vp printing Presses in priuate houses and iustified their idolatrous meetings as if the Masse meant to outface the Gospel of Iesus Christ frequented the Embassadours houses with much immodest iustificatioÌ„ of their Conuenticles threatned zealous Ministers for their inuectiues against Antichrist continued priuate inhibitions that no man should speake write preach or practise any thing against their designes insomuch that diuers haue beene imprisoned for discouering the Spaniards pride and hypocrisie and many put out of countenance for inuectiues against the Kings friends as the terme went Abroad I am ashamed to name the sundry pictures they haue published both in Antwerp and Brussels for all the peace and treaty with Spaine against the King and his children against our Countrey and Religion against God and his Annointed yea it is wonderfull to reade the infamous and scandalous lies they haue exposed as if his Maiesty had gone with his Councell to Masse to please the Pope and the King of Spaine as is apparant in Gallo Belgico What say you to â—oronâ— Regiâ— a booke printed in Brussels against his Maiesties royall person an Invectiue against Holland by laughing at her neer nosse vnto hell as being low ground and traducing the vertuous Queene Elizabeth most maliciously Iohn Kings Legacle Bishop of London the Gag for the Gospell the vneasing of heresie with diuers others all which though they be hellish and damnable yet are sold by the Diuels factor or a Spanish Iohn and in a maner winked at in the State whereas other relations tending onely to the discouery of errors and abuses in the Church are not onely suppressed but the authors punished and imprisoned to no other purpose but to discouer our feare that wee should be found guilty in Gods sight so that one hath beene imprisoned for writing a letter to the then Marquis of Buckingham against the Spanish march another for making or publishing a booke wherein Gondomar apprehended himselfe mockt derided a third for preaching a Sermon Be not vnequally yoked with Infidels a fourth for discouering the incestuous mariages of the house of Austria a fifth for reuealing the secrets of that tyrannous Inquisition in Spaine a sixt for applying to the present Ezechias folly in shewing the Baby lonish Embassadours the treasures of the Temple and the riches of the Pallace a seuenth for making a prayer to be deliuered from all infectious Spanish sheep by reason you had once a great rot of sheep in England by an infectious Ewe brought out of Spaine and diuers others for putting the axe to the roote of the tree and applying other texts contrary to your Bishops minds and some other Lords who affected Spaines greatnesse But such is your misfortune 〈…〉 pâ—oâ—â—â—nely abuse Gods prouidence with such â— chaâ—â—cteâ— or the malignitie of time that hauing two facâ—tâ— and befitting pictures as your aduersaries deserued they were both suppressed the plates cut in pâ—eces and the sellers imprisoned one was of the Kings holding the Popeâ— nose to a grind stone with the two Archbishops turning the same another was made by M r Ward of Ipswich concerning 88. and the powder treason and both for Gods glory and Englands honour yet neither they nor any thing else against the Pope or Spaine would be to eraâ—ed yea when your reuerend and honorable Archbishop whose Statue deserues to be set vp in gold proued the Lords Champion against some Papisticall motiues and mixtures to be made amongst you some prophane tongue calld him Puritan Bishop and wicked stomacks belched contradiction in his face but we will vrge this matter no further onely pray that God will protect such as protect true Religion and assure your Honours that the Spirit of God will make them of the synagogue of Satan which call themselues Iewes and are not but such as keep the word of his patience shall be deliuered from the houre of temptation which must come vpon all the world Wee could name other seuerall conferences and disputations since this treaty with Spaine of which with diuellish arrogancie they haue boasted that Fisher the Iesuite so preuailed against Doctor White that many hearers turned Catholicks and how the illuminations of the Priests were diuine from heauen and the Papists Preachers had an Euangelicall spirit oh horrible impudencie and Spanish blasphemie Wee will not be preiudicate most honorable Lords and say it was a iudgement of God in that fatall Vosper of the Blackfriers to kill a hundred people with the fall of a loft and giue you all warning that God will not be mocked that blasphemies shall be reuenged that there is no such enemy to God and his Church as apostacie but wee will be bold to tell you that this disaster is turned vpon your owne heads for at Rome there hath been solemne Procession and from Rome letters of discouery that in England God hath beene so angrie with the hereticks meaning the Protestants that Churches and lofts haue ouerwhelmed many of them in their ominous falls If the diuell now be the father of lies who could inuent such vntruths You had a tempest of lightning and thunder in Iuly last and it spared not the gate-house in the Pallace of Saint Iames we will not say it was to chide you for building a Chappell to Idolatry and swearing to strange articles for the pleasure of the Spaniard but may affirme that if any Bishop was consenting to such a worke is it any other then when the Leuite became Priest to Micha and consecrated his idoll Come