Gentleman visiting the English Friars of Dunkirke put them upon the discourse of the Kings death and to pump out their sense about it said that the Jesuites had laboured very much to compasse that great work To which they answered that the Jesuites would engrosse to themselves the glory of all great and good works
appointed by him to bear a lawful and holy Office Article XL. Affirmamus ergo parendum esse legibus statutis solvenda tributa reliqua onera perferenda subjectionis deniqne jugum voluntarie tolerandum etiamsi infidelis fuerint Magistratus dummodo Dei summum imperium integrum illibatum maneat Article XL. WEe maintain then that we ought to obey lawes and statutes pay tributes and bear other burdens of subjection and undergo the yoke with a good will although the Magistrates should be Infidels so that Gods Sovereigne Authority remain entire and inviolate The Belgick Confession CVncti homines cujuscumque sint vel dignitatis vel conditionis vel status legitimis Magistratibus subjiei debent illisque vectigalia ac pendere eis in omnibus obsequi ac obedire quae verbo Dei non repugnant preces etiam pro eis fundere ut eos Deus in omnibus ipsorum actionibus dirigere dignetur nos vero vitam tranquillam quietam sub ipsis cum omni pietate honestate ducere possimus ALl men of what dignity quality or state soever they be must subject themselves unto the lawful Magistrates pay unto them imposts and tributes and please and obey them in all things that are not repugnant unto the Word of God Also pray for them that God be pleased to direct them in all their actions and that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life under them in all piety and honesty The Helvetick Confessions SIcut Deus salutem populi sui operari vult per Magistratum quem mundo veluti patrem dedit ita subditi omnes hoc Dei beneficium in Magistratu agnoscere jubentur Honorent ergo revereantur Magistratum tanquam Dei Ministrum Ament eum faveant ei orent pro illo tanquam pro patre Obediant item omnibus ejus justis aequis mandatis Denique pendant vectigalia atque tributa quae alia hujus generis debita sunt fideliter atque libenter Et fi salus publica patriae justitia requirat Magistratus ex necessitate bellum suscipiat deponant etiam vitam fundant sanguinem pro salute publicâ Magistratusque quidem in Dei nomine libenter fortiter alacriter Qui enim Magistratui se opponit iram gravem Dei in se provocat AS God will work the safety of his people by the Magistrate whom he hath given to the World as a Father so all subjects are commanded to acknowledge that benefit in the Magistrate Let them honour and reverence the Magistrate as the Minister of God Let them love and assist him and pray for him as their Father Let them obey him in all his just and equitable commands And let them pay all imposts and tributes and all other dues of that kind faithfully and willingly And if the publick safety of the Countrey and Justice require it and that the Magistrate undertake a Warre by necessity let them also lay down their lives and spill their blood for the good of the publick and of the Magistrate and that in the Name of God willingly valiantly and cheerfully For he that opposeth himself to the Magistrate provoketh the heavy wrath of God upon himself The Bohemian Confession UNiversi singuli in omnibus quae Deo tantum non sunt contraria eminenti potestati subjectionem praestent primum Regiae Majestati postea omnibus Magistratibus qui cum potestate sunt in quibuscunque muneribus sint collocati sive ipsi per se boni viri sint sive mali itemque omnibus Administris Legatis horum ut eos revereantur colant quaecunque eis jure debentur ea omnia ut praestent etiam honorem eis tributum vectigal similia alia ad quae pendenda obligantur ut praestent pendant LEt all every one yield subjection in all things that are no wayes contrary to God unto the higher power first to the Kings Majestie and next to all Magistrates and those that are in Authority in what Offices soever they be placed whether the men be good or bad as also to all their Officers and Deputies And let them deferre unto them all honour and performe all things which are due unto them by right let them pay unto them also the homage imposts tribute and the like which they are obliged to pay and performe The Saxonick Confession MAgistratui Politico subditi debent obedientiam sicut Paulus docet Rom. 13. Non solum propter iram id est metu poenae corporalis qua afficiuntur contumaces ab ipsis Magistratibus sed etiam propter conscientiam id est contumacia est peccatum offendens Deum avellens conscientiam a Deo SUbjects owe obedience to the Politick Magistrate as St. Paul teacheth Rom. 13 not onely for wrath that is for fear of the corporal punishment which the Magistrates inflict upon the disobedient but also for conscience sake that is disobedience is a sinne offending God and separating the conscience from God The Suevick Confession NOstri Ecclesiastae obedientiae quae exhibetur Magistratibus inter primi ordinis bona opera locum dederunt docentes hoc unumquemque studiosius sese accommodare publicis legibus quo sincerior fuerit Christianus fideque ditior Juxta docent fungi Magistratu munus esse sacratissimum quod quidem homini contingere possit Vnde factum sit quod qui gerunt publicam potestatem Dii in Scripturis vocentur OUr Divines have placed the obedience which is done to the Magistrates among the good works of the first rank teaching that the more a Christian is sincere and rich in faith the more careful ought he to be to subject