Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	admire_v	great_a	zion_n	33	3	9.5656	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31383	The holy court in five tomes, the first treating of motives which should excite men of qualitie to Christian perfection, the second of the prelate, souldier, states-man, and ladie, the third of maxims of Christianitie against prophanesse ..., the fourth containing the command of reason over the passions, the fifth now first published in English and much augemented according to the last edition of the authour containing the lives of the most famous and illustrious courtiers taken out of the Old and New Testament and other modern authours / written in French by Nicholas Caussin ; translated into English by Sr. T.H. and others.	Caussin, Nicolas, 1583-1651.; T. H. (Thomas Hawkins), Sir, d. 1640.	1650 (1650)	Wing C1547; ESTC R27249	2,279,942	902

appointed him and that he necessarily must change the countrey whereat being much amazed yet still persisting in his design as not throughly satisfied upon the will of God it is held the tools and instruments of work-men were insensibly transported over the sea to the other shore and that an Eagle setling upon the Level of the Master-Architect took it up and hastened to bear it directly to Byzantium for that is the City whither Zonar Glyc●● Constantine forsaking the ruins of Troy transferred his great designs It had heretofore been a very fair City but as arms strike at all which is eminent so had it been infinitely ransacked by many wars happening in the revolution of affairs and Ages Yet it still supported it self with some manner of reputation when this great Prince determined to amplify enrich and perfect it throughly there to fix the seat of his Empire It is added that himself marched round about the wals holding in his hand a half-pike designing the circuit of his future Constantinople and as he still went measuring up and down by the aym of his eye one of his favourites said to him Emperour how long will it be ere you make an end I will finish saith he when he stayes that goeth before me Which made men think there was some heavenly intelligence that conducted his enterprize At the same time he thought he saw in sleep a very ancient Lady which in an instant was turned into a most beautiful virgin whom he adorned and attyred setting his Diadem on her head Observe what is said of the beginnings of Constantinople whether such things happened with all these circumstances or whether we naturally love to tell some strange tales in favour of antiquity as if these fictions were able to give it the more credit One thing is most undoubted which Zosimus although an enemy to Constantine is enforced to admire that the manage of this great design was so prosperous that in five or six years a goodly City was seen on foot which extended about one league in circuit beyond the walls of Byzantium Constantine who had a holy desire to equal it to ancient Rome spared nothing of all that which the invention of men might find out courage undertake and power execute He there built Palaces Theaters Amphitheaters Cirques Galleries and other edifices infinitely admirable so that S. Hierom had reason to say that Constantine to attyre his Constantinople despoiled all the other Provinces It is a Maxim among Great-ones that to make a huge Dragon it is fit he first devour many little serpents and to raise a great City many much less must be ruined to serve for food unto it The greatnesses of God are good deeds those of the world are naturally destructions for they eat and devour their neighbours as the tree which we call the Ivie which insensibly draweth the juice of plants growing near unto it It is not expedient there should be many greatnesses in the world they would drie rivers up as did the army of Xerxes and would impoverish each other by their mutual contestations Yet notwithstanding needs must there be Majesty in the civil world to the proportion of elementary And for this cause God made Kings taking a pattern from himself commandeth we honour them as his living images Kings make the greatnesses of the world which are the effects of their powers Needs must there be a Constantinople that posterity may see Constantine on the back side of the medal for I think his virtues have represented him on the other side very honourable At the least it is a thing exceeding laudable and well considered by S. Augustine that in this infinite store of Pagans which he must yet of necessity tolerate the Emperour permitted not either Temples of Idols Sacrifices or Pagan ceremonies Well might he be curious to cause from all parts to be brought ancient statues of marble brass and other matter which represented Jupiter Cybile Mercury Apollo Castor and Pollux and so many false Divinities which he set up in Theaters Amphitheaters or Races where the courses of horses were used and in other publick places Eusebius followed by Baronius holdeth it was to expose them to the scorn of the people which is very hard to believe for I should rather think that these pieces being the most exquisit workmanships of the world and that Constantine vehemently desiring the beauty of this City could not then resolve upon such a Jewish zeal as to break and deface them but contented himself with the distribution of them into profane places to give lustre to his enterprizes Yet must we say that though we at this present are out of the danger of Idolatry rich men of this Age have no reason to set up so readily in their Halls and cabiners Jun●'s Venuses and Diana's and so many histories of the Tertul. l. de Idol cap. 6. Metamorphosis with scandalous nakedness Tertullian an eager