come be not deceiued if God be God let him be God if Baal be God serue him and if Spaine will match with England let it be done without fearfull conclusions and be not ouermatched with a prodigious treaty We are the bolder most gracious Lords to enter into these termes with you and to prostrate our selues before the throne of our dread Soueraigne with teares in our eyes and drops of blood from our heart because we desire that he would but consider the many and sundry inconveniences the Country hath endured since the peace with Spaine and with what particulars of disgraces and scorne wee haue all been branded since this last treaty about a mariage let vs then craue pardon great Lords if we make a mixture of triuiall and solid businesse together or are carelesse of method precedencie of time or not ranking the most eminent things in the first place shall wee begin with the complaints of the whole Land the swarming and increase of the poore the decay of trades insomuch that in London there are at least a thousand seuerall houses to be let and in the principal streets inferiour occupations are intruded to the disgrace of that great and famous Citie the exportation of our gold the carying away of our ordnance the anticipation of the benefit of our Virginia commodities by selling vnderhand Spanish Tobacco and such like and the slack eventing of our cloth and cottons by reason Spaine and Italy haue proclaimed inhibitions for bringing
Boanerges OR THE HVMBLE SVPPLICATION OF THE MINISTERS OF SCOTLAND TO THE HIGH COVRT OF PARIAMENT IN ENGLAND 2. COR. 4. 13. We beleeue and therefore haue we spoken Printed in Edenburgh 1624. 2. CHRON. 19. 6. Take heed what you doe for you execute not the iudgement of man but of the Lord and he shall be with you in the cause and iudgement A Preface or Introduction to the Supplication THere is a common saying among ours and Gods enemies the Papists that the Christian Church must be knowne by these Characters Visibility Antiquity Vniuersality and Consent but the Spirit of God sayes that all these are the marks of the Beast and persecution and paucitie the infallible signes of the true Church thus began the first prophesie I will put enmity betweene thee and the woman and betweene thy seed and her seed thus it continued in Iohns Reuelation Then the Dragon was wroth with the Woman and went and made warre with the remnant of her seed which keep the commandements of God and haue the testimony of Iesus Christ And thus could we spread the testimonies of Scripture like a mantle exposed to your view full of delicate resemblances wherein you might behold how the true Church of God hath been euer without any cessation subiect to scornes opprobry the malignant circumstances of time or fearfull persecution But withall we pray you remember that we make not our approches from Nebuchadnezars heating the oven seuen times hotter but the Dragons watching the Woman the Man that sitteth in the Temple of God as God those that be in Moses chaire such as were invested with Aarons ornaments and in plaine termes the continued persecution which we meane must arise out of the hate and malice of Christians yea Preachers themselues that are opposites to zealous professors and this we complaine of Oh reade reade for Gods sake the story of Ieremie and marke his persecutions and who were his greatest enemies Shemaiah a false Prophet and Zephaniah the chiefe Priest in stead of Iehoiada yea if you step a litle further you shal find that the king Zedekiah durst not iustifie his conference with Ieremie as being afraid of the Princes and Priests so that in truth he had no friends but Baruch the Prophet and Ebedmelech the Moore And as it was with him so it continued with all the rest vntill the comming of Christ and then wherfore did he call them generation of Vipers or who were those hypocrites that Christ exprobrated but the Scribes and Pharises who sat in Moses chaire and at last condemned the Sauiour of the world to an ignominious death so that it is apparant here was nothing but persecution And for visibility did not Eliah crie out he was alone and those that were the true seruants of God durst not iustifie their profession And after-terward he that was the Author of all truth was reputed an impostor and deceiuer of the world Oh marke what the Apostle saith For I thinke that God hath set forth vs the last Apostles as men appointed to death for we are made a gazing-stocke vnto the world vnto the Angels and to men Which place of Scripture driues vs to amaze when we consider the disparitie betweene the flourishing Churches ambitious Prelacie exalted Bishops and maiesticke glory of Clergie men in Europe and the pouerty persecution and disreputation of the true Church of God indeed as either it was in the time of the Apostles or must be according to this prophesie to the worlds end Reconcile vs then we pray you whether the Apostle onely meant the present time or from the Spirit of God by way of prediction had reference to after ages yea the end of the world but doe not come too neare our eyes to dim our sight or deafe our eares with the fearfull sound of the prerogatiue of Princes the high commanding voices of authoritie or the seeming flourishes of the orders of a Church but plainly out of coherence of Scripture rectifie our vnderstanding in this point For if the Apostles haue prophetically set downe and indefinitely concluded that this must be the estate of the true Church