himself unto the publick Laws They likewise teach that to be a Magistrate is the most Sacred Office that a man may have Whence also it cometh that they that bear a publick Authoriry are called Gods in the Scriptures After all these the English Confession shall speak last to give the Sentence as the Apostle St. James spake the last in the Synod of the Apostles at Ierusalem because he was the Bishop Article XXXVII Of the Civil Magistrate THe Kings Majesty hath the chief power in this Realme of England and other his Dominions unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realme whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all Causes doth appertain And it is not nor ought to be subject to any forreigne Jurisdiction Where we attribute to the Kings Majesty the chief Government by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous persons are offended we give not to our Princes the Ministring either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions also set forth by Elizabeth Our Queen do most plainly testifie but that onely Prerogative which we see to have been given alwayes to all Godly Princes in Holy Scripture by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their Charge by
dignitate atque authoritate regia privare Executio ad alios pertinet when he would not have Ecclesiastical men to kill Kings with their own hands but to stand to the method that the Pope observeth Which is first to admonish Kings fatherly Then deprive them of the Communion of the Sacraments by Ecclesiastical censures Finally to absolve their subjects from the Oath of their Allegiance and if needs be deprive them of the Royal Authority The execution belongeth to others The Adversary also alledgeth Lessius in his book de Scientia Jure he meaneth de Justitia It seemeth the man had heard of the book but never seen it But for that mistake his quotation is right a Lessius de Iustitia Iure lib. 2. cap. 9. dubio 4. Talis non potest à privatis interimi quandiu manet Princeps c. In that place speaking of such a King as is not a tyrant by usurpation but by administration he saith Such a Prince cannot be slain by private persons as long as he remains a Prince Which is altogether against the security of Kings lives For the Popes Decrees and the writings of the Jesuites having so many times determined that a Prince deposed by the Pope is no more a Prince but a private person this goodly Aphorisme of Lessius exposeth the lives of all Kings deposed or excommunicated to the attempts of all private men b Idem Ibid. dubio 11. Princeps non potest à subdito interfici nisi forte ob necessariam vitae suae desensionem He alloweth also a subject to kill his Prince in the defence of his own life contrary to the Evangelical precept of not resisting the higher Dub. 12. Si tantum excrescat tyrannis ut non videatur amplius tolerabilis nec ullum aliud remedium supersit primum à Rep. vel comitiis regni vel alio habente authoritatem esse deponendum hostem declarandum ut in ipsius personam liceat quicquam attentare Tunc enim desinit esse Princeps powers And that you may know him to be like his confreres in treasonable doctrine He concludes that question thus If the tyranny groweth to that point that it seem not to be tolerated any more and that there be no remedy He must first be deposed by the Common-wealth or the States of the Kingdome or by another that hath authority and declared an enemy that it may be lawful to attempt any thing against his person What is that other person that hath authority over King Commonwealth and States It must be one that belongs not to the State else he should be a subject and could not pretend to that authority of deposing the King and exposing his life to all attempts And what other person pretends to that authority but the Pope He alledgeth also Azorius in his Moral Institution but doth not quote any place This is his doctrine All that were bound to an heretick in any Azorius hist Moral part 1. lib. 8 cap. 13. Eos omnes qui erant haeretico aliqua ratione obstrict jusjurandi seu fidelitatis seu alterius pactionis liberari Absolutos se noverint à debito fidelitatis Domini totius obsequii quicunque lapsis manifesto in haeresin aliquo pacto quacunque firmitate tenebantur astricti manner whether with oath or fidelity or any other paction Let them know that they are absolved from all debt of fidelity or obedience c. The Pope may take away or give a King for just causes and then the people may obey the Pope as their superiour who hath sovereigne power both upon the King and Kingdome If Idem Ibid. part 2. lib. 11. cap. 5. A Romano Pontifice Rex au fertur vel datur justis de causis tunc populus tanquam superiori Romano Pontifici parere debet Habet in Regem regnum summam potestatem he hath sovereigne power over them he hath power of life and death And whereas this Gentleman alledgeth Gretzer as one that confuteth all Mariana's grounds I find that he defends them all in that very place which he quoteth We are not such dastards saith Gretzer-Vespertilio Haereticopoliticus pag. 159. Tam timidi trepidi non sumus ut asserere palam vereamur Romanum Pontificem posse si necessitas exigat subditos Catholicos solvere juramento fidelitatis si Princeps tyrannice illos tractet he as to fear openly to affirme that the Pope of Rome may if necessity so require free his Catholick subjects from their oath of fidelity if their Sovereigne handle them tyrannically Yea he takes openly Mariana's cause saying pag. 160. that Mariana is wrongfully traduced