spirit pursueth all this as a crime and proveth in the book he composed of Idolatry that all those who cooperate in such works do worse than if they sacrificed to Idols the bloud of beasts For they offer saith he their spirit their industry their travel and their estate to Sathan and though they have no intention of sin they minister matter to other of offending God Behold the cause why Constantine although he were in an Age wherein Paganism being still in much request it was very difficult to take away all these figures notwithstanding he disguised them as much as he could witness that a great statue of Apollo being brought to Constantinople one of the best pieces that ever had been seen in those elder times he caused a Constantine to be made of this Apollo changing it into his own image and commanding some parcels of the venerable nails of our Saviour to be enchased over his head It is in my opinion to this same image that he added a golden globe in the hand thereof and over it a Cross with this inscription Tibi Christe Urbem commendo Besides he made three Crosses to be erected the most magnificent that might then be imagined set in the midst of a publick place the statue of the Prophet Daniel among the Lions all covered over with plates of gold to represent a figure of the Resurrection And as for his Palace he caused to be pourtraid at the very entrance thereof the history of the Passion in a most exquisit work wrought and tissued with pretious stones very much resembling Mosayk work All of it being finished he made the dedication of the City on the tenth of May and as it is very probably supposed the five and twentieth of his Empire consecrating it to God in memory of the glorious Virgin Mary and doing great acts of liberty to the people which he commanded by his Edicts to be continued for perpetuity Codin addeth that he caused also sumptuous edifices there to be built for the Christians Senatours which he

he should sway his Scepter or his life Cardan who was imployed no less than one hundred hours to make his Horoscope did easily observe in the stars the incommodities of his body and disasters of his person but he could no way attain to the period of his life which is of the secrets reserved in the knowledge and in the method of God All England was extreamly corrupted in her faith under the Regency of this Seimer and the Ladies of the Court were enveloped in the errours of the time He found none but the Lady Marie daughter to Henry the Eight and Katharine which continued in the Religion of their Grand-Fathers and though she was tempted and sollicited on all sides yet she would not suffer her self to be surprized with a new Faith but with a vigorous force did roar against all the torrents of Opinions and the overflowing disorders which reigned in that age It was for this that God did cause her to mount on the Throne of his own Tower and gave her the grace to be both the restorer of Religion and the State by the assistance of this Cardinal As soon as Edward was dead not without suspition Mary the lawfull heir is troubled and Jane is chosen Queen by Faction of poison Dudley Duke of Northumherland who was then most mighty in power and had newly married his Son to the Lady Jane issued from the bloud Royall conceived himself strong enough to begin the Regency of England the better afterwards to usurp the Crown He caused his Daughter-in-Law to be proclaimed Queen of England and seized on the Tower of London and gave order for the apprehending of Queen Mary But the generous Princess being advertised of the attempt did take horse in the time of night and secured her self in a place of strength and conjured all her good Servants to assemble themselves to defend her person and her right It is to be admired that persevering in the true Religion contrary to that of the great ones of the Kingdom at the same time when she conceived her self abandonned and her cause most deplorable that she should behold the principal of the Nobility and Gentry and Commonalty to fall down before her and to offer her their obedience and their Arms to take the possession of the Crown She marched immediately to London in the middle of her Army apparelled in a Gown of Velvet of a violet colour and mounted on a white horse She entered into the Citie with great applauses of her Subjects and surprized the Duke and caused him to deliver his Daughter in Law into her hands It was a spectacle worthy observation to consider the Inconstancy of these worldly affairs and to look on that person who but yesterday promised to himself to force the whole Kingdom under the power of his Laws to tremble now at the fear of death pronounced by his Judges who condemned him to be drawn upon a Hurdle to be hanged drawn and quartered The Queen sent him Catholick Divines to convert him to whom he gave ear and abjuring Heresie he imbraced the Catholick Religion which was the occasion that the Queen did moderate the Sentence of the Execution and was contented that his head onely should be cut off with his sons who was the husband of Jane This miserable Lady from a high Tower where she was prisoner beheld the body of her dear husband without a head at the sight whereof she fell down into a swoun and being a little recovered she melted into tears and did fetch from her heart so many and so deep sighs that they seemed to be able not onely to mollifie the hearts of men but to cleave the Rocks asunder There was a long Deliberation concerning her The Execution of the Lady Jane Fact because the Queen had an inclination to pardon her observing her to be both young fair knowing and of a delicate temper and one who had not offended but by the violent suggestions