of God we shall neuer beleeue but that outward pomp pride wealth eminencie and the ill sounding accent of supereoritie ouer their brethren can decipher any other thing then Antichrist and so must loue such in our soules as either out of Pauls humilitie content themselues with that portion which God hath allotted or Dauids patience endure the Micols of the world to call them fooles THE SVPPLICATION OR PETITION IT SELFE Most gracious Lords WHen Paul came to preach at Ephesus and bring as it were the Arke of God into the Temple of Dagon that hee might breake his necke it is said the whole Citie was moued and Demetrius a siluer-smith who got his liuing by making of Images raised such a hurliburly amongst the people that they would not endure any motiue for their conuersion to Christianitie but cried out Great is Diana of the Ephesians Whereupon the Apostle afterward exclaimed vpon them that he had fought with beasts at Ephesus Thus is it with all kingdomes and setled gouernments though neuer so many thornes and thistles grow vp to choke the good seed yet if there be a desire to set a crowne of gold on the Priests head and take away his rags and deformed garments to bring some leprous offender to publicke view that it may be discerned whether he be vnclean or no to make the Priests to cleanse the Temple of filth and pigeons dung as you reade of Hercules who let in the riuer to cary away the ordure of Angens stable to search the vnswept corners of vicious mens soules and in a word to reforme the abuses of a Cōmon-wealth then shall some Amasiah tell Amos Bethel is the Kings Court and the Kings Chappell there is no preaching there then shall some Prince or Lord tell Zedechiah that Ieremy weakens the kingdome and disheartens the souldiers then shall Sandolet and the rest affright Nehemiah when hee attempts the discouery of foule enormities in a word then shall your great men and officers for feare some charming arme of Hecate turne their inside outward crie out of innouation sedition turbulencie or some hare-braind spirit But most gracious Lords we beseech you remember how worthily King Philip of Macedon entertained a petitioners presumption when a certaine woman kneeled before him to deliuer a supplication he reiected her suite and turned away in scorne from her the woman amazed yet boldly answered Then cease to be a King if thou deniest to heare thy subiects petitions The King hearing her voice but not vnderstanding what she said returned againe and askt her what she meant The vndaunted woman repeated the words againe and the magnanimous Prince not onely pardoned her but tooke her vp in his armes and as you shall reade that Dauid blessed Abigail for keeping him from shedding of blood so did King Philip blesse the woman
watching without or their negligence within and politikly enter and then who knowes not what a subtil Serpent raging Lion and watching Dragon hee is And abroad iniurious reports that hee was afraid of the Popes and Spaines mightinesse or durst not trust his owne greatnesse against the factious Papists of England if they should vnite themselues to any forrein Prince when yet he hath had experience of his owne preseruation and the many deliuerances of his predecessor that famous Queene of euerlasting memory for the hand of God is not shortned and he hath still a cloudy pillar by day and a fiery pillar by night to conduct his Israel through the wildernesse If there were no more to make you abhorre Papistrie then the martyrdome of the Saints in Queene Maries dayes it were sufficient Oh horrible crueltie to haue men and women burnt for saying the Lords prayer in the vulgar tongue and instructing their families in the word of God The bloody Bishop Bonner in his owne person burnt a poore seruants hand with a flaming linke for saying a part of a Catechisme and to make the spectacle the more vgly he whipped a man with rods in his garden till his fury made his owne blood spurt out of his paunch The rest were not inferiour vnto him for by a Bishops commandement a woman with childe was put to death and when the infant burst out of her womb one of the guard pitcht him backe againe into the fire vpon the point of a halbert To name the rest were to write out the whole booke but for this and the rest wee end with the Poet Horresco referente Shall we step into France and remember those fearfull times of Guisean massacres especially Henry of Bourbons mariage when the Admirall was slaine of which one writes that there was more blood spilt then wine drank Shall we name the Leagures Oligarchy and holy conuention of Catholiks when they had like to haue expeld their Prince out of the kingdome and draue him to a nooke of Normandie the towne of Deep and onely because he was or seemed a Protestant In these warres and times of wickednes so many outrages cruell blood sheddings were committed that Nero's opening his mothers wombe was not comparable You reade of a battell in heauen betweene Michael and his Angels and the Dragō wherein at last the Diuell and all his complices were discomfited if euer this might be rightly applied it was to Queen Elizabeth of whō it may well be said with the Poet Namque haud tibi vultus Mortalis nec vox hominem sonat ô dea certe For if euer the Cherubins spread their wings ouer the Arke the God of heauen tooke a charge of her person else could she not haue escaped so many attempts so many enemies so many mischiefes pistols poniards poisons