for writing that it is lawful to kill any Prince that disobeyeth the Pope since he maintains that a lawful Prince who disobeyeth the Pope notwithstanding ought not to be made away by any private man if sentence be not pronounced against him And he that must pronounce that Sentence is the Pope He complaineth also that Mariana is unjustly accused for affirming that a tyrant ought to be poysoned seeing he Idem pag. 162. Ne tyannum quidem primi vel secundi generis etiam post judiciariam contra illum latam sententiam veneno licite tollis si Tyrannus ipsemet venenum illud sumere sibi applicare debeat maintains the contrary affirming that a tyrant cannot lawfully be made away by poyson if himself take it and apply it to himself Which cannot be avoided when his meat and drink is poysoned So in the end he agreeth with Mariana whose words I have produced in my second Chapter and is content that a tyrant be poysoned so that he takes not the poyson himself Is not that straining the gnat and swallowing the camel These holy murtherers make nothing of killing a King onely they are scrupulous about the circumstance Thus I have shewed what those Jesuites say which this Gentleman alledgeth All but Serarius and Richeome which I have not by me no more then he that quoteth them And I have made it plain that they all consent with Mariana and speak the same language But what he tells us that the opinion of Mariana was condemned by a Provincial Congregation of the Jesuites and that condemnation ratified by the General of the Jesuites Claudius Aquaviva So it was with shame enough to Aquaviva and his confreres who had approved and licenced it before But see what that condemnation comes to the Jesuites seeing their Sect made odious by the writings of Mariana Suarez Vasquez and others and more by the murthering of Kings by persons died with their principles made Ne quisquam scripto vel sermone doceat licitum esse cuicunque personae quocunque praetextu tyrannidis Reges aut Principes occidere an order among themselves whereby they forbad to write or teach that doctrine any more The words of the Ratification are those That none teach by writing or speaking that
insurgere Ipsorum unumquemque qui vel minoribus Ecclesiae Ordinibus sit initiatus quodcunque crimen admiserit in laesae Majestatis crimen non posse incidere quippe qui minime sint amplius Regis subditi nec jurisdictioni ejus subjecti Ita Ecclesiasticos per eorum doctrinam a seculari potestate eximi Manus cruentas licere impune Regibus sacro-sanctis afferre Hoc eos libris editis asserere hath that right to put Kings out of the communion of the Church that an excommunicate King is a tyrant and that his subjects may impunedly rise against him That every one of those that have but one of the least Orders of the Church cannot be guilty of Treason what crime soever he commit because Clergy-men are no more the Kings subjects nor under his jurisdiction So that Ecclesiastick persons are by their doctrine exempted from the secular powers and may impunedly fall upon their Kings with their sanguinary hands This they affirm in their published books That grave Iudge spake that upon good ground for the books of the Iesuites insist much upon the exemption of Clerks from Temporal Iurisdictions Whence the Iesuite Emanuel Sa draweth this conclusion That Emanuel Sa in Aphorismis tit Clericus Rebellio Clerici adversus Principem non est crimen lesae Majestatis quia Principi non est subditus the Rebellion of a Clergy-man against the Prince is not Treason because he is not the Princes subject Which words are omitted in the Edition of Paris but they remain in that of Collen and in that of Antwerp For that reason Bellarmine findes great fault with those that slew the Monk who had murdered Henry the III. of France as I alledged before because they had slain sacratum virum a consecracred man A more sacred man in his opinion and more inviolable then the Sacred Majesty of a King The murder of that great Prince the Venerable Harlay represented unto the King and how it was Thuanus ibid. exalted as a holy Act by the Iesuite Guignard who had writ a book in the commendation of the murtherer And puts his Majesty in minde of the Attempt made upon his person by Peter Barriere suborned by the Iesuite Varade He might also have put him in minde of John Chastel Thuanus a Scholar of the Iesuites who hit him in the mouth and struck out one of his teeth intending to have cut his throat In his examination he confess'd that he being guilty of a great crime was kept prisoner by the Iesuites in the chamber of Meditations where after they had long terrified his soul they propounded to him a way to Iessen his torments in hell which he had deserved by his crimes and that was to kill the King which the miserable youth promised and attempted Upon this the Colledge of the Iesuites was searched and many persons seized on among which was found a book in the praise of James Clement the murtherer of Henry the III. written by the Iesuite Guignard as himself confess'd containing many arguments and reasons to prove that it was lawful and just to kill Henry the III. together with many inductions and incitements to make away his Successor who was Henry the IV. then reigning The Theams given to young Scholars were found to be about killing of Tyrants with praises of the attempt and exhortations to it And it was found that after that Paris was reduced to the Kings obedience the Masters of the Forms had forbidden their scholars to pray for the King The yeer