of her Father-in-law and of her Husband who had put the Crown upon her head But the Judges did remonstrate that it was of a most dangerous consequence to suffer that person to continue alive who had carried the Title of a Sovereign and that one day it might give a new fire to the enterprizes of the Remainder of her Faction On these Considerations the Sentence of Death was pronounced which she received with a Constancy admirable in her Sex and age A Doctour was sent unto her to reduce her to the Catholick Religion which at the first she refused alledging That she had too little time to think on an Affair of that importance Which being reported to the Queen she deferred the Execution for certain dayes to instruct her at more leisure so that she was gained to God and continued to the the last hour of her life in such tranquility of mind that a little before she came out of prison to go to her Execution she wrote divers Sentences in Greek Latine and English on the contempt of Death and when on the Scaffold it was represented to her that she should die by the sword which according to the custom of that Countrey is accounted a nobler kind of Execution than to die by the Axe she said That she would die by that Axe which was yet discoloured with her husbands bloud and couragiously she tendered her neck to the Hang-man drawing tears from her self and the hearts from all those that did behold her O most unfortunate Ambition that hast made so young a Princess a sacrifice of Death who for the excellency of her spirit might have been another Minerva or at least the tenth of the Muses Behold the strange Revolutions which did prepare the way to Cardinal Pool for the performance of those high Designs which God had committed to his Conduct Queen Marie did incontinently make void all the Sentences which had been pronounced against him and called him back into England to which place in a short time he came as if he had been carried on the shoulders of all honest men The Pope made him his Legate and gave him full power to ordain and execute all things which he should conceive necessary for the glory of God and the establishment of the true Religion He travelled to this Work with incomparable wisdom Pool travels to the Reducement of England to the ancient Faith and with a zeal invincible He well perceived that to restore Religion by arms was to undertake a most laborious if not an infinite work which would open all the veins in England and draw drie as well their purses as their bloud and cover the Kingdom with the calamities of civil wars which would continue for many Ages He resolved to put his good Counsels in execution with gentleness which others propounded to perform with all violence And in the first place he had recourse to Prayers The course he held to Mortifications to Vows and to Devotions which he performed in secret and which

who gave him life by his death as he had afforded him birth by his life Who did this but the Master of Life and Death Besides I read in the relations of Muscovia set Demetrius Legatus out by the Embassadour Demetrius that a countrey Boor being by chance clammed in the hollow body of a great tree full of honey and finding no means to come forth of his licorish captivity behold a Bear hasteneth to the same tree to eat of the honey whereof these beasts are very greedy which observed the poor forlorn creature not discerning what this might be but catching hold as one almost drowned of any thing which good luck offered him grasped the Bear who feeling himself taken laboured hard to flie through fear conceived and draweth out the peasant by an admirable accident wherein it was no easie matter to say which of the two was most affrighted Who directed this but the eye of Providence I admire also in the earth-quake of Apulia that happened the year 1627 the last day of J●ly where one writeth that in the Citie of S. Severin alone ten thousand souls were taken out of the world how in the horrour of such infinite ruins and sepulcher of so many mortals a great bell fell so fitly over a child that it inclosed him and doing no hurt made a bulwark for him against any other danger who ballanced the motion of this metal but the fingers which distended heaven Will you pass to particulars of Empires You will Providence over Empires be rapt with admiration when you come to consider the beginnings progressions and events of every one You shall see them spring like small veins of water unknown and with time to take such encrease as to become huge rivers large enough to overflow the fields Sometimes it will seem to you they are onely set upon a needles point and are ready to ruin in the mean space there is an invisible hand which supporteth and re-establisheth them by their proper falls You admire how God so long suffers ungrateful and perfidious Nations to draw them unto him and afterwards the measure of their sins filled up if they must be destroyed it is but to cause others to rise out of their ruins The Assyrians after the reign of thirty eight Kings changed into Medes and Chaldaeans the Medes after the sway of nine Kings and three hundred and twenty two years ended in Astyages The Chaldaeans after two hundred and nine years in Darius the Mede But they like two rivers united in the person of Cyrus to make great the Monarchy of the Persians The Persians after two hundred thirty years and fourteen Kings dissolve into the Grecians The Grecians are multiplied to Ptolomeyes and S●●ucides All are finally swallowed in the Roman Empire Rome lost it self after one thousand two hundred twenty nine years accounted from the foundation to the Emperour Augustulus who is observed as the last Monarch before the great