threatnings insurrections invasions curses excommunications hate deadly malice all which arose from the poisoned spring of the Papists inventions and flowed into streames of monstrous impietie and Popish absolutions for murder If there were nothing in the world to be a motiue to the abhorrencie of their religion and actions the Catastrophe of Henry the 4. of France surnamed the Great would dissolue an heart of adamant and make men wonder that some exorbitant vengeance did not fall vpon the contriuers for when was this done when he had condescended to their owne conditions the Popes Legat and the Papists intercession but Satan hath his instruments and when the Lord giues vs ouer or we giue ouer the Lord we must endure a strange alteration Who can forget or who can euer be reconciled to any adherents of Popery when the Gun-powder plot shall be questioned and the memory of that Satanicall machination be renewed of which I wil say no more but answer with Solon when there was a motion made for a law against parricides You see saith he how murder is to be punished but no man can beleeue that any dare attempt to kill his father so treasons massacres slaughters and villanous attempts may be proiected but it is impossible that there should be such a forge in hell it self to hammer out so vile a work as the destruction of a whole kingdome at once and the blowing into the aire the Nobilitie and principall wise men of a Cōmonwealth Why Neros wish was not comparable to this to haue all the Senators heads set on one necke that he might diuide it asunder at a stroke If it be thus most gracious Lords be iudges your selues of our poore supplication whether it is not high time to roote out Papistrie and crie with Sara that the sonne of the bondwoman should not dwell with Isaac and so neuer left till Hagar and Ismael were thrust out of doores or to take that order that Popery haue not any further footing in in the Land nor that Man of sin that Antichrist of Rome that sonne of perdition that scarlet Strumpet that painted Iesabel and that doctrine of diuels be neuer admitted againe or taught in England to imposture ignorant soules and seduce innocent people Thirdly concerning Spanish practises and the hate that all the nations of the world beare vnto them for the generall most gracious Lords wee refer you to the seuerall tractates of many Historiographers and the great experience of iudicious trauellers but especially to Paragone and Nouita Pernasso written in Italian to a letter to the Duke of Sauoy and a treatise of Figuira a Portingal Gentleman concerning the conquest of Portingall written in Spanish to the Figre of France the Cheualier of France the Leaguers Oligarchy and the Spanish Monarchy compiled in French and for our owne language to Sir Francis Hastings works and a well composed treatise concerning English fugitiues with diuers of this sort wherein you shall see quasi digito demonstrata as in a table well deliniated the 1. pride 2. irreligion 3. tyrannie 4. treasons 5. ingratitude and 6. inhumanitie of the Spanish nation wherein we hope one day to satisfie vnderstanding men and according to the prouerb of Dies dabit quod dies negat make you partakers of such truths that the best friends which Spaine hath shal confesse the Castilian comes of goatish barbarous blood and all the rest are polluted with Mahumetan mixture and Moorish affinitie And although it may be obiected against such an attempter Non tu plus cercis sed plus temerarius aeudes yet iuuante Deo it may be performed and we will rely on Mordechais answer to Hester that if she will not go in to the King to saue her people God will raise them vp meanes of preseruation from some other part of the earth But to come nearer home and to your selues as the present stands Who knowes not since the treaty with Spaine with what insolency the Papists haue proceeded both at home and abroad at home they haue dared to publish and copy deuised pardons scorned the lawes of the Land concerning Recusancie boasted of publicke assemblies set
in any English cloth or woollen clothes amongst them Shall wee follow with the losse of the Palatinate the slighting of our Embassadours in Germany the hazard of the Kings children in Prague the bereauing them of their inheritance the bestowing the Electorship vpon Bauaria and all those perils and indignities wee haue endured about that warre when yet we were made to beleeue there should be a more tractable composition or orderly course taken if we would defist from the prosecution Shall wee continue with your disgraces at home how euer many gracious things haue been published to reconcile the peoples opinion to the affecting the Spanish match all which haue yet had the misfortune of diuerting them from it either as disallowing the pamphlets that haue been that way written or esteeming them too triuiall and onely common tricks to get mony With what scorne did a supposed Spanish mad man aduance himselfe into the Chaire of Estate in the presence at White-hall and was onely dismist with a iest from Gondomar and a shipping out of England Was there euer such an abuse offered to a Kings house as the cutting of his pictures in the princely gallery when certaine Spaniards were so kindly entertained to be admitted into such priuat rooms Who could haue had better welcome then that counterfet fugitiue the Archbishop of Spalato and yet in requitall he preached publickly in the Mercers Chappell that the