before Barriere being examined had confess'd that the Iesuite Varade Rector of the Colledge of the Iesuites had incited and adjured him upon the Sacrament of Confession and the Communion of the Lords Body to kill the King assuring him that Thuanus if he suffered for it he should obtain the Crown of Martyrdome Upon all these evidences Vpon that Pyramide the Iesuites were called Homines norae maleficae superstitionis qui Remp. turbabant quorum instinctu piacularis adolescens dirum facinus instituerat the Jesuites were expelled out of France by Arrest of the Court of Parliament and a Pyramid erected with inscriptions declaring their expulsion and the causes of it for a memorial of perpetual execration to posterity Ten years after they returned from their exile the same men corrupting the youth and working rebellion till in the end they got what they would have even the Kings heart which they keep in their principal house la Flesche after he had been stabbed by Ravaillac a wretch who in his examination and confession shewed sufficiently by whose instructions he was perswaded to that parricidial act for he gave this reason why he did it because the King would make War unto God in as King James defence of the right of Kings much as he prepared warre against the Pope and that the Pope was God which is the plain doctrine of the Jesuites And being inquired whether he had ever confess'd his design to any he named the Jesuite Aubigny and that he had shewed him the Knife Which when Aubigny denied Ravaillac maintained it to him before his Judges To favour the design of killing that great King and prepare the World for it four moneths before he was murdered the Arrest of the Court of Parliament of Paris Note this against John Chastel who had attempted to murder him was censured and forbidden to be read by an Act of the Consistory at Rome and together the History of Thuanus for relating too plainly that horrid action and the part which the Jesuites had in it By the same Consistorial Act a Book of Mariana was censured not that which approveth the murthering of Kings The Court of Rome was not so unkind as to disgrace a work which doth their work but another Book which treats of Coynes Certainly had they disliked that notorious Book condemned to the fire by the Court of Parliament of Paris they would not have forgotten to censure it while they were in hand with Mariana As soon as Henry the IV. was stricken the Colledge of the Jesuites was environed with a Guard the Magistrate and the people looking upon them as the Doctors and Contrivers of high Treason And presently they were sued by the University of Paris as corrupters of the youth and teachers of treasonable doctrine Peter Marteliere a famous Advocate pleaded for the University and maintained that in the Confession of Ravaillac evident marks were found of the Doctrine of the Jesuites The Jesuites were cast and commanded to shut up their Colledge and not to teach Schollars any more The Kings Councell required their expulsion but they had friends about the Queen Regent and were suffered to stay and in time recovered also the liberty to teach Five years before that Kings death it was a famous History how Father Cotton a Iesuite and his Confessor Thuanus Hist lib. 123. ad an 1604. had written in a paper some questions which he had propounded to
safe from their insolence what will become of us when we shall lye naked of all defense and exposed to the will of that party which used us before like sheep appointed to the slaughter Upon those terms they were when the Assembly of The Assembly of Rochel was not an Ecclesiastick but a Politick Assembly for those two sorts of Assemblies they were allowed to keep but now the Ecclesiastick only is allowed Rochel being once licenced by their King and since forbidden sate against his will and took order for a defensive war Whereupon my Reverend Father returning from the National Synod of Alais of which he had been President writ a Letter to them which I insert here as very pertinent to my purpose Gentlemen I do not write to you to powr my sorrows into your bosome or to entertain you with my private crosses upon that I need no comforter accounting it a great honour that in the publick affliction of the Church God would have me to march in the front And I would account it a great happiness if all the storm should light on my head so that I were the onely sufferer and the Church of God should enjoy peace and prosperity A more smarting care hath moved me to write to you and forced me to go beyond my nature which was alwayes averse from medling with publick businesses and from moving out of the sphere of my proper calling For seeing the general body of the Church in eminent danger and upon the brink of a dismal precipice it was not possible for me to keep silence Nay I cannot be silent in this urgent necessity without drawing upon me the guilt of insensibility and Cruelty towards the Church of God And I am full of hope that while I deliver my mind to you about publick businesses my domestick affliction will free me from jealousies in your opinion And if I be not believed at least I shall be excused Indeed it doth not become me to take upon me to give counsel to an assembly of persons chosen out of the whole Kingdome to bear the burden of the publick affairs in a time so full of difficulties yet I think it usefull for you to be truly informed what the sense is and what the disposition of our Churches None could have a more particular knowledge of it then he who