wrack which made the Empire a prey to so many Nations that had fed it with their bloud From the division of the Roman Empire sprang our French Spaniards English Goths Vandals Lombards Polacks Otomans and such other Powers If from thence you advance your thoughts to Providence over the Church the government of the Church which is the principal work of God and reflect upon it from its cradle to the present Age entertaining in your memory its infancy encrease travels persecution glories and crowns you will stand amazed at the bottomless depth of the counsels of the Divine Providence What mother ever had so much care and tender affection over her little infant sleeping in the cradle as this Providence for the Church and Christianity It is a remarkeable thing that at the same time when Nebuchadnezzar ruined the Temple of Jerusalem Diarium Historicum in the East the Capitol was built in the West to plant there one day the Cross and that Rome in the space of one hundred forty two years having been six times taken and ransacked by Alaricus Gensericus Odoacer the Heruli Theodoricus Belisarius and Totylas when one would have thought it were brought to nothing was ever preserved by God to be the source of lights and the mother of all Churches How many times hath God tied secret virtues to the standards of Christians How many times made winds and tempests to fight under their Ensigns How often hath he opened for them lands inaccessible calmed stormy seas for them changed deserts into Paradises of delight Petty handfuls of souldiers to discomfit huge Armies take Towns impregnable cleave rocks and hew through mountaines to do the work of Giants and find facility in all which humane reason conceived impossible Read Paulus Aemilius and Gulielmus Tyrius upon Paul Aemil. l. 4. the conquest of the holy land and you shall see that birds of the air seemed in pay with Godfrey of Bovillon For who can be but astonished to hear it told how when he besieged Jerusalem the Sultan having Serange accident taught pigeons to carry messages dispatched one of them with a letter which she bare under her wings to give advise to the besieged But good hap would have it that a Hawk seazing one her just over the Christian army took her and made her to let fall what she carried to inform ours of the enemies design How many such like accidents shew us the care God hath of his and that he never suffered them to be overthrown but to vanquish their vices and to humble their pride by the counterpoise of forraign Powers What may we say of Councels What may we likewise think of great bodies of Justice How many times have we seen counsels discovered and resolutions of which it seemed no creature had a thought God governed the hearts and tongues of those who sought to abuse them against him a great Spirit swayed all those members assembled and secretly did its work to the admiration of the whole world One same motion guided within compass all those stars as in Archimedes his sphere and accorded them by their proper contrarieties Great Vis illum veras poenas dare Sentiat quàm bono patri injuriam fecerit Senec. contro l. 1. God have we not cause to say what he did in Seneca Throughly to punish the wicked man who woundeth the Divine Providence I ordain nothing but that he understand the wrong he hath done to a good father V. MAXIM Of Accidents THE PROPHANE COURT THE HOLY COURT That all is done by chance by necessity or humane providence That all is done by the will of God except sin THe enemies of Providence use all kind of engins to oppose their own happiness Three squadrons against Providence and crack their own eye-strings that they may not behold the great eye which pursues the wicked even into the shades of death I find the Chaldaeans made three squadrons that we may speak with holy Job wherewith to assail this great Mistress

that we cannot look upon them but if with these defects we also there find a soul wicked ungratefull an enemy to God and men we then conceive such horrour that one had need to be more then a man to endure them Now we were in this estate which I speak of for besides the misfortunes and calamities which encompassed us on all sides we were enemies to God by having been too much a friend to our selves and which is more we could not have one silly spark of love for him if it were not inspired into us by himself mean while he accepteth us and appropriateth us to himself among all these contrarieties He out of his goodnesse will not lose him who through his own malice delighteth to lose himself he then stretcheth forth his hand unto him when the other tums his back the one flyeth and the other pursueth this fugitive with the pace of his charity even into the shadow of death He calleth him he flatters him he courteth him and not content to pardon him a crime he promiseth him a Kingdome What may one say of so profuse a Bounty How can we in the world so greedily seek for all the contentments of nature seeing the God of nature so roughly handled in the world which he built with his own hands we cannot abide the stinging of a fly a noise a smoke the sight of a thing which is in any sort displeasing a world must be made of gold and silk to satisfie our desires Jesus is the sign of a Contradiction reverenced in appearance and in effect used as a thing of nought O how divinely hath Saint Augustine expressed the humour of a worldly man an enemy to the life of God in the book he wrote of the Christian Combat Jesus was not wise enough according to the opinion of the world He hath indifferently taken upon himself all that which his heavenly Father would not shewing any Aversion from things the most distastefull This is it which is hard to