Church of Rome was a true Church of God and in priuate conference argued as if the Ecclesiasticall gouernment of England was but a mongrell Papistry How did Gondomar couzen our hospitalitie and abuse his Maiesties fauor for after he and his Priests had been welcomed to many noble houses in England and discouered the Ladies humors or dotage vpon their Iesuites after he had fraughted himselfe with the knowledge of our kingdome and diued as it were into the arcana regni after he had drawne on the net of political enforcement concerning the profit and honour of both Nations by this match with the iocundity of the Princes in their vnion and penselled out the excellencies of the Infanta Maria after we say that hee had as it were made a faction in England and knew by name who were Hispaniolized and for their priuate ends as all temporisers do neglected the publicke good either of Church or Common-wealth With what a iollitie did hee returne into Spaine and boasted there how easie it was to deceiue your simplicitie insomuch that wee in Scotland heard more particulars then you in England that his arguments were but Eloâ—chi and wished in our hearts his wisedom might proue Ahitophels and his deuices like Perillus bull of whom Phallaris for his inuention made the first triall Shall we prosecute other matters was it well done thinke you to compose that booke of Rosa Hispanioa and Anglicum punicum and expose it to publike view with an idolatrous and blasphemous frontispeece Christ comming from heauen to marrie them when he himselfe had cursed Israel if they matched with the Canaanites and Nehemiah with pulling their haire from their heads made the people put away their idolatrous wiues and for the booke it selfe the wiser and iudicious sort not onely derided it for the phrase and fantasticall title vnto as fantasticall a man but for the substance and examples which might be euery way and euery one retorted against the other and for the frontispeece the very women in Edenborugh haue made good sport to heare of the iests that haue beene contriued vpon it At the first when a certaine man demanded whom those pictures did personate and answer was made that the one was Charles Prince of Wales and the other the Lady Maria Infanta of Spaine and the third Iesus Christ come from heauen to marry them Not too fast replied the fellow but yet I am glad that Christ is between them for then sure he wil neuer suffer them to ioyn together except God giue her so much grace which seldome happens to a Spaniard to come out of Babilon and not be partakers of her Idolatries After this the book lying long on their stalls and the man ouen angred againe at such lukewarme gospellers and trades-men that care not by what for did meanes and superstitious filthinesse they enrich themselues he asked once againe what those pictures meant and they once againe answered the Prince of Wales and Princesse of Spaine with Christ between them Oh said he that 's impossible For if Christ meant any such matter he would haue dispatcht it before now and questionlesse there would neuer haue been such delayes and rediculous pride amongst them Then followed the Princes iorney into Spaine with rigging out a Nauy and selecting the Commanders to please the King of Spaine as was interpred of some of the principall Catholike Lordes of England who apparrelled their followers honorably and did all things befitting the dignitie of the nation but what followed vpon Brunswicks ouerthrow Spaine with Ixion bosted he must lie with Iuno and the house of Austria swelled so big that if the tumor of pride be not pricked downe it will burst with her own greatnes and presumption that they are not able to raise another Gigantomachia and with Typhon cast the mountaines against heauen for presently the noble Prince found a kind of remisnes and relaxation concerning his first entertainment peraduenture being a pathick to some indignities he and the Navy were all dismist without the Lady or any dispatch of the businesse so that we in Scotland did wonder how so great and so wise a King could either be misinformed or rely on any Temporiser to go forward with vncertainties and yet for all this you in England printed more books of the Princes royall entertainment in Spaine and like childrens wormseed it was trimmed ouer with gold and put into candid stuffe that is it had braue phrases and oratory with some things that sauored of impossibilitie A second booke told you of a second entertainment which the Prince had in Spain and for Spanish businesse had such an exotik phrase that when it came amongst vs we reputed it a very Rhomantidos indeed for the author inuented words neuer in any author before and bestowed as much paines about killing of buls and beasts ioco de cuno and other sports like our countrymen in times past who ran at S. Quintine as Homer did in describing the Troian wars Curtius in Alexanders conquests and Lucan in his Pharsalia Then followed a third booke of the Princes farewell and reciprocall gifts bestowed betweene Spaine and vs and this was as vineger to the teeth and smoake to the eyes of the subiect for had not their hearts been seasoned with the ioy and gladnes for his returne their mouthes had cursed outright and wished such deceiuers the womans reward that for golde betrayed her countrey and so had so much layd vpon her that they pressed her to death These collections most gracious Lords wee haue made not to intercede against