was lately come from the National Synod in the South of France where he made it his businesse to observe the posture of the affairs of the Protestants by persons that have a particular knowledge of it The question being then whether you ought to separate your Assembly to obey his Majesty or keep together to give order to the affairs of the Churches I am obliged to tell you that the general desire of our Churches is that it may please God to continue our peace in our obedience to his Majesty And that seeing the King resolved to make himself obeyed by the force of his armes they trust that you will do your best to avoid that storm and rather yield unto necessity then to ingage them in a war which most certainly will ruine most part of our Churches and will bring us into a trouble of which we see the beginning but can see no end By obeying the King you shall take away the pretence used by those that set his Majesty on to persecute us and if we must be persecuted all that fear God desire that it may be for the profession of the Gospel and that our persecution may truly be the cross of Christ In one word I can assure you Gentlemen that the greatest and best part of our Churches wisheth for your separation if it may be with the safety of your persons yea that many of the Romane Church desiring the publick peace are continually about us beseeching and exhorting us that we do not by casting our selves headlong involve them in the same ruine Hereupon I need not represent unto you how terribly and generally our poor flocks are frighted and dismayed casting their eyes upon you as persons that may procure their rest and by yielding to the present necessity blow away the storm hanging over their heads Many already have forsaken the land many have forsaken their Religion whence you may judge what dissipation is like to follow if this exasperation go on further No more do I need to recommend unto you to have a tender care of the preservation of our poor Churches knowing that you would chuse death rather then to draw that reproach upon you that you have hastened the persecution of the Church and destroyed that which the zeal of our Fathers have planted and that you have put this State in confusion I am not ignorant that many reasons are alledged to perswade you to continue your Assembly they tell you that the King hath granted it but for that grant of his Majesty you can show no Warrant nor any written Declaration without which all promises are but words in the air for Kings believe they have power to forbid that which they have permitted and to revoke that which they have granted when they judge it expedient for the good of their affairs Neither is there any of you after he hath sent his servant or given him leave to goe to some place that thinks not that he hath power to call him back Sovereign Princes especially are very unwilling to keep their promises when they have been extorted Also great number of grievances and contraventions to the Kings Edicts are represented unto you which complaints to our great grief are too true But that I may not urge that we have given occasion to many of those evils our own selves the difficulty lyeth not in representing our griefs but in finding the remedies Consider then whether the subsistence of your Assembly can heal all these sores whether your sitting can give a shelter to our Churches provide all things necessary for a war where the parties are so unequal raise forces and make a stock to pay them Whether all the good that your sitting can produce can countervail the dissipation of so many Churches which lye open to the wrath of their enemies Whether when they are fallen you can raise them again Whether in the evident division that is amongus you are able to rally the scattered parts of that divided body which if it were well united yet would be too weak to stand upon the defensive Pardon me Gentlemen if I tell you that you shall not find all our Protestants inclined to obey your resolutions and that the fire being kindled all about you shall remain helpless beholders of the ruine which you have drawn on our heads Neither can it be unknown to you that many of the best quality among us and best able to defend us openly blame your actions holding and professing that suffering for this cause is not suffering for the cause of God These making no resistance and opening the gates of their places or joining their
armes with the Kings you may easily judge what loss and what weakning of the party that will be How many of our Nobility will forsake yâ—u some out of treachery some out of weakness Even they who in an Assembly are most vehement in their votes and to And so it proved shew themselves zealous are altogether for violent waies are very often they that will revolt and betray their brethren They bring our distressed Churches to the hottest danger and there leave them going away after they have set the house on fire If there be once fighting or besieging of our towns whatsoever the issue may be of the combat or the siege all that while it will be hard to keep the people animated against us from falling upon our Churches which have neither retreat nor defense And what order soever the Magistrates of contrary Religion take about it they shall never be able to compass it I might also represent unto you many reasons out of the state of our Churches both within and without the Kingdome to shew you that this stirring of yours is altogether unseasonable and that you set sail against wind and tyde But you are