digest It displeaseth the covetous that he coming into the world hath not brought with him a body of gold and pearl It displeaseth the luxurious that he was born of a Virgin It displeaseth the proud that he so patiently suffered injuries It displeaseth the nice that he endured so many afflictions and torments Lastly It pleaseth not the timorous that he dyed Prophane spirits cease not to say but how can that be done in the person of God and in stead of correcting their vices which are very great they find cavills at the perfections of Jesus Christ which are most innocent § 4. The Conclusion against Disdain VVIll we still out of humour love things pleasing It is a shame to have an Aversion against one for some defect of body or some other deformity of nature when we are bound to love him to sensuality and have a perpetuall distaste against all which may maintain virtue A Father and a Mother to have an aversion against their own children under colour that they have some defect in nature and in stead of regarding them with an eye full of pity and compassion to comfort their infirmities wipe away their tears and provide for the necessities of their life to leave them at randome in the storm and if out of necessity we must do them some good to throw them out bread in an anger as if they had committed a great crime to come into the world in that rank which the providence of God had prepared for them what a shame is it to entertein amities and petty loves onely to please flesh and bloud that if the eyes find not contentment the heart will no longer observe fidelity This creature which hath heretofore been so much beloved is now forsaken rejected and used like an excommunicate having no other crime but some deformity of body some infirmity or other accident nothing at all in its power to remedy A husband traiterous to Altars and to the Sacrament of Marriage barbarously useth a wife who brought with her the wealth of her parents and her own heart and body in lawfull wedlock but now this carnall man taken in the snare of his lust by a wretch and a prostitute rejecteth a lawfull wife as if she were a serpent or the froth of an enraged Sea elswhere to satiate his brutishnesse to the prejudice of his reputation and the death of his soul Must I here produce the actions of Infidels to confound ours One Mnesippus relateth in Lucian How that he one Lucianus in Toxaride A generous act of a Pagan who teacheth us powerfully to command over our Aversions day seeing a man comely and of eminent condition passing along in a Coach with a woman extreamly unhandsome he was much amazed and said he could not understand why a man of prime quality and of so brave a presence should be seen to stir abroad in the company of a monster Hereupon one that followed the Coach overhearing him said Sir you seem to wonder at what you now see but if I tell you the causes and circumstances thereof you will much more admire Know this Gentleman whom you see in the coach is called Zenothemis and born in the City of Marseilles where he heretofore contracted a firm amity with a neighbour-citizen of his named Menecrates who was at that time one of the chief men of the City as well in wealth as dignities But as all things in the world are exposed to the inconstancy of fortune it happened that having as it is thought given a false sentence he was deg●●ded of honour and all his goods were confiseated Every one avoided him as a Monster in this change of fortune but Zenothemis his good friend as if he had loved miseries not men more esteemed him in his adversity then he had done in prosperity and bringing him to his house shewed him huge treasures conjured him to share them with him since such was the laws of amity the other weeping for joy to see himself so enterteined in such sharp necessities said he was not so apprehensive of the want of worldly wealth as of the burthen he had in a daughter ripe for marriage and willing enough but blemished with many deformities She was saith the history but half a woman a body misshapen and limping an eye bleared a face disfigured and besides she had the falling sicknesse with horrible convulsions Neverthelesse this noble heart said unto him Trouble not your self about the marriage of your daughter for I will be her husband The other astonished at such goodnesse God forbid saith he I lay such a burthen upon you No no replyeth the other she shall be mine and instantly he married her making great feasts whilst the poor Father was rapt out of himself with admiration Having married this miserable Creature he honoured her with much regard and made it his glory to shew her in the best company as a trophey of his friendship In the end she brought him a goodly son

commandment Wealth and Honour were always on her side Delight and Joy seemed onely to be ordained for her Whatsoever she undertook did thrive all her thoughts were prosperous the earth and the sea did obey her the winds and the tempests did follow her Standards Some would affirm that this is no marvel at all but onely the effect of a cunning and politick Councel composed of the sons of darkness who are more proper to inherit the felicities of this world than the children of the light But we must consider that this is the common condition both of the good and the evil to find out the cause in which the Understanding of man doth lose it self David curiously endeavouring to discover the reason in the beginning did conceive himself to be a Philosopher but in the end acknowledged that the consideration thereof did make him to become a Beast The Astrologers do affirm that Elizabeth came into the world under the Sign of Virgo which doth promise Empires and Honours and that the Queen of Scotland was born under Sagitarius which doth threaten women with affliction and a bloudy Death The Machivilians do maintain that she should accommodate her self to the Religion of her Countrey and that in the opposing of that torrent she ruined her affairs The Politicians do impute it to the easiness of her gentle Nature Others do blame the counsel which she entertained to marry her own Subjects And some have looked upon her as Jobs false friends did look on him and reported him to lye on the dung-hill for his sions But having thoroughly considered on it I do observe that in these two Queens God would represent the two Cities of Sion and Babylon the two wayes of the just and the unjust and the estate of this present world and of the world to come He hath given to Elizabeth the bread of dogs to reserve for Mary the Manna of Angels In one he hath recompensed some moral virtues with temporal blessings to make the other to enter into the possession of eternal happiness Elizabeth did reign why so did Athalia Elizabeth did presecute the Prophets why so did Jezabel Elizabeth hath obtained Victories why so did Thomyris the Queen of the Scythians She hath lived in honour and delight and so did Semiramis She died a natural death being full of years so died the Herods and Tyberius but following the track that she did walk in what shall we collect of her end but as of that which Job speaketh concerning the Tomb of the wicked They pass away their life in delights and descend in a moment unto hell Now God being pleased to raise Marie above all the greatness of this earth and to renew in her the fruits of his Cross did permit that in the Age wherein she lived there should be the most outragious and bloudy persecution that was ever raised against the Church He was pleased by the secret counsel of his The great secret of the Divine Providence Providence that there should be persons of all sorts which should extol the Effects of his Passion And there being already entered so many Prelates Doctours Confessours Judges Merchants Labourers and Artisans he would now have Kings and Queens to enter also Her Husband Francis the Second although a most just and innocent Prince had already took part in this conflict of suffering Souls His life being shortened as it is thought by the fury of the Hugonots who did not cease to persecute him It was now requisite that his dear Spouse should undertake the mystery of the Cross also And as she had a most couragious soul so God did put her in the front of the most violent persecutions to suffer the greatest torments and to obtain the richest Crowns The Prophet saith That man is made as a piece of Elizabeth's hatred to the Queen of Scotland Imbroidery which doth not manifest it self in the lives of the just for God doth use them as the Imbroiderer doth his stuffs of Velvet and of Satin he takes them in pieces to make habilements for the beautifiing of his Temple 12. Elizabeth being now transported into Vengeance and carried away by violent Counsels is resolved to put Mary to death It is most certain that she passionately desired the death of this Queen well understanding that her life was most apposite to her most delicate interests She could not be ignorant that Mary Stuart had right to the Crown of England and that she usurped it she could not be ignorant that in a General Assembly of the States of England she was declared to be a Bastard as being derived from a marriage made consummated against all laws both Divine and humane She observed that her Throne did not subsit but by the Faction of Heresie and as her Crown was first established by disorder so according to her policie it must be cemented by bloud She could not deny but that the Queen of Scotland had a Title to the Crown which insensibly might fall on the head of the Prisoner and then that in a moment she might change the whole face of the State She observed her to be a Queen of a vast spirit of an unshaken faith and of an excellent virtue who had received the Unction of the Realm of Scotland and who was Queen Dowager of the Kingdom of France supported by the Pope reverenced throughout all Christendom and regarded by the Catholicks as a sacred stock from which new branches of Religion should spring which no Ax of persecution could cut down The Hereticks in England who feared her as one that would punish their offences and destroy their Fortunes which they had builded on the ruins of Religion had not a more earnest desire than to see her out of the world All things conspired to overthrow this poor Princess and nothing remained but to give a colour to so bold a murder It so fell out that in the last years of her afflicting imprisonment a conspiracy was plotted against the Estate and the life of Elizabeth as Cambden doth recite it Ballard an English Priest who had more zeal to his Religion than discretion to mannage his enterprize considered with himself how this woman had usurped a Scepter which did not appertain unto her How she had overthrown all the principles of the ancient Religion How she had kept in prison an innocent Queen for the space of twenty years using her with all manner of indignity how she continually practised new butcheries by the effusion of the bloud of the Catholicks he conceived it would be a work of Justice to procure her death who held our purses in her hand and our liberty in a chain But I will not approve of those bloudy Counsels which do provide a Remedy far worse than the disease and infinitely do trouble the Estate of Christendom Nevertheless he drew unto him many that were of his opinion who did offer and devote themselves to give this fatal blow The chiefest amongst them was