clear-sighted enough to see it and to consider in what posture your neighbours are and from whence you may look for help whether among you the vertue and the concord and the quality of the heads is grown or diminisht Certainly this is not the time when the troubling of this pool can heal our diseases And certain it is that if any thing can help so much weakness it must be the zeal of Religion which in the time of our fathers hath upholden us when we had less strength and more vertue But in this cause you shall find that zeal languishing because most of our people believe that this evil might have been avoided without breach of conscience Be ye sure that there will be alwaies disunion among us every time that we shall stir for civil causes and not directly for the cause of the Gospel Against that it is objected that our enemies have determined our ruine that they undermine us by little and little that it is better to begin now then to stay longer Truly that man should be void of common sense that doubted of their ill will And yet when I call to mind our several losses as that of Lectoure Privas and Bearn I finde that we ourselves have contributed to them and it is no wonder that our enemies take no care to remedy our faults and that they joyn with us to do us harm But hence it follows not that we throw the helve after the hatchet and set our house on fire our selves because others are resolved to burn it or take in hand to remedy particular losses by means weak to redress them but strong and certain to ruine the general God who hath so many times diverted the counsels taken for our ruine hath neither lost his power nor altered his will We shall find him the same still if we have the grace to wait for his assistance not casting our selves headlong by our impatience or setting our mind obstinately upon impossibilities Take this for certain that although our enemies seek our ruine they will never undertake it openly without some pretence other and better then that of Religion which we must not give them For if we keep our selves in the obedience which subjects owe to their Sovereign you shall see that while our enemies hope in vain that we shall make our selves guilty by some disobedience God will give them some other work and afford us occasions to shew to his Majesty that we are a body usefull to this State and put him in mind of the signal services that our Churches have done to the late King of glorious memory But if we are so unfortunate that while we keep our selves in our duty the calumnies of our enemies prevail at least we shall get this satisfaction that we have kept all the right on our side and made it appear that we love the peace of the State Notwithstanding all this Gentlemen you may and ought to take order for the safety of your persons For whereas his Majesty and his Counsel have said often that if you separate your selves he will let our Churches enjoy peace and the benefit of his Edicts it is not reasonable that your separation be done with the peril of your persons And whenever you petition for your safe dissolution I trust it will be easily obtained if you make possible requests and such as the misery of the time and the present necessity can bear In the mean while you may advise before you part what should be done if notwithstanding your separation we should be opprest that order your prudence may finde and it is not my part to suggest it unto you If by propounding these things unto you I have exceeded the limits of discretion you will be pleased to impute it to my zeal for the good and preservation of the Church And if this advice of mine is rejected as unworthy of your consideration this comfort I shall have that I have discharged my conscience and retiring my self into some foreign Countrey there I will end those few daies which I have yet to live lamenting the loss of the Church and the destruction of the Temple for the building whereof I have laboured with much more courage and fidelity then success The Lord turn away his wrath from us direct your Assembly and preserve your persons I rest c. From Sedan Feb. 12. 1621. When this Letter was read in the Assembly some arose immediately and left it others continued to sit and by their sitting turned these warnings into prophecies This Epistle will give to the judicious Reader an insight into the affairs of that time and State and together into the present question which is altogether of fact whether and how far the French Protestants may be taxed of disobedience against their Sovereign For it is justified by this relation that when some of them resisted they had the greatest temptation to it that a just fear can present unto flesh and bloud and yet that even then they were disavowed by the best and the most of their Church and exhorted to their duty by their Divines which in points of conscience are the representative persons of a party when they are solemnly met and this was the sense of the National Synod of which this eminent Divine was President but two moneths before Here every wise and charitable Christian should lay David's doctrine to heart Psal 41. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blessed is he that considers with intelligence and judgement him that is in a low condition It is easie for us that enjoy prosperity under a gracious King to determine the point of passive obedience not so for them that groan under the sad burden of the Cross Christian equity ought to pity those that are exposed to the